Should ZOS balance PvE and PvP separately?

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Note to Moderation: Please do not close this due to post date. Yes I realize in most circumstances, making a new post is better but polls remain relevant in that further data collection is valuable when trying to determine the "pulse" of the community. This material is NOT dated and this issue is still a hot button topic.

Now on to the topic at hand.
I am speaking specifically about skills (class, weapon, world, and guild skills), gear (e.g. proc sets and monster sets), and combat dynamics (cost of blocking, dodge rolling, sneak, etc).

Should certain items perform differently in PvE and PvP so that a "compromise" solution on a skill, gearset or dynamic doesn't negatively impact PvE while providing balance for PvP?

Some examples

• Some sets could only crit in PvE
• Some skills could have cooldowns in PvP only, or perform differently (e.g. have different CC or no CC)
• Here is an example of a current skill that behaves differently in PvP and PvE. Just to prove that precedent and feasibility both exist for skills behaving differently in both environments.
• 
• Any NBs have their immersion ruined by this?

Note that ZOS's current policy (described by Eric Wrobel) on ESO live is that ZOS wants ESO to feel like the same game whether you are in PvP or PvE. So if you are comfortable with what a skill does in PvE, it will behave the same way in PvP (except for ambush because that is ok to be different for some reason).

• A YES vote mean you support a change. Try to explain why the game and players quality of life would be better if things were balanced separately.
• A NO vote means you support the status quo and ZOS should continue to "split the difference" and balance keeping both PvP and PvE in mind. If you support the status quo, please explain why the game is better the way it is.

Please avoid "ZOS will never change" or "its probably too hard" and other speculative, negative, or unhelpful arguments that don't address the pros and cons of both options. Which option do YOU think would lead to a better game?

Savos_Saren

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

I believe that it would add massive amounts of "balance" to the game if abilities acted differently in PVE vs PVP. Unfortunately, I also believe it would take a massive amount of reprogramming in order to do so. (I'm not a video game programmer... but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night.)

To be honest: "Balance" is something that ZoS does strive for... and, yes, there's always going to be imbalance. I can't think of one MMO that's perfectly balanced. We can appreciate the fact that they're trying, though.

Who knows... maybe this is something they can strive for in Update 14 or 15.

Betheny

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

It's just logical - PVE and PVP have different needs.

Egonieser

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

In an ideal world skills should be balanced enough so this need not be the case, but alas to alleviate the tensions between the communities, this is surely needed. No drastic changes, but slight tweaks, similar to what ambush has, and minor tooltip/damage etc changes would be enough.

Riga_Mortis

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

It's the only way to truly balance both PvP and PvE but it's beyond Zeni abilities at this point

geonsocal

the more relevant question may be - can they?

Aeladiir

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Yes, yes, yes!

geonsocal wrote: »

the more relevant question may be - can they?

If they can apply seperate buffs (i.e. buffs that you receive upon entering Cyrodiil) they should most definetly be able to apply them to the seperate skills. After all, a buff is nothing but just another passive.

NewBlacksmurf

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

I think it's absolutely imperative that the same skills have different effects in PvP compared to PvE.

I don't mean subtle changes, I'm saying obvious and the gear and sets should also flip over in PvP compared to PvE.

Digerati

NO - ZOS should continue its policy of balancing for both PvP/PvE so that everything behaves the same in both environments

This is what completely destroyed Rift.

People don't want to carry multiple suits. People don't want to have to maintain 2 builds.

The character you play in PvP and PvE should be as similar as possible. Divergence between your "PvP character" and your "PvE character" diminishes your character commitment and will gravely reduce the longevity of this title.

What actually needs to happen:

People need to grow up and stop whining about every single thing ZOS does. Seriously. It doesn't freakin matter what they do, there's a large subversive community of forum-whiners who will pick it apart and theory-craft on why it's a bad idea.

Fodore

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Digerati wrote: »

This is what completely destroyed Rift.

People don't want to carry multiple suits. People don't want to have to maintain 2 builds.

The character you play in PvP and PvE should be as similar as possible. Divergence between your "PvP character" and your "PvE character" diminishes your character commitment and will gravely reduce the longevity of this title.

What actually needs to happen:

People need to grow up and stop whining about every single thing ZOS does. Seriously. It doesn't freakin matter what they do, there's a large subversive community of forum-whiners who will pick it apart and theory-craft on why it's a bad idea.

What you need to realise is that this is already destroying ESO. You can't
Just ignore this problem. And about this maintaining 2 builds. Ever heard of the dressing room addon? I maintain about 3 build average on my characters. 5 on my Stam sorc.

Digerati

NO - ZOS should continue its policy of balancing for both PvP/PvE so that everything behaves the same in both environments

Fodore wrote: »

Digerati wrote: »

This is what completely destroyed Rift.

People don't want to carry multiple suits. People don't want to have to maintain 2 builds.

The character you play in PvP and PvE should be as similar as possible. Divergence between your "PvP character" and your "PvE character" diminishes your character commitment and will gravely reduce the longevity of this title.

What actually needs to happen:

People need to grow up and stop whining about every single thing ZOS does. Seriously. It doesn't freakin matter what they do, there's a large subversive community of forum-whiners who will pick it apart and theory-craft on why it's a bad idea.

What you need to realise is that this is already destroying ESO. You can't
Just ignore this problem. And about this maintaining 2 builds. Ever heard of the dressing room addon? I maintain about 3 build average on my characters. 5 on my Stam sorc.

What you need to realiZe is that you're just crying for the sake of crying. THIS CHANGE WAS NOT EVEN MADE YET. You're just crying to CRY! you have no idea what the impact scope will be. You have a SNEAK PEAK of it.

Removal of crits on procs is something that makes sense. Your gear is producing the damage via a proc NOT your character, so why would your character's crit-stats affect it at all? Yes, other things may need to be rebalanced to account for the slight drop in DPS this would produce for PvEers but it's a step in the right direction.

You mentioned an addon to assist with maintaining builds, and yes I use that one... But have you ever heard of CONSOLE PLAYERS?

Rohamad_Ali

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Yes and they could but I don't think they have the staff to do it . Just my opinion .

silky_soft

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Use battlespirit

Taleof2Cities

Digerati wrote: »

What you need to realiZe is that you're just crying for the sake of crying. THIS CHANGE WAS NOT EVEN MADE YET. You're just crying to CRY! you have no idea what the impact scope will be. You have a SNEAK PEAK of it.

^This.^

Let's hold off on new threads and more speculation until the changes can be tested in a PTS environment ...

DMuehlhausen

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Yes this how it should be done, or make skills / items that can only be used it either PvE or PvP.

However this will never happen in this game. PvP is basically just a tacked on add on to a PvE based game. Any game that is PvP based the PvE is just tacked on and it becomes hard to balance them.

technohic

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Yes. I am sitting here reading the pros and cons of set bonuses for both sides and thinking that if these things are going to be balanced to be worthwhile facing a boss with millions of points in health and thats what the content is balanced around; how else would you make that not be a detriment in PvP where HP is only in the 20ks other than have the ability happen.

I don't really care about the argument on whether it is needed for PvE or not. I'm just concerned about the ability to co-exist. There are plenty of other threads to go on about the necessity.

Malamar1229

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

I been saying this for years. Instead of a blanket fix, just add a line like you did above..."only affects players, or hardened wards 6 seconds only applies to pvp zones" etc

NordSwordnBoard

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Damage done by your armor procs is reduced by x% in PvP

Damage done by your armor procs is not effected in PvE

Damage done with skills is not effected in PvE or PvP

...Or they could adjust the specific culprits that caused this issue in the first place.

Doctordarkspawn

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Tired of geting dicked over for PVP's benefit.

Needs to stop.

idk

NO - ZOS should continue its policy of balancing for both PvP/PvE so that everything behaves the same in both environments

It's to much work to review each skill and determine how each should work in PvP and PvE separately. Each time they balance the work is repeated doubly like that.

There are other means to achieve similar benefits, however PvE has always been affected by PvP in MMOs where they actuali try to work towards balance.

Digerati

NO - ZOS should continue its policy of balancing for both PvP/PvE so that everything behaves the same in both environments

The problem:
A large group of soft people are constantly begging for nerfs. Many of these same people turn around and complain about the effects of the nerf.

The solution:
ZOS, stop listening to the forums. Start placing surveys in the game client or talking to players IN GAME. For every 1 person who dedicates themselves to crying on the forums, there's 100 who are actively playing the game. Those 100 people are the ones you should be concerned with.

Vanthras79

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

They all ready have balanced some skills differently for PVP (see sorc. shields). It would not be a far cry to edit some more abilities to act differently in PVP as well.

@Wrobel

Danksta

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

I'm honestly tired of saying it. This game, as a whole, will never resemble balanced until this happens.

Regarding the following: "Note that ZOS's current policy (described by Eric Wrobel) on ESO live is that ZOS wants ESO to feel like the same game whether you are in PvP or PvE. So if you are comfortable with what a skill does in PvE, it will behave the same way in PvP (except for ambush because that is ok to be different for some reason)."

They already somewhat feel different, and that's not a bad thing. It helps keep the game fresh, if I get sick of running dungeons or PvE in general, I just go to Cyrodiil to shake things up a bit. Skills and gear that are BiS in PvE you might get laughed out of Cyrodiil for using them in PvP. For most end game PvE content you're not going to slot stuns, snares and immobilizing skills, but those things are huge in Cyrodiil. I couldn't imagine running around solo or in a small group in Cyrodiil without a stun, you'd get smoked.

TL;DR- I can't think of a change to this game that would make me happier.

geonsocal

Aeladiir wrote: »

Yes, yes, yes!

geonsocal wrote: »

the more relevant question may be - can they?

If they can apply seperate buffs (i.e. buffs that you receive upon entering Cyrodiil) they should most definetly be able to apply them to the seperate skills. After all, a buff is nothing but just another passive.

very nice @Aeladiir ...makes good sense to me - then again my last exposure to computer programming was Fortran (doing "do" loops for days)

it would definitely be nice to have more distinction in performance between pvp and pve...

Izaki

FFS just stop whining already, wait for the PTS and the full patch notes. STOP CRYING FOR THE SAKE OF CRYING.

I don't have an opinion in the current poll. For all I know, ZOS has a much better insight into this game and the changes they need to make as a company and as devs, than any of us here on the forums. I'm not saying we should just shut up and go with whatever ZOS gives us. I'm saying that we should at least wait until we get the full information about fixes before whining and claiming that this or that is ruining the game.

Nifty2g

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Split it up, needs to happen.

Bisenberger96

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Pvp and pve are almost completely different games within ESO, skills and mechanics should behave completely different.

Doctordarkspawn

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

Digerati wrote: »

The problem:
A large group of soft people are constantly begging for nerfs. Many of these same people turn around and complain about the effects of the nerf.

The solution:
ZOS, stop listening to the forums. Start placing surveys in the game client or talking to players IN GAME. For every 1 person who dedicates themselves to crying on the forums, there's 100 who are actively playing the game. Those 100 people are the ones you should be concerned with.

This. If a survey tab opened up and gave me 100 crowns every once and a while and gave me a few questions I'd fill them the *** out.

Liofa

First of all , I want to state that I don't care about the no crit on proc sets thing . I don't play DPS in PvE or not playing PvP mostly . Second , we don't know about all the changes yet .

But I can tell you my opinion on what we have for now . So , sets like Viper , Tremorscale , Velidreth , Widowmaker . These sets especially were causing issues in PvP . Some sets were really , really strong in PvE like Illambris and Grothdar . The thing I don't understand is , why nerf EVERY set . Was Winterborn was an issue for people ? Ashen Grip ? Alkosh proc ? You get my point . FROM WHAT WE HAVE FOR NOW , it doesn't make any sense . They just should have decrease the damage of sets they see overperforming or increase the cooldown or decrease the proc chance . Nerfing every set is not a good solution . It was a lazy ''fix'' and it shouldn't happen . Hope they reconsider their decision .

EldritchPenguin

NO - ZOS should continue its policy of balancing for both PvP/PvE so that everything behaves the same in both environments

I have a sneaking suspicion that balance problems in PvP are actually a pretty good sign of similar balance problems in PvE (proc sets are actually a very good example of this--Viper and Velidreth overperform in PvP, Grothdarr and Ilambris overperform in PvE).

At any rate, the fact that players can pretty much seamlessly transition from PvE to PvP and vice versa is an awesome feature and a huge selling point of ESO as a whole. I think we could use a few more "does not stun players" features and stuff like that, but the two should be as similar as possible.

Betheny

YES - ZOS should allow certain skills, abilities and combat dynamics to behave differently in PvP and PvE

I think we're at a pivotal moment where PVP needs to be separately balanced from PVE.