Reimagining Cyrodiil

tomofhyrule

Another thing that they could do to help Cyro is to bring some form of MMR in to help balance people versus the 'unkillable' ballgroups. That'd also help get new people into Cyrodiil if they feel like they could at least make some progress before getting curbstomped. I may not be a PvPer, but I do have a plan. Or at the very least the concept of a plan.

I'd say make an MMR system based on something simple like K/D. There would only be one Cyrodiil campaign, but under the hood it's actually three versions of it: one for low MMR, one mid, and one high - let's say K/D below 0.75, 0.75-1.5, and above 1.5.

At the start of a Campaign, you're essentially assigned one Cyro campaign based on your previous K/D. Then when you queue in, you end up in a Campaign with people around your skill level. Your K/D in this Campaign is tracked to assign you to the next one (but it only moves you up or down one, so you can't jump all the way because of a good/bad day). If you are in a group, then all players go to the Campaign of the highest MMR player in the group, which will essentially put all the unkillable ball groups in the top tier (and if they try to cheese it by being in voice but not grouped, then they may not all end up in the same Campaign tier). MMR should also be account-wide (or at the very least, Alliance-wide) so good players also can't just ship their gold gear off to a new character to go smoke a bunch of noobs.

To keep players even, I'd also check the scores at the halfway point and then assign bonuses if there is one or more alliances very far behind in score, offerring a double AP bonus for the underdogs. I'd even push an alert to all players (via a small popup like the in-game hint tutorials and a glow on the Campaign tab thing in the UI) who are on the affected alliance and in the affected Campaign so new players will know they can get bonus rewards for entering.

I'd also take the Campaigns down to about 15 days instead of 30. That'd keep things moving.

The benefit here would be that it would also help with self-sorting. The hardcore PvPers who live in unkillable ballgroups would all end up together in the high-level Campaign, while the lowest would mostly get the players who want more of the "let me do my PvE quests in peace" PvErs and absolute beginners. But once people start to hit their stride, then they'd end up in a mid-level Campaign with people who stand a chance against each other.

For events like MYM, I'd keep them as they are now. But outside of the events, Cyrodiil is really at the mercy of the good players and beginner PvPers really have nowhere to get started.

Necrotech_Master

Aurielle wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

[*]It takes too long to enter popular campaigns during prime time. Who likes hour-long, 100+ player queues? No one.

That point is fixed and made moot by an incredibly simple and obvious solution.

Take your 100 player Queue, and go to an empty Camp.

"But why would I ever want to play in an empty Camp??"

If all of you went to that Camp, then it's suddenly not empty anymore.

And this is something that does happen in other PVP games with short campaigns that don't last for thirty days. It doesn't happen here, because the score tends to be closer on GH and that's where people feel they'll find the best fights. If a campaign is only two hours long, no one is going to sit in the queue for an hour or longer and then only be able to play for an hour or less before the campaign ends and they get kicked out of the map. They're going to join one of the other dynamically created instances with free slots.

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i dont think reducing population caps is a good idea unless you disabled grouping entirely

a 12 man ball group in a 30-45 player pop cap would be nigh unkillable, as it can already take 45+ people to kill them sometimes, if you reduced the population cap, it would just empower ball groups and they would be truly unkillable unless they ran into another ball group

the way ive come to estimate it, is unless its a really bad group, you need between 3 and 4x more players than what is actually in the group to kill it, for a 12 person group, this would be 36-48 players minimum needed to kill an avg to above average ball group

if your population cap was 30 players, even with the entire faction stacked they might not be able to kill that ball group and you would be locked into an eternal fight, or it would push more people to leave the campaign

and with a population cap of 30, thats enough room for 2 full ball groups per faction still, it would be nothing but ball groups in cyro at that point

the only way ive seen to really counter ball groups was higher population caps to overwhelm them, like back when they were doing the increased population cap test last year

this isnt good for performance sure, but in a lower population setting ball groups and cheese builds reign supreme because there isnt enough people to counter them, unless they are also running ball groups and cheese builds

That's why I also suggested making more use of Battle Spirit to balance the game. You wouldn't need 45+ people to take out a 12 person ballgroup if said ballgroup did not have as much freedom to stack shields and heals. Moreover, you SHOULDN'T need that many players. Ballgroups should have some advantages over unorganized zergs, but never so many advantages that they need more than triple their numbers to take them out. That's completely unhealthy, and not a reason to increase Cyrodiil's population cap at the expense of performance, IMO.

Also, with a cap of thirty players per alliance per instance, it would actually be less likely that multiple ball groups would end up in the same instance on the same alliance; after all, they'd be competing against a much larger number of solo players for a much smaller number of available slots. And even if multiple ballgroups did end up in the same instance on the same alliance, they'd likely end up shooting themselves in the foot if they tried to farm ungrouped or less organized players -- especially if those players had the option of leaving the instance and joining another instance where there AREN'T stacked ballgroups ruining everyone's fun. Right now, we don't have that option -- we either deal with the fun-sapping stacked ballgroups, or we leave Cyrodiil to do something else.

oh i completely agree that you shouldnt need that many people to take out a ball group

personally i prefer the larger populations, a 60v60v60 3 way keep fight while a lot of chaos, is what i imagine from pvp, i dont really enjoy "small scaling" which i see is basically what BGs role is, if the pop caps were reduced to 30 and the campaign 2 hours, your basically in 1 really long slightly more populated BG, which i would not see as fun

in order to do that though need higher populations

i do agree with other points you brought up, such as the huge distances between objectives (my main pvp toon is a NB that ive neglected mount training on, so i just run everywhere)

other points such as campaign score i could care less about, and what would you do about campaign rewards for a 2 hour campaign? right now 80% of the reason anyone who doesnt prefer pvp goes to cyro is for the transmute crystals, but theres no way zos would give 50 transmutes for 2 hour camp (they only give like 10 for the 7 day camps during the events for example)

I also prefer larger populations, but I think we might have to give up on that idea if we want decent performance. It sucks approaching big keep battles in Cyrodiil right now and disconnecting as soon as you come within range of the action, or hearing combat music cutting in and out like a scratchy radio station because the game simply cannot handle that many players in the same location. 45 vs 45 vs 45 might be the most the servers can handle right now. In an ideal world, they rebuild the engine and get population numbers back to where they used to be, but I simply do not have faith in ZOS doing that anymore.

As for scoring and rewards, I didn't really delve into that, but I obviously don't expect ZOS to reward 50 transmutes for a single two hour campaign. Each campaign instance would have its own individual scoreboard (specific only to that campaign, a la BG scoreboards), but there would be a global leaderboard that tracks total AP gain for the month. The global leaderboard could function exactly like the 30 day campaign leaderboard does right now: 25k AP for tier 1 rewards, 50k AP for tier 2, so on.

personally if the populations were any less than they are now, i dont know if i would even really bother actually pvping much lol

if the reward tiers were separate and awarded separately, it would probably make me care even less about the score of the campaign (of which i have no interest in it now lol), at best i think it would just recycle emps faster

other big problems i notice is population balance issues on camps that arent fully locked across all factions, and people unwilling to go to other camps even though grey host is full (the "i cant get into the campaign because its a 50+ person queue" people)

That's fair, I knew a lot of people would hate the idea of reducing caps even further when I suggested it. I do think it would work, though, for those of us who enjoy larger scale siege battles, but want better performance. Having upwards of 90 players converging in the same area is still fun and epic, IMO.

As for people being unwilling to go to other camps, I really do think that would be solved by shorter campaign lengths. The reluctance to move over to other campaigns right now typically boils down to "all my friends play on Gray Host" or "I've invested too much time on Gray Host." Month long campaigns are a little ridiculous when you look at other PVP games...

I played a lot of Battlefield in my FPS days, prior to the travesty that was BF2042. BF players also tend to prefer full or close to full campaigns (or "servers" in that game), but no one's sitting around in the Server Browser waiting to join one particular match for over an hour at a time when there are multiple servers open to join. It's because the campaigns are much shorter in that game (usually around half an hour). What would be the point of sitting in the queue for an hour or longer when the campaign's almost over? People spend an hour in the GH queue because they know they can still spend 2-3+ hours playing once they get in, so long as they don't disconnect. They know that they can keep doing this day after day, and keep contributing to their personal score and their alliance's score in the campaign.

the only other game ive played occasionally for pvp is planetside 2, which oddly enough has a lot of similarities with ESO (it has a 3 faction pvp fight, large map requiring travel on vehicles or takes forever) but it also has things which fix problems that ESO has

the big things that i think it does better:

• faction balance queue - it locks a factions population behind a queue if they are outnumbering the other factions (tries to encourage people to switch factions to get in without a queue)
• when the campaign reaches a certain population threshold, it starts a 90 minute timer before the campaign ends, whichever faction controls the most control points at the end of the timer "wins", but everyone gets rewarded as long as they participated enough before the timer ends (rewards vary depending on 1st, 2nd ,3rd place, but are generally pretty good regardless)
• each "campaign" is actually a fully different map to provide some variety (kind of works like your idea almost of splitting cyro into smaller segments)

I've never played Planetside 2, but those ideas definitely sound like they could work, especially in the context of a shorter campaign. That 90 minute timer in particular sounds interesting, and could introduce a fun "scramble to cap and defend as many keeps as you can" element before the time is up. Out of curiosity though, what happens if that population threshold is never met? Is there a set duration for each campaign irrespective of the pop threshold?

i dont know all of the details about what starts the timer, i know i remember it mentioned that population was one trigger

they do have multiple maps (i think 4 maps, or basically 4 different campaigns) and they do dynamically open more/less as they have populations

so if its more off hours, it might only have 1 campaign map open at a time

the way the maps work is that when it first opens, you can only contest a very small amount of the map (each faction is on 1 side of the map equidistant from each other) with basically a line of capture areas to a center area, its random which faction starts with the central area

as more people go into the map, more of the map opens up to become capturable, and then at some point, it will put up the "alert" timer which is for locking the map

i remember playing at times when there were times between the map control alert that they also had "mini alerts" come up too, which were like 30-40 min timer alerts for like "kill X number of enemy MAX units" or "15 min alert where all aircraft vehicles were free to spawn" that would usually give some award to the faction which did the best

honestly planetside 2 is i think of for "ideal" pvp, especially for a 3 faction environment, of which ESO already shares many similarities, but ESO definitely needs to iron things out a bit better

That sounds fun. Maybe I should be playing that game instead of this one.

wouldnt hurt to give it a try, its also a fairly old game (i think even older than eso as i think it opened up sometime around 2012 or earlier) and the game still receives regular updates

it does differ from eso in that its a first person shooter, but a lot of how they handle a "3 faction war" is what i think eso should be moving towards

Xandreia_

if they kept everything the same but updated the visuals to match the chapter and fixed (i know, stop laughing) the performance, id be more than happy

Amottica

The map size is not why Cyrodiil has a fraction of the players it once had. Given that, shrinking the map and increasing the population cap would seem counterintuitive. I agree that Cyrodiil could be reimagined to improve the instance's performance and create a refreshing scenario.

GW2 has a multimap matchup. Four maps are tied together into one competition. This works great for how ESO is designed, as there would be one "home" map for each faction, with the fourth map being the central map, which is not home to anyone. Each map would have a pop cap, forcing players to spread to other maps. This could be done in a manner where all four maps sit within the current Cyrodiil boundaries.

During peak time on the busier nights, all maps may be pop-capped. This idea eliminates all the low-pop maps, and during the mayhem events, a second set can be added since Cyrodiil is much busier during those weeks.

Aurielle

Amottica wrote: »

The map size is not why Cyrodiil has a fraction of the players it once had. Given that, shrinking the map and increasing the population cap would seem counterintuitive.

I think there might be some misunderstanding here (unless you’re responding to someone else).

I didn’t say that the large map is the reason why Cyrodiil has a fraction of the players it once did. Cyrodiil has a fraction of the players it once did because ZOS has deliberately decreased population caps from 600 per alliance to around 80-100 per alliance (our best guess), due to chronic game performance issues.

Also, I’m not advocating for shrinking the map and increasing the population cap; I’m advocating for shrinking both the map AND further decreasing the population cap to improve performance while also eliminating the feeling of Cyrodiil being empty. The current map is way too big for the current population cap of 80-100 per alliance, and the current population cap is unfortunately still too high for stable performance.

Amottica wrote: »

GW2 has a multimap matchup. Four maps are tied together into one competition. This works great for how ESO is designed, as there would be one "home" map for each faction, with the fourth map being the central map, which is not home to anyone. Each map would have a pop cap, forcing players to spread to other maps. This could be done in a manner where all four maps sit within the current Cyrodiil boundaries.

During peak time on the busier nights, all maps may be pop-capped. This idea eliminates all the low-pop maps, and during the mayhem events, a second set can be added since Cyrodiil is much busier during those weeks.

Interesting idea that could also work, sounds somewhat similar to Planetside 2’s map system that @Necrotech_Master mentioned.

katanagirl1

I seem to be one of the few here who don’t have major performance issues in GH Cyrodiil. I play on PS NA during east coast prime time on PS5. I play solo and don’t group. I have hardwired connection and about 600 Mbps. I only rarely get disconnected during large 3 way siege battles or large battles with the hammer, maybe once every three months or so. I am usually sieging when this occurs. I’m not saying others don’t have problems, but I can have an enjoyable afternoon of PvP there as long as we are holding the map.

The only time I had bad connection issues with the game was when we upgraded our 8 year old cable modem to a new Netgear one. It would predictably drop to 30 Mbps and was 100% repeatable. I was constantly being disconnected and could not get reconnected. We even got a second replacement modem and it did the same thing. As soon as we replaced it with the old one, the connection issues went away.

The performance issues I do see are with ball groups. Some of them cause lag that seems like it slows the clock rate down and it also causes my skills to not fire and bar swaps to not go off. It really is a wonder any combat can be done with everyone wearing multiple proc sets and the sheer numbers of calculations per second that each player’s gear now requires. I am still dumbfounded as to how the removal of procs sets did not show any improvement in the test they had. I can only conclude that the test was not done properly.

I would be opposed to reducing the map of Cyrodiil. I don’t think the emptier parts of it contribute to performance issues for those who do have problems. I also like to visit those places on other campaigns on my PvE toons. I think part of the challenge to PvP in Cyrodiil is getting to the fight and have no problem with it since I use all available mount speed upgrades.

I don’t know if PS NA has much of a population problem right now, I can generally log in at 5pm edt weekdays and have no wait in the queue. This week it was even just two bars a couple of days.

I don’t usually hear others in zone chat complaining about problems either, and when they do it is mostly those on PS4.

So I don’t want changes to Cyrodiil when I don’t see a problem. It could be platform specific.

Joy_Division

Aurielle wrote: »

But back on topic, I fail to see how a smaller map with smaller population caps would exacerbate existing issues if at the same time there was a concerted effort to rebalance gear sets and group behaviors that are known to be broken in Cyrodiil. You couldn't have one (reduced pop caps) without the other (major rebalancing tied to Battle Spirit). My suggestion of 30 players per alliance was merely to improve performance AND avoid the issue of guilds stacking multiple ball groups or coordinated groups in one location. But if you feel that's too low of a number, then maybe 45 or even 60 players per alliance could work without affecting game performance -- except then you're back to dealing with multiple stacked ballgroups or coordinated guild groups in one location, and relying on pug zergs to take them out. If that's what you guys want, then by all means, suggest those numbers to ZOS instead.

All new and inexperienced players in any PVP game suffer a bit until they learn to play, so I disagree that this is the number one problem for ZOS to address. The number one problem is, and long has been, performance.

The number one reason I've always seen for people rage quitting Cyrodiil in the groups I play in is not unkillable tanks or ballgroups -- it's unplayable performance. People rage quit because they can't barswap due to terrible performance and die. People rage quit because their burst rotation fails to go off, and an enemy player who should have died lives to fight another day. People rage quit because they disconnect while defending a scroll and can't get back into the game. The problem builds don't help, of course, but they can be balanced better if ZOS actually tries to address the concerns we have about particular sets and ridiculous mechanics like HoT and shield stacking.

Respectfully, reducing Cyrodiil to a single keep fight or a bridge fight with a max group size of four would be terrible. I certainly wouldn't play it. We can still have the larger scale sandbox-type battles we have right now without the crippling performance issues that drive people away if we reduce map sizes, slightly reduce population caps, and finally balance the ballgroups and other problem group comps.

Basically, it's mostly that there is a very big if in your proposal: ZOS actually rebalancing gear and group behaviors. Those imbalances are basically why PvP isn't fun. If those imbalances were addressed, these sorts of threads wouldn't be needed. It's not like ZOS has not tried.

By objecting to my instanced max group size 4, does that mean in your proposed 30 pop cap, there still will be organized groups of 12? As in 30% of the server in a coordinated group? I think that would be a mistake. Even if you got the entire server of 30 to fight them (thus removing any semblance of open world), an experienced and skilled 12-man could hold them off for a long time, especially if there is terrain / structures to use. Relying on ZOS to somehow make it so that's not an issue is not realistic

Without question ESO's server performance is not good. I will agree your proposal would go a long way in mitigating lag as a major issue. Sure. However, ESO already has PvP with decent performance. That's Blackreach and all the other non "zerg" servers that have been in the game for years. There is hardly ever any que to these. Yet Blackreach usually only has action on it for a few hours on prime time. It's perfectly fine ESO PvP as we know it. But players have never on PC / NA lined up to play on a server whose performance has historically been noticeably better and more consistent.

They don;t play there because they do not want to. Most of the PvP diehards don;t even play there; many of them will sit in a que of over 100 to get into the main/default campaigns where the performance is noticeably worse. They've done this since 2014. Battlegrounds is also generally solid when it comes to performance. Their burst combos will go off. Their bars will swap. It is possible to get away from the sort of rage quitting inducing lag that we see in cyrodiil. But few do so. ZOS needs to ask themselves why this is.

At the end of the day, one decides to PvP with certain expectations, namely they will occasionally kill other players. How many times has it been uttered on these forums that players in these 1vX builds must be cheating to survive so much damage or that it should be impossible for one player to kill 4 or 5 others? They say these things because they find the disparity between a good player / mediocre player or good build / mediocre build either unbelievable or "wrong." Zos themselves acknowledged this was an issue and have made numerous balance changes to address it (usually making things worse). Now I cringe when I hear those sorts of complaints. But that's just me. These are all signs that ZOS's core PvP issues is more about the many people's perception of gameplay than performance issues.

Lastly, I was more thinking of adding a new system of PvP to ESO with my suggestions about an instanced Keep fight rather than replacing Cyrodiil. This seems to be what MMOs typically do when around for over a decade: expand upon game systems. In such a small setting, I think it would be a mistake to have a significant portion of a side in a coordinated group (the same way I think a team of 4 in an 8v8 Battleground is a bad idea). Other games do these sorts of instanced games to diversify their PvP experience and it works for them. Sometimes you've only got like 45 minutes and just got time for a short session, so take one of the best parts of Cyrodiil as and make it an option to play. It might even attract people to PvP for all the problems it has, which ultimately is the biggest problem ZOS has.

Aurielle

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I seem to be one of the few here who don’t have major performance issues in GH Cyrodiil. I play on PS NA during east coast prime time on PS5. I play solo and don’t group. I have hardwired connection and about 600 Mbps. I only rarely get disconnected during large 3 way siege battles or large battles with the hammer, maybe once every three months or so. I am usually sieging when this occurs. I’m not saying others don’t have problems, but I can have an enjoyable afternoon of PvP there as long as we are holding the map.

The only time I had bad connection issues with the game was when we upgraded our 8 year old cable modem to a new Netgear one. It would predictably drop to 30 Mbps and was 100% repeatable. I was constantly being disconnected and could not get reconnected. We even got a second replacement modem and it did the same thing. As soon as we replaced it with the old one, the connection issues went away.

The performance issues I do see are with ball groups. Some of them cause lag that seems like it slows the clock rate down and it also causes my skills to not fire and bar swaps to not go off. It really is a wonder any combat can be done with everyone wearing multiple proc sets and the sheer numbers of calculations per second that each player’s gear now requires. I am still dumbfounded as to how the removal of procs sets did not show any improvement in the test they had. I can only conclude that the test was not done properly.

I would be opposed to reducing the map of Cyrodiil. I don’t think the emptier parts of it contribute to performance issues for those who do have problems. I also like to visit those places on other campaigns on my PvE toons. I think part of the challenge to PvP in Cyrodiil is getting to the fight and have no problem with it since I use all available mount speed upgrades.

I don’t know if PS NA has much of a population problem right now, I can generally log in at 5pm edt weekdays and have no wait in the queue. This week it was even just two bars a couple of days.

I don’t usually hear others in zone chat complaining about problems either, and when they do it is mostly those on PS4.

So I don’t want changes to Cyrodiil when I don’t see a problem. It could be platform specific.

You’re actually proving my point here. If you aren’t stuck in a queue during prime time, if pop bars are occasionally even two per alliance at prime time… then that means you’re already playing with fewer people than we see on PC NA GH at prime time, and won’t notice any difference if the pop caps are reduced. You have good performance with your lower pop numbers — which is to be expected. We also have good performance on PC NA when all alliances are at two bars each, or even at three bars before getting locked. The performance problems start in earnest when every alliance is pop-locked with a queue, and almost everyone converges on the same keep for a tri-fight with multiple ballgroups farming the zergs on either side. THAT’S what my proposal hopes to avoid.

Also, where did I say that the huge map size is contributing to performance issues? The huge map size is contributing to Cyrodiil feeling empty, like there’s nothing going on anywhere on the map. Cyrodiil’s map was designed for pop caps of 600 per alliance. It wasn’t designed for pop caps of 80-100 per alliance. Reducing the map size eliminates that “empty, dead” feeling you get on Cyrodiil now, even during prime time.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

But back on topic, I fail to see how a smaller map with smaller population caps would exacerbate existing issues if at the same time there was a concerted effort to rebalance gear sets and group behaviors that are known to be broken in Cyrodiil. You couldn't have one (reduced pop caps) without the other (major rebalancing tied to Battle Spirit). My suggestion of 30 players per alliance was merely to improve performance AND avoid the issue of guilds stacking multiple ball groups or coordinated groups in one location. But if you feel that's too low of a number, then maybe 45 or even 60 players per alliance could work without affecting game performance -- except then you're back to dealing with multiple stacked ballgroups or coordinated guild groups in one location, and relying on pug zergs to take them out. If that's what you guys want, then by all means, suggest those numbers to ZOS instead.

All new and inexperienced players in any PVP game suffer a bit until they learn to play, so I disagree that this is the number one problem for ZOS to address. The number one problem is, and long has been, performance.

The number one reason I've always seen for people rage quitting Cyrodiil in the groups I play in is not unkillable tanks or ballgroups -- it's unplayable performance. People rage quit because they can't barswap due to terrible performance and die. People rage quit because their burst rotation fails to go off, and an enemy player who should have died lives to fight another day. People rage quit because they disconnect while defending a scroll and can't get back into the game. The problem builds don't help, of course, but they can be balanced better if ZOS actually tries to address the concerns we have about particular sets and ridiculous mechanics like HoT and shield stacking.

Respectfully, reducing Cyrodiil to a single keep fight or a bridge fight with a max group size of four would be terrible. I certainly wouldn't play it. We can still have the larger scale sandbox-type battles we have right now without the crippling performance issues that drive people away if we reduce map sizes, slightly reduce population caps, and finally balance the ballgroups and other problem group comps.

Basically, it's mostly that there is a very big if in your proposal: ZOS actually rebalancing gear and group behaviors. Those imbalances are basically why PvP isn't fun. If those imbalances were addressed, these sorts of threads wouldn't be needed. It's not like ZOS has not tried.

By objecting to my instanced max group size 4, does that mean in your proposed 30 pop cap, there still will be organized groups of 12? As in 30% of the server in a coordinated group? I think that would be a mistake. Even if you got the entire server of 30 to fight them (thus removing any semblance of open world), an experienced and skilled 12-man could hold them off for a long time, especially if there is terrain / structures to use. Relying on ZOS to somehow make it so that's not an issue is not realistic

Come on, man. We both know that reducing group sizes to four would do NOTHING to stop an organized group from organizing. All they’d do is form three groups of four with one healer per group, throw an icon on the main crown, and play exactly as they do right now in Discord comms. It’s the same way they’ve managed to get around the problem of raid sizes being reduced to 12 from 24. They just stack two groups of 12.

Reducing group sizes to four only hurts unorganized pugs who aren’t all in the same Discord — the very same players you say need more help to get into PVP.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Without question ESO's server performance is not good. I will agree your proposal would go a long way in mitigating lag as a major issue. Sure. However, ESO already has PvP with decent performance. That's Blackreach and all the other non "zerg" servers that have been in the game for years. There is hardly ever any que to these. Yet Blackreach usually only has action on it for a few hours on prime time. It's perfectly fine ESO PvP as we know it. But players have never on PC / NA lined up to play on a server whose performance has historically been noticeably better and more consistent.

They don;t play there because they do not want to. Most of the PvP diehards don;t even play there; many of them will sit in a que of over 100 to get into the main/default campaigns where the performance is noticeably worse. They've done this since 2014. Battlegrounds is also generally solid when it comes to performance. Their burst combos will go off. Their bars will swap. It is possible to get away from the sort of rage quitting inducing lag that we see in cyrodiil. But few do so. ZOS needs to ask themselves why this is.

I can tell you exactly why people don’t play in BR — it’s because the campaigns are too long and people have become too invested in them due to the campaign length. If your home campaign is GH and you go to BR to avoid the queue, it means nothing for your leaderboard rank in GH, and vice versa. This is an MMO. People do things and expect to see their numbers increase. It’s normal. This is why reducing campaign length drastically and adding multiple instances of the Cyrodiil map(s) based on queue demands would be much healthier for open world PVP in this game. There’s a reason why matches in most PVP games typically don’t last longer than 45 minutes. Month long matches are frankly ridiculous.

Joy_Division wrote: »

At the end of the day, one decides to PvP with certain expectations, namely they will occasionally kill other players. How many times has it been uttered on these forums that players in these 1vX builds must be cheating to survive so much damage or that it should be impossible for one player to kill 4 or 5 others? They say these things because they find the disparity between a good player / mediocre player or good build / mediocre build either unbelievable or "wrong." Zos themselves acknowledged this was an issue and have made numerous balance changes to address it (usually making things worse). Now I cringe when I hear those sorts of complaints. But that's just me. These are all signs that ZOS's core PvP issues is more about the many people's perception of gameplay than performance issues.

Imbalance is a big part of it, for sure, but to suggest that performance is not the number one issue affecting Cyrodiil right now misses the mark a bit, IMO. Performance is certainly the number one thing driving veteran players away from the game. We need PVP vets around to help new players who are getting into PVP. A good mix of experienced players and newer players is important for the health of any PVP environment. Fixing Cyrodiil’s imbalance problems doesn’t magically fix all the other pain points I’ve discussed in this thread.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Lastly, I was more thinking of adding a new system of PvP to ESO with my suggestions about an instanced Keep fight rather than replacing Cyrodiil. This seems to be what MMOs typically do when around for over a decade: expand upon game systems. In such a small setting, I think it would be a mistake to have a significant portion of a side in a coordinated group (the same way I think a team of 4 in an 8v8 Battleground is a bad idea). Other games do these sorts of instanced games to diversify their PvP experience and it works for them. Sometimes you've only got like 45 minutes and just got time for a short session, so take one of the best parts of Cyrodiil as and make it an option to play. It might even attract people to PvP for all the problems it has, which ultimately is the biggest problem ZOS has.

I mean, your idea could work as a different kind of Battleground experience, for sure. Or even a whole new PVP game mode, like you say. But that’s a separate conversation. I’d rather focus in this thread on brainstorming ideas to significantly improve performance and gameplay in Cyrodiil that would not necessitate ZOS rebuilding the entire game engine.

Joy_Division

Aurielle wrote: »

Come on, man. We both know that reducing group sizes to four would do NOTHING to stop an organized group from organizing. All they’d do is form three groups of four with one healer per group, throw an icon on the main crown, and play exactly as they do right now in Discord comms. It’s the same way they’ve managed to get around the problem of raid sizes being reduced to 12 from 24. They just stack two groups of 12.

Reducing group sizes to four only hurts unorganized pugs who aren’t all in the same Discord — the very same players you say need more help to get into PVP.

When ZOS reduced group size from 24 to 12, every guild I played in went from a 24 man comp to 12. Every "Group #2" attempt was too much of a hassle and not worth it because many basic buffs such as Rapids and set based buffs do not carry over. Not to mention the fact when the off group member dies, asks for help, we got to go through the whole nonsense of which tree to the East they said they were near.

The groups/raids that try to stack the way you describe in Cyrodiil have one thig in common: they are all bad. All of them. They play poorly because the way ESO is designed it is far more efficient and easier to clump everyone up in the same group on a single person. That is a reason the good guilds run 12. To run an effective organized group, you can't just put everyone in Discord or throw an icon on them. There is no "come on, man" about it. That's the mechanics on the game.

The LFG groups are already at a huge disadvantage precisely because they don't take advantage of the grouping mechanics in the game.

I can tell you exactly why people don’t play in BR — it’s because the campaigns are too long and people have become too invested in them due to the campaign length. If your home campaign is GH and you go to BR to avoid the queue, it means nothing for your leaderboard rank in GH, and vice versa. This is an MMO. People do things and expect to see their numbers increase. It’s normal. This is why reducing campaign length drastically and adding multiple instances of the Cyrodiil map(s) based on queue demands would be much healthier for open world PVP in this game. There’s a reason why matches in most PVP games typically don’t last longer than 45 minutes. Month long matches are frankly ridiculous.

Only for a portion of the population. Every person who dislikes faction locks, and there are quite a few of us, do not have that sort of investment in ESO's AvAvA campaigns. And why should we? Nobody keeps track if we win. It only requires a small time investment to get the transmute stones, which are the most valuable reward. For someone like me who has a full time job and family commitment, I could never get into the top 10% which is required to get anything extra even if I wanted to. Which I wouldn't because PvP is the worst wealth generating system in the game. How much columbine are people blowing to get that gold Ban Dar's Blessing necklace in their mail?

Besides if we are talking about growing the PvP population, then 90% of them will never get on the leaderboards high enough to care about campaign rewards. It makes no difference which campaign they play on because they get the same thing I do: some chump change, 1 geode, and a few repair kits. You are only referring to a very narrow portion of the player base. Those people who plays enough time to get high on those leaderboards in the first place and who have made the conscious decision to play on laggy server with ball groups, poor balancing, high ques, and all the other problems associated with GH. The vast majority of players, the ones ESO PvP needs to attract to have a healthy and sizable PvP community, do not have the campaign leaderboard concerns you are talking about. Yet they still do not play on Blackreach where they can PvP with generally solid performance. They don;t go there because they do not find ESO's PvP enjoyable. That is not going to change even if we reduce the campaign to say 7 days. Which we already know because ESO used to have 7-day campaigns.

Imbalance is a big part of it, for sure, but to suggest that performance is not the number one issue affecting Cyrodiil right now misses the mark a bit, IMO. Performance is certainly the number one thing driving veteran players away from the game. We need PVP vets around to help new players who are getting into PVP. A good mix of experienced players and newer players is important for the health of any PVP environment. Fixing Cyrodiil’s imbalance problems doesn’t magically fix all the other pain points I’ve discussed in this thread.

I don;t think I'm off the mark at all. Only a tiny bit of the player base by definition can aspire to the sorts of campaign rewards you stated as the exact reason people don;t play on BR. The rest of player base still doesn't play on BR. BGs also have a small population. Those people aren't PvPing in decent latency environments because it's not enjoyable to them. That is where ZOS ought to look to if I were to advise them how to increase PvP's appeal and its revenue.

katanagirl1

Aurielle wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I seem to be one of the few here who don’t have major performance issues in GH Cyrodiil. I play on PS NA during east coast prime time on PS5. I play solo and don’t group. I have hardwired connection and about 600 Mbps. I only rarely get disconnected during large 3 way siege battles or large battles with the hammer, maybe once every three months or so. I am usually sieging when this occurs. I’m not saying others don’t have problems, but I can have an enjoyable afternoon of PvP there as long as we are holding the map.

The only time I had bad connection issues with the game was when we upgraded our 8 year old cable modem to a new Netgear one. It would predictably drop to 30 Mbps and was 100% repeatable. I was constantly being disconnected and could not get reconnected. We even got a second replacement modem and it did the same thing. As soon as we replaced it with the old one, the connection issues went away.

The performance issues I do see are with ball groups. Some of them cause lag that seems like it slows the clock rate down and it also causes my skills to not fire and bar swaps to not go off. It really is a wonder any combat can be done with everyone wearing multiple proc sets and the sheer numbers of calculations per second that each player’s gear now requires. I am still dumbfounded as to how the removal of procs sets did not show any improvement in the test they had. I can only conclude that the test was not done properly.

I would be opposed to reducing the map of Cyrodiil. I don’t think the emptier parts of it contribute to performance issues for those who do have problems. I also like to visit those places on other campaigns on my PvE toons. I think part of the challenge to PvP in Cyrodiil is getting to the fight and have no problem with it since I use all available mount speed upgrades.

I don’t know if PS NA has much of a population problem right now, I can generally log in at 5pm edt weekdays and have no wait in the queue. This week it was even just two bars a couple of days.

I don’t usually hear others in zone chat complaining about problems either, and when they do it is mostly those on PS4.

So I don’t want changes to Cyrodiil when I don’t see a problem. It could be platform specific.

You’re actually proving my point here. If you aren’t stuck in a queue during prime time, if pop bars are occasionally even two per alliance at prime time… then that means you’re already playing with fewer people than we see on PC NA GH at prime time, and won’t notice any difference if the pop caps are reduced. You have good performance with your lower pop numbers — which is to be expected. We also have good performance on PC NA when all alliances are at two bars each, or even at three bars before getting locked. The performance problems start in earnest when every alliance is pop-locked with a queue, and almost everyone converges on the same keep for a tri-fight with multiple ballgroups farming the zergs on either side. THAT’S what my proposal hopes to avoid.

Also, where did I say that the huge map size is contributing to performance issues? The huge map size is contributing to Cyrodiil feeling empty, like there’s nothing going on anywhere on the map. Cyrodiil’s map was designed for pop caps of 600 per alliance. It wasn’t designed for pop caps of 80-100 per alliance. Reducing the map size eliminates that “empty, dead” feeling you get on Cyrodiil now, even during prime time.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

But back on topic, I fail to see how a smaller map with smaller population caps would exacerbate existing issues if at the same time there was a concerted effort to rebalance gear sets and group behaviors that are known to be broken in Cyrodiil. You couldn't have one (reduced pop caps) without the other (major rebalancing tied to Battle Spirit). My suggestion of 30 players per alliance was merely to improve performance AND avoid the issue of guilds stacking multiple ball groups or coordinated groups in one location. But if you feel that's too low of a number, then maybe 45 or even 60 players per alliance could work without affecting game performance -- except then you're back to dealing with multiple stacked ballgroups or coordinated guild groups in one location, and relying on pug zergs to take them out. If that's what you guys want, then by all means, suggest those numbers to ZOS instead.

All new and inexperienced players in any PVP game suffer a bit until they learn to play, so I disagree that this is the number one problem for ZOS to address. The number one problem is, and long has been, performance.

The number one reason I've always seen for people rage quitting Cyrodiil in the groups I play in is not unkillable tanks or ballgroups -- it's unplayable performance. People rage quit because they can't barswap due to terrible performance and die. People rage quit because their burst rotation fails to go off, and an enemy player who should have died lives to fight another day. People rage quit because they disconnect while defending a scroll and can't get back into the game. The problem builds don't help, of course, but they can be balanced better if ZOS actually tries to address the concerns we have about particular sets and ridiculous mechanics like HoT and shield stacking.

Respectfully, reducing Cyrodiil to a single keep fight or a bridge fight with a max group size of four would be terrible. I certainly wouldn't play it. We can still have the larger scale sandbox-type battles we have right now without the crippling performance issues that drive people away if we reduce map sizes, slightly reduce population caps, and finally balance the ballgroups and other problem group comps.

Basically, it's mostly that there is a very big if in your proposal: ZOS actually rebalancing gear and group behaviors. Those imbalances are basically why PvP isn't fun. If those imbalances were addressed, these sorts of threads wouldn't be needed. It's not like ZOS has not tried.

By objecting to my instanced max group size 4, does that mean in your proposed 30 pop cap, there still will be organized groups of 12? As in 30% of the server in a coordinated group? I think that would be a mistake. Even if you got the entire server of 30 to fight them (thus removing any semblance of open world), an experienced and skilled 12-man could hold them off for a long time, especially if there is terrain / structures to use. Relying on ZOS to somehow make it so that's not an issue is not realistic

Come on, man. We both know that reducing group sizes to four would do NOTHING to stop an organized group from organizing. All they’d do is form three groups of four with one healer per group, throw an icon on the main crown, and play exactly as they do right now in Discord comms. It’s the same way they’ve managed to get around the problem of raid sizes being reduced to 12 from 24. They just stack two groups of 12.

Reducing group sizes to four only hurts unorganized pugs who aren’t all in the same Discord — the very same players you say need more help to get into PVP.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Without question ESO's server performance is not good. I will agree your proposal would go a long way in mitigating lag as a major issue. Sure. However, ESO already has PvP with decent performance. That's Blackreach and all the other non "zerg" servers that have been in the game for years. There is hardly ever any que to these. Yet Blackreach usually only has action on it for a few hours on prime time. It's perfectly fine ESO PvP as we know it. But players have never on PC / NA lined up to play on a server whose performance has historically been noticeably better and more consistent.

They don;t play there because they do not want to. Most of the PvP diehards don;t even play there; many of them will sit in a que of over 100 to get into the main/default campaigns where the performance is noticeably worse. They've done this since 2014. Battlegrounds is also generally solid when it comes to performance. Their burst combos will go off. Their bars will swap. It is possible to get away from the sort of rage quitting inducing lag that we see in cyrodiil. But few do so. ZOS needs to ask themselves why this is.

I can tell you exactly why people don’t play in BR — it’s because the campaigns are too long and people have become too invested in them due to the campaign length. If your home campaign is GH and you go to BR to avoid the queue, it means nothing for your leaderboard rank in GH, and vice versa. This is an MMO. People do things and expect to see their numbers increase. It’s normal. This is why reducing campaign length drastically and adding multiple instances of the Cyrodiil map(s) based on queue demands would be much healthier for open world PVP in this game. There’s a reason why matches in most PVP games typically don’t last longer than 45 minutes. Month long matches are frankly ridiculous.

Joy_Division wrote: »

At the end of the day, one decides to PvP with certain expectations, namely they will occasionally kill other players. How many times has it been uttered on these forums that players in these 1vX builds must be cheating to survive so much damage or that it should be impossible for one player to kill 4 or 5 others? They say these things because they find the disparity between a good player / mediocre player or good build / mediocre build either unbelievable or "wrong." Zos themselves acknowledged this was an issue and have made numerous balance changes to address it (usually making things worse). Now I cringe when I hear those sorts of complaints. But that's just me. These are all signs that ZOS's core PvP issues is more about the many people's perception of gameplay than performance issues.

Imbalance is a big part of it, for sure, but to suggest that performance is not the number one issue affecting Cyrodiil right now misses the mark a bit, IMO. Performance is certainly the number one thing driving veteran players away from the game. We need PVP vets around to help new players who are getting into PVP. A good mix of experienced players and newer players is important for the health of any PVP environment. Fixing Cyrodiil’s imbalance problems doesn’t magically fix all the other pain points I’ve discussed in this thread.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Lastly, I was more thinking of adding a new system of PvP to ESO with my suggestions about an instanced Keep fight rather than replacing Cyrodiil. This seems to be what MMOs typically do when around for over a decade: expand upon game systems. In such a small setting, I think it would be a mistake to have a significant portion of a side in a coordinated group (the same way I think a team of 4 in an 8v8 Battleground is a bad idea). Other games do these sorts of instanced games to diversify their PvP experience and it works for them. Sometimes you've only got like 45 minutes and just got time for a short session, so take one of the best parts of Cyrodiil as and make it an option to play. It might even attract people to PvP for all the problems it has, which ultimately is the biggest problem ZOS has.

I mean, your idea could work as a different kind of Battleground experience, for sure. Or even a whole new PVP game mode, like you say. But that’s a separate conversation. I’d rather focus in this thread on brainstorming ideas to significantly improve performance and gameplay in Cyrodiil that would not necessitate ZOS rebuilding the entire game engine.

I think we would feel a lower pop cap. I just happen to log in before there is a queue. After an hour or so there is a queue but I don’t see a degradation in performance.

OK, so you think Cyrodiil just feels empty. Even with a higher pop cap those far flung corners of Cyrodiil are going to be mostly empty. The action is at the keeps. I just stated the theorized lack of contribution to performance as a reason to not remove it.

I wonder if add-ons might have some effect on performance. I know there are ones that tell trials players when to use their skills in a rotation. Is there something similar that may be used in Cyrodiil in groups? I get there is no strict rotation in PvP but maybe add-ons help in some other way. I have also seen one that is similar to the group icons we have on console that designates leader with a crown overhead.

Faulgor

I feel like I've made all these points years ago. The gameplay in Cyro is (except for the long horse rides) actually still quite fun, but everything else feels so 2014.

• Shrink map down to the Red Ring Road: 6 keeps, 2 per alliance. Make them all unique in some way, possibly even architecturally. The map is visually as stale as dried Kwama dung.
• If we are keeping score, the scoring needs to make more sense. Ideally, prime time, i.e. when most people actually play, should affect the scoring the most, but it feels like it's the opposite. Most flips happen in off-hours. I know this would be controversial, but I think you should only be able to take keeps/outposts/resources/etc if there are enough possible defenders in the campaign. Say you might always be able to take resources, but outposts only "unlock" with 25 people in the alliance that owns that oupost, 50 for keeps (out of 100).
• Add more activities that contribute to the "war effort" and don't necessarily require PvP, but improve your reward at the end of campaign. And some relevance to claiming a keep for your guild maybe.
• Overhaul the whole reward structure. It was bad in 2014 and it's still bad.

Frankly, the one thing I really want is for them to acknowledge that Cyrodiil is outdated compared to the rest of the game and that they have some plans. I know it won't be what I want, but I'd like to see ... anything.

Coo_PnT

I want to fight people.
I want to fight people, but I don't want to fight on a battleground because it's too much responsibility and I'm too tired to fight seriously. I want a more convenient battleground where people can be more relaxed and sometimes AFK, like the Alterac Valley in WoW. I know I'm saying this in a convenient way, but it's what I really want.

Duke_Falcon

The best way to increase populations in Cyrodill and in the game at large is to make it fun. I can't imagine a game developer or a stock holder is out there thinking how can we get people to not play our game? lol The best way to make it fun is make it challenging, but not impossible. So to make Cyrodill fun it is necessary to have balance teams. If the teams are balanced the game will grow. If the teams are unbalanced the game will continue to lose players.

"Real World" lol experience in this game. On Sony's current campaign as of this reply. I've played in a campaign against an alliance that is population locked with a 200 que, while the other 2 alliances have 0 bars of population. That is not fun for any one on any campaign, and people will go find something more fun to do. Meaning they will leave Cyrodil, or leave the game entirely if PvP is what they enjoy about the game.

I would propose that when an alliance is population locked that the player be given the choice to switch teams instead of just waiting in the que, so that they can have fun playing the game. When the game populations are balanced is when its the most fun. When a game is fun it will grow. The devs that made Helldivers learned a hard lesson about making a game not fun, when it destroyed their bottom line financially. Keep Cyrodil fun, balance the populations, and increase your bottom line.

ESO Cyrodill pvp is the standard for great pvp combat fun from what I've seen from streamers, now they don't say that, but everyone is looking for something better, and no one is finding it. The only reason they are looking for something better is because populations are falling. Increase the populations by increasing the fun, increase the fun by balancing populations.

Nerouyn

I'll repeat an idea I've proposed previously - take a leaf out of Lord of the Rings Online's book.

The single Elder Scrolls games don't glorify war. For the most part, the peoples of Tamriel get along well. A three-way faction war in the Elder Scrolls setting was never really going to sell, IMO. Even moreso with a main story that basically says by participating in that war, you're helping Molag Bal.

He's super not a nice guy.

Lord of the Rings Online is another setting where war between the playable (good) factions / races wouldn't make sense. So their pvp system allows players to have their good characters and also play as baddies temporarily.

ESO could do the same.

Rather than pitting the peoples of Tamriel against each other, they could unite to drive Molag Bal's forces out of Cyrodiil, and players who want to, could play those forces. Perhaps also levelling them in interesting and unique ways.

For example, without affecting any of the normal metaphysics of daedric existence, Molag Bal could issue a dark edict - serve him in this war, defeat players, capture keeps etc. and he will grant you a sliver of his power by enhancing your form, i.e. upgrading you into a more powerful type of daedra with more powerful physical and / or magical abilities.

Begin as a lowly scamp. Rise all the way to a mighty titan.

The downside to more powerful forms could be that once defeated, they would take longer to reform. In the interim players could fall back on lesser forms. That would prevent Cyrodiil from becoming an unending, unstoppable titan-fest, but also allow for the dark forces to coordinate their major form uptimes for massive assaults.

argonian37

I’ve been pvping in Cyro for 1 year, ocasionally. Last months I started to like it much more, so I played much more. I can give a point of view from a relatively new player.

1 - the learning curve is massive. To become competitive you have to really invest a lot of time to learn a lot about builds, skills, combos, etc. Most people don’t have that time and energy.

2 - When I mean being competitive, I mean the feel that you are collaborating in the collective effort of your alliance success. And this is crucial. Cyro, by design, doesn’t have incentives, neither activities for the average player that is not good in fighting in PVP. I can imagine, while im typing this, for example, that in a war like Cyro, there should be quests that the player could be a courier between 2 warlord npcs in different parts of the map. Or, for example, transport supplies or siege for a keep that “intelligence” knows that will be attacked soon.
Add for example, a quest for another alliance players that “intelligence” gathered info about these other players and the mission is to intercept and kill this courier player in real time and kill him/her before finishing the mission. These kind of quests would use the whole of the map, taking a little the focus out of the big fights.
The result of these quests should have REAL impact (in the long term) in the outcome of the campaign. And this takes me to my next point:

3 - the reward system doesnt make sense at all. The awards are small and are not incentives for anything other than to farm AP for nothing valuable. There should be exclusive bound cosmetics, mounts and stuff that should attract PVErs to come to Cyro and contribute in different ways, not just repairing walls. The scouting quest is not a proper quest, there should be a much better award for that quest for example, and the player that does it, should feel that is impacting in the environment at least in a minimal way. For example, before attacking a keep, why couldnt be mandatory that that keep has to be scouted by a player that is not a good brawler?

The small caps are a problem, but with bigger caps, the design of the game would be the same. We love the game as it is, but we need more incentives for players that are not good fighting and bursting combos in 1 gcd.

I think that ball groups, unkillable tanks and stuff are the extreme symptom of a deeper issue: the only impactful thing that you can do in cyro is to farm deaths, and ball groups want to do it, and tanks want to avoid being farmed. Both are extremely efficient in their objectives. I love cyro, but the main idea of Cyro is that is a war, not a massive deathmatch bg with siege weapons.

And this is the last thing: siege weapons…
Come on they should be fearsome, they should kill tanks, they should destroy every type of building, tower, everything… we reached a point when players that are not tanks spam heals and they survive siege… that shouldnt happen at all. Siege should be a complete destructive weapon, that for example if a troll starts to carroussel and fight around a tower you should destroy the tower completely with the troll inside. Siege is artillery, should be much more destructive and expensive

o_Primate_o

A King Of The Hill battle would be pretty cool. When all three sides are fully populated, the battle begins until a clear winner or 6hr or so time limits or something like that.

o_Primate_o

argonian37 wrote: »

And this is the last thing: siege weapons…
Come on they should be fearsome, they should kill tanks, they should destroy every type of building, tower, everything… we reached a point when players that are not tanks spam heals and they survive siege… that shouldnt happen at all. Siege should be a complete destructive weapon, that for example if a troll starts to carroussel and fight around a tower you should destroy the tower completely with the troll inside. Siege is artillery, should be much more destructive and expensive

Siege should also distribute damage to allies, even if just 10% of tooltip damage vs foes. Siege IRL kills indiscriminately.

The_Meathead

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Limit HoT stacking and disable snow treaders in large groups.

Home Keeps spawn 3m or 6m health "Keep Lord/Lady" boss when certain conditions are met. DAoC had a mini boss in keeps and it was great. The boss would actually kill players. Surprised ESO doesn't have them.

Reduce Volendrung spawn time and/or add a 2nd weapon.

Add a way to increase siege damage. Siege has not kept up with power creep.

Add campaign score catch up mechanic to prevent any one faction from accumulating runaway scores.

These are great.

Limit HoT stacking and maybe ESPECIALLY shield stacking and make Snow Treaders vulnerable to morph of Caltrops so there's a decent counter.

I'd opt for straight up removing Vol, personally, but your thoughts are good here too.

Sieges need to do more damage to tightly packed enemies, and yes I mean Ball Groups. First thing you're taught in any combat training is to spread out because one grenade will kill all of you, same principle applies. Reap the benefits of being impossibly stacked on one point? Accept the downsides too. Right now, there are none.