shadoza wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

PvE players begging devs that dont play the game to not reduce power while vet trials are being cleared in under 1 minute from extreme power creep. Quality experiences in ESO

That power creep is not caused by classes but rather by dungeon/trial gear, pots, and special group bonuses that PvE players do not have.

Every time the game is adjusted for groups or PvP, the solo players dies a little but. Eventually, they WILL stop playing completely. Been there; done that; can see the future . . . another game falls down because the focus is on group / PvP instead of the common player in PvE.

It’s pretty clear that ZOS doesn’t have the technical capability to balance PvP and PvE at the same time. I strongly recommend that ZOS separate the PvP and PvE skill systems entirely.

shadoza wrote: »

I think this game should just change the name to Elder Scrolls Scramble and drop the illusion of PvE.
PvP is supposed to be a side hustle not the backbone of the game. You keep nerfing and OPing the classes because groups in PvP cry out because they are no longer 'one-punch' man. This constant pulling and pushing is wearing out the very fabric of the game. There are thin spots already forming and players are noticing where the development favors land. Balancing does not mean you please the favorite play group; it means a player can choose whichever class that pleases them and still have an equal opportunity to win the 'race.' If a player MUST change classes to compete or complete, development has failed.

It's the first 10 years all over again. Only it's a lot worse. And this time the game population is at an all time low as the nerfs ruin every fun addition we had in the game. And any fun additions we had any hopes for, as they cater to the smallest minority in the game. Again. And yes, its spilled over and hurting PvE. Just like before. And our Guilds become more empty and leave for other games.

@Zos Why are we nerfing the refreshed characters? You are killing our Guilds! People have already left. I wish I had listened to all of the people who left when you killed the game with Subclassing. I should have and the rest of us should have quit then. Stop catering to the same people who have been chasing away your customers!

B.A.T.T.L.E S.P.I.R.I.T

Why does the PvE vs. PvP balance discussion keep roaming, when devs have the 75% balance adjustment dashboard at hand??
Guess the quote source: "My ignorance amuses me"

Vaqual wrote: »

Dizzy_Dragon wrote: »

B.A.T.T.L.E S.P.I.R.I.T

Why does the PvE vs. PvP balance discussion keep roaming, when devs have the 75% balance adjustment dashboard at hand??
Guess the quote source: "My ignorance amuses me"

Because there are genuine drawbacks to overrelying on Battlespirit, PvE power has been skyrocketing non-stop for a year, and because design quality suffers from it.

Well, in that instance I would argue that lowering power/dps overall (in open world PvE) and reducing Battle Spirit penalties would have been the way forward.
Now, Battle Spirit seems semi-static and power-creep is handled by making World enemies tougher (arguably not enough), thus forcing the whole power-floor upwards, whilst struggling with low fidelity power increment adjustments towards PvP, instead of just lowering the power reference-floor and opening up for at wider adjustment band for balancing.
I fully agree that the power curve has only gone up since 2017’ish – maybe to promote update sensations and sell stuff, I don’t know. But how its addressed and solved, needs to be more holistic from my perspective.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Can we stop pretending that unlimited power creep in PvE is a good thing?

Yes we can!


It speaks to my point of view that the power floor needs to be lowered all over, which would leave room for actual fine tuning with instruments such as Battle Spirit. But when the power floor is at the roof elevation then there's no room for anything.

Dizzy_Dragon wrote: »

B.A.T.T.L.E S.P.I.R.I.T

Why does the PvE vs. PvP balance discussion keep roaming, when devs have the 75% balance adjustment dashboard at hand??
Guess the quote source: "My ignorance amuses me"

Personally, I am never amused by ignorance.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Can we stop pretending that unlimited power creep in PvE is a good thing?

There are some things - like unlimited sustain - that are also problems in PvE. I'm sure people who crutch on broken strategies don't enjoy the idea of those things getting nerfed, but there should not be a way for one setup to be able to do everything well. Balance issues are also unhealthy in PvE.

The better answer is to stop releasing broken things so never-group PvErs stop crutching on them and then complaining that "oh, I can't play the game without it despite the fact that I played the game perfectly well for 11 years before it existed" when it finally gets its deserved nerf.

Seriously, sometimes I think people would actively defend it if ZOS released a skill called "Hand of Akatosh: Does 1,000,000,000 damage in a 100m radius for zero cost, but only works when Battle Spirit is inactive."

No. Power creep in PvE is managed by the individual. If one wants to dress out and be OP in the field so they can one-hit everything, that's on them. If one wants to dress down to role-play and not fight at all, that is also on them. If the classes, gear, weapons are nerffed so one cannot compete or complete a quest or target within the game unless they have a Max/Min build, that is on bad development strategy.

It is better to address the PvE as the base and the PvP as a side hustle so those ever-groupers can stop 'crutching' on their 'meta' gear and learn to play the game on their own. . . without depending on group bonuses.

Seriously, PvP should be staged so that each player has the same stats regardless of CP, gear worn into the fight or class choices. Gain a uniform based on DPS, Heal, Tank, and on faction choice. With that uniform, comes a set of stats that are ALL the same per role position entered as. No group bonuses, no power creeps, no dungeon gear advantages, everyone enters on a leveled playing field. Those that 'crutch' on meta gear and group bonuses wouldn't like that but more players would try PvP because they have a chance to enjoy the game rather than be rolled over out of the gate.

Too many people also believe nerfs and nerfing are the only answer. Somewhere around here I have a set of examples that show time and time again, massive dips in player count (Steam) during major nerf cycles like U35 and Oakensoul nerfs.

Nerfs are really not the wave, especially ones that unnecessarily damage the floor.

With that being said, if you’re doing blanket nerfs then it should be equivalent to all- not selective.

shadoza wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Can we stop pretending that unlimited power creep in PvE is a good thing?

There are some things - like unlimited sustain - that are also problems in PvE. I'm sure people who crutch on broken strategies don't enjoy the idea of those things getting nerfed, but there should not be a way for one setup to be able to do everything well. Balance issues are also unhealthy in PvE.

The better answer is to stop releasing broken things so never-group PvErs stop crutching on them and then complaining that "oh, I can't play the game without it despite the fact that I played the game perfectly well for 11 years before it existed" when it finally gets its deserved nerf.

Seriously, sometimes I think people would actively defend it if ZOS released a skill called "Hand of Akatosh: Does 1,000,000,000 damage in a 100m radius for zero cost, but only works when Battle Spirit is inactive."

No. Power creep in PvE is managed by the individual. If one wants to dress out and be OP in the field so they can one-hit everything, that's on them. If one wants to dress down to role-play and not fight at all, that is also on them. If the classes, gear, weapons are nerffed so one cannot compete or complete a quest or target within the game unless they have a Max/Min build, that is on bad development strategy.

It is better to address the PvE as the base and the PvP as a side hustle so those ever-groupers can stop 'crutching' on their 'meta' gear and learn to play the game on their own. . . without depending on group bonuses.

Seriously, PvP should be staged so that each player has the same stats regardless of CP, gear worn into the fight or class choices. Gain a uniform based on DPS, Heal, Tank, and on faction choice. With that uniform, comes a set of stats that are ALL the same per role position entered as. No group bonuses, no power creeps, no dungeon gear advantages, everyone enters on a leveled playing field. Those that 'crutch' on meta gear and group bonuses wouldn't like that but more players would try PvP because they have a chance to enjoy the game rather than be rolled over out of the gate.

There is a giant chasm of difference between "I can't complete this quest on Adventurer!" and "I need to min/max to scorepush Godslayer."

But fine, let's even look at some games similar to ESO, but not involving other people - kinda like "single-player ESO," if you will. There are a few games like that, maybe you've heard of them? They're called things like "Skyrim" or "Oblivion."

In those games, you have a stamina bar to handle bashing or power attacks. You also have a magicka bar to handle spellcasting. And in both of those games, it is totally possible to run out. That means that even in those single-player games that people hold up as paragons of what ESO should be, you still have to deal with sustain. Even in those games, you still have to do the fights, it doesn't just spit out the 'quest complete!' achieve as soon as you load in.

Nobody should have to min/max to do the story quests. And nobody does. But needing to look at your setup and say "hmm, I may need to change one thing and approach this differently" is not min/maxing.

shadoza wrote: »

Dizzy_Dragon wrote: »

B.A.T.T.L.E S.P.I.R.I.T

Why does the PvE vs. PvP balance discussion keep roaming, when devs have the 75% balance adjustment dashboard at hand??
Guess the quote source: "My ignorance amuses me"

Personally, I am never amused by ignorance.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Can we stop pretending that unlimited power creep in PvE is a good thing?

There are some things - like unlimited sustain - that are also problems in PvE. I'm sure people who crutch on broken strategies don't enjoy the idea of those things getting nerfed, but there should not be a way for one setup to be able to do everything well. Balance issues are also unhealthy in PvE.

The better answer is to stop releasing broken things so never-group PvErs stop crutching on them and then complaining that "oh, I can't play the game without it despite the fact that I played the game perfectly well for 11 years before it existed" when it finally gets its deserved nerf.

Seriously, sometimes I think people would actively defend it if ZOS released a skill called "Hand of Akatosh: Does 1,000,000,000 damage in a 100m radius for zero cost, but only works when Battle Spirit is inactive."

No. Power creep in PvE is managed by the individual. If one wants to dress out and be OP in the field so they can one-hit everything, that's on them. If one wants to dress down to role-play and not fight at all, that is also on them. If the classes, gear, weapons are nerffed so one cannot compete or complete a quest or target within the game unless they have a Max/Min build, that is on bad development strategy.

It is better to address the PvE as the base and the PvP as a side hustle so those ever-groupers can stop 'crutching' on their 'meta' gear and learn to play the game on their own. . . without depending on group bonuses.

Seriously, PvP should be staged so that each player has the same stats regardless of CP, gear worn into the fight or class choices. Gain a uniform based on DPS, Heal, Tank, and on faction choice. With that uniform, comes a set of stats that are ALL the same per role position entered as. No group bonuses, no power creeps, no dungeon gear advantages, everyone enters on a leveled playing field. Those that 'crutch' on meta gear and group bonuses wouldn't like that but more players would try PvP because they have a chance to enjoy the game rather than be rolled over out of the gate.

Vengeance is something similar to what you described. By the way, I’m enjoying the campaign

Wuuffyy wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

In those games, you have a stamina bar to handle bashing or power attacks. You also have a magicka bar to handle spellcasting. And in both of those games, it is totally possible to run out. That means that even in those single-player games that people hold up as paragons of what ESO should be, you still have to deal with sustain. Even in those games, you still have to do the fights, it doesn't just spit out the 'quest complete!' achieve as soon as you load in.

I don’t know about you but I had decent enchanting and alchemy- my sustain was VERY good. Only entry level (starting the game and maybe first few hours or so if not aimless) was any sort of struggle. Fun fact: werewolf had near infinite stam there too xD. (20% stam regen per second, I believe)

Anyways, not a good example of ‘I believe everything should be nerfed…. because score pushers’.

So... you had to play for a while and git gud in order to not have problems, or fall back to using strategies that are widely recognized to be broken...?

Oh, ok.

LadyGP wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Dizzy_Dragon wrote: »

B.A.T.T.L.E S.P.I.R.I.T

Why does the PvE vs. PvP balance discussion keep roaming, when devs have the 75% balance adjustment dashboard at hand??
Guess the quote source: "My ignorance amuses me"

Because there are genuine drawbacks to overrelying on Battlespirit, PvE power has been skyrocketing non-stop for a year, and because design quality suffers from it.

Then you know what they could do....

Conditional stats based on PvE/PvP.

Woah. Mind blowing. Insane. Who'd of thunk it.

You’d still have to enumerate every skill and set definition. But if the combat and item pipelines are even reasonably structured, that’s mostly a one-time schema change plus a content pass.

Once the underlying layer can accept PvE/PvP overrides, the remaining work is just mechanical: hand an intern the target values and have them walk each definition, populate the new fields, and check them in over the summer.

It's not rocket science. They could easily solve this 10 year battle of pve/pvp balancing and the nightmare that is cyrodiil because they are afraid to change things that will hurt pve... and the flip side.. things getting ruined for the trial community because pvp complainers.

I remember Rich saying forever that they would never ever do this - why.. who the hell knows... but this is something they should revisit.

Again, setup the foundation then hand it off to an intern.

Shoot.. dare I say... even... (whispers ) AI could do this extremely quick for you.. but we cant have that conversation here without getting flamed.

- xcatguy

Look, I won't take the time to type out my entire opinion on this here. My concerns with this aren't of technical or logistical nature. I simply think seeking the solution in dividing PvE/PvP combat is an idiotic approach. I'll just quickly summarize the points:

1. PvE balance is arbitrary. The environment can be adjusted to fit player power. The gap between high performing players and low performing players can never be fully reconciled with engaging and complex gameplay. Player potential already exceeds many encounter requirements by a long shot.

2. Power in PvP dictates how interactions play out. Competitive and synergistic interactions need to be in a tight relationship between classes, with some wiggle room for rock/paper/scissor-type discrepancies. It is important that no one can hold all advantages. This encompasses all elements of combat balance from burst damage/DPS/mitigation/movement/HPS/burst heal/sustain/conplexity/team support. This should be designed with intent and serve as the power threshold for PvE encounters.

3. Transitioning between modes: Many players engage with both modes. Especially PvPers need to maintain a certain level of engagement with PvE to keep up on gear and build options. A good RPG experience means that you grow with your character. Getting a feeling for timing and impact of combat actions is part of deepening your mastery of your class. This should translate into other modes. If you are supposed to feel like you are playing as part of one continuous world, you can't artificially divide modes without breaking immersion at some point. Exclusives, like Crit Res or Empower, are just flaws that needn't exist without serving a purpose half of the time. Most importantly, this is an ever greater hurdle for new players who want to branch out into PvP.

5. Having to swap builds, because some abilities or sets will be disabled or devalued by split balancing, hurts immersion. Often times these solutions are chosen to preserve options in one mode, only be eliminating them in another. My standpoint is that nothing needs to be so strong that it can't be allowed in the respective other environment. There is simply no necessity from a difficulty and combat complexity PoV. If something is too strong, it is too strong.
There are some players who only engage with PvE or PvP. By nature these players will not be able to fully understand the impact of issues. But we can communicate the importance of changes and exchange information. It is important to be objective about the results, if fair conclusions are supposed to be drawn.

4. Actual diversity of build options: If an ability/passive/set grants dramatic advantages over all other options in the competition, then choices are taken away from the player. Even if you'd disable them in one mode through battle spirit, it means that there is an underlying imbalance in the combat design. The alleged high level of customization is a main draw of the TES games. There is simply no reason to throw this away just because some players adamantly cling to cheap crutches. E.g., skipping encounter mechanics is not to be considered as justification for DPS requirements. Other MMOs may have decided to balance their PvE/PvP that way, but honestly, I think those are trash.

TLDR: The fact that PvE and PvP don't have a hard split is like the 2nd most important feature ESO has. Throwing this aspect out, just because a few people can't in fact "git gud", would be a crying shame. If anything, the game needs less splitting and a more serious level of coherent combat design. And this can be done quickly, too. Most of the really necessary changes are simply numeric tweaks.
Releasing a years worth of content without power creep would also be a good start.

FENGRUSH wrote: »

PvE players begging devs that dont play the game to not reduce power while vet trials are being cleared in under 1 minute from extreme power creep. Quality experiences in ESO

Power creep is unfixable. They may as well go full circle and just let everything catch up. So they can move on to constantly tweaking older content as the loop of them trying to catch-up continues...

Also if we are being honest no one is going around clearing post-craglorn vet trials in under a minute. Don't be disingenuous.

shadoza wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

PvE players begging devs that dont play the game to not reduce power while vet trials are being cleared in under 1 minute from extreme power creep. Quality experiences in ESO

That power creep is not caused by classes but rather by dungeon/trial gear, pots, and special group bonuses that PvE players do not have.

Every time the game is adjusted for groups or PvP, the solo players dies a little but. Eventually, they WILL stop playing completely. Been there; done that; can see the future . . . another game falls down because the focus is on group / PvP instead of the common player in PvE.

What? This is just objectively wrong. Power creep is caused by ALL of these things, especially classes lately. Are you just making this statement to try to further your cause or do you genuinely believe that the changes done to classes have not caused power creep?

React wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Also if we are being honest no one is going around clearing post-craglorn vet trials in under a minute. Don't be disingenuous.

https://youtu.be/WcFeY-O1-jk?is=W65slz5pCKQeWBXM

Wow, a hyper-optimized group who specifically grinded and learned this trial just to do it as a score push? Must be a common occurrence aye.

Faltasë wrote: »

React wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Also if we are being honest no one is going around clearing post-craglorn vet trials in under a minute. Don't be disingenuous.

https://youtu.be/WcFeY-O1-jk?is=W65slz5pCKQeWBXM

Wow, a hyper-optimized group who specifically grinded and learned this trial just to do it as a score push? Must be a common occurrence aye.

Fengrush's comment - "vet trials are being cleared in under 1 minute"

Your response - "no one is going around clearing post-craglorn vet trials in under a minute. Don't be disingenuous"

React - posts a video of a sub minute non-crag trial

You - shift goalpost to say wow this must be a common occurrence.

The initial claim was only that trials can be cleared in under a minute, which was substantiated. Don't goal post shift when you are wrong. PvE does not need some hyper balance, all damage can be nerfed by literally 50% and every trial can still be cleared without any issue.