Balance direction in Update 13

ZOS_RichLambert

Update 13 has been out on the PTS for almost a week now and there’s been a lot of good feedback and questions posted with regards to the balance changes. I wanted to take a few moments to briefly discuss the overall direction for these changes so you can hopefully start to see why these changes are occurring.

For Update 13, our overall goal was to lessen the gap between the top and bottom. (in terms of overall damage output, coordinated vs. uncoordinated, small and large scale PVE & PVP) This doesn’t mean all classes are perfectly equal in all ways or that we want to remove skill from the game. We want to establish a solid baseline so that we can better tune and tweak balance. For this update we attacked this problem from multiple angles by doing the following:

1. Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
2. Raising the floor on the bottom damage
3. Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

Some of you will probably ask how the above goals translate into the changes we made. Here are some notes on a couple of the more hotly debated ones so you can see how they fit into the bigger picture:

• Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.
• Stun Removal on Blazing Spear – This change falls into the “simplify” category. We increased the duration of the damage on this ability to simplify the rotation. In addition we removed the stun component. Now the morph choices are more damage or more resources and disorient. (CC)
• Radiant Destruction – This one is definitely in the “lower the ceiling” category. It was strong in both PVE and PVP and needed adjustment.
• Haunting Curse – This one falls into the “simplify” category. The goal was to free up globals for more abilities to be cast with this change. (i.e. – every 10.5 seconds you get to use 3 more abilities) @Alpheu5 has a pretty great image that illustrates this change in this thread.

I didn't touch on every change or class, but I hope that sheds some light into how and why we've made some of the changes we've made. We have a lot more balance changes planned, but due to how our build cycle works, most of them won't make the next PTS build - they should hopefully make PTS3 though.

It should also be noted that what is on PTS now is our first pass at these changes. We’re evaluating all of them and will make adjustments based on both feedback and data collected, so please continue to test them on PTS and give feedback.

-rich

Koolio

So we just worked for years to get stronger only to have you lower our damage because a new player wouldn't be as strong. Great. I wonder how long I can go on knowing that if I put in the time to get stronger you'll just nerf me because someone just bought the game. Very discouraged to continue.

DragonBound

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Update 13 has been out on the PTS for almost a week now and there’s been a lot of good feedback and questions posted with regards to the balance changes. I wanted to take a few moments to briefly discuss the overall direction for these changes so you can hopefully start to see why these changes are occurring.

For Update 13, our overall goal was to lessen the gap between the top and bottom. (in terms of overall damage output, coordinated vs. uncoordinated, small and large scale PVE & PVP) This doesn’t mean all classes are perfectly equal in all ways or that we want to remove skill from the game. We want to establish a solid baseline so that we can better tune and tweak balance. For this update we attacked this problem from multiple angles by doing the following:

1. Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
2. Raising the floor on the bottom damage
3. Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

Some of you will probably ask how the above goals translate into the changes we made. Here are some notes on a couple of the more hotly debated ones so you can see how they fit into the bigger picture:

• Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.
• Stun Removal on Blazing Spear – This change falls into the “simplify” category. We increased the duration of the damage on this ability to simplify the rotation. In addition we removed the stun component. Now the morph choices are more damage or more resources and disorient. (CC)
• Radiant Destruction – This one is definitely in the “lower the ceiling” category. It was strong in both PVE and PVP and needed adjustment.
• Haunting Curse – This one falls into the “simplify” category. The goal was to free up globals for more abilities to be cast with this change. (i.e. – every 10.5 seconds you get to use 3 more abilities) @Alpheu5 has a pretty great image that illustrates this change in this thread.

I didn't touch on every change or class, but I hope that sheds some light into how and why we've made some of the changes we've made. We a lot more balance changes planned, but due to how our build cycle works, most of them won't make the next PTS build - they should hopefully make PTS3 though.

It should also be noted that what is on PTS now is our first pass at these changes. We’re evaluating all of them and will make adjustments based on both feedback and data collected, so please continue to test them on PTS and give feedback.

-rich

Well this is good news, thank you all for clearing some of this up.

silky_soft

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
[*] Raising the floor on the bottom damage
[*] Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels
[/list]


-rich

You what mate? You want to take skill away so that bad people can artificially improve their dps? You do know handing out participation awards is more damaging then doing nothing? Some of us spend hours perfecting rotations for pve and pvp. Buffing and nerfing skills is part of the mmo, but if your actual goal is to reduce skill required to pull off complex combos. You guys are heading the wrong direction.

Xsorus

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Update 13 has been out on the PTS for almost a week now and there’s been a lot of good feedback and questions posted with regards to the balance changes. I wanted to take a few moments to briefly discuss the overall direction for these changes so you can hopefully start to see why these changes are occurring.

For Update 13, our overall goal was to lessen the gap between the top and bottom. (in terms of overall damage output, coordinated vs. uncoordinated, small and large scale PVE & PVP) This doesn’t mean all classes are perfectly equal in all ways or that we want to remove skill from the game. We want to establish a solid baseline so that we can better tune and tweak balance. For this update we attacked this problem from multiple angles by doing the following:

1. Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
2. Raising the floor on the bottom damage
3. Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

Some of you will probably ask how the above goals translate into the changes we made. Here are some notes on a couple of the more hotly debated ones so you can see how they fit into the bigger picture:

• Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.
• Stun Removal on Blazing Spear – This change falls into the “simplify” category. We increased the duration of the damage on this ability to simplify the rotation. In addition we removed the stun component. Now the morph choices are more damage or more resources and disorient. (CC)
• Radiant Destruction – This one is definitely in the “lower the ceiling” category. It was strong in both PVE and PVP and needed adjustment.
• Haunting Curse – This one falls into the “simplify” category. The goal was to free up globals for more abilities to be cast with this change. (i.e. – every 10.5 seconds you get to use 3 more abilities) @Alpheu5 has a pretty great image that illustrates this change in this thread.

I didn't touch on every change or class, but I hope that sheds some light into how and why we've made some of the changes we've made. We have a lot more balance changes planned, but due to how our build cycle works, most of them won't make the next PTS build - they should hopefully make PTS3 though.

It should also be noted that what is on PTS now is our first pass at these changes. We’re evaluating all of them and will make adjustments based on both feedback and data collected, so please continue to test them on PTS and give feedback.

-rich

Explain why Destro Ult got a 3% damage buff with Lightning Staff?

silky_soft

Also so you're confirming the heavy armor balance improvements are making it into PTS3? Thankyou

FoolishHuman

Would like to hear the rational behind the Strife change, because all you are doing with that is hurting NB support builds. It would be good to know if the overall intention is to move all support builds towards Templar and Dragonknight in the long run.

Armitas

Thanks Mr Lambert.

I wanted to see what your goals were for the frost staff and blocking/tanking. It's kind of a cool idea and opens up a lot of neat potentials (I'm sure some bad potentials as well) but I couldn't quite tell what you were going for with it or what the intent was behind it. What are you shooting for with this addition.

Sigtric

Koolio wrote: »

So we just worked for years to get stronger only to have you lower our damage because a new player wouldn't be as strong. Great. I wonder how long I can go on knowing that if I put in the time to get stronger you'll just nerf me because someone just bought the game. Very discouraged to continue.

Seems to me you will still be "Stronger" than the noob next to you. It's just closing the gap some to help ease a couple things:
Entry level into harder content
Run away DPS trivializing content (too much DPS)
Making things easier to tune and adjust for the overall health of the game over the long term. (Removing VR and introducing CP and then 1Tamriel Scaling were big changes and now that we see exactly how it works together, some tweaks will need to be made to find the best baseline)

Koolio

silky_soft wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
[*] Raising the floor on the bottom damage
[*] Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels
[/list]


-rich

You what mate? You want to take skill away so that bad people can artificially improve their dps? You do know handing out participation awards is more damaging then doing nothing? Some of us spend hours perfecting rotations for pve and pvp. Buffing and nerfing skills is part of the mmo, but if your actual goal is to reduce skill required to pull off complex combos. You guys are heading the wrong direction.

This is the exact reason I left other mmos. Why punish your long time players like this. I called this out a year ago to a few friends. I was hoping I was wrong but I see now I was right.

modaretto

it sounds to me like it is not worth to put effort and time into progression because in the end you want everyone to play on the same level just because end game in this mmo is that small compared to other mmos that it doesn't pay off to promote it

totally agree with this:

silky_soft wrote: »

You what mate? You want to take skill away so that bad people can artificially improve their dps? You do know handing out participation awards is more damaging then doing nothing? Some of us spend hours perfecting rotations for pve and pvp. Buffing and nerfing skills is part of the mmo, but if your actual goal is to reduce skill required to pull off complex combos. You guys are heading the wrong direction.

players who are here for questing and rp will come back to game for a few days after each new patch but once you discourage those who are here to stay for the competitiveness of an mmo....

Deltia

I may not agree with these changes, but thanks for taking the time to explain WHY. This is very important communication and please continue to do it.

Panda_iMunch

Hey, as long you're reducing numbers I'm happy. Although, I would say the CP system needs to be addressed at some point; it's still pretty ridiculous

ArtOfShred

Thanks for the update Rich! I think a lot of players were expecting a more significant balance overhaul with this patch and are disappointed due to the relatively minor changes in the span of things.

I can see you guys have had your hands full with Housing though, and its absolutely excellent!

I do however think it may be beneficial to consider a few suggestions players are putting out currently such as adding a counterplay option to destro staff in blocking it. In addition if you are looking to bring up the lower end, Stamplar Templars are falling behind their other stamina counterparts in pve pretty significantly right now. Their sustain is hurting compared to other stamina classes outside of conditional repentance situations. A few more minor buffs to the underdogs might help in the meantime while we wait for more comprehensive changes!

Niaver

#ThanksRich

Koolio

Panda_iMunch wrote: »

Hey, as long you're reducing numbers I'm happy. Although, I would say the CP system needs to be addressed at some point; it's still pretty ridiculous

Yes it does. It needs to let the dedicated players who would like to progress after a year more than 2%. Open up all CP to be used. No Cp Cap. Otherwise we will be equal to what we were when Orisinium came out at this rate.

ZOS_RichLambert

ArtOfShred wrote: »

Thanks for the update Rich! I think a lot of players were expecting a more significant balance overhaul with this patch and are disappointed due to the relatively minor changes in the span of things.

I can see you guys have had your hands full with Housing though, and its absolutely excellent!

I do however think it may be beneficial to consider a few suggestions players are putting out currently such as adding a counterplay option to destro staff in blocking it. In addition if you are looking to bring up the lower end, Stamplar Templars are falling behind their other stamina counterparts in pve pretty significantly right now. Their sustain is hurting compared to other stamina classes outside of conditional repentance situations. A few more minor buffs to the underdogs might help in the meantime while we wait for more comprehensive changes!

Like I said in my original post... we have more coming. Hopefully they make PTS3.

gothickaiserub17_ESO

Koolio wrote: »

So we just worked for years to get stronger only to have you lower our damage because a new player wouldn't be as strong. Great. I wonder how long I can go on knowing that if I put in the time to get stronger you'll just nerf me because someone just bought the game. Very discouraged to continue.

I hope these adjustments (nerfs) are not making you anywhere near new players, simply a little less overpowering.If years of experience has been washed away by changing how the game is played there may be a different problem (the gap in gear has never meant as much as the gap in play skill), since it does not take years to actually acquire the items / skill points / CP, but only a few months.

However they are adding more build diversity (less gap between casual builds to meta builds, doesn't expand the builds that play at the top but does add to those that are within an acceptable percentage to the top).

Additionally while no one who can play at the top level will appreciate it, if there is a large gap between the best who can achieve perfect (animation cancel, attack weaving, multi-dot/buff) rotation and those who can not it causes a content problem. With such a large gap you cause bored top tier players or create content that almost noone will see (and such hard to budget good development for it). Since they said they wish to still leave skill a factor (as they should) they wish to have it provide less of an extreme benefit so they can produce more balanced content (with tighter balanced content high skill pushing only a smaller % above will still achieve noticeable results).

Glarin

@ZOS_RichLambert What do you mean by PTS3? Also, thank you for speaking up about these changes. It's great to see the devs communicating with the players and explaining the direction they're taking the game.

Lieblingsjunge

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.

It will not help. The crits on the monster set was never an issue. A 5k or a 3k Selene's doesn't matter. Monster set + Poisons + incap + heavy attack + viper proc is what matters, everything together. Monster sets not critting won't help counter the 20k instant damage, because in addition to the other attacks, it won't make a difference between a 3k or a 5k monster set proc. 18k or 20k, does it matter? Nope. The only thing the PTS change does, is ruin PvE-crit builds. It won't address the issue.

Revoke the change - listen to the community and put a global cooldown for offensive procsets. Problem solved. It can still crit, it can still burst people down. You just have to do something else than pressing incap.

Edit: Although, I do appreciate that you take the time to explain the reason behind the changes you've made. I just can't see how this change is gonna do anything in the grand scheme of things.

ZOS_RichLambert

Glarin wrote: »

@ZOS_RichLambert What do you mean by PTS3?

Sorry, the 3rd PTS build. (next week is the 2nd one)

Sigtric

Glarin wrote: »

@ZOS_RichLambert What do you mean by PTS3?

PTS gets several updates over the course of the test before the update is launched. Likely this coming Monday or tuesday it'll be taken down, things will be changed, updated and PTS reopened. This will be PTS2

Nifty2g

silky_soft wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
[*] Raising the floor on the bottom damage
[*] Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels
[/list]


-rich

You what mate? You want to take skill away so that bad people can artificially improve their dps? You do know handing out participation awards is more damaging then doing nothing? Some of us spend hours perfecting rotations for pve and pvp. Buffing and nerfing skills is part of the mmo, but if your actual goal is to reduce skill required to pull off complex combos. You guys are heading the wrong direction.

You still can, they're just wanting to give options to the average player that don't put hours into testing. It's not as if a top 1% player will suddenly be on the same level as some fresh CP player. The patch reduced a very little amount of complex combos, mainly the curse 3.5second combo and what not.

That said though, from this they are asking for help from players, and want to buff/nerf some stuff or make changes, maybe we should get them videos instead of just typing not many people are streaming this pts

OrphanHelgen

Im ok with selene and viper and all that to not crit, but was really poisoned serpent that OP? To make use of that set, you need to have a specific playstyle, wich btw are much harder then rapid strike meta.

ku5h

Cant you see that ABSOLUTELY NOBODY wants the Curse change. Its the biggest issue on this pts forum. Can you just please revert it to its original state that it has been for 2+ years. That argument, "simplify" is making me even more angry. It many give slight PvE boost to DPS, which by the way, you say you wanted to tone down, but in PvP its completely ruined. And all because some halfwits cant use it in their rotation. Terrible, just terrible.....

ZRT

By trying to "simplify" curse you ruined the skill for pvp imo. But I guess nothing is more simple than not using the skill at all.

Also why would you want to reduce the damage of the people that spend so much time getting to that point? Some of the hardest content in the game, vmol hard mode in particular can only be completed by a very small amount of players. This damage decrease will only make it harder.

Ankael07

Just bring back soft caps and be done with all this nonsense.

kaithuzar

@ZOS_RichLambert

Rich,

I understand the wording you've written as well as the patch changes. I agree with the patch changes and thank you for the explanation. That being said, your explanation probably should have been reworded so as to reduce attempted troll comments or general hate. Players easily misconstrue sentences & put too much weight on words that weren't meant for it.
As a player base we definitely appreciate yourself, dev's, community managers & others taking the time to speak with us whether through the forum, or other means. Players generally don't understand time constraints due to coding, manpower, or other unforeseen issues. Alongside this, is Zenimax hiring programmers? How would someone apply for the job? I fully understand the need to establish a baseline, however, there were many non-damage modifications that classes, such as nightblades, were hoping for yet have not received this patch. This game is loved by many & personally I feel the game only gets better (generally). Players spend just as much time thinking about this game or even playing as much as the developers may spend working on it. This passion causes much in the way of heightened emotions which makes me request that if you guys need more manpower or programmers please let us know or advertise as such. We really felt as though a couple other small specific things should have been added to this patch that were just missed opportunities. Hopefully if not this patch, then in the future.
Thank you again for what you guys do and as always we look forward to any new improvements that are brought to the game.

-Kai

Neoauspex

Could some of the PTS testers comment on whether the crit changes to proc sets have accomplished these goals?

Sigtric

ku5h wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Update 13 has been out on the PTS for almost a week now and there’s been a lot of good feedback and questions posted with regards to the balance changes. I wanted to take a few moments to briefly discuss the overall direction for these changes so you can hopefully start to see why these changes are occurring.

For Update 13, our overall goal was to lessen the gap between the top and bottom. (in terms of overall damage output, coordinated vs. uncoordinated, small and large scale PVE & PVP) This doesn’t mean all classes are perfectly equal in all ways or that we want to remove skill from the game. We want to establish a solid baseline so that we can better tune and tweak balance. For this update we attacked this problem from multiple angles by doing the following:

1. Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
2. Raising the floor on the bottom damage
3. Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

Some of you will probably ask how the above goals translate into the changes we made. Here are some notes on a couple of the more hotly debated ones so you can see how they fit into the bigger picture:

• Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.
• Stun Removal on Blazing Spear – This change falls into the “simplify” category. We increased the duration of the damage on this ability to simplify the rotation. In addition we removed the stun component. Now the morph choices are more damage or more resources and disorient. (CC)
• Radiant Destruction – This one is definitely in the “lower the ceiling” category. It was strong in both PVE and PVP and needed adjustment.
• Haunting Curse – This one falls into the “simplify” category. The goal was to free up globals for more abilities to be cast with this change. (i.e. – every 10.5 seconds you get to use 3 more abilities) @Alpheu5 has a pretty great image that illustrates this change in this thread.

I didn't touch on every change or class, but I hope that sheds some light into how and why we've made some of the changes we've made. We have a lot more balance changes planned, but due to how our build cycle works, most of them won't make the next PTS build - they should hopefully make PTS3 though.

It should also be noted that what is on PTS now is our first pass at these changes. We’re evaluating all of them and will make adjustments based on both feedback and data collected, so please continue to test them on PTS and give feedback.

-rich

So you wanted to simplify Curse by breaking it in PvP. Good job man, you deserve standing ovation. My God, when the game is balance by halfwits that dont even play the game.

Halfwits are folks that haven't a clue about the truth regarding the claims they make.

Minalan

Thanks for the update Rich. I appreciate the time you've taken to talk to us. Its always a pleasure to hear from you, especially about something we all care about so much (game balance).

Just keep in mind: "Simplify" makes a rotation and gameplay less fun, and overall boring. Nobody wants to sit and hit one or two buttons over and over for 12 seconds. The game is more interesting when you have to adapt a more complex (and fun) rotation, especially when the pace gets frantic, etc.

Please reconsider the 'haunting curse' change. It's boring for PVE and it's terrible for PVP for many reasons. If you want to make the PVE 'simpler' then change the pet variant of curse, leave velocious.

PS: you've just gone and deflated all of my anger about this. Especially knowing this isn't done yet.