I just don't see the "staves and dresses" problem getting resolved any time soon

aleister · June 2014

As long as we have no clear class -> role associations, players are always going to gravitate toward what works best for toe-to-toe PVP or solo PVE, which current is a staff and light armor. If they nerf staves and/or light armor in the near future, some other combination will be slightly better and everyone will gravitate toward that. It seems like no matter what they do, diversity will always be a problem under the current mechanics.

Are the traditional tank/healer/DPS roles being associated strongly with particular classes so bad? Why were classes even introduced in the first place? Personally, I'd like to see more class distinction and stronger class/role association:

Dragon Knight -> primary tank, secondary melee DPS, tertiary ranged DPS (bow), usually heavy armor, never a caster

Sorcerer -> primary ranged DPS, superior DPS / low survivability, almost always ligt armor, never a tank, never a healer

Nightblade -> primary melee DPS, secondary ranged DPS (bow), superior DPS (not quite as good as sorcerer) / moderate survivability, never a tank, never a healer

Templar -> primary healer, secondary DPS (but never as good as a Nightblade or Sorcerer) or tank (but never as good as a DK).

Otherwise, just do away with classes altogether because right now, they are nothing but a vehicle for brokenness and imbalance between one staff-wielding mage and another.

LordEcks · June 2014

It adds variety.

The removal of classes and allowing anyone to use any of the 12 skill trees as they see fit wouldnt be much different.

It'd be everyone running around in a dress with Talons, Crit Surge, Inner Light, Breath of Life and your DPS ability of choice for #5 pressing one button and face-rolling through everything.

What they need is balance, but thats not as easy as some may purport.

aleister · June 2014

LordEcks wrote: »

It'd be everyone running around in a dress with Talons, Crit Surge, Inner Light, Breath of Life and your DPS ability of choice for #5 pressing one button and face-rolling through everything.

That's almost what we have now. DKs are just able to do it slightly better. There is little diversity save for the few players who, intentionally or unintentionally, choose to handicap themselves.

"Balance" is a unicorn that will never caught.

Liquid_Time · June 2014

There will never be balance.. Nuff said.

Thunderchief · June 2014

The best quick-fix I can think of is to make all weapon skills stamina based ad all class skills magicka based. This should have been done a month ago and been in effect while they plan a better fix.

Inco · June 2014

These are not the balanced classes you are looking for.... *waves hand*

Oh wait.. wrong forums... LOL

PlagueSD · June 2014

That's kind of what drew me to play Rift. There were only 4 classes, like this game, but you could just about play ANY role.

Warrior - Tank, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Support
Cleric - Tank, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Healer, Support
Rogue - Tank, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Support
Mage - Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, Healer, Support

I like having an open class system. It lets me play the way I want to, not the way the game tells me to.

SFBryan18 · June 2014

Your roles don't belong in TES.

Ninnghizhidda · June 2014

Most people still "hope" for some crucial fixes in the near future, that could bring "balance". So that the totally farcical situation right now could be addressed.

What is also evident is that player numbers are being decimated on a daily basis, something only those in blissful ignorance fail to realise. Especially when we are talking about "VR content".

Sure, many are re-rolling alts to have another go at the 1-50 "pre-VR" content, probably choosing another faction and / or class / build. Perhaps the main reason lower level areas seem to be a lot more populated.

I doubt this will go on for too long though, I doubt anyone will roll 8 characters to "kill time" until there can be some real progression and enjoyable gaming experience after 50.

Of course, I do hope I am proven utterly wrong, and the gates to Oblivion will not open wide, yet.

PBpsy · June 2014

Liquid_Time wrote: »

There will never be balance.. Nuff said.

Here Is an awesome and effective plan of making the game awesome and balanced.
1.Take away all skills damage and weapon attack damage.
2.Make the stats auto allocate the same for everybody.
3. Add a passive aura that does AoE damage to everybody in 25 m
4.Adjust that damage such that if another player that enters the aura has more life then you the damage that you do increases to compensate.
5.Just use the skills in combat for the light works and the lulz.
6. Make the auras non stackable so that we have great pvp balance.
6.Enjoy your awesomely balanced game.

Mordria · June 2014

aleister wrote: »

As long as we have no clear class -> role associations, players are always going to gravitate toward what works best for toe-to-toe PVP or solo PVE, which current is a staff and light armor. If they nerf staves and/or light armor in the near future, some other combination will be slightly better and everyone will gravitate toward that. It seems like no matter what they do, diversity will always be a problem under the current mechanics.

Are the traditional tank/healer/DPS roles being associated strongly with particular classes so bad? Why were classes even introduced in the first place? Personally, I'd like to see more class distinction and stronger class/role association:

Dragon Knight -> primary tank, secondary melee DPS, tertiary ranged DPS (bow), usually heavy armor, never a caster

Sorcerer -> primary ranged DPS, superior DPS / low survivability, almost always ligt armor, never a tank, never a healer

Nightblade -> primary melee DPS, secondary ranged DPS (bow), superior DPS (not quite as good as sorcerer) / moderate survivability, never a tank, never a healer

Templar -> primary healer, secondary DPS (but never as good as a Nightblade or Sorcerer) or tank (but never as good as a DK).

Otherwise, just do away with classes altogether because right now, they are nothing but a vehicle for brokenness and imbalance between one staff-wielding mage and another.

You say that like everyone is using a staff and wearing light armor which isn't true at all. I also happen to really like the fact that there are so many different options. That's one of the things that make this game great.

twev · June 2014

PBpsy wrote: »

Liquid_Time wrote: »

There will never be balance.. Nuff said.

Here Is an awesome and effective plan of making the game awesome and balanced.
1.Take away all skills damage and weapon attack damage.
2.Make the stats auto allocate the same for everybody.
3. Add a passive aura that does AoE damage to everybody in 25 m
4.Adjust that damage such that if another player that enters the aura has more life then you the damage that you do increases to compensate.
5.Just use the skills in combat for the light works and the lulz.
6. Make the auras non stackable so that we have great pvp balance.
6.Enjoy your awesomely balanced game.

Why don't we all just play the same 'assigned' character?

You log in, choose character 'A' from a list made up of "Character 'A' " and nothing else.

Play with everyone else in the game all playing the same 'Character 'A' ".

I think that was 'DOOM' at a lan-party back in '94, right?

crislevin · June 2014

dress problem will be addressed in the next patch.

you can now craft jerkins.

SilverWF · June 2014

There is no any light'n'staff problems.

aleister wrote: »

Dragon Knight -> primary tank, secondary melee DPS, tertiary ranged DPS (bow), usually heavy armor, never a caster

Sorcerer -> primary ranged DPS, superior DPS / low survivability, almost always ligt armor, never a tank, never a healer

Nightblade -> primary melee DPS, secondary ranged DPS (bow), superior DPS (not quite as good as sorcerer) / moderate survivability, never a tank, never a healer

Templar -> primary healer, secondary DPS (but never as good as a Nightblade or Sorcerer) or tank (but never as good as a DK).

WOW-brained detected.

isengrimb16_ESO · June 2014

I did see a greenie post somewhere - I think it was a discussion of the most recent patch notes - that said they're looking into the stamina/wep and armour issues right now.

Hopefully, that'll mean divorcing roll-dodge/block/interrupt from stamina, so our swords and bows will be just as juicy as staves, resource-wise.

I'm not even going to guess about armour.

And yes, OP should think outside of the computer box for a bit. Even Wildstar went and restricted classes to certain materials of armour; when I saw that, I was like, whut? Why?

Csub · June 2014

I don`t care if there isn`t perfect balance, there never is. What I do care about is not being able to solo Veteran contents while others literally faceroll it.

nerevarine1138 · June 2014

No, no and no.

They obviously need to fine-tune the balance between stamina-based weapon skills and magicka skills, but your suggestion of pigeonholing the classes is completely the wrong way to go about it. Part of what makes this game different from every other cookie-cutter MMO out there is that your class choice has no impact on what roles you can fill in the game.

Jimm_ay · June 2014

There is no problem with light armor and staffs... seriously. Have them fix medium and heavy rather than complain about things that actually work

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Rude and Insulting comments]

shiva7663 · June 2014

Each class has three skill lines; balance will be achieved when each class can be viable in any role by skill line choices.

AlexDougherty · June 2014

Jimm_ay wrote: »

There is no problem with light armor and staffs... seriously. Have them fix medium and heavy rather than complain about things that actually work

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Rude and Insulting comments]

^^This^^ While I'm not convinced that light armour and staffs don't need a slight rebalance, this is the key arguement for me. (note not convinced isn't the same as disagree)

Heavy and Medium Armour need fixing, then we can see if anything there needs rebalancing.

Ser Lobo · June 2014

This game made some primary design choices that drew me into it. These are different than your standard MMO fare, the World of Warcraft clones that have proliferated the market for the last 10 years.

ESO is not the first to do any of them. The 5-slot action toolbar? Yeah, Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter Nights both went that route, as it forces players to pick and specialize their toolbars.

In the case of the Ops complaint, it's the lack of defined classes. Again, ESO isn't the first. You can go as far back as SWG pre-NGE, or Ultima Online, for games that skipped classes altogether. Or more recently, to classes which had more options, like Neverwinter Online.

Some people see the classes, and cannot change their method of thinking: that classes equal roles, and that trying to make a class fit a role other than it's intended is wrong.

As other's have said, that's that EverQuest/WoW mentality coming out. It is NOT true in all games. It's not even true in the majority of games. It's simply true in the games played by the most people.

There are many of us who are perfectly happy that ZOS went the way it did. I am one of them.

Wifeaggro13 · June 2014

aleister wrote: »

As long as we have no clear class -> role associations, players are always going to gravitate toward what works best for toe-to-toe PVP or solo PVE, which current is a staff and light armor. If they nerf staves and/or light armor in the near future, some other combination will be slightly better and everyone will gravitate toward that. It seems like no matter what they do, diversity will always be a problem under the current mechanics.

Are the traditional tank/healer/DPS roles being associated strongly with particular classes so bad? Why were classes even introduced in the first place? Personally, I'd like to see more class distinction and stronger class/role association:

Dragon Knight -> primary tank, secondary melee DPS, tertiary ranged DPS (bow), usually heavy armor, never a caster

Sorcerer -> primary ranged DPS, superior DPS / low survivability, almost always ligt armor, never a tank, never a healer

Nightblade -> primary melee DPS, secondary ranged DPS (bow), superior DPS (not quite as good as sorcerer) / moderate survivability, never a tank, never a healer

Templar -> primary healer, secondary DPS (but never as good as a Nightblade or Sorcerer) or tank (but never as good as a DK).

Otherwise, just do away with classes altogether because right now, they are nothing but a vehicle for brokenness and imbalance between one staff-wielding mage and another.

I agree with you . I think the Instant gratifcation generation became fixated with this idea everyone can do everything special snowflake mentality. In all truthfulness i see no way of fixing this game until the Devs make major changes to this whole system. roles and the trinity is a good thing. it didnt need to be dissolved and done away with it needed to be expanded upon and enriched.
Right now this whole damn game is a mess , anyone that thought this would be such a wonderful thing is now screaming their head off because there is really one build for everything in this game and it is Robes, Staves and occassionaly SNS on a boss or two. tank is in light armor with a resto stave and sns with a bar full of DPS skills and 1 cc at most. It is the same for the other roles. there is less distinction here less team work and a complete game catering to the solo player mentality that breeds self centered anti social game play. MMO's are done ill not buy another one and this will be the last one i play corporations have completely and totally taken over this industry and they are built like horrible fast food chains.

Wifeaggro13 · June 2014

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

This game made some primary design choices that drew me into it. These are different than your standard MMO fare, the World of Warcraft clones that have proliferated the market for the last 10 years.

ESO is not the first to do any of them. The 5-slot action toolbar? Yeah, Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter Nights both went that route, as it forces players to pick and specialize their toolbars.

In the case of the Ops complaint, it's the lack of defined classes. Again, ESO isn't the first. You can go as far back as SWG pre-NGE, or Ultima Online, for games that skipped classes altogether. Or more recently, to classes which had more options, like Neverwinter Online.

Some people see the classes, and cannot change their method of thinking: that classes equal roles, and that trying to make a class fit a role other than it's intended is wrong.

As other's have said, that's that EverQuest/WoW mentality coming out. It is NOT true in all games. It's not even true in the majority of games. It's simply true in the games played by the most people.

There are many of us who are perfectly happy that ZOS went the way it did. I am one of them.

Really? I think your missing the whole picture but thats OK. In reality the thing that is causign more people to flee this game in end game activities is the melee builds and the complete and total lack of any real tank role.
A big part of why melee and stamina builds are broken is because of the game design trying to to make everyone be able to do everything. Just looking at your sig statement i dont think you are perfectly happy with the way the did it. My guess is your a DPS player that wanted to melee . there is something worng with game my firend , in a serious manner . I can tank better with my sorc in light DPS armor then my DK in heavy , there is zero difference in damage mitigated by the two. The only distinction is who has more Magica . health and stamina mean nothing. there are really only two logical race choices in the game as well. dunnmer and high elf. this completely flexible im a special snow flake that can do everything didnt work out so well for the end game , actually its quite horrible.

kewl · June 2014

Role flexibility is one element of ESO's uniqueness. ZOS just needs to balance things out.

Ser Lobo · June 2014

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

aleister wrote: »

As long as we have no clear class -> role associations, players are always going to gravitate toward what works best for toe-to-toe PVP or solo PVE, which current is a staff and light armor. If they nerf staves and/or light armor in the near future, some other combination will be slightly better and everyone will gravitate toward that. It seems like no matter what they do, diversity will always be a problem under the current mechanics.

Are the traditional tank/healer/DPS roles being associated strongly with particular classes so bad? Why were classes even introduced in the first place? Personally, I'd like to see more class distinction and stronger class/role association:

Dragon Knight -> primary tank, secondary melee DPS, tertiary ranged DPS (bow), usually heavy armor, never a caster

Sorcerer -> primary ranged DPS, superior DPS / low survivability, almost always ligt armor, never a tank, never a healer

Nightblade -> primary melee DPS, secondary ranged DPS (bow), superior DPS (not quite as good as sorcerer) / moderate survivability, never a tank, never a healer

Templar -> primary healer, secondary DPS (but never as good as a Nightblade or Sorcerer) or tank (but never as good as a DK).

Otherwise, just do away with classes altogether because right now, they are nothing but a vehicle for brokenness and imbalance between one staff-wielding mage and another.

I agree with you . I think the Instant gratifcation generation became fixated with this idea everyone can do everything special snowflake mentality. In all truthfulness i see no way of fixing this game until the Devs make major changes to this whole system. roles and the trinity is a good thing. it didnt need to be dissolved and done away with it needed to be expanded upon and enriched.
Right now this whole damn game is a mess , anyone that thought this would be such a wonderful thing is now screaming their head off because there is really one build for everything in this game and it is Robes, Staves and occassionaly SNS on a boss or two. tank is in light armor with a resto stave and sns with a bar full of DPS skills and 1 cc at most. It is the same for the other roles. there is less distinction here less team work and a complete game catering to the solo player mentality that breeds self centered anti social game play. MMO's are done ill not buy another one and this will be the last one i play corporations have completely and totally taken over this industry and they are built like horrible fast food chains.

Not that I believe light armor wearers should be tanking, or that staves should be doing best ranged damage, or that stamina builds shouldn't be more useful. I believe the individual things need touched and retouched.

But that doesn't mean the class system needs to be made more strict, simply because a player cannot see that 'Dragonknight' doesn't mean 'tank'. Or finds it insulting that a sorcerer can wear heavy armor.

There was an MMO that listened to the frantic calls of it's playerbase before. Who tried to bring a unique MMO in line with mainstream, 'follow the herd' mentality.

It was called Star Wars Galaxies. And the change many here are proposing was known as the New Game Enhancements.

I'm against the use of the NGE as an argument tool, as much as anybody, but this is the first game where I've felt it was valid.

Don't screw up this very open and plyable class system, ZOS. Fix the lines, for sure. But start limiting classes to armor types, weapon types and other unnecessary mechanics designed to simplify for the simple minds, and you'll be surprised what you'll really lose.

No longer will ESO be a unique game on the market that does what others don't. It'll be a bad clone that focuses too much on lorebooks.

Wifeaggro13 · June 2014

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

aleister wrote: »

As long as we have no clear class -> role associations, players are always going to gravitate toward what works best for toe-to-toe PVP or solo PVE, which current is a staff and light armor. If they nerf staves and/or light armor in the near future, some other combination will be slightly better and everyone will gravitate toward that. It seems like no matter what they do, diversity will always be a problem under the current mechanics.

Are the traditional tank/healer/DPS roles being associated strongly with particular classes so bad? Why were classes even introduced in the first place? Personally, I'd like to see more class distinction and stronger class/role association:

Dragon Knight -> primary tank, secondary melee DPS, tertiary ranged DPS (bow), usually heavy armor, never a caster

Sorcerer -> primary ranged DPS, superior DPS / low survivability, almost always ligt armor, never a tank, never a healer

Nightblade -> primary melee DPS, secondary ranged DPS (bow), superior DPS (not quite as good as sorcerer) / moderate survivability, never a tank, never a healer

Templar -> primary healer, secondary DPS (but never as good as a Nightblade or Sorcerer) or tank (but never as good as a DK).

Otherwise, just do away with classes altogether because right now, they are nothing but a vehicle for brokenness and imbalance between one staff-wielding mage and another.

I agree with you . I think the Instant gratifcation generation became fixated with this idea everyone can do everything special snowflake mentality. In all truthfulness i see no way of fixing this game until the Devs make major changes to this whole system. roles and the trinity is a good thing. it didnt need to be dissolved and done away with it needed to be expanded upon and enriched.
Right now this whole damn game is a mess , anyone that thought this would be such a wonderful thing is now screaming their head off because there is really one build for everything in this game and it is Robes, Staves and occassionaly SNS on a boss or two. tank is in light armor with a resto stave and sns with a bar full of DPS skills and 1 cc at most. It is the same for the other roles. there is less distinction here less team work and a complete game catering to the solo player mentality that breeds self centered anti social game play. MMO's are done ill not buy another one and this will be the last one i play corporations have completely and totally taken over this industry and they are built like horrible fast food chains.

Not that I believe light armor wearers should be tanking, or that staves should be doing best ranged damage, or that stamina builds shouldn't be more useful. I believe the individual things need touched and retouched.

But that doesn't mean the class system needs to be made more strict, simply because a player cannot see that 'Dragonknight' doesn't mean 'tank'. Or finds it insulting that a sorcerer can wear heavy armor.

There was an MMO that listened to the frantic calls of it's playerbase before. Who tried to bring a unique MMO in line with mainstream, 'follow the herd' mentality.

It was called Star Wars Galaxies. And the change many here are proposing was known as the New Game Enhancements.

I'm against the use of the NGE as an argument tool, as much as anybody, but this is the first game where I've felt it was valid.

Don't screw up this very open and plyable class system, ZOS. Fix the lines, for sure. But start limiting classes to armor types, weapon types and other unnecessary mechanics designed to simplify for the simple minds, and you'll be surprised what you'll really lose.

No longer will ESO be a unique game on the market that does what others don't. It'll be a bad clone that focuses too much on lorebooks.

Im fine with a sorc wearing heavy armor and im fine with a DK wearing robes and being a caster. What im not fine with is casters tanking and the only actual role in this game currently is DPS. I misunderstood your point , trinity is good for mechanics and team play. The roles of actuall CC and support need to be reintroduced to MMO's and i prefer 6 man groups. With a flexible system like Rift or what TESO wanted to be finding 6 people is not hard at all. Its when a PC is locked into one role for the entire life of its chr is when it becomes hard to manage the content.
As for galaxies that game was missmanged and fu'd way before CU or NGE. it was a sandbox that didnt get the player base sony though it would and tried to redirect it too be more like WOW. I think if they would have made Galaxies more like EQ 2 and Eq 1 it would have done much better.
The reason why wow did so well is because of the Low system requirements , and the monster fan base of Warcraft RTS.

hk11 · June 2014

I gave up and started my new guy in robes. Ill just wear two pieces of the armor I hope to eventually wear and level the weapons.

I am not really happy about it, but what can you do?

Ragnar_Lodbrok · June 2014

Why would they change anything? Its clear the devs are trying to sink this game.

Singular · June 2014

I really don't think they need to make the game any more boring by simplifying it into cookie cutter builds.

They just need to fix what isn't working - heavy and medium armor and stamina builds.

Ragnar_Lodbrok · June 2014

Singular wrote: »

I really don't think they need to make the game any more boring by simplifying it into cookie cutter builds.

They just need to fix what isn't working - heavy and medium armor and stamina builds.

Its already cookie cutter build. Stick and dress or you are doing it wrong.

Singular · June 2014

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

Why would they change anything? Its clear the devs are trying to sink this game.

Dude, you used to love this game and defend it to death - kinda sad to see you so disappointed in it.