Knockmaker wrote: »

They should stop playing with fundamental gameplay mechanics without actually getting involved in that gameplay. Please play your game, zos. Cyrodiil in particular.

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.

Agalloch wrote: »

When the game was launched we had hundreds of players on the same screen in Cyro.with no lag..I want ESO Open PVP from 2014-2015 to come back..but I believe...it's a dream that cannot come true..:(

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

vamp_emily wrote: »

Lag was there before the change. I don't think most of you understand about the advanced technologies we have today. I believe these servers can handle many more requests that a poplock server throws their way.

Lag and desyncs are 100% server issue. It cannot process requests fast enough and does not send response to the players fast enough. Why the server cannot handle the demand on peak hours, I cant tell. Maybe the game engine is so badly written it actually requires a quantum server to perform as it should.

What is a FACT, is that during PVP events where activity is 100% 24/7, the lag is considerably lower. This is because ZOS probably rents more server capacity for the event period.

idk 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!

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.

Jaraal wrote: »

Sahidom wrote: »

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.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Sahidom wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Sahidom wrote: »

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.

If this was a guild group than the organizer didn't communicate whats needed to the participants.

Most ball groups members don't carry siege and just bank the AP; or the skilled PVP members have the inexperienced handle the siege.

Either way, the group size isn't the issue its the players who didn't decide to buy siege. The group size doesn't exclude new and untrained players in the context your implying; people learn by playing and experiencing PVP combat, yes there loads of forgiveness when you have 24 other people hitting the same target but that type of group isn't teaching new or untrained players how to get better.

Gotta be honest here, my experience leading PUGs is that I could say we needed to bring siege weapons, wait for people to buy siege weapons, even set up extra siege weapons that I bought to ensure there was enough, and reiterate that we needed to stick together and siege down the door or wall in order to win enough times that my group probably got sick of it...and I still had a portion of players who didn't bring siege, wouldn't use the siege I dropped, and who insisted on running around skirmishing away from us even when it got them killed.

And that was when I'd have up to 24 players. My PUGs weren't exactly 20/20 siege machines. That's in stark contrast to my PVP guild where every player is prepared to run multiple siege weapons so we can burst the door instead of standing in the boiling oils.

Drop it down to 12 players and PUGs really do need everyone in the same place working together to siege if they want to be successful at taking or defending a keep.

Now, maybe PUGs have learned a lot about how to play since I last led groups! Maybe I wouldn't need to beg, plead, and cajole them into buying and using my siege weapons. Maybe having no heals except for those coming from their party members has finally drilled it into their heads that they need to stick together in a fight.

Maybe. Is that what you are seeing?

If not, then it seems pretty clear that groups who do want to siege, capture, and defend Cyrodiil objectives have pretty good reasons to not want to pick up much "dead weight" and instead restrict their 12-man group to members who actually will bring siege weapons, stick together, and be useful in a fight. In effect, that disincentivizes bringing in newer and casual players who, due to simple inexperience, just aren't as effective.


But now I'm curious. Since the big PUG raids and guild raids who previously took in newbies are shrunk down to 12 and have less room for error with bringing in inexperienced players, who do you think is teaching those newer players? Are they just supposed to learn on their own by experiencing PVP combat?

VaranisArano wrote: »

Sahidom wrote: »

Sure. PUG groups do need to work together and be on the same page i.e. siege, stay together, don't be baited,... basically, all the lessons you'd expect in a guild organized group.

There is less room for error in smaller groups. But the lessons mentioned above dont have a steep learning curve. Landing killing blows has a steep learning curve but thats where practice and using skills by reading the combat, as it unfolds, helps. Goggle can be your friend here.

PvP is much harder than Trials by far. Players who want to excel and learn the ropes have BG, IC and dueling that offers smaller scale encounters and with an experienced player can be trained; or self trained by trial and error.

I see this argument to increase size split between groups that usually carry PUGs or others and those skilled players that don't want to lower their group play requirements, so they have the highest success rate to siege/take keeps or gain AP. Ironically, this is the same dilemma new Trial members face but in PVP context.

There are many ways to help untrained players in PVP that doesnt involve a 24-36 man ball group.

This might be my personal experience as someone who initially hated PVP and only gradually got into Cyrodiil by working with PUGs and eventually my PVP guild.

But if I'd been expected to "learn to play" by doing Battlegrounds and graduating through dueling and Imperial City "small scale"/ganker's paradise before I could play in Cyrodiil, I'm not sure I'd be a PVPer now. "Get gud, scrub, and maybe when you can carry your own weight we'll accept you in group," is the antithesis of my PVP learning experience. My guild welcomed, carried and trained me until I got good enough to play effectively in large and small scale fights.

So personally, I'm really against the whole idea that I should pull the ladder up behind me. I became a PVPer specifically because my PVP guild was able to welcome, carry, and train a newbie. I'm not thrilled that the group size changes currently give a bigger penalty to the good PUGs and guilds who do pick up and teach inexperienced players.


And I'm not sure that expecting new PVPers to learn from dueling, BGs, or IC before joining groups in Cyrodiil is a good way to ensure the long term strength of Cyrodiil's population, you know? Seems like that's more of a plan to support solo and small scale style play.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Knockmaker wrote: »

Now that the cross-healing mistake is being reverted, can we show the same unity and raise our voices similarly to revert the changes to group size? With the cross-healing is re-enabled, it will be even harder to counter ball groups with smaller groups while the ball groups get even more heals from solo healers. Group size needs to be reverted as well.

I'd like the 24 player group size back because I think it makes Cyrodiil more accessible and welcoming to new players when PUG and Guild leaders can pick up more players in group and thre's more room for carrying inexperienced players as they learn.

I'm not sure its the answer to balancing vs ball groups now that cross-heals are back.

A lot of the 12-man ball groups that farm weren't impacted by the changes because they were already farming in back keeps with few to no solo healers or friendly PUGs around. And in the event that there are, those solo healers aren't in the group, aren't in their voice comms, and don't know where to go to keep up with the farming group. It should be easy to pick off a solo healer who's tagging along in the event that anyone is, as its very easy for them to get left behind. (I've tried to solo heal a farming ball group a couple of times before this change. Even with knowing how ball groups move, its pretty difficult not to get caught out of position and killed when you aren't in their voice comms.)

In short, those farming ball groups neither lost nor will gain much healing, while the PUGs who fought them lost and will gain back a lot of healing.


Whereas the organized raids who will benefit most from cross-heals are the ones in the middle of the PUG zerg or the faction stack. At that point, the answer to fighting them is "bring your own faction stack." After all, if we merely revert back to the status quo with crossheals and 24 player groups, many of those PVP guild raids go back to running their full raid with even more damage and support players, making them that much more powerful. (To be clear, I'd love that, as I could run with everyone in my PVP guild again in a single raid. But, uh, the PUGs who tangle with us might not enjoy that so much.)

So I guess when we talk about balance, its more a matter of whether its necessary to have 24 PUG raids to beat ball groups even with cross-heals back...and whether its worth making organized guild raids more powerful.

But from an overall look at Cyrodiil, I think 24 player groups were better for players who need or want a group in Cyrodiil. Its far more welcoming, more accepting for inexperienced players, and means less time typing LFG in zone chat before they get a group.