Cyrodiil Performance Test and Double AP Event

white8025 · February 2017

When is this supposed to happen?

Turelus · February 2017

white8025 wrote: »

When is this supposed to happen?

@white8025 I bolded it for you below.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Hey gang!

As you saw in Matt’s 2017 roadmap, we are making Cyrodiil performance evaluation and fixing a priority this year. We want to make sure that Cyrodiil is a great PvP experience for everyone. Over the last year, we’ve made some good strides towards refining server performance across all campaigns, and we will continue down that path.

When looking into Cyrodiil issues, we definitely see (both in-game and through monitoring) situations where client and server performance degrade significantly when under high load. The small incremental changes we’ve made over the last year have helped, but they alone are not enough. So, we’re going to change our strategy a bit – which is the point of this post.

Simply put, Azura’s Star (the non-Champion Point campaign) runs much better, more efficiently, and is overall a much better PvP experience than the standard campaigns such as Trueflame or Haderus. Now that we’ve had a significant population density in Azura’s Star, we strongly suspect what has been theorized for a long time: Champion Rank passives and abilities are causing too much server load, especially in situations like Keep battles where there are tons of players in one place.

Because of this, we are going to run a series of PvP performance tests, and because it is impossible to simulate PvP load on our internal test servers (or on PTS), we will do this on all live servers on the dates of February 27 – March 6. This is not something we take lightly, and it is important that we evaluate performance when the server is under real-world load situations.

Our first test will be set up as follows:
For a period of one week, all Champion Points will be disabled on all Campaigns on all platforms and megaservers

During this time, AP gains in all Campaigns will be doubled, both to compensate for lack of CP and also to incentivize players to PvP so we can record as much data as possible

Campaign durations and leaderboards will not be adjusted during this week

We encourage all players to continue their PvP activities in their respective Home, Guest, and Friends campaigns – we will be taking feedback and monitoring data on a daily basis during this test, and look forward to reading your constructive posts about server performance during the time of the test.

The results of this test will determine the next course of action for refining Cyrodiil server performance. Thank you for your perseverance and patience – we thoroughly appreciate your time, efforts, and feedback!

Thanks again, and see you in Cyrodiil!

-Wheeler

Surgee · February 2017

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

No champion ranks? AWESOM! Finally my low champion rank friends will stand a chance in cyrodil. Can't wait!

They can already use this benefit in the No CP campaigns already Ingame . Just look at the campaign information screen for the no cp option one . The names can be different depending on platform .

These are completely empty in console version. Scourge is all the time full with 100 players long ques but no one joins other campaigns for some reason.

maboleth · February 2017

I have to say I noted some stuttering in Azura as well when there are many players playing together.

But what if CP turns out to be the main culprit? What then? What's the plan? Surely they are not going to remove it, it's a major thing for character developing after lv50.

bowmanz607 · February 2017

Surgee wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

No champion ranks? AWESOM! Finally my low champion rank friends will stand a chance in cyrodil. Can't wait!

They can already use this benefit in the No CP campaigns already Ingame . Just look at the campaign information screen for the no cp option one . The names can be different depending on platform .

These are completely empty in console version. Scourge is all the time full with 100 players long ques but no one joins other campaigns for some reason.

because that is where their guild is. They dont go elsewhere because they want to play with their guilds. This also leads more solo players and others to that campaign because the people who want to play with their guild wont go elsewhere.

the solution is to get the guilds to spread out more over the servers.

Cogo · February 2017

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Mr Wheeler, us pvpers love ye! We really do. And we see the pain on ESO live when you sit there and cant do fully what you want to do for us, because it might upset some PvE players.

The focus on pvp is good, but sadly, too little, too late.

When battlegrounds steals the Cyro population and only us hardcore, BIG SCALE, pvpers, are left in half a full cyro. I don't think we will come back.

Cyrodiil and Imp city is by far the best and coolest pvp experience I had in any MMO.

Thank you.

Respect.

IcyDeadPeople · February 2017

maboleth wrote: »

I have to say I noted some stuttering in Azura as well when there are many players playing together.

But what if CP turns out to be the main culprit? What then? What's the plan? Surely they are not going to remove it, it's a major thing for character developing after lv50.

I imagine the goal is simply to identify which (if any) CP passive calculations are contributing to latency problems and adjust these to improve performance.

Seems unlikely they would ever remove CP from all campaigns. Anyone who wants to play without them can already hop in Azura's Star or Blackwater Blade.

Ojustaboo · February 2017

VycDarkshadow wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Well so one week of not pvping because i´m not going to craft a template for that bullcrap? Nice - do i get my subscription refunded for that time period?

Edit: Do you really think anyone who has a template balanced for CP is going to continue to play? That´s moronic.

Nope, but if you don't want to participate in helping fix PvP, then I see no reason for you to cry about not PvPing. Also, I've spoken to several of my streamer friends, and they're stoked for this! They don't mind a single week of no CP perks, if it means fixing PvP in the long run.

Besides, it's the CP procs that are under fire right now. I'm sure the static increased resistances/damage and the reduction costs are going to remain as they are.

While I don't disagree with what you say, reading between the lines of what ZoS says, it seems to me they want to see if this solves the problem, hence the implication is, if it does then yes it will be permanent?

CyrusArya · February 2017

Damn, a lotta people getting their panties in a wad over this. I for one enjoy the pvp in this game with or without CPs, because what draws me to the game first and foremost is the physical mechanics of combat. That being said, I think the CP system adds a very interesting and complex layer of build specialization to eso and that the game is better off for it. Without it, it would behoove everyone to run sustain sets and that would really kill build diversity.

I don't think that they will remove cps. This statement should be taken at face value, they are doing testing to get feedback and metrics. But even if they did, Id be cool with it. I have a great time in Azura's on my own and in groups. Now theres a certain class of ardent defenders of the champion system who will say Azuras is only fun if you enjoy stomping new players who don't know how to play the game yet. And while there is some layer of truth to this, as there are surely lots of inexperienced players in Azuras, this is only so because most 'experienced' players are too terrified to play without crutch points. Azuras would be so damn fun if more experienced PvPers and guilds ran there.

For this reason, I cannot wait for this week. Gonna be fun to see the dynamics between players and guilds without the warm gentle embrace of free stats and easy resource management.

NBrookus · February 2017

.

maboleth wrote: »

I have to say I noted some stuttering in Azura as well when there are many players playing together.

But what if CP turns out to be the main culprit? What then? What's the plan? Surely they are not going to remove it, it's a major thing for character developing after lv50.

Identify problematic CP passives, optimize code where possible and alter passives where optimization is inadequate.

Karivaa · February 2017

@ZOS_BrianWheeler, I was totally excited about this until we got the housing update on Xbox. When you get more ap from a resource than killing players, that is a huge problem.

I've played this game since the beginning and mainly play PVP. I earned more yesterday from running around scourge taking resources than I did from the day before when we had some epic long battles.

PVP = player vs player.

It is my fear that this change along with battlegrounds will kill cyrodiil and what I love the most about eso. I loved open combat between 3 factions.

Sandman929 · February 2017

Ojustaboo wrote: »

VycDarkshadow wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Well so one week of not pvping because i´m not going to craft a template for that bullcrap? Nice - do i get my subscription refunded for that time period?

Edit: Do you really think anyone who has a template balanced for CP is going to continue to play? That´s moronic.

Nope, but if you don't want to participate in helping fix PvP, then I see no reason for you to cry about not PvPing. Also, I've spoken to several of my streamer friends, and they're stoked for this! They don't mind a single week of no CP perks, if it means fixing PvP in the long run.

Besides, it's the CP procs that are under fire right now. I'm sure the static increased resistances/damage and the reduction costs are going to remain as they are.

While I don't disagree with what you say, reading between the lines of what ZoS says, it seems to me they want to see if this solves the problem, hence the implication is, if it does then yes it will be permanent?

ZOS doesn't strike me as quick to abandon mistakes. I don't see the Champion System going away permanently. They may however make Champion passives scale with the percentage of your missing health.

waitwhat · February 2017

bikerangelo wrote: »

Now everyone gets to feel how imbalanced poisons and siege are without CP.

This is going to be awesome. I'm going to ROAST some vamp bomplars.

waitwhat · February 2017

Derra wrote: »

Bashev wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Well so one week of not pvping because i´m not going to craft a template for that bullcrap? Nice - do i get my subscription refunded for that time period?

Edit: Do you really think anyone who has a template balanced for CP is going to continue to play? That´s moronic.

Next step after the event will be: no more CP campaigns. Better performance and no difference in CPs. Is not this what we want for PvP?

Since the pvp without cp is absolutely terrible. At that poit it stop playing the game.

I´d give everyone 600 in cyro.

Devouring swarm and the destro ult can't save them now.

Incidentally, time to stockpile MOAR Spriggan's and Spinner's just in case they really do get rid of CP in Cyrodiil.

But seriously @ZOS_BrianWheeler I am over the moons about this. This is wonderful.

waitwhat · February 2017

Ankael07 wrote: »

Can you guys also monitor the effects of resource poisons as well? In a campaign like Azura's resource poisons are an absolute malice compared to CP campaigns.

Oh and a question... what sort of changes can we expect if your tests confirm that CP passives affect lag heavily?

Yeah poisons are brutal, but they're meant to be since they 1) run out and 2) require heavy crafting investment in points and mats to replenish. Furthermore, you have to give up enchants, including Maelstrom enchants, to use them. Power should require sacrifice, and that holds true for poisons.

Besides, on CP campaigns like Scourge, they're more a nuisance or something you hope for in a Hail Mary kind of way. I can't rely on them to get the job done, just to hope that they slow some bomplar down.

I hope they're vicious in non-cp campaigns, because then those inifinte-magicka, spam Breath of Life builds will actually have to worry about non-ganking stamblades, and they'll have to rely on more than just Jesusbeam/Destro Ult/Biting Jabs.

waitwhat · February 2017

Alcast wrote: »

ComboBreaker88 wrote: »

Xbox one NA server Azuras star is DEAD. Nobody goes in there. The server runs better BECAUSE it has a lower population. Lol

EU PC AZURA is full in primetime. No lag

Yeah this is why it's such a good idea to do all platforms, all campaigns. Since the console Azura's are dead, this will enable them to mitigate platform differences as variables in evaluating performance.

It's all going to be Azura's for that week.

It's like a week of free vacation.

waitwhat · February 2017

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

@Derra I think you overestimate the changes you'd need to make to your build. Throw on atronach or a regen jewelry glyph or two, and you'll be perfectly fine. Also, people play similarly on Azura's as elsewhere with the exception of noobs leveling up not know what is going on and less spam / greater resource management.

ZOS will be able to look at the total data in ways you perhaps do not understand. They want a big picture of Trueflame prime time without cp involved so they can see exactly how many fewer calculations the server has to do and how much less lag there is in a very general sense. A large scale effort to fix Cyrodiil performance has to start somewhere, and I think a general test like this will in fact be informative in a general sense.

As for past performance issues, ZOS has made many incremental changes since your guild rage quit the game years ago, but hey, we still have tons of lag. Maybe it is due to cp, and maybe cp isn't a factor like you say. The thing is ZOS can't know for sure without a widespread removal of cp like this one. If TF prime time lag doesn't reduce by some margin during the test, they'll focus on other performance factors.

I for one will actually be playing in TF exclusively for this period regardless of the lag. Hell, I might even zerg to try and create some lag! FOR SCIENCE!!

SCIENCE FOR THE SCIENCE GODS!

Everyone level up your destro ults for this so that we can try to break the server without CP, but everyone--all Alliances--has to pop it at once.

I volunteer Castle Alessia as the testing ground.

waitwhat · February 2017

Rittings wrote: »

Whilst the idea of a "level playing field" is okay, it removes the incentive to level. What return on the huge time sink do people get if they are getting no return for their efforts with regards to CP?

Would it not be more productive to have a few CP campaigns and few non-CP campaigns? The fact that on PS4 there is only one non-CP (and its a longer campaign) can be off-putting for some.

Maybe if you did the "double" or "1.5" AP return in those campaigns, you'd find more in there and it would even out the CP and non-CP campaigns - and give players a greater choice.

@Rittings : One should play because one enjoys playing, with levelling an ancillary benefit that comes from doing so. The virtue of the game comes not from feeding power fantasies that come from level advantages, but from the stimulus and engagement playing induces.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler: The reward of having a higher champion rank is the sum of the experiences that resulted in that higher champion rank, namely the insight, satisfaction, and guile such a time investment provides.

josh.lackey_ESO · February 2017

Sandman929 wrote: »

Ojustaboo wrote: »

VycDarkshadow wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Well so one week of not pvping because i´m not going to craft a template for that bullcrap? Nice - do i get my subscription refunded for that time period?

Edit: Do you really think anyone who has a template balanced for CP is going to continue to play? That´s moronic.

Nope, but if you don't want to participate in helping fix PvP, then I see no reason for you to cry about not PvPing. Also, I've spoken to several of my streamer friends, and they're stoked for this! They don't mind a single week of no CP perks, if it means fixing PvP in the long run.

Besides, it's the CP procs that are under fire right now. I'm sure the static increased resistances/damage and the reduction costs are going to remain as they are.

While I don't disagree with what you say, reading between the lines of what ZoS says, it seems to me they want to see if this solves the problem, hence the implication is, if it does then yes it will be permanent?

ZOS doesn't strike me as quick to abandon mistakes. I don't see the Champion System going away permanently. They may however make Champion passives scale with the percentage of your missing health.

That would just be additional calculations.

Surgee · February 2017

bowmanz607 wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

No champion ranks? AWESOM! Finally my low champion rank friends will stand a chance in cyrodil. Can't wait!

They can already use this benefit in the No CP campaigns already Ingame . Just look at the campaign information screen for the no cp option one . The names can be different depending on platform .

These are completely empty in console version. Scourge is all the time full with 100 players long ques but no one joins other campaigns for some reason.

because that is where their guild is. They dont go elsewhere because they want to play with their guilds. This also leads more solo players and others to that campaign because the people who want to play with their guild wont go elsewhere.

the solution is to get the guilds to spread out more over the servers.

I've suggested a solution for that:

"Make alliance points gains scale dramatically with the amount of players per alliance in the campaign. The more players of one alliance are on the server, the less alliance points they will get. By less I mean A WHOLE LOT LESS. Such a big downgrade that it will highly encourage players to join empty campaigns, where they will gain a few times more alliance points, but in the same time it will require more input from them than just following a mob. Eventually, all campaigns should reach the optimal player count. To add a little twist to it, I think guards, walls hp etc in the given campaign, should also scale depending on the number of players the alliance has. The more players, the harder it gets (just like with anchors, but make the difference significant)."

from my topic https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/316898/a-possible-solution-to-overpopulated-and-empty-campaigns#latest

Mojomonkeyman · February 2017

Surgee wrote: »

bowmanz607 wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Surgee wrote: »

No champion ranks? AWESOM! Finally my low champion rank friends will stand a chance in cyrodil. Can't wait!

They can already use this benefit in the No CP campaigns already Ingame . Just look at the campaign information screen for the no cp option one . The names can be different depending on platform .

These are completely empty in console version. Scourge is all the time full with 100 players long ques but no one joins other campaigns for some reason.

because that is where their guild is. They dont go elsewhere because they want to play with their guilds. This also leads more solo players and others to that campaign because the people who want to play with their guild wont go elsewhere.

the solution is to get the guilds to spread out more over the servers.

I've suggested a solution for that:

"Make alliance points gains scale dramatically with the amount of players per alliance in the campaign. The more players of one alliance are on the server, the less alliance points they will get. By less I mean A WHOLE LOT LESS. Such a big downgrade that it will highly encourage players to join empty campaigns, where they will gain a few times more alliance points, but in the same time it will require more input from them than just following a mob. Eventually, all campaigns should reach the optimal player count. To add a little twist to it, I think guards, walls hp etc in the given campaign, should also scale depending on the number of players the alliance has. The more players, the harder it gets (just like with anchors, but make the difference significant)."

from my topic https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/316898/a-possible-solution-to-overpopulated-and-empty-campaigns#latest

I like your idea a lot.

flubber77 · February 2017

@ZOS_BrianWheeler i have a better option for u than nef the ap after the test.

Make it so when u flip a resource or keep or what ever, u dont gain ap the next time u flip the same serource within like 5 min or something or even 10 min. but if u take a new keep or resource the timer is reset....

bowmanz607 · February 2017

flubber77 wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler i have a better option for u than nef the ap after the test.

Make it so when u flip a resource or keep or what ever, u dont gain ap the next time u flip the same serource within like 5 min or something or even 10 min. but if u take a new keep or resource the timer is reset....

That is just mor3 crap for the server to deal with. The point is to eliminate the extras

TreeHugger1 · February 2017

idk about you guys, but for me azura is almost as laggy as tf when tf has max population and azura doesn't.
Anyway i dont think zos intends to cancel cp, the pvp community is very big and cp grinding gives them money.

kadar · February 2017

flubber77 wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler i have a better option for u than nef the ap after the test.

Make it so when u flip a resource or keep or what ever, u dont gain ap the next time u flip the same serource within like 5 min or something or even 10 min. but if u take a new keep or resource the timer is reset....

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno
I'm pretty convinced the best thing to do would be to make resource/keep offensive ticks work similar to how tel var is distributed after killing an IC boss.

Say you take a resource by yourself-- you're reward is the full AP pool of let's say 5k AP. That's a lot, but you also worked for it, and it took a few minutes to flip solo. Say you come back and take the same resource with 5 people. Now, you split the AP pool and each take away 1k AP. You've worked significantly less hard, and take away significantly less AP.

I think this system would

reduce mindless resource trading for AP (not actually PVPing) because if you want a significant amount of AP you need to do it solo or with a few (which is slower), and reduce the amount of AP gained by a 24 man raid flipping resources (there is very little effort invested and should have very little reward).
Give incentive to spread out-- again, if you want AP the best way is now to spread out and play other parts of the map (this could also help performance issues?).
Give newer/less experienced players a reason to practice, learn, and invest effort into their builds so they are able to solo a resource (if they wish to ).
Largescale epic keep battles will still feel rewarding from an AP standpoint because you will still get the Offense tick that has grown large from all the kills taking place (it would feel similar to how it worked pre-update, small base tick + huge O-tick buff from hundreds of kills).
All ticks will once again be created equal. Right now the D-tick is being drastically overshadowed by the O-tick. There's little point in defending (if AP is your goal) when you can get twice or thrice the AP at the neighboring enemy resource.

Let me know what you guys think.

Zvorgin · February 2017

Love our community:
Players: "Zos shuns PvP! We want performance improvement!"
Zos: "We are going to run a 1 week test on live server"
Players: "How dare you touch Cyrodiil! Quit changing things!"

Joy_Division · February 2017

Zvorgin wrote: »

Love our community:
Players: "Zos shuns PvP! We want performance improvement!"
Zos: "We are going to run a 1 week test on live server"
Players: "How dare you touch Cyrodiil! Quit changing things!"

That's not what I am saying. It's also not what a lot of people who are questioning whether or not just taking away CP from cyrodiil is a good thing are saying.

prototypefb · February 2017

just introduce new way of getting AP, each time you get one of those endless loading screens you get 1k AP per second, there will be more active ppl actually pvping. CP farmers/flippers will be happily loading ever after xD

Kram8ion · February 2017

A little testing is a good start and injecting a bit of challenging gameplay since I haven't been on azuras for a long time because it's dead at the times I play so this chicken little says bring it on

Kram8ion · February 2017

Oooh gunna dust off marksman and eternal hunt