A solution to Swift

GreenHere

With Swift being on the chopping block for nerfs sometime in the near future, I wanted to offer a solution I thought might work for everyone...

Introduce a 142% movement speed soft cap that applies when not Sprinting.

Walking/running speed (NOT Sprinting) is 100%, at base. Major Expedition is 30% increased movement speed, and Minor Expedition is 10%. Swift gives 10% more movement speed per piece at Legendary (gold) quality, at the cost of other jewelry traits. Windrunning, the CP passive, grants 2% bonus movement speed as well. Sprinting --using Stamina-- is 40% (without any Medium armor bonuses, or being an Orc which is another 12% added to Sprint speed).

So we can currently get to 172% movement speed without Sprinting, which is problematic. Base (100%) + 3xSwift (30%) + Major Expedition (30%) + Minor Expedition (10%) + Windrunning (2%). All without actively using any resources, and 100% uptime. Sprint, and you're hitting (and easily would surpass) the 200% movement speed hard cap.

If we had a soft cap of 142%, that would allow in-combat movement speed to be --at maximum-- similar to vanilla Sprint speed. That number allows for Major + Minor Expedition (so as to not make either buff useless) + Windrunning (because if you unlocked the perk, but are Major+Minor buffed, it'd be wasted if the cap was only 140%). OR, you could run 3 Swift + Minor Expedition; or 1-2 Swift + Major Expedition... or whatever. You're not moving faster than 142% movement speed unless you spend Stam to Sprint. The hard cap of 200%, which we already have on Live, is unchanged.

This way, Swift itself is untouched. It just reduces the need for other speed buffs, or supplements them if you're not moving "too fast" already. Swift still boosts your Sneak speed, and swimming speed. No one wasted transmute crystals. A large number of people aren't ticked off by yet another nerf they didn't deserve. At the end of the day, we're back at the old combat speed that used to be the upper limit before Swift was a thing; we just have alternate ways to get there. In short, Swift isn't completely ruined, which is exactly what I'm afraid is going to happen. Swift in itself isn't a problem. But combined with all the other speed modifiers, it's near game-breaking in PvP.

Stacking all the speed boosts is the issue, but I don't think any individual speed buff is a problem. Putting a limit on our non-Sprint speeds seems like the sensible solution.

GreenHere

D'oh! Too late... they are neutering Swift, of course...

From today's PTS patch notes: "The Swift Jewelry Trait now increases movement speed by 6% at max quality, previously 10%."

Is it just me, or does ZOS have an uncanny ability to always do things in the exact way you'd hope they wouldn't?

GreenHere

code65536 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Speed pots will actually be addressed next week; we just ran out of time to get it into today's patch, that's all.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Wrobel @ZOS_RobGarrett Again, more changes made for PvP with no regards to PvE.

How are classes that have no reliable source of Expedition expected to do the Balorgh hunt in vMoS HM? You know, that same hunt mechanic that the dev team hilarious failed repeatedly on ESO Live? Many tanks run speed pots for that mechanic.

Or the main tank in vCR? If Z'Maja teleports across the entire length of the room and the tank can't get there fast enough, she will blast everyone in the group.

All of these speed fixes are bandaids that avoid the main problem: That Swift+Expedition in PvP make players virtually untargetable. These are poor, inadequate fixes because all you're doing is reducing the duration of broken combat speed. The problem is that these speeds are attainable in the first place. Making these broken speeds last shorter durations isn't the way to fix this.

Leave Swift alone. Leave Expedition alone. The only thing you should be changing is lowering the in-combat speed cap.

Hey @code65536 , seeing this post of yours in another thread, I was hoping to get your opinion on my proposed solution above. Does the math seem right to you?

Kanar

Swift was too strong and deserved a nerf.

GreenHere

Kanar wrote: »

Swift was too strong and deserved a nerf.

Do you think the nerf it got was appropriate, @Kanar ? 6% at GOLD quality (max 18% bonus) seems pretty low to me...

They damn near cut it in half, and imo it sort of ruins a lot of our jewelry that many of us transmuted for non-PvP-abusing reasons. RIP my Swift Night Terror jewelry... no more extra speedy sneaking for me... unless I want to go back to being an ugly vampire.

Tan9oSuccka

Kanar wrote: »

Swift was too strong and deserved a nerf.

I noticed this Swift was probably part of the yolo swag meta.

I watched a rather nefarious PVP person whos extremely latent to begin with, running three swift.

Just a flash of speed lag. I could tell, targeting was an absolute nightmare.

Kanar

GreenHere wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Swift was too strong and deserved a nerf.

Do you think the nerf it got was appropriate, @Kanar ? 6% at GOLD quality (max 18% bonus) seems pretty low to me...

They damn near cut it in half, and imo it sort of ruins a lot of our jewelry that many of us transmuted for non-PvP-abusing reasons. RIP my Swift Night Terror jewelry... no more extra speedy sneaking for me... unless I want to go back to being an ugly vampire.

My tank friend runs swift in dungeons so he can stay ahead of the DDs. Yeah I agree there's no reason to nerf that.
However between the bad targeting system and terrible lag in cyrodiil, the nerf had to happen. Would have been better if they never introduced it.

Samadhi

GreenHere wrote: »

...
They damn near cut it in half, and imo it sort of ruins a lot of our jewelry that many of us transmuted for non-PvP-abusing reasons. RIP my Swift Night Terror jewelry... no more extra speedy sneaking for me... unless I want to go back to being an ugly vampire.

My Thiefy Vampire Nightblade with Swift Night Terror is super speedy in sneak
but suppose this new change likely means my opting to not use speed buffs because Concealed Weapon was sufficient will no longer pan out

GreenHere

Kanar wrote: »

GreenHere wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Swift was too strong and deserved a nerf.

Do you think the nerf it got was appropriate, @Kanar ? 6% at GOLD quality (max 18% bonus) seems pretty low to me...

They damn near cut it in half, and imo it sort of ruins a lot of our jewelry that many of us transmuted for non-PvP-abusing reasons. RIP my Swift Night Terror jewelry... no more extra speedy sneaking for me... unless I want to go back to being an ugly vampire.

My tank friend runs swift in dungeons so he can stay ahead of the DDs. Yeah I agree there's no reason to nerf that.
However between the bad targeting system and terrible lag in cyrodiil, the nerf had to happen. Would have been better if they never introduced it.

Before Swift was introduced, the effective combat speed "cap" was 142%, I believe. There wasn't a way to get beyond Major+Minor Expedition + Windrunning, and while speed builds existed back then, they weren't at all a problem as I recall.

Swift put things over the top, and that seems to be the problem; not Swift itself. Swift should just gives us more ways to get the speed, with appropriate tradeoffs. At least that's how I see it. If it gets nerfed directly (like it did on the current PTS), then it no longer is worthwhile as a trait compared to other sources of speed.

The solution I proposed was aimed at bringing things back in line with what we all considered reasonable prior to Swift, without directly hurting any trait or build people have already spent time/currency setting up.

Solariken

I wish they would learn to balance using a chisel instead of a jackhammer.

A cap on non-sprinting movement speed is very interesting, kudos for the idea/suggestion. 150% would be a more appropriate and intuitive number though.

I really hope ZOS tones back some of these speed nerfs...

chaz

I will express my opinion and say I have a problem with everything zenimax is doing.

How is it they figure ways to allow other players to have clear advantages over other players is beyond rhyme and reason.

I want zenimax to take their best player, the most likely to be #1, and copy their gear, sets, traits, mundus, pots, food, weapons over to my account and I promise you I will not be able to be "as good" as that player.

How many times have I wasted time and in game gold and mats making sets , traits and mundus based off of what is "said" to be BiS and BgE (best gear ever) only to be burned quicker than I was using my own stuff.

There is no 100% absolute solution here, and those of us that gigud naturally only find ourselves being nerfed when we just figure things out. How fair is that?

Wack!

GreenHere

Solariken wrote: »

I wish they would learn to balance using a chisel instead of a jackhammer.

A cap on non-sprinting movement speed is very interesting, kudos for the idea/suggestion. 150% would be a more appropriate and intuitive number though.

I really hope ZOS tones back some of these speed nerfs...

Thanks @Solariken , I wanted to offer a viable solution, and tried to reason out what was most likely to be a workable thing for the developers to look into.

The 142% was taken from what (if I'm not mistaken) the old speed cap was while you were in combat (and you happened to get Minor Expedition somehow). Without Sprinting, that is.

150% would be nice on one hand, but the higher you go, the more problematic targeting becomes; which is why Swift combined with all other speed buffs is kind of ruining PvP right now. I'm not sure where the sweet spot is, but before Swift existed 142% wasn't ever an issue -- it was just quite good. I hesitate to suggest letting us go any higher.

And I share your sentiment on their balancing tactics... does seem like they often skip over more sensible solutions to jump right into drastic changes. Does not make a lot of us feel good when they do it, either.

GreenHere

chaz wrote: »

I will express my opinion and say I have a problem with everything zenimax is doing.

How is it they figure ways to allow other players to have clear advantages over other players is beyond rhyme and reason.

I want zenimax to take their best player, the most likely to be #1, and copy their gear, sets, traits, mundus, pots, food, weapons over to my account and I promise you I will not be able to be "as good" as that player.

How many times have I wasted time and in game gold and mats making sets , traits and mundus based off of what is "said" to be BiS and BgE (best gear ever) only to be burned quicker than I was using my own stuff.

There is no 100% absolute solution here, and those of us that gigud naturally only find ourselves being nerfed when we just figure things out. How fair is that?

Wack!

I feel you. Too often if feels like the game is being balanced around the top tier minority in ways that hurt us average folk.

Hence threads like this, where I try to suggest more even-handed approaches to fixing the game in ways that are (hopefully) making things more fair for all of us. Not sure if anyone who can affect any changes even see these discussions, though. :P

NobleX35

I agree that a base movement speed cap should have been implemented instead of nerfing everything...It would have solved all the issues while not having to over nerf everything (especially things that did not need nerfing). I would argue that the cap should probably be higher than 142%, maybe something like 150% or 160%.

GreenHere

NobleX35 wrote: »

I agree that a base movement speed cap should have been implemented instead of nerfing everything...It would have solved all the issues while not having to over nerf everything (especially things that did not need nerfing). I would argue that the cap should probably be higher than 142%, maybe something like 150% or 160%.

Thanks for chiming in, @NobleX35 !

Just want to note, that the people you see zipping around in Cyrodiil at the moment, the ones that move so fast you can't target them in melee range, are going ~172% speed without sprinting. Not sure where it lies, but there's a fine line that exists where people are moving "too fast" for the game to keep up with. And 172% is over it, it seems.

Ruckly

Swift in itself is a problem. Magicka groups in cyrodill can run 3x swift and walk every wheres without using stamina at a decent click. Because they are walking instead of sprinting they can both spam purge and have a stamina reserve for break free. These groups are very very boring to fight. Spam razor caltrops/talons/fire ballista/oil ad infinitum.

Outside this one instance(boring magicka swift groups) the problem with swift is the ineffectiveness of gap closers. They miss every time. Otherwise you can use a ranged snare to slow down a single swift user unless they are a swift dodge spammer.

IMO swift should never have been a thing to begin with. But since it is a thing a nerf to it should targeted at the boring swift magicka groups first. Make it only affect sprint speed and not walk speed.

GreenHere

Ruckly wrote: »

Swift in itself is a problem. Magicka groups in cyrodill can run 3x swift and walk every wheres without using stamina at a decent click. Because they are walking instead of sprinting they can both spam purge and have a stamina reserve for break free. These groups are very very boring to fight. Spam razor caltrops/talons/fire ballista/oil ad infinitum.

Outside this one instance(boring magicka swift groups) the problem with swift is the ineffectiveness of gap closers. They miss every time. Otherwise you can use a ranged snare to slow down a single swift user unless they are a swift dodge spammer.

IMO swift should never have been a thing to begin with. But since it is a thing a nerf to it should targeted at the boring swift magicka groups first. Make it only affect sprint speed and not walk speed.

@Ruckly did you feel the same way about Major Expedition potions prior to Swift being in the game, though? Looked at separately (not stacked, as many run them currently), they are the same speed -- often Swift is less, since not everyone runs gold jewelry.

GreenHere

Hey @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Finn (or any mod who can help), could this thread be moved to the PTS category, please? I made it in the wrong section, not paying attention when I created it. If there's a way to move it myself, I couldn't figure it out :P

Ruckly

GreenHere wrote: »

Ruckly wrote: »

Swift in itself is a problem. Magicka groups in cyrodill can run 3x swift and walk every wheres without using stamina at a decent click. Because they are walking instead of sprinting they can both spam purge and have a stamina reserve for break free. These groups are very very boring to fight. Spam razor caltrops/talons/fire ballista/oil ad infinitum.

Outside this one instance(boring magicka swift groups) the problem with swift is the ineffectiveness of gap closers. They miss every time. Otherwise you can use a ranged snare to slow down a single swift user unless they are a swift dodge spammer.

IMO swift should never have been a thing to begin with. But since it is a thing a nerf to it should targeted at the boring swift magicka groups first. Make it only affect sprint speed and not walk speed.

@Ruckly did you feel the same way about Major Expedition potions prior to Swift being in the game, though? Looked at separately (not stacked, as many run them currently), they are the same speed -- often Swift is less, since not everyone runs gold jewelry.

Major expedition potions in general don't have 100% up time plus they use a potion slot plus if a group runs them they have to sync them so no one falls behind. In magicka groups that sync them it might be annoying but there is down time and at some point their walk speed drops to normal and they become more vulnerable to siege. Perpetual 30% walk speed from jewelry in magicka groups is boring to fight.

To answer your question major expedition potions were annoying. I do not feel the same way towards major expedition as I do towards swift. Major expedition is a buff and swift is a trait. If a person could put swift on their armor they would run 10 pieces of swift guaranteed. I myself use major expedition constant from coward's gear however it is only active while sprinting.

Glurin

GreenHere wrote: »

D'oh! Too late... they are neutering Swift, of course...

From today's PTS patch notes: "The Swift Jewelry Trait now increases movement speed by 6% at max quality, previously 10%."

Is it just me, or does ZOS have an uncanny ability to always do things in the exact way you'd hope they wouldn't?

I noticed in the PTS notes that they are also dramatically nerfing the duration of expedition and movement buffs.

Reduced the duration of the Major Expedition buff granted from some item sets to 8 seconds from 20 seconds.

Forward Momentum: Reduced the duration of the snare immunity from this ability to 4 seconds from 8 seconds.

Hasty Retreat: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

Quick Cloak: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

Fiery Grip: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 6 seconds.

Boundless Storm: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 7.5.

Falcon’s Swiftness: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 10 seconds.

GreenHere

Glurin wrote: »

GreenHere wrote: »

D'oh! Too late... they are neutering Swift, of course...

From today's PTS patch notes: "The Swift Jewelry Trait now increases movement speed by 6% at max quality, previously 10%."

Is it just me, or does ZOS have an uncanny ability to always do things in the exact way you'd hope they wouldn't?

I noticed in the PTS notes that they are also dramatically nerfing the duration of expedition and movement buffs.

Reduced the duration of the Major Expedition buff granted from some item sets to 8 seconds from 20 seconds.

Forward Momentum: Reduced the duration of the snare immunity from this ability to 4 seconds from 8 seconds.

Hasty Retreat: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

Quick Cloak: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

Fiery Grip: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 6 seconds.

Boundless Storm: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 7.5.

Falcon’s Swiftness: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 10 seconds.

Yup.

Anymore, the only thing that's Swift around here is the "just kicked in the nuts" feeling I get whenever nerf notes are released. I know it's not true, but at times it feels like ZOS takes more away from this game than they add to it. At least in the player ability department.

Olquorron

Just change Forward Momentum to provide a certain % snare reduction, and problem solved. You will then be able to root and snare overly swift players, and magicka classes like magplar/magden/magDK will actually be able to utilize their skills/passives.

Ruckly

Glurin wrote: »

GreenHere wrote: »

D'oh! Too late... they are neutering Swift, of course...

From today's PTS patch notes: "The Swift Jewelry Trait now increases movement speed by 6% at max quality, previously 10%."

Is it just me, or does ZOS have an uncanny ability to always do things in the exact way you'd hope they wouldn't?

I noticed in the PTS notes that they are also dramatically nerfing the duration of expedition and movement buffs.

Reduced the duration of the Major Expedition buff granted from some item sets to 8 seconds from 20 seconds.

Forward Momentum: Reduced the duration of the snare immunity from this ability to 4 seconds from 8 seconds.

Hasty Retreat: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

Quick Cloak: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

Fiery Grip: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 6 seconds.

Boundless Storm: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 7.5.

Falcon’s Swiftness: This ability now grants Major Expedition for a maximum of 4 seconds instead of 10 seconds.

I remember when quick cloak was 6 seconds of major expedition. Before 2h counted as two pieces it was a good way to move a magplar around. And boundless storm expedition is what makes a hybrid sorc fun in pve since you can run past a lot of trash. And silver leash is better than fiery grip anyways since you really need a decent stamina pool to get position. And falcon's swiftness is part of what makes a warden unique.

Androconium

GreenHere wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I will express my opinion and say I have a problem with everything zenimax is doing.

How is it they figure ways to allow other players to have clear advantages over other players is beyond rhyme and reason.

I want zenimax to take their best player, the most likely to be #1, and copy their gear, sets, traits, mundus, pots, food, weapons over to my account and I promise you I will not be able to be "as good" as that player.

How many times have I wasted time and in game gold and mats making sets , traits and mundus based off of what is "said" to be BiS and BgE (best gear ever) only to be burned quicker than I was using my own stuff.

There is no 100% absolute solution here, and those of us that gigud naturally only find ourselves being nerfed when we just figure things out. How fair is that?

Wack!

I feel you. Too often if feels like the game is being balanced around the top tier minority in ways that hurt us average folk.

Hence threads like this, where I try to suggest more even-handed approaches to fixing the game in ways that are (hopefully) making things more fair for all of us. Not sure if anyone who can affect any changes even see these discussions, though. :P

oops.

Saucy_Jack

I frankly don't know why they're nerfing swift. If someone is wearing sets that boost speed, with traits that boost speed, then they are automatically sacrificing set slots and trait slots that could have been put towards something else, most likely DPS.

If the classes tend to be niches (temps heal, DKs tank, sorcs DPS, etc.) I don't know why people can't keep the opportunity to build their own gear niches as well - in this case, a speed niche.

DanteYoda

Why on earth are these mechanics added.. did they not realise these things would wreck..

Ruckly

Ruckly wrote: »

GreenHere wrote: »

Ruckly wrote: »

Swift in itself is a problem. Magicka groups in cyrodill can run 3x swift and walk every wheres without using stamina at a decent click. Because they are walking instead of sprinting they can both spam purge and have a stamina reserve for break free. These groups are very very boring to fight. Spam razor caltrops/talons/fire ballista/oil ad infinitum.

Outside this one instance(boring magicka swift groups) the problem with swift is the ineffectiveness of gap closers. They miss every time. Otherwise you can use a ranged snare to slow down a single swift user unless they are a swift dodge spammer.

IMO swift should never have been a thing to begin with. But since it is a thing a nerf to it should targeted at the boring swift magicka groups first. Make it only affect sprint speed and not walk speed.

@Ruckly did you feel the same way about Major Expedition potions prior to Swift being in the game, though? Looked at separately (not stacked, as many run them currently), they are the same speed -- often Swift is less, since not everyone runs gold jewelry.

Major expedition potions in general don't have 100% up time plus they use a potion slot plus if a group runs them they have to sync them so no one falls behind. In magicka groups that sync them it might be annoying but there is down time and at some point their walk speed drops to normal and they become more vulnerable to siege. Perpetual 30% walk speed from jewelry in magicka groups is boring to fight.

To answer your question major expedition potions were annoying. I do not feel the same way towards major expedition as I do towards swift. Major expedition is a buff and swift is a trait. If a person could put swift on their armor they would run 10 pieces of swift guaranteed. I myself use major expedition constant from coward's gear however it is only active while sprinting.

Major expedition pots have a 100% up-time. For some reason I was thinking 30 seconds. Probably something to do with jewelry traits and clever alchemist. I like neither on magicka groups. I like it less when they are combined.

Jeremy

GreenHere wrote: »

With Swift being on the chopping block for nerfs sometime in the near future, I wanted to offer a solution I thought might work for everyone...

Introduce a 142% movement speed soft cap that applies when not Sprinting.

Walking/running speed (NOT Sprinting) is 100%, at base. Major Expedition is 30% increased movement speed, and Minor Expedition is 10%. Swift gives 10% more movement speed per piece at Legendary (gold) quality, at the cost of other jewelry traits. Windrunning, the CP passive, grants 2% bonus movement speed as well. Sprinting --using Stamina-- is 40% (without any Medium armor bonuses, or being an Orc which is another 12% added to Sprint speed).

So we can currently get to 172% movement speed without Sprinting, which is problematic. Base (100%) + 3xSwift (30%) + Major Expedition (30%) + Minor Expedition (10%) + Windrunning (2%). All without actively using any resources, and 100% uptime. Sprint, and you're hitting (and easily would surpass) the 200% movement speed hard cap.

If we had a soft cap of 142%, that would allow in-combat movement speed to be --at maximum-- similar to vanilla Sprint speed. That number allows for Major + Minor Expedition (so as to not make either buff useless) + Windrunning (because if you unlocked the perk, but are Major+Minor buffed, it'd be wasted if the cap was only 140%). OR, you could run 3 Swift + Minor Expedition; or 1-2 Swift + Major Expedition... or whatever. You're not moving faster than 142% movement speed unless you spend Stam to Sprint. The hard cap of 200%, which we already have on Live, is unchanged.

This way, Swift itself is untouched. It just reduces the need for other speed buffs, or supplements them if you're not moving "too fast" already. Swift still boosts your Sneak speed, and swimming speed. No one wasted transmute crystals. A large number of people aren't ticked off by yet another nerf they didn't deserve. At the end of the day, we're back at the old combat speed that used to be the upper limit before Swift was a thing; we just have alternate ways to get there. In short, Swift isn't completely ruined, which is exactly what I'm afraid is going to happen. Swift in itself isn't a problem. But combined with all the other speed modifiers, it's near game-breaking in PvP.

Stacking all the speed boosts is the issue, but I don't think any individual speed buff is a problem. Putting a limit on our non-Sprint speeds seems like the sensible solution.

I tried out x3 swift the other day (finally got those traits researched). It was alright. But in all honesty, I consider it a toss up when comparing to losing 3k in stats. I actually found myself preferring the extra health.

So I see no reason to nerf swift. If they do - it would just be one more unnecessary nerf whose only real impact is to make the game less fun.

Jeremy

Saucy_Jack wrote: »

I frankly don't know why they're nerfing swift. If someone is wearing sets that boost speed, with traits that boost speed, then they are automatically sacrificing set slots and trait slots that could have been put towards something else, most likely DPS.

If the classes tend to be niches (temps heal, DKs tank, sorcs DPS, etc.) I don't know why people can't keep the opportunity to build their own gear niches as well - in this case, a speed niche.

Agreed.

Why does everything that might frustrate a blood thirsty PvPer from zerging people to death have to be nerfed?

Anyone built for speed should be hard to catch. That's kinda the purpose. Leave swift alone. It comes with real and significant sacrifices.

GreenHere

Jeremy wrote: »

Saucy_Jack wrote: »

I frankly don't know why they're nerfing swift. If someone is wearing sets that boost speed, with traits that boost speed, then they are automatically sacrificing set slots and trait slots that could have been put towards something else, most likely DPS.

If the classes tend to be niches (temps heal, DKs tank, sorcs DPS, etc.) I don't know why people can't keep the opportunity to build their own gear niches as well - in this case, a speed niche.

Agreed.

Why does everything that might frustrate a blood thirsty PvPer from zerging people to death have to be nerfed?

Anyone built for speed should be hard to catch. That's kinda the purpose. Leave swift alone. It comes with real and significant sacrifices.

While I do not want to see Swift nerfed, I definitely agree that something needs to be done about the people moving so fast in PvP. Melee range fights against someone who's using all available speed boosts is silly level broken. It's honestly kind of funny how badly combat is ruined by these over-the-top speed builds. It really highlights some problems with the game and other mechanics.

BUT, as I've argued in this thread and elsewhere, Swift itself isn't the issue; just being able to get so high in speed is. They have the right idea bringing us down in max speed, but as usual they went about fixing it in the wrong way. You're right in that they're making the game less interesting and fun in (essentially) killing Swift as a trait.

MajBludd

What else is new? Apparently when they have the PTS for things like swift and sloads, etc. it seems they don't actually test anything if it gets nerfed down the road.
Glad I didn't transmute 2 pcs of jewelry last night to swift.

Isn't that what PTS is for? To find out if something is over performing or to find bugs?

I guess the cost of that swift trait will bottom out and we get more useless traits like fortified nirncrux.
Isn't that due for a buff or rework by now?

What they need is more proc sets. I mean crafted sets and monster sets. Make every set a proc set, since we are in essence dumbing down eso for casual players.

Why do you think so many people left, pvp anyway? I hate to see how many leave after Murkmire.