Cyrodiil AoE changes

Thraben

Mayrael wrote: »

Ball groups =/= only group play available. Random group members won't be affected much by changes we talk about. Same goes to small scale groups. There is still a lot of group play in Cyro. Even bunch of solo players fighting side by side is a group of players. Sorry but Cyro will be fine without ball groups.

Who says that Ballgroups won't play? Even the most ignorant ball group leader must have realized by now that

Proxies, SubAssault and Synergies still work, and the three make up roughly 80% of a ballgroup's damage even when not considering Ultimates.

They only problem is the lack of healing, and there are a some possible fixes for that.

Sanct16

The issue with these tests is that they change many different aspects of the game as the same time. More than half of all skills will be affected by the cooldown, so there will be a very huge impact on general playstyle, e.g. which classes people play.

If it doesn't lag during the tests it is impossible to tell why exactly this was: Because organised groups didn't play during the event? Because Templars didn't play during the event? Because way less people played? Because fights resolved quicker?

Now you might say: "Well as long as it doesn't lag, it doesn't matter why that is!" - However the issue there is that people will adapt to the final changes, but they won't adapt to stupid tests and just not play - so any data derived from the tests is not representative for the actual impact of that change.

Cinbri

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Tests will provide 0 data for Devs cause 1/2 players won't play. The ideas behind this tests tells us that MMO part of eso finally 100% dead and it's time to move forward to other MMO projects.
Tnx to all solo players for that changes. Hope u will enjoy skyrim online.
We all know that the only way to fix cyro is to rewrite game code and upgrade servers.

Ball groups =/= only group play available. Random group members won't be affected much by changes we talk about. Same goes to small scale groups. There is still a lot of group play in Cyro. Even bunch of solo players fighting side by side is a group of players. Sorry but Cyro will be fine without ball groups.

Sry to say but ballgrouping is the only end-game group PvP activity we had.
Solo players fighting side by side is faction stucking and not near a group play.
Smallscalers are fine if they use their brian and synergies their builds. If you call 3-5 ppl with 2h spamming dizzy around 1 rock smallscale - you are wrong

Oh my oh my, really? Then why ball groups don't fight each other but only farm pugs or even smallscalers/solo players? It's not about challenge or "end game" PvP. Sorry, but you won't be missed, actually without ball groups lagging servers, Cyrodiil may become more popular and once again be fun!

Who cares if selfish bunch of players (who despite knowing how it affects other players performance still play in most disruptive way) will leave? You always could play as a team but without stacking on each other backs. You could play like a organised large scale group, but you choose not to.

Then you wonder why nobody likes ball groups and wants to get rid of them? It's not because they are annoying and boring to play against, it's because you degradate performance for all other players.

I know, I know servers/game code performance is ZOS fault. True. Taking advantage of that fact though is all on ball groups.

I remember first months of game when people didnt figured that ball-group formation is strongest playstyle. It was best time in cyro when people were spreaded and it was actually "large-scale", and not jsut stack entire cyro pop in 50m of map.

Mayrael

Cinbri wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Tests will provide 0 data for Devs cause 1/2 players won't play. The ideas behind this tests tells us that MMO part of eso finally 100% dead and it's time to move forward to other MMO projects.
Tnx to all solo players for that changes. Hope u will enjoy skyrim online.
We all know that the only way to fix cyro is to rewrite game code and upgrade servers.

Ball groups =/= only group play available. Random group members won't be affected much by changes we talk about. Same goes to small scale groups. There is still a lot of group play in Cyro. Even bunch of solo players fighting side by side is a group of players. Sorry but Cyro will be fine without ball groups.

Sry to say but ballgrouping is the only end-game group PvP activity we had.
Solo players fighting side by side is faction stucking and not near a group play.
Smallscalers are fine if they use their brian and synergies their builds. If you call 3-5 ppl with 2h spamming dizzy around 1 rock smallscale - you are wrong

Oh my oh my, really? Then why ball groups don't fight each other but only farm pugs or even smallscalers/solo players? It's not about challenge or "end game" PvP. Sorry, but you won't be missed, actually without ball groups lagging servers, Cyrodiil may become more popular and once again be fun!

Who cares if selfish bunch of players (who despite knowing how it affects other players performance still play in most disruptive way) will leave? You always could play as a team but without stacking on each other backs. You could play like a organised large scale group, but you choose not to.

Then you wonder why nobody likes ball groups and wants to get rid of them? It's not because they are annoying and boring to play against, it's because you degradate performance for all other players.

I know, I know servers/game code performance is ZOS fault. True. Taking advantage of that fact though is all on ball groups.

I remember first months of game when people didnt figured that ball-group formation is strongest playstyle. It was best time in cyro when people were spreaded and it was actually "large-scale", and not jsut stack entire cyro pop in 50m of map.

Yeah. I still have clips from those times. It was the most epic time of Cyrodiil. No lag, no FPS drops, hundreds of people fighting, trebuchets and ballistas shooting everywhere. That was the reason why I fell in love with Cyrodiil.

Sanct16

Cinbri wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Tests will provide 0 data for Devs cause 1/2 players won't play. The ideas behind this tests tells us that MMO part of eso finally 100% dead and it's time to move forward to other MMO projects.
Tnx to all solo players for that changes. Hope u will enjoy skyrim online.
We all know that the only way to fix cyro is to rewrite game code and upgrade servers.

Ball groups =/= only group play available. Random group members won't be affected much by changes we talk about. Same goes to small scale groups. There is still a lot of group play in Cyro. Even bunch of solo players fighting side by side is a group of players. Sorry but Cyro will be fine without ball groups.

Sry to say but ballgrouping is the only end-game group PvP activity we had.
Solo players fighting side by side is faction stucking and not near a group play.
Smallscalers are fine if they use their brian and synergies their builds. If you call 3-5 ppl with 2h spamming dizzy around 1 rock smallscale - you are wrong

Oh my oh my, really? Then why ball groups don't fight each other but only farm pugs or even smallscalers/solo players? It's not about challenge or "end game" PvP. Sorry, but you won't be missed, actually without ball groups lagging servers, Cyrodiil may become more popular and once again be fun!

Who cares if selfish bunch of players (who despite knowing how it affects other players performance still play in most disruptive way) will leave? You always could play as a team but without stacking on each other backs. You could play like a organised large scale group, but you choose not to.

Then you wonder why nobody likes ball groups and wants to get rid of them? It's not because they are annoying and boring to play against, it's because you degradate performance for all other players.

I know, I know servers/game code performance is ZOS fault. True. Taking advantage of that fact though is all on ball groups.

I remember first months of game when people didnt figured that ball-group formation is strongest playstyle. It was best time in cyro when people were spreaded and it was actually "large-scale", and not jsut stack entire cyro pop in 50m of map.

Remember Lightning Patch?

Xarc

Cinbri wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Tests will provide 0 data for Devs cause 1/2 players won't play. The ideas behind this tests tells us that MMO part of eso finally 100% dead and it's time to move forward to other MMO projects.
Tnx to all solo players for that changes. Hope u will enjoy skyrim online.
We all know that the only way to fix cyro is to rewrite game code and upgrade servers.

Ball groups =/= only group play available. Random group members won't be affected much by changes we talk about. Same goes to small scale groups. There is still a lot of group play in Cyro. Even bunch of solo players fighting side by side is a group of players. Sorry but Cyro will be fine without ball groups.

Sry to say but ballgrouping is the only end-game group PvP activity we had.
Solo players fighting side by side is faction stucking and not near a group play.
Smallscalers are fine if they use their brian and synergies their builds. If you call 3-5 ppl with 2h spamming dizzy around 1 rock smallscale - you are wrong

Oh my oh my, really? Then why ball groups don't fight each other but only farm pugs or even smallscalers/solo players? It's not about challenge or "end game" PvP. Sorry, but you won't be missed, actually without ball groups lagging servers, Cyrodiil may become more popular and once again be fun!

Who cares if selfish bunch of players (who despite knowing how it affects other players performance still play in most disruptive way) will leave? You always could play as a team but without stacking on each other backs. You could play like a organised large scale group, but you choose not to.

Then you wonder why nobody likes ball groups and wants to get rid of them? It's not because they are annoying and boring to play against, it's because you degradate performance for all other players.

I know, I know servers/game code performance is ZOS fault. True. Taking advantage of that fact though is all on ball groups.

I remember first months of game when people didnt figured that ball-group formation is strongest playstyle. It was best time in cyro when people were spreaded and it was actually "large-scale", and not jsut stack entire cyro pop in 50m of map.

So true

NeillMcAttack

People still complaining about these ‘tests’, really? You do realize, that currently on live, ALL your abilities go on cool down at random times even.

Just help with testing, it’s really all we can do right now.

Cinbri

Sanct16 wrote: »

Cinbri wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Tests will provide 0 data for Devs cause 1/2 players won't play. The ideas behind this tests tells us that MMO part of eso finally 100% dead and it's time to move forward to other MMO projects.
Tnx to all solo players for that changes. Hope u will enjoy skyrim online.
We all know that the only way to fix cyro is to rewrite game code and upgrade servers.

Ball groups =/= only group play available. Random group members won't be affected much by changes we talk about. Same goes to small scale groups. There is still a lot of group play in Cyro. Even bunch of solo players fighting side by side is a group of players. Sorry but Cyro will be fine without ball groups.

Sry to say but ballgrouping is the only end-game group PvP activity we had.
Solo players fighting side by side is faction stucking and not near a group play.
Smallscalers are fine if they use their brian and synergies their builds. If you call 3-5 ppl with 2h spamming dizzy around 1 rock smallscale - you are wrong

Oh my oh my, really? Then why ball groups don't fight each other but only farm pugs or even smallscalers/solo players? It's not about challenge or "end game" PvP. Sorry, but you won't be missed, actually without ball groups lagging servers, Cyrodiil may become more popular and once again be fun!

Who cares if selfish bunch of players (who despite knowing how it affects other players performance still play in most disruptive way) will leave? You always could play as a team but without stacking on each other backs. You could play like a organised large scale group, but you choose not to.

Then you wonder why nobody likes ball groups and wants to get rid of them? It's not because they are annoying and boring to play against, it's because you degradate performance for all other players.

I know, I know servers/game code performance is ZOS fault. True. Taking advantage of that fact though is all on ball groups.

I remember first months of game when people didnt figured that ball-group formation is strongest playstyle. It was best time in cyro when people were spreaded and it was actually "large-scale", and not jsut stack entire cyro pop in 50m of map.

Remember Lightning Patch?

Impossible to forget time when game says you have 0.8 fps.

Lord_Draevan

Cinbri wrote: »

I remember first months of game when people didnt figured that ball-group formation is strongest playstyle. It was best time in cyro when people were spreaded and it was actually "large-scale", and not jsut stack entire cyro pop in 50m of map.

That was the height of PvP, IMO: beta, early access, and the first few months after launch. Everyone was still figuring out what worked best and experimenting. It had its issues, sure, but damn was it some fun PvP.

Soul_Demon

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

Tests will provide 0 data for Devs cause 1/2 players won't play. The ideas behind this tests tells us that MMO part of eso finally 100% dead and it's time to move forward to other MMO projects.
Tnx to all solo players for that changes. Hope u will enjoy skyrim online.
We all know that the only way to fix cyro is to rewrite game code and upgrade servers.

Ball groups =/= only group play available. Random group members won't be affected much by changes we talk about. Same goes to small scale groups. There is still a lot of group play in Cyro. Even bunch of solo players fighting side by side is a group of players. Sorry but Cyro will be fine without ball groups.

Sry to say but ballgrouping is the only end-game group PvP activity we had.
Solo players fighting side by side is faction stucking and not near a group play.
Smallscalers are fine if they use their brian and synergies their builds. If you call 3-5 ppl with 2h spamming dizzy around 1 rock smallscale - you are wrong

Oh my oh my, really? Then why ball groups don't fight each other but only farm pugs or even smallscalers/solo players? It's not about challenge or "end game" PvP. Sorry, but you won't be missed, actually without ball groups lagging servers, Cyrodiil may become more popular and once again be fun!

Who cares if selfish bunch of players (who despite knowing how it affects other players performance still play in most disruptive way) will leave? You always could play as a team but without stacking on each other backs. You could play like a organised large scale group, but you choose not to.

Then you wonder why nobody likes ball groups and wants to get rid of them? It's not because they are annoying and boring to play against, it's because you degradate performance for all other players.

I know, I know servers/game code performance is ZOS fault. True. Taking advantage of that fact though is all on ball groups.

I will place a bet with you right now the map is dead. You figure the gankers, bombers and 1vxers drive action on the map? That is so laughable its crazy......they will try siege one or two times but beyond that you will just have groups of them in comms dog-piling anyone who comes out of keeps they will be hiding in. As I type this its crickets in cyro right now---lets see how this glorious experiment turns out.

red_emu

@Cinbri How's the aoe test for you? You're probably the most experienced Plar I know.

Cinbri

red_emu wrote: »

@Cinbri How's the aoe test for you? You're probably the most experienced Plar I know.

Ported on poplocked Sotha -> ran to defend Farra -> disconnected from game and cant log back.
Lag will decrease I heared...

Dorkener

Can we please, at the very least, make armor buffs ignore this 3 sec cooldown rule? I mean, cast Channeled Focus - can't jab, can't cleanse, can't repentance... I guess the same applies to all other armor buffs (minus NB, yay ._.), and adds 3 awkward "uhhh now what" GCDs to the start of every engagement. Or vigor->PotL->Javelin like a robot everytime because every other button on my bars is greyed out

Squeaky_Clean

I've been to Cyro now with my Templar main. Defending Aleswell for a couple of minutes .. half of front bar and most of my backbar is affected .. (Rapids is an AoE, and therefore evil) .. unplayable for me .. cya in four weeks in Cyro when this madness is over.

If these changes stay in place in PVP (cooldown on AoE in particular), I am quitting ESO PVP for good. That's not a threat, but a statement of a future fact.

Btw. Imperial City/Sewers is apparently not part of this .. so I can still kill some fellow PVPers there (or try at least).

Sarousse

Triple lock on PC eu, barely no lag under high stress situations.

But we lost IC. Overflown by tears. :P

On a more serious note, the game remains playable when highly stressed but we can clearly feel that the server capacity is reaching its limits.

I really think that 4th & 5th tests will have more impact.

I'm also amazed how some guild groups are totally clueless on how to fight without being able to spam AEs. They are getting totally destroyed by random solo players in Cyrodiil.

renne

Cinbri wrote: »

red_emu wrote: »

@Cinbri How's the aoe test for you? You're probably the most experienced Plar I know.

Ported on poplocked Sotha -> ran to defend Farra -> disconnected from game and cant log back.
Lag will decrease I heared...

I guess *technically* you can't have any lag if you can't log in, right?

Firstmep

For the last test I predict ballgrps to limit themselves to 11 man teams, maybe multiple of them in order to bypass the cooldown.

Galarthor

CleymenZero wrote: »

October 12-19: Group size is limited to 12 in Cyrodiil, and if a group contains 6 or more players, everyone’s AoE abilities will go on individual cooldowns and have escalating cost similar to the tests above

Only this change has a real potential to improve both performance and experience in pvp. It limits capabilities and effectiveness of organized ball groups, which are the root cause in PvP:
- their coordinated non-stop spamming of AoEs, both offensive and defensive ones, are the No. 1 cause of lag
- their AoE spam and combination of all / most buffs and debuffs makes them invulnerable to anything but another organized ball group of equal size and skill, which ruins the PvP experience for most players

There is no reason to keep these groups around as they ruin PvP for 99% of players and give both ZOS and the game a bad reputation for poor performance in PvP.

ZOS should rather provide a Guild vs. Guild battle ground for players that like GvG instead of lagging out the entire pvp population every day. That way, these ballgroups can fight and compete with each other. And those who just want easy AP, will just have to adapt and play in a smaller group - 6 people in an organized group are still hard to kill and very effective!

visionality

katorga wrote: »

That first test....just, uh, no. Poor templars and sorcs. It essentially kills them.

[...]

The last two tests..."ally targetting abilities only affect the group", if that makes rapid regen or Spirit Guardian a guaranteed self-only hot if I'm not grouped? That could be super interesting.

Was in Cyrodiil yesterday with a necromancer procbuild designed specifically to handle the AOE testing and my normal magsorc. Amazing fact: after changing just two skills on my skillbar, the magsorc worked as well or better than the necro with a global AOE cooldown, and both worked fine. Another amazing fact: Even with poplock on all three alliances and a huge fight of 50 EP vs 50 DC at Ash, there was no lag.

So yes, limiting the use of AOEs clearly reduces lag (also because it massively reduces healing and ppl die faster). A global cooldon on AOEs will not be the answer, though, because it debilitates some classes way more than others. Maybe stacking costs will help.

I'm super-interested in the very last test - group limitation of AOE support skills plus mounting costs in groups bigger than five. That could be THE gamechanger for Cyrodiil. It will counterbalance the advantage of running in larger groups als compared to small scale or solo players, it will stop the crosshealing over megazergs and it will limit but not disable the efficiency of AOE spamming 12-man-ballgroups.

fred4

Still laggy for me. Not super laggy, but Cyro was only pop-locked on two factions and not much of a queue. Most people are in IC right now. If this performance is as good as it can possibly get - the current change being the most draconian - I'm not satisfied.

On my build a single cloak failure can mean death. Spamming Cloak alone has always been surprisingly reliable, even in lag. However, when alternating between Cloak and buff skills, such as Siphoning Attacks and Race Against Time, that's when I immediately notice whether a campaign is laggy or not. It still didn't work consistently last night.

No, this is not an issue specifically with my build, nor am I saying the game is totally unplayable. It's just that, over time, I have learnt this is an easy way to check for lag. If alternating Cloak with other skills sometimes fails or feels laggy, it's a sign of the combat lag you will subsequently encounter.

EmEm_Oh

pauld1_ESO wrote: »

Anything that stops these stupid ball groups would be fine with me. If it is all "coordination and skill" like they say then they should be just fine.

And unfortunately, this is why ESO will fail.

katorga

visionality wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

That first test....just, uh, no. Poor templars and sorcs. It essentially kills them.

[...]

The last two tests..."ally targetting abilities only affect the group", if that makes rapid regen or Spirit Guardian a guaranteed self-only hot if I'm not grouped? That could be super interesting.

Was in Cyrodiil yesterday with a necromancer procbuild designed specifically to handle the AOE testing and my normal magsorc. Amazing fact: after changing just two skills on my skillbar, the magsorc worked as well or better than the necro with a global AOE cooldown, and both worked fine. Another amazing fact: Even with poplock on all three alliances and a huge fight of 50 EP vs 50 DC at Ash, there was no lag.

Man I am super curious what two sorc skills you swapped out....I just can't play mag sorc without streak and mines. Love those two skills. I have not been able to adjust to "cast my armor buff, oh carp, my next skill is locked". Too much muscle memory to unlearn in 2 days.

My necro is doing great. I'm playing with almost no changes to my build, but I am finding that stacking movement speed is Good. I have a sneaky feeling that most Cyro players cannot target other players. I think aoe spam has been prevented them from ever needing to be able to, and now they can't. I'm not a great player by any means but no lag gives me a huge leg up. Necro because of its strange mechanics gets punished heavily in high lag fights.

HanStolo

I don't know if the tests are working or not but I played last night for the first time and the servers felt really smooth even during a big fight.

wolfie1.0.

As much as I appreciate ZOS trying to improve performance I dont see how any of these changes are a benefit to actual game play other that to make it harder to actually pvp in a pvp zone.

PvXGamer

Healing with this current phase 1 change is just about an exercise in futility.

Telel

Khajiit and their pack were quite perturbed when we began running Tuesday. Mostly because Telel had forgotten the testing began that day , and had to spend over an hour refining a setup they'd been running for some months.

Running into a known cheater from a certain toxic guild didn't help.

However it quickly became a paradigm shift. Plus we' re all used to adjusting things on the fly. Especially since we're often (purposely) on a lower population faction fighting 'good' players. Especially ones who always run to whichever faction has the best population advantages.

Sadly this one suffered technical issues the first day and so does not have anything to really show of it.

AS far as performance goes Telel discovered two things.Though they must admit this is all done while being on a faction that's 1 or 2 bars pushing against opponents who are 'only' at 3 bars. Which will be a lot less laggy than the more popular times.

1) Overall performance has improved. But there's still certain groups/players who seem to drag 'problems' in their wake. Crashes, having to reload ui in order to regain use of WASD keys, massive frame rate drops, etc.

2) There were a LOT fewer issues where we couldn't break free , use ults, get skills to fire, pop potions due to 'skilled gameplay' on the part of 'good' players.

E.G: Compare this video from today to previous defense COH has done in the past.

Sahidom

Dorkener wrote: »

Can we please, at the very least, make armor buffs ignore this 3 sec cooldown rule? I mean, cast Channeled Focus - can't jab, can't cleanse, can't repentance... I guess the same applies to all other armor buffs (minus NB, yay ._.), and adds 3 awkward "uhhh now what" GCDs to the start of every engagement. Or vigor->PotL->Javelin like a robot everytime because every other button on my bars is greyed out

This is a problem with other classes too. It also reveals relationships to systems when they cowboy coded the classes.

FENGRUSH

EmEm_Oh wrote: »

pauld1_ESO wrote: »

Anything that stops these stupid ball groups would be fine with me. If it is all "coordination and skill" like they say then they should be just fine.

And unfortunately, this is why ESO will fail.

??? What does that even mean..

RDMyers65b14_ESO

Here's the thing about the group limit being just 12. We have a group limit of 24 and still see stacks of 40-70+ at various times. Do you really think that just because they drop the limit that there will be a difference in the number of players who already stack multiple groups?

keoma01

I don't care what the changes will be, but I don't want to play a game what is not fun. Cooldown on puncturing sweep or Honor the dead is not fun at all. If you don't plan to keep cooldown on these skills then why to test it? These changes fundamentally change the balance between classes.