The state of PvP

xHotguy6pack

The state of PvP is just awful. Nothing about PvP is really fun to play anymore. Everybody runs some sort of cheesy build and if they aren't they have little to no success. 1vX is non existent at least on console. DK corrosive, snipe spam, proc sets, 40k health wardens, templar/ mag sorc being gutted, lighting heavy spams. Not to mention Bg's are incredibly pointless. PvP rewards are useless. AP is worthless. The list goes on....

What is the endgame ZoS? To have the game play for you? Proc sets have ruined this game. Back in 2017/2018 the game was actually fun to play. A Players build actually meant something. There was diversity. There was class identity. Now it just seems go on YouTube and run some cookie cutter cheese build and the game plays itself. Hybridization is good to an extent but there's way too much of it now.

Stopped playing for awhile and heard the servers were updated. Which they were but it's a little too late for that. The game is just...boring.

Stamicka

Yea I mean the reality is that ESO just isn’t being made for people like you (or me) anymore. If you’re looking for the most casual of games where you can quest, create a house, fish, trade some items, and take in the scenery while you do it all, ESO is your game. If you’re interested in challenging encounters or combat, that’s just not the focus.

I truly think that if ESO removed combat completely there would still be a large player base.

endgamesmug

I left cp pvp back on console in 2018, the proc thing couldnt sustain my interest it all seemed a bit ridiculous so went to nocp which kinda reminded me if how pvp used to be. When i did return to pvp recently i chose no cp but as it turns out imp city bgs have caught my interest more in that front. I recently saw a clip of 4 50k health wardens trying to kill each other spamming dizzy and polar wind- it really was quite the classic encapsulation of cp pvp and absolutely hilarious! 😆

Veinblood1965

I tried one of those "cheese" builds however I wasn't Gouda Enough.

AuraNebula

Stamicka wrote: »

Yea I mean the reality is that ESO just isn’t being made for people like you (or me) anymore. If you’re looking for the most casual of games where you can quest, create a house, fish, trade some items, and take in the scenery while you do it all, ESO is your game. If you’re interested in challenging encounters or combat, that’s just not the focus.

I truly think that if ESO removed combat completely there would still be a large player base.

Looking at the new poll you might be right. However I do think that the majority of the people who play this game for the combat are not active on the forums. Most only come on when something game breaking happens or patch notes drop.

The people who are on here regularly are just the casual players. Additionally a lot of long time players have left since u35. The combat changes to suit all the casual players has driven away the people who loved combat in this game. I still play from time to time hoping that things will change...but I don't think they ever will.

Rhaegar75

I still like PvP even it is far from perfect. There is definitely too much cheese going round and some people can be very toxic...however most of the times it's good fun especially now that the servers are actually working!

OBJnoob

I agree with rhaegar. I find BGs to be very fun and competitive. Dueling isn't really my thing but I do it from time to time. Nothing wrong with duels either. And if you want cyrodiil without cheese you can always try Ravenwatch. It doesn't have the population I wish it had... But if some of you people who hate cheese and lag would come on over we could have a good time!

Marcus684

In spite of the unkillable ball groups and tower farmers I still really enjoy logging in to Cyrodiil for a couple of hours in the evening and doing my casual stuff, as long as the servers are behaving. Things are getting kind of laggy this week, maybe because ZOS decided not to do a restart, so it may be time for a break until the next one.

NyassaV

Lightning Heavy spam is pretty bad.

xFocused

You're not wrong.

• Current meta of DK's, Unkillable Warden Tanks that have 0 damage, poison arrow snipers and heavy attack sorcs is so boring. I wish they would make Cro's viable again damage wise because right now it just seems like all the class is good for is Tanking or Healing
• Bar swap glitch is still a thing...how is this not fixed yet? You run into a big fight over a hammer, last emp keep, scroll fight and all of a sudden, you're stuck on 1 bar. When this happens you also can't enter a keep either.
• Rewards of the worthy are mid at best, end of campaign rewards are nice for the transmutes and gold necklace and rings if you have the time to put into the game though..
• Stuck in combat bug still a thing...Seriously
• BG's being two teams of 5-6 would be better than 3 in my opinion

Don't get me wrong, I still very much enjoy PvP and still run groups with my guild in Cyro but a lot of us aren't as active as we want to be in there. It's just stale and needs some fresh, viable changes

Alchimiste1

They need to do a couple of things

1. Remove hybridization (at least to the extent that things are now). It honestly feels like the number of classes we have to play have been almost cut in half.
2. Stop balancing things by introducing broken proc sets and balance based on class skill kits instead. What I mean by this is for example, stamsorc likes healing. Introduce maras balm. Or X class lacks damage. Introducing 10 proc sets that do damage for you.
3. Buff straight stat sets. As things are right now the only good weapon damage set I can think of that's left is clever alch and that has a long cooldown. I would like to see sets like 7th legion (remove health recov stat + increase tooltip), truth, nma, fury, ravaging etc buffed so that they can actually better compete with proc sets that deal absurd damage.
4. Vampire undeath need to be nerfed to like 15% and also health recovery needs to be buffed a bit (not to the extent it was before)
5. status effects deal too much of a player's damage. Personally, I feel the game is more fun when actual skills do the damage.
6. Cap health to something like 35k. And if you have over that you deal significantly less damage/healing.
7. stacking same hots needs to be limited to max of 2.

Apart from that I can't pinpoint what it is, but the game feels significantly less fun to play than in the past. I don't know if its just from the stale meta where kills don't even feels satisfying because as things are its more of a wear down the opposing player playstyle. I think we desperately need a new pvp zone. Something larger than IC but less large than cyrodil and without siege would be great.

Anti_Virus

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Remove hybridization (at least to the extent that things are now). It honestly feels like the number of classes we have to play have been almost cut in half.

No

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Buff straight stat sets. As things are right now the only good weapon damage set I can think of that's left is clever alch and that has a long cooldown. I would like to see sets like 7th legion (remove health recov stat + increase tooltip), truth, nma, fury, ravaging etc buffed so that they can actually better compete with proc sets that deal absurd damage.

Imo proc damage sets should have a damage cap in pvp zones.

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Cap health to something like 35k. And if you have over that you deal significantly less damage/healing.

Not a good idea tbh, as long as damage and healing scale from the same stats we always have this issue, we should have a new stat called “restoration” which your healing scales from and damage from WD/SD this would make people choose glass cannon vs tank/high healing without having both like we currently do


Otherwise these are good suggestions

CameraBeardThePirate

Anti_Virus wrote: »

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Remove hybridization (at least to the extent that things are now). It honestly feels like the number of classes we have to play have been almost cut in half.

No

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Buff straight stat sets. As things are right now the only good weapon damage set I can think of that's left is clever alch and that has a long cooldown. I would like to see sets like 7th legion (remove health recov stat + increase tooltip), truth, nma, fury, ravaging etc buffed so that they can actually better compete with proc sets that deal absurd damage.

Imo proc damage sets should have a damage cap in pvp zones.

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Cap health to something like 35k. And if you have over that you deal significantly less damage/healing.

Not a good idea tbh, as long as damage and healing scale from the same stats we always have this issue, we should have a new stat called “restoration” which your healing scales from and damage from WD/SD this would make people choose glass cannon vs tank/high healing without having both like we currently do


Otherwise these are good suggestions

Proc damage sets DO have a damage cap in PvP. I don't recall the exact number, but they scale with your weapon/spell damage and cap out at a bit over 7k (feel free to correct this number) weapon/spell damage.

gariondavey

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

I tried one of those "cheese" builds however I wasn't Gouda Enough.

That's what you get for feta chasing. Some may say no parm no foul, but I say play what you like.
It may be hit or swiss, but you will at least be doing your own thing.

OBJnoob

^---- these people are both way cooler than me but I'm not mad.

HiImRex

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

They need to do a couple of things

1. Remove hybridization (at least to the extent that things are now). It honestly feels like the number of classes we have to play have been almost cut in half.
2. Stop balancing things by introducing broken proc sets and balanced based on class skill kits. What I mean by this is for example, stamsorc likes healing. Introduce maras balm. Or X class lacks damage. Introducing 10 proc sets that do damage for you.
3. Buff straight stat sets. As things are right now the only good weapon damage set I can think of that's left is clever alch and that has a long cooldown. I would like to see sets like 7th legion (remove health recov stat + increase tooltip), truth, nma, fury, ravaging etc buffed so that they can actually better compete with proc sets that deal absurd damage.
4. Vampire undeath need to be nerfed to like 15% and also health recovery needs to be buffed a bit (not to the extent it was before)
5. status effects deal too much of a player's damage. Personally, I feel the game is more fun when actual skills do the damage.
6. Cap health to something like 35k. And if you have over that you deal significantly less damage/healing.
7. stacking same hots needs to be limited to max of 2.

Apart from that I can't pinpoint what it is, but the game feels significantly less fun to play than in the past. I don't know if its just from the stale meta where kills don't even feels satisfying because as things are its more of a wear down the opposing player playstyle. I think we desperately need a new pvp zone. Something larger than IC but less large than cyrodil and without siege would be great.

It’s also the mentality of the players that are left pvping these days. Most people running no risk all reward builds/comps and playing it safe at all times.

SandandStars

Not me, I change my build every 45 minutes striving for the ever-elusive perfect balance of K-D-Fun ratio.

It’s not an OCD addiction. Perfectly healthy entertainment.

I get migraines and can’t see well enough to read books anymore. This game is great.

Mrtoobyy

META is just boring, never played it and probably never will. I has taken me years though to get good with my templar but he rocks in BG's.
That's the fun part about this game that alot of non meta builds are viable, they may not be the best but they are viable and you feel unique playing them.

BUT when ZOS introduce new sets all the time alot of the old become redundant because the newer sets are so similar but stronger making them "meta". I wish ZOS would stop put "new floor over the old floor" they should tear up all the layers of the old and take a look at the foundation.
This goes for more in this game than just sets.

Woodenplank

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Stop balancing things by introducing broken proc sets and balanced based on class skill kits. What I mean by this is for example, stamsorc likes healing. Introduce maras balm. Or X class lacks damage. Introducing 10 proc sets that do damage for you.

What do you mean? Introducing new sets has always fixed core game issues!

• Introducing Vicious Death totally fixed the issue of tightly stacked groups being unkillable. Everyone agrees that introducing a set like that instead of just removing AoE caps to begin with was an amazing decision.
• Shield Breaker set giving 12% bonus dmg vs. Shields totally fixed Shield stacking being too strong all on its own. It's not like there was need for any subsequent nerfs such as halving shield amounts and reducing durations to 6 seconds. Never happened.
• Admittedly Plaguebreak probably "fixed" the issue of people "spamming purge with reckless abandon." It fixed it so well that any purging effect is now a potential deathsentence for you and innocent bystanders; so better just forget about using that Ritual skill of yours, silly Templar. Also it's basically Vicious Death 2.0, so that was a nice complication.
• And since Snake in the Stars was introduced, no one whatsoever has complained of heal stacking in Cyrodiil. The problem just disappeared! Never mentioned. #Fixed.
• Unkillable tanks? Not any more since Shell Splitter and Hrothgarr, right?... Ugh... right?

I feel like ZOS forgot/lost-their-courage to change core mechanics some time in 2018 or before? Nowadays any issue (in PVP) seems to be addressed by throwing a new item set or two at the problem, and hoping it'll sort itself out.

You don't want people spamming Purge? Give it an increasing cost/cast - a mechanic that already exists to prevent people spamming Roll Dodge or Streak.
Don't want people stacking too many heals? Give multi-person heals like Echoing Vigor diminishing returns (every subsequent application heals less and less.


Players are damn near unkillable? Heal too much and still deal damage? Well maybe... just maybe it's time to split Spell/Weapon Damage into Damage and Healing? Right now sets like Sea-Serpent Coil or Rallying Cry offer both offensive and healing power galore. You want to stack heals forever and ever? Well it'll gut your damage. You want to score some kills? It'll cost ya some survivability!
I know it's drastic, but perhaps this way the meta might one day return to people actually being killable.

pedrogonzalez

Return good old tremorviper pvp.

mmtaniac

Health and damage should not work together, if you build juggernaut you shouldn't stack that much damage and be mobile at the same time. Something should be done to that, I don't know maybe reduce damage when you have 35k hp your damage are reduced by 25% or something else , problem with game is ,you can have evertyhing without consequences ,this is problem. Should be some consequences with choosing something, if i choose vampire i lose fighters guild skill tree or something else too balance.
In World of Warcraft if i choose to play Healer than i am healer if i choose damage than i am damage. I know everyone want everything in this game but we now see how toxic it is. Some people have everything, and this i problem at least for pvp, for pve i don't care you can be everything for pve but pvp should have at least a little balance.
They should balance pvp by battle spirit. Every class and skill should be balanced different by battle spirit.

accidentalist

No comment.

SandandStars

This may be an oversimplification, but I recently sacrificed health and resistance on my build and put it all into pen. Getting twice as many kills now, but have to play very carefully not to get a high death rate.

Biggest problems are Rush of Agony or multiple DKs spamming Fossilize and all their other unbalanced crud.

Here’s a proc set idea to address a pervasive problem:

“Dragonkrutch Equalizer”

129 sd/wd
1487 penetration
129 sd/wd
*Mimics the effects of Corrosive for equal duration when cast by an enemy player.

xDeusEJRx

Zos seeing this is thinkin: "hmm time to make a proc set to punish proc set users"

Woodenplank

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Zos seeing this is thinkin: "hmm time to make a proc set to punish proc set users"

The strength of the anti-proc proc set will, of course, inevitably lead to the anti anti-proc proc set proc set, which restores you to full health and removes all debuffs when you're hit with a proc set.

TechMaybeHic

Still looking for that code rewrite that was going to happen last year, then Q2 this year. Looking forward to seeing the progress mentioned in the yearly wrap up again

Udrath

Baseline 1000 weapon damage/spell damage is a big factor why the meta is like this. Even if it was removed I think people would still try to play high hp burst builds. It should be if you have no gear on, then all your stats should be zero, but sadly that is not the case anymore.

The baseline stats remove the need to build to fit your playstyle, and instead promote using BIS which comes down a handful of sets that work on any class. These builds cover all problems of sustaining, damage, survivability. This is great for a single player game but terrible for a MMORPG.

Another big problem is snare immunity, especially race against time and bird of prey. It’s a loaded skill. Race against time is skill that makes every class feel the same. Every class doesn’t need to move as fast a mount.

ShalidorsHeir

Stamicka wrote: »

Yea I mean the reality is that ESO just isn’t being made for people like you (or me) anymore. If you’re looking for the most casual of games where you can quest, create a house, fish, trade some items, and take in the scenery while you do it all, ESO is your game. If you’re interested in challenging encounters or combat, that’s just not the focus.

I truly think that if ESO removed combat completely there would still be a large player base.

No, the game is not good at other areas either. the thing with eso is its diversity - having access to multiple (but not deeply designed) content types in one game. and without dungeon/trial content and pvp this game is 100% dead. There are fara better games for the contents you mentioned. also as MMO if you wish, but there is no reason for an MMO then after all.

jerj6925

PVP was best when all builds and all classes were viable, when everyone could kill everyone. The pvp is now catering to try hard elites that has always been a small minority in population, it drives away the larger player base.

xDeusEJRx

jerj6925 wrote: »

PVP was best when all builds and all classes were viable, when everyone could kill everyone. The pvp is now catering to try hard elites that has always been a small minority in population, it drives away the larger player base.

Catering to tryhard elites? Lol not even remotely, the pvp caters towards whoever puts the most proc damage combos on their build. Has been since late 2021, the last meta that's "catered toward elites" was Flames of ambition at the start of 2021.
That was mainly because procs were gone and people hadn't gotten used to the new CP system as it was just implemented, but in no way does the current meta cater to any "elites"

The meta has and always will be cheesing people to death with whatever is the strongest damage proc at the time, because having 3 procs burst you simultaneously will always be better than any sort of "skill".

Elite is not a concept in this game's pvp, I have no idea how people think there's elitism anywhere in pvp outside of dueling and dueling tournaments. Anything else pvp is literally Proc v Proc

OBJnoob

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

jerj6925 wrote: »

PVP was best when all builds and all classes were viable, when everyone could kill everyone. The pvp is now catering to try hard elites that has always been a small minority in population, it drives away the larger player base.

Catering to tryhard elites? Lol not even remotely, the pvp caters towards whoever puts the most proc damage combos on their build. Has been since late 2021, the last meta that's "catered toward elites" was Flames of ambition at the start of 2021.
That was mainly because procs were gone and people hadn't gotten used to the new CP system as it was just implemented, but in no way does the current meta cater to any "elites"

The meta has and always will be cheesing people to death with whatever is the strongest damage proc at the time, because having 3 procs burst you simultaneously will always be better than any sort of "skill".

Elite is not a concept in this game's pvp, I have no idea how people think there's elitism anywhere in pvp outside of dueling and dueling tournaments. Anything else pvp is literally Proc v Proc

How is this even a response? What do procs have to do with skill? Like I know people like to say "omg this set does damage for you you can just faceroll the controller," but I thought this was tongue-in-cheek. I thought we were just discussing stylistic preferences.

The truth is still that, of course, a talented player will be better than an average player if they both use procs. Procs aren't some kind of great equalizer. Some people know how to
align cooldowns and line up burst and some people don't. Some people know when Mechanical Acuity is active, for instance, and some don't. Some people know which buff Daedric Trickery just gave them and how to use it and some people don't.

Whenever the best/only competative pvp builds use two arena weapons then we do actually kinda have a meta shifted towards elites. Because not just anybody has those.

People claim aiming and pushing buttons is the end-all be-all of talent but you don't see elite players wearing stat builds performing elitely, do you? The pvp environment is dominated by people on PTS crunching numbers finding the new best sets, proc or not, and using them in conjunction with arena weapons that bad players can't even get.

What's funny though is the guy using his Vate Destro dies to someone's dark convergence and immediately groans "the set is doing all the work for him!" MmmmmmmmK.

Was it BAD players using Savage Werewolf that made it need to be nerfed? No. The bad players didn't even know it was broken and over performing. Is it bad players vicariously nuking other players with tri-focus in IC? No. You wish it were-- but bad players have no idea. Were bad players abusing Ash Cloud for infinite sustain? No, they had no idea.

So... Sorry if you feel insulted by being called a try-hard elite simply for playing and researching the game you love... But it's really just a term, not meant to be as insulting as it sounds. And if you spend much time on the forums, PTS, or build editors then that's exactly what you are. If you respond to forum posts with graphs, charts, and combat metrics then that's exactly what you are.