Soft cap/hard cap

ynimma

I see these terms going around in topics but have no proper idea what they are.
If anyone has a minute would it be possible the explain these to me please?
Thank you!

NewBlacksmurf

Usually they are referring to a point when stats stop increasing value based on what an item may say in a tooltip and may result in diminishing returns (soft cap). There also a maximum amount a stat can be raised to (hard cap).

(Humor)Here what they don't mean

Soft cap


Hard cap

BlackSparrow

Note that soft caps were removed from the game something like two years ago... so if you see someone mentioning soft caps as a thing that currently exists in ESO, that post is out of date.

ynimma

Thank you (loved the pics ), so we are down to hard caps only.
Is there an up to date list somewhere about these values I could check? Not because I believe I reach them in any ways but I'm curious...

Sordidfairytale

From here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/163738/hard-cap

If you're interested in armor caps.

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

mikedirtbike wrote: »

Valnas wrote: »

you can resist penetration beyond 32k....

If I go over that amount do I get the full return...with 1.5 soft cap for every 2 points you went over you got 1..and do you know if there is a hard cap on resistance?

There is no hard or soft cap on armor or spell resist. If you are at 32,500 resist and add 1000 more, you will get the full 1000 and be at 33,500. But there is a hard cap of 50% on damage mitigation. You get 1% damage mitigation for each 650 of armor/spell resist. 650 x 50 = 32,500. So that is why 32500 is often looked at as a hard cap. BUT ... if a PvP player or PvE boss has some level of armor/spell penetration, it can effectively reduce your armor/spell resist. So if you have 32,500 spell resist and someone has 12% spell penetration, I believe that lowers your effective spell resist from 32,500 to 28,600. 28,600 mitigates 44% of damage, not 50%. If you have spell resist of 40,000 and are attacked by something with 12% penetration, I believe that lowers your effective spell resist from 40,000 to 35,200. 35,200 mitigates 54.15% of damage, but there is a hard cap of 50% on mitigation, so you will mitigate 50% of the damage not 54.15%.

I really don't know how much armor/spell penetration most players or PvE bosses have. But if you are really determined to mitigate 50% of damage, you can go higher than 32,500 so that after penetration, you are still above the 50% mitigation cap.

Sordidfairytale

Additionally for crit resistance the magic numbers are: 250 crit resist = 7.58% crit mitigation. So 3300 crit resistance = 100% crit mitigation. Just like physical and spell resistance you can go above the number, however there will be no benefit to do so, until someone hits you with a debuff.

NewBlacksmurf

One thing I think is worth adding.

While we don't have soft caps.....there is a point in PvP that drastically different from PvE when it comes to something like crit, impen, health, Armor, resistance, etc.

Think of it this way.
An NPC differs from what damage a player can take just as an NPC differs from how much damage they can cause you and that can drastically differ when paired against another person.


So while the hard cap exists, some people are referring to soft caps in terms of what's viable in a given situation. If you were to go to deltia's website and read on builds or what not, you'll see it said differently and he may suggest something is no longer worth investing in regarding stats

So I'd say soft caps exists in context to what's being discussed but in terms of how a game applies stats, no, it no longer exists.

ynimma

That's all very helpful, thank you very much @NewBlacksmurf and @Sordidfairytale!
Now I'll be able to tune the stats without guessing a lot

DHale

They were in the game at PC launch... they failed. The end.

starkerealm

ynimma wrote: »

I see these terms going around in topics but have no proper idea what they are.
If anyone has a minute would it be possible the explain these to me please?
Thank you!

They're general gaming terms (beyond the way ESO uses them).

A soft cap is a point you're expected to max out with a given stat. I most cases it's possible to exceed it by some means, but it becomes significantly less efficient or time consuming to do so.

For example, an RPG may have a level softcap, which you'll reach by completing all of the main and optional content, but you could technically grind past it through random encounters.

In the case of ESO, there used to be a soft cap system with attributes, where once you reached it, increasing that stat further resulted in severe diminishing returns (indicated by the number turning orange, and a warning icon appearing next to it, as I recall.)

A hard cap is a limit that cannot be exceeded by any means. For example, an RPG where your level cap is 20, and any future XP is ignored, would be a hard cap.

In the case of ESO, things like damage mitigation have hard caps. Also, your ability to spend CP is hard capped. There's no way you can spend your 601st CP at present. Once the current cap increases (to 630 or whatever), that will be the new hard cap for spent CP. (This one's a little different from normal concepts of hardcaps, because you can keep earning unspendible CP, but the basic idea is the same.)

A better example, might be skill lines, which hard cap when you've finished them. There's no 55 ranks in Shadow or Dark Magic, for instance. Once you hit 50, you're done with that skill line. Horses are another; once you've hit 60/60/60 you're done upgrading your mount. There's no way to reach 70/60/60, for instance.

Again, with ESO, soft caps almost always refer to the system that was removed before the console launch (even though there are still a few soft-capped systems in the game.) Hard caps usually refers explicitly to damage mitigation, though the basic concept does exist elsewhere in the game.