Cyrodiil Performance Test and Double AP Event

Parafrost

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Will there be some kind of Battle Spirit reduction to skill costs if you ever get rid of CP in all of PvP? The mitigation increases from red stars and the damage increases from blue stars kind of cancel each other out, but the resource management via the green stars is not really cancelled out in any way via CP. Resource management is much tougher on the non-CP campaigns. And it feels like, throughout the game, skill and resource costs have been based around assuming people will have certain levels of resource management via green CP stars. An across the board 16% increase in skill costs in PvP and 25% regen decrease in PvP is likely to just lead to people running out of resources quickly and dying. Which makes sense for certain builds decked out in "infinite resource" gear, but is just going to make TTK go way down for the typical PvP player in modest gear.

And are the stars you put the points in even the problem? Those ultimately feel no different than putting points in attributes or skills. Is the real problem the "passive" CP stars that kick in at 10, 30, 75, 120 CP? Many of those have conditional effects that may require constant server calculations to see if they should activate. Maybe disabling the CP passives in all PvP while keeping the star points invested would help performance a lot while still making long time, dedicated players feel like they have some tangible reward for time played over a brand new player who grinded to CP160 in a few days.

That is how it is supposed to be. That is how it was before cp was added.

NightbladeMechanics

Lol at everyone thinking the world is burning.

@Derra refusing to play during the test because you don't have a perfect little build for no-cp shows how little you care about the health and future of the game.

@Koolio they aren't considering removing cp campaigns. They are considering reworking all of those little cp passives that trigger, for example, a heal every time you're crit. Those create tons of server calculations in large aoe fights. They are turning off cp for the week to test the impact o not having those calculations on the main servers when TF prime time is in full swing. After the test, the stars inflating your stats will likely stay intact. The little passives and actives will likely change. We will see.

Overall, this is a GREAT step forward for pvp, and any serious pvper should welcome this week and play as much pvp as possible during the test. I certainly will.

Also no-cp pvp isn't that bad. Damage, sustain, and survivability feel great imo. It's external factors like poisons, siege, and procs that felt bad. I look forward to actually having to manage resources for a week!!

this move by ZOS. We as the PvP community can only benefit from this.

Talcyndl

fastolfv_ESO wrote: »

this all sounds pretty bad, comparing TF server stress to an empty azuras and saying azuras runs better is probably one of the most foolish things i have seen a dev post ever. Doubling AP and watching people exploit flipping the same outpost over and over doesnt give you more data on ap gains, you know people are doing it and how much they are making without actually fighting. Anyone who has played cyro for a week has a better grasp on whats going on than the devs right now its scary

If you read the post, you'd see they actually compared Azuras under load (it does get pop locked across all factions for short periods). But more to the point, THAT IS WHY they are doing the test.

Talcyndl

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?

Poisons and proc sets are the biggest issues in non-CP campaigns. They will need to be balanced if the no-CP change is made permanent.

Talcyndl

ishilb14_ESO wrote: »

Or, more people will wear heavy armor and then just stack up tightly on flags to force flip them since small groups that used to have high damage will no longer be able to burn through them. This will just encourage zerging even more.

Yeah, because Truflame doesn't have zergs.

codybrewer78b14_ESO

Is this for all platforms? PC, PS4, and Xbone?

Kartalin

@NightbladeMechanics Exactly that. I think a lot of us seasoned vets play on Azura's because it's reminiscent of 1.6 and resource management is a serious thing. We went to Haderus this weekend and the sustain was ridiculous compared to what we're used to.

For those upset at this, I make one change with my builds going between CP and no CP: food. In a CP campaign I use max health/max primary stat food, but in Azura's I use the Wrothgar/Orzorga's food that gives 5k health and 450 primary stat regen. The exception to this is my DK which uses trifood regardless and sometimes witches brew on my mag sorc.

Derra

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Lol at everyone thinking the world is burning.

@Derra refusing to play during the test because you don't have a perfect little build for no-cp shows how little you care about the health and future of the game.

@NightbladeMechanics I simply have no build available that works without CP - and i won´t make one for one week. Also i think the game is unfun without CP.

Furthermore the test can´t provide them with any useable data - because not having CP will inevitably alter the way people are able to play the game.
They´re basically changing two parameters at once. The CP and how people play. IF something changes they simply will never be able to tell if it´s:
a) the CP calculations causing lag
b) the way people play with CP causing lag

Why do i say it can´t provide them any data? Well if it could they could have simply figured it out by looking at server calculations on azura EU (which is regularly poplocked) and why it runs better and wouldn´t have to do it.

As a result the game won´t be playable for someone unwilling to adjust their build for a week and zos won´t get any results because they changed two variables at once when searching for the cause of lag.

Also the game lagged like poo before CP (which is why my entire guild of 20+ people quit in october 2014 - 4 months before we saw any cp).

Decado

to be fair Azuras on PC EU at the moment is insane the reds are running around in massive groups and im talking 80+ reds in 1 keep/resource and fighting them doesnt cause anywhere near the same amount of lag as i get fighting in TF, now i dont know if its because the 80+ are nowhere near as organised running in a big ball of AoE or because of CP, but there definately IS a differtence

Beardimus

Loving this style of testing, brilliant idea and to make it an event too. Nice.

Am nervous that CP going for PvP means a big build shift needed but after Homestead my Sorc build needs its first overhaul anyway so this may work. To be fair I rarely see Lag but don't primetime much and Xbox EU seems quiet

Vurian97

fastolfv_ESO wrote: »

this all sounds pretty bad, comparing TF server stress to an empty azuras and saying azuras runs better is probably one of the most foolish things i have seen a dev post ever. Anyone who has played cyro for a week has a better grasp on whats going on than the devs right now its scary

Azura's Star for NA & EU PC are both populated during prime-time, all factions 3 bars nearing poplock every single day. Sometimes poplocked on all, even. Empty? Hah! Anyone who actually PvPs and frequents all the campaigns would know that, and for you to attempt to claim that it is empty.. is scary.

I look forward to this event and the days leading up to it as Azura's Star will be filled with people testing new builds and who knows, maybe some people will love it and start playing in Azura's Star EVEN MORE! Exciting times ahead!

SleepyTroll

Derra wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Lol at everyone thinking the world is burning.

@Derra refusing to play during the test because you don't have a perfect little build for no-cp shows how little you care about the health and future of the game.

@NightbladeMechanics I simply have no build available that works without CP - and i won´t make one for one week. Also i think the game is unfun without CP.

Furthermore the test can´t provide them with any useable data - because not having CP will inevitably alter the way people are able to play the game.
They´re basically changing two parameters at once. The CP and how people play. IF something changes they simply will never be able to tell if it´s:
a) the CP calculations causing lag
b) the way people play with CP causing lag

Why do i say it can´t provide them any data? Well if it could they could have simply figured it out by looking at server calculations on azura EU (which is regularly poplocked) and why it runs better and wouldn´t have to do it.

As a result the game won´t be playable for someone unwilling to adjust their build for a week and zos won´t get any results because they changed two variables at once when searching for the cause of lag.

Also the game lagged like poo before CP (which is why my entire guild of 20+ people quit in october 2014 - 4 months before we saw any cp).

How do you change b without changing a? Or how do you change a without changing b? So if a is causing b and b fixes lag then a is still solving the problem. There is no b without a. b isn't a parameter being changed its an effect of a. Pretty sure the future of Cyro and battlegrounds is no cp.

NightbladeMechanics

@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!!

dbrand001

Koolio wrote: »

I just spent 2 years getting as much CP as possible to play Pvp. I don't think removing them is a good way to go. Not a good idea.

Its only for a week to fix the servers.

dbrand001

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Thank you for doing what you can to fix pvp

DeadlyRecluse

Well this is delicious.

Crowzer

@ZOS_BrianWheeler That's why I stopped ESO, because of CP....

Xael

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

So you are saying poor performance has nothing to do with the downward spiral Cyrodiil slipped into after you gave us v1.2.3?

Master_Kas

Just roll the game back to 1.5

Cinbri

It would be also nice to have Battle Spirit reduced back to 35% just for science.

Rin_Senya

Ppl spent weeks grinding their gear for CP builds and millions of gold upgrading all of this but yeeeeeh, who cares about PVPers in this game anyway right?
Also the funniest part of this is that removing CP won't help with server performance AT ALL, because this game was laggy for many months BEFORE they even introduced CP!

Derra

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!!

No i don´t - because all my builds revolve around surge selfhealing and high crit while already utilizing food providing me with regeneration and having regeneration enchanted on jewelry.

I´d have to fundamentally change the setups i´m utilizing at the moment. Or well i´d have to create a new one. For one week.

I know because before homestead i actually played azura (and had a template with trainee for that - too bad that got obliterated and deconed in the process because no space).

Ofc lag will change when people can´t spam healingsprings for 10 minutes straight anymore... I´m 95% sure lag will go down for that event. It´s just that i´m also 100% sure they won´t be able to tell if it´s because their change also altered player behavior or if it´s the CP system in itself.
If they could do that they could look at azura currently.

SleepyTroll wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Lol at everyone thinking the world is burning.

@Derra refusing to play during the test because you don't have a perfect little build for no-cp shows how little you care about the health and future of the game.

@NightbladeMechanics I simply have no build available that works without CP - and i won´t make one for one week. Also i think the game is unfun without CP.

Furthermore the test can´t provide them with any useable data - because not having CP will inevitably alter the way people are able to play the game.
They´re basically changing two parameters at once. The CP and how people play. IF something changes they simply will never be able to tell if it´s:
a) the CP calculations causing lag
b) the way people play with CP causing lag

Why do i say it can´t provide them any data? Well if it could they could have simply figured it out by looking at server calculations on azura EU (which is regularly poplocked) and why it runs better and wouldn´t have to do it.

As a result the game won´t be playable for someone unwilling to adjust their build for a week and zos won´t get any results because they changed two variables at once when searching for the cause of lag.

Also the game lagged like poo before CP (which is why my entire guild of 20+ people quit in october 2014 - 4 months before we saw any cp).

How do you change b without changing a? Or how do you change a without changing b? So if a is causing b and b fixes lag then a is still solving the problem. There is no b without a. b isn't a parameter being changed its an effect of a. Pretty sure the future of Cyro and battlegrounds is no cp.

Well a future without CP only works with changed battlespirit - noncp is basically eso with trainingwheels as the dmg dealt to HP ratio is nowhere near 1.5.
I still had the best balance of sustain and dmg back in patch 1.5 and i have no idea how people can compare the abomination that azura is to that time. Not that i particularly liked 1.5 and everyone running around with permablock s&b - but azura comes nowhere close to it.

I don´t think anyone of us would continue to play in a nonCP pvp cyro and bgs because it´s simply not enjoyable gameplay.

Rittings

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.

NACtron

In b4 my guild gets blamed for server performance issues.

LjAnimalchin

CP needs to be flat out removed from every campaign, and siege and poisons bought in line with that idea. Almost every gripe people have about this game is either caused or exacerbated by CP. We are here, time has told: no good came from the addition of CP into pvp.

Huggelz

please test out dynamic ult gen as well

Rickter

this is exciting - i'll get the word out! Have dates for this "event" been posted? i didnt see it in the OP

Berenhir

So I need to seduce my amberplasm?

Paraflex

Makes you wonder if the meeting at corporate with all the streamers/known players that they discussed PvP with no CP and thought of all the good that would come of it.

I'd say it's likely as server performance isn't great and the games better off on balance with no CP involved.

Skorol007

guess i am going back to pvp

This is good news!