A Sad Cycle

SlowMetabolism

With every introduction of a new patch/expansion there seems to always be changes forced upon the players even when it is clear during the PTS that player feedback being given show glaring problems with aspects being introduced whether it be new sets or ability changes. In the end the players lose out and although there may be minor changes to some of the grievences, the main issue with them generally go unresolved. It is then that we get 3 months of overperforming sets or buggy skills (ring a bell?). Finally, after these 3 months we get a new set of patch notes and instead of the developers being able to branch out and look at making fresh new changes to the game we are given fixes and adjustments to the same things we were given the patch before that were clearly stated by the playerbase as being problematic. Take the live patch right now for example, we were given sloads and changes to crystal fragments which to my understanding hasnt been touched for a very long time if ever. The amount of feedback and complaints about these two changes alone should have been enough to set off red flags that the playerbase was confused as to why a proc set was being introduced after the proc-calypse and why frags, a staple of magicka sorc was being fiddled with. Now 3 months later we get a patch whose majority of balance changes outside of the WW skill line have to do with things in the previous patch that shouldnt have been introduced as they were at all. This is nothing new, its a constant cycle and I guarantee that the patch 3-4 months from now will be addressing overperforming aspects of the WW changes coming and probably more fiddling with rune cage as the change that will be going live now seems subpar and for the most part will only benefit stam classes in the avoidability of rune cage.

If it is true, like it seems, that the playerbase knows more about the game then the developers perhaps you should listen to them during the weeks of player testing done before the final push through of a patch. Sure every player will have there own opinions on how to fix a problem of an overperforming set or buggy skill but it should be clear regardless that there is indeed a problem if there is a resounding amount of outcry about an element of a change (not the change itself in most cases). Prior to release it needs to either be fixed or pulled from the patch entirely and saved for a later set of notes once you feel like you have gotten it right. You cant get everything right the first time but you have to atleast get something right.

I would say its a sense of stubborness from the developers, they think they know what is best and they are going to implement what they think is best with as little amount of changes to their idea as possible whether its to just push out new aspects into the game such as poisons or uber buffing something into usefullness. Unfortunately much of the changes that are made are never going to be reverted because doing so would mean that they were wrong in the original concept all the way to putting them into the game. 1 piece items counting as 2 pieces, the bow not being able to be held at full charge, frags losing its CC, implementing the CP system without putting into place a foreseeable guaranteed cap etc etc. these are just a few of the things that will never be reverted. Not to mention if things like a CP cap or reversion of 1 piece = 2 piece were even proposed there would be large amount of players who would complain (rightfully so in a sense) because they were introduced or have been in the game for a long time and then taken away. Something needs to change.

kadar

I agree in the sense that ZOS would have a more balanced game and a happier player base if they made balance changes incrementally instead of massive sweeping balance revamps every 6 months.

I disagree that the player base opinion should be weighted more than the devs. Everyone has their favorite examples of instances when the forums predicted something, ZOS didn't listen, and then the players were right. In reality though, that situation is extremely rare. Someone typed it out once in a big thread, all the major times the players were resoundingly vocal, ZOS didn't listen, and the devs were right. The vast majority of the time this is the case. Largely because 90% of the players vocal on the forums wouldn't know an unbiased opinion or balance if it smacked them upside the head. ZOS has no cost effective/efficient way of knowing who those 10% of players are.

I just got baited into a #buffsorc thread didn't I

kadar

here's a fun vid illustrating why frags was nerfed:
https://youtu.be/7DbueUfgkX0?t=9m49s
I agree wit the devs on dis one

Stibbons

Frags nerf was needed. Otherwise i somewhat agree with you.

Mayrael

The_Outsider wrote: »

I agree in the sense that ZOS would have a more balanced game and a happier player base if they made balance changes incrementally instead of massive sweeping balance revamps every 6 months.

I disagree that the player base opinion should be weighted more than the devs. Everyone has their favorite examples of instances when the forums predicted something, ZOS didn't listen, and then the players were right. In reality though, that situation is extremely rare. Someone typed it out once in a big thread, all the major times the players were resoundingly vocal, ZOS didn't listen, and the devs were right. The vast majority of the time this is the case. Largely because 90% of the players vocal on the forums wouldn't know an unbiased opinion or balance if it smacked them upside the head. ZOS has no cost effective/efficient way of knowing who those 10% of players are.

I just got baited into a #buffsorc thread didn't I

Pretty mutch this. Devs in this game are improving with each patch, they try to communicate with us more and try to listen our voice. You can't say that they don't want to communicate with us just because they don't always agree with us. Most of the changes they do are good, some are neutral and very few are bad, but we tend to focus on the bad ones and show them as game breaking. Sometimes they really are but usually then these are taken care of pretty fast.

Though I don't always agree with devs, I still prefer them to stay focused on their own vision of the game rather than biased player base that wants to take the biggest possible piece of a cake for them selves.

John_Falstaff

@Mayrael , I don't mean to offend, but your post feels like words of someone who, knowingly or not, got a fair piece of cake and either doesn't know any worse, or (not accusing of course) wants to keep status quo for own sake. So it's just another form of bias, conscious or not.

As someone who's playing stamina DK DD in PvE, I can say that I don't feel that my voice is heard, and I don't feel any good changes. I don't want the biggest piece of cake, I want to have some cake instead of breadcrumbs, instead of "vAS, stamina need not apply, oh you're DK to boot - why, go do pledges, mate". When my subscription expires, I'm going to seriously consider the option of abandoning the ship along with its captain's vision, because funding the luxury cruise for other classes is starting to grow on me.

Mayrael

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Mayrael , I don't mean to offend, but your post feels like words of someone who, knowingly or not, got a fair piece of cake and either doesn't know any worse, or (not accusing of course) wants to keep status quo for own sake. So it's just another form of bias, conscious or not.

As someone who's playing stamina DK DD in PvE, I can say that I don't feel that my voice is heard, and I don't feel any good changes. I don't want the biggest piece of cake, I want to have some cake instead of breadcrumbs, instead of "vAS, stamina need not apply, oh you're DK to boot - why, go do pledges, mate". When my subscription expires, I'm going to seriously consider the option of abandoning the ship along with its captain's vision, because funding the luxury cruise for other classes is starting to grow on me.

Well mate I have 6 toons that I play regularly so you can say I have a piece of a cake for me, each toon gives me a bit of it from different parts of the cake. The thing is that as you can see even on your own example that most player wants to have whole cake for them selves, without thinking about the impact it will have for others. While buffing someones DPS in PvE seems to be harmless it may have bad impact on PvP where the balance is very fragile. I'm not saying stamDK doesn't need a buff, but if you ask for any buff thinking about just one part of a picture you have made a mistake already, because you need to think about global impact of the change, about synergies and waves it will cause. Seems obvious but as you can see most of the players fails to think like that, haven't you seen it already? - "This skill is OP, it killed me all the time it needs to be nerfed!11!" And suddenly someone who never stepped into Cyrodiil wonders why his primary DPS skill got nerfed. "Why? Nobody complained about it!".

You see my point? MOST players sees just tip of their own nose, they don't bother about aspects of the game they don't take apart, but they think that they know better than devs what is good for the game, and usually the less they know the louder they scream.

It's not only about players but in general about people, the more you learn the dumber you feel because you see better how mutch more you need learn to call yourself a specialist. On the other hand the less you know the more confident you are in your claims because you don't see all possible outcomes of your actions.

Turelus

The_Outsider wrote: »

I agree in the sense that ZOS would have a more balanced game and a happier player base if they made balance changes incrementally instead of massive sweeping balance revamps every 6 months.

I disagree that the player base opinion should be weighted more than the devs. Everyone has their favorite examples of instances when the forums predicted something, ZOS didn't listen, and then the players were right. In reality though, that situation is extremely rare. Someone typed it out once in a big thread, all the major times the players were resoundingly vocal, ZOS didn't listen, and the devs were right. The vast majority of the time this is the case. Largely because 90% of the players vocal on the forums wouldn't know an unbiased opinion or balance if it smacked them upside the head. ZOS has no cost effective/efficient way of knowing who those 10% of players are.

I just got baited into a #buffsorc thread didn't I

This sums up a lot of what I feel on it.

How many times has the game or a class died and yet three to six months later the hyperbolic posting on that issue is over and something else is dead.

I do think things would be smoother if they did the big changes at expansions, then the other updates (and patches) held smaller tweaks focused on those changes just made.
One big shake up a year, and then months of smoothing out the issues.

Beardimus

You make alot of good points, I will confess to scan reading, but I get your sentiment and I agree.

However solution is hard. And hence they trying with the Reps programme but I think we're all unsure the reps are listened to.

I concur that they made a mistake with Frag, and it was picked up and fed back on. As too was the over buff of Cage, and not listended to. now they nerfing it worse than before so we back to Sorcs needing something. It feels like a mess.

However i'm open to the devs checking data and acting on data. Acting on Forum 'noise' isnt a great path. hardly any people I play with come to the forum (Xbox EU) from signitures alone I can probably only name 20 players tops. Same with discord, thats less still. Thus reacting to NOISE (and everyone has their view but this can be for personal gain) is difficult.

however what I would say is in the PTS U18 thread SORCS themselves were all saying Cage id getting over buffed. So that should have been heeded.

unsure on the answer. Balance is a very fine line. They broke Frag and the knock on of that ripple is likely not to be fixed till next patch so its a year of trouble from one change.

I support the reps programme, still. As thats all we have.

John_Falstaff

@Mayrael , thing is, if you'll re-read your reply, you'll discover just another form of bias. "I have six toons and I don't see any balance issues." For someone who has no issue jumping between classes on a whim and has little preference as to which to play beside fitting into the content, everything is good and jolly and some issues with one class are minor and can be put on backburner, because there's always another character to pick, so, nothing's urgent and you can let developers sort out their stuff. What's overlooked in this point of view is that last time I checked, the game is still an RPG first and foremost, and while some people play "toons", other people play characters. Let's agree that a lot of people have good reasons not to roll with the meta, not choose whatever class and race combination brings them less headache this season. Playing character you don't feel with, just to be able to clear content - well, that's a poor man's game; people may be bent to roll with class that fits the content, but you can't make it fun for them if they don't like that class. And fun is where it's at; we're talking about a game after all. In situation where "this class is fun" and "that content is fun" are mutually exclusive, the game is not worth playing.

I didn't reply to you because you called to be cautious about balance changes, or said that clumsy attempts of balancing may break PvP - because you didn't say that. I replied to you because you stressed that people are selfish, devs should keep to their own vision, and game is all right, bad changes are fixed quickly, good changes remain, and so on and so forth. Well, you see, it's just as selfish to assume that people want too much by just refusing to play classes they don't enjoy playing. Not everybody is comfortable playing a cohort of faceless "toons", and it doesn't mean they just want all the cake. They just want their slice when they're getting none, and they're not comfy going under different IDs to get extra slices. Their right, and it's good they're defending it.

Finally, I feel that while I (and many others) speak of general balance, you're replying while having more narrow case in mind - those calls for nerfs or buffs of particular skills and whatnot. So I cannot stress that enough: I'm not talking about that. Many a time it was vocalized that from class reps, ZOS does not want information on what to do, but rather wants (in their own words anyway - so far, doesn't feel like it wants anything at all) general pain points. I'm fine with it, provided that it works. I would leave it to developers to decide how exactly to fix imbalances, it's their job after all, they're being paid for it, but I'm not going to stay silent (or follow the meta train, changing characters like gloves). I expect that when I point at leaderboards and streams and group choices and requirements of raid guilds, and say that stamina (and my class in particular) is barred from latest content, it will be acted upon - and it's up to developers to decide how exactly to act, and how to avoid breaking PvP in the process. I'm not going to stay silent and let the game be driven solely by their vision, because - let me be cynical here - company's vision of a game is a big cash cow, and if all players were comfy rolling new character every time they're being nerfed (directly or indirectly, by release of half-baked content) into obsolescence, the management at least would be all the happier for it.

Galarthor

I think overall we got a pretty solid balance in the game. Nothing is currently as overpowered as things in the past used to be (e.g. NBs one-shotting people from stealth due to the proc sets).

But the OP is also not entirely wrong. There are things that desperately need addressing and nothing is happening. And some stuff is so broken everybody can see it and the feedback on it is unanimous (e.g. Sloads) and yet they implement it unchanged even after weeks of testing confirming the underlying issue.

Another issue is that they don't try to fix issues at their core, but rather implement half-baked solutions that are easy to implement. The best example for this is Oblivion Damage. Don't know what to do? Don't want to spent the time and money to fix the problem? Throw Oblivion Damage at it!

That being said, more frequent adjustments would be nice. Nobody (except the expoiters) enjoys having to face off against something broken or overpowered for 3 months before ZOS MIGHT change it. And even the quaterly updates are oftentimes pretty lackluster in terms of class / weapon balancing. Just look at Summerset ... that wasn't even a quaterly update but an entire expansion!

moonio

Yes the game is circular, we are basically hamsters running on wheels.
But that said the general trend seems to be towards the nerfing of skills and abilities alongside the buffing of armour sets.

It's basically a business model decision in order to keep people in the game on a constant gear chase.

Yes we got a new class and a new skill line but once these are levelled there is little else to do apart from levelling a new character.

The spice of this game is armour sets..

Mayrael

@John_Falstaff I play 6 toons because I don't like monotony, beside there is no better way to learn how to fight someone than became him and learn all its strengths and weaknesses, and you are wrong about that I'll just pick the best toon ATM, I play the one I want and gives me most fun ATM, not the one that is strongest. On the other hand someone who didn't played other classes have no idea how hard is to achieve the same results there. I was there when I started to play. All I cared about were mag sorcs. But with time, when I started to switch toons and found myself on the receiving end I started think like "darn, that's not ok, sorcs overperform in this matter and there is no counter play this needs some tweaks" or "oh this so easy on this toon, I can't believe it!", then you start to use your knowledge from other toons like "ok stamina NB has limited magicka pool, if I'll be able to pull him 3-4 times out of stealth he want be able to cloak into safety so easy" or when I struggled with killing mag sorcs I thought about times when I died most often and what did my enemy to kill me when I was playing my own magsorc. It's so called LEARN TO PLAY. When you know you did everything to overcome your weaknesses but you still are failing ask for help. When nobody can help you and you're not the only one who struggles with that certain issue it's time to ask devs for help.

Are people selfish here? Let's be honest. Do you read and comment in threads not concerning your class or game type you don't participate? Do you try to understand players needs or you ignore them? Or maybe you deny their rights to gets buffed because in your opinion they are already strong? Or maybe you call for nerfs? You are new here. Look at this forums. Read through threads and you will see what I mean. People with lack of perspective come here and DEMAND that something needs to be done because they can't handle some part of the game. Do they ask for help? No, they DEMAND buffs or nerfs, because from their point of view something is broken. When you are skiny woman a wooden doors seem to be hard obstacle to break, for 120kg man it will be much easier to break them, for 50kg worker who produced thousands of this doors it won't be even a challenge to open these. So when a woman will say these doors are perfect to secure your house because she can't break them is she right? She is the lowest denominator, things can't be balanced around it, you need to have it mind on every step of balancing, but it can't be your point of reference.

Now you see where it goes?


Who creates this forums?
Firstly someone without any knowledge can't even ask a proper questions, but he demands certain changes in game.
Then we have the ones that have partial knowledge.
Next are the ones who have knowledge but want to use it for their own good.
The last part are the ones who have knowledge and want to do something good for all players, even the ones they don't like much.
How do you think which group is the biggest?

In the end my point is that we should be very careful who are we listen to, that's why I have more trust in someone who created this game and wants it to became one of the bests on the market than in someone who just want have fun or build up his ego.

John_Falstaff

@Mayrael , I can perfectly understand and approve the "don't like monotony" reasoning, but I just give equal right for existence to "I feel myself a knight" or "I associate myself with a mage" style of thinking. Sure, it's nice to try various playstyles, but for some people, trying different classes comes at the price of stressing themselves and playing archetype they don't really care much for. It's a game; it's great that it's fun for you to try different things, and it's just as great that it's fun for them to immerse and feel themselves a certain character. No fun is more "proper" than other. I frankly feel that you're mostly speaking from PvP standpoint, where it is probably (I wouldn't know, really, though I'm trying to stay updated) wired into gameplay that trying different classes makes you a better player with your own class, since you know playstyles and possible counterplay. For people who mostly play PvE... may be less crucial, since it's a team against content, not against other class. There, learning to play would be learning content and your own class, less so other classes.

As for selfish? I can see your point; I do read forums, I do try to see pain points of every class (even though topics about my own catch my interest first), I do chime in sometimes (you won't find me asking for nerfs or concrete buffs, but will find me voicing general, overarching issues, or objecting against nerf requests when I see a concrete side effect that would impact the class elsewhere). And yes, I do understand what you intend to say - yes, I see a lot of people convinced that they know concrete way of solving issues, something local, some silver bullet - stamina whip, bigger damage tooltip on particular skill, that sort of thing. I personally don't think that it's constructive, and you're likely right, those ideas probably have very little chance of taking big picture into account, and can't be used to actually drive development process. In that you're right. But then, a lot of people voice concerns on higher level, and developers can (and, I think, should) listen to people speaking about their problems, and decide on concrete ways of fixing them.

I frankly don't trust people who designed Cloudrest and Asylum to revive my class into life, because their only response was "we give players time to adopt", class reps state "ZOS is aware", changes aren't coming for long time now, leaderboards are devoid of stamina and full of ranged magicka, and raid guilds ask people to roll magblades / non-pet magsorcs simply to participate. Maybe it means that devs are hard at work, trying to tackle it. Or maybe it means that they're fine resting on their laurels, as long as people grudgingly choose unloved classes to play and keep making purchases in the store. That's why I feel that players must voice their concerns, and developers must listen and take into consideration, because judging by the latest trials, they don't even test their content themselves on at least half the builds before releasing. And if they don't, the only other option is to let players test and speak their pains.

satanio

Imbalance causes that players play more and meta is not becoming stale.
- That’s the only reason that could be behind current patching.

Waffennacht

Solid text

Solid AF

Every patch we get "major class balance changes next patch"

And I see.... Like 5 abilities being changes slightly? (Cage, Barrage, Incap, .... Um.... ) Well ok like 3, but I'm sure I'm forgetting something....

Tasear

Beardimus wrote: »

You make alot of good points, I will confess to scan reading, but I get your sentiment and I agree.

However solution is hard. And hence they trying with the Reps programme but I think we're all unsure the reps are listened to.

I concur that they made a mistake with Frag, and it was picked up and fed back on. As too was the over buff of Cage, and not listended to. now they nerfing it worse than before so we back to Sorcs needing something. It feels like a mess.

However i'm open to the devs checking data and acting on data. Acting on Forum 'noise' isnt a great path. hardly any people I play with come to the forum (Xbox EU) from signitures alone I can probably only name 20 players tops. Same with discord, thats less still. Thus reacting to NOISE (and everyone has their view but this can be for personal gain) is difficult.

however what I would say is in the PTS U18 thread SORCS themselves were all saying Cage id getting over buffed. So that should have been heeded.

unsure on the answer. Balance is a very fine line. They broke Frag and the knock on of that ripple is likely not to be fixed till next patch so its a year of trouble from one change.

I support the reps programme, still. As thats all we have.

Thanks for your support! We shall do best to convey everyone's concerns

P.S We are listening and lurking

SlowMetabolism

The_Outsider wrote: »

I agree in the sense that ZOS would have a more balanced game and a happier player base if they made balance changes incrementally instead of massive sweeping balance revamps every 6 months.

I disagree that the player base opinion should be weighted more than the devs. Everyone has their favorite examples of instances when the forums predicted something, ZOS didn't listen, and then the players were right. In reality though, that situation is extremely rare. Someone typed it out once in a big thread, all the major times the players were resoundingly vocal, ZOS didn't listen, and the devs were right. The vast majority of the time this is the case. Largely because 90% of the players vocal on the forums wouldn't know an unbiased opinion or balance if it smacked them upside the head. ZOS has no cost effective/efficient way of knowing who those 10% of players are.

I just got baited into a #buffsorc thread didn't I

So I guess heres what it comes down to, I have played since day one console release and have more hours into the game than I would like to admit, even after only playing in 1 month spurts for the last 2+ years, with generally 3-5 month breaks at a time. I like to think I know a lot about the game specifically as it would relate to the classes in the PvP sense. With that being said and taking that last sentence at face value what stops ZoS from lumping the constructive post or responses I've made in with the un-informed players or "casuals"? It would seem that this whole class representive thing is exactly what you are writing against, each person is indeed biased as they are attempting to get the main class they play buffed in one sense or the other for the most part. Who is each class rep supposed to be receiving grievences from? The other 90% of the player base. If, like they are supposed to do, they are relaying every major piece of information back to ZoS they get from the 90% of the player base it would appear that it would be a continuous loop of un-informed information being fed right back to the devs. On the other hand if the class reps are choosing to ignore the Pugs and the casuals then they really do have a bias and not only a bias but a dictatorship over what direction the classes go in that only ZoS could stand in the way of.

Jokes aside, in the past I have played a lot of magblade, stamdk and stamblade and although my magblade was pretty mean it unfortunately did not carry over to my attempts at playing magicka sorcerer quite like one would think. I have also played, although less, mag dk, stamplar, magsorc and magplar. Still I think I have a pretty good hint at some of the things that need to be looked at, added or changed to classes that I havent touched at all like stam sorc for example. This comes from fighting against them and talking to people who do play the class at a high level.

I would also add that the more I play the game the more it becomes apparent that abilities and perhaps even class passives/weapon passives need to be different while in PvE and while in PvP. Then perhaps there can be a rep for not only each class but each class either as it relates to PvE or PvP zones. Still, this would not solve the problem of bias the representatives of each class will inherently have.

Maryal

I am making an educated guess here, but I believe pve'ers make up the large majority of all ESO players, and of those, only a very small percentage are highly experienced/knowledgeable/highly skilled players.

Many changes in ESO seem to revolve around pvp OR the very skilled/experienced/knowledgeable pve'ers .... to the detriment of the normal pve'ers who make up the majority of the player base. These pve'ers aren't very vocal on the forums, and they probably aren't analyzing their gameplay in any detail, they don't understand how to compensate, and, their game just got slightly derailed.

This is why there should be more of a separation for how skills, passives, armor, ect. works in pve vs pvp. I'm not saying two sets ... just more things like 'effects monsters' or 'effects players' ... I think that would be helpful.

Narvuntien

I think anyone that had to listen to what the community wanted for even a single patch cycle would go completely mad.

Listening the community does not make a good game. For starters you'll only be listening to the loudest most invested players that can quickly lead to a complexity spiral where only enfranchised players can understand the game and you can't get new players.

Secondly everyone wants different things and are pulling all in different directions. "Buff the thing I like nerf the thing I don't like" for everyone which are all completely contradictory.

Having said that I am worried "the community knows their game better than they do" might actually be true though. It some times feels like the stuff that works is an accident and the stuff that doesn't is a repeated mistake.

There just isn't the systematic and statistic and data driven game design this game needs. I just don't think there is enough resources put into balance and set design that would create a lot more diversity in the game.