Sounds interesting.
My concerns are

1. will enough playstyles per class be supported (e.g. will sorc be narrowed to "magsorc only instead of allowing "stamsorc" etc)
2. how balanced will those templates be (if 1 class template gets far more power than others it's a bit niffy)
3. wouldn't ranked BG be the better place for template vs template fights? (I understand why they test it in cyro - just from a design decision)
   [/list

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Sounds interesting.
My concerns are

1. will enough playstyles per class be supported (e.g. will sorc be narrowed to "magsorc only instead of allowing "stamsorc" etc)
2. how balanced will those templates be (if 1 class template gets far more power than others it's a bit niffy)
3. wouldn't ranked BG be the better place for template vs template fights? (I understand why they test it in cyro - just from a design decision)
   [/list

If the point was to create a perfect balanced pvp, I would agree with the latter. However, I think the point is to strip characters down to the fewest moving pieces to see if they can get everyone in One Cyrodiil. After that, they will start trading capacity for customization until they find an acceptable balance.

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Sounds interesting.
My concerns are

1. will enough playstyles per class be supported (e.g. will sorc be narrowed to "magsorc only instead of allowing "stamsorc" etc)
2. how balanced will those templates be (if 1 class template gets far more power than others it's a bit niffy)
3. wouldn't ranked BG be the better place for template vs template fights? (I understand why they test it in cyro - just from a design decision)
   [/list

Not sure how they will handle Magicka vs Stamina, but the lines are blurred on that right now anyway, so I don't know that it matters as much anymore. I think the bigger question is how will all the weapon types be supported.

As for one class being META, I hope that it will be easier to identify something that is over performing and correct it when the number of skills and what the skills do are this limited.

As for BG vs AvA, since BGs already have a small population per fight the impact is lower to have all the build choices available at least from a game performance perspective. My understanding is that the goal is to allow large fights with less population restriction in the AvA battles. I assume if this becomes a popular way to play, it could be extended to BGs as well.

Zos also hasnt come out to talk about their stance on pve vs pvp. Prior they had always said that they wanted pve and pvp to be equivalent feeling and numbers wise. It was mainly to help new players not get confused, but over the years that design concept doesnt hold much salt now. Most new players can hardly tell what is going on in combat now with all of the added buffs, procs, animations going on.

New skills lets zos balance pve and pvp seperately. Effectively they will have two games to balance, but atleast the team can listen to feedback more clearly instead of "This is strong in pvp, nerf it"...... " That is needed in pve, dont nerf it"

kojou wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Zos also hasnt come out to talk about their stance on pve vs pvp. Prior they had always said that they wanted pve and pvp to be equivalent feeling and numbers wise. It was mainly to help new players not get confused, but over the years that design concept doesnt hold much salt now. Most new players can hardly tell what is going on in combat now with all of the added buffs, procs, animations going on.

New skills lets zos balance pve and pvp seperately. Effectively they will have two games to balance, but atleast the team can listen to feedback more clearly instead of "This is strong in pvp, nerf it"...... " That is needed in pve, dont nerf it"

I think the "new" limited AvA experience will be better for new players. The skills should be roughly similar to what they are already used to with their class, but they won't have to farm all the META sets and skill lines to be relevant.

For new and pve players for sure, this will be leaps and bounds better for them to jump in and learn. I always found it strange seeing new and bad players in greyhost. The more options and build choices to make, the weaker you are against someone who minmaxes every 0.1%....... I would know I abuse every numerical choice I can with 10 years of knowledge and hours testing each day.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

the weaker you are against someone who minmaxes every 0.1%....... I would know I abuse every numerical choice I can with 10 years of knowledge and hours testing each day.

As one of these minmaxers, I've no interest in a diet Cyro over other PvP game like Rivals or Fortnite or whatever, and no faith it'll be balanced unless the classes are just skins. However, if it kills the ball group meta, I'm giving it a shot.

I haven't changed my build or looked at CMX in months.

Regardless of ballgroup I would rather peoples actions have more input into pvp than what sets or passive buffs they are sitting on. Ideally I would want pvp to be nocp entirely. Proc damage sets like vipers, tarnished, sloads to do no damage. With skills being brought back to earth being only actives that are more unique.

Skills and stat sets can be way more interesting, its sad that people these days cant even comprehend a game where your active skills are interesting. One example would be crit surge for stamsorcs. If they made it simpler and got rid of the cooldown, suddenly buildpaths sprout up everywhere. You could suddenly build a dotsorc to get more ticks in a 1v1. You could fight outnumbered and have something to level the playingfield heal wise. Crit becomes a more interesting stat, dots become more interesting, you know suddenly building isnt just about stacking pen and wd with 4 timeable light attack procs.

Big pros for me:
- There will be no proc sets at all, so no annoying pull/push sets & burst dmg sets.
- Limited skills (class only), so no Scribing, no Vamp, no Resto or Destro staff dominance.
- Limited AOE / Group healing / DMG Shields (they teased that for example in order to heal other player, you will have to target that player). Hopefully, that means either no ball groups at all, or ball groups that can be stopped.

Unknowns:
It all depends how class skills will be balanced and what "Vengeance" versions of those skills will do. For instance:
- Streak will streak, but will it have other effects or ramping cost ? There will be no way to buff up movement speed & gap closers will be limited to class only, and range of those is already low.
- Cloak. How will it work ? Will it Cloak you at all ? Sources of detection will also be limited (detection potions may become mandatory ?).

Those are just some examples, but depending on how it will be done, it may actually make class choice important again. Each class will be "OP" at something again.

For me, there are really no serious cons. The only thing I am worried about is that PvP related achievements will be "on" and you will be able to get some, while I sincerely belive that for a madnes test like this PvP related achievements should be disabled for obvious reasons.

It's double AP and the only available campaign during its testing week, so it's going to be populated no matter what.

As for it's popularity, people are going to need to understand that this isn't going to be the final product. Class skills and templated stats are only there for the test because everything else is disabled. More will be added to it down the road. The stream team seems to have gotten more information than what was provided to us, and the consensus looks to be that it's not going to become like a hero shooter with minimal loadout options. Other skill lines and sets do look like they're going to be added later. The whole idea of the test is to to pinpoint the performance issues so and balance skills specifically for PvP so we can get something similar to what we currently have but with a massive increase to population.

kojou wrote: »

I know there are some theory-crafters that will be disappointed

Because the rule set is going to be different for one week? That doesn't make sense.

I'll try it out. But if the test is successful I hope it only stays in Cyrodiil. I'm a battlegrounds player first and I don't want my builds to be limited.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Eso only got popular because of its pvp combat early on, which was mostly simplified straight forward skills and sets.

Two of the sets that I got gud on in 2014 were Twin Sisters, probably the craziest bleed proc ever, and Whitestrake, a shield proc that auto saved you from being bursted once every 15 seconds. Stat sets were kinda boring to me in that you just go for the biggest or most dense numbers in support of whatever playstyle, whereas procs also did stuff.

This game in 2014 was full of bizarre math like Resto being BIS for PvE damage at one point. There was no straightforward path leading to weird overpowered tactics like animation cancelling or perma block casting. Turned out if you run Weighted and ani cancel like a skooma fiend, you could run those perma block casters out of stam, but few bothered trying.

That sounds all good and peachy, but the two major negatives are that you start undermining the GCD system and clutter combat with animations. Before each player would have 2-3 animations outgoing and now you can have the 2-3 skill animations and a monster animation, 2 sets, and a mythic, arena. Idk I would rather they keep the integrity of the combat system and make skills and stats more interesting or interactive with each other.

Stat sets are boring and you just go for the most dense set...... proc sets are boring and you just go for the highest tooltip that automatically kills someone for you. The difference is that the stat requires someone to actively attack you to do damage, where the proc set can just passively do damage for you outside of the gcd system.

Well the old perma block became a thing when zos changed the rules of what hit block. Before all dots would hit each tick of block cost, meaning you could gas out someone blocking fairly easily solo with dots. When these effects stopped hitting block, now you could only hit 2-3 ticks instead of the full 8 per second. Today the only reason you can stop permablock builds is with unblockable stuns or by accidentally catching them out when weapon swapping.

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Big pros for me:
- There will be no proc sets at all, so no annoying pull/push sets & burst dmg sets.
- Limited skills (class only), so no Scribing, no Vamp, no Resto or Destro staff dominance.
- Limited AOE / Group healing / DMG Shields (they teased that for example in order to heal other player, you will have to target that player). Hopefully, that means either no ball groups at all, or ball groups that can be stopped.

Unknowns:
It all depends how class skills will be balanced and what "Vengeance" versions of those skills will do. For instance:
- Streak will streak, but will it have other effects or ramping cost ? There will be no way to buff up movement speed & gap closers will be limited to class only, and range of those is already low.
- Cloak. How will it work ? Will it Cloak you at all ? Sources of detection will also be limited (detection potions may become mandatory ?).

Those are just some examples, but depending on how it will be done, it may actually make class choice important again. Each class will be "OP" at something again.

For me, there are really no serious cons. The only thing I am worried about is that PvP related achievements will be "on" and you will be able to get some, while I sincerely belive that for a madnes test like this PvP related achievements should be disabled for obvious reasons.

Was there an announcement saying there would be no proc sets or what the campaign conditions? A page, thread, or video where all the information we know is compiled somewhere?

I'll wait until after I try it out to form an opinion, but I'm definitely looking forward to trying it out.

If the older campaigns are still an option once the new campaign is out of the testing phase and has gone live, I might stick to my existing home campaign, at least for a while, because I've never changed my home campaign before and am not sure how that works as far as the best way to go about it, what if any penalties might be incurred for switching, etc.

kojou wrote: »

So far just the Twitch stream, which showed:
- No Passives (Champion or Otherwise)
- No Set Bonuses
- No Skills Outside of some limited versions of class skills

I'm sure there will be more details soon, but they will be putting a new campaign in the live server for a performance test for us to see how it works. This may be what gets me to do some PvP more regularly if it works.

This is the only written thing I have seen. So rip tri-pot spammers.

Update 45
Arriving in tandem with the dungeon DLC is the Update 45 base-game patch. This free update includes a host of changes and improvements that all ESO players can enjoy.

Cyrodiil Champions Test Campaign

Update 45 introduces the early stages of the new Cyrodiil Champions test PvP campaign. When playing a Cyrodiil Champions test campaign, you and your fellow players are locked to specific class builds, including abilities, attributes, and items. This test allows us to monitor how the server reacts to simplified abilities, with the goal being to collect data and help us plan for the future of Cyrodiil and abilities.

During this test, seven set Cyrodiil Champion classes are available, and access to some features are blocked, including Crown Store provisions, items not included in the class templates, and more. During a Cyrodiil Champions campaign, all competitors are at equal power levels—it all comes down to skill!

Note that with Update 45, we are only just beginning to test the Cyrodiil Champions campaigns. Expect a full rollout with greater options and a more polished experience in the future.