ZOS wants to make all skills the same

joseayalac

Why does the combat team has this new obsession with homogenizing the skills?

Now every DOT has to cost the same and do the same dmg, every spammable has to have same cost and do same dmg, etc.

This only kills diversity and makes every class look the same. Is this some sort of OCD problem with ZOS or what?

What do you guys think?

Gilvoth

making the damage output for everyone equal is a GOOD thing!
having imbalanced is unfair especially in pvp.

Bouldercleave

ZoS doesn't want this at all.

Players that whine incessantly about a skill that does .000005% more DPS so it needs to be nerfed are the ones causing this.

The player base screams for balance - how do you think that happens? By making every skill "balanced" we make them all the same.

WE did this to ourselves.

Number_51

Imbalance is unfair, but homogenization is boring. There should be trade-offs... more damage, less defense... more burst less sustain. It should be rock - paper - scissors, not rock - rock - rock.

Ogou

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.

Gilvoth

Ogou wrote: »

"ZOS_BrianWheeler"In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.

thats a good thing and it sounds fair for everyone.

Wifeaggro13

joseayalac wrote: »

Why does the combat team has this new obsession with homogenizing the skills?

Now every DOT has to cost the same and do the same dmg, every spammable has to have same cost and do same dmg, etc.

This only kills diversity and makes every class look the same. Is this some sort of OCD problem with ZOS or what?

What do you guys think?

Trylthfully this game is in the hands of nicompoops. Matt lost his way years ago. They keep releasing the skilled veteran MMO designers and replacing them with fresh out of school kids just towing the corporate line.

OmniDo

Melee Damage Skill = 1
Ranged Damage Skill = 2
Light Attack = 3
Buff Skill = 4
Ultimate = 5

Umm...all these things are all the same anyway.

If yer Melee, your rotation is:
4, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 5, repeat

If yer Ranged, your rotation is:
4, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 5, repeat

Who cares if the skill is named: "Most Epic Slice of Doom on Tuesday"
Versus: "Sometimes mediocre blast of irritation on Monday".

The "Flavor" is merely for individual player preference for aesthetic and/or thematic appeal.

zaria

Bouldercleave wrote: »

ZoS doesn't want this at all.

Players that whine incessantly about a skill that does .000005% more DPS so it needs to be nerfed are the ones causing this.

The player base screams for balance - how do you think that happens? By making every skill "balanced" we make them all the same.

WE did this to ourselves.

This, the dinosaur priests prayed for an way to end all wars for 10 million years.
Yes it worked for 64 million years.
I say it was an lack of long range AoE damage.

Gargath

I think everyone now deserves his own three powerful dots, what's wrong with that. That's pure balance and it is good!

tonemd

zaria wrote: »

Bouldercleave wrote: »

ZoS doesn't want this at all.

Players that whine incessantly about a skill that does .000005% more DPS so it needs to be nerfed are the ones causing this.

The player base screams for balance - how do you think that happens? By making every skill "balanced" we make them all the same.

WE did this to ourselves.

This, the dinosaur priests prayed for an way to end all wars for 10 million years.
Yes it worked for 64 million years.
I say it was an lack of long range AoE damage.

LOL Even taken out of context I think that last panel works.

tonemd

...

Sergykid

we don't want class homogenization, we want class identity

we want classless, play viable for anything regardless of class

right know i think it's a mix of both which is awesome

.

KerinKor

Gilvoth wrote: »

making the damage output for everyone equal is a GOOD thing!
having imbalanced is unfair especially in pvp.

LOL, another PVPer who doesn't think about the MAJORITY of players who don't PVP and whose PVE fun is endlessly nerfed on the altar of PVP lolbalance.

Cheetac19

Wish they'd just balance them separately. Been wishing it for years. Have skills behave differently in PvP than PvE. Won't be confusing, because people tend to lean one way or another, and other games do it. Just slight damage changes and nerfs to stuns in PvP. Things like that

MajBludd

@KerinKor Lol at the hurt pve guys. Everything is pvp's fault!

joseayalac

Well, I mainly PVP and I think this homogenization is a big loss for build diversity.

Even before this, every class was using practically the same sets, now they are even more similar.

I agree more with the rock-paper-siscors kind of balance and I think the way ZOS is balancing things is just lazy. They're killing the classes every patch.

Nemesis7884

Gilvoth wrote: »

making the damage output for everyone equal is a GOOD thing!
having imbalanced is unfair especially in pvp.

i strongly doubt this

yes i know what they are trying to achieve and yes balance in theory is a good thing - the way they approach it might kill any class variety, distinction and flavor

I predict this will have very negative long term effects on the game and the pve player base... but we will see

i mean even from a pvp perspective - pvp shouldnt be based around 1vs1 balance but about x vs x balance - even all the purely pvp games like overwatch for example have a LOT more "class" individuality than ESO has - and that is a very sad state of the game.


And to the people who want to have a classless system

a.) the game wasnt designed like this sure we could completly redo the system and scrap all the classes but that seems highly unrealistic
b.) within a classless system creating balance while at the same time having a lot of varied builds is MUCH harder than with classes and zos can't get it even done now - what makes you think even for a second they could do it without classes? ? ? ? A classless system zos style would even more mean that everybody uses the same skills while 80% of skills never get used....

A good classless system imo was for example the original the secret world - i loved that system... but for the re-launch they kinda reworked it into a more class-like system and people liked it better...(i hated it) so there seems to be a reason most games do it

mongoLC

Start looking to the real problem the creative design lead.

Morgul667

zaria wrote: »

Bouldercleave wrote: »

ZoS doesn't want this at all.

Players that whine incessantly about a skill that does .000005% more DPS so it needs to be nerfed are the ones causing this.

The player base screams for balance - how do you think that happens? By making every skill "balanced" we make them all the same.

WE did this to ourselves.

This, the dinosaur priests prayed for an way to end all wars for 10 million years.
Yes it worked for 64 million years.
I say it was an lack of long range AoE damage.

LOVE this one

Facefister

Classes are passives-dispensers at this point.

Sarannah

Homogenizing skills is the death of many games... it makes games lose their uniqueness.

Rake

Gilvoth wrote: »

Ogou wrote: »

"ZOS_BrianWheeler"In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.

thats a good thing and it sounds fair for everyone.

And what we have now is good and fair on live?
Maybe, for a 120 ahtu zergling

GrimTheReaper45

Gilvoth wrote: »

making the damage output for everyone equal is a GOOD thing!
having imbalanced is unfair especially in pvp.

No its not. If everyone has the same damage out put, the same type of damage, the same strengths and weaknesses, the same heals, the same ways to heal, the same ways to survive, the same ways to sustain, the same sustain. Then whats the point of having classes? Whats the point of having different weapons, traits, gear. You make everything the same and there truly is one best class, one best set up, one best way to play. Theres no playing how you want theres only playing what there is.

The classes should be as different as possible. There should be as many different ways to play them as possible.

Ya know why I dont mind champion points not increasing and having no progression? Its because im still progressing. Im still perfecting this character and finding out how I like to play it. Someday when I have done that I intend to pick up another one. When I do finally switch, I dont want to find that its the same as what I switched from.

I started playing this game when there was dw mag toons, blazeplars, negate tanks, overload sorcs, resplars, perma-cloaked magblade healers, dps with offheals, dot builds, gank builds, true glass cannons that were worth the risk because if you were good you could kill a keep full of enemies, pack and squads of werewolfs, Area of denial aoe builds, snares and cc builds, beamplar, melee magplars

How many of those things are even playable anymore. What did we get to replace them? Stamcro? Unkillable tanks?

Playing how you want doesnt mean being able to do as much single target dps as a stamblade on stamsorc or heal as good on a magsorc as a magplar. Playing how you want is "I CAN DO THAT ON THAT CLASS"

Everyone chases meta now because thats all there is. Its "well i kinda wanna play single target dps and x class is doing best with that this patch and y and z class dont do it any different and its not like anything else has a hardcounter to it so i might as well just play it and do something well"

And pvpers dont quit pvp because because they got sick of having a harder time fighting x class on y class or because they took one too many on op skill x to the face. They quit because they dont have a way to play like something they like that makes them feel like a bad ass and it just becomes boring playing something your not having fun with (Ok, rampant unchecked performance issues too, not gunna pretend that hasnt hurt pvp. All im saying is we use disconnect like 5 times during a last emp keep and still keep coming back for more if the game would let us because we were excited to get back and feel like a bad ass doing {Insert whatever you loved doing here})

Mashille

I'm a Pvper and over the years Zos has consistently removed the uniqueness from skills and abilities and for some time reason never go back on it despite community feedback.

Removing the stun on Crystal Fragment (I don't even have a Mag Sorc and I think this change was dumb) and removing DK reflect are good examples of how they've boringified skills in the game. The whole notion of "1 type of effect for 1 skill" is the dumbest thing to me and just means different abilities are just skins of each other.

GrimTheReaper45

mongoLC wrote: »

Start looking to the real problem the creative design lead.

creative design lead doesnt actually do anything with eso's combat

creative design @ZOS_RichLambert oversees all the new content departments, zones trials, quests, dungeons

Combat is under lead gameplay design @ZOS_RobGarrett who oversees things like combat, pvp systems, ui

Think of it like dlc/expansion versus like update department. Both of those groups of departments are under matt firor but really we never hear from him unless its like at an e3 announcement or there is like a sky falling, apocalyptic lvl problem with something and even then its usually is relayed by the community managers.

At least from what I can tell as an outsider whos been here a long time, the 2 groups of departments focus on there own projects. Could be work load ( Have always thought the 4 updates a year is a more than zos can handle without some sacrifices to quality) or just poor communication.


Regardless, honestly thats a good point, maybe we are missing some creativity in the combat/ balances updates. Would like to see rich work with the combat team to add some fun and flavor back in that has been missing.