Update on Cyrodiil Performance & Upcoming AOE Tests

Rahar · July 2020

Everyone knows that organized ball groups with AoE spam is the problem. Don't make changes, community gets mad. Air some potential changes that could fix the problem, community gets mad. Honestly, though, while #3 seems like the best solution to me (with caveats), why wasn't just reworking the most offending abilities an option? Just gut magicka detonation and stuff. Easy. Or limit the number of targets an AoE can hit.

Stillian · July 2020

Servers are lagging for years? Well let's definitely not upgrade them, that cost moneys. Marketing department said they need more, so there's none left for servers.

gatekeeper13 · July 2020

Best news I ve heard in a long time for this game.

If these changes indeed take place, we will see not only a significant improvement in performance but also the end of the abomination called "ball groups".

goldenskater3eb17_ESO · July 2020

this test is to see what effect aoes have on performance
lets take for example

the templar

spam jabs is aoe

during the test yes they will give it a 3 second cooldown

but thats not gonna be the fix

i thinck what they mean is that when they get the results

and they see aah yes jabs is a very big contributer for performance

they can make it just for example like a single target and then adjust the skill accordingly to not make it lose power

i cannot see them putting 3 second GCD on aoes cuz then the game is just over ^^

combat is what is fun in playing eso

FatherDelve · July 2020

Scaletho wrote: »

I appreciate ZoS efforts in the matter. At this point, at least in the perspective of a non-hardcore PvP player, the Cyrodiil lag experience has become unbearable.
I really believe that at this point a huge number of Cyrodiil"s Alliance players belong to Ball Groups of "Tanky" Trolls, impossible to fight against, almost in GOD mode. Ebonheart Pact balls groups -- for instance -- are notoriously powerful, unstoppable most of the time.
PvP should be a strategic field where players try to best their opponents using several skills, in funny men-to-men battles and epic sieges.
At this point PvP's Cyrodiil became a field of Ball groups farming each other or any "weak" player which have the unfortunate bad luck to stand in their way. No fun battles, no different use of skills, no diversity or strategy.
This must change for the sake of the PvP relevance.
I KNOW that many other ppl disagree with me. But I still think the absurd lagging and the borderline cheating of those "Ball Groups" are destroying all the fun and relevance to be at Cyrodiil.

Even from the point of someone taking PvP a bit more serious, thats exactly the point. Back in the days ballgroups where a great counter against zergs, and where played by very exerpienced players. Nowadays everyone with the right addons can follow a crown, spamm the AOE Vigor or Mutagen, cast Proxi Det on command, and just blast everything out of their way, in a total safespace enviroment of over and crosshealing, combined with a dozen of different support sets, that *** up the server performance with the massive overload on input every second made.

CrazYDunm3r · July 2020

Just here to pay my respects:

F

technohic · July 2020

JiChaMa wrote: »

What about sieges?
Cooldown on sieges too plz.
They cause a lot of lag.

Siege does have a cooldown...

Altyrann · July 2020

Aside from the obvious question on why this can't be solved by fixing code, moving anti-cheat to client, increasing hardware capacity etc...

There should be real clarity what the abilities in scope will be - is it all abilities with any AoE, damage only, healing only, Instant, channeled, over time etc.
There need to be some sensible exceptions for things like core class spammables
Alternatives should be considered to cooldowns / cost increases stopping players using abilities, e.g. reducing tick frequency in PvP settings to reduce calculations, having abilities apply to groups only etc.
None of this should ever go near PvE

relentless_turnip · July 2020

Why don't you fix smart healing in cyrodiil first?

Keep it to groups and maybe make it so you can't have the same heal on you twice?
Surely before gutting the combat system it would be better to try reduce other forms of aoe calculations?

It targets ballgroups which we have all observed slow down the server when you are in their vicinity, but I think the spamming of healing is worse than the aoe damage. Partly because they live longer... This is another change that hurts a solo player more than a group.

If you have to pursue this,I think the best result is to use test 3 where we have a ramping cost.

Bergzorn · July 2020

Running performance related tests on the live servers is a good thing.

The other stuff is, well, interesting...

Scamalot · July 2020

No global or long cooldowns is literally the only reason why I like this game so much. Reading this and being a templar main makes me so sad. Giving us double AP during this test doesn't mean anything for us because we wont be able to kill anyone. You might aswell delete the class.

Ezhh · July 2020

It would be nice to see a full list of skills that will come under this.

If the focus is ground based AoEs (those with a literal persistent "area" of effect) which leave a visual effect in an area this might make quite some sense, but a great number of commonly used and vital skills have what is often considered an AoE component, so where is the line?

Templar's main spammabe is the most obvious one. It's not ground based, doesn't place some kind of persistent effect on the map the way Blockade/Boneyard/Destro ults and so on do, so I would hope it could be excluded.What about skills like Haunting Curse, Mage's Wrath or Engulfing Flames? You generally stack these skills up with others to make them work - others which may also have an AoE component, so a global cooldown of any skills that hits multiple targets would easily destroy many current combos and approaches to play.

Just got to hope it's actual persistent ground based skills only... And then that it won't spill over into PvE as well. (Not being able to cast Wall followed by class AoE in PvE...? Ouch.)

TineaCruris · July 2020

Wait wait wait, what?

Can we back up a minute please?

What's wrong with doing whatever was done during the MYM event to improve issues?

Inarre · July 2020

RIP my templar. I guess I should finish my grand overlord grind now since I won't be pvping again if any of these changes make it.

I also hope that you take into consideration what this will do to the overall landscape of cyrodiil. I think this will ruin your original proposed cyrodiil which is large scale battles and encourage just a bomber type playstyle, even in large battles.

What about seige?

Nairinhe · July 2020

All this whining, all those salty tears. How about you *** test stuff first?

Elsonso · July 2020

WAMB0 wrote: »

tim99 wrote: »

hollywood wrote: »

So , the AoE spamming blobs cause much of the lag issues.. WHO WOULD HAVE TOUGHT.

And still (ball-)groups doing it constantly, knowing but not caring about anything.
So basically players broke their own favorite game, and these are the results. Hope u r proud of yourself now.

The game offers it, the game allows it, the game cant handle it.

Sounds like the problem is that the game should have never allowed endless AOE spammables like it does, which is the point that was clearly made. Now, the question is how to change that.

Qbiken · July 2020

This got to be the worst call of a suggested change I´ve ever seen. You´re basically turning ESO into WoW or some other kind of turned based game, which isn´t what made this game great to begin with.

relentless_turnip · July 2020

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

Best news I ve heard in a long time for this game.

If these changes indeed take place, we will see not only a significant improvement in performance but also the end of the abomination called "ball groups".

That's the problem... this doesn't tackle ballgroups that much,they will survive just as long... they need to go after healing spams first. This hurts solo player or small groups more than ballgroups IMO

heaven13 · July 2020

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

Best news I ve heard in a long time for this game.

If these changes indeed take place, we will see not only a significant improvement in performance but also the end of the abomination called "ball groups".

It won't affect ballgroups nearly as much as you think. Individual cooldowns will be affected but a ballgroup of 20+ people is still going to be able to spam AoEs and cross heal as a group which is still a butt load of calculations. This is another case of individual players being nerfed while groups remain mostly unaffected.

Rianai · July 2020

Absurd.

RodneyRegis · July 2020

Surely the answer to jabs is to just include ground AOEs/durational AOEs in any cooldown.

Why not make ground AOEs cool down on duration? ie I can't recast blockade until it's run out, or a couple of seconds before?

If it's the number of calculations I don't see why not being able to recast a ground AOE which lasts 10 seconds for 3 seconds will make any difference.

Either way, clearly jabs either needs to be treated differently or turned into direct damage with splash if any changes are to come.

It's rather annoying that you've used jabs in your example as I can't believe it's causing the problems.

But really, if 1st persona AOE spamming is causing the problem then either make more of them direct damage or increase the cost. Saying that it's become a problem because it used to be harder to cast them due to sustain issues in the old days is nonsense when you consider the old spin to win builds.

Earthewen · July 2020

I can see some real issues arising from this that you probably haven't considered, @ZOS_RichLambert . I understand what you're saying so far, but not sure you have considered what that will force anyone who stays in the game to do.

LOTRO pvp was reduced to solo targeting. People stood around toe to toe hitting each other with single targets while no one goes down. It was incredibly slow and boring which is why I moved to ESO. It will be interesting to see how the testing goes. Unless I miss my guess, this will be the final nail in the coffin for PVP in ESO. This is probably going to push a lot more people over to New World and Amazon Games. I see a drop in ZOS's stock in the near future.

Kadoin · July 2020

Firstmep wrote: »

Remove smart healing, especially from aoe heals and thing like radiating regen.
Every time you cast it the server has to make a list of players in range, then choose the lowest hp target(s) and then run thru all the usual calculations like cp, healing bonuses etc.
Multiply this by 20,30 times in a ballgroup every second, and you start to see the problem.
It's really not hard to figure this out pls don't destroy combat.
@ZOS_RichLambert

But if they did that, it would actually take skill to heal and ball groups would really get neutered. Wouldn't want that now, would we?

RodneyRegis · July 2020

WombatNipples65 wrote: »

Sorry but do you play your own game? These changes are absurd, half of the classes won't be bale to work.

Templar - Jabs THEIR SPAMMABLE is AoE so you can't jab for 3 seconds or a ramping cost on your spammable. I don't need to explain how stupid this is.

Warden - Sub assault used once every 3 seconds - ramping cost for 5 seconds you might as well give it a 5 second time before it goes off.

Smallscale PvP dies if these go live. There is no skill in running around in big groups, I could run around in a 24 man group with no gear if these changes go through and not have a single issue.

Why do you hate Small Scalers?

How is sub assault affected? If you are casting SA more than every 3 seconds then you're doing it wrong...

falkler · July 2020

ZOS can try to fix ballgroups, but it will never happen. People will find another sets, setups, skills and do 8v50+

Elsonso · July 2020

TineaCruris wrote: »

Wait wait wait, what?

Can we back up a minute please?

What's wrong with doing whatever was done during the MYM event to improve issues?

I am curious, as well.

Hey, @ZOS_RichLambert ... any chance that the performance improvement that people saw happen with MYM can be presented in context with this?

Bucky_13 · July 2020

BigBragg wrote: »

If CP is such a strong contributing factor, why not just strip it out of PvP entirely? That would put a lot of builds and players back to meaningful choices instead of being able to do everything and still let us have the fast gameplay we enjoy.

Considering how awful the performance on no CP cyro is, CP points isn't the core issue here.

forztr2 · July 2020

@ZOS_RichLambert
Have you thought about basing the cooldown or cost increase on the the total area affected by the AOE?
So for example Sweeps which is cone and 8 meters could have a cooldown of 1sec and Purge which is a circle of radius 18m 6secs.

Sweeps only affect approx 100m2 and Purge covers 1000m2 why punish both the same?

Schiffy · July 2020

There's no perfect solution to any of this. That said 2 and 3 make the most sense of the four tests. Test 4 would be overkill, and 1 wouldn't really solve much and just limit people more than necessary.

In defense of test 2 - this already exists for skills like Blastbones. When you cast it, it can't be cast again until the skeleton either explodes or times out. Furthermore, it wouldn't actually change the way damage is dealt. Keep in mind that if you recast an AoE, the old one goes away if it hasn't expired yet. And in some cases (PvP or no), it makes more sense to actually let the skill expire before casting it again. Take Volley with a Maelstrom's Bow, for instance. The increasing damage never hits max if you keep spamming Volley every two seconds.

Another idea that isn't mentioned in the initial post is an individual ramping AoE cost with no individual or global cooldown. If someone is throwing down both Energy Orb and Grand Healing at the same time, neither will have a cost increase because of using the other, but they both will if you try to use them again in too short a time.

Firstmep · July 2020

Just once again, want to drive the point:

You are looking at the wrong place. AOE healing in large organised groups is causing these issues the most.

Go ahead remove smart healing from cyro during one of these tests, see what happens.

Would be far easier to implement without having to completely rework some classes as side effect.