Inaya wrote: »

I agree with your overall "class balance" issue and I agree that ESO is suffering growing pains but that is far different than what WOW's problem is currently.

I was subbed to WOW from a few months after it launched until approx 6 months ago. I took breaks but never cancelled my subscription until then. I guess you have to play a really bad game to appreciate one with problems and issues but is still far better than what you left.

WOW has been slowly eroding so WOW isn't suffering from growing pains. In my opinion they are suffering from horrible management, stagnant creativity and the result of allowing Activision to completely enforce their visions on Blizzard staff (if there are even any originals left). WOW would be lucky if their only issue was class balance.


edited for typos and stuff

Anhedonie wrote: »

And that's kinda a problem. Because I doubt ESO will be able to recover from that.
It's not a doomsday post, but a possible look at what may happen unless devs do something about it.

I played wow recently so my memory is pretty fresh in that regard. Classes are not enjoyable or interesting at all. Each class has unique mechanics like runes, individual resource pools, insanity meters and so on. Yet it still doesn't really help much. Because all these mechanics amount to nothing. Classes don't really have anything unique about them, all class individual buffs are removed, aside from maybe mages and priests. Homogenisation is fine, but overdo it and you'll end up with the same stuff, just differently coloured.
I feel like ESO has this issue too. Classes aren't too different after all.

If you're a magicka, you use a couple class dots, a spammable and a blockade from destro stuff. And you don't have any options, really. And the worst part is it doesn't matter what kind of destro staff you're using. Force pulse looks the same, deals the same damage and has the same mechanics. Blockade works the same. It's a patch of X element on the ground doing roughly the same damage. Destro ult...what ever skill you pick. Basically just a different colour. If flame force pulse would create a cone of flame in front of you, if lightning force pulse would lauch chain lightning and jump from target to target, if ice force pulse would create a frozen beam pushing back targets, that would be a lot different, it would feel more unique.

If you're a stamina, you have a bit more variety in terms of weapon, but oh boy, stamina is a place where class identity goes to die. Ask stamina sorc mains. They have like 2 class abilities on bar and 1 of them is a passive effect. Not to mention that your offbar is pretty much the same regardless of class. Hail, caltrops, poison injection, whatever.

Class balance and fun factor.
Fun is subjective and balance in an MMO will never be achieved, considering pvp and pve aren't separated when it comes to balance. There are a lot of things that make fights unfair in this game.
So , you probably butcher pve balance to make pvp fair, or vise versa. But afaik pvp players don't buy housing items from crown store, don't buy dungeon dlcs and don't really do quests. At least not people that come primarily for pvp as far as I know. And besides most people come to ESO from single player games, since they played, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim - all single player games that have no pvp or online interaction at all. Games that are about story and focus around making your character fun and stupidly OP. So, if I were to hazard a guess, balance scales won't be in favor of pvp in the long run.
Besides, pvp games are most fun where everyone is at equial footing, that have great balance. No offence, but when I like to pvp, I don't launch ESO. I go to games like tekken 7 or similair.

That leaves us at pve and fun factor. And yeah, balance isn't the best here. I haven't had a "main" for 5 years, because all classes were ultimately not very engaging or fun. And besides I usually play necromancers\warlocks in games, and that archetype only came with Elsweyr. Can't say I like the performance of that class at least in magicka spec and it has some really irritating stuff (Blastbones, looking at you), but I think this is the step in the right direction in terms of fun factor. Corpse mechanic feels unique and while it needs improvements, like smart targeting, better responsiveness, and line of sight check adjustments (maybe removal even), it still adds that unique feel to the class.

We need more unique mechanics to make classes more fun, they just should be clunky or broken, or...well, you know.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RobGarrett @ZOS_RichLambert

darougaroux wrote: »

The only real issue that is glaring to me as a WoW refugee is this: Why are stamina DPS builds damn near FORCED to use a Bow? It homogenizes the game too much. For class fantasy, a necromancer using a bow just makes no sense to me. To me, skills like Endless Hail and Caltrops scream Ranger or Thief, but necro? No. I would like to see Boneyard get a stamina version. I think that would help a lot.

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Cernow wrote: »

It's not really "growing pains", it's more "ageing pains". WoW is 15 years since launch and the MMO industry is approaching 25 years. Class homogenisation and general simplification of gameplay is something the entire MMO industry has suffered from as this is what game studios feel the market wants. Perhaps they're right, or perhaps it's the easiest / cheapest way to develop. Either way, it doesn't usually make for great gameplay. WoW was accused of dumbing down the genre when it launched and yet here we are with current WoW shaving fallen such a long way from vanilla. ESO is following a similar, if accelerated, trajectory.

It doesn't have to be this way. Take Dark Age Of Camelot (which Matt Firor worked on of course), there's a game with three factions (realms), 19 races and 48 (!) classes. For the most part all of those classes have a very unique play style with distinct advantages and disadvantages in PvP and PVE. A balancing nightmare of course, particularly for group formation, but for the most part it worked. But while DAOC is still running, it's now an ageing niche game because it never reached mass appeal and never got the engine revamp it so badly needs. If there was ever a DAOC2 (unlikely) it would probably dumb down too unfortunately to have wider appeal.

Much of the problem in ESO is because the weapon skill lines for stam and magicka are generally stronger than the class skill lines and within that there's a bias towards certain weapons too. So, for the most part class skills aren't the emphasis. There's very little choice in weapons because usally dps is all that matters, utility takes a back seat. At ESO launch it was viable to dual wield (swords usually) as a magicka user. All that changed of course.

I got Elsweyr specifically to try the Necromancer. I found the Magcro underwhelming and buggy and yet another magicka class forced into using staves. So I switched to Stamcro. Much better, but for both PVE and PvP my Stamcro's skill bar is full of the same skills as all my other stamina characters, apart from a rather strong class ultimate (soon to be nerfed no doubt). Disappointing and dull.

The solution? Partly to stop focusing gameplay on a very limited range of mechanics, biased towards dps, burst damage and healing and fast time to kill (unless it's trying to kill a Magsorc in PvP). Utility is mostly pointless in ESO PVE because all bosses and most non-trash mobs are immune to most crowd control. In PvP the duration of CC is so short and immunity so common it does little. So what's the point in having any CC on your skill bar if most important adversaries ignore it? Players use abilities like Caltrops for the damage, not the utility.

Crowfall the next DAOC maybe, hope?