Behavioral changes

Tommy_The_Gun · January 2021

techyeshic wrote: »

What's amusing to me is; I can see an ally running toward me about to die and not do anything about it, but the Vicious Death proc from them dying will hit me and my group.

Yep, this is very inconstant. I mean, since we can not heal people, they should also not be able to dmg us.

So, no cross-healing means that there should also be no cross-dmg too...

^ I know how it sounds. Like it is something totally out of place, that only a lunatic would come up with... I mean imagine if group could not deal dmg to solo players and vice-versa...

...but this is where we are now. Logic behind this is the same as behind cross-healing removal. I hope that maybe it shows how weird and out of place cross healing removal feels like...

Ryath_Waylander · January 2021

FENGRUSH wrote: »

This is part of the behavior target. Faction stacks are propped up by randoms able to cross heal *everyone*. Harder to faction stack with this change and survive simply by having healers scattered everywhere spamming smart heals.

And there it is @badmojo .... the smoking gun

DarcyMardin · January 2021

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

techyeshic wrote: »

What's amusing to me is; I can see an ally running toward me about to die and not do anything about it, but the Vicious Death proc from them dying will hit me and my group.

Yep, this is very inconstant. I mean, since we can not heal people, they should also not be able to dmg us.

So, no cross-healing means that there should also be no cross-dmg too...

I love it! Let’s extend this even further. Just think how server stress would be eliminated if we could not do any damage to any players who were not in a group — the lone bomber or the lone sniper or the lone dude with the boiling oil who’s defending a keep by himself. Better still, let’s just ban solo players from Cyrodiil altogether. This is an MMO, after all. You’re supposed to make *friends*. /snark

Pauwer · January 2021

When my pvp guilds aren't running groups, my cyro experience is like this:

I first go on my healer, because i like to support the group the best i can and i do the heal role the best. I lfg in zone chat and even though i have played for years and many, many, many random groups also, there is no group invite. I then specify "lfg healer". Nothing. Then maybe 3rd, very polite one "lfg on healer, pls" still nothing. I log off on my healer at this point.

Then i either go watch netflix or log on my stam nb or on my stam warden and play solo and die very often to huge enemy groups. I run the pale order ring on my warden, on that char i can fight alone against a group for a long time and score few kills too, yay. But all ventures end in death, such is life. Ah well.

And no i don't want to run groups myself. I think group leader needs to be someone who actually wants to lead and i don't. I'm a follower.

Dojohoda · January 2021

In Cyrodiil I continue play solo on various magblades that are equipped differently. Some are built more durably than others but nothing matters when skills takes 5+ seconds, when seige is busy, when the game stops responding. I am hugely disappointed that game performance continues to be the antithesis to playing the end-game (not referring to questing and low action gameplay).

ks888 · January 2021

I have mained healers in many MMO's for what feels like almost 20 years. Every game has a point where healing can be OP to the point of it being a real issue (example: that entire WoW patch many, many years ago - where Paladin bubble made you darn near immortal) where it's completely fair to say "healing is so broken rn". However, like all classes, in almost every game, we get nerfs and we adapt. ESO is really no different, except where healers have really felt like the scape goat for everything wrong with pvp for what 6-7 years now?

To be quite frank in words that are allowed on these here forums, I am over it.

Healers are no different than any other class/build. A PuG level healer is always going to be less threatening than one who has played in an organized group or duo. The exception for ESO is probably when Earthgore was introduced and carrying anyone who wore it. That was, imo, the WoW paladin bubble fiasco.

At the end of the day though, very few of our core issues with the state of ESO PvP are up to the players to solve. Performance is not up to us anymore.

Sure it's stupid to stack 100 players in one spot, I think we can all agree THAT is always going to the thing that is a legitimate behavioral change players can do to help, but in reality, it's always going to happen. Those of us who have been here forever remember when an emp dethrone fight could turn into a situation where everyone froze equally, but it was usually reserved to once every few days/weeks back then. Now, on the most populous campaign, that Wabba/Auriel's Bow emp dethrone caliber laggy fight it is a nightly thing. The playerbase has changed into less organized veteran players into more casual PvPers that stack numbers. Alot of the old timers (phrasing?) have quit because the performance just got progressively worse.

So what is ZOS doing to address this? The community already does the best job it can to self police, but at the end of the day, we bought a product or continue to pay subs for a product that has degraded over time. What is ZOS going to do to keep us? I really don't know. I would sure like to hear more from ZOS about why the PvP community should give them anymore money for a product that's often not worth it. Maybe I'm just extra salty today. I did have crackers for lunch.

idk · January 2021

VaranisArano wrote: »

idk wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Guys, just spread out please!

That doesn't work. ZOS had already added more objectives with the bridges, milegates, and more outposts. Has it helped?

No. Players can figure out what's the most important objective (or the fight worth the most AP) and head in that direction en masse. Adding more, as in your suggestions, really won't help.

And this is how the "Just spread out" idea works in practice:
"Just spread out! Get off the emp ring! Go for other objectives!"

"No, don't PvDoor the tri-keeps! When I said spread out, I didn't mean like that, you fools! Nobody's back there, don't you want real PVP?"

"Gah, get your ball group out of Brindle/Dragon/Drake farming that faction stack of PUGs! Can't you tell its making the server lag?"

"Why are you all running rings around the emp keeps again? ZOS needs you to spread out!"

"Oh, great, "Its Hammer time!" Thanks, ZOS, we really needed a zerg magnet right now, thanks."

If that last didn't make it clear, even the objectives ZOS introduced to get players to spread out (Volendrung and extra AP from corner keeps) haven't worked. "Just spread out" fails because Cyrodiil really is designed fantastically well to create large fights
.

Pretty much this, but we do not always see what the most important objective actually is just what seems to be the most important objective.

In the first couple of months of this game, there was a strong push to dethrone the Emporer of from my alliance who happened to be a guildmate. It all came down to one keep so everyone was there and the fight seemed to go on and on and on.

So what did we end up doing? We went and took one of the other keeps where no one was at and took it which removed all the stress from the other keep. Something I rarely see done today.

BTW, that fight was before several max pop reductions Zos did in Cyrodiil. While the server did not perform perfectly it was able to handle much more than it does today. We did not lag out during that fight. The reason the servers perform so poorly today is Zos has added significantly more load to them without making adjustments to accommodate such changes.

I suspect that the lower population in Cyrodiil is one of the reasons you see less tactics like leaving a mega fight to go take a different keep to relieve pressure. That's typically the action of a guild group confident they'll win without sticking to the faction stack, nowadays, and there are just less guild groups around. (Or at least, guild groups who play the map instead of ball groups farming PUGs in side keeps, anyways.)

But I might be wrong. Maybe players these days are just finding it better to mob one objective. During the early days of Volendrung, it was more common to see the non-hammer faction's guild groups go hit a back keep to draw off the pressure while relying on the faction stack to defend their home keeps. That's morphed into the current strategy of "faction stack up to kill their hammer-zerg, then hammer-zerg ourselves."

Also, there's a part of me that wonders if the "stuck in combat" bug contributes to those tactics. Its a lot easier to "tunnel vision" on an objective when you know you can't break off and go elsewhere once you've committed without having to literally run on foot.

While the tactic you mention is a wise tactic, the group I originally ran with when ESO launched did such a move. However, that has more to do with the type of PvP leaders we have in the game vs the population. Granted, the exodus of players tends to mean the best leadership minds are also leaving. This was most evident in the first year ESO was out.

It is easy to suggest most of the best minds left the game in 2014 because a majority of the active PvP players left during that first year. Those that did not leave in the first six months left during the large exodus after 1.6 due to both 1.6/2.0 changes and that Zos put ESO on a life support maintenance for a year while getting the game ready for consoles. I know of one solid PvP guild that did come back after a year away but did not stay long due to the state of PvP.

We know there was a mass exodus during the first year of the game because we used to fill more campaigns seven nights a week and the pop cap was significantly higher. A couple of years into the game it was obvious Cyrodiil would never reclaim it's original glory.

The suggestion that players find it better to mass upon one objective is how most have always done PvP here. It is why I have generally seen two groups, one trying to move clockwise and one trying to move counterclockwise. They tend to run back and forth between two objectives until they get or lose one. The other type of group tries to mimic trying to take a different objective to take the pressure off the main fights but I do not often see groups doing that well.

Pauwer · January 2021

Today we had some serious behavioral "same as it ever was" crap in grey host. Unplayable lag and half the group constantly in blue screens and unable to contact the server afterwards for 3-4 log in attempts. Wft is this?? Wtf??? Where are the performance improvements? Can someone point on the map where is it??

Reaper_00 · January 2021

ThePedge wrote: »

A "solo" healer by definition makes no sense, if you're alone who are you healing?

The answer to that is "Whoever needs it most"

The most important player on the battlefield isn't necessarily going to be in your twelve man group. Some people play Cyro to support an alliance not just 12 people. What most of you seem to fail to realise is that this change has meant that most healers no longer have any choice in deciding how they can support their alliance (besides not playing healer obviously). That choice has been taken away from them and given to whoever the leader of the group they have been forced to play with is.

Sandman929 · January 2021

I think what just about everyone could agree with is, even if smart healing is too server intensive (which I believe to be true) that it's stupid to limit healing to group members only when nearly every heal in the game is a smart heal. You can't have a role in Cyrodiil that can't function unless it's in a group.
This is just ZOS making another change in isolation because it's easier than redesigning more healing skills to function as targeted heals

Hesperax79 · January 2021

I do not fight in Cyro since 2 months. Is your behaviour changed yet bros?
I hope that we will know something about the mystical "future plan" of ZOS (mentioned a couple of months ago) very soon.
The concept of Cyrodiil PvP was one of the best idea what I saw in MMO. Will be a shame to loose this.

Starshadw · January 2021

Sandman929 wrote: »

I think what just about everyone could agree with is, even if smart healing is too server intensive (which I believe to be true) that it's stupid to limit healing to group members only when nearly every heal in the game is a smart heal. You can't have a role in Cyrodiil that can't function unless it's in a group.
This is just ZOS making another change in isolation because it's easier than redesigning more healing skills to function as targeted heals

The game's movement and combat is too dynamic to change healing focus towards targeting. Heck, the one real targeted heal - the Psijic line - is buggy as all get out.

techyeshic · January 2021

Starshadw wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

I think what just about everyone could agree with is, even if smart healing is too server intensive (which I believe to be true) that it's stupid to limit healing to group members only when nearly every heal in the game is a smart heal. You can't have a role in Cyrodiil that can't function unless it's in a group.
This is just ZOS making another change in isolation because it's easier than redesigning more healing skills to function as targeted heals

The game's movement and combat is too dynamic to change healing focus towards targeting. Heck, the one real targeted heal - the Psijic line - is buggy as all get out.

I liked someones idea of them being close range. Like 7 m radius to scan. More like a spin to win calculation then. Maybe some conal like jabs.

alterfenixeb17_ESO · January 2021

ks888 wrote: »

I have mained healers in many MMO's for what feels like almost 20 years. Every game has a point where healing can be OP to the point of it being a real issue (example: that entire WoW patch many, many years ago - where Paladin bubble made you darn near immortal) where it's completely fair to say "healing is so broken rn". However, like all classes, in almost every game, we get nerfs and we adapt. ESO is really no different, except where healers have really felt like the scape goat for everything wrong with pvp for what 6-7 years now?

Sadly true. Apparently every every change disturbing any balance we have (we had vicious death discussions, sources, nightblades op and so on over years) every time it somehow gets back to the topic that supposedly healing and being healed by a healer (not really self heals btw) is way too easy. Sadly when someone starts discussion of for instance "remove stacking anything else than a heal" sort this is treated as "not really a problem that it stacks".

One thing that I may not agree here with: paladins topic was/is much more complex than just that as even if we talk them back around 2.x patches there were more things that made them unkillable (or nearly that). But let us not get into details here:-) Fun times really (not just when playing paladin).

ks888 wrote: »

To be quite frank in words that are allowed on these here forums, I am over it.

Healers are no different than any other class/build. A PuG level healer is always going to be less threatening than one who has played in an organized group or duo. The exception for ESO is probably when Earthgore was introduced and carrying anyone who wore it. That was, imo, the WoW paladin bubble fiasco.

This is also a fact.

ks888 wrote: »

At the end of the day though, very few of our core issues with the state of ESO PvP are up to the players to solve. Performance is not up to us anymore.

But it never was really. It was always this way or another completely up to ZOS.

ks888 wrote: »

Sure it's stupid to stack 100 players in one spot, I think we can all agree THAT is always going to the thing that is a legitimate behavioral change players can do to help, but in reality, it's always going to happen. Those of us who have been here forever remember when an emp dethrone fight could turn into a situation where everyone froze equally, but it was usually reserved to once every few days/weeks back then. Now, on the most populous campaign, that Wabba/Auriel's Bow emp dethrone caliber laggy fight it is a nightly thing. The playerbase has changed into less organized veteran players into more casual PvPers that stack numbers. Alot of the old timers (phrasing?) have quit because the performance just got progressively worse.

And here is why resolving those issues was always up to ZOS. There is one rule that works in all life areas and not just gaming: if something is not forbidden then it is perfectly fine to do it. People stacking at a single objective? Then game mechanics should be changed so that they do not have to or at least are not encouraged in any way to do so. Sadly btw so far no good idea came how to realistically do that in case of Cyrodiil.

ks888 wrote: »

So what is ZOS doing to address this? The community already does the best job it can to self police, but at the end of the day, we bought a product or continue to pay subs for a product that has degraded over time. What is ZOS going to do to keep us? I really don't know. I would sure like to hear more from ZOS about why the PvP community should give them anymore money for a product that's often not worth it. Maybe I'm just extra salty today. I did have crackers for lunch.

No, you are not salty here. Sadly those are a very good questions, especially the first one. Unfortunately lack of answers here gives, perhaps false impression but then perhaps not, impression that ZOS either does not know what to do with it or that they just do not care really. Add this announcement related to Apple M1 client and this creates even bigger pile as it brings questions about what actual production costs might be (costs that include also technical debt of any sort). Big failure tbh.

JkahrrRadnar · January 2021

Reaper_00 wrote: »

The answer to that is "Whoever needs it most"

The most important player on the battlefield isn't necessarily going to be in your twelve man group. Some people play Cyro to support an alliance not just 12 people. What most of you seem to fail to realise is that this change has meant that most healers no longer have any choice in deciding how they can support their alliance (besides not playing healer obviously). That choice has been taken away from them and given to whoever the leader of the group they have been forced to play with is.

100% this. As healer you now have 0 choice what to do in PVP.

You can't choose when to play -> Gotta lfg. If you don't get picked, you can log out.
You can't choose what to do -> Want to scout? Clear a dungeon between sieges? Well, if you wanna risking having to look for a new group...
You can't choose which siege to join/which part of the map to travel to -> Gotta follow your group leader. Don't like it? Go back to lfg/log out.
You can't choose who to heal -> Someone outside the group getting totally curb stomped? Sorry, you're on your own mate.

How about this: Just don't show the health bars of non-group players. I don't need to see that someone is loosing health if I can't do jack **** about it anyway.