Were are you ?? as our numbers decline what are you doing in game to keep logging on ??
I get what you mean about MMR, but at the same time are we really seeing such an influx of new players that the disparity between “high experience” and “very low experience” among the population is that high?
Yes and no. Yes, there has been a huge influx of new and returning players due to the Oblivion remake and subclassing respectively, but that isn't what we are talking about here. The disparity was always there, just now you are being exposed to it constantly, rather than the people with the least experience being matched against each other for the most part. It's easy to underestimate how many people were populating that lowest level of MMR.As for the lack of counter play that has to do with the mixing of mechanics. Prior to SC, each class had aspects of risk versus reward in the nature of how their abilities were built. That’s not to say that any one class was meant for any particular role, but let’s take NB, for example. This class has always had hugh burst damage potential and crit enhancement enabling a lot of single target burst damage. The counter play to this was a degree of stealth detection paired with the fact that NB’s had less durability & utility; a NB (played properly) needed to try and avoid damage, this was the counter play. But now, NB’s can slot durability & utility like Crit Surge, Hardened Ward, Vibrant Shroud, or Sun Shield. Now these builds don’t have to have much of a care about avoiding damage, they can just take it because they’ve got an on demand source of strong mitigation & healing as well as some significant passives. This kills counter play because the by-design mechanics to combat NB have been filled in; and only the niche-est of builds can attempt to address that, and even then. It’s not as if, for example, a Warden is going to get as significant of a damage increase from slotting any other class skill line as what NB can achieve in durability so we have a disparity there.
I'm not sure who you are fighting over on Xbox, but I can say pretty confidently I'm yet to see an NB pick up Deadric Summoning thru subclassing. Not even sorcs are running hardened ward anymore. NB is far more likely to pick up Aedric Spear, Animal Companions, Storm Calling or Grave Lord. Across the board we've seen people running a lot of damage lines and all of these players, while pumping out a lot of damage themselves, are equally susceptible to getting hit hard.
Off the top of my head the only play style with little counter-play at the moment is pairing warden class charm with RoA, but even in that niche case, you have options: immovability pots, focusing the player, avoiding stacking until they expose themself etc etc.
Oh then I can tell you XB is significantly different from what you’re seeing on PCNA …. EVERYBODY is running HW over here! Storm calling has some pickup on this platform but it’s minor, the VAST majority of builds are slotting either Assassination or Aedric Spear.
Right now, on XBNA your NB & Templars have the least amount of counterplay. Their offense is incredibly strong and their exposure is now incredibly minimal. Those classes aren’t susceptible to getting hit hard because they’re able to change gear sets and slot benefits that give them mitigation they didn’t previously have access to IF they wanted to maintain their damage output; now, they can maintain the damage and have the mitigation.
Right now we’ve got some meta builds that are actively maintaining their offense while being blasted with 60k, 70k, 80k base points of damage … now if they’re actively attacking during that kind of damage allocation that means they aren’t blocking, they aren’t running, they literally are passively mitigating THAT much damage to the point that they aren’t concerned with the concept of combat mechanics, offense versus defense. That’s a major problem.
There have been conversations addressing the mitigation concerns with ESO before and what I’m seeing now, subclassing had made that far worse and that’s the larger contributor to what I’m seeing in BG match outcomes.
I’m still playing the game names I’ve seen for the last 2 years, sure there’s a few new ones here and there but you get used to seeing people and there’s a solid consistency here. The difference is in the outcomes, not who I’m seeing playing in matches.
This might be a good example of population spread difference between platforms. When it comes to testing or collecting data I like to use environments that have the most consistency across the board. IMO XB has more of that as the hardware & software swings are much less of a factor in results.
I still cant grasp people actually using daedric summoning on XB lol. Not just one guy either, but it actually being popular. Such a mid skill line and ward really not worth it since the nerf. I don't suppose you have any gameplay of these BGs? Would be generally curious to see whats going on.
Obviously we have some tanky dds and tanky healers and even straight up tanks on PC, but I wouldnt consider any of the current meta builds "uncounterable".
If you have some clips I'd love to see them
MincMincMinc wrote: »@MincMincMinc Well, we can argue about what the player counts and buisness directions are until the cows come home. Most of that will reveal itself over time either way. The main point you made and I 100% agree with is that this process is glacial. I'd be feeling nervous if I was conducting tests like this only once a month.
The timing is the other thing I dont get why people are complaining. So far we have had 2 tests about 12 weeks apart. They probably came up with a list of test ideas in order and adjust it after every test.
Even here is a basic timeline of the development. This is practically 10 weeks of work with an extra 2 weeks for filler.
- Vengeance 1 test data collection, Combat team begins working on test 2
- Engineering goes over data, internal meeting
- Engineering meeting presentation
- Top level meeting maybe changing combat team direction for the 3rd test depending on results
- PTS starts
- Combat team introduces vengeance changes on pts
- PTS fixes
- PTS fixes
- Combat team preps for background testing
- Vengeance Test 2
LadyLethalla wrote: »No, that is a wired connection. Note Melbourne is, if I recall correctly, 500km closer to Texas than Germany, which isn't a lot. Also, my ping isn't usually this high; I've been getting severe spikes since the last patch. Normally it's been around 300-320. Definitely doesn't seem to be affecting my internet in any other way - Ookla on the same PC gives 6 - 101 ping. So it's got to be something to do with my connection to the EU server.