What does balance mean to you?

ThinkerOfThings · April 2018

I notice that the word "balance/imbalance" is used a lot on these forums, however it seems to be used more as a subjective placeholder term for a few different things:

To express a lack of faith in ZOS' ability to code their game
To explain why a change can't or shouldn't be done
To express displeasure with ZOS in a particular area

My question is, what does balance mean to you and what would be you ideal balance if you could make changes to ESO?

Yakidafi · April 2018

Balance is when nirn is in harmony.

srfrogg23 · April 2018

To most people it either means “I’m not top dps” or “that build killed me in PvP”.

phaneub17_ESO · April 2018

One class should be able to dominate another in a big circle. Everyone has at least one disadvantage.

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO · April 2018

It means that any build with proper stat optimization to accompany it is capable of competing with any other build of same optimization when played at the same skill level.

Essentially, choices don't affect performance, they just alter how you play the game.

MLGProPlayer · April 2018

When every class is viable in every role.

There will always be one "best" class in every role, but the gap between best and worst shouldn't be the size of the grand canyon.

GeorgeBlack · April 2018

Retweeking over and under performing features as often as possible

VaranisArano · April 2018

Rock, Paper, Scissors.

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO · April 2018

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

There will always be one "best" class in every role, but the gap between best and worst shouldn't be the size of the grand canyon.

Agree. When I do all the cool kid stuff like animation cancelling and gear out properly, but I hate the thought of using a bow and suffer a dps loss of like 50% it's not fun.

GeorgeBlack wrote: »

Retweeking over and under performing features as often as possible

Coming from wow, I was hoping ESO would be different in this regard.

They're better in lots of ways: Leveling is great and feels meaningful vs wow's dull crap that makes me want to afk through it all. Dungeons are more demanding with more mechanics earlier. Zone scaling done right. Gear farming is relatively easy and there's a hard cap (no such thing as massive casino loot improvements like titanforging).

That said, it seems like they fail worse as balance than wow does, which is unfortunate.

JobooAGS · April 2018

For pve dps, ranged stam, melee stam, ranged magicka, melee magicka are all viable and are wanted at the top levels

madchuska83 · April 2018

Balance means that I get to dust off one of my shelved characters every few months.

ThinkerOfThings · April 2018

srfrogg23 wrote: »

To most people it either means “I’m not top dps” or “that build killed me in PvP”.

I noticed this as well!

b.bredfeldtub17_ESO wrote: »

It means that any build with proper stat optimization to accompany it is capable of competing with any other build of same optimization when played at the same skill level.

Essentially, choices don't affect performance, they just alter how you play the game.

This makes me wonder if people often don't take their own skill level into account.

JobooAGS wrote: »

For pve dps, ranged stam, melee stam, ranged magicka, melee magicka are all viable and are wanted at the top levels

While that seems like a good response, I see the term instead used in opposition to any change to the game. So much so that in the context of these forums it seems to have lost any semblance of its original meaning.

Morgul667 · April 2018

To me it means that I can achieve pretty similar results on any class, players skills being the key factor to perform better or not, each game-play having its own advantage and disadvantage but overall similar results

Drdeath20 · April 2018

Every class has some level of unique strengths and weaknesses and there is no way to fully commit to a offensive or defensive build without sacrificing the other.

ak_pvp · April 2018

For PvP every class has unique strengths with adequate, but not overly hard counters. Every class can deal with outnumbered well and have good skill cap.

Example of good ability/counter mix: Beetles. Strong, but avoidable.

Example of bad ability to counters: Cloak. Mark/detect pot makes it near useless. Overly hard.

Example of bad counter to abilities: Cloak. AoE/reveals too weak and unreliable counter for its cost. Inadequate.

Wrecking_Blow_Spam · April 2018

Nerfing things based on PVP complaints that affect PVE.

Also nerfing a class until another class is Bis, then nerfing said BiS class and so on and so forth in an endless cycle of nerf. With meta shifting due to nerfs.

Keyword - nerf

Nerfy nerfy niddily nerfy

Judas Helviaryn · April 2018

Balance as most players know it is a lack of flavor. A bland, boring, homogenized world where everyone might as well be reduced to one hit point. A game where every single variable is removed, you are never surprised, and competition is dead.

Imbalance is the true balance.

Bhaal5 · April 2018

Balance will be close when there is only naked cyrodiil, even then.... There will be some

Wrecking_Blow_Spam · April 2018

Judas Helviaryn wrote: »

Balance as most players know it is a lack of flavor. A bland, boring, homogenized world where everyone might as well be reduced to one hit point. A game where every single variable is removed, you are never surprised, and competition is dead.

Imbalance is the true balance.

I like this, true there will never be true balance in eso. To many variables.

thedude33 · April 2018

If everyone had the same skill/ability, balance would be a lot easier to achieve. Reality is excellent players are the exception, and they cause balance nightmares.

Gythral · April 2018

Usually it means
My favourite class got nerfed into oblivion

WakeYourGhost · April 2018

Balance, to me, means everyone's Death Recap in PvP is filled with combinations and attacks that are both diverse and mildly challenging to counter without being impossible. The same 5 usual suspects shouldn't be the only things killing everyone.

Balance, to me, means PvE has scaling difficulty and a multitude of challenges to rise above the base-line of the game to make the every-growing power-creep less punishing to the Fun aspects of this game. Being able to pull and slaughter an army on your own or having even Three trash-mobs put you through your paces and challenge the upper limits of your skill - Both should be an option for you.

Dysturbed · April 2018

Balance is only achieved in a game when no class is fun to play.

Gilvoth · April 2018

balance is when everyone is dying and killing at the same pace, meaning that players are all dying and killing eachother at an equal amount of times.

just like playing board games like monopoly for example, you play with your brother or sister and sometimes they win and sometimes you win.
its not one person winning constantly nor more often then the others.
basicly equal winnings and losings making it a fair and equal gameplay.

Mayrael · April 2018

Balance? I can kill you, you can't kill me

no but seriously is the state where 1vX in PvP is impossible but any class can 1v1 any other class - assuming same skill level. In PvE it means that each class can play any role and be best at it but using different builds.

Narvuntien · April 2018

Balance occurs when skill is the major reason for differences between players performance and not the choice of class and role.

You have kind of strange things that occur though where an equally mediocre skilled Pet Sorc and Mageblade will see the Pet Sorc do more dps but an excellent mageblade will easily out dps an excellent Pet Sorc.

I am kind of okay with that and with some classes doing less dps but having more utility so its not always straight dps to dps its about performance in its entirety.

Twenty0zTsunami · April 2018

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

One class should be able to dominate another in a big circle. Everyone has at least one disadvantage.

this pre-historic rock-paper-scissors format hasn't been relevant in like 12 years.

no class should be guaranteed the upper hand against anyone based on class choice.

TelvanniWizard · April 2018

Balance is cutting through my enemies like a hot knife through butter.

Nebthet78 · April 2018

Balance to me, means changing abilities because they are too Overpowered to be in line with other skills and abilities from other classes. NOT changing things that are working fine because they are used by a large population of players. Changing those things has absolutely nothing to do with balance and does nothing but hurt the players, who get fed up and take a year away as they are sick and tired of chasing the meta to continue to do what they were able to do previously.

IcyDeadPeople · April 2018

For me, good balance is difficult choices for the player. Coming up with a new build idea is fun when you have to make tough choices because there various ways to achieve a goal like reducing incoming damage, increasing damage output, sustain, etc.

If there is one easily identifiable clear "best" race, best set, best jewelry enchant etc, then the choices are too easy, and theorycrafting becomes boring.

Beardimus · April 2018

To me it means BUFF SORCS make em good again, not even great.

Seriously tho, It doesn't mean YAYYY everyone can tank and everyone can heal and everyone can ward and everyone can stealth and we can all do what we want with no class identiy yay

Unless you are a DW Magika DD then screw you.

Which feels the new ZOS direction