What is the performance issue? It's this simple

NotTaylorSwift

Vizirith wrote: »

EDIT: Quoted by accident

Well there are fundamentally 2 issues with ball groups. 1 is with the actual pvp balance of them, the other is with server performance. While I personally am not a fan of the overall balance of them, my biggest issue is with their impact on server performance. Off hours when there aren't any ball groups the game runs great almost regardless of numbers. Even more concerning is what, if any plans zos has going forward for more tests. In order to reduce the amount of server noise I make as a solo player running all single target abilities to make up for somebody in a ball group making probably at least 5 (but probably more like 10) times the noise; to the point that lag is better is going to be brutal.

Then how do you explain the abysmal performance at prime time when there are no ballgroups even raiding? Because there are many days when there are none. Yet lag is just as bad as when there are.

(Though today and yesterday performance has been really good compared to the last couple of months)

xylena_lazarow

Sandman929 wrote: »

the choice has become ignore them or faction stack them.

That sums it up. Pugs vs ball group is futile, they need to stack ridiculous numbers to get rid of 12 guys. That's where your lag is coming from, not the ball group itself. I'm sure this is good for ball group egos, but is it good for the game?

ResidentContrarian

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

the choice has become ignore them or faction stack them.

That sums it up. Pugs vs ball group is futile, they need to stack ridiculous numbers to get rid of 12 guys. That's where your lag is coming from, not the ball group itself. I'm sure this is good for ball group egos, but is it good for the game?

I saw the opposite: an entire faction of AD attack less than 12 ungrouped EP @ Sej and they got wiped by less than 12 yesterday. No one there on the EP side was balled up or harassing anyone, just one faction (AD) thought it was a good idea to stack everyone there and got wiped attempting to take the keep.

If you ask me, there is no need for a ball group to attract a faction stack when some players won't take action without a massive stack anyway. Aside from three or four groups on NA, most of them are always within a faction stack anyway.

Players stack because they either can't do damage or run builds the are ultimately meme builds.

A sorcerer hiding in stealth and one-shotting with overload is cute, an NB one-shotting is cute too, but when someone sees it once and learns what the roll button does, both builds become completely ineffective. When that happens, do they think of other strategies? No, they instead start stacking players because their meme build is "effective enough" against most players more than likely due to high ping and lag.

Same goes for those guys that stack defense and stall out the battle. Completely useless when they meet that one build that can either one shot or apply enough pressure that their build is useless (or guards are there and put negate ). The solution for those players is also to run in a stack or ball up with more than one group.

The game's overall balance and objective actually drives this play.

Can't beat someone with 12 people? Can't do it with 24? Can't do it with 30+ (yes there is a "professional" group this bad if you don't know forums)? Just stand on the flags and heal each other while that guy attempts to kill you, when the flags flips the guards will do it for you. No need to evaluate bad builds, just find some other way to game the system.

And for some players doing that, when that doesn't work, the solution is to come to the forums and claim you were outnumbered in a small group or balance stinks...

As long as the system works like that, stacking is beneficial and it's not going away. Good thing that a stack doesn't always mean an easy victory, at least not now that procs require investment.

Vizirith

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Vizirith wrote: »

EDIT: Quoted by accident

Well there are fundamentally 2 issues with ball groups. 1 is with the actual pvp balance of them, the other is with server performance. While I personally am not a fan of the overall balance of them, my biggest issue is with their impact on server performance. Off hours when there aren't any ball groups the game runs great almost regardless of numbers. Even more concerning is what, if any plans zos has going forward for more tests. In order to reduce the amount of server noise I make as a solo player running all single target abilities to make up for somebody in a ball group making probably at least 5 (but probably more like 10) times the noise; to the point that lag is better is going to be brutal.

Then how do you explain the abysmal performance at prime time when there are no ballgroups even raiding? Because there are many days when there are none. Yet lag is just as bad as when there are.

(Though today and yesterday performance has been really good compared to the last couple of months)

Then how do you explain that I can predict when a ball group on the other side of the map makes contact with enemies with nigh 100% accuracy based on the lag spikes.

xylena_lazarow

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

The game's overall balance and objective actually drives this play... Just stand on the flags and heal each other while that guy attempts to kill you, when the flags flips the guards will do it for you.

You're correct that pugs will faction stack whether they are fighting a ball group or not, both due to how disgusting cross-healing is, and due to the insane floor/ceiling gap. Either way, cross-healing needs to be gutted.

Vizirith

In NA grey host right now everybody was at 2 bars. With no ball groups ping sat around 50-60 for me. Then a ball group and a half-ish started up and now ping sits at 100-110.

DjinnAeternam

HanStolo wrote: »

When you went no proc, the ball grps stopped playing for a long time. The performance was really amazing. Lately, they are back and its a laggy, de-sync'd mess when they are on.

Not sure where you are playing, but on PC EU [No-CP] that's simply not true at all.

Ballgroups kept playing, only a very few slowed their activity, and also no, performance was really bad, and stayed really bad.

Note that faction stacks increased also with no bombers going on, and anyone could experience the lack of performance on Cyrodiil instances.

Blaming players for the bad performance it's like asking to play a multiplayer game in single player mode to fix multiplayer performance, as the desyncs also happen in 4man dungeon instances, 12man trial instances and even on overland outside Cyro, and there are no ballgroups there.

We all see the lack of performance, soloing or in ballgroups. The solution is on the dev side, not on player side, don't turn this onto players fault, because that wouldn't make any sense.

DjinnAeternam

Vizirith wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

HanStolo wrote: »

Shortly after the no proc change, I was in some really big zergy keep fights and the lag was non-existent. The server performance was the best it had been in 2 years without a doubt. As the ball grps returned, the performance got worse when they were on. There is a big difference in performance when there is a huge fight as opposed to a huge fight where one ball grp is present. If there is two, it's completely unplayable.

Look I don't know why this is the case but personally, the performance is way better when they are not on. It's been proven to me over and over. They need to fix their game, obviously because these cheeseball players aren't going to stop their cheeseball ways.

Performance is literally no different when ball groups are raiding and when they are not...

We raided today (a ballgroup) on Ravenwatch eu from around 19:30-20:30 Cest. Performance was mostly perfect, probably because the population was low. Ep locked, Ad 2 bar, Dc 3 bar. But there was still a ballgroup active and it wasn't laggy at all so it's clearly not the main problem.

Your last sentence just shows that you have something personal against ballgroups and ballgroup players, so you choose to blame them. Like most people who blame them.

1 ball group will not stress the servers much. That was a terrible anecdote. There is still a performance hit no doubt, how much is the question. If there is nobody on the server besides 3 ball groups, guess what, lag won't be bad. By that same anecdotal evidence I can say that I can predict when a ball group on the other side of the map makes contact with enemies with nigh 100% accuracy based on the lag spikes. If ping was at 50 before you guys came and then it spiked up to 80 when you guys are fighting, that is a significant increase in lag for 12 or so people. It does not automatically become laggy with 1 ball group because then the game would just break literally every primetime.

It is abundantly obvious that any players that run alot of aoe's will cause more server issues. Is that even up for debate? Radiating regen is almost 4x more server calculations *than vigor*, not including sanctuary set or the increase in calculations if you are a templar or warden healer. Dswing is literally just my outgoing dmg calculations and your defensive calculations. An aoe that hits 3 people is my outgoing dmg calculations and 3 people's incoming defensive calculations.

Edit: *than vigor*

So the problem is lack of game/code optimization, not players running good buffs...

DjinnAeternam

Vizirith wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Vizirith wrote: »

EDIT: Quoted by accident

Well there are fundamentally 2 issues with ball groups. 1 is with the actual pvp balance of them, the other is with server performance. While I personally am not a fan of the overall balance of them, my biggest issue is with their impact on server performance. Off hours when there aren't any ball groups the game runs great almost regardless of numbers. Even more concerning is what, if any plans zos has going forward for more tests. In order to reduce the amount of server noise I make as a solo player running all single target abilities to make up for somebody in a ball group making probably at least 5 (but probably more like 10) times the noise; to the point that lag is better is going to be brutal.

Then how do you explain the abysmal performance at prime time when there are no ballgroups even raiding? Because there are many days when there are none. Yet lag is just as bad as when there are.

(Though today and yesterday performance has been really good compared to the last couple of months)

Then how do you explain that I can predict when a ball group on the other side of the map makes contact with enemies with nigh 100% accuracy based on the lag spikes.

You can say the same for faction stacks.. even if they are just a random zerg.