Do you think ZOS can achieve class balance in the refresh without extensive community support?

moderatelyfatman · January 15

Dear Community,
I'm excited by the news coming out from the Class Refresh program but also concerned, given past performance.
Years ago, we used to have the Class Representative Program where highly experienced community members were brought in to provide feedback on class changes and balancing. This program was cancelled in June 2022 and was followed soon after by Patch 35 and many of the worst changes in the game.
My main concern is that ZOS has not reinstated this program. What I'm learning about these changes (e.g. the DK) are from content creators (such as Hyperioxes) going onto the PTS. This, in my opinion, is way way way too late in the game since only minor changes occur from the PTS.
I am seriously worried that we are going to keep having the same problems with classes as we have had in the past.

What do you think?

Announcement of the Class Representative Program, 2018
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/400641/eso-class-representative-program/p1

Shelving of program, June 2022
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/608270/eso-class-rep-program-status/p1

Personofsecrets · January 15

No

They haven't achieved balance in the past 10 years. Signs point to no, that won't change.

DestroyerPewnack · January 15

No

If they listened to the community, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. 😅
I suppose there's also something to be said about listening to the right kind of players. Getting Vengeance feedback from PvE players, for example, is also a bad idea. Maybe we need forum member tags, to show how many hours each player has spent in PvP, trials, and dungeons, and which classes/subclasses they use the most. That way, we can assign the appropriate weight to each player's opinions.

Aylish · January 15

No

The good thing is: They know that and they actively ask for our support to make the class system better.
They look for Warden players at the moment to give them input for Warden‘s class refresh, which comes next after the DK.

Zodiarkslayer · January 15

Not sure

I am not sure. That is because of the nature of PTS and not necessarily the competency of ZOS. The ESO PTS is not a well conceived feedback tool.

Where in theory a lot of players could give feedback based on their individual testing, the reality is that both the time to assess that and the quality of the feedback itself aren't enough. Let alone the time to implement.

And that is not even considering that many players that are using the PTS, will only play content early and give no feedback at all.

Gabriel_H · January 15

Not sure

There is an old adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

No game ever achieves perfect balance, in part because no encounter is designed the same. Some classes will do better in heavy DoT encounters, others in heavy AoE or block - and that's just in PvE, adding in the PvP elements and it becomes a competing demand from players who seem to think (or don't care) that altering a PvE part won't impact PvP or vice-versa. The only solution to that is homogenisation at which point you've erased class identity in what is at its core an RPG.

ZOS should listen to player feedback of course, but the weight of that feedback should not be skewed towards any one individual, and should not be part of the initial development - see adage above - because the risk of breaking a class for the majority of those who play it is actually increased not decreased.

moderatelyfatman · January 15

Not sure

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There is an old adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Mate, there are exceptions....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

SkaiFaith · January 15

Yes

Voted yes because it's my hope - I think ideally they should be able to do so without "EXTENSIVE community support". Some support and insight? Yes, sure. But not that we should basically do their job.
This judgement isn't limited to this game but it applies to any, really.

SummersetCitizen · January 15

Not sure

We all know what *we* want to see. Many times we cannot agree with each other.

I am not sure how to go about it and please everyone.

BardokRedSnow · January 15

Yes

The community is too divided, people here dont even know what they want half the time or chime in on things they know nothing about and get changes made that should never have been implemented.

I like that they listen to the community for general suggestions, saying subclassing needs a counter or balancing act, saying we need to keep greyhost, say that classes need a refresh. Nerf healing...

However after seeing the changes to DK especially in the pts, when it comes to balance I trust their judgement on the specifics. That's where the community typically is torn and I think they should keep their decisions in house on. They're good changes and itll make pvp a lot more fun if they stay consistent.

General ideas, community is good for. Specifics, not so much.

SummersetCitizen · January 15

Not sure

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

General ideas, community is good for. Specifics, not so much.

I agree with this.

Broad sourcing for creative ideas, but listen to player’s specifics for bugs and easily fixable items.

Wolfshade · January 15

Not sure

There came always good Ideas from the Community, but even in 2018 and in the following years was clearly to see, that there are a lot different playertypes were playing the game. So the direction the representatives go for, was in many cases not what RPG or TES players liked.

If you are going to endgame-raiding, you clearly see wich impact it had and that was not way many players liked or prefered.

So, not sure... cause on wich part from playerbase should ZOS listen and go for without depressing the others.

Destai · January 15

No

Just given their track record with the game, I voted "no".

They've had some pretty alarming ideas (U35) and sweeping changes (U46) that disrupted the game and its communities quite acutely. There's also been this historical pattern of spreadsheet balancing, rather than looking at what's fun. Based on recent statements, this seems like it's changing, so we'll know better after this year. Lastly, there's been a few times, on stream, where combat developers haven't portrayed the best knowledge of how their system work from the end user.

But all that aside, no client-facing system can be delivered without client input. Regardless of the system, the end user is the best person(s) to provide insight how the system actually feels. Especially with combat, if you have people who work on it but don't really play, their perspectives are different than those that do.

rothan117 · January 15

Yes

From what I have seen across multiple MMOs, the community cannot even agree on what they think is balanced. Often, there are many who are pushing to have their pet class or build favored to become to the meta rather than actual balance.

And the classes in MMOs are very difficult to balance, and the more classes, abilities and things like armor sets that are added, the harder it gets. Balance will never be perfect, it will always be a task that involves fixing the most glaring problems and leaving others for later, or never.

BXR_Lonestar · January 15

No

They can't achieve class balance even WITH community support. Balance is such an ambiguous word or idea to begin with. What does balance even mean in this game? Is balance where all the game's classes can do the same amount of DPS, and have support tool kits that are equally desirable? Or is it where if any 2 classes face off in PVP, assuming equally skilled players, each class is going to win 50 out of 100 fights against the other? Before this game can even be "balanced," we need to define what balance should look like so that you know what the objective is that you are shooting for - and I sincerely doubt that this community that has competing interests - pve vs pvp, casual vs. hardcore, etc., that you would ever come up with a unanimous or universal definition of what balance should look like.

IMO, I think subclassing, in part, was their attempt to "balance" everything by giving everyone access to the same skill lines, passives, abilities, etc. But all that did was through balance off even more because the distance between the meta and the off-meta builds has never been greater. I think it is apparent that, as implemented, subclassing was a major mistake. Even those who enjoy it can admit that the system, as implemented, is completely broken (just because something is fun does not mean it isn't broken). IMO, you can't fix what is broken without undoing subclassing as it has been currently implemented because it is central to the balance problem, just like I think hybridization is part of the same problem.

This game has the assets where we could make each class have truly unique and exciting builds for each class, but as it currently stands, if you want to make a competitive DPS character, there are just a handful of sets that you can use, and that is across EVERY class because every class uses the same paradigm for doing damage (we're talking PVE): build for high crit chance and high crit damage, maintain high uptime on DoTs, light attack weave, use a high damage spamable, hit with a hard hitting execute in execute range. TO achieve the best results, there's like 5-10 sets at most that you can use. Gone are the days where you could achieve high damage with a pet sorc using 2 max mag sets. You can no longer use sets like War maidens on classes that favor magic damage abilities to get high damage numbers. All the damage builds are pretty much the same regardless of what class you run.

The class refresh is going to help some with these problems, but IMO, its a bandage that doesn't address the core issues of what is wrong with the combat systems in this game.

Gabriel_H · January 15

Not sure

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There is an old adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Mate, there are exceptions....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Another adage: The exception that proves the rule

Now try addressing the other points I made.

moderatelyfatman · January 15

Not sure

Gabriel_H wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There is an old adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Mate, there are exceptions....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Another adage: The exception that proves the rule

Now try addressing the other points I made.

No problem. One of the things I often hear is the phrase 'there will always be a meta' in response to the arcanist beam meta. Yes, there will always be a meta and yes, it is not possible to perfectly balance classes.

Your statement about different classes having different strengths is a good one but have we seen that over the last three years? I'd be delighted if ZOS made it so that each class had a unique playstyle and balanced the meta for each one of these classes in actual content so that they were within 10% of each other. Seven metas is way better than one.

Gabriel_H · January 15

Not sure

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There is an old adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Mate, there are exceptions....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Another adage: The exception that proves the rule

Now try addressing the other points I made.

No problem. One of the things I often hear is the phrase 'there will always be a meta' in response to the arcanist beam meta. Yes, there will always be a meta and yes, it is not possible to perfectly balance classes.

Your statement about different classes having different strengths is a good one but have we seen that over the last three years? I'd be delighted if ZOS made it so that each class had a unique playstyle and balanced the meta for each one of these classes in actual content so that they were within 10% of each other. Seven metas is way better than one.

So that's my first paragraph, to which I will say that is the intent of the class refresh.

So, how about the second one: "ZOS should listen to player feedback of course, but the weight of that feedback should not be skewed towards any one individual, and should not be part of the initial development - see adage above - because the risk of breaking a class for the majority of those who play it is actually increased not decreased. "

Wolfshade · January 15

Not sure

Destai wrote: »

They've had some pretty alarming ideas (U35) and sweeping changes (U46) that disrupted the game and its communities quite acutely.

If you look at the class-balances right after launch or the often named U35, thats what you get when you let ZOS alone manage this things. Look at Endgame raiding 5 years ago, Cro, Sorcs, Warden, Dk then they came with an Arcanist-Class and you saw 12 Arc - Endgamegroups where 10 Players ran the same Setup, later you could see dmg-numbers from 160k by one tick.

And if you look to things that where "community"-driven, Raven, Vengeance, actuall heal-nerf for grey, thats a shame for Eso and those players who didnt accept and see their fails and usually keep going. Then look at Chat, what kind of guilds are recruting there, with housing, crafting, trading, social, ... you can clearly see where their priorities ingame.

Not sure if such guilds manage class-balancing in Endgame or even should.

BardokRedSnow · January 15

Yes

Gabriel_H wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There is an old adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Mate, there are exceptions....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Another adage: The exception that proves the rule

Now try addressing the other points I made.

You gotta stop doing this in every thread

SummersetCitizen · January 15

Not sure

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There is an old adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Mate, there are exceptions....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Another adage: The exception that proves the rule

Now try addressing the other points I made.

You gotta stop doing this in every thread

🙏

Gabriel_H · January 15

Not sure

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There is an old adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Mate, there are exceptions....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Another adage: The exception that proves the rule

Now try addressing the other points I made.

You gotta stop doing this in every thread

Oh heaven forbid when someone engages with a disucssion in a discussion thread they actually address the points made.

Oh the children! Won't somebody please think of the children!

Edit: Just an FYI but you are also factually incorrect. /shrug

Gabriel_H · January 15

Not sure

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There is an old adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Mate, there are exceptions....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Another adage: The exception that proves the rule

Now try addressing the other points I made.

No problem. One of the things I often hear is the phrase 'there will always be a meta' in response to the arcanist beam meta. Yes, there will always be a meta and yes, it is not possible to perfectly balance classes.

Your statement about different classes having different strengths is a good one but have we seen that over the last three years? I'd be delighted if ZOS made it so that each class had a unique playstyle and balanced the meta for each one of these classes in actual content so that they were within 10% of each other. Seven metas is way better than one.

Still not managed it.

redlink1979 · January 15

No

Players can do unpredictable things and AI bots in the internal server can just reproduce programmed/expected behaviors. ZOS needs to listen more often the player community.

wolfie1.0. · January 15

Not sure

I dont think they can do it. With or without community support...

aetherix8 · January 15

No

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Dear Community,
I'm excited by the news coming out from the Class Refresh program but also concerned, given past performance.
Years ago, we used to have the Class Representative Program where highly experienced community members were brought in to provide feedback on class changes and balancing. This program was cancelled in June 2022 and was followed soon after by Patch 35 and many of the worst changes in the game.
My main concern is that ZOS has not reinstated this program. What I'm learning about these changes (e.g. the DK) are from content creators (such as Hyperioxes) going onto the PTS. This, in my opinion, is way way way too late in the game since only minor changes occur from the PTS.
I am seriously worried that we are going to keep having the same problems with classes as we have had in the past.

What do you think?

Announcement of the Class Representative Program, 2018
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/400641/eso-class-representative-program/p1

Shelving of program, June 2022
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/608270/eso-class-rep-program-status/p1

I don't think ZOS can manage balancing the game without players' support, but at the same time, they seem pretty aware of it too; they are asking for feedback, and they are actually taking it into consideration and reacting to it. This is truly appreciated by the community, thanks ZOS and keep up the good work!
It seems to me that the class representative program was replaced with surveys and more interaction on social media. That gives the devs access to a wider pool of opinions, which is good. Also, I don't know what you mean by "extensive", this forum alone is full of pages and pages of suggestions, and players keep adding more every hour every day.
Overall, the game seems to be on a good track rn.

StihlReign · January 15

Not sure

Do you think ZOS can achieve class balance in the refresh without extensive community support?

Not sure. On PTS the devs proposed a nerf to almost all PvP healing. Sounds like a great idea for the entire game, not just PvP - should probably be made game-wide, next available patch. Then address shields, and tune damage...fun times ahead.

karthrag_inak · January 15

Trick question. Khajiit thinks class balance is not only subjective, but constantly evolving and mutation, and therefore impossible to achieve regardless of who they work with or get support from.

aetherix8 · January 15

No

karthrag_inak wrote: »

Trick question. Khajiit thinks class balance is not only subjective, but constantly evolving and mutation, and therefore impossible to achieve regardless of who they work with or get support from.

Yes, if your aim is a perfect balance, but that's beyond reach. And some adjustments are necessary since subclassing is now part of the game. It is important to point out to the devs the issues that some systems may have created while proposing solutions, and it is important for ZOS to take player experience into account while adjusting the balance.

BardokRedSnow · January 15

Yes

StihlReign wrote: »

Do you think ZOS can achieve class balance in the refresh without extensive community support?

Not sure. On PTS the devs proposed a nerf to almost all PvP healing. Sounds like a great idea for the entire game, not just PvP - should probably be made game-wide, next available patch. Then address shields, and tune damage...fun times ahead.

I am not an expert in PvE by any means, did some trials vet, some hardmode vet, can tank any of the vet dungeons hardmode but my build is out of date. Did IA past the end til bored with a duo, got to just the end solo. I know people talk about the power creep a lot in pve, but I dont think its as bad an issue as the ballgroups in cyrodiil present.

If they decide to limit healing for pve then fine but for us in pvp its pretty much a dire need because of how toxic their mere existence is for what zos envisions pvp to be. They can exist in a keep for so long despite a whole faction trying to kill them that it brings everything to a screeching halt, plus lagging out the server so bad people crash. All because up until now the healing has been so overtuned.

I only say this because I wouldn't want us needing a heal nerf so badly affecting the pve crowd negatively and getting it reversed. Which is why I think limiting it to battle spirits the right way to go for now before looking elsewhere.

edit: I dont know your pvp experience, not insinuating you arent aware of the ballgroups.

Pevey · January 15

No

I hope they bring in some early testers from the community. Well before PTS, early enough to make a difference. Make them sign an NDA if needed. They could draw from certain Discord servers, like DPS Nerds (NA), Wild Heart (EU), Healers Haven, etc. There are certain players who can always suss out the broken bits well before a patch goes live. ZOS might as well reach out to them.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Do you think ZOS can achieve class balance in the refresh without extensive community support?

Do you think ZOS can achieve class balance in the refresh without extensive community support? 77 votes