Can we just admit that removing soft caps was a mistake and revert back to the way it used to be?

Huggalump

It's becoming more and more obvious with every major patch. The game was built from the foundation of using soft caps so players have a mix of resources. When you have soft caps, the game makes sense. When you remove soft caps, the game no longer makes sense, as it hasn't for ages.

Race balance makes sense with soft caps. Sure, High Elves still make a better magic race with soft caps, but the difference is minimal. The magic bonuses don't give you much of an EXTRA resource regen bonus, it just helps yo hit the cap faster. If you play high elf and switch to a stamina focus, you still get benefit from your magic bonuses because you're still using magic ability under a soft cap system.

If we're using soft caps, the whole class/weapon skill tree system makes sense. Rather than having people split entirely into either magic or stamina, everyone is somewhere along the slider scale between each. Everyone uses some class abilities and some weapon abilities. Suddenly things like Stamina Sorcs make perfect sense under the soft cap system because they can still get use out of their class abilities. Without soft caps, Stam sorcs make no god damn sense in this game because there's virtually no class abilities they get use out of and every patch is making it clear that the devs realize this doesn't make sense.

With soft caps, the game suddenly feels like an Elder Scrolls game again, because you're encouraged to use a mix of magic and physical attacks. We don't have to do the insane mental gymnastics of trying to make stamina DKs make sense by switching their fire abilities to poison and then switching poison to act just like physical attacks. With soft caps, it naturally works.

So how about it? Can we put aside the internal politics or grand experiment or whatever ridiculousness it was that led to wiping out soft caps, the system that the game was built on? Can we just do what needs to be done so the game can function?

Thanks.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Yup, I think more and more people are coming to this conclusion.

The controls have to go somewhere. If you don't control resources, damage, and regen, then you have to limit individual skills.

This leads to nerf after nerf of exciting and class defining skills making the game more boring and limited. We get cooldowns in a game designed with no cooldowns.

Any skill or mechanic has the potential to become OP if you can cast it unlimited times due to out of control resources and regen. That's why we got stacking costs on dodge rolling, sorc bolt escape, etc. These things were all naturally limited by resource and attribute caps in 1.5 and were fine.

Removing softcaps made shield strength go out of control, damage go out of control, healing, etc. When you have to reduce your healing, shields and damage by 50% in cyrodiil, you know somethings wrong.

So ZOS can either get a handle on resources, regen, and (most importantly) the scaling of skills with high resource pools, or continue to water down the classes with skill nerfs and cooldowns.

Which sounds more fun to you?

flguy147ub17_ESO

Agree 100% but they can never go back. It would be a nerf to everybody and everybody would complain because they couldnt be a Super Hero anymore. I have never played a MMO where a player could do so much with one character and be so powerful. Characters have become insanely OP. Unbelieveable survivability, healing, damage reduction, sustain, damage and mobility can all be achieved on some builds. Its so ridiculously stupid. It may work with single player games but a horrible game design for a MMO.

Birdovic

Of course going back to soft caps is the solution.

BUT: Doing so is admitting they're at fault, right...? So yeah, wont happen.

RoyJade

No. It wont happen. Sadly.

But I hope they'll change the scaling mechanic one day : less reward the more stat/damage you have in comparison to the effect with low stat. Example : if a magicka skill give you 1000 damage with 10k magicka, 4000 with 25k magicka and 9000 damage with 45k magicka, give it a huge boost to base power and a nerf to scaling, to bring it at 3000 damage with 10k and 6000 at 25k, with still 9000 at 45k magicka.
Like that, hybrid may be useful because they won't loose so much, and they'll be able to use both stam and mag skill. And they don't really need to nerf everybody for that.

Silver_Strider

QQers be damn, bring back soft caps and shut everyone up at once.
No more OP characters (barring exploits like CE which are their own problem)
No more racial/class imbalances
No more need of crappy band-aid fixes like Battle Spirit.

Grao

ZOS: Admit a mistake?!? Nevah!

Wollust

Many of the nerfs and changes we've been punished with over the past year are due to the soft cap removal and introduction of the CP system. Everyone knows it. ZoS knows it. They won't admit a mistake. Ever.

Cathexis

Please do. It was a silly change that has distorted the entire game to the benefit of a few.

While we're at it, please also remove gap closer mini stun. It takes the quality of solo/small group from a 7/10 to a 2/10.

And AOE caps.

All of these are just horrendus gameplay mechanics that deteriorate the user experience.

If DB wasnt out today to test out the new balance, I would be quiting again. There is almost no joy in this game if you aren't in a zerg anymore in pvp. I still encourage new players NOT to start playing, and I encourage people NOT to buy DB in protest. I haven't bought anything new since Orsinium and it has not affected my overall pvp experience.

AfkNinja

Been saying this for like the last year and a half. Soft Caps should have never been removed.

Talemire

Meh... I don't know what all the big fuss is, really. Every single one of you are on the same playing field as the next person, and every single one of you can achieve certain numbers if you spec for it. In fact, the removal of soft caps is why I like this game so much. It takes the cookie-cutter factor out of it and makes you sit and think more about how you want to build your character. While, at times, it appears as if players can be a jack of all trades, master of all, that's not the case. I've seen plenty of people who spec towards full dps go down like a ragdoll when they are pressed. Same goes with tanks... You'll never kill them, but they'll probably never kill you either. If you're having issues, go back to the drawing boards or something... Depending in what you want to do in the game, I guarantee there's something in your spec that can be tweaked with more thought put into it.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

RoyJade wrote: »

No. It wont happen. Sadly.

But I hope they'll change the scaling mechanic one day : less reward the more stat/damage you have in comparison to the effect with low stat. Example : if a magicka skill give you 1000 damage with 10k magicka, 4000 with 25k magicka and 9000 damage with 45k magicka, give it a huge boost to base power and a nerf to scaling, to bring it at 3000 damage with 10k and 6000 at 25k, with still 9000 at 45k magicka.
Like that, hybrid may be useful because they won't loose so much, and they'll be able to use both stam and mag skill. And they don't really need to nerf everybody for that.

This is actually the correct way to fix things. If people want to run around with 50k magicka thats fine. but they shouldn't have god tier shields and damage because of it. Instead of the terrible battle spirit nerfs to heals, damage, and shields, they just need to tweak the scaling to give you diminishing returns (in scaling) after stacking so much of one attribute. They could just do this in PvP only so the little precious snowflakes in PvE still feel powerful. Then just battle spirit nerf regen across the board and its almost a good as softcaps.

newtinmpls

I would love to see softcaps back.

Anhedonie

I really liked softcaps, but there were several issues with them. If ZOS would balance things out, then I'm in.

Armitas

You mean like a normal responsible game? This game takes all the progress that has been made in other games, ignores that progress and acts like they are special snowflaking when in fact they are just being irresponsible. Without soft caps it's kinda like "cheat engine" is already a part of the base game.

Maybe they could balance the game without softcaps but are they doing it? heck no, they are not even trying. Case in point well fitted. Do we really need more dodge roll on top of our dodge roll?

Rune_Relic

Softcaps ? Hhhm.

I dont think limiters in the way they were implemented is much better TBH.
The main problem is the range of any resource.
10,000- 40,000 on any resource is too big a range between min and max
Make it 15,000-25,000 and you instantly go from a 4x multiplyer to a 1.6x multiplyer and the difference between player potential sustain/scaling is bought back into line.

ie its the difference between the best and the worst values which is the issue.
Throw in a CS +50% and you have a slowburn timebomb.

cosmic_niklas_93b16_ESO

Talemire wrote: »

Meh... I don't know what all the big fuss is, really. Every single one of you are on the same playing field as the next person, and every single one of you can achieve certain numbers if you spec for it. In fact, the removal of soft caps is why I like this game so much. It takes the cookie-cutter factor out of it and makes you sit and think more about how you want to build your character. While, at times, it appears as if players can be a jack of all trades, master of all, that's not the case. I've seen plenty of people who spec towards full dps go down like a ragdoll when they are pressed. Same goes with tanks... You'll never kill them, but they'll probably never kill you either. If you're having issues, go back to the drawing boards or something... Depending in what you want to do in the game, I guarantee there's something in your spec that can be tweaked with more thought put into it.

Maybe in PvP it's like that, but for PvE it's all 100% dps that matters, if you got super high dps, all is dead before you'll need healing etc.

Lucky28

cosmic_niklas_93b16_ESO wrote: »

Talemire wrote: »

Meh... I don't know what all the big fuss is, really. Every single one of you are on the same playing field as the next person, and every single one of you can achieve certain numbers if you spec for it. In fact, the removal of soft caps is why I like this game so much. It takes the cookie-cutter factor out of it and makes you sit and think more about how you want to build your character. While, at times, it appears as if players can be a jack of all trades, master of all, that's not the case. I've seen plenty of people who spec towards full dps go down like a ragdoll when they are pressed. Same goes with tanks... You'll never kill them, but they'll probably never kill you either. If you're having issues, go back to the drawing boards or something... Depending in what you want to do in the game, I guarantee there's something in your spec that can be tweaked with more thought put into it.

Maybe in PvP it's like that, but for PvE it's all 100% dps that matters, if you got super high dps, all is dead before you'll need healing etc.

thing is. ZoS had been trying to balance the game around the removal of soft caps. if they brought soft caps back they'd have to re-balance the game around soft caps. it would be counter productive at this point.

Main issue is, they don't how to balance the game period.

hrothbern

The only two real big problems I see atm for the general game mechanics are:

1. Stacking into high DPS is also stacking in high self-HPS
2. The cheating players confusing the real picture we can get about the game, blurring a good judgment.

EDIT:
In the big thread about soft caps of @DeanTheCat , I already expressed my general opinion, that soft caps are restricting to play as you want in high diversity, are too much of a rough remedy, too much crutches, and only fit for a temporarily quick fix. I think the most "natural" way is to add a penalty to extreme builds that become OP, (like for example DPS/self-HPS), by making resource sustain more expensive (besides tackling the 100% coupling of very high DPS with very high self-HPS mentioned above).

1. very high DPS ? Fine for a burst, but little resource sustain and little damage mitigation.
2. high sustainable DPS ? Fine, but little damage mitigation
3. medium DPS ? Fine, but that should enable good sustain with good damage mitigation
4. etc

Perhaps we should remove the stun you get when your heavy melee attack is blocked, making melee heavy attacks more viable for resource sustain, and also dilute the DPS/self-HPS of a player that is forced to do time consuming heavy attacks after the initial burst, because his resources run dry.
Just remember all the Resto heavy attacks two years ago, so much needed because we had at that time not the Magicka resource sustain to do continuously casted abilities.
Besides HA to restore resources on an individual basis, the other fundamental resource generator should be the Group resource sustain buffs. We have them now already with Siphon Spirit, Elemental Drain, Worms Rayment, Hircines Veneer. More and/or higher Group buffs will encourage good cooperating of Groups.

Huggalump

relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuUoCO6X428

dodgehopper_ESO

hrothbern wrote: »

The only two real big problems I see atm for the general game mechanics are:

1. Stacking into high DPS is also stacking in high self-HPS
2. The cheating players confusing the real picture we can get about the game, blurring a good judgment.

EDIT:
In the big thread about soft caps of @DeanTheCat , I already expressed my general opinion, that soft caps are restricting to play as you want in high diversity, are too much of a rough remedy, too much crutches, and only fit for a temporarily quick fix. I think the most "natural" way is to add a penalty to extreme builds that become OP, (like for example DPS/self-HPS), by making resource sustain more expensive (besides tackling the 100% coupling of very high DPS with very high self-HPS mentioned above).

1. very high DPS ? Fine for a burst, but little resource sustain and little damage mitigation.
2. high sustainable DPS ? Fine, but little damage mitigation
3. medium DPS ? Fine, but that should enable good sustain with good damage mitigation
4. etc

Perhaps we should remove the stun you get when your heavy melee attack is blocked, making melee heavy attacks more viable for resource sustain, and also dilute the DPS/self-HPS of a player that is forced to do time consuming heavy attacks after the initial burst, because his resources run dry.
Just remember all the Resto heavy attacks two years ago, so much needed because we had at that time not the Magicka resource sustain to do continuously casted abilities.
Besides HA to restore resources on an individual basis, the other fundamental resource generator should be the Group resource sustain buffs. We have them now already with Siphon Spirit, Elemental Drain, Worms Rayment, Hircines Veneer. More and/or higher Group buffs will encourage good cooperating of Groups.

Some of the things you state is why I have suggested that the Health stat while not directly effecting damage could/should increase overall Regeneration of stats (Health/Mag/Regen). In this way a Healthy warrior type Tank character would have more resources but lower damage output, giving him the staying power style you'd expect, while the burst style would blow a fuse faster, and something in between would be the 'balanced' build. It would also make the desire to go 'all in' on your damage stat at a certain point less desirable if they did this, and create more options in character builds.

ABL

What is amazing is that they have kept the 50% resistance caps.

Recently the game prevents the regeneration of the force when you block.

In pvp it removes any possibility for tanks classes to resist the classes doing damage.

The result is that the exchanges between players have become short and brutal confrontation.

I feel that they want their game becomes a shoot 'em up where you come after your day's work to discharge your energy quickly for an hour ...

I still remember the satisfaction questionnaires beta of the game. I was validating the box without hesitation, "Yes, I intend to stay on this game eternally" ...

Today I am disgusted by the successive castration of the only one character i have, a Nightblade tank class, since the beginning of the game.

ABL

I think it is time that ZeniMax make a class system with restriction on skills, armor and weapons.

3 branches should be offered for each class healer, dps, tank and imposing unique skills for each branch.

Each branch would have proper weapon style, the staffs for healers and mages, shields for tanks, DAMAGE weapons for dps.

At end it will permeet to manage the resource regeneration for each class.

And may be, at that time, heavy armor will be useful to someone.

Ends the Clone Wars and hello specific classes.

In the same style but differently we can even go further by imposing a job by class and by giving 3 choices of orientation class.

Dk which a tank, a Templar who heal, a mage dps, a Nightblade that dps. I really think that was the goal at the beginning of the game.

For dk tank there would be a control voice, another survival, last dps.

And we take the idea to other classes with the same system of skills,weapon,armors restrictions.

The slogan that said "made the class you want" no longer works, because either you are a victim (I want to do a heavily armored knight to be the sturdiest but i have no regen nor toughness) or you are a clone (I am a healer, who makes range damage that tank in dungeon and with short skirt please).

A french in fire.

juhasman

Soft caps times was really nice. But in the current state of the game I think it would be impossible to bring them back. There was too many changes in the game after 1.6.

lucky_Sage

I think the best thing is to do is completely rework cp trees players do to much damage the 4 man dungeons are easier with 3 dps and either a tank or healer and in pvp burst build have to much sustain so it makes sustain builds useless

Emma_Overload

NO. Soft caps were horrible and none of you guys seem to remember why they got rid of them in the first place. You would constantly run out of resources just trying to accomplish the most basic open world content. Just taking down a single troll in a VR zone (never mind a world boss or dolmen) was hazardous if you were trying to do it solo, which almost everyone was.

What you guys need to wrap your head around is that ZOS finally figured out the primary market for ESO is Elder Scrolls fans, players who are used to the power level you have when playing Oblivion or Skyrim. Furthermore, removing soft caps would be an unforgivable slap in the face to everyone who spent thousands of hours grinding CP, because the Champion System would be crippled with soft caps.

Face it: soft caps aren't coming back.... EVER. Please quit making these pointless threads, so I can quit responding to them.

Kendaric

Emma_Overload wrote: »

NO. Soft caps were horrible and none of you guys seem to remember why they got rid of them in the first place. You would constantly run out of resources just trying to accomplish the most basic open world content. Just taking down a single troll in a VR zone (never mind a world boss or dolmen) was hazardous if you were trying to do it solo, which almost everyone was.

What you guys need to wrap your head around is that ZOS finally figured out the primary market for ESO is Elder Scrolls fans, players who are used to the power level you have when playing Oblivion or Skyrim. Furthermore, removing soft caps would be an unforgivable slap in the face to everyone who spent thousands of hours grinding CP, because the Champion System would be crippled with soft caps.

Face it: soft caps aren't coming back.... EVER. Please quit making these pointless threads, so I can quit responding to them.

Soft caps are needed, no matter much you may dislike them. You should run out of resources during a fight and have to rely on your light/heavy attacks until you regain stamina/magicka, the game was intended that way.

And no, you can't compare the current power level in ESO to a singleplayer game like Skyrim.

cosmic_niklas_93b16_ESO

Kendaric wrote: »

Emma_Overload wrote: »

NO. Soft caps were horrible and none of you guys seem to remember why they got rid of them in the first place. You would constantly run out of resources just trying to accomplish the most basic open world content. Just taking down a single troll in a VR zone (never mind a world boss or dolmen) was hazardous if you were trying to do it solo, which almost everyone was.

What you guys need to wrap your head around is that ZOS finally figured out the primary market for ESO is Elder Scrolls fans, players who are used to the power level you have when playing Oblivion or Skyrim. Furthermore, removing soft caps would be an unforgivable slap in the face to everyone who spent thousands of hours grinding CP, because the Champion System would be crippled with soft caps.

Face it: soft caps aren't coming back.... EVER. Please quit making these pointless threads, so I can quit responding to them.

Soft caps are needed, no matter much you may dislike them. You should run out of resources during a fight and have to rely on your light/heavy attacks until you regain stamina/magicka, the game was intended that way.

And no, you can't compare the current power level in ESO to a singleplayer game like Skyrim.

Well, tbh the game is like a singleplayer game now in open world PvE, so I guess it's comparable, although them being comparable is just sad when one is supposed to be an MMO and the other a singleplayer RPG.

idk

OP's premise is false and as such there is no basis for discussion.

When there were soft caps players mostly chose to go for s pure build vs a hybrid. There were players who tried and played hybrid builds but those builds were weaker, with soft caps on place.

Today there are players who still run with hybrids because they want to. However, removing the soft caps will not make them as, or even close to, as viable as pure builds.

If OP comes up with a valid reason for removing the soft caps then we can discuss. Please edit the OP with the new premise if this occurs.

Thx.

Vidahr

lucky_Sage wrote: »

I think the best thing is to do is completely rework cp trees players do to much damage the 4 man dungeons are easier with 3 dps and either a tank or healer and in pvp burst build have to much sustain so it makes sustain builds useless

Could implement tank checks on all boss monsters.

Erock25

Would love some softcaps back. Implement softcaps and remove all the stupid major/minor buffing system (yes you can do that with softcaps in check).