Charging Maneuver casting without effect in Cyrodiil (Blackreach)

BardInSolitude

It has been noted by my guildmates multiple times, but I finally got a glimpse of this bug myself. In the following video clip, taken from my group's Wednesday Cyrodiil raid, you can see me cast Charging Maneuver (Rapids), with the animation clearly showing and stamina consumed but no effect gained or cooldown initiated. Over long time spans, upwards of a minute, I was consistently not able to get Major and Minor Expedition by casting Rapids.

As you can see from the (admittedly often inaccurate) player counter, not particularly many players were around at the time, only my group of 18 and maybe a few friendly PUGs, and no fight was going on that would justify this as input lag. And unlike actual input lag, where the skill doesn't go off to begin with, here Rapids clearly does go off and it even consumes resources without effect.

Here's the clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS08kL2nNp4

Dr_Con

Maybe the servers were coping with the fact that you have 6 hots stacked on you.

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding

BardInSolitude

Dr_Con wrote: »

Maybe the servers were coping with the fact that you have 6 hots stacked on you.

1. If the servers can't cope, we need new servers. Stacking HoTs is part of the game.
2. This is probably not a server issue, as only Rapids was affected. While under typical skill lag, skills take 1-2s to go off, but here Rapids clearly does go off but does not provide its effect.

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Dr_Con wrote: »

Maybe the servers were coping with the fact that you have 6 hots stacked on you.

1. If the servers can't cope, we need new servers. Stacking HoTs is part of the game.

Stacking hot, in my opinion, is the most broken mechaning in the game exploited by every organized group to feel good when dealing with random players.
If they would remove it the PvP experience would be 100% better (maybe not for those 12 people playing ball group)

Also, why rapids give 8 second to one entire group when single player skill give 4/6 sec?

Elendir2am

I could make also comment about how I "like" blue zerg with stucked HoT, swarming anything in their path. But it isn't theme of this thread. So let's return to it.

I know, that "Take Flight" often trigger initial animation (I spread my wings), but then get canceled without good reason. However it don't consume ultimate fortunately.
I would normally expect, that conditions for skills are fulfilled and skill trigger or some condition isn't fulfilled and it don't start. But my experiences with game say, that it could be canceled, although conditions were fulfilled. This can lead to canceling skill after consuming resources, what shouldn't be possible.

You made me curious by the way. Where was it hiding?

Dr_Con

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Dr_Con wrote: »

Maybe the servers were coping with the fact that you have 6 hots stacked on you.

1. If the servers can't cope, we need new servers. Stacking HoTs is part of the game.
2. This is probably not a server issue, as only Rapids was affected. While under typical skill lag, skills take 1-2s to go off, but here Rapids clearly does go off but does not provide its effect.

I think something or someone else is the one who needs to cope. The servers were upgraded and are a shared resource, every one of 12 people having 2 hots stacked each is 24 hots per person, amounting to 288 ticking heals per group on top of receiving input from 12 people to cast vigor one time each and RR 4+ times. Any additional buff is 12 more things the server needs to account for. Then receiving heals on top of any heal proc buffs like spc and combat physician, add in rapids and enemies trying in vain to damage you and it's going to create latency issues, as is clearly visible in the bottom left corner of your screen where it says your ping is 280ms. Plus you already have Major Expedition for 16 seconds when you decide to cast Charging Maneuver... Sorry but Major Expedition doesn't stack like heals do, have you explored the possibility of the minor expedition not going off because major expedition was already up and a longer duration?

Just enjoy it while you can. In other games, I know they intentionally heal stack to cause servers to lag/crash so enemies can't get into a zone or have a hard time doing it, and it's not 12 people firing off 288 healing effects, but more like 30 people chaining 3 effects each. Groups in ESO are causing other people to lag and crash as well with this playstyle and making them unable to break free or roll dodge, causing them to miss benefits from their skills as well like this. At this point I'm almost positive ball groups among many others knows this.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno Heal stacking needs to be looked into due to latency and missed skill issues it causes, or you need to add in a compensating feature like a time dilation effect in Cyrodiil (slow motion) to give servers time to process all the inputs and outputs. Limiting how many people in the zone to an arbitrary amount is clearly not working anymore, while it may have freed up resources at first people have min-maxed their way to causing harm to the servers through stacking skills rather than number of bodies.

BardInSolitude

Elendir2am wrote: »

You made me curious by the way. Where was it hiding?

Where was what hiding?

BardInSolitude

Also, on an unrelated note, I'm really sad that some people want to turn this discussion about a real functional issue with the game into an excuse to attack other players. I would really recommend you guys join a ball group and maybe you'd like it, and see why we like it, too. My group is open to players of all skill and experience levels - as long as they have an open mind and a willingness to work and improve.

Cheers!

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

No one is attacking other players.

Me, and others, only think that healing stacking is a broken mechanic and ball groups are just good at exploiting it.

Add to that that fighting a ball group is the most boring thing that this game has to offer, you always do the exact same thing, over and over, and over, fighting a BG is just fighting a trial boss, you just have to learn the mechanics.

I would really recommend you to play outside a ball group, you could find that fighting good players instead of wiping randoms that don't know anything about pvp is a lot more interesting.

Have fun.

Lebkuchen

I never noticed it with this buff, but i have seen it with aoe damage, and especially with heals. I was casting a groupheal, lost magicka, but could not see the numbers and nobody received the heals. Sometimes skills cost resources but just disappear into thin air. It's like losing all of my stamina while i am on my mount. Or when my healthbar gets stuck somewhere under 100% and shrinks every time i switch bars. I do not know why they put these features in the game, but they sure make pvp more interesting

I hope you can get some better answers than the ones you already got, but i fear the forums will not be able to help you with this. 99% of bug reports just get ignored and most bugs stay in the game forever.

To the off topic posters: Yes, we could all play without weapons, gear, abilities, groups, heals, bambis in the woods and whatever you think is responsible for the poor performance of the game. Maybe they will test a version of Cyrodiil where only two players at a time are allowed to run around naked and fight each other with their fists. To make pvp a fair game for everyone... Who am i kidding, i would probably play it. But until then we will just have to think of this MMORPG as a group game...

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

Lebkuchen wrote: »

To the off topic posters: Yes, we could all play without weapons, gear, abilities, groups, heals, bambis in the woods and game...

I would just be happy to not play against someone that has 8 stacks of heals on himself.

DrSlaughtr

The server and (more importantly) the code cannot handle over-casting HoTs and AOEs. This is just reality. I wish it wasn't the case, but despite claims otherwise, this behavior does cause performance issues, both for those engaging in it, and those simply in the area. ZoS continues to not address it.

HoT stacking is an issue. Continuously reapplying effects before they have expired is an issue. The game simply cannot handle it. It sucks that these things are preventing people in ball groups from having their skills register, but it sucks just as much for people battling over a keep to grind to a standstill because a ball group ran across the map to the combat marker.

BardInSolitude

MrLasagna wrote: »

I would just be happy to not play against someone that has 8 stacks of heals on himself.

8 is an understatement - and the reason you saw only 6 on my video is because we were out of combat at the time. A good ball group will have at least 12-16 sticky HoTs on them at any given time. Last night my effects bar was so full that it was constantly bleeding over the edges of my screen - and that's how it should be. And, yeah, farming PUGs can get boring after a while, but that's why most ball groups switch it up and attack other ball groups.

Anyhow, we'd still be able to farm PUGs without sticky HoTs. When I joined my first ball group three years ago we used to have 8 healers in a 24-man group (back when that was a thing) and they all ran ground AoE HoTs like Illustrious, Path, Ritual, etc, but no Echoing or Regen because the GM thought it encouraged people to stray off crown. So, yeah, the idea that stacked sticky HoTs are broken is really misguided - besides being horribly off-topic and detracting attention from a real, tangible issue with the game that I'm trying to report in this thread.

The matter of the fact is that the game is designed with sticky HoTs in mind, so if the server can't handle them it's the server's problem, not mine. Ultimately ESO is a team game and no matter what the conditions are, an optimally organised group will always be superior to the same (and even greater) number of disorganised individuals.

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

BardInSolitude wrote: »

And, yeah, farming PUGs can get boring after a while, but that's why most ball groups switch it up and attack other ball groups.

The matter of the fact is that the game is designed with sticky HoTs in mind, so if the server can't handle them it's the server's problem, not mine..

I really would love to see that. In years of fightinh in PC EU never seen a ball group attack another, when happened that they were on the same keep they just keep their distance.

As I said, ball groupers are only good at exploting broken mechanics, just because a mechanic is in the game doesn't mean it's not broken. You can think otherwise, fact is, without that mechanic ball groups would collapse, remove any mechanic from a good PvPer, he would remain a good PvPer.

BardInSolitude

Here, this is my group (Wolves Evermore) engaging in combat against Shogunate, another well-known and capable PC/NA/BR ball group:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZflPhBtNpw4
We fight with them on a regular basis; sometimes they beat us, sometimes we beat them. Overall it's extremely fun to try and account for the playstyle of each group, as we all have different approaches on damage and healing. Shogunate, for instance, seems to rely a lot on their Destro dumps, whereas we focus more on synergies.

Ball-v-ball fighting is extremely common and is typically referred to as GvG (guild-v-guild) within the ball group community; the fact that you're not aware of it is not proof of anything of substance. I will not be entertaining your responses any longer as I have already made arguments which you've ignored; and, besides, you're off-topic. I recommend that you post your views on one of many anti-ball threads in this forum, as they will be appreciated much more there.

Cheers.

doesurmindglow

I'm in a ball group that fights Bard's group fairly often (ggs btw), so I can confirm personally that group v group PVP does, in fact, happen quite often. It's actually our preferred gameplay at least for our group; I find those fights much more challenging and engaging than a relatively mindless pug farm.

They are also (and this is very important) much, much less laggy.

Lag is rarely an issue in gvg with groups both properly healing, so it stands to reason HOT stacking hardly has a performance impact. The lag is introduced instead when you have 60-80 players zerging the rare 12 who are actually optimized for group play; and ultimately it's the developers' responsibility to improve and maintain performance, not the players'.

Further, we just nerfed HOTs in this last patch. It changed nothing.

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Further, we just nerfed HOTs in this last patch. It changed nothing.

They nerfed the 12 heal stacks you have on yourself?
But don't worry, next patch they will introduce a mythic that will give Ball Groups immortality

DrSlaughtr

I gotta be honest here.

A ball group player complaining that the 60 to 80 players chasing them are causing the lag is the most ball groupy thing I've heard since I stopped doing ball groups.

You purposefully create a group that requires overwhelming odds to defeat then complain that those overwhelming odds are lagging YOU out as they try to kill you.

PVP ball groups are equivalent of vCR+3 world record speed runners. It's about maximizing the every cheese strat available. Nothing wrong with it but let's not pretend like it's some grand, noble gameplay style.

Have I seen ball groups fight one another? Occasionally. But more often I see them racing up and down opposite sides of a keep, alternating pushes against players that are screwed if they stay and screwed if they leave.

Comp groups have benefited in every update for a year now. Healers are tanks. Negates barely useful against them. 15 ticks of HoTs on everyone. Speed. Cleanse. Garbage individual damage so it's all just stall stall stall until ultimate dump.

Not impressed.

Elendir2am

@BardInSolitude

High resist, high health, a lot of HoT stacked. When you play this way, you should expect negative reaction. It is very annoying to fight blue faction stack with super tanky HoT bal group as core.

I play on different server, but your flag evoke in me all this blue faction stackers from EU PC server.

React

Can't say I feel bad about charging maneuvers, when it is exclusively used by groups like yours for an exploitative playstyle that is quite literally ruining the game for everyone else in cyrodill.

The fact is, there is an observable decrease in performance every time a group like yours is present in a fight. As others mentioned, this is primarily due to the practice of "hot stacking". This practice causes an insane number of calculations per second - partially because the abilities are being pressed each second by people who have no other role to worry about, but also because those heals are then going through exponentially more calculations as they scale on every member of your tightly-balled 12 man.

Now, I don't blame you for playing this way. It is undoubtedly effective and extremely easy to do, and you'd be a fool not to do this if your goal is large scale pvp or cyrodiil objectives. However, the current version of this playstyle is undeniably broken and needs an adjustment. Heal over Time abilities should not stack with themselves more than twice, i.e you should only be able to have two radiating regens and two echoing vigors active at any given time. Same goes for ground hots. There also should be a penalty for healing received from other players when you're in a 6 man or larger group, scaling per player over 6. Finally, the snow treaders should either be reworked, or disabled in groups larger than 6.

You say you'd adapt just fine to whatever is done to heal stacking - I truly would love to see it. Back in the day you could actually combat groups like yours as a bomber, or in a highly skilled 4-6 man group. This is no longer possible because your current playstyle is so broken that the only counterplay is a similarly sized group of players doing the same thing.

Lebkuchen

Ok, i just tested it for a while, with the hammer in my group, and it has to do with the hammer. As long as you have the hammer speed buff for more than 8 seconds you can not get Minor Expedition from Charging Maneuver. At least you can not see it next to your other buffs. But you can buff yourself with Hurricane (sorc skill).

BardInSolitude

Lebkuchen wrote: »

Ok, i just tested it for a while, with the hammer in my group, and it has to do with the hammer. As long as you have the hammer speed buff for more than 8 seconds you can not get Minor Expedition from Charging Maneuver. At least you can not see it next to your other buffs. But you can buff yourself with Hurricane (sorc skill).

Wow, finally a useful piece of input. This is fascinating, I was not aware that this was a mechanic - or perhaps a bug? This is still rather baffling but it's very good to know, and I will try to check out myself next time my group happens to get hammer.