Lower the ceiling, raise the floor, lol to people who got gud

Nerftheforums · October 2018

"Lower the ceiling, raise the floor" has been the motto of balancing for the last year and a half at least. Guess what? The room has become so small that the floor is now looking down to the ceiling.
Skillful play and motivation to improve are so close to being dead that the only thing we need to see the end game's funeral is a couple other patches of buffing potatos and nerfing people with a pair of hands.

Make a bit of space in this room zos, we are suffocating here. Please.

callen4492 · October 2018

Please explain what you mean. How has the playing field been leveled so there’s not a gap between the skilled players and unskilled players?

Starlight_Knight · October 2018

its true there is not much space for growth in this game, its in that Gray area where its trying to please casuals and serious players, and to be fair its working for them. They are loosing more serious players that would like more competitive pvp etc. but they are making back more in new and casual players.

A lot of it is fault of the levelling system. the CP system is hugely out of date.

pauli133 · October 2018

This is an odd complaint to me; I feel like I've been watching the parse gap between average players and the more competitive set continue to widen, and I certainly haven't seen a decrease in complaints about new vet content being too hard for most players.

Carbonised · October 2018

pauli133 wrote: »

This is an odd complaint to me; I feel like I've been watching the parse gap between average players and the more competitive set continue to widen, and I certainly haven't seen a decrease in complaints about new vet content being too hard for most players.

^

Darkenarlol · October 2018

due to their statistics(maybe outdated now) only less than 5% of playerbase ( i guess it was not actually players just accounts) have completed endgame dlc HMs + trial HMs +vMA etc

so why should they please 1/10 max part of potential customers?
meh screw them and go focus on crown store for casuals(majority)...

spartaxoxo · October 2018

This has got to be one of one of the most inaccurate things I have ever read. There are still a ton of people who haven't even completed vet White Gold Tower, let alone any of the newer content.

People still get away with selling VMOL carries for millions of coins on my server.

In what universe is the gap that small?

AbysmalGhul · October 2018

pauli133 wrote: »

This is an odd complaint to me; I feel like I've been watching the parse gap between average players and the more competitive set continue to widen, and I certainly haven't seen a decrease in complaints about new vet content being too hard for most players.

I agree. There is a body of ocean between the average player, decent player, and top player. Most players won't even touch the new dlc vet content. The missus and I have to drag people into the new content and whisper sweet lil lies to them " C'mon, it's easy, we promise

pdblake · October 2018

I like the analogy but it doesn't explain why I only have to think about PvP and someone kicks my arse

eso_nya · October 2018

AbysmalGhul wrote: »

pauli133 wrote: »

This is an odd complaint to me; I feel like I've been watching the parse gap between average players and the more competitive set continue to widen, and I certainly haven't seen a decrease in complaints about new vet content being too hard for most players.

I agree. There is a body of ocean between the average player, decent player, and top player. Most players won't even touch the new dlc vet content. The missus and I have to drag people into the new content and whisper sweet lil lies to them " C'mon, it's easy, we promise

I set myself to offlinemode for a few month everytime they bring a dungeon dlc.

AbysmalGhul · October 2018

eso_nya wrote: »

AbysmalGhul wrote: »

pauli133 wrote: »

This is an odd complaint to me; I feel like I've been watching the parse gap between average players and the more competitive set continue to widen, and I certainly haven't seen a decrease in complaints about new vet content being too hard for most players.

I agree. There is a body of ocean between the average player, decent player, and top player. Most players won't even touch the new dlc vet content. The missus and I have to drag people into the new content and whisper sweet lil lies to them " C'mon, it's easy, we promise

I set myself to offlinemode for a few month everytime they bring a dungeon dlc.

Now I know where to find you! *buys a PC just to invite Nya*

Pops_ND_Irish · October 2018

Must be maintenance time. Nonsense posts

kylewwefan · October 2018

We must be playing a different game or something. The gap between dummy humpers and average players is bigger than its ever been. Nothing happened to bring good players down. Average are getting made better. That’s kind of a good thing imo.

AbysmalGhul · October 2018

kylewwefan wrote: »

We must be playing a different game or something. The gap between dummy humpers and average players is bigger than its ever been. Nothing happened to bring good players down. Average are getting made better. That’s kind of a good thing imo.

More damage doesn't equal better player

lucky_dutch · October 2018

Important to distinguish between different areas of balancing.

For example, increasing CP gradually slows-down the combat so they keep adding increasingly powerful proc sets to allow skilled players to have huge burst windows so that things actually die.

The knock-on effect of this for no-CP PvP is that all this burst is incredibly unbalanced and anyone who's played for more than 5 minutes could 100-0 someone in under 3 seconds if they're handed a pre-made character with decent sets. This massively lowers the floor AND the ceiling.

Kel · October 2018

Nerftheforums wrote: »

"Lower the ceiling, raise the floor" has been the motto of balancing for the last year and a half at least. Guess what? The room has become so small that the floor is now looking down to the ceiling.
Skillful play and motivation to improve are so close to being dead that the only thing we need to see the end game's funeral is a couple other patches of buffing potatos and nerfing people with a pair of hands.

Make a bit of space in this room zos, we are suffocating here. Please.

The motivation to improve, especially in PvP, is lost when you walk into Cyrodiil and get creamed for months on end, just to slightly improve and get someones health down halfway before getting creamed.
In PvE, I'll bet more than half of the population can't animation cancel. Have never been able to. Yet Zos keeps raising the bar by introducing one shot mechanics and encouraging bringing dps instead of healers to burn before you even see the mechanic.
This "lower the ceiling, raise the floor" mentality you speak of? Haven't seen much of it in actual play. Seems the gap is wider than ever..

Mr_Walker · October 2018

In b4 "everyone can solo group dungeons easily, I know I can".

Rungar · October 2018

as long as weaving and one shots are the pinnacle of the design there will always be a great disparity.

the average player doesnt use (and doesnt want to use) the combat notifications or macro programs.

Mr_Walker · October 2018

jabrone77 wrote: »

The motivation to improve, especially in PvP, is lost when you walk into Cyrodiil and get creamed for months on end, just to slightly improve and get someones health down halfway before getting creamed.
In PvE, I'll bet more than half of the population can't animation cancel. Have never been able to. Yet Zos keeps raising the bar by introducing one shot mechanics and encouraging bringing dps instead of healers to burn before you even see the mechanic.

Sadly, game companies seem to listen to the average forum braggadocio who endlessly complains that everything is too easy, that they can solo content wearing nothing but a loincloth and a smile at lvl 1, even though most people are full of crap.

Then the rest of the player base ends up with wildly ridiculous bosses/game mechanics, and the laziest game mechanic of them all, the one-shot kill.

I can animation cancel though. After a fashion.

pauli133 · October 2018

jabrone77 wrote: »

The motivation to improve, especially in PvP, is lost when you walk into Cyrodiil and get creamed for months on end, just to slightly improve and get someones health down halfway before getting creamed.
In PvE, I'll bet more than half of the population can't animation cancel. Have never been able to. Yet Zos keeps raising the bar by introducing one shot mechanics and encouraging bringing dps instead of healers to burn before you even see the mechanic.
This "lower the ceiling, raise the floor" mentality you speak of? Haven't seen much of it in actual play. Seems the gap is wider than ever..

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Sadly, game companies seem to listen to the average forum braggadocio who endlessly complains that everything is too easy, that they can solo content wearing nothing but a loincloth and a smile at lvl 1, even though most people are full of crap.

Then the rest of the player base ends up with wildly ridiculous bosses/game mechanics, and the laziest game mechanic of them all, the one-shot kill.

I can animation cancel though. After a fashion.

I've been convinced for some time that animation canceling is the single biggest difference between our nominal "average" and "high end" players, especially as the game does absolutely nothing to teach players about it (or that it even exists!). If ZOS were interested in deflating the performance gap between these groups (and their behavior indicates that they clearly are not), they would remove animation canceling completely. Effects on streamers and dummy fighters would be dramatic, while the vast majority of the player base wouldn't even know anything had happened.

Instead, they seek to fix the performance gap in dungeons via... one shot kill mechanics.

ezio45 · October 2018

pauli133 wrote: »

This is an odd complaint to me; I feel like I've been watching the parse gap between average players and the more competitive set continue to widen, and I certainly haven't seen a decrease in complaints about new vet content being too hard for most players.

I think OP means pvp, pve it takes some skill to get good parses.

Pvp however has had alot of the skill drained out of it

Katahdin · October 2018

AbysmalGhul wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

We must be playing a different game or something. The gap between dummy humpers and average players is bigger than its ever been. Nothing happened to bring good players down. Average are getting made better. That’s kind of a good thing imo.

More damage doesn't equal better player

While I agree, try getting into a dlc vet trial with anything less than 35K-40K sustained dps.

I'm going through the "dummy humpiing" phase now trying to improve my dps so I can do dlc trials.

I spend one hour of my already precious play time practicing a rotation on that dummy every day.

It sucks. Its boring and not fun at all.

People don't want to have to do that for a game.
.

Nerftheforums · October 2018

Yes, I indeed was referring to PvP and, in part, also to the old pve content (vMA is rather a joke compared to what it used to be).
Sorry for not being clear.

eliisra · October 2018

I guess from a PvP perspective it's kinda true. They keep nerfing builds that do well solo roaming or 1vX, pushing the playerbase towards safety in numbers which arguably means easier combat.

Shield nerfs, speed nerfs etc, makes it harder to play outnumbered. One might argue that's the same as nerfing skillful gameplay and buffing your average zergling? Than again, not all builds(especially magicka) can roam around 1vX solo on live, doesn't matter how skilled. So from another perspective it's balance, making it equally difficulty for everyone to enjoy non-zerg PvP lol.

I don't think the statement is true for PvE though. There's tons of old content, that majority of players haven't even completed yet, because to hard for them or your average PUG group. VR version of new arena wont be doable for probably 90% of the entire ESO population when Murkmire comes out. That's hardly ZoS lowering the ceiling.

tunepunk · October 2018

Katahdin wrote: »

While I agree, try getting into a dlc vet trial with anything less than 35K-40K sustained dps.

I'm going through the "dummy humpiing" phase now trying to improve my dps so I can do dlc trials.

I spend one hour of my already precious play time practicing a rotation on that dummy every day.

It sucks. Its boring and not fun at all.

People don't want to have to do that for a game.
.

It's a fine line. In my opinion it should be relatively easy to reach numbers to at least be able to participate in endgame content, but hard enough to be on the top, if you're in a competitive guild and chasing high scores.

Kuramas9tails · October 2018

Some people are smaller than others while others heads are already touching the ceiling.

Each player is different. Their skills and reasons for playing are different. There are a variety of skills behind each player and play style. The biggest flaw I see is unskilled players being rewarded for literally doing nothing.

pod88kk · October 2018

pauli133 wrote: »

This is an odd complaint to me; I feel like I've been watching the parse gap between average players and the more competitive set continue to widen, and I certainly haven't seen a decrease in complaints about new vet content being too hard for most players.

Couldn't agree more there is nearly a 23k gap between my raid teams highest hitter & it's lowest(60k to 37k) they play the same type of character with the same skills, gear & rotation but one player just does it much better than the other.

Sparr0w · October 2018

Katahdin wrote: »

AbysmalGhul wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

We must be playing a different game or something. The gap between dummy humpers and average players is bigger than its ever been. Nothing happened to bring good players down. Average are getting made better. That’s kind of a good thing imo.

More damage doesn't equal better player

While I agree, try getting into a dlc vet trial with anything less than 35K-40K sustained dps.

I'm going through the "dummy humpiing" phase now trying to improve my dps so I can do dlc trials.

I spend one hour of my already precious play time practicing a rotation on that dummy every day.

It sucks. Its boring and not fun at all.

People don't want to have to do that for a game.
.

An hour a day?! Jheeze I just do 1 parse when I login to each character, maybe 4-6 minutes a day at most...

DjMuscleboy02 · October 2018

ur telling me that my sloads doesnt require skill?

Kolache · October 2018

So many posts vaguely referencing balance and difficulty, floor/ceiling, potatos, etc.

Yet there are like at least 4 incredibly different areas of the game, difficulty/balance-wise:

PvE: Open world through non-DLC veteran dungeons
PvE: Veteran DLC dungeons through veteran trials and HMs
PvP: Non-CP campaigns and battlegrounds
PvP: CP campaigns and dueling

Add to this a player base that more often than not shares the same content but is spread across many levels/CP...

BNOC · October 2018

Darkenarlol wrote: »

due to their statistics(maybe outdated now) only less than 5% of playerbase ( i guess it was not actually players just accounts) have completed endgame dlc HMs + trial HMs +vMA etc

so why should they please 1/10 max part of potential customers?
meh screw them and go focus on crown store for casuals(majority)...

Not outdated stats, just being peddled without any context.

Amount of people that hit level 50

Amount of people that reached 300 CP (I wouldn't imagine any lower for endgame content, not without serious experience - cross server etc)

Amount of players that have done AA on any difficulty

Amount of players that have done MSA on any difficulty

Let's say 100% is 1,000 Players for numbers sake:

445/1000 44.5% reach level 50
449/1000 44.9% reach 300 CP (Which obviously accounts for anyone who assigns that many CP to any character so this number would be significantly lower if we focused on unique accounts) - We'll use this number anyway even though it makes the following numbers lower than they would be (beneficial to your point)
103/449 22.9% Complete MA on any difficulty (Vet is 47/445)
56/449 12.4% | 56/103 54.3%(Of players who tried MA) Can only complete MA on normal
47/449 10.4% | 47/103 45.7%(Of players who tried MA) Can do it on both difficulties.
147/449 32.7% Can complete AA on any difficulty (as above Vet vs Normal applies)

This kinda thing applies across all achievements and as you can see, doesn't take in to account so many important factors;
We can see that more people apply 300CP than reach level 50, so there's a lot of alt accounts making up numbers there.
We can't see who owns the DLC for content you're talking about.
The list goes on.

They're catering to more people than everyone seems to think and when you assess the Normal MA percentages for example, you see something quite concerning.
22.9% of players can complete MA on normal, now, we can safely agree that normal MA can be done by anyone playing this game. So why is there only 22.9% of people completing it. Is anyone else trying? What happened to the other 346 characters?

As you account for these kind of variables, all of these peddled stats start crumbling down into something contrary to what some of you in this thread are suggesting and completion rates for content is much higher.

Please stop - Besides, as I've said and will say a thousand more times, I'm sure; Not everyone has to be able to complete and or compete, it's totally fine to not be good at specific things in an MMO.