Item Set Testing in Vengeance

LPapirius · July 16

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Aylish wrote: »

No, thanks.

Given the smaller development teams, you should focus your efforts on things that players actually want.
I quit Vengeance tests when it became clear that the promoted intention to make classic Cyrodiil better was never real.

And to add insult to injury, stating this when everyone can see it plain as day is called conspiracy

This is a huge problem around here. Most feedback is labeled bashing, conspiracy or something else when it's just customer feedback that is critical of ZOS and rightfully so with decisions like mandated vengeance. If I lived near ZOS's offices I'd be on the street with picket signs marching up and down their sidewalk about this mandate.

And worse, this kind of mandate destroys any sympathy some of us had regarding recent events. Time for ZOS to focus on the game we purchased. Not some other game we have no interest in playing.

ceruulean · July 16

Lol I get the concerns but it really is just a game. ZOS could redesign Cyrodiil and make Venegance (w/ sets enabled) the only campaign available, and people will still eat it up and play it despite what the forumgoers complain about. You do know that other competitors, like Guild Wars 2, only have 1 ruleset for their realm pvp, right? They don't have this "CP, no CP, battle spirit" nonsense going on. It's basically the same as Vengeance equalization with some gear customization. I think most players have gotten too comfortable with various custom rulesets and the ZOS team has had enough. They're drawing a line and only using 1 ruleset for open world PvP going forward.

There are few other games on the market that support 900 players. You have Chivalry 2 but it only supports 64 people in an instance. There's GW2 open world PvP but it's also a PvDoor zerg fest, and Cyrodiil has better sieging for PvDoor moments. There is Dark Age of Camelot but it looks incredibly dated and bad.

I'm not really happy about the imbalance of the item sets, but if that's what the majority of the players want, then that's what they'll get.

LPapirius · July 16

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol I get the concerns but it really is just a game. ZOS could redesign Cyrodiil and make Venegance (w/ sets enabled) the only campaign available, and people will still eat it up and play it despite what the forumgoers complain about. You do know that other competitors, like Guild Wars 2, only have 1 ruleset for their realm pvp, right? They don't have this "CP, no CP, battle spirit" nonsense going on. It's basically the same as Vengeance equalization with some gear customization. I think most players have gotten too comfortable with various custom rulesets and the ZOS team has had enough. They're drawing a line and only using 1 ruleset for open world PvP going forward.

There are few other games on the market that support 900 players. You have Chivalry 2 but it only supports 64 people in an instance. There's GW2 open world PvP but it's also a PvDoor zerg fest, and Cyrodiil has better sieging for PvDoor moments. There is Dark Age of Camelot but it looks incredibly dated and bad.

I'm not really happy about the imbalance of the item sets, but if that's what the majority of the players want, then that's what they'll get.

No. They wouldn't. Vengeance will be the death of PvP in ESO if ZOS keeps on this path. And once the PvP goes, the rest of the game will go down shortly after.

TheAwesomeChimpanzee · July 16

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol I get the concerns but it really is just a game. ZOS could redesign Cyrodiil and make Venegance (w/ sets enabled) the only campaign available, and people will still eat it up and play it despite what the forumgoers complain about. You do know that other competitors, like Guild Wars 2, only have 1 ruleset for their realm pvp, right? They don't have this "CP, no CP, battle spirit" nonsense going on. It's basically the same as Vengeance equalization with some gear customization. I think most players have gotten too comfortable with various custom rulesets and the ZOS team has had enough. They're drawing a line and only using 1 ruleset for open world PvP going forward.

There are few other games on the market that support 900 players. You have Chivalry 2 but it only supports 64 people in an instance. There's GW2 open world PvP but it's also a PvDoor zerg fest, and Cyrodiil has better sieging for PvDoor moments. There is Dark Age of Camelot but it looks incredibly dated and bad.

I'm not really happy about the imbalance of the item sets, but if that's what the majority of the players want, then that's what they'll get.

The majority of the players want GH, that much is abundantly clear.

Tommy_The_Gun · July 16

I would like to see just one test being done. Keep everything, sets, CP, skill, all passives... but disable grouping. I know how it sounds, I know, it is an mmo etc. But the thing is, that after playing PvP (Cyro & IC) since like um.. the game exists, I can tell whatever or not I am against a group of random people or a an actual "group" of players that are in a group.

How you might ask I can tell that ? Not by players behaviour, but by the amount of Lag. It is a very special and different type of lag & delay. The type of lag that can make your skills not to register or in a worst case scenario - you might get disconnected form the server.

After years of observing, I have a strong suspicion that the whole lag problem in Cyro & IC has is related to how "group" is coded and how interactions between players i that group are registered by the server.

Artisian0001 · July 16

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol I get the concerns but it really is just a game. ZOS could redesign Cyrodiil and make Venegance (w/ sets enabled) the only campaign available, and people will still eat it up and play it despite what the forumgoers complain about. You do know that other competitors, like Guild Wars 2, only have 1 ruleset for their realm pvp, right? They don't have this "CP, no CP, battle spirit" nonsense going on. It's basically the same as Vengeance equalization with some gear customization. I think most players have gotten too comfortable with various custom rulesets and the ZOS team has had enough. They're drawing a line and only using 1 ruleset for open world PvP going forward.

There are few other games on the market that support 900 players. You have Chivalry 2 but it only supports 64 people in an instance. There's GW2 open world PvP but it's also a PvDoor zerg fest, and Cyrodiil has better sieging for PvDoor moments. There is Dark Age of Camelot but it looks incredibly dated and bad.

I'm not really happy about the imbalance of the item sets, but if that's what the majority of the players want, then that's what they'll get.

Of the active player base over 50% would immediately quit PvP altogether, you know nothing about it so please keep your uniformed opinions off the forums.

ceruulean · July 16

Lol why would PvP die if Vengeance became the only campaign? When it was the only campaign for tests, it was packed with new and returning players. It's enough to hold the entirety of the 900 player pvp community. Why would a business open extra servers if 1 server is enough?

Here's some rational answers from chat gpt:

- There's also a third possibility: network effects. PvP communities tend to congregate where everyone else is. Even if Vengeance is objectively smoother, if the major guilds, streamers, and raid leaders remain in Gray Host, many players will follow because that's where the action is. PvP populations are notoriously "sticky."

- The fact that Gray Host still fills to capacity despite its longstanding performance issues is actually a strong signal that there is healthy demand for large-scale PvP. The bottleneck appears to be server capacity rather than player interest.

In this case, it makes sense to replace Gray Host with vengeance eventually, because Venegance can hold 900 players but Gray Host can't. Or if it became Venegance with 600 player capacity and item sets enabled. Dunno why people are so sad about it. A higher population cap is the most important factor.

ceruulean · July 16

Artisian0001 wrote: »

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol I get the concerns but it really is just a game. ZOS could redesign Cyrodiil and make Venegance (w/ sets enabled) the only campaign available, and people will still eat it up and play it despite what the forumgoers complain about. You do know that other competitors, like Guild Wars 2, only have 1 ruleset for their realm pvp, right? They don't have this "CP, no CP, battle spirit" nonsense going on. It's basically the same as Vengeance equalization with some gear customization. I think most players have gotten too comfortable with various custom rulesets and the ZOS team has had enough. They're drawing a line and only using 1 ruleset for open world PvP going forward.

There are few other games on the market that support 900 players. You have Chivalry 2 but it only supports 64 people in an instance. There's GW2 open world PvP but it's also a PvDoor zerg fest, and Cyrodiil has better sieging for PvDoor moments. There is Dark Age of Camelot but it looks incredibly dated and bad.

I'm not really happy about the imbalance of the item sets, but if that's what the majority of the players want, then that's what they'll get.

Of the active player base over 50% would immediately quit PvP altogether, you know nothing about it so please keep your uniformed opinions off the forums.

Do you work for Zenimax and have telemetry data? If not then your opinion is also uninformed.

TheAwesomeChimpanzee · July 16

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol why would PvP die if Vengeance became the only campaign? When it was the only campaign for tests, it was packed with new and returning players. It's enough to hold the entirety of the 900 player pvp community. Why would a business open extra servers if 1 server is enough?

Here's some rational answers from chat gpt:

- There's also a third possibility: network effects. PvP communities tend to congregate where everyone else is. Even if Vengeance is objectively smoother, if the major guilds, streamers, and raid leaders remain in Gray Host, many players will follow because that's where the action is. PvP populations are notoriously "sticky."

- The fact that Gray Host still fills to capacity despite its longstanding performance issues is actually a strong signal that there is healthy demand for large-scale PvP. The bottleneck appears to be server capacity rather than player interest.

In this case, it makes sense to replace Gray Host with vengeance eventually, because Venegance can hold 900 players but Gray Host can't. Or if it became Venegance with 600 player capacity and item sets enabled. Dunno why people are so sad about it. A higher population cap is the most important factor.

Except it hasn’t been packed. The campaign has literally never filled during any of these tests. In fact, the last two or three tests struggled to reach more than two population bars during prime time, despite Vengeance being the only campaign available and the test being a limited event that happens once every few months.

I cannot emphasize enough how overwhelmingly clear the lack of interest has been. ZOS has repeatedly added rewards and other incentives specifically to push people into the tests, including PvE players who are only there for those rewards, and even with all of that combined they still cannot reach their stated target of 300 players per faction.

So what exactly is the argument here? If Vengeance cannot fill during a limited-time test while it is the only available campaign, while rewards are attracting players who do not normally PvP, and while curiosity brings back some new or returning players, how is it supposed to sustain that population permanently?

The permanent Vengeance campaign is already a deserted wasteland. The players who consistently log in to PvP several times a week overwhelmingly choose Gray Host instead. Those are the people a permanent campaign actually needs to retain, and they have repeatedly shown that they do not want anything to do with Vengeance.

Forcing every player into one campaign for a temporary test does not prove that the campaign is popular. It only proves that people will enter the sole available option when every other option has been removed. Even under those artificial conditions, Vengeance still fails to fill. That is not evidence that replacing Gray Host would succeed. It is evidence of the exact opposite.

ceruulean · July 16

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol why would PvP die if Vengeance became the only campaign? When it was the only campaign for tests, it was packed with new and returning players. It's enough to hold the entirety of the 900 player pvp community. Why would a business open extra servers if 1 server is enough?

Here's some rational answers from chat gpt:

- There's also a third possibility: network effects. PvP communities tend to congregate where everyone else is. Even if Vengeance is objectively smoother, if the major guilds, streamers, and raid leaders remain in Gray Host, many players will follow because that's where the action is. PvP populations are notoriously "sticky."

- The fact that Gray Host still fills to capacity despite its longstanding performance issues is actually a strong signal that there is healthy demand for large-scale PvP. The bottleneck appears to be server capacity rather than player interest.

In this case, it makes sense to replace Gray Host with vengeance eventually, because Venegance can hold 900 players but Gray Host can't. Or if it became Venegance with 600 player capacity and item sets enabled. Dunno why people are so sad about it. A higher population cap is the most important factor.

Except it hasn’t been packed. The campaign has literally never filled during any of these tests. In fact, the last two or three tests struggled to reach more than two population bars during prime time, despite Vengeance being the only campaign available and the test being a limited event that happens once every few months.

I cannot emphasize enough how overwhelmingly clear the lack of interest has been. ZOS has repeatedly added rewards and other incentives specifically to push people into the tests, including PvE players who are only there for those rewards, and even with all of that combined they still cannot reach their stated target of 300 players per faction.

So what exactly is the argument here? If Vengeance cannot fill during a limited-time test while it is the only available campaign, while rewards are attracting players who do not normally PvP, and while curiosity brings back some new or returning players, how is it supposed to sustain that population permanently?

The permanent Vengeance campaign is already a deserted wasteland. The players who consistently log in to PvP several times a week overwhelmingly choose Gray Host instead. Those are the people a permanent campaign actually needs to retain, and they have repeatedly shown that they do not want anything to do with Vengeance.

Forcing every player into one campaign for a temporary test does not prove that the campaign is popular. It only proves that people will enter the sole available option when every other option has been removed. Even under those artificial conditions, Vengeance still fails to fill. That is not evidence that replacing Gray Host would succeed. It is evidence of the exact opposite.

So in the last test, Vengeance had 2 bars per alliance and you're assuming the "PvE regulars" stopped coming. So basically the entire pvp population was about 600 players.

Seems to match the same number with GH having a 120 cap per faction and around 70-80 people queueing. Maybe an extra 250 in BR and U50 and Ravenwatch if we're being generous. So the total number of active PvPers during primetime is about 900 people total. Which is the same capacity as Vengeance. The entire PvP community is less or equal to 1 Vengeance server. Why not fill it? What's the point of having 3 PvP servers again?

tomofhyrule · July 16

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

I would like to see just one test being done. Keep everything, sets, CP, skill, all passives... but disable grouping. I know how it sounds, I know, it is an mmo etc. But the thing is, that after playing PvP (Cyro & IC) since like um.. the game exists, I can tell whatever or not I am against a group of random people or a an actual "group" of players that are in a group.

How you might ask I can tell that ? Not by players behaviour, but by the amount of Lag. It is a very special and different type of lag & delay. The type of lag that can make your skills not to register or in a worst case scenario - you might get disconnected form the server.

After years of observing, I have a strong suspicion that the whole lag problem in Cyro & IC has is related to how "group" is coded and how interactions between players i that group are registered by the server.

One of the tests they ran ages ago (before Vengeance was even a thing) specifically disabled crossheals out-of-group, but I don't think they ever tested disabling grouping. Same idea though: no crossheals meant a lot fewer calculations.

But let's face it, there's one test that pretty well everyone who plays PvP wants. The one test every person has been begging for, and yet that's the one they've never tried:
NO STACKING EFFECTS
You get one Vigor on you. Someone else casts one, and the original stops itself.

When the Cyrodiil healing changes were implemented in U49, it was divisive, and most commenters were pushing the stacking prevention as a solution. The devs did keep a nerfed version of the planned healing debuff in the final release, but they did say that that was specifically a stopgap and would be relooked at in the future... and yet (like Grave Lord's Sacrifice), nothing was ever mentioned again.
Preventing heals from stacking was actually specifically called out as one of the most common requests, saying "We did see many of you asking about not allowing the same type of heals to stack; this is something that was actually in the game years ago, and the sentiment was so poor that we removed it from the game. It’s something we could explore or iterate on in the future, but not for Update 49."
...so why is the team not considering this as a priority target?

TheAwesomeChimpanzee · July 16

ceruulean wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol why would PvP die if Vengeance became the only campaign? When it was the only campaign for tests, it was packed with new and returning players. It's enough to hold the entirety of the 900 player pvp community. Why would a business open extra servers if 1 server is enough?

Here's some rational answers from chat gpt:

- There's also a third possibility: network effects. PvP communities tend to congregate where everyone else is. Even if Vengeance is objectively smoother, if the major guilds, streamers, and raid leaders remain in Gray Host, many players will follow because that's where the action is. PvP populations are notoriously "sticky."

- The fact that Gray Host still fills to capacity despite its longstanding performance issues is actually a strong signal that there is healthy demand for large-scale PvP. The bottleneck appears to be server capacity rather than player interest.

In this case, it makes sense to replace Gray Host with vengeance eventually, because Venegance can hold 900 players but Gray Host can't. Or if it became Venegance with 600 player capacity and item sets enabled. Dunno why people are so sad about it. A higher population cap is the most important factor.

Except it hasn’t been packed. The campaign has literally never filled during any of these tests. In fact, the last two or three tests struggled to reach more than two population bars during prime time, despite Vengeance being the only campaign available and the test being a limited event that happens once every few months.

I cannot emphasize enough how overwhelmingly clear the lack of interest has been. ZOS has repeatedly added rewards and other incentives specifically to push people into the tests, including PvE players who are only there for those rewards, and even with all of that combined they still cannot reach their stated target of 300 players per faction.

So what exactly is the argument here? If Vengeance cannot fill during a limited-time test while it is the only available campaign, while rewards are attracting players who do not normally PvP, and while curiosity brings back some new or returning players, how is it supposed to sustain that population permanently?

The permanent Vengeance campaign is already a deserted wasteland. The players who consistently log in to PvP several times a week overwhelmingly choose Gray Host instead. Those are the people a permanent campaign actually needs to retain, and they have repeatedly shown that they do not want anything to do with Vengeance.

Forcing every player into one campaign for a temporary test does not prove that the campaign is popular. It only proves that people will enter the sole available option when every other option has been removed. Even under those artificial conditions, Vengeance still fails to fill. That is not evidence that replacing Gray Host would succeed. It is evidence of the exact opposite.

So in the last test, Vengeance had 2 bars per alliance and you're assuming the "PvE regulars" stopped coming. So basically the entire pvp population was about 600 players.

Seems to match the same number with GH having a 120 cap per faction and around 70-80 people queueing. Maybe an extra 250 in BR and U50 and Ravenwatch if we're being generous. So the total number of active PvPers during primetime is about 900 people total. Which is the same capacity as Vengeance. The entire PvP community is less or equal to 1 Vengeance server. Why not fill it? What's the point of having 3 PvP servers again?

Two bars in Vengeance is roughly 100–200 players per alliance, not 600 total unless your population estimates are completely off.

And even that number came during a limited-time test with exclusive incentives, returning players, and Vengeance being the only available campaign. Despite all of those artificial advantages, it still did not fill the numbers this campaign is designed to get. The permanent Vengeance campaign on live is practically empty.

More importantly, you are assuming the current Gray Host population would simply transfer over. A huge portion of the players who regularly log in specifically for traditional Cyrodiil have already made it clear that they would rather stop playing than accept Vengeance as the only option.

So no, you cannot take temporary, heavily incentivized test numbers and treat them as proof that Vengeance could permanently retain the existing PvP community.

ceruulean · July 16

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

ceruulean wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol why would PvP die if Vengeance became the only campaign? When it was the only campaign for tests, it was packed with new and returning players. It's enough to hold the entirety of the 900 player pvp community. Why would a business open extra servers if 1 server is enough?

Here's some rational answers from chat gpt:

- There's also a third possibility: network effects. PvP communities tend to congregate where everyone else is. Even if Vengeance is objectively smoother, if the major guilds, streamers, and raid leaders remain in Gray Host, many players will follow because that's where the action is. PvP populations are notoriously "sticky."

- The fact that Gray Host still fills to capacity despite its longstanding performance issues is actually a strong signal that there is healthy demand for large-scale PvP. The bottleneck appears to be server capacity rather than player interest.

In this case, it makes sense to replace Gray Host with vengeance eventually, because Venegance can hold 900 players but Gray Host can't. Or if it became Venegance with 600 player capacity and item sets enabled. Dunno why people are so sad about it. A higher population cap is the most important factor.

Except it hasn’t been packed. The campaign has literally never filled during any of these tests. In fact, the last two or three tests struggled to reach more than two population bars during prime time, despite Vengeance being the only campaign available and the test being a limited event that happens once every few months.

I cannot emphasize enough how overwhelmingly clear the lack of interest has been. ZOS has repeatedly added rewards and other incentives specifically to push people into the tests, including PvE players who are only there for those rewards, and even with all of that combined they still cannot reach their stated target of 300 players per faction.

So what exactly is the argument here? If Vengeance cannot fill during a limited-time test while it is the only available campaign, while rewards are attracting players who do not normally PvP, and while curiosity brings back some new or returning players, how is it supposed to sustain that population permanently?

The permanent Vengeance campaign is already a deserted wasteland. The players who consistently log in to PvP several times a week overwhelmingly choose Gray Host instead. Those are the people a permanent campaign actually needs to retain, and they have repeatedly shown that they do not want anything to do with Vengeance.

Forcing every player into one campaign for a temporary test does not prove that the campaign is popular. It only proves that people will enter the sole available option when every other option has been removed. Even under those artificial conditions, Vengeance still fails to fill. That is not evidence that replacing Gray Host would succeed. It is evidence of the exact opposite.

So in the last test, Vengeance had 2 bars per alliance and you're assuming the "PvE regulars" stopped coming. So basically the entire pvp population was about 600 players.

Seems to match the same number with GH having a 120 cap per faction and around 70-80 people queueing. Maybe an extra 250 in BR and U50 and Ravenwatch if we're being generous. So the total number of active PvPers during primetime is about 900 people total. Which is the same capacity as Vengeance. The entire PvP community is less or equal to 1 Vengeance server. Why not fill it? What's the point of having 3 PvP servers again?

Two bars in Vengeance is roughly 100–200 players per alliance, not 600 total unless your population estimates are completely off.

And even that number came during a limited-time test with exclusive incentives, returning players, and Vengeance being the only available campaign. Despite all of those artificial advantages, it still did not fill the numbers this campaign is designed to get. The permanent Vengeance campaign on live is practically empty.

More importantly, you are assuming the current Gray Host population would simply transfer over. A huge portion of the players who regularly log in specifically for traditional Cyrodiil have already made it clear that they would rather stop playing than accept Vengeance as the only option.

So no, you cannot take temporary, heavily incentivized test numbers and treat them as proof that Vengeance could permanently retain the existing PvP community.

It's not a about retaining the existing community. It's about what is good for the game population and business long term. If the Gray Host server is a laggy, expensive time sink, while the Vengeance server is cheaper and smoother to balance, troubleshoot, and run, and there's only 900 active players, why would I keep other servers open? If the new mode has better balance and is separate and free from PvE concerns, it would be much easier to maintain and develop a playerbase from there. If you lose 100 Gray Host fans but gain 150 new or returning players, which decision is more rational?

BodhiLady · July 16

I barely ever post on here but I'm gonna come out and say this is a super wrong move.
The amount of people wanting to be in GH is evidenced by the fact you had to open BR to contain the overflow.
So you shut both down for a hugely unpopular Vengeance test? Why?
No one is asking for this, the forum isn't littered with posts for more Vengeance. Please listen to your player base. This is not the play to be making right now.

Artisian0001 · July 16

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol why would PvP die if Vengeance became the only campaign? When it was the only campaign for tests, it was packed with new and returning players. It's enough to hold the entirety of the 900 player pvp community. Why would a business open extra servers if 1 server is enough?

Here's some rational answers from chat gpt:

- There's also a third possibility: network effects. PvP communities tend to congregate where everyone else is. Even if Vengeance is objectively smoother, if the major guilds, streamers, and raid leaders remain in Gray Host, many players will follow because that's where the action is. PvP populations are notoriously "sticky."

- The fact that Gray Host still fills to capacity despite its longstanding performance issues is actually a strong signal that there is healthy demand for large-scale PvP. The bottleneck appears to be server capacity rather than player interest.

In this case, it makes sense to replace Gray Host with vengeance eventually, because Venegance can hold 900 players but Gray Host can't. Or if it became Venegance with 600 player capacity and item sets enabled. Dunno why people are so sad about it. A higher population cap is the most important factor.

You really tried it with the chat gpt.

Here are some rational answers from someone who plays the game. Vengeance always has less population than greyhost, so much so they had to reopen BR to slow the giant ques that Greyhost has. Vengeance has been 1 bar all across for weeks in a row, it only gets pop when they give it double AP AND close greyhost. Please stop being delusional, it looks bad on the vengeance community

CannedChicken · July 16

ceruulean wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

ceruulean wrote: »

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

ceruulean wrote: »

Lol why would PvP die if Vengeance became the only campaign? When it was the only campaign for tests, it was packed with new and returning players. It's enough to hold the entirety of the 900 player pvp community. Why would a business open extra servers if 1 server is enough?

Here's some rational answers from chat gpt:

- There's also a third possibility: network effects. PvP communities tend to congregate where everyone else is. Even if Vengeance is objectively smoother, if the major guilds, streamers, and raid leaders remain in Gray Host, many players will follow because that's where the action is. PvP populations are notoriously "sticky."

- The fact that Gray Host still fills to capacity despite its longstanding performance issues is actually a strong signal that there is healthy demand for large-scale PvP. The bottleneck appears to be server capacity rather than player interest.

In this case, it makes sense to replace Gray Host with vengeance eventually, because Venegance can hold 900 players but Gray Host can't. Or if it became Venegance with 600 player capacity and item sets enabled. Dunno why people are so sad about it. A higher population cap is the most important factor.

Except it hasn’t been packed. The campaign has literally never filled during any of these tests. In fact, the last two or three tests struggled to reach more than two population bars during prime time, despite Vengeance being the only campaign available and the test being a limited event that happens once every few months.

I cannot emphasize enough how overwhelmingly clear the lack of interest has been. ZOS has repeatedly added rewards and other incentives specifically to push people into the tests, including PvE players who are only there for those rewards, and even with all of that combined they still cannot reach their stated target of 300 players per faction.

So what exactly is the argument here? If Vengeance cannot fill during a limited-time test while it is the only available campaign, while rewards are attracting players who do not normally PvP, and while curiosity brings back some new or returning players, how is it supposed to sustain that population permanently?

The permanent Vengeance campaign is already a deserted wasteland. The players who consistently log in to PvP several times a week overwhelmingly choose Gray Host instead. Those are the people a permanent campaign actually needs to retain, and they have repeatedly shown that they do not want anything to do with Vengeance.

Forcing every player into one campaign for a temporary test does not prove that the campaign is popular. It only proves that people will enter the sole available option when every other option has been removed. Even under those artificial conditions, Vengeance still fails to fill. That is not evidence that replacing Gray Host would succeed. It is evidence of the exact opposite.

So in the last test, Vengeance had 2 bars per alliance and you're assuming the "PvE regulars" stopped coming. So basically the entire pvp population was about 600 players.

Seems to match the same number with GH having a 120 cap per faction and around 70-80 people queueing. Maybe an extra 250 in BR and U50 and Ravenwatch if we're being generous. So the total number of active PvPers during primetime is about 900 people total. Which is the same capacity as Vengeance. The entire PvP community is less or equal to 1 Vengeance server. Why not fill it? What's the point of having 3 PvP servers again?

Two bars in Vengeance is roughly 100–200 players per alliance, not 600 total unless your population estimates are completely off.

And even that number came during a limited-time test with exclusive incentives, returning players, and Vengeance being the only available campaign. Despite all of those artificial advantages, it still did not fill the numbers this campaign is designed to get. The permanent Vengeance campaign on live is practically empty.

More importantly, you are assuming the current Gray Host population would simply transfer over. A huge portion of the players who regularly log in specifically for traditional Cyrodiil have already made it clear that they would rather stop playing than accept Vengeance as the only option.

So no, you cannot take temporary, heavily incentivized test numbers and treat them as proof that Vengeance could permanently retain the existing PvP community.

It's not a about retaining the existing community. It's about what is good for the game population and business long term. If the Gray Host server is a laggy, expensive time sink, while the Vengeance server is cheaper and smoother to balance, troubleshoot, and run, and there's only 900 active players, why would I keep other servers open? If the new mode has better balance and is separate and free from PvE concerns, it would be much easier to maintain and develop a playerbase from there. If you lose 100 Gray Host fans but gain 150 new or returning players, which decision is more rational?

What do you mean by more expensive? They have put in about 10 times the developer time making vengeance and haven't made any modifications to gray host at all. Who cares about better balance? People have already spoken with their feet because they won't step foot in vengeance given the choice between the two campaigns. If you remove gray host completely people aren't going to magically start enjoying vengeance. What is going to happen if you remove gray host is the remaining players will either stick to BGs or just quit the game.

CannedChicken · July 16

Wow look how popular vengeance is right now.

NovelliESO · July 16

Congratulations

CannedChicken wrote: »

Wow look how popular vengeance is right now.

Looks like every 1-1-1 bar alternative campaign during midyear mayhem at 6 A.M. Probably 8 people total out there right now fighting the good fight.

Muizer · July 16

Not against sets in Vengeance but .............. let they be sets that you can only acquire in Vengeance. In fact, apply this principle everywhere. This whole notion of dragging people away from their preferred content to farm gear needs to die already. Please, let it die.

Kickimanjaro · July 16

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

I would like to see just one test being done. Keep everything, sets, CP, skill, all passives... but disable grouping. I know how it sounds, I know, it is an mmo etc. But the thing is, that after playing PvP (Cyro & IC) since like um.. the game exists, I can tell whatever or not I am against a group of random people or a an actual "group" of players that are in a group.

How you might ask I can tell that ? Not by players behaviour, but by the amount of Lag. It is a very special and different type of lag & delay. The type of lag that can make your skills not to register or in a worst case scenario - you might get disconnected form the server.

After years of observing, I have a strong suspicion that the whole lag problem in Cyro & IC has is related to how "group" is coded and how interactions between players i that group are registered by the server.

These are the kinds of tests I'd support and participate in. Even if they just halved group size again and capped it at 6, I'd like to see if that matters.

albertberku · July 16

About time. How dare anyone cant be carried by their build in ESO PvP.

AdonisJorge · July 16

PVP community here is one of the worst that i have seen, want a balanced PVP but do not want their busted sets and builds affected by the balance. Let the Greyhost cease to exist if needed, if these people do not like or quit the game is for the better IMO. Let better people stay or new people come to play, PVE is the majority of the community and need a better place to learn and not be farmed on by the same people that says that PVP is dead or unbalanced

rlindsey912nub18_ESO · July 17

Catering to pvers is why the game is in it’s current state lowering the ceiling and raising the floor.Good and bad players are not equal

ToddIngram · July 17

rlindsey912nub18_ESO wrote: »

Catering to pvers is why the game is in it’s current state lowering the ceiling and raising the floor.Good and bad players are not equal

AdonisJorge wrote: »

PVP community here is one of the worst that i have seen, want a balanced PVP but do not want their busted sets and builds affected by the balance. Let the Greyhost cease to exist if needed, if these people do not like or quit the game is for the better IMO. Let better people stay or new people come to play, PVE is the majority of the community and need a better place to learn and not be farmed on by the same people that says that PVP is dead or unbalanced

When you guys get your wish and ZOS removes PvP the entire game dies, including your beloved PvE, housing and role playing.

ToddIngram · July 17

ZOS_Amy wrote: »

Hello All,

As part of our ongoing PvP work in ESO, we will be testing the addition of Item Sets in the Vengeance campaign next week. For this test, most Item Set "final bonuses" will be active as we look at server performance. This includes Mythics, Monster masks and shoulders, and five- or three-piece set "final bonuses." Other stats from Item Set bonuses will not be active during this test, even though the UI displays them as enabled.

Some sets are currently not providing bonuses, and this is a known issue, though the majority are.

With this test, both the Gray Host and Blackreach Cyrodiil campaigns will be closed from July 20th to July 27th, unless it is determined that we need to turn them back on due to performance issues in Vengeance.

As always, please let us know your thoughts and feedback during the testing period.

What this business decision looks like from the customers viewpoint.

@ZOS_Amy
@ZOS_Kevin
@ZOS_BrianWheeler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouau9SVVrBA

Leave Grey Host and Blackreach up during this vengeance test. It's not relevant to Grey Host in any capacity and we're not going to help you develop vengeance ever again. Fix Grey Host just like you've said you were doing for most of a decade. Just do what you've always said you were doing; WORKING ON IT!

blktauna · July 17

speak for yourself only thank you.

AdonisJorge · July 17

ToddIngram wrote: »

rlindsey912nub18_ESO wrote: »

Catering to pvers is why the game is in it’s current state lowering the ceiling and raising the floor.Good and bad players are not equal

AdonisJorge wrote: »

PVP community here is one of the worst that i have seen, want a balanced PVP but do not want their busted sets and builds affected by the balance. Let the Greyhost cease to exist if needed, if these people do not like or quit the game is for the better IMO. Let better people stay or new people come to play, PVE is the majority of the community and need a better place to learn and not be farmed on by the same people that says that PVP is dead or unbalanced

When you guys get your wish and ZOS removes PvP the entire game dies, including your beloved PvE, housing and role playing.

ZOS will not remove PVP, (neither do i want it to be removed) and no, the game would not die if it is removed or changed the way it is right now, and about the other things it makes no sense, it is literaly a MMORPG

Alp · July 17

Kinda hoped Vengeance would have its own separate armour sets of sorts with simplified stat changes to avoid server calculations, etc. Would stop the whole pve vs pvp balancing act. Make it like a uniform slot instead of 5 item sets. Maybe a dedicated slot for the Vengeance equivalent of mythics.

Dyngrin · July 17

So yet again (the third time by my count), ZOS is going to abruptly end a competitive Gray Host campaign to do very unpopular Vengeance tests!?

Btw, proper tests only change that which they are testing. How valid is a test if you also turn off 2 campaigns that are currently on? Perhaps that is then end plan, what a shame.

--Dyn (unhappy paying ESO plus customer)

aetherix8 · July 17

TheAwesomeChimpanzee wrote: »

Except it hasn’t been packed. The campaign has literally never filled during any of these tests.

Your continuous false claims completely discredit your whole argument.

22/09/2025 PC EU

04/12/2025 PC EU

20/04/2026 PC EU

The very first test was also pop locked, but I didn't consider it necessary to take screenshots at that time.