The issues related to logging in to the European PC/Mac megaserver have been resolved at this time. If you continue to experience difficulties at login, please restart your client. Thank you for your patience!
Increase PVP group size to 36
-
InvitationNotFound✭✭✭✭✭
✭InvitationNotFound wrote: »Firstly, they should enable cross healing again. It's completely nonsense, that you can't heal people outside of your group anymore.
I disagree here. It is so annoying if your "smart heal" heals a random instead of yourself or your group.
Running solo means that my heal will actually heal myself instead of just some random players, which is actually nice.
Could just use a self heal. Or aoe heals.
lol
Yes or the random player could just slot a heal and keep himself alive.We want firing off Dark Exchange in the middle of combat to feel awesome... - The Wrobler
You know you don't have to be here right? - Rich Lambert
Verrätst du mir deinen Beruf? Ich würde auch gerne mal Annahmen dazu schreiben, wie simple die Aufgaben anderer sind. - Kai Schober
Addons:
RdK Group Tool: esoui DE EN FR
Port to Friend's House: esoui DE EN FR - Library: DE EN
Yet another Compass: esoui DE EN FR
Group Buffs: esoui DE EN FR2 -
Lysette✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭NeillMcAttack 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.
That's about it, Wrobel's design is the cause of the problem - twitchy AoE and DoT effects in mass amounts - and all really short lasting and mostly with no cool down - I know most like it that way, but this is why it can't get much better.2 -
Stahlor✭✭✭✭✭@NeillMcAttack True in theory, but nobody can see any improvement. It still lags like hell most of the time.3
-
VaranisArano✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭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?Edited by VaranisArano on January 5, 2021 1:24PM8 -
NeillMcAttack✭✭✭✭✭
✭True in theory, but nobody can see any improvement. It still lags like hell most of the time.
As Lysette above mentioned, it’s not a theory, it’s true by design. In defence of Wrobel though, the combat was designed to have the vast majority of processes client side, as was the infrastructure at the time. U25 moving the last remaining processes on to the server has forced ZOS’ hand toward a complete redesign of combat abilities lest we will never again have the scale and fluidity we once enjoyed and loved.
Also, it’s not true that there was no improvement made with the changes. I play on Ravenwatch EU, and over night the changes made the game playable, quickly guilds adjusted and the game became more and more unplayable during prime time but the reality remains. While it’s bad now, alas, it can actually be much worse.
Additionally it’s worth noting that Greyhost NA is arguably the most competitive campaign, likely has the most groups, and is actually the least likely place you will see any real improvement in performance any time soon.PC EU - NoCP PvP, is real PvPTiidehunter Nord StamDK EP PvP MainLegion Commander Tresdin Stamplar DC PvE MainSephirith Altmer MagPlar EP Gondar the Bounty Hunter Khajiit StamBlade DCThe Dirge Redguard StamNecro EP Disruptor Stormcrafter Nord StamSorc ADLone Druid Bosmer Stam Warden EP Necro-Phos Argonian MagBlade AD@ McAttack in gamePlayed since beta, and then on console at release, until the game became unplayable on console.0 -
Lysette✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭@NeillMcAttack True in theory, but nobody can see any improvement. It still lags like hell most of the time.
And it pretty much always will be - simply because the design of skills and abilities and how they interact with each other is too computation and messaging intensive. The thing with ball groups could be solved though, by capping the amount of the effect. For example heal can just deliver a certain amount of total healing - if too many are in the effect area, the per person amount would be much lower - and this paired with a max amount of healing a person can get in a certain time frame.
And this scheme basically with all such skills - this would make people avoiding too large groups, because the heal would be more effective in a smaller group. And the same with other effects of other skills,
The combat system is still ***, but this would at least solve the ball group problem. But tbh a redesign would be necessary, but this isn't going to happen - so it will stay laggy.1 -
caperb✭✭✭✭✭
✭VaranisArano wrote: »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?
Nobody, unless one of them steps up and forms a group. Drawback is that casual PvPers usually understand that they will be cannon fodder if they play with the same likes, so none of them likes to make a group. Cyrodiil will be one big slaughterfest as a result.
And with no crosshealing on solo's available, to prevent getting suprised by procs it is either unnecessarily overheal yourself instead your allies or faction stack. Lag incoming^^1 -
Lysette✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭NeillMcAttack wrote: »True in theory, but nobody can see any improvement. It still lags like hell most of the time.
As Lysette above mentioned, it’s not a theory, it’s true by design. In defence of Wrobel though, the combat was designed to have the vast majority of processes client side, as was the infrastructure at the time. U25 moving the last remaining processes on to the server has forced ZOS’ hand toward a complete redesign of combat abilities lest we will never again have the scale and fluidity we once enjoyed and loved.
Also, it’s not true that there was no improvement made with the changes. I play on Ravenwatch EU, and over night the changes made the game playable, quickly guilds adjusted and the game became more and more unplayable during prime time but the reality remains. While it’s bad now, alas, it can actually be much worse.
Additionally it’s worth noting that Greyhost NA is arguably the most competitive campaign, likely has the most groups, and is actually the least likely place you will see any real improvement in performance any time soon.
Yeah, that's true, most of the computation was done client-side before - ZOS just ignored the basic rule of all client-server architecture - "don't trust the client" - and had to suffer from ignoring it, because it led to all kind of cheats. Of course it will, this is not a new experience but why "don't trust the client" is mandatory - who decided to ignore it was an amateur.0 -
idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭NeillMcAttack 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.
2 -
NeillMcAttack✭✭✭✭✭
✭NeillMcAttack 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!PC EU - NoCP PvP, is real PvPTiidehunter Nord StamDK EP PvP MainLegion Commander Tresdin Stamplar DC PvE MainSephirith Altmer MagPlar EP Gondar the Bounty Hunter Khajiit StamBlade DCThe Dirge Redguard StamNecro EP Disruptor Stormcrafter Nord StamSorc ADLone Druid Bosmer Stam Warden EP Necro-Phos Argonian MagBlade AD@ McAttack in gamePlayed since beta, and then on console at release, until the game became unplayable on console.4 -
Oreyn_Bearclaw✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭InvitationNotFound wrote: »Firstly, they should enable cross healing again. It's completely nonsense, that you can't heal people outside of your group anymore.
I disagree here. It is so annoying if your "smart heal" heals a random instead of yourself or your group.
Running solo means that my heal will actually heal myself instead of just some random players, which is actually nice.
@InvitationNotFound
Totally agree, and I got accused of being a selfish zerg surfer for saying so in another thread. Two arguments I hear the most:
1. "I am a healer and want to heal in Cyro." My response is that the healer, tank, DPS role distinction only makes sense in the context of group play. If you want to be any of these roles specifically, join a group. If you want to play solo, you need to do all three. It is not difficult to start a group in cyro, even after the size changes. Everyone is always LFG, but few people seem realize that if you type press X for group, a lot of X's are going to pop up in chat.
2. "I see someone in my alliance dying, and I want to help them." You know how to help them? Nuke the guy trying to kill them, giving your alliance member time to recover. If I am getting pressured by more than a few people, I would much rather my ally come into the fight on full offense to buy me some time than throw a random heal at me. The heal might prolong my death, but nuking the guy pressuring me might actually turn the fight.
Server calculations aside (which cross healing clearly increases by a significant amount). It also unnecessarily prolongs fights and encourages zerg surfing and poor builds/playstyles. While I lean pretty far left in Real Life, I do believe a little self reliance is a good thing.4 -
Joy_Division✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭NeillMcAttack wrote: »NeillMcAttack 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.Edited by Joy_Division on January 5, 2021 6:07PMMake Rush of Agony "Monsters only." People should not be consecutively crowd controlled in a PvP setting. Period.3 -
Poncho28✭✭✭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.
If the real solution is to scale out (get more quantity) and/or scale up (get better quality) ZOS resources, something tells me that should've been done long ago and hasn't. It might just be me, but I'm still not seeing the 5 seconds or greater delay in ability use in the PvE areas, so I'm wondering why we can't see that same performance in Cyrodiil.
Apologies if this came across as a rant, just spit-balling here - thanks.
Poncho-Dovahkiin (Defilers of Molag Bal, Lost Souls of Tamriel, Rebellious Spirit, EP ***)2 -
NeillMcAttack✭✭✭✭✭
✭Joy_Division wrote: »NeillMcAttack wrote: »NeillMcAttack 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.PC EU - NoCP PvP, is real PvPTiidehunter Nord StamDK EP PvP MainLegion Commander Tresdin Stamplar DC PvE MainSephirith Altmer MagPlar EP Gondar the Bounty Hunter Khajiit StamBlade DCThe Dirge Redguard StamNecro EP Disruptor Stormcrafter Nord StamSorc ADLone Druid Bosmer Stam Warden EP Necro-Phos Argonian MagBlade AD@ McAttack in gamePlayed since beta, and then on console at release, until the game became unplayable on console.0 -
forthwinds✭✭✭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.Dawnbringer ✦ Godslayer ✦ Tick Tock Tormentor x3 ✦ Immortal Redeemer x2 ✦ Gryphon Heart x5 ✦ The Unchained x2 ✦ Emperor x6 ✦ Grand Overlord1 -
Greasytengu✭✭✭✭✭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." I nEeD HeAlInG!!! "3 -
idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭NeillMcAttack wrote: »NeillMcAttack 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!
I very much understand PR. I also understand when people are reading into things that are clearly not being said and that is what is happening when someone tries to spin Gina's comment into something she clearly did not say and clearly distanced things from.
I have long put the blame for the continued degradation of Cyrodiil performance at the feed of Zos management. The issue has never been group size or heals. The issue is the changes Zos has made to the game that has increased server load and as such has been the cause of the performance issues we have seen. I clearly do not consider them besties as you seem to allude to.
Those of us that have been in this game for years can point to some of the biggest impacts that have occurred because we were here when they happened. Heck, the campaigns used to perform better, while not perfect, with a pop cap significantly larger than we have now. As such we have more large groups with more heals going out than we have now. So it is smoke and mirrors to blame group size and heals for the issues.4 -
renne✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭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?5 -
BackStabeth✭✭✭✭✭12 person zurgs are already an issue, you want to increase the gang up thing? What good will that do for PvP?1 -
Gilvoth✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭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".0 -
Oreyn_Bearclaw✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭NeillMcAttack wrote: »NeillMcAttack 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!
Slow clap, Mic Drop, you name it. This stuff was done for performance reasons 100%. You are kidding yourself to believe anything else. Of course they aren't going to come out and say that the last server hamster is on life support and this was our only option.1 -
Jaraal✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭VaranisArano wrote: »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.
And yet, these are the very behaviors they must like. What else could it be?
Anybody who spends any time at all in Cyrodiil knows how much of a joke this has become. Players publicly deride these changes all day long. Unknown players are still LFGing in zone chat unsuccessfully. The few leaders still willing to lead 12 man PUGs are saying "Type (whatever) for group", and the new players are typing (whatever), and they still don't get the invite. The leader is waiting for the familiar names to type (whatever). But players like me, who are there a lot and complete objectives and are active in chat can say "What's happening?" or "How's the weather?" and get hit with random group invites.
So they must really like the 12 man ball groups or guild exclusive groups. Because solo and new player involvement has been nerfed hard. And the organized groups are less forthcoming about where the action is in zone chat, because they want the ungrouped greenhorns to stay away for their targets. I've even seen zone chat used as a way to deliberately herd the loners to the other side of the map, ie: "Everybody get to Drake, we are on the way to take it" and then take their group to Brindle while the helpless lemmings serve as a massacre diversion to draw enemy forces away from the real action.
Cyro has become more of an informal 12 man battleground than an alliance vs alliance conflict. It's a shame, because it used to be a lot of fun working together in the 24 man groups to make your way across the map claiming territory. I remember how much fun it was when I first started to follow the action with my resto staff and see people able to keep fighting because of my heals. And how exciting it was to be in a big group with a common purpose, being able to overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers, even though half of us were new and didn't really know what we were doing. But that's how we learned, and we got better and became more useful to our alliance with practice. But now, I see the new people just riding around (slowly) lost by themselves, and getting locked down by gankers or steamrolled by ball groups. And then you never see them again. Or they say in zone chat how bad 'this place sucks', or something similar.
ZOS has made Cyrodiil a hostile, unfriendly place for new folks, especially healers. But they like the behaviors. What other behaviors are there? I haven't seen any. So it is what it is.
Edited by Jaraal on January 6, 2021 10:01AM6 -
Sahidom✭✭✭✭There is nothing wrong with the 12-man group size. Other than the reduction limiting cross heals and buffs; it changes how ball groups carry players. I guess each PVP guild has a core group of 12 ppl who often carry other members but when you divide the core players amongst multiple groups than their own survival drops; hence, you'll find more ppl wanting the change to have the carry. That's the complaint and the struggle PVP guilds have with the changes: how to carry ppl while enjoying PVP themselves.0
-
Jaraal✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭There is nothing wrong with the 12-man group size.
With the previous 24 player group size, you could have 8 or 9 players who didn't carry any seige and had no idea how a ram works and still make a successful door breach. But if you have 8 or 9 out of 12 who won't be standing in your ram, let alone know how to deploy a ballista and stand in the ram at the same time you are pretty much doomed to failure.
The smaller group size is designed to exclude new and untrained players. And ZOS has been more than successful in achieving that behavior.
7 -
Agalloch✭✭✭✭✭Eso launched as an AvA PVP game...There is no pint to reduce the group size in Cyrodiil.
After they did these adjustments ( reduced group size and healing...) Cyro become do die ...soon will be a ghost town.
Maybe ths way they've gonna tell us : " See ? Cyro performance is better now ..."...but because only 10 people still play it.
A dream Cyro must allow to have 50 ppl groups not 12.
English is not my native language.
3 -
Knockmaker✭✭✭✭VaranisArano 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.4 -
Ryath_Waylander✭✭✭✭✭
✭There is nothing wrong with the 12-man group size.
With the previous 24 player group size, you could have 8 or 9 players who didn't carry any seige and had no idea how a ram works and still make a successful door breach. But if you have 8 or 9 out of 12 who won't be standing in your ram, let alone know how to deploy a ballista and stand in the ram at the same time you are pretty much doomed to failure.
The smaller group size is designed to exclude new and untrained players. And ZOS has been more than successful in achieving that behavior.
The essence of the problem, succinctly put. Solo players, regular small scale and Ball groups just don't get it. The 24 person "Zerg" as the detractors like to deride it, are the learning grounds. It's because of zerging that I know know how to seige properly, use up my AP at every opportunity to fill up seige and buy a camp or two. The usual thing for a pve player is to hoard AP to buy motifs or Bruma hawkeye to decon the purple rings.
You have to learn how pvp works in a zerg before the bug bites and you start experimenting with the proper gear, research how a support build works and work your way up to a solo quality pvp player. If you sneer at the zergs and think that 12 man is the best thing since swiss cheese, think again. The crummy lag in Cyro (and for the 1000th time, read the notes, even Zos said there was no noticeable performance improvement, only behavioural changes) causes a constant turnover of players arriving as newbies, trying to make a go of it/ getting tired of poor perfomance and leaving.
They have fostered an unforgiving learning environment and new players are going to be leaving before they are finished the zerg phase. Then you can enjoy your 12 man groups as Cyro gets emptier and emptier and the performance continues to degrade over time. You know it will, ask the bones of the deer and the husks of the torchbugs.6 -
LostToTheSea✭✭✭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 ~80.3