Cyrodiil Performance Test and Double AP Event

Bislobo

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

I will attend to the testing week mister Wheeler. Cyrodiil needs live testing.

danno8

Gonna need me some more regen.

Guess I'll change out the enchants on my jewelry first. That should just about make up for the CP loss. Less damage, less heals, but same for everyone else. Will be interesting.

klink012

Derra wrote: »

bowmanz607 wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

bowmanz607 wrote: »

Love it. Hope they stay gone. Cp ruins pvp. Now people who think they are good will realize how much Cp is easy mode.

If they follow through permanently you don´t think there should be a CP enabled campaign like there is with azura currently for no CP?

That does not make much sense for me. Care to explain?

I think cp should be removed from the game.

I think that would be very boring. I´d like a 100% rework of the CP system though to something more along the lines of what grim dawn offered.

I agree with the CP rework. The Champion Point system should have never made it to LIVE. Not the way its implemented. Why would new players ever want to play this game and be 600 pts behind?

Osukā

cool, just remove poisons from pvp lmao

CatchMeTrolling

For the sake of balance remove CP entirely.

NightbladeMechanics

I feel like @Derra hasn't put much time into playing PvP without CP.

I also feel like he means that ZOS should have disabled all the passives and NOT the stat increases you obtain from individual stars to see how the passive/active components themselves contribute to lag separate from the stars.

That would be a correct proposal to make to improve ZOS' experiment, if that is indeed what he has been trying to articulate.

(I read through page 4. Forgive me if I missed a further development in this apparently circular conversation.)

danno8

Derra wrote: »

t3hdubzy wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

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.

^Exactly this!

Who cares if your build sucks without CP and you die more often. Everyone else will be running out of stamina and dying right along with you.

This is a one time opportunity to help these folks figure out some solutions for lag and latency issues. I hope everyone plays as much as possible during the test.

But how will they be able to tell if it´s CP or behavior of people reducing the lag (if the lag gets reduced) when people simply can´t play the same way they can with CP?

They already can´t tell that for azura.

That means the only meaningful outcome would be the servers still lagging and they´d have to start over again?

They pointed out that azuras population doesnt allow for that to be used as a guinea pig. They may be testing a number of scenarios at various times, but again without data all they and we can do is speculate.

My main point is that i´m not sure how they want to create real world scenarios when they change the way people play.

They change the "real world" and as a result their tested scenario is flawed.

@Derra
You do have a point. A better test would be to disable CP, but give everyone a large boost to regenerations, damage reductions and damage in battle spirit or something. This way the calculation would be simpler than having to scan through individual CP records, but people could still spam everything like they can now.

There is no doubt that disabling CP's changes other variables in how people play, like you say. And minimizing variables is one of the prime goals of any experiment.

BTHRZeroX

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Will this be for all systems and consoles?

pieratsos

Derra wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

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.

You mean the campaign where sustain and reaction time is still a thing? Yeah absolutely terrible. I'd give everyone 600 CP too so they can all get carried by their cp.

It simply plays differently. It´s like saying spaghetti bolognese is tastier than spaghetti carbonara isn´t it? I could have made it more clear that this was my personal opinion. I don´t enjoy nonCP pvp.

People who enjoy nonCP more have the option to play on azura.

I don´t get why people not enjoying CP want to shut down cp pvp and need to ridicule anyone rather playing with CP because it´s nonconform to what they deem fun for themselves.

Care to explain that thoughtprocess?

Yes it simply plays different. Thats what i said. In azuras sustain is still a thing. People dont just mindlessly spam abilities never running out of resources. Im not trying to shut down anything here. You are the one that started this whole crap about non CP being terrible or being against a test that will help the game just because u dont want to PVP for 1 week without CP.

Feel free to enjoy CP PVP but what i said before still stands. Its not a personal opinion. Its a fact. Even tho some mechanics and sets are designed around CP and obviously are a big issue in azuras, the fights in azuras are still better cause simply there is more player skill involved. I know cause i played in both. In TF i dont even bother to look at my resources. If anything TF is the more casual campaign and azuras the more competitive campaign. Thats what i said, and what campaign you or anyone else enjoys the most isnt going to change that.

frozywozy

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

I think this is a great step in the right direction. I have a couple questions :

1. Will there be any testing being done without proc sets? One way to make this happen would be to change all proc sets to deal damage to monsters only for the time being.
2. In case that the obvious happens and CPs are one of the main contribution to lag, will there be any plans on changing the passives that are the main issues or are you considering just removing CPs entirely?
3. Regarding the double AP gains for the week of testing, do you guys have had any discussion about endgame Cyrodiil PVP other than reaching the title of Grand Overlord and battlegrounds coming in junes? The way it is now, everybody and their mother will have Grand Overlord in a few months. Lot of hardcore players are or will be seeking new challenges to distinguish themselves.

Thank you for the continuous efforts to make Cyrodiil a better place.

WalkingLegacy

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.

It's a sacrifice we need to make. The CP system is only a leveling hook. It ruins the scaling for the whole rest of the game and kills competition.

KILLING4ALIVING

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Will this apply to Imperial City as well?

Decado

If this shows positive results that CP is indeed causing the lag could you then do more testing to check if what @Derra said about it being the passives causing it and not the CPs themselves because the more I think about it the more that makes sense I mean how can having 15% more rejen make much difference? But the passives where if you kill a player you have a chance to spawn a well now THAT I can see being the cause of a lot of strain when there is huge fights

I don't think many people would argue with losing passives from CP if it showed some progress into reducing the lag

condumitru

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

It's a sacrifice we need to make. The CP system is only a leveling hook. It ruins the scaling for the whole rest of the game and kills competition.

Indeed, for improved and lagless play in Cyro I would give up skill slots, CP, whatever is required- because a fun smooth gameplay is so much more better than a stuttering lagfest and is what would make Cyro great again!

AzraelKrieg

BTHRZeroX wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Will this be for all systems and consoles?

All platforms.

KILLING4ALIVING wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Will this apply to Imperial City as well?

Since IC is part of Cyrodiil, yes

rivenjr

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Really? You thought calculating in the CP bonuses during combat was a good idea? I always thought you were just changing the base metrics. From a developer's point of view... you so crazy!

Koolio

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

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.

It's a sacrifice we need to make. The CP system is only a leveling hook. It ruins the scaling for the whole rest of the game and kills competition.

I would say "I" However in a party chat with 8 people right now. We aren't wanting to sacrifice 3000 hours. I'll take a lagging campaign and my hard earned work over shitting all over my time.

They just leveled the entire game off CP with One Tamriel.

Rohamad_Ali

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

What will you do with this information after the test is complete ? Do you have any intentions of removing the CP system from Cyrodiil if this proves to be effective against lag ? Is there another course of action you are looking into with server calculations to retain CP and improve performance ?

I think a little insight into the goals for the test would be most enlightening for players .

Takllin

James-Wayne wrote: »

Takllin wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@MyNameIsElias We are aware of that behavior and will be adjusting values of Outposts, Resources and Keeps after the event.

Wait, why adjust it after? Why not with the event? Encourage us to test things other than 12k ticks.

But if there is enough people in the area of the flip doesn't it split that 6k up to everyone?

Nope. It's a base value.

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

I feel like @Derra hasn't put much time into playing PvP without CP.

I also feel like he means that ZOS should have disabled all the passives and NOT the stat increases you obtain from individual stars to see how the passive/active components themselves contribute to lag separate from the stars.

That would be a correct proposal to make to improve ZOS' experiment, if that is indeed what he has been trying to articulate.

(I read through page 4. Forgive me if I missed a further development in this apparently circular conversation.)

Derra is a good player. I agree with him on this and with another thing he has said.

I've said this earlier and people are beginning to come in with the statements of "carried by CP". Anyone who has played both TF and Azura enough knows that players who perform well on either campaign perform well on the other.

Derra is also correct in that you can't trust the results of this test unless the outcome is that it is still laggy. You're not just hitting a switch and all of a sudden you have a controlled test environment. The "evidence" gathered during the test is going to be based on players playing completely differently from how they were before the test. If there is less lag you won't know if it was the play style changing or the CP passives (when you're trying to figure out if it's the CP passives). There are ways that players have for a long time advised to change the play style of PvP in an effort to reduce lag. Instead we get things like proxy det and barrier+purge nerfs. Just bandaids. The first "real" change they are proposing is to just shut off a game feature that the entire game (pvp included) is balanced around. For whatever reason this doesn't seem intelligent to me.

Edit: If the idea of the test is to see how non-cp affects campaigns like trueflame then that tells me already that they don't consider Azura's Star a good enough testing ground and that it doesn't see the type of action that you see on Trueflame. This is also true from my experiences playing on both. If you had two separate campaigns with different rule sets, equal populations (because pop caps), and different outcomes on server performance you would already have the necessary info to make any changes. Either this change is going to become permanent in the near future, or you can't say removing CP is why Azura performs better.

Surgee

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

Rohamad_Ali

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 .

Publius_Scipio

Koolio wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

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.

It's a sacrifice we need to make. The CP system is only a leveling hook. It ruins the scaling for the whole rest of the game and kills competition.

I would say "I" However in a party chat with 8 people right now. We aren't wanting to sacrifice 3000 hours. I'll take a lagging campaign and my hard earned work over shitting all over my time.

They just leveled the entire game off CP with One Tamriel.

It's true, you invested your time. But ZOS has publicly stated Cyrodiil performance is a top priority. If it is deemed CP is a factor then ZOS will probably go down that path.

It's not a total waste. Basically ESO will function as it does now for anyone who exclusively plus Azura's Star campaign for everyone. Your CP will still be there when you run dungeons and trials.

Koolio

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

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.

It's a sacrifice we need to make. The CP system is only a leveling hook. It ruins the scaling for the whole rest of the game and kills competition.

I would say "I" However in a party chat with 8 people right now. We aren't wanting to sacrifice 3000 hours. I'll take a lagging campaign and my hard earned work over shitting all over my time.

They just leveled the entire game off CP with One Tamriel.

It's true, you invested your time. But ZOS has publicly stated Cyrodiil performance is a top priority. If it is deemed CP is a factor then ZOS will probably go down that path.

It's not a total waste. Basically ESO will function as it does now for anyone who exclusively plus Azura's Star campaign for everyone. Your CP will still be there when you run dungeons and trials.

I don't run dungeons anymore or trials ever. Writs and PVP only now. Just PVP all day. Might customize my house a lot. But CP does nothing for either one.

Takllin

I also don't think it's been mentioned, but it would be pretty funny to see if when this happens the population on Trueflame declines to the point that the test has no purpose. More than a few people might be willing to take a week off.

silky_soft

Nice crash the *** akaviri market.

What are you going to give us in return once this is done?

WhiteCoatSyndrome

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

• During this time, AP gains in all Campaigns will be doubled, both to compensate for lack of CP and also to incentivize

Am I a bad person for reading this and immediately phasing out the entire rest of the post? Yay, double AP!

Decado wrote: »

how about leaving the AP per capture the same as it is currently but adding a cool down on it? so endlessly flipping bleakers will net them nothing for a while after they first take it

^I like this idea; it's not that different from getting less AP for killing the same players over and over again.

technohic

I don't get the fits over this. I mean; I'll be surprised if it helps really say anything without also adding resource regen into battle spirit since calculations will be removed yet so will the ability to spam as many abilities. But why worry about it? People have pretty much made up their mind that they will not have fun ahead of time. Its a short inconvenience for a chance at a very long time of improved play and double AP to be had.

Acrolas

Poor Cyrodiil performance predates Champion Points. Champion points are just a small layer on a tenuous tower of inefficient coding. The game is perfectly capable of choking on its own. Just take a walk over to the barn on the east end of Dragonstar and you'll get smacked with a wall of inexplicable lag. You'll probably find more answers there than on this test.

But Cyrodiil is just too big to ever be fully resolved. So make the overland map PVE and turn every fort and outpost into PVP arenas with different play styles. Capture the flag. Last man standing. All the objective-based mini-games you'd find in FPS. Cyrodiil can be an awesome smaller experience instead of the sprawling bloat it is now.

90% of Cyrodiil is like the opposite of a war zone. So why obsess over making that scenic lake and that mammoth breeding area able to take the same amount of PVP server load as a keep? It doesn't need to.

Fix IC while you're at it. It's a beautiful zone. But the monsters down there don't belong to Bal. They probably belong on a watch list. Again, PVE zone with specific PVP objective areas.

Sometime you have to earn your bragging rights by admitting the first system didn't work. Isn't that exactly what you're doing with One Tamriel?

Ron_Burgundy_79

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Will this change apply to dueling? I know of a dueling tournament planned for the day of the change, and it would be nice to know in advance.

notimetocare

Decado wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@MyNameIsElias We are aware of that behavior and will be adjusting values of Outposts, Resources and Keeps after the event.

so what your saying is because some people cant resist exploiting a loop hole the rest of us have to suffer? we can finally get AP for actually doing thing like taking keeps etc you know earning AP while actually playing the game.

you change it too much so they wont bother flipping it and then the only way to make any real AP will be to run around in circles mindlessly grinding noobs who endlessly follow them around, probably creating lag aswel.

i dont mind the no CP thing since i play on azura anyway to avoid said mindless AoE destro trains.

how about leaving the AP per capture the same as it is currently but adding a cool down on it? so endlessly flipping bleakers will net them nothing for a while after they first take it

Very likely they will add diminishing returns to outposts like with killing players.