To me, Zenimax struggles with the same affliction it had when it was launched. An identity crisis. Prime Example. Matt Firors comment about this not being a MMORPG but an Online RPG. I honestly don't even know what he is talking about and this worries me. MMO stands for Massive Multiplayer Online. Isn't that what this game is??? Whatever, I would be fine with this being an Online RPG. Like a Elder Scrolls 6 that you have to be connected to the internet to play but it's still only a solo game and the size of Skyrim. I would buy it. That's cool, but Matt that isn't what you made here.

I would love to be a fly on the wall at the studio just to experience what the environment is like. I would right now assume that it is probably filled with 2 camps, one is people who are truly passionate about what they are doing and are trying their very best and the other is filled with people who want to please the players by giving them what will make the game money (job security is important). I agree Fengrush there are people there who are more about the money, always has been since Imperial Edition was announced.

My suggestion to Zenimax is to follow the people who do it for passion. Art is always better done and more likely to be received if it is done with passion than with subversion.

If we were to talk business from a company that is only in it for the money. PvP has hardly been discarded to the extent or even anywhere close to Fengrush's opinion. Brian Wheeler and his crew would be let go cause they are still collecting a paycheck. The PVP community as far as I know isn't collecting a check from Zenimax so the first people to go would be the people draining the wallet. Halt the conspiracy theories.

PvE oriented because all DLCs have been PvE (IC was PvE btw). Well here's the thing, PvE has to be routinely updated because it is static. You do it once and then you want more. It suffers from this affliction where PvP doesn't. PvP is truly organic cause the players make the experience, so there is no reason to create new content for it like you must for PvE.

PvP gets updates/changes every major patch, and conservatively at least half the class changes are because of PvP balance. Or there lack of..?

The game going forward will not be balanced in the near future. Not because Zenimax can't (which is somewhat true and next paragraph will be on that) but because they have opt'd for the "rock-paper-scissor" balance (also referred to as favor of the month) verses uniform balance. I hate it personally but here is the issue with it in this game. RPS balance depends on a players ability to quickly adjust to the changes. Having to level a character to V16, which for most is a month or more of dedicated play makes for a long and frustrating adjustment. So people get pissed off when their time has been wasted cause last season favor of the month character is now their mule. Sadly, we live in a world where instant gratification is a requirement. Zenimax seemed to be disconnected from this reality believing RPS was a solution to a game's replay-ability. That is for solo games and has no business in MMORPG's. Players expect to have their characters for a full lifetime, others are called alts for a reason.

Balancing this game in it's current state to the level of uniform balance is impossible. #1 reason is the lack of softcaps. Matter of fact I won't even call it that cause it's confusing. I'll call them RULES. A game can not be a game without rules. Builds in this game can go from one-shotting people to being invulnerable 99% of the time (a.k.a Blinxey type ***). #2 reason is I question Zenimaxs route to this goal. Crunching numbers to find balance. Math is 50% at best of what makes balance. Functionality is far more important. You can call it playability if you wish. In this case, how well a class plays and depending on the player playing determines how balanced it will be. So things like Streak/Cloak doesn't mathematically give any advantage but there function has a huge impact on their power level of the class.

Balancing functional abilities is scenario based, or gameplay based. Meaning based on the rules defined by the game, certain functions will always be superior to others no matter how fine tuned you make them. The reason why Streak and Cloak have been changed so much, especially Cloak. Think every update this has been changed. Here's the conclusion, your efforts are futile. Players define the power level of functional ability because of #1 Gameplay (META) and 2 (quoting P. Sage, "we're gonna throw the rules out the window and let you (the players) go crazy".

He's absolutely right. I didn't start playing till ps4 but even in that time pvp has gone way downhill. Almost every other post is about how screwed up pvp is right now and yet they remain silent. Like I've said before its pretty sad really cause the pvp concept in this game is great. They just don't care. They want PVE instead.

I have match lots of Feng videos, was really excited about stam sorc for a while, honestly Feng has mad skills with it and gets about every drop of performance you can with the build. Just burned out on it when I played other characters that felt stronger/more effective. But, ZOS isn't listening, not that your message or testing is bad, approach I guess, streaming in their face about their broken game and all skills on that other classes have and abuse etc.