Official Discussion Thread for "Developer Deep Dive—Item Sets Part 2"

ZOS_Kevin

This is the official discussion thread for, "Developer Deep Dive—Item Sets Part 2"

"Delve into how the team balances item sets, both prior to and after launch, with this next developer deep dive blog."

Asdara

Thank you for sharing the detailed process behind balancing item sets, particularly around Set Bonus Efficiency and the complexities of real-world testing. However, after reading your article and reflecting on the core combat values, I believe the Sorcerer class sets need a complete rework to align better with both your SBE balancing standards and the overall class identity.

1. Set Bonus Efficiency and Sorcerer Sets
While SBE is a useful framework for balancing power, the Sorcerer class sets are fundamentally underwhelming in their current form. They lack both thematic depth and mechanical utility, essentially acting as dumbed-down versions of other sets already in the game. As a result, even though they might technically meet SBE standards, they don’t enhance the Sorcerer playstyle in any meaningful way, which should be the primary goal of class-specific sets.

For instance, the lack of support for lightning-based damage (a hallmark of Sorcerer identity) is a missed opportunity that could have been addressed by introducing sets that directly increase lightning damage, proc unique effects, or empower AoE spells tied to this theme. In their current form, these sets don’t cater to the unique strengths of the class, making them less appealing and underused.

2. Complexity and Engagement
Sorcerer sets also fail to provide the level of engagement or complexity expected from class-specific gear. While SBE factors in complexity to justify power, Sorcerer sets are overly simplistic without offering interesting mechanics or synergies that encourage dynamic play. As highlighted in your article, playtesting reveals when sets are too easy or hard to use in actual combat situations, and in the case of Sorcerer, these sets are neither engaging nor fun. This limits the potential for active combat and mastery, making them feel like wasted potential.

A rework should focus on introducing more interactive elements that align with the class’s core abilities—such as chain lightning, summoning, and high mobility. For example, sets that enhance spell weaving, resource management, or empower lightning-based AoE attacks would give Sorcerer players exciting options for combat, reinforcing the idea that class sets should enhance identity and playstyle.

3. Content Alignment
You mention in your article that sets are balanced based on their intended content, but Sorcerer class sets fail to perform optimally in any content—whether Trial, PvP, or dungeons. While you aim for sets to shine in their specific content, these Sorcerer sets are outperformed in every scenario by general sets that offer better utility, damage, or defensive capabilities. This goes against the goal of making class sets viable, especially for players who want to immerse themselves fully in the Sorcerer class without sacrificing performance.

An SBE-balanced Sorcerer set should enhance the class fantasy while being usable in both PvE and PvP environments without feeling lackluster or niche.

4. Community Feedback and Real-World Data
As you’ve noted, monitoring player feedback is crucial, and the community has consistently raised concerns about the Sorcerer sets. Despite being on the Public Test Server, these sets haven’t seen meaningful changes, which leaves players frustrated and disconnected.
You’ve mentioned that the team takes player creativity and feedback seriously, and this is an ideal opportunity to listen and improve these sets. A rework based on community input and real-use data would align the Sorcerer class sets with the goals of making all sets viable for various players, without one-size-fits-all solutions.


TLDR; while the SBE model offers a great baseline for balancing sets, the Sorcerer class sets need a complete rework to be in line with both SBE efficiency and the broader goals of class identity and combat engagement. They are currently too simple, not thematic, and don’t provide the excitement or mastery the class deserves. By addressing these issues and creating more interesting mechanics that align with Sorcerer’s core abilities—particularly lightning magic and mobility—you can better meet the expectations of players and the vision for ESO’s combat system.

Thank you for considering my feedback.

Destai

Insightful read, thanks! The SBE metric sounds interesting. I would love to see a developer maintained spreadsheet/post on where each set falls on the SBE factors. Seeing a bigger breakdown of that would be great.

Stafford197

The article claims Set Bonus Efficiency (SBE) is integral to item set balance. Could you please shed more insight into why the following sets provide different values for their 5-piece bonuses?

SET BONUSES:
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka (or Stam)
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items)
Silks of the Sun: +400 SD for Flame
Netch's Touch: +400 SD for Shock
Ysgramor's: +400 SD for Frost
War Maiden: +600 SD for Magic
Automaton: +400 SD for Physical & Bleed
Swamp Raider: +600 SD for Poison & Disease

Item Set sourcing and the number of Damage Types buffed by each set are varied here so it can’t be that.

Magic, Poison, and Disease Damage cannot buff any Light Attacks so this may be the reason. However, if we account for the use of non-buffed attacks, then the formula requires refining since it does not currently account for prevalent scenarios with other one-element builds, such as how Frost Magdens slot multiple skills with other Damage types.

What determines whether these sets should have 400 Spell Damage bonus vs a 600 Spell Damage bonus? Or maybe, should they all provide a 600 SD bonus?

Full Descriptions for Sets

Ysgramor's Birthright
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Frost Damage abilities.

Silks of the Sun
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Flame Damage abilities.

Netch's Touch
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Shock Damage abilities.

War Maiden
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 600 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Magic Damage abilities.

Strength of the Automaton
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Physical and Bleed Damage abilities.

Swamp Raider
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 600 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Poison and Disease Damage abilities.

Vaqual

I think what players are asking for is direct dev input to controversially discussed sets, and for them to explain their reasoning why a set is how it is and what direction they think it should take based on player feedback. This was overall vague and just an assortment of very obvious talking points.

React

The statements made in this deep dive do not seem at all representative of the reality of itemization and set balance within ESO.

More often than not during PTS cycles, there are obviously overperforming sets that are thoroughly tested by the players, which are subsequently allowed to go live by zenimax. It was stated here that internal QA testers test these things as well and that you can "never always catch everything/players find unpredictable ways to use them", but is that really the case? Take maras balm for example - there were DOZENS of posts regarding how disgustingly overpowered it was. There were detailed videos examples given, and the behavior was hardly "unpredictable" - you simply had to be hit by other players for the set to immediately and drastically overperform. If zenimax had truthfully tested the set like they claim they do here in this article, or if they had listened to the dozens of feedback posts during the PTS cycle, the set would have been adjusted. Instead it went live and received multiple misinformed, insignificant nerfs before finally being brought in line MONTHS later.

There are many examples like this.

Furthermore, the article mentions the challenges of balancing PVP and PVE together in regards to sets. Why hasn't zenimax chosen to balance the two separately? There is already a tool in game to do this in the form of battle spirit, and yet it never seems to be utilized. PvP balance right now is absolutely atrocious, with some extremely egregious pain points ruining the experience for many (ex, hot stacking, group shield stacking, max hp, effectiveness of buff sets in pvp, etc). Why hasn't zenimax utilized battle spirit to even TEST changes directed at these things without impacting the wider game?

Whichever team was responsible for the answers given in this deep dive seems like they might be disconnected from the reality of the game, from a player's perspective.

TechMaybeHic

ZOS. Maybe just play the game and understand reality rather than stat budgets. Because you're not doing very well. Sets or anything else

Tannus15

This article enrages me so much.

Do you know why the first comment is a detail break down about why monolith of storms is garbage?

Because it's garbage.
We said it was garbage on PTS from the moment we started testing it. We went to great lengths to point out how exactly it was garbage for all content and no one should use it.
Do you know what your response was for that entire PTS? You fixed a bug that meant the damage proc wasn't critting, addressing none of the actual concerns with the set.
It's been out for 12 months now and no further changes or tweaks have been made, and no one uses it for anything other than a cool glow.

but further more there are so many holes in this explanation as @Stafford197 has pointed out. Adding to their point, silks of the sun has long been the best of the elemental sets, since DK's can stack into fire damage, while every other class has a bunch of magicka damage skills that reduce their effectiveness, and silks of the sun is an overland set while netch and automaton are dungeon sets.

You don't even come close to meeting the standards you lay out in the article.

Arthtur

SBE huh...
Zaan
1P Crit Chance
2P Proc 145dmg/s with 100% scaling/s for 10s and each tick procs burning, can hit multiple targets; 30s cd, 33% chance to proc from crit on LA/HA, can't crit.
Which results in 268dmg/s without counting burning procs. I have no idea how much burning does at base stats and im too lazy to check.

Grothdarr
1P Max Magicka
2P Proc 259dmg/s for 5s; 10s cd and 10% chance to proc on dealing damage, can crit.
Which results in 130dmg/s but with crits it would be somewhere around 210dmg/s.
And this is in "perfect world". In real content Grothdarr would lose more power than Zaan making the diffrence even bigger.
But those sets have the same SBE so even if Grothdarr is worse in every scenario they are balanced, right? /s

Apparently there is over 650 sets in the game so i could make at least 600 more examples of sets being far too weak compared to others. Let it be because of lack of abilities they buff (Blooddrinker 20% buff to Bleed damage; or other damage type sets) or just simply not having enough power to actually do their job (just like Grothdarr above).

At least i know why all the sets we get are always overpowered or useless. We wont be getting any set diversity with that kind of balancing.
Just 1 less thing to enjoy in the game.

Also how are Dungeon Sets balanced around 4 man content when all proc burst sets from dungeons go straight to Nigtblades in PvP for ganking?
Sigh, the more i think about what was in this artickle the more problems i see so im just gonna go do something else. I dont want to be there for hours pointing out all the problems with this artickle.

the1andonlyskwex

I was extremely surprised to see that sets are supposedly balanced to be most effective in the game mode where they drop. If that's the case, something is seriously wrong with the SBE calculation.

Tommy_The_Gun

I find that very funny that with 1st version of Sload's Semblance set, ZOS actually realised that bonkers sets are harmful for the game & are causing more issue than they are solving... but then proceed to make Dark Conversion, Plaguebreak, Hrothgar's Chill (and the list goes on) anyway...

The other funny thing I see is that as soon as a set or skill is a very useful counter to BGs, it gets wrecked shortly after... almost as if ZOS wanted BGs to be the dominant behaviour in Cyro & IC...

Aggrovious

• You over tune sets and nerf them to the scrap pile as unusable (Azureblight).
• You have redundant sets that are no longer useable due to ability changes/scribe abilities (Tormentor, Yolnahkriin etc.)
• Someone on your team views PVP are a justifiable means to nerf sets without considering how they will go in PVE (you don't even care to give PVP an update to begin with so why care about op sets?)
• New players [50cp-300cp] starting the game are so weak and do no damage. There is no progress gear they can use without joining a guild, finding a master crafter, or a friend in the game. The guilds in this game barely interact with their members and have no system to encourage communications/events/reward system.
• Your combat team must be just as confused with the tooltip as we are. It needs an update.

How about you just stop caring about balancing and aim to make sets fun instead? Then we you have accomplished that, you can lightly adjust stats or formulas lightly. You have yet to prove to your player base that you test your game or have enough devs to test the game.

Finedaible

I feel like a lot of this was already somewhat known at a high level explanation such as this but it did offer a bit more of the process in one article I guess. Seems an awfully long and bureaucratic process however, to the point where I wonder if it may be inefficient and ineffectual to the dev team's goals. It must be soul-crushing work to come up with a cool concept only for it to get completely changed and mangled through a gauntlet of revisions and spreadsheet formulas.

Would have liked some word on 3-piece sets too, and why none have been added to the game in such a long time.

If a crafted set is equivalent to an overland set, then does the added complexity of trait knowledge requirement and crafting research time not account for anything? What was the whole point of doing all that just to craft Twice-Born Star, a 9-trait set that is largely considered underpowered today?

I'm not sure I agree with the intention that all sets should be intended for the content they are obtained from. At least, that definitely was not always the case in the earlier years of ESO. While there may have been some unintentional (?) outliers over time, it would seem logical to have some stepping stones to ease players into harder and harder content. If we take the chicken and the egg approach, players are more likely to stick to one area of the game and not bother themselves with pointless grind, which is probably why the Trial community remains the smallest. You can't always be afraid that some old boss from ancient content created during beta is no longer a challenge because you made the game more fun, this is already true for some content anyway.

What seems to be missing from this equation is one important thing, entertainment value. What is more important, pleasing a spreadsheet, or having fun creating something awesome that people will cherish for years to come?

o_Primate_o

Make skills and set procs more about graphic effects. PPL love eye candy.

o_Primate_o

Stafford197 wrote: »

The article claims Set Bonus Efficiency (SBE) is integral to item set balance. Could you please shed more insight into why the following sets provide different values for their 5-piece bonuses?

SET BONUSES:
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka (or Stam)
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items)
Silks of the Sun: +400 SD for Flame
Netch's Touch: +400 SD for Shock
Ysgramor's: +400 SD for Frost
War Maiden: +600 SD for Magic
Automaton: +400 SD for Physical & Bleed
Swamp Raider: +600 SD for Poison & Disease

Item Set sourcing and the number of Damage Types buffed by each set are varied here so it can’t be that.

Magic, Poison, and Disease Damage cannot buff any Light Attacks so this may be the reason. However, if we account for the use of non-buffed attacks, then the formula requires refining since it does not currently account for prevalent scenarios with other one-element builds, such as how Frost Magdens slot multiple skills with other Damage types.

What determines whether these sets should have 400 Spell Damage bonus vs a 600 Spell Damage bonus? Or maybe, should they all provide a 600 SD bonus?

Full Descriptions for Sets

Ysgramor's Birthright
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Frost Damage abilities.

Silks of the Sun
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Flame Damage abilities.

Netch's Touch
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Shock Damage abilities.

War Maiden
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 600 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Magic Damage abilities.

Strength of the Automaton
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 400 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Physical and Bleed Damage abilities.

Swamp Raider
(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 600 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Poison and Disease Damage abilities.

I heard your mic drop all they way here in Argentina.

Whaaaaaat?