When does it become too much damage?

MotokoHutt

Hello there elder scrolls online community, today I would like to bring up the topic held in the subject matter. Now I am sure this topic has been discussed before but that’s ok, because I think its important to discuss these things on multiple cases due to shifts in moods and opinions. Now before we get started, disclaimer that this is not about me and I am not here to “moan” or otherwise “cry” as some may accuse about this topic, this is rather just a discussion of game mechanics, fun factor, effort on the developers part, direction and the over all health of the game going forward.

So now to get to the meat of the discussion. When does allot of damage actually become too much damage? In everyone’s opinion is there even such a thing? I think these are important questions due to the current social and mechanical climate within elder scrolls online. Currently we play in a time where almost everything whether it be PvE or PvP is pushed toward the ever higher acquisition of damage whether that be of the per second or burst varieties. It has come to the stage in which all roads role wise lead to better group damage, talking about PvE for a second. Healers and Tanks have become secondary players, a lower cast, there to perform the bare minimum of there name sake just managing to do there “role” all while taking sets designed to boost over all group damage beyond normal means. The thing is though can you blame them? The game glorifies such damage boosting potential, with achievements requiring completion within time frames, boss mechanics being completely skipped if damage margins are being met and even score boards glorifying ever faster runs of trials. Granted I can aplaude Zenimax Online Studios a little for there mediocre efforts to stem the tied with such things as unifying some damage boosting sets into specific un-stackable named buffs such as major and minor courage, however this still does little in ways of holding back the ever faster dps race which seems to grow with every update as someone achieves a new record number on a target dummy rallying those around them to strive to the same ends.

In regards to PvP the heart of any force is damage dealer’s, and why not? Enemy players need killing right. However this has lead to the PvP community seeking ever greater means of damage, all while retaining a modicum of self survivability. Player’s look for faster and faster ways to “nuke” or otherwise “burst” other players down as a dead player can not harm you, its the same way that in allot of cases a good offence is usually your best defence. Sure you may take a few damage shields or vigor if your a stamina character but allot of what wins you the fight whether it be 1 v 1 or 1 v X is finding that perfect combination of damage, CC’s and executes to instantly kill a player that may have over reached within the space of usually under 2 seconds or as some may use the metaphor “within the blink of an eye”. Now yes some may argue an experienced player should see such an attack coming and suitable counter play would commence, however one has to remember, elder scrolls online is a game without for the most part a whole lot of matchmaking. While from what I have herd at least Zenimax Online Studios has somewhat tried to add some minor forms of matchmaking in battlegrounds, mainly in the form of attempting to slow the domination of premade groups for the most part elder scrolls online has no real matchmaking system’s which would equate to none if we are talking about Cyrodiil or even duel’s. So back to the point, allot of people go into PvP and the first experience they have of competitive multiplayer action is being destroyed to use that phrase again within the blink of an eye. Regardless if the individual prepared for a PvP interaction by the farm or purchase of sets traited and suitably designed for PvP they will usually find themselves on the wrong end of a nuke. Is the player who killed you at fault? I think not, but if not, is it the fault of the player who got killed? Some may argue yes, but I argue, if so only partly. The main fault being bad design on the part of the developers.

So then this all culminates to the question asked in the subject head, when does it become too much damage? With the race for greater damage numbers thoroughly under way should we be concerned? And if so, what can we do to curb such exponential growth of killing speed, has the metaphorical bigger stick that players are forever trying to find become too big? Such a question about dps impacts such a large number of game mechanics, and on the thought of mechanics, should in PvE they even be able to be skipped with the those damage margins being met? Does that not void the entire point of the developer’s spending there time to create such mechanics in the first place? As all of these mechanics had to be animated, audio supplied and in even some cases voice acted, is such expensive work rendered meaningless within the current game climate. The flow of damage within elder scrolls online even directs the racial balance within the game, players create graphs and spreadsheets detailing what race is “optimal” for what and in the end many races become neglected or abandoned once a new race takes there place on the top of the proverbial heep, essentially at that point the other races are merely there to create the illusion that we have choice, or to satiate the players who wish to roleplay or simply play the elder scrolls online as a questing game. Now I am not naive, this exact issue is not one new to gaming and of course it is not an elder scrolls online exclusive issue, and the idea of player’s creating a “meta” or most effective tactic available is not a new concept to even MMO’s but is prevalent in many game genres. So with that in mind, can such an issue even be fixed in the elder scrolls online?

Now this post has become long enough already, and while I could ramble on about this forever I will forgo doing so and instead leave that for later discussion to be had. So community of the elder scrolls online, what are your thoughts on the matter? If you wish to talk about the matter in further detail please feel free to message me in game on the EU server @MotokoHutt or on Discord MotokoHutt #3934. I will be viewing and replying to comments in the thread here and there but if you wish to discuss in great detail then privately contacting myself is a better way to go about that. However I would love to see all of your opinions here, maybe you agree with the state of damage, maybe you don’t, let us all know in the replies bellow, and thank you all for reading. x

VaranisArano

When PVE damage gets high enough that it starts to trivialize ZOS' newest hardest content or forces them to resort to low-margin-of-error mechanics to drive difficulty or creating content with a DPS requirement most players will never reach, that's when we often see PVE nerfs. Which shocks most PVEers, because from their perspective, there's nothing wrong with the game being easier.

In PVP, its more complicated than that. The more damage you add, the more players build tanky, and then DD players complain about the "tank meta".

I'm going to discount your example of the brand new PVPer getting destroyed. Because I got destroyed when I first started and it wasnt because my opponenets were universally amazing. Its because even with decent gear I didnt have the first clue what to do. I lacked battlefield awareness, defensive reflexes, or even something as simple as proactive healing. I got better with practice. Most new PVPers survivability issues are fixed with practice and more practice.

MotokoHutt

VaranisArano wrote: »

When PVE damage gets high enough that it starts to trivialize ZOS' newest hardest content or forces them to resort to low-margin-of-error mechanics to drive difficulty or creating content with a DPS requirement most players will never reach, that's when we often see PVE nerfs. Which shocks most PVEers, because from their perspective, there's nothing wrong with the game being easier.

In PVP, its more complicated than that. The more damage you add, the more players build tanky, and then DD players complain about the "tank meta".

I'm going to discount your example of the brand new PVPer getting destroyed. Because I got destroyed when I first started and it wasnt because my opponenets were universally amazing. Its because even with decent gear I didnt have the first clue what to do. I lacked battlefield awareness, defensive reflexes, or even something as simple as proactive healing. I got better with practice. Most new PVPers survivability issues are fixed with practice and more practice.

See I disagree somewhat. Firstly, players may complain about "tank meta" but tanking is not glorified by the game in PvP, you dont simply get rewards for staying alive and therefor the only gratification you recieve from tanking is the self gratification or gratification of your peers. But once the "fun" or "funny" factor wares off you are left with no way to actually progress the in game completion without ether recreating your character or having a diferent one all together for that ends.

Secondly you argue that you died in pvp due to the fact you "didnt have the first clue what to do", while that may be and probably is true your statement of "Most new PVPers survivability issues are fixed with practice and more practice" I would say is not true. I would say most new PvPers issues are subdued with practise, the issue of uber high damage bursts never go's away, you just learn how to prepare for them with some level of compotency. However the issue still holds that damage rules the day and expierienced players still seek to find ever more methods to nuke there peers and new players alike which leads to allot of new players simply not even bothering with the PvP side of the game as there enemies search for ever bigger clubs to whack them with as the years go on.

stewhead2ub17_ESO

Wow...I lost interest after the first couple of sentences. I tried to hang in there, I really did...

FakeFox

MotokoHutt wrote: »

Seeking ever greater means of damage, all while retaining a modicum of self survivability.

This one sentence sums up all you have said perfectly. There is no logical reason to go for more defense then you need, however there is always a reason and more space to go for more offensive potential. This however has nothing to do with ESO. It is a logical approach we see in basically every game involving combat and even in real live military and martial arts.
Power creep and balancing sure can be issues in ESO, but that has nothing to do with players optimizing for higher damage and minimum deference.

MotokoHutt

FakeFox wrote: »

MotokoHutt wrote: »

Seeking ever greater means of damage, all while retaining a modicum of self survivability.

This one sentence sums up all you have said perfectly. There is no logical reason to go for more defense then you need, however there is always a reason and more space to go for more offensive potential. This however has nothing to do with ESO. It is a logical approach we see in basically every game involving combat and even in real live military and martial arts.
Power creep and balancing sure can be issues in ESO, but that has nothing to do with players optimizing for higher damage and minimum deference.

See I would have to disagree though, in my opinion this isnt real life, this is a game. And there for unlike real life we shoudl atleast strive for balance, within the current game meta, in regards to PvP its best to just bring along a possie of DD's rather then any tanks or healers as a enemy nuked into ash is an enemy thats not an issue. There is no balance in the roles and the game in general focuses and hangs on the whims of damage dealers, this is further compounded by the fact that there is hard caps for stats like resistances and only a logical amount of mitigation one can acrue. Yet there is not even a soft cap for damage stats and there for they run umuck goingwidly unchecked. When someone finds a way around the hard caps in place for resisting damage people often moan they cant kill someone despite the fact that tank gameplay isnt mechanically rewarded in pvp by the game itself unlike killing is.

TelvanniWizard

When soft caps are removed.