The removal of skill based gameplay, and why AOE CD's will be the nail in the coffin for PVP

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I want to preface this by saying I've been playing PVP on eso since around the time Imperial City went live. I've always loved the combat ESO offered, as it has been fast paced and action packed. Your skill as a player in PVP is determined by a number of things, including but not limited to; Game knowledge, mechanical knowledge and ability, situational awareness, and experience.

Over the past year, we've been travelling down a dark road for the ESO combat system, and for players who spend their time learning to utilize it to it's furthest extent.

First we the addition of cast times onto many ultimates. This change was largely opposed by anyone who cared about the combat aspects of PVP, as it was unnecessary and has widely been considered a "Coddling" or "hand holding" change. The developer reasoning was that there needed to be more counter play to these abilities, and that it "wasn't fun to die to something you can't see". At the same time this change was made, healing and mitigation in pvp VASTLY outweighed the damage potential you could achieve on a full damage setup. These burst ultimates that could be used instantly were often the only way to catch players off guard, and by adding a cast time you could no longer use them to quickly punish players for making mistakes. To make matters worse, no cast times were added to defensive ultimate - only the offensive ones, furthering the already heavy imbalance between damage and mitigation/healing. Not only did this have a negative impact balance wise, but in pure mechanical functionality all of the offensive ultimates with cast times do not work nearly as well as they used to - often missing point blank, or failing to cast entirely.

Next, we had the removal of almost all animation cancelling from the game. AC/ing as been one of the most skill based mechanics in the game since it's introduction. In order to effectively do it, you needed to spend hundreds, or sometimes THOUSANDS of hours perfecting your timing. Combat focused players as a whole loved AC'ing, as it was one of the things that would separate great players from average ones, and it was a skill based mechanic for people to practice in order to improve their own abilities. The changes to blocking functionality that caused the removal of AC'ing have been one of the most negative impacts on combat functionality ever implemented in ESO. The situations in combat where abilities become unresponsive or fail to fire have increased tenfold since the blocking rework/AC removal.

The only people that applauded this change were those unwilling to spend the time practicing it. They called it an "exploit" because they weren't willing to put in the time, or because they simply couldn't be bothered to press more buttons per minute. Zos seems to have picked up on this, and decided to adapt this into their own agenda - beginning to cite "APM" (actions per minute) as something they wanted to lower, in order to decrease the "Barrier to entry" to combat in general. Unfortunately they missed the mark - instead of decreasing the barrier to entry, they brought down the skill ceiling - the main contributors to the barrier (CP, gear grinding) are still in place.

A more minor change that followed this was the reduction of bash damage - this was also done because of the "lower APM" gameplay that ZOS is seeking out. Zenimax looked at some very specific scenarios in PVE environments where bashing was generating a small amount of DPS that gave an edge to players willing to press more buttons, and they decided to nerf it throughout the game to prevent it from being used in this manner. In PVP bash weaving was a mechanical skill that required practice and thinking to benefit from - you could edge out a small amount of extra damage on bursts at the cost of stamina, but you needed to decide when to do it based on resource availability and the situations you entered into. Now bash weaving is almost pointless.

Following this Zenimax decided to move something called "Range checks" to the server side, instead of the client side. Range checks are what the game performs when you press an ability to determine if the target player is within range of you - these are done when you press the button, and in the case of abilities with cast times, again when the ability is supposed to fire following the cast time. This has adversely affected NUMEROUS abilities in the game, damaging them to the point where they only function about half of the time. Players that focus on their combat performance and mechanics will often see the "Target is out of range" notification on any ability with a sub 10M range, despite being visually right next to or on top of the player they're targeting. Abilities like Reverb, Surprise attack/concealed weapon, executioner, fossilize, venomous claw, and similar abilities are some of the worst offenders. I don't quite remember what the reasoning behind this change was, but ultimately all it has achieved is making numerous abilities become unreliable, and generally un-fun to use.

We're now at a point where combat itself is in the worst state it has been in since launch. Almost every skill based mechanic in the game has been decimated, creating a low skill ceiling combat environment where there is very little incentive to put in thousands of hours practicing mechanics in PVP. The goal of "lowering the barrier to entry" has been totally missed with all of these changes - players still have no direction when it comes to entering PVP unless they have a mentor teaching them, or if they seek out online resources to learn the finer points of the game. They still need to grind hundreds of hours just to get to the CP cap so that they no longer have a statistical disadvantage against players, and then they need to acquire and trait change gear based on the meta during that particular patch. These are far more of a barrier to entry than anything, but players circumvent these and enter PVP unprepared - then they complain about the skill based mechanics, instead of their own (justifiable?) unwillingness to grind the CP cap and proper gear.

Now we've reached the proposal of cooldowns on ESO abilities. This idea is so incredibly unrefined, that I cannot believe it is even going to be tested without first receiving feedback on how it could properly be implemented. It is good that zenimax has identified "Ball groups/zergs spamming abilities endlessly" as one of the primary reasons that cyrodiil lags - pvp players have been telling them this for years. The problem with the things they're testing to fix it is that they do not actually negatively impact these groups nearly as much as they do the small scale or solo players. Large groups will just increase their numbers to the point that they cannot possibly die, just like they always have. It does not matter how much you limit their ability to use AOE heals/damage skills, because they will just increase their numbers or add on sets that prevent these changes for negatively impacting them.

The proposal of having both AOE heals and AOE damage abilities on the same CD's simply cannot work. The number of skills with an AOE component is immeasurable - many skills you may never have thought about have this component. The terrifying thing about the test is that there will be a positive impact on performance, and this needs to be regarded as a "False Positive". Of course reducing the number of abilities that can be used will increase performance, but it will come at the cost of every player that cares about combat itself - they will not stand for their abilities being limited, when this has been the fundamental mechanic that ESO's combat was built upon.

There are so many better suggestions out there for things that can be done. Zenimax NEEDS to listen to the people that care about combat on this one - THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT. Some things that could have a huge positive impact would be:

• Healing can ONLY HIT GROUP MEMBERS. This has been suggested by more people than I can count, and for good reason. It will encourage people to actually group up if they want to benefit from other player's healing, instead of just stacking as many people as possible to the point where the layers of healing become redundant.
• REMOVE CP FROM CYRODIIL. This has been suggested so many times by people that care about the performance. Yes, NO-CP has balance issues. Yes, proc sets and poisons are insane in NO-CP. But the fact is that NO-CP historically does not lag in the same way that CP does. There are far less calculations that need to be done, and the result is improved performance. Looking back at a point I made earlier - making all PVP "NO-CP" will remove the barrier for entry almost entirely, and then PVP and PVE can be more individually balanced.
• CAP THE NUMBER OF PLAYERS HEALING CAN HIT. AoE caps on damage abilities were horrendous - anyone that played group pvp back when they existed can attest to this. However, heals and things like purge DO NOT NEED TO HIT EVERY PLAYER IN YOUR RADIUS. They should be capped to a small number of players, in addition to the earlier suggestion of only hitting group members.

There are so many more things that can be done to increase performance without destroying the last remnants of enjoyable combat left in this game. You need to listen to the class reps that are reaching out to you, you need to listen to the PVP players with thousands of hours utilizing the combat system. You need to IGNORE the people that just want to travel from keep to keep with their faction, never dying and participating in endless siege battles where they don't even use abilities. This is not what combat is about.

As a last ditch effort, consider shrinking cyrodiil and lowering the population caps as well as the group sizes, or deleting cyrodiil in favor of a new PVP zone with new objectives. Do not ruin the combat in this game while trying to fix the lag that has been present for years.

Dusk_Coven

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

This is not what we intended, but part of the fun of Elder Scrolls games is designing a build that has unexpected and powerful results, and we allowed it. However, as this behavior grew more prevalent, we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.

There is no "skill based gameplay".
There is only exploiting.
The story of ZOS combat is ZOS allowing their combat system to be obscenely exploited.

That's the real reason why certain players like this game. They are allowed to exploit a broken system so that it's like cheating. And they don't even have to pay for a cheat.

When new players come into the game and they see what's happening, they immediately think these players are cheating. That's how bad it is when supposedly legitimate play can't be distinguished from a cheat.

Don't bother talking about skill based gameplay. The system is broken. ZOS leaves it that way. Cheaters flock here for the exploits.
Now these exploiters are insisting on their gameplay style even when it is causing performance and other problems. Ridiculous.

React

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

This is not what we intended, but part of the fun of Elder Scrolls games is designing a build that has unexpected and powerful results, and we allowed it. However, as this behavior grew more prevalent, we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.

There is no "skill based gameplay".
There is only exploiting.
The story of ZOS combat is ZOS allowing their combat system to be obscenely exploited.

That's the real reason why certain players like this game. They are allowed to exploit a broken system so that it's like cheating. And they don't even have to pay for a cheat.

When new players come into the game and they see what's happening, they immediately think these players are cheating. That's how bad it is when supposedly legitimate play can't be distinguished from a cheat.

Don't bother talking about skill based gameplay. The system is broken. ZOS leaves it that way. Cheaters flock here for the exploits.
Now these exploiters are insisting on their gameplay style even when it is causing performance and other problems. Ridiculous.

What are you referring to as an "exploit" or "cheating" though? Do you think that pressing twice the number of buttons per minute to edge out slightly higher damage is "exploiting"? In any competitive game where animation cancelling exists (not even just MMOS, games like halo have this too), it is regarded as a skill based mechanic and respected as something that requires more player interaction and concentration to perform.

Do you think that ball groups are "exploiting" or "cheating" by running sets available to them and using the mechanics the system provides? They're simply using the tools on hand to increase their performance. ZoS identified this as an issue, but they're glossing over the fact that CP is the root cause of this. They were supposed to re work the CP system YEARS ago, but for some reason they've left it untouched, resulting in the power creep that enabled this sort of gameplay.

Performance issues are directly related to faction stacking and ball grouping as well as the massive calculations that the CP system adds to the game, so those should be addressed. The changes they address those with need to come without deteriorating the combat system even further.

If you cared about combat, you'd agree with what is written here. If you are unwilling to put in the time and effort it takes to reach the highest levels of combat performance, you shouldn't have a say in how the ceiling is balanced.

Dusk_Coven

Liam12548 wrote: »

What are you referring to as an "exploit" or "cheating" though? Do you think that pressing twice the number of buttons per minute to edge out slightly higher damage is "exploiting"?

Since the days of RPGs when it was pen and paper, players quickly figured out that minimaxing and exploiting what was theoretically possible ultimately ruined the gameplay experience for everyone.

Let's take animation cancelling.
It's really no different from AP Boosting in Cyrodiil.

You can AP boost "accidentally" by fulfilling the conditions that cause AP to be awarded. The game mechanics clearly allow it. ZOS doesn't even say anything about it.
Then you can realize what's happening and start to deliberately trigger it.

Now, there are two ways to frame this -- it's all about framing.
Decent people recognize it as an exploit.
Exploiters defend it as "skill" -- skill at exploiting a mechanic. They band together, shout it out long enough, and try to say it's harmless or legitimate. If AP Boosting somehow caused performance issues, they'd demand ZOS fix the performance rather than stop exploiting.

In the particular case of AP Boosting, it's actually hard for ZOS to code in a check for it because it looks like normal gameplay to the engine. But clearly it's not -- just like mashing Block when you're not even trying to block anything but to cancel an animation. The game can't tell the difference but people can tell you're exploiting the mechanic.
In the case of light attack weaving, I'm sure ZOS could actually code it out to prevent a light attack from being cancelled. But it's been tacitly allowed for so long that the exploiters would raise a hue and cry about "skill based combat".

And you see how AP Boosting makes ranking in Cyrodiil a complete joke and inflates the amount of AP entering the game.

ZOS allowing all sorts of combat mechanics exploits -- and players insisting on using it -- makes ESO combat a joke in PvP where it's most visible.

Dusk_Coven

Liam12548 wrote: »

Do you think that ball groups are "exploiting" or "cheating" by running sets available to them and using the mechanics the system provides? They're simply using the tools on hand to increase their performance.

Yes it is. All extreme builds are basically unintended exploits of the game system.
But they are also exploits that can't be addressed without ruining the fun in the way that is intended.

That is why in the early days of pen and paper RPGs, players quickly recognized the danger and basically had the self-discipline to NOT exploit, if they wanted to have a fun game.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Are ball groups fun?
Sure they're fun for the ball group but other people complain about them.

This type of exploit is a player-made problem, and players can suffer for it themselves. ZOS can do what they can to keep the fun in-game for people who don't want to exploit.
A lot of people "have fun" in Cyrodiil because they go as they are, do not intend to make special groups or special builds. They are playing ESO to have their roleplay and power fantasy without trying to wreck the game with extremes. And when that happens, like a friendly drop-in game of basketball among friends, it works.

But Cyrodiil right now? It's a player-made mess. A mess made by "skill based players".
Thanks for ruining the game for everyone.

susmitds

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Liam12548 wrote: »

What are you referring to as an "exploit" or "cheating" though? Do you think that pressing twice the number of buttons per minute to edge out slightly higher damage is "exploiting"?

Since the days of RPGs when it was pen and paper, players quickly figured out that minimaxing and exploiting what was theoretically possible ultimately ruined the gameplay experience for everyone.

Let's take animation cancelling.
It's really no different from AP Boosting in Cyrodiil.

You can AP boost "accidentally" by fulfilling the conditions that cause AP to be awarded. The game mechanics clearly allow it. ZOS doesn't even say anything about it.
Then you can realize what's happening and start to deliberately trigger it.

Now, there are two ways to frame this -- it's all about framing.
Decent people recognize it as an exploit.
Exploiters defend it as "skill" -- skill at exploiting a mechanic. They band together, shout it out long enough, and try to say it's harmless or legitimate. If AP Boosting somehow caused performance issues, they'd demand ZOS fix the performance rather than stop exploiting.
In the particular case of AP Boosting, it's actually hard for ZOS to code in a check for it because it looks like normal gameplay to the engine. But clearly it's not.

And you see how AP Boosting makes ranking in Cyrodiil a complete joke and inflates the amount of AP entering the game.

ZOS allowing all sorts of combat mechanics exploits -- and players insisting on using it -- makes ESO combat a joke in PvP where it's most visible.

How exactly is players studying the game's inner workings and using it to their advantage exploiting? Also how exactly is minmaxing for theoretical maximum efficiency exploiting? In any PvP game you will find, be it competitive shooters like CS:GO or looter-shooter sandboxes like Destiny 2, you will find the top players analyzing the game using every single advantage they have to outplay their opponents. Obviously this leads to a higher skill-gap than devs intended but it happens in every PvP game and in fact most PvE games.
You may want to dismiss highly skilled players as exploiters but it always boils down to game sense, situational awareness and mastering easily accessible game mechanics like animation cancelling, which is available to everyone. Nothing is stopping others from learning the same things. If I can make use of it with 300+ ping without issues, it should not be an issue whatsoever.
Also ESO is not the only game with animation cancelling anyways. Every non-turn based PvP fighting game like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter or FPS like CSGO, CoD or Destiny, have it in some form or other.

Dusk_Coven

susmitds wrote: »

How exactly is players studying the game's inner workings and using it to their advantage exploiting? Also how exactly is minmaxing for theoretical maximum efficiency exploiting?

In a game like ESO, the line is not easily drawn as to when someone crosses it. But when you have problems in Cyrodiil with ball groups that can't be handled or players who can't be killed, you can see how it's distorted gameplay. That is undeniable evidence that the completely unrestricted system is broken.

What's possible isn't necessarily what should be done.

In a pen and paper RPG among friends, there was a gamemaster who could veto builds based on what they could handle and the type of game and fun the group wanted.
That type of subjective check is not possible in ESO where everything is algorithmically controlled due to the number of people playing.
But in the absence of subjective checks, there are still things that can be done.

That's why LEAGUES were always critical to PvP here. It would separate people by not just ability but playstyle. Those who wanted to play math would ultimately be filtered into a separate league where they also play with other people who do the same.
Then they have to make sure that there was zero crossover in matching with other leagues.
You want your extreme builds and be stalemated against other extreme builds? Go ahead -- in your own league. And don't ask ZOS for changes that would hurt everyone else just to accommodate your extreme build or to target someone else's.

Open world PvP is harder to implement with a proper league system so basically all PvP should shift to and be focussed on BG. Where ZOS can also control the number of participants and thereby keep an eye on performance -- instead of a global massive adjustment to AoEs (for example) for performance.

Dusk_Coven

susmitds wrote: »

Also ESO is not the only game with animation cancelling anyways. Every non-turn based PvP fighting game like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter or FPS like CSGO, CoD or Destiny, have it in some form or other.

Not valid. Every game I've played that actually has animation cancelling ha it PLANNED. They factored for it. Unlike ZOS who just allowed it and crossed their fingers hoping for the best. Look at what Rich Lambert wrote. That's how they do things here -- "not intended" but "allowed".

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Dusk_Coven wrote: »

susmitds wrote: »

Also ESO is not the only game with animation cancelling anyways. Every non-turn based PvP fighting game like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter or FPS like CSGO, CoD or Destiny, have it in some form or other.

Not valid. Every game I've played that actually has animation cancelling ha it PLANNED. They factored for it. Unlike ZOS who just allowed it and crossed their fingers hoping for the best. Look at what Rich Lambert wrote. That's how they do things here -- "not intended" but "allowed".

In halo you can animation cancel reloads, grenade throws, and several other mechanics in order to gain functionality back sooner or finish actions quicker. These were not planned, but were accepted as skill based mechanics by the developers and now every high tier competitive player uses them 100% of the time.

Are they all cheaters?

As soon as you said "Animation cancelling is basically AP boosting" you confirmed that you do not actually care about the combat side of this game.

Dusk_Coven

Liam12548 wrote: »

As soon as you said "Animation cancelling is basically AP boosting" you confirmed that you do not actually care about the combat side of this game.

I care about exploiting ruining the game. Not just trying to preserve broken combat at the expense of everything else even when it has clearly caused all sorts of issues.
The concepts are the same for both AP boosting and animation cancelling. Exploiting a loophole, relying on ZOS to allow it, and framing it into legitimacy.

The "AoE investigation" is proof -- Rich Lambert even says it. They are looking into it to address a problem that ultimately stems from extreme builds. Except everyone's going to get affected whether that's their playstyle or not. And it'll probably wreck the game for everyone.

Min maxing, extreme builds, exploiting mechanics of what's possible -- whatever you want to call it, ultimately it ruins the game for everyone. ESO has been heading there for a long time now. Maybe it'll come to a crash finally with the AoE nerfs they are talking about. Or maybe it'll just keep bleeding.
People who aren't running extreme builds and who aren't trying to exploit mechanics for every ounce of advantage and who aren't encountering performance issues -- they are trying to have fun elsewhere in the game and it's going to be taken away from them just like it's gonna hit everyone else.

So carry on exploiting the game, ruining it, and insisting it's not your fault.

UppGRAYxDD

So hitting sweeps more then once is an exploit now? Or actually learning how to use your class abilities in combination with light/hvy attacks and bar-swapping? It’s like a father giving a child a bike, then slashing the tires once the child learns to ride...

Kadoin

Better idea: remove smart healing and make players actually have to target others. Can't do it? Then you shouldn't be healing in the first place to be honest...

likecats

Liam12548 wrote: »

Next, we had the removal of almost all animation cancelling from the game. AC/ing as been one of the most skill based mechanics in the game since it's introduction. In order to effectively do it, you needed to spend hundreds, or sometimes THOUSANDS of hours perfecting your timing.

I personally like the animation cancelling mechanic, and would love for them to keep it. But seriously? thousands of hours to perfect your timing?

Assign light attack to LMB.
Assign your spammable to forward mouse button.
Assign bash to back mouse button. (back when bash was a thing)

Click them calmly in a row. This is 90% of the animation cancelling you do in this game.
Ultimate cancelling, dodge roll cancelling, and bar swap cancelling do not require much skill either.

Sorbin

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Liam12548 wrote: »

As soon as you said "Animation cancelling is basically AP boosting" you confirmed that you do not actually care about the combat side of this game.

I care about exploiting ruining the game. Not just trying to preserve broken combat at the expense of everything else even when it has clearly caused all sorts of issues.
The concepts are the same for both AP boosting and animation cancelling. Exploiting a loophole, relying on ZOS to allow it, and framing it into legitimacy.

The "AoE investigation" is proof -- Rich Lambert even says it. They are looking into it to address a problem that ultimately stems from extreme builds. Except everyone's going to get affected whether that's their playstyle or not. And it'll probably wreck the game for everyone.

Min maxing, extreme builds, exploiting mechanics of what's possible -- whatever you want to call it, ultimately it ruins the game for everyone. ESO has been heading there for a long time now. Maybe it'll come to a crash finally with the AoE nerfs they are talking about. Or maybe it'll just keep bleeding.
People who aren't running extreme builds and who aren't trying to exploit mechanics for every ounce of advantage and who aren't encountering performance issues -- they are trying to have fun elsewhere in the game and it's going to be taken away from them just like it's gonna hit everyone else.

So carry on exploiting the game, ruining it, and insisting it's not your fault.

The people that are spamming the endless AoEs are the furthest thing from min-maxers you could find in any sort of organized PvP. These are groups of 24 where many of the players involved are only responsible for spamming a few highly effective skills and being able to sustain it without wandering out of the ball. That's it. The builds aren't secret.

Remember when Cyrodiil was bugged where no one could group a little while back and it played amazingly? We need more of that and not this massive, clunky and impractical gameplay alteration that an AoE cool down would be. Cut the group size in half, tweak the AoE skills that are overperforming and rework the Cyrodiil map to spread things out or give it to PvE entirely and create a new area designed for PvP that ZOS is technically capable of supporting. I'd rather say goodbye to Cyrodiil than say goodbye to ESO as a whole.

Sandman929

I think the biggest factor killing Cyrodiil is the terrible performance. Not to disagree with much of the OP's post, because I don't. I hope these tests point to a final change that isn't more cooldowns.

Stratforge

@Liam12548 is obviously correct and it is deeply sad that ZoS seems committed to the step-by-step dismantling of the single best thing about its game: the fast, intuitive, fluid, no-cooldown combat system. All their changes (removing animation canceling, adding cast times, whatever the hell they did to block, and now adding cooldowns) screw up the combat system and make it less intuitive. They don’t make the game easier for new players and in some cases, they obviously make it harder. I may know how to survive getting range-checked over and over on my reverbs but a new player won’t get it. They will just experience a clunky combat system that doesn’t feel right and then they’ll quit. No new blood in PvP but more importantly for ZoS, no Crown purchases from that player. Please please please rethink these change.


[snip]

[edited for bashing]

FrankonPC

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Since the days of RPGs when it was pen and paper, players quickly figured out that minimaxing and exploiting what was theoretically possible ultimately ruined the gameplay experience for everyone.

Let's take animation cancelling.
It's really no different from AP Boosting in Cyrodiil.

You can AP boost "accidentally" by fulfilling the conditions that cause AP to be awarded. The game mechanics clearly allow it. ZOS doesn't even say anything about it.
Then you can realize what's happening and start to deliberately trigger it.

These are two completely different things, Ap boosting takes no skill, just a coordinated group of players willing to die on a resource. Animation cancelling is a part of a rotation. One I could do on day 1 of this game, the other comes after weeks of practice.

FrankonPC

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Are ball groups fun?
Sure they're fun for the ball group but other people complain about them.

People do not like dying in pvp, but "dying in pvp" isn't really indicative of a problem. you're going to have to be a lot more specific here.

Kidgangster101

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Liam12548 wrote: »

As soon as you said "Animation cancelling is basically AP boosting" you confirmed that you do not actually care about the combat side of this game.

I care about exploiting ruining the game. Not just trying to preserve broken combat at the expense of everything else even when it has clearly caused all sorts of issues.
The concepts are the same for both AP boosting and animation cancelling. Exploiting a loophole, relying on ZOS to allow it, and framing it into legitimacy.

The "AoE investigation" is proof -- Rich Lambert even says it. They are looking into it to address a problem that ultimately stems from extreme builds. Except everyone's going to get affected whether that's their playstyle or not. And it'll probably wreck the game for everyone.

Min maxing, extreme builds, exploiting mechanics of what's possible -- whatever you want to call it, ultimately it ruins the game for everyone. ESO has been heading there for a long time now. Maybe it'll come to a crash finally with the AoE nerfs they are talking about. Or maybe it'll just keep bleeding.
People who aren't running extreme builds and who aren't trying to exploit mechanics for every ounce of advantage and who aren't encountering performance issues -- they are trying to have fun elsewhere in the game and it's going to be taken away from them just like it's gonna hit everyone else.

So carry on exploiting the game, ruining it, and insisting it's not your fault.

Everytime you talk all I can imagine is TLC singing "I don't want no scrub" lmfao

Seriously though you clearly have zero clue what you are talking about once I read you say that boosting ap is the same thing as animation canceling...... Just because you can't animation cancel doesn't mean it's an exploit. That just means you need to spend less time on the forums and more times practicing the game because you never get better at it working your fingers on a keyboard for this forum 😁

Neloth

Cyro with AOEs GCD can't become worse than now - during prime time on PC NA we already have RANDOM 1-5 seconds cooldowns on ALL skills caused by lag. Personally I don't see the difference if I can't use my skills because of lag, or because of game restrictions. So if they want to make some tests on live servers - pls let them.

> It is good that zenimax has identified "Ball groups/zergs spamming abilities endlessly" as one of the primary reasons that cyrodiil lags - pvp players have been telling them this for years.

I'm pretty sure they identified this issue long ago (they are not idiots after all), and tried to optimize some server-side calculations every patch. You seen, every patch they claimed "we tried to improve the performance", and each time they failed. Now they finally acknowledged that they can't optimize their code, and finally decided to rework how AOS work - and it's really good.

> Healing can ONLY HIT GROUP MEMBERS - this can be a really good change, which drastically simplifies server-side computations for all heals (AOE and single target). However, it doesn't solve problem with damage AOEs, and also requires a lot of code to be rewritten, thus making it impossible to test this idea on live RN. Could be cool if they decide to implement it next patch, though.

> REMOVE CP FROM CYRODIIL - another good change, since it both simultaneously simplifies the computations (not by a lot though, calculating some additional percentages is fast) and reduces player capability of spamming AOEs. However, it's not like people in ball groups won't be able to adapt to noCP, and it is unlikely to improve the performance by a lot.

> CAP THE NUMBER OF PLAYERS HEALING CAN HIT - I don't think it will noticeably increase the performance. The server will still need perform heavy computations to determine which players in the area the heal should target (smart heals), and it will be result roughly in the same amount of computations and accesses to data structures.

> As a last ditch effort, consider shrinking cyrodiil and lowering the population caps as well as the group sizes, or deleting cyrodiil in favor of a new PVP zone with new objectives. - it is a laughable solution, since PC NA server still lag on medium/medium/medium populations.

Thus, you criticize a lot, but haven't proposed a single good solution which could reduce the amount of calculations required for damage AOEs. It's not your job though, and, luckily, not mine.

Tommy_The_Gun

Tbh. This idea of cool-downs is terrible. But it is nice that ZOS is honest with us, as they basically said that they are unable to fix the problem they themselves caused (Power Creep to sell more DLCs).
It kinda feels like they have to chose the "lesser evil" solution.

But, if "Ball groups" are indeed causing the problem (by spamming endless AOE) - I honestly believe that the "lesser - lesser evil" solution would be to simply reduce max group size to something like 4 or 8. This will impact ball group quite substantially and reduce their numbers & impact on server.

I know it is not perfect and some one who plays in such a group might feel depressed... but I do believe that it is way better than forcing cool-downs on literality everything & everybody in game (yep, they will add it to PvE too)...

OlumoGarbag

[snip]

That being said, im very much down for only non-cp based pvp. At least if they focus on balancing non-cp pvp and cp PVE separatly.

If Zenimax really wants to fight ballgroups there are a couple of possible solutions.

- lower group size to something between 12 to 20 members
- allow only a maximum of 2-3 AOE ultimates to be casted per group one of the biggest lag creaters in the entire game is shifting standard spam anyone in 50m radius around ult spammers will get insta lag
- give cleanse an groupcooldown of 3 seconds if you can cut of some member of a ballgroup they are always instantly dead since they most likely dont have very good heals themselves

[edited for bashing]

ZOS_Lunar

Greetings everyone,
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