ZOS, there is a serious issue with stat power creep in PvP

StaticWave

I'm literally looking back at my old videos and the offensive and defensive stats I had are literally mediocre by todays standards, yet I was able to kill the majority of people I ran into. Explain to me why 5 years ago, I didn't need to stack as many armor debuffs and damage buffs as possible just to kill someone? Explain to me why people could actually be punished for making a mistake?

ZOS, you need to fix this up. It's absurd that in U44, a build with 40k stam, 7k+ weapon damage, 21k+ pen, AND 100% crit damage is STILL NOT ENOUGH to kill players.

Major_Mangle

Yep, I´ve been saying this for ages now. People love to complain about proc sets as the worst offenders to why PvP is in such a poor state, and don´t get me wrong there are a few ones that does need adjustment (just not as many as people make it out to be), but the stat power creep is a much much bigger problem. In my opinion it started when ZOS reworked the CP system around waking flame patch (I think) and gave everyone 1k free weapon and spell damage. That change alone is responsible for a lot of the ridiculousness we see today. We had similar stat power creeps back in the day as well like the 7th/Fury meta, which I know you don´t necessarily share the same view that it was problematic back the, but at least it got adjusted.

Next is the continuous addition of new and more powerful stat boosting/group buffing sets added to the game. Sets like Rallying Cry and Wretched Vitality are just two sets that offers some of the most overtuned stat boosts I´ve ever seen in the game. Then we´ve the endless list of support/group sets that is in dire need of adjustment as well, and this isn´t just for PvP but PvE needs a "power-check" as well.

Then we´ve the big imbalance of how easy it is to stack high HP without any real trade-off. An interesting observation when you look at set bonuses from gear is how HP is always a bit higher than max stat values. On top of that, the amount of HP you get when distributing your attributes (on your character stat menu) will give more HP compared to stam/mag.

Then we´ve the biggest elephant in the room: Scribing.
Scribing is in my opinion the biggest power creep the game has ever seen, especially when we look at it from a group PoV. The amount of cross-shielding and group buffs available through scribing is super overtuned and needs a major rebalance as well.

The game as a whole (both PvP and PvE) needs a stat squish as a whole, and support/group sets needs to be less powerful/effective (but maybe make it a bit easier to keep those buffs up idk). The few suggestions I´ve on top of my head to adjust some of the issues would be:

* Remove the bonus 1k weapon-/spell damage we received all those years ago with the CP system rework
* Make HP bonuses on set pieces match max stam/mag values and make 1 attribute point into HP give the same amount of stats as 1 point into stamina or magicka
* Adjust specific sets and skills that offers too much (like RC, Wretched, certain shield skills in the scribing system)
* Reduce the power of most support/group buff sets (aka giving less stats), but make it easier to have better uptime of said sets.
* Rework some of the red CP slottables like survival instinct (25% cost reduction is ridiculous, should be 10% at most) , pain´s refuge, sustain by suffering etc.

Obviously more things that could be done, but as a whole the game is in dire need of a stat squish/rebalance.

Sluggy

@Major_Mangle I pretty much agree with all of that. And I also agree that the troubles very distinctly started with CP2.0 (because of the free hidden stats like you mentioned). The hybridization is also a big factor that when combined with the new CP system totally broke everything.

To play devil's advocate a little though, I will say that once I let go of my old concepts of what the numbers mean it does look a little better. I don't aim for the crazy high damage now. I've been finding 4.5k to 5.5k when fully buffed is enough. Heck, unbuffed my weapon damage sits at 2.7k! Last year it casually rested at over 6k when unbuffed! And I don't even feel the difference in killing power! And Whatever pen I get is fine. 6k. 20k. 30k. I can feel the difference a little but not enough to worry about it. I just look at my defense and decide if that is enough.

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Then we´ve the big imbalance of how easy it is to stack high HP without any real trade-off. An interesting observation when you look at set bonuses from gear is how HP is always a bit higher than max stat values. On top of that, the amount of HP you get when distributing your attributes (on your character stat menu) will give more HP compared to stam/mag.

This is such an important aspect of it. Literally no one needs max stam or mag anymore. Between the hybridization, crazy-strong regen sets, the boost to the regen buffs thesmelves, and some of the new CP that make it way too easy to sustain simply by getting beat up there is no point in it anymore. So without the need to invest in them we might as well dump it all into health. Best bang for the buck.

I remember No-Cp five years ago. I could really really feel the difference between 30k stam and 25k stam. I had a lot less damage and I gassed out so fast that it was hard to finish a combo in a 1v1 without that extra little bit. And that meant I was willing to sacrifice the extra health to get it. Now though, I don't bat an eye if my stam and mag are like 12k-15k.

Interestingly, a lot of the damage reduction buffs have been severely nerfed over the years. This seems like it should be a good idea but it has the effect that people are just willing to invest that much more in defense. It's why in 2019 we could get away with 20k-22k hp. I don't think simply reintroducing it now would help though. Too many other things are off-kilter.

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Then we´ve the biggest elephant in the room: Scribing.
Scribing is in my opinion the biggest power creep the game has ever seen, especially when we look at it from a group PoV. The amount of cross-shielding and group buffs available through scribing is super overtuned and needs a major rebalance as well.

Yeah. I get shot down every time I even dare suggest this. So I'm not even going there now. Good luck. It'll all get nered later anyway when the new batch of broken stuff needs to come in.

xylena_lazarow

Sluggy wrote: »

Interestingly, a lot of the damage reduction buffs have been severely nerfed over the years. This seems like it should be a good idea but it has the effect that people are just willing to invest that much more in defense. It's why in 2019 we could get away with 20k-22k hp.

No the meta wasn't better with garbage like Vamp 3. Players should absolutely be forced to build hard for defense, not get it nigh for free just from Vamp 3 + back bar block + your "damage" sets being heavy armor with defense lines.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I strongly believe the 2018-2020 meta to have been a very low skill ceiling meta dominated by low apm passive gameplay on DD builds, so it makes sense that a large number of PvPers (not you personally) would remember 2019 as the last time they were able to be successful. The game has gotten much harder.

Since then, they've done a very good job nerfing back bar block turtling on DD builds, nerfing guar crap like Vamp 3 or the old Mara's proc set, and un-nerfing all the mistake-punishing pressure damage they had deleted from the game. I'm finding far fewer fights stalemating these days, usually the stalemates are a result of comp group nonsense.

The inflated hp pools are because you get about a 25% ehp buff from going 64 hp, versus only about a 10% damage buff from going 64 resource pool, compounded by all the defensive skills that favorably scale with max hp even on a PvP build, not just PvE tanks like was probably intended. It's way too efficient and unbalanced.

Of course, they're about to throw it all in the garbage for the doomed Vengeance ruleset anyway...

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

StaticWave wrote: »

I'm literally looking back at my old videos and the offensive and defensive stats I had are literally mediocre by todays standards, yet I was able to kill the majority of people I ran into. Explain to me why 5 years ago, I didn't need to stack as many armor debuffs and damage buffs as possible just to kill someone? Explain to me why people could actually be punished for making a mistake?

ZOS, you need to fix this up. It's absurd that in U44, a build with 40k stam, 7k+ weapon damage, 21k+ pen, AND 100% crit damage is STILL NOT ENOUGH to kill players.

Hybridisation did this

Sluggy

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Since then, they've done a very good job nerfing back bar block turtling on DD builds, nerfing guar crap like Vamp 3 or the old Mara's proc set, and un-nerfing all the mistake-punishing pressure damage they had deleted from the game. I'm finding far fewer fights stalemating these days, usually the stalemates are a result of comp group nonsense.

My point was more to explain why things are so different now. I don't completely disagree with you here. Like I said, once I changed my view on what stats are now versus what I knew them to be in the past the game actually feels closer to a style I preferred years ago. Where building a well-rounded character was a good idea.

My biggest gripes are that there are still issues with a lack of inevitability and I think a lot of that comes from some really juiced stats that are outta whack as the result of CP 2.0 changes as well as the hybridized skills. It just feels too easy to avoid punching yourself out, at least in a 1v1. There was a stage just before what we have now where the sets were hybrid but not the skills and I really enjoyed that.

xylena_lazarow

Sluggy wrote: »

It just feels too easy to avoid punching yourself out, at least in a 1v1. There was a stage just before what we have now where the sets were hybrid but not the skills and I really enjoyed that.

Part of this is that open world builds tend to use a lot more sustain and speed than minmax dueling builds, and unlike structured dueling, there's no penalty for deliberately stalemating a fight you think you're going to lose, rather it's generally incentivized by all 3 open world modes to stalemate or disengage when you can't win.

Cast_El

Sluggy wrote: »

@Major_Mangle I pretty much agree with all of that. And I also agree that the troubles very distinctly started with CP2.0 (because of the free hidden stats like you mentioned). The hybridization is also a big factor that when combined with the new CP system totally broke everything.

To play devil's advocate a little though, I will say that once I let go of my old concepts of what the numbers mean it does look a little better. I don't aim for the crazy high damage now. I've been finding 4.5k to 5.5k when fully buffed is enough. Heck, unbuffed my weapon damage sits at 2.7k! Last year it casually rested at over 6k when unbuffed! And I don't even feel the difference in killing power! And Whatever pen I get is fine. 6k. 20k. 30k. I can feel the difference a little but not enough to worry about it. I just look at my defense and decide if that is enough.

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Then we´ve the big imbalance of how easy it is to stack high HP without any real trade-off. An interesting observation when you look at set bonuses from gear is how HP is always a bit higher than max stat values. On top of that, the amount of HP you get when distributing your attributes (on your character stat menu) will give more HP compared to stam/mag.

This is such an important aspect of it. Literally no one needs max stam or mag anymore. Between the hybridization, crazy-strong regen sets, the boost to the regen buffs thesmelves, and some of the new CP that make it way too easy to sustain simply by getting beat up there is no point in it anymore. So without the need to invest in them we might as well dump it all into health. Best bang for the buck.

I remember No-Cp five years ago. I could really really feel the difference between 30k stam and 25k stam. I had a lot less damage and I gassed out so fast that it was hard to finish a combo in a 1v1 without that extra little bit. And that meant I was willing to sacrifice the extra health to get it. Now though, I don't bat an eye if my stam and mag are like 12k-15k.

Interestingly, a lot of the damage reduction buffs have been severely nerfed over the years. This seems like it should be a good idea but it has the effect that people are just willing to invest that much more in defense. It's why in 2019 we could get away with 20k-22k hp. I don't think simply reintroducing it now would help though. Too many other things are off-kilter.

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Then we´ve the biggest elephant in the room: Scribing.
Scribing is in my opinion the biggest power creep the game has ever seen, especially when we look at it from a group PoV. The amount of cross-shielding and group buffs available through scribing is super overtuned and needs a major rebalance as well.

Yeah. I get shot down every time I even dare suggest this. So I'm not even going there now. Good luck. It'll all get nered later anyway when the new batch of broken stuff needs to come in.

Agreed. They also give everyone more stamina, health and Magicka. This was a mistake. People have more stamina to block, roll dodge, cc break etc. Before this change I remember managing my stamina pool on Magicka character was harder. And the free health : more health=more damage taken.

May be that's why they give everyone 1k spell/weapon damage.... And forgot healing is also base on weapon/spell damage

SeaGtGruff

Major_Mangle wrote: »

The game as a whole (both PvP and PvE) needs a stat squish as a whole, and support/group sets needs to be less powerful/effective (but maybe make it a bit easier to keep those buffs up idk).

The problem is, once something "cool" gets added to the game-- be it buffs to sets and their bonuses/procs, or a new set with an outrageous proc or way-over-powered bonuses, or a new mythic with a BIS bonus, or a new class that has skills which can vastly out-perform existing classes, etc. etc.-- trying to claw any of that back in the name of "balancing" simply results in an uproar from some of the players. And once a few "influencers" jump into the uproar, it can get picked up and amplified by a huge percentage of the playerbase, whether or not they're even affected by the claw-backs to the extent that the influencers are convincing everyone is the case.

That's how I see it, anyway. Basically, everyone says they want things to be changed-- but once the changes start occurring, they scream bloody murder about it. I'm not saying that nothing should be changed; I'm just cringing at the thought of what happens after changes get implemented.

malistorr

Tanks and healing are OP. Class balance is a mess. There shouldn't be unkillable players. Fix the exploits and gimmicks.

Turtle_Bot

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Major_Mangle wrote: »

The game as a whole (both PvP and PvE) needs a stat squish as a whole, and support/group sets needs to be less powerful/effective (but maybe make it a bit easier to keep those buffs up idk).

The problem is, once something "cool" gets added to the game-- be it buffs to sets and their bonuses/procs, or a new set with an outrageous proc or way-over-powered bonuses, or a new mythic with a BIS bonus, or a new class that has skills which can vastly out-perform existing classes, etc. etc.-- trying to claw any of that back in the name of "balancing" simply results in an uproar from some of the players. And once a few "influencers" jump into the uproar, it can get picked up and amplified by a huge percentage of the playerbase, whether or not they're even affected by the claw-backs to the extent that the influencers are convincing everyone is the case.

That's how I see it, anyway. Basically, everyone says they want things to be changed-- but once the changes start occurring, they scream bloody murder about it. I'm not saying that nothing should be changed; I'm just cringing at the thought of what happens after changes get implemented.

Yep, this is why we have had the issue with speed creep over the years to the point where the speed class was no longer speedy.

As good as doing a stat squish would be for fixing balance, it just won't happen unfortunately since:
1) (as you mentioned) the outcry would be enough to turn any company off doing it, and
2) all the work involved rebalancing the entire game (dungeons, trials, PvP, overland world bosses/dolmen encounters, etc.) around the new stat level is probably just too much effort.

xylena_lazarow

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

As good as doing a stat squish would be for fixing balance, it just won't happen

Vengeance seems to attempt to address all these problems in a manner similar to how a stat squish would, rebalancing the entire game around a significantly lower power ceiling.

SaffronCitrusflower

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

As good as doing a stat squish would be for fixing balance, it just won't happen

Vengeance seems to attempt to address all these problems in a manner similar to how a stat squish would, rebalancing the entire game around a significantly lower power ceiling.

I think vengence mode will be the death of ESO PvP if implemented on a mandatory basis.

olsborg

The root of the problem imo: blocking is too powerful. Healing is too powerful. If you spend 2 skills damaging someone and they spend 1 skill healing all that dmg, its easy to see that killing someone will be very hard.

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

I'm literally looking back at my old videos and the offensive and defensive stats I had are literally mediocre by todays standards, yet I was able to kill the majority of people I ran into. Explain to me why 5 years ago, I didn't need to stack as many armor debuffs and damage buffs as possible just to kill someone? Explain to me why people could actually be punished for making a mistake?

ZOS, you need to fix this up. It's absurd that in U44, a build with 40k stam, 7k+ weapon damage, 21k+ pen, AND 100% crit damage is STILL NOT ENOUGH to kill players.

You and others like you became of victim of your own success. You'd have to answer the question that has no good answer. How do we create a competitive environment where a skilled player can dominate lesser skilled players possibly even groups of them yet still keep it appealing to casuals?

PVP combat could definitely be more balance than it is but ZOS is always going to consider the casual market that doesn't want to fight or be fought at a more skill based level.

I was actually playing the game last night with some friends that are more casual that myself last night and listened as they basically got to a point where too many cheap deaths persuaded them to move over to another game they enjoy that offered a more relaxed experience.

We've seen this a couple of times when ZOS made damage high and people could die. You get these sharp peaks and valleys in player interest where some enjoy being able to actually kill players and others just go do something else because they tire of deaths that feel cheep or because they got outplayed at such a noticeable level.


At this point I would be happier if they would just adjust the amount and power of multiple buffs shared in a group to not be as powerful based on group size.

I don't mind if people want to and can build tanky because those people would do that no matter how punishing you make it because some just don't want to die.

At this point ZOS is just basically pushing gvg if you want to have a good chance at getting multiple kills. The days of going solo and being able to kill with more consistency are just kind of behind us at this point. I say this as someone that played a lot of solo and misses those days too but understand why ZOS is picking this direction for population/money reasons.


R rated movies certaily have their place but I can't really blame a franchise picking PG to rake in more bucks. I wish it weren't that way but it's a business at the end of the day.

xylena_lazarow

Bushido2513 wrote: »

PVP combat could definitely be more balance than it is but ZOS is always going to consider the casual market that doesn't want to fight or be fought at a more skill based level.

I was actually playing the game last night with some friends that are more casual that myself last night and listened as they basically got to a point where too many cheap deaths persuaded them to move over to another game they enjoy that offered a more relaxed experience.

That's not the message I've been getting from Cyrodiil. Casuals have long complained about the ball group meta, zergs get smaller and smaller, ball groups get more and more powerful. Azureblight gets deleted, zergs lose their best tool, Rushing Agony continues its reign of terror, inflicting cheap deaths on casuals right and left.

Whether intended or not, the optics are that ESO PvP is for sweaty organized comp groups only, solos and casuals can go pound sand. Seems like they want to reverse this trend with Vengeance and its drastically lower power ceiling.

Bushido2513

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

PVP combat could definitely be more balance than it is but ZOS is always going to consider the casual market that doesn't want to fight or be fought at a more skill based level.

I was actually playing the game last night with some friends that are more casual that myself last night and listened as they basically got to a point where too many cheap deaths persuaded them to move over to another game they enjoy that offered a more relaxed experience.

That's not the message I've been getting from Cyrodiil. Casuals have long complained about the ball group meta, zergs get smaller and smaller, ball groups get more and more powerful. Azureblight gets deleted, zergs lose their best tool, Rushing Agony continues its reign of terror, inflicting cheap deaths on casuals right and left.

Whether intended or not, the optics are that ESO PvP is for sweaty organized comp groups only, solos and casuals can go pound sand. Seems like they want to reverse this trend with Vengeance and its drastically lower power ceiling.

Yeah I gotta say that's a true account. I somewhat forgot about Rush which is one of the oddest things I've seen zos let stand. It ruins pvp for everyone with pretty much no redeeming qualities.

Take rush out and pvp would be closer to the vision I feel ZOS is going for.

Other than that I think ZOS just has Pvp at low priority with gvg being the preferred format.

xylena_lazarow

Bushido2513 wrote: »

gvg being the preferred format

Sweaty organized comp GvG isn't what brings players to Cyrodiil, catering to that audience is trying to push a square peg into a round hole, and that's a big reason why Cyro is dead. Vengeance is a genuine attempt to cater to casual zerg PvP instead, so while the mechanics still have me skeptical, I think the right vision might be somewhere in there.

Iriidius

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Yep, I´ve been saying this for ages now. People love to complain about proc sets as the worst offenders to why PvP is in such a poor state, and don´t get me wrong there are a few ones that does need adjustment (just not as many as people make it out to be), but the stat power creep is a much much bigger problem. In my opinion it started when ZOS reworked the CP system around waking flame patch (I think) and gave everyone 1k free weapon and spell damage. That change alone is responsible for a lot of the ridiculousness we see today. We had similar stat power creeps back in the day as well like the 7th/Fury meta, which I know you don´t necessarily share the same view that it was problematic back the, but at least it got adjusted.

Next is the continuous addition of new and more powerful stat boosting/group buffing sets added to the game. Sets like Rallying Cry and Wretched Vitality are just two sets that offers some of the most overtuned stat boosts I´ve ever seen in the game. Then we´ve the endless list of support/group sets that is in dire need of adjustment as well, and this isn´t just for PvP but PvE needs a "power-check" as well.

Then we´ve the big imbalance of how easy it is to stack high HP without any real trade-off. An interesting observation when you look at set bonuses from gear is how HP is always a bit higher than max stat values. On top of that, the amount of HP you get when distributing your attributes (on your character stat menu) will give more HP compared to stam/mag.

Then we´ve the biggest elephant in the room: Scribing.
Scribing is in my opinion the biggest power creep the game has ever seen, especially when we look at it from a group PoV. The amount of cross-shielding and group buffs available through scribing is super overtuned and needs a major rebalance as well.

The game as a whole (both PvP and PvE) needs a stat squish as a whole, and support/group sets needs to be less powerful/effective (but maybe make it a bit easier to keep those buffs up idk). The few suggestions I´ve on top of my head to adjust some of the issues would be:

* Remove the bonus 1k weapon-/spell damage we received all those years ago with the CP system rework
* Make HP bonuses on set pieces match max stam/mag values and make 1 attribute point into HP give the same amount of stats as 1 point into stamina or magicka
* Adjust specific sets and skills that offers too much (like RC, Wretched, certain shield skills in the scribing system)
* Reduce the power of most support/group buff sets (aka giving less stats), but make it easier to have better uptime of said sets.
* Rework some of the red CP slottables like survival instinct (25% cost reduction is ridiculous, should be 10% at most) , pain´s refuge, sustain by suffering etc.

Obviously more things that could be done, but as a whole the game is in dire need of a stat squish/rebalance.

How is giving everyone free 1k weapon/spell dmg responsible for tank meta when it is a dmg stat reducing time to kill and everyone gets the same?
It only reduces advantage of minmaxed builds over trash builds slightly and gives starters without build a few more stats making it easier to finish content.

HP, mag and stam had a 20% modifier from cp in old system that made stacking mag/stam as a dmg stat viable (but still not op or as strong as wpndmg) that got removed/replaced with flat stats in new cp. You can replace max mag/stam with wpn/spell dmg and mag/stam regen and keep only 18-20k for pool but you cant replace hp with mitigation as it is multiplicative rather than additive for ehp and hp is needed so it still has same relative value. However attribute points and armor glyphs can only give mag/stam/hp so you can convert useless mag/stam only into hp.
Making mag/stam attriputepoints, glyphs, sets give same amount or more of it than hp equivalents or Restoring 20% modifier from cp would make them a dmg stat worth stacking and competitive to wpn/spell dmg again.

Rallyng cry has a a double (5)setboni that can also be shared with group mates(the decrease stats per shared member is too weak as 12 times half the stats is still more than once the full) and is definitely too strong.
Group buff sets need nerf as most give a (5)piece as strong as a selfish (5) piece and often already viable solo also to other players in group for free.

Wretched is more complicated as ZoS has no rules how to calculate hybrid regen/stats. Eternal Vigor was even more stat dense before nerf to it and hp regen and most other new regen sets suffer from including hp regen like it has same value as other regen when it has clearly not.

Most of these red cp stars help outnumbered that already got nerfed enaugh and replace old sustain cp that did not require status effekts on you.
Old cp system was probably stronger but definitely not weaker than New current cp system.

Bubosh

Hybrids and the regeneration we got added to our stats/buffoud like orzogas etc etc. or wretched vitality sets are the biggest issue we have right now. Imagine just years ago if ppl wanted to get over 2-3k stam regen or mag regen they had to dedicate a lot via sets or glyphs into that to reach even such numbers... now slot wretched put on orzogas and have mag/stam regen like mad and thats the way how ppl dont die because they can get hit by 20k bow procc and by 1 or 2x pressing the insane burst heals of hybrids they are full hp again try to play with cauterize as dk for example without other burst heal and you will get it, hybrid mag burst heals are way too strong and the regen we have is way too high so you can spamm such skills.. take away easy access to hybrid regen or regen in general and all these hybrids will stop playing (cauterize for example on full dmg crit build as dk max heals 6-8k crits but rarely its 8 or 7k even slot dragon blood press it one time on any decent build and you see the issue its most burst heals just totally unbalanced for the regen adjustments we got, a dragonblood will go easy over 10k crits without having to dedicate your build onto reaching that number rly much at all.)
all just personal opinion ofc

dark_hunterxmg

It's the healing and shielding meta. Put an negate on top of someone and they tend to go down.
- I propose that the amount of self-healing skills slotted should have a negative impact on damage output. It's not uncommon for a player to have 40-60% of their bar slots taken up by skills that heal. Self heal stacking and healing components attached to damage skills is out of control.
Take Nightblade for example. A typical Nightblade damage dealer will slot Healthy Offering, Resolving Vigor, Refreshing Path, and Siphoning Strikes. Add in Soul Tether, and Merciless Resolve and you've got 50% of bar space taken up by self heals that scale on weapon damage, which we know will be very high. This is just an example of 1 class.
I know not many people will like the idea, but it would help solve the problem.

mook-eb16_ESO

emp warden today was broken as hell bombing many people and very hard to kill with several players. Why bother with nb bomber who just dies. If you're a tank fine but you should be just that a tank low damage and definitely not able to bomb 10 people. I see all the all troll builds are warden, so much so, you get whole groups of them.

Surgee

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Yep, I´ve been saying this for ages now. People love to complain about proc sets as the worst offenders to why PvP is in such a poor state, and don´t get me wrong there are a few ones that does need adjustment (just not as many as people make it out to be), but the stat power creep is a much much bigger problem. In my opinion it started when ZOS reworked the CP system around waking flame patch (I think) and gave everyone 1k free weapon and spell damage. That change alone is responsible for a lot of the ridiculousness we see today. We had similar stat power creeps back in the day as well like the 7th/Fury meta, which I know you don´t necessarily share the same view that it was problematic back the, but at least it got adjusted.

Next is the continuous addition of new and more powerful stat boosting/group buffing sets added to the game. Sets like Rallying Cry and Wretched Vitality are just two sets that offers some of the most overtuned stat boosts I´ve ever seen in the game. Then we´ve the endless list of support/group sets that is in dire need of adjustment as well, and this isn´t just for PvP but PvE needs a "power-check" as well.

Then we´ve the big imbalance of how easy it is to stack high HP without any real trade-off. An interesting observation when you look at set bonuses from gear is how HP is always a bit higher than max stat values. On top of that, the amount of HP you get when distributing your attributes (on your character stat menu) will give more HP compared to stam/mag.

Then we´ve the biggest elephant in the room: Scribing.
Scribing is in my opinion the biggest power creep the game has ever seen, especially when we look at it from a group PoV. The amount of cross-shielding and group buffs available through scribing is super overtuned and needs a major rebalance as well.

The game as a whole (both PvP and PvE) needs a stat squish as a whole, and support/group sets needs to be less powerful/effective (but maybe make it a bit easier to keep those buffs up idk). The few suggestions I´ve on top of my head to adjust some of the issues would be:

* Remove the bonus 1k weapon-/spell damage we received all those years ago with the CP system rework
* Make HP bonuses on set pieces match max stam/mag values and make 1 attribute point into HP give the same amount of stats as 1 point into stamina or magicka
* Adjust specific sets and skills that offers too much (like RC, Wretched, certain shield skills in the scribing system)
* Reduce the power of most support/group buff sets (aka giving less stats), but make it easier to have better uptime of said sets.
* Rework some of the red CP slottables like survival instinct (25% cost reduction is ridiculous, should be 10% at most) , pain´s refuge, sustain by suffering etc.

Obviously more things that could be done, but as a whole the game is in dire need of a stat squish/rebalance.

One of the biggest offenders is balorgh monster set. This allows anyone who's super tanky to suddenly conjure a ton of power and penetration. Another one is shields. They work in the wrong way and they shouldn't stop damage, but mitigate some of it. As for the things you've listed these are just tiny adjustments that might help but won't fix PvP. The issue will still remain. You'll be able to create an unkillable tank that can burst down anyone.

Here are essential changes that would help with PvP and remove those unkillable burst killers:

1. Make shields mitigate 50% of damage, but reduce your damage output by 50% - this means shields will become a trade off of damage for survivability. You won't be able to have both.

2. Remove penetration stat from the game - read below

3. Replace physical and magical resistance numbers with flat % based on your armour class. This is how it will work.

- your character has an ARMOR CLASS. Your armour class will depend on the single heaviest piece of armor you're wearing. This means that if you wear 4 light and 1 heavy, your armour class will automatically be heavy. This is to prevent some crazy mixing. Becaus of this, players will stick to all pieces in the same armour class, as there's no point in mixing.

- heavy armour class - REDUCE incoming damage by 40%, and REDUCE outgoing damage/healing by 30%
- medium armour class- REDUCE incoming damage by 25% and REDUCE outgoing damage/healing by 10%
- light armour class - REDUCE incoming damage by 10% and INCREASE outgoing damage/healing by 10%

So with this setup, a light armour class will always have 40% more damage than a tank, but will take 40% more damage as well. The tank will have 40% more defense but 40% less damage, and medium armour class will be in the middle.

Tanks will be for tanking and killers form killing. Not both.

Much easier to understand, much easier to calculate, and it would eliminate the insane builds, or at least help tons to make it happen.

To help even more - jewellery and weapons should have their own, special set pieces that are generic. Jewellery should be removed from all current light / medium / heavy armors to prevent players from putting these sets into weight classes they weren't made for.

YandereGirlfriend

You could fix most of this by de-coupling healing power from damage stats so that you couldn't mindlessly stack damage and still get the best of both worlds.

We even have Healing Done as a separate bonus in the game's itemization but nobody cares because stacking Weapon Damage is always the superior option.

Iriidius

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

You could fix most of this by de-coupling healing power from damage stats so that you couldn't mindlessly stack damage and still get the best of both worlds.

We even have Healing Done as a separate bonus in the game's itemization but nobody cares because stacking Weapon Damage is always the superior option.

Than the ballgroup dd stack damage stats and deal more dmg and the ballgroup healer healing stats and heal more and the solo player has to stack dmg and healing stats and gets less of both.

yourhpgod

It all comes down to over healing and resistances.

CameraBeardThePirate

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

I'm literally looking back at my old videos and the offensive and defensive stats I had are literally mediocre by todays standards, yet I was able to kill the majority of people I ran into. Explain to me why 5 years ago, I didn't need to stack as many armor debuffs and damage buffs as possible just to kill someone? Explain to me why people could actually be punished for making a mistake?

ZOS, you need to fix this up. It's absurd that in U44, a build with 40k stam, 7k+ weapon damage, 21k+ pen, AND 100% crit damage is STILL NOT ENOUGH to kill players.

Hybridisation did this

It was hybridization combined with the slow but sure devaluation of Max Mag/Stam. The only class where it's still worth stacking Max Stat and not just dumping all your points into health is Sorc, and that's only because they get a ton of % increase to their Max Mag.

The devaluation started with Champ Points 2.0. Despite the intended result of that change being to curb power creep, adding 1000 Weapon and Spell damage to everyone essentially started an arms race, where suddenly people realized you no longer needed Max mag or stam for damage, and should just put points into health with practically no downside. Doesn't help that you get more health per point vs mag or stam. Effective health skyrocketed further with the introduction of some of these ridiculously over tuned shields.

Finally, sustain has only gotten easier due to hybridization and the ridiculous raw power of Wretched and Roksa, meaning you need Max mag or stam even less - you can get by with only 13k mag if you have over 3000 mag recovery without even trying.

All of this leads to the ability to create obscenely tanky builds while not really sacrificing any offensive power.

Edit to add: You also can't understate how much sets like Rush of Agony contribute to the tank meta. When a single set can make lining up 80k+ spike damage a piece of cake, people build tankier to not get blown up.

Iriidius

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

I'm literally looking back at my old videos and the offensive and defensive stats I had are literally mediocre by todays standards, yet I was able to kill the majority of people I ran into. Explain to me why 5 years ago, I didn't need to stack as many armor debuffs and damage buffs as possible just to kill someone? Explain to me why people could actually be punished for making a mistake?

ZOS, you need to fix this up. It's absurd that in U44, a build with 40k stam, 7k+ weapon damage, 21k+ pen, AND 100% crit damage is STILL NOT ENOUGH to kill players.

Hybridisation did this

It was hybridization combined with the slow but sure devaluation of Max Mag/Stam. The only class where it's still worth stacking Max Stat and not just dumping all your points into health is Sorc, and that's only because they get a ton of % increase to their Max Mag.

The devaluation started with Champ Points 2.0. Despite the intended result of that change being to curb power creep, adding 1000 Weapon and Spell damage to everyone essentially started an arms race, where suddenly people realized you no longer needed Max mag or stam for damage, and should just put points into health with practically no downside. Doesn't help that you get more health per point vs mag or stam. Effective health skyrocketed further with the introduction of some of these ridiculously over tuned shields.

Finally, sustain has only gotten easier due to hybridization and the ridiculous raw power of Wretched and Roksa, meaning you need Max mag or stam even less - you can get by with only 13k mag if you have over 3000 mag recovery without even trying.

All of this leads to the ability to create obscenely tanky builds while not really sacrificing any offensive power.

Edit to add: You also can't understate how much sets like Rush of Agony contribute to the tank meta. When a single set can make lining up 80k+ spike damage a piece of cake, people build tankier to not get blown up.

How made 1k weapon dmg made people realize they no longer need Max mag or stam?

What made people no longer need Max mag or stam was the conversion of 20% modifier into flat stats which not only reduced the dmg you gain from stacking mag/stam by 16.667% but also gave players enaugh stamina/magicka (pool) to sustain without investment (except prismatic armor glyphs and race(like dunmer)).

StaticWave

It pretty much goes like this:

Pre CP 2.0 and pre Mythic:
- Mistakes were punishable, regardless of your skill level. You could be a top tier player but if you didn’t block that off balanced Dizzying Swing, you’d get 2-tapped. Below average/average players almost never survived their mistakes.

Post CP 2.0 and Mythic introduction:
- Mistakes are not as punishable. Good players are almost impossible to punish, while below average/average players can still survive if they make a mistake.

It’s a combination of all of the above. Stat inflation and nerfed damage skills are probably the biggest contributor imo.