Vengeance – An Unsustainable False Positive

MincMincMinc · September 4

Iriidius wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Im only pvping since years. I have spoken in different discord chats about the new coming vengeance tests on console.

The tonus is overall the same ; People dont like it ane are playing something else then, while this is up.

Im sure there is people who are enjoying it and wish its getting permanently implemented.

It feels like for the most it would be a nail in the coffin and it would push a lot of people away from eso (pvp).

Maybe thats the plan? Less people, less lag?

Its maybe 1% of the players on the forum, most just play the game and dont want to have a deep dive into it, including forum registration and looking up and discuss things.

But overall the mood towards vengeance, at least in the communities im in, is really negative.

Depends on friend group really. Your circle of friends that all agree with each other of course are going to be your "majority" of players. For instance my BG community either doesnt care or is just waiting for more tests to bring other systems into the test like passives, morphs, sets. Newer players post summerset era have always played in the proc soup shitshow, so they see vengeance as dumbing down. My 20+ older guildies from 2014-2016 returned for the vengeance test and were reminded of old cyrodil before it got boiled down to procs and effects everywhere with unclear combat. Everyone seems to agree that they want builds to continue, and it is in the best interest of zos to have builds as a main stream of DLC funding

Also realize the survivor bias, if 90% of people leave a game because they hate something about it. The only people remaining apparently are fine or like the current game. Does this mean the game devs trying to go back somewhere in between are ruining it for everyone? No it just means they are ruining it for that remaining portion of players.

We are still in the early stages of vengeance where they are doing background tests and laying out basic skills, no wonder most people find it boring. This is why most games do closed alpha and beta testing.....doing this level of testing is boring for most people who just want a finished product. Right now the major benefits to be happy bout are the split away from PvE and the fact that we cleaned up the random effects that are unnecessary in most cases. By the time you start adding back in all the other systems, combat will basically be the same with newer more performative skills done across the board all at the same time.

„Skilled“ PvPers only play with other gear carried „skilled“ PvPers and almost never with anyone not getting carried bybuild and would probably instantly stop playing with anyone defending Vengeance and remove them from their discord and friendlist as much as they despise them.

Survivorship bias is definitely a very important/main factor how current state of greyhost is defended by relevant part of pvp players as everyone without a metabuild is strongly push/urged to quit by getting constantly farmed.
Survivorship bias is denied by surviving Vengeance haters dismissing not only all who quitted totally not even knowing about Vengeance or all pver/quiters coming(back) for Vengeance but also PvPer pvping rare or regular with/despite builddisadvantage as PvErs hating or not interested in PvP who will stop playing Vengeance after a few weeks.

For some reason everyone supporting Vengeance and equal stats is expected to prove he plays and succeeds in opposed GH/BR/RW with unequal stat as much as those liking it who will quit as soon as Vengeance becomes permanent even as option.

And even those who do are called pver, hypocritical or unloyal to PvP playerbase

You are going to have to reclarify basically all of that post. I do not understand what it means.

Iriidius · September 4

fizzybeef wrote: »

Im only pvping since years. I have spoken in different discord chats about the new coming vengeance tests on console.

The tonus is overall the same ; People dont like it ane are playing something else then, while this is up.

Im sure there is people who are enjoying it and wish its getting permanently implemented.

It feels like for the most it would be a nail in the coffin and it would push a lot of people away from eso (pvp).

Maybe thats the plan? Less people, less lag?

Its maybe 1% of the players on the forum, most just play the game and dont want to have a deep dive into it, including forum registration and looking up and discuss things.

But overall the mood torwards vengeance, at least in the communities im in, is really negative.

[snip]

You call forum unrepresentive for having selfselect bias because only 1% of players(from all playstiles) wanting to discuss creating account are on forum but think a cherrypicked sample from the discords you chose to be member in who probably favor one playstile is representative?
Discord is often used for voicechat which is needed for ballgroups/compgroups who are also the ones getting highest stats/healing/shielding on GreyHost and oppose Vengeance the most but rarely by solo players, pugs, casual smallscales or zergs.

You think the 99% not on discord are more against Vengeance than the 1% on forum?
I think the opposite:
If a player is invested enaugh in the game to have forum account to discuss topics (especially builds) than he is more likely invested enaugh to probably have a good build than a player who isnt. Why read patch notes and discuss buff/nerf xy if you not care about good build.
A player finding forum more likely also finds builds in forum or other website than someone who never googles game intern things.
Most of the 99% are rather casual PvP or nonPvP players more likely to like Vengeance than forums.

fizzybeef wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Im only pvping since years. I have spoken in different discord chats about the new coming vengeance tests on console.

The tonus is overall the same ; People dont like it ane are playing something else then, while this is up.

Im sure there is people who are enjoying it and wish its getting permanently implemented.

It feels like for the most it would be a nail in the coffin and it would push a lot of people away from eso (pvp).

Maybe thats the plan? Less people, less lag?

Its maybe 1% of the players on the forum, most just play the game and dont want to have a deep dive into it, including forum registration and looking up and discuss things.

But overall the mood towards vengeance, at least in the communities im in, is really negative.

Depends on friend group really. Your circle of friends that all agree with each other of course are going to be your "majority" of players. For instance my BG community either doesnt care or is just waiting for more tests to bring other systems into the test like passives, morphs, sets. Newer players post summerset era have always played in the proc soup shitshow, so they see vengeance as dumbing down. My 20+ older guildies from 2014-2016 returned for the vengeance test and were reminded of old cyrodil before it got boiled down to procs and effects everywhere with unclear combat. Everyone seems to agree that they want builds to continue, and it is in the best interest of zos to have builds as a main stream of DLC funding

Also realize the survivor bias, if 90% of people leave a game because they hate something about it. The only people remaining apparently are fine or like the current game. Does this mean the game devs trying to go back somewhere in between are ruining it for everyone? No it just means they are ruining it for that remaining portion of players.

We are still in the early stages of vengeance where they are doing background tests and laying out basic skills, no wonder most people find it boring. This is why most games do closed alpha and beta testing.....doing this level of testing is boring for most people who just want a finished product. Right now the major benefits to be happy bout are the split away from PvE and the fact that we cleaned up the random effects that are unnecessary in most cases. By the time you start adding back in all the other systems, combat will basically be the same with newer more performative skills done across the board all at the same time.

I agree on everything of what you said, except that the people in the screenshot are neither my friends or i know them propper.

As i said, i dont know anyone really who enjoyes vengeance.

But that wont stop vengeance and i dont really care, i play expedition 33 while its up

Even if they are not your friends them beeing on a discord community makes them more likely to have same opinion asyou as communitys usually consist of likeminded people and if you voice opposing you get unpopular, mocked or even kicked.
[edited to remove quote]

aetherix8 · September 5

Iriidius wrote: »

For some reason everyone supporting Vengeance and equal stats is expected to prove he plays and succeeds in opposed GH/BR/RW with unequal stat as much as those liking it who will quit as soon as Vengeance becomes permanent even as option.

And even those who do are called pver, hypocritical or unloyal to PvP playerbase

Since Vengeance testing has begun, the split in the pvp community grows wider every day. There is no such thing anymore as a “causal pvper”. There are only the real pvpers (pvp main since beta) and a crowd of pveers who hate pvp (players who see Vengeance’s potential). At best, we are qualified as pvp tourists. And only the real true pvp mains have the right to suggest anything about pvp (and only against Vengeance, otherwise they are sabotaging).

This is ridiculous. By dismissing entirely newer players perspectives and insights, real true pvp mains are killing their own mode by not solving the exodus of players and not allowing newcomers either. And then the only clue they come up with is that it is all zos’ fault, while in an MMO, players’ attitudes are vital too.

This approach reinforces my view that there is no place for players like me in the vet Cyro. I’m a pve main but I’ve lost all interest in pve since I got sucked into pvp. I was still learning and not ready for vet yet, and now there’s nowhere for me to l2p.

If there’s only vet available, how newer players are supposed to progress? Full blown proc-hell and ballgroup fest is an extremely unfriendly environment for learners. If there is no place to progress then some players stop playing entirely and the pvp mode, which is unique in ESO, is slowly agonizing without fresh blood.

MISTFORMBZZZ · September 5

Iriidius wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Im only pvping since years. I have spoken in different discord chats about the new coming vengeance tests on console.

The tonus is overall the same ; People dont like it ane are playing something else then, while this is up.

Im sure there is people who are enjoying it and wish its getting permanently implemented.

It feels like for the most it would be a nail in the coffin and it would push a lot of people away from eso (pvp).

Maybe thats the plan? Less people, less lag?

Its maybe 1% of the players on the forum, most just play the game and dont want to have a deep dive into it, including forum registration and looking up and discuss things.

But overall the mood torwards vengeance, at least in the communities im in, is really negative.

[snip]

You call forum unrepresentive for having selfselect bias because only 1% of players(from all playstiles) wanting to discuss creating account are on forum but think a cherrypicked sample from the discords you chose to be member in who probably favor one playstile is representative?
Discord is often used for voicechat which is needed for ballgroups/compgroups who are also the ones getting highest stats/healing/shielding on GreyHost and oppose Vengeance the most but rarely by solo players, pugs, casual smallscales or zergs.

You think the 99% not on discord are more against Vengeance than the 1% on forum?
I think the opposite:
If a player is invested enaugh in the game to have forum account to discuss topics (especially builds) than he is more likely invested enaugh to probably have a good build than a player who isnt. Why read patch notes and discuss buff/nerf xy if you not care about good build.
A player finding forum more likely also finds builds in forum or other website than someone who never googles game intern things.
Most of the 99% are rather casual PvP or nonPvP players more likely to like Vengeance than forums.

fizzybeef wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Im only pvping since years. I have spoken in different discord chats about the new coming vengeance tests on console.

The tonus is overall the same ; People dont like it ane are playing something else then, while this is up.

Im sure there is people who are enjoying it and wish its getting permanently implemented.

It feels like for the most it would be a nail in the coffin and it would push a lot of people away from eso (pvp).

Maybe thats the plan? Less people, less lag?

Its maybe 1% of the players on the forum, most just play the game and dont want to have a deep dive into it, including forum registration and looking up and discuss things.

But overall the mood towards vengeance, at least in the communities im in, is really negative.

Depends on friend group really. Your circle of friends that all agree with each other of course are going to be your "majority" of players. For instance my BG community either doesnt care or is just waiting for more tests to bring other systems into the test like passives, morphs, sets. Newer players post summerset era have always played in the proc soup shitshow, so they see vengeance as dumbing down. My 20+ older guildies from 2014-2016 returned for the vengeance test and were reminded of old cyrodil before it got boiled down to procs and effects everywhere with unclear combat. Everyone seems to agree that they want builds to continue, and it is in the best interest of zos to have builds as a main stream of DLC funding

Also realize the survivor bias, if 90% of people leave a game because they hate something about it. The only people remaining apparently are fine or like the current game. Does this mean the game devs trying to go back somewhere in between are ruining it for everyone? No it just means they are ruining it for that remaining portion of players.

We are still in the early stages of vengeance where they are doing background tests and laying out basic skills, no wonder most people find it boring. This is why most games do closed alpha and beta testing.....doing this level of testing is boring for most people who just want a finished product. Right now the major benefits to be happy bout are the split away from PvE and the fact that we cleaned up the random effects that are unnecessary in most cases. By the time you start adding back in all the other systems, combat will basically be the same with newer more performative skills done across the board all at the same time.

I agree on everything of what you said, except that the people in the screenshot are neither my friends or i know them propper.

As i said, i dont know anyone really who enjoyes vengeance.

But that wont stop vengeance and i dont really care, i play expedition 33 while its up

Even if they are not your friends them beeing on a discord community makes them more likely to have same opinion asyou as communitys usually consist of likeminded people and if you voice opposing you get unpopular, mocked or even kicked.

In my pvp guild of 50 people im literally the only one using the forums.
So i would say the 1% claime is kinda accurate, from my experience.
But i can imagine for us on console its different then for the pc players.

On Console PS EU i dont think many of us like vengeance, judging by the zc and chats with other people, but i also didnt do a representive survey to back my statement xD
But we also dont get bullied by ball groups every day.

Aswell if you get mocked or kicked out of a discord chat for having another opinion, you are in toxic communities and i wish you to find better people to be arround you! Good luck

[edited to remove quote]

Iriidius · September 5

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Im only pvping since years. I have spoken in different discord chats about the new coming vengeance tests on console.

The tonus is overall the same ; People dont like it ane are playing something else then, while this is up.

Im sure there is people who are enjoying it and wish its getting permanently implemented.

It feels like for the most it would be a nail in the coffin and it would push a lot of people away from eso (pvp).

Maybe thats the plan? Less people, less lag?

Its maybe 1% of the players on the forum, most just play the game and dont want to have a deep dive into it, including forum registration and looking up and discuss things.

But overall the mood torwards vengeance, at least in the communities im in, is really negative.

[snip]

You call forum unrepresentive for having selfselect bias because only 1% of players(from all playstiles) wanting to discuss creating account are on forum but think a cherrypicked sample from the discords you chose to be member in who probably favor one playstile is representative?
Discord is often used for voicechat which is needed for ballgroups/compgroups who are also the ones getting highest stats/healing/shielding on GreyHost and oppose Vengeance the most but rarely by solo players, pugs, casual smallscales or zergs.

You think the 99% not on discord are more against Vengeance than the 1% on forum?
I think the opposite:
If a player is invested enaugh in the game to have forum account to discuss topics (especially builds) than he is more likely invested enaugh to probably have a good build than a player who isnt. Why read patch notes and discuss buff/nerf xy if you not care about good build.
A player finding forum more likely also finds builds in forum or other website than someone who never googles game intern things.
Most of the 99% are rather casual PvP or nonPvP players more likely to like Vengeance than forums.

fizzybeef wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Im only pvping since years. I have spoken in different discord chats about the new coming vengeance tests on console.

The tonus is overall the same ; People dont like it ane are playing something else then, while this is up.

Im sure there is people who are enjoying it and wish its getting permanently implemented.

It feels like for the most it would be a nail in the coffin and it would push a lot of people away from eso (pvp).

Maybe thats the plan? Less people, less lag?

Its maybe 1% of the players on the forum, most just play the game and dont want to have a deep dive into it, including forum registration and looking up and discuss things.

But overall the mood towards vengeance, at least in the communities im in, is really negative.

Depends on friend group really. Your circle of friends that all agree with each other of course are going to be your "majority" of players. For instance my BG community either doesnt care or is just waiting for more tests to bring other systems into the test like passives, morphs, sets. Newer players post summerset era have always played in the proc soup shitshow, so they see vengeance as dumbing down. My 20+ older guildies from 2014-2016 returned for the vengeance test and were reminded of old cyrodil before it got boiled down to procs and effects everywhere with unclear combat. Everyone seems to agree that they want builds to continue, and it is in the best interest of zos to have builds as a main stream of DLC funding

Also realize the survivor bias, if 90% of people leave a game because they hate something about it. The only people remaining apparently are fine or like the current game. Does this mean the game devs trying to go back somewhere in between are ruining it for everyone? No it just means they are ruining it for that remaining portion of players.

We are still in the early stages of vengeance where they are doing background tests and laying out basic skills, no wonder most people find it boring. This is why most games do closed alpha and beta testing.....doing this level of testing is boring for most people who just want a finished product. Right now the major benefits to be happy bout are the split away from PvE and the fact that we cleaned up the random effects that are unnecessary in most cases. By the time you start adding back in all the other systems, combat will basically be the same with newer more performative skills done across the board all at the same time.

I agree on everything of what you said, except that the people in the screenshot are neither my friends or i know them propper.

As i said, i dont know anyone really who enjoyes vengeance.

But that wont stop vengeance and i dont really care, i play expedition 33 while its up

Even if they are not your friends them beeing on a discord community makes them more likely to have same opinion asyou as communitys usually consist of likeminded people and if you voice opposing you get unpopular, mocked or even kicked.

In my pvp guild of 50 people im literally the only one using the forums.
So i would say the 1% claime is kinda accurate, from my experience.
But i can imagine for us on console its different then for the pc players.

On Console PS EU i dont think many of us like vengeance, judging by the zc and chats with other people, but i also didnt do a representive survey to back my statement xD
But we also dont get bullied by ball groups every day.

Aswell if you get mocked or kicked out of a discord chat for having another opinion, you are in toxic communities and i wish you to find better people to be arround you! Good luck

I did nor doubt that the forums are only about 1% but that the99%not using forum oppose Vengeance more than the 1% on forum.

Less ballgroups are definitely a factor as even with good solobuilds and twice the number you are chanceless against a ballgroup and you cant play ballgroup unless you have 11 froends regularly playing together, otherwise you are excluded from meta. But with console getting addons it will also get more ballgroups unless it dies out first.

Those toxic communities who mock and kick you for having playstile or opposing opinion including not hating Vengeance and despising pvper without metabuilds are the ones their members see as more representative than the forum.

[edited to remove quote]

Dock01 · September 5

you dont represent the majority, please speak for yourself, Vengeance is the best thing to ever happen more people are actually playing pvp, oh so your build you paid for is irrelevant ? [snip]
[edited for baiting]

MincMincMinc · September 5

Dock01 wrote: »

you dont represent the majority, please speak for yourself, Vengeance is the best thing to ever happen more people are actually playing pvp, oh so your build you paid for is irrelevant ? [snip]

So true,

Yeah so many of the anti vengeance people are trying to state their opinion as if it is a complete fact for everyone. For instance i am a beta player with 10 years of practically only playing pvp. I am all for the vengeance test and think worrying about some unlikely nonsense conspiracy theory is wild. Boycotting any test or attempt to address the 10 years of issues is also wild and counterintuitive.

It makes much more sense if you want pvp to continue to participate and provide actual substantive feedback and suggestions. "Hey I don't like the template pvp, although it is good for teaching new players, it is far to restrictive long term to succeed in implementation. I want to see sets, passives, morphs, mundus, enchants added back to the game. I would like zos to communicate whether they plan to add these in the future more clearly." or "hey the second test had more lag, perhaps it was the addition of aoe group over time stacking spammable skills like from the resto staff"

Instead we see comments like "Heh, the 2nd test lagged far worse than anything ever experienced in mankind, looks like its a complete failure and we should stop the test, its pointless. I just want to go back to live cyrodil so i can sit in que and watch ballgroups pvdoor instead while i complain about lag"
[edited to remove quote]

ToddIngram · September 5

Dock01 wrote: »

you dont represent the majority, please speak for yourself, Vengeance is the best thing to ever happen more people are actually playing pvp, oh so your build you paid for is irrelevant ? [snip]
[edited for baiting]

Vengeance is a no skill zerg fest. I'm fairly new to the game but been here long enough to see what trash vengeance mode is. Sure, there's lots of players, but templated PvP doesn't work. It never has in any game ever. The kinds of players that like PvP wont play a templated toon, or at least they never have in the past, and are pretty unlikely to in the future.

BardokRedSnow · September 5

To me Vengeance is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So many here think its either accept the sorry state the game is in now, or entirely change course and direction of pvp and utterly destroy end game for people who won't stay and play it anyway.

PvP in mmos is pretty much always an end game affair and its not what draws people to the game its what keeps the long term players playing, especially when pve is not churning out content en masse, which they're not.

Instead of totally changing course and making the game something it hasnt been in a decade, they need to get rid of the elements of the pvp that makes it toxic. The main thing being overhealing and heal stacks and obnoxious pulls.

Its not just Vengeance that shows their desire to stop trying to fix their game but also the subclassing crap, both of these things totally kill individuality in pvp needlessly in favor of simplicity.

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is. All Vengeance will do is boost numbers artificially by combining everyone into one server as they have been and creating an illusion of a recovering player base when the steam charts show otherwise.

xylena_lazarow · September 7

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is.

Vengeance is the only thing I'll come back for. I doubt I'm the only old player in that boat.

JustLovely · September 7

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

To me Vengeance is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So many here think its either accept the sorry state the game is in now, or entirely change course and direction of pvp and utterly destroy end game for people who won't stay and play it anyway.

PvP in mmos is pretty much always an end game affair and its not what draws people to the game its what keeps the long term players playing, especially when pve is not churning out content en masse, which they're not.

Instead of totally changing course and making the game something it hasnt been in a decade, they need to get rid of the elements of the pvp that makes it toxic. The main thing being overhealing and heal stacks and obnoxious pulls.

Its not just Vengeance that shows their desire to stop trying to fix their game but also the subclassing crap, both of these things totally kill individuality in pvp needlessly in favor of simplicity.

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is. All Vengeance will do is boost numbers artificially by combining everyone into one server as they have been and creating an illusion of a recovering player base when the steam charts show otherwise.

I'm still waiting for a ZOS rep to explain why they haven't tried limiting cross healing and shield stacking before sinking so much time and money into vengeance. If it's just a test, why are they going to such lengths to make something that go live full time? ZOS is contradicting themselves in this way. They're saying one thing but doing something that doesn't look like it's what they're saying it is. It looks like ZOS has every intention of making vengeance mode the only option at some point. They're saying they're not, but that doesn't match what we're seeing.

aetherix8 · September 8

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is. All Vengeance will do is boost numbers artificially by combining everyone into one server as they have been and creating an illusion of a recovering player base when the steam charts show otherwise.

Vengeance 3 will run during the Undaunted Celebration, and without a golden pursuit, it appears. Artificially boosting numbers with PvEers won't work this time. Some PvP mains are saying loud and clear that they intend to boycott Vengeance in case it is more than just trying to fix the lag. There goes artificially boosting numbers by combining everyone in one server and pretending that the player base is recovering.

Why would ZOS "pretend" anyways – lie to themselves about the populations? It's a company, and their main objective is to generate profit. They have to confront the truth and look for fixes rather than plunging into the delusion that all is fine. Players also know that the pvp base is shrinking, there's no way to convince us that this isn't happening.

JustLovely wrote: »

I'm still waiting for a ZOS rep to explain why they haven't tried limiting cross healing and shield stacking before sinking so much time and money into vengeance.

I'm afraid you might have to wait for an explanation till the next big bang. What would limiting cross-healing and shield stacking accomplish performance-wise? It's the same as in 2020/2021: players saying "cross-healing is ruining the performance!", ZOS live testing limiting cross-healing to groups only, zero impact on lag; "proc sets are ruining the performance!", ZOS live testing disabling procs, zero impact on lag.

If you refer to shield stacking combat-wise, then ZOS said multiple times that balance isn't their focus right now, their goal is to get rid of lag. I would like to see cross-healing restricted to groups only, but that has nothing to do with the performance.

MincMincMinc · September 8

JustLovely wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

To me Vengeance is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So many here think its either accept the sorry state the game is in now, or entirely change course and direction of pvp and utterly destroy end game for people who won't stay and play it anyway.

PvP in mmos is pretty much always an end game affair and its not what draws people to the game its what keeps the long term players playing, especially when pve is not churning out content en masse, which they're not.

Instead of totally changing course and making the game something it hasnt been in a decade, they need to get rid of the elements of the pvp that makes it toxic. The main thing being overhealing and heal stacks and obnoxious pulls.

Its not just Vengeance that shows their desire to stop trying to fix their game but also the subclassing crap, both of these things totally kill individuality in pvp needlessly in favor of simplicity.

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is. All Vengeance will do is boost numbers artificially by combining everyone into one server as they have been and creating an illusion of a recovering player base when the steam charts show otherwise.

I'm still waiting for a ZOS rep to explain why they haven't tried limiting cross healing and shield stacking before sinking so much time and money into vengeance. If it's just a test, why are they going to such lengths to make something that go live full time? ZOS is contradicting themselves in this way. They're saying one thing but doing something that doesn't look like it's what they're saying it is. It looks like ZOS has every intention of making vengeance mode the only option at some point. They're saying they're not, but that doesn't match what we're seeing.

They had already done cross healing tests years ago with next to no difference. Gameplay wise it was a huge bonus for solo players which is needed, but I think engineering wise zos kept trying alot of these solo fix concepts......when the issue is going to be a multi system problem. Every system in eso has bloated since launch and been spaghettified and stretched so much every patch. AND ITS STILL GOING ON. Look at the previous patch with the sorc passive for max stats. They took something that only ever needed to be a flat boost and managed to turn it into a full blow proc set type effect. Sure this singular example in a vacuum is peanuts, but keep doing this over 10 years to the whole game handfuls of times each patch and tell me you cant see an optimization issue getting out of hand.

The question is testing wise, when should they try doing rule changes? Engineering wise I would probably recommend adding all of the core base game elements that you know will be required back into the game first. Then you would attempt the rule changes to strip away instances that cause high cascading calculations. Crosshealing, aoe, effect stacking are all major issues on live because they can interact and compound together and then go on to trigger proc effects, status effects, enchants, etc. The strongest part of vengeance is the PvE and PvP skill split. Now they don't need to worry about implementing these rules on freshly coded skills and maybe sets however they plan on testing set bonuses (proc effects).

My timeline from an engineering perspective would probably be

Veng-1 bare essential baseline test
Veng-2 Background tests while continuing to develop the baseline
Veng-3 Background tests while finishing the skills
Here is where you could conduct system rule changes like crosshealing on the core of the game and skill system. This could later be compared with future rule change tests to see how the following systems compound together. Or compare these against the 5 year old tests if the data can work.
Veng-4 Make skills based on stats
Veng-5 Add passive stat modifiers, passive skills, mundus, basic armor, armor enchants, character attributes (health/stam/mag)
Veng-6 Add stat sets like hundings
Veng-7 Add stat proc sets like clever alch
Veng-8 Add proc effect sets like monsters, mythics, and heavy coded 5 pieces like plaguebreak (maybe these set tests could be done in a week where every 2 days it would force a generic setup on everyone)
Veng-9 Here is where you are back closer to a reworked "Live" game where all the systems would be as performative as possible. Then you would begin rule change tests like no crosshealing, aoe caps, no effect stacking, animation reductions, cost ramps, Selfpurging hots at full hp, etc.

CatoUnchained · September 8

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is.

Vengeance is the only thing I'll come back for. I doubt I'm the only old player in that boat.

If your spouse needs help getting into Cyrodiil she's got you right there as an excellent reference to hold her hand tell her exactly what she has to do to be successful. (I'm replying more to a post I saw in another thread where you said your spouse wanted to start playing but the learning curve was too steep)

blktauna · September 8

Telling someone what to do and being in the thick of everything are very different things. The real advantage will be a decent build befor starting.

xylena_lazarow · September 8

CatoUnchained wrote: »

you said your spouse wanted to start playing

The mind numbing PvE grind for BoP gear and CP was the main barrier, neither of us wanted to deal with it.

Not a problem on Vengeance, no grind required

MincMincMinc · September 9

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

CatoUnchained wrote: »

you said your spouse wanted to start playing

The mind numbing PvE grind for BoP gear and CP was the main barrier, neither of us wanted to deal with it.

Not a problem on Vengeance, no grind required

Well, until they add sets in so they can sell dlc. I am interested to see if they toss things up in the future. Are they just going to bake in live sets? Or would a vengeance future have split pve and pvp gear sets?

One of the big issues with proc effect sets is that they undermine the GCD system and effectively give everyone multiple timed "skills" which boils combat into either a gamble or turtle waiting game for stars to align. Currently proc sets are balanced around the bloated skill system, so if skills lose 2/3 of their output(from removing the passives tacked on) does this mean proc effect sets are going to be rebalanced? Otherwise combat turns more into a pokemon gotta catch them all type of game if proc sets are the main output of your character. Compared to the more fighting type game that is nonproc combat.

Joy_Division · September 9

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

To me Vengeance is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So many here think its either accept the sorry state the game is in now, or entirely change course and direction of pvp and utterly destroy end game for people who won't stay and play it anyway.

PvP in mmos is pretty much always an end game affair and its not what draws people to the game its what keeps the long term players playing, especially when pve is not churning out content en masse, which they're not.

Instead of totally changing course and making the game something it hasnt been in a decade, they need to get rid of the elements of the pvp that makes it toxic. The main thing being overhealing and heal stacks and obnoxious pulls.

Its not just Vengeance that shows their desire to stop trying to fix their game but also the subclassing crap, both of these things totally kill individuality in pvp needlessly in favor of simplicity.

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is. All Vengeance will do is boost numbers artificially by combining everyone into one server as they have been and creating an illusion of a recovering player base when the steam charts show otherwise.

Well, that's the real trick is it

The problem is identifying what are these elements. You say it's overhealing and pulls. Fair enough. But you also say subclassing is crap. A lot of people probably agree with that. But quite a few people see subclassing as a boon that finally pushed ZOS out of a terrible tank/low TTK meta that has sucked the fun out of PvP for years.

What is one person's toxic element is another's interesting possibility. What is one person's cure is another's disease.

Everyone's golden age of PvP is going to be very different. And almost always laced with nostalgia. There are those people who will insist that 1.6 or whatever was when ESO was at its peak. But I think if ZOS ever brought back 1.6, a lot of players would immediately rush to the forums and complain about many, many aspects. They'd raged about shield stacking, would *hate* that there was no RATs and thus could not do their tower humping routine, and would say it's just a zerg-fest because high population caps become just that.

MincMincMinc · September 9

Joy_Division wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

To me Vengeance is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So many here think its either accept the sorry state the game is in now, or entirely change course and direction of pvp and utterly destroy end game for people who won't stay and play it anyway.

PvP in mmos is pretty much always an end game affair and its not what draws people to the game its what keeps the long term players playing, especially when pve is not churning out content en masse, which they're not.

Instead of totally changing course and making the game something it hasnt been in a decade, they need to get rid of the elements of the pvp that makes it toxic. The main thing being overhealing and heal stacks and obnoxious pulls.

Its not just Vengeance that shows their desire to stop trying to fix their game but also the subclassing crap, both of these things totally kill individuality in pvp needlessly in favor of simplicity.

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is. All Vengeance will do is boost numbers artificially by combining everyone into one server as they have been and creating an illusion of a recovering player base when the steam charts show otherwise.

Well, that's the real trick is it

The problem is identifying what are these elements. You say it's overhealing and pulls. Fair enough. But you also say subclassing is crap. A lot of people probably agree with that. But quite a few people see subclassing as a boon that finally pushed ZOS out of a terrible tank/low TTK meta that has sucked the fun out of PvP for years.

What is one person's toxic element is another's interesting possibility. What is one person's cure is another's disease.

Everyone's golden age of PvP is going to be very different. And almost always laced with nostalgia. There are those people who will insist that 1.6 or whatever was when ESO was at its peak. But I think if ZOS ever brought back 1.6, a lot of players would immediately rush to the forums and complain about many, many aspects. They'd raged about shield stacking, would *hate* that there was no RATs and thus could not do their tower humping routine, and would say it's just a zerg-fest because high population caps become just that.

My worry which we already see in vengeance is that we go back to the high population caps, but they do not bring back the previous skill designs. Early on we had far more unique and scaling elements built into builds. For instance NB had the chance based siphon strikes sustain on direct damage. Which meant that when outnumbered you could literally siphon your whole resource bar each sap essence tick. Actual active skills used to be so much more unique and playstyle based. Now adays on live they are a generic 1:1 skill which is only "unique" in the sense that it offers a special major or minor effect.

IMO the older skill designs were so much more interesting theory wise. In a way, they were harder to min/max to a BIS setup, because everything was so situational and variable. Once we look at live designs with generic outputs and cooldowns it gets so easy within a week to determine what is actually BIS per patch.

xylena_lazarow · September 9

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Well, until they add sets in so they can sell dlc.

That would destroy Vengeance, and a lot of players didn't bother doing the p2w for Monomyth.

MincMincMinc · September 9

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Well, until they add sets in so they can sell dlc.

That would destroy Vengeance, and a lot of players didn't bother doing the p2w for Monomyth.

At some point they will have to test the new skills and have them scaled off of stats......the only next logical step is testing stat changes with sets and bonuses like mundus.

IMO ideally we would stop with stat proc sets. Proc effect sets like vipers, sloads, tarnished undermine the GCD combat system and bloat how clear the combat is due to DLC animation effects.

xylena_lazarow · September 9

MincMincMinc wrote: »

the only next logical step is testing stat changes with sets and bonuses like mundus

It would also be logical to go no further, or even cut some of the fat that was causing lag last test.

Master_Assassin999 · September 10

During the last test, it only took a few days for pop lock to disappear

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Well, until they add sets in so they can sell dlc.

That would destroy Vengeance, and a lot of players didn't bother doing the p2w for Monomyth.

It looks like they are going to do that, they aren't constantly adding new pvp sets through the new dungeons (and a bit in the new trial) to remove them, and they shouldn't be removed, it is an MMO, it has sets. If you struggle in pvp, there are excellent guilds in every faction that can help you.

MincMincMinc · September 10

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

the only next logical step is testing stat changes with sets and bonuses like mundus

It would also be logical to go no further, or even cut some of the fat that was causing lag last test.

With the PvE and PvP split now possible I think they really need to put into place rules or standards to prevent cross pollination of calculations since mainly it was the pve prog players that pushed for everyone to be as efficient as possible. Like with all effects not stacking. Or all dot skills snapshot stats on cast. In many cases you can tailor these rules such that players wont even notice them. For instance in a group of 8+ players you likely wont even notice one or two dot effects not stacking. Let alone in zerg moshpit lagfests where its like casting into a black hole.

aoe
hots
dots
effect
major/minor
Status effect
Status effect major/minor
Status effect dot
cc effects
Proc set
Passive effects
Enchants/poison
CP effects

Live has all these and more triggering off each button press. Go down the list and you just keep multiplying to see how crazy it can get. Zos always points to aoe first with caps, because it is the distribution method. Aoe wouldnt necessarily be a problem if all the other systems werent bloated or overused in the game.

like making hots/dots/effects not stack wont be noticeable by 99% of players
status effects could be removed as a chance and only be morph guarantees or enchant guarantees
Phys and Mag damage were far more common back in the day for the majority of player kits, which was why they didnt have status effects to prevent unnecessary calcs maybe just bump the tooltips slightly instead of having the chance procs
Common skills early on in skill lines were less bloated because they were used more. Not only saving calcs, but emphasizing the 4+5th skills used in the trees along with ultimates being the high cost defining gamechangers.
AoE caps are completely counterintuitive to the point of AoE, but you could also do things like for damage you have 6 person aoe caps, but ults are uncapped. For heals you could have different morphs with different caps and efficiencies. Or an even better idea is to just not have some skills as aoe, like how vengeance made single target heals.......single target instead of giant hidden conal aoe smartheals.

It takes a lot of thinking, but there are tons of instances where we are wasting resources on basically useless propagating calcs.

ToddIngram · September 10

CatoUnchained wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is.

Vengeance is the only thing I'll come back for. I doubt I'm the only old player in that boat.

If your spouse needs help getting into Cyrodiil she's got you right there as an excellent reference to hold her hand tell her exactly what she has to do to be successful. (I'm replying more to a post I saw in another thread where you said your spouse wanted to start playing but the learning curve was too steep)

Everyone wants things to be easier for those they love. Totally understandable. But lobbying for an unpopular game mode for that reason isn't fair to the rest of us that have put in the time and jumped through all the hoops already.

LadyGP · September 10

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

To me Vengeance is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So many here think its either accept the sorry state the game is in now, or entirely change course and direction of pvp and utterly destroy end game for people who won't stay and play it anyway.

---

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is. All Vengeance will do is boost numbers artificially by combining everyone into one server as they have been and creating an illusion of a recovering player base when the steam charts show otherwise.

Boom. 100% nailed it. I'm in multiple guilds where high numbers of vets have uninstalled and moved on because of, not the current state of pvp, but the design decisions.. or... overall ZoS thought process you outlined here.

MincMincMinc · September 10

LadyGP wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

To me Vengeance is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So many here think its either accept the sorry state the game is in now, or entirely change course and direction of pvp and utterly destroy end game for people who won't stay and play it anyway.

---

With the state and direction the game's in currently, I doubt many will be coming back any time soon, I know a lot of veteran players who have totally uninstalled the game as is. All Vengeance will do is boost numbers artificially by combining everyone into one server as they have been and creating an illusion of a recovering player base when the steam charts show otherwise.

Boom. 100% nailed it. I'm in multiple guilds where high numbers of vets have uninstalled and moved on because of, not the current state of pvp, but the design decisions.. or... overall ZoS thought process you outlined here.

This also points out the survivor bias we see. Plenty of people saying that "all pvpers hate vengeance and want to go back to proc soup." Meanwhile the only remaining players in pvp are obviously content enough to keep playing in proc soup..... hard to say "all pvpers" when in reality the current population is like 1/10 of the total accumulated pvp players.

In reality there are 3 possibilities. Either vengeance will be canceled and we will see current GH have somehow even lower pop caps until it is somehow even more of a ghost town. Or the conspiracy theories will be true and zos will disregard any pvp related revenue they could gain from pvp content and make all pvp into vengeance. Then there is the option in between where we see zos start baking all the other systems back into vengeance. Effectively just replacing the skill system used in live pvp with new code. This way they can revert powercreep and 10 years of bad code while still pumping out DLC proc sets people love and mythic purchases for money.

What do we think is the most likely? Zos choosing the option to lose a revenue stream over time. Zos choosing an option to for some reason delete a revenue stream all together. Or zos choosing to make a new system that functions while having easier maintenance and could bring in more money over multiple years.