Softcaps

ginoboehm

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert

At what point do we agree that softcaps was a good idea?
Now you will nerf sustain and certain passives scaling from max resources all problems that were already solved through softcaps.
You want to empower "hybrid"builds (or even builds who do not wanna stack everything in one resource) and nerf builds that only stack one resource?
We had this with softcaps.
Ofc we should not have the same softcaps in the past perhaps they were too punishing but with softcaps you let people catch up faster (because more stats in any direction will not be endlessly stackable).
In the past softcaps had their problems because they were paired with other broken mechanics you fixed now is the right time to think about them again.
You could even go sofar as to only have them for pvp.
Already you think about deactivating cp for most campaigns and battlegrounds.
This will already force new people to have a different approach to pvp. The softcap would change nothing in the regard of splitting the playerbase.
In my opinion we go from patch to patch with a certain meta that is often enabled by stacking resources to a level you can not anticipate.
You could react way faster to certain metas through lowering or hightening softcaps and would not have to spot fix the 100000 set you did not plan out really.

krathos

How they decided to go the route they did instead of just adding softcaps is baffling. Two fixes could have accomplished everything they're trying to accomplish:

• reintroduce soft caps
• stop scaling damage off max resource (stam, magicka) because you literally have a stat designed for that

Then you could have left the rest mostly alone (although toning down constitution would have still been required in a soft-cap enabled world).

Seriously though. Stop scaling damage based on your stam and magicka pools and you'll notice that people will stop stacking them so high making the % return sustain abilities so powerful - because if someone does choose to stack 50k magicka or 50k stam then they will be sacrificing damage to do so. Balance.

ginoboehm

krathos wrote: »

How they decided to go the route they did instead of just adding softcaps is baffling. Two fixes could have accomplished everything they're trying to accomplish:

• reintroduce soft caps
• stop scaling damage off max resource (stam, magicka) because you literally have a stat designed for that

Then you could have left the rest mostly alone (although toning down constitution would have still been required in a soft-cap enabled world).

Seriously though. Stop scaling damage based on your stam and magicka pools and you'll notice that people will stop stacking them so high making the % return sustain abilities so powerful - because if someone does choose to stack 50k magicka or 50k stam then they will be sacrificing damage to do so. Balance.

I like resource scaling since it should be rewarded to have a higher pool of the stat you are using. otherwise people will just stack stamina and do still high mag damage because and can block forever or dodge roll a lot. just arguing with but they can cast more with higher stats is not very relevant because recovery and cost reduction is more valuable there.

wimhwimladimf

Soft cap is never good. It pretty much forces players to pick smth else whenever they're about to reach soft cap, since going over soft cap is waste of points in 99% cases.

Saint_Bud

wimhwimladimf wrote: »

Soft cap is never good. It pretty much forces players to pick smth else whenever they're about to reach soft cap, since going over soft cap is waste of points in 99% cases.

All the problems that now in the game and zenimax try to fix with this patch ( dont agree with many of the changes) wasent a thing in the days softcap were in the game.

ginoboehm

wimhwimladimf wrote: »

Soft cap is never good. It pretty much forces players to pick smth else whenever they're about to reach soft cap, since going over soft cap is waste of points in 99% cases.

Softcaps just mean you get deminishing returns for your investments.
if the softcap for stamina would be 30k people that would now have 40k stamina would still remain with 35k which is ofc way better than 30k but would not enabled the silly things now possible.
Same for magicka sorceres who would still profit from running for example necropotence but not get everything else out of wack.
you would get still a massive profit from running a set that would give you now 50k+ magicka but it will leave you with a much more reasonable 40k magicka. Ofc people would think about running perhaps purple food or run 1 more regen set bonus instead of a max magicka bonus but that is what i think we want we want to have to make choices and not just stack 1 resource and call it a day.
Atm i often run my stam dk in pvp with fury, werewolf hide and bloodspawn. I am able to run 3 weapon damage glyphes everything in stamina and thief mundus stone and sit at 42k stamina. I never run out of resources have 4k+ buffed weapon damage and spam ultimates like it was dynamic. I am not very good with it but even I realize that this just went too far into the lunaticy that is resource stacking. Not even talking about all the other problems we had or still have through the meta that developed through resource synnergies.
Even on pts i can manage to run silly low regen builds in heavy armor because i restore crazy amounts of resources through heavy attacks and can outtank people till my ultimate is ready again.
Back in the day with way less possibilites of stacking resources (through sets champion points and raw resources) and softcaps we often went over the softcap to concentrate on certain desired resources.
back in the day i was running crazy high weapon damage on my mag sorc (because destruction staff scaled with weapon damage back then) and there was no major and minor system so i buffed myself through different means and was way over softcap because this gave me still a raw advantage.


@ZOS_RichLambert I would love your input on this.

wimhwimladimf

ginoboehm wrote: »

wimhwimladimf wrote: »

Soft cap is never good. It pretty much forces players to pick smth else whenever they're about to reach soft cap, since going over soft cap is waste of points in 99% cases.

Softcaps just mean you get deminishing returns for your investments.
if the softcap for stamina would be 30k people that would now have 40k stamina would still remain with 35k which is ofc way better than 30k but would not enabled the silly things now possible.
Same for magicka sorceres who would still profit from running for example necropotence but not get everything else out of wack.
you would get still a massive profit from running a set that would give you now 50k+ magicka but it will leave you with a much more reasonable 40k magicka. Ofc people would think about running perhaps purple food or run 1 more regen set bonus instead of a max magicka bonus but that is what i think we want we want to have to make choices and not just stack 1 resource and call it a day.
Atm i often run my stam dk in pvp with fury, werewolf hide and bloodspawn. I am able to run 3 weapon damage glyphes everything in stamina and thief mundus stone and sit at 42k stamina. I never run out of resources have 4k+ buffed weapon damage and spam ultimates like it was dynamic. I am not very good with it but even I realize that this just went too far into the lunaticy that is resource stacking. Not even talking about all the other problems we had or still have through the meta that developed through resource synnergies.
Even on pts i can manage to run silly low regen builds in heavy armor because i restore crazy amounts of resources through heavy attacks and can outtank people till my ultimate is ready again.
Back in the day with way less possibilites of stacking resources (through sets champion points and raw resources) and softcaps we often went over the softcap to concentrate on certain desired resources.
back in the day i was running crazy high weapon damage on my mag sorc (because destruction staff scaled with weapon damage back then) and there was no major and minor system so i buffed myself through different means and was way over softcap because this gave me still a raw advantage.


@ZOS_RichLambert I would love your input on this.

Problems are a matter of perception. What is a problem for you, doesnt really have to be a problem for others. (same with many different balance aspects).

Deminishing returns is reason why stacking certain stat isnt usually worth it, compared to investing these points elsewhere. There will always be some kind of "meta" which makes people go for specific builds more than for others. Players in general like big numbers, especially when they play some kind of dmg dealer, this is why they stack it. There are also players who love to be annoying, and they will make even troll builds, just to be a pain in the ass for other players.

ZOS team is just not as good in balancing as they think about themself and they seem to take feedback from clueless players who either dont have much experience or simply are bad at the game and want Devs to change things in a way which could allow them to do more without effort.

Dark_Aether

Softcap does not discourage min/maxing, it puts a barrier on it. I do not think that is what they want. At least this way you still have a choice. Some people can still run their HA builds with no sustain and max stats.

Saint_Bud

The game will always have the meta gear set up. With or without softcaps. With softcaps player will go full stam or magicka, but you cant reach a gamebreaking number like a pet sorc or stam chars witch draugr. A friend plays his stam dk with 43 stam and can reach over 4.5K weapon damage, thats balance. Play as a sorc in IC with necropotence and imperial physics and you are like a good. There are reasons pvp popolation is so low to once and only a few guilds are left over. But i think it will also goes without softcap, but than the gear stats must be reduces down to near cp140 gear. A golden cp160 weapon give about 300 sp or wd than cp140 weapons, thats a 5 pice set bonus.

wimhwimladimf

Saint_Bud wrote: »

The game will always have the meta gear set up. With or without softcaps. With softcaps player will go full stam or magicka, but you cant reach a gamebreaking number like a pet sorc or stam chars witch draugr. A friend plays his stam dk with 43 stam and can reach over 4.5K weapon damage, thats balance. Play as a sorc in IC with necropotence and imperial physics and you are like a good. There are reasons pvp popolation is so low to once and only a few guilds are left over. But i think it will also goes without softcap, but than the gear stats must be reduces down to near cp140 gear. A golden cp160 weapon give about 300 sp or wd than cp140 weapons, thats a 5 pice set bonus.

Sorry, but that's pure speculations. There's no such thing as stacking stats to "game breaking values". Most players simply prefer dps over survivality and this is why they die so fast, but they also kill fast.

Deminishing returns is huge reason why softcap will make going for pure dmg (especially in pvp) not worth it. Player who balance his points between survivality and dmg in 9/10 attempts, will win in equal gear/class/skill 1vs1 scenario against player who went for pure dmg only. It's a lot harder to avoid dmg in pvp compared to pve, being able to survive the burst is as important as being able to burst through enemy HP bar.

In PvE, dmg taken is a lot more predictable and easier to deal with, so pure dmg might still be a thing.

ginoboehm

wimhwimladimf wrote: »

Saint_Bud wrote: »

The game will always have the meta gear set up. With or without softcaps. With softcaps player will go full stam or magicka, but you cant reach a gamebreaking number like a pet sorc or stam chars witch draugr. A friend plays his stam dk with 43 stam and can reach over 4.5K weapon damage, thats balance. Play as a sorc in IC with necropotence and imperial physics and you are like a good. There are reasons pvp popolation is so low to once and only a few guilds are left over. But i think it will also goes without softcap, but than the gear stats must be reduces down to near cp140 gear. A golden cp160 weapon give about 300 sp or wd than cp140 weapons, thats a 5 pice set bonus.

Sorry, but that's pure speculations. There's no such thing as stacking stats to "game breaking values". Most players simply prefer dps over survivality and this is why they die so fast, but they also kill fast.

Deminishing returns is huge reason why softcap will make going for pure dmg (especially in pvp) not worth it. Player who balance his points between survivality and dmg in 9/10 attempts, will win in equal gear/class/skill 1vs1 scenario against player who went for pure dmg only. It's a lot harder to avoid dmg in pvp compared to pve, being able to survive the burst is as important as being able to burst through enemy HP bar.

In PvE, dmg taken is a lot more predictable and easier to deal with, so pure dmg might still be a thing.

@wimhwimladimf
you realize that more primary stats give way higher survability ? i can block more on stamina classes restore more stamina through synergies passives and so on and i heal more since my healing scales with max stamina.
For magicka your shields are bigger your heals are bigger.

I mean are you really stating that more primary resources is bad for survability? are you pvping?
Bigger primary resources are making everything better damage healing survability that is the whole problem.
And if you don't think there are game breaking builds around you have never run into a 50k mag sorc, a endless blocking and 4.5k weapon damage ultimate spamming stam dk, an unkillable templar or an nightblade one shooting you whenever he feels like it if you are not in 5heavy 7 impen.

Even Zose realizes that the current pvp is broken and are implementing huge changes.
We are only arguing over the right way to change pvp.

wimhwimladimf

ginoboehm wrote: »

wimhwimladimf wrote: »

Saint_Bud wrote: »

The game will always have the meta gear set up. With or without softcaps. With softcaps player will go full stam or magicka, but you cant reach a gamebreaking number like a pet sorc or stam chars witch draugr. A friend plays his stam dk with 43 stam and can reach over 4.5K weapon damage, thats balance. Play as a sorc in IC with necropotence and imperial physics and you are like a good. There are reasons pvp popolation is so low to once and only a few guilds are left over. But i think it will also goes without softcap, but than the gear stats must be reduces down to near cp140 gear. A golden cp160 weapon give about 300 sp or wd than cp140 weapons, thats a 5 pice set bonus.

Sorry, but that's pure speculations. There's no such thing as stacking stats to "game breaking values". Most players simply prefer dps over survivality and this is why they die so fast, but they also kill fast.

Deminishing returns is huge reason why softcap will make going for pure dmg (especially in pvp) not worth it. Player who balance his points between survivality and dmg in 9/10 attempts, will win in equal gear/class/skill 1vs1 scenario against player who went for pure dmg only. It's a lot harder to avoid dmg in pvp compared to pve, being able to survive the burst is as important as being able to burst through enemy HP bar.

In PvE, dmg taken is a lot more predictable and easier to deal with, so pure dmg might still be a thing.

@wimhwimladimf
you realize that more primary stats give way higher survability ? i can block more on stamina classes restore more stamina through synergies passives and so on and i heal more since my healing scales with max stamina.
For magicka your shields are bigger your heals are bigger.

I mean are you really stating that more primary resources is bad for survability? are you pvping?
Bigger primary resources are making everything better damage healing survability that is the whole problem.
And if you don't think there are game breaking builds around you have never run into a 50k mag sorc, a endless blocking and 4.5k weapon damage ultimate spamming stam dk, an unkillable templar or an nightblade one shooting you whenever he feels like it if you are not in 5heavy 7 impen.

Even Zose realizes that the current pvp is broken and are implementing huge changes.
We are only arguing over the right way to change pvp.

This is ony true until deminishing returns kicks in and you have to keep in mind that you're not always able to use your spells, due to CC. This is where base survivality makes a difference. I dont believe that deminishing returns will fix anything, because it will affect most class in the same way. So what if your mag sorc will do less dmg, if the other guy will not be able to block or will have worse heals/shields due to lower resource pool? It will be pretty much the same but with@wimhwimladimf

PvP isnt broken due to lack of DR, but because of poor sets/ability balance.

DHale

There is no indication they are supporting hybrids builds and the game doesn't scale that way... at all.

ginoboehm

wimhwimladimf wrote: »

ginoboehm wrote: »

wimhwimladimf wrote: »

Saint_Bud wrote: »

The game will always have the meta gear set up. With or without softcaps. With softcaps player will go full stam or magicka, but you cant reach a gamebreaking number like a pet sorc or stam chars witch draugr. A friend plays his stam dk with 43 stam and can reach over 4.5K weapon damage, thats balance. Play as a sorc in IC with necropotence and imperial physics and you are like a good. There are reasons pvp popolation is so low to once and only a few guilds are left over. But i think it will also goes without softcap, but than the gear stats must be reduces down to near cp140 gear. A golden cp160 weapon give about 300 sp or wd than cp140 weapons, thats a 5 pice set bonus.

Sorry, but that's pure speculations. There's no such thing as stacking stats to "game breaking values". Most players simply prefer dps over survivality and this is why they die so fast, but they also kill fast.

Deminishing returns is huge reason why softcap will make going for pure dmg (especially in pvp) not worth it. Player who balance his points between survivality and dmg in 9/10 attempts, will win in equal gear/class/skill 1vs1 scenario against player who went for pure dmg only. It's a lot harder to avoid dmg in pvp compared to pve, being able to survive the burst is as important as being able to burst through enemy HP bar.

In PvE, dmg taken is a lot more predictable and easier to deal with, so pure dmg might still be a thing.

@wimhwimladimf
you realize that more primary stats give way higher survability ? i can block more on stamina classes restore more stamina through synergies passives and so on and i heal more since my healing scales with max stamina.
For magicka your shields are bigger your heals are bigger.

I mean are you really stating that more primary resources is bad for survability? are you pvping?
Bigger primary resources are making everything better damage healing survability that is the whole problem.
And if you don't think there are game breaking builds around you have never run into a 50k mag sorc, a endless blocking and 4.5k weapon damage ultimate spamming stam dk, an unkillable templar or an nightblade one shooting you whenever he feels like it if you are not in 5heavy 7 impen.

Even Zose realizes that the current pvp is broken and are implementing huge changes.
We are only arguing over the right way to change pvp.

This is ony true until deminishing returns kicks in and you have to keep in mind that you're not always able to use your spells, due to CC. This is where base survivality makes a difference. I dont believe that deminishing returns will fix anything, because it will affect most class in the same way. So what if your mag sorc will do less dmg, if the other guy will not be able to block or will have worse heals/shields due to lower resource pool? It will be pretty much the same but with@wimhwimladimf

PvP isnt broken due to lack of DR, but because of poor sets/ability balance.

you think base survability with life or are you just arguing for the sake of it? there is almost never a situation in cyrodil where more life would save you or be beneficial over more magicka. for heavy armor users even more investing anything in health is not usefull since you already have a good enough health pool to survive most bursts. there are no deminishing returns at all with stacking more resources resources and raw stats gives you better offensive and defensive capabilities.

Alp

DHale wrote: »

There is no indication they are supporting hybrids builds and the game doesn't scale that way... at all.

All the new craftable armour coming with morrowind gives both magicka and stamina etc. I hope there is a good reason for that choice.

ginoboehm

DHale wrote: »

There is no indication they are supporting hybrids builds and the game doesn't scale that way... at all.

imo hybrid builds make no sense and i have no idea why zenimax wants to push them but they do. all the new sets are for hybrids and many sets from the past are meant for hybrids too.
They want to make it work. another argument why softcaps would be a way more clever mechanic to support them

Blackfyre20

Obviously from my signature, I couldn't agree more about soft caps. One of the largest benefits from soft caps is the increased build diversity that results from a few things. First, stacking one resource becomes inefficient, allowing players to choose from both stam and mag abilities even with damage scaling with resources in place. Second, it just makes the game easier to balance. Think of an ability like blazing shield. It is a horrible skill for anyone who doesn't stack a ton of health, but ZOS can't buff it without altering the functionality of the skill because of players who do just stack a ton of health. Soft caps would allow ZOS to balance abilities in a way that they are useful options to many players, rather than select build, further increasing build diversity.

ginoboehm

Blackfyre20 wrote: »

Obviously from my signature, I couldn't agree more about soft caps. One of the largest benefits from soft caps is the increased build diversity that results from a few things. First, stacking one resource becomes inefficient, allowing players to choose from both stam and mag abilities even with damage scaling with resources in place. Second, it just makes the game easier to balance. Think of an ability like blazing shield. It is a horrible skill for anyone who doesn't stack a ton of health, but ZOS can't buff it without altering the functionality of the skill because of players who do just stack a ton of health. Soft caps would allow ZOS to balance abilities in a way that they are useful options to many players, rather than select build, further increasing build diversity.

exactly we can actually buff underperforming abilites without making them "abusable"