Update on Cyrodiil Performance & Upcoming AOE Tests

Sandman929

Why can't you just limit AOE buffs and heals to group members only as a first attempt...as has been suggested many times by many people?

SodanTok

Good and hopeful attempts at addressing performance, i am positively surprised. While cooldowns clearly dont belong to ESO combat, where sustain is supposed to be soft check against mindless skill spamming, I don't see anything wrong with adding them for sake of test. If all goes well and the suspicion is confirmed hopefully this will result in some serious look at current state of sustain in PVP (and PVE)

GandTheImpaler

L_Nici wrote: »

As long as they mean only field AoEs with that I am fine. But if they include, Streak, Jabs, Reverse Slice, Stampede, Blastbones, Bombard, and so on, that will be devastating.

It's EVERY ability that includes an AoE mechanic, so even things like Breath of Life and the ones you named among more.

AgentZenish

Hello, it's me, a templar main, and the bottom of a trash bin. I rarely ran sweeps in Cyro because it was already too laggy but ooofff.

This will also hit healing very hard.

Sanguinor2

When is the templar rework coming? Surely you already have something planned since any of these restrictions is gonna destroy templar.

TheRealPotoroo

Rezdayn wrote: »

Please dont put this into pve....

Fundamental changes to PVP always have a knock on effect on PVE because ZOS simply refuse to separate the two modes properly. It's one of the most stupid design decisions in the history of MMOs. No game has ever successfully balanced the two via a shared set of parameters and ESO is no different but they just refuse.

Alchimiste1

I don’t know why someone would think putting a cast time on jabs is what would fix performance issue.


Let’s address what really causes lag, ball groups. It would be better to limit the amount of cross healing/buffs they can have. Or vet certain ball group specific abilities. Also, I think most of us have noticed that during mid year mayhem most if not all the campaigns except the main cp campaign are relatively lag free. I don’t know the specifics behind it but if the population in those campaigns is less than normal, change it to that amount so that gray host shares that value. I would rather have two working 30 day cp campaigns with smaller pop than one that is unplayable.

lnigo

should be fun

bharathitman

If these changes go through and ends up affecting the PvE meta it will end up alienating PvE players too. Most of us are already sick of having to re-calibrate our sets and skills once every three months.

It's time for Cyrodill to get special rule-sets rather than putting PvE players in a mixer-grinder once every three months

Lyar09

These tests with result in false positives. You wont get the numbers you're looking for because these changes will result in a HUGE net loss of players actually in cyrodiil. I do not agree with these tests as it is not the game you advertise. You would also have a completely separate game from what open world pvp is compared to other aspects of your game. You would need to do a complete re-haul of every class. This is going to cause a lot of players to leave the game and you will lose a lot of money lol

ArchangelIsraphel

Isn't it about time the dev team started considering splitting the PVE and PVP skillsets so that both can be balanced and changed separately from one another?

Glory

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_RichLambert
A few points to make here.

1) I'm glad you are doing tests on the live servers. I would encourage you to not be shy about running these in the future too.

2) the date you picked may not be the best. At the start of a new patch it's normally dead in cyro for 1 week. Also New world is running their preview which may also lower population.

3) please provide a list of abilities which are considered AoE. For example Rapid Regen is single target but searches for allies in the area. Is that an AoE?

4) I can tell you as a player from beta till now. We never had cost issues casting aoes. People use to pound springs constantly and that gave more than enough magicka to cast offensive abilities in fight. I can't realistically agree that frequency of cast is the problem between now and then. But I can and cpt that there will be other reasons stacked on top. Like CP etc..

@Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO for #3, yes it counts as an AoE. Skills that do AoE checks even if they seem single target count as AoE.

technohic

Dude. Jabs? Isnt it supposed to be a spammable? Can we segregate AOE and splash damage? Or you going to put a CD/Debuff on crushing shock as well?

Other wise, I like it. Shalks takes 3 seconds to go off so no biggie if you do a 3 second debuff

finehair

The root of lag issue is the aoe damage abilities those blobs spam for sure.
But why punish the pugs or solo players while the blob people are causing this? A random lfg group members still have problems sustaining, and a solo player can't spam aoe endlessly since they need to keep themselves alive instead of counting the healbot in their group.
But where do you draw the line between an organized guild group and a ball group?
You need to find those aoe blobs and punish them instead of changing how the skill works in pvp, that's another option.

FatherDelve

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

I don’t know why someone would think putting a cast time on jabs is what would fix performance issue.


Let’s address what really causes lag, ball groups. It would be better to limit the amount of cross healing/buffs they can have. Or vet certain ball group specific abilities. Also, I think most of us have noticed that during mid year mayhem most if not all the campaigns except the main cp campaign are relatively lag free. I don’t know the specifics behind it but if the population in those campaigns is less than normal, change it to that amount so that gray host shares that value. I would rather have two working 30 day cp campaigns with smaller pop than one that is unplayable.

it was most likely because those ballZERGS ( yes, a group is ending with 4 people), where splitted up on those campaigns. If you had the joy of meeting two of those in the same keep, you also had this "your character walkes in slowmow" experience too

WAMB0

This literally reads like ppl wrote it who dont know anything about the gameplay.

Literally 90% of healing abilites, and faar too many other abilities have secondary AOE effects.
Its gutting templars of their main spammable. There is basically a morph to every of templars abilities that has an AOE component or is fully aoe. Its not gonna be gameplay anymore.
"We would then go through each class and ensure that there are viable builds for each and make adjustments as necessary."
This is the scariest part of the announcement.


So lets assume someone spent as much time thinking about what this will do, as it takes to write that post above:
what are they gonna gain from the test?
An idea about how much calculations they save from not having AOE abilities. What will this help?

Your game (engine or hardware) has to be able to run this. Dont try to take away from the game to accommodate worse and worse code and what feels like downgrading hardware instead of upgrading it.

Jarrods32

Zos_RichLambert
Could u be more specific as to will any of these changes affect pve at all and take the the time to respond and speak to community instead of making a post and then not responding in any way

goldenarcher1

Double AP during tests though.

GoodFella146

Also, players actually dying rather than needing 3+ players 5 minutes to kill these cheese werewolves or tanks would help as well

Ufretin

BigBragg wrote: »

If CP is such a strong contributing factor, why not just strip it out of PvP entirely? That would put a lot of builds and players back to meaningful choices instead of being able to do everything and still let us have the fast gameplay we enjoy.

Come to the no-CP campaign during prime time and witness how CP are obviously not the (only) reason for abysmal lags.

GandTheImpaler

Jarrods32 wrote: »

Zos_RichLambert
Could u be more specific as to will any of these changes affect pve at all and take the the time to respond and speak to community instead of making a post and then not responding in any way

These changes will be PvP only, beyond that idk.

Ghostbane

Test 5 - Remove the 50% damage reduction from Battle Spirit

tim99

hollywood wrote: »

So , the AoE spamming blobs cause much of the lag issues.. WHO WOULD HAVE TOUGHT.

And still (ball-)groups doing it constantly, knowing but not caring about anything.
So basically players broke their own favorite game, and these are the results. Hope u r proud of yourself now.

BigBragg

Ufretin wrote: »

BigBragg wrote: »

If CP is such a strong contributing factor, why not just strip it out of PvP entirely? That would put a lot of builds and players back to meaningful choices instead of being able to do everything and still let us have the fast gameplay we enjoy.

Come to the no-CP campaign during prime time and witness how CP are obviously not the (only) reason for abysmal lags.

I play mostly in NoCP when I do play, and it is noticeably less than the CP during the same time. That doesn't mean it is nonexistent. It just means it tempers builds in a different way that reduces server strain.

FatherDelve

Altyrann wrote: »

Have you considered buffing ST DoTs...

https://youtu.be/mZfLdMB06-s

https://youtu.be/2xrEicj3C-w

Good ol days when two Sustain Sets and Valkyn Skoria ticked for 4-7k every tick.

Derra

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

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.

Given this adjustment of class toolkits would happen reasonably fast (and i´m not talking over the next 2 or 3 normal patch cycles - not zenimax fast - really fast with adjustments on live within a week or two as soon as obvious flaws are pointed out) the idea doesn´t sound too bad.

But since templars main class spamable ability is used as an example i´m very skeptical of that happening.

If you put out the plethora of changes needed for this to work in a reasonable timeframe - fine. Do it.
If you´ll take too long to adjust and fix class toolkits the pvp will be beyond repair. In that case rather hold back the changes until you´ve adjusted classes accordingly.

Niaver

Not to mention that cooldowns definetely have no place in this game, aren't non-CP campaigns also lagging hard? I know they do.

Cinbri

@ZOS_RichLambert there is 3 points:
1. You must understand that all negative effects you described are caused by ballgroups. Its going simple as that, literally everything you described is abused by ball-groups and for taht reason prime-time cyro unplayable: even with locked population its fine but as soon as ballgroup logging in and starting to spam AoEs by specialized group members - cyro suddenly becoming unplayable. So, remove overperforming skills from this kind of play (like Alliance Purge witch cant be spammed by anyone but gallgroup specialized member so-called "purge spammer"). For that reason even with rudiculous cost increase of AoE skill - you wont achieve positive result because main offender that cause lag will be able to bypass this limitation.
2. Its drastically affect class balance as some classes based on AoE like dk, templar, warden, while others in single target damage. Any changes to AoEs without huge additional overhauls of those "aoe-heavy classes" will defacto means classes get nerfed for perfomance reason while other classes untouched. And that lead to 3rd problem:
3. And third problem that which I, as Templar, think is ruddiculous

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] 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.

^^ Templar wont be able to use its spammable. This is by itself means that Templars are autoamtically excluded from Test 2.

Firstmep

I'm sorry, 3 second cooldown on puncturing strikes, WHAT?
Also many of us have pointed this issue out, and also the fact that it's mainly aoe healing skills that cause this issue.
I hardly think a Templar jabbing 4-5 ppl is what's causing lag.
I hope you guys won't destroy an entire class just for the sake of performance.

Zalathorm

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Do you intend to make these changes global, eventually? That is, will this apply to Trials?

It is one thing to shake up Cyrodiil where your enemies will be affected by the same limitations. A new meta and equilibrium will be reached. Maybe players won't like it, but you will still be able to PvP.

But Trials are dependent on certain DPS thresholds being met, and "cleave" damage can be critical to meeting those thresholds. If players have to single target every trash mob, every boss add, etc. That is going to get very tedious, very quickly, and really mess with the intended fight designs.

Heck, even "easy" content like Darkshade II will be massively impacted. I cannot imagine fighting Grobull or the waves of Dwemer automatons up the hill after Grobull, without tons of AoE. And then there is Vet Black Rose Prison. That is one of the hardest pieces of content in the game and it is all about throwing huge numbers of enemies at you and I do not see clearing that without throwing huge numbers at AoEs at those enemies.

It would *** up... everything in PVE.

And how can they not end up *** up PVE?

If you make puncturing sweeps only castable every 3 seconds, it will suck. How do you make it not suck? Change the skill. How can you change the skill in PVP to be good every 3 seconds, but not change how it works in PVE?

Seems there is no way to balance skills and classes in PVP on 3 second cooldowns and not change how things work fundamentally in PVE.

Also if this spills over into PVE, rotations become MORE complex and micro managey. Skill cap increases. Defeats their own stated goals.