Cyrodiil's End: You win Zos

Jakx · December 2018

Cyrodiil server performance is at an all time low. Ability lag makes the game unplayable. Now there's a combat bug that doesnt drop combat until you die. Can we get a real discussion on this from the developers? Is this an issue you ignore because its just an unfixable problem with the servers and combat?

Everyday that I PvP I am one step closer to never playing this game again. No game should have the server performance that this game does with the amount of money and development support that it gets. There was a time before One Tamriel that server performance was actually pretty darn good in Cyrodiil and pvp was immensely more popular back then. Clearly the servers used to be able to support Cyrodiil but you changed it. Its time to come clean with the issues and be honest with your customer base, lest we just get more posts about housing permissions being broken whilst your actual infrastructure for the game is crumbling.

Edit: 1/5/2019 I'll add Alcast's opinion into the mix as well if it helps get my point across for the developers.

https://clips.twitch.tv/BlazingAbstruseFlamingoFloof

Jakx · December 2018

Ill add this video by JackDaniells (Kristofer ESO youtube channel). All credit to him. He makes great content for ESO and answers everybody's questions in Twitch but his most recent video that I JUST stumbled across after I made this post highlights exactly what Im talking about.

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

mb10 · December 2018

I still roam the forums sometimes but i myself quit because of the PVP performance and awful balancing. Killing playstyles and diversity with constant nerfs.

When in groups large or small, the performance is just awful. The made Cyrodiil for big battles but it has never been the case for ESO unfortunately.
I don’t think it ever will be too...

Finviuswe · December 2018

bruh

Fur_like_snow · December 2018

Yeah Vivec is simply unplayable at certain times of the day.

Logged on for twenty minutes tonight. Ash was under attack tried to ride to the battle got disconnected 250m from the keep. I was even off my mount. Log back in someone calls out dragonclaw in zone chat I port before it flags but I just end up in an infinite load screen. I close the game log back in and I’m dead at the shrine in dragonclaw with 50 EP around me. GG

Jakx · December 2018

Thankfully, I dont have disconnect issues. D/c issues I've always assumed is hardware related on user side since disconnects arent ubiquitous with everyone but the unplayable lag is universal. Love dodgerolling and not having access to my bars for 4-5 seconds.

eso_lags · December 2018

As a small scale player i have no problem fighting bigger groups. Win or lose, i have no problem with it. My problem is when i have to fight the game too. The game itself should not be hindering me in these fights. When I try to cast a few skills and maybe one goes off, thats a problem. The skill delay and lag is what destroys pvp for anyone but massive zerg players, and i cant imagine that even they dont get frustrated by it. Although they play a big part in it.

The cycle of nerfs and bad performance will always repeat itself.. The performance gets worse every update, the nerfs add to the problem, and because of this more people stop playing small scale and move to large scale. The zergs get bigger. The performance gets worse because there are more people balling up.. And more people continue to ball up because of the terrible performance and stupid nerfs to whatever class or build they were playing (although i would say its more of a performance issue)...

Until something changes, which it probably wont, cyrodil will keep getting worse. Dog sh*t performance and massive zergs.. And most of the small scale groups are just meta groups of spinning stam wardens and a magplar farming AP. Same as the zergs, mostly stam wardens spinning or mag wardens perma frosting. Cant say i blame them though.

Paganini · December 2018

Jakx wrote: »

Ill add this video by JackDaniells (Kristofer ESO youtube channel). All credit to him. He makes great content for ESO and answers everybody's questions in Twitch but his most recent video that I JUST stumbled across after I made this post highlights exactly what Im talking about.

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

EXACTLY THIS!! I've also seen this video yesterday and just thought "yep, another really good critic about the current state of PVP in this game".
And my next thought was "pity, Kristofer wasted his time on this video". Because there will NOT even be a statement from ZOS about this. When was the last time we really heard something productive about working on this server lag? Don't even think about getting in contact with support, because Krishna & Shiva, oh wait, Brian and who ever was that other person, will only give you 0815-FAQ's, that are indirectly telling you, your addons/pc/connection is the only issue. This is just a cheek!

And in some days we'll read another article from Matt Firor, how big this game is, and that everyone is happy, and more player than every, and that there will be a lot new more content in 2019. *Sigh*

I mean: i can understand, why Cyrodiil has no priority for ZOS: it doesn't generate money. There is almost no reason to pay for ESO-Plus, if you're only fighting in Cyrodiil. But how about ZOS gives us a reason?? For example something like a "PVP-Bag" to carry around siege-weapons and camps, etc.. Be creative ZOS!!

I've been paying ESO-Plus for years now, but after Summerset i've decided not to support this game anymore - all those bugs, every update, inbalancing of new or updated mechanics (dw glyphes), bad server performance.... Also 95% of my ingame friends and main-guilds didn't extend their eso-plus. In the last 1-1,5 years i also wasn't lucky about the state of the game, but i still decided to pay eso-plus to support the game, so developers have a chance to improve those crucial issues... But they didn't, so in my opinion it's not worth it anymore. Don't get me wrong: new content is cool - but if the basic game-mechanics and server-performance is broken, there is no point on playing.

There are better ways to waste your time, than spending 10 minutes running from one keep to another, to miss the defense, because you were not able to get out of combat and ride fast. Or pressing a emergency-heal (bursting vines, BOL, or whatevery) 4 times and after 5 second the skill goes out, while your group-mate is already swallowing mud.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Hopefully we'll get some information about this in the next month.. but iam not really hopefull

Finviuswe · December 2018

lol

ArchMikem · December 2018

Okay one, no one is "winning" in this situation. Don't make it sound like ZOS is intentionally trying to make you quit playing by making the game unplayable.

And also I've seen the early videos of PvP years ago, and that great performance you speak of? Yeah, that's because there were barely any set procs going off, the amount of ground effects we have now, and literally EVERYONE did nothing but light attack each other. With the gross amount of calculations and rendering the game has to do now no crap the performance gets bad.

frostz417 · December 2018

Of all the games I’ve played. I have never seen devs of a game so lazy and refuse to address any form issues, not to mention consistently nerf things like zos. It’s truly astonishing how zos never addresses any of this pitiful server performance and extreme unbalance within the game.
I pvp’d the last few nights in vivec and not only is the performance atrocious like you said. But about 90% of everyone I encountered as enemies were all tanks with at least 30k health or some useless heal bot hitting repentance. Like wtf zos you really want PvP to just consist of tanks and useless repentance heal bots? Absolutely pathetic. I’ve played a lot of games in my past and the none surpass zos when it comes to the lack of knowledge for balancing and refusal to address multiple game breaking bugs.

Davor · December 2018

frostz417 wrote: »

Of all the games I’ve played. I have never seen devs of a game so lazy and refuse to address any form issues, not to mention consistently nerf things like zos

There are other companies out there that is worse. While it's no excuse for nothing being fixed what you said is wrong.

Uhm, you know of Bethesda right? There is a game called Fallout 76. Maybe you haven't herd what is going on at the moment. You are wrong where I quoted you. At least Zenimax Online gave us the beautiful Jessica and Gina. What has Bethesda given us? So the comment of "lazy and refuse to address any form issues" is wrong. They do address issues, so to say "any" indicates that they don't. That is just wrong.

Not saying this is an excuse for the managers in Zenimax for not letting their workers to fix the issues. After all it's management who tell them they can't.

oxygen_thief · December 2018

but zos is a part of bethesda or bethesda is a part of zos in short they are the same

O_LYKOS · December 2018

It's definitely getting worse. The lag during fights. Switching bars, skills not working. Load screens. Sometimes i just freeze, then drop dead. But that's probably just me getting desynced by snipe. (just thought i'd throw that in there lol)

I dont even need to be near anywhere and i get load screens. Actually quite regular that ill be travelling between keeps, with nobody around, and i'll get a 2 second load screens, and another, and another. It's insane.

burglar · December 2018

Didn't you guys hear? Just type your own name into the search bar of your respective guild roster, and voila~ /s

But seriously, some dude said "this one neat trick..." prevented dropped frames. Gina said it doesn't fix lag though.

I also heard that blowing into the case of your NES cartridges before inserting them into the system prevents that green/red flashing screen when you power on the console.

jcm2606 · December 2018

oxygen_thief wrote: »

but zos is a part of bethesda or bethesda is a part of zos in short they are the same

That's not how subsidiaries work. This is how the Zenimax Media chain is laid out:

Zenimax Media

Bethesda Softworks (publisher)
1. Bethesda Game Studios (development studio, has multiple sub-studios)
Zenimax Online Studios
id Software (modern DOOM, modern Quake, Wolfenstein 1992-2008)
Arkake Studios (Dishonored, Prey)
Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within)
MachineGames (Wolfenstein 2014-present)

ZOS is separate to Bethesda Softworks, and by extension Bethesda Game Studios (which is the Bethesda most people refer to). ZOS is as much a part of Bethesda as idSoft is, or Arkane is, or MachineGames is. Doesn't matter that the IP is Bethesda's, Bethesda has no say in how ZOS runs ESO, just like ZOS has no say in how Bethesda runs FO76 (disregarding the fact that ZOS apparently helped develop that monstrosity).

Tandor · December 2018

Bear with me as a PvE player as I don't know the difference between the PvP campaigns, but what is it about Vivec that makes everyone play the one campaign that they all know is unplayable?

jcm2606 · December 2018

Tandor wrote: »

Bear with me as a PvE player as I don't know the difference between the PvP campaigns, but what is it about Vivec that makes everyone play the one campaign that they all know is unplayable?

The fact that it's the only active CP-enabled campaign available, pretty sure. Shor is also an option, but is basically dead. Players get trapped in the loop of: in Vivec -> sick of lag -> want to move to Shor -> Shor is dead -> Vivec is the only option -> Stay in Vivec -> repeat.

Can't say for certain, as I used to mainly play no-CP.

jcm2606 · December 2018

Also has to be said that this isn't truly lag. Don't get me wrong, lag is an issue, but what Jack was showing is not lag. That is crowd control in general being buggy, and having some weird delay associated with changing states. You can have good ping at 120ms, and get that exact same 5 second delay between dodging or breaking free, and actually being able to use skills. Lag exacerbates the delay a ton, but the delay is a result of buggy code, not lag.

While addressing server lag, they really do need to go back through all the systems to do with character states, ie sprinting, being stunned, being snared, etc, and make sure they all work as intended. One of the big reasons why I've stopped playing is these very impactful mechanics are so damn buggy, to the point where the sheer bugginess of the game is what gets you killed, not your own mistakes.

Cavedog · December 2018

The lag is very bad lately. It's impossible to solo towns with lag as bad as it is now.....with all the extra guards, you can't get them down fast enough with this much lag.

It's really bad when you are solo and fighting only npc's and you lag out so bad your skills don't fire...even though the button light has blinked 15 times to indicate you are pushing the button.

But then again, when it's not prime time, everything works pretty good. The lag is clearly a server load issue, and not our individual internet connection.

Tandor · December 2018

jcm2606 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Bear with me as a PvE player as I don't know the difference between the PvP campaigns, but what is it about Vivec that makes everyone play the one campaign that they all know is unplayable?

The fact that it's the only active CP-enabled campaign available, pretty sure. Shor is also an option, but is basically dead. Players get trapped in the loop of: in Vivec -> sick of lag -> want to move to Shor -> Shor is dead -> stay in Vivec -> repeat.

Can't say for certain, as I used to mainly play no-CP.

Thanks. If I was active in a PvP guild then, bearing in mind that all guilds have cross-alliance membership, I'd get a few friendly guilds together and agree on the PvP forum that over a certain weekend e.g. all guilds with names starting with the first half of the alphabet would play on one campaign while the rest would play on the other campaign. That way the level of activity would be split more or less evenly on the two campaigns. There's probably a simpler way of organising it if enough GMs know each other and want to arrange a "Shor Night" or whatever, but either way there has to be an opportunity for PvPers to get together on the forum and agree how best to spread the population, including lobbying ZOS if necessary for a second CP-enabled campaign.

Beardimus · December 2018

Tandor wrote: »

Bear with me as a PvE player as I don't know the difference between the PvP campaigns, but what is it about Vivec that makes everyone play the one campaign that they all know is unplayable?

Sadly people play there because people play there. It's a nightmare created by players.

Shor has way better action if you after decent PvP so too does sotha away from zergs HOWEVER both these campaigns suffer from alliance switching AP boosting tactics emp trading etc.

Alot of folks I run with enjoy shor / sotha when we focus there. But drift back to vivec if nothings organised as that's were the majority go.

Through this year i leveled a NA toon and actually Kyne has been fun. I don't agree with folks rerolling in gold gear etc to Pwn everyone and run the campaign forever tho, as that kills the new player experience.

Splitting vivec pop would be a good thing.

alanmatillab16_ESO · December 2018

In short PVP in ESO is a pile of shtaco thanks to cheesy tactics by players (win trading) and constant whining for nerfs.

Just get rid of Cyrodill as a PVP event since it has become a lore important area that adds absolutely nothing to ESO.

Shardaxx · December 2018

The game simply can't handle the number of players in a busy campaign. Once you get close to the action, people have disconnects or it lags so bad its unplayable. ZOS should reduce the max number of players in the campaigns, and add more campaigns to spread the player base out a bit.

The Uninvited · December 2018

Shardaxx wrote: »

The game simply can't handle the number of players in a busy campaign. Once you get close to the action, people have disconnects or it lags so bad its unplayable. ZOS should reduce the max number of players in the campaigns, and add more campaigns to spread the player base out a bit.

While this could be one of the reasons, I found that lately, playing with less addons has improved the stability for me. Sometimes I still have a (little) bit of lag, but disconnects are far and few between now.

MajBludd · December 2018

What happened to cyro performance being a main focus? That's what they said around the time morrowind was released.

You know when they held the first mid year mayhem event to see if cps were the problem? What happened zos? Did you realize you couldn't fix it?

Wish I could find where they stated this so I could link it. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/323521/cyrodiil-performance-test-and-double-ap-event/p1

Hoolielulu · December 2018

ProbablePaul wrote: »

I also heard that blowing into the case of your NES cartridges before inserting them into the system prevents that green/red flashing screen when you power on the console.

Wow, nostalgia just punched me in the face. Good times.

As for Cyro lag...I'm convinced they're putting all of their focus into battlegrounds now. They'll keep adding more and more and hope we all forget Cyro ever even existed.

Jakx · December 2018

Yea I would just like to keep bumping this thread to keep its visibility and allow it to be a thorn in the side of them at the top of the general forum. The only way to get meaningful change is to continually show there's a wide discontent with the state of their game and that its completely unacceptable that ZOS keeps ignoring server performance.

I think the devs do a great job at what theyre capable of doing with new zones, lore, etc. However, it has completely replaced them maintaining their game and making sure its systems function properly. Something as simple as "type your name into guild so that you dont get overloaded with network updates of peoples locations" had to be discovered by a random console player. That sort of massive outgoing update stream should have been easily picked up if they were ever looking for it in a quest to fix performance issues.

Its just unreal the state they have left cyrodiil but I think overall my greatest discontentment is the blatant ignorance they've shown the performance side of their game without even attempts to improve it. I want this game to be successful and I have no idea how from a marketing stand point basic things like the game functioning properly arent priorities over new ways to sell people houses and gamble crates. Figure out a way to monetize PvP then and get some server fixes.

AhPook_Is_Here · December 2018

On Thursday and Friday, at least in the US, Century Link was having a coronary and I'm sure that was having a big impact on a lot of US player's game-play. Even though you may not be a customer, they hold the center of the US so traffic gets routed through there and everyone is effected. While I'm sure ESO needs to make improvements, the last few days are likely more a reflection of a big ISP having a seizure.

burglar · December 2018

I'm guessing that the whole megaserver architecture is the problem.

I don't really know how it works, but my thought is that megaserver's shard distribution functions like a hash table, where memory is distributed to each shard, so that each is ready to pick up and bring clients together. Which works great when all of the shards are being used, but falls apart when a dense population finds itself on a single shard.

If this is the case, there's not much of a fix, because each shard requires memory just to serve it's purpose, even when sitting idle. If any hardware upgrades would require distributing performance gains amongst all shards, then the small impact on performance of struggling shards might not be worth the cost.

Jakx · December 2018

Jakx wrote: »

Ill add this video by JackDaniells (Kristofer ESO youtube channel). All credit to him. He makes great content for ESO and answers everybody's questions in Twitch but his most recent video that I JUST stumbled across after I made this post highlights exactly what Im talking about.

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

Jack's video has the most rational, non-toxic comments, Ive ever seen after a youtube video. Tons more anecdotal comments from people expressing their discontent. How many customers have been lost if Cyro could just function on a basic level? Siege pvp can be for everyone and I see tons of new players in my PvE guilds trying pvping out lately and loving it but they all hit the same wall. Its unplayable. Luckily they find enough interest in other places but imagine the cash potential of this game if Cyro worked to boot.