Should Battle Spirit and Scroll modifiers be removed entirely from the game?

AlexHo1982 · June 2016

I believe Battle Spirit to be detrimental to the properly balancing of skills and it has had bad side effects on entire classes (e.g. mDKs). Adding the health bonus also reduces the need to move points from the main damage resource to health and the damage reductions in my opinion just cover inherent balancing issues with some skills / classes. The endless resources have been addressed to some degree with the increased costs of all skills. The tendency to only being successful by fully focussing on burst damage has not. The game has reached damage numbers again that remind me of 1.6, but tanky pressure builds are less viable than back then.

I believe that higher diminishing returns on increasing skill values should be introduced (softcaps for skills and stats), instead of debuffing players in PvP. Glass cannon builds should play at a very high risk and tanky builds should also benefit from investing in primary stat defense. Both is actually not the case or at least not relevant enough.

Since I might be totally wrong with my opinion, I would like to hear the communities thoughts on those topics.

Scroll modifiers on the other hand also bring inbalance to the game by buffing usually the strongest faction that already outnumbers the other ones. It also ha lead to players "stealing" scrolls on their alts increasing unfair advantages.

I vote for removing all modifiers from PvP and bring players on equal ground. Balance the skills accordingly from there and see how builds adjust to the new stats.

Please post your opinion on this matter together with your vote and keep this conversation civilized. Maybe this could help ZOS devs to go into the right direction.

Rohamad_Ali · June 2016

You would see a huge storm over night . Hundreds of under geared and under levels of CP screaming in terror as fully geared CP501 players stomped mud holes in the backs of plowed over zergers and pugs . It's like having a dorm room pillow fight and two people get aluminum bats .

I know , sounds fun right .

SRIBES · June 2016

Other, since your idea is bad. L2P and stuff!

Ya

frozywozy · June 2016

Scroll modifiers are fine, what needed to be changed is their value on the scoreboard (+5).

Wollust · June 2016

Other, since your idea is bad. L2P and stuff!

SOFT CAPS

Earthewen · June 2016

No, only remove the Battle Spirit modifiers.

Well, this is going to cause a storm of opinions. I applaud your bravery in approaching this issue.

I think we have some real problems in PVP, but as to the cause and the solution am in doubt. I am not at all certain that the problem doesn't starting running into illegal third-party software and macros, etc. Those able to use them can stomp everyone else who isn't. If you look closely, you can identify the scripters. The animation when they use skills is subtly different than the rest of us. I think that's the reason they jump up and down so much so that it hides it bit more, makes it harder to see perhaps.

That being said, putting in caps would be awesome. I don't know why they were ever removed to begin with except that some people think that by 1 second or less kills made from stealth are the indication of skill. But put them in a fight where they cannot one shot, and they simply run away to another target.

let's face it. Those kinds of players yelled louder than the rest of us to get the game where their type of play became the focus instead of the majority who didn't scream and holler, but wanted the game to be as it was envisioned in the beginning. Most of the changes to classes etc., have come and have assisted the solo/small group players/gankers who stay on the outside of engagements picking off those players who are trying to honestly take keeps and other objectives.

my belief, and I may be alone in this, no one person, skill, class, etc. should EVER have the ability to take out a group of players without taking any damage and this happens all the time. No one class should ever be that OP. No one skill should ever be that OP. No one character should ever be that OP. it doesn't do anything except sap the fun out of the game for everyone else who is attempting to work with others as team to achieve objectives.

Let me throw out this question. Should Lance Armstrong have been penalized for the use of the steroids? Should we allow steroids into boxing, baseball, and every other sport out there? How did society feel when the use of steroids became public?

Why, then, do we allow the electronic steroids in our games?

Sandman929 · June 2016

No, only remove the Battle Spirit modifiers.

Make health mean something. Tie it to CC duration, DoT damage mitigation, snare duration, poison and disease resistance....hell even Siege weapon damage mitigation. Tanks with heavy health investments would finally be meaningful on the front lines and in keep defense, and Stam/Mag builds would have to sacrifice some of their DPS to get the benefits, if this game actually gave benefits to Health.
If they make health meaningful, so many problems go away and the runaway train of maxing damage could finally end.

Cody · June 2016

No. anyone without high amounts of CP and high value gear would be screwed. If this were to happen more campaigns would need to be made to accommodate everyone at X stage; and that would only have negative consequences.

however, I do believe some changes need to be made.

for starters softcaps need to come back. The only reason I can imagine ZOS having had them removed, was because LA and MA people were able to achieve the caps for armor via enchantments, making heavy armor somewhat redundant; but that can be fixed by simply nerfing armor enchants (yes, the N word we all hate)

People are able to 2-3 shot people while still being able to perform multiple dodge rolls with healing spam because of the lack of softcaps. I know this because I had a glass cannon build back in the times of soft caps. I was able to 2-3 shot people back in those days, but it came at a huge cost. My survivalbility was very low(if it were not for sparks I would have been useless in up front combat) my regain was low, my health low, and so was my armor. I had a very hard time up front fighting people. Now though I can both near insta kill people from stealth while still being able to fight them in up front combat, because I am not held back. I can spread everything out stat wise with little consequence. With softcaps on I would have a very hard time doing this.

My opinion, many disagree.

AlexHo1982 · June 2016

Yes, remove them both.

Cody wrote: »

No. anyone without high amounts of CP and high value gear would be screwed. If this were to happen more campaigns would need to be made to accommodate everyone at X stage; and that would only have negative consequences.

This has been brought up here more than once and I am wondering why? We already have a disparity between low and high CP players and having to spread would in my opinion actually not increase this. Differences between epic to legendary gear however are too big in my opinion, which was made worse since IC, if I remember correctly. Gear stats need to be looked at overall.

On the other hand we would still have no CP and non Vet campaigns, where people that are not at cap could and should go to. Spreading people to the different campaigns instead of everyone entering one might be beneficial for the performance in Cyrodiil. Also keep in mind that percentage is more valuable at high base stats than on lower ones. Having to move for example points from stam to health to be able to survive initial burst, might actually reduce fully stacked dps from CP to some degree. And dots would become more viable with lower health pools and without the damage reduction - especially since purge and purify were nerfed.

I still think that Battle Spirit (together with removing softcaps obviously!) is one of the reasons of the burst only "meta", since other build types are even less viable since 1.6.

Cody wrote: »

however, I do believe some changes need to be made.

for starters softcaps need to come back. The only reason I can imagine ZOS having had them removed, was because LA and MA people were able to achieve the caps for armor via enchantments, making heavy armor somewhat redundant; but that can be fixed by simply nerfing armor enchants (yes, the N word we all hate)

People are able to 2-3 shot people while still being able to perform multiple dodge rolls with healing spam because of the lack of softcaps. I know this because I had a glass cannon build back in the times of soft caps. I was able to 2-3 shot people back in those days, but it came at a huge cost. My survivalbility was very low(if it were not for sparks I would have been useless in up front combat) my regain was low, my health low, and so was my armor. I had a very hard time up front fighting people. Now though I can both near insta kill people from stealth while still being able to fight them in up front combat, because I am not held back. I can spread everything out stat wise with little consequence. With softcaps on I would have a very hard time doing this.

My opinion, many disagree.

On softcaps I totally agree and I mentioned this in my initial post, but they are not part of this vote.

I believe they would however be a logical consequence of removing Battle Spirit, since they were the main balancing mechanic of a game without cool downs. Instead of introducing cheap overall hard caps with the 50% reductions, all skills and main stat benefits should have diminishing returns. Hardcaps for armor on the other hand should be removed and should be turned into softcaps as well. That way all stats have the same base value and stacking points into one tree in the CP system would have a lower effect on higher levels.

Removing softcaps while introducing the CP system was one of the poorest balancing decisions I have observed in any multiplayer game. This basically broke the inherent game design of ESOs balancing mechanics in PvP.

Btw.: Thanks to everyone that has participated in this discussion so far. There are interesting points with differing perspectives and balancing is obviously a very delicate topic.

Anazasi · June 2016

No, only remove the Scroll modifiers.

removing the scroll buffs would make the fights equal when one faction is clearly at a disadvantage. The buffs from scrolls especially if a faction holds all of them are too high.

Cody · June 2016

AlexHo1982 wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

No. anyone without high amounts of CP and high value gear would be screwed. If this were to happen more campaigns would need to be made to accommodate everyone at X stage; and that would only have negative consequences.

This has been brought up here more than once and I am wondering why? We already have a disparity between low and high CP players and having to spread would in my opinion actually not increase this. Differences between epic to legendary gear however are too big in my opinion, which was made worse since IC, if I remember correctly. Gear stats need to be looked at overall.

On the other hand we would still have no CP and non Vet campaigns, where people that are not at cap could and should go to. Spreading people to the different campaigns instead of everyone entering one might be beneficial for the performance in Cyrodiil. Also keep in mind that percentage is more valuable at high base stats than on lower ones. Having to move for example points from stam to health to be able to survive initial burst, might actually reduce fully stacked dps from CP to some degree. And dots would become more viable with lower health pools and without the damage reduction - especially since purge and purify were nerfed.

I still think that Battle Spirit (together with removing softcaps obviously!) is one of the reasons of the burst only "meta", since other build types are even less viable since 1.6.

Cody wrote: »

however, I do believe some changes need to be made.

for starters softcaps need to come back. The only reason I can imagine ZOS having had them removed, was because LA and MA people were able to achieve the caps for armor via enchantments, making heavy armor somewhat redundant; but that can be fixed by simply nerfing armor enchants (yes, the N word we all hate)

People are able to 2-3 shot people while still being able to perform multiple dodge rolls with healing spam because of the lack of softcaps. I know this because I had a glass cannon build back in the times of soft caps. I was able to 2-3 shot people back in those days, but it came at a huge cost. My survivalbility was very low(if it were not for sparks I would have been useless in up front combat) my regain was low, my health low, and so was my armor. I had a very hard time up front fighting people. Now though I can both near insta kill people from stealth while still being able to fight them in up front combat, because I am not held back. I can spread everything out stat wise with little consequence. With softcaps on I would have a very hard time doing this.

My opinion, many disagree.

On softcaps I totally agree and I mentioned this in my initial post, but they are not part of this vote.

I believe they would however be a logical consequence of removing Battle Spirit, since they were the main balancing mechanic of a game without cool downs. Instead of introducing cheap overall hard caps with the 50% reductions, all skills and main stat benefits should have diminishing returns. Hardcaps for armor on the other hand should be removed and should be turned into softcaps as well. That way all stats have the same base value and stacking points into one tree in the CP system would have a lower effect on higher levels.

Removing softcaps while introducing the CP system was one of the poorest balancing decisions I have observed in any multiplayer game. This basically broke the inherent game design of ESOs balancing mechanics in PvP.

Btw.: Thanks to everyone that has participated in this discussion so far. There are interesting points with differing perspectives and balancing is obviously a very delicate topic.

its not that i am against the removal of battle spirit. Its that I do not want PvP to turn into a thing where victory is more determined by a player's number/level than their skill. the way the current mechanics are set up, a lower level player would likely miss with most of their attacks against higher level people, if battle spirit were removed. Adjustments would have to be made to prevent this scenario from becoming reality.

As for the scroll buffs, which I neglected to bring up, I would not complain if the current buffs were removed. They give buffs to a potentially already winning faction. It is my belief the faction beating the other two do not deserve them, said faction could already have an emp on their side; they do not need additional buffs via scrolls.

DocFrost72 · June 2016

As a stamina bosmer nightblade, I would welcome no more battle spirit half damage for my ganking pleasure.

As someone potentially on the recieving end of the statement above, still eager?

Jules · June 2016

Leave the modifiers the way they are.

Certain skills (percentage based, such as GDB) should be exempt from battle spirit. However removing battle spirit altogether would make for a disgusting Cyrodiil. 5k+ vigor crits, insane damage output... It would be a nightmare to remove this from everything.

RDMyers65b14_ESO · June 2016

I rather see the Emperor bonus removed as that is more damaging to the game.

IxSTALKERxI · June 2016

No, only remove the Battle Spirit modifiers.

Remove battlespirit.
Nerf base damage of all abilities / heals / shields in the game by amount equal to battlespirit.
Half the HP/ damage on all pve content in the game.
Do some fine tweaking.

=GDB fixed.

Ghostbane · June 2016

No, only remove the Scroll modifiers.

Removing the battle spirit health would destroy the game with the current damage output, rebalencing damage individually will not happen anytime soon either, as the PVE outrage would be unmatched.

For the sake of argument, changing the bonus passives of scrolls could be considered, something more personally rewarding, rather than buffing players.

But in all honestly, stuff is fine as is.

Robbmrp · June 2016

If they can ever balance out the classes then at that point they could remove them. As it is now, people are still getting killed in 1-3 hits due to burst damage. If it was done now, It would just make things a lot worse and bring back endless 1 shots.

Yoyuyi999 · June 2016

No. There was a spot in Cyrodiil where Battle Level would be removed and I was able to wipe a 10man in it purely by leaping and instakilling half of the group. Your losing a *** of HP and now your going to be hitting insane numbers.

rfennell_ESO · June 2016

No, only remove the Battle Spirit modifiers.

If they had just increased health more instead of the battle spirit buff it would have been better.

Burning_Talons · June 2016

No, only remove the Battle Spirit modifiers.

Yes I wanna see radianr destruction hit for 50% more /s

AlexHo1982 · June 2016

Yes, remove them both.

Yoyuyi999 wrote: »

No. There was a spot in Cyrodiil where Battle Level would be removed and I was able to wipe a 10man in it purely by leaping and instakilling half of the group. Your losing a *** of HP and now your going to be hitting insane numbers.

Just on a side note: "Battle Spirit" and "Battle Leveling" are not the same thing.

I would also not like to see Battle Spirit being removed without reviewing all dps and healing skills first and (re-)introducing softcaps. On the other hand, it would show what is especially broken more clearly. Battle Spirit just covers up the broken ingame balance and leads imo to bad balancing choices overall.

Draxys · June 2016

Battle spirit needs a rework, don't care about scroll buffs.

What definitely needs to happen is soft caps. They don't have to be as restrictive as they were before they were taken out, but even with a 50% less dmg taken thru battle spirit, damage can get crazy high in pvp.

Draxys · June 2016

Or just remove champion points

vortexman11 · June 2016

If done properly the removal of battle spirit could be the best thing that happens to PvP, but they wont do it properly. It would require a complete re balance of the game, both PvE and PvP. Skills, monsters, sets, passives, every single offensive or defensive ability would need to be reworked... If skills don't get overhauled and battlespirit is removed we're looking at 30k frags on people with 15-25k health...

DocFrost72 · June 2016

vortexman11 wrote: »

If done properly the removal of battle spirit could be the best thing that happens to PvP, but they wont do it properly. It would require a complete re balance of the game, both PvE and PvP. Skills, monsters, sets, passives, every single offensive or defensive ability would need to be reworked... If skills don't get overhauled and battlespirit is removed we're looking at 30k frags on people with 15-25k health...

While it would be fun for gankers and glass cannons, it would not be good for the game. In that I definately agree.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Should Battle Spirit and Scroll modifiers be removed entirely from the game?

Should Battle Spirit and Scroll modifiers be removed entirely from the game? 47 votes