Feb 15 Cyrodiil Test Details

PunkAben · March 2021

ZOS_ConnorG wrote: »

Greetings all,

After review we have had to edit or remove several posts for a variety of rule violations. Ensure when engaging in a discussion that you keep said discussion civil, constructive, and within the rules.

You are welcome to review the Community Rules here.

People should learn to behave them self.
Thanks God it is a Zenimax thread so it wont be closed.

TheTruestKing · March 2021

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

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!

@ZOS_GinaBruno is special 1 pieces included. Such as potentates reduce player damage done by 3%.
Or senche-raht healing done 4% bonus. Are these set still useable or do they run a check?

forzajuve212 · March 2021

Yuke wrote: »

I'll just leave this here

I'm sure all of you smart people who think this is a good change, will have no problem figuring out who these stats belong to.

This is the major problem with the proposed 6-7 months of the same no-"proc" sets. We're not upset because we can't go back to old Cyrodiil with vateshran syvarra and crimson. We're upset because they decided to remove all non-problematic procs that added build variety and balance between the different specs, such as monster helms and non-damage proc sets (burning spellweave, clever alch, etc.). When you remove all other sets other than a select few stat-based ones, the lack of balance between the classes and specs becomes clear.

Mag sorc was the only spec that could build pure stat-based as a meta best in slot build and is now overperforming spectacularly. I don't think anyone can look at the stats above and say that's balanced.

With major evasion (20% reduced damage from AOEs, now a double major protection with the nerf to major protection to 10%, a major death blow to mag classes such as mag dk, mag templar, and mag warden), dark deal for near unlimited sustain, dodge roll, major and minor expedition, streak, and a burst combo ability (crystal weapon) with little to no visual or audio queue, its no wonder that the rest of the game that isn't running mag sorc is running stam sorc. The ability to be untargetable on cooldown (through high movement speed, streak, and dodge roll) and have strong sustain, damage and mitigation (major evasion + dodge roll) puts stamina sorcs a step below mag sorc but well above every other spec in the game, stam or mag. With this, we are now stuck with a lack of build variety and dull combat, as Cyrodiil has now become a 6-7 month Sorcerer celebration event.

Add in healing outside of group with no Vicious Death or Balorgh, and you get mass faction stacking, as outnumbering your opponent is one of the only ways you can succeed now and increased lag.

With all these vast changes and numerous questions, ZOS decided to hide a massive piece of news buried on a 34-page forum post. If this doesn't lead to distrust and lack of faith in the direction of this game, I don't know what will.

McGordon · March 2021

All stamdens are mad 😂 but reality is these is fun change. Only yes, i whish we would have more selection of sets, at leaat ones that increase base stats for certain %.

Jayserix · March 2021

Scardan wrote: »

SshadowSscale wrote: »

Honestly the vateshran destro alone makes me happy that I won't be seeing it for most of the year.... on a side note can we delete that staff from bgs too?

What's the point of existing of this weapon then?

You can still use it in IC, BG and PVE.

forzajuve212 · March 2021

StaticWave wrote: »

WreckfulAbandon wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The fact is there will always be some meta setups. Looking back at proc meta you could clearly see what sets were widely used by almost every PvPer (Crimson, arena weapons, syvarras, etc.) Looking back at the stat meta before that you could also see what sets were commonly used (Fury, new moon acolyte, clever alc, etc.). In fact, there will also be a meta with these 15 sets (Spriggan, Beekeeper, Endurance,etc.).

If I were to pick between a no rules environment vs a limited sets environment, I would pick the latter every time. The perception that you lose "build diversity" clouds your own judgement. Diversity just does not exist in a game where 80% of the set choices are bad leaving you with only have 6-7 decent sets to use. At least in a limited set environment, skill is what truly matters apart from class imbalance.

You're not wrong but I still think it's insane that sets like Automaton, Willow's Path, and Innate Axiom are going to be put in the same category as more egregious, actual proc sets. There's gotta be a different choice other than the 2 extremes presented.

I think it's just how they coded those sets to have a proc/check condition. I believe they will eventually change the coding for those sets to let them work in cyro. We'll just have to wait it out.

That's the most alarming part I think from Gina's post - it seems they don't have the code capability to even tweak the test with adding in monster helms or non-damage procs. That means we're left with the pre-test mess of crimson syvarra or the few sets unbalanced zergy cyrodiil of the test.

amir412 · March 2021

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler The decisions you made related to continue this test until chapter release is based on false data.
Please take a look at these polls (Answered after your announcement) :
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/562062/add-a-no-proc-set-campaign-to-cyrodiil/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7151350#Comment_7151350
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7150357#Comment_7150357

From these latest polls it's not hard to understand that you should add only 1 campaign with no procs and everyone will be happy. You can even make it better and during this time, actually test which campaign will be the most popular.
Why are we getting forced to play this mode? We as CP pvpers have no real other options to PVP at beside Cyrodiil.

We love this game, but it feels like you guys are forcing us to hate it.

Finedaible · March 2021

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks to everyone for participating in this latest Cyrodiil test where we disabled all proc sets. Similar to what many of you have noted in your feedback, we found this test did not impact performance in a measurable amount; if anything, there was a very slight degradation of performance at times, likely due to a higher population of players in Cyrodiil.

We’ve heard from a lot of you that despite performance largely being the same, disabling proc sets has breathed new life into PvP gameplay and has made fights more enjoyable and fun. To that end, we’ll be leaving proc sets disabled until Update 31 launches in Q3. At that point, we will have implemented some new code so we can have more flexibility to campaign rulesets as it applies to proc sets. We’ll work on applying all this to consoles as well, and we’ll let you know when we have a date for this starting.

Now that we’ve had time to digest a lot of data and information, we have a better idea of next steps and the work needed to produce noticeable improvements to performance in Cyrodiil. This work is complex and will take a fair amount of time and effort. We are committed to improving the PvP experience, though, and we have already begun scheduling out this work. Please note that none of the scheduled work will implement any of the changes we made on PC during past tests, and at this time we don’t plan to run any additional tests.

When Update 29 launches on Monday for PC, we’ll be turning off double AP but proc sets will remain disabled as mentioned above. We appreciate the time everyone spent in Cyrodiil during these tests and all the feedback that’s been submitted.

I am one of the players who thinks combat without procs during this latest testing period has been a little bit more enjoyable despite the worse lag during prime time. However, losing most of the the game's sets until Q3 WITHOUT doubled AP gains does not seem worth playing Cyro in my opinion. That is an awful long time (not to mention wasted ESO+ subscription) to wait for an UNDEFINED, possible future solution to performance in Cyrodill (with no guarantees). You have admitted yourself that performance has been mostly the same as a result of the test so why disable the doubled AP while keeping proc sets disabled? Please correct me if I misinterpreted any of the points you mentioned because the rationale behind this decision still eludes me.

GreneBene · March 2021

Vyseman wrote: »

i realy dont know why ppls are cryin about Crimson. The Set is totaly terrible! Since everyone know how the Profeffect is looking, everyone walks out of it. so no Heal and no damage for you. There are sets like Alessian MUCH better cuz it gives you a constant heal (HP Rec)

And if you just change a bit your playstile you can laugh about dmg procsets, you can easily outplay them and doin also alot of dmg

I think what people were 'crying' about was those huge ball groups where more than half would be wearing crimson. Can't exactly walk away from those when you're in the midst of that.

I am personally quite sad that my healing proc sets will be useless.

RIP Transmutations, RIP Troll King

SillyGT · March 2021

Reading this is great, but there is one downside in doing so. In Cyrodiil pvp with no "proc sets" it creates an issue that there is no downside to faction stacking and its all reward for doing so. I personally think that the only "proc set" that should be enabled is vicious death, because it would slightly make people worry about stacking 30 - 60 people in one spot creating the lag.

StaticWave · March 2021

forzajuve212 wrote: »

Yuke wrote: »

I'll just leave this here

I'm sure all of you smart people who think this is a good change, will have no problem figuring out who these stats belong to.

This is the major problem with the proposed 6-7 months of the same no-"proc" sets. We're not upset because we can't go back to old Cyrodiil with vateshran syvarra and crimson. We're upset because they decided to remove all non-problematic procs that added build variety and balance between the different specs, such as monster helms and non-damage proc sets (burning spellweave, clever alch, etc.). When you remove all other sets other than a select few stat-based ones, the lack of balance between the classes and specs becomes clear.

Mag sorc was the only spec that could build pure stat-based as a meta best in slot build and is now overperforming spectacularly. I don't think anyone can look at the stats above and say that's balanced.

With major evasion (20% reduced damage from AOEs, now a double major protection with the nerf to major protection to 10%, a major death blow to mag classes such as mag dk, mag templar, and mag warden), dark deal for near unlimited sustain, dodge roll, major and minor expedition, streak, and a burst combo ability (crystal weapon) with little to no visual or audio queue, its no wonder that the rest of the game that isn't running mag sorc is running stam sorc. The ability to be untargetable on cooldown (through high movement speed, streak, and dodge roll) and have strong sustain, damage and mitigation (major evasion + dodge roll) puts stamina sorcs a step below mag sorc but well above every other spec in the game, stam or mag. With this, we are now stuck with a lack of build variety and dull combat, as Cyrodiil has now become a 6-7 month Sorcerer celebration event.

Add in healing outside of group with no Vicious Death or Balorgh, and you get mass faction stacking, as outnumbering your opponent is one of the only ways you can succeed now and increased lag.

With all these vast changes and numerous questions, ZOS decided to hide a massive piece of news buried on a 34-page forum post. If this doesn't lead to distrust and lack of faith in the direction of this game, I don't know what will.

And you would rather go back to 50k health wardens dominating cyrodiil with 4 procs, or 100k hp block tank necros that can some how kill people by holding block (which you literally cannot avoid because will be in your face as you land your aoe abilities on other ppl)?

You want to go back to a meta that was dominated by stamdens and stamcros?

orion_1981usub17_ESO · March 2021

"Dr. Sheogorath or How I learned to stop worrying and love the no-proc"

Aerenthir · March 2021

Most likely the issue on ZOS site with enabling only some proc sets would be on coding side of things. They most likely have some kind of flag, on all sets that have a condition that lists them as " proc sets ", and turning all those off is the fastest way.

I understand the issue with offensive sets that carry you with light attacks, but there are plenty of those that don't actually get you killed with proc condition. Example would be New Moon. There are many more similar of course.

Unfortunately as i said i doubt ZOS will go through the trouble to seperate the different set and enable some while disabling others, so we're stuck with what we have.

Lord_Hev · March 2021

StaticWave wrote: »

forzajuve212 wrote: »

Yuke wrote: »

I'll just leave this here

I'm sure all of you smart people who think this is a good change, will have no problem figuring out who these stats belong to.

This is the major problem with the proposed 6-7 months of the same no-"proc" sets. We're not upset because we can't go back to old Cyrodiil with vateshran syvarra and crimson. We're upset because they decided to remove all non-problematic procs that added build variety and balance between the different specs, such as monster helms and non-damage proc sets (burning spellweave, clever alch, etc.). When you remove all other sets other than a select few stat-based ones, the lack of balance between the classes and specs becomes clear.

Mag sorc was the only spec that could build pure stat-based as a meta best in slot build and is now overperforming spectacularly. I don't think anyone can look at the stats above and say that's balanced.

With major evasion (20% reduced damage from AOEs, now a double major protection with the nerf to major protection to 10%, a major death blow to mag classes such as mag dk, mag templar, and mag warden), dark deal for near unlimited sustain, dodge roll, major and minor expedition, streak, and a burst combo ability (crystal weapon) with little to no visual or audio queue, its no wonder that the rest of the game that isn't running mag sorc is running stam sorc. The ability to be untargetable on cooldown (through high movement speed, streak, and dodge roll) and have strong sustain, damage and mitigation (major evasion + dodge roll) puts stamina sorcs a step below mag sorc but well above every other spec in the game, stam or mag. With this, we are now stuck with a lack of build variety and dull combat, as Cyrodiil has now become a 6-7 month Sorcerer celebration event.

Add in healing outside of group with no Vicious Death or Balorgh, and you get mass faction stacking, as outnumbering your opponent is one of the only ways you can succeed now and increased lag.

With all these vast changes and numerous questions, ZOS decided to hide a massive piece of news buried on a 34-page forum post. If this doesn't lead to distrust and lack of faith in the direction of this game, I don't know what will.

And you would rather go back to 50k health wardens dominating cyrodiil with 4 procs, or 100k hp block tank necros that can some how kill people by holding block (which you literally cannot avoid because will be in your face as you land your aoe abilities on other ppl)?

You want to go back to a meta that was dominated by stamdens and stamcros?

Yes, because 50k health wardens are a fallacy. The wardens that built 30k - 40k health were equally matched by every other class that could run the same thing as them and compete. And the harbinger tanks served a purpose punishing people for mindlessly zerging, and really were just a niche build. Which is why only select few bothered to really stick with it. This feels like a Strawman argument.

In this new environment, Wardens can still function with overkill amount of health. They don't do as much burst anymore, but they can still pressure and benefit off of their heal. Every other stam class tho, has to go medium armor for damage. So we went from malacath heavy builds being equally shared, to now only 1 single class being dominant with that build concept.

Stat-based balance is a bygone era. The game is so different then during the times that stat was a thing. The balance direction taking into account all these new sets + the advent of CP power creep have all contributed to it.

And now, even bad players are difficult to kill because the "theorycraft" is utterly homogenized. It is impossible to build "bad" with only a dozen sets, unless you -deliberately- build bad with direct intent. Every average joe has powerful self-healing, and every average joe does a lot of damage. This is not a buff to solo. Stacked smallscale groups can probably have some fun in this but even that is cheap in the long run. Most people just run faction-stacked now, and while it is refreshing that the ridiculous survivabilty of most ballgroups have plummeted, we have also lost their VD dmg dumps. which punished people for faction stacking.

Why has lag truly become more apparent? It is not because stat-only produce more stress. It is not because "oh they turned cross healing back on" It goes deeper under the hood. The reality is that there is no longer any real way to punish faction stacks in this environment. Which is one of the main reasons stuff like Vicious Death got conceptualized in the first place. The vast majority of players engaging in zerg v zerg fights, are no longer -reliably- dying. Because crossheals or not, everyone is stat-based, therefore everyone has strong self-healing. Because one's main source for self-healing has always been raw stat. Raw stat homogeny, no procs to add dmg pressure, no vicious death for the zerg on zerg fights. This has produced a bland and painful Cyrodiil as the server stresses trying to make the gears turn and everyone is faction stacked and just mindlessly zerging all while chanting "omg this is so skill, no more carried proc sets, the people we zerg down die hurhurrrrr skill."

forzajuve212 · March 2021

StaticWave wrote: »

forzajuve212 wrote: »

Yuke wrote: »

I'll just leave this here

I'm sure all of you smart people who think this is a good change, will have no problem figuring out who these stats belong to.

This is the major problem with the proposed 6-7 months of the same no-"proc" sets. We're not upset because we can't go back to old Cyrodiil with vateshran syvarra and crimson. We're upset because they decided to remove all non-problematic procs that added build variety and balance between the different specs, such as monster helms and non-damage proc sets (burning spellweave, clever alch, etc.). When you remove all other sets other than a select few stat-based ones, the lack of balance between the classes and specs becomes clear.

Mag sorc was the only spec that could build pure stat-based as a meta best in slot build and is now overperforming spectacularly. I don't think anyone can look at the stats above and say that's balanced.

With major evasion (20% reduced damage from AOEs, now a double major protection with the nerf to major protection to 10%, a major death blow to mag classes such as mag dk, mag templar, and mag warden), dark deal for near unlimited sustain, dodge roll, major and minor expedition, streak, and a burst combo ability (crystal weapon) with little to no visual or audio queue, its no wonder that the rest of the game that isn't running mag sorc is running stam sorc. The ability to be untargetable on cooldown (through high movement speed, streak, and dodge roll) and have strong sustain, damage and mitigation (major evasion + dodge roll) puts stamina sorcs a step below mag sorc but well above every other spec in the game, stam or mag. With this, we are now stuck with a lack of build variety and dull combat, as Cyrodiil has now become a 6-7 month Sorcerer celebration event.

Add in healing outside of group with no Vicious Death or Balorgh, and you get mass faction stacking, as outnumbering your opponent is one of the only ways you can succeed now and increased lag.

With all these vast changes and numerous questions, ZOS decided to hide a massive piece of news buried on a 34-page forum post. If this doesn't lead to distrust and lack of faith in the direction of this game, I don't know what will.

And you would rather go back to 50k health wardens dominating cyrodiil with 4 procs, or 100k hp block tank necros that can some how kill people by holding block (which you literally cannot avoid because will be in your face as you land your aoe abilities on other ppl)?

You want to go back to a meta that was dominated by stamdens and stamcros?

Enabling non-damage procs while disabling mythic items and damage procs will put the game into the best balance position on average. Players will have high build variety, class and spec balance will be closer compared to what we have now with no-procs at all, and the pre-proc crimson syvarra meta wont exist. This is the best option we have of all of those presented. The game is near unplayable for certain specs now unless you wanna build to never die and kill no one.

Demonhunter · March 2021

TO be fair, as I understand it, the PTS has a very low population in Cyrodil compare to the live servers. So once CP 2.0 launches, we will actually see if performance will get better. Some CP perks and passives actually give same effects as a proc set too. But since they stated already that no-proc sets tests didn't actually improve performance in terms of lag , the CP 2.0 will likely not make a difference either.

As far as ZOS communication and how they read or interpret the community goes, it is really subjective. I don't want to seem to defend ZOS too much here, but there are some game companies that don't listen to their communities at all. But the least ZOS could of done is open a thread regarding if people want to play without proc sets for another 6 months or so? Run the thread for a few weeks to get a better picture of what the community wants. Because it does seem a little harsh when your only playing with a handful of sets, the actual list of playable sets currently is much smaller then what your aloud cause most of them aren't even viable.

Again, you can still have proc sets if you set them up in a way that isn't too punishing. Or, have a rule where you can only use 1 proc set equipped per toon. For example, you can't use crimson and harbinger together or a monster set etc...

Joy_Division · March 2021

forzajuve212 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

forzajuve212 wrote: »

Yuke wrote: »

I'll just leave this here

I'm sure all of you smart people who think this is a good change, will have no problem figuring out who these stats belong to.

This is the major problem with the proposed 6-7 months of the same no-"proc" sets. We're not upset because we can't go back to old Cyrodiil with vateshran syvarra and crimson. We're upset because they decided to remove all non-problematic procs that added build variety and balance between the different specs, such as monster helms and non-damage proc sets (burning spellweave, clever alch, etc.). When you remove all other sets other than a select few stat-based ones, the lack of balance between the classes and specs becomes clear.

Mag sorc was the only spec that could build pure stat-based as a meta best in slot build and is now overperforming spectacularly. I don't think anyone can look at the stats above and say that's balanced.

With major evasion (20% reduced damage from AOEs, now a double major protection with the nerf to major protection to 10%, a major death blow to mag classes such as mag dk, mag templar, and mag warden), dark deal for near unlimited sustain, dodge roll, major and minor expedition, streak, and a burst combo ability (crystal weapon) with little to no visual or audio queue, its no wonder that the rest of the game that isn't running mag sorc is running stam sorc. The ability to be untargetable on cooldown (through high movement speed, streak, and dodge roll) and have strong sustain, damage and mitigation (major evasion + dodge roll) puts stamina sorcs a step below mag sorc but well above every other spec in the game, stam or mag. With this, we are now stuck with a lack of build variety and dull combat, as Cyrodiil has now become a 6-7 month Sorcerer celebration event.

Add in healing outside of group with no Vicious Death or Balorgh, and you get mass faction stacking, as outnumbering your opponent is one of the only ways you can succeed now and increased lag.

With all these vast changes and numerous questions, ZOS decided to hide a massive piece of news buried on a 34-page forum post. If this doesn't lead to distrust and lack of faith in the direction of this game, I don't know what will.

And you would rather go back to 50k health wardens dominating cyrodiil with 4 procs, or 100k hp block tank necros that can some how kill people by holding block (which you literally cannot avoid because will be in your face as you land your aoe abilities on other ppl)?

You want to go back to a meta that was dominated by stamdens and stamcros?

Enabling non-damage procs while disabling mythic items and damage procs will put the game into the best balance position on average. Players will have high build variety, class and spec balance will be closer compared to what we have now with no-procs at all, and the pre-proc crimson syvarra meta wont exist. This is the best option we have of all of those presented. The game is near unplayable for certain specs now unless you wanna build to never die and kill no one.

If you enable non-damage procs and disable damage procs, it will exacerbate the very thing you are tying to avoid: build to never die and kill nobody. Stuff like Malubeth and Alessian are just as annoying as vateshran destro and Zaan.

There is no best test option because all of them will either involve removing some part of them game that the devs had in mind for balance, removing options for how people like to play, removing elements of the game we actually spent money, time, and materials investing in, or removing certain rules/options that will favor particular playstyles or classes. ZOS's tests are all about removing stuff, which has and will upset a significant part of the community, even if some like it a lot. I never would have guessed in a 1000 years that I'd like nothing more than go back to the Thieves' Guild DLC, when the Templar "house" concept was introduced to us and spawned such a backlash that it prompted over a 100 page thread on the PTS. And yet here we are, paying $15 a month all so I can wait until September to maybe wear the Seudcer's Set.

Daemonai · March 2021

VaranisArano wrote: »

This reminds me very strongly of the faction-locked campaign argument in which, when it seemed very unlikely to happen, the proponents of faction locks kept debating in favor of it, while many of it's opponents largely let it slide because "surely ZOS won't indulge them, right?"

But then ZOS did, and though faction lock opponents came out of the woodwork to complain about it, it was too late.

Right, because players who are okay with the state of the game don't come to the forums to complain about it.

We've seen the exact same thing with the recent tank nerfs, but it's too late now.

ZOS has exposed itself to be very reactionary—some would say over-reactionary—to player sentiment, even if that sentiment is expressed by a minority of the forum-going player base. Savvy forum-goers have learned that they can get anything nerfed/changed if they make enough threads about it. The only way to counter the loud minority is for the silent majority to make a lot of noise themselves.

StaticWave · March 2021

Lord_Hev wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

forzajuve212 wrote: »

Yuke wrote: »

I'll just leave this here

I'm sure all of you smart people who think this is a good change, will have no problem figuring out who these stats belong to.

This is the major problem with the proposed 6-7 months of the same no-"proc" sets. We're not upset because we can't go back to old Cyrodiil with vateshran syvarra and crimson. We're upset because they decided to remove all non-problematic procs that added build variety and balance between the different specs, such as monster helms and non-damage proc sets (burning spellweave, clever alch, etc.). When you remove all other sets other than a select few stat-based ones, the lack of balance between the classes and specs becomes clear.

Mag sorc was the only spec that could build pure stat-based as a meta best in slot build and is now overperforming spectacularly. I don't think anyone can look at the stats above and say that's balanced.

With major evasion (20% reduced damage from AOEs, now a double major protection with the nerf to major protection to 10%, a major death blow to mag classes such as mag dk, mag templar, and mag warden), dark deal for near unlimited sustain, dodge roll, major and minor expedition, streak, and a burst combo ability (crystal weapon) with little to no visual or audio queue, its no wonder that the rest of the game that isn't running mag sorc is running stam sorc. The ability to be untargetable on cooldown (through high movement speed, streak, and dodge roll) and have strong sustain, damage and mitigation (major evasion + dodge roll) puts stamina sorcs a step below mag sorc but well above every other spec in the game, stam or mag. With this, we are now stuck with a lack of build variety and dull combat, as Cyrodiil has now become a 6-7 month Sorcerer celebration event.

Add in healing outside of group with no Vicious Death or Balorgh, and you get mass faction stacking, as outnumbering your opponent is one of the only ways you can succeed now and increased lag.

With all these vast changes and numerous questions, ZOS decided to hide a massive piece of news buried on a 34-page forum post. If this doesn't lead to distrust and lack of faith in the direction of this game, I don't know what will.

And you would rather go back to 50k health wardens dominating cyrodiil with 4 procs, or 100k hp block tank necros that can some how kill people by holding block (which you literally cannot avoid because will be in your face as you land your aoe abilities on other ppl)?

You want to go back to a meta that was dominated by stamdens and stamcros?

Yes, because 50k health wardens are a fallacy. The wardens that built 30k - 40k health were equally matched by every other class that could run the same thing as them and compete. And the harbinger tanks served a purpose punishing people for mindlessly zerging, and really were just a niche build. Which is why only select few bothered to really stick with it. This feels like a Strawman argument.

In this new environment, Wardens can still function with overkill amount of health. They don't do as much burst anymore, but they can still pressure and benefit off of their heal. Every other stam class tho, has to go medium armor for damage. So we went from malacath heavy builds being equally shared, to now only 1 single class being dominant with that build concept.

Stat-based balance is a bygone era. The game is so different then during the times that stat was a thing. The balance direction taking into account all these new sets + the advent of CP power creep have all contributed to it.

And now, even bad players are difficult to kill because the "theorycraft" is utterly homogenized. It is impossible to build "bad" with only a dozen sets, unless you -deliberately- build bad with direct intent. Every average joe has powerful self-healing, and every average joe does a lot of damage. This is not a buff to solo. Stacked smallscale groups can probably have some fun in this but even that is cheap in the long run. Most people just run faction-stacked now, and while it is refreshing that the ridiculous survivabilty of most ballgroups have plummeted, we have also lost their VD dmg dumps. which punished people for faction stacking.

Why has lag truly become more apparent? It is not because stat-only produce more stress. It is not because "oh they turned cross healing back on" It goes deeper under the hood. The reality is that there is no longer any real way to punish faction stacks in this environment. Which is one of the main reasons stuff like Vicious Death got conceptualized in the first place. The vast majority of players engaging in zerg v zerg fights, are no longer -reliably- dying. Because crossheals or not, everyone is stat-based, therefore everyone has strong self-healing. Because one's main source for self-healing has always been raw stat. Raw stat homogeny, no procs to add dmg pressure, no vicious death for the zerg on zerg fights. This has produced a bland and painful Cyrodiil as the server stresses trying to make the gears turn and everyone is faction stacked and just mindlessly zerging all while chanting "omg this is so skill, no more carried proc sets, the people we zerg down die hurhurrrrr skill."

Equally matched? I don't think we're even playing the same game. A 40K HP warden with a strong health based heal vs a 40k HP stamplar with no health based heals, how can those 2 matchups be equal?

So I must be zerging if I die to a harbinger tank when he's holding block inside a group of people I'm ulti dumping as a solo player? I've seen more people zerging me down with harbinger than the ones that actually go out there to tank zergs. It's the reality many players faced and I think a lot of people can agree with me on this.

Everything you've mentioned can be used by either party. I mean, 16 people stacking aoes should be able to wipe any unorganized zerg. Heck, my 4 man team can do that with just 4 DB. You don't need VD for that, althought VD does make it a lot easier.

People will always faction stack regardless of whether you have VD or not. Using VD or sets as counter argument isn't strong.
Unless there is a real penalty for faction stacking, people will do it no matter what.

hands0medevil · March 2021

At the moment, we have more or less 400 sets (please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) in total. That's a lot of sets to balance but it's a consequence of your game development plan. You've even added a sticker book recently so they're more manageable for us. The truth is, most of them are long forgotten if you follow the current PVE or PVP meta. But players accepted it and even found some fun in theory crafting and bringing to life out-of-meta builds, especially in PVP. Honestly, I don't care about Cyrodiil with or without procs but the fact is, according to you dear Zeni, almost all sets work as proc sets. Out of ~400 sets now you left us with dozen. But how many of them are REAL proc sets? 15? 20? You left us with failed test. And to think it all started with 1 or 2 of them - crimson and malacath. But instead of showing us some kind of plan or explanation, you again choose "sledgehammer fix" by disabling most of sets. The player base is now heavily split between no proc and proc sets. But it's not players fault. Each DLC contains new, overpowered items that you refuse to balance in time. I know that balancing almost 400 sets is not easy. So maybe we need a new direction. For example, instead of 3 new sets with each new dungeon, we should get 1, but a well thought-out set that drops in light, medium and heavy? I'm glad you can't close this thread so easily. Problems need to be discussed not silenced.

IAmIcehouse · March 2021

Of the four PVP guild discords I'm in, three have already said they're likely disbanding if this is a 6-month change.

Cyrodiil can't lag if no one plays. Sneaky plays ZOS.

YandereGirlfriend · March 2021

I am giving feedback in the only form that ZOS understands:

Cancelling my 2.5 year-long subscription
Banishing any thought of pre-ordering Blackwood (and likely any thought of buying it at all since all of its content is now completely irrelevant to me)
No more Crown Store purchases
Looking for an alternative game to play for six months - and potentially longer if they extend the ban

Someone will surely say: "But you're only one player, you won't change anything" and they're probably right.

But you can only control what you can control and I can control that much.

Jayserix · March 2021

Lord_Hev wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

forzajuve212 wrote: »

Yuke wrote: »

I'll just leave this here

I'm sure all of you smart people who think this is a good change, will have no problem figuring out who these stats belong to.

This is the major problem with the proposed 6-7 months of the same no-"proc" sets. We're not upset because we can't go back to old Cyrodiil with vateshran syvarra and crimson. We're upset because they decided to remove all non-problematic procs that added build variety and balance between the different specs, such as monster helms and non-damage proc sets (burning spellweave, clever alch, etc.). When you remove all other sets other than a select few stat-based ones, the lack of balance between the classes and specs becomes clear.

Mag sorc was the only spec that could build pure stat-based as a meta best in slot build and is now overperforming spectacularly. I don't think anyone can look at the stats above and say that's balanced.

With major evasion (20% reduced damage from AOEs, now a double major protection with the nerf to major protection to 10%, a major death blow to mag classes such as mag dk, mag templar, and mag warden), dark deal for near unlimited sustain, dodge roll, major and minor expedition, streak, and a burst combo ability (crystal weapon) with little to no visual or audio queue, its no wonder that the rest of the game that isn't running mag sorc is running stam sorc. The ability to be untargetable on cooldown (through high movement speed, streak, and dodge roll) and have strong sustain, damage and mitigation (major evasion + dodge roll) puts stamina sorcs a step below mag sorc but well above every other spec in the game, stam or mag. With this, we are now stuck with a lack of build variety and dull combat, as Cyrodiil has now become a 6-7 month Sorcerer celebration event.

Add in healing outside of group with no Vicious Death or Balorgh, and you get mass faction stacking, as outnumbering your opponent is one of the only ways you can succeed now and increased lag.

With all these vast changes and numerous questions, ZOS decided to hide a massive piece of news buried on a 34-page forum post. If this doesn't lead to distrust and lack of faith in the direction of this game, I don't know what will.

And you would rather go back to 50k health wardens dominating cyrodiil with 4 procs, or 100k hp block tank necros that can some how kill people by holding block (which you literally cannot avoid because will be in your face as you land your aoe abilities on other ppl)?

You want to go back to a meta that was dominated by stamdens and stamcros?

[...]
And now, even bad players are difficult to kill because the "theorycraft" is utterly homogenized. It is impossible to build "bad" with only a dozen sets, unless you -deliberately- build bad with direct intent. Every average joe has powerful self-healing, and every average joe does a lot of damage. This is not a buff to solo. Stacked smallscale groups can probably have some fun in this but even that is cheap in the long run. Most people just run faction-stacked now, and while it is refreshing that the ridiculous survivabilty of most ballgroups have plummeted, we have also lost their VD dmg dumps. which punished people for faction stacking.
[...]

I might be wrong but it seems that you're deliberately twisting reality for some reason here. There aren't any player that's difficult to kill anymore, unless they build specifically tanky but then they won't hit as hard as those building dmg/dmg or dmg/sustain.

The sad thing about these conversations is that almost nobody wants to acknowledge the only truth : It's not a binary thing. There is good and bad on both end of the spectrum.

There is no quick fix, and I'll leave this biased question here : Haven't people had proc Cyrodiil for months now ? Can we have no proc Cyro for a while too ?

Last thing : Pretending that bombers were a counter to big groups is a logical fallacy, they would kill a bunch of people, those who didn't die would res and they'd move somewhere else. And the group would carry on. It was a small delay at best.

Lord_Zele · March 2021

Faded wrote: »

Lord_Zele wrote: »

Suggestions
Remove Cross-Healing.

From what I've seen, it was a huge performance boost when it was disabled. I remember there being a boost to performance outside of Prime Time Greyhost. Overall, this was a good change. Why re-enable it when the Tests are to boost Cyrodiil performance?

I'm surprised to see you advocating for different rulesets for players in the same fight. Unless you're asking to not be allowed to heal or be healed by your boys? Or for grouping itself to be disabled? Self-heals only for everybody, 600 armies of one.

They had it previously disabled. It's not "600 Armies of One." Keep group healing but disable Cross-Healing. They removed Cross-Healing before cause they stated that it had an impact on Performance. What else do you want? That's ignorant to state it as "600 Armies of One if that was the case and that's not something I'd say lol. I'm talking about Cross-Healing Specifically. Keep the group heals, it'd be really bad to take those away.

silky_soft · March 2021

Should have enough data after this to appropriately nerf all the classes but sorc into oblivion by then haha.

Beardimus · March 2021

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I am giving feedback in the only form that ZOS understands:
Cancelling my 2.5 year-long subscription

Banishing any thought of pre-ordering Blackwood (and likely any thought of buying it at all since all of its content is now completely irrelevant to me)

No more Crown Store purchases

Looking for an alternative game to play for six months - and potentially longer if they extend the ban

Someone will surely say: "But you're only one player, you won't change anything" and they're probably right.

But you can only control what you can control and I can control that much.

@YandereGirlfriend curious, what sets are more important to you than the game? Right now I mean?

Faded · March 2021

Lord_Zele wrote: »

Faded wrote: »

Lord_Zele wrote: »

Suggestions
Remove Cross-Healing.

From what I've seen, it was a huge performance boost when it was disabled. I remember there being a boost to performance outside of Prime Time Greyhost. Overall, this was a good change. Why re-enable it when the Tests are to boost Cyrodiil performance?

I'm surprised to see you advocating for different rulesets for players in the same fight. Unless you're asking to not be allowed to heal or be healed by your boys? Or for grouping itself to be disabled? Self-heals only for everybody, 600 armies of one.

They had it previously disabled. It's not "600 Armies of One." Keep group healing but disable Cross-Healing. They removed Cross-Healing before cause they stated that it had an impact on Performance. What else do you want? That's ignorant to state it as "600 Armies of One if that was the case and that's not something I'd say lol. I'm talking about Cross-Healing Specifically. Keep the group heals, it'd be really bad to take those away.

Yeah they did, I was there. It didn't improve performance. Even they don't think it improved performance.

I want nothing, I'm sincerely surprised to see you ask for an extra advantage in PVP. Which is what you get when your merry band gets to keep healing and buffing each other (it'd be really bad to take those away) and the people you're fighting do not.

Everybody can heal and buff allies, or nobody. That's a level playing field.

[Extra snark redacted, I give up.]

Nebula_DooM · March 2021

Since everyone hates magsorc so much cause of this no proc cyrodiil, I wonder if anyone would like to join my all sorc group so we can crystal frag down cyrodiil together and show Zenimax and the forums why this is a bad change to build and class diversity. This will be in EP probably grey host. Hoping that with this group, we can force AD and DC faction members to switch to 50k health wardens to keep themselves alive by only using sets that don't proc anything to help themselves against our sheer will of destruction in this no proc cyrodiil.

Lady_Scorp72 · March 2021

I prefer no procs, but I think this is unfair to the people who don’t, especially when the only reason they’re doing this is because a good number of players gave feedback that they loved it. I mean I get where the devs are coming from, as finally they had some awesome feedback and very happy players! In PvP no less! Woohoo, YES let’s do more of that!!

However, clearly there was an equal number of players who didn’t bother voicing an opinion because they thought it was temporary. Boy, that sounds familiar….

This is pretty much what happened when they extended the disabled cross healing and a whole group of people like me felt blindsided, to the point many of us quit playing Cyro all together until it was reverted. For players who love their proc builds, this decision hurts the same way. It totally eliminates their playstyles, and that isn’t okay.

Seems to me the easy solution is to have a proc enabled campaign until everything gets re-worked in Q3. I don’t see why this would be so difficult to implement, and then they can compare the two over the next 6 months. In fact, they wouldn’t even have to open a new campaign, just turn procs back on in the unlocked campaign. Given the huge backlash in this thread, I think they’d be making a huge mistake if they ignore the people who are upset and force this until September.

Andrezs · March 2021

Yuke wrote: »

I'll just leave this here

Im sure all of you smart people who think this is a good change, will have no problem figuring out who these stats belong to.

What on earth is this build I want it