Why does ZOS have such a hard time balancing PvE DPS?

MLGProPlayer

Balancing tanking and healing can be tricky as viability in those roles is based on utility. To give a class more utility, you typically have to fundamentally rework some skills.

With DPS though, it's incredibly easy. You just tweak damage values on abilities in small increments until underperforming classes are brought up to a higher damage threshold. Sprinkle a little extra damage onto this active ability, make that passive ability boost damage by just a little bit more, and add a new buff to this ability. Just like that, an underperforming class has been made viable. There is no reason for massive DPS gaps to exist between classes (like we have right now between NB/sorc and templar/DK/warden.

Wrecking_Blow_Spam

Just like many games, there's to many variables that go untested.

Hence why most games these days release patches for exploits, bugs, glitches and nerf things to try balance the game.

They perhaps should try test every set in every way possible to see the dps and adjust accordingly for each class but 'effort'...

Argruna

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

With DPS though, it's incredibly easy. You just tweak damage values on abilities in small increments until underperforming classes are brought up to a higher damage threshold. Sprinkle a little extra damage onto this active ability, make that passive ability boost damage by just a little bit more, and add a new buff to this ability. Just like that, an underperforming class has been made viable. There is no reason for massive DPS gaps to exist between classes (like we have right now between NB/sorc and templar/DK/warden.

NO. Nonononono. It is never easy to balance DPS. Take WoW. If they can't get a good balance going on for DPS after all this time, I believe Zos will have the same up and down as well. Oh yeah we can tweak that damage value...cept there's that whole variable of buffs from other players and potions/food. Min/maxers will always ALWAYS find some way to make sure there is a gap. All stats could be the same but they can find that a magicka vampire sorcerer with a lightning staff that ate a sweetroll can do .05 more dps, they are all over it.

Yeah, theoretically doing small tweaks could make an underperforming class viable but the more variables added, the more likely that those tweaks made no difference or now that underperforming class is now 'OP' because someone found gear/food/enchants that can add even more of a boost.

WrathOfInnos

As for balance, I don't think equality between DPS classes is a developer goal. Some rise and some fall each patch. This goes a long way toward keeping players from getting bored. Many will level alts and grind gear based on the current best class or build. Honestly I would not want to be playing the same build for years, the changes every few months keep things interesting.

MLGProPlayer

Argruna wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

With DPS though, it's incredibly easy. You just tweak damage values on abilities in small increments until underperforming classes are brought up to a higher damage threshold. Sprinkle a little extra damage onto this active ability, make that passive ability boost damage by just a little bit more, and add a new buff to this ability. Just like that, an underperforming class has been made viable. There is no reason for massive DPS gaps to exist between classes (like we have right now between NB/sorc and templar/DK/warden.

NO. Nonononono. It is never easy to balance DPS. Take WoW. If they can't get a good balance going on for DPS after all this time, I believe Zos will have the same up and down as well. Oh yeah we can tweak that damage value...cept there's that whole variable of buffs from other players and potions/food. Min/maxers will always ALWAYS find some way to make sure there is a gap. All stats could be the same but they can find that a magicka vampire sorcerer with a lightning staff that ate a sweetroll can do .05 more dps, they are all over it.

Yeah, theoretically doing small tweaks could make an underperforming class viable but the more variables added, the more likely that those tweaks made no difference or now that underperforming class is now 'OP' because someone found gear/food/enchants that can add even more of a boost.

Small gaps are fine. 10k gaps are not (which is what we have now). It's impossible to achieve perfectly equal DPS, obviously (one class will always be the best). But all classes should be relatively close.

MLGProPlayer

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

As for balance, I don't think equality between DPS classes is a developer goal. Some rise and some fall each patch. This goes a long way toward keeping players from getting bored. Many will level alts and grind gear based on the current best class or build. Honestly I would not want to be playing the same build for years, the changes every few months keep things interesting.

Warden has never risen. They've been bottom of the barrel since launch because their active and passive abilities are numerically underpowered (they've always been around 10k+ DPS behind the top DPS class).

Turelus

If its so easy, list the needed value adjustments.

Ozstryker

Cos pvp'ers come out in force and whine about any change

Gythral

GIGO

MLGProPlayer

Turelus wrote: »

If its so easy, list the needed value adjustments.

Sure, for magicka warden:

Advanced Species (Passive): Increases your damage done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted.

Increase from 2% - 3%

Bird of Prey (active): Invoke the spirit of agility to gain Major Expedition, increasing movement speed by 30% for 10 seconds an Major Endurance, increasing Stamina Recovery by 20% for 10 seconds. Gain Minor Berserk, increasing damage done by 8% over 10 seconds.

Increase duration of minor berserk to 24s (the same as blue betty). I believe its currently at 14s (the tooltip I copied is outdated).

Winter's Revenge (active): Skewer enemies with icy shards, dealing Frost Damage in the area every second over 12 seconds and reducing Movement Speed by 28% for 3 seconds. 3511 magicka damage.

Increase damage of ability by 20%.

There you go. Test it out, and if it's overtuned, scale back some of the numbers.

platonicidealgirlfriend

so was there math behind those numbers or did archimedes come crawling out of his grave to hand them to you?

Vahrokh

You'll never have DPS "equality", because ZOS never understood that you cannot balance PvP and PvE together. Therefore we'll always have bad PvE balance because PvPers never stop crying nerf.

MLGProPlayer

platonicidealgirlfriend wrote: »

so was there math behind those numbers or did archimedes come crawling out of his grave to hand them to you?

Yes. The class currently parses around 20% behind the top DPS. You make small adjustmentst to passives and actives to increase overall DPS (you can't overload one ability). And you pick skills that would have minimal impact on PvP. If I was getting paid to balance classes, I would calculate everything out for more precision. It isn't rocket science.

MLGProPlayer

Vahrokh wrote: »

You'll never have DPS "equality", because ZOS never understood that you cannot balance PvP and PvE together. Therefore we'll always have bad PvE balance because PvPers never stop crying nerf.

PvE is all about AOE DOTs (abilities that human players can walk out of). PvP is about burst damage. You can fairly easily balance between the two. It wouldn't be perfect, but it's not as hard as ZOS makes it for themselves.

rustic_potato

What you consider as imbalance ZOS might not. Well if you look at the ceilings yeah there is disparity but as a game dev that is not how you balance. You need to look at the floor and the averages too.

Personally I think the game is way better balanced now compared to previous patches like Homestead where you had 8 magsorcs as DPS.

MLGProPlayer

rustic_potato wrote: »

What you consider as imbalance ZOS might not. Well if you look at the ceilings yeah there is disparity but as a game dev that is not how you balance. You need to look at the floor and the averages too.

Personally I think the game is way better balanced now compared to previous patches like Homestead where you had 8 magsorcs as DPS.

You're always supposed to balance around the highest level of play. Every MOBA is balanced this way. All changes will trickle down. It's hard to imagine that a disparity at the ceiling isn't present, even more so, at the floor.

Aliniel

Simple really. They try to balance both PvE AND PvP at the same time. This. Does. Not. Work. It's impossible. We need to separate these two somehow. Many games do it this way because it's the right way to handle things.

Turelus

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

If its so easy, list the needed value adjustments.

Sure, for magicka warden:

Advanced Species (Passive): Increases your damage done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted.

Increase from 2% - 3%

Bird of Prey (active): Invoke the spirit of agility to gain Major Expedition, increasing movement speed by 30% for 10 seconds an Major Endurance, increasing Stamina Recovery by 20% for 10 seconds. Gain Minor Berserk, increasing damage done by 8% over 10 seconds.

Increase duration of minor berserk to 24s (the same as blue betty). I believe its currently at 14s (the tooltip I copied is outdated).

Winter's Revenge (active): Skewer enemies with icy shards, dealing Frost Damage in the area every second over 12 seconds and reducing Movement Speed by 28% for 3 seconds. 3511 magicka damage.

Increase damage of ability by 20%.

There you go. Test it out, and if it's overtuned, scale back some of the numbers.

What are the new values for these attacks now, how much would we see as in increase on a DPS parse and what outside factors have your accounted for?

Just saying "increase these by X" is fine, but you need to show that increasing by X is the correct method. Are all of the abilities which were buffed as easy to apply and maintain as Stam DK dots? Part of their reason for being good DPS is it's an easy rotation, Nightblade on the other hand has a much harder rotation but can achieve great numbers with more experienced players.

MakoFore

the problem is their approach.

rather than releasing incremental changes- and updating accordingly often - on the pTs- and i mean weekly- they instead smash out some numbers crudely every 3 months- that shift things dramatically- then swing them back in another 3 months the other extreme. i dont know whether its funding , a misguided leadership- or simply poor logic but they re approach in balancing is inherently flawed. other games make minute and frequent adjustments regularly and test extensively. here the PTS is barely regarded. how often have we seen an issue raised on the PTS only for it to go ignored and actually be released into the game?? ALL the time.

MLGProPlayer

Turelus wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

If its so easy, list the needed value adjustments.

Sure, for magicka warden:

Advanced Species (Passive): Increases your damage done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted.

Increase from 2% - 3%

Bird of Prey (active): Invoke the spirit of agility to gain Major Expedition, increasing movement speed by 30% for 10 seconds an Major Endurance, increasing Stamina Recovery by 20% for 10 seconds. Gain Minor Berserk, increasing damage done by 8% over 10 seconds.

Increase duration of minor berserk to 24s (the same as blue betty). I believe its currently at 14s (the tooltip I copied is outdated).

Winter's Revenge (active): Skewer enemies with icy shards, dealing Frost Damage in the area every second over 12 seconds and reducing Movement Speed by 28% for 3 seconds. 3511 magicka damage.

Increase damage of ability by 20%.

There you go. Test it out, and if it's overtuned, scale back some of the numbers.

What are the new values for these attacks now, how much would we see as in increase on a DPS parse and what outside factors have your accounted for?

Just saying "increase these by X" is fine, but you need to show that increasing by X is the correct method. Are all of the abilities which were buffed as easy to apply and maintain as Stam DK dots? Part of their reason for being good DPS is it's an easy rotation, Nightblade on the other hand has a much harder rotation but can achieve great numbers with more experienced players.

That's why we have a team of paid developers. Their job is to make and test these adjustments. You need to make adjustments for anything to change. The warden, for example, is a class that hasn't been touched since launch (save for a few minor tweaks). As such, it has consistently fallen about 20% behind the top DPS class. Its DPS won't magically increase without buffs.

And difficulty of rotation is irrelevant if you balance around the skill ceiling (which is what most games do).

Turelus

MakoFore wrote: »

the problem is their approach.

rather than releasing incremental changes- and updating accordingly often - on the pTs- and i mean weekly- they instead smash out some numbers crudely every 3 months- that shift things dramatically- then swing them back in another 3 months the other extreme. i dont know whether its funding , a misguided leadership- or simply poor logic but they re approach in balancing is inherently flawed. other games make minute and frequent adjustments regularly and test extensively. here the PTS is barely regarded.

Not every game balances that way. Most of the ones I have played only do class/item balance (past minor fixes) on bigger releases.
The most fast paces balance I saw was with Guild Wars 1.

Which MMO games have done a constant weekly balance pass on classes?

knaveofengland

there will allways be a trade off , when they change something it can take many months to fix and even then it cant be fixed and has to have a trade off . this happens in all games. after many years they need a new engine for them changes .

Minyassa

I don't think they care at all about PvE balance. As far as I can see, ALL nerfs and buffs are about trying to placate the endless screaming of PvPers.

My kingdom for a PvE-only MMORPG of this caliber. Sigh.

Ilithyania

perfect DPS class balance in an MMO, with both PVE and PVP aspect.


GL

Turelus

Minyassa wrote: »

I don't think they care at all about PvE balance. As far as I can see, ALL nerfs and buffs are about trying to placate the endless screaming of PvPers.

My kingdom for a PvE-only MMORPG of this caliber. Sigh.

The PvP players will tell you everything they enjoy was changed to placate the endless screaming of PvE players.

zyk

Game systems are supposed to be designed with balance in mind from the ground up with methods to check and maintain integrity. I do not believe that was the case with ESO.

Furthermore, it is far more difficult to balance complex systems. Consider the sheer number of combinations available in terms of abilities, armors, sets, weapons, glyphs, traits, classes, synergies, etc... all abilities have multiple functions. This game has too many options and each ability does too many things.

And then on top of all that complexity, there are many, sometimes disparate, game modes to balance for: [casual/core/hardcore] [PVE/PVP] [Solo/Group/Large Group] [Overland/Dungeon/Trial/Battlegrounds/AvA/IC/Duels]. Oh, and then there are roles to consider for all of those things.

I think ZOS is getting better at balance, but, balancing for one game mode is likely to imbalance another in some way.

Turelus

zyk wrote: »

Game systems are supposed to be designed with balance in mind from the ground up with methods to check and maintain integrity. I do not believe that was the case with ESO.

Furthermore, it is far more difficult to balance complex systems. Consider the sheer number of combinations available in terms of abilities, armors, sets, weapons, glyphs, traits, classes, synergies, etc... all abilities have multiple functions. This game has too many options and each ability does too many things.

Considering how ESO launched and the comments ZOS has said in the past I don't think balance was a huge thought during initial development. They spent the first two years just trying to get Stamina as a viable option, then they gutted vet levels, added CP, introduced level scaling etc.

The fact it's anywhere near as balanced and playable as it is right now is amazing in my mind. They still have a damn lot of work to do but the fact we can sit and have arguments about how stam vs mag says a lot considering four years ago stam didn't exist.

Sigma957

Balancing will always be an ongoing thing and to be honest probably will never be perfected.

Ilithyania