Zavijah_Arventi wrote: »If you don't want a no proc campaign anymore and you're concerned about zero population then pretend it doesn't exist and roll on Grey Host where you get exactly what you want.
If you don't like the lag, or volume of people, or potential queueing, then a new campaign isn't going to fix that. They said at beginning of year after Rich's wife mouth off that there would be a development coming in 2023 so hold out then.
If a megaservers' good enough for PVE, it's good enough for PVP.
You don't have the population and haven't for a long time, outside of the incentivised holiday events, to justify.
Just consolidate.
On the 23rd of August it'll have been a year since the Ravenwatch Cyrodiil campaign was permanently made into a no proc environment and I thought it'd be worth taking a moment to stir up the old ghosts and talk about it and its future. In this post I'll provide a recap of why Ravenwatch is a no proc campaign and some suggestions for the devs to chew on if they intend for it to stay that way.
For those unfamiliar with the reasons why the campaign was made no proc in the first place, a bit of a history lesson - proc sets (sets that fire when some condition is met) used to have pretty harsh conditions behind them to restrict their power. There used to exist a small % chance for them to trigger on say, a light attack or a critical hit, but, as a result of an ongoing effort to reduce calculations performed by the server, a patch came along where those conditions were vastly simplified to the point where most of them became 100% guaranteed to proc. As a result, proc sets became rampant in PvP, for 6-7 months most of your death recaps were made up mostly, if not entirely, of procs. Sets like Venomous Smite, Sheer Venom, Unleashed Terror, Merciless Charge, Wrath of Elements, Caluurion's Legacy, Frenzied Momentum and others were pretty much everywhere because of the ease of access to damage and power they now brought with them. On top of that, when the CP rework patch came, everyone just gained a thousand extra weapon and spell damage and a few thousand extra health, stamina and magicka for free, which made said proc sets hit even harder. Kill times were pretty brutal, you could and would be killed in less than the time it took you to break free at times. So then, after months of complaints to address procs came the no proc patch, originally proposed to last 6 months while they worked on adjusting the power behind proc sets, and ultimately being reduced to a 3 month period after the uproar from the community. For 3 months all campaigns were restricted to about 20 or so sets, all stat based like Shacklebreaker and Crafty Alfiq.
The initial reaction from the community was positive and I remember seeing names I'd not seen in a long time returning to Cyrodiil to check out the changes. It was refreshing playing the game again, seeing skills and not procs on your death recap for a change (yes, it was that bad). This initial hype didn't last, however, and within weeks many people were already looking forward to having procs back, as the lack of sets made one of the game's main strengths - the theorycrafting around builds - all but non existent. With the Blackwood chapter procs were re-enabled once again on all campaigns, only to be once again disabled on Ravenwatch with the following patch. That was the last time we heard about procs from the developers and since August of 2021 Ravenwatch has remained no proc.
Now, I'm someone that's played on Ravenwatch pre- and post- no proc as my main server. And I gotta say, I'm concerned about its future. Ravenwatch, at least on PC EU, used to be as popular as Grey Host. I know that is not the case on other megaservers, but to us, it was as much a main campaign as the CP one. It used to be pop locked every day by 4-5 PM and it was always action packed. A year into no proc and Ravenwatch is a 1-2 bar ghost town till 8-9 PM, after which time it becomes the laggy playground of the ballgroups. I stopped logging in during the day as I see the same 10-20 people everywhere I go, there's noone left to fight. A lot of players have moved to Grey Host as they're sick of the limited selection of sets, or have just outright quit the game, and as for new players, which I often hear content creators recommending to go to Ravenwatch - I doubt most of them are even aware that the campaign has special rules enabled and that their sets more than likely don't work there, and even if they do, I doubt many will go out of their way to make a no proc setup and stick around.
Indeed, outside of the first few days of the recent midyear mayhem, I've felt that the server's population has been steadily shrinking, and I've had less and less reason and motivation to log in and play myself, aside from hanging out with the few active friends I've left. So here I'd like to propose a few suggestions to the devs for their consideration, if they intend to keep Ravenwatch the way it is currently, that can maybe even make it appealing to those low CP new players that come into ESO and want to check out PvP.
1) Create an intuitive UI that makes it clear what works and what doesn't in no proc. Something like a set's five piece bonus being displayed in red instead of white, to indicate it is disabled, along with a line below that clarifies this bonus does not work within the campaign. Currently the only way to know that proc sets are disabled at all is a tiny bit of text under the campaign selection menu when you have Ravenwatch selected; there is nothing in the UI to indicate that a specific set doesn't work. I believe there should be an easier in game way of visually distinguishing allowed and banned sets, especially if you intend this server to continue with this ruleset in the future.
2) To know what sets actually work, you need to hunt down and sift through a patch notes post from last year, or find them on one of a few 3rd party websites where they'll have 'em listed. This is what you currently have to do if you want to PvP in Ravenwatch. And that's not even including the sets that are not on that list that have been tested and discovered to work by the players, or new sets that have come out in the year since. New sets that are released have not had any mention of working or not working in no proc environments in the patch notes, and, there is currently no no proc server environment to test them on the PTS, there is only Grey Host. What that means is that any new sets that are released that look like they might work in Ravenwatch, have to be player tested on the live servers to discover whether they in fact do or don't. One recent example that comes to mind is the Oakensoul Ring. Yes, it works in Ravenwatch. No, we didn't know about that before the chapter went live and people farmed the leads and took it to Ravenwatch to find out if it works or not. I still have no clue if any of the other new mythics work or not, and I am a Ravenwatch main. That's how bad it is. For this reason I propose keeping an updated, pinned, official list here on the forums, for maximum visibility, along with the proposed UI changes in 1). And maybe give us a heads up in the patch notes, hey, this set works in no proc, woo. Then maybe I'd want to go on the pts again.
3) Speaking of sets, how about adding a few more sets that'll work in Ravenwatch. Some folks have mentioned how stat based proc sets like Clever Alchemist or Bone Pirate should work in no proc, and I'm inclined to agree. The current list, accessibility aside, leaves very little room to maneuver and play around with, so it might be time to take another look at what could be added to expand the available options.
4) Similarly, how about making some of the new sets you add each patch work in no proc as well. I'm not asking for a patch where every dungeon or zone set works in there, but one, maybe two out of the bunch? A prime recent example would've been something like Order's Wrath, a set that on paper looked like it'd work in no proc, but doesn't.
Finally, you need to decide if you really want to keep Ravenwatch no proc. Me personally, I've enjoyed it both proc and no proc, but the dwindling player numbers, for what a year ago was a server that rivaled Grey Host on PC EU, speak volumes that this current situation isn't going to be good for the long term health of the server.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
On the 23rd of August it'll have been a year since the Ravenwatch Cyrodiil campaign was permanently made into a no proc environment and I thought it'd be worth taking a moment to stir up the old ghosts and talk about it and its future. In this post I'll provide a recap of why Ravenwatch is a no proc campaign and some suggestions for the devs to chew on if they intend for it to stay that way.
For those unfamiliar with the reasons why the campaign was made no proc in the first place, a bit of a history lesson - proc sets (sets that fire when some condition is met) used to have pretty harsh conditions behind them to restrict their power. There used to exist a small % chance for them to trigger on say, a light attack or a critical hit, but, as a result of an ongoing effort to reduce calculations performed by the server, a patch came along where those conditions were vastly simplified to the point where most of them became 100% guaranteed to proc. As a result, proc sets became rampant in PvP, for 6-7 months most of your death recaps were made up mostly, if not entirely, of procs. Sets like Venomous Smite, Sheer Venom, Unleashed Terror, Merciless Charge, Wrath of Elements, Caluurion's Legacy, Frenzied Momentum and others were pretty much everywhere because of the ease of access to damage and power they now brought with them. On top of that, when the CP rework patch came, everyone just gained a thousand extra weapon and spell damage and a few thousand extra health, stamina and magicka for free, which made said proc sets hit even harder. Kill times were pretty brutal, you could and would be killed in less than the time it took you to break free at times. So then, after months of complaints to address procs came the no proc patch, originally proposed to last 6 months while they worked on adjusting the power behind proc sets, and ultimately being reduced to a 3 month period after the uproar from the community. For 3 months all campaigns were restricted to about 20 or so sets, all stat based like Shacklebreaker and Crafty Alfiq.
The initial reaction from the community was positive and I remember seeing names I'd not seen in a long time returning to Cyrodiil to check out the changes. It was refreshing playing the game again, seeing skills and not procs on your death recap for a change (yes, it was that bad). This initial hype didn't last, however, and within weeks many people were already looking forward to having procs back, as the lack of sets made one of the game's main strengths - the theorycrafting around builds - all but non existent. With the Blackwood chapter procs were re-enabled once again on all campaigns, only to be once again disabled on Ravenwatch with the following patch. That was the last time we heard about procs from the developers and since August of 2021 Ravenwatch has remained no proc.
Now, I'm someone that's played on Ravenwatch pre- and post- no proc as my main server. And I gotta say, I'm concerned about its future. Ravenwatch, at least on PC EU, used to be as popular as Grey Host. I know that is not the case on other megaservers, but to us, it was as much a main campaign as the CP one. It used to be pop locked every day by 4-5 PM and it was always action packed. A year into no proc and Ravenwatch is a 1-2 bar ghost town till 8-9 PM, after which time it becomes the laggy playground of the ballgroups. I stopped logging in during the day as I see the same 10-20 people everywhere I go, there's noone left to fight. A lot of players have moved to Grey Host as they're sick of the limited selection of sets, or have just outright quit the game, and as for new players, which I often hear content creators recommending to go to Ravenwatch - I doubt most of them are even aware that the campaign has special rules enabled and that their sets more than likely don't work there, and even if they do, I doubt many will go out of their way to make a no proc setup and stick around.
Indeed, outside of the first few days of the recent midyear mayhem, I've felt that the server's population has been steadily shrinking, and I've had less and less reason and motivation to log in and play myself, aside from hanging out with the few active friends I've left. So here I'd like to propose a few suggestions to the devs for their consideration, if they intend to keep Ravenwatch the way it is currently, that can maybe even make it appealing to those low CP new players that come into ESO and want to check out PvP.
1) Create an intuitive UI that makes it clear what works and what doesn't in no proc. Something like a set's five piece bonus being displayed in red instead of white, to indicate it is disabled, along with a line below that clarifies this bonus does not work within the campaign. Currently the only way to know that proc sets are disabled at all is a tiny bit of text under the campaign selection menu when you have Ravenwatch selected; there is nothing in the UI to indicate that a specific set doesn't work. I believe there should be an easier in game way of visually distinguishing allowed and banned sets, especially if you intend this server to continue with this ruleset in the future.
2) To know what sets actually work, you need to hunt down and sift through a patch notes post from last year, or find them on one of a few 3rd party websites where they'll have 'em listed. This is what you currently have to do if you want to PvP in Ravenwatch. And that's not even including the sets that are not on that list that have been tested and discovered to work by the players, or new sets that have come out in the year since. New sets that are released have not had any mention of working or not working in no proc environments in the patch notes, and, there is currently no no proc server environment to test them on the PTS, there is only Grey Host. What that means is that any new sets that are released that look like they might work in Ravenwatch, have to be player tested on the live servers to discover whether they in fact do or don't. One recent example that comes to mind is the Oakensoul Ring. Yes, it works in Ravenwatch. No, we didn't know about that before the chapter went live and people farmed the leads and took it to Ravenwatch to find out if it works or not. I still have no clue if any of the other new mythics work or not, and I am a Ravenwatch main. That's how bad it is. For this reason I propose keeping an updated, pinned, official list here on the forums, for maximum visibility, along with the proposed UI changes in 1). And maybe give us a heads up in the patch notes, hey, this set works in no proc, woo. Then maybe I'd want to go on the pts again.
3) Speaking of sets, how about adding a few more sets that'll work in Ravenwatch. Some folks have mentioned how stat based proc sets like Clever Alchemist or Bone Pirate should work in no proc, and I'm inclined to agree. The current list, accessibility aside, leaves very little room to maneuver and play around with, so it might be time to take another look at what could be added to expand the available options.
4) Similarly, how about making some of the new sets you add each patch work in no proc as well. I'm not asking for a patch where every dungeon or zone set works in there, but one, maybe two out of the bunch? A prime recent example would've been something like Order's Wrath, a set that on paper looked like it'd work in no proc, but doesn't.
Finally, you need to decide if you really want to keep Ravenwatch no proc. Me personally, I've enjoyed it both proc and no proc, but the dwindling player numbers, for what a year ago was a server that rivaled Grey Host on PC EU, speak volumes that this current situation isn't going to be good for the long term health of the server.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
...
2) To know what sets actually work, you need to hunt down and sift through a patch notes post from last year, or find them on one of a few 3rd party websites where they'll have 'em listed. This is what you currently have to do if you want to PvP in Ravenwatch. And that's not even including the sets that are not on that list that have been tested and discovered to work by the players, or new sets that have come out in the year since. New sets that are released have not had any mention of working or not working in no proc environments in the patch notes, and, there is currently no no proc server environment to test them on the PTS, there is only Grey Host. What that means is that any new sets that are released that look like they might work in Ravenwatch, have to be player tested on the live servers to discover whether they in fact do or don't. One recent example that comes to mind is the Oakensoul Ring. Yes, it works in Ravenwatch. No, we didn't know about that before the chapter went live and people farmed the leads and took it to Ravenwatch to find out if it works or not. I still have no clue if any of the other new mythics work or not, and I am a Ravenwatch main. That's how bad it is. For this reason I propose keeping an updated, pinned, official list here on the forums, for maximum visibility, along with the proposed UI changes in 1). And maybe give us a heads up in the patch notes, hey, this set works in no proc, woo. Then maybe I'd want to go on the pts again.
3) Speaking of sets, how about adding a few more sets that'll work in Ravenwatch. Some folks have mentioned how stat based proc sets like Clever Alchemist or Bone Pirate should work in no proc, and I'm inclined to agree. The current list, accessibility aside, leaves very little room to maneuver and play around with, so it might be time to take another look at what could be added to expand the available options...
- Update 23Ice Furnace: This item set now grants Spell Damage, rather than Weapon Damage for the 4 piece bonus
I do try to keep the unofficial list as updated as I can but I’m an Xbox player, so I have to wait 2 weeks after PC gets their patch to even begin to collect stuff. I do rely on community members to help test stuff too somewhat.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/580810/no-proc-no-cp-set-list/p1
Like I said though. I’m just some random player. There must be a better way than relying on my manual testing. Like grey or red out the lines that don’t work in game, or put an official and maintained list somewhere. Or both.
dinokstrunz wrote: »Bring back old ravenwatch no proc rule set has forced a lot of players to leave Cyrodiil. BGs shouldn't be the only place to play no CP with procs enabled especially because of the awful waiting times.
MajorSnakeFox wrote: »Ravenwatch is unfortunately very laggy. The big guilds (Ballgroups) like Legacy or Vodka know how to cause this lag and actively exploit it for themselves. Actually, the performance should be better on this server, but it is not. Yesterday in the evening it was once again unplayable because somewhere at the end of the map the ballgroups brought the server to its knees.
Grandesdar wrote: »TL;DR?
xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »Long ago I played ravenwatch, but when they removed proc sets I left. They should just disable dark convergence, plague break, and vicious death. Actually probably mara's and nocturnal's as well. Ravenwatch would be reborn. So many people are tired of dark convergence and the bomb meta on greyhost.
They had initially said that they were going to monitor the population of RW for a bit to see if they’ll have to change again, if I remember. I don’t think we’ve really heard anything about that though.