ESO PvP Update [Updated June 2022]

Finedaible

Thank you for communicating this. It may not be the news some were hoping for, but it feels much better to simply know that this is happening (and why it is happening) rather than being left in the dark to come up with our own theories.

This is a good step in the right direction for communication.

SidraWillowsky

Mumbles_the_Tank wrote: »

This is AAA professionalism worth the hundreds of subscription dollars plus additional purchases per year to all of you?

I am not sure what is worse. This non-apology admitting the situation which many surmised years ago or the fact so many of you are incredibly grateful for these crumbs.

A handful of hours ago this forum was full on bashing totally legitimate PvP main concerns over Rich’s comments - “faux outrage” “professional victims” and worse were all thrown at these people who have waited several years and sat thru innumerable “tests” while continuing to pay their subs and chapter purchases.

All for the director to finally admit the truth - but only as damage control - not because they strive for robust and honest communication with their playerbase.

I can’t even decide who I’m mad at anymore - these shovelware devs avoiding the problems for 5yrs or the rest of you who pay for and defend this practice of milking as many of us as possible without maintaining a quality product.

This right here. None of this was done out of goodness of heart. People can scoff at and wave away the whole stream situation that sparked this all they want, but the fact of the matter is that what happened was a really big deal from a company perspective. And it sucks that it took something so huge to get ZOS to finally communicate, and that this is likely the only message like this we'll get until something drastic happens again.

IDK. Maybe this will effect some sort of meaningful and lasting change in how ZOS communicates. I hope so. I hope that we'll eventually get an open an honest "hey, we messed up and we're going to do better moving forward by doing X, Y, and Z." I know that something major like that, where promises are made, takes longer than 24 hours to put together, so maybe we'll see it eventually. I won't hold my breath, though...

jaws343

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

Thanks for bearing with us, and we will give you periodic updates about the re-architecture progress over the course of the year.

If I could make one recommendation regarding ongoing communication for this, maybe set a monthly schedule and provide a status update once a month. Maybe the first Monday/Friday of each month, to provide the playerbase a specific expectation for progress communication.

Recremen

Oh rad! I hope this does the deed for us. I've been a fan of ESO PVP almost my entire stay in this game and only recently started taking a break from it, would be amazing to come back in later to a better-functioning battlefield! I'm very happy the company made this decision and is moving in this direction.

xDeusEJRx

The whole "years of performance" thing just seems like a joke to me, all these live server tests seemed to just do more damage than good.

I get not many people go on the PTS server so they have to do live server tests, but you have to realize a lot of the playerbase don't use the forums. Most people get their information about the game from twitch streams, or youtube videos. If they wanted more participation in tests they should have an in-game notice of sorts. Make more ingame sources of info instead of it being outsourced to people watching videos on youtube to be in the know.

Instead what we get is a year of changes and live tests that just make a vast majority of the players unhappy. No proc happened, people got mad. Battlegrounds test happened, people got mad. BG test ended, people got mad. All for the sake of data.
I think if it's really that important maybe make it more widely known to people of these tests, because again there's lots of people who never go on forums or let alone read patch notes to know about the PTS and i'm certain that contributes to your lack of having testers for these updates and then having to force it onto the live servers.

This year also will be no different, this "special ruleset" thing aforementioned makes it seem like there might be more live testing(like maybe removal of volundrung from cyro) that will lead to even more outcry.

It's nice that there's a clear vision as to where to go from now on. But hearing "wait another year or two and maybe it'll get better" doesn't sound that amazing to me, especially when it's gonna be a repeat of 2021 just with the same deteriorating performance but lack of engaging content and MAYBE a change in ruleset for a short time. Just doesn't leave me that hopeful

We'll see what happens, but I can't be optimistic over this

VaranisArano

jaws343 wrote: »

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

Thanks for bearing with us, and we will give you periodic updates about the re-architecture progress over the course of the year.

If I could make one recommendation regarding ongoing communication for this, maybe set a monthly schedule and provide a status update once a month. Maybe the first Monday/Friday of each month, to provide the playerbase a specific expectation for progress communication.

In her recent Twitter thread about communication, Gina talked about how they stopped doing regular updates:

https://twitter.com/GinaLBruno/status/1475986736354369540?s=20

I'll be honest that I disagree with her take on this. Now, I'm sure these updates were unsatisfying and resulted in frustrated people.

You know what else is frustrating? Silence. Official silence.

What's also unsatisfying? Continuing bad performance met with official silence by the Devs.

Was there a plan? There'd been no official word on the next steps for performance since the end of the no-proc test in March 2021, IIRC, when they said:

"Now that we’ve had time to digest a lot of data and information, we have a better idea of next steps and the work needed to produce noticeable improvements to performance in Cyrodiil. This work is complex and will take a fair amount of time and effort. We are committed to improving the PvP experience, though, and we have already begun scheduling out this work. Please note that none of the scheduled work will implement any of the changes we made on PC during past tests, and at this time we don’t plan to run any additional tests."

No offense, but 9 months is a long time to wait for official word.



The other problem with this kerfuffle is that there was unofficial word about the re-architecture from Rich Lambert on his personal stream starting in December (someone said in November as well). That's when I learned about it. I figured I'd be patient and there'd be an official note coming soon.

This whole kerfuffle would've looked very different if this official PVP update would've come out shortly after Rich started talking about it.

Had that official update come out in December, then when Terri Lambert says, "They are working on it", the PVP community knows that she's talking about the full rearchitecture that's been announced.

Instead, what actually happened is that most of the PVP community is in the dark because they don't watch Rich's streams and there's been no official update on the plan to fix PVP performance. Not having heard anything to give them hope in ages that the Devs are still paying attention, they react with anger at what's perceived as an empty slogan.


So maybe the communications team feels they are doomed if they do, doomed if they don't.

I'd argue that incidents like this are a lot more explosive because of the lack of regular official updates, and that it's better to keep players in the loop than not.

luen79rwb17_ESO

I would suggest ZOS, again, to keep corporate and business stuff inside corporate channels.

Let employees have their personal streams and talk whatever they want but corporate stuff.

These past weeks have turned ESO into a gossip Town where everybody talks about X person saying this or that on their personal stream.

We can't even tell anymore if it's true or a missenterpretation of someone who watched said stream.

And of course some reactions are plain bad taste. Imagine a global brand calling out a user experience like "wa, wa, wa".

Best wishes on the PVP endeavor of this year (no pun intended). Truly hope Cyrodiil and BGs are fixed.

tim77

jaws343

VaranisArano wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

Thanks for bearing with us, and we will give you periodic updates about the re-architecture progress over the course of the year.

If I could make one recommendation regarding ongoing communication for this, maybe set a monthly schedule and provide a status update once a month. Maybe the first Monday/Friday of each month, to provide the playerbase a specific expectation for progress communication.

In her recent Twitter thread about communication, Gina talked about how they stopped doing regular updates:

https://twitter.com/GinaLBruno/status/1475986736354369540?s=20

I'll be honest that I disagree with her take on this. Now, I'm sure these updates were unsatisfying and resulted in frustrated people.

You know what else is frustrating? Silence. Official silence.

What's also unsatisfying? Continuing bad performance met with official silence by the Devs.

Was there a plan? There'd been no official word on the next steps for performance since the end of the no-proc test in March 2021, IIRC, when they said:

"Now that we’ve had time to digest a lot of data and information, we have a better idea of next steps and the work needed to produce noticeable improvements to performance in Cyrodiil. This work is complex and will take a fair amount of time and effort. We are committed to improving the PvP experience, though, and we have already begun scheduling out this work. Please note that none of the scheduled work will implement any of the changes we made on PC during past tests, and at this time we don’t plan to run any additional tests."

No offense, but 9 months is a long time to wait for official word.



The other problem with this kerfuffle is that there was unofficial word about the re-architecture from Richbon his personal stream starting in December (someone said in November as well). That's when I learned about it. I figured I'd be patient and there'd be an official note coming soon.

This whole kerfuffle would've looked very different if this official PVP update would've come out shortly after Rich started talking about it.

Had that official update come out in December, then when Terri Lambert says, "They are working on it", the PVP community knows that she's talking about the full rearchitecture that's been announced.

Instead, what actually happened is that most of the PVP community is in the dark because they don't watch Rich's streams and there's been no official update on the plan to fix PVP performance. Not having heard anything to give them hope in ages that the Devs are still paying attention, they react with anger at what's perceived as an empty slogan.


So maybe the communications team feels they are doomed if they do, doomed if they don't.

I'd argue that incidents like this are a lot more explosive because of the lack of regular official updates, and that it's better to keep players in the loop than not.

It's definitely not easy providing updates, especially when the update is sparse. And I've even advocated in favor of them not providing updates due to how the community takes "no update" as a major issue. Sometimes not talking about something is far better than reminding people that you don't have a solution yet.

But, with this PVP Update explicitly mentioning they would keep us up to date with the status of the overhaul, I think it would provide way more benefit to set a schedule for it and provide that feedback regularly. If anything, it keeps people from constantly barraging unrelated things with questions. If the player base knows to expect an update once a month it would be far more constructive than maybe getting an update once a quarter, or like twice all next year.

Firstmep

tim77 wrote: »

I hope this doesnt get deleted.
This happens every year, new year, new promises to fix pvp. People eat it up like cupcakes, thanking the devs for this "newfound transparency" and communication, and then nothing actually improves.
At least this time we are told not to expect any improvements for a year, I guess that's something.

Elsonso

.

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

The whole "years of performance" thing just seems like a joke to me, all these live server tests seemed to just do more damage than good.

Not so much of a joke to me, as client performance increased, zone loading time decreased, character load times decreased, frame rates had a lot of work done, and they are splitting the account/character databases into active and inactive. They have been doing a lot of work.

PVP is the big task, and they have even done several things in there that I am sure helped, but probably do not garner much appreciation, or even awareness.

VaranisArano

tim77 wrote: »

That hurt a little, but in a hilarious way.

Destai

I knew I was getting deja vu...

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6740897#Comment_6740897

@ZOS_MattFiror We've been here before. Quite a few times, in fact.

I hope that you truly are rewriting the core server code, but I think it's hard for us to trust there's truly a fix when this has been a problem for 5+ years. What's different now? Brian Wheeler said it'd take time - 7 years ago. We had a performance patch 2 years ago - during a massive pandemic. We are still dealing with the consequences of that.

silvereyes

Faulgor wrote: »

Thanks for the update!

I'm curious though if this huge architecture rework will affect the addition of new game systems, as you already slowed down on that front last year? Well, I guess we'll know more on the 27th.

Are you serious? Curated item drops have been one of the most impactful changes from the systems team in years.

WiseSky

Lovely

silvereyes

ajkb78 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno The announcement was very much aimed at PvP and that's clearly been the worst case for the issues you're trying to solve, but when implemented does the team expect these changes to make a noticeable improvement to laggy situations in PvE too? (Mainly trials is where it's worst.)

Matt specifically said that this will help Trials too:

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

So, in order to give everyone a good play experience in high-intensity situations like PvP and Trials, we need to essentially rewrite some of the foundational server code to account for it

EdmondDontes

I can't get over the fact that they've been telling us for 4 years "they're working on it".

Then yesterday we get an update telling us that in the fourth quarter of year 4 of "we're working on it", they finally figured something out and are going to take some action. BUT, we won't see any results of that action until at least the end of year 5 of "we're working on it".

Sure sounds like they weren't really working on it prior to a few months ago, and they still might not be working on it now. We have to take their word for it and continue to trust their words with zero evidence to support them.

I think this is why we don't hear from the devs much anymore. Anything they say will likely contradict reality or something they've claimed in the past.

Blinx

so why wasn't this update given prior to wah-wah -gate? people have been asking for info for a good while now, and always radio silence.
seems like deflection to me, throw the PvP'rs a bone to shut them up, just make good on your word for once.

sarahthes

Blinx wrote: »

so why wasn't this update given prior to wah-wah -gate? people have been asking for info for a good while now, and always radio silence.
seems like deflection to me, throw the PvP'rs a bone to shut them up, just make good on your word for once.

It's been circulating unofficially for a couple months now. Sucks that it took this to get it put out in an official medium though.

Blinx

sarahthes wrote: »

It's been circulating unofficially for a couple months now. Sucks that it took this to get it put out in an official medium though.

and see how well that turned out, if something needs to be said, then it needs to be said, not be some unofficial insight for a select few

Ghostbane

silvereyes

Thank you @ZOS_MattFiror and all the devs for making the difficult decision to overhaul the server code. I know it's a very risky and expensive project, and I foresee a long tail of bugs coming out of it before things are settled, but it really is the right call (said by someone who doesn't have to pay for the project, lol).

I'm sure you would have much preferred that optimizations or tweaks to rule sets solve the performance problems, but they obviously haven't, so I applaud you for not giving up once the scope of the problems became apparent. I am more hopeful about the future of the game now.

Aldoss

Now that I've had time to process this announcement, here's what I'd love to see on the 27th as a customer who buys the annual eso+ for both myself and my wife, the yearly chapter for myself and my wife, and routinely funds the game with crown store purchases throughout the year:

"After this 2022 chapter, there will be no further chapter, nor a dlc, until our backend code revamp has completed QA"

If this is important to you, you will make it your top priority. You'll do anything actionable to prove to the customer base that continually pays for an undelivered promise and has for many years with nothing more than "we're working on it".

Give us an action. Give yourself a goal. Give yourself a deadline to get this massive overhaul completed.

Use the crown store to sell unique cosmetics, furnishings, and other temporal items as fund raising while you devote 100% developer effort to making ESO a game ready for the demands of the 2022 and beyond gaming market.

Your customers will reward you.

If we get no actionable promises about this topic on the 27th, I expect to not be alone in cancelling my eso subs and other monetary support. Give yourself a deadline to deliver on these promises and you can expect that support to stay. I do want this game to succeed.

sarahthes

Aldoss wrote: »

Now that I've had time to process this announcement, here's what I'd love to see on the 27th as a customer who buys the annual eso+ for both myself and my wife, the yearly chapter for myself and my wife, and routinely funds the game with crown store purchases throughout the year:

"After this 2022 chapter, there will be no further chapter, nor a dlc, until our backend code revamp has completed QA"

If this is important to you, you will make it your top priority. You'll do anything actionable to prove to the customer base that continually pays for an undelivered promise and has for many years with nothing more than "we're working on it".

Give us an action. Give yourself a goal. Give yourself a deadline to get this massive overhaul completed.

Use the crown store to sell unique cosmetics, furnishings, and other temporal items as fund raising while you devote 100% developer effort to making ESO a game ready for the demands of the 2022 and beyond gaming market.

Your customers will reward you.

If we get no actionable promises about this topic on the 27th, I expect to not be alone in cancelling my eso subs and other monetary support. Give yourself a deadline to deliver on these promises and you can expect that support to stay. I do want this game to succeed.

If they stop producing their quarterly content, then all the people who come back seasonally and only play during new content drops... won't. And that's a significant portion of the player base that pays the bills.

Also, pretty sure the art team and story writers and such aren't going to be much help in engineering new code, meaning there won't be work and thus income to support those people, meaning there will be a noticeable drop in quality of everything else once the game code is fixed... meaning fewer new players. It'll become a death spiral.

The better thing to do would be to add fewer game systems (no new class, no new weapon type, etc), deep dive into story and lore for the next year so the art team and other groups can literally fund the engineers fixing the engineering stuff. Content drops that are heavy on lore and story and light on new types of gameplay would be great, but I still want 4 dungeons, a chapter, and a small dlc this year. I'd also like a trial and an arena of some sort.

SirAxen

Elsonso wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

Honestly I would have expected this rewrite to have been ongoing, not just started now. This is obvious and ongoing technical debt. I know no one likes to deal with it because it isn't the new shiny but technical debt needs to be addressed or we get what's happening in cyrodil.

That being said, thank you for updating us. I appreciate the effort and I hope communication continues in this vein.

Rich first started talking about this months ago. As i see it... The official message does not herald the start of work, but the commitment to finish it.

This. Now they are on the hook and have no choice but to do it - they are making it public now for accountability and standing behind the work.

JonnytheKing

just words , means nothing , sadly we have been told pvp will be impoved many times and it hasnt. so time will tell. i hope this will make things better. but im not holding my breath

Kikazaru

This is great to hear, but I will reserve my optimism judgement until I see actual improvements with my very eyes.

Destai

sarahthes wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Now that I've had time to process this announcement, here's what I'd love to see on the 27th as a customer who buys the annual eso+ for both myself and my wife, the yearly chapter for myself and my wife, and routinely funds the game with crown store purchases throughout the year:

"After this 2022 chapter, there will be no further chapter, nor a dlc, until our backend code revamp has completed QA"

If this is important to you, you will make it your top priority. You'll do anything actionable to prove to the customer base that continually pays for an undelivered promise and has for many years with nothing more than "we're working on it".

Give us an action. Give yourself a goal. Give yourself a deadline to get this massive overhaul completed.

Use the crown store to sell unique cosmetics, furnishings, and other temporal items as fund raising while you devote 100% developer effort to making ESO a game ready for the demands of the 2022 and beyond gaming market.

Your customers will reward you.

If we get no actionable promises about this topic on the 27th, I expect to not be alone in cancelling my eso subs and other monetary support. Give yourself a deadline to deliver on these promises and you can expect that support to stay. I do want this game to succeed.

If they stop producing their quarterly content, then all the people who come back seasonally and only play during new content drops... won't. And that's a significant portion of the player base that pays the bills.

Also, pretty sure the art team and story writers and such aren't going to be much help in engineering new code, meaning there won't be work and thus income to support those people, meaning there will be a noticeable drop in quality of everything else once the game code is fixed... meaning fewer new players. It'll become a death spiral.

The better thing to do would be to add fewer game systems (no new class, no new weapon type, etc), deep dive into story and lore for the next year so the art team and other groups can literally fund the engineers fixing the engineering stuff. Content drops that are heavy on lore and story and light on new types of gameplay would be great, but I still want 4 dungeons, a chapter, and a small dlc this year. I'd also like a trial and an arena of some sort.

I think story will only get them get so far. I know they don't want to hear this, but there needs to be more carrots on a stick that aren't tucked into the crown store. The next expansion needs to be meaty - let us earn mounts or houses via achievements. I agree, a new system is only going to complicate the Fix™, but earnables will keep the masses satisfied a little longer than stories that most of us skip anyways. They do themselves a disservice keeping so much cool stuff in the store that I think they're overlooking possibilities for lightening their load.

gariondavey

Aldoss wrote: »

Now that I've had time to process this announcement, here's what I'd love to see on the 27th as a customer who buys the annual eso+ for both myself and my wife, the yearly chapter for myself and my wife, and routinely funds the game with crown store purchases throughout the year:

"After this 2022 chapter, there will be no further chapter, nor a dlc, until our backend code revamp has completed QA"

If this is important to you, you will make it your top priority. You'll do anything actionable to prove to the customer base that continually pays for an undelivered promise and has for many years with nothing more than "we're working on it".

Give us an action. Give yourself a goal. Give yourself a deadline to get this massive overhaul completed.

Use the crown store to sell unique cosmetics, furnishings, and other temporal items as fund raising while you devote 100% developer effort to making ESO a game ready for the demands of the 2022 and beyond gaming market.

Your customers will reward you.

If we get no actionable promises about this topic on the 27th, I expect to not be alone in cancelling my eso subs and other monetary support. Give yourself a deadline to deliver on these promises and you can expect that support to stay. I do want this game to succeed.

Love it

silvereyes

Kikazaru wrote: »

This is great to hear, but I will reserve my optimism until I see actual improvements with my very eyes.

I don't think that's how optimism works, lol.