Cyrodiil Capacity Test!

Dojohoda · December 2023

Daggerfall Covenant

It's Smurf or nothing!

OtarTheMad · December 2023

Ebonheart Pact

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

This post made me cringe.

I take it you play Daggerfall Covenant? 🤷‍♂️

I have leveled accounts for all three factions and can play any faction at any time without using a faction change token. However, I set these alteranate accounts up during the heyday of Cyrodiil, and almost all my friends have left the game with the exception of one guild on one faction. So I don't faction hop anymore these days to speak of.

I rarely play DC because they are most often the faction that is winning and over populated already, and the guild I run with daily is not on DC.

Then what made you cringe? lol

Because his post, at least to me, sounded like the start of us receiving attention to Cyrodiil again which is something those of us who PvP all want.

As reazea pointed out, the cringe factor is the "here we go again" scenario. Is this a PR thing, or are they actually working on something? And if they're actually working on something, is anything positive going to come of it? Or are they just going to drop the pop caps even further than they already have and use this "test" to justify it?

Here is a quote from the devs themselves:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/637691/server-multithreading-update-july-2023/p1

"Fortunately, the recent upgrade to server hardware has resulted in more customer-facing server performance improvements than any of our multithreading work in all public realms where we’ve completed the work."

So they've already stated they know exactly what to do to improve cyrodiil performance. So why the new test? Why don't they just dedicate more server resources to the zone since they've already stated they know that will work?

Because testing is the safe way to do it. They have said in the past that it is impossible for them to duplicate Cyrodiil conditions on their internal servers and no PvP guilds test in PTS (at all, ever). So testing has to be done on the live servers. It’s the only way they can really test stuff.

They have tried to add things in the past, while also eliminating things they thought hurt the servers to only have all of that hurt the servers even more. So it seems being a little cautious is the way to go.

Dojohoda · December 2023

Daggerfall Covenant

Dojohoda wrote: »

It's Smurf or nothing!

I neglected to add the reference; here it is:

SkaraMinoc · December 2023

Aldmeri Dominion

AD territory is already a ghost town so at least I can chill at Faregyl while the server collapses.

BenTSG · December 2023

Daggerfall Covenant

Hm, I've been around a while, and *briefly* took part in the PvP scene during my early days, but I heard a lot of the bigger team sizes that we have since lost over time. It'll be interesting to see the PvP have bigger numbers, though I am skeptical of the performance if nothing else has been done other then up the numbers. Still though, it'll be a fun experience seeing a higher total number for the factions for a time.

ArchMikem · December 2023

Ebonheart Pact

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

AuraNebula wrote: »

Haven't played for a few months. Is it still tank meta?

Sort of? The main things eating everyone alive are Damage-Over-Time proc builds, and Nightblades scalping you with 20k Spec Bows.

Other than that, everything is pretty much the same and people consistently have 30k+ health.

I made a DoT DK build actually and Tryhard builds still brushed me off with overheals and mitigation. Only the glass cannons complained.

Tyrant_Tim · December 2023

Aldmeri Dominion

ArchMikem wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

AuraNebula wrote: »

Haven't played for a few months. Is it still tank meta?

Sort of? The main things eating everyone alive are Damage-Over-Time proc builds, and Nightblades scalping you with 20k Spec Bows.

Other than that, everything is pretty much the same and people consistently have 30k+ health.

I made a DoT DK build actually and Tryhard builds still brushed me off with overheals and mitigation. Only the glass cannons complained.

Were you using Sea Serpent’s, Master’s DW & Vateshran Ice Staff with either Maarselok or Warchief?

That build is what I’m talking about, if you throw on Dragon’s Appetite with it you’re killing anything.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a glass cannon, the DoTs will eat you alive and there’s nothing to do about it with the nerf to Mara’s Balm.

Sluggy · December 2023

ArchMikem wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

AuraNebula wrote: »

Haven't played for a few months. Is it still tank meta?

Sort of? The main things eating everyone alive are Damage-Over-Time proc builds, and Nightblades scalping you with 20k Spec Bows.

Other than that, everything is pretty much the same and people consistently have 30k+ health.

I made a DoT DK build actually and Tryhard builds still brushed me off with overheals and mitigation. Only the glass cannons complained.

Dots are an absolute joke right now. They have been for a while but U35 utterly killed them. I used to run a Dot build years and years ago (before the Elswyr patch that overbuffed it) and it hasn't been relevant since Gamebreaker, er uh Scalebreaker. People complain about Master Dual wield like it's relevant. Even with massive damage and that set you get exactly precisely *one* skill buffed so that it can tick for maybe 1.5k every two seconds. No one has ever died from this. Period. The spammable is okay-ish if you wanted to build into nothing but defense but since rending now only ticks every two seconds you can't even spam it or you'll loose out on that extra tick. Even laying every Dot I can muster and doing a fullblown PvE parse for three or four complete cycles I cannot kill a decent siege tank and that was a 90k+ parse last time I checked.

Joy_Division · December 2023

reazea wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

This post made me cringe.

I take it you play Daggerfall Covenant? 🤷‍♂️

I have leveled accounts for all three factions and can play any faction at any time without using a faction change token. However, I set these alteranate accounts up during the heyday of Cyrodiil, and almost all my friends have left the game with the exception of one guild on one faction. So I don't faction hop anymore these days to speak of.

I rarely play DC because they are most often the faction that is winning and over populated already, and the guild I run with daily is not on DC.

Then what made you cringe? lol

Because his post, at least to me, sounded like the start of us receiving attention to Cyrodiil again which is something those of us who PvP all want.

I'm fairly certain that Saffron is referring to these tests that lasted months, were horrific to play through, and never resulted in any changes of any kind that helped performance in any way.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/539136/update-on-cyrodiil-performance-upcoming-aoe-tests

Read the announcement made today and compare it to the announcement I linked to from over 3 years ago. The similarities are undeniable.

Apples to oranges.

Those tests sought to fundamentally changed the PvP experience: changing group sizes, cooldowns on skills, changing who can heal who, removal of sets, etc.. That's why those experiences were terrible and why they were ultimately dropped from consideration.

This test isn't changing the game, rather addressing one specific problem: the map is way too big for the small population on it.

During the two years I was gone, people constantly told me they fixed the lag and I should come back. While I now see that was an exaggeration, it's also true that things are better than what they were 4 years ago. So if Zos wants to spend a week seeing if more pop can be added to what has become a stale experience, I'm all for it and will be a willing participant in those tests.

If it turns out to be a lagfest, it's not a big deal. Nothing is lost. It doesn't fundamentally change the situation: here just waiting for the next MMO. If it does turns out that they did the past 4 years allows for basically the same experience we have now with 20 extra players per alliance, then all the better

reazea · December 2023

Joy_Division wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

This post made me cringe.

I take it you play Daggerfall Covenant? 🤷‍♂️

I have leveled accounts for all three factions and can play any faction at any time without using a faction change token. However, I set these alteranate accounts up during the heyday of Cyrodiil, and almost all my friends have left the game with the exception of one guild on one faction. So I don't faction hop anymore these days to speak of.

I rarely play DC because they are most often the faction that is winning and over populated already, and the guild I run with daily is not on DC.

Then what made you cringe? lol

Because his post, at least to me, sounded like the start of us receiving attention to Cyrodiil again which is something those of us who PvP all want.

I'm fairly certain that Saffron is referring to these tests that lasted months, were horrific to play through, and never resulted in any changes of any kind that helped performance in any way.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/539136/update-on-cyrodiil-performance-upcoming-aoe-tests

Read the announcement made today and compare it to the announcement I linked to from over 3 years ago. The similarities are undeniable.

Apples to oranges.

Those tests sought to fundamentally changed the PvP experience: changing group sizes, cooldowns on skills, changing who can heal who, removal of sets, etc.. That's why those experiences were terrible and why they were ultimately dropped from consideration.

This test isn't changing the game, rather addressing one specific problem: the map is way too big for the small population on it.

During the two years I was gone, people constantly told me they fixed the lag and I should come back. While I now see that was an exaggeration, it's also true that things are better than what they were 4 years ago. So if Zos wants to spend a week seeing if more pop can be added to what has become a stale experience, I'm all for it and will be a willing participant in those tests.

If it turns out to be a lagfest, it's not a big deal. Nothing is lost. It doesn't fundamentally change the situation: here just waiting for the next MMO. If it does turns out that they did the past 4 years allows for basically the same experience we have now with 20 extra players per alliance, then all the better

The fear is they will use this "test" as an excuse to further reduce pop caps in cyrodiil, which is what they did after the last round of tests. Or what if they cut the group size in half again, like they did after the last round of tests so max group size is only 6 people? I don't know if Cyrodiil can survive with pop caps or group sizes lower than the already massively lowered pop caps.

The point is that, using ZOS's own words, they already know that more server resources are what's needed, so why new "tests"?

Joy_Division · December 2023

reazea wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

This post made me cringe.

I take it you play Daggerfall Covenant? 🤷‍♂️

I have leveled accounts for all three factions and can play any faction at any time without using a faction change token. However, I set these alteranate accounts up during the heyday of Cyrodiil, and almost all my friends have left the game with the exception of one guild on one faction. So I don't faction hop anymore these days to speak of.

I rarely play DC because they are most often the faction that is winning and over populated already, and the guild I run with daily is not on DC.

Then what made you cringe? lol

Because his post, at least to me, sounded like the start of us receiving attention to Cyrodiil again which is something those of us who PvP all want.

I'm fairly certain that Saffron is referring to these tests that lasted months, were horrific to play through, and never resulted in any changes of any kind that helped performance in any way.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/539136/update-on-cyrodiil-performance-upcoming-aoe-tests

Read the announcement made today and compare it to the announcement I linked to from over 3 years ago. The similarities are undeniable.

Apples to oranges.

Those tests sought to fundamentally changed the PvP experience: changing group sizes, cooldowns on skills, changing who can heal who, removal of sets, etc.. That's why those experiences were terrible and why they were ultimately dropped from consideration.

This test isn't changing the game, rather addressing one specific problem: the map is way too big for the small population on it.

During the two years I was gone, people constantly told me they fixed the lag and I should come back. While I now see that was an exaggeration, it's also true that things are better than what they were 4 years ago. So if Zos wants to spend a week seeing if more pop can be added to what has become a stale experience, I'm all for it and will be a willing participant in those tests.

If it turns out to be a lagfest, it's not a big deal. Nothing is lost. It doesn't fundamentally change the situation: here just waiting for the next MMO. If it does turns out that they did the past 4 years allows for basically the same experience we have now with 20 extra players per alliance, then all the better

The fear is they will use this "test" as an excuse to further reduce pop caps in cyrodiil, which is what they did after the last round of tests. Or what if they cut the group size in half again, like they did after the last round of tests so max group size is only 6 people? I don't know if Cyrodiil can survive with pop caps or group sizes lower than the already massively lowered pop caps.

The point is that, using ZOS's own words, they already know that more server resources are what's needed, so why new "tests"?

Ok. Have it your way.

The devs will continue to do nothing at all with PvP, no new BGs, no new Cyrodiil content, no development resources forever, no tests at all for possible improvements, no changes, nothing.

Have fun.

CameraBeardThePirate · December 2023

reazea wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

This post made me cringe.

I take it you play Daggerfall Covenant? 🤷‍♂️

I have leveled accounts for all three factions and can play any faction at any time without using a faction change token. However, I set these alteranate accounts up during the heyday of Cyrodiil, and almost all my friends have left the game with the exception of one guild on one faction. So I don't faction hop anymore these days to speak of.

I rarely play DC because they are most often the faction that is winning and over populated already, and the guild I run with daily is not on DC.

Then what made you cringe? lol

Because his post, at least to me, sounded like the start of us receiving attention to Cyrodiil again which is something those of us who PvP all want.

I'm fairly certain that Saffron is referring to these tests that lasted months, were horrific to play through, and never resulted in any changes of any kind that helped performance in any way.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/539136/update-on-cyrodiil-performance-upcoming-aoe-tests

Read the announcement made today and compare it to the announcement I linked to from over 3 years ago. The similarities are undeniable.

Apples to oranges.

Those tests sought to fundamentally changed the PvP experience: changing group sizes, cooldowns on skills, changing who can heal who, removal of sets, etc.. That's why those experiences were terrible and why they were ultimately dropped from consideration.

This test isn't changing the game, rather addressing one specific problem: the map is way too big for the small population on it.

During the two years I was gone, people constantly told me they fixed the lag and I should come back. While I now see that was an exaggeration, it's also true that things are better than what they were 4 years ago. So if Zos wants to spend a week seeing if more pop can be added to what has become a stale experience, I'm all for it and will be a willing participant in those tests.

If it turns out to be a lagfest, it's not a big deal. Nothing is lost. It doesn't fundamentally change the situation: here just waiting for the next MMO. If it does turns out that they did the past 4 years allows for basically the same experience we have now with 20 extra players per alliance, then all the better

The fear is they will use this "test" as an excuse to further reduce pop caps in cyrodiil, which is what they did after the last round of tests. Or what if they cut the group size in half again, like they did after the last round of tests so max group size is only 6 people? I don't know if Cyrodiil can survive with pop caps or group sizes lower than the already massively lowered pop caps.

The point is that, using ZOS's own words, they already know that more server resources are what's needed, so why new "tests"?

There is no reason to believe they would further reduce the pop caps or group size.

The last round of changes was specifically intended to reduce lag - when none of the tests worked, they reduced pop caps and group size.

These changes are quite literally the exact opposite - lag has gotten better, so they're testing increased pop caps. They're not going to just say "never mind we're reducing them instead!" because there's no longer a reason to.

GooGa592 · December 2023

ZOS knows that all they have to do to increase pop caps and bring back 24 man group sizes, without decreasing performance, is to increase server resources for the zone.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/637691/server-multithreading-update-july-2023/p1

" Fortunately, the recent upgrade to server hardware has resulted in more customer-facing server performance improvements than any of our multithreading work in all public realms where we’ve completed the work." - ZOS

They don't need to run any kind of tests. They already know what they need to do.

React · December 2023

GooGa592 wrote: »

ZOS knows that all they have to do to increase pop caps and bring back 24 man group sizes, without decreasing performance, is to increase server resources for the zone.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/637691/server-multithreading-update-july-2023/p1

" Fortunately, the recent upgrade to server hardware has resulted in more customer-facing server performance improvements than any of our multithreading work in all public realms where we’ve completed the work." - ZOS

They don't need to run any kind of tests. They already know what they need to do.

This has really irked me over the past year and a half since the hardware was replaced. We saw genuinely the best performance the game has ever had for about 3-5 months, then things mysteriously deteriorated again. However, each time a PVP event rolled around the servers performed just as well as they did during those brief 3-5 months following the replacement.

We know without a doubt that increasing the resources allocated to cyrodiil will drastically improve the situation, so to see them indefinitely postpone any and all PVP content/balancing while they work on a "code rewrite" which has made no progress in two years is extremely frustrating.

Jaraal · December 2023

Aldmeri Dominion

React wrote: »

We saw genuinely the best performance the game has ever had for about 3-5 months, then things mysteriously deteriorated again.

Remember when they introduced Account Wide Achievements with Update 33? They stated that achievement data had accumulated over the years to the point that it was hogging resources and negatively impacting server performance. So they said that nuking alt achievements and consolidating them into an account based system would not only improve performance, but that it would 'make room for new systems (companions, card game, Endless Archive, etc) and new achievements'.

Well, these new systems have come with a plethora of fresh achievements. And based upon their original reasoning, it's logical that they are also having an impact on server performance, as they continue to accumulate and take up data space. Add to that all the flashy new particle heavy arms packs, mounts, pets, polymorphs, recall effects, and the like.... and you can quickly understand how improving performance by adding new hardware will eventually be overtaken by new data requirements.