Results of Double AP week EU

Grumble_and_Grunt

So it's fair to say on EU at least that as @Derra pointed about the tests would be inconclusive due to the sheer amounts of variables. One of those variables was player behaviour. For example people die much quicker without CP so there will be less balling up for long periods of time etc etc.

For EU however the player behaviour changed in that farming AP took precedent over PvP.

The results:

Players made astronomical amounts of AP:

AD

[snip]

EP

[snip]

DC

[snip]

Players forgot what the premise of PvP is:

[snip]

Players felt a sense of vigilantism:

[snip]

And members of EU Top PvE raiding guilds managed to get some achievements they thought they'd never get without endless hours:

[snip]

[snip]

Interested to hear how this week has been for other platforms. For EU however can't wait for next week where we can PvP again without hour long queues on the most active campaign, without PvP being stagnant because people using outposts to farm, with builds we had spent gold and efforts in game to play!

Hope for @ZOS_BrianWheeler and the team you got some useful data from the test to help the game going forwards for PvP Maybe try a different methodology next time though!

[Edit to remove Naming and Shaming]

Lieblingsjunge

The fact that I recognise people in those photos disgusts me. Although not as disgusting as it is realising I once had multiple on my FL - and played with'm. Ew.

But ye. I hope this was worth it ZoS. I didn't play ESO aside from one(Two if you count PvE-adventures) evening, simply 'cus I think this is the *worst* idea you ever had.

The least you could've done was frozen the ranks + leaderboards. Also: Pls tell me your data is making PvP lag-free in the future. THIS BETTER BE WORTH IT.

zuto40

Funny, looks like the APPD has spread to multiple servers, look at my signature

LeifErickson

I didn't see any of this outpost farming on NA PC (maybe there was and I didn't see it). I just don't get how a whole server can outpost swap instead of actually pvp. I guess I'm just glad I'm on NA.

Lieblingsjunge

LeifErickson wrote: »

I didn't see any of this outpost farming on NA PC (maybe there was and I didn't see it). I just don't get how a whole server can outpost swap instead of actually pvp. I guess I'm just glad I'm on NA.

Afaik there's a difference in overall population, might be why. Most of the people that flipped outposts are frequent PvEers & Roleplayers. Also that the meta is different from NA/EU. Idek. Just thoughts.

Derra

LeifErickson wrote: »

I didn't see any of this outpost farming on NA PC (maybe there was and I didn't see it). I just don't get how a whole server can outpost swap instead of actually pvp. I guess I'm just glad I'm on NA.

Every mmo i´ve played has had a difference in playerbase and behavior between EU and NA servers (for those that i´ve played on both).
EU for the most part took things to an extremer level than NA - simply because the proportion of "hardcore players" in the overall playerbase seemed higher on EU compared to NA (in a way of players wanting to achieve goals with any means they deem appropriate).

Kirameku

I'm glad this week is over. I can finally get back to the game, staying at Bleakers was boring af

AbraXuSeXile

I enjoyed it, watched so many movies and did some decorating.

Biro123

That's Haderus.. I thought that was where the PVE'ers always went to avoid PVP?

I honestly didn't see any of this in TF. Anywhere where any resource/outpost/keep showed under attack was just getting swarmed by the largest zerg ever seen..

Go zerg! woo!

Master_Kas

AbraXuSeXile wrote: »

I enjoyed it, watched so many movies and did some decorating.

You also cleaned it up a few times ruining my immersion...

visionality

Grumble_and_Grunt wrote: »

So it's fair to say on EU at least that as @Derra pointed about the tests would be inconclusive due to the sheer amounts of variables. One of those variables was player behaviour. For example people die much quicker without CP so there will be less balling up for long periods of time etc etc.

For EU however the player behaviour changed in that farming AP took precedent over PvP.

I cannot agree with your assessment, @Grumble_and_Grunt , although with you being Haderus-based (why, if you dislike AP-farming?) the very narrowed point of view might be understandable.

- Throughout the week, EU had extremely active PVP. Queues to Trueflame and Azura were 2-3 times longer than to Haderus (with a short exception on Friday, probably due to the PVEers queuing for Haderus for their achievements), and there was 0 AP farming going on anywhere in both campaigns in the likes of your home-campaign.

- PVP in general was faster, less laggy and again, both Azura and Trueflame were poplocked throughout all primetime and several hours before and after. Lag was not totally gone, but it was MUCH better and skills were reliable all of a sudden in Trueflame even in huge fights over outposts and keeps

- Apart from an intensified use of siege, which has a HUGE impact without cps, player behaviour did not change at all in the PVP-campaigns. Some updated their gear, adding a bit more regen, but many went back to their original setup after two to three days, getting used to the lower regeneration and being able to handle it. But considering strategy, skills, zerging etc etc people did exactly what they did the weeks before. (It just looked a bit different without the lag.)

- The main interest in Zenimax's testing was to figure out whether cps influence lag and expecially whether the difference between low-lag Azura and high-lag Trueflame is caused by CP. The simple answer is: yes. Remove the cp and lag is pretty much the same in both campaigns. (That people die much faster without cps is not fully true, btw. Unskilled people die much faster.)


On a personal note: The removal of CP in cp-campaigns had one very nasty side-effect. I never received so many hate-whispers as in this week and the same happened to a lot of friends and guildies of mine. Without the backup of their cp, a lot of average or below-average players had their lacks in gameplay utterly exposed. Instead of l2p, they sent mountains of frustrated hate-whispers to better performing players.

Valencer

^ Meanwhile in reality:

- Trueflame was as laggy as it ever was
- 60+ people went to Drakelowe to PvDoor it together every time it went yellow. Everyone is just even more encouraged to roll over keeps with the whole alliance because it's the easiest way to get those juicy ticks, even if there's minimal defense.

"player behaviour did not change at all in the PVP-campaigns"

Derra

visionality wrote: »

- Apart from an intensified use of siege, which has a HUGE impact without cps, player behaviour did not change at all in the PVP-campaigns. Some updated their gear, adding a bit more regen, but many went back to their original setup after two to three days, getting used to the lower regeneration and being able to handle it.

How can playerbehavior be the same when it´s impossible for them to use the skills to the same extend?
The bolded part is exactly that: A change to player behavior.

visionality wrote: »

- The main interest in Zenimax's testing was to figure out whether cps influence lag and expecially whether the difference between low-lag Azura and high-lag Trueflame is caused by CP. The simple answer is: yes. Remove the cp and lag is pretty much the same in both campaigns. (That people die much faster without cps is not fully true, btw. Unskilled people die much faster.)

Ofc course we both can´t quantify this - but can you explain why azura lagged less than trueflame the past week?
Personally i did not experience any major improvements of server performance. So the simple answer is: no?

Biro123

visionality wrote: »

- PVP in general was faster, less laggy and again, both Azura and Trueflame were poplocked throughout all primetime and several hours before and after. Lag was not totally gone, but it was MUCH better and skills were reliable all of a sudden in Trueflame even in huge fights over outposts and keeps

I didn't find that at all.

With CP's it was either fine or laggy. when laggy, you hit a skill - and it went off - eventually.

With no-CP it constantly seemed like the game was running in slow-mo.. cooldowns juts seemed longer. activating a skill - just didn't activate most of the time. My usual timing knowing when to do the next attack, was screwed as it was always too early - so I resorted to mashing skills until I was seeing them fire - and when they did, the animations just seemed slow.. All this time, my framerate and ping were ok (not great - but not terrible either).

I found it incredibly frustrating

Grumble_and_Grunt

visionality wrote: »

Grumble_and_Grunt wrote: »

So it's fair to say on EU at least that as @Derra pointed about the tests would be inconclusive due to the sheer amounts of variables. One of those variables was player behaviour. For example people die much quicker without CP so there will be less balling up for long periods of time etc etc.

For EU however the player behaviour changed in that farming AP took precedent over PvP.

I cannot agree with your assessment, @Grumble_and_Grunt , although with you being Haderus-based (why, if you dislike AP-farming?) the very narrowed point of view might be understandable.

- Throughout the week, EU had extremely active PVP. Queues to Trueflame and Azura were 2-3 times longer than to Haderus (with a short exception on Friday, probably due to the PVEers queuing for Haderus for their achievements), and there was 0 AP farming going on anywhere in both campaigns in the likes of your home-campaign.

- PVP in general was faster, less laggy and again, both Azura and Trueflame were poplocked throughout all primetime and several hours before and after. Lag was not totally gone, but it was MUCH better and skills were reliable all of a sudden in Trueflame even in huge fights over outposts and keeps

- Apart from an intensified use of siege, which has a HUGE impact without cps, player behaviour did not change at all in the PVP-campaigns. Some updated their gear, adding a bit more regen, but many went back to their original setup after two to three days, getting used to the lower regeneration and being able to handle it. But considering strategy, skills, zerging etc etc people did exactly what they did the weeks before. (It just looked a bit different without the lag.)

- The main interest in Zenimax's testing was to figure out whether cps influence lag and expecially whether the difference between low-lag Azura and high-lag Trueflame is caused by CP. The simple answer is: yes. Remove the cp and lag is pretty much the same in both campaigns. (That people die much faster without cps is not fully true, btw. Unskilled people die much faster.)


On a personal note: The removal of CP in cp-campaigns had one very nasty side-effect. I never received so many hate-whispers as in this week and the same happened to a lot of friends and guildies of mine. Without the backup of their cp, a lot of average or below-average players had their lacks in gameplay utterly exposed. Instead of l2p, they sent mountains of frustrated hate-whispers to better performing players.

I was using Haderus EU as one example of changes in player behaviour and because it was unique to this event. I do not have a home campaign, yes Haderus is my home here, but me and my friends do not play for any single campaign, we simply hop around for fights we like (which varies map to map) and so we have somewhere to play when in queue. Haderus has had more pop since Ebony was closed which had some PvP besides TF, was no other options if you're not a fan of Azura which Azura EU is horrible to small scale on.

I can assure you there were other incidents of trading on the other campaigns, Haderus was just an extreme example and when as you stated there was contention in the other camps, players flocked to Haderus to farm since safety in numbers and all that jazz.

The bolded I can agree and disagree with points here, but I guess it's subjective to how you like your PvP. There was less lag sure given the populations, but there are many many variables in the CP system that could be attributed to this so I simply don't think the removal of all was a good means of testing. Yes there was 'less' lag, but where do they go from there?

Tbh I feel seige could be buffed a little from seeing it's effectiveness in no CP, not AS effective as no CP, but a buff I feel for CP campaigns since they still feel very lacklustre there.

Also I would rephrase less skilled players die more often to lesser players die more often, since the only thing clear to me on no CP sadly is that numbers, which on EU there were many are simply too overwhelming, especially for classes without in class mechanics to aid them, DK performs terrible on no CP, in fact any class with low mobility is god awful. I spent half time dying in mist form trying to disengage...The change in resources was different so I am indifferent to it, nor minded it, but it was clear it was a numbers game since the more numbers = more available resources, you simply can't deal with that even when building for regen when being pressured by so many people at every given time.

If no CP is to be a thing there would need to be more balancing involved than simply reworking some of the CP system imo, only thing no CP showed me is really just how unbalanced the 4 classes are.

Turelus

That's only the people homed on the campaign as well.

Plenty of Azura and Trueflame guests.

Grumble_and_Grunt

Turelus wrote: »

That's only the people homed on the campaign as well.

Plenty of Azura and Trueflame guests.

Yep, in fact the people who homed Haderus are even the ones who farmed less than those who were guest/queued by friends etc.

Turelus

Grumble_and_Grunt wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

That's only the people homed on the campaign as well.

Plenty of Azura and Trueflame guests.

Yep, in fact the people who homed Haderus are even the ones who farmed less than those who were guest/queued by friends etc.

No ones taken me up on the offer to balance their karma by sending me free motif pages from the AP store yet though.

Mayrael

Biro123 wrote: »

visionality wrote: »

- PVP in general was faster, less laggy and again, both Azura and Trueflame were poplocked throughout all primetime and several hours before and after. Lag was not totally gone, but it was MUCH better and skills were reliable all of a sudden in Trueflame even in huge fights over outposts and keeps

I didn't find that at all.

With CP's it was either fine or laggy. when laggy, you hit a skill - and it went off - eventually.

With no-CP it constantly seemed like the game was running in slow-mo.. cooldowns juts seemed longer. activating a skill - just didn't activate most of the time. My usual timing knowing when to do the next attack, was screwed as it was always too early - so I resorted to mashing skills until I was seeing them fire - and when they did, the animations just seemed slow.. All this time, my framerate and ping were ok (not great - but not terrible either).

I found it incredibly frustrating

Exactly the same here.

Turelus

Also just so everyone knows, my results were 24 hours of game time in Torment: Tides of Numenera.

I boycott this over the stupid AP trading thing.

Kas

Wow, crazy amounts made. However, it doesn't change too much if some warlord+++ pushover dies in seconds because he's spammed mutagen for months or because he sat somewhere afk for a week (or maybe even because he's running with a good group).

It's incredible how terribly several players with high ranks play. But honestly the worse news this week was, that there probably won't be matchmaking when Morrowind PvP arenas are first released. Again, progression will be based on time invested and maybe exploiting the medal system. I'd really prefer grinders to get matched with other people that do "well" and to be able to lose points on losses.

Alliance Ranks as desirable form of progression have had lost their appeal to me long before this week - though these events probably made it worse.

visionality

Derra wrote: »

visionality wrote: »

- Apart from an intensified use of siege, which has a HUGE impact without cps, player behaviour did not change at all in the PVP-campaigns. Some updated their gear, adding a bit more regen, but many went back to their original setup after two to three days, getting used to the lower regeneration and being able to handle it.

How can playerbehavior be the same when it´s impossible for them to use the skills to the same extend?
The bolded part is exactly that: A change to player behavior.

You seriously expect the removal of cps would NOT remove the cp-buffed stats? I don't know about you, ofc, but everybody I played with was still using the same skills, the same strategies and mostly the same gear. Nobody stopped using destro ultis, nobody stopped using prox dets, nobody stopped casting caltrops or silences or the likes. Nobody stopped zerging either.

So: No change to player behaviour apart from what was buffed by cps (and that removal was intended and the central part of the test)

Biro123 wrote: »

With no-CP it constantly seemed like the game was running in slow-mo.. cooldowns juts seemed longer. activating a skill - just didn't activate most of the time. My usual timing knowing when to do the next attack, was screwed as it was always too early - so I resorted to mashing skills until I was seeing them fire - and when they did, the animations just seemed slow.. All this time, my framerate and ping were ok (not great - but not terrible either).

I'm sorry to hear you had such issues, @Biro123 - saw you in Trueflame several times this last week and from the outside your gameplay didn't look any different. Some of my friends had issues until they disabled their addons, but mostly they suffered low framerates, not one complained about slomo animations. But then, most of them cancel animations, I have to admit.

Lieblingsjunge

Kas wrote: »

Wow, crazy amounts made. However, it doesn't change too much if some warlord+++ pushover dies in seconds because he's spammed mutagen for months or because he sat somewhere afk for a week (or maybe even because he's running with a good group).

It's incredible how terribly several players with high ranks play. But honestly the worse news this week was, that there probably won't be matchmaking when Morrowind PvP arenas are first released. Again, progression will be based on time invested and maybe exploiting the medal system. I'd really prefer grinders to get matched with other people that do "well" and to be able to lose points on losses.

Alliance Ranks as desirable form of progression have had lost their appeal to me long before this week - though these events probably made it worse.

The ranks itself ain't my issue, anyway. But the fact that you can achiev GO-achievements etc. by being afk. For me it's more about the lack of respect the people who AP-farmed shows. Some people worked for their GO-achievements. Some afk'd for a week and got it. Is it fair? Nope. Not at all. It's the same when people are selling vMoL achievements. Is that okay? No - it's not. Same goes for the AP.

I'll happily take the Master Angler achievement and Dro-m'Athra Destroyer achievement while being afk. Pwetty please?

Grumble_and_Grunt

Lieblingsjunge wrote: »

Kas wrote: »

Wow, crazy amounts made. However, it doesn't change too much if some warlord+++ pushover dies in seconds because he's spammed mutagen for months or because he sat somewhere afk for a week (or maybe even because he's running with a good group).

It's incredible how terribly several players with high ranks play. But honestly the worse news this week was, that there probably won't be matchmaking when Morrowind PvP arenas are first released. Again, progression will be based on time invested and maybe exploiting the medal system. I'd really prefer grinders to get matched with other people that do "well" and to be able to lose points on losses.

Alliance Ranks as desirable form of progression have had lost their appeal to me long before this week - though these events probably made it worse.

The ranks itself ain't my issue, anyway. But the fact that you can achiev GO-achievements etc. by being afk. For me it's more about the lack of respect the people who AP-farmed shows. Some people worked for their GO-achievements. Some afk'd for a week and got it. Is it fair? Nope. Not at all. It's the same when people are selling vMoL achievements. Is that okay? No - it's not. Same goes for the AP.

I'll happily take the Master Angler achievement and Dro-m'Athra Destroyer achievement while being afk. Pwetty please?

Yep for me it's more so about how so many of the community welcomed it with open arms and had no qualms in doing so.

Grumble_and_Grunt

visionality wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

visionality wrote: »

- Apart from an intensified use of siege, which has a HUGE impact without cps, player behaviour did not change at all in the PVP-campaigns. Some updated their gear, adding a bit more regen, but many went back to their original setup after two to three days, getting used to the lower regeneration and being able to handle it.

How can playerbehavior be the same when it´s impossible for them to use the skills to the same extend?
The bolded part is exactly that: A change to player behavior.

You seriously expect the removal of cps would NOT remove the cp-buffed stats? I don't know about you, ofc, but everybody I played with was still using the same skills, the same strategies and mostly the same gear. Nobody stopped using destro ultis, nobody stopped using prox dets, nobody stopped casting caltrops or silences or the likes. Nobody stopped zerging either.

So: No change to player behaviour apart from what was buffed by cps (and that removal was intended and the central part of the test)

I believe there was many changes to behaviour for example, yes people balled up as usual, but those groups would wipe in seconds after engages, if CP was enabled, survivability and resource advantage would mean those fights would last longer therefore more skills firing off in a congested area and more server side calculations.

I am sure there are numerous other examples too of how no CP would have changed how we play.

Biro123

visionality wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

With no-CP it constantly seemed like the game was running in slow-mo.. cooldowns juts seemed longer. activating a skill - just didn't activate most of the time. My usual timing knowing when to do the next attack, was screwed as it was always too early - so I resorted to mashing skills until I was seeing them fire - and when they did, the animations just seemed slow.. All this time, my framerate and ping were ok (not great - but not terrible either).

I'm sorry to hear you had such issues, @Biro123 - saw you in Trueflame several times this last week and from the outside your gameplay didn't look any different.

That bad eh?

visionality wrote: »

Some of my friends had issues until they disabled their addons, but mostly they suffered low framerates, not one complained about slomo animations. But then, most of them cancel animations, I have to admit.

That was half the problem.. some stuff - noticeably hardened ward needs a small pause before you cancel it.. I usually do this with weapon-swap (I keep my wards both in the same slot in different bars).. swapping too early stops the skill from firing and this was happening an awful lot..

Also curse... I backbar it, and start off with that, ani-cancelled with a weapon-swap - and again, often it wasn't going off.. (not sure if due to me cancelling too soon - or due to the first point of stuff just not firing cos it was still on gcd.. hard to tell when in the thick of it)

Valencer

visionality wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

visionality wrote: »

- Apart from an intensified use of siege, which has a HUGE impact without cps, player behaviour did not change at all in the PVP-campaigns. Some updated their gear, adding a bit more regen, but many went back to their original setup after two to three days, getting used to the lower regeneration and being able to handle it.

How can playerbehavior be the same when it´s impossible for them to use the skills to the same extend?
The bolded part is exactly that: A change to player behavior.

You seriously expect the removal of cps would NOT remove the cp-buffed stats? I don't know about you, ofc, but everybody I played with was still using the same skills, the same strategies and mostly the same gear. Nobody stopped using destro ultis, nobody stopped using prox dets, nobody stopped casting caltrops or silences or the likes. Nobody stopped zerging either.

So: No change to player behaviour apart from what was buffed by cps (and that removal was intended and the central part of the test)

But people's behaviour did change in the large scale sense. Ive been no-lifing trueflame this whole weekend because of the double AP thing and Ive barely ever seen a keep flip without the whole alliance being there to roll over everything through sheer force of numbers.

In addition to that, people chase you 10+v1 for miles upon miles because they know you cant sustain forever in no-CP (especially when they spam resource poisons and proc sets) and want an easy kill. Sure, this always happened but not THIS much... if I were recording I could probably make an hour long compilation out of it, just from this weekend alone.

Trueflame was zergier than ever before - I didnt think that was actually possible. And the lag was just as bad as before.

Grumble_and_Grunt

Valencer wrote: »

visionality wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

visionality wrote: »

- Apart from an intensified use of siege, which has a HUGE impact without cps, player behaviour did not change at all in the PVP-campaigns. Some updated their gear, adding a bit more regen, but many went back to their original setup after two to three days, getting used to the lower regeneration and being able to handle it.

How can playerbehavior be the same when it´s impossible for them to use the skills to the same extend?
The bolded part is exactly that: A change to player behavior.

You seriously expect the removal of cps would NOT remove the cp-buffed stats? I don't know about you, ofc, but everybody I played with was still using the same skills, the same strategies and mostly the same gear. Nobody stopped using destro ultis, nobody stopped using prox dets, nobody stopped casting caltrops or silences or the likes. Nobody stopped zerging either.

So: No change to player behaviour apart from what was buffed by cps (and that removal was intended and the central part of the test)

But people's behaviour did change in the large scale sense. Ive been no-lifing trueflame this whole weekend because of the double AP thing and Ive barely ever seen a keep flip without the whole alliance being there to roll over everything through sheer force of numbers.

In addition to that, people chase you 10+v1 for miles upon miles because they know you cant sustain forever in no-CP (especially when they spam resource poisons and proc sets) and want an easy kill. Sure, this always happened but not THIS much... if I were recording I could probably make an hour long compilation out of it, just from this weekend alone.

Trueflame was zergier than ever before - I didnt think that was actually possible. And the lag was just as bad as before.

Exactly you could mist form from BM to DC and still have an entourage of gap closers behind you, except in no CP you wouldn't make it as far as the first resource.

L2Pissue

i present this only to all the salty players regarding playstyle of some players.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5LpwO-An4
[/spoiler

Valencer

Cool story bro

Kaspar

Before leaders would have accumulated AP of ~6M for an entire campaign duration (30 days).

Some people currently have >10M AP with 20 days remaining in the campaign.

Facts are Facts!