merpins wrote: »

1. One of the main problems I have in ESO is, at end game, there's only a couple optimal choices when it comes to your gear. All sets that aren't being used should be reworked or buffed to match the power of all the sets that are being used. Making builds in games like this is fun, but we are pretty limited on what we can actually build, since we all know what's actually optimal. This shouldn't be the case.

> All sets that aren't being used should be reworked or buffed to match the power of all the sets that are being used

Impossible. It's literally impossible to balance even 100 sets to be "the same" power level. What does that even mean when all sets can be worn by all classes and all roles, have different proc conditions, can be used with an infinite combinations of Skills?!? META & BIS is unavoidable.

Hack > Only like 20/400 sets are worthwhile
Hack > It's almost impossible to introduce a new 5 piece set. They're either gonna be OP, BIS or another 1 of the 350 sets no one ever touches

In principle, I totally love that ESO has 400 different sets. I think it's great that players can build and run whatever their creative juices can come up with! For years, I've been an advocate of Overland sets being designed for new players, so it's ok that the power level is lower. Players should want to pick them up and run with them until they get more experience! I like that there are tons of ways to build and different procs and effects and buffs! It's great that ESO has all of these diverse sets!

HOWEVER, that isn't reality. The reality of the situation is that those 20/400 sets are totally accessible early in the game. With online guides, players already start the game KNOWING what to go get!! They can buy BIS sets from guild traders, or just ask a friend to craft Order's Wrath! Or run Normal Trials for one weekend to get all of the Relequen they need. No one is picking up random Overland/Dungeon Sets, playing with them for a couple days until they find something better! That's the dream world, and I wish it were like that, but it isn't reality.

In reality, players are just using Orders Wrath/Hundings Rage/Law of Julianos until CP 160, then humping 2 dungeons until they get meta sets/Monster sets, then humping normal Trials until they get whatever AlcastHQ told them to get, then humping Arenas until they get whatever Weapon their build needs, then grinding Leads until they get the Mythic the online video told them to get. No one is using the "designed to be low power" sets that make up 200/400 because, why should they? The early game (200/400 sets) is a total mess driven by accessibility improvements created to get players into the end game ASAP.

I OFTEN talk about how much I love Antiquities. I really liked Mythics because of the extra effort that it takes to search the game for Leads and collect items while playing ESOs myriad of combat! Plus, Mythics did something great by mixing up how players build! Arena weapons are in the exact same way! Even knowing the 15/400 sets, there can be a Mythic or Arena Weapon mixture that brings in another 20 sets to become "viable" for the creative player.

Unfortunately, that's where it stops. ESO has 7 unique classes now, but we still have DPS/Healer/Tank roles. Even amongst the classes, many sets are shared as BIS between the classes and roles. There just isn't enough uniqueness between classes to really make each class have their own BIS sets. Class sets were supposed to be that new area that could really mix things up in the same way Arena Weapons and Mythics did! ATM, the biggest division for BIS sets is Mag vs Stam, and even that distinction is being eroded.

merpins wrote: »

2. Add more gear slots. Hack the Minotaur recently made a video on this, outlining his positive opinion on it. He recommended a specific slot for the new class altering sets from the Infinite Archive. This is nice, but I don't totally agree with that: personally, this should just be a toggleable power you earn from the archive, rather than a set bonus of any kind. What I mean by gear slots would be more ring or necklace slots (one or two additional slots total, no more than 3) and possibly a mythic item slot. This would add more itemization to the game by just letting us equip more stuff, and having a dedicated mythic slot would make everyone really think about mythic items and what benefits their build most, since you'd be missing out if you didn't use one.

Hack > The solution is to add more gear slots
Hack > You wouldn't even need to change your build at all, just use these new class slots

I completely disagree with Hack's idea of a new Class gear slot. I don't think this solves the issue of helping the other 350/400 sets become viable and help to erode the bloat. You would just have a BIS class slot... and you've fixed nothing. There isn't any compromise that a build will need to make to add a Class set. They won't need to mix and match. You would just be able to add a Class set and immediately become better. Why wouldn't the same 15/400 sets be used, just now with a Class set slot?

I would be interested in seeing new gear slots in the future (earrings, tiaras, underwear, whatever)... but I just don't see how they could do that. They'd need to go back and add in 400 new items for each set, update the zones and drop tables. I just can't see them do that.

I think in the short term, 3 piece sets are the answer. Class sets would have been PERFECT for that design too. ZOS could have released tons of Class sets in the future and players would have even more complex ways of building out their character; mixing and matching and trying to come up with unique combinations that may be BIS for one class, but not another.

I think in the long term, adding new Weapon Skill lines are the answer. Weapon Skill lines ARE the subclasses of ESO and drive diversity. Different weapon builds can drive different build designs and bring in more viable sets. Many players chose weapons like they chose class: because they like that weapon. That decision, combined with class, can bring in different set options. Sets should be more niche too. We have too many generically good sets. They proc on "deals damage" or "takes damage" and they are much stronger then they should be. We need more niche proc sets like "deals Bleed Damage" or "deals damage with a 2 Handed Weapon".

While I like your idea of reducing the set bonus from 5 to 4 and having just a single piece give a bonus. I think an interesting concept would be expanding the amount of sets we can use at a time to really make each build more unique and harder to replicate. What I mean by this is, allow sets to be "merged" so you can essentially have double the amount of sets equipped per character, but in any combination the player chooses. Basically an overhaul to how gear works so players can collect sets and apply the bonuses on top of another set they may have equipped.

For example, lets say I want to use Defiler's, Essence Thief and A monster set. Right now I can do that. But lets say I also want to use Gryphon's reprisal and Scavenging Demise too. I propose a system where we can transfer the set bonuses from these 2 extra sets to the sets I would have equipped. So my Medium Chest, Gloves, Belt, Boots and Legs become Defiler's/Demise. My Weapons and Jewelry become Thief/Reprisal.

I think this as a concept, while in need of refinement, would provide a really interesting adjustment to the meta and allow more class/player fantasy to be exercised through our builds. It would also allow more of the vast number of sets in the game to actually be used. Because while a set may not be the ideal choice on its own, it might be attractive as a buff to a more attractive set.

Opens a can of worms balance wise but I think the fun factor outweighs that.

Totally agree that they need to start reworking old sets, but I disagree that it should come in a massive overhaul all at once.

What I think should happen is that rather than releasing 5 new sets each patch, they should start reworking 10 old sets (or however many). Like you said, there are hundreds of unused sets - and there are even sets that offer the exact same 5th piece bonus as others.

They've introduced new conditions into the game over the years that would allow for much more creativity when creating 5th pieces, such as "while under the effects of battle spirit" (I.e in PVP only) or "increases damage done against monsters" (i.e PVE only). I think it would be hugely beneficial for the game for them to start applying these specific conditions more liberally, as it'll enable them to be balanced separately in the two realms of the game (something people have been asking for practically since launch).

Incetivizing people to return to old content is good too, when it isn't in the context of "we aren't upgrading your vMA weapons to perfected, sorry not sorry!".

Are there really 20 viable sets and 380 useless sets? Or are there 20 sets that add 10,000 DPS and 380 sets that add 9,990 DPS? Or 20 meta sets and 20 awful sets and 360 hovering in the close-but-not-quite-meta area. At end game, everyone is going to use the best sets, even when they are only 0.01% better. And there is simply no way to make 400 sets all exactly the same power. An overhaul of those 380 sets would just stir up the meta and 20 new sets would shake out as best for various roles/styles of play. ZOS would attempt to make 380 sets equal to the best 20, but they would inevitably overshoot and undershoot a few sets and, voila, there is your new meta.

And adding new gear slots or reducing 5-piece bonuses to 4-piece bonuses would just allow for even more combinations, some of which will overperform and become the new meta. Except now it will be a longer and harder process to farm meta gear because it will now involve more sets.

This also sounds like it has the potential for a lot of power creep if we have new slots, and powerful bonuses with less pieces of gear worn.

Unless you use automated alterations the meta at the top is probably always going to be believed to be solved. We frequently see people think they solve updates on the PTS before they hit live.

More diversity would likely be possible for people that don't min-max that far with some changes but, those aren't necessarily going to be popular.

If you've got a few items that are beating out the others the easy solution is to just nerf them.

There's about 20 BiS sets, and probably about another 30-40 "potential" sets that have niche uses or still perform in their designated role, but cannot match the power of the BiS sets, then there's the rest.

The rest suffer from multiple issues.
Some good examples of each issue respectively above are as follows:
How to fix these issues ranges a lot between the different sets, but for the above examples respectively, it could be as follows:
One final thing that would help a lot is fixing the imbalance of the different Armor weights - light armor is currently the worst of the 3 weights and it's not even close.

@Turtle_Bot nails it as usual.

I don't mind the duplicate sets like leviathan and mothers sorrow since they are different weights, but crafted sets hunding / julianos is really pointless. just pick one and change the 2pc bonus to double stat or something good for both.

light armour sucks and badly needs some buffs. the main disadvantage of mag builds is needing the sustain of light armour. the funny thing is that this issue has partially been resolved by the bow changes. the fact that the best way to play a ranged mag build is with a bow and not a destro staff so you can run more medium armour, on a magicka build, is hilarious to me.
something is clearly broken here.

other sets just feel like traps to new players to me. a good example is spider cultist. you can pack as many destro staff skills onto the bar as possible and you'd still be better off just running julianos. this set is just straight up, objectively bad.
I feel bad for anyone who uses it because they are all "i'm using a destro staff and skills, so it should be a perfect fit right?"

then there are sets like spelunker which i'm left wondering exactly under what situation you're meant to run this. it's a medium set, but it's terrible for dps, it's terrible for support. it's a weak sustain set that requires you to spam out synergies for other people from the undaunted line? like, what?

and it's not just base game sets. Talfyg's Treachery is just a bad version of julianos, or an even worse version of new moon acolyte. just, why?

someone at ZoS needs to get a list of every sets for which the 5pc bonus equates to +300ish spell/weapon damage and work out why they even exist in the first place. when they nerfed CP and granted everyone +1000 weapon/spell damage the value of these sets decreased. the difference between 300 and 372 spell damage went from %15 of your total to 10% of your total. it has less impact now than when it was released.

if you're willing to lean hard into a skill line like destro staff to make a set like spider cultist then it should be much stronger than julianos with literally the same build.

the fact that builds that handicap you in some way don't compete in the most favourable setups is tragic.

also i'm just going to throw out there that for some reason silks of the sun has the same 5pc bonus as netch's touch, except in theory a DK could run all fire skills however a sorc can't run all lightning skills. the sets are the same, but the ability to USE them isn't the same. they shouldn't have the same numbers because one can be fully utilised and the other can't. It's so stupid to "balance" sets in isolation like that.
never mind the fact that an all fire build is STILL better off running something generic anyway!

I just want frost-based proc sets to be meta for Ice Wardens. Elemental power fantasy should be able to be met even in end game. Nightblades should have a strong synergy with a shadowy damage proc set or effect. Templars should have a holy sun set (like their class set, but maybe tuned up a little bit). Dragonknights should have their flame damage set, like Valkyn Skoria was before it was nerfed into the ground. Necromancers should have a set that provides extra animations to compliment their undead asthetic. Sorcerers and Wardens need POWERFUL sets that lean into their class' main elements.

One way things could be made more diverse is to make the niche sets more viable. E.g take a set like Sword-singer which has a bonus for two-handed and bring it up to par, so two-handed users want to use it. Do the same for each weapon line, and that includes separate sets for fire/ice/lightning staves. Synergies with class or race could multiply the combinations. How about a set specifically for Redguard Nightblade dual-wielding swordsmen? Or Dunmer Arcanist fire mages?

And maybe stop adding more to the pile? There are already too many sets. I could understand adding new ones if the old ones were set in stone, but the nerfs do happen. Go back and rework sets, starting with the ones nobody uses.