It would prevent the fast flow of battle that I really enjoy. I like the combat system, very, very much. I just wish there was an easy fix for the lag.

I typically stay away from huge battles though, so it doesn't impact me as much as people who really want keep warfare. But it spreads like a disease anyways, so meh.

With only 5 abilities on each bar. No.

I'm sure it's better to attack the source than to change the combat system.

Can we just get some arenas and battlegrounds so I can invest my life savings into this game.

if we had a skill tray of around 15 skills, a cooldown might be needed, but we only have 5, putting cooldowns on these skills would make combat slow, clunky, and boring. i like the fast paced combat as it is

Sypher wrote: »

With only 5 abilities on each bar. No.

I'm sure it's better to attack the source than to change the combat system.

Can we just get some arenas and battlegrounds so I can invest my life savings into this game.

The problem is that in a CD system, skill would actually matter even more really. Youd get one big shot every now and then, strategy and so on.

What we have now is 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11 11 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 21 32 24213 123 4 234213 4 2134 1234 1234 1234 1234 234123412341234234123412341234234234123412341234324123412341234

Now have 50 people doing that in the same spot...

And servers crash/lag out.

I get that the idea isnt popular, but from a stability standpoint unless ZOS can sort out the throughput of their network or find a way to streamline heavily the combat calculations of their engine, we will always suffer perfomance issues in large battles due to the simple fact that a single button press (healing springs, impulse, bats, etc etc) on a single iteration might generate a couple thousand operations on the processor. Those add up, delays form, and eventually the system just bogs out.

Even state of the art hardware has its limits, regardless of scale.

Since I dont know the details of how their actual server side code is laid out, this may or may not be in the right order or may omit or contain extra steps I didnt think of when I wrote it.

Take an ability, lets use Impulse. I am standing with 20 enemies around me on a back flag of a keep with four NPCs alive.

I push that impulse button one time. All at once the server has to calculate the following:

1. How many people are in range
2. Who is in range
3. Randomly assign the max damage cap to six of those players or NPCs
4. Randomly assign the lower damage cap to the remaining players up to that cap
5. Calculate the amount of instant damage I have dealt to each player/NPC individually (24 different rolls vs stats, crits, block)
6. Calculate the ongoing DoT damage and apply that,.
7. Calculate remaining health bars
8. Tell every client in the area what the new values are
9. Synchronize for the next ability use in the queue/cache


All of this has to happen in a millisecond concurrent with potentially dozens if not hundreds of other simultaneous actions by each of those enemy players, not to mention my own allies. It is a LOT of processor load. Moreso than many people might even realize. Even with six to eight cores on a standard server blade, youre still looking at bogging down processing power when scale becomes arbitrary. Couple all of this with checks for spam, whatever backend security features they have in place, keep-alive checks, movement/location checks, NPC/AI actions, and all of the other calcs happening we dont actually directly invoke, and the problem becomes much more player dependent than any of us realize. We do in fact take it for granted every time we get on a flag and start spamming crap.

At the same time, and in the same vein, it is also a crapload of network traffic. Each and every real time stats update has to arrive and return within the same timeframe. The biggest lag problem in Cyrodiil right now is probably data loss/backup due to the processing being so heavy the server simply doesnt have time to keep up with all of the clients it is trying to synchronize with.

CDs slow down that bottleneck. Limitations placed on player input is likely the only thing that is going to fix ESO at this point, since its becoming fundamentally clear that they are unable to fix it on their end.

I wouldnt make such a suggestion lightly, as the idea of CDs actually leaves a bitter nasty taste in my mouth personally.

Rylana wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

i remember playing Mass Effect 3s MP...

you only had around 2-3 abilitys and they had a global cool down between them...

gameplay was more centered around non abilities, like just using cover or using your gun rather than spamming the biggest boom you could and it was very fun.

5 abilitys with a shared cool down system like that? no but individual cool downs is far from unfeasible.. and would greatly shift the games focus from its current "spam spam spam" feel into something more based on timing attacks with the majority of it being light and heavy attacks..

that would make it more like a TES game, since we dont actually have the magic system of a TES game.

there are ways to make it like this without cooldowns tho... it would require them increasing the cost of EVERY ability in the game to the point that no build can easily sustain spamming for more than a few seconds...

That may be an even better solution, actually.

An example from my own DK

How is it that in heavy armor magicka build (20k magicka) with moderate magicka regen in the 1100-1200 range, I am capable of spamming impulse 15 times before I have to wait one second between each one.

Thats a lot of impulse spamming. Light armor/magicka redux builds with 1800 regen are hilarious, especially warlock proccers with tripots hitting 25+ per magicka pool. Its the sheer low cost of everything that allows abilities to be spammed.

You may very well be on to something there.

Yeah thats quite low honestly. Skills are more spammable than ever.

Zos will be working on a lag fix I'm sure, atleast a decent help, since it also is harming PvE.

Rylana wrote: »

What we have now is 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11 11 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 21 32 24213 123 4 234213 4 2134 1234 1234 1234 1234 234123412341234234123412341234234234123412341234324123412341234

Now have 50 people doing that in the same spot...

But it's sort of like that in other MMO's to. Difference is there people spam 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 with the support of macros. Pressing 1 over and over will fire of different skills depending on macro ability queue and cool-downs.

PvP oriented games can be based on more direct actions, like cover, rolling, aiming or hack 'n' slash with a big sword. But I dont see that working for commercial MMORPG's, there will be spam, because your average player likes flashy skills.

Same reason resources management is getting better. Now it's almost closing in on other MMO's, while I spent most my time oom or oos, when ESO first came out. Developers of MMO's seems to be under the assumption that endless casting sells more copies or subs.

Would love to see certain skills become friendly fire when you enter combat, impulse, batswarm etc. Now that would crack me up.

NO [snip] COOLDOWNS

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

Deverger wrote: »

Cooldowns are not the devil, if used properly they could easily fix multiple balance issues as well as make abilities more attractive for all builds by reducing their resource cost significantly in exchange for a short (<5s) cooldown. also only certain problematic abilities would be given cooldowns

Cooldown even as low as 0.25 to 1 second would be nice or like they did with bolt escape, everytime you cast a spell in succesion give it a little more cost, so spamming a single skill would be the last thing you want.

Add this and I'll sponsor a gamer rehab center for the spammington disease

Not having latency is completely possible in theory and concept.

In reality the people who have created this game have used an engine that was never designed to support 100+ people all firing off abilities in concentrated areas. If you want to see the type of PvP they designed Cyrodiil around, look at one of the Early Cyrodiil PvP promotional videos. The players are all neatly lined up swinging swords and heavy attacking each other or firing seige weapons.

These same people have been struggling to make something as simple as spell penetration work for a year now...and failed. There really isn't any hope that I see of them fixing Cyrodiil as we know it.

If give the devs all the respect in the world for doing what they've done thusfar but no one is perfect and PvP turned into a giant albatross for them which is why they are only giving it cursory attention.

Resurrection!

I agree that skills need cooldowns. Nothing major, even just a 5-10 second cooldown on the stronger abilities such as snipe, wrecking blow etc. Currently, my wrecking blow hits the most out of all my abilities, one of the lowest stam costs and can be spammed. My damage goes through the roof when I spam it. But i choose not to out of the priniciple that it is f'ing tacky. You might as well play street fighter.

Even just a small CD such as 5-10secs would force some people to actually use other skills to fill the small gaps rather than tap one button and then still have the nerve to 'tea bag' your corpse at the end thinking they have 'outplayed' you.

I love this game, but PvP can be ridiculous at times. Either that or peoples health pools in pvp need to be increased.

OdinForge wrote: »

If they need to implement cool-downs to fix this game.

I'll gladly move on to a new game.

Agreed, cool downs are dumb. Resource management makes the combat feel so much more dynamic. That being said, I do think there are a lot of "more bang for you buck" abilities that need re-costing, thus reducing the frequency they are cast. I know it isn't ZOS policy to nerf, but cost changing for the sake of balance is way more tolerable than a damage or utility nerf.