Please give us meatbags next test.

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Absolutely, there were constant large scale battles every time I logged into vengeance. At times they were absolutely enormous, involving hundreds of players fighting over a keep for an hour or more. It was quite fun and different from regular cyro, where the map is often quiet outside of peak times, and the battles are generally small in scale and involve ball groups, unkillable troll groups, or pvdoor, none of which is that fun. In vengeance it felt like a war and the whole map felt active.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Generally lag was not a serious issue and combat was responsive. At times in the largest battles, with hundreds of players and max siege on the screen, it became a little choppy and abilities sometimes would not fire. I only experienced really severe lag and desync a handful of times during the entire test. I also did not experience the stuck in combat bug at all. Overall it was tons of fun and a nice change of pace from the usual performance issues and being perpetually stuck in combat.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
Well, they're a start. A lot of them felt pretty good. I liked that they were toned down and certain abilities were not OP, eliminating ball groups and putting players on a more equal playing field. I particularly liked the target caps on healing abilities, it was a nice change from everyone having 12 instances of echoing vigor and radiating regen and shields on them at all times.

They're perhaps too simple in some cases. A serious balance pass is needed, as some classes seemed quite a bit more suited for vengeance than others. I'd like to see morphs, and at least weapon and alliance war abilities added back in. Some ults felt rather weak and uninspiring. Mount speed could be boosted, people want to get into the action, not play a riding simulator.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc?
I had no real issues the entire time, except some very brief bursts of severe lag (which could have also been due to my own internet, as they were not the norm during the test).

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
Performance was great. Large scale battles were great. I had a lot more fun than I've ever had in cyro. It has the building blocks of a really fun alternative game mode. I'd like to see if more skills and build customization options can be added back in without ruining the performance gains. Perhaps multiple class templates could be added with some stat differences, ie: for stam vs mag and dps vs support. It would also be nice to have access to more of the siege weapons and more variety of potions. In its current state, I think vengeance would get stale and boring over time.

But I think it's a great mode for new and more casual players and for bringing a new audience to cyro pvp - honetsly, even as someone who plays in normal cyro, I would also definitely play vengeance at times when I just want to hop in and casually play some pvp. I think it would be a fun guild activity for my more casual social guild as well, for example. I'd suggest putting some work into balance and further customization and bringing it back again in the future.

Perhaps a start would be to offer a vengeance server during midyear mayhem, instead of one of the other extra servers that normally get added. Longer term, I think vengeance could be a viable replacement for the under-50 campaign, but should be opened to all players.

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

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)? Skills were responsive, and there were no latency issues. Combat lacked variety, which got boring after a while.

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? I did not experience any character corruption. The simplified abilities were interesting, but more variety from weapon skills and sets would have been interesting to test alongside the simplified skills.

If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.account namecharacter nameWhat happened to trigger the corruption (leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, etc)? No corruption was experienced during my time in vengeance.


What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)? Simplified skills were interesting and made jumping into the fight very quick and easy. Survival depended on blocking, dodging, class utility skills, etc. However, victory depended solely on who had the larger group, since vengeance does not allow any individual person to shine more than another. Performance was fine despite the increase in population.


Do you have any general feedback? The sky should stay. The next test should permit weapon skills. Even if this fixes performance, build craft and variety is what keeps people coming to Cyrodiil so sets should not be removed as a solution to performance issues. I like the concept of a PvP tripot potion that can be used infinitely in a PvP environment. Infinite generic siege and repair kits would be an interesting permanent change.

Somebody had this great idea about keeping Vengeance with some tweaks:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/675362/keeping-vengeance-as-campaign-after-test-ends
I fully agree with this great idea.

It was indeed 100 times more enjoyable than the current state of Cyro of overhealing, overshielding, overtanking, use of all broken sets and completely ruined by ball-groups on top of everything.

Look at the Monday prime-time... back to old PC-EU unbalanced boredom with only one faction playing.
People don't want to play like this anymore.

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

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

What you think of the simplified abilities? The simplified abilities were okay for testing but not very fun for the long run.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? No

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)? For testing purposes it was totally fine. For longer periods of playing the experience was too reduced for my taste. I hope you build upon what you started here to give us a more fleshed out experience.

Do you have any general feedback? In general I had fun, but as I mentioned, I want a more fleshed out experience. For me, there are too many things missing. Especially build diversity. I am looking forward to the next iteration of testing.

• Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
  1. Yes
• Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
  1. Yes for all except 2 large scale battle I participated in I experienced 0 lag, latency, or response issues and it was the most fun I've had in years in Cyrodiil. The 2 battles I experienced lag one was a server wide event that affected everyone (responsiveness, fps drops, some rubberbanding) the other was responsiveness with doors having a delay, not responding, or placing you back where you started.
• What you think of the simplified abilities?
  • In comparison to the regular campaigns It improved balance with healing and between the classes, but there was still a noticable performance gap. NB, Arc, and DK felt the best to play. Not having any counters to stealth was pretty much a get out of jail free card, Arc had access to the big things you need to succeed in PvP (damage, mobility, and cc) while also having the best group healing the Arcanist portal should work this way normally, and DK had the smoothest burst rotation. I didn't spend much time on Warden or Sorc. Templar was fun, but felt like a slower version of Arcanist the increased javelin knockback distance was cool. Necromancer felt better to play as a support, but kind of disjointed still. Skull's damage was nice so was the way that Skeletal Minion worked and Grave Grasp should work like the vengeance version where the furthest patch hits as soon as you press the still without delay.
• 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.
  • Nope I didn't experience any disconnects or character corruption
• What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
  • Vengeance brought back what we love and have missed from Cyrodiil. Not just the good performance and huge population, but making it feel like a war and truly assaulting or defending a keep/outpost. It validates those that have stuck around or check back in every couple of years to see if you guys tapped back into the potential that Cyrodiil has. I'm going to miss it the most time I've spent in Cyrodiil in a while.
    
    If there are future tests that will build on this I'd like to recommend increasing mount speed for them, and using the "Feature" page when you log in to advertise the dates, goals, and other information of the test beforehand as most players don't check the forums or other social media. Many showed up for the Golden Pursuit and had no idea there was a test, and many others found out about the test during the weekend when they went to check the Golden Vendor. Having announcements in game to alert the playerbase will get more people into your test especially if one of your goals is stress testing.
• Do you have any general feedback?
  • The foundation of Cyrodiil is good and strong the test has garnered interest from players that would've spent 15mins in Cyrodiil get RoA ball griefed say this sucks and never come back. Build off of this baseline Vengeance vibe, when you add the other skill lines and sets back into the game leave heal/shield stacking out of it make the fights feel like fights. As long as players aren't nigh immortal with 10+ stacks of Vigor and Regen the players will stay and have fun. This is probably the most consistently requested change for years in PvP so zero chance this is new news to anyone that has been paying attention.
    
    Performance and population cap increases are important, but if you fix that and leave the current environment of ball groups and pull sets in every keep encounter then you won't attract enough players to fill the campaigns. I just hope this test has shown you guys what you have. Don't let the surge of new interest that was gained from the Vengeance test die before making lasting impactful changes.

Just giving some more general feedback about population caps. I thought the first night was best. There were lots of big battles and more players than I have seen in years. But it still felt like there were noticeable ebbs and flows to the battles and, mentally, you could kind of grasp what was going on and what tactics were working or not working.

After they raised the population caps, I thought the fights became more stagnant. Yes, they were big battles with lots of players and minimal lag, and keep fights lasted a long time, but they were so overwhelming and chaotic. Progress was often painstakingly slow and hard to comprehend.

Current Cyro, where a small high-powered group can roll a seemingly heavily defended keep in 2 minutes is lame. But needing like a faction stack to move 3 feet in Vengeance once the pop cap was high enough, was kind of lame, too.

I say no thank you to the vengeance game mode. It was fun for about 2 hours, then I realized I wasn't really even playing. I was just zerg surfing and smashing buttons. No skill involved or the ability for skill to be much a factor in most fights.

I don't see how any version of this game mode could remain popular for even a short period of time.

• Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
  Yes, many cases of sieges on both sides (defence and offence) as well as field battles involving propably up to hundreds of players. Happening quite often, and usually in few places at once
• Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
  The latency was deffinetly much better then in standard campaigns, and with much larger scale of battle too, no significant drops in connection or stuttering of screen was detected. There were certain drops of framerate but i expect it was due to my own PC not handling so many things on the screen. Also return to 60 fps after leaving the battle was much faster then before. Combat feels more fun now, at least knowing that no invincible ballgroup will come down barreling from my left side and steamroll entire group before we can react. While entire combat is now more zerg centered, that is not without it merits. And a coordinated group can still make a difference, just a bit more logical now.
• What you think of the simplified abilities?
  While they are nice to quickly swap and adjust skills in between battle, there is certain lack of depth, in both customisation and choice of abilities. Still there is fun to be had with "work what you have" approach
• Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc?
  No such situation happened, not a single game crash. Was able to safely leave cyro after every session.
• What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
  Good to know actual proper tests are being performed to improve cyrodill performance . Also the campaign itself was deffinetly fun even despite things like quests and merchants being also cut. Also set-less cyrodill is a good way to introduce new players without too much worry of their characters builds.
• Do you have any general feedback?
  Had my fun, waiting for the next iteration of test. Wish we could get such balanced campaign permamently

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Well yeah, because that's all anyone did/that's all there was to do.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
No. There was still massive lag, disconnects, skill delay, character desyncs, and more. It was not fun at all.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
They belong in the Under 50 campaign and should stay there. I did not do all the leveling and research just so my abilities can be dumbed down.

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 character corruption, but disconnected many times during big fights.

Do you have any general feedback?
I am an actual PvP player in this game. It is all I do in this game. This should have been one of your questions on this feedback post.

PvP is the only thing that requires constant thinking, watching your environment, and where you don't just fall into a rotation like a mindless drone because every situation is different. There are no "mechanics", there is just watching and reacting.

This test was basically zerg on zerg. It was so boring. There was nothing to do but hope your faction group was bigger and they stay together. There's no actual skill required. And everything you worked for is gone. My skills, my gear, my cp. With the simplified skills, it was honestly a slap in the face.

I understand that you guys want to "fix" cyro, but this may have actually hurt your loyal PvP playerbase. Yeah it was great to see new players in Cyro, but they should start in Under 50 to learn or join a PvP guild. PvP is just as much end game as the trifectas and vet trials. You cannot expect to go in there and just kick butt I'm sorry. I'm really not trying to be mean. If you don't want some of the stuff(proc sets, CP), there ARE campaigns for that. It felt as though this test was catering to PvE'rs and pushed aside your actual PvP base.

There are things that can be done to help fix Cyro. But beating down your PvP playerbase is not it. We are not excited for how you guys will interpret this data, as it seems people just loved the simplified street fighter version of Cyro. Also it seems that you are trying to put a dampener on group play in Cyro. I want to point out ESO is a MMO, group play is very much a part of it. While some groups are pretty toxic, not all of them are- just like some solo players are toxic but it doesn't mean they all are.

These next tests that you do will determine whether or not you keep your current PvP playerbase, or if you kill us off for the PvE'rs because PvP is "just too hard".

EvoletBanshee wrote: »

If you don't want some of the stuff(proc sets, CP), there ARE campaigns for that.

Not true. They re-enabled proc sets in Ravenwatch.

I changed my mind. Bring Vengeance back. The heals on Gray Host are not fun at all. Vengeance has exposed how unchecked heal scaling has become. This goes both ways. I can build super tanky with lots of heals and not die at all. It shouldn't be this way.

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

2. Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
PC EU, totally. No massive lags or delays even in massiv battle

3. What you think of the simplified abilities?
Fun a moment, but it would be better with morphs and weapons skills

4. What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
I had a lot of fun during this week. In massive battles OR duels / small fights
(cause yeah, no matter what ppl say, i was able to make that too a lot. Maybe just dont follow always the zerg )

5. Do you have any general feedback?
Try again with morphs and skils weapons pls ;=)