Best Of
Re: [PS-NA] Solstice & Stirk Fellowship Camp Daily Quest NPCs Have Despawned
AlienatedGoat wrote: »Players are real people, with real lives and commitments. A lot of the objectives were quite repetitive, and overall it was time consuming. If there is a projected end date, it is the player's choice to spread them out.We will note, while we understand some of the confusion here due to the date usage, the Golden Pursuit has also been available for almost a month and a half now, providing ample time to engage with the event and complete the Golden Pursuit.
I don't take issue with the fact that the NPCs despawned prematurely, even if I wanted to continue working on the objectives myself.
The above remark about "ample time" however is insulting and disrespectful of people's time & obligations.
6 weeks *is* ample time. I don't see a problem here.
The problem is the GP had a clear and visible timer, while the WW event itself did not. People may have looked at the GP timer and thought they'd be able to finish it off in the last few days. Ample time or not, you can't assume everyone plans their activities in the same way, some may have paced themselves.
Re: A Win‑Win Idea: Keep Subclassing Fun, Restore Pure Class Power
One way this could be implemented is to add a passive (that requires level 50) to each skill line that gives, say 5% bonus to other pure class skill lines.
As an example, for Templar:
Aedric Spear passive - "Increase the strength of Dawn's Wrath and Restoring Light skills by 2.5/5% (2/2)"
Dawn's Wrath passive - "Increase the strength of Aedric Spear and Restoring Light skills by 2.5/5% (2/2)"
Restoring Light passive - "Increase the strength of Aedric Spear and Dawn's Wrath skills by 2.5/5% (2/2)"
This way if you have 2 lines, you get up to 5% bonus to them, and up to 10% if you keep all 3.
As an example, for Templar:
Aedric Spear passive - "Increase the strength of Dawn's Wrath and Restoring Light skills by 2.5/5% (2/2)"
Dawn's Wrath passive - "Increase the strength of Aedric Spear and Restoring Light skills by 2.5/5% (2/2)"
Restoring Light passive - "Increase the strength of Aedric Spear and Dawn's Wrath skills by 2.5/5% (2/2)"
This way if you have 2 lines, you get up to 5% bonus to them, and up to 10% if you keep all 3.
Re: Community Update – Vengeance Testing & Cyrodiil
ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote:Scenario 1 is what we are working toward, in which case Grey Host would remain as it is now. Like noted in the original message, through the Vengeance tests we've done so far, we learned that in order to support our goals - a large-scale PvP zone with mass-scale battles and a much higher population - the abilities, procs, passives, etc. must be lighter versions of the ones that exist in the rest of the game. So we will be applying that to Vengeance, and giving those who prefer the current Grey Host ruleset that option.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Cyrodiil performance start to degrade once the calculations were moved server side? Wasn't that in like 2017? Is there any avenue to explore there rather than stripping down to Cyrodiil?
Creating a PvP game mode where the calculations were done by the client was an optimistic choice, to put it mildly. Any sane developer will have told management the problems this would create from the start, and the only reason to design it like that regardless will have been lower server costs.
Removing the calculations from the server won't be an option. I obviously don't know what the eso codebase looks like, apart from what I've seen when interacting with the API, but I do have a background in software development and one way I could see performance improve is by doing the calculations on both ends. If both client and server do the calculations and the client sends periodic checksums of the results for the server to verify, this could result in a very slight reduction in network traffic and smoother gameplay. But it would definitely increase the amount of CPU power required for the server (same calculations + extra for the checksums) and cost tons of development hours, so I wouldn't expect that to ever happen.
loosej
1
Re: Dont deactivate normal Cyrodiil or respectfully i will not play any title with a zenimax brand anymo
MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »''Those things eat your memory. The issue is the server calcs which are from the skills.''
Who says that ?
ZOS do, along with anyone who has knowledge of how games like this work. Animations are run from client side - the only thing the server does is confirm your position - the animations don't add to server load. Skills are all calculated server side because they affect others.
Re: Community Update – Vengeance Testing & Cyrodiil
We worked on it for so long, if we do not release it we will get fired.
The code rewrite would like a word.
React
4
Re: Community Update – Vengeance Testing & Cyrodiil
I would take the positive feedback about Vengeance with a pinch of salt.
I did provide positive feedback about Vengeance, based strictly on the Vengeance terms of reference: a test, aimed at trying to enhance server performance. Within those terms of reference, yes it worked - performance was enormously much better. And the game was fun, to an extent. I liked the lack of ball groups and edgelord troll tank duos. The fluidity of the fighting was much better. There is a lot to learn from Vengeance.
BUT... It was framed only as a test - a starting point to build back from. The first couple of tests have done this, and it sounds like there is more to come in the next Vengeance test. I was glad to see the return of meatbags - that reduced the unbalance between attackers and defenders. But if 3 or 4 prepackaged stat setups is all we'll ever get it will fail, because there needs to be a balance between simple calculations and a degree of build variety that actually supports different playstyles. The full unbalanced gamut of "all the PVE sets" was clearly unmanageable, both for balance and for performance, but "half a dozen cookie cutter stat packages" is too far in the other direction - it's uninspiring.
If packaged stats are manageable from a performance perspective, then provide a large array of possible packaged stats in the form of sets. Yes, it would be basically a no-proc campaign, but you could do something like precompute a player's fixed stats from their armour when they leave the alliance safe zone (and make it impossible to change gear except in the safe zone). That would give a much greater range of build diversity and support a wider range of play styles, and probably go a long way to satisfying most keen pvpers (not the sweaty edgelords, but whatever, nothing will ever satisfy them), and it would actually allow players to make use of stats-based sets.
And for goodness sake, if you do keep both rulesets, put the "high population capable" campaign at the top of the list, so you drive the "I don't care" masses into it, and leave the slow-performing GH campaign below it so those who really want the full ruleset at least have to make the active choice to press "down" in the menu to get it.
I did provide positive feedback about Vengeance, based strictly on the Vengeance terms of reference: a test, aimed at trying to enhance server performance. Within those terms of reference, yes it worked - performance was enormously much better. And the game was fun, to an extent. I liked the lack of ball groups and edgelord troll tank duos. The fluidity of the fighting was much better. There is a lot to learn from Vengeance.
BUT... It was framed only as a test - a starting point to build back from. The first couple of tests have done this, and it sounds like there is more to come in the next Vengeance test. I was glad to see the return of meatbags - that reduced the unbalance between attackers and defenders. But if 3 or 4 prepackaged stat setups is all we'll ever get it will fail, because there needs to be a balance between simple calculations and a degree of build variety that actually supports different playstyles. The full unbalanced gamut of "all the PVE sets" was clearly unmanageable, both for balance and for performance, but "half a dozen cookie cutter stat packages" is too far in the other direction - it's uninspiring.
If packaged stats are manageable from a performance perspective, then provide a large array of possible packaged stats in the form of sets. Yes, it would be basically a no-proc campaign, but you could do something like precompute a player's fixed stats from their armour when they leave the alliance safe zone (and make it impossible to change gear except in the safe zone). That would give a much greater range of build diversity and support a wider range of play styles, and probably go a long way to satisfying most keen pvpers (not the sweaty edgelords, but whatever, nothing will ever satisfy them), and it would actually allow players to make use of stats-based sets.
And for goodness sake, if you do keep both rulesets, put the "high population capable" campaign at the top of the list, so you drive the "I don't care" masses into it, and leave the slow-performing GH campaign below it so those who really want the full ruleset at least have to make the active choice to press "down" in the menu to get it.
ajkb78
1
Re: Vengeance ruleset for Dungeons/Etc.
spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »ESO_player123 wrote: »I won't comment on the PvP side of things since I do not PvP, but let's not pretend that this thread is anything other than a "we might suffer so they should too" type of thread.
As was mentioned in one of the posts above, this is a direct response to the recent Vengeance thread and to the concern that Scenario #2 is the future of PvP.
Bingo. It's a non-starter anyway because PvE does not have anywhere close to the performance issues of Cyrodiil. And PvP players have been making it clear for years that fixing performance should be their top priority. They tried for years to do just that so it's not surprising that their tests revealed that certain solutions simply aren't feasible.
Suffer? I’d like the option to have access to a better performing game in PvE and ZOS has the answer.
It's disingenuous to compare the performance of the two. PvE works fine compared to Cyrodiil. A small cut isn't the same as a broken leg even if both are injuries. And performance issues in Cyrodiil have been far more disruptive than PvE.
Tell that to folk pursuing trifecta clears. I am not sure that they would agree with you.
Re: Vengeance ruleset for Dungeons/Etc.
Dagoth_Rac wrote: »Dungeons and overland do not have the performance issues or extremely low population that Cyrodiil does. Stop acting like ZOS came up with Vengeance out of personal spite. It is an attempt to fix a very real problem that PvE simply does not have.
PvE surprisingly has a lot of similar issues that PvP has. The game fundamentally has become so incredibly bloated. Single abilities that do multiple things, unnecessary passives that should just be baked natively into characters without needing skill investments. Proc sets that require reading a paragraph. Not to mention severe visual clutter. I can't even understand what half the world bosses do anymore because there's 50+ players all spamming abilities and creating a nightmare of a lightshow while the boss basically T-poses because the server is struggling to keep-up despite playing on a PC that is beyond overkill for the recommended hardware listed.
Vengeance mode for PVE would resolve all of these issues.
Re: Community Update – Vengeance Testing & Cyrodiil
tomofhyrule wrote: »I know one of my major frustrations lately has been that the Combat Team seems to be spending nearly 100% of their time on Vengeance, and none on the actual Live experience for players, both in PvP and PvE.
The first Vengeance test was fun - our characters had identity and it felt like a good “on-ramp” to actual PvP, similar to how PvE players have normal dungeons and trials before going into veteran content. But the later ones then seemed to be taking more and more of the development time away from other things for a mode which most people seemed to favor only as “PvP for non-PvPers,” effectively shutting out the players that it was nominally for while ignoring issues that plague all areas of the game.
As an example: U48 made one change to Class lines in the name of balance. Otherwise, that patch brought in the Writhing Fortress (live for one week) and Vengeance 4 (another week-long test). Meanwhile, U46’s Subclassing utterly destroyed balance, and it is still in an abysmal state 6 months later, and we don’t have a hope of getting it addressed until March at the earliest.
It seems like skewed priorities that all combat in all areas of the game was left to languish while the Loadouts and Perks system was added to a test mode. Could that not have been tabled for a cycle once it was seen that the balance was much worse than anticipated (or worse, was this balance anticipated and the team is fine with it)?
Does the Combat Team intend to attempt balancing the rest of the game? Or is “Vengeance” going to be the answer to anyone who wants a balanced system, and other players can stick with their single overpowered hodgepodge or their memetically useless pure-class builds?
Finally, with all of the Cyrodiil testing done over the years, it seems that the team never went to test one of the major problems in PvP: stacking several healing abilities with the same skill. PvP players have been complaining about healing output for a while, and the Hybridization change that allowed healing to scale off of WD/SD instead of max stats made it so players can output both huge heals and huge damage instead of having to choose one or the other.
It is good to get some communication on this front, but I hope it is not too late. The PvP population has been dwindling since Vengeance was first tested because they feared it would replace Cyrodiil despite all assurances to the contrary, and well…
If Vengeance had been sold with the caveat of “we’ll be implementing a new mid-size PvP mode,” people may have been less opposed to it. And again, poor balance has been keeping people out as well - the Combat Team should at the very least post out what their intentions are to make it not as oppressive at the endgame level.
It seems pretty glaringly obvious to me, they are going to force Vengeance and give some small deathmatch map to the rest of us. They don’t understand PvPers. There are many of us that go to Cyrodiil strictly cause it’s a big open world with random encounters, multiple objectives, and you can seek out gameplay specific to your builds. If I make a good 1v1 type build, I want to go find small scale encounters, and I can do that most of the time, while still playing objectively. If I want to Zerg surf on a build I’m testing to see how it plays, I can do that. The only reason I PvE is to theorycraft PvP builds, literally it. I’m not alone.
This team doesn’t understand. I’m sorry but nothing in the form of good news has come from them, I cannot think of anything. Scenario 2 which is ultimately what they’ll do, gives no reason for people like me to play ESO. It’s sad. I’m not some crazy 1vXr god, I’m a decent player, but getting kills isn’t even what drives me to play this game. It’s competing at various levels in all the situations Cyrodiil has, with builds I made and grinded my butt off for. They don’t get it. Turning off GH type Cyro turns off ESO as a whole for a lot of us.
SneaK
7
Re: Elephant in the Room - The End-Game PVP Culture is Declining. How Can ZOS Mitigate This?
Turtle_Bot wrote: »Well, it looks like they have made a start on what I said needed to happen regarding Vengeance:
- Lastly for Vengeance, a few things here.
- ZOS needs to confirm (and stick to this) that vengeance is just tests and won't be "the final product" or at most will be an option for cyrodiil (ideally a "learner" cyrodiil for new players to learn PvP basics).
- ZOS needs to speed up these tests so they don't drag on too long.
- ZOS needs to do balancing for live Cyrodiil in the meantime so PvP doesn't die completely while waiting for the results of these tests to produce outcomes.
Forum Link below:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/685603/community-update-vengeance-testing-cyrodiil/p1
They have confirmed that Vengeance is (as per their stated goals) now going to be (ideally) an option at most, to be ran alongside Greyhost (and apparently a new "mini-cyrodiil" mode that is like a mix of BGs and Cyrodiil but with full greyhost ruleset). They definitely need to stick with this though and ideally not let greyhost (or vengeance) just rot balance wise.
They also acknowledged the tests dragging on too long and have stated their plans regarding future tests for next year (including healing vs damage tests). They have also shared a few results of the previous tests and the actual population caps in Cyrodiil (360 total/120 per faction for live, 900 total/300 per faction for vengeance) with us too which was really nice to see.
The last thing that remains unaddressed is my third point: Balancing Live alongside the tests/vengeance so that the tests aren't in vain.
This is still up in the air since it seems most of the combat balance team is tied up with vengeance currently (and less people available due to microsofts recent layoffs).
Also note that the above linked forum thread is stated (by ZOS themselves) to be in addition to the 3rd PvP FAQ update, not a replacement for it. So that FAQ should still be coming soon (tm).
Honestly (cynicism/skepticism aside), as much as ZOS has messed up over the years, these early signs/communications under the new leadership (open and honest communication about the writhing wall event mess up, and now this for vengeance including sharing some of the results/data graphs) have been a really nice step in the right direction so kudos to ZOS where it is due. Hopefully it continues and is built upon, even though it will take a lot of time and rolling with the punches to push through the cynicism/skepticism of the player base that has built up through the years as a result of the many decisions made in the past.
Ya, that's nice. ZOS says a lot of things. What did we get out of the months of condition tests they forced us to play about 3 years ago? Nothing. They walked away after those tests and never did anything with the data except stealth lower the pop cap a few times.