PTS Update 45 - Feedback Thread for Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)

Muizer · January 23

Can someone direct me to a post that explains exactly what we should expect when we zone into the Vengeance campaign. What are the standardized attributes and templated gear supposed to look like?

From what I can see, my character copied over from PC/NA still has its original gear, except set bonuses are removed. But I'm not too sure because this is a character I've created nearly 10 years ago when PC/NA was all there was.

Extinct_Solo_Player · January 24

Erickson9610 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

And I think anyone who actually cares about PvP in ESO will participate in these tests even if the classes themselves are not balanced. For the purpose of the test I don't think it matters if there's 1000 nbs and 3 necros. What matters is there's 1003 people.

They're not getting 1003 people unless they put forth a product that 1003 people are excited about. Diet Cyrodiil with an unbalanced unfun NB hell meta isn't gonna be it. They're gonna need to deal with at least that. There's no performance reason to mash together a burst heal with invisibility, didn't we already go through this with Hardened Ward?

Current Cyrodiil isn't exciting enough for 1003 people. This test, with standardized templates, is the most exciting update to Cyrodiil in a long time. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of people are interested by it, too. This will bring in many players when it hits Live.

This aint it chief

MincMincMinc · January 24

Muizer wrote: »

Can someone direct me to a post that explains exactly what we should expect when we zone into the Vengeance campaign. What are the standardized attributes and templated gear supposed to look like?

From what I can see, my character copied over from PC/NA still has its original gear, except set bonuses are removed. But I'm not too sure because this is a character I've created nearly 10 years ago when PC/NA was all there was.

Press I and slot the weapons and potion. Then select skills.

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

And I think anyone who actually cares about PvP in ESO will participate in these tests even if the classes themselves are not balanced. For the purpose of the test I don't think it matters if there's 1000 nbs and 3 necros. What matters is there's 1003 people.

They're not getting 1003 people unless they put forth a product that 1003 people are excited about. Diet Cyrodiil with an unbalanced unfun NB hell meta isn't gonna be it. They're gonna need to deal with at least that. There's no performance reason to mash together a burst heal with invisibility, didn't we already go through this with Hardened Ward?

Current Cyrodiil isn't exciting enough for 1003 people. This test, with standardized templates, is the most exciting update to Cyrodiil in a long time. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of people are interested by it, too. This will bring in many players when it hits Live.

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

Extinct_Solo_Player · January 24

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Can someone direct me to a post that explains exactly what we should expect when we zone into the Vengeance campaign. What are the standardized attributes and templated gear supposed to look like?

From what I can see, my character copied over from PC/NA still has its original gear, except set bonuses are removed. But I'm not too sure because this is a character I've created nearly 10 years ago when PC/NA was all there was.

Press I and slot the weapons and potion. Then select skills.

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

And I think anyone who actually cares about PvP in ESO will participate in these tests even if the classes themselves are not balanced. For the purpose of the test I don't think it matters if there's 1000 nbs and 3 necros. What matters is there's 1003 people.

They're not getting 1003 people unless they put forth a product that 1003 people are excited about. Diet Cyrodiil with an unbalanced unfun NB hell meta isn't gonna be it. They're gonna need to deal with at least that. There's no performance reason to mash together a burst heal with invisibility, didn't we already go through this with Hardened Ward?

Current Cyrodiil isn't exciting enough for 1003 people. This test, with standardized templates, is the most exciting update to Cyrodiil in a long time. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of people are interested by it, too. This will bring in many players when it hits Live.

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

Of course i tried it. Also, at this point i wouldn't really say i'm moaning at all. Just tired and this test will just be like the previous ones. Nothing of substance. Everything is stripped down too much for it to be enticing and enjoyable enough to participate. But what do i know? Even if it helps performance it will definitely kill off the already small PVP playerbase. I get it's a test but maybe a less limited environment would be a better start.

Erickson9610 · January 24

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

And I think anyone who actually cares about PvP in ESO will participate in these tests even if the classes themselves are not balanced. For the purpose of the test I don't think it matters if there's 1000 nbs and 3 necros. What matters is there's 1003 people.

They're not getting 1003 people unless they put forth a product that 1003 people are excited about. Diet Cyrodiil with an unbalanced unfun NB hell meta isn't gonna be it. They're gonna need to deal with at least that. There's no performance reason to mash together a burst heal with invisibility, didn't we already go through this with Hardened Ward?

Current Cyrodiil isn't exciting enough for 1003 people. This test, with standardized templates, is the most exciting update to Cyrodiil in a long time. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of people are interested by it, too. This will bring in many players when it hits Live.

This aint it chief

I'm just excited to see this when it hits Live. I know regular ESO PvP has an audience, but this version of PvP is reminiscent of other PvP games, so it could appeal to those people.

I hope ESO really promotes this test with a free play event, because this style of PvP could genuinely attract people who would be willing to stay.

MincMincMinc · January 24

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Can someone direct me to a post that explains exactly what we should expect when we zone into the Vengeance campaign. What are the standardized attributes and templated gear supposed to look like?

From what I can see, my character copied over from PC/NA still has its original gear, except set bonuses are removed. But I'm not too sure because this is a character I've created nearly 10 years ago when PC/NA was all there was.

Press I and slot the weapons and potion. Then select skills.

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

And I think anyone who actually cares about PvP in ESO will participate in these tests even if the classes themselves are not balanced. For the purpose of the test I don't think it matters if there's 1000 nbs and 3 necros. What matters is there's 1003 people.

They're not getting 1003 people unless they put forth a product that 1003 people are excited about. Diet Cyrodiil with an unbalanced unfun NB hell meta isn't gonna be it. They're gonna need to deal with at least that. There's no performance reason to mash together a burst heal with invisibility, didn't we already go through this with Hardened Ward?

Current Cyrodiil isn't exciting enough for 1003 people. This test, with standardized templates, is the most exciting update to Cyrodiil in a long time. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of people are interested by it, too. This will bring in many players when it hits Live.

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

Of course i tried it. Also, at this point i wouldn't really say i'm moaning at all. Just tired and this test will just be like the previous ones. Nothing of substance. Everything is stripped down too much for it to be enticing and enjoyable enough to participate. But what do i know? Even if it helps performance it will definitely kill off the already small PVP playerbase. I get it's a test but maybe a less limited environment would be a better start.

How do you not understand the purpose of the test? Zos has to prove whether it is a server hardware issue or a combat team design issue in order for the directors to sign off on anything. The only way to do this is to boil the game down to core functionality, which they did.

Can't wait to hear the same people a year from now complaining that zos isnt doing anything.

Estin · January 24

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Can someone direct me to a post that explains exactly what we should expect when we zone into the Vengeance campaign. What are the standardized attributes and templated gear supposed to look like?

From what I can see, my character copied over from PC/NA still has its original gear, except set bonuses are removed. But I'm not too sure because this is a character I've created nearly 10 years ago when PC/NA was all there was.

Press I and slot the weapons and potion. Then select skills.

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

And I think anyone who actually cares about PvP in ESO will participate in these tests even if the classes themselves are not balanced. For the purpose of the test I don't think it matters if there's 1000 nbs and 3 necros. What matters is there's 1003 people.

They're not getting 1003 people unless they put forth a product that 1003 people are excited about. Diet Cyrodiil with an unbalanced unfun NB hell meta isn't gonna be it. They're gonna need to deal with at least that. There's no performance reason to mash together a burst heal with invisibility, didn't we already go through this with Hardened Ward?

Current Cyrodiil isn't exciting enough for 1003 people. This test, with standardized templates, is the most exciting update to Cyrodiil in a long time. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of people are interested by it, too. This will bring in many players when it hits Live.

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

Of course i tried it. Also, at this point i wouldn't really say i'm moaning at all. Just tired and this test will just be like the previous ones. Nothing of substance. Everything is stripped down too much for it to be enticing and enjoyable enough to participate. But what do i know? Even if it helps performance it will definitely kill off the already small PVP playerbase. I get it's a test but maybe a less limited environment would be a better start.

It has to be this limited for a reason. This it was players don't seem to understand. Kevin pointed out that just disabling 1 or 2 things is not going to help them identify problems nor create a baseline. If this test is even successful (Another reminder for ZOS, please give a stronger incentive to attract non PvPers so you can get the numbers you want), it doesn't mean that this is what new cyrodiil or even a new campaign would be. That is another things players don't seem to understand. There is absolutely no reason to fuss over TTK, build diversity, class balance, or how boring it feels for two top end players to duel each other because this test is not even representative of the end product, and that everything that's being complained about is several steps ahead of what they're trying to do now. The only valid complaints are the incentive to test the campaign (for PvPers, the prospect of a fixed PvP system should be more than enough) and the unknown time gaps between tests.

Really, players have been calling for PvP to be fixed for years, and now that ZOS is actually putting in a real effort to not only fix performance, but to also bring back large populations and finally splitting PvP from PvE, the same players are the ones actively protesting against the idea because they would rather ZOS to wave a magic wand to fix it in 1 patch, something that isn't possible to do. Sure, they can disable cross healing again and upgrade the server hardware so that current PvP works smoothly, but then we'll still be left with the atrocious tank meta, ball groups, low population caps, and having to awkwardly nerf and buff skills without making something too strong or too weak in each area of the game. Starting from scratch is the preferred way to go about this. Nothing can be said to deny that fact.

nambourgini · January 24

Hello!

I'm looking forward to participating in the Vengeance Campaign test and seeing how the server performs with a simplistic character structure. I specifically took a look at the adjusted targeting protocols applied for healing abilities and wanted to share my thoughts - particularly because I once requested a similar change to Regeneration and Rapid Regeneration (Radiating Regeneration excluded) and hope that this change could potentially be implemented for some abilities in live.

In general, I really like the feel of Vengeance single target healing abilities, which behave similarly to the Warden's Nature's Grasp. The reticle has an about 1 inch of leniency, making it very comfortable to quickly target an ally intentionally, but also specific enough it allows you to carefully select between allies - so long as they aren't completely blocked out by another player. I also have no difficulty pointing away (often to the ground) to target myself with a heal.

There are a couple healing abilities that do not follow this design. I wanted to point them out in case they were intended to:
- Sorcerer's Vengeance Summon Winged Twilight: selects a secondary target from a full 360 degrees around the caster. This one could be because this ability already has a self-heal part to it and the ability is meant not to redundantly target the caster.
- Warden's Vengeance Living Vines: continues to select a target with the lowest health in front of you and does not select an alternative target if the lowest health target already has an instance of Living Vines (same as live)

Additionally, Warden's Vengeance Living Vines and Nature's Grasp currently cannot target friendly NPC's.

If I may be selfish here: please consider applying the reticle targeting protocol to single target heal-over-times such as Regeneration, Rapid Regeneration, Living Vines (and both morphs) on live. The amazing power behind these abilities manifest when one is able to apply them pre-emptively to allies that are in imminent danger. In the current state of the targeting protocols for these abilities, they often end up casting on low-danger/low-priority targets and this, because they only target a single ally, often requires multiple casts in succession to target the right player. In high stakes encounters, hitting the wrong ally with a heal is like hitting the wrong enemy with an execute. This has resulted in inconsistent effectiveness of the abilities, and they are rarely utilized as a result.

I like the current structure of the Vengeance Campaign and I think it will do a great job reducing the number of calculations the server will have to handle significantly. It's surprised me how loaded some abilities can be (Ex: Puncturing Sweeps hits one target for X, multiple for Y, slows each hit target down each time they are hit, heals you for a % of each instance of damage done by the skill, and procs the Burning Light and Spear Wall passives) and looking at these stripped-down Vengeance abilities makes me realize how wonderfully complicated this game can be.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Best of wishes to everyone!

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · January 24

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

It's entirely possible that you're an outlier and that most players don't enjoy the Vengeance campaign, nor did they ask for it.

Avran_Sylt · January 24

sarahthes wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

1) I understand this is a test, Zos did not focus on balancing the skills, just grabbed bare-bones class skills for people

2) Skills should still be adjusted slightly before live because people will be put off by some classes and not want to participate

3) Offer a big incentive. Idk what, but make it big enough that you draw a crowd. Crown crates? Style pages? A costume that says "I survived the Great Test of 2025"? The much requested KEEP House???? You need to get and keep disillusioned pvpers, and pvers that don't care about Cyrodiil.

Bottom line: many people, myself included, have participated on PTS in good faith and felt ignored when reporting everyothing from serious balance concerns to game-breaking bugs. Many people, myself included, participated in the weeks-long PVP performance testing a few years ago that resulted in several months of hell via no healing outside of group.

We are tired. We lack faith in the system. Trying to guilt or shame us into participating will not work. Give us a carrot, a REAL carrot and not the same "we are working on performance" carrot we've been getting for years and still haven't seen.

THAT SAID I too cannot figure out the gear, and why we have it. Skills all worked as expected, didn't crash, character zoned in and out as expected.

Not being able to dismiss my notifications or mail was VERY annoying, 0/10, working as expected or nah?

I don't think any of those skill variants will make it to a non test environment, if what Kevin is saying above accurately represents everything.

ZOS is literally trying to see how deep the code deficit they were supposed to fix 4 years ago actually is, and they're doing that by stripping every single calculation they can out of cyrodiil and throwing in as many people as they can and seeing what happens.

People saying they need to balance this skill or that skill are focusing on a forest ecosystem while zos is only trying to measure the square footage of the forest. The trees haven't even been planted yet.

I mean I've seen a lot of positive feedback on some of the necromancer skill changes.

And if they're able to squash down calculations to a degree, why wouldn't they? I assume they rent servers, so the less load the slightly less expensive it is if applied to everything. And even if they didn't rent servers, lower load means less energy consumed.

Just_Attivi · January 24

In its incredibly unbalanced and imo unfun current state, it seems like y'all at ZOS will need to pay me for my time testing this on live, if you want actual participation numbers. I want a good fun cyrodiil, no matter how much i doubt the success of this test leading to that, So of course Id give this a try. but Time is the one thing we can't get back in life, and spending it playing an unenjoyable version of cyrodiil does not sound appealing, in fact it sounds like a job, which I already have. So... ahem *$$$* I charge 25 of the 4 most recent Crown Crates per hour, please! Or a position as a combat Dev for PVP, salary tbd.

My point being, in my opinion (and I know a good many who agree, though yes, you reading this are allowed to disagree), This state of the Vengeance test is not fun, and if its not fun youre not gonna have test-appropriate numbers for participation. so, you need to either make it fun, or compensate people in a way that they will not want to leave Cyrodiil. Because as it stands, people gonna bounce out after like, 30 min. In its current state, seems like I'll have a week off to become even less engaged with this game.

Additionally, @React brings up tons of points that overlap with ones ive mentioned in a different thread. we REALLY need a roadmap if you want players to take this seriously, for many reasons that I shouldn't need to state regarding track records, but also because I see way too much effort put into the current vengeance skills and campaign rules to think that this is just a test and not a goal post.

Zabagad · January 24

I did another test now after I got nice input from @Cast_El and @MincMincMinc.

The pet was super helpful and OL as the spammer was okish for me so far.
I can't test to much regading the timing because I have ~0.2s more delay compared with my usual EU-Live.
But with that delay I still get not warm at all with the hardcast frag so I put it out completely.

I'm still sure that sorc defense (speed+heal+HoT) is very bad compared to other classes like warden and NB.
But maybe(!) I only need more training.
My problem here: I can only do that live because of all the delays I have on the PTS.

As I said earlier - I'm a bit older and therefore I decided long time ago, that I only play Sorc - but that with 100% passion and so my muscle memory is not that flexible like maybe ppl like minc who play all classes and are able to switch the settings in a few minutes. My rotations are good enough to fight with much better players - but only on my usual Sorc setup.
So my personal problem is, that so much is different compared to live, that I need sure more then a week to learn and re-train my muscle memory:
1) spammer is ulti (my ult key is far away - bc I only need it every 20s or so)
2) Do not precast Fury - its just a waste of res.
3) Do not precast Surge - you waste res and lock out your heal for 6s
4) Do not streak twice or try to get a speedbosst (because sorc has none)
and a lot more stuff.

One big problem I see here - If I struggle that much - how will that be for a PvEler who has to relearn for one week all that too? Sure - its very easy to get a PvP ready char (CP/Sets/etc.) - but the problem starts with the 15+3 Skills which are not doing what they usually do.
How many PvEler will play on day 2-7 (besides HAer) for a bit more AP if they cast all the time the wrong stuff?
I hope that they stay in a zerg anyway and dont care enough about skills and are happy to kill ppl like me who are now easy to kill targets

TL;DR - I'm afraid a lot PvEler will not participate much and will not come back after day 1 and then cyro will not be full enough to get decent data.

silky_soft · January 24

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Can someone direct me to a post that explains exactly what we should expect when we zone into the Vengeance campaign. What are the standardized attributes and templated gear supposed to look like?

From what I can see, my character copied over from PC/NA still has its original gear, except set bonuses are removed. But I'm not too sure because this is a character I've created nearly 10 years ago when PC/NA was all there was.

Press I and slot the weapons and potion. Then select skills.

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

And I think anyone who actually cares about PvP in ESO will participate in these tests even if the classes themselves are not balanced. For the purpose of the test I don't think it matters if there's 1000 nbs and 3 necros. What matters is there's 1003 people.

They're not getting 1003 people unless they put forth a product that 1003 people are excited about. Diet Cyrodiil with an unbalanced unfun NB hell meta isn't gonna be it. They're gonna need to deal with at least that. There's no performance reason to mash together a burst heal with invisibility, didn't we already go through this with Hardened Ward?

Current Cyrodiil isn't exciting enough for 1003 people. This test, with standardized templates, is the most exciting update to Cyrodiil in a long time. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of people are interested by it, too. This will bring in many players when it hits Live.

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

Of course i tried it. Also, at this point i wouldn't really say i'm moaning at all. Just tired and this test will just be like the previous ones. Nothing of substance. Everything is stripped down too much for it to be enticing and enjoyable enough to participate. But what do i know? Even if it helps performance it will definitely kill off the already small PVP playerbase. I get it's a test but maybe a less limited environment would be a better start.

How do you not understand the purpose of the test? Zos has to prove whether it is a server hardware issue or a combat team design issue in order for the directors to sign off on anything. The only way to do this is to boil the game down to core functionality, which they did.

Can't wait to hear the same people a year from now complaining that zos isnt doing anything.

There is no trust from previous experience that there will be any different result. They won't show us any real-time results and comparisons. Just post another blob of green text.

If it's so stripped down:
Why aren't we all being sent in as generic alliance players?
Why do we still have armor skins and mount skins?
Why are there resources nodes?
Why are there merchants?
Why are there non keep npcs still about?

Why not remove akamai from the equation? In both pve and pvp land that's a common problem people have whenever they tracert.

It's currently not fun, because it's not eso. It's a beta test for eso mobile or eso switch 2. On top of that, it's not rewarding enough to be part of something that's not fun.

Kamchuk · January 24

TEST RESULTS FROM LAST NIGHT

About 12 or so EP (Army of the Pact) logged in around 9:00 PM EST Thursday to test Vengeance. Those 12 EP took all the keeps and scrolls. Everything was smooth, performance wise. I noticed a little lag while inside the keeps killing NPC guards but I think that was just me. The others on the group had no issues at all. I saw one AD player (from Europe, who woke up at 0400 his time to test things out. Unfortunately, he was the only AD I saw. He was a very skilled Necro who primarily fought guerilla tactics against the us as we marched from Keep to Keep. He doesn’t have a forum account so I told him I would post his observances. Basically – he noticed lag spikes and increased ping whenever he fought us. The ping could just have been his location, but the lag spikes should be looked at to see if it shows up in the data from other players.

After we took all the AD real estate we moved to DC. Same results. The AD player switched to DC and was joined by one other DC. Same feedback.

I don’t know if the instances of lag is isolated to individual players or the system. Maybe ZOS will be able to determine better results when more people show up to test.

Soraka · January 24

Ty AP
Appreciate the efforts for larger scale testing.

I'm wondering if there are going to be plans for very obvious in game notifications/announcements when the test happens since most players do not keep up with forums and I've noticed many pvpers in game not know about this at all or not know much. The back and forth/distraction in this thread (people who are probably much more in 'the know' about this issue than general pvpers), I anticipate possible freak outs when this goes live that would possibly interfere with the live testing (bigger scale version of this thread all over).

It was very jarring logging into the pts vengeance even knowing what I was going into.

Muizer · January 24

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Press I and slot the weapons and potion. Then select skills.

So, 'templated' means the gear your character had when it was copied over to PTS, except with the set bonuses removed?

MincMincMinc · January 24

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

It's entirely possible that you're an outlier and that most players don't enjoy the Vengeance campaign, nor did they ask for it.

People have been asking the question why is pvp laggy for nearly a decade now...... We all know it is related to overcomplicated strings of buffs, skills, aoe, sets, etc. It is simple game design, if you have too many event calls it will affect performance. Crying that your class is debuffed when this is just a week long test with no lasting effects is ridiculous, and it undermines a decade of waiting for zos to do tests like this.

If you worked at any IP company, you know that you can't just go divulge critical sensitive information when they dont know the answer to the question....... that the test would give them....... that you dont want to happen.

silky_soft wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Can someone direct me to a post that explains exactly what we should expect when we zone into the Vengeance campaign. What are the standardized attributes and templated gear supposed to look like?

From what I can see, my character copied over from PC/NA still has its original gear, except set bonuses are removed. But I'm not too sure because this is a character I've created nearly 10 years ago when PC/NA was all there was.

Press I and slot the weapons and potion. Then select skills.

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

And I think anyone who actually cares about PvP in ESO will participate in these tests even if the classes themselves are not balanced. For the purpose of the test I don't think it matters if there's 1000 nbs and 3 necros. What matters is there's 1003 people.

They're not getting 1003 people unless they put forth a product that 1003 people are excited about. Diet Cyrodiil with an unbalanced unfun NB hell meta isn't gonna be it. They're gonna need to deal with at least that. There's no performance reason to mash together a burst heal with invisibility, didn't we already go through this with Hardened Ward?

Current Cyrodiil isn't exciting enough for 1003 people. This test, with standardized templates, is the most exciting update to Cyrodiil in a long time. A lot of people hate it, but a lot of people are interested by it, too. This will bring in many players when it hits Live.

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

Of course i tried it. Also, at this point i wouldn't really say i'm moaning at all. Just tired and this test will just be like the previous ones. Nothing of substance. Everything is stripped down too much for it to be enticing and enjoyable enough to participate. But what do i know? Even if it helps performance it will definitely kill off the already small PVP playerbase. I get it's a test but maybe a less limited environment would be a better start.

How do you not understand the purpose of the test? Zos has to prove whether it is a server hardware issue or a combat team design issue in order for the directors to sign off on anything. The only way to do this is to boil the game down to core functionality, which they did.

Can't wait to hear the same people a year from now complaining that zos isnt doing anything.

There is no trust from previous experience that there will be any different result. They won't show us any real-time results and comparisons. Just post another blob of green text.

If it's so stripped down:
Why aren't we all being sent in as generic alliance players?
Why do we still have armor skins and mount skins?
Why are there resources nodes?
Why are there merchants?
Why are there non keep npcs still about?

Why not remove akamai from the equation? In both pve and pvp land that's a common problem people have whenever they tracert.

It's currently not fun, because it's not eso. It's a beta test for eso mobile or eso switch 2. On top of that, it's not rewarding enough to be part of something that's not fun.

The previous testing they did had no 2x, 3x, 4x effect. Which is why it wasn't implemented across the game. This was the reason they threw money into new servers. We were there for the results of the test, it still had performance issues. PvP was much more enjoyable with noproc, nocrosshealing, no abusive aoe spam....... but I still experienced performance issues during all of the tests. As a company they can't just divulge sensitive info like that, no company will ever do that.

-Generic alliance players?
-I do also agree they are missing key aspects like flamboyant mounts and animations.
-By resource nodes do you mean farm/mine or do you mean rubedite deposits. Farms/mines are necessary for expected load testing. Nobody interacts with rubedite deposits to ever substantiate server performance. If anything itd help to not have an extra player spamming aoe and buffs.
-I think all guild merchants must be removed, mainly from an addon perspective if people are parsing the entire store to find deals everytime they interact with the merchant. Again seige merchants on their own stop players from casting. Zos also gives you seige so it is unlikely mass groups of players will be shopping.
Npcs around the map will hardly affect performance as compared to a player. You are talking orders of 10x or 100x.

All being said @ZOS_Kevin should really push the team to add more incentives and notifications. Advertise for a week or two beforehand with the daily login features. Give rewards like Mythic leads, Perfected Arena weapons, A unique mount, a vengeance pvp title, crowns, 4x xp scrolls, cyrodil housing items. Literally anything other than AP. Nobody needs AP at this point, there is nothing to spend it on. Most pvpers have XXmil or XXXmil by now. PvP in general needs rewards or incentives.

xylena_lazarow · January 24

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Can't wait to hear the same people a year from now complaining that zos isnt doing anything.

Many of us have been saying for years that we really don't want major reworks, just for them to listen to us about balance on things like annoying ranged Sorcs, ball group meta, and Rushing Agony.

sarahthes · January 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Can't wait to hear the same people a year from now complaining that zos isnt doing anything.

Many of us have been saying for years that we really don't want major reworks, just for them to listen to us about balance on things like annoying ranged Sorcs, ball group meta, and Rushing Agony.

So the lag is fine?

ZOS_Kevin · January 24

Hi all, Just wanted to follow up with some info. We will have a live stream today at 1pm ET with Gina, Rich, and Brian to chat about Cyrodiil Champions. It will be on the shorter end of things, but solely focused on the test. Info is below.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone!

We've been seeing a lot of questions about the Cyrodiil Champions test currently on the PTS. To help clarify a few points, we will be hosting a very brief (15-20 minute) livestream today at 1pm EST on twitch.tv/bethesda to answer some common questions including what the goals of this test are, how this current test is different from what will be on Live, what success looks like from our end, and more. This is not taking the place of the written Q&A that is in progress and we do not plan to cover any other topics.

Looking forward to seeing you all in a few hours!

katorga · January 24

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

It's entirely possible that you're an outlier and that most players don't enjoy the Vengeance campaign, nor did they ask for it.

Feels slow and clunky to me.

NB has by far the best vengeance kit, the only class to play really. The other classes lost their best bits, and a flat 70K health really advantages classes with scaling executes.

Adamus · January 24

Here's a link to our first Thursday group test, not many issues. Hoping more people join us on Thursdays 8pm cst-10pm cst.

Turtle_Bot · January 24

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, Just wanted to follow up with some info. We will have a live stream today at 1pm ET with Gina, Rich, and Brian to chat about Cyrodiil Champions. It will be on the shorter end of things, but solely focused on the test. Info is below.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone!

We've been seeing a lot of questions about the Cyrodiil Champions test currently on the PTS. To help clarify a few points, we will be hosting a very brief (15-20 minute) livestream today at 1pm EST on twitch.tv/bethesda to answer some common questions including what the goals of this test are, how this current test is different from what will be on Live, what success looks like from our end, and more. This is not taking the place of the written Q&A that is in progress and we do not plan to cover any other topics.

Looking forward to seeing you all in a few hours!

Awesome to hear this will be happening

Unfortunately (for me) it will likely be around 4am my time when this stream happens, hopefully it can be shared/linked here, or a summary/rundown can be posted so I (and others with similar timezones) can get a chance to watch/read about it tomorrow.

xylena_lazarow · January 24

sarahthes wrote: »

So the lag is fine?

I know people hate the low pop caps but yeah, doing that mostly fixed the lag, I only feel it at tri faction ball group disasters, or when everyone is stacked on the hammer.

Meredy · January 24

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hey @acastanza_ESO, we understand why the balance topics you are calling out are important to you. We want to stress that for PTS specifically, this is a functionality test only, ahead of the live test and the test overall is designed to prioritize game performance to see what is possible. For this functionality test on the PTS, we are focused on the questions in the first post. Remember, the core point of this test is to see how Cyrodiil performs overall in a barebones environment, rather than on class kit focus.

The problem is that for a full week we're going to be stuck with this on live, and an unbalanced, unfun, campaign where some classes have a massive power advantage over the others is not an acceptable gameplay experience. This shouldn't go on live, even as a test, without at least a basic attempt at ensuring the classes have equitable access to important buffs and debuffs that are required for a class to be playable in PVP.

If you're unwilling to do a test then Cyrodiil improvements can't be expected to happen

xylena_lazarow · January 24

Meredy wrote: »

If you're unwilling to do a test then Cyrodiil improvements can't be expected to happen

I get the sentiment, but I'm not a paid game tester. If the product isn't fun, I'm not wasting my time testing it.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · January 24

MincMincMinc wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

It's entirely possible that you're an outlier and that most players don't enjoy the Vengeance campaign, nor did they ask for it.

Crying that your class is debuffed when this is just a week long test with no lasting effects is ridiculous

Why are you so adversarial with some people in this thread? Responding that someone is moaning or crying is not constructive at all. ZOS asked for feedback and you should give players room to do that.

MincMincMinc · January 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Can't wait to hear the same people a year from now complaining that zos isnt doing anything.

Many of us have been saying for years that we really don't want major reworks, just for them to listen to us about balance on things like annoying ranged Sorcs, ball group meta, and Rushing Agony.

Nonesense, everyone in pvp has complained about lag since the lighting patch.

katorga wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

It's entirely possible that you're an outlier and that most players don't enjoy the Vengeance campaign, nor did they ask for it.

Feels slow and clunky to me.

NB has by far the best vengeance kit, the only class to play really. The other classes lost their best bits, and a flat 70K health really advantages classes with scaling executes.

That's not how algebra works. Its all relative and doesn't care about how many 00s you put at the end of it.

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

This aint it chief

The test is great already. PvP is so much cleaner and skills feel much more impactful. Maybe try it before you just sit around moaning about a necessary test.

It's entirely possible that you're an outlier and that most players don't enjoy the Vengeance campaign, nor did they ask for it.

Crying that your class is debuffed when this is just a week long test with no lasting effects is ridiculous

Why are you so adversarial with some people in this thread? ZOS asked for feedback and you should give players room to do that. Responding that someone is moaning or crying is not constructive at all.

Because many of these comments are trying to undermine or disregard the usefulness of this test that has to happen by now. Not only that, but they are harmfully telling players that we should avoid testing it.

Comparing vengeance balance or numbers to live to persuade players to hate it before trying is not constructive or helpful in anyway.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · January 24

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Comparing vengeance balance or numbers to live to persuade players to hate it before trying is not constructive or helpful in anyway.

Yeah this is flat out wrong. Players are allowed to voice their opinion on the "test" whether you like it or not. Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's not constructive and helpful. In fact it's extremely important that ZOS understands how players feel about the test. So get out of the way and stop pressuring players and putting them down.

sarahthes · January 24

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Comparing vengeance balance or numbers to live to persuade players to hate it before trying is not constructive or helpful in anyway.

Yeah this is flat out wrong. Players are allowed to voice their opinion on the "test" whether you like it or not. Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's not constructive and helpful. In fact it's extremely important that ZOS understands how players feel about the test. So get out of the way and stop pressuring players and putting them down.

The takeaway should be "don't test anything, just fix it without testing?"

I suppose that is feedback, but I strongly hope it's the minority.