Usureki wrote: »

What do you guys think? Is there any saving the current direction of PvP, or has ZOS strategy completely tanked the competitive integrity of this game?

There's no saving PvP to be honest. It's been over for a long time. That's why I just fire siege.

If ZOS wanted to fix the game, we need to start taking a look at a lot of stuff in the game. They can start with HP% healing.

Stacking HP and wearing heavy shouldn't outheal anyone actually investing in damage and sustain using light. That it's the case on live that it does just shows how poorly balanced HP% healing is. Every single one of those skills, except dark cloak (already got nerfed to the ground), needs a nerf.

Polar Wind needed a nerf years ago, and instead the nerfed the other morph. Remember that? But it's okay, they will rework warden and make it even more powerful, even though it's currently capable of taking on DK and WW right now.

ZOS can also introduce some additional siege: negate siege, a siege that constantly reveals in an area, siege that does HP% damage. I'd even add a siege that can purge in an area . And to counter this, they can just restrict it so that you can only put one down per person.

Just adding these three siege types would go a LONG way for balance, esp. the negate one. Because we cannot have balance when basic game mechanics are locked behind whether or not you play a certain class or someone else does and has slotted the skill or not. That's what partially gives ball groups a massive advantage vs. the disorganized -- they have the important mechanics set up in their group while those they are fighting usually don't.

But of course players would never want siege like that to appear. Watch someone claim it would be broken even though there isn't any siege in the game you don't have ample time to avoid, assuming you weren't outplayed or moving in a predictable manner (or encountering me).

And no, I'm not asking for this siege for a personal buff. This stuff needed to be added a LONG time ago. The same patch they added Earthgore and it became a problem back then. Back then there wasn't a counter to purge and other mechanics in a ball, and now it mirrors that same scenario just with differnet things causing it, like scribed skills.

There's a lot more I think would improve Cyrodiil at least, but let's leave it there because I know the opposition is already salivating at opposing something like a negate siege being added, even though negate is the ONLY counter to a lot of things in the game.

Usureki wrote: »

I'm honestly interested in the reason behind why we have this part of the game utterly in ruins. Update by update we see glimpses of hope (e.g. class masteries) only to be messed up with poor implementation, total disregard of PTS feedback, and messed up strategies (e.g. DK, WW, Signet). Seriously, how does someone carefully build a character to stack over 30k armor (nearly 45% flat mitigation) just to get vaporized by a single DK hitting them for an unmitigated 18k chunk?

Who the hell thought that this is a good idea? It makes zero sense.
Where are the mitigations, or at least abilities on par with the power distribution in past updates?
Why do we see the exact same methodology of oppressive, broken setups dominate the meta for months at a time while detailed, paragraph-long feedback on the PTS goes completely ignored? Why don't ZOS try to balance stuff mid-updates instead of just leaving things broken for months?

If you look at how the studio actually operates, this constant lack of balance isn't just a string of bad patches. It’s a direct result of how ZOS treats PvP behind the scenes:

• The Hybridization Disaster: They completely opened Pandora's box when they homogenized stats so that everything scales off whatever resource happens to be highest. Instead of creating "build freedom," they completely killed archetype identity. Now we have unkillable heavy-armor "tank" builds that somehow still have maximum resource pools, infinite sustain, and enough unmitigated burst damage to one-shot you. They broke the basic rule of PvP design: if you want high damage, you are supposed to be squishy.
• Vengeance is a [snip] Band-Aid: Look at how they are pushing the Vengeance campaign. Rather than actually fixing the broken math, the thousands of conflicting set interactions, or the performance lag in traditional campaigns, they just threw their hands up and stripped everything away. Forcing everyone into static, normalized templates with zero gear customization isn't a "cool new mode"[snip]
• Total Disregard for Player Feedback: Why do we even have a Public Test Server (PTS)? Time and time again, the top 5% of dedicated PvP players spend hours testing patches, writing detailed mathematical write-ups, and warning the devs exactly which interactions are going to destroy the meta. ZOS ignores it entirely, pushes the broken patch to live anyway, and then acts surprised three months later when the exact predicted exploit ruins the game.
• They Do Not Play Their Own Game: Anyone who queues up for random Battlegrounds can see how toxic the experience is within five minutes. Between pre-made groups stomp-farming solo queues, immortal bruisers, and unavoidable stacked delayed damage, BGs are practically unplayable for the average person. It is painfully obvious that the people writing the patch notes do not spend their evenings actually playing in these matches to see how terrible the live experience feels.

We need an actual shift in how ZOS values the PvP player base. We need them to actually listen to PTS testers before pushing broken patches to the live servers, and more than anything, we need developers who actually play and understand the high-end mechanics of real PvP combat.

What do you guys think? Is there any saving the current direction of PvP, or has ZOS strategy completely tanked the competitive integrity of this game?
[edited for bashing]

Bro, I have seen your relentless forum posts regarding getting spanked in GH. Nothing is "utterly in ruins". At some point it's not everyone else's fault. Maybe GH isn't for you. Vengeance is here. Start with training wheels. We will be here when you come back. The rest of us are having a ball.

I don’t care if anything is balanced I just want it to be fun again. Status effects aren’t fun it’s that simple.

Usureki wrote: »

JohnRingo wrote: »

Usureki wrote: »

I'm honestly interested in the reason behind why we have this part of the game utterly in ruins. Update by update we see glimpses of hope (e.g. class masteries) only to be messed up with poor implementation, total disregard of PTS feedback, and messed up strategies (e.g. DK, WW, Signet). Seriously, how does someone carefully build a character to stack over 30k armor (nearly 45% flat mitigation) just to get vaporized by a single DK hitting them for an unmitigated 18k chunk?

Who the hell thought that this is a good idea? It makes zero sense.
Where are the mitigations, or at least abilities on par with the power distribution in past updates?
Why do we see the exact same methodology of oppressive, broken setups dominate the meta for months at a time while detailed, paragraph-long feedback on the PTS goes completely ignored? Why don't ZOS try to balance stuff mid-updates instead of just leaving things broken for months?

If you look at how the studio actually operates, this constant lack of balance isn't just a string of bad patches. It’s a direct result of how ZOS treats PvP behind the scenes:

• The Hybridization Disaster: They completely opened Pandora's box when they homogenized stats so that everything scales off whatever resource happens to be highest. Instead of creating "build freedom," they completely killed archetype identity. Now we have unkillable heavy-armor "tank" builds that somehow still have maximum resource pools, infinite sustain, and enough unmitigated burst damage to one-shot you. They broke the basic rule of PvP design: if you want high damage, you are supposed to be squishy.
• Vengeance is a [snip] Band-Aid: Look at how they are pushing the Vengeance campaign. Rather than actually fixing the broken math, the thousands of conflicting set interactions, or the performance lag in traditional campaigns, they just threw their hands up and stripped everything away. Forcing everyone into static, normalized templates with zero gear customization isn't a "cool new mode"[snip]
• Total Disregard for Player Feedback: Why do we even have a Public Test Server (PTS)? Time and time again, the top 5% of dedicated PvP players spend hours testing patches, writing detailed mathematical write-ups, and warning the devs exactly which interactions are going to destroy the meta. ZOS ignores it entirely, pushes the broken patch to live anyway, and then acts surprised three months later when the exact predicted exploit ruins the game.
• They Do Not Play Their Own Game: Anyone who queues up for random Battlegrounds can see how toxic the experience is within five minutes. Between pre-made groups stomp-farming solo queues, immortal bruisers, and unavoidable stacked delayed damage, BGs are practically unplayable for the average person. It is painfully obvious that the people writing the patch notes do not spend their evenings actually playing in these matches to see how terrible the live experience feels.

We need an actual shift in how ZOS values the PvP player base. We need them to actually listen to PTS testers before pushing broken patches to the live servers, and more than anything, we need developers who actually play and understand the high-end mechanics of real PvP combat.

What do you guys think? Is there any saving the current direction of PvP, or has ZOS strategy completely tanked the competitive integrity of this game?
[edited for bashing]

Bro, I have seen your relentless forum posts regarding getting spanked in GH. Nothing is "utterly in ruins". At some point it's not everyone else's fault. Maybe GH isn't for you. Vengeance is here. Start with training wheels. We will be here when you come back. The rest of us are having a ball.

Ok Mr One Balled Smartypants.

I play BGs mainly btw, but might I ask "at what point" are you exactly referring to? I have thousands of hours of experience in PvP games both MMOs and MOBAs and I also play souls-like games. I also played ESO for quite some time, I'm not at all afraid of a challenge, more over, I'm eager to find opportunities of improving my gameplay in games. I enjoy that ESO demands mastery in many aspects and restarted my Arcanist from scratch many times to do my best to adapt to the gaming environment. I've failed. Am I very bitter and crybaby about it? Probably.

But nonetheless, neither your kinda taunting comment, nor my indeed great many number of posts changes the fact, that ESO PvP balance is in fact utterly in ruins, whatever BG I'm joining I see the team with more DKs and WWs win 99% of the time, but hey, even in GH I no longer see any of the interesting fights I used to when I played before subclassing. Are you sure it makes sense that all the "good players" happen to play these builds we have myriad of forum posts claiming that are broken?

My way of coping with this is to share my thoughts on these forums in the hope that some of my feedbacks might have an impact. If you really think the balance is okay in BGs I just envy your perspective.

No disrespect. Good luck, man.

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

I don’t care if anything is balanced I just want it to be fun again. Status effects aren’t fun it’s that simple.

Depends on who you ask. If you're using them, they're pretty fun if you ask me. The signet's path has opened up the possibility of non-crit damage DoT builds that can win with constant pressure.

Pvp balance has probably been my main concern with the game all along, paired with technical problems/lag/CC's that freeze you too long and break the game experience.

It's a convoluted issue to follow in this game. Devs do things and we get communications to assure us they're working on balance (i.e. Class Mastery to compensate for Subclassing, DK refresh to compete with Subclassing, etc.) while at the same time the DK and Werewolf refresh are magnitudes stronger than other options, and every new chapter, there's a new armor set with an insane/OP proc, or a mythic that's out of balance.

End conclusion: They need to keep introducing new OP stuff to sell the chapters and the game. The force driving that is far more powerful than a handful of pvpr's asking for balance on the forums.