PVE to PVP Transition Not Intuitive Enough

MasterSpatula

I'm just gonna go ahead and say it:

I do fine in my Divines set. Yeah, I'm squishy AF, but so be it. I get kills. I contribute. I help my side. Sometimes I die.

I'm more bothered by the lack of any CC immunities than I am about crits.

TheRealPotoroo

Blanco wrote: »

lol'd hard

Everyone knows you use impen in pvp. Even someone who has never played pvp knows that.

No, they don't. There is no reason why anyone who has never played PvP need be aware of any of its idiosyncrasies.

If you don't know that, it means you have done exactly ZERO research on the game in any way, and your pve build was likely horribly ineffectual anyway.

It means nothing of the sort.

Players need to RESEARCH before just jumping in and playing, if you ask me. Know what you're doing a little bit before you start playing- this goes for both pve and pvp.

Define research. If ZoS did their job properly we wouldn't need theory crafters and the like spending ridiculous amounts of time and effort reverse engineering the game to find out how things actually work. Instead, it would be intuitive, which is not the bad thing you bizarrely think it is, it's a good thing that is a hallmark of good design.

Chelo

MakoFore wrote: »

it take a while to understand these concepts which much of the community takes as law or nature by now. i remember asking a vet friend when i was new- that i wanted gear that would be good for pvp and pve- and him simply not understanding the request. i dont blame him now. there should be some in game tutorial that shows us what gear we should go for for each scenario. they are wildly different skills, morphs, gear - everything. last few days i ive seen a lot of players running around with endless hail dual wield builds they've probably brought over from pve, or blockade of fire, pve mag builds. its a lot to learn and the game should take on some responsibility of teaching .

Teaching what? You can get all the information you need about PvP just by watching YouTube videos... Im starting to think that PvE players are mentaly handicap or something. The game is not going to tell you the exact build you have to use in PvP, the problem is that PvE is so damn easy that you can be successfull even using a totally incompetent build. Well, thats not gonna happend if you are competing vs another human being that have more experience, practice, research and skill than you do...

If you want to get good, do your research and practice, and that apply to everything in life, you are just not going to be magically good at everything at first try, unless you are a natural born prodigy, but I doubt thats the case...

Biro123

I'm with the op on this. The transition IS hard. Is not like its a brand new game where everyone is just learning how to PvP. Jumping into PvP now for the first time means matching yourself against people with a few years experience using builds they have honed over time and then practice's with over more time.

It IS hard.

DeHei

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

When the topic of transitioning from PVE to PVP comes up on ESO Live, it is common to hear devs use a phrase along the lines of, "We want the transition from PVE to PVP to be as intuitive as possible." Okay ZOS, that's great if that's the goal, but can you improve upon this please, specifically in regards to Impenetrable/Critical damage?

During this Midyear Mayhem event I have met a lot of new, awesome people who are trying PVP for the the first time, and I hear a good deal of these people voice their disappointment when they find out that their PVE builds, which they've put much time and effort into, are so easily susceptible to death from absurdly high tooltip totals because their enemies crit against them (which is really easy to do) and none of their armor has Impen. The necessity of wearing Impenetrable armor in Cyrodiil versus outside of Cyrodiil is an example of a situation when transitioning from PVE to PVP is NOT intuitive for players, especially new players.

I understand that PVE enemies cannot crit but enemy players in PVP can crit, which is why crit mechanics perform so vastly different in both scenarios. But ZOS, if the goal is to make the transition from PVE to PVP as intuitive as possible, then don't you think this is an area that needs examination? You use battle spirit on shields and healing, would it be insane to consider it for crits?

I would more say, buff impen and give it a critchance reduction together with a critdamagereduction for the other complete useless less repair costs!

Chelo

Biro123 wrote: »

I'm with the op on this. The transition IS hard. Is not like its a brand new game where everyone is just learning how to PvP. Jumping into PvP now for the first time means matching yourself against people with a few years experience using builds they have honed over time and then practice's with over more time.

It IS hard.

Do you expect playing a sport (any sport) against someone who has been practicing for years, is it going to be easy if you are a first timer?

Same as real life, you will have to spend time if you want to catch up...

Katahdin

Going from PvE to PvP will never be intuitive. Real people are not programmed and play to a script like npcs do. ZOS is not going to hold your hand and tell you what build and skills to use for every aspect of the game. There is not one set build for each aspect of the game. There is also not one way to play Cyrodiil. However there are multitudes of builds on the Internet you can try. There is a whole forums section and many threads about builds. Youre never going to walk from pve to pvp and not have to learn a few things and adjust.

Not everyone uses impen in pvp either. I use divines on one of my builds for max damage. I die fast sure, but it's a tradeoff and I play the build accordingly

Biro123

Chelo wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

I'm with the op on this. The transition IS hard. Is not like its a brand new game where everyone is just learning how to PvP. Jumping into PvP now for the first time means matching yourself against people with a few years experience using builds they have honed over time and then practice's with over more time.

It IS hard.

Do you expect playing a sport (any sport) against someone who has been practicing for years, is it going to be easy if you are a first timer?

Same as real life, you will have to spend time if you want to catch up...

I don't expect that at all. I just stated how it is not whether that's a good or bad thing, or what should be expected.

Fwiw I've been doing nothing but PvP for the last 18 months, but remember how it was when I started.

ADarklore

dem0n1k wrote: »

Just change PVE monsters so they can crit!

So then what? The ONLY valuable trait in ESO is Impenetrable?!? Because that's exactly what it would be. The point is, PvE enemies cannot crit which allows for a much more diverse build system that what we have in PvP, where basically everyone is forced to wear Impenetrable to survive.

Reverb

Eh, plenty of new players just wear and do whatever Alcast or another streamer tells them to instead of learning about the game as they level and explore. They can do the same with PvP. There are probably links to PvP builds on the same page that told them to farm moondancer and everything else they're wearing, they just never bothered to look at those.

Chelo

ADarklore wrote: »

dem0n1k wrote: »

Just change PVE monsters so they can crit!

So then what? The ONLY valuable trait in ESO is Impenetrable?!? Because that's exactly what it would be. The point is, PvE enemies cannot crit which allows for a much more diverse build system that what we have in PvP, where basically everyone is forced to wear Impenetrable to survive.

Actually nope, if you want to be top notch at PvE, you have to use divines and thats it. The issue with PvE is that its so damn easy that you can wear the stupidest build ever without even know it and still be successfull (not top notch but successfull), that isn't happening in PvP, if you don't understand the game, you simply are going to die in seconds, this is how most games works when you are playing vs other human beings.

Devs can limit the skill level you need to beat an NPC, but there's no limit to the skill level of another human being...

technohic

dem0n1k wrote: »

Just change PVE monsters so they can crit!

Or; they could balance crit so that impen is not the only way to go. They're doing the opposite on PTS by making precise more favorable and reducing penetration. Penetration all around does need reduced but crit values are just as bad without impen

Chelo

The difference between PvE and PvP:

Is like playing a fighting game (Stree Figther or Mortal Kombat) but only fight against the CPU, it doesn't matter if you are fighting the CPU in the hardest difficulty, you don't know if you are good or not until you start fighting against another human beings...

bellatrixed

Lol, I love how antagonistic and hateful the responses from the PVP crowd are. You guys are your own worst enemy. You complain nobody PVPs, Cyrodiil is dead, but then do your hardest to insult and drive away new PVPers.

Anyway, I love PVP in other MMOs but can't get into it in ESO. It feels way too confusing and hopeless when I spend ages on a supposedly good PVP build/gear only to be totally unable to damage a CP 630 player before he kills me in about five hits.

It IS counterintuitive. ESO's draw is supposedly the fact you can play whatever you want but that isn't true in PVP. And in most games new players are kinda guided along in that you get gear with special PVP stats for completing PVP quests or something. Here you're just kinda dropped in--"Okay, you're in Cyrodiil, go PVP now."

Doctordarkspawn

It's a excuse.

It allways has been, it allways -will be-, ZOS does not want the transition to be intuitive, it just wants to avoid or cover up their inability to make the two seperate.

deepseamk20b14_ESO

I suggest doing some dueling first to get PvP mechanics down. Also as much as I hate to say it.....follow the Zerg around and see what they do. Take what they do with a grain of salt though. At least you'll start to understand how and why to take certain keeps and resources.

Chadak

Now that I've gotten everything I want out of the pvp vendors for the foreseeable future, I'm returning to pretending PVP doesn't exist on here.

Because having to lug around a special set of pvp gear and endure that janky-as-fark UI to get into Cyrodil in the first place is stupid.

victoriana-blue

I agree 100% with the OP: the transition between PvE and PvP in this game is entirely unintuitive, because few of the things I learned in PvE apply to PvP (and vice versa, for that matter). I was lucky enough to learn in BWB from players who took the time to teach & answer questions, but that's not most people's experience.

PvPers who think people need to do research to play a game they already paid for, I suggest you watch this video on game depth vs complexity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU

tl;dr: Depth is when a game gives players enough support that they can make meaningful choices that affect their gameplay in meaningful ways (so things like ranged vs melee, not just different quest dialogue). Depth still requires players to learn and skill will always win, but deep games help players develop their skills.

Complexity is when the player has to figure out & remember too much by themselves, whether it's because of labyrinthine rules, bad tutorials, or hidden information. (Sound familiar?) Complex games require players to remember a lot of information, and in ESO much of that information isn't even hinted at - you can't learn what you don't know exists.

ESO doesn't give players enough info to begin with, and the PvP tutorial doesn't teach basic things like "Aim siege at a wall, not the window" - let alone things like "In PvP, stamblades should use class magicka skills like fear even though that skill gets you yelled at in dungeons." Different math, different skills, different gear, different CP set-ups, different strategies....

Just because you learned to deal with bad design doesn't mean the PvE/PvP design is good.

TequilaFire

Hmm, I don't recall seeing tutorials on dungeon boss mechanics either.
Part of the game play is learning.

Chelo

victoriana-blue wrote: »

I agree 100% with the OP: the transition between PvE and PvP in this game is entirely unintuitive, because few of the things I learned in PvE apply to PvP (and vice versa, for that matter). I was lucky enough to learn in BWB from players who took the time to teach & answer questions, but that's not most people's experience.

PvPers who think people need to do research to play a game they already paid for, I suggest you watch this video on game depth vs complexity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU

tl;dr: Depth is when a game gives players enough support that they can make meaningful choices that affect their gameplay in meaningful ways (so things like ranged vs melee, not just different quest dialogue). Depth still requires players to learn and skill will always win, but deep games help players develop their skills.

Complexity is when the player has to figure out & remember too much by themselves, whether it's because of labyrinthine rules, bad tutorials, or hidden information. (Sound familiar?) Complex games require players to remember a lot of information, and in ESO much of that information isn't even hinted at - you can't learn what you don't know exists.

ESO doesn't give players enough info to begin with, and the PvP tutorial doesn't teach basic things like "Aim siege at a wall, not the window" - let alone things like "In PvP, stamblades should use class magicka skills like fear even though that skill gets you yelled at in dungeons." Different math, different skills, different gear, different CP set-ups, different strategies....

Just because you learned to deal with bad design doesn't mean the PvE/PvP design is good.

It means that I'm not mentally handicap and I understand that of course it's not going to be the same fighting an NPC than fighting another person.

Also most of this PvE players struggling in PvP are bad for PvE anyway, the problem is that they doesn't even know it because PvE in this game is so damn easy that you can play the stupidest way ever and still be successfull. Actually you can complete the entire game naked without wearing any gear (all the solo content except MA and vMA) and there are videos of players doing that just to prove the point that PvE in this game have 0 challenge...

Just because Devs make fighting an NPC an easy experience, doesn't mean fighting another person is going to be as easy.

It's exactly the same dilema between the people who do +40k dps in dungeons vs the ones who are struggling just to reach 10k-15k, at the end of the day both players can complete the content, the difference is that the second one is going to take much longer and he is possibly doing something the wrong way but he probably doesn't even known or doesn't even care as long as he can complete the content and kill the bosses, it's all good. Well, that's not happening in PvP, there's NO "going with random gear and random skills" and still be successfull, that ain't happening...

ofSunhold

I agree with you OP. It's all well and good for people who already know this stuff to demand the newcomers struggle or research or beg established players for information, but it'd be better for all of us if they could just get right to the PvPing without extra homework.

But as usual what the devs say their reasoning is and what they actually DO don't match up very well. I suspect "We want the transition to be intuitive!" is just a pretty excuse for having no plans ever to separate PvP and PvE. "It would be a huge pain in the snip" just doesn't sound as good.

Chelo

TequilaFire wrote: »

Hmm, I don't recall seeing tutorials on dungeon boss mechanics either.
Part of the game play is learning.

There's not a single tutorial for any of the veteran trials, people just learn by experience and practice, also doing their own research, but all these players complaining about PvP, are probably casuals at end game PvE too in the first place...

victoriana-blue

Chelo wrote: »

There's not a single tutorial for any of the veteran trials, people just learn by experience and practice, also doing their own research, but all these players complaining about PvP, are probably casuals at end game PvE too in the first place...

You learn vet dungeons by doing the normal dungeons first, and you learn normal dungeons from helpful players who teach instead of yell at new people. Unfortunately, too many people in both PvP and PvE complain & kick instead of helping - I'm sure you've seen the forum threads about light armour-wearing snipe spammers? You know, something the game doesn't tell you is not very effective?

victoriana-blue

Chelo wrote: »

It means that I'm not mentally handicap and I understand that of course it's not going to be the same fighting an NPC than fighting another person.

Also most of this PvE players struggling in PvP are bad for PvE anyway, the problem is that they doesn't even know it because PvE in this game is so damn easy that you can play the stupidest way ever and still be successfull. Actually you can complete the entire game naked without wearing any gear (all the solo content except MA and vMA) and there are videos of players doing that just to prove the point that PvE in this game have 0 challenge...

Just because Devs make fighting an NPC an easy experience, doesn't mean fighting another person is going to be as easy.

It's exactly the same dilema between the people who do +40k dps in dungeons vs the ones who are struggling just to reach 10k-15k, at the end of the day both players can complete the content, the difference is that the second one is going to take much longer and he is possibly doing something the wrong way but he probably doesn't even known or doesn't even care as long as he can complete the content and kill the bosses, it's all good. Well, that's not happening in PvP, there's NO "going with random gear and random skills" and still be successfull, that ain't happening...

Wow, you start off by insulting disabled people by assuming they can't kick your ass in this game. Wonderful.

I think you're combining two different problems: design and difficulty scales. I agree that the difficulty curve in this game is ridiculous: you can do anything against Red Rooks, while the jump to DLC or vet dungeons is really difficult. That said, players who do vMA in a broom & bucket are already good at vMA - they know the spawn locations, they know the kill priority, they have the timing down to reflex. To compare that to the average player is apples and oranges, and I say that as someone who was on vMA stage 9 before Morrowind.

(Comfortable completion doesn't mean someone is bad, either. The difference between 15k and 40k+ dps isn't necessarily someone doing something "wrong" - that difference is in trained reflexes/movements, which lots of people either can't or don't want to do, and requires giving up burst heal potions for weapon power/spell power pots. Doing well =/= doing the best possible numbers and some of us don't care about leaderboards, just like I'm sure you don't care about poking around nooks & crannies for notes.)

The design problem affects PvP AND PvE, absolutely, 100%. But when so many people are having difficulty with the transition to PvP, that says something is wrong with the game design. Speaking for myself, I was a corporal on my main before I figured out how powerful gap closers are and that rapid strikes is bad in PvP. I'm on the forums, I have guilds with really helpful people who take the time to teach, I watch videos, I have PvP-specific gear, and I still didn't learn that until more than year after I started playing this game. Given the basic questions that keep coming up in guild chat, I'm not alone in this.

Chelo

victoriana-blue wrote: »

Chelo wrote: »

It means that I'm not mentally handicap and I understand that of course it's not going to be the same fighting an NPC than fighting another person.

Also most of this PvE players struggling in PvP are bad for PvE anyway, the problem is that they doesn't even know it because PvE in this game is so damn easy that you can play the stupidest way ever and still be successfull. Actually you can complete the entire game naked without wearing any gear (all the solo content except MA and vMA) and there are videos of players doing that just to prove the point that PvE in this game have 0 challenge...

Just because Devs make fighting an NPC an easy experience, doesn't mean fighting another person is going to be as easy.

It's exactly the same dilema between the people who do +40k dps in dungeons vs the ones who are struggling just to reach 10k-15k, at the end of the day both players can complete the content, the difference is that the second one is going to take much longer and he is possibly doing something the wrong way but he probably doesn't even known or doesn't even care as long as he can complete the content and kill the bosses, it's all good. Well, that's not happening in PvP, there's NO "going with random gear and random skills" and still be successfull, that ain't happening...

Wow, you start off by insulting disabled people by assuming they can't kick your ass in this game. Wonderful.

I think you're combining two different problems: design and difficulty scales. I agree that the difficulty curve in this game is ridiculous: you can do anything against Red Rooks, while the jump to DLC or vet dungeons is really difficult. That said, players who do vMA in a broom & bucket are already good at vMA - they know the spawn locations, they know the kill priority, they have the timing down to reflex. To compare that to the average player is apples and oranges, and I say that as someone who was on vMA stage 9 before Morrowind.

(Comfortable completion doesn't mean someone is bad, either. The difference between 15k and 40k+ dps isn't necessarily someone doing something "wrong" - that difference is in trained reflexes/movements, which lots of people either can't or don't want to do, and requires giving up burst heal potions for weapon power/spell power pots. Doing well =/= doing the best possible numbers and some of us don't care about leaderboards, just like I'm sure you don't care about poking around nooks & crannies for notes.)

The design problem affects PvP AND PvE, absolutely, 100%. But when so many people are having difficulty with the transition to PvP, that says something is wrong with the game design. Speaking for myself, I was a corporal on my main before I figured out how powerful gap closers are and that rapid strikes is bad in PvP. I'm on the forums, I have guilds with really helpful people who take the time to teach, I watch videos, I have PvP-specific gear, and I still didn't learn that until more than year after I started playing this game. Given the basic questions that keep coming up in guild chat, I'm not alone in this.

There's no "confortable completition" in PvP, for example if you don't want to practice how to cancel your animations, don't do it, but if someone who puts a lot of time an effort on learning a burst combo using 3 or 4 skills in seconds by canceling animations, catch you and kill you really fast, well you have the chance to try the same, if you don't want to do it because you consider it is too hard or if you don't feel "confortable" practicing it, that's totally on you. Some players are going to try every possible game mechanic to beat other players in PvP. And there's no skill cap to a person.

Also if it took you a year to figure that you need a gap closer to catch range players (or even players that are trying to escape away), how the hell were you playing during that year? If a MagSorc teleported away from you, did you just run or sprint until you catch him? (O_o)

Honestly some things are common sense... if someone is killing you at 30 meters far from you, it doesn't require a Ph.D to figure you can try using a gap closer to catch him and see what happends next.

WuffyCerulei

PvP and PvE are completely different animals, unfortunately. Players can pack more unpredictable punch than pve bosses, and you never know what their stats are.

victoriana-blue

Chelo wrote: »

There's no "confortable completition" in PvP, for example if you don't want to practice how to cancel your animations, don't do it, but if someone who puts a lot of time an effort on learning a burst combo using 3 or 4 skills in seconds by canceling animations, catch you and kill you really fast, well you have the chance to try the same, if you don't want to do it because you consider it is too hard or if you don't feel "confortable" practicing it, that's totally on you. Some players are going to try every possible game mechanic to beat other players in PvP. And there's no skill cap to a person.

Also if it took you a year to figure that you need a gap closer to catch range players (or even players that are trying to escape away), how the hell were you playing during that year? If a MagSorc teleported away from you, did you just run or sprint until you catch him? (O_o)

Honestly some things are common sense... if someone is killing you at 30 meters far from you, it doesn't require a Ph.D to figure you can try using a gap closer to catch him and see what happends next.

I agree that someone who puts a lot of effort into PvP should have an advantage over new people, and over people like me who are good at the game in general but play builds that prioritize things like Master Harvester (<3). I like that PvP rewards player skill, and that I can see benefits as I improve.

It's not that new people die, it's that new people aren't given information on how to improve because there are so many variables in stats, set bonuses, skill use, etc. The PvP side of the game is so different from PvE that it goes against some of the basic gameplay of PvE. If new people are lucky they'll find mentors and guilds, but 1) that's not guaranteed to teach what people need to know and 2) it shouldn't be the players' job to make up for bad tutorial design

Anyway. What I took so long to figure out was that a gap closer is also effective at 15m or less, and that ambush's stun + empower is actually useful. This was conveniently after the Morrowind patch, so I dropped siphoning to make room on my bars for it. :shrug: I usually ignore people who bolt escape away: chances are pretty good that even if I caught up, it would be a trap.

Jitterbug

Chelo wrote: »

victoriana-blue wrote: »

I agree 100% with the OP: the transition between PvE and PvP in this game is entirely unintuitive, because few of the things I learned in PvE apply to PvP (and vice versa, for that matter). I was lucky enough to learn in BWB from players who took the time to teach & answer questions, but that's not most people's experience.

PvPers who think people need to do research to play a game they already paid for, I suggest you watch this video on game depth vs complexity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU

tl;dr: Depth is when a game gives players enough support that they can make meaningful choices that affect their gameplay in meaningful ways (so things like ranged vs melee, not just different quest dialogue). Depth still requires players to learn and skill will always win, but deep games help players develop their skills.

Complexity is when the player has to figure out & remember too much by themselves, whether it's because of labyrinthine rules, bad tutorials, or hidden information. (Sound familiar?) Complex games require players to remember a lot of information, and in ESO much of that information isn't even hinted at - you can't learn what you don't know exists.

ESO doesn't give players enough info to begin with, and the PvP tutorial doesn't teach basic things like "Aim siege at a wall, not the window" - let alone things like "In PvP, stamblades should use class magicka skills like fear even though that skill gets you yelled at in dungeons." Different math, different skills, different gear, different CP set-ups, different strategies....

Just because you learned to deal with bad design doesn't mean the PvE/PvP design is good.

It means that I'm not mentally handicap and I understand that of course it's not going to be the same fighting an NPC than fighting another person.

Also most of this PvE players struggling in PvP are bad for PvE anyway, the problem is that they doesn't even know it because PvE in this game is so damn easy that you can play the stupidest way ever and still be successfull. Actually you can complete the entire game naked without wearing any gear (all the solo content except MA and vMA) and there are videos of players doing that just to prove the point that PvE in this game have 0 challenge...

Just because Devs make fighting an NPC an easy experience, doesn't mean fighting another person is going to be as easy.

It's exactly the same dilema between the people who do +40k dps in dungeons vs the ones who are struggling just to reach 10k-15k, at the end of the day both players can complete the content, the difference is that the second one is going to take much longer and he is possibly doing something the wrong way but he probably doesn't even known or doesn't even care as long as he can complete the content and kill the bosses, it's all good. Well, that's not happening in PvP, there's NO "going with random gear and random skills" and still be successfull, that ain't happening...

That's actually exactly OP's point, you know. He even takes it a step further and suggests that the game has some tutorial pop-ups saying "You are in a player-versus-player enabled zone. Impenetrable is a useful gear trait when fighting other players."

Wreuntzylla

I don't believe that PvE players don't understand crit exists in PvP... I think it's more about the large cost associated with gearing and speccing for PvP.

Since we PvP players understand crit and impen no-crit, most build with less focus on crit. It might make sense just to implement no-crit servers during these events.

randomkeyhits

I did take the time to check (ask on the forums) and made an impen set for the event so its actually not difficult.

But...

To meet the OP's requirements one of the loading screen tool tips could be along the lines of "Impenetrable is an essential trait for gear when playing PvP" and also when you land in cyrodiil then if no gear has impen on it the game can throw up one of those little help panels with roughly the same info as the loading screens tool tip.

Doesn't need any more than that.