Ultimate guide to balance pvp

smtdbplus · October 2016

This is to present an idea of an approach to solve the pvp balancing issue, focusing on approach first, and puting execution discussions to the later stage.

Approach
Borrow the theory of free market and let pvp balance itself.

High level steps
1. Adopt a separated (weapon / armour) / damage / heal / cc coefficient to avoid impact to pve.
2. Generate an usage report periodically (e.g. every Monday)
3. Identify top n% (e.g. 20%) of skill usages and reduce the coefficient by m% (e.g. 10%)
4. Identify bottom n% (e.g. 20%) of skill usages and increase the coefficient by m% (e.g. 10%)
5. Disclose the changed skills to players.
6. Provide a mechanism to change the affected skills. (e.g. free crown token to refund the skill point of affected skills)
7. Assume players' behaviours will be adjusted automatically, which will be reflected in the next usage report.
8. Repeat until all the skill usage distribtion is acceptable. (e.g. Average usage of all skills are with p%, e.g. +-15%)

Pros
1. Blindfolded balancing and put the personal preferences and mis judgement (nerf screamings) out of the picture.
2. The scope of the balance can be controlled by n%, intensity controlled by m%.
3. The targeted skills will be either the skills rarelly used which have minimal impact. And the skill widely used, which is the major cause of imbalance.

Cons
1. The number of cycles required to achieve an acceptable usage distribution may take a long time, may be half a year.
2. Etc.

For discussion...

PS, apologies... my bad English...

Rohamad_Ali · October 2016

Kutsuu · October 2016

In a perfect world where everyone thought for themselves and came to reasonable conclusions based on facts, I do believe your method would work. However, ESO doesn't work that way. While there are actually many builds that perform very well, only a chosen few are used by the majority of the population. How do they choose these builds? Well, the handful of influential youtubers and streamers choose them for everyone. They come up with builds that work well for them and post a build video, which is copied by their masses of subscribers.

I believe your method would go in some interesting directions due to this lemming effect. First, the streamers may be intelligent enough to lead people in the wrong direction, effectively choosing which abilities get adjusted by influencing their followers to use the abilities that they want to be nerfed while actually using secret builds with abilities that they want buffed. Second, many strong skills and builds exist which the streamers do not use, and thus the majority of players do not use. Those builds would build in strength when they shouldn't.

Due to the complex nature of builds in ESO (less so than many other games, but more than most), it's not likely that this trend will change. Many players simply do not enjoy the tedious process that is involved in coming up with competitive builds, and will instead put their trust in their favorite streamer and play the builds they recommend. With this system in place, you will always have a "meta", consisting of whatever few builds these people are advertising, which does not necessarily represent the actual power of the skills and abilities being used, but instead reflects the popularity of the skills and abilities.

I'm personally using a build that people told me would be horrible, because "derp nobody uses drinks anymore" and "derp nobody uses medium armor anymore" ("facts" that they learned from who, I wonder?), but I find myself hanging with and killing my fair share of the heavy armor proc users who are following those popular builds. I do think it would be entertaining if my build got buffed while theirs got nerfed, but it wouldn't make the game more balanced.

Anyway as far as current "balance issues" go, I think a simple global ICD on proc damage (of 1 second, maybe even .5 seconds) would be a giant step to curing the issue. This way you're getting a max of 1 proc per round. I really don't have a problem with the proc builds unless the stars align and they land all their procs on 1 weave, leaving me unable to react and recover because my life went from nearly full to dead instantly.

Talyena · October 2016

There is perfect balance in PvP. All three sides have exactly the same classes and abilities.

As for 1v1 balance, this isn't a 1v1 game and the only way to have 1v1 balance is to do away with classes.

silky_soft · October 2016

Just nerf sorc execute passive, br, proc sets and block cost cooldown. Return camohunter back to the good old days. PvP fixed.

Drdeath20 · October 2016

Still doesn't help legit broken skills like;

eclipse and it's morphs
backlash and it's morphs
healing ritual and it's morphs
radiant aura
All the templar ultimate morphs (either too similar, don't do enough for the cost, are all useless to a stamplar, take up precious space for a better ultimate that provides better passives)

Alot of the less used skills in pvp have major problems with their base functions.

smtdbplus · October 2016

Kutsuu wrote: »

...

Agree with you. There will be situations where some skills ignored before will be buffed exponentially until someone realized that. Will be the new fotm and the cycles repeat.

The beauty of an active feedback & adjustment is that the finally the system will reach an equilibrium state, where the balance is achieved. In the real business and tech world, this happens everyday for many years.

A few understand this theory and i hope ZOS does and gives it a thought.