Update on Cyrodiil Performance & Upcoming AOE Tests

Ghotie

FatherDelve wrote: »

All I can say is, that i have way less Performance Problems with 40 random zerglings around me, then having 8 Ballgroup Members spamming every 1 second a *** of abilities at 5 meters.

Better question the fact why you cant kill 8 people with 40 randoms instead of puzzle who causes how much lag?
This may lead you to a flash of inspiration.

Moreover you could clearly see that server performance was a lot better while Midyear Mayhem Event - so you can summarize that this is obviously a Server Problem and NOT the responsibility of players playing in a group what is most likely in a MMO!

There is simply NO LOGIC in making ball groups responsible for lags that result from efficient group play.
Ball groups just use the possibilities that are given to them no more, no less. Do it yourself or not - your choice but stop crying...
No one else can be blamed for a lagging game than the game creators themselves.

So please less hate for 12 people ball groups that just want to use full potential of this game.
You play your way - we ours. This should be accepted in a game.
Lag is not our fault. We seek the same as you ... Lag-free PvP! because this also kills us...
@FatherDelve

Major_Lag

mattiellosa wrote: »

The server lag is a core issue that needs to be fixed server side. ESO will become a top tier game once they start to improve the servers rather than removing game mechanics to band aid the problem. Just give it 2 more patches and there will be another problem where they will remove yet another core game mechanic. This behavior needs to stop. If the team carries on down this path the game will eventually just become a walking simulator. (and soon after that they will remove walking to improve server performance.) To anyone from ZOS reading this, please stop now before its too late and all the players are gone. (Saying that as if all the vet players haven't already left xd)

Walking is overrated, just wait for the flying mounts in crownstore.
I mean, sure, the ESO game engine can't support flying mounts - but I'm quite certain that some other things "unimportant" things can be removed to make it work somehow

0ctave

At best, this will kill PVP. At worst, this will kill the game entirely. This is one of those changes that games never recover from, e.g. Star Wars Galaxies with the NGE.

thadjarvis

If ball groups are causing the detrimental lag, why not put in place mechanics that self-regulate their size

Current Mechanics:
-AOE defensive skills are shared
-AOE damage skills are not shared; there is no friendly fire (makes AOE spam have zero downside)
-Collision is not present (permits infinite healing by not limiting stacking)
-Bombs can generally be overcome by just making a larger group to share more defenses

Changing the first three have impacts all over the game. Changing a morph of Mag Detonation so that it only is useful on large dense groups in PvP does not. It would be simple to just change the damage scaling from a linear increase per enemy to an exponential one. Ie if 100 are in a ball group they instantly die from the skill. 10 just take some moderate damage. ZoS can figure the server performance permissible density and set the exponential modifier accordingly. No mechanics have to change and players can regulate it. Ie there needs to be an actual bomb mechanic that ball groups cannot use themselves.

The GCD system of ESO is it's crown jewel in comparison to other MMO's in terms of combat mechanics. Probably should exhaust other options before messing with it.

If ZoS adds a 3 second CD, ball groups can just bring 3x as many players and get the offensive result with less exposure to incoming AOE from small groups. Wouldn't that be worse for performance?

xaraan

This is frankly an invented problem for a group of people that have no idea how to fix a problem they created.

I've pvp'd from launch and you were able to spam AoEs easily back then without resource problem. So that's a lie. I ran in a maxed out group fighting other groups where we were all spamming AoEs as we attacked each other. Bigger pop, more abilities going off, etc. So the problem wasn't what you said it was, which means the solution is BS.

Maybe blaming CP works, but that doesn't wash with the changes proposed. I also find it hard to believe this is the big reason in the end, or we'd have seen a very very drastic change as soon as CP was rolled out and we didn't. We've seen consistent problems grow with every patch, including "performance patches". Maybe CP adds to the bloat, but not sure it's your magic bullet.

Also: "If you can cast less abilities, the performance will improve." Is a pretty lame spin.

Not to mention, this punishes certain classes more than others as some have very dedicated single target attacks and some have no choice but to use "AoE" attacks even when fighting a singular target.

One last thing that you guys might want to take note of: When players say you guys don't play your game, it's not a literal statement so you guys running vMA or appearing in pvp every so often or running a dungeon on stream immediately proves they are wrong. Sure, the statement, like a lot of meme-like statements is an exaggeration. Obviously made as a knock, but not a literal point in a debate. The reason the meme stands despite any proof you offer that you do turn the game on and log in is because of changes like this. In literally every single patch there are common sense changes not made, other changes that common sense tells you are ridiculous, etc. That is the biggest demonstration that you don't understand your game, meaning you don't play it enough to understand it. That's why people make that statement and sitting around with casual streamers loling about it doesn't change the truth.

Ahk1lleez

I expect that you'll find putting AOE's on cooldown will see a performance improvement, but in my opinion the benefit would not outweigh the cost.

I do not envy the position you're in as developers. No matter how you attempt to fix performance issues in Cyrodiil, no solution will be acceptable to the entire PVP playerbase.

The only alternative I can think of to AOE cooldowns (which would kill the playability of certain classes) would be to only allow for certain sets to be used in Cyrodiil. The reason I say this is because while the types of AOE's available don't really change much with the exception of when a new class is introduced, perhaps damage and healing calculations are slightly adjusted patch to patch...there is still the same player number cap in each campaign patch to patch... performance continues to degrade with each new dlc or expansion. The only constant here is that new sets are added with every dlc and expansion that includes a new area and are all able to be used in Cyrodiil.

In a nutshell, I feel that having such diversity in sets creates more performance degradation than AOE calculations. As more sets continue to be introduced that are allowed to be used in Cyrodiil, it will only continue to worsen.

I can tell you that you would likely see a noticeable improvement in performance by limiting the sets that can be used, but it would come at the cost of killing build diversity. Would the benefit outweigh the cost? Again...probably not.

Squeaky_Clean

Most of the commenters seem to be focused on Templars, because they were named in the examples of the original post, but everybody should be aware how many skills are affected. For example:

• Cleave
• Arrow Spray
• Volley
• Wall of Elements
• Impulse
• Streak (yes, Streak!)
• (..)

If all this is affected by a cooldown, then good bye PVP combat ..

Sugaroverdose

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Hopefully after 9 pages players have calmed down from the announcement of a TEST to see how reducing the number of spammable AOEs in PVP would impact the performance. As many pointed out if this were to be implemented it would require:

1. a rework to many abilities, including the strength of their damage/heals and adding more alternative abilities
2. a new indication system to let you know you're on a cooldown (my suggestion would be adding a channel rather than cooldown, since its transparent you're casting something)
3. This would possibly remove some of the dynamic response to some abilities in PVP.

But those things are all down the line. For now, this is a TEST, not a final announcement how they will handle all the issues they have. Lets be a little positive that they are being transparent with what they are testing, they are doing it on live where they will see actual results, and are doing something, rather than "ignoring" the issues so many have been claiming they've been doing for years.

Communicate, adjust, test, improve, repeat; Lets start seeing more cyclical changes to PVP and hopefully some improvement.

"Test subject HeroOfNone loves to pay for all of test we made on him" ©ZoS

This "TEST" is a joke, everyone who has even small portion of understanding how things works does not want this test to "proof" something, just because breaking stuff is a dumbest way to get metrics

McGordon

Finally good decision. AoE need to go.
CP need to go too. Delete it.

The Uninvited

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

The Uninvited wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

As part of our ongoing performance optimizations, we have been spending a lot of time analyzing and addressing problems in Cyrodiil. I'm going to give a summary of what has happened over the years, what we have been doing to alleviate the problems, and our future plans.

When talking about ESO server performance, it is important to understand that all abilities in the game (with some exceptions) have a "soft" limit on the number of times they can be executed. An example of a "hard" limit on an ability is an ability that can be executed one time every two seconds, enforced by the server. ESO doesn't have many of those. Instead, we designed the game to have soft limits, which mean you can execute as many abilities as you want as long as you have the resources - Stamina or Magicka - to cast them. There is a global "cool down" timer on all abilities, which is set to 1000 milliseconds.

The design goal of soft limits in any game is to allow players to create builds that let them execute abilities more often depending on build choices made, and not to have hard ceilings on damage or healing per second. This gives a lot of control to the player, which makes for a really fun and interesting system, but it can lead to situations where players cast too many abilities too quickly (and continuously) if strict limits on resources are not enforced.

Over the years, player power has grown considerably. With the addition of the Champion System, various armor/weapons sets, and changes to abilities, we have reached the stage where players - with the right build - can cast near-infinite numbers of abilities. If you add in a properly managed group, with some focused on damage and some focused on healing and regen boosts, you have a perpetually running never-ending stream of abilities.

With that in mind, consider how Area of Effect (AOE) abilities work: when cast, they look at a specific target area - almost always the area directly around the caster - find targets, and perform the ability. Each of those steps requires server calculations.

At launch, Cyrodiil’s processes were able to keep up with the number of AOEs cast, because most players couldn’t cast that many of them: they ran out of Magicka or Stamina, so they had to use AOEs judiciously. Over time, as player knowledge grew and regen builds grew in power, more players could cast more and more AOEs before running out of resources.

During these years, we found and fixed many performance issues in Cyrodiil, and we continue to do so. We've fixed significant issues, uncovered more, and continue to find and fix with every Update.

However, one foundational issue remains. At some point, we crossed a threshold where most players in PvP were able to cast endless AOE abilities, without ever running out of resources. This is done through player knowledge, builds and group mechanics – resulting in a constant stream of AOEs with many players never using any other type of ability.

This is not what we intended, but part of the fun of Elder Scrolls games is designing a build that has unexpected and powerful results, and we allowed it. However, as this behavior grew more prevalent, we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.

Our initial response to this problem – starting with Update 22 – was to find (and fix) more than a few problems with AOE ability calculations and make them more performant - and we stayed (mostly) ahead of the problem. But as more players reached maximum Champion Level and more players started utilizing this particular method of "AOE spamming", we have reached the point where we cannot fix this issue around the edges: we need to address the core problem, which we will be starting with Update 27.

To do this, we will need to first do some analysis, and we can only do this on the live servers. As much as we try to avoid running tests on live servers, they are the only place where the combination of player behavior, specific builds, and mass battles happen. So, starting the week of August 24, we will be running a series of tests on the live PC servers – both NA & EU, only in Cyrodiil. Please note that we will not be running these tests on any Console servers. Each test should take about a week, but if needed, we will extend the testing time.

The first round of tests we are planning will focus on Area of Effect (AOE) abilities in Cyrodiil and will make it more difficult for AOE abilities to be the only abilities used, adjusting cooldown, cost and regen values of all AOEs (damage and healing).

Specific details on the tests we will be running in Cyrodiil are as follows:

• Test 1 – Shared global AOE cooldown - 3 second timer. This test adds a global 3 second shared cooldown to any AOE ability. This means that when you cast an AOE, you will not be able to cast another for 3 seconds. For example, as a Templar, if I cast Ritual of Retribution, I wouldn’t be able to cast Puncturing Sweep for 3 seconds.
• Test 2 – Individual AOE cooldown - 3 second timer. This test adds an individual AOE cooldown to each AOE ability. This means that when you cast an AOE, you will not be able to cast that same AOE ability for 3 seconds. For example – as a Templar, if I cast Puncturing Sweep, I wouldn’t be able to cast Puncturing Sweep again for 3 seconds.
• Test 3 – No cooldown, global ramping AOE cost. This test adds a global ramping AOE cost for each AOE cast. Similar to how streak or roll dodge works, where when you cast an AOE you receive a debuff for 5 seconds, each stack of the debuff increases the cost of any AOE cast.
• Test 4 – Individual AOE cooldown – 3 second timer, global ramping AOE cost. This test adds an individual AOE cooldown to each ability as in test 2, but also combines that with a global ramping cost from test 3.

During the times that any of these tests are active, we will be awarding double Alliance Points for anyone active in Cyrodiil.

After we complete the above tests, we may try other combinations of cooldown, cost, and regen values on AOE abilities. However, we need to run these tests first and then assess the data. We will then let everyone know what we found and how we will move forward. We will be very upfront, but please be aware that if these tests confirm our hypothesis, then chain-casting AOE abilities will no longer form the core of the ESO PvP experience in the way it has for the last few years. We would then go through each class and ensure that there are viable builds for each and make adjustments as necessary.

The code for these changes will be going into today’s PTS patch, and we will be running some basic tests throughout the day on Tuesday in Cyrodiil to ensure we’re able to make the above changes without requiring any maintenance or downtime. Once we launch Update 27 for PC on August 24, we will announce when one of the tests are beginning through an in-game announcement and will have a forum thread detailing which test is currently being performed. Remember, these tests will be limited to Cyrodiil, so AOE abilities in other PVP spaces (Imperial City and Battlegrounds) and will remain unchanged for now. We will evaluate how these tests go, and let everyone know next steps.

Thanks for being patient and understanding with these tests. They are extremely important for the team and will help us work towards improving Cyrodiil performance.

It seems to me you know exactly where the problem is, namely the CP system. So why not address that?

It is not exactly true. CP system modifies stuff so in theory server has to do more calculations, but no-CP lags as well... In some cases even more than CP.

It all boils down to low APM - high APM players. Trials for example lag significantly more and have way more de-syncs if you have good group. "High APM" players that animation cancel well, can cast way more abilities per minute vs "low APM" players. As a result they make more DPS - but they also cause more stress on the server.

Same in Cyro. If a ball group shows up in No-CP it will have same lag & de-syncs as CP. CP seems to have "almost" no impact on performance (and if it does it is marginal).

True, but I was talking about the sustain part of the CP system. If sustain to cast infinite abilities is what's causing it (according to them), the solution would be quite simple.

So, according to you (and I fully agree), the sustain (and therefor the CP system) isn't the problem. I was just being sarcastic in my first response and hoping for a reaction from ZOS.

ssewallb14_ESO

Sounds awesome. Hope this yields results.

I'm fine with limited AOE in Cyrodiil if actually works. They can easily make exceptions/adjustments for abilities that are "functionally" single target (jabs, shalks, curse, etc).

thomy

Thanks a lot for the detailed report on performance status and ideas. I really, really appreciate this and am glad we get details on what is happening or being tested.

However, I feel like that this isn't going to be helpful since, in my opinion, you are trying to fix an already broken system. The combat system in its current state is just flawed when larger groups are fighting. As a fellow software developer I do also understand that you can't just rewrite everything. But wouldn't it also be an idea to investigate solutions that fixes handling the current combat system instead of changing it? With new patches and updates you will eventually end up in the same situation again.

One approach could be to multi-thread the ability handling code. I know this is an incredibly difficult task but it would offer you a much better approach of scalability for highly populated combat areas such as Cyrodiil. It was mentioned previously that certain loading parts have already been multi-threaded offering good performance boosts. In theory this shouldn't be too big of an issue for AOEs since those can just tick next to each other without interfering much? Can just allocate a pool of worker threads for combat management that can be scaled according to the size of the area.

What about upgrading server hardware for specifically Cyrodiil? A better CPU speed will allow more abilities to be handled. Comparing valuable development time to a simple hardware upgrade could be worth it.


My two cents on the situation. Thanks for reading.

Idinuse

Squeaky_Clean wrote: »

Most of the commenters seem to be focused on Templars, because they were named in the examples of the original post, but everybody should be aware how many skills are affected. For example:

• Cleave
• Arrow Spray
• Volley
• Wall of Elements
• Impulse
• Streak (yes, Streak!)
• (..)

If all this is affected by a cooldown, then good bye PVP combat ..

Hold on! Streak already has a "penalty" for each consecutive cast in the cost increase, they can not seriously mean that it will get yet further imposed AoE penalties?!

jecks33

red_emu wrote: »

Step 1:
Create an elaborate test and disguise it as something that's supposed to improve perfomance.

Step 2:
Run the test, ignoring the fact that 75% of players will simply not play in Cyrodiil.

Step 3:
Gather and analyse the data.

Step 4:
Data: There was no lag for 4 weeks, when during prime time all 16 players on the server were doing PvP stuff. Everyone was doing PvE stuff instead and there was insane lag in PvE.

Step 5:
Analysis: All 16 players in Cyrodiil experienced no lag with cooldowns on skills. All 1198 players in PvE experienced lag with no cooldowns on skills.

Step 6:
Conclusion: introducing cooldowns will fix the game.

Step 7:
Explain to your shareholders, why your company is sinking like Titanic because of a failed PR Stunt.

Agree X 10!!

xaraan

PureEnvelope35 wrote: »

We already have a 3 second delay during primetime so are we really getting affected?

lol, that's actually funny, but seriously, yes some would.
Assuming it actually did make performance work that is.
If a templar is fighting any class with a spammable that isn't an AoE, then they cannot use their class spammable while the other class can use theirs 3 times as often.
Same if we look at cost changes, classes that have single target spammables are rewarded where classes with AoE style spammables are punished, even if they are fighting a single target and getting no benefit from the fact their spammable was made an mini AoE.

The Uninvited

xaraan wrote: »

This is frankly an invented problem for a group of people that have no idea how to fix a problem they created.

I've pvp'd from launch and you were able to spam AoEs easily back then without resource problem. So that's a lie. I ran in a maxed out group fighting other groups where we were all spamming AoEs as we attacked each other. Bigger pop, more abilities going off, etc. So the problem wasn't what you said it was, which means the solution is BS.

Maybe blaming CP works, but that doesn't wash with the changes proposed. I also find it hard to believe this is the big reason in the end, or we'd have seen a very very drastic change as soon as CP was rolled out and we didn't. We've seen consistent problems grow with every patch, including "performance patches". Maybe CP adds to the bloat, but not sure it's your magic bullet.

Also: "If you can cast less abilities, the performance will improve." Is a pretty lame spin.

Not to mention, this punishes certain classes more than others as some have very dedicated single target attacks and some have no choice but to use "AoE" attacks even when fighting a singular target.

One last thing that you guys might want to take note of: When players say you guys don't play your game, it's not a literal statement so you guys running vMA or appearing in pvp every so often or running a dungeon on stream immediately proves they are wrong. Sure, the statement, like a lot of meme-like statements is an exaggeration. Obviously made as a knock, but not a literal point in a debate. The reason the meme stands despite any proof you offer that you do turn the game on and log in is because of changes like this. In literally every single patch there are common sense changes not made, other changes that common sense tells you are ridiculous, etc. That is the biggest demonstration that you don't understand your game, meaning you don't play it enough to understand it. That's why people make that statement and sitting around with casual streamers loling about it doesn't change the truth.

This player tells the truth.

Hotdog_23

Console so no thoughts or even able to test but if any of the above comes to pass then I am out. Love ESO but the combat is why I stay. Make it more turn based you lose me.

Numil

I join this game where was fast Gameplay to finaly see it become slow gameplay....But at least now i can recomend this game for my old parents pretty sure they could find the delay on skill prety fun .

Lannharr

With all due respect, isn't hardware upgrade a solution but not cost effective?

FrancisCrawford

With all due respect, @ZOS_RichLambert -- this is madness.

You're talking about making massive changes to the game just to cut your computational load by a factor of 2-3. There has to be another solution.

First, I presume that you're precalculating all you can, and further precalculation or speculative execution wouldn't help without architectural changes greater than you're prepared to make. Uh -- are you sure that's right?

Second, I imagine calculations could be a lot faster if AOE boundaries were approximate rather than precise. If you need to make such a change (PvP only), I suspect it would be a lot less disruptive than the changes you plan to test.

Third and most important, while the computational problem isn't quite "embarrassingly parallel", it's close to that. Calculating distances between players or effect centers is o(n^2), but most other aspects of the problem seem like they should be o(n). Yes, a lot of scaling is necessarily limited to a single server (with GPU and so on if need be), but scaling of a particular fight within a server should otherwise be pretty straightforward. If it isn't, you have more coding to do, and perhaps a cloud provider to change out.

And of course, scaling out so that different fights are on different servers should be close to triviality.

Oakiyo

This is a good thing they do test some mesures to address the lag. But these one as the changes proposed for the light/heavy attack are bad, mainly for two simple reason :

1. Not allowing people to cast abilities will of course reduce the lag. This is like testing if people learning german in school are brillant, and then only allowing brillant people to study german. But in an mean time, it will also destroy what makes eso gameplay so unique : dynamic without cooldown gameplay.
2. Theses test will also be irrelevant because people won't have time to adapt massively to these changes. The meta really shifted within 2/3 weeks after the release of greymoor. Now it will have to shift every weeks for a entire month. You can't test properly new things if every week you have to redo and refarm your setup.

The real problem is stacking aoe. When I run into a 50 people not organized zerg full of random peoples, my computer can handle it, and the lag is decent. But when a 15 people ball group rush in my direction, casting all their AOE at the same time, well, I can organize a barbecue for 10 person with my computer.
If it wasn't possible for people to take damage from multiple AOE from a same skill, you wouldn't see them as often in large group as they would be way less effective, but it would still be usable for small scale pvp or in BG's. It would be a proper soft limit as it currently exist and as it should remain.

artal

Whats the next step, increase GCD to 3 secs? Turn based game?
No thx, the COMBAT SYSTEM is literally the only thing still keeping me playing this game. If this thing go through it will be good time to go look for something else to play.

MipMip

Ghotie wrote: »

Moreover you could clearly see that server performance was a lot better while Midyear Mayhem Event - so you can summarize that this is obviously a Server Problem and NOT the responsibility of players playing in a group what is most likely in a MMO!

Thanks @Ghotie for common sense! Indeed.

DUTCH_REAPER

Yall know its just AOE they are testing....right? Single target will be untouched. Sounds like some people need to learn how to focus a target down j/s

StShoot

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Hopefully after 9 pages players have calmed down from the announcement of a TEST to see how reducing the number of spammable AOEs in PVP would impact the performance. As many pointed out if this were to be implemented it would require:

1. a rework to many abilities, including the strength of their damage/heals and adding more alternative abilities
2. a new indication system to let you know you're on a cooldown (my suggestion would be adding a channel rather than cooldown, since its transparent you're casting something)
3. This would possibly remove some of the dynamic response to some abilities in PVP.

But those things are all down the line. For now, this is a TEST, not a final announcement how they will handle all the issues they have. Lets be a little positive that they are being transparent with what they are testing, they are doing it on live where they will see actual results, and are doing something, rather than "ignoring" the issues so many have been claiming they've been doing for years.

Communicate, adjust, test, improve, repeat; Lets start seeing more cyclical changes to PVP and hopefully some improvement.

How dare you use common sense ;p

But this *** TEST is not on the PTS it is on the live server so it prevents pvp players from playing PvP (which is a way to reduce lag)

You want transparency ? Comunication? they dont even listed the abillitys that will be affected by this change. They leave it to the player to find out whats exactly affected. Just an example :

On paper every skill that affects another player counts as AoE and can cause problems for the server if its casted by to many players at once, even singletarget healing skills like the pets of a sorc, cauterize or BoL. Because those skills scan an area for a player with low life to heal him up. Will those change ? we dont know because zos doesnt tells us anything (transparency )

Or will skills like sap essence/inhale/spiked amor/lightning form also get a cooldown ? How will it affect magesfury since it also deals aoe dmg in a small area?

Or lets talk about the elephant in the room, the templar. 90% of his toolkit consists of abillitys that have either aoe heals/buffs or dmg attached to them.

This stuff wouldnt be a problem if it would only go live on the pts because thats what the pts is there for, TESTING. But now zos wants us to test it on the live server.... JUST AWESOME

katorga

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

NB just got a buff...maybe now cloak will work properly and allow players to get away from people AOE spamming?

Lol, yep, and most NB skills are single target, so no penalties.

While that templar is waiting 3s to cast his sweeps at ever increasing cost, you are spamming SA non-stop.

$5 says they keep it simple and add a 33% ramping cost increase to every skill in the game.

West93

Surely I will not play as a templar in cyrodiil with such proposed changes during test week, it is too much unfair disadvantage, I won't be able to kill anyone playing solo by myself.

Always the templars have to get shitted the most.

Rockett

They should keep it on the PTS and give players an incentive to play on the PTS, something like a free mount (Has to be something players are going to want) after capturing X amount of keeps on your character. Every update that requires a large amount of players to test a big change they should do this.

nk125x

This is meant to be a ball group killer
It just took me 5 mins sitting on the toilet to figure out how to get around it

The GCD is 1 second, therefore you can fire 3 skills in the cooldown... - So everybody in the ball group have 3 skills - A damage AOE, A AOE Heal and a Purge and just rotate around these skills - I ain't the smartest person on the planet, if I can think of this so can every body in a ball group but apparently ZO$ employees cant!!!! - It is so obvious they don't play their own game apart from a bit of roll playing in normal dungeons

Dutchessx

I am a Templar main... in groups I am a healer and I also mostly solo on my Templar. I won't be able to do either with these changes. As much as I am always for being around when y'all have tested in Cyrodiil in the past so you can accurately test things, I see no way I am going to be able to play my templar. Or my magnecro. Or my magden. Oh gosh, I forgot about my mag sorc, which was my original main (over 6 years ago now) - it's gone to no way to move on her either. Please explain how am I to play anything? @ZOS_RichLambert with all do respect to you & your team please find other options. I really don't believe there will be a lot of people who can play the way you are suggesting.