Infinite Balancing Issues vs Introduction of Skill Cooldowns

TagaParti · July 2015

eliisra wrote: »

Cinbri wrote: »

Huh?! Try to play Templar, you will quickly discover what is this thing called Resource Management.

Stamina sustain yes. Stam templars are struggling with stamina management, compared to NB, for example. Magicka templars will struggle even more. It's the lack of movement and escape that forces you to block/dodge/sprints a lot more than you're average player, really heavy on the stamina pool, while templars only skill towards stamina recovery got nerfed hard.

Magicka resource management tho, I mean what is that? I can mindlessly spam Breath of Life 100 times in a row right now. Channelled Focus adds almost 500 recovery on top of your already wacked out recovery and cost reduction. It's pretty ridiculous.

Topic: I can agree that adding cool-downs would solve a lot of balancing issues. Ultimate easy fix. But would need bigger action bars or more skills slot for sure or the game would be Elder Heavy Attack Online and boring as ***. Than we need a built in macro system blah-blah, because your average gamer+ consoler cant master 30+ keybinds. We be playing a completely different game.

2 skill bars with 6 skills each is enough. it is just a matter of good timing. and cooldowns dont need to be too long.

Derra · July 2015

You can´t put up a cooldown for every ability. Thats just ***.

I think a cooldown on several super powerful abilities would work fine - they might need a little buffing then.

Give Purge a 20s cooldown and extend the buff afterwards to 10s and 70% reduction on negative effects - make it grp based (4ppl) high range not proximity - maybe useable while cced.
Give caltrops a 25s cooldown with 30s ability time.
Make cloak a 7s complete invisibility with a 12s cooldown that removes movement impairing effects.
Give bolt escape a cooldown of 5s that triggers after 4s of the first ability use (max 4 consecutive ports).
Give healing ward (most op spell in the game imho) a cd of 5s.
Give healing springs a limit of 1 to be placed - increase it´s strengh (casttime would be an alternative)
Buff all AOEs but give everything a casttime.
Give us an AOE interrupt...
Give more vaible heal debuff options for all kinds of builds.
Can´t think of anything for BOL or GDB.
Make scales reflect everything for 5s but with a 10s cooldown.
Remove harness magica/dampen magic - make it sth along the lines of a buff that increases passive dmg reduction for everything for 1min+
Make all shields health based remove the cyro shield debuff.
Remove drinks from the game - give vaible stamina regeneration sets.
Can´t think of anything for dodgeroll. It would have to go hand in hand with root abilities giving immunity - specific to movement impairing effects maybe.

Basically keep dmg and heal/def spam abilities but the powerful multi purpose abilities come with CDs or casttime. Make AOE support abilities grp based.

Xael · July 2015

Cooldowns will not balance this game.
No class-based game in the history of MMORPGs has ever achieved PvP balance.

More importantly a combat system that uses real time active attacks (as opposed to lock-on/auto attacks from every other mmo) and player active blocking/dodging will have to be completely overhauled. It will not work with a cooldown system.

None of you proponents of cooldowns seem to see the big picture. Let alone address any of the problems of Cyrodiil PvP.

These threads are absurd and very telling.

OdinForge · July 2015

Darnathian wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

Darnathian wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

Cooldowns are not the answer, balancing the costs of some skills would go a long way. Removing permablocking (a meta Sheliza is all about) from the game should in theory also go a long way to growing build variety. Permablocking is the one meta that forces the others against the wall, it breeds FoTM builds like what you see with NB and fear. It's builds that do damage while also mitigating most incoming damage, that force people to scrap unique build ideas.

We haven't even seen the LOS check fix in the next patch yet, why don't we wait to see what ZOS found before spouting nonsense.

Well you can't have it both ways. Lol. The response to DKs not having a escape ability because we are "Tanky" then let us be tanks. If you take away blocking ( no stamina regeneration) then give us a Damn escape.

God I am so sick of that. This stupid and Inconcieved nerf is one of the final nails in the coffin. All because the ttk wasn't enough for some elitists. This game is just another step closer to 2 classes. Sorcs and nb.

You could have just found another target to kill. Instead of whining you couldn't, wait for it, BREAK A TANK on a, wait for it, TANK.

I'm of the opinion that every class should have some type of unique escape mechanic (maybe not as effective as NB or Sorc, but available nonetheless). Aside from calling out OP (who happens to be one of the many DK who abused permablocking) i never explicitly stated only the DK class, because the fact is it's a meta that any class can currently perform (I'm willing to bet my NB can out-permablock anyone) and some classes can even escape while doing it. But it all started with DK, everyone intentionally rolled a DK for the first 8 months of this game to take advantage of how stupidly overpowered it obviously was, so i have little mercy for this class.

All I'm saying is that as a NB there are many build ideas that I've experimented with that don't involve cheesy hard CC like fear. And it's all fine and dandy until a typical magicka based whip DK strolls around hitting you through dodge and mitigating all your damage, to crap on your work and then escape with mist form.. How I'd love to try so many of my build ideas in a version of this game where i don't have to worry about permablocking. Obviously DK is the most common class for this, which is why it gets tossed around. The DK class isn't dead, the game is going to change and new builds will come out.

You wanna "tank" in PvP, that's cool. No one rolled a DK to just tank, they rolled DK to 1vx like the cool kids. I don't wanna hear jack squat about resource management, DK has built in resource management. The fact they can manage their magicka while using a melee weapon is absurd. Try playing a stamina build pre 1.6 and then talk to me about resource management.

Good points. However, a night blade shouldn't be able to take out a heavy armor wearing tank with a shield. Come on man. The nb class is designed to be a assassin. They should strike and if they fail run away. Which they are good at. I think the problem with pvpers, myself included, is we want balance on one on ones where there shouldn't be any.

Go play a first person shooter. This game, and the skills, are designed for group play. How to synergize within the confines of the group. I can't believe people use the word Zerg in this game. Seriously? This game was designed for massive scale pvp. Not battlegrounds. You want that join the dueling guild.

What has got us down this path, is when people complain they can't kill a class or slot something to counter another ability, and they make further changes which make it more unbalanced.

In my opinion, they should focus on balancing the game towards the four classes together as a group. Not solo play. That is not what this game is suppose to be. The end result of trying to cater to the everyone complaining they can't kill x class is this.

A class should have a fair chance to kill any class when played right, one class shouldn't be able to cancel out another completely. Nightblade caters to more crowds than just assassin types, vice versa many other classes are able to fill the Nightblades role in quick killing as well (including Dragonknight). I like fast killing if i have the ability, i don't like instagibbing which is more along the lines of FPS games. This game is currently a mix of extreme styles of play (insta-killing, permablocking, shieldstacking, permadodging), and i think the changes they're introducing in the next patch will go a long way to alleviating the stress this creates.

What really got us down this path is people abusing broken mechanics, and then people complain they cannot kill. Which is a fair point, there are many builds in my roster that involve fair gameplay but get trounced by the many players that abuse broken mechanics. It becomes a game of using broken mechanics to fight broken mechanics, let's wait until the next patch to see how far it goes.

Soulac · July 2015

Derra wrote: »

You can´t put up a cooldown for every ability. Thats just ***.

I think a cooldown on several super powerful abilities would work fine - they might need a little buffing then.

Give Purge a 20s cooldown and extend the buff afterwards to 10s and 70% reduction on negative effects - make it grp based (4ppl) high range not proximity - maybe useable while cced.
Give caltrops a 25s cooldown with 30s ability time.
Make cloak a 7s complete invisibility with a 12s cooldown that removes movement impairing effects.
Give bolt escape a cooldown of 5s that triggers after 4s of the first ability use (max 4 consecutive ports).
Give healing ward (most op spell in the game imho) a cd of 5s.
Give healing springs a limit of 1 to be placed - increase it´s strengh (casttime would be an alternative)
Buff all AOEs but give everything a casttime.
Give us an AOE interrupt...
Give more vaible heal debuff options for all kinds of builds.
Can´t think of anything for BOL or GDB.
Make scales reflect everything for 5s but with a 10s cooldown.
Remove harness magica/dampen magic - make it sth along the lines of a buff that increases passive dmg reduction for everything for 1min+
Make all shields health based remove the cyro shield debuff.
Remove drinks from the game - give vaible stamina regeneration sets.
Can´t think of anything for dodgeroll. It would have to go hand in hand with root abilities giving immunity - specific to movement impairing effects maybe.

If you´d have enough dmg skills, enough to cover the cooldown of each dmg skill - why not?
Of course not with 2 Bars each 5 skills, but increasing it and adding more viable dmg skills should also work.
Spamming one skill after one of my cooldowns finally run off is boring in my opinion, this game is just not made for them.
I´d be up for testing something like this tho, but not as written as above.
In case a defense abilitiy of a class get a cooldown, every defense ability should get one.
Giving all nondmg skills a cooldown and balance around that, even gapclosers.

I don´t know why, but i feel like everyone would stack his dmg as far as possible if you´d make it this way.
There is limited defense and after you casted two shields or one cloak you won´t be able to defend yourself anymore, well at least not as strong as before - so a max. dps build will basically destroy you, or not?

TagaParti · July 2015

It is not just introducing cooldowns, they have to tweak some skills and factors along with it. Damage should also be rescaled.
A few example would be:

Reducing skill damage - about to come
Reduce healing - about to come
Reduce blocking - about to come

Reduce light attack damage
Increase heavy attack damage
Tweak gears to increase health, magicka, or stamina even more
Tweak gears to reduce recoveries by a lot
Make gears with the ability to debuff (also with cooldown)
Make gears with the ability to silence enemies (also with cooldown)

Change some skills or add new ones like;
Skill that can absorb 1 skill thrown at you
Skill that will make the enemy a critter for x seconds
Skill that will debuff all enemy buffs

Add some aura skills like;
Skill that lower enemy armors
Skill that add armor to self/ally
Skill that will swap your health to your enemy
Skill that will give x% of your current health to ally
Skill that will absorb enemy resources.

And many more that they can add along with cooldowns.
And this game will be so much fun.

But they dont need to add skill slot bars.
6 skills on each skill bar is good enough.
And people should not be allowed to change skills when theyre outside the keep.

If they introduce cooldowns, give them 6 months to work on adjustments of cooldown timer,
and all will be fixed. No more complains, no more balance issues.
Everybody happy.

Erondil · July 2015

Xael wrote: »

Erondil wrote: »

TagaParti wrote: »

Erondil wrote: »

You clearly didnt understand the point of a ressource based gameplay : the amount of skill you can use isnt dicted by cooldowns but by a limited ressource pool, with skills more or less expensive as a CD game got skills with differents cooldown.
The problem atm isnt that there is no cooldown, but that eso is supposed to be a ressource based game, and ressources are unlimited for almost everybody (no soft cap, cp, many multiplicative values...).

Resource Management?
You can say that when there is resources issue.
But there are no more resources issue!

And thats the problem, not the lack of cooldowns. There are too many multoplicatives values for a game wothout softcaps, and skills are all way too cheap. In 1.5, I had to deal with 120 magicka regen and a concelead weapon cost of ~210 while now, 1.5 magicka regen and 1.4k concelead weapon cost without even trying to reduce it. Not even talking about 1.0 where the regen softcap was around 80...
I dont want a game with cooldowns, I want a game where skill cost actually means something.

Even this is problematic.
You jack up the cost of everything (add the future damage reduction) and then everyone becomes a defensive tank build of sorts. Thanks, you just pigeonholed us back into where everyone was the same (1hs/resto/impen/Light Armor).
This idea where you can nerf everything into balance is utter ***. It's a neverending cycle of imbalance.

The poor meta of 1.5 had barely anything to do with ressource management. Light armour was rulling cyrodiil because passives too strong and not squishy enough compared to weak medium/heavy passives, and the stamina softcap was too low (a stam build usually needs 50% more stam regen than a magicka build needs magicka regen). SB because there were no incentive, except some destro skills, to go others weapons with a magicka build (now dw gives more spell dmg, staves light/heavy attacks and skills scales on spell dmg/magicka) and block cost was way too cheap with light armor+sb. Impenetrable was just an op trait, also in defavor of stam builds who usually run with more crit.
1.5 had plenty of defaults and a poor meta, but ressources was actually an issue.

That being said, I dont think softcap is a good solution to get a ressource system healthy again, they incent to reach every softcaps and limit builds. I have no issue with someone able to spam skills, if he is built for it and made alot of sacrificies in order to do it. An increase of all costs by x% and a nerf of armours costreduction/regen passives and cost reduction/regen cp (or change them to be flat values) could help a lot. Also the incoming 1.7 battle spirit, block, dodgeroll and BE changes should get removed all at once with a healthy ressource system. Damages,heals and shields are too strong atm because you can focus almost everything on spell dmg/max magicka and still have enough regen to spam endlessly, to breakfree every 6secs etc... you have to take the problem by the root, (ie ressource system) to solve it, a simple reduction or nerf to specific tools is pointless and shows how lazy zos are.
With ressource being an issue again, only problem I can see concerning the magicka/stamina balance is that there is no stamina seducer/warlock, except the rare sanctum set. But change a crafted set for a stam seducer shouldnt be too hard, and add a new droppable "stamina warlock" neither.

@TagaParti your principal argument seems to be "well zos cant balance the ressource system so lets introduce cooldowns" this is or extremly stupid or extremly naive. As you, I doubt zos will ever balance their ressource system, but not because they cant, just because they dgaf and dont invest any time/money for it. Adding cooldowns to every skill would drastically change the whole combat system, and so would be much, much harder to balance than just play with costs and passives, especially since the game isnt designed for it.

Last time zos tried to drastically change the gameplay, they didnt release anything for 6 months and then came up with the champion system.........................
I dont want them to destroy the game again.

danno8 · July 2015

Erondil wrote: »

You clearly didnt understand the point of a ressource based gameplay : the amount of skill you can use isnt dicted by cooldowns but by a limited ressource pool, with skills more or less expensive as a CD game got skills with differents cooldown.
The problem atm isnt that there is no cooldown, but that eso is supposed to be a ressource based game, and ressources are unlimited for almost everybody (no soft cap, cp, many multiplicative values...).

This exactly.

Skills that hit hard should be very expensive, healing should be very expensive. But they are not, not really anyway. Not when you can get regeneration values so high you can spam forever the most damaging skills / heals in the game.

MrGhosty · July 2015

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

1) Nobody cares about eSports. It's right up there with "professional" poker. It's just s--t to fill up a tier of useless Cable TV channels.

2) Cooldowns would RUIN the snappy, immersive combat that makes ESO awesome and unique.

Please don't turn ESO into a crappy WoW or LoL clone just because PvP is a mess.

I would say from the way things are going that E sports (hate that term) are actually increasing in interest rather than something that is just getting stuck onto cable channels. That said, I don't think even at it's best and most balanced would ESO PvP be something that could become an esport, perhaps to do with how the gameplay seems asymmetrical. Large field of battle games such as this, gw2, planetside2 etc are hard to be "sportified" because it's incredibly hard to see the larger picture.

I would rather they just changed the system to bring back our old resource values that required intelligent play to do rather than just stack a few categories with cp and attribute points. They could always just keep with this battle leveling idea and have these skills have different costs/outputs when players are in cyrodil. Then when they do a balance pass for either PvE or PvP the other side doesn't get nipped in the process. I'm not even the most advanced player and I came up with this in a few minutes, I can only imagine the cool stuff we could achieve if ZOS got the feedback of their more skilled pvpers to help them create a system.