Community Update – Vengeance Testing & Cyrodiil

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

alternatelder wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

There is no way that current population on Greyhost is 360. that would be 120 across all factions which is the same as 10 groups worth.

During the time we were fighting a guild on EP They invited almost every single player on their faction and got to 86 vs us one night, this was when group cap was 24. and the campaign queue was in its 200+ era .

Numbers have not been that high for over 4 years now.

I expect if anything that this 360 number comes from when they ran the previous tests years ago not actual recent gameplay.

Are you a dev? Do you have a source that these numbers aren't actual caps that isn't just guessing? I knew someone would come out and deny it, took longer than I thought though.

Sorry I forgot about the 3 full groups farming goblins within Cracked Wood Cave 24/7.
Obviously I'm not a dev for this game however as someone who actually plays it I can comment on my experiences during the times I play. Do you have any proof of this number other than some text on a blurred out graph?

The facts are as a pvp community we used to have 2-3 active campaigns during primetime, often with a queue on every faction of 100-200 on Grey host. Group size was 24m max and you would see multiple groups as well as hordes of pugs out there running around, fights in multiple locations across the map.

These days queue doesn't go above 20-70 and you see maybe 60 players max in game. There's only ever 1 fight on each side of a factions frontline with the map barely changing.

Katahdin wrote: »

AngryPenguin wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

Sidewaves89 wrote: »

So basically you gave up on trying to improve performance in current campaigns. If Scenario 2 come true what's the point for pvp players in buying new DLCs if sets won't work there?

Basically they said they cant improve on performance in the current campaigns and keep things as they are with all the sets, the high population, etc. They tried, and they concluded they cant.

Well why not? Circa 2018 Cyrodiil was booming with 300 players/faction and reliably good performance. I'll never forget how awesome the performance was after they replaced their old servers...which are now old again by server standards. Is this all because ZOS is refusing to invest in better servers again? (by the way, do you remember ZOS telling us that the new servers wouldn't improve performance notably, even though it did in fact radically improve performance?)

Furthermore, we've repeatedly asked ZOS to remove some of the most calculation intensive sets and they have refused to do so. They aren't even trying to fix anything with Grey Host.

We also didnt have ball groups spamming skills like robots like we do now.

There were no groups in 2018 for sure. https://youtu.be/lq4GAlETlSA

Also when do you ever see zergs like this these days (we used to have them every day and the performance was 100x better than we have now): https://youtu.be/S_dW7JWlyR4

JohnRingo

Sarannah wrote: »

Some more questions:
-What will happen to the other Cyrodiil campaigns in both scenario 1 and scenario 2? Will they keep existing, be removed, something else?
-How many resources have been spent over the years to try and get Cyrodiil working as intended? And will these resources now get allocated to more content/features, or will you still try to fix Cyrodiil going forward?
-Could a cause of the lag in Cyrodiil be the Imperial City still being linked to Cyrodiil? In the IC we still get messages about the scrolls/gates/etc in Cyrodiil there, even though the two should no longer be linked.
-What will happen in scenario 1 if due to playernumbers both vengeance and grey host end up with unhealthy/unsustainable populations? basically showing neither PvP mode was populair enough to begin with. (asking as some players are expressing boycotts for certain modes)
-You stated that in survey test 1 many players expressed their like for vengeance, was vengeance liked by enough players to have a healthy permanent/sustainable population for that mode?

JohnRingo wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

This statement from ZOS makes it clear those of us who despise vengeance and will never play any version of vengeance have only one option now:

We have to boycott participation in all vengeance going forward and hope ZOS figures out vengeance is a fail in every way.

This is absolutely the correct course of action at this point.

There are players who enjoy vengeance, and you are actively trying to keep vengeance from them/have ZOS remove vengeance from the game. Which is just as bad as players who want your beloved Cyrodiil closed/removed! The more options for gameplay, the more players who can happily play what they want, and the more players who can play the modes that they want to play. Growing both the game and it's population.

Besides that, boycotting vengeance will actually have the opposite effect. If enough grey host players go to vengeance, causing both vengeance and grey host to have unhealthy/unsustainable populations, the entire future of PvP in this game will be at risk. Making it seem like neither vengeance nor grey host have a place in this game's future, and I'm guessing you do not want that either.

I'll put it this way. If you tell a veteran PvP player that a decade of gear, CP, and build investment is now worthless under the Vengeance rule set, it’s the gaming equivalent of telling a long-term investor that their portfolio of ten years has suddenly gone to zero. The reaction is obvious: anger, disbelief, and a sense of being robbed. That player is probably NOT feeling cooperative.

xR3ACTORx

ToddIngram wrote: »

Second, if nothing is special about ESO PvP we may as well play other games that have better performance and customer support.

This already happened on Xbox EU after the previous mayhem "test". If I have a look at my friendlist I can see many players who already moved over to other games like BF6 or Helldivers 2. Some are on NMS and never returned since then. I can still remember the deserted mayhem after vengeance when the people left.

Draggimus

is this some kinda retaliation for everyone laughing at the devs for their really embarrassing gameplay on that pvp stream

CaiWenji

If Scenario 2 were to happen, I will up and quit then and there. No build diversity, no creativity, and most importantly no more fun! The only time I would ever come back is during the Anniversary Jubilee to get my current year's cake and to check again that if Scenario 2 did happen that it was then reverted.

StihlReign

Draggimus wrote: »

is this some kinda retaliation Vengeance for everyone laughing at the devs for their really embarrassing gameplay on that pvp stream

Oooh, so irresistible...

Volkster

Is this an example of the decoy effect? You guys offer two choices, with the second one being one no one would rightfully want, so people would be more accepting of the first option.

LarsS

Some numbers.

PC/EU all 3 alliances locked 1-2 hours on prime time on GH, the other campaigns are empty BR may reach 2 bars on on some alliances.

Considering numbers, on GH (120) and 300 on Vengeance. On last test Vengence were on 2 to 3 bars on all alliances (PC/EU) on prime time that is more participants than a locked GH.

There are still new people comming to cyro, but many leave again due to the huge power gap. It is not fun to be killed again and again by top level balls or small scaler groups.

It's up to everyone to guess how long the present pvp in Cyro will survive. To me the future looks bleak, so changes must be introduced.

Muizer

ToddIngram wrote: »

It's impossible to not know that ZOS always said vengeance was just a test.

That is beside the point. I never said or implied that it was not a test. The difference is that some people just seem to have assumed without evidence that that meant 'for improvements to current cyrodiil'.

A far more consistent reading of the course of events is this:
1) ZOS decided to rebuild Cyrodiil PvP from the ground up, because they could not identify any 'silver bullets' to fix live.
2) In order to do that, they wanted to start with a version that they knew for certain would support the player counts they were aiming for.
3) For that they needed to run a base line test on the live servers
4) As usually new features that go live stay there with only small tweaks, they stressed the 'test' bit to death: don't worry this is not going to stay on live as is!

I don't recall them ever saying it was intended to learn things to apply to current cyrodiil. And frankly as an approach to developing a feature that would make 0 sense. They're at

5) iterate on the functioning basis to make Vengeance more feature rich, all the while continuing to test it for performance and acceptance.

Edited to be more constructive.

MorallyBipolar

reazea wrote: »

I just realized something very important to this discussion.

Vengeance 1 was sold to us as being a test system so they could gather data and improve normal live Cyrodiil.

With this post Jessica is saying ZOS will not be making any effort to improve normal live Cyrodiil at any point in the future and they're developing vengeance to probably replace grey host.

So the statement that vengeance was an effort to improve live Cyrodiil was never a true statement. ....just like we've been pointing out all along.

This.^

ZOS sold us on a "test" that was never a test. Vengeance was always intended to replace Cyrodiil PvP, as seems apparent when reading the OP. The statement that ZOS is never going to try to fix anything in normal live Grey Host is the same as saying vengeance will be the only option going forward at some point next year.

We know ZOS hasn't even been trying to improve performance in Grey Host now. They haven't even tried to limit heal stacking or removing the most offensive proc sets either. So they can't credibly say they've even tried.

Vengeance has been a betrayal of the PvP community from the onset. I'll never trust ZOS to be honest about anything going forward.

MorallyBipolar

reazea wrote: »

This statement from ZOS makes it clear those of us who despise vengeance and will never play any version of vengeance have only one option now:

We have to boycott participation in all vengeance going forward and hope ZOS figures out vengeance is a fail in every way.

That's what I'll be doing. As will the only PvP guild still hanging on that I play with daily.

None of us will be playing vengeance now or ever again. If vengeance becomes mandated ESO may as well not even exist for us.

Bubosh

"only a Test" straight Up lie to the Community but blind customers are Happy about zos being "transparent"....... You rly cant make this Story Up only zos can 😂 they Lied to everyone but still some sheeps cheering Up such moves of zos is.....

xR3ACTORx

Yes. Trust is gone. I really hope TES6 and FO5 won't be messed up.

AngelA10S115

JohnRingo wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

Some more questions:
-What will happen to the other Cyrodiil campaigns in both scenario 1 and scenario 2? Will they keep existing, be removed, something else?
-How many resources have been spent over the years to try and get Cyrodiil working as intended? And will these resources now get allocated to more content/features, or will you still try to fix Cyrodiil going forward?
-Could a cause of the lag in Cyrodiil be the Imperial City still being linked to Cyrodiil? In the IC we still get messages about the scrolls/gates/etc in Cyrodiil there, even though the two should no longer be linked.
-What will happen in scenario 1 if due to playernumbers both vengeance and grey host end up with unhealthy/unsustainable populations? basically showing neither PvP mode was populair enough to begin with. (asking as some players are expressing boycotts for certain modes)
-You stated that in survey test 1 many players expressed their like for vengeance, was vengeance liked by enough players to have a healthy permanent/sustainable population for that mode?

JohnRingo wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

This statement from ZOS makes it clear those of us who despise vengeance and will never play any version of vengeance have only one option now:

We have to boycott participation in all vengeance going forward and hope ZOS figures out vengeance is a fail in every way.

This is absolutely the correct course of action at this point.

There are players who enjoy vengeance, and you are actively trying to keep vengeance from them/have ZOS remove vengeance from the game. Which is just as bad as players who want your beloved Cyrodiil closed/removed! The more options for gameplay, the more players who can happily play what they want, and the more players who can play the modes that they want to play. Growing both the game and it's population.

Besides that, boycotting vengeance will actually have the opposite effect. If enough grey host players go to vengeance, causing both vengeance and grey host to have unhealthy/unsustainable populations, the entire future of PvP in this game will be at risk. Making it seem like neither vengeance nor grey host have a place in this game's future, and I'm guessing you do not want that either.

I'll put it this way. If you tell a veteran PvP player that a decade of gear, CP, and build investment is now worthless under the Vengeance rule set, it’s the gaming equivalent of telling a long-term investor that their portfolio of ten years has suddenly gone to zero. The reaction is obvious: anger, disbelief, and a sense of being robbed. That player is probably NOT feeling cooperative.

So tell players who don't have 300 hours in PvP, optimized gear, and a high level not to even think about touching PvP. Like any game, if there isn't a constant flow of players, the game dies. everyone needs the opportunity to face any other player. Currently, if you don't have a meta build, you're more useless than a rock.