Welcome to New World. No, thank you.

divnyi wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

Ps - Why did you respond to your own post?

Because this forum is weird and I can't edit OP post.

There should be a gear symbol up near the title that will let you edit opening posts, rather than the usual Edit button like for commemts.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Some may be misunderstanding this as raising an already high TTK, but this would actually be a good way to lower TTK while making each individual hit matter, greatly reducing the chances of an evenly numbered stalemate.

No. New World is like this. Damage is lower. It takes more than one hit, more than a single combo to kill someone. Healing is still lower. Very difficult to heal. What this results in is a cat and mouse game. Line of sight or simply running away is the order of the day. If you can't heal, you're forced to disengage. You can call that strategic, but I like the fast gameplay of ESO. If you think LoSing is bad now, wait till you implement something like this.

I thought you thought fights were too slow Personally, I think it might make combat a bit less twitch and a bit more strategic. But.... it's quite a big change. Right now, balance feels like it's better than it has been for as long as I can remember. I'm not sure I trust zos not to stuff something like this up.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

I like the fast gameplay of ESO.

I have no idea if OP is the best way to address all the stalling and stalemates, but something needs to be done, especially with players being able to stack full-strength Vigor and Regeneration next patch.

Well, I guess stacking Vigor and Regen is a concern, but in group play that is already possible.

IMO, once the game is balanced there or thereabouts, as I believe it is, the factor that determines stalling and stalemates are the players, not ZOS. When the meta shifts to something really high damage, like last summer, it takes a few weeks for everyone to adjust, but people do exactly that. Everyone arrives roughly in the same place as before. At first stamsorc gankers were a thing and magblade bombers were suddenly half-decent in open world duels. By the end of the patch, but before release of the next one, things had calmed down considerably. You wore tankier sets. Many were wearing Pariah and that was that. If a player doesn't want to be killed, they can build towards that and, if they're decent, they won't get killed in 1v1 encounters.

Honestly, I'm down with that. I almost never build tanky myself, but I achieve some of the same effect via high speed, good sustain and cloaking / streaking or LoSing. The notion that a tank meta exists and is a bad thing has been a common refrain in forums. I disagree. I think it's a valid option for newer players to stay alive long enough to experience PvP. It's also a valid option for 1vXers. You don't bring your duelling build into open world.

If ZOS rebalanced the game one way or the other, that IMO only does these things:

(1) It creates new outliers, typically ganking builds that are suddenly incredibly strong, tanking builds that do decent damage, unkillable werewolves, and so on.

(2) It messes with class balance. Too much crit % -> nightblades are stronger. Not enough healing -> classes with borderline healing are exposed. And so on.

(3) It skews armor set (and CP) selection to where suddenly a few sets, say Pariah, become meta and the majority of sets fall by the wayside. This is because the balance players naturally desire and build for - maybe not you, but the majority - no longer falls on the centerline where most armor sets are.

Ultimately ZOS can only balance the game so the majority of armor sets are used, as well as CP, as well as skills. Once you change global properties of damage, sustain and healing, the armor set selection that most players gravitate towards becomes limited and lopsided towards those sets that they feel gives them what they are missing.

fred4 wrote: »

Well, I guess stacking Vigor and Regen is a concern, but in group play that is already possible.

Yea and it breaks group combat. The first year of this game, the power ceiling was much lower, we still had fast paced dynamic combat but resources mattered and evenly matched fights could actually end.

@divnyi: There is rock, paper, scissors. It's the nature of an MMO. The game can and should be balanced as a whole, but that doesn't mean individual encounters are, nor should they be balanced. If I can't get away, if I can't heal, and if I'm in an unfavorable encounter where I can't outdamage the other person either and have a chance of winning by that means, then I am doomed. There is nothing worse than seeing the inevitability of your character dying in the next few seconds and having no option but to let it happen. What this means is that gameplay will become ever more strategic. You will start avoiding certain encounters altogether, if you can help it. Maybe that's what you want?

I prefer tactical gameplay. I prefer being able to heal to outside the danger zone within about 2 seconds (probably not 1 second). The thing is: I'm pretty decent, but not top tier. I have a friend who is. A guy who is just more competitive and laser-focused than I am. He will beat me 98% of the time. It's not even funny. Maybe he couldn't, if I built outright tanky, but he is basically so strong, he will beat me any build vs any build that we actually run. Yet I know, from other duels, that my builds are not all equally squishy. One is quite tanky, in fact.

I like the learning curve. I like that there is another level of combat I could aspire to, if I applied myself more. It's about APM, and it's about the right actions at the right time and the right positioning within the terrain. It's the speed of your decision making and the stress you're under that's both taxing and exhilarating. That is what makes me feel connected to my character.

Some people like New World. They like that you're tied into these "weighty" animations. It doesn't work for me. It feels clunky, slow and unresponsive. Dodge rolls are limited. You have to think strategically about what you're doing, you can't just react. Some people like that, but for me it results in feeling disconnected.

ESO had a much greater prevalence of snares in the past, by the way, and people hated it. ZOS systematically pared that back 2 or 3 years ago.

Supposing, then, you're top of the heap, or your guild is. Is it not fair that you should stalemate against other players or groups who are also at the top? Would you want to randomly lose to someone? Because that's what it really comes down to. If you can't heal and you can't disengage, you're at the mercy of the rock, paper, scissors effect of the MMORPG.

The only other game I dabble in is chess. I see the same there. If you're at the top, you can choose to play conservatively and you will not lose. The guy at the very top, though, Magnus Carlsen, he's there because he's very tenacious, sure, but he also takes risks. Same in ESO. Duels are won by both players risking their health and staying on the attack. It's kind of up to them to make that happen.

I'm not sure the game could or should enforce outcomes. I've not played Battle Royales, but I think that's one way, right? The ever shrinking world forces an outcome. Escalating damage done and taken, the longer you are in combat, something like that might do the same. That seems very antithetical to the nature of open world, though. Might work in BGs, but do we have a stalemating problem there?