This is an enormous bug that I'm grateful that you've found.

Anecdotally, I had been noticing some wonky behavior with the synergy UI but I had just attributed it to lag in Cyrodiil.

I wonder if this is potentially related to the re-factoring of the AoE handling code for various abilities that ZOS has been implementing gradually over the last several patch cycles. Could be that they broke or re-wrote a portion of the them that governed synergy activation and/or UI.

neferpitou73 wrote: »

"Ok, let's take a look at this from a standpoint of status. What do we have in this game that is working?"

lol Sadly, this is a perfectly apt quote for this patch. And I think we've got about fifteen minutes of power left so you might want to consider that lifeboat...

I hope the devs can have a look at this @ZOS_GinaBruno, it's pretty serious.

It seems this has not been fixed with the hotfix?

I tested this today, September 1st, and synergies are still bugged. Even on my Necro I can't use my own Avid Boneyard synergy (which is the whole reason to use this morph), if I am not one of the three randomly chosen players... Even Undaunted Orbs can't be used by all players.

Im not even sure its a bug, it seems like a very poorly thought out and implemented feature idk...

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

After some testing we found out that synergies are now working differently than before the patch in terms of who can take them. We tested graverobber, conduit, and talons and found that it was consistently working this way now. It seems that the synergy is only available to take by the first 3 people that are in range of it or that enter the aoe. For example with graverobber, if 4 or 5 people all move to take the synergy, then it will only be available to grab by the first 3 people who enter the aoe. The other 1 or 2 people will not have the option to take it.

This behavior has been there for a long time. Maybe as old as the game is.

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

This seems to be random when the synergy is placed on top of a group of allies meaning that 3 people of the group seem to be randomly selected to be able to take the synergy.

Sure it is random and not desynced or any other funny ZOS thing?

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

However this is an issue because even people on synergy cooldown are counting towards the '3 people'. So for example again, if 4 people move to take a synergy, but 3 of them are on cooldown and are first in range of the synergy, then the 4th person who is not on cooldown will not have the option to take the synergy. In fact, it will be impossible for anyone at all to take this synergy now that it has been made available to 3 players who were all on cooldown.

This is all behaving the same way for grouped and ungrouped allies.

Is this intended or not? @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno

Not sure about this part. Might be new or old too.
Have you tested this before and after the patch or just noticed now?

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

After some testing we found out that synergies are now working differently than before the patch in terms of who can take them. We tested graverobber, conduit, and talons and found that it was consistently working this way now. It seems that the synergy is only available to take by the first 3 people that are in range of it or that enter the aoe. For example with graverobber, if 4 or 5 people all move to take the synergy, then it will only be available to grab by the first 3 people who enter the aoe. The other 1 or 2 people will not have the option to take it.

This behavior has been there for a long time. Maybe as old as the game is.

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

This seems to be random when the synergy is placed on top of a group of allies meaning that 3 people of the group seem to be randomly selected to be able to take the synergy.

Sure it is random and not desynced or any other funny ZOS thing?

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

However this is an issue because even people on synergy cooldown are counting towards the '3 people'. So for example again, if 4 people move to take a synergy, but 3 of them are on cooldown and are first in range of the synergy, then the 4th person who is not on cooldown will not have the option to take the synergy. In fact, it will be impossible for anyone at all to take this synergy now that it has been made available to 3 players who were all on cooldown.

This is all behaving the same way for grouped and ungrouped allies.

Is this intended or not? @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno

Not sure about this part. Might be new or old too.
Have you tested this before and after the patch or just noticed now?

First part is wrong, synergy was always available to take by anyone. It was never capped at 3 people. I mean by this that only 3 people can even SEE the synergy.

It is working like this consistently every time, so nothing due to lag or desync or w/e.

And it is the same after the patch. This was tested before and after.

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

After some testing we found out that synergies are now working differently than before the patch in terms of who can take them. We tested graverobber, conduit, and talons and found that it was consistently working this way now. It seems that the synergy is only available to take by the first 3 people that are in range of it or that enter the aoe. For example with graverobber, if 4 or 5 people all move to take the synergy, then it will only be available to grab by the first 3 people who enter the aoe. The other 1 or 2 people will not have the option to take it.

This behavior has been there for a long time. Maybe as old as the game is.

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

This seems to be random when the synergy is placed on top of a group of allies meaning that 3 people of the group seem to be randomly selected to be able to take the synergy.

Sure it is random and not desynced or any other funny ZOS thing?

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

However this is an issue because even people on synergy cooldown are counting towards the '3 people'. So for example again, if 4 people move to take a synergy, but 3 of them are on cooldown and are first in range of the synergy, then the 4th person who is not on cooldown will not have the option to take the synergy. In fact, it will be impossible for anyone at all to take this synergy now that it has been made available to 3 players who were all on cooldown.

This is all behaving the same way for grouped and ungrouped allies.

Is this intended or not? @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno

Not sure about this part. Might be new or old too.
Have you tested this before and after the patch or just noticed now?

First part is wrong, synergy was always available to take by anyone. It was never capped at 3 people. I mean by this that only 3 people can even SEE the synergy.

It is working like this consistently every time, so nothing due to lag or desync or w/e.

And it is the same after the patch. This was tested before and after.

Not really. When working on the synergy prevention module before the public release of the RdK Group Tool, I've tested this plenty of times.
Only 3 players were able to take a synergy at a time. Moving did change who the 3 players were, but never more than 3 players were able to take them at a single point in time.
So well, it might depend on your definition of everyone was able to take it...

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

After some testing we found out that synergies are now working differently than before the patch in terms of who can take them. We tested graverobber, conduit, and talons and found that it was consistently working this way now. It seems that the synergy is only available to take by the first 3 people that are in range of it or that enter the aoe. For example with graverobber, if 4 or 5 people all move to take the synergy, then it will only be available to grab by the first 3 people who enter the aoe. The other 1 or 2 people will not have the option to take it.

This behavior has been there for a long time. Maybe as old as the game is.

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

This seems to be random when the synergy is placed on top of a group of allies meaning that 3 people of the group seem to be randomly selected to be able to take the synergy.

Sure it is random and not desynced or any other funny ZOS thing?

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

However this is an issue because even people on synergy cooldown are counting towards the '3 people'. So for example again, if 4 people move to take a synergy, but 3 of them are on cooldown and are first in range of the synergy, then the 4th person who is not on cooldown will not have the option to take the synergy. In fact, it will be impossible for anyone at all to take this synergy now that it has been made available to 3 players who were all on cooldown.

This is all behaving the same way for grouped and ungrouped allies.

Is this intended or not? @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno

Not sure about this part. Might be new or old too.
Have you tested this before and after the patch or just noticed now?

First part is wrong, synergy was always available to take by anyone. It was never capped at 3 people. I mean by this that only 3 people can even SEE the synergy.

It is working like this consistently every time, so nothing due to lag or desync or w/e.

And it is the same after the patch. This was tested before and after.

Not really. When working on the synergy prevention module before the public release of the RdK Group Tool, I've tested this plenty of times.
Only 3 players were able to take a synergy at a time. Moving did change who the 3 players were, but never more than 3 players were able to take them at a single point in time.
So well, it might depend on your definition of everyone was able to take it...

So, if I understand correctly, you're saying that synergies have always been limited to three recipients at any given time and that nothing has actually changed as a result from this patch?

Not that that state of affairs is ideal (TBH, only three seeing a synergy seems like a clear bug) but that it is not something created in this patch?

I'm not sure about the second part (that people who took a synergy are still counted towards the 3 players that could take a synergy). I always had the feeling that something is off and quite a bit strange. But i didn't dig deeper into that. So I'm not sure if that was what I thought was off. Could be. Not sure.

To the first part with the 3 players who can take the synergies:
The public release of the RdK Group Tool happened because someone contacted me and wanted a synergy overview addon or something like that. He even offered a few bucks for it. Quite a coincidence as I've already implemented that feature (and other things) into the RdK Group Tool. So I've decided to make the addon public (and of course not wanting any money).
Before making the addon public I asked some guilds (3 to be precise here) if they were interested in giving feedback on its state. All of them gave an initial feedback and 2 of them gave further feedback later on. This has led to quite a few changes and an overall better state of the addon.
Anyway, during that phase, at least two (not sure if the third did) gave feedback about the synergy behavior. The behavior described above with only 3 players being able to take a synergy. So I verified. I can say I'm to 100% sure that this behavior is present since the first public RdK Group Tool release and even earlier (the phase where I implemented some of the feedback).

My bet would be, that this behavior was always there. But I'm not sure.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure about the second part as mentioned earlier.

Imho, it is not a "bug" and just an overall bad game design. Like echoing vigor hitting always the same targets if everyone is in range and has 100% health.

Should that be change? Hell, yes. Same as the priorities of synergies and a lot of other things. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

how are you saying this is how they have always worked? That's obviously not the case. Sometimes no one can take a synergy anymore, it's just cast to the wind. It was never like that. Did you understand what I was saying in the first place?

Might be a misunderstanding due to the wording.
You wrote:

It seems that the synergy is only available to take by the first 3 people that are in range of it or that enter the aoe.

Always the three closest players were able to take it (at least back to 2019).
You did not specify if your other players got closer to the origin of the synergy or not. (e.g. they enter the click range but are still further away than the others).

I made the assumption here that they did not. If they did, something has changed. Yes.
I read it like the number of players somehow changed, which is not the case.
In that case it would have been a misunderstanding.

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

What do you mean you don't know if I'm correct or not? We tested it multiple times and with different people. Other people on this thread have also confirmed that if you are not one of the three people then you have no access to the synergy, doesn't matter if they leave the range or not, they are not replaced as a person who can take it. And if the first three people are on cooldown then no one has access to it. That is how it is working. And that is not how it has always worked. So something is either not right or has been changed.

The part where I'm not sure is in regards of the second part with the cooldown as I haven't made any tests in this regards. That's where I said it felt strange but I do not know if there was a change or not. That's why i wrote:

I'm not sure about the second part (that people who took a synergy are still counted towards the 3 players that could take a synergy). I always had the feeling that something is off and quite a bit strange. But i didn't dig deeper into that. So I'm not sure if that was what I thought was off. Could be. Not sure.

CrustyCroco wrote: »

Not sure about the part, that people that are on cooldown still have a chance to get it offered and block others.
Ultimately it doesn't change anything tho, you still want to have good synergy placement and sufficient synergy casts.

I’m not going to keep replying to this as you two have said it multiple times now. If you don’t believe then go test it yourself..

We tested this RECENTLY. Before and after the latest patch. I said this already.

It doesn’t matter if “it shouldn’t make a difference” sometimes it does and ZoS should make everyone aware of the changes they make rather than doing it stealthily. And if it is not working as intended then it needs to be fixed. Regardless of the difference it makes…

I never had issues synergizing my own Avid Boneyard Graverobber synergy. Something definitely has changed. Maybe the added delay is the core issue? Usually I could cast the Boneyard, scroll my mouse wheel and the synergy would be taken. Now it seems to be roughly half a GCD until the synergy actually is available.

I wish they would put back the gesture animation when exploding people's combustion orbs. Now there's just a short delay before they go off and I always think I missed it.