How to make Cyrodiil more fun? No lag sourced from dead players and 4 person max groups.

Skoomah · October 26

It’s come to my attention that Cyrodiil connoisseurs constantly complain about lag.

1. Dead Players - I recommend introducing more ways to kill players through big booms like Azureblight. There just isn’t enough methods to tickle 20v1’s from folks that have few friends.

2. Group Size - Reduce the calculations even further to reduce lag by making groups max out at 4 players. It’s only fair for people who like to solo in a large scale PvP zone.

Minno · October 28

Should limit classes to 2 skill tree worth of points. That should help reduce the need for 100's of passives from making checks (similar to how everyone didnt have all the trees unlocked at 2014 launch).

That would be better since it:
1) promotes build importance. Planned downsides to all classes too because you are locked out of your 3rd skill tree or weapon line.
2) helps newer players since they wont need everything unlocked.
3) helps balance the game since you can now switch a tree to pure pve or pure pvp or role related changes.
4) add more passives/skill selections.

Coo_PnT · October 28

The main problem is that there are not enough people in Cyrodiil. If we had more people, we could deal with Ball Group and deploy to many locations at the same time. It is best to bring people back.

davelbier · October 28

Minno wrote: »

Should limit classes to 2 skill tree worth of points. That should help reduce the need for 100's of passives from making checks (similar to how everyone didnt have all the trees unlocked at 2014 launch).

That would be better since it:
1) promotes build importance. Planned downsides to all classes too because you are locked out of your 3rd skill tree or weapon line.
2) helps newer players since they wont need everything unlocked.
3) helps balance the game since you can now switch a tree to pure pve or pure pvp or role related changes.
4) add more passives/skill selections.

im kinda with you, because id prefer pvp be more skill-gated than Set/CP gated. but when they did no-proc a couple years ago they got a lot of flak for it. partially...it was not implemented well, the no-proc list wasnt right and people were testing all the time to see what worked. i believe this persisted in the NO CP campaign later.

battle spirit could be used to limit a lot of things - or cap a lot of things - to let people run what they want to run, but still limit how powerful it can all be. honestly i dont think people would love that either but ....meh. i really love eso pvp in the right situations, but most situations kinda suck.

i started to play hunt showdown - very different type of game - but new people and old people die about the same. yeah, you can get some buffs and some fancy weapons, but if you take a beginner cheap ass shotgun to the face you are gonna die. it does have its own game play and balance problems, sure, but as a new person im loving it and the real deal is that a lot of it is down to skill.

Minno · October 28

davelbier wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Should limit classes to 2 skill tree worth of points. That should help reduce the need for 100's of passives from making checks (similar to how everyone didnt have all the trees unlocked at 2014 launch).

That would be better since it:
1) promotes build importance. Planned downsides to all classes too because you are locked out of your 3rd skill tree or weapon line.
2) helps newer players since they wont need everything unlocked.
3) helps balance the game since you can now switch a tree to pure pve or pure pvp or role related changes.
4) add more passives/skill selections.

im kinda with you, because id prefer pvp be more skill-gated than Set/CP gated. but when they did no-proc a couple years ago they got a lot of flak for it. partially...it was not implemented well, the no-proc list wasnt right and people were testing all the time to see what worked. i believe this persisted in the NO CP campaign later.

battle spirit could be used to limit a lot of things - or cap a lot of things - to let people run what they want to run, but still limit how powerful it can all be. honestly i dont think people would love that either but ....meh. i really love eso pvp in the right situations, but most situations kinda suck.

i started to play hunt showdown - very different type of game - but new people and old people die about the same. yeah, you can get some buffs and some fancy weapons, but if you take a beginner cheap ass shotgun to the face you are gonna die. it does have its own game play and balance problems, sure, but as a new person im loving it and the real deal is that a lot of it is down to skill.

After playing new world and WoW Classic (including studying Kevin Jordan's class design), there are some things ESO gets right. But one thing ESO fails hard is falling into the trap you need 2 separate mechanics for pve/pvp. You don't but you need to pay for a game designer to sit there an do a skill audit around more than just gameplay (sometimes things just need to feel thematic, and you can't do that looking at data metrics.)

TBH the new CP system is much better than the old one. I assume it forces the calculations against 4x4x4 nodes and a few extra ones instead of all the calcs it had to do before.

davelbier · October 29

Minno wrote: »

davelbier wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Should limit classes to 2 skill tree worth of points. That should help reduce the need for 100's of passives from making checks (similar to how everyone didnt have all the trees unlocked at 2014 launch).

That would be better since it:
1) promotes build importance. Planned downsides to all classes too because you are locked out of your 3rd skill tree or weapon line.
2) helps newer players since they wont need everything unlocked.
3) helps balance the game since you can now switch a tree to pure pve or pure pvp or role related changes.
4) add more passives/skill selections.

im kinda with you, because id prefer pvp be more skill-gated than Set/CP gated. but when they did no-proc a couple years ago they got a lot of flak for it. partially...it was not implemented well, the no-proc list wasnt right and people were testing all the time to see what worked. i believe this persisted in the NO CP campaign later.

battle spirit could be used to limit a lot of things - or cap a lot of things - to let people run what they want to run, but still limit how powerful it can all be. honestly i dont think people would love that either but ....meh. i really love eso pvp in the right situations, but most situations kinda suck.

i started to play hunt showdown - very different type of game - but new people and old people die about the same. yeah, you can get some buffs and some fancy weapons, but if you take a beginner cheap ass shotgun to the face you are gonna die. it does have its own game play and balance problems, sure, but as a new person im loving it and the real deal is that a lot of it is down to skill.

After playing new world and WoW Classic (including studying Kevin Jordan's class design), there are some things ESO gets right. But one thing ESO fails hard is falling into the trap you need 2 separate mechanics for pve/pvp. You don't but you need to pay for a game designer to sit there an do a skill audit around more than just gameplay (sometimes things just need to feel thematic, and you can't do that looking at data metrics.)

TBH the new CP system is much better than the old one. I assume it forces the calculations against 4x4x4 nodes and a few extra ones instead of all the calcs it had to do before.

yeah thats part of the reason they changed the CP bit - i kinda wonder if they couldnt just have a pvp-battle-spirit-table to scale down values for pvp-zones when you load in. couldnt really apply it to duels in PVE land then, but starting from a source like that could save a lot of calculation overhead in cyro and IC. and give us a PVP arena house for duels so you could do the same.

im no game dev, thats a lot of BS speculation lol but having pve and pvp in this game the way they do really hurts what could be a wonderful pvp experience

baguette_poolish · October 29

4 person max groups would be great, also limit healing to those 4 only and no heal stacking between. If Ball groups still wanna play together, they can just follow the other groups of 4 to the best of their ability with their eyes.

xylena_lazarow · October 29

Love the max group 4 idea.

SaffronCitrusflower · October 29

Skoomah wrote: »

It’s come to my attention that Cyrodiil connoisseurs constantly complain about lag.

1. Dead Players - I recommend introducing more ways to kill players through big booms like Azureblight. There just isn’t enough methods to tickle 20v1’s from folks that have few friends.

2. Group Size - Reduce the calculations even further to reduce lag by making groups max out at 4 players. It’s only fair for people who like to solo in a large scale PvP zone.

This reads like a PvE players version of how to turn Cyrodiil into a PvE only zone.

Group size of 4? Really? Group size should be 24, as it originally was.

SaffronCitrusflower · October 29

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Love the max group 4 idea.

Cyrodiil is supposed to be large groups fighting large groups. Not 2-4 egomaniacs crushing everyone because they haven't left cyrodiil in the last decade and have everything perfectly optimized for pug stomping.

xylena_lazarow · October 29

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Cyrodiil is supposed to be large groups fighting large groups. Not 2-4 egomaniacs crushing everyone because they haven't left cyrodiil in the last decade and have everything perfectly optimized for pug stomping.

4 person groups die to zergs and will often get tired of being 40v4'd and just zerg surf themselves. Each additional player you add to a group makes you exponentially stronger, so an optimized 12 person is orders of magnitude stronger than an optimized 4 person, and now the 12v40 is heavily in favor of the 12 just based on the stat sheet alone.

edward_frigidhands · October 30

Minno wrote: »

Should limit classes to 2 skill tree worth of points. That should help reduce the need for 100's of passives from making checks (similar to how everyone didnt have all the trees unlocked at 2014 launch).

That would be better since it:
1) promotes build importance. Planned downsides to all classes too because you are locked out of your 3rd skill tree or weapon line.
2) helps newer players since they wont need everything unlocked.
3) helps balance the game since you can now switch a tree to pure pve or pure pvp or role related changes.
4) add more passives/skill selections.

These are all bad ideas and a fast track to people hitting the unsubscribe and/or uninstall buttons. And I am not just talking about the first post here.

The game's combat, design and "play your way" style is what people still are around for.

For the life of me I can't understand why the vocal minority of pvpers on these forums want that very life blood gone from their game experience.

There are occasions I am glad the developers don't take these forums very seriously, this is one of them

If you need more than 2/3 of this game deleted and redesigned for you to enjoy it, you want a different game.

edward_frigidhands · October 30

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Skoomah wrote: »

It’s come to my attention that Cyrodiil connoisseurs constantly complain about lag.

1. Dead Players - I recommend introducing more ways to kill players through big booms like Azureblight. There just isn’t enough methods to tickle 20v1’s from folks that have few friends.

2. Group Size - Reduce the calculations even further to reduce lag by making groups max out at 4 players. It’s only fair for people who like to solo in a large scale PvP zone.

This reads like a PvE players version of how to turn Cyrodiil into a PvE only zone.

Group size of 4? Really? Group size should be 24, as it originally was.

It should never have changed from 24. It didn't affect the presence of ball groups, just the ability of other groups to fight them.

xylena_lazarow · October 30

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

It should never have changed from 24. It didn't affect the presence of ball groups, just the ability of other groups to fight them.

I actually agree with this. 4 would be fine. 24 would be fine. But 12 is like, the worst of both worlds.

Celas_Dranacea · October 30

You are all wrong! Group size should be a max of 3 sorcs, and if they don’t streak away or run around a rock at least once per minute, the group automatically disbands.

Theignson · October 30

Make group size 12 or more but absolutely no cross heals or any other group heals /effects.

Then you can benefit from the huge skill and wisdom of the group and its leader, eg coordination, maneuvering etc. Of course you would also benefit from combined damage as is now the case.

But you have to heal yourself, buff yourself, shield yourself etc etc. No cross heals, no stacking hots, no group heals. Every person has to take care of themselves

Man I would love that

Minno · October 31

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Should limit classes to 2 skill tree worth of points. That should help reduce the need for 100's of passives from making checks (similar to how everyone didnt have all the trees unlocked at 2014 launch).

That would be better since it:
1) promotes build importance. Planned downsides to all classes too because you are locked out of your 3rd skill tree or weapon line.
2) helps newer players since they wont need everything unlocked.
3) helps balance the game since you can now switch a tree to pure pve or pure pvp or role related changes.
4) add more passives/skill selections.

These are all bad ideas and a fast track to people hitting the unsubscribe and/or uninstall buttons. And I am not just talking about the first post here.

The game's combat, design and "play your way" style is what people still are around for.

For the life of me I can't understand why the vocal minority of pvpers on these forums want that very life blood gone from their game experience.

There are occasions I am glad the developers don't take these forums very seriously, this is one of them

If you need more than 2/3 of this game deleted and redesigned for you to enjoy it, you want a different game.

Designed gameplay limitations is good game design. TBH the pve could use a good old shakeup like this (I remember it being dot stacking across all DPS classes with healers limited to classes with healing trees). You might end up with more raid mechanics as a result, if say the templar identity as a tank is defined one way over the DK, maybe in a way that results in being forced to bring an extra tank.

But it is also ok to make the templar "tank" be more a pvp oriented class/spec, you can tread that line in a successful way. That templar pvp tank, would need more skillful play to perform in pve, but that is ok too. Players having access to higher ceilings of class difficulties is not the end of the world, so long as the avenue to craft them exists.

You can also just turn off the talents in pvp, but this is not good game design. You want the core kits to translate across game modes. The fun and power should exist within that class kit regardless of choice and gamemode.

edward_frigidhands · October 31

Minno wrote: »

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Should limit classes to 2 skill tree worth of points. That should help reduce the need for 100's of passives from making checks (similar to how everyone didnt have all the trees unlocked at 2014 launch).

That would be better since it:
1) promotes build importance. Planned downsides to all classes too because you are locked out of your 3rd skill tree or weapon line.
2) helps newer players since they wont need everything unlocked.
3) helps balance the game since you can now switch a tree to pure pve or pure pvp or role related changes.
4) add more passives/skill selections.

These are all bad ideas and a fast track to people hitting the unsubscribe and/or uninstall buttons. And I am not just talking about the first post here.

The game's combat, design and "play your way" style is what people still are around for.

For the life of me I can't understand why the vocal minority of pvpers on these forums want that very life blood gone from their game experience.

There are occasions I am glad the developers don't take these forums very seriously, this is one of them

If you need more than 2/3 of this game deleted and redesigned for you to enjoy it, you want a different game.

Designed gameplay limitations is good game design.

Chopping away entire parts of the game and the many gameplay choices it offers is not good game design.

What you have suggested is in direct conflict with ESO's core design philosophy of allowing players the build diversity to employ their creativity through access to many different skill lines and set bonuses.

Iriidius · October 31

Group size of 4 would completely destroy what remains of PuGs. It encourages grouping with the 4 strongest players available and not let anyone else into the group. more than people already do now.
It also does not protect solo players as smallscales are more successfull at killing solos than 12 man or even 24 man PuGs and often the whole faction plays like 1 group now stacking at 1 location

At least it would hurt ballgroups, but there are less drastic ways that not destroy other playstyles. Ballgroup defend against nerfs with the argument players in an mmorpg should be able to multiplay massively in a big group like there are no other ways to do that than a ballgroup and with reducing group size to 4 there aren’t.

PuGs and ballgroups/smallscales use group tool different. PuGs use group tool for group chat and share location (on map) to rally. Ballgroups use group tool for groupexclusive buffs and in u28 also heals, share addon information, differ members from „useless“ randoms and ball up while they communicate using voicechat in discord/ts.
PuGs using group tool only to communicate/rally randoms out of combatneed more people to be viable and should be able to group with more people than ballgroups using group in combat to get stronger not only by playing together like they become one entity but also by group buffs increasing stat and %modifiers.

Iriidius · October 31

Groups could be reworked to groups and subgroups where only the subgroups have group_exclusive buffs/heals. Could also make subgroups be part of groups so players can play closely with their friends and less close with random allies. This would also allow keeping unreliable and unskilled members in your group without confusing them with your subgroup core members insteat of kicking them. Group would have 24 and subgroup 4-6 members. 6 man would allow keeping ballgroup playstile without beeing too effektive.

Iriidius · October 31

Or you could drop groupexclusive completely because it is not balanced that a 12man group can share buffs and 2 solos they fight cant. Solo players beeing excluded from groupbuffs even when in range without getting any compensation makes them 2nd class players.

xylena_lazarow · October 31

Iriidius wrote: »

Group size of 4 would completely destroy what remains of PuGs

Pugs are already dead. 12 pugs get obliterated by 4 (or fewer) smallscalers on the regular. It's simply too few players for casual randoms to do anything. They need either 24, or to learn to zerg surf on zone calls. Meanwhile, 12 is a near optimal number for mega tryhards to ruin the entire server. If the max is 4 then groups of tryhards are killable.

Minno · October 31

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

Group size of 4 would completely destroy what remains of PuGs

Pugs are already dead. 12 pugs get obliterated by 4 (or fewer) smallscalers on the regular. It's simply too few players for casual randoms to do anything. They need either 24, or to learn to zerg surf on zone calls. Meanwhile, 12 is a near optimal number for mega tryhards to ruin the entire server. If the max is 4 then groups of tryhards are killable.

too much emphasis on the keeps. The group size means little when your only course of action is to go to 1-2 of adjacent keeps in line.

I sometimes wish the map was not as detailed for pvp. Being able to see seige numbers+when a keep is flagged does more harm than good. Scouts would be more important if the map just had white icons like in pve, and you had to rely on zone chat+sounds+visual animations nearby to determine where you go next.

reazea · October 31

Minno wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

Group size of 4 would completely destroy what remains of PuGs

Pugs are already dead. 12 pugs get obliterated by 4 (or fewer) smallscalers on the regular. It's simply too few players for casual randoms to do anything. They need either 24, or to learn to zerg surf on zone calls. Meanwhile, 12 is a near optimal number for mega tryhards to ruin the entire server. If the max is 4 then groups of tryhards are killable.

too much emphasis on the keeps. The group size means little when your only course of action is to go to 1-2 of adjacent keeps in line.

I sometimes wish the map was not as detailed for pvp. Being able to see seige numbers+when a keep is flagged does more harm than good. Scouts would be more important if the map just had white icons like in pve, and you had to rely on zone chat+sounds+visual animations nearby to determine where you go next.

The cyrodiil alerts stuff should never have been implemented. It's just more stuff for the server to process and is an automated scouting system, like you say.

xylena_lazarow · October 31

reazea wrote: »

The cyrodiil alerts stuff should never have been implemented. It's just more stuff for the server to process and is an automated scouting system, like you say.

You're right, pugs that attempt to hit back keeps or outposts get obliterated by organized guilds in seconds thanks to the guild claim alert thing they added, on top of already existing addons that automate certain parts of scouting. I know people clown on PvDoor but pugs need to be able to do something other than just zerg surf the circle outposts.

peacenote · October 31

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Skoomah wrote: »

It’s come to my attention that Cyrodiil connoisseurs constantly complain about lag.

1. Dead Players - I recommend introducing more ways to kill players through big booms like Azureblight. There just isn’t enough methods to tickle 20v1’s from folks that have few friends.

2. Group Size - Reduce the calculations even further to reduce lag by making groups max out at 4 players. It’s only fair for people who like to solo in a large scale PvP zone.

This reads like a PvE players version of how to turn Cyrodiil into a PvE only zone.

Group size of 4? Really? Group size should be 24, as it originally was.

It should never have changed from 24. It didn't affect the presence of ball groups, just the ability of other groups to fight them.

As someone who loves being a healer in PvP, and often goes out as a solo or duo, I agree with this. It is harder to find a pug, or join semi-organized groups to fight the organized groups as a semi-casual PvP-er with the group size as it is. I miss the group size of 24. Also for a while I was in a PvP guild and, at the time, it was just adding unnecessary un-fun steps to coordinate between two groups. It didn't keep people from having 24 players -- it just made it even tougher to be a group lead, which is a role that's hard to find to begin with.

Groups of 4 would, in my opinion, completely kill the "large scale" feel of Cyrodiil which is what makes it unique, and make it that much harder for faction and team leaders. And btw, pugs are not dead, at least not when and where I play, because I join them!

While we are on the topic, the resto staff and its basic skills existed since beta. I'm really tired of healing calculations being blamed for the lag. And I'm also tired of people essentially trying to eradicate healing and its role in PvP based on this narrative -- it's a fun role to play! After ZOS made all of the healing changes to test whether it made a difference in PvP (the big ones being changes to Healing Springs and the Orb) they did come out and say that the changes did not help. I'm not inclined at this moment to go find the forum post to "prove" it, but they left the changes in because they liked them for other reasons (and because, let's face it, they never reverse things) but this was one of the few times where they admitted that it didn't have a noticeable difference towards their original goal. Removing cross-healing would take away most of what is "fun" about healing. It's as problematic of a concept as the Pale Order ring was when it first came out.

Minno · November 1

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

The cyrodiil alerts stuff should never have been implemented. It's just more stuff for the server to process and is an automated scouting system, like you say.

You're right, pugs that attempt to hit back keeps or outposts get obliterated by organized guilds in seconds thanks to the guild claim alert thing they added, on top of already existing addons that automate certain parts of scouting. I know people clown on PvDoor but pugs need to be able to do something other than just zerg surf the circle outposts.

wait they added ANOTHER alert? My comment needs to include that now ahha.
They should remove alot of alerts/checks in pvp in general. There is no reason BGs need to have giant font yelling at you a timer or score. As a player you should be tracking that stuff as part of your skillset, press the menu button, and take ownership of some of these things.

The level of hand-holding in games is a little too high.

Jabbs_Giggity · November 4

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Skoomah wrote: »

It’s come to my attention that Cyrodiil connoisseurs constantly complain about lag.

1. Dead Players - I recommend introducing more ways to kill players through big booms like Azureblight. There just isn’t enough methods to tickle 20v1’s from folks that have few friends.

2. Group Size - Reduce the calculations even further to reduce lag by making groups max out at 4 players. It’s only fair for people who like to solo in a large scale PvP zone.

This reads like a PvE players version of how to turn Cyrodiil into a PvE only zone.

Group size of 4? Really? Group size should be 24, as it originally was.

In a sense, I do agree with this. Group size should have never been limited down from 24 in AVA. IC, yes - this should be limited to 6-8 per group.
The biggest issues in Cyrodiil right now is the practical imbalance of building for damage, while also not sacrificing defense and recovery. This is one of the biggest failures of ZOS with class identify being stripped, homogenization of skills (though I do enjoy building for hybrid playstyle across all classes).
Another big failure of ZOS is not limiting cross heals in groups. This is why players hate coming across ball groups. With Snowtreaders, massive cross heals, proc and pull sets, and large damage shield sets that require no skill activation (Nibenay Bay Battlereeve).

To build for damage, we used to have to work for it with sets like Fury and Ravager which required a degree of skill to last until it was at its full potential. Now you just slot Tarnished, or Rushing Agony, or Way of Fire, etc.

The skill floor to PVP has been removed and set at the ceiling...

Jabbs_Giggity · November 4

peacenote wrote: »

While we are on the topic, the resto staff and its basic skills existed since beta. I'm really tired of healing calculations being blamed for the lag. And I'm also tired of people essentially trying to eradicate healing and its role in PvP based on this narrative -- it's a fun role to play! After ZOS made all of the healing changes to test whether it made a difference in PvP (the big ones being changes to Healing Springs and the Orb) they did come out and say that the changes did not help. I'm not inclined at this moment to go find the forum post to "prove" it, but they left the changes in because they liked them for other reasons (and because, let's face it, they never reverse things) but this was one of the few times where they admitted that it didn't have a noticeable difference towards their original goal. Removing cross-healing would take away most of what is "fun" about healing. It's as problematic of a concept as the Pale Order ring was when it first came out.

Cross healing is the problem. To think any different is naïve, in my opinion. Sure, as a healer your job is to heal the whole group. If you have multiple healers, you increase your survivability. However, there should not be 12 vigors going on 12 players all at once. Any form of HoT and/or shields that applies to allies should not be able to cross-stack, PERIOD. Burst heals, sure.
The same concept could be said of DoT's of the same source. You should not be able to apply 12 venomous claws to one person (not that this would ever realistically happen).

The list goes on for broken mechanics abused in PVP. Rushing Agony not following suit with CC Immunity.

Skoomah · November 4

Guys, I was just joking around.

xylena_lazarow · November 5

Skoomah wrote: »

Guys, I was just joking around.

In that case, let me propose Pale Order Mode. Battle Spirit now gives the Pale Order Ring effect of being limited to self healing only, but you get lifesteal on damage to make up for it. This would fix every problem with the meta.