Play your own way (MY thoughts)

Draxuul · September 2014

Ok so Zenimax did advertise the game using this very sentence. Play your own way.

Now i think that not everyone understood exactly what this meant and may have interpreted it wrong .

Somewhere along the way, enough people complained that the game was too hard that Zenimax nerfed pretty much the whole game .

Now the game is too easy for a lot of us but it seems that not enough of us think so or at least not enough of us for Zenimax to feel like it would be a good thing to make the game harder again.

This leads me to beleive that too many people thought that the whole play your own way thing meant that any build would work and that there was no such thing as a bad build.

If you read my signature at the bottom of all my posts, you`ll see that i actually preach that whole play your own way thing. I really love the fact that your class doesn`t offer any limitations when it comes to building your character but that doesn`t mean that i don`t believe that there is no such thing as an idiotic build.

Play your own way does NOT mean that you have no limitations. All it means is that you get to decide what those limitations are .

Now if a person were to build his character by spreading their attributes and skill points allover the place because they think it will make them strong at everything , then that person is wrong and it`s no wonder he/she thinks that the game is too hard because he/she is weak at everything .

Yeah , sure you can spread your points allover the place, the game let`s you do it , if thats your choice then go for it ,if thats what it takes for you to learn . But instead of then complaining to Zenimax that the game is too hard, you should`ve just tried to make a build that made sense.

The game allows to you to make your own choices but that doesn`t mean that every choice is a good one . If you fail, assume it and learn from it instead of complaining that the game is too hard and blaming the game or your class or anything that makes you feel better about yourself.

The game offers an endless amount of ways to achieve success but there are still ways to achieve failure. Being unable to decide what to focus your points on and putting points everywhere is one of those ways to achieve failure.

In other words, don`t be greedy, be smart.

Choose one or two things that you want to focus on and accept that you can`t be a jack of all trades or at least accept that if you want to be a jack of all trades then you`ll be weaker than everyone else.

Being strong at one or two things is definatly much better than being just ``meh`` at everything.

Now this is at least how things should be but sadly, because of all the people who complained and made the game easier, right now any builds, even the worst ones, can achieve success . Now if i want a challenge i actually have to play a stupid build myself because my current builds on both my character are too strong for the game.

So yeah, in my opinion , play your own way means that you get to decide what your strenghs and weaknesses are. It doesn`t mean that you get to be strong at everything .
And in a game where the amount of different build possibilities is almost endless, it`s only obvious that some builds should be stronger than others and that is just something that people need to accept .

So please Zenimax give us back a game that offers a chance for failure instead of a game where the only way i can die is by falling off a cliff. Or at least untill they decide to nerf cliffs too, which wouldn`t surprise me .

Draxuul

Phinix1 · September 2014

The trouble is, ALL stamina builds (except maybe bow) are terrible, and there is no way to make them good. The skills are weak and situational, and there aren't enough stamina abilities to fill your bar. Unlike magicka builds, which can just mindlessly dump all their points into magicka and increase both weapon (staff) ability damage AND class skill damage, stamina users HAVE to split stats, making EVERYTHING weak.

But you HAVE to use some class skills, because most of the stamina weapon skills just suck compared to staff, and there aren't enough purely weapon abilities worth a damn to fill a bar with.

But, if it weren't for the terrible balancing and absence of any stamina-based morphs for class skills, I would agree with you completely.

No one should be able to put all defensive abilities on their bar and expect to win simply because the pretty colors from the effects look really cool.

Vaelen · September 2014

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

The trouble is, ALL stamina builds (except maybe bow) are terrible, and there is no way to make them good. The skills are weak and situational, and there aren't enough stamina abilities to fill your bar. Unlike magicka builds, which can just mindlessly dump all their points into magicka and increase both weapon (staff) ability damage AND class skill damage, stamina users HAVE to split stats, making EVERYTHING weak.

But you HAVE to use some class skills, because most of the stamina weapon skills just suck compared to staff, and there aren't enough purely weapon abilities worth a damn to fill a bar with.

But, if it weren't for the terrible balancing and absence of any stamina-based morphs for class skills, I would agree with you completely.

No one should be able to put all defensive abilities on their bar and expect to win simply because the pretty colors from the effects look really cool.

Yep, unfortunately this games motto is currently "ADAPT OR DIE" with Sticks and Skirts being the evolutionary top of the food chain, there is no "play your own way" and there is very little build diversity, way less diversity among builds than F2P games such as GW2 or Rift.

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO · September 2014

I might agree with OP's post if the game was not so heavily unbalanced over all.

No, not all builds will be equal, that is the nature of any RPG...

...but...

When only a couple of builds and playstyles out of the literal tens of thousands of combinations are really competitive you have a problem.

I think telling everyone who isn't running one of the couple of fantastic builds that "they are wrong" is just unhelpful if you ever want any semblance of balance to be achieved.

Vet zones weren't too hard if you played light armor/staff.

If you played medium/heavy armor and a melee weapon they were extraordinarily frustrating, not fun.

Get basic game balance right first, make plenty of options realistically available.
Otherwise "play the way you want" amounts to nothing more than sales double-speak.

Elsonso · September 2014

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO wrote: »

When only a couple of builds and playstyles out of the literal tens of thousands of combinations are really competitive you have a problem.

You feel limited due to balance because your primary play style is competitive PvP. There are a huge number of play styles that will conflict with that. Most of them, actually.

You can't be the Competitive PvP person and tie your hands with other play styles that do not adapt to the landscape, no matter how 'balanced' that game might be.

That is not to say that people do not complain about balance. I am not a Competitive PvP person. I am not even a real Competitive PvE person. I am having trouble understanding, at non-VR levels, what all this balance stuff is about and why people are so excited about skirts and sticks.

I think that the single hardest build in the game, for PvE leveling, is the skirt and stick Sorcerer, with either the destruction or restoration sticks. I may not be "doing it right", but honestly, I find the skirt and big sword Sorcerer build to be better at the moment. Nightblade dual wield/bow is also an easier build. I have one medium and one heavy in that flavor, just to see. I am still deciding whether the two-handed Sorcerer in a skirt is better than the dual wield Nightblade.

I am pretty sure my play style conflicts with competitive PvP, by the way.

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO · September 2014

lordrichter wrote: »

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO wrote: »

When only a couple of builds and playstyles out of the literal tens of thousands of combinations are really competitive you have a problem.

You feel limited due to balance because your primary play style is competitive PvP. There are a huge number of play styles that will conflict with that. Most of them, actually.

I was actually talking about PvE, not PvP, I just used the word 'competitive' to avoid the 'viable doesn't mean best' type remarks that usuall follow the use of that word

High end vet, magicka/light armor/staff still reign supreme even if one or two stamina builds are beginning to claw their way into usefulness.

When you promote a game with as many skills as ESO as "play the way you want", you need a broad variety of effective builds. Telling people they are doing it wrong for expecting to be able to make even a simple warrior/knight character is beyond ridiculous.

Elsonso · September 2014

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO wrote: »

When you promote a game with as many skills as ESO as "play the way you want", you need a broad variety of effective builds. Telling people they are doing it wrong for expecting to be able to make even a simple warrior/knight character is beyond ridiculous.

Yeah, this must be a max level VR thing, then.

Like I said in my first comment, at this point, I find Skirt and Stick to be at a disadvantage. Even replacing the stick with a two-handed sword makes it so much easier to dominate in the 1-49 leveling part of the game. I have also tried Skirt and sword and board and find that to be an improvement.

I have not tried skirt and bow because that sounds like Japanese anime.

Rune_Relic · September 2014

I would have to disagree with the OP.

You imply being a jack of all trades is worse than any.
This is only half true.

A specialist should be more powerful in some areas and absolutely crap in others.
The jack of all trades Wouldnt be as powerful no....but he wouldnt suck half as bad as the stuff the specialist is crap in.

So the generalist would be more powerful by not having the inherent weaknesses of the specialist.

Hence saying "general build" is crap ...is an instant admission of a failure to comprehend how balance should work.

Putting points into resources should define the type of character you want to be.....DPS (stamina), Healer (magicka), Tank (health) or parts of each as the case may be.

Draxuul · September 2014

Rune_Relic wrote: »

I would have to disagree with the OP.

You imply being a jack of all trades is worse than any.
This is only half true.

A specialist should be more powerful in some areas and absolutely crap in others.
The jack of all trades Wouldnt be as powerful no....but he wouldnt suck half as bad as the stuff the specialist is crap in.

So the generalist would be more powerful by not having the inherent weaknesses of the specialist.

Hence saying "general build" is crap ...is an instant admission of a failure to comprehend how balance should work.

Putting points into resources should define the type of character you want to be.....DPS (stamina), Healer (magicka), Tank (health) or parts of each as the case may be.

i think you understood me wrong. By points i wasn't only reffering to stam , magicka and health. I was also reffering to skill points and whatever bonus points you get from traits, enchantements and set bonuses.

For example , if someone were to spread all their attribute points equaly and then use 2 pieces of 4 different sets of gear so he can get only the first bonus from each set instead of going 5/3 so he can at least get the best bonus from one set as well as all the other bonuses from that same set . And then getting 2 bonuses from the second set .

And then spread skill points in all weapon skills from all weapons as well as all crafting styles and all class skill lines, he would surely not have enough to boost all of his best passives from one or two weapons and or one or two class skill lines and he would surely get frustrated trying to get enough mats to craft the gear he wants and on top of that he probably wouldn't have enough bank slots and bag slots to put all of his mats in . Again resulting in frustration.

In my opinion, a person should stick to one or two crafting styles at most and if you choose two then don't get the hireling and only put one point in the skill that makes those nodes glow (can't remember how it's called) . So you can save skill points for actual skills and passives and still be able to craft both styles. And if you're wood worker you pretty much don't even need the logs to glow cuz they're pretty easy to spot . Same for runes . Plants are the hardest thing to spot so if you're clothier or alchemist then yes i recommend sparing a skill point to make them glow.

Then focus on only 2 class skill lines as well as 2 weapon skill lines . You can't use more than two weapons in a fight anyways.

Only spend points in the passives that actually boost and complement your build or playstyle . There is no point in spending skill points in a passive that boosts a skill you're not even using.

Also if you're a healer then don't waste your attribute points on HP. You can simply heal yourself everytime you need it so waiting attribute points on HP is pointless , same for wasting jewelry enchantements on HP regen . If you're a healer you don't need HP regen. It's better to spend more than half of your points in magicka and the rest in stamina because you'll still be using staming to roll out of AoE's and break out of CC.

Then when it comes to gear , like i said , don't go for 2/2/2/2. Choose two sets and go 5/3 or at least 4/4. And by all means choose sets that gives bonuses to the attribute you're depending the most on.

And for gear traits , if you go for one of each then the bonuses will be insignificant . But if you go for 2 traits and go 5/2 or 4/3 then at least those bonuses will be getting interesting.

For example , if you only use the Divine trait on 1 single piece , then you only get 3.5 % bonus to your mundus stone effect, or 4.5 % if that piece of gear is green. But if you go at least 5 Divines trait, then you get 17.5% if gear is white and then 22.5% if gear is green and well that can be more if blue or purple or gold.

So does my statement start to make more sense now ? Or should i continue ?

Draxuul

Rune_Relic · September 2014

So you are talking about maximising buffs/skill tree to optimise your character attribute points ? Ok fair dos.

I got the impression you was saying being a jack of all trades 'attribute wise' (healer + dps + tank) meant you should suck as you wasnt a pure DPS or Tank or Healer.

Draxuul · September 2014

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

The trouble is, ALL stamina builds (except maybe bow) are terrible, and there is no way to make them good. The skills are weak and situational, and there aren't enough stamina abilities to fill your bar. Unlike magicka builds, which can just mindlessly dump all their points into magicka and increase both weapon (staff) ability damage AND class skill damage, stamina users HAVE to split stats, making EVERYTHING weak.

But you HAVE to use some class skills, because most of the stamina weapon skills just suck compared to staff, and there aren't enough purely weapon abilities worth a damn to fill a bar with.

But, if it weren't for the terrible balancing and absence of any stamina-based morphs for class skills, I would agree with you completely.

No one should be able to put all defensive abilities on their bar and expect to win simply because the pretty colors from the effects look really cool.

I can't deny that melee weapon skills may not be as powerful as spells but for the sake of realism, please don't tell me that you'd want some kind of whirlwind attack with the greatsword like we see in games such as Diablo or the new Everquest Next.

The charge skills that we already have with the 1h/shield skill line as well as the 2h skill line are already unrealistic enough but i can live with that one . I mean it's not at the point of being immersion breaking for me . But a whirwind attack would most certainly be the kind of thing i would quit the game over .

Now i know what you're thinking . How could i speak of realism in a world where there is magic everywhere.

So let me explain myself. I love fantasy worlds and i love to experience what it's like to live in a magical world and i love fighting monsters that don't exist in real life . But that doesn't mean that i'm willing to accept that fantasy should defy the laws of gravity.

When i swing my sword , i want to feel like that sword has some weight to it . Especially a sword as big as that one . So far this game has given me that which most other games have failed to do . Blizzard seems to think that the fact that their game is a fantasy game means that they can do whatever they want , whether it makes any kind of sense or not . Zenimax seems to be trying as much as possible to offer us a game that has magic and mythical creatures but without making the world look completly ridiculous .

Now if they started to give us skills like whirlwind attacks where your character spins on himself , damaging absolutly everyone around him for like 10 seconds . Well, that is instant unsub for me with no chance of seeing me ever come back . That would be crossing the line that i'm willing to accept.

I love playing warrior type characters but i wouldn't like playing one who defies the laws of gravity.

Magic on the other hand is the art of manipulating and channeling energy and pretty much doing whatever you want with it . I think it's only obvious that there is more variety in that departement and maybe more situations where magic is useful compared to a melee weapon.

Now i have a character that is very stam dependant and i'm completly sattisfied with him . Though i have to admit that he's also using magicka to heal himself so that it doesn't matter how long i take to kill something with my greatsword because i can simply heal myself if things get complicated .

So far i haven't tried a pure stamina build , maybe i'd like it , maybe not , though i tend to be a resourceful person when it comes to finding solutions .

But i do feel like i need to remind everyone that magic is available to everyone in this game . If you're one of those who completly refuses to use magic for whatever reason , you're the one shooting yourself in the foot . So if you're one of those people and you come here to complain that your stam build is unballanced compared to magicka builds, who's really to blame ?? Who put up that wall in front of you in the first place ?

Zenimax decided to allow everyone to use spells so refusing to use them is a choice , not an issue.

Draxuul

Draxuul · September 2014

Rune_Relic wrote: »

So you are talking about maximising buffs/skill tree to optimise your character attribute points ? Ok fair dos.

I got the impression you was saying being a jack of all trades 'attribute wise' (healer + dps + tank) meant you should suck as you wasnt a pure DPS or Tank or Healer.

Well i do have to say that if you're trying to build a character who can be all 3 roles in a group, you'll most certainly get rejected from most groups. Maybe not from the current content for lvl 1 to 49 because of the way things are currently . Game being really easy in PvE. Including group dungeons. But if things got harder , such character would have a real hard time being accepted in a group.

I've never been a fan of the whole Holy Trinity thing . But what good is a healer who runs out of mana in the first few seconds of a fight , resulting in him trying to compensate by helping with DPS but not being very good in that departement either resulting in him not being able to kill his opponent quick enough and not being able to heal himself nor his group because he's out of magicka and even if you're somewhat tanky, you wouldn't have much HP because you spread your points in a way that allowed you to do all 3 things .

Basically , such a character would probably be able to solo all of the soloable content pretty easily but in a group he would have to expect others to carry him .

And like i said , if the game was harder , as it used to be and as it should still be , such a character would not be very good at soloing either.

My vision of a perfect build is to be excelent at one thing and decent at another .

Draxuul

Rune_Relic · September 2014

Allowing everyone to use spells is very different from forcing everyone to use spells

Many people like to play a specific kind of character, some magicka based, some stealthy, some melee based. If you cantg play as such..then you cant play the way you want to play can you. Not without being heavily penalised anyway.

Thats the whole point of designing a 'balanced' game. To cater for all builds.

Draxuul · September 2014

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Allowing everyone to use spells is very different from forcing everyone to use spells

Many people like to play a specific kind of character, some magicka based, some stealthy, some melee based. If you cantg play as such..then you cant play the way you want to play can you. Not without being heavily penalised anyway.

Thats the whole point of designing a 'balanced' game. To cater for all builds.

You're right and your point would have meaning if it was true . Nothing is keeping you from playing melee or stealthy and being successful.

I remember seeing a lot of very strong stealthy characters using bows. They has such a strong first hit that pretty much everything just dropped dead on their second hit. Well aside from bosses i mean .

Plus when i recommended using spells i wasn't necessarily reffering to staves. If you build your character by limiting yourself in a way that you don't even use magicka ever . Then your character is so dependant on stamina that you're bound to run out of stam at one point or another .

Using the Entropy spell from the mages guild would allow you to increase your DPS a little bit by using magicka and giving your stamina a bit of a break. Plus you'd be giving yourself a little bit of a healing over time . Not much i know but surely better than nothing . Plus if you cast entropy on more than one target then you receive that heal from all targets every 6 seconds , making it seem a bit more worthy of using it . And on top of that you don't need a staff to use it .

Soul magic can also help in the same way, it doesn`t require a staff , it has a very powerful single target ultimate and one of the morphs from the regular spell makes you get some magicka , health and stam back when your target dies while being affected by the spell. Again it`s nothing that will turn you into a god but it helps when you`re fighting more than one mob at a time and it allows you to NOT be 100% reliant on stam without sacrificing a weapon slot.

Being 100% reliant on one resource is limiting yourself by choice. Now i can agree that those who are 100% reliant on stam are at a bit of a disadvantage over those who are 100% reliant on magicka because rolling and blocking and sneaking uses stamina , but medium armor does has passives to help with all those things.

Heavy armor has a passive that helps with gaining back some magicka and stamina everytime you get hit . Plus then the race that you choose can also help . The imperial race has race bonuses to health and stamina . The Red Guard has passives to help with stamina but i can't remember exactly what it is . I don't know the other races but i'm suer there is more than just two races to have passives relative to stamina.

Now in my original post i said , and i quote `` don`t be greedy. be smart``.
Though that doesn`t apply to you, because in your case you`re not greedy , you`re stubborn. You want to be as good as everyone else but without using magicka at all.
So what i will say to you instead is :`` don`t be stubborn , be smart``.

Everyone in the game has both a stamina bar and a magicka bar. If you choose not to use on of those two , then you are the one raising those walls in front of yourself.

Another thing i can say is Playing a specialist has always been the best way to go for grouping , whether you`re doing dungeons or group pvp or trials, if you play a specialist, your group members will love you. But for soloing , or doing duels against other players, hybrid builds will always be stronger .

Plus i know Zenimax has plans to add something like a spell that will allow you to use magicka to replenish stamina at some point. I don't know when exactly but it would make sense since there was such a spell in the restoration magic in Skyrim.

Will probably be added with the spell crafting system . This game is far from being over with development .

As far as i'm concerned , my only issue with it is how easy the PvE solo content is .

Draxuul

Rune_Relic · September 2014

Draxuul wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Allowing everyone to use spells is very different from forcing everyone to use spells

Many people like to play a specific kind of character, some magicka based, some stealthy, some melee based. If you cantg play as such..then you cant play the way you want to play can you. Not without being heavily penalised anyway.

Thats the whole point of designing a 'balanced' game. To cater for all builds.

If you build your character by limiting yourself in a way that you don't even use magicka ever . Then your character is so dependant on stamina that you're bound to run out of stam at one point or another .

Using the Entropy spell from the mages guild would allow you to increase your DPS a little bit by using magicka and giving your stamina a bit of a break. Plus you'd be giving yourself a little bit of a healing over time . Not much i know but surely better than nothing . Plus if you cast entropy on more than one target then you receive that heal from all targets every 6 seconds , making it seem a bit more worthy of using it . And on top of that you don't need a staff to use it .

Again it`s nothing that will turn you into a god but it helps when you`re fighting more than one mob at a time and it allows you to NOT be 100% reliant on stam without sacrificing a weapon slot.

Being 100% reliant on one resource is limiting yourself by choice. Now i can agree that those who are 100% reliant on stam are at a bit of a disadvantage over those who are 100% reliant on magicka because rolling and blocking and sneaking uses stamina , but medium armor does has passives to help with all those things.

Now in my original post i said , and i quote `` don`t be greedy. be smart``.
Though that doesn`t apply to you, because in your case you`re not greedy , you`re stubborn. You want to be as good as everyone else but without using magicka at all.
So what i will say to you instead is :`` don`t be stubborn , be smart``.

Everyone in the game has both a stamina bar and a magicka bar. If you choose not to use on of those two , then you are the one raising those walls in front of yourself.

Plus i know Zenimax has plans to add something like a spell that will allow you to use magicka to replenish stamina at some point. I don't know when exactly but it would make sense since there was such a spell in the restoration magic in Skyrim.

Will probably be added with the spell crafting system . This game is far from being over with development .

As far as i'm concerned , my only issue with it is how easy the PvE solo content is .

Draxuul

This kind of thinking is exactly the problem with the game.
If you invest in magicka = You win.
If you invest in stamina = You lose.

To suggest using a spell on a staff to prop up you stamina build has to be the ulimate expression of this same attitude. WHY THE HELL WOULD I HAVE A STAFF ? I am sitting in full plate armour with a two handed sword....and then in the middle of battle I whip out my wand ? Seriously ?

I say again. The idea of balance is to let you play with any setup....(bet it pure fghter with 0 magicka or pure mage with 0 stamina) not some biased system that only favours the designers preconceived fantasy.

Nestor · September 2014

jamie.goddenrwb17_ESO wrote: »

I was actually talking about PvE, not PvP, I just used the word 'competitive' to avoid the 'viable doesn't mean best' type remarks that usuall follow the use of that word

I have a HA DK, a MA NB and a LA Sorc. They all rock in PvE. The DK charges in wails on groups of mobs, the NB flits around in the shadows doing massive burst damage, and the Sorc does what she does (mostly crafting right now)

Yes, you can play the game the way that you want. You just can't take any build and play it the way that you want. You have to build your character to the playstyle you want. All weapons are viable, all classes are viable, all armor types are viable in the game. It's the combo you pick for what you want to accomplish.

Are some builds better than others? Sure, but that only matters in PvP, and probably not that much really. Are some builds better for Trials? Sure, but speed racing through a dungeon is not a game I want to play, so it does not matter to me what is best for Trials and I am not going to build a character for that.

jelliedsoup · September 2014

The design is so blatantly unbalanced that play your own way cannot work.

Draxuul · September 2014

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Draxuul wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Allowing everyone to use spells is very different from forcing everyone to use spells

Many people like to play a specific kind of character, some magicka based, some stealthy, some melee based. If you cantg play as such..then you cant play the way you want to play can you. Not without being heavily penalised anyway.

Thats the whole point of designing a 'balanced' game. To cater for all builds.

If you build your character by limiting yourself in a way that you don't even use magicka ever . Then your character is so dependant on stamina that you're bound to run out of stam at one point or another .

Using the Entropy spell from the mages guild would allow you to increase your DPS a little bit by using magicka and giving your stamina a bit of a break. Plus you'd be giving yourself a little bit of a healing over time . Not much i know but surely better than nothing . Plus if you cast entropy on more than one target then you receive that heal from all targets every 6 seconds , making it seem a bit more worthy of using it . And on top of that you don't need a staff to use it .

Again it`s nothing that will turn you into a god but it helps when you`re fighting more than one mob at a time and it allows you to NOT be 100% reliant on stam without sacrificing a weapon slot.

Being 100% reliant on one resource is limiting yourself by choice. Now i can agree that those who are 100% reliant on stam are at a bit of a disadvantage over those who are 100% reliant on magicka because rolling and blocking and sneaking uses stamina , but medium armor does has passives to help with all those things.

Now in my original post i said , and i quote `` don`t be greedy. be smart``.
Though that doesn`t apply to you, because in your case you`re not greedy , you`re stubborn. You want to be as good as everyone else but without using magicka at all.
So what i will say to you instead is :`` don`t be stubborn , be smart``.

Everyone in the game has both a stamina bar and a magicka bar. If you choose not to use on of those two , then you are the one raising those walls in front of yourself.

Plus i know Zenimax has plans to add something like a spell that will allow you to use magicka to replenish stamina at some point. I don't know when exactly but it would make sense since there was such a spell in the restoration magic in Skyrim.

Will probably be added with the spell crafting system . This game is far from being over with development .

As far as i'm concerned , my only issue with it is how easy the PvE solo content is .

Draxuul

This kind of thinking is exactly the problem with the game.
If you invest in magicka = You win.
If you invest in stamina = You lose.

To suggest using a spell on a staff to prop up you stamina build has to be the ulimate expression of this same attitude. WHY THE HELL WOULD I HAVE A STAFF ? I am sitting in full plate armour with a two handed sword....and then in the middle of battle I whip out my wand ? Seriously ?

I say again. The idea of balance is to let you play with any setup....(bet it pure fghter with 0 magicka or pure mage with 0 stamina) not some biased system that only favours the designers preconceived fantasy.

Did you even read my comment before replying ? I mentioned two spells in my comment that DO NOT REQUIRE using a staff . So you could use for example a bow and daggers or whatever other weapons you want , no staves, and still be able to cast a spell here and there to give your stam a break.

And besides all of that , people need to accept that this is ESO, it's not just an MMO. This game does things this way and just because every other MMO's before them have done things in a certain way , doesn't mean that ESO has an obligation to do the same .

Junkogen · September 2014

Draxuul wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Draxuul wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Allowing everyone to use spells is very different from forcing everyone to use spells

Many people like to play a specific kind of character, some magicka based, some stealthy, some melee based. If you cantg play as such..then you cant play the way you want to play can you. Not without being heavily penalised anyway.

Thats the whole point of designing a 'balanced' game. To cater for all builds.

If you build your character by limiting yourself in a way that you don't even use magicka ever . Then your character is so dependant on stamina that you're bound to run out of stam at one point or another .

Using the Entropy spell from the mages guild would allow you to increase your DPS a little bit by using magicka and giving your stamina a bit of a break. Plus you'd be giving yourself a little bit of a healing over time . Not much i know but surely better than nothing . Plus if you cast entropy on more than one target then you receive that heal from all targets every 6 seconds , making it seem a bit more worthy of using it . And on top of that you don't need a staff to use it .

Again it`s nothing that will turn you into a god but it helps when you`re fighting more than one mob at a time and it allows you to NOT be 100% reliant on stam without sacrificing a weapon slot.

Being 100% reliant on one resource is limiting yourself by choice. Now i can agree that those who are 100% reliant on stam are at a bit of a disadvantage over those who are 100% reliant on magicka because rolling and blocking and sneaking uses stamina , but medium armor does has passives to help with all those things.

Now in my original post i said , and i quote `` don`t be greedy. be smart``.
Though that doesn`t apply to you, because in your case you`re not greedy , you`re stubborn. You want to be as good as everyone else but without using magicka at all.
So what i will say to you instead is :`` don`t be stubborn , be smart``.

Everyone in the game has both a stamina bar and a magicka bar. If you choose not to use on of those two , then you are the one raising those walls in front of yourself.

Plus i know Zenimax has plans to add something like a spell that will allow you to use magicka to replenish stamina at some point. I don't know when exactly but it would make sense since there was such a spell in the restoration magic in Skyrim.

Will probably be added with the spell crafting system . This game is far from being over with development .

As far as i'm concerned , my only issue with it is how easy the PvE solo content is .

Draxuul

This kind of thinking is exactly the problem with the game.
If you invest in magicka = You win.
If you invest in stamina = You lose.

To suggest using a spell on a staff to prop up you stamina build has to be the ulimate expression of this same attitude. WHY THE HELL WOULD I HAVE A STAFF ? I am sitting in full plate armour with a two handed sword....and then in the middle of battle I whip out my wand ? Seriously ?

I say again. The idea of balance is to let you play with any setup....(bet it pure fghter with 0 magicka or pure mage with 0 stamina) not some biased system that only favours the designers preconceived fantasy.

Did you even read my comment before replying ? I mentioned two spells in my comment that DO NOT REQUIRE using a staff . So you could use for example a bow and daggers or whatever other weapons you want , no staves, and still be able to cast a spell here and there to give your stam a break.

And besides all of that , people need to accept that this is ESO, it's not just an MMO. This game does things this way and just because every other MMO's before them have done things in a certain way , doesn't mean that ESO has an obligation to do the same .

Matt Firor, is that you?

Phinix1 · September 2014

"Play your way" (except for Trials and PVP).

/thread

AshySamurai · September 2014

@Junkogen‌, sir, you made my day! LoL from me and I really loled. (and also you get + in karma from me

)

@Draxuul‌, I mostly agree with you. I read all comments here and what I want to tell you. You arguing that noone forced to use LA+stick and it's OK. Your comments are respectfull and constructive. I really respect it. But I cant agree with one thing - magika build far more stronger.
1. Primary resource.
You can use magika+stamina (now I'm leveling Imperial DK with such build, so I know what I'm talking about - now I'm VR1) and you have to focus on magika OR stamina. You cant kill two rabbits with one shot (you already admit it, right?).
1.1 So if you focus on stamina, you have a pretty small (and pretty lame) ammount of skills (max is 2 skill lines from weapon + 1 skill line from fighters guild). Mana pool is too small and I can use it only for dragonblood (stam regen + heal). You also need to block, dodge and sprint.
1.2 But you can focus on magika. And here you have a lot of skills (3 class skill lines + mages guild + undaunted + vamp/WW). So you have a big pool for attack and you freed stamina pool for defense.
So here we got first disbalance. You can make pure magika build, but not pure stamina (I'm talking about competitive builds).
2. Armor.
Benefit from LA is far more profitable because of magika based build is stronger (I hope I prooved it previously). You can easily reach armor cap with skills. So you wouldn't be much worse that heavy armor. And profit from cost reduction is far bigger that reduction stamina cost from medium armor. And this is only because you have more variants and you get more flexibility with magicka.
Here is our second disbalance. You can wear every armor you like, but with LA you have more profit.
Of course ZOS not forrce anyone to wear LA+stick, but LA have big advantage from the start and other armors dont have a chanse. But you still can play as you want.

KenjiJU · September 2014

Draxuul wrote: »

Using the Entropy spell from the mages guild would allow you to increase your DPS a little bit by using magicka and giving your stamina a bit of a break. Plus you'd be giving yourself a little bit of a healing over time . Not much i know but surely better than nothing . Plus if you cast entropy on more than one target then you receive that heal from all targets every 6 seconds , making it seem a bit more worthy of using it . And on top of that you don't need a staff to use it .

Soul magic can also help in the same way, it doesn`t require a staff , it has a very powerful single target ultimate and one of the morphs from the regular spell makes you get some magicka , health and stam back when your target dies while being affected by the spell. Again it`s nothing that will turn you into a god but it helps when you`re fighting more than one mob at a time and it allows you to NOT be 100% reliant on stam without sacrificing a weapon slot.

Being 100% reliant on one resource is limiting yourself by choice. Now i can agree that those who are 100% reliant on stam are at a bit of a disadvantage over those who are 100% reliant on magicka because rolling and blocking and sneaking uses stamina , but medium armor does has passives to help with all those things.

Heavy armor has a passive that helps with gaining back some magicka and stamina everytime you get hit . Plus then the race that you choose can also help . The imperial race has race bonuses to health and stamina . The Red Guard has passives to help with stamina but i can't remember exactly what it is . I don't know the other races but i'm suer there is more than just two races to have passives relative to stamina.

Draxuul

These are all so minor and specific examples. I don't feel heavy magicka builds have to resort to picking breadcrumbs like this. This is reading like a guide for players new to the game.

felinith66 · September 2014

"Play your own way" must be the most misunderstood phrase in MMO history. Just how many meanings can one simple phrase have?

On a serious note, I actually enjoyed the difficulty of pre-nerf VR. I liked how you had to adjust w/ each encounter, change your skills depending on what kind of enemies you were facing. I died plenty of times, but you actually learned from each loss. Who to kill first, who to watch out for, who to lock down, keep an eye out for the red.

I think the problem that most people had w/ pre-nerf VR was that normal mobs were more difficult than the bosses. You had to be almost perfect in each fight in order to survive, and sometimes, you still died anyway. You actually breath easier facing a boss vs facing a mob of 3-4. And for people who played the game to relax and have fun, that was just too much.

But most weren't asking for a blanket nerf of all content. They were mostly asking for the difficulty to scale w/ the enemies you were facing. Bosses should hit harder. Normal mobs should not have 6kHP and be able to 2-shot you. But Zenimax went w/ the blanket nerf instead. Maybe they were losing so many players that they panicked and implemented a solution that was fast and efficient without giving it much thought. And now I can solo VR world bosses and dolmens. Hurray!

There were many solutions presented by players. My favorites were companion NPC's you can hire to fight w/ you and a 'LFG' option you can place on your character so when people opened the grouping tool they get a list of people who wanted to group up. A blanket nerf of all content wasn't a very popular choice at that time.

There were a number of factors that made pre-nerf VR so frustrating to most players. It wasn't simply a L2P issue.

R1ckyDaMan · September 2014

The problem is when alot of people come to ESO from TES games where you can truly play your own way and complete 100% of the content.

Here you cannot because if you do not comply with others you get rejected.

Why could you complete 100% of the content in previous elder scrolls games regardless of how you built your character though? The difficulty slider.

Now we do not have that here, people are trying to play full plate 2 handed warriors and struggling at times.

The problem is not so much skill balance either, It is a mix of both timed runs in trials and other players needs to complete things as fast as possible.

Pseudonym · September 2014

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

The trouble is, ALL stamina builds (except maybe bow) are terrible, and there is no way to make them good. The skills are weak and situational, and there aren't enough stamina abilities to fill your bar. Unlike magicka builds, which can just mindlessly dump all their points into magicka and increase both weapon (staff) ability damage AND class skill damage, stamina users HAVE to split stats, making EVERYTHING weak.

But you HAVE to use some class skills, because most of the stamina weapon skills just suck compared to staff, and there aren't enough purely weapon abilities worth a damn to fill a bar with.

But, if it weren't for the terrible balancing and absence of any stamina-based morphs for class skills, I would agree with you completely.

No one should be able to put all defensive abilities on their bar and expect to win simply because the pretty colors from the effects look really cool.

I disagree. I enjoy my two-handed axe and bow abilities far more than my class abilities. Then there's the entire Fighters Guild skill set. I wouldn't dream of filling my bar with Stamina abilities, but at the same time, neither would I fill my bar with Magicka abilities. I always like having one or two opposing resources available at any given time.

In my build, the weapon abilities are my bread and butter; and my class abilities are my utility.

Draxuul · September 2014

R1ckyDaMan wrote: »

The problem is when alot of people come to ESO from TES games where you can truly play your own way and complete 100% of the content.

Here you cannot because if you do not comply with others you get rejected.

Why could you complete 100% of the content in previous elder scrolls games regardless of how you built your character though? The difficulty slider.

Now we do not have that here, people are trying to play full plate 2 handed warriors and struggling at times.

The problem is not so much skill balance either, It is a mix of both timed runs in trials and other players needs to complete things as fast as possible.

I can understand that completists could see an issue , or is it completionists ? lol

Whatever they're called . I think Zenimax are trying to offer a variety of content to try and give a little something to everyone . Some people preffer trials over PvP and some preffer PvP over trials once they reach end game.

I believe that people who preffer trials are people who have played and enjoyed the type of end game that they experienced in older MMO's . The whole raiding dungeons with guildies and get loot kinda thing .

I don't think trials should be seen as something that you absolutly need to do unless you really want to . It's most probably just been put there to make those hardcore dungeon runners happy.
And seeing how those people behaved in older MMO's when i played those older MMO's , personnaly i just wanna stay away from those guys as much as possible .

You said it yourself , if you don't comply with them , you get rejected , and if you're like me, you'll unsub and uninstall a game before you let anyone tell you how to build your character .

So yeah, once i'm done with the content i can solo with my main character i'll probably just do the same with my other character or i might even create myself a new character and do it all over again because i preffer that over having to put up with purists and elitists.

Also, i don't think trials are the only type of end game dungeons you can do , there are also veteran dungeons which i'm pretty sure are a bit easier than the trials and offer more flexibility so you probably wouldn't have as much trouble finding groups for those as you do trying desperatly to be accetped in a group for trials.

You'll probably save yourself a lot of headaches if you simply accept the reality as it is . If you're not an elitist yourself , just don't try and play with them.

warbladex · September 2014

Play your own way simply is not balanced at all at the moment which is expected. You can't play your own way because your simply forced to go certain builds for pvp, or pve. If you don't go with a certain build you will get destroyed. Overtime I can see them doing a overhaul of the system and go more into balancing. Will take time mind you but as it stands right now you can't play the way you want.

Obscure · September 2014

"Play Your Own Way"

Pick a specialization, any specialization at all, go nuts. All roads lead to the same place: Light Armor, Staves, and magicka specialization.

The trinity of DPS, Tank, Heal are all best performed with Light Armor and Staves (One hand and Shield gets an honorable mention). There's no reason to use anything but that and a handful of near identical options for these roles. If you're continuing to progress your play style until you are down to the fine tuning stages, you're going to inevitably arrive at light armor and at least one of the two staves (typically Resto).

So go ahead and play your own way...but if playing your way isn't with a dress and a wiggle stick, doing so is deliberate acceptance of suboptimal.

The gap between viable and optimal in ESO is effin huge, and that's a huge problem.

deepseamk20b14_ESO · September 2014

There are obvious builds at this point that are used by so many people due to their pure effectivness. Magicka based users far exceed stamina based players on almost all fronts. Game is broken. It's honestly starting to *** me off. You can play how you want...BUT you won't be competative.

Junkogen · September 2014

AshySamurai wrote: »

@Junkogen‌, sir, you made my day! LoL from me and I really loled. (and also you get + in karma from me )

@Draxuul‌, I mostly agree with you. I read all comments here and what I want to tell you. You arguing that noone forced to use LA+stick and it's OK. Your comments are respectfull and constructive. I really respect it. But I cant agree with one thing - magika build far more stronger.
1. Primary resource.
You can use magika+stamina (now I'm leveling Imperial DK with such build, so I know what I'm talking about - now I'm VR1) and you have to focus on magika OR stamina. You cant kill two rabbits with one shot (you already admit it, right?).
1.1 So if you focus on stamina, you have a pretty small (and pretty lame) ammount of skills (max is 2 skill lines from weapon + 1 skill line from fighters guild). Mana pool is too small and I can use it only for dragonblood (stam regen + heal). You also need to block, dodge and sprint.
1.2 But you can focus on magika. And here you have a lot of skills (3 class skill lines + mages guild + undaunted + vamp/WW). So you have a big pool for attack and you freed stamina pool for defense.
So here we got first disbalance. You can make pure magika build, but not pure stamina (I'm talking about competitive builds).
2. Armor.
Benefit from LA is far more profitable because of magika based build is stronger (I hope I prooved it previously). You can easily reach armor cap with skills. So you wouldn't be much worse that heavy armor. And profit from cost reduction is far bigger that reduction stamina cost from medium armor. And this is only because you have more variants and you get more flexibility with magicka.
Here is our second disbalance. You can wear every armor you like, but with LA you have more profit.
Of course ZOS not forrce anyone to wear LA+stick, but LA have big advantage from the start and other armors dont have a chanse. But you still can play as you want.

Thank you very much. I would like to thank Draxuul for being the embodiment of what a developer must feel like at this point: at his wit's end with all these balance issues.

Sheogorath is most certainly behind it all! Curse you, mad god!

This game has got a beautiful shell, but inside it's all twisted. It's like a Hollywood actress. ESO seriously needs to go to rehab and sort itself out.

Cue Dr. Drew Pinksy.

And as always, fix Argonian racials.

Lizard power!