My Thoughts and Hopes For The Future of PVP

Fasoo

Hello everyone, I decided to make a post on my thoughts on the current state of Cyrodiil, and what they can do to improve it in terms of class balance and overall fixes towards the Alliance War. These are all my opinions and many will disagree but it's okay to have differing opinions.

#1- Remove AOE Caps- like really, I don't need to say much on this topic. ZOS pls

#2- Remove Proximity Detonation Completely as a Skill- While Prox does help smaller groups wipe bigger groups, it is causing players to stack insane amounts of players on top of eachother and gap close/leap/etc and then spamnado, rinse and repeat. A more diverse tactic would be needed without the "Prox and Leap" mentality and would create a more fluid battlefield as well as help some of the issues of "zerging" as a whole.

#3- Have actual class balance, not flavor of the month(patch) builds- ZOS , get your crap together, and have some actual class balance. Nerfing shields after 1.6 to comply with the whining of how strong shield stacking is, is fine; but it indirectly effects all other classes. Igneous Shield is simply a buff for damage and Stam Return now. Blazing Shield is a complete waste of a skill. What needed to be done for Sorcs was not nerf shields as a whole but simply healing ward;which I will touch on later.

#4- Reduce Damage reduction to 35% from the current 50%- my reasoning behind this is , it's causing good players to be penalized while fighting players with less skill, and giving those less skilled players an extremely forgiving time within fights; as well as causing fights between two skilled groups (or skilled players) extremely long times of battle. In many cases I will watch fights go on for half an hour before being resolved. Smaller scaled such as 1v1's will go on for 45 minutes if both players are knowledgable of pvp. It is creating so many stalemates and boring gameplay within pvp it simply makes not running in a large scale group extremely frustrating and tiresome and simply plain boring. Where is the dynamic fights , the ability to get in a combo and burst? It is all gone with the current patch and with the addition of arenas and battlegrounds later this year, does ZOS really think it will be enjoyable, while everyone runs a tank sustain spec and reverb bashes eachother for an hour long? There needs to be diversity and EXCITING gameplay that 1.5 and 1.6 had. Those patches had their fair share of issues but most players would admit to those times being simply fun, which is what the point of this game is.

#5 -Be More Solo Friendly- As a whole the current patch has completely removed the ability to Solo successfully. Yes this game is Alliance v Alliance v Alliance but at the same time, lone soldiers should be able to do what they want and not be penalized for it. With the addition of fatigue and the strength of snares as well as the damage reduction increase with 1.7, the ability to solo and small man has been mainly erased from PVP. A larger group of skilled players should still be able to beat a player who is solo, a player should not be handicapped against a group of 2-3 average pvp players who abuse the new system of snare/gap closing, etc. bringing back the 1.5/1.6 system or pvp with obvious fixes would be the route I would consider if I was
ZOS

#6- Change Dodge and Streak Fatigue- While I do not wish to see the return of perma dodge or perma streak , I would like to see a change towards the increasing cost. Instead of exponentially increasing by 30 percent infinitely, I'd like to see a flat base increase that stays the same to increase the amount of streaks and dodge rolls available to add more diverse gameplay, especially if stuns and cc's in their current state are here to stay. A hypothetical number could be after your first dodge roll it's increased by 40 percent and it stays at 40 no matter how many times you dodge roll until fatigue wears off; so while still taking a hit to your resource pool, a couple dodge rolls or streaks doesn't make you completely invalid.

#7- change might of the guild to effect only spell damage - enough said, it's indirectly causing people to snipe for full health bars even with 50% reduction in cyrodiil. Not sure if it's intended or not.

#8- bring back dynamic ultimate!

- CLASS/SKILL FIXES ( My Opinion )
DK - buff damage for magicka DK , and make them valid again. With the damage reduction and other changes. Whip hits for nothing and the removal of regen while blocking has made the magicka DK completely invalid in my opinion, as well as dragons blood being complete garbage now with the new healing changes, makes this spec not worth playing. while not being a magicka DK player myself, I do feel their pain and can plainly see that the spec itself is struggling heavily, buffs to class abilities and heals will help go a long way.

Nightblade- in a very solid place right now, minus the cloak "issue". on one hand , cloak is an extremely strong ability in some situations , but against a player with any resemblance of skill , it is completely useless. Getting taken out of it by single target abilities is an extremely large issue that was said to be resolved in this patch and was not. It is not even worth running at the moment. StamBlades also cannot dodge roll as they once have (see fix in post above on my idea) so they are left with a couple dodge rolls and maybe 2 cloaks that DONT EVEN WORK before they simply have to sit their and die. Snares and Stuns don't help. This is more of a game issue as a whole and not a class issue, and needs to be resolved.

Templar- I'm going to pass on what I think of Templar as I don't play the class and don't have any semblance of an idea, though they do seem to be well off at the moment in either stamina or a magicka spec. Let me know what you guys think of Templar and what changes they need

Sorc- While magicka sorcs are arguably the best specs at the moment along with Stam DK, I'd like to see some changes to how they play. In 1.6 their issues, in my opinion , was not the strength of the shields so much as the strength of healing Ward. Healing Ward was an extremely powerful shield and was causing a lot of the outrage that I saw. In this patch they are still survivable compared to other classes but lack the damage needed up against skilled players, relying too much on burst combos and not being able to capatlize on that with the damage nerf in the games current state. This is again, more of an issue of the game system as a whole and not the class. I'd also like to see a change to make Ball of Lightning Relevant again, increasing the timer from 1.5 seconds to 3.0-3.5 seconds to coincide with the 4 second streak fatigue , Ball of lightning is currently completely useless and that change would help make it more relevant while not providing the broken gameplay that it was providing in 1.6. Being a sorc myself I might be a little biased on how I think sorc is in this patch.


That's pretty much all of my thoughts on the current state of pvp and my issues with it. Let me know what you guys think, I love talking about issues with the game as I want this to be the best game it can be for everyone. Whether you solo or group or small man, it doesn't matter. This game has so much potential and I'd hate to see it fail.

MightyMouseMark

One thing in your post, you said that 35% reduction would be better than 50% to stop people with less skill kill skilled players but how is reducing damage taken going to help?

Fasoo

MightyMouseMark wrote: »

One thing in your post, you said that 35% reduction would be better than 50% to stop people with less skill kill skilled players but how is reducing damage taken going to help?

Sure, so my thought behind that is with 35 percent instead of 50 it requires people to have their shields up, to have buffs up , timely dodge, cloak, streak, etc. and turn and combo- burst someone down. In the current state, at 50% players can just sit there and eat damage and just heal without being penalized. In this patch skill is at its least value imo. A player in a 1vX can't kill anything due to damage being so low and not being able to burst, sure they can survive by keeping shields and buff and timely block dodge roll etc, but they cannot turn and burst

EsoRecon

@alecfaso24_ESO
I agree with most of what you said, but 2 things I disagreed with. Class balance... I don't think there should be class balance. My main is a stamina sorcerer, which isn't the best class for pvp. I like having "flavor of the month" classes and setups. Cause then when I beat them cause they don't know how to play I can feel good and t-bag the nubs.

The second thing I didn't like was how you didn't mention stamina sorcerer in the sorc part of your post... Stamina Sorcs are real!

Navitas

MightyMouseMark wrote: »

One thing in your post, you said that 35% reduction would be better than 50% to stop people with less skill kill skilled players but how is reducing damage taken going to help?

Large groups aren't affected by the damage as much either. In a 1vX scenario a group still kills the 1 person fairly quickly, which makes them have to play a game of defense. Don't get me wrong this is still the same as in 1.6, however 1vX is about biding your time and staying alive until you can create opportunities to go for a kill. The problem here arises in that with this huge damage mitigation those windows of opportunity are close to non existent. Even in 1.6 these "kill windows" were only about 2-4 seconds, which was manageable to burst at the time (think curse > frag > dawnbreaker > fury for sorc, etc.). Now with the decreased damage your 100-0 burst takes longer to pull off than the kill windows you get, which means the enemy is often just healed back to full hp and you're forced to repeat this process hoping for the best until you inevitably run out of resources (which also goes back to the flat increase change to dodge/streak which were often used to kite and create these chances to kill someone). No one has ever won a battle by playing defensively the entire time, which is effectively what solo players are forced to do.

Emma_Overload

I disagree with #4. If anything, even 50% damage STILL outstrips current heals and wards due to power creep from the CP system and the new VR16 gear.

No matter how much magicka I stack, there is ALWAYS some guy out there whose Wrecking Blow can wipe it off in one shot... that's ridiculous!

I'l never understand why ZOS decided to reduce damage AND healing/shields at the same time. It's like robbing Peter to pay Paul. What were they thinking?

Fasoo

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

I disagree with #4. If anything, even 50% damage STILL outstrips current heals and wards due to power creep from the CP system and the new VR16 gear.

No matter how much magicka I stack, there is ALWAYS some guy out there whose Wrecking Blow can wipe it off in one shot... that's ridiculous!

I'l never understand why ZOS decided to reduce damage AND healing/shields at the same time. It's like robbing Peter to pay Paul. What were they thinking?

I agree , and it wasn't something I touched on but with the reduction of reduced damage to 35% , to add shield strength back to how it is, I said how healing Ward itself was the issue and not hardened Ward or harness. Hardened should have a buff if those changes come back. In a 1v1 sorcs are outclassed by a correctly played stamina build due to the damage that WB can get up to as well as the reduced hardened Ward strength, damage reduction that effects sorcs more than a stam build, etc. (imo)

Millerman34n

Love the post expect, I love proxy det I wanna keep it!

MormondPayne_EP

LOL!!!!

It's not worth even running cloak? What planet are you on, mate?!?!

I wonder which class you play... **please, please stamina NB is balance, it's balanced. Look, look, I died once... it's balanced, I swear it's balanced. This balance is great...errrrrr I mean cloak is garbage and Nightblades are crappy because of invisibility**

Get out.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

The biggest challenge to fixing or balancing PvP is the effect those changes have on PvE. For example, proxy det and cloak can be really annoying in PvP, to the point that they need to be "fixed". But they are both very useful, almost indispensable for solo and small group PvE'er to survive many dungeons, etc. Nerfing those skills to balance PvP, often makes them useless for PvE. Templers are a great example of this, with whole PvE skill lines made useless due to PvP nerfing.

Fasoo

MormondPayne_EP wrote: »

LOL!!!!

It's not worth even running cloak? What planet are you on, mate?!?!

I wonder which class you play... **please, please stamina NB is balance, it's balanced. Look, look, I died once... it's balanced, I swear it's balanced. This balance is great...errrrrr I mean cloak is garbage and Nightblades are crappy because of invisibility**

Get out.

I said they were in a good place minus cloak. If cloak was working better than it is at the moment the class would be in a good place, that's what I was saying was holding it back. Sorry for the seemingly confusing explanation on the class balance for nightblade. Everything on nightblade is good at the moment imo minus cloak which is really only good for purging and against non experienced players.

Also I main a Magicka Sorc but used to play Stamblade in 1.6.

Lord-Otto

Some good points. I strongly disagree with Nightblades, though.

Yes, you sometimes can knock NBs out of stealth. For this, you have to sacrifice skillslots or a potion or morphs. Just to force them into FIGHTING. This already sets you into a disadvantegous position. And now look at NBs... They fight just as good, actually BETTER, than any other stamina and magicka class in open combat. Thanks to vastly superior passives, skills, CP synergy, armor passives and that ridiculous Vigor/Rally heal with 5k weapon power.
This is not fine, this is not balanced. NBs should be strong when entering the fight, but complete whimps if they are forced into open combat. This simply isn't the case at the moment and needs to be corrected. DKs got nerfed, Sorcs got Shield Breaker. It is effing time for NBs.

Other than that, I want to add the most important point to your list:
0. Balance updates FREQUENTLY, not once per half a year!

Fasoo

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Some good points. I strongly disagree with Nightblades, though.

Yes, you sometimes can knock NBs out of stealth. For this, you have to sacrifice skillslots or a potion or morphs. Just to force them into FIGHTING. This already sets you into a disadvantegous position. And now look at NBs... They fight just as good, actually BETTER, than any other stamina and magicka class in open combat. Thanks to vastly superior passives, skills, CP synergy, armor passives and that ridiculous Vigor/Rally heal with 5k weapon power.
This is not fine, this is not balanced. NBs should be strong when entering the fight, but complete whimps if they are forced into open combat. This simply isn't the case at the moment and needs to be corrected. DKs got nerfed, Sorcs got Shield Breaker. It is effing time for NBs.

Other than that, I want to add the most important point to your list:
0. Balance updates FREQUENTLY, not once per half a year!

I completely agree in terms of frequent updates , i.e. Nirn not getting looked at until a major patch was a huge issue that wasn't resolved until a "major" patch. Quality of life updates would be nice.