How much of the power creep comes from CP?

code65536 · September 2018

I hear this get thrown around a lot--that CP is the root of all problems and the source of power creep.

But ZOS had done a lot of work was done during the Morrowind patch to limit the impact of CPs--by making the effects front-loaded with sharply diminishing effects.

There have also been a lot of other combat changes over the years. Do people remember the days before the Thieves Guild patch when blockade was so weak that people felt that the vMA destro was buffing a worthless skill? Do people remember the days when weapon enchantments were so inconsequential that nobody really cared what they were? Do people remember the days when the availability of gear sets was so spotty that people ran multiple partial sets and rarely had a full 5p set?

So just how much of our power creep comes from CP? And how much of it comes from all the other balance and itemization changes?

I think that there's an easy way to test this: Have people do a dummy parse with all 780 CP (or 810 CP on the PTS), and then have them do another dummy parse with only 501 CP allocated. 501 was the original CP cap, back when the CP cap was first introduced three years ago during the Orsinium patch. How much of a difference is there between the CP501 and CP780 parse?

@Liofa @Masel92 @Alcast @Tasear @Joy_Division @FeaR Turbo I know some of the class reps have been doing a lot of extensive parse testing to compare classes. What about some parse testing to compare the current CP cap with the original CP cap to see just how much of the power creep over the past 3 years actually came from CP?

Alcast · September 2018

The reason why this game is so easy in pve is because of CP. In my opinion you can not simply dummyparse test that stuff and see the difference. Because there are A LOT of other factors to take into account when we look at pve. When we would do raids with 0 CP, tanks had to play way more defensive, invest more into actually focusing on tanking and being less of a buffer (same for healer) and that would also tremendously lower dps.

Red Champion Points are also way too overpowered, but nobody realizes it, you can mitigate so much freaking damage from that tree, be it for tank, healer or DD.

So when we simply would remove CP, everyone had to invest into more defensive things like damage mitigation, sustain, healing and so on. Currently you stack everything into max dps and thats it, its such a nobrainer because you can nuke most of the bosses down.

Do you remember when we actually had to play execute mechanics of bosses several times before we could complete the fight? That made the fight hard, nowadays you do not even realize that there are execute mechanics because you just burn the boss at 25% down to 0.

I keep saying, the easiest solution to fix this CP mess in pve and not *** off people is NIGHTMARE MODE. In Nightmare mode, all CPs are deactivated. A new reward tier, even if its only a title or a special mount and leaderboards for that would already be enough to drive people to that mode. That would not *** off anyone because the CP modes are still here and it would be seen as a new difficulty introduced into the game rather than a nerftrain.

DKsUnite · September 2018

Well when I smack someone who is 200 CP with a 15k ultimate, the power creep is very apparent. They don't have the CP to mitigate my damage.

Also this week I have been doing dungeons and when I see that 200 CP dps I just know he is going to die and there is nothing I can do about it because he can't mitigate anything

leepalmer95 · September 2018

Incapped a 140cp guy in pvp for 18k... Pretty sure if he was max he would of mitigated so much of that dmg, 11-12% flat reduction to dmg types, 20% direct dmg mitigation, 20% crit dmg mitigation etc...

The game was in a better state when everyone had low cp.

Turelus · September 2018

Alcast wrote: »

Do you remember when we actually had to play execute mechanics of bosses several times before we could complete the fight? That made the fight hard, nowadays you do not even realize that there are execute mechanics because you just burn the boss at 25% down to 0.

I agree with this, these days I just spam execute, shield every so often and healers do the rest.
I really miss the days when you had to time damage mitigation ultimate skills during the execute phases. Veil of Blades was actually used by Nightblades, now everyone just takes weapon ultimate skills.

CP never should have been about power progression. It should always have been interesting utility, not given attribute bonus, not touched damage/resistance/sustain effects. The unlocked stars are more more in line with the kind of interesting choices I think it should have been. Make those what we spend points on, not flat out bonus to X.

leepalmer95 · September 2018

Turelus wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

Do you remember when we actually had to play execute mechanics of bosses several times before we could complete the fight? That made the fight hard, nowadays you do not even realize that there are execute mechanics because you just burn the boss at 25% down to 0.

I agree with this, these days I just spam execute, shield every so often and healers do the rest.
I really miss the days when you had to time damage mitigation ultimate skills during the execute phases. Veil of Blades was actually used by Nightblades, now everyone just takes weapon ultimate skills.

CP never should have been about power progression. It should always have been interesting utility, not given attribute bonus, not touched damage/resistance/sustain effects. The unlocked stars are more more in line with the kind of interesting choices I think it should have been. Make those what we spend points on, not flat out bonus to X.

Or nova, we used to have templars keep a nova for certain fights or phases where the dmg so was high, like in hel ra when i first completely it way back on boss with the dogs, the dps of the dogs began to hurt so we had a templar use a nova for so we could aoe them.

Sparr0w · September 2018

Flip side, the power creep also means newer groups can actually complete some trials that they previously wouldn't be able to. I've been in vAA and vHRC progs with new teams where it took a couple tries to actually get to the last boss, let alone complete it.

I'm all for @Alcast 's suggestion of a new mode over hardmode (but applies for the whole trial rather than just the last boss), rather than a general nerf to everyone.

Weps · September 2018

Nightmare mode yes please ZoS, nightmare mode as the new Hard Mode.

Liofa · September 2018

I think they should just remove it. Green gives so much sustain, blue gives so much damage but most importantly, Red is absurdly broken. 81 points in Ironclad and you'll be immortal against so many mechanics already. One thing that I always wonder is that why we get 20% stat bonus from just having CP? All that defense, offense and sustain is not enough? It's a system that completely broken and should go away or completely reworked.

Turelus · September 2018

My issue with Nightmare modes is that we already have Veteran and Hard Mode with most common players not clearing the content on Hard Mode.
If we just add a new tier of difficulty for the challenge then that's great, but people will want rewards to show off their skill, that's yet more rewards moved towards only a very small percentage of the games player base getting access.

Personally I would rather see the power creep addressed and leaderboards revamped to add something which encourages competitive play again.
Why not titles, costumes or auras like the Emperor one which players can use whilst they're placed high on leaderboards to show off, but they lose it once debunked?

SirDopey · September 2018

Alcast wrote: »

The reason why this game is so easy in pve is because of CP. In my opinion you can not simply dummyparse test that stuff and see the difference. Because there are A LOT of other factors to take into account when we look at pve. When we would do raids with 0 CP, tanks had to play way more defensive, invest more into actually focusing on tanking and being less of a buffer (same for healer) and that would also tremendously lower dps.

Red Champion Points are also way too overpowered, but nobody realizes it, you can mitigate so much freaking damage from that tree, be it for tank, healer or DD.

So when we simply would remove CP, everyone had to invest into more defensive things like damage mitigation, sustain, healing and so on. Currently you stack everything into max dps and thats it, its such a nobrainer because you can nuke most of the bosses down.

Do you remember when we actually had to play execute mechanics of bosses several times before we could complete the fight? That made the fight hard, nowadays you do not even realize that there are execute mechanics because you just burn the boss at 25% down to 0.

I keep saying, the easiest solution to fix this CP mess in pve and not *** off people is NIGHTMARE MODE. In Nightmare mode, all CPs are deactivated. A new reward tier, even if its only a title or a special mount and leaderboards for that would already be enough to drive people to that mode. That would not *** off anyone because the CP modes are still here and it would be seen as a new difficulty introduced into the game rather than a nerftrain.

How bad is power creep though? I mean, to be fair there are how many players playing this game? Obviously you represent what, maybe the top 3 - 4% as far as skill and in game ability go? If power creep has the breaks slammed on so that the elites can consistently feel challenged then how will the majority of the player base ever get to finish half the content in the game?

I honestly think the class representatives need to spend a day pugging vet dungeons just to get a real feel for what the AVERAGE player's skill is. It's due to power creep that people that once would never enter WGT can now complete it yet still spend 5 hours in SCP and not even get half way through it.

Personally I feel power creep is a good thing for the game as long as ZOS continues to invest in new content that is difficult for high end players when it's released. I think nightmare mode would work to, but I wouldn't want to see gear locked behind it, but rather cosmetic items. The problem with locking gear behind the hardest content is that it's generally BiS (as it should be cause its hardest content) which becomes a top ended issue for power creep. It makes future and existing content easier for the people who have it, who are the ones that go on and complain about the game being too easy, but near impossible to get for the player base that actually needs that gear to be able to progress.

Qbiken · September 2018

Turelus wrote: »

My issue with Nightmare modes is that we already have Veteran and Hard Mode with most common players not clearing the content on Hard Mode.
If we just add a new tier of difficulty for the challenge then that's great, but people will want rewards to show off their skill, that's yet more rewards moved towards only a very small percentage of the games player base getting access.

Personally I would rather see the power creep addressed and leaderboards revamped to add something which encourages competitive play again.
Why not titles, costumes or auras like the Emperor one which players can use whilst they're placed high on leaderboards to show off, but they lose it once debunked?

Was about to write something similar, but your wording was much better than mine

tunepunk · September 2018

Would be interesting if they changed it so that you could invest all your 780 champion points in one tree only. Red blue or Green, and but raise how much can be spent in each constellation.

One problem with ever increasing CP cap is that you can unlock more and more perks.

Go damage but squishy, go tanky or sustain. I think the problem with CP at the moment is that it's too easy balance your character instead of specialise. You have to spend an equal amount of points in every tree.

Or maybe choose a primary tree were you can spend maximum 500 points
A secondary tree where you can spend maximum 200 points
and a third tree were you can spend maximum 100 points..

They should stop incrasing CP cap all the time. It's pointless. Additional CP awarded after cap, make it a currency you can trade for items, sets that are hard to get, gold, skins, whatever.

Bevik · September 2018

tunepunk wrote: »

Would be interesting if they changed it so that you could invest all your 780 champion points in one tree only. Red blue or Green, and but raise how much can be spent in each constellation.

One problem with ever increasing CP cap is that you can unlock more and more perks.

Go damage but squishy, go tanky or sustain. I think the problem with CP at the moment is that it's too easy balance your character instead of specialise. You have to spend an equal amount of points in every tree.

Or maybe choose a primary tree were you can spend maximum 500 points
A secondary tree where you can spend maximum 200 points
and a third tree were you can spend maximum 100 points..

They should stop incrasing CP cap all the time. It's pointless. Additional CP awarded after cap, make it a currency you can trade for items, sets that are hard to get, gold, skins, whatever.

Or get extra morph for trade off of 10-20-30 etc. CP? Maybe add skill modifiers? Extra time, more damage, less cost, more resources back, more resistance etc. So you will only become more stronger if you sacrifice your CPs.

Turelus · September 2018

tunepunk wrote: »

They should stop incrasing CP cap all the time. It's pointless. Additional CP awarded after cap, make it a currency you can trade for items, sets that are hard to get, gold, skins, whatever.

Then people get upset because they're not "progressing" as apparently a 0.3% increase in something every three months makes it feel like we achieved something.
When they first spoke about CP at their guild summit they spoke about a pie system where soft caps would go but there would be a cap in each area for a bonus and needing to make choices.
That didn't work out though as it's never one or the other but all the things. If they put sustain and damage into the same constellation then at least there would be choice, but as it is now it's load all into the best of everything.

Maryal · September 2018

CP replaced the old VR system (under the old VR system you did become more powerful as you ranked up, a lot of which had to do with the increased stats associated with higher levels of VR gear).

Investing in CP increases your stats to an extent ... there are diminishing returns once you get to a certain point ... investing additional CP points thereafter provides a negligible benefit (no power creep). The cool thing about CP is once you reach 'diminishing returns' on the nodes you normally invest CP in, you can then start to invest CP for a hybrid build -- with enough CP you should be able to create a hybrid build that is just as powerful as a stam or magica toon. In other words it will provide for additional diversity.

Turelus · September 2018

Maryal wrote: »

CP replaced the old VR system (under the old VR system you did become more powerful as you ranked up, a lot of which had to do with the increased stats associated with higher levels of VR gear).

Investing in CP increases your stats to an extent ... there are diminishing returns once you get to a certain point ... investing additional CP points thereafter provides a negligible benefit (no power creep). The cool thing about CP is once you reach 'diminishing returns' on the nodes you normally invest CP in, you can then start to invest CP for a hybrid build -- with enough CP you should be able to create a hybrid build that is just as powerful as a stam or magica toon. In other words it will provide for additional diversity.

But there is no choice in those bonuses, not any more at least.
Because of the diminished returns and number of CP we have you just take 5-10% buff to everything, with 5-10% buffs to more things as you get more CP.
As I just said in my post above it's not like we have to make the hard choices of damage, sustain or defence, we just take 5-10% bonus in all of those.

Also why does CP need to grant more Health/Magicka/Stamina for the first 300 points in each? We're already getting big boosts things we choose but get the double-dip of even more power.

Tinus_92 · September 2018

Turelus wrote: »

My issue with Nightmare modes is that we already have Veteran and Hard Mode with most common players not clearing the content on Hard Mode.
If we just add a new tier of difficulty for the challenge then that's great, but people will want rewards to show off their skill, that's yet more rewards moved towards only a very small percentage of the games player base getting access.

Personally I would rather see the power creep addressed and leaderboards revamped to add something which encourages competitive play again.
Why not titles, costumes or auras like the Emperor one which players can use whilst they're placed high on leaderboards to show off, but they lose it once debunked?

Keep the current veteran modes like the way they are, but make Hardmode unavailable while setting a trial on veteran. Then add Hard Mode (or Nightmare, give it a name) as a new third difficulty and buff all mobs+adds prior to the original final boss hardmode. This is THE solution for all dungeons + trials prior to Morrowind (craglorn vets, vmol, but also vCOA2 or VWGT.) Only some newer contents may need to be assigned to Hard Mode (Nightmare), such as the newest vet DLC dungeons as they're clearly not on line compared to the old dungeons. The difference on normal and veteran on these also are way too large, so give them a 'regular veteran' mode instead. (in line with non-DLC veterans) This will them more accessible for mediocre players, who've outgrown normal.

Keep mayor rewards and special gearsets on veteran levels; add fancy titles / increased reward rates for hardmode/nightmare levels. As for cosmetic stuff, add them to both levels; now top level players got tons of skins they never use while many many players have to work so very hard for their first vMoL skin while the rest still is way too far out of reach. Not speaking for myself here but I know plenty of people experiencing this, and it's a huge de-motivation factor for them.

Chilly-McFreeze · September 2018

Maryal wrote: »

CP replaced the old VR system (under the old VR system you did become more powerful as you ranked up, a lot of which had to do with the increased stats associated with higher levels of VR gear).

Investing in CP increases your stats to an extent ... there are diminishing returns once you get to a certain point ... investing additional CP points thereafter provides a negligible benefit (no power creep). The cool thing about CP is once you reach 'diminishing returns' on the nodes you normally invest CP in, you can then start to invest CP for a hybrid build -- with enough CP you should be able to create a hybrid build that is just as powerful as a stam or magica toon. In other words it will provide for additional diversity.

Until you can make an hybrid that's on par with a pure DPS, you need a lot more CP than now. Or a lot less and different damage scaling.

SirDopey wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

The reason why this game is so easy in pve is because of CP. In my opinion you can not simply dummyparse test that stuff and see the difference. Because there are A LOT of other factors to take into account when we look at pve. When we would do raids with 0 CP, tanks had to play way more defensive, invest more into actually focusing on tanking and being less of a buffer (same for healer) and that would also tremendously lower dps.

Red Champion Points are also way too overpowered, but nobody realizes it, you can mitigate so much freaking damage from that tree, be it for tank, healer or DD.

So when we simply would remove CP, everyone had to invest into more defensive things like damage mitigation, sustain, healing and so on. Currently you stack everything into max dps and thats it, its such a nobrainer because you can nuke most of the bosses down.

Do you remember when we actually had to play execute mechanics of bosses several times before we could complete the fight? That made the fight hard, nowadays you do not even realize that there are execute mechanics because you just burn the boss at 25% down to 0.

I keep saying, the easiest solution to fix this CP mess in pve and not *** off people is NIGHTMARE MODE. In Nightmare mode, all CPs are deactivated. A new reward tier, even if its only a title or a special mount and leaderboards for that would already be enough to drive people to that mode. That would not *** off anyone because the CP modes are still here and it would be seen as a new difficulty introduced into the game rather than a nerftrain.

How bad is power creep though? I mean, to be fair there are how many players playing this game? Obviously you represent what, maybe the top 3 - 4% as far as skill and in game ability go? If power creep has the breaks slammed on so that the elites can consistently feel challenged then how will the majority of the player base ever get to finish half the content in the game?

I honestly think the class representatives need to spend a day pugging vet dungeons just to get a real feel for what the AVERAGE player's skill is. It's due to power creep that people that once would never enter WGT can now complete it yet still spend 5 hours in SCP and not even get half way through it.

Personally I feel power creep is a good thing for the game as long as ZOS continues to invest in new content that is difficult for high end players when it's released. I think nightmare mode would work to, but I wouldn't want to see gear locked behind it, but rather cosmetic items. The problem with locking gear behind the hardest content is that it's generally BiS (as it should be cause its hardest content) which becomes a top ended issue for power creep. It makes future and existing content easier for the people who have it, who are the ones that go on and complain about the game being too easy, but near impossible to get for the player base that actually needs that gear to be able to progress.

I disagree, the power creep isn't healthy. Especially if you balance new content around it and let old content stay old, so it becomes a faceroll. I think your argument is based on the thought that the devs wouldn't rescale content. But if done right, "easy" content stays "easy" and harder content stays hard. People can still learn and get better but don't have the benefit of waiting until outdated content falls below the new power level.

Of course they have to change numbers, but that's the great thing about pve: the environment and mechanics are set, you can always change difficulty by changing the offensive/defensive capabilities of the NPCs. It doesn't end there and it's probably a whole lot of work but I think it's worth it.

Turelus idea is great, even tho it won't please the crowd that emphasize miniscule power progression. With an "utility system" like he hinted at, things would still progress and be interesting.

Baconlad · September 2018

Remove CP.

Give us back our resources, crit, and 15% regen.

Change CP to be one point per. Instead of 810, we have 81. Make the points give what the star passives are now with more added. Much better and easier to balance. No CP gameplay became base everyone wins

Maryal · September 2018

Turelus wrote: »

Maryal wrote: »

CP replaced the old VR system (under the old VR system you did become more powerful as you ranked up, a lot of which had to do with the increased stats associated with higher levels of VR gear).

Investing in CP increases your stats to an extent ... there are diminishing returns once you get to a certain point ... investing additional CP points thereafter provides a negligible benefit (no power creep). The cool thing about CP is once you reach 'diminishing returns' on the nodes you normally invest CP in, you can then start to invest CP for a hybrid build -- with enough CP you should be able to create a hybrid build that is just as powerful as a stam or magica toon. In other words it will provide for additional diversity.

But there is no choice in those bonuses, not any more at least.
Because of the diminished returns and number of CP we have you just take 5-10% buff to everything, with 5-10% buffs to more things as you get more CP.
As I just said in my post above it's not like we have to make the hard choices of damage, sustain or defence, we just take 5-10% bonus in all of those.

Also why does CP need to grant more Health/Magicka/Stamina for the first 300 points in each? We're already getting big boosts things we choose but get the double-dip of even more power.

Some people 'think outside-the-box' when creating builds, including where they spend their CP. For these people, CP offers us a lot of choice and build diversity.

The more you know about the game and the game mechanics, the more possibilities you see -- more ways of combining things to make something different and unique. And with these possibilities, these unique builds, there are choices to be made ... difficult choices between dps, defense, healing, resources, etc., because you can't 'have it all' ... which means you also rely heavily on your mastery of the game/game mechanics to help 'supplement' your build.

There are two sides to a coin, so let's look at the 'other side' -- To reach max CP requires a significant investment of time and energy. During the time it took many of us to reach max CP, we also gained a lot of experience ... you know, we got even better playing the game because of how long we've been playing it. We've done more things more often, like dungeons, trials, etc., and have tons of armor sets (proc sets), monster sets, enhanced weapons, jewelry sets, etc. as a result. We've also gotten better at rotations, we know game mechanics better, we have been playing so long that we are pretty good at pvp ... including anticipating enemy players movements/tactics. With all this in mind, can we really say CP is responsible for this thing called 'power creep?"

Let's look at it another way: If you put a bunch of max level CP players in plain armor, you know, armor with absolute no set bonuses, and gave them plain weapons to use (no enhanced weapons, no set pieces) and plain jewelry that had no set bonuses, do you really think those players would be able to perform anywhere near what they can do when they are fully decked out in their proc set armors, using their enhanced weapons, monster sets and jewelry sets?

The CP system is fine the way it is -- what is problematic are the type and quantity of proc sets, enhanced weapon sets, monster sets, jewelry sets, etc., we have in the game ... approximately 90% of all the proc sets we have came AFTER CP was introduced into the game.

If you want to reverse or nullify the 'power creep' - tone down all the proc sets, enhanced weapons and monster sets to make them less impactful.

I am going to reiterate this point because it is so important -- the CP system is NOT the problem.

aeowulf · September 2018

tunepunk wrote: »

Would be interesting if they changed it so that you could invest all your 780 champion points in one tree only. Red blue or Green, and but raise how much can be spent in each constellation.

One problem with ever increasing CP cap is that you can unlock more and more perks.

Go damage but squishy, go tanky or sustain. I think the problem with CP at the moment is that it's too easy balance your character instead of specialise. You have to spend an equal amount of points in every tree.

Or maybe choose a primary tree were you can spend maximum 500 points
A secondary tree where you can spend maximum 200 points
and a third tree were you can spend maximum 100 points..

They should stop incrasing CP cap all the time. It's pointless. Additional CP awarded after cap, make it a currency you can trade for items, sets that are hard to get, gold, skins, whatever.

I've posted a fairly similar thing before on here. In a lot of ways ZoS want us to specialise (the fact tank/healer/dps roles exist shows this) and in other ways they are forcing us to do the opposite, by spending red cp if you are dps.

I'd also go so far as only allowing one role to be active at a time, and switching between roles would determine which cp tree was active. Obviously they would need to rework most skills in the trees as red/blue would need sustain adding, green would need dps etc.

CP does kinda balance itself in PVP - in PVE, the mobs also need CP. Just health increase/damage done is resulting in expansions getting predictable.

code65536 · September 2018

Alcast wrote: »

Do you remember when we actually had to play execute mechanics of bosses several times before we could complete the fight? That made the fight hard, nowadays you do not even realize that there are execute mechanics because you just burn the boss at 25% down to 0.

@Alcast But that just DPS power creep. Nothing to do with defensive CP. But even though red defensive CP is powerful, when you look at the difference between 501 and 780, it's still just a few percent because most of that effect is front-loaded. I've seen tanks with between 400 and 500 CP complete vHoF HM and vMoL HM with more ease than CP-capped tanks simply because they were better players.

And, yea, if you compare 0 CP with 780 CP, there's going to be a huge difference. But that's a bit extreme, wouldn't you say? Why not a more realistic comparison, of 501 to 780? That's all the CP that had been added via 3 years of power creep since the original Orsinium patch. And I would suspect that you can burn past mechanics even with 501 CP, because a lot of the power creep isn't even related to CP.

code65536 · September 2018

tunepunk wrote: »

They should stop incrasing CP cap all the time. It's pointless. Additional CP awarded after cap, make it a currency you can trade for items, sets that are hard to get, gold, skins, whatever.

Which is why I'm interested in 501 vs. 780: Original cap and the cap 3 years later.

Yet everyone seems intent on comparing 0 vs. 780.

I've completed vMA with about 180 CP on the EU server. And it was much easier than the first time I completed vMA with about 400 CP on my home NA server. I had fewer CP and higher ping, yet had an easier time. Why? Because there's been a lot of other combat changes since the Orsinium patch, and I've gotten a lot more experience in vMA since then. CP is just a one part of the equation, yet I see people who treat it like it was responsible for everything.

Thorstienn · September 2018

@code65536 regarding damage. I made a discussion about it back in May (CP750). at that time CP300 to CP750, same gear etc, gave approximately 20% increase to damage.
The Green tree I think causes a lot of balance problems too. They "obviously" don't want us to have max damage setups, with no sustain issues, however where do they draw the balance line (Max CP, CP300, 0CP)?

BuddyAces · September 2018

Has nothing to do with them buffing light attacks eh?

ziaodix · September 2018

code65536 wrote: »

And, yea, if you compare 0 CP with 780 CP, there's going to be a huge difference. But that's a bit extreme, wouldn't you say? Why not a more realistic comparison, of 501 to 780? That's all the CP that had been added via 3 years of power creep since the original Orsinium patch. And I would suspect that you can burn past mechanics even with 501 CP, because a lot of the power creep isn't even related to CP.

This argument eludes* my comprehension. The power creep that came about from the initial 501 CP is what the mass majority of people are referring to when they are saying CP caused power creep. Hence why poeple want to see 0 vs 501, What we had, vs what we were given. Then 780 to show where we've come from.

I understand some of the power creep can be attributed to people "getting good" and understanding the trial more, when they can do certain things, and when they can afford to not do certain things(shield), but the illusion that CP hasn't been a major factor in the power creep is in my opinion very short sided.

You do more damage, take less damage, and have sustain which are all in CP. This allows you to shield less because you are receiving less damage on top of doing more damage so you kill them quicker which in return requires less resources.

Minno · September 2018

Turelus wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

Do you remember when we actually had to play execute mechanics of bosses several times before we could complete the fight? That made the fight hard, nowadays you do not even realize that there are execute mechanics because you just burn the boss at 25% down to 0.

I agree with this, these days I just spam execute, shield every so often and healers do the rest.
I really miss the days when you had to time damage mitigation ultimate skills during the execute phases. Veil of Blades was actually used by Nightblades, now everyone just takes weapon ultimate skills.

CP never should have been about power progression. It should always have been interesting utility, not given attribute bonus, not touched damage/resistance/sustain effects. The unlocked stars are more more in line with the kind of interesting choices I think it should have been. Make those what we spend points on, not flat out bonus to X.

And if they wanted it to be combat related, it should have been a way to unlock "morphs" of current abilities instead of raw dmg boosts.

But I know why they did it this way; raw damage is sexier and we all know high dmg sells more.

code65536 · September 2018

ziaodix wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

And, yea, if you compare 0 CP with 780 CP, there's going to be a huge difference. But that's a bit extreme, wouldn't you say? Why not a more realistic comparison, of 501 to 780? That's all the CP that had been added via 3 years of power creep since the original Orsinium patch. And I would suspect that you can burn past mechanics even with 501 CP, because a lot of the power creep isn't even related to CP.

This argument alludes my comprehension. The power creep that came about from the initial 501 CP is what the mass majority of people are referring to when they are saying CP caused power creep. Hence why poeple want to see 0 vs 501, What we had, vs what we were given. Then 780 to show where we've come from.

I understand some of the power creep can be attributed to people "getting good" and understanding the trial more, when they can do certain things, and when they can afford to not do certain things(shield), but the illusion that CP hasn't been a major factor in the power creep is in my opinion very short sided.

You do more damage, take less damage, and have sustain which are all in CP. This allows you to shield less because you are receiving less damage on top of doing more damage so you kill them quicker which in return requires less resources.

Because power creep is the change in power from design. CP was around for only a year before it got capped. The current system of capped CP has been around for nearly three times longer.

Also, comparing to 0 is mostly a comparison of character progression. You wouldn't say that the abilities of a level 45 character vs. a level 10 character is due to power creep. The design change is the steady increase in the cap with each patch, which is why 501 vs. current cap is the most interesting comparison, because that's 3 years of power creep. Comparing to 0 is no different than comparing a level 45 against a level 10 and is not a look at the power creep from design.

Turelus · September 2018

Minno wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

Do you remember when we actually had to play execute mechanics of bosses several times before we could complete the fight? That made the fight hard, nowadays you do not even realize that there are execute mechanics because you just burn the boss at 25% down to 0.

I agree with this, these days I just spam execute, shield every so often and healers do the rest.
I really miss the days when you had to time damage mitigation ultimate skills during the execute phases. Veil of Blades was actually used by Nightblades, now everyone just takes weapon ultimate skills.

CP never should have been about power progression. It should always have been interesting utility, not given attribute bonus, not touched damage/resistance/sustain effects. The unlocked stars are more more in line with the kind of interesting choices I think it should have been. Make those what we spend points on, not flat out bonus to X.

And if they wanted it to be combat related, it should have been a way to unlock "morphs" of current abilities instead of raw dmg boosts.

But I know why they did it this way; raw damage is sexier and we all know high dmg sells more.

It would have been find if it was about choices and pie charts like they said at the guild summit.

However it just became a blanket increase across everything. I feels like they've been playing catch-up on it ever since.

LadyNalcarya · September 2018

SirDopey wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

The reason why this game is so easy in pve is because of CP. In my opinion you can not simply dummyparse test that stuff and see the difference. Because there are A LOT of other factors to take into account when we look at pve. When we would do raids with 0 CP, tanks had to play way more defensive, invest more into actually focusing on tanking and being less of a buffer (same for healer) and that would also tremendously lower dps.

Red Champion Points are also way too overpowered, but nobody realizes it, you can mitigate so much freaking damage from that tree, be it for tank, healer or DD.

So when we simply would remove CP, everyone had to invest into more defensive things like damage mitigation, sustain, healing and so on. Currently you stack everything into max dps and thats it, its such a nobrainer because you can nuke most of the bosses down.

Do you remember when we actually had to play execute mechanics of bosses several times before we could complete the fight? That made the fight hard, nowadays you do not even realize that there are execute mechanics because you just burn the boss at 25% down to 0.

I keep saying, the easiest solution to fix this CP mess in pve and not *** off people is NIGHTMARE MODE. In Nightmare mode, all CPs are deactivated. A new reward tier, even if its only a title or a special mount and leaderboards for that would already be enough to drive people to that mode. That would not *** off anyone because the CP modes are still here and it would be seen as a new difficulty introduced into the game rather than a nerftrain.

How bad is power creep though? I mean, to be fair there are how many players playing this game? Obviously you represent what, maybe the top 3 - 4% as far as skill and in game ability go? If power creep has the breaks slammed on so that the elites can consistently feel challenged then how will the majority of the player base ever get to finish half the content in the game?

I honestly think the class representatives need to spend a day pugging vet dungeons just to get a real feel for what the AVERAGE player's skill is. It's due to power creep that people that once would never enter WGT can now complete it yet still spend 5 hours in SCP and not even get half way through it.

Personally I feel power creep is a good thing for the game as long as ZOS continues to invest in new content that is difficult for high end players when it's released. I think nightmare mode would work to, but I wouldn't want to see gear locked behind it, but rather cosmetic items. The problem with locking gear behind the hardest content is that it's generally BiS (as it should be cause its hardest content) which becomes a top ended issue for power creep. It makes future and existing content easier for the people who have it, who are the ones that go on and complain about the game being too easy, but near impossible to get for the player base that actually needs that gear to be able to progress.

Power creep is not very good imo because it creates a huge gap between "good" and "average" players.
Clueless pug dds used to pull 5-10k back when 30k dps used to be OP. Now upper limit is much higher, but those pugs are still sitting at 5-10k.
It's not really possible to balance the content when the difference is so huge. It will be either too hard or too easy.
And when ZOS tries to nerf overperforming players, they inevitably hit casual players as well. These casual players have less means and less motivation to "adapt" which causes them to fall behind all the time. It's also kinda discouraging for the new players.