re Road Map 2016 and PVP lag

Frawr

Quoting Matt:

As I am a regular PvP player (Azura's Star, NA), I am fully aware of the server responsiveness problems that can result when too many players fight in one area and use too many AoE abilities. This is a problem that needs many fixes - but the main challenge we face is that we can only test these fixes on the live servers, as it is impossible to simulate live conditions on our test servers. As we obviously cannot risk introducing new problems and side-effect issues on the live servers, we need to do these changes incrementally. We have introduced many tweaks over the last two months, including recent experiments with some server physics changes. These have helped, but not enough to alleviate the problem. Our next round of changes is going in shortly, so stay tuned for details. We will continue working on this problem until it is resolved.

AOE caps.

the server dies because everyone zergs together because it is safer because you put in AOE CAPS. ( I accept your point that there used to be fewer pretty particle effects flying around - causing less lag, however, by slowing down the death rate with the caps you are simply compounding the issue.

How many internal meetings/discussions/approvals/emails/catchups/more meetings needs to happen before this can be trialed?

You also said, in your article, that the Live Servers are the only real testing ground. What are you waiting for?:Remove it for a week and see how the servers cope.

What are you afraid of? Precious little princesses die more? I die all of the damned time now. its really not the end of the world. It would be far better if everyone had the same chance of kill/death, rather than this idiotic weighting in favour of groups of 500 players. Then, perhaps, I could die to a better player rather than dying to a slide show of fear, steel tornado and 10 x spambush.

I am certain that most Cyrodiil regulars will be happy to 'test' something such as that.

Please remove it. I am so sick of 999 ping + 500 players spamming aoe on the same spot in total god mode.

Removing the cap will end the lag because those players will be dead. Dead = no aoe.

Good game.

themdogesbite

No ETA, in the future, soon, later next year. blablablablaabbabblablabbaalbablablabalblabla.

Sallington

Is there anything in the MMO market right now that I might not know about? Looking for greener pastures.

Taonnor

Sallington wrote: »

Is there anything in the MMO market right now that I might not know about? Looking for greener pastures.

Camelot Unchained

Sallington

Taonnor wrote: »

Sallington wrote: »

Is there anything in the MMO market right now that I might not know about? Looking for greener pastures.

Camelot Unchained

Well that's the obvious one. Still a ways off though.

FENGRUSH

Stikato

FENGRUSH wrote: »

You guys doing the We Are Eso podcast tonight?

mchermie

People are hating on these things because there seems to be no progress on the issue. It would be awesome if they actually made a patch that made some changes that the pvp players wanted for once. Even if it didnt work out like we thought it would

Sykotical

You're regurgitating this misconceived notion that increasing server stress during battle, à la AOE vs AOE, will have a satisfactory effect, but you fail to realize that it is during battle that lag is so detrimental, not after, when there is no enemy. We need server stress reduced and removing the AOE caps will do the exact opposite.

Clearly, patience is wearing thin as there has been no obvious improvement, but they've already stated that they are gradually tweaking the live server. We'll get there, but a lot of these abilities with proliferating effects will likely have to be managed one way... (queue ominous music ) or another.

Yes, AOE caps unfairly safeguard larger groups, but there is no way removing them will end lag.

Manoekin

Sykotical wrote: »

You're regurgitating this misconceived notion that increasing server stress during battle, à la AOE vs AOE, will have a satisfactory effect, but you fail to realize that it is during battle that lag is so detrimental, not after, when there is no enemy. We need server stress reduced and removing the AOE caps will do the exact opposite.

Clearly, patience is wearing thin as there has been no obvious improvement, but they've already stated that they are gradually tweaking the live server. We'll get there, but a lot of these abilities with proliferating effects will likely have to be managed one way... (queue ominous music ) or another.

Yes, AOE caps unfairly safeguard larger groups, but there is no way removing them will end lag.

There's no way it can cause more lag like you imply, either. You're not hitting 60 people (the current cap) with every attack anyway. Thus, the only thing removing it could possibly do is remove the extra calculations from deciding who gets hit by what % of the original damage. Derp... logic.

Derra

Manoekin wrote: »

Sykotical wrote: »

You're regurgitating this misconceived notion that increasing server stress during battle, à la AOE vs AOE, will have a satisfactory effect, but you fail to realize that it is during battle that lag is so detrimental, not after, when there is no enemy. We need server stress reduced and removing the AOE caps will do the exact opposite.

Clearly, patience is wearing thin as there has been no obvious improvement, but they've already stated that they are gradually tweaking the live server. We'll get there, but a lot of these abilities with proliferating effects will likely have to be managed one way... (queue ominous music ) or another.

Yes, AOE caps unfairly safeguard larger groups, but there is no way removing them will end lag.

There's no way it can cause more lag like you imply, either. You're not hitting 60 people (the current cap) with every attack anyway. Thus, the only thing removing it could possibly do is remove the extra calculations from deciding who gets hit by what % of the original damage. Derp... logic.

And removing them would (not even could here - it would and i´m 100% sure of this) end battles faster.

Enemies dead = no more calculations at all.

Frawr

Sykotical wrote: »

You're regurgitating this misconceived notion that increasing server stress during battle, à la AOE vs AOE, will have a satisfactory effect, but you fail to realize that it is during battle that lag is so detrimental, not after, when there is no enemy. We need server stress reduced and removing the AOE caps will do the exact opposite.

Clearly, patience is wearing thin as there has been no obvious improvement, but they've already stated that they are gradually tweaking the live server. We'll get there, but a lot of these abilities with proliferating effects will likely have to be managed one way... (queue ominous music ) or another.

Yes, AOE caps unfairly safeguard larger groups, but there is no way removing them will end lag.

@Sykotical please explain how you conclude that assigning; 6 people 100% damage, 18 people 50% damage and 30 people 25% damage, at random, for every skill activated, is less stressful on the server than just assigining 100% damage to everyone?


Since I can work out how much damage each player in a 6m radius will take, in my head, much faster than I can pick 6 at random for 100% damage each time I cast, im damned sure that a computer can do the '100% for all' faster too.

and per my other point

try it for a week

if they try it and there is no change to lag then I will eat humble pie.

Derra wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Sykotical wrote: »

You're regurgitating this misconceived notion that increasing server stress during battle, à la AOE vs AOE, will have a satisfactory effect, but you fail to realize that it is during battle that lag is so detrimental, not after, when there is no enemy. We need server stress reduced and removing the AOE caps will do the exact opposite.

Clearly, patience is wearing thin as there has been no obvious improvement, but they've already stated that they are gradually tweaking the live server. We'll get there, but a lot of these abilities with proliferating effects will likely have to be managed one way... (queue ominous music ) or another.

Yes, AOE caps unfairly safeguard larger groups, but there is no way removing them will end lag.

There's no way it can cause more lag like you imply, either. You're not hitting 60 people (the current cap) with every attack anyway. Thus, the only thing removing it could possibly do is remove the extra calculations from deciding who gets hit by what % of the original damage. Derp... logic.

And removing them would (not even could here - it would and i´m 100% sure of this) end battles faster.

Enemies dead = no more calculations at all.

THIS

MisterBigglesworth

1. Removing the 60 target cap would worsen performance.
2. Getting rid of the calculations for the 6/34/30 target damage would slightly improve performance.
3. The real, underlying issue here is the anti-botting logic/netcode introduced in patch 1.2.3 and if this change were reverted would significantly improve performance.

Frawr

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

1. Removing the 60 target cap would worsen performance.
2. Getting rid of the calculations for the 6/34/30 target damage would slightly improve performance.
3. The real, underlying issue here is the anti-botting logic/netcode introduced in patch 1.2.3 and if this change were reverted would significantly improve performance.

@MrBiggelsworth I'd love to test that too and your are right. I remember performance tanking over night after that patch. It wasn't a steady decline, it went from fine to awful after the patch.

At this stage I would happily take the botters as a means to return to decent performance.

Come on zos. Thousands of players crying over performance has to be a bigger issue than a a few hackers running around Cyrodiil.

Please try it. Switch off that code.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler can we please have a week in Cyrodiil without aoe caps and, separately, a week without the anti-hacking net code introduced in 1.3.

I'd rather have better performance with botters the the current experience.

Sykotical

Manoekin wrote: »

Sykotical wrote: »

You're regurgitating this misconceived notion that increasing server stress during battle, à la AOE vs AOE, will have a satisfactory effect, but you fail to realize that it is during battle that lag is so detrimental, not after, when there is no enemy. We need server stress reduced and removing the AOE caps will do the exact opposite.

Clearly, patience is wearing thin as there has been no obvious improvement, but they've already stated that they are gradually tweaking the live server. We'll get there, but a lot of these abilities with proliferating effects will likely have to be managed one way... (queue ominous music ) or another.

Yes, AOE caps unfairly safeguard larger groups, but there is no way removing them will end lag.

There's no way it can cause more lag like you imply, either. You're not hitting 60 people (the current cap) with every attack anyway. Thus, the only thing removing it could possibly do is remove the extra calculations from deciding who gets hit by what % of the original damage. Derp... logic.

No, on it's own it won't cause lag, but it would still contribute to the server load. AOE caps merely increase the duration of large scale battles. Zergs/lag are not born of AOE caps, so removing AOE caps would not magically end zergs/lag, as the sentiment has been trending. People will still ball up and AOE everything, even if they no longer crush small groups without casualty, because it kills faster and requires less effort and thought. The only thing that will end zergs is friendly fire or some other debuff to local AOE attacks when standing next to even a single ally, but even without AOE, there are plenty of other factors contributing to lag.

Frawr wrote: »

Sykotical wrote: »

You're regurgitating this misconceived notion that increasing server stress during battle, à la AOE vs AOE, will have a satisfactory effect, but you fail to realize that it is during battle that lag is so detrimental, not after, when there is no enemy. We need server stress reduced and removing the AOE caps will do the exact opposite.

Clearly, patience is wearing thin as there has been no obvious improvement, but they've already stated that they are gradually tweaking the live server. We'll get there, but a lot of these abilities with proliferating effects will likely have to be managed one way... (queue ominous music ) or another.

Yes, AOE caps unfairly safeguard larger groups, but there is no way removing them will end lag.

@Sykotical please explain how you conclude that assigning; 6 people 100% damage, 18 people 50% damage and 30 people 25% damage, at random, for every skill activated, is less stressful on the server than just assigining 100% damage to everyone?


Since I can work out how much damage each player in a 6m radius will take, in my head, much faster than I can pick 6 at random for 100% damage each time I cast, im damned sure that a computer can do the '100% for all' faster too.

and per my other point

try it for a week

if they try it and there is no change to lag then I will eat humble pie.

Derra wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Sykotical wrote: »

You're regurgitating this misconceived notion that increasing server stress during battle, à la AOE vs AOE, will have a satisfactory effect, but you fail to realize that it is during battle that lag is so detrimental, not after, when there is no enemy. We need server stress reduced and removing the AOE caps will do the exact opposite.

Clearly, patience is wearing thin as there has been no obvious improvement, but they've already stated that they are gradually tweaking the live server. We'll get there, but a lot of these abilities with proliferating effects will likely have to be managed one way... (queue ominous music ) or another.

Yes, AOE caps unfairly safeguard larger groups, but there is no way removing them will end lag.

There's no way it can cause more lag like you imply, either. You're not hitting 60 people (the current cap) with every attack anyway. Thus, the only thing removing it could possibly do is remove the extra calculations from deciding who gets hit by what % of the original damage. Derp... logic.

And removing them would (not even could here - it would and i´m 100% sure of this) end battles faster.

Enemies dead = no more calculations at all.

THIS

Then the issue isn't the cap, now is it? It's the damage mitigation granted to larger groups. Remove that and you have 60 targets per AOE at 100% damage vs 100% damage to "everyone," which may be more or less than 60.

Removing AOE caps could do nothing more than end a lagfest a little early by promoting more zergball/AOE clashes. Not because there is safety in numbers, but because more people can dish out the damage. The only way to fight a zerg would be with a larger zerg, so your uncapped AOE attacks can wipe them faster.

Finally, there's this teeny part where the lag would still be present! I'm not advocating AOE caps. I'm just pointing out that the removal of AOE caps is not the end-all cure to lag.

But as you said, they could try it. They exploring various tweaks as it is. What could be the harm?

Jura23

AoE caps ain't gonna solve the lag. It doesn't really matter if you have bunch of ppl balled up or spread across 50m, game can't handle it either way.

Frawr

thing is, with no aoe caps, 2 or 3 x dragon leap onto a bunch of players = mass dead and game over before the lag can even begin.

Same with countless other burst ultimates.

The CAP prevents quick wipes.

Also, I should add, by 'cap' i dont mean the 60 limit, I mean the 50% and 25% reductions too. Those must both go.

everyone should just be hit for full damage if in range.

try for a week and see whether it improves it.

Jura23

Frawr wrote: »

thing is, with no aoe caps, 2 or 3 x dragon leap onto a bunch of players = mass dead and game over before the lag can even begin.

Same with countless other burst ultimates.

The CAP prevents quick wipes.

Also, I should add, by 'cap' i dont mean the 60 limit, I mean the 50% and 25% reductions too. Those must both go.

everyone should just be hit for full damage if in range.

try for a week and see whether it improves it.

I don't mind if they give it a tryout, but right now the lag kicks in even before the fight, so it doesn't really change the fact that in such fights half ppl ain't gonna have clue what happened until they see death recap. Yeah, it may take shorter time, but doesn't fix the problem.

Frawr

Lag doesn't kick in automatically when lots of players are around. On EU, Azura is generally worse than the others.

I put this down to there being more organised trains. So, when you have 100 people all using proxy det and ult in a well - timed burst, I am sure that this situation slows down the server more than the normal fights. This because it has to calculatr, for each aoe, who gets 100% damage, who gets 50, who gets 25 and who gets zero.

Therefore, if 1 side were to die quicker then these fights would end faster and the lag would be less overall, or, at least, die down faster.

themdogesbite

Frawr wrote: »

Lag doesn't kick in automatically when lots of players are around. On EU, Azura is generally worse than the others.

I put this down to there being more organised trains. So, when you have 100 people all using proxy det and ult in a well - timed burst, I am sure that this situation slows down the server more than the normal fights. This because it has to calculatr, for each aoe, who gets 100% damage, who gets 50, who gets 25 and who gets zero.

Therefore, if 1 side were to die quicker then these fights would end faster and the lag would be less overall, or, at least, die down faster.

Or people can try to avoid makeing unresonably lare groups on Azuras Star EU, that'd help a lot too.

Frawr

themdogesbite wrote: »

Frawr wrote: »

Lag doesn't kick in automatically when lots of players are around. On EU, Azura is generally worse than the others.

I put this down to there being more organised trains. So, when you have 100 people all using proxy det and ult in a well - timed burst, I am sure that this situation slows down the server more than the normal fights. This because it has to calculatr, for each aoe, who gets 100% damage, who gets 50, who gets 25 and who gets zero.

Therefore, if 1 side were to die quicker then these fights would end faster and the lag would be less overall, or, at least, die down faster.

Or people can try to avoid makeing unresonably lare groups on Azuras Star EU, that'd help a lot too.

I agree but I suspect that it would be easier to fix their original lag patch than to convince any of those people to spread out!

Leandor

In my opinion, the misconception of the AoE-cap-removal people is their ignorance of healing mechanics. Let me elaborate a bit.

I do agree to a certain extent that removal of the *** damage scaling will reduce the server load, but I seriously doubt that even combined with LoS fixes and group-only targets for certain buffs it will be enough to eliminate the fps/pr tanking we see in large battles.

I also know from ofttime personal experience that player density has a significant effect, meaning that balling does have an exponentially worse effect as opposed to spread out groups.

In summary, AoE cap removal proponents argue that it will eliminate balls and thus have a very positive effect. I disagree to that assumption, since balling has two parts: damage mitigation (through caps) and damage rectification (through healing). Healing springs is by far the most economic (cost-effective) means of healing in the game. BoL suffers from sustainability issues, healing ritual from cast-time and mobility issues, mutagen/rapids from stackability limits, Vigor from sustainability and effectivity.

The bread and butter healing spell of a large group has severely limited range, thus forcing zergs to ball up. Since any non-zerg opponent is still free AP for a suitably led zerg, it is a matter of bilancing: how many enemies, on average, will we kill balled and how many spread out?

Even without caps, balls will remain balls and they will just train to disperse when and if an opponent (group) pops up that will endanger survival/victory. Which in turn means that removal of caps alone might have neligible effects on performance issues.

In that context, @Frawr and @MisterBigglesworth, removal of the "bot code" is a bad idea. It was implemented because the hacks were becoming common knowledge, and as such it would not have been "a few bots" but an overwhelming majority of players using them as well, completely destroying the game. I know that of course "no one" on forums would ever have used these hacks, but rest assured, it would have spread faster than boners on a p*ssy riot concert.

Erondil

Leandor wrote: »

In my opinion, the misconception of the AoE-cap-removal people is their ignorance of healing mechanics. Let me elaborate a bit.

I do agree to a certain extent that removal of the *** damage scaling will reduce the server load, but I seriously doubt that even combined with LoS fixes and group-only targets for certain buffs it will be enough to eliminate the fps/pr tanking we see in large battles.

I also know from ofttime personal experience that player density has a significant effect, meaning that balling does have an exponentially worse effect as opposed to spread out groups.

In summary, AoE cap removal proponents argue that it will eliminate balls and thus have a very positive effect. I disagree to that assumption, since balling has two parts: damage mitigation (through caps) and damage rectification (through healing). Healing springs is by far the most economic (cost-effective) means of healing in the game. BoL suffers from sustainability issues, healing ritual from cast-time and mobility issues, mutagen/rapids from stackability limits, Vigor from sustainability and effectivity.

The bread and butter healing spell of a large group has severely limited range, thus forcing zergs to ball up. Since any non-zerg opponent is still free AP for a suitably led zerg, it is a matter of bilancing: how many enemies, on average, will we kill balled and how many spread out?

Even without caps, balls will remain balls and they will just train to disperse when and if an opponent (group) pops up that will endanger survival/victory. Which in turn means that removal of caps alone might have neligible effects on performance issues.

In that context, @Frawr and @MisterBigglesworth, removal of the "bot code" is a bad idea. It was implemented because the hacks were becoming common knowledge, and as such it would not have been "a few bots" but an overwhelming majority of players using them as well, completely destroying the game. I know that of course "no one" on forums would ever have used these hacks, but rest assured, it would have spread faster than boners on a p*ssy riot concert.

I think pretty much all of those who want damage AoE caps removed want 6 targets cap on heal to remain, and maybe even reduce the cap of purge and barrier. Thus people would have to spread out more

Leandor

Erondil wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

In my opinion, the misconception of the AoE-cap-removal people is their ignorance of healing mechanics. Let me elaborate a bit.

I do agree to a certain extent that removal of the *** damage scaling will reduce the server load, but I seriously doubt that even combined with LoS fixes and group-only targets for certain buffs it will be enough to eliminate the fps/pr tanking we see in large battles.

I also know from ofttime personal experience that player density has a significant effect, meaning that balling does have an exponentially worse effect as opposed to spread out groups.

In summary, AoE cap removal proponents argue that it will eliminate balls and thus have a very positive effect. I disagree to that assumption, since balling has two parts: damage mitigation (through caps) and damage rectification (through healing). Healing springs is by far the most economic (cost-effective) means of healing in the game. BoL suffers from sustainability issues, healing ritual from cast-time and mobility issues, mutagen/rapids from stackability limits, Vigor from sustainability and effectivity.

The bread and butter healing spell of a large group has severely limited range, thus forcing zergs to ball up. Since any non-zerg opponent is still free AP for a suitably led zerg, it is a matter of bilancing: how many enemies, on average, will we kill balled and how many spread out?

Even without caps, balls will remain balls and they will just train to disperse when and if an opponent (group) pops up that will endanger survival/victory. Which in turn means that removal of caps alone might have neligible effects on performance issues.

In that context, @Frawr and @MisterBigglesworth, removal of the "bot code" is a bad idea. It was implemented because the hacks were becoming common knowledge, and as such it would not have been "a few bots" but an overwhelming majority of players using them as well, completely destroying the game. I know that of course "no one" on forums would ever have used these hacks, but rest assured, it would have spread faster than boners on a p*ssy riot concert.

I think pretty much all of those who want damage AoE caps removed want 6 targets cap on heal to remain, and maybe even reduce the cap of purge and barrier. Thus people would have to spread out more

Apples and Oranges. I was not talking about the 6-target-cap of springs, i was talking about the radius of effect.

Frawr

Leandor wrote: »

In my opinion, the misconception of the AoE-cap-removal people is their ignorance of healing mechanics. Let me elaborate a bit.

I do agree to a certain extent that removal of the *** damage scaling will reduce the server load, but I seriously doubt that even combined with LoS fixes and group-only targets for certain buffs it will be enough to eliminate the fps/pr tanking we see in large battles.

I also know from ofttime personal experience that player density has a significant effect, meaning that balling does have an exponentially worse effect as opposed to spread out groups.

In summary, AoE cap removal proponents argue that it will eliminate balls and thus have a very positive effect. I disagree to that assumption, since balling has two parts: damage mitigation (through caps) and damage rectification (through healing). Healing springs is by far the most economic (cost-effective) means of healing in the game. BoL suffers from sustainability issues, healing ritual from cast-time and mobility issues, mutagen/rapids from stackability limits, Vigor from sustainability and effectivity.

The bread and butter healing spell of a large group has severely limited range, thus forcing zergs to ball up. Since any non-zerg opponent is still free AP for a suitably led zerg, it is a matter of bilancing: how many enemies, on average, will we kill balled and how many spread out?

Even without caps, balls will remain balls and they will just train to disperse when and if an opponent (group) pops up that will endanger survival/victory. Which in turn means that removal of caps alone might have neligible effects on performance issues.

In that context, @Frawr and @MisterBigglesworth, removal of the "bot code" is a bad idea. It was implemented because the hacks were becoming common knowledge, and as such it would not have been "a few bots" but an overwhelming majority of players using them as well, completely destroying the game. I know that of course "no one" on forums would ever have used these hacks, but rest assured, it would have spread faster than boners on a p*ssy riot concert.

@Leandor I think that most proponents of the aoe cap removal are refering to changes to the damage cap.

Allowing everyone to take 100% damage will wipe balls fast because the burst will be that much more effective.

For example, 3 or 4 x dragon leap (as is the current meta) will wipe all but the hardiest of players if timed properly.

It is this sort of situation that I believe will reduce the lag. Those players will simply be dead before they force the server to calc another 100 x aoe skills.

FENGRUSH

Frawr wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

In my opinion, the misconception of the AoE-cap-removal people is their ignorance of healing mechanics. Let me elaborate a bit.

I do agree to a certain extent that removal of the *** damage scaling will reduce the server load, but I seriously doubt that even combined with LoS fixes and group-only targets for certain buffs it will be enough to eliminate the fps/pr tanking we see in large battles.

I also know from ofttime personal experience that player density has a significant effect, meaning that balling does have an exponentially worse effect as opposed to spread out groups.

In summary, AoE cap removal proponents argue that it will eliminate balls and thus have a very positive effect. I disagree to that assumption, since balling has two parts: damage mitigation (through caps) and damage rectification (through healing). Healing springs is by far the most economic (cost-effective) means of healing in the game. BoL suffers from sustainability issues, healing ritual from cast-time and mobility issues, mutagen/rapids from stackability limits, Vigor from sustainability and effectivity.

The bread and butter healing spell of a large group has severely limited range, thus forcing zergs to ball up. Since any non-zerg opponent is still free AP for a suitably led zerg, it is a matter of bilancing: how many enemies, on average, will we kill balled and how many spread out?

Even without caps, balls will remain balls and they will just train to disperse when and if an opponent (group) pops up that will endanger survival/victory. Which in turn means that removal of caps alone might have neligible effects on performance issues.

In that context, @Frawr and @MisterBigglesworth, removal of the "bot code" is a bad idea. It was implemented because the hacks were becoming common knowledge, and as such it would not have been "a few bots" but an overwhelming majority of players using them as well, completely destroying the game. I know that of course "no one" on forums would ever have used these hacks, but rest assured, it would have spread faster than boners on a p*ssy riot concert.

@Leandor I think that most proponents of the aoe cap removal are refering to changes to the damage cap.

Allowing everyone to take 100% damage will wipe balls fast because the burst will be that much more effective.

For example, 3 or 4 x dragon leap (as is the current meta) will wipe all but the hardiest of players if timed properly.

It is this sort of situation that I believe will reduce the lag. Those players will simply be dead before they force the server to calc another 100 x aoe skills.

I can confirm 3-4x leaps will fix the servers if they remove AOE caps.

Leandor

Frawr wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

In my opinion, the misconception of the AoE-cap-removal people is their ignorance of healing mechanics. Let me elaborate a bit.

I do agree to a certain extent that removal of the *** damage scaling will reduce the server load, but I seriously doubt that even combined with LoS fixes and group-only targets for certain buffs it will be enough to eliminate the fps/pr tanking we see in large battles.

I also know from ofttime personal experience that player density has a significant effect, meaning that balling does have an exponentially worse effect as opposed to spread out groups.

In summary, AoE cap removal proponents argue that it will eliminate balls and thus have a very positive effect. I disagree to that assumption, since balling has two parts: damage mitigation (through caps) and damage rectification (through healing). Healing springs is by far the most economic (cost-effective) means of healing in the game. BoL suffers from sustainability issues, healing ritual from cast-time and mobility issues, mutagen/rapids from stackability limits, Vigor from sustainability and effectivity.

The bread and butter healing spell of a large group has severely limited range, thus forcing zergs to ball up. Since any non-zerg opponent is still free AP for a suitably led zerg, it is a matter of bilancing: how many enemies, on average, will we kill balled and how many spread out?

Even without caps, balls will remain balls and they will just train to disperse when and if an opponent (group) pops up that will endanger survival/victory. Which in turn means that removal of caps alone might have neligible effects on performance issues.

In that context, @Frawr and @MisterBigglesworth, removal of the "bot code" is a bad idea. It was implemented because the hacks were becoming common knowledge, and as such it would not have been "a few bots" but an overwhelming majority of players using them as well, completely destroying the game. I know that of course "no one" on forums would ever have used these hacks, but rest assured, it would have spread faster than boners on a p*ssy riot concert.

@Leandor I think that most proponents of the aoe cap removal are refering to changes to the damage cap.

Allowing everyone to take 100% damage will wipe balls fast because the burst will be that much more effective.

For example, 3 or 4 x dragon leap (as is the current meta) will wipe all but the hardiest of players if timed properly.

It is this sort of situation that I believe will reduce the lag. Those players will simply be dead before they force the server to calc another 100 x aoe skills.

I know and I did as well. The fact that I brought in healing mechanics does not change this and as said before, it's not target limits of healing that I base my assumptions upon, but the comparison of range vs. sustainability vs. effectivity of the different healing abilities.

Frawr

@Leandor what I think you are saying is that the healing is currently sufficiently strong to offset a removal of damage cap hence reducing the effectiveness of its removal.

In my experience, Most commonly - used heals are hots e.g., Healing springs, rapid, vigor.

BoL instant but not aoe
Combat prayer instant and in front of player and is less frequently spammed in ball groups due to healing springs being more efficient.

My leap comfortably hits 12k-18k on crit. If 3 people did that onto a flag, the people on the flag will be instantly dead. No healing is going to out - burst 3-4 of those timed together.

That is why I think that I will help to reduce (but not necessarily eliminate) the lag.

kevlarto_ESO

Sallington wrote: »

Taonnor wrote: »

Sallington wrote: »

Is there anything in the MMO market right now that I might not know about? Looking for greener pastures.

Camelot Unchained

Well that's the obvious one. Still a ways off though.

And CU still has a lot of hurdles to get over, I am following it and I will be in the Beta, but this is going to be a tough a game to swallow for some people, it is going to be so different in a lot of ways, I like what I am hearing and reading, but will have to play it and see how things work out. It will either be a unique game with a strong niche player base or it will be DOA.

As far as the greener pastures, to me all of them look the same, I truly did not see much in the 2016 mmo line up that gets me excited, there might be a surprise in there guess we will wait and see. If they can get the lag under control here and keep delivering what they say they will do, the pasture will be green enough right here, for me.

Leandor

@Frawr flag yes, ball bombing no, since the train will not be static and your leaps will never hit all.

It now becomes more important to clear the keep before capping flags but thats it. It is all theory until we see it and I may be spectacularly wrong, but my concern remains.

gw2only1b14_ESO

I dunno know But to any that where on Azura last night 8pm is and Ad was defending Allessia from the Red Horde its become a pain in the arse to suddenly Crash take 3 logins to finally come back and see that Allessia becomes Red.

The server has been the 6th man soooooo many times since game release it sucks.