With No Softcaps: Hybrids Are Weak And Putting Everything Into One Attribute Is Strong

sabresandiego_ESO · February 2015

Almost all balance issues have the same thing in common: scaling out of control due to no softcaps. Lets take a look at the primary balance issues on the PTS right now.

1. Damage shields scaling out of control on max magicka sorcerrors
2. Stamina damage scaling out of control on max stam max weapon damage templars, dks, and nb's
3. Survivability out of control on health stacking heavy armor perma blocking builds

All of these are extremes that are from min maxing. Right now, the way to build a character is to put everything into one stat, and then create a build around it.

Domander · February 2015

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

Almost all balance issues have the same thing in common: scaling out of control due to no softcaps. Lets take a look at the primary balance issues on the PTS right now.

1. Damage shields scaling out of control on max magicka sorcerrors
2. Stamina damage scaling out of control on max stam max weapon damage templars, dks, and nb's
3. Survivability out of control on health stacking heavy armor perma blocking builds

All of these are extremes that are from min maxing. Right now, the way to build a character is to put everything into one stat, and then create a build around it.

Yep, a balanced character is at a disadvantage.

pmn100b16_ESO · February 2015

Yep I agree, soft cap removal has forced everyone into either a max magicka or max stamina build to be competitive. Anything in between is just getting wrecked. Hybrid builds are dead where as in 1.5 they were starting to gain some ground. Soft caps offer the chance of more build diversity as far as I can see. Don't know why they haven't just adjusted them rather than remove them completely.

XEVENEX · February 2015

Whether or not resource stats should affect ability stats is questionable, but the following is almost always the case in any game ever created. There is only one or two optimal builds with minor variations for each class. You are not a unique snowflake, and gamers are usually pretty quick to min/max these things out.

I'm not saying things dont need balance, but it will take time. Everyone is a flippin' passenger seat game designer, but the reality is any change they make to mechanics will only uncover new optimal builds.

Many of you don't want to hear this, but this is the truth.

Ezareth · February 2015

People are just going to have to adapt. Old mindsets are going to need to change. I had to change my style and preference, you'll have to do the same if you want to be successful.

Berinima · February 2015

Awesome post. Right on the spot. Removing softcaps was an outragously stu... not the best idea that was ever concieved.

Suggestion: Remove the diminishing returns from the champion system and get them back to where they belong. To the stat itself. If you would please look at some (very amazing) posts Ali has written these days:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/150226/insane-overpowered-stamina-templar-template-build-please-try-it
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/150289/40k-magicka-sorc-pet-builds

Especially the second one is interesting because the build is based around one specific set that multiplies magicka for sorcerers (that can already be stacked to an insane amount). One way to balance this build is to either nerf the set or the class, but both would be the wrong approach. If you would move the diminishing returns back to the stat itself it's way easier to balance. Also, you don't have to nerf entire sets, which is causing a lot of controversy by itself (regarding end game raid gear).

Gyudan · February 2015

If everyone can be OP by min/maxing, then does it mean that the game is ... balanced?

Maybe the issue comes from all the tests being done in dueling situations, which don't really reflect the Alliance War happening on live. Every time I've been to Cyrodiil on the PTS this week, all the players were engaged in 1v1 fights and nobody was sieging keeps. If PVPers spent more time in group fights and less time perfecting their 1v1 builds, we'd see less threads complaining about shield spamming or permablock or maxed weapon damage.

Domander · February 2015

I think some sort of bonus should be added for having more balanced stats.

Berinima · February 2015

Gyudan wrote: »

If everyone can be OP by min/maxing, then does it mean that the game is ... balanced?
Maybe the issue comes from all the tests being done in dueling situations, which don't really reflect the Alliance War happening on live. Every time I've been to Cyrodiil on the PTS this week, all the players were engaged in 1v1 fights and nobody was sieging keeps. If PVPers spent more time in group fights and less time perfecting their 1v1 builds, we'd see less threads complaining about shield spamming or permablock or maxed weapon damage.

You realize that they were not perfecting 1vs1 builds... They were... um... actually... doing that what they are supposed to do... you know... testing the new balance? The time Ali has spent on the PTS is an insane amount and he is actually doing research. And he had some great findings with some of them are quite game breaking.

TheLaw · February 2015

Sabre, why keep posting nearly the same post every day?

Wolfsspinne · February 2015

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

Almost all balance issues have the same thing in common: scaling out of control due to no softcaps. Lets take a look at the primary balance issues on the PTS right now.

1. Damage shields scaling out of control on max magicka sorcerrors
2. Stamina damage scaling out of control on max stam max weapon damage templars, dks, and nb's
3. Survivability out of control on health stacking heavy armor perma blocking builds

All of these are extremes that are from min maxing. Right now, the way to build a character is to put everything into one stat, and then create a build around it.

So... magicka is OP, stamina is OP and health is OP, too.
At least it's equally balanced.

As for the other thing:
You're right to complain if you want to play your hybrid and it's impossible.

But maybe you just haven't found the right skill/stat-mix yet.
Look, there is only one way to waste all stats in one attribute and take the highest dps/shield/whatever skills. But there are a million ways to build a hybrid.

Snit · February 2015

TheLaw wrote: »

Sabre, why keep posting nearly the same post every day?

Anybody who prefers hybrid builds is likely to be pretty unhappy with 1.6 and vocal about that. The removal of softcaps takes them from "difficult to play well" to "so far behind the curve, the curve is a dot to them."

I'm also inclined to think that some form of softcaps may need to return. They can, and should be higher than the old ones. But maybe there needs to be some kind of limit.

XEVENEX · February 2015

Hybrid builds are by definition optimal at nothing. Working as intended.

Berinima · February 2015

It honestly puzzles me that whenever somebody provides useful feedback people come rushing from all sides only to bash the PTS testers, bringing nothing valuable to the discussion at all.

I mean some of them are well-known theory crafters with great insights on game mechanics. Renown players whose builds you guys take and copy to improve your performance.

I get it. You've waited quite some time now and you all want the patch to go live. But while having several great ideas on the one side, on the other 1.6 is a terrible broken mess beyond belief at times. So all the testers do is provide good feedback to help ZOS to fix at least some issues before it goes live. When they release it and how much they fix that is their decision anyway. So would you please mind let them do their job now?

xylena · February 2015

great post sabre, couldnt have said it better... softcaps meant you had to put a lot of thought into your secondary stats, whereas without them you either minmax primary stat or you die

pmn100b16_ESO · February 2015

Berinima wrote: »

It honestly puzzles me that whenever somebody provides useful feedback people come rushing from all sides only to bash the PTS testers, bringing nothing valuable to the discussion at all.

I mean some of them are well-known theory crafters with great insights on game mechanics. Renown players whose builds you guys take and copy to improve your performance.

I get it. You've waited quite some time now and you all want the patch to go live. But while having several great ideas on the one side, on the other 1.6 is a terrible broken mess beyond belief at times. So all the testers do is provide good feedback to help ZOS to fix at least some issues before it goes live. When they release it and how much they fix that is their decision anyway. So would you please mind let them do their job now?

I think you'll find they're sorcerers of the magicka kind. Just guessing.

sabresandiego_ESO · February 2015

Nobody is complaining here. We are testing and reporting. Id be perfectly fine with the PTS going live as is. I can adapt to anything. Its up to developers how they want the game to play. Im only trying to provide valuable feedback.

Ezareth · February 2015

I second Sabre's insights and out of every sorc I've had the pleasure of fighting I dreaded going up against no sorx more than him.

My concern is however that right now sorcs have a single thing going for them. Shields. With hybrid play being penalized by virtue of pure math and the fact we can't rely on any defensive abilities beyond shields no matter how much we spec into them if we plan on maintaining a caster play style, if shields are nerfed by any significant level well be completely marginalized. I WANT to be able to dodge rolll and block and do other things that are fun and set ESO combat apart, but now by dedicating valuable resources into doing this I'm completely gimping my ability to do any real damage.

That needs to change if they're going to change shields. Above all *skill* should be rewarded above all else, and right now that is no longer the case.

sabresandiego_ESO · February 2015

Great post ezareth. Hybrids are in a bad place with no softcaps. Right now its all about min maxing.

asteldian · February 2015

Personally I would like a soft softcap in place - in other words there is no diminishing returns when it comes to increasing a stat, however as the stat gets higher its impact on damage reduces per point

Emma_Overload · February 2015

No, no, NO. Soft caps are horrible and needed to go away. So many more interesting "edge case" builds are possible now!

The REAL solution to the hybrid problem is to base damage on (Magicka + Stamina) / 2 instead of just Magicka or Stamina.

Berinima · February 2015

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

No, no, NO. Soft caps are horrible and needed to go away. So many more interesting "edge case" builds are possible now!

The REAL solution to the hybrid problem is to base damage on (Magicka + Stamina) / 2 instead of just Magicka or Stamina.

I disagree. Soft caps serve the purpose that you can't stack certain stats to a ridiculous amount. Since the beginning you had this line in the sand where everything above only provided 50% of the original gain. That was maybe a little too harsh and could have been tweaked but in reality, the champion system is nothing else than a soft cap on its own. You have this line where the diminishing return kicks in (everything without the CS) and above that, every point is only worth a certain percentage of its gain. The problem however is that many factors influence certain stats, sets for example. So sets need to be nerfed, which is what happened and might happen even more in the future (see sorcerer build) and also for the game designers it's a nightmare to balance. With soft caps, you exactly know where the line would be and you can balance that, by removing them you can't exactly know that.

Kragorn · February 2015

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

Almost all balance issues have the same thing in common: scaling out of control due to no softcaps. Lets take a look at the primary balance issues on the PTS right now.

1. Damage shields scaling out of control on max magicka sorcerrors
2. Stamina damage scaling out of control on max stam max weapon damage templars, dks, and nb's
3. Survivability out of control on health stacking heavy armor perma blocking builds

All of these are extremes that are from min maxing. Right now, the way to build a character is to put everything into one stat, and then create a build around it.

I agree, but it's an MMO, that's just what happens. While many will shout about content being too easy and proclaim their love for a challenge, I always find it interesting how many people doing that play cookie-cutter FoTM builds dictated by the min/maxers.

sabresandiego_ESO · February 2015

Damage and Scaling:

Damage appears to be out of control in 1.6.1 and I haven't pinpointed the exact cause, but it did not appear to be nearly this high when I tested last week 1.6 on my live character. My live character did have about 50 more champion points, arena/warlock gear 4 of which had impenetrable. People may not have been maxing one stat as much in 1.6 as they are in 1.61. In the template gear my friends and I noted the following numbers:

30k stam builds

4-5k Invasions and Punctures
15k Unstable Flames
15k Biting Jabs
12-15k Dragon Leaps

30k mag builds

15k light overload attacks
12k frags
8-10k daedric curses

The damage is so high its essentially undefendable. One unstable flame can kill someone if they dont re-shield and heal. I don't know if this kind of damage is intended or things are just out of whack with templates and only 70 champ points. We did further testing to see if we could figure out whats going on. We dueled hybrid mag/stam sorc against a pure stam dk, and then a hybrid mag/stam sorc against a hybrid dk. The results were interesting. The hybrid vs hybrid fight was extremely close, and could have gone either way. The hybrid vs pure stam dk was an impossible fight. There was no way to defend the 4-5k invasions and punctures with 15k unstable flames ticking. It was impossible to do anything against the stamina maxer.

It's impossible to tell what balance is really like in this kind of extreme damage environment. Every class seems equally outrageous when maxing one stat, so essentially balance might actually be really good. Stat max scaling is out of control however. This brings up another issue, and that is the 10% max stat racials are now incredibly overpowered compared to other racials. This makes imperial especially strong, followed by breton, high elf, redguard and any other race i missed with +10% max stat.

Sorceror Feedback:

After testing all kinds of builds with the sorcerror in pvp, from light to medium to heavy, and all different abilities, it appears that trying to PVP without using a damage shield is essentially suicide in this ultra high damage environment where everyone is dumping into one stat and getting outrageous numbers. Maxing magicka seems to be the only way to go. Stamina builds dont seem to work for sorcerror like they do for other classes, because our class stamina abilities are horrible for PVP. To give a comparison:

30k stamina dragonknights have unstable flames doing upwards of 15k damage, templar biting jabs hitting for 12k+ and stunlocking, and nightblades doing ambush + surprise attack for nearly an entire health bar. Sorcerror on the other hand recieved no real stamina abilities, instead they got a stamina bound armor, a stamina dark exchange channel, and a physical damage only version of crit surge.

Bound Armor: using this ability essentially gives you 1-2 less buttons to use for active abilities in exchange for some passive buffs. The passive buff is probably going to mathematically optimize damage in a PVE environment, but for PVP this ability is very lackluster. You can push stamina to some nice levels with this, and heavy attacks will hit hard, but its not comparable to active stamina abilities like the other classes got. Fun factor is minimal

Dark Exchange: The stamina morph of this is going to be good for PVE. For PVP, its very lackluster and leaves your vulnerable to interrupts.

Crit Surge: This ability sucks. Entropy is better than the spell power morph, and momentum (Rally) is better than the physical healing morph, because crits are unreliable, but the heals from Rally are reliable.

In PVP, sorcerror defense comes down to 2 main things: Bolt escape, and Damage Shields (Conjured Ward and Maybe Harness Magicka or Healing Ward). Both of these defenses scale off magicka, making stamina sorcerrors unviable for PVP. Hybrid mag/stam sorcerrers DO work with exceptional gearing and high champion points, but currently in the 1.6.1 test environment all hybrids are being annihilated by max magicka or max stamina builds.

Overall Balance Feedback:

Overall class balance is probably exceptional. Internal testing has probably led to very balanced numbers between the classes. I really don't think anything in particular should be brought down at this point, but then again I can't tell in this super high damage environment. The only balance advice I can offer is to evaluate how maxing one stat is scaling as compared to other methods of building a character. Perhaps damage scaling, damage shield scaling, etc.. all needs to be adjusted downwards due to there being no soft caps

McDoogs · February 2015

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

No, no, NO. Soft caps are horrible and needed to go away. So many more interesting "edge case" builds are possible now!

The REAL solution to the hybrid problem is to base damage on (Magicka + Stamina) / 2 instead of just Magicka or Stamina.

I disagree, I think that we are seeing less diversity between viable builds now without softcaps.

Berinima · February 2015

@sabresandiego_ESO‌: Amazing research! Thank you for your time!
@ZOS: Please have a look at this! This seems out of control...

Fayaburn · February 2015

So min-maxers are excellent in the field they actually build all their character around. Seems like the exact purpose of min-maxing.
People will sonner or later do the same and replicate the builds that perform the best as they always have.
There was a time when min-maxers built all their gear in impen. People said it was dumb and they did not want to stop wearing their infused armor. Just take a look at how this evolved over time.

Fayaburn · February 2015

Also there is a counter to every min-max thing as you cannot go 100% in a unique direction without leaving flaws in other areas.
Max magicka ? Drain their small pool of stam ans they dead under CC.
Max stam ? Burst damage them as all the best survivability mechanics rely on magicka and their health is not great.
Max health ? Nuke the healer near him while the guy struggle to kill a fly.

cracker81 · February 2015

I think it is perfect.
So, somebody is pure Magika build can out do a person that wants to tank and do Magika. Sounds right to me. It is common sense if you try to do all things you are only ok at each thing. While if you pick one thing your a master at it.

Berinima · February 2015

McDoogs wrote: »

I disagree, I think that we are seeing less diversity between viable builds now without softcaps.

Exactly. Everyone is dumping everything he has into one stat. That's it. Right now, nothing else is viable.

cracker81 · February 2015

McDoogs wrote: »

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

No, no, NO. Soft caps are horrible and needed to go away. So many more interesting "edge case" builds are possible now!

The REAL solution to the hybrid problem is to base damage on (Magicka + Stamina) / 2 instead of just Magicka or Stamina.

I disagree, I think that we are seeing less diversity between viable builds now without softcaps.

The only build I seen was common in live was LA DK vamp with bow and s/b. Now I see millions and I know not every build was tried. I still don't see the one I have on here.