LuC1ll3atTh3Wh33L wrote: »

i'm not trying to stir the pot. i just don't get it. why all the noise?
short answer please.
respectfully, luci

ESO players have differing preferences.
More news at ten.

LuC1ll3atTh3Wh33L wrote: »

for a while now i've been reading threads about class balance and how sub-classing ruined both balance and lore.
the balance part i cannot address from any technical standpoint, i'm not a smart monkey, but i love being able to pull from other skill lines. i don't care if my build is cookie-cutter. i'm having fun with it. i also experiment with abilities to see what flows for me best. i was able to find a gear set that's been working for almost a year now. i suspect that will change in the next. i don't feel off-balanced when i play. only thing i don't do are trials and pvp. why is balance important to you? more importantly, what is balance to you? is the balance issue just a pvp issue or is it also pve?
regarding lore... i cannot find any documentation that mentions restrictions to class. i found some fan lore but that's not official lore.
i'm not trying to stir the pot. i just don't get it. why all the noise?
short answer please.
respectfully, luci

When classes and sets are well balanced, there are multiple viable builds and play styles. But rn, most people just beam through everything, removing not only any semblance of challenge, but also the diversity of builds. PvE wise I find it dull and boring. Ofc, you can play your own build given you don’t play the hardest content. PvP wise the issue is similar - you cannot nowadays beat a player in a meta build with off-meta, even if both of you have exactly the same skill. You can only delete a total noob wearing meta, but lacking the understanding of how to use it.
Balance therefore is a situation where multiple approaches are similarly efficient - for example, pure class vs subclass, or more combinations of skill lines in subclassing.

If you love fighting mostly hurricane wardens in pvp it is a dream come true. Unfortunately it is not my preference.

LuC1ll3atTh3Wh33L wrote: »

for a while now i've been reading threads about class balance and how sub-classing ruined both balance and lore.
the balance part i cannot address from any technical standpoint, i'm not a smart monkey, but i love being able to pull from other skill lines. i don't care if my build is cookie-cutter. i'm having fun with it. i also experiment with abilities to see what flows for me best. i was able to find a gear set that's been working for almost a year now. i suspect that will change in the next. i don't feel off-balanced when i play. only thing i don't do are trials and pvp. why is balance important to you? more importantly, what is balance to you? is the balance issue just a pvp issue or is it also pve?
regarding lore... i cannot find any documentation that mentions restrictions to class. i found some fan lore but that's not official lore.
i'm not trying to stir the pot. i just don't get it. why all the noise?
short answer please.
respectfully, luci

Tried to keep it as short as I could, but wanted to give explanations for why I say certain things:

Good for you for having fun with it (this is not sarcastic), but many others evidently don't really share the feeling (including myself).

I've been playing necromancer since I started the game, I want to play pure necromancer, as it was u45, but I cannot, because in the name of subclassing nerfs came in and everything (mainly beam) got so overtuned that you just feel like a dead weight if you don't comply and subclass.

Balance for me is freedom. A freedom of choice where you won't be punished for "all the incorrect answers when only one correct answer exists".

As someone whose primary focus is endgame combat: both PvP and PvE.

In PvP you cannot really compete if you don't play meta or really close to meta. Try being a pure necromancer that is not just an unkillable tank build; there is just no way realistically to do anything of value other than standing on ram in Cyro and dying to all the crit stacking one shot machines that you can only hit back with a wet cardboard box (if you are pure cro).

In PvE it gets old seeing the exact same builds being everywhere, and knowing you can break your back trying to compete with it, you just cannot (which by the way was hard, but possible before subclassing). It's just boring, disappointing and disheartening. And as a sidenote if you are interested in doing harder content mostly HM trials or trying to get into a trial trifecta group: good luck applying as anything but meta. It's incredibly restrictive and demotivating.

Plus the immense powercreep that came along with subclassing made almost all mechanics nonexistent on normal and veteran, so at this point why not just put training dummies in trial and dungeon waiting areas and if you can parse it down you get all associated achievement of said trial or dungeon. (Yes I do know there are unskippable mechs still existing, but understand what I'm trying to say) No challenge left when everything just burns, and with no challenge comes boredom and apathy.

I think the best way to implement balance is the rock–paper–scissors model. Different things are better in different situations: one thing can be strong for single-target damage, another for AoE, another for defense, etc.

In our case, we also have beam added to this equation, and beam is better than everything else. It is by far the best AoE spell in the game. It is also very strong for single-target damage, has huge range, and provides you with a shield. You might think that if it’s so strong, it must be the hardest to use or have a high skill ceiling, but it doesn’t.

Thormar wrote: »

LuC1ll3atTh3Wh33L wrote: »

i'm not trying to stir the pot. i just don't get it. why all the noise?
short answer please.
respectfully, luci

ESO players have differing preferences.
More news at ten.

Film at 11.

LuC1ll3atTh3Wh33L wrote: »

thank you all for your time. i appreciate your feedback.
from what i've read (not just here) it's in trials and in pvp where lack of balance is most noticeable. 2 things i don't participate in with any regularity.
i'm part of a guild that does weekly trials. i can do them but it's just too darn bright when everyone attacks. when i'm running with my guild i don't notice any balance issues. it's a great guild.
i don't do pvp because it causes me a munch-load of anxiety and frustration. from what i've read over the years i'm not alone in this feeling.
this might get some feathers riled up but i enjoy "god-mode". i enjoy being able to slay mobs quickly and lots of them (darn you zos for capping the # of targets i can beam to death).
thanks for keeping it simple for me.

It affects dungeons a lot too. The thing is, though, that you're not going to see it because of the content you're doing. People who fully optimize their builds are skipping more mechanics than ever before (on the highest difficulty level!) and the difficulty of those builds needed to skip mechanics are decreasing. Arguably, this is fine because it's making content more accessible but it's removing mechanics that the teams at ZOS worked hard to create and devaluing achievements. There's also the side of people being able to play what they want whilst still being effective, but that's more of a person problem than a balance problem-- we look back at times previous and say "oh, well, a good nightblade could still outparse an arcanist" but there's been class-stacking typically-enforced metas for as long as I remember (though yes, I understand it's worse now because non-subclassed physically cannot do as much damage or buffing as subclassed). PvP imbalance I think is more important because it's making people invulnerable which isn't in the spirit of PvP.

Subclassing didn't give you the god-mode you speak of, Arcanist, power creep from sets, and ZOS poorly scaling difficulty did that. Subclassing did introduce power creep, but killing a lot of things quickly was absolutely possible in previous years.