Stop nerfing small scale

tannips

It's no secret that this is arguably the most controversial patch this game has seen to date. Each patch we see more and more mindless changes that do more harm to the state of the game than it does to help it. Sloads was a terrible addition to the game. It was clear the moment it got released that it would be OP and yet it was somehow missed by the developers despite the feedback during the PTS cycle. Virtually everybody ran that set and as a result it hurt small scale especially due to being a perfect Xv1 set that stacked with itself and refreshed on cooldown. Now with this patch we see things like Soldier of Anguish that will especially hurt players that are solo/in small groups. The devs have to take balance more seriously and listen to their community if the game is going to progress and go down the right path. The drastic changes to gameplay that keep being introduced each patch has to stop. Mindless proc sets like zaan/sloads/soldier of anguish have to stop.

Bleeds and sloads were both intended to counter tanky builds, but instead they countered the average ones the most. Soldier of Anguish is intended to prevent massive amounts of healing, but will counter average builds even more so (small scale PvP the most, as they do not have the amount of healing that large groups are capable of).

Nerfing the swift trait was a great move, but major expedition is not the problem, nor was it. By reducing the uptime of major expedition across the boards with the only exception being rapids, players that don't play in large groups have effectively been gutted of one of their best defenses against larger groups. The only people this change benefits are the groups of 15+ that will halt what they're doing so they can chase down a group of 4 people halfway across the map. A vast majority of the small scale community recognizes that ZOS does not intend for 1 person to be able to take on an entire group. Numbers give a natural advantage. So be it. On the other side of the coin, having more numbers should not be the deciding factor in which group wins. As time goes on and new updates are released, it becomes more and more obvious that ZOS wants numbers to triumph over all.

Speed pots took a massive hit. Going from 40s of major expedition down to roughly 16s at best is laughable. Rather than nerfing speed pots to such an outrageous level, it would have been better to simply give magic classes access to reliable snare removal and a magicka speed pots to put them on par with stam classes. The class representatives even voiced to the developers that major expedition was not the issue. Why even bother having a system like this in place if there is only limited attempt to actually make balance changes based on community feedback?

del9

I agree this is the most extreme hit that small scale has ever taken. The changes are too drastic.

Every speed and mobility ability/mechanic has been halved or worse. The only mobility skill that scales better with large groups has been untouched.

This is not the way.

There is a right way. We want to work with you on this. An example of a thought out, incremental change that we can support:

Stinging Slashes: Reduced the bonus granted to each tick of Twin Slashes to 1350 extra damage from 1500.

VaranisArano

Organized groups should be able to take on many times their number of disorganized players, whatever the size of the organized group.

But small organized groups will always struggle with large organized groups. The larger organized groups are always able to use skills and sets more effectively due to their numbers and the tactics that use those numbers effectively.