What @MissBizz said. They do use metrics. Case in point if the enitre community put on ice furnace for month they would actually Nerf the set. Even if it was an absurdly weak set.

This is why some sets have gone unnerfed even if they are powerful but underused by the community. (Note ice furnace isn't one of those sets).

There metrics indicated an even split among classes in PvP but we don't know whether they break it down even further beyond "load into cyro/bg". As in what classes spend the most time, leaderboard, etc. We haven't been privy to their deep dive stats just the beasic stuff.

How are you all just finding out ESO will never be an Esport. Esport games are the real skill, not following the meta every patch.

Rudal wrote: »

gethemshauna wrote: »

ESO doesn't need to be balanced since it's not competitive (no ranking matches).

First, the above.

Second. A game that wants to marry both PvP and PvE without separating skills and/or characters will never be balanced.
Changes and "balancing" skills for pvp always ruins everything for PvE players and vice versa.
It would be easier to do what first Guild Wars did, just have a separate characters that are governed by separate rules for pvp and then you may get lucky with some balance.

Besides, why would you compare pvp oriented shooter to a RPG oriented MMO game?

Yep this.

A lack of PvE and PvP separation is the only reason it wont ever be balanced. They have metrics, they have data. But the flaw in their logic is that they are still hell bent on having this "seemless" transition for players between pve and pvp.

This is problematic for PvP because what makes sense in PvE doesn't in PvP as there are stationary bosses with built in mechanics there are staged and so when in PvP it doesn't transition well at all, Damage isn't spread out across class skills its just bulked up into one group of skills or just a couple.

and some classes are forced to focus on non-class abilities that interact with their class abilities instead of being able too build pure Sorcerer or Templar or etc, etc (frags for example - This is also a good example for damage not being spread out). The lack of options and the funnelling of certain skills into main sources of damage is just causing too many problems in pvp. Then theres the issue with Implosion which I wont even get into because its a source of frustration and contention for many but that passive does not belong in PvP at all.

Then there are the amount of stuns and CC in the game which for whatever reason (time warp and rune prison included) prevent you from breaking free immediately essentially meaning you're dead. Meanwhile other CCs can be spammed causing a bleed through effect where the CC immunity is just outright ignored by repetitive spam-able stuns. Even Immovable pots are buggy right now and the delay on using pots only inflames the issue.

I don't know why the devs keep insisting that PVP and PVE are somehow "seamless". Going into PVP with your PVE gear and skills is pointless; you will get destroyed and you will not be as effective if you just roll in there with the same skills you use in trials or dungeons or overland farming. PVP and PVE are just different playstyles regardless of the role you choose. If you're actually playing to win, there's nothing seamless about moving from PVE to PVP zones, and that includes IC. If I want to go in and kill a lot of stuff fast in IC, it's easiest to bring my PVE gear and bars, but it also means I need to resign myself to getting ganked unless I sneak around the whole time, which is tedious and takes too long. Sure, I can swap in some impen gear pieces and sacrifice some damage for defense, but that's already not seamless. They're not the same parts of the game, they don't feel the same, and that's OK. ZoS needs to stop trying to pretend PVP and PVE are two sides of the same coin; they're not even the same currency.

jcasini222ub17_ESO wrote: »

While I don't entirely disagree @lordrichter my faith in ZoS design desicions is lacking to say the least.

Case in point, we know stacking high particle affects in Cyro will create performance issues. So what's done? Let's introduce time stop, a big graphic bubble with multiple calculations that need to take place. Where is this skill most beneficial? Pushing into a keep where you will end up time stopping the opponents and layering healing springs, another graphic intense multiple calculations skill, for your team.

Desicions like that have me perplexed.

That is something entirely different. ZOS has a history of taking actions that highlight their faults. I think there is a disconnect between the game design and operations parts of the studio. The people running the megaservers need to be able to say, "not on my servers, you don't!"

Ankael07 wrote: »

What ''data collecting'' are you talking about when developers dont even play their own game?

How many years have we gave feedback against AOE caps and they didnt listen? Or did you guys forget about the first proc meta when people could easily pull off 15k instantly just with their sets? Or all the PTS changes that go live despite overwhelming feedback (see Sload's and Rune Cage)

The devs do play the game it’s just they don’t understand the ramifications of the things they include in the systems. A good example of this is when they spent over an hour wiping in scalecaller hard mode. You have devs failing to complete something they designed. Then criticize a player for completing it with a valid strategy. https://twitch.tv/videos/229753562

MMORPGs are never balanced in PvP, because PvP balance is simply not achievable.

You can always try, but expecting things to actually be balanced is a fools errand.

jcasini222ub17_ESO wrote: »

What @MissBizz said. They do use metrics. Case in point if the enitre community put on ice furnace for month they would actually Nerf the set. Even if it was an absurdly weak set.

This is why some sets have gone unnerfed even if they are powerful but underused by the community. (Note ice furnace isn't one of those sets).

There metrics indicated an even split among classes in PvP but we don't know whether they break it down even further beyond "load into cyro/bg". As in what classes spend the most time, leaderboard, etc. We haven't been privy to their deep dive stats just the beasic stuff.

If mounts, mages/fighters/psyjic guild, equipment and other stuff was account wide you would see alot more of the stronger classes.

Lutallo wrote: »

The proportion of people playing Sorc/NB compared to Templar/DK/Warden in PvP is ridiculously skewed. I would honestly say there are 100 NB/Sorcs for every 15 Templar/DK/Wardens. Hmmm.. maybe there's something weak about Templars, DKs and Wardens? Maybe?

Collect some data on your game.
While you're at it, ring up AWS and get some proper infrastructure so your game doesn't crash every 15 minutes in Cyrodiil.

The "problem" is that most players that have been around for a while have multiple characters (and many on multiple alliances as well). There is little point in loyalty as they made the alliance war ranks much easier to obtain, so people will play what has the most advantages.

When they made it trivially easy to level a new character (one tamriel) and that character can interact with the other alliances in pve (one tamriel, again) and also made it trivial to max out alliance war skills (whenever that was) they also made it trivial to play other characters (which they made trivial to "level").

There is obviously a huge skew in populations along the nightblades and sorcerer classes in pvp. PVE is the same thing, as nearly every serious raider has access to and likely fully leveled alternative classes. If they knock one down and bolster another you will see raids stack the newly bolstered class. There was a point where all dps were magicka dragonknights and bringing anything but them was a favor. This is constantly shifting with changes, and being it's so easy to reroll, whatever is the highest perceived is going to be used.