Should softcaps be added back?

hrothbern

Do not add softcaps back

jrkhan wrote: »

I think the problem isn't so much that you don't have diminishing marginal returns, so much as there are not really any benefits to running with more health, or with hybrid stats.

The game has an action economy, your stats need to make each action you take to be more effective in some way, or they are a waste.

Let's take an ability like hardened ward.
I'm not saying it shouldn't scale linearly off magika, that should stay.
However, what if it was multiplied by some fraction of your health pool?
In that case, balancing health and magika would make the ability more effective than stacking one or the other.

I think more abilities could benefit from secondary effects - maybe flame whip still scales in damage based on magika, but drains the targets stamina in proportion to your stam pool.


Or maybe make an ability that costs magika, but deals 5% of your current health pool in damage in addition to linear scaling on magika?


I agree, the current stack one stat meta is boring, but reverting to softcaps isn't the way to go.

agree

I would love hybrid builds that are based on good synergies from secundary effects
There are no soft caps needed in that case.

EDIT added:

Besides the beneficial secundary effects you mention, that will take some thorough thinking of ZOS before they can implement it,
there are also very simple changes to give benefits to builds that do not stack all on one stat:
Take for example the Agility Jewelry from IC.
The meta and most expensive are Jewelry that have the Robust enchant for 840 Stamina, stacked upon the 1400 Stamina of the set.
What ZOS could do is increase the enchant with 50% of the stat that does not stack to the 1400 Stamina of the set.

So you get either the one stat stack: 186 Weapon Damage + 1400 Stamina + 840 Stamina,
or you get the hybrid: 186 Weapon Damage + 1400 Stamina + 1260 Magicka/1386 Health.

That would encourage more hybrid builds without nerfing the current stack one stat meta.

Dubhliam

Add softcaps to the whole game (and rebalance content to match)

Actually, the more I think of this...

I believe a lot of stat stacking would become less appalling if ZOS nerfs just two skills:
Siphon Spirit
Elemental Drain

Having those two skills return less resources to players would make them have at least some mag regen in Jewlery or gear.
BAM! We have balance! (Not really, but hey)

Now how do I change my vote?

ApeXiTT

Do not add softcaps back

Why do people want an mmo balanced? To me part of playing an mmo is creating you own unique character, number crunch and out come. Balancing through soft caps.... I don't want to go back there again and I won't.

Helluin

Add softcaps to the whole game (and rebalance content to match)

Diversification was the fake manifesto of people asking for no soft caps.

Because of someone wanting to play with no limits to power and resources, hybrid builds and several sets became useless, also because of the over semplification of magicka and stamina skills and the scaling off max stats and not a common pool.
So for someone playing now as he/she wants, we have many others not playing as they want, like they were used to do in any TES.

With softcaps there was more diversification, at least in PvP, just light armor should have been changed and stamina - magicka skills and pools should have been adjusted.

Too many changements were done in 1.6 all together, some good, some terribly bad.

I think that it is better to satistisfy the larger number of players so it's fine to keep no caps, but hybrid builds should be viable and competitive (this topic was from 1.6 pts).

I'd prefer just some stats with even an hard cap, no more weapon or spell power but simply power, same for crit.
Magicka and Stamina should be your pool as resources not also a way to gain damage or at least they should provide less damage than now.
Otherwise, if this is not possible, between the two I'd prefer softcaps.

Before 1.6 and during 1.6 pts I and others wrote several feedbacks that were ignored to respect the schedule (Tamriel Unlimited, consoles, etc.), as understandable, but stuff like infinite dodge roll, damage shields stacking and other issues arised during this year were highly predictable without any cap or diminishing return.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Add softcaps to PvP zones only

Softcaps and the lack of the champion system made PvP about resource management. Run out of resources, you die. Without softcaps and with enough CP, you don't run out of resources. If you can't run someone out of resources, you have to rely on burst and CC chaining.

Most complaints about PvP currently are complaints about people trying to burst and CC chain. WB spam is the symptom not the cause.

Make the game about resource management again and you won't have to nerf streak, dodge roll, block etc. People will have to use heavy attacks to regain resources and won't be bursted down in 5 seconds trying to use them.


As far as PvE goes, there are too many carrot chasers that like feeling more powerful. They need a high CP number to feel special all the while they pretend ZOS isn't just going to make the bosses tougher to account for what they get in the champion system.

Let them have their carrot on a treadmill but get rid of that crap in PvP.

MisterBigglesworth

Add softcaps to PvP zones only

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Softcaps and the lack of the champion system made PvP about resource management. Run out of resources, you die. Without softcaps and with enough CP, you don't run out of resources. If you can't run someone out of resources, you have to rely on burst and CC chaining.

Most complaints about PvP currently are complaints about people trying to burst and CC chain. WB spam is the symptom not the cause.

Make the game about resource management again and you won't have to nerf streak, dodge roll, block etc. People will have to use heavy attacks to regain resources and won't be bursted down in 5 seconds trying to use them.


As far as PvE goes, there are too many carrot chasers that like feeling more powerful. They need a high CP number to feel special all the while they pretend ZOS isn't just going to make the bosses tougher to account for what they get in the champion system.

Let them have their carrot on a treadmill but get rid of that crap in PvP.

I read this announcement from Blizzard yesterday for their upcoming WoW PvP separated balancing/scaling, and it was a painful reminder of what ZOS is incapable of doing:

The only contribution your gear will make to your overall power is through a small modifier based on your average item level. For every point that your average item level increases, your pre-determined PvP stats will increase by 0.1%. That means a 25 item level difference between two players only results in a 2.5% difference in stats, compared to the 25% difference it makes today. There’s still a little incentive to improve your gear – a concept we think is important for World of Warcraft – but the benefits are much less pronounced.

These changes bring a couple of major advantages. First of all, it puts everyone participating in organized PvP on a much more even playing field. Obviously, you'll still want to unlock your Honor Talents to reach your full potential, but you'll be able to hold your own in battle in the meantime.

hrothbern

Do not add softcaps back

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Softcaps and the lack of the champion system made PvP about resource management. Run out of resources, you die. Without softcaps and with enough CP, you don't run out of resources. If you can't run someone out of resources, you have to rely on burst and CC chaining.

Most complaints about PvP currently are complaints about people trying to burst and CC chain. WB spam is the symptom not the cause.

Make the game about resource management again and you won't have to nerf streak, dodge roll, block etc. People will have to use heavy attacks to regain resources and won't be bursted down in 5 seconds trying to use them.


As far as PvE goes, there are too many carrot chasers that like feeling more powerful. They need a high CP number to feel special all the while they pretend ZOS isn't just going to make the bosses tougher to account for what they get in the champion system.

Let them have their carrot on a treadmill but get rid of that crap in PvP.

Interesting what you say: too much resources as being the root cause of the unbalancing in PVP.

Suppose that Health, Magicka and Stamina Regeneration would scale from Health.

Would that remedy what you describe?

RAGUNAnoOne

Add softcaps to the whole game (and rebalance content to match)

hrothbern wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Softcaps and the lack of the champion system made PvP about resource management. Run out of resources, you die. Without softcaps and with enough CP, you don't run out of resources. If you can't run someone out of resources, you have to rely on burst and CC chaining.

Most complaints about PvP currently are complaints about people trying to burst and CC chain. WB spam is the symptom not the cause.

Make the game about resource management again and you won't have to nerf streak, dodge roll, block etc. People will have to use heavy attacks to regain resources and won't be bursted down in 5 seconds trying to use them.


As far as PvE goes, there are too many carrot chasers that like feeling more powerful. They need a high CP number to feel special all the while they pretend ZOS isn't just going to make the bosses tougher to account for what they get in the champion system.

Let them have their carrot on a treadmill but get rid of that crap in PvP.

Interesting what you say: too much resources as being the root cause of the unbalancing in PVP.

Suppose that Health, Magicka and Stamina Regeneration would scale from Health.

Would that remedy what you describe?

I would love that, would benefit tanks a lot but I feel it would make healers a bit too hard to kill as their focus is resource regeneration if you combine that with tank like health QQ...

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Add softcaps to PvP zones only

hrothbern wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Softcaps and the lack of the champion system made PvP about resource management. Run out of resources, you die. Without softcaps and with enough CP, you don't run out of resources. If you can't run someone out of resources, you have to rely on burst and CC chaining.

Most complaints about PvP currently are complaints about people trying to burst and CC chain. WB spam is the symptom not the cause.

Make the game about resource management again and you won't have to nerf streak, dodge roll, block etc. People will have to use heavy attacks to regain resources and won't be bursted down in 5 seconds trying to use them.


As far as PvE goes, there are too many carrot chasers that like feeling more powerful. They need a high CP number to feel special all the while they pretend ZOS isn't just going to make the bosses tougher to account for what they get in the champion system.

Let them have their carrot on a treadmill but get rid of that crap in PvP.

Interesting what you say: too much resources as being the root cause of the unbalancing in PVP.

]It's not just me, here is a great post by DeanTheCat that explains in much more detail why we have been getting so many "nerf this now" threads. Controls have to go somewhere. We used to have controls on attributes, damage and regen. ZOS released those controls and now they are nerfing or adding cooldowns on individual abilites. This is a paradigm shift from a game about resource management to another boring MMO with cooldowns on skills.

Suppose that Health, Magicka and Stamina Regeneration would scale from Health.

Wouldn't that just encourage everyone to stack health? I'm not saying there should be no glass cannons, but if you build for glass cannon, you shouldn't also be able to get 25% damage reduction from the health tree. If you build for a tank, should shouldn't be able to hit 25% harder just because of CP.

Would that remedy what you describe?

The champion system needs to be disabled for PvP or completely reworked. Champion system benefits are so grossly more influential on your stats and build than armor or set bonuses.

Let me give an example:

With just 300 CP, my ability costs can be 25% cheaper, I can hit 25% harder, and I can be 25% more resistant to certain types of damage. All without sacrificing anything. That is the equivalent to wearing 3 seducer sets, 3 hundings rage sets, and a full set of heavy armor all at the same time.

On top of all those benefits, I can pick any armor I want. Medium armor gives you a 12% damage boost with 5 pieces. Champion system gives you up to 25% damage boost with any armor you want. So why worry about what type of armor you are wearing? Just stack weapon damage and make up for anything you lack in regen or survivability with the champion system. See how cookie cutter that makes all the builds in PvP?

Lets take a trip back to patch 1.6 on the PTS

When we were testing the champion system on the PTS, we asked ZOS to unlock all 3600 champion points just to see how endgame progression would look like. They obliged. You should have seen the ridiculous builds people were running.

Everyone just maxed out their mitigation (either block, shields, or dodge roll) and went toe to toe whacking each other with the hardest hitting ability they could find until someone dropped. No one ran out of regen or stamina because you could block, roll, or spam shields indefinitely. Oh wait, you have seen that. BECAUSE IT WENT LIVE LIKE THAT. We warned ZOS back then that this would happen and it did.

A good buff system is all about gear and tradeoffs, If you want to max damage, you should suffer in both regen and armor. If you want to face tank, you should suffer in damage. This is much better controlled by armor type and softcaps than by the champion system.

If you don't control it by softcaps, or armor, then you get a "Nerf X ability" thread on the forums every five minutes because someone with high CP and infinite regen can spam that skill indefinitely.

danno8

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

hrothbern wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Softcaps and the lack of the champion system made PvP about resource management. Run out of resources, you die. Without softcaps and with enough CP, you don't run out of resources. If you can't run someone out of resources, you have to rely on burst and CC chaining.

Most complaints about PvP currently are complaints about people trying to burst and CC chain. WB spam is the symptom not the cause.

Make the game about resource management again and you won't have to nerf streak, dodge roll, block etc. People will have to use heavy attacks to regain resources and won't be bursted down in 5 seconds trying to use them.


As far as PvE goes, there are too many carrot chasers that like feeling more powerful. They need a high CP number to feel special all the while they pretend ZOS isn't just going to make the bosses tougher to account for what they get in the champion system.

Let them have their carrot on a treadmill but get rid of that crap in PvP.

Interesting what you say: too much resources as being the root cause of the unbalancing in PVP.

]It's not just me, here is a great post by DeanTheCat that explains in much more detail why we have been getting so many "nerf this now" threads. Controls have to go somewhere. We used to have controls on attributes, damage and regen. ZOS released those controls and now they are nerfing or adding cooldowns on individual abilites. This is a paradigm shift from a game about resource management to another boring MMO with cooldowns on skills.

Suppose that Health, Magicka and Stamina Regeneration would scale from Health.

Wouldn't that just encourage everyone to stack health? I'm not saying there should be no glass cannons, but if you build for glass cannon, you shouldn't also be able to get 25% damage reduction from the health tree. If you build for a tank, should shouldn't be able to hit 25% harder just because of CP.

Would that remedy what you describe?

The champion system needs to be disabled for PvP or completely reworked. Champion system benefits are so grossly more influential on your stats and build than armor or set bonuses.

Let me give an example:

With just 300 CP, my ability costs can be 25% cheaper, I can hit 25% harder, and I can be 25% more resistant to certain types of damage. All without sacrificing anything. That is the equivalent to wearing 3 seducer sets, 3 hundings rage sets, and a full set of heavy armor all at the same time.

On top of all those benefits, I can pick any armor I want. Medium armor gives you a 12% damage boost with 5 pieces. Champion system gives you up to 25% damage boost with any armor you want. So why worry about what type of armor you are wearing? Just stack weapon damage and make up for anything you lack in regen or survivability with the champion system. See how cookie cutter that makes all the builds in PvP?

Lets take a trip back to patch 1.6 on the PTS

When we were testing the champion system on the PTS, we asked ZOS to unlock all 3600 champion points just to see how endgame progression would look like. They obliged. You should have seen the ridiculous builds people were running.

Everyone just maxed out their mitigation (either block, shields, or dodge roll) and went toe to toe whacking each other with the hardest hitting ability they could find until someone dropped. No one ran out of regen or stamina because you could block, roll, or spam shields indefinitely. Oh wait, you have seen that. BECAUSE IT WENT LIVE LIKE THAT. We warned ZOS back then that this would happen and it did.

A good buff system is all about gear and tradeoffs, If you want to max damage, you should suffer in both regen and armor. If you want to face tank, you should suffer in damage. This is much better controlled by armor type and softcaps than by the champion system.

If you don't control it by softcaps, or armor, then you get a "Nerf X ability" thread on the forums every five minutes because someone with high CP and infinite regen can spam that skill indefinitely.

Yup.

Instead of soft-caps we now have soft-cooldowns. (dodge, Bolt Escape and (soon to be) Cloak.)

NewBlacksmurf

Do not add softcaps back

I do not want soft caps back.
The issue isn't soft cape or champion points(*)

The issue is that the game has VR.
The game keeps giving stat and skill points past level 50 but the rest of the skill lines stop.
(*)Champion points don't need a reduction. They need an increase so that you don't need 10-20-40 PTS in a passive but rather just 1-5

The game doesn't need a lot of rebalancing but adjustments are needed. This OP and the other thread isn't the answer sorry

Draxys

Add softcaps to the whole game (and rebalance content to match)

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

I do not want soft caps back.
The issue isn't soft cape or champion points(*)

The issue is that the game has VR.
The game keeps giving stat and skill points past level 50 but the rest of the skill lines stop.
(*)Champion points don't need a reduction. They need an increase so that you don't need 10-20-40 PTS in a passive but rather just 1-5

The game doesn't need a lot of rebalancing but adjustments are needed. This OP and the other thread isn't the answer sorry

Game doesn't need rebalancing? Wtf are you playing, bc it can't be eso

zornyan

Soft caps sound like the best solution, the gsme was obviously designed with soft caps in mind, although I wasn't around during that time, I've played many games with soft caps and they work wonderfully, but it shouldn't be a brick wall, it should be slow dimishing returns.

As it stands your not penalized for stacking just one resource, take sorcerers. Stack 45k magicka, 4k spell damage, that gives you endless resources, (thanks to CP) huge shields, huge healing with resto staff, huge nobility, huge defence and huge offence.

One thing I think is magicka shouldn't effect the strength of spells, nor stamina effect the strength of weapon abilities.

If you want more spell damage? Then increase it but sacrifice max magicka for less defence/resource. If you want more resource / bigger shields? Stack magicka but lose raw damage.

They need to be seperated,and soft caps (needs to be a new system that is a SOFT cap) need introducing, so that hybrids can actually work, heavy armor could once again be viable, races like aragonians wouldn't be ridiculously underpowered.