The solutions to pvp in Cyrodiil

HanStolo · January 2021

Why not just add servers and lower the population cap? Right now, even with a few boreball grps going, if the server is just below pop locked or one of the 3 factions isn't pop locked, the performance is way better. Once it's pop locked and boreballs are playing follow the button mashing nerd, the performance is unplayable.

BTW, what is the pop cap? It appears that pop lock doesn't mean 1 for 1 gets in meaning that 1 player leaves before another gets added from the queue. Why don't they have the actually count displayed?

Also, has anyone noticed the inconsistency of play from what I can only explain is on the server end? One day, medium armor feels great. The next day it's paper and if you aren't wearing heavy, you don't have a chance. It's very weird how inconsistent the gameplay feels from day to day.

Pauwer · January 2021

I can only say my own experience, that when i'm alone, my skills stop working near a ball group and i die.

When i play healer in ball group, we can blow up the same enemy ball group and they appear frozen and do 0 damage to our group. I think whichever group is able to spam more skills, wins. The others will not be able to use their skills.

This is only my personal experience and how it looks like on my screen.

Tigor · January 2021

Hello fighters,

The respondance about my previous attempt, with the antergy idea, did not give me a satisfying answer to the solve the problems with the lag in Cyrodiil. I took some time for a deep dive to come with a more holistic plan, and now I will do another attempt in this essay to open a way to understand this problem and give information to work with in the direction of solutions by ZOS. This is an alarming voice of the custumer.

Maybe first to mention. The concept of Cyrodiil (Alliance war) has still very good reasons to play this game, and can be different to everyone.

It has a leaderboard for Alliance Campaign competition (Real Estate and Scrolls rewarded).
It has a leaderboard for individual competition per Campaign "to rule" over the kings as an Emperor under certain conditions (Alliance Points (AP) rewarded).
It gives players an Alliance Rank(AR) (AP rewarded).
It is possible to buy certain gear (AP rewarded).
It gives rewards of the worthy (AP rewarded).
It gives personal end of campaign rewards (Tier rewarded).
It gives (daily) quests (AP, XP, money and crafting items rewared).
It gives opportunities to play solo.
It gives opportunities to play in a group.
It has the golden vendor in the weekend (AP and money).
It has an achievement vendor (AP).
It gives access to skilllines (AR depended).
It has a chat room (not always added value)
It has been included in multiple events.
....did I forget something?

So it has a lot of healthy reasons to play.

OUR GUILD
I have been leading groups from the beginning till now. The groups are mostly made up of guildies and we communicate via TS3. If a spot is open, it can be filled in with players from the zone. We don't have fixed times but daily (range 17:00-21:00 CET), there is no need to wear particular sets, or to come with a certain class, or role. We give players the option to play with chars in pvp however they want. Just follow the crown and stick to the plans. We play hop on hop off, also realising players also need to have a walk with the dog, put the children to bed, have a biobreak, to go work, going to the gym, opening the door for visitors, cook food, having dinner (to keep the players and family affairs healthy). We have little breaks for drinks and snacks etc . This playstyle is casual, and not demanding to much time for preparations and also does not require a big puzzle to setup a group, sometimes small refinements on the job, and questions at the right time. Just keeping things as simple as possilble to focus on the plan and tactics to get results, and above all having a lot of fun.

TANKS
We are experiencing more and more that the gear sets and classes, needed to be "successfull" in Cyrodiil, are coming from the new content, and that certain combinations of sets are making players almost unkillable. I have reported already players that needed 20-30 players to get them down. At the beginning of Cyrodiil this was much less common (I remember one DC templar). The fact that so many players are needed on 1, causes already lag, due to conglomerating players jamming. We suspect that certain players are taking advantage of this, 20-30 players from one alliance A are fighting 1 player from alliance B, giving lag to all those players. This could have been accidentally discovered and is now exploited and becoming a Meta. What it makes it even worse, is that those players are using proc sets and can do damage while all the resources are low, that in combination with stealhty bombers and gankers coming from the background, giving them free access to the buffet. For the leader these situations are difficult to coordinate. Often a large part of the group is missing and lag is building up, abilities are getting disfunctional and players start to disconnect.

BALL GROUPS
Lets now talk about ball groups. I will try to keep it simple and correct. Those groups are playing a more strickt and organised style, and they operate small. These groups have fixed times. Every player has to wear gear and use abilities (particularly AOE's) that are mostly supportive to the whole group. A big puzzle to set up, and hardcore. Everybody can distinguish them by their behaviour. They run like a centipede and are constantly using abilities even if not in combat. This play style is existing since the beginning, and I can imagine that it is quit intense to be part of such a group. To get such a group down is taking a very long time and requires a lot of skill, resources, and soul gems when not playing such a style. All those combined actions are causing data traffic to lag in favor of the ball groups, since our abilities are getting disfunctional, and it is visual that the ball groups can still use their abilities as before going in combat. The game is getting slower and slower. Even walking is affected, and more players start to disconnect. So lag is actively (could be intentionally) used to influense the outcome of a battle, and passively having an effect on the campaign. A lot of players are needed when ballgroups are located on key points or running with scrolls. Players that would have been needed somewere else on the map, and can't get there in time, while stuck in combat with a disfunctional mount. After a while players are getting bored, logg off, and leave the game. The gear and class introduction of new content, and the latest decision to make the group size to 12, with only applying ally supportive abbilities to the group, have been a big advantage to ball groups, and the number of ballgroups is increasing. Clearly a decision that has not lead to a reduction of lag in Cyrodiil.

THE FUTURE
To make Cyrodiil attractive again some drastic changes are needed. The game has to be more competivite, but I also understand that the path to new content should stay open, otherwise players would run out of challenges, and the salaries of developers also need to be payed. Many of the retired players might even come back, when Cyrodiil would be more playable at prime time.

How to reduce to lag:

A Cyrodiil DLC or expansion would raise funds for more state of the art servers that can handle better with the traffic.
Make gear from the vendors in Cyrodiil, rewards of the worthty and campaign rewards the only usable gear in Cyrodiil. And update, the gear more often with newer gear, and remove redundant gear (it can be tracked by the sales), but allow monster sets, mythics and transmuted items. This part is still discussable.
Put the three gear vendors (light, heavy, medium) in every town.
New classes are allowed.
Implement a combat mechanic that can actively be used against ballgroups (e.g.the antergies that quench synergies, see beginning of this thread). They want to be hardcore, we casual, and should have a challenging method to counter.
Monitor actively on lag by putting some kind of hidden beacon in each keep, to investigate exploits.

To many players the testing period was giving hope, but he decisions a disappointing result. Whatever the reason for this approach was, will most likely never be announced, but it's big effect gave me matter to think about. If they can't find a solution then at least I (and supporting guild members) can give it a try. That is always better then only complaining.
What the close future will bring can only be decided by ZOS, but for me It will determine whether playing is worthwhile any longer. They should give a clear direction and vision about Cyrodiil on the short term.

Thanks for your attention.

themdogesbite · January 2021

We already had the proper systems in place way back before 1.6 to solve this. The only thing stopping us was aoe cap and no ultimate regen on shielded players.

Some changes that i think can help the overall experience and perhaps the lagg aswell.

1. Make players able to spawn at camps all over the map, this allows fights to spread out with ease. (Need some kind of mechanic in place here to not make fights at keeps endless as they used to be.)
2. Re-introduce dynamic ultimate regen. This would help outnumbered groups and ungrouped players a lot.
3. Consider re-introducing softcaps to the game, atleast in Cyrodiil.

And as a bonus.. imagine if the famous old Purge bug would comeback. Goups would just blow up if they had dots on them if they were careless with when and where they would purge.

Godspeed · January 2021

Cyrodiil will never be fixed. [snip] Best thing they could do is delete cyrodiil and just make ESO a pure pve game.

[Edited to remove Bashing and Conspiracy]

Katahdin · January 2021

Godspeed wrote: »

Cyrodiil will never be fixed. a pure pve game.

Hate to say it, but at this point I have to agree.

All the tests, limiting group size, limiting heals, removing deer, etc, etc, etc.
Literally nothing has worked. Cyrodiil still lags and becomes a skill locked slide show.

I was in there last night solo and my ping jumped to 3x its usual level whenever we got near a fight with one of the coordinated ball groups. A normal fight against random players, it went up some but no where near the level when we had 1 or both ball groups running that night nearby.

Tigor · January 2021

Katahdin wrote: »

Godspeed wrote: »

Cyrodiil will never be fixed. a pure pve game.

Hate to say it, but at this point I have to agree.

All the tests, limiting group size, limiting heals, removing deer, etc, etc, etc.
Literally nothing has worked. Cyrodiil still lags and becomes a skill locked slide show.

I was in there last night solo and my ping jumped to 3x its usual level whenever we got near a fight with one of the coordinated ball groups. A normal fight against random players, it went up some but no where near the level when we had 1 or both ball groups running that night nearby.

It could be a process of continuous improvement. They change something in the pve environment and something else needs to be fine tuned in Cyrodiil to reduce lag. They did not do any tests on the ranges of AOE's, a blindspot? Reduction of ranges have a significant effect on the footprint and the consistency of ballgroups.

Joy_Division · January 2021

Tigor wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

Godspeed wrote: »

Cyrodiil will never be fixed. a pure pve game.

Hate to say it, but at this point I have to agree.

All the tests, limiting group size, limiting heals, removing deer, etc, etc, etc.
Literally nothing has worked. Cyrodiil still lags and becomes a skill locked slide show.

I was in there last night solo and my ping jumped to 3x its usual level whenever we got near a fight with one of the coordinated ball groups. A normal fight against random players, it went up some but no where near the level when we had 1 or both ball groups running that night nearby.

It could be a process of continuous improvement. They change something in the pve environment and something else needs to be fine tuned in Cyrodiil to reduce lag. They did not do any tests on the ranges of AOE's, a blindspot? Reduction of ranges have a significant effect on the footprint and the consistency of ballgroups.

All the AOEs worth using are point blank.

You're putting a lot of thought into this and I admire your enthusiasm. But I am afraid you are wasting your time. ZOS does not have a full time dedicated PvP dev, let alone a team. The devs already have a ton on their own plates of responsibilities (see Lambert's end of the year apology) and working from home. All we are going to get are more tests that are wholly based on restricting the amount of calculations put on a server because that's all they can do under these circumstances.

Katahdin · January 2021

Joy_Division wrote: »

(see Lambert's end of the year apology) and working from home.

Where is this post from Lambert? Looked in all the boards and I dont see a recent comment from him?

relentless_turnip · January 2021

Katahdin wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

(see Lambert's end of the year apology) and working from home.

Where is this post from Lambert? Looked in all the boards and I dont see a recent comment from him?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/556720/official-discussion-thread-for-studio-director-s-letter-2020-retrospective/p1

Tigor · January 2021

@Joy_Division, thanks for your compliment and @relentless_turnip for sharing that ZOS inside info about last year, I didn't get that. I can now let go of this subject a little better.

Agalloch · January 2021

They just need to revert last changes.

Cyrodiil is worse right now than it was in 2018-nov 2020.

I miss the old days before the lighting patch ( hundreds of players on the same screen)

Too bad 90% of the ZOS team left

Futard · January 2021

Tigor wrote: »

Hello fighters,

The respondance about my previous attempt, with the antergy idea, did not give me a satisfying answer to the solve the problems with the lag in Cyrodiil. I took some time for a deep dive to come with a more holistic plan, and now I will do another attempt in this essay to open a way to understand this problem and give information to work with in the direction of solutions by ZOS. This is an alarming voice of the custumer.
Maybe first to mention. The concept of Cyrodiil (Alliance war) has still very good reasons to play this game, and can be different to everyone.
It has a leaderboard for Alliance Campaign competition (Real Estate and Scrolls rewarded).

It has a leaderboard for individual competition per Campaign "to rule" over the kings as an Emperor under certain conditions (Alliance Points (AP) rewarded).

It gives players an Alliance Rank(AR) (AP rewarded).

It is possible to buy certain gear (AP rewarded).

It gives rewards of the worthy (AP rewarded).

It gives personal end of campaign rewards (Tier rewarded).

It gives (daily) quests (AP, XP, money and crafting items rewared).

It gives opportunities to play solo.

It gives opportunities to play in a group.

It has the golden vendor in the weekend (AP and money).

It has an achievement vendor (AP).

It gives access to skilllines (AR depended).

It has a chat room (not always added value)

It has been included in multiple events.

....did I forget something?

So it has a lot of healthy reasons to play.

[snip]. You have no impact on the campaign results with night and morning capping (and so on).
The rewards are a joke and not really rewarding.
They should get completely rid of the rewards of the worthy. This is just spam at this point.

Tigor wrote: »

OUR GUILD
I have been leading groups from the beginning till now. The groups are mostly made up of guildies and we communicate via TS3. If a spot is open, it can be filled in with players from the zone. We don't have fixed times but daily (range 17:00-21:00 CET), there is no need to wear particular sets, or to come with a certain class, or role. We give players the option to play with chars in pvp however they want. Just follow the crown and stick to the plans. We play hop on hop off, also realising players also need to have a walk with the dog, put the children to bed, have a biobreak, to go work, going to the gym, opening the door for visitors, cook food, having dinner (to keep the players and family affairs healthy). We have little breaks for drinks and snacks etc . This playstyle is casual, and not demanding to much time for preparations and also does not require a big puzzle to setup a group, sometimes small refinements on the job, and questions at the right time. Just keeping things as simple as possilble to focus on the plan and tactics to get results, and above all having a lot of fun.
TANKS
We are experiencing more and more that the gear sets and classes, needed to be "successfull" in Cyrodiil, are coming from the new content, and that certain combinations of sets are making players almost unkillable. I have reported already players that needed 20-30 players to get them down. At the beginning of Cyrodiil this was much less common (I remember one DC templar). The fact that so many players are needed on 1, causes already lag, due to conglomerating players jamming. We suspect that certain players are taking advantage of this, 20-30 players from one alliance A are fighting 1 player from alliance B, giving lag to all those players. This could have been accidentally discovered and is now exploited and becoming a Meta. What it makes it even worse, is that those players are using proc sets and can do damage while all the resources are low, that in combination with stealhty bombers and gankers coming from the background, giving them free access to the buffet. For the leader these situations are difficult to coordinate. Often a large part of the group is missing and lag is building up, abilities are getting disfunctional and players start to disconnect.

You are playing on no-cp, right?
I haven't seen a player that was capable of surviving 20-30 half decent players.
Maybe let them just aside and care for something else?

Tigor wrote: »

BALL GROUPS
Lets now talk about ball groups. I will try to keep it simple and correct. Those groups are playing a more strickt and organised style, and they operate small. These groups have fixed times. Every player has to wear gear and use abilities (particularly AOE's) that are mostly supportive to the whole group. A big puzzle to set up, and hardcore. Everybody can distinguish them by their behaviour. They run like a centipede and are constantly using abilities even if not in combat. This play style is existing since the beginning, and I can imagine that it is quit intense to be part of such a group. To get such a group down is taking a very long time and requires a lot of skill, resources, and soul gems when not playing such a style. All those combined actions are causing data traffic to lag in favor of the ball groups, since our abilities are getting disfunctional, and it is visual that the ball groups can still use their abilities as before going in combat. The game is getting slower and slower. Even walking is affected, and more players start to disconnect. So lag is actively (could be intentionally) used to influense the outcome of a battle, and passively having an effect on the campaign. A lot of players are needed when ballgroups are located on key points or running with scrolls. Players that would have been needed somewere else on the map, and can't get there in time, while stuck in combat with a disfunctional mount. After a while players are getting bored, logg off, and leave the game. The gear and class introduction of new content, and the latest decision to make the group size to 12, with only applying ally supportive abbilities to the group, have been a big advantage to ball groups, and the number of ballgroups is increasing. Clearly a decision that has not lead to a reduction of lag in Cyrodiil.

You believe that the lag is an advantage for ball groups? I haven't seen a single one that is happy with the lag.
When your faction stack arrives and your skills won't fire for 5 seconds you consider this to be an advantage of the ball group (or even fun)? You really think it is an advantage when you can't break free while being outnumbered?

[snip]

The issue you describe are mostly caused by faction stacks and not ball groups and ZOS' performance update (i would consider this to be one of the main issues here).

Fun fact: You see faction stacks even without ball groups and it lags like hell.

Tigor wrote: »

THE FUTURE
To make Cyrodiil attractive again some drastic changes are needed. The game has to be more competivite, but I also understand that the path to new content should stay open, otherwise players would run out of challenges, and the salaries of developers also need to be payed. Many of the retired players might even come back, when Cyrodiil would be more playable at prime time.

How to reduce to lag:
A Cyrodiil DLC or expansion would raise funds for more state of the art servers that can handle better with the traffic.

Make gear from the vendors in Cyrodiil, rewards of the worthty and campaign rewards the only usable gear in Cyrodiil. And update, the gear more often with newer gear, and remove redundant gear (it can be tracked by the sales), but allow monster sets, mythics and transmuted items. This part is still discussable.

Put the three gear vendors (light, heavy, medium) in every town.

New classes are allowed.

Implement a combat mechanic that can actively be used against ballgroups (e.g.the antergies that quench synergies, see beginning of this thread). They want to be hardcore, we casual, and should have a challenging method to counter.

Monitor actively on lag by putting some kind of hidden beacon in each keep, to investigate exploits.

Or you could adjust your group?

Tigor wrote: »

To many players the testing period was giving hope, but he decisions a disappointing result. Whatever the reason for this approach was, will most likely never be announced, but it's big effect gave me matter to think about. If they can't find a solution then at least I (and supporting guild members) can give it a try. That is always better then only complaining.
What the close future will bring can only be decided by ZOS, but for me It will determine whether playing is worthwhile any longer. They should give a clear direction and vision about Cyrodiil on the short term.

Thanks for your attention.

The testing weeks were really bad. Too long and the tests were mostly ***.

Furthermore, i doubt you will receive any feedback from ZOS.

And again, the main issue is their performance update.

[edited to remove rude comments/baiting]

Tigor · January 2021

@Futard. I gave a honest summary of experiences, and came with some ideas to reduce the lag, and I am grateful for the opportunity to do that here at the forum, it is all about bringing the truth. I hope you can reconciliate with that. All the answers to your questions reside in the text.

Tigor · January 2021

This forum is accessable to everybody and gives information about a particular problem. I see some paterns concerning clarification of the lag issue in Cyrodiil and the response from the community, but saying they cannot and will not fix the problem is the cheapest and easiest way and should not lead to a "if it is said repeatedly, then it is fine" millenial mentallity. Even under current global conditions ZOS should manage and tell us "we can and will fix this for all of you". We need more fighters.

Anotherone773 · January 2021

How to Fix Cyro in 3 steps:
1. Turn all of Cyro into multiple PVE zones and make it look like a zone worthy of being in this game. Currently the TES 4 version, which came out 8 years before this one, looks much better than our Cyro.
2. Use some of the gates to Oblivion to go to PVP Areas. Maybe guild vs guild or FFA.
3. Clean all the PVE garbage out of the failed experiment that is IC. Make this the main campaign/siege with smaller campaign sizes. This will get people in the fight faster with less time spent getting to fights. ZOS can also focus on making this zone really good performance wise.

VaranisArano · January 2021

Anotherone773 wrote: »

How to Fix Cyro in 3 steps:
1. Turn all of Cyro into multiple PVE zones and make it look like a zone worthy of being in this game. Currently the TES 4 version, which came out 8 years before this one, looks much better than our Cyro.
2. Use some of the gates to Oblivion to go to PVP Areas. Maybe guild vs guild or FFA.
3. Clean all the PVE garbage out of the failed experiment that is IC. Make this the main campaign/siege with smaller campaign sizes. This will get people in the fight faster with less time spent getting to fights. ZOS can also focus on making this zone really good performance wise.

More like:
How to destroy PVP gameplay I don't like and replace it with PVE and PVP gameplay I do like "fix" Cyrodiil.

Have you considered asking ZOS for PVE areas of Cyrodiil, guild v guilds, and FFA without asking them to first remove the huge variety of PVP gameplay options in Cyrodiil that many players still enjoy?

Because I do enjoy Cyrodiil. Your replacement suggestions are woefully insufficient as substitutes for the variety of PVP gameplay I can experience in Cyrodiil. You have some good ideas for additions, but honestly I find it hard to get past the whole "I don't like your preferred gameplay, so ZOS should remove your only option to PVP like you can in Cyrodiil" part of your argument.

Tigor · January 2021

The complexity of Cyrodiil pvp makes it almost impossible to go back to "classic". In the beginning it would have been worth to detangle, but now to many interests are involved. This means that actually the lag in Cyrodiil is a prove of the game success.

A reoccurring topic are the ball groups that can trespass, and the lack of good methods to stop it. Individual players can be stopped by the current sieges weapons, but a weapon that affects only a group is missing. I spoke to some Argonian engineers and they came up with something already available that can circumvent lag. If a number of players from a group would stand on the AOE radius, it goes off. Captured players are trapped and will die from rotting meat. Would it be possible to have AOE's that can count numbers from a group?

Godspeed · January 2021

The only real solution would be to shut the game down and rebuild it like the FF14 devs did. It may hurt initially but FF14 is more successful than ever because they had the courage to make the hard choices.

Do ESO developers have the courage to do the right thing?

Tigor · January 2021

Godspeed wrote: »

The only real solution would be to shut the game down and rebuild it like the FF14 devs did. It may hurt initially but FF14 is more successful than ever because they had the courage to make the hard choices.

Do ESO developers have the courage to do the right thing?

The tactic of scorched earth and leaving nothing behind, or don't burn ships before ending the battle?

In such a situation it would be better to start building on something new in the background and implement it after testing. Oooh wait they have tested already.

What will be their next move?

NekoN3ko · January 2021

CAP HEAL STACKS......

alterfenixeb17_ESO · February 2021

LarsS wrote: »

Franky ballgroups have little to to with the lag. Yesterday early primetime on pc/eu Gray Host we had a huge fight with severe lag, note even one ballgroup in sight!

Reasonably the lag depends on the number of actions the servers have to do per second, that reasonably depends on the number of players stacked in a small area. It will also depend on the complexity of the skill (aoe singel target and proc sets) in the area. Ballgroups probably have the highest output of actions due to their knowledge of the game, thus they do cotribute but so do the total numbers of players around.

Some tests I would like to see;
1. Shut of all procsets in cyro. They have proliferated in recent years so they may be an importans source of lag.
2. Remove the camps from cyro. It will shorten the battles, substantially.
3. Give people a good reason to spread out over the map. Events on the map that give you ap and campaign points for ex. More resons to win a campaign like betters rewards and shorter campaigns.

1 and 2 - Which would essentially be a revert to times with ball groups having so much less impact btw. And generally a good thing to do:

Ball groups still tend to rely on it. Randoms most likely less. This could reduces the gap here.
Proc sets tend to be mostly thing of players prioritizing maxing out their characters to the very detail. Lot's of people on the other hand prefer just to have fun and even if they do follow that trend they do it because i.e. they find no fun to be a constant victims of such sets. Nothing bad in it ofc but it would be a good to draw a line somewhere otherwise we have situation when one proc set becomes just obsoleted due to introduction of another.
Funny thing about those camps. Back when they were removed after that initial flop playing in a ball group was somewhat more tricky - you wipe then you wipe, that's it, you're done. At least you need to give oponent some little time before you get back. Once camps were reintroduced then the only 2 important thing started to be is that fight lasts at least 5 minutes and at least one of your group is not noticed when setting up the camp. Both achievable.

As for points 3. This would be great however this may be much more tricky in reality. Take it those events idea. If it is 100% properly done kind of destructor from current main objectives (emp, scrolls) then yes, it may work. Otherwise it will become eventually just another objective on the list for everyone to do. There was a time that not every group was pushing for emp and not everyone was going for scrolls. Then people learned that it does not pay off.

As for shorter campaigns we have been through this already. There were once 7 day campaigns with same rulesets as 30 day ones and same rewards (even easier to achieve). People still preferred 30 day campaigns instead.

As for rewards this is interesting idea and something we have been asking since first campaign ended those almost 7 years ago. It would however have to be done carefully:

Motifs are not a good pick - waiting 30 or even 7 days just to have a chance to get a motif book does not sound right. Needs to be more than that.
Gear - we already have it. Been there, done this basically. Also the only actually valuable gear would be legendary (for materials) or mythic
Gold - so many ways to earn it with ease in this game that for most this could possibly be even removed altogether. Currently makes no difference at all. Being able to earn like 500k per campaign win also sounds weird.
Rare materials - more like it. There are number of items achievable only via certain activities like for instance materials from Craglorn. But then the reason why they are desired is that they are valuable. And they are valuable only because they are indeed harder to acquire.
PvP campaign win specific rewards - here is the choice. Either they matter and for that reason they are desired but at risk of putting rewarded guy at advantage other loosing side. They may also not matter at all but then even if they would be wanted in the beginning soon it would be just another of "nice to have but can live without it, let's move on".

It should be doable, granted. But probably not that easily sadly.

Tigor · March 2021

I want the ballgroups removed.

AureleosRex · March 2021

Adding more interactions with synergies, antisynergy or not, will just create more lag.

They need to add diminishing returns to AoE healing and damage.

Possibly restrict synergies entirely, or actually limit them to X amount of uses.

And limit AoE ground damage so it can't stack and protect a whole group of people.

Zer0_CooL · March 2021

Why add expensive servers if you can just tune on the gameplay (blockcanceling, proc, crossheal,...) untill only so few players remain that they dont cause any lag is playing anymore?

NinchiTV · March 2021

themdogesbite wrote: »

We already had the proper systems in place way back before 1.6 to solve this. The only thing stopping us was aoe cap and no ultimate regen on shielded players.

Some changes that i think can help the overall experience and perhaps the lagg aswell.

1. Make players able to spawn at camps all over the map, this allows fights to spread out with ease. (Need some kind of mechanic in place here to not make fights at keeps endless as they used to be.)
2. Re-introduce dynamic ultimate regen. This would help outnumbered groups and ungrouped players a lot.
3. Consider re-introducing softcaps to the game, atleast in Cyrodiil.

And as a bonus.. imagine if the famous old Purge bug would comeback. Goups would just blow up if they had dots on them if they were careless with when and where they would purge.

This. A thousands times this. Being able to spawn at any camp would for sure spread player traffic. And dynamic ult regen promotes small scale pvp and reduce stress on server. How the *** has zos not even brought this up like...at all? Or even address these ideas?

Tigor · April 2021

Is everyone used to pvp without proc sets by now?

DTStormfox · April 2021

I have a hypothesis on how "ball groups" cause lag. But please take into consideration that this is just a hypothesis and I am not a computer scientist, programmer or something.

Proposition
We all know that servers run on ticks (actions) and tick rates. A server can process a set amount of ticks per second, and thus is limited by this amount. If the amount of ticks exceeds the tick rate, the excess ticks will be 'moved' to the next moment in time the ticks are calculated. For example, when a server can process 30,000 ticks per second but 35,000 ticks are received by the server, the excess 5,000 ticks will be moved to and calculated in the next second. Causing a one-second delay for everything related to those 5,000 ticks. This is purely illustrative though and overly simplified.

Suppose a highly coordinated group of 12 players times ("3, 2, 1, now!") a damage ability such as Proximity detonation in combination with consecutively spamming all kinds of damage ultimate and damage AOEs. Suppose that this 12 player group lures a larger uncoordinated bunch of players as their victims. We ignore healing for now.

My hypothesis is that as this group consecutively casts all their damage abilities at the same time, including peak damage abilities and spamming AOEs, it pushes the server load beyond (or at least close to) the limitations of the server. This causes a peak in lag for all players in the same instance (I believe that at some point, Cyrodiil was "split" into different servers, hence I refer to them as instances).

In more technical terms, this group floods the server with ticks (especially when timing their peak damage abilities), exceeding or getting really close to the tick rate limit, causing all abilities that are cast after that moment to be computed in the subsequential second(s). Causing everybody in the same instance to experience a delay in whatever action (tick) they send to the servers from their client.

A similar hypothesis was presented years ago by Taonnor when he addressed the best solution concerning AOE caps.

Practical implications

How may this be to the benefit of the highly coordinated groups or even 'exploited' by highly coordinated groups, you ask?
The answer lies in the fact that this group knows when they will push the server load to its limits. Hence, they can 'pre-cast' all their supportive abilities (such as roots, stuns, snares, and certain ultimates) before the peak will occur and the lag spike will kick in. This implies that this group (quite literally) has time on their side because their actions (ticks) will reach the server first and thus their ticks will be calculated in the first second. The uncoordinated bunch of players will react but the server will not allow it because their actions (ticks) will be calculated in the subsequential second(s) after the server 'catches up' with ticks in the 'server input queue' to be calculated.

Hypothetically, highly coordinated groups can, therefore 'exploit' the server limits by flooding the server with actions (ticks) and gain a benefit over other players.

How do zergs (large groups of uncoordinated players) cause lag?
In a similar fashion, zergs can cause the same amount of lag but not because they are consecutively spamming abilities but because of the sheer number of players casting a lot of abilities (actions; or ticks) randomly. As such, when enough players cast only a few abilities in the same second, the number of ticks will exceed or get very close to the limit and cause a delay for all players in that server instance.

What about when we do not cast any abilities?
This is more a personal account. I have noticed that when a large amount of players (or a zerg) is just standing around or riding on their mounts, and not casting any abilities, there notably is much less lag. On the other hand, when a zerg is casting a lot of abilities randomly, typically, lag seems to become more noticeable. Furthermore, when a "ball group" shows up, lag, typically, also becomes more noticeable. This would support the hypothesis that zergs and "ball groups" can (un)intentionally cause lag for all players in the same instance.

Possible solutions
My proposal would be for ZOS to increase the tick rate (Netcode) of their servers (if possible at all because of the, for me unknown, game engine's limitations). Low tick rates are often associated with increased latency and the experience of 'being killed around the corner of a wall' (which comes more from the FPS scene). From my layman's point of view, increasing the tick rate would solve most of this problem because the servers would be able to handle more ticks (actions) per second.

Limitations
A closing note: this is purely hypothetically. I may be completely or partially wrong about this. If so, please point out my mistakes.

Kwoung · April 2021

I have been lagged to the login screen many times recently just riding up to keeps without a ball group in sight or even online to my knowledge. Same in the middle of large battles. Faction stack lag seems like a much larger issue at the moment.

Tigor · April 2021

DTStormfox wrote: »

I have a hypothesis on how "ball groups" cause lag. But please take into consideration that this is just a hypothesis and I am not a computer scientist, programmer or something.

Proposition
We all know that servers run on ticks (actions) and tick rates. A server can process a set amount of ticks per second, and thus is limited by this amount. If the amount of ticks exceeds the tick rate, the excess ticks will be 'moved' to the next moment in time the ticks are calculated. For example, when a server can process 30,000 ticks per second but 35,000 ticks are received by the server, the excess 5,000 ticks will be moved to and calculated in the next second. Causing a one-second delay for everything related to those 5,000 ticks. This is purely illustrative though and overly simplified.

Suppose a highly coordinated group of 12 players times ("3, 2, 1, now!") a damage ability such as Proximity detonation in combination with consecutively spamming all kinds of damage ultimate and damage AOEs. Suppose that this 12 player group lures a larger uncoordinated bunch of players as their victims. We ignore healing for now.

My hypothesis is that as this group consecutively casts all their damage abilities at the same time, including peak damage abilities and spamming AOEs, it pushes the server load beyond (or at least close to) the limitations of the server. This causes a peak in lag for all players in the same instance (I believe that at some point, Cyrodiil was "split" into different servers, hence I refer to them as instances).

In more technical terms, this group floods the server with ticks (especially when timing their peak damage abilities), exceeding or getting really close to the tick rate limit, causing all abilities that are cast after that moment to be computed in the subsequential second(s). Causing everybody in the same instance to experience a delay in whatever action (tick) they send to the servers from their client.

A similar hypothesis was presented years ago by Taonnor when he addressed the best solution concerning AOE caps.

Practical implications

How may this be to the benefit of the highly coordinated groups or even 'exploited' by highly coordinated groups, you ask?
The answer lies in the fact that this group knows when they will push the server load to its limits. Hence, they can 'pre-cast' all their supportive abilities (such as roots, stuns, snares, and certain ultimates) before the peak will occur and the lag spike will kick in. This implies that this group (quite literally) has time on their side because their actions (ticks) will reach the server first and thus their ticks will be calculated in the first second. The uncoordinated bunch of players will react but the server will not allow it because their actions (ticks) will be calculated in the subsequential second(s) after the server 'catches up' with ticks in the 'server input queue' to be calculated.

Hypothetically, highly coordinated groups can, therefore 'exploit' the server limits by flooding the server with actions (ticks) and gain a benefit over other players.

How do zergs (large groups of uncoordinated players) cause lag?
In a similar fashion, zergs can cause the same amount of lag but not because they are consecutively spamming abilities but because of the sheer number of players casting a lot of abilities (actions; or ticks) randomly. As such, when enough players cast only a few abilities in the same second, the number of ticks will exceed or get very close to the limit and cause a delay for all players in that server instance.

What about when we do not cast any abilities?
This is more a personal account. I have noticed that when a large amount of players (or a zerg) is just standing around or riding on their mounts, and not casting any abilities, there notably is much less lag. On the other hand, when a zerg is casting a lot of abilities randomly, typically, lag seems to become more noticeable. Furthermore, when a "ball group" shows up, lag, typically, also becomes more noticeable. This would support the hypothesis that zergs and "ball groups" can (un)intentionally cause lag for all players in the same instance.

Possible solutions
My proposal would be for ZOS to increase the tick rate (Netcode) of their servers (if possible at all because of the, for me unknown, game engine's limitations). Low tick rates are often associated with increased latency and the experience of 'being killed around the corner of a wall' (which comes more from the FPS scene). From my layman's point of view, increasing the tick rate would solve most of this problem because the servers would be able to handle more ticks (actions) per second.

Limitations
A closing note: this is purely hypothetically. I may be completely or partially wrong about this. If so, please point out my mistakes.

This hypothesis sounds very plausible. Thanks for sharing, it fits the exclusion approach through the tests (AOE timers etc.) that have been done so far.