New AOE Cool Downs - Your thoughts?

Cronopoly

If any semblance of this goes live, I fear the allure of the PVP game will be lost and players will quit in large numbers, not to mention the allure of other new MMO's / and that Cyber game coming out in 2 months 😑

I'm having Sony NGE (combat rebalance) flashbacks and this is day one of the test. Sony killed their Star Wars Galaxies MMO by sweeping combat changes to all classes (trying to emulate WoW and dumbing down combat)....and providing The worse nerf ever in the history of MMO's as the BELOVED Creature Handler Class was deleted from the game. (Players may feel like Templar has been deleted lol) Players were given a free max level char with the equivalent comparison of CP points etc... Players quit en masse within 2 months and the game died. Sucks cause many loved the game at the time.

I see brilliance in the foundation of ESO. That said, there's certain stacked processes that have been allowed to get out of control over time and bottleneck processes on the Server side at times, and as a result the Zos teams are proposing some measures within their control aimed at fixing the problem.

I'm hoping for the best, fearing the worst that major parts of this will be shoveled down our throats regardless, with the frustrated comment we've hear before that said quote "You don't have to be here", when criticism arrived...

Inspiral808

FilthyPride wrote: »

I honestly felt like the game became boring. Waiting in a fight to cast Fragmented shield after casting Volatile armor makes the combat less fluid and slow paced. I found myself sometimes not being able to heal(yellow vigor) and sometimes not being able to dish out execute dmg (DW execute). It really felt awkward.

I at least did not enjoy a single fight because it felt too long and too slow paced from what we are obviously used to. And if people thought this was actually going to hamper down ball groups, I can only laugh. Lag was still there in big fights but less than before which is ok but campaigns were not pop locked so that's a variable.

I'm looking forward for the increase cost test instead of anything that has to do with a 3 sec CD though.

Try switching out Volatile Armor for Hardened Armor, as it's not affected by the cooldown.

I feel ball groups are definitely going down faster though.

MirelaUmbrella

CaffeinatedMayhem wrote: »

With global AoE cooldown, most of my builds are screwed. Magplar... just no. Magden... kinda ok? But I'm missing a lot of shielding. Stamden... ok at range, can't spam enough skills 1v1. Magsorc... have to swap a few morphs but mostly ok-ish. Magdk is OP bc he has 0 AoE. Haven't tried the Necrotank, but I'm fairly sure it won't be pretty.

Not a fan to be sure.

Dear devs: could you please prioritize fixing break-free? Right now it takes 3!!! separate break-free's (all take stamina from my pool) to actually get out of magdk's fossilize. On magicka toons, that's all of my stamina bar and then DK just casts fossilize again, which doesn't obey cc cool-down. PLEASE FIX. Magdk is going to be OP throughout these tests, and they really don't need a broken skill like fossilize.

Or, you could just increase your stam pool while at it...why does the game have to be adjusted to your needs, and not you to the game? My pvp magicka character has 19k stam, might be a bit too much, but surely you can squeeze 14-15k stam there to get yourself outta trouble.

red_emu

What I wonder is, what will be the end game here after those tests are done. If it indeed proves that AOEs are the main cause of lag, how will one of the options be implemented?

Currently, let's assume this test is how things are going to be full time. It would basically favour any classes that are single target focused. Currently, a stam Warden can spam snipe and sub assault while you're more or less locked out of all of your skills for most of the fight if you play a class that consists of skills doing an AOE check.

Will all the skills be reworked? How are they going to do it without PvE players losing their mind? Introduce cool downs in PvE = PvE crowd loses their mind. Change skills to single target = PvE crowd loses their mind.

I do have a strange gut feeling, that there will be a slight skill rework but not nearly enough yo guarantee a balanced gameplay, making classes like Templar or Sorcerer neutered to the point of being unplayable.

If ZOS really wants to go down the GCD route going forward and implement a Wow style of combat, then the only way I can see this working if we have rows and rows and rows of skill slots, like in WoW - meaning you can slot ALL of your unlocked skills and use them.

Personally, I wouldn't mind the idea of individual skills being on cool down (you don't need to cast rune or blockade of fire every 1 second anyway), with a rework of skills like jabs being exempt from the rule or reworked into a single target ability.

That, paired with ally targeting aoe skills going off only to group members (with groups limited to 12) would be kind of acceptable. There is nothing worse right now, than being on 10% health and your rapid regen going off to 2 players that are 99% health. 3 seconds in Cyrodiil is an awful long time.

Abstraqt

Wtb heals on a mag necro

West93

Wtb working jabs if not I'll stay in IC 4 weeks.

TineaCruris

AOE spamming is not new. The performance issues began years after AOE spamming began. That is how we know AOE's are not the problem here.

Ei8htba11

Just tried it in Cyro, skill cooldowns like this are horrible. Combat is clunky, has no flow and mildly tedious. I didn't enjoy it.

If it stays like this, I'd likely not do PvP areas at all .I'm not a regular to PvP, so I can only imagine what this would do to the full time PvP population, not to mention those that don't like PvP at all... they'd have zero reason to even have a look.

If it goes global (PvP and PvE), I'd probably stop playing. Not immediately, but there would be less incentive to log on.

Yes, I realise it's a test etc. This iteration is a fail for me.

Gythral

Argh.....................

Andarnor

Templar healers are useless now. No chance of healing anything properly. Oil when taking the castle - all dead.It ticks more often and higher than the hot's. Siege weapons, Aoe's and oil, not healable against, because with the one skill that can be cast every 3 seconds, no target can be selected. It's just random and 99% the wrong target. 3 or 4 effects in a row that need to be purged? Impossible as an Single healer in a small group. It's very hard for healers and small groups, and using the psijic healing skill didn't give me any AP points. Not even one. Well done if the goal is to get healers out of the game. Again

Herr_Flocke

the way I see it, this is not a test to balance skills, it is just a test of what lags the servers, and what the servers might be able to handle. So I leave the mantle of politeness on the topic of playability of certain builds during this test phase.

That said, I was on for a while on my magsorc last night until I was disconnected midmotion So much for stability.

What I don't really get though is the necessity of those tests in the first place. I mean they already have the server logs of real skill usage in cyro, they might even log more detailed if need be (and admittedly might create more lag by doing so), so it should already have been possible to analyze what causes the servers to bend or where the code needs to be optimized further.

So what is it going to accomplish to test a situation where players adapt to some arbitary settings or just stay away for a few weeks ?

visionality

I built a stamcro specifically for the AOE tests. Three procsets, one of them for AOE, mainly single target skills on the bar, lots of health and resistance. It worked exactly as planned which means: very, very well. Yes, I died faster than throughout the last weeks because the crosshealing from others was noticably less. But everybody else died twice and three times as fast.

Most noticable: the absence of lag. Even with poplock on all three alliances and a massive battle at Ash no lag occured, just one rubberbanding after being hit by a meteor. PVP fast fast, smooth and all of a sudden fun again. Even the moaners and groaners in zonechat started writing things like "epic" or "thats how PVP is supposed to be".

I swapped to my main magsorc later, not prepared for AOE tests at all. Changed two skills. Worked even better than the stamcro.

Yes, you can whine about "all my skills are on CD all the time". Yes, some classes are worse off then others, especially templars are hit hard because they have so many AOE skills (too many?!) in their main toolkit. Yes, if you dont adapt, you will not enjoy the test. Yes, nobody wants a global AOE cooldown in PVP forever.

But cutting AOE skills down removed the lag (also due ofc to the noticable absence of ballgroups and to the fact that everybody died faster), and after the first hours it was not only zerg vs zerg. Ppl started spreading out, trusting in their new rotations and small scale PVP was actually real fun. So was major keep attacks or defenses because - wow! - abilities worked.

Mortiis13

All I can c is that they give us the prove that they have bad servers that can't handle their bad aoe coding. Instead of improving hardware/their coding, they decided to gimp the gameplay.

It's all about money, I know.

We only can hope someone is doing the right decision with that forced beta test data.
But i have a bad feeling about that.

Hapexamendios

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Hapexamendios wrote: »

Not wanted. Not needed in PVE. If it ever comes live, some reevaluation of gaming priorities shall be required.

PvE? These are PvP tests happening in Cyrodiil. If implemented I am assuming it'll become part of Battle Spirit so still only PvP.

I know the tests are only PvP on the PTS, but I haven't seen anything that says the considered changes are only for PvP. They have made many changes before that affect both so until I see otherwise that's there's no reason to consider it won't be in both.

Cirantille

Hapexamendios wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Hapexamendios wrote: »

Not wanted. Not needed in PVE. If it ever comes live, some reevaluation of gaming priorities shall be required.

PvE? These are PvP tests happening in Cyrodiil. If implemented I am assuming it'll become part of Battle Spirit so still only PvP.

I know the tests are only PvP on the PTS, but I haven't seen anything that says the considered changes are only for PvP. They have made many changes before that affect both so until I see otherwise that's there's no reason to consider it won't be in both.

I mean they also said some class abilities will be reworked if necessary, so yes, I dont think they can "adjust" class skills without having effect on PvE

Rungar

so i had three cracks at this with three different characters. All the main campaign. The first one was laggy and didnt see any improvement( skills not working, hard to barswap). I'm just speaking of keep battles which are usually the worst. The second and third ones i think there was some improvement. My first two characters were archers( stamdk, stamsorc) so they werent really affected too much by the cooldowns but my pvp templar healer was totally wrecked.

i still think they need to try the following:
1) disable group frames
2) disable crit and see what effect it has

zaria

Hapexamendios wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Hapexamendios wrote: »

Not wanted. Not needed in PVE. If it ever comes live, some reevaluation of gaming priorities shall be required.

PvE? These are PvP tests happening in Cyrodiil. If implemented I am assuming it'll become part of Battle Spirit so still only PvP.

I know the tests are only PvP on the PTS, but I haven't seen anything that says the considered changes are only for PvP. They have made many changes before that affect both so until I see otherwise that's there's no reason to consider it won't be in both.

The tests are on live servers now, that make sense as its to test performance.
And yes even if this is just for Cyrodil its no reason to think that they will limit the damage to Cyrodil or PvP.
So its smart to start making as much noise as possible today.

And yes the changes would be devastating with all the trash mobs we have.

Add that the tests are flawed, they does not account for all the proc sets, note that even a set like olorime is an AoE ground based buff over time.
On the other hand an AoE like steel tornado is an one time cast, carve is an one time AoE, it adds an dot but that is on target not ground. Rapid is an AoE one time cast with an buff on target,
AoE over time ground effects require that you create an effect object and then calculate effect on all inside each tick until expiring.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

WARchief10K wrote: »

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Hi folks,

Just wondering what your constructive thoughts are for this week of AOE 3 second cool down testing on PVP campaigns?

I main a magplar...let me say...it was literally unplayable with my current setup. You can stack skills to cast off (for example : Rune, Purify, Honor the dead - all with cool downs)....It just feels like heavy lag honestly...and we come back to square one.

Food for thought,

Freya

No offense to you at all, but I am wondering why you are asking this instead of the devs.

And that's why I believe ZOS is disconnected with the players.

Like it even sounds like the friendly way a company would talk to their customers, like hey as you see the changes are in, we know it's crazy but what's your thoughts?

Nope, it's a player.

Yup, cause they don't do it. Guides...builds...are done by 'players'.
Anyway...I think it goes to show that this 1st test is a dud.

EmEm_Oh

Remove the damn AOE cooldown. The absolute DUMBEST thing ESO has ever put on players.

If ZOS can't get better equipment and coding to facilitate more players...then shut it all down. Now. Let's move on.

And shelve ESO 6. It's not even worth the time with these restrictions.

I was actually doing fairly good in PvP with no lag and pc issues for quite sometime then the aoe nerf just dropped out of the sky. Not cool. Not playable. We all looked like a bunch of bicycle helmet-wearing kids running around confused.

kojou

I played a few hours of Cyrodiil last night and I actually liked it. Before I would get melted in an AoE train if I got even close to a enemy group, but last night I actually felt like I could fight even if I was outnumbered.

I think some of it is players trying to re-learn combat, but I actually like it better this way in PvP.

I don't think they should implement this in PvE though.

CompM4s

I played this game since launch and adapted to each patch. But this nerf will kill the fluid gameplay Eso is known for. Ill shelve the game and move on to something else.

L_Nici

The best is that Ballgroups, like predicted, don't care at all they still just wait for their AoE Ultstorms and run you over. Only change I felt: Half the ballgroups spam D Swing on one target now, while still running it over. That was hilarious to watch yesterday evening, imagine 15 Stam necros spamming Blastbones and D Swing on one poor Stamsorc.

nukk3r

L_Nici wrote: »

The best is that Ballgroups, like predicted, don't care at all they still just wait for their AoE Ultstorms and run you over. Only change I felt: Half the ballgroups spam D Swing on one target now, while still running it over. That was hilarious to watch yesterday evening, imagine 15 Stam necros spamming Blastbones and D Swing on one poor Stamsorc.

15 ppl is a zerg not a ball group. Why do you guys keep using the term in a wrong way? Most ball groups I know have 8-12 ppl.

SidraWillowsky

JimmyJuJu wrote: »

I wasn't anticipating a 3s cooldown on all affected skills/abilities at the same time. I was more expecting a single skill/ability would have its own independent cooldown.

I guess "global" really does mean everything. Seems like a lazy implementation.

On the upside, gankblades (mag & stam) got an indirect buff since pretty much everyone else got a significant nerf for this round of testing.

That's a different test that they'll be doing as part of this. I tested what you're describing in the PTS on two classes... magwarden and magplar, both DD setups. Magwarden was pretty much not affected at all, since most skills last longer than three seconds anyway (and it actually might help me in the end, since I over-cast some skills). Magplar? LOL... it's obviously better than it is on this current test, but it was much more affected than magwarden. The issue with the skill-by-skill cooldown is that it's going to disproportionately affect some classes, while on others it's almost a case of "what tests?".

That's a conversation for a different week, though.

BXR_Lonestar

In theory, I guess it could be good for the game, but I think to implement it, alone, without other changes will make it so it is, on balance, bad for the game. The game's combat is designed around short-lived bonuses, including bonuses which keep enemies rooted, so if you can only cast an aoe spell every 3-4 seconds, your going to cast it, and bad guys (whether they be NPC's or other players) are simply going to move out of it. That is going to make AOE's very ineffective except on stagnate targets, which there are few in the game.

IMO, that will make some content in PVE unplayable if the changes force players to stack single-target abilities. There are places where, without good AOE, you are just going to get overrun by mobs of enemies (examples- bridge run in City of Ash 2, the one boss encounter in Spindle 2 (been too long since I did that one), the pathway with all the eye-squids in Imp City Prisons, etc.). So if this change goes forward, they need to either increase the duration of roots, make it so there is no cooldowns or root immunity for lower tier PVE mobs, or reduce the amount of mobs you face in similar encounters in order to make the AOE changes work.

Tanks can help by holding mob agro, but it is a rare tank that can actually agro EVERYTHING and keep it agro'd and staying still.

Overall, while I would welcome changes that slow down the pace of combat, without corresponding changes, I'm skeptical about the particular changes and have concerns that it is going to end up screwing things up more.

Waffennacht

Obviously cant/wont be the "fix" as way too many abilities are disproportionately affected. Should casting Hurricane cause the same cool down as any other AoE? Obviously not, same with others.

If this does solve the issue, then expect an assortment of accompanying changes.

JimmyJuJu

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

JimmyJuJu wrote: »

I wasn't anticipating a 3s cooldown on all affected skills/abilities at the same time. I was more expecting a single skill/ability would have its own independent cooldown.

I guess "global" really does mean everything. Seems like a lazy implementation.

On the upside, gankblades (mag & stam) got an indirect buff since pretty much everyone else got a significant nerf for this round of testing.

That's a different test that they'll be doing as part of this. I tested what you're describing in the PTS on two classes... magwarden and magplar, both DD setups. Magwarden was pretty much not affected at all, since most skills last longer than three seconds anyway (and it actually might help me in the end, since I over-cast some skills). Magplar? LOL... it's obviously better than it is on this current test, but it was much more affected than magwarden. The issue with the skill-by-skill cooldown is that it's going to disproportionately affect some classes, while on others it's almost a case of "what tests?".

That's a conversation for a different week, though.

Cool, thanks for the clarification. The GCD seems like overkill. Though...that said....performance in Raven last night was the best it's been in a while. Fewer players with less APM I guess makes a difference

JobooAGS

Templars: I guess I’ll die?

oregonrob

I have been using a templar for the last couple of days in Cyrodiil. I might as well have named my character "pvp fodder". Because all AOE spells are frozen for three seconds, not just the one you use, you are vulnerable both offensively and defensively if you are a magplar for that amount of time. If the developers want to "fix" the load on Cyrodiil without adding additional server capacity, this is not the way to do it.

The only way you can avoid adding server capacity, is to make Cyrodiil as vanilla as possible. No special gear. Everyone is supposed to be in their alliances army and therefore are supplied the required armor and weapons. No CP. That puts a strain on the battle calculations. Only alliance skills and no class skills. Using only light and heavy attacks significantly reduces the calculation time for battle. These changes will make PVP run smoothly but it will also make it terminally boring. At this point the developers need to sit down and talk with the cost accountants. This is not the game I started playing three years ago which was more open ended and encouraged experimenting with builds and classes. It needs additional hardware and not constant nerfs in order to make PVP functional. And in the interest of full disclosure, I am mainly a PVE player. I am only in Cyrodiil to try and get rapids back. But nerfs hurt everyone.

etchedpixels

I don't have a problem with the concept but the implementation is totally messed up.

On my 2H warden every 2H ability has the AoE nerf on it, and just about every warden ability including the self heals I use has an AoE content so the warden is now basically unplayable there - even PvE dolmen content was a mess.

My templar on the other hand is basically unaffected except by the 2H weapon mess, but I'll need to switch to dual wield.

I think there is a serious need to go around the skills and rebalance it/make some of them not count as AoE cooldown, The whole point of 2H is you hit 2 or 3 people at a time but right now 2H is pretty much pointless in the PvP world. If it was limited to larger/longer range AoE it would have worked far better.

Thankfully I mostly play PvE so I can just skip the PvP world until this lot is sorted - or at least the bits that work.

What to me is more sad is they've spent their time rolling this out when a pile of quests have invisible walls in them, some characters in quests no long respond, dragons keep making noises forever, horse stamina is broken and so on. It's really about time someone senior actually required that they fixed the bugs before being allowed to roll out new big changes.