Update on Cyrodiil Performance & Upcoming AOE Tests

Gprime31

This is the best you could come up with? Stop being so cheap and rebuild the server on a better engine, yes it will take some money out of shareholders pockets but it will vastly improve the game, you are basically turning eso into WOW!

Raevin

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

Raevin wrote: »

At this point I don't give a damn anymore. Test whatever you need to test, fix whatever needs fixing. ANYTHING that can make PvP work and not have your character spaz, freeze, unable to cast I'll take it. And if this discourages the lowest life form in Cyrodiil - ballgroups - oh boy! EVEN BETTER! Those brainless 1 skill spammers need to disappear.

it wont discourage ballgroups. they'll adapt better than most.

Of course they'll adapt, every player will but instead of aoe spam they will have to actually think and that will slow them down much more than time stop ever could.

Kadoin

HeroOfNone wrote: »

I would like to see more calculations/work handled client side, but threads like this show why it wouldn't work. We're talking about a test and people think its a solution. Imagine trying to tell users they were installing denuvo anti-cheat to help protect clients as they were changing the client/server process? Posters would complain that ZOS was using it to spy when they were going to the bathroom.

Tests stay permanent, unless they allow someone to do massive DPS in PvE, then they get addressed fast

technohic

Raevin wrote: »

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

Raevin wrote: »

At this point I don't give a damn anymore. Test whatever you need to test, fix whatever needs fixing. ANYTHING that can make PvP work and not have your character spaz, freeze, unable to cast I'll take it. And if this discourages the lowest life form in Cyrodiil - ballgroups - oh boy! EVEN BETTER! Those brainless 1 skill spammers need to disappear.

it wont discourage ballgroups. they'll adapt better than most.

Of course they'll adapt, every player will but instead of aoe spam they will have to actually think and that will slow them down much more than time stop ever could.

If we just look at it as the assumption that they have players just spamming purge non-stop when needed; all they have to do is have 3 running it to take turns hitting theirs in a loop so they have it every second in a 3-second loop. If they go with just a time between just 1 AOE, they can be alternating damage as well. To be honest; I don't know how the game could work if they do a global cooldown on all AOEs any time you use 1 so I hate to think about that but that would be what would have to happen to affect ball groups yet it will wreck all of us and require a complete overhaul of abilities and how they synergize

StShoot

peacenote wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

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.

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.

Premise: Power/resource creep is causing the performance issue.

Wouldn't the logical conclusion be to temper the power/resource creep in Cyro, via Battle Spirit, as a first test? If the problem is unlimited resources, fix the unlimited resources?

Adjusting resource regeneration across the board or for the specific abilities/sets that are causing it to over-perform in PvP seems like a better solution that completely gutting a well-beloved combat system.

its a *** lie... one patch ago they released mutiple sustain sets, i guess it wasnt a problem back than ? Moreover in no cp you cant realy sustain eternay but its still lagging af. Their fixes will not fix anything

Raevin

technohic wrote: »

Raevin wrote: »

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

Raevin wrote: »

At this point I don't give a damn anymore. Test whatever you need to test, fix whatever needs fixing. ANYTHING that can make PvP work and not have your character spaz, freeze, unable to cast I'll take it. And if this discourages the lowest life form in Cyrodiil - ballgroups - oh boy! EVEN BETTER! Those brainless 1 skill spammers need to disappear.

it wont discourage ballgroups. they'll adapt better than most.

Of course they'll adapt, every player will but instead of aoe spam they will have to actually think and that will slow them down much more than time stop ever could.

If we just look at it as the assumption that they have players just spamming purge non-stop when needed; all they have to do is have 3 running it to take turns hitting theirs in a loop so they have it every second in a 3-second loop. If they go with just a time between just 1 AOE, they can be alternating damage as well. To be honest; I don't know how the game could work if they do a global cooldown on all AOEs any time you use 1 so I hate to think about that but that would be what would have to happen to affect ball groups yet it will wreck all of us and require a complete overhaul of abilities and how they synergize

technohic wrote: »

Raevin wrote: »

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

Raevin wrote: »

At this point I don't give a damn anymore. Test whatever you need to test, fix whatever needs fixing. ANYTHING that can make PvP work and not have your character spaz, freeze, unable to cast I'll take it. And if this discourages the lowest life form in Cyrodiil - ballgroups - oh boy! EVEN BETTER! Those brainless 1 skill spammers need to disappear.

it wont discourage ballgroups. they'll adapt better than most.

Of course they'll adapt, every player will but instead of aoe spam they will have to actually think and that will slow them down much more than time stop ever could.

If we just look at it as the assumption that they have players just spamming purge non-stop when needed; all they have to do is have 3 running it to take turns hitting theirs in a loop so they have it every second in a 3-second loop. If they go with just a time between just 1 AOE, they can be alternating damage as well. To be honest; I don't know how the game could work if they do a global cooldown on all AOEs any time you use 1 so I hate to think about that but that would be what would have to happen to affect ball groups yet it will wreck all of us and require a complete overhaul of abilities and how they synergize

Alternating is one thing, being hit by everything all at once is another. As it is, the insane lag created by these groups give you two options: die - since your skills won't work or leave.
I think that's the point of these test, to gather information in order to completely/partially overhaul abilities.
Something needs to be done, this is undeniable.

SirAxen

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

This would *** destroy this game's popularity. What on earth?

A better functioning and more stable server would destroy the games popularity? Heh. Nah.

davidj8291

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

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.

I don't know how much I can stress to you that this would absolutely kill group play with less than 24 in Cyrodiil, in addition to completely neutralizing several existing classes.

Changes come with MMOs, but this isn't a change you need to make. You need to improve servers and bolster code, not taper the gameplay DOWN to suit a poorly coded game operating on insufficient servers.

Whether you intend it or not, this potential change is one that seems like you are TRYING to kill your own game, and that's a shame.

MisterBigglesworth

I just want to say for everyone sh*****g on World of Warcraft by saying ESO is becoming like it, what you should realize is that WOW has plenty of abilities that:
a) are point blank AOEs with no target cap
b) have no cooldown
c) have little-to-no resource cost so they can be spammed endlessly
(examples include Whirlwind and Holy Nova)

...and yet ...AND YET...
somehow, these abilities by themselves do not cause the kind of lag in any WOW environment that we see in Cyrodiil!
WOW does not have anything like Cyrodiil, it's true, but WOW has World PVP and has been capable of running large battles smoothly in the past.

What DOES create lag in WOW, however, are something that was added to both ESO and WoW after they launched (in WoW's case only a couple years ago): PROC SETS. Random effects going off constantly, no doubt straining the servers. In both games. And in both games the lag has only gotten worse!

Elsonso

Wait. Simple solution to Cyrodiil combat. Don't we have a series of "rock paper scissors" emotes?

davidj8291 wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

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.

I don't know how much I can stress to you that this would absolutely kill group play with less than 24 in Cyrodiil, in addition to completely neutralizing several existing classes.

Unlikely. Keep in mind that they might not use a 3 second cooldown, or any cooldown beyond the global cooldown, and accomplish this via other means. Maybe cap regen and increase the AoE skill cost. Maybe casting an AoE disables regen for some duration. Maybe a cast time on the AoE skills to help prevent spamming. Maybe only allow a certain number of AoE to be active in an area at a time. All they really need to do is make it so that players don't continuously spam AoE. How they do that is an open field, and does not have to be one of the methods they test.

Tigor

Nagastani wrote: »

Tigor wrote: »

With all the upcoming changes, I'm looking forward to more open field battles due to shorter sieges.

In general, I expect taking keeps/ fortresses / castles to be more fun and less stessful, without dominating AOE groups.

I think everyone can then play more as he/she wants, and use the gear he/she likes, without being handicaped by lag and that is also a good thing. So more diverse and less boring.

Increase of quality....

We could try it however judging by some of the replies on here it looks like this could get ugly. For my part I am spending less and less time in Cyrodiil due to ball groups and problems with move speed. In fact I did not even try midyear’s events this year due to how horrifically bad the lag and server drops was from last year.

Lets talk more about ball groups until they are over the top, and no one will run that play style anymore, and the problem resolves itself.

The AoE tests could be a good start, but are they viable, I think still yes.

Futard

Czekoludek wrote: »

@ZOS_RichLambert Please, someone from ZOS should watch @FENGRUSH response. Great vid with so many valid points and propositions that will definietely hurt game less then what we see in OP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO-NLBjSO1U

I thought about these proposed tests and think that Zeni take the wrong approach here, looking at wrong direction.

Issues with the video:
- Bad definition of certain group and group size and none of the ball groups should have an issue with playing with 12 players as most of them already do.
- CP certainly is an issue as it results in more calculations. Yet, No-CP (PC EU) is unplayable as well. So the logic of having better resource management isn't the reason for people causing lag. It works anyway and did since the beginning.
- The calculation thing might be true to a certain degree. Yet, it would not make sense to allow single target skills that aren't directly targeted (e.g. his example with breath of life or healing shield). Yet, it completely lacks the calculation of all damage abilities and there are plenty as well. How much it really helps is hard to tell here. But might be worth testing.
- Nerf of purge: He wants one No-CP environment with limiting purge. Siege weapons hurt much more on No-CP as on CP. With a siege where plenty people defend, oil and siege, most people won't be able to enter the keep. This will result in more people stacking in the area as there will be an indicator that action is there. This increases faction stacking which won't help getting rid of lag.
- Siege adjustment to not stack: These are more calculations on the server again, at least initially. But yes, siege stacking is not good.

And no, while it is good that ZOS does tests on live, these tests do not look promising.

Edit:

Tigor wrote: »

Nagastani wrote: »

Tigor wrote: »

With all the upcoming changes, I'm looking forward to more open field battles due to shorter sieges.

In general, I expect taking keeps/ fortresses / castles to be more fun and less stessful, without dominating AOE groups.

I think everyone can then play more as he/she wants, and use the gear he/she likes, without being handicaped by lag and that is also a good thing. So more diverse and less boring.

Increase of quality....

We could try it however judging by some of the replies on here it looks like this could get ugly. For my part I am spending less and less time in Cyrodiil due to ball groups and problems with move speed. In fact I did not even try midyear’s events this year due to how horrifically bad the lag and server drops was from last year.

Lets talk more about ball groups until they are over the top, and no one will run that play style anymore, and the problem resolves itself.

The AoE tests could be a good start, but are they viable, I think still yes.

Yes:
+elite2
+elite3

that's way better and certainly not an issue.

merevie

So I have worked through the list of skills (thanks Temeraire507) and have some questions.

Are there any ultimate that won't trigger a cool down?

Does this mean we cannot reapply proxy det until the first 3 seconds are done?

How/can we heal using vigor if we are on a cool down from pressing an attack 'aoe' ability?

Are long lasting effects like barrier going to allow us to stack protection/heals to get around the 3 sec rule?

If this is going to affect pvp for weeks on end we need some idea of how it can be playable.

What happens to the people who play on classes that are almost totally aoe based? They literally won't be able to play and this will wreck test accuracy. Wardens, Dks and sorcs, since the destro line also being affected.

Are we going to get an official list so we can have somewhat viable builds & groups in the weeks pvp is under testing?

Sugaroverdose

merevie wrote: »

So I have worked through the list of skills (thanks Temeraire507) and have some questions.

Are there any ultimate that won't trigger a cool down?

Soul Strike(actually, people from pts says that ultimate is not affected with this stuff)

merevie wrote: »

Does this mean we cannot reapply proxy det until the first 3 seconds are done?

Yes

merevie wrote: »

How/can we heal using vigor if we are on a cool down from pressing an attack 'aoe' ability?

don't use vigor and AoE attacks

merevie wrote: »

Are long lasting effects like barrier going to allow us to stack protection/heals to get around the 3 sec rule?

3 sec rule is not about power creep it's about baid-fixing of performance, so it have nothing to any ways to extend AoE range or time to life

merevie wrote: »

If this is going to affect pvp for weeks on end we need some idea of how it can be playable.

at least 4 weeks

merevie wrote: »

What happens to the people who play on classes that are almost totally aoe based? They literally won't be able to play and this will wreck test accuracy. Wardens, Dks and sorcs, since the destro line also being affected.

sucks to be us

merevie wrote: »

Are we going to get an official list so we can have somewhat viable builds & groups in the weeks pvp is under testing?

most definitely - no, they expect that people will find a way to have fun in cyrodiil by their own

Sugaroverdose

HeroOfNone wrote: »

I would like to see more calculations/work handled client side, but threads like this show why it wouldn't work. We're talking about a test and people think its a solution. Imagine trying to tell users they were installing denuvo anti-cheat to help protect clients as they were changing the client/server process? Posters would complain that ZOS was using it to spy when they were going to the bathroom.

Denuvo does encrypt binary and resources, how the hell it will protect you from cheaters?

z0mbeh

So many of my thoughts and analysis of how these changes will impact the game for the worse have been posted already so I’m not going to keep repeating the same thing over and over.

BUT I would like to say I don’t trust ZOS to handle this correctly (let’s look at BG no group ‘test’ that is still in the game and has never had a follow up answer in the ‘official’ thread) one of these tests will be permanent, they are going in live... the changes are already there, they will decide whichever change worked the best for them, keep it and never answer the community about it again just like with BG, I’m calling it now. This just continues the steady decline of quality PVP in this game.

Kiwigal

The main thing that keeps me playing ESOis my run around with my guild at the end of the day in Cyrodil. I was excited when you guys announced a few months that we'd have faster load screens, as we know that hasn't happened, if anything they're longer.

So I personally feel what you are proposing isn't going to resolve the lag problems in Cyrodil. I'm at the stage if this fails too I'm taking me & my ESO plus sub to another game.

I really don't know why you can't give us another server.

TheAlphaRaider

Literally, your death recap hints tell people to join a group of 24. And you wonder why you have horrible server performance. The worst thing about pvp is zergs. There is nothing special about it. Kill zergs and you save the server

Winnamine

Tannus15 wrote: »

@Winnamine Tin foil hate territory mate.

To quote:

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.

They have literally said they will look at the effect first and then look at creating a solution.

Animation cancel removing was a test
BG solo queue was a test
CP was a test
Block Changes were a test
AOE caps was a test
Faction Lock was a test

... Need I go on?

Poncho28

Since it's a test, it's a step in the right direction - do stuff to better understand the problem.

But, ZoS has always been stuck in a rut relying on nerf for the rescue. Whether it's 'to balance something' or to 'have play operate within given resources', it always ends up something the player has to eat if they want to keep playing.

Here's a tip ZoS, make good and certain you're happy with it before you release it, then stay away from it. The more you nerf, the more you take away. Your best bet is to understand what resource budget you have available and if Cyrodiil hardware is lacking due to software getting out ahead, that's a design issue, not a player issue - avoid punishing the player base.

Again, glad to see testing and glad to see it's on live servers where tried and true players will get a chance to participate and hopefully provide constructive feedback.

Addendum - someone make sure VE is in Gray Host when testing starts.

Merforum

I've been playing for over 3 years and have noticed whenever the PVP folks (mainly the MAXers who want to be able to slaughter 50 people, like an 18 year old who thinks he is cool beating up a bunch of 10 year olds) start whining about ANYTHING, Zos starts making changes that make PVE less attractive.

At first it was ruining the DIFFERENCE between the races/classes FOR BALANCE, some of the fun of PVE is having different builds that specialize in different things. But now any healer, tank, etc who can't be killed by Templar in 2 shots spamming sweeps, MUST BE NERFED. I love my magplar in PVE but don't even put use sweeps because it is so OP it gets boring. I actually hate any Nerf, prefer making stuff better, but removing heal from sweeps would be legit.

I see a lot of people whining about zergs and 'ball groups' but it is the exact same MAXers who just want to slaughter dozens of beginner, non-PVP, non-optimized builds and are upset that co-ordinated groups can defeat them anyway, as they should. I wonder why these MAX out PVPers even play in cyrodiil, when they have a whole Battlegrounds system where they can prove how good they are.

Please stop making changes to 'fix' PVP and listening to the whiners, that also affects PVE. This thread has a lot of good ideas IMO.Reduce useless graphics, environmental effects. Limit sets that are usable in PVP, proc sets might be causing some lag. Is your forum on the same servers as the game because I am getting lag typing a simple post. Upgraded hardware seems simple but bad code is usually most likely problem, but you should try both.

BTW Thrassian is very fun in original form, please just make it unusable in Trials rather than ruining it.

idk

Bashev wrote: »

@ ZOS_RichLambert I am curious what will be the results.

Pretty sure Rich already stated their expected results in the OP of this thread. The details are why they are testing and that is yet to come.

ZOS_GregoryV

Greetings all,

After removing a few comments, we would like to remind everyone that all posts are to be kept civil, constructive, and within the guidelines of the rules we have in place. If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

ShadowProc

Blow up purge.

Kadoin

ShadowProc wrote: »

Blow up purge.

It really is the root of all ballgroup problems ...remember when it was over-buffed and healed too much? What happned to ballgroups then...?

That, and that siege is a meme.

DUTCH_REAPER

I hope ZOS gives a tag or badge for the forum accounts of people who participate in all the testing everyweek. That way we can see who is truly trying to make the game better and who is not. Let us provide honest and sound feed back for them. Not speculations.

Apox

There isnt a single universe where the solution is neutering gameplay when it can be fixed without doing so.

LadyLethalla

Can someone please explain to me how players can spam AOEs without running out of resources...?

Recremen

LadyLethalla wrote: »

Can someone please explain to me how players can spam AOEs without running out of resources...? Have I been doing something wrong for 5+ years?

There aren't a lot of builds (if any) where you can truly spam AoE endlessly, but you can spam far far more than you used to with the right support sets, CP allocation, etc. Lag isn't caused by everyone literally spamming AoE at 100% uptime, but it sounds like their working theory is that there's so much easy regen out there that people are spamming often enough that it's the main/one of the main contributors to lag.

Calypso589

@ZOS_RichLambert

Can we please just get some straight talk on why, after 6 years, changing how 200+ abilities work in Cyrodiil is the step that's being taken instead of literally anything else?

And all of this happening on top of the audit you've been conducting on the PvE side as well?

What? Hello?

Please. What resources do you need and why are you apparently not getting them?