Community opinion on nerfs

zvavi

While I do agree that a Nerf is needed once in a while, I don't remember the last time a weaker option was buffed to add build variety, heck, most nerfs are straight up butchery. So, question is, how does the community prefers it to be.

John_Falstaff

Tweak numbers on both stronger and weaker skills to ensure they are on the same level

...and spell "community" right, you can do better, zvavi!

Seriously though, there are outliers that overperform (seriously, some skills like jabs and some races like orcs are overloaded and power could either be redirected into other skills, or racials toned down), there are outliers that underperform (poor stamDKs can't find what they're all about, magnecros strong in one aspects and weak in others, magdens... well y'know their silly bears ^^), and there are those that need a lot of QoL changes that don't have to be fundamental (NBs). Plus of course the issue of diluting the identity on conceptual level has to stop - cannibalizing unique fun perks of a class for new or existing common skill lines is just lazy design: classes don't only have to hit as much on a dummy or have full toolkit, they must -feel- differently gameplay-wise, something ZOS has to actually start (gasp, radical notion) working on.

NocturnalSonata

Another

1: separate pvp and pve to start, and balance seperatly.
2,3,4,5,6: lets talk after 1 is done.
7: get rid of Heavy armour meta in pvp
8: no time to rejoice as lag and performance is abysmal so not amount of balancing really means that much anyway.

zvavi

NocturnalSonata wrote: »

1: separate pvp and pve to start, and balance seperatly.
2,3,4,5,6: lets talk after 1 is done.
7: get rid of Heavy armour meta in pvp
8: no time to rejoice as lag and performance is abysmal so not amount of balancing really means that much anyway.

While I agree a bit on 1, and a lot on 8, the topic is nerfs in general, not pve vs pvp and not the performance issue plaguing the game.

blacksghost

For the love of M’aiq leave things [snip] alone.

[edited for bypassing profanity filter]

bmnoble

Just. Don't touch anything ok. Nada. Good as is. Stop it.

Its the 6th year of the game if they haven't figured out what they want combat wise by this point they never will.

They finally started using battle spirit again to balance PVP, leave the skills and sets alone aside from reworks of sets that are currently useless.

BalticBlues

Another

NocturnalSonata wrote: »

1: separate pvp and pve to start, and balance seperatly.

THIS. Greymoor PTS butchers PvE tanks with -50% regen of monster masks.
Please make the -50% regen part of BattleSpirit instead part of the entire game.

Starlock

Another

I don't have a preference. I don't care enough to. This is a video game - I can't be bothered to care about number crunching for a video game.

Ri_Khan

Another

Most of the changes have nothing to do with balancing combat. They do it like this to get you to chase after ("purchase") all the new sets, skills. classes, everything that's added with the new content each year. If the pre-existing popular stuff didn't get the nerf hammer, it wouldn't make the new, slightly better stuff seem so appealing, right? They're just toeing the p2w line when it comes to the meta treadmill and disguising it behind excuses of power creep, player skill gap and over-performance.

RedReign

Tweak numbers on both stronger and weaker skills to ensure they are on the same level

At some point you'd think they'd learn to stop with the arbitrary blanket nerfing of every skill and set but so far they're laboring under the idea that we all just love being gutted every patch.

John_Falstaff

Tweak numbers on both stronger and weaker skills to ensure they are on the same level

For one, I don't believe that the game's ready to be frozen in current state, even though sometimes I'm urged to toss my hands up and say 'stop, don't touch anything for heaven's sake, every time you do you only make it worse'. But no, the balance is way off now. Of course people who surf the wave right now, those whose class/race/whatever is on top, will vote to freeze things in place, but - no.

For another, I do think there's a way to sell new content without resorting to dirty tricks with nerfing existing classes and sets to sell us the same stuff they took away, just in new package. They just have to stop being lazy and invent new, fun unique ways - sets that bring new playstyles and tactical tricks, classes and skill lines that stay in line with previous ones but are fun to play in new unique ways unlike what we've seen before. But, yes. It requires creativity [snip]

[edited for bashing]

JinMori

Another

i generally do not like nerfs unless really necessary because there is almost always a better approach.

Iv'e already told many times what i think the better approach would be so i will not repeat it.

Raammzzaa

Just. Don't touch anything ok. Nada. Good as is. Stop it.

This game has become continually less fun to play since its release mostly owing its steadily worsening performance, but also in part to the poor balance changes constantly made by the developers.

Xologamer

Just. Don't touch anything ok. Nada. Good as is. Stop it.

jsut reroll balancing to summersend and dont touch it again

ZOS_FalcoYamaoka

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Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

Strengthen weaker skills, power creep is our second name

I would infinitely rather there be skills for every class that are strong in comparison to this homogenized neutering they've all experienced. But if we can't return to the days of actual fun, then literally LEAVE THE GAME ALONE ZOS. Enough. This is not beta anymore. You've had enough time to envision what you want. Let us breathe.

Hanokihs

zvavi wrote: »

NocturnalSonata wrote: »

1: separate pvp and pve to start, and balance seperatly.
2,3,4,5,6: lets talk after 1 is done.
7: get rid of Heavy armour meta in pvp
8: no time to rejoice as lag and performance is abysmal so not amount of balancing really means that much anyway.

While I agree a bit on 1, and a lot on 8, the topic is nerfs in general, not pve vs pvp and not the performance issue plaguing the game.

You can't really talk about nerfs without bringing up the PvE/PvP faction feud, as "balancing" done for one usually negatively impacts or outright destroys the other.

Skullstachio

Tweak numbers on both stronger and weaker skills to ensure they are on the same level

In my honest opinion, Single target Spammable skills such as flame skull should have their overall Magicka/Stamina cost reduced a fair bit, because how does one go about spamming it if one cannot innately recover that spent resource through their respective recovery (such as Magicka recovery). Certain Spammables should be continuously usable in the sense that it should be fired off constantly whilst other skills, namely damage over time abilities, are currently on the field.

From another perspective, I feel that the recovery stats should get a little bump upwards, make them more useful since certain builds usually leave most recovery stats in the dark. But that is just my two cents.

JJBoomer

Tweak numbers on both stronger and weaker skills to ensure they are on the same level

zvavi wrote: »

NocturnalSonata wrote: »

1: separate pvp and pve to start, and balance seperatly.
2,3,4,5,6: lets talk after 1 is done.
7: get rid of Heavy armour meta in pvp
8: no time to rejoice as lag and performance is abysmal so not amount of balancing really means that much anyway.

While I agree a bit on 1, and a lot on 8, the topic is nerfs in general, not pve vs pvp and not the performance issue plaguing the game.

except pve vs. pvp has a direct effect on nerfs. when pvp is nerfed, pve also gets the nerf. so you can't really separate those things. they are connected

Kadoin

It is heavily dependent on what is being looked at and combinations + what bugs out.

Example? On live you can use elfbane and burning spellweave and do a certain method to make the burns from burning spellweave stack infinitely on a target and do massive damage.

In this example a nerf might result to either set if ZOS cannot fix the bug that occurs there, and I can't really see it as unjustified even if it is disappointing...

Wait, that bug was reported right? If not, oops.

justaquickword

bmnoble wrote: »

Its the 6th year of the game if they haven't figured out what they want combat wise by this point they never will.

They finally started using battle spirit again to balance PVP, leave the skills and sets alone aside from reworks of sets that are currently useless.

If the player base stopped constantly whining about every little thing in the game (usually due to nothing but self interest) then maybe they would leave things alone.

Casul

If we are all nerfed then no one is nerfed.

YandereGirlfriend

Strengthen weaker skills, power creep is our second name

justaquickword wrote: »

If the player base stopped constantly whining about every little thing in the game (usually due to nothing but self interest) then maybe they would leave things alone.

Sometimes I think this but then I see the drunk-dialed Grundwulf nerf that precisely nobody asked for and I realize that the combat team is pursuing their own (fundamentally misguided) agenda.

zvavi

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

justaquickword wrote: »

If the player base stopped constantly whining about every little thing in the game (usually due to nothing but self interest) then maybe they would leave things alone.

Sometimes I think this but then I see the drunk-dialed Grundwulf nerf that precisely nobody asked for and I realize that the combat team is pursuing their own (fundamentally misguided) agenda.

Well obviously it was kinda useless in pvp because proc was not reliable enough, and it was blasphemous that people in pve run anything other than zaan, so zaan in pve buffed and grandwulf nerfed. Yes yes.

Mr_Walker

No point. Cyrodiil is so bad just firing one skill in a row is something to be celebrated. Nerf/buff whatever you like, until cyro is actually functional it's largely irrelevant.

mocap

- everyone and their grandma can get vma weapons, indirect but strong buff
- zaan buff
- heavy attack rotation buff
- new sets (p2w though)
- new skill line buff (150k dps parse on PTS, will be tuned obviously, still...)

a lot of magicka users buff after current stamina meta. Everything goes on as usual.

Muizer

The balance as it is now, when something is too strong, gut it to the ground

Hmm I suppose given the framing it's not surprising I'm almost alone in this, but if you're got going to touch the difficulty of the content/player opposition, then buffing everything to bring it up to par with something that's over-performing is obviously a very bad idea. In fact, in general, when you try for balance, changing a lot of things all at once is a bad idea.So if something is perceived as over-performing, then yes, the safest way to address it is to nerf that thing and try not to complicate it with other nerfs and buffs that might muddle assessing the effects.

FierceSam

The balance as it is now, when something is too strong, gut it to the ground

Player ingenuity will always trump developers’ intentions... this creates a limited number of meta builds, which developers want to avoid.

The easiest way (maybe the only way) is to reduce the effectiveness of the extreme outlier sets and/or skills. The consequences of this is, at worst, that new meta builds will emerge, perhaps with more variety.

Raising underperforming sets and skills is far riskier as the consequences can be very different from what was intended.

colossalvoids

Another

I have no problems with that if it's justified from most standpoints, but with current combat team is a darts play now - what we will kill off next.

Hapexamendios

Another

Stop trying to balance PvP and PVE at the same time. You've proven it doesn't work.

Amunari

As a developer who has done class balance for almost a decade I will take a note and speak officially on behalf of all developers across all games and start with saying this thread has got to be loaded with the biggest pile of troll .... dung i have ever seen.

I cannot begin to express [snip] threads like this, or make statements like "leave it alone, dont touch anything" or "buff stuff instead of nerfing it" The sheer about of ignorance and arrogance that comes from these sorts of statements are themselves outright insanity.

Knock it off. Seriously. Knock. It. Off.

[snip]

You need three things to change the state of something, or of a people.

1. The knowledge to know what the problem is
2. The knowledge to know what the solution is
3. The power to implement the change (solution

For now you cannot even diagnose the problem correctly, or why we as developers nerf things and not buff others. This would make the situation FAR, FAR WORSE, not to mention consumed ungodly amounts of our time just to satisfy your whimsical desires.

[snip], or just stopped and invested a fraction of your [snip] brain power you would stop and realize a very important thing. Do you know what that is? That you, and almost every person out there follows the "meta". You follow what you, and others perceive to be the best thing. So even if "we buffed things up to being equal", your ability would become just as invalidated as it is with a nerf.

Lets take another step forward and prove just how even more ridiculous this position is that you have.

Do you know why we "bat" nerf things? because we have this methodology that enables us to get things balance very quickly. The way it works is when something is over tuned, we nerf it to where its on the low side of things. The result of that is a "scope" or "range" of the ability and its performance. From metric data there we are then able to make a determination on where the middle ground is, and with in 3 adjustments of the spell are able to be very close to "balanced".

So the very prospect that we should not nerf itself fights against balance and the most efficient and quickest way of getting there.

[snip]

/signed all devs
/signed armChairDevTeam

[edited for baiting comments]