Photosniper89 wrote: »Now however we have new servers, people are coming back to pvp, and development and support for pvp will most likely take off again, there would be no other reason to replace the server hardware.
The stated reason to replace the server hardware is that it is old and prone to failure. The hardware is 10 years old and may not even be supported by the people who made it. Poor performing code will run better on newer hardware, but that is just a brute force solution. The real fix is to make the software not poor performing.
Ah yes, because that totally worked when we had the performance patch which was supposed to do just that, and performance got significantly worse. It has always been bad server hardware.
I don't think that is the case. If that were true, we would not have seen a degrading of performance since the servers were replaced. We saw a huge performance increase when those new servers went live, but it has degraded since then. You can't blame that on hardware... that's a software issue.
I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that ZOS explained that the new hardware wasn't to fix performance issues but to future-proof the game so far as new content was concerned, and that the performance issues were being addressed by rewriting the server software code which is still ongoing through this year. Is that right?
The initial post we received about the code rewrite in January 2022 specified a completion date of "by the end of 2022". It wasn't until November, 10 months later, that they then told us "we'll be working to release it in parts beginning in Q2 2023". They also specified they'd be testing this "rewrite" on the PTS.
The PTS for the Q2 2023 is active now. There is no mention of the code rewrite anywhere in the notes, and two separate posts asking about it have been ignored.
I mean, is it still ongoing? How would we know? Is progress actually being made, or is this just a convenient scapegoat they're using to create the excuse of "we can't touch PVP with a 12 foot pole until this work is done, completion date is undetermined".
When Necrom launches, it will have been 4.5 years since PVP content was added to the game. I'm sorry, but I do not and never did consider volendrung or destructible milegates and bridges "PVP content". Volendrung only ever caused lag, and adds nothing new by way of PVP combat. Destructible milegates and bridges altered the surrounding terrain when they were added - removing tons of cool line of sights and unique terrain in favor of siegable structures that literally nobody cares about.
This. So much this.
Where is any mention of the code rewrite, is that still even a thing?! @ZOS_GinaBruno you mentioned multiple times you were working on improving communication - can we get some communication on this?
Or even a "we hear you" somewhere in a PvP thread - anyone.
xclassgaming wrote: »PVP should be removed, Cyrodiil should be revamped to be purely PVE, same as the Imperial City.
Now however we have new servers, people are coming back to pvp, and development and support for pvp will most likely take off again, there would be no other reason to replace the server hardware.
The stated reason to replace the server hardware is that it is old and prone to failure. The hardware is 10 years old and may not even be supported by the people who made it. Poor performing code will run better on newer hardware, but that is just a brute force solution. The real fix is to make the software not poor performing.
Ah yes, because that totally worked when we had the performance patch which was supposed to do just that, and performance got significantly worse. It has always been bad server hardware.
Yet, we are starting to hear how the initial performance boosts from the new hardware did not hold. When they replaced the hardware, all the data got put down conveniently, and as the server runs, entropy creeps in and performance drops. Server hardware is not the end-all of performance problems at the server level. Hardware can only take you so far, and in this case, apparently not far enough. The server software has to be written efficiently, as well.
What ZOS was doing about performance during the "year of performance" is a mystery to me. They improved some performance, but not the big ticket item that people wanted improved. They did things, investigated things, and then went off to think over the data for a year. When they returned from their introspection, they announced a path that would take years more to complete. I await the results of that work.
Now however we have new servers, people are coming back to pvp, and development and support for pvp will most likely take off again, there would be no other reason to replace the server hardware.
The stated reason to replace the server hardware is that it is old and prone to failure. The hardware is 10 years old and may not even be supported by the people who made it. Poor performing code will run better on newer hardware, but that is just a brute force solution. The real fix is to make the software not poor performing.
Ah yes, because that totally worked when we had the performance patch which was supposed to do just that, and performance got significantly worse. It has always been bad server hardware.
Yet, we are starting to hear how the initial performance boosts from the new hardware did not hold. When they replaced the hardware, all the data got put down conveniently, and as the server runs, entropy creeps in and performance drops. Server hardware is not the end-all of performance problems at the server level. Hardware can only take you so far, and in this case, apparently not far enough. The server software has to be written efficiently, as well.
What ZOS was doing about performance during the "year of performance" is a mystery to me. They improved some performance, but not the big ticket item that people wanted improved. They did things, investigated things, and then went off to think over the data for a year. When they returned from their introspection, they announced a path that would take years more to complete. I await the results of that work.
On PC EU the lag free experience is holding. Pop locked Greyhost is completely lag free for me after the update, and now is as well.
For reference I have a
rtx 3060ti
Ryzen 7 5800 X
32 gb ram
2 x 2 TB m.2ssd's
I havent had lag since the first few days where it felt like there were growing pains. Even full faction fights. So I definitely refute those claims.
Also, I used to be INCREDIBLY vocal about lag to my guild in the past. Not even a peep from me since the hardware upgrade.
Photosniper89 wrote: »Now however we have new servers, people are coming back to pvp, and development and support for pvp will most likely take off again, there would be no other reason to replace the server hardware.
The stated reason to replace the server hardware is that it is old and prone to failure. The hardware is 10 years old and may not even be supported by the people who made it. Poor performing code will run better on newer hardware, but that is just a brute force solution. The real fix is to make the software not poor performing.
Ah yes, because that totally worked when we had the performance patch which was supposed to do just that, and performance got significantly worse. It has always been bad server hardware.
I don't think that is the case. If that were true, we would not have seen a degrading of performance since the servers were replaced. We saw a huge performance increase when those new servers went live, but it has degraded since then. You can't blame that on hardware... that's a software issue.
I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that ZOS explained that the new hardware wasn't to fix performance issues but to future-proof the game so far as new content was concerned, and that the performance issues were being addressed by rewriting the server software code which is still ongoing through this year. Is that right?
The initial post we received about the code rewrite in January 2022 specified a completion date of "by the end of 2022". It wasn't until November, 10 months later, that they then told us "we'll be working to release it in parts beginning in Q2 2023". They also specified they'd be testing this "rewrite" on the PTS.
The PTS for the Q2 2023 is active now. There is no mention of the code rewrite anywhere in the notes, and two separate posts asking about it have been ignored.
I mean, is it still ongoing? How would we know? Is progress actually being made, or is this just a convenient scapegoat they're using to create the excuse of "we can't touch PVP with a 12 foot pole until this work is done, completion date is undetermined".
When Necrom launches, it will have been 4.5 years since PVP content was added to the game. I'm sorry, but I do not and never did consider volendrung or destructible milegates and bridges "PVP content". Volendrung only ever caused lag, and adds nothing new by way of PVP combat. Destructible milegates and bridges altered the surrounding terrain when they were added - removing tons of cool line of sights and unique terrain in favor of siegable structures that literally nobody cares about.
This. So much this.
Where is any mention of the code rewrite, is that still even a thing?! @ZOS_GinaBruno you mentioned multiple times you were working on improving communication - can we get some communication on this?
Or even a "we hear you" somewhere in a PvP thread - anyone.
We were told in relation to the code rewrite on 1st February that "While we don't have an update to share with all of you at this time regarding the details of this project, the work is still ongoing. We've noted previously that this process is one that takes time and is fairly complex. This one we want to get right, so it will take some time. But just to answer the question at hand, the project is currently still ongoing and has not been cancelled".
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/626586/status-on-hardware-refresh-whitestrake-s-mayhem-event-january-2023/p2
Photosniper89 wrote: »Next to no one is going to see that comment by Kevin.... and digging deep in threads looking for a one off mod comment isn't effective PR/communication. (But what do I know I went to school for software development not communication).
SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »Now however we have new servers, people are coming back to pvp, and development and support for pvp will most likely take off again, there would be no other reason to replace the server hardware.
The stated reason to replace the server hardware is that it is old and prone to failure. The hardware is 10 years old and may not even be supported by the people who made it. Poor performing code will run better on newer hardware, but that is just a brute force solution. The real fix is to make the software not poor performing.
Ah yes, because that totally worked when we had the performance patch which was supposed to do just that, and performance got significantly worse. It has always been bad server hardware.
Yet, we are starting to hear how the initial performance boosts from the new hardware did not hold. When they replaced the hardware, all the data got put down conveniently, and as the server runs, entropy creeps in and performance drops. Server hardware is not the end-all of performance problems at the server level. Hardware can only take you so far, and in this case, apparently not far enough. The server software has to be written efficiently, as well.
What ZOS was doing about performance during the "year of performance" is a mystery to me. They improved some performance, but not the big ticket item that people wanted improved. They did things, investigated things, and then went off to think over the data for a year. When they returned from their introspection, they announced a path that would take years more to complete. I await the results of that work.
On PC EU the lag free experience is holding. Pop locked Greyhost is completely lag free for me after the update, and now is as well.
For reference I have a
rtx 3060ti
Ryzen 7 5800 X
32 gb ram
2 x 2 TB m.2ssd's
I havent had lag since the first few days where it felt like there were growing pains. Even full faction fights. So I definitely refute those claims.
Also, I used to be INCREDIBLY vocal about lag to my guild in the past. Not even a peep from me since the hardware upgrade.
Glad to hear it. Now we can expect them to raise the population caps back up to at least 150 players/faction, right?
Photosniper89 wrote: »Next to no one is going to see that comment by Kevin.... and digging deep in threads looking for a one off mod comment isn't effective PR/communication. (But what do I know I went to school for software development not communication).
Yeah, they had a brief uptick in communication for a while, but if you look at the dev tracker most of the interaction lately is just announcements.
It's not realistic to expect more interaction, since the volume of dialogue has steadily declined over the past nine years.
Photosniper89 wrote: »Next to no one is going to see that comment by Kevin.... and digging deep in threads looking for a one off mod comment isn't effective PR/communication. (But what do I know I went to school for software development not communication).
Yeah, they had a brief uptick in communication for a while, but if you look at the dev tracker most of the interaction lately is just announcements.
It's not realistic to expect more interaction, since the volume of dialogue has steadily declined over the past nine years.
One of the problems that I've raised with Kevin before is that he doesn't always add his posts to Dev Tracker, which is quite deliberate on his part when he doesn't have something meaningful to say. I still think that something like "the project is currently still ongoing and has not been cancelled" is a very worthwhile message to get across and leaving it off Dev Tracker just fuels the feeling that nobody is communicating when in fact they are.
it would be really nice, a new bg with 6v6 or 10v10 with objectives/ defend keeps or something like that. It would be awesome!
In every interview and livestream since 2019, ZOS has given the same few lines of excuses as to why they can’t add new pvp content, “we want to fix performance first,” “new content would only make the issues worse,” etc., but it’s been 4 years and the rhetoric isn’t working anymore. While initially believable, now it just comes across as the devs wanting to shove pvp into a corner and forget about it. BGs don’t really have performance issues so why not add content to them at least? Instead, ZOS has periodically stripped BGs down more and more until now they’re a shadow of what they used to be. Here’s some things ZOS could’ve added that would have minimal to 0 impact on performance if they cared about pvp:
1) New BG maps
2) Periodic updates to the Cyro/IC map (think removing a town to put a crater there from a meteor, etc.)
3) Battlepass with reward track for skins, titles, etc.
4) Lobby system so friends/guilds/event hosts could setup private BG matches
5) Group duels
6) 2 Team BGs (think 6v6 with obj vs 4v4v4)
7) BG items added to the housing editor (spawn points, flags, chaos ball, etc., so people could make custom arenas in their house)
8) 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, arenas
9) Ranked gameplay or better leaderboards in general
10) FFA open world “faction” that can fight everyone not in their own group (call them outlaws, marauders, etc.)
In general, instanced pvp works perfectly fine so it’s ridiculous that it has been ignored with the “performance” excuse.
Daggerfell0929 wrote: »Given the fact that cyrodil and pvp were both banned words from the twitch livestream I doubt anything is comming anytime soon.
Backing up what @licenturion said above, skill-based matchmaking in Cyrodiil would alleviate the slow but sure bleed of players it suffers from. Never been a fan of PVP, but I'd be willing to give Cyrodiil a try because there's a lot of story there I want to complete, as Oblivion was my favorite TES growing up. But I don't because I know I'd get destroyed as soon as I step into Bruma, and I doubt anyone's going to care if I go, "Oh, just here for quests and Skyshards."
Backing up what @licenturion said above, skill-based matchmaking in Cyrodiil would alleviate the slow but sure bleed of players it suffers from. Never been a fan of PVP, but I'd be willing to give Cyrodiil a try because there's a lot of story there I want to complete, as Oblivion was my favorite TES growing up. But I don't because I know I'd get destroyed as soon as I step into Bruma, and I doubt anyone's going to care if I go, "Oh, just here for quests and Skyshards."
Since players that have left Cyrodiil aren’t leaving due to skills of players on the campaign such a solution would not solve anything. Even more so sinde Cyrodiil is designed for group based PvP, not solo.