My view on how ZOS handels balancing

Artjuh90 · February 2016

Ok just viewed the eso live again.
Main issue i have with it, comes from what Gina said actually so ill qoute it for you so you know what i mean:
"And the other thing is, we made so many changes in this update. how do i say like, we don't to put in so many changes that, that's either crazy to balance or implements whole alot of buggs or whatever. we can still do alot in these updates but not so mutch that it's to mutch". which might sound fair if you hear it at first, it becomes a problem when they just update skills each 3 MONTHS!
Players would mind to see bugs/exploids as mutch if we knew you would hotfix things or try to rebalance in say like a month. you know you could do a monthly skill tweak and adress a few skills that you see are needed to be adressed more. This would feel like ZOS is more working on balance, but at least we get more of a feeling ok we are working on it a bit. for me now it feels like ok we have a DLC we want players to buy it $$$$$$$ and for this we might need to let the community to feel a bit listen to. a good example for me is LOL. sure LOL is a MOBA different genre which has/had his own balancing issues. although at least one or 2 times a month you see champions updated quite alot. even things that are minor buffs and nerf which at first you didn't see where needed.
For me it feels weird that ZOS only adresses skills with DLC's feels wrong.
Let me hear your thoughts about it

Lysette · February 2016

Well, I come from EVE online, where hotfixes are made from one day to the other. So to me the whole thing is just ridiculous, I see this as a very lazy and not very caring way to deal with bugs. This could be done from one day to the other, CCP can do this with a lot less money, why can't ZOS?

Edit: I watched the show as well a bit ago and my impression is, that Mr. Wrobel looks at it as if it would be his personal playground to create "cool stuff", while his job would require him to create a working and satisfying product, where skills work like intended and not some work and others don't.

bikerangelo · February 2016

They've fallen into a rut of producing new purchasable content each quarter, where they sacrifice quality for quantity of income sources. Also, their dev team (lead by Wrobel) is in charge of way too much, including itemization, bug fixes, combat changes and ultimately character mechanics / improvements. PvP and class balance is at the bottom of their to-do list, and will be for quite some time.

Artjuh90 · February 2016

bikerangelo wrote: »

They've fallen into a rut of producing new purchasable content each quarter, where they sacrifice quality for quantity of income sources. Also, their dev team (lead by Wrobel) is in charge of way too much, including itemization, bug fixes, combat changes and ultimately character mechanics / improvements. PvP and class balance is at the bottom of their to-do list, and will be for quite some time.

but shouldn't they know this by now and hire new people for it? every other company that has growth invests intohaving more employes and/or new department as in new aditional location to set up their company (sry not english didn't know how to put it differently). so again that's their own fault so i don't feel sorry for them

FullBlownBeast · February 2016

These guys are trying to maintain an unreasonably high profit margin, working on DLC after DLC right after another with ZERO SIGNIFICANT changes/bug fixes in between 3-4 months.

Phelaen · February 2016

also an eve player here, i think it means that ZOS only has one team and their job is to poop out more stuff so people spend money buying the dlc and all the dresses pets and mounts and other lame stuff.
Eve online has a dedicated team that goes after bugs and they have dedicated teams looking into balances etc

ZOS doesnt seem to care at all.
also they had a whole talk about all classes having a special feel and therefor they made:
templars not have mobility
sorcs not have single instacast damage and stamina morphs
DK having no execute skill
and nightblades.. well nightblades have ALL THOSE THINGS

stop making excuses for not balancing your classes better
and like normal game companies FIX YOUR GAME ASAP

also the whole we fixed toppling charge, but we didnt, then we will fix it soon, working on it....
you cant say that like that after not fixing it for almost 2 years!!
they don't care, don't expect it change.
there is no money in it for them....

Lysette · February 2016

To be fair, their art and audio teams are really good (with the exception of those, who make costumes, there is as well lazy design), I love the details in in-game audio, not just the music, but the ambient and reactive sounds are awesome and made with love to detail. But all this beautiful work is somewhat derailed by those people, who work in the bug-fixing and game mechanics department - this could be an awesome product, if ZOS would care more about fixing bugs - to add more stuff just adds more bugs, which are then even harder to fix, because some of this stuff is build on broken stuff - what is never a good idea.

First fix it, then build on it - the other way round makes it just even more broken.

Artjuh90 · February 2016

Lysette wrote: »

To be fair, their art and audio teams are really good (with the exception of those, who make costumes, there is as well lazy design), I love the details in in-game audio, not just the music, but the ambient and reactive sounds are awesome and made with love to detail. But all this beautiful work is somewhat derailed by those people, who work in the bug-fixing and game mechanics department - this could be an awesome product, if ZOS would care more about fixing bugs - to add more stuff just adds more bugs, which are then even harder to fix, because some of this stuff is build on broken stuff - what is never a good idea.

First fix it, then build on it - the other way round makes it just even more broken.

that's partially what i am saying aswell. i don't complain them adding DLC's or other crown store items. this is needed for the cash flow i get that. the part i do not get is why they can't do monthly changes to balance. they have the set maintence time which can be used to implement the changes. check if it's enough with the feedback of players. which cost them even less time to detect certain things because there are always new buggs with new patches and the players are a free recource to use and test it way beyond the capablty's ZOS could ever have. if they react to this people will feel heared and feel like ZOS is working on it. Now me and as i see on the forums ALOT of others feel ZOS don't even cares anymore. YEY we have a new DLC $$$ but we can't ignore the community on the forums to mutch let's make 20 minor changes to abilty's (because let's be fair they rarely overhaul a complete skill only if you are a templar) and call it a day.
I have seen enough constructive post with the math calculations to how it work beter handed to them for FREE on the forum. DO SOMETHING WITH THEM!

bikerangelo · February 2016

Artjuh90 wrote: »

bikerangelo wrote: »

They've fallen into a rut of producing new purchasable content each quarter, where they sacrifice quality for quantity of income sources. Also, their dev team (lead by Wrobel) is in charge of way too much, including itemization, bug fixes, combat changes and ultimately character mechanics / improvements. PvP and class balance is at the bottom of their to-do list, and will be for quite some time.

but shouldn't they know this by now and hire new people for it? every other company that has growth invests intohaving more employes and/or new department as in new aditional location to set up their company (sry not english didn't know how to put it differently). so again that's their own fault so i don't feel sorry for them

Just calling it like I see it, I agree with you, they need more resources dedicated to fixes and balance, along with someone to keep Wrobel's ideas in check, because most of his ideas are very unpopular.

Essiaga · February 2016

... some lucky guy just one 1 million dollars and ZOS can't manage the resources to either fix or redesign Toppling Charge after 2 years. I know there are many broken skills (Fiery Grip, etc) that have also been broken for a long time. Really ZOS should be embarrassed by this product, but there are many many people who don't care as long as the game is pretty and they can get pets on costumes in the crown store. The more hardcore, or rather those that desire quality and challenge from the game, are left wanting.

I know people are saying its only been 2 years, but seriously its been 2 FRIGGIN years!! Nirnhoned destroyed PVP for months before being fixed.

How many times did Wrobel say "I guess ..." or "I think ... " ... Dude. Your the lead designer. If you don't know you need replaced. He might be a god with code but design ... Just no. Read the forums if you don't know. There are plenty of people telling you how the game plays, especially with PVP.

There's simply no plan. Just see what happens and what is is the new now and the new direction of ESO. Currently its a one dimensional lame DPS race. The better classes in PVP and as Tanks are the ones who maintained utility others lost since beta.

Thevampirenight · February 2016

Well for one I do think, they need to start listening to the player base, they can't satisfy the nerf this please people, because they do it because some of the time they are butt hurt about not being able to defend themselves from others atacks. but they do need to not Nerf things that would really *** off a majority of the player base, like for example healing, I think its good they nerfed how many it affected because we know it was a big source of the lag. Nerfing the zergs is good, But they need to do more. Now two things they need to do, make grouping in cyridill to be only able to have twelve in the group.

As for in pve zones, other then orcisim, they should allow the normal amount in a group for those that want to form huge rp events.
Now each class should have a certain main role, there needs to be four types of roles. Supporting, Pets and dots.
healing, Tanking, and Dps.
I am wanting them to really add a necromancer class.
This would have a bunch of useful abilities, raise zombies from the ground, Summon flesh Attronoch, ice magical abilities the other classes lack. As well as skill line dedicated to the raising of the dead. It would be cool to see, what they could do with necromancy.

I would also like to see the addition for a jailing system and also more npc guilds you could join for special passives or abilities for certain zones. Like for windhelm you could join the companions while in valenwood you could join a vampire clan or something, every faction should have in game guilds that you join sometimes even you can even only be in one type of guild like you can't be in a werewolf hunter guild and join a pack of werewolves. Like they can also add a guild system that if you break a rule or attack members of certain guilds you can be kicked out for it, and lose access to a skill line, for example mages guild and fighters guild til you repent. Or make up for it, this would make the game feel more like a elder scrolls game.

Artjuh90 · February 2016

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Well for one I do think, they need to start listening to the player base, they can't satisfy the nerf this please people, because they do it because some of the time they are butt hurt about not being able to defend themselves from others atacks. but they do need to not Nerf things that would really *** off a majority of the player base, like for example healing, I think its good they nerfed how many it affected because we know it was a big source of the lag. Nerfing the zergs is good, But they need to do more. Now two things they need to do, make grouping in cyridill to be only able to have twelve in the group.

As for in pve zones, other then orcisim, they should allow the normal amount in a group for those that want to form huge rp events.
Now each class should have a certain main role, there needs to be four types of roles. Supporting, Pets and dots.
healing, Tanking, and Dps.
I am wanting them to really add a necromancer class.
This would have a bunch of useful abilities, raise zombies from the ground, Summon flesh Attronoch, ice magical abilities the other classes lack. As well as skill line dedicated to the raising of the dead. It would be cool to see, what they could do with necromancy.

I would also like to see the addition for a jailing system and also more npc guilds you could join for special passives or abilities for certain zones. Like for windhelm you could join the companions while in valenwood you could join a vampire clan or something, every faction should have in game guilds that you join sometimes even you can even only be in one type of guild like you can't be in a werewolf hunter guild and join a pack of werewolves. Like they can also add a guild system that if you break a rule or attack members of certain guilds you can be kicked out for it, and lose access to a skill line, for example mages guild and fighters guild til you repent. Or make up for it, this would make the game feel more like a elder scrolls game.

Well i disagree at nerfing the zerg. this is how cyrodill was designed and advertised. don't like it? it's not the designers fault, it's yours. problem with the large scale battles is the servers can't handle them like they used to. limiting battles to 12 people is utter bs and wouldn't be warfare it would be duals.
the second paragraph made me chuckle a bit thinking how ZOS states that the one moment and the other moment say PLAY LIKE YOU WANT. well at least templar is still good at healing atm. o w8 great nerf incomming. well templar is still free AP i guess. for the necromancer class i don't think their would be any good in PvP though. In a meta with high DPS and mobilty a summon won't be able to keep up well. just look at the sorc. it has 2 summons but you don't really see them in PvP do you. and not to forget they can make minor changes to about 20 abilty's in 3 months -> = ~90 days so one abilty takes them almost a week to adjust. think about it one week of working say 40 hours for 1 abilty
totally agree with last paragraph but it's off topic

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO · February 2016

Phelaen wrote: »

ZOS doesnt seem to care at all.
also they had a whole talk about all classes having a special feel and therefor they made:
templars not have mobility
sorcs not have single instacast damage and stamina morphs
DK having no execute skill
and nightblades.. well nightblades have ALL THOSE THINGS

Ok, so Nightblades have everything...

Do Nightblades have a skill like Thundering Presence (you know, that stamina morph of Lightening Form in the Sorcerer Storm Calling skill line)?
Do Nightblades have the ability to put up a protective shield in their class skill lines?

Tell you what, just follow the link it'll be easier. I think you will find that every class has something unique about them.

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Class+Skills

Mojmir · February 2016

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO wrote: »

Phelaen wrote: »

ZOS doesnt seem to care at all.
also they had a whole talk about all classes having a special feel and therefor they made:
templars not have mobility
sorcs not have single instacast damage and stamina morphs
DK having no execute skill
and nightblades.. well nightblades have ALL THOSE THINGS

Ok, so Nightblades have everything...

Do Nightblades have a skill like Thundering Presence (you know, that stamina morph of Lightening Form in the Sorcerer Storm Calling skill line)?
Do Nightblades have the ability to put up a protective shield in their class skill lines?

Tell you what, just follow the link it'll be easier. I think you will find that every class has something unique about them.

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Class+Skills

quick cloak works kinda like lightning form

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO · February 2016

Mojmir wrote: »

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO wrote: »

Phelaen wrote: »

ZOS doesnt seem to care at all.
also they had a whole talk about all classes having a special feel and therefor they made:
templars not have mobility
sorcs not have single instacast damage and stamina morphs
DK having no execute skill
and nightblades.. well nightblades have ALL THOSE THINGS

Ok, so Nightblades have everything...

Do Nightblades have a skill like Thundering Presence (you know, that stamina morph of Lightening Form in the Sorcerer Storm Calling skill line)?
Do Nightblades have the ability to put up a protective shield in their class skill lines?

Tell you what, just follow the link it'll be easier. I think you will find that every class has something unique about them.

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Class+Skills

quick cloak works kinda like lightning form

Not sure what skill line Quick Cloak is in. There's Shadow Cloak, Dark Cloak and Shadowy Disguise but there about being hidden and setting up for a nasty surprise. Only on the 7th March, that nasty surprise is going to be on the Nightblade. The sneaky class isn't going to be as sneaky.

Lightening Form on the other hand damages anyone that comes near the Sorcerer, and comes in magicka and stamina morphs. A favourite of Stamina Sorcs I believe when they are solo farming mass numbers.

Mojmir · February 2016

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO wrote: »

Mojmir wrote: »

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO wrote: »

Phelaen wrote: »

ZOS doesnt seem to care at all.
also they had a whole talk about all classes having a special feel and therefor they made:
templars not have mobility
sorcs not have single instacast damage and stamina morphs
DK having no execute skill
and nightblades.. well nightblades have ALL THOSE THINGS

Ok, so Nightblades have everything...

Do Nightblades have a skill like Thundering Presence (you know, that stamina morph of Lightening Form in the Sorcerer Storm Calling skill line)?
Do Nightblades have the ability to put up a protective shield in their class skill lines?

Tell you what, just follow the link it'll be easier. I think you will find that every class has something unique about them.

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Class+Skills

quick cloak works kinda like lightning form

Not sure what skill line Quick Cloak is in. There's Shadow Cloak, Dark Cloak and Shadowy Disguise but there about being hidden and setting up for a nasty surprise. Only on the 7th March, that nasty surprise is going to be on the Nightblade. The sneaky class isn't going to be as sneaky.

Lightening Form on the other hand damages anyone that comes near the Sorcerer, and comes in magicka and stamina morphs. A favourite of Stamina Sorcs I believe when they are solo farming mass numbers.

quick cloak is under dual wield skills

vyndral13preub18_ESO · February 2016

Mojmir wrote: »

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO wrote: »

Mojmir wrote: »

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO wrote: »

Phelaen wrote: »

ZOS doesnt seem to care at all.
also they had a whole talk about all classes having a special feel and therefor they made:
templars not have mobility
sorcs not have single instacast damage and stamina morphs
DK having no execute skill
and nightblades.. well nightblades have ALL THOSE THINGS

Ok, so Nightblades have everything...

Do Nightblades have a skill like Thundering Presence (you know, that stamina morph of Lightening Form in the Sorcerer Storm Calling skill line)?
Do Nightblades have the ability to put up a protective shield in their class skill lines?

Tell you what, just follow the link it'll be easier. I think you will find that every class has something unique about them.

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Class+Skills

quick cloak works kinda like lightning form

Not sure what skill line Quick Cloak is in. There's Shadow Cloak, Dark Cloak and Shadowy Disguise but there about being hidden and setting up for a nasty surprise. Only on the 7th March, that nasty surprise is going to be on the Nightblade. The sneaky class isn't going to be as sneaky.

Lightening Form on the other hand damages anyone that comes near the Sorcerer, and comes in magicka and stamina morphs. A favourite of Stamina Sorcs I believe when they are solo farming mass numbers.

quick cloak is under dual wield skills

So....not a NB skill? So NBs have everything by using skills everyone has... Makes sense. I guess...

Lysette · February 2016

Artjuh90 wrote: »

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Well for one I do think, they need to start listening to the player base, they can't satisfy the nerf this please people, because they do it because some of the time they are butt hurt about not being able to defend themselves from others atacks. but they do need to not Nerf things that would really *** off a majority of the player base, like for example healing, I think its good they nerfed how many it affected because we know it was a big source of the lag. Nerfing the zergs is good, But they need to do more. Now two things they need to do, make grouping in cyridill to be only able to have twelve in the group.

As for in pve zones, other then orcisim, they should allow the normal amount in a group for those that want to form huge rp events.
Now each class should have a certain main role, there needs to be four types of roles. Supporting, Pets and dots.
healing, Tanking, and Dps.
I am wanting them to really add a necromancer class.
This would have a bunch of useful abilities, raise zombies from the ground, Summon flesh Attronoch, ice magical abilities the other classes lack. As well as skill line dedicated to the raising of the dead. It would be cool to see, what they could do with necromancy.

I would also like to see the addition for a jailing system and also more npc guilds you could join for special passives or abilities for certain zones. Like for windhelm you could join the companions while in valenwood you could join a vampire clan or something, every faction should have in game guilds that you join sometimes even you can even only be in one type of guild like you can't be in a werewolf hunter guild and join a pack of werewolves. Like they can also add a guild system that if you break a rule or attack members of certain guilds you can be kicked out for it, and lose access to a skill line, for example mages guild and fighters guild til you repent. Or make up for it, this would make the game feel more like a elder scrolls game.

Well i disagree at nerfing the zerg. this is how cyrodill was designed and advertised. don't like it? it's not the designers fault, it's yours. problem with the large scale battles is the servers can't handle them like they used to. limiting battles to 12 people is utter bs and wouldn't be warfare it would be duals.
the second paragraph made me chuckle a bit thinking how ZOS states that the one moment and the other moment say PLAY LIKE YOU WANT. well at least templar is still good at healing atm. o w8 great nerf incomming. well templar is still free AP i guess. for the necromancer class i don't think their would be any good in PvP though. In a meta with high DPS and mobilty a summon won't be able to keep up well. just look at the sorc. it has 2 summons but you don't really see them in PvP do you. and not to forget they can make minor changes to about 20 abilty's in 3 months -> = ~90 days so one abilty takes them almost a week to adjust. think about it one week of working say 40 hours for 1 abilty
totally agree with last paragraph but it's off topic

You people have to understand that zergs are really bad. That they were possible in the past was due to a hack, where ZOS just ignored a proper client-server architecture and put code into the client, which belongs into the server - much like korean MMOs do that to get performance. But this opens the game to bots and hacks of all kind - in korea that is not much of a problem, there people can get perma-banned by person, because their IP is bound to their national ID.

When ZOS decided to fight bots, they had to go back to proper client-server architecture, which means, now the server has to do all the work, which was before ninja-shifted to client machines. Regardless that it was advertised as mass battle, with a proper configuration servers cannot handle it - and they will not be able to handle it in future as well, if game mechanics will not be changed in a way, which destroys zergs, because the drain zergs put on server performance scales with the factorial of players in a zerg. And factorials go up rather quickly. So if you continue creating zergs, nothing will change. Think about it!

tennant94 · February 2016

Zos probably balance skills based on the number of complaints in the forums and since a lot of complaints are heavily biased, skills are only fixed to appease the community. Rather than what's best for overall game balance. I think everyone should stop pretending they're a developer and let zos decide what to do with there game!

jhharvest · February 2016

tennant94 wrote: »

I think everyone should stop pretending they're a developer and let zos decide what to do with there game!

What they would do:
Nothing, because it's cheaper.

tennant94 · February 2016

@jhharvest people would stop playing if they did nothing.

Mojmir · February 2016

tennant94 wrote: »

@jhharvest people would stop playing if they did nothing.

and they haven't?

Artjuh90 · February 2016

tennant94 wrote: »

Zos probably balance skills based on the number of complaints in the forums and since a lot of complaints are heavily biased, skills are only fixed to appease the community. Rather than what's best for overall game balance. I think everyone should stop pretending they're a developer and let zos decide what to do with there game!

so you agree with ZOS with making balance changes every 3 months is sufficient?

mtwiggz · February 2016

Lysette wrote: »

Well, I come from EVE online, where hotfixes are made from one day to the other. So to me the whole thing is just ridiculous, I see this as a very lazy and not very caring way to deal with bugs. This could be done from one day to the other, CCP can do this with a lot less money, why can't ZOS?

Edit: I watched the show as well a bit ago and my impression is, that Mr. Wrobel looks at it as if it would be his personal playground to create "cool stuff", while his job would require him to create a working and satisfying product, where skills work like intended and not some work and others don't.

As someone who also comes from Eve Online I find the way things are handled within ESO laughable. I would love to rant about the differences but I would literally be here for hours.

The biggest difference I notice between the two companies is that CCP actually shows that they care. Things get hot fixed within days, not weeks or months. Whether it's a large or small issue it's usually taken care of very swiftly. I even recall plenty of times that developers from CCP would work through weekends to fix bugs or put the servers back online.

Not to mention you actually see CCP developers playing their own game. It wouldn't be rare to see one, or even play with one. They even set up times where they go out and play with the players. Can't say I've seen a ZoS game master in game in well over a year, let alone actually ever played with one.

tennant94 · February 2016

@Artjuh90 idc i would rather the game was balanced all at once. I think people complaining on forums about skills and mechanics just leads the game into a greater state of unbalance.

AshTal · February 2016

I agree with OP - we know there is imbalance broken abilities and obvious abilities which are over powered. However what really annoys me is that it takes 3+ months to fix issues. Such as "Ohh we found that players could get bat swarm to cost no ultimate points and players had 10 or 20 of these running round them killing any player within range instantly. Well after 4 months we decided you shouldn't be able to stack this ability and meant that when it re-cast it didn't stack damage"

That should have been a 3 day not a 3 month fix.

The when they do balance things they do 200 changes at once and suddenly create new flavour of the month that we are stuck with such as people spamming Steel tornado and wrecking blow over and over and being un stoppable.

HoloYoitsu · February 2016

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO wrote: »

Phelaen wrote: »

ZOS doesnt seem to care at all.
also they had a whole talk about all classes having a special feel and therefor they made:
templars not have mobility
sorcs not have single instacast damage and stamina morphs
DK having no execute skill
and nightblades.. well nightblades have ALL THOSE THINGS

Ok, so Nightblades have everything...

Do Nightblades have a skill like Thundering Presence (you know, that stamina morph of Lightening Form in the Sorcerer Storm Calling skill line)?
Do Nightblades have the ability to put up a protective shield in their class skill lines?

Tell you what, just follow the link it'll be easier. I think you will find that every class has something unique about them.

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Class+Skills

Night Blades have Double Take: Major Expidition + Dodge Chance in one. That is so far superior to the worthless dot from Lightning Form that it's not even funny.

Complaining about no class shield? Night Blades have Cloak and Shadow Image, the best mobility skills in the game.

3/10 forum warrior, would not debate again.

FENGRUSH · February 2016

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO wrote: »

Mojmir wrote: »

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO wrote: »

Phelaen wrote: »

ZOS doesnt seem to care at all.
also they had a whole talk about all classes having a special feel and therefor they made:
templars not have mobility
sorcs not have single instacast damage and stamina morphs
DK having no execute skill
and nightblades.. well nightblades have ALL THOSE THINGS

Ok, so Nightblades have everything...

Do Nightblades have a skill like Thundering Presence (you know, that stamina morph of Lightening Form in the Sorcerer Storm Calling skill line)?
Do Nightblades have the ability to put up a protective shield in their class skill lines?

Tell you what, just follow the link it'll be easier. I think you will find that every class has something unique about them.

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Class+Skills

quick cloak works kinda like lightning form

Not sure what skill line Quick Cloak is in. There's Shadow Cloak, Dark Cloak and Shadowy Disguise but there about being hidden and setting up for a nasty surprise. Only on the 7th March, that nasty surprise is going to be on the Nightblade. The sneaky class isn't going to be as sneaky.

Lightening Form on the other hand damages anyone that comes near the Sorcerer, and comes in magicka and stamina morphs. A favourite of Stamina Sorcs I believe when they are solo farming mass numbers.

I dont know if youre actually serious with this post.

Lightning form is used for its utility - major buffs, all of which nightblade has as well. The classes that dont have this sort of thing from speed + defense is DK and templar, only the defense portion.

Also stam + magicka morph?? Everyone uses the magicka morph, the stam morph is absolutely godawful and shows nobody @ZOS is actually playing stam sorc. It does less damage per tick than caltrops.

Elsonso · February 2016

Artjuh90 wrote: »

Main issue i have with it, comes from what Gina said actually so ill qoute it for you so you know what i mean:

"And the other thing is, we made so many changes in this update. how do i say like, we don't to put in so many changes that, that's either crazy to balance or implements whole alot of buggs or whatever. we can still do alot in these updates but not so mutch that it's to mutch".

which might sound fair if you hear it at first, it becomes a problem when they just update skills each 3 MONTHS!

They make a large number of changes to balance once a quarter. I think it would be stressful to have a large number of big changes coming out more frequently than this. It is a lot of work to balance things, and a lot of parts interact with other parts, so changes need to come out at the same time. I am pretty sure it is not as simple as the people in the forum make it out to be by just changing a number here and there and done.

They use incremental updates, which can be weekly or every other week (PC/Mac), to deliver smaller things that change one or two specific skills.

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Well for one I do think, they need to start listening to the player base, they can't satisfy the nerf this please people, because they do it because some of the time they are butt hurt about not being able to defend themselves from others atacks. but they do need to not Nerf things that would really *** off a majority of the player base, like for example healing, I think its good they nerfed how many it affected because we know it was a big source of the lag.

People who play this game need to become accustomed to nerfs. This is part of how they balance their game, and even though this is stressful to the player, I do not see it changing any time soon. I think that the proper way to maintain balance in the game is through a series of buffs in the weak areas of the game, coupled with a series of nerfs in the strong areas of the game. Both of these areas contribute to balance problems when they get too far away from the balance point.

Wrobel is not a dungeon, trial, or arena designer, but everything they do has to be taken into consideration in what he does. All of the dungeons, delves, trials, arenas, and bosses are designed around certain assumptions about what the character is able to do. I have to think that a big part of Wrobel's job is keeping our characters within those assumptions. People like Finn cannot make the new trial in Hew's Bane the toughest content they have every done if Wrobel waltzes in and gives big buffs to everyone. The balance has to be maintained across all levels, classes, races, and items, with and without Champion Points, for solo and group play, as well as PVE and PVP.

The people who are trying to maximize whatever is the current meta in the game are likely to be sitting in the strong areas of the game, so they are going to be very sensitive to the nerf intended to bring that part back. They do not use the parts of the game that are being buffed, so they don't care as much, and sometimes even scoff at it. If it turns out that one of those weak areas has been buffed to make it a strong area, then they will care. The meta will adjust to the new balance.

The good news is that, for all the emotion presented about these changes, it isn't really that dire. Almost all of the changes in this update are tweaks, relatively MINOR changes that, individually, total up to some pretty good balance changes. The exceptions to this are the ones that change the base behavior of the skill, like the ones changing away from toggle. Those are going to really catch people by surprise and they probably need to communicate this a little better.

I am already interested in what Update 10 has to offer.

Artjuh90 · February 2016

@lordrichter well i disagree with you. you state and ZOS aswell that they can't make alot of changes at once. which is fair and i have no problem with. the problem is that they don't make minor changes each week/month. i am not talking about 10 changes heck at the moment i would be glad to see a change to for example one abilty one week which isn't working as intended. the way they do it now is more stressfull and offers less balance then the way they do it now.

Elsonso · February 2016

Artjuh90 wrote: »

well i disagree with you. you state and ZOS aswell that they can't make alot of changes at once. which is fair and i have no problem with. the problem is that they don't make minor changes each week/month. i am not talking about 10 changes heck at the moment i would be glad to see a change to for example one abilty one week which isn't working as intended. the way they do it now is more stressfull and offers less balance then the way they do it now.

They do make skill line changes between major updates. They did it in November. They did it in January. I am not even talking about bug fixes. They do skill bug fixes a lot more than skill line changes.