The Official Vengeance Test Campaign Feedback Thread (Test 2)

static_recharge · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
No, the game froze and had to completely restart the client.
Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Not a clue.
What you think of the simplified abilities?
Easier to understand.
Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
No, even with forcing a shutdown it was ok.
What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
Feels like the same question as the next one, see there.
Do you have any general feedback?
The mount speed is way too slow, I spent most of the night just running from place to place not getting into any actual fighting.
The main reason I am making this feedback is actually because of the weather effects. While the sky looks cool and all the rest of it I could really do without. The rain was black, making black streaks down my screen and just plain horrible. The green lightning actually made me sick to my stomach, which is odd because I don't get motion sickness/car sick or anything like that and never have. The green flashes actually made me feel sick. Please do not keep this in the game.

alternatelder · July 1

I get bad headaches when I pvp, so I'm unable to play much. With the small amount of time I played, Vengeance is still not enough. It does not fix the #2 issue with pvp (#1 in this campaign), and that is the amount of healing players can achieve no matter how much damage they take, and in ball groups, people are still invincible. I'm out, I can't see myself playing this anymore. It was already frustrating spending years building a character up, getting good, but never being able to take down people who have seemingly infinite resources to heal and heal and heal.

MincMincMinc · July 1

10 year PvPer and tester.....

Immediately at first glance server performance feels worse than the peak chalman fight of the last test. From what I can see it has to do with the healing skills in resto being spammed. It may not be the shear amount of ticks from the skills, but perhaps the smarthealing or crosshealing.

Honestly with how many skills are in the game now, zos needs to really think about making things different. Live shows how silly the morph system is, most people just choose the strongest morph. Perhaps zos should make morphs have for instance One efficient group only smart heal and the other morph be a dummy blanket aoe cross heal.

Ex: resolving vigor heals you for X and 3 group members in a 5m radius for X/3................Echoing heals you and 11 group members within 8m for X/8......... OR echoing heals you and 11 players for X/12

The other aspect is stacking Over time effects, which has been pointed out for years. Zos made over time effects stack for pve back in the day because groups kept complaining that if people ran the same classes they'd run the same BIS dot. This was terrible for pvp because builds also ended up converging to only run the most efficient dots/hots. Again invalidating the morph system of the game.

This drastically hurt solo players vs groups because now instead of the group having to coordinate, they are always at peak efficiency. If mid and high tier solo players are hurting and complaining....this means that the lower tier new solo players have already quit and gave up trying. PvP NEEDS all players of different skill levels to be comfortable playing solo, otherwise the population wont grow.

MincMincMinc · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
YES
Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Worse than the peak chalman fight of the first test
What do you think of the simplified abilities?
Simplified abilities serve the same purpose without the bloat. Some feel much cleaner to use. Easier to understand for new players. Keep in mind that for cyrodil to work you need players at all skill levels participating in all kinds of content, the skill system is a MAJOR factor in player output. This creates a matrix of new/mid/top tier players in zerg/group/solo content. On live you do not have this matrix, instead you have new/mid in zergs and then top tier players can smallman group or solo. The skill system can help bring solo gameplay back to pvp by bringing back skills that level the playing field like reflective wings, old harness magicka sustain, cloak, streak, sap essence+siphon based on hits, etc. OR other methods like preventing effects from stacking, so zergs will be soft capped and cannot spam only one BIS skill. Or focus on making morphs oriented at buffing and healing 2-4 player groups instead of 12-36 man groups.
What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
Continue to rework the skill system. Long term vengeance would need morphs, sets, glyphs, food, etc all reworked. The largest difference is how much more enjoyable raw combat is compared to live, which is people just tanking and waiting for procs. Vengeance pvp highlights skills and combat awareness. Instead of staring at addon buff trackers for procs, players are invested and watching what enemies are doing skill wise. Skills that are important should be visible and clear, skills that are not important should be translucent or near invisible. EX: a CC effect or Ultimate should be visually prominent......... the enemy's spammable or armor buff should be near invisible.......... A proc set that insta kills you should be visible....... A proc set that is unavoidable and inconsequential should be near invisible.
Do you have any general feedback?
With this test already lagging and crashing the major difference I can see is how many aoe heals and hots are being abused. It may be a small group of players doing the majority of the lag spamming grand healing and regen for example. Whether it is the ticks or the smart healing causing the issue, i am not sure. Population wise if only 5-10% are healers causing the lag for a 500 player server that is only potentially 25-50 players spamming two skills....... Reminds me of back in the early days you could get a group of 20-30 players in a corner and crash the server by spamming grand healing over and over.

Cyrodil wise this test highlights how dysfunctional the rules are for cyrodil. The campaign and keep/buff system only works when at max population. In dead campaigns giving bonuses to the winning faction has the inverse effect. It allows one faction to easily beat the two losing factions and bully them into logging out and quitting the game. This happened to u50 pvp and then nocp pvp and is slowly happening to cp pvp. The game rules here are actively preventing new players from joining in a healthy environment, instead most new players have to experience the vet cp laggy mess for a functional campaign.

Map gameplay wise, keep seiges need to be more than just run to the front door. The importance of capturing and holding the resource nodes should be a continuous battle THROUGHOUT the keep seige. This promotes large groups to split up and naturally dissolve instead of combining. One solution is to make captured resource nodes a spawn point for anyone in the keep area. Another solution would be to require all resources to flip keep flags. Something of this nature would promote more combat and less pvdoor. The more chances you make for zergs of new players to split off and try solo or small group pvp, the more chances you will get these new players comfortable coming back to play the game on their own.

xylena_lazarow · July 1

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Noticeable lag and fps drops in large scale unlike the 1st test, otherwise responsive and fun

What you think of the simplified abilities?
Love them, except for NB being able to indefinitely cloak/heal/siphon like the most miserable gameplay on Live

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
Vengeance is the future. Cyrodiil on Live is never recovering and will only get worse.

Do you have any general feedback?
It will fade in popularity without better diversity of gameplay. Get rid of the indefinite Nightblade crap and chain pull spam so nonsweaty players actually want to leave the zerg. Add catapult sieges to break up the open field 100 mans.

mrLuckyCat · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles? Yes, the queue was short but it was not quite primetime yet when I joined.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)? Yes it was responsive but a bit sluggish. Definitely better than live.

What you think of the simplified abilities? I Don't like it. Specifically the targeted healing. I preffer smart Healing. Also, ressource regeneratin is off compared to my live build. I can hardly sustain.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game. What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test? No

Do you have any general feedback?
1) I dislike this model where the bigger the crowd the better are your chances to win more than the current pull-bomb model. I find the pull-bomb more enjoyable because I do have more option to build my caracter - I can make a smaller group successfull against a larger group (not a full blown zerg but a larger group).

2) Corrdinated group play is difficult on me due to language barrier and hearing issues. The current model makes it more possible to me to be a simple healbot from inside an uncoordinated group or solo healing randoms from behind. I can also sustain better which gives me the impression that I have a better impact on the battlefield. It will be more necessary to coordinate in permanent Vengence Campaign. If the Vengence model comes to live, I will have to forfeit my current playstyle in cyrodiil, switch to a simple brawler who just die to groups who do coordinate. I am not very kind on relearning unless more rules are set in place to make sure alliances are punished when targetting an unnecessary target (for exemple, an alliance with no scrolls pushing an alliance who also has no scrolls - but that should be done regardless of whats happening with Vengence). Targeted heals needs to stay for me to keep playing a bit my way.

3) It was fun to kill players who use troll build

Taggund · July 1

Lag was more noticeable this test.

However, overall, as a regular Cyro player (and Cyro being primary reason I still play ESO) a zergfest is not want I want out of Cyro. Hopefully this is just the testing phase, and what is intended to change is nothing like this.

thedude33 · July 1

Big thumbs up from me. It reminds me of when the game first came out. I actually feel like I contributed. Far less trolling from ball groups or unkillable builds that hop around doing nothing. Far less frustrating. The skilled players still dominate but they are actually killable. What a concept.

I've been back subscribed for the past 3 months after being away for a few years. I cancelled my subscription 10 days ago because I prefer PvP, and currently Cyrodil isn't fun. If I knew Vengance was going to be an option I would resubscribe instantly ...and never step foot in Cyrodil again.

Major_Soulless · July 1

Combat performance was fine no lag.

I didn't enjoy the mode though it's too stripped back not even letting us have riding speed is a bit much

Prism_ADC · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles? Yes, many insanely fun and long lasting ones.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)? I did not experience any lag at all so far (multiple 3h+ play sessions)

What you think of the simplified abilities? I think some of them need to be rebalanced, but as a templar I am enjoying the abilities that are familiar to me still mostly being similar.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? No.

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test? I love it. I think it's fun.

Do you have any general feedback? This is my first vengeance test, and pvp experience in general. I think as a new player this is alot more friendly to players like me, who just want to level the skill line with a little less chaos and learning curve. I think it would make a great starter campaign or something.

xylena_lazarow · July 1

Heal stacking is a balance problem even capped at 3. The larger side can win simply by spamming heals, just like on Live. When the offensive and defensive AoE caps are the same, it's mathematically impossible for the smaller zerg to keep up in throughput with the larger zerg, even if they can outplay the larger zerg on some levels.

Either reduce the healing cap all the way to 1, make heals single target only, increase offensive caps to 6 or some number, or uncap offensive AoE altogether, whatever, gotta give the smaller zerg a fighting chance into a larger zerg. Right now it's like the playing field is rigged in favor of the larger force, same as Live. Meet the new boss, same as the old?

EF321 · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

Just got into campaign, found what looks like big battle, approached it, got dropped from server... same as happens on normal server with large battles.

Abelon · July 1

- Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes, and plenty of them. Vengeance is very populated, there are constantly full parties running, and sieges start to happen all the time.

- Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
It's been a while since I last properly played Cyrodiil pvp, but so far my experience has been significantly better. I have only had one very large-scale siege (that also felt much larger than most others) that led to a bit lag. But my abilities were going off pretty much as expected, the delays were very minor and barely noticeable. Otherwise an incredibly smooth experience.

- What you think of the simplified abilities?
Take some getting used to. I like having a more equalized playing field in general. I'm not sure if I love all the skills, with Arcanist I feel like there is too much "healy/shieldy" stuff that kind of does the same thing... Feels like some of the variety got removed too much with some of those simplifications. In general a bit too much healing maybe. And had some issues with one of those NB builds, they can run around for hours on end just trolling everyone, invis and heal up, go back into invis.

- Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc?
No. Didn't yet experience most of those situations in general.

- What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
Very enjoyable. I believe the fundamental idea is solid. It feels like going back to very early game Cyrodiil again. I don't have to deal with proc sets and other nonsense. It's simple enough that new players will stand a better chance of actually getting into PvP. I think some balancing stuff still needs to get ironed out and I want to see what this looks like with subclassing. But with that too, Vengeance actually gives us a chance to have balanced pvp despite subclassing.

- Do you have any general feedback?
Seeing some of the negative reactions to this test week - I think sooner or later the topic of "old PvP vs new PvP" is going to come up. Will Vengeance replace the existing campaigns entirely and serve as a sort of complete rebalancing of the PvP experience? Or will it be an additional campaign representing a different game mode? Or will we start with the second and slowly transfer into the first? That last one would probably be my suggestion. I'd be cautious with just outright taking some people's "old pvp" away from them.

The sky looks cool and made me think that we could use more of such small visual shakeups. Something new every once in a while, even if it's a sky filter.

Oh, and final general feedback - maybe the link to this thread should be pinned somewhere. Many people seem to have missed it entirely. I only found it through a different thread in general discussion, where someone was kind enough to post a reminder.

MincMincMinc · July 1

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Heal stacking is a balance problem even capped at 3. The larger side can win simply by spamming heals, just like on Live. When the offensive and defensive AoE caps are the same, it's mathematically impossible for the smaller zerg to keep up in throughput with the larger zerg, even if they can outplay the larger zerg on some levels.

Either reduce the healing cap all the way to 1, make heals single target only, increase offensive caps to 6 or some number, or uncap offensive AoE altogether, whatever, gotta give the smaller zerg a fighting chance into a larger zerg. Right now it's like the playing field is rigged in favor of the larger force, same as Live. Meet the new boss, same as the old?

Wheeler did mention they have been discussing aoe caps when gina brought it up. ideas like "increasing damage caps and lowering healing aoe caps". However this test is mainly about bringing more variety into vengeance. As we see with resto and assault/support there are far more group oriented skills......and in turn more performance issues.

From the livestreams talking about this test wheeler is fairly clear that there will be more tests after this 2nd test where other systems will be brought in and played with.

Kickimanjaro · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yeah, I guess, I got run down by like 170 elves a couple times. Otherwise, I did have some fun assaulting and defending keeps with a large crew of allies. Often, it felt like the side with more people won, though.
Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Latency wasn't awful but there were a few stutters here and there. Combat was not fun with the limited abilities as it felt like we were all basically the same build doing the same stuff. I liked seeing more people all in the same place though, that part felt like the good ol' days and I appreciated it.
What you think of the simplified abilities?
I don't like them and prefer the complexity of the full game.
Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
No
What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
I don't like it but I'm forcing myself to participate because Cyrodiil is my favorite part of the game and the reason I keep coming back.
Do you have any general feedback?
I hope this remains a test and does not become the future of Cyrodiil in any way.

Dojohoda · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes, both PCNA and PCEU

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Yes and no, PCNA was better overall. PCEU was okay except for, 3 times today, long pauses in fights occured during which nothing happened, (the screen looked like a screenshot and not a video game) and then, 7-10 seconds later, everything caught up and happened at once. Also while at PCEU my computer had an error (the blue screen) and restarted itself. Reference point of myself: I am located in the USA.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
I'll take what I can get. I am just overjoyed there is no ROA, there is just DK pull, which is fine with me.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? No corruption occured.

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
The same as last time.. OH BOY, look at all these players WOOOO HOOOO!!! and, dang my horse and character is slow , and WOW, I can mount!

Do you have any general feedback?
I am happy to help out with the data gathering. I hope you all have great success with this.

Highwayman · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes, constantly.
Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
In about 8 hours of play I had 1 freeze of about 3 seconds and 1 disconnect. It was perfectly smooth otherwise.
What you think of the simplified abilities?
Once I had grown accustomed to their limits they felt natural to use.
Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
No.
What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
Vengeance should replace the under 50 campaign keeping it's primary focus on accessibility for less experienced players and teaching fundamentals of the cyrodiil game mode. I'd love to see similar on ic and bgs too.

If solo I would still gravitate towards the current CP campaign, especially in this low ttk meta.
Do you have any general feedback?
1. Aoe ultimates should feel more impactful.
2. Spectral bow should feel less impactful.
3. DK chain pull and the knockback from Templar spear both seem extremely long range. It may just be they are more noticeable in this rule set.
4. Healing is a little overtuned, specifically vigor. I think that addressing #1 may be a good solution to both that and this though.

Sluggy · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes. Absolutely.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Same as last test - the server felt fine. There did seem to be a slight increase in my lag spikes here and there but that could be due to my own shoddy ISP. For sure the server itself was running great, though. The only minor issue I had was that doors still sometimes refuse to work when a lot of things are going on.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
Same as last test, I like the idea that you can quickly and easily get in. However, with the addition of the weapon skill lines there were issues that I'll point out in my general feedback below.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
Nope.

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
Still looks promising but I really do think these tests need to have a much more rapid cadence. There's clearly a lot of things left to get in there and at the current rate you're either going to have to do a rush job or it's going to take another two or three years of testing like this.

Do you have any general feedback?
First and foremost, performance was still great. I hope the team has found the information necessary to continue further tests while adding more things back in. As well, I still want to say that I enjoy idea of being able to just hop in and go. This goes for both stats and gear as well as the general idea of how combat works. So I really think that in some form, this needs to exist in whatever the final product will be. I am NOT going to try to get any more of my friends to play Cyrodiil with me on the live version because it would take them months to get their character and equipment and even longer to learn the basics and become capable of actually making a difference in the game.

With the addition of weapons it became much more possible for players to fight in out numbered situations and I saw quite a few small and large groups taking advantage of this to make simple compositions that allowed them to be very successful. Of course, if the numbers were too skewed they'd either have to run or die. And that's fine. Just as it should be.

Normally, I'd wait until the testing period was done to write anything but even on day one there were some big and obvious issues that cropped up. While I realize this is mostly a test for the sake of performance, I think the unique situation here where we don't have gear or different stats on each characters makes it extremely obvious what the problem is.

Say it with me now.

Healing. Is. Too. Strong.

Sorta.

Okay, we all know this on live. But again, here with zero sets or stats being changed it can be easily dissected for what it is and how it works. Basically, by about the halfway point of the first day pretty much everyone playing solo or in small groups figured out that if you stack HoTs then you cannot die in a 1v1. It's literally impossible. There actually isn't enough burst damage in the game to outpace healing. There are two things contributing to this. One is obvious. HoTs. We can stack em again. The other is a little more subtle. Sustain. It was much easier this time around. I don't know if any of the regen stats changed but my guess is that with the introduction of weapon lines, I was much more easily capable of offloading all of my defense onto mag and reserve my stam just for high-frequency spammables. This basically meant that I was always out of stam and always had a full bar of mag. So in any given situation, as long as I didn't extend too much, I could just fall back to stacking HoTs to stay alive until I had enough stam to begin an assault again. It's trivially easy to kill anyone in a 1v1 that didn't know how to do this. It's also trivially easy to stalemate a fight with anyone that did. Basically, this removed the time limit that we had in the last version of Vengeance with an indefinite amount of time to proceed in a fight as long as we managed our resources well and didn't get out numbered too badly. This is a problem and it's exactly what is wrong with live now.

Personally, I think the solution to this is fairly straightforward in the limited Vengeance mode - remove HoT stacking. You get one. Period. Not one of each. Just one. Whatever is strongest. Whomever casts it on you. You get that and only that. And if you want more healing then it needs to come from burst healing. Sustain also needs to be hit a tad, at least with regards to the cost of healing. With how it is currently, you could still easily have a coordinated group stack healers for burst haling and rely on just three or four damage dealers - you know... like it is on live now.

I hope that the tests will continue and that the performance will remain top-notch while things are added back in. There's plenty more I could say about combat in general but I think I'd rather just see what the next round brings to the table and leave it at that for now.

OccultOverload · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Nothing but zergs, not really fun or engaging. The large scale fights were primary just giant zergs of ranged players. Nothing engaging or strategic. As a small group you did not feel impactful.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Not the usual lag, but the combat was so clunky it felt terrible. Skills were responsive, but the added cool downs felt really long and combat felt slow, uninspired, and boring.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
Terrible. Leaves the combat feeling clunky, amateurish, and slow. Honestly felt like I was playing some pre-alpha build to just test some fundamentals. The allure of ESO lies in the complexity and verity of builds and combat.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
No.

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
Honestly, some of the worst PvP in an MMO I have ever experienced. This version of PvP felt very dumbed down, simplified, and boring. As a solo player, or small group you felt not very impactful. Fights were primarily just spamming ranged skills at each other and whomever got more crits or missed a heal won. Nothing felt skill based or impactful.

Let me be blunt, if anything like this or resembling this becomes the primary Cyrodiil style PvP in the game, I will likely stop playing.

Do you have any general feedback?

I appreciate the attempt to isolate performance issues in Cyrodiil and give players a “clean” environment, but Vengeance is not a reflection of the real game. The caps and settings make it feel detached from normal Cyrodiil and don’t test anything meaningful regarding large-scale PvP in its true form.
Personally, I find Vengeance boring, slow, and too numbers-based. Everyone is running ranged setups. Fights boil down to giant zergs where individual skill and small-scale tactics are mostly irrelevant. It lacks the dynamism that made Cyrodiil engaging.
The AOE limit is particularly frustrating. Most AoE skills become basically useless, which kills class identity and further pushes everyone into the same few meta builds.
If this design makes its way to live permanently, please keep it in its own campaign. Let those who enjoy it have a place to play it without forcing it on the wider PvP community. The diversity of Cyrodiil’s campaigns is a strength—let’s not homogenize it.

Please see my larger feedback thread I just posted here:
Feedback from a Returning Player – Gold Road, Season Pass, Subclassing, and Cyrodiil (Vengence)
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/679929/feedback-from-a-returning-player-gold-road-season-pass-subclassing-and-cyrodiil-vengence

MJallday · July 1

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

Yes

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

Perfect. And no stuck in combat hug

What you think of the simplified abilities?

Loved them

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc?

No

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?

Keep it perminantly

Do you have any general feedback

I would have absolutely no issues with keeping this exactly as it is

No more roa
No more bombs
No more stuck in combat
Less lag
Better bigger battles

blktauna · July 1

PCEU and PCNA.

I can't even tell you how much I enjoy this ruleset. Its nonstop action from the get go and my machine doesn't seize up like it does in Grayhost.

* Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Oh my yes. We've had some HUGE battles up and down the map.

*Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Unlike last time I actually had stalls and frame drops. Not bad but noticable. The thing different from regular cyro is that it was a slowdown not a seize up. My ping went higher but did not hit 999. Combat is outrageously fun. The skill delay makes it not as responsive as I would like but the lack of busted skills and sets makes it more even.

*What you think of the simplified abilities?
I actually enjoy them.

*Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.

No, not so far.

*What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
I really enjoy the lack of busted builds, keeping everyone on pretty even footing
I love the unlimited siege. People are using it.
I love the unlimited camps. People actually set them up
Unlimited pots are always nice. There just seems to be a lot of delay on their use.
Range is odd. The sorcs skills easily reach up the walls but staff skills don't seem to have the same range. Nor do bows.
In big battles there's a good amount of skill delay and staff heavy attacks are not always functional. I am getting stuck in the preparing for attack animation and have to roll out of it repeatedly.

*Do you have any general feedback?
I'm hoping there's a similar permanent ruleset like this in the future.

shadyjane62 · July 2

I had a great time today in Vengeance. I did not have any lag there which was surprising since I had bad lag in Craglorn early in day.

I rarely experience actual lag in game only slower loading times sometimes.

Hope this Vengeance will be permanent part of PVP.

katanagirl1 · July 2

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

Yes several large sieges both defending and attacking, many dozens of players there, unfortunately most of them not on my team.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

There was much more lag in Vengeance campaign than regular Gray Host at prime time. There were more players and more siege, that didn’t seem to be the problem itself but as soon as you tried to use a skill, there were a few seconds of delay or nothing at all. I am used to that on Gray Host but this seems worse. The lack of visual for Siege Shield and the shorter timer for skills (mentioned later) was a detriment. The shorter range for staff skills made everyone a melee player.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

Negate and Siege Shield bubble animation only lasted a second or two before the visual was gone. The timer on the skill bar was still active but hard to keep track of in battle. I could not count on my teammates to see the negate and make use of it. Otherwise, many skills had shorter timers so they had to be refreshed more often. My normal gameplay only uses skills that were available in Vengeance, so my gameplay was essentially the same except for noted previously. Having only one of each siege was problematic for keep defense and the lack of meatbags also contributed.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
account name
character name
What happened to trigger the corruption (leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, etc)?
Time of day this occurred
screenshots and video

No problems with disconnects but had one rubber banding incident. No problems after logging out, also no infinite negative debuffs either.

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?

Nice to not have unkillable ball groups and unkillable tanks, also great to not have Rush of Agony pulls every second or two. Playing without CP is not my cup of tea, hits like a wet noodle. Taking out the gear sets that everyone uses as a crutch helps to level the playing field, but I would not want to give that up completely.

Do you have any general feedback?

As a stress test for number of players on PS NA this is an absolute failure. Not enough PvP players are left. Most players didn’t know the test was coming and many were mad when they got to Vengeance and simple logged off until it is over. The first day there was a lot of confusion and everyone asking questions in zone text chat to figure it out. Today it was two bars AD and one bar EP and DC during east coast prime time. I was on DC and we had a low pop bonus for a long time. I think there needed to be more engagement with console players for this test, admittedly I am not sure how you would do that. I don’t think players who quit PvP years ago will hear about the test and come back to see what is going on.

React · July 2

Here is an unlisted video showing what the vengeance campaign looks like tonight on PC/NA. From 9PM-10PM EST it was like this constantly. I'm all the way at faregyl in these clips and the closest fight is at arrius, with no other crossed swords on the map and only one other keep under siege.

So do we draw the line at weapon skills for performance completely falling apart? I have a hard time putting any faith in this as the "future of PVP" like so many people flaunt it as when adding just the slightest amount of complexity causes it to completely break.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1T09FY4YRw

silky_soft · July 2

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

Yes at brk. No crash.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

Nah 3 faction was full lag.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

Much better then subclass fiasco.

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?

Less focus on item use more focus on skills use.

Do you have any general feedback?

Still haven't changed it to set faction player models instead of full custom now.

NoSoup · July 2

I'll start by saying I was quite eager to get into Vengence Prt2 as I found the first test so entertaining. The results were mixed though, I'm not sure if it was localised network issues or just a significant change from the first test. Will jump on again tonight to see if the results are different.
Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes, was involved in multiple 3 way battles, not as large as the first test but still at least 100 players involved.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Yes, the battles felt better than "normal cyrodil". But they were noticably worse than the first test. While better than normal cyrodil there were multiple times were it required multiple attempts to pass through doors, over the course of 2 hours I was stuck in combat 3 times and had multiple instances of skills/abilities (mostly ultimate) not firing. Now, the frequency of these issues was far less than normal cyrodil, but none of these issues were present during the first test.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
I really don't mind them

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.

no

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?

There is a definite decline in performance when comparing this Test to the last Test, while the performance was still better than normal cyrodil, the "payoff" is signifcantly reduced. Ie, I'm, not sure if the simplification is worth the increased performance based on my first experience with Test 2. I will play a few more nights and report back as to whether it was just the state of the servers at that specific time or a more general expectation of performance.

Do you have any general feedback?

ADawg · July 2

Please tell me this will be some sort of OPTIONAL PVP mode moving forward and not what PVP will be forced to become...

BXR_Lonestar · July 2

I posted this in response to another forum not realizing there was an "official" feedback thread, so I am just going to cut/paste this post here:

This is coming from someone who was dead set against the concept of the Vengeance campaign since it was first announced (and we did not get to play the first one because I'm on console), from someone who plays regularly with a coordinated ballgroup, and someone who is used to playing PVP at somewhat of a high level:

The Vengeance campaign is a breath of fresh air and was a BLAST to play last night. I'm an admitted skeptic and came to it with a very pessimistic view, but I wanted to be able to talk about it from a well informed position, and so I sat down determined to figure out how to play it. I skilled up my warden healer with those abilities that I thought would be helpful. And at first, I was miserable. I wasn't able to spam heals like I'm used to, I wasn't able to heal as many targets as I used to, and I wasn't as unkillable as I used to feel while playing on my healer. But if you are only comparing your experience to what the game was like just a few days ago, then I think you are missing the forest through the trees.

Yes, to enjoy Vengeance, you are going to have to make adjustments to how you play, tactics you use, etc.. But if you work through the learning curve and stick around long enough, then you are going to get into some truly epic large scale battles the likes of which we haven't experienced since the start of the game and since players could run in groups of 24. There are so many people everywhere that there is no shortage of fights. During those fights, you don't have to worry about getting pulled and blown up by a bomb or a ball group. You don't have to worry about chasing around a speedy healbot kite tank that can still suddenly turn around and burst you down. There aren't massive waves of groups all running 40k+ health that seem unkillable, even when you hit them with seige. It was like playing the game fresh and new and without a lot of the crap that can really make the game a miserable experience, even for a veteran player.

And on the topic of seige. My faction is not known for being good seigers. But this campaign is forcing them to learn how to do it. Because even though MOST battles are going to be dictated by numbers because of the way things are balanced out, knowing when and how to siege is just as critical, and those siege battles are absolutely amazing! At one point, I had a Trebuchet down and was coordinating fire with another guildmate, also using a Treb to simply annihilate groups of people because we timed our launches almost perfectly. Dumping oils is a little boring since you don't feel like you are in the thick of the fight and your oils often miss, but when they hit, they have a HUGE impact on the fight. And players are quickly learning combined arms tactics (how to fight on foot and with siege).

And the healing? I thought I would hate it because I was feeling like I wasn't having a large impact on the game because I was limited in how many I could throw out, how few people were hit by them, and my HOTS were weak and didn't hit many people. But we got into a Tri-fight at Alessia in which they swiss cheesed the outer walls, but we held the inner keep against greater numbers and were eventually able to push them back and fight on the outer wall breaches, and being able to toss my heals into a concentrated area still felt very effective in spite of the limitations.

Overall, I came to Vengeance a HUGE skeptic and dead set on just gritting and bearing it to get through the test. But I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it.

gamergirldk · July 2

PC-EU

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
yes

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
yes, entire scren filled up with people and no lag or fps issues, And no once did i get the stuck in combat, when trying to mount after a fight.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
i like it

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
No.

What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test?
I like it alot, no unkillible ball groups, that runs around holding on to scrolls or farming kills in keeps, but dont take it over.
No toxic pull bomb builds.

Do you have any general feedback?
The mount speed is to slow
would like to be able to place atleast 1 more siege.

SirLeeMinion · July 2

[*]Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles? - Yes, I took part in large fights on both the PCEU and PCNA servers on my main account.

[*]Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)? - Latency felt bad on both servers this time around. For me, it was far worse than the last Vengeance test and really no better than CP Cyrodiil. While I did not DC, fights had frequent "slide show" periods. Turning my graphics down had no impact. Performance on the more local NA server was no better than the higher ping EU server.

[*]What you think of the simplified abilities? - I have mixed feelings. I feel the simplicity does not really compromise the feeling of PvP. Player skill definitely impacted outcomes of 1 v 1 and 1 v 2 fights. At 1 v 3 and above skill level only dictated how long it would take before numbers prevailed. To me, this is appropriate. I also liked that when you saw a player deliberately running alone, you knew two things 1) they were skilled and looking for a good fight 2) you had some chance against them and weren't going into an insta-killed fight. On the other hand, I do not feel the kits are balanced among the classes. That said, I'm not sure balance is necessary since you can roll any class and participate almost immediately.

[*]Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil - No

[*]What are your initial thoughts on Vengeance Test? - Lag was worse than the elevated population second phase of the first test, and bad enough to make Cyrodiil not worth playing for me.

[*]Do you have any general feedback? - The simplified skills and armor sets make small-scale PvP feel more like an even contest and less like getting steamrolled by ball groups and niche builds. Faction stack fights seemed totally numbers-driven, and seige equipment (other than camps) had less impact than I'd have expected.