is it that difficult to get explanations from the combat balance team?

StarOfElyon

I don't know if they really are trying to standardize things because so much just blows the standards out of the water

Mythreindeer

It’s a no-win situation for a dev to comment in a thread like this. Anything they say would be pounced on by a hundred posters with different opinions and then taken as gospel if it didn’t take place exactly as they describe. Commenting would only cause future liabilities for ESO.

Mojmir

Why reply to us when they have apologists and white knighters?
Why reply when they can just shut down the thread?
Why reply when they can just hand out shiny BS instead?

Sergykid

sure man but it doesn't make any sense. Why cause so much frustration for so many people. All of us that hate this imbalance are not important, the only important customers are those that pay for chapter.
All customers are important, but some customers are more important than others (GTA5 quote). So people that pay for the chapter are more important than any other customer then?

Abelon

You can leave your suggestions and feedback anywhere, like the forums. Especially the feedback on PTS changes is listened to from time to time, that much we've seen.

Some games do have more communication from community managers and so on, ESO is lacking here, no arguments from me.

But you certainly shouldn't expect dev team leads, or whoever is responsible for balance to justify themselves in front of a bunch of gamers. Not only because it would be a waste of their time... they do have actual jobs after all. But also because it is ultimately pointless. Even if they would explain why they balance things one way or the other... that wouldn't actually make anyone happy. The players that are unhappy with the changes are just unhappy with them, arguments wouldn't fix that.

So imagine the balance person coming in and saying "hey guys, here's why I changed X." Then one player goes "wow, that explanation sucks, X should totally be this way instead." Then another player comes in and says "no, both of you are stupid, it should actually be that way." And then the discussion devolves into the normal passive aggressive arguments we are already having on the forums. And the balance person being there changes nothing whatsoever.

[snip]

[edited for rude comment]

Mitaka211

This is a thing that frustrated me to the point of quiting for long periods of time. They tend to make extreme changes , that honestly seem untested and with no logic behind them. For me there was a clear moment a while back when they butchered the templar ults where they game sweeps to give empower insted of major protection lol. I remember even the rep at the time was really shocked at that, because at times it seems that even a casual player undestands their game better than the balancing team.
You will never get an anwser, simple as that. They work in silence , they don't seem to listen to anyone , they drop a patch and force you to play a broken game for six months until they drop another one. While i think the last one is fine and it fixed more things than it broke, i still think this mmo would drop off it keeps going like this. They need to rework their whole way of connecting to the community. Other game studios are doing it, this is by far the worst one when it comes to that stuff.
With ESO it's same old same old, at this point i am so done with it that even when i try to get back at it i just feel that i no longer want to play it. I hope one for a bg from time to time and that is it.
For example the whole companion system, no one really cares about it, i would say maybe 10-20% at most. They could have spend that time working on something original that would surpise us , their expansions aren't even worth the money anymore. They are safe , boring and by the book. Even a Remaster Update would be better than this, 90% of the gear looks like crap, the animations are stiff and the worst by far when compared even with old mmos. There are literally a hundred things they could have done instead of this companion bs.

Mayrael

IAmIcehouse wrote: »

Coming back to ESO and off other games like Valorant or WZ--where the devs are extremely engaged with their community; frequent forums/reddit, post updates via Twitter, releasing details on what they are working on and acknowledging when issues are reported that they are being looked at-- it's extremely frustrating seeing a game as good as ESO have zero transparency between devs and community.

And it's getting worse. Instead of every week maintenances they do them every 2 weeks, instead of communicating we have announcing, instead of balance we have overloaded dlc classes and overnerfed vanilla classes just to make the first ones even more attractive. Saddest part? It won't change because all that matters is profit, less maintenances, less communication etc. means less staff, which maximizes income. ESO rides on franchise back, that's all.

Stevie6

The devs nerfed ESO on purpose to basically keep the mid level players and some high end players. They basically killed the low end player base.. "raise the floor" lol...basically there is no floor to stand on. I'm tired of the constant changes the devs implement every patch just to frustrate average joe player. It's getting old. I shouldn't have purchased the sub thru steam just yet. I should have waited a couple of months. My fault on that one.

SirAndy

who can i talk with about this?

Man, am i glad i don't work as a game developer anymore.
The perceived notion of entitlement around here is the exact reason why you won't see any game devs posting.

Fun fact, we did get to talk to some of the devs during the in-house beta, but then again, we didn't usually start our conversations with "listen, let me explain to you how you need to do your job" and "you can't do that without talking to me first".

Grandchamp1989

Ouch, please don't ask them for further nerfs. My characters barely survived this patch.
The last 2-3 patches so many things have been nerfed to the ground.

Seraphayel

Sergykid wrote: »

the Band is the most broken thing here, it's like two and a half major berserk constantly uptime. But hey, chapter bring sales when attractive power is available, right? so much for p2w.

I‘m pretty sure that one of the proc set fixes coming in U30 is a Malacath nerf from 25% to 15%.

Chilly-McFreeze

Abelon wrote: »

But you certainly shouldn't expect dev team leads, or whoever is responsible for balance to justify themselves in front of a bunch of gamers

A bunch of „gamers“? Neckbearded no lifers he?
Well, that‘s one way to look at customers. You know, the group of people that is paying for this game and securing the devs livelihood. Seems a little condescending to be honest.

Lynxyn

Sergykid wrote: »

you changed buffs and sets with balance in mind, with the pretext of lowering the distance between the floor and the ceiling.
However you left many things unchanged, like they are supposed to be like this. Not even an explanation of why or a note saying that these will be adjusted in a future patch.
What are the reasons of this? who can i talk with about this? @ZOS_GinaBruno ? it's not like i am entitled to any answers, but the community as a whole (at least everyone i play with) does not understand the changes, or why other things are left untouched, or why nobody from the team is explaining about those decisions.
This just results in a frustrating experience, and it gets down to more work into building the character rather than actual fun gameplay. These things are just another brick in the wall between players and the game.

that was all i had to say, below i will just post some examples regarding to what i am talking about.
- the Malacath Band was made with 25% bonus, comparable to Major Berserk at that time. Now Major Berserk is nerfed to 10% from 25%, yet Band remains the same. Where is the SBE (Set Bonus Efficiency) at this item? it should have been brought down to 10%.
- Slimecraw no compensation but i suppose it aligns with SBE ?
- For instance Vampire Cloak has been adjusted for the loss, so i suppose Slimecraw SBE should have been modified too?
- Major Protection from 30% to 10%, but Buffer of the Swift still grants 10% all the time, unchanged.
- proc sets had 1.5k-2k dps standard with proc chances like 15-20%, so maybe a 500 dps. Now there is no proc chance, so they do indeed 1.5k-2k dps but this is too strong now?

there are many more examples, but these are just to represent the idea. Do the balance team actually play the game on a competitive level like high MMR battlegrounds or vet dlc trials? Also trial builds are mostly copy-paste and if you dare use something else you lose up to 5k dps.

EDIT: i wanted to add some insight about the nerf to buffs. Again two tons hammer nerf, instead of adjustments. From 15% to 5%, minor buffs like maim or protection are not even worth to use now, just wasted slots on the bar. Same goes for The Major buffs, 10% from 30% is too much to be worth using the sources of these buffs.
Why not first a patch with 10% minor, 20% major, and then decide if they are needed to nerf further to 5 and 10 % ?
.

Not that I enjoy malacath being in the game, but malacath isn't made to compare major berserk. It's made to replace crits. At 10% I would like you to name a build that would use this for dps while they're also losing their monster set 2pc or a 5pc over a 2 5pc and monster set build that can crit. 10% will not ever make up for losing 3 full sets and not being able to crit plus major berserk doesn't prevent me from landing crits.

You also named a set (buffer of the swift) that literally no one uses but didn't mention how necro spirit guardian which is also still 10% is used in every single build because of how overpowered it is plus necro has easy access to major and minor protection on top of it.

Nyladreas

Sergykid wrote: »

why don't i see any SBE corrections in PTS notes? if they only apply SBE where they want to, it's not a standard anymore, it's called preferences

You can't fully standardise crap if the dev has their own main 😂😂

Firstmep

Abelon wrote: »

You can leave your suggestions and feedback anywhere, like the forums. Especially the feedback on PTS changes is listened to from time to time, that much we've seen.

Some games do have more communication from community managers and so on, ESO is lacking here, no arguments from me.

But you certainly shouldn't expect dev team leads, or whoever is responsible for balance to justify themselves in front of a bunch of gamers. Not only because it would be a waste of their time... they do have actual jobs after all. But also because it is ultimately pointless. Even if they would explain why they balance things one way or the other... that wouldn't actually make anyone happy. The players that are unhappy with the changes are just unhappy with them, arguments wouldn't fix that.

So imagine the balance person coming in and saying "hey guys, here's why I changed X." Then one player goes "wow, that explanation sucks, X should totally be this way instead." Then another player comes in and says "no, both of you are stupid, it should actually be that way." And then the discussion devolves into the normal passive aggressive arguments we are already having on the forums. And the balance person being there changes nothing whatsoever.

[snip]

[edited for rude comment]

Path of exile. The devs put out a comprehensive balance manifesto every new patch.
And that game is 100x more complex and harder to balance than eso could ever hope to be.
The devs have never been great at engaging with the community, the class rep program was a waste of time, considering they just give the reps the lowdown and don't really care about their inputs either.
At the end of the day, this is how it's been forever. When they started adding their little comments to the patch notes people thought things would change.
They didnt.
As for them taking feedback from the pts..
Compared to the amount of changes they have made in the past couple of years with every update, the actual amount of feedback they actually acted on is very minimal.
We have had the most broken painful proc meta ever since Greymoor and the devs didn't flinch when they closed the year out with even more broken procs with Markarth.
I never really bought into the whole, they buffed procs to sell greymoor via malacath band before, but there's very little other explanation out there.
They did say that procs were good for the game Beacuse it allowed less skilled players to be more relevant, but anyone who pvpd the last year can tell that bad players got demolished by proc wearing vets all the same.

Sanguinor2

Honestly all I want from Zos is to act on feedback that shows actual numbers etc. especially so when numbers show that what Zos is doing is going against what they actually want to do. A lot of feedback isnt really useful to Zos but feedback that actually shows data and facts should be considered.

Wonderful example for this is the dot patches. At first Zos said that dots are too weak and that they needed buffs. Which was valid. But what Zos did is buffing dots so hard that using a spammable was a dps loss. People told Zos that on day 1 of PTS and showed it with numbers. Zos let it go live. Result was a PvE meta of slotting either 8 dots, 1 execute, 1 self buff or 9 dots and 1 selfbuff depending on class. PvP meta was just stack dots on someone and they die.

3 months later Zos notices: hey dots are kinda too strong right now. So on PTS they say that dots are too strong now and need a nerf. Which again was valid. What Zos did on the PTS however was not. Instead of slightly adjusting dots they nerfed them so hard that they were weaker than they were when Zos said they needed a buff. People told Zos this and again showed it with numbers. Zos didnt care. Result: Dots were so weak that slotting mages guild/fighters guild abilities over them was a dps gain even without casting them once.

Another 3 months later Zos notices: hey no one is slotting dots anymore. So they buff dots again to where they are right now.
Moral of the story: If they had taken testing with actual numbers into consideration they couldve saved themselves 3 patches worth of dot balancing.

Jaraal

Lynxyn wrote: »

Not that I enjoy malacath being in the game, but malacath isn't made to compare major berserk. It's made to replace crits. At 10% I would like you to name a build that would use this for dps while they're also losing their monster set 2pc or a 5pc over a 2 5pc and monster set build that can crit. 10% will not ever make up for losing 3 full sets and not being able to crit plus major berserk doesn't prevent me from landing crits.

100% this.

I have Malacath, but never use it, because I'm giving up too much crit damage and set choices.

People who are unable to or just don't want to build defensively or learn how to counter damage are always going to look for a scapegoat to complain about. If Malacath were nerfed to 5%, people would still complain about it.

GlorphNoldorin

You can check out any time you want.....but you can never leave.

ZOS is appalling at communication and balance....but here we still are.

Sergykid

@Abelon @SirAndy
i don't think you've read the op properly, or you just skipped words. I already said i am not entitled to answers, and i don't actually expect answers either. Of course the actual dev that does programming at their desk part of their daily job isn't going to come do social activity on the forum. I already tackled this.

this doesn't mean that someone isn't actually there to talk with the customers. I don't want an answer just to have an answer like someone said "we did X because Y". I wanted an answer just to understand the logic behind some changes, because right now i don't understand.

the only reason that i can understand is that customers that buy the chapter are more important than the other customers. But they are not going to say this. So i don't want to believe that this is their reason. Then what is it?
.

Nomadic_Atmoran

Stellarvorous wrote: »

Thats the thing

kargen27 wrote: »

UGotBenched91 wrote: »

Sadly I’ve never seen any dev posts on the forum. The only time I see staff post on forum is saying they had to close a thread or delete posts.

I'm happy the developers are not posting in the forums. Not a good use of their time or skill sets.

Considering balance is jacked up and performance is even worse sometimes some communication on what the game plan is helps if its just silence and then people are stuck looking at the results and then results suck ass its not a good look


Less im wrong are there any pvpers out there enjoying this proc meta and the wonderful AAA performance we got going atm? Anyone? Anyone at all?

Feel free to speak up if your in love with the way zos is *KILLING IT* atm with performance and the current balance Id love to hear about it

That's what the Community Managers job is for.

Stevie6

Jaraal wrote: »

Lynxyn wrote: »

Not that I enjoy malacath being in the game, but malacath isn't made to compare major berserk. It's made to replace crits. At 10% I would like you to name a build that would use this for dps while they're also losing their monster set 2pc or a 5pc over a 2 5pc and monster set build that can crit. 10% will not ever make up for losing 3 full sets and not being able to crit plus major berserk doesn't prevent me from landing crits.

100% this.

I have Malacath, but never use it, because I'm giving up too much crit damage and set choices.

People who are unable to or just don't want to build defensively or learn how to counter damage are always going to look for a scapegoat to complain about. If Malacath were nerfed to 5%, people would still complain about it.

I think the devs should buff Malacath ring to help “raise the floor” for average Joe and make it a pve item only. All items sets should get a buff, not nerfs. The only time something should get nerfed is in PVP only.

Jayroo

Sergykid wrote: »

the Band is the most broken thing here, it's like two and a half major berserk constantly uptime. But hey, chapter bring sales when attractive power is available, right? so much for p2w.

God forbid we have a new meta come from dlc. is Relequen/Siroria p2w also

Jaraal

Stevie6 wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Lynxyn wrote: »

Not that I enjoy malacath being in the game, but malacath isn't made to compare major berserk. It's made to replace crits. At 10% I would like you to name a build that would use this for dps while they're also losing their monster set 2pc or a 5pc over a 2 5pc and monster set build that can crit. 10% will not ever make up for losing 3 full sets and not being able to crit plus major berserk doesn't prevent me from landing crits.

100% this.

I have Malacath, but never use it, because I'm giving up too much crit damage and set choices.

People who are unable to or just don't want to build defensively or learn how to counter damage are always going to look for a scapegoat to complain about. If Malacath were nerfed to 5%, people would still complain about it.

I think the devs should buff Malacath ring to help “raise the floor” for average Joe and make it a pve item only. All items sets should get a buff, not nerfs. The only time something should get nerfed is in PVP only.

It's actually less useful in PvE, because NPCs don't build for crit resist like players do. So you'll do a lot more damage with crits in PvE than PvP.

Sergykid

updated op with the change they have in mind regarding mythics, without saying how they intend it to be balanced in a pvp environment. At this point i suppose it's just for the lulz

Anonx31st

ZOS isn't out of the norm when it comes to the Devs not voicing their opinions about the current state of the game in an MMO these days. IMO, over the years, ZOS has a done a better job with their public relations department from incorporating social media like ESO Live streams (which is something I wished they did more), Twitch streams, etc. Over the years with the bashing of Eric Wrobel (Templar House) Rich Lambert (Cyrodil Lag), etc. I could see why they would be hesitant to engage more with their player base.