[THEORY] ZOS and the Collapse of Balance - Low Standards or Misguided Priorities?

Parasaurolophus

Maybe the real reason balance feels like it’s collapsing is simply because ZOS has low standards. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that “normal” content is literally called “normal,” rather than “simplified mode” or just “easy mode.” In ZOS’s view, veteran difficulty might already count as something truly challenging, which is why they’re fine with the idea that it should require restrictions - in other words, meta builds. Put more simply - as long as skills or sets perform well enough in normal and overland content, ZOS is satisfied.

Most likely, they’re relying on statistics that show normal content is incredibly popular. But those numbers ignore the fact that a significant portion of normal runs are only done for filling out the stickerbook, farming transmute crystals, or grinding XP - not because the content is genuinely fun. Honestly, I don’t see how raw data alone can give a real picture of whether players actually enjoy certain content. That’s where live gameplay experience matters. And maybe that’s why it’s hard for ZOS to understand the laser-focused meta - the data tells them that plenty of other setups are “good enough.”

Of course, I’m not saying ZOS should ignore the experience of new or casual players. Definitely not. But there should be some kind of threshold - below which balance simply doesn’t matter as much as it does at higher difficulties. If my theory is right, it seems like ZOS doesn’t recognize such a threshold.

Let’s be honest: even veteran content has always been fairly easy - basically normal, just a bit longer. Only hard modes provide any meaningful challenge for PvE. The truth is, there are a lot of players in this game who play very poorly, for many reasons. Some just don’t want to improve their build or practice their skills. But another reason is the steep learning curve of the combat system. ZOS knew this and tried to “raise the floor” by making DoTs longer and weaker, shifting the focus to direct damage. But in practice, that change made things even worse. If they had more hands-on gameplay experience, they might have realized that weaker players mainly struggle with low APM - and for them, inconsistent uptime on short DoTs was still better than a heavy reliance on direct damage.

The popularity of heavy attack builds proves this, and I thought the Arcanist, with its more flexible rotation, was meant to be an answer for those players. But again, ZOS seems to lack real gameplay experience to understand that people want to play different classes regardless of their personal skill level. And ZOS just ignores that, because at the most popular difficulty levels, it doesn’t matter.

In the end, this is only my theory. For a long time, I thought ZOS was simply too focused on cranking out new content and didn’t have time for balance. But the developers’ responses on Reddit - and that infamous stream we don’t talk about - were honestly shocking. Many players keep calling for “better feedback,” not realizing that feedback by itself isn’t a cure-all. Without direct gameplay experience, feedback is useless, because ZOS doesn’t even understand the problems players are talking about. That Reddit thread made that painfully clear.

moderatelyfatman

@Parasaurolophus
I'm going to have to disagree with one of your points here.

Veteran content has not always been easy. I've heard from beta era players that when Craglorn started, 30k dps was considered good. In my own experience I remember having to work hard to do a 40k dps parse just to be able to qualify for a prog group on my stamplar. And I remember said prog group that failing week after week in Cloudrest because players kept dying or taking too long to do the portal phases for Z'maja.

When you look at veteran content in that light, I wouldn't dismiss it as easy. The problem is that power creep with players easily doing 3-4 times as much damage as they were when the older content came out. Players now have hybridisation, scribing (Banner), mythics and overpowered 5 piece item sets and group buffing sets (Encratis, RoJo, Elemental Catalyst etc). There has been no adjustment of the older content to take this into account.

You also have a player base now with an average skill level that is much lower than 5 years ago. Where you previously had to pay much more attention to sustain, positioning, mechanics and managing your rotation; a lot of content now can be blasted through with either a green beam or a good heavy attack build. This has created a vicious cycle where the skill level required in newer content now reflects the new standards.

So I believe the problem isn't that content is too easy but power creep is completely out of control. Sadly, this game focusses too much on overpowered items to sell its new content rather than new gameplay experiences so I don't see things changing.

Soarora

I'm not sure if I'd call it low standards. But yes, the concept of "not everyone's good" and "the majority" certainly explain some things. That said, the real problem is how complicated it is to make a build and that most combinations are simply terrible, not that players are doomed to be bad at the game (ex. my main with a bad build requires 3 skills to kill something that my off-meta frost warden can kill with 1 skill-- major difference in overland). ZOS should target the knowledge and overload of bad sets problem instead of aiming to shoot down the ceiling.

moderatelyfatman

Soarora wrote: »

I'm not sure if I'd call it low standards. But yes, the concept of "not everyone's good" and "the majority" certainly explain some things. That said, the real problem is how complicated it is to make a build and that most combinations are simply terrible, not that players are doomed to be bad at the game (ex. my main with a bad build requires 3 skills to kill something that my off-meta frost warden can kill with 1 skill-- major difference in overland). ZOS should target the knowledge and overload of bad sets problem instead of aiming to shoot down the ceiling.

Once again, power creep. I don't think ZOS can do much about it since it is the main basis they sell new content. You have players (mainly PvPers) who will buy entire chapters just to get one item that will give them the edge.

What ZOS needs to offer new playstyles. As much as I have complained about the Arcanist, my issue is that it is overpowered but I feel that it did offer something genuinely new in terms of playstyle. New playstyles can allow players to return to old content with a new experience.

Stamicka

There's a recent quote from Rich Lambert that I think you will find very enlightening. He was asked about balance and meta in an interview. Rich Lambert gave the following response:

“I'm really happy with it, overall, just the amount of customisation that is now possible as a result of that is mind-blowing,” he says. “There's a ‘meta’, right? People say this is the only way you can do a thing. I love going against that, pushing the boundaries, and showing this group does it this way, and that works for them, but this works for me.

“I think overall it's been really positive in the community. I mean, obviously, there's feedback, especially at the top end, where they're like, ‘Now everything's the same.’ Only because you want it to be that way.”

“We went in eyes wide open,” he says. “We’re confident enough that we know the system's going to work, but we're also confident that players are going to find unique combinations of things, or do things that we didn't necessarily think about and potentially break things. We were comfortable with that. We knew that was going to come.”

Full interview here: https://www.thegamer.com/elder-scrolls-online-interview-directors-leads-sublassing-controversy-balancing-stop-killing-games/


Anyway what I gather is that Rich Lambert seems to be under the impression that players create the meta and you don't have to follow it. Most content in the game can be cleared with MUCH lower DPS than what is achievable with current builds. Of course, we've seen this argument a million times on the forums by now. I don't even need to get into why I disagree with the argument at this point.

They are "comfortable" potentially breaking the game I guess. So.. idk what else can be said at this point.

EDIT: I'm just going to make a thread about this since it sort of shows where the developer's minds are at.

aetherix8

Normal difficulty isn’t too easy, be it overland or in group instances. I regularly see low level players taking quite some time to delete a pack of overland wolves for example.

The damage went through the roof though, to a point where completing vet hm base dungeons doesn’t represent any challenge whatsoever. Bosses melt down in seconds and you never get to see their mechanics anymore.

Yesterday I was in the vet VoM; it’s my favorite base game dungeon after CoA. It’s been a very long time I didn’t run it and I was genuinely looking forward to completing it. Except that our pug just beamed through with an unprecedented speed. The Mad Architect melted down like an ice cube during a heatwave. This was disappointing and not fun at all. I was truly upset and I still feel this way. It’s the same story in all the dungeons I’ve run during this event: beam the hell out of it in a few minutes and that’s it. All challenge has evaporated, and so has fun.

This is an extremely boring and unrewarding experience. No point participating in it. I have 3 days left to get to 10 tickets, 1 dungeon per day, once I get there I’m done with this event, and any group content until this power creep is dealt with.

I’m against making normal content difficulty harder because it will punish new players. It’s the power creep that has to be fixed.