The never ending balance problem.

Harbinger_GR

Disclaimer: I only speak and only care for PvE.

To begin with, not to brag but I consider myself an mmo veteran/addict that recently found a new love in ESO. I've played WoW at the highest level (server firsts etc), hardcore raided in Rift, and FFXIV and reached endgame content with pretty much every other mainstream mmo (SWTOR, Aion, EQ2, Wildstar etc etc)

I'm seriously baffled how after all these years can ESO still be unbalanced when it comes to classes and roles. I mean, we're not talking about a small game/studio with 20k active players. And I'm sure ZOS has the best intentions for the game. I'm pretty sure they make good money out of it and they should be, game is excellent. So there's no reason for this mess.

First of all, it goes without saying that its impossible to balance skills for both pve and pvp. That's why its paramount for skills to behave differently in pve and pvp so you can balance them accordingly. After all pvp is 100% instanced without open world pvp to mess this up.

Number two, non-class skills. When you end up using the same old weapon and guild skills on every class you know something is wrong. For example, its unacceptable that any stam characters top dps skill is Endless Hail and second might be caltrops. Skill power should be class -> weapon -> guild/world. As it is now the class with the best passives win. For those that play Hearthstone, imagine how the game would be if neutral monsters were equally strong or stronger to class monsters. Class skills should be the defining things in your bars and weapons and most importantly world/guild ones should be mostly supportive instead of build defining.

Next issue is class uniqueness and usefulness. Since it might be impossible to perfectly balance the numbers you have to somehow else make classes desirable. Look at FFXIV. The game has 15 classes and last time I played, no matter which class you played, you never felt like an undesirable like you feel in ESO. How you do that? Unique mechanics/buffs/debuffs. Imagine for example only sorcs could provide major sorcery, only nightblades could provide major brutality, only DKs could provide major fracture and so on. This way for example, even if magNB is the FOTM groups will still want a stamsorc and a stamNB. Same applies to tanks and healers, they should all have unique strengths and weaknesses. I also feel that ultimate skills should be more about granting a group effect than a personal one. And if you wanna take this a step further, you could balance content around such strengths and weaknesses. Also in most mmos, any raid (trial) will have a variation of boss mechanics that reward/hinder melee/ranged accordingly so groups wont only stack ranged or melee.

Another issue is racial balance. As it it now it's horrible and reminds me of good old vanilla WoW and dwarf priests. I don't think I further need to elaborate on this. A class should not automatically pick between at the tops 3 when you have 10 races.

And the last issue I have is the fun factor. Even if you achieve perfect balance if everything feels bland and boring you will lose people. People don't wanna tank for a reason.

That is all, thanks for reading and thanks for letting me vent some steam. I really love ESO and I don't wanna go back to my ninja on FFXIV even though it really feel tempting right now...

usmguy1234

What's even more insidious is putting op sets/skills/crafting in new dlcs to promote people buying it.... and nerfing it after the sales taper off.

DuskMarine

balance will never happen so itd best just to give up on it ever being a thing

VaranisArano

Balance in PVP is "Rock, Paper, Scissors"

Balance in PVE is "Its my turn to be King of the Mountain" *next update* "Move over, its my turn now"


Why do this? Because that way players feel like they constantly have to chase the carrot of the meta. Players that chase the carrot are still playing the game long after they would have been satisfied and grown bored if their characters were all constantly good at their chosen roles.

Harbinger_GR

So I guess you guys truly think there's no salvation? That's quite the cynical response..

VaranisArano

Harbinger_GR wrote: »

So I guess you guys truly think there's no salvation? That's quite the cynical response..

Well, keep in mind that this is an MMO AND an Elder Scrolls game.

Your vision for unique classes and roles that bring something special to the content is great, it really is. But its not something that fits well in the Elder Scrolls tradition. So for players who come to this from the Elder Scrolls games, the current direction the game is moving in where every class can play every role effectively in their own way is a more accurate reflection of what those players expect. Its definitely more in line with how players interpret the "Play the way you like" tagline (even though that's not what that tagline means).

When you add that to the many, many decisions ZOS has made to encourage players to grind away at the game instead of playing it, enjoying it, feeling satisfied with it and moving on, I'm not surprised that ZOS continues to make classes both more homogenous AND keeps changing the meta to make different classes be the best for new content, rather than seeking a level of balance where everyone feels wanted and equally effective in their own way.



Now, for PVP balancing, Rock, Paper, Scissors actually works pretty well. Every build has opponents they'll counter and opponents that will counter them. That's great...as long as players accept that they can't build to beat everything. Which, being competitive players, they don't.

Add that to the extremely steep learning curve that PVP has in this game, and balancing gets interesting. Its a constant battle for the devs to manage large scale combat in Cyrodiil, small-scale combat in Battlegrounds, and the skill disparity between noobs and experienced PVPers. The major problem with PVP balancing is simply that experienced players will always adapt better to balance changes than less experienced players. All the set changes and skill changes that ZOS does always ends up with experienced players dominating, just because they have the experience and skill to adapt and overcome those changes.

Mind you, PVP also is subject to the same "This was the meta, now its nerfed" changes that PVE gets in order to encourage players to grind for the new meta class/gear. That's just something ZOS has been doing ever since One Tamriel removed most of the upward character progression from ESO in favor of a more exploratory, more open world, more Elder Scrolls type experience.

MerlinPendragon

Welcome to MMOs.

Any big name title suffers from balance concerns as it gets older and adds more classes, gear and content.

All classes are not made to be equal, nor should they be. If we want to preserve the uniqueness of classes it also means accepting that different classes will be strong in some areas and weaker in others. This especially is the case with balancing how changes affect both PVE and PVP.

Comparative to other games, ZOS has done an overall good job here. No doubt there is plenty of imbalance in ESO, but I think much of the imbalances discussed on these forums are far overblown and exaggerated

gnarlyvandal

Just what I think could help the game, from my experience being an avid mmo player, an ESO fan and long time TES player:

1) Get rid of racial passives or make them more uniform so all races have a stamina / magicka choice. Would fit better with ESO lore, not just TES and should help to stem the tide of player toxicity.

2) There shouldn’t be classes. If there *has* to be 3 skill lines that ‘define’ a characters class, wouldn’t it be better to be able to choose what 3 skill lines from the classes the player wants?

I’ve seen ppl say this wouldn’t work cause of dk defence passives, templar healing and nb or sorc damage would be too bis, but I’d disagree. My reason being we have a ‘jack of all trades’ class in the warden, which most players hate to use because it doesn’t specialise itself for any role

3) I agree skills should be tweaked so that they have slightly different effects in pvp, this way pvp and pve can be balanced separately and neither side would cry when the other gets attention.

4) Addendum to 2). I agree with OP @Harbinger_GR that if classes are so far gone that we will always have them, then each class should provide a unique buff or debuff so that they’ll be desirable in end-game content, regardless of which is the ‘Flavour of the Month’ class.

Axoinus

Balance issues? Welcome to every video game ever.

Tetrafy

They make it way too difficult to hit top dps. Like you have to weave just to hit it vs a good rotation like ffxiv has. Like I also am fairly exlerienced raider in ffxiv and my dps is around 20k right now. Now mind you tanking in ffxiv is much easier than this game.

Harbinger_GR

So I guess you guys truly think there's no salvation? That's quite the cynical response..

Tetrafy wrote: »

They make it way too difficult to hit top dps. Like you have to weave just to hit it vs a good rotation like ffxiv has. Like I also am fairly exlerienced raider in ffxiv and my dps is around 20k right now. Now mind you tanking in ffxiv is much easier than this game.

Tanking in ffxiv is like night and day compared to eso. I wouldn't say its easier but its more involving and fun.

jeskah

Balance i find not THAT bad atm - okay inter-stamina PVE is pretty horrid, some day it will be ok again.

Could be worse, considering we have noncp large scale pvp, noncp smallscale pvp, cp large scale pvp and cp pve. Thats pretty much 4 different game modes.

Doctordarkspawn

Make the game fun and hang everything else.

PVP is centered around winning and someone will allways -lose-. Thus, no one will be happy with it unless they are winning.

But PVE? If a game is fun to play it's fun to play. Focus -on- making it fun to play.

Drdeath20

I dont care about aboslute balance just aslong as its somewhere in the ballpark and each class is somewhat unique.

This game has bigger issues over balance. Its safe to say that after 4 years the developers dont have a clear direction they want to go and dont know whats important when it comes to combat/utility/performance.

There should be tradeoffs and instead we have a few spec's and classes that are the have nots and a few spec's/classes that are the haves.

Mystrius_Archaion

The way to properly balance is to be willing to completely reset everything, like other developers have done/are doing.
Sometimes, you try all you can to make one way work only to find that you hit a permanent roadblock and have to go back and take the other road.

This reminds me of that saying about Thomas Edison:

(Nobody has an accurate quote from him so this will have to do.)

Beardimus

Honestly tho, what does perfect balance matter on PvE?

99% of the content is too easy. And the last bit is always going to require BIS setups (i.e. Speed run, no death, score trials)

PvP is on a knife edge. Sorc gained 3k damage to a skill.and players lose their mind. To me, that's close to balance if a petty change can effect everyone

Wifeaggro13

Harbinger_GR wrote: »

Disclaimer: I only speak and only care for PvE.

To begin with, not to brag but I consider myself an mmo veteran/addict that recently found a new love in ESO. I've played WoW at the highest level (server firsts etc), hardcore raided in Rift, and FFXIV and reached endgame content with pretty much every other mainstream mmo (SWTOR, Aion, EQ2, Wildstar etc etc)

I'm seriously baffled how after all these years can ESO still be unbalanced when it comes to classes and roles. I mean, we're not talking about a small game/studio with 20k active players. And I'm sure ZOS has the best intentions for the game. I'm pretty sure they make good money out of it and they should be, game is excellent. So there's no reason for this mess.

First of all, it goes without saying that its impossible to balance skills for both pve and pvp. That's why its paramount for skills to behave differently in pve and pvp so you can balance them accordingly. After all pvp is 100% instanced without open world pvp to mess this up.

Number two, non-class skills. When you end up using the same old weapon and guild skills on every class you know something is wrong. For example, its unacceptable that any stam characters top dps skill is Endless Hail and second might be caltrops. Skill power should be class -> weapon -> guild/world. As it is now the class with the best passives win. For those that play Hearthstone, imagine how the game would be if neutral monsters were equally strong or stronger to class monsters. Class skills should be the defining things in your bars and weapons and most importantly world/guild ones should be mostly supportive instead of build defining.

Next issue is class uniqueness and usefulness. Since it might be impossible to perfectly balance the numbers you have to somehow else make classes desirable. Look at FFXIV. The game has 15 classes and last time I played, no matter which class you played, you never felt like an undesirable like you feel in ESO. How you do that? Unique mechanics/buffs/debuffs. Imagine for example only sorcs could provide major sorcery, only nightblades could provide major brutality, only DKs could provide major fracture and so on. This way for example, even if magNB is the FOTM groups will still want a stamsorc and a stamNB. Same applies to tanks and healers, they should all have unique strengths and weaknesses. I also feel that ultimate skills should be more about granting a group effect than a personal one. And if you wanna take this a step further, you could balance content around such strengths and weaknesses. Also in most mmos, any raid (trial) will have a variation of boss mechanics that reward/hinder melee/ranged accordingly so groups wont only stack ranged or melee.

Another issue is racial balance. As it it now it's horrible and reminds me of good old vanilla WoW and dwarf priests. I don't think I further need to elaborate on this. A class should not automatically pick between at the tops 3 when you have 10 races.

And the last issue I have is the fun factor. Even if you achieve perfect balance if everything feels bland and boring you will lose people. People don't wanna tank for a reason.

That is all, thanks for reading and thanks for letting me vent some steam. I really love ESO and I don't wanna go back to my ninja on FFXIV even though it really feel tempting right now...

you hit the nail on the head. But unwinding the mess ESO has become and the design decisions are completely impossible at this point. Newer game design is not always better personally i am more excited about smaller games then this giant budget MMO that keeps circling the bowl. They had an opportunity to make this game a really good MMO with premium content. but they chose this hybrid model of do everything medicore so we can sell more boxes to the masses.

POps75p

Harbinger_GR wrote: »

Disclaimer: I only speak and only care for PvE.

To begin with, not to brag but I consider myself an mmo veteran/addict that recently found a new love in ESO. I've played WoW at the highest level (server firsts etc), hardcore raided in Rift, and FFXIV and reached endgame content with pretty much every other mainstream mmo (SWTOR, Aion, EQ2, Wildstar etc etc)

I'm seriously baffled how after all these years can ESO still be unbalanced when it comes to classes and roles. I mean, we're not talking about a small game/studio with 20k active players. And I'm sure ZOS has the best intentions for the game. I'm pretty sure they make good money out of it and they should be, game is excellent. So there's no reason for this mess.

First of all, it goes without saying that its impossible to balance skills for both pve and pvp. That's why its paramount for skills to behave differently in pve and pvp so you can balance them accordingly. After all pvp is 100% instanced without open world pvp to mess this up.

Number two, non-class skills. When you end up using the same old weapon and guild skills on every class you know something is wrong. For example, its unacceptable that any stam characters top dps skill is Endless Hail and second might be caltrops. Skill power should be class -> weapon -> guild/world. As it is now the class with the best passives win. For those that play Hearthstone, imagine how the game would be if neutral monsters were equally strong or stronger to class monsters. Class skills should be the defining things in your bars and weapons and most importantly world/guild ones should be mostly supportive instead of build defining.

Next issue is class uniqueness and usefulness. Since it might be impossible to perfectly balance the numbers you have to somehow else make classes desirable. Look at FFXIV. The game has 15 classes and last time I played, no matter which class you played, you never felt like an undesirable like you feel in ESO. How you do that? Unique mechanics/buffs/debuffs. Imagine for example only sorcs could provide major sorcery, only nightblades could provide major brutality, only DKs could provide major fracture and so on. This way for example, even if magNB is the FOTM groups will still want a stamsorc and a stamNB. Same applies to tanks and healers, they should all have unique strengths and weaknesses. I also feel that ultimate skills should be more about granting a group effect than a personal one. And if you wanna take this a step further, you could balance content around such strengths and weaknesses. Also in most mmos, any raid (trial) will have a variation of boss mechanics that reward/hinder melee/ranged accordingly so groups wont only stack ranged or melee.

Another issue is racial balance. As it it now it's horrible and reminds me of good old vanilla WoW and dwarf priests. I don't think I further need to elaborate on this. A class should not automatically pick between at the tops 3 when you have 10 races.

And the last issue I have is the fun factor. Even if you achieve perfect balance if everything feels bland and boring you will lose people. People don't wanna tank for a reason.

That is all, thanks for reading and thanks for letting me vent some steam. I really love ESO and I don't wanna go back to my ninja on FFXIV even though it really feel tempting right now...

no need to nerf ever if they just stop bind on pick up, all gear will equal out, leaving the only variable the player skill

randomkeyhits

The first part of balance is to recognise that PvE and PvP are different beasts with different objects and methods.

So ESO hasn't reached step #1 yet.

Some games have been brave enough to take a step back and see it. I remember the Warframe re-working of PvP. They locked out most frames, created PvP specific/only components, made some frame powers different between PvE and PvP. Whatever was necessary to bring balance separately to PvP and PvE

Once they had a solid baseline they then started re-introducing frames to PvP and it worked.

Got to admit, that company gets so much right.

Harbinger_GR

randomkeyhits wrote: »

The first part of balance is to recognise that PvE and PvP are different beasts with different objects and methods.

So ESO hasn't reached step #1 yet.

Some games have been brave enough to take a step back and see it. I remember the Warframe re-working of PvP. They locked out most frames, created PvP specific/only components, made some frame powers different between PvE and PvP. Whatever was necessary to bring balance separately to PvP and PvE

Once they had a solid baseline they then started re-introducing frames to PvP and it worked.

Got to admit, that company gets so much right.

Yup, I agree. DE is excellent on every level. And game aside, they are very vocal with the community, something that can't be said about ZOS.

SakuraRush

Balance is boring and isn't what you are asking for anyway.

Not liking something doesn't mean it's unbalanced either.

Beyond that you have to take into account all levels of gameplay when making changes.

Harbinger_GR

SakuraRush wrote: »

Balance is boring and isn't what you are asking for anyway.

Not liking something doesn't mean it's unbalanced either..

How did I not ask for balance? I wish one day a player can pick whichever race, class, role and be able to perform at the highest level. Sure, it might be a pipe dream but hey, man can dream.

SakuraRush wrote: »

Beyond that you have to take into account all levels of gameplay when making changes.

There are essentially 3 types of gameplay. Public open world, group instanced PvE and instanced PvP.

When it comes to open world stuff everything dies so easily that doesn't really matter. The only issue here is tanks with their pathetic dps taking forever to kill a skeever..

Because the "real" content (group PvE and PvP) is instanced ZOS should make skills different depending on what you're doing. Many mmos tried to balance PvE and PvP using the same skillset and failed miserably.

Tirps

It's hard to balance something that is already broken..

Kuramas9tails

"Balance" in ESO is the equivalent to "peace" on earth.

ZOS_Mika

We have recently removed some off topic and insulting commentary from this thread. Please keep this discussion civil and constructive. Thank you.

aeowulf

Also seeking balance. Every role is available to all classes - doesn't mean they should be as good as each other, but it does mean they should be equally viable in each role. Look at pug finder, balance is so askew I don't think i've ever seen a DK healer, and sorc/NB are rare as hens teeth Same applies to tanking with DK/Warden being the only common tanks. If people want more tanks played for shorter queue times - then they need to shout for the other 60% of classes to be more desired/viable/fun in that role. Right now 'DPS' is the only relatively balanced role, and that's only if you bunch mag/stam as one. Unfortunately due to it not scaling with diminishing returns (which everything should in these games) there will always be issues here too.

THEDKEXPERIENCE

Balance has long ago been achieved in ESO by imbalance. Anyone with access to Google can find a way to spec out a crazy high damage character with good defenses. If you are choosing to actively avoid learning how to build a character to these specs that’s on the player. You don’t need the meta but understanding what does what is worth its weight in gold.

If you are running one of these builds and you still complain about imbalance than chances are high you’re just not that good at the game.

griffkhalifa

I think everything is fine.

Priyasekarssk

Harbinger_GR wrote: »

Disclaimer: I only speak and only care for PvE.

To begin with, not to brag but I consider myself an mmo veteran/addict that recently found a new love in ESO. I've played WoW at the highest level (server firsts etc), hardcore raided in Rift, and FFXIV and reached endgame content with pretty much every other mainstream mmo (SWTOR, Aion, EQ2, Wildstar etc etc)

I'm seriously baffled how after all these years can ESO still be unbalanced when it comes to classes and roles. I mean, we're not talking about a small game/studio with 20k active players. And I'm sure ZOS has the best intentions for the game. I'm pretty sure they make good money out of it and they should be, game is excellent. So there's no reason for this mess.

First of all, it goes without saying that its impossible to balance skills for both pve and pvp. That's why its paramount for skills to behave differently in pve and pvp so you can balance them accordingly. After all pvp is 100% instanced without open world pvp to mess this up.

Number two, non-class skills. When you end up using the same old weapon and guild skills on every class you know something is wrong. For example, its unacceptable that any stam characters top dps skill is Endless Hail and second might be caltrops. Skill power should be class -> weapon -> guild/world. As it is now the class with the best passives win. For those that play Hearthstone, imagine how the game would be if neutral monsters were equally strong or stronger to class monsters. Class skills should be the defining things in your bars and weapons and most importantly world/guild ones should be mostly supportive instead of build defining.

Next issue is class uniqueness and usefulness. Since it might be impossible to perfectly balance the numbers you have to somehow else make classes desirable. Look at FFXIV. The game has 15 classes and last time I played, no matter which class you played, you never felt like an undesirable like you feel in ESO. How you do that? Unique mechanics/buffs/debuffs. Imagine for example only sorcs could provide major sorcery, only nightblades could provide major brutality, only DKs could provide major fracture and so on. This way for example, even if magNB is the FOTM groups will still want a stamsorc and a stamNB. Same applies to tanks and healers, they should all have unique strengths and weaknesses. I also feel that ultimate skills should be more about granting a group effect than a personal one. And if you wanna take this a step further, you could balance content around such strengths and weaknesses. Also in most mmos, any raid (trial) will have a variation of boss mechanics that reward/hinder melee/ranged accordingly so groups wont only stack ranged or melee.

Another issue is racial balance. As it it now it's horrible and reminds me of good old vanilla WoW and dwarf priests. I don't think I further need to elaborate on this. A class should not automatically pick between at the tops 3 when you have 10 races.

And the last issue I have is the fun factor. Even if you achieve perfect balance if everything feels bland and boring you will lose people. People don't wanna tank for a reason.

That is all, thanks for reading and thanks for letting me vent some steam. I really love ESO and I don't wanna go back to my ninja on FFXIV even though it really feel tempting right now...

All are correct . What these self proclaimed pros will do when NB nerfed on par with other classes ? For NBs everything is fine except run cage. NBs can produce 30 percent dps than other classes is not an issue.
Everything is fine , when everyone plays as NB in PVP.

Facefister

You can clear every content with every class and build, non-meta equipment. Ofcourse you wont be able to compete with absolute BiS setups but you will be able to clear regardless. People are too stuck up with a certain players builds and guides.

karekiz

Harbinger_GR wrote: »

Unique mechanics/buffs/debuffs. Imagine for example only sorcs could provide major sorcery, only nightblades could provide major brutality, only DKs could provide major fracture and so on.

Welp hello

DK
Stam NB
Stam NB
Stam NB / Heal NB

Edit:) The issue with that system would be it would further basically rip apart ANY use of non DK tanks in group make up, while kicking the crap out of any magicka user that might want in 4 man difficult content. DK tanks are already powerful, you REALLY want to give them 100% control over major fracture? Really?