I honestly think they should just revert all the changes and nerf Forward Momentum, see how that affects the speed meta, and go from there. Baby steps, not just bringing a sledgehammer down on the problem.
Realistically, though, this option is what needs to happen. They clearly do not know their game as well as they think they do, which is fine. If they don't know their game as well as they think they do, though, they need to not only run all changes by people who do, ie reps, but also ask people who do know the game what the problem is in the first place.
Otherwise we'll be wasting time with the reps playing parent to Zenimax, with Zenimax asking "is this good???", and the reps going "no, try this." Rather than wasting time doing all that, just cut right to the better solution from the start.
The speed cap is definitely the problem here, lower it by changing Battle Spirit and there won't be any issues. With these changes it hurts magicka characters too who only ran 1 or 2 swift for some extra mobility.
I think all of these changes were warranted, especially the Forward Momentum one.
Now they have room to buff the mobility of medium armor & light armor by other means (light armor already got "Grace" passive to reduce snare effectiveness by 28%), for example by adding snare/root removal on Streak or buffing Shuffle to match Forward Momentum's 4s immunity, changing Athletics passive from sprint speed to movement speed etc etc.
There is a problem when heavy armor builds can move exactly as fast as medium/light armor builds while also having semi-permanent snare/root immunity.
I'm really not seeing the need to mess with speed at all. If you want to be fast stack speed until you're satisfied. If you're slower than your enemy and see that they're drawing you into a situation more advantageous to themselves, you don't have to engage. You aren't entitled to a kill just because you built for open-field fights.
I'm really not seeing the need to mess with speed at all. If you want to be fast stack speed until you're satisfied. If you're slower than your enemy and see that they're drawing you into a situation more advantageous to themselves, you don't have to engage. You aren't entitled to a kill just because you built for open-field fights.
It has more to do with targeting issues. The logic ZoS gave is really the secondary issue, but yes I agree people seem to think they are entitled to kills. If the person runs, let them run.
There were issues in BGs as well but there are really ways to fix it.
This feels very similar to the Defile changes to counter Healing. The extreme builds will suffer the least whereas the builds that were actually balanced the most will be the most affected by this change. Blanket nerfs are a reoccurring issue with ZoS, when they should be targeting extremes.
If they stopped blanket nerfing, game probably could have been balanced patches ago. It's just laziness that perpetuates further incompetence.
I'm really not seeing the need to mess with speed at all. If you want to be fast stack speed until you're satisfied. If you're slower than your enemy and see that they're drawing you into a situation more advantageous to themselves, you don't have to engage. You aren't entitled to a kill just because you built for open-field fights.
It has more to do with targeting issues. The logic ZoS gave is really the secondary issue, but yes I agree people seem to think they are entitled to kills. If the person runs, let them run.
There were issues in BGs as well but there are really ways to fix it.
This feels very similar to the Defile changes to counter Healing. The extreme builds will suffer the least whereas the builds that were actually balanced the most will be the most affected by this change. Blanket nerfs are a reoccurring issue with ZoS, when they should be targeting extremes.
If they stopped blanket nerfing, game probably could have been balanced patches ago. It's just laziness that perpetuates further incompetence.
I agree with most of your points but I'm extremely hesitant to call it lazy or incompetent. They do an excellent job for the vast majority of the game and even these issues where some things seem to overperform are simply by degrees, not game-breaking orders of magnitude. If we settle down and look at it objectively, people are still having fun and doing well even without operating 100% within the current meta.
FM and speed pots did need an adjustment. Swift also needed a gentle nerf, not the thrashing nerf it got.
Everything else was overkill and yet another broad stroke of terrible homogenization.
Why reduce the duration of Major Expedition on the armor sets? You have to actually kill someone to get it to proc. Fix the targeting issues or reduce the overall speed if you're worried about speed procs. These sets were actually useful to people who play werewolves and don't have access to their Rapids. Garbage now.