Mitigation on PTS is beyond overtuned

React · July 2021

It is hard to understand why there was a complete change of direction balance wise from live to the current PTS iteration. We're going from the highest damage we've seen in years, to the lowest.

Apart from certain outliers, such as full damage gank/bomb builds and overtuned specs like stamina necro and triple proc stamsorc, the damage meta we're currentley in is the healthiest the game has seen in years. Fights end much quicker across the entire board, active defense is more important than ever which encourages skill-based gameplay, and builds are far more balanced than they've been in quite some time. Everyone has the option to spec fully into offense and be able to kill whatever they encounter, but apart from the outliers, players that build this way can die extremely easily (especially outnumbered!). There are very few specs that can actually build to be tanky enough to survive more than one competent player, while still having the damage potential to kill those competent players, and these are the specs that should be evaluated for tuning, rather than a blanket mitigation increase like we're seeing on the PTS.

With the addition of all the new defensive CP options combined with the increase in battle spirit mitigation, there is going to be an unparalleled tank meta if the patch goes live like this. It would be fine if one change or the other was made (battle spirit mit OR additional of multiple new defensive CP), but not both.

In my eyes, the best solution is to remove the increased battle spirit mitigation entirely. There is simply no need for every single player in PVP to gain this level of mitigation for free. Adding in the new defensive CPs is more than enough to offset the incoming damage from outlier specs, without guaranteeing that every player gains a ton of new mitigation. When the mitigation is only achievable through CP, players will be forced to make choices and sacrifices for their builds - either slot the mitigation cps and sacrifice damage to be hard to kill, or slot damage CP and sacrifice mitigation in order to be able to kill most targets.

This isn't an "I'm quitting post", but there truly won't be a reason to play PVP as a damage oriented solo or small scale player if the patch goes live like this. Almost nobody is asking for this level of mitigation to be added, and doing so will certainly reduce the already-dwindling pvp population to new lows.

Sedare38 · July 2021

It makes me laugh that ZOS thinks there needs to be more mitigation when I've seen 2-man groups outlast 20 people throwing everything at them. I've seen 12-man ball groups outlast 40 randos trying to negate, timestop, etc them b/c there are enough purge/cleanses and radiating regenerations to keep everyone alive.

The extra mitigation from Battle Spirit + flare + tanky armor + evasion if you can get it or any other major/minor buff, is going to make this boring af. Do they not watch or even play their own game?

Seriously beginning to think gankers pissed off some devs majorly (hope it wasn't my guild).

Lughlongarm · July 2021

My PTS experience so far.

To my surprise, people still die during 1v1 duels on PTS. Most of the builds that went one defensive set defensive monster set, adjusted to more offensive setups.

Some duels do end up at a draw.

Many use "Inner beast.
Templars burst is very strong on PTS
Some troll builds using "dark convergence"

React · July 2021

Lughlongarm wrote: »

My PTS experience so far.

To my surprise, people still die during 1v1 duels on PTS. Most of the builds that went one defensive set defensive monster set, adjusted to more offensive setups.

Some duels do end up at a draw.

Many use "Inner beast.
Templars burst is very strong on PTS
Some troll builds using "dark convergence"

I spent pretty much the entire day dueling the other day, against some of PCs "top duelers" on a variety of different specs and classes. I was playing an orc stamina templar with the warrior mundus and arteum broth, 5 essence thief/3 agility frontbar (1 jewel/dual wield)/2pc magma incarnate/backbar vatershan 2h/1pc either death dealers or malacath (tried both), 3 infused weapon damage jewlery with inner beast slotted aswell.

The only class that killed me was a magplar. No other spec even came close to killing me, and surviving took VERY little effort in comparison to live. This is a huge problem because while templar does have a good kit for survivability, I only slotted the 10% reduce single target damage taken CP and the 10% reduce direct damage CP on a non-sword and board build. Without using any of the more broken CP I was able to effortlessly survive every non templar class, and templar is only able to secure kills because backlash is overturned now aswell.

On the damage side of things, I was playing a spec that had some of the highest damage achievable, WITH a vatershan proc to combo smoothly with ults/POTL explosions. Nearly every duel I participated in against anyone competent lasted a minimum of 5 minutes, and most of them just stalemated. Even in as much damage as I was running, the only way to kill any decent player was to burst them from 100% to 0%, which was only possible in RARE cases where an unreasonably high burst was lined up (11-13k POTL, 7-10k Crescent sweep, 3-4k burning light, 2k medium attack, 3k vatershan + whatever dots where active, all occurring in under 2 seconds).

The battle spirit mitigation is simply too much. If they want to give people the option to run crazy mitigation in their CP while sacrificing their damage so be it, but blanket-adding the mitigation to battle spirit is just unacceptable.

Qwazzy · July 2021

Most classes now also have easy access to both major and minor protection, percent mitigation is reaching unhealthy levels.

MasterSpatula · July 2021

While I disagree with OP's assertion that there are "very few" current specs with high tankiness and high damage, I don't disagree with his conclusions. In fact, I probably agree with them even more strongly.

Tanky builds on Live are too strong right now, they have been for a while, and ZOS plans on strengthening them. This is bad. But then, ever since they weakened an armor spec that was already too weak, I guess I've come to expect bad.

Joy_Division · July 2021

Are you surprised?

If there are a few specific problem cases of high burst damage caused by identifiable (and thus fixable) combination of factors, since when has ZOS not implemented a blanket fix that affects everything?

Also, I don;t think ZOS recognizes that over the course of a patch, things change as we adapt. Sure, when the new CP system dropped and I went out there on my sorcerer who did not change a single thing, I was getting rekt by 9K surprise attacks. OK, some adjustments on my part - as opposed to completely changing Battle Spirit - were necessary and were made. Within a couple of sessions I wasn't getting hit with 9K Surprise Attacks and TTK was fine and much more preferable to years of patches that had come before. Many of us have adapted and are able to survive and withstand much better now than when the new CP system dropped. Our frustrations from 3-4 months ago might be obsolete.

DrSlaughtr · July 2021

Joy_Division wrote: »

Are you surprised?

If there are a few specific problem cases of high burst damage caused by identifiable (and thus fixable) combination of factors, since when has ZOS not implemented a blanket fix that affects everything?

Also, I don;t think ZOS recognizes that over the course of a patch, things change as we adapt. Sure, when the new CP system dropped and I went out there on my sorcerer who did not change a single thing, I was getting rekt by 9K surprise attacks. OK, some adjustments on my part - as opposed to completely changing Battle Spirit - were necessary and were made. Within a couple of sessions I wasn't getting hit with 9K Surprise Attacks and TTK was fine and much more preferable to years of patches that had come before. Many of us have adapted and are able to survive and withstand much better now than when the new CP system dropped. Our frustrations from 3-4 months ago might be obsolete.

But what about the people who only enter Cyro twice a year! Surely we must cater to them over the active player base to encourage them to pvp more even though they won't.

sabresandiego_ESO · July 2021

If healing was reduced to match the boost to mitigation then we would have a much more playable game.

With this level of mitigation and healing the game just isn’t fun

exeeter702 · July 2021

Overtuned*

NoSoup · July 2021

Liam12548 wrote: »

Lughlongarm wrote: »

My PTS experience so far.

To my surprise, people still die during 1v1 duels on PTS. Most of the builds that went one defensive set defensive monster set, adjusted to more offensive setups.

Some duels do end up at a draw.

Many use "Inner beast.
Templars burst is very strong on PTS
Some troll builds using "dark convergence"

I spent pretty much the entire day dueling the other day, against some of PCs "top duelers" on a variety of different specs and classes. I was playing an orc stamina templar with the warrior mundus and arteum broth, 5 essence thief/3 agility frontbar (1 jewel/dual wield)/2pc magma incarnate/backbar vatershan 2h/1pc either death dealers or malacath (tried both), 3 infused weapon damage jewlery with inner beast slotted aswell.

The only class that killed me was a magplar. No other spec even came close to killing me, and surviving took VERY little effort in comparison to live. This is a huge problem because while templar does have a good kit for survivability, I only slotted the 10% reduce single target damage taken CP and the 10% reduce direct damage CP on a non-sword and board build. Without using any of the more broken CP I was able to effortlessly survive every non templar class, and templar is only able to secure kills because backlash is overturned now aswell.

On the damage side of things, I was playing a spec that had some of the highest damage achievable, WITH a vatershan proc to combo smoothly with ults/POTL explosions. Nearly every duel I participated in against anyone competent lasted a minimum of 5 minutes, and most of them just stalemated. Even in as much damage as I was running, the only way to kill any decent player was to burst them from 100% to 0%, which was only possible in RARE cases where an unreasonably high burst was lined up (11-13k POTL, 7-10k Crescent sweep, 3-4k burning light, 2k medium attack, 3k vatershan + whatever dots where active, all occurring in under 2 seconds).

The battle spirit mitigation is simply too much. If they want to give people the option to run crazy mitigation in their CP while sacrificing their damage so be it, but blanket-adding the mitigation to battle spirit is just unacceptable.

Based on the sets you've described I really wouldn't put that in the catergory of "highest damage achievable", at a guess your penetration would be well below 10k.

React · July 2021

NoSoup wrote: »

Liam12548 wrote: »

Lughlongarm wrote: »

My PTS experience so far.

To my surprise, people still die during 1v1 duels on PTS. Most of the builds that went one defensive set defensive monster set, adjusted to more offensive setups.

Some duels do end up at a draw.

Many use "Inner beast.
Templars burst is very strong on PTS
Some troll builds using "dark convergence"

I spent pretty much the entire day dueling the other day, against some of PCs "top duelers" on a variety of different specs and classes. I was playing an orc stamina templar with the warrior mundus and arteum broth, 5 essence thief/3 agility frontbar (1 jewel/dual wield)/2pc magma incarnate/backbar vatershan 2h/1pc either death dealers or malacath (tried both), 3 infused weapon damage jewlery with inner beast slotted aswell.

The only class that killed me was a magplar. No other spec even came close to killing me, and surviving took VERY little effort in comparison to live. This is a huge problem because while templar does have a good kit for survivability, I only slotted the 10% reduce single target damage taken CP and the 10% reduce direct damage CP on a non-sword and board build. Without using any of the more broken CP I was able to effortlessly survive every non templar class, and templar is only able to secure kills because backlash is overturned now aswell.

On the damage side of things, I was playing a spec that had some of the highest damage achievable, WITH a vatershan proc to combo smoothly with ults/POTL explosions. Nearly every duel I participated in against anyone competent lasted a minimum of 5 minutes, and most of them just stalemated. Even in as much damage as I was running, the only way to kill any decent player was to burst them from 100% to 0%, which was only possible in RARE cases where an unreasonably high burst was lined up (11-13k POTL, 7-10k Crescent sweep, 3-4k burning light, 2k medium attack, 3k vatershan + whatever dots where active, all occurring in under 2 seconds).

The battle spirit mitigation is simply too much. If they want to give people the option to run crazy mitigation in their CP while sacrificing their damage so be it, but blanket-adding the mitigation to battle spirit is just unacceptable.

Based on the sets you've described I really wouldn't put that in the catergory of "highest damage achievable", at a guess your penetration would be well below 10k.

7.6k weapon damage, 15k penetration (mace, 1h sharpened, cp node, major fracture on caltrops, minor fracture on POTL/sundered), with 15% damage from inner beast, 10% damage done on essence thief, malacath, vat proc. The only stat lines on the entire setup not dedicated to damage are the regen values on the arteum brothh and the 1pc on magma.

You can certainly go a little bit higher damage wise in a couple very specific setups on stamplar, but this is right up there and can sustain indefinitely with no heavy attacks.

Still could not die with the aforementioned sets & stats. Players using any defensive sets, slotting more than 2 defensive cps like I have here, or on certain tankier classes will just flat out never die.

sabresandiego_ESO · July 2021

If they really wanted to mitigate burst specifically they would have reduced healing by more than they boosted mitigation. Pressure damage is more worthless than ever now on this PTS. The game now revolves around doing practically nothing until your one shot burst ult combo is ready and trying to time it at the same time as your teammates. All other “fluff” damage is instantly healed through with absurd levels of healing and stacked regens.

Healing needs a massive nerf so that pressure damage has some value and ult dumping isn’t the only strategy in the entire game.

NoSoup · July 2021

Liam12548 wrote: »

NoSoup wrote: »

Liam12548 wrote: »

Lughlongarm wrote: »

My PTS experience so far.

To my surprise, people still die during 1v1 duels on PTS. Most of the builds that went one defensive set defensive monster set, adjusted to more offensive setups.

Some duels do end up at a draw.

Many use "Inner beast.
Templars burst is very strong on PTS
Some troll builds using "dark convergence"

I spent pretty much the entire day dueling the other day, against some of PCs "top duelers" on a variety of different specs and classes. I was playing an orc stamina templar with the warrior mundus and arteum broth, 5 essence thief/3 agility frontbar (1 jewel/dual wield)/2pc magma incarnate/backbar vatershan 2h/1pc either death dealers or malacath (tried both), 3 infused weapon damage jewlery with inner beast slotted aswell.

The only class that killed me was a magplar. No other spec even came close to killing me, and surviving took VERY little effort in comparison to live. This is a huge problem because while templar does have a good kit for survivability, I only slotted the 10% reduce single target damage taken CP and the 10% reduce direct damage CP on a non-sword and board build. Without using any of the more broken CP I was able to effortlessly survive every non templar class, and templar is only able to secure kills because backlash is overturned now aswell.

On the damage side of things, I was playing a spec that had some of the highest damage achievable, WITH a vatershan proc to combo smoothly with ults/POTL explosions. Nearly every duel I participated in against anyone competent lasted a minimum of 5 minutes, and most of them just stalemated. Even in as much damage as I was running, the only way to kill any decent player was to burst them from 100% to 0%, which was only possible in RARE cases where an unreasonably high burst was lined up (11-13k POTL, 7-10k Crescent sweep, 3-4k burning light, 2k medium attack, 3k vatershan + whatever dots where active, all occurring in under 2 seconds).

The battle spirit mitigation is simply too much. If they want to give people the option to run crazy mitigation in their CP while sacrificing their damage so be it, but blanket-adding the mitigation to battle spirit is just unacceptable.

Based on the sets you've described I really wouldn't put that in the catergory of "highest damage achievable", at a guess your penetration would be well below 10k.

7.6k weapon damage, 15k penetration (mace, 1h sharpened, cp node, major fracture on caltrops, minor fracture on POTL/sundered), with 15% damage from inner beast, 10% damage done on essence thief, malacath, vat proc. The only stat lines on the entire setup not dedicated to damage are the regen values on the arteum brothh and the 1pc on magma.

You can certainly go a little bit higher damage wise in a couple very specific setups on stamplar, but this is right up there and can sustain indefinitely with no heavy attacks.

Still could not die with the aforementioned sets & stats. Players using any defensive sets, slotting more than 2 defensive cps like I have here, or on certain tankier classes will just flat out never die.

But what's your effective penetration, most players I duel don't stand in caltrops long enough to get a decent uptime on major fracture and if you're spaming it every 4 seconds can't see you doing too much damage with much else, and even with all that it doesn't add up to 15k?

jrgray93 · July 2021

I agree with most of what you said, sans a few things.

I hate CP PvP. Don't forget us people who play non CP, including battlegrounds. To us, those outliers you mentioned are killing the game. Half of BGs are three proc sorcs. Everyone in light armor dies instantly. It's ridiculously broken.

Tying survival purely to CPs is not a valid approach. Nor is a blanket 11% mitigation buff.

Firstmep · July 2021

NoSoup wrote: »

Liam12548 wrote: »

NoSoup wrote: »

Liam12548 wrote: »

Lughlongarm wrote: »

My PTS experience so far.

To my surprise, people still die during 1v1 duels on PTS. Most of the builds that went one defensive set defensive monster set, adjusted to more offensive setups.

Some duels do end up at a draw.

Many use "Inner beast.
Templars burst is very strong on PTS
Some troll builds using "dark convergence"

I spent pretty much the entire day dueling the other day, against some of PCs "top duelers" on a variety of different specs and classes. I was playing an orc stamina templar with the warrior mundus and arteum broth, 5 essence thief/3 agility frontbar (1 jewel/dual wield)/2pc magma incarnate/backbar vatershan 2h/1pc either death dealers or malacath (tried both), 3 infused weapon damage jewlery with inner beast slotted aswell.

The only class that killed me was a magplar. No other spec even came close to killing me, and surviving took VERY little effort in comparison to live. This is a huge problem because while templar does have a good kit for survivability, I only slotted the 10% reduce single target damage taken CP and the 10% reduce direct damage CP on a non-sword and board build. Without using any of the more broken CP I was able to effortlessly survive every non templar class, and templar is only able to secure kills because backlash is overturned now aswell.

On the damage side of things, I was playing a spec that had some of the highest damage achievable, WITH a vatershan proc to combo smoothly with ults/POTL explosions. Nearly every duel I participated in against anyone competent lasted a minimum of 5 minutes, and most of them just stalemated. Even in as much damage as I was running, the only way to kill any decent player was to burst them from 100% to 0%, which was only possible in RARE cases where an unreasonably high burst was lined up (11-13k POTL, 7-10k Crescent sweep, 3-4k burning light, 2k medium attack, 3k vatershan + whatever dots where active, all occurring in under 2 seconds).

The battle spirit mitigation is simply too much. If they want to give people the option to run crazy mitigation in their CP while sacrificing their damage so be it, but blanket-adding the mitigation to battle spirit is just unacceptable.

Based on the sets you've described I really wouldn't put that in the catergory of "highest damage achievable", at a guess your penetration would be well below 10k.

7.6k weapon damage, 15k penetration (mace, 1h sharpened, cp node, major fracture on caltrops, minor fracture on POTL/sundered), with 15% damage from inner beast, 10% damage done on essence thief, malacath, vat proc. The only stat lines on the entire setup not dedicated to damage are the regen values on the arteum brothh and the 1pc on magma.

You can certainly go a little bit higher damage wise in a couple very specific setups on stamplar, but this is right up there and can sustain indefinitely with no heavy attacks.

Still could not die with the aforementioned sets & stats. Players using any defensive sets, slotting more than 2 defensive cps like I have here, or on certain tankier classes will just flat out never die.

But what's your effective penetration, most players I duel don't stand in caltrops long enough to get a decent uptime on major fracture and if you're spaming it every 4 seconds can't see you doing too much damage with much else, and even with all that it doesn't add up to 15k?

I think you are missing the point.
He is running a full damage setup himself and surviving easy.
It's not about his opponents but him surviving with 0 defensive sets, no s/b etc.
Imagine what ppl will be able to do if they actually use a defensive set or two, run flare, meditate etc.

twing1_ · July 2021

I think the increased mitigation is to aid players who are newer to PvP. Increasing TTK in pretty much any game is almost always targeted at making the game more forgiving toward newer players.

I have plenty of PvE only friends that I've tried to bring into PvP environments, and their biggest complaint is that they die before they can do anything. It's extremely frustrating from their point of view, and because of this it drives them away from PvP.

You are right about the PvP population decreasing in numbers over time, and I think this is more to do with the extremely high learning curve to jumping into PvP environments rather than an increase in the number of PvP players leaving for something else. The idea behind increasing the TTK is to lower the barrier to entry for PvP, and attracting more new players to it rather than retaining the current PvP population.

Having gotten over the PvP learning curve and being already established in the PvP community, I can understand how it's frustrating to not be able to kill other players as quickly, which as you've mentioned turns into more stalemates between competent combatants. But from the perspective of a player 100% new to PvP and trying to learn for the first time (which is the only population that can actually increase the PvP population numbers vs just retaining it), the increased mitigation makes PvP a lot more forgiving, and consequently less frustrating.

I see the increased mitigation as a necessary evil for the health of PvP as a whole, as the increased mitigation promotes less experienced PvPers to actually spend the time to learn the ropes vs just avoiding it all together, and hopefully this will eventually increase the numbers of the PvP population as a whole.

Brrrofski · July 2021

twing1_ wrote: »

I think the increased mitigation is to aid players who are newer to PvP. Increasing TTK in pretty much any game is almost always targeted at making the game more forgiving toward newer players.

I have plenty of PvE only friends that I've tried to bring into PvP environments, and their biggest complaint is that they die before they can do anything. It's extremely frustrating from their point of view, and because of this it drives them away from PvP.

You are right about the PvP population decreasing in numbers over time, and I think this is more to do with the extremely high learning curve to jumping into PvP environments rather than an increase in the number of PvP players leaving for something else. The idea behind increasing the TTK is to lower the barrier to entry for PvP, and attracting more new players to it rather than retaining the current PvP population.

Having gotten over the PvP learning curve and being already established in the PvP community, I can understand how it's frustrating to not be able to kill other players as quickly, which as you've mentioned turns into more stalemates between competent combatants. But from the perspective of a player 100% new to PvP and trying to learn for the first time (which is the only population that can actually increase the PvP population numbers vs just retaining it), the increased mitigation makes PvP a lot more forgiving, and consequently less frustrating.

I see the increased mitigation as a necessary evil for the health of PvP as a whole, as the increased mitigation promotes less experienced PvPers to actually spend the time to learn the ropes vs just avoiding it all together, and hopefully this will eventually increase the numbers of the PvP population as a whole.

It won't help new players though.

Good players will be godlike next patch. How is that an incentive to play when you throw everything at someone and their health doesn't go down 10%?

New players will never kill anyone. They'll still die though.

Dice tried to do this in BF V recently and led to a decrease in numbers. New players still died more than they killed and established players hated it. They ended up reverting it.

And we've had years of over the top tanky metas and pvp player base has continuously declined.

ExistingRug61 · July 2021

twing1_ wrote: »

I think the increased mitigation is to aid players who are newer to PvP. Increasing TTK in pretty much any game is almost always targeted at making the game more forgiving toward newer players.

I have plenty of PvE only friends that I've tried to bring into PvP environments, and their biggest complaint is that they die before they can do anything. It's extremely frustrating from their point of view, and because of this it drives them away from PvP.

You are right about the PvP population decreasing in numbers over time, and I think this is more to do with the extremely high learning curve to jumping into PvP environments rather than an increase in the number of PvP players leaving for something else. The idea behind increasing the TTK is to lower the barrier to entry for PvP, and attracting more new players to it rather than retaining the current PvP population.

Having gotten over the PvP learning curve and being already established in the PvP community, I can understand how it's frustrating to not be able to kill other players as quickly, which as you've mentioned turns into more stalemates between competent combatants. But from the perspective of a player 100% new to PvP and trying to learn for the first time (which is the only population that can actually increase the PvP population numbers vs just retaining it), the increased mitigation makes PvP a lot more forgiving, and consequently less frustrating.

I see the increased mitigation as a necessary evil for the health of PvP as a whole, as the increased mitigation promotes less experienced PvPers to actually spend the time to learn the ropes vs just avoiding it all together, and hopefully this will eventually increase the numbers of the PvP population as a whole.

This is all well and good in theory - increasing mitigation so players live a bit longer and have a better chance to survive burst, giving newcomers a chance to do something and learn.

The problem is that currently burst is the only way players die, because hots/recovery are outpacing pressure (and this only gets worse with the mitigation changes) which means if burst fails it can become impossible to kill players even given infinite time.

I would have no issue with increasing TTK a bit so players have a bit of an easier time surviving initial burst, but only if pressure builds were actually viable so that there was still a chance of defeating players over a bit of time.

Blobsky · July 2021

twing1_ wrote: »

I think the increased mitigation is to aid players who are newer to PvP. Increasing TTK in pretty much any game is almost always targeted at making the game more forgiving toward newer players.

I have plenty of PvE only friends that I've tried to bring into PvP environments, and their biggest complaint is that they die before they can do anything. It's extremely frustrating from their point of view, and because of this it drives them away from PvP.

You are right about the PvP population decreasing in numbers over time, and I think this is more to do with the extremely high learning curve to jumping into PvP environments rather than an increase in the number of PvP players leaving for something else. The idea behind increasing the TTK is to lower the barrier to entry for PvP, and attracting more new players to it rather than retaining the current PvP population.

Having gotten over the PvP learning curve and being already established in the PvP community, I can understand how it's frustrating to not be able to kill other players as quickly, which as you've mentioned turns into more stalemates between competent combatants. But from the perspective of a player 100% new to PvP and trying to learn for the first time (which is the only population that can actually increase the PvP population numbers vs just retaining it), the increased mitigation makes PvP a lot more forgiving, and consequently less frustrating.

I see the increased mitigation as a necessary evil for the health of PvP as a whole, as the increased mitigation promotes less experienced PvPers to actually spend the time to learn the ropes vs just avoiding it all together, and hopefully this will eventually increase the numbers of the PvP population as a whole.

Exactly as above says - all the mitigation increase achieves is to buy people more time to react and decide their next move in a fight. That will massively benefit skilled players, who will then become borderline impossible to kill - meanwhile, weaker players will still not know what to do and so still die through failure to heal, dodge, block, cc break etc

The best way zos could have adjusted TTK would actually have been to marginally lower PvP sustain such that experienced players have to build into it more sustain and less damage (whilst newer pvpers would not, due to the likelihood of dying quickly anyway).

My best choice of how to do this would be to make heavy attacks interruptable as in pre 1.5 - this would massively impact the sustain of experienced pvpers whilst having zero impact on pve (no interrupt in pve = no loss), and impact stamina more so than magicka (helping to balance the heavy advantage stamina has currently).

Sorbin · July 2021

Brrrofski wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

I think the increased mitigation is to aid players who are newer to PvP. Increasing TTK in pretty much any game is almost always targeted at making the game more forgiving toward newer players.

I have plenty of PvE only friends that I've tried to bring into PvP environments, and their biggest complaint is that they die before they can do anything. It's extremely frustrating from their point of view, and because of this it drives them away from PvP.

You are right about the PvP population decreasing in numbers over time, and I think this is more to do with the extremely high learning curve to jumping into PvP environments rather than an increase in the number of PvP players leaving for something else. The idea behind increasing the TTK is to lower the barrier to entry for PvP, and attracting more new players to it rather than retaining the current PvP population.

Having gotten over the PvP learning curve and being already established in the PvP community, I can understand how it's frustrating to not be able to kill other players as quickly, which as you've mentioned turns into more stalemates between competent combatants. But from the perspective of a player 100% new to PvP and trying to learn for the first time (which is the only population that can actually increase the PvP population numbers vs just retaining it), the increased mitigation makes PvP a lot more forgiving, and consequently less frustrating.

I see the increased mitigation as a necessary evil for the health of PvP as a whole, as the increased mitigation promotes less experienced PvPers to actually spend the time to learn the ropes vs just avoiding it all together, and hopefully this will eventually increase the numbers of the PvP population as a whole.

It won't help new players though.

Good players will be godlike next patch. How is that an incentive to play when you throw everything at someone and their health doesn't go down 10%?

New players will never kill anyone. They'll still die though.

Dice tried to do this in BF V recently and led to a decrease in numbers. New players still died more than they killed and established players hated it. They ended up reverting it.

And we've had years of over the top tanky metas and pvp player base has continuously declined.

Bingo. If their intention with this is to ease new players into PvP, it's woefully misguided and doomed to fail. The new PvPer is still going to have bar set-ups that are suboptimal, not run enough heals, not CC regularly, and just generally lack the awareness to survive. Increased mitigation is only going to delay their deaths momentarily, if at all. And the immortal tank who's farming 1vX in the tower this patch? You may kill off solo play next patch, but those players are just going to become the immortal 2vX/3vX/4vX, which is by-and-large what they're already doing anyways. Good players are always going to find ways to get as many kills as possible with as few resources as possible regardless of gameplay changes.

And none of this addresses the fact that new players may well wander into Cyrodiil and find a zone that's still utterly broken and unplayable for the majority of the day. Gray Host is still a total disaster most of the time and all of the other campaigns are basically dead all day.

The only way to get new players to stay in PvP is to simply make it worth playing. Fix the performance issues. Roll out engaging content that's something besides the same, tired DAoC knock-off that Cyro is. Utilize the experienced PvPers in your community to address class balance; it doesn't have to be perfect and it's never going to be, but every spec (broadly speaking) should and could at least have facets of PvP where it shines. Do things like double AP weekends, and generally employ the time-tested MMO mechanics of dangling carrots in front of the players. All these fire-from-the-hip gameplay overhauls accomplish is pushing the veteran players into other games.

Ragnaroek93 · July 2021

Can't agree more with this post. The current patch is in fact enjoyable (at least more enjoyable than everything we had for over 2 years) and they're just going into another tank meta because whatever. They somehow think that the game would become more fun for casuals by increasing the ttk which won't be the case since a casual won't have a chance to solo kill anything at all after the patch. In fact I believe that a game with a low ttk is more casual friendly than a game with a high ttk.

It might be ok if they'd buff battlespirit by like 5% if they'd also address outliers at the same time like nerfing pariah vampires, Necros etc but they don't. Also combat will be awful when we have to slot another generic buff skill like inner beast (the amount of buffs to keep track of is already way too high imo).

Edit: Not to mention the performance. It's already lagging like **** while people are dieing fast, can you imagine the lag when nothing will die at all?

Septimus_Magna · July 2021

I dont really understand the thought process going from the TTK is too low so we must increase everyone's mitigation. Good players are already very hard to kill by 5+ randoms, they wait until they can line up all their procs and kill most casual players in burst attack. This has everything to do with strong combo's like Clever Alchemist + Vateshran 2H + Balorgh + Dawnbreaker. Even in HA this will deal a high amount of damage which a lot of players dont know how to avoid to protect against.

Giving everyone extra mitigation means good players become even more tanky, I dont know how much this will actually help the more casual players.

Xebov · July 2021

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

I dont really understand the thought process going from the TTK is too low so we must increase everyone's mitigation. Good players are already very hard to kill by 5+ randoms, they wait until they can line up all their procs and kill most casual players in burst attack. This has everything to do with strong combo's like Clever Alchemist + Vateshran 2H + Balorgh + Dawnbreaker. Even in HA this will deal a high amount of damage which a lot of players dont know how to avoid to protect against.

Giving everyone extra mitigation means good players become even more tanky, I dont know how much this will actually help the more casual players.

Nothing you can do will help casual players. The core problem is that PvP has the same gap in terms of effectiveness, gear, animation canceling and weaving like PvE and as long as its not adressed nothing will change.

A problem to this issue in general is also that players always view it from a worst case point, so changes are projected on the best 5 or 10%. So we come up with "class X overperformes" because we have a couple of super successful players while most players of the class struggle to get anywhere.

Biro123 · July 2021

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

I dont really understand the thought process going from the TTK is too low so we must increase everyone's mitigation. Good players are already very hard to kill by 5+ randoms, they wait until they can line up all their procs and kill most casual players in burst attack. This has everything to do with strong combo's like Clever Alchemist + Vateshran 2H + Balorgh + Dawnbreaker. Even in HA this will deal a high amount of damage which a lot of players dont know how to avoid to protect against.

Giving everyone extra mitigation means good players become even more tanky, I dont know how much this will actually help the more casual players.

I can see how it will help new players and casuals in that they will live longer, and therefore have some combat time to actually allow them th LEARN. New players learn nothing from dying in 2 seconds.

It won't help them win vs experienced players, nor should it. But it will give them a chance to become experienced.

That said, I'm not a fan of the change.. The dps/hps balance will become skewed. An overall lower rate of change of health is what's needed, not just the half that is damage taken.

Joy_Division · July 2021

Biro123 wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

I dont really understand the thought process going from the TTK is too low so we must increase everyone's mitigation. Good players are already very hard to kill by 5+ randoms, they wait until they can line up all their procs and kill most casual players in burst attack. This has everything to do with strong combo's like Clever Alchemist + Vateshran 2H + Balorgh + Dawnbreaker. Even in HA this will deal a high amount of damage which a lot of players dont know how to avoid to protect against.

Giving everyone extra mitigation means good players become even more tanky, I dont know how much this will actually help the more casual players.

I can see how it will help new players and casuals in that they will live longer, and therefore have some combat time to actually allow them th LEARN. New players learn nothing from dying in 2 seconds.

I don't know if I agree with this.

These new players are learning the wrong lessons: if I suck, I don't need to improve because ZOS will save me. If I build tanky and survive while doing nothing, I'm actually making a contribution to the game and increasing the quality of the PvP experience. I slot all damage sets and I still can't kill my opponent, let me look up PvP tank on youtube.

Corner case scenarios like overload ganks, NB bombs on groups of people, and a high skill disparity between players ought not to dictate a blanketwide change in the combat system and thus won't foster the sorts of learning experiences that will help players be better rounded and more skilled. I do not find when I am matched against a similar opponent that the TTK is too low. If anything, I still get into stalemates because even if damage is high, it doesn;t kill good players unless it's burst.

DrSlaughtr · July 2021

Joy_Division wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

I dont really understand the thought process going from the TTK is too low so we must increase everyone's mitigation. Good players are already very hard to kill by 5+ randoms, they wait until they can line up all their procs and kill most casual players in burst attack. This has everything to do with strong combo's like Clever Alchemist + Vateshran 2H + Balorgh + Dawnbreaker. Even in HA this will deal a high amount of damage which a lot of players dont know how to avoid to protect against.

Giving everyone extra mitigation means good players become even more tanky, I dont know how much this will actually help the more casual players.

I can see how it will help new players and casuals in that they will live longer, and therefore have some combat time to actually allow them th LEARN. New players learn nothing from dying in 2 seconds.

I don't know if I agree with this.

These new players are learning the wrong lessons: if I suck, I don't need to improve because ZOS will save me. If I build tanky and survive while doing nothing, I'm actually making a contribution to the game and increasing the quality of the PvP experience. I slot all damage sets and I still can't kill my opponent, let me look up PvP tank on youtube.

Corner case scenarios like overload ganks, NB bombs on groups of people, and a high skill disparity between players ought not to dictate a blanketwide change in the combat system and thus won't foster the sorts of learning experiences that will help players be better rounded and more skilled. I do not find when I am matched against a similar opponent that the TTK is too low. If anything, I still get into stalemates because even if damage is high, it doesn;t kill good players unless it's burst.

Exactly. Overload ganks and bombers are both saturation pvp which is why you adjust those specific sets/skills, not take us back to the days where everyone was freely made a tank and the entire experience sucked for 90% of players, which was the whole reason we begged for the system we have now.

VD was buffed for no good reason. Roll back the range. Decrease the damage a little. On proxy decrease the initial damage and increase the per target percentage to make it harder to bomb a couple people. Soul Tether is also over performing right now but not that bad.

I main NB. All of those would affect me but not in a way that breaks the game or renders my class useless.

JayKwellen · July 2021

Pretty much agree with everything in this thread. Increasing mitigation this high will be absurd.

All that's gonna happen is I'll take off my back barred defensive set and defensive CPs, still be tankier than I am now (probably much more so, as I will of course be adding the 10% direct damage mitigation star), and throw on two new offensive blue stars and something like clever alchemist.

So next update I'll be far tankier while also increasing my damage output (and subsequently my healing) as there will be absolutely no reason to bother building in tankiness at all. Sure, everyone will be more tanky so I'll do less damage overall, but I'll probably never die unless I'm severely outnumbered either.

Which, in case you're wondering, is awful. Tanky vs. Damage should be a build decision. Now everyone is just going to go back to tank and burst play like times of old.

Of all the possible directions to go, ZOS managed to pick the worst one.

Stx · July 2021

With all the increases to mitigation being added in the CP tree and major protection being easier to come by from several sources, I don't think battle spirit should even be touched.

Its no fun to be ganked and be dead before you even have time to react.. but you know what's even MORE aggrevating than that? No one dying and duels lasting eternally because mitigation is too high.

techyeshic · July 2021

There's a lot of crazy in this patch. I keep leaning more and more into it being intentional to run players off. Cyrodiil is wanted for the story and fantasy experience. PvP is in the way.

maximusrex45 · July 2021

techyeshic wrote: »

There's a lot of crazy in this patch. I keep leaning more and more into it being intentional to run players off. Cyrodiil is wanted for the story and fantasy experience. PvP is in the way.

There is ZERO reason they can't add a PvE Cyrodiil to the rest of the PvE world while keeping the instanced PvP Cyrodiil in place, if that is truly what they want.