ZOS Claims to Use "Hard Data" for Balancing

HELLB0UNDH0UND · September 2016

When the current meta suits you: "I love this game and the direction it's headed!"

When the current meta doesn't suit you: "this game sucks ass, so unbalanced, not gonna last long like that"

You're still logging in and playing it though, aren't you? QQ

IxskullzxI · September 2016

@ZOS_RichLambert thanks for posting that data and taking the time to reply. It would be nice to get more communication on why you guys make the changes you do. That being said, any chance we can get some info as to why things like aoe caps remain? Could we get answer to why dragon's blood remains unchanged? Is there hard data you use for those decisions? It's frustrating getting nothing but silence on issues like these..

Waseem · September 2016

i think some of the players disagree because they play the game many hours a day
not just looking at chars and graphs every couple months

Insanarchy · September 2016

HELLB0UNDH0UND wrote: »

When the current meta suits you: "I love this game and the direction it's headed!"

When the current meta doesn't suit you: "this game sucks ass, so unbalanced, not gonna last long like that"

You're still logging in and playing it though, aren't you? QQ

You can go ahead and drop the mic now, a truer statement couldn't be made lol.

phaseadept · September 2016

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert

I would like to hear more on:

"What hard data did you use to balance Masters and Maelstrom weapons for Magicka and Stamina users? Do you feel that Magicka users benefit from their vMA weapons as much as Stamina users do from theirs?"

As a primary light armor wearing healer, the effectiveness of high end restoration staves and destructions staves and their abilities leaves much to be desired.

Is the team looking at/addressing the balance issues between the plethora of stamina weapons and the effectiveness of magika weapons? Most magika users trying to DPS are pigeonholed into using dual wield because it's impossible to achieve the same spell power with a staff.

This seems similar to the issues that were addressed early on when nearly everyone wore light armor because of its effectiveness.

alephthiago · September 2016

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

I probably shouldn't respond to such a post, but gotta jump in. We do use data and compare that to player feedback and our own experiences on live. Players always assume that what they see is what everyone is doing... that is a very dangerous assumption. Let's take a more detailed look at question #7... (even though its trolly)

"What hard data did you use when buffing heavy armor? If your data is reliable and / or your ability to interpret this data is satisfactory, why are HA sets like Black Rose so popular among damage dealers?"

Note: I'm only using NA PC data for a quick example... I don't have the time to wait for the report to parse all 180+ GB of data for all platforms.

Current armor bias of ALL players on NA PC:

Current armor bias of ONLY PVP players on NA PC

.. and now just for fun, here's the bias of all PVP players on NA PC with 501+ CP.

So in general, heavy isn't as popular as everyone thinks in PVP, especially at the higher end CP. The changes to heavy armor have swung things much closer to what I would call overall parity than ever before. There is still room for improvement however, especially when we start digging into things like class armor bias breakdowns. (i.e. - DK generally prefer heavy over all other armor types...etc)

While i do agree with @ZOS_RichLambert on that (about heavy armor being less used than medium) and its pretty easy check that kind of data we cant assume those players are using light armor because its AWESOME, playing without the regen and penetration of light armor is terrible but it is by NO MEANS as good as medium armor for stamina users, the only thing lacking in comparison is penetration, because they have both reduction costs in ONE passive while we need TWO passives for that and they do have weapon damage (12% !!!!!) increase and roll dodge cost reduction.

I would like to see the spell resistance passive being dropped for something more usefull....maybe damage too?
Its not like people are "omg, those magicka users are wrecking everyone in pvp, we need more resistance to that".

Rohamad_Ali · September 2016

I would of never suspected light armor was so popular .

Grabmoore · September 2016

kongkim wrote: »

Haha Haters gonna hate. Its funny to see when they do get some facts on the board and let people in, showing them how they do. people still gonna hate and just find something stupid reason to way it can't be, so they can keep hating..

I just had to quote this for truth!

alephthiago · September 2016

Btw, destro staffs are ok-ish weapons for pve but the single target damage is TERRIBLE and lacks a heavy hitting skill, then you pull up a graphic and says:

"Hey, what do ya know, 90% of magick classes are using staves, look at this fancy orange line here".

Do we have any other magicka weapons to compare?

IxskullzxI · September 2016

Insanarchy wrote: »

IxskullzxI wrote: »

So more PvP players with 501+ CP wear light armor than medium armor? Wow, I totally get it now. That explains why stamina get buffed every patch while magicka gets nothing. #balanced

Give them credit, they are not going to make balancing changes based simply on which armor type is worn most. There's a whole lot more data that goes into any given decision. Not saying they have it 100% figured out, but to me it just comes down to pvp and pve need to somehow be balanced separately, without one balance meant to balance pvp hurting it's pve viability and vice versa. That's honestly the problem I see currently. Eventually I see a much more defined separation of pvp and pve to make balancing of each more efficient, but no one truly knows the direction they'll take it but them.

I'm a little beyond "giving them credit". Every patch just makes the balance worse. There is nothing the would lead me to believe the balance the game on something other than just the graph. I would love to see a response on the other points listed in the op. Not trying to be a ***, but look at one tamriel, for example. An update focused on itemization. Why would stamina get all these strong sets and weapon ults that widen the gap between magicka and stamina. Where is the hard data or reasoning behind that? Can we at least get some sort of information on why these imbalances keep happening?

ManDraKE · September 2016

alephthiago wrote: »

Btw, destro staffs are ok-ish weapons for pve but the single target damage is TERRIBLE and lacks a heavy hitting skill, then you pull up a graphic and says:

"Hey, what do ya know, 90% of magick classes are using staves, look at this fancy orange line here".

Do we have any other magicka weapons to compare?

exactly. Numbers by itself means nothing, armor types usage being equally spread around 30% says nothing interesting in my opinion, at least from a balance pespective. I don't mind ppl using heavy armor, if is in the game, it should be viable, but i do care about 30k hp permablock unlimited resources tanks that only require hold right click to survive on PvP.

Raw numbers say nothing about the impact of certain things in the gameplay. "People uses all armor types, the game is balanced!". "Only 5% of the deaths on cyrodril comes from radiant destruction, the skill is balanced!"

Rapthorne · September 2016

Every game has balance issues, that's part of the ongoing process of developing online games. Balance will never be perfect, and what is considered good balance in the eyes of one will be looked at as horrendous by another

DKsUnite · September 2016

Why did you not do #2.... i want my damn dragon blood fixed or some extremly good hard data to prove to me why not >:(

arkansas_ESO · September 2016

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

I probably shouldn't respond to such a post, but gotta jump in. We do use data and compare that to player feedback and our own experiences on live. Players always assume that what they see is what everyone is doing... that is a very dangerous assumption. Let's take a more detailed look at question #7... (even though its trolly)

"What hard data did you use when buffing heavy armor? If your data is reliable and / or your ability to interpret this data is satisfactory, why are HA sets like Black Rose so popular among damage dealers?"

Note: I'm only using NA PC data for a quick example... I don't have the time to wait for the report to parse all 180+ GB of data for all platforms.

Current armor bias of ALL players on NA PC:

Current armor bias of ONLY PVP players on NA PC

.. and now just for fun, here's the bias of all PVP players on NA PC with 501+ CP.

So in general, heavy isn't as popular as everyone thinks in PVP, especially at the higher end CP. The changes to heavy armor have swung things much closer to what I would call overall parity than ever before. There is still room for improvement however, especially when we start digging into things like class armor bias breakdowns. (i.e. - DK generally prefer heavy over all other armor types...etc)

I know there's a lot of hate in this thread, but I'd like to take a moment to thank you for actually chiming in! I can understand the reluctance of the devs to not post on the forums when all they get is hate, but it's nice to be able to actually talk with you guys over balance and data. After all, we both want to game to succeed.

How does this data handle players who mix and match weights of armor? As in, is a player lumped into the "medium armor" category if they're only running 5 pieces of medium armor, or do they need to wear all 7 pieces? I'll admit, from my experiences in Cyrodiil I would have assumed medium would be 4-6% ahead of light, so to see light ahead by 2-3% is a shocker.

Glory · September 2016

The amount of salt accumulating because @ZOS_RichLambert decided to post a brief response during his morning coffee break is hilarious. The post was a quick look at the types of data they collect, not some carefully peer-reviewed journal paper.

While you might not agree with the data shown (or more importantly agree with what it means), people need to chill out and realize that their one-sided view of perspective of where the game should be may not align with the analysis that ZOS devs most surely do.

Hell, I don't even agree with some directions the game is going, but I'm not going to go as far to make ridiculous claims that ZOS doesn't know how to read data etc.

FloppyTouch · September 2016

Speak the truth!

Insanarchy · September 2016

IxskullzxI wrote: »

Insanarchy wrote: »

IxskullzxI wrote: »

So more PvP players with 501+ CP wear light armor than medium armor? Wow, I totally get it now. That explains why stamina get buffed every patch while magicka gets nothing. #balanced

Give them credit, they are not going to make balancing changes based simply on which armor type is worn most. There's a whole lot more data that goes into any given decision. Not saying they have it 100% figured out, but to me it just comes down to pvp and pve need to somehow be balanced separately, without one balance meant to balance pvp hurting it's pve viability and vice versa. That's honestly the problem I see currently. Eventually I see a much more defined separation of pvp and pve to make balancing of each more efficient, but no one truly knows the direction they'll take it but them.

I'm a little beyond "giving them credit". Every patch just makes the balance worse. There is nothing the would lead me to believe the balance the game on something other than just the graph. I would love to see a response on the other points listed in the op. Not trying to be a ***, but look at one tamriel, for example. An update focused on itemization. Why would stamina get all these strong sets and weapon ults that widen the gap between magicka and stamina. Where is the hard data or reasoning behind that? Can we at least get some sort of information on why these imbalances keep happening?

Uh I saw magicka equivalents to all those sets. So itemization isn't really the issue it's more in depth. This game is slowly heading in the right direction whether people see it or not. It's just slower than anyone would like.

Rohamad_Ali · September 2016

Still despite the the cp 501 graphic , it is easy to see stamina is the favorite with medium armors . The meta is reinforced by that graph .

Insanarchy · September 2016

Also to clarify, take into consideration the difference between group pvp builds and solo builds that right there could be the difference between said player running light/med armor vs heavy. I know I change things up depending what I'm doing. Pvp isn't all about one set build just like pve.

Garwulf · September 2016

Personally using 'Hard Data' is essentially pointless as it assumes everyone is equipt as an optimised character.
Ignoring those who do not have a clue or do not care about what they are wearing in say PVP, many of us are runnning sets that work based on our limitations.

These limitations include ping and resulting lag. If you cannot switch weopons to even buff your self on a regular basis in PVP then you build your character in away to mitigate the problem rather than how you would really like to play the character.
Balancing classes based on such biased information just makes the whole problem worse rather than better.

And who said the classes should be balanced. The game appears to have been developed around complimenting classes rather than balanced classes. The only true way of balancing this game is to toally do away with classes all together and take
the Skyrim route. At least we can then attemp to play the game as we want to play the game as per all the advertisments.

Then we have the nonsense of a character standing there in their 'underwear; and hit over the head with a 2 hander and not being split in half whilst a person in full plate is sumarily killed by a knife or an arrow from maximum range .
So much nonsense, so little time to bother worrying about it.

Play the game or leave. Complaining is just bad for your health.

UppGRAYxDD · September 2016

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

I probably shouldn't respond to such a post, but gotta jump in. We do use data and compare that to player feedback and our own experiences on live. Players always assume that what they see is what everyone is doing... that is a very dangerous assumption. Let's take a more detailed look at question #7... (even though its trolly)

"What hard data did you use when buffing heavy armor? If your data is reliable and / or your ability to interpret this data is satisfactory, why are HA sets like Black Rose so popular among damage dealers?"

Note: I'm only using NA PC data for a quick example... I don't have the time to wait for the report to parse all 180+ GB of data for all platforms.

Current armor bias of ALL players on NA PC:

Current armor bias of ONLY PVP players on NA PC

.. and now just for fun, here's the bias of all PVP players on NA PC with 501+ CP.

So in general, heavy isn't as popular as everyone thinks in PVP, especially at the higher end CP. The changes to heavy armor have swung things much closer to what I would call overall parity than ever before. There is still room for improvement however, especially when we start digging into things like class armor bias breakdowns. (i.e. - DK generally prefer heavy over all other armor types...etc)

Is this graph representing players who wear 5pc or more Hvy, light, or Medium armor? Or does this take into consideration all armor equipped ingame which would be skewed due to so many players using 5/1/1 armor combos to take advantage of undaunted passives? I have been embracing Hvy armor since the imperial city launch and am very happy with the changes. My only problem is not the armor types currently, just the sets being skewed more towards stam imop. Also templars and DKs need a pet to be competitive with other dps mag classes, and if possible templars in general need another option for recov comparable to the other three classes especially in hvy armor. Thx

xellink · September 2016

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Still despite the the cp 501 graphic , it is easy to see stamina is the favorite with medium armors . The meta is reinforced by that graph .

The reason why you don't 'see' that many med armor players is because they are always in stealth.

Insanarchy · September 2016

UppGRAYxDD wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

I probably shouldn't respond to such a post, but gotta jump in. We do use data and compare that to player feedback and our own experiences on live. Players always assume that what they see is what everyone is doing... that is a very dangerous assumption. Let's take a more detailed look at question #7... (even though its trolly)

"What hard data did you use when buffing heavy armor? If your data is reliable and / or your ability to interpret this data is satisfactory, why are HA sets like Black Rose so popular among damage dealers?"

Note: I'm only using NA PC data for a quick example... I don't have the time to wait for the report to parse all 180+ GB of data for all platforms.

Current armor bias of ALL players on NA PC:

Current armor bias of ONLY PVP players on NA PC

.. and now just for fun, here's the bias of all PVP players on NA PC with 501+ CP.

So in general, heavy isn't as popular as everyone thinks in PVP, especially at the higher end CP. The changes to heavy armor have swung things much closer to what I would call overall parity than ever before. There is still room for improvement however, especially when we start digging into things like class armor bias breakdowns. (i.e. - DK generally prefer heavy over all other armor types...etc)

Is this graph representing players who wear 5pc or more Hvy, light, or Medium armor? Or does this take into consideration all armor equipped ingame which would be skewed due to so many players using 5/1/1 armor combos to take advantage of undaunted passives? I have been embracing Hvy armor since the imperial city launch and am very happy with the changes. My only problem is not the armor types currently, just the sets being skewed more towards stam imop. Also templars and DKs need a pet to be competitive with other dps mag classes, and if possible templars in general need another option for recov comparable to the other three classes especially in hvy armor. Thx

Not true on templars. There's magicka templar builds that literally make you unkillable against any 1 single person. Mind you it's not a burst dps build tho. But very strong and sustainable in every way.

Rohamad_Ali · September 2016

xellink wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Still despite the the cp 501 graphic , it is easy to see stamina is the favorite with medium armors . The meta is reinforced by that graph .

The reason why you don't 'see' that many med armor players is because they are always in stealth.

Dodge rolled the hard data scan .

vyndral13preub18_ESO · September 2016

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

xellink wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Still despite the the cp 501 graphic , it is easy to see stamina is the favorite with medium armors . The meta is reinforced by that graph .

The reason why you don't 'see' that many med armor players is because they are always in stealth.

Dodge rolled the hard data scan .

Agreed. Nerf Radiant.

VincentBlanquin · September 2016

one thing is using hard data for balancing, but second have a developer, who provide solid combat balancing at first place, when things are firstly brought to live and then only balancing numbers. not surprise when developer cant provide the later, he fail at using hard data after too.

alephthiago · September 2016

Insanarchy wrote: »

IxskullzxI wrote: »

Insanarchy wrote: »

IxskullzxI wrote: »

So more PvP players with 501+ CP wear light armor than medium armor? Wow, I totally get it now. That explains why stamina get buffed every patch while magicka gets nothing. #balanced

Give them credit, they are not going to make balancing changes based simply on which armor type is worn most. There's a whole lot more data that goes into any given decision. Not saying they have it 100% figured out, but to me it just comes down to pvp and pve need to somehow be balanced separately, without one balance meant to balance pvp hurting it's pve viability and vice versa. That's honestly the problem I see currently. Eventually I see a much more defined separation of pvp and pve to make balancing of each more efficient, but no one truly knows the direction they'll take it but them.

I'm a little beyond "giving them credit". Every patch just makes the balance worse. There is nothing the would lead me to believe the balance the game on something other than just the graph. I would love to see a response on the other points listed in the op. Not trying to be a ***, but look at one tamriel, for example. An update focused on itemization. Why would stamina get all these strong sets and weapon ults that widen the gap between magicka and stamina. Where is the hard data or reasoning behind that? Can we at least get some sort of information on why these imbalances keep happening?

Uh I saw magicka equivalents to all those sets. So itemization isn't really the issue it's more in depth. This game is slowly heading in the right direction whether people see it or not. It's just slower than anyone would like.

Really? Find me a magicka damage increase set to match Strength of the Automaton.

jarrandub17_ESO · September 2016

JD2013 wrote: »

"ZOS doesn't use data!"

"Here's some figures."

"They could be from any time!"

"He pulled them yesterday"

"Y u lie to us ZOS???"

Honestly. Even when faced with data the people who shout loudest won't believe it just because it's not what they want to hear. Quite ludicrous. It's little wonder that the devs are replying to less and less.

Well said man, Well said!

magnusthorek · September 2016

The simple fact of one of the top dog bosses in the company spared some minutes do give attention to this topic, gave me back a bit of all trust I deposited into this game, in all aspects.

Very well done, Mr. @ZOS_RichLambert! This is what several serious players are really looking for and expecting anxiously!

The suggestion of having "some intern", or anything as capable of raising such data and show it publicly would tremendously viable, not only for the curiosity, but for yourselves too.

Think about it! If you make more of this data go public and for some reason what's thought to be BiS might not be really be, and this will, perhaps, incentivize people to try different things, which directly or not, will provide you even more diverse data for studying

Transparency is welcomed anywhere!

Rohamad_Ali · September 2016

Feeling like a test subject for Hard Data knowing what underpants I'm wearing . Probably studying my combat techniques too ...