Xogath wrote: »

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Xogath wrote: »

I don't even remember how many times I've suggested this now..

The simplest way to balance this game for both aspects without breaking one or the other in the process is to simply have all abilities follow either a PvE or PvP table of coefficients.

So any ability used in any PvE situation would reference the PvE table of coefficients, and deal damage based on that.

In any PvP situation (duel, BGs, Cyrodiil, IC, etc.), the player can be invisibly flagged so the game knows that now it needs to reference the PvP table of coefficients when abilities are used.

ezpz

The only non-constant in this ridiculously easy formula are duels. The game would have to know when to unflag both players.. but this isn't impossible to achieve at all. When the losing player dies and the duel is declared over, they're obviously unflagged. When the duel is declared over, the winning player would obviously be unflagged so they don't get shafted in to being stuck with PvP coefficient damage on their abilities while going about their day.

It would require a bit of work on ZOS' part to achieve this, as numerous checks would have to be in place outside of PvP maps to ensure that players were indeed not flagged (thus resulting in different damage than they should be doing), but intelligently designed it's very, very possible.

Doing this would allow the development team to simply adjust ability damage entirely separate from PvE and PvP.

If Surprise Attack's coefficient for PvE was something like 2.25, it could be lowered for PvP to, say, 1.75, so it wasn't two-shotting people, and so on for every other ability, passive, etc. in the game.

I know ability damage calculations aren't as cut and dry as a simple integer determining the damage, but you get the gist of what I'm saying.

Until something like this is done, balance will never be achieved in this game, and every single content patch is going to have one side or the other up in arms because their aspect of the game was altered due to the other aspect.

Is this not what battle spirit does, essentially? With the only real difference being that heals, shields and damage received by a player in Cyrodiil is divided by 2 rather than multiplied by some number. Which is actually brilliantly simple, because rather than doubling or quadrupling the calculations for each skill in PvE and PvP, they instead modify how the player receives interactions which quickly addresses most use if not all use cases. With skills streamlined in this way, they can compare and contrast PvE and PvP side by side pretty easily, using one big set of data if they like. You're suggested approach wouldn't allow that as easily.

Battle Spirit is simply a blanket "debuff" to overall values.. while it is as simple as you're perceiving it, it could not be any more lazy.

Think of it as a map-wide, negative multiplier.. if that makes sense. I'll provide an additional example, though:

Currently, in WoW, once a raid is no longer current content, they typically add a raid-wide buff that gives the player extra health, damage, etc. up to a certain percent. Battle Spirit is basically the opposite of this. To the game, it's basically like saying "Yeah, when a player is on a PvP map, they need to take -50% damage, -50% healing, etc." ..they are modifiers that take precedence over all other calculations.

On the other hand, having a second set of damage coefficients as I've proposed countless times would allow them to balance each aspect of the game as they wished, without it affecting another aspect. I'll try to make an example but it's going to look horrible.

[Skill.[SkillID].PvE]
DamageCalcsAndSuch(Coefficient in the middle somewhere that governs the overall damage of the skill)
[Skill.[SkillID].PvP]
DamageCalcsAndSuch(Coefficient in the middle somewhere that could be different from the PvE version, adjusted for PvP)

Basically, if they had a text file with every ability in the game and its calculations in it, they would have a separate file with the same things, only tagged as the PvP version of the abilities. The only difference would be that one number that governs the overall damage of the ability. If [SkillID] had a multiplier/coefficient of 1.25 in a PvE situation, and development found that to be acceptable for PvE content, but maybe hitting too much in PvP situations.. they could simply edit the PvP version's coefficient to, say, 1.15 or something, so it was adjusted for PvP situations only instead of nerfing the whole ability across all aspects of the game and potentially destroying fun builds in the process.

This would result in buffs and nerfs to things that didn't affect the other end of the game.

So if, say, Poison Injection was found to be ticking for acceptable amounts in PvE situations, but maybe far too much in PvP situations, they could simply tweak the PvP version's coefficient and tone down the damage using their own calculations as a formula to figure out exactly how much it would be hitting for on any given target, given they have access to such information.

The only other thing that would need to happen for this to work is already a system in place on live servers.. Battle Spirit. The game checks if a player is on a PvP map, and applies the buff when they are. That same check could be used to tell the game "Okay, flag this player so we know to use the PvP coefficients for damage now" and life would go on. As soon as a player left a PvP map, as Battle Spirit is removed from them today, the "flag" would be removed from them and the game would then know to use the PvE coefficients again.

They could even add in a hotkey for viewing PvE/PvP tooltips; such as hovering over an ability to see one tooltip, and pressing CTRL or something to have it display the PvP tooltip.

Something like this is essentially the only sensible way to separate the two aspects of the game, and would further set ESO apart from other MMORPGs who are constantly in a balance struggle between PvE and PvP. It would allow the development team to easily identify problem mechanics (ie: overperforming abilities) in one aspect or the other, and fix them accordingly.

If an ability was found to need reworked for whatever reason, then yes, both versions would need edited and coefficients adjusted on both ends.. but this wouldn't be some gigantic effort compared to having a literal balancing act between two important aspects of the game like we have now.

sly007 wrote: »

washbern wrote: »

People complaining too much about how other class abilities function in pvp far more than in pve. Though I agree with the battle spirit idea very much, I feel like its pvp crybabies who beg for homogenization of classes because if another class has a cool ability, they must have the same or nerf the other ability. Things like winged twilight or Betty natch make some pvpers itch with envy and cry NERF.

Yes, crossplay should be good. But I feel like abilities should be similar but not identical. on the character window have player flip a switch between pve and pvp. Have the tooltips display exactly what each ability will do pending on the toggle. Thatd be helpful for new players and old.

I disagree. It's the end game pve players who cry about a 5% dps difference and beg Zos to buff and nerf classes so everyone does the exact same dps. We even recieve a complete race overhaul because pve players couldn't be content with small dps disparities.

Anecdotally, the pvp players that complain about class balance are the ones the have some seriously l2p issues. They want the same burst combo that warden has to be on a stam dk, forgetting that both bmclasses are fundamentally differently. One if s about burst and the other about Dots. But they dont care. They want to complain about a nightblade using their defensive mechanism effectively, rather than using the tools within the game to counter.

At the end of the day, I think Zos caters more for pve and pvp. Just so happens that pve players are louder and more abundant so their complaints of pvp changes floods the forums.