PC\MAC US and EU Realms: Chillrend Campaign closing on November 9th

ZOS_BrianWheeler

We will be removing Chillrend as a Campaign during the regular maintenance on November 9th on PC/Mac US and EU realms. We will continue to look at population across the board, and merge campaigns as necessary to provide a more competitive environment for PVP in Cyrodiil.

_Chaos

Finally condensing the PVP population! Now if only we could have pop locked campaigns without 400+ ping...

Is there a reasonable way to separate keep areas and turn them into "mini instances" so to speak? Or split the map up into four quarters? (Wouldn't help for emp dethrone lag though)

BigDSoulReaper

when will this be coming to console?

Tavore1138

Good to see my record of playing on closed campaigns will now be 3/3... and I use the worrd 'good' quite wrongly...

Erondil

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Good to see my record of playing on closed campaigns will now be 3/3... and I use the worrd 'good' quite wrongly...

Why do you play on the most empty campaigns, though?

ZOS_BrianWheeler

@spenc_cathb16_ESO The short answer is no, there is no easy way to split keeps off into their own instances or even the three portions of Cyrodiil at this time.

_Chaos

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@spenc_cathb16_ESO The short answer is no, there is no easy way to split keeps off into their own instances or even the three portions of Cyrodiil at this time.

There's already three instances in Cyrodiil though. Overland, Sewers, IC Districts.
Why not split overland Cyrodiil even further? See image below for an example.




Edit: Thanks in advance for the reply, much appreciated.

MisterBigglesworth

@ZOS_BrianWheeler What about phasing/sharding Cyrodiil the same way it's done for all other zones.

Then, when you get close to a keep, a prompt appears: "Do you want to join this battle?"

• Click Yes and you get put in the same phase as everyone else seiging that keep.
• Click No you stay in your own phase but that keep is non-interactive.

vortexman11

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler What about phasing/sharding Cyrodiil the same way it's done for all other zones.

Then, when you get close to a keep, a prompt appears: "Do you want to join this battle?"

• Click Yes and you get put in the same phase as everyone else seiging that keep.
• Click No you stay in your own phase but that keep is non-interactive.

Sounds like load screens

SHADOW2KK

Erondil wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Good to see my record of playing on closed campaigns will now be 3/3... and I use the worrd 'good' quite wrongly...

Why do you play on the most empty campaigns, though?

Did ye not know matey?, cos they love next to no opposition, hence one of the reasons why I left Legio, although to be fair now, they are getting into the thick of things a lot more, which is good to see.

On topic, good to see Chilly being shut down, but hope it does not cause more lag in the proper campaigns like Azuras and what not....

CN_Daniel

Dumb idea until lag is fixed....

ZOS_BrianWheeler

Let me clarify...the concept of splitting Cyrodiil into it's three portions and designing a method of them all interacting is not a difficult concept...the server tech and amount of time required to do such a change however, would not be.

Darlgon

spenc_cathb16_ESO wrote: »

wordz

A similar idea has been suggested before....somewhere in the thread below....just not with game -re designing concept of different phases for each third.

I will shamelessly point you to my post from August 18, 2015.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2163507/#Comment_2163507

Nafirian

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Let me clarify...the concept of splitting Cyrodiil into it's three portions and designing a method of them all interacting is not a difficult concept...the server tech and amount of time required to do such a change however, would not be.

You wanna fix lag i know this isnt your department But step A NO AOE Caps Step B Dynamic ult put it on the pts and allow us to test and if it solves the problems then done you over think things far too much much and give us stuff we never wanted @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno Just listen theres no harm with puting something on the pts and allowing us to test no? theres a reason its called Public TEST Server Plox ZOS your game has so much potential but you blatantly ignore it

Gilvoth

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We will be removing Chillrend as a Campaign during the regular maintenance on November 9th on PC/Mac US and EU realms. We will continue to look at population across the board, and merge campaigns as necessary to provide a more competitive environment for PVP in Cyrodiil.

awesome, thank you.
much needed, in my belief.

jrkhan

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Let me clarify...the concept of splitting Cyrodiil into it's three portions and designing a method of them all interacting is not a difficult concept...the server tech and amount of time required to do such a change however, would not be.

Oh! While your lurking... aoe damage hitting all players in a stack for full damage (pvp change only) technically possible? What are the downsides? I've honestly never heard a rebuttal to this from any other player.

Turelus

Really happy to see this, I feel we could lose one or two 30 days as well leaving only two (how it used to be).

Legedric

spenc_cathb16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@spenc_cathb16_ESO The short answer is no, there is no easy way to split keeps off into their own instances or even the three portions of Cyrodiil at this time.

There's already three instances in Cyrodiil though. Overland, Sewers, IC Districts.
Why not split overland Cyrodiil even further? See image below for an example.




Edit: Thanks in advance for the reply, much appreciated.

I hope they will never split Cyrodiil!

I already played GW2, been there, done that. Cyrodiil as a huge open zone without boundaries in traveling (and especially without loading screens inbetween) is what I am here for.

Maybe this would reduce overall lag (which I doubt, because a three-way fight at BRK would still lag out the zone destroying the "big fight" feeling) but having to pass a loading screen of sillyness everytime I die and want to run back to Nikels from Roe? No thx.

Tavore1138

Erondil wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Good to see my record of playing on closed campaigns will now be 3/3... and I use the worrd 'good' quite wrongly...

Why do you play on the most empty campaigns, though?

Maybe I am just so damn good at PvP that I have single handedly scared off the combined forces of both other alliances from each campaign in turn?

But seriously folks...

Because none were empty when I started playing on them and once I get to know the campaign I feel strangely loyal to it - it's not like I sought out campaigns they were going to close.

Possibly more importantly I'm not a super hardcore PvP player and prefer to have regular relatively lag free small scale PvP rather than 300 people standing on a flag using light attacks, waiting to see which alliance lags out first... the AP may be good but the entertainment is lacking.

Enodoc

Legedric wrote: »

spenc_cathb16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@spenc_cathb16_ESO The short answer is no, there is no easy way to split keeps off into their own instances or even the three portions of Cyrodiil at this time.

There's already three instances in Cyrodiil though. Overland, Sewers, IC Districts.
Why not split overland Cyrodiil even further? See image below for an example.


Edit: Thanks in advance for the reply, much appreciated.

I hope they will never split Cyrodiil!

I already played GW2, been there, done that. Cyrodiil as a huge open zone without boundaries in traveling (and especially without loading screens inbetween) is what I am here for.

Maybe this would reduce overall lag (which I doubt, because a three-way fight at BRK would still lag out the zone destroying the "big fight" feeling) but having to pass a loading screen of sillyness everytime I die and want to run back to Nikels from Roe? No thx.

@spenc_cathb16_ESO Overland Cyro, IC Districts and IC Sewers aren't really instances of Cyrodiil in the way Brian is alluding to. For loading purposes, they are their own "zones" independent of Cyrodiil.

The logical place to split it, which I think Brian was alluding to, would be along the three Territory borders (where the milegates and bridges are), rather than down the middle of each territory. But that would probably remove all the chokepoint battles that those places are so good for.

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler What about phasing/sharding Cyrodiil the same way it's done for all other zones.

Then, when you get close to a keep, a prompt appears: "Do you want to join this battle?"

• Click Yes and you get put in the same phase as everyone else seiging that keep.
• Click No you stay in your own phase but that keep is non-interactive.

@MisterBigglesworth Cyrodiil already is sharded into different instances like the other zones. That's what the different campaigns are, and how campaign population caps are handled.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Out of interest, when will Belharza be opened on Console?

olsborg

@ZOS_BrianWheeler do we get campaign rewards on closure?

MisterBigglesworth

Enodoc wrote: »

@MisterBigglesworth Cyrodiil already is sharded into different instances like the other zones. That's what the different campaigns are, and how campaign population caps are handled.

No it isn't. Not in the way I'm proposing.
I want every single Keep and outpost on it's own individual shard.
That way when there's a huge battle over at Chalman it doesn't cause lag on the other side of the map.

This is the way Blizzard handles huge overpopulated servers in WoW.
I'm on the Stormrage server. Population: 170,000+
They prevent too many people in one spot by dynamically spooling up additional instances/shards of a zone as need (it's basically a Megaserver) but they still let players override that by joining a raid (40 people from different shards all now in the same shard in order to take down a world boss)

...oh and btw you can change phases/shards in WoW WITHOUT LOADING SCREENS!!! (crazy I know)

ZOS_BrianWheeler

You will get campaign rewards on closure depending on your leaderboard status, Tier and how your Alliance is doing at the time of closure in regards to the Campaign overall score.

Orchish

It's a good start but we need more than just Chillrend closed. Two of the 30 day campaigns being shut down would also help a lot. i rarely ever see more than 1 poplocked an another with medium to high. The other two never get over medium on barely 1 faction.

olsborg

Gotta be careful tho, 1 of the 30 day camps (azura) is laggy all the livelong day except maybe very early/or late depending how you look at it.

tengri

Appreciate the detailed heads up.
Now I can finally "un-home" two of my characters who never go to Cyrodiil (only for the intro-quests) and block up campaigns...

ladyonthemoon

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We will be removing Chillrend as a Campaign during the regular maintenance on November 9th on PC/Mac US and EU realms. We will continue to look at population across the board, and merge campaigns as necessary to provide a more competitive environment for PVP in Cyrodiil.

When will this be announced on the French (and German?) forums?

ladyonthemoon

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We will be removing Chillrend as a Campaign during the regular maintenance on November 9th on PC/Mac US and EU realms. We will continue to look at population across the board, and merge campaigns as necessary to provide a more competitive environment for PVP in Cyrodiil.

What is the goal of this; is this a good thing? Could someone explain why to the noob I am, please? And what will be the results of this?

LegendaryMage

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We will be removing Chillrend as a Campaign during the regular maintenance on November 9th on PC/Mac US and EU realms. We will continue to look at population across the board, and merge campaigns as necessary to provide a more competitive environment for PVP in Cyrodiil.

Brian, I'm sure this is a very broad topic but I'm personally curious as to what's being worked on and prioritized at the moment in terms of server performance boosting? I'm not a tech guy by any means, but based on my pvp experience, usually 2 things happen;

1. We're in quite big fights that are 'almost' not lagged at all, indicating to me that the server 'could' handle this but is not quite there yet, and;

2. Medium to big fights that are totally lagged because we have groups of players spamming the crap out of everything at the same time and in very short intervals, loading up the server like crazy.

In my layman's opinion, this can only be fixed in two ways, corresponding to the problems I've identified;

1. Optimize the server further, re-design how certain skills work and make them as less stressful as possible, consider removing some and replacing with totally new ones that are 'similar' in nature, but work much differently. Who cares if it's someone's 'favorite skill', if that skill is a major offender, it should go and be replaced with something similar, but much more efficient. People might even prefer the new ones, plus the improved performance is something most of us PVPers would prioritize over anything else really.

2. Punish 'blobs' or 'balls' or whatever you call those specific groups of players that are lagging things out. Sure, they can argue that 'they want to play the way they want to play', but if that's ruining it for everyone else on a constant basis, then I'm sorry but who cares how you want to play when everyone else is almost unable to play at all. Maybe make them bleed their alliance points in huge quantities when they die, as a 'penalty' for being too much stacked or inside each other for a prolonged period of time.

And then as a last suggestion, add a ton of other smaller pvp objectives all across Cyrodiil. All those towns, caves, dungeons, monasteries and temples, basically anything you look on the map, add some sort of incentive to go there again and actually spend some time there.

ZOS_BrianWheeler

There are some specific ability changes coming up very soon that reduce physics calls by either restructuring them or adjusting the amount of times they hit a Line of sight or other physics check.

We're looking into other methods of spreading players out as well regarding town capture and adding other activities to do in Cyrodiil. There is no ETA on that yet as we're still going to keep pushing for further ability optimizations and more back-end work to get the performance better.

As far as not shutting down more Campaigns, we need the tech (which is in progress by the way) to allow players to un-assign themselves as well as removing the restriction that you can't have cross alliance characters on a single account assigned to the same Campaign. That being said however, we will be measuring the value of condensed campaigns vs. total population vs. performance and making the call as to how many Campaigns are running at that time.

Ezareth

Great news @ZOS_BrianWheeler

It's good to see our PvP Dev hasn't thrown the white flag of surrender yet.

I hope the "Specific Ability Changes" coming up are the removal of AoE caps. I swear that term is like the Elephant in the Room... ZoS has been so consistent in failing to even bat an eyelash at mention of it I swear Wrobel must be holding your families hostage or something.