PTS Suggestion - Remove Soft-Caps

bean19 · May 2014

What would happen if the game didn't have any soft-caps whatsoever? From my experience with a Veteran 3 Templar and Veteran 2 Sorcerer, I can't simply focus completely on Magicka or I will be, very easily, dispatched. I have to get my Health above 1500 (hopefully closer to 2K after food) if I want to be able to survive a fight with 3 mobs without having to pop a potion every fight.

That's smart. That's the game creating actual limits and not a soft-cap. I know that the soft-cap is designed to help keep us from making stupid decisions, but I want to min/max. That's actually FUN, and my being able to do the content with more DPS or more defensive ability etc. is the pay-off.

I also get that the soft-caps are intended to keep bad players from shooting themselves in the foot. . . but this is silly because the current Veteran endgame has over 100 skill choices, but the difficulty of fighting 3 mobs at once currently requires that a player who isn't grouped use one of a small handful of viable builds. Players have a much, much more difficult choice with far more options that will make them terrible in skill selection and yet the game doesn't limit our skill choices to those that are actually viable in the endgame.

Maybe the designers are scared we'll marginalize the content with really smartly built characters that min/max like mad. They are probably right too, but people are already doing that because certain skills are far more effective than others in PvE (and others in PvP). It's just that we have fewer options for how to break the game because of soft-caps on stats.

And why not let us "break" the game? Right now, the Veteran game has mobs with tons of HP that hit like a truck if you don't block their special moves. Every build has to be about crowd-control for groups of 3 or rapid AoE dps for groups of 3. Otherwise, you can't complete quests because that's the most challenging thing in them (unless you encounter a boss that is immune to crowd-control and then you either need help from other players which means waiting around or begging a guildie. . . not fun, or using rapid movement abilities or heals to survive). That gets super repetitive if you only have 2 or 3 viable builds for each class that can handle those two hurdles. Removing the soft-cap would make those builds even more effective, but it would also make new builds viable.

Or how about a compromise. Keep the soft-cap on until the Veteran levels and then take off the training wheels.

skarvika · May 2014

Agreed. The soft caps make crafting gear virtually useless.
My crafted gear doesn't even need any upgrades before it's overcharged.
If you put in the time and often money into leveling a crafting skill and making armor, weapons, clothing etc, you should be able to use your crafted gear to its full potential.

Reykice · May 2014

Agreed.... it would also solve the difficulty problem many face as it would increase healing/damage/armor etc...

Even a more long term approach aka let the soft cap fade with each update would work...

bean19 · May 2014

I think where it would hurt is with players who aren't very good making bad choices and it would also hurt with very good players making the content "easy" (to them, while punishingly difficult for most of us who either don't want to run around with Dragon Knight Standard and resto staff spam or haven't figured out the most devastating skill synergies). . . . or whatever will replace that synergy after they nerf it.

But it would help the vast majority of players not at the extreme ends of the bell-curve and it would at least mean more total points for those who are very bad players.

DragonLane555 · May 2014

I disagree with the OP, I like the Soft caps. As a matter of fact Id prefer if they just upped them a bit more, and made them Hard caps with no diminishing returns.

Im a min/maxer by nature is RPGs, but I also get frustrated, by being locked into one thing when I do so. The caps make it so I can feel I'm the best at some part of the game, then move on, and make myself good at other things without feeling like I'm losing out on DPS. I LOVE it. With the right enchants I can be a Master of Swords, and Spells. The only limiting factor in this game is the fact that you can only have 5 powers on your bar thats where min/maxing happens in this game.

santaslittlekilla · June 2014

I want to know what happened to play as you want! If soft caps are to stop players making stupid decisions why state play as you want. Isn't the fun of an RPG to make mistakes your first time round and get better each time?

Basically soft caps are like your mum telling you to go play with you friends and do what ever you want. Except ride you bike play in the sand, instead she turns around and tells you what you can do instead.

Let me make my own choices and if I stuff up my character to bad, just bring in a respec button that costs a heap of gold so I can fix it later. I want to play the way I want and if that means I want a level 12 character with full heavy legendary gear then I want to do it.

Take off the soft caps and keep the promise let me play my way.

Arsenic_Touch · June 2014

They said they're going to be changing the softcaps. But that's not until a future update. We'll have to wait and see what that entails.

Hearts · June 2014

Lets put it in perspective, if there were no soft caps, i would easily be able to get 3k magicka.
With 2k Magicka my spells crit for about 1.2k in PvE, with 3k Magicka that amount will go up to about 1.8k (random number).
Put it in perspective with PvP, if I use spell damage and spell crit pots, i will most likely be able to one shot a player.

Soft caps are there so completely overpowered builds dont exist.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · June 2014

Hearts wrote: »

Lets put it in perspective, if there were no soft caps, i would easily be able to get 3k magicka.
With 2k Magicka my spells crit for about 1.2k in PvE, with 3k Magicka that amount will go up to about 1.8k (random number).
Put it in perspective with PvP, if I use spell damage and spell crit pots, i will most likely be able to one shot a player.

Soft caps are there so completely overpowered builds dont exist.

This!

Also, without such caps PVE content can't be created with the inevitable polarisation between the IT'S TOO EASY brigade decked out in their all-gold phat lewt and the IT'S IMPOSSIBLE section with their green/blue drops and quest rewards.

It's always the former group who shout for the removal of caps, it seems to me.

Arsenic_Touch · June 2014

Hearts wrote: »

Lets put it in perspective, if there were no soft caps, i would easily be able to get 3k magicka.
With 2k Magicka my spells crit for about 1.2k in PvE, with 3k Magicka that amount will go up to about 1.8k (random number).
Put it in perspective with PvP, if I use spell damage and spell crit pots, i will most likely be able to one shot a player.

Soft caps are there so completely overpowered builds dont exist.

Not quite. You may be able to do more dps with your spells because of a higher magicka pool but only hard points in the magicka stat will add damage to your spells.

Hearts · June 2014

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

Hearts wrote: »

Lets put it in perspective, if there were no soft caps, i would easily be able to get 3k magicka.
With 2k Magicka my spells crit for about 1.2k in PvE, with 3k Magicka that amount will go up to about 1.8k (random number).
Put it in perspective with PvP, if I use spell damage and spell crit pots, i will most likely be able to one shot a player.

Soft caps are there so completely overpowered builds dont exist.

Not quite. You may be able to do more dps with your spells because of a higher magicka pool but only hard points in the magicka stat will add damage to your spells.

Is this a rumour or something that has actually been theorycrafted?

leandro.800ub17_ESO · June 2014

Hearts wrote: »

Lets put it in perspective, if there were no soft caps, i would easily be able to get 3k magicka.
With 2k Magicka my spells crit for about 1.2k in PvE, with 3k Magicka that amount will go up to about 1.8k (random number).
Put it in perspective with PvP, if I use spell damage and spell crit pots, i will most likely be able to one shot a player.

Soft caps are there so completely overpowered builds dont exist.

Remember you can have 3k magika but others can also have 4k magic resist

Enkil · June 2014

Hearts wrote: »

Lets put it in perspective, if there were no soft caps, i would easily be able to get 3k magicka.
With 2k Magicka my spells crit for about 1.2k in PvE, with 3k Magicka that amount will go up to about 1.8k (random number).
Put it in perspective with PvP, if I use spell damage and spell crit pots, i will most likely be able to one shot a player.

Soft caps are there so completely overpowered builds dont exist.

That is the problem... The Devs made the stat that determines damage the exact same stat that determines resources. In most MMOs and RPGs damage is determined by something like an intelligence, strength, or dexterity stat and mana and stamina would be derived from various stats. This is how Elder Scrolls games also did it until Skyrim. I'm not sure why they keep dumbing everything down.. It only makes things way harder to balance and eventually becomes too oversimplified to even work (as we are seeing in ESO).

NoMoreChillies · June 2014

Hearts wrote: »

Lets put it in perspective, if there were no soft caps, i would easily be able to get 3k magicka.
With 2k Magicka my spells crit for about 1.2k in PvE, with 3k Magicka that amount will go up to about 1.8k (random number).
Put it in perspective with PvP, if I use spell damage and spell crit pots, i will most likely be able to one shot a player.

Soft caps are there so completely overpowered builds dont exist.

until you run into the tank with 50k spell resist and he whacks you with a large sword, and since you dont have armor that large sword 2 shots you.

tanquam · June 2014

Enkil wrote: »

That is the problem... The Devs made the stat that determines damage the exact same stat that determines resources. In most MMOs and RPGs damage is determined by something like an intelligence, strength, or dexterity stat and mana and stamina would be derived from various stats. This is how Elder Scrolls games also did it until Skyrim. I'm not sure why they keep dumbing everything down.. It only makes things way harder to balance and eventually becomes too oversimplified to even work (as we are seeing in ESO).

Exactly. Usually you can run a 100m at sprint speed or a marathon, but slowly. But here was made a marathon with a sprint speed and just they realize that, they used first decision that came up - lets do softcaps.
The idea of: the more spells I can cast the bigger damage each spell does - just breaks the logic.

NerfEverything · June 2014

Increase the soft caps so we have some character diversity.