AoE Cap Removal Post Mortem

Agrippa_Invisus · February 2018

So, AOE caps are gone.

Thoughts?

Haven't gotten to run in a raid yet myself, but it was hilarious watching a dozen players melt on when a door repair crew got bomb bladed. That, at least, felt way nastier than it used to be.

As an aside: TBH, the best part of this patch is the 'no more monster shoulder graphics' thing. God, I hated that dumb one shoulder thing. Felt like it was trying to be fake edgelord. Gimme my proper Imperial shoulders, kthxbye.

Rohamad_Ali · February 2018

Vicious Death is vicious once again . Nice to see more people spreading out . Siege on a breach is more powerful then last patch . Rapids are more important now . Liking these changes so far .

Minno · February 2018

Can't wait for the 4vX spank videos to come out soon. I need some entertainment during my lunch break!

Draxys · February 2018

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Vicious Death is vicious once again . Nice to see more people spreading out . Siege on a breach is more powerful then last patch . Rapids are more important now . Liking these changes so far .

Indeed. We had a big defense at ash last night, and it felt like the removal of aoe caps actually allowed us to defend it. Previously, blues would have likely survived thanks to getting carried by the game’s mitigation, but they got repelled at the breach instead.

Agrippa_Invisus · February 2018

Draxys wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Vicious Death is vicious once again . Nice to see more people spreading out . Siege on a breach is more powerful then last patch . Rapids are more important now . Liking these changes so far .

Indeed. We had a big defense at ash last night, and it felt like the removal of aoe caps actually allowed us to defend it. Previously, blues would have likely survived thanks to getting carried by the game’s mitigation, but they got repelled at the breach instead.

Can't just blob through a breach like they used to?

Many failed keep defenses I've been in usually involve some large bumrush of folks that AOE caps struggled to deal with at several key stages (outer wall, inner breach, back flag, etc).

It'll be nice to see the lemming tactics actively punished. Attackers should be encouraged to open multiple breaches, siege down the inner, and not just shovel bodies onto flags.

Joy_Division · February 2018

Glad ZoS finally got rid of them compeltely

CyrusArya · February 2018

Im running an AOE stam sorc to get the most out of this change, and from what I can tell initially it feels great. Just sit back and throw down caltrops on a faction stack, acuity procs, and theres just a flood of damage. Then streak in with a hurricane empowered Dawnbreaker when the time is right. Very excited to see whats in store. This is gonna be a fantastic patch for small scale/small group PvP. Obviously destro ulti ball zergs will benefit more. But there are now options available for small groups like never before, which means the fireworks will be real.

Jadokis · February 2018

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Draxys wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Vicious Death is vicious once again . Nice to see more people spreading out . Siege on a breach is more powerful then last patch . Rapids are more important now . Liking these changes so far .

Indeed. We had a big defense at ash last night, and it felt like the removal of aoe caps actually allowed us to defend it. Previously, blues would have likely survived thanks to getting carried by the game’s mitigation, but they got repelled at the breach instead.

Can't just blob through a breach like they used to?

Many failed keep defenses I've been in usually involve some large bumrush of folks that AOE caps struggled to deal with at several key stages (outer wall, inner breach, back flag, etc).

It'll be nice to see the lemming tactics actively punished. Attackers should be encouraged to open multiple breaches, siege down the inner, and not just shovel bodies onto flags.

Yeah, it felt great. DC took down all 3 walls on the farm side and eventually got through. We were able to just use the back corner going to mine side as a choke and my small group with 2 bomb blades just held that spot once and made a couple pushes where DC was stacked. Definitely felt like they couldn't just rush in all at once like they used to do. Happened again later at Roe where DC took down front door and the wall next to it.

I'd say give it a few days for groups to return to cyro though. I saw some usual suspects last night but group sizes were small.

Also don't underrate synergies. Being able to purify and use shards easily makes pvping much more enjoyable.

frozywozy · February 2018

CyrusArya wrote: »

Im running an AOE stam sorc to get the most out of this change, and from what I can tell initially it feels great. Just sit back and throw down caltrops on a faction stack, acuity procs, and theres just a flood of damage. Then streak in with a hurricane empowered Dawnbreaker when the time is right. Very excited to see whats in store. This is gonna be a fantastic patch for small scale/small group PvP. Obviously destro ulti ball zergs will benefit more. But there are now options available for small groups like never before, which means the fireworks will be real.

The destro ulti ball zergs will benefit when fighting larger numbers, just like your little elite dawny musketeer crew will benefit fighting larger numbers. It's all relative to the amount of players u're fighting.

Sanct16 · February 2018

While it is a good change, the only real impact it will have is some sort of placebo effect.

Jadokis · February 2018

Sanct16 wrote: »

While it is a good change, the only real impact it will have is some sort of placebo effect.

Already false for people playing yesterday at least on NA. Just the two keep defenses, and overall in cyro. Bomb blades were a lot more effective on all sides hitting large stacks. It was pretty fun.

Anrose · February 2018

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

So, AOE caps are gone.

Thoughts?

Haven't gotten to run in a raid yet myself, but it was hilarious watching a dozen players melt on when a door repair crew got bomb bladed. That, at least, felt way nastier than it used to be.

As an aside: TBH, the best part of this patch is the 'no more monster shoulder graphics' thing. God, I hated that dumb one shoulder thing. Felt like it was trying to be fake edgelord. Gimme my proper Imperial shoulders, kthxbye.

First raid will be tonight, but small manning last night, my bombs definitely felt stronger. Can’t wakt to put them to the test.

Agrippa_Invisus · February 2018

Jadokis wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Draxys wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Vicious Death is vicious once again . Nice to see more people spreading out . Siege on a breach is more powerful then last patch . Rapids are more important now . Liking these changes so far .

Indeed. We had a big defense at ash last night, and it felt like the removal of aoe caps actually allowed us to defend it. Previously, blues would have likely survived thanks to getting carried by the game’s mitigation, but they got repelled at the breach instead.

Can't just blob through a breach like they used to?

Many failed keep defenses I've been in usually involve some large bumrush of folks that AOE caps struggled to deal with at several key stages (outer wall, inner breach, back flag, etc).

It'll be nice to see the lemming tactics actively punished. Attackers should be encouraged to open multiple breaches, siege down the inner, and not just shovel bodies onto flags.

Also don't underrate synergies. Being able to purify and use shards easily makes pvping much more enjoyable.

I noticed the same thing about synergies last night. They were up constantly and I have a quick button for hitting them already (been like that since back in my Tsym days when Impale damage from Talons was a major part of group damage).

No more dancing trying to get that synergy notice to pop up.

ssewallb14_ESO · February 2018

I think bombing is stronger than it's ever been, even destro feels like it got a buff rather than a nerf, even with bugged hemorrhage. Reminds me a bit of bombing in TG.

kyle.wilson · February 2018

I've watched several destro ball groups get wiped by pugs. I'm surprised I haven't seen more crying on the forums.

Xsorus · February 2018

haven't been able to play yet, personally going to re set my bombblade back up i think.

heng14rwb17_ESO · February 2018

KILL ALL SPARE NONE !!!

Feanor · February 2018

The real question is: Does it reduce lag as expected?

Taonnor · February 2018

Feanor wrote: »

The real question is: Does it reduce lag as expected?

I dont think. Their problems are far deeper in code and related on wrong architecture patterns. See in this post (Myth AoE Cap) the parts with "zone splitting" and my hint with the removing of the deers in cyro. For example they didn't implemented zone splitting.

Another example is on another post Wrobel explained the calculation of deto. The calculation of different deto dmg's are splitted into "steps" and they do the hole calculations with LOS and so on for all "steps", instead of doing it only one times. This is so lazy...

There are so much more issues, if you read between the lines. These issues are not easy to get out. So removing of aoe caps helps only a bit, but it's not the golden nail.

I think we will have that lag problem forever or for very looong time. The architecture issues are too deep.

Edit: And the aoe caps are still there. If you have a skill with sub effects, like talons (dmg + root), the sub effects are still capped to 6 targets. Only the dmg part is not capped.

Agrippa_Invisus · February 2018

To confirm, there was not a hint of lag reduction last night. My frames and general sluggishness (5-10s weapon swaps, etc) were pretty terrible anytime we encountered a big group.

Anrose · February 2018

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

To confirm, there was not a hint of lag reduction last night. My frames and general sluggishness (5-10s weapon swaps, etc) were pretty terrible anytime we encountered a big group.

At the Chal milegate last night, my staff bar was using the DW animations and vice versa for a solid 15 minutes. Hard to build ult when you’re just swinging your staff around not actually firing any light attacks.

Rohamad_Ali · February 2018

The lag and the weapon swapping is terrible . Needs to be addressed .

Satiar · February 2018

Ran in a full raid for the first time since I retired VE, I noticed higher damage but no lag reduction, for what that is worth.

What I did not have were screen freezes when plowing into 40 ppl.

What I did have was the inability to swap bars.

Crispen_Longbow · February 2018

Anrose wrote: »

At the Chal milegate last night, my staff bar was using the DW animations and vice versa for a solid 15 minutes. Hard to build ult when you’re just swinging your staff around not actually firing any light attacks.

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

The lag and the weapon swapping is terrible . Needs to be addressed .

Satiar wrote: »

What I did have was the inability to swap bars.

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

To confirm, there was not a hint of lag reduction last night. My frames and general sluggishness (5-10s weapon swaps, etc) were pretty terrible anytime we encountered a big group.

PUBLIC SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT: To fix the horrible weapon swap issue that we were experiencing last night, go into your video settings and change your "Texture Quality" to "low". This makes the game look like crap but it will fix your weapon swap issues. After making this change, weapon swaps went back to normal and didn't have any issues the rest of the night.

Thanks to Kirsi aka "The Sorc" for finding out this temporary fix until ZOS can fix their game.

VaranisArano · February 2018

Already had my texture quality to low, still had weapon swap issues.

But anyway, ran with an organized raid last night and it felt great. The only trouble we had was a group we know stacks a whole bunch of Earthgore and even they were eventually picked apart and overwhelmed.

umagon · February 2018

I did not notice any decrease in the server latency; at times I found it had actually increased in larger battles. But the change was good because now after killing all the deer, letting players turn themselves into bombs, letting players turn other players into bombs, adding cold fire siege weapons, creating destruction staff’s ultimate, and now removing the area effect damage caps; the devs can address the real problem instead of continuing to avoid it.

Jadokis · February 2018

I wasn't feeling "lag". I was having trouble bar swapping because of a bug like everyone else. Frames are also dropping considerably lower than last patch. I can always fix that last part temporarily by reloading my UI, but yeah. Once all the groups get back into cyro we'll see how the lag really is.

Lucky28 · February 2018

Satiar wrote: »

Ran in a full raid for the first time since I retired VE, I noticed higher damage but no lag reduction, for what that is worth.

What I did not have were screen freezes when plowing into 40 ppl.

What I did have was the inability to swap bars.

i think ZOS messed something up with weapon swap. there have been a few times where it took 10 seconds to swap bars which is a lifetime when you're fighting outnumbered

AOE caps being gone is great tho. it can go so bad so fast for zergs XD

frozywozy · February 2018

Taonnor wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

The real question is: Does it reduce lag as expected?

I dont think. Their problems are far deeper in code and related on wrong architecture patterns. See in this post (Myth AoE Cap) the parts with "zone splitting" and my hint with the removing of the deers in cyro. For example they didn't implemented zone splitting.

Another example is on another post Wrobel explained the calculation of deto. The calculation of different deto dmg's are splitted into "steps" and they do the hole calculations with LOS and so on for all "steps", instead of doing it only one times. This is so lazy...

There are so much more issues, if you read between the lines. These issues are not easy to get out. So removing of aoe caps helps only a bit, but it's not the golden nail.

I think we will have that lag problem forever or for very looong time. The architecture issues are too deep.

Edit: And the aoe caps are still there. If you have a skill with sub effects, like talons (dmg + root), the sub effects are still capped to 6 targets. Only the dmg part is not capped.

It was proven in many threads that the removal of AOE caps during major fights (two 24men organized groups engaging each other) would reduce efficiently the latency and the calculations on the server. This is not the major problem of server latency but will greatly improve the performances, especially during primetime on a friday or saturday night.

I believe that the next step would be to reduce the population cap by 20%, to add a system that opens or closes additional campaigns dynamically when one is near to be full for one faction. Merge the scoreboard of all the campaigns together.

Welcome to healthy PvP.

asneakybanana · February 2018

Did some dabbling around on my bomb warden last night and it felt good. The changes to steel tornado along with aoe Cap removal makes it feel like my shalk dawnbreaker tornado combo is actually taking our a sizable chunk of groups which I love.

QuebraRegra · February 2018

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

So, AOE caps are gone.

Thoughts?

Haven't gotten to run in a raid yet myself, but it was hilarious watching a dozen players melt on when a door repair crew got bomb bladed. That, at least, felt way nastier than it used to be.

As an aside: TBH, the best part of this patch is the 'no more monster shoulder graphics' thing. God, I hated that dumb one shoulder thing. Felt like it was trying to be fake edgelord. Gimme my proper Imperial shoulders, kthxbye.

wait whut? can we hide shoulders now? would like to hide ridiculous shoulders.