ESO Balance - Stop Bashing - Balance Concepts Explained

RavenSworn · September 2019

While i do agree with your points, sometimes it's hard to see if zos is really listening to the feedback of the players in the pts.

However, there was a precedent of sheer wholesale uproar of some of the changes for eg the casting times for shields on the forums that it was ultimately reverted back to instant cast albeit with lesser effectiveness.

During that time however, zos wasn't as clear as they should have been with their vision for the game. That really started the ball rolling with all these threads and posts that flood the forums. Players think that that's the only way to gain attention.

It's not.

What @Casterial said however is right, we do need to get on the pts and replicate live situations, both over and pvp. So far, only raid players trying to get an upper hand on the upcoming raid come in the pts. It's hardly anyone on the pts, trying out perhaps large scale pvp or even BGs.

With that said though, zoe opening up a pts cycle on the console won't be feasible in terms of access and server ware on zos end. It's unfortunate because some of the loudest players are the console players (not all, but some of the loudest).

idk · September 2019

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Sorry, I just can't take it seriously when one patch a skill needs to be buffed because it was allegedly underperforming, and then needs to be buffed worse than original because it's now allegedly overperforming.

First, as OP stated, do some actual testing. Just reading the patch notes and complaining about changes is pretty meaningless and I am pretty sure Zos can see right through that.

Second, If you were not paying attention the last couple months, DoTs were greatly overperforming so it makes sense they are dialed back. They are in the middle of a total revamp of combat in the game and warned us about this last year.

Until they finish and to the final tweaking get used to this as it can happen again. Hey, I wish Zos would have gotten their act together over 5 years ago and I really doubt they have the management perspective to actually do this right but I have to give them a shot.

In other words, test and give real feedback and if you do not like all this take a break from the game..

Rake · September 2019

How to DK without class dots being viable?
We need a combat dev that mains a class, both in non zerg PvP and as DD in PvE

Casterial · September 2019

Rake wrote: »

How to DK without class dots being viable?
We need a combat dev that mains a class, both in non zerg PvP and as DD in PvE

You dont play DK thats how

stuartx13 · September 2019

Still in morrowind we test lots And meny people were on. And Not listen to no matter how much we said.Why wast time they will do it no matter what we say.So we do this.

Taloros · September 2019

The call for more testing is well-meant, but ill-guided:
- The installation of the PTS client is a problem due to the the game's totally overblown size. I won't buy a new hard drive to do free beta-testing for a for-profit company.
- The developers hardly if ever listen to feedback. There's little evidence that they even read the forums at all. The aforementioned shield change coincided with a forum outcry, but I dare to doubt causality between the two. Other issues have been ignored despite similar outcry.
- Testing a 50% damage nerf just isn't necessary. You can see on paper that it's a bad idea. It is not that hard to think through how bad a DoT ability is that only does 125% damage of a direct damage ability and has higher resource cost. At least I just wouldn't bother to use it all.

Testing is a good thing on principle, but it needs a reason, structure, a proper feedback and evaluation process, such as in doing surveys with all players who clocked at least x hours on the PTS. And trial and error, just changing things on a whim and throw them to testers, is not a proper way to manage a game with this many players.
Think before acting. Then act. Then evaluate your action. Then adjust. Instead, they just act without thinking, then don't listen, then again act on something else to counter their ill-advised previous changes.

The way to improve things isn't more testing, it's better development.

BahometZ · September 2019

I like that the next patch doesn't have a trial so some hur dur people don't just use the PTS to try and get the best live trial score straightaway, and might instead test some other things for a change.

sionIV · September 2019

Casterial wrote: »

Hello ESO,

Why do they change meta so often?
Honestly, they don’t. I use to change meta monthly sometimes in huge major ways, sometimes I’d just revert back. Meta changes keep the game alive, balance is finicky, combat is finicky. Why? Because it IS the game, any change can churn players. So be patient, help them.

-Casterial, Kill Counter developer

I can't accept this as correct.

I've been playing MMOs since early 2000, and during that time none of the MMOs I've played had such radical changes and so often. Major changes to the meta almost always came with expansions. WoW would reinvent their classes every 2-3 years, not every 2-3 months.

I also can't believe how casually you're talking about reverting the changes back. It takes time to work on these changes, it takes time for the playerbase to get used to these changes, and reverting them back is a sign of failure. How are we supposed to take ZOS serious? They talk to us about their grand plans and clear goals, and then a few months later they backtrack on everything they told us. It's getting more clear for each update that the team has no clue what they're doing, and we're the test subjects. I'm not going to spend my time (and money) on helping the developers figure out what they want to do., especially when they are so bad at listening to feedback from the playerbase.

Canned_Apples · September 2019

I've played and I provided (constructive) feedback- but whether they (@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam) actually listen and take what we say into consideration is highly unlikely. @Devs will ultimately do whatever they want and force us to adapt to their warped vision of the game.

You know something is wrong when they actually believe that the current iteration* of the game introduced class/build diversity.

If they actually want class identity, then they shouldn't nerf class skills to the same degree as generic skills.
The generic ones are meant to act as supplemental abilities not core ones- which, unfortunately, is what they became in Scalebreaker and what lead to this monstrous nerf bat.

I like that they gave Stamina Wardens a Swarm morph- whether the damage is significant enough to warrant a slot has yet to be seen... but given how weak all dots currently are...

*Scalebreaker

Casterial · September 2019

sionIV wrote: »

Casterial wrote: »

Hello ESO,

Why do they change meta so often?
Honestly, they don’t. I use to change meta monthly sometimes in huge major ways, sometimes I’d just revert back. Meta changes keep the game alive, balance is finicky, combat is finicky. Why? Because it IS the game, any change can churn players. So be patient, help them.

-Casterial, Kill Counter developer

I can't accept this as correct.

I've been playing MMOs since early 2000, and during that time none of the MMOs I've played had such radical changes and so often. Major changes to the meta almost always came with expansions. WoW would reinvent their classes every 2-3 years, not every 2-3 months.

I also can't believe how casually you're talking about reverting the changes back. It takes time to work on these changes, it takes time for the playerbase to get used to these changes, and reverting them back is a sign of failure. How are we supposed to take ZOS serious? They talk to us about their grand plans and clear goals, and then a few months later they backtrack on everything they told us. It's getting more clear for each update that the team has no clue what they're doing, and we're the test subjects. I'm not going to spend my time (and money) on helping the developers figure out what they want to do., especially when they are so bad at listening to feedback from the playerbase.

Yeah in MMOs its minimal changes every 3-5 months, 6-9 months slightly major, 1 year-2 year complete change

Austinseph1 · September 2019

Giving feedback on the last patch didn’t help the 30% aoe nerf and resounding amount posts that dots were too strong and it went live and then this patch its gone down to 30% and double the cost of pre scalebreaker. No matter how much feedback we give, this won’t change nearly as much as it would need to. When changes are so huge as they are doing now that they kill the motivation to play much test you are probably going too far. Dots are so low now that I get great damage In comparison just mashing a spamable, neither of which preformed too well in comparison to live. It doesn’t feel good, it isn’t compelling gameplay, and will go from a hectic dot meta to a plain less compelling one. Neither of which I will have time to get used to before the next patch hits going the other direction again. Throwing a class aoe and blockade costs you 10k mag? The cost to damage ratio is awful. Godslayer for example is based around the current highest level of gameplay that the top players in the world have completed. With the current changes this achievement could easily become impossible simply because of damage output constraints..

MojaveHeld · September 2019

Casterial wrote: »

stuartx13 wrote: »

Casterial wrote: »

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Sorry, I just can't take it seriously when one patch a skill needs to be buffed because it was allegedly underperforming, and then needs to be buffed worse than original because it's now allegedly overperforming.

Well, play PTS. Back yourself up on your theories. Help them. The PTS always has like 10 - 20 players, not nearly enough compared to forums.

Ok you are just wrong.How can we keep doing PTS when feedback is just blow off.

I'm saying just do our best, I personally don't see flaming/spamming the forums as a solution.

When a developer shows such obvious disdain and lack of respect for their own playerbase, the only productive option those players have is to make the backlash so furious and intense that the developer learns some humility and admits their grievous errors. Honestly, a firing or two on the combat team is probably necessary at this point, given the intense disdain they showed for their own playerbase with these changes. These changes could only be made by a group rotten to the core already, decent and reasonable developers who respect their own players don't do anything remotely like this.

Bashev · September 2019

The biggest issue for the combat team is that they try to balance the game by separating it on different segments and make changes only in these segments. When you balance a game you have to think for the whole picture.

First they buffed (Standardized) the AoE abilities. Then they nerfed them, then they buffed (Standardized) the DoTs and now they nerf them. If they combined all these changes in one patch could be way easier for them.

Of course if you buff only one type of damage everyone will use it. Then you have to nerf it because all the statistics that you collect shows that it is overused.

On top of that when you add the CP system and the balancing job looks even more difficult.

Korah_Eaglecry · September 2019

sionIV wrote: »

Casterial wrote: »

Hello ESO,

Why do they change meta so often?
Honestly, they don’t. I use to change meta monthly sometimes in huge major ways, sometimes I’d just revert back. Meta changes keep the game alive, balance is finicky, combat is finicky. Why? Because it IS the game, any change can churn players. So be patient, help them.

-Casterial, Kill Counter developer

I can't accept this as correct.

I've been playing MMOs since early 2000, and during that time none of the MMOs I've played had such radical changes and so often. Major changes to the meta almost always came with expansions. WoW would reinvent their classes every 2-3 years, not every 2-3 months.

I also can't believe how casually you're talking about reverting the changes back. It takes time to work on these changes, it takes time for the playerbase to get used to these changes, and reverting them back is a sign of failure. How are we supposed to take ZOS serious? They talk to us about their grand plans and clear goals, and then a few months later they backtrack on everything they told us. It's getting more clear for each update that the team has no clue what they're doing, and we're the test subjects. I'm not going to spend my time (and money) on helping the developers figure out what they want to do., especially when they are so bad at listening to feedback from the playerbase.

Yeah I was just trying to recall in the last 15 years of MMO experience that I could remember a major AAA game going through major changes that swung back and forth in such a short period of time. And not a single moment came to mind. Sure there has been times where major changes came down the pipe and the playerbase reacted, a lot of times over reacted. But not once can I remember a company taking an ability and buffing it claiming that it was underperforming. Then 3 months later nerfing it before smashing it well below the original starting point. How the hell can they rationalize that sort of development process? Im not surprised to see the usual suspects defending ZOS. But this nonsense is not new. Theyve been without direction for a while now and its quite evident after this they dont really have a combat philosophy for this game anymore.

Canned_Apples · September 2019

@Casterial
MMOs do not change that drastically that often.
The numbers, if anything, are closer somewhat closer to those of @sionIV and even then those numbers are pretty conservative.

IIRC, both wow (8 years in) and swtor (4-5 years in) changed their skill tree to mastery ones to help streamline things, get rid of ability clutter, and make balancing easier when they increase the level cap, and lotro changed theirs after several years for some reason that eludes me. There are others, but they're changes weren't as noteworthy.

I applaud the devs for wanting to introduce some real class identity/diversity, but their actions tend to contradict their vision far too often.

SirDopey · September 2019

Casterial wrote: »

Hello ESO,

Many know me, but many don’t. Back in the day I ran a lot of community events, tournaments, and helped run Legend. Eventually I took a solid 3 year break (2016-2019). I’d play occasionally here or there, but I was busy working.

What did/do I do? I was a Technical Combat Designer @ EA for a while where I helped balance several units and maintained a 5% w/l rate between the best and worst unit in the game.
^ I stated this to back my knowledge

Now why am I writing this?
Many people are bashing ZOS over these balance changes. While I agree, I do think they’re severe I’ll tell you why you should support them and definitely play the PTS.

Balance is usually done of the following:
Feel - The feel of the skill, or the combo

Combo/Counterplay - How powerful is the combo, and does it have a counterplay? How common is the counterplay to the combo/meta?

Data - Does the data back it up, or not support our investigation results?

Many people are quite angry over the Cycle 1 balance changes on the PTS, but no one is on the PTS heavily to help test and give feedback to the developers, the combat team, and our class reps. This feedback is crucial in the early stages, with few have true evidence to back their claim it gives them little reason to make big changes.

Let me bring up a thing thats largely upsetting for me, and probably you.
63% nerf to all dots across the board.

Everyone is like “This is huge!” And well, you’re right. The change is drastic. But often in balance (PTS) it's usually done in internal testing, ZOS lets theirs public.

Why are the numbers as drastic?
Minimal changes very rarely shift anything, so to see what comes out or what needs real changing to tweak back balancers usually watch the meta develop of the time until they finally develop a finalized patch note ready to be released. In order to continually shift it down you start high, if you don't start high then you have to find whats too much. Now they can scale down.

Why is crucial for us to play PTS?
You can’t back up your claim without large testing. Balance teams are often small and rely on select players to help balance the game based on feedback loops.

Why do they change meta so often?
Honestly, they don’t. I use to change meta monthly sometimes in huge major ways, sometimes I’d just revert back. Meta changes keep the game alive, balance is finicky, combat is finicky. Why? Because it IS the game, any change can churn players. So be patient, help them.

It seems like ZOS is trying to run us away!
No, it is the best interest of ZOS to keep everyone here. The thing is though, they don’t balance based on top tier or lower tier. They balance based on the average player. So for PVE the average DPS (casuals) and for PVP the average zerger (casual). This is to make sure the game is fair for vast majority and not the minority. Why keep 10 happy when you can keep 90 happy?
-Disclaimer, I don’t know if this is what ZOS does, but the majority of games do this.

What can we do?
I cannot stress it enough, as a player you should be playing the PTS if you want to see some changes happen. You should be constantly trying to help them to see more results you want. Developers are always open, while they have their vision, they know sometimes players know more.

Why are the forums blowing up that its bad?
Often times the few are the loudest. So while majority are contempt, the few are not and will raise hell to make sure everyone jumps on their ship. Just sail it out

Is ESO doing a bad job?
Not at all, while I sometimes joke, or get vocal about how bad some changes are I always sit down and remember when I use to do this it was the same from players to me. But in the end players adapted and made amazing things come out of the dust!

Remember, be nice to your community manager @ZOS_GinaBruno and be nice to the combat team They have a vision, they have a goal and it's to make the game for fun, more fair, and definitely to keep players playing!

Thanks for reading this

-Casterial, Kill Counter developer

You've been around long enough to know this, how many times over all the patches has ZOS actually taken PTS feedback on board and altered course during the PTS cycle?

A couple, of times since offical release. PTS is purely for bug fixes not for changing their balance decision. So to think that they will tone down these nerfs based on actual feedback is incredibly nieve.

Yes, some builds were over performing due to their blanket buffing last patch, but their blanket nerfs to DOTs will mean certain classes become completely unplayable (looking at you Stam DK)

Edit for clarity -> I'd be happy with all the current DOT nerfs to weapon, guild and world skills remaining, but leave class skills as they are on Live so that we can classes some identity

thorwyn · September 2019

Ok, so I read your post a few times now and I'm still trying to find a satisfying explanation of balance concepts.
A huge chunk of your post can be condensed down to the lines of "Devs have done a decent job but y'all did not play PTS and failed to provide ZOS with feedback", which is kinda like the equivalent to a politician who is blaming the voters for not voting for him after an election. While we all agree that solid testing is important, the conclusion that those people who are complaining now are the same people who did not bother playing PTS and giving feedback is a pretty questionable generalization. Many players already stated that they did give feedback and were ignored for the most part.

The only part in your post that does provide us with an attempt of explaining balance concepts is this one:

Why are the numbers as drastic?
Minimal changes very rarely shift anything, so to see what comes out or what needs real changing to tweak back balancers usually watch the meta develop of the time until they finally develop a finalized patch note ready to be released. In order to continually shift it down you start high, if you don't start high then you have to find whats too much. Now they can scale down.

Now, one could make a point that this is just one way of approaching the problem. But for the sake of argument, let's say we agree and assume that this is the correct way of trying to find the sweet spot of a skill. The point that you happen to ignore is, that the same skills that have now been toned down by 60+ % are the same skills that have been BUFFED by 25%just a couple of months ago . So the skills that were considered too weak three months ago are now so overperforming that they need to be toned down to a point where they are even weaker than they were... three months ago. In other words: the combat designers are not just trying to find the correct level for those skills, they even fail to see which direction they need to go in the first place.

Casterial · September 2019

thorwyn wrote: »

Ok, so I read your post a few times now and I'm still trying to find a satisfying explanation of balance concepts.
A huge chunk of your post can be condensed down to the lines of "Devs have done a decent job but y'all did not play PTS and failed to provide ZOS with feedback", which is kinda like the equivalent to a politician who is blaming the voters for not voting for him after an election. While we all agree that solid testing is important, the conclusion that those people who are complaining now are the same people who did not bother playing PTS and giving feedback is a pretty questionable generalization. Many players already stated that they did give feedback and were ignored for the most part.

The only part in your post that does provide us with an attempt of explaining balance concepts is this one:

Why are the numbers as drastic?
Minimal changes very rarely shift anything, so to see what comes out or what needs real changing to tweak back balancers usually watch the meta develop of the time until they finally develop a finalized patch note ready to be released. In order to continually shift it down you start high, if you don't start high then you have to find whats too much. Now they can scale down.

Now, one could make a point that this is just one way of approaching the problem. But for the sake of argument, let's say we agree and assume that this is the correct way of trying to find the sweet spot of a skill. The point that you happen to ignore is, that the same skills that have now been toned down by 60+ % are the same skills that have been BUFFED by 25%just a couple of months ago . So the skills that were considered too weak three months ago are now so overperforming that they need to be toned down to a point where they are even weaker than they were... three months ago. In other words: the combat designers are not just trying to find the correct level for those skills, they even fail to see which direction they need to go in the first place.

tldr; ZOS has swapped through combat designers quite a bit. While they may have a direction, we dont know it. Help steer it by providing feedback. There isn't much we can do for the game aside from trying to steer. As for this patch note, its purposely drastic to hit the problem in the heart and then slowly let "blood out"

Casterial · September 2019

SirDopey wrote: »

Casterial wrote: »

Hello ESO,

Many know me, but many don’t. Back in the day I ran a lot of community events, tournaments, and helped run Legend. Eventually I took a solid 3 year break (2016-2019). I’d play occasionally here or there, but I was busy working.

What did/do I do? I was a Technical Combat Designer @ EA for a while where I helped balance several units and maintained a 5% w/l rate between the best and worst unit in the game.
^ I stated this to back my knowledge

Now why am I writing this?
Many people are bashing ZOS over these balance changes. While I agree, I do think they’re severe I’ll tell you why you should support them and definitely play the PTS.

Balance is usually done of the following:
Feel - The feel of the skill, or the combo

Combo/Counterplay - How powerful is the combo, and does it have a counterplay? How common is the counterplay to the combo/meta?

Data - Does the data back it up, or not support our investigation results?

Many people are quite angry over the Cycle 1 balance changes on the PTS, but no one is on the PTS heavily to help test and give feedback to the developers, the combat team, and our class reps. This feedback is crucial in the early stages, with few have true evidence to back their claim it gives them little reason to make big changes.

Let me bring up a thing thats largely upsetting for me, and probably you.
63% nerf to all dots across the board.

Everyone is like “This is huge!” And well, you’re right. The change is drastic. But often in balance (PTS) it's usually done in internal testing, ZOS lets theirs public.

Why are the numbers as drastic?
Minimal changes very rarely shift anything, so to see what comes out or what needs real changing to tweak back balancers usually watch the meta develop of the time until they finally develop a finalized patch note ready to be released. In order to continually shift it down you start high, if you don't start high then you have to find whats too much. Now they can scale down.

Why is crucial for us to play PTS?
You can’t back up your claim without large testing. Balance teams are often small and rely on select players to help balance the game based on feedback loops.

Why do they change meta so often?
Honestly, they don’t. I use to change meta monthly sometimes in huge major ways, sometimes I’d just revert back. Meta changes keep the game alive, balance is finicky, combat is finicky. Why? Because it IS the game, any change can churn players. So be patient, help them.

It seems like ZOS is trying to run us away!
No, it is the best interest of ZOS to keep everyone here. The thing is though, they don’t balance based on top tier or lower tier. They balance based on the average player. So for PVE the average DPS (casuals) and for PVP the average zerger (casual). This is to make sure the game is fair for vast majority and not the minority. Why keep 10 happy when you can keep 90 happy?
-Disclaimer, I don’t know if this is what ZOS does, but the majority of games do this.

What can we do?
I cannot stress it enough, as a player you should be playing the PTS if you want to see some changes happen. You should be constantly trying to help them to see more results you want. Developers are always open, while they have their vision, they know sometimes players know more.

Why are the forums blowing up that its bad?
Often times the few are the loudest. So while majority are contempt, the few are not and will raise hell to make sure everyone jumps on their ship. Just sail it out

Is ESO doing a bad job?
Not at all, while I sometimes joke, or get vocal about how bad some changes are I always sit down and remember when I use to do this it was the same from players to me. But in the end players adapted and made amazing things come out of the dust!

Remember, be nice to your community manager @ZOS_GinaBruno and be nice to the combat team They have a vision, they have a goal and it's to make the game for fun, more fair, and definitely to keep players playing!

Thanks for reading this

-Casterial, Kill Counter developer

You've been around long enough to know this, how many times over all the patches has ZOS actually taken PTS feedback on board and altered course during the PTS cycle?

A couple, of times since offical release. PTS is purely for bug fixes not for changing their balance decision. So to think that they will tone down these nerfs based on actual feedback is incredibly nieve.

Yes, some builds were over performing due to their blanket buffing last patch, but their blanket nerfs to DOTs will mean certain classes become completely unplayable (looking at you Stam DK)

Edit for clarity -> I'd be happy with all the current DOT nerfs to weapon, guild and world skills remaining, but leave class skills as they are on Live so that we can classes some identity

True, I have actually found major bugs, reported it to zos with steps to repo and they released it to live several months later. So, I mean.. Its just I hope they are reading forums.

ShadowKyuubi · September 2019

I did test on the PTS, with the same characters I use in the live version. Same gear, same skills, same everything. I lost 10-15k dps on every toon I tested with. I even tried different rotation. Different gear combinations, different skills, I tried. Now, I don't claim to be the best dps, but I am fairly competent. My stamden went from 53k, 6mil self-buffed, to 40k. My magdk went from 46k to 35k (and couldn't even sustain the rotation). The story is the same for multiple toons across the board. I worked for months to get to a place where I could be proud of my DD's. I was so happy when I finally hit the 50k mark on a 6mil toon from 40k...that is gone. Several months of work, gone in an instant because of blanket nerfs to every skill. So, tell me. Why shouldn't I be upset?

Recent · September 2019

I'm beyond tired of these freaking back and forth changes. No amount of sugar coating these pathetic nerfs will change my mind about how ridiculous these so called balances are.

They nerf my class back and forth, they nerf my class back and forth....reminds me of that poxy song lol by will smith's daughter.

svendf · September 2019

Casterial wrote: »

Hello ESO,

Many know me, but many don’t. Back in the day I ran a lot of community events, tournaments, and helped run Legend. Eventually I took a solid 3 year break (2016-2019). I’d play occasionally here or there, but I was busy working.

What did/do I do? I was a Technical Combat Designer @ EA for a while where I helped balance several units and maintained a 5% w/l rate between the best and worst unit in the game.
^ I stated this to back my knowledge

Now why am I writing this?
Many people are bashing ZOS over these balance changes. While I agree, I do think they’re severe I’ll tell you why you should support them and definitely play the PTS.

Balance is usually done of the following:
Feel - The feel of the skill, or the combo

Combo/Counterplay - How powerful is the combo, and does it have a counterplay? How common is the counterplay to the combo/meta?

Data - Does the data back it up, or not support our investigation results?

Many people are quite angry over the Cycle 1 balance changes on the PTS, but no one is on the PTS heavily to help test and give feedback to the developers, the combat team, and our class reps. This feedback is crucial in the early stages, with few have true evidence to back their claim it gives them little reason to make big changes.

Let me bring up a thing thats largely upsetting for me, and probably you.
63% nerf to all dots across the board.

Everyone is like “This is huge!” And well, you’re right. The change is drastic. But often in balance (PTS) it's usually done in internal testing, ZOS lets theirs public.

Why are the numbers as drastic?
Minimal changes very rarely shift anything, so to see what comes out or what needs real changing to tweak back balancers usually watch the meta develop of the time until they finally develop a finalized patch note ready to be released. In order to continually shift it down you start high, if you don't start high then you have to find whats too much. Now they can scale down.

Why is crucial for us to play PTS?
You can’t back up your claim without large testing. Balance teams are often small and rely on select players to help balance the game based on feedback loops.

Why do they change meta so often?
Honestly, they don’t. I use to change meta monthly sometimes in huge major ways, sometimes I’d just revert back. Meta changes keep the game alive, balance is finicky, combat is finicky. Why? Because it IS the game, any change can churn players. So be patient, help them.

It seems like ZOS is trying to run us away!
No, it is the best interest of ZOS to keep everyone here. The thing is though, they don’t balance based on top tier or lower tier. They balance based on the average player. So for PVE the average DPS (casuals) and for PVP the average zerger (casual). This is to make sure the game is fair for vast majority and not the minority. Why keep 10 happy when you can keep 90 happy?
-Disclaimer, I don’t know if this is what ZOS does, but the majority of games do this.

What can we do?
I cannot stress it enough, as a player you should be playing the PTS if you want to see some changes happen. You should be constantly trying to help them to see more results you want. Developers are always open, while they have their vision, they know sometimes players know more.

Why are the forums blowing up that its bad?
Often times the few are the loudest. So while majority are contempt, the few are not and will raise hell to make sure everyone jumps on their ship. Just sail it out

Is ESO doing a bad job?
Not at all, while I sometimes joke, or get vocal about how bad some changes are I always sit down and remember when I use to do this it was the same from players to me. But in the end players adapted and made amazing things come out of the dust!

Remember, be nice to your community manager @ZOS_GinaBruno and be nice to the combat team They have a vision, they have a goal and it's to make the game for fun, more fair, and definitely to keep players playing!

Thanks for reading this

-Casterial, Kill Counter developer

Good one very nice Sir. Agree fully +1

Huyen · September 2019

I agree with you OP. I personally dont play the pts because spoilers, and I will adapt anyhow.

However all you see here is people whining that propising changes and backing it up with evidence etc. doesnt help anyhow.

To some degree that is true (classreps are mostly youtubers / influencers) but that doesnt mean we arent heard. ZoS just cant make us all happy...

Casterial · September 2019

Recent wrote: »

I'm beyond tired of these freaking back and forth changes. No amount of sugar coating these pathetic nerfs will change my mind about how ridiculous these so called balances are.

They nerf my class back and forth, they nerf my class back and forth....reminds me of that poxy song lol by will smith's daughter.

It happens, sometimes it needs to be buffed to get into a meta, then nerfed to change its meta up. Its just time, my templar has meta shifted a lot.

Vapirko · September 2019

It’s easy to be super chill when you haven’t played the game for the last 3 years. I fully advocate backing up your posts, we definitely have too many brain dead nerf threads, but stick around for a while and we will see if you still feel this way after a year or two of patches. ZOS actually doesn’t listen to most of the evidence based posts and you’ll learn this. Their nerfs ere on the side of the rant threads with now evidence. So welcome back but you don’t really get how things work around here.

TirantLoBlanch · September 2019

Casterial wrote: »

Rake wrote: »

How to DK without class dots being viable?
We need a combat dev that mains a class, both in non zerg PvP and as DD in PvE

You dont play DK thats how

I have no problem if they pay me for the hours i have lost maxim my 3 DK. At let´s say 5 bucks the hour they owe me some thousands...

Xsorus · September 2019

I’m sorry, when the useless vma twohander dot is triple the damage of the dot class best dot after the nerfs.. we got a problem.

Elsonso · September 2019

stuartx13 wrote: »

Casterial wrote: »

Well, play PTS. Back yourself up on your theories. Help them. The PTS always has like 10 - 20 players, not nearly enough compared to forums.

Ok you are just wrong.How can we keep doing PTS when feedback is just blow off.

Most of the feedback that I read here on the forums is crap. I see a lot of feedback based on "patch notes analysis", not to mention those that just rephrase someone else's "patch notes analysis". It's crap. Plain and simple. ZOS sees it, but there is not a lot for them to act upon. That is why they don't "listen".

As suggested by the OP, people who feel strongly that this is the wrong direction need to get on PTS and show them. That is going to take time. It means more than just a few minutes standing in front of a target dummy. Oh, look, my DPS is lower.

ZOS monitors the players as they play the game, both on Live and PTS. They have said so, repeatedly. If people get on PTS and test out the changes, ZOS can compare what they see on PTS with both Live and what they are expecting from Update 24.

Someone was talking about "back and forth" decisions. That can easily happen if they don't get enough data from PTS and the Live data, after the Update is released, has to be used. After release, the players on Live are still being monitored. Any data that they do not get from PTS, they get from Live.

zaria · September 2019

BlueRaven wrote: »

I like how the assumption is that if we give feedback, it will change anything.

Do I need to remind the OP about the racial changes debacle? Do I need to link the 70+ thread begging to change the Bosmer passives? How did that go?

Face it. They "say" they want our feedback, the reality is they want the feedback from about 5-6 chosen people. The rest of us don't matter.

This, and its not like the sneak bonus is very OP, yes its nice in PvP but most relevant for causal stealing.
Now add the idiotic switch of poison and disease resistance between Argoinans and Bosmers who breaks lore and has no balance impact who could not be solved by tweaking the numbers.

MartiniDaniels · September 2019

Valid points, but devs don't follow them.

If there is target to nerf PVE dps in sake of more group oriented gameplay (though in top guilds it is already group oriented), then it should be clearly stated in patch notes. Something like this:

"We notice that majority of PVE group content became too easy to bypass by high group dps, thus we are planning to drastically decrease damage output to motivate players to use more diverse gameplay and tight group coordination". There is no such message, just -50%, -63%, -33%, +65% cost and so on...