New player experience. PVP...sigh, great game but why so many gimmicks?

Viper_T

So here goes,

PS4 player here. 1st off I admittedly have only been playing ESO for about 2 months (A pretty hardcore 2 months I might add) and the majority of it has been PVP (Captain Rank 20 of 50 I think...sounds right), but in no way am I advocating that I am great at PVP. Anyway, I've always loved playing the stealthy, assassiny, melee dps classes (dcuo - gadgets, swtor - assassin, guild wars 2 - thief, and so on) so of course I picked the night blade class. "This is just like my thief in GW2"...Instantly loved it. But yeah, like basically every new player I started out in PVE. Grinding missions and trying to queue up a very broken group finder. But I am a life-long PVPer. I played a bunch of mmos and PVP is always the most important aspect of my experience. Playing against a computer simulation is cool but there’s nothing like playing against an unpredictable player where every encounter is guaranteed to be slightly different. Nothing tests your skills, your gear, your builds like PVP (imho). So with all the hype about PVP in ESO I was excited and finally drew up the courage to dive in and see how intense Cyrodiil actually was.

First impressions:
"This is guild wars 2...on console... I'm gonna love this." I noticed off the bat how similar the Cyrodiil was to the guild wars 2 mists WvWvW. 3 factions fighting for control of the map, I get it. I liked it in guild wars 2 and I like playing on consoles even more so yeah, awesome. So I mount up, head off in a random direction and BAM... smacked by a dragon knight take flight and promptly killed. Totally expected. So I respawn, check the map and find some crossed swords. I was pretty sure it was the symbol for a field skirmish so I race in that direction. Lo and behold it is. Maybe 15 or 20 players in combat and me sitting on a mount just watching. BAM... smacked again, stunned, promptly killed. Also totally expected. This time I get rezzed by a friendly and I'm ready. Of course, as expected, I lasted in combat about 15 secs… maybe.
Now I’m not complaining one bit about how fast I was getting killed. It’s actually the opposite. When I jump into a new PVP experience I’m thinking about one thing. How good is good, and how can I get there. I want to be a PVP threat, I want to be like the guys and gals who can tank, or heal through, or kill 15 attackers. It’s inspiring to see such badassery and by no means am I bitter when I see one person 1vX’ing successfully. I’m impressed and excited to see that 1vX’ing is viable in this game. And for me getting smashed in seconds means there’s a pretty high skill ceiling. Or at least there should be. Or at least that’s how some of it is.

Next impressions:
The more I PVP’d, the more sieges, the more zergs, the more unimpressive it became. Not because it got old. No way! PVP never gets old for me. I’m simply losing a lot of respect for PVP by way of all the gimmicks and reported nerfs.

Gimmick 1: block nerf (I’m sure to get beat up for this)- Now I wasn’t around for when blocking was supposedly OP, but I can tell you how OP it isn’t. Blocking is by far the least OP aspect of any game. Seriously, why would anyone complain about someone perma-BLOCK-ing. If someone is permanently blocking they can’t attack, they can’t do any damage, and they can’t kill anyone. If you do run across someone in front of an entire group, holding a shield, blocking…. Sigh… he’s obviously a tank. Tank classes are designed to soak up damage and draw agro. And in this game more than any it is explicitly advertised sans the HUGE shield. But seriously, how easy is it NOT attack the tank. Solution to permablock… ? Find another target. Done. Please, please, please don’t be upset that you can’t solo a tank because honestly you absolutely should not be able to. Why have tanks that can’t tank? Of course there are caveats…maybe? Maybe you couldn’t cap that farm because the undefeatable tank was standing on the node permablocking? I don’t know. Boring as it may be, permablocking is negative OP.

Gimmick 2: dodge roll nerf (again prepared for the fallout) – This falls almost along the same lines as permablock. How is dodge roll OP? again, rolling targets can’t attack, do no damage, can’t kill, and can’t heal anything. This game is again zerg heavy. Not too many FAIR fights. Dodge roll is probably the only thing most stamina dps classes can do defend in the midst of a zerg. I know as far as stamblade goes, dodge roll is a primary survival tactic. (Before you mention cloak, and mass hysteria, and shadow image, be reminded that those are all magicka based defensive counters and CC’s. Stamblade really has only one class CC and it’s a single target ultimate. Cheap yea, but still… Ultimate.) But yea, dodgerolliness… not OP. “Stamina dps classes should get penalized for trying to survive? How dare they!? With all those impressive shields and CC’s!?... just let me hit you!”
SO…dodge roll solution?... Cease spam attack, buff up all your passives/heals, wait until they stop dodge rolling, commence buffed up attack. Or attack someone who isn’t dodge rolling for dear life away from you? Dodge roll should be damn near free, it’s literally not hurting anyone.

Gimmick 3: Viscous death set (OMG the cheese). I feel like this shouldn’t even need explaining. What precisely was the intention of this set? From what I understand it’s supposed to be a zerg buster set? As if… As if the zergs don’t use it (beside the point, but yea… stupid). So now there’s a set that has effectively created suicide bombers... hold the suicide. I mean, seriously. So in a game… in which PVP is absolutely focused around group play… there is a gear set… that makes sure you don’t fight in a group? Excuse all the ellipses but hear me out. All support heals and barriers have a radius. You have to be in the radius for them to be effective. Zergs group together because support skills make it necessary no? but forget zerg groups for a sec. This kills the small group trying to defend against the zerg with absolutely no skill involved. Simple stack with say a magblade– Proximity det. Wait 6 secs. Lotus, tether, sap essence spam… someone is going to die. That one or two squishies that just wanted to help, that melee dps getting smacked by 3 focused aims and radiant destructions… someone is going to die. And on top of that initial 8 to 12k blast, there’s no cooldown on the amount of times it procs. I’ve personally been hit with 3 vicious death blasts in a single death recap. It’s a chain reaction of utter cheese (that semi-pun tho). So now PVPers get double punished. Don’t stay in range of life saving support skills and don’t let that squishy within 10 meters of you as if you could control it.
Solution? Just… remove the set from pvp… like completely. Or fine, keep the set. Change the mechanic so it only procs off the users’ death. That would ensure it procs one time and wouldn’t be so gimmicky.

Gimmick 4: Resource drain poisons – What the actual s***… This is the most heartbreaking addition to any pvp I’ve ever seen. The aforementioned pales in comparison to the level of disrespect this addition brings. This is what kills PVP the most for me. How is this a good addition in any respect? Resource drain poisons don’t add a layer of complexity; they remove all of them. You spend months finding, crafting, and refining gear sets. Hours and hours refining champion point selection to ensure a level of sustain that makes you one of those feared, elite PVPers. And here comes the most cowardly PVPer spamming whatever attack with resource drain poisons ensuring all your sustain and honestly all your efforts to PVP at all are wasted. Seriously, I can’t hate this enough. All the players who actually spent time trying to find the best skill combinations, the best gear sets, the best anything get dumped on. Hard. Resource drains are a lazy pvp addition at best, disrespectful addition more realistically. If more people start using these there will be no elite PVPers, no one to aspire to be like, no more competitiveness, no more builds. You will have solved you balance issues however. When everyone starts using resource drains the only thing anyone will have left will be light and heavy attacks. Resource drain poisons are the cowardly way of getting easy kills and easy AP. And honestly if you like the idea PVP being easy, shame on you. This is the worst kind of punishment. And the punishment is compounded upon smaller groups or dare I say 1vXers. This just reinforces the numbers game. If you use and can honestly defend these I seriously question your PVPness (haha gross), but that's just me.

Solution? Remove them before you add anything else.

Honorable gimmick mentions (more so just annoying or silly)

5. Keep leapers. You know the folks who jump onto a keep with the walls still up. Sometimes this is funny though. Especially when they get dizzying blowed right back off to death.
6. Walls that magically repair themselves... and the repo team spamming to keep them above 95%.
7. Emperor batswarm spam... This really isn't a big deal at all, I'm just sick of that screeching sound.
8. Blackwater blade. Ijs, I can have max champ points and access to crafting the best gear in the game against a new player trying to learn how to PVP. I wouldn't even bother lol.
9. Droppin' teabags when you had vastly superior numbers, or even worse, after you get rezzed. You didn't earn that...
10. Last but MOST...Cyrodiil lag and PVP slide shows. Worst of the worst.

Fml that was a long post…. I'm sure there's plenty of other gimmickiness, but these are just from my personal POV.

Nestor

With regards to your perma blocking, yes, you can fire off skills while blocking, try it. Sure, you can't use light or heavy attacks but you can block and fire off skills all day long if you want. Even now. You just don't regen stamina while blocking.

KenaPKK

@ZOS_BrianWheeler pretty in depth impressions of a new player here.

Viper_T

Nestor wrote: »

With regards to your perma blocking, yes, you can fire off skills while blocking, try it. Sure, you can't use light or heavy attacks but you can block and fire off skills all day long if you want. Even now. You just don't regen stamina while blocking.

Your right, you can block while you attack. And I still don't see why the stam regen while blocking was so bad. If your a stam tank and blocking, your attacks still take stamina to fire off while damage absorption still depleted stamina. So casting at a rate of a stamina dps would deplete your stamina pool much faster no? And If your a magicka class you probably don't have as much stam regen to begin with and probably don't need it anyway. Magicka tank doesn't have a magicka recovery penalty while blocking and fires off magicka based skills. Was the disparity so bad that tanks could spam attack and block indefinitely? Or just block indefinitely? If no, and it fire off a skill (probably a buff skill) while perma blocked or just perma block then I still don't see what the issue was.

DeanTheCat

Do keep in mind OP that PvE and PvP balancing a tied together, which means a change targeted at one side will inevitably affect the other.

1) The Stam Regen block nerf was the result of certain 3k stamina regeneration medium armour permanent block builds, which had enough regeneration and damage to deal respectable damage while mitigating 80-90% of incoming damage. This combined with Malubeth and the Master's Sword created a cheese combo of which the only counter was the Nightblade's fear, and even then, these builds used immovablity potions to negate that weakness, resulting in a build that simply couldn't be killed without superior numbers.

2) Due to regeneration stats going out of control with the champion system and the removal of softcaps, dodge roll went out of control. Dodge roll was never meant to be spammed like it is today, as in the original game design of 1.0, dodge was a powerful tool that allowed you to disjoint all incoming projectiles for one second at the cost of round 25% of your stamina. This high cost encouraged tactical use of rolling to avoid the heaviest hits instead of every single attack. Dodge roll builds in 1.6 combined the broken mechanic with the Crusader set (Which was designed to be used with the 1.0 style of combat rather then 1.6+) allowed users to dance round whole armies unable to take any damage at all, as the Crusader set ensures that there are no vulnerability windows between dodges. Add this to the fact that you can use a roll to animation cancel something like Critical Rush, and you have a really potent (and broken) combo.

3) Like all fixes that ZOS likes to do, Vicious Death was their solution to their servers being unable to take the load of anything more then a 36 combatant fight. The faster combatants are killed, the less stress on the server there is. This is a band aid fix to an issue that solely rests with ZOS.

4) Poisons was a long requested feature by many players in the community, to which ZOS eventually added into the game. The existence of Poisons and it's mechanics is still a hotly debated topic. In a way, poisons bring back sanity to a combat system that has spired out of control due to unchecked stats and resource gains. A no cooldown system like ESO only works when resources are highly limited and regeneration slow. Anything else breaks the system and results in cooldowns. (Bolt Escape cost, Dodge cost, Block regen for examples)

In the end, most of your gripes stem from the fallout that the champion system has left in its wake. The current system as-is is broken, and the game is being balanced round a broken system. I wrote a long thread about the championship system and the impact it is having on the game round a year+ ago. The link to that thread can be found in my signature.

Edit: Spelling

Forestd16b14_ESO

Viper_T wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

With regards to your perma blocking, yes, you can fire off skills while blocking, try it. Sure, you can't use light or heavy attacks but you can block and fire off skills all day long if you want. Even now. You just don't regen stamina while blocking.

Your right, you can block while you attack. And I still don't see why the stam regen while blocking was so bad. If your a stam tank and blocking, your attacks still take stamina to fire off while damage absorption still depleted stamina. So casting at a rate of a stamina dps would deplete your stamina pool much faster no? And If your a magicka class you probably don't have as much stam regen to begin with and probably don't need it anyway. Magicka tank doesn't have a magicka recovery penalty while blocking and fires off magicka based skills. Was the disparity so bad that tanks could spam attack and block indefinitely? Or just block indefinitely? If no, and it fire off a skill (probably a buff skill) while perma blocked or just perma block then I still don't see what the issue was.

It wasn't bad Wrobel just hates tanks.

Curragraigue

Viper_T wrote: »

So here goes,

PS4 player here. 1st off I admittedly have only been playing ESO for about 2 months (A pretty hardcore 2 months I might add) and the majority of it has been PVP (Captain Rank 20 of 50 I think...sounds right), but in no way am I advocating that I am great at PVP. Anyway, I've always loved playing the stealthy, assassiny, melee dps classes (dcuo - gadgets, swtor - assassin, guild wars 2 - thief, and so on) so of course I picked the night blade class. "This is just like my thief in GW2"...Instantly loved it. But yeah, like basically every new player I started out in PVE. Grinding missions and trying to queue up a very broken group finder. But I am a life-long PVPer. I played a bunch of mmos and PVP is always the most important aspect of my experience. Playing against a computer simulation is cool but there’s nothing like playing against an unpredictable player where every encounter is guaranteed to be slightly different. Nothing tests your skills, your gear, your builds like PVP (imho). So with all the hype about PVP in ESO I was excited and finally drew up the courage to dive in and see how intense Cyrodiil actually was.

First impressions:
"This is guild wars 2...on console... I'm gonna love this." I noticed off the bat how similar the Cyrodiil was to the guild wars 2 mists WvWvW. 3 factions fighting for control of the map, I get it. I liked it in guild wars 2 and I like playing on consoles even more so yeah, awesome. So I mount up, head off in a random direction and BAM... smacked by a dragon knight take flight and promptly killed. Totally expected. So I respawn, check the map and find some crossed swords. I was pretty sure it was the symbol for a field skirmish so I race in that direction. Lo and behold it is. Maybe 15 or 20 players in combat and me sitting on a mount just watching. BAM... smacked again, stunned, promptly killed. Also totally expected. This time I get rezzed by a friendly and I'm ready. Of course, as expected, I lasted in combat about 15 secs… maybe.
Now I’m not complaining one bit about how fast I was getting killed. It’s actually the opposite. When I jump into a new PVP experience I’m thinking about one thing. How good is good, and how can I get there. I want to be a PVP threat, I want to be like the guys and gals who can tank, or heal through, or kill 15 attackers. It’s inspiring to see such badassery and by no means am I bitter when I see one person 1vX’ing successfully. I’m impressed and excited to see that 1vX’ing is viable in this game. And for me getting smashed in seconds means there’s a pretty high skill ceiling. Or at least there should be. Or at least that’s how some of it is.

Next impressions:
The more I PVP’d, the more sieges, the more zergs, the more unimpressive it became. Not because it got old. No way! PVP never gets old for me. I’m simply losing a lot of respect for PVP by way of all the gimmicks and reported nerfs.

Gimmick 1: block nerf (I’m sure to get beat up for this)- Now I wasn’t around for when blocking was supposedly OP, but I can tell you how OP it isn’t. Blocking is by far the least OP aspect of any game. Seriously, why would anyone complain about someone perma-BLOCK-ing. If someone is permanently blocking they can’t attack, they can’t do any damage, and they can’t kill anyone. If you do run across someone in front of an entire group, holding a shield, blocking…. Sigh… he’s obviously a tank. Tank classes are designed to soak up damage and draw agro. And in this game more than any it is explicitly advertised sans the HUGE shield. But seriously, how easy is it NOT attack the tank. Solution to permablock… ? Find another target. Done. Please, please, please don’t be upset that you can’t solo a tank because honestly you absolutely should not be able to. Why have tanks that can’t tank? Of course there are caveats…maybe? Maybe you couldn’t cap that farm because the undefeatable tank was standing on the node permablocking? I don’t know. Boring as it may be, permablocking is negative OP.

Gimmick 2: dodge roll nerf (again prepared for the fallout) – This falls almost along the same lines as permablock. How is dodge roll OP? again, rolling targets can’t attack, do no damage, can’t kill, and can’t heal anything. This game is again zerg heavy. Not too many FAIR fights. Dodge roll is probably the only thing most stamina dps classes can do defend in the midst of a zerg. I know as far as stamblade goes, dodge roll is a primary survival tactic. (Before you mention cloak, and mass hysteria, and shadow image, be reminded that those are all magicka based defensive counters and CC’s. Stamblade really has only one class CC and it’s a single target ultimate. Cheap yea, but still… Ultimate.) But yea, dodgerolliness… not OP. “Stamina dps classes should get penalized for trying to survive? How dare they!? With all those impressive shields and CC’s!?... just let me hit you!”
SO…dodge roll solution?... Cease spam attack, buff up all your passives/heals, wait until they stop dodge rolling, commence buffed up attack. Or attack someone who isn’t dodge rolling for dear life away from you? Dodge roll should be damn near free, it’s literally not hurting anyone.

Gimmick 3: Viscous death set (OMG the cheese). I feel like this shouldn’t even need explaining. What precisely was the intention of this set? From what I understand it’s supposed to be a zerg buster set? As if… As if the zergs don’t use it (beside the point, but yea… stupid). So now there’s a set that has effectively created suicide bombers... hold the suicide. I mean, seriously. So in a game… in which PVP is absolutely focused around group play… there is a gear set… that makes sure you don’t fight in a group? Excuse all the ellipses but hear me out. All support heals and barriers have a radius. You have to be in the radius for them to be effective. Zergs group together because support skills make it necessary no? but forget zerg groups for a sec. This kills the small group trying to defend against the zerg with absolutely no skill involved. Simple stack with say a magblade– Proximity det. Wait 6 secs. Lotus, tether, sap essence spam… someone is going to die. That one or two squishies that just wanted to help, that melee dps getting smacked by 3 focused aims and radiant destructions… someone is going to die. And on top of that initial 8 to 12k blast, there’s no cooldown on the amount of times it procs. I’ve personally been hit with 3 vicious death blasts in a single death recap. It’s a chain reaction of utter cheese (that semi-pun tho). So now PVPers get double punished. Don’t stay in range of life saving support skills and don’t let that squishy within 10 meters of you as if you could control it.
Solution? Just… remove the set from pvp… like completely. Or fine, keep the set. Change the mechanic so it only procs off the users’ death. That would ensure it procs one time and wouldn’t be so gimmicky.

Gimmick 4: Resource drain poisons – What the actual s***… This is the most heartbreaking addition to any pvp I’ve ever seen. The aforementioned pales in comparison to the level of disrespect this addition brings. This is what kills PVP the most for me. How is this a good addition in any respect? Resource drain poisons don’t add a layer of complexity; they remove all of them. You spend months finding, crafting, and refining gear sets. Hours and hours refining champion point selection to ensure a level of sustain that makes you one of those feared, elite PVPers. And here comes the most cowardly PVPer spamming whatever attack with resource drain poisons ensuring all your sustain and honestly all your efforts to PVP at all are wasted. Seriously, I can’t hate this enough. All the players who actually spent time trying to find the best skill combinations, the best gear sets, the best anything get dumped on. Hard. Resource drains are a lazy pvp addition at best, disrespectful addition more realistically. If more people start using these there will be no elite PVPers, no one to aspire to be like, no more competitiveness, no more builds. You will have solved you balance issues however. When everyone starts using resource drains the only thing anyone will have left will be light and heavy attacks. Resource drain poisons are the cowardly way of getting easy kills and easy AP. And honestly if you like the idea PVP being easy, shame on you. This is the worst kind of punishment. And the punishment is compounded upon smaller groups or dare I say 1vXers. This just reinforces the numbers game. If you use and can honestly defend these I seriously question your PVPness (haha gross), but that's just me.

Solution? Remove them before you add anything else.

Honorable gimmick mentions (more so just annoying or silly)

5. Keep leapers. You know the folks who jump onto a keep with the walls still up. Sometimes this is funny though. Especially when they get dizzying blowed right back off to death.
6. Walls that magically repair themselves... and the repo team spamming to keep them above 95%.
7. Emperor batswarm spam... This really isn't a big deal at all, I'm just sick of that screeching sound.
8. Blackwater blade. Ijs, I can have max champ points and access to crafting the best gear in the game against a new player trying to learn how to PVP. I wouldn't even bother lol.
9. Droppin' teabags when you had vastly superior numbers, or even worse, after you get rezzed. You didn't earn that...
10. Last but MOST...Cyrodiil lag and PVP slide shows. Worst of the worst.

Fml that was a long post…. I'm sure there's plenty of other gimmickiness, but these are just from my personal POV.

Good post OP a lot of relevant issues mentioned. You weren't around for the problems re the first two so I'll try and give some info on them.

Blocking was a real problem when it got a nerf. People were permanently blocking almost all the damage they received and still doing damage with block casting. If you search block casting and read the posts from 2014 you can see some of the issues.

Dodge roll was also a problem once they removed caps because like streak people could get pools and regen up to the point where they could infinitely spam them. With roll dodge you mitigate all incoming damage so your opponent goes through resources quickly while the dodge roll build didn't. You also have Skirmisher set which gives a boost to damage and the new sets that drop a poison ring and another that does damage to people you roll through.

I'm not a big fan of Vicious and yes your right zerg buster was the intention but zergs use it as well. Maybe at a poison to friendly players within a certain distance of it as a balance? Poisons are new so some fine tuning still to go with them imo.

I loved DK leap into inner keeps. It added another strategy both for offence and defence with just one class able to do it. Having everyone able to do it and by pass outer and inner walls was rubbish but still I would have preferred a fix for the other skills and they should have left DK leap alone imo.

BWB is a no CP campaign.

I agree re teabagging in those circumstances but at the same time in my experience there is a lot less of it in ESO than in most FPS games.

Lag is an ongoing battle for Brian Wheeler and his team. They are trying to fix it but it has been around for awhile unfortunately.

Viper_T

Awesome responses! Thanks for all the insight. I checked many of the old threads on blocking and dodge rolling and yea they were definitely a problem. People found some seriously exploitable loop holes which ruined a lot. Nerf required to cap exploits... I get that, happens in every game and it always sucks. Honestly 1 and 2 are work aroundable. And dodge roll isn't nerfed so bad that it's unusable.

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Do keep in mind OP that PvE and PvP balancing a tied together, which means a change targeted at one side will inevitably affect the other.

3) Like all fixes that ZOS likes to do, Vicious Death was their solution to their servers being unable to take the load of anything more then a 36 combatant fight. The faster combatants are killed, the less stress on the server there is. This is a band aid fix to an issue that solely rests with ZOS.

4) Poisons was a long requested feature by many players in the community, to which ZOS eventually added into the game. The existence of Poisons and it's mechanics is still a hotly debated topic. In a way, poisons bring back sanity to a combat system that has spired out of control due to unchecked stats and resource gains. A no cooldown system like ESO only works when resources are highly limited and regeneration slow. Anything else breaks the system and results in cooldowns. (Bolt Escape cost, Dodge cost, Block regen for examples)

The explanation for vicious death makes sense. Still feels like player punishment. But understandable until a resolution for stability issues can be met.

I still can't get behind poisons... I know some players have builds that allow for crazy sustain which honestly adds a level of excitement and satisfaction. It's like fighting a pvp human boss battle, and who doesn't love a good boss battle! And since anyone can potentially work themselves up to boss status, it's inspires players to keep getting better. I don't just want to beat those players, I wanna be like them... or even better if the game allows it. I see resource drain poisons as a way to put the really good players on par with the really mediocre players 'because everyone should be a winner'.

Now I'm not saying all poisons are bad. The movement hindering, reduced skill/armor effectiveness, dot poisons are totally reasonable. Most poisons are buff counters which makes sense. The only poisons that are an issue to me are the resource drains. Using/having resources is the only way to actually pvp and resource management should be a personal responsibility. Your ability to PVP (and I mean this literally by way of inputting commands and expecting a desired response) shouldn't be predicated on the basis of an almost pay to win mechanic (poisons aren't free and resources take continuous farming in one way or another to acquire).

So in the end why try to be great at PVP? Why spend so much effort trying to get better when all it takes is a proc to almost entirely negate all the gains you worked so hard to achieve? And yea, I'm being a tad bit dramatic lol... but it's because I really, really love PVP and have a lot of respect for the great ones.

Viper_T

Curragraigue wrote: »

I loved DK leap into inner keeps. It added another strategy both for offence and defence with just one class able to do it. Having everyone able to do it and by pass outer and inner walls was rubbish but still I would have preferred a fix for the other skills and they should have left DK leap alone imo.

"How'd he get up here!!" I actually kinda like this too but I can see how people would get totally upset about it.

Curragraigue wrote: »

BWB is a no CP campaign.

I stand corrected, I thought champion points were in effect in BWB.

Curragraigue wrote: »

I agree re teabagging in those circumstances but at the same time in my experience there is a lot less of it in ESO than in most FPS games.

Much less, but i'm glad it's around. No one deserves a teabag more than the guy who fails at a gank attempt. Happens to me all the time lol.

Curragraigue wrote: »

Lag is an ongoing battle for Brian Wheeler and his team. They are trying to fix it but it has been around for awhile unfortunately

I totally get this and I truly believe they're working hard to fix it. Lag issues aren't breaking the game for me. But they do suck and if they were fixed it would be awesome'er.

DeanTheCat

Viper_T wrote: »

Awesome responses! Thanks for all the insight. I checked many of the old threads on blocking and dodge rolling and yea they were definitely a problem. People found some seriously exploitable loop holes which ruined a lot. Nerf required to cap exploits... I get that, happens in every game and it always sucks. Honestly 1 and 2 are work aroundable. And dodge roll isn't nerfed so bad that it's unusable.

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Do keep in mind OP that PvE and PvP balancing a tied together, which means a change targeted at one side will inevitably affect the other.

3) Like all fixes that ZOS likes to do, Vicious Death was their solution to their servers being unable to take the load of anything more then a 36 combatant fight. The faster combatants are killed, the less stress on the server there is. This is a band aid fix to an issue that solely rests with ZOS.

4) Poisons was a long requested feature by many players in the community, to which ZOS eventually added into the game. The existence of Poisons and it's mechanics is still a hotly debated topic. In a way, poisons bring back sanity to a combat system that has spired out of control due to unchecked stats and resource gains. A no cooldown system like ESO only works when resources are highly limited and regeneration slow. Anything else breaks the system and results in cooldowns. (Bolt Escape cost, Dodge cost, Block regen for examples)

The explanation for vicious death makes sense. Still feels like player punishment. But understandable until a resolution for stability issues can be met.

I still can't get behind poisons... I know some players have builds that allow for crazy sustain which honestly adds a level of excitement and satisfaction. It's like fighting a pvp human boss battle, and who doesn't love a good boss battle! And since anyone can potentially work themselves up to boss status, it's inspires players to keep getting better. I don't just want to beat those players, I wanna be like them... or even better if the game allows it. I see resource drain poisons as a way to put the really good players on par with the really mediocre players 'because everyone should be a winner'.

Now I'm not saying all poisons are bad. The movement hindering, reduced skill/armor effectiveness, dot poisons are totally reasonable. Most poisons are buff counters which makes sense. The only poisons that are an issue to me are the resource drains. Using/having resources is the only way to actually pvp and resource management should be a personal responsibility. Your ability to PVP (and I mean this literally by way of inputting commands and expecting a desired response) shouldn't be predicated on the basis of an almost pay to win mechanic (poisons aren't free and resources take continuous farming in one way or another to acquire).

So in the end why try to be great at PVP? Why spend so much effort trying to get better when all it takes is a proc to almost entirely negate all the gains you worked so hard to achieve? And yea, I'm being a tad bit dramatic lol... but it's because I really, really love PVP and have a lot of respect for the great ones.

I don't think you'll find any reasonable (Balance wise) person who disagrees with you that resources poisons are at this moment severely overtuned. However, the fact remains that regeneration is currently out of control due to the champion system.

A week or two ago on the PC-EU megaserver, there was a duel between a two highly skilled, armed-to-the-teeth players which lasted 3 hours, simply by virtue of the fact that neither could run the other out of resources. The removal of softcaps has made all of us used to the idea that we can spam away without any concerns.

In case you are wondering what stats looked like when softcaps were still in place, take a look at this picture.



If you wish to see how your stats would have looked like then, simply remove the last digit from your stats, as when they removed softcaps, they also multiplied all stats by 10. Compare what is currently considered to be a "Decent" regeneration value, then take a look at the picture. ESO combat was built around those limits, and since those limits have been removed during an era of lack of foresight by the devs; the resulting change broke the combat and rendered many playstyles invalid. There is basically only 2-3 viable builds per class/spec now, whereas we used to have round 30-40 in the past.

Even though resource poisons are another band aid fix to an issue that ZOS has allowed to fester for so long, a band aid is still a fix of sorts, and allows players to attempt to bring back sanity to the combat. I fully agree with you that the current 60% is completely overtuned, and that number should be round 25% instead of 60%. Better yet would to incorporate a cost increase into the battle spirit buff and remove the poisons, but I don't think ZOS will dare to implement such a move.

However, all that being said, the root of the problem still remains and until that is fixed, everything else is nothing more then treating the symptoms instead of the disease.

Mayrael

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Do keep in mind OP that PvE and PvP balancing a tied together, which means a change targeted at one side will inevitably affect the other.

1) The Stam Regen block nerf was the result of certain 3k stamina regeneration medium armour permanent block builds, which had enough regeneration and damage to deal respectable damage while mitigating 80-90% of incoming damage. This combined with Malubeth and the Master's Sword created a cheese combo of which the only counter was the Nightblade's fear, and even then, these builds used immovablity potions to negate that weakness, resulting in a build that simply couldn't be killed without superior numbers.

2) Due to regeneration stats going out of control with the champion system and the removal of softcaps, dodge roll went out of control. Dodge roll was never meant to be spammed like it is today, as in the original game design of 1.0, dodge was a powerful tool that allowed you to disjoint all incoming projectiles for one second at the cost of round 25% of your stamina. This high cost encouraged tactical use of rolling to avoid the heaviest hits instead of every single attack. Dodge roll builds in 1.6 combined the broken mechanic with the Crusader set (Which was designed to be used with the 1.0 style of combat rather then 1.6+) allowed users to dance round whole armies unable to take any damage at all, as the Crusader set ensures that there are no vulnerability windows between dodges. Add this to the fact that you can use a roll to animation cancel something like Critical Rush, and you have a really potent (and broken) combo.

3) Like all fixes that ZOS likes to do, Vicious Death was their solution to their servers being unable to take the load of anything more then a 36 combatant fight. The faster combatants are killed, the less stress on the server there is. This is a band aid fix to an issue that solely rests with ZOS.

4) Poisons was a long requested feature by many players in the community, to which ZOS eventually added into the game. The existence of Poisons and it's mechanics is still a hotly debated topic. In a way, poisons bring back sanity to a combat system that has spired out of control due to unchecked stats and resource gains. A no cooldown system like ESO only works when resources are highly limited and regeneration slow. Anything else breaks the system and results in cooldowns. (Bolt Escape cost, Dodge cost, Block regen for examples)

In the end, most of your gripes stem from the fallout that the champion system has left in its wake. The current system as-is is broken, and the game is being balanced round a broken system. I wrote a long thread about the championship system and the impact it is having on the game round a year+ ago. The link to that thread can be found in my signature.

Edit: Spelling

THIS. Changes that were made was made because we (players) asked for them. Why we asked for them? Because with removing soft caps and implementing CPs some things went out of controll. #bringbacksoftcaps

SlowMetabolism

Sure you cant attack while dodge rolling but I remember when the game came out on console the transfers from PC were 1vX'ing in keep towers after it was taken. Just spam dodgeroll then bam heavy incap 1 down 8 more to go. Rinse and repeat.

DHale

I am certainly glad soft caps are gone I like being able to constantly advance my character free of artificial barriers. I hated them when they were in.

Sureshawt

Well most of your original post is incorrect.

For example, you can block cast and you can attack with a dodge roll as it can be used to animation cancel attack through an opponent.

As for these poisons just don't seem to proc reliably as weapon enchants and in PvP I want reliable. The most dangerous effects of poisons don't last long. I also just don't see them on my character very often in PvP which leads me to believe most players have also come to the same conclusion.

However, I was OK with weapon enchant procs but these new sets that proc crazy amounts of damage are indeed gimmickry. It takes away a lot of the skill/timing/judgment etc. out of the player and puts in the hands of RNG.

Seido_Tensei_

Viper_T wrote: »

So here goes,

Gimmick 4: Resource drain poisons – What the actual s***… This is the most heartbreaking addition to any pvp I’ve ever seen. The aforementioned pales in comparison to the level of disrespect this addition brings. This is what kills PVP the most for me. How is this a good addition in any respect? Resource drain poisons don’t add a layer of complexity; they remove all of them. You spend months finding, crafting, and refining gear sets. Hours and hours refining champion point selection to ensure a level of sustain that makes you one of those feared, elite PVPers. And here comes the most cowardly PVPer spamming whatever attack with resource drain poisons ensuring all your sustain and honestly all your efforts to PVP at all are wasted. Seriously, I can’t hate this enough. All the players who actually spent time trying to find the best skill combinations, the best gear sets, the best anything get dumped on. Hard. Resource drains are a lazy pvp addition at best, disrespectful addition more realistically. If more people start using these there will be no elite PVPers, no one to aspire to be like, no more competitiveness, no more builds. You will have solved you balance issues however. When everyone starts using resource drains the only thing anyone will have left will be light and heavy attacks. Resource drain poisons are the cowardly way of getting easy kills and easy AP. And honestly if you like the idea PVP being easy, shame on you. This is the worst kind of punishment. And the punishment is compounded upon smaller groups or dare I say 1vXers. This just reinforces the numbers game. If you use and can honestly defend these I seriously question your PVPness (haha gross), but that's just me.

I was with you until #4. I have spoken up in defense of poisons in other threads so I will so again here. Dealing with poisons is easy:

Slot purge, and when you get poisoned....use it. If you don't have enough magicka, invest in magicka sustain or run tri-food. Just like magicka classes do for stamina.

Resource poisons are not that big of an issue if you run a cleanse and have good sustain. However If you build entirely for burst dps and no resource management, I have no sympathy for you and poisons will be a hard counter to your build. I use resource poisons in open world PVP and in duels and fight people who use them against me. The effect is actually the opposite of what you claim, there is a ton more depth to fights and a ton more strategy because resource management becomes so important and not just about who can cancel attacks the fastest (which nightblades win hands down).

If everyone starts using resource poisons maybe sets like willows path would become relevant again (did they fix it?) and not the same cookie cutter "BiS" gear everyone is currently running.

@Viper_T While I appreciate your impressions as a new player, calling anyone who uses resource poisons as "lazy" is unfair.

I actually believe its the players speaking out against resource poisons that are lazy for refusing to adjust their builds to accommodate a very serious threat. @Viper_T why are you ok with proc set combinations like Viper , Velidreth, Widow maker, red mountain etc? To speak out against resource poisons without speaking out against those sets is hypocrisy at its best. There is nothing lazier than having an armor set that does damage for you every 4-10 seconds when all you have to do is breathe. The fact that was not added in #4 tells me you either don't know about them (which is unlikely) or you use them (much more likely).

Unless there is serious justification as to why a player cant slot purge and invest in magicka (or vice versa), the arguments against resource poisons are moot.

@DeanTheCat I am arguing resource poisons are fine. They able to be cleansed? Yes? No issue...move along....nothing to see here.

Lutallo

You assume that people who Perma-Block and Perma-Roll only ever do those things. The reality was, whenever a stambuild or tank would get on low health, they would pop off a heal and roll/block until they are back at full health and then go back to attacking you. So basically, they had a brief period of almost invulnerability to heal.

Back in the day, if you came across a stambuild with Vigor who had enough regen to perma-roll, they were literally impossible to kill unless you could burst them down in the space of a CC. The same with tanks who could sustain permanent blocking.

ToRelax

Seido_Tensei_ wrote: »

Viper_T wrote: »

So here goes,

Gimmick 4: Resource drain poisons – What the actual s***… This is the most heartbreaking addition to any pvp I’ve ever seen. The aforementioned pales in comparison to the level of disrespect this addition brings. This is what kills PVP the most for me. How is this a good addition in any respect? Resource drain poisons don’t add a layer of complexity; they remove all of them. You spend months finding, crafting, and refining gear sets. Hours and hours refining champion point selection to ensure a level of sustain that makes you one of those feared, elite PVPers. And here comes the most cowardly PVPer spamming whatever attack with resource drain poisons ensuring all your sustain and honestly all your efforts to PVP at all are wasted. Seriously, I can’t hate this enough. All the players who actually spent time trying to find the best skill combinations, the best gear sets, the best anything get dumped on. Hard. Resource drains are a lazy pvp addition at best, disrespectful addition more realistically. If more people start using these there will be no elite PVPers, no one to aspire to be like, no more competitiveness, no more builds. You will have solved you balance issues however. When everyone starts using resource drains the only thing anyone will have left will be light and heavy attacks. Resource drain poisons are the cowardly way of getting easy kills and easy AP. And honestly if you like the idea PVP being easy, shame on you. This is the worst kind of punishment. And the punishment is compounded upon smaller groups or dare I say 1vXers. This just reinforces the numbers game. If you use and can honestly defend these I seriously question your PVPness (haha gross), but that's just me.

I was with you until #4. I have spoken up in defense of poisons in other threads so I will so again here. Dealing with poisons is easy:

Slot purge, and when you get poisoned....use it. If you don't have enough magicka, invest in magicka sustain or run tri-food. Just like magicka classes do for stamina.

Resource poisons are not that big of an issue if you run a cleanse and have good sustain. However If you build entirely for burst dps and no resource management, I have no sympathy for you and poisons will be a hard counter to your build. I use resource poisons in open world PVP and in duels and fight people who use them against me. The effect is actually the opposite of what you claim, there is a ton more depth to fights and a ton more strategy because resource management becomes so important and not just about who can cancel attacks the fastest (which nightblades win hands down).

If everyone starts using resource poisons maybe sets like willows path would become relevant again (did they fix it?) and not the same cookie cutter "BiS" gear everyone is currently running.

Viper_T While I appreciate your impressions as a new player, calling anyone who uses resource poisons as "lazy" is unfair.

I actually believe its the players speaking out against resource poisons that are lazy for refusing to adjust their builds to accommodate a very serious threat. Viper_T why are you ok with proc set combinations like Viper , Velidreth, Widow maker, red mountain etc? To speak out against resource poisons without speaking out against those sets is hypocrisy at its best. There is nothing lazier than having an armor set that does damage for you every 4-10 seconds when all you have to do is breathe. The fact that was not added in #4 tells me you either don't know about them (which is unlikely) or you use them (much more likely).

Unless there is serious justification as to why a player cant slot purge and invest in magicka (or vice versa), the arguments against resource poisons are moot.

DeanTheCat I am arguing resource poisons are fine. They able to be cleansed? Yes? No issue...move along....nothing to see here.

When I'm fighting in a heavily outnumbered situation, I am poisoned constantly. Purging it in that case means sacrificing my Shuffle for Purge and relying on my group to heal and kill enemies while I spam the *** out of Purge. Otherwise I (and everyone else) just get poisoned again within a few seconds, provided it was the poison effect that was removed in the first place, and not some snare or Entropy dot. Fortunately, it's not viable to just spam one button in a small group, so mst of the time we just have to deal with 60% increased costs...
Yet when it comes to sustain setups, there hardly is anything above mine, with Lich+Amberplasm.

a1i3nz

PVP in ESO = A bunch of cheesey builds running in zergs

And the worst part is how predictable it's become. Everyone rolls the meta, PVP is a meta fest. This time it's proc sets. Next time, who knows. Invincible builds?

Honestly there needs to be a revamping of Cyrodil. Change how the campaign is won and how Emp is attained besides who had the most AP. Currently you need to pretty much plant yourself in front of your computer/console for days to get emp. Really? The guy who can play the longest (and who is more often than not, boosting) gets emp and that's it. So lame that people with jobs have to take off work, pray you have a 3 day weekend at the beginning of a campaign, etc.

Also maybe make rewards not complete crap.

It's becoming stagnant. I get on, maybe play my nightblade and bomb a zerg, play my Templar and run with a group. For what? To capture a map for someone who plays 24/7 to get emp again? Or to get rewards for the worthless.

I like killing people in a big open world. Been doing it for 2,100 hours. But nothing has changed in that time. Only sets. And nerf this, buff that. Could there maybe be weekly games or goals or something idk anything else? Maybe with each DLC, add a new story or objective to cyrodil. Maybe a new PVE aspect in PVP.

geonsocal

dang...and I thought I was long winded and ran off at the fingers @Viper_T ...just kidding

what you wrote came across as sincere, we'll thought out and most importantly - intetesting...

really enjoying everyone's honest input...one of my favorite threads in awhile...

it's a challenge have to constantly adapt to changes to pvp play that come along with different updates...

it's even more challenging at times to be unique in builds and gameplay...thanks for the thread....captain rank in 2 months sounds pretty darn good to me...I've been in cyro over a year and still don't have a 1sgt with any characters (i'm getting close though )...

GreenSoup2HoT

Out of all the changes that have happend in Cryodill... there is one that really grinds my gears. No stamina regeneration while Sprinting. This is such a core element of the game for all players. Since when was using speed and smart positioning an issue.

olsborg

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Do keep in mind OP that PvE and PvP balancing a tied together, which means a change targeted at one side will inevitably affect the other.

1) The Stam Regen block nerf was the result of certain 3k stamina regeneration medium armour permanent block builds, which had enough regeneration and damage to deal respectable damage while mitigating 80-90% of incoming damage. This combined with Malubeth and the Master's Sword created a cheese combo of which the only counter was the Nightblade's fear, and even then, these builds used immovablity potions to negate that weakness, resulting in a build that simply couldn't be killed without superior numbers.

2) Due to regeneration stats going out of control with the champion system and the removal of softcaps, dodge roll went out of control. Dodge roll was never meant to be spammed like it is today, as in the original game design of 1.0, dodge was a powerful tool that allowed you to disjoint all incoming projectiles for one second at the cost of round 25% of your stamina. This high cost encouraged tactical use of rolling to avoid the heaviest hits instead of every single attack. Dodge roll builds in 1.6 combined the broken mechanic with the Crusader set (Which was designed to be used with the 1.0 style of combat rather then 1.6+) allowed users to dance round whole armies unable to take any damage at all, as the Crusader set ensures that there are no vulnerability windows between dodges. Add this to the fact that you can use a roll to animation cancel something like Critical Rush, and you have a really potent (and broken) combo.

3) Like all fixes that ZOS likes to do, Vicious Death was their solution to their servers being unable to take the load of anything more then a 36 combatant fight. The faster combatants are killed, the less stress on the server there is. This is a band aid fix to an issue that solely rests with ZOS.

4) Poisons was a long requested feature by many players in the community, to which ZOS eventually added into the game. The existence of Poisons and it's mechanics is still a hotly debated topic. In a way, poisons bring back sanity to a combat system that has spired out of control due to unchecked stats and resource gains. A no cooldown system like ESO only works when resources are highly limited and regeneration slow. Anything else breaks the system and results in cooldowns. (Bolt Escape cost, Dodge cost, Block regen for examples)

In the end, most of your gripes stem from the fallout that the champion system has left in its wake. The current system as-is is broken, and the game is being balanced round a broken system. I wrote a long thread about the championship system and the impact it is having on the game round a year+ ago. The link to that thread can be found in my signature.

Edit: Spelling

Well put Dean. My 2 top opinions and wishes for pvp combat specificly: Revamp CP so it has less of an impact or matters less to combat then it currently does. Nerf the impact on poisons somewhat, for example, resource cost poisons should be at 30% not 60%.

Lava_Croft

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

Out of all the changes that have happend in Cryodill... there is one that really grinds my gears. No stamina regeneration while Sprinting. This is such a core element of the game for all players. Since when was using speed and smart positioning an issue.

Since it made complete scrubs unable to kill you because it meant they had to AND rotate their view to aim at you AND press at least a single button to fire a skill. That's why the game is drowning in (gap closer) snares, roots and stuns while Wrobel keeps adding proc gear that requires the least amount of skill possible for a maximum gain.

MrJKurayami

The issue is that ZoS cannot program their way out of a paper bag. We were shipped a broken game on first day release. Then after all the bad publicity tried to save the game. Scores of idiots still game them tons of money for a broken game, because they are MMO and ES fan boys. And so now we are three years down the line with the same broken code. The only way to fix it is going to be like Runescape. Realize the *** is old and busted and make it better. But because too many people are still choking on developer ***, we'll never truly have a fully functional ESO MMO.

a1i3nz

PvP is a try hard/cry hard fest