Sypher's observations about the state of eso pvp....

CameraBeardThePirate

Sluggy wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

...are pretty much the same as every decent player:

- too much healing
- sustain is too easy
- duels and open world 1v1s are usually not enjoyable
- too tanky
- too much hp
- high ttk, long drawn out fights

He was playing in Cyro and doing as well as anyone, but didn't seem to be having fun, so instead he showed his audience how much more fun ESO PVP used to be by showing them his videos from 2015 and 2016. The gameplay was SO MUCH BETTER.

The only thing I disagree with here is the TTK. It's actually insanely low. Less than two or three seconds in most cases. But the other factors mentioned make it so that full recovery and a hard reset of a fight are easy to achieve if they don't die outright. I say it every time this pops up. Fight entropy. There needs to be an inevitable march toward a conclusion.

TTK is only low when the target player isn't playing or built optimally.

This is because the real problem is that ESO no longer has any give or take in builds. Sustain is mind numbingly easy these days, and stacking 40k+ health has virtually no downside.

As a result, if you don't know what you're doing, you'll die pretty quick since numbers are inflated across the board and damage is high.

If you know what you're doing however, you can simply continue to heal and shield and basically never run out of resources to do so unless you make a mistake (or rather, many mistakes).

The game is far too stalematey when players know what they're doing because sustain is FAR too easy.

fizzylu

Desiato wrote: »

Here's a vod of the stream, just before he seemed to get bored of cyro.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2306687114?t=03h06m24s

Man, I just made the mistake of watching him rewatching his old PvP videos. Now it's fully reminded me of how different and happy I was playing ESO PvP back in the day.... it's just depressing, haha.

StarOfElyon

fizzylu wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Here's a vod of the stream, just before he seemed to get bored of cyro.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2306687114?t=03h06m24s

Man, I just made the mistake of watching him rewatching his old PvP videos. Now it's fully reminded me of how different and happy I was playing ESO PvP back in the day.... it's just depressing, haha.

I never really forgot because for the longest time, I resisted the proc set meta and I insisted on using only stat based sets all the way to 2024. Proc sets CARRIED and stat based sets didn't. Earlier this year, I finally said eff it and started using proc sets. There are some good stat based sets coming along, HOWEVER, there is also POWER CREEP and if you are not using these sets you can easily fall behind no matter how good you are technically at PvP. Now, even these stat based sets can CARRY because they are so much stronger than the majority of other sets in the game. With every update, the sets get stronger and stronger. The builds get insane.

New Moon Acolyte doesn't even get brought up these days. It got left in the dust. It used to be my favorite when playing a hybrid was still a niche way to play. I miss playing my hybrid characters back then, when I actually had to sacrifice and couldn't use magicka or stamina skills equally well unless I played a hybrid race. I challenged myself further by playing Altmer and Redguard hybrids. I even got a whisper once from someone who wondered if I was actually playing a Redguard out there in Cyrodiil. Sigh. Now there's nothing unique about playing hybrids, everyone is wearing almost the exact same sets, and if you don't wear the same sets you are going to struggle mightily.

fizzylu

@StarOfElyon
Oh yeah, the initial proc set meta back in Greymoor was one of the first times where I had to consider taking a long break from this game because of a combat change. I never conformed to the proc sets either, but that does not mean I didn't feel like I had to try and I even did.... but overall I just hate the playstyle and my classic build is just more for me, even if I feel like I'm doing ten times more work with significantly less pay-off (which does occasionally get to me and make me feel negatively about the current state of the game, not going to lie).

But over the years, where I've taken multiple breaks from the game, even quite long ones and have come back.... I think I've become somewhat numb and sadly even used to what PvP combat has become. And at least before the BG update I could still have some fun and get some laughs out of it, but now I can't even do that.... so seeing Sypher go from just having an "it is what it is" kind of time in BGs, to clearly being bored in Cyrodiil, to suddenly a whole nother level of eyes lit up, smiling and laughing on top of the audio of the videos of the old gameplay where he's clearly having a terrific time.... yeah, it took me back. Especially when he was also saying things about the direction combat has gone that a lot of us on the forums have been saying for years.... yet somehow Zenimax doesn't see any of it, especially not as a problem. It's really just kind of sad.

RomanRex

As someone who doesn’t play the game anymore, I don’t particularly care what he thinks. We needed someone who is a regular and knows the struggles of the current meta. The nostalgia vibe was very bad marketing and everyone always remembers things as being better than they were.

I wish they could have paid someone who is actively playing/streaming the game currently. Would have made for a better stream IMO with better interactions.

kyle.wilson

RomanRex wrote: »

As someone who doesn’t play the game anymore, I don’t particularly care what he thinks. We needed someone who is a regular and knows the struggles of the current meta. The nostalgia vibe was very bad marketing and everyone always remembers things as being better than they were.

I wish they could have paid someone who is actively playing/streaming the game currently. Would have made for a better stream IMO with better interactions.

Well Sypher did show off the stellar playstyle that is new battlegrounds. We might even get 1 or 2 of those 7 million followers to play the game.
A pvp system where no one dies. Sounds super awsome.

Sluggy

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

...are pretty much the same as every decent player:

- too much healing
- sustain is too easy
- duels and open world 1v1s are usually not enjoyable
- too tanky
- too much hp
- high ttk, long drawn out fights

He was playing in Cyro and doing as well as anyone, but didn't seem to be having fun, so instead he showed his audience how much more fun ESO PVP used to be by showing them his videos from 2015 and 2016. The gameplay was SO MUCH BETTER.

The only thing I disagree with here is the TTK. It's actually insanely low. Less than two or three seconds in most cases. But the other factors mentioned make it so that full recovery and a hard reset of a fight are easy to achieve if they don't die outright. I say it every time this pops up. Fight entropy. There needs to be an inevitable march toward a conclusion.

TTK is only low when the target player isn't playing or built optimally.

This is because the real problem is that ESO no longer has any give or take in builds. Sustain is mind numbingly easy these days, and stacking 40k+ health has virtually no downside.

As a result, if you don't know what you're doing, you'll die pretty quick since numbers are inflated across the board and damage is high.

If you know what you're doing however, you can simply continue to heal and shield and basically never run out of resources to do so unless you make a mistake (or rather, many mistakes).

The game is far too stalematey when players know what they're doing because sustain is FAR too easy.

I think the terminology is where we disagree. To me TTK is merely how long it takes to go from 100 to 0. Assuming a person makes no effort to defend themselves I'd suggest that almost (cause there are some pretty troll builds out there I admit) no well made build is going to last more than two or three seconds if they stand there and do absolutely nothing. But when well played and well made in a 1v1 it basically can go on indefinitely. That again isn't a TTK issue. That's a lack of fight entropy. Again, your average fight ends in about two to three seconds when a combo finally lands and the opponent couldn't do anything to stop it. They were fine and life was great and then they lagged out or made a mistake and suddenly the fight was over just like that.

Let's compare that to the sweatiest, most technical kind of PvP I know - fighting games. Even when a fight is totally lopsided and one player does nothing, indeed can't because they are being juggled the entire fight, you'll rarely see a fight not last at least ten seconds. Sometimes longer. But I guarantee you than no matter how good and evenly matched both players they are there is also no fight that lasts sixty-one seconds. Or ninety-one, or whatever the game's round timer is. And there's more mechanics to go along with it. Blocks don't negate all damage and often build up weakness to other sorts of attacks if done for too long. There's also rarely any way to heal and when there is it's often a very risky move than can easily be punished if caught in the act. That's an extreme case of fight entropy for sure and many of those mechanics don't lend themselves well to ESO (like the timer). But I personally would rather see the time to kill slow down from say three seconds to ten seconds and then massively reduce the means by which a person can stall or outright reset the fight.

We all know that part of the reason we build so tanky now is because we don't want to get blown up in two or three attacks. There's basically no incentive not to build that way because the alternative is to risk dying instantly for very little extra chance to instantly kill your opponent. There's a dozen ways this could be balanced but they all come with the acceptance that most players would be dying a lot more often and would very frequently find themselves in unwinnable situations. Personally I'd be fine seeing the average time to kill a person rise from three seconds to say, ten or even twenty, if I knew that one of us would absolutely be down shortly after that timeframe. And inversely, I'd be fine dying more often if I knew that every fight I'd at least get ten to twenty seconds to make a good account of myself without instantly being blown up because someone just happened to be buffed up already when I wasn't or a sudden lag spike for just a split second happened at the worst time.

I think we can all agree that healing needs a hit. Stacking needs to go. But in general it could probably all afford to go down by another 10 or 15 percentage points. And like you said, sustain is really where things go haywire. As much as people hated the Vvardenfell patch I doubt ZoS is going to try that again. But it really kind of needs to happen in PvP at least. People should be running out of steam after short bursts. They should have to make their move and then use an escape plan. If it were me I'd probably use Battlespirit to nerf sustain a good bit and then give it back through scoring kills. But that's just one out of a dozen ways it could be addressed.