Update on Cyrodiil Performance & Upcoming AOE Tests

DarcyMardin

What a nightmare. The game isn't performing well, especially in PvP, so let's totally change the way combat in the game works.

/runs away screaming

Kadoin

I'm still waiting on the test where they delete all healing and damage proc sets that have AoE checks from the game and leave skills alone and/or add global cooldowns to those. Might as well be a worthy test right?

We all know what will happen when ballgroups can't use their Earthgores, Bogdan, Winter's Respite, etc. - all things that have led to an increase in ballgroup strength and lagging when they were added.

Faulgor

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

If drastically changing AOEs is what it takes to improve performance in Cyrodiil, so be it.

However, it will require a drastic overhaul of soooo many different abilities. To make these AOE changes work, ZOS will need way more ability changes that it has ever done in any prior balancing pass.

People crying about Jabs? Obviously this will be one of the abilities that sees major changes. What should worry you more is whether or not ZOS can pull off such a massive re-balancing. Everyone, not just Templars, are going to need to be prepared to rethink their entire builds if ZOS makes these AOE changes and performs the necessary universal skill rework. It will be a massive undertaking and I'm worried ZOS won't pull it off.

AOE changes could be fine, especially if they fix performance, but only if ZOS gets the skill overhaul right. Otherwise, they could fundamentally break combat beyond repair.

Precisely.
I appreciate the transparency, and it's obvious that ESO's combat has evolved a lot from its original game design that it might cause issues for the performance. That's not a "developer fail", that's just a reality of programming that you can't optimize for everything at once.
But if we make these changes, effectively every ability has to be changed as well. I shudder to think how this will effect PvE. The game will become unrecognizable, and it's debatable if the gains in performance will draw more players back in than will be driven away by these changes.

TineaCruris

Bucky_13 wrote: »

heaven13 wrote: »

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

Best news I ve heard in a long time for this game.

If these changes indeed take place, we will see not only a significant improvement in performance but also the end of the abomination called "ball groups".

It won't affect ballgroups nearly as much as you think. Individual cooldowns will be affected but a ballgroup of 20+ people is still going to be able to spam AoEs and cross heal as a group which is still a butt load of calculations. This is another case of individual players being nerfed while groups remain mostly unaffected.

I want another test where cooldown are tied to the group. If one player casts a specific aoe heal, no one else in the group can cast it for 3 seconds

Oooo, this is a good idea. Not being a coder though, I have no idea how they'd even make that a thing.

metabLast3r

This game has grown exponentially in the last 5 years. Easy solution, upgrade the servers to support all of this instead of pulling things back for performance. I just don't understand how hard this could be with all the money being pulled in from the crown store.

erio

No one is going to participate in your test as it messes with their builds/classes too much to be fun.

YOU MUST give some kind of reward, be it a pet, mount, or some crates for participating for a DECENT PERIOD OF TIME

RodneyRegis

So from the dicussions here it sounds like heal AOEs are the real problem - I wouldn't actually mind much if group healing was removed from Cyrodiil - just self-heals? Would be cool. Better for 1vXing, better for skill, better for lag, fewer ball groups, fewer glass cannon builds with infinite health sutain...

WildRaptorX

RIP bomblades. I guess even more people will be running dizzy and executioner

Chevaliemew

Sweeps and Jabs down? What? Templars aren't the least popular and boring PVPwise class just yet?

CleymenZero

Niaver wrote: »

Also, why not simply decrease map player count per group as @FENGRUSH suggested multiple times?

There's that, there's alors the idea of splitting Cyrodiil with either walls or improvised barricades into districts like in imperial city.

There's also the possibility of increasing ult cost, decreasing ult regen and greatly increasing skill cost if in groups higher than X in a certain area.

The biggest problem is the gathering of a large amount of players in a certain area. That's when the servers get overloaded and organized ball groups greatly exacerbate the issue. Their pattern is simple: it gets so laggy that all they do is spam their abilities so if 1 hits out of 3, through their sheer numbers, they'll remain invincible. So pugs trying to fight ball groups get a double handicap because they firstly and most importantly are not organized, and secondly the lag disadvantages them more than organized group cause they're not setup to spam their abilities.

Inarre

jaws343 wrote: »

Cinbri wrote: »

@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 affect positive result as 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.

" We would then go through each class and ensure that there are viable builds for each and make adjustments as necessary."

It was already acknowledged that any changes would require class adjustments as well.

Inb4 class adjustment is changed in both PVP and PVE to accommodate for PVP balance changes

DUTCH_REAPER

Well atleast they are testing it out and attempting to find a fix. Tells me atleast they kind of care about pvp. i appreciate that

NBrookus

So, the plan is to make not being able to cast skills in combat a *feature.*

miawmiaw1337

Wow what an amazing idea. You know you can also shutdown servers permanently to reduce server costs. No need to thank me for this genius idea. Sustain is already crap, soon we wont even have aoe anymore. Wow pvp and pve are gonna be so much fun when we are left with only heavy attacks and no skills.

ganzaeso

I personally will be participating as part of the control group of this test with a single target/no AOE abilities setup to take advantage of the double AP.

I suggest everyone else do the same and when all the single target abilities generate the same lag, ZOS can go back to the idea board to figure out the lag issue.

protofeckless

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

Best news I ve heard in a long time for this game.

If these changes indeed take place, we will see not only a significant improvement in performance but also the end of the abomination called "ball groups".

Nope. The performance might improve. However this will make ball groups significantly stronger relative to any other play style.

This is another opposite-fix in a long list of ZOS opposite-fixes.

DUTCH_REAPER

Can we just let them run their tests, enjoy getting double AP and say good luck ZOS?

visionality

I'm obviously part of a tiny, tiny minority, but l like these tests. Every PVPer knows that being around a ballgroup spamming AOE dps and AOE heals (usually only 1-2 per player), increases lag to a point where using skills is 100% RNG or where the server kicks you right out of the game.

However, I urge ZOS not to do a "nerf all AOE to the point where it is useless" kind of change but to choose a considerate approach. I think some AOE skills need to be spammable, lag or no. Maybe stacking cost increases is the proper appoach, as it will still allow you to spam skills when necessary, but not infinitely.

I dont think this will outright destroy the game, it will just make the zerg AOE spamming a lot less useful. I'm 100% sure good ball groups will find good ways to deal with this, too.

On a final note: I LOVE the fact that ZOS tries to apporach PVP differently than PVE. High time and consider this a thing to continue! It will be an overall win to BOTH communities (and also to players that participate in PVE and PVP both) if you adjust PVP and PVE according to their own needs instead of trying for a "this will do for both" mishmash. Please keep thinking in this direction, also when it comes to proc sets, mystic items etc etc.

caeliusstarbreaker

So after 6 years the game is finally going into beta? Sick

MipMip

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.

Thanks @Dottzgaming for this excellent comment, and @NirnStorm and many others who point out how such changes will make the game slower and less interesting.

I also agree with those who say that these issues should be addressed not by changing fundamental game mechanics but by increasing server performance (many of us spend a lot of money on subs and in the crown store...)

If these changes go through I think I will recommend the game to my grandparents!

TineaCruris

RodneyRegis wrote: »

TineaCruris wrote: »

I am totally baffled as to why they can't just implement what ever changes were made during the MYM event on a full time basis. What ever those changes were helped a ton. It didn't bring us back the the utopian good ol days, but it got us a lot of the way there.

Why can't we just implement the MYM changes on a full time basis and go from there?

I'm guessing the answer can be provided exactly in pounds, shillings and pence.

For the EU server, yes. That would be dollars for the NA server. But ya, I'm pretty sure what we are reading is that they know they can achieve most of the performance fixes with an investment into hardware, but instead they are trying other things.

Earthewen

ad4mss wrote: »

I wonder how many people have only noticed this part in this long and very important announcement:
"During the times that any of these tests are active, we will be awarding double Alliance Points for anyone active in Cyrodiil."

Oh, I saw that. What that will do is artificially inflate the number of people in cyro which will skew the results of the testing. Doesn't make for a very scientific result.

Casul

Eh, go ahead and try it. If I had to cast my AoE 1 time every 3 seconds it would still be casted more then the lag allows me to.

DUTCH_REAPER

adjusting pvp and pve differently is the right move. we have been saying that for years.

Arkascha

No jabs spam ... nice

sinz_xb16_ESO

So my Templar is going to switch to a turn-based combat style while this doesn't apply to alot of my opponents? For every one jabs I dish out, I receive three flame lashes/surprise attacks/etc? Do you really need to test this out before you can conclude that this is beyond messed up?

Firstmep

I guess ill just play a ranged plar during the test spamming dark flare from keep walls, looks like all other options for the class are removed

Nitrius

Performance have been an issue in this game for as long as I can remember, and it's good that it's finally getting some attention.
It's good doing test and all, but if these tests are positive, don't use them as a solution as it would destroy the combat system.

Mirrrr

DCZergNoob wrote: »

Rezdayn wrote: »

Please dont put this into pve....

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

As someone who likes both pve and pvp I'm sorry but pve gets most nerves cause a certain group pvpers constant complain on forums. So that was a 100% legit respond asking not to put it in pve.

DigitalHype

Here is how I interpret this. The AvA game has collapsed under its own weight. They haven't invested time and money into the required R&D. Instead of using the many years of Crown Store and ESO+ revenue investing in a new architecture which can handle the performance implications of the evolving game, they are going to devolve the combat system to accomodate for that lack of investment.