Hybridization and it's Consequences.

WittyWindwalker · April 2023

I think many of us have been patiently waiting to see how hybridization would change the game and assess the results based on actual experience over several patches. I'm one of those, maybe I'm alone, but I doubt it.

Across the board on an overwhelming number of websites, content creators and end game players' META's have, unfortunately, become quite close to the result as was anticipated. We have nearly the same build for all magicka and stamina characters as well as doing the same across all classes. What that means is that the META in ESO has become the same in just about all PvE content for damage dealers. This is usually Relequen and Pillar of Nirn. The idea behind, "play as you want and how you want" is pretty much smashed in the face for end game PvE content. It has made LESS choice not more. I was not alone in predicting this would happen in circles on Xbox NA. We have given this hybrid stuff enough time and experimentation now.

Personally, I hate it; 100%; FULL STOP.

I'd like to hear what the community thinks about this topic now that we have considerable time under our belt with hybridization.

CoronHR · April 2023

i feel the same way. the meta builds are almost exactly the same for all the classes now.

i've played eso for 4-5 years now and i'm able to look through sets and mix and match outside the meta if i want a build that's more fun but still get good dps. for example, with mag warden, you can go all in on frost. with mag sorc, you can go all in with shock, although it doesn't work as well as warden. i'd like to do with with stam blades and dks with the poison route at some point, or all in on bleed. so for some characters, i reject the meta and just do what i want.

but yeah, if you look at all the build sites, like alcast for example, the builds are so very much the same. very little difference from one dd to the next. it wasn't quite like that before hybridisation, although i think many builds even back then were repetitive. alcast and most other sites do give you some optional sets to peruse and they explain how you can make the most of them, so there's that

Browiseth · April 2023

so...basically nothing has changed

the "meta" doesn't really matter to most players, but a shift from 2 meta builds (stam and mag) to 1 good build (hybrid) really isn't that much of a difference, in comparison to the huge change hybridization presents for players playing at a lower level. now a lot more combinations of skills are, while not "the best thing", much more viable.

so when you say the "play as you want" philosophy has been damaged, i wonder if you are playing a completely different game to me. and maybe you are, maybe you exclusively play at the highest level of play and so you feel you've been pidgeonholed into using "the best thing"

but, if that is the case, and i do realise it's an assumption on my part, try to remember that there are more people who play this game than endgame players, and that players focused on using "the best thing" make up a very small portion of the playerbase

DUTCH_REAPER · April 2023

As a player who has returned for a little dive back into ESO I must say, at least from a pvp standpoint, the builds that are unkillable and can do damage…those builds would have never existed before bc you had to pick stam or mag and go full in. I think pvp has suffered a lot from this hybrid implementation

AcadianPaladin · April 2023

I like hybridization just fine. I quite like the ability to slot a 'stam dump' skill or two on my mages or a 'mag dump' skill or two on my archers. Not only does it provide a larger palette of usable skills to choose from but eases sustain challenges.

Freelancer_ESO · April 2023

I don't really think build diversity is something that one should really expect at the top of the games.

The reality is that amount of hours the people at the top of the game are putting into breaking the games balance massively exceeds the amount of time the developers are putting in to balancing around the top.

This virtually always means that the top of the game is going to find a balance issue and then will shift to utilizing it.

As many games such as ESO don't get many balance changes, it's likely the game will spend far more time being unbalanced than it will being balanced.

Sure, ZOS could try putting their thumb on the scale and make an additional meta build for each class but, it can be hard to be subtle about doing it which can easily break the illusion that you can play what you want at lower levels of optimization and you can end up missing and either not reaching the point where it competes or making that class on that build the new meta.

TaSheen · April 2023

I don't have a problem with hybridization. Then again, I have zero interest in "endgame" - so my statement is certainly suspect from that very narrow perspective.

DocFrost72 · April 2023

Hybridization has been excellent at every tier of play bar the top 5-10%. I'm not so conceited as to say that isn't a problem and shouldn't be addressed, but it is worth considering that for the first time in a long time, every class in the game is sprinkling in abilities they may not have before.

My stamina templar solo build now uses sun fire and solar barrage. I feel a LOT more like a templar, and a lot less like a stam dk or a stam sorc.

My magicka builds now typically take from stamina options, such as echoing vigor on my healer or barbed trap and backbar 2 hander on my dps.

While I can appreciate what you're saying, please also understand that for the majority of players, we're achieving far more build diversity than ever before.

LunaFlora · April 2023

meta isn't the only way to play the game so no there's not less choice. there's actually way more choice and it's awesome!

Snamyap · April 2023

Meta means nothing to me. Hybridisation has opened a lot of possibilities for me and broadened the way I can setup my characters.

If only two sets are viable (viable as in no other combination comes close) then that sounds more like a balancing issue in the itemization than anything else. Especially when both those sets are pretty old.

kadar · April 2023

There is also the trend of eliminating unique mechanics from classes and making them available across the board. Adding an AOE fear to the fighter's guild line and then adding "streak" to the vampire skill line are two examples. Let's just make every class an aesthetic re-skin of the next I guess.

Shagreth · April 2023

I feel like there's no variety nowadays, every build looks the same. It's so ***.

Auzsi · April 2023

Hybridization ruined the game for me and i uninstalled a few month after the update dropped. Completely killed of what remained from build deversity and just made the game boring. I don't understand how did it improved buid variety for non endgame players and why does it matter for them. Before that it was possible to do an actual true hybrid build by putting half of your point in stamina and magicka. (as it should be in a proper TES game) It wasn't optimized but worked for non engame content. Now you either go full stamina or magcika meanwhile both being the same. Basically what you see nowdays is dual wielding dunmer wizards everywhere. True TES feeling. I never heard about a TES game or any rpg where you maxing your magicka or spell power and it incrasing the damage you do with your axe. I slowly understand why a lot's of elder scrolls player hating this game despite of the effort they put into world building and lore.

Faulgor · April 2023

Almost all my characters are still either magicka or stamina builds, possibly with a few off-stat abilities sprinkled in. In most content, anything else is just not sustainable. So not terribly much has changed.
But as has been said already, there are definitely more viable options, while probably fewer optimal ones. However, complaints about narrowing at the top seem a bit dishonest to me; True, you would nominally have best magicka and stamina builds before, whereas now it's mostly a kind of hybrid. But those options mainly just existed on paper, and either magicka or stamina was always favored over the other (remember Elder Staves Online?).

Auzsi wrote: »

Hybridization ruined the game for me and i uninstalled a few month after the update dropped. Completely killed of what remained from build deversity and just made the game boring. I don't understand how did it improved buid variety for non endgame players and why does it matter for them. Before that it was possible to do an actual true hybrid build by putting half of your point in stamina and magicka. (as it should be in a proper TES game) It wasn't optimized but worked for non engame content. Now you either go full stamina or magcika meanwhile both being the same. Basically what you see nowdays is dual wielding dunmer wizards everywhere. True TES feeling. I never heard about a TES game or any rpg where you maxing your magicka or spell power and it incrasing the damage you do with your axe. I slowly understand why a lot's of elder scrolls player hating this game despite of the effort they put into world building and lore.

As a 20-year Elder Scrolls fan, I felt completely the opposite, as the builds possible with hybridization reinvigorated the game for me.
The problems I have with ESO's character system are not due to hybridization, it's the lack of attributes that causes all this nonsensical mess. That, e.g., your damage with Two-Handed abilities depends on your Two-Handed skill and not your magicka and stamina should make intuitive sense to any TES player. What doesn't make sense is that anything should scale with magicka or stamina at all, that the weapon I wield increases the damage of my spells, or that spell and weapon power are functionally identical; A legacy of changing their effects a couple of times during the game's life without actually laying a decent, attribute-based foundation.
IMO they should have done away with spell power, magicka and stamina scaling and just brought back Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, etc. Would have also helped to uncouple healing from damage power, which has been stupid from day 1.

Weckless · April 2023

I understand that endgame isnt the majority but I believe it is absolutely what the game should be balanced around. I could possibly be debated into changing my mind but atm I dont see any reason to balance the game around leveling or questing because balance really doesn't matter much there and those are generally just steps one takes toward endgame which whether a player ever reaches it or not is probably the goal in most cases. If they were more fair in their balancing of skills across mag and stam and didnt make 75% of class skills only have mag morphs and force stam to settle for weapon skills as they did in the past then we wouldn't have had a need for it. I could see leaving passives on weapons and armor hybrid but skills should have stayed. It was better when stam survived off of hots and dodge/block and mag had burst heals and shields imo

Bucky_13 · April 2023

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

As a player who has returned for a little dive back into ESO I must say, at least from a pvp standpoint, the builds that are unkillable and can do damage…those builds would have never existed before bc you had to pick stam or mag and go full in. I think pvp has suffered a lot from this hybrid implementation

Agreed, I really wished ESO would take a page from other MMOs and only let you have one out of these three: tankiness, damage and healing. It creates more interesting PvP when you have more dedicated healers and damage dealers who can nuke enemy players but needs heals from a teammate so they don't die. It's the one thing I miss the most from playing WoW and SWTOR. It was fun to play a PvP healer who hit like a wet noodle but was an important part of the team since I kept everyone else alive.

aaisoaho · April 2023

To say BIS gear at the end game is Relequen and Pillar of Nirn is misleading. Thanks to hybridisation, we have several different gear sets we can consider to be meta. You actually optimise for the encounters themselves, and not every encounter asks for maximal single target dps, for which Pillar and relequen is the best.

To elaborate further, I'll just refer the cheatsheet Skinnycheeks has made:

In reality, most of the time you combine a trial set from the S-tier with a non-trial set from a lower tier. This was enabled by hybridisation.

It also has broadened the finetuning of your build. If you know your group lacks penetration, like you know no one runs Roar of Alkosh, you need to add light armor pieces. A piece of light armor provides 900 penetration and some critical chance. Below penetration cap, these bonuses provides more DPS potential than what a piece of medium armor provides. And above penetration cap, a piece of medium armor provides more than a light armor piece, since medium armor gives weapon/spell damage and critical damage, and at penetration cap, light armor only essentially provide some critical chance.

Yes, builds are now hybridised. Both specs typically use the strongest dots the class has to provide, but in some cases a spec can't sustain the strongest dots. Like stamina DKs can't sustain talons, where as mag DKs can.

Hybridisation also has transformed the way we think about the weapon options. If you can be at melee range, dw/2h takes the crown. But at range, it becomes more of a conondrum for what to use. At range, melee weapons are a no-go. So should you go inferno staff or bow? Inferno staff gives you 10% buff to single target abilities and double the chance of proccing status effects. Bow on the other hand gives you critical chance and 0-12% damage buff depending on the range. On fights where you sometimes need to be at range, inferno becomes better, and on the fights where you can consistently be at max range, bow will be better.

Kendaric · April 2023

Faulgor wrote: »

The problems I have with ESO's character system are not due to hybridization, it's the lack of attributes that causes all this nonsensical mess. That, e.g., your damage with Two-Handed abilities depends on your Two-Handed skill and not your magicka and stamina should make intuitive sense to any TES player. What doesn't make sense is that anything should scale with magicka or stamina at all, that the weapon I wield increases the damage of my spells, or that spell and weapon power are functionally identical; A legacy of changing their effects a couple of times during the game's life without actually laying a decent, attribute-based foundation.
IMO they should have done away with spell power, magicka and stamina scaling and just brought back Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, etc. Would have also helped to uncouple healing from damage power, which has been stupid from day 1.

This can't be stressed often enough. That is how the game should have been designed.

That being said, I'm not a fan of the current hybridization and I'm not an endgame player. It just feels wrong to me to see every DPS set boost weapon and spell damage instead of one or the other.

Hvíthákarl · April 2023

It has definitely lowered the amount of viable meta builds... but I do think it has added a lot of potential outside of it. I don't think they can manage to balance both meta and non meta gameplay so, if you ask me, they should cater to the casual playerbase. I'd prefer a win-win scenario but since it doesn't seem realistic atm...

WrathOfInnos · April 2023

It will be fine once the system is finished. Weapon/Spell damage should just be merged/removed and it can be a single stat called Ability Damage or something. Same for Weapon/Spell Crit, it should simply become one stat called "critical chance".

It's great that we have the choice between two viable morphs now. It always seemed extremely limiting when one morph was just for mag and the other for stam. You picked your main resource, then all skills were mandated. Now we have exponentially more options to customize. Even for meta builds, there is much more depth required to test and even find "the meta", and often parallel builds are discovered that perform effectively the same.

It's not perfect. Some classes do feel pigeonholed into a single build (like Necromancer or Dragonknight), while others have more build diversity. Stamplar and Magplar are significantly different, and the Sorc options maintain some resource identity, even if the balance could use some tweaks. Warden is an absolute mess with class skills requiring certain weapons, and still doing the lowest damage of any class.

I believe hybridization is a step in the right direction. Give it 3-4 more years of painfully slow updates and I bet we'll have a workable system.

SeveN085 · April 2023

Im too sick of Pillar and Relequen being shoved onto us on literally every build. No matter what class you are, no matter if it is stam or mag, it's always these 2 sets.

hexnotic · April 2023

i’ve played magwarden dps for a few years, and am enjoying the hybrid oaken build that my warden has on right now. i have always used pure mag and now can use stam+mag skills and oaken ring makes my character much more viable than it was before. plus my toon has full medium on for the first time ever and it slaps, so for some people the hybridization is definitely a change in pace from what they’ve been playing for years now.

NettleCarrier · April 2023

This is a consequence of players optimizing the fun out of the game, it is not from ZOS's doing. There will always be a "technically best" set at any time unless they just removed all stats from all items. Whether it's a best mag and best stam setup or a best hybrid setup it's the same thing. Yes, 1 is less than 2, but does it really matter? There are probably 30+ sets that perform within 4-5% of the top set, use one if you want to - nobody will care.

WrathOfInnos · April 2023

SeveN085 wrote: »

Im too sick of Pillar and Relequen being shoved onto us on literally every build. No matter what class you are, no matter if it is stam or mag, it's always these 2 sets.

Don't believe the hype. Rele and Pillar are not bad, but also not required, and in many cases not like even the best option. On mag builds the useless lines of max stam bring those sets down.

On magplar for example, Whorl + Deadly is better, and on Magden Whorl + Frostbite outperforms Rele or Pillar. Some Stam builds with a good Weapon Damage multiplier (such as Stamplar and Stamsorc) end up getting better results with Coral Riptide, although it is admittedly harder to use. Sul-Xan and Azureblight are excellent in any fight with adds (where Rele will suffer anyway). Kinras remains a solid option if you don't already have Major Berserk. Runecarver does well on DoT builds. Advancing Yokeda is still great for melee builds (stam or mag), and sets like Tzogvin, Flame Blossom, Aegis Caller, and Gladiator all have niche uses.

Then there are the numerous support sets that add some diversity to the meta, with Alkosh, MK, EC, and Zens.

We're far from a 2 set meta. Those just show up often because they're easy and effective for stamina dummy parses and some single target bosses.

Twig_Garlicshine · April 2023

hahaha

Oh my god it's a 50% reduction....
from 2 sets to 1.
Yea a reduction of ONE.
[snip]

Maybe people should do some set/build testing themselves, it would cut down on the number of click bait articles they fall for.

[edited for bashing]

SeveN085 · April 2023

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

SeveN085 wrote: »

Im too sick of Pillar and Relequen being shoved onto us on literally every build. No matter what class you are, no matter if it is stam or mag, it's always these 2 sets.

Don't believe the hype. Rele and Pillar are not bad, but also not required, and in many cases not like even the best option. On mag builds the useless lines of max stam bring those sets down.

On magplar for example, Whorl + Deadly is better, and on Magden Whorl + Frostbite outperforms Rele or Pillar. Some Stam builds with a good Weapon Damage multiplier (such as Stamplar and Stamsorc) end up getting better results with Coral Riptide, although it is admittedly harder to use. Sul-Xan and Azureblight are excellent in any fight with adds (where Rele will suffer anyway). Kinras remains a solid option if you don't already have Major Berserk. Runecarver does well on DoT builds. Advancing Yokeda is still great for melee builds (stam or mag), and sets like Tzogvin, Flame Blossom, Aegis Caller, and Gladiator all have niche uses.

Then there are the numerous support sets that add some diversity to the meta, with Alkosh, MK, EC, and Zens.

We're far from a 2 set meta. Those just show up often because they're easy and effective for stamina dummy parses and some single target bosses.

Truth be told, I was using Zaan, Rele, AY DW with Maelstrom 2H backbar on Stamdk and was getting 112k. I farmed Pillar out of curiosity, and well - hype, as you said. Transmuted both daggers and jewelry and it gave me the exact same dps. I guess the difference comes out in the actual content, since you won't always maintain full stacks with AY, while Pillar is an easy proc.

olsborg · April 2023

I never used to have a problem with the fact that meta builds were all the same, wich they are atm, very roughly, but now the problem I have is that metabuilds, whichever class it is, is way ahead of anything dabbling in nonmeta builds so you cant rly play as you want anymore if you want to stay competitive. This is especially true for Gray Host etc, but also true for Ravenwatch.

shadyjane62 · April 2023

Hybridization has made ESO boring.

irswat · April 2023

There are more options now, more diversity, for end game pve than ever before. There will always be some setup that is best in slot, often different depending on the encounter.

Kalle_Demos · April 2023

It is truly a shame. The classes and Races once felt unique and meaningful but now after every major patch, we come out the other end with more blandness and less choices than we had before. This is why the dread that comes with every update is a meme now. What beloved aspect of gameplay and flavor from this nearly decade old game, from this decades old series are you going to strip away for no coherent reason THIS time?

Caribou77 · April 2023

Hybridization took PvP from 12 options of class/play style to 6.

And let’s be honest, if you want to be competitive, there are 2 classes.

So yeah, agree with @shadyjane62
Hybridization has made ESO boring