I've been enjoying seeing so many people turn up in Vengeance and Grey Host before the test this week, since the DK update dropped. Having PVP actually be lively has been so refreshing. And with Vengeance going live in, assumingly, June, I look forward to new players and just people in general having a campaign where they can learn PVP without the unenjoyment of being dunked by the sweatiest PVPers in their cheesiest possible builds in 0.01 seconds. It's very similar to how I and many other veterans learned PVP in the later 2010s, when the game had so much less in it and thus was simpler than how ESO is now.

I do have a big ask for a couple added siege Vengeance siege weapons though: the fire ballista and fire trebuchet. Counter siege is a huge pain outside using oils, and it can take a too-long time to fend off a large group. Also with the siege weapons not having a cost, there isn't as much risk to standing on them. JUST the fire ballista would make it harder for them to just stand there away from oils. PLEASE please ask them about adding the fire ballista and fire trebuchet, or at least the fire ballista.

I did wanna add: since the catapults don't quite have the potency as the non-Vengeance ones, they don't make great counter-siege. Usually fire ballistas are used as counter-siege in normal Cyrodiil, and they work pretty well.

We did this test based on your feedback about stalemates between healing versus damage output. How have your battles have been going?
Battles are fun, skills and actions feel responsive. Victories lean to the side that have superior numbers, but groups that coordinate and are more experienced have a large enough advantage that can tip the scales, even when slightly outnumbered. While the number of sources for pulls, stuns, lockdowns and other cc's has decreased their use has increased due lack of constant immunity present in standard Cyrodiil, which has brought a level of enjoyment as well.

If you hit stalemates, could you provide additional content around the fight?
Stalemates center around siege at breached walls and doors. Oils and catapults at any breach prevents any player from successfully making it through creating a need to create multiple breaches to take well defended keeps/outposts. Rarely do you get into an extended 1v1 that results in a stalemate, either one player out plays the other or one side starts to out number the other.

What day and time of day were you playing? (Day or Night)(NA/EU)
Mid Day into Evening - NA

What did the battle look like player wise? Where there a lot of players around, or a smaller group? Photos/Videos will help here
Most battles do have lots of players around, it's almost a requirement. There is a high number of new or returning players actively looking for groups so forming a group is easier with the larger pool of active players. Start out with announcing in guild and zone chat code for auto invite and players quickly join group, more players from zone at first than a drop off of those players and an increase of players joining from guild when approaching 2 hrs before regular guild hours. Small groups have needed to adapt to the balanced stat tables and do not survive long when poking larger groups. Small group encounters still present, more so outside primetime and would speculate voice coordination is the largest advantage any organized group has over other players. Large fights are still king, providing a the greatest enjoyment for players, win or lose. Our group can have up to 2-3 groups picking up players as they join, picking up from zone to recruit for guild, having multiple groups is a luxury afforded by having multiple players with raid leading experience in our guild, returning the player cap on groups sizes to 24 from the current 12 would greatly increase more independent groups with few group leads the ability to form larger groups and pick up players looking for group in zone. Any dev on an official account or personal can easily find a group by asking in zone and most groups use voice comms.
Monday 4/20:

Tuesday 4/21:

Wednesday 4/22:

Will continue to stream each night to help in the testing efforts.

Do you have any general feedback?
Siege is overpowered, group sizes should be returned to 24. Players like Vengeance but wouldn't want to play it all the time. With the coming longer term Vengeance campaign, our guild may only play Vengeance 1-2 nights a week, with standard Cyrodiil 3-4 nights a week. If ques into faction lock continue to be as bad as they have been for the pervious months, almost all players will use the Vengeance campaign as a lobby while waiting the 1-2 hours it takes to que into Faction Lock Cyrodiil.
Vengeance is fun, but standard Cyrodiil is still the long term choice for most players I've talked to (20+ nightly). While the game preforms great; mount & movement speed, siege damage over performance, loss of set & build diversity, and the fact that some playstyles have been completely eliminated are the deciding factors. Bombers, permablock tanks, gankers, 1vXers, duo & trio groups, small tower groups and ballgroups have all but been eliminated in this game mode. I will continue to argue that many of these play styles are over tuned in standard Cyrodiil, particularly permablock tanks & ballgroups, but each of these playstyles bring an added value to the PvP experience. While gankers, duo/trio & small groups may find a way back in limited capacity in Vengeance. Bombers, permablock, 1vXers and ballgroups can not exist in a balanced stat environment and in some cases without proc sets. I still believe the sweet spot is a standard Cyrodiil where permablock, 1vX and ballgroups can not achieve the invincible status they currently achieve in standard Cyrodiil and are more vulnerable to overwhelming numbers. Bombers are already in a sweet spot with high risk/reward, still requiring lots of practice and timing to achieve a solid attack.

Frame Rate Drop and Audio Cutting In & Out (Not Character Corruption)
account name AdamusBlade
character name Adamus Prime
What happened to trigger the corruption (leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, etc)?
No corruption, but frame rates were dropping down to 2-12 fps when encounter opponents near/in keeps & outposts.
Time of day this occurred 4/21/26 between 10:10-10:50PM EST.
screenshots and video
Twitch VOD:

First instance Arrius: 10:10pm est (VOD timestamp: 04:29:40-04:33:23) framerate improves but noticeable hiccups after this event
Drakelowe: 10:31pm est (VOD timestamp: 04:51:22-04:51:48)
Blue Road Keep: 10:41pm est (VOD timestamp:05:01:41-05:07:28)
SEJ: 10:49pm est. (VOD timestamp: 05:08:56-05:14:35) frames drop to single digits at 10:52pm est, (VOD timestamp: 05:12:37)
List of active addons: 04:48:34 (Have since updated, but issue was knowingly experienced by multiple players from 3 different groups)
Game Graphic Settings: 05:13:55
Do you have any general feedback?
Noticeable frame drop during engagements late into primetime, on 4/21/26 between 10:10-10:50PM EST. Frame drop to 2-12 fps at times, and leader crashed during event, other players experienced the same issue, and frames dropped more the closer we got to opponents at keeps and outposts. After first event at 10:10pm est, noticeable "hiccups" of frame drops for the remainder of the night, briefly dropping to 24-30 fps for split sec.

We did this test based on your feedback about stalemates between healing versus damage output. How have your battles have been going?
The 6 man target cap on damaging AOE abilities is nice, but I think it should be pushed further to 9 or 12 (or removed entirely from damage skills). Battles still seemed to be determined solely by who has the larger group, 90% of the time.

If you hit stalemates, could you provide additional content around the fight?
Most stalemates seem to be coming from nightblade cloak. The reset power it gives is just too much in the vengeance environment, especially when combined with siphoning attacks. I'd recommend removing the burst heal from cloak so it doesn't enable nightblades to reset the fight so easily.

What day and time of day were you playing? (Day or Night)(NA/EU)
I have been playing during prime time on both PC EU and PC NA, which is roughly 1PM-5PM EST on PC EU and 7PM-11PM EST on PC NA.

What did the battle look like player wise? Where there a lot of players around, or a smaller group? Photos/Videos will help here.
Battles are a good mix, which is nice. Keep fights tend to devolve into who has the larger group, which again I think could be improved by doubling or removing entirely the target cap on damaging AOE skills. Fights between keeps have been quite enjoyable which is something that doesn't happen as often in Grey Host due to the lower population cap and people moving as one consolidated group from keep to keep.

General Feedback

I am not a supporter of vengeance. I think that it feels like a cop-out to continuing work on normal PVP, and I feel like we were misled from early on with what the true intentions were for the environment. That said, if it is being forced upon us, I would at least like for the environment to be well balanced and enjoyable to play. At the very least, with proper balancing and support I do think it can serve it's purpose as a low barrier-to-entry environment for people to dip their toes into ESO PVP. I have played every test so far, and in this current test I've played multiple hours every day. Here are my observations about what works, what can improve, and what can be done to ensure vengeance is a meaningful addition to the game and not a "dead in a month" flop that is abandoned post-launch.

Mobility

Mobility in vengeance is downright awful. It makes the gameplay feel slow and unenjoyable, and reduces the ability for skill expression especially in regards to outnumbered PVP. Without being able to create distance from your opponents, there is just very little room to outplay people. Further, things like roots, snares, and chains are disproportionately rewarding for their ease of use - often times just one person spamming a root or a snare is the most effective thing a group can have, forcing their targets to dodge roll until they're out of stamina with no reliable counterplay.

I would recommend adding more sources of expedition, but more importantly adding a snare immunity in one or more places. Snare immunity skills are crucial to ESO PVP as a counterplay option to roots and snares. This could be done with the addition of a psjic skill line (race against time equivalent), added to the medium armor skill (shuffle), or otherwise incorporated to existing skills. I think that just adding this counterplay opportunity with a snare immunity and perhaps access to some globally accessible sources of expedition (major or minor), the environment would immediately improve dramatically.

Build Options

The perk system is... mediocre. With only three perks to choose from, I would like to see the green perk tree completely reworked to be all combat related perks, and any other non-combat perks (such as those that improve out-of-combat regen) to be completely reworked into combat related perks. It would make for more interesting buildcraft options if the system wasn't already boiled down to the same 1-3 "must take" options from each category. Perhaps adjusting the drawbacks of some things to be less significant would help, too. Thinks like "Increase crit chance, reduce crit damage" are just counter intuitive and not reflective of build choices within the main game.

Armor weight choices should be incorporated to matter, to increase build diversity. I think the main game is a great template to use for this with it's benefits and drawbacks system. For example, light armor could increase base move speed, crit chance, penetration, and magicka recovery - but reduce resistance, increase block cost. Medium armor could increase sprint speed, weapon damage, stamina recovery, have reduced core combat ability cost. Heavy armor could have increased health, resistances, and healing taken - but reduced move speed, increased roll/sprint cost, reduced crit damage, etc.

Simple weapon passives would be good to add. Just things that reflect how they function in the main game, so it's not like your weapon choices are completely irrelevant in most cases. Increase block effectiveness for s&b/ice, increase damage for DW & 2H which reflects the sword/axe/dagger/hammer choice, perhaps increased crit chance and access to major expedition for bow, maybe penetration & some kind of damage modifiers for ice/lightning.

Jewelry and armor glyphs would be another nice feature for some mild customization. Just Weapon/spell damage, magicka regen, or stamina regen glyphs for jewelry, and then just Health, Magicka, and stamina glyphs for armor - with the health glyphs being lower value than the magicka & stamina glyphs.

Mundus stones could be added as well, with reduced values, just to further imitate the buildcraft of the maingame.

All of these things should be fairly simple and calculation-minimal things that would go a long way towards creating buildcraft within vengeance.

Damage - Dots vs Direct

Currently, the damage meta in vengeance on pretty much every spec is to run 2-4 dots, and typically a spammable that is hybrid dot & direct damage such as ice clench, poison arrow, or twin slashes. Dots are so effective in vengeance for several reasons - you have very limited healing that can easily be matched with dot pressure, and you do not have the sustain to endlessly match that dot pressure without running out. Landing a DOT is higher value than landing a direct damage skill, because the net damage is similar and can be stacked with further instances of damages in the following global cooldowns. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does not make for particularly engaging gameplay when you play essentially a static rotation of DOT->DOT->DOT->STUN->BURST SKILL/ULT->HOT->REPEAT.

I think that the effectiveness of dots globally should be brought down by a small amount, and the hybridized DOT/Direct skills should have more damage shifted from their direct portions into their dot portions. Further, direct damage melee skills could probably stand to be buffed marginally, especially in the case of things like dizzying swing and class spammable options. DOTS should be worth running as supplemental pressure, but not the absolute best option on every setup. DOTS lack the counterplay that direct damage has, and it doesn't make for a fun PVP experience when you're being attrition-ed to death all the time with no way to skillfully outplay it.

Heal Targeting

On one hand, I do like that healing in vengeance is "skill based". Having to target your allies to heal them with most skills is something I always wished was in the main game, as healing has historically been disproportionately strong compared to damage, while being an easier role to perform as well. That said, there are a few big issues with how it functions currently. Firstly if I am sitting on 25% HP trying to heal myself, but I am hitting nearby friendly players who are at 100% HP because they're walking in front of my reticle, that is a huge issue. I think that if it was possible, it would be good to impose smart healing on self only, so that if you're low HP targeting an ally who is higher HP, you'd always heal yourself first.

Second, I should not be able to heal guards or npcs. Ever. Guards shouldn't receive any healing AOE or direct from players, and the random NPC quest givers hanging around shouldn't be targetable with heals either.

Class Balance

I'm not going to go into detail about class balance here, because it would require a full breakdown of everything. I do think there is room for improvement across many classes though, and I hope that the team would continue taking feedback and trying to make these improvements in the immediate future after introducing vengeance.

Guards in Vengeance

My god. PLEASE reduce the effectiveness of guards. Guards are genuinely almost as strong as real players in here, perhaps stronger than inexperienced players. These things need to have their damage and health reduced by like 50%. You genuinely cannot walk up to a resource and take it by yourself without first meticulously killing the guards one at a time, starting with those that will follow you into the tower. I don't think its even possible to take a keep or outpost solo if you did somehow manage to get inside, because the guards would either kill you, or it would take you so long to deal with them that by the time you started flipping the flags, they'd be respawning already.

Reward Structure and Incentive to participate - An interesting proposal

As a veteran PVP player, one thing that stood out to me was the ability to progress fresh characters from scratch in vengeance. The typical leveling loop of making a new character on ESO for probably 75%+ of veteran players is to leave the creation screen, group up with a friend, and do 1-2 hours of nBRP/skyreach or grind writs to hit max level, followed by hours of grinding skill lines, skill points, etc. But with vengeance I'm able to head in there at level 15 and get assault 10 as well as some alliance war skill points early on, in addition to nominal EXP.

But what if vengeance offered new ways to progress characters? Firstly, I'd suggest removing the level 10 requirement to enter vengeance, and removing the level 15 requirement to barswap from the entire game. The level 10 requirement is fine for normal cyrodiil. The level 15 requirement to barswap serves no purpose whatsoever than an inconvenient roadbloack for veterans, and a mechanical disservice to new players.

Next, give vengeance a significant EXP modifier on everything PVP related, and slightly less significant EXP modifier for PVE actions (to allow for old grind spots such as cracked wood cave). Grinding mobs, killing players, performing faction/siege objective related functions. Make it so that if you are actively playing in vengeance, you could leave the environment in 5-10 hours with enough EXP to go straight to 50. This will create an engaging way for new and old players alike to level their characters, instead of the same old loop of nBRP/skyreach/writs that we've all done for 8+ years now. It might also create a decent way to grind champion points, too.

But why stop there? Let's talk rewards. We do of course have the PVP reward track coming, but it is..underwhelming. There isn't a whole lot on offer, the capstone rewards feel uninspired, and the vengeance rewards in the early ranks feel like a cop-out just to fill them out. But with the idea that vengeance could be a place for leveling new characters in mind, what if we allowed for EXP, skill points, and similar rewards to be earnable here? Some examples;

• Skill points - Earning skill points on new characters is awful. You need to collect SO many skyshards, do public or normal dungeons, level alliance war lines, etc. What if we could spend our AP in vengeance to purchase skill points directly, up to maybe 50 total or so? This would create a much more enjoyable gameplay loop than the typical grinding we endure, without completely devaluing those other sources.
• EXP Commendations - What if we could purchase scrolls to instantly level weapon & armor lines to 50? For example, the "Two Handed Commendation - Major" scroll could instantly level the line to 50. You'd still need to morph skills, but could gain access to all of them right away for a more fluid leveling process.
• Race changes, Alliance changes - This is more of a personal wish, but it would be great to see race changes/alliance swaps earnable ingame. For years these have been exclusively purchased for crowns, not even offered for gems/seals/tome points, despite being a crucial purchase for many people. It would certainly provide an incentive for veteran players to participate in vengeance if we could earn these rewards there.

Campaign Duration

Make Vengeance a one week campaign, and let us earn tier one transmute geodes in here. Transmutes for newer players are hard to come by, and you need SO MANY of them to start trying PVP builds, or putting together your various PVE setups. Allowing us to earn tier ones on a variety of characters (including low level characters!) would get a ton of people into vengeance on a weekly basis for these transmutes alone.

Conclusion

Again, I think vengeance has potential as an introductory space for PVP. That said, without some of the changes I've gone over here, I do not think it will sustain anywhere near the population it aims to. The environment is too simple, has too many issues, and lacks meaningful progression for your account and skills as a PVP player in it's current form. I sincerely hope if this is intended as a permanent feature, that significant work continues to go into it in the immediate future.

Sorry but Unless you are EP, we cannot test anything. EP are just zerging the map. 24/7 allowing nothing for the other alliances. This should be alliance locked to stop this rubbish. It is not fun, Cannot test like you want us. Its just rubbish.

NikkoDarwin wrote: »

Sorry but Unless you are EP, we cannot test anything. EP are just zerging the map. 24/7 allowing nothing for the other alliances. This should be alliance locked to stop this rubbish. It is not fun, Cannot test like you want us. Its just rubbish.

I think it would be better if Vengeance used the Battlegrounds teams (Storm Lords vs Pit Daemons vs Fire Drakes) and automatically shuffled people between teams to keep the populations balanced.

Either that, or intentionally lowering the population cap. Or adjusting the population cap on a per-team basis to not allow more than x% people on a team compared to the current population of the other two teams.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

NikkoDarwin wrote: »

Sorry but Unless you are EP, we cannot test anything. EP are just zerging the map. 24/7 allowing nothing for the other alliances. This should be alliance locked to stop this rubbish. It is not fun, Cannot test like you want us. Its just rubbish.

I think it would be better if Vengeance used the Battlegrounds teams (Storm Lords vs Pit Daemons vs Fire Drakes) and automatically shuffled people between teams to keep the populations balanced.

Either that, or intentionally lowering the population cap. Or adjusting the population cap on a per-team basis to not allow more than x% people on a team compared to the current population of the other two teams.

Yeah mate, something needs to be changed cos how it is now, its not fun at all

SneaK wrote: »

It’s awful and needs to be put down like a rabid dog.

No one's forcing you to play in Vengeance.

React wrote: »

Campaign Duration

Make Vengeance a one week campaign, and let us earn tier one transmute geodes in here. Transmutes for newer players are hard to come by, and you need SO MANY of them to start trying PVP builds, or putting together your various PVE setups. Allowing us to earn tier ones on a variety of characters (including low level characters!) would get a ton of people into vengeance on a weekly basis for these transmutes alone.

Conclusion

Again, I think vengeance has potential as an introductory space for PVP. That said, without some of the changes I've gone over here, I do not think it will sustain anywhere near the population it aims to. The environment is too simple, has too many issues, and lacks meaningful progression for your account and skills as a PVP player in it's current form. I sincerely hope if this is intended as a permanent feature, that significant work continues to go into it in the immediate future.

100% agree! Vengeance as a 7-day campaign would make so much sense!

We did this test based on your feedback about stalemates between healing versus damage output. How have your battles have been going?

I play mostly solo, so I tend to die quite often. However, I like to watch and observe other fights and the general battlefield and see that heals do not reach an equilibrium to damage output by another group or person. In fact, damage seems to almost always outweigh healing abilities in a 1v1 situation. In the long-run, I think this will influence the gameplay to be more offensive rather than defensive or support-driven.

To be clear, I am not advocating for a return to over-healing, heal-stacking, and infinite purges. But as a “battle medic” and when I like to play as a PvP healer, I find that I cannot support the group as much as I have been able to in the past, especially though siege-battles. I am unsure what the balance should be, but perhaps a stalemate is an effect of true balance.

If you hit stalemates, could you provide additional content around the fight?
N/A

What day and time of day were you playing?
Evening, NA. I am a casual player, so when I’m in Cyrodiil, it’s usually prime-time, 6-9 PM CST.

What did the battle look like player wise? Where there a lot of players around, or a smaller group? Photos/Videos will help here.

All the same battles in GH can be found in Vengeance. 1v1, Resource skirmishes with 12-50 players, Field skirmishes with 20-50 players, Outpost battles with 20-80 players, and Keep battles with 50-100+ players. Since the population cap has increased, it does feel difficult to encounter these battles often, but I believe this is something that will resolve itself as the player-base becomes more familiar and used to the increase pop cap.

One of the better fights I’ve been involved in was a tri-faction Chalman (of course lol) fight (Tuesday night?), easily over 100 players if not 200+, and was pleasantly surprised that there was zero lag. I didn’t see any reports in zone chat of a player crashing, skipping, or bugging out. I didn’t see the floating-toon bug at all. Yes, the frame rates drop here and there, but this does not bother me as much as it may other users.

Do you have any general feedback?

I am not shy to say that I love Vengeance-mode. It fixes everything that the user-base has taken issue about: high latency, population thresholds, bugs, and lack of balance (ball groups d/t over-healing/heal-stacking/purge; proc sets from PvE that are tuned for PvE boss fights with over a million HP; and subclassing). By taking out proc sets, champion points, and character stats, it creates an equal (not equitable) playing field that truly rewards two things: skill and teamwork. Cyrodiil is a land-army war. Anyone who’s ever had to sit through European or Chinese history knows that the largest army wins. There is no hero who can take on a group of 12 and win (unless they are a bomber and in that case I agree with Adamus’ take on that particular set.)

Skill still comes up in at least three ways: build, PvP gameplay skills, and strategy.

Every player has access to (nearly) the same buffs. There is a non-class skill for Major Expedition, Major and Minor Protection, Major Evasion, Major Resolve, Major Breach, Minor Force, Minor Endurance, Minor Lifesteal, Minor Magickasteal, Minor Maim, Minor Savagery, and Minor Prophecy. In keeping with the “class identity” mission, there are exclusive buffs and damage-types that some classes get and others don’t. The loadouts and perks further customize our builds. It is not NASCAR.

I don’t believe the current version of Vengeance is the final form. Instead, it re-establishes a foundation that can support a more controlled process of upgrades/updates. By leveling the playing field, we get to see what sets can be added and what sets should be deactivated; which skills should be morphed and to what degree their effect is; etc. etc.

Since we are in this basic, stripped-down mode, PvP skills really shine. LOS, rotation, skill-selection, weapon-types, and reaction-time are not disguised or compensated through proc-sets, subclassing, and heal-stacking. I die literally all the time. But it’s not because I didn’t have a fancy set, or didn’t level up a subclassing line, or amazing potions. It’s because the other player or group was better than me. This is actually the best part of Vengeance for me because I can actually work on my PvP skills rather than chasing down the newest meta. This has huge benefits for new players, PvE-er’s who want to try out PvP, and also people who are bad at PvP (me) but want to get better. I am not claiming that this is the best thing for people who are already very good at PvP and have a meta set. I only speak from the perspective of the aforementioned groups. Adamus says that Vengeance will be a lobby for people waiting to get into GH and I think that will probably be true. But I also think it’s important to prioritize other ways to promote Cyrodiil to non-veteran players if ZOS wants this gameplay mode to be a central component of ESO.

Teamwork is also highly rewarded, which is great because this is an MMO. More coordination between guilds and groups is required because there aren’t ball-groups running around murdering everything. The more groups work together, the more points a faction can claim. The more players on your team, the more wins a faction can have. I enjoy this aspect a lot and I think it’s only happening because the individual player is substantially limited on how much damage and support they can provide so people have no choice but to group up or zerg. I see a lot of complaints about Cyrodiil being a “numbers” game, but again, this is land warfare. Perhaps the naval battles will rely less on numbers.

Lastly, some more non-soapboxy feedback in bullet-point format:

• Love the infinite free repair-kits and I only have to press one button to repair
• Do not like that I am limited on how many ballistas I can set out. If I am limited, I would be okay with being limited to 5. I would also pay AP for this instead of them being free.
• I would like the ability to save a few loadouts (similar to armor slots)
• Sometimes my weapons unequip themselves and I don’t know it until I’m trying to punch a DK’s whip and die immediately. I do not like this.
• A lot of people can be in an outpost without big lags and this is AWESOME
• I hate how slow I feel, but it is not a dealbreaker
• Love the perk that allows me to see people when I use siege. I farmed Seigemaster’s Focus just for this effect even though it is not a very good set.
• I would like there to be some special advantages rewarded in the veteran-PvP progression system, especially if they expire at the end of a campaign
• Guards are really hard to fight. Like REALLY hard. Can they be less hard? It’s okay if they are not “run you over with my car” easy. I do see other players kill them faster than I can.
• I never see permatanks and I am a little sad that they are gone, but if other players want them gone bad enough then that’s okay with me.

The game mode just doesn't feel impactful. Grouping doesn't feel like it matters and everything is so slow.
Celerity should be made baseline

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, quick update for the weekend of Vengeance Testing. With the current population, we're seeing good performance on 3 for AE healing cap and 6 for AE offense cap. Given some of the feedback, we're now looking at a cap of 6 for AE healing and a cap of 12 for AE offense, to see how that feels in battles as opposed to 3 and 6.

Please let us know what you thing if you play over the weekend. Thanks in advance for the additional feedback!

I've been a noted non-fan of Vengeance, but moving to caps of 6 and 12 would definitely be a step in the right direction.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, quick update for the weekend of Vengeance Testing. With the current population, we're seeing good performance on 3 for AE healing cap and 6 for AE offense cap. Given some of the feedback, we're now looking at a cap of 6 for AE healing and a cap of 12 for AE offense, to see how that feels in battles as opposed to 3 and 6.

My vote would be 3 for AE healing, 12 for AE offense.

We've seen enough horrors from heal stacking.

1) Consider a balancing pass prior to going live
2) Add in the range increase usually found within the Alliance war passives as a baseline. The reduced range makes a lot of difference when defending / attacking a keep and isn't fun. Just bake it in to all the skills.
3) Is double AP on vengeance just for the tests or will it remain after launch?
4) Allow us a toggle on the sky effects - the green flashes of the sky are headache inducing.

Isnt this veng test the 5th test?

PCNA 5pm-12pm EST

(I hate faction locks) However without faction locks many players swapped to EP for the test creating a vast imbalance in score. As much as I hate them, bring back faction locks. Perhaps make it a conscription thing where at a start of a campaign a player can sign up for whatever faction.

EP was pop locked most nights, otherwise at 3 bar
AD was 3bar most nights and rarely pop locked
DC was 2bar most nights and rarely was at 3 bar

General feedback:

• Stalemate wise The stalemate issue comes from people having near unlimited sustain when going defensive. Think, when I am defensive, all I have to worry about is spamming a heal. However when I go offensive I have to do damage skills and heal myself creating a sort of balance game that runs my sustain out fast. This is where stalemates come from. The defensive player should have to balance their sustain tools more when pressured. IMO you should reduce base regen in favor of stronger sustain skill tools.
• Stam weapons are mostly unusable, mainly because we do not have the stam sustain tools available or regen choices like we normally would have in gear set builds. For instance on sorc you would really need darkdeal to make stamsorc function. Another concept would be to even out the regen of all the loadouts, and then introduce a new food dropdown menu where you could pick which regen to get.
• Mounts are a major balance oversight. You need to really make sure player mounts have the correct speed and stamina you want. For newer players GANKING is a necessity. It is a necessary evil which will force players outside of their comfort zone. This can force players into learning how to solo and think on their own. Also on the flip side, it can be a good way to try and learn how to solo. You want ganking because it helps break up large groups from all being at the same location. IMO mounts and mount stamina should be balanced such that it gives you just enough time to dismount and prepare to fight. I would rather have people's health completely protected while mounted, but they are easier to dismount.
• Morphs would be a good addition to give ALOT of build diversity. My main suggestion is to avoid bloat and make it all UI based. Simply modify the skills in smarter ways. For instance streak would stun at the final location, ball of lightning would stun at the starting location. Dizzy swing would do less damage with the shorter cast time, wrecking blow would do more damage with a longer cast time. Simple non bloated design that creates WILDLY different playstyles you can tailor to be different from other players. We do not need a major/minor buff tied to every single skill. Not to mention all you need to do DEV wise is copy and past the skill and change 1-2 attributes of the skill. I am sure there are plenty of skill icons you can recycle by copy and pasting.
• Perks+loadouts - Players REALLY like that pve and pvp have different systems where they do not need to spend 2 hours changing gear before entering pvp. Using a fully UI based system is amazing for QoL to help break that barrier to entry. IMO you should change the perk system to work like the item set stickerbook. Make Vengeance specific item sets that we can drag and drop onto our vengeance saved character sheet which auto swaps on and off as you enter/leave the campaign. Perhaps you can use AP to upgrade each stickerbook item to be golded out. And pay AP to trait change items at will in the UI. Creating an actual use for AP.
  - - - Item sets are a slippery slope though. If you fall into the trap of proc sets each quarter eventually you are going to keep having to "one up" yourself and power creep bloat the game again. Maybe focus on nonproc sets and then focus on tradeoff 5 pieces like 10% critchance for -10% mag regen.
  - - - Proc sets may be possible to bring back, however we have to keep in mind that a proc set like clever alchemist is probably way more efficient performance wise than any proc effect set which does a fake skill. Not to mention players in vengeance really appreciate the streamlined GCD combat system that isnt violated by random proc sets firing off doing half their healthbars with 0 effort from the enemy. Please stick to stat sets and avoid the nonsensical bloat.
• Cooldowns should not be a thing in this game. I would much rather have the ramping cost structure on skills like streak, crit surge, cloak, etc. You are violating the whole purpose of the GCD system by artificially limiting skill usage with cooldowns. This should be a sustain management issue instead so it has far more player skill involved whether someone knows if they can dump their resources for these type of skills. Good players will know what they can get away with, bad players will gas themselves out.

xylena wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

(I hate faction locks) However without faction locks many players swapped to EP for the test creating a vast imbalance in score. As much as I hate them, bring back faction locks.

Yeah there needs to be some sort of lock to prevent faction swap abuse, but the 30 day lockout is so long that players just quit, I'd say make it 7-14 days. There should still be a serious cost and commitment to switching factions beyond just spending Crowns, but maybe put that more into the game itself, make players pay more gold, give up more rewards or progression, etc.

Yes I would also petition to say the campaigns should be 7 or 14 days long. If a campaign is too long players may give up halfway through if their faction is losing. Also shorter campaigns have the benefit of reset days artificially boosting population. Timing these resets strategically on a friday can help boost the pvp population. Think of it like parents scheduling when to bring the kids to the playground.....versus the kids randomly showing up hoping people are there and then quitting when its dead.

I think zos should just get rid of the character wide faction system. Just make it so every campaign you sign up for a faction. You can avoid the whole faction lock system issues if you just make the campaigns 1-2 weeks instead of 4+ weeks.

xylena wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

(I hate faction locks) However without faction locks many players swapped to EP for the test creating a vast imbalance in score. As much as I hate them, bring back faction locks.

Yeah there needs to be some sort of lock to prevent faction swap abuse, but the 30 day lockout is so long that players just quit, I'd say make it 7-14 days. There should still be a serious cost and commitment to switching factions beyond just spending Crowns, but maybe put that more into the game itself, make players pay more gold, give up more rewards or progression, etc.

With regard to faction swapping they should do the following on both GH and Veng:

1) Make the 'faction selection' account wide, when earning AP on that faction you gain progress towards the scoreboard account wide.
2) When playing on a second faction you can earn AP but do not gain leaderboard or 'reward tier' progress.
3) increase the reward tiers and rewards to encourage playing on your main faction more than just the '100k' for tier 3. e.g. Earn: 25k, 70k, 110k, 500k, 1m, 3m, 5m, 10m, the rewards scale up including multiple transmute geodes, legendary gear, arena weapons or some pvp specific weapons.