So this may be considered ignorant or maybe it's been asked before.

Marolf

I constantly see this in game on the forums or anywhere else that discusses ESO. What I'm referring to is the constant battle between PvP and PvE. It seems everytime a patch is announced or goes live that deals with balenceing it envokes outcry from the community. I understand it's for good reason, but I must say what is good for PvP isn't necessarily good for PvE and vice versa. My question is can these two somehow be separated, and if so would others agree with it being so?

VaranisArano

Yes, it could be separated. There's even a mechanism for that: Battle Spirit, and several skills that have explicitly lessened effects on players.

That being said, ZOS doesn't seem to want to. They use Battle Spirit very sparingly, and seem happy to change PVE and PVP at the same time, leading to whichever side is most obviously impacted by the change to take the blame.

ealdwin

It's probably been asked before, but certainly a good question to continue asking.

The main problem right now in terms of PVE Balance vs PVP Balance seems to be around the general mentality of what Balance entails for each part of the game. When Balance comes up in regards to PVE, the conversations tend to focus more on classes that are underperforming in certain roles, and what skills could be buffed in order to help them be more viable in those roles. In general, you will hardly see many nerf threads when talking about PVE. On the flip side, when Balance is discussed in regards to PVP, posts are all over the place, calling for drastic nerfs to classes and skills as well as request for buffs and reworks to skills. Since PVP tends to be more head-to-head competitive, forum threads pertaining to PVP Balance tend to focus more on perceived class over-performance rather than class underperformance. Unfortunately, these two mindsets cause averse effects on each aspect of gameplay. More often than not, these effects involve PVP Balance focused nerfs negatively affecting performance in PVE. Alternatively, positive changes in PVE (think DoT meta for instance), can have negative affects on PVP.

There have been a few suggestions in the past on how to potentially fix this problem. The one that I've seen more often, was that when CP is eventually reworked, to make CP only for PVE and PVP becomes completely No-CP. Not saying I agree with this, but it would be a fix, allowing CP to be the method through which people make their builds more potent in their roles in PVE, but not affecting performance in PVP. This would, however, negatively affect those who enjoy CP PVP. One of the better solutions that's out there would be to modify the Battle Spirit passive. It could be expanded so it affects a larger number of abilities, effectively changing combat in PVP. I've also seen the suggestion that each class gets its own form of Battle Spirit that would allow it to have certain elements tuned down and other elements kept strong to reinforce Class Identity.

In my opinion, the best way to address the issue of Balance in PVP, is to not try to balance PVP. PVP is a monster to try and balance, with too many variables, where every attempt at balance simply means the meta switches up every three months. Balance in PVE is far simpler. ZOS knows what damage output is viable, and what is required to be able to perform each role. They know, and control, one side of the equation, what players are up against, and what combat should look like to fulfill the other side of the equation. In PVP, they can't control how players are going to build, both sides of the equation are simply too variable for complete balance to be achieved without making the difference between each class come down to what color they are. Rather, they should simply let classes be powerful, and make sure that the tools and counters exist for players to build the way they want.

Zacuel

I like ignorance on the forums. Just sprinkle a little sarcasm and watch the thread burst into flames.

Never fails.

Aedaryl

Battle between PvP and PvE is a battle between noob/dump/ignorent people.

This is for few reasons :

1. In PvP, you use radically different skills, sets and builds than in PvE.

If you look at the skills bar, you will mostly find, when you find it, 1 or 2 abilities that are used on both PvE and PvP build.

2. ZoS nerf or buffs tons of things that no one asked/complained about.

3. ZoS combat team take decisions that doesn't make sense and are either good or extremely bad. It's literally NRG for half their decisions.

This is most of the times where people cry and accuse the other pvX side.

4. ZoS want to nerf/buff a game side and it's so bad designed that no one understands why they do that, and dumbs cry on the X nerfed because of you.

Just look at the first shield "nerf", ZoS wanted to make healer more important and so nerfing shields in PvE. They putted a 1s cast time which totally make shields unusable and destroying classes in PvP. When it was a bad change for everyone, dumb people told that it was a PvP nerf. ZoS after the complain from both side made shield working like health bar (crit matter + resistances matter). It resulted in a PvP buff and a PvE nerf, and there is still people that are persuaded that it was a PvP nerf based that affected PvE.

Let's speak about the "dots buffs" we got. No one asked for it, literally no one.
It caused a mess in PvP.
Then when ZoS nerfed it because it was stupidly strong in PvP, they nerfed to a point that it's weaker than it was when no one was complaining about.
Dumb people will say "you killed my PvE because PvP complains" which is false, it's just ZoS that make random buff and nerfs without sense.

And the list is long.

The devs are so bad that even when they do changes to a single side, they mess up.

Remember sloadpocalispe, the design was extremely bad and they got forced to nerf it because it was a disaster.

The PTS right after they introduced soldier of anguish, in a version than was worse than sload.