About "Nerfs"

Wytch

I just want to put this here in the hopes that ZOS will take note of it and consider this in the future when pondering balance stuff.

I agree that a game like this needs a bit of balancing from time to time. With an ever-changing/evolving game like ESO, balance is going to be a struggle. One of the things I've always loved about this game is the "play how you want to play" mindset that seems to be imbued in the game. I personally like the solo play experience with a bit of group content sprinkled in here and there.

With these points in mind, and speaking from a fairly solo, very casual perspective, I ask you, ZOS, please take into consideration who your changes/nerfs effect. Casual/solo play gets quite a bit more difficult when a lot of your utility gets offloaded "because it can be provided by other players or sources" etc.

This video can explain what I'm trying to say better, but basically most of the nerfs that tend to happen are implemented b/c the tryhards (I don't mean that negatively, I mean that litterally, they "Try Hard" to do the best they can with what they have) have found ways to use abilities and skills in really amazing ways. And hey, good for them, that's a nice accomplishment for the people that enjoy a challenge like that. But, as that video explains, that's not even CLOSE to a majority of the players. Those players aren't particularly affected by such nerfs because a week later they've figured out something else that makes up for it. So, basically, the people affected by the nerfs (the majority of players) are the people that really need to NOT be nerfed.

Think about it... on the PvE side of things... nerfs go thru because some high tier raiding guild cleared a vet hard-mode speed-run in some stupid easy way or something... so nerfs go thru, and most people suffer for it... except the people it was aimed at b/c they quickly find another way to do what they were doing. Buff the hard-mode or add a new difficulty level, don't nerf everyone else.

That might be slightly exaggerated or completely inaccurate, I honestly don't know because I am not into trial content. That's not my thing. But as a member of the quiet-majority, that's how it looks. Quiet majority meaning we're not all in here complaining every day until something gets "fixed" like the squeaky-wheel that is the top-tier 5%. But ZOS, ask yourself this? Who's spending more money on the game? The people running the same stuff over and over and over again? Or the people buying loads of crowns to get houses and furnishings and motifs and mounts etc.

On the PvP side of things, NOTING you can do will appease the PvP'ers. There will always be someone tanky enough to survive 20v1, there will always be someone sneaky enough to murder unseen... you could take away all weps, armor, and class skills, and the PvP'ers would STILL find ways to gank each other bare-fisted. Again, I wouldn't know from experience as I avoid PvP like the plague. I have to hope that eventually, I will have enough AP from daily login rewards to get caltrops lol.

My point in all of this is please, don't nerf the majority for the actions of the minority that will barely even be affected by the nerfs, if at all.


Now... to all the keyboard warriors and internet trolls that are about to roast me for this post, or just for being a "filthy casual," don't waste your energy. I've said my piece, I MIGHT check this post once a week or something... IF I remember, and only to see if ZOS has replied, so your words and hate will be wasted.

Katahdin

I agree
While the Devs may read this.
They wont acknowledge it
They wont talk about it
Nothing will change.


.

Ysbriel

This post should actually be bumped up and pinned were all the patch notes are, not just for ZOS but for those here that always use the “power creep” narrative to defend nerf and other things like “class diversity”

GeorgeBlack

What exacly are pve nerfs?
30k dps used to be godlike. Then 50k. Then 80k and 90k.
How are you having difficulty clearing pve?
Oh! Are you pve ppl competing against each other for a score? Great fun....

SidraWillowsky

GeorgeBlack wrote: »

What exacly are pve nerfs?
30k dps used to be godlike. Then 50k. Then 80k and 90k.
How are you having difficulty clearing pve?
Oh! Are you pve ppl competing against each other for a score? Great fun....

Oh ok, so because a small group of you are having trouble with... what, exactly?? ZOS should cater to the 10% of the ~25% of the player base who would benefit from these changes? When my PvP guild encounters these "OP" builds that cause people to cry for nerfs all people do it roll their eyes and send a few people to focus on them. There's no whining, there's no crying, there's just "sigh... someone or a few people need to go kill that nightblade ganker".

Oh!, and PvE people ARE competing against each other for scores (vet trials, other leaderboards), it's just not directly fighting each other. And the people pulling 80-90k DPS are in the top 5% of players, and those numbers are almost never seen outside of groups that are geared to the teeth and plan their skills meticulously for optimal timing. Go look at the buffs/debuffs on one of those iron atronauch trial dummies. I don't count those 80-90k parses as actual representations of how most people are doing. I got 70k on one, which is about 25k higher than my best parses on "normal" dummies.

But please, continue acting as if PvP concerns are so much more important than PvE concerns

Iskiab

What ‘nerfs’ is the OP talking about. It’s too general.

ccmedaddy

Wytch wrote: »

With these points in mind, and speaking from a fairly solo, very casual perspective, I ask you, ZOS, please take into consideration who your changes/nerfs effect. Casual/solo play gets quite a bit more difficult when a lot of your utility gets offloaded "because it can be provided by other players or sources" etc.

So.... what overland solo content are you having trouble clearing as a result of the nerfs? o.o

Kurat

Most nerfs happen because of pvp

russelmmendoza

Nerfs happens because of pve.

Delves, dungeons and trials bosses are complaining they get melted way to fast to even pose a challenge to players doing pve content.

Npc's all over tamriel and beyond, are complaining that players in pve area are one shotting them and that they couldnt even fire off a single attack before they die.

All the cry for nerfs are coming from pve.

And zos always listens to their npc's, specially the bosses in delves, dungeons and trials.

SHEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH

IonicKai

I actually kind of agree with the OP that a lot of nerfs failed to accomplish their intended goal and only served to widen the gap between the ceiling and the middle (the floor is a separate issue since that is mostly a lack of basic game knowledge which the tutorials could do a better job with). I think they should really strongly consider giving abilities different tool tips when used against a player (they have done this with a couple skills) for more abilities so they don't have to get their usefulness in solo play or PVE. For example following this approach could have meant that surprise attack keeps major fracture in PVE but only applies minor fracture in PvP (a much more reasonable debuff from a spamable against a player).

AcadianPaladin

I agree that nerfs generally miss the mark. Examples:

Magic shields nerf. Neither PvE nor PvP asked for it. ZoS said purpose was to make healers more relevant. Healers (myself included) said the main reason healer relevance was a problem was one shot mechanics, not magic shields. Input was ignored and another poorly conceived nerf went live.

Snipe damage nerf. PvE has never had a problem with snipe and it was never overpowered, given its cast time. PvP has long complained about snipe, but the real problem there has always been some sort of a desync thing where a player could be hit by multiple snipes within a second or two. Reducing snipe damage did not address the problem at all. Another poorly conceived nerf went live.

Over the last three years I have come to view each significant 'update' with dread because of nerfs that simply make my game less fun.

Wytch

Posts #10 and #11 are EXACTLY what I was getting at with my initial rant. I wasn't ranting about any specific nerfs, but the general uselessness and harm caused by nerfs overall. Nerfs are typically (tho I do believe, not always) aimed at a specific group of players. As I said in my initial post, I affectionally call this group "tryhards" because they set themselves a challenging goal and try hard to reach that goal. Tryhards exist in EVERY aspect of the game, not just PvE or PvP. There are tryhards playing the game solo, some going as far as soloing world bosses. There are tryhards in crafting, in gold-making, in material farming, even in roleplaying and housing. I call them tryhards, others might call them min-maxers, salty people sometimes call them no-lifers.

It doesn't matter what you call them. What matters is that they are a SMALL MINORITY of the player base! And the people nerfs are aimed at are an even smaller portion than that. Do you think the tryhards of crafting, gold-making, farming, roleplaying, or housing are in any way affected by the nerfs?

So, it's the combat based tryhards that nerfs are really aimed at. Tryhards that, no matter what you nerf, will ALWAYS TRY HARD to do the best they can, adjusting around the nerfs, often to the point that they are hardly affected by them.

To recap, you have a group of MAYBE 10% of the player base being so awesome that nerfs get implemented. After a week or two, those same people have found ways around the nerfs to the point that they MAYBE lost 5% of their DPS/Survivability etc overall. That leaves the other 90% of the player base struggling to adjust in the hopes they can eventually get back to the level they were used to or happy with.

Look at the examples in post #11. Magic shields got nerfed, but completely ignored the stated purpose of the nerf and only pi$$ed off healers that suddenly had to work a lot harder, DPS/Tanks that had healers in their group that couldn't adjust very quickly to the nerfs, and soloers that made heavy use of those shields int heir solo builds.

The Snipe nerf... WTF happened there? It was only an issue in PVP and ONLY in cases of desynch issues... FIX THE SYNCH don't nerf the skill!

As someone that actively avoids PVP, I am not sure about this next example, but it sounds legit and if it is accurate, then it fully illustrates how a nerf can go horribly wrong for those people that do PVP. An excerpt from a different thread follows...
***
"Also regarding merciless resolve... while in Cyrodiil the heal is essentially quartered; first all damage in cyro is halved naturally; second, the skill heals for half, but then that heal is halved.

As an example, in a PvE environment, if I do 10000 damage with merciless the heal is for 5000. Whereas in cyrodiil if merciless does that same 10000 damage, it is halved by cyrodiil making it 5000 damage, then the skill heals for half, but that heal is halved too. So, for 10k damage, halved in cyrodiil brings it to 5k, but the skill halves the heal so 2.5k, but then cyrodiil halves the heal too, so you heal for 1250. With a distance condition. We're told this was to be a burst heal."
***

In case anyone missed it... the original point of this thread is NOT to single out any groups of players in particular... but rather to point out that the NERFS are implemented by DEVS that ARE singling out a particular (minority) group of players to nerf, but that those same nerfs affect the targeted group the LEAST! And the majority of the players are the ones that end up screwed over because of a minority target that badly misses the mark every time. Nerfs are like teaching a blind man to play darts... it's possible he'll hit a bullseye, but most of time it's a lot of other people that end of in the hospital.

Neloth

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Magic shields nerf. Neither PvE nor PvP asked for it. ZoS said purpose was to make healers more relevant. Healers (myself included) said the main reason healer relevance was a problem was one shot mechanics, not magic shields. Input was ignored and another poorly conceived nerf went live.

Which shield nerf? My magsorc's 15k hardened ward with 23k+ resists and minor protection is actually stronger than my hardened + harness + healing ward stack in 1.6.

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Snipe damage nerf. PvE has never had a problem with snipe and it was never overpowered, given its cast time. PvP has long complained about snipe, but the real problem there has always been some sort of a desync thing where a player could be hit by multiple snipes within a second or two. Reducing snipe damage did not address the problem at all. Another poorly conceived nerf went live.

Idk, this patch I haven't died to several desynced 10k+ snipes yet, and this is a good thing.

IonicKai

@Neloth the shield Nerf was in murkmire and more or less didn't affect PvP. It was a PVE nerf that was poorly received and unnecessary. Shields are terrible in PVE now to the point that you are better off slotting something else most of the time. It was meant to reduce mag survivability in an almost direct response to vCR being crushed by all magblades that had a good size shield and plenty of self/ group healing.

Ironically even though the original shield fix was to halve shields in PvP to make them more reasonable in that environment, making the murkmire change actually made shields stronger in PvP then in PVE since it is capped by max health.

THEDKEXPERIENCE

I actually think this is one of the most well stated and least combative nerf posts I’ve ever read. You make a lot of good points.

We all love to blame the other guy but PVE and PVP have both been responsible for nerfs, and you’re right, usually that’s because someone smart figured out something that the devs didn’t consider. That’s not even a slight on the devs, because more people test their work in the first day it’s released than what is mathematically even possible during its development cycle. Stuff happens.

The snipe example was spot on. I’m not sure there is anything that has cost me more lives than being insta-double shot dysnc’d. The shield nerf, ironically, well I thought they were referring to the original nerf when the shields went from 20 seconds to 6. You don’t know what frustration is until you’re stuck hitting a perma-shielding sorc who just claps in your face under a bridge in the Imperial City. Oh wow you should have seen the tears on this forum that week. “The humanity, how can I possibly shield stack in only 6 seconds!” type stuff.

Conversely the person who made the point about PVE balance is spot on. Doshia does not have a forum account to complain about you mean, blood thirsty PVErs who won’t let her get out her evil doer monologue. Balance in PVE should be a good fight against a quality opponent, not “this is BS that I got nerfed into just 60k damage bro!”

But, alas, you can’t nerf smart people. And though many of those people don’t have YouTube accounts, or even talk to more than a small handful of people, no matter what you do those people will eventually put up scores in PVE and PVP where people with YouTube accounts notice. Then ... BAM ... the insano build becomes “meta” and at that point it’s often like a disease that needs to be killed.

Even if the meta is exaggerated and only 5 to 10% of people follow it, as opposed to “everybody” like often claimed, that’s still enough to put a strain on both PVP balance and PVE’s previous high scores. When that happens the nerf hammer needs to come.

Anyway, congratulations OP, just by making a forum account you’re instantly 90% ahead of the game and now part of the problem. You’re no longer casual. You, my good sir or madam, are now a try hard as well. Welcome aboard, but careful with your shoes because the water is quite salty over here.

Wytch

THEDKEXPERIENCE wrote: »

Anyway, congratulations OP, just by making a forum account you’re instantly 90% ahead of the game and now part of the problem. You’re no longer casual. You, my good sir or madam, are now a try hard as well. Welcome aboard, but careful with your shoes because the water is quite salty over here.

LUL. Thanks... I think :-P Still not a try hard tho. I only started going into Cyrodiil recently to get skyshards... and that's only because of the change that lets us buy shards on alts. Only doing it so that I'll never have to do it again lol. And don't even get me started on MA... Seen some vids and streams of people doing vMA. I have no intention of ever setting foot in normal even, let alone vet lol. That's just not my idea of a fun time, no matter how much I might want to try out the bow that can come from it.

To be honest, I only even made a forum account because of the sheer number of people I have seen in guild chats complaining about this or that nerf and refusing to put in tickets or post to the forums because they feel, and I quote "It's just a waste of time. The only people that even read or reply to them are people that are salty about something else and want to put you down because their complaint is oh so much more valid."

I'm a WoW refugee. I've seen how salty and toxic a community can become. WoW now only focuses on endgame PvP and Raids, and no longer gives half a flying leap about what the community thinks. I came to ESO because everything I have seen and experienced has been sooooooo much more positive. Sure there are trolls here and there, but that's gonna happen anywhere. The players I've encountered are friendly and helpful, and honestly, even most of those that I call tryhards are nice and try to help.

ESO is REALLY a game where you can play almost any way you like, be it crafting, achievement hunting, trials, pvp, roleplaying, even house decorating and so on. I want to see it STAY as awesome as it is, or even get better if that's possible. I don't want to see it devolve into a sewer and drive me away like WoW did. THAT'S why I originally posted... to give voice to some of the issues of the people that DON'T speak up for whatever reason. And it's because of some of the amazing responses I've gotten here that keeps me checking back from time to time and posting replies when I never intended to. Maybe, one of these days, replying will bump it at the right time for a dev or community manager to actually take note of it and give what we've all said here some thought.

And yes, one of the reasons I've never been one to speak up before is that besides the occasional nerf, the things that most annoy me are usually more cosmetic in nature, like invisible walls in stupid places, not being able to mount in houses, or stuff related to the crown store like houses/costumes/furnishing packs etc being limited time, or the fact that I can't trade my assistants in for the new Alfiq versions lol.

There are more issues than just PvP/PvE things... and while the devs certainly do a decent job or trying to stay on top of it all, from what I can gather, they rarely ever put focus on any of those other things, because "it's the squeaky wheel that gets the oil" and most of the people I hear complaints from don't like to BE the squeaky wheel. I just want to remind devs that there are other things they can work on other than "nerfs that will barely effect most of the target and will typically annoy all the others the nerfs likely were not aimed at."

Also, thank you for your comment of "I actually think this is one of the most well stated and least combative nerf posts I’ve ever read." That means a lot to me. That and the fact that most of the replies to this thread have been very civil is very nice. I try to make my posts/replies as non-confrontational as possible because it should be possible to have civil, well thought out discussions, even disagreements. In that spirit, thank you to everyone that has replied, even those that might not agree.

Tommy_The_Gun

Tbh. OP is right. Nerfs affect the most an "average joe" type of players, you know, the ppl who strugle to do simpliest vet content.
Also, as OP pointed out, those ppl are not the cause of nerfs. It is the top players who can achive insanly high results in both PvP & PvE. Simple example: NB lost their minor berserker buff. Does it affects the group play ? No, because you can get buff elsewhere. But as a solo player ? No u cant. This nerf affects you and only you. And speaking of group play, how do you think, will you be able to get this buff while puging normal base game dungeon via group finder ? Probably not. But as an organized end game pve raid you will get it with no problem.
It is almost the same as perfected gear. Already good players get this gear and as a result the gap betwean the low skilled players (who dont have that gear) gets even bigger.

Trancestor

"Some going as far as soloing world bosses" yikes...

Wytch

Trancestor wrote: »

"Some going as far as soloing world bosses" yikes...

Oh yeah. Just take a look around youtube sometime. You can find all sorts of builds designed specifically for soloing world bosses. It takes a freaking long time even with a special build for it, but it can be done.

And for the people that can do that... awesome. Good work, well done.

But if the devs don't like that someone can solo a world boss, and decided to nerf something in that build to make doing so much harder or impossible, that's going to have an effect on everyone that uses whatever got nerfed from that build (be it a set bonus, class skill, food buff, potion, etc.) But the people that were using "that build" will grumble and moan about it for a little bit, and then work something else into their build to replace whatever got nerfed.

Meanwhile, the nerf will continue to have an effect on EVERYONE ELSE THAT WASN'T DOING ANYTHING REMOTELY CLOSE TO THE REASON IT WAS NERFED IN THE FIRST PLACE! Ahem... excuse me. Didn't initially intend to break into a rant there.

But my point stands... nerfs have far-reaching effects beyond the initial target of the nerf. When that target is such a small percentage of the player base... is a nerf really the right answer?

Let's look at the two very good examples above. Healer Relevance. Healers were apparently getting very frustrated over their seeming uselessness because of one-shot mechanics. I can understand that frustration. What's the point of bringing healers into a trial if a boss is just going to wink at you and half your group just drops dead instantly? What was the response of the devs? Nerf magic shields so that people can ALSO die to other stuff or make healers work even harder than they already have to.

I didn't start this thread to attack devs, I really didn't, but growth doesn't happen without some criticism. The fact is, if "one-shot mechanics" are the only way you can make your content more challenging, you're doing something WRONG.

The other good example that was listed in a previous reply was snipe. Snipe got a nerf because of gankers in Cyrodiil taking advantage of a desynch issue that can happen, thus causing two or more snipes to hit a target near-instantly. I can understand how that would really bother the victims of that. The only time I ever go into Cyrodiil is when I feel it's safe enough to go after some skyshards so that my alts will never have to go in there. If I got taken out like that while running to a shard or delve, I'd be pretty hacked off too.

But, on the other side of that, (and I can't believe I'm about to defend gankers here) it is literally a FREAKING WARZONE! You think that there haven't been snipers in war before? That ambushes can't spring up to surprise you and wipe out most of your unit in a few seconds? Welcome to WAR people! Suck it up or don't play PvP! I don't like to ruin another player's experience any more than I like to have my own experience ruined, so I don't PvP. If you get such a thrill out of ambushing an enemy but can't take it when you're on the other side of an ambush, you're either a bully or just a sore loser, and if you're either of those, you have NO BUSINESS CRYING FOR NERFS!

Ahem... I should wrap this up soon before I go into full rant mode. But my point with the snipe nerf was, that rather than fixing whatever issue is causing these desyncs to happen, snipe got a nerf instead. Now... people that exploit this desync issue to get fast kills with snipe have to cast snipe a whole extra one time to complete the kill. Meanwhile, little old me is stuck contributing less to a dragon kill while trying to farm furnishing patterns in Elsweyr. I shudder to think of the adjustments that other's have to make to compensate.

So... what's the TL;DR? NERFS WILDLY MISS THEIR TARGET!

Shadows_Blade

These are excellent points. For the most part well written and polite too. That nerfing is the wrong way to solve these problems is obvious. Why do they do it? Laziness? Are they responding to the vocal minority? Did they read somewhere that more people play PVP that PVE, which is incorrect? Whatever the reason they have abandoned the majority of their paying customers.

My toons are all doing about half damage now. For most of them this is not a problem but the absolute gutting of the Night Blade and the loss of stealthy for the Bosmer has resulted in me taking twice as long to kill trash mobs who now run and alert an ally and it turns into a mess. It seems that every day I find some ability that has been ruined. This is not fun anymore.

Elder Scrolls was always a PVE experience. Adding PVP has only damaged that experience. As for balance. That is just not realistic of wanted. I enjoyed the challenge of getting to the top of the food chain now I just want enjoy it while I collect houses and enjoy the occasional new story line.

World of Warcraft did the same sort of thing years ago and I quit. I am planning on giving up my ESO subscription unless ZOS returns the fun. I know that they will not, so I guess I am done. I will still log in to fish with my guild or just be social but paying to not have fun is finished.

So long and thanks for all the nerfs.

Royalthought

Sux but PvP carries over to the forums.

Something can be seen as a threat to a popular class/build. So many that use it will post that they cant live until said threat is nerfed into uselessness.

Sometimes its not about balance or fairness. Great balance would mean competition.

Some dont want that.

MartiniDaniels

I am not a healer myself, so I just believe others opinion that changes to healing are a big nerf.
But I don't see nerfs in PVE tanking and dps. Actually, dps increased across the board, I see it from my own parses and from measurements of other players. Tanks received a lot of new tools to mitigate damage and a new better food.
There is disbalance between stamina and magicka, but this is not a nerf, it's simply disbalance due to couple of sets which carry stamina hard (relequen and lokkistez).

So if you are not a healer, I don't see much reason to cry about "nerfs", especially on low to medium raiding level, where nobody runs 8 stamcro or whatever, and RLs are actually happy when they fill static roster with dps who can pull their weight, no matter which class they use. Your dps is buffed in this patch, dps-wise content will be easier.

In PVP most of the well-established BiS builds/sets are nerfed, true. But this is good for diversity, this gives chance to other classes to perform well.

SirLeeMinion

I have to agree with you, OP.

Further, I really don't see what the problem is with having builds that can solo hard content, your 'tryhards.' So some people solo normal and vet dungeons rather than wait for the broken LFG tool... so what? I see the complaints about open world being too easy. Having started new accounts, both with and without twink gear, I have to say open world is not easy with no CP and wearing 5 piece "whatever the NPC dropped." Is it easy for people with matched gear sets, yes. For a completely new player, no.

MehrunesFlagon

Pretty sure the ultimate cast time was not due to pve. That still needs to be destroyed btw.