Given that ZOS has stated that players stacking up does impact performace, its likely that this is what was intended with the extra outposts and destructible milegates/bridges and the goat paths.

Whether or not it's worked...that's another matter.

My vote is : No it did not improve performances because a certain guild decided to stack 3raids together at one place on the map until they get pushed all the way to Arrius with ping spiking up to 800ms.

I believe the change itself did great results. We get to fight at different spots when the map is active (for the groups and guilds willing to spread out and fight with less than 60people together)

it doesn't, because it keeps people in certain areas of the map. They are less incentivized to explore outside the emp keep line.

The changes required are going to be the less sexy/marketed solutions that ZOS wont touch except in addition to PVE DLC changes.

Ahtu wrote: »

I did not know that towns were added later and thought that they were always part of the game so that's news to me. Here's an interesting quote I found from the ESO website about towns:

"When we first began designing a town capture system for Cyrodiil, one of our primary goals was to encourage more skirmishes and open field-style combat."

Yeah zos has been aware of the negative affect of large amounts of people stacking in one spot for years. They have actively advocated for people to spread out in lieu of the knowledge or resources to fix performance issues in a more direct manner. They have also lowered the population caps because of this as well. That is why most on the forums, including myself, vilify those that knowingly stack multiple raids. We have seen this before and the game is much better when guilds are not stacking multiple raids in one spot consistently.

The outposts are arguably a good idea for all factions except EP. The reason is it gives an advanced spawn closer to the enemies back keep. So you have options between attacking a center keep or a back keep without excessive mount riding. In the case of EP it is a town instead. And the EP outpost is a spawn enemies can use as a forward base to attack EP back keeps even if it isn't linked into network without corner keep.

Destructible gates simply make the flow of battle one way and put an impetus on factions to capture the keep beyond the gate so they don't have to deal with the gate. Thus in PC NA Vivec you often see DC with Chal and AD with Ash. The bridge is 2-way and long and I don't know how AD-EP have battles on them with them getting destroyed. It is a natural choke point(or Imperial made).

The upside of destructible gates is the gate lights while it is being repaired which gives a hint that an army might be marching through it soon.

Destructible gates seem to focus groups into areas instead of spread them out. e.g. DC destroys ash gate they only need a minimal defense in the south and can throw 4/5 of what they have at the north. EP can do the same with northern gates and launch a 4/5 campaign against AD. EP can also destroy bridges and launch a 4/5 campaign to counter a 4/5 DC campaign. And AD: they take stabs at BRK and Ash.

I haven't noticed a significant change in activity at Chal/Ash milegates or Alessia Bridge. Alessia Bridge is certainly a less fun place to fight now. The milegates can be zerg repaired in about 1 minute, so sieging them down is a waste of time.

The devs have repeatedly said they want us to spread out, but until there are concrete measures that disincentive zerging via something like AP earning reduction, the blobs will continue.