[News] Population cap has been reduced again

Nazon_Katts · December 2014

Sharee wrote: »

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

We know it's dead, they know it's dead...

There are so many people playing that ZOS has to reduce the player cap to alleviate the lag issues... and you think it's dead?

...let's say we have a different idea what 'dead' means.

We certainly have a different definition of 'many'.

I find it rather puzzling that there's still lag issues with so few people playing, all the while it was relatively lag free with thrice the cap before.

Sharee · December 2014

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

We know it's dead, they know it's dead...

There are so many people playing that ZOS has to reduce the player cap to alleviate the lag issues... and you think it's dead?

...let's say we have a different idea what 'dead' means.

We certainly have a different definition of 'many'.

I find it rather puzzling that there's still lag issues with so few people playing

Last time i was in a scroll fight, i couldn't see the ground through the player bodies. So we also seem to have a different definition of 'so few playing'.

Nazon_Katts · December 2014

Sharee wrote: »

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

We know it's dead, they know it's dead...

There are so many people playing that ZOS has to reduce the player cap to alleviate the lag issues... and you think it's dead?

...let's say we have a different idea what 'dead' means.

We certainly have a different definition of 'many'.

I find it rather puzzling that there's still lag issues with so few people playing

Last time i was in a scroll fight, i couldn't see the ground through the player bodies. So we also seem to have a different definition of 'so few playing'.

Indeed.

bertenburnyb16_ESO · December 2014

lowering pop cap to 10people per side would probably fix the lagg, but then again, ... you aint calling it big scale open world pvp anymore do you...?

so lowering the pop cap to try and recover some of the trainwreck you created... it isn't the way

JaJaLuka · December 2014

Sharee wrote: »

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

We know it's dead, they know it's dead...

There are so many people playing that ZOS has to reduce the player cap to alleviate the lag issues... and you think it's dead?

...let's say we have a different idea what 'dead' means.

Take into account how many started playing, the intended amount of people meant for Cyrodiil, the size of the map and how many have left... stating that it's dying/dead is justifiable.
Also that you need to log in at certain times of day if you want to fight in a proper siege or the map feels like a ghost town, it's definitely not the original amount of people intended for the enormous map of Cyrodiil.
Saying that, lowering caps is a good thing at this stage as DC players will finally have the reprieve they need to restart their fighting in the Alliance War. I understand that this is probably going to annoy EP, but frankly I don't care because not having to fight 5 to 1 odds is a nice change.

Edit: during off peak times atm AD and DC are still outnumbered and are going to get slammed, so no it certainly hasn't solved all of the problems.

Lukeh Shadyvale · December 2014

This is meh news.
I don't think it will solve the problem as a large group will still form it just means the soloers will have a long ass queue.
There will still be a HoS group or an AD/DC equivalent (big train, lots of AoE, lag bombing keeps, trying to make a bigger than big group)
They will take a little longer to form and may not be with their regular players.

The problem will persist just it will take a little longer to get to that situation.
You will have less opportunity to meet people in the wilderness and less chance to small scale.

Everyone should just join either azura/thorn to make them both semi-populated and just solo everything.
No need for healers or archers. Just go out fight randoms try again if you die or keep walking.

r.jan_emailb16_ESO · December 2014

Columba wrote: »

good enough solution until a more sustainable one is found. now, penalize spammers. If batswarm, impulse or healing springs are spammed kick to login. or....increase cooldown times. easy fixes.

Made me smile. So you press a button, count to three, activate next ability?

stylepolice · December 2014

Who cares for population-caps, campaigns ain't locked anyway nowadays. It still does not counter the problem when 50 AD and 50 EP stand on one spot and everyone is spamming abilities and synergies and noone dying because the server takes ages to figure out which sorry 6 people will be hit by the ae and who to "smart" heal...
Lagspikes last for as long as this goes on - and performance return to normal afterwards. So population caps is like amputating your leg because your head hurts.

Teargrants · December 2014

The que today was over an hour, just imagine what it will be on the weekends. If zos wanted yo encourage the PvP base to split over two servers, they picked the wrong time to do it. It would have been better to change the cap as the next Thornblade cycle begins, and announce it a week or so before hand. Many wont want to switch now because they are fighting for the campaign / don't want to lose leader board spots.

TiberiusTryton · December 2014

Teargrants wrote: »

The que today was over an hour, just imagine what it will be on the weekends. If zos wanted yo encourage the PvP base to split over two servers, they picked the wrong time to do it. It would have been better to change the cap as the next Thornblade cycle begins, and announce it a week or so before hand. Many wont want to switch now because they are fighting for the campaign / don't want to lose leader board spots.

Then other campaigns should start to fill.... Other factions see a que, DC see's a lock first the first time in a week. Now nerf AoE and the lag will drop lower.

Sallington · December 2014

"To increase the performance in Cyrodil to a functional threshold, we are banning all player characters from entering the zone."

morvegil · December 2014

They should removed the lighting patch for PVP ONLY...keep it in PVE zones.

pmn100b16_ESO · December 2014

So ZoS's fix for players lagging in their pvp campaign, is to stop players logging into their pvp campaign. GG

Dagoth_Rac · December 2014

morvegil wrote: »

They should removed the lighting patch for PVP ONLY...keep it in PVE zones.

That is probably very difficult, bordering on impossible. There is a huge code base shared between PvP and PvE. Removing some core graphical functionality from only PvP might be like removing the 7th floor of a 20 story building.

Also, correlation is not causation. Yes, performance problems in Cyrodiil got worse with Update 2, but there were about 25 pages of patch notes with Update 2. And that is just changes visible to the user. Who knows how much internal design elements that are completely invisible to the users were changed? The lighting changes in Update 2 are a best guess for what went wrong, but still just a guess.

Sylvyr · December 2014

I can see this as a logical stop-gap measure. Hopefully it is only temporary until they can put some real work into supplying/updating an infrastructure to support large-scale pvp. I don't think they are putting any significant resources into it or maybe they are and as usual not talking about it.

Not knowing their code but saying generally it shouldn't take too long or too many people to identify the problem - Looking at CPU utilization, Drive & DB utilization, log analysis.

Fixing it on the other hand might take significant resources depending on what they dig up and if it's big and they already have a timeline and resources working on something else (like what they are announcing for the next patch) they might be too committed to re-allocate large chunks of time and personnel.

I personally would like to see better communication either way. Not hearing much of anything is like ZOS doesn't care if PvP dies. I'd rather know they don't want it to die but can't really get to it for a while.

On the bright side just that they did some analysis and found a interim solution to help means they aren't completely ignoring it.

Cody · December 2014

im just happy they are at least trying something. shows they care at least a little bit

Teargrants · December 2014

That's the thing, the pop caps have already been reduced in the past for this exact same reason. It wasn't a temporaty measure then, and I see no indication that it would be now.

Sharee · December 2014

JaJaLuka wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Nazon_Katts wrote: »

We know it's dead, they know it's dead...

There are so many people playing that ZOS has to reduce the player cap to alleviate the lag issues... and you think it's dead?

...let's say we have a different idea what 'dead' means.

Take into account how many started playing, the intended amount of people meant for Cyrodiil, the size of the map and how many have left... stating that it's dying/dead is justifiable.

Dying/dead to me means i log into a ghost town, not into two zergs clashing into each other. The intended amount is determined by the pop cap, and that has been hit night after night on thornblade.

Also, dying/dead to me means a game on life support with skeleton crew of devs feeding the hamster, not a full team shipping content on a regular basis like TESO does. Dead game would not have a complete reworking of all skills coming. It would not have champion system coming. Heck they even are spending resources on such minute details like combat animations. You don't feed those kinds of investment into a game that is dead. And if anyone knows how well the game is doing, and whether it is worth further investment, it is ZOS.

Xsorus · December 2014

Lets be honest, if you're sitting in a queue in this game, its really your own fault.

Subtomik · December 2014

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Lets be honest, if you're sitting in a queue in this game, its really your own fault.

This lol, I have guildmates who have made 2-3 V14 alts in like a month or 2 lol. People saying its too much work to reroll are a joke.

Teargrants · December 2014

Rerolling no, but damn if it isnt hell getting combat frenzy II for all your alts.

Alomar · December 2014

Just had the same lag with the lower pop cap that prevented combat and allowed players with the most numbers to cap flags and take a keep in Thornblade NA. Great job Zenimax I see we're making progress, not.

Jeth · December 2014

We've discovered that when PvP population exceeds 1, performance degrades. Please test PvP on PTS where we will reduce the number of players in each campaign to 1 where you will spam /wrists to self kill and gain AP by accident as intended.

Xsorus · December 2014

Teargrants wrote: »

Rerolling no, but damn if it isnt hell getting combat frenzy II for all your alts.

i still don't even have it on my first toon...heheh

Granted i stopped being able to play hardcore like 3 months ago.

Galalin · December 2014

Subtomik wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Lets be honest, if you're sitting in a queue in this game, its really your own fault.

This lol, I have guildmates who have made 2-3 V14 alts in like a month or 2 lol. People saying its too much work to reroll are a joke.

I hardly had the patients to PvE through 1 toon... there is no freaking way im doing it again. Hats off to those of you that can do it but im a far to diehard PvPer to waste my time fighting AI controlled mobs. Oh the boredom. Im not saying the PvE is bad in this game by any means, just that the only reason i play any game is for the PvP

Columba · December 2014

Alomar wrote: »

Just had the same lag with the lower pop cap that prevented combat and allowed players with the most numbers to cap flags and take a keep in Thornblade NA. Great job Zenimax I see we're making progress, not.

Blame pulse monkey spammers.

Desdemonte · December 2014

This attempt at a fix is a failure. Still lags out superbad. I think this "threshold" is about 3 players.

jnjapexb14_ESO · December 2014

The lower caps have changed nothing except now there are less people to fight and less battles. When 10 or so people stack on a flag with 10 or so enemy the lag is there for the entire server. I have seen this twice since the "fix" and I really don't play that often.

RadioheadSh0t · December 2014

Columba wrote: »

Alomar wrote: »

Just had the same lag with the lower pop cap that prevented combat and allowed players with the most numbers to cap flags and take a keep in Thornblade NA. Great job Zenimax I see we're making progress, not.

Blame pulse monkey spammers.

Here's Columba the Bot executing his programming to add 'impulse' and 'spam' to every thread...

Davadin · December 2014

woodsro wrote: »

I'm glad they are trying to address it. Is it perfect? No but its a start.

Usually I'd agree with you.

But in this case, no. ZOS missed the boat. It's long gone for a "start".