Raising the floor

llBlack_Heartll · August 2022

Wouldn’t a better way to raise the floor and bring the ceiling closer to Buff all Class Skills and nerf some Buffs?

My thinking is - If an unorganised and non optimal group can put out more DPS via their own skills and require less coordination of times buffs to pass content. Then it would be better for the community, rather than gutting everyone?

How many times have you seen 2 or more colossus go off at one time, or a tank running Sax and drops their ult but you still hear a war horn going off etc.

On the other hand, Organised and Optimised groups will need to be good with their timed buffs to clear their HM content or prog groups learning to get through.

Jazraena · August 2022

Not specifically class skills, but yes - raise individual character power, reduce group buffs, but above all, make those group buffs easier to keep active.

In regards to weaving specifically it also mystifies me that they keep introducing sets like Kinras, Grave Inevitability, Rele etc etc that are reliant on light attacks to trigger and upkeep. Instead of nerfing light attack damage it seems smarter to me to move those sets to trigger of conditions like 'dealing damage', 'dealing critical damage' or 'dealing direct damage' and so on to let people less capable of weaving keep them active full time. Good players are unaffected by this, since they already keep those sets up, but it would definitely help the floor.

Amottica · August 2022

llBlack_Heartll wrote: »

Wouldn’t a better way to raise the floor and bring the ceiling closer to Buff all Class Skills and nerf some Buffs?

This would likely have the opposite effect.

While a group that chooses to employ the buffs and do it well will outperform a group do does not, the foundation of the DPS is a good build and the player's skill. Without buffs, the top DDs will still do far more DPS than the lesser experienced counterparts that sit on the floor. We know this because the difference between the floor and ceiling is many times what buffs provide.

BlueRaven · August 2022

It seems to me whenever they try to improve the lives of lower end players, Zos unintentionally widens the gap between the top and bottom.

Why?

Top end players do research, talk amongst themselves, and use every trick, set, and skill to get the maximum amount of dps possible.

Less skilled players just wear what is accessible, slot what they like rather what is “efficient”, and are generally oblivious to patch changes.
Did their favorite ability/set/race get nerfed to oblivion? They may not know, at least for awhile.

Is the gap between high end and lower dps too high? Yes, undeniably. But zos needs to figure out why exactly that is and address that. Instead the process seems to metaphorically just throw darts at the wall, and hope they hit something.

And let’s be real here, the difference between high and low end is weaving and back bar set ups. Lower end dps players are not very efficient with this. And honestly why should they? It does not feel very fantasy like, or even intuitive. Many people, myself included, would love it, if ESO combat played like the ES games rather then being it’s own weird combat…thing.

Jazraena · August 2022

BlueRaven wrote: »

It seems to me whenever they try to improve the lives of lower end players, Zos unintentionally widens the gap between the top and bottom.

Why?

Top end players do research, talk amongst themselves, and use every trick, set, and skill to get the maximum amount of dps possible.

Less skilled players just wear what is accessible, slot what they like rather what is “efficient”, and are generally oblivious to patch changes.
Did their favorite ability/set/race get nerfed to oblivion? They may not know, at least for awhile.

Is the gap between high end and lower dps too high? Yes, undeniably. But zos needs to figure out why exactly that is and address that. Instead the process seems to metaphorically just throw darts at the wall, and hope they hit something.

And let’s be real here, the difference between high and low end is weaving and back bar set ups. Lower end dps players are not very efficient with this. And honestly why should they? It does not feel very fantasy like, or even intuitive. Many people, myself included, would love it, if ESO combat played like the ES games rather then being it’s own weird combat…thing.

It's a sum of things IMHO. Offhand:
- Weaving itself
- Aforementioned meta sets dependent on weaving
- Frontbar/Backbar setups
- Extreme influence of group buffs coupled with the difficulty of high uptimes on the same, in particular for random groups
- Zero teaching in the actual game
- The weird lore niches classes occupy vs the typical fantasy concepts many players try to emulate
- The weakness of generic skills vs stacking class skills
- Equipment trap options

The last three points are directly related. Take lightning staves being objectively the weaker option than inferno staves, which in turn are weaker than dual daggers but at least offer the ranged advantage vs melee. The lore niches come down to nobody buying and playing ESO to play a Warden or Dragon Knight, whatever they're supposed to be, and instead wanting to play their fire mage or Nord berserker (or just a petless sorc), and thus falling well short of what the optimum setup would be.

Charon_on_Vacation · August 2022

there are a lot of ways to achieve the goal of raising the floor.
some would take a lot of work, for example a complete overhaul/rebalancing.
some are very easy but not very elegant, for example a system where consecutive light/heavy attacks deal X% more damage and consecutive abilities deal X% more damage.
the fact that zos repeatedly tried to fix the system in very weird ways and never achieved it, is interesting to watch.

perfiction · August 2022

How about implementing actual tutorials instead of the joke we currently have ("LA 3 times, HA 3 times, block 3 times, you're good to go")? It's difficult to talk about raising the floor when the game teaches new players that all you need to do is spam left mouse button until your target is dead.

Lady_Galadhiel · August 2022

The ''play the way you want'' concept starts to crumble away.

Lylith · August 2022

Lady_Galadhiel wrote: »

The ''play the way you want'' concept starts to crumble away.

we passed 'starts to crumble' years back, imho.

etchedpixels · August 2022

llBlack_Heartll wrote: »

Wouldn’t a better way to raise the floor and bring the ceiling closer to Buff all Class Skills and nerf some Buffs?

My thinking is - If an unorganised and non optimal group can put out more DPS via their own skills and require less coordination of times buffs to pass content. Then it would be better for the community, rather than gutting everyone?

How many times have you seen 2 or more colossus go off at one time, or a tank running Sax and drops their ult but you still hear a war horn going off etc.

On the other hand, Organised and Optimised groups will need to be good with their timed buffs to clear their HM content or prog groups learning to get through.

The classic way to adjust game floor and ceiling is to use curves for everything so the as you get better or stack more of each thing you get the smaller the difference it makes. Being "elite" still gives you a bigger number than your rival but in actual fact the difference isn't important other than for things I struggle to find a phrase for that will not get a "snip".

ESO has sort of done that with champion points but nothing else which is IMHO why you get these extreme outliers, why you get high meta instability and a lot of the yawning gap. It's not the whole story - there's a big skill aspect too beyond having the right build, and there should be.

Rugby_hook · August 2022

etchedpixels wrote: »

llBlack_Heartll wrote: »

Wouldn’t a better way to raise the floor and bring the ceiling closer to Buff all Class Skills and nerf some Buffs?

My thinking is - If an unorganised and non optimal group can put out more DPS via their own skills and require less coordination of times buffs to pass content. Then it would be better for the community, rather than gutting everyone?

How many times have you seen 2 or more colossus go off at one time, or a tank running Sax and drops their ult but you still hear a war horn going off etc.

On the other hand, Organised and Optimised groups will need to be good with their timed buffs to clear their HM content or prog groups learning to get through.

The classic way to adjust game floor and ceiling is to use curves for everything so the as you get better or stack more of each thing you get the smaller the difference it makes. Being "elite" still gives you a bigger number than your rival but in actual fact the difference isn't important other than for things I struggle to find a phrase for that will not get a "snip".

ESO has sort of done that with champion points but nothing else which is IMHO why you get these extreme outliers, why you get high meta instability and a lot of the yawning gap. It's not the whole story - there's a big skill aspect too beyond having the right build, and there should be.

Very elegantly worded and expresses my exact thoughts on how they should raise the floor. Straight damage reduction will never do it, but a curved scaling based on stats would. They could increase the base damage of each skill and still make top dps smaller.

I think this combined with a better (optional) tutorial would be the best way to close the gap. I think the Undaunted Academy has a nice ring and there could be a tutorial quest line that has repeatable quests (with rewards the first time you complete on a character) based on each of the three roles. Nefas made a video comparing the tutorials of FFIVX and ESO, and this would help to get ESO closer to that standard of combat training. Yes, "play how you want," but there are still core mechanics that should be taught. I was lucky and had two really great mentors in my first guild. One who thoroughly explained tanking in the game as we would go through learning trials and another who would take hours of his time to watch me parse in game and provide real time corrections and feedback. Not everyone has this, and this burden shouldn't be placed on the players, but incorporated into the game. Weaving, rotations, using DoTs, aggro/taunt, buffs, etc could all have unique tutorials for example.

Finally, the game needs better tool tips. I've said for years I don't understand why there is so much hidden information in the game. When there are only 4 types of damage in game, (direct, DoT, AoE, and single target) there is absolutely no reason to not include that info in the tool tips, since that is the wording used in CP. And if not in the game, this should all be on the official ESO website. I shouldn't have to go to content creators to find tutorials. Having the info on the official website means it would be accurate, centralized, and up to date.

YandereGirlfriend · August 2022

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

BlueRaven · August 2022

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

It’s not the high end players fault, but high end players do “hurt” (not really the right word for it) the game as zos needs to give those players content and content costs money.
So let’s pretend that high end players are 5% of the player base (percentage just for example, not suggesting real numbers here) but the percentage of the budget used to make content for them is say 10%. That is bad.
But if they can push the 5% downward to say the top 20%. And they use that 10% of the budget for that group. That would be much better.

If they can make hard content that appeals to more players then just the small percentage of high end players that would be ideal.

EDIT: If the high end player group is too small for the budget allotted to make content that appeals to them, they become a budget liability.(?) Is that a better way of putting it?

Luke_Flamesword · August 2022

I think that main problem is that casual players are often far from optimal builds and maybe this is too big part of dps. It's quite complicated to find optimal build when you are new player, because game doesn't help you to solve thing like this:
How much penetration/critical damage/sustain, etc is optimal? What's the difference between values in combat? It is enough when I have 3k penetration or not?

You can see your critical chance but most player don't even have idea how much better are critical damage. It is worth it?

It need a lot of dedication to learn all of this (big changes with patches didn't help) and casual players just want to have some fun, not study for hours optimal builds.

Personally, I used for some time not meta, but almost meta build (B-tier sets in some list, so not the best, but still in top20, when we have hundreds of sets) with decent skills (not stupid choices, good ones, but it was not meta too). I though that's enough to make good enough dps and I enjoyed myself in many veteran content. Then after U35 I was bit desperated, so I tried to make totally meta build - I changed one set and couple skills for all meta options and I was shocked with this how much better my dps became.

I think that's the main problem - making optimal build always should give you advantage, but not so much! ZOS should decrease overall impact of gear and buffs (for less punishment for less optimal builds and make viable much more sets for end game - it's not fun when every dps runs with pillars of nirn when we have dozens of damage proc sets with different effects). Only way is to buff base damage and stats (yes, again) and just decrease importance of perfect builds.

I hate that I can see that I really can produce high dps, but I'm forced to use just couple of meta sets and same combination of skill as everyone.

sbr32 · August 2022

BlueRaven wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

It’s not the high end players fault, but high end players do “hurt” (not really the right word for it) the game as zos needs to give those players content and content costs money.
So let’s pretend that high end players are 5% of the player base (percentage just for example, not suggesting real numbers here) but the percentage of the budget used to make content for them is say 10%. That is bad.
But if they can push the 5% downward to say the top 20%. And they use that 10% of the budget for that group. That would be much better.

If they can make hard content that appeals to more players then just the small percentage of high end players that would be ideal.

EDIT: If the high end player group is too small for the budget allotted to make content that appeals to them, they become a budget liability.(?) Is that a better way of putting it?

The real actual in-game problem is the opposite of this. They are balancing the new end game content around the 1% of the 1%. Last I heard 600 characters had cleared vet Rockgrove, not 600 accounts but 600 characters and I would guess a number of those are alts clearing it a 2nd (or more) time(s).

They need to just ignore that group of people when creating their new trials, and balance around the top 15-20% like you said, but without the DPS nerfs. Who cares if the tippy-top groups can clear the 30 minute speed run in 5 minutes? It is irrelevant to everyone except the people doing it, it's not like they are getting any rewards out of it other than a worthless account wide achievement, a title and maybe a poorly re-skinned mount.

If that tiny group of people decides that isn't good enough, they can leave and play another game. Everyone has been making it clear the last few weeks that they aren't really appreciated here anyway.

BlueRaven · August 2022

sbr32 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

It’s not the high end players fault, but high end players do “hurt” (not really the right word for it) the game as zos needs to give those players content and content costs money.
So let’s pretend that high end players are 5% of the player base (percentage just for example, not suggesting real numbers here) but the percentage of the budget used to make content for them is say 10%. That is bad.
But if they can push the 5% downward to say the top 20%. And they use that 10% of the budget for that group. That would be much better.

If they can make hard content that appeals to more players then just the small percentage of high end players that would be ideal.

EDIT: If the high end player group is too small for the budget allotted to make content that appeals to them, they become a budget liability.(?) Is that a better way of putting it?

The real actual in-game problem is the opposite of this. They are balancing the new end game content around the 1% of the 1%. Last I heard 600 characters had cleared vet Rockgrove, not 600 accounts but 600 characters and I would guess a number of those are alts clearing it a 2nd (or more) time(s).

They need to just ignore that group of people when creating their new trials, and balance around the top 15-20% like you said, but without the DPS nerfs. Who cares if the tippy-top groups can clear the 30 minute speed run in 5 minutes? It is irrelevant to everyone except the people doing it, it's not like they are getting any rewards out of it other than a worthless account wide achievement, a title and maybe a poorly re-skinned mount.

If that tiny group of people decides that isn't good enough, they can leave and play another game. Everyone has been making it clear the last few weeks that they aren't really appreciated here anyway.

That’s not the opposite, that’s what I said but with more extreme numbers. We are agreeing, just saying it in different ways.

Zos wants to make hard content. But if only 600 players can do it, that is a problem. Even 6,000 is too small a number I think.
If they can push the top end down then that top ends (re-tuned) content becomes appealing for more players, not just 600.

Ignoring the group is not a great answer, a top end content “influencer” creator may make a video about how easy the game is, even though that creator is just out distancing everyone else by miles.

sbr32 · August 2022

BlueRaven wrote: »

sbr32 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

It’s not the high end players fault, but high end players do “hurt” (not really the right word for it) the game as zos needs to give those players content and content costs money.
So let’s pretend that high end players are 5% of the player base (percentage just for example, not suggesting real numbers here) but the percentage of the budget used to make content for them is say 10%. That is bad.
But if they can push the 5% downward to say the top 20%. And they use that 10% of the budget for that group. That would be much better.

If they can make hard content that appeals to more players then just the small percentage of high end players that would be ideal.

EDIT: If the high end player group is too small for the budget allotted to make content that appeals to them, they become a budget liability.(?) Is that a better way of putting it?

The real actual in-game problem is the opposite of this. They are balancing the new end game content around the 1% of the 1%. Last I heard 600 characters had cleared vet Rockgrove, not 600 accounts but 600 characters and I would guess a number of those are alts clearing it a 2nd (or more) time(s).

They need to just ignore that group of people when creating their new trials, and balance around the top 15-20% like you said, but without the DPS nerfs. Who cares if the tippy-top groups can clear the 30 minute speed run in 5 minutes? It is irrelevant to everyone except the people doing it, it's not like they are getting any rewards out of it other than a worthless account wide achievement, a title and maybe a poorly re-skinned mount.

If that tiny group of people decides that isn't good enough, they can leave and play another game. Everyone has been making it clear the last few weeks that they aren't really appreciated here anyway.

That’s not the opposite, that’s what I said but with more extreme numbers. We are agreeing, just saying it in different ways.

Zos wants to make hard content. But if only 600 players can do it, that is a problem. Even 6,000 is too small a number I think.
If they can push the top end down then that top ends (re-tuned) content becomes appealing for more players, not just 600.

Ignoring the group is not a great answer, a top end content “influencer” creator may make a video about how easy the game is, even though that creator is just out distancing everyone else by miles.

I'm not sure how we are agreeing. We might(?) be coming to similar conclusions, but I think here the approach is more important than the landing spot.

As I read it you think that ZoS must create content that caters to the very tip-top players in the game. Currently they are doing this and only a few hundred people at most, are able to clear this content. This is problematic for a number of reasons (which I agree with), so they now must nerf DPS (And healing? And fun?), bringing the ceiling down closer to the average player so that the content they must create for the top of the player base is able to be completed by a larger segment of the player base.

I think both premises are wrong.

I think ZoS should not be creating and balancing content around the 1% of the 1%*. I think they should be creating content that very good players, in very good groups have a chance to reasonably prog through, instead of having the very best players in the very best groups barely able to eke the content out. If this was done then a DPS nerf is not only not required, it would be irrelevant. Then we would have more happy mid-top tier PvE players, while the tippy-top groups are not affecting anyone as they blaze through whatever they want as fast as they want to.

BlueRaven · August 2022

sbr32 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

sbr32 wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

It’s not the high end players fault, but high end players do “hurt” (not really the right word for it) the game as zos needs to give those players content and content costs money.
So let’s pretend that high end players are 5% of the player base (percentage just for example, not suggesting real numbers here) but the percentage of the budget used to make content for them is say 10%. That is bad.
But if they can push the 5% downward to say the top 20%. And they use that 10% of the budget for that group. That would be much better.

If they can make hard content that appeals to more players then just the small percentage of high end players that would be ideal.

EDIT: If the high end player group is too small for the budget allotted to make content that appeals to them, they become a budget liability.(?) Is that a better way of putting it?

The real actual in-game problem is the opposite of this. They are balancing the new end game content around the 1% of the 1%. Last I heard 600 characters had cleared vet Rockgrove, not 600 accounts but 600 characters and I would guess a number of those are alts clearing it a 2nd (or more) time(s).

They need to just ignore that group of people when creating their new trials, and balance around the top 15-20% like you said, but without the DPS nerfs. Who cares if the tippy-top groups can clear the 30 minute speed run in 5 minutes? It is irrelevant to everyone except the people doing it, it's not like they are getting any rewards out of it other than a worthless account wide achievement, a title and maybe a poorly re-skinned mount.

If that tiny group of people decides that isn't good enough, they can leave and play another game. Everyone has been making it clear the last few weeks that they aren't really appreciated here anyway.

That’s not the opposite, that’s what I said but with more extreme numbers. We are agreeing, just saying it in different ways.

Zos wants to make hard content. But if only 600 players can do it, that is a problem. Even 6,000 is too small a number I think.
If they can push the top end down then that top ends (re-tuned) content becomes appealing for more players, not just 600.

Ignoring the group is not a great answer, a top end content “influencer” creator may make a video about how easy the game is, even though that creator is just out distancing everyone else by miles.

I'm not sure how we are agreeing. We might(?) be coming to similar conclusions, but I think here the approach is more important than the landing spot.

As I read it you think that ZoS must create content that caters to the very tip-top players in the game. Currently they are doing this and only a few hundred people at most, are able to clear this content. This is problematic for a number of reasons (which I agree with), so they now must nerf DPS (And healing? And fun?), bringing the ceiling down closer to the average player so that the content they must create for the top of the player base is able to be completed by a larger segment of the player base.

I think both premises are wrong.

I think ZoS should not be creating and balancing content around the 1% of the 1%*. I think they should be creating content that very good players, in very good groups have a chance to reasonably prog through, instead of having the very best players in the very best groups barely able to eke the content out. If this was done then a DPS nerf is not only not required, it would be irrelevant. Then we would have more happy mid-top tier PvE players, while the tippy-top groups are not affecting anyone as they blaze through whatever they want as fast as they want to.

My original comment was to a person who asked why top end players were a problem. They felt that they should just leave them as they are. I just pointed out that the top end was pulling resources (content made for that group) that outstripped their population.

You pointed out content that only 600-ish people were completing which is bad. It cost money to make that content, and if only 600 people can complete it, was that money worth it.

We are making the same point, you are just coming in with real numbers, I was speaking more generally.

I guess we differ on solutions? You said (I think) to just ignore them. “So what if players outstrip the content?” type solution.
Just make the content easier so more people can do it.

I think zos wants to avoid videos showing two or three players on hard mode downing a 12 person boss. (Personally I think they are also a bit annoyed with players soloing vet dungeons.)
So nerf the top end, so they are pushed more back into the main pack of players, then make content accordingly.

Agenericname · August 2022

BlueRaven wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

It’s not the high end players fault, but high end players do “hurt” (not really the right word for it) the game as zos needs to give those players content and content costs money.
So let’s pretend that high end players are 5% of the player base (percentage just for example, not suggesting real numbers here) but the percentage of the budget used to make content for them is say 10%. That is bad.
But if they can push the 5% downward to say the top 20%. And they use that 10% of the budget for that group. That would be much better.

If they can make hard content that appeals to more players then just the small percentage of high end players that would be ideal.

EDIT: If the high end player group is too small for the budget allotted to make content that appeals to them, they become a budget liability.(?) Is that a better way of putting it?

That content doesnt exist solely for high end groups. It exists for anyone willing to try. For everyone of those 600 characters that cleared vRG HM, many others are progging or have tried. Its serves as the next level of challenge, or goal if you will, for a much larger number of people.

If the entire game were vSO or vSO HM, then there wouldnt be a reason, or not much of one, to chase gear, new mythics, or stay on the meta treadmill at all, which ZOS counts on.

BlueRaven · August 2022

Agenericname wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

It’s not the high end players fault, but high end players do “hurt” (not really the right word for it) the game as zos needs to give those players content and content costs money.
So let’s pretend that high end players are 5% of the player base (percentage just for example, not suggesting real numbers here) but the percentage of the budget used to make content for them is say 10%. That is bad.
But if they can push the 5% downward to say the top 20%. And they use that 10% of the budget for that group. That would be much better.

If they can make hard content that appeals to more players then just the small percentage of high end players that would be ideal.

EDIT: If the high end player group is too small for the budget allotted to make content that appeals to them, they become a budget liability.(?) Is that a better way of putting it?

That content doesnt exist solely for high end groups. It exists for anyone willing to try. For everyone of those 600 characters that cleared vRG HM, many others are progging or have tried. Its serves as the next level of challenge, or goal if you will, for a much larger number of people.

If the entire game were vSO or vSO HM, then there wouldnt be a reason, or not much of one, to chase gear, new mythics, or stay on the meta treadmill at all, which ZOS counts on.

That is a bit disingenuous. If only 600 odd characters (not accounts from what I understand) complete the content, that content is not “pulling its weight”. And I would suggest few players are “aspiring” to do that content. I would further suggest few people even know what that content is.

So zos is left with a decision:

A) Make easier content and just say “sorry, you don’t get anything” to top end players.

B ) Curb top end players dps and make content that their new dps limits (and others of now similar dps) can enjoy.

I think “B” is the way to go. But either way I don’t care that much about it. I am much more interested in the lives of people who don’t even pull 15k dps.

Ratzkifal · August 2022

Bringing floor and ceiling together always means reducing skill expression and I think a lot of players at the top are already tired of that and looking for games where skill expression matters more.
We don't need to lower the ceiling at all so long as the floor is raised. Who cares if the top is skipping all the mechanics by dealing a million dps. The game is already not very challenging to these players and the only challenge that is offered is leaderboards.
ZOS needs to focus on properly rewarding leaderboard players. How about monthly leaderboards and a shoutout to the top #1 player(s) on every leader board every month? That's something you can frame and put on your wall. An actual trophy that nobody can take away from you. People want that recognition and people want to be competitive. Lean into that rather than trying your hardest to bring the ceiling down and only cause frustrations in the process.

Agenericname · August 2022

BlueRaven wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

It’s not the high end players fault, but high end players do “hurt” (not really the right word for it) the game as zos needs to give those players content and content costs money.
So let’s pretend that high end players are 5% of the player base (percentage just for example, not suggesting real numbers here) but the percentage of the budget used to make content for them is say 10%. That is bad.
But if they can push the 5% downward to say the top 20%. And they use that 10% of the budget for that group. That would be much better.

If they can make hard content that appeals to more players then just the small percentage of high end players that would be ideal.

EDIT: If the high end player group is too small for the budget allotted to make content that appeals to them, they become a budget liability.(?) Is that a better way of putting it?

That content doesnt exist solely for high end groups. It exists for anyone willing to try. For everyone of those 600 characters that cleared vRG HM, many others are progging or have tried. Its serves as the next level of challenge, or goal if you will, for a much larger number of people.

If the entire game were vSO or vSO HM, then there wouldnt be a reason, or not much of one, to chase gear, new mythics, or stay on the meta treadmill at all, which ZOS counts on.

That is a bit disingenuous. If only 600 odd characters (not accounts from what I understand) complete the content, that content is not “pulling its weight”. And I would suggest few players are “aspiring” to do that content. I would further suggest few people even know what that content is.

So zos is left with a decision:

A) Make easier content and just say “sorry, you don’t get anything” to top end players.

B ) Curb top end players dps and make content that their new dps limits (and others of now similar dps) can enjoy.

I think “B” is the way to go. But either way I don’t care that much about it. I am much more interested in the lives of people who don’t even pull 15k dps.

How is that disingenuous? Its not only 600 characters completing the content. Its 600 characters completing the hard mode. That however is only representative on the hardest mode in that trial. For every team that completed it, multiple ran it. Is it safe to say that there are 10 prog groups for every completion? I'd guess higher if you factored in the group starting in vet.

Im sure there are quite a few people that have no idea that it even exists. Not everyone plays group content, not everyone wants to. Thats fine. For those that do, they have something to reach for. Im farily certain that ZOS is not only aware of that, but watches it. They have said that they monitor content and make adjustments based on what they call "choke points." At this point, its a pattern. They introduce a vet DLC dungeon, a couple of patches later, it will get nerfed. They knew this would happen when they designed it.

Yes, B is probably the better option. Poorly implemented, but ultimately better. Thats not my argument though, only that the content isnt exclusively for the 600 characters that made it.

Carcamongus · August 2022

There are ways to raise the floor without damaging the damagers. For example, buff a few non-meta sets that are more likely to be used by newer players, better explain important concepts (such as types of damage) and create dungeon/trial mechanics that aren't confusing (which isn't the same thing as easy) or fill the screen with so many effects one can hardly see what's going on.

crazyivanovic · August 2022

Carcamongus wrote: »

There are ways to raise the floor without damaging the damagers. For example, buff a few non-meta sets that are more likely to be used by newer players, better explain important concepts (such as types of damage) and create dungeon/trial mechanics that aren't confusing (which isn't the same thing as easy) or fill the screen with so many effects one can hardly see what's going on.

Another option is to look at the logs, check which buffs the top end groups are able to keep up that the lower groups have problems with. My quess is that brittle and stagger are likely candidates. For brittle it might already help a lot if the timers were just aligned with the skills triggering it (not the 3s you currently get). For stagger: not sure...

IMO balancing should work by giving those with limited power more options to achieve power than the higher end, this gets the floor and ceiling closer. Just crashing everybody down though is IMO not a good thing since as a player I feel weaker than before, which is not good for staying with the game. Yeah, once I am good it is okay if I can just blaze through anything regarding overland, so what? If they wanted to address this, they could add some "Per player" toggle which turned your CP off and virtually set your gear to "white" so that there is some more challenge during quests and overland (though I would not like this active when I am just farming mats).

YandereGirlfriend · August 2022

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Bringing floor and ceiling together always means reducing skill expression and I think a lot of players at the top are already tired of that and looking for games where skill expression matters more.
We don't need to lower the ceiling at all so long as the floor is raised. Who cares if the top is skipping all the mechanics by dealing a million dps. The game is already not very challenging to these players and the only challenge that is offered is leaderboards.
ZOS needs to focus on properly rewarding leaderboard players. How about monthly leaderboards and a shoutout to the top #1 player(s) on every leader board every month? That's something you can frame and put on your wall. An actual trophy that nobody can take away from you. People want that recognition and people want to be competitive. Lean into that rather than trying your hardest to bring the ceiling down and only cause frustrations in the process.

Absolutely right!

The best groups are basically post-content and in more of a competition with each other, sort of like an indirect form of PvP. And just like PvP, competing against human beings is basically an evergreen form of entertainment. So even if those groups are smoking Taleria and skipping tons of mechanics there is still the drive to improve due to the overall leaderboard rank and the desire to know that you and your group is the best. And you nailed it that leaderboards really ought to have tremendously increased rewards to provide a material incentive to those players and also as a way for them to be recognized within the larger game community as the elite of the elite.

And then apart from that - completely ignore those groups and what they do in content from a developer perspective. Balance for the top 20% and focus on bringing up the floor. Everyone will be happier in the long-run.

PrinceShroob · August 2022

Many fighting games--which are often technical and usually assume a higher degree of player research and practice--have better tutorials and in-game resources than this game.

Let that sink in.

If I play Blazblue, I can access an in-game tutorial that will give me a brief explanation of how to play a character and can learn basic and advanced combos. Hell, I'll even be rewarded for doing so with a small amount of in-game currency for each "challenge" (move input or combo instruction) I clear.

Meanwhile, with ESO, I have to prowl Discords or hope a friend or friend of a friend knows what builds are good with each patch and I have to look up dungeon and trial mechanics online.

There is so much that could be done to improve tutorials--having Norianwe teach you weaving (even just telling you that you can do it and how to do it), having Norianwe say that Restoration staves and sword and shields are for group play, forcing the player to use their first skill point on their class spammable skill to teach them that skills do more damage than light and heavy attacks (and then refunding all skill and attribute points after the tutorial), having the Build Advisor give sample rotations (and not having the builds be 3 years out of date), giving a free 3 million health dummy through the level up rewards.

Hell, you could even introduce what some fighting games have--autocombos activated by mashing one button (ex. I mash 1 and perfectly weave Crushing Shock).

It's completely backwards that the developers radically change combat rather than invest time into teaching players how to play the game.

BlueRaven · August 2022

Agenericname wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I really do not understand what the fascination is with trying to nerf the highest-end groups. Competitive, score-pushing groups are not hurting anyone and the game would be in such a better position if the developers would just left them alone and instead focus exclusively on bringing up the bottom tier of players.

It’s not the high end players fault, but high end players do “hurt” (not really the right word for it) the game as zos needs to give those players content and content costs money.
So let’s pretend that high end players are 5% of the player base (percentage just for example, not suggesting real numbers here) but the percentage of the budget used to make content for them is say 10%. That is bad.
But if they can push the 5% downward to say the top 20%. And they use that 10% of the budget for that group. That would be much better.

If they can make hard content that appeals to more players then just the small percentage of high end players that would be ideal.

EDIT: If the high end player group is too small for the budget allotted to make content that appeals to them, they become a budget liability.(?) Is that a better way of putting it?

That content doesnt exist solely for high end groups. It exists for anyone willing to try. For everyone of those 600 characters that cleared vRG HM, many others are progging or have tried. Its serves as the next level of challenge, or goal if you will, for a much larger number of people.

If the entire game were vSO or vSO HM, then there wouldnt be a reason, or not much of one, to chase gear, new mythics, or stay on the meta treadmill at all, which ZOS counts on.

That is a bit disingenuous. If only 600 odd characters (not accounts from what I understand) complete the content, that content is not “pulling its weight”. And I would suggest few players are “aspiring” to do that content. I would further suggest few people even know what that content is.

So zos is left with a decision:

A) Make easier content and just say “sorry, you don’t get anything” to top end players.

B ) Curb top end players dps and make content that their new dps limits (and others of now similar dps) can enjoy.

I think “B” is the way to go. But either way I don’t care that much about it. I am much more interested in the lives of people who don’t even pull 15k dps.

How is that disingenuous? Its not only 600 characters completing the content. Its 600 characters completing the hard mode. That however is only representative on the hardest mode in that trial. For every team that completed it, multiple ran it. Is it safe to say that there are 10 prog groups for every completion? I'd guess higher if you factored in the group starting in vet.

Im sure there are quite a few people that have no idea that it even exists. Not everyone plays group content, not everyone wants to. Thats fine. For those that do, they have something to reach for. Im farily certain that ZOS is not only aware of that, but watches it. They have said that they monitor content and make adjustments based on what they call "choke points." At this point, its a pattern. They introduce a vet DLC dungeon, a couple of patches later, it will get nerfed. They knew this would happen when they designed it.

Yes, B is probably the better option. Poorly implemented, but ultimately better. Thats not my argument though, only that the content isnt exclusively for the 600 characters that made it.

A completion rate of 600 is not enough people. They can nerf it to pick up the completion rate, but then the 600 will be unsatisfied with another “easy” piece of content.

600 people plus another 120(?) people is still far too small. 6000 people is still too small. If a group tries a hard mode and it completely destroys the group, they may never attempt a hard mode again. Ever. It’s ok if the group fails, but 600 characters? That implies a huge failure rate for the majority of groups that even bother to attempt it. “Why bother trying it ever again?” Is not a selling point for the game.

And yes it’s a hard mode, hard modes are not made for free.
Hard modes need coders, sound artists, actors, character animators, encounter testers…. That all costs money.
A completion rate of 600 is just symbolic of content that is badly suited to its audience. And content that is not worth the money invested in making it.

dmnqwk · August 2022

The worst thing a person can say is 'well if I can do it...' If you cannot forsee why someone else struggles with something - whether it's ability, circumstances, equipment like an old computer, medical condition or simply enough time to waste parsing for hours then you're fooling yourself that it's not a problem.

ESO has made a game where it forgot to include the instructions of how to play. It's like going to a restaurant that has no menu but doesn't let you order anything they haven't made before.

Light Attack Weaving is not difficult for someone who has been a hardcore raider over the last 25 years, but honestly... if you dont get told about it, or you don't decide to investigate it yourself (which is NOT something people should have to do) you'll be unable to play a lot of classes well.

Take Merciless Resolve (a nightblade ability that requires 5 charges from light or heavy attacks before you can fire it at someone)

Person A does perfect weaving and fires it on cooldown for 50k every 5 seconds, plus the 5k per light attack, and uses a 10k spammable in between...
So every 5 seconds they get:
5 light attacks (25k total)
4 spammables (40k total)
1 Merciless (50k)
Total of 115k/5 seconds... for a dps of 23k

Person B knows weaving exists, and tries. They get 5 light attacks in, but require 7 seconds to manage it. Because of this hitting Merciless Resolve takes them a second longer so after 8 seconds they've managed 7 spammables, 1 Merciless and 6 light attacks.
6 light attacks (30k)
7 spammables (70k)
1 Merciless (50k)
Total of 150k/8 seconds... for 18.75k

Person C doesn't know about weaving and just uses their skills. Merciless Resolve never works so they stick to a spammable
1 spammable (10k)
Total of 10k/second for 10k
Or if they just auto attack...
Total of 5k/0.7 seconds for 7.14k

Force Multiplier is something that affects what you're working with - in this case we'd include dots, gear, enchants, sustain, awareness etc. If we apply a simple Force Multiplier of 3 for Person A, 2 for B and 1 for C we can see why the floor and ceiling are so far apart...

Person C - 10k dps... force multiplier makes it 10k (because they're just spamming their spammable and don't know about major brutality/sorcery or savagery/prophecy etc)

Person B - 18.75k has some knowledge for the basic buffs, but might lack good uptime on them or to use minor force. Their FM (force multiplier) is 2 and this gives them 37k dps

Person A knows it all, has the best stuff and even some perfected gear on top of their wading kilt and monster set. Their damage of 23k is tripled with a FM of 3 and becomes 69k.

And this fairly accurately describes the floor to ceiling scenario - where the range is from 10k up to 69k while ZOS tries to balance content for everyone... and it's not working.

People have mentioned the force multiplier (curb the buffs, fix the sets) but ultimately the biggest issues to floors is probably light attack weaving. If light attacks were not a thing then Player C could fire off a Merciless Resolve (which would simply be an ability with a cooldown of 5 seconds, like other games do) and they'd auto attack for 5k/second on top of their spammable... making them 15k/second plus the big cool damage of 50k from Merciless.

Player C would jump from 10k dps to... (5*5k+4*10k+1*50k=115k/5 =23k... same as player A. But the force multiplier would not change and so Player A would still be on 69k dps and triple... only it wouldn't matter so much to them because they're still waaaay ahead on damages!

So, when we discuss the floor - the real floor is about ensuring the skills work for people and auto attack is auto, not weaving that nobody is told about and no other game bothers to have for the very reason that it creates such a low floor for players they give up bothering and leave.

Amottica · August 2022

dmnqwk wrote: »

Light Attack Weaving is not difficult for someone who has been a hardcore raider over the last 25 years, but honestly... if you dont get told about it, or you don't decide to investigate it yourself (which is NOT something people should have to do) you'll be unable to play a lot of classes well..

In any game, a player is either told what a good rotation is or researches it themselves. Most players do not sit down and try to figure that out. Weaving basic attacks is no different and even then weaving a basic attack in general, vs just a LA, will suffice in most cases, including the NB example provided. A medium weave is much easier for the average player and works just fine.

ZOS_Hadeostry · August 2022

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding

Caribou77 · August 2022

Perhaps the reason there are no good in-game turorials, and such a lack of intuitive, easy to read in-game info. is the same reason PVP often lags so bad that it is unplayable, and class balance is in shambles: The company is stingy and chooses not to spend the resources necessary to make the game technically sound and a well-considered, polished product.

I still get booted from the server, along with the message that I’ve been spamming too many messages, when all I’ve been trying to do is farm runestones or something innocuous.

The game world, it’s landscapes, architecture, lore and graphics, are really beautiful and well done. But they soured it with awful technical performance.