The change the OP is proposing is:
Do not factor max attributes into the damage equation for skills.
Increase how much weapon/spell damage are factored to make up for the above.

People are getting hung up over the effects and I sense this comes from a fear that this will nerf damage dealers, go too far to make hybrids equal, or even not go far enough to make hybrids equal.

So let's think about this in terms of sets.

Hybrids currently exist by making use of sets that increase weapon and spell damage (or make the highest one equal to the other in the case of Pelinal's set). There are some very good sets for this cause: Alchemist, Pelinal's, etc. There are enough sets that Hybrids can have adequate and in some cases, quite nice weapon and spell damage. But these sets often come with a trade off inherent in building a hybrid that specialized builds do not deal with:

It is harder to stack both weapon and spell damage overall than just stacking only weapon or only spell damage. Pelinal's set, which allows someone to equalize their weapon/spell damage to the highest value, is still a 5 piece set. It takes up space a specialized build could use to put in more damage. If you're not using Pelinal's, then notice that some of the best rings, agility and willpower would take up too much space to have both at once and be viable.

There is a difference between weapon and spell critical. Specialized builds only have to choose one. Hybrids must split between both and overall have less critical hits.

Resource management: While attributes won't affect damage output, they would affect how much you can cast abilities. While there are easier ways for Hybrids to make up for this now, given the tri-stat glyphs, hybrids still have much less of one stat than a pure specialized build. The same often goes for regeneration, where it would often not match the values of a specialized build. In this area, hybrids can actually specialize more than people think, and I've known a few good builds that push for fantastic resource management, but it is always at the expense of damage. Would hybrids need help with resource management? I don't think so. It makes it an interesting part of their playstyle to switch between damage types based on resources, or to sacrifice damage to be able to sustain all resources.

So overall, hybrids definitely would not be equal with specialized builds as a result of this change, on any of those fronts.
But they would be more viable to compete, and the inherent trade-offs in damage and resources may manifest in resource management or utility. This would be a good place for them to be in. I do not imagine many high end DPS focused hybrids (though if someone makes one, that would be interesting!) but among tanky players and PvPers, this change allows for more builds to be viable.

One thing that would need to be addressed, however would be the amount of sets in game whose damage is balanced around the magicka/stamina they provide instead of weapon/spell damage. While players with high end damage builds would have plenty of viable weapon/spell damage focused sets to choose from, the overall amount of sets which are viable may go down as a result of this balancing. Many sets that provide resource bonuses would likely need to be altered from max stamina/max magicka to weapon/spell damage. Perhaps max magicka/stamina could be tied in with regeneration in sets, so that a bonus of 129 regeneration right now may later also provide some amount of resources.

Would such a change be the end of the world? No. Would Damage Dealers be nerfed? Probably not, as long as sets with max stamina/magicka are dealt with well. Would hybrids be more viable? Yes. Would they be on par with specialized builds? No.

Would there be better balance?
I think so.

several people have suggested that hybrid builds shouldn't be capable of doing as much damage as a specialized dps build, and I would agree with that statement - I feel like there should be a cost/benefit situation with ANY build, and everyone should give up something in order to get something

the problem isn't making hybrid builds as powerful as dps builds - it's in making hybrid capability AS IMPORTANT as dealing only dps...which isn't the current case in the game

right now, DPS is a primary skill. Tanks seem to exist primarily to allow dps's to deal damage, and healers more or less exist to keep tanks up (which allows dps's to deal damage) and to keep dps'ers from getting killed (so that they can do damage)

A *hybrid* is neither tanking quite as well as a specialized tank, nor dps'ing as well as a dps'er, nor healing as well as a specialized healer - and there's really no call for needing to switch between roles

I remember when ESO first came out, I was really impressed by the 2/bar skill/weapon system - meant I could have a dps weapon setup COMBINED with a self-heal/protection setup, and I could swap between the two at need - and, in early eso, when the scaling was different and I didn't have complete sets and I was still learning the game, being versatile was an advantage, and encouraged hybridization

but the push to maximize effectiveness by players has forced the endgame dungeon design to further and further extremes, and in extremes, the specialized modes are ideal because dps'ers have no incentive to take care of their own healing, or swap bars to do some off tanking - if the tank and healer aren't enough to keep the dps'ers up, the tank/healer are failures and the group wipes (at least, that seems to be the mentality)

what we need are encounters designed to force groups to split up, and to force dps'ers to do something other than dps during the entirety of the encounter - several encounters DO have mechanics that are a little bit like this, and it's nice - but it doesn't seem to be enough - rather than rebuild their characters to be more hybridized and versatile, players have instead created strategies and builds that let them bypass the hybridization tactics - or, alternatively, *** and moan about a game mechanic that "forces" them to play a certain way, or "forces" them to use a suboptimal build...

*sigh* - I miss city of heroes, and even Lord of the Rings online - city of heroes was awesome, and although LOTRO had mind-numbingly boring combat (as far as sound and visuals went), there was quite a bit of strategy, the handful of times anyone brought a crowd control expert along, or a team buffing captain

encounters, especially dungeon bosses and coh super-villain encounters, could change DRAMATICALLY with someone who know how to use timely team buffing capability or some expertly placed crowd control on enemies that would otherwise have made the encounter a life-or-death affair

but, dps is easy - it's simple - and it's the go-to factor for everyone that wants to maximize effectiveness, because it's reliable, and easily built on (relatively, at least - compared to strategic crowd control and such)

anyway - I don't really have a solution, except to put a harder cap on escalating damage and an even stronger emphasis on game design that...futzes...with dps, requiring players to diversify just a little bit. Course, with that, we'd have to scale back on enemy boss health to account with the overall drop in dps so that encounters don't need to take much longer than they already do

anyway, that's the way I'd go

Solariken wrote: »

Yep. But they won't because they want their 5 crappy classes to artificially behave like 10 crappy classes.

With the fact you don't use many class skills at all, and most are from a guild or weapon line, it feels more like two crappy classes with a few variations. Everything is so homogenized. My stam templar uses two abilities every other class cannot use, the rest are DW and bow skill lines, fighters guild, and PvP skill line.

besides damage, I also hate the lack of choice that the current system has. If I create a DPS character, then all my attribute points must get dumped into either stamina or magicka without a second thought or I will be penalized with lower dps. There is no point to plan, think or get creative with attribute points. Just dump all points into one stat. Very boring with no variety.

I'm all for this, it opens up the idea of speccing for more things rather than just purely stacking max magicka etc.

.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

This needs to be done. Dumping your points into magicka or stamina should not result in a direct increase to your weapon and spell damage. This system is the bane of hybrid builds, it's the bane of tanks for overland content, and it's an archaic system that makes absolutely no sense with the modern state of the game.

Fix it via the following:

-Attributes no longer effect actual damage.
-Increase the resource pool gain of attributes, enchants, gear, and sets that increase magicka or stamina.
-Work the lost damage from the above changes into base weapon and spell damage, and into set bonuses.

A player can now put points into attributes, or use attribute focused sets, for the sole purpose of having a larger resource pool to utilize for damage, healing, or utility. Tanks will have slightly more resources and slightly better damage potential when soloing, hybrids will no longer suffer from splitting their attributes between two pools and having drastically less damage than others, and we can finally stop pushing pure stat sets as the only viable means of increasing damage output.

well i don't want them to change it. future content would be sacrificed and put on hold since they have to balance everything yet again. so no that is my vote.

As crazy as it sounds you could create a 4th attribute, Will. Damage from all weapons could be based on that. You could choose to put skill points into Mag, Stam, Health or Will. Put everything in Will and you better kill in 1 or 2 shots. Obviously you'd have to rebalance the entire game.

they could put in "utility" skill lines that utilize mag & stam at the same time. More utility for hybrids and tanks in lieu of their dmg deficit.

I'd like to start my comment by saying that I don't want to play hybrid builds because it is possible in other TES games. I want to play hybrid builds because this is something very common in this very game... Look at the NPC, there are tons of them using melee weapons with spells. Some innocents citizens are even able to conjure swords while casting spells.

In my opinion, the current system limitation prevents hybrid builds from being viable, as it also prevents the efficient use of some races for some builds.

Frontloaded stats and diminishing returns? Stacking a single stat shouldn't be more efficient than splitting into several resources. Playing an hybrid build should be an overall more efficient choice, because of the additional utilities.

The enemies shouldn't even have the same physical and magical resistances. And being a pure magic build should only be useful on foes heavily resistant against physical damages. Being an hybrid should be overall more efficient, while specialized builds should be... well, more efficient in specific situations.

Look at the fresh new players, they play hybrid builds, some of them for months before someone kind enough tells them that max stats increase the associated damages.

Well, I didn't want to compare with any other MMO or game, that's just something in the TES universe, just look at the cinematics, Ayrenn waving a sword while casting spells, for instance. Have a nice day.

And also combine weapon and spell damage into one, please and thank you

Absolutely true above. Base skill damage values are roughly half and half made up of weapon/spell damage and max resources. After that comes crit, penetration and cp.

Ultimately this is the reason that I’ve never bothered with the pelenials set. It only buffs a single part of the damage calculation. That part is also the easiest to increase simultaneously for both weapon and spell damage through weapon and jewellery enchants.

gib