ESO PvP Update [Updated June 2022]

Kikazaru

silvereyes wrote: »

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.

Pwease, don't tell my teacher... I wasn't thinking clearly... okay... 'judgement' is a better word.

jle30303

Right now, the thing I want most out of PVP is a FAIR chance at getting a Battleground that is NOT Deathmatch.

That is, when I select the "Random Battleground" queue, to have a 20% chance of each of the 5 types of Battleground (DM, Domination, Crazy King, Chaosball, Relic Runner)... NOT to be always put in a Deathmatch queue because the queue for Random is combined with the queue for Only Deathmatch, so all the Randoms are guaranteed a forced Deathmatch if there is even 1 person from the Deathmatch Only queue with them.

Flangdoodle

What follows is pure speculation, but I've worked with and for enough corporations over the years to put together a few things, so here is my take:

Announcements like this don't happen in a vacuum. The implications they have are far too influential to a company's bottom line to make them carelessly or w/o the OK from higher-ups.

What kind of OK? Well, corporations exist to make money, period. Not to say that the *people* who work there don't care about other things, but the corporation only exists to make money. They track *every* expense and have teams of people who do only that (I used to be on one). They have data on every hour worked, how much that hour cost, and what that hour gained them, sometimes going back decades, and can stunningly accurately project the cost/time/benefit of any prospective project.

So, when @ZOS_MattFiror says "this will take tons of QA and testing time", understand what that means from a corporate perspective. It means personnel hours which means $$ spent - and no one would make an announcement with that level of financial commitment without having made a proposal to the guys upstairs, including a budget, benchmarks, and timetables, and having had it approved and signed-off.

He also says they've been planning it for the last quarter - but think about what that means. It means that they had to have known what the problem is for a considerable amount of time before that, right? Can't formulate a plan to fix something (especially a plan as complex as this) if you don't have an idea specifically what you're fixing.

So, here's where the speculation comes in: My guess is that they've known for a long time what causes all the problems in PVP, but every time they told the execs what it would take to fix them (a rewriting of the foundational server code), the execs asked how much it would cost, and when the devs told them, they said "Nope. Find a cheaper way."

How do you find a cheaper way? TESTS. Matt says the tests were "successful". Let’s be honest though. Everybody who was there for them and has been playing in Cyrodiil since knows that the targeted test parameters fixed nothing. Proc sets, group size, cross-healing, cooldown times - none of it changed anything. So how were they "successful"?

By showing what **wasn't** the problem.

Put yourself in a devs shoes for a second: you know what's wrong and how to fix it, and you tell your boss, but your boss says "No, too expensive. Try something else". You *know* nothing else will fix it. So, what do you do? SHOW them that nothing else will work.

"Look – we tested and tested and tested. We tried taking away proc sets. Didn't work. Tried reducing group size. No effect. Increased the casting cooldown time - nope. (etc.) *This* (rewriting the code) is the only thing that'll work."

And what happened in the meantime that might seriously change the execs minds? BOOM! Sale to Microsoft. New bosses! More money! Access to new programming resources!

My inner screenwriter envisions a scene where, after years of rejections from the ZOS money-guys to allow the devs to implement a real fix, some Microsoft programmers come into a meeting and say "Geeze, you guys really need to rewrite your source code". One of the ZOS devs glares at an exec and screams "YA THINK??" and face-palms. LOL.

All of which is to say - take heart. I really think they're going to finally get this right. It might not be perfect, and there'll be a lot of stumbling blocks on the way I'm sure - any major undertaking has them - but I really think we're at the beginning of a true fix. Time will tell.

Cheers, Flang.

thesarahandcompany

While we should have empathy for the devs based on your speculation, we also can't ignore the real impact that these "tests" have had on the community. Specifically, how the PvP community, and end-game community generally, has experienced neglect in the game and comments like these on Rich's stream have fueled and empowered people to generalize all PvPers as bullies, cry babies, whiners, ungratefuls, etc. I can't even politely tell someone to run more than 25k HP to help them not get bursted down in a BG without getting my head bit off and being called toxic.

The road to a better ESO does not just start or end with fixing the code and adding new content. It's also about accountability and repairing a community. A community where you're called toxic for wanting to do your dailies quickly. A community where you're called a bully for running meta builds. A community where an ESO stream team member claims every PvPer stream snipes her and harbors open bigots in her discord.

Devs have a lost of trust building to do from here on out.

Extinct_Solo_Player

see you guys in the next annual "NO ETA" post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOCD_Jzre3c

axi

Another year another promise. Don't get Your hopes up so atleast You wont get dissapointed is my motto for this game since many years.

EdmondDontes

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

see you guys in the next annual "NO ETA" post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOCD_Jzre3c

Well done sir!

Also, I cancelled my ESO+ sub today. I'd been a subscriber since June 2014. That is over $1,300 in monthly dues all by itself. I'll consider re-subbing if and when they actually show some results.

aetherial_heavenn

Flangdoodle wrote: »

What follows is pure speculation, but I've worked with and for enough corporations over the years to put together a few things, so here is my take:

Announcements like this don't happen in a vacuum. The implications they have are far too influential to a company's bottom line to make them carelessly or w/o the OK from higher-ups.

What kind of OK? Well, corporations exist to make money, period. Not to say that the *people* who work there don't care about other things, but the corporation only exists to make money. They track *every* expense and have teams of people who do only that (I used to be on one). They have data on every hour worked, how much that hour cost, and what that hour gained them, sometimes going back decades, and can stunningly accurately project the cost/time/benefit of any prospective project.

So, when @ZOS_MattFiror says "this will take tons of QA and testing time", understand what that means from a corporate perspective. It means personnel hours which means $$ spent - and no one would make an announcement with that level of financial commitment without having made a proposal to the guys upstairs, including a budget, benchmarks, and timetables, and having had it approved and signed-off.

He also says they've been planning it for the last quarter - but think about what that means. It means that they had to have known what the problem is for a considerable amount of time before that, right? Can't formulate a plan to fix something (especially a plan as complex as this) if you don't have an idea specifically what you're fixing.

So, here's where the speculation comes in: My guess is that they've known for a long time what causes all the problems in PVP, but every time they told the execs what it would take to fix them (a rewriting of the foundational server code), the execs asked how much it would cost, and when the devs told them, they said "Nope. Find a cheaper way."

How do you find a cheaper way? TESTS. Matt says the tests were "successful". Let’s be honest though. Everybody who was there for them and has been playing in Cyrodiil since knows that the targeted test parameters fixed nothing. Proc sets, group size, cross-healing, cooldown times - none of it changed anything. So how were they "successful"?

By showing what **wasn't** the problem.

Put yourself in a devs shoes for a second: you know what's wrong and how to fix it, and you tell your boss, but your boss says "No, too expensive. Try something else". You *know* nothing else will fix it. So, what do you do? SHOW them that nothing else will work.

"Look – we tested and tested and tested. We tried taking away proc sets. Didn't work. Tried reducing group size. No effect. Increased the casting cooldown time - nope. (etc.) *This* (rewriting the code) is the only thing that'll work."

And what happened in the meantime that might seriously change the execs minds? BOOM! Sale to Microsoft. New bosses! More money! Access to new programming resources!

My inner screenwriter envisions a scene where, after years of rejections from the ZOS money-guys to allow the devs to implement a real fix, some Microsoft programmers come into a meeting and say "Geeze, you guys really need to rewrite your source code". One of the ZOS devs glares at an exec and screams "YA THINK??" and face-palms. LOL.

All of which is to say - take heart. I really think they're going to finally get this right. It might not be perfect, and there'll be a lot of stumbling blocks on the way I'm sure - any major undertaking has them - but I really think we're at the beginning of a true fix. Time will tell.

Cheers, Flang.

Exactly how it works in most organisations. Hence the many suggestions to do a regular update on this specific matter even if this is the special case where 'working on it', or better put 'still working on x', are acceptable updates for a specific time.


As I suggested earlier, in addition I think a TED talk type live stream explaining the process of rebuilding base game code while live (not necessarily completely ESO specific) would help tone down all the 'I know better'/'just do it quicker' reflexive responses that many improvement/on-going bug threads get bogged down in. I anticipate that there will be a lot of these when this project goes ahead. Because live testing is a nightmare. It would make life easier for everyone if current customers were aware of how much of a nightmare and WHY, to prepare and perhaps be a bit more tolerant of mistakes, knowing that the Team is genuinely trying.

Because ESO customers are also recognized stakeholders in the information exchange ecology -eg semi-official player streams, semi-official player made wikis, player class reps, (as was pointed out to me in another thread) I think they should be regarded by the communications teams as needing a shareholder style briefing rather than the usual very casual organisational communications that we currently get on the forums.

edited to add: Being treated as valuable contributors, rather than whiny customers by all staff of the organisation when introducing major changes would go a long way to repairing the damage to reputation caused recently. Whether that damage was warranted or not, it happened. Time for a change in approach.

Cireous

Just a slightly off-topic request from someone who has no idea what they are talking about:

If you are re-working the game into a 2022 or 2023 version of the game, can you also make all the textures and colors out in the world all shiny, pretty, colorful, and new (yet still gritty and realistic)? Not everyone can use ENBs to add a dash of color to an otherwise fairly dull looking Overland palette by todays standards. Besides, I bet you could do way better than our ENBs with new tech, anyhow. I mean, so long as it doesn't mess with performance, of course.

I just wana continue to play this game FOREVER.

Would love to see it evolve graphically, as well.

LonePirate

I am a little concerned about what is going to be sacrificed from the development, feature and content queues as developers and engineers are working on this overhaul. Still, I welcome this news and I wish the team great success with the project. I hope the team does not hesitate to utilize the PTS and enlist players to assist with the testing and assessment of the changes. ZOS should have the art team working on new variations of mudcrabs, monkeys and torchbugs to incentivize players to assist as needed.

Elsonso

LonePirate wrote: »

I am a little concerned about what is going to be sacrificed from the development. feature and content queues as developers and engineers are working on this overhaul/ Still I welcome this news and I wish the team great success with the project.

We will probably never know what was sacrificed, but it is not unheard of, and it is a fair bet that something is off the table, or delayed, due to this work. Rich has said numerous times that they can do things, but it comes at the cost of not doing other things. I feel that statement also applies to this work.

Faulgor

silvereyes wrote: »

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.

I mean, that's what ZOS said at the beginning of last year - that they wouldn't implement big new systems in 2021.
Curated item drops might have been impactful on the player side, but apparently it wasn't as impactful on the development side?

Lysette

axi wrote: »

Another year another promise. Don't get Your hopes up so atleast You wont get dissapointed is my motto for this game since many years.

There is a difference to before - I will make an analogy for you to understand:

Those "we are working on it" was like when you have a car with an older engine, which isn't up for the job anymore, and try to get more performance out of an engine which isn't capable to do the job - but they didn't know that it won't be able to before they tried - and it just didn't - then they tried to observe what is wrong with the engine to get a better idea what to do. And to continue with this analogy - they figured out basically, regardless what we are doing, this engine isn't good enough to achieve the desired results. And so they decided to exchange major parts of the engine to upgrade it to a state, where it might be capable enough or even outperform expectations - their tests suggest that, but one can't really know until it's tried out.

In short, it is a different approach - instead to mess with old code, some parts of the server will be rewritten from the ground up and others adapted to accommodate the new part resp. changes - this is a major step, and risky, but necessary.

''''

Lysette

Elsonso wrote: »

LonePirate wrote: »

I am a little concerned about what is going to be sacrificed from the development. feature and content queues as developers and engineers are working on this overhaul/ Still I welcome this news and I wish the team great success with the project.

We will probably never know what was sacrificed, but it is not unheard of, and it is a fair bet that something is off the table, or delayed, due to this work. Rich has said numerous times that they can do things, but it comes at the cost of not doing other things. I feel that statement also applies to this work.

Why would it, the story and art team as well as musicians and modelling teams aren't doing server stuff, that it up to a totally different technical team - I expect that group content and pvp won't get something new, because how the new server will handle these things might not be clear yet - if it still has to be designed - I guess that they have an idea how to, but the proof is in the pudding - when they will have started on designing and implementing it, they will see where problems are - this is a creative process and as such one has to allow them to make mistakes and correct them or even toss out whole parts, because they aren't as successful as expected - design work is a bit unpredictable and therefore they cannot really know how long it will take - I think what Matt said is very honest - he didn't promise anything, he gave an outlook on what is expected performance-wise and as well seen from how long it might take.

EF321

A year ago at around this time we were promised new servers. No new server.
Just saying.

Einstein_

EF321 wrote: »

A year ago at around this time we were promised new servers. No new server.
Just saying.

to be fair, last year they said new STORAGE servers, which will NOTimprove performance.
they said we start 2022, with the acuall new hardwear for PC.

Abnaxos

Awesome post, Flang.

Flangdoodle wrote: »

So, here's where the speculation comes in: My guess is that they've known for a long time what causes all the problems in PVP, but every time they told the execs what it would take to fix them (a rewriting of the foundational server code), the execs asked how much it would cost, and when the devs told them, they said "Nope. Find a cheaper way."
[...]
Put yourself in a devs shoes for a second: you know what's wrong and how to fix it, and you tell your boss, but your boss says "No, too expensive. Try something else". You *know* nothing else will fix it. So, what do you do? SHOW them that nothing else will work.

I work in software development. Not in gaming, but in the end, games are software and software is software. This is how it works. Been there, done that, again and again and again.

Developer sees the code, says: "We have to rewrite this from scratch."
Project manager: "How long does it take?"
Developer: "X months, minimum."
Project manager: "No way. It's too expensive and the customer wants a solution now. Find another way."
(Note how the customer – that's us, the players – is part of the problem at this point)

As a result, the developer has to come up with some duct tape fix, that might improve the situation a little bit for the moment. More often than not, it actually makes things worse in the long run, and the developer warns about that – but it's quick and cheap, so management gives green light for the duct tape fix. All these fixes accumulate over the years, each one making the overall situation a little bit worse.

This happens everywhere where software is made, it's part of the business. Such a decision isn't taken lightly and it shows ZOS's commitment to the game.

Sylvermynx

Einstein_ wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

A year ago at around this time we were promised new servers. No new server.
Just saying.

to be fair, last year they said new STORAGE servers, which will NOTimprove performance.
they said we start 2022, with the acuall new hardwear for PC.

True - and there are still supply chain issues with chips which is going to affect that too. I just checked with my machine supplier, thinking I'd order my new machine now because I don't expect they'll be able to ship it before March or April. Wrong. It's already looking to David like August or September. Maybe.

Volckodav

@ZOS_MattFiror Thanks a lot for this update and this is really a critical step in the right direction, and what is necessary to be done for the sake of ESO future given this is already a 7+ years game.

However, given the epic fail of the previous Year of Performance (as a daily PvPers I can attest that in the field this is worst now than before) I am honestly in need of seeing real concrete result to be able to enjoy the game again.

And my main concern is positionning and delay/desync between what I see and the real position in server side, and every issue related to it. i.e my dragon leap not firing, canot target someone in front of me or when I finally suceed I jump into an empty space...because my target is already awayfar away

Also an important point will be to communicate clearly in which improuvment you are doing on the game and what/how we can monitor and evaluate it in the field to see concrete result.
i.e today we are adressing blocking issue server side with this update, can you check please if you can block now and block dont drop anymore?

Really hope it's the good one this time, and for sure I and all the Community will monitor it closely!

Destai

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

While we should have empathy for the devs based on your speculation, we also can't ignore the real impact that these "tests" have had on the community. Specifically, how the PvP community, and end-game community generally, has experienced neglect in the game and comments like these on Rich's stream have fueled and empowered people to generalize all PvPers as bullies, cry babies, whiners, ungratefuls, etc. I can't even politely tell someone to run more than 25k HP to help them not get bursted down in a BG without getting my head bit off and being called toxic.

The road to a better ESO does not just start or end with fixing the code and adding new content. It's also about accountability and repairing a community. A community where you're called toxic for wanting to do your dailies quickly. A community where you're called a bully for running meta builds. A community where an ESO stream team member claims every PvPer stream snipes her and harbors open bigots in her discord.

Devs have a lost of trust building to do from here on out.

Empathy towards the devs is important. The "devs" are not to blame. I'm sure there's a few characters who are resistant to ideas, but fundamentally there's a lot of hard working people here that have made a game, a world we've all spent 1000s of hours in. It's the leadership and the decisions they make that fundamentally have caused this and they need to answer some of our hard questions in full transparency.

I feel your pain on some community aspects. I personally haven't encountered too much "toxic positivity". That's gaming though, people are going to have opinions, even really visible people. I think people starting to calling it out helps, but fundamentally, it's up to every person to decide who they group with.

ZOS can't be held wholly accountable for other's actions and sentiments. Most games like this have a meta and subgroups, I personally wouldn't want ZOS to blunt every edge to combat this. I just don't think that's a technical solution, maybe they can create new incentives, redo the whole game, I dunno. I just want a more stable and reliable for a product myself and so many others love. I just want a company that communicates regularly and doesn't ride the waves of damage control from one fiasco to the next.

Flangdoodle wrote: »

What follows is pure speculation, but I've worked with and for enough corporations over the years to put together a few things, so here is my take:

Announcements like this don't happen in a vacuum. The implications they have are far too influential to a company's bottom line to make them carelessly or w/o the OK from higher-ups.

What kind of OK? Well, corporations exist to make money, period. Not to say that the *people* who work there don't care about other things, but the corporation only exists to make money. They track *every* expense and have teams of people who do only that (I used to be on one). They have data on every hour worked, how much that hour cost, and what that hour gained them, sometimes going back decades, and can stunningly accurately project the cost/time/benefit of any prospective project.

So, when @ZOS_MattFiror says "this will take tons of QA and testing time", understand what that means from a corporate perspective. It means personnel hours which means $$ spent - and no one would make an announcement with that level of financial commitment without having made a proposal to the guys upstairs, including a budget, benchmarks, and timetables, and having had it approved and signed-off.

He also says they've been planning it for the last quarter - but think about what that means. It means that they had to have known what the problem is for a considerable amount of time before that, right? Can't formulate a plan to fix something (especially a plan as complex as this) if you don't have an idea specifically what you're fixing.

So, here's where the speculation comes in: My guess is that they've known for a long time what causes all the problems in PVP, but every time they told the execs what it would take to fix them (a rewriting of the foundational server code), the execs asked how much it would cost, and when the devs told them, they said "Nope. Find a cheaper way."

How do you find a cheaper way? TESTS. Matt says the tests were "successful". Let’s be honest though. Everybody who was there for them and has been playing in Cyrodiil since knows that the targeted test parameters fixed nothing. Proc sets, group size, cross-healing, cooldown times - none of it changed anything. So how were they "successful"?

By showing what **wasn't** the problem.

Put yourself in a devs shoes for a second: you know what's wrong and how to fix it, and you tell your boss, but your boss says "No, too expensive. Try something else". You *know* nothing else will fix it. So, what do you do? SHOW them that nothing else will work.

"Look – we tested and tested and tested. We tried taking away proc sets. Didn't work. Tried reducing group size. No effect. Increased the casting cooldown time - nope. (etc.) *This* (rewriting the code) is the only thing that'll work."

And what happened in the meantime that might seriously change the execs minds? BOOM! Sale to Microsoft. New bosses! More money! Access to new programming resources!

My inner screenwriter envisions a scene where, after years of rejections from the ZOS money-guys to allow the devs to implement a real fix, some Microsoft programmers come into a meeting and say "Geeze, you guys really need to rewrite your source code". One of the ZOS devs glares at an exec and screams "YA THINK??" and face-palms. LOL.

All of which is to say - take heart. I really think they're going to finally get this right. It might not be perfect, and there'll be a lot of stumbling blocks on the way I'm sure - any major undertaking has them - but I really think we're at the beginning of a true fix. Time will tell.

Cheers, Flang.

Man, post of the year. I think this is what people like @ZOS_MattFiror need to get into in an AMA or something. Like on a professional, how did it get here, without sugarcoating and sanitized messages. I'd appreciate it, I find development politics interesting.

VaranisArano

Abnaxos wrote: »

Awesome post, Flang.

Flangdoodle wrote: »

So, here's where the speculation comes in: My guess is that they've known for a long time what causes all the problems in PVP, but every time they told the execs what it would take to fix them (a rewriting of the foundational server code), the execs asked how much it would cost, and when the devs told them, they said "Nope. Find a cheaper way."
[...]
Put yourself in a devs shoes for a second: you know what's wrong and how to fix it, and you tell your boss, but your boss says "No, too expensive. Try something else". You *know* nothing else will fix it. So, what do you do? SHOW them that nothing else will work.

I work in software development. Not in gaming, but in the end, games are software and software is software. This is how it works. Been there, done that, again and again and again.

Developer sees the code, says: "We have to rewrite this from scratch."
Project manager: "How long does it take?"
Developer: "X months, minimum."
Project manager: "No way. It's too expensive and the customer wants a solution now. Find another way."
(Note how the customer – that's us, the players – is part of the problem at this point)

As a result, the developer has to come up with some duct tape fix, that might improve the situation a little bit for the moment. More often than not, it actually makes things worse in the long run, and the developer warns about that – but it's quick and cheap, so management gives green light for the duct tape fix. All these fixes accumulate over the years, each one making the overall situation a little bit worse.

This happens everywhere where software is made, it's part of the business. Such a decision isn't taken lightly and it shows ZOS's commitment to the game.

Or, at least, the product manager perceives the fear of losing customers as part of the problem in the short term. In the long-term, the product manager is going to lose customers either way if that bandaid fix fails to work.

Its a gamble, based on short-term thinking.
If pursuing other, less expensive solutions fixes the problem, the product manager is a genius!
If pursuing other, less expensive solutions doesn't fix the problem, then the product manager is now dealing with customers who feel strung along and worse coding in the end. Oh, and they still have to pay the original projected cost and probably more in order to deal with the spaghetti code piled on in those failed attempts.

I suspect, in this analogy, we're dealing with ZOS at the losing end of that gamble. Perhaps its understandable that they chose this way of dealing with it, but in hindsight, it looks an awful lot like the old joke about how "When you find yourself deep in a hole, stop digging."

None of the less expensive fixes have worked.
The PVP community is fed up and shedding players compared to even two years ago.
The problems are starting to spill over into PVE group content.
Now they have to pay the accumulated cost of recoding the original problem and the spaghetti code.

Now, hindsight is absolutely 20/20.
I supported the Cyrodiil tests, and if that's what got the Devs the data they needed to be absolutely certain that this re-architecture was the only way forward and got the money they needed to make it work, great!

I'm not happy that its taken this long for the decision-makers to finally let the Devs stop digging, but at least its happened.

Aquatorch

Reading this made me extremely sad...

I was, unfortunately, living in willful ignorance about the lag in PvP. I just kept telling myself over and over again that, "ZOS knows it's an issue and they are constantly working on it. They will release the solution that solves the problem any update now."

However, I was clearly wrong and reading the post by Matt Firor, I think it's pretty clear that they haven't been working on a solution this entire time. Most likely because the solution required so much work. So now that they are 'supposedly' going to start working on it, we can expect more than a year, probably two+ for any possible changes that actually affect game-play for the positive.

Most of my friends and guild have decided to un-subscribe over Matt's post and I can only imagine the backlash will cost ZOS $millions in losses. Although they all enjoy the game, knowing that there is zero chance of lag improvement for at least one year, if not multiple kind of makes it clear that it'd be complete insanity to continue.

So now here I am, left with the dilemma of, "should I un-sub as well?" I suppose I should really, but at this point I regret the massive amount of money I've spent on crowns over the last few years, especially knowing it wasn't going towards them improving the game's performance. Had I only known no one was actually working on resolving the lag, I would've quit many years ago and could have saved many, many, thousands of dollars that I've clearly just thrown away.

ShalidorsHeir

Aquatorch wrote: »

Reading this made me extremely sad...

I was, unfortunately, living in willful ignorance about the lag in PvP. I just kept telling myself over and over again that, "ZOS knows it's an issue and they are constantly working on it. They will release the solution that solves the problem any update now."

However, I was clearly wrong and reading the post by Matt Firor, I think it's pretty clear that they haven't been working on a solution this entire time. Most likely because the solution required so much work. So now that they are 'supposedly' going to start working on it, we can expect more than a year, probably two+ for any possible changes that actually affect game-play for the positive.

Most of my friends and guild have decided to un-subscribe over Matt's post and I can only imagine the backlash will cost ZOS $millions in losses. Although they all enjoy the game, knowing that there is zero chance of lag improvement for at least one year, if not multiple kind of makes it clear that it'd be complete insanity to continue.

So now here I am, left with the dilemma of, "should I un-sub as well?" I suppose I should really, but at this point I regret the massive amount of money I've spent on crowns over the last few years, especially knowing it wasn't going towards them improving the game's performance. Had I only known no one was actually working on resolving the lag, I would've quit many years ago and could have saved many, many, thousands of dollars that I've clearly just thrown away.

Then you should not unsub ESO+.... but you pack out the big middle finger towards your "dudes" like "ohh you really need to manage your inventory and bank space?"

Seriously, if you enjoy the game so much that it means something to you then would you pay for it if you have not read matts comment? The answer to this is the answer to you dilemma. Its just different things if you pay because you like it or you do not pay because that one thing is still not there even if the rest is fine. besides that this "they never worked on anything" is a misleading simplification of what really happened, much spiced with fake news and wrong information.

Most of us have been playing PvP for years no matter what some statement of ZOS includes or exposes.

Elsonso

Faulgor wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

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.

I mean, that's what ZOS said at the beginning of last year - that they wouldn't implement big new systems in 2021.
Curated item drops might have been impactful on the player side, but apparently it wasn't as impactful on the development side?

Actually, at the end of 2020, ZOS said they would devote more time overall to stability and game performance and less time to new game systems. One year later, we know that this meant starting to roll out cold storage, multi-threaded rendering, and starting work on the server core software work. Additionally, it meant that the new companions system would be rolled out.

I am not sure I consider curated drops to be a "system", at the scale we are talking about. It might be a peanut butter sandwich for dinner compared to a 5 course French dinner. Not that there is anything wrong with peanut butter sandwiches.

Lysette wrote: »

I expect that group content and pvp won't get something new, because how the new server will handle these things might not be clear yet - if it still has to be designed - I guess that they have an idea how to, but the proof is in the pudding - when they will have started on designing and implementing it, they will see where problems are - this is a creative process and as such one has to allow them to make mistakes and correct them or even toss out whole parts, because they aren't as successful as expected - design work is a bit unpredictable and therefore they cannot really know how long it will take - I think what Matt said is very honest - he didn't promise anything, he gave an outlook on what is expected performance-wise and as well seen from how long it might take.

Personally, I think it is designed. I think that is what they did in 2021. Although he mentioned work only in the last part of 2021, and says that it is starting now, I expect that the reality is that people have been working on this since the did the testing in 2020. This work has probably been more R&D than practical, though.

The design may change over the course of the year, but something this big does not get presented to the Studio Director with an asterisk that says "trust me".

I also think that this will be delayed. Projects this big tend to have delays. It will be a firestorm of "told you so" and "they lied" on social media. PVP is dead. ESO is dead. ZOS is dead. Time to go play New World Relauch. You know... the standard stuff. I have time to buy popcorn, though. They won't tell us that it is delayed until the end of the year.

Abnaxos wrote: »

I work in software development. Not in gaming, but in the end, games are software and software is software. This is how it works. Been there, done that, again and again and again.

(removed long quote, go back and look if you want to read it all)

VaranisArano wrote: »

None of the less expensive fixes have worked.
The PVP community is fed up and shedding players compared to even two years ago.
The problems are starting to spill over into PVE group content.
Now they have to pay the accumulated cost of recoding the original problem and the spaghetti code.

(removed long quote, go back and look if you want to read it all)

I don't think it really rolled out like this. While there may have been a programmer that said "rewrite it!", my guess is that no one really understood what the problem was until 2020. Or, at least, they think they understand, now.

Yes, they tried various things, and those things did not have a profound effect. I will debate that they did have a positive effect, just not what they were looking for, and not enough to keep up with the growth of the game.

I am also reminded of "the onion" that Rich mentioned a few years back when they were at the stage of removing the deer from Cyrodiil. In that model, they see a problem and fix it, but fixing it reveals that it was not the whole problem, and there is more to the problem. This continues, like layers of an onion, until the core issue is found. It is based on the premise that there is not just one thing that needs to be fixed. The onion was a good analogy, and one that I was professionally familiar with.

So, I really don't expect that it was "find a cheaper and faster answer" as much as "that did not work, what is next". (I realize that this shows a distinct lack of forum cynicism ).

Aquatorch

ShalidorsHeir wrote: »

Aquatorch wrote: »

Reading this made me extremely sad...

I was, unfortunately, living in willful ignorance about the lag in PvP. I just kept telling myself over and over again that, "ZOS knows it's an issue and they are constantly working on it. They will release the solution that solves the problem any update now."

However, I was clearly wrong and reading the post by Matt Firor, I think it's pretty clear that they haven't been working on a solution this entire time. Most likely because the solution required so much work. So now that they are 'supposedly' going to start working on it, we can expect more than a year, probably two+ for any possible changes that actually affect game-play for the positive.

Most of my friends and guild have decided to un-subscribe over Matt's post and I can only imagine the backlash will cost ZOS $millions in losses. Although they all enjoy the game, knowing that there is zero chance of lag improvement for at least one year, if not multiple kind of makes it clear that it'd be complete insanity to continue.

So now here I am, left with the dilemma of, "should I un-sub as well?" I suppose I should really, but at this point I regret the massive amount of money I've spent on crowns over the last few years, especially knowing it wasn't going towards them improving the game's performance. Had I only known no one was actually working on resolving the lag, I would've quit many years ago and could have saved many, many, thousands of dollars that I've clearly just thrown away.

Then you should not unsub ESO+.... but you pack out the big middle finger towards your "dudes" like "ohh you really need to manage your inventory and bank space?"

Seriously, if you enjoy the game so much that it means something to you then would you pay for it if have not read matts comment? The answer to this is the answer to you dilemma. besides that this "they never worked on anything" is a misleading simplification of what really happened, much spiced with fake news and wrong information.

The thing is that had I known many years ago that the lag would be like this until now and then another 1-2+ years, I would've never continued with this game. I've endured a great deal of hardship due to this lag and I've only accepted it because of the belief that they were fixing it. Most people in the game, myself included, believed the lag would be resolved Q4 2021 with the hardware tech refresh. However, due to COVID related global shortages, I understood that it was being pushed back until this year. Now that I know the hardware refresh isn't the issue and won't resolve it, I 100% regret ever throwing my money away into this game.

Baccarooda

Ok then, you have my attention!!
I look forward to returning to the game once these changes have been implemented.

Jabassa

Finally! Thank you, I’ll be looking forward to watching this over the next year. It’s a shame all that had to happen to get here, a real shame, but there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel now. Hopefully some of the old players will hear about this and return. 🤔

kwinter

So is this a sign that Microsoft is committed to the future of ESO and making sure they have the resources to finally improve the game performance

ks888

Murky_Dregs wrote: »

It's long past time that you upgrade your architecture. It's good to hear that plans are finally in work.

I've run many program, project, & development teams in my career ($600m+portfolio), and the offhand comments made by Rich's wife speak volumes regarding the mindset of the ZoS team.

Her remarks were incredibly candid and are definitely a real glimpse into how your people feel.

Given the glib customer disregard displayed, how do you plan to address that issue, meaning your team's professional resolve regarding the matter, in order to ensure delivery of the quality product that many of us pay well over hundreds of dollars a year for and deserve?

^^^ this

LightningWitch

YOU. NEED. TO. CREATE. A. CONSOLE. PUBLIC. TEST. SERVER.

It's long overdue. Each time you give out PTS testing, the only feedback you all seem to get is what the new procs do.

There are far more players on console than on PC, so it's best if this audience can test these changes.

I understand in-house development is using PC based SDKs, but this shouldn't be an excuse not to build a PTS server for consoles.

I believe will provide far more feedback from the active player base than the few who then rush to their Twitch channel the moment the NDA is lifted to talk about the new builds.