The root of the problem - A lack of limits

Sensesfail13 · September 2015

Wing wrote: »

1.5 was the closest this game ever came to balanced

I totally agree, If only the people at ZOS would realize this and roll back this ***

Merlight · September 2015

@DeanTheCat Great thread. After reading/watching it all those points seem so obvious that one has to wonder... why have they done this? Monetization. That's how "unlimited" became the name of the game. And how "limited" became the nature of the game.

I'm sure the game's designers knew damn well why they'd put soft caps in. The flat reduction was kinda harsh, but I think if the devs suggested a curve on diminishing returns (example below), design would reject that as "inexplicable to the casuals" (albeit those hardly care about the exact formula).

Spoiler

StatOverSoftCap = PointsOverSoftCap / sqrt(1 + 3.75 * PointsOverSoftCap / (HardCap - SoftCap))

e.g. with SoftCap=2000 and HardCap=3000, you'd get StatPoints => StatValue:
2150 => 2120 (80%)
2300 => 2205 (68%)
2800 => 2400 (50%)
3400 => 2560 (40%)
4700 => 2809 (30%)
6000 => 3000 (25%)

DeanTheCat · September 2015

Merlight wrote: »

@DeanTheCat Great thread. After reading/watching it all those points seem so obvious that one has to wonder... why have they done this? Monetization. That's how "unlimited" became the name of the game. And how "limited" became the nature of the game.

I'm sure the game's designers knew damn well why they'd put soft caps in. The flat reduction was kinda harsh, but I think if the devs suggested a curve on diminishing returns (example below), design would reject that as "inexplicable to the casuals" (albeit those hardly care about the exact formula).
Spoiler
StatOverSoftCap = PointsOverSoftCap / sqrt(1 + 3.75 * PointsOverSoftCap / (HardCap - SoftCap))

e.g. with SoftCap=2000 and HardCap=3000, you'd get StatPoints => StatValue:
2150 => 2120 (80%)
2300 => 2205 (68%)
2800 => 2400 (50%)
3400 => 2560 (40%)
4700 => 2809 (30%)
6000 => 3000 (25%)

@Merlight:
That sort of forumlae would actually be better then my suggested value of a flat 25% reduction after going over softcap. It doesn't punish players who are slightly above softcap, while severely limiting the power of attributes stacking, thus encouraging diversity in terms of builds.

I'm still of the opinion that ZOS had good intentions when they first implimented the Champion System, but failed to account for the "edge" cases which turned out not to be "edge" cases after all. I feel that the system has good potential, but the failure to keep reasonable limits in play ultimately created the mess that we have today.

The situation can still be salvaged by imposing limits, and the more they delay imposing said limits, the bigger the community backlash would be when they finally impose them. Therefore, any changes need to be done in a timely manner, lest the backlash becomes to huge to reasonable manage.

grumlins · September 2015

Simple solution for the veteran system, convert those levels to points in the Champion system.

Second, they could make the stats in the game actually MEAN something. When you have thousands of points in stam and you're still not hitting as hard as a sorcerer something is wrong with the system.

The powercreep wouldn't exist if they had stayed with level 50 max. I'm all for post max level advancement but they didn't need two systems they should have only had one. champion system.

Master_Kas · September 2015

Good reading and this one agrees!

Mr-jo-handsome · September 2015

All I heard him say was bring back 1.5

PBpsy · September 2015

Yes. Bring back 1.5 already.!!!

DeanTheCat · September 2015

Mr-jo-handsome wrote: »

All I heard him say was bring back 1.5

@Mr-jo-handsome: I did not say bring back 1.5. My suggested changes are trying to aim for a middle ground between 1.5 and 1.6, in order to increase build diversity and relative balance between players.

1.5 had it's own issues, but what 1.6 brought in was way far worse then whatever issues 1.5 had. However, 1.6 also brought in good things as well as bad, which is why we should strive for a middle ground between the two, taking the best aspects of each (1.5's limits on character power and 1.6's fixes and improvements).

Teridaxus · September 2015

But the game is called The elder scrolls online: tamriel unlimited

Firerock2 · September 2015

mzapkeneb18_ESO wrote: »

But the game is called The elder scrolls online: tamriel unlimited

Damn, you're right.

mr_wazzabi · September 2015

DeanTheCat wrote: »

show previous quotes

maxlacab16_ESO wrote: »

@DeanTheCat Very good post, but I have to disagree.

Every game or sport or art or skill is based on the principle of "Rewards for Investment" or "Mastery through Practice."
Players who invest large parts of their time in building knowledge, skills and routines within the framework of the game, should by all means be rewarded for their efforts. If those rewards were capped, and everyone who played the game could achieve the same "excellence" and "advancement" in a casual play style, the game would be pointless!

In the big and relevant marathon races, there is always a small group of "hard core" racers, who with every race they run, push the envelope of what is humanly possible. Then there are many many others who are fast, very fast, but often more than an hour behind that 'hard core' group in the front! And then you got the tens of thousands who hope that they will be able to finish the race on their feet, and not die of a exhaustion or a heart attack!
Now, should the front runners be capped for the sake of the pack? The race would be pointless and the marathon would die!

The dis-balance between casual gamers and intense (hard-core) gamers will always be extreme. If the game did not allow this, there would be no intense gamers and there would be no game at all...it would be Angry Birds.

In addition, the dis-balance you point out is only relevant in PVP. In PVE your best buddy is the one that can protect you from all the baddies in the world!

As for selective grouping in PVE: let the VR16 Legends group with each other and sweep up all the trophies, items and loot they want. There are hundreds of other players still wanting to do the same content at lower levels. If you are not a VR16 Legend, don't pretend to be one! And if you are lucky, you may convince a VR16 Legend to run with you and get you that upgrade that you have failed to get on your own!

On the point of class dis-balance, which you did not get into, I can only suggest that if you think your own class is overpowered by another, roll a new character of that class and see if the class is actually OP, or if you just need to L2P!

IMO, nerfing a class or skill is always the wrong fix and never a solution. If the lower level players indeed want to be SAFE from higher level players in PVP, then I would suggest to BRACKET the levels and make it impossible to attack a player in another BRACKET than your own!

just my 2c

The thing is, ESO is mainly funded by these "Casual" players, who will never hit softcaps, even if they were re-implemented. Back before 1.6 came in and removed soft-caps, most people who you would consider "Casual" didn't even get half the stats needed to hit soft caps. These changes proposed are mainly targeted at the top 5% of the population, who would dominate no matter what situation they were placed in. All that the capping does is that it returns the top 5% from demi-god status into champion status, to make it seem that the "Casuals" could actually have a chance of winning. Nobody likes playing a game where they stood mathematically 0% chance of winning. If all those "Casual" players who you disdain all decided to leave today, I can assure you that ESO will shut down within a month. I do not wish that to happen to a game I enjoy and love.

I did not delve deeper into the issue of class imbalance as I feel that the problem goes far deeper then a simple "Class Imbalance". The basic mechanics are currently flawed, and the current Buff-Nerf See-Saw is nothing more then treating the symptom rather than the cause. When removing weeds from an otherwise pristine garden, one removes them at the roots, and not just cutting what's visible.

If my proposed changes were implemented, I stand to lose a lot from these changes, as I'm already pushing the envelope of my class and playstyle to the absolute limit of what is possible. And I can safely say that from my point of view, it is extremely unfair to anyone not within a reasonable margin of my current progress. Many players who I face had mathematically less than 10% chance of winning, and that's not due to my skill, but the sheer stats that I have. I push for these changes not for my own good, but for the good of the game.

Cyrodiil is designed to be an alliance vs alliance style of combat, and arbitrarily restricting the types of opponents which you can fight hurts the spirit of realm pride, something that is already currently lacking. The non-veteran campaign serves it's purpose as a tutorial, but you should never stop a player from attacking an enemy he can see. The ESO PvP community is already fragmented as it is, and more barriers would render everything pointless.

In regards for the PvE aspect, I play games (Yes, I do play PvE occasionally) to have a challenge, and I never liked the feeling of "being carried". Therefore, I strive to push myself to the very best I can be. What's the fun for you in PvE when you get your loot, but you never actually earned it yourself? It's nothing more than a hollow victory, knowing that you relied on someone else to get you to where you are. I'm sure I'm not the only one who shares this sentiment. Many people out there want to get the epic loot that we all want, but also want to feel that they actually made an effort to obtain it. Thus it is also needed to cap the power of players in a PvE setting, to ensure that if a team wishes to succeed, they need to all chip in. I'm sure that you would prefer to finish an instance (I know I would) and say "That was tough, but we all worked together, this is our victory!" rather then "Thanks for carrying me through it".

Another fact is that if player power levels get too high in a PvE setting, the developers will be forced to add artificial difficulty to the game to balance it, usually in the form of cheap mechanics like enrage timers or one-shot mechanics. The challenge will only then be completable by a team of elites with maximum stats, which leaves the average John Doe completely out of it. They will then leave the game due to a lack of content which they can attempt, which brings me back to my original point of ESO being primarily funded by "Casual" players.

To reiterate, you cannot balance for the top 5%. You balance everyone such that everyone has a chance to compete, instead of completely being locked out because they have mathematically 0% chance to succeed.

^ This one knows

Hyssia · September 2015

These are all very good points.

RoamingRiverElk · October 2015

Wing wrote: »

1.5 was the closest this game ever came to balanced

Or ever will, for that matter, judging from the changes that have been introduced since 1.6...

MLRPZ · October 2015

there is a TL;DR to this thread : Bring back 1.5

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

Deanthecat I think you're dead on. I think the CP system is great, but I'm baffled that they created that system while simultaneously removing softcaps. I've said so since the change. My suggestion was for them to create soft caps on all kinds of buffs. A good example is in the creation of a Dunmer Dragon Knight Fire Mage. Obviously the Dunmer will reach top tier Fire based damage, purely because his race and class buff Fire Damage. My suggestion is that they should have limited the elemental damage buff in the CP system. Give room for the Dunmer to 'hit the wall' on Fire damage first, but also make it possible for a Nord to catch up with proper investment. This would mirror how gameplay was in previous TES games as well. No matter what race I made in previous TES games, at the top end I was always able to achieve maximum performance. The key difference is the path toward optimization from race to race. Soft Caps were the only way for people to achieve parity with race-class combos. As it stands now, Altmer is ideal for magic Sorcerer dps. There is no good way to adjust this with gear, but CP could have been that means. It was and is not.

I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater though. I think they need to reconsider how to bring softcaps back into the game. Personally I find the gear hamster wheel of other mmo's rather childish. The draw should be the fun of the game alone, it shouldn't be the developers drastically changing game systems every six months and giving us new gear to work our asses off to acquire that deal with those changes. If this game becomes about chasing the gear-dragon, a lot of people will leave. In fact I think this is a contributing factor to why a lot of pvp'ers in mmo's keep changing games. Its not a loss of love for the game, but great disappointment in the ruining of the joy of the game. Soft Caps are vital to balance, and they really need to reconsider how to bring them back.

rfennell_ESO · October 2015

They need to re-implement softcaps.

Why they were ever deemed so bad they needed removing is beyond my comprehension.

At the worst they only needed some reworking, not removal.

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

They need to re-implement softcaps.

Why they were ever deemed so bad they needed removing is beyond my comprehension.

At the worst they only needed some reworking, not removal.

In terms of balance I think removing soft caps might possibly have been even worse than killing stamina regen while blocking, or the huge nerf to dodge rolling they did. I might add that the latter would not have been needed if they had found a way to keep soft caps, and the whole playability of the game would be a lot better.

rfennell_ESO · October 2015

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

They need to re-implement softcaps.

Why they were ever deemed so bad they needed removing is beyond my comprehension.

At the worst they only needed some reworking, not removal.

In terms of balance I think removing soft caps might possibly have been even worse than killing stamina regen while blocking, or the huge nerf to dodge rolling they did. I might add that the latter would not have been needed if they had found a way to keep soft caps, and the whole playability of the game would be a lot better.

Yeah... I mean they could have just adjusted softcaps at higher levels instead of the total removal of them and they would have been much better off. Or just softened the soft cap hits.

It's one of the few changes they made I can't really get the point of.

film · October 2015

OP Thanks for the post. Some good insight on real problems in MMOs and possible solutions to mull over.

hrothbern · October 2015

Fundamentally I like the concept of "no limits".
It is a freedom of choice and it should therefore contribute to diversity of builds.
So I would not like to "give up" too easy on the "no caps" direction taken.

In real life, in the biggest game ever of diversity, in the evolution of all kinds of animals, there is no limit as well.
And there are lessons to be learned from it.
The survival of the fittest was not the survival of the strongest.

The most succesfull creatures are seldom the biggest creature possible or full glass canons or full turtles.
But the choices we get from armor sets, especially in the 2-4 pcs, give us most of the time only an improvement in:

more stats (the bigger creature)
more resources regeneration (e.g. cheetah vs wolf)
more Spell/Weapon Damage (the stronger creature)
more Mitigation by Resistance or Heal (the turtle creature)

This limited choice is the root of the issue !
This limited choices drives us to maxing either damage or mitigation with as base line sufficient health and recoveries.

If 2-4 pcs bonusses would also include:

more mobility (speed and/or indifferent to 1-2 snares)
increase radius by xyz % of AOE
increase range ranged attacks by xyz %
add a CC effect to any attack with xyz % chance
be indifferent to a CC effect by xyz % chance
reduce cost of break free with xyz %
and many more

So far these special bonusses were only available with the 5 pcs bonusses. Maxed at 2 if your sets were a 552 or 551.

If such combat improvements would be a regular choice possibility, the freedom of choice no longer revolves around damage dealing or damage eating.
With such possibilities added the choice will have much more to do with "how you play" !

F7sus4 · October 2015

DeanTheCat wrote: »

A few days ago, in Haderus, I managed to perform a solo keep defense against a full zerg of 30 odd DC players. There were no VR16s amongst them, and I had fully kitted VR16 gear. They literally had no chance to take me down, with their attacks barely doing 1-2k damage to my health, whereas my attacks were hitting for 8-13k damage to them, often two-shotting them. The keep only fell when two VR16 DC players showed up, and those two players proved to be way more of a threat then the entire DC zerg combined. Is this really what we want?

Having VR16 gear with VR16 enchantments against VR14 gives you around +1000 to your main stat total. Which is 2-3% DPS increase and 1-1,5% with 50% PvP damage reduction. Assuming the situation you described is real, tell me, how did your did the tiny-winy improvement on your stats helped you on your task?

Spoiler

IT DIDN'T. YOU'RE JUST SPREADING BULLSNIP!

TLDR: A good borrowed video on "power creeping", just irrelevant examples to match the ideas mentioned there.

dodgehopper_ESO · November 2015

DeanTheCat wrote: »

show previous quotes

maxlacab16_ESO wrote: »

@DeanTheCat Very good post, but I have to disagree.

Every game or sport or art or skill is based on the principle of "Rewards for Investment" or "Mastery through Practice."
Players who invest large parts of their time in building knowledge, skills and routines within the framework of the game, should by all means be rewarded for their efforts. If those rewards were capped, and everyone who played the game could achieve the same "excellence" and "advancement" in a casual play style, the game would be pointless!

In the big and relevant marathon races, there is always a small group of "hard core" racers, who with every race they run, push the envelope of what is humanly possible. Then there are many many others who are fast, very fast, but often more than an hour behind that 'hard core' group in the front! And then you got the tens of thousands who hope that they will be able to finish the race on their feet, and not die of a exhaustion or a heart attack!
Now, should the front runners be capped for the sake of the pack? The race would be pointless and the marathon would die!

The dis-balance between casual gamers and intense (hard-core) gamers will always be extreme. If the game did not allow this, there would be no intense gamers and there would be no game at all...it would be Angry Birds.

In addition, the dis-balance you point out is only relevant in PVP. In PVE your best buddy is the one that can protect you from all the baddies in the world!

As for selective grouping in PVE: let the VR16 Legends group with each other and sweep up all the trophies, items and loot they want. There are hundreds of other players still wanting to do the same content at lower levels. If you are not a VR16 Legend, don't pretend to be one! And if you are lucky, you may convince a VR16 Legend to run with you and get you that upgrade that you have failed to get on your own!

On the point of class dis-balance, which you did not get into, I can only suggest that if you think your own class is overpowered by another, roll a new character of that class and see if the class is actually OP, or if you just need to L2P!

IMO, nerfing a class or skill is always the wrong fix and never a solution. If the lower level players indeed want to be SAFE from higher level players in PVP, then I would suggest to BRACKET the levels and make it impossible to attack a player in another BRACKET than your own!

just my 2c

The thing is, ESO is mainly funded by these "Casual" players, who will never hit softcaps, even if they were re-implemented. Back before 1.6 came in and removed soft-caps, most people who you would consider "Casual" didn't even get half the stats needed to hit soft caps. These changes proposed are mainly targeted at the top 5% of the population, who would dominate no matter what situation they were placed in. All that the capping does is that it returns the top 5% from demi-god status into champion status, to make it seem that the "Casuals" could actually have a chance of winning. Nobody likes playing a game where they stood mathematically 0% chance of winning. If all those "Casual" players who you disdain all decided to leave today, I can assure you that ESO will shut down within a month. I do not wish that to happen to a game I enjoy and love.

I did not delve deeper into the issue of class imbalance as I feel that the problem goes far deeper then a simple "Class Imbalance". The basic mechanics are currently flawed, and the current Buff-Nerf See-Saw is nothing more then treating the symptom rather than the cause. When removing weeds from an otherwise pristine garden, one removes them at the roots, and not just cutting what's visible.

If my proposed changes were implemented, I stand to lose a lot from these changes, as I'm already pushing the envelope of my class and playstyle to the absolute limit of what is possible. And I can safely say that from my point of view, it is extremely unfair to anyone not within a reasonable margin of my current progress. Many players who I face had mathematically less than 10% chance of winning, and that's not due to my skill, but the sheer stats that I have. I push for these changes not for my own good, but for the good of the game.

Cyrodiil is designed to be an alliance vs alliance style of combat, and arbitrarily restricting the types of opponents which you can fight hurts the spirit of realm pride, something that is already currently lacking. The non-veteran campaign serves it's purpose as a tutorial, but you should never stop a player from attacking an enemy he can see. The ESO PvP community is already fragmented as it is, and more barriers would render everything pointless.

In regards for the PvE aspect, I play games (Yes, I do play PvE occasionally) to have a challenge, and I never liked the feeling of "being carried". Therefore, I strive to push myself to the very best I can be. What's the fun for you in PvE when you get your loot, but you never actually earned it yourself? It's nothing more than a hollow victory, knowing that you relied on someone else to get you to where you are. I'm sure I'm not the only one who shares this sentiment. Many people out there want to get the epic loot that we all want, but also want to feel that they actually made an effort to obtain it. Thus it is also needed to cap the power of players in a PvE setting, to ensure that if a team wishes to succeed, they need to all chip in. I'm sure that you would prefer to finish an instance (I know I would) and say "That was tough, but we all worked together, this is our victory!" rather then "Thanks for carrying me through it".

Another fact is that if player power levels get too high in a PvE setting, the developers will be forced to add artificial difficulty to the game to balance it, usually in the form of cheap mechanics like enrage timers or one-shot mechanics. The challenge will only then be completable by a team of elites with maximum stats, which leaves the average John Doe completely out of it. They will then leave the game due to a lack of content which they can attempt, which brings me back to my original point of ESO being primarily funded by "Casual" players.

To reiterate, you cannot balance for the top 5%. You balance everyone such that everyone has a chance to compete, instead of completely being locked out because they have mathematically 0% chance to succeed.

Fantastic points all around @Deanthecat. I have felt the softcap removal was a bad idea from the moment they were talking about to this very day. I don't think the Champion system is inherently bad if softcaps were to exist. In fact, with softcaps the champion system could really help people 'play as they want'. Nords could have equivalent bonus fire damage (or near to it) with a Dunmer. Redguards could pull off magicka regen like an Altmer, etc. If they designed the system this way, there could be more diversity in builds, instead of one trick ponies. The new system really channels us down very precise paths of character development, and its going to get progressively more impossible for them to make the game fun, challenging, and interesting.

Ultimately there is another issue here. Seasoned players have an advantage in knowledge and skill that a less seasoned player would have. This difference exists separately from gear imbalances. I prefer a game where my opponent's skill is more meaningful than what set and CP's he's stacking, and I think most players would like to pvp a game like this. The drive of MMO's to push grind to stats to victory is a hamster wheel of extreme boredom, and why a lot of my old shooter friends and mmo buddies alike have left MMO's. MMO as a concept could be really cool, if just a handful of the devs would recognize that they do not have to keep creating gear and power creep to keep us interested.

Raizin · November 2015

must revitalize this .... BUMB!

ItsGlaive · November 2015

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

NO to all of this. What is the point of grinding to progress your toons if that progression is going to be rolled back on a whim?

Furthermore, the "power creep" from the Champion System is a much needed boost to solo-oriented players like me who have been struggling to conquer as much of the group content in the game as possible. The extra power that comes from hundreds of CP offers many players an important alternate path to accomplishing their goals in the game, goals that may not have even been possible before Update 1.6.

Finally, I don't share your optimism that ZOS would roll back the nerfs to Bolt Escape or whatever. Those abilities probably need a conceptual overhaul, not a mere tweak or re-balancing. Who knows when (or if) ZOS will get around to overhauling the abilities and combat mechanics.

Just a couple of thoughts I'd like to share. First, group content is not meant to be solo'd - that's why it's group content. Either group up or be content with the fact you're excluding yourself from certain activities by your own choice.

Second, power creep is a well known phenomenon in MMOs. Agree with it or not, OP has a point - every time they up the limits, all balance is thrown out of whack.

dodgehopper_ESO · November 2015

Xabien wrote: »

show previous quotes

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

NO to all of this. What is the point of grinding to progress your toons if that progression is going to be rolled back on a whim?

Furthermore, the "power creep" from the Champion System is a much needed boost to solo-oriented players like me who have been struggling to conquer as much of the group content in the game as possible. The extra power that comes from hundreds of CP offers many players an important alternate path to accomplishing their goals in the game, goals that may not have even been possible before Update 1.6.

Finally, I don't share your optimism that ZOS would roll back the nerfs to Bolt Escape or whatever. Those abilities probably need a conceptual overhaul, not a mere tweak or re-balancing. Who knows when (or if) ZOS will get around to overhauling the abilities and combat mechanics.

Just a couple of thoughts I'd like to share. First, group content is not meant to be solo'd - that's why it's group content. Either group up or be content with the fact you're excluding yourself from certain activities by your own choice.

Second, power creep is a well known phenomenon in MMOs. Agree with it or not, OP has a point - every time they up the limits, all balance is thrown out of whack.

The power creep was my biggest concern when they did away with soft caps. Now they're left with the sticky situation of having to completely redesign game balance almost from the ground up, which means the play styles we are accustomed to must fundamentally change, and continually change. I'm hopeful though.

DeanTheCat · November 2015

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

show previous quotes

Xabien wrote: »

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

NO to all of this. What is the point of grinding to progress your toons if that progression is going to be rolled back on a whim?

Furthermore, the "power creep" from the Champion System is a much needed boost to solo-oriented players like me who have been struggling to conquer as much of the group content in the game as possible. The extra power that comes from hundreds of CP offers many players an important alternate path to accomplishing their goals in the game, goals that may not have even been possible before Update 1.6.

Finally, I don't share your optimism that ZOS would roll back the nerfs to Bolt Escape or whatever. Those abilities probably need a conceptual overhaul, not a mere tweak or re-balancing. Who knows when (or if) ZOS will get around to overhauling the abilities and combat mechanics.

Just a couple of thoughts I'd like to share. First, group content is not meant to be solo'd - that's why it's group content. Either group up or be content with the fact you're excluding yourself from certain activities by your own choice.

Second, power creep is a well known phenomenon in MMOs. Agree with it or not, OP has a point - every time they up the limits, all balance is thrown out of whack.

The power creep was my biggest concern when they did away with soft caps. Now they're left with the sticky situation of having to completely redesign game balance almost from the ground up, which means the play styles we are accustomed to must fundamentally change, and continually change. I'm hopeful though.

Well, now with @Wrobel having a forum account, there is a chance he may take matters here into consideration

Let's all hope that this is the beginning of a new era, one that we can all work together to create a fun balanced game for all.

ragnarok6644b14_ESO · November 2015

I like everything I heard here. As you can see from my terribly butchered forum name I've been playing since Beta.

Back in the day I made Katerina Malinenko, an Imperial Healer Templar. It was awesome, I hit the soft cap for magicka and put stuff into health. I did fine.

Now, because of my race|class mismatch, I am being told to reroll if I want to compete at the highest levels of play.

So much for "play your way."

usmcjdking · November 2015

Removal of soft caps is completely destroying hybrid builds which was what was AWESOME about this game.

Flak · November 2015

I disagree with most of that, CP imbalance has been fixed with the Cap and Catchup-mechanics. Softcap removal was right as it allows more variety on character development.
Although I also disliked the OP V16 Gear, the effect in PvP is not very noticeable due to the 50% damage reduction. I think the reason why ppl are asking for nerfs is the huge difficultygap between open world and Endgamecontent. People don't have to learn the combatsystem right while leveling their chars. Quite naturally theyr getting smashed in harder content.

usmcjdking · November 2015

Flak wrote: »

I disagree with most of that, CP imbalance has been fixed with the Cap and Catchup-mechanics. Softcap removal was right as it allows more variety on character development.
Although I also disliked the OP V16 Gear, the effect in PvP is not very noticeable due to the 50% damage reduction. I think the reason why ppl are asking for nerfs is the huge difficultygap between open world and Endgamecontent. People don't have to learn the combatsystem right while leveling their chars. Quite naturally theyr getting smashed in harder content.

Variety on character development?

I'm sorry, but what? Let's examine this for a minute:

Step 1: Ask some top magicka or stam DPSers in your guild what they are using and what skills.
Step 2: Behold the beautiful variation of like 3 different pieces of armor.