More Miscellaneous Buffs for Adding Some RPG to the End-Game of ESO

YandereGirlfriend

Like many of you, I was a fan of the main Elder Scrolls games long before I ever played ESO. Like many of you, I believe that the "RPG" in "MMORPG" (especially in a TES game) is still important to the genre. And, like many of you, I find that there are precious few opportunities for roleplaying actions to make a meaningful difference to end-game gameplay.

As such, I'd like to make a modest suggestion for expanding the system of quest-linked Miscellaneous Buffs, found below:



As you can see, both the number of buffs and their general utility is... rather limited. At present, they are a vestigial system giving a small nod to the legacy of roleplaying in the Elder Scrolls series without making a meaningful mark on gameplay. Some might say that it is best kept that way, but I disagree.

It is true that handing out a large number of permanent, stacking buffs from quests might not be advisable, but it does not need to be handled that way. In fact, we see this in the following quest reward for "Bosmer Insight" (a quest about being initiated into a Bosmer tribe and choosing your Spirit Animal) in Grahtwood:



The idea introduced here is to have buffs be mutually exclusive and for each prospective buff to best fit with one of the defined Elder Scrolls class/role archetypes so that different characters have different reasons to select different buffs.

The above might not be the best embodiment of that. The quest explains the three potential Spirit Animals: "The Snake uses stealth, the Tiger uses strength and the Wolf uses teamwork." So instead, we might have buffs like:

• Snake's Scales: Decreased detection radius while in Stealth by 1 meter
• Tiger's Fur: Decreases the cost of Block and increases the amount of damage that you can block by 3%
• Wolf's Pelt: Increases the duration of all Major and Minor buffs that you apply to allies by 10%

The idea is to give certain roles and playstyles a small but noticeable boost while being mindful to avoid obvious sources of power-creep (such as raw damage modifiers) or buffs that are too universally desirable. The buffs should also be permanent (though potentially not always active) and ideally provide static rather than dynamic buffs in order to minimize their cumulative impact on game performance.

The buffs should also be plentiful enough so that their collective weight is able to open up or augment builds that are currently considered to be off-meta or not viable for late-game content. They should also be tied to quest-content to give context for the buffs (roleplaying) and to keep old content relevant to all characters.

Another few examples of well-done quest buffs from Skyrim that we might be able to use as inspiration for similar buffs in ESO. This one is from "The Heart of Dibella quest":



As you can see, this is another interesting buff that is highly useful in some situations while being utterly useless in many others (especially in ESO where many enemies are monsters, beasts, and constructs).



This one is from reading one of Hermaeus Mora's Black Books and is mutually exclusive with two other buffs. It is less directly translatable to ESO, but you could modify it to be something like: "Applying the Chilled status effect deals 3000 additional Frost Damage" for a small but noticeable boost to an off-meta damage type.



This is an example of a buff that is too universally desirable, but if it were tweaked to be: "Increases your healing done to allies by 25% with Stamina healing abilities" it would be a large buff to a specialized healing niche and leave traditional healing balance unaffected.

In any case, by now this post is long and the general point is made. With a little bit of creativity, we could, at a stroke, breathe fresh life into some of the game's oldest content as well as provide some buffs to roleplayers and some niche, RP-style builds.

codierussell

So, a few things I would argue with this.

Firstly, I would argue a lot of these proposed buffs already exist in ESO. For example, the chilled status effect does apply some damage (although minimal yes) but applies minor maim to the enemy. For that exact example you are proposing changing the way the devs decided to go in terms of combat mechanics. Same with the increased healing, we have minor and major mending that do the same thing.

Second, and this plays off the first point, how is this not going to add to a power creep? In minor mending (8% healing done) and major mending (25% healing done) stack with the proposed 10% extra healing, so now it is possible for someone to increase their healing 43%. That sounds way to strong to me. With the chilled status effect, it doesn't deal a ton of damage because that is the niche ability of the burning status effect, making an ice staff super strong as it does a ton of free damage as well as applying minor maim.

Third, role-playing will never be part of end game, or at least how end game is defined in this game. In PVE there will always be a best, and something that fits to the lore of the game will not be best. I'm sorry but a pack of werewolves using sets like Hiricine's or whatever a werewolf rp set would be clearing things like cloudrest hard mode. In PVP you can really do what you want, but same thing, someone who is built to play how the combat mechanics work will have a advantage.

Lastly, the areas of the buffs you listed are limited so bugs don't happen and a trial group can get everything in a trial setting. Going back to the second point, this is going to add to the power creep. Also, looking at a coding standpoint it would be difficult for this to be implemented. I won't say it isn't possible but I don't think it is worth the time when there are other major issue that could use some love from the programming team.

zvavi

I mean. As much RPG as it would be. And as much fun you can have with it on your first character. Plz no more grind. I beg you. Plz.

YandereGirlfriend

@codierussell

Most of what you meant as rebuttal came across more like "This will be the way things will be forever because this is the way that things are now." But things change in this game, all the time.

You're also getting bogged down nit-picking irrelevant things used primarily as examples (like Frost applying some minor damage) and losing sight of the bigger picture (more ways to build your character).

I addressed power-creep up-front and stated that bonuses should categorically not be augmentations that are either "too good to pass up" or that buff already meta aspects of the game. By all means, I'm not talking about having something like "Tiger's Fur - increases Critical Damage by 25%" or some other like madness.

A trifling bonus to the Chilled damage proc isn't going to suddenly make double Frost Staff the meta way to DPS but it would slightly raise the floor for anyone who wanted to roleplay as a pure Frost Mage.

Regarding healing, the language was "using STAMINA HEALING abilities on ALLIES" which explicitly excludes meta Magicka-based heals and it doesn't even apply to yourself. That couldn't be any more different from Major/Minor Mending. But, as I said, that's also getting bogged down in irrelevant minutia.

Finally, about implementation, this definitely would not be a big deal. Something like reducing your Stealth detection range is likely a one-time modification of your character object and that is the ideal template for most of the buffs (e.g. that they are static and don't introduce new computations).

@zvavi The title should probably be worded differently in retrospect but I'm not proposing obvious meta buffs like "Increases Critical Damage by 25%" that you would genuinely feel compelled to acquire. More like providing additional avenues for character-building that are acquired outside of the regular equipment or class system, ideally on specs that are currently under-powered.

Of course, if there were a small buff of like 1% Critical Damage and you felt compelled to acquire it (without otherwise having an interest in the quest), as the saying goes, "That sounds like more of a you problem" than a problem with the buff itself.

Supreme_Atromancer

codierussell wrote: »

I won't say it isn't possible but I don't think it is worth the time when there are other major issue that could use some love from the programming team.

I think you make a lot of valid points, but I will say that all stakeholders are gonna think the programming team should be prioritising the things they value over the things that others value.

karekiz

We need a world buff meta.

Athan1

I really liked the bosmer buffs and was disappointed they didn't carry over. Wolf power!

zvavi

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

The title should probably be worded differently in retrospect but I'm not proposing obvious meta buffs like "Increases Critical Damage by 25%" that you would genuinely feel compelled to acquire. More like providing additional avenues for character-building that are acquired outside of the regular equipment or class system, ideally on specs that are currently under-powered.

Tiger's Fur: Decreases the cost of Block and increases the amount of damage that you can block by 3%
Wolf's Pelt: Increases the duration of all Major and Minor buffs that you apply to allies by 10%

These 2. I would get the first on all my tanks, and the second on all my dds. Don't underestimate of 10% more uptime on warhorn and minor force from trap. And don't get me started on the chill idea, all my mag dds will get it, I generally proc on parses chilled 30 times that's ez additional 150k damage after crits, throw in 10 buffs like that and I will have ez 5% dmg increase. But I don't want that grind.

YandereGirlfriend

@zvavi While I certainly respect your knowledge and deep reservoir of expertise, you're still getting hung up on random implementation details and not really addressing the issue on the merits. I came up with those passives off the top of my head as I was writing the post, not as the byproduct of long hours of research.

But just to play that game for a moment, who really cares if you would take the block passives on your tanks? Is that really going to allow you to clear content faster or is it simply for quality-of-life? If it is the latter, that's not power-creep. If it is the former, assuming that it is within a certain tolerance, again, who really cares?

As for Chilled, again, it's a random implementation detail. More damage, less damage, who cares? Are you running Force Pulse on every Magicka character (if so, my condolences, because that must be agonizingly boring)? It could easily be changed to something like "Adds 100 Frost Damage to your Frost Damage ticks" and it would suddenly be a trivial consideration for anyone other than a double Frost Staff Warden (and they're no particular threat for power-creep).

Patches come out every cycle that either raise or lower the DPS ceiling (sometimes by astronomical amounts) and re-shuffle the deck of classes within that context. And every patch life somehow keeps going on.

If some modest buffs can bring some additional power to historically under-powered builds that nonetheless many players enjoying playing (and doing quests for), that still strikes me as a very good thing.

zvavi

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

If some modest buffs can bring some additional power to historically under-powered builds that nonetheless many players enjoying playing (and doing quests for), that still strikes me as a very good thing.

But that's exactly my point, many small buffs to these builds through quest passives will end up being power creep, and one that requires grind. The fact that I could casually point it out on implantation that seemed innocent is the proof. That's exactly what I want to avoid. A much better approach would be to buff specific sets, because you actually lose something for running them. I am for a change like: buff ysgramor's birthright to 650 spell dmg. Buff netch touch to 500 spell dmg (would have been 600 too if didn't affect pets). That would be much a better approach to buffing these off meta builds.

Unless obviously you will make all these small buffs not work in PvP & group PvE, then you can have as many as you want.

zvavi

After thinking about it s bit I agree that such a thing can be balanced well through kiss curse, like, higher frost damage but lower fire damage (for example) and balanced through it. But to be honest I wouldn't trust zos with creating it well, see stranglers upon release, it was obvious that the item is broken since day 1 on PTS...