ZOS Claims to Use "Hard Data" for Balancing

jhharvest · September 2016

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

@xellink is quite right. Most players (including me) don't care much about balance, since we don't play competitively. All we want is to be able to choose our playstyle and still be able to complete the content with it, even if it is not meta or min/maxed.

But we absolutely **hate* being forced to "relearn" every major "balance patch". I had to relearn my sorc from A-Z twice already : first time in 1.6, second time with shield nerf and animation prioritization changes. I hate it and don't want to face that for a third time.

I think both of these issues are because of not enough regular balance patches, instead of too many. In a decently balanced game there is less gap between min/max builds and casual builds, so more content is completeable with a "play as you want" build. If the tendency is towards buffing everything to max, then it will be more likely that certain combinations deliver much higher results due to the way buffs stack, and therefore min/max builds will have a greater advantage.

And having to re-learn your class is another symptom of the twice a year "balancing" that takes place in ESO. Instead of delivering smaller incremental changes often, the changes are rare, monumental and break whole classes and ways of playing when the nerf hammer comes and hits your chosen play style. More frequent balancing would serve to keep the classes equal without having to break them completely when they get out of hand.

xellink · September 2016

jhharvest wrote: »

And having to re-learn your class is another symptom of the twice a year "balancing" that takes place in ESO. Instead of delivering smaller incremental changes often, the changes are rare, monumental and break whole classes and ways of playing when the nerf hammer comes and hits your chosen play style. More frequent balancing would serve to keep the classes equal without having to break them completely when they get out of hand.

@jhharvest
Not in PVP. Frequent balances result in frequent metashifts in PVP. Apart from armor and skill refund cost stopping metashifts, most players are willing to jump to the next most powerful thing. A small change like half a second spell cast can shift the metagame entirely. When the metagame shifts entirely, population changes and your cookie cutter build can suddenly become completely useless in PVP. This is not healthy for the market ESO is being sold to. Basically those who can afford the gold or crowns will own PVP.

Professional games have tweaks that change the gameplay to quarter second or 3/4 second duration cast time. Also comes with extremely long tooltips with 'ifs' and 'thens' in them. Koreans are happy with it and always hog the ladders in PVP. Even in an international game.

PVE is different. Anything goes.

templesus · September 2016

I don't agree that BoL is class defining. For that to be true sorcs twilight heal needs to be removed.

jhharvest · September 2016

xellink wrote: »

jhharvest wrote: »

And having to re-learn your class is another symptom of the twice a year "balancing" that takes place in ESO. Instead of delivering smaller incremental changes often, the changes are rare, monumental and break whole classes and ways of playing when the nerf hammer comes and hits your chosen play style. More frequent balancing would serve to keep the classes equal without having to break them completely when they get out of hand.

@jhharvest
Not in PVP. Frequent balances result in frequent metashifts in PVP. Apart from armor and skill refund cost stopping metashifts, most players are willing to jump to the next most powerful thing. A small change like half a second spell cast can shift the metagame entirely. When the metagame shifts entirely, population changes and your cookie cutter build can suddenly become completely useless in PVP. This is not healthy for the market ESO is being sold to. Basically those who can afford the gold or crowns will own PVP.

Professional games have tweaks that change the gameplay to quarter second or 3/4 second duration cast time. Also comes with extremely long tooltips with 'ifs' and 'thens' in them. Koreans are happy with it and always hog the ladders in PVP. Even in an international game.

PVE is different. Anything goes.

Yeah, I get what you're saying - but I disagree with your interpretation of it.

Let's look at Dota2 since it's a game I know fairly well and it is focused on balance. In the last six months the hero that received the biggest buffs is Axe. His pick rate went up by 8 percentile from April to May because of patch 6.87 (major patch). That's massive change in a competitive game, yeah? But his win rate only went up from 47.17% to 52.99%. Certainly not an auto-win for your team by any stretch of imagination.

Or how about the biggest loser? Beastmaster's win rate dropped from 52.17% to 46.38% over the last 6 months. Yeah, the hero is worse off now, but you won't lose the game just because you pick that hero. Overall strats and player skill still matter a lot. And these are the two heroes that lost or gained the most. The heroes didn't turn into insta-win or insta-lose. That's because the changes were on the scale of:

Axe
Counter Helix damage type from Physical to Pure
Counter Helix damage reduced from 100/135/170/205 to 90/120/150/180

Beastmaster
Call of the Wild Hawk's day vision reduced from 700/1000/1300/1600 to 500/750/1000/1250
Call of the Wild Hawk's night vision reduced from 700/800/900/1000 to 500/650/800/950

Yeah, changing the damage type (and then reducing the damage) on Axe's 1 skill made that difference.

They weren't ESO changes that are:

Conjured Ward: Reduced the duration of this ability and the Hardened Ward morph to 6 seconds from 20 seconds.

They aren't even in the same league. Those Dota2 changes are basically "Okay, play your hero like you used to, but now you'll do a bit better or a bit worse". The ESO changes are "Okay, learn all new rotations."

KhajiitiLizard · September 2016

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

There's a Star Trek next generation joke just begging to be a meme but would be most inappropriate .

Do androids even have... er.... LOL

Savos_Saren · September 2016

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

Excellent list. (Though I can't agree re: wings)

Wait.. what's wings?

RoamingRiverElk · 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)

Thank you for this.

How was "using armor type X" defined? Does someone using 5 medium, 1 heavy, 1 light register as medium armor user only, or a user of all three?

I would also like to point out that it would be really useful if someone at ZOS also made the following chart:

* PC NA + PC EU combined
* Armor type shown only for characters that wear at least 5 pieces of a particular armor type (wearing 5 light 1 med 1 heavy would only be counted as "light armor wearer", not med or heavy armor wearer)
* Take the top 150 Leaderboard characters (or top 100) on Trueflame each faction (and make a separate chart for Azura)

What's effective and viable is vastly different from what every single player who entered the campaign wore.

I hope it'll be possible to create a chart (well, two charts ^^ ) like this.

RoamingRiverElk · September 2016

jaburns wrote: »

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

Excellent list. (Though I can't agree re: wings)

Wait.. what's wings?

Reflective Scale... It used to be an awesome skill... Then it was nerfed to reflect only 4 projectiles (weaved projectile light attacks also count as a projectile...) It certainly should not be nerfed any further - in fact, it should be buffed for *magicka* DKs.

ThoraxtheDark · September 2016

kinda saddened by the mentality most gamers have nowadays. its like the PC have infested every niche of society, the whole time reading this post i just wanted to shout , SHUT THE *** UP. Small little complaints that can add up to some content, yet who really gives a crap, such a waste of time. The seriousness is only matched by the lonely desperation

vyndral13preub18_ESO · September 2016

Calboy wrote: »

Wow. These forums are terrible. A dev actually responds with hard data about the game and people are questioning it because certain people influence a majority to moan about the fotm moan because their setup isn't killing people quick enough.

It is how you have a discussion when people disagree. You question them they question you. It is actually rather healthy. You want to get on them for being rude, im all for it. But because they question something? That makes me laugh.

xellink · September 2016

jhharvest wrote: »

xellink wrote: »

jhharvest wrote: »

And having to re-learn your class is another symptom of the twice a year "balancing" that takes place in ESO. Instead of delivering smaller incremental changes often, the changes are rare, monumental and break whole classes and ways of playing when the nerf hammer comes and hits your chosen play style. More frequent balancing would serve to keep the classes equal without having to break them completely when they get out of hand.

@jhharvest
Not in PVP. Frequent balances result in frequent metashifts in PVP. Apart from armor and skill refund cost stopping metashifts, most players are willing to jump to the next most powerful thing. A small change like half a second spell cast can shift the metagame entirely. When the metagame shifts entirely, population changes and your cookie cutter build can suddenly become completely useless in PVP. This is not healthy for the market ESO is being sold to. Basically those who can afford the gold or crowns will own PVP.

Professional games have tweaks that change the gameplay to quarter second or 3/4 second duration cast time. Also comes with extremely long tooltips with 'ifs' and 'thens' in them. Koreans are happy with it and always hog the ladders in PVP. Even in an international game.

PVE is different. Anything goes.

Yeah, I get what you're saying - but I disagree with your interpretation of it.

Let's look at Dota2 since it's a game I know fairly well and it is focused on balance. In the last six months the hero that received the biggest buffs is Axe. His pick rate went up by 8 percentile from April to May because of patch 6.87 (major patch). That's massive change in a competitive game, yeah? But his win rate only went up from 47.17% to 52.99%. Certainly not an auto-win for your team by any stretch of imagination.

Or how about the biggest loser? Beastmaster's win rate dropped from 52.17% to 46.38% over the last 6 months. Yeah, the hero is worse off now, but you won't lose the game just because you pick that hero. Overall strats and player skill still matter a lot. And these are the two heroes that lost or gained the most. The heroes didn't turn into insta-win or insta-lose. That's because the changes were on the scale of:

Axe
Counter Helix damage type from Physical to Pure
Counter Helix damage reduced from 100/135/170/205 to 90/120/150/180

Beastmaster
Call of the Wild Hawk's day vision reduced from 700/1000/1300/1600 to 500/750/1000/1250
Call of the Wild Hawk's night vision reduced from 700/800/900/1000 to 500/650/800/950

Yeah, changing the damage type (and then reducing the damage) on Axe's 1 skill made that difference.

They weren't ESO changes that are:

Conjured Ward: Reduced the duration of this ability and the Hardened Ward morph to 6 seconds from 20 seconds.

They aren't even in the same league. Those Dota2 changes are basically "Okay, play your hero like you used to, but now you'll do a bit better or a bit worse". The ESO changes are "Okay, learn all new rotations."

There isn't much flexibility in playstyle with a fixed hero in dota. if you pick a hero, the skills stay the same. Also a lot of players do play random.

The very same developers in DOTA made Abaddon's ultimate to heal instead of negate damage. Do you know what that means. That means if a sniper fires and you notice it, you can turn on your ultimate and poof, full health again. This changed gameplay for abaddon completely allowing the ultimate to be used offensively rather than defensively. Now in dota2, this can be upgraded by Aghanim's scepter. So don't tell me DOTA developers don't make massive changes. They do.. and when they get pissed off with some abused mechanic, you can see heavy handed nerfing.

Now don't take one single example of balance changes and try to paint the entire picture that every balance change we have is bad. Sorc shields was an abused mechanic.

ESO is a much younger game than DOTA/DOTA2. Heavy handed balancing is to be expected.

I can give you examples if you want from ESO...
Turn Undead (Circle of Protection morph): In addition to the changes made to the base ability, we increased the duration of the area of effect to 12 seconds from 10 seconds.

ESO has never achieved any form of balance because it is a new game. DOTA never achieved any form of balance to begin with until they created DOTA 2 and balance is still questionable.

jhharvest · September 2016

Yes, I understand what you're saying. But I still think that regular balance updates is better and causes less volatility than twice a year "let's shake the meta up again!" updates. I don't believe balance can be reached by altering every skill at once, but by fine tuning the classes over a series of patches.

Besides, that wasn't even the whole patch notes on Circle of Protection that patch...

Circle of Protection: This ability and its morphs now grant the Minor Endurance buff in addition to the Minor Protection buff.
Ring of Preservation (Circle of Protection morph): In addition to the changes made to the base ability, we redesigned this morph so it now decreases the cost of Roll Dodge by 20% while within the area of effect.
Turn Undead (Circle of Protection morph): In addition to the changes made to the base ability, we increased the duration of the area of effect to 12 seconds from 10 seconds.
Intimidating Presence: This passive ability now also reduces the cost of Fighters Guild abilities by 20%.
Slayer: Redesigned this passive ability so it now increases your Weapon Damage by 1/2/3% for each Fighters Guild ability slotted at Ranks I/II/III respectively, instead of increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 3/6/9% against Undead and Daedra.

(Okay, the ability was probably underperforming so it was probably justified.)

hrothbern · September 2016

.

jhharvest wrote: »

Yes, I understand what you're saying. But I still think that regular balance updates is better and causes less volatility than twice a year "let's shake the meta up again!" updates. I don't believe balance can be reached by altering every skill at once, but by fine tuning the classes over a series of patches.

Besides, that wasn't even the whole patch notes on Circle of Protection that patch...

Circle of Protection: This ability and its morphs now grant the Minor Endurance buff in addition to the Minor Protection buff.
Ring of Preservation (Circle of Protection morph): In addition to the changes made to the base ability, we redesigned this morph so it now decreases the cost of Roll Dodge by 20% while within the area of effect.
Turn Undead (Circle of Protection morph): In addition to the changes made to the base ability, we increased the duration of the area of effect to 12 seconds from 10 seconds.
Intimidating Presence: This passive ability now also reduces the cost of Fighters Guild abilities by 20%.
Slayer: Redesigned this passive ability so it now increases your Weapon Damage by 1/2/3% for each Fighters Guild ability slotted at Ranks I/II/III respectively, instead of increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 3/6/9% against Undead and Daedra.

(Okay, the ability was probably underperforming so it was probably justified.)

Faster regular balance update should not be faster than the response time to the change by the population you are measuring.
Otherwise you keep oscilating.

On a speedboat, with fast response time, you can steer all the time, make fast updates.
On a mammoth tanker, with a slow response time, you must take your time.

Our player population is a fleet of anything between speedboats (players with lots of time to grind/sets/gold adapting fast)
and slow moving boats (players that need many months to change gear, play style and so on).

EDIT
If you approach all that with a PID controller, the standard industrial way to control a process to a desired value, minimising overshooots and wild oscilating:
Most of our players cause a high D component needed to control the balancing process.
The D component of a PID controller regulates for possible future values of the deviation to target value, based on its current rate of change.
I guess ZOS will plot for example the LA-MA-HA frequency rate as function of time.

Vorcil · September 2016

What hard data did you use that allowed gap closers to exist in their current state? Has banning players for using a mechanic you developed helped to address the underlying mechanical issues?

This

Sweetpea704 · September 2016

I think it is funny that so many people figure that everyone is just wearing medium armor. Only three of my toons wear medium and only one of them goes into PVP. My main toon in PVP wears 5 light and 2 heavy. I have max CP. Maybe the folks with max CP don't get all their builds off of You Tube and Twitch.

Anti_Virus · January 2017

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)

[Deleted]

Thelon · April 2017

wtb moar graphs for morrowind changes

lunalitetempler · April 2017

Thelon wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Feedback from everyone is one very important part, but we also look at hard data and how a change would affect every other part of the game.

Honestly Gina, I've enjoyed many conversations with you and various Devs since Beta. But the claim that you're using "hard data" to determine the affects of various changes is laughable considering the current state of your game.

*****

What hard data did you examine when balancing the CP system? Do passives like unchained look balanced to you?

What hard data did you examine when implementing Battle Spirit, especially in relation to class defining skills like Dragon Blood?

What hard data did you use when implementing a no CP campaign? Did you adjust Streak / Dodge penalties to compensate for 0 CP PvP?

What hard data did you use when implementing crutch sets like Shield breaker? Did you adjust this set after nerfing sorc shields?

What hard data did you use when setting shield duration at 6 seconds? Are your matrices showing an acceptable number of MagSorcs in Cyrodiil?

What hard data did you use when implementing proc sets like Valendrith and Viper? Do you feel these sets increase or decrease the importance of player skill in ESO?

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?

What hard data did you use when buffing Soul Assault? Is another long-range, undodgeable beam encouraging or discouraging smart counter-play in ESO's PvP?

What hard data did you use that allowed gap closers to exist in their current state? Has banning players for using a mechanic you developed helped to address the underlying mechanical issues?

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?

What hard data did you use when deciding that multiple poisons should apply on one person? Do you feel zerglings need additional advantages to be successful in 20 v 2 situations?

What hard data did you use when implementing Rally and Vigour? Do you feel stam builds need a burst heal from their offensive weapon (Rally) and a passive heal (Vigour) whose ticks surpasses a DKs burst heal?

What hard data did you use when deciding that Bound Armor would remain a toggle? That Storm Atronach would be the only Atronach in the game that can be CC'd?

What hard data did you reference that led you to decide that Streak should be the only CLASS DEFINING SKILL in the game that punishes the user for casting it more than once? Why is the same not true for other class defining skills like cloak, BoL and Wings?

*****

I hope you understand why the community might have a tough time understanding your use of "hard data." The current state of ESO leads me to believe that either:

a) you don't use hard data, or
b) you do use hard data, but lack the competence to use it effectively, or
c) you do use hard data and have the competence to use it effectively, but lack the monetary incentive to do so

"Men are more important than tools. If you don't believe so, put a good tool into the hands of a poor workman."
- John J. Bernet

Sure because some player has way more hard data right? Rather than the company? Seriously lol.

Tasear · April 2017

acw37162 wrote: »

Reading the responses to what amounts an articulate rage post reminds of wizards first rule.

To find a reference to sword of truth series is poetry.

Tasear · April 2017

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 respect your decision to respond. Thanks for working on this game we enjoy so much.

DragonBound · April 2017

Tasear wrote: »

acw37162 wrote: »

Reading the responses to what amounts an articulate rage post reminds of wizards first rule.

To find a reference to sword of truth series is poetry.

Indeed.

Draqone · April 2017

When presented with facts, this community states: "We have alternative facts."

Feanor · April 2017

Draqone wrote: »

When presented with facts, this community states: "We have alternative facts."

Yes because their "facts" are not valid, or rather they draw the wrong conclusions from it. For further reference see the whole AP trading fiasco where @ZOS_BrianWheeler tried to tell people that nobody at Black Boot mine made more than 90k AP/h. He backed it up with "hard data", but it turned out that he only pulled it from NA/PC and not from EU/PC also. He remained stubborn in his obviously erroneous conclusions even when people were posting their AP/h screenshots showing 200k+/h.

TL;DR ZOS doesn't get the benefit of the doubt because their conclusions have been blatantly erroneous in the past. Also nice thread necro.

FireCowCommando · April 2017

Derra 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)

And this is exactly what i expected to be happening over at ZOS.
You don´t even realize that you´ve reinforced every point made in the topic with this example of "hard data". You can not look at the average number of you´re whole server population (or even parts of that like 531 cp capped players).
These can at best give slight indications of balancing problems (i bet even when heavy was absolute garbage back in the days there was a considerable amount of players using it anyways because they simply wanted to play a knight in armor).

To actually identify problems in balancing you have to look at the overperforming (and underperforming) things at the very end of the normal curve. Interesting for balance are the cases where everything is purely chosen (or ignored) in relation to performance.

Another problem raised with your approach is alternatives (or the lack of). Lets jump into the topic by playing a quick game of: How you can possibly evaluate the state of destruction staves at all with your approach to balancing.

There are no alternatives offered by the game - if you want an offensive based magica weapon you´re wearing a destruction staff - period (let´s ignore your internal joke of destro staves actually being three different weapons for this one because if anyone truely believed that someone would have to explain me the state of ice staves backed up by your "hard data" in regards to endgame activities).
Your internal metrics will obviously show destro staffs are in a great state because every magica DD and their mother are using them. This gets reinforced by playerfeedback - or the lack thereof. There is no reference point for players to give feedback on.

Players: "Destro staves are horse droppings."
ZOS: "Compared to what? Why is everyone using them when they´re so bad - duh."

careful, ZoS would have an overload of neurons firing if they attempted to use logic. Dont kill the game developers with basic critical thinking!

Malmai · April 2017

Bingo!

Peekachu99 · April 2017

Pretty digusting behavior on display from some of the player-base here. Troll-bait post that gets an actual developer response and rather than be satisfied that the developers have actually engaged the community, the tin-foil-hatters and arm-chair-developers suddenly demand further parses, points of reference and date stamps.

You know, I've had my issues with this game, and I've had my moments where I've been vocal about them, too. But there's the looming issue how these concerns are being voiced; of the grave disrespect shown toward these artists (that what developers and creatives in general are) and their product. This isn't some political revolution. No one's dignity or rights are being revoked. The people in charge of the unique game that so many of us love (or love to hate, apparently) are reinforcing the same vision with which the set out. We are here to share in that vision, and to do so with RESPECT. Offering critisism as ad hominem attacks, gif-bombs, and raw insults is truly, truly shameful and childish behavior. Furthermore, these attacks come from what I'm assuming are grown or semi-adults--both disturbing and a reflection of our society at large.

After the most recent ESO Live, and after watching the embattled @ZOS_RichLambert and @Wrobel defend what is actually a clear, tranparent vision--not without its warts and hiccups, given--they earned a tremendous amount of respect from me. They dared to wade through the quagmire of negativity and churlishness that has drowned this community. The fact that they responded at all shows a measure of care and comittment to both their vision and to the people playing it. You may not like their vision. You may not like them. Those are your choices to make, and you can do so without flinging poop and acting like a fool. They have laid out their mandates. You can either accept them and try to offer civil, critical feedback, or you should move on. I'm usually hesistant to ask any members of an online community to find enjoyment elsewhere, but surely there comes a point where you need to decide if being this emotionally and negatively invested in a game is good for your mental health.

May you find that greener pastsure, or, if you choose to stay, stop trying to fertilize this one with your S#IT.

Edit: Ha! Just saw the date, and the fact that this thread has been necro'd should show you what kind of psychotic cycles the community moves in. Farts in the wind. Can't wait till this one leaves the room.

xeNNNNN · April 2017

Peekachu99 wrote: »

Pretty digusting behavior on display from some of the player-base here. Troll-bait post that gets an actual developer response and rather than be satisfied that the developers have actually engaged the community, the tin-foil-hatters and arm-chair-developers suddenly demand further parses, points of reference and date stamps.

You know, I've had my issues with this game, and I've had my moments where I've been vocal about them, too. But there's the looming issue how these concerns are being voiced; of the grave disrespect shown toward these artists (that what developers and creatives in general are) and their product. This isn't some political revolution. No one's dignity or rights are being revoked. The people in charge of the unique game that so many of us love (or love to hate, apparently) are reinforcing the same vision with which the set out. We are here to share in that vision, and to do so with RESPECT. Offering critisism as ad hominem attacks, gif-bombs, and raw insults is truly, truly shameful and childish behavior. Furthermore, these attacks come from what I'm assuming are grown or semi-adults--both disturbing and a reflection of our society at large.

After the most recent ESO Live, and after watching the embattled @ZOS_RichLambert and @Wrobel defend what is actually a clear, tranparent vision--not without its warts and hiccups, given--they earned a tremendous amount of respect from me. They dared to wade through the quagmire of negativity and churlishness that has drowned this community. The fact that they responded at all shows a measure of care and comittment to both their vision and to the people playing it. You may not like their vision. You may not like them. Those are your choices to make, and you can do so without flinging poop and acting like a fool. They have laid out their mandates. You can either accept them and try to offer civil, critical feedback, or you should move on. I'm usually hesistant to ask any members of an online community to find enjoyment elsewhere, but surely there comes a point where you need to decide if being this emotionally and negatively invested in a game is good for your mental health.

May you find that greener pastsure, or, if you choose to stay, stop trying to fertilize this one with your S#IT.

Edit: Ha! Just saw the date, and the fact that this thread has been necro'd should show you what kind of psychotic cycles the community moves in. Farts in the wind. Can't wait till this one leaves the room.

Concerning your edit.

"the community moves in" isnt accurate and you should be ashamed of yourself for generalising as it was one person who necro'ed not the entire community.

P.s Your high horse isn't so high seeing as you couldnt respond without being insulting. Beware your ego.

Jamascus · April 2017

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)

So you buffed heavy armor because less people use it than the other 2 types of armor? Heavy armor was used less because it's for tanking. Which is useless for PVP. Look at the passives in the skill line. Medium and light buff healing and damage primarily. Heavy buffs tanking primarily. It should be no surprise that heavy armor was used less. The real question is, why did you care that heavy armor was used less?

Sausage · April 2017

They have more data than you have, bro. How much you have? Zero?

Jacozilla · April 2017

Still one major fault or gap in what the dev @ZOS_RichLambert posted in graphs -

What defines a PVP player?

His data claims heavy armor isn't as much as we think...ok fair enough. But how context is defined and data interpreted is far more important than the raw data validity. People can completely agree the raw data is correct, yet interpret it dozens of different ways.

The key omission I see is just what defines "a PVP player"?

I enter cyrodil almost always in non-pvp setup because I'm just there as to pve.

Does a person like me who barely spends a few hours here and there, wearing my full pve gear and build count as a "PVP" player for this data? Because yea, I and people like me would skew that data away from heavy.

What I'd like to see is -
1) based on players that play 10-20+ hours or more per week in PVE - what armor bias is there?

2) same as above but for PVP - what armor bias is there?

I would bet significant sums that based on slicing the data this way, the armor bias as shown by @ZOS_RichLambert would be rather different. Because if he is counting any person that entered cyrodil or IC as a "PVP" player, he's mixing apples and oranges with lots of PVE players that don't wear heavy and just spend a few hours getting whacked in cyro as price of doing business for getting some PVE quests done.