It's time: Please allow for separate tuning of skills for PVP and PVE

Blech43 · April 2017

I've been reading through the 3.0 patch notes (a lot of it sounds great)... as well as all of the threads commenting on the most recent round of buffs and nerfs. It just made me think: enough already. Please allow separate tuning of skills for PVP and PVE. A number of other major MMOs have already done this, and it does a good job of keeping both the PVE and PVP player bases reasonably happy.

Personally, I'm almost entirely a PVE player. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are almost entirely PVP. That's fine. But every time a DLC comes out, ZOS makes major changes to my class in order to balance PVP -- but these changes make very little sense from a PVE perspective. These constant rounds of buffs and nerfs are frustrating and exhausting for the PVE playerbase.

Please: change your systems so that skills can be tuned separately for PVE and PVP. Once that's done, you can buff and nerf skills every patch to address new PVP imbalances. But you can also do a major tuning pass on PVE skills to get them in the right place -- and then largely leave them alone.

For PVE players, you could make class, weapon, healing, and guild skills interesting and fun again, without having to worry about the PVP side. You can tune the skills so that players can truly play their class however they like, instead of this push to make every skill more generic so that PVP mechanics don't get imbalanced.

Please, make it happen. I think a large chunk of the player base would be very happy to see this.

Dracindo · April 2017

I love how threads start with "It's time". Makes the OP sound like he can get everything arranged, while in truth they can only talk about it.

On topic:
I don't mind skills with a PvE and PvP version, so long as only the numbers change. Wouldn't want to see a level 25 guy hit Cyrodiil, and end up dying alot because their upgraded skills are suddenly working differently.

Blech43 · April 2017

Point taken, Dracindo. What I was trying to convey with the "It's time" phrase is that with ESO's success in the MMO market over the past year, they should have the resources to do this at this stage.

TheStealthDude · April 2017

ZOS has consistently stated that they do not want skills to function differently for PvE and PvP. It's not a matter of whether they can or not, it's a matter of their vision for the game. Your idea (and everyone one else who posts this same idea every other day) is precisely what they don't want to do and I highly doubt they make a 180 on this.

wildbear247 · April 2017

I think ZoS' official stance on separating PvE and PvP are summarized by Gina in https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4016057#Comment_4016057:
"Lastly, we know there’s some apprehension that we’re balancing PvE and PvP gameplay simultaneously without separating the two. We are 100% committed to supporting a single unified game where mechanics and abilities work consistently, with the goal being for players to learn how play efficiently and be able to transfer those skills to other environments. This is one of the reasons we added CC immunities to monsters; when ESO originally launched, you could knock the same mudcrab down over and over. The balance changes we made in this update are aimed at making gameplay more interesting in all areas of the game."

With that said, OP I agree with you that ZoS taking a bit more effort to isolate changes to either PvE or PvP environments would be healthy for the game. I say a bit more effort because some work has already been done to separate the two environments. Consider the following current differences between PvE and PvP:
1) Battle Spirit buff: this is the most obvious and biggest difference. When entering PvP you get this unique buff that enacts the following changes: 5000 more health; damage taken, healing received, and damage shield strength reduced by 50%; range increased by 8 meters for all abilities with a 28m range or greater.
2) Nightblade Teleport Strike and it's Ambush morph: in PvE this skill stuns for 2 seconds, but in PvP it just briefly snares your opponent.
3) Sorcerer's Negate ult: stuns enemies in PvE, but silences players in PvP.

In the current Update 14 PTS changes another key difference between PvP and PvE is the extra crit damage from sneak...in PvE it will apply on monsters but in PvP it won't.

I think separating PvP and PvE environments becomes especially important when one side calls for nerfs that could significantly affect gameplay for the other side. From what I've seen on these forums usually the requests for nerfs originate mostly from the PvP side (I say this as someone that mostly plays PvP these days). Nerfs and changes that might be justified and healthy for the PvP side of ESO could seriously derail builds and play-styles that PvE'rs have invested hundreds of hours into...which I don't think is good or healthy for the game.

I think by its more competitive nature PvP will require more balancing and fine-tuning than PvE. And I think the more we can isolate those PvP-centric changes to just PvP, and thereby provide a bit more stability to long researched and grinded PvE builds and playstyles, the healthier it will be for the game.

Blech43 · April 2017

wildbear247 wrote: »

... I think separating PvP and PvE environments becomes especially important when one side calls for nerfs that could significantly affect gameplay for the other side. From what I've seen on these forums usually the requests for nerfs originate mostly from the PvP side (I say this as someone that mostly plays PvP these days). Nerfs and changes that might be justified and healthy for the PvP side of ESO could seriously derail builds and play-styles that PvE'rs have invested hundreds of hours into...which I don't think is good or healthy for the game...

I think you stated the core issue very well. ZOS has changed course before. Given how homogenized the classes and skills have become over the years -- almost entirely due to PVP balancing, in my opinion -- I think they should reconsider their stance on this.

seedubsrun · April 2017

I agree with OP. Though they say the balances are with both PvP and PvE in mind, they're clearly not. Take this current update in the works. To the PvP focused player that wanted change a lot of what's coming makes sense. I see constant complaints about shield stacking sorcs and stam builds with infinite resources and these adjustments would alleviate those issues a lot but then you see a ton of PvE focused players that are horrified by the upcoming adjustments. Players worried about DPS checks in trials, players who struggle already seeing the game about to get even harder, top tier players like Deltia and Alcast being irritated or outright quitting the game. If you should be able to PvP the same way that you PvE then why do I need different gear, skills, and morphs for each game mode? They're clearly two separate beasts and should be adjusted as such. If it makes PvE too easy for some then they could always work out a third difficulty tier for top performing players. Hell each of the difficulty tiers could be adjusted independently too. I think the sustain nerfs would be right at home in a higher difficulty PvE mode. I'm still optimistic that not all of these changes will be implemented and believe that the players will make it work in the end either way. I'll still be on, I know that much.