Will ZoS ever balance the PvP?

AdricEdwistyr

Am I the only one to think that the PvP is seriously unbalanced?
I mean there are some builds out there that are literally unkillable and at same time can do ridiculous damages in one attack (like 12 to 16k).
In which PvP game this is acceptable? [snip]
I really don’t understand. [snip]
Why ZoS don’t do anything to fix that? On the contrary, it gets worse from patch to patch. [snip]
I think they must do the following urgently:
1. Cap the damages that any player can do in any scenario to an acceptable amount.
2. Cap healing and resistances.
3. Introduce a *real* tradeoff for building damage or survivability.
To me, all that seems very elementary in a PvP game.

[edited for bashing]

fred4

Is PvP unbalanced? Yeah, sure, although the meta always changes. It's not like the same thing is on top all the time.

Is it as unbalanced as you think? Nope.

Are resistances uncapped (this would appear to be one of your claims)? Nope.

Well, I can see you have a new forum account. Welcome! Now let me hold that against you .

There are so many things to learn. If you're coming from another game, that doesn't count for much. If you are highly accomplished at PvE, that doesn't count for much either.

Find someone to train with on your server. Start by duelling people. Duelling friends who also don't know what they're doing can be fun. Finding a trainer who can watch you and figure out what you should focus on would probably be ideal, but it will be very hard to find such a person. Duelling someone slightly better than you is probably the best way forward. Having a sparring partner lets you try the same situation over and over. That consistency makes it easier to figure out the basics. Every time I switch between one of my characters, I have to recalibrate to how tanky they are, or not. How much you can push and when you need to defend. Duels are one way to get a basic grip on that.

Building the right way is a factor. To an experienced player their build matters a lot, but perhaps they tend to overstate the value of builds for that reason. This has probably led you to having the wrong impression. In reality PvP is about 30% build, 70% experience.

If you let yourself be hit, because your movement or situational awareness sucks, you die.
If you turn your back on your opponent, you die.
If you don't use line-of-sight, you die.
If you don't know the multitudes of ways your opponent can be temporarily dangerous, you die.
If you don't keep your buffs up, you die.
If you don't watch your health and heal in a timely fashion, you die.
If you have no mobility, you die.

If you don't weave, you don't do damage.
If you don't have any burst combos, you don't do damage.
This patch, if you don't have Oakensoul, you probably don't do damage.

ZOS may agree with you, I don't know. They seem to be on a trip of wanting to make endgame easier. In my view this is nonsense and will undermine ESO long term. ESO is good, because it's endgame is hard. PvP is one of the forms of endgame. There is always something to learn and that is good. It's what keeps the game interesting for veterans and what gives everyone something to strive for.

BXR_Lonestar

PVP can't be balanced in a game like this in the traditional sense. There is just way too many variables, way too many different sets/champion point perks/skills/passives for them to be able to foresee everything that could be OP, and there will always be clever players who find a new cutting edge build. If they continually nerf everything for the sake of PVP, because PVP and PVE are balanced the same way, they destroy the PVE side of things - and PVE is by far, the larger side of the game. All they can do TBH is do a rock-paper-scissor style balancing scheme or try to make counterbalances in the next patch for things that are currently OP.

And honestly, I wouldn't want PVP perfectly balanced. It would take away the fun of going out and grinding, experimenting with different builds to see what works and what doesn't. Sometimes things only work for a short window, but you just enjoy it while you can.

Minno

A good mmo will not have the balance players think they want. In some ways players actually want imbalance because they want to dominate at all times, and you can't do that if a class/weapon line is not providing some broken way to play.

A good mmo will also based their balance changes around core identity for each class/spec. So that when you play the classes, they all feel well designed with strong pros/cons to each.

AdricEdwistyr

fred4 wrote: »

Well, I can see you have a new forum account. Welcome! Now let me hold that against you

Just to clarify, I've been playing this game for 5 years.

AdricEdwistyr

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

PVP can't be balanced in a game like this in the traditional sense.

I don't agree. For exemple GW2's PVP has a good balance in my view.
It seems so obvious to me that any PVP game should not allow builds that have high survivability and at the same time do very high damage.

mocap

go non cp camp. No procs, no lags, no unkillable balls/small scales. No gankers, no bombers, no Volendrung. Pure skill based PvP.

fred4

I want to try and add something, having dabbled in New World last year. That game has severly curtailed healing, compared to ESO. It's also a slower game with long cooldowns. Does this result in satisfying fights and guaranteed outcomes? Nope. Players are not stupid. They fall back on the few things they have left. Running and line-of-sighting. With everyone at the same speed in that game, or certainly with fewer options to build for speed, I've seen this result in endless slow pursuits. Not my idea of fun.

ESO is a much faster game. This IMO makes it better when it works and there's no lag. Part of the difficulty, but also the exhilaration, comes from having to make split-second decisions. Endless pursuits, line-of-sighting, and so on, the same problems exist, but a faster game leaves more opportunities to screw up and to learn. That player that seemed invincible, but doing lots of damage, may have been on a squishy build, but simply anticipating your movements and blocking the worst of your damage by tapping block at the right moment and not wasting any stamina either.

If you put hard caps on stuff, well, first of all they already exist. There is a hard cap on armor. There is one on speed. There is on on crit damage. It's just, those are hard to reach in PvP. However, if you lowered those caps, if you made them easier to reach so PvPers would bump into them on multiple fronts, on speed, on healing, on damage, and so on, and you balanced the game at caps, one of two things would result. Every (even numbered) fight would stalemate (tanky meta) or every fight would be won by first strike advantage alone (squishy meta). Actually this already happens. Neither option is fun, but no one can ever agree on exactly where the balance is. It's just, when you create tighter caps, I think the game will lean even more consistently in one of those two directions. There will be less build variety.

We're in a high damage patch right now, mostly due to Oakensoul and people not building for much crit resist for historical reasons. That is going to change. People adjust and/or next patch comes along. Anyway, that's what you're feeling. The current high damage patch.

Point is, everyone complains about a tank meta, a healing meta, a damage meta, and it's never right. Never. When was everyone last in agreement? You know things are out of whack when everyone needs to run Oakensoul and Rallying Cry, which cancel each other to some degree, but kill everything else. That's a bit hyperbolic, but true enough to where Oakensoul above all should IMO be adjusted. Again, point is: You have a meta where everyone is tanky (bruiser builds rule) or where everyone wins by first strike (gank builds rule). There is very little middle ground that everyone agrees upon and I'm not even sure we're particularly imbalanced this patch. It's a funny patch where DKs and squishy stamsorcs rule, nightblades not even so much. It's mostly the uniformity that's a problem. Like I said, Oakensoul and Rallying Cry.

AdricEdwistyr

mocap wrote: »

go non cp camp. No procs, no lags, no unkillable balls/small scales. No gankers, no bombers, no Volendrung. Pure skill based PvP.

No Oakensoul and no werewolfs also?

Reverb

What does balanced pvp look like to you? Do you believe you have taken all players and play styles into account in your vision? Has there ever been a game that balanced pvp to your satisfaction? If so, was it well received by the gaming community?

AdricEdwistyr

I don't know, I think that would be healty to separate PvP from PvE like a lot of players asking. Then it will be possible to balance the PvP very much better then is it currently.

fred4

AdricEdwistyr wrote: »

show previous quotes

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

PVP can't be balanced in a game like this in the traditional sense.

It seems so obvious to me that any PVP game should not allow builds that have high survivability and at the same time do very high damage.

Your original post made it sound like you've been the victim of such builds. [snip] The rule of thumb is that you should stalemate or hold out in a duel against an equally skilled player for some time (or you're a nightblade that can disengage at will). On an open world build, stalemating is more likely, owing to the fact that you have to build for dealing with outnumbered scenarios to some degree. Only against noobs, it's like you say. A good PvPer will seem invincible, yet deal tremendous damage to them. [snip]

There are some things that are out of whack right now. The obvious example of someone seeming invincible, yet doing tremendous damage, is a DK in their Corrosive Armor ultimate, which can be subtle to catch on to. The normal reaction is to run away and wait that out for 12 seconds. They typically can't gap close you, because the most common and dangerous DK gap closer is their other ultimate. So you run and leave the DK a frustrated mess for having blown their expensive ultimate. What's changed this patch is Oakensoul and Corrosive uptime. I can only believe this will be fixed next patch.

[edited for baiting]

mocap

AdricEdwistyr wrote: »

No Oakensoul and no werewolfs also?

You need Standart campaign then. Pure PvDoor. Seems what you need.

Photosniper89

Every single attempt they have made to try to balance it has made it worse.

I'd rather them just stop touching things at this point.

Klingenlied

PvP balance is not too bad right now I guess? We might have a few dominants builds and not too much build choices, but I think only Warden is really at the bottom right now? But he is at the bottom in a way he can in theory easily be fixed. And a few things I hate about PvP won't ever be changed I guess because they are fun for some players. In regards to sorc, I really understand. Nothing beats blink moves with stuns in combination to delayed damage. Will always be strong.
In regards to Nightblades .. I will continue to hate them. I just don't like to have a counter skill on my bar to one player that just trys to gank and runs away if it doesn't work - disengage is too easy for them.
Other stuff .. well yea, of course, templars are hella effective for how easy they are and all the standart stuff, but that is not so bad. And you can really do some nice stuff with nice setups, sniping players as a necromancer is fun those days too - blastbones and snipe can accidently do real good damage from relative safety.

Anyway, Oakensoul did pronounce the discrepancies, so balance surely did take a hit. This however will show even clearer where they would need to make some tweaks, so I am somewhat hopeful.

Vaoh

It’s been 8 years... no it will never be balanced well. Arguably the balance was far better before One Tamriel btw. There used to be triple the amount of PvPers despite the rewards being non-existent.

BalticBlues

Reverb wrote: »

What does balanced pvp look like to you?

Balanced PvP means, you can play any class, Mag or Stam, and any role (DD - Tank - Healer), and be meaningful, succeed and have fun. To me, this has been the case about four years ago.

But since three to fours years, PEOPLE FEEL PRESSED INTO A META.
Either you follow the META and play almost like GOD MODE,
or you suck and the game becomes more work than fun.

To me, BALANCE NEVER HAS BEEN WORSE SINCE RELEASE.
Especially the patches scaling Procs and Healing with Damage made DDs to gods.
Why play a healer when the best DDs now also are the best healers? Such decisions just suck.

Even in PvE, the Meta now is 3DD+Tank instead of the classic 2DD+Tank+Healer...
ZOS always have big words to say about balance, like once "making healers more relevant".
But then, with a flip of a finger, the combat designer decides to do exactly the opposite...

This video says a lot about PvP balance, and this even was before Oakensoul:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmKK7kSojig

With Oakensoul -giving solo players raid buffs - PvP even became Pay-to-Win:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrkvlF5mecg

Lumsdenml

I believe that the current balance is good in that you can choose any close, mag or stam, and can compete with all of them. Are some classes going to get your more kills easier? Yes. But can you be competitive with any class? Yes.

There is a very high skill gap in this game. I think that a lot of people expect they are going to dominate solo, and when they cannot, they figure that there is something wrong with the game.

AdricEdwistyr

I made a video: https://youtu.be/I3Y8WmMc3Y0
Dare tell me this kind of healing is normal in a PvP game...

AdricEdwistyr

I was wearing Clever + Oakensoul + Order's Wrath + 1 Slimcraw

etchedpixels

BalticBlues wrote: »

But since three to fours years, PEOPLE FEEL PRESSED INTO A META.
Either you follow the META and play almost like GOD MODE,

The god mode in Cyrodiil is the mighty zerg. Gear matters, skill really matters, but outnumbering the enemy 8 to 1 works even better. That and ball groups but that's not a meta, that's a range of tightly co-ordinated builds that slot together.

Not following the holy meta of the week also actually helps sometimes. Everyone has fought Alcast PVP stamplar number 3 about a thousand times. So having something weird up your sleeve can be quite fun because they have to adapt.

FlopsyPrince

Minno wrote: »

A good mmo will not have the balance players think they want. In some ways players actually want imbalance because they want to dominate at all times, and you can't do that if a class/weapon line is not providing some broken way to play.

A good mmo will also based their balance changes around core identity for each class/spec. So that when you play the classes, they all feel well designed with strong pros/cons to each.

They need more people to be ganked to make it "fun" for those who like PvP!

Not sure how you keep getting the gankees, past events, though.

Pepegrillos

AdricEdwistyr wrote: »

show previous quotes

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

PVP can't be balanced in a game like this in the traditional sense.

I don't agree. For exemple GW2's PVP has a good balance in my view.
It seems so obvious to me that any PVP game should not allow builds that have high survivability and at the same time do very high damage.

GW2 pvp was initially designed to have an esports scene. It has a ranked system with equal set loadouts for all players. By contrast, this MMO has casual pvp with thousands of possible loadout combinations. At least some aspects of GW2 were designed to pair people of relatively equal skill against each other in controlled conditions. Pvp in this game is mostly about smashing noobs, inexperienced and under-geared players.

Sparxlost

prolly not

fred4

AdricEdwistyr wrote: »

I made a video ... Dare tell me this kind of healing is normal in a PvP game...

That video shows a troll tank that is dealing no damage. Your original post said "I mean there are some builds out there that are literally unkillable and at same time can do ridiculous damages in one attack (like 12 to 16k)". Not the same thing.

Ragnaroek93

Balance is a complete joke. The game wasn't balanced either before Elswyer but at least different classes had their niches in which they were strong. You didn't have the same class/build being S tier in solo pvp, group pvp, bgs and duels at the same time. Now you have like 2 classes being S tier in every niche (was stamden and stamcro for over a year, then magplar, mcro and mdk and now only mdk).

Balance doesn't mean that everything can do everything equally. Balance means that every class has it's place or niche (which was the case pre Necro release). But their vision of "PlaY How YoU wAnT" and "eVerYtHINg sHoUld bE eQuaL" removed the class archtypes and any balance from the game.

AdricEdwistyr

fred4 wrote: »

That video shows a troll tank that is dealing no damage. Your original post said "I mean there are some builds out there that are literally unkillable and at same time can do ridiculous damages in one attack (like 12 to 16k)". Not the same thing.

That's the point: you can build a DK with such survivability and that can hit you with 9-12k whip...

Jpk0012

AdricEdwistyr wrote: »

show previous quotes

mocap wrote: »

go non cp camp. No procs, no lags, no unkillable balls/small scales. No gankers, no bombers, no Volendrung. Pure skill based PvP.

No Oakensoul and no werewolfs also?

There are WWs, but Oakensoul is a proc, so not Oakensoul.

I prefer the No CP, because the chances of getting burst down in 1 second are pretty slim. However, its extremely slow. The busiest night for a No CP isn't even the slowest night on CP.

Jaimeh

Not unless they separate it from PvE, and have a different set of tooltips that take effect when entering Cyrodiil.

MindOfTheSwarm

Resistances are not uncapped. However, going over the cap enables you to negate effects such as Breach and Sundered while also negating other form of Penetration such as the Lover Mundus and Sharpened. This allows you to remain at cap if your overcapped stats are above the penetration of your attacker. This is why Corrosive Armor and other similar effects are so powerful, as they ignore all resistances effectively turning your resistances to 0 for their duration.