ESO Should never have included PvP Content mixed with PvE

Adramelach · June 2014

One thing I clearly see is the tug-of-war between "OP/Nerfed" skills and builds in PvP versus what works in PvE, and it's a debacle.

The bottom line is that PvE dynamics and AI is completely different from PvP human dynamics and tactics, and I am not surprised at all that a "one size fits all" approach to classes, skill lines, and skills isn't working at all.

Change a skill one way, and the PvPers freak out. Change it another way, and you just nerfed it for PvE. A skill that's devastating when confronting a few AI-based PvE mobs might be nearly useless against the more creative and intelligent human PvP opponents, and vice-versa: a skill that's useful when dealing with said human opponents in PvP may simply find no purpose or use in PvE.

I wish there were a completely separate set of classes and skills for PvP that were independent from, and did not cross over, to PvE, and vice-versa. Even two sets of 8 characters available, the PvE set, and the PvP set, with different gear, classes, and skill lines.

Then you could tweak and optimize the PvP classes, skills, gear, and builds specifically for human-vs-human battles, and the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" problem of the PvE vs. PvP skill balancing would go away.

Yeah, it would obviously be more work for ZOS but man, I think it would solve a lot of problems, and as a mostly PvE player, I wouldn't have to deal with constant PvP "updates" screwing around with PvE content and abilities. 80% of the complaints I see are related to skills being over-powered *in PvP*. The other 20% are mostly about broken stuff, or overall PvE content being too difficult/grindy in veteran play, but if things were more separated, these two areas could be handled better, and quicker, independently, rather than trying to serve all masters at once and make one set of universal classes and skills be perfect in all scenarios, which I'm not sure is possible, frankly.

nukeyoo · June 2014

You should probably take your PvE gripes to a PvE dedicated discussion where more people might care. This is dedicated to PvP discussion not "I wish fixes in PvP didn't hurt my PvE" discussion.

Adramelach · June 2014

No, this is very much a PvP discussion. The point is that they effect *each other*. If PvE were taken completely out of the discussion, then much of the angst and complaints coming from PvP could be handled far easier, or not come up at all, because the basic premise stands - by trying to cater to both sides at once, neither is satisfied.

Many of the complaints and requested changes to classes, skills, and more, coming from the PvP crowd would potentially wreck PvE balance and content, and thus can't be accommodated, or are weakly accommodated, as the devs attempt to "fix" PvP while not nuking PvE.

My thesis here was simply that completely separating the two would allow for a PvP optimized environment where such balancing and skill-altering (and, as I suggested, entirely new and different classes and skill lines could be created) could be more easily dealt with, as there would only be a single audience to serve that didn't have conflicting interests with another.

Helspyre · June 2014

They don't need separate classes/skills. Plenty of past games have resolved this by only making changes to skills as they affect PvP or PvE (ie X skill does less damage to players). If PvP specific changes are crossing over to PvE then the devs are just being lazy.