What is the point of PTS class feedback?

xAk_MoRRoWiNdx

I may be wrong, but last patch didn't Gina say that this patch would be the combat balancing patch? Or was that 4.0.0 she said that and intended it for 4.0.1? Only thing I really look forward to on every PTS is class balancing... RIP.

MLGProPlayer

[edited to remove quote]

Many of us pay hundreds of dollars annually to ZOS. We pledge our support to the game's continued development, and we expect the game to be balanced properly. It isn't asking a lot.

I play/played almost every MOBA/FPS on the market. Balance in this game is not good, especially on the PvE side, which is what I play ESO for. It should not take over 12 months to make magicka warden viable for endgame PvE.

DuskMarine

[edited to remove quotes]

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Many of us pay hundreds of dollars annually to ZOS. We pledge our support to the game's continued development, and we expect the game to be balanced properly. It isn't asking a lot.

I play/played almost every MOBA/FPS on the market. Balance in this game is not good, especially on the PvE side, which is what I play ESO for.

go to school for programming and youll sit there and realize how hard doing that actually is. have some respect sure you pay for stuff but you have to give time lots of time. it took them years to do housing cause that isnt easy to put in at all. for that theres a metric ton of code needed for that. for balancing they have to go into that encyclopedia of code and move things around thatll take a long time especially if someone puts the wrong character in the wrong spot. alot of you need to get over yourselves.

MLGProPlayer

[edited to remove older quotes]

DuskMarine wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Many of us pay hundreds of dollars annually to ZOS. We pledge our support to the game's continued development, and we expect the game to be balanced properly. It isn't asking a lot.

I play/played almost every MOBA/FPS on the market. Balance in this game is not good, especially on the PvE side, which is what I play ESO for.

go to school for programming and youll sit there and realize how hard doing that actually is. have some respect sure you pay for stuff but you have to give time lots of time. it took them years to do housing cause that isnt easy to put in at all. for that theres a metric ton of code needed for that. for balancing they have to go into that encyclopedia of code and move things around thatll take a long time especially if someone puts the wrong character in the wrong spot. alot of you need to get over yourselves.

What does programming have to do with balance? Most game designers aren't even programmers. Plenty of devs pick up former pro players to join their balance teams. You're just adjusting values and then testing.

Game engines today are a lot more sophisticated today and don't require you to "code" in every balance change.

DuskMarine

[edited to remove older quotes]

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

DuskMarine wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Many of us pay hundreds of dollars annually to ZOS. We pledge our support to the game's continued development, and we expect the game to be balanced properly. It isn't asking a lot.

I play/played almost every MOBA/FPS on the market. Balance in this game is not good, especially on the PvE side, which is what I play ESO for.

go to school for programming and youll sit there and realize how hard doing that actually is. have some respect sure you pay for stuff but you have to give time lots of time. it took them years to do housing cause that isnt easy to put in at all. for that theres a metric ton of code needed for that. for balancing they have to go into that encyclopedia of code and move things around thatll take a long time especially if someone puts the wrong character in the wrong spot. alot of you need to get over yourselves.

What does programming have to do with balance? Most game designers aren't even programmers. Plenty of devs pick up former pro players to join their balance teams. You're just adjusting values and then testing.

programming is part of balancing cause if you screw up one key stroke something goes from weaker than hell to overpowered as hell. sure you can give miles upon miles of suggestions but when it comes to finally implementing the programmers have to apply everything meaning yall on the forums that think months to years worth of work can be done in weeks are insane. have respect for zos and quit thinking your the gods of this game.

Ishammael

@ZOS_GinaBruno

When is the next PvP-focused patch? We could really use a dramatic refactoring. I'm talking 1.5-->1.6 levels of upending the game board.

Systemic imbalances have accrued to the point where players just laugh at how broken some things are.

Vanthras79

Thanks Gina for the response! It does help to know that we are not being ignored. The further insight into what is going on in the background (in terms of balancing) helps as well. I know "you guys" (the Studio) gets a lot of negative feedback, but I appreciate the time and effort it takes to read all of the feedback and take it into consideration. It is amazing what ZOS has accomplished thus far given the size of the studio. A lot of us just want this game to be amazing, unfortunately our frustrations can get the better of us. In short, thank you for responding to us, and thanks for listening to our sometimes over-the-top shenanigans.

IZZEFlameLash

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We understand you're frustrated and disappointed there won't be any additional changes to class balance. No, really. That isn't a canned response - the frustration today has been noticed. While we did implement several changes to class balance in the first PTS patch, there's still more to be done. Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough hours in the day to do everything and we don't want to implement changes sloppily (which will introduce loads of risk to other abilities and systems). In these cases, we need to prioritize. As mentioned earlier this morning, the current priority is making sure the new item sets are balanced and fixing outstanding bugs, among a few other things.

It's worth noting we are still moving forward with the Class Representative Program mentioned a few weeks back, and are still in the process of narrowing down the nominations to a group of about 10-12 players. To give you some insight, we've gotten it down to about 30 players as of today. This program will help give us additional insight to the current class pain points and, if everything works as planned, open up the dialogue between everyone to give some more transparency which we know could use some improvement. We hope to have this spun up by time Summerset launches, so it will be soon.

As far as the PTS class feedback threads, these do prove to be useful to have everything centralized in a single thread. In the future, though, we're talking about limiting these threads to the updates where we plan to actively make changes to class abilities to better set expectations.

I really wish I could believe class threads matter but after like 3-4 years of time in the game, I find it very hard to believe. Literally, near 0 communications on matters. Class threads feel more like designated smoking area to clump up class mains in their designated zones so you can safely disregard them and not lose sleep over it. And the same class threads outside your official ones would not popup if we felt like you were actively engaging and communicating with us. But as is, you really don't. You say you read these but changes have been quite random.

And we are rightfully skeptical of your class representative system. We were not given a reason to trust your claims at all. You guys kept pushing combat/class balance changes to next expansion/chapters. Saying '_____ is not our class/combat change update. The next update will be the one'. Only for you guys to return with the same statement in the next supposed combat/class balance update. I also feel that this representative program will be discarded pretty soon because everything did not go as you planned or something or not even listen to the representative feedbacks. Another factor being this very update was touted as class/combat change update. It is like you guys used this as some sort of marketing tactic to get older playerbase to buy it.

At the most, sorry to say, this feels like a canned response to be honest. Your post demonstrated that you guys will really only work on your own priorities when the paying customers' concerns are not the priority. Even if you may claim the otherwise, the outdated Dragonknight passives, almost unchanged state of Templars, frag double nerfs, for example speak the volume.

MaxwellC

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We understand you're frustrated and disappointed there won't be any additional changes to class balance. No, really. That isn't a canned response - the frustration today has been noticed. While we did implement several changes to class balance in the first PTS patch, there's still more to be done. Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough hours in the day to do everything and we don't want to implement changes sloppily (which will introduce loads of risk to other abilities and systems). In these cases, we need to prioritize. As mentioned earlier this morning, the current priority is making sure the new item sets are balanced and fixing outstanding bugs, among a few other things.

It's worth noting we are still moving forward with the Class Representative Program mentioned a few weeks back, and are still in the process of narrowing down the nominations to a group of about 10-12 players. To give you some insight, we've gotten it down to about 30 players as of today. This program will help give us additional insight to the current class pain points and, if everything works as planned, open up the dialogue between everyone to give some more transparency which we know could use some improvement. We hope to have this spun up by time Summerset launches, so it will be soon.

As far as the PTS class feedback threads, these do prove to be useful to have everything centralized in a single thread. In the future, though, we're talking about limiting these threads to the updates where we plan to actively make changes to class abilities to better set expectations.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
No offense to you but honestly I don't feel the developers "understand" why we're frustrated/dissapointed. We were told one thing then we were told another thing as many changes we have asked for (ALL THE WAY SINCE THIEVES GUILD) still have yet to address the issues a majority of the playerbase have experienced.

Take a look at DK changes
Whoever the collective group is in regards to skill changes, is trying to turn DK into a off branded healer by throwing in silly healing abilities e.g petrify/cinder storm. You throw in a RNG based recovery passive but leave the other useless passives we have on the DK class intact even though tons of players have provided feedback of numerous ways to change it.

Players have stated that Stam DK in PvE is pretty solid but in PvP they suck (THIS WAS STATED WAY BACK IN THIEVES GUILD TOO) & Mag DK in PvE sucks while in PvP they're pretty solid. No changes have been introduced to Stam DKs as they suffer from lack of pressure skills e.g Flames of Oblivion AoE, burst damage, etc.

You stated something about sloppy changes... I mean if you don't wanna do that then why did the developers decide to sloppily and lazily add an extra 2 seconds to major mending on fragmented shield then call it a day as if that was such a grand change.

On the class rep program I'm literally calling it right now. More than half will be streamers or youtubers of some sort while players who appear on the leaderboards consistently in PvP/PvE won't be participating in that program. I wanna say this and I don't mean it to all streamers/youtubers but not all of them know the class better than those who appear on the leaderboards consistently. Case point one of your visitors called stonefist morph a great ability but in fact it is a completely terrible ability that rarely anyone uses in PvP let alone PvE.


Lastly, what I feel that most players (including myself) are tired of is the lack of focus and the outright ill communication. We want focus on balance and this is probably the #1 priority all players in the game have rather than a new DLC area. I'm tired of my Stam DK literally being only good for a gimmick in regards to PvP, it's utterly terrible and lacks anything we've requested e.g immunity on wings because what will a cleanse do when you face snaring AoE, Snaring DoTs, or snaring direct damage.
I can keep going but I'll end with that.

zParallaxz

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We understand you're frustrated and disappointed there won't be any additional changes to class balance. No, really. That isn't a canned response - the frustration today has been noticed. While we did implement several changes to class balance in the first PTS patch, there's still more to be done. Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough hours in the day to do everything and we don't want to implement changes sloppily (which will introduce loads of risk to other abilities and systems). In these cases, we need to prioritize. As mentioned earlier this morning, the current priority is making sure the new item sets are balanced and fixing outstanding bugs, among a few other things.

It's worth noting we are still moving forward with the Class Representative Program mentioned a few weeks back, and are still in the process of narrowing down the nominations to a group of about 10-12 players. To give you some insight, we've gotten it down to about 30 players as of today. This program will help give us additional insight to the current class pain points and, if everything works as planned, open up the dialogue between everyone to give some more transparency which we know could use some improvement. We hope to have this spun up by time Summerset launches, so it will be soon.

As far as the PTS class feedback threads, these do prove to be useful to have everything centralized in a single thread. In the future, though, we're talking about limiting these threads to the updates where we plan to actively make changes to class abilities to better set expectations.

I really wish I could believe class threads matter but after like 3-4 years of time in the game, I find it very hard to believe. Literally, near 0 communications on matters. Class threads feel more like designated smoking area to clump up class mains in their designated zones so you can safely disregard them and not lose sleep over it. And the same class threads outside your official ones would not popup if we felt like you were actively engaging and communicating with us. But as is, you really don't. You say you read these but changes have been quite random.

And we are rightfully skeptical of your class representative system. We were not given a reason to trust your claims at all. You guys kept pushing combat/class balance changes to next expansion/chapters. Saying '_____ is not our class/combat change update. The next update will be the one'. Only for you guys to return with the same statement in the next supposed combat/class balance update. I also feel that this representative program will be discarded pretty soon because everything did not go as you planned or something or not even listen to the representative feedbacks. Another factor being this very update was touted as class/combat change update. It is like you guys used this as some sort of marketing tactic to get older playerbase to buy it.

At the most, sorry to say, this feels like a canned response to be honest. Your post demonstrated that you guys will really only work on your own priorities when the paying customers' concerns are not the priority. Even if you may claim the otherwise, the outdated Dragonknight passives, almost unchanged state of Templars, frag double nerfs, for example speak the volume.

I agree word from word the only problem is if we want to see change as gamers, we must speak with our wallets.

Gilvoth

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We understand you're frustrated and disappointed there won't be any additional changes to class balance. No, really. That isn't a canned response - the frustration today has been noticed. While we did implement several changes to class balance in the first PTS patch, there's still more to be done. Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough hours in the day to do everything and we don't want to implement changes sloppily (which will introduce loads of risk to other abilities and systems). In these cases, we need to prioritize. As mentioned earlier this morning, the current priority is making sure the new item sets are balanced and fixing outstanding bugs, among a few other things.

It's worth noting we are still moving forward with the Class Representative Program mentioned a few weeks back, and are still in the process of narrowing down the nominations to a group of about 10-12 players. To give you some insight, we've gotten it down to about 30 players as of today. This program will help give us additional insight to the current class pain points and, if everything works as planned, open up the dialogue between everyone to give some more transparency which we know could use some improvement. We hope to have this spun up by time Summerset launches, so it will be soon.

As far as the PTS class feedback threads, these do prove to be useful to have everything centralized in a single thread. In the future, though, we're talking about limiting these threads to the updates where we plan to actively make changes to class abilities to better set expectations.

thank you for responding to us, and thank you for the kind words.

SirAxen

This is one of those times I'm happy that I don't get overly fussy about the combat in this game. I just enjoy ES.

Gilvoth

ADarklore wrote: »

Oh look, I called it... they introduce 'class balance' at the beginning and then ignore everyone's view and push what they want to Live. I'd much rather have them learn to become realistic and instead of planning to implement so many things- LEARN FROM THE PAST and limit your scope ZOS!!! This is why history repeats itself, people never learn from the past, please ZOS for the love of xxxx learn from your past mistakes and make changes in a realistic scope!!

it took me a while to learn that many of my ideas and wants for eso were not what i really wanted. infact i think the opposite and 180 deg from what i used to think back in 2013 when we were all in beta and giving feedback.
and i have come to be thankfull that the ideas and things i was asking for back then were Not listened to and we have a better game today and i agree with most of what happens in eso.

i have suggested and asked for multiple things over the years here and i cant really see where they did anything i suggested, i used to be angry about it, but i have come to realize that if Zenimax actually did listen and do what myself and many others have suggested over the years we would have to shut the game down just like other mmo's have in the past because they did do exactly what thier forum users suggested and it ruined thier game.

Zenimax has done a pretty good job and it shows, we aint perfect but atleast we have a fairly decent game to play even though there is alot of problems atleast the game is still playable and it's a pretty good game.

Ragnarock41

Cries wrote: »

Stop buying crowns and move on to other MMO's

Like 75% of the hardcore pvpers already have.

I'm open to suggestions, enlighten me.

DoctorESO

Hutch679 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno just mentioned there will be no further class changes in the Summersey update, thus confirming the initial PTS notes for class changes are final.

What's the point of giving class feedback for changes made in the initial PTS release if those are going to be the final changes? Why can't information be relayed to the player base? Seems to be too much focus on the crown store and not enough into combat balance.

PS. RIP Mag warden.

Summerset goes live in just three weeks. Maybe they've reached a point where balance is at an acceptable level for them, and will resume balance updates later after the masses play the new content? Trying to fix something may cause a whole host of other balance issues, so maybe it's safer to not touch anything for now until some time after Summerset is released? Better an "acceptable" level of balance on release day and the few weeks following it than to risk an unacceptable level of balance?

Nifty2g

What we really need is longer PTS cycles, gives players a chance to test and give feedback while also giving ZOS more time to add in changes without being on a time limit and risking the game to come out broken.

On that question, will we still be receiving updates during early access like we did with Morrowind, or is this pretty much final now?
@ZOS_GinaBruno

Runefang

[removed quote]

I guarantee if we got everything the majority wanted the game would be a complete mess....

I'd rather trust an expert in game balance who has an understanding of how the game's code works, than some randoms on a forum.

I mean it's a shame that there isn't more class balancing happening, but I can live with playing my Magblade another year if I must.

Lucky28

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO wrote: »

Bakkagami wrote: »

The worst thing zos can do is end up homogenizing all the classes to appease a few peoples misguided quest for "balance".

Implying homogenization is the only way to get good balance. Just because it's the method most devs turn to doesn't mean it's the only method. It's the easiest/laziest and most devs are both bad at it and uninterested, as they're almost all corporate shills who just want to do whatever their bosses tell them to do to keep their job.

Homogenization is what @ZOS_Wrobel said he was going to do a while back on ESO live as i recall. when that happens ESO dies.

it's disheartening because that has started to happen this update and players are actually defending it.

Nifty2g

Lucky28 wrote: »

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO wrote: »

Bakkagami wrote: »

The worst thing zos can do is end up homogenizing all the classes to appease a few peoples misguided quest for "balance".

Implying homogenization is the only way to get good balance. Just because it's the method most devs turn to doesn't mean it's the only method. It's the easiest/laziest and most devs are both bad at it and uninterested, as they're almost all corporate shills who just want to do whatever their bosses tell them to do to keep their job.

Homogenization is what @ZOS_Wrobel said he was going to do a while back on ESO live as i recall. when that happens ESO dies.

it's disheartening because that has started to happen this update and players are actually defending it.

It's already happened though, and ESO is still alive. And it didn't happen this update, it's been a process for the past year

Lucky28

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO wrote: »

Bakkagami wrote: »

The worst thing zos can do is end up homogenizing all the classes to appease a few peoples misguided quest for "balance".

Implying homogenization is the only way to get good balance. Just because it's the method most devs turn to doesn't mean it's the only method. It's the easiest/laziest and most devs are both bad at it and uninterested, as they're almost all corporate shills who just want to do whatever their bosses tell them to do to keep their job.

Homogenization is what @ZOS_Wrobel said he was going to do a while back on ESO live as i recall. when that happens ESO dies.

it's disheartening because that has started to happen this update and players are actually defending it.

It's already happened though, and ESO is still alive.

Not completely. and the playerbase isn't what it used to be, not by a long shot.

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO

DuskMarine wrote: »

theyll add what makes sense

From a business perspective, they probably think adding more things for people who don't give a rat's ass about the competitive side of things or harder content is what makes sense.

99% of the game is filled with people who suck at video games, with no drive or aspiration to do anything more than overland content, grind, and get ez achievements. That doesn't mean the game is good because it tickles those peoples' fancy. Cafe world, candy crush, or any number of mindless clicky games are all "good games" by that measure. That's bottom barrel audience targeting.

this game could not have a pts forum or even a forums page for suggestions on the game and it would do just fine.

I mean, financially, you're not wrong, due to what I just posted. The question is: why is that okay with you? I'm interested in a real game.

feel will make sense

They're considerably better at their job than ZOS, so they don't really need the feedback. FWIW, they do take feedback from people who actually matter and play the game competitively. A.k.a. all the people you're telling to go fly a kite.

just because they dont add what you want doesnt give you a right to yell.

You're right. The fact that I'm a paying customer does. I pay to get what I want/expect and when I don't get what I want, I "yell." Eventually I'll stop yelling and just stop being a customer.

the game is their game not ours were just allowed to play it.

And it's my money, not theirs. They can make a game that no one wants and they won't last long if that happens.

Nifty2g

Lucky28 wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO wrote: »

Bakkagami wrote: »

The worst thing zos can do is end up homogenizing all the classes to appease a few peoples misguided quest for "balance".

Implying homogenization is the only way to get good balance. Just because it's the method most devs turn to doesn't mean it's the only method. It's the easiest/laziest and most devs are both bad at it and uninterested, as they're almost all corporate shills who just want to do whatever their bosses tell them to do to keep their job.

Homogenization is what @ZOS_Wrobel said he was going to do a while back on ESO live as i recall. when that happens ESO dies.

it's disheartening because that has started to happen this update and players are actually defending it.

It's already happened though, and ESO is still alive.

Not completely. and the playerbase isn't what it used to be, not by a long shot.

Homogenization started happening around Homestead, ZOS just decided to do it gradually so people didn't notice. Only in Morrowind did they do a big chunk of it and a lot of people left, but it's certainly been happening every single update. It's pretty much finished now. Most of ESO's homogenization was in the form of buff categories, there are not many sets that do unique things anymore. Most of them are in DLC dungeons and Trials now and I'm just assuming ZOS wants to keep it that way.

In future I am expecting sets like Burning Spellweave & Scathing Mage to give you some form of Major / Minor Courage and then ZOS buffing trial sets to compensate having unique form of buffs. Take Moondancer for example.

Homogenization isn't a bad idea at this point in the games life, while I was heavily against it previously, the game has over 100 sets, it just causes way too much lag and constant balance issues and things getting nerfed and making most sets pointless.
The type of homogenization that I personally dislike is class identity where Templars lost most of it during Morrowind, Shards & Orbs doing the same thing, Repentance no longer being a group utility. Hopefully ZOS don't continue to do that. And no Strife cost increase =/= Class Identity Homogenization, that is just bringing spammables closer together, probably to control sustain balance between classes.

Lucky28

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO wrote: »

Bakkagami wrote: »

The worst thing zos can do is end up homogenizing all the classes to appease a few peoples misguided quest for "balance".

Implying homogenization is the only way to get good balance. Just because it's the method most devs turn to doesn't mean it's the only method. It's the easiest/laziest and most devs are both bad at it and uninterested, as they're almost all corporate shills who just want to do whatever their bosses tell them to do to keep their job.

Homogenization is what @ZOS_Wrobel said he was going to do a while back on ESO live as i recall. when that happens ESO dies.

it's disheartening because that has started to happen this update and players are actually defending it.

It's already happened though, and ESO is still alive.

Not completely. and the playerbase isn't what it used to be, not by a long shot.

Homogenization started happening around Homestead, ZOS just decided to do it gradually so people didn't notice. Only in Morrowind did they do a big chunk of it and a lot of people left, but it's certainly been happening every single update. It's pretty much finished now. Most of ESO's homogenization was in the form of buff categories, there are not many sets that do unique things anymore. Most of them are in DLC dungeons and Trials now and I'm just assuming ZOS wants to keep it that way.

In future I am expecting sets like Burning Spellweave & Scathing Mage to give you some form of Major / Minor Courage and then ZOS buffing trial sets to compensate having unique form of buffs. Take Moondancer for example.

Homogenization isn't a bad idea at this point in the games life, while I was heavily against it previously, the game has over 100 sets, it just causes way too much lag and constant balance issues and things getting nerfed and making most sets pointless.
The type of homogenization that I personally dislike is class identity where Templars lost most of it during Morrowind, Shards & Orbs doing the same thing, Repentance no longer being a group utility. Hopefully ZOS don't continue to do that. And no Strife cost increase =/= Class Identity Homogenization, that is just bringing spammables closer together, probably to control sustain balance between classes.

yeah that was why Morrowind was the worst patch in this games history. so many players gone, and they keep going with every update.

one size fits all is what the strife nerf is, that change basically sucked the life out of my magblade because force pulse is a no brainer for pvp and pve. class spammables are part of a classes identity trying to balance class spammables to be in line with weapon spammables is a direct assault on class identity.

Kronuxx

casparian wrote: »

Thanks for the dialogue, Gina.

I guess the main disconnect here is that players' priorities and devs' priorities are in very different places. Of course there aren't enough hours in a day to create a new crafting system, quest content, and skill line while also revamping all five classes. We get that. Which is why we're frustrated that the devs, patch after patch, keep devoting their (understandably limited) time and energy to making new stuff instead of fixing our classes. "We didn't have enough time" misses the point -- to a lot of us, that sounds like a reason to not put out new content, not a reason to neglect existing content.

I understand that fixing existing issues is much harder to monetize than pumping out a new land to explore, but at some point in order to retain players you're going to need to make us feel like the time we're putting into the classes we play is time well spent.

Such a well put and concise post. Exactly my sentiments, and I'm sure the sentiments of many others. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert

Nifty2g

Lucky28 wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO wrote: »

Bakkagami wrote: »

The worst thing zos can do is end up homogenizing all the classes to appease a few peoples misguided quest for "balance".

Implying homogenization is the only way to get good balance. Just because it's the method most devs turn to doesn't mean it's the only method. It's the easiest/laziest and most devs are both bad at it and uninterested, as they're almost all corporate shills who just want to do whatever their bosses tell them to do to keep their job.

Homogenization is what @ZOS_Wrobel said he was going to do a while back on ESO live as i recall. when that happens ESO dies.

it's disheartening because that has started to happen this update and players are actually defending it.

It's already happened though, and ESO is still alive.

Not completely. and the playerbase isn't what it used to be, not by a long shot.

Homogenization started happening around Homestead, ZOS just decided to do it gradually so people didn't notice. Only in Morrowind did they do a big chunk of it and a lot of people left, but it's certainly been happening every single update. It's pretty much finished now. Most of ESO's homogenization was in the form of buff categories, there are not many sets that do unique things anymore. Most of them are in DLC dungeons and Trials now and I'm just assuming ZOS wants to keep it that way.

In future I am expecting sets like Burning Spellweave & Scathing Mage to give you some form of Major / Minor Courage and then ZOS buffing trial sets to compensate having unique form of buffs. Take Moondancer for example.

Homogenization isn't a bad idea at this point in the games life, while I was heavily against it previously, the game has over 100 sets, it just causes way too much lag and constant balance issues and things getting nerfed and making most sets pointless.
The type of homogenization that I personally dislike is class identity where Templars lost most of it during Morrowind, Shards & Orbs doing the same thing, Repentance no longer being a group utility. Hopefully ZOS don't continue to do that. And no Strife cost increase =/= Class Identity Homogenization, that is just bringing spammables closer together, probably to control sustain balance between classes.

yeah that was why Morrowind was the worst patch in this games history. so many players gone, and they keep going with every update.

one size fits all is what the strife nerf is, that change basically sucked the life out of my magblade because force pulse is a no brainer for pvp and pve. class spammables are part of a classes identity trying to balance class spammables to be in line with weapon spammables is a direct assault on class identity.

That's not true at all, the whole point of Strife is to provide off healing to help groups out. Take Asylum for example, you're not going to take 5 nightblades in there and make them using Force Pulse.

It still provides it's uses, and it gives great off healing for the group

Lucky28

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO wrote: »

Bakkagami wrote: »

The worst thing zos can do is end up homogenizing all the classes to appease a few peoples misguided quest for "balance".

Implying homogenization is the only way to get good balance. Just because it's the method most devs turn to doesn't mean it's the only method. It's the easiest/laziest and most devs are both bad at it and uninterested, as they're almost all corporate shills who just want to do whatever their bosses tell them to do to keep their job.

Homogenization is what @ZOS_Wrobel said he was going to do a while back on ESO live as i recall. when that happens ESO dies.

it's disheartening because that has started to happen this update and players are actually defending it.

It's already happened though, and ESO is still alive.

Not completely. and the playerbase isn't what it used to be, not by a long shot.

Homogenization started happening around Homestead, ZOS just decided to do it gradually so people didn't notice. Only in Morrowind did they do a big chunk of it and a lot of people left, but it's certainly been happening every single update. It's pretty much finished now. Most of ESO's homogenization was in the form of buff categories, there are not many sets that do unique things anymore. Most of them are in DLC dungeons and Trials now and I'm just assuming ZOS wants to keep it that way.

In future I am expecting sets like Burning Spellweave & Scathing Mage to give you some form of Major / Minor Courage and then ZOS buffing trial sets to compensate having unique form of buffs. Take Moondancer for example.

Homogenization isn't a bad idea at this point in the games life, while I was heavily against it previously, the game has over 100 sets, it just causes way too much lag and constant balance issues and things getting nerfed and making most sets pointless.
The type of homogenization that I personally dislike is class identity where Templars lost most of it during Morrowind, Shards & Orbs doing the same thing, Repentance no longer being a group utility. Hopefully ZOS don't continue to do that. And no Strife cost increase =/= Class Identity Homogenization, that is just bringing spammables closer together, probably to control sustain balance between classes.

yeah that was why Morrowind was the worst patch in this games history. so many players gone, and they keep going with every update.

one size fits all is what the strife nerf is, that change basically sucked the life out of my magblade because force pulse is a no brainer for pvp and pve. class spammables are part of a classes identity trying to balance class spammables to be in line with weapon spammables is a direct assault on class identity.

That's not true at all, the whole point of Strife is to provide off healing to help groups out. Take Asylum for example, you're not going to take 5 nightblades in there and make them using Force Pulse.

It still provides it's uses, and it gives great off healing for the group

that's the point of funnel health and it would have been fine if they just increased the cost on that morph alone for the group utility. [snip]

Riddari

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We understand you're frustrated and disappointed there won't be any additional changes to class balance. No, really. That isn't a canned response - the frustration today has been noticed. While we did implement several changes to class balance in the first PTS patch, there's still more to be done. Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough hours in the day to do everything and we don't want to implement changes sloppily (which will introduce loads of risk to other abilities and systems). In these cases, we need to prioritize. As mentioned earlier this morning, the current priority is making sure the new item sets are balanced and fixing outstanding bugs, among a few other things.

It's worth noting we are still moving forward with the Class Representative Program mentioned a few weeks back, and are still in the process of narrowing down the nominations to a group of about 10-12 players. To give you some insight, we've gotten it down to about 30 players as of today. This program will help give us additional insight to the current class pain points and, if everything works as planned, open up the dialogue between everyone to give some more transparency which we know could use some improvement. We hope to have this spun up by time Summerset launches, so it will be soon.

As far as the PTS class feedback threads, these do prove to be useful to have everything centralized in a single thread. In the future, though, we're talking about limiting these threads to the updates where we plan to actively make changes to class abilities to better set expectations.

Hire more people? I'm sorry but if you can't deliver class balance after a year of promising it, maybe it's time to hire some more people to address the issue. I mean you get enough crown store/crate money. Hire a bigger team to deal with this.

"We didn't have enough time." Is a nonsensical excuse. It's been a year. That's enough time.

Dear God do I feel sorry for Gina having to post something like that, knowing full well how little it will do to calm the backlash. She's probably got the hardest job at ZOS right now, because people on these forums are VERY frustrated.

MalakithAlamahdi

Look what you've done to my Templar!

Seriously though, thanks for nothing.

Rohamad_Ali

schattenkind

With all that frustration you should not forget one point: everyone is saying his point of view and there is no consensus among the players, 10 like the change, 10 dont. And this since the pts started for, what, 20 pages? Most threads are about buff that, nerf that, pages of discussions about [class] is to strong, [class] is to weak, if I get nerfed nerf the others too, I want this, I want that... How is someone supposed to make serious changes from that? Sure there are some good points in all that but this is still an opinion of some, while others are still against. There never will be changes that suit all players.

I've seen very few objective comments that really contribute to a solution, posting tests and numbers without whining, explaining many possibilities of why sth is not a good idea, giving suggestions. and so on. Some of that got changed already. But honestly, the most of the posts is telling how the individual interrests are being cut, some friendly, some not, mostly just demanding and sometimes disrespectful a.f.

Even if they chose some class representatives, there will be discussions why him, why not others, why not me, they dont decide for what I want etc.

Saying that, I dont agree with some changes too (rune cage f.e.) but someone has to decide and there cant be a decision based on whats going on here... I wouldnt like to be the one to decide, because no matter what decision is made, the person made it will be ripped appart alive anyway.

Imo there never will be a real balance but a constant progression circling around an almost-balance for ever. And never will the players be satisfied.

There already is a huge mess in the pts forums and with each posting it gets worse in my opinion.