Heyo gang!

Last year, we ran a series of tests on the Live PC megaservers in an effort to identify potential solutions for the ongoing performance issues in Cyrodiil (you can read the full details surrounding the reasons behind these tests in this forum post). Our previous rounds of testing in Cyrodiil last year concluded with some interesting data that pointed us towards various avenues to explore for both future tests and long term solutions. However, those tests did not provide a definitive “This will fix all the things” solutions. We did find that slowing down calculations on the server per combat action does indeed help with performance, but again, not to an appreciable amount where it could be a permanent solution; more tests are necessary to follow various branches of thought regarding server performance and combat calculations. As such, we will be performing at least 1 more test where we are affecting how much information is processed per combat action by limiting item set procs in Cyrodiil.

On February 15th, we will be disabling Item Set bonuses outside of pure stat gains. This means any item set which has a proc, or condition which is driven by an ability, will have that ability disabled. This includes Item Sets like Seducer, as that set reduces Magicka cost abilities by 10%. That reduction of cost is done via an ability, which has to check anytime you cast an ability if it’s cost should be reduced. Other sets, such as Hunding’s Rage, is completely unaffected by this change as it simply grants stats without requirements.

The full list of Sets which are not affected by this test are as follows:

• Amber Plasm
• Armor of the Trainee
• Beekeeper’s Gear
• Crafty Alfiq
• Draugr Hulk
• Endurance
• Fortified Brass
• Grace of the Ancients
• Hunding’s Rage
• Impregnable Armor
• Law of Julianos
• Leviathan
• Mother’s Sorrow
• Plague Doctor
• Shacklebreaker
• Spinner’s Garments
• Spriggan’s Thorns
• Willpower Agility

At this time, we are planning for this test to run for at least 3 weeks, and will let everyone know when we have next steps locked in.

When this test begins on February 15, we will also be reverting a prior test where abilities cast on allies were restricted to group targets only. This adjustment gave no appreciable gains towards performance improvements, so this restriction will be removed until further notice and abilities which target/can be triggered by players outside of your group will once again function as they do outside of Cyrodiil.

We look forward to your feedback and seeing the effects of this test!