I don't get it: why lower the ceiling?

Dogvahkiin

I simply don't get it: why is there any reason to lower the ceiling?

Because content is too difficult and only few participate? Than make it easier! Will be boring for us "endgame players" and "achievement runners", but would solve the problem, wouldn't it?

If there are 1% "no lifers" who like to do ridiculous high damage through hours of training, perfect group composition and by using every glitch, trick and add-on that is available ... why not?
Make the content easier for the masses and leave the score runners alone.

I also don't see a problem with a slow increase in dps each patch to gain a feeling of character progression. Alongside older content becomes easier as time goes by. The older craglorn trials for example are perfect playing and learning grounds for trial beginners.

Pr0Skygon

the game fundamentally is suppose to be a horizontal progression game, meaning your dps should stay relatively the same from patch to patch. Powercreep in ESO would have 2 negative effects:
1. The newer players would feel like playing catch up endlessly if the ceiling keeps moving up, making ESO more akin to vertical progression MMOs like WOW, FF14 or Lost Ark, which isn't a bad thing on its own but it's not why people expect from ESO.
2. Powercreep would make older contents irrelevant. I understand the argument that older contents can become a learning ground for beginners. But in reality if you want to, say, teach people to complete vSS, the best way is to, you know, do vSS progression runs. There main point of tackling endgame content is to be challenged, but for now, the older contents don't serve that purpose since powercreep is way too high now.

Amottica

Dogvahkiin wrote: »

I simply don't get it: why is there any reason to lower the ceiling?

The idea is to close the gap between the floor and the ceiling.

Jazraena

Even if we posit that to be desireable, why not address the actual factors making a difference?

The key component to high DPS is highly coordinated group setups -> high uptimes of hard to get buffs. A random group will never have that.

Why then would you ever nerf individual performance?

Casdha

Dogvahkiin wrote: »

I simply don't get it: why is there any reason to lower the ceiling?

My guess is that big changes are coming next year and this is just a precursor/preparation for those changes.

chessalavakia_ESO

Players doing lots of damage can screw up the experience in easier content.

Part of the reason normals can be a bad place to learn is you've got one or more players tossing so much damage the mechanics don't get to fire and you've got people playing fake/hybrid roles all over the place.


Harder content likely doesn't actually have that many participants that aren't in the top few % of the game who may leave if it gets easier.


If ZOS makes it easier, the top may walk which only works out for ZOS if they bring in more players from lower which is not guaranteed.


Personally, I'd say the base idea isn't bad it's just the timing and implementation stinks.

xylena_lazarow

Amottica wrote: »

The idea is to close the gap between the floor and the ceiling.

Then why was the floor lowered too? Those 5k dps LA spammers on the floor were actually nerfed.

Myrddin1357

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

the game fundamentally is suppose to be a horizontal progression game, meaning your dps should stay relatively the same from patch to patch. Powercreep in ESO would have 2 negative effects:
1. The newer players would feel like playing catch up endlessly if the ceiling keeps moving up, making ESO more akin to vertical progression MMOs like WOW, FF14 or Lost Ark, which isn't a bad thing on its own but it's not why people expect from ESO.

This had me thinking - I'm curious why you say people don't expect ESO to have vertical progression. This is my first mmo game so I cant really compare with other games but from what I can see, there is a large player base in ESO who are just Elder Scrolls fans and play this almost like a single player game except with some friends in the same game space. These players are perfectly happy with housing, fashion, housing, roleplaying and just doing social events with guildmates. They have no interest in any vet dungeons or trials and I don't think Zos can do anything to get them interested.

But there are players (don't know how big this group is but definitely the minority) who enjoy vet content and want to work through progressively harder HMs and get achievements and skins. I'd be surprised if people in this group like the idea of zero power creep and dungeons/trials that capped at same difficulty for future releases.

I play with a casual group (50K to 90K dps on the trial dummy but much much less in actual content) and we recently started on vet DLC trials like vSS and vCR. People struggle mostly with mechanics and group coordination in the harder vet trials. Power creep really helps groups like us as content gets easier with time for casual players who do not take the game too seriously. And there is also a sense of enjoyment blowing through content that you used to struggle with. As long as there remain harder content to aim for, I don't see an issue. What the top players can do and how fast they can clear trifectas has no relevance for us. From my perspective, things are just fine as they are - there is a range of difficulty in vet trials and there is enough content to keep you busy.

Riptide

Power creep is almost entirely from CP/sets they themselves have introduced. There is only so far physical practice will take anyone. It certainly isn’t responsible for 35k being top end dps going to 135k.

The absurd thing is bending the class and character mechanics into pretzels to fix OP gearsets and CP they themselves introduced. It is like painting yourself into a corner and then going at the wall with a sledgehammer and pretending the wall was the issue the whole time.

Tune the root cause.

But they don’t seem to want to do that, because OP sets and such move expansions a d DLCs. So sure, they are prepping for the future….by that I mean yet more carrot on a stick sets which necessitate endless holes being created in the walls. Endless cycle.

Just stop releasing obviously overtuned sets and mythics, full stop. Rely on the strength of the content itself to close the deal on new expansions and DLCs, instead of an endless, inconvenient and obnoxious cycle of bait and switch duct tape solutions in the guise of “progress”.

RBAP28

Cause Zos says so....Now go clean your room.

Lalothen

Dogvahkiin wrote: »

I simply don't get it: why is there any reason to lower the ceiling?

Power creep has been an ongoing issue in MMOs for the past 20 years - and before the time of graphical online games it was an issue in online text-based games like MUDs too. Almost without exception it has had to be dealt with by bringing down the ceiling in one way or another. The larger the numerical gap between the ceiling and the floor, the more difficult it ends up becoming trying to achieve and maintain any sort of balance.

Myrddin1357 wrote: »

But there are players (don't know how big this group is but definitely the minority) who enjoy vet content and want to work through progressively harder HMs and get achievements and skins. I'd be surprised if people in this group like the idea of zero power creep and dungeons/trials that capped at same difficulty for future releases.

Some power creep is inevitable, however over the past few years it's been less a "creep" and more of a "headlong flight into the sky". We're talking DPS more than doubling at the top end over the course of a couple of expansions.

That aside, "difficulty" is a far more nuanced concept than DPS benchmarks. As someone who has run through almost all of the 4-man trifectas, the most challenging - and ultimately both frustrating and fun - fights have been those that are mechanically & strategically demanding, not hugely demanding from a DPS perspective.

Players can easily be challenged by creative mechanics and requiring more complex strategies to successfully complete HMs; DPS doesn't really have to factor that much into the challenge equation at all beyond benchmarks appropriate to the general level of skill expected of DPS players. I'm not saying that can't increase a bit over time with the inevitable (properly monitored) bit of power creep - but the leaps on some HMs we've seen recently are unsustainable over larger timeframes, and really exemplify just how much power creep there has been in just the past 2-3 years.

prof_doom

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

the game fundamentally is suppose to be a horizontal progression game, meaning your dps should stay relatively the same from patch to patch. Powercreep in ESO would have 2 negative effects:
1. The newer players would feel like playing catch up endlessly if the ceiling keeps moving up, making ESO more akin to vertical progression MMOs like WOW, FF14 or Lost Ark, which isn't a bad thing on its own but it's not why people expect from ESO.
2. Powercreep would make older contents irrelevant. I understand the argument that older contents can become a learning ground for beginners. But in reality if you want to, say, teach people to complete vSS, the best way is to, you know, do vSS progression runs. There main point of tackling endgame content is to be challenged, but for now, the older contents don't serve that purpose since powercreep is way too high now.

To point 1: If the devs don't want people to have to play catchup, then why are the newest sets almost invariably the best ones?

To point 2: Why not just make the older content harder?

Everest_Lionheart

Power creep Really started to take hold with the introduction of CP 2.0. which was meant to nerf damage and it did on an individual basis. Groups figured that out and non sweaty raid teams started using all the buff sets and class buffs to push even bigger numbers. The reality was you could slap on any 2 decent DPS sets and still be within about 5-10% of the top end DPS provided you could weave and complete a solid rotation. This was actually a great change for the game.

To curb those bigger DPS numbers came the great crit nerf forcing teams to crunch numbers and optimize more. Because crit damage was the easiest to source and the new crit cap was so low that pushed us to flat damage gear sets like Kinras and Bahsei. Now you bud a definite meta you were a support DPS or a full DPS overall group damage was up despite the crit cap. They forced us to find damage somewhere else and boy we did.

The next big change was hybridization. By this time it seemed they were finally accepting that DPS was just going to go up, so let’s have everyone play the way they want. This too led to some unintended consequences and a clear one DPS build to rule them all. I mean you still had to optimize groups to use The Rele Kinras meta but damage was up again and all rotations started to become the same. This came with a drastic shift for mag users as well. 2H maelstrom backbar with stampede dot extension was hitting 5-7K harder than the back bar flame staff that everyone was now a hybrid DPS.

To combat that CP was tweaked (a second time) to compensate because damage was way too high, this was a step in the right direction, incremental changes to limit the power creep. We are actually in a pretty good place on live right now, though I think the game was healthier with the introduction of CP 2.0 and first set of changes to dial back the CP required to unlock the base combat modes and essential slottables. The problem with live in its current form is that things are very vanilla, group comps are all the same, rotations are all the same, it’s very bland and I raid now only because my the people on my teams are so much fun, not because the combat is remotely interesting.

I’m on console so I don’t get to test the PTS but from those who have it looks to me as though this round of nerfs is way too heavy handed and that combined with the combat changes has made an already vanilla approach to combat feel even more vanilla. I’m ok with nerfing light attacks, maybe not as much as they have been nerfed but for sure dialling them back isn’t a bad idea. I’m OK with standardizing dot lengths but 20 seconds across the board is too bland. Maybe class identity with dots, DK and Cro 15, Sorc and Den 12, Templar and NB 10 seconds. Other world skill and weapon dots remain unchanged to better mix and match builds and keep thing interesting. And for everyone’s sake lose the 2 second tick idea and don’t nerf the damage per tick.

Or if you want to go ahead and make all LA/HA hit like wet noodles buff the sets that require stacking LA to compensate and make their times more forgiving. Make Kinras a 10 second buildup with a 10 second timer before it falls off. That would make speed runs a whole lot more interesting. That would give those mid level players struggling to keep it up better uptimes to compensate for lost DPS. That would give better uptime to the group buff to also compensate for lost DPS. Or since LA are so weak how about tie it to damage ticks for single target skills.

Or if you do want to go through with all the nerfs, remove the crit cap. This will open up a half dozen or more DPS sets in the game. It may bring back the Khajiit meta but just change their bonus back to crit percent and we are all equal again.

Anyway this post is getting long winded. So to sum up, can we please stop tinkering with the game and open it up to more variety by making sets more forgiving and have some real class identity with respect to dots. I don’t want to relearn the game every 3 months anymore, I just want to enjoy it with my friends and get them clears on some hard content.

Pevey

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

the game fundamentally is suppose to be a horizontal progression game, meaning your dps should stay relatively the same from patch to patch. Powercreep in ESO would have 2 negative effects:
1. The newer players would feel like playing catch up endlessly if the ceiling keeps moving up, making ESO more akin to vertical progression MMOs like WOW, FF14 or Lost Ark, which isn't a bad thing on its own but it's not why people expect from ESO.
2. Powercreep would make older contents irrelevant. I understand the argument that older contents can become a learning ground for beginners. But in reality if you want to, say, teach people to complete vSS, the best way is to, you know, do vSS progression runs. There main point of tackling endgame content is to be challenged, but for now, the older contents don't serve that purpose since powercreep is way too high now.

Except that ZOS needs to release new OP sets each patch to sell new content. This by definition means that power creeps up. Their MO the last few years is (1) release OP sets and then (2) nerf everyone across the board to compensate to keep the ceiling from getting too high. This obviously results in (3), the floor keeps going down.

They've been boiling the frog very slowly for a while now, and average players have been sitting there mostly oblivious and just going along with it. But this time they tried to do too much, and people have caught on.

We don't like our base power and class power going down patch after patch. We don't like "having" to use certain meta sets to reach the same relative power we used to reach without them.

Enough is enough. Players have opened their eyes. Power creep in this game is a myth for the majority of players. Throw on sets you were wearing a few years ago and parse on a 3m or 6m dummy and try to find the power creep. It doesn't exist, even on live.

Kusto

Riptide wrote: »

Power creep is almost entirely from CP/sets they themselves have introduced. There is only so far physical practice will take anyone. It certainly isn’t responsible for 35k being top end dps going to 135k.

The absurd thing is bending the class and character mechanics into pretzels to fix OP gearsets and CP they themselves introduced. It is like painting yourself into a corner and then going at the wall with a sledgehammer and pretending the wall was the issue the whole time.

Tune the root cause.

But they don’t seem to want to do that, because OP sets and such move expansions a d DLCs. So sure, they are prepping for the future….by that I mean yet more carrot on a stick sets which necessitate endless holes being created in the walls. Endless cycle.

Just stop releasing obviously overtuned sets and mythics, full stop. Rely on the strength of the content itself to close the deal on new expansions and DLCs, instead of an endless, inconvenient and obnoxious cycle of bait and switch duct tape solutions in the guise of “progress”.

Cp has nothing to do with it. 0cp vs 3600cp damage difference is only 15-20%. So the floor who only hits 5-10k has no excuse even if they are low cp. But you often see 10k bow spammers in dungeons with 2000cp. Sets matter to a degree but you can still pull 50-60k even with all crafted sets. Its just that the floor has no proper build. They use random gear, often not even full sets, green weapons, no mundus or wrong one, no pots/ food or wrong ones etc. On top of that they have no rotation. You cant make content more accessible for someone like that.

Aetherderius

Dogvahkiin wrote: »

Because content is too difficult and only few participate? Than make it easier! Will be boring for us "endgame players" and "achievement runners", but would solve the problem, wouldn't it?
...
Make the content easier for the masses and leave the score runners alone.

If they make the content easier, which I believe they should (to the level where more players can attempt the new trial/dlc on vet and not feel like they're horribly underclassed if they only play casually), then that would make it terribly boring for the people breaking 100k dps.

And they'd come here to voice their displeasure at the boring update content. Saying that 'ZOS is just catering to the casuals, not hardcore endgamers like me'. And perhaps like with every update that doesn't include new pvp stuff, or update 35 itself, will start threatening to leave en masse.

If they lower the ceiling, then they can make content that has a more centralised difficulty that challenges lower-end and rewards high-end with speed runs.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

The idea is to close the gap between the floor and the ceiling.

Then why was the floor lowered too? Those 5k dps LA spammers on the floor were actually nerfed.

If people are standing at a Trial boss and ONLY using light attacks, then they just haven't paid attention to any part of the tutorials from levels 1 to 50 telling them to use skills.

K9002

Kusto wrote: »

Cp has nothing to do with it. 0cp vs 3600cp damage difference is only 15-20%. So the floor who only hits 5-10k has no excuse even if they are low cp. But you often see 10k bow spammers in dungeons with 2000cp. Sets matter to a degree but you can still pull 50-60k even with all crafted sets. Its just that the floor has no proper build. They use random gear, often not even full sets, green weapons, no mundus or wrong one, no pots/ food or wrong ones etc. On top of that they have no rotation. You cant make content more accessible for someone like that.

I used to parse 57k with a magSorc wearing all purple Julianos/MS + 2 monster crit pieces, golden fire staves on both bars. That was shortly after CP 2.0 was implemented and before hybridization changes that I never bothered to follow. I haven't dummy humped since then but in real fights the effective numbers had gone down a little. I can't get on the PTS, though with all the class skill nerfs I'd expect to parse around 40k with that setup. The floor just keeps sliding from under my feet.

The thing that really bothers me about it is that craftable and overland sets are the only thing players have available before they had a chance to farm all the meta sets from dungeons and trials. And while those sets are not getting nerfed directly, their effectiveness is being cut by about a third because of all the skill coefficient and duration/frequency nerfs. Such mid-range players are gradually losing the ability to carry the bow light attack crowd.

Everest_Lionheart

K9002 wrote: »

Kusto wrote: »

Cp has nothing to do with it. 0cp vs 3600cp damage difference is only 15-20%. So the floor who only hits 5-10k has no excuse even if they are low cp. But you often see 10k bow spammers in dungeons with 2000cp. Sets matter to a degree but you can still pull 50-60k even with all crafted sets. Its just that the floor has no proper build. They use random gear, often not even full sets, green weapons, no mundus or wrong one, no pots/ food or wrong ones etc. On top of that they have no rotation. You cant make content more accessible for someone like that.

I used to parse 57k with a magSorc wearing all purple Julianos/MS + 2 monster crit pieces, golden fire staves on both bars. That was shortly after CP 2.0 was implemented and before hybridization changes that I never bothered to follow. I haven't dummy humped since then but in real fights the effective numbers had gone down a little. I can't get on the PTS, though with all the class skill nerfs I'd expect to parse around 40k with that setup. The floor just keeps sliding from under my feet.

The thing that really bothers me about it is that craftable and overland sets are the only thing players have available before they had a chance to farm all the meta sets from dungeons and trials. And while those sets are not getting nerfed directly, their effectiveness is being cut by about a third because of all the skill coefficient and duration/frequency nerfs. Such mid-range players are gradually losing the ability to carry the bow light attack crowd.

After CP 2.0 I managed to parse 92K on a Khajiit Stamden wearing EC and undaunted infiltrator with a VMA lightning staff backbar with an infused fire glyph, running crushing weapon as my spamabale and the weapons expert CP. All of that extra LA and crit damage was carried by a really tight rotation.

That same setup on live after crit nerf, and glyph nerf barely breaks 80K now.

If these combat changes go into effect I bet it would be lucky to break 70K. I’m on console or I would test it myself.

Collectively all these nerfs have taken the variety out of this game. If you want to DPS these days you go meta or go home no matter how good your rotation is. Not that 70K is anything to sneeze at, you can clear almost every vet trial out there, but hard modes and speed runs are definitely off the table.

For what it’s worth now on live my Stamden, still Khajiit, runs the Rele + Kinras meta with 2pc Kjalnar and doesn 105K on live and still has a hard time getting into trials because DK, Cro, Plar and Blade are still the preferred classes to bring. Fortunately I do play all the classes, but the variety and fun are still gone.

FantasticFreddie

I honestly have no idea. The new content gets harder every year, the max dps going up with it, this seems fine to me. Who cares if older content gets more accessible as a side effect

Mr_Stach

Every patch Zos introduces newer and better sets as an incentive to purchase the Chapter/eso plus. They then will nerf the classes as a punishment for doing too much damage, it's an ongoing cycle. This patch is one of many patches where Zos is punishing the players for giving them too much power through Power Creep in Sets and Hybridization. While generally I like Hybridization, the Sets have not been balanced at all.

BlueRaven

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

The idea is to close the gap between the floor and the ceiling.

Then why was the floor lowered too? Those 5k dps LA spammers on the floor were actually nerfed.

I am beginning to think that when zos says “lower the ceiling while keeping the floor alone” they are talking about the difference between 125k groups and 70k groups.

Perhaps they don’t really care about the players below that.

Mr_Stach

BlueRaven wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

The idea is to close the gap between the floor and the ceiling.

Then why was the floor lowered too? Those 5k dps LA spammers on the floor were actually nerfed.

I am beginning to think that when zos says “lower the ceiling while keeping the floor alone” they are talking about the difference between 125k groups and 70k groups.

Perhaps they don’t really care about the players below that.

I don't think it's as complicated as that. They are balancing content purely off of Data. In a previous live-stream someone on the Combat team remarked how that was the first time they had done that Trial. THAT IS A HUGE RED FLAG.

They aren't aware of the content that they are balancing content for, they are creating sets that they don't use. Now maybe some of them do, but every single member of the Combat team should be intimately familiar with not only the Content but every Class and Role to know how they should FEEL. There's no way that they tested say Pet Sorc with these changes and said "yeah that still feels good to play" because it doesn't. Same with Warden. Same with basically most the setups.

Ishtarknows

BlueRaven wrote: »

Perhaps they don’t really care about the players below that.

On the contrary, the most recent patches have catered mainly for exactly those people with companions and a card game requiring zero combat at all

MostlyJustCats

Riptide wrote: »

Tune the root cause.

This, basically. Even with "OP" sets or whatever - go parse on a 6m, change nothing and do the same parse on a 21m.

Huge, crazy damage in content was only possible with the most coordinated and attentive groups. You don't get 21m dummy numbers unless you get 21m dummy buffs/debuffs. These changes just make those groups more important to do big, normal damage, and leaves everybody who doesn't have access to relatively attentive regular groupmates out in the cold.

The problem is that every single build for every single class and every single role is designed to amplify DPS damage with zero drawbacks or considerations, and every DPS builds glass cannon to find that they're not made of glass at all... I mean, gutting LAs and short DoTs just exacerbates the root issues expanding the gap between the floor and the ceiling.

There needs to be tradeoffs, not limitations. Give people a meaningful choice with meaningful consequences and alternatives.