You have to give ZOS credit for the AOE tests

Nemesis7884

They do care and they are trying to improve Cyrodiil - pvp players are not forgotten...

Do I like the approach they are taking? No, as a Templar main I am highly concerned that my class basically gets wrecked, and seeing how long any type of skill revision takes them I have huge doubts they will be able to simply rework all classes (AGAIN)...

That being said, we are out of options and need to look for solutions where we find them...so people should approach this with open minds and participate in the tests if they can....

Spartabunny08

I'm curious how this will affect tanks and healers

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Look on the bright side, all builds which use AoE will be effected so it will not be as bad as you think, your opponent will be just as badly effected as you are, in a way it kind of brings the Nightblade Class who are mostly single target back into Balance by making the other classes less powerful.

idk

Unless I read the PTS patch notes wrong they are testing this on the PTS. Zos has specifically stated that PTS testing of performance improvement in Cyrodiil is not very useful as there are not enough players participating to really push performance issues. Even if they do one of those special calls to tests they will likely still come up short of the number of players required. If they cannot get stress test data then I am concerned with how useful this will be.

I may be wrong on how they plan to test this. I think the ideas are worth looking at.

Spartabunny08 wrote: »

I'm curious how this will affect tanks and healers

This is a good question though I expect it will have much less effect on tanks. Considering Zos does not want to have skills perform differently in PvP vs PvE outside of battle spirit reducing the total damage/healing done. This could have a big impact on trial healing. After all, much of healing is AoE.

Dusk_Coven

Well I can agree that no matter how it turns out, even just setting up this test will cost them an unwarranted amount of time and resources toward Cyrodiil. Far too much to possibly be worth it in the end, but at least they are trying to save it.

zaria

Spartabunny08 wrote: »

I'm curious how this will affect tanks and healers

For healers an obvious one is that if you say do sweep or an wall of elements you can not use combat prayer or grand healing for 3 seconds. Sounds fun ?

And no I do not give credit, this idea is among the stupids ideas I read on this forums.
Yes it will work, amputating your head will also cure hangover.
At this point making Cyrodil an PvE zone is an option.

thorwyn

Considering Zos does not want to have skills perform differently in PvP vs PvE outside of battle spirit reducing the total damage/healing done.

Maybe this test also marks a change from this paragidm, which would be a good thing in my books. Treating PvP and PvE separately balance wise is a common request and by the looks of it, it IS possible to do so.

Btw the testing takes place on live servers.

StamPlar_1976

idk wrote: »

Unless I read the PTS patch notes wrong they are testing this on the PTS. Zos has specifically stated that PTS testing of performance improvement in Cyrodiil is not very useful as there are not enough players participating to really push performance issues. Even if they do one of those special calls to tests they will likely still come up short of the number of players required. If they cannot get stress test data then I am concerned with how useful this will be.

I may be wrong on how they plan to test this. I think the ideas are worth looking at.

Spartabunny08 wrote: »

I'm curious how this will affect tanks and healers

This is a good question though I expect it will have much less effect on tanks. Considering Zos does not want to have skills perform differently in PvP vs PvE outside of battle spirit reducing the total damage/healing done. This could have a big impact on trial healing. After all, much of healing is AoE.

They specifically stated it will be done on the live servers (PC).

eKsDee

idk wrote: »

Unless I read the PTS patch notes wrong they are testing this on the PTS. Zos has specifically stated that PTS testing of performance improvement in Cyrodiil is not very useful as there are not enough players participating to really push performance issues. Even if they do one of those special calls to tests they will likely still come up short of the number of players required. If they cannot get stress test data then I am concerned with how useful this will be.

I may be wrong on how they plan to test this. I think the ideas are worth looking at.

Spartabunny08 wrote: »

I'm curious how this will affect tanks and healers

This is a good question though I expect it will have much less effect on tanks. Considering Zos does not want to have skills perform differently in PvP vs PvE outside of battle spirit reducing the total damage/healing done. This could have a big impact on trial healing. After all, much of healing is AoE.

They said that the test will be coming on the live servers some time after Update 27 releases. I believe the changes are just on the PTS so that Zenimax can make 100% sure that they're working as intended, and won't majorly break things when they're introduced on the live servers.

Trueblue

idk wrote: »

Unless I read the PTS patch notes wrong they are testing this on the PTS. Zos has specifically stated that PTS testing of performance improvement in Cyrodiil is not very useful as there are not enough players participating to really push performance issues. Even if they do one of those special calls to tests they will likely still come up short of the number of players required. If they cannot get stress test data then I am concerned with how useful this will be.

I may be wrong on how they plan to test this. I think the ideas are worth looking at.

Spartabunny08 wrote: »

I'm curious how this will affect tanks and healers

This is a good question though I expect it will have much less effect on tanks. Considering Zos does not want to have skills perform differently in PvP vs PvE outside of battle spirit reducing the total damage/healing done. This could have a big impact on trial healing. After all, much of healing is AoE.

24.08 this will come to live server. You will get 2x AP bonus when test...

Firstmep

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

They do care and they are trying to improve Cyrodiil - pvp players are not forgotten...

Do I like the approach they are taking? No, as a Templar main I am highly concerned that my class basically gets wrecked, and seeing how long any type of skill revision takes them I have huge doubts they will be able to simply rework all classes (AGAIN)...

That being said, we are out of options and need to look for solutions where we find them...so people should approach this with open minds and participate in the tests if they can....

My issue is that once again they show, that they dont really understand the very game they have designed.

Entire classes, and possibly large parts of the core combat system would have to be designed if they went this route.

This blanket nerf aproach hasnt worked the last 5 times they have tried it, it wont work now.

They need to look at individual skills and evaluate them, not everything at once. Im tired of this lazy approach period.

Are they trying to fix cyro? Well yes, with the laziest, lowest effort solution possbile.

Nemesis7884

IMO the biggest threat is if they realize that they have to move the combat more to a cooldown system which I think will not only not work with the action oriented type of gameplay but also the fluidity of the combat is one major draw of ESO (besides maybe single player questing / stories) vs. other competitors...

In case we end up with a cool down based system I am just not sure at this point I would still prefer ESO vs. something like GW2 or other games that imo simply offer a better "holistic" mmorpg package...

It is also concerning that after 6 years ESO is still trying to find its identity and I wished they would temporarily vastly increase their workforce to basically do what Final Fantasy did with reborn and create ESO reborn where they test and look at all these things and then overhaul everything at the same time and re-release the game instead of this trickle approach...

Cinbri

I concerned that because of test you simply wont be able to play proper templar in cyro for straight 1 month. And if you have PvPer and have friends - you cant play bgs either. So, just take a break with this game it seems.

nemvar

Cinbri wrote: »

I concerned that because of test you simply wont be able to play proper templar in cyro for straight 1 month. And if you have PvPer and have friends - you cant play bgs either. So, just take a break with this game it seems.

Seems like they finally found a way to get people into IC.

Azurya

So, starting the week of August 24, we will be running a series of tests on the live PC servers – both NA & EU, only in Cyrodiil. Please note that we will not be running these tests on any Console servers. Each test should take about a week, but if needed, we will extend the testing time.

The first round of tests we are planning will focus on Area of Effect (AOE) abilities in Cyrodiil and will make it more difficult for AOE abilities to be the only abilities used, adjusting cooldown, cost and regen values of all AOEs (damage and healing).

Specific details on the tests we will be running in Cyrodiil are as follows:

Test 1 – Shared global AOE cooldown - 3 second timer. This test adds a global 3 second shared cooldown to any AOE ability. This means that when you cast an AOE, you will not be able to cast another for 3 seconds. For example, as a Templar, if I cast Ritual of Retribution, I wouldn’t be able to cast Puncturing Sweep for 3 seconds.
Test 2 – Individual AOE cooldown - 3 second timer. This test adds an individual AOE cooldown to each AOE ability. This means that when you cast an AOE, you will not be able to cast that same AOE ability for 3 seconds. For example – as a Templar, if I cast Puncturing Sweep, I wouldn’t be able to cast Puncturing Sweep again for 3 seconds.
Test 3 – No cooldown, global ramping AOE cost. This test adds a global ramping AOE cost for each AOE cast. Similar to how streak or roll dodge works, where when you cast an AOE you receive a debuff for 5 seconds, each stack of the debuff increases the cost of any AOE cast.
Test 4 – Individual AOE cooldown – 3 second timer, global ramping AOE cost. This test adds an individual AOE cooldown to each ability as in test 2, but also combines that with a global ramping cost from test 3.

During the times that any of these tests are active, we will be awarding double Alliance Points for anyone active in Cyrodiil.

this is what he wrote

OtarTheMad

I have to agree, ZOS is trying out some theories and I applaud them for asking for our assistance. Do I want a cooldown system? No, but I see that they are trying to fix this on a mass scale because minor fixes just aren't enough. I mean they can reduce group size but players will still ride together, that's too minor. I really don't see what they are trying as lazy either but that's just my opinion.

@Firstmep While I understand what you're saying I have to disagree. You say they need to look at individual skills and evaluate them, not everything at once but that's all they have been doing for years. They have been trying to change skills, passives, classes, skill lines, weapon lines, etc. for years and nothing helped the servers. Heck, we are still in the middle of a class/skill audit right now that was put on hold for server improvements. (NB and Templar aren't finished, plus some changes to Necro) That approach isn't working and so they have to adjust.

I know a lot of us love the combat system in ESO and I agree, it's great... in PvE. In PvP, during prime time, one can say... what combat system? Things need to change and as much as we all like to think we have the answer truthfully we don't. Even though I am afraid they will pick Test 1 or 2 as a solution I am willing to help anyway if it helps Cyrodiil because honestly... it's unplayable anyway so why not try. (Honestly, I like Test 3, good ball groups will find a way around it but it's a start and should help)

likecats

Firstmep wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

They do care and they are trying to improve Cyrodiil - pvp players are not forgotten...

Do I like the approach they are taking? No, as a Templar main I am highly concerned that my class basically gets wrecked, and seeing how long any type of skill revision takes them I have huge doubts they will be able to simply rework all classes (AGAIN)...

That being said, we are out of options and need to look for solutions where we find them...so people should approach this with open minds and participate in the tests if they can....

My issue is that once again they show, that they dont really understand the very game they have designed.

Entire classes, and possibly large parts of the core combat system would have to be designed if they went this route.

This blanket nerf aproach hasnt worked the last 5 times they have tried it, it wont work now.

They need to look at individual skills and evaluate them, not everything at once. Im tired of this lazy approach period.

Are they trying to fix cyro? Well yes, with the laziest, lowest effort solution possbile.

They need to confirm if AOEs are infact the root of the lag in cyrodiil. Would be dumb to redesign all the AOE skills just to find out that lag is just caused by too many players just standing in the same area.

Alomar

Lol, 6+ years post-launch with the worst performance ever following the "Year of Performance Improvements" and nothing has changed. It's all just words and empty gestures at this point. ESO is the Elder Scrolls cash cow, nothing else. Enjoy your cash shop and loot crates ya'll

Sarannah

The performance improvements are not just empty words... the performance improvements did help alot. Faster loading, better performance, less lag, etc. The major problem they are facing is that something is causing the lag, something they haven't looked at or thought off yet. Right now they want to see if AOE's are the issue.

Personally I do hope the AOE change is and stays PvP only, and that they change spammable AOE's like for example the templar's puncturing sweep in PvP to a single target attack for the time being. As you can't rip a class's main attack from them, and then hope they are fine.

I love my AOE's, and really hope they start looking at other directions for things to nerf. Like single bar PvP, and no more light attack weaving. As those are things some players gain a major advantage on as well, depending on lag/delay. This would both make PvP more fair/balanced, as well as reduce lag.

mairwen85

I give them credit for proving the actual problem when they added capacity for the MYM event and much of the performance issues went away. After which this series of tests and proposals feels disingenuous and cheap.

Tranquilizer

mairwen85 wrote: »

I give them credit for proving the actual problem when they added capacity for the MYM event and much of the performance issues went away. After which this series of tests and proposals feels disingenuous and cheap.

This.

After pre-MYM maintenance performance in Cyro was much better. Not ideal, but much better. After post-MYM maintenance performance was the same *** show as it is now.

Magdalina

mairwen85 wrote: »

I give them credit for proving the actual problem when they added capacity for the MYM event and much of the performance issues went away. After which this series of tests and proposals feels disingenuous and cheap.

I'm honestly confused as for why so many people keep saying MM performance was that much better. In my Cyrodiil time during MM, all my skills took an arbitrary number of presses to work, ranging from 5 to infinity (at one point I literally became unable to use all skills for good 5 minutes until I died), while seemingly having decent fps and ping. Potions just didn't work ever, period. Nothing like seeing all the action around you but being unable to do anything. And that wasn't even prime time. I talked to some friends and their experience didn't really seem much different. If this is considered good performance, I don't want to know what bad is (haven't PvP'd out of MM lately). I mean it wasn't just some lag or '1 second skill delay', it was flat unworking skills and 'combat' based purely on guesswork regarding how many skills will work this time and when it'll happen.

That said, it seems we're down to 2 options - either MAJOR infrastructure upgrade or equally MAJOR codebase rework. I do hope they can find the money and good will for the first one eventually, but while that's not happening, I personally welcome them doing the second.

Are the proposed changes perfect, no, but this is a test, and it is good they're testing on live because let's be honest, this is the only way they'll get any real data. We've all wanted PvP attention for years, well here it is, so let them test. They don't have a magic wand to fix it, they need to gather data and think. We can flame them when they're done with that and roll out the final changes, but to complain about testing when we all know it's needed is just silly.

Paske

ZOS: Our Nerfs will block out the sun.

Players: Good, the we can play Shadowlands in shade...

zaria

likecats wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

They do care and they are trying to improve Cyrodiil - pvp players are not forgotten...

Do I like the approach they are taking? No, as a Templar main I am highly concerned that my class basically gets wrecked, and seeing how long any type of skill revision takes them I have huge doubts they will be able to simply rework all classes (AGAIN)...

That being said, we are out of options and need to look for solutions where we find them...so people should approach this with open minds and participate in the tests if they can....

My issue is that once again they show, that they dont really understand the very game they have designed.

Entire classes, and possibly large parts of the core combat system would have to be designed if they went this route.

This blanket nerf aproach hasnt worked the last 5 times they have tried it, it wont work now.

They need to look at individual skills and evaluate them, not everything at once. Im tired of this lazy approach period.

Are they trying to fix cyro? Well yes, with the laziest, lowest effort solution possbile.

They need to confirm if AOEs are infact the root of the lag in cyrodiil. Would be dumb to redesign all the AOE skills just to find out that lag is just caused by too many players just standing in the same area.

You have 3 factors here.
First is server lag: server has to do all the calculations regarding combat, buffs and debuffs who is active damage and healing also do all the housekeeping with AI, XP and loot.
This should be the same for all players in instance independent on that you do, might be an difference, if your are in combat you have to wait for server to handle you.

Fight some world boss in Alkir during double XP to measure this.
Now still in Alkir, follow an large dolmen zerg group do not engage in combat but keep close, notice FPS drop then watching the action, that part is client side then you try to render the action, I get serious lag here.
Last you have base internet latency.
Add this together for total lag.

Load screens then riding pretty much has to be server not able to keep up. If game is unable to load textures fast enough this gives an visual bug.

As For AoE, think the ground based one probably gives most work for the server, as it need to map the ground based effects on on ground then map this to targets who are moving around and add all the effects of this, order of mapping obvious matter too. This sounds like far more work than an instant AoE like steel tornado or pulsar.

The idea of testing various effects live is an good one, I give them that however don't see these tests give much useful data.
One test should give good enough data.

Pauls

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

They do care and they are trying to improve Cyrodiil - pvp players are not forgotten...

Yeah lets put everyone into some crap limitations instead of adding more server resources, pvp is totally treated well

Sarannah

mairwen85 wrote: »

I give them credit for proving the actual problem when they added capacity for the MYM event and much of the performance issues went away. After which this series of tests and proposals feels disingenuous and cheap.

Not necessarily, during midyearmayhem the issues could have been temporarily fixed as the players were spread out over more PvP instances/shards. Combined with those shards all containing many PvE players as well. PvE players which aren't maxed out, and trying to push every ounce of power out of their character(less light attack weaving, lower skill amount usage, less bar swapping, lesser procs, doing PvE, etc). Meaning less calculations for the servers, simply due to who were playing.

In short: The volume of the type of combat might play a major part in the PvP issues.

Nemesis7884

Pauls wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

They do care and they are trying to improve Cyrodiil - pvp players are not forgotten...

Yeah lets put everyone into some crap limitations instead of adding more server resources, pvp is totally treated well

You dont think if it was that simple as adding a couple servers they would do it?

There is probably a reason why nearly every other mmo in history uses cooldown on skills for exactly this reason

and wow seems to have big performance issues currently despite cool down skills, less graphical fidelity and activision having all the resources in the world...

Alite

zaria wrote: »

Spartabunny08 wrote: »

I'm curious how this will affect tanks and healers

For healers an obvious one is that if you say do sweep or an wall of elements you can not use combat prayer or grand healing for 3 seconds. Sounds fun ?

And no I do not give credit, this idea is among the stupids ideas I read on this forums.
Yes it will work, amputating your head will also cure hangover.
At this point making Cyrodil an PvE zone is an option.

If you're running wall and combat prayer on the same bar you've got bigger problems than this change buddy, mainly the fact that you seem to have accidentally queued into cyrodil instead of your undaunted pledge lmao, if you wanna run a [snip] aoe build thats only good for mobs that don't move go do that in dungeons, [snip]

[Edit for Baiting.]

mairwen85

Alite wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Spartabunny08 wrote: »

I'm curious how this will affect tanks and healers

For healers an obvious one is that if you say do sweep or an wall of elements you can not use combat prayer or grand healing for 3 seconds. Sounds fun ?

And no I do not give credit, this idea is among the stupids ideas I read on this forums.
Yes it will work, amputating your head will also cure hangover.
At this point making Cyrodil an PvE zone is an option.

If you're running wall and combat prayer on the same bar you've got bigger problems than this change buddy, mainly the fact that you seem to have accidentally queued into cyrodil instead of your undaunted pledge lmao, if you wanna run a [snip] aoe build thats only good for mobs that don't move go do that in dungeons, [snip]

[Edit for Baiting.]

They'd be on separate bars. Rest and destro. But I think the allusion is to whether this actually is a solution to performance. In which case it would mean revision of skills pve side too ultimately.

karekiz

thorwyn wrote: »

Considering Zos does not want to have skills perform differently in PvP vs PvE outside of battle spirit reducing the total damage/healing done.

Maybe this test also marks a change from this paragidm, which would be a good thing in my books. Treating PvP and PvE separately balance wise is a common request and by the looks of it, it IS possible to do so.

Btw the testing takes place on live servers.

What a 180 that would be.

They go from "We can't imagine changing skills number values, or player amount because then people will be confused!"
to
"Yeah your entire skill functions entirely different in one zone. That skill you used to hit? Now it stalls your entire bar! How fluid!"

Scion_of_Yggdrasil

This is what happens when you constantly listen to the players who complain about "potato combat." You cannot realistically expect performance to hold up when you constantly want the pace of combat to continue to speed up. ESO combat doesn't need to be slow, but it doesn't need to be 100mph either. If you want that kind of experience, play a different game.

Unpopular Opinions:

• Animation cancelling should have been nipped in the bud. It was an accidental discovery, turned exploit. Then more balancing took place to account for the upped performance while using this exploit... seems backwards to me.
• Running out of stamina or magicka is supposed to happen... Its why TES has chosen the unique approach of having resources instead of cool downs. Having a META build with amazing sustain is part of the problem. There are supposed to be lulls in combat where you have to take a second to regen.

Im curious about what these tests discover, but am worried about what the official change might be. I am very much against cool downs, but do believe there are acceptable exceptions. I currently have 4 AOE skills barred... do I spam them though? No. Guess we will see what happens!