The primary reason for balance issues is catering to a small minority

nsmurfer

The ridiculous changes over the last few patches can be explained largely by split feedback.

The eso community is split into two wildly different categories. Contrary to popular belief, it is not exactly the PvE vs PvP camp. It is actually the vast majority who play for fun and enjoyments vs a select group of toxic elitists who are the vocal minority. Before anyone flames me, let me explain.

In PvP, the vast majority of players play to enjoy the social aspect. They have fun participating with what ever their faction is doing, be it taking keeps, large scale fights and be it bantering in zone chat or whatever. They dont complain about zergs, tank meta or overpowered skills etc. They recognize the fact that just because a class or skill is better in some way than others, it does not make it overpowered and if they find a class more fun than the rest, they switch to it. They dont care that TTK is high nor do they camplain about large scale faction wars(apart from performance issues). They prefer faction locks so that factions have a real meaning.

On the other hand are the 1vXers and small scalers. They are easily the most toxic and elitist group in the game. They play purely to kill and humiliate others in whatever way possible and thereby "expose zerglings". They intentionally abuse broken builds creating the balance problems in the first place and then call for things to be nerfed. Anything remotely defensive that people use to defend against them will get nerfed to appease them, be it sets like Pirate Skeleton, Malubeth, brass, protective or skills like shields, healing ward etc. They will lobby to get any kind of group utility removed from skills like Backlash just make their playstyle easier. They intentionally overlook the fact that 1vX play by definition is possible due to massive balance issue which they ignore because it favours them. These players abuse everything from macros for automated animation cancelling, scripts or exploits etc for their playstyle. This was highly evident in the IC event, they spawn camped faction bases killing players before they can react, even using the lift exploit in cases. Their constant abuse of broken mechanics to kill players and constant trolling/griefing both in the IC event and in Cyrodiil is a major source of griefing for the majority of the playerbase in general. A big number are also streamers, who often troll etc just for clout and epeen.

It is a very similar scene in PvE with a select few groups on top, which are only ones capable of completing the hardest content while the absolute majority can't even do most vet dungeons. The top guilds mostly doesn't do anything to help average players, so there is no advancement in majority of the playerbase. On the contrary majority of them are super toxic and are involved in shady practices like selling carries for skins/loots/clears for huge amounts of gold. Yet most balance changes are done keeping this small population in mind. Also there is a big overlap between the PvE top players and PvP top players, resulting in further toxicity and elitism.

Most of the feedback we give on forums etc is basically useless as it is not considered at all. The feedback that is taken is limited exclusively to discords like the class discords, top raid guild discords and private feedback given directly to devs and class reps. These discords are filled with elitists and to have any voice there, you need to show that you belong by being a toxic elitist 1vXer or a vet dlc trial score holder. Otherwise any feedback you give will get shut down and you will get ruthless mocked, clowned and kicked. Even class reps are not immune from that as a certain sorc class rep got removed for being "fil*** casual". Average players have hardly any say on changes. Classes and skills get changed to suit the particular playstyles by the small minority.

Dusk_Coven

The PvP community complaining about lack of PvP population hasn't clued in yet that people thinking about PvP start out as casuals. Most of whom can't gain traction and drop out.
Some of them even want to play what they want instead of playing what other people tell them to play.

I think ZOS has figured it out though and their direction is power fantasy and play your way. Hopefully that works out AND they separate people by a system of proper leagues so people can have their power fantasy, play the way they want, and still get grouped with people against whom they have a 50/50 chance.

They still have to solve the wider issue of specialized unbalanced builds, which affects not only PvP but PvE. Seems ludicrous to be able to clear a Trial boss before they start the first phase of what makes the encounter interesting.

VaranisArano

Whelp, that's some bait.

At its roots, ESO isn't constantly changing because of elitists vs casuals, or any other "VS" match-up we can think up.

Its changing because of Horizontal Progression, which has been ZOS' perferred method since One Tamriel. Horizontal Progression, or to put less nicely "change for the sake of change" is how ZOS keeps the game from stagnating and becoming boring for most players, artificially extending the lifespan of the game with things to do like: Rework your build every patch! Regrind your gear to stay meta!

Now, who determines what changes are going to happen each patch varies. That's where all the elitists vs casuals, raid vs small scale, and PVE vs PVP stuff comes in. Oh, and PVE power creep vs end game content. Plus there's the Devs to consider, and the Devs Do What They Want.

But that doesnt alter the fact ZOS is always going to change up something. They have to. Its their only real method of progression since One Tamriel. Ultimately, that's WHY the Devs are constantly changing stuff every update.

Heatnix90

Bait thread is bait.

You got it wrong pal, the majority of the changes are designed around the majority of the playerbase, the casuals who only log on to do quests and cry about getting put in the dumpster in PvP.

Do you think the "toxic elitists" were in favor of cast times on ults? the DOT meta? Nah fam everyone you would classify as a "toxic elitist" was against most of these ridiculous changes.

nsmurfer

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

The PvP community complaining about lack of PvP population hasn't clued in yet that people thinking about PvP start out as casuals. Most of whom can't gain traction and drop out.
Some of them even want to play what they want instead of playing what other people tell them to play.

I think ZOS has figured it out though and their direction is power fantasy and play your way. Hopefully that works out AND they separate people by a system of proper leagues so people can have their power fantasy, play the way they want, and still get grouped with people against whom they have a 50/50 chance.

The very thing killing the PvP population is the fact 1vXing and small scaling is possible. When two people die to one player, they might not think much and laugh it off as bad play on their part. When multiple players of a group are killed by a single player, they soon realize that PvP is broken in this game and move on never coming back unless absolutely necessary. In no other game, even the best player can kill groups.
Most successful PvP games are somewhat welcoming to new players. In this game, new players are trolled, farmed, ganked, tbagged and humiliated constantly. Without new players, PvP population will obviously drop. I know many people who first started PvP during the IC event. Their first experience was being killed right on spawn multiple times over and over, ganked mercilessly. Their whole groups got bombed, they got killed while questing and doing PvE. Majority of them will never return to PvP again.

cheifsoap

There's an awful lot of painting with broad strokes going on in here if you catch my drift so I'll only speak from my perspective.

I don't really care about "balance", that term in itself is a subjective abstract that holds no weight with me. It never has, ever since the good ol' UO days and never will. With that said, jarring change like what we're experiencing is disheartening because I spend a decent amount of my time farming, learning rotations, BiS stuff, and so on; and the thought of having to re-do that every 3-4 months is a time investment that has me slowly reconsidering my LOE in this game. With that said, I still enjoy the crap out of this game. I love open world pvp. I love my pvp guild. I love my pve guilds. I love my trade guild. I love what this game offers me for my time invested, right now. In the end, we all put our money where our mouth is and if you don't; well - that's a bummer and when the game stops being fun, I'm sure people will do what comes natural - quit.

nesakinter

Not sure if real or trolling.

Whatever, as someone who lurks in the Class Rep discords, PvP discords and various top pve discords like TRE, I havent seen this extreme toxicity you speak of. There are occasional offenders, who get swifting removed.

MartiniDaniels

OP, did you ever played other multiplayer games? If yes, then you consider ESO PVP/PVE end-game playerbase as something totally different from average players and from average humans.

People play multiplayer games not for some "fun". People play to be victorious, it maybe victory due to luck, skill, cheeze or in case of MMORPG - build. Of course build is only a part of victory, but build has huge impact on your efficiency both in PVP and endgame PVE (especially in PVE actually).

So when your class or sets/general abilities used by your favorite class is nerfed, YOU are nerfed, your chance to have victory are reduced. That is source of all toxicity, nerf threads and so on. And you can't get away from it, it is human nature forged by billions of years of evolution. Desire to be victorious, to be better then yourself or for 95% of non-enlightened regular people to be better then others.

JinMori

VaranisArano wrote: »

Whelp, that's some bait.

At its roots, ESO isn't constantly changing because of elitists vs casuals, or any other "VS" match-up we can think up.

Its changing because of Horizontal Progression, which has been ZOS' perferred method since One Tamriel. Horizontal Progression, or to put less nicely "change for the sake of change" is how ZOS keeps the game from stagnating and becoming boring for most players, artificially extending the lifespan of the game with things to do like: Rework your build every patch! Regrind your gear to stay meta!

Now, who determines what changes are going to happen each patch varies. That's where all the elitists vs casuals, raid vs small scale, and PVE vs PVP stuff comes in. Oh, and PVE power creep vs end game content. Plus there's the Devs to consider, and the Devs Do What They Want.

But that doesnt alter the fact ZOS is always going to change up something. They have to. Its their only real method of progression since One Tamriel. Ultimately, that's WHY the Devs are constantly changing stuff every update.

Progression implies that things are moving forward, they aren't, eso is going backwards.

You get new things but what you had before is invalidated, be it sets, which i don't mind too much, or abilities which i do mind a lot, since zos idea of progression is nerfing the current meta to make space for a new one.

Casterial

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

The PvP community complaining about lack of PvP population hasn't clued in yet that people thinking about PvP start out as casuals. Most of whom can't gain traction and drop out.
Some of them even want to play what they want instead of playing what other people tell them to play.

PVP Casuals drop out because of lag, before Lag Cyrodiil was popping and had ~3 full servers.

VaranisArano

nsmurfer wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

The PvP community complaining about lack of PvP population hasn't clued in yet that people thinking about PvP start out as casuals. Most of whom can't gain traction and drop out.
Some of them even want to play what they want instead of playing what other people tell them to play.

I think ZOS has figured it out though and their direction is power fantasy and play your way. Hopefully that works out AND they separate people by a system of proper leagues so people can have their power fantasy, play the way they want, and still get grouped with people against whom they have a 50/50 chance.

The very thing killing the PvP population is the fact 1vXing and small scaling is possible. When two people die to one player, they might not think much and laugh it off as bad play on their part. When multiple players of a group are killed by a single player, they soon realize that PvP is broken in this game and move on never coming back unless absolutely necessary. In no other game, even the best player can kill groups.
Most successful PvP games are somewhat welcoming to new players. In this game, new players are trolled, farmed, ganked, tbagged and humiliated constantly. Without new players, PvP population will obviously drop. I know many people who first started PvP during the IC event. Their first experience was being killed right on spawn multiple times over and over, ganked mercilessly. Their whole groups got bombed, they got killed while questing and doing PvE. Majority of them will never return to PvP again.

When I think of what makes PVP fun for the people who like PVP in the first place, performance tops the list. If we want a healthy PVP population with players that run the gamut from new, casual, average, experienced, and hardcore, we need those performance issues fixed. Seriously, what new player wants to stick around in a game mode where matches don't start, skills don't work, you die to lag and loading screen, you get stuck in combat, and you might crash whenever you try to fight in a large battle?

The rest of it is a matter of gaining experience, and one of the best ways for new players to gain that experience in a friendly environment is PVP guilds. PVP guilds who have been decimated by persistent performance issues, especially the sort of PUG and LFG guilds who recruit from zone chat that are so important for new players. Its hard to pick up players from zone when performance sucks, especially for the large battles most guilds like to go for.

1vX is an experience issue. True 1vX is very rare. More often its inexperienced players who don't work together being pulled apart via LOS and kiting into a series of 1v1s or 1v2s without even realizing it. Incidently, this is one of those things that having a guild really helps with as new players learn to work together to take down a kiting opponent.

Small-scale vs groups is also an experience issue. By design, organized groups in ESO will almost always tear through a much larger disorganized group. The answer is teamwork, something best taught by a PVP guild. PUG and LFG guilds are fantastic for new players because they learn how to fight small-scale groups as a group instead of getting farmed because they are completely uncoordinated with the other players around them.

In the end, its all comes down to performance for me. Performance won't fix attitude problems, but it will make it easier for new players to gain experience in PVP and to actually enjoy PVP as its meant to be played without crippling lag, bugs, and crashes.

Aerenel

I stopped pvp because of lag, crashes, and bugs. I stopped pve because of burnout and boredom.

I've been called noob when I was new and elitist when I was experienced so I see both sides and honestly OP is just flat wrong. It would take a full page to go into all the reasons why, so I'll shorten it to the obvious.

OP is wrong.

Aerenel

I'm curious what the proposed solution would be anyways. Tell good pvpers to go easy on weak ones? Force top raid teams to carry incapable people during their core times? This all reads as someone who is just mad that other people are good at a game.

VaranisArano

JinMori wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Whelp, that's some bait.

At its roots, ESO isn't constantly changing because of elitists vs casuals, or any other "VS" match-up we can think up.

Its changing because of Horizontal Progression, which has been ZOS' perferred method since One Tamriel. Horizontal Progression, or to put less nicely "change for the sake of change" is how ZOS keeps the game from stagnating and becoming boring for most players, artificially extending the lifespan of the game with things to do like: Rework your build every patch! Regrind your gear to stay meta!

Now, who determines what changes are going to happen each patch varies. That's where all the elitists vs casuals, raid vs small scale, and PVE vs PVP stuff comes in. Oh, and PVE power creep vs end game content. Plus there's the Devs to consider, and the Devs Do What They Want.

But that doesnt alter the fact ZOS is always going to change up something. They have to. Its their only real method of progression since One Tamriel. Ultimately, that's WHY the Devs are constantly changing stuff every update.

Progression implies that things are moving forward, they aren't, eso is going backwards.

You get new things but what you had before is invalidated, be it sets, which i don't mind too much, or abilities which i do mind a lot, since zos idea of progression is nerfing the current meta to make space for a new one.

That's effectively what Horizontal Progression is in ESO, yes. You aren't getting much stronger, but you are changing what you do/wear. There's some growth, usually, so its a little like "Two steps backwards, three steps forward." (The numbers are an analogy, so I realize it'll break down if pushed hard enough, and that every class/build is going to have different numbers. A build hit hard by nerfs might be looking at 3 steps back, 1 step forwards, etc.)

Horizontal Progression in ESO relies on that "three steps forward" to keep players artificially engaged as they have to regrind characters, skills, and sets in order to cover the two steps progress they lost and then cover the last step. Done well, the player is engaged enough in the regrinding that it feels like three steps forward progress. "Just adapt!" Done poorly, the player feels like regrinding is a chore because of the two steps back. "I'm tired of changing my build!" (ZOS has been doing this since One Tamriel, but they've been doing it very poorly the last couple updates. Players are more clearly seeing the man behind the curtain.)

Over time, that one step forward in total progress adds up to power creep, and sometimes the Devs take a big "Ten steps backwards to cover power creep, three steps forward" type update. Then everyone is like "WTF?" Morrowind sustain nerfs were a great example of that.

Sometimes ZOS targets a specific meta playstyle so everyone using it has to switch. For example, ZOS nerfed Tava's Blessing when they changed armor skills, which destroyed it as a tank set. Any tank using that set had to regrind sets to be effective again.

Sometimes ZOS targets a class, like when they cut down Templars in order to make a niche for their new Warden healers to have a place in end-game PVE. That was just a flat loss of progress for Templars, in large part to encourage grinding up a Warden.

So yes, there's progression. Its just uneven, slow, and some classes/builds may see a net loss of progress depending on the update. And worse, humans remember the negatives more than the positives. So when builds get hit by a constant "two steps back, three steps forward" update after update, players get wise and start seeing that its a lot of steps backwards for comparatively little forward progress that will just get nerfed anyways. That's the part that's becoming extremely obvious to more and more disgruntled players right now.

VaranisArano

Aerenel wrote: »

I'm curious what the proposed solution would be anyways. Tell good pvpers to go easy on weak ones? Force top raid teams to carry incapable people during their core times? This all reads as someone who is just mad that other people are good at a game.

I already mentioned my solution for PVP: fixing performance issues would do a lot to support new players and the guilds who train them.

As for PVE, honestly, ZOS has got to do a better job of teaching players to play. The new tutorial did a great job with basic combat mechanics, but ESO still doesn't teach anything about DPS rotations, which are crucial to end-game PVE. New players have to use outside sources for that. ESO mentions light attack weaving, but doesnt really teach it, for something that's also important to end-game PVE. Giving ALL players an optional in-game DPS counter to evaluate their own DPS and better timers for buffs/debuffs would do a lot to give new players (and console players) the tools they need to excel at end-game PVE.

As it is, ESO does fine preparing most players for overland content, but really fails with preparing new players for group content.

Aerenel

@VaranisArano I was agreeing with you. Blaming the players is pointless. It's tied to the horizontal progression system which I've never seen explained better than how you did just earlier.

Nyladreas

Heatnix90 wrote: »

Bait thread is bait.

You got it wrong pal, the majority of the changes are designed around the majority of the playerbase, the casuals who only log on to do quests and cry about getting put in the dumpster in PvP.

Do you think the "toxic elitists" were in favor of cast times on ults? the DOT meta? Nah fam everyone you would classify as a "toxic elitist" was against most of these ridiculous changes.

Nah bud, casuals don't cry because of *** balance, that's why they're casuals. Your counter argument makes 0 sense in reality.

They're having fun just fine dying cause they mainly focus on the social aspect and trying to relax and waste time in an interesting game.

Casuals don't care if they win or lose. Period. They just wanna spend time with their friends and guilds. You simply couldn't be more wrong.

nsmurfer wrote: »

The ridiculous changes over the last few patches can be explained largely by split feedback.

The eso community is split into two wildly different categories. Contrary to popular belief, it is not exactly the PvE vs PvP camp. It is actually the vast majority who play for fun and enjoyments vs a select group of toxic elitists who are the vocal minority. Before anyone flames me, let me explain.

In PvP, the vast majority of players play to enjoy the social aspect. They have fun participating with what ever their faction is doing, be it taking keeps, large scale fights and be it bantering in zone chat or whatever. They dont complain about zergs, tank meta or overpowered skills etc. They recognize the fact that just because a class or skill is better in some way than others, it does not make it overpowered and if they find a class more fun than the rest, they switch to it. They dont care that TTK is high nor do they camplain about large scale faction wars(apart from performance issues). They prefer faction locks so that factions have a real meaning.

On the other hand are the 1vXers and small scalers. They are easily the most toxic and elitist group in the game. They play purely to kill and humiliate others in whatever way possible and thereby "expose zerglings". They intentionally abuse broken builds creating the balance problems in the first place and then call for things to be nerfed. Anything remotely defensive that people use to defend against them will get nerfed to appease them, be it sets like Pirate Skeleton, Malubeth, brass, protective or skills like shields, healing ward etc. They will lobby to get any kind of group utility removed from skills like Backlash just make their playstyle easier. They intentionally overlook the fact that 1vX play by definition is possible due to massive balance issue which they ignore because it favours them. These players abuse everything from macros for automated animation cancelling, scripts or exploits etc for their playstyle. This was highly evident in the IC event, they spawn camped faction bases killing players before they can react, even using the lift exploit in cases. Their constant abuse of broken mechanics to kill players and constant trolling/griefing both in the IC event and in Cyrodiil is a major source of griefing for the majority of the playerbase in general. A big number are also streamers, who often troll etc just for clout and epeen.

It is a very similar scene in PvE with a select few groups on top, which are only ones capable of completing the hardest content while the absolute majority can't even do most vet dungeons. The top guilds mostly doesn't do anything to help average players, so there is no advancement in majority of the playerbase. On the contrary majority of them are super toxic and are involved in shady practices like selling carries for skins/loots/clears for huge amounts of gold. Yet most balance changes are done keeping this small population in mind. Also there is a big overlap between the PvE top players and PvP top players, resulting in further toxicity and elitism.

Most of the feedback we give on forums etc is basically useless as it is not considered at all. The feedback that is taken is limited exclusively to discords like the class discords, top raid guild discords and private feedback given directly to devs and class reps. These discords are filled with elitists and to have any voice there, you need to show that you belong by being a toxic elitist 1vXer or a vet dlc trial score holder. Otherwise any feedback you give will get shut down and you will get ruthless mocked, clowned and kicked. Even class reps are not immune from that as a certain sorc class rep got removed for being "fil*** casual". Average players have hardly any say on changes. Classes and skills get changed to suit the particular playstyles by the small minority.

Thank you so much for this post. Finally someone had the balls. Although I'm willing to bet that it's not going to last long since the majority here on the forums is in fact the ingame minority.

VaranisArano

Aerenel wrote: »

@VaranisArano I was agreeing with you. Blaming the players is pointless. It's tied to the horizontal progression system which I've never seen explained better than how you did just earlier.

Thanks! I thought your question on possible solutions was a good one, so I figured it deserved a serious answer about what ZOS can really do to support new players

Horizontal progression won't change. Still, ZOS can do a lot more to support new players as they climb up to group content. Without, as you rightly point out, relying on experienced players and outside sources to carry the bulk of the teaching load as they do now. As a long term solution, its just not feasible to ask the end-game raids to act as progression groups, especially not when feedback from many progression guilds is that they are suffering from the constant nerfs. Progression groups are usually struggling with their content while trying their hardest already, so they are very prone to experiencing "three steps back, two steps forwards" and thus losing progress.

Its just a mess.

TriangularChicken

Why would a casual player care about balance changes tho? Would you care if ZOS is adding a cast time to ultimates when you're in a 24 man zerg trying to kill 1 player in PvP? The majority of players are zerglings who don't care, who simply light attack zerg you to death, that's a fact.
So why would ZOS listen to those that don't even care? As you said they are simply playing to have a good time in a big group in Cyro - fine, but somebody without a clue shouldn't be listened to.

You last paragraph shows that you're simply sad that they rejected your idea or nerfed/balanced one of your fav skills.
This whole thread is probably bait anyway...sadly mods take no real action other than closing such threads...

CompM4s

Its the “zerglings” who chase a “1vxer” half way across the map, then gets wiped that immediately runs to the forums to complain how there light attack spams didnt kill the “elitist”. Smallscale and 1vXers always adapt every patch, regardless of what zos does.

Also we have thumbs...

TequilaFire

The most toxic replies in this thread support the op's point.

Rave the Histborn

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

The PvP community complaining about lack of PvP population hasn't clued in yet that people thinking about PvP start out as casuals. Most of whom can't gain traction and drop out.
Some of them even want to play what they want instead of playing what other people tell them to play.

I think ZOS has figured it out though and their direction is power fantasy and play your way. Hopefully that works out AND they separate people by a system of proper leagues so people can have their power fantasy, play the way they want, and still get grouped with people against whom they have a 50/50 chance.

They still have to solve the wider issue of specialized unbalanced builds, which affects not only PvP but PvE. Seems ludicrous to be able to clear a Trial boss before they start the first phase of what makes the encounter interesting.

If you start something and drop out cuz it's too hard you weren't committed in the first place.

ForzaRammer

TequilaFire wrote: »

The most toxic replies in this thread support the op's point.

Whatever, I agree with most of what op said. Macro is common in pvp, it’s not that big an advantage, but scripters are much worse, I don’t want to name and shame, but cheaters always say there is no cheat.

Pve is actually not as bad. Nerfs affects top tier pve players just as much. And macro is not required to clear vcr hm and vss hm. Carry is not the sellers’ fault. It’s the buyers with big ego and not willing to git gud.

Vlad9425

They’re catering to new and inexperienced players instead of Veteran players. It’s got nothing to do with Elitism. Either way it’s a terrible direction to take the game.

Iskiab

Well, agreed pvp in ESO is extremely unforgiving and elitist for the most part. Pvp in ESO is endgame afterall, you won’t be able to do much until you’re geared.

Agree about 1vX sorta too. So many disingenuous opinions on things trying to sway opinions.

Joy_Division

Heatnix90 wrote: »

Bait thread is bait.

You got it wrong pal, the majority of the changes are designed around the majority of the playerbase, the casuals who only log on to do quests and cry about getting put in the dumpster in PvP.

Do you think the "toxic elitists" were in favor of cast times on ults? the DOT meta? Nah fam everyone you would classify as a "toxic elitist" was against most of these ridiculous changes.

It is a bait thread, but the OP isn't exactly wrong.

The most amount of feedback ZOS gets is from know-it-alls and it's these know-it-alls who complain how "casuals" use "crutches" to ruin their 1vX or something and they'd prefer a game with more "skill" and "counterplay."

That's why ZOS keeps nerfing "overloaded" skills (i.e. "crutches") and put in the cast times on the ults, for the "counterplay" that the know-it-alls kept asking for. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

The people who quest in the zones aren't the ones posting misleading death recaps of "overloaded" abilities on these forums.

StaticWave

Would you be more inclined to agree with an opinion of someone who has no medical skills, or an opinion of a doctor who's trained for 10 years? Similarly, would you be more inclined to agree with an opinion of someone who's fresh out of PvP academy, or someone who understands their class, is really good at it, and has played for a considerable amount of hours?

This sounds like an appeal to authority, but in video games, certain things may sound very good on paper, yet underperform in practice. The opposite is also true. During the Scalecaller PTS, many experienced players reported to ZOS that DOTs were broken. Do you think a casual player would actually put in the time to test things and report them to ZOS? Most likely not. They'd usually go with the flow.

What I'm saying is, your point of view is misguided.

OneForSorrow

VaranisArano wrote: »

Whelp, that's some bait.

At its roots, ESO isn't constantly changing because of elitists vs casuals, or any other "VS" match-up we can think up.

Its changing because of Horizontal Progression, which has been ZOS' perferred method since One Tamriel. Horizontal Progression, or to put less nicely "change for the sake of change" is how ZOS keeps the game from stagnating and becoming boring for most players, artificially extending the lifespan of the game with things to do like: Rework your build every patch! Regrind your gear to stay meta!

Now, who determines what changes are going to happen each patch varies. That's where all the elitists vs casuals, raid vs small scale, and PVE vs PVP stuff comes in. Oh, and PVE power creep vs end game content. Plus there's the Devs to consider, and the Devs Do What They Want.

But that doesnt alter the fact ZOS is always going to change up something. They have to. Its their only real method of progression since One Tamriel. Ultimately, that's WHY the Devs are constantly changing stuff every update.

We definitely need more vertical progression. Some really challenging zones would be nice, where you shouldn't go until you're actually powerful.

More Craglorns.

ForzaRammer

StaticWave wrote: »

Would you be more inclined to agree with an opinion of someone who has no medical skills, or an opinion of a doctor who's trained for 10 years? Similarly, would you be more inclined to agree with an opinion of someone who's fresh out of PvP academy, or someone who understands their class, is really good at it, and has played for a considerable amount of hours?

This sounds like an appeal to authority, but in video games, certain things may sound very good on paper, yet underperform in practice. The opposite is also true. During the Scalecaller PTS, many experienced players reported to ZOS that DOTs were broken. Do you think a casual player would actually put in the time to test things and report them to ZOS? Most likely not. They'd usually go with the flow.

What I'm saying is, your point of view is misguided.

Would you care more about who the speaker is or what evidence they present? Just because they are more qualified don’t mean *** to me, i care about what is said, not who said it.

StaticWave

ForzaRammer wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Would you be more inclined to agree with an opinion of someone who has no medical skills, or an opinion of a doctor who's trained for 10 years? Similarly, would you be more inclined to agree with an opinion of someone who's fresh out of PvP academy, or someone who understands their class, is really good at it, and has played for a considerable amount of hours?

This sounds like an appeal to authority, but in video games, certain things may sound very good on paper, yet underperform in practice. The opposite is also true. During the Scalecaller PTS, many experienced players reported to ZOS that DOTs were broken. Do you think a casual player would actually put in the time to test things and report them to ZOS? Most likely not. They'd usually go with the flow.

What I'm saying is, your point of view is misguided.

Would you care more about who the speaker is or what evidence they present? Just because they are more qualified don’t mean *** to me, i care about what is said, not who said it.

But this is a video game, where balance changes require real time practice to best determine whether it's strong or weak. That's why I specifically said "certain things may sound very good on paper, yet underperform in practice. The opposite is also true." I don't disagree with your statement, but in a video game it's usually the people who're more experienced that have a good general understanding of the game and evidence to back up their claims. Most casuals don't care about whether a set is strong or not. They just want to have fun. People who've put in the time to understand the game and test things want balance, and that should be the primary source of feedback. Obviously there will be bias, which is why ZOS also listens to the general player base as well.

ZarkingFrued

In my opinion the actual toxicity is coming from the casuals who can't understand why they keep dying in PVP. Why wasn't this post shut down anyhow? Calling out Veteran players and calling them "toxic elitists". Because Zos caters to the casual majority in this game.