Puzzling information. Equality only promotes mundane mediocrity, surely.

Princess_Kassiopeia · December 2020

I have read many player talking about this power and that power and balls of lightning and etc etc.... Too powerful this and too powerful that....

Surely... if all strengths in whatever manifested form they take on according to the imagination of the developers were EQUAL.... wouldn't that promote stalemates across many regions of the game???

I fail to understand why people cannot see this.
Skillset differentiation surely allows the art of tactical alternation which in turn allows the element of surprise in attack and so therefore......... a winner.

Two jousting Knights OBVIOUSLY hope that the other is not as empowered as they in the art of jousting so that they can defeat their opponent.
If their skills were equal..... they would always strike each others shields and nobody would die and none would be the Champion.

Being taken by surprise or finding ones self up against an opponent they cannot defeat should promote a determination to find a chance means of unexpected attack for a victory...... not a demand for everything to be equal which defeats the very purpose of the battle.

VampireLordLover99 · December 2020

Exactly. Aka class diversity.

Not all classes should be equal to another. They each should have their own strengths and weaknesses to bring to battle.

The fact people moan and groan about balance this and balance that is disgusting. If anything, we should be giving subclasses (looking at you vampire) and classes unique and powerful abilities that no other class can really do. They each deserve to be strong, the same and nerfed.

That's what has mostly already happened. Each class has an aoe, spammable, more or less around the same kit except for a few niche things here and there like nb's invis. And sorc's streak.

We should be encouraging these differences in classes. And demanding each class be given unique characteristics.

Classes shouldn't be nerfed. Other classes and skill sets should be brought up instead. In their own class-unique way.

Nairinhe · December 2020

Still, it shouldn't be a "food chain", but a "rock - paper - scissors". Every class should have different strength and weaknesses but they should have same "power budget". They shouldn't be same in how they do things, but they should be equal in what they can do.

gatekeeper13 · December 2020

We are not talking about equality but about every class being strong in a specific sector. But in ESO some classes are simply way stronger than other classes. It's not a coincidence that so many people chose specific classes for pvp.

Ferrofluid · December 2020

Princess_Kassiopeia wrote: »

Two jousting Knights OBVIOUSLY hope that the other is not as empowered as they in the art of jousting so that they can defeat their opponent.
If their skills were equal..... they would always strike each others shields and nobody would die and none would be the Champion.

It’s important to differentiate between player skill and skills.
Yes the knight hopes that he’s better than his opponent, but if one turns up with a 4 foot lance and the other with a 7 foot lance then it’s obvious that one side has an unfair advantage.
This is the problem that people complain about. Where some skills (lances) are so superior to others, that no amount of player skill can overcome them.
Yes, different skills are going to be better in different situations, but in some cases certain skills are strong in every situation. However many 4 foot lances you have to choose from, the 7 foot lance is going to beat you every time.

Integral1900 · December 2020

Personally I’m all for some variation.

For example, my night blade has single target damage so far above my sorcerer that it’s almost funny, but at the same time my sorcerer’s area of affect abilities are much more potent because there are more of them laid on top of each other.

Variety is not something that should be feared but should be encouraged. Some classes will be better at certain fighting styles and others, that is their nature.

My Dragon knight does not have great sustain and does not move very quickly, on the other hand they hit surprisingly hard, build up a lot of damage over time and are very difficult to kill.

More more variety please, not less.😇

When the game was young dragon knights were gigantically powerful but they also suffered from the same sustain and movement speed issues they have now, this was balanced out by the massive punch of an ambushing nightblade . If an attacking nightblade do not kill the dragon knight in one go there almost certainly dead, the tricky bit with surviving the initial onslaught. Therefore we have variety. Variety requires extremes, you cannot have a variety without extremes. It cannot be done. 🧐

Someone trying to overcome a dragon knight with a different class going toe to toe should lose, because this is that classes territory. Just as someone trying to use stealth play against a night blade with a different class should be at a disadvantage.

Against a heavily armoured and slow-moving heavy hitter the be a strategy should be to wear the brute out, not just going in and trying to sledgehammer it into the ground, it would force more tactical play rather than just “oh look I’ve got more healing and DPS than you have LOL.” With this constant and unnecessary desire to make all the classes as good in every respect as each other all tactics seem to have gone out of the window.

I play very little PVP and almost none anymore partially because they mode does not appeal to me, but mostly because when I see a lot of players doing it I see no tactics whatsoever other than “look my hammer is bigger than yours or I go stabby stab you faster than you do!” That’s not tactics, that’s just button mashing 😡🤬

Faded · December 2020

Your jousting knights metaphor is awesome, because the one who uses his brain first and stops doing the same thing over and over while the other remains completely predictable will win. Equal power, level playing field: the better fighter wins. I approve.

It's not wrong to think your class should have power roughly equal to any other. It should. Where people get tripped up is thinking they should have have the same strength no matter how you play them - or that they should all play the same way. Unfortunately the devs have been headed down that road with their balance passes. But a nightblade plays very differently than a sorc or dragonknight, and trying to give them the same basic kit in different colors isn't going to work out well for actual gameplay.

If players complain that their class "spammable" or "health-based heal" or whatever each class simply must have exactly one of now isn't the same as some other class' - theirs is over power budget by 7 percent! - it's hardly surprising. Blame the devs. How come MY class damage ultimate has a cast time and THEIRS doesn't is an easy road to be led down when that's exactly how they frame things.

Waseem · December 2020

Even if all pvp is about light attacks or heavy attacks

people will complain about who attacked first and medium attack will be considered an exploit

Some feedback from players is worthwhile, while other feedback can be considered nonsense

relentless_turnip · December 2020

The only balance I'd like to see is the adjustment to proc sets. I have no idea without them what class balance looks like.

They adjusted all of these buffs and we have no idea what that is, because we aren't seeing skills, let alone those augmented by offensive stats.

How anyone is complaining about skills it just blows my mind 😂 ball of lightning is the latest in a long line of ridiculous nerf requests. I have seen many for cloak, leap, Streak etc... All made by people who will die to something else the next day and feel it's overpowered.

JinMori · December 2020

I think the goal should be to make every class feel unique while making them as close as possible in terms of general performance.

THe way they can do that is to give different toolkits that achieve a similar result, for example, let's say the goal is to survive, for templars it could be more healing, for dk more defense.

Basically you balance things differently but achieve similar results.

As for damage, that's pretty straightforward, you design a class and then you tune it.

relentless_turnip · December 2020

JinMori wrote: »

I think the goal should be to make every class feel unique while making them as close as possible in terms of general performance.

THe way they can do that is to give different toolkits that achieve a similar result, for example, let's say the goal is to survive, for templars it could be more healing, for dk more defense.

Basically you balance things differently but achieve similar results.

As for damage, that's pretty straightforward, you design a class and then you tune it.

That is pretty much what they've done? We need some proc set adjustments to see how balanced the game is tbh. We can play a patch without them and then make class adjustments.
I don't believe any class is in a much worse place than others and I play a lot of them regularly. Some synergise well with this meta because of their ease in health stacking or an overloaded heal that scales with health. Outside of a proc meta it wouldn't seem that overloaded.

Muttsmutt · December 2020

readin this title like "hoo boy this is gonna get deleted soon"
but it was not about what i thought it was about... haha.

Jeremy · December 2020

Princess_Kassiopeia wrote: »

I have read many player talking about this power and that power and balls of lightning and etc etc.... Too powerful this and too powerful that....

Surely... if all strengths in whatever manifested form they take on according to the imagination of the developers were EQUAL.... wouldn't that promote stalemates across many regions of the game???

I fail to understand why people cannot see this.
Skillset differentiation surely allows the art of tactical alternation which in turn allows the element of surprise in attack and so therefore......... a winner.

Two jousting Knights OBVIOUSLY hope that the other is not as empowered as they in the art of jousting so that they can defeat their opponent.
If their skills were equal..... they would always strike each others shields and nobody would die and none would be the Champion.

Being taken by surprise or finding ones self up against an opponent they cannot defeat should promote a determination to find a chance means of unexpected attack for a victory...... not a demand for everything to be equal which defeats the very purpose of the battle.

Fun and enjoyable gameplay is where the focus should be. That is more important than any other aspect of PvP. Two Knights jousting one another forever is more fun than one knight just obliterating the other before they can even get on their horse.

Build diversity and balance are important things to consider, certainly. But ultimately PvP on this game is going to succeed or fail based on how much fun people are having when they do it. And if the combat becomes so lopsided to where who ever gets the surprise attack on the other just slaughters their opponent in less than second then at least half the people doing PvP aren't going to be having any fun: hence people are going to stop doing it. So winning, losing, balance, class diversity.... none of that matters if people aren't having fun.

Jeremy · December 2020

Waseem wrote: »

Even if all pvp is about light attacks or heavy attacks

people will complain about who attacked first and medium attack will be considered an exploit

Some feedback from players is worthwhile, while other feedback can be considered nonsense

Or you could give everyone 1 health and a light attack and then start the match. It would be perfectly balanced. But would it be fun? You could even give every class their own unique looking light attack. But it would still be lame and not at all fun.

Balance is overrated. What is far more important is to give players fun and interesting ways to PvP. In the end that's what matters and what will keep players coming back for more. The competitive crowd that gets joy out of simply winning or killing their opponent is small and won't be able to sustain PvP long term.

Princess_Kassiopeia · December 2020

Well that's all inspiring. :-)

4ft Lance.
7ft Lance???
(Plenty of room for "Size matters" jokes)

BUT if I had the 4ft lance it would have almost half the momentum of the 7ft lance and I could swing it like a mace against the shield, offset it, and come back in for an underarm to the neck stab quickly killing my opponent before he'd passed me.

You see.... this is to what I refer. Thought out Strategy........... v. Bash n Slash. Perfect example.

To me, I would ideally like to see......... ENVIRONMENTAL advantage to every kind of Knight... Sorceror... Magician and etc.

A heavy clad knight would be stable on rock but unstable in icy conditions and snow... slow, cumbersome... sliding about. No good on mud or plains.
An Altmer MagSorc would be swift and nimble almost everywhere but fail in stormy weather (lightning absorbs and/or upsets magicka) and high winds/rain with no body-momentum and hence relies on Magicka.
A Werewolf would have the better strengths increased when as a "pack" fighter.
A Vampire would have an advantage at NIGHT and have strengths you wouldnt want to deal with unless kin and kin. .
etc etc

I also see that armour should have a weight value. Tougher. Heavier. Slower therefore.
A mace is 11 times the weight of a sword. This will affect a horses stamina and speed.
A physically cumbersome Staff can be hit with a sword and lose a bout of power and/or strength and also snap. Need to repaired.
Shields shatter.

So, I hear peoples arguments about strengths but..... there IS a lot missing. With the missing MATH, because that's what its all about even in real life, demands can only be taken so far.
I know the argument will come up regarding programmers sympathy :-) but I personally am sure it will all eventually come into play EVENTUALLY... it has to.

I would therefore not attack Vampires at night...
or werewolves in a pack
or a knight on rocky ground
or an Altmer in fine weather
because the advantage would NOT be mine.
If it WERE, I could exploit the weakness.

Tandor · December 2020

It all comes down to the competitive content, primarily PvP. If everything in the game is equal then the outcome in competitive content is determined by player skill - and the losers would rather blame the game's imbalance than their own inferior skill. So they campaign for them to be buffed and everyone else to be nerfed.

Personally as a non-competitive player I'd far rather classes were distinct and different even if that means some are stronger at some things than others, rather than all classes being all things to all players on an equal basis. I don't like that each class has to fulfil all roles, but then I go back to EQ where Enchanters were crowd controllers, clerics were healers, rangers were pullers etc. These days if someone can't do everything then they complain.

Eedat · December 2020

I'm all for keeping things as equal as possible, but there are a lot of people who demand that anything that makes a class unique be gutted because "wHy dOeS X cLaSs gEt Y bUt Z cLaSs DoEsNt". Streak and flappy wings are the first big ones to come to mind. Honestly double proc sets and werewolves are far more annoying than any class differences IMO in the current meta with double proc sets enabling a lot of the broken playstyles on multiple classes currently.

There is also a plague of people who play only one or two classes that insist their class is trash so everything they play needs massive buffs and everything else needs massive nerfs. I've played quite a few competitive games and in my experience "mains" are the absolute WORST people to go to for balance advice without a doubt. Don't get me wrong, occasionally you will find a reasonable "main" with a good perspective and honest reflection, but they get lost in a sea of insane bias.

If people played multiple classes you would eventually find the scenarios that destroy you on those classes and you could carry that knowledge back to your other classes. Instead people beat their head against the wall doing the same thing that isnt working then come to the conclusion that their class is weak and whatever beat them is strong. Therefore buff me, nerf them.

It's very hard to have a meaningful balance conversation with someone who has decided "I haven't attempted to find a way to counter sorc or necro or whatever, therefore nerf them". I would suggest try playing that class and eventually you will find someone who *** on you and you'll have that moment of "oh, thats how you deal with them".

That won't fix the issue with coming across players that are just better players though. There is a lot of that that goes on as well. I'm a fairly average player so when someone completely dumps on me (outside of unloading dual proc sets with a few burst skills) I just assume they're better than me and go about my day. A lot of people aren't that honest with themselves and convince themselves they're god tier players so whenever they get beaten whatever beat them must be broken overpowered.

Princess_Kassiopeia · December 2020

Eedat wrote: »

A lot of people aren't that honest with themselves and convince themselves they're god tier players so whenever they get beaten whatever beat them must be broken overpowered.

This was my point.... I think!

That EQUALITY boiled down to the fact that intellectual tacticality was the winning factor rather than all powers were rated with equal output.

Every person is NOT a Droid and WILL fail regarding speed, distraction, confusion, surprise, even keypress error and find themselves up against, not a force that cannot be broken, but a factor that can.
Tactical advantage.

And THAT boils down to human error and with THAT the advantage of acute tactical understanding NOT equal forces head on.

It was my confusion initially right at the beginning of this thread with demands for equality. Which would result in stalemates. I am sure in every situation tactics will always win.

Ask Achilles....

Faded · December 2020

Tandor wrote: »

Personally as a non-competitive player I'd far rather classes were distinct and different even if that means some are stronger at some things than others, rather than all classes being all things to all players on an equal basis. I don't like that each class has to fulfil all roles, but then I go back to EQ where Enchanters were crowd controllers, clerics were healers, rangers were pullers etc.

As a competitive player, I agree with you.

Balancing specialist playstyles is a different labor than the current drive for mathematical parity. Not part of The Vision, anymore. The last two classes have been jacks of all trades with overloaded stamina specs and brittle magicka specs, which must look good on paper.

ArchMikem · December 2020

Theres no satisfaction here. When I get manhandled, I'm frustrated. When I manhandle, I feel bad. Very, VERY rarely have I found another player on my own level where the fight was drawn out and it came down to ability and timing over just who had a stat advantage.

I'd prefer more equal footing for everyone. Those stalemates you claim would be epic battles to determine which can come out in the end.

As it is now just promotes seal clubbing and toxic domination.

JinMori · December 2020

relentless_turnip wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

I think the goal should be to make every class feel unique while making them as close as possible in terms of general performance.

THe way they can do that is to give different toolkits that achieve a similar result, for example, let's say the goal is to survive, for templars it could be more healing, for dk more defense.

Basically you balance things differently but achieve similar results.

As for damage, that's pretty straightforward, you design a class and then you tune it.

That is pretty much what they've done? We need some proc set adjustments to see how balanced the game is tbh. We can play a patch without them and then make class adjustments.
I don't believe any class is in a much worse place than others and I play a lot of them regularly. Some synergise well with this meta because of their ease in health stacking or an overloaded heal that scales with health. Outside of a proc meta it wouldn't seem that overloaded.

Then they've done a pretty bad job.

But that's honestly another problem i think, they want to do everything with the least amount of effort possible, that means instead of creating new things to progress and make our characters more powerful while at the same time countering the power progression with a new system like for example mythic +, they just nerf some buff saome so the relative power level is always the same or decreasing even, but that means no real progression, or even regression.

JinMori · December 2020

Eedat wrote: »

I'm all for keeping things as equal as possible, but there are a lot of people who demand that anything that makes a class unique be gutted because "wHy dOeS X cLaSs gEt Y bUt Z cLaSs DoEsNt". Streak and flappy wings are the first big ones to come to mind. Honestly double proc sets and werewolves are far more annoying than any class differences IMO in the current meta with double proc sets enabling a lot of the broken playstyles on multiple classes currently.

There is also a plague of people who play only one or two classes that insist their class is trash so everything they play needs massive buffs and everything else needs massive nerfs. I've played quite a few competitive games and in my experience "mains" are the absolute WORST people to go to for balance advice without a doubt. Don't get me wrong, occasionally you will find a reasonable "main" with a good perspective and honest reflection, but they get lost in a sea of insane bias.

If people played multiple classes you would eventually find the scenarios that destroy you on those classes and you could carry that knowledge back to your other classes. Instead people beat their head against the wall doing the same thing that isnt working then come to the conclusion that their class is weak and whatever beat them is strong. Therefore buff me, nerf them.

It's very hard to have a meaningful balance conversation with someone who has decided "I haven't attempted to find a way to counter sorc or necro or whatever, therefore nerf them". I would suggest try playing that class and eventually you will find someone who *** on you and you'll have that moment of "oh, thats how you deal with them".

That won't fix the issue with coming across players that are just better players though. There is a lot of that that goes on as well. I'm a fairly average player so when someone completely dumps on me (outside of unloading dual proc sets with a few burst skills) I just assume they're better than me and go about my day. A lot of people aren't that honest with themselves and convince themselves they're god tier players so whenever they get beaten whatever beat them must be broken overpowered.

Agreed, people who only use a main, don't really know what they are talking about, if you play all classes you will have a much better picture of how the game works overall.

BXR_Lonestar · December 2020

Princess_Kassiopeia wrote: »

I have read many player talking about this power and that power and balls of lightning and etc etc.... Too powerful this and too powerful that....

Surely... if all strengths in whatever manifested form they take on according to the imagination of the developers were EQUAL.... wouldn't that promote stalemates across many regions of the game???

I fail to understand why people cannot see this.
Skillset differentiation surely allows the art of tactical alternation which in turn allows the element of surprise in attack and so therefore......... a winner.

Two jousting Knights OBVIOUSLY hope that the other is not as empowered as they in the art of jousting so that they can defeat their opponent.
If their skills were equal..... they would always strike each others shields and nobody would die and none would be the Champion.

Being taken by surprise or finding ones self up against an opponent they cannot defeat should promote a determination to find a chance means of unexpected attack for a victory...... not a demand for everything to be equal which defeats the very purpose of the battle.

I can agree with this sentiment. When it comes to any game with PVP, people want the classes to be equal in terms of combat strength, but it really shouldn't be that way in a game like ESO. There should be a Rock/Paper/Sissors effect between all the classes so that each class has a nemesis or hard counter. Just for example, Templar beats beats nightblade, nightblade beats sorcerer, sorcerer beats templar. Obviously gear and player skill is going to factor in, but the idea should be that each class has a weakness that can be more easily exploited by 1-2 other classes. That would definitely make PVP more interesting IMO.

x48rph · December 2020

relentless_turnip wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

I think the goal should be to make every class feel unique while making them as close as possible in terms of general performance.

THe way they can do that is to give different toolkits that achieve a similar result, for example, let's say the goal is to survive, for templars it could be more healing, for dk more defense.

Basically you balance things differently but achieve similar results.

As for damage, that's pretty straightforward, you design a class and then you tune it.

That is pretty much what they've done? We need some proc set adjustments to see how balanced the game is tbh. We can play a patch without them and then make class adjustments.
I don't believe any class is in a much worse place than others and I play a lot of them regularly. Some synergise well with this meta because of their ease in health stacking or an overloaded heal that scales with health. Outside of a proc meta it wouldn't seem that overloaded.

No they've done the exact opposite. Their effort to standardize every thing has led to much less variety in pvp. People mostly gravitate to the same couple of classes/builds and don't bother with any others cause there's no point. They've removed the fun and unique elements and abilities that made people want to play others so why bother. Honestly while proc sets suck, without them you'd see even less variety as well since it's the only thing making some of them viable right now.

relentless_turnip · December 2020

x48rph wrote: »

relentless_turnip wrote: »

JinMori wrote: »

I think the goal should be to make every class feel unique while making them as close as possible in terms of general performance.

THe way they can do that is to give different toolkits that achieve a similar result, for example, let's say the goal is to survive, for templars it could be more healing, for dk more defense.

Basically you balance things differently but achieve similar results.

As for damage, that's pretty straightforward, you design a class and then you tune it.

That is pretty much what they've done? We need some proc set adjustments to see how balanced the game is tbh. We can play a patch without them and then make class adjustments.
I don't believe any class is in a much worse place than others and I play a lot of them regularly. Some synergise well with this meta because of their ease in health stacking or an overloaded heal that scales with health. Outside of a proc meta it wouldn't seem that overloaded.

No they've done the exact opposite. Their effort to standardize every thing has led to much less variety in pvp. People mostly gravitate to the same couple of classes/builds and don't bother with any others cause there's no point. They've removed the fun and unique elements and abilities that made people want to play others so why bother. Honestly while proc sets suck, without them you'd see even less variety as well since it's the only thing making some of them viable right now.

I agree everything has been over homogenised. I also agree there is more build variety than there was in the last couple of metas. I think making proc sets scale with offensive stats would create greater build diversity than we currently have. It also eliminates what proc sets currently enable which is the stacking of health, mitigation and recovery without detriment to your offensive potential.

If proc sets had their base damage lowered to that of an equivalent skill and scaled exactly the same and even crit. Players could then choose to run malacath or not.

GrimTheReaper45 · December 2020

Loss of class diversity is my top complaint about eso over the last few years, the whole balance by standards thing really was a bad call in my opinion.