A poll on raising the group size limit (old OP updated)

JoeCapricorn

Edit: Well, surprise surprise, the unpopular change went live and people hate it.

Let's get one thing straight: it does not help performance. Sure, nonoptimal coding would mean up to 4 times the messages are being sent through the back-end between players when comparing 24-person and 12-person groups (x * 24 * 24 = 4(x * 12 * 12)), optimized coding would limit the exponential growth.

A good solution would be to find a way to accommodate larger groups to allow for larger social events, rather than tightening this needless restriction and forcing it on all of us. This is hurting several of my guilds and I'm not even an officer in any of them, so I don't necessarily experience the logistical nightmare your 12-person group debacle has created.

If back-end messages are really the problem (and there isn't some way to get around exponential growth), implement a new class of groups that limits how those messages are sent. A 24-player group does not necessarily have to transmit combat metrics each millisecond. Adding a 13th person would just be a "Social Group Conversion" and you already have this system in place for "Large Group Conversion" when adding a 5th person to a 4 person group. These groups could only track position, have its own group chat, and such, and that would honestly be enough for a lot of what guilds need these groups for.

This solution can work! It may take time to implement, however... so in the mean time:

GIVE US BACK 24 PLAYER GROUPS PLEASE

If you look at the discussion in all of the threads about this subject, you'll see why. Please understand that I am protesting this change out of good will for the community and do not wish to see players needlessly suffer. It was difficult enough for guild leaders to coordinate events as it were, but how are 2 groups of 12 supposed to talk to each other??

Original post:

On the PTS right now, there is a line that says "Reduced player group size limitations from a global maximum of 24 to 12 in all activities, rather than only in Cyrodiil and Trials."

No reason has been put forth for this change, and I cannot think of any logical reason why they would want to do this. This may lead to worse performance on the servers, as certain zones will just become alphabet soups of farming groups. This will hurt social activities of all types of guilds, and I feel this change must be addressed by the community at large. That is why I am posting this poll here. I really don't think this discussion should be restricted to PTS, because if this goes live it may have far-reaching consequences and many players (especially guild officers) might be blindsided by this change.

You can probably guess that I am strongly against this change. I know this will hurt numerous guilds, especially social guilds. Imagine now requiring two officers to run the same event when one was required before. How many of you are in guilds that run events where grouping is required? Maybe your guild runs auctions that uses a group to keep it separate from general chat. Maybe your guild runs special contest events in the guild hall and your guild officers have to keep track of where each member is. Maybe your RPing guild uses groups to keep your RPing text private and avoid sending out large blocks of text to public /say /emote or /yell chat. Maybe your guild runs a cross event with another guild and this requires a 24-person group. Maybe you are getting a group together for a screenshot / photograph and need a group to ensure you all are in the same instance.

I honestly cannot think of a single positive benefit to lowering group sizes.

Raising group limits, on the other hand, that would be a wonderful thing! Elder Scrolls Online is a massively social game, and numerous guilds could benefit from some more breathing room when running large events - after all, there can be times when more than 24 people will want to join in. I think larger populations in a certain class of housing would also be nice. Maybe in the future there are official guild halls that can house 40 (or more) people.

So what is the general community's thoughts on this?

JamieAubrey

Yeah 40 man ball groups in Cyro, just what we DON'T need... Oh wait, we ALREADY have these

JoeCapricorn

JamieAubrey wrote: »

Yeah 40 man ball groups in Cyro, just what we DON'T need

This thread is about group limits outside of Cyrodiil, and is under the assumption that group sizes remain limited to 12 in Cyrodiil.

Sanctum74

Keep it at 24 and revert the cyrodill change back to 24.

Araneae6537

Either keep them at 24 or raise the limit outside Cyrodiil. Larger group size is very helpful for guild events, casual collecting events, etc. What is the supposed downside to large groups in open world anyway???

Jaimeh

Keep them at 24 (or raise them even) outside of Cyrodiil, it facillitates a lot of guild activities, dolmen groups, or player events like tournaments.

JoeCapricorn

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Keep it at 24 and revert the cyrodill change back to 24.

I agree!

peacenote

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Keep it at 24 and revert the cyrodill change back to 24.

This.

DreamyLu

I don't know ESO very well yet, but I vote "no" based on my experience in another MMO: fun spoiled in combat zone due to "zergs" relying on their numbers to simply "roll over" everything on their way. No combat possible, no strategy, just blind runs...
They simply start from one location and turned clockwise (or counter clock) around the map, until full content is done, then leave map for the day and return the day after to repeat the same (with the hope content has been renewed during night).

The worst I saw - and that several times - were two enemy zergs who had started each at different locations of same map, in coordination (via discord), to run at same speed in same direction (so they never meet), allowing to renew the objectives for each others for possibility to do multiple rounds...

kargen27

JoeCapricorn wrote: »

JamieAubrey wrote: »

Yeah 40 man ball groups in Cyro, just what we DON'T need

This thread is about group limits outside of Cyrodiil, and is under the assumption that group sizes remain limited to 12 in Cyrodiil.

That is why I didn't vote. I think group size should be 24 all across the game outside of course trials, battle grounds and dungeons.

Lady_Galadhiel

Bigger pve groups and back to 24 in Cyrodiil.

Agalloch

Lady_Galadhiel wrote: »

Bigger pve groups and back to 24 in Cyrodiil.

This!


Please ZOS. ESO is A MMORPG ..not an co-op squad game!

bmnoble

They should leave it alone its been at 24 for 7 years now, no reason to change it in either PVE or PVP.

In places where players gather your still going to have large numbers of players in one location whether its zergs and ball groups in PVP or the various Dolmen trains or world boss groups, guild activities in PVE.

Has lowering group sizes shown any real change in performance since lowering the group sizes in PVP?

To me all lowering the group sizes will do is just make it more annoying for players can already predict seeing the entire alphabet on display in zone chat in the Alik'r desert, in part because people hate being the ones to start and lead groups.

zaria

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Keep it at 24 and revert the cyrodill change back to 24.

Agree, it makes it very hard to find pug groups. First if you was an 8 man group you might take in 12 pugs to get more numbers and you still had 4 slots for friends and guildmates, with 12 you can not do that.
the ones running pure pug groups can only invite 11 rater than 23.
Finally an 12 man pug group will have problem taking even lightly defended keeps.

An organized group on discord can run multiple 12 man groups together so it don't hurt them as much.

BlackAxiom

how about no?

iksde

I myself dont care to much about activites with such big groups but sometimes I might and Im atleast against lowering group limit from 24 but with case of this poll also why not to raise nuumber even higher if we are at it

Knockmaker

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/561247/revert-the-group-size-changes-please#latest

Said it here before. Needs more attention, and this issue needs to be resolved asap.

anvilbert

As I read the forums on all the performance issues stated by the players Zos tends to have only one answer, and it is always nerf the players to the ground in all aspects. As they ad more zones , players and as players learn how to play better it is always nerf , nerf , nerf, when it should be upgrade to better more powerful servers. Don’t get me wrong I love the world they have built and the game play but I do get tired of having to rebuild my characters every time we get nerfed over and over simply because ZOS won’t spend any of the real money we pump into this game on a daily basis.

AuraStorm43

Its honestly a stupid change done for no reason

Starlight_Whisper

Let roleplayers have there group size for themselves.

JoeCapricorn

GUILD LEADERS! Lets talk about specific events where groups larger than 12 people were absolutely necessary!

The more that can be shown to illustrate why large groups are helpful for social events, the more it can be illustrated that limiting groups globally to 12 people would be damaging to the community.

In the past, I have been the officer of a couple of guilds, even helped one make a comeback after a former officer emptied the guild bank and booted all but a few members. I haven't really been in an officer role for a while as there are times when I am not very active in ESO, but I have to admire guild leaders who have been at it for what seems to be forever. I know guild leaders that have been active since 2014!

I think having social events is a big part of why guild leaders can keep at it for so long. It can be a long time commitment to run a guild, and I often see the same names run events at a certain time. I can imagine burnout could occur if those events didn't draw that many people and as a result became less fun to do. Events that require a 24-person group would be harder to do if those groups were limited to 12 people. You would need two officers to run each group and coordinate between the two. If the purpose of the group is to keep chat limited to that number of people, when events that have more than 12 people are done they might have to use guild chat or even local /say chat.

Group limitations will not slow down Alik'r farming groups. During Jester's Festival, there was a mad rush of people doing those to capitalize on the double XP and grind out some champion points. I took part in the Alik'r grind for the first time myself, trying to level my baby Warden before the Anniversary event. I wanted enough skill points to get the 7 crafting writs done, and jewelrycrafting to be max rank (for the chromium). Now, doing it in a group isn't really required, but the first time I did so it helped me keep track of where each dolmen was spawning, and also since I did not yet discover the wayshrines near each dolmen on that character. At the time, I think there were 7 groups going.

Now imagine the next time there is a double XP event (which I think would be Halloween/Witches Festival), and this 12-person group limit makes the cut for some reason... now that 7 groups becomes 14 groups, and possibly more. Now you have a zone that is a flood of single letters. Alik'r zone chat becomes alphabet soup.

I don't think this is like the situation with Rapid Maneuver. With that, the reason for the change was stated right away (to make Vigor more accessible). Furthermore, a later update made Rapid Maneuver irrelevant to mount speed entirely, as Major Gallop became an always active passive (a change that I feel was one of the best of Update 29). But with this change, I don't see any reason for it. There isn't anything being gained by anyone. It doesn't really have a performance reason. Just because trials and Cyrodiil are limited to 12 (and I will say that I support Cyrodiil returning to 24-person groups!), doesn't mean larger than 12-person groups are entirely useless. I think that assumption would be a huge miscalculation!

I don't run trials that often, and I haven't been in group PVP for a few years. But large groups go beyond those two things, and they need to stay.

dvonpm

12 is waaaaay too small for pve social events. It's too small for Cyrodiil too, but at least there is a reason. Why on earth are we punishing guilds for running fun events that mostly exist to help out newer players and be social?

I realize there is an instance cap in delves and public dungeons that is...less than 24 and more than 12, not sure exactly. So groups already have to deal with getting split up, but this is just doubling that already annoying limit. I always have a second lead in those events for that reason, but now 1 need 3? Really?

Ugh. Why are we making this more difficult.

wazzz56

cut them to 6 in cyro.....

mystkldrgnb14_ESO

There really is zippo reason to limit group size in the open PVE world.

PVP in Cyrodil - sure.

Everywhere else in the free world? WTH Why? Whether its a group of 24 or 2 groups of 12 or a group of 40 or whatever, no one outside the group in PVE is going to care because it affects their gameplay not at all.

Only reason I can think of is because its easier than fixing whatever server-side issue these large groups are causing. (That somehow isn't also caused by 2 groups of 12 and not one group of 24...)

Guilds are allowed 500 people - but only 12 of those people can be in any one group at a time?

Lazy development is all I can think. But this is a bullcrap change, that's for sure. It only negatively affects players by making whatever activity they are doing and using/needing a bigger than 12 group for - more difficult.

So what IS the benefit they are seeking here?

rexagamemnon

Cyrodill PVP should be up to 101. PVE should be 24 for trials and 6 for dungeons
Having said that though, i assume ZOS reduced the group size for some kind of functionality with the servers. I could be wrong

Tethilia

Brain melted. Please ignore

Tethilia

My brain melted. I'm sorry.

JoeCapricorn

I do wish they would come out and explain why they are making this change...

Because it seems unreasonable to me. I don't see how it could benefit performance.

Maybe it's because of Companions?

No reason why social guilds have to suffer just because of a new feature

Kwoung

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Keep it at 24 and revert the cyrodill change back to 24.

I prefer larger groups in PVE in order to make guild events easier, but most definitely dislike the 12 man Cyro groups. It stinks having to split the guild up into multiple groups for our casual outings. For who only knows what reason... It didn't help lag, it actually seems to have made it worst, it didn't stop ball groups from running 2-3 x 12 man teams together, healing was made to work outside the group again, so if it was for that reason it no longer matters, skills that should only hit 3-11 other players are already coded that way, so group size again doesn't matter... so I seriously don't get why there was a reduction in the first place and why it wasn't reverted after it was found to make zero performance difference.

JoeCapricorn

Why haven't ZOS answered any of the questions about this change? What is their reasoning for this change? This has still not been explained, at all.

zaria

JoeCapricorn wrote: »

Why haven't ZOS answered any of the questions about this change? What is their reasoning for this change? This has still not been explained, at all.

Random nerfs because they have to nerf something?
It makes no sense, yes I get it in IC designed for small scale PvP and yes I run with an large group there.
And had done Bolgrul runs with more than 12 players during the anniversary event, this can cause issues in delves for some reason. If so restrict group size here, its done in Cyrodil, trials and dungeons.