'While Battle Spirit is active' is becoming too common

Corrhen_Crangrow · April 27

Looking at the 12.0.2 patch notes, I can't help but notice that so many of the class passives, in particular the Nightblade masteries, all have drastic changes in their effects for PvP vs PvE.

I'm a returning player who has not played much since 2022 until a couple of months ago, and I've noticed a lot more sets and skills seem to have parallel effects for PvP and PvE, usually with some reduction for PvP or simply some effect or condition disabled in PvP.

While I understand that the balance of PvP is a difficult and controversial issue, and it is difficult to craft buffs for classes which are weak in PvE without having a drastic effect on PvP, especially for anything that could even remotely be considered useful for ganking (the canonically evil playstyle), I am really struck by how common this easy way out is becoming. Rather than introduce skills or modifiers or set effects which are balanced with both PvE and PvP in mind, there appears to more and more be a trend towards simply separating them entirely. The end state of this would be a game where you effectively have 2 entirely different ecosystems, with entirely separate skills and entirely separate item lists.

I don't think this is a good way to go, as should be obvious. I think part of the combat system that made ESO so much fun for so long was the depth of the one big pool of sets and skills and modifiers that all builds were crafted from, and how much variety and inventiveness it allowed. Delineating balance into separate pools by adding PvP specific conditions to so many options will destroy this and constrict much of the inventiveness inherent in developing builds, especially in PvP, which would in turn flatten one of the major appeals of ESO as a game.

I don't have much of a specific recommendation or comment to make beyond saying that I think it would be a step forward if there were fewer distinctions between PvP and PvE balance, not more, and if enough thought was put into mechanics to enable introducing things which are useful in both arenas without being unbalanced in either. I know this is possible because the vast majority of the stat impacting items (skills, sets, CP, buffs/debuffs, etc.) are still not touched by this.

spartaxoxo · April 27

It's not. It's a great thing they are finally balancing PvE and PvP separately.

ETA

This change does not take away the ability to craft builds.

Nemesis7884 · April 27

spartaxoxo wrote: »

It's not. It's a great thing they are finally balancing PvE and PvP separately.

and the best and only way to really do it in ESO so thumbs up

Soarora · April 27

I see where you’re coming from, but people have been begging for pvp & pve separation for years. The alternative is to nerf sets & skills to uselessness when they’re OP in one mode and in a good spot in another. Mind you also, most sets used in PvP aren’t good in PvE, so there’s already a separate item list situation. But for instance on one that’s used in both… if Mechanical Acuity got nerfed overall, that’d be a massive blow to sweaty PvE. Yet people complain about it for PvP… so if it’s ever nerfed, I dear hope it’s only a PvP nerf.

xylena · April 27

not common enough... this can save the game

Zeeejay · April 27

Strongly disagree.

It is excellent to see it used as a way to de-couple PVE and PVP balance without impacting the opposite environment. Really hope to continue seeing more of it as time goes on.

Sordidfairytale · April 27

Very strongly disagree. This mechanic still allows for that deep pool of sets and abilities for you to generate a unique playstyle from. However, this mechanic offers the devs a great deal of latitude when implementing new buffs and effects and balancing existing ones.

The Empower buff is a fantastic example of this. The buff already does not affect players, however an edge case where a player could utilize a non-player target in order to get an advantage in PVP was unintended and so applying that restriction to the ability does nothing to affect the PVE gameplay, while instantly correcting an unintended mechanic of the buff.

Perhaps ESO could do something like this in reverse though, and make it so that the Plaguebreak set applies to all targets again but only while Battlespirit is active. Punishing those cowards that use innocent non-player characters as shields in PVP.

React · April 27

This is something that has been asked for since the very dawn of the game, by both sides of the argument. It will allow for more fine tuned adjustments to be made where they're needed without impacting the opposite side of the game.

ESO_player123 · April 27

I'm glad to see this finally happening. I'm tired of nerfs to abilities/passives because they outperform in PvP.

MashmalloMan · April 27

We've been asking for this for 12 years, it's about damn time.

They could use some work on balancing though. NB's Mastery giving a pitiful 5% crit damage/healing as if the 35% cap makes up for it, when it's already unrealistic given the fact that everyone has 20~50% crit resist anyway, the effective cap was already 145~175%.

coop500 · April 27

Yeah please don't take away Battle Spirit balancing, this is huge in terms of reducing friction and making things more fair.

The only thing I'd say is some of the When Battle Spirit Is Active skill nerfs feel a little too severe.

allochthons · April 27

Another disagree. Builds / sets / skills being nerfed or altered because they're OP in the other realm was a drag. I'm glad they've found a way to make balancing PVE and PVP a bit easier.

Erickson9610 · April 27

Werewolf got nerfed in PvP contexts compared to how it is on Live (+18% WD/SD down to +10% WD/SD in PvP) but it's still considered a buff solely because it grants +32% WD/SD in PvE.

Werewolf was outright nerfed and buffed simultaneously. Players who care about PvP feel differently from players who care about PvE. This results in mixed feedback.

The most egregious part isn't how damage is being lowered against players, but rather how DoT durations are being shortened against players. It's fine to adjust the damage values, but changing the mechanics of how skills function messes with the muscle memory when switching between modes.

I get that skills like Negate must have different functionality because monsters and players function differently, but changing the length of applied damage over time effects depending on the enemy type is not a good solution.

Freelancer_ESO · April 27

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

Very strongly disagree. This mechanic still allows for that deep pool of sets and abilities for you to generate a unique playstyle from. However, this mechanic offers the devs a great deal of latitude when implementing new buffs and effects and balancing existing ones.

The Empower buff is a fantastic example of this. The buff already does not affect players, however an edge case where a player could utilize a non-player target in order to get an advantage in PVP was unintended and so applying that restriction to the ability does nothing to affect the PVE gameplay, while instantly correcting an unintended mechanic of the buff.

Perhaps ESO could do something like this in reverse though, and make it so that the Plaguebreak set applies to all targets again but only while Battlespirit is active. Punishing those cowards that use innocent non-player characters as shields in PVP.

I'd argue that the Empower change is an example of how the system can be used in a disruptive fashion.

The Imperial City has an excellent story quest line and it has a huge sewer section with lots of PvE bosses to fight. If your build leans on Heavy Attacks you probably need to bring something else to do it now. Imho, you'd have hit less disruption if the amount of damage Tri-Focus and Forceful could do in PvP areas got capped instead.

We've also had situations like with Beacon of Oblivion for a while where the set bonus was set to 5% in PvP which was simply too low to be worth using in PvP.

You also had similar decisions with Plaguebreak where the changes to adjust it to avoid balance issues in PvE just meant the set doesn't work in PvE.

Sometimes you will probably need to separate things to deal with them in a timely manner but, I think some caution should be used to avoid over using the attributes or causing excess disruption. You don't want to be just tossing the attribute on just to make the thing not work at all somewhere.

Faltasë · April 27

I actually like the separation of pvp and pve, as this games had too many years of nerfing things based on the other side of the game, and this allows them to separate them in a more proper way without changing the code.

coop500 · April 27

I agree that there are some cases in which the battle Spirit balancing has been used poorly, both in terms of DOT duration and Empower, but that doesn't mean the entire method of balancing should be scrapped. It just needs to be approached a little differently.

MashmalloMan · April 27

Erickson9610 wrote: »

The most egregious part isn't how damage is being lowered against players, but rather how DoT durations are being shortened against players. It's fine to adjust the damage values, but changing the mechanics of how skills function messes with the muscle memory when switching between modes.

Actually this right here is my main gripe across the whole game.

This goes for "If you have a permanent pet active" spread across Sorc's class set, flourish, and now Mastery which needs to outright be removed when the refresh comes. Same with Daedric Prey and reducing it to only work on Daedric pets instead of all pets. Many pet haters including myself don't see a reason for these roadblocks.

Same with Signet and specifically nerfing bear. Idk, maybe theres a problem with the mythic if you feel the need to do this.

And finally it goes for WW. Mess with the raw stats or values, stop messing with how things are used.

Malyore · April 28

Disagree. More battlespirit effects seems like the better way to handle things tbh

Renato90085 · April 28

disagree
because we not have variety and inventiveness in game very longer

gamergirldk · April 28

Disagree. we need more of it.

Alp · April 28

It's either that or no sets like in the vengeance campaign. The game has to split pve and pvp for balancing.

Gabriel_H · April 29

ZOS broke the 4th wall on PvE/PvP seperation years ago, something most MMOs don't do. If anything they haven't gone far enough.

Imagine if they applied this balancing mechanism across all skills and passives, or altered them to function differently in PvP, there would be no need for Vengeance having a seperate skill set.

CameraBeardThePirate · April 29

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Werewolf got nerfed in PvP contexts compared to how it is on Live (+18% WD/SD down to +10% WD/SD in PvP) but it's still considered a buff solely because it grants +32% WD/SD in PvE.

Werewolf was outright nerfed and buffed simultaneously. Players who care about PvP feel differently from players who care about PvE. This results in mixed feedback.

The most egregious part isn't how damage is being lowered against players, but rather how DoT durations are being shortened against players. It's fine to adjust the damage values, but changing the mechanics of how skills function messes with the muscle memory when switching between modes.

I get that skills like Negate must have different functionality because monsters and players function differently, but changing the length of applied damage over time effects depending on the enemy type is not a good solution.

Agreed with the bolded part here.

I am 100% for Battle Spirit specific adjustments. However, I think those adjustment should be limited to damage or resource numbers exclusively. Changing the function of a skill entirely, or even worse, in the case of Plaguebreak, Rallying Cry, and now Malevolent Promise, just disabling the skill or set entirely in Battle Spirit or vice versa, should never be done.

MashmalloMan · April 30

Gabriel_H wrote: »

ZOS broke the 4th wall on PvE/PvP seperation years ago, something most MMOs don't do. If anything they haven't gone far enough.

Imagine if they applied this balancing mechanism across all skills and passives, or altered them to function differently in PvP, there would be no need for Vengeance having a seperate skill set.

If what you're suggesting looks anything like Vengeance in my regular PvP experience, I'd uninstall and never come back. Vengeance is boring af. It's a good beginner friendly environment, but it's way too simple, eliminating every part that I enjoy in the sake of "performance".

Thank God they have a seperate sandbox to mess around with their terrible ideas in, we had whiplash for years. I like the battlespirit balancing, but let's not give them any bright ideas for core skills because they can't cook properly in that department clearly.

gammelscroll · April 30

So all new masteries of is affected by battle spirit? And DK just run around destroying PvP and does not get affected by battle spirit?
Maybe hire some new PvP team.
PvP on ps5 is dead cause of DKs. And those new masteries is a joke and won't help

MincMincMinc · April 30

The struggle has always been that for pve they had to keep power creeping the game. It was inevitable with 12+ years of development and releases. For pvp this power creep demand is not really existent. PvP chases the one new meta set every patch, but in reality usually its niche and can be balanced out easily at zos's whim with the next DLC set to buy.

So Ideally they would split pve and pvp balance wise. Which is basically already the case due to how crit resists work and how pen calculates differently for mobs/players. Split wise there are two ways they could have gone about it.

The current path which is to slowly power creep out of old meta while making newer meta base on "if battlespirit is active"
Go the complete split method like vengeance where you have a system that swaps over to the PvP version of skills/sets. Which is what people thought they might do because of how much they touted the veng split system originally. I'm just gonna assume they didnt go this route because it would mean committing to slowly redesigning the entire game. Copy/paste then edit a new version of every skill, passive, set, enchant, etc. Where instead they could be focusing on things that actually make them profit like DLC while slowly power creep editing in option 1 above.

Eratas_Dualitas · April 30

I love the Battle Spirit strategy, they should also do it for mythic items like oakensoul for accessibility

SundarahFr3akinrican · April 30

What i like about PvP in ESO is that it uses all its aspects of being an MMO to play PvP. I like having to do dungeons for potential PvP gear, even trials have good gear if you strive to do that. Overworld, crafting, arenas, etc.

I'm utilizing the full package of the MMO to engage in the PvP.

Now, if they start to stray from that, that is when i will be upset. This is why I dont like vengeance. Why play an MMO with preset gear and skills? Might as well just play a non-mmo game that will do it much better like overwatch, league of legends etc.

I dont care about the battle spirit balancing at all.