I think I've finally figured out why all these "makes no sense" changes keep happening EVERY PATCH

idk · May 2019

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VaranisArano wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Kind of. Sort of. Not really.

The main reason for the constant balance changes is simple: ZOS needs to keep players playing the game. They need to keep players from getting bored and leaving for other games.
.

The latest few rounds of "balance" are going to push people out of the game if they go live

People have been saying this since Morrowind, at least.

And people left after the changes in Morrowind. I know some competitive raiders that stopped playing the game. They came back briefly but left again because of the direction of the game. The lazy design of vAS did not help either.

Is it en masse? Obviously not. But the numbers of competitive raiders and dropped noticeably in the last couple years. Obviously not all because of Zos.

However Zos tends to not think thing through and as a result poorly manages this game. Using Morrowind as a great example where they wanted to raise the floor and lower the ceiling on DPS. The net effect was quite the opposite plus the added effect they drove a wedge between the two due to their poor design changes. Some of what they do us utter nonsense.

This is also another example of Zos poorly managing the game and why we get changes going back and forth. Certainly not what OP thinks is the case.

idk · May 2019

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

It's not leaderboards or the (perception of the) META.

As far as your distaste for players and builders who in the pursuit of power only end up breaking the game, that's going to happen regardless of if there are leaderboards or how ZOS designs they're game. Some people enjoy "min-maxing," enjoy power, enjoy theory-crafting on how to break a game and this is inherent to games and competition in general. That's going to happen and there's going to be "game-breaking" builds.

ZOS's problem is that because pretty much the only thing that matter is a DPS parse, that power is easily quantifiable and thus "toxic" players have a strong foundation for their claims that their builds are "better." Every other fantasy game I have ever played has ensured that power is more than just damage and intentionally made classes have their strengths and weaknesses so they'd shine in some encounters but not so much in others.

There is not enough depth in PvE to have classes be useful in ways other than increasing total DPS done by the raid. Plain and simple, I hate to say it, I don't see a way out of this mess but ESO doesn't have enough sandbox elements to have value in classes other than the amount of DPS they provide.

The value in classes is different flavors. Less so in stam builds but it is still there. Having no classes would make the game boring and reduce game play.

Ragnarock41 · May 2019

idk wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

It's not leaderboards or the (perception of the) META.

As far as your distaste for players and builders who in the pursuit of power only end up breaking the game, that's going to happen regardless of if there are leaderboards or how ZOS designs they're game. Some people enjoy "min-maxing," enjoy power, enjoy theory-crafting on how to break a game and this is inherent to games and competition in general. That's going to happen and there's going to be "game-breaking" builds.

ZOS's problem is that because pretty much the only thing that matter is a DPS parse, that power is easily quantifiable and thus "toxic" players have a strong foundation for their claims that their builds are "better." Every other fantasy game I have ever played has ensured that power is more than just damage and intentionally made classes have their strengths and weaknesses so they'd shine in some encounters but not so much in others.

There is not enough depth in PvE to have classes be useful in ways other than increasing total DPS done by the raid. Plain and simple, I hate to say it, I don't see a way out of this mess but ESO doesn't have enough sandbox elements to have value in classes other than the amount of DPS they provide.

The value in classes is different flavors. Less so in stam builds but it is still there. Having no classes would make the game boring and reduce game play.

I would say the flavor is there in PvP, each class feels unique somewhat. But for PvE? Nah. Sure stamblade is somewhat unique but the rest of the stamina gang? All the same. Now yes, magicka has flavor, cause they are actually designed to be a class, not a boring collection of weapon abilities and some cheese sets to ensure viability, but hey, this is a separate discussion.

Claudman · May 2019

lol leaderboards

what a boring endevour

But, what you say is possible as people have a tendency to copy the players who achieve high scores in the leaderboards. People seem to not understand learning from a build, instead just copy and paste the ENTIRE build.

Honestly, you're supposed to learn from the META, not just copy and paste builds ALL THE TIME. Some things in your build may not be optimal at times and you won't even know it. PvP may also have an effect, but...Stamblade (the class which is still complained about all the time) just got buffed and nothing was done about Stamwardens or Warden tank (which is also an occasional problem in PvP). There could be a myriad of reasons as to why ZoS pushes these changes. We aren't on the combat design team, so we'll never truly know.

idk · May 2019

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

It's not leaderboards or the (perception of the) META.

As far as your distaste for players and builders who in the pursuit of power only end up breaking the game, that's going to happen regardless of if there are leaderboards or how ZOS designs they're game. Some people enjoy "min-maxing," enjoy power, enjoy theory-crafting on how to break a game and this is inherent to games and competition in general. That's going to happen and there's going to be "game-breaking" builds.

ZOS's problem is that because pretty much the only thing that matter is a DPS parse, that power is easily quantifiable and thus "toxic" players have a strong foundation for their claims that their builds are "better." Every other fantasy game I have ever played has ensured that power is more than just damage and intentionally made classes have their strengths and weaknesses so they'd shine in some encounters but not so much in others.

There is not enough depth in PvE to have classes be useful in ways other than increasing total DPS done by the raid. Plain and simple, I hate to say it, I don't see a way out of this mess but ESO doesn't have enough sandbox elements to have value in classes other than the amount of DPS they provide.

The value in classes is different flavors. Less so in stam builds but it is still there. Having no classes would make the game boring and reduce game play.

I would say the flavor is there in PvP, each class feels unique somewhat. But for PvE? Nah. Sure stamblade is somewhat unique but the rest of the stamina gang? All the same. Now yes, magicka has flavor, cause they are actually designed to be a class, not a boring collection of weapon abilities and some cheese sets to ensure viability, but hey, this is a separate discussion.

Read what you quote. I even stated that there is an issue with stam. Also, Zos has acknowledged that though they do little about it.

But the game has much more than just stam build. There is another whole half of the game that you choose to ignore that has more variety within the classes.

Granted, we all use similar weapons, especially on the magiaka side so there will be similarities even in magika builds. You cannot get away from that when we can choose skills from outside of our class.

So my comment stands very solid.

Juhasow · May 2019

Yeah that latest silence on incap change is definietly connected to leaderboards...

Taktak · May 2019

eso elsweyr patch changes is the best changes ever........finally zenimax nerf nightblade, this is what alot of players was asking for long time.

thank you zenimax
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idk · May 2019

Juhasow wrote: »

Yeah that latest silence on incap change is definietly connected to leaderboards...

Changing to LoL. I missed the appropriate sarcasm.

Kikke wrote: »

So many lies.. score pushers and meta chasers are not realy the same. Score pushers sets the standards meta chasers run after. And balance changes happends because... balance? Even without leaderboards there would be a meta.

This is so correct. Even WoW has balance changes. They just have less to change due to it's simplistic design.

The top players I know well do not copy someone's build. They are the top players because they because they are strongly dedicated to improving themselves and as a result become highly skilled players. I have often seen them make changes to their build that you do not find on someone's website because they do not follow meta.

It seems silly to complain about meta. As I pointed out every game has meta. It is just that games like WoW it is pretty rudimentary being the game is rudimentary. I bet OP followed meta in WoW. If they really cleared all they claimed to have done it would have been required.

Sanguinor2 · May 2019

idk wrote: »

Saying something does not make it so. It would help if you actually explained why you think this as there seem to be no basis with the actual game design and this skills use.

First of all one must understand why it is used in PvE to begin with. It is used in PvE for the 20% boot to damage from your attacks and that is remaining. This been part of the base skill since the game launched.

The minor mangle is useless in trials. Last time we tested this even trash adds in a trial were immune.

Even the defile that was removed was not helpful in trials. I cannot think of a boss that gets healed in an existing trial.

So in the end it would be interesting to hear how you support this statement since it seems totally false.

It seems false because it is, Im 99% confident that he was being sarcastic to show that OP is wrong.

Taktak wrote: »

eso elsweyr patch changes is the best changes ever........finally zenimax nerf nightblade, this is what alot of players was asking for long time.

thank you zenimax

Except that nightblade isnt nerfed but buffed instead (atleast if you talk about PvP and stamblades) and in PvE those changes will have barely any impact.

Tonnopesce · May 2019

Jabassa wrote: »

META - most effective tactic available; that by no means infers that it is the only tactic that can clear content. It's simply the most effective, meaning the most refined. Sometimes it's refined to the point that it breaks the game, and becomes widespread. You know, because it's a meta. What you're failing to grasp is that ESO is unlike every other MMORPG out there in that it does not limit you to the way you're able to build your character and be viable. There are infinite combinations, and realistically no way to test them all.

META is by no mean the most effective way , there is a reason why is also called FOTM, META expecially in this "streamers" era is the popular way to build a charachter,
the popular streamer himself set the meta and usually the meta, from a well build charachter differs only in small percentage, the good streamer will clear most of the content even with a build made by me, mr no one, other streamers can probably push the same numbers with a different build, the meta is set by wich youtuber/twitch streamer you follow.

I played the brianhert hig crit build since orsinium was released (a lifetime ago... ) and all of a sudden last year became a small% better than others builds, streamers started to push and became really popular.
Now is back where it was again, and ALL the streamers are pushing the deadly strike FOTM even for pve( good for me... i' ve sold a dagger for over 300 k last week) because is better by a small%.

Changes are made to sell content, but since i believe they work also on our experience some changes are made even for the sake of the game.
I dont think Devs even knew that some strategies where effective, like when Hodor used siege shields to clear the second boss of VMOL (a lifetime ago...) the devs did not nerfed siege shield after that ,but only after they saw that it was used by dk's to increase the range of the leap and jump on keeps...

They dont care what some players can do even because they know, that not everyone can use a "Meta" build correctly, almost no one can expecially the copy paste boys.

IonicKai · May 2019

I think a big problem the devs are facing is that their changes aren't having the desired effect. For example they nerfed wards in #Nerfmire in order to try to prevent some of the heavy mag DPS stacking in trials as it was meant to hurt their survivability. It did hurt the survivability but the top tier players just adjusted slightly as they are hitting so hard they could get away without using or relying on the shield. This was not true for most players though as their primary defense for survivability in things like vMA where the crematorial guard wrecks was the shield and it now did nothing to protect you unless you completely changed your build which then cost them some of their already lower DPS.

The net result is that the devs failed to lower the ceiling and only further increased the gap. Gutting some of the solo play capability out of the nightblade is going to cause the same problem but the devs have had it out for nightblades (magblades) in particular ever since Summerset/ wolf Hunter when almost every clear was 7-8 magblades because of how much power they could put out while staying at a reasonable distance.

I think what they missed and how they could buff other classes is by learning from what made the nightblade so strong and incorporating it across other characters in creative ways (although I don't know how you bridge the gap of nightblades having the best execute by leaps and bounds without giving other classes a good execute). Having overlapping ways to get buffs is a good thing not a bad one as it helps when groups don't know some of the things that help a lot in the game. Having it be that people aren't riding a tight rope for sustain helps the average player. Having consumables that more expensive be better than the cheap ones makes more sense to players. If they move more in this direction they might be able to finally raise the floor for DPS although it will likely increase the ceiling a bit too.