Attempt and Thoughts to Overhaul Scaling, Attribute System and Enchantments

Birdovic · May 2016

So I wanted to comment on a thread, (about excluding Damage Increase from Stat Pool Size), and I guess I ended up with a Reply, which Length is worth a own Thread lol, so here it is:

STEP 1: ATTRIBUTE POINTS

Currently, we have simple, fixed values for Attributes like these:

1 Health = 122 Health
1 Stamina = 111 Stamina
1 Magicka = 111 Magicka

But what if we change that, forcing those to be spread out more by setting Focal Points, based on the kind of chosen Attribute Point?

We can do so with a Distribution similar to this:

1 Health: 102 Health,10 stamina, 10 magicka
1 Stamina: 71 Stamina, 31 Magicka, 10 Health
1 Magicka: 71 Magicka, 31 Stamina, 10 Health

STEP 2: GLYPHS

Instead of 938 Stamina on a big Piece in infused, a regular V16 purple Glyphs gives Stats with a focal Point, at the same ratio as my suggestion for Attribute points, which, with infused on a big piece, results in this:
~590 Stamina
~260 Magicka
~84 Health

Some Comparisons:

Current System:
66 Points into Health = 8052
66 Points into Stamina = 7326
24* Health + 40* Stamina =
2928 Health 4440 Stamina

New System:
66 Points into Health =
- 6732 Health
- 660 Magicka
- 660 Stamina

66 Points into Stamina =
- 660 Health
- 2046 Magicka
- 4686 Stamina

24* Health + 40* Stamina =
- 2848 Health (2448 + 400)
- 3080 Stamina (240 + 2840)
- 1480 Magicka (240 + 1240)

Now, comparing Glyph Changes with V16 purple pieces in mind (3* big pieces infused + 4* small pieces divines)

Old System, stacking Attribute Points + Glyphs, all into Stamina:
Stamina: 11436
Magicka: 0
Health: 0

New System, stacking Attribute Points + Glyphs with Stamina as Focal Point:
Stamina: ~7284 (about 37% less)
Magicka: ~3186
Health: ~1027

Instead of Stats from Live, like this

29k Stamina
19k Health
11k Magicka

It could look more like this:
(Just estimated values, I didnt take Passives into consideration!)

25k Stamina
20,5k Health
14,5k Magicka

STEP 3: EXCLUDING DAMAGE FROM STAT POOL'S SIZES

Now we exclude Damage increase from Stat Pool Size and also make healing Scale ONLY from stat Pool size and everyone can decide How much Max Stat Is enough to Support his/her playstyle.

The Choice, how you want to play now, is even more dependent on Chosen Item Sets.

These Changes will remove Max Dmg from being a Ressource for everything(Damage AND heals).

A ) So as example going for a Glass cannon:
Focusing on high Crit+Dmg boosts from Item Sets makes your stat Pool smaller than before, making that Kind of gameplay more risky, because you still can do Great Damage for a Short Time, but on the other Hand your healing isnt awesome anymore. The healer becomes more Important.

B ) Going for a healer, Maybe in pvp:
This will Ask you to have a higher stat Pool instead, because its The only way to improve your heals, next to Crits, and allows more uses. In Return, you will give up Dmg Bonus Item Sets for Max Stat ones to Stack your Max magicka and you will take a closer Look at healing improving Sets(unique 5pc sets) , too, since there Is nothing Else to increase it. In Return your Damage isnt awesome anymore aswell and you shouldnt walk around alone either.

C )Now for People who dont like these extremes or specializing on one way (too much healing OR too much Damage), those can go for Allrounder Builds, with a healthy balance of Max Stat and Weapon/Spelldmg, having Something of both Sides, but Never again a Damage creep Meta as Solution for healing and Damage at once. Since These Allrounder Builds will be around way more than "Max Damage OR Max stat" now, (everyone wants some survivability and Damage Output at the same time Right?).

D ) This will be the moment, Hybrids could become much more interesting, because(except A)Glasscannons and B ) fulltime healers) very few players will stack Stats too high now, which was a problem for Hybrids, who couldnt keep up. Now, Hybrids basically turn into a second version of "C )Allrounder" who have pretty even Ressource Pools but slightly lower Spelldmg/Weapondmg. The Ressource pools make up for the lower Damage by granting access to more often and more effectively used Utility (Stam AND Magicka Abilities). Stacking one kind of Damage, combined with the new Pelinals Aptitude set, both kinds of Damage can be effective now aswell.

So, to summarize that Wall of Text:

- Meaningful Attribute Point Distribution with focal Points instead of single Stats, deactivating the damage creep + stacking meta)

- Damage only increased by Weapon/Spelldmg and fitting Crit Value

- Healing only increased by Max Stats (Health/Stamina/Magicka) and fitting crit value

- More defined Roles and People can decide how to Play those Roles.

- Build diversity will increase.

- BiS Builds wont be so much ahead of Creative Builds/Strategies anymore, to a Point which makes them absolutely useless in comparison(to BiS Builds).

- Hybrids

Thanks for reading all trough this!
Now, how do you like this idea, did I forget something? Any suggestions?
Tell me what you think

Hluill · May 2016

Interesting. I would be nice to get some more options for character builds.

Personally, though, I would prefer only one resource stat: Energy.

Physical damage could be tracked with wounds and their severities. There no reason why that stat would ever change.

But the energy stat would grow with increased skill. It would shrink with wounds and disease and poison and dehydration and hunger. Eating, bandaging and "motivational" buff could regenerate or increase it.

Birdovic · May 2016

Hluill wrote: »

Interesting. I would be nice to get some more options for character builds.

Personally, though, I would prefer only one resource stat: Energy.

Physical damage could be tracked with wounds and their severities. There no reason why that stat would ever change.

But the energy stat would grow with increased skill. It would shrink with wounds and disease and poison and dehydration and hunger. Eating, bandaging and "motivational" buff could regenerate or increase it.

@Hluill
I...think you slightly missed the purpose of this thread...^^

Anti_Virus · May 2016

Everything you said was great. I always found it weird that high dmg = high healing which is counter intuitive to glass cannon vs sustain play styles.

Btw how would dmg shields be scaled? With max stat or WD/SD?

Birdovic · May 2016

@ShadowStarKing

A good question. I absolutely disagree with giving every class Shields in the first place for a start, but that's a whole other story^^
It Is how it Is now, so lets include that, too.

Back to topic:
I'd say a Mix of SD/WD + Max Stat is a good idea to start.

Imagine we have a system as I suggested above.

Scaling shields off Max Stat:
Great healers + great shields at The Same Time Sounds like a incredible hard to kill mix Of a healer and Tank.

Scaling shields off SD/WD:
This leads to high damage + high survivability just from going for 1 stat once again. Welcome back Damage stacking Meta. ^^

So Shields instead, should become stronger with a mix of both, SD/WD and Max Stat, to avoid Going for extremes again and encourage Going for Allrounders instead.

Now, there Is more than 1 kind of shields of course, and these Should also be Handled differently, Maybe categorizing them as "Battle Shields" and "Support Shields"

As example (WD/SD : Max Stat)
- Healing Ward: 25:75
- Barrier Ultimate: 25:75
- Hardened Ward from Sorc: 67:33
- Bone Shield: 33:67
- Harness Magicka: 33:67

Healing Ward ("Support Shield") Is now best used with leaning towards Max Stats, so its not abused again.

Barrier ("Support shield") Is also prefered with a higher Max Stat, so not everyone can nonstop throw around shields, making The Max Stat stacking healers obsolete.

Hardened Ward ("Battle Shield") Is clearly a defense Tool and an exception with its Ratio, because there are barely other means of Defense.

Bone Shield ("Battle Shield") Intentionally has a lower WD ratio for simple reason: Since this Is a Stamina Players focused Ability, there Is more Dodge Rolling/Shuffle/Blocking involved, making an additional Shield just too powerful.

Harness Magicka should come with Boneshields Ratio, too. Templars or Sorc, combining it with their Defense Tools (heals/Shields) could become too strong.

Dubhliam · May 2016

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

Everything you said was great. I always found it weird that high dmg = high healing which is counter intuitive to glass cannon vs sustain play styles.

Btw how would dmg shields be scaled? With max stat or WD/SD?

This is the core problem of the game.

Removing or reducing the amount of damage gained from max stat should improve the game greatly, and reduce the large gap we currently have between cookie cutter builds and all other builds.

It would also make healers and tanks more viable in all group content, since high DPS builds would lose some sustain.

SlayerTheDragon · May 2016

I would say something like this:

Shields scale of max health. - Tanks will have the biggest shields but lowest damage
Damage = (Max Magicka + Max Stamina) / 2 - This will enable true hybrid as well
Healing = ((Max Magicka + Max Stamina) / 2) + Max Health

Birdovic · May 2016

Dubhliam wrote: »

ShadowStarKing wrote: »

Everything you said was great. I always found it weird that high dmg = high healing which is counter intuitive to glass cannon vs sustain play styles.

Btw how would dmg shields be scaled? With max stat or WD/SD?

This is the core problem of the game.

Removing or reducing the amount of damage gained from max stat should improve the game greatly, and reduce the large gap we currently have between cookie cutter builds and all other builds.

It would also make healers and tanks more viable in all group content, since high DPS builds would lose some sustain.

@Dubhliam

Yep! That's exactly what I wanted to say with "more defined Roles".

You can't be a Crazy damage dealing monster anymore, healing yourself at the same time as much as "healers" currently do.

No more Damage-dealing Healer-Tanks.

The solution I offered here, is to remove that damage creep meta. It's already happening. People just run dungeons with 3 DD's and 1 Healer, or even 4 DD's only, making every Role useless (Except DD).

If Damage is lower = longer fight (no skipped Mechanics) = more received Damage (a Tank and a healer are needed again)

Faulgor · May 2016

It's not exactly what I would have done, but addresses most issues in the right manner.
Hope the devs consider this (I think Wrobel alrready mentioned on one ESO live that they thought about removing damage scaling from resource pools).

failkiwib16_ESO · May 2016

@andypappb16_ESO muffinpie I'm just wondering about one thing... why do you think people getting more stamina and health (better survival) would make healers and tanks more viable?

I get more invites as a healer from glass cannons that need healing, than I do from groups full with multiple hybrids - they can keep themselves alive, but lack the damage to get through the content so they invite me as a DD instead.

Birdovic · May 2016

Faulgor wrote: »

It's not exactly what I would have done, but addresses most issues in the right manner.
Hope the devs consider this (I think Wrobel alrready mentioned on one ESO live that they thought about removing damage scaling from resource pools).

@Faulgor

I've read your ideas and I like it, its cool. Its basically bringing the idea of Single Player Games system into the Multiplayer game, without forgetting about mmo-only values, like spell/weapon crit etc. . But I doubt thats something that can work out, even if those ideas are nice and well thought out. The reason is, ESO was meant to look less complicated, less numbers crammed on the screen, etc. so the players can easier feel "immersed".
And kind of bringing back the Attribute system from older games comes with tons of work*. It would be a new system that needs to replace the current one, the uncomplicated system that ESO has used since the beginning. Just think how long it took to remove the Vet Ranks

I still stick to the ideas I mentioned, its basically just changing a few values and has lots of impact, without changing too much, something that doesnt ask for a whole new system to be introduced.

Dont get me wrong, of course this "Can work", but as aforementioned (check "*"), will not allow this to happen.

failkiwib16_ESO wrote: »

@andypappb16_ESO muffinpie I'm just wondering about one thing... why do you think people getting more stamina and health (better survival) would make healers and tanks more viable?

I get more invites as a healer from glass cannons that need healing, than I do from groups full with multiple hybrids - they can keep themselves alive, but lack the damage to get through the content so they invite me as a DD instead.

@failkiwib16_ESO
Oh apologize altmer, didnt see you answered here

You see, its not only about spreading out the ressources.

Sure, we could argue on the overall increased health(10 health per point into stamina/magicka is not that big of a gamechanger i think

).
Its also about the Ressource Pools, which change the effectiveness of Healing only now,
while Spelldmg and Weapondmg only influence well, Damage dealt.

This means: (with my changes)

Even if you go for a glass cannon build, your dealt dmg will be lower now, because the increase from stat pools is completely gone. All in all, the damage output will be less. Overall less damage done leads to longer Fights, which leads to more healing/buffing needed to make up for that. If damage becomes too low to finish trials or something, the Item Set Bonuses could be slightly increased in exchange.

For Healers, stacking Max Magicka and a combination of Spellcrit/Regen will be the way to go.
You will have more ressources for Utility, Buffs and Healing, but wont be contributing to damage dealt anymore as much as now, which even more defines you as a dedicated healer, and not someone who can just switch around to be full dps from 1 second to the other

People will actually have roles and try to be good at that (DPS/Tanking/Healing), which makes the Group Finder tool maybe useful aswell.

So the situation you have, that more glass cannons invite you for healing, it wont change that much, glass cannons will even more ask for fulltime healers from now on.

On the other hand, for groups of hybrids, a 4th hybrid who can also keep himself alive and contribute the needed DPS will be more welcome in exchange, than a fulltime healer who ensures others to stay healthy but cant contribute the needed DPS.

I hope I got my points across^^