Feedback Thread for Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)

ZOS_Kevin · March 21

This is the official feedback thread for the new Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign). Please try out the new campaign and let us know what you think! Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
What you think of the simplified abilities?
Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
- account name
- character name
- What happened to trigger the corruption (leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, etc)?
- Time of day this occurred
- screenshots and video
What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
Do you have any general feedback?

Malkorga · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

--I was able to get into a few large battles (50+ 2 factions)

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

--Only once on Alessia Bridge, 100 or so of us on each side...about a 3 second delay when 2 colossus were spawned in the middle of the bridge / battle.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

--I like that they were so simple and did not give anyone a one skill for all damage/heal/defend

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.

--No, everything seemed to work well when in left the campaign.

Edit to add that it feels like I am fighting against players an not all of the proc sets out there. Actual P V P

DUTCH_REAPER · March 24

Absolutely epic test and most fun I have had in Cyro since game launch. Great job!

Sordidfairytale · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

Yes, multiple large battles.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

The combat felt fluid and responsive. Being able to get out of combat and mount up was a blast.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

Do not like. Okay maybe a little.

CameraBeardThePirate · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

Yes. Miat's showed a 150v150 with no lag or skill delay at all.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

Full disclosure I usually have very low latency due to proximity to the servers even on "normal" Cyrodiil zerg v zergs. Latency was fine on this. Abilities were responsive, break free was consistent.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

I think the only class that functions better is Necro - not having to deal with pets or tethers is excellent (although not having blastbones feels bad). Every other class feels lackluster and boring, and most classes struggle a lot with sustain.

ganzaeso · March 24

Unfortunately the test is already a failure. The test is biased towards a favorable outcome.

Population cap has already been hit for the campaign, which means performance is likely not to change.

A proper test of performance would be designed to fail. Remove the population cap and monitor the population increase until failure. Then adjust the population downward from where it last failed to see the limits.

WillhelmBlack · March 24

Wouldn't know can't get in. Queue is 250+ on EU and queue gets stuck (124th for me), tried leaving queue and rejoining but leaving the queue got stuck too. Logged off.

Sordidfairytale · March 24

Additional Feedback.

We can make the Campaign our Home Campaign, if there will be no end of campaign rewards, or if everyone is going to get end of campaign rewards this should be disabled since it charges AP.

Cloudtrader · March 24

[*]Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes, several. I battled at keeps and at gates that had 100s of players around.

[*]Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Absolutely. I often have input lag that makes bar-swapping somewhat uncertain. I did not have that in Vengeance.

[*]What you think of the simplified abilities?
I rather liked them! I did make the mistake of going into test on my stamina-based bow/bow Sorcerer, so I was not used to using some of the Sorcerer damage skills. I made it work, though, and the scamp being non-permanent was great. I also liked getting the occasional heal from Necromancers that gave me a ghost buddy for a few seconds, lol.

[*]Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
No. I exited Cyrodiil by porting to Imperial City, and received my bonus AP immediately. All of my skills switched back and gear was on again, but I didn't test everything.

[*]What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
I really enjoyed it! Didn't have to worry about bombers on flags or while repairing doors. Didn't have to run across landscape because combat dropped fast. I think it has raised the floor for people to PvP, but I did still see very skilled PvPers dominating small groups of unskilled players due to positioning and knowledge.

[*]Do you have any general feedback?
I love the permanent siege. Can we keep that, pretty please? Just, everyone always having all the basic siege and not having to worry about losing it made for so many people actually USING it! Siege-caps were present at all the keeps I took, tents everywhere, it was glorious!

React · March 24

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the new Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign). Please try out the new campaign and let us know what you think! Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

Played for four hours. Solo, in/around large fights, with a few other people, etc. Campaign was "pop locked" the whole time.

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes
Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Latency wise and in terms of responsiveness, yes. In terms of fun, not really. While there are good things about the system, it is so simplified that it really slows down the combat in addition to limiting the flexibility and build choices that make your character feel unique.
What you think of the simplified abilities?
They are far too simplified, and the inclusion of AOE caps completely destroys large scale PVP, as well as small scale PVP and outnumbered PVP.
Do you have any general feedback?
I understand the goal of this test is performance focused, and the balance is an afterthought. But there are both good and bad things about the balance within this test, and I want to point them out regardless as I think it's important for the team to be aware of these things, especially if the goal is to refine a version of this environment as a replacement for overall PVP down the line.

The Good:
* Your gameplay matters in this environment. You need to manage resources, where on live you essentially cannot ever run out. You need to utilize mobility and positioning, where on live you can often face tank. There are less "fire and forget" factors to deal damage for you, such as proc sets/status/dots, so you actually need to use your abilities to kill your opponent. Bash weaving actually is worthwhile and deals decent damage, encouraging higher APM play for maximum returns. Block cancelling actually feels much more responsive than it has since the block changes 3-4 years ago, at least on nightblade.These are all good, it feels like this environment encourages more skill based gameplay than "seek out the most broken setup" gameplay. This is reminiscent of how the game was near launch.
* There is less cross healing and buff distribution. This is good as it requires players to be more self sufficient, while drastically nerfing the extreme scenarios such as 12 mans having every single buff and set in the game, as well as insurmountable cross healing/shielding.

The Bad:
*AOE caps on damaging skills are absolute terrible for the game. You do not want to have scenarios where you can have so many people together that no amount of damage can stop them. Even on a smaller scale, having a scenario where me and my two friends drop our 3 ults onto the 10 man pushing us, only to deal damage to 3 people within that 10 man feels awful. These were removed for a reason, please for the love of god do not ever bring them back. At least not on damaging skills, defensive skills are another story.
* Sustain is too limited for most people. In general, it is good that it is difficult to sustain. We want people to actually manage their resources. But for most classes, it's just flat out impossible. Something to consider for future tests, or perhaps if designing a version of this environment as a permanent solution to lag. You want sustain to be limited, but not so much so that it slows combat down to the point where I can only try to kill someone if I have 100% mag, or where I have to rotate a heavy attack between every single ability cast.

There is a lot more to say, but I'll play throughout the week and gather my thoughts for a longer, more detailed post.

acastanza_ESO · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes, at least one large fight at Ash consisted of nearly 350 players combined.
Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
There was still a noticeable dip in performance (dropped from 100+FPS to a reasonably steady, playable 25-40 FPS), however this dip occurred at a population level that was above the combined total of the normal campaigns entire population, and while performance did degrade, it still maintained play-ability at a level that was far above the performance degradation seen in the standard campaigns (e.g. this represents a massively significant performance improvement to Cyrodiil).
What you think of the simplified abilities?
Some of the abilities are fine, and some even feel better than live, but overall the combat balance is nonexistant with unacceptable levels of advantage given to some seemingly favored classes (e.g. nightblade with a burst heal on a cloak that has no detect counters). I recognise that ZOS stated that class balance was not a consideration for this test, but, frankly, that being the case is in and of itself unacceptable as balance should always be a consideration, and a lack of attention paid on this point will adversely influence the test (bad abilities and bad balance inherently make for an unfun test).
Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
I did not experience any character corruption. There was a small issue encountered with respawning at a camp causing a temproarily frozen load screen that did recover after some time, as noted in the issues thread.
What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
I find it difficult to fairly evaluate this test campaign with the current deplorable balance state adversely affecting my experience. The performance improvements are substantial, and the reversion to truly large scale fights is welcome, but I would not be willing to play in this campaign permanently. I find the combat generally unbalanced, and unfun, frequently devolving into heavy attacks for resources, unless you're playing a "favored" class like NB where you have a massive power advantage over everyone else.
Do you have any general feedback?
In general, there are some bright spots, but I generally find this test to be tainted by the stated lack of concern for balancing the relative performance of the classes abilities, despite ample warning of these pain points over the PTS cycle.

Kamchuk · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
YES

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
YES - Everything worked. No LAG!

What you think of the simplified abilities?
I liked them - it put emphasis on player skills rather than dependence on armor sets.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
account name
character name
What happened to trigger the corruption (leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, etc)?
Time of day this occurred
screenshots and video
N/A

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
Loved it

Do you have any general feedback?
I'll repost here what I posted in the other thread

First - Initial feedback to the ZOS team - there were hundreds of players, both PVP experienced and new PVE'ers. The zone chat was filled with comments that had the same theme and almost the same wording throughout the 4 hours I was on this afternoon (March 24th), and that was: "This is the most fun I have had in years", or "This is Awesome" or "This is Amazing". Hundreds of players fighting around a Keep was why we all were drawn to this amazing game in the first place. I'll echo the same reaction - It was AWESOME.

Observances:
The "Stuck in Combat" bug was GONE! Congratulations!
There was NO lag in spite of the numbers of players! Skills fired immediately.
No one was unkillable. No Metas, no Procs sets, no Ball Groups. It was ALL Skill. There were PVE'ers at level 20's, 30;s being competitive with PVP Veterans. That in my opinion is how it should be. The Armor does not fight the battle for you. You could be naked and have the same results. (Though from the looks of some player's characters - please don't go naked...

)
There doesn't appear to be any advantage to being a part of a Group other than Communications, and Quest sharing when Quests are available. (For those that haven't been to Vengeance yet - As of right now there are no quests). No HOT stacking, no Synergy, nothing. IMO that is a good thing. I hope that group sizes are increase to 24 or Higher. This would provide new PVP players to join a group and learn.

Critique:
Foot or mounted travel is too slow.
Many players said they missed their CPs and Class' special abilities. I agree with their comments. After 11 years we have all spent enormous time developing our characters, Class, and honing our skills. I hope there is a way to keep this aspect of character development in the final PVP product. IMO, armor sets should be irrelevant in PVP. Just Class, and Skill.

Today was FUN. I hope tomorrow is better.

Major_Mangle · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Latency wise not much different from regular PvP, a little bit better but not a massive great deal of improvement. FPS wise it drops hard from a steady 90-100 down to 20-30 during hectic fights with a lot of people. In terms of combat being fun it´s some of the most dull and boring PvP experiences I ever had. It´s just a pure numbers game where you run with a zerg hitting a light attack and then a skill. The sensation that you´ve absolutely 0 impact on the fights is the biggest "bore" here.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
Complete and utter trash, sorry for the harsh words. I hope nothing like it ever leaves the current test environment. The somewhat "complex nature" of some skills we´ve currently is what makes skills fun and/or unique (even though a lot is more streamlined than it used to be).

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
Found it extremely boring to play.

Alondil · March 24

OK so, the good:
- performance was massively improved. Nor perfect mind you. still a little ability delay and lag here and there but still
massive performance improvement.

The bad:
- Everything else besides performance: i know it will be said that the point of the test is not the actual game play but it still needs to be said just to ensure that the early stages of testing and development are colored with this knowledge. Class balance is awful especially in a game mode without anything else differentiating one player from another besides class. Also cooldowns are a terrible idea and should be done away with. If i wanted to play a cooldown based game literally any other mmo is doing it better and are more accessible and fun. People play eso for the combat system that is unrestrictive and fluid so even thinking of going down the road of skill cooldowns is a bad call all around. also channel times are clunky and bad most folks run the skills with channel time normally b/c there is no better instant cast option if there is then they would drop the channel skill. Over all though the performance is much better but the gameplay is not fun.

final thoughts:

i look forward to seeing more iterations on this that takes feed back into account and adds more of what we have in the normal non testing environment. I will also stress that build craft is a massive part of what makes this game fun and doing away with it is absolutely not a solution. but as a test this is a good starting point but will need extensive iteration and testing to come close to any kind of viable game mode.

Mysticblade · March 24

Having so much fun, the performance is awesome no ball groups unfair advantage nonsense, meta gear garbage. I wouldnt mind if it stayed like this indefinitely. The combat bug is gone! Haha

Rohamad_Ali · March 24

I hope it goes away soon. I would make a test server for this stuff. People don't always like being forced into something new. I understand the need to fix lag. I'm mostly a solo player so this homogenized play style will not work for me.

majulook · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

Yes, more then a few of them.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

Yes, no issues with lag or dsync. It was FUN.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

Having Only Class Abilities, along with light and heavy attack with weapons, was bit odd.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc?

This did not happen to me.

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?

Confusion at first trying to figure out why weapon skills were gone

Do you have any general feedback?

Horse speed was slow at times I thought I god run faster. Also seemed like Siege weapons had shorter range. in some areas, and not others.
Only having light and heavy attack weapon skills felt kind of odd, locked into only Class abilities was OK. I like the No CP, No Sets aspect of it.
It might be nice if Vengeance was to become the Mayhem event standard as everyone that takes part in it would be more equal, and maybe get more PVE only players to participate.

L_Nici · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles? / Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

Yes and it runs smoothly most of the time with sometimes more than 400 (Gods I never thought I could write that number ever in a PvP context again since Ash battles in the time before Morrowind) players in close proximity. The last hours got a bit worse, with character getting stuck in heavy attacks never firing.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

I am absolutely no fan of the abillities. They feel way to watered down and unbalanced between classes. After a few hours the gameplay gets really stale, everyone using the same skills, or spamming just one abillity, because it just works (Mages Wrath/Jesus Beam). Also the game feels almost unbearably slow.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.

I did crash once, and upon relogging got Error 103, which I had to wait out. Sadly my character was kicked from Cyrodiil then and I would have to wait the 300+ Queue again. I got the AP and XP on logging back in though and no lasting damage.

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?

I am happy with the huge population and fights, yet the gameplay becomes very stale after just a few hours with no real diversity at all. The watered down skills, the slow pace in every aspect really kills the fun for me. I play fast characters with burst damage usually, but in this test there is nothing left of that.

Armigite · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

Yes, getting into large scale battles was easy. Mount travel was slow, but it was possible to get into battles.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

Generally, there appeared to be less latency. Although there was some occasional slight skill delay, but noticeably better. However, exiting the front outer door of a keep during a very large battle was problematic. It would take several tries to exit the keep through the door. This took place at Ash shortly after Vengeance went live this morning. The battle was huge. I would assume that other keeps would have the same issue during a huge battle.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

I am not a fan of the simplified abilities, but I am a fan of the simplified gear, just not to the extent that Vengeance uses. The simplified abilities do allow for some class distinction, but do not really allow for much distinction within the class.

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?

So far, after a few hours of playing, it is fun, considering it is just a test. I do not prefer the current scaled down version.

All factions are playing like Cyrodiil is one big BG. Just large zerg groups running from point A to point B. No strategy or tactics. We might as well have a BG 1/4 the size of cyro with one keep and put everyone in it. I understand this is just for testing, but if the final product results in perpetual huge zerg fights, then I'm out.

The best thing about this test is no ball groups and no troll tanks!

ZOS_Kevin · March 24

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I hope it goes away soon. I would make a test server for this stuff. People don't always like being forced into something new. I understand the need to fix lag. I'm mostly a solo player so this homogenized play style will not work for me.

Just wanted to follow up here. We did explain that this test needs to happen on the live servers as we are testing the live server. So a test environment would not help in getting the data we need.

Also regarding timing for the test.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

When will the Cyrodiil Champions Test take place?
Between March 24 through March 31, PC NA and PC EU players will be able to participate in the Cyrodiil Champions Test. The test will be live once maintenance is completed.

kwinter · March 24

Yes got into large scale battles had no lag issues however the skill is to simplified for me would like a to have weapon skills.

Rohamad_Ali · March 24

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

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Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I hope it goes away soon. I would make a test server for this stuff. People don't always like being forced into something new. I understand the need to fix lag. I'm mostly a solo player so this homogenized play style will not work for me.

Just wanted to follow up here. We did explain that this test needs to happen on the live servers as we are testing the live server. So a test environment would not help in getting the data we need.

Also regarding timing for the test.
show previous quotes

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

When will the Cyrodiil Champions Test take place?
Between March 24 through March 31, PC NA and PC EU players will be able to participate in the Cyrodiil Champions Test. The test will be live once maintenance is completed.

It is your game however and I wish you the best in finding a solution for everyone.

Tigor · March 24

Just a good way to play in Cyrodiil with that forgotten char that is used for crafting only.

Finedaible · March 24

Disclaimer: I disabled all addons before entering the Vengeance campaign.

1. I was able to get into large-scale battles.
2. I experienced FPS drops around large battles, but I don't think I felt as much in terms of latency. I did have some moments where I could not cast abilities like NB's path but I'm not sure if that was just some form of cooldown with how its Vengeance version functioned. Will come back and edit this post if I get to play during prime time. Update: After a few days I did experience some minor latency hiccups, but not terribly severe.
3. Not a huge fan of the simplified abilities since it doesn't leave any depth for player agency, but it was somewhat refreshing for a more casual experience. I could see them working better for Battlegrounds maybe but I have less experience there.
4. No 'corruption' thus far. Will edit if that changes. Update March 27, 7:45pm ET: I crashed during a battle at Alessia keep.
5. First impressions on Vengeance were positive aside from the slow movement and having to learn how to play with the new skills lol, but I think we should wait and see how things pan out after everyone can experiment. I did experience considerable FPS drops around Arrius Keep in the presence of a lot of players. That was one of the largest fights I have seen however, and I would guess most of the three factions were present at the keep.

Perhaps the most enjoyable surprise of all was I did not seem to get stuck in combat and was able to use a mount and swap skills when needed.

For other players, balancing is clearly not the point of the Vengeance test right now since some classes were clearly more disruptive than others. Most prominently DKs having access to pull which lets ball groups pick off players one-by-one. Ball groups could still heal through oils somehow even if it was harder to but siege was very weak against players in general.

Marronsuisse · March 24

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.

I won't be able to play for a couple days so no feedback yet, but just so I understand before hopping in, what does a character becoming "corrupted" entail, and how would we know? Does it mean you aren't able to log back in on that character? And is it something fixable on ZOS's end?

Pixiepumpkin · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes, quite a few on day one.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
For the most part large scale battles felt nice, but it did seem like the performance degraded over time, but I can't say. Ima try on a different toon and see how it goes.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
No gear. No CP. No morphs. Nothing but the curated characters....this is the way. Best format ESO PVP has taken imo.

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
This feels the most like what ESO PVP should be like. Faction pride. Slower combat. I really like this version of Cyrodiil.

Do you have any general feedback?
(copy pasted, so some of my thoughts were already said above, was going to reply to you in the other thread but saw your link).

I am uber critical of PVP in this game as I have never felt it lived up to other games I have played in my 20+ years of playing MMORPG's.

IMO, the way Cyrodiil is right now, class abilities only, no gear, no morphs, no CP, nothing but the abilities you choose and your "skill" is the best PVP ESO has had.

• If you can improve performance just a bit (I did have some lag in a large fight).
• Retain a healthy pop in the zone
• Offer fun rewards

Then imo, you are going to knock it out of the park.

Treeshka · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
No lag what so ever. Everything fired properly and worked.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
They are okay since others have the same abilities. But the problem will be the same in long run, balancing them properly.

What i do not like is the caps on area damaging abilities. This does not work on Cyrodiil. Because zerg happens and will always happen, and my Soul Tether will not damage all? No thanks.

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
Promising as i feel like developers currently trying to build Cyrodiil from scratch. We have now abilities, and maybe they will tweak these, add some weapon abilities. Add some gear and such.

Do you have any general feedback?
Maybe adding something to the campaign message that your character will lose access to their inventory and such. It seems like this Vengeance campaign also does not pull character information from database. Because none of the dungeons were showing complete, quests were available but not acceptable in Cyrodiil. This can cause a bit of confusion to players.

Joy_Division · March 24

Perspective from Beta player:

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes. These have not existed in 5-6 years and forgot what they were like.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Latency-wise. Not too bad. Certainly better than current Cyrodiil.
Yes, they are fun. That is how the original game devs told us was their vision for Cyrodiil. Once the skills are reasonably balanced, and we can see a little more variety then it would be something I would look forward to playing.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
Mixed bag here. Some of them are too simple (for ex., Crystal Frag feels terrible as a channeled spammable, Eclipse is redundant, etc). On the plus side, people run out of resources and actually die, and it's refreshing to see everyone is not 200% speed capped, which breaks the game.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.

By "corrupted," if you mean the game froze/not responding and I got kicked our of Cyrodiil to Deshaan and had to wait in a 147 Q, yeah, I got corrupted. This did happen mid battle.

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?

This has potential.

I went from playing 4-5 nights a week to taking months and months off of ESO at a time. When I think of coming back, 10 minutes of current Cyrodiil with Rush of Agony set, tower humpers, people not dying, proc sets galore, ball groups farming every night inside keeps, and the lack of actual PvP because of the low population immediately reminds me why I left the game in the first place. Just last Saturday. I sat through a Q of 57, and then left literally 5 minutes after arriving in Cyrodiil because a ball group had nothing else better to do than chase me down with the Rush of Agony set. It's so terrible.

Health is set too high, skills are too simplified, not enough class distinction/variety (just get rid of the balance by spreadsheet method), mount speed is way too slow, reach passive is necessary to defend keeps, etc., lots of things I would say need reconsideration.

But, actual fights? Yes please. Large battles? Yes please. No stupid Rush of Agony set? Yes please. No perpetual stalemates? Yes please. Organized groups not getting carried by broken sets/mechanics? Yes please

Do you have any general feedback?

Yes. I know ZOS said "not to worry" about the balance during PTS because it was supposed to just be testing mechanics. Well, here are two history lessons for you.

1. Right before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, US radar picked up the incoming Japanese aircraft attackers. The operators dutifully phoned their commander with this information, only to be met with the exact reply of "don't worry about it."

2. As I have played in Beta, I have seen 11 years of ZOS's updates. I, we, know how ZOS rolls. We've heard "don't worry about it" before. Things are rarely changed during development cycle, and are put on Live in a broken state, which we have to suffer through patch after patch, only after months, years, for the thing we gave feedback way way back in development to be addressed.

I have not noticed any difference on the skills as presented (will admit I didn't have them memorized), despite repeated feedback that some are not in a good state. If this a test, and we are supposed to be motivated to have the privilege of paying ZOS money to test their product Live, well, how about giving us the confidence that yes, ZOS is trying to makes this test as good as possible by addressing one or two problematic skills that were identified months ago just to assure us this time might be different.

ZOS_Kevin · March 24

Marronsuisse wrote: »

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ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.

I won't be able to play for a couple days so no feedback yet, but just so I understand before hopping in, what does a character becoming "corrupted" entail, and how would we know? Does it mean you aren't able to log back in on that character? And is it something fixable on ZOS's end?

Just means if something specific happens to your character being able to play or engage with the test. So if you try logging out of the test and it doesn't log you out properly. Nothing like your character is in a state that is perma-broken. I know the term "corrupted" sounds a lot worse than it should in this context.

Lags · March 24

I appreciate trying to improve cyrodiil but i really dont understand the point of this test. Anyone could tell you that removing everything that makes the game work harder will make performance better. Sets, dots, CP, etc. I just really hope the goal here isnt to replace cyrodiil with this. Or to add in a permanent version of this campaign and then tell people to go play there if they dont want to lag.

I guess the best case scenario would be that you guys will use this test to make small changes to cyrodiil over time to improve performance. But I hope you guys understand that something like this, permanently, is not what people want. Its like how removing proc sets from no cp killed it. And even some people thought they wanted that, but when no one is playing there those people will not play there either. People play eso for freedom, not to have a loadout forced on you with no build. It goes against everything this game is and is just simply boring. People like making builds and experimenting with new things.

Ill say it again, i really appreciate you guys trying to improve performance. And i hope this test helps you. I just really hope this isnt going to be a permanent thing.

BardokRedSnow · March 24

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?

--Yes

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?

--Responsive, yes. Fun, a bit at times yes though I quickly got bored.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

--loathe, the whole point of an mmo is to level up and have choices in how you play.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc?

--I didn't suffer any crashes or lag really so I cannot say, only lag I felt was when trying to open doors.

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?

--Here's the meat and potatoes of my response and here's where I want you to really see and take to heart what I say, @zenimax
I do know that this is just a test... So there's no guarantee or likelihood y'all would actually go through with making pvp even remotely like this. And yet on the slight chance that you do, I gotta say, as someone that knows the pvp side of the game more than you do, this will be the death of eso if you actually implement this.

This will not bring in more players, pvers are only happy right now because they dont have to worry about making a build and can just zerg. Blackreach pvpers who zerg down empty keeps, etc, they are already locked in. People won't return to eso for less complexity, neither will fans from other games, your competitors, stick around long enough to buy crown crates when this is the end game content.

The sole reason people played eso and stayed here for years is because of the complexity of the pvp which like the numbers in steam of active players, has been declining year after year.

The only positive takeaways from this test is something fans have been telling you forever... Get. Rid. Of. Heal. Stacking. Cut down overhealing. You wanna know the real reason for the most serious laggy sessions of your game, its the ballgroups. You have to cut down their ability to run around in keeps or on the field spamming the same abilities again and again unkillable. Nuke heal stacking and you can keep the game fun, and cut down lag.

The other aspect of the test that is evident is people like being able to kill and be killed. Bring back the damage meta. People are okay with getting killed, and being able to kill. They're not okay with everyone feeling immortal unless there's numbers, or a ball group running around, which again comes back to nerfing heal stacking and heals in general really.

Don't take the false positives from the test as "we need to get rid of sets and complex skills". No, you just gotta do what I stated above.

Do you have any general feedback?

--TLDR, the vengeance campaign shows that eso players can have fun without an abundance of healing in the game, let that be your one and only takeaway from this, ZOS or you'll kill what remains of your fanbase in favor of another that won't stick around.