The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
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• PC/Mac: No maintenance – April 29
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – April 29
new idea: condtion stacking
Rungar
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i have an idea on how to improve the performance of the game and not just in cyrodiil but i think it would be a great boon as well as add strategic gameplay.
long ago zos was meddling with making hots and dots style effects as one only per character. This was seen as too restrictive and was not implemented and i think that was a fair assessment.
my idea brings that back but in a new way that i think could greatly enhance performance while not impeding players too much.
So when you get a dot or hot on you you get a "condition stack" of whatever that skill is. When someone else casts the same skill as with the previous idea the dot timer refreshes itself as you can only have one of these effects. However when this happens you gain a condition stack along with the refresh. If multiple people cast the same skill you keep getting stacks and the original skill is just refreshed with the new attacker. You cannot advance your own conditions. Only other players can advance a condition stack from a skill. After the last stack is applied only the duration is refreshed. This is compatible with existing gameplay as "stacks" are quite common in many skills and armor effects.
additionally there would be some room for cross ability play where a certain proc and skill would share the same generic dot and thus allow player condition stacking if they were set up for it, at the cost of one of the effects damage.
basically there would be a condition stack for each dot and hot. The first time the skill is on you there is no stack and each time after advances the stack. Each stack will confer specific buffs and debuffs depending on the skill.
so for a dot lets take the case of poison injection
first cast on you gets you the dot.
if the dots still on you the second cast refreshes the dot but also adds a condition stack of poison.
if you have a stack on you the next time your hit with the same skill you gain another stack.
the stacks and dots will have the same timer. Only the highest stack effect counts.
stack 1: minor defile for the dots duration, poison status x1
stack 2: major defile for the dots duration, poison status x2
stack 3: major and minor defile at the same time for the dots duration. poison status x3 . Non purge-able.
and the case for a hot like regenerating
stack 1: minor fortitude for the duration
stack 2: major fortitude for the duration
stack 3: both at the same time. When the effect ends you are purged as well.
The idea here is to reduce the number of active hots/dots of each type to one but not completely discount the other players contributions through advancing the stacks with crippling or beneficial effects. To make it interesting when you get to max stacks of a dot you can no longer purge it. Max stacks of a hot gives you a free purge when the effect ends.
these condition stacks would be independent of the existing "status effects" and thus no changes would be required to them. In order to make the stacks efficient they would always have standard effects, no crit, no proc and cause no enchants or other status effects.
in addition to improving performance there is a group play component here where some players could advance the stacks to achieve an effect that could not be done otherwise. For instance there is no current use for major cowardice. There could be certain skills used by multiple players that would serve make that debuff available via the stacking process.
In the past you would have three skills ticking away under the new system there would only be one but powerful conditions would be added that can be exploited instead. A side benefit is that this system makes meta somewhat redundant as far as hots and dots is concerned. Too many with the same set and builds would not be as advantageous as a more well rounded group with a few with the same build.
this game has the best armor and weapon system of any game but I think it needs more interesting systems built around it to really take advantage of it.
EDIT!
in addition this system could also be used to improve crowd control in this game. Similar to the above you could only have one snare and one hard cc on you at a time but when more than one is on you you again advance stacks that have different effects on you. So when your hit by three different snares you only have one snare on you ( and all snares should be 30% across the board) but each stack after that will slow you down in the form of a speed and other debuffs. Get too many on you and you wont be able to roll dodge out of it.
hard cc could also use this system though i would separate this into roots and stuns with unique immunities for each. Stuns having a longer immunity ( 10 seconds) and roots a shorter (5 seconds) but also using the condition stack for both processes.
for instance stun could have a woozy style debuff so you get stunned ones its just the stun but if you get stunned again while woozy there could be some other effect that climbs with stuns piled on you. Same thing with roots. The difference with the hard ccs is that you would get not only a debuff but a buff as well possibly making your next root or stun within a timeframe much less effective.
Edited by Rungar on September 30, 2020 1:10PM long ago zos was meddling with making hots and dots style effects as one only per character. This was seen as too restrictive and was not implemented and i think that was a fair assessment.
my idea brings that back but in a new way that i think could greatly enhance performance while not impeding players too much.
So when you get a dot or hot on you you get a "condition stack" of whatever that skill is. When someone else casts the same skill as with the previous idea the dot timer refreshes itself as you can only have one of these effects. However when this happens you gain a condition stack along with the refresh. If multiple people cast the same skill you keep getting stacks and the original skill is just refreshed with the new attacker. You cannot advance your own conditions. Only other players can advance a condition stack from a skill. After the last stack is applied only the duration is refreshed. This is compatible with existing gameplay as "stacks" are quite common in many skills and armor effects.
additionally there would be some room for cross ability play where a certain proc and skill would share the same generic dot and thus allow player condition stacking if they were set up for it, at the cost of one of the effects damage.
basically there would be a condition stack for each dot and hot. The first time the skill is on you there is no stack and each time after advances the stack. Each stack will confer specific buffs and debuffs depending on the skill.
so for a dot lets take the case of poison injection
first cast on you gets you the dot.
if the dots still on you the second cast refreshes the dot but also adds a condition stack of poison.
if you have a stack on you the next time your hit with the same skill you gain another stack.
the stacks and dots will have the same timer. Only the highest stack effect counts.
stack 1: minor defile for the dots duration, poison status x1
stack 2: major defile for the dots duration, poison status x2
stack 3: major and minor defile at the same time for the dots duration. poison status x3 . Non purge-able.
and the case for a hot like regenerating
stack 1: minor fortitude for the duration
stack 2: major fortitude for the duration
stack 3: both at the same time. When the effect ends you are purged as well.
The idea here is to reduce the number of active hots/dots of each type to one but not completely discount the other players contributions through advancing the stacks with crippling or beneficial effects. To make it interesting when you get to max stacks of a dot you can no longer purge it. Max stacks of a hot gives you a free purge when the effect ends.
these condition stacks would be independent of the existing "status effects" and thus no changes would be required to them. In order to make the stacks efficient they would always have standard effects, no crit, no proc and cause no enchants or other status effects.
in addition to improving performance there is a group play component here where some players could advance the stacks to achieve an effect that could not be done otherwise. For instance there is no current use for major cowardice. There could be certain skills used by multiple players that would serve make that debuff available via the stacking process.
In the past you would have three skills ticking away under the new system there would only be one but powerful conditions would be added that can be exploited instead. A side benefit is that this system makes meta somewhat redundant as far as hots and dots is concerned. Too many with the same set and builds would not be as advantageous as a more well rounded group with a few with the same build.
this game has the best armor and weapon system of any game but I think it needs more interesting systems built around it to really take advantage of it.
EDIT!
in addition this system could also be used to improve crowd control in this game. Similar to the above you could only have one snare and one hard cc on you at a time but when more than one is on you you again advance stacks that have different effects on you. So when your hit by three different snares you only have one snare on you ( and all snares should be 30% across the board) but each stack after that will slow you down in the form of a speed and other debuffs. Get too many on you and you wont be able to roll dodge out of it.
hard cc could also use this system though i would separate this into roots and stuns with unique immunities for each. Stuns having a longer immunity ( 10 seconds) and roots a shorter (5 seconds) but also using the condition stack for both processes.
for instance stun could have a woozy style debuff so you get stunned ones its just the stun but if you get stunned again while woozy there could be some other effect that climbs with stuns piled on you. Same thing with roots. The difference with the hard ccs is that you would get not only a debuff but a buff as well possibly making your next root or stun within a timeframe much less effective.
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MincVinyl✭✭✭✭✭@Rungar
Assuming pvp performance, and whatever change we implement is going through battlespirit to not affect pve.
Interesting concept, but I have my doubts that creating stacks and tracking those stacks wont be just as bad as multiple calculations at the same time. How the game used to work was that you could just simply not have multiple dot sources on you at the same time. Yes this would mean some players essentially waste an abilities OverTime aspect, but cuts out an abhorrent amount of persistent calculations. Whether those players in large groups can even tell their one aoe dot spam is maybe worthless, thats up for debate. There are benefits too however like ability/morph diversity. Guilds and more coordinated players could figure out who had what morph and how to maximize uptime. Much like in pve content older well organized groups have something to work towards instead of everyone choosing the go to Best In Slot morph.
Performance wise from my own experience watching the game over the years. This is on my list of fixes/reverts to do. Zos isn't entirely wrong about aoe's being an issue. However in general we see group/ally aoe being drastically more impactful than offensive aoe. This is due to how aoe Hots dont get purged off in ball fights while aoe dots can be while stacking based on the number of players. How heals and group buffs calculate has changed alot over the years aswell, which who knows how much of a mess the "smart healing" is. Personally I think heals like breath of life could be aimed and stronger in some way instead of doing an entire large cone check and comparing XX number of players hp. Examples of this can be seen nightly when a ball zerg front doors a keep spamming buffs even though there are no enemies in the keep and no fighting around the map. It actually used to be a strategy early on back when we would have 6 servers pop locked to have a ball group all clump and spam healing springs to crash the server>login faster>pvdoor.
A more direct thing to point your finger at would simply be groups in general. There are no soft cap limiters anymore like I described above with dots/hots not stacking. One concept people talked about in many threads over the years was to reduce group sizes to 12 man raids. Then make it so once you are 5+ players (large group) you can no longer heal/buff players outside of group. This allows for solo/small random encounters, while limiting how many calculations large groups of 50+ players can create and stack. We should be seeing how this affects performance during the last test zos is doing, be sure to play during primetime that week.
Neglected Cyrodil dynamics can also be to blame. Seige meta is catapults that are the worst possible calculation dense seige available....aoe persistent dots with unique effects tied to them. Keeps are worth everything (ap) while resources are worthless to fight over. Making resources play a more important role could open up alot of fights inbetween the keep:resources and resources:resources. For instance block FCs from being placed near any keep/resource, while making resources the 5 min res point for both attackers and defenders. FCs can be placed outside of resource ranges. Keep tick ranges would have to be changed to block FCs. AP for resource atk/def can be boosted based on seige placed at keep.
There are more issues, and I'm certain more back end issues we will never hear of, but I'd have to keep writing paragraphs. Obvious ones like the anticheat are self explainatory. New hardware could solve issues, but *** code is *** code. etc.Edited by MincVinyl on September 29, 2020 5:22AM0 -
MincVinyl✭✭✭✭✭October 5-12: Group size is limited to 12 in Cyrodiil, and any ally-targeted abilities are only applied to group members
Make sure to not miss this testing. I would strongly bet that we will see implemented into the game seeing how it is not as invasive as any of the other tests and will likely have the best outcome.
October 12-19: Group size is limited to 12 in Cyrodiil, and if a group contains 6 or more players, everyone’s AoE abilities will go on individual cooldowns and have escalating cost
This test will be horrible and most likely useless since we wont see the same daily groups running. But what is to take away from this is that zos is able to make limits on groups based on how many players are in it. Changes to healing or how effects stack could very well be possible. Groups could potentially be gated in a way after 6 group members X, after 12 group members Y, after 18 group members Z0 -
Rungar✭✭✭✭✭
✭Tracking buffs is much more efficient than tracking damage. Buffs dont crit, proc and require much fewer calculations and communication. Buffs are also much lower on the priority scale than damage and use a different "stream" whatever that is.
so where your damage would be calculated each tic your buff is calculated once since its duration is known.
so imagine you had 3 poison injections on you. Thats 3 dots each ticking away that can crit, proc , proc enchants and the required damage calculations for each tic.
compare that with one dot and 2 debuff stacks and its a much more efficient system.
all zos's tests are a failure because of player behavior. For instance take the aoe test. Player reaction was to either not play, switch out the aoe skills or play single target characters like nightblades. Any test they do needs to account for player behavior.
so zos's 3 second test was testing almost no aoe at all and their group testing will be testing no groups at all.0