Reverb wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Thevampirenight wrote: »

No here is the thing, even though you might not have felt it having it reduced to 12, reduces number of calculations when it comes to certain abilities and armor sets. Because its likely not to target as many people. Things would be even worse then before most likely if they jumped the size up to 36. No they need to keep the group limit to twelve for good. If you want a group if there is many people asking for one then form your own. Take charge and help your fellow players get a group. 12 is plenty for group size.

Not only did Zos specifically state that the changes were because they liked our behavior with smaller groups and such, they clearly distanced the smaller groups from any performance benefits seen in testing.

So while I agree that we will not see 36 man groups in Cyrodiil, it is for very different reasons than what is presented here as it had nothing to do with server calculations.

Exactly this. They were clear that following the testing, they were permanently reducing group size and removing non-grouped heals because they like the behavioral changes, not for impact on performance.

Apparently zeni likes ball groups, and hates pug groups picking up the new players in zone.

Ironically, I suspect ZOS really, really likes PUGs picking up players from zone. Grouping up is a great way for new and inexperienced players to learn to enjoy PVP!

ZOS' solution: everyone needs to get in a group of12 or be at a serious disadvantage in large fights. Get in a group! Fight as a team!

The problem: the sort of groups where newer and inexperienced players do well are the ones led by experienced players or PVP guilds. Those are the groups that just had their usual size chopped down to 12.


What ZOS apparently didn't grapple with is that most players don't just want to join "a group, any group." PUGs, and especially newer players, typically need groups with a leader who knows how to get them to good fights, who can get them to siege or at least stick together during fights, and often need an advantage in numbers before they can compete with the organized guild raids who have voice comms and specific builds.

In my own experience, my first time leading a PUG raid happened because out of the 15 or so people who LFGed in zone chat in the early morning, I was the only one to say, "Hey, we could go retake that keep." Most people who group up want a leader. My group needed someone to point them at fights and explain the basics of siege and tactics in Cyrodiil - which I was only comfortable doing because I'd been playing with a PVP guild raid for about a year at that point.

There's only so many leaders who have the experience and desire to lead PUG raids well. When ZOS drops the group size to 12, that's less PUG players being picked up by those leaders. Additionally, any PVP guild who used to pick up PUGs to fill up their raid to 24 players is now picking which 12 guildmates get to raid. Any group that cares about winning fights isn't going to pick up a lot of newer players because they can't "carry" inexperienced players who make mistakes as much as they used to be able to.

So in practice, less players get into good PUG raids.

Other players may step up to lead PUG raids and pick up the folks LFGing in zone chat, but adding new and inexperienced raid leads to the mix doesn't help with the overall experience of players in those groups.

Then, on top of that, ZOS decides that all 12v12s are equal. No matter that one of them is a a collection of players who LFGed in zone chat and one is a guild raid with specific roles, sets, tactics, and voice comms. That decision did not help matters.


It seems to me like ZOS hoped that forcing players into "a group, any group" would benefit newer players and do something to emphasize the benefits that teamwork brings in Cyrodiil's large scale battles. Unfortunately, I don't think that thought through all the consequences, largely because they misunderstand how to produce the sort of groups that actually help teach newer players how to be effective in Cyrodiil. Or, for that matter, what most LFG players want out of a group in Cyrodiil.

I'm expecting a bit of a reckoning during Midyear Mayhem when a great number of casual PVPers who normally play PVE show up in Cyrodiil to fight. They'll all need to get in a group or find themselves at a serious disadvantage...but who's going to pick them up and lead them when the usual PUG raids and PVP guilds already have 12 players?

idk wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

madrab73 wrote: »

No, performance didn't improve. The lag is due to optimised groups spamming regen and proxy and the game trying to calculate who's VD should proc first. The change has increased lag with more optimised groups running the same way.

The way any “smart” heal works in the game is like this. I press rapid regen, the game runs an algorithm that checks every player that can possibly receive the HOT, in the current situation a max of twelve players, and decides which members to apply it to. You want to increase that to 36. Which simply means MORE calculating. And there are other spells that are similar. For example, breath of life, cauterise, living vines, etc. In a faction stack this number can be even bigger than 36, meaning tons of processing power is taken up by these skills, these are the main cause of server lag.

So I’m sorry to say, until ZOS changes how all these skills work, neither the group size will be increasing, nor will alliance heals be returning. It would not make any sense.

Considering that the algorithm was not limited to members of the group before Zos's recent changes and Zos made it clear they did not make those changes to help performance the smart heals do not seem to be the issue they are being made out to be.

I’m not going to debate the meaning of “behavioural changes”. Although I may as well get it off my chest will I’m on it.

The fact that people around here can not understand the meaning of PR, or Marketing, has completely hampered any real discourse on many subjects relating to Cyro.
Every single thing that is communicated to us, is reviewed and approved, or denied/changed, to protect the profitability of the product. No community manager could ever be honest with us of it means it could hurt future investments from current or new players.
Therefore, we would never be told something like, “we made these changes as it was the only quick fix we could make that made some campaigns at least somewhat playable, since we chose to put everything server side (which we all know but was never communicated btw, they only mentioned block moving server side). Sorry we have no real fixes, and we don’t when or if we will ever actually be able to give you the experience you crave.”

It’s like that recent release based in the future that has everyone crying saying, “they lied”! That is literally their job, to persuade you to purchase their product. It’s called marketing. And if you think they are not solely concerned about profit, you are living in dream land.

Zeni are not your besties, they are a service provider, and they only want you to consume said service for you cash. They are not to to be trusted!

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

idk wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

madrab73 wrote: »

No, performance didn't improve. The lag is due to optimised groups spamming regen and proxy and the game trying to calculate who's VD should proc first. The change has increased lag with more optimised groups running the same way.

The way any “smart” heal works in the game is like this. I press rapid regen, the game runs an algorithm that checks every player that can possibly receive the HOT, in the current situation a max of twelve players, and decides which members to apply it to. You want to increase that to 36. Which simply means MORE calculating. And there are other spells that are similar. For example, breath of life, cauterise, living vines, etc. In a faction stack this number can be even bigger than 36, meaning tons of processing power is taken up by these skills, these are the main cause of server lag.

So I’m sorry to say, until ZOS changes how all these skills work, neither the group size will be increasing, nor will alliance heals be returning. It would not make any sense.

Considering that the algorithm was not limited to members of the group before Zos's recent changes and Zos made it clear they did not make those changes to help performance the smart heals do not seem to be the issue they are being made out to be.

I’m not going to debate the meaning of “behavioural changes”. Although I may as well get it off my chest will I’m on it.

The fact that people around here can not understand the meaning of PR, or Marketing, has completely hampered any real discourse on many subjects relating to Cyro.
Every single thing that is communicated to us, is reviewed and approved, or denied/changed, to protect the profitability of the product. No community manager could ever be honest with us of it means it could hurt future investments from current or new players.
Therefore, we would never be told something like, “we made these changes as it was the only quick fix we could make that made some campaigns at least somewhat playable, since we chose to put everything server side (which we all know but was never communicated btw, they only mentioned block moving server side). Sorry we have no real fixes, and we don’t when or if we will ever actually be able to give you the experience you crave.”

It’s like that recent release based in the future that has everyone crying saying, “they lied”! That is literally their job, to persuade you to purchase their product. It’s called marketing. And if you think they are not solely concerned about profit, you are living in dream land.

Zeni are not your besties, they are a service provider, and they only want you to consume said service for you cash. They are not to to be trusted!

We do understand marketing and PR.

But at the same time, we do have to deal with the public statements and information that comes from ZOS. What you have been doing ever since these changes have been made is downplaying the evidence we do have.

Those of us who cite ZOS's statements aren't taken them verbatim and are keeping in mind the context. We know there are things left unsaid and other things left intentionally ambiguous. But that does not invalidate the essence of the statement: these changes did not have enough performance improvements to merit them on their own (I dont think this is debatable) and these changes were made either because of observable player behavior changes (what they claim) or because they hoped to influence player behavioral change (what I'm more inclined to think). So whatever the PR is behind the statement, those people who point to behavior as opposed to performance are correct.

Furthermore, if they thought these changes would make an impact on performance, then ZOS wouldn't have announced months ago that they were going to implement more unpopular public tests to further explore the issue. As you say, the nature of PR is not to hurt future prospects of a game, so if they could have avoided committing to something that unpopular and disliked, they 100% would have done so or at least kept it quiet until they absolutely had to. If they had any hope these changes might improve performance, then they would have not mentioned further testing when they did.

Everything points to behavior as the driving force behind these changes except the anecdotal evidence of particular people who happen to like or be sympathetic to these changes. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure this out. It just takes objectivity.

What is up for debate is whether or not these changes have affected player behavior in a positive way or at least they way ZOS had in mind. This is a completely different question and one quite frankly not a single person on these forums is in a position to answer because the only real changes in behavior we know for sure are ourselves or at best 10 to 12 people who happen to be our closest ESO friends. That's it. You, me, or anybody else have zero idea what the other 350 people on a pop locked Cyrodiil (assuming pop cap is 120) are doing and why they are doing it.

I don;t think it's debatable there is a lot of frustration with these changes. As far as any noteworthy Alliance wide behavior changes - to say nothing of them being positive - I haven't see it through the relative impotence of these 12 person LFGs, the faction stacks, guilds running multiple groups of 12, poor performance, low PvP population, the dance around the Emperor ring keeps, etc. It just looks like more of the same, but perhaps someone who is still hardcore about this game and runs every night might have a different perspective.

Joy_Division wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

idk wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

madrab73 wrote: »

No, performance didn't improve. The lag is due to optimised groups spamming regen and proxy and the game trying to calculate who's VD should proc first. The change has increased lag with more optimised groups running the same way.

The way any “smart” heal works in the game is like this. I press rapid regen, the game runs an algorithm that checks every player that can possibly receive the HOT, in the current situation a max of twelve players, and decides which members to apply it to. You want to increase that to 36. Which simply means MORE calculating. And there are other spells that are similar. For example, breath of life, cauterise, living vines, etc. In a faction stack this number can be even bigger than 36, meaning tons of processing power is taken up by these skills, these are the main cause of server lag.

So I’m sorry to say, until ZOS changes how all these skills work, neither the group size will be increasing, nor will alliance heals be returning. It would not make any sense.

Considering that the algorithm was not limited to members of the group before Zos's recent changes and Zos made it clear they did not make those changes to help performance the smart heals do not seem to be the issue they are being made out to be.

I’m not going to debate the meaning of “behavioural changes”. Although I may as well get it off my chest will I’m on it.

The fact that people around here can not understand the meaning of PR, or Marketing, has completely hampered any real discourse on many subjects relating to Cyro.
Every single thing that is communicated to us, is reviewed and approved, or denied/changed, to protect the profitability of the product. No community manager could ever be honest with us of it means it could hurt future investments from current or new players.
Therefore, we would never be told something like, “we made these changes as it was the only quick fix we could make that made some campaigns at least somewhat playable, since we chose to put everything server side (which we all know but was never communicated btw, they only mentioned block moving server side). Sorry we have no real fixes, and we don’t when or if we will ever actually be able to give you the experience you crave.”

It’s like that recent release based in the future that has everyone crying saying, “they lied”! That is literally their job, to persuade you to purchase their product. It’s called marketing. And if you think they are not solely concerned about profit, you are living in dream land.

Zeni are not your besties, they are a service provider, and they only want you to consume said service for you cash. They are not to to be trusted!

We do understand marketing and PR.

But at the same time, we do have to deal with the public statements and information that comes from ZOS. What you have been doing ever since these changes have been made is downplaying the evidence we do have.

Those of us who cite ZOS's statements aren't taken them verbatim and are keeping in mind the context. We know there are things left unsaid and other things left intentionally ambiguous. But that does not invalidate the essence of the statement: these changes did not have enough performance improvements to merit them on their own (I dont think this is debatable) and these changes were made either because of observable player behavior changes (what they claim) or because they hoped to influence player behavioral change (what I'm more inclined to think). So whatever the PR is behind the statement, those people who point to behavior as opposed to performance are correct.

Furthermore, if they thought these changes would make an impact on performance, then ZOS wouldn't have announced months ago that they were going to implement more unpopular public tests to further explore the issue. As you say, the nature of PR is not to hurt future prospects of a game, so if they could have avoided committing to something that unpopular and disliked, they 100% would have done so or at least kept it quiet until they absolutely had to. If they had any hope these changes might improve performance, then they would have not mentioned further testing when they did.

Everything points to behavior as the driving force behind these changes except the anecdotal evidence of particular people who happen to like or be sympathetic to these changes. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure this out. It just takes objectivity.

What is up for debate is whether or not these changes have affected player behavior in a positive way or at least they way ZOS had in mind. This is a completely different question and one quite frankly not a single person on these forums is in a position to answer because the only real changes in behavior we know for sure are ourselves or at best 10 to 12 people who happen to be our closest ESO friends. That's it. You, me, or anybody else have zero idea what the other 350 people on a pop locked Cyrodiil (assuming pop cap is 120) are doing and why they are doing it.

I don;t think it's debatable there is a lot of frustration with these changes. As far as any noteworthy Alliance wide behavior changes - to say nothing of them being positive - I haven't see it through the relative impotence of these 12 person LFGs, the faction stacks, guilds running multiple groups of 12, poor performance, low PvP population, the dance around the Emperor ring keeps, etc. It just looks like more of the same, but perhaps someone who is still hardcore about this game and runs every night might have a different perspective.

Not even close sadly, I have been speaking only of my own personal experiences based on the evidence I have been witness to, my acceptance that the game will never be the same without further and greater changes, and trying to convey those realities to others. This is made quite difficult, simply because you and others refuse to believe that the limitations were obviously made with performance in mind. I know it may be hard to believe as you play in a much more competitive campaign where there are many more groups on during prime time than their are in pop-locked Ravenwatch EU. None of you are even willing to accept that if they were to re-introduce alliance cross healing tomorrow, that the performance would be even worse. Like, seriously, how could it not become even worse?

It is like a form of denial, to state that "Everything" points to behavior being the driving force for these changes. That is, and I'm sorry to say, foolish. But I understand that our experiences differ a great deal due to the campaigns we play in. Note that when speaking of performance I always reference a pop-locked Ravenwatch EU, and many here, a packed Greyhost NA.
You say it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that they were behavioral, yet everyone on this forum with an interest in PvP have been scratching their heads ever since, trying to figure out what behavior has changed. Come on man!? You even try to figure it out in your head in the last 2 paragraphs....

Now, I want to reiterate that the campaigns on the different servers are all different to some degree. But whether or not the evidence is anecdotal, it is far more reliable than a vague statement about behavior, when performance was at an all time low.

forthwinds wrote: »

Reducing group size to 12 has definitely improved server performance. Not saying that cyro is perfect, because it is far from that. All the zerglings are just mad they can't afk zerg and get carried by 23 other players.

I think most people would argue that performance has been worse overall since the Markarth patch.

The healing and group changes were made because of 'behavioral changes', not because they improved performance.

Honestly, I basically disregard everything someone says in all of these threads about Cyro if they claim the changes were done for server performance, because that just means they actually have no idea what they're talking about.

Because if they were done for performance, if ZoS said they were done for performance, most of us who dislike this "behavioural changes" garbage would have to have learned to deal with it because according to ZoS's calcs it DID make things better. But the fact is it didn't and it hasn't and that's not at all why ZoS did it. They neutered Cyrodiil for healers AND for new folks to PvP for some nebulous "behavioural changes" claim that as a result has driven people away from Cyrodiil and made it a mightily unpleasant experience for anyone new to it.

If these changes were in place when I first tried PvP guaranteed I'd never have gotten into it. As it stands now, I only go in for 3 easy skill points on new toons and right now I'm in on my main for fishing. I've not been back in Cyro to PvP since the changes went through on console because it's no longer fun.

And isn't that what it's meant to be? Fun?

i hope this never happens.
mainly because it does cause more lagg and high ping.
and also because it is a zerg and "zergs destroy cryodiil pvp".

VaranisArano wrote: »

Reverb wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Thevampirenight wrote: »

No here is the thing, even though you might not have felt it having it reduced to 12, reduces number of calculations when it comes to certain abilities and armor sets. Because its likely not to target as many people. Things would be even worse then before most likely if they jumped the size up to 36. No they need to keep the group limit to twelve for good. If you want a group if there is many people asking for one then form your own. Take charge and help your fellow players get a group. 12 is plenty for group size.

Not only did Zos specifically state that the changes were because they liked our behavior with smaller groups and such, they clearly distanced the smaller groups from any performance benefits seen in testing.

So while I agree that we will not see 36 man groups in Cyrodiil, it is for very different reasons than what is presented here as it had nothing to do with server calculations.

Exactly this. They were clear that following the testing, they were permanently reducing group size and removing non-grouped heals because they like the behavioral changes, not for impact on performance.

Apparently zeni likes ball groups, and hates pug groups picking up the new players in zone.

Ironically, I suspect ZOS really, really likes PUGs picking up players from zone. Grouping up is a great way for new and inexperienced players to learn to enjoy PVP!

ZOS' solution: everyone needs to get in a group of12 or be at a serious disadvantage in large fights. Get in a group! Fight as a team!

The problem: the sort of groups where newer and inexperienced players do well are the ones led by experienced players or PVP guilds. Those are the groups that just had their usual size chopped down to 12.


What ZOS apparently didn't grapple with is that most players don't just want to join "a group, any group." PUGs, and especially newer players, typically need groups with a leader who knows how to get them to good fights, who can get them to siege or at least stick together during fights, and often need an advantage in numbers before they can compete with the organized guild raids who have voice comms and specific builds.

In my own experience, my first time leading a PUG raid happened because out of the 15 or so people who LFGed in zone chat in the early morning, I was the only one to say, "Hey, we could go retake that keep." Most people who group up want a leader. My group needed someone to point them at fights and explain the basics of siege and tactics in Cyrodiil - which I was only comfortable doing because I'd been playing with a PVP guild raid for about a year at that point.

There's only so many leaders who have the experience and desire to lead PUG raids well. When ZOS drops the group size to 12, that's less PUG players being picked up by those leaders. Additionally, any PVP guild who used to pick up PUGs to fill up their raid to 24 players is now picking which 12 guildmates get to raid. Any group that cares about winning fights isn't going to pick up a lot of newer players because they can't "carry" inexperienced players who make mistakes as much as they used to be able to.

So in practice, less players get into good PUG raids.

Other players may step up to lead PUG raids and pick up the folks LFGing in zone chat, but adding new and inexperienced raid leads to the mix doesn't help with the overall experience of players in those groups.

Then, on top of that, ZOS decides that all 12v12s are equal. No matter that one of them is a a collection of players who LFGed in zone chat and one is a guild raid with specific roles, sets, tactics, and voice comms. That decision did not help matters.


It seems to me like ZOS hoped that forcing players into "a group, any group" would benefit newer players and do something to emphasize the benefits that teamwork brings in Cyrodiil's large scale battles. Unfortunately, I don't think that thought through all the consequences, largely because they misunderstand how to produce the sort of groups that actually help teach newer players how to be effective in Cyrodiil. Or, for that matter, what most LFG players want out of a group in Cyrodiil.

I'm expecting a bit of a reckoning during Midyear Mayhem when a great number of casual PVPers who normally play PVE show up in Cyrodiil to fight. They'll all need to get in a group or find themselves at a serious disadvantage...but who's going to pick them up and lead them when the usual PUG raids and PVP guilds already have 12 players?

This.

I seriously hope that zos reads all these and sees the logic and revert their inaccurate measure. I have said the same thing in various posts but thanks for wrapping it all up in one post.

I for one, lead pugs often, or recruit randoms in my group often. And with too small group size like we have here, I have to pick the not only just experienced players but very experienced players in order to be able to do basically simple things. This is really frustrating, because people are left out, and there is now a need for more pug-leaders, which is now more difficult than ever, since people do not want to risk filling their tiny group with random, inexperienced people and fail miserably. But, Cyro needs new people since the old ones constantly keep taking long breaks or quit due to server problems frustrations. And all we have is newbies who need to be taught, and we can't really show them how to achieve things, since we can't successfully siege a keep with a tiny group of inexperienced players. And on the other side are the ball groups who coordinate over voice and they come and wipe those tiny groups of inexperienced ppl in a blink of an eye.

This group size reduction has to change. I already see population decreasing steadily and it is getting harder to fill the pop cap even tho it seems to have been low-key reduced again lately. We do have some new players, but they end up quitting Cyro as well, because either nobody wants them in their group or the group they are in can't do much with inexperienced players, even if they are accepted to those groups in the first place.

And, no. It did not improve the performance. Even zos did not claim so. They should stop playing with fundamental gameplay mechanics without actually getting involved in that gameplay. Please play your game, zos. Cyrodiil in particular.

Poncho88 wrote: »

The Elephant in the room is the availability and quality of ZOS server resources for Cyrodiil.

Rationalizing that smaller groups is the way to go doesn't change the fact you still have the same overall faction headcount of players wanting to play in any given campaign, especially when factions are pop-locked (what is this headcount anyways?). Our internet connection to the 'Megaserver' is still only a kilobyte wide per client and the ZOS servers are still struggling to ingest and process that for Cyrodiil play.

I'm fairly confident through observation that the pop cap is max ~80.