ACD: The New "Serpent" Tree; Seperating PVE & PVP Champion Points

HeroOfNone

Hello citizens of Tamriel!

Today's Arm Chair Developer topic is simplifying a complex problem: Create new separate a champion tree for PVP and make the existing Mage, Thief, and Warrior trees PVE only. This new tree can be called the "Serpent", the missing 13th mundus from the current champion system. With this, we will achieve separate balancing for PVE & PVP.


The Problem
When ZOS tries to make changes for PVE or PVP, they impact the other, complicating the balance and annoying either side. The champion system is only one part of this, but has a major impact on both. This issue has gone as far as to drive a social wedge between players and caused a lot of players to become disenfranchised because "their sideis getting nerfed" while "the others are getting buffed". This is very apparent when you look at the comments on the PTS forums and seen some of the reactions from players in the streaming & youtube community.


The Solution (in Detail)
The separation of champion trees should be between PVP & PVE, with passives & Unlocks useful in either situation. With these changes, the Mage, Thief, & Warrior would only activate in PVE Zones, and would turn off in Cyrodiil, Imperial City, Dueling, and battlegrounds. The Serpent would turn on in these locations instead, except in campaigns with no CP ruleset (Azuras & Blackwater Blade) and possibly battlegrounds until things are better tested.

Leveling the Serpent Champion tree is recommended to be done strictly with AP. This will give a higher benefit to players PVPing all the time, no matter which character they choose. Like one of the main three trees this would include 12 passives and 12 unlocks, and CP points for it would share between accounts.

While both systems are separate, I recommend the total number of champion points still make up your level. So a player with a 140 points between the Mage, Thief, & Warrior and 20 CP with the Serpent would be allowed to wear CP160 armor. This might be a bit of a bonus to folks that level up all 4trees, but that's a good thing for low level players.


The Passives and Unlocks
First we'll be removing the following PVP centric passives from the Mage, Thief, and Warrior trees:

1. Resistant - Reduces the amount of damage you take from critical hits by [x]%.
2. Expert Defender - Reduce damage taken from Light and Heavy Attacks by [x]%.
3. Befoul - Increases the effectiveness of healing reduction abilities by [x]%.
4. Shattering Blows - Increases your damage against targets with a damage shield by [x]%.
5. Siphoner - This passive ability now reduces the enemy’s Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery for 3 seconds when you damage them with a Light or Heavy Attack, instead of reducing the cost of your Magicka abilities. (I'd recommend splitting all 3 out and giving higher values in this model)

More could be removed and replaced with more PVE centric passives as necessary, maybe even some of the sustain passives that were removed.


After separating those out, more Champion Point passives will be needed. Here is a list of suggested passives to start from

• Venomous - increases the effectiveness of weapon poisons by x% (may require reducing cost poisons base)
• Anatomy - Increases the damage done on other players by x%
• Guarded - Reduces the damage from other players by x%
• Toughness - Reduces the effectiveness of player debuffs by X% (include vampire debuffs?)
• Cautious - Reduce the chance to be critically strike by x%
• Siege Mitigation - Reduce the damage from sieges by x %
• Altruistic - increase heal to others by x% while reducing healing taken by x% (might be better as a set)
• Suffer - increase player DOT damage by X%
• Storm guard - Reduce player AOE damage by x% (may need it to add in a counter skill)
• Umbra - Reduce player damage x% from ranged attacks over 10m away
• Siege Marksman - increase the damage of siege b to players by x% within 5m of the impact (oil unaffected)
• Fault Finder - increase the damage on siege, walls, or doors by x% (may require a wall or door health increase)
• Accuracy - Reduce the dodge of enemies you target by x% (does not affect dodge roll)

Next, here are some suggested unlocks. Admittedly I could use more feedback on these:

• Bypass CP120 - Chance to do X damage, unmitigated damage when damaging a target with heavy attack that has a shield up.
• Engineer CP10 - increase repair on siege only by X
• Duelist CP120 - increase chance to critical an enemy by 5% when you're the only one fighting them for 10 seconds.
• Avenger CP75 - increase weapon damage by x for 8 seconds after an party member dies near you
• Emergency response CP75 -when critically strike below 50% health, gain x damage shield for 3 seconds (20 second cooldown)
• Advance CP75 - x% chance to gain minor expedition for 5 seconds on crit (10 second cooldown)

Closing
So with this basic idea, these lists of passives & unlocks, and the PTS feedback on Morrowind I hope I have at least influenced some ideas among the ZOS Devs and the community in new ways to balance the two environments. This would really help soften the blow when we have champion system changes during these big patches. It would also help given PVPers something to play for again.


If you liked, or even slightly liked this topic please don't forget to click those "agrees", "awesomes", "insightfuls" and please give a reply to keep this topic on top of the forum. As always arguments are always welcome to help iron out more details.

Thanks for reading!

Side Request: if you can identify what stuff you do (PVE casual, PVE Hardcore, PVP) and what you think of the request. entirely voluntary, but helps folks know where your argument is coming from.

SanSan

I think we all want a separate tree for PvP and pve but I don't think they'll do that ever since it'll "waste" their time catering to us.

Goshua

Specifics aside I think its a good idea, worth considering.

Fishoscandi

I thought it said ACDC.

I do agree with @SanSan .I don't actually know what is going on at the office of ZOS. If it's even real. Maryland sounds like a LOTR name to me.

Crafts_Many_Boxes

Fishoscandi wrote: »

I thought it said ACDC.

I do agree with @SanSan .I don't actually know what is going on at the office of ZOS. If it's even real. Maryland sounds like a LOTR name to me.

And yet, Baltimore is about as real as it gets. Ba dum tss.

But to stay relevant, I think that's a great, simple idea. It doesn't address how the devs feel combat has deviated too much from its intended roots, but we've all pretty much agreed that those roots are bad anyway, so yeah

Edit: is Zenimax based in Bethesda, MA as well? I feel like they're not....

HeroOfNone

As per the side note, I cover the range of PVE and PVP content, though I'm more heavily known for my PVE.

Eleusian

The current Blend of PVP & PVE balance the game leaves one side or both pissed off every patch. Separate the 2 out already !

Acrolas

Actively refusing to balance PVE and PVP separately will always be their number one mistake.

Different game designs should have different rule books. Even games as similar as Ultimate Frisbee and American football have their own distinct rules and regulations. And I was going to say Frisbee is like PVE and football is like PVP... but is it? I don't even think ZOS knows.

ZOS also apparently doesn't know whether it wants soft caps or not. And a lot of the arguments we're having now sound really similar to the ones around 1.6...

Docmandu

Strongly disagree. For once, I'm with ZOS on this one.

HeroOfNone

Docmandu wrote: »

Strongly disagree. For once, I'm with ZOS on this one.

care to elaborate? its also not to say ZOS has been "wrong" either, but this change in approach at this point seems much better for the tangled rats nest of fishing line that seems to be any change to the current champion system.

Velvelya

Fishoscandi wrote: »

I thought it said ACDC.

I do agree with @SanSan .I don't actually know what is going on at the office of ZOS. If it's even real. Maryland sounds like a LOTR name to me.

This is only funny to me because I happen to live in Maryland...

NeillMcAttack

But I like both! I don't want them separate but actually more uniform.
I'm aware of the OP's concerns and I honestly share them also. Givin that these new CP changes mean that speccing for one hampers you in the other and vice versa. It's definitely time to get rid of the ridiculous CP re-spec cost, at the very least.

Speaking strictly about group play in both, I firmly believe that PvP players of the highest levels greatest tools are communication and understanding with their teammates, the very same goes for top level raiders. What I want to see is both playstyles being able to have easier transitions into the opposite gametype. Yes, the OP's suggestion helps that, but with many new, and including many of the OP's suggested, a new cp system will just bring many more problems further down the road. I can already think of many sets that would be buffed to great heights if some of these passives were in play. This makes it harder to develop new sets that can be worn in both. What's next, content exclusive sets?

My suggestions would be the following;

Allow us to have access to both morphs of a skill.
This could be done with a system of skill mastery, let's say kill x amount of unique players of a certain faction with the skill slotted. X amount of raid bosses etc.

Allow for more than one trait on our gear.
Why not have slots on our gear to put traits on, you select the gear, switch the trait, boom. To gain an extra slot you infuse with a piece of that type, same set, different trait.

Slots on our jewelry and even our weapons.
Again, same gear set, infuse, kablam. With jewelry just a second enchant and then you choose one prior to combat, just like changing gear and skills. But far more uniform between two different and uniquely awesome game types.

I mean who carries around duplicate sets with different traits and jewelry with different glyphs? Not many probably, but if you could do this, you definitely would. And what's the number one reason your guildies won't join for some AvA? Eh, I probably don't have the right gear anyway.

Edit: A slot/infuse system adds loads of possibilities, you could even do the same with different styles, same system, infuse a style crafted to be of the same level and switch it up like you would the trait.
Crafters could earn a means to add slots to gear which is more progression, less gear is automatically junk, and most importantly, players of either side could more easily transition to the opposing knowing all those impen moondancer drops aren't useless and all those divines bone pirate drops may come in handy after all!

Let me know what you think?

HeroOfNone

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

But I like both! I don't want them separate but actually more uniform.
I'm aware of the OP's concerns and I honestly share them also. Givin that these new CP changes mean that speccing for one hampers you in the other and vice versa. It's definitely time to get rid of the ridiculous CP re-spec cost, at the very least.

Speaking strictly about group play in both, I firmly believe that PvP players of the highest levels greatest tools are communication and understanding with their teammates, the very same goes for top level raiders. What I want to see is both playstyles being able to have easier transitions into the opposite gametype. Yes, the OP's suggestion helps that, but with many new, and including many of the OP's suggested, a new cp system will just bring many more problems further down the road. I can already think of many sets that would be buffed to great heights if some of these passives were in play. This makes it harder to develop new sets that can be worn in both. What's next, content exclusive sets?

My suggestions would be the following;

Allow us to have access to both morphs of a skill.
This could be done with a system of skill mastery, let's say kill x amount of unique players of a certain faction with the skill slotted. X amount of raid bosses etc.

Allow for more than one trait on our gear.
Why not have slots on our gear to put traits on, you select the gear, switch the trait, boom. To gain an extra slot you infuse with a piece of that type, same set, different trait.

Slots on our jewelry and even our weapons.
Again, same gear set, infuse, kablam. With jewelry just a second enchant and then you choose one prior to combat, just like changing gear and skills. But far more uniform between two different and uniquely awesome game types.

I mean who carries around duplicate sets with different traits and jewelry with different glyphs? Not many probably, but if you could do this, you definitely would. And what's the number one reason your guildies won't join for some AvA? Eh, I probably don't have the right gear anyway.

Edit: A slot/infuse system adds loads of possibilities, you could even do the same with different styles, same system, infuse a style crafted to be of the same level and switch it up like you would the trait.
Crafters could earn a means to add slots to gear which is more progression, less gear is automatically junk, and most importantly, players of either side could more easily transition to the opposing knowing all those impen moondancer drops aren't useless and all those divines bone pirate drops may come in handy after all!

Let me know what you think?

The respec cost is one issue that I feel is just a happy side effect of separating out the PVE and PVP trees. the issue is still some of the PVE stuff seeps in to make unkillable or high DPS builds in PVP. Visa Versa, some of the PVP stuff leads to weaker builds.

Lets take block expertise for example. this passive reduced the cost of blocking for the player. this, along with glyphs and sturdy, let tanks hold block up for a long time in hard boss fights in PVE. In PVP however it makes for block builds that mitigate everything that players can dish out and still not die. If we reduce the effectiveness we hamper tanks on the PVE side, but if we improve it we get unkillable builds in PVP. If we put in some special rule like "only applies to PVE mobs" then players will get confused, potentially it gets missed in a patch and reduced players, and it adds more checks to the server.


Separating it out makes the most sense (to me) If its in a PVE only tree then tanks can get their block cost reduction and PVPers don't get some of the unkillable builds they have now. It also gives players a serious thought of "DPS or Defense or utility" since the limiting CP in the PVP tree will only let you choose one, rather than the current system that lets you spread across Defensive and offensive trees.

As for your suggestion on changing traits, I wish to get more into those later. As I mentioned the CP system is part of the problem; Traits, racials, and sets are the other balancing issue.