Non-cp Performance Non-Proc Test

SgtNuttzmeg · February 2021

Last night I was in a raid in Ravenwatch PC NA during prime time and despite the campaign being poplocked we experienced the best performance that we have experienced in atleast a year. This is with ball groups and faction stacking. That being said it definitely could be better. If the rework to CP helps to greatly reduce calculations, more optimization is done to how proc sets work (maybe remove many of the junk sets) and look at stacking of aoes (make aoes have longer duration and effect more people but reduce the amount of times it can be applied to once, like group vigor) I could see some significant improvement to the game in both quality of life and performance wise.

Balance feels alot better in non-cp. This is because it takes more of an investment to get good sustain, survivability and damage. Also the lack of procs helped to close the gap inbetween groups. Pugs were able to compete against more experienced groups. Stamnia felt alot stronger and actually consistently competed with Magicka group vs group.

I know this test won't likely be implemented but unlike the past tests this one is very popular. It has returned the meta to a much healthier spot. One that allows build diversity (despite the lack of sets) and doesn't punish new players as much.

There are some very important take aways from this testing meta wise. Certain sets are pain points in both the meta and performance they need to be addressed. The abundance of both free damage and pen is too much. Both of these factors force players to play with more survivability and to play with more defensive sets. (Crimison, eternal vigor, curse eater, etc etc.) The abundance of overly tuned survivability sets forces players to invest more into damage (Malacath, unpurgable procs, Balrogh, etc etc.) This creates a meta were if you cannot have high survivability and damage you will perform poorly. It forces players into a tiny meta that punishes new players that don't know it and don't nessicarily want to play it.

I am looking forward to trying this out with the new CP system but the inherent tankiness and sustain from CP may hurt this balance. It is impossible to know how this will feel before we get a chance to test it but it's something we need to be careful of. Otherwise it will once again create an arms race were survivability and damage skyrocket to the point where it is too punishing to casual pvpers.

Odysseus87 · February 2021

Were we playing in the same campaign? I was on for two hours in prime time last night and I think vigor maybe went off twice.

SgtNuttzmeg · February 2021

Odysseus87 wrote: »

Were we playing in the same campaign? I was on for two hours in prime time last night and I think vigor maybe went off twice.

NA. Was very smooth. Pale was streaming and it even looked really clean on his stream. CCs were still clunky and there were constant position desyncs but lag and skill delay were much better.

Kungfu · February 2021

Unfortunately, Gray Host was the opposite.
In three 2v2 battles during prime time: neither of us was able to get maybe 1 out of 5 skills to go off.
Two at flags @ Cropsford: temp & DK vs. 2 sorcs and temp & DK vs. sorc & NB
One at Drake Mine: temp & DK vs sorc & warden

I did have ONE fight out of two hours where my (I'm the templar) stuff "worked" - stepped on a NB in stealth and popped him. Turns out he musta been afk.

In most battles last night, I could fire my jabs but NO numbers were visible. It was as if the ability wasn't going off or wasn't registering that the enemy player was right in front of me. That particular effect happened in small man and when charging into large, zerg-style blobs of DC and/or AD.

SgtNuttzmeg · February 2021

Kungfu wrote: »

Unfortunately, Gray Host was the opposite.
In three 2v2 battles during prime time: neither of us was able to get maybe 1 out of 5 skills to go off.
Two at flags @ Cropsford: temp & DK vs. 2 sorcs and temp & DK vs. sorc & NB
One at Drake Mine: temp & DK vs sorc & warden

I did have ONE fight out of two hours where my (I'm the templar) stuff "worked" - stepped on a NB in stealth and popped him. Turns out he musta been afk.

In most battles last night, I could fire my jabs but NO numbers were visible. It was as if the ability wasn't going off or wasn't registering that the enemy player was right in front of me. That particular effect happened in small man and when charging into large, zerg-style blobs of DC and/or AD.

That jab issue sounds like a position desync. I notice the same thing on Cleeve and dawnbreaker. It's increasingly becoming harder to hit people with these abilities because where they are is different from where you see they are. Your best bet is to try and line up your character model so you are attacking where they will be in 1-2 seconds.

I have yet to try greyhost and I intend to before CP 2.0 goes live but this test might really be reinforcing how much of an issue CP 1.0 was for performance. I think CP 2.0 goes live for the last week of this test if I recall correctly. Hopefully we will see some improvements.

Grimlok_S · February 2021

SgtNuttzmeg wrote: »

Kungfu wrote: »

Unfortunately, Gray Host was the opposite.
In three 2v2 battles during prime time: neither of us was able to get maybe 1 out of 5 skills to go off.
Two at flags @ Cropsford: temp & DK vs. 2 sorcs and temp & DK vs. sorc & NB
One at Drake Mine: temp & DK vs sorc & warden

I did have ONE fight out of two hours where my (I'm the templar) stuff "worked" - stepped on a NB in stealth and popped him. Turns out he musta been afk.

In most battles last night, I could fire my jabs but NO numbers were visible. It was as if the ability wasn't going off or wasn't registering that the enemy player was right in front of me. That particular effect happened in small man and when charging into large, zerg-style blobs of DC and/or AD.

That jab issue sounds like a position desync. I notice the same thing on Cleeve and dawnbreaker. It's increasingly becoming harder to hit people with these abilities because where they are is different from where you see they are. Your best bet is to try and line up your character model so you are attacking where they will be in 1-2 seconds.

I have yet to try greyhost and I intend to before CP 2.0 goes live but this test might really be reinforcing how much of an issue CP 1.0 was for performance. I think CP 2.0 goes live for the last week of this test if I recall correctly. Hopefully we will see some improvements.

I've been on 30-day Standard (Blackreach?) the last few days and can confirm, its positional desyncs killing Templar on top of the usual lag.. I haven't noted any improvement in the lag department. I'm lucky to hit 2 jabs per channel. People walk right through dawnbreakers, I tried a master's Cleave build before the tests, yeah, dropped that idea.

It's strange, I don't have trouble hitting DK's breath, but Templar Jabs are very few and far between. Leap also suffers from these desyncs too, you target a player and have to press the skill 4-5 times before the server accepts you have LOS and are in range to leap.

Erissime · February 2021

I tried the past two days both cp and no cp campaigns. In both cases at peak hours the performance is definitely increased - for me. Meanwhile I have friends who state the exact opposite for them. Can barely cast anything or move for that matter. All the same I've seen people utterly stuck (probably incapable to move themselves). I know this is premature, but while the proc sets definitely brought an improvement for many - others seem to be getting pretty much the same as before. Thus while this idea is good - it is not enough - there is more behind the proc sets issue that causes pvp areas to lag .

Joy_Division · February 2021

Grimlok_S wrote: »

SgtNuttzmeg wrote: »

Kungfu wrote: »

Unfortunately, Gray Host was the opposite.
In three 2v2 battles during prime time: neither of us was able to get maybe 1 out of 5 skills to go off.
Two at flags @ Cropsford: temp & DK vs. 2 sorcs and temp & DK vs. sorc & NB
One at Drake Mine: temp & DK vs sorc & warden

I did have ONE fight out of two hours where my (I'm the templar) stuff "worked" - stepped on a NB in stealth and popped him. Turns out he musta been afk.

In most battles last night, I could fire my jabs but NO numbers were visible. It was as if the ability wasn't going off or wasn't registering that the enemy player was right in front of me. That particular effect happened in small man and when charging into large, zerg-style blobs of DC and/or AD.

That jab issue sounds like a position desync. I notice the same thing on Cleeve and dawnbreaker. It's increasingly becoming harder to hit people with these abilities because where they are is different from where you see they are. Your best bet is to try and line up your character model so you are attacking where they will be in 1-2 seconds.

I have yet to try greyhost and I intend to before CP 2.0 goes live but this test might really be reinforcing how much of an issue CP 1.0 was for performance. I think CP 2.0 goes live for the last week of this test if I recall correctly. Hopefully we will see some improvements.

I've been on 30-day Standard (Blackreach?) the last few days and can confirm, its positional desyncs killing Templar on top of the usual lag.. I haven't noted any improvement in the lag department. I'm lucky to hit 2 jabs per channel. People walk right through dawnbreakers, I tried a master's Cleave build before the tests, yeah, dropped that idea.

It's strange, I don't have trouble hitting DK's breath, but Templar Jabs are very few and far between. Leap also suffers from these desyncs too, you target a player and have to press the skill 4-5 times before the server accepts you have LOS and are in range to leap.

Not so strange, par for the course actually. Channels won;t work in lag (RIP Templars) and skills with long animations (like Shards) are a shot in the dark (RIP Templars again). I'd imagine that whole minimum flight time mechanic did Leap no favors; as it was even before, that ulti was notorious for not going off (who can forget when their DK's were stuck with the wings animation?).

Having also played no CP, I can say that last night was playable, but that's the way no CP is on most Tuesday nights and I suspect not related to the test.

SgtNuttzmeg · February 2021

Grimlok_S wrote: »

SgtNuttzmeg wrote: »

Kungfu wrote: »

Unfortunately, Gray Host was the opposite.
In three 2v2 battles during prime time: neither of us was able to get maybe 1 out of 5 skills to go off.
Two at flags @ Cropsford: temp & DK vs. 2 sorcs and temp & DK vs. sorc & NB
One at Drake Mine: temp & DK vs sorc & warden

I did have ONE fight out of two hours where my (I'm the templar) stuff "worked" - stepped on a NB in stealth and popped him. Turns out he musta been afk.

In most battles last night, I could fire my jabs but NO numbers were visible. It was as if the ability wasn't going off or wasn't registering that the enemy player was right in front of me. That particular effect happened in small man and when charging into large, zerg-style blobs of DC and/or AD.

That jab issue sounds like a position desync. I notice the same thing on Cleeve and dawnbreaker. It's increasingly becoming harder to hit people with these abilities because where they are is different from where you see they are. Your best bet is to try and line up your character model so you are attacking where they will be in 1-2 seconds.

I have yet to try greyhost and I intend to before CP 2.0 goes live but this test might really be reinforcing how much of an issue CP 1.0 was for performance. I think CP 2.0 goes live for the last week of this test if I recall correctly. Hopefully we will see some improvements.

I've been on 30-day Standard (Blackreach?) the last few days and can confirm, its positional desyncs killing Templar on top of the usual lag.. I haven't noted any improvement in the lag department. I'm lucky to hit 2 jabs per channel. People walk right through dawnbreakers, I tried a master's Cleave build before the tests, yeah, dropped that idea.

It's strange, I don't have trouble hitting DK's breath, but Templar Jabs are very few and far between. Leap also suffers from these desyncs too, you target a player and have to press the skill 4-5 times before the server accepts you have LOS and are in range to leap.

I have noticed similar things. It seems to happen to any channel attack, non-Dot AOE in a cone or rectangular area. Spin-2-win consistently hits targets where as cleave can consistently miss. With Cleave in particular I find the best way to guarantee a hit is to have your character model directly against the side of the enemy's model. The more distance in-between you and the target, the less likely you are to hit.

The only ability that doesn't seem to miss is streak but streak has plenty of bugs and chunkiness to it. At this point you pretty much can't cast it while holding block in lag.

Erissime wrote: »

I tried the past two days both cp and no cp campaigns. In both cases at peak hours the performance is definitely increased - for me. Meanwhile I have friends who state the exact opposite for them. Can barely cast anything or move for that matter. All the same I've seen people utterly stuck (probably incapable to move themselves). I know this is premature, but while the proc sets definitely brought an improvement for many - others seem to be getting pretty much the same as before. Thus while this idea is good - it is not enough - there is more behind the proc sets issue that causes pvp areas to lag .

I have noticed the same. The biggest difference seems to be how many people are nearby, whether or not you are loading into an area with lots of combat going on (this has gotten significantly better recently) and whether or not you are in a group. Being in a group and a being near the combat seems to at times improve performance. Idk if it's because more resources are being dedicated to these areas but sometimes it lags more when you are off in the middle of nowheres fighting one other guy.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Grimlok_S wrote: »

SgtNuttzmeg wrote: »

Kungfu wrote: »

Unfortunately, Gray Host was the opposite.
In three 2v2 battles during prime time: neither of us was able to get maybe 1 out of 5 skills to go off.
Two at flags @ Cropsford: temp & DK vs. 2 sorcs and temp & DK vs. sorc & NB
One at Drake Mine: temp & DK vs sorc & warden

I did have ONE fight out of two hours where my (I'm the templar) stuff "worked" - stepped on a NB in stealth and popped him. Turns out he musta been afk.

In most battles last night, I could fire my jabs but NO numbers were visible. It was as if the ability wasn't going off or wasn't registering that the enemy player was right in front of me. That particular effect happened in small man and when charging into large, zerg-style blobs of DC and/or AD.

That jab issue sounds like a position desync. I notice the same thing on Cleeve and dawnbreaker. It's increasingly becoming harder to hit people with these abilities because where they are is different from where you see they are. Your best bet is to try and line up your character model so you are attacking where they will be in 1-2 seconds.

I have yet to try greyhost and I intend to before CP 2.0 goes live but this test might really be reinforcing how much of an issue CP 1.0 was for performance. I think CP 2.0 goes live for the last week of this test if I recall correctly. Hopefully we will see some improvements.

I've been on 30-day Standard (Blackreach?) the last few days and can confirm, its positional desyncs killing Templar on top of the usual lag.. I haven't noted any improvement in the lag department. I'm lucky to hit 2 jabs per channel. People walk right through dawnbreakers, I tried a master's Cleave build before the tests, yeah, dropped that idea.

It's strange, I don't have trouble hitting DK's breath, but Templar Jabs are very few and far between. Leap also suffers from these desyncs too, you target a player and have to press the skill 4-5 times before the server accepts you have LOS and are in range to leap.

Not so strange, par for the course actually. Channels won;t work in lag (RIP Templars) and skills with long animations (like Shards) are a shot in the dark (RIP Templars again). I'd imagine that whole minimum flight time mechanic did Leap no favors; as it was even before, that ulti was notorious for not going off (who can forget when their DK's were stuck with the wings animation?).

Having also played no CP, I can say that last night was playable, but that's the way no CP is on most Tuesday nights and I suspect not related to the test.

I probably spoke too soon but it felt noticeably better for me last night. Significantly but more importantly it took the removal of two major factors: CP and Proc Sets. It's not just one thing, it's not just player behavior, there are issues with the core systems the game was built on. The other big difference with last night and other nights is the number of buffs per player was less. Fights didn't seem to last as long either. There were also points where Ball Groups were vulnerable. There is one skill in particular that is making a comeback in Non-CP and it's a pretty good change to the flow of combat. I think it will even the odds more and give groups more equal grounding. Stamina felt as strong if not stronger than Magicka at points too which I can't remember the last time it has felt that way in a group environment.

I am not saying that removing procs is the solution to perfect performance but it attacks many of the issues facing the PVP community. I think going down this rabbit hole. Exploring what impact these sets have, looking at the number of dot/hot/buff/debuff AOEs stacking per player and adjusting CP will put the game in a far healthier spot for performance and meta.

JerrysKid · February 2021

Odysseus87 wrote: »

Were we playing in the same campaign? I was on for two hours in prime time last night and I think vigor maybe went off twice.

100% agreed. No-CP has been just as laggy as any other time the server is pop locked. It's nice not fighting against procs, but if the point of the test is performance nothing has changed.

ChrisXO · February 2021

I had great performance last night in my group: skills went off, no noticeable lag, channels worked... but others in the same group said it was terrible. So what's the difference? Is it even something wildly unrelated to the game code, like the polar vortex and power outages affecting US players while I'm doing fine in Canada? Honestly baffled here.

SgtNuttzmeg · February 2021

ChrisXO wrote: »

I had great performance last night in my group: skills went off, no noticeable lag, channels worked... but others in the same group said it was terrible. So what's the difference? Is it even something wildly unrelated to the game code, like the polar vortex and power outages affecting US players while I'm doing fine in Canada? Honestly baffled here.

Thats the same for me. There may be some element of CP that isn't doing well with the tests. We need more time before we can make a definitive call as to how effective this test is.

ChrisXO · February 2021

Yes - although this was on Ravenwatch, so no-CP.

Why players on the same campaign can have such different game performance remains a mystery.

ne.ga.kurai_ESO · February 2021

Feb 17 -- PCNA noCP (Ravenwatch) -- 9pmEST to 1amEST

Perf was as bad as it has ever been. I DC'd for the first time in many months.

- skills not going off / casting multiple at the same time
- streak rooting my char, lighting coming out of my ass but yet no teleport
- players straight up rubberbanding
- "siege is too busy"
- channels taking up my GCD, not firing, but still keeping me from doing anything else (dark deal)
- I saw an enemy player leap (templar - toppling charge) a target into a staircase and couldn't move

I'm still having a ton of fun with noCP / noProc. If we don't get a campaign like this after this is over I'm quitting the game. I refuse to go back to procs.