Blaming the "other side" for nerfs

Elo106

Nerfs blamed on PvPers or PvEers are not healthy for the player base, people are divided and it promotes a us vs them mentality.
No PvE player will call for a nerf to an overpowered ability, we will just use it. Thats why PvP and PvE perspective is important for balance.

Classes have to be balanced to each other as well or everyone plays the one overpowered class, this can be clearly seen in PvE logs as well as PvP areas.
The weak classes are just avoided except for a few people sticking to "their class", sometimes those few people get avoided and replaced with people on a more beneficial class.

So I would suggest people not blame the "other side" for nerfs or buffs.

Sangwyne

Elo106 wrote: »

So I would suggest people not blame the "other side" for nerfs or buffs.

Mmm... nah. They really nerfed the Furries of all things and gave Light armor increased damage taken from Physical attacks, along with other penalties, because y'all couldn't behave. Werewolves in PvE were basically glorified role players with 3k DPS and Light already takes the most damage by virtue of having the least armor; what was the point of adding penalties to armor types in PvE again? Who wants their tanks in a party to be even slower, why couldn't all those have been PvP-only changes? We just wanna grill over here man, leave us alone.

Khenarthi

Every time there is a nerf to abilities/sets/passives or whatever, my tanks suffer. And since these seem to be prompted by pvp players in heavy armor doing high damage or being unkillable, deep down I will resent them, even though I am aware it's also a matter of player skill (mine is rather limited, I do my best but I'll always be a potato).

It is really really hard not to blame the other side for various nerfs throughout the years.

Avoranti

PvP and PvE should be separate and changes made for PvP shouldn’t reflect in PvE. But they are and that’s the issue.

A high cp level player should have better stats than a lower cp leveled player but seems like this “balance” is to bring them closer together. If that’s the case, then what’s the point of leveling past 160?

Weak classes? Every class in the game has its strong side and players who get creative using gear, class and race to optimize these “weak” classes or any class, shouldn’t get punished because others can’t weave light attacks or cancel an animation.

With that written, I think these complaints are absolutely justified and the blame placed where it should be. As you said PVE players would just use the skills rather than complain they are too strong. Only people who complain like that, that I’ve seen, are low level players getting pwnd by a high level players in pvp.

Grandchamp1989

Elo you're right.. very right.. actually super right.
And to PVPer's in the crossfire accept my deepest apologies when I felt things got too salty.

But.. But..

Imagine this

You're a beautiful PVE player and you got a brother right

Your amazing father whom we all love dearly (Zos) gives you a nice car to share with your brother because he loves you (and you pay a little but who counts).

He gives you.. a ferrari!

You being the appreciative handsome son really enjoys this car. And you're happy to take your brother for a ride in it!

But then your brother runs to dad and says "The car drives too fast, it makes me dizzy and gives an headache - please sell it and give us a new car"

And your Father being the awesome dad he is... He sells the car and buys you slower, although still nice car.
He buys you a BMW.. Not a supercar - but enough to still gets noticed, right.

The handsome son thank his father and takes his brother for a ride in it..

Handsome brother is like: "Say brother.. This is a nice car eh?"

And your brother (to your surprise) is like "No, it smells.. and I don't like tinted windows - get rid of it!"

And this continues and continues

And you're like DAD! Please! Can you maybe give us each our own car because we apparantly don't have the same taste in cars?

And your awesome dad is like "No! Learn to play nice with your brother"

Fast forward till today where the handsome brother is now stuck in an old Mini Car with his brother (whom he still loves dearly).

The End....

zvavi

I don't blame PvP players. While am aware some nerfs on a from issues in PvP, in the end it is someone else's choice to "fix it" by screwing both PvE and PvP, and not the PvP part with balance for both in mind.

TwinLamps

I blame it on devs and thats it.

oddbasket

There's no need for any blame, some will always ask for it, and some didn't, but the trend in mmo will always be that nothing overpowered lasts.

Anything overpowered such as new sets become the FOTM and stand out and those are eventually 'balanced' amidst supportive 'voices' from the community. Even without call outs, mmos usually still shake things up because the underlying intent will be to introduce newer items and systems with its ongoing updates.

With greymoor, I kitted all my stam chars with venomous smite, because it's gave so much free dps and a free carry in BGs but once the year is over, it's now seeing 2 nerfs, from U29 and now U30. It already became useless in U29. My tank with winter's respite is also looking at a double nerf with scaling and tick time. So basically last year's sets became last year's flavour.

I would just come to terms with it, because community voices work in ZOS's favour for new content.

Elo106

Avoranti wrote: »

Weak classes? Every class in the game has its strong side and players who get creative using gear, class and race to optimize these “weak” classes or any class, shouldn’t get punished because others can’t weave light attacks or cancel an animation.

With that written, I think these complaints are absolutely justified and the blame placed where it should be. As you said PVE players would just use the skills rather than complain they are too strong. Only people who complain like that, that I’ve seen, are low level players getting pwnd by a high level players in pvp.

The class balance is evident though most PvE dps endgame are magcro, I wouldnt like to be forced to dps on magcro because they outperform other dps classes, on the other hand you cant buff every other class to that point, once something gets added to the game that makes one class stronger you cant buff all classes to match, so in that regard nerfs are a good thing.

So while PvE players just switch and use the strongest thing, they might not be calling for nerfs but logs and data show whats overpowered. Thats why crit needed a nerf. Zos preceded to nerf crit chance instead of damage but thats another story.

@Grandchamp1989 lovely story but its more like the police complain "your sons ferrari is too fast he robbed a bank and got away!" Now the government has to nerf ferrari or buff all other cars.

Brrrofski

Like I said in the proc set thread but I'll say it here.

A lot of the time, PvP players want certain playstyles or sets balanced.

For instance, it's not heavy armor per say that was the issue. It was certain sets. Alessia, crimson, eternal vigor etc.

Same with procs, 6 or 7 were too strong.

The problem is, ZOS use hammer approach rather than spending time and fine tuning the actual issues.

But that's not what PvP players were asking. They wanted a handful of things to be changed.

And it is easily forgotten by a lot of people that pve changes impact PvP too.

Like a lot of people are talking about the warden heal nerf has "killed their warden tank" (which is completely untrue and will make little difference in the end), while at the same time dark cloak for nerfed. And that has to be a pve change, because dark cloak is awful in PvP and nobody is ever complaining about immortal nightblades using it.

Last patch, all buff sets were changed because score pushers were buffing, using an add on to swap and get the tiniest amount of defence or damage before a pull. So now sets like 7th Legion require me to actually engage in combat before using my armor buff, or I have to cast it twice to proc the set. Same with armor master - I can't proc it when I know I'm about to get ganked and have to wait until I actually get ganked to use a skill to proc it.

Also, a lot of players play BOTH. On my server, a lot of the high score players for pve content are often in PvP too.

TelvanniWizard

Khenarthi wrote: »

Every time there is a nerf to abilities/sets/passives or whatever, my tanks suffer. And since these seem to be prompted by pvp players in heavy armor doing high damage or being unkillable, deep down I will resent them, even though I am aware it's also a matter of player skill (mine is rather limited, I do my best but I'll always be a potato).

It is really really hard not to blame the other side for various nerfs throughout the years.

As a fellow tank, I know that feel.

bmnoble

I blame the devs they have battle spirit if they want to make changes to PVP.

There the ones who insist on screwing over both sides in the name of balance it would be one thing if the game were brand new and they were tweaking/fine tuning stuff but we are at the 7 year point they should have figured out how they want combat by this point.

Fair enough they have done an overhaul with the new CP system, things will need to be changed once again but it would be nice if they made up there mind on what they want out of the combat system.

DreadDaedroth

Who asked for heavy armour malus?
Who didn't like dk wings?
Who asked to reduce one hand and shield damage?
Who asked to nerf tank monster mask?
And so on and on...

Caupo

To make a mistake is human, but to blame it on someone else, that's even more human

BejaProphet

We reject your level headed approach to this issue. In fact, we tanks would declare war for all your transgressions...but we’ve been nerfed beyond any hope of winning that war. So we shall pout such that the centuries remember our angst.

Remathilis

But it's THEIR fault! ::Pouts::

divnyi

Sangwyne wrote: »

and Light already takes the most damage by virtue of having the least armor; what was the point of adding penalties to armor types in PvE again?

You are delirious if you think PvP players love that 5% vulnerability on light armor. It forces mages to wear heavy because they are slaughtered by NBs now.

Those armor traits were added because "flavour" and "feel", not because PvE or PvP.

DMuehlhausen

Elo106 wrote: »

Nerfs blamed on PvPers or PvEers are not healthy for the player base, people are divided and it promotes a us vs them mentality.
No PvE player will call for a nerf to an overpowered ability, we will just use it. Thats why PvP and PvE perspective is important for balance.

Classes have to be balanced to each other as well or everyone plays the one overpowered class, this can be clearly seen in PvE logs as well as PvP areas.
The weak classes are just avoided except for a few people sticking to "their class", sometimes those few people get avoided and replaced with people on a more beneficial class.

So I would suggest people not blame the "other side" for nerfs or buffs.

Nah the problem isn't the players. It's the Devs. They always try to balance PvP and PvE and it's mathematically impossible. You have skills designed around the core of the PvE to kill trial bosses and stuff with like 80 Million HP. Then those same skills are to be used against players with 25k hp and like 15k shields or something. It just can't work. It has never worked and will never work.

The only way to do it is have skills that can only be used in PvP and gear that can only be used in PvP. Then you can balance that out, but trying to mix PVE and PvP will never be done with the current setup of the game.

WoppaBoem

Its life, people dont like to look up, put their smallnish in perspective, much easier to attack on the same level, way to keep the piramide up

B6L6Z6BUB

I feel like yall are missing the real issue.

New content and better sets. Power creep. Instead of making new stuff, they just nerf the old. I dont know how hard it is power balancing as a developer, but creating new stuff im sure has its challenges as well. But, i would say from other games ive played that power creep is the way to go,not nerfing.

TequilaFire

PvE players need to understand they design trials and dungeons to be a challenge to defeat and don't like it when players melt their work by just blasting through the mechanics because of overturned sets/abilities, so you get PvE nerfs.
It is the devs that complain not the players.

Let us also not forget there is a group of players complaining about the game being too easy and many of those have direct contact with the devs on the discords.

NordSwordnBoard

So many times we get new sets, items like mythics, and buffs/nerfs that are driven by sales not player requests. The most obvious is Greymoor and the vampire/werewolf changes. Did anybody expect the werewolf to remain the way it was during that content release? Yes, many people wanted their vampire to be re worked to be more meaningful lore-wise - but it was changed to sell Greymoor more than it was changed to balance or appease anybody. "I heard they made werewolves OP again, so I came back".

Changing the Flavor of the Month is the nature of these games, we all get it. It's just a bummer when we have some decent balance or fun taken away because of somebody else's needs.

The Problem is people with a position to hold on the forums respond and give you an argument in place of the actual devs who may only leave some insight under a spoiler explaining their stated reasons. Those reasons are then taken straight to the players performing them, and sometimes much further than it should. It snowballs tribalism to the point of "All them bad". Many people post like the opposition is siting in the devs chair wrecking their precious stuff to be sadistic.

PvE and PvP shaming each other for finding & using the META is pointless. It will never stop. The best we can do here is continue to reason with things that happen. I'm especially thankful for the math geniuses and people who test to help us all, so it's not all bad lol.

josiahva

But the nerfs ARE because of the "other side"(I play both, but most nerfs are PvP driven...the armor changes as an example are designed primarily for PvP). This is easily solved...they just need to separate PvP sets and skills from PvE ones. People wearing PvP sets in PvE and vice versa are not competitive in the opposite content anyway, it would hurt nothing aside from people having to craft a basic set to get started in the other half of the game.

Iccotak

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Elo you're right.. very right.. actually super right.
And to PVPer's in the crossfire accept my deepest apologies when I felt things got too salty.

But.. But..

Imagine this

You're a beautiful PVE player and you got a brother right

Your amazing father whom we all love dearly (Zos) gives you a nice car to share with your brother because he loves you (and you pay a little but who counts).

He gives you.. a ferrari!

You being the appreciative handsome son really enjoys this car. And you're happy to take your brother for a ride in it!

But then your brother runs to dad and says "The car drives too fast, it makes me dizzy and gives an headache - please sell it and give us a new car"

And your Father being the awesome dad he is... He sells the car and buys you slower, although still nice car.
He buys you a BMW.. Not a supercar - but enough to still gets noticed, right.

The handsome son thank his father and takes his brother for a ride in it..

Handsome brother is like: "Say brother.. This is a nice car eh?"

And your brother (to your surprise) is like "No, it smells.. and I don't like tinted windows - get rid of it!"

And this continues and continues

And you're like DAD! Please! Can you maybe give us each our own car because we apparantly don't have the same taste in cars?

And your awesome dad is like "No! Learn to play nice with your brother"

Fast forward till today where the handsome brother is now stuck in an old Mini Car with his brother (whom he still loves dearly).

The End....

How I would describe wanting a separate Veteran instance for Overland and Story content

jircris11

Most set and skill nerfs come from "pvpers" I put that in quotes because they are not actual pvpers just kids who don't want to learn how to counter things so they complain. Reminds me of the PvE nerf to quest bosses in the Dat because Ppl can't figure out mechanics without some youtuber telling them.

Merforum

It isn't really the vast majority of PVE vs PVP. It is only the self proclaimed elite, Trial/scoreboard PVEer & PVP ganker/1vXers (and all the wannabes) who are to blame for all the NERFs and taking the enjoyment out of the game for the vast majority of normal PVE and PVPers.

It is those min/maxers who are constantly finding every way to legitimately do the most with the game but also finding/using most exploits too (to push envelope). But they aren't like the honest hacker who finds hacks in order to tell the authorities to fix it, they are the ones who use every possible exploit to personally benefit until the authorities find out and catch them, but in the case of the game they are never punished, the game just gets NERFed for everyone else.

And obviously the Devs or whoever is directing what they do, is 100% to blame for all these problems. One or more of them is being highly influenced by these 'elitists'. But at the same time I think many of the devs are probably trying to do the right thing. Being from IT myself and working closely with developers, I know that most of them are hard working and want to do the right thing but sometimes have a lead or director (who are NOT technical/gamers and/or influenced by selfish people) who will make decisions based on their personal feeling rather than what's good/right/necessary. Also we can never forget the bean counters who are just about making more money with everything else being secondary.

One change out of all of these made me have hope that sanity was possible, the change to Pale order, initially was just to NERF it (like thrassians) because SAME people TRIAL dudes/PVPer were abusing it, but now they made it so it still works as intended for solo, is OK for group, and can't use for trial, perfect solution. Wish they'd revisit Thrassian with that in mind.

What's been happening feels like they take 10 tiny steps forward then 1 huge 5 steps back, and so on, overall progress but unnecessary pain. I don't think anything can be done about the constant complaining to nerf everything from elietists. I just hope the probably large number of Devs who are trying to make the game fun/better for everyone can succeed against whoever keeps making some very bad blanket decisions that is the opposite.

PigofSteel

New items will always be OP that is how you do business. Than new comes and the old is nerfed etc... Never ending cycle.

six2fall

Developers balancing skills/abilities/passives etc based on one aspect of a game is & always will be asinine. Its biggest reason I've always hated pvp side of games but I'm well aware many players love pvp so I try to just avoid that aspect while hoping the balancing act (that never works in any game) doesnt effect what I enjoy. Personally if I was in charge of game design I wouldve had loadouts for pve & pvp with access to separate skill lines that are designed to work best for each type of game mode. Have the skill lines level together regardless of mode being played but have the skills level only when used/slotted in their game mode. Of course id also make each morph of a skill more usuable/interesting & give option to select what its damage/healing etc is scaled off of but that's just a pipe dream long crushed by zos

TheBonesXXX

There's only one way to balance a numbers in an MMO, around the classes. It goes class, race, gear, then mobs.

Mobs should always be built around a character.

Merforum

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

There's only one way to balance a numbers in an MMO, around the classes. It goes class, race, gear, then mobs.

Mobs should always be built around a character.

The problem is for PVE you are supposed to have different classes/races that can only do certain things, that's what makes if fun. But in PVP they want to make everything the same, so nothing is better than anything else. Just SKILL.

My proposal has always been to do what they are doing in PVE. Then for PVP have ONLY ONE RACE, CLASS, skill line and ONE set of equipment that is all balanced. Then let people duke it out. Then we will definitely know who are the most skilled (at pushing buttons).

Elo106

Merforum wrote: »

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

There's only one way to balance a numbers in an MMO, around the classes. It goes class, race, gear, then mobs.

Mobs should always be built around a character.

The problem is for PVE you are supposed to have different classes/races that can only do certain things, that's what makes if fun. But in PVP they want to make everything the same, so nothing is better than anything else. Just SKILL.

My proposal has always been to do what they are doing in PVE. Then for PVP have ONLY ONE RACE, CLASS, skill line and ONE set of equipment that is all balanced. Then let people duke it out. Then we will definitely know who are the most skilled (at pushing buttons).

PvP isnt just about smashing the right buttons, its about creating a build that suits your playstyle, having everyone use the same build is even worse than the 18 sets test we have right now.
Zos just needed to balance a hand full of sets and skills.

I think a good solution would be if Zos worked with people who play the game, have some endgame pve and pvpers help them with balancing, balance in small steps instead of using a hammer.