Why "spreadsheet balancing" isn't the real problem

mjharper

Don't get me wrong: "spreadsheet balancing," which I take to mean balancing comparable skills and so that they all have the same impact, may well be bad for the game; but if that was all this patch contained, it would still be far, far, better that what we have now.

An example: Let's imagine that the devs decide that every healing skill should return 10k healing for a 3k cast, so that a single target burst heal does 10k healing, and a 10 second single target heal over time now does 1k healing per second. That would be "spreadsheet balancing," and it would surely be a mess. But at least there would be a consistency and logic to it and, when implemented, it would by definition lead to everyone being impacted in the same way. It would still rightly be a controversial patch, but it would nonetheless be a clear vision.

The problem with this patch is everything else. Why change the timing of Shalk? Why change Dark Cloak to scale off missing health? Why change Molten Whip to use both stamina and magicka? Why change Crystal Weapon? Why change Jabs? And so on. All of these changes seem to have nothing to do with a clear vision for the game: they're changes to core skills that, as many have noted, nobody asked for.

This patch bundles a comprehensive and radical reworking of damage over time with a flurry of changes to core skills that bear no relation to each other. Either component on its own would be controversial to say the least. But combined, they're overwhelming, a slurry of changes.

This, on it's own, is why the patch should be withheld in its current form: to pull these things apart, and deal with each separately. Let there be a "spreadsheet balancing" patch which can address the underlying vision for the game as a whole. And if there really must be such re-imagining of core skills, let that be a separate patch, so that it can be dealt with on its own terms.

The move towards a medium / heavy attack meta in this week's update is not just the result of min-maxers min-maxing: it's the result of a fatigued and frustrated player base clinging to any rock in the storm.

Lykeion

Agree. Devs should stop making these changes that no one asked for.

HowlKimchi

I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion but I for one don't mind a little imbalance for the sake of class identity and power fantasy. I mean sure, perfect balance is the impossible goal, and getting as close to it as possible would be great, but getting boring for the sake of balance is unfun.

Class imbalance can be overcome by player skill (and internet connection and PC specs for that matter), but there's no cure to having a boring game.

Having said that though, I agree that the "changes for the sake of change" you mentioned in you post are pretty pointless since it does nothing for balance AND class identity.

Jazraena

I actually like standards - if used appropriately. When done right it leads to far more build diversity in terms of the skill choices for a given role that you get.

The problem arises if it's done in a vaccuum, without considering side effects. For example - sure, Jabs was overloaded compared to other spammables, there's no denying that - there was no sane reason for a templar to ever use another spammable instead, and it kicked a lot of other skills off the bars as well. I understand the thought process in wanting to reign that in, in principle.

In practice however, Jabs carried the class. In practice, Jabs is now the worse choice for Templars than Flurry, not better or equal. It's a prime example where adjusting a single skill according to standards has massive repercussions that remain unaddressed, and that slots right into all the other core skill and mechanics changes that weren't given due considerations.

I don't see how all these issues can be addressed until the PTS is over, so yes, I agree - hold back those changes, do them properly, and then return.

Klingenlied

I don't think the team has no vision at all.
However.
I do think there is a massive disconnect however in regards to what people wish for and the devs do implement. And that naturally is the one big reason for the giant outcry: people have a different visions from ZOS.

Of course, we can ask ourselves: Isn't it for the devs to decide the way of the game anyway? And yea, in some way, that is right. However, not only do we have test servers. Change seems to be part of the game. Sweeping changes at that. But once there is changes that just seem "unfun" and not logical .. Just take Warden here with Chalks - players do have an incredibly hard time just "accepting" what is happening. I mean who want's changes that no matter how you look at it will result in less fun with a given class? Not only less power, but less fun? That is incredibly important and can't be understated - never take the fun away from the players playing your game.

Rimskjegg

Players aren't scared of change. We just want changes that make the game better instead of worse. And the only way to achieve that is to spend enough time testing them. For as many changes as this , I'm starting to think not even 3 more months would be enough time.

Also. It's one thing to change sets, as they often do. That will send meta-chasers playing content, hunting for new sets. Can be a grind but, you know, we play the game. That's supposed to be the fun part. Changing nearly all the abilities, on the other hand, won't make us play content more, it will only send meta chasers to practice new rotations on the dummy and leave casuals confused. To be able to justify that, you better have tons of tested evidence that those ability changes are truly beneficial.

Remathilis

The issue has been threefold: ZoS wants to lessen the gap between pro and amateur so that more people will do content, they want to even out classes so none are overperforming, and they want to lower numbers to keep things challenging. Amicable goals in a vacuum.

But they all interact in weird ways that keep requiring them to fix another thing and another and another. The changes to LA/HA/empower/Oakensoul wasn't specifically supposed to be a nerf to werewolves, but in total all of them have deleted wolves from PvP. So more fixes need to go to fix ww. The nerfing of content to match the new numbers is a good example of them trying to minimize damage coming from these conflicting goals. The fact they made medium weaving meta again is another nail that popped up trying to resolve the heavy attack problem. Etc, etc.

ZoS has been scrambling to save any or all of their goals and make the palatable. I don't think they will and we're in for 3 more months of plugging the dam until U36.

xaraan

Spreadsheet Balancing is just one aspect, just one tool, of the whole process IMO. How something plays in game makes a big difference as well.

For example, one spammable that feels like it's easy to weave, or just fires off smoothly vs. another that has a travel time and feels a little clunkier - could be balanced spread sheet wise as you add together the damage over time for using the skill for an entire fight, but if it doesn't feel good to use, people will pull away from it for other options. I've felt this about Warden's bird or Necro's Skull attacks. They feel very different in use for a PvE rotation or even in PvP vs. quicker/smoother skill effects. In addition, sometimes those types of skills have a higher mastery level when you are talking about rotations, where you see someone outputting crazy high DPS, but then tons of players just can't figure out why - it's because they've mastered the weave combined with the weird skill flow - which creates a gap. This is why you see players sometimes asking for a class to be buffed, where you'll see others coming in like, whoa, that skill is already OP. Sometimes that applies to most of a classes toolkit as well, where one class is very strong, but only if you master it, where other classes are easier to jump into - that's where some of your gap issues come from.

The other issue is that sometimes their spreadsheets or formulas or whatever we wanna call it can be broken, even if they worked ok for one patch. For example, take Breton and (especially) Redguard racials. Two races that focus mostly on resource management with their passives. I pointed out way back when New Moon was being balanced, that pre-New Moon nerf it was scaled the same as the racials - if you looked at High Elf vs. Breton, you got the same amount of buff for the cost increase, but they still nerfed New Moon b/c in gameplay it was obvious it was too strong. This would mean that the Breton cost reduction is therefore too weak or those few races that have spell and weapon buffs are too strong. So even though something was off about their spreadsheet formula for that balance, they ignored it elsewhere in the game where it could have helped balance. Which many players didn't complain about b/c racials were deemed 'good enough', but then the problems begin to spiral as the issue is ignored: One way is by adding sets in the game that increase your spell damage the lower your resources are make those two races inherently weaker. So they were already not on the list of recommended races for any DPS builds I'm aware of, they become even less desirable when those sets are in the meta mix. So IMO, those two races (and to a degree Argonians as well since their main power comes from resource management) standout quite a bit as some that need help in the current game. Frankly, small adjustments could be made to make them more balanced with the rest. But my point is, whatever spreadsheet/formula/whatever they were using to balance things like resource management vs. flat power will have a huge shift every single time they change anything in the game related to skill costs, dot/hot uptimes, adding sets in the game that reward bad resource management, etc. And when you don't account for that, your formula is broken no matter how useful a tool that type of balancing could be.

Which brings me back around to the big problem with the game - sweeping constant changes every year. The game is not in beta. Every patch should just have minor balancing and that is it. No one should have to relearn the best way to play the game every year. Tweaks could have been made way back when seeing how little used those races were for high end DPS builds and how your formula was broken when figuring out New Moons power level, but it spirals when costs are changed and it becomes even less needed to have a race focusing on rss management, and it spirals again when sets are added to reward bad rss management, etc. One minor tweak patches ago could have made them more useful as time went on, or just being aware of the issue might have been an indication to a problem with the design of those sets added to the game. And made you realize that sets like that will mostly benefit the top end players, as they are the ones in the meta races; where your average players are probably playing what they want to play race wise. So when they use the meta set on their breton, they are set up for failure when compared to the top end guys using them on High Elf, Dark Elf, Khajiit, etc. before you even get to other factors like buffs, rotations, etc.

IMO, zos needs to focus a lot more on minor changes and ongoing balance than trying to rework the system as if they suddenly have invented a magic bullet to fix all the problems in the game. Maybe trying to look at the big picture all at once is keeping you from seeing all the smaller issues that are really effecting balance.

Finedaible

I think excessive spreadsheet balancing is absolutely the problem with how they are designing the game these last few years. I do not discount the value that spreadsheets can have in helping to determine a healthy range of stats for balance sake, but simply plugging in those crude numbers will never translate to cohesive or enjoyable gameplay. Human beings are not number machines which spit out predictable results, especially in PvP. This is why they constantly fail to make changes which satisfies all players of differing skill levels.

There is no room for player expression or identity in their current spreadsheet philosophy either. Whenever players find unique ways to tackle harder content more efficiently or approach the game in a different way with unique builds, it gets removed in the next patch because it deviates from what they consider 'balance'. They've always designed content with an ever narrowing skill margin, which is probably why the latest vet content is so inaccessible to most players and why they are now struggling to find a solution for this dilemma. In other MMOs a lot of their content is more accessible because it isn't tailored around the top % of hardcore players, but rather a slightly lower, more inclusive skill bracket. I'm not saying everything should be a cakewalk, it just doesn't make sense to make content that most of your players won't even have time to bother with (and it's not like the rewards have been that great either).

Amottica

Lykeion wrote: »

Agree. Devs should stop making these changes that no one asked for.

Devs should balance the game, and it is in the game's best interest to narrow the floor and ceiling for DPS. Being that was their intent, consider this a formal request for such a change.

However, the problem is their vehicle for bringing this change around. Not whether players have requested it or not.

Marto

mjharper wrote: »

Why change the timing of Shalk?

Because having a 3 second timing is too cumbersome and hard to rotate and execute. Specially for players that are more casual, older, younger, less able. ESO's combat is simply too fast, and it's the #1 reason why players bounce off and quit the game. Slowing it down will help with that.

mjharper wrote: »

Why change Dark Cloak to scale off missing health?

To make it more unique, and encourage its use as a reactive skill that leans into the identity of nightblade as a "evasive" class. Make it a strong heal that you cast when you need it, instead of a weaker heal you cast preemptively.

mjharper wrote: »

Why change Molten Whip to use both stamina and magicka?

Because having to pick between the two effects of whip is a genuinely interesting choice. Both morphs have unique and useful effects. Reducing it to "use this is you're mag" and "use this if you're stam" would take away from that interesting choice.
Also, the identity of a Melee MagDK is one of a brawler that gets in the front, disables enemies, and bursts them with whip. The identity of StamDK is stacking DoTs, evading and dodging, and remaining at a distance. Whip does not fit that, and letting stam builds slot whip would make DK too homogenous.

mjharper wrote: »

Why change Crystal Weapon?

It was dealing too much damage. Simple as that.

I do think the nerf went a bit too hard, but the ability definitely needed a 10-30% damage reduction.

mjharper wrote: »

Why change Jabs?

Jabs has a different timing from nearly all other spammables in the game. That can make it uncomfortable to switch to other classes, and back again. It's also a very noisy skill, in both audio and graphics. It generates many bursts of bright light, and a ton of numbers on your screen. And those particles and numbers have not matched the timing of the skill for years now.

Changing it to a standard-length ability makes weaving easier (which increases damage for most players). Making it strike 3 times makes it clearer in the heat of battle, you can more easily tell when you are missing or hitting the target.

As for burning light, that passive was overtuned already. If you had asked me pre PTS, I would have told you it needed a 50% damage reduction. Instead it got a ~67% reduction (plus a buff in the sense that it now procs from other skills)



These changes are not nonsensical. They only seem that way if you are unable or unwilling to look at things from an outside perspective. To a player that has been playing templar for 8 years, what I mentioned might seem like non-issues. But it's not because templar is "fine" or jabs "looks good already". It doesn't. You're just so used to it.

All of the U35 changes are about the bigger picture.

VaranisArano

It's been rather interesting to watch this standards-driven Combat Team who repeatedly explains that they needed to change skills to bring them up or down to standard abruptly change the Empower buff without also standardizing all the skills and sets that grant it to account for the change and its removal from PVP.

shadyjane62

Marto wrote: »

mjharper wrote: »

Why change the timing of Shalk?

Because having a 3 second timing is too cumbersome and hard to rotate and execute. Specially for players that are more casual, older, younger, less able. ESO's combat is simply too fast, and it's the #1 reason why players bounce off and quit the game. Slowing it down will help with that.

mjharper wrote: »

Why change Dark Cloak to scale off missing health?

To make it more unique, and encourage its use as a reactive skill that leans into the identity of nightblade as a "evasive" class. Make it a strong heal that you cast when you need it, instead of a weaker heal you cast preemptively.

mjharper wrote: »

Why change Molten Whip to use both stamina and magicka?

Because having to pick between the two effects of whip is a genuinely interesting choice. Both morphs have unique and useful effects. Reducing it to "use this is you're mag" and "use this if you're stam" would take away from that interesting choice.
Also, the identity of a Melee MagDK is one of a brawler that gets in the front, disables enemies, and bursts them with whip. The identity of StamDK is stacking DoTs, evading and dodging, and remaining at a distance. Whip does not fit that, and letting stam builds slot whip would make DK too homogenous.

mjharper wrote: »

Why change Crystal Weapon?

It was dealing too much damage. Simple as that.

I do think the nerf went a bit too hard, but the ability definitely needed a 10-30% damage reduction.

mjharper wrote: »

Why change Jabs?

Jabs has a different timing from nearly all other spammables in the game. That can make it uncomfortable to switch to other classes, and back again. It's also a very noisy skill, in both audio and graphics. It generates many bursts of bright light, and a ton of numbers on your screen. And those particles and numbers have not matched the timing of the skill for years now.

Changing it to a standard-length ability makes weaving easier (which increases damage for most players). Making it strike 3 times makes it clearer in the heat of battle, you can more easily tell when you are missing or hitting the target.

As for burning light, that passive was overtuned already. If you had asked me pre PTS, I would have told you it needed a 50% damage reduction. Instead it got a ~67% reduction (plus a buff in the sense that it now procs from other skills)



These changes are not nonsensical. They only seem that way if you are unable or unwilling to look at things from an outside perspective. To a player that has been playing templar for 8 years, what I mentioned might seem like non-issues. But it's not because templar is "fine" or jabs "looks good already". It doesn't. You're just so used to it.

All of the U35 changes are about the bigger picture.

Yes, I'm a 8 year Templar. Finally got to a place where I was good in overland and pvp. I did get used to it.

I'm married 42 years to an artist from another planet. That took some time getting used to, should I dump him?

Bigger picture is I 'm good now, after this I won't be. I hate the new jabs animation with such a passion I will no longer play actively as I would just get riled up anytime I saw that terrible animation.

Maybe your picture won't get too much smaller with me gone.

GloatingSwine

Marto wrote: »

mjharper wrote: »

Why change the timing of Shalk?

Because having a 3 second timing is too cumbersome and hard to rotate and execute. Specially for players that are more casual, older, younger, less able. ESO's combat is simply too fast, and it's the #1 reason why players bounce off and quit the game. Slowing it down will help with that.

It won't. Because it won't slow the pace of combat down, the pace of combat is and will remain 120APM. One melee attack, one skill.

Rotations are not hard when skill recasts are short, rotations are hard when skill recasts are unsynchronised. Skill recasts in ESO are often unsynchronised because their durations are all over the place with no common factor that makes them line up into a nice memorable rotation.

A 3 second cooldown would be fine if everything else you did was a multiple of 3, for instance.

(That's not to say I don't think there shouldn't be a lower APM mode of combat available, eg. a group of skills that gains bonuses if used consecutively with no attack and then cashes that bonus in on a fully charged heavy, so they form a 1-2-3-heavy rhythm, which gives a new thing to learn and optimise into a rotation of DoTs and buffs but doesn't require high APM).

As with so much else in U35, what they want to achieve and what the changes will actually do have very little to do with each other.

Lynxyn

mjharper wrote: »

Don't get me wrong: "spreadsheet balancing," which I take to mean balancing comparable skills and so that they all have the same impact, may well be bad for the game; but if that was all this patch contained, it would still be far, far, better that what we have now.

An example: Let's imagine that the devs decide that every healing skill should return 10k healing for a 3k cast, so that a single target burst heal does 10k healing, and a 10 second single target heal over time now does 1k healing per second. That would be "spreadsheet balancing," and it would surely be a mess. But at least there would be a consistency and logic to it and, when implemented, it would by definition lead to everyone being impacted in the same way. It would still rightly be a controversial patch, but it would nonetheless be a clear vision.

The problem with this patch is everything else. Why change the timing of Shalk? Why change Dark Cloak to scale off missing health? Why change Molten Whip to use both stamina and magicka? Why change Crystal Weapon? Why change Jabs? And so on. All of these changes seem to have nothing to do with a clear vision for the game: they're changes to core skills that, as many have noted, nobody asked for.

This patch bundles a comprehensive and radical reworking of damage over time with a flurry of changes to core skills that bear no relation to each other. Either component on its own would be controversial to say the least. But combined, they're overwhelming, a slurry of changes.

This, on it's own, is why the patch should be withheld in its current form: to pull these things apart, and deal with each separately. Let there be a "spreadsheet balancing" patch which can address the underlying vision for the game as a whole. And if there really must be such re-imagining of core skills, let that be a separate patch, so that it can be dealt with on its own terms.

The move towards a medium / heavy attack meta in this week's update is not just the result of min-maxers min-maxing: it's the result of a fatigued and frustrated player base clinging to any rock in the storm.

Personally I'm of the opinion that they can make the game however they want to and those who don't like it will go, those who do will stay and those who are new will just have this as the norm they get used to.

Usually that's how I view it anyways. But if there's just one thing I can't get over it's simply just how they can unironically believe DPS warden comes out better after this? Unless their goal was to specifically nerf one of the worst classes in the game that's been that way for basically forever. Shalk changes bother me the most. "So you can recast early for higher DPS and get big burst on the 2nd hit" ? If anything I would want it to be the opposite. Burst on the first hit then and letting the second one hit being higher DPS than recast. I don't want to recast in pve more often because I'm already playing dot refresher sim with my other abilities. I pick subterranean on mag right now specifically for the reason that it double hits aside from the fact that major and minor fracture are useless unless your soloing. What also annoys me is that they're changing the % damage increase on the animal companion passive to pen! Like who's struggling to get pen in 2022? Passive 700 in CP, slottable that's 900 per status effect on a class that can easily apply quite a few and has easy access to major and minor breach while solo. The one thing this class does not lack and it's replacing a previously good passive. Depending on how shalks turns out probably won't have many animal companion skills slotted anyway. Doesn't matter how much spell damage they give bird just for being casted it feels horrendous to weave with. So will probably just end up with bear, fetcher and falcon swiftness (if pugging/solo).

Marto

GloatingSwine wrote: »

It won't. Because it won't slow the pace of combat down, the pace of combat is and will remain 120APM. One melee attack, one skill.

Rotations are not hard when skill recasts are short, rotations are hard when skill recasts are unsynchronised. Skill recasts in ESO are often unsynchronised because their durations are all over the place with no common factor that makes them line up into a nice memorable rotation.

A 3 second cooldown would be fine if everything else you did was a multiple of 3, for instance.

(That's not to say I don't think there shouldn't be a lower APM mode of combat available, eg. a group of skills that gains bonuses if used consecutively with no attack and then cashes that bonus in on a fully charged heavy, so they form a 1-2-3-heavy rhythm, which gives a new thing to learn and optimise into a rotation of DoTs and buffs but doesn't require high APM).

As with so much else in U35, what they want to achieve and what the changes will actually do have very little to do with each other.

It's not as simple as that.

True, the "required" APM for U35 remains the same, but more of those actions are dedicated to your spammable skill, instead of buffs or DoTs. That alone is a huge accessibility improvement. It leaves time for your hands to rest in between rotations, pressing one button for a few seconds, instead of nonstop finger gymnastics.

Look at it this way. Playing the same note on a piano 1000 times might be the same APM as a full song, but it's a lot easier to execute.

Having Shalks re-cast itself is also a huge improvement, since it allows you to retain relatively similar damage and effect, while requiring only 1/3 of the effort.

Finedaible

VaranisArano wrote: »

It's been rather interesting to watch this standards-driven Combat Team who repeatedly explains that they needed to change skills to bring them up or down to standard abruptly change the Empower buff without also standardizing all the skills and sets that grant it to account for the change and its removal from PVP.

Yeah this empower change was so abstract and out of the blue that it has me wondering if they did it only to justify putting empower onto the Oakensoul Ring without affecting pvp balance. Which also has me wondering if sales for High Isle were worse than they had hoped, but that's just speculation.

Urvoth

HaruKamui wrote: »

I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion but I for one don't mind a little imbalance for the sake of class identity and power fantasy. I mean sure, perfect balance is the impossible goal, and getting as close to it as possible would be great, but getting boring for the sake of balance is unfun.

Class imbalance can be overcome by player skill (and internet connection and PC specs for that matter), but there's no cure to having a boring game.

Having said that though, I agree that the "changes for the sake of change" you mentioned in you post are pretty pointless since it does nothing for balance AND class identity.

The thing is, “imbalance” in terms of not having spreadsheet balancing is probably actually going to lead to more balanced gameplay because of how classes are designed as a whole. Templar/Necro having stronger/cheaper individual heals than Sorc because they’re less mobile and forced to tank out more damage or DK having stronger dot ticks than NB because DK is a brawler, dot-centric class are just a few examples of important balance distinctions between classes. It doesn’t make sense from a balance perspective to give classes all the same tooltips because the way class kits work varies so much.