Another update, another server capacity downsizing

Fawn4287 · June 2021

How can anyone even play busy campaigns during peak time in cyrodil? The lag is insanely terrible, break free and barswapping can take 5+ seconds when anywhere near a ball group or zerg. This cyrodil performance decrease in unison with update releases can’t be just coincidental. It seems like ZOS waves “PvP stability upgrades” in patch notes as a way to pay for less server space and capacity. How can ZOS justify charging for more expansions, ESO+ fees and DLC whilst actively decreasing the server load and making the game play far worse as a whole? I barely enter cyrodil in peak time and when I do its just outright unbearable. This isn’t even a case of ‘fix your game’ its an outright display of not giving people what they pay for. If you purchased this game based on gameplay footage then saw how cyrodil performs you would return it in a heartbeat. I just can’t justify spending another cent on this game with the condition its in and will continue to just play only IC and BGs and if something reasonable isn’t done in the near future I think cyrodil will be a outright no go zone outside of mid year mayhem, the only time when it seems ZOS pays for the increased server capacity to accommodate for the numbers that actually play in cyrodil.

hands0medevil · June 2021

Cyrodill in 2030 will be 4v4v4

ResidentContrarian · June 2021

hands0medevil wrote: »

Cyrodill in 2030 will be 4v4v4

BGs are just like Cyro when you anger all 8 enemies constantly...

Durham · June 2021

I just don't think the game can handle the style of healing and aoe they have in this game especially when you have so many spamming them, hence the server latency issues. Its just a fact and it cannot be changed because it would hugely impact PVE the much larger portion of the player base.

Idinuse · June 2021

Durham wrote: »

I just don't think the game can handle the style of healing and aoe they have in this game especially when you have so many spamming them, hence the server latency issues. Its just a fact and it cannot be changed because it would hugely impact PVE the much larger portion of the player base.

Mmm, yeah. Well the DOTs and Bleeds are not to be unmentioned here either imo. Because you can't mention HOT ticks without bleeding mentioning DMG ticks at the same time (pun intended).

Stamicka · July 2021

Durham wrote: »

I just don't think the game can handle the style of healing and aoe they have in this game especially when you have so many spamming them, hence the server latency issues. Its just a fact and it cannot be changed because it would hugely impact PVE the much larger portion of the player base.

I thought of this too, but why is the lag worsening if this is the case? Cyrodiil used to work better with way more people in it. Sure over time players have generally gotten better and they probably used less abilities in the past. However, Cyro had double (probably more) the population to make up for this. How did this game work so much better 6 years ago?

Dagoth_Rac · July 2021

Stamicka wrote: »

Durham wrote: »

I just don't think the game can handle the style of healing and aoe they have in this game especially when you have so many spamming them, hence the server latency issues. Its just a fact and it cannot be changed because it would hugely impact PVE the much larger portion of the player base.

I thought of this too, but why is the lag worsening if this is the case? Cyrodiil used to work better with way more people in it. Sure over time players have generally gotten better and they probably used less abilities in the past. However, Cyro had double (probably more) the population to make up for this. How did this game work so much better 6 years ago?

There was more processing done on client side in the past. This led to widespread cheating, so processing has been slowly but surely moved to server side. But one server, no matter how big or powerful, cannot compare to offloading lots of combat calculations to hundreds of individual PCs. It is not even the calculations so much as the communications. Even if ZOS added a hundred extra servers, each dedicated to doing combat calculations for a single Cyrodiil player, lots of data used to reside locally on client and never go back and forth between client and server. Now pretty much everything needs to go back and forth.

I think ZOS are clearly trying to optimize their server code as much as possible, but they are swimming against the tide. The game was never really designed to be so server-heavy.

I also believe that, in addition to curbing cheating/hacking, moving more calculations to server side has made it easier on ZOS, albeit at the cost of performance. A "thin client" is generally easier to code and maintain than a "thick client", especially when you have like 3 to 6 different clients, depending on whether you consider PS4 versus PS5 a different client, or PC versus Stadia, etc.

Elo106 · July 2021

Durham wrote: »

I just don't think the game can handle the style of healing and aoe they have in this game especially when you have so many spamming them, hence the server latency issues. Its just a fact and it cannot be changed because it would hugely impact PVE the much larger portion of the player base.

There are countless old videos of much larger battles with aoes being spammed. Back then most calculations were client side though.

DrSlaughtr · July 2021

People need to stop packing in GH. I get it. Alliance lock is preferable to non locked for most players. And everyone wants big battles. But if the two campaigns had a balanced population across alliances it would help lag in GH and make BR more exciting.

We'll see what happens with update 31. If GH is no proc and BR proc (or vice versa) it will likely cause the populations to shift.

Starshadw · July 2021

Durham wrote: »

I just don't think the game can handle the style of healing and aoe they have in this game especially when you have so many spamming them, hence the server latency issues. Its just a fact and it cannot be changed because it would hugely impact PVE the much larger portion of the player base.

There's more going on than the healing/AOE. We've been using AOEs - and even stronger AOE heals (yep, they've been nerfed multiple times) - since beta, and PvP used to work just fine with them in place.

xDeusEJRx · July 2021

TheEndBringer wrote: »

People need to stop packing in GH. I get it. Alliance lock is preferable to non locked for most players. And everyone wants big battles. But if the two campaigns had a balanced population across alliances it would help lag in GH and make BR more exciting.

We'll see what happens with update 31. If GH is no proc and BR proc (or vice versa) it will likely cause the populations to shift.

I only play in GH because that's where the people are at. I'd gladly play in other servers if there were people to fight there, but I don't wanna ride around from keep to keep to fight the same five man groups in an empty campaign. I dont want to play in GH but that's where the people are and therefore the PVP is at

actosh · July 2021

Elo106 wrote: »

Durham wrote: »

I just don't think the game can handle the style of healing and aoe they have in this game especially when you have so many spamming them, hence the server latency issues. Its just a fact and it cannot be changed because it would hugely impact PVE the much larger portion of the player base.

There are countless old videos of much larger battles with aoes being spammed. Back then most calculations were client side though.

yep, those were the good times, and the amount of cheaters wasnt rly that bad.
Besides that i play pve and pvp in my eso time, and i rly enjoy both, but i quit playing in cyro for performance reasons and just keep it to ic or bg if i have time (its summer outside, so i spend more time in the garden and such).

Sadly, PvP hasnt seen any bigger content updates. I get that ESO can easy keep the income up with pve,housing and crown store alone.

Cyrodiil was so much fun man...but sadly times and focus changes or has been changed.
Will def take a break from eso to test some other mmo´s this year(one of them developed with server side calcs from the beginning).

Good thing bout eso is, i can take a 2 year break, and can be competitive (pve wise) in less than a week again.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Make Cyro great again (performance) ^^.

All the other guys, take care

DrSlaughtr · July 2021

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

People need to stop packing in GH. I get it. Alliance lock is preferable to non locked for most players. And everyone wants big battles. But if the two campaigns had a balanced population across alliances it would help lag in GH and make BR more exciting.

We'll see what happens with update 31. If GH is no proc and BR proc (or vice versa) it will likely cause the populations to shift.

I only play in GH because that's where the people are at. I'd gladly play in other servers if there were people to fight there, but I don't wanna ride around from keep to keep to fight the same five man groups in an empty campaign. I dont want to play in GH but that's where the people are and therefore the PVP is at

Same. What I'm saying is, if 25% were motivated to go to BR, GH would have less lag while still having big battles while also making BR more exciting.

Cyrdemaceb17_ESO · July 2021

Stamicka wrote: »

Durham wrote: »

I just don't think the game can handle the style of healing and aoe they have in this game especially when you have so many spamming them, hence the server latency issues. Its just a fact and it cannot be changed because it would hugely impact PVE the much larger portion of the player base.

I thought of this too, but why is the lag worsening if this is the case? Cyrodiil used to work better with way more people in it. Sure over time players have generally gotten better and they probably used less abilities in the past. However, Cyro had double (probably more) the population to make up for this. How did this game work so much better 6 years ago?

In 2014 Cyrodiil was different. Macroing/Animation canceling/Weaving wasn`t a thing then. You could actually see what your enemy is doing and react.
Now you just get clonk-clonk-clonk-clonk-death from skills that supposed to have an animation and almost a second casttime....Sometimes you only hear a single sound from all 6 skills that hit you at once and flat kill you.