Cyrodiil Updates for Update 18

NyassaV

OMG yes I will have your children this is amazing I love you

If guards are getting a buff then for the love of the 8 they should not cost negate. (That rhymed!) Make the bubble breakable too please!

geonsocal

NyassaV wrote: »

OMG yes I will have your children this is amazing I love you

always knew I should have grown up to be something cool - like a game dev...

Joy_Division

geonsocal wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

geonsocal wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

thank you sir

personally - with 10 characters , i really appreciate the opportunity to keep all of them in the same campaign (it feels like home)...

however, it really upsets a lot of people - and, i'm hoping that any large issue which might be causing folks to leave pvp can be addressed...

it's no fun pvping by yourself - we're really dependent on new players and pvers to come join us in cyrodiil to keep the war alive...and, hopefully anything that can be done to keep our existing pvp player base will be looked at...

Edit: it's good to talk to the man behind the curtain...

This still presents nonsense situations though. I run with a social guild on Friday nights in Vivec on AD. But all of my characters, with the exception of that 1 AD toon are EP and I main them all in Vivec. Any temporary lockout of a campaign would pretty much ruin my ability to PVP for the weekend (or at least Saturday) on 14 of my EP toons in Vivec. If you want to talk about people leaving cyrodil, this will be the thing that does it.

you're right @jaws343 ...unfortunately, i don't think there is any possibility of finding a solution wherein everyone will be satisfied...

and yeah, it's easy to talk about sacrificing for the greater good - when you're not the one whom has to sacrifice anything...

i will say the 20 hour timer was just a number i pulled out of my butt...

personally though - i feel for the overall health of alliance war pvp, some restrictions on movement between alliances within the same campaign should be implemented...

The problem with timers is this. People like 24 hours. Let's say it's 24 hours.

I PvP on an EP toon on Friday night from 6:00 PM to 1:00 AM.

The next day, Saturday, my DC friends ask me to join their 8:00 PM PvP group. I can't. Even though it's the next day, 26 hours past the last time I started playing, I'm still locked out. OK, sucks I can't play with them so I'll play my EP again.

Sunday, I want to PvP....have to play my EP again.

Monday come home from work. Be nice to play that DC sorcerer I leveled. Can't. EP again.

Etc., etc.

This would be less of a problem if there were more than one active server with a large, constant population. But that's not the situation

By implementing a 24 hour timer, you're basically forcing anyone who wants to play another character to not PvP at all for 24 hours, or play in a format they dislike (CP or non-CP, low population servers that are boring and have emp trading politics, pop-locked zerging), both of which are way too punitive and punishing

ESO had a system in place like this and enough people hated it that ZOS changed it. Those old issues are going to come up again.

There are other ways to encourage healthy and competitive campaigns that people care for. Namely, I would suggest, making it so the rewards for winning and staying on a side are desirable.

Or if we must use negative reinforcement as opposed to positive reinforcement (which I think is a mistake, campaign s should be enjoyable not full of rules and restrictions that just make things frustrating), then make it so the masses of fair weather campaign hoppers who jump to the winning side which apparently exist in droves, even though I see the same people every night on EP and DC, don't get diddly squat.

geonsocal

valid points joy...and the truth is you can't control everyone's behavior...some people will always push the envelope on fair play and "decent" human conduct

at this point though - a 30 minute timeout would be better than how it is now...

Torbschka

One technical question:

Im using i3-6100 , listed with 2 cores, will I also feel a difference performance wise since its now only uses 1 or is this mainly for the 4cote+ guys? Even a small benefit would be good, thats why I ASK with the 2 core thing^^

Beardimus

geonsocal wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

geonsocal wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

thank you sir

personally - with 10 characters , i really appreciate the opportunity to keep all of them in the same campaign (it feels like home)...

however, it really upsets a lot of people - and, i'm hoping that any large issue which might be causing folks to leave pvp can be addressed...

it's no fun pvping by yourself - we're really dependent on new players and pvers to come join us in cyrodiil to keep the war alive...and, hopefully anything that can be done to keep our existing pvp player base will be looked at...

Edit: it's good to talk to the man behind the curtain...

This still presents nonsense situations though. I run with a social guild on Friday nights in Vivec on AD. But all of my characters, with the exception of that 1 AD toon are EP and I main them all in Vivec. Any temporary lockout of a campaign would pretty much ruin my ability to PVP for the weekend (or at least Saturday) on 14 of my EP toons in Vivec. If you want to talk about people leaving cyrodil, this will be the thing that does it.

you're right @jaws343 ...unfortunately, i don't think there is any possibility of finding a solution wherein everyone will be satisfied...

and yeah, it's easy to talk about sacrificing for the greater good - when you're not the one whom has to sacrifice anything...

i will say the 20 hour timer was just a number i pulled out of my butt...

personally though - i feel for the overall health of alliance war pvp, some restrictions on movement between alliances within the same campaign should be implemented...

I agree with this, we will never make everyone happy. But i know more damage done by newbies quitting PvP with a 'whats the point'attitude when they realize so many get ahead with boosting, flipping, emp farming etc. It's cheating, and cheating sucks fun and meanging out of everything in life.

So whilst there is the odd niche situation like the above the damage from the nefarious use is worse.

However i DO concur if there was a way to do as Joy suggests, have reason to remain loyal for a campaign, bigger reasons then its the same end result. In simple terms the lock idea suits me, i appreciate it doesn't suit everyone, BUT as long as we get to a point where the flipping and cheating stops im happy with any means..

Making more of the 'other' campaigns is cool on one hand but on the other could ruin the quality small scale found there. I.e. Buffing those rewards or AP will bring infrequent Vivec zergs

Thraben

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Cold fire balista did get damage reduced vs players, but it still trucks. Also note this got buffed vs. siege so it hits for 20,800 vs. siege weapons...

Can you the reduce the needed space for catapults, then? Otherwise there will be bad blood ("this is my spot!"), and the more tactical use of sieges you like to see won´t happen.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌

Could you explain a little bit more as to why the decision to focus ballistas on anti siege was made. Previous changes focused them more on anti personnel (smaller placement raidus, faster turning and tracking) to me it seems that trebs would be the ideal anti siege and more thematically destructive to objects (large chunk of burning rock thrown vs a bolt) also siege isn't as mobile which makes the slower fire rate of trebs more suited.

It's extremely difficult already to siege a keep whilst under pressure from many enemies and counter ballistas running so I'm just a little confused what the goal behind the change is. I'm guessing balancing not having many resources so lower defensive siege cap? But then where is the incentive to get the resource back?

Personally if we're discussing siege changes I'd like to see ballistas be a much smaller radius but do slightly higher damage for more focused shots.

Also I know its not especially your area but In general the problem that players will always have with siege stems from the fact that purge has been made group only. Siege (especially oils) is devastating to ungroupped players but relatively uneffective vs groups that have players to deal with this problem. I don't think the resolution is to nerf groups down to the level of ungroupped players as there should be some reward for teamwork in my opinion. The cat change is nice although I can tell you already that it will make organised players far stronger inside chokepoints like keeps. (Think old ground oils - personally I think it's a good thing but I'm not sure how the rest of the community will respond)

In general there needs to be more ways to remove debuffs from your character. Especially when players can apply upwards of 5 debuffs in 1 gcd. Purge costing so much, being group locked and only removing 2 debuffs is just a little frustrating at times. Maybe a potion effect "anti poison" would be a good place to start offering players more choice.

Arkray

Looks like we are getting nice stuff, with those buffs to damage vs siege weapons it seems like we'd have to carry even more siege weapons than before though, could we finally have stackable siege weapons?

Morgul667

I wish siege were doing more damage in CP and I wish we had a siege weapon bag

frozywozy

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

In general there needs to be more ways to remove debuffs from your character. Especially when players can apply upwards of 5 debuffs in 1 gcd. Purge costing so much, being group locked and only removing 2 debuffs is just a little frustrating at times. Maybe a potion effect "anti poison" would be a good place to start offering players more choice.

I agree and disagree here. Once again, I believe that WoW really nailed the best system possible. There should be purging skills for certain classes and for specific debuffs.

For example :

• Cleanse (Alliance War) : Remove siege debuffs
• Cure (Templar) : Remove poisons and diseases
• Mend (Warden) : Remove bleeding and elemental effects
• Purge (Sorcerer) : Remove snares and roots

This would create class diversity between ones highly focused on DoTs and ones with more burst potential.

Nermy

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

This I likes.... Lots...

Turelus

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

Glad to hear. Looking forward to seeing what you all brainstorm up for this.

makreth

aliyavana wrote: »

Any chance you guys will do anything about the current state of bgs? premades are just steamrolling pugs

It could take some time....maybe a year or two

Eirella

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

Please no

TequilaFire

Please yes.
There has become only one alliance now, the one that is winning.

dotme

TequilaFire wrote: »

Even oils don't seem to phase players the way they used to after the healbot/tank meta was introduced.
When 2 full raids of DC show up at Chalman and only a handful of EP defenders siege was all we had.
PS4 NA Vivec.

Agreed. With populations even during primetime not resulting in pop-locked campaigns, its not uncommon for 5-6 players to be tasked with defending a keep against 20 or more. As it stands now, you can hit someone square in the face with a cold fire ballista and they just shrug it off. I've seen players banging away at the front door with a ram heal their way through 4 oils pouring on them from the tower above. It's a shame siege in CP enabled campaigns don't hit players as hard as they do in non-CP.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

dotme wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

Even oils don't seem to phase players the way they used to after the healbot/tank meta was introduced.
When 2 full raids of DC show up at Chalman and only a handful of EP defenders siege was all we had.
PS4 NA Vivec.

Agreed. With populations even during primetime not resulting in pop-locked campaigns, its not uncommon for 5-6 players to be tasked with defending a keep against 20 or more. As it stands now, you can hit someone square in the face with a cold fire ballista and they just shrug it off. I've seen players banging away at the front door with a ram heal their way through 4 oils pouring on them from the tower above. It's a shame siege in CP enabled campaigns don't hit players as hard as they do in non-CP.

The thing which is dangerous about oils is their heal debuff provided it is purged their damage alone isn't too threatening. Especially if not poured in a coordinated manor.

The_Brosteen

@ZOS_BrianWheeler
The depth, attention to detail, and thoughtfulness of these changes to create a better experience in cyrodiil is exactly what the playerbase has been asking for. Well done. Keep up the good work. There will always be the haters. This update shows alot of competency.

Acht88

will there be new pvp ranks?
After the 50-th in Cyrodiil I have absolutely no interest and no excitement

Sotha_Sil

Although all these changes are good, this won't hide the fact that nothing is happening in Cyrodiil, except some shiny rewards we might get for doing the same content over and over again after 4 years. And by the way, score still means nothing, Imperial city still has no point, 90% of Cyrodiil map won't get explored by anyone because there is nothing to do there. /rant.

Many suggestions have been made about how to make cyrodiil great again. #MakeCyrodiilGreatAgain

yodased

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

The character compositing should help with console crashes <-- confirmed from our coder gang.

In terms of the BRK -> Sejanus example, the two are technically different structures on the server as one is an Outpost and the other is a Keep. This means you could be on both of their credit lists, but if you pushed to Alessia and contributed to that battle, your BRK credit would be replaced with Alessia credit.

So, what you are saying is opponent holds sej, pushes brk. Our team successfully defends brk by killing all invaders, doesnt wait for it to unflag, pushes sej and captures it.

In that very plausible situation we would get d-tick and o-tick at same time?

ZOS_BrianWheeler

As it's almost midnight and this is the last post in the thread currently...yes Yoda. That would be a legit scenario to get an O and D tick in close proximity to each other.

Maura_Neysa

Eirella wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

Please no

I would love to see this. I think the penalty will need to be strict though. At the least Alliance switching only at the end of a campaign.
My personal vote would be something from an old MMO where you controlled PvP and the Alliance through a NPC recruiter. This allowed you to leave an Alliance completely, but it cost you all of the Alliance reputation, Rank, gear, etc. If you left an Alliance and went back to it you started as a recruit again.
I also like the "fake Patch Notes" idea where you could log into another Alliance, you just didn't earn rank. However this would leave it wide open to spies.

Either way I love these changes. Would like to see more, but I think every one of these is positive, and I'm willing to wait and see the results before asking for more.

geonsocal

yodased wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

The character compositing should help with console crashes <-- confirmed from our coder gang.

In terms of the BRK -> Sejanus example, the two are technically different structures on the server as one is an Outpost and the other is a Keep. This means you could be on both of their credit lists, but if you pushed to Alessia and contributed to that battle, your BRK credit would be replaced with Alessia credit.

In that very plausible situation we would get d-tick and o-tick at same time?

all this ticking is making me itch...two minotaur gals go around the outside, 'round the outside, 'round the outside...

patents

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

it was fun swapping around

pls dont lock us out!!

Morgul667

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

Awesome

Please do something to kill the alliance switchers and spies for ap farming or emp trading

Make it in a way people can switch once in a while but not switch every 2H, or they get a penalty like 0 AP for x hours

Food for thoughts

Universe

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

It will be great if you would implement a campaign alliance lock(account based) so we will once again have more alliance loyalty and less treason/plays all sides kind of gameplay.
I would suggest the following:
Char example 1 joins campaign 1. Char example 1 Alliance: AD
Char example 2 can't join campaign 1 for the duration of the campaign. Char example 2 Alliance: EP
Char example 3 can't join campaign 1 for the duration of the campaign. Char example 3 Alliance: DC

*If char example 1 abandoned campaign 1(penalty of ap, 500K-1M/other AP), only then it is possible to join campaign 1 with other alliance chars(only if they are all same alliance) and only after 24-72 hours have passed since char 1 abandoned the campaign.
*Once the campaign has ended, all players will receive a campaign reset(free of charge) so they may choose with which alliance to play(Only one alliance, AD/EP/DC). This reset will encourage to play until the end of campaign and not use the above option.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

As it's almost midnight and this is the last post in the thread currently...yes Yoda. That would be a legit scenario to get an O and D tick in close proximity to each other.

That's very interesting idea.
But please add a limit to the amount of ap that can be gained by this method, so it will not be exploited(per player).
Also, It will be appreciated if the credit for O and D ticks will still divide the total amount of AP of the O and D ticks even if players logged out or had their credits removed(due to new battles), so there will be no situation that one player receives all AP(example: 80K and 130K) from the O and D ticks.
There is a need for a cap of earning ap through the ticks(calculated per player), so there will be no abuse of this system.

Merlin13KAGL

Why not reward the portion of the tick up to that point when someone departs? Essentially, calculate their tick from the 'old list' before adding them onto the new?

It would mean more server side calculations and a bit more complex coding, but it would prevent people from having to make a choice between sticking around in a fight that's well under control in order to get the tick or going to the new area that may be in dire need of offense/defense.

An in code flag could be set so people wouldn't receive a new base tick (Offensive or Defensive, either one) for coming back early, to prevent exploiting this. The flag(s) would then clear whenever the resource/keep exited combat. Or another quick calculation servers side, figuring the amount of AP to take off for arriving again would solve this.

Total AP disbursed for would look like this:

• FLAG = True/False based on whether the player had previously been involved in this battle.
• BASE = Base Def/Off AP tick
• KILLS1 = Kills/players present for Time period 1 (t1)
• KILLS2 = Kills/players present for Time period 2 (t2)
• TOTAL = BASE + KILLS1
  • Fight starts when objective is tagged, for each player (FLAG = 0, KILLS1=KILLS2=0)
  • Player 1 stays the entire fight, start to finish and gets BASE + KILLS1, just like now (t2 is zero, since they never left)
  • Player 2 goes elsewhere halfway through and gets BASE + KILLS1 on departure. Player 2's Internal flag is set (FLAG = 1) for this objective as long as it remains tagged.
  • Player 2 comes back later while objective is still flagged (FLAG=1) and stays until keep is combat ends, receiving TOTAL - BASE* - KILLS1*
    This way they don't double dip the Base tick and don't get credit for the part they missed, but also don't lose AP for defending/attacking another objective.
  • Player 3 arrives late and stays until combat ends, so no internal flag previously set, receiving TOTAL - KILLS1, still getting the Base tick and getting the AP for the portion of the kills they were present for.
• Once combat ends, the internal flag for that objective is cleared. (FLAG = 0, KILLS1=KILLS2=0)

This code structure could be attached per resource and tied to the character

This way the server would only keep track of one overall total tick, it would calculate (and reward immediately) AP when someone departs, and only internal flags would have to be monitored if someone rejoined the fight again? There would be additional variables/calculations per character, but I would think it would still be well within the server's capabilities.

Not having to linger for the tick is the ultimate goal, right?

Knootewoot

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Here is some news about Cyrodiil for update 18 (the Summerset update). There are more things coming for the update besides what is listed here and we’ll detail those in the coming months, but here’s a start:

Server Performance: Several requirements that were part of ability passives have been converted to server side encoded checks, which will cut down on requirements ran per ability use.

Client Performance: We have increased the amount of cpu cores used by the client which should improve framerate for players on mid to high end CPU's on PC platforms. On consoles and PC we have improved how characters are composited resulting in faster character loads and less framerate spikes.

Defense ticks no longer require you to sit and wait in an objective for the tick. Instead, each type of objective will track whether you’ve earned credit towards a defense or offense tick. Earning the offense or defense "tick" is pretty easy, and you earn credit for pretty much everything except standing there doing nothing. Offense ticks still have a base value that will be granted regardless of being on the credit list, but any bonus AP earned by combat around and inside an objective will only be granted to players that are on the credit lists.

You can be on several credit lists for a Keep superstructure of a Keep, Mine, Lumbermill and Farm and earn Defense ticks for each of them, however if you defend or attack a new Keep superstructure, your credit will be removed.

On top of that, we've increased the amount of Alliance Points you can earn from a Keep Defense with a multiplier based on the lowest ranking Resource of that keep. This is meant to encourage defending the entire superstructure of a Keep and it's supporting structures.

Lastly regarding Keeps themselves, we’ve added a new Keep Upgrade to more defensive siege weapons. The higher the keep levels are on wood, food and ore, the more siege weapons defenders can place.

New daily quests have been added with a new quest board. These quests will grant Cyrodiil exclusive costume pieces and other goodies.

Under-population and Underdog evaluation periods have been drastically reduced. This will result in scoring adjustments being applied more frequently depending on population and scoring within shorter time periods.

Monsters/guards in CP Enabled campaigns have learned how to deal with CP enabled characters. They will be a bit harder to kill and hit a bit harder.

Catapults now have their area damage stick around in the world for a period of time after impact resulting in better area denial. Ballista have been rebalanced to do more damage vs. Siege weapons and damage vs. players has been reduced.

There is more info for Cyrodiil and update 18 coming in the next few months, but until then we will see you in the war!

That's one good update to look forward to. Especially the part where defenders can have more siege if they have the resources, as now it makes sense to get the resources for the attackers even more.

Looking forward to this...