Official Discussion Thread for "The Road Ahead - August 20"

MercutioElessar

That's a bad joke, right?
About the whole Road Ahead thingy: I hoped for something extremely different. And I didn't get it. A short "Sorry guys, we're post-poning update 4 due to resolve current issues and bugs" was all I wanted.

zazamalek

@‌ZOS_GinaBruno some of us (maybe all?) are still having issues with lag on EU, especially in low-level areas. I've seen numerous posts on Reddit about this, as well as complaints in TS. Multiple IRL continents, multiple maps (although non-vet Deshaan is REALLY bad). Cyrodiil is mostly OK but occasionally has lag spikes.

We've been experiencing it in one of a few ways:

1. You notice the inability to attack or interact with objects.
2. After about 10 to 20 seconds your character rolls back by about 1 to 2 minutes.
3. After about 10 seconds you are kicked for excessive messaging.

1. Everything around you pauses for about 5 to 10 seconds.
2. Everything fast-forwards in the timespan of 2 - 3 seconds to where it should be.
3. You may be kicked for excessive messaging.
   Can happen in Cyrodiil, sans the kick.

1. You use a charge ability.
2. Your character plays the first 1/2 of the animation (e.g. you raise your sword above your head for 2H <Critical Charge>).
3. You never complete the animation, and never charge. You can continue to move around. You are effectively silenced (all abilities are greyed out).
   Happens in PvE maybe once an hour, happens in Cyrodiil maybe once a day.
   Workaround: get stunned by something or interact (but cancel the interaction) with a door. You can also wait it out, it does resolve itself eventually.
   Comboing with charge abilities (e.g. <Crystal Fragments> into <Critical Rush>) seems to drastically increase the chances of this happening.

• http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/2dx8yo/eso_eu_server_lag/
• http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/2dy9sm/discussioncombat_lag/

Also, in terms of the PTS, can you please allow us to copy the main game data files to 'seed' the download. Not everyone has a super-fast connection and downloading the PTS data would probably take days. I would love to help, but that download is prohibitive.

Aliniel

Zazamalek speaks the truth. I have experienced these issues myself. It's kind of ruining the gameplay. We'd all be very happy if you looked into that

Anyway keep up the good work.

Cogo

I wonder about the lag problems on EU server. I have not had any at all. 2 Crashes, but since that was 12 hours apart, I'll accept that.

Regarding lag in newbie area in EU server. Our guild recruited 3 new players to ESO (Their first MMO). One swede, one french and one german. None of them had any lag to speak of. They reported server lag, but only for a second or two and not repeatedly. Game crashes happen to them though.

I wonder how much is the server side and how much is the client side.

I am gonna go ahead and give myself a bunch of lols for this comment, but some problems are client side, and the server lag is easily fixable with added resources to the EU data center.

zazamalek

Cogo wrote: »

I wonder about the lag problems on EU server. I have not had any at all. 2 Crashes, but since that was 12 hours apart, I'll accept that.

[...] but some problems are client side, and the server lag is easily fixable with added resources to the EU data center.

Right, so it's not everyone. Strange. Either way, when EU was in NA I obviously had higher network latency, but none of these issues. It's definitely new, in fact, I think 1.3 mostly introduced these new issues.

dvogiatziseb17_ESO

The lag happens on certain hours probably. Yesterday I was logged in from 14.00 GMT and another 8 hours and it happened 3-4 times exactly like the previous poster described it.

Cogo

zazamalek wrote: »

Cogo wrote: »

I wonder about the lag problems on EU server. I have not had any at all. 2 Crashes, but since that was 12 hours apart, I'll accept that.

[...] but some problems are client side, and the server lag is easily fixable with added resources to the EU data center.

Right, so it's not everyone. Strange. Either way, when EU was in NA I obviously had higher network latency, but none of these issues. It's definitely new, in fact, I think 1.3 mostly introduced these new issues.

You didn't have the issues because the "servers" was in the same data center.

Noticed the EU servers going down tonight? A few hours ago it stated there was no downtime this week.

I am GUESSING. They trying to "patch" to fix performance before adding "resources" (hardware, software, database licenses and lots of stuff that costs cash).

The "problem" is to many players. solution = easy = add resources.

bttlsgtmajor_ESO

Are any of the new updates going to address the fact that weapon swapping is utterly broken now for many of us? I've already submitted a couple of tickets around it and haven't seen any updates regarding this issue... Haven't been able to play at all due to it.

Cogo

bttlsgtmajor_ESO wrote: »

Are any of the new updates going to address the fact that weapon swapping is utterly broken now for many of us? I've already submitted a couple of tickets around it and haven't seen any updates regarding this issue... Haven't been able to play at all due to it.

Broken how? Maybe its my class but it works fine for me, and I am swaping a lot now. I got axe and shield + bow. The "problem" I had is pressing swapping twice and come back to my first set. <---dumb

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

I wonder what sort of client settings they run on that Craglorn screenshot.
Because is much better than what I have ever managed to see, even if I have everything maxed out.

Zarman

Heres an idea, rather then having to reload the entire game all over again to play PTS server, why don't you make it so we can use the files that are already on our computer, and make additional files for the pts and other servers, i don't really want two 32 gig installations of the same game on my pc. If you do this, more people might actually use PTS.

Caph

"The PTS currently requires us to first skill up abilities ( mage, fighters, undaunted). Then it requires us to start doing researching so we can get the gear needed.

Then after that, 2 days if lucky for the seducer set for example, then we can start testing. Oh and first we need to do a couple of AA/Hel ra to get Warlock pieces that certain people need.

Hmm when I think about this.. I might as well just let other people test for me because I can't bother doing all that again."

-The mind of every person who has end game experience on the live servers.

Oh and not to forget, the file is too large for some people to download.

Enableing all traits and warlock + other common trial drop gear would be enough to get us a great start. Character copying, even better, that would be great but currently, I'm stuck with researching and farming materials to get my character in shape for the harder content.

kelly.medleyb14_ESO

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

"More Craglorn quests"
...

Do you really want to hurt me...

In all seriousness, more group quests we can look forward to spending weeks and weeks trying to find a group for since all anyone wants to do is grind or Trials. Or Arena, since that's there now. But questers like me are in for another long, long wait... the rest looks great, but more Craglorn quests, not so much...

Part of the problem is there is zero intensive for doing them.

Elsonso

kelly.medleyb14_ESO wrote: »

Hire real testers please stop relying on people who only play pts to find exploits they can use on unsuspecting "noobs" in Cyrodiil.

You can't expect your client to do a 50k per year job for you for free.

The best people for finding exploits are the people who want to use them. The challenge is to let them do it in an environment where they can be encouraged to do it and report about it.

A paid tester looking for exploits may find a couple, but they do not have nearly the motivation to be good at it. Those that are good at it are rare and will command significantly more than 50k per year.

I think a PTS bounty on exploits would be a good start; paid in game time.

Lionxoft wrote: »

An Elder Scrolls game without the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild is not an Elder Scrolls game. This is kind of frustrating disappointing.

Yeah, disappointed here as well. These basically dropped of the Road.

Navuri wrote: »

You introduce cosmetic enhancements before content you promised before the actual release of the game (DB, TG).

The ESO development people are broken up into groups, some of which have very specific skills, like art and animation. It makes no sense to keep those people in a box until content they are not working on is complete, just so stuff can be released in the order preferred by people. When one of these specialized teams has something to include, it should be included.

One of those groups of people, the people responsible for the user interface design, has something to share with us in the Road Ahead that outright scares me. They want to add this? Ugh. This sort of thing reminds me of the horrible perks UI in Skyrim. It does not fit into the user interface at all. Like with Skyrim, it seems to be intended as resume or award building material rather than useful function.



Above, what they are showing us seems to be part, or all, of the Champion points allocation interface.

Kego

Sakara wrote: »

So..with that, i really hope the more solo play pve is expanded more so in the near future as im running out of story to play by myself.

Problem with Solo Content: You need a lot of manpower and time to create it and it will be consumed in ~2 weeks and never played again.

Look at WoW and it Expanions every two years. there are about 5 new Zones with hundreds of Quests and most player are done with them in ~4 weeks at all.

Tyr

Navuri wrote: »

“Expect to see soon”: new facial animation system, improved grouping, fixes to player separation issues

“Expect to see in a while”: Imperial City, Champion System

“Expect to see later”: Justice System, Spellcrafting

Then I'll be back in February or something like that. No news about Murkmire, Wrothgar, Fishing, Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood. You introduce cosmetic enhancements before content you promised before the actual release of the game (DB, TG). And because ZOS senses that people tend to leave the game because of the weak updates and not delivering their promises we can join a so called 'loyalty program'. How about a little loyalty towards players who have been supporting this game for over 2 years?

Well if the "improved grouping" and "fixes to player separation"
make Craglorn questing easy to do with PUGs, then this will help with solo players that are willing to get in PUG groups to get through that content including the new stuff in upper craglorn.

Eyepoke067

Amazing job with the game, thank you all so much for the hard work! Im absolutely sure I could not do a better job if I had a game of my own to develop! Hi 5 to the devs! Fist bump!

Elsonso

zazamalek wrote: »

@‌ZOS_GinaBruno some of us (maybe all?) are still having issues with lag on EU

1. You notice the inability to attack or interact with objects.
2. After about 10 to 20 seconds your character rolls back by about 1 to 2 minutes.
3. After about 10 seconds you are kicked for excessive messaging.

1. Everything around you pauses for about 5 to 10 seconds.
2. Everything fast-forwards in the timespan of 2 - 3 seconds to where it should be.
3. You may be kicked for excessive messaging.
   Can happen in Cyrodiil, sans the kick.

1. You use a charge ability.
2. Your character plays the first 1/2 of the animation (e.g. you raise your sword above your head for 2H <Critical Charge>).
3. You never complete the animation, and never charge.

This is not specific to EU and should not be lumped into an EU-only server lag category. I have seen the following on the NA server:

• You notice the inability to attack or interact with objects.

This is rare and it has resulted in being kicked. Most times, however, it clears in a few seconds with no ill effects. This was a much larger, and more frequent, problem back in April. I attribute this to a client-server issue where they do not agree that the object can be interacted with. Potential server loading issue where the client tells the server that there is an object to interact with and the server does not respond right away. If this persists or the connection drops and the player is kicked out of the game, then perhaps this is something different.

• Everything around you pauses for about 5 to 10 seconds. Everything fast-forwards in the time span of 2 - 3 seconds to where it should be.

This happens to me at least once every day. I have not found a trigger. It happens out of combat, but then I spend most of my time out of combat. I have not investigated this, but my first thought is that the active connection with the server has been dropped and the server and client need to negotiate a new connection. Once that happens, a flurry of updates are exchanged. If this is the case, it could be for any number of reasons, including a game bug instead of a server lag problem.

• Your character plays the first 1/2 of the charge animation. You never complete the animation, and never charge.

This is common, at least a couple times per day, when playing a character that can charge. I think this is a game bug, not a server lag, since I often see it happen when there is something between me and the target; a rock, post, doorframe, etc. I see it a lot less, possibly not at all, when the path is clear.

Laplace

Probably a dumb question, but: If and when the Veteran System is scrapped in favor of the Champion System, will we be still be able to get the Golden Saint, Seducer, and Mannimarco Costumes?

This is coming from someone with a busy life due to my job but loves this game, so I still haven't managed to make much headway towards Veteran Ranks, and I'd hate to miss out on them.

Awdwyn

Laplace wrote: »

Probably a dumb question, but: If and when the Veteran System is scrapped in favor of the Champion System, will we be still be able to get the Golden Saint, Seducer, and Mannimarco Costumes?

This is coming from someone with a busy life due to my job but loves this game, so I still haven't managed to make much headway towards Veteran Ranks, and I'd hate to miss out on them.

Perhaps tie them to a certain number of champion points earned on the character instead?

Vahrokh

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

i would like to add my voice to the plea for help on PTS. so far the time i have been on there i have seen three other people!

Not convinced, The PTS is the place to go to put to test Theory crafting on builds and actually test their viability. not only will you get to see if your ideas for endgame builds are useful, but you might even find a cool surprise while doing it.

Infallible magic method to get the PTS busy as hell: offer $5 a month discount to the first NNN players who log on PTS and who play there for XX minimum hours a month.

Vahrokh

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

"More Craglorn quests"
...

Do you really want to hurt me...

In all seriousness, more group quests we can look forward to spending weeks and weeks trying to find a group for since all anyone wants to do is grind or Trials. Or Arena, since that's there now. But questers like me are in for another long, long wait... the rest looks great, but more Craglorn quests, not so much...

Your post has been the most "liked" in the thread. Who knows why?

ZoS how are we meant to level up to 14?

Tell us OFFICIALLY: do you want we stick to lower Craglorn grinding Hircine, anomalies and bosses or farming arena?

Because that's the only thing that shall happen.

I loathe mindless boss grinding, yet after 2 months I have only *2* Craglorn quests done because not a single dog wants to do them.

And we are getting... more of the same!

Screw the loyalty pet, I am not going to pay you for more "forever LFG 4 men dungeous / quests".

Phaedrus

Does anyone know of a good guide for getting started in PTS? I want to help and would be willing to jump on this Saturday as @ZOS_BrianWheeler‌ asked for the Cyrodiil test but I don't really know how to create the high level characters over there.

Auricle

Am I the only one who's really excited for the new facial animation system..? I think it'll add a lot to the PvE experience and I'm really happy that they put that on the Soon™ list.

People *** a lot, but I think ZoS is moving in the right direction with ESO, however belated their efforts might seem.

Awdwyn

Auricle wrote: »

Am I the only one who's really excited for the new facial animation system..? I think it'll add a lot to the PvE experience and I'm really happy that they put that on the Soon™ list.

People *** a lot, but I think ZoS is moving in the right direction with ESO, however belated their efforts might seem.

Absolutely! I'm pumped.

lord of zion

please fix craglorn make it soloable there is nothing more fustrating then sitting in zone looking for grps and not finding anything for hours at a clip

mistermacintosh

My best guess:

Soon - Fall/Winter Holidays

In a while - Winter Holidays/Spring

Later - Spring/Summer

(Of course the stuff I'm most excited about is furthest out! C'mon spell crafting!)

I wouldn't be surprised if Imperial City comes out around Christmas.

I've actually been waiting to get into the war until they add it because Cyrodiil just isn't complete without the Imperial City. I'm sure anyone who's played Oblivion understands. Who want's to be emperor of a bunch of forts? (It's not like owning Cheydenhall or Bruma is anything special. It's easier to quest through Chorral and the other one, but that's about it...)

I'm wondering what they're going to do with Anvil & Kvatch in Colovia... and Bravil... what are they going to do with Bravil? And of course Vardenfell, Blacklight, Winterhold, Whiterun, the palace in Windhelm, Solitude, Summerset, Fallinesti, Elsweyr... and the Reach. They have so many locations to work with... and that's just on that one continent.

That's why I ignore people who say this game is dead. It's barely begun.

Ghenra

“Expect to see soon”: new facial animation system, improved grouping, fixes to player separation issues
2 months?

“Expect to see in a while”: Imperial City, Champion System
4 months?

“Expect to see later”: Justice System, Spellcrafting
Next year?

To late ZOS, and WTF! Adding first the stupid facial animation system than Imperial City or Justice System? Are you crazy? I can't believe it...

mistermacintosh

Markarth, forgot Markarth!

lykan_spike

Fix PvP... The site of wrecking ball vs wrecking ball is a joke. I've seen 100 people quit in the two guilds I run in the last 2 months... There are so many bugs that make people un-killable due to stacking Shields / Ultimate like barrier is depressing. People being able to do over 3k damage in one hit, what is the point of playing PvP when you can be killed with one hit. Healing fully healed people to generate Ultimate is wrong, both in PvP and even PvE! Some Ultimates are so easy to generate as well. When the game was releasedm Ultimate was sold as a powerful ability you can use every so often... I've seen people use their ultimate every 5 seconds! These Wrecking ball groups spam two spells... and then use Negate/Nova, how is that PvP! So many basic issues are unresolved since beta and you add in new content that we should be excited about? Lots of other MMO's have these new features like Armour Dye, Guild Ranks / Tabards as standard! It's not ground breaking at all.

You have a solid player base, with the majority i speak to giving the game a chance to improve, which is going to get lower if you don't fix these MAJOR issues. Any decent software developer knows if you keep adding new code on to code that is currently buggy you are going to chase your tails. FIX EVERY BUG, EVERY EXPLOIT. Balance the Classes and fix the AoE spamming. Reduce the damage it does, make AoE spells cost so much more Magicka. Even stamina builds are always going to fall behind when your stamina is used for crouching / running / dodge rolling / blocking. This should be a separate stat, call it Fatigue or something, which is equal for every player, which you could add to the Champion Tree to slightly improve.

I've sent so many suggestions, and every time you answer questions like at QuakeCON you blatantly dodge any question about the bad side of the game. You are only as strong as your weakest link. Currently it's all of the above.

One last thing with PvE. Add some real raid content. Trials are fine, have been easy, but it's different to traditional raiding, but you can be burned out in two weeks as the content can be farmed 100's of times a week!

Keep trials, then add in new Raid content for 12/24 man, if the game can handle 24 in a raid, as sometimes people have issues in 12. Make it a weekly lockout and lets have 12 or so bosses to go through. A raid should feel epic, last a few hours and make you feel like you've achieved something. 15mins to do a trial... killing the 1st boss in AA within 19 seconds... Come on. A single PvP Guard takes longer to kill.