Why ZOS keeps nerfing some skills, instead of buffing the counter-skills?

altemriel · January 2017

Now tell me someone, what logic is behind the nerfing of skills, instead of buffing the skills, that can be used to counter those skills?

I mean, nerfing annoys, why not buffing instead and leave everyone happy?

fastolfv_ESO · January 2017

power creep, they already tryed that and people are pulling 80-90k freakin dps in trials. At this point to make content even a half challenge they should be reducing skills way more than current changes

Rohamad_Ali · January 2017

They are lowering the ceiling on damage . At least that what they said . Targeting the champion system where this power creep started would make more sense to me .

Panda_iMunch · January 2017

For the same reason that PvP has a 50% reduction in damage and healing and what PvE has an AoE cap.

kongkim · January 2017

The more they Buff, the easier the games already too easy content become. So better nerfing then buffing for the whole sake of the game, even if it not as fun.
But really a few numbers up or down don't really make the game less fun or boring to play so don't get the problem ppl. have with them trying to balance thing.

Waffennacht · January 2017

What exactly are you thinking of?

Example: Shuffle has no counter - there is no way to force a hit

Same with proc sets - theoretically you can "dodge" Selene but thanks to animation cancelling, no you cannot, so bring down the dmg.

What changes are you specifically thinking of?

altemriel · January 2017

proc sets should be not allowed to stack with other proc sets, not crit nerf!

Anhedonie · January 2017

Well, because reasons.
They could rework and return soft caps, but that's too simple for them. Also, forums won't generate enough rage and forum trolls will go extinct.

Damn, "extinct" is word of the week.

kongkim · January 2017

Waffennacht wrote: »

What exactly are you thinking of?

Example: Shuffle has no counter - there is no way to force a hit

Same with proc sets - theoretically you can "dodge" Selene but thanks to animation cancelling, no you cannot, so bring down the dmg.

What changes are you specifically thinking of?

Think he is talking about them all. That they in general nerf instead of buffing

altemriel · January 2017

Anhedonie wrote: »

Well, because reasons.
They could rework and return soft caps, but that's too simple for them. Also, forums won't generate enough rage and forum trolls will go extinct.

Damn, "extinct" is word of the week.

they just should listen to the forums more and they know what to do!!

@Wrobel

runagate · January 2017

You can see here how these never addressed issues have affected Team Purple's recent attempts to stop the Dominion from crowning an Emperor on Trueflame PC/NA:

HatchetHaro · January 2017

Yeah sure power creep is a thing, but look at PvE; they're already buffed many bosses' health to over six bloody million, especially on bosses that are basically DPS races. Look at vCoAII: on Valkyn Skoria, it takes two damage dealers with 30k single target dps each to kill the boss right after the third pad gets destroyed.

That's not lowering the skill ceiling; that's squishing the entire room down and everyone in it. These "balance" changes don't just target the super-mega-elite to take them down; it takes down the average players with it. Think about it: by decreasing the damage from some essential skills, it will decrease the damage done by skilled players, but it will also decrease the damage done by newbies. That is because the problems don't lie in the skills; they rely on actual player skill. Give a veteran and an average player the exact same builds and the veteran player will come out on top, because that guy has more skill.

To actually effectively lower the skill ceiling to make it more "fair" for less-experienced players, you should just limit how much that "player skill" would do, such as implementing ability cooldowns, and you know how that would fare in the community (hint: not good). Others would be removing the ability to stack proc set procs, or implementing an inherent DoT to proc sets instead of instant burst damage, or soft caps, etc etc etc. There are so many good suggestions bouncing around in the forums and ZOS never seems to even take any of those into consideration.

Power creep will always be a thing, and to be honest, it's not a bad thing, because a game with no changing end-game will always be boring, and the player retention would be absolutely horrid. If something in the game has to be nerfed due to power creep, don't increase the difficulty with the same content.

Bandit1215 · January 2017

fastolfv_ESO wrote: »

power creep, they already tryed that and people are pulling 80-90k freakin dps in trials. At this point to make content even a half challenge they should be reducing skills way more than current changes

80k-90k dps is very misleading. Is that single target or aoe, because if its single target then they've got some pretty cool hacks going on. If it's aoe dps, then that is pretty realistic.

Yo_Donno · January 2017

fastolfv_ESO wrote: »

power creep, they already tryed that and people are pulling 80-90k freakin dps in trials. At this point to make content even a half challenge they should be reducing skills way more than current changes

What..? I wanna know what build they're running...

Screenshots or it didn't happen

Samwell Slayer · January 2017

fastolfv_ESO wrote: »

power creep, they already tryed that and people are pulling 80-90k freakin dps in trials. At this point to make content even a half challenge they should be reducing skills way more than current changes

90k? LoL. Note that if they buffed the enemies resist and such the dps would go down and people would have to work harder to rebuff the boss. Point is that nobody likes getting nerfed. Doing things that nobody likes to your customers is bad for business. Doing something that a part of your customers like is good for business. Obvious in my mind.

KramUzibra · January 2017

Waffennacht wrote: »

What exactly are you thinking of?

Example: Shuffle has no counter - there is no way to force a hit

Same with proc sets - theoretically you can "dodge" Selene but thanks to animation cancelling, no you cannot, so bring down the dmg.

What changes are you specifically thinking of?

Shuffle has no counter because it is a counter ability. Also I think certain abilities can't be dodged like meteor for example.

Waffennacht · January 2017

I thought OP actually had some specifics in mind and I was wondering what they were thinking is all.

My assumption as why nerf instead of buff is because of, "returns to scale" or basically you if you make abilities better (let's say do more damage) equally (amongst all classes etc equally) you still have an effect on the game because the scale (in this case health/resistance ) was not increased proportionally as well. In this game it would mean an even shorter Time to Kill ratio.

A smaller Time to Kill ratio means a harder environment for less skilled/newer players, aka mistakes are more costly and influential. A longer Time to Kill ratio makes a more "forgiving" atmosphere. This falls in line with the "bring bottom up" mentality.

Shader_Shibes · January 2017

CP system is the root of all nerfs.

JinMori · January 2017

fastolfv_ESO wrote: »

power creep, they already tryed that and people are pulling 80-90k freakin dps in trials. At this point to make content even a half challenge they should be reducing skills way more than current changes

No one is pulling that amount of dps, you are misleading, i saw 60 k dps, but even then it's not purely single target dps.

KochDerDamonen · January 2017

Nerfs = Decrease meta power, gud // doesn't effect special snowflake build is already bad, gud
Buffs = Change meta, new meta bad // make my special snowflake build stronker, meh

Nerfs are viscerally pleasing to this strawman train of thought I have constructed above ^

Who is this joke at the expense of? I don't know any more, my hand is bleeding.

flawless4812 · January 2017

So the logic in eso is amazing.....

The issues I have with these nerfs....
On console a very very small number of players have maw skins especially on xbox I wouldn't know the percent but I would like to say less than 10% have the skin and about less than 2% can actually go in and complete it.

Nerfing our damage will lower that number. For some reason this game has issues with people who play alot and have more than others so they place catchup systems, and other random things that allow the casual player to catchup to the No life elite gamers.

What I can see happening is nerfs to the content to allow the causal players to keep up with the elite players making the game boring to those who actually like it and play it everyday and not once a week.

Nerfing does nothing to a game but show how lazy people really are. if something is too strong instead of taking the easy route to nerf it buff the other abilities so that it on par with other classes etc.

Dont nerf maw don't nerf our trials, elite players invest the most into your game because they actually like it ...... what a wild idea, maybe you guys should reward the people who play alot instead of the people who play once a week or once a month and will prolly leave this game in less than 2 months.

Just an idea release the champ point cap since the grind in this game is over and has been since vet 16.....

It will help with balancing so that you don't have to rebalanced and ba Lance and balance some more everytime you up the cap

TequilaFire · January 2017

Waffennacht wrote: »

I thought OP actually had some specifics in mind and I was wondering what they were thinking is all.

My assumption as why nerf instead of buff is because of, "returns to scale" or basically you if you make abilities better (let's say do more damage) equally (amongst all classes etc equally) you still have an effect on the game because the scale (in this case health/resistance ) was not increased proportionally as well. In this game it would mean an even shorter Time to Kill ratio.

A smaller Time to Kill ratio means a harder environment for less skilled/newer players, aka mistakes are more costly and influential. A longer Time to Kill ratio makes a more "forgiving" atmosphere. This falls in line with the "bring bottom up" mentality.

Problem is when they do increase health/resistance, i.e. heavy armor, cries of OP come from the gankers.

thedude33 · January 2017

altemriel wrote: »

Now tell me someone, what logic is behind the nerfing of skills, instead of buffing the skills, that can be used to counter those skills?

I mean, nerfing annoys, why not buffing instead and leave everyone happy?

Don't both have the same result?

I have $10. You have $5
I nerf myself $5. So now I have $5 and you have $5
or
I buff you $5. So now I have $10 and you have $10

Vaoh · January 2017

fastolfv_ESO wrote: »

power creep, they already tryed that and people are pulling 80-90k freakin dps in trials. At this point to make content even a half challenge they should be reducing skills way more than current changes

80-90K DPS

hassubhai · January 2017

Because *** like that is why magsorc is so *** difficult to 1vX on versus any half decent players

hassubhai · January 2017

thedude33 wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

Now tell me someone, what logic is behind the nerfing of skills, instead of buffing the skills, that can be used to counter those skills?

I mean, nerfing annoys, why not buffing instead and leave everyone happy?

Don't both have the same result?

I have $10. You have $5
I nerf myself $5. So now I have $5 and you have $5
or
I buff you $5. So now I have $10 and you have $10

A better way to put this is, half the world has 10 the other half 5.

If we all have 5 its the same if we all have 10 its the same but then the value of everything in the economy goes down, there are much larger effect than just the two players involved is my point.

One of these effects for example is sorc shields, they are never scaled up to match with current damage and patch by patch they become more and more worse because damage increase. Damage shouldn't increase it should be balanced to a certain point which works well for everything.