Performance Prioritisation?

CrustyCroco

In July 2020 Rich Lambert posted a thread about the occuring performance problems especially in Cyrodiil and the plans for changes in gameplay mechanics like limiting group sizes and how AoE effects work for example. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/539136/update-on-cyrodiil-performance-upcoming-aoe-tests/p1

I can't speak for everyone, but i by myself had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand i was annoyed by AoE cooldowns tests for example, on the other hand i was glad that appearently something is done about the poor performance around primetime (playing on EU, don't know how the performance is on NA throughout the different timezones). So i endured the tests, since it was a limited time with maybe positive outcome in the end.
Even though there weren't big performance improvements, at least the disabled cross healing outside of groups was somehow promising regarding crashes at big keep fights, "slow bug" (which made some people in an area move really slow) and responsiveness like the time it takes to use a skill after breaking free, rolldodging or moving through a negate.

Quite some time later, the crosshealing got enabled again, which had a huge impact on the gameplay performance, bringing back crashes as soon as you entered an area near a big fight, longer periods of time to break free, skills not firing etc.

Now, around 8 months later, we had another test with disabled proc sets, which didn't have much improvement on mentionend gameplay issues.

Due to my own gameplay, I don't really care about proc sets or cross healing enabled or disabled. What i care about is the game's responsiveness and a fluid gameplay, which i favor more than any of the gameplay changes.

Now with proc sets disabled and cross healing enabled, for me the fluid gameplay is still non existent. And now we get a statement, that this will stay like this for the next ~6months?

With all the promised performance improvements and the endured tests, i can just simply not understand, how these decissions are made. The performance is still at the point where it is almost or completely (crashes etc) unplayable in primetime.

Disabling almost every set is a drastic change, that i didn't expect to happen for more than the testing period. Like i said, i don't really mind it, as long as i can use my skills properly and if it made the performance improve a lot, i wouldn't mind the disabling..
One big problem is though, that disabling proc sets includes sets like Vicious Death for example, which was introduced to counter faction stacking. Now, with proc sets disabled, the faction stacking became worse than it has been for a long time. And the game performance feels accordingly.

Why do we have a drastic change for gameplay and no drastic changes for perfomance improvements and even make it worse by disabling stuff to counter player stacking? It's really hard for me to understand, especially after all the testing periods that the playerbase endured for the potentially greater good.

NeillMcAttack

This is a great post, and one that really gets to the meat of the argument. The greatest take away from the recent announcements is that we are now looking into at least 6 months of no real change in performance in Cyrodiil.

I have followed all their announcements very close up to this point, and all I can be sure about right now, is that ZOS are not being very open about what they are doing, what their overall goals are, or how they even perceive the situation.

You and I both know that limiting cross heals helped performance (or sometimes mentioned as player experience), but they claim they didn’t. All I could assume from that is that performance isn’t the only goal, they want to preserve the kind of gameplay that leads to the huge amounts of performance problems. Those faction stacks pumping out out radiating regens every second is one of the top priorities. How else could we have gotten to this point, maintaining these kinds of spells that everyone and their mother understands are very demanding on the server.

I don’t know if I should commend or condemn ZOS on their direction, and that is simply because I can’t possibly have any idea on what that direction is or where we will end up. Just gotta keep those fingers crossed again.

J18696

i agree with all of this and its my main gripe with these tests that performance is actually worse for me and another 6 months of this might mean 6 months of no cyrodiil

CrustyCroco

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

This is a great post, and one that really gets to the meat of the argument. The greatest take away from the recent announcements is that we are now looking into at least 6 months of no real change in performance in Cyrodiil.

...

Yea, and i can just applaud zos managing to turn the attention away from performance to proc vs nonproc discussions.

CSose

Performance is worse WITH the set restrictions. That's why I'm convinced they actually reduced server capacity prior to the test. And they almost certainly reduced the population caps in cyrodiil too.

I'm not upset that they took proc sets away so much as I'm upset that they STILL have not fixed performance issues and apparently aren't even trying. Now they've made it clear they won't be trying for at least another six months; after the sale to MS is completed.

Been ESO+ member since August 2014 but I just can't do it anymore.

Zpook

I think they push for tests to hide the fact that they are totaly clueless and dont have a fix for anything.

Flangdoodle

I appreciate your experiences, but for me there was no difference at all with or w/o cross-healing OR with or w/o proc sets. The crashing and lag as well as the inability in certain situations (see: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/564225/server-talking-add-ons) to be able to use skills, pots, siege, ultimates, light attacks or heavy attacks has been unchanged no matter what the testing parameters were.

Apparently a very loud minority said they loved no proc sets so they kept that scenario even though they said it had minimal effect on performance. It does make a difference, but not one that really matters, so fine. They seem to have built some proc effects into the new CP system anyway - which says to me that they knew that procs were never really the issue so why bother testing them?

They still haven't tested by blocking addons for PC - and why is anyone's guess. (and please don't bother responding with the tired "consoles dont have addons" argument - different hardware, different coding, different servers, not the same)

Who knows- maybe they're just kicking the can down the road until Microsoft upgrades the servers.

CSose

Flangdoodle wrote: »

I appreciate your experiences, but for me there was no difference at all with or w/o cross-healing OR with or w/o proc sets. The crashing and lag as well as the inability in certain situations (see: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/564225/server-talking-add-ons) to be able to use skills, pots, siege, ultimates, light attacks or heavy attacks has been unchanged no matter what the testing parameters were.

Apparently a very loud minority said they loved no proc sets so they kept that scenario even though they said it had minimal effect on performance. It does make a difference, but not one that really matters, so fine. They seem to have built some proc effects into the new CP system anyway - which says to me that they knew that procs were never really the issue so why bother testing them?

They still haven't tested by blocking addons for PC - and why is anyone's guess. (and please don't bother responding with the tired "consoles dont have addons" argument - different hardware, different coding, different servers, not the same)

Who knows- maybe they're just kicking the can down the road until Microsoft upgrades the servers.

Exactly. It's not especially upsetting that they removed 96% of the gear from cyrodiil. What's upsetting is the performance is still in the tank. If performance is going to be in the tank no matter what, we may as well have access to all our gear that we paid good money and countless hours to get.