What is AOE cap? A KB (knowledge-base) article.

[gelmir]

Quoting from ESO-reddit:

 

-- They didn't comment on the AoE cap whatsoever?

 

-- It remained unchanged. It's their design choice. Why should it be brought up for questioning? Because it's different in another game?

 

-- it's not that it's different in another game... it's that a large number of people feels that it ruined another game.

 

-- What is the AoE cap?

 

-- 90% of AoE skills are capped at 6 max targets. It hurts PvP and PvE (for other reasons) by making zerg groups, group together by standing as close as possible to reduce enemies AoE's effects. Basically when they fix all the skills, we'll see groups of 20+ people all trying to stay as close as possible slowly edging to their objective. It remains to be seen how siege weapons (which have no cap) will change this.

Its a horrible band-aid fix for a design problem. Then again they seem to take the easy way out on most things in this game instead of resolving the underlying problems. (See Boss loot and horrible itemization in dungeons, introducing bound items from the get go, etc etc. Basically they're copying other bad ideas from other MMOs for design issues that can be resolved in other ways)

 

-- What are the downsides to having no cap?

 

-- The only downside is play style, people will have to spread out and be aware of their surroundings and not clump together or they'd all get slaughtered. It could, in close quarters areas discourage zerg rushing since a dedicated group of people could AoE the hell out of them (think Stealth bombers in Eve, though it doesn't discourage anything there, ESO has a similar very open layout)

It also encourages people to continue to move instead of staying in a single place while watching their flanks. Something a lot of people have issues with and thus isn't liked. While I'm not sure their motives to launch the game with said cap (I assume, like most things in ESO, MMO X did it, so it must be good! is the reason) it's something we'll have to live with.

[Guest neaNicu]

Disclaimer: this is a rant. Feel free to delete or ignore.

 

AOE should be heavily nerfed. Heavily. It's the same story every evening, I can't take it anymore.

It's not about personal skill, I know I'm just an average player, there are others less skilled than me, there are others more talented or younger than me.

That's ok.

 

Back to the every-evening-story. In each zone there are 7 dungeons: 1 group dungeon (to be done in party), 5 solo dungeons (which could be done alone) and 1 public dungeon.

In the public dungeon, all opponents are grouped in packs of 5 or 6 or even more. Plus usually arround 5 bosses and mini-bosses.

All normal people, after entering this dungeon, just sit and wait for other people to form a team. You need a team of let's say 4 people to do such dungeon.

I always take gems with me because if I happen do die, I lose the team and then I have to wait again for another team.

 

Then the dungeon is entered by a VR10 "Master Wizard", usually (but not always) a vampire.

He (or she) doesn't wait for a team but goes alone directly into the enemies.

He/she throws some light into them, then knocks his/her destro staff into the floor twice and poof, like a miracle, all enemies (all 5 or 6) are knocked-down, trapped with something on the floor and already 50% life. He/she then just another move with the staff and all dead.

All this takes 4 seconds maximum.

If this happened in Counter Strike, I would yell "hacker/cheater" but it's probably legit in ESO.

But how is this balanced between different classes and weapons?

I can give my ESO password to anyone -> just try and kill 6 guys in 4 seconds using my character. This is just not possible.

 

Did you read Jungle Book? Remember the song? Lay the secret on me of man's red fire?  I wanna be like you?

Now what should I do (do be like them)?

I read an article written by some expert who is DK (like me) and has a dual-build let's say: one build is for single target (boss fight), which is quite similar with mine.

But the second build is with destro staff + Ardent Flames (a skill-line from DK) + light armor.

Now, this may sound smart but to start levelling destro staff and light armor from scratch at VR9 it would take a long time.

Plus that I'm tired to find out from time to time that the game should be played differently (it's not the first time I have to change my gameplay) and so on.

And maybe after I level destro stuff, Zenimax will acknoledge that is something wrong and just nerf it and all my work is for nothing?

It's true that my son warned me that first character in every MMO is a mess because it's done just for learning the game but that's just not balanced.

The strange part is that those destro-staff users who kill everything in seconds in public dungeons are the same class who complains about being unable to defeat Molag Bal. I just don't understand.

[gelmir]

Trust me it won't take long to level destro. It will take like one zone-questing and you will be at decent level 35-40. The rest doesn't make big difference. So go ahead and start leveling it I already leveled heavy-armor, bow fully; and medium armor to 30+'s.

 

I strongly believe they should not nerf AOE damage, but make some amendments on its workings etc.

[Flavia]

Then the dungeon is entered by a VR10 "Master Wizard", usually (but not always) a vampire.

He (or she) doesn't wait for a team but goes alone directly into the enemies.

He/she throws some light into them, then knocks his/her destro staff into the floor twice and poof, like a miracle, all enemies (all 5 or 6) are knocked-down, trapped with something on the floor and already 50% life. He/she then just another move with the staff and all dead.

All this takes 4 seconds maximum.

 

I’m not a wizard with a staff, I’m not VR10 and not even a vampire, but still I can do the same thing. I can switch to single-target mod and try to kill a boss. BTW, look how much XP you get from killing VR3 boss solo - almost 2%. I was lucky, there were nobody around and it was quite week boss.

Serena, I told you earlier, try to experiment and test totally new builds.

 

Ofc, I don't like AOE nerf, but I see from where this is coming.

[Guest neaNicu]

OK, rant over. Fun just started!

 

Look at this guy:

 

 

(in the "about" tab of the video is his build. He is DK like me. The class is the only similarity between us, however)

[Flavia]

Ye, I agree that some of the DK skills OP, game still need some fixing. Vamps was OP too. But all this doesn't mean that any class can't kill 4-6 mobs or Molag Bal or Manimarco. I see complains about this every day. Observe other people more. Even templar healer can do as good as me in that dung. Nothing wrong with it.