Mechanics Questions

[Musclemagic]

Just something to note for highly competitive players who plan on using console:

 

If this game's like Skyrim, where strafing and moving forward are the same speeds, you can only sprint straight ahead, and you move slower while backpedaling, then kiting classes won't be as good on consoles as on computer. (Since it's nearly impossible on a console to turn and shoot while strafing without taking you off-path too much...let alone while sprinting forward to do a quick turn, it would take too much time on console.)

 

They'll probably do all the balancing on PC, so this might mean that melee users will be better on consoles than casters. This would apply to PVE a tad, but mostly PVP.

 

Of course, if you are one of those people who can use an insanely high sensitivity on consoles, you might be able to overcome this somewhat.

[Thal]

Thanks guys for those answers! Really appreciate the help. :)Guess I'll probably be looking to put both +X magicka regen and +X stamina regen on every piece that can have the two of them, and I'll work out what to do with the other armour and jewellery pieces that cannot have them in time.I do have another question though. I've seen people talk of the mundus stones/stone signs. Any list of what these do? Perhaps very similar to previous TES games?

[Musclemagic]

About Mundus Stones:

They are similar to other ES games. The only confirmed Mundus Stone is "The Lover", which gives you "...a power that you'll keep for a really long time."  That's all we know atm.

 

Shots in the dark (complete guesses) about item effects:

I think you can actually only have one enchantment on each piece of item. The additional magical effects on items that you're seeing are probably the items original effects. If you're seeing one strong-ish and one weak-ish effect, then this is probably true.

 

If you saw an item with 3 characteristics then it was either a specific item type like a special amulet or a weapon/shield probably. Either that or it would probably mean that enchanters could put on 2 enchantments, alchemists could make stronger potions, smiths could make a bit stronger items, etc. Hopefully in a balanced amount... just out of curiosity, did the 3-perk item you saw have 1 strong enchant and 2 weaker ones? It may mean enchants x2 from an enchanter.

[Thal]

About Mundus Stones:

They are similar to other ES games. The only confirmed Mundus Stone is "The Lover", which gives you "...a power that you'll keep for a really long time."  That's all we know atm.

 

Shots in the dark (complete guesses) about item effects:

I think you can actually only have one enchantment on each piece of item. The additional magical effects on items that you're seeing are probably the items original effects. If you're seeing one strong-ish and one weak-ish effect, then this is probably true.

 

If you saw an item with 3 characteristics then it was either a specific item type like a special amulet or a weapon/shield probably. Either that or it would probably mean that enchanters could put on 2 enchantments, alchemists could make stronger potions, smiths could make a bit stronger items, etc. Hopefully in a balanced amount... just out of curiosity, did the 3-perk item you saw have 1 strong enchant and 2 weaker ones? It may mean enchants x2 from an enchanter.

Haven't seen 3 enchantments on a particular item as of yet. Was really just wondering if someone had encountered one so far. Only seen 2 max personally but that's from random Jap and russian videos (all of which seem to have disappeared by now) as I have had no beta access so far.But on the topic of 3 stats or enchants on one item - I do remember an interview with a developer stating weapons/items that are craftable were made with as much as three ingredients and ingredient types determined what the stat output of the weapon/item was - labelling stats as "primary" and "secondary" in classification. He then gave an example with three ingredients stating that each would lend a different stat to the final output of the recipe, so I assume that the stats inherent on an armour piece or weapon ( so I mean stats on the pieces that are independent of enchantments and the direct results of their initial crafting) can come in up to at least 3 different stats.Mind you, there aren't a particular large amount of stats in this game that I've noticed so far. All I have seen listed are: power, crit, health, magicka and stamina; then magicka/health/stamina regen; and the other values seem more like enchantments rather than stats (e.g. block mitigation/cost reduction). So I am wondering how much variety in weapon and armour stats we are going to really see....

[Musclemagic]

Haven't seen 3 enchantments on a particular item as of yet. Was really just wondering if someone had encountered one so far. Only seen 2 max personally but that's from random Jap and russian videos (all of which seem to have disappeared by now) as I have had no beta access so far.But on the topic of 3 stats or enchants on one item - I do remember an interview with a developer stating weapons/items that are craftable were made with as much as three ingredients and ingredient types determined what the stat output of the weapon/item was - labelling stats as "primary" and "secondary" in classification. He then gave an example with three ingredients stating that each would lend a different stat to the final output of the recipe, so I assume that the stats inherent on an armour piece or weapon ( so I mean stats on the pieces that are independent of enchantments and the direct results of their initial crafting) can come in up to at least 3 different stats.Mind you, there aren't a particular large amount of stats in this game that I've noticed so far. All I have seen listed are: power, crit, health, magicka and stamina; then magicka/health/stamina regen; and the other values seem more like enchantments rather than stats (e.g. block mitigation/cost reduction). So I am wondering how much variety in weapon and armour stats we are going to really see....

 

Thanks for the info

 

I've also noted that it seems pretty limited. I get the feeling that for PVP to be balanced at all they can't make the endgame pieces too much better than the mid-game. Not without having to rebalance items when they enter Cyrodiil as well? Maybe items scale with cLvL so they're only "better" in PVE? That would be interesting.... Not really good IMO, but interesting.

 

I am all sorts of worried about the alliance balancing. It's going to be difficult for them for sure...so many levels of difference between them, and each individual within them.

[Areodon]

In my opinion only way to balance significantly different pve and pvp builds of same player is to provide large chunk of stats on armor , enchanting and mundus stones effects. More stats we get on those more versatility ( based on resources ) we will have in creating our builds. I expect to see that implemented. If that is fact then from resource management point of view it will be important that our chars are specialised in armor and enchanting if they get additional stat slots. If thats a case than obviously we will need more time and grinding to be fully ready for top level. 

[Thal]

Also forgot to mention that Incoming Heal was listed once as one of those "secondary" stats found on armour.Yeah I have to agree in that proper thought about it leaves one wondering how much variety we are going to have in the armour and jewellery between different players at lvl 50 and how it will balance out for PvP. I have a feeling though they may have a lot more in the way of stats that they consider "minor" to vary things and since the game is still a while from release they have simply been focusing on showcasing the more obvious and major stats. Well, I have to admit that's me being optimistic at the very least in believing that though.I can see many specific resistances becoming available stats - cold, fire, lightening resistance amounts on armour pieces for example are the most immediate to come to mind. Crit bonus damage is listed as an effect of one of the passives in one of the Nightblade Class lines from memory - so it too could be a stat to be seen in future on armour and jewellery.So perhaps there will be more variety than we feel there is at the moment. And for now I am going to excuse the gnawing feelings that there won't be as the unfortunate result of Zenimax focusing so much on presenting the basics of the game as it expected of mass target audience advertising.Additionally, interviews from the past I have seen talk of unique armour sets and these were hinted as having stats or effects that alter abilities or even passives and not simply possessing usual stats. So I think there is reason to stay optimistic that acceptable degrees of variety will occur.Alliance balancing will be difficult no doubt as you mentioned, MuscleMagic, but given how long to launch - I'd say they are likely to have sorted it by April and especially in time for console release. Though I still think that anyone playing Daggerfall or Aldemeri are going to shy away from fire abilities knowing that whenever they face Ebonheart opponents there is a good chance there will be dark elves that are naturally extra resistant to such attacks. No degree of balancing can change that fact I believe since it is simply one of their innate passives. :POn a different angle about stats and balancing - I have noticed in videos so far that Spell Resistance and Armour Rating as stats have been a little odd. Given that one is magical mitigation and the other physical mitigation, I've been curious as to why I have seen all characters on videos so far have higher Spell Resistance than Armour Rating. And that is regardless of race as well as seen in characters wearing heavy armour. The latest video from Zenimax on Character Progression actually is a good example. At least two character stat panels are given in the video. Both have higher Spell Resistance. I've guessed that perhaps Armour directly and equally adds to your Spell Resistance with the addition of any extra Spell Resistance from gear or, more likely, class or racial passives.To me this seems to indicate it will generally be more likely that characters have more mitigation against magic attacks of any kind than they have against physical. Especially since light armour contains passives for increased spell resistance. So in the eyes of balancing, I wonder if magic attacks (whether from class abilities or weapon abilities) will be innately stronger than physical attacks of the same cost to balance the higher widespread spell resistance compared to armour rating.If not, all my attacks may focus on ones that deal with physical damage...Could have misinterpreted the info so far and cannot say I know the precise mechanism behind armour rating and spell resistance so still just speculation - hence anyone feel free to correct me.  

[irons]

physical dmg (melee) needs to be stronger than range magic attacks. So they would just need to balance bow and magic dmg.

[Musclemagic]

Yeah, at least a little bit--AD and DC will probably have more Fire resistance as well as taking less fire abilities (since a lot of fire users will go to EP). DC and EP will probably need more Shock resistance too, since Altmer sorc's will be pumping out lots of shock damage.

 

This means DC might need a bit more of both Shock and Fire Res. Perhaps this is a calculated part of the balance between alliances. Or, maybe, it won't have much of an impact at all. If stats like "Incoming Heal" are around, maybe there are things such as "Outgoing Fire Damage". Maybe this means that those racials aren't such a big deal. If they do turn into a big deal though, Nord might make a good caster for the +Armor, depending on how high a % it is. Too early to say. I do firmly believe that DC is still going to be winning most of the campaigns though, all those tanks will be really hard to deal with. I do not believe that AOEs will be able to wipe tanks as easily as in most other games.

 

I agree with irons, melee damage needs to do more damage than ranged damage to players. Maybe they will make the damage balanced, and then like Thal said and we've all noted, lower armor than mRes -- Causing physical damage to do more to players? Like irons said, this just leaves Bows needing a slightly lowered damage..but then again, -42% target mRes is nothing to shrug at for full light armor wearers. I think that it's too much.. on paper anyway.

[Thal]

Yeah both Magic and Irons have made good points - I do forget that physical damage should be better because of needing to close the distance and the fact that physical damage can often be avoided through kiting. So guess there is no problem with lower armour rating compared with spell resistance.The bow damage, being physical, may indeed need to be reduced since its ranged while staying physical. Because, as already pointed out by others, spell resist is high on both light armour characters due to passives and heavy armour characters and armour rating across the board is lower than spell resistance. So indeed, if bows aren't balanced well, they may be OP for at least the first few months of the game given they will always be ranged physical damage. And there something everyone has equal access to...By the way, I'm probably going DC so I have no qualms about DC being a little more OP than the other two.

[Musclemagic]

Concentration from Light Armor- Applies to Spells, Weapon Attacks, or both? If it doesn't apply to weapon attacks, then physical damage weapons aren't necessarily a bad choice still-as long as the passives are helpeful (like Bow for a kite-caster build.)

[Volgard]

According to Irons differences between armors:Light - 0,6Medium - 1,0Heavy - 1,2and what about weapon/s damage:1h - ...2h - ...DW - ...???

[vMonkey]

Skill points - Crafting points?I read that enough skill points can be earned to learn every skill available, and that crafting points would be used for crafting, earning enough to max out two professions.While playing beta, I noticed that skill points seem to be shared across skills and crafting, I would of thought 'crafting points' are only earned by crafting, and can only be used in crafting, have I missed something? Or is it not fully implemented yet?

[mrmoneda]

Skill points - Crafting points?I read that enough skill points can be earned to learn every skill available, and that crafting points would be used for crafting, earning enough to max out two professions.While playing beta, I noticed that skill points seem to be shared across skills and crafting, I would of thought 'crafting points' are only earned by crafting, and can only be used in crafting, have I missed something? Or is it not fully implemented yet?

They did away with "crafting points." Every skill line, including those for crafting, will use skill points to improve.

[Theoryexpert]

I have a mechanics question. Does dodge rolling break immobilizes and snares? I heard somewhere that it does.

 

One more mechanics question. I read somewhere that switching weapons removes certain buffs. For example if you buff yourself with obsidian shield, then switch to your other weapon set. It makes sense they would do this, to keep people from using their alternate weapon set as simply a buff bar. But which buffs are removed and which arent, or is this even true? If I have immovable on one weapon set, and switch to another that doesnt have it slotted, is immovable removed?

 

One last thing I'd like to add. I do not think weapon power and spell power are split up aside from on the stats screen. I think there is only one stat you can get, called power, and it adds equally to both weapon power and spell power. Even if Im wrong on this, which I very well might be, class skills are simply better than most stamina skills, and class skills use magicka. 

[dreamerorc]

I had a dream last night about some things mentioned here and this is what I saw in that dream:

 

2 Does the Mage's Guild Equilibrium active skill scale up at level 50 to be (roughly) 400 health lost for 400 magicka gained?

 

yes, it scales up with leveling. However, the devs sat together and realized that the 1:1 health-to-mana exchange of this skill breaks the game since native healers (templars) have a higher mana-to-health conversion rate than 1:1 through their basic healing spells and can exploit this skill to make more mana than they should have. To solve this game breaking imbalance they changed the ratio of this skill to 2:1, requiring you to spend double the amount of health to gain the same mana, rendering this skill only useful in exceptional situations

 

 

[Guest Hans]

I like to hear more about your dreams.

Very lucid!