Should ESO ban all groups in Cyro to reduce lag?

dem0n1k

You could remove the grouping ability completely from Cyrodiil & ball-groups would still exist. Organised in 3rd party programs like Discord, like-minded players would still organise & work together... for victory!

zaria

Elsonso wrote: »

They need to return to the 24 size as soon as they possibly can.

Agree 12 man groups killed off the pug groups as an relevant force.
An 12 man pug is to weak to take an keep with a couple of defenders and don't have enough siege to take down an a keep fast enough before it get defended.

Kusto

No need to ban groups. Its just the EU server issue, Cyro is packed during primetime on PC/NA and there's no lag. EU hardware hasn't been upgraded yet.

zaria

LarsS wrote: »

I don't think reducing groups to 12 reduced any lag, what we got when group size was reduced, was faction zergs and they produces lots of lag. Earlier there were more of cooperating groups of randoms going for different keeps, so in the end lag increased when group size was reduced.

Yes, guilds would run multiple groups but with smaller groups and synchronize with discord this would be more important with 12 player groups. With no grouping uniforms and discord become more important.
Organized groups always win as the tools to help organize get weaker.

As for performance, as the number of outfit styles and mounts increases the performance go down as you has the render all this.

OBJnoob

I see two benefits to grouping. One is the ability to take objectives that are currently balanced around group play in a timely manner. Can a solo player take a resource alone? Sure, but flipping the flag is boring and long right? Now go try sieging and flipping a castle by yourself.

The other benefit is simply that the game was developed for group play and I think having fun with friends is worth putting on the list.

The thing is, ultimately, it won't matter. Do you know what Xbox players do when their group reaches 12 but one more guildy wants to join? They group via Xbox party instead and just run two groups side by side. I'm sure other platforms do the same via Discord or whatever they may have.

Removing the option to group might make some lag go away because there wouldn't necessarily be AS MUCH heal stacking and buffing and ulti dumping... But ultimately it'll still be mostly the same.

Even if not for Discord and stuff, people will still gravitate towards flagged objectives and thus there will still be huge amounts of people in the same area.

As foxtrot said, this change would render a lot of skills and gear useless... They'd need to be completely redone to be useful under these new circumstances. BUT there's still a lot of other heals and buffs that don't require grouping and all of that would continue much the same.

subarctic

The lag was horrible in 2014/15 but at least we had fun in 24 player groups. Now the ping is equally bad with only 12 player groups, though Nvidia settings can remove the visual aspects of lag if your pc is good. I don’t know how servers work, but it seems like “common sense”, I guess, that lag increases when 1) the number of skills and armor effects increase, 2) the CP system has made it possible to run faster, many players at different speeds, and 3) all this happens in tiny areas when some players join ball groups. I prefer 24 player groups, but that might totally lag up the game now. So half jokingly I suggest: ban groups altogether and get rid of gear meant for group play. War should be more individualistic! War as a communal affair is overrated. Let’s all be NBs and ninjas. Can’t that be a thing, now that Cyro is slowly dying anyway?

However, if NA PC runs fine and EU PC servers only need to be upgraded, then we must yell and scream like annoying children and cry babies until ESO can’t stand it anymore and finally upgrades the EU servers. I suggest a million player street protest, somewhere … in Europe preferably.

Foxtrot39

subarctic wrote: »

The lag was horrible in 2014/15 but at least we had fun in 24 player groups. Now the ping is equally bad with only 12 player groups, though Nvidia settings can remove the visual aspects of lag if your pc is good. I don’t know how servers work, but it seems like “common sense”, I guess, that lag increases when 1) the number of skills and armor effects increase, 2) the CP system has made it possible to run faster, many players at different speeds, and 3) all this happens in tiny areas when some players join ball groups. I prefer 24 player groups, but that might totally lag up the game now. So half jokingly I suggest: ban groups altogether and get rid of gear meant for group play. War should be more individualistic! War as a communal affair is overrated. Let’s all be NBs and ninjas. Can’t that be a thing, now that Cyro is slowly dying anyway?

However, if NA PC runs fine and EU PC servers only need to be upgraded, then we must yell and scream like annoying children and cry babies until ESO can’t stand it anymore and finally upgrades the EU servers. I suggest a million player street protest, somewhere … in Europe preferably.

The upgrade is already planned for this year thing is they need to set up a time for it and prepare everything to minimize server downtime when its ongoing

subarctic

Cool, glad to hear it!

Will we get 24 man groups back?

Tannus15

AFAIK they ran all the tests they could think of to identify the lag issues in Cyro and it came down to a combination of hardware and back end code architecture.

Pretty much all the no proc, limited skill casts, everything they threw at it barely moved the needle and they finally accepted that there was some major refactoring and rework required on their end as well as getting new hardware.

Foxtrot39

Sadly I doubt they redo the game code, would be like swapping game engine : a true nightmare set to break more than it will fix and harm the game a lot in the short to medium term

And they can't monetize any aspect of that while taking as much time and ressources than a DLC release

subarctic

Ok, if it’s a hardware issue, will we again get 24 player groups after the upgrade occurs? Large scale battles are or were the hallmark of ESO, so we need it back.

Dr_Con

subarctic wrote: »

@Dr Con:

Ban means to prohibit something.

Banning a group means you ban anyone who teams up. the concept of being in a party and being in a group are separate in MMO terms so let's not try to dance around it, you can only have a party of up to 12 people, but you can have a group of 4 people, a group of 12 people, a group of 24 people, and a group of 50 people. They don't need to be partied to be grouped.

If you are on a battering ram, you are in a group of people hitting the battering ram. It requires 3 people to use a ram, you would have anyone who uses a battering ram banned.

If you run with a zerg, you are running with a group. All individuals in it would be subject to being "Banned."

It is counterintuitive to the gameplay to disallow people from partying. ZOS needs to improve the servers and/or the coding, plain and simple.

Foxtrot39

subarctic wrote: »

Ok, if it’s a hardware issue, will we again get 24 player groups after the upgrade occurs? Large scale battles are or were the hallmark of ESO, so we need it back.

subarctic

Then it ain’t an upgrade is it!

!

Dr_Con

subarctic wrote: »

Then it ain’t an upgrade is it!

!

The reason why people can hit harder in PVE now from launch is because party size was reduced. A lot of balancing consideration went into reducing party size.

Kusto wrote: »

No need to ban groups. Its just the EU server issue, Cyro is packed during primetime on PC/NA and there's no lag. EU hardware hasn't been upgraded yet.

False, lag still exists, and it's worse when people are coordinating to intentionally cause lag.

Foxtrot39

subarctic wrote: »

Then it ain’t an upgrade is it!

Yeah because its not an upgrade to increase server load, its a lag mitigation bandaid

OBJnoob

Honestly @Dr_Con you're kinda known for dropping into topics and being funny. So I don't know if you're kidding or not. But if you're being serious... Well, I think you're wrong.

Xbox has a way to form groups of players called "parties." Party members may or may not be in the same ESO group. But because the word "party," already has a definition on Xbox we refer to all in-game groups as, well, "groups."

Even though it is true that, generically speaking about the English language, any cluster of individuals can be called a "group," the ESO form of the word requires you to uh, be in a group.

So maybe I'm wrong and this is only true on Xbox... But uh... I think you're focusing too hard on a rather unimportant detail.

CGPsaint

Limit heal/buff stacking in PvP and ball groups wouldn't be an issue.

wilykcat

I'm not from Europe. I'm from USA. I never had a problem with groups. I play on PC. I may lag once in a while but I tend to ignore it until it gets super bad like 200ms bad.

When that happens I restart the game, check out if it's a problem with my internet or its the game or something else, I do my best to fix the problem, if I can't fix it, I'll submit a ticket and do further research.

Lag can be caused by lots of things.
Spotty internet connection, bad weather, having lots of apps and background apps running while playing, hardware issues, server issues, internet service provider issues, playing on the wrong server, DoS and DDoS attacks, VPN issues, players across international servers in one group, and unmatched bugs.

B

Elsonso

subarctic wrote: »

@Elsonso:

With my high-end gaming rig I seldom see lag in Cyro, but when I fight my skills are often delayed, making fights kind of just meh.

That is a server problem that is not limited to Cyrodiil. I noticed when I was doing Firesong last week that ESO still has a problem with inattentive servers and skills that do not fire off properly.

subarctic wrote: »

Ok, if it’s a hardware issue, will we again get 24 player groups after the upgrade occurs? Large scale battles are or were the hallmark of ESO, so we need it back.

I doubt they will do this just on hardware refresh. Their core architectural problem eclipses any hardware improvements, and that work (server multithreading) needs to be done first.

Dem_kitkats1

Kusto wrote: »

No need to ban groups. Its just the EU server issue, Cyro is packed during primetime on PC/NA and there's no lag. EU hardware hasn't been upgraded yet.

Ooooh there's definitely Primetime lag on PCNA. Especially around ballgroups.

However, for a MMO, group based game, it doesn't make sense to ban groups that are coordinated. Like others have said, ZOS needs to complete the re-architecture, or multithreading of servers for the game to work as intended.

Amottica

wilykcat wrote: »

The last paragraph. What did I just read...

It is only one paragraph.

Turtle_Bot

ball groups need balancing for sure, but can't ever be outright banned because the players just communicate over discord to coordinate abilities and fights.

Even if there was no grouping ball groups would still technically exist since the groups would just run individually and still talk over discord etc to coordinate.

Balancing ball groups would require smart balancing, something that is very hard to get right because organised grouping is not really something that can be truly balanced in game. The closest would be to limit stacking of over time abilities so that they can't be abused to the max, but it seems that this is not on the cards at the moment.

RevJJ

subarctic wrote: »

My pvp guild even refuse to play in Cyro, on Saturday and Sunday early evening, because of the 200+ ping.

*laughs in SE Asia ping*

I’ve never even seen less than 200 ping anywhere in the game in almost three years of playing ESO.

Turtle_Bot

RevJJ wrote: »

subarctic wrote: »

My pvp guild even refuse to play in Cyro, on Saturday and Sunday early evening, because of the 200+ ping.

*laughs in SE Asia ping*

I’ve never even seen less than 200 ping anywhere in the game in almost three years of playing ESO.

*cries in oceanic ping*

bmnoble

Correct me if I am wrong since I don't PVP much in ESO but wasn't the main selling point, the thing that separates ESO's PVP from others games, the large scale PVP between factions in Cyrodiil. Or at least it was at the time now you have all those battle royal games that take away some of the significance of what ESO's PVP has to offer.

If they were to take away the groups at the bare minimum they need to add a viable in game alternative to allow you to organize players who want to work together and not just fall back on "you can all just coordinate in discord" not every one want to use voice chat or a third party means of communication.

That and it would require re-working all the skills they already changed to only apply benefits/buffs etc for those in your group alone.




To be honest when it came to my impressions of Cyrodiil a few years ago when I entered Cyrodiil for the first time saw this vast map, that was suppose to be a player driven war against other player factions, I was expecting to see large scale battles at various points across the map on a scale far larger than what actually exists on the scale of guild vs guild as in hundreds if not a few thousand players being in the one campaign logged in at one time.

So when I finally experienced even a busy pop locked campaign, I couldn't help but wonder why the group sizes were so small, why the map was so empty, now years later they have lowered the group size and population cap even further.

They have this vast map that is far more empty than the keeps and resources/bridges/waygates etc.. would suggest, rather than cutting things, I would think there focus should be on improving performance so that those group and population limits can start going back up rather than down further.


Those are my thought with my crappy satellite internet connection, I barely use Cyrodiil so either way it barely affects me I just go there to fix walls for my tier 1 rewards on occasion or buy from the golden vendor these days, so the changes proposed won't affect me one way or the other.

Jaraal

LarsS wrote: »

I don't think reducing groups to 12 reduced any lag, what we got when group size was reduced, was faction zergs and they produces lots of lag. Earlier there were more of cooperating groups of randoms going for different keeps, so in the end lag increased when group size was reduced.

ZOS admitted during the Cyrodiil live server tests that reducing group size to 12 had "minimal effect" towards fixing performance issues. But they did say they liked the "behavioral changes" the smaller group size brought. They did not elaborate.

I agree with you, that since they made the group sizes smaller now there is more of a solo zerg mentality, where flocks of players just watch the map, read the zone chat, and follow the crowd, whereas before an organized 24 person group could successfully and efficiently take a keep anywhere on the map. The group would rapidly converge on the front door with a ram and max siege, and be inside before the enemy could ride in from another keep after it lit. But what you have now is somebody in zone chat calling out a keep to target, and the solos head straight for the resources, which in turn alerts the opposing faction to stack the defense before the first ballista even hits the ground. So now you have the majority of the players on the server in one place, all doing their own thing, and it becomes a performance nightmare.

And now, with ZOS limiting coordination to 12 players, the group leaders are being a lot more selective, as just a few underskilled/less knowledgeable team members can cause a wipe, especially with the current compounding bomb meta. Just a couple of low health, low resist group members can cause a chain reaction of destruction, so leaders are less likely to let unknowns tag along.

With the previous larger group size, there was a lot more room for error, and a lot more opportunity for teaching and learning. So it will always be a mystery to many of us what the "behavioral changes" ZOS likes even are. They are notorious for keeping their motivations and reasons to themselves.

WaywardArgonian

Removing the grouping tool would not help much and if you're starting to remove basic features such as that from the game, you might as well remove Cyrodiil in its entirety.

Also not sure what this has to do with campaign scores. The faction that does the most morning and night caps usually wins. Removing (ball)groups from the game won't change that.

zaria

Dr_Con wrote: »

subarctic wrote: »

Then it ain’t an upgrade is it!

!

The reason why people can hit harder in PVE now from launch is because party size was reduced. A lot of balancing consideration went into reducing party size.

Kusto wrote: »

No need to ban groups. Its just the EU server issue, Cyro is packed during primetime on PC/NA and there's no lag. EU hardware hasn't been upgraded yet.

False, lag still exists, and it's worse when people are coordinating to intentionally cause lag.

The reason people hit harder in PvE is buffs, better gear and better players.
Trial size has always been 12.

jecks33

How the game could recognize if a 12 men group is a ball group or a simple 12 men group? witch one will be banned? both?

your request sounds.... weird