Poor state of PvP combat mechanics.

GreenhaloX

I do have a main PvP toon, and I have, thus far, taken about 10 different toons into PvP for quite a few months now (most for the Vigor and Caltrops for the stam toons), and combat mechanics can be quite frustrating. Just noting that certain aspects of PvE combats have improved quite a bit and seems quite smooth and crisp many times. Heck, you don't really get that horrible lag during the zerg at the Alik'r dolmen as much as before. However, combat and fighting against other players in Cyrodiil has been and still clunky and slow; particularly during a fighting where there are 10 or more.

I'm sure there will be peeps that may or will come on here to say they don't have any issues with combat in PvP, as it could well be. However, combat mechanics are among the sad state of PvP, in general. Issues of slow execution of skills and weapon swap to skills not firing off at all, even though, the skill is highlighted. Sure, we have to deal with players using all different kinds of poison and get bested by a larger group or odds against you that can be 3 to 1 or more; it is part of the game. However, when the lagging occurs so bad during a fight that you're pressing for a highlighted skill to fire off after 3 or more times, and it doesn't; well, this is not part of the game. Also, you're pressing for weapon swap three or more times, and it doesn't or get delayed action; well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this is not part of the game. Ideally, these crapshoots are not part of the game, but sadly, these issues have been part of the PvP gameplay in Cyrodiil for a long time now.

I thank you ZOS/Zen, Bethesda and the powers that may be for making PvE a lot smoother and have been more enjoyable; however, you all need to give some love to PvP. PvP has not been quite enjoyable of a gameplay for a while now. Hey, ok, I understand.. it's probably a task to police cheating and exploiting players, with so many countless players coming and going. I think no matter what are being done against them, there will always be those cheaters and exploiters. However, letting the crapshoot of poor combat mechanics in PvP go on for so long now is very unacceptable. I can deal with running into players that seemingly will not die (I just don't fight them or go on my way) or getting trampled over and decimated by an oncoming zerg (hey, just respawn somewhere), but, PvP has not been so enjoyable when you're not able to fire off your highlighted skillsets, swap weapon efficiently or having delayed actions when a skill from the other bar then fires off soon after you were able to swap onto the other bar.

How do you all others deal with this crapshoot; particularly those that have PvP for years? These are not unknown issues. There have been plethora of other reoccurring threads and posts about how jacked up the state of PvP is. Now, here is another one. Sad.. sad face here.

Starlight_Knight

The best thing about Cyrodill pvp is gap closing towards someone and going right through them and appearing 10m away facing the opposite direction, Hitting the dawnbreaker key 75 times before it finally goes off while your timed burst has been and gone and they have healed up fully.
PvP is in a sorry state, i guess you just have to join the meta if you want to have fun and make a perma blocking DK and spam whips.

Waffennacht

I slow down.

You're right, the speed at which I AC in PvE results in missing abilities in PvP.

My only "fix" is to calm down and slow down a bit.

Now if PvP was as smooth as PvE (for the most part) combat would be more enjoyable.

Aznox

GreenhaloX wrote: »

How do you all others deal with this crapshoot; particularly those that have PvP for years?

I find that pvp is currently in a great spot : relatively balanced, very diverse and if you keep training and try to be smart you will progress, what's more to ask ?

As for the bugs that come with some patches, they are getting fixed, just way too slowly (One week for weapon swap lag ? 3 weeks for Cyrodiil loading screens ? Resource drain still going, etc..)

If you have not spent a lot of time in pvp maybe you had bad luck and did it during "bug weeks" or "server lag nights" ?

Have not encountered problems with skill not firing, if it happens for you during big zerg fights, you probably need disable uneeded add-ons while in cyrodiil to discharge your CPU.

BrockofPercival

It is clunky, one of the worst client-server sync PvP mmos I have ever played and I go way back. Even the early MMOs had better sync. (though most early ones had longer GCD and the gcd prevented multiple abilities from firing at once. In fact, I am pretty sure the animation canceling and multiple ability firing is part of the problem. I notice more de-sync and client side problems when opponents are using it. I then tested by setting up some builds that can really fire off multiple abilities at once and found that I could kill people while they just stood there on many occasions, because it somehow causes them to lag on their side but not my side. Just PvP a lot and you'll notice when someone is about to unload on you, they will stand still for a sec or 2 and then *pop*, you get pounded by multiple abilities at once. ESO seems to be trying to animate it all and just freezes instead or the server has no idea how to packet the info properly, can't say for sure without more time wasted analyzing a problem they should have already fixed long ago. The more players doing it all around you (or to you) the more likely the code just 'freezes in a state of indecision')

And there is really no excuse for it other than poor/bad code, because it is that bad. I originally thought it was mostly server side lag in which case a better server would help but now from testing it is more likely poor code. They need to do a complete state diagram to work out all the problems and that is a lot of work at this point they don't seem willing to pay someone to do for 6 months. (this is something that should have existed during the design phase and then expanded as needed as the game grows in complexity)

It is very unfortunate since it really detracts from what could be a far better/fun and more skilled based PvP experience.

kaithuzar

It's pretty balanced imo however the abilities don't seem really reliable if there are 10+ people around you.
I feel as though they often fix things & then re-introduce the bug or a more complex version of it each patch. I could swear as an example if we were on patch 8.9 and we were going to patch 9.0, they would take the game from 7.5 and build that to 9.0 dismissing all data from 7.6-8.9!
Maybe this has only happened once or twice but it just doesn't make sense how things get "fixed" & broken again.
I definitely think there needs to be some type of animation or ability priority system to enhance the reliability of the combat experience. And if this already exist, it needs to be heavily fine tuned.

Vermintide

They need more powerful servers and perhaps more of a decentralised system of operating them. That's really the only thing I can think of that they can do.

My ping is usually around 100ms from the UK, and that's plenty of time to result in an unfair death if you combine it with an opponent's 100ms ping and the 20-30ms delay you get simply from the travel time of pressing a key and having it register as a press, etc. And that-s being generous- I am certain there's additional lag just because the servers are slow to process your actual moves. How many times have you found yourself hammering your heal/cloak/escape key like a woodpecker only to find nothing happens and boom, you're dead?

A fast, fluid combat system like this game has would be perfect in local multiplayer with no delay, but in the end it turns out similar to fighting games. You ever try to play Mortal Kombat online or something? Where you need to tap block within a fraction of a second of seeing them start the attack... It simply doesn't work when any amount of delay is introduced.

Skander

Client sided?

ak_pvp

A note: 100 ping here is about 50 ping in a game like CS because ESO counts both ways.

However I have had some mad ping spikes as of late, helped a little bit by turning of nVidia share and geforce experience, but still worse than it should be.

technohic

Waffennacht wrote: »

I slow down.

You're right, the speed at which I AC in PvE results in missing abilities in PvP.

My only "fix" is to calm down and slow down a bit.

Now if PvP was as smooth as PvE (for the most part) combat would be more enjoyable.

I was just doing some questing for the first time in forever. Kind of weird as I have never finished my starting factions storyline but did the other 2 for silver and gold in VR days. Not only did I find the quests completely boring, but the combat is starting to be just as bad in PvE as well as of late. Think the entire game is starting to get as bad as PvP as far as responsiveness

thedude33

BrockofPercival wrote: »

It is clunky, one of the worst client-server sync PvP mmos I have ever played and I go way back. Even the early MMOs had better sync. (though most early ones had longer GCD and the gcd prevented multiple abilities from firing at once. In fact, I am pretty sure the animation canceling and multiple ability firing is part of the problem. I notice more de-sync and client side problems when opponents are using it. I then tested by setting up some builds that can really fire off multiple abilities at once and found that I could kill people while they just stood there on many occasions, because it somehow causes them to lag on their side but not my side. Just PvP a lot and you'll notice when someone is about to unload on you, they will stand still for a sec or 2 and then *pop*, you get pounded by multiple abilities at once. ESO seems to be trying to animate it all and just freezes instead or the server has no idea how to packet the info properly, can't say for sure without more time wasted analyzing a problem they should have already fixed long ago. The more players doing it all around you (or to you) the more likely the code just 'freezes in a state of indecision')

And there is really no excuse for it other than poor/bad code, because it is that bad. I originally thought it was mostly server side lag in which case a better server would help but now from testing it is more likely poor code. They need to do a complete state diagram to work out all the problems and that is a lot of work at this point they don't seem willing to pay someone to do for 6 months. (this is something that should have existed during the design phase and then expanded as needed as the game grows in complexity)

It is very unfortunate since it really detracts from what could be a far better/fun and more skilled based PvP experience.

I normally don't face that problem because I am usually off to the side with my bow. Don't usually get hit a lot. Then when I start getting bored and decide to stick around during fights I notice exactly what you have described. Even when sprinting and dodge rolling around the battle then finding myself insta dead. I check the recap and see that I was hit with 5 melee abilities ...yet I didn't even see the guy. Tad frustrating for sure. Don't know how you legit pvpers handle it.

GreenhaloX

thedude33 wrote: »

BrockofPercival wrote: »

It is clunky, one of the worst client-server sync PvP mmos I have ever played and I go way back. Even the early MMOs had better sync. (though most early ones had longer GCD and the gcd prevented multiple abilities from firing at once. In fact, I am pretty sure the animation canceling and multiple ability firing is part of the problem. I notice more de-sync and client side problems when opponents are using it. I then tested by setting up some builds that can really fire off multiple abilities at once and found that I could kill people while they just stood there on many occasions, because it somehow causes them to lag on their side but not my side. Just PvP a lot and you'll notice when someone is about to unload on you, they will stand still for a sec or 2 and then *pop*, you get pounded by multiple abilities at once. ESO seems to be trying to animate it all and just freezes instead or the server has no idea how to packet the info properly, can't say for sure without more time wasted analyzing a problem they should have already fixed long ago. The more players doing it all around you (or to you) the more likely the code just 'freezes in a state of indecision')

And there is really no excuse for it other than poor/bad code, because it is that bad. I originally thought it was mostly server side lag in which case a better server would help but now from testing it is more likely poor code. They need to do a complete state diagram to work out all the problems and that is a lot of work at this point they don't seem willing to pay someone to do for 6 months. (this is something that should have existed during the design phase and then expanded as needed as the game grows in complexity)

It is very unfortunate since it really detracts from what could be a far better/fun and more skilled based PvP experience.

I normally don't face that problem because I am usually off to the side with my bow. Don't usually get hit a lot. Then when I start getting bored and decide to stick around during fights I notice exactly what you have described. Even when sprinting and dodge rolling around the battle then finding myself insta dead. I check the recap and see that I was hit with 5 melee abilities ...yet I didn't even see the guy. Tad frustrating for sure. Don't know how you legit pvpers handle it.

Similarly, when you see fighting outside your keep and the keep is not flagged, and you travel there, but when the loading screen is finally done, your screen appears only to see your deathcap. Ha ha, wtf. Same with rezzing at a forward camp not knowing that it is being attacked, and when your screen comes up, your death cap is full frontal. So nice..

the_broo11

GreenhaloX wrote: »

How do you all others deal with this crapshoot; particularly those that have PvP for years? These are not unknown issues. There have been plethora of other reoccurring threads and posts about how jacked up the state of PvP is. Now, here is another one. Sad.. sad face here.

It's tough. Especially when almost every dlc continues to get worse. Most of the friends I used to run with ended up moving on to different games after the BG queues were released in a nearly unusable state. There's only so much each person can handle.

I've learned to adapt to most levels of lag these days, but there are still days where the performance is extremely inconsistent. While standing still, bar swapping will range anywhere from instant to 2s delay. I have no idea how anyone can adapt to this level of volatility and still perform at a decent level.

It wasn't so bad before they cut down the campaigns. There was almost always 1 campaign that kept a steady low pop on each faction. You could still get zerged, but the performance was so much better. You could actually fight back at your own level of ability (most of the time), rather than under the artificial ceiling that comes with the zerg lag.

These days, BGs is the go-to option for that type of environment. Even then, there are still days where the performance is degraded across the game though. I'm always willing to accept an entire DLC dedicated to performance upgrades, but I doubt that will happen based on history over the past few years.

Datolite

I have noticed these issues are especially bad since the Dragon Bones patch, or maybe I'm just unlucky.

Waffennacht

I've never devoted so much to the Stam resource and yet still have such difficulty in sustaining my Stam in BGs.

Same with magicka actually.

I sit at 2k Regen unbuffed and run Lich.

Then I ponder resource poisons

DosPanchos

GreenhaloX wrote: »

I do have a main PvP toon, and I have, thus far, taken about 10 different toons into PvP for quite a few months now (most for the Vigor and Caltrops for the stam toons), and combat mechanics can be quite frustrating. Just noting that certain aspects of PvE combats have improved quite a bit and seems quite smooth and crisp many times. Heck, you don't really get that horrible lag during the zerg at the Alik'r dolmen as much as before. However, combat and fighting against other players in Cyrodiil has been and still clunky and slow; particularly during a fighting where there are 10 or more.

I'm sure there will be peeps that may or will come on here to say they don't have any issues with combat in PvP, as it could well be. However, combat mechanics are among the sad state of PvP, in general. Issues of slow execution of skills and weapon swap to skills not firing off at all, even though, the skill is highlighted. Sure, we have to deal with players using all different kinds of poison and get bested by a larger group or odds against you that can be 3 to 1 or more; it is part of the game. However, when the lagging occurs so bad during a fight that you're pressing for a highlighted skill to fire off after 3 or more times, and it doesn't; well, this is not part of the game. Also, you're pressing for weapon swap three or more times, and it doesn't or get delayed action; well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this is not part of the game. Ideally, these crapshoots are not part of the game, but sadly, these issues have been part of the PvP gameplay in Cyrodiil for a long time now.

I thank you ZOS/Zen, Bethesda and the powers that may be for making PvE a lot smoother and have been more enjoyable; however, you all need to give some love to PvP. PvP has not been quite enjoyable of a gameplay for a while now. Hey, ok, I understand.. it's probably a task to police cheating and exploiting players, with so many countless players coming and going. I think no matter what are being done against them, there will always be those cheaters and exploiters. However, letting the crapshoot of poor combat mechanics in PvP go on for so long now is very unacceptable. I can deal with running into players that seemingly will not die (I just don't fight them or go on my way) or getting trampled over and decimated by an oncoming zerg (hey, just respawn somewhere), but, PvP has not been so enjoyable when you're not able to fire off your highlighted skillsets, swap weapon efficiently or having delayed actions when a skill from the other bar then fires off soon after you were able to swap onto the other bar.

How do you all others deal with this crapshoot; particularly those that have PvP for years? These are not unknown issues. There have been plethora of other reoccurring threads and posts about how jacked up the state of PvP is. Now, here is another one. Sad.. sad face here.

Imo pvp has always been this way, but it's continually getting better.

Dredlord

ak_pvp wrote: »

A note: 100 ping here is about 50 ping in a game like CS because ESO counts both ways.

However I have had some mad ping spikes as of late, helped a little bit by turning of nVidia share and geforce experience, but still worse than it should be.

Absolutely wrong and total misinformation on ping

Ping is always measured both ways