Taking ideas from streamers should probably on the very bottom of the list of things Zos should be doing.

Skinny Cheeks is awesome. I'm not sure how to rate the quality of his proposed changes though. Things for sure are WAY WAY out of balance now, that's for sure. But it seems to me that addressing the handful of the most out of balance sets, like RoA and TN, would be a better start.

Also, from ZOS' perspective, Skinny is already doing the legwork for ZOS by promoting their game, and he's doing it for free. So why should ZOS hire him?

I understand the rework to make balance sets similar in damage making the visual effects attractive, and make tool tips understandable to the layman, but buffing mythics and reducing 5pc sets to three will break the game. Imagine a 12man raid with tanks and healers running twelve buff sets instead of eight (excluding monster).

i adore SkinnyCheeks. he is knowledgeable, passionate, and very intelligent workaholic at the same time.
i resect the labour he applies to ESO. sad that life prefers the wrong turns, but that is life. and luck. or lack of it.

Based on the comments that he's liking, I think we can assume that it was indeed ZOS that he applied for. I can see he feels a bit jaded now.

I like his general idea, Maybe some are just a bit too ambitious and I think the amount of calculations per set and players power would maybe a bit overtuned but I applaud his enthusiasm and passion. I liked that he clearly too tried to tackle both veteran players and players just looking for a easy one bar build. There is something there for everyone. It would def get me excited to see so many sets get a upgrade. everything is stale and boring now. And there are little incentives to play the game as the current state just has so little fun ingame rewards. When I first started playing I loved thinking of new set combinations. these days I don't even bother because I know it's a waste of time as so many are just plain bad or not viable for group content.

Lots of cool ideas but I think also really difficult to actually implement without risking even worse server performance. Def looking forward to his full excel sheets once he releases it.

sarahthes wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Taking ideas from streamers should probably on the very bottom of the list of things Zos should be doing.

Why?

Mainly because most content creators are hypercompetitives that have little good to say about the casual audience....if you need receipts I can post you some chat logs with @ZOS_GinaBruno permission.

sarahthes wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Taking ideas from streamers should probably on the very bottom of the list of things Zos should be doing.

Why?

Exactly as a couple here pointed out. It's the 1% trying to balance the game to their liking. If you played Destiny 1 and 2, this is what those devs ended up doing, following 1% to "balance" when streamer(s) (literally, no joke) cried on stream about the game not to their liking.

alternatelder wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Taking ideas from streamers should probably on the very bottom of the list of things Zos should be doing.

Why?

Exactly as a couple here pointed out. It's the 1% trying to balance the game to their liking. If you played Destiny 1 and 2, this is what those devs ended up doing, following 1% to "balance" when streamer(s) (literally, no joke) cried on stream about the game not to their liking.

I think I across a video with something like that a while back.

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

Ideas should be judged on their merits. Some streamers have terrible ideas, others have great ideas, some players on the forum have great ideas, others have terrible ideas. ZOS, for better and worse, seems hear feedback but do their own thing regardless.

.

I can agree with this.

sarahthes wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Taking ideas from streamers should probably on the very bottom of the list of things Zos should be doing.

Why?

Because streamers don't speak for us, sure they have ideas, but so do the non-streamers who use this forum to contact the developers. ZOS should focus on communicating with PvP/PvE guild masters, including getting information on the forums.

Hybridize wd/sd into a new stat (e.g. Damage, Power, etc)
Agree and also hybridize weapon and spell crit. Update the classes that have unique weapon/spell passives, hybridize food/drink, and repurpose The Warrior or The Apprentice to something else.

Round off values (e.g. 129 wd/sd -> 120 wd/sd)
Disagree. Rounding off non-percentage based stat values doesn't make them any more digestible due to the way the combat system works with MaxPower/MaxStat. Additionally, having precision at the first digit makes it seem like there is a mathematical intent to that number.

Show critical chance percent on tooltips instead of the backing value. (657 crit -> 3% crit)
Agree.

Redesign sets to focus on 1-3pc + 5pc final bonus
Disagree. The idea isn't bad and if this was for a new game then it could work. But it's not worth it to go back and redesign every set. This would be an expensive effort for dev/test and would upset the community because almost everyone's builds would change. Any ideas for set changes presented in the video should only be considered for future sets.

Going through every set in the game all the way up to Update 44 is an unnecessary amount of work. More focus should have been spent on the cost-benefit analysis and redesigning only a few sets would have been enough to explain the ideas.

Much respect to SkinnyCheeks for putting his heart and soul into the interview, his content creation, and overall passion for the game.

This is the only post I've seen.

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Hybridize wd/sd into a new stat (e.g. Damage, Power, etc)

Show critical chance percent on tooltips instead of the backing value. (657 crit -> 3% crit)
Agree.

If I'm not mistaken, the crit number vs. percentage is there, in part, so people are not confused that stacking crit lines is additive and not multiplicative. I guess they could change the way servers calculate crit so that 300 crit = 3%, but i digress.

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

I think it looks like an absolutely incredible effort but, I think it might not necessarily be an ideal fit. But, it's possible that with more detail and context it is a better fit.

For example, the big reason I've done many of the dungeons lots of times is because I need specific items to be able to run the combination of five piece sets that I want. If you drop down to needing three pieces for a set that would be a significant reduction in the number of runs people would need to do.

Many of the sets I glanced at quickly in the video appear to have an increase in power per piece which may drive the gap between players that are running an optimized build and those with a garbage build even higher.

With the single piece set bonuses on everything you'd also potentially have the question of why even have items that aren't part of a set exist at all.

Further, the change to three piece would mean that everyone with an existing build would need to redo their build if they wanted to optimize on every character. You could end up hitting the point where some people just throw in the towel and just toss on the Torc of the Last Ayleid King.

While it is true that reducing the set requirement to needing three would make it easier for people that are questing to get a full set the same thing could be achieved by just making the quest rewards all be set items.

Personally, my confusion with stats tends to be less about the number displayed and more about what the number displayed does. If I was adjusting for confusion I'd be focusing more on making it clear what x or y does and making sure x or y is actually good at something. Much of the time stamina and magicka lines on items feel like a less effective and more inconvenient version of weapon and spell damage.

I think that the amount of people who only run a dungeon to get only the pieces they absolutely need and not more than that is not large enough to make a difference in the amount of people doing dungeons. Even now dungeons that have no good sets to begin with see a bunch of play.

There isn't really a reason for non set items to exist even now in my opinion. They are only there to be deconstructed or sold.

I think the move to 3 piece sets would reduce the gap between strong and weak builds compared to what it is right now. Especially if the proc sets are balanced with each other to have the same, or at least close enough the same dps. In the current state of the game if you opt to use a non meta set, you are at a much greater disadvantage because now half of your build is objectively weaker than it could be. With three sets the weight of one set would of course be reduced. In addition this would also make niche, but good sets more viable, since it would lower your base power nearly as much as it does right now. For example Kvatch Gladiator, it does have its uses right now in the game, but you will be playing effectively without a second set, meaning almost half of your kit, for 75% of the fight, which leads to many players not using this set even in situations where it is effective. Also there is a problem with build variety in dungeons and trials due to having to run a Minor Slayer set, this of course limits your choices to one trial set and one non trial set, and the vast majority of even okay sets will never see use no matter how cool they are or how thematic they are because of how much of a loss in power it would be to use them.
Of course there would be some new top tier sets that see more use than other sets, that will always be the case, but if the balancing of the sets would be done as Skinny mentioned in the video and how he had done it in his examples, there would be much less of a gap in builds compared to what it is right now.

Major set and combat change like this would of course drive away some players, but so will any major change in the game. I think this would be so much better for the health of the game in long term. But limiting changes just because there will be some players who can't be bothered to adjust and choose to leave is just so extremely short sighted.

In the current state of the game the devs are way too scared to add any new interesting and meta shifting sets. The last time we saw something like that was on High Isle with the introduction of Pillager's Profit. This will get even worse if the changes on PTS go through in this state. They are even further limiting the choices of viable builds from the current ~5-8 sets (highly depending on class) to ~2-4, with the worst offenders being Arc and DK, with Arc who now is going to use Deadly Strikes on all encounters paired with either Coral Riptide or Sul-Xan. DK will lose two viable sets forcing them to use Runecarver on every single boss encounter.
What this means is that the set design is just going to the wrong direction right now and a drastic change in set design philosophy is greatly needed.

I don't really get this "It's a bad idea to balance around the 1%" mindset either in this case. None of these proposed changes are solely focused on endgame content. What I've mentioned about the sets applies to all levels of content, in easier content and more relaxed groups people just don't care. But even with these changes you can continue not caring about group compositions and nothing will change for you. I understand people being against having too much of your damage behind LA weaving and high cps etc. and even if I would love to see more of that, I don't think it would be healthy for the game. But the changes Skinny proposed are none of that. A more interesting and interactive set design and philosophy would benefit everyone, no matter your skill level.