Separate PvE and PvP

Zerowaffles

As long as gear and skills are the same in pve and pvp zenimax will always go back and forth with nerfs and buffs and the game will never be balanced.
The only way to actually balance the game out is to separate them and have a skill tree for pvp and one for pve.
Multiple mmos already do this because its only logical to do so.
To be honest I don't even know why I am even typing this since zenimax doesn't care and will continue to buff and nerf *** every 3 months till the game dies.

SydneyGrey

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Cadbury

It's too late. The ship sailed away a loooong time ago.

BlueRaven

They have a lead combat designer who basically does not do dungeons, and an assistant combat designer who does not care if your struggling trial team is having issues clearing content.

So no they won’t split it, because right now they don’t have anyone in a leadership position who cares if you are unhappy in pve.

HowlKimchi

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Magblades lost minor berserk, damage component of refreshing path, and swallow soul/funnel health was ruined all because they were too good at self heals while being very good at DPS in PVE.

Plz stop

Faulgor

Aren't they already separate?

Skill loadouts are different, morphs are different, gear sets are different, weapons are different, item traits are different, enchantments are different, CP distribution is different, potions used are different, ...

PvE and PvP builds are so vastly different, ZOS has more than enough avenues to balance one area without touching another if they wanted to. But they apparently don't want to or are incapable to do so, and effectively doubling the work load by splitting skill trees (why? there are already morphs for that) won't prevent them from continuing to make stupid decisions.

stewhead2ub17_ESO

What a redundant and silly post. Bottom line is this game is the property of ZOS. They don't seem to want separate pve/pvp. It's their vision and their decision. So people can either reconcile themselves to that fact or move on.

Rave the Histborn

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

You know if pvp didn't exist they'd still nerf the *** outta everything, you just wouldn't have a boogeyman to blame

KappaKid83

No other MMO gives you the option of allotting your attribute points into 3 different trees. In WoW it is easy, you play a mage/lock/priest/druid and you get magic skills(druid being the niche) and half the skills are good for PVE where half are good for PVP. Warrior/DK/Pally you tank so you worry about HP and block/evasion stuff where again half your skills are good for PVE or PVP. It is much easier to balance a class when that class is always going to be one thing or another, not having the option to do all 3 roles(like in ESO).

This game will never balance in its current state, it is simply impossible. You have people who want the "every class can play every role" mantra to stand true while you have some people who want a more defined role for every class. It is impossible to please everyone and this game will actually suffer from having entirely too much diversity.

Morgul667

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Yeah right cause a major dps loss has nothing to do with pve ...

BlueRaven

Morgul667 wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Yeah right cause a major dps loss has nothing to do with pve ...

Not really, no. Do you think the trial bosses are complaining about dots? Are they on here calling for nerfs?

Did you see the livestream? Basically every change was about PvP. Horse change- Cyrodiil. Dizzy swing? PvP. Draining shot? PvP. And then every once in a while they would pause and say something like; “And our dungeon team says they can still clear content.”

The guy in charge of these changes is the PvP lead and he does not run dungeons.

The assistant lead says that the people “killing dragons” is not their focus.

AhPook_Is_Here

I don't know if it's a great idea, take warframe, PVP is so different, nobody plays in that mode because it's basically like learning a totally new game and that makes it very unfriendly to new players trying to get any traction.

Probs better if they just nerf hard PVE content in conjunction with PVP related balance changes to keep content easy enough for most players but still hard enough that you can't totally zone out on netflix while auto-hot-key weaves and you mindlessly tap 1, 2, 3, 4.

Morgul667

BlueRaven wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Yeah right cause a major dps loss has nothing to do with pve ...

Not really, no. Do you think the trial bosses are complaining about dots? Are they on here calling for nerfs?

Did you see the livestream? Basically every change was about PvP. Horse change- Cyrodiil. Dizzy swing? PvP. Draining shot? PvP. And then every once in a while they would pause and say something like; “And our dungeon team says they can still clear content.”

The guy in charge of these changes is the PvP lead and he does not run dungeons.

The assistant lead says that the people “killing dragons” is not their focus.

If you believe that

It sure has nothing to do with the fact they want to stop power creep

I still remember when they cried about pvp when they nerfed shields and in the end they wanted to make healers useful

VaranisArano

BlueRaven wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Yeah right cause a major dps loss has nothing to do with pve ...

Not really, no. Do you think the trial bosses are complaining about dots? Are they on here calling for nerfs?

Did you see the livestream? Basically every change was about PvP. Horse change- Cyrodiil. Dizzy swing? PvP. Draining shot? PvP. And then every once in a while they would pause and say something like; “And our dungeon team says they can still clear content.”

The guy in charge of these changes is the PvP lead and he does not run dungeons.

The assistant lead says that the people “killing dragons” is not their focus.

When PVE gets too powerful, players start calling it too easy and old content becomes obsolete.

Your hypothesis is essentially: "ZOS is so focused on PVP balance that they somehow missed that they gutted PVE DPS. It has nothing to do with PVE Power Creep, no, the Devs are just that incompetent."

That's...a little hard to believe, when PVE content makes up the vast majority of DLC/Chapter sales.

BlueRaven

Morgul667 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Yeah right cause a major dps loss has nothing to do with pve ...

Not really, no. Do you think the trial bosses are complaining about dots? Are they on here calling for nerfs?

Did you see the livestream? Basically every change was about PvP. Horse change- Cyrodiil. Dizzy swing? PvP. Draining shot? PvP. And then every once in a while they would pause and say something like; “And our dungeon team says they can still clear content.”

The guy in charge of these changes is the PvP lead and he does not run dungeons.

The assistant lead says that the people “killing dragons” is not their focus.

If you believe that

It sure has nothing to do with the fact they want to stop power creep

I still remember when they cried about pvp when they nerfed shields and in the end they wanted to make healers useful

If I believe that?!!!!!

https://youtu.be/Yb9H1kwF25w

Brian Wheeler 58:45 min: "We have dedicated testing group, that runs through the dungeons, to make sure, that they can still complete the dungeons."

Not; “I ran some dungeons...” Not even; “The dungeon team and I ran them...” No some other people told him dungeons can still be cleared. Like it was an after thought.

So let that sink in, the guy in charge of combat does not do dungeons.

I used to play wow, and they had a developer there called Ghostcrawler who gave very detailed reason why they buffed and nerfed abilities. He went through each one and made sure that the final dps output was exactly what was needed for each class.

So why is Wheeler NOT running those same dungeons with them?

What we get here is a blanket dps nerf and conversation that seems like it went;

Wheeler; "Dungeon team, can you still run the dungeons?"

Dungeon team; "...Sure... But-"

Wheeler; "Good enough! Moving on!"

And who is on this dungeon team anyway? Are they people who are doing 100k+ dps? Because determining if a high end player can complete a dungeon with a major dps nerf is not really helpful. Yes, the guilds who can clear Vet Sunspire in less then 30 minutes will be fine. What about the rest of us?

••••

GilliamtheRogue 1:01:50 min: "..what kind of players experience the game in different ways, and what is our target audience with some these changes. So like in some of these cases it's a numbers game which not everyone really cares about. The average player who's going to come on and just kill some dragons or stuff like that, they don't care if they're spammable is doing a billion damage..." (Emphasis mine.)

Wheeler: "Well I would."

Gina and wheeler tried to walk it back, but it was pretty clear. The people doing dailies and killing dragons is not a concern for them.

If they wanted to address power creep then they can say that. But they don’t talk about pve power creep. And why would they? Are they worried that TOO many people are clearing content? Was that dungeon dlc too popular or something?

Lazarus_Rising

BlueRaven wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Yeah right cause a major dps loss has nothing to do with pve ...

Not really, no. Do you think the trial bosses are complaining about dots? Are they on here calling for nerfs?

Did you see the livestream? Basically every change was about PvP. Horse change- Cyrodiil. Dizzy swing? PvP. Draining shot? PvP. And then every once in a while they would pause and say something like; “And our dungeon team says they can still clear content.”

The guy in charge of these changes is the PvP lead and he does not run dungeons.

The assistant lead says that the people “killing dragons” is not their focus.

If you believe that

It sure has nothing to do with the fact they want to stop power creep

I still remember when they cried about pvp when they nerfed shields and in the end they wanted to make healers useful

If I believe that?!!!!!

https://youtu.be/Yb9H1kwF25w

Brian Wheeler 58:45 min: "We have dedicated testing group, that runs through the dungeons, to make sure, that they can still complete the dungeons."

Not; “I ran some dungeons...” Not even; “The dungeon team and I ran them...” No some other people told him dungeons can still be cleared. Like it was an after thought.

So let that sink in, the guy in charge of combat does not do dungeons.

I used to play wow, and they had a developer there called Ghostcrawler who gave very detailed reason why they buffed and nerfed abilities. He went through each one and made sure that the final dps output was exactly what was needed for each class.

So why is Wheeler NOT running those same dungeons with them?

What we get here is a blanket dps nerf and conversation that seems like it went;

Wheeler; "Dungeon team, can you still run the dungeons?"

Dungeon team; "...Sure... But-"

Wheeler; "Good enough! Moving on!"

And who is on this dungeon team anyway? Are they people who are doing 100k+ dps? Because determining if a high end player can complete a dungeon with a major dps nerf is not really helpful. Yes, the guilds who can clear Vet Sunspire in less then 30 minutes will be fine. What about the rest of us?

••••

GilliamtheRogue 1:01:50 min: "..what kind of players experience the game in different ways, and what is our target audience with some these changes. So like in some of these cases it's a numbers game which not everyone really cares about. The average player who's going to come on and just kill some dragons or stuff like that, they don't care if they're spammable is doing a billion damage..." (Emphasis mine.)

Wheeler: "Well I would."

Gina and wheeler tried to walk it back, but it was pretty clear. The people doing dailies and killing dragons is not a concern for them.

If they wanted to address power creep then they can say that. But they don’t talk about pve power creep. And why would they? Are they worried that TOO many people are clearing content? Was that dungeon dlc too popular or something?

Don't sell your assumptions as proof. There is no proof that he does not run dungeons just because he has a team doing it. Additional he is the lead and not a tester. I assume he is doing the math and stuff and the team is testing it and gives him feedback. (The Engineer has the Idea - The Designer makes the CAD-Drawing).

Gilliam is also completelly right, these changes are not for the casuals and its good that they don't care for them that much.

BlueRaven

“Gilliam is also completelly right, these changes are not for the casuals and its good that they don't care for them that much.” @Lazarus_Rising

And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why we have such an awful combat team.

VaranisArano

Um, did anyone really expect the Devs to be balancing classes, skills and DPS around the ability of players to do Elsweyr dragon hunts and dailies?

Usually we expect them to be balancing around PVP and PVE endgame content, which they seem to be doing.

theyancey

I agree completely with the need for separation. I addressed it in another soon to be closed thread. I'll copy it here.

Bah, there hasn't even been a good stand-alone since Witcher. I don't really care for the animation style of JRPGs. I've been an old Scroller since the beginning and been with ESO since closed beta. We were told that this would be a different type of MMORPG, one that was just as friendly to the solo PvE player as to the group PvPers. It was a grand vision and I think that the base game provided that. Today not so much.

Any RPG is based on events and character progression. Otherwise it is just a shooter. That is what ESO has devolved to today. With the removal of CP and no viable replacement we now have a shooter set in the Elder Scrolls universe. I haven't played a shooter since Bioshock. Not my thing.

Now we have rewards that force the PvE player to do PvP and vice versa. The IC event took a large hunk of enjoyment from my overall ESO game experience. The culprit is the continuation of the original link between the two disparate PvE and PvP environments. The same has happened with solo vs group endeavors. In the base we had some wonderfully epic multi party battles. The key was the game providing NPCs as the player's group. Elswhere has been delightful but even my enjoyment of it was diminished from the outset by the game requiring group dungeon content completion to set the storyline. That was a travesty.

Can the game be saved? Yes and no. As more and more dedicated players give up on it the game will give even more focus to recruitment of new players and move to a P2W formula to keep the cash rolling in. That is working well for Zenimax now but is not a sustainable model. The best course of action is to go ahead and split the majority of the game into PvE and PvP only. At a certain level, 10, 25, 50, whatever, the player must choose which direction that toon must go. No switching back and forth. This would ease both game design and balance for the devs and free the player from the frustration of having their character nerfed for no good reason. It would enhance player retention and even create potential new revenue streams for ZOS.

Additionally we desperately need a new base game. Other games of this variety do this. Think of the positive changes from EQ1 to EQ2. I dare say that there would be far more purchases of an ESO2 than there were of the original. It could be both a profit bomb and a player pleaser.

kargen27

BlueRaven wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Yeah right cause a major dps loss has nothing to do with pve ...

Not really, no. Do you think the trial bosses are complaining about dots? Are they on here calling for nerfs?

Did you see the livestream? Basically every change was about PvP. Horse change- Cyrodiil. Dizzy swing? PvP. Draining shot? PvP. And then every once in a while they would pause and say something like; “And our dungeon team says they can still clear content.”

The guy in charge of these changes is the PvP lead and he does not run dungeons.

The assistant lead says that the people “killing dragons” is not their focus.

The sustain nerf was one of the biggest changes and when that change was made they announced it was because PvE wasn't going in the intended direction. They also warned us future changes would be considered to bring PvE back in line with their visions. Sure a trial boss might not complain but having raid groups clear the hardest content the day of release and having many groups able to ignore mechanics in all but the hardest of content isn't good for the game and the developers know it.

RustedValor

I mean is it that hard to just change how much damage a skill does vs Players as opposed to Monsters? The Fighters Guild skills already do this with undead/daedra/ww so I'm sure they have the code for it already done that they could use to change the behavior of all the other skills. The balancing of damage in PvE and PvP should be totally separate since the two things are totally different. One requires burst, the other requires endurance. One situation everything stands still, the other situation everything dodge rolls out of AOE attacks and purges DoTs.

Agenericname

kargen27 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Yeah right cause a major dps loss has nothing to do with pve ...

Not really, no. Do you think the trial bosses are complaining about dots? Are they on here calling for nerfs?

Did you see the livestream? Basically every change was about PvP. Horse change- Cyrodiil. Dizzy swing? PvP. Draining shot? PvP. And then every once in a while they would pause and say something like; “And our dungeon team says they can still clear content.”

The guy in charge of these changes is the PvP lead and he does not run dungeons.

The assistant lead says that the people “killing dragons” is not their focus.

The sustain nerf was one of the biggest changes and when that change was made they announced it was because PvE wasn't going in the intended direction. They also warned us future changes would be considered to bring PvE back in line with their visions. Sure a trial boss might not complain but having raid groups clear the hardest content the day of release and having many groups able to ignore mechanics in all but the hardest of content isn't good for the game and the developers know it.

I agree, however, I believe that its misguided. Groups that beat content on the day of release spent the PTS cycle practicing. They're not indicative of the player base. Plenty of progression groups struggle. I'd wager that more find it challenging than do not, by a wide margin. They have those numbers though, I do not.

The speed run for vBRF has a 20 minute timer. The best time I have had was 17 minutes. That's skipping much of the dungeon. Bypassing everything that can be bypassed, dying and running through large mobs, and not dying on any boss fight.

The group was a standard 1/1/2 except that I healed it and did so without any emergency heals, meaning the team got HOTs and the rest of the bar space was damage. We ended with a little under 3 minutes to spare.

They can say that they don't want damage to be"out of control" or "bring damage back in line" or whatever else, but then we have achievements that can't really be done without bypassing parts of the dungeon/mechanics and promote not using a full blown healer. To my knowledge that timer has not changed in U24. They seem to be sending mixed signals in this regard.

More importantly I do not feel like many of these changes were well thought out. The sorc shield nerf several patches ago first had a cast time. It was interuptable. Clearly they wanted a trade off, but how they went about it wasn't thoughtful.

The changes to orbs, major sorcery for sorcs, and DOTs all left me with that same impression. They missed their mark on DOTs. On paper, as far as PvP is concerned, sounds great, in practice though it was never going to work. AOEs have universal counter play, move. All other things being equal the damage from an AOE in PvP never would have been as high as single target DOTs. This was brought up in the PTS prior to going live.

I don't necessarily think that the problems that I see on my end, the end user, are a result of trying to balance PvE and PvP together. It feels like rushed changes for the sake of change that weren't going to necessarily be an improvement for anyone.

That's not to say anything bad about anyone so if they read this I hope they take it as constructive criticism.

Rain_Greyraven

BlueRaven wrote: »

“Gilliam is also completelly right, these changes are not for the casuals and its good that they don't care for them that much.” @Lazarus_Rising

And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why we have such an awful combat team.

And that is why the population is dropping while games like FFXIV and SWTOR currently have queues.

Listen to Yoshi P when he talks about combat tuning, it's a big deal...his team has it down to a science, just watch one ESO live stream, you come away with two things.

They struggle with even operating cameras and sound
And no one really wants to be there.

barney2525

KappaKid83 wrote: »

No other MMO gives you the option of allotting your attribute points into 3 different trees. In WoW it is easy, you play a mage/lock/priest/druid and you get magic skills(druid being the niche) and half the skills are good for PVE where half are good for PVP. Warrior/DK/Pally you tank so you worry about HP and block/evasion stuff where again half your skills are good for PVE or PVP. It is much easier to balance a class when that class is always going to be one thing or another, not having the option to do all 3 roles(like in ESO).

This game will never balance in its current state, it is simply impossible. You have people who want the "every class can play every role" mantra to stand true while you have some people who want a more defined role for every class. It is impossible to please everyone and this game will actually suffer from having entirely too much diversity.

Just being nitpicky.

Never say " No other " when the fact is "Most other".

Archeage and Archeage:Unchained use 3 skill tress that the player has complete control over. Depending on the combination of skill trees you want to use, you can create one of 220 different classes. You select the trees And you decide which skills in those trees you want to actually use.

KappaKid83

barney2525 wrote: »

KappaKid83 wrote: »

No other MMO gives you the option of allotting your attribute points into 3 different trees. In WoW it is easy, you play a mage/lock/priest/druid and you get magic skills(druid being the niche) and half the skills are good for PVE where half are good for PVP. Warrior/DK/Pally you tank so you worry about HP and block/evasion stuff where again half your skills are good for PVE or PVP. It is much easier to balance a class when that class is always going to be one thing or another, not having the option to do all 3 roles(like in ESO).

This game will never balance in its current state, it is simply impossible. You have people who want the "every class can play every role" mantra to stand true while you have some people who want a more defined role for every class. It is impossible to please everyone and this game will actually suffer from having entirely too much diversity.

Just being nitpicky.

Never say " No other " when the fact is "Most other".

Archeage and Archeage:Unchained use 3 skill tress that the player has complete control over. Depending on the combination of skill trees you want to use, you can create one of 220 different classes. You select the trees And you decide which skills in those trees you want to actually use.

Very true, been ages since I have touched either game so it slipped my mind that it's similar. But my point stands, which i think you agree with me on?, that with 3 different attribute trees and then 2 different morphs among 3 class skill trees and then 6 weapon skill lines with 2 morphs each the amount of possible ways to play your character are endless. People will always Min/Max and find the best exploitable damage combos so the balance will never be attainable to the level the player base wants it.

Kagukan

Could easily be done with just gear. Make several PvP gear sets that have damage reducing modifiers on them. You can still go into PvP without this gear but you will get smacked down in one shot every time. The damage reducing modifier would not be used in PvE so you could use these sets in PvE if you want also.

MehrunesFlagon

BlueRaven wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They've decided it's "too hard" to balance PvP and PvE separately, so instead they've decided that PvP always takes precedence, and they'll just destroy the game for PvEers over and over with their frequent bipolar changes.

Yeah right cause a major dps loss has nothing to do with pve ...

Not really, no. Do you think the trial bosses are complaining about dots? Are they on here calling for nerfs?

Did you see the livestream? Basically every change was about PvP. Horse change- Cyrodiil. Dizzy swing? PvP. Draining shot? PvP. And then every once in a while they would pause and say something like; “And our dungeon team says they can still clear content.”

The guy in charge of these changes is the PvP lead and he does not run dungeons.

The assistant lead says that the people “killing dragons” is not their focus.

I think I caught Wheeler in a half truth too.When they were asked if they play the game,he said battlegrounds ,but nothing about any pve content.I think he only got away with that one due the question not being specific enough.He needs to be asked if does pve.

Grimm13

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

What a redundant and silly post. Bottom line is this game is the property of ZOS. They don't seem to want separate pve/pvp. It's their vision and their decision. So people can either reconcile themselves to that fact or move on.

Yes it is but they have to sell their idea to the gamer. People are using the forum to say they like or don't like the changes. Guess they could just leave without a word then you be wondering where everyone went.

ZOS_RogerJ

Just a friendly reminder as some posts have been removed, that it’s okay and very normal to disagree with others, and even to debate, but provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

I don't know if it's a great idea, take warframe, PVP is so different, nobody plays in that mode because it's basically like learning a totally new game and that makes it very unfriendly to new players trying to get any traction.

Probs better if they just nerf hard PVE content in conjunction with PVP related balance changes to keep content easy enough for most players but still hard enough that you can't totally zone out on netflix while auto-hot-key weaves and you mindlessly tap 1, 2, 3, 4.

It doesn't have to feel like a new game. All ZOS should need to do is maintain two sets of stats such that a skill inside the PvP instance hits at a level appropriate for that environment. Likewise when in the PvE environment having its own stat table would allow adjusting for instanced content without affecting PvP players.

Coatmagic

*drags out dead horse*

disable certain sets, skills, cp etc in pvp and stop the madness

they won't listen; they don't care

players are not helping by arguing over the obvious instead of banding together in one voice

sad to see such a lovely game going down such a dismal path