It's the same on the EU servers, pretty clear this isn't going to be fixed by the EU server move. Game is unplayable.

The AoE cap is a double edged sword. On one hand, it encourages zerg behavior and you get the stacking of 60-100 people in a single spot which isnt combatable, causes massive lag, and crashes the server on a regular occasion. On the other hand, when you remove the AoE cap, the issues with Ultimate gain will come back with a vengeance.

Imagine Impule Spammers hitting 20 people at a single time and instantly fill their ultimate meter or a Bolt Mage bolting through a large zerg and instantly filling their ultimate due to the sheer number of people it's hitting on screen.

Ultimate gain issues are still prevelent and haven't been tweaked enough. Yes, changing Ultimate gain on crit from 3:1 certainly helped, but if you remove the AoE cap, you are going to see Ultimate spammers once again. I understand there is a plan to change Ultimate gains while healing so that if you are healing someone who is full health, you do not gain ultimate but that only partially fixes the problem, similar to the 3:1 crit conversion.

What they need to do is figure out a way to remove the AoE CAP while capping the maximum number of ultimate a single ability can gain. Make it, 10, 25, whatever makes sense.

If they are going to change it so healers don't gain ultimate when healing full health then it'll put us at a huge disadvantage against other player types, especially templar healers since we won't be able to gain ultimate until either the fight's already underway or we slot nova and waste an ultimate in order to try and gain another one.

Personally I'm all in favour of removing the AoE cap and leaving it at that. Yes the ultimate spammers might return, but everyone's ultimates will and it'll make dealing with trains much easier. As it is now, those who everyone assumes would benefit the most (streaking sorcs and vamps) are being avoided and people are learning to get out of the way in order to reduce their effectiveness. Even with AoE cap removed, it still means that people will have more ultimates to use on batswarmers etc.

Jaxom wrote: »

The AoE cap is a double edged sword. On one hand, it encourages zerg behavior and you get the stacking of 60-100 people in a single spot which isnt combatable, causes massive lag, and crashes the server on a regular occasion. On the other hand, when you remove the AoE cap, the issues with Ultimate gain will come back with a vengeance.

Imagine Impule Spammers hitting 20 people at a single time and instantly fill their ultimate meter or a Bolt Mage bolting through a large zerg and instantly filling their ultimate due to the sheer number of people it's hitting on screen.

Ultimate gain issues are still prevelent and haven't been tweaked enough. Yes, changing Ultimate gain on crit from 3:1 certainly helped, but if you remove the AoE cap, you are going to see Ultimate spammers once again. I understand there is a plan to change Ultimate gains while healing so that if you are healing someone who is full health, you do not gain ultimate but that only partially fixes the problem, similar to the 3:1 crit conversion.

What they need to do is figure out a way to remove the AoE CAP while capping the maximum number of ultimate a single ability can gain. Make it, 10, 25, whatever makes sense.

ok so make abilities give an ult gain per use not per target. Pretty easy to solve that issue. Also people will move out of the AoE range and not stack together if caps are removed.

Jaxom wrote: »

On the other hand, when you remove the AoE cap, the issues with Ultimate gain will come back with a vengeance.

just cap ulti gain to 6 targets and dont cap targets.
so easy solved..

DontBeAfraid wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

On the other hand, when you remove the AoE cap, the issues with Ultimate gain will come back with a vengeance.

just cap ulti gain to 6 targets and dont cap targets.
so easy solved..

Oh I agree. It's the simple solution, though I feel like they will break something if they try to do it.

dap_robertb16_ESO wrote: »

They're following Bethesda's lead on bugs so they'll always break something when they fix something else. As was mentioned in Quakecon, there's so many "moving parts" that something's bound to go wrong, but ultimately it's down to poorly executed planning and programming during early development that's allowed the game to be developed like a house of cards.

Well "IF" this game would suffer from poorly executed planning and programming we would still be in alpha phase.

Yes there are severe problems - especially with pvp - wich should'nt be present anymore 4 months after the games release, but ultimately @dap_robertb16_ESO , your post shows your "poor knowledge" of coding.

Taking that as a fact and keeping it in mind ...

Developing a project as big as this game is, could be compared to build a scyscraper. Literally 85%> of every single part of this project are dependent of each other or single small parts wich are used for a variety actions / working steps. Just like you will use the same types of bolts and screws for many components of this building, you will create several "classes" and "objects" wich are used by many components of this software project since it simply doesn't make sense to code them completely from the scratch again each time you need a similiar functionality.

Having that said, just imagine that you have found a faulty bolt or screw within your scyscraper. you wont be able to fix this one solely but will realise that this particular bolt or screw was used for a dozen of other things too, therefore also affecting them. And while, say beeing used for a heavy structural part of the building this bolt or screw is a problem, it isn't at all for some other parts of the building and just working fine.

But if you now begin to change the parameters of this bolt /screw in order to solve the problem, you'll very likely end up with having one problem solved while creating 2-3 new problems since the changes to this bolt / screw, will be a problem with other connected parts in this building that are using the same setup.

More than often, problems like these are caused by an inch of corrupt metal, just like - during coding - they could be caused by a missing comma or a misplaced bracket somethere within trillions of code-lines.

So the actual problem might be a minor one, but every change on that single component can (most likely will) have a major impact on dozens of other components.

Something that bugs out the hell of every coder but is very hard - if not impossible - to avoid.

Well having that said, and putting the "coder-fan-boy-yes-i-understand-your-problems-flag" back in my bag ...

@ZOS_BrianWheeler
Glad to hear that your team is discussing the AOE cap again. Hopefully this will lead you towards getting rid of it cause combined with the missing collision detection for player characters this isn't a technical (coding) problem only that will cause a vast amount of other issues but also a severe gameplay problem that destroys tactical gameplay. Something a vast majority of your pvp-based customers love as much as you do too. Um and just out of curiosity ... are your teams SCRUM based?

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

There are discussions currently going on with the combat team about the AE cap and in relation to the question about server merges, in 1.3 we are taking the amount of campaigns down from 10 to 5.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌

yes, finally!
Can't wait to see the results of your discussions.

Please, take into account that balancing individual abilities can be iterated over when they are an issue, but a core mechanics like arbitrary target cap can't be.

You have plenty of ways of putting abilities in categories of a certain style and make them interesting for everyone involved.
I suppose you already know what you are doing, but just in case, check out the thread in my signature for some suggestions.

Dekkameron wrote: »

Yes you're right.. That does need to be fixed..


Will increasing the AOE cap make peeps use less or more AOE though? I say double the mana cost of impulse. Destro staffs are stupid.

With no aoe caps, people will not clump up for the 'zerg immunity' because they are then vulnerable to getting wtfpwned by a few well timed ults. With no clumping and PBAOE spam, impulse becomes far less annoying - and hopefully we don't get the current lagfest scenario. Will people still use aoe? Probably, but it won't be as effective when people don't clump.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

There are discussions currently going on with the combat team about the AE cap and in relation to the question about server merges, in 1.3 we are taking the amount of campaigns down from 10 to 5.

Thank you for updating us on what's happening behind the scenes. It's very nice to know our voices are heard and acknowledged.

As to the AOE cap, I highly encourage you to remove it if technical limitations allow for it, as it's turned Cyrodiil (imo) into a very zerg vs zerg type PVP, which just isn't fun to me or to others. If you're unable to remove the AOE cap, I highly encourage you to do something else to highly discourage zerging.

Neferath wrote: »

Developing a project as big as this game is, could be compared to build a scyscraper.

Developing large software systems is the single hardest engineering endeavor undertaken by human beings.

Skyscrapers don't fall over on a regular basis.

Planes don't drop out of the sky on a regular basis.

Bridges don't collapse on a regular basis.

This is not because the people who build skyscrapers/planes/bridges are really smart and people who build software are really stupid. It is because building software is really difficult.

Neferath wrote: »

I am aware of the principles of programming and how to do it correctly.

I'm merely comparing it to other large scale software development projects (btw, the quotation marks come from Quakecon itself, not my own words) where there is much more stability in a system of comparative size and complexity. Even in other MMOs there is more stability in what is essentially the same underlying architecture for client-server communication, unless ZOS use a different method.

Given that something tends to break with every patch or update they release, it's a stable assumption that the system was precariously developed without adequate testing and without a properly developed underlying system to make sure that changes and updates could be made safely.

xaraan wrote: »

I don't know how the lag is connected to the AoE cap,

There is a connection, but the lag you are experiencing now will be nothing against the lag when the cap will be removed. More potential targets means more numbers to compute.

What ZOS don´t seem to understand is that there underlying technologie can´t handle a big amount of players. So instead of working on that, they remove half of the campaigns to concentrate even more players. Combine that with a potential removement of an aoe cap and voila, the next big fail will be delivered.

I am very much for the removement gameplay wise but perfomance wise this would be a mess right now and leave the game even more unplayable than it is now.

I would strongly advise Mr. Wheeler to play the game on live servers to see and feel the mess Zenimax charges players every month for. Sometimes i have the feeling they only look through their rose-coloured glasses of test servers where everything performes well with 10 testers.