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April 20th Vengeance Only..
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SaffronCitrusflower✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »It always made sense up until ZOS made the statement there was nothing they could do to fix Cyrodiil. ZOS' origninal statements regarding the purpose of vengeance was specifically and exactly that they were doing vengance tests to see how they could improve live Cyrodiil.
Got a link for that? That must have been before the first vengeance test, because when that test came out it was pretty obvious that was was not its goal. Both from how the test was set up and what they said about it.
I don't need to provide a link. The statement was all over this forum when vengeance came out and probably still is. You're either pretending to be ignorant or don't read these forums regularly.2 -
SaffronCitrusflower✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭moderatelyfatman wrote: »I mean a link to show the original intent for Vengeance was to discover and fix some elusive issue in existing Cyrodiil.
It's pretty obvious right from the start that the intent was to rebuild Cyrodiil PvP in a way that would allow large populations.
We might have hoped they'd gotten a lot closer to what is live right now before performance started to degrade, but evidently that's not the case.
If they conclude that Vengeance is now about as complicated as they can make the game, that just means over the past 10 years what they added to the game vastly exceeded capacity of the infrastructure.
If anyone wants to be angry with ZOS over something, that would be it. Not that they're finally stop promising what they cannot deliver.
My main issue here is that there are a great many things ZOS has been asked to do to make PvP in Cyrodiil a better experience and they did not make a single change.
This is what many people are angry about because the lack of effort makes it seem like ZOS had planned Vengeance from the start and used the excuse of performance monitoring to justify ramming in through.
Exactly. And it's pretty obvious there are some on this forum that are doing their best to help with the deception.5 -
YandereGirlfriend✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭BardokRedSnow wrote: »albertberku wrote: »I mean pro-Vengeance people doesnt really give a s about your opinions as "PvP veterans" (lol) on Vengeance. We are enjoying ourselves and the campaign is full of players.
cap, it hasnt been locked out since its first iteration, and it loses players every day of the test, zone chat is full of returning players mad as hell over it wondering what it is and why greyhost is gone.
Can confirm.
My guild came in for about an hour to support the test but resolved that, "Yep, this is still the same..." and left.
Lots of folks come in on the first day or two for the novelty or whatnot and then take the rest of the week off after getting their fill of the experience. You see this happen in PvE events as well, FWIW.
That said, there might be a little more population this time because overall game population is up with the recent positive changes.4 -
SaffronCitrusflower✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭I don think you've read this threads comments - People are in fact discouraged or mad about Veng being a thing. I understand you also assume myself or others wouldnt hold the same opinion should Trials or Writs go away for week. We would, so your post kinda sums up everything.
You know it all, now let me imagine what I would say about having to take away trials - but they give them some sort of other trial to do for a week, thats kinda like the other trials really watered down and turns out LOTS of people enjoy it. And yes, it sucks not having the original available, but folks will just have to tough it out. And well since you know it all you wouldve already guessed i would say the exact same thing I am saiyng now. Stop crying.
Your example is poor and about as well thought out as your insult at the end. Keep sticking to it though Champ I am sure your skills will come through at some point.
You are presenting a straw man argument.
People aren't being betrayed by the existence of vengeance. People are betrayed because they sold vengeance as a test and now they're trying to make it replace live Cyrodiil.4 -
SaffronCitrusflower✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭EthanolMuffins wrote: »I never PvP'd much before I took a break and tried venegance last night, it reminds me of FF14 pvp, which I hated because there wasn't build variety. To me one of the most fun parts of ESO is the build crafting, I don't like that this game mode will take most of that away.
And you know what? That is 100% valid. Wont it be great that you will not be forced into this campaign but can play in Grey Host with the full monty of what the game has available?
Just not right now
You know what, That is 100% valid. Do you think you will make it the next few days? The other guy mentioned trials, maybe we should all do that.
The reason ZOS remove GH for this "test" is becuase almost nobody will play vengence if they have another option. ZOS knows vengeance is a fail by every measure and the only way they can any notable number of people to play it is to give double rewards and make it the only option. That's how popular vengeance is with the vast majority of people. The PvE community won't suddenly decide to play vengeance and the PvP community will leave the game before they play vengeance.
Edited by SaffronCitrusflower on 21 April 2026 19:0710 -
SaffronCitrusflower✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭robertlabrie wrote: »It's interesting that the anti-vengeance camp just wants our old campaigns back and the pro-vengeance camp keeps trying to explain why we're wrong and that we should learn to like it.robertlabrie wrote: »It's interesting that the anti-vengeance camp just wants our old campaigns back and the pro-vengeance camp keeps trying to explain why we're wrong and that we should learn to like it.
The anti-vengeance camp doesn’t just want its campaign back. They want to remove Veangence even as an option. If they asked to keep GreyHost side by side with Veangence majority of Vengeance supporters would agree but for some Vengeance haters preventing others from playing Vengeance is more important than getting GreyHost back.
The problem is vengeance is the first major step in removing GH for good. We don't care that vengeance exists. We're irate that all indications are ZOS plans to eventually leave vengeance up and replace GH with a tiny little map with only one keep with the only large scale cyrodiil activity option being vengeance. ...all this trolling and logical fallacies from the vengeance promoters make it clear vengeance will be even more toxic than live Cyrodiil already is if they even play it.11 -
SaffronCitrusflower✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭MincMincMinc wrote: »robertlabrie wrote: »It's interesting that the anti-vengeance camp just wants our old campaigns back and the pro-vengeance camp keeps trying to explain why we're wrong and that we should learn to like it.robertlabrie wrote: »It's interesting that the anti-vengeance camp just wants our old campaigns back and the pro-vengeance camp keeps trying to explain why we're wrong and that we should learn to like it.
The anti-vengeance camp doesn’t just want its campaign back. They want to remove Veangence even as an option. If they asked to keep GreyHost side by side with Veangence majority of Vengeance supporters would agree but for some Vengeance haters preventing others from playing Vengeance is more important than getting GreyHost back.
We do not want to remove Vengeance as an option. We want it to be an Option aside ALL regular PvP campaigns. Instead it will be added and 3 of our campaigns will get closed for good. NoCP gone, Standard gone, below 50 gone. Instead we are stuck with CP, Alliance Lock Grey Host for more than double the current population. That will only create huge Queues, preventing us from playing. Vengeance does take something away from us, it doesn't add. Also ZOS focus should have been to fix the actual PvP, not creating a new gamemode.
PCNA in reality 99% of the time u50 campaign has been dead since like clockwork after the Aussie guilds flipped the map to AD for years in a row. Then they moved to NOCP which combined with the already looming AD guilds inevitably flipping the maps nightly killing the campaigns. Then all of these guilds got bored in their own campaign and moved on to greyhost which luckily has the pop to balance them out. The 7day cp campaign turns into overflow hangout spot for ballgroups and 1vX players who hardly even fight each other, being so sweaty made the casual player guilds prefer going to GH or simply not playing.
If the campaigns are dead are we really losing much when Veng replaces them? 90% of people already sit in ques for greyhost or give up and go into bgs for the night. Atleast there is the slight benefit that the uber casual and new players have an entry point in pvp since for years u50 and nocp have been non functional. If anything it frees up que in GH.
They probably learned they cant fix live pvp because its entirely dependent on all of the proc event functions that are disabled with modern item sets, status effect, poisons, weapon enchants, passives, cp, etc. This is why the loadout perk system was made to only modify your permanent character sheet. Design wise they would have to trim ALOT of fat and then limit themselves in ways like maybe only one proc passive per class on the last unlocked bonus. Maybe only ults get crazy effects. Either way it needs to be split from PvE, then you are talking whether to design from the ground up or designing from the top down by untyng a decade long knotted ball of code.
ZOS built it, they can fix it. It's a lie to say they can't do anything to fix live cyrodiil.5 -
BardokRedSnow✭✭✭✭✭
✭SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »MincMincMinc wrote: »robertlabrie wrote: »It's interesting that the anti-vengeance camp just wants our old campaigns back and the pro-vengeance camp keeps trying to explain why we're wrong and that we should learn to like it.robertlabrie wrote: »It's interesting that the anti-vengeance camp just wants our old campaigns back and the pro-vengeance camp keeps trying to explain why we're wrong and that we should learn to like it.
The anti-vengeance camp doesn’t just want its campaign back. They want to remove Veangence even as an option. If they asked to keep GreyHost side by side with Veangence majority of Vengeance supporters would agree but for some Vengeance haters preventing others from playing Vengeance is more important than getting GreyHost back.
We do not want to remove Vengeance as an option. We want it to be an Option aside ALL regular PvP campaigns. Instead it will be added and 3 of our campaigns will get closed for good. NoCP gone, Standard gone, below 50 gone. Instead we are stuck with CP, Alliance Lock Grey Host for more than double the current population. That will only create huge Queues, preventing us from playing. Vengeance does take something away from us, it doesn't add. Also ZOS focus should have been to fix the actual PvP, not creating a new gamemode.
PCNA in reality 99% of the time u50 campaign has been dead since like clockwork after the Aussie guilds flipped the map to AD for years in a row. Then they moved to NOCP which combined with the already looming AD guilds inevitably flipping the maps nightly killing the campaigns. Then all of these guilds got bored in their own campaign and moved on to greyhost which luckily has the pop to balance them out. The 7day cp campaign turns into overflow hangout spot for ballgroups and 1vX players who hardly even fight each other, being so sweaty made the casual player guilds prefer going to GH or simply not playing.
If the campaigns are dead are we really losing much when Veng replaces them? 90% of people already sit in ques for greyhost or give up and go into bgs for the night. Atleast there is the slight benefit that the uber casual and new players have an entry point in pvp since for years u50 and nocp have been non functional. If anything it frees up que in GH.
They probably learned they cant fix live pvp because its entirely dependent on all of the proc event functions that are disabled with modern item sets, status effect, poisons, weapon enchants, passives, cp, etc. This is why the loadout perk system was made to only modify your permanent character sheet. Design wise they would have to trim ALOT of fat and then limit themselves in ways like maybe only one proc passive per class on the last unlocked bonus. Maybe only ults get crazy effects. Either way it needs to be split from PvE, then you are talking whether to design from the ground up or designing from the top down by untyng a decade long knotted ball of code.
ZOS built it, they can fix it. It's a lie to say they can't do anything to fix live cyrodiil.
Indeed, it's not that they can't. It is that whatever they feel is needed to correct the issues, true or not, they are unwilling to do that as of this time. People have presented fixes before, in fact they claimed last time that replacing their old server tech wouldn't fix lag, and lol it did. We had beautiful performance for a solid few months, so good game sites made articles about it.
I bet yet another update is needed on the hardware and they're measuring the cost vs their bottom line. My theory, moderators, not a conspiracy.Edited by BardokRedSnow on 21 April 2026 19:37Zos then: Vengeance is just a test bro
Zos now: Do you want Vengeance permanent or permanent...3 -
TheAwesomeChimpanzee✭✭✭✭I mean a link to show the original intent for Vengeance was to discover and fix some elusive issue in existing Cyrodiil.
It's pretty obvious right from the start that the intent was to rebuild Cyrodiil PvP in a way that would allow large populations.
We might have hoped they'd gotten a lot closer to what is live right now before performance started to degrade, but evidently that's not the case.
If they conclude that Vengeance is now about as complicated as they can make the game, that just means over the past 10 years what they added to the game vastly exceeded capacity of the infrastructure.
If anyone wants to be angry with ZOS over something, that would be it. Not that they're finally stop promising what they cannot deliver.
That is not entirely accurate. After around the second test, it started becoming clear that the intent may have been to replace live Cyrodiil with Vengeance, but before that, most of the PvP playerbase understood these tests very differently. A lot of people genuinely believed they were being run to help fix Gray Host and give the devs data on what was actually causing the lag there.
Even by the third test, plenty of players still thought these were just performance tests and not the groundwork for a separate replacement mode. ZOS never clearly presented Vengeance as an entirely different game mode early on. That only really became explicit during the December tests, when Brian confirmed it on the livestream.Edited by TheAwesomeChimpanzee on 21 April 2026 19:552 -
SneaK✭✭✭✭✭
✭It’s been a day and a half, did the Vengeance crowd spam enough AoE’s yet to stop this charade? Or is it still meta in there to run all single targets and just 40v1?"IMO"Aldmeri Dominion1 Nightblade - 1 Templar - 7 Hybrid Mutt Abominations1 -
MincMincMinc✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »I don think you've read this threads comments - People are in fact discouraged or mad about Veng being a thing. I understand you also assume myself or others wouldnt hold the same opinion should Trials or Writs go away for week. We would, so your post kinda sums up everything.
You know it all, now let me imagine what I would say about having to take away trials - but they give them some sort of other trial to do for a week, thats kinda like the other trials really watered down and turns out LOTS of people enjoy it. And yes, it sucks not having the original available, but folks will just have to tough it out. And well since you know it all you wouldve already guessed i would say the exact same thing I am saiyng now. Stop crying.
Your example is poor and about as well thought out as your insult at the end. Keep sticking to it though Champ I am sure your skills will come through at some point.
You are presenting a straw man argument.
People aren't being betrayed by the existence of vengeance. People are betrayed because they sold vengeance as a test and now they're trying to make it replace live Cyrodiil.
Being real though its what they do. Lets forget vengeance entirely or assume it never happened. Zos the past 2 or 3 times pressured by pvp performance issues just lowered the max cyro population instead of debloating all the combat systems that added lag. Its the obvious choice since it doesn't affect pve and the pvp players dont know its happening if you never tell them. This time around the pop is getting so low the trifaction map gamemode is non functional. I assume on the new One keep map they will go down to 60 player factions instead of 100......kinda wild because in the first two years I remember literally having over 60 players in my emp pushing groups.
If this was inevitably going to happen (as we know now, this was the plan) They were probably trying to find a way to keep cyrodil in the game in some capacity to preserve the zone. Honestly why not just "end the war" and turn cyro into an updated pve zone. Giving you reason to come up with a new pvp largescale mode with new maps after probably almost two decades of design work since it was originally made.
Best case scenario we learned that cutting out all the proc event calls like (sets, status effects, poisons, passives, cp, etc) CAN reduce lag. You are never going to get PvE onboard to gut all those without building a new system, unless you do a "classic" mode or something.I only use insightful
BG MMR should NOT reset, zos sponsored smurfing is a terrible design choice.
PvP needs more incentives, even simple potion mats or gold would be better than rewards for the worthy inventory bloat0 -
SneaK✭✭✭✭✭
✭MincMincMinc wrote: »SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »I don think you've read this threads comments - People are in fact discouraged or mad about Veng being a thing. I understand you also assume myself or others wouldnt hold the same opinion should Trials or Writs go away for week. We would, so your post kinda sums up everything.
You know it all, now let me imagine what I would say about having to take away trials - but they give them some sort of other trial to do for a week, thats kinda like the other trials really watered down and turns out LOTS of people enjoy it. And yes, it sucks not having the original available, but folks will just have to tough it out. And well since you know it all you wouldve already guessed i would say the exact same thing I am saiyng now. Stop crying.
Your example is poor and about as well thought out as your insult at the end. Keep sticking to it though Champ I am sure your skills will come through at some point.
You are presenting a straw man argument.
People aren't being betrayed by the existence of vengeance. People are betrayed because they sold vengeance as a test and now they're trying to make it replace live Cyrodiil.
Being real though its what they do. Lets forget vengeance entirely or assume it never happened. Zos the past 2 or 3 times pressured by pvp performance issues just lowered the max cyro population instead of debloating all the combat systems that added lag. Its the obvious choice since it doesn't affect pve and the pvp players dont know its happening if you never tell them. This time around the pop is getting so low the trifaction map gamemode is non functional. I assume on the new One keep map they will go down to 60 player factions instead of 100......kinda wild because in the first two years I remember literally having over 60 players in my emp pushing groups.
If this was inevitably going to happen (as we know now, this was the plan) They were probably trying to find a way to keep cyrodil in the game in some capacity to preserve the zone. Honestly why not just "end the war" and turn cyro into an updated pve zone. Giving you reason to come up with a new pvp largescale mode with new maps after probably almost two decades of design work since it was originally made.
Best case scenario we learned that cutting out all the proc event calls like (sets, status effects, poisons, passives, cp, etc) CAN reduce lag. You are never going to get PvE onboard to gut all those without building a new system, unless you do a "classic" mode or something.
Yet no one asked for the bloat. We didn’t ask for pull sets or 5 paragraph abilities. I remember when Wrobel introduced poisons, no one back then even thought it was a good idea. We were perfectly fine without all the extra stuff that frankly has just become tedious to keep up with. But the mindset was and seems to still be, that ZOS knows what PvPers want more than we know what we want. It’s like we all went on a road trip together and halfway through ZOS decided to change the destination and won’t tell us where we’re going. But all our bags are packed and we can’t get out of the damn car!"IMO"Aldmeri Dominion1 Nightblade - 1 Templar - 7 Hybrid Mutt Abominations7 -
MincMincMinc✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭MincMincMinc wrote: »SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »I don think you've read this threads comments - People are in fact discouraged or mad about Veng being a thing. I understand you also assume myself or others wouldnt hold the same opinion should Trials or Writs go away for week. We would, so your post kinda sums up everything.
You know it all, now let me imagine what I would say about having to take away trials - but they give them some sort of other trial to do for a week, thats kinda like the other trials really watered down and turns out LOTS of people enjoy it. And yes, it sucks not having the original available, but folks will just have to tough it out. And well since you know it all you wouldve already guessed i would say the exact same thing I am saiyng now. Stop crying.
Your example is poor and about as well thought out as your insult at the end. Keep sticking to it though Champ I am sure your skills will come through at some point.
You are presenting a straw man argument.
People aren't being betrayed by the existence of vengeance. People are betrayed because they sold vengeance as a test and now they're trying to make it replace live Cyrodiil.
Being real though its what they do. Lets forget vengeance entirely or assume it never happened. Zos the past 2 or 3 times pressured by pvp performance issues just lowered the max cyro population instead of debloating all the combat systems that added lag. Its the obvious choice since it doesn't affect pve and the pvp players dont know its happening if you never tell them. This time around the pop is getting so low the trifaction map gamemode is non functional. I assume on the new One keep map they will go down to 60 player factions instead of 100......kinda wild because in the first two years I remember literally having over 60 players in my emp pushing groups.
If this was inevitably going to happen (as we know now, this was the plan) They were probably trying to find a way to keep cyrodil in the game in some capacity to preserve the zone. Honestly why not just "end the war" and turn cyro into an updated pve zone. Giving you reason to come up with a new pvp largescale mode with new maps after probably almost two decades of design work since it was originally made.
Best case scenario we learned that cutting out all the proc event calls like (sets, status effects, poisons, passives, cp, etc) CAN reduce lag. You are never going to get PvE onboard to gut all those without building a new system, unless you do a "classic" mode or something.
Yet no one asked for the bloat. We didn’t ask for pull sets or 5 paragraph abilities. I remember when Wrobel introduced poisons, no one back then even thought it was a good idea. We were perfectly fine without all the extra stuff that frankly has just become tedious to keep up with. But the mindset was and seems to still be, that ZOS knows what PvPers want more than we know what we want. It’s like we all went on a road trip together and halfway through ZOS decided to change the destination and won’t tell us where we’re going. But all our bags are packed and we can’t get out of the damn car!
We could only hope they would use the pve and pvp split developed for vengeance. Or even the "only works on mobs" condition for things like these.I only use insightful
BG MMR should NOT reset, zos sponsored smurfing is a terrible design choice.
PvP needs more incentives, even simple potion mats or gold would be better than rewards for the worthy inventory bloat0 -
Muizer✭✭✭✭✭
✭TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »I mean a link to show the original intent for Vengeance was to discover and fix some elusive issue in existing Cyrodiil.
It's pretty obvious right from the start that the intent was to rebuild Cyrodiil PvP in a way that would allow large populations.
We might have hoped they'd gotten a lot closer to what is live right now before performance started to degrade, but evidently that's not the case.
If they conclude that Vengeance is now about as complicated as they can make the game, that just means over the past 10 years what they added to the game vastly exceeded capacity of the infrastructure.
If anyone wants to be angry with ZOS over something, that would be it. Not that they're finally stop promising what they cannot deliver.
That is not entirely accurate. After around the second test, it started becoming clear that the intent may have been to replace live Cyrodiil with Vengeance, but before that, most of the PvP playerbase understood these tests very differently. A lot of people genuinely believed they were being run to help fix Gray Host and give the devs data on what was actually causing the lag there.
Even by the third test, plenty of players still thought these were just performance tests and not the groundwork for a separate replacement mode. ZOS never clearly presented Vengeance as an entirely different game mode early on. That only really became explicit during the December tests, when Brian confirmed it on the livestream.
It should have been clear enough. ZOS are made to look as if they 'lied' and changed course halfway. But that is simply not true. Vengeance has been on a very consistent trajectory from the start, both in communications and the tests. If ZOS made a mistake, it's underestimating how powerful the combination of wishful thinking and a profound lack of understanding of how development works can be.
Please stop making requests for game features. ZOS have enough bad ideas as it is!3 -
BardokRedSnow✭✭✭✭✭
✭MincMincMinc wrote: »SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »I don think you've read this threads comments - People are in fact discouraged or mad about Veng being a thing. I understand you also assume myself or others wouldnt hold the same opinion should Trials or Writs go away for week. We would, so your post kinda sums up everything.
You know it all, now let me imagine what I would say about having to take away trials - but they give them some sort of other trial to do for a week, thats kinda like the other trials really watered down and turns out LOTS of people enjoy it. And yes, it sucks not having the original available, but folks will just have to tough it out. And well since you know it all you wouldve already guessed i would say the exact same thing I am saiyng now. Stop crying.
Your example is poor and about as well thought out as your insult at the end. Keep sticking to it though Champ I am sure your skills will come through at some point.
You are presenting a straw man argument.
People aren't being betrayed by the existence of vengeance. People are betrayed because they sold vengeance as a test and now they're trying to make it replace live Cyrodiil.
Being real though its what they do. Lets forget vengeance entirely or assume it never happened. Zos the past 2 or 3 times pressured by pvp performance issues just lowered the max cyro population instead of debloating all the combat systems that added lag. Its the obvious choice since it doesn't affect pve and the pvp players dont know its happening if you never tell them. This time around the pop is getting so low the trifaction map gamemode is non functional. I assume on the new One keep map they will go down to 60 player factions instead of 100......kinda wild because in the first two years I remember literally having over 60 players in my emp pushing groups.
If this was inevitably going to happen (as we know now, this was the plan) They were probably trying to find a way to keep cyrodil in the game in some capacity to preserve the zone. Honestly why not just "end the war" and turn cyro into an updated pve zone. Giving you reason to come up with a new pvp largescale mode with new maps after probably almost two decades of design work since it was originally made.
Best case scenario we learned that cutting out all the proc event calls like (sets, status effects, poisons, passives, cp, etc) CAN reduce lag. You are never going to get PvE onboard to gut all those without building a new system, unless you do a "classic" mode or something.
Yet no one asked for the bloat. We didn’t ask for pull sets or 5 paragraph abilities. I remember when Wrobel introduced poisons, no one back then even thought it was a good idea. We were perfectly fine without all the extra stuff that frankly has just become tedious to keep up with. But the mindset was and seems to still be, that ZOS knows what PvPers want more than we know what we want. It’s like we all went on a road trip together and halfway through ZOS decided to change the destination and won’t tell us where we’re going. But all our bags are packed and we can’t get out of the damn car!
This is a really good point. I never liked the pull sets from the start, it was obnoxious and silly. Proc sets introduced on occasion are fun yea but theyve been getting ridiculous more and more to sell the next chapters. Now that there are no chapters they need to look to stepping away from this and changing whats included to better fit the pvp the game was known for, before this mess.
Aside from making healing stacks and shielding weaker, if they wanna look at something, look at the ridiculous proc sets they put in that drastically change the game and cause lag, and get rid of or change those. We had bombers well before, and even now people still bomb without them, its not needed. Its not why I play greyhost for certain.Edited by BardokRedSnow on 22 April 2026 00:04Zos then: Vengeance is just a test bro
Zos now: Do you want Vengeance permanent or permanent...2 -
SirAxen✭✭✭✭✭If they would stop doing these tests (as the very vocal anti-Vengeance players demand it), what should ZOS be doing instead? If the answer is nothing, then you've pretty much doomed Cyrodiil for everyone.
Just stop taking away normal Cyrodiil, it’s not a hard concept. They have to though cause participation in Vengeance is abysmal when they run side by side.
Normal Cyrodiil is boring, stale, and outdated.5 -
SirAxen✭✭✭✭✭Kickimanjaro wrote: »I trusted them when they said Vengeance was a test, but it is clear now that they intend to just add it as a separate mode to further split the community and "teach" people how to PvP in a way that doesn't apply outside that one specific gamemode...
I was so excited to see them try to fix the performance issues of Cyrodiil to bring about a new age of massive three-faction open-world PvP in this game with so many sets and skill combinations... now I'm worried we won't see that, and instead just see the performance improvements only in Vengeance and continued population issues in Grey Host.
Man, I just want a performant Grey Host. Imagine how cool that would be...
It would be the same thing it is now, just better FPS. Ballgroups and endless zergs. SUPER engaging I tell ya.0 -
Vulkunne✭✭✭✭✭
✭Hi ZOS,
Stop doing this, the majority of your PvP base does not want this washed game mode. We don’t want to contribute anything to your “testing” because we are against it. Frankly, it’s a waste of time. With all the good that’s being done recently in the studio this is the remaining outlier of a team clinging to one last bad decision. It feels like we’re just being reminded to stay skeptical of the PvP dev team’s vacuum decision making philosophy.
*edit*
Can we test PvE Vengeance on April 20th too?
ZOS, I would like to personally thank you for continuing to develop Vengeance and not give up on bringing some much-needed change(s) to Cyrodiil PvP in this game. Cyrodiil PvP in and of itself is not friendly to the casual gamer, it's easy to see, as well as all the challenges facing regular Cyrodiil gameplay, including things like ball groups, emp exploiting, PvP Guilds being noninclusive and people dying so extremely fast with strong builds, I mean like it doesn't even matter. Something had to give and Vengeance is part of this. It is a natural response to how bad things have been in Cyrodiil for the last several years. That said, please know that many of us enjoy Vengeance, we like having alternatives, Vengeance is something that brings everyone on a more level, more equitable playing field and does not implicitly favor a few people who themselves are guilty of repeatedly running exploitive gameplay, using sets like RoA and Winterborn, among others, and in my opinion are abusive towards their fellow gamers. We're all there to have fun not talk about real world stuff and not be fed humble pie cause 5 to 15 people want to play a role and abuse people's time for hours.
You cannot have results like this, again, for years and not have some kind of equal and opposite effect to try and balance things. It's good to think of other people once in a while and many of the exploiters in Cyrodiil only care about themselves, especially in the Guilds. To them the rest of us are invisible, which I don't know how many of you has been in a war or been in the military but that is not how it works. So anyways, I respectfully disagree with @SneaK, I wish Vengeance a successful test and look forward to whatever we can use to make Cyrodiil a classier, more respectable and equitable place for PvPers to spend their hard-earned time and money. Some have had their way for so long and they just, don't want to give it up and have to work hard, to actually learn how to fight in PvP without a machine-proc or group mechanic playing for them, which places them on a more level PvP experience along with the rest of us. Rather than 2 factions on an entire server dying to (1) Emp or a Ball Group for hours. This is immoral, it is a display of the worst type of behavior we've seen before in other now-dead games and those games are dead for good reason. It is my sincere hope that ESO never ends up like them.
Once again thank you.
Edited by Vulkunne on 22 April 2026 03:15Today Victory is mine. Long live the Empire.6 -
Oblivion_Protocol✭✭✭✭✭
✭Some have had their way for so long and they just, don't want to give it up and have to work hard, to actually learn how to fight in PvP without a machine-proc or group mechanic playing for them, which places them on a more level PvP experience along with the rest of us.
I wanted to single out this one part of that inane love letter you wrote to devs who’ll never read it because it brings up a point I’ve seen echoed multiple times among the pro-Vengeance crowd, and even before Vengeance was a gleam in ZOS’ eye. And that point leads me to a question that I want answered honestly.
What defines skill in ESO PVP?
No, I don’t need any snarky “git gud scrub” comments. I’ve played PVP long enough to have an idea of what this entails. But I genuinely want to hear what other people define as “skillful play” in PVP.2 -
Devilon✭✭✭ZOS, I would like to personally thank you for continuing to develop Vengeance and not give up on bringing some much-needed change(s) to Cyrodiil PvP in this game. Cyrodiil PvP in and of itself is not friendly to the casual gamer, it's easy to see, as well as all the challenges facing regular Cyrodiil gameplay, including things like ball groups, emp exploiting, PvP Guilds being noninclusive and people dying so extremely fast with strong builds, I mean like it doesn't even matter. Something had to give and Vengeance is part of this. It is a natural response to how bad things have been in Cyrodiil for the last several years. That said, please know that many of us enjoy Vengeance, we like having alternatives, Vengeance is something that brings everyone on a more level, more equitable playing field and does not implicitly favor a few people who themselves are guilty of repeatedly running exploitive gameplay, using sets like RoA and Winterborn, among others, and in my opinion are abusive towards their fellow gamers. We're all there to have fun not talk about real world stuff and not be fed humble pie cause 5 to 15 people want to play a role and abuse people's time for hours.
You cannot have results like this, again, for years and not have some kind of equal and opposite effect to try and balance things. It's good to think of other people once in a while and many of the exploiters in Cyrodiil only care about themselves, especially in the Guilds. To them the rest of us are invisible, which I don't know how many of you has been in a war or been in the military but that is not how it works. So anyways, I respectfully disagree with @SneaK, I wish Vengeance a successful test and look forward to whatever we can use to make Cyrodiil a classier, more respectable and equitable place for PvPers to spend their hard-earned time and money. Some have had their way for so long and they just, don't want to give it up and have to work hard, to actually learn how to fight in PvP without a machine-proc or group mechanic playing for them, which places them on a more level PvP experience along with the rest of us. Rather than 2 factions on an entire server dying to (1) Emp or a Ball Group for hours. This is immoral, it is a display of the worst type of behavior we've seen before in other now-dead games and those games are dead for good reason. It is my sincere hope that ESO never ends up like them.
As a returning player of only three weeks - I second this. I absolutely love Cyrodiil Vengeance. It's so accessible and immersive, it actually feels alive. The battles... omg the battles. It's arguably been one of the best MMO pvp experiences I have ever had.
And to be honest, having had my behind handed to me from highly skilled players - I simply have to take my hat off to them with great respect. There is no ill feeling that they are just playing an OP build. No - they are just really good. And I love that too.
So yeah ZOS, keep up the great work!!!
PS. If it was my call - I'd remove Grey Host completely and make access to Vengeance for ESO+ only. And rework the pvp sets as vanity items with improved looks. Game needs less sets anyways.
Thanks for reading!!! See you in Vengeance noobs!
4 -
JohnRingo✭✭✭Oblivion_Protocol wrote: »Some have had their way for so long and they just, don't want to give it up and have to work hard, to actually learn how to fight in PvP without a machine-proc or group mechanic playing for them, which places them on a more level PvP experience along with the rest of us.
I wanted to single out this one part of that inane love letter you wrote to devs who’ll never read it because it brings up a point I’ve seen echoed multiple times among the pro-Vengeance crowd, and even before Vengeance was a gleam in ZOS’ eye. And that point leads me to a question that I want answered honestly.
What defines skill in ESO PVP?
No, I don’t need any snarky “git gud scrub” comments. I’ve played PVP long enough to have an idea of what this entails. But I genuinely want to hear what other people define as “skillful play” in PVP.
Long term PvP player here. The current Cyrodil environment is NOT designed to protect new players.
But that doesn’t redefine skill—it clarifies it.
Skill is knowing how to operate inside that environment:
When to engage vs disengage (most players die because they choose wrong)
How to isolate targets instead of feeding into group strength
How to survive pressure long enough to create your own window
How to recognize unwinnable situations instantly and reposition
Ball groups and strong sets don’t remove skill—they punish the absence of it.
New players struggle because Cyrodiil has a steep learning curve, not because skill is irrelevant. The players who last 10+ years are the ones who adapt, refine, and stop expecting the environment to change for them.Edited by JohnRingo on 22 April 2026 05:054 -
xR3ACTORx✭✭✭✭Maximus_Mordred wrote: »Maximus_Mordred wrote: »Maximus_Mordred wrote: »During its last appearance on PCNA, Vengeance suffered the same issue that plagued and ultimately defeated no proc PVP: As soon as the populations reach a certain level of imbalance, it becomes impossible to play against massive numbers as an underdog.
Yeah during my playtests the limited build options forces the entire camp into a numbers game. Whoever has the higher pop in one area wins - which isn't fun.
A zerg fest just stinks.BardokRedSnow wrote: ».Maximus_Mordred wrote: »ToddIngram wrote: »No amount of hyping by the vocal minority will change that.
Pot, meet kettle.
The only people who will stay in vengeance long term are the same ones who occupy the now dead ravenwatch, BR and below 50 campaigns. Jaded bitter pvpers that just wanna zerg, and pvers that just want their tier 3 rewards.
Perhaps there's been confusion about the marketing of the end product. Cyrodiil is built for zerging, not for having duels/1v1s, not for having smallscale fights, and certainly not for ballgroups or bombers.
It is built for zerging and siege warfare. If you don't like that, then that's fine, but the product is fundamentally not for you.
This may come as a surprise to some, but a lot of people, in fact a massive proportion of largescale PvPers play in Cyrodiil for the large-scale objective fights which rely around zerg v. zerg combat as a foundation. If you want personalised strictly skill-based fighting, there are other avenues in BGs, duels and IC.
Trying to change the behaviour of Cyrodiil and by extension how others can play the game, because it doesn't pander to your own personal style of play, especially when those styles of play already exist is not only selfish but reveals a critical lack of perspective. Play Cyrodiil in smallscale or solo of course, but you have no right to complain when the zerg runs you over.
You are mistaking what I mean by zerg fest.
I love massive battles, 1-2 hour keep battles at chal are amazing. I do not like the spin off tower humpers 1vxer fights... those are annoying to me.
In Cyrodiil (Gray Host) your groups build can turn the tide in a fight. If you've got a good setup you can make a difference.
In Veng... it's simply a numbers game. Whoever brings the most people to a keep wins. That isn't always the case in GH but it is 100% the case in a veng camp.
Thats what I mean by zerg fest.
Fair, I misunderstood what you were trying to say on that last post then. I agree that it has heavily shifted towards numbers over skill, but that's just a natural consequence of dramatically reducing the diversity of sets and playstyles - a necessary step to actually make those zerg battles viable in the first place. Given one or the other, I'd personally take the latter (although of course both would be optimal, but ZOS can't or won't make that a possibility).
However, what I said still stands in regards to the subset of players who actually do misunderstand Cyrodiil's intended purpose.
So first you were saying that on GH people get carried by their sets while skills matter in Vengeance and now you are saying the exact opposite and you agree that vengeance is more about numbers than skills? Did I get something wrong?
Yes, you did - it's called oversimplifying. Sets are a part of skill - specifically theorycrafting to optimise for ideal stats and configurations. But playstyle is much more important - knowing where to go, when to dodge, what skills to use at what time etc, which is harder to do with the dramatically reduced toolkit which reduces your options. However I have actually been having a lot of success with my warden healer in Vengeance, so maybe there actually is room for more skill expression there than I previously gave credit.
The certain nolifers in question typically pick the most broken sets possible or settle into one extremely un-unique combination to give them max stats/dmg and then forget about it, which isn't skillful in the slightest. Someone carefully sampling a variety of sets and picking the combinations that give the best performance both theoretically and empirically is.Maximus_Mordred wrote: »Maximus_Mordred wrote: »Maximus_Mordred wrote: »During its last appearance on PCNA, Vengeance suffered the same issue that plagued and ultimately defeated no proc PVP: As soon as the populations reach a certain level of imbalance, it becomes impossible to play against massive numbers as an underdog.
Yeah during my playtests the limited build options forces the entire camp into a numbers game. Whoever has the higher pop in one area wins - which isn't fun.
A zerg fest just stinks.BardokRedSnow wrote: ».Maximus_Mordred wrote: »ToddIngram wrote: »No amount of hyping by the vocal minority will change that.
Pot, meet kettle.
The only people who will stay in vengeance long term are the same ones who occupy the now dead ravenwatch, BR and below 50 campaigns. Jaded bitter pvpers that just wanna zerg, and pvers that just want their tier 3 rewards.
Perhaps there's been confusion about the marketing of the end product. Cyrodiil is built for zerging, not for having duels/1v1s, not for having smallscale fights, and certainly not for ballgroups or bombers.
It is built for zerging and siege warfare. If you don't like that, then that's fine, but the product is fundamentally not for you.
This may come as a surprise to some, but a lot of people, in fact a massive proportion of largescale PvPers play in Cyrodiil for the large-scale objective fights which rely around zerg v. zerg combat as a foundation. If you want personalised strictly skill-based fighting, there are other avenues in BGs, duels and IC.
Trying to change the behaviour of Cyrodiil and by extension how others can play the game, because it doesn't pander to your own personal style of play, especially when those styles of play already exist is not only selfish but reveals a critical lack of perspective. Play Cyrodiil in smallscale or solo of course, but you have no right to complain when the zerg runs you over.
You are mistaking what I mean by zerg fest.
I love massive battles, 1-2 hour keep battles at chal are amazing. I do not like the spin off tower humpers 1vxer fights... those are annoying to me.
In Cyrodiil (Gray Host) your groups build can turn the tide in a fight. If you've got a good setup you can make a difference.
In Veng... it's simply a numbers game. Whoever brings the most people to a keep wins. That isn't always the case in GH but it is 100% the case in a veng camp.
Thats what I mean by zerg fest.
Fair, I misunderstood what you were trying to say on that last post then. I agree that it has heavily shifted towards numbers over skill, but that's just a natural consequence of dramatically reducing the diversity of sets and playstyles - a necessary step to actually make those zerg battles viable in the first place. Given one or the other, I'd personally take the latter (although of course both would be optimal, but ZOS can't or won't make that a possibility).
However, what I said still stands in regards to the subset of players who actually do misunderstand Cyrodiil's intended purpose.
So first you were saying that on GH people get carried by their sets while skills matter in Vengeance and now you are saying the exact opposite and you agree that vengeance is more about numbers than skills? Did I get something wrong?
Yes, you did - it's called oversimplifying. Sets are a part of skill - specifically theorycrafting to optimise for ideal stats and configurations. But playstyle is much more important - knowing where to go, when to dodge, what skills to use at what time etc, which is harder to do with the dramatically reduced toolkit which reduces your options. However I have actually been having a lot of success with my warden healer in Vengeance, so maybe there actually is room for more skill expression there than I previously gave credit.
The certain nolifers in question typically pick the most broken sets possible or settle into one extremely un-unique combination to give them max stats/dmg and then forget about it, which isn't skillful in the slightest. Someone carefully sampling a variety of sets and picking the combinations that give the best performance both theoretically and empirically is.
Wow. You are still contradicting yourself0 -
The Uninvited✭✭✭✭✭
✭PS. If it was my call - I'd remove Grey Host completely and make access to Vengeance for ESO+ only. And rework the pvp sets as vanity items with improved looks.
Then we are lucky it isn't your call, because a lot of players (and that includes players with ESO+) would leave the game entirely if they did that.Pandora's Promise (rip) | LND | Pactriotic | IKnowWhatUDidLastWinter's | The Uninvited |
Ride the paranoia | All life is pain | Only the grave is real6 -
dcrush✭✭✭✭✭
✭Kickimanjaro wrote: »I trusted them when they said Vengeance was a test, but it is clear now that they intend to just add it as a separate mode to further split the community and "teach" people how to PvP in a way that doesn't apply outside that one specific gamemode...
I was so excited to see them try to fix the performance issues of Cyrodiil to bring about a new age of massive three-faction open-world PvP in this game with so many sets and skill combinations... now I'm worried we won't see that, and instead just see the performance improvements only in Vengeance and continued population issues in Grey Host.
Man, I just want a performant Grey Host. Imagine how cool that would be...
It would be the same thing it is now, just better FPS. Ballgroups and endless zergs. SUPER engaging I tell ya.
Because… Vengeance doesn’t have endless zergs? I’m sure the scoring below was achieved without zerging.
3 -
Devilon✭✭✭When to engage vs disengage (most players die because they choose wrong)
How to isolate targets instead of feeding into group strength
How to survive pressure long enough to create your own window
How to recognize unwinnable situations instantly and reposition
Are all these skills not present in Vengeance? Or do you think they are unique to Grey Host?Ball groups and strong sets don’t remove skill—they punish the absence of it.
Yeah, historically the sword wielding Samurai had a complete lack of skill against their enemies armed with guns. You literally just reinforced why ZOS need to execute this project because unintentionally the game mode has developed into an exclusive club that on the outset appears to be really elitists and toxic.
And again, the best pvpers out there are still owning in Cyrodiil Vengeance proving that sets and builds are not the meat and bones of being a really good player - but rather, just a massive barrier to entry.New players struggle because Cyrodiil has a steep learning curve, not because skill is irrelevant. The players who last 10+ years are the ones who adapt, refine, and stop expecting the environment to change for them.
Not a good advertisement for any game is it? 10 years is eccentric and WAY overkill to reach the goals you just mentioned.
4 -
SneaK✭✭✭✭✭
✭ZOS, I would like to personally thank you for continuing to develop Vengeance and not give up on bringing some much-needed change(s) to Cyrodiil PvP in this game. Cyrodiil PvP in and of itself is not friendly to the casual gamer, it's easy to see, as well as all the challenges facing regular Cyrodiil gameplay, including things like ball groups, emp exploiting, PvP Guilds being noninclusive and people dying so extremely fast with strong builds, I mean like it doesn't even matter. Something had to give and Vengeance is part of this. It is a natural response to how bad things have been in Cyrodiil for the last several years. That said, please know that many of us enjoy Vengeance, we like having alternatives, Vengeance is something that brings everyone on a more level, more equitable playing field and does not implicitly favor a few people who themselves are guilty of repeatedly running exploitive gameplay, using sets like RoA and Winterborn, among others, and in my opinion are abusive towards their fellow gamers. We're all there to have fun not talk about real world stuff and not be fed humble pie cause 5 to 15 people want to play a role and abuse people's time for hours.
You cannot have results like this, again, for years and not have some kind of equal and opposite effect to try and balance things. It's good to think of other people once in a while and many of the exploiters in Cyrodiil only care about themselves, especially in the Guilds. To them the rest of us are invisible, which I don't know how many of you has been in a war or been in the military but that is not how it works. So anyways, I respectfully disagree with @SneaK, I wish Vengeance a successful test and look forward to whatever we can use to make Cyrodiil a classier, more respectable and equitable place for PvPers to spend their hard-earned time and money. Some have had their way for so long and they just, don't want to give it up and have to work hard, to actually learn how to fight in PvP without a machine-proc or group mechanic playing for them, which places them on a more level PvP experience along with the rest of us. Rather than 2 factions on an entire server dying to (1) Emp or a Ball Group for hours. This is immoral, it is a display of the worst type of behavior we've seen before in other now-dead games and those games are dead for good reason. It is my sincere hope that ESO never ends up like them.
As a returning player of only three weeks - I second this. I absolutely love Cyrodiil Vengeance. It's so accessible and immersive, it actually feels alive. The battles... omg the battles. It's arguably been one of the best MMO pvp experiences I have ever had.
And to be honest, having had my behind handed to me from highly skilled players - I simply have to take my hat off to them with great respect. There is no ill feeling that they are just playing an OP build. No - they are just really good. And I love that too.
So yeah ZOS, keep up the great work!!!
PS. If it was my call - I'd remove Grey Host completely and make access to Vengeance for ESO+ only. And rework the pvp sets as vanity items with improved looks. Game needs less sets anyways.
Thanks for reading!!! See you in Vengeance noobs!
This is either great satire or the equivalent to Billy Madison’s story about the puppy that lost its way."IMO"Aldmeri Dominion1 Nightblade - 1 Templar - 7 Hybrid Mutt Abominations4 -
Sylosi✭✭✭✭✭
✭New players struggle because Cyrodiil has a steep learning curve, not because skill is irrelevant.
No they don't, they struggle because the game mode is laughably uncompetitive. Let's take some of the PvP games I've played over the years as examples DOTA 2, SC2, various Tekken's, Rainbow Six Siege, etc, they all have steeper learning curves than ESO (and far higher skill caps for that matter).
Yet they are all more new player friendly (which is saying something given the games I listed) than Cyrodiil, because they are competitive, so all have some form of MMR / matchmaking (as dubious as that generally is in the case of Tekken games). So a new player overwhelmingly faces other new / relatively inexperienced players or simply those who are terrible at the game (aside from the odd scrub who makes a smurf account).
Meanwhile when a new player comes to Cyrodiil they face players with thousands of hours, they might face players much younger or players who are far more tryhard or a team with twice as many players on at that time and so on. With the obvious result being they often get served up one-sided, boring AF "PvP", where new players will learn next to nothing. And the funny thing is it isn't much fun for real PvP'ers on the other side of the equation either, but Cyrodiil is very short on those, plenty of role-players though.
Which is of course one of the reasons ESO PvP has been a pretty miserably failure.
Edited by Sylosi on 22 April 2026 15:584 -
SneaK✭✭✭✭✭
✭New players struggle because Cyrodiil has a steep learning curve, not because skill is irrelevant.
No they don't, they struggle because the game mode is laughably uncompetitive. Let's take some of the PvP games I've played over the years as examples DOTA 2, SC2, various Tekken's, Rainbow Six Siege, etc, they all have steeper learning curves than ESO (and far higher skill caps for that matter).
Yet they are all more new player friendly (which is saying something given the game's I listed) than Cyrodiil, because they are competitive, so all have some form of MMR / matchmaking (as dubious as that generally is in the case of Tekken games). So a new player overwhelmingly faces other new / relatively inexperienced players or simply those who are terrible at the game (aside from the odd scrub who makes a smurf account).
Meanwhile when a new player comes to Cyrodiil they face players with thousands of hours, they might face players much younger or players who are far more tryhard. With the obvious result being they get served up one-sided, boring AF "PvP", where new players will learn next to nothing. And the funny thing is it isn't much fun for real PvP'ers on the other side of the equation either, but Cyrodiil is very short on those, plenty of role-players though.
Which is of course one of the reasons ESO PvP has been a pretty miserably failure.
We are full on out there now! ESO being compared to Tekken and R6. Yikes.
You’re aware that R6 is currently matching diamonds/masters against bronze players right? You’re also aware that that game is an FPS where one bullet to the face instakills right? Or is this your comparison that loadouts like in R6 are similar to ESO’s vengeance? What a wild and weird comparison. And Tekken, a 1v1 fighting game..
How about we compare ESO PvP to a game of pickleball, or baseball? Youth leagues have different rulesets from the MLB, but guess what, my kid still gets to pick his bat and bring his own glove to use in the game."IMO"Aldmeri Dominion1 Nightblade - 1 Templar - 7 Hybrid Mutt Abominations4 -
Sylosi✭✭✭✭✭
✭New players struggle because Cyrodiil has a steep learning curve, not because skill is irrelevant.
No they don't, they struggle because the game mode is laughably uncompetitive. Let's take some of the PvP games I've played over the years as examples DOTA 2, SC2, various Tekken's, Rainbow Six Siege, etc, they all have steeper learning curves than ESO (and far higher skill caps for that matter).
Yet they are all more new player friendly (which is saying something given the game's I listed) than Cyrodiil, because they are competitive, so all have some form of MMR / matchmaking (as dubious as that generally is in the case of Tekken games). So a new player overwhelmingly faces other new / relatively inexperienced players or simply those who are terrible at the game (aside from the odd scrub who makes a smurf account).
Meanwhile when a new player comes to Cyrodiil they face players with thousands of hours, they might face players much younger or players who are far more tryhard. With the obvious result being they get served up one-sided, boring AF "PvP", where new players will learn next to nothing. And the funny thing is it isn't much fun for real PvP'ers on the other side of the equation either, but Cyrodiil is very short on those, plenty of role-players though.
Which is of course one of the reasons ESO PvP has been a pretty miserably failure.
We are full on out there now!
You certainly are.2