The Chisel vs The Hammer: An Open Letter to ZOS

rfennell_ESO

The problem people have is they never want their sculpture taken to with a hammer, even when it's warranted.

To claim that a hammer is never warranted is to claim the sculpture doesn't need to be changed.

CritsTheBed

Coming from the fresh sorc outrage it seems to me zos is making a lot of changes, then monitoring what the playerbase expresses, and then reverting some of the changes. Sort of like a test phase for the players on a public server. Like a public test server or maybe pts for short.

GlorphNoldorin

I think that's the point...its the scope of the changes that is the problem.....you know...the hammer

newtinmpls

Myux wrote: »

what the christ is this

It's a delightful ode to "Eric The Viking"

Go and watch it now.

NOW!

Get moving!

Minno

#nerfmire

Agreed.

templesus

+1.

Zenimax has made it clear they don’t want us to be able to 1vX in this game anymore. Tbh it’s not worth playing.

Vapirko

Good luck, people have been asking for small incremental changes for years. ZOS has continually favored large changes, then waiting up to six months or more to make further adjustment despite plentiful documentation of the issues faced. But I agree with others, well said. If ZOS has even a small shred of sense left they'll listen. But generally they don't seem able to take criticism or admit failures very well and changing the way they do things now would mean admitting years of mistakes.

IAVITNI

maboleth wrote: »

Aside from some changes coming in Nerfmire, I like ESO mechanics now much more than, say, 3 years ago. Despite some forumer opinions, I feel it is more balanced, different traits are used more, different mundus stones, everyone can combine different sets together with monster sets. Everything is more or less craftable and can be transmuted, even jewelry. CP points are now spread on many branches. You don't always have to be meta to have fun and be viable in PVP. Changes in Cyrodiil are VERY exciting indeed. Speaking of PVPers, do note that many are also BG-ing.

So, in my opinion, ZOS is doing quite well, considering how complex and big this game is. Are they always right? Hell no. Are they stubborn and sometimes having their heads in the sand? Yes.

Nevertheless, I like your post and a metaphor with the hammer and the chisel, so +1 for me.

But those changes aren't even choices made by the dev team by rather reluctant changes patches after they were suggested by the player base.

20% damage buff back to frags? Player suggested patch of change
Nerf Rune Cage? Player suggested patch of change
Morrowind Sustain Rollbacks? Player suggested patch of change
Defile Accessibility nerfs? Player suggested-arguably change only resulted due to rep input
Repentance change to allow multiple templars to use same body? Player suggested patch of change
Templar Rune Uptime buffs? Player suggested

The player base has literally forecasted all the positive changes that have occurred. They were often done prior or during the patch that the mechanics became an issue and it is often the same subset of players/community that suggests these changes.

ZoS only does a good job when it listens to people that actually play the game.

Quantum_V

Someone give this trophy a legend

NBrookus

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

The problem people have is they never want their sculpture taken to with a hammer, even when it's warranted.

To claim that a hammer is never warranted is to claim the sculpture doesn't need to be changed.

There's a time to rip the band-aid off, sure. Shield changes are, I think, just such an effort after years of tinkering with everything sorc other than the primary issue. Certainly it hasn't made sorcs happy each patch.

But the swift + heavy meta is pretty new. It's not hard to tell exactly what got introduced to make it a bigger problem than just the heavy meta.

Yet 3 months from now, we'll all be complaining about the Evasion meta, and how evasion + heavy is overperforming. Any guesses what will get nerfed then?

raknorok

why? blazing shield? really? was 25% damage nerf with the major evasion, im pro-choice and i just got an involuntary abortion. total eclipse of the heart, shame on 'bad devs' , really too bad i wanted to buy fallout too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOxhH8N3Bo

kaithuzar

@CyrusArya

I mostly agree you’re just forgetting 1 thing.
I’m a magicka player that uses forward momentum, so a nerf to that is also a nerf to me.

rfennell_ESO

NBrookus wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

The problem people have is they never want their sculpture taken to with a hammer, even when it's warranted.

To claim that a hammer is never warranted is to claim the sculpture doesn't need to be changed.

There's a time to rip the band-aid off, sure. Shield changes are, I think, just such an effort after years of tinkering with everything sorc other than the primary issue. Certainly it hasn't made sorcs happy each patch.

But the swift + heavy meta is pretty new. It's not hard to tell exactly what got introduced to make it a bigger problem than just the heavy meta.

Yet 3 months from now, we'll all be complaining about the Evasion meta, and how evasion + heavy is overperforming. Any guesses what will get nerfed then?

Shields and how they operated should have had a hammer taken to them a long time ago.

The only thing that I find a bit disturbing is that they make hammeresque changes frequently.

This game is nearly unrecognizable to it's vanilla form. It's a bit much and it's a bit hard to follow all the changes made.

RavenSworn

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

ERIK:HE was lucky...

(to Sven's dad)

Sit there.

SNORRI:You can't have Sven's father sitting next to Sven. They'll argue the whole time.

ERIK:That's true.

(to Sven)YOU'D better sit there.

(to Sven's dad)You there, and Ornulf there.

SNORRI:Now you've got all the big ones on one side.

Erik looks around. It is true that all the tall burly ones are on one side.

ERIK:All right, you go there. You here...

Sven's dad and Ornulf swap places.

SVEN'S DAD:Ohh! I wanted to sit next to Leif.

ERIK:Shut up. You there. You there and you there.

Ivar and Ornulf swap places. Erik surveys this re-arrangement.

ERIK:That's better.

SNORRI:Now you've got all the ones with beards on one side and all the moustaches on the other.

it's what I think of when people make comments about ZOS' decions

You're a legend bruv! 😎

StamWhipCultist

You are aware that open letters and petitions are against forum rules, amrite?

Gnozo

Such a good letter, Thanks.

Why ZOS comes in with the nuke Hammer. Always. They creating fast stamina movement Builds with swift. It works well with sources of major expedition. Instead of making it less usefull to stack, they go in nerf every source of major expedition and also swift. How about just reducing swift and see how it works out on live? More changes can come with next patch. Speed pots were never the problem until swift came up.

Same goes for shields. They want to nerf it and instead of smal changes they go deep balls in and shoot them to Oblivion. Making shields share your resistences and also be critable is more then enough for pvp. Monitor how it will work on live and if it needs adjustments for next patch.

Pls dont kill solo and smal scale pvp. Pls dont kill it.

Derra

100% agree on everything said.

It feels like they´re carpetbombing problems with no regard for innocent bystanders instead of opting for a commando balancing opperation

Lake

I think they just do not have enough staff. Hence why they hired that streamer a little while ago.

Feanor

The most puzzling thing to me is: Why? Why are they doing all this? The changes don’t make the game easier for new players, and only worse for experienced ones. Everyone is a loser in this situation. So. Why?

Vapirko

Feanor wrote: »

The most puzzling thing to me is: Why? Why are they doing all this? The changes don’t make the game easier for new players, and only worse for experienced ones. Everyone is a loser in this situation. So. Why?

Because the actually don’t play their own game and have no idea what to do but don’t want to admit it. Also, unless we’re much mistaken, the funding is on crown items and selling copies, not balance. So they allocate a small amount of time to actual balance and testing, dump out a bunch of *** and then say smell ya later.

Gnozo

Feanor wrote: »

The most puzzling thing to me is: Why? Why are they doing all this? The changes don’t make the game easier for new players, and only worse for experienced ones. Everyone is a loser in this situation. So. Why?

By nerfing good players they buff bad players. Their target audience. New players come to the game, buy a lot of stuff in crown store. Come to cyro, write lfg and get outplayed by either a good smalscale group or following a sorc for 20minutes wondering why their hp bar doesnt show up from epic overpowered light attack spam and then gets bursted down after 80% of the group gave up on chasing.

They get frustrated to be free AP for every veteran player and tend to leave the game. ZOS needs new players and their money so they nerf veteran players cause they already got farmed....by ZOS.

But somehow ZOS doesnt understand that veteran players dont feel rewarded for being good at this game cause every zergling can put on sloads, skoria and another cancer set and be a really pain to fight. Without being really happy veteran players dont spend money cause they dont want to support a game/company thats threads like like trash.

BalticBlues

The Murkmire combat changes are a so extensive, what we see here is a redesign of the game. However, such a redesign requires not only weeks but months of testing - otherwise the balance can suffer immensely.

What is Balancing? Balancing means FINE-TUNING by slowly getting to a sweet spot by changing MINOR aspects in MODERATE ways. In contrast, this patch is using a HAMMER to beat on several things at the same time, as the OP said. Moreover, by rushing this process for Murkmire it is guaranteed that BALANCE IS GETTING WORSE NOT BETTER.

ZOS, please slow down the hammering on the combat system before the train derails.
Please do not rush all these massive changes into the next patch. Think about the Christmas sales.

The way of Balance - changing MINOR aspects patiently in MODERATE WAYS:


The way of Murkmire - changing MAJOR aspects in a rush and at AT THE SAME TIME:

zyk

I think the main problem with combat balance in ESO is that ZOS is insistent on maintaining one set of rules for disparate styles of play.

Within PVE, the game must be balanced so the most casual players can be successful without even knowing how to play. Then there are 4 player dungeons, and 4-12 player Trials that generally come in three difficulties, Normal, Vet and HM. Players demand all classes be competitive in tanking, healing and especially DPS roles. And then there's vMA which every class is expected to be competitive in solo.

Just balancing PVE alone would be a headache. Add PVP to the mix, and it becomes an migraine aneurysm. Within PVP, there's AvA, IC, BGs and duels. Though Battlegrounds is only 4 players, AvA and IC must be balance for solo, small/medium/large group, and surfing. In AvA and IC, players of all skill levels are thrown in the same arena and the rules are expected to provide all with a good experience.

Then there's two build archetypes, Magicka and Stamina, which also must be competitive with each other in all of these things.

Good luck with that.

hakan

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

ERIK:HE was lucky...

(to Sven's dad)

Sit there.

SNORRI:You can't have Sven's father sitting next to Sven. They'll argue the whole time.

ERIK:That's true.

(to Sven)YOU'D better sit there.

(to Sven's dad)You there, and Ornulf there.

SNORRI:Now you've got all the big ones on one side.

Erik looks around. It is true that all the tall burly ones are on one side.

ERIK:All right, you go there. You here...

Sven's dad and Ornulf swap places.

SVEN'S DAD:Ohh! I wanted to sit next to Leif.

ERIK:Shut up. You there. You there and you there.

Ivar and Ornulf swap places. Erik surveys this re-arrangement.

ERIK:That's better.

SNORRI:Now you've got all the ones with beards on one side and all the moustaches on the other.

it's what I think of when people make comments about ZOS' decions

this " no matter what you do someone will be upset" behaviour is the most *** thing ive ever seen in this type of discussions.

ignore the " i want this reeeee" type of people and focus on the real problem. dont go overnerf. there are lots of players that provide info without any money or whatever and just want game to be better. thats it.

saying " meh whatever you do bla bla bla" is lazy and ignorant.

Malamar1229

The hell's up with the frags projectile speed nerf lol. Where did that come from. As if it wasnt easily telegraphed already

TheYKcid

My hopes were high when I read about the swift and FM nerfs, but I was left scratching my head by the time I was done reading 4.2.2.

Cutting the Boundless major expedition duration by nearly half? Seriously? Sorc mobility was already a meme before these changes...

On a broader scale, I'm very dismayed by the way ZOS has been aggressively pushing standardised design across many aspects of the game lately. A good example being the homogenisation of the way conditionally-procced skills like whip/frags/spectral bow function.

Now we get all ability-based sources of major expedition nerfed to 4s with zero consideration for the context in which they are used, nor by which classes they are used.

They're not just out of touch with combat, they're actively trying to suck the uniqueness out of it. It's unbelievable.

WeyounTM

I agree with everything said in the OP and it was well put together. Right now, instead of feeling a huge hype for a new DLC coming along, I mostly see the opposite in the community. It being called "Nerfmire" should indicate to you that you have gone way to far and it is beginning to overshadow anything that might be actual worthwile in the upcoming DLC...

jcm2606 wrote: »

And we're seeing it crystal clear in these latest patch notes with mobility. Most people come to the general consensus that what is overperforming is the interaction between Swift, Major Expedition, and Forward Momentum, and at the heart, it is Forward Momentum causing this interaction to be way too strong. The counter to speed is snares and immobilisations, but through Forward Momentum, somebody can gain complete snare immunity for 8 seconds with 100% uptime. But instead of just adjusting Forward Momentum, maybe even bringing Swift down a little, you guys decide to nerf mobility across the board, in places it really didn't need to be nerfed.

Personally I enjoyed having 2 swift traits on my rings on most of my stam toons now. I am pretty reluctant to use speed pots at all and getting my slow templar to actual move a bit faster was a great relief. Now, with this huge nerf I might actually just don't bother with the trait anymore.
On a sidenote, since jewelry crafting is kinda newish to the game and not everyone uses gold jewelry to begin with....you just need to need to look at the purple quality bonus swift will now "grant" you: 5 % speed instead of 9%. Meanwhile if you look at the difference in other traits....what amount of stam and mag or weapondamage do you actually lose there in comparison? In my opinion this has gone way too far by ZOS looking squarly at the huge outliers in the system and deciding to just nerf it all.

I am truly gutted now and can only hope that they will listen a bit and adjust accordingly.

Rungar

speaking of hammers...

do you think we can get a staff motif that looks a bit like a hammer for the grand master crafter achievement. My templar healer/crafter doesnt use 1 handers...

all you gotta do is make the shaft longer...

RedRook

jcm2606 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Wrobel @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RobGarrett I implore you guys to read this thread. Please. I was going to make the exact same thread earlier today, but decided not to because I simply couldn't put it into words, but OP has put it perfectly.

The "chisel versus hammer" approach you guys are taking is killing the game for its core audience. This patch has been a prime example within a whole list of prime examples of how bad this approach to balancing can be.

We saw it with Morrowind, where sustain was going unchecked in PVP, primarily due to CP, but rather than looking at the fine details of the problem, you guys decided to just nerf sustain outright and the game is still trying to recover from that to this day.

We saw it with Horns of the Reach, where one specific build on the PTS was slightly overperforming (stacking into crit with Mother's Sorrow and Iceheart), and the community even guided you on what to do to bring this build back in line (slightly nerf the 5-piece bonus of Mother's Sorrow), but you guys decided to nerf crit outright, pushing everybody back to the Morrowind meta.

We saw it with Summerset and subsequent patches, including Wolfhunter, where one of Sorcerer's skills was overperforming, and rather than taking a step back and finding what exactly is making it so strong (granted the community couldn't come to that consensus either), you guys decided to pile nerf on top of nerf on top of nerf onto this skill, making it practically useless, all in the name of removing the stun from frags.

We've seen it many times over in the other patches since One Tamriel, though I can't speak to patches prior to that as I wasn't playing the game back then.

We're still seeing it now, arguably as bad as Morrowind. You guys seem adamant that shields are overperforming in both PVE and PVP, though rather than adding a few nerfs (namely the crit nerf and the resistance buff) then seeing how shields play, you guys decided to hit shields with a huge nerf via a cast time. It is good that you reverted it, and the new health scaling nerf can be argued for being better or worse, but the very fact that you guys piled 3 big nerfs onto them, before even letting players test the impact of them, is the problem.

And we're seeing it crystal clear in these latest patch notes with mobility. Most people come to the general consensus that what is overperforming is the interaction between Swift, Major Expedition, and Forward Momentum, and at the heart, it is Forward Momentum causing this interaction to be way too strong. The counter to speed is snares and immobilisations, but through Forward Momentum, somebody can gain complete snare immunity for 8 seconds with 100% uptime. But instead of just adjusting Forward Momentum, maybe even bringing Swift down a little, you guys decide to nerf mobility across the board, in places it really didn't need to be nerfed.

What makes this so much more infuriating is that you guys are so close to achieving great balance most of the time, but you screw the pooch by overnerfing. Rather than going at a problem with a nerf scalpel, you go at it with a nerf sledgehammer, consequently destroying the patient, the table, and the floor. This has been proven time and time again, and will continue to happen until you guys do something about it.

If you need help identifying issues, why not talk to the community about it. Come onto the forums and ask us what the problem is with x, then monitor responses. Or, hell, why not use the class reps program you guys have going. Before even planning out changes, let alone doing them, ask the reps what the problem is with x, and what they suggest doing about it.

To sum it up, please, just forego the "chisel versus hammer" approach you guys have towards balancing. It is not working, it has never worked, and only serves to drive players away.

Agree.

Oddly though, in my observation they're doing better than they have before. Communicating with us more, listening more, even requesting (albeit only in very specific forms) input. Unfortunately they're getting better very slowly, and in the meantime they're still making lots of big changes all at once, and every patch the game is significantly different than it was the patch before.

They are married to the CP system, which is where powercreep should be addressed first, and isn't and won't be. They are stuck, just like the player base, with a poorly performing megaserver - which is, I suspect, the driving force toward the heavy-and-light-attacks-online combat system they've been building since the Morrowind nerfsplosion. And apparently some marketing genius somewhere has instructed them to upend the meta regularly and frequently to keep people interested? I don't know. I think they have their reasons. I think they're making a sincere and good-faith effort within their constraints to make and maintain a good game.

All of that conceded though, they always go way too big. Nerf first and ask questions later, readjust and readjust to give back some of what they never needed to take in the first place, and it's frustrating as hell. I agree with the OP.

Biro123

The problem with listening to the players, though - is which players are they listening to?