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Cyrodiil Changes Moving Forward
Eswyn
Soul Shriven
I do not normally frequent these forums. Been playing since one of the open betas in February or thereabouts 2014. Certainly others have more playtime than I (only about 200 days or so on my main), but I've been around long enough and feel that the recent changes are drastic enough that I feel compelled to post.
The overwhelming consensus I've seen in my NA PC PVP guilds with regards to the tests are:
1. Initial excitement (tempered by a healthy skepticism after 7 years of similar "fixes" failed to produce noticeable improvements) that procs actually were a significant source of lag.
2. Anger that PVPers can now only access a small fraction of the gear for which they spent real money and farmed in-game (though at least one has successfully negotiated refunds so long as a requirement of showing proof of purchase is fulfilled).
3. Disappointment that the tests produced no performance improvement whatsoever (and in fact resulted in worse performance in many instances, as the developer has admitted on this forum).
4. Bewilderment that cross-group healing has been re-enabled, thereby eliminating much of the need for casual players to group up. This change is especially perplexing given that this experiment was designed to investigate a possible cause of lag (proc sets), but it introduced another possible cause of lag (the potential to heal every single allied player nearby instead of the maximum of 12 in one's group). Should there not be a part of this test that disables proc sets but also keeps cross-group healing disabled?
5. Frustration that these changes are now being made permanent despite the fact that they did not achieve their intended results.
For my part, I do not mind that proc sets are disabled, but I still understand that this change is problematic.
I actually enjoy the lack of Crimson and other flavor-of-the-month sets in Cyrodiil, and I'm used to gear, classes, and the like getting nerfed, buffed, and tweaked on a regular basis. However, that is not what is happening here. What is happening here is that players are now unable to use 90% of the gear in Cyrodiil.
One of ESO's greatest strengths since its initial launch in 2014 was its flexibility in how you could customize your character. That flexibility is now gone (at least in Cyrodiil), and so Cyrodiil now feels more like a mini-game attached to ESO than an integral part of the game. To rectify this, there ought to be parity between the PVP and PVE sides of this game. Obviously there are some set bonuses that work only in PVE, but sets that work only in PVP or PVE and not both should be the exception, not the rule.
At a minimum, what ought to happen is ZOS should enable ALL sets and set bonuses sold or otherwise obtainable in Cyrodiil. This would provide a baseline of customization and flexibility that is sorely missing with these tests. There are PVE-only bonuses such as Minor Aegis, and so not every set needs to be usable in Cyrodiil. However, we can all agree that 18 sets is not nearly enough given the promise of this game to play the way we wish.
Secondly, the game's performance is terrible in Cyrodiil. Lately I've taken to joking with guildies that it feels like one of the masochistic Vault experiments from Fallout to see how much lag we will put up with. I have never played a game with worse performance (at least not since I had dial-up back in the early 2000s) and certainly not for so long a period of time. It's no revelation that Cyrodiil's performance ought to be a source of shame for the company. I think the no-proc change would be going over much better if it actually cleared up most (not even necessarily all) of the connection issues plaguing PVP in this game 7 years after its launch.
I've played many, many competitive games (often quite poorly, I might add) over the years, and they often have a lack of customization, but that is usually not an issue so long as I'm able to play lag-free. When I die because I'm not very good at a particular game, that's fine. When I die because i can't get my skills to go out, well, that's a different story entirely.
I feel that part of the frustration I've witnessed inside my PVP guilds isn't just the current state of PVP in ESO but also that there seems to be no vision whatsoever for its future. This last part I think is the most important. There's something special here that has kept many of us around for years and years, and a large part of that is the community we've built and nurtured over the game's life. If all of my friends stop playing (as some of them are now threatening to do), what exactly is going to be left to keep me around?
Sincerely,
A Loyal ESO Player Since 2014
The overwhelming consensus I've seen in my NA PC PVP guilds with regards to the tests are:
1. Initial excitement (tempered by a healthy skepticism after 7 years of similar "fixes" failed to produce noticeable improvements) that procs actually were a significant source of lag.
2. Anger that PVPers can now only access a small fraction of the gear for which they spent real money and farmed in-game (though at least one has successfully negotiated refunds so long as a requirement of showing proof of purchase is fulfilled).
3. Disappointment that the tests produced no performance improvement whatsoever (and in fact resulted in worse performance in many instances, as the developer has admitted on this forum).
4. Bewilderment that cross-group healing has been re-enabled, thereby eliminating much of the need for casual players to group up. This change is especially perplexing given that this experiment was designed to investigate a possible cause of lag (proc sets), but it introduced another possible cause of lag (the potential to heal every single allied player nearby instead of the maximum of 12 in one's group). Should there not be a part of this test that disables proc sets but also keeps cross-group healing disabled?
5. Frustration that these changes are now being made permanent despite the fact that they did not achieve their intended results.
For my part, I do not mind that proc sets are disabled, but I still understand that this change is problematic.
I actually enjoy the lack of Crimson and other flavor-of-the-month sets in Cyrodiil, and I'm used to gear, classes, and the like getting nerfed, buffed, and tweaked on a regular basis. However, that is not what is happening here. What is happening here is that players are now unable to use 90% of the gear in Cyrodiil.
One of ESO's greatest strengths since its initial launch in 2014 was its flexibility in how you could customize your character. That flexibility is now gone (at least in Cyrodiil), and so Cyrodiil now feels more like a mini-game attached to ESO than an integral part of the game. To rectify this, there ought to be parity between the PVP and PVE sides of this game. Obviously there are some set bonuses that work only in PVE, but sets that work only in PVP or PVE and not both should be the exception, not the rule.
At a minimum, what ought to happen is ZOS should enable ALL sets and set bonuses sold or otherwise obtainable in Cyrodiil. This would provide a baseline of customization and flexibility that is sorely missing with these tests. There are PVE-only bonuses such as Minor Aegis, and so not every set needs to be usable in Cyrodiil. However, we can all agree that 18 sets is not nearly enough given the promise of this game to play the way we wish.
Secondly, the game's performance is terrible in Cyrodiil. Lately I've taken to joking with guildies that it feels like one of the masochistic Vault experiments from Fallout to see how much lag we will put up with. I have never played a game with worse performance (at least not since I had dial-up back in the early 2000s) and certainly not for so long a period of time. It's no revelation that Cyrodiil's performance ought to be a source of shame for the company. I think the no-proc change would be going over much better if it actually cleared up most (not even necessarily all) of the connection issues plaguing PVP in this game 7 years after its launch.
I've played many, many competitive games (often quite poorly, I might add) over the years, and they often have a lack of customization, but that is usually not an issue so long as I'm able to play lag-free. When I die because I'm not very good at a particular game, that's fine. When I die because i can't get my skills to go out, well, that's a different story entirely.
I feel that part of the frustration I've witnessed inside my PVP guilds isn't just the current state of PVP in ESO but also that there seems to be no vision whatsoever for its future. This last part I think is the most important. There's something special here that has kept many of us around for years and years, and a large part of that is the community we've built and nurtured over the game's life. If all of my friends stop playing (as some of them are now threatening to do), what exactly is going to be left to keep me around?
Sincerely,
A Loyal ESO Player Since 2014
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