Opinion on 1.7 after the 3 core changes (Block, Dodge, Blink)

Maulkin

I'm going to try to articulate my thoughts on the 1.7 balance changes as best as I can. It might prove a challenge and a bit of a long post, so please bear with me.

In versions 1-1.5 we had a system of soft-caps. You couldn't dodge or blink or block or cloak forever. Likewise you couldn't attack forever. You had to balance the use of resources between offence and defense as you saw fit. But very importantly defensive and offensive strategy would cost similar amount of resources, so it was a valid strategy to play defensive trying to drive someone out of resources if you thought your sustain was superior.

With 1.6 (2.0) and the removal of soft caps, resource management in general went out the window. I think we can all agree that was not ideal. Something needed to be done.

In response, in 1.7 (2.1) most core defensive mechanics have got a huge cost. This might seem to some like it's bringing things back to a balanced level like in 1.5 and prior. You could probably only dodge 5-6 times in 1.5 and same now. You could probably only blink 6-7 times in 1.5 and the same is most likely the case now. So why do I feel that is not the case?

The reason is the lopsided approach to increasing resource costs. It's only going on the defense that costs you a bomb on resources. Going on the offense is cheaper than ever. For example, they actually decreased class-based stamina skill costs by 20% to bring them more in line with weapon skills.

So in 1.7 you can for example dodge roll 6-7 times only, which might sound fine. But it's not when someone can spam Ambush 20+ times without any regard for his resources. In 1.5 you could probably only gap-close 7-8 times before running out of resources, while now that never happens. Similarly, blocking will have a huge stamina cost (well cost, but no regen) but somebody spamming light attack + crushing shock can keep it up forever and never drop below 80% magicka.

This change hugely favours going on the offense and hugely discourages people from going on the defense. However being defensive is only natural when you're outnumbered. It's natural to hold block if you're a tank surrounded by enemies. It's natural to start dodge-rolling or blinking when chased by 5 times your numbers.

This is an open PvP game where local combat population is never balanced. You will often outnumber enemies and often be outnumbered but rarely (if ever) will there be exact population balance in any field of combat.

When the cost of attacking is negligible but the cost of defending is massive, it's harder to survive as an outnumbered party than it ever was. In 1.7, you can't drive 2-3 players out of resources while they are attacking and you are defending. However silly they are being and however smartly you manage your own resources. That's why they call it the death of 1vX.

In my opinion this will only encourage people to get in bigger and bigger groups where you can always go on the offense and not be outnumbered. This will further hinder server performance in time, as more and more people choose the safety of numbers.

For the above reasons I believe soft-caps was a far better solution. You had to manage your offensive and defensive potential better. It gave small groups a more even change to out-manoeuvre and out-sustain bigger groups. It was imho more balanced and rewarded intelligent gameplay more.

TL;DR; Escaping or defending now costs more, but going on the offensive is cheaper than ever. The lopsided approach to resource costs favours bigger groups and punishes smaller groups who maintain a more defensive stance. This will potentially lead to more zerging as people will seek the safety of numbers. It's also less balanced than 1.5.

Thank you for your time

hamon

i somewhat agree with what you say,

however i think you need to blame all the tryhards who designed builds to farm lowbies... em i mean 1vX

then post videos all over the forums to stroke their ego's

if i was running a business and a small minority were deliberately altering their behaviour to do soemthing that could potentially lose me a load of customers . I would take similar action

would you not?

Maulkin

hamon wrote: »

i somewhat agree with what you say,

however i think you need to blame all the tryhards who designed builds to farm lowbies... em i mean 1vX

then post videos all over the forums to stroke their ego's

if i was running a business and a small minority were deliberately altering their behaviour to do soemthing that could potentially lose me a load of customers . I would take similar action

would you not?

Well It kinda depends. Look, one thing is 100% certain: People will always complain about getting killed in online games.

Like you said as a business you have to make changes to retain the highest amount of players. Agree 100%. But players don't always know or want what is good for them, let alone your business. Look at this forum. 9/10 threads on balancing on these forums are either based on bias or lack of good knowledge of game mechanics.Terrible examples to balance your system around.

For example, you might not want as a business all these 1vX videos out. But if you make changes that bring insane zerging and lag, or mechanics that make the population balance problem more prevalent, you stand to lose even more customers than from those 1vX videos.

Because some of the people that watch those 1vX videos will get discouraged by game balance while others will think: "I wanna be that guy!" and will work towards that. No one watches zerg vs zerg lagfests on 999+ ping and thinks: "YEAH! More of that, please!"

Also remember this in an open PvP game, there is and will be population imbalance in the campaigns. You will get to do 1vX or Small vs Big whether you like it or not, whether you are successful at it or not. However, If the game mechanics are such that numbers always win regardless of skill, then we might as well pack it in and play something else. Or at least have an Arena-style option where same numbers are a prerequisite for combat.

Quantine

Hey Maulkin,

While I think your logic is certainly valid, I think there will still be some builds that could do 1vX. Take mgk NB and Sorcs. Cloak is buffed, some buffs to abilities like focus, lotus fan and maybe siphoning attacks make them sound even stronger. Even vamp is getting a little buff. From what i hear from other sorc friends, nerf to blink blink is not that bad. On top nirn is getting a huge nerf, so mobile mgk builds will still be able to perform decent solo (and they will be the only ones being able to lose aggro/streak away from NPCs at will in the IC, which is soooo stupid). At least NBs will have same or even better sustain and deal more dmg. The only thing that is troublesome would probably be TTK. It may make outnumbered fighting even more difficult cause it would mean that people will get less punished for their mistakes. We'll still have to see how that turns out, but I feel it might be a problem. Tryhards will still find ways to one-shot ppl from stealth, it only makes everyone else's game harder. Imo they should have done other changes to nerf being able to one-shot people, but hey, it's ZOS.

That being said, I still believe that the current static ult gain system was the most significant nerf to solo and small scale, yes soft caps changed stuff too, but their removal wasn't as significant as the ult-gain. 1.6 marked the end of intelligent gameplay and the rise of stupidity. 1.7 continues the trend, but won't kill soloing completely yet.

What I am disappointed about, but was expecting to happen, is the actual "nerf" to detonation. Basically it will hit as hard as it does now, given the damage reduction+nirn nerf kinda cancel each other out... given that blobs with many barriers can outsustain it, it may not be a real zerg buster, so small groups will still habe it quite hard :-( And no charge time makes it easier for the blobs to use. So in a situation of 8v24 both groups will output the same damage with detonation, even though the 8 ppl are certainly outnumbered. And the blobs don't even have to use their brains to LoS to charge it anymore, so there goes another advantage down the toilet. This is kinda pathetic.

We'll have to still test all of the changes and their implications, but in general, I also think the game is becoming more and more the casual's paradise and idk if i will hang on for long :-(

reften

what this does is stop players from hit and runs...basically being able to attack an entire group, take one guy down, then be invincible in getting away back to safety.

Not that I've ever done that before *cough

Turelus

Great post OP. I don't agree with everything said but it's nice to see a well structured, thought out and not raging post about mechanics changes.

Maulkin

Quantine wrote: »

Hey Maulkin,

While I think your logic is certainly valid, I think there will still be some builds that could do 1vX. Take mgk NB and Sorcs. Cloak is buffed, some buffs to abilities like focus, lotus fan and maybe siphoning attacks make them sound even stronger. Even vamp is getting a little buff. From what i hear from other sorc friends, nerf to blink blink is not that bad. On top nirn is getting a huge nerf, so mobile mgk builds will still be able to perform decent solo (and they will be the only ones being able to lose aggro/streak away from NPCs at will in the IC, which is soooo stupid). At least NBs will have same or even better sustain and deal more dmg. The only thing that is troublesome would probably be TTK. It may make outnumbered fighting even more difficult cause it would mean that people will get less punished for their mistakes. We'll still have to see how that turns out, but I feel it might be a problem. Tryhards will still find ways to one-shot ppl from stealth, it only makes everyone else's game harder. Imo they should have done other changes to nerf being able to one-shot people, but hey, it's ZOS.

If magicka NBs and Sorcs can do 1vX and others can't, that will be interpreted as class imbalance and will lead to these classes being targeted for nerfs.

I don't want Sorcs and NBs to be the only classes that can hold their own solo. I want all classes to have a decent chance in the hands of a capable player to either kill some attackers or escape. Whether that chance is 10% or 30% or whatever, that's for ZOS to determine.

If that chance is not there then an open PvP game stands not chance.

I will kindly disagree on the ult generation. I maintain it was a good change after all this time. Dropping bats every 10" was not really a good place for the game either. But it did put DKs who relied on their Battle Roar and have no escape mechanism in a much worse position. That could have been counter-balanced with other changes which unfortunately didn't happen.

Anyhow, we'll see what future holds

Maulkin

reften wrote: »

what this does is stop players from hit and runs...basically being able to attack an entire group, take one guy down, then be invincible in getting away back to safety.

Not that I've ever done that before *cough

Here's the thing though man. If you log into a campaign where your faction has 2 bars and another faction is pop-locked and you are heavily outnumbered in every combat on the map... then hit and run tactics are all you've got as a solo player or small group. That's the harsh reality of it.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not defending 20 Bolt Escapes and 50 dodge rolls. Quite the opposite. I'm an advocate of soft caps when people could not do these things. But, they could still survive and escape because attackers could also run out of resources chasing and attacking them, which would never happen now.

tplink3r1

PvP state now: Be a vampire or a NB or GTFO.

Garion

Excellent post, Maulkin. You have articulated all of the fears I had when these changes were first discussed on ESO live. Now we have the full patch notes, it has become apparent that these fears have become reality.

It seems to me that Zenimax are swinging wildly and drastically in one direction to another in an attempt to find balance. Their changes are drastic and a 'knee jerk' in response to problems that actually require much more subtle changes. Perfect balance is never possible, but to get even close it is necessary to make slow, regular changes to the issues at hand rather than drastically altering fundamental mechanics and abilities. The whole soft cap / excessive blocking, dodge rolling, streaking argument is a prime example of this.

In regard to your post, Arulash, I do think you are right that there will be some viability for 1vX going forward. However this being possible for specific classes is not acceptable, nor is the fact that it will only be possible for a limited number of what will essentially be most patient players, who don't get frustrated over repeated deaths when their highly specialised and situstional build doesn't meet the criteria of survival for the situation they find themselves in.

Fundamentally these changes discourage solo play by removing what are unquestionably three of the four key defensive abilities or mechanics in game (cloak is the only one not included in these nerfs). With that being the case, 2.1 will only exacerbate the already prevalent issue of zerging as more and more people give up trying to play in smaller groups when they realise their survivability has been disproportionately nerfed into the ground.

As with 1.6, it will take some time for this to become apparent, but after people grow bored of the IC, it will come.

Quantine

Maulkin, Lastobeth, I agree it's totally unbalanced and unfair that they are making 1vX so much harder and only truely viable for certain classes and builds, I dislike that too :-( Can't understand their logic: telling people they wanna promote small scale, but doing everything to kill it :-( They either are stupid or not telling us the truth...

However, Maulkin, I have to disagree about ult-gain. While it was abit over the top and certainly needed tweaking, the current system is just a move to the other extreme. Dynamic ult-gain was a great solution to reward outnumbered gameplay and punish zergs and big groups when outnumbering their enemies without messing with AP gains and rewards directly(!). It should have been nerfed a bit, but kept in a form rewarding people for playing outnumbered. Given a dynamic ult-gain in 1.7, I would say that then each class would be viable for 1vX. So if they really wanna encourage solo and small scale, they should do that....

Regarding the buisness vs elitist players discussion, I agree with Maulkin that it's actually stupid to push ppl to zerg and lag out servers....noone will like that type of gameplay while 1vX or small scale examples are hyped and encourage ppl to get better at the game, improve and play more like that. So, I really don't get ZOS logics...

Etaniel

Well put Maulkin.

Garion wrote: »

Excellent post, Maulkin. You have articulated all of the fears I had when these changes were first discussed on ESO live. Now we have the full patch notes, it has become apparent that these fears have become reality.

It seems to me that Zenimax are swinging wildly and drastically in one direction to another in an attempt to find balance. Their changes are drastic and a 'knee jerk' in response to problems that actually require much more subtle changes. Perfect balance is never possible, but to get even close it is necessary to make slow, regular changes to the issues at hand rather than drastically altering fundamental mechanics and abilities. The whole soft cap / excessive blocking, dodge rolling, streaking argument is a prime example of this.

Exactly my thoughts, since the beginning, the nerf bat or the buff bat has been applied by huge swings, when subtle changes were required.

Examples :
When Stamina was not on par with magicka pre 1.4, they buffed bow so hard that anyone could get ridiculous crits from stealth with snipe. The one-shot no skill fest began there.
It put a spotlight on the only skill capable of countering the most op burst damage : reflective scales
In turn it was nerfed in an idiotic way, as the new scales works exactly the same in 1v1, but becomes useless when fighting multiple sniper scrubs, thus rewarding dumb play : if it doesn't work, shoot again.
Then in 1.6, they changed every single ability, which in terms of balancing is extremely risky and basically set themselves back to the startline when balance was close to being reached.
Now to counter the excessive burst damage from gankers, and the excessive dmg from some magicka abilities, they nerf EVERY ability in the game by 30%. It just means that the same skills stay on top.

Etaniel

Also, the change to detonation : they capped the extra damage at 25% = 5*5 so extra damage for up to 5 targets. Which means that a small 5 man group will suffer as much as a 24 man group, yet the 24 man group can cope with that dmg way easier, it makes no sense. The extra dmg should have been capped at 12 extra target at least so 60% extra dmg

Quantine

Etaniel wrote: »

Also, the change to detonation : they capped the extra damage at 25% = 5*5 so extra damage for up to 5 targets. Which means that a small 5 man group will suffer as much as a 24 man group, yet the 24 man group can cope with that dmg way easier, it makes no sense. The extra dmg should have been capped at 12 extra target at least so 60% extra dmg

Mhm, that's what i feared before patch notes and what i wrote above. But still, the nerf to nirn will make it slightly better than it is now. However, removal of cast time will only make it easier for the zerg/blob to cast and no way to counter with deep breath They just keep on rewarding the clueless. So, for now, in my eyes, no real zerg buster. Ofc, we'll probably use it, but in general, it won't give us an advantage for playing outnumbered. The only advantage we still have will be that heals don't get eaten up by randoms as they are in big groups, but I am sure ZOS will find a way to take that away too :-D

Roselle

I still think it'll depend on how many people actually participate and how busy each imperial city or imperial sewer map is.

I will say it is quite discouraging to idle out for a moment and get streamrolled by 10-15 people and lose hundreds of stones, though. >_> *Shakes fist at those that took my stones just after I got the center IC skyshard with someone*

hamon

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

hamon wrote: »

i somewhat agree with what you say,

however i think you need to blame all the tryhards who designed builds to farm lowbies... em i mean 1vX

then post videos all over the forums to stroke their ego's

if i was running a business and a small minority were deliberately altering their behaviour to do soemthing that could potentially lose me a load of customers . I would take similar action

would you not?

Well It kinda depends. Look, one thing is 100% certain: People will always complain about getting killed in online games.

Like you said as a business you have to make changes to retain the highest amount of players. Agree 100%. But players don't always know or want what is good for them, let alone your business. Look at this forum. 9/10 threads on balancing on these forums are either based on bias or lack of good knowledge of game mechanics.Terrible examples to balance your system around.

For example, you might not want as a business all these 1vX videos out. But if you make changes that bring insane zerging and lag, or mechanics that make the population balance problem more prevalent, you stand to lose even more customers than from those 1vX videos.

Because some of the people that watch those 1vX videos will get discouraged by game balance while others will think: "I wanna be that guy!" and will work towards that. No one watches zerg vs zerg lagfests on 999+ ping and thinks: "YEAH! More of that, please!"

Also remember this in an open PvP game, there is and will be population imbalance in the campaigns. You will get to do 1vX or Small vs Big whether you like it or not, whether you are successful at it or not. However, If the game mechanics are such that numbers always win regardless of skill, then we might as well pack it in and play something else. Or at least have an Arena-style option where same numbers are a prerequisite for combat.

yes i agree, the jury is out whether this is best or not as you say. i just think that this is a consequence of zos trying to protect their product. again and again we see things being nerfed due to a small percentage of pvp players finding something they can do to spoil the party.

i think this time they might not have just spoilt 1vX builds. but PVE tanking as well, if thats been sacrificed at the alter of balancing out pvp its pretty grim.

Quantine

Tbh, not even sure if ZOS wants to prevent one-shot mechanics. I just remembered that they are buffing bow damage by 15%
.... really ZOS?

ToRelax

Garion wrote: »

[...]
Fundamentally these changes discourage solo play by removing what are unquestionably three of the four key defensive abilities or mechanics in game (cloak is the only one not included in these nerfs). With that being the case, 2.1 will only exacerbate the already prevalent issue of zerging as more and more people give up trying to play in smaller groups when they realise their survivability has been disproportionately nerfed into the ground.

As with 1.6, it will take some time for this to become apparent, but after people grow bored of the IC, it will come.

Don't forget that we get a huge boost to survivability across the board, i.e., a good player knowing the game mechanics will hardly ever die unless he runs straight into the zerg.

DDuke

hamon wrote: »

i somewhat agree with what you say,

however i think you need to blame all the tryhards who designed builds to farm lowbies... em i mean 1vX

then post videos all over the forums to stroke their ego's

if i was running a business and a small minority were deliberately altering their behaviour to do soemthing that could potentially lose me a load of customers . I would take similar action

would you not?

I just want to touch on this real quick (stroke my ego if you will).

People making PvP videos also deliver (depending on channel size) plenty of free publicity for the game in form of views, meaning they can, in fact, be beneficial for the game from financial standpoint.


That's it, ego stroked, I'm off

hamon

DDuke wrote: »

hamon wrote: »

i somewhat agree with what you say,

however i think you need to blame all the tryhards who designed builds to farm lowbies... em i mean 1vX

then post videos all over the forums to stroke their ego's

if i was running a business and a small minority were deliberately altering their behaviour to do soemthing that could potentially lose me a load of customers . I would take similar action

would you not?

I just want to touch on this real quick (stroke my ego if you will).

People making PvP videos also deliver (depending on channel size) plenty of free publicity for the game in form of views, meaning they can, in fact, be beneficial for the game from financial standpoint.


That's it, ego stroked, I'm off

possibly, it depends on the videos. if its showing the game off in a good way thats possibly good. if on the other hand its showing folk this new build you just made using the best gear available and skillbars aimed at mass killing of under levelled and under geard players, which encourages others to do the same. then its probably not good for the game.

Lava_Croft

Best advice: Wait for Live, since that's the only place where you can make a real judgement about 'the death of X or Y'.

Other than that, articulate post!

Erondil

I agree with you that those changes, aswell as the damage nerf are dumb and will incent to zerg even more, the real issue was endless ressources achievable without effort (which permite to spam skills so much and invest everyting into damages). I'm sure making ressources an issue again would most likely solve those two problems (high burst meta and skill spam) without reducing the skill-requirement nor destroying 1vX but I don't think softcaps is the best solution.
A softcap system incent to reach every softcap which reduce the meta diversity while a balanced ressource system can do without, by changing cost/regen values. Imo increasing every cost by x% (I would say ~50%), nerf armour regen/reduce cost passives by 33% (maybe extend to class/guild passives) and champion cost/regen passives by 20% (100pts=20% regen instead of 25%) could bring ressource managment to what it was in 1.5, without softcaps and at the same time, reduce the spam and reduce overall damages without the dumb changes of 1.7.

Soris

Erondil wrote: »

I agree with you that those changes, aswell as the damage nerf are dumb and will incent to zerg even more, the real issue was endless ressources achievable without effort (which permite to spam skills so much and invest everyting into damages). I'm sure making ressources an issue again would most likely solve those two problems (high burst meta and skill spam) without reducing the skill-requirement nor destroying 1vX but I don't think softcaps is the best solution.
A softcap system incent to reach every softcap which reduce the meta diversity while a balanced ressource system can do without, by changing cost/regen values. Imo increasing every cost by x% (I would say ~50%), nerf armour regen/reduce cost passives by 33% (maybe extend to class/guild passives) and champion cost/regen passives by 20% (100pts=20% regen instead of 25%) could bring ressource managment to what it was in 1.5, without softcaps and at the same time, reduce the spam and reduce overall damages without the dumb changes of 1.7.

Would it be better to remove heavy armor from game after doing this.
Most heavy armor builds, which are mostly used by templars and dks in pvp for a little bit more tankieness and block passives due to the lack of escape mechanism, already don't have extreme regen and spell/weapon power numbers without effort. (deep min-maxing and some good amount of CP required here for the most optimal build)

Problem is light and medium armor being such revarding by default. Minus light armor's armor rating, medium armor is overall the best armor type for offering enough armor rating, cost reductions, regen and weapon power. Then you have much more effective shield stacking as light armor with cost redcutions and regen and more damage unlike heavy. Classes with a gap opener or escape skills benefit more from this obviously.

So I think the problem lies in here. Either nerf those 2 armor type or put a hard cap on regen values just like armor and spell resist. This maybe requires additional caps on spell/weapon power and magicka/stamina to prevent people going full burst after reaching regen cap.
So why not? Would be less painful than nerfing armors. Maybe then we can have that gameplay of good ol' 1.5 back.

CP needs caps aswell. Like seasons.
CAP EVERYTHING heh.

Maulkin

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Best advice: Wait for Live, since that's the only place where you can make a real judgement about 'the death of X or Y'.

Other than that, articulate post!

Thanks.

I agree, we'll certainly have to wait for live before we can make strong proclamations like that, but there's no denying their intentions.

They don't seem to really like people getting away or tanking for too long. All their changes are in that direction. And this is what perplexes me because in an open pvp game when you are outnumbered, doing hit & runs or kiting is all you got left really.

Lava_Croft

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Best advice: Wait for Live, since that's the only place where you can make a real judgement about 'the death of X or Y'.

Other than that, articulate post!

Thanks.

I agree, we'll certainly have to wait for live before we can make strong proclamations like that, but there's no denying their intentions.

They don't seem to really like people getting away or tanking for too long. All their changes are in that direction. And this is what perplexes me because in an open pvp game when you are outnumbered, doing hit & runs or kiting is all you got left really.

It seems that it's a continuation of the 'casualizing' of ESO that has started with 2.0. Given that ESO's business model has changed completely this is not unexpected at all, but it is sad when looking back at how promising 1.5 was.

ToRelax

Erondil wrote: »

I agree with you that those changes, aswell as the damage nerf are dumb and will incent to zerg even more, the real issue was endless ressources achievable without effort (which permite to spam skills so much and invest everyting into damages). I'm sure making ressources an issue again would most likely solve those two problems (high burst meta and skill spam) without reducing the skill-requirement nor destroying 1vX but I don't think softcaps is the best solution.
A softcap system incent to reach every softcap which reduce the meta diversity while a balanced ressource system can do without, by changing cost/regen values. Imo increasing every cost by x% (I would say ~50%), nerf armour regen/reduce cost passives by 33% (maybe extend to class/guild passives) and champion cost/regen passives by 20% (100pts=20% regen instead of 25%) could bring ressource managment to what it was in 1.5, without softcaps and at the same time, reduce the spam and reduce overall damages without the dumb changes of 1.7.

Going with a lot of balance changes in classs/weapon/armor skill lines. By now it may be so many things that should just be changed back that even that would be enough for a major update.
Furthermore, the CS needs more effective diminishing returns in the individual stars.
And I would put some diminishing returns (as opposed to softcaps) on most stats, too, especially regen.

trimsic_ESO

Considering that the combat team knows exactly how much regen, weapon or spell power, stamina, health, magicka, spell resistance, armor, etc... everyone can have when trying to max these stats, then hard caps exist, and the combat team is in charge of making sure that these limits do not compromise the balance of the game.

The problem is twofold:
- Some abilities are too powerfull
- They can be spammed

Soft caps are not the best solution to this issue. They compromise the progression path of our characters, and do no solve the root cause of the problem. Abilities that are too powerfull should be tuned down, or / and a small cooldown shall be added.

May be a Global CD should be added to the game for the class skills and weapon skills , which would have two additional advantages:
- Prevent the lag
- Prevent the cheaters from abusing macros

k2blader

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Best advice: Wait for Live, since that's the only place where you can make a real judgement about 'the death of X or Y'.

Other than that, articulate post!

Thanks.

I agree, we'll certainly have to wait for live before we can make strong proclamations like that, but there's no denying their intentions.

They don't seem to really like people getting away or tanking for too long. All their changes are in that direction. And this is what perplexes me because in an open pvp game when you are outnumbered, doing hit & runs or kiting is all you got left really.

I haven't been on the PTS yet to check it out, but how is this working in IC? Does zerging win in there too?

Raizin

k2blader wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Best advice: Wait for Live, since that's the only place where you can make a real judgement about 'the death of X or Y'.

Other than that, articulate post!

Thanks.

I agree, we'll certainly have to wait for live before we can make strong proclamations like that, but there's no denying their intentions.

They don't seem to really like people getting away or tanking for too long. All their changes are in that direction. And this is what perplexes me because in an open pvp game when you are outnumbered, doing hit & runs or kiting is all you got left really.

I haven't been on the PTS yet to check it out, but how is this working in IC? Does zerging win in there too?

Ofc.

Bashev

I agree with most of the points, OP. Good post - well structured.
Definitely builds without any escape mechanics will have a hard time in IC because of the PvE. There are a lot of mobs and without escape abilities will be difficult to disengage a fight. That leads to grouping and stacking of the players ==> zerging. For example I went solo in IC to test and ended playing with 20 ADs around me even that more than the half played without a group.
In group fights the best defensive ability will be Purge. It will remove all the dots, debufs and roots. The worst part is that it is spammable.

Emma_Overload

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm going to try to articulate my thoughts on the 1.7 balance changes as best as I can. It might prove a challenge and a bit of a long post, so please bear with me.

In versions 1-1.5 we had a system of soft-caps. You couldn't dodge or blink or block or cloak forever. Likewise you couldn't attack forever. You had to balance the use of resources between offence and defense as you saw fit. But very importantly defensive and offensive strategy would cost similar amount of resources, so it was a valid strategy to play defensive trying to drive someone out of resources if you thought your sustain was superior.

With 1.6 (2.0) and the removal of soft caps, resource management in general went out the window. I think we can all agree that was not ideal. Something needed to be done.

In response, in 1.7 (2.1) most core defensive mechanics have got a huge cost. This might seem to some like it's bringing things back to a balanced level like in 1.5 and prior. You could probably only dodge 5-6 times in 1.5 and same now. You could probably only blink 6-7 times in 1.5 and the same is most likely the case now. So why do I feel that is not the case?

The reason is the lopsided approach to increasing resource costs. It's only going on the defense that costs you a bomb on resources. Going on the offense is cheaper than ever. For example, they actually decreased class-based stamina skill costs by 20% to bring them more in line with weapon skills.

So in 1.7 you can for example dodge roll 6-7 times only, which might sound fine. But it's not when someone can spam Ambush 20+ times without any regard for his resources. In 1.5 you could probably only gap-close 7-8 times before running out of resources, while now that never happens. Similarly, blocking will have a huge stamina cost (well cost, but no regen) but somebody spamming light attack + crushing shock can keep it up forever and never drop below 80% magicka.

This change hugely favours going on the offense and hugely discourages people from going on the defense. However being defensive is only natural when you're outnumbered. It's natural to hold block if you're a tank surrounded by enemies. It's natural to start dodge-rolling or blinking when chased by 5 times your numbers.

This is an open PvP game where local combat population is never balanced. You will often outnumber enemies and often be outnumbered but rarely (if ever) will there be exact population balance in any field of combat.

When the cost of attacking is negligible but the cost of defending is massive, it's harder to survive as an outnumbered party than it ever was. In 1.7, you can't drive 2-3 players out of resources while they are attacking and you are defending. However silly they are being and however smartly you manage your own resources. That's why they call it the death of 1vX.

In my opinion this will only encourage people to get in bigger and bigger groups where you can always go on the offense and not be outnumbered. This will further hinder server performance in time, as more and more people choose the safety of numbers.

For the above reasons I believe soft-caps was a far better solution. You had to manage your offensive and defensive potential better. It gave small groups a more even change to outmaneuver and out-sustain bigger groups. It was imho more balanced and rewarded intelligent gameplay more.

TL;DR; Escaping or defending now costs more, but going on the offensive is cheaper than ever. The lopsided approach to resource costs favours bigger groups and punishes smaller groups who maintain a more defensive stance. This will potentially lead to more zerging as people will seek the safety of numbers. It's also less balanced than 1.5.

Thank you for your time

Soft caps were horrible for PvE, especially for solo players. Dying to a boss because you ran out of stamina or magicka after 2 minutes SUCKED and nobody in their right mind would want to go back to those dark days.

Bringing back soft caps now would also cause three HUGE problems:

1) Soft caps would break the Champion System, which is built around helping players improve their stats through progression... the same stats you are trying to NERF.

2) EVERY single dungeon, quest and mob encounter would have to be re-balanced to take the soft caps into account. I don't want to see Orsinium delayed by 6 months just to satisfy PvP whiners.

3) The removal of soft caps would bring back the insanity of POTION CHUGGING. Now that potions are available in the Crown Store, this would open the door to PAY-TO-WIN.... No thanks!