Update on Cyrodiil Performance & Upcoming AOE Tests

idk

Dottzgaming wrote: »

This unfortunately will probably get a "positive" performance result. Combat is going to slow down to a grinding hault, so performance will improve since people will be playing the game at a significantly slower speed.

ESO's hallmark feature is it's combat speed and fluidity, especially for PvP. Cooldowns shouldn't be introduced into a system that was fundamentally designed to not have them. Period.

And Zos stated similar when they did the off-cycle PTS test a few months back.

The bigger issue though is I think this will impact some classes more than others. I am thinking DKs since they use some class AoE along with weapon AoE to make up a larger portion of their build. I may be wrong since I mostly just tank on DKs but I think it is the case.

In the end, I want a Cyrodiil that performs at least half decent.

I just saw the PTS patch notes and that this testing is being done on the PTS. Zos has never been able to properly test Cyrodiil with a load to which they have stated as much a few years ago. I fail to see how they can get credible information from the PTS concerning these changes.

Nerhesi

Dottzgaming wrote: »

This unfortunately will probably get a "positive" performance result. Combat is going to slow down to a grinding hault, so performance will improve since people will be playing the game at a significantly slower speed.

ESO's hallmark feature is it's combat speed and fluidity, especially for PvP. Cooldowns shouldn't be introduced into a system that was fundamentally designed to not have them. Period.

ESO's hallmark is weak, unbalanced, combat - the objectively most common complaint about the game that is derided by veteran players and streamer by self-congratulating comments like "high skill cap" (There isn't, stop kidding yourself).

ESO's hallmark feature is a confused system of trying to be action-rpg and role/class rpg and doing neither well. A game where you have action combat, but you (specifically) complain when creating action counter play (reaction time to ults, non-spammable builds aka dots, etc).

ESO's hallmark is boring meta where performative builds must do every role well (dps, heal, sustain and tank), and 1vX is a thing (1vX should be your clearest indication of problems with game mechanics).

The problem is many veterans are opposed to change because they enjoy this narrow meta where their personal preference have somehow become synonymous with balance (entertaining 1vXs with ridiculous sustain dps burst builds).

Any chance that disrupts the current meta, introduces limits while preserving the action rpg approach will be welcome. Stop strangling to game to play only the way you want to play and start thinking about how to actually have an attractive combat system that supports high skill cap and varied builds.

Suite_Ice

If this happens it will end the game ! I gave WoW the chance over and over for things get get back on track before I walked away from a game I had played from the start. I have really enjoyed ESO and its PvP but after all the let downs in the past I wont be giving any chances to fix the break this will cause. I have worked as designer, network admin and many other IT areas and understand the desired goal of lag mitigation but this seems like a lazy fix, well maybe not lazy because it will be a huge task but its lazy becasue thge issue needs to be in server side processing of more servers, better load balancintg or whatever but the solution is not to dumb down the input from the users. I know the testing don't start for a month and thge data analysis will take some time and the solution implementation will take much longer but I am not sure I am even interesting in investing anymore time and effort if in the end the odds are I will just walk away from a great game that in committing suicide just as WoW did,
What next, nerfs like this to trials and all group activities? This really punishes PvP groups that play and fight together

RIP ESO !

carlos424

Who is actually going to play during this time? They could give out 5x AP. Lol. Can’t this be organized on the PTS? Recruit people to play, and give some incentives, such as a free month of eso+, etc.

ShadowProc

At last they realize ball groups or zergs getting free heals and purges from others is the problem. You can literally feel it when a ball group takes the field. They concentrate pugs and spam healz and purges and the server dies.

That being said....

These are not the solution. Making huge changes is not the solution.

Start with changing Purge. Start with changing cross healing. Make players have to worry about damage, sustain and healing even if they are in a group.

In other words MAKE BALL GROUPS THINK. Dont literally break the combat system.

Kittytravel

As many others have asked...

Is there a reason a Test #5 simply can't be "Removal of CP from all instances of PvP"?

Surely that would cut down on a lot of calculations on its own without deterring from the games PvE VS PvP playstyles which in the past ZOS has been adamant that they wanted those two parts of the game to "Resemble each other as closely as possible."

Otherwise Test #3 would be the best option because some class spammables are AoE by nature; those classes would then get punished by losing their spammable by no method of their own doing.

riberion

DCZergNoob wrote: »

Rezdayn wrote: »

Please dont put this into pve....

PVE has it paradise compared to PVPers, dont even try and pull that card

That's such a bs response to a real concern. Anyone that mains a templar on trials and HM runs would be destroyed by this change. Don't dismiss other people's concerns just because it isn't *your* playstyle.

Joy_Division

Wow.

You are really going to completely redesign the mechanics of the game

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.

rather than upgrade servers or change the anti-bot/cheat system or try to get to the root of the faction stack AoE-fest in the first place (put objectives all over cyrodiil to spread people, un-nerf our neutered abilities so we feel we have options besides joining groups and spamming AoEs, capping group size to 12, etc)? You're going to have to redesign Templars from the ground up since just about every one of their skills worth using (Breath of Life, Ritual, Jabs, Reflective Light, Backlash, Repentance, Spear Shards) and even those not worth using (Healing Ritual, Solar Barrage, Blazing Shield, Explosive Charge) are all AoE. Seriously? If so, then it looks like the PvEers were right all along: we PvPers will be the ones who have ruined their classes, their skills, and potentially their game.

What's the plan when people are stuck with cooldowns and get run over by ball groups who stack AoE proc sets?


I want to echo a point made earlier by "Izzy" who is the head of the Dracaris guild on PC-NA. He is 1000% correct when he said that organized groups (and I'll add good players) have always been able to chain spam AoEs. Every organized group I ran with during every patch in the game has always been able to spam AoEs on every server, every campaign, CP or no CP, PvE or PvP. All the nerfs that have come down the ZOS pipe has just made things more inconvenient for organized groups (meanwhile, the ordinary players and those who do not run in organized have had to deal with the brunt of stuff ala Morrowind update). The premise that my group uses more AoEs now than they did in 2015 or even 2014 is wrong.


I do not think ZOS has a very informed view on how organized groups - which are the biggest culprits here - play. For years, I and every guild I have been associated with has extended the invitation for a developer to play with us a couple of times to see first-hand what we deal with on a nightly basis, how we run, why we run the things that we do, and be able to base changes to the game on the how things actually are in Cyrodiil rather than incorrect assumptions (such as not being able to chain spam AoEs without CP, gear sets, or other additions to the game). You can't gleam that stuff looking at a data chart. Everyone would have been better off if ZoS had done this years ago, like 2014.

If you're going to take the very radical step of changing how the game's mechanics and classes function, then I think you need to take the step you did not take in Beta: guest in a (good) organized guild and experience first-hand how your game is played. That will go a long way to eliminating the excuse of "we didn't anticipate," which seems a prevalent theme in the OP.

C0RTEX4

As I said, you developers are really trying to either remove pvp from your game, or loose players for another s*** game you are coming up with, if you make the combat slower, there is a 100% guarantee that you are going to loose ALOT of players!!! the problem lies in the masses of groups, certain buffs/mechanical combos and bugs that YOU have banned players in the past for and put into the game, NOT the skill speed or the combat fluidity...

First you remove from an "MMORPG", grouping in battlegrounds, then you proceed to remove animation cancelling for a sorry excuse that it would fix the "Desync issues" which clearly didn't do the job. Now you are coming up with cooldowns on skills and saying it will make the game play better meanwhile you try to fool us by putting a double AP event into the game at the same time to really ramp up the lag and then tell us more bull**** to keep these stupid changes into the game, we have had enough.

Yes puncturing sweep spammers are annoying, and these 8 man teamed bomb groups too, but completely decimating your combat system is even worse...

If you wish to kill your own game you are doing a cracking job!

Lumsdenml

WombatNipples65 wrote: »

Why do you hate Small Scalers?

You do know that Cyrodiil was not made for small scale, right?

DUTCH_REAPER

Great job ZOS! I will participate in your testing and hope to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Nemeliom

This isn't a valid test. It's just a lazy way to try to make us feel part of the change.

ZOS: "What do you guys think? A, B or C.
Players: "can't we choose D?"
ZOS: "But A, B or C are greaaaat"
Players: "but we want D"
ZOS: "B it is then. Thank you for participating in this tests. Your input is really appreciated"

DUTCH_REAPER

Dude they don’t HAVE to do anything yet they are. Don’t forget they can just leave cyro like it is and let it coast till it dies. At least they are trying. People are so scared of change. The good guilds will adapt and still be good. The good small scalers will adapt and still be good. Sounds like some people need to learn how to properly focus targets with single target abilities and time aoe hits. Regardless we have been crying on these forums and in game to fix it. Yet it’s not the fix some people want and they complain. Like okay here is your participation trophy player. Every single pvper should find comfort that ZOS is ACTUALLY attempting to fix cyrodil.

Darsaga

I thought I miss understood the little bits and pieces of this that I gathered today. Unfortunately It was true. [snip] It will not fix the performance problems. We will not be able to bar swap or CC break under the right conditions. We will then be stuck with a boring slow paced combat AND STILL have terrible performance. At least those who stay. Just throw on the band-aids for a few more years! Run off the old players and bring in the cool down junkies. maybe they wont notice the performance because they will only be casting one skill every 3 seconds?

Edit: To not be a complete rant I will add some thought. This remedy seems to be directly aimed at large scale group play bogging down the servers. Here a couple ideas that will not destroy what made ESO great (The Combat).

1) Drastically reduce group size. I would like 6-8 Players but would settle for 12.
2) Remove all buffing/healing to anyone not in your group.
3) Hard cap Resists in PVP. 25-30k
4) Hard cap HP in PVP. 25k
(The above two caps would allow people to actually get bursted down like they did 3-4 years ago.)
5) Remove Forward camps
6) Remove keep recall stones

This is just a few quick ideas. Obviously they would require fine tuning. None of them would hurt combat all of them would slightly help performance.

[Edited to remove Rude Comments]

Lumsdenml

It is pretty funny to read "its the end of the game! Its all ruined! Combat will be so slow! You are killing the small scalers!" This will not slow down combat unless the only thing you do is slap down aoes. People will rework their rotations so they slap down an aoe every 3 seconds, working in other skills in-between and combat will he just as fast.... faster, possibly, if performance actually improves to where all of your abilities a actually fire off....

halucin0g3n

Move the PVP to all overland zones. Allow people to opt-in for PVP instances. There, you spread the PVP players base across the zones. People will PVP where they like more. Get rid of cyrodiil, it's a mess and you'll never fix it.

Ddog222123

ElDeR ToO hIgH aPm

the1andonlyskwex

Based on the initial description of the problem, it seems like massively nerfing sustain (particularly sustain gained through champion points and high end equipment) would be a better approach than adding cooldowns to AoE abilities. The fact that abilities don't have cooldowns is one of the things that makes ESO stand out from other MMORPGs.

Edit: I do have some hope that maybe the cooldowns are just for the test, and there's no plan for them to be part of the eventual solution to the problem. I could see them being easier to implement (in the short term) than massive sustain rebalancing, which I imagine could help expedite the initial testing to see if AoEs really are causing the performance problems.

Dusk_Coven

Remove all rewards from open world PvP and focus on Battlegrounds instead. There ZOS can control the environment and the numbers. Keep tweaking the maximum team sizes until performance is acceptable despite whatever players do.
Copy Cyrodiil situations like resource capture into new BG maps.

Xapp

Hey, remember when Solo Queue BG's were a test?

HalvarIronfist

Xapp wrote: »

Hey, remember when Solo Queue BG's were a test?

and then forgotten about?

C0RTEX4

halucin0g3n wrote: »

Move the PVP to all overland zones. Allow people to opt-in for PVP instances. There, you spread the PVP players base across the zones. People will PVP where they like more. Get rid of cyrodiil, it's a mess and you'll never fix it.

This is actually a sick Idea, fighting all over tamriel that sounds soooo fun!

Tannus15

anyone know how this is going to affect sets like ice furnace which turns any direct ice damage into an aoe spammable?

5 items: When you deal Frost Damage, you deal an additional 1644 Flame Damage to all enemies within 8 meters around the initial target. This effect can occur once every 1 second.

C0RTEX4

Lumsdenml wrote: »

It is pretty funny to read "its the end of the game! Its all ruined! Combat will be so slow! You are killing the small scalers!" This will not slow down combat unless the only thing you do is slap down aoes. People will rework their rotations so they slap down an aoe every 3 seconds, working in other skills in-between and combat will he just as fast.... faster, possibly, if performance actually improves to where all of your abilities a actually fire off....

You clearly don't play pvp enough to grasp why us old skool diehard players are complaining...

ccfeeling

Sounds like we are going to play a ESO turn base game

C0RTEX4

Darsaga wrote: »

I thought I miss understood the little bits and pieces of this that I gathered today. Unfortunately It was true. [snip] It will not fix the performance problems. We will not be able to bar swap or CC break under the right conditions. We will then be stuck with a boring slow paced combat AND STILL have terrible performance. At least those who stay. Just throw on the band-aids for a few more years! Run off the old players and bring in the cool down junkies. maybe they wont notice the performance because they will only be casting one skill every 3 seconds?

Edit: To not be a complete rant I will add some thought. This remedy seems to be directly aimed at large scale group play bogging down the servers. Here a couple ideas that will not destroy what made ESO great (The Combat).

1) Drastically reduce group size. I would like 6-8 Players but would settle for 12.
2) Remove all buffing/healing to anyone not in your group.
3) Hard cap Resists in PVP. 25-30k
4) Hard cap HP in PVP. 25k
(The above two caps would allow people to actually get bursted down like they did 3-4 years ago.)
5) Remove Forward camps
6) Remove keep recall stones

This is just a few quick ideas. Obviously they would require fine tuning. None of them would hurt combat all of them would slightly help performance.

That is the best Idea I have seen on this so far, you go buddy!! and 1 thing to add, remove that stupid volen-dung, it is game breaking and S*** for players that want to play campaign!

Feizao

The proposed tests sounds like sets are going to become the primary combat mechanic.

Would it help the server if there was some "cooldown" using the transitus shrines? My thought being players flocking over to 911 calls thus creating large numbers within the area all at once vs smaller groups slowly coming together. I guess the problem would reintroduce itself once all the small groups make it to whatever location. Maybe this could disperse players around the map more. The goal here to reduce load by spreading players

I also believe CP should be reworked. A universal point system (if you want ALL points in blue tree you can). I personally would cap CP to 300. currently 270 is max points to spend per tree (270x3= 810). players would have to sacrifice mitigation, sustain, or damage to truly min/max (as PvE tank i wish i could use CP from blue tree into red).
Extra CP could unlock new passives/abilities

side note:

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] 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.

Can this fatigue mechanic be applied to snipe? or reduce the damage with each stack. either or

OtarTheMad

Darsaga wrote: »

I thought I miss understood the little bits and pieces of this that I gathered today. Unfortunately It was true. [snip] It will not fix the performance problems. We will not be able to bar swap or CC break under the right conditions. We will then be stuck with a boring slow paced combat AND STILL have terrible performance. At least those who stay. Just throw on the band-aids for a few more years! Run off the old players and bring in the cool down junkies. maybe they wont notice the performance because they will only be casting one skill every 3 seconds?

Edit: To not be a complete rant I will add some thought. This remedy seems to be directly aimed at large scale group play bogging down the servers. Here a couple ideas that will not destroy what made ESO great (The Combat).

1) Drastically reduce group size. I would like 6-8 Players but would settle for 12.
2) Remove all buffing/healing to anyone not in your group.
3) Hard cap Resists in PVP. 25-30k
4) Hard cap HP in PVP. 25k
(The above two caps would allow people to actually get bursted down like they did 3-4 years ago.)
5) Remove Forward camps
6) Remove keep recall stones

This is just a few quick ideas. Obviously they would require fine tuning. None of them would hurt combat all of them would slightly help performance.

Just a few criticisms.

1. I don't think reducing group size will do much of anything because it still won't spread people out. So instead of one group of 24 going to a keep, you'll have two groups of 12.
2. Good idea, have said this for years.
3. Most people already have at least 30k. Cap is already like 32k right? I don't think this will change much
4. This will result in more kills I guess but also discourage tanks from going to cyrodiil
5. Forward camps were gone for a very long time and didn't do much to help with lag issues, plus most people forget to put them down anyway so
6. Removing these won't do much because they weren't in the game for a long time and lag was bad before they were in and after.

just my opinions. I am game for these tests and hopefully, data collected will help Cyrodiil because it needs help. We should all participate in this and try to solve this once and for all.

merevie

Limit group size in pvp.
It runs beautifully then a ball group arrives.

They are also running their own calculation addons.

Please at least test this -we players all know THIS one thing is the major problem -we can even tell when a ball group arrives and hides before they cast.

(And Darsaga is right -aside from camps ;p )

C0RTEX4

Better Idea, put a respawn time on dead players and make camps a 1 time usage thing, that will reduce the amount of players fighting in an area and using skills too frequently.