Why should Class Skills be dominant?

jelliedsoup · June 2014

I'm quite surprised at the number of people who believe that Class Skills should be dominant, as they currently are. The game's designers prefer Magicka over Stamina, and I have no idea why. There will always be the min/max crowd, but to be viable in ESO you need magicka. it's that simple.

All the costs in the game (skill points, allocation of level points, cost of glyphs, apparel etc) are all equal, except in the game it clearly allocates more damage/power to magicka. Sure in some games a Bow is too powerful, in this game ALL weapons are not a primary option for a viable build.

Why is this a good thing? I really have no idea, but so many seem to think otherwise. I would love to hear reasons why shows this approach encourages diversity, doesn't create a cookie cutter mould for viable ESO builds etc.

Enkil · June 2014

It's baffling to me as well.

Maleficus · June 2014

Soft cap *** just makes it even worse...

LordEcks · June 2014

Someone else mentioned it in another thread.

They should just switch all the weapons over the magicka like the staves and call it a day. This would solve the majority of their balance issues.

Just switch it all over and convert Light/Heavy atk dmg to scale off of Magicka. Done.

Arsenic_Touch · June 2014

LordEcks wrote: »

Someone else mentioned it in another thread.

They should just switch all the weapons over the magicka like the staves and call it a day. This would solve the majority of their balance issues.

Just switch it all over and convert Light/Heavy atk dmg to scale off of Magicka. Done.

Would only solve half the problem. The mass differences between light armor and medium armor. (thing is there should have never been medium armor, just light and heavy with different looks) while the medium passives get moved to a stealth tree that anyone can put points into and the heavy and light armor get left the way that they are (well tweak the heavy armor so it's more tank worthy) but yeah.

But I agree, if weapon skills were based on magicka and scaled based on magicka, things would be a lot better. Not perfect but so much better. They can leave light and heavy attacks on stamina if they wanted. Just changed the scaling so it was more useful.

dennissomb16_ESO · June 2014

I sort of go along with the class abilities being better then weapon. What I don't agree with is all class abilities being magic based. Would have liked for some of the class abilities to be stamina based and balance around that design

Ser Lobo · June 2014

I'm a major supporter of stamina-focused builds and changes, however:

I think the devs see a player using both pools interchangeably. Their design ethos strikes me as one that may even have them confused with player reactions. Why is it so important for us to only use stamina?

So our weapon skills and armor skills and fighters guild skills are generally all 'extra', meant more to give every player some alternatives, but not to dominate their bar.

Again, it's almost as if it's a complete oversight. As in, they just don't understand why someone would want a peanut butter sandwich, when you could eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.

If every player build his character to rely on magicka first and foremost, and stamina only as a secondary (for finesse abilities or certain unique CC), then we probably wouldn't really even notice the imbalance at all.

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO · June 2014

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

Would only solve half the problem. The mass differences between light armor and medium armor. (thing is there should have never been medium armor, just light and heavy with different looks) while the medium passives get moved to a stealth tree that anyone can put points into and the medium and light armor get left the way that they are (well tweak the heavy armor so it's more tank worthy) but yeah.

I love this. Just had to say it.

Would solve so many problems and allow heavy armor wearers to tank or dps, melee or cast based purely from where they put their skill points and the enchantments they use.

Ser Lobo · June 2014

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

Would only solve half the problem. The mass differences between light armor and medium armor. (thing is there should have never been medium armor, just light and heavy with different looks) while the medium passives get moved to a stealth tree that anyone can put points into and the medium and light armor get left the way that they are (well tweak the heavy armor so it's more tank worthy) but yeah.

I love this. Just had to say it.

Would solve so many problems and allow heavy armor wearers to tank or dps, melee or cast based purely from where they put their skill points and the enchantments they use.

Wasn't medium armor standard before Skyrim?

The stealth skills Arsenic mentions, though, should be moved and improved into the Dark Brotherhood/Thieves Guild trees. It feels like light armor has five passives exclusively dedicated to performance, while medium and light are gimped with a few 'accessory' passives which give us less to bring to the table.

Like Heavy Armor's 'heals received'. Means that this passive is only good while in groups, if I'm not mistaken. That's a passive that's rather useless for a large portion of leveling and our playerbase.

Nox_Aeterna · June 2014

I think all skill trees should be just as strong as one another, that is balance.

But i can see people using the same argument against removing the classes here , if the class skills are stronger , you create forced diversity , while if the weapons... are stronger , tons of people , this time of all classes , will use the same skills over and over , just look at the impulse for example and that is one skill.

In the end , i would rather have no classes and that all trees get balance equalily , instead of this forced variation that leads to more and more balance threads.

Ghnami · June 2014

Idk, classes are pretty key to any online game. I really think the classes just need a little tweaking and a little innovation to become balanced. Nightblade should be able to combo anyone, period. 0cc required, 1v1 this should be the ultimate class. Sorcerer should have a ton of aoe and do the most damage and provide a small amount of cc (like giving them a passive that says every 3 abilities, the next one stuns or something like that). Templars should do insane heals (which they do) and have okay aoe+single target, in addition to slows. A maverick class, if you will. DK should be the ultimate tank, virtually unkillable if played correctly solo (Dragon's blood shouldn't be nerfed, damaging abilities should be made to taunt/reduce damage and get a huge nerf to their damage).

Right now, nightblades don't have the burst potential they should, instead templars do. Sorcs don't have a lot of aoe, instead, they have killer single target cc and mobility. DKs are just too tanky and do too much damage. If each class offered something unique, it'd be okay. But right now, DKs offer everything with no drawbacks. Nightblades can't really aoe. Sorcs don't provide utility for group members. Templars heals are nothing compared to Dragon's Blood, and their dps is barely better than nightblades.

Class skills should work like this:::
Casting spells should scale off spell power and magika.
Casting spells that imitate weapons should scale off of stamina and wep damage.
Soft cc and hard cc should scale off of health.
Ultimates should not scale off of anything except for levels.

This way it'd be clear that tanks have more cc and can last longer. Mages have the same damage and are basically untouched, because they're at a healthy place in the game. Melee assassins do a lot more damage and have a lot more resources to work with. Ultimates are no longer op for mages and just ok for others. Ultimates feel like they greatly change the pace or even the tide of battle.

Marcusstratus · June 2014

-marcusstratus's wife speaking-

It does baffle me that you pretty much HAVE to rely greatly on the class skills which are essentially 'spells' and can't rely primarily on your weapon. While I do like playing a mage, it just seems very odd that everyone is forced to rely on magic and casting spells (active skills). I have tried playing a character who just uses the weapon skills, but it really doesn't feel like a viable option. Not to mention how pathetic the actual weapon attacks feel in comparison to the 'active skill' attacks that go with the weapon skill trees which are also rather like spells except for using stamina. I'd like to be able to actually just hack at a monster with my actual battle-axe, but instead to do real damage I have to use magic spells or stamina spells. I don't know... it just seems kinda strange to me. The active skills are cool, I like them, but I feel like the weapons themselves, and purely stamina builds should be a viable alternative.

Nox_Aeterna · June 2014

Ghnami wrote: »

Idk, classes are pretty key to any online game. I really think the classes just need a little tweaking and a little innovation to become balanced. Nightblade should be able to combo anyone, period. 0cc required, 1v1 this should be the ultimate class. Sorcerer should have a ton of aoe and do the most damage and provide a small amount of cc (like giving them a passive that says every 3 abilities, the next one stuns or something like that). Templars should do insane heals (which they do) and have okay aoe+single target, in addition to slows. A maverick class, if you will. DK should be the ultimate tank, virtually unkillable if played correctly solo (Dragon's blood shouldn't be nerfed, damaging abilities should be made to taunt/reduce damage and get a huge nerf to their damage).

Right now, nightblades don't have the burst potential they should, instead templars do. Sorcs don't have a lot of aoe, instead, they have killer single target cc and mobility. DKs are just too tanky and do too much damage. If each class offered something unique, it'd be okay. But right now, DKs offer everything with no drawbacks. Nightblades can't really aoe. Sorcs don't provide utility for group members. Templars heals are nothing compared to Dragon's Blood, and their dps is barely better than nightblades.

Class skills should work like this:::
Casting spells should scale off spell power and magika.
Casting spells that imitate weapons should scale off of stamina and wep damage.
Soft cc and hard cc should scale off of health.
Ultimates should not scale off of anything except for levels.

This way it'd be clear that tanks have more cc and can last longer. Mages have the same damage and are basically untouched, because they're at a healthy place in the game. Melee assassins do a lot more damage and have a lot more resources to work with. Ultimates are no longer op for mages and just ok for others. Ultimates feel like they greatly change the pace or even the tide of battle.

And that will lead to an even bigger cut on the first subscribers , wanna know why?

Because when many first joined the game (some even now) they believe in the , play the way you want thing. Which is reforced by the easy lvls 1/50 which makes people believe their class is not a stinky pile of crap on certain roles.

Now , when they finally get hit by reality on later lvls , that their class is actually meant for X role and so on , they start to notice that , play the way you want is a lie and that ESO is going for the same all the other MMOs , with a class = role. Which they did say would not be the case here :P , still...

The fact is , ESO is horribly balanced right now , they could still go in either direction , if they confirm that this game will follow the many other MMOs formula where class = role with their balance , you can be sure on even more sub losses.

Shaun98ca2 · June 2014

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

I think all skill trees should be just as strong as one another, that is balance.

But i can see people using the same argument against removing the classes here , if the class skills are stronger , you create forced diversity , while if the weapons... are stronger , tons of people , this time of all classes , will use the same skills over and over , just look at the impulse for example and that is one skill.

In the end , i would rather have no classes and that all trees get balance equalily , instead of this forced variation that leads to more and more balance threads.

This actually makes a LOT of sense when you think about it. To have your class skills "suck" or even be equal to "Free" Skill lines, you have to then ask "Why even have the class skills?".

I understand people WANT to make a "Stamina only build" and im not even sure how many have even pushed the stat close to hard cap.

But in general a "Full Stamina" build gets certain perks from Magicka abilities.

Looking at say Medium armor AND the skills themselves there is a few things you have to conclude.

Medium armor Agility = increases Light/Heavy Attacks.

Majority of Stamina abilities are Anti Spam + the Stamina cost of Block, Dodge, Stun and CC Break(NOT so much the last one).

You start to get a picture that Stamina builds are based on Light/Heavy Attacks. Stamina abilities "augment" your Light/Heavy Attacks with increased damage that's again Anti-Spamable meant to be conserved and some even used with some good timing as they are easily missable/blockable.

________________________________________________________________________

IF Stamina is to preform as "well" as Magicka builds DPS wise it would have to happen 1 of 2 ways.

1. Increase the abilities themselves. Well this is hard to do as Stamina builds rely HEAVILY on the increased Block, Dodge, Stun gained from Stamina as they are in the mix during combat and NEED this.

2. Increase the Light/Heavy Attack Damage. Well this itself becomes a problem as TOO much of an increase causes problem as nobody wants "swinging the sword" to really be overly relied on as that is boring. NOT to mention that its a "resource" of damage that NEVER runs out making Magicka builds "obsolete".

Along with this we DONT know how well a Full Stamina build preforms at Hard Cap for Stamina, as this COULD be the missing "key" for a Stamina build.

The only TRUE balance at this point based on the current system we have is that I can conclude is

Magicka builds(class skills) SHOULD out preform Stamina build, INITIALY with good burst damage but something a Magicka build should NOT be able to sustain for very long allowing a Stamina build to "catch up" by simply having a better sustained damage than an actual burst power of a Magicka build.

Ser Lobo · June 2014

Some players, such as myself, fight the whole process on principle alone. We don't like mages. We don't care for magick. And in the Elder Scrolls universe, warriors and swordmasters can be hero's all the same as sorcerers, despite the high-fantasy elements.

This is counter to what I think ZOS decided to build. It's also counter to what a lot of players see is the 'way it should be', with wizards being more powerful than melee classes (ala traditional DnD). For people like myself, I always enjoyed the Star Wars universe for all the Mandalorians and Stormtroopers and Star Destroyers and X-Wings, and have literally grown to hate Jedi.

If a couple classes had stamina-based skills of equal power to the standard magicka ones (and why not, since there are magicka based weapon and armor skills)? This would balance alot.

Nightblades 'assassination' line could do this fairly well with few tweaks. Templar's Aedric spear could, as well. New lines could be introduced, eventually, for Dragonknights. Maybe Sorcerers will always be 'magicka only'.

But in the end, if the developer mindset is that players should rely heavily on class skills first and foremost, and only use weapon skills to accentuate their builds? Then this is all moot.

Shaun98ca2 · June 2014

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

Some players, such as myself, fight the whole process on principle alone. We don't like mages. We don't care for magick. And in the Elder Scrolls universe, warriors and swordmasters can be hero's all the same as sorcerers, despite the high-fantasy elements.

This is counter to what I think ZOS decided to build. It's also counter to what a lot of players see is the 'way it should be', with wizards being more powerful than melee classes (ala traditional DnD). For people like myself, I always enjoyed the Star Wars universe for all the Mandalorians and Stormtroopers and Star Destroyers and X-Wings, and have literally grown to hate Jedi.

If a couple classes had stamina-based skills of equal power to the standard magicka ones (and why not, since there are magicka based weapon and armor skills)? This would balance alot.

Nightblades 'assassination' line could do this fairly well with few tweaks. Templar's Aedric spear could, as well. New lines could be introduced, eventually, for Dragonknights. Maybe Sorcerers will always be 'magicka only'.

But in the end, if the developer mindset is that players should rely heavily on class skills first and foremost, and only use weapon skills to accentuate their builds? Then this is all moot.

Well you can use mostly Stamina builds and attempt to keep the class skills to a minimal and use ones that attempt to NOT break the "flavor" of the character.

Like Blazing Shield for Templar, while it DOES use Magicka I really don't view as much different then the Brawler ability in the 2 hand line. One could say the "warrior" drew from "within" to unleash the power.

Same goes for certain other class skills as they are mostly just buffs that you would use for a Stamina build.

You CAN forgo Magicka abilities all together, but wouldn't it make sense the "better fighter" HAS more tools at their dispense? That doesn't mean a full Stamina build wouldn't be viable but from a min/max perspective you already know your gimping yourself JUST BECAUSE you ARE ignoring that other resource bar you can make good use of.

Ser Lobo · June 2014

Yeah, all of my builds try to draw rather evenly from both magicka and stamina. I realized early on, from the talk in guild, that I was choosing to gimp myself by not converting to a mage. But it wasn't how I wanted to play, and I am proud to admit I've been successful with my choices, though they needed some alteration.

My NB archer runs some of the siphon line for CC and evade. My barbarian runs some of the assassin line for cheap close-range damage and a closer (as well as evade). My templar and dragonknight do much of the same in their builds.

Heck, even the one sorcerer I play is a fun gimick of being a heavy-armor wearing disruption tank, using magick to lock down enemies and for cc.

But, despite the fact that I agree that going primarily stamina is a hard-lined gimp, I am still pushing for more equalization between stamina and magicka, starting at armor passives and weapon output.

We'll address stamina in class skills when they get the armor and weapons lined out.

Ghnami · June 2014

Hacking at things is fine, you should be able to charge up a heavy and then weave light attacks with blocks to kill anything. Imo, wep skills are just embellishments on weapon attacks.Spells are something more, they are unique and sometimes, very niche (like eclipse). Weapon attacks should be weaved with weapon abilities, and then spells should be used for something unique (dots, soft/hard cc, spell defense, burst damage/burst healing, etc.). Right now, spells have all of the components of a good char, good sustained damage, good cc, good dots, good burst. If a few of these components were removed or nerfed slightly, weap abilities would be much better. Honestly, cast times is all that is really needed for a lot of fixes. Cast times on weps should be VERY low, cast times on skills should be considerably higher. This way, stamina would be more valuable of a resource (maxing it at least) and magika would be better to just get regen. Wep skills would be used throughout a battle, weaved in between light and heavy attacks, whereas skills would be used when they were needed for cc or wanted for burst damage.

OkieDokie · June 2014

I'll basically copy what I said in the other topic.

Just a heads up: it is my opinion, we can agree in disagree. I'm not trying to prove myself right.

----

Honestly, the idea that you should be able to pull the same damage just by picking any weapon is wrong.

If you look at it as a secondary source of damage, it is almost fine. Just need a better resource management (and that is what they are doing now).

Look at it this way. It doesn't matter what weapon you choose, you primary skills or talents come from you class. It is the game concept, really. This is not one of those medieval realities where the dumb warrior smashes his enemies, there is no such thing when this 'dumb warrior' is capable of using ultimate magicka skills.

Because of how the game reality works, I'm convinced they've thought of it in the same way. Such unbalance would not had passed unnoticed, it must be intentional. Maybe by lore, maybe just to prevent all of us doing the exactly same thing and classes being utility only, I don't know, but the ESO reality is clearly driven by magicka.

So, what I'm saying is, it shouldn't be used as primary damage source because it is inferior by design. There is no good reason for investing in stamina builds, except for...I don't know what people who play stamina build say to themselves.

But you can play as you want, it is doable. However, there is nothing in this idea that says all builds will be equally effective, just that you can play as you like, and you actually can.

I really wish they could give us an answer about this. If they say it is supposed to be even, damn, I'll test builds on the test server and help with suggestions on how to do it. Being right or wrong changes nothing to me, except for what should I be looking in order to help with balance. Damage or resource management? And honestly I don't know at this point.

ps: I asked in the stamina topic (developer discussion section) but got nothing.

jelliedsoup · June 2014

In many MMOs ive played swordsmen, archers, mages all stood on even ground. For a game which uses the ES tag and imagery I'm surprised weapons are an afterthought and reallyjust for decoration on your back, or at your side.

Ghnami · June 2014

yeah, weps should def play more of a role than passives and magika upon completing a heavy attack. But we can only wait for some sort of balance.

Resto staves should really just reduce the cost of the next healing spell by a percent after a heavy attack, or increase magika regen by a nominal amount. In their current state they just do too much.

emeraldbay · June 2014

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

You CAN forgo Magicka abilities all together, but wouldn't it make sense the "better fighter" HAS more tools at their dispense? That doesn't mean a full Stamina build wouldn't be viable but from a min/max perspective you already know your gimping yourself JUST BECAUSE you ARE ignoring that other resource bar you can make good use of.

But that's the main issue. You can forego stamina with no issues, but you can't do the same with magicka. You're forced to use magicka in some form, whether you like it or not, unless you'd rather be impaired throughout the game. This isn't an issue of min/max, this is an issue of preference. People want to be able to get the most out of their builds the way they like it, without being forced to compromise.

While I don't personally have any issues (level 46 templar, Khajiit, medium armor, dual-wield primary), I believe that stamina builds should have the same level of survivability as magicka builds. Class skills should, of course, be a bit more powerful in most cases than weapon skills, but class skills should not always use magicka. Rather, I would prefer if class skills used magicka and stamina appropriately, so that players aren't forced to make their build revolve around 80% magicka just because they like their classes' skills, or they want the maximum amount of damage output.

zgrssd · June 2014

jelliedsoup wrote: »

The game's designers prefer Magicka over Stamina, and I have no idea why.

No, they do not. Our fellow, fallible humans called 'the devs' just made mistakes when balancing. Just like I and you do mistakes.

I clearly see them working on it. The obvious first goal is to balance class skills, as this fixes big PvP and PvE issues. Two birds, one stone - core thinking of a programmer and developer.
Once the class skills are balanced, overall PvE balance and stam/mana balance will be worked at.
You cannot balance the rest of the game without a baseline and the class skills we be that baseline.

Nothing special happening here. Just the usual post launch birthpains of a MMO.

jelliedsoup · June 2014

If it's a mistake it was a very obvious issue prior to release and during beta. If it's a mistake and not intentional then my faith in their ability to design is hugely dented.