Roots of damage stacking

karakondzula

Hi everyone!

Pretty sure i'm not the only one who dislike current state of PVP, where everything goes down to stacking damage and putting everything into one stat.

I'm gonna post few reasons (and 1 well known) who are constantly overlooked when it comes to balancing 3 basic build archetypes tank, healer, damage dealer including long lost hybrid builds. Since soft caps are gone for good these should be looked at. People always argue about class abilities being overpowered or underpowered because there is only one viable way of playing and thats stacking as much damage as you can without any downside. Gonna start with major and finish with minor issues.

1. Healing scaling with max stam/magic and weapon/spell damage. This is one of the major problems why damage stacking have no downside, the more damage you stack more healing you get, which is in my book big problem. I think healing should be separate stat or at least maybe scale with health since health is useless (more in folowing).

2. Armor penetration/Spell penetration. Armor and spell res is caped at 50% DR and that pretty low comparing it to other games. There is no reason for armor penetration to even exist with such low hard cap. Players stacking armor are already gimped in damage and resources. Maybe if cap is raised to 80% DR, armor/spell pen would be reasonable thing.

3. Health. Health is useless because of 1. and 2. Having high armor would make health much more valuable. Health is useless because cyrodill offers free 5k. Also to mention is that both stamina and magicka offer one more benefit (again damage)along with raising base resource pool. Health should have another bonus just like stam/mag, not sure what really but it needs something, be it boost to health regen(or all regenerations), armor, or healing scaling from health. Should be tested ofc.

4. Damage shields. And no i don't want to nerf sorc! Damage shields are bad mechanic and we all know that, they just offer way too many protection from damage same as healing scaling from stam/mag. I personaly think they should offer protection only from one source of damage, be only physical or only magic damage. This way classes who have no healing just stack offense and in the same time they get great defense. its just wrong. Again i have nothing against Sorcs, the system in general is bad.

I think this would change whole game play a lot and open doors for diversity in builds. Discuss!

Draxys

Not really sure what to do about dmg shields, but 100% agree with everything else.

Septimus_Magna

There should be a more defined balance between sustain (regen/cost reduction) and damage.

Right now its too easy to get decent sustain from racials and CPs that most stats are specced into dmg.

hrothbern

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

There should be a more defined balance between sustain (regen/cost reduction) and damage.

Right now its too easy to get decent sustain from racials and CPs that most stats are specced into dmg.

agree

If the base recoveries of Mag-Stam-health would scale from Health,

and the current base fix base values would come from a Health of 20-25k

The game will be much more balanced

High Health characters will have more resources without the sting of highly scaled DPS/HPS

The current one stat stack builds going for highest DPS/HPS can only achieve that by sacrificing some of their short burst high DPS/HPS to get higher long-burst DPS/HPS, more sustain.

AbraXuSeXile

WTB Soft Caps

danno8

In general, and in line with what you have said, defense and offense can not scale off of the same resource. So damage shields should not scale off of maximum Magicka if most (all) of your offensive skills also scale off of max magicka. Same with healing.

Offense should scale from weapon damage/crit and spell damage/crit. Decoupled from Magicka/stamina pools. If you want highest burst damage you have to give up some sustain.

Healing should have it's own "healing power/crit" stat. Decoupled from magicka/stamina pools. If you want highest healing power you have to give up some sustain.

If offense is decoupled from magicka/stamina then damage shields could continue to scale off of maximum resources.

Maximum health should offer a reduction in the stamina regeneration penalty during blocking. Health really needs more reason to invest into.

Honestly they have made so many bad decisions in regards to stat balance in this game, I think it is basically unfixable at this point, barring another major overhaul. It makes me sad especially in Cyrodiil when I see players walking around with the best of all worlds and no sacrifices having to be made stat wise. Max defense, max offense, easy regeneration, super sustain.

Casdha

Call me crazy but I would have rather seen something like:

Spell and Weapon Damage both scale off of Total Attribute points, not what you spend them in.

Weapon Damage = Damage from any weapon you craft be it Bow, Staff or sword and the skills associated with them.

Spell Damage = Damage from anything that does not need a weapon to cast like Lava Whip or hidden blade and the various types of non physical shields. (talking bout damage done by certain shield morphs)

And if you spend points in Attributes, your choice only affects how much you can use each type of skill, not how powerful they are. Maybe have health scale your absorb effects and shield cap.

This would open up a wide array of build possibilities and folks would always be able to shift things around to counter for what ever the new Meta is at the time.

One thing for sure it would at least off a viable alternative to dumping everything into one attribute.

Edit: added clarification on shields being under spell damage.

Solariken

karakondzula wrote: »

Thanks for posting, great thoughts OP. I wish the developers would adopt a real design philosophy regarding their class system. They make so many amateur decisions when it comes to class design. Your first point is a glaring example - gaining damage output and healing/shielding/sustain all together by stacking one stat is such garbage design.

I have always been a proponent of a system without classes, or at least a system that allows you to change classes. Especially in this game where class balance is barely even on the developer radar. Seriously, if you aren't going to even try to make the system good, just get rid of it.

Do you think the problem is that there just aren't enough developers working on this facet of the game?

karakondzula

Solariken wrote: »

karakondzula wrote: »

Thanks for posting, great thoughts OP. I wish the developers would adopt a real design philosophy regarding their class system. They make so many amateur decisions when it comes to class design. Your first point is a glaring example - gaining damage output and healing/shielding/sustain all together by stacking one stat is such garbage design.

I have always been a proponent of a system without classes, or at least a system that allows you to change classes. Especially in this game where class balance is barely even on the developer radar. Seriously, if you aren't going to even try to make the system good, just get rid of it.

Do you think the problem is that there just aren't enough developers working on this facet of the game?

I imagined this game have no specific class system when i bought the game. Planed to make all out warrior character

For developers i don't really know. I guess they just want to please the majority (who complains about simple things)with every patch. Maybe they need someone in their team who actually play this game a lot, both pvp and pve.

hrothbern

The one stat stack meta has 3 big advantages:

1. very high DPS
2. very high self HPS (or very high zerg HPS)
3. AND.... a very big resource pool for a very long sustained burst

you get all you neeed !

I think that there is nothing wrong with an extreme niche build stacking only DPS/HPS.
Scaling DPS/HPS from the stat is fine
as such

But I think these high stats must go at the expense of being able to do sustained long bursts of 1-2 minutes. These 1-2 minutes are so effective that boss fights have turned as well in a DPS speed race.

Too high resources available from the big stat is the root cause of Damage stacking.

for this "cost economy" method of balancing, not to forget the usual balancing factor for almost anything in real life, there are many kind of solutions possible.

For example
When regenerations would scale from your Health pool, at the expense of lower Mag-Stam stat, you, as player, have to balance between higher DPS/HPS for a shorter burst versus a lower HPS/DPS in a longer burst or steady state sustain.

Flameheart

As a PvEer I can't see any issue with damage/resource stacking and therefore specialization for a role.

In addition my experience in PvP is, that some people might still not stack enough damage to get a selfhealing player down in a reasonable amount of time, despite the healing and shielding nerf or still have issues to deliver the damage to beat certain PvE encounters.

If the TOs intention is to add some crude changes to the game again, which have major impact for PvE, so my answer is just a fat NO, sorry.

I might agree somewhat to the "too easy to sustain" argument, but I wouldn't call my 800/900 magicka reg in PvE a lot. The fights in PvE I know, are still runs on the blade's egde concerning magicka. You will notice it immediately if the other DD is lousy at his job and/or a support buff (Siphon Soul or Elemental Drain or Necrotic Orbs) isn't delivered. In PvE you won't use any reg food, you use stat food.

karakondzula

Flameheart wrote: »

As a PvEer I can't see any issue with damage/resource stacking and therefore specialization for a role.

In addition my experience in PvP is, that some people might still not stack enough damage to get a selfhealing player down in a reasonable amount of time, despite the healing and shielding nerf or still have issues to deliver the damage to beat certain PvE encounters.

If the TOs intention is to add some crude changes to the game again, which have major impact for PvE, so my answer is just a fat NO, sorry.

I might agree somewhat to the "too easy to sustain" argument, but I wouldn't call my 800/900 magicka reg in PvE a lot. The fights in PvE I know, are still runs on the blade's egde concerning magicka. You will notice it immediately if the other DD is lousy at his job and/or a support buff (Siphon Soul or Elemental Drain or Necrotic Orbs) isn't delivered. In PvE you won't use any reg food, you use stat food.

There is nothing wrong in stacking anything if thats the way you wanna play. We have an issue that stacking damage is the ONLY way to go. Shields and healing were never nerfed in PVP, everything just got halved.

Separating healing from damage, buffing health and changing shield mechanics would'n hurt PVE roles at all. It would open more space for Tanks (who are not needed in like 90% of dungeons), And damage dealers would be just damage dealers not off healers in the same time.

Sharee

karakondzula wrote: »

2. Armor penetration/Spell penetration. Armor and spell res is caped at 50% DR and that pretty low comparing it to other games. There is no reason for armor penetration to even exist with such low hard cap. Players stacking armor are already gimped in damage and resources. Maybe if cap is raised to 80% DR, armor/spell pen would be reasonable thing.

That would not change much, because even today armor can exceed cap to protect against penetration.

Let's say the DR cap is raised to 80%. I as attacker can reduce this down to 50%. Result: target has 50% damage resistance.

Current situation: DR cap is 50%, however penetration is calculated before the cap is applied. So, if i attack the same guy from the above example, he has 80% DR, which my penetration reduces to 50%, and this is finally capped at the max DR(50%) - end result the same as above.

phillyproduct

This is what i learned over the last month on ps4

3dps 1tank, 1dps magic user need resto staff back bar and barrier support line if not a temp resto staff bar only needs mutagen and healing ward barrier for o shi.. Situation and boom 30min prison wgt runs.

4dps all other vet dungeons if all have barrier doesn't matter if stam 4vigors with barrier will melt any vet dungeon

hrothbern

Sharee wrote: »

karakondzula wrote: »

2. Armor penetration/Spell penetration. Armor and spell res is caped at 50% DR and that pretty low comparing it to other games. There is no reason for armor penetration to even exist with such low hard cap. Players stacking armor are already gimped in damage and resources. Maybe if cap is raised to 80% DR, armor/spell pen would be reasonable thing.

That would not change much, because even today armor can exceed cap to protect against penetration.

Let's say the DR cap is raised to 80%. I as attacker can reduce this down to 50%. Result: target has 50% damage resistance.

Current situation: DR cap is 50%, however penetration is calculated before the cap is applied. So, if i attack the same guy from the above example, he has 80% DR, which my penetration reduces to 50%, and this is finally capped at the max DR(50%) - end result the same as above.

The big difference is that

1. a build with more Penetration will ALWAYS have the benefit of that: higher DPS and often also higher self Heal from abilities like Puncturing Sweep, Swallow Soul, Surge, etc.
2. a build with higher than 50% Armor Resistance has ONLY the benefit when attacked by a high Penetration enemy, and NEVER from another kind of high DPS build

this is unbalanced. As simple as that.

Sharee

hrothbern wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

karakondzula wrote: »

2. Armor penetration/Spell penetration. Armor and spell res is caped at 50% DR and that pretty low comparing it to other games. There is no reason for armor penetration to even exist with such low hard cap. Players stacking armor are already gimped in damage and resources. Maybe if cap is raised to 80% DR, armor/spell pen would be reasonable thing.

That would not change much, because even today armor can exceed cap to protect against penetration.

Let's say the DR cap is raised to 80%. I as attacker can reduce this down to 50%. Result: target has 50% damage resistance.

Current situation: DR cap is 50%, however penetration is calculated before the cap is applied. So, if i attack the same guy from the above example, he has 80% DR, which my penetration reduces to 50%, and this is finally capped at the max DR(50%) - end result the same as above.

The big difference is that

1. a build with more Penetration will ALWAYS have the benefit of that: higher DPS and often also higher self Heal from abilities like Puncturing Sweep, Swallow Soul, Surge, etc.
2. a build with higher than 50% Armor Resistance has ONLY the benefit when attacked by a high Penetration enemy, and NEVER from another kind of high DPS build

Higher than 50% armor resistance is only benefical when attacked by high penetration, but high penetration is also only benefical when the target has more armor to be penetrated, so i balances out.

If X penetration is enough to completely penetrate light armor, then having X+1000 penetration would be useless against light armor.

karakondzula

Sharee wrote: »

karakondzula wrote: »

2. Armor penetration/Spell penetration. Armor and spell res is caped at 50% DR and that pretty low comparing it to other games. There is no reason for armor penetration to even exist with such low hard cap. Players stacking armor are already gimped in damage and resources. Maybe if cap is raised to 80% DR, armor/spell pen would be reasonable thing.

That would not change much, because even today armor can exceed cap to protect against penetration.

Let's say the DR cap is raised to 80%. I as attacker can reduce this down to 50%. Result: target has 50% damage resistance.

Current situation: DR cap is 50%, however penetration is calculated before the cap is applied. So, if i attack the same guy from the above example, he has 80% DR, which my penetration reduces to 50%, and this is finally capped at the max DR(50%) - end result the same as above.

I see your point. They should just remove all % based penetrations, major fracture and breach are enough.

I would still like a raise to DR cap since light and medium can reach cap with no problem. Heavy armor suffers really bad from such low cap.

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO

I just had a bit of a brainwave. I think I can solve this problem really simply.

Introduce a 7th slot. The 7th slot allows a player to select one passive ability role from a list of several.

Examples of a passive role.

Healing role
While slotted all healing done is increased by X% and all damage done decreased by Y%

DPS role

While slotted all damage is increased by X% and all healing received is decreased by Y%

Tank role

While slotted all mitigation is increased by X% and damage dealt reduced by Y%. While blocking stamina regenerates.

They could literally add any passive and solve a hell of a lot of build problems using this method. They could break it down even further for instance, have a DPS passive which converts all magic damage to fire damage, or all physical damage to electricity damage, while also reducing healing received by X%, etc, etc.

So much potential!!!

Faulgor

OP is 100% correct.
But I think it's even worse than that. ESO's character system has been terrible from the start because it wanted to be like Skyrim and didn't implement attributes, but at the same time wanted to do so many things different because it is an MMO after all. The two worlds never really met.

More attributes than H/M/S would have allowed to differentiate between those that increase your resource, your damage, your recovery rates, your defenses, etc. This would have allowed to make builds with distinct advantages and disadvantages, but even with the 3 attributes ESO has they initially screwed up by setting the soft caps too low. This meant everyone would basically "cap" the 2-3 stats that mattered for their build and thus led to everyone having the same stats. Boring.
Their incredible solution was the champion system which removed any restrictions on how much you can increase a stat - but also no limit on how many champion points you could have, which meant everyone wanted as many as possible and would effectively - again - end up with the same stats as everyone else. For now we have the CP cap, but that's just another band aid fix.

Having magical prowess (whether that's an intelligence stat, spell power or magicka is irrelevant) as the same metric for damage, healing and defense is usually not a huge problem. Why? Because the caster has to spend their resource for it, and is thus limited in their options. If I spend my resource for damage, I won't haven enough left to heal myself, etc.
The terrible mistake ESO made is that warriors, or any non-magicka builds, are effectively stamina-mages. They play the same resource game to deal their damage, but didn't have any useful healing abilities before Vigor, and still severly limited defensive abilities compared to magicka (IMO). Plus, they still had to use their resource for all the normal combat activities like blocking, CC break, sprint, etc, which put them at a huge disadvantage compared to magicka builds. While this doesn't matter as much as it used to, this has been mainly achieved by killing the whole resource management game alltogether.

What they could have done - and somehow tried to do without really knowing why by copying single player TES games - is let physical weapons deal damage without resource cost. Light and Heavy Attacks are remnants of this, but because of the stamina-mage-meta they remained absolutely dysfunctional and had to be made appeasing artificially (if that word makes any sense in this context).
Another option would be to have much higher (but conditional) stamina recovery compared to magicka, such as in Dark Souls.
Regardless, I think it was a bad design choice to make magicka and stamina gameplay virtually identical. It is boring in terms of gameplay, and led to the countless changes we have seen over the last 2 years (constant adjustments to stamina skills, addition of stamina-based class skills, changes to combat ability cost such as block and dodge roll, etc pp).

As for loading too many secondary effects on the same stat, I think the champion system could have been a way out of this. Effectively it adds a huge amount of "attributes" with very specific effects. Instead of putting my points into one attribute that increases spell damage and healing, I could put my champion points into one perk that increases healing or one that increases magic damage, for example. However, the champion system failed in this for three reasons:
1) No champion point limit. While we have one now, it's only temporary.
2) Doesn't replace previous stats. To make this work, effects like increased skill damage have to be removed from magicka/stamina.
3) No tradeoff between offense/defense. By being forced to circle through Mage/Warrior/Thief points, you are not required to make a sacrifice for one style or another. In fact, it is impossible.

Another point that is tangentially related is that there are too many ways to increase your stats, IMO. It creates too many redundancies in the system and will mean that sooner or later they have to streamline some out of it as most MMOs do.
For example, the ways to increase your Health: Attribute points, gear set bonuses, enchantments, jewelry traits, passive skills, active skills, champion points, mundus stone, food. That's 9 sources of health buffs, 2 of which can be increased further with gear traits. And that's just health, not even counting all the ways to increase your damage. How could one possibly hope to keep a lid on damage stacking when there are so many dogs on the run?

I don't know what's so hard to get about a system with a limited amount of points you can put into stats that shape your character's abilities. That's what RPGs have been doing for as long as they exist. But by now, any meaningful changes that address these problems would result in huge changes to the gameplay, which would drive a lot of people away from the game. Other games have done it, even ESO (unsuccessfully), but I have no hopes that its character system will ever be fun.

Sorry, devs. Still good game.


Edit: If I had to make suggestions, which always makes one assailable and would of course be up for debate ...

1) Add 6-7 Attributes that can be increased at levelup. H/M/S will be derived attributes like all other stats.
a) The design intent for attribute effects are to avoid stacking similar effects on the same attribute while making every attribute desireable for every build
b) ALL buffs to stats are now percentage-based and thus more beneficial to characters that invested attribute points into said stats (can't counterbalance no attribute points for Health with lots of +Health buffs)
c) Weapons don't add spell damage, but increase it by a percentage based on their quality/level.
d) Secondary effects removed from Magicka and Stamina

2) Champion system adjusted in the following ways
a) Available from level 1
b) No split between Warrior/Thief/Mage points; Can put points wherever
c) Never raise cap above 1800 points
d) Effects that are already provided by attributes should be avoided

3) General gameplay adjustments
a) Shield spells only block physical or spell damage, not both
b) Resistance hard cap increased to 70%
c) Increase basic attack damage for physical weapons significantly
d) Numerous balance changes to skills

4) Preliminary suggestions for attributes mentioned in 1a
a) Couples every resource pool stat with a defensive buff (physical resist, spell resist or dodge chance)
b) Attributes for weapon and spell damage increase also increase critical damage; Hybrids will have the benefit of dealing the highest crit damage
c) Offers a variety of options for every archetype (Speed/Agility tank to dodge and block a lot but have low resists? Willpower/Luck/Strength healer for high crit bursts but low sustain? Strength/Luck thief that can carry a lot and remain undetected?)

Strength
+ weapon damage, inventory slots, crit damage
Endurance
+ max health, physical resistance
Agility
+ max stamina, dodge chance
Speed
+ movement speed, cast/charge speed, lowers combat ability cost (dodge, sprint, cc break, block)
Intelligence
+ max magicka, spell resistance
Willpower
+ spell damage, crit damage
Luck
+ crit chance, percent based effect chance, lowers sneak detection chance