Hardened Ward... Where player based skill can go from C-tier to S+-tier

StaticWave · July 6

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Here's something else to take a look at too. I was fighting that proc plar on magsorc and he said it was aids to fight a magsorc that kites all the time:

[snip]

So I dropped Streak cause I wanted to see if I could face tank him:

Tanked him for 7 minutes no problem lol

I believe we have all agreed that it's obviously this result in a 1v1. The game also isn't balanced for 1v1 so this is fairly expected.

[edited to remove quote]

Also, since you keep dismissing 1v1s as a metric for combat balance, I’ll have you know that the amount of balance changes made specifically for large scale PvP are rare.

Some changes that actually impacted large scale PvP were:

- The removal of 6 target limit on ultimates
- Steel Tornado execute scaling removal
- Scaling adjustments to Proxy Det
- Scaling adjustments to proc sets like Vicious Death, Plaguebreak, DC, etc.
- Rush of Agony delay proc addition

Everything else wasn’t done with large-scale PvP in mind, but rather based on their data and public feedback. That’s why sets like mDW or Blackrose got nerfed. Not because they impacted large scale PvP, but because they were complained about too often. That’s also why Overload Ganking, Mechanical Acuity, Onslaught having 12s duration, Corrosive Armor gaining ult mid effect, etc were all nerfed. They were nerfed because the mass complained about them long enough, not because ZOS is catering towards some GvG fight you’re always bringing up in your posts.

So no, I think Ward has been baking long enough and plenty of people have voiced their frustration with it already. In due time Ward will get nerfed. It may take 1 year, or even 2 years, but it will get nerfed.

StaticWave · July 6

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

almost every 1vX is going to be small sequences of 1v1s because the majority of spammables and burst abilities are single target. So I’m not sure where you get this notion that 1v1s don’t occur frequently.

100% true, they obviously get that notion because they've never even come close to winning 1vX.

Yea they think everyone is a Warden with 3 AoE abilities on their bar. Molten Whip is single target. Concealed + AW are single target. Jabs also deal big single target damage to the person in front, and PotL is single target. Curse + Frag are single target, etc. I could go on.

Literally pull up a clip of any 1vX and the first thing you see is the player focusing on 1 target until he dies, then he switches to a different target. If that’s not a 1v1 then I literally do not know what is lol.

Bushido2513 · July 6

StaticWave wrote: »

But you do mind. You keep telling everyone the change doesn’t affect you in anyway, but you say things like “other classes have a strong burst heal so why should Sorc not get one”, or “nerf the other class healings first then we can talk” which are subtle indicators that you do want the change to stay.

Yeah just because it doesn't affect me doesn't mean I can't appreciate that someone else might be happy about it. I also see that people don't like it. This is the kind of thing that is more so viewable with the right data and not just from people's opinions.

StaticWave wrote: »

I’m a stamsorc main and I played without a true burst heal for 5 years. Even when I asked for a burst heal, I asked for it to be less potent compared to other burst heals because the class is just too strong. I asked for Dark Deal to be instant cast with the same non scaling tooltip at a reduced resource return, NOT a 9k tooltip burst heal underneath a 15k Ward in PvP.

This is the kind of thing we get from spreadsheet balancing. Is it artful or maybe even appropriate, I think only ZOS has accurate info on that. And no I'm not saying this negates players having an opinion. Opinions are fine as long as they are stated as such and not proof of something that can't be proved by someone other than ZOS.

StaticWave wrote: »

Posts like yours don’t help at all, to be frank. They sound indifferent with a slight hint of favoring one side, and anytime someone proposes a solid piece of counter argument you can always fall back to “ZOS has the data and decides”. It’s almost impossible to discuss with you if I’m being honest.

I mean if you say 2 + 2 = 5 then yes I'm going to fall back on math and say it shows to equal 4. That's not me trying to say anything personal, it just is what it is. If I know your data set is incomplete there's no reason for me to act like it isn't or that getting close enough is actually close enough. Again I've never said don't state your opinion on the matter just don't act like you've proved anything solidly when you don't have the data to back that up. This isn't in regards to your 1v1 testing because the data does back that up. Beyond that anyone without back end data is just giving their opinion.

StaticWave wrote: »

And quite frankly, I see you leaning more towards the ppl favoring Ward than actually being neutral. Clearly you disregard 1v1s as a metric of balance, when 1v1s is as accurate as you can get to combat balance in this game. Then you use large scale PvP as a metric of balance, but when magsorc is undoubtedly considered by many ppl to be overperforming in Cyrodiil, an environment where large scale battles occur, you still disregard it and instead ask for a bunch of unobtainable data. Why don’t you do the testing yourself then?

I am only saying that the ward change hasn't really done much for me one way or another. So if someone likes it then cool for them and if someone doesn't like it I get that too. Most of the people in this and other threads are saying they don't like it so my comments are more towards that conversation since I don't quite get it being that it's not affecting me. So if people are saying hey it sucks more often then yes my comments are going to be more towards hey I don't see it as sucking. Doesn't mean I like it, just means I don't quite get the problem you're having with it and obviously not everyone agrees that there actually is a problem.

1v1s are data accurate but the balance is already skewed as shown when you have a tournament how rules have to be used to try to achieve some level of balance. So 1v1s just aren't balanced in this game period. So you say the words undoubtedly and many.

So here's a question, if more people are playing sorc and enjoying ward than people that don't like it does that mean ward is ok or are they just ward abusers? Because this is the problem with saying many people say xyz. It doesn't prove or show anything, it's just a rough estimate of what may or may not be accurate. There's only one way to be accurate and that's all I'm saying not don't express your opinion.

Bushido2513 · July 6

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

I feel like if you try and provide supporting evidence from duels people say oh the data from 1v1s means nothing because the game isn't centered around 1v1. And if you try and provide supporting evidence from OW gameplay people will say something like there are too many variables to accurately arrive to any conclusion

Can we all just be honest. Magsorc is busted right now. I don't know how that is even arguable. Whether it be for 1v1s or open world. Making an argument such as, " oh ward is only busted on particular setups", doesn't make sense. It is like trying to say yeah magsorc is fair and balanced if they use Juliano's rage and shackle breaker. No one cares about that.

Current magsorc has to press 1 skill for defense and that's all. Its 15k shield with and 8k heal attached to it.

Sure you can of course say hey if it's even possible that this setup an be run then that is a problem in itself. I can agree with that thinking and think we should of course balance if people are abusing the change. I just think ZOS can see the same issues we see and make adjustments or not make adjustments.

For the record I myself don't run a min maxed setup at all so while I of course understand some are I can also understand that some aren't, some aren't even playing sorc, and some don't know what to do with the setup other than be tanky. So before making changes I'd just like to see zos do some analysis and make a move based on that.

Tcholl · July 6

I believe is clear to anyone reading these posts who is trying to provide valid feedback on this thread.

Bushido2513 · July 6

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Here's something else to take a look at too. I was fighting that proc plar on magsorc and he said it was aids to fight a magsorc that kites all the time:

[snip]

So I dropped Streak cause I wanted to see if I could face tank him:

Tanked him for 7 minutes no problem lol

I believe we have all agreed that it's obviously this result in a 1v1. The game also isn't balanced for 1v1 so this is fairly expected.

Whats part of it is balanced if not 1v1. 1v1s happen constantly even in Cyrodiil and BGs. And it's worse than just being a little better. If you come across an equal skilled sorc, it's not just a bit stronger, it's pointless. At least in duels, it's generally frowned on to LOS where the 1v1 in the wild, pretty much anything goes.

Where is it balanced if not 1v1? In large fights where they already were wanted for negates and all that same survivability still stands out over other classes?

Nearly anywhere they go in PvP, if a sorc struggles more than any other class would; they are pretty bad

Right, he thinks everyone is just going to follow as a team in BGs and that ppl aren’t going to split up to take objectives or get split up. He thinks every fight in Cyrodiil is this massive 60v60 zerg and not small fights that could occur and result in small 1v1s lol. For a solo PvPer like he claimed I thought it was obvious, unless he’s either lying about it or playing on a platform where the population is so small there are hardly any fights outside of zergs.

Either way, that isn’t grounds for balancing. The game has never been balanced around large scale fights. There are countless threads complaining about the same issue until this day. The game is balanced around raising the floor, and when the floor gets raised too much, we jump in to give feedback.

So as a solo player I really can speak to this one. I've had wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy more xv1s then I've had fights I can finish as a 1v1. I'm all about the 1v1 that I can stumble upon and finish out, it's actually a great thing to find. But in IC and open world you will more likely run up on a minimum 2 players or if one is solo a nb or two waiting to take advantage.

Again I'm not saying 1v1s don't happen, they do, all the time actually but more often if you're open world it will become an xv1.

Oh and to be clear I don't really count something where 1 person is standing around and you just nuke them in a sec. Yes that's a 1v1 but for me I more so tend to count 1v1s where the opponent is good enough to hold their own and so those tend to take more time and when they do that's when your chances of it turning into an xv1 go up fairly quickly.

I mean even if we just cater by occurrence count are people in here really trying to say that players in a given play session in general will run into more 1v1s then they will gvg ?

If that's what's happening then tell me where the 1v1 server is because I'd be down to get on it. Of course I'm going to be honest and say I've always preferred IC because of the more predatory element and chances of being outnumbers so maybe I'm just not looking in the right places?

[edited to remove quote]

I also 1vX too and in those 1vXs I have to do several 1v1s. It happens when I kite far enough and someone gets a little too overconfident and gets caught with their pants down. It happens all the time. I’m sure you’re familiar with that scenario if you also do solo PvP.

In fact, unless you’re a in a dedicated AoE build, almost every 1vX is going to be small sequences of 1v1s because the majority of spammables and burst abilities are single target. So I’m not sure where you get this notion that 1v1s don’t occur frequently.

So yes as a single target build in 1vx you are really only killing 1 player at a time however your defensive position is a bit of a variable. You can only target singles but multiples can target you at once.

So yes you could balance all classes around a 1v1 scenario but then in theory you'd have to make them weaker to 1vx scenarios. I think this appeals to skill based players but wouldn't be fun for less skilled players.

Over the years in playing this game I've really watched how people respond to different fights we have. When I blow people away and they are unprepared for it some almost want to throw the controller and others send me whispers. My point being is that I can understand the perspective of someone that doesn't like getting two tapped by me just because I understand the game a bit more. I think zos is also trying to soften this blow and make the game more appealing for players of lesser skill At the same time these changes to make the game more accessible come in as a benefit to pve.

So at the end of the day would I love for this to be a game based around skill where you just get sharper or die? Of course I would. Do I see that zos seems to be going another way and that resistance to their spreadsheets is like playing the lottery at this point, kind of.

So for me the ward change doesn't really mean much and if someone else is getting happiness out of it then cool. If it's causing the game to go off the rails and will jeopardize zos revenue I expect they will get on that of their own accord.

xylena_lazarow · July 6

Bushido2513 wrote: »

So for me the ward change doesn't really mean much

You said yourself you aren't bothering to understand game mechanics. That's why it doesn't really mean much.

Alchimiste1 · July 6

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Here's something else to take a look at too. I was fighting that proc plar on magsorc and he said it was aids to fight a magsorc that kites all the time:

[snip]

So I dropped Streak cause I wanted to see if I could face tank him:

Tanked him for 7 minutes no problem lol

I believe we have all agreed that it's obviously this result in a 1v1. The game also isn't balanced for 1v1 so this is fairly expected.

Whats part of it is balanced if not 1v1. 1v1s happen constantly even in Cyrodiil and BGs. And it's worse than just being a little better. If you come across an equal skilled sorc, it's not just a bit stronger, it's pointless. At least in duels, it's generally frowned on to LOS where the 1v1 in the wild, pretty much anything goes.

Where is it balanced if not 1v1? In large fights where they already were wanted for negates and all that same survivability still stands out over other classes?

Nearly anywhere they go in PvP, if a sorc struggles more than any other class would; they are pretty bad

Right, he thinks everyone is just going to follow as a team in BGs and that ppl aren’t going to split up to take objectives or get split up. He thinks every fight in Cyrodiil is this massive 60v60 zerg and not small fights that could occur and result in small 1v1s lol. For a solo PvPer like he claimed I thought it was obvious, unless he’s either lying about it or playing on a platform where the population is so small there are hardly any fights outside of zergs.

Either way, that isn’t grounds for balancing. The game has never been balanced around large scale fights. There are countless threads complaining about the same issue until this day. The game is balanced around raising the floor, and when the floor gets raised too much, we jump in to give feedback.

So as a solo player I really can speak to this one. I've had wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy more xv1s then I've had fights I can finish as a 1v1. I'm all about the 1v1 that I can stumble upon and finish out, it's actually a great thing to find. But in IC and open world you will more likely run up on a minimum 2 players or if one is solo a nb or two waiting to take advantage.

Again I'm not saying 1v1s don't happen, they do, all the time actually but more often if you're open world it will become an xv1.

Oh and to be clear I don't really count something where 1 person is standing around and you just nuke them in a sec. Yes that's a 1v1 but for me I more so tend to count 1v1s where the opponent is good enough to hold their own and so those tend to take more time and when they do that's when your chances of it turning into an xv1 go up fairly quickly.

I mean even if we just cater by occurrence count are people in here really trying to say that players in a given play session in general will run into more 1v1s then they will gvg ?

If that's what's happening then tell me where the 1v1 server is because I'd be down to get on it. Of course I'm going to be honest and say I've always preferred IC because of the more predatory element and chances of being outnumbers so maybe I'm just not looking in the right places?

[edited to remove quote]

I also 1vX too and in those 1vXs I have to do several 1v1s. It happens when I kite far enough and someone gets a little too overconfident and gets caught with their pants down. It happens all the time. I’m sure you’re familiar with that scenario if you also do solo PvP.

In fact, unless you’re a in a dedicated AoE build, almost every 1vX is going to be small sequences of 1v1s because the majority of spammables and burst abilities are single target. So I’m not sure where you get this notion that 1v1s don’t occur frequently.

So yes as a single target build in 1vx you are really only killing 1 player at a time however your defensive position is a bit of a variable. You can only target singles but multiples can target you at once.

So yes you could balance all classes around a 1v1 scenario but then in theory you'd have to make them weaker to 1vx scenarios. I think this appeals to skill based players but wouldn't be fun for less skilled players.

Over the years in playing this game I've really watched how people respond to different fights we have. When I blow people away and they are unprepared for it some almost want to throw the controller and others send me whispers. My point being is that I can understand the perspective of someone that doesn't like getting two tapped by me just because I understand the game a bit more. I think zos is also trying to soften this blow and make the game more appealing for players of lesser skill At the same time these changes to make the game more accessible come in as a benefit to pve.

So at the end of the day would I love for this to be a game based around skill where you just get sharper or die? Of course I would. Do I see that zos seems to be going another way and that resistance to their spreadsheets is like playing the lottery at this point, kind of.

So for me the ward change doesn't really mean much and if someone else is getting happiness out of it then cool. If it's causing the game to go off the rails and will jeopardize zos revenue I expect they will get on that of their own accord.

what the heck does any of that have to do with how overperforming sorcerer's ward is ? its better than every other class's best defense skill

Bushido2513 · July 6

StaticWave wrote: »

But you do mind. You keep telling everyone the change doesn’t affect you in anyway, but you say things like “other classes have a strong burst heal so why should Sorc not get one”, or “nerf the other class healings first then we can talk” which are subtle indicators that you do want the change to stay.

I’m a stamsorc main and I played without a true burst heal for 5 years. Even when I asked for a burst heal, I asked for it to be less potent compared to other burst heals because the class is just too strong. I asked for Dark Deal to be instant cast with the same non scaling tooltip at a reduced resource return, NOT a 9k tooltip burst heal underneath a 15k Ward in PvP.

I don’t think you are unintentionally ignoring this balance issue. I think you’re jumping hoops trying to justify the change as “needed” because “other classes have it too”. You know what I think is wrong on your part? You’re leaving out the threads asking for nerfs to the changes that those classes have. Corrosive took 2 years to be nerfed and there were multiple threads complaining about it. Concealed Weapon took 6 patches to finally have its 10% damage done buff removed completely. Do you think 2 years is what it should take for a mechanic to be nerfed when it only took at best 2 months to see everything wrong with it? Do you think as players, we shouldn’t give feedback at all because at the end of the say ZOS has the data?

Posts like yours don’t help at all, to be frank. They sound indifferent with a slight hint of favoring one side, and anytime someone proposes a solid piece of counter argument you can always fall back to “ZOS has the data and decides”. It’s almost impossible to discuss with you if I’m being honest.

And quite frankly, I see you leaning more towards the ppl favoring Ward than actually being neutral. Clearly you disregard 1v1s as a metric of balance, when 1v1s is as accurate as you can get to combat balance in this game. Then you use large scale PvP as a metric of balance, but when magsorc is undoubtedly considered by many ppl to be overperforming in Cyrodiil, an environment where large scale battles occur, you still disregard it and instead ask for a bunch of unobtainable data. Why don’t you do the testing yourself then?

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

So for me the ward change doesn't really mean much

You said yourself you aren't bothering to understand game mechanics. That's why it doesn't really mean much.

Well actually I understand them fairly well. I just choose to employ or care about them to varying degrees these days.

But more to the point I survived just fine before the change so reverting it wouldn't really hurt me. Not sure others would feel the same though.

divnyi · July 6

Bushido2513 wrote: »

So here's a question, if more people are playing sorc and enjoying ward than people that don't like it does that mean ward is ok or are they just ward abusers? Because this is the problem with saying many people say xyz. It doesn't prove or show anything, it's just a rough estimate of what may or may not be accurate. There's only one way to be accurate and that's all I'm saying not don't express your opinion.

Increased amount of sorcs is a consequence of ward buff making an overpowered class, yes or no?
Because every BG team has like two sorcs on average.

xylena_lazarow · July 7

Bushido2513 wrote: »

But more to the point I survived just fine before the change so reverting it wouldn't really hurt me. Not sure others would feel the same though.

So you don't care, you're just posting hundreds of times on behalf of being unsure what others would feel?

StaticWave · July 7

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

But you do mind. You keep telling everyone the change doesn’t affect you in anyway, but you say things like “other classes have a strong burst heal so why should Sorc not get one”, or “nerf the other class healings first then we can talk” which are subtle indicators that you do want the change to stay.

Yeah just because it doesn't affect me doesn't mean I can't appreciate that someone else might be happy about it. I also see that people don't like it. This is the kind of thing that is more so viewable with the right data and not just from people's opinions.

StaticWave wrote: »

I’m a stamsorc main and I played without a true burst heal for 5 years. Even when I asked for a burst heal, I asked for it to be less potent compared to other burst heals because the class is just too strong. I asked for Dark Deal to be instant cast with the same non scaling tooltip at a reduced resource return, NOT a 9k tooltip burst heal underneath a 15k Ward in PvP.

This is the kind of thing we get from spreadsheet balancing. Is it artful or maybe even appropriate, I think only ZOS has accurate info on that. And no I'm not saying this negates players having an opinion. Opinions are fine as long as they are stated as such and not proof of something that can't be proved by someone other than ZOS.

StaticWave wrote: »

Posts like yours don’t help at all, to be frank. They sound indifferent with a slight hint of favoring one side, and anytime someone proposes a solid piece of counter argument you can always fall back to “ZOS has the data and decides”. It’s almost impossible to discuss with you if I’m being honest.

I mean if you say 2 + 2 = 5 then yes I'm going to fall back on math and say it shows to equal 4. That's not me trying to say anything personal, it just is what it is. If I know your data set is incomplete there's no reason for me to act like it isn't or that getting close enough is actually close enough. Again I've never said don't state your opinion on the matter just don't act like you've proved anything solidly when you don't have the data to back that up. This isn't in regards to your 1v1 testing because the data does back that up. Beyond that anyone without back end data is just giving their opinion.

StaticWave wrote: »

And quite frankly, I see you leaning more towards the ppl favoring Ward than actually being neutral. Clearly you disregard 1v1s as a metric of balance, when 1v1s is as accurate as you can get to combat balance in this game. Then you use large scale PvP as a metric of balance, but when magsorc is undoubtedly considered by many ppl to be overperforming in Cyrodiil, an environment where large scale battles occur, you still disregard it and instead ask for a bunch of unobtainable data. Why don’t you do the testing yourself then?

I am only saying that the ward change hasn't really done much for me one way or another. So if someone likes it then cool for them and if someone doesn't like it I get that too. Most of the people in this and other threads are saying they don't like it so my comments are more towards that conversation since I don't quite get it being that it's not affecting me. So if people are saying hey it sucks more often then yes my comments are going to be more towards hey I don't see it as sucking. Doesn't mean I like it, just means I don't quite get the problem you're having with it and obviously not everyone agrees that there actually is a problem.

1v1s are data accurate but the balance is already skewed as shown when you have a tournament how rules have to be used to try to achieve some level of balance. So 1v1s just aren't balanced in this game period. So you say the words undoubtedly and many.

So here's a question, if more people are playing sorc and enjoying ward than people that don't like it does that mean ward is ok or are they just ward abusers? Because this is the problem with saying many people say xyz. It doesn't prove or show anything, it's just a rough estimate of what may or may not be accurate. There's only one way to be accurate and that's all I'm saying not don't express your opinion.

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Here's something else to take a look at too. I was fighting that proc plar on magsorc and he said it was aids to fight a magsorc that kites all the time:

[snip]

So I dropped Streak cause I wanted to see if I could face tank him:

Tanked him for 7 minutes no problem lol

I believe we have all agreed that it's obviously this result in a 1v1. The game also isn't balanced for 1v1 so this is fairly expected.

Whats part of it is balanced if not 1v1. 1v1s happen constantly even in Cyrodiil and BGs. And it's worse than just being a little better. If you come across an equal skilled sorc, it's not just a bit stronger, it's pointless. At least in duels, it's generally frowned on to LOS where the 1v1 in the wild, pretty much anything goes.

Where is it balanced if not 1v1? In large fights where they already were wanted for negates and all that same survivability still stands out over other classes?

Nearly anywhere they go in PvP, if a sorc struggles more than any other class would; they are pretty bad

Right, he thinks everyone is just going to follow as a team in BGs and that ppl aren’t going to split up to take objectives or get split up. He thinks every fight in Cyrodiil is this massive 60v60 zerg and not small fights that could occur and result in small 1v1s lol. For a solo PvPer like he claimed I thought it was obvious, unless he’s either lying about it or playing on a platform where the population is so small there are hardly any fights outside of zergs.

Either way, that isn’t grounds for balancing. The game has never been balanced around large scale fights. There are countless threads complaining about the same issue until this day. The game is balanced around raising the floor, and when the floor gets raised too much, we jump in to give feedback.

So as a solo player I really can speak to this one. I've had wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy more xv1s then I've had fights I can finish as a 1v1. I'm all about the 1v1 that I can stumble upon and finish out, it's actually a great thing to find. But in IC and open world you will more likely run up on a minimum 2 players or if one is solo a nb or two waiting to take advantage.

Again I'm not saying 1v1s don't happen, they do, all the time actually but more often if you're open world it will become an xv1.

Oh and to be clear I don't really count something where 1 person is standing around and you just nuke them in a sec. Yes that's a 1v1 but for me I more so tend to count 1v1s where the opponent is good enough to hold their own and so those tend to take more time and when they do that's when your chances of it turning into an xv1 go up fairly quickly.

I mean even if we just cater by occurrence count are people in here really trying to say that players in a given play session in general will run into more 1v1s then they will gvg ?

If that's what's happening then tell me where the 1v1 server is because I'd be down to get on it. Of course I'm going to be honest and say I've always preferred IC because of the more predatory element and chances of being outnumbers so maybe I'm just not looking in the right places?

[edited to remove quote]

I also 1vX too and in those 1vXs I have to do several 1v1s. It happens when I kite far enough and someone gets a little too overconfident and gets caught with their pants down. It happens all the time. I’m sure you’re familiar with that scenario if you also do solo PvP.

In fact, unless you’re a in a dedicated AoE build, almost every 1vX is going to be small sequences of 1v1s because the majority of spammables and burst abilities are single target. So I’m not sure where you get this notion that 1v1s don’t occur frequently.

So yes as a single target build in 1vx you are really only killing 1 player at a time however your defensive position is a bit of a variable. You can only target singles but multiples can target you at once.

So yes you could balance all classes around a 1v1 scenario but then in theory you'd have to make them weaker to 1vx scenarios. I think this appeals to skill based players but wouldn't be fun for less skilled players.

Over the years in playing this game I've really watched how people respond to different fights we have. When I blow people away and they are unprepared for it some almost want to throw the controller and others send me whispers. My point being is that I can understand the perspective of someone that doesn't like getting two tapped by me just because I understand the game a bit more. I think zos is also trying to soften this blow and make the game more appealing for players of lesser skill At the same time these changes to make the game more accessible come in as a benefit to pve.

So at the end of the day would I love for this to be a game based around skill where you just get sharper or die? Of course I would. Do I see that zos seems to be going another way and that resistance to their spreadsheets is like playing the lottery at this point, kind of.

So for me the ward change doesn't really mean much and if someone else is getting happiness out of it then cool. If it's causing the game to go off the rails and will jeopardize zos revenue I expect they will get on that of their own accord.

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

But you do mind. You keep telling everyone the change doesn’t affect you in anyway, but you say things like “other classes have a strong burst heal so why should Sorc not get one”, or “nerf the other class healings first then we can talk” which are subtle indicators that you do want the change to stay.

I’m a stamsorc main and I played without a true burst heal for 5 years. Even when I asked for a burst heal, I asked for it to be less potent compared to other burst heals because the class is just too strong. I asked for Dark Deal to be instant cast with the same non scaling tooltip at a reduced resource return, NOT a 9k tooltip burst heal underneath a 15k Ward in PvP.

I don’t think you are unintentionally ignoring this balance issue. I think you’re jumping hoops trying to justify the change as “needed” because “other classes have it too”. You know what I think is wrong on your part? You’re leaving out the threads asking for nerfs to the changes that those classes have. Corrosive took 2 years to be nerfed and there were multiple threads complaining about it. Concealed Weapon took 6 patches to finally have its 10% damage done buff removed completely. Do you think 2 years is what it should take for a mechanic to be nerfed when it only took at best 2 months to see everything wrong with it? Do you think as players, we shouldn’t give feedback at all because at the end of the say ZOS has the data?

Posts like yours don’t help at all, to be frank. They sound indifferent with a slight hint of favoring one side, and anytime someone proposes a solid piece of counter argument you can always fall back to “ZOS has the data and decides”. It’s almost impossible to discuss with you if I’m being honest.

And quite frankly, I see you leaning more towards the ppl favoring Ward than actually being neutral. Clearly you disregard 1v1s as a metric of balance, when 1v1s is as accurate as you can get to combat balance in this game. Then you use large scale PvP as a metric of balance, but when magsorc is undoubtedly considered by many ppl to be overperforming in Cyrodiil, an environment where large scale battles occur, you still disregard it and instead ask for a bunch of unobtainable data. Why don’t you do the testing yourself then?

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

So for me the ward change doesn't really mean much

You said yourself you aren't bothering to understand game mechanics. That's why it doesn't really mean much.

Well actually I understand them fairly well. I just choose to employ or care about them to varying degrees these days.

But more to the point I survived just fine before the change so reverting it wouldn't really hurt me. Not sure others would feel the same though.

So you don’t care whether Ward gets adjusted or not, but you spent so much time arguing with me because some people might be hurt by a nerf? You’re speaking for the population that either doesn’t care about the change or is too inexperienced to understand how impactful the change has been.

The former is like those kids saying I shouldn’t wear Mexican cultural clothing because I ain’t Mexican, while the actual Mexicans don’t give a darn. The latter is more damaging than helpful because you’re doing so at the expense of throwing away combat balance to protect the inexperienced. You know they could literally just fix their issue of dying too often by getting better?

Magsorc has always been a high skill ceiling class and whoever got good at the class is super difficult to kill. It makes no sense to raise the floor on a high skill ceiling class to the point that even a complete newb can indefinitely tank damage from someone on their skill level or even a bit above their skill level.

StaticWave · July 7

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

I feel like if you try and provide supporting evidence from duels people say oh the data from 1v1s means nothing because the game isn't centered around 1v1. And if you try and provide supporting evidence from OW gameplay people will say something like there are too many variables to accurately arrive to any conclusion

Can we all just be honest. Magsorc is busted right now. I don't know how that is even arguable. Whether it be for 1v1s or open world. Making an argument such as, " oh ward is only busted on particular setups", doesn't make sense. It is like trying to say yeah magsorc is fair and balanced if they use Juliano's rage and shackle breaker. No one cares about that.

Current magsorc has to press 1 skill for defense and that's all. Its 15k shield with and 8k heal attached to it.

I can put on Pariah + Rallying Cry and a full proc magDK will still beat the crap out of me. If I swap to a magsorc in Crafty/Wretched, I can literally face tank him no problem. It’s absurd how anybody can argue about this.

Also, I still don’t understand why some people are dismissing the fact that a magsorc is so difficult to kill in a 1v1 and requires multiple players just to put him down. If you scale that up to a large fight then that magsorc is also receiving tons of cross healing on top of their 15k shield and Streak, making it more difficult to do anything to the magsorc at all lol.

Bushido2513 · July 7

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Here's something else to take a look at too. I was fighting that proc plar on magsorc and he said it was aids to fight a magsorc that kites all the time:

[snip]

So I dropped Streak cause I wanted to see if I could face tank him:

Tanked him for 7 minutes no problem lol

I believe we have all agreed that it's obviously this result in a 1v1. The game also isn't balanced for 1v1 so this is fairly expected.

Whats part of it is balanced if not 1v1. 1v1s happen constantly even in Cyrodiil and BGs. And it's worse than just being a little better. If you come across an equal skilled sorc, it's not just a bit stronger, it's pointless. At least in duels, it's generally frowned on to LOS where the 1v1 in the wild, pretty much anything goes.

Where is it balanced if not 1v1? In large fights where they already were wanted for negates and all that same survivability still stands out over other classes?

Nearly anywhere they go in PvP, if a sorc struggles more than any other class would; they are pretty bad

Right, he thinks everyone is just going to follow as a team in BGs and that ppl aren’t going to split up to take objectives or get split up. He thinks every fight in Cyrodiil is this massive 60v60 zerg and not small fights that could occur and result in small 1v1s lol. For a solo PvPer like he claimed I thought it was obvious, unless he’s either lying about it or playing on a platform where the population is so small there are hardly any fights outside of zergs.

Either way, that isn’t grounds for balancing. The game has never been balanced around large scale fights. There are countless threads complaining about the same issue until this day. The game is balanced around raising the floor, and when the floor gets raised too much, we jump in to give feedback.

So as a solo player I really can speak to this one. I've had wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy more xv1s then I've had fights I can finish as a 1v1. I'm all about the 1v1 that I can stumble upon and finish out, it's actually a great thing to find. But in IC and open world you will more likely run up on a minimum 2 players or if one is solo a nb or two waiting to take advantage.

Again I'm not saying 1v1s don't happen, they do, all the time actually but more often if you're open world it will become an xv1.

Oh and to be clear I don't really count something where 1 person is standing around and you just nuke them in a sec. Yes that's a 1v1 but for me I more so tend to count 1v1s where the opponent is good enough to hold their own and so those tend to take more time and when they do that's when your chances of it turning into an xv1 go up fairly quickly.

I mean even if we just cater by occurrence count are people in here really trying to say that players in a given play session in general will run into more 1v1s then they will gvg ?

If that's what's happening then tell me where the 1v1 server is because I'd be down to get on it. Of course I'm going to be honest and say I've always preferred IC because of the more predatory element and chances of being outnumbers so maybe I'm just not looking in the right places?

[edited to remove quote]

I also 1vX too and in those 1vXs I have to do several 1v1s. It happens when I kite far enough and someone gets a little too overconfident and gets caught with their pants down. It happens all the time. I’m sure you’re familiar with that scenario if you also do solo PvP.

In fact, unless you’re a in a dedicated AoE build, almost every 1vX is going to be small sequences of 1v1s because the majority of spammables and burst abilities are single target. So I’m not sure where you get this notion that 1v1s don’t occur frequently.

So yes as a single target build in 1vx you are really only killing 1 player at a time however your defensive position is a bit of a variable. You can only target singles but multiples can target you at once.

So yes you could balance all classes around a 1v1 scenario but then in theory you'd have to make them weaker to 1vx scenarios. I think this appeals to skill based players but wouldn't be fun for less skilled players.

Over the years in playing this game I've really watched how people respond to different fights we have. When I blow people away and they are unprepared for it some almost want to throw the controller and others send me whispers. My point being is that I can understand the perspective of someone that doesn't like getting two tapped by me just because I understand the game a bit more. I think zos is also trying to soften this blow and make the game more appealing for players of lesser skill At the same time these changes to make the game more accessible come in as a benefit to pve.

So at the end of the day would I love for this to be a game based around skill where you just get sharper or die? Of course I would. Do I see that zos seems to be going another way and that resistance to their spreadsheets is like playing the lottery at this point, kind of.

So for me the ward change doesn't really mean much and if someone else is getting happiness out of it then cool. If it's causing the game to go off the rails and will jeopardize zos revenue I expect they will get on that of their own accord.

what the heck does any of that have to do with how overperforming sorcerer's ward is ? its better than every other class's best defense skill

Well it has nothing to do with it if you're against trying to contextualize and fully understanding the problem. Usually though the strength of the solution is linked to how well we understand the problem.

divnyi wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

So here's a question, if more people are playing sorc and enjoying ward than people that don't like it does that mean ward is ok or are they just ward abusers? Because this is the problem with saying many people say xyz. It doesn't prove or show anything, it's just a rough estimate of what may or may not be accurate. There's only one way to be accurate and that's all I'm saying not don't express your opinion.

Increased amount of sorcs is a consequence of ward buff making an overpowered class, yes or no?
Because every BG team has like two sorcs on average.

Some say overpowered some say easily playable. Magsorc for a long time has been fairly inaccessible to the masses and now it is. Of course that's going to create a population boom. Now this isn't to say that ward doesn't need to be adjusted, maybe it does and I think zos will have to decide that but to say an increase in sorc population means they are overpowered isn't always the case. I remember times when classes just got buffs or some new feature and you'd see a population boom. I'm just saying there's more info to the picture than any one or a few players will be able to classify or see for the whole population.

Bushido2513 · July 7

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

But more to the point I survived just fine before the change so reverting it wouldn't really hurt me. Not sure others would feel the same though.

So you don't care, you're just posting hundreds of times on behalf of being unsure what others would feel?

Not being affected by something doesn't mean you don't care about it. There's a bigger picture to consider in regards to that.

My postings range in their content so I couldn't say that they are all about me being unsure of what others would feel. They are better addressed in context to whatever I was responding to at that moment and not as a general whole.

Bushido2513 · July 7

StaticWave wrote: »

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

I feel like if you try and provide supporting evidence from duels people say oh the data from 1v1s means nothing because the game isn't centered around 1v1. And if you try and provide supporting evidence from OW gameplay people will say something like there are too many variables to accurately arrive to any conclusion

Can we all just be honest. Magsorc is busted right now. I don't know how that is even arguable. Whether it be for 1v1s or open world. Making an argument such as, " oh ward is only busted on particular setups", doesn't make sense. It is like trying to say yeah magsorc is fair and balanced if they use Juliano's rage and shackle breaker. No one cares about that.

Current magsorc has to press 1 skill for defense and that's all. Its 15k shield with and 8k heal attached to it.

I can put on Pariah + Rallying Cry and a full proc magDK will still beat the crap out of me. If I swap to a magsorc in Crafty/Wretched, I can literally face tank him no problem. It’s absurd how anybody can argue about this.

Also, I still don’t understand why some people are dismissing the fact that a magsorc is so difficult to kill in a 1v1 and requires multiple players just to put him down. If you scale that up to a large fight then that magsorc is also receiving tons of cross healing on top of their 15k shield and Streak, making it more difficult to do anything to the magsorc at all lol.

Is magsorc really the only spec that's hard to put down though? I mean I get that now more players are hard to put down as mag sorcs, I get that. But it's not like this is the first time we've run into a class that was hard to kill. Also there are classes that are still hard to kill in the game right now.

And yes I get that the complaint is magsorc just makes it a lot easier to do this. My thing is are we saying it's just that this player won't die easy like they used to?

Stalemates aren't fun I get that but if that player is just living and not really being much more deadly then they were before isn't that similar to if they were just on a tanky spec?

I mean they live longer but to me when you say a player goes to S tier they need to be getting kills. Are mediocre magsors now out there getting kill streaks or something?

Alchimiste1 · July 7

I am convinced nothing we say to @Bushido2513 can convince him that ward is overperforming. It's like trying to convince a brick wall

The past 3+ months of your comment history is SOLEY on ward. At this point you might just be trying to convince yourself.

StaticWave · July 7

Bushido2513 wrote: »

[
Is magsorc really the only spec that's hard to put down though? I mean I get that now more players are hard to put down as mag sorcs, I get that. But it's not like this is the first time we've run into a class that was hard to kill. Also there are classes that are still hard to kill in the game right now.

And yes I get that the complaint is magsorc just makes it a lot easier to do this. My thing is are we saying it's just that this player won't die easy like they used to?

Stalemates aren't fun I get that but if that player is just living and not really being much more deadly then they were before isn't that similar to if they were just on a tanky spec?

I mean they live longer but to me when you say a player goes to S tier they need to be getting kills. Are mediocre magsors now out there getting kill streaks or something?

This thread isn't about other classes. Why do you keep deflecting to other classes and using them to keep magsorc overpowered? Everyone knows other classes have their own issues but that doesn't mean magsorc gets to stay broken just because those classes are broken in some aspect.

Afaik, there have been threads asking for nerfs to the same classes you're bringing up. Why should Sorc be exempt from it? To join the ranks of overperforming classes means getting nerfs threads too, that's just how it is. No class should be given easy treatment just because it's been in the gutter for a long time. An overpowered buff is an overpowered buff and needs to be treated as such. I can guarantee you the day Necro gets some stupid buff like "Blastbones deals 50% extra damage compared to live version and also recasts itself", I will be asking for that to be adjusted too. No exceptions.

Bushido2513 · July 7

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

I am convinced nothing we say to @Bushido2513 can convince him that ward is overperforming. It's like trying to convince a brick wall

The past 3+ months of your comment history is SOLEY on ward. At this point you might just be trying to convince yourself.

I've actually said a few times that I don't believe players have access to the data needed to make a solid verifiable argument on how this change is good or bad for pvp as a whole. I'm not denying some obviously don't like it but some obviously do as well. I see both sides but I can't say that either has a solid argument that can't be denied. I've only said that personally the change doesn't bother me in my gameplay sessions but even that is just my opinion

Bushido2513 · July 7

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

[
Is magsorc really the only spec that's hard to put down though? I mean I get that now more players are hard to put down as mag sorcs, I get that. But it's not like this is the first time we've run into a class that was hard to kill. Also there are classes that are still hard to kill in the game right now.

And yes I get that the complaint is magsorc just makes it a lot easier to do this. My thing is are we saying it's just that this player won't die easy like they used to?

Stalemates aren't fun I get that but if that player is just living and not really being much more deadly then they were before isn't that similar to if they were just on a tanky spec?

I mean they live longer but to me when you say a player goes to S tier they need to be getting kills. Are mediocre magsors now out there getting kill streaks or something?

This thread isn't about other classes. Why do you keep deflecting to other classes and using them to keep magsorc overpowered? Everyone knows other classes have their own issues but that doesn't mean magsorc gets to stay broken just because those classes are broken in some aspect.

Afaik, there have been threads asking for nerfs to the same classes you're bringing up. Why should Sorc be exempt from it? To join the ranks of overperforming classes means getting nerfs threads too, that's just how it is. No class should be given easy treatment just because it's been in the gutter for a long time. An overpowered buff is an overpowered buff and needs to be treated as such. I can guarantee you the day Necro gets some stupid buff like "Blastbones deals 50% extra damage compared to live version and also recasts itself", I will be asking for that to be adjusted too. No exceptions.

Ok that's fair. So are we adjusting ward balance to match the current imbalance of other classes or to what we imagine those classes would look like if they were balanced?

Because that's still an issue if those classes never get balanced. Now I don't think ward users should be allowed to over perform and opinions should be reported but what's wrong with letting ZOS use their data to make choices after the opinions have been reported on both sides and just accepting the outcome? Currently it seems like they are ok with ward though it will be very telling to see what they say next patch

TechMaybeHic · July 7

Probably because their data has been to overbuff I'm the first place. Data missing context can be worse than no data.

xylena_lazarow · July 7

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Because that's still an issue if those classes never get balanced.

Well the new NB set gives them Ultra Instinct to bring NB on par with MagSorc. It's horrendously miserable design that better not make it to live. Games can only handle so much power creep before they mechanically collapse.

Bushido2513 · July 7

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

My logic is those that have the data

The forum posts we are making do in fact function as data for ZOS, so yes, working as intended.

True I'm sure they take into account some things that are said on the forum but their actions would suggest that this has very minor sway on them. I stress the emphasis on very and minor

xylena_lazarow · July 7

Bushido2513 wrote: »

True I'm sure they take into account some things that are said on the forum but their actions would suggest that this has very minor sway on them. I stress the emphasis on very and minor

They 100% eventually address meta elements that get consistent complaints, see: Stinging Slashes (MDW)

Bushido2513 · July 7

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

almost every 1vX is going to be small sequences of 1v1s because the majority of spammables and burst abilities are single target. So I’m not sure where you get this notion that 1v1s don’t occur frequently.

100% true, they obviously get that notion because they've never even come close to winning 1vX.

Not sure who they is but I would have to agree that outside of aoe and maybe dot damage skills it actually isn't possible to kill more than one opponent at a time.

Bushido2513 · July 7

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Here's something else to take a look at too. I was fighting that proc plar on magsorc and he said it was aids to fight a magsorc that kites all the time:

[snip]

So I dropped Streak cause I wanted to see if I could face tank him:

Tanked him for 7 minutes no problem lol

I believe we have all agreed that it's obviously this result in a 1v1. The game also isn't balanced for 1v1 so this is fairly expected.

[edited to remove quote]

Also, since you keep dismissing 1v1s as a metric for combat balance, I’ll have you know that the amount of balance changes made specifically for large scale PvP are rare.

Some changes that actually impacted large scale PvP were:

- The removal of 6 target limit on ultimates
- Steel Tornado execute scaling removal
- Scaling adjustments to Proxy Det
- Scaling adjustments to proc sets like Vicious Death, Plaguebreak, DC, etc.
- Rush of Agony delay proc addition

Everything else wasn’t done with large-scale PvP in mind, but rather based on their data and public feedback. That’s why sets like mDW or Blackrose got nerfed. Not because they impacted large scale PvP, but because they were complained about too often. That’s also why Overload Ganking, Mechanical Acuity, Onslaught having 12s duration, Corrosive Armor gaining ult mid effect, etc were all nerfed. They were nerfed because the mass complained about them long enough, not because ZOS is catering towards some GvG fight you’re always bringing up in your posts.

So no, I think Ward has been baking long enough and plenty of people have voiced their frustration with it already. In due time Ward will get nerfed. It may take 1 year, or even 2 years, but it will get nerfed.

So its true these were nerfed but we really can't say it was due to large scale or not because those death recaps would show up in both areas. You'd actually have to have back end data to know who was just doing a 1v1 and who was being zerged down and so forth.

Also it's an assumption to say that anything was changed due to public feedback. I'm not saying the feedback doesn't have anything to do with that but none of us work for zos so we don't know if it was a case of here's the feedback now lets compare it to our internal data and ok make a change. I'm simply saying ward changes may come in the same way. In the event this were to happen though it wouldn't be about who showed what cmx or how many people said they liked the change or didn't like it. It would just be hey there's a lot of comments on this let's take a look at our data and make a choice.

Bushido2513 · July 7

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Probably because their data has been to overbuff I'm the first place. Data missing context can be worse than no data.

Generally speaking you have to start somewhere and adjust from there. So far I've been talking about the reactive process but I haven't really imagined how they even came up with this buff idea being that it's not really what people seemed to be asking for.

I imagine though they get an idea and they have to see it through do to limited development dollars and so they'll adjust but it's not going to come always at the speed the community would prefer or sometimes even in a way that we would prefer.

I just see it from the side of development cycles and dollars and unfortunately when you don't have a Rockstar budget when you can say it takes as long as it takes and we can shoot for perfection, I think this is what you get.

xylena_lazarow · July 7

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Not sure who they is but I would have to agree that outside of aoe and maybe dot damage skills it actually isn't possible to kill more than one opponent at a time.

Builds can do multiple things. My Warden can both AoE bomb and pressure 1v1. Sometimes I can catch multiples with the ult shalks spin2win combo, but more often I'm going to pressure down an isolated enemy from range 1v1 then close in to combo burst them. Pick off enemies one at a time like this until they're all dead. But even as strong as Warden is, Polar isn't a one button do everything like Ward, and Falcon doesn't reset the fight like Streak does.

Bushido2513 · July 7

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Because that's still an issue if those classes never get balanced.

Well the new NB set gives them Ultra Instinct to bring NB on par with MagSorc. It's horrendously miserable design that better not make it to live. Games can only handle so much power creep before they mechanically collapse.

I think this is where zos looks at what might really hurt their revenue and will adjust accordingly. Sometimes I really wish I knew how much revenue comes from pve/crown store and pvp.

I don't want to see this game get driven into the ground and I actually wish it would get better but the last few cycles just seem to indicate that the direction is more about having an overall accessible/marketable game than a balanced one.

But if the cycle we've been on holds out they will probably nerf ward eventually if nothing else then to just rotate the wheel to some other class so that people that like that class will have a reason to be interested again.

This is like this comedian I once heard said, if you boo this joke just wait a few minutes and eventually a joke that you like will come up and then that other guy that was laughing will boo and it will all even out.

I think zos has just mastered the rotation on stuff like this to minimize efforts and and maximize profits.

That all being said I'm not really pro or against ward changes because I just see the game in a different way over the years. I do support anyone that wants to see this game be better than it has been though even if I'm not sure that's the track we're on at this point.

I totally get those that don't like ward but I'm also happy for you if you're out there using ward and enjoying it though I hope players also evolve and figure out ways to kill you on sight so that it's not an easy go round.

That's a to say but that's because I think there's a lot of ways to see this situation.

Bushido2513 · July 7

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

True I'm sure they take into account some things that are said on the forum but their actions would suggest that this has very minor sway on them. I stress the emphasis on very and minor

They 100% eventually address meta elements that get consistent complaints, see: Stinging Slashes (MDW)

Yeah but it's chicken and egg that we'll never really know. Did they address it due to the complaint and because of the complaint or did they see the complaint then check their own data or do they have an algorithm on their side that already points out any stat outliers?

Like if it were me I'd just run periodic stat analysis on back end data to look for outliers on death recaps, class population, and so many other things that I can't think of right now. The point is that it's actually not too hard to automate internal data analysis to look for outliers then report them so maybe zos does this as well. Again we'll never know but I'm just giving a real world example where player input wouldn't even be required to initiate an investigation and possible remediation. Maybe zos does something like this already?