The patch notes for the first version of the Scribes of Fate PTS went live today, along with patch notes detailing exactly what will be changing in the next ESO update.
Scribes of Fate will add two new dungeons to the game with the DLC itself, while the base game update will include bug fixes, quality of life changes and some balance changes.
One of the planned balance changes is another change to how Light Attacks work, something that Zenimax has repeatedly changed over the last year as the developers try to find a sweet spot that both themselves and the players are happy, or at least content with.
Changes to light and heavy attacks caused quite a bit of controversy last year, due to a disagreement between ZOS and many ESO players about what the actual impact of the changes would be vs what ZOS wanted from the changes.
More specifically, Zenimax had originally nerfed light attacks to a flat value in an attempt to lessen the gap between players who were skilled at "light attack weaving" as opposed to less experienced players. These nerfs were later partially reversed, in a compromise solution that made them scale from weapon or spell damage again (rather than being a flat value) but to a lesser extent than they previously had done.
It seems that Zenimax still weren't completely satisfied with the new state of light attacks though, as the Scribes of Fate PTS has another change to how they will work, if things remain as currently planned.
How Light Attacks will Work in ESO Scribes of Fate
In the Scribes of Fate update, melee light attacks will have a new damage cap of 3850 for their base damage values (10% less for ranged light attacks), however you'll be able to increase their damage further than that by applying buffs to yourself and debuffs to enemies, for example an enemy afflicted with Major Breach will have lowered armour, and this will still cause your light attacks to do more damage in spite of the cap.
You will also need less weapon or spell damage to reach roughly the same amount of light attack damage than what you would have needed prior to this latest change.
This system does seem to be getting increasingly convoluted, adding complexity to what at the end of the day is simply a light attack. So with that in mind, what are the motivations behind this latest change?
The goal, stated by Gina Bruno in the PTS Patch Notes, is essentially to utilize more "aggressive scaling" to make light attacks more effective for people using unoptimized builds, without having much of a detrimental effect on end-game players in optimized groups. Zenimax hope to do this by raising the floor rather than lowering the ceiling, as opposed to the previous solutions which pretty much ended up nerfing light attacks for everyone and accomplishing little else.
If everything goes to plan with these changes, then it probably isn't something you need to worry about much - they are far less drastic than the changes that were initially tried last year, and if you're already a skilled player running an optimized build you shouldn't notice much of a damage loss at all.
We hope you enjoyed this article about Scribes of Fate in ESO. The Elder Scrolls Online is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by Zenimax Online Studios.
