SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@Joy_Division has anyone been floating any other ideas or solutions in the rep meetings to generate increased improvement? I do have an idea that has nothing to do with campaigns. What about a debuff that gets worse the more players are grouped together, not significantly but enough to notice. Maybe a slight buff for the opposing players in the area who are outnumbered based off a ratio.
Debuff/Buff Criteria
1. How many players inside a certain radius to receive debuff?
2. How large is the radius that the number of players must fit to receive the debuff.
3. How many levels of debuff would there be?
3. Make he debuff based purely off what 1 side has, not a ratio to the other.
4. Provide a buff for an outnumbered faction that starts at a certain ratio and progressively gets stronger.
5. How many levels for the buff?
6. What values should be buffed and debuffed? How should they scale?

This would punish those who zerg big and reward you for spreading out. The idea of being a foot soldier or a hero.
Thoughts on this idea?

People, the vast majority of whom do not play in organized or even disorganized groups, have often suggested a debuff of sorts to grouped players. Aside from the debatable premise whether or not it's a workable or good idea to punish players simply for grouping up, having such a system is going to add extra calculations and strain upon the server. So it's not surprising ZOS has remained silent regarding that.

As far as the meeting with the reps go, I don't recall Wheeler being in one, probably for the reason the Rep program is not intended to give ZOS ideas of how to change game systems; we've just been asked to identify class pain points.

For years the community has offered numerous sound ideas to incentivize spreading players out so. Some of which ZOS has acted upon (most notably removing of AoE caps), some of which ZOS has put a little too much faith in IMHO (resources), and some of which we saw the last update (destroy-able bridges and extra outposts). I think they could do a lot more myself, but as of right now there is no discussion on that.

I do not think punishing players is the way to go here. I'm not sure why it is assumed that punishing or shaming another person's preferred style of play is going to motivate them to "git gud" and a start 1vXing or playing on dead servers. I think it's more likely they just play something else that they actually find enjoyable. It's not like Cyordiil is their only option when it comes to videogames.

dgj

Delsskia wrote: »

@SkysOutThizeOut

It's a creative idea, but why punish groups when ZOS has always promoted groups in PvP? There is zero content in the game that requires 24 people. The only reason there is a 24 player limit to groups is because of Cyrodiil. That has been advertised and promoted since before launch as a benefit. Also, it's just asking already overloaded servers, game engine and shoddy coding to perform even more calculations.

It would create more problems and be completely counter to the original concept of Cyrodiil.

Because people can't play the game in good faith and work with the present system. There is a 350 post thread that proves people can't play the game in good faith.

Also how many players for the debuff was a question not a stated figure. It would likely be more than 24 or group sizes would be reduced.

A proximity calculation likely wouldn't be that complex since everything has to render anyways and that number would already be present. Assigning another number to that number might add a byte of data?

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

idk the buff/debuff would be a punishment mechanism to discourage zergs greater than 30-40 maybe. Not an actual issue with the buffs.

Heaven forbid that more than 30-40 players show up to crown an emperor or defend the last emperor keep or capture/defend a scroll.

Because that's the real flaw with your suggestion.

Cyrodiil has very important objectives that are designed to attract lots of players. A debuff is essentially punishing people for player important objectives when the problem is ZOS' failure to make the game perform properly when players focus on important objectives exactly as designed.

I was at a last emperorship keep + EP scroll take that had 3 raids of EP, 2 raids of AD, and 1 group of DC, to give you a specific idea of the numbers involved at important objectives during PC/NA primetime on Vivec. If you want to debuff all of us for showing up, I'm going to have to insist that scrolls not be worth 10 points in the score at the very least.

VaranisArano wrote: »

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@dk the buff/debuff would be a punishment mechanism to discourage zergs greater than 30-40 maybe. Not an actual issue with the buffs.

Heaven forbid that more than 30-40 players show up to crown an emperor or defend the last emperor keep or capture/defend a scroll.

Because that's the real flaw with your suggestion.

Cyrodiil has very important objectives that are designed to attract lots of players. A debuff is essentially punishing people for player important objectives when the problem is ZOS' failure to make the game perform properly when players focus on important objectives exactly as designed.

I was at a last emperorship keep + EP scroll take that had 3 raids of EP, 2 raids of AD, and 1 group of DC, to give you a specific idea of the numbers involved at important objectives during PC/NA primetime on Vivec. If you want to debuff all of us for showing up, I'm going to have to insist that scrolls not be worth 10 points in the score at the very least.

There actually is a debuff present in the specific example you highlighted. It's called disconnect on approaching the keep and waiting forever to log back in debuff. If you manage to get past that then you get the siege doesn't fire debuff or the 10 second cast time debuff.

If instead on the current debuffs you add one that lowers say damage resistance then the number of defenders/attackers should drop much more quickly and the volume of people at an emp keep will lessen as will server load. As the number lessens the magnitude of the damage resistance debuff also lessens.

Rather than lowering populations further and us all endlessly horse simulator-ing our nights away, why not use positive reinforcement rather than negative? It would be exponentially more effective to incentivize going to off campaigns (cough, Shor) than it would be to harshly restrict people from going to Vivec.

Idea:
Double AP every night in Shor 7-11pm.


This would allow a good amount of people who want to change campaigns/avoid lag to hop over to Shor during primetime and allow Vivec to be eased up but only at the most troublesome hours. So you would have an interesting choice between staying the campaign you have mained through lag and giving up on that campaign to have some good fights elsewhere. I honestly think people would probably be evenly split between campaign loyalty/ watching the map in Vivec and caring less about Vivec map to find different fights in Shor.

Ruckly wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@dk the buff/debuff would be a punishment mechanism to discourage zergs greater than 30-40 maybe. Not an actual issue with the buffs.

Heaven forbid that more than 30-40 players show up to crown an emperor or defend the last emperor keep or capture/defend a scroll.

Because that's the real flaw with your suggestion.

Cyrodiil has very important objectives that are designed to attract lots of players. A debuff is essentially punishing people for player important objectives when the problem is ZOS' failure to make the game perform properly when players focus on important objectives exactly as designed.

I was at a last emperorship keep + EP scroll take that had 3 raids of EP, 2 raids of AD, and 1 group of DC, to give you a specific idea of the numbers involved at important objectives during PC/NA primetime on Vivec. If you want to debuff all of us for showing up, I'm going to have to insist that scrolls not be worth 10 points in the score at the very least.

There actually is a debuff present in the specific example you highlighted. It's called disconnect on approaching the keep and waiting forever to log back in debuff. If you manage to get past that then you get the siege doesn't fire debuff or the 10 second cast time debuff.

If instead on the current debuffs you add one that lowers say damage resistance then the number of defenders/attackers should drop much more quickly and the volume of people at an emp keep will lessen as will server load. As the number lessens the magnitude of the damage resistance debuff also lessens.

And you think a 10% loss on stats is going to dissuade people from going to that keep when a disconnect and 10 second server delays don't?

So far this works in theory. We haven't got to tri-keeps yet .

Ruckly wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@Joy_Division the conversation has moved from spreading across campaigns to improving performance during max pop hours. The debuff wouldn’t be just for the group, but for everyone in the area. It doesn’t have to be at 10, but could be 24, 36, whatever, whatever the point is where it becomes a major strain on the server. I’m not talking lower caps, I was thinking higher caps and larger ratios.

Is this the sort of thought process you are aiming for people to have?

"Hey here is a good/important/interesting/only fight I'm a part of. Wait, how many allies are in the area? Let me take 5 minutes to move around, memorize the unique IDs and do a mathematically calculation to see how many stats I'm losing. *5 minutes later* Well, according to ZOS's formula I'm losing 15% of my damage, healing, and regen. Or at least I was but that one group wiped and I don;t see a camp up, so now I'm not sure. Maybe I should put up a camp. Wait, if I do that and assist my alliance, I'm just going to screw myself over. F*** them. Besides, I don't want to inconvenience the server for those 80 AD attacking this keep, that would be really selfish of me. Wait, I am being selfish just by being here. Let me go to Drakelowe Farm and PvDoor that resource, I'm going to be at full stat strength if I go do that."

You say because whatever debuff it would be it would have to be variable and it being a debuff wouldn't show up as a debuff but a hidden number for some reason that making an 80 man heal stack have a higher debuff than a 40 man heal stack can't be done? We don't even have a number density yet what the number would be where a debuff would kick it, at what increment, and how much it increases with each increment. It might start at 41 and increase by 8 and it might show up distinctly on the interface as a debuff. 2 raids one stack of debuff. 3 raids 4 stacks of debuff.

No I'm not saying that at all. I am saying if a server disconnect and the inability to use skills or CC break has failed to spread people out, than why would a debuff somehow make people PvP differently? Getting booted from the server and unresponsiveness is a lot bigger punishment than whatever debuff you're thinking of .

It's just going to create stupid arguments like "You need to leave because we're getting the debuff. We were here first!" and the other group of people to ignore that because they want their capture tick or they just dont like them or they think the objective is too important. Or people arguing about whether to place a camp because of this debuff. Stuff like that is is not healthy and just leads to further toxicity

The vast majority of things people on these forums can think to improve the game is going to frustrate other people. "Nerf this," "disallow X," "Heals shouldn't be allowed outside of groups," "Force people to play only characters from one alliance for a month," "You get a penalty for having X people in a group," "In a large scroll-fight, people are going to get stacks of debuffs." It's no wonder ZOS remains silent on these issues.

I can only speak about PC-EU-Sotha but yeah, the only time I see a jump in my ping is when 2 factions are full and they clash.
Up until 3 bars of all factions everything runs smooth with occassional loading screen poping up when I travel which is just a minor annoyance because it lasts only few seconds, if that.

3 bars seems to be the most Cyro can take so droping the pop cap for another 25% would be the sweet spot.
This paired with lowering the raid cap to 16 would be the best and easiest fix really.

Ruckly wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Ruckly wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@Joy_Division the conversation has moved from spreading across campaigns to improving performance during max pop hours. The debuff wouldn’t be just for the group, but for everyone in the area. It doesn’t have to be at 10, but could be 24, 36, whatever, whatever the point is where it becomes a major strain on the server. I’m not talking lower caps, I was thinking higher caps and larger ratios.

Is this the sort of thought process you are aiming for people to have?

"Hey here is a good/important/interesting/only fight I'm a part of. Wait, how many allies are in the area? Let me take 5 minutes to move around, memorize the unique IDs and do a mathematically calculation to see how many stats I'm losing. *5 minutes later* Well, according to ZOS's formula I'm losing 15% of my damage, healing, and regen. Or at least I was but that one group wiped and I don;t see a camp up, so now I'm not sure. Maybe I should put up a camp. Wait, if I do that and assist my alliance, I'm just going to screw myself over. F*** them. Besides, I don't want to inconvenience the server for those 80 AD attacking this keep, that would be really selfish of me. Wait, I am being selfish just by being here. Let me go to Drakelowe Farm and PvDoor that resource, I'm going to be at full stat strength if I go do that."

You say because whatever debuff it would be it would have to be variable and it being a debuff wouldn't show up as a debuff but a hidden number for some reason that making an 80 man heal stack have a higher debuff than a 40 man heal stack can't be done? We don't even have a number density yet what the number would be where a debuff would kick it, at what increment, and how much it increases with each increment. It might start at 41 and increase by 8 and it might show up distinctly on the interface as a debuff. 2 raids one stack of debuff. 3 raids 4 stacks of debuff.

No I'm not saying that at all. I am saying if a server disconnect and the inability to use skills or CC break has failed to spread people out, than why would a debuff somehow make people PvP differently? Getting booted from the server and unresponsiveness is a lot bigger punishment than whatever debuff you're thinking of .

It's just going to create stupid arguments like "You need to leave because we're getting the debuff. We were here first!" and the other group of people to ignore that because they want their capture tick or they just dont like them or they think the objective is too important. Or people arguing about whether to place a camp because of this debuff. Stuff like that is is not healthy and just leads to further toxicity

The vast majority of things people on these forums can think to improve the game is going to frustrate other people. "Nerf this," "disallow X," "Heals shouldn't be allowed outside of groups," "Force people to play only characters from one alliance for a month," "You get a penalty for having X people in a group," "In a large scroll-fight, people are going to get stacks of debuffs." It's no wonder ZOS remains silent on these issues.

If people die because they have 4 stacks of debuff in a 3 raid blob that will deter them from doing that. Because if they do that they will die. And they will die again if they do that again. If a person gets dced because there is too many total(doesn't depend on faction) people in an area(something they can't know ahead of time unless someone else reports dc which would happen after they relog)...

I threw out a random number 41 where it would start to stack debuffs. 2 raids is 48 people 1 stack of debuff. If people were wherever first with 40 people then other people piling into that same area...it creates lag and this would deter it. And as far as I know you don't have to sit in a fort for a capture tick anymore you only need to tag something. And placing a camp would reinforce people that were already there and died. If there are 40 people at a fort and some die and respawn at a camp: that doesn't increase the number of people at a fort. Camps don't generate two people from one person. The game is rated mature meaning mature people should be playing it meaning there should be a very low level of toxicity since the people playing know what this offsets and that is disconnects/siege is busy/10 second cast times. I think you underrate the people playing the game.

Anyways moving on to tri-keeps .

As Joy_Division said, we've already dealt with massive amounts of lag, the inability to use skills properly, and in many cases, crashing to log-in screen or even out of Cyrodiil, and yet we still continue to organically form large groups at inportant objectives.

I do not think that an extra debuff is going to have the impact you think it will.

Moreover, I guarantee that organized raids will handle that debuff better than any disorganized zerg or small scale group so congrats, you've handled ball groups yet another advantage, without actually solving the problem.

Strong debuffs for either faction stacking raids would force multiple large scale battle at multiple locations because raids are generally smart and multiple attacks at once would increase efficiency and success for a keep to be captured. Same could be way Raids will defend.

I tried. Some people don't have a clue what a priori is.

If the population cap is lowered by 25%, instead of having a functional server that can handle the current server load or a rule set for deviants, cyrodill would likely be killed outright. Or not outright but it would quickly only become a thing for people who video stream and that's about it. What would be left is BGs which likely make money from crown consumable items. I doubt cyrodill makes money. And you would have pve. pve sells dlcs and battlegrounds sells crown consumables. Cyrodill would be waiting lines, ball groups, and 3 raid stacks. However even if the cap was lowered by 25% I would still be sitting above alesworth front door or glademist front door reading a book.

Anyways I post in these forums. Well I might post in these forums because I like ESO and this might somehow translate into forum posts. I think that is the primary reason most people post in these forums. However I post primarily with the intent of coming up with workable solutions. I like to solve problems. I don't post to be right or for the sake of ego which has no value here to me. Rather to propose thesis and anti-thesis. But come on computers that can't compute!? If you invent a computer that doesn't do at base binary arithmetic but computes some feeling at base or whatever comes from endocrines or neurotransmitter combinations I think you might be a quite wealthy person.