Feb 15 Cyrodiil Test Details

Rin_Senya

I remember the time when ZOS cared about the problem of faction stacks that lagging the hell out of the servers. That’s why VD was introduced. It's a shame this game degraded to the point where Devs are encouraging faction stacking blobs to kill the performance completely.

Gilvoth

Kingbawsack wrote: »

Well that’s a kick in the nuts no double AP

AP is useless in my view. but if you are getting something awesome from it or in some way gaining something good, please let us know what that thing is.

Alendrin

From a game play perspective I like it, but...

Performance was not slightly worse, it was much worse, on a full server. The full server comparison removes population from the equation. I don't understand how your team can make so many statements about the game that do not match my in game experience. This is like the 100th time...

Alendrin

mielyn wrote: »

DEVS: This is a really bad idea to leave the proc sets disabled for so long. Here is why:

1. The recent INFLUX in activity in Cyrodiil is more likely due to the double AP, and NOT due to the testing. Once double AP is disabled, the numbers will start falling off again.
.

I'm not sure I agree with this but, if this does end up being true the change won't last long so I wouldn't worry about it.

Gilvoth

Nidhoeggr wrote: »

Gilvoth wrote: »

Nidhoeggr wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We’ve heard from a lot of you that despite performance largely being the same, disabling proc sets has breathed new life into PvP gameplay and has made fights more enjoyable and fun. To that end, we’ll be leaving proc sets disabled until Update 31 launches in Q3.

Is there a plan to reenable some sets that don't really proc but have conditions like Bright-Throat, New Moon...? I would really like to see that because this sets don't give "free" damage or heal; however, they give way more flexibility in building our setups.

so, your saying new moon does not give free damage?

New Moon Acolyte

LEVEL 50 CHAMPION 160

(2 items) 833 Weapon and Spell Critical
(3 items) 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) 1487 Physical and Spell Penetration
(5 items) Adds 401 Weapon and Spell Damage. Increase the cost of your active abilities by 5%.

and you are also saying bright throat does not give free damage?

Bright-Throat's Boast
LEVEL 50 - CP 160
Type Overland
Set bonus
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(4 items) Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
(5 items) While you have a drink buff active, your Maximum Magicka is increased by 2000 and Magicka Recovery by 167.

I think you know what I mean. it’s just increases the stats, New Moon with a lot of cost. If that’s free dmg for you, then Crafty Alfiq and Hulking Draugr is free dmg as well.

I know that free is not the right word for it that’s why I wrote “free”. Sorry English is not my main language I don’t know a better description for those sets. But those are not Proc sets in the classical sense.

you said those sets do not give free damage yet we see they clearly DO give Free Damage.
you see, heres the problem.
you guys claim that this is the reasoning as to why we cant have proc sets, yet you want your sets but we arent allowed our sets and the whole time you guys claim is because we are getting free damage yet your sets dont do the same thing, but in reality, they DO give you guys free damage exactly like our sets do.

and that is exactly what has brought us to todays developers decision, is because you guys claim OUR sets are BAD, but you guys sets are Good.

Akinos

lol rip theorycrafting, one of the few things that made ESO fun for me. Now everybody will be running around in the same few sets, Cyrodil is still gonna lag, classes will still be largely imbalanced. And the population in Cyrodil is still gonna keep going down, especially after the double ap turns off. It's gonna get real dead and boring real fast.

Chilly-McFreeze

Aruu wrote: »

So you completely acknowledge that the performance has been worse during these tests, yet keep them on? The whole point of these tests is to try to improve performance, NOT gameplay. Everyone says that gameplay would be fine if only there was no lag, and you decide to purposefully increase the lag.

Saying the lag is "likely due to a higher population in Cyrodil" is ridiculous because Cyrodil is always locked with queues anyway. Unless you've changed the max populations as yet another variable to keep track of during tests like you did with cross healing, this would make absolutely no difference.

Just like the last test where they didn't found compelling performance increase by disabling cross healing yet they kept that in game because they "like the change".

Kiira

Please at least add more to the available sets list. Or make new sets? or something?? Theres really not much to choose from and its annoying. Also.. GG on the short notice. waiting until 3 days before the update to let us know that the sets from the dungeons will not be useable so no need to buy it xD also we just paid to gold out gear for all of our guild members for the update and changes, and then you slap us with this. Thank you for that.

Elyox

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Aruu wrote: »

So you completely acknowledge that the performance has been worse during these tests, yet keep them on? The whole point of these tests is to try to improve performance, NOT gameplay. Everyone says that gameplay would be fine if only there was no lag, and you decide to purposefully increase the lag.

Saying the lag is "likely due to a higher population in Cyrodil" is ridiculous because Cyrodil is always locked with queues anyway. Unless you've changed the max populations as yet another variable to keep track of during tests like you did with cross healing, this would make absolutely no difference.

Just like the last test where they didn't found compelling performance increase by disabling cross healing yet they kept that in game because they "like the change".

Note me down on this, cross healing is most likely why we have more lag now than before. it's been so much worth since it's back. They are just saying it doesn't affect performances like they are saying the performance is now only slightly worth when in fact the number of multicast required to get an ability off or the desync in health/position is so much worse now.

Seraphayel

I ask again because I really think this is important: what’s with Aren weapons? I don’t know of they worked during the test because they’re weapon and not armor, but I would someone who knows about this to give me an answer. Did Arena weapons work? Or will every Arena weapon become useless for PvP in the next six months?

Jaraal

mielyn wrote: »

I'm listening to a group of dedicated PVP players right now, and seeing their reactions to this comment. The reactions are NOT good.

Yeah I love Cyro, but I'll be doing the minimum necessary to get my daily rucksack and that's about it.

My biggest problem with the test condition is not the players, but the extra time it takes to kill the worthless NPC guards. Capturing resources solo used to be one of my fun things to do, but the extended trash AI battles are boring and a waste of time.

Yirmeyahu

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Personally, I don't mind not having "proc sets" enabled. (Anywhere, for that matter. But, we'll stick with discussing Cyrodiil.) So, if anything, the team has my "thank you" both for not having to deal with "one million fart clouds of damage" per square inch in Cyrodiil... But, also, for even trying to get to the bottom of any sort of performance issues by testing in the first place.

I was one of the individuals who submitted performance feedback as long as a couple years ago. (Video from both Cyrodiil and PvE land showing what most would describe as "input lag" or serious delay between when a skill button is pressed and when the skill actually fires in game.) In that same spirit, I offer a very short (under 5 mins) clip from some Gray Host gameplay during this most recent test. Without question, performance has actually been worse than it even was during the "Midyear Mayhem" event earlier in '21. I have other video (and could get even more) of "non peak" times and even some where I am the only player in sight (taking a resource by myself, for example) and the performance is still equally bad during the current test. If anything, the game actually begins to "stutter" on top of what you see in this video when a lot of players are congregated at a single area during "prime time". So, I feel this clip is very representative of the "average" current 30 Day CP Cyrodiil experience during the current "no proc" test.

https://youtu.be/K9tD8M5Ej4k

Oreyn_Bearclaw

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks to everyone for participating in this latest Cyrodiil test where we disabled all proc sets. Similar to what many of you have noted in your feedback, we found this test did not impact performance in a measurable amount; if anything, there was a very slight degradation of performance at times, likely due to a higher population of players in Cyrodiil.

We’ve heard from a lot of you that despite performance largely being the same, disabling proc sets has breathed new life into PvP gameplay and has made fights more enjoyable and fun. To that end, we’ll be leaving proc sets disabled until Update 31 launches in Q3. At that point, we will have implemented some new code so we can have more flexibility to campaign rulesets as it applies to proc sets. We’ll work on applying all this to consoles as well, and we’ll let you know when we have a date for this starting.

Now that we’ve had time to digest a lot of data and information, we have a better idea of next steps and the work needed to produce noticeable improvements to performance in Cyrodiil. This work is complex and will take a fair amount of time and effort. We are committed to improving the PvP experience, though, and we have already begun scheduling out this work. Please note that none of the scheduled work will implement any of the changes we made on PC during past tests, and at this time we don’t plan to run any additional tests.

When Update 29 launches on Monday for PC, we’ll be turning off double AP but proc sets will remain disabled as mentioned above. We appreciate the time everyone spent in Cyrodiil during these tests and all the feedback that’s been submitted.

But how do you know that for certain? You turned on group healing at the same time you turned off procs. I will concede that we dont have the data you have, but this seems like a questionable way to control variables for your testing. No cross healing was, in my experience, the best week of the first round of tests from a performance standpoint. Again, in my experience, the period post the first major round of tests (no cross healing) was better than it was before the tests (with cross healing).

So yes, performance dropped during this most recent test, but due to lack of variable control its hard to know why. Was it that procs didnt do anything (doesnt make sense if it actually got worse without them). Was it that cross healing is actually the issue (seems plausible). Was it population (I question this unless you are changing pop caps and not telling us, capped is capped).

One thing I will say is that earthshattering ball group lag, didnt seem to be as bad this time around, so maybe procs do play into that to some degree.

sandelius

LOL in a couple of weeks Cyrodiil will be 99% sorcs

Telel

if this is going to continue for months then we need to have them reinstate the restrictins on intergroup heals.

So far performance has been better up until the 'good' players begin stacking in one spot to purposely lag out the servers. You can even tell when they've shown up as suddenly manageable fights become quagmires. Often taking almost 10 seconds before a skill takes effect, and animations become entirely desynced from everything else.

Heck even the NPCS become PIAs to fight thanks to that. A problem I have not seen in a couple of years.

Not to mention all the zerglings huddling together so they can PVdoor against a smaller population team. That was almost becoming manageable until they could easily heal each other without even needing to join a group.

Jaraal

sandelius wrote: »

LOL in a couple of weeks Cyrodiil will be 99% sorcs

I've been avoiding alliance changing my sorc, but it looks like I'll also be on the bandwagon soon.

Sanctum74

Great news! Ty Gina.

kimo27

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks to everyone for participating in this latest Cyrodiil test where we disabled all proc sets. Similar to what many of you have noted in your feedback, we found this test did not impact performance in a measurable amount; if anything, there was a very slight degradation of performance at times, likely due to a higher population of players in Cyrodiil.

We’ve heard from a lot of you that despite performance largely being the same, disabling proc sets has breathed new life into PvP gameplay and has made fights more enjoyable and fun. To that end, we’ll be leaving proc sets disabled until Update 31 launches in Q3. At that point, we will have implemented some new code so we can have more flexibility to campaign rulesets as it applies to proc sets. We’ll work on applying all this to consoles as well, and we’ll let you know when we have a date for this starting.

Now that we’ve had time to digest a lot of data and information, we have a better idea of next steps and the work needed to produce noticeable improvements to performance in Cyrodiil. This work is complex and will take a fair amount of time and effort. We are committed to improving the PvP experience, though, and we have already begun scheduling out this work. Please note that none of the scheduled work will implement any of the changes we made on PC during past tests, and at this time we don’t plan to run any additional tests.

When Update 29 launches on Monday for PC, we’ll be turning off double AP but proc sets will remain disabled as mentioned above. We appreciate the time everyone spent in Cyrodiil during these tests and all the feedback that’s been submitted.

seriously? you guys claimed to disable the proc sets in order to do performance test. you did that. now you just let them disabled completely? for what reason exactly? making the game and builds even less diverse and everyone is using the same boring sets. like whats the point of farming this ONE set you really want, if you cant actually use it in pvp? like master weapons, maelstrom weapons, vateshran weapons monster sets etc. etc. this us really bad..

adirondack

I really do not like this decision, for many of the reasons that have already been listed and described in detail. I suspect I will not be the only one who will be significantly reducing their PvP activity because of this announcement.

Pepegrillos

I'm guessing that you took this decision based on the feedback you got. That's what Gina's wording suggests.

Which feedback? From whom?

It wouldn't be wild to assume that most of the feedback you have came from forum posts and twitch streams. (Did they send a poll through an email?).

So you received feedback provided by people that played throughout the test. Who is more likely to play during the test and provide feedback about it? People that enjoy the ruleset.

So you received feedback largely from people that enjoy the current ruleset and thought it was reasonable to base a decision that affects the main world pvp zone on a biased sample?

It's not like you decided to open a separate Cyro campaign with the current ruleset, which could work as an effective way of reacting to that feedback (if the sample of players is relevant enough). You just turned Cyro's gameplay ruleset around for 7 months after a performance test with no positive results.

This is like settling which color your flag should be based on feedback you got from a convention of yellow enthusiasts.

mielyn

Elyox wrote: »

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Aruu wrote: »

So you completely acknowledge that the performance has been worse during these tests, yet keep them on? The whole point of these tests is to try to improve performance, NOT gameplay. Everyone says that gameplay would be fine if only there was no lag, and you decide to purposefully increase the lag.

Saying the lag is "likely due to a higher population in Cyrodil" is ridiculous because Cyrodil is always locked with queues anyway. Unless you've changed the max populations as yet another variable to keep track of during tests like you did with cross healing, this would make absolutely no difference.

Just like the last test where they didn't found compelling performance increase by disabling cross healing yet they kept that in game because they "like the change".

Note me down on this, cross healing is most likely why we have more lag now than before. it's been so much worth since it's back. They are just saying it doesn't affect performances like they are saying the performance is now only slightly worth when in fact the number of multicast required to get an ability off or the desync in health/position is so much worse now.

Cross healing didn't produce more lag that I noticed. What DID produce more lag is the changes which prompted factions to stack HEAVILY in a single area, rather than having incentive to spread out strategically on the map. Personally I don't mind cross-healing. But with it COMBINED with no VD or other proc sets that are meant to counter large groups, there is practically zero incentive NOT to faction stack.

Araneae6537

Oh wow, I was not expecting that! Is it not feasible to have both no-proc and proc set campaigns? I LOVE no-proc Cyrodiil, although I wouldn’t mind for sets like Seducer, Briarheart, etc. to be reintroduced especially if their exclusion did not improve performance issues (I felt that performance in no-CP no-proc Cyrodiil was generally very good). More than that, I do feel bad if no one will be able to use any proc set in any campaign for so many months unless there are additional reasons for it.

I hope that the toolsets of different classes can also be re-evaluated as some are better equipped than others — NOT to nerf any class, please, but no class should feel they have to rely on proc sets IMHO.

Szende

[Quoted post removed]

This is a quite bad mentality. If you are really that "real pvp'er" you will beat any proc-build in this game if the player with it not good. It isn't only affected the "automatic" builds, but a lot of another.

Since i can only talk from my own perspective, this is my example:

They added a flanking mechanism to Nightblades, what i like as a playstyle. Makes me able a squishy but rather agility than "cloak" centered playstyle by adding sets and items like Stuhn and Wild hunt ring. It allowed me to play around flanking, agility and off-balance which really gave the "rouge" vibe i was looking for in the class. So it was a New moon-stuhn and wild hunt build. I spent some time, money on the DLC's, eso+ for having acces more variation of sets while been looking for build.

It is not just about my build, and with it my whole character and prefered playstyle goes into the trashcan, but also the time and money i spend on it, and it really feels like the devs just spitting me in the face as their costumer. I liked the huge variations of setups, just as fighting against them, even if it was a full-proc "automatic" setup.

With this i'll seal my wallet as well, since thats the only thing i can "vote".

papabear2009

Had to brush off the dust my forum account to say, NO ZOS! I DO NOT WANT THIS!

mielyn

(But I also agree that cross healing should not have been re-enabled at the same time as this other test, as it skews the test results. Any scientist knows not to enter two variables at once.)

vesselwiththepestle

I guess I'll take a break from ESO for 6 months.

Katheriah

Szende wrote: »

It is not just about my build, and with it my whole character and prefered playstyle goes into the trashcan, but also the time and money i spend on it, and it really feels like the devs just spitting me in the face as their costumer. I liked the huge variations of setups, just as fighting against them, even if it was a full-proc "automatic" setup.

With this i'll seal my wallet as well, since thats the only thing i can "vote".

Same, it's about variety and I guess from now on and my wallet is closed.

This is actually ridiculous, what a meme.

MirelaUmbrella

ZOS, what the hell are you doing?

Sandman929

We're really taking aim at a moving target now, if we're going to start allowing some procs but not others. I have my list of the "good" procs and "bad" procs, same as anyone else, but this is completely subjective. If ZOS is going to do this for months and tweak the rules it's going to be non-stop "but what about [insert set]" the entire time.
I don't mind a proc free Cyrodiil instance, but I think it'll be dead because the ruleset favors magicka sorcerers by so much, a magsorc can waltz right in, changing practically nothing from how they're playing right now, and dominate.

erio

Cant we just disable the bad procs everyone hates and enable some. Like why is stuff like seducers disabled?