Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes, lots. One I particularly enjoyed was a huge battle spread out in a field between two keeps where we slowly pushed the other faction back to their keep and then sieged it. It felt like an actual war more than anything else I've done in Cyro, and it was epic!

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
The latency felt better for sure, I only noticed significant rubber banding once. There were some frame drops but everything still felt responsive during them. Also, being able to mount quickly after leaving combat is an incredible QOL improvement. On the negative side, I still experienced issues going through keep doors, needing to press E multiple times. This led to me dying many times if I couldn't get in or ended up right back outside because I was mashing too quickly. Also, I don't have a keen enough eye to notice more subtle types of lag like skill inputs being eaten or a bunch of sequential damage coming in all at once, so I can't comment on those.

I also appreciated the lack of ballgroups and to a lesser extent bombers. There needs to be some counters to sheer numbers, Vengeance was lacking on that front, but in normal Cyro I think ballgroups and bombers are too strong against larger groups of more inexperienced players. Organized group play should of course be more effective than disorganized, and a smaller organized group should be able to beat a somewhat larger disorganized group, but normal Cyro tips the scale too far towards organized groups currently.

What you think of the simplified abilities?
I'm too smooth brained to have any balancing suggestions for the existing simplified class abilities so I'll leave that to others. It was fun to learn how to use them (and Arcanist teleport felt great!), but I think the skill options were too limited to keep my interest long term. I had a lot of fun with Vengeance, but part of it was certainly the novelty. I want more flexibility in how to build my characters for the long term.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc?
I experienced a strange bug where I couldn't move or jump but could do other things, I have already sent in a bug report for that. I also crashed a couple of times in large fights. Neither of those led to any persistent issues though.

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
Large scale battles without huge power differentials are a lot of fun. I would not be in favor of Vengeance becoming an additional campaign, however. Its greatest strength is its population, so as soon is that gets divvied up between it and other campaigns I think it'd end up going the way of Ravenwatch.

Vengeance also shouldn't replace normal Cyro, though. It's too stripped down to have staying power. I think adding back in more choice and tipping the scales a bit more towards skill/build/organized play is needed. I think zerging needs to continue to be an effective strategy, though. Cyro to me feels like it was made for huge zerg v zerg battles, whereas the other pvp modes focus on smaller group / individual play.

Do you have any general feedback?
I appreciate that you're putting in work to pinpoint the causes of Cyro's biggest issues. At its best Cyro is a lot of fun, and I hope you can find a balance that both keeps existing PvPers happy and makes it more welcoming to casual or newer players.

Just updating my feedback:

• I experienced rubberbanding a couple of times.
• Total crashes: 2. I did not lose my spot in group even after restarting my computer so that was nice.
• The getting stuck running in place with the flattened no asset-loaded landscape happened probably 20x. Horrible! I posted a screenie in the other thread. This always happened when running on mount with the zerg and not when traveling on foot. Other players would get stuck in the same spots.
• Lots of loading screens during large battles. Too many to count over the entire test.
• Could not use skills or potion lots of times even in 1v1. Many deaths as a result.
• The over the siege limit was so frustrating!
• Also, forward camps were invisible on the map and often as an asset. They were just not there but turns out they were because when I tried to place would get the error that I was too close to one.
• Twice I selected to rez at a camp and was sent to a keep instead!
• The doors would become unusable even though I was spamming E. Died to this multiple times. One time I died while porting through the door. Luckily got rezzed inside.
• I did experience being stuck in combat multiple times which I solved by light attacking a tree, which worked more reliably than regular cyro.
• There were a few unkillable players. Why? You tell me. Cheating, maybe?
• Stealth worked horribly. I could see a lot enemies trying to stealth except nightblades. They would go invisible right in front of me, resetting the fight. I just tried to get away from them. So annoying.
• There were a couple of stalemates at inner postern doors that had no solution but to leave. There was no way to solve this because all players were equal. Unforeseen consequence of balancing?
• The sky and colors were cool.
• Guards were tough, I liked that.
• I had more fun on my necro than ever before. I'll miss her.
• Overall it was socially very fun and I would play it regularly for that reason. I know I said I wouldn't but I changed my mind.

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes, and they were so exciting and fun! I really felt like if I played mindfully, I was meaningfully contributing. There was really something special about looking around and seeing what looked like a hundred other players around. My main friction with the changes was a matter of literally riding into battle, from one keep to another. Even using autorun, holding down the shift key for a minute or more at a time was tiring for my hands. I usually dropped out of Cyrodiil because I was tired of travel time, not because I was tired of PVP or not having fun anymore. I know the amount of time it takes to get to an offense or defense is a balancing point, but I'd rather deal with a respawn timer than spend multiple minutes every offense or defense just riding my very slow horse into position.
Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
As above, absolutely. I only noticed one or two instances of chugging over the hours I played this week, and I wasn't disconnected once. This was something interesting I noticed: combat being overall slower allowed for gameplay to emerge that isn't normally seen in Cyrodiil. Since players couldn't annihilate each other in a matter of seconds, coordinated retreats were possible. Coordinated retreats allowed for regrouping which allowed for a thwarted push to try again. Battles are normally so decisive in Cyrodiil, getting rebuffed once is enough to make an entire faction give up on a target.
What you think of the simplified abilities?
I loved them. They let me focus on the battlefield and the players, instead of getting lost in managing my bars. Also loved the total removal of pets from the game mode. They're distracting visual clutter in normal Cyrodiil.
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.
What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
I'm someone who normally gets up to reward tier 3 on Greyhost. I liked Vengeance so much better than normal Cyrodiil, I don't think I'm going to play normal Cyrodiil again now that Vengeance is over. Now that I know that Cyrodiil's like when all the things that kill my fun are removed (ball groups, bombers, invulnerable tanks, gankers,) I have no desire to go back to the old gamemode.
Also worth noting is that it was so wonderful to have a quickslot loadout just for Cyrodiil. When I normally have to do Cyrodiil, I have to replace all my Infinite Archive consumables with the Cyrodiil siege equipment and such. It's a drag. I like how the gamemode got rid of the financial disparity between players, too. One of the things I like least about Cyrodiil normally is that rich players can shell out for super siege equipment that has a significant gameplay advantage. And all that *** clogs up my limited inventory like nothing else.
Do you have any general feedback?
The travel times in Vengeance Cyrodiil felt particularly oppressive and taxing on my delicate fingers and hands. Sorcerers don't have a normal spammable attack in their class abilities, and I think they should.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Soraka wrote: »

Are they still going to send out surveys? Or did I dream that lol (very possible).

I don't remember if we mentioned doing one, (I have written a lot of stuff regarding Cyrodiil Champions and it all blends together at this point ), but I know one was being discussed today. So hope to have more info so.

I found it! In the FAQ:

Q. Do you have a way of filtering comments out from people who did not participate at all/very little in the test? And only receiving feedback from people who actually use the PVP portion of the game, not just PVE players who have never and will never play in Cyrodiil because it's not why they play the game? Can you distinguish between those people and the ones that these tests directly effect? – RepresentativeOk8793
A. Great question and it is something we’re considering. Cyrodiil is intended for everyone, across all playstyles and experience levels, so we do want to hear from everyone who participates in the Cyrodiil Champions test. We’re working with our BI and Research teams to create a survey for the test. We plan to send it out to everyone who participates in the Cyrodiil Champions test, based on in-game data, shortly after the test ends on PC EU and PC NA.

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles? Yes – several over several days. This included solo, pug group, and organized group play

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

I experienced DC’s most of the days that I played and, while there were some marked improvements to overall latency / rubber-banding, there were frequent instances of skill-delay and extreme drops in frame rate. Notably (1) I pay for high tier internet, (2 ) my rig is just over a year old and with high-level gaming specs, and (3) I played with very minimal add-ons so I am generally confident that issues are game related and not local.

As a result, for me personally, the performance quality overall was actually worse, despite some visible improvements.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

Depends on what you are referring to. If, by simplified, you mean only having 15 skills and 3 ultimates, I do not care for this at all. Particularly as each skill line caters to a distinct play style (tank, heal, damage). The is very little room for distinct playstyles for each class and despite what other think, I feel as though to keep the classes balances there was even less class identify because to load out the basic PvP tool set you were backed into making certain choices. Not to mention – what about the poor RP Vamps and Werewolves – please don’t do them dirty!

If you mean skills that don’t have 5 sub-skills, and multiple trigger conditions to think about, I like that. While making sure to note that I am making the very big assumption that things would be balanced appropriately with revised skills, the ideas of skills focusing on a core mechanic vs. multiple mechanics with varying conditions is very appealing in this environment. I am also assuming that passives are returned even with additional skills lines, without unique passives for each class and skill line, the player choices would again be over simplified and restrictive.

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

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

First and foremost, I am glad you took the steps necessary to baseline the environment before moving forward with changes. This step, which can be difficult to perform and is therefore often overlooked, will be sure provide you with valuable feedback and comparison data for the long development road ahead.

On the campaign itself, it was fun at first, but became both increasingly frustrating and incredibly boring at the same time. I can see why this appeals to a lot of casual or new PvP players the same way dolmen runs are so exhilarating for new PvE players. But asked and seasoned PvE player what they think about dolmens and they are just not as fun after a while.
Despite when ‘certain’ groups are around (no not all ball groups cause lag) I have no more performance issues in Cyrodiil than I do in PvE trials or, recently, Battlegrounds, so the increased numbers of disconnects and the significant increase in skill input delay was a disappointment.

For solo play, I am typically what some in zone like to call a ‘siege-bot’. I have a ton of fun maxing out the siege, tearing down walls and pushing back the enemy. I built into that playstyle and it is one of my favorite things to do solo. But with 100+ folks at a keep and only 20 siege spots, things move fast and on many, many occasions there were just no spots to take. And never mind going to any keep without the zerg… you are just rolled over immediately.

That means the only option was to zerg surf. Did I make AP – sure. Did I have fun… well.. for a day or two, sure. But after that, I just wanted to do something… anything… other than follow the zerg. I wanted to run every single day of the test. I made it through Wednesday and walked away, opting to level my companions and search for eidetic memory books instead. It was just too monotonous.

Do you have any general feedback?

I understand the attractiveness of these large fights, and they are fun for a while, but when the overall outcome is determined solely (or almost solely) by the number of people in the zerg, it is no longer a skill game. It’s just a numbers game. I did not see any, not so much as one single, underdog win during this test.

And in a scenario where it is biggest zerg wins, the alliance to race lock creates a HUGE problem as it greatly favors the ‘meta’ races, which have not changed for some time. Players that come into the game looking to make the best damage dealer may ask friends or their Uncle Google and they will get pretty clear direction on what class or two they should choose from – creating a natural imbalance in the alliances.

While thinking about what to write I read every post here as well as literal hundreds of discord messages in multiple servers and these are the things I hear people want the most (aside from server performance and stability – you know that already):

• The ability to theory craft and create unique builds. People are passional about this – please don’t discount how important this is to a LOT of players.
• The ability to work and strategize as a group. I know … I know… ball groups this and ball groups that… but many seasoned PvPer’s truly enjoy meeting up 2-3x a week to play together, practicing attacks and movement, identifying best strategies, build, and training others to PvP at a higher level.
  
  But BALL GROUPS and BLOCK TANKS the masses say!!!! Well… when I listen to what people are saying they want is really…..
  
• Clear ways to counter mechanics be they from sets, skills, individuals or groups. Ideally no set of skill is introduced without a counter skill / set identified, tested, and proven to be effective in real-game play (i.e. does not completely sacrifice something else). This is a balance issue… and a solvable one at that.

A few final thoughts now that the test is over….

A lot of people citing “look how many people” as evidence that a campaign like Vengeance would be wildly successful are often pointing to somw of the earliest numbers. What is not taken into account is that there were no other options and that this was a well-publicized test. Every active guild I am in encouraged people to join because we know that getting good data is the only way you can generate good results. But I would remind folks that we have tried simplified Cyro before (no cp/no proc) and virtually all PvPers went back to GH. People like and want the diversity and they like and want skill-based combat.

For people that want to live the zerg life I say give them a Vengeance campaign as an option. I think there is a place for it, I truly do, and I think the game would be better for having something like Vengeance as an option. It’s just not a place I would want to spend any significant amount of time in.

And lastly… I have heard many people talk about how much more survivable Vengeance is. You have 70k health so … yeah. Consider that if you are a casual PvE player coming into Cyro. As someone who came to PvP after 4ish years of playing the game I can promise you that making a build with the appropriate amount of health and resistance will be a game changer for you and may just change how you view PvP.

As an introduction, I do play with a PvP guild and that is normally the only way I go into Cyrodiil. I mostly heal and am not as good in smaller groups. I really enjoy our group play and have learned a lot about PvP builds and ball-group type play as well as more casual large-group approaches. This was an interesting test for me and our guild discussions were all over the board with lots of things to like as well as concerns about limitations.

> Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles? Yes, much larger than usual and at all times of the day and night. Our guild group was running together as usual but also working together with our faction in giant battles far more than usual.

> Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)? The lack of lag was excellent. It was exciting to me to have the giant battles and have to defend several parts of the keep at once, with waves of players moving in and out, pressing forward, falling back. People had more incentive to play together. We only rarely experienced latency or lag.

> What you think of the simplified abilities? Having simplified abilities did allow people to just jump in and go, which would be a huge incentive to beginners or mid-level players. Although I didn't end up having enough time, I wanted to jump in and try different classes, try dps, i.e., things I never could do in the normal campaigns without a ton of preparation and practice. I do think this what allowed a lot of players to want to jump in and try it. On the other hand I assume this was just a test and agree with others that we need more variety of skills. I wouldn't mind if it stayed more limited than the current campaigns, to allow people to get into it more easily and not be at such a disadvantage to highly experienced players. Something in between the test and the current campaigns in terms of available skills and equipment.

> 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)? My initial thoughts are we need a campaign that is more like this and more casual friendly, but with more customization available. I wouldn't mind having a "preset" option and an option where you can customize the build. Right now I don't feel like I can go in at all without my group and I have a very specific role there. I'd like a campaign where I could moonlight as a dps and try different classes, or just have casual fun with larger battles. I think many seasoned PvPers will be very unhappy if there isn't also the campaigns where one's own personal builds or skills, as well as group composition, matters.

> Do you have any general feedback? Other thoughts:
- Plz increase the mount speed. Let us use the champion points, etc. for that. It's too slow! However I don't miss at all wearing snow treaders!!
- The giant keep battles are fun and exhilarating, but one that I was in went on for hours before either side got a tick. It will just come down to how many people are on each side who wins, and that seems like a little more dumbing down than there should be. It won't take long before they get boring because you can't make headway or winning only depends on numbers and not tactics or skill. I wasn't actually sure if either side would manage to finish that battle in less than several hours, which is too long for one individual fight. We did finally manage to tip the scales but it could easily pass the point where people would have to leave and miss out on the rewards. If you end up keeping the really large long battles maybe some interim rewards so people don't entirely miss out on the tick
- love the sky and other visual enhancements
- definitely like the plug and play aspect. it would be great to have a campaign that allows you to just jump in on any class and role and play. I also liked the fact that you could hybrid healer and dps skills more easily than the current campaigns.
- please keep at least one campaign that's highly tactical and skill-based for the really good players!

One more thing - it was a relief to not have to worry about getting constantly bombed. This requires so much protective health and gear to survive that it kind of ruins the types of builds I'd really like to have. It also allows us to play with more casual players in our midst and not worry about them blowing us up. That would increase cooperation and not have people just siloed into their 12-man groups.

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes - many of the fights for keeps were large-scale, and lasted for 10+ minutes (one keep defense at Ash lasted for two hours and was one of the most fun experiences I've had in Cyro in many years.

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

Yes - latency was not an issue in most large-scale battles, and it felt that eventually my PC was the thing slowing things down.

What you think of the simplified abilities?

It took a while to figure out a workable front bar damage rotation and a back bar defensive rotation, and some classes didn't feel right with either rotation. I managed to get comfortable with sorc. Fights (1v1, 1vX, XvX) were challenging to survive and get kills. Was it more fun than my magsorc main? No - but it was still fun.

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)?

It gave us server performance that we would like to be able to have in the unrestricted campaign, but at a cost. Many people (me included) have spent 100s/1000s of hours farming gear and getting skill lines specifically for PvP, in my case for multiple characters on both NA and EU. This effort has no boost/benefit in Vengeance. A lot of people I know are scathing, scared, and downright irrational about what Vengeance might mean for the future of PvP. That isn't a good thing. People quit games for less. If Vengeance (or its developed/expanded versions) replaces normal Cyro, you will see an exodus of endgame PvPers from the game.

I'd like to see some commentary from ZOS about protecting and retaining Cyro as it currently exists on the live server (traditional GH and BR campaigns). Without some clear communication about this, many people are going to continue to knee-jerk with their feedback (as you can see in the many "passionate" replies in this thread).

That being said, I am a fan of Vengeance - but only as one of the Cyro offerings that you give to players. It supersedes and makes redundant the Icereach and Ravenwatch campaigns, which in my view is what Vengeance should eventually do - replace the beginner campaigns.

Do you have any general feedback?
I've put this nugget here - and I want ZOS to read this carefully. There was almost no toxicity in Vengeance. I wasn't t-bagged even once, and normally I get many people of questionable morals squatting on my face in GH and BR. There were no obvious troll players. There were only a few rock goblins or tower rats. In summary, you created a campaign where the worst elements of ESO PvP simply won't go: because they can't engage in their daily ritual of domination/humiliation, which relies on the full suite of PvP build diversity to get their kicks. The value of this from a PvP player-base growth perspective cannot be underestimated or understated.

Give us Vengeance - literally and metaphorically - and provide a simplified sandbox for players to get into PvP - one that they can grow with/through and eventually work up to the full sandbox of build design and combat that we have in the traditional Cyro campaigns.

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Yes! It was a lot of fun.

Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Absolutely. Only in extremely big fights did I have problems with casting my abilities. In medium sized fights like I usually see in Cyrodiil things worked well: interacting with keep doors, casting, getting out of combat so I could get on a mount all worked much better!

What you think of the simplified abilities?
Some of them were rather overpowered (Necro rezz ult, DK chain) while others seemed to do basically nothing (DK magma shell). In theory I like the idea, but it does need some balancing tweaks (as would be expected for a test of this kind). I also missed the gallop passive.

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
It was great! Having everyone in one campaign forced big battles, often with all 3 alliances at the same time. No campaign hopping once a faction started loosing. The free unlimited items lead to much more coordinated sieges and opened avenues for more interesting tactics (sieging the main gate while also opening the walls) without fear of loosing valuable siege weapons. Camps were up consistently. We did not have to contend with unkillable tanks in towers or bomb blades, leading to more dynamic battles and less worry.

Do you have any general feedback?
I loved the last week of pvp. Things worked much more like I imagine pvp was always supposed to be. Dynamic battles with little to no chance of a single faction taking over the whole map. Pretty consistent performance. The skills were not perfectly balanced but that was to be expected.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Two pain points to consider:

Nightblade is doing the infinite fight reset thing again. Miserable to deal with in smaller engagements. Who could've foreseen that infinite sustain plus semi-spammable burst heal invisibility would be a terrible idea.

DK chain pull spam from zergs is almost as miserable and anti-skill as Rushing Agony on live, rewarding brainless spam gameplay while pointlessly punishing anyone who dares leave the zerg, reinforcing the numbers count meta.

Im curious if the recent live cloak changes are performative by any means. Otherwise a ramping cost like streak is likely easy.

Any chain mechanic should have 0.7s before the pull to respond to. Meaning I can either roll dodge the projectile before it hits me, or block within the 0.7s after it hits to prevent the pull.

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.)? --> Performance was good, combat / fun wise it was very boring / no fun

What you think of the simplified abilities? --> Very boring / no fun - but interesting to see how easily ZOS could change stuff if they want to

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? --> Fortunately not - but I banked all gear before joining Vengeance (sry, don't trust you guys )

What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)? --> As a test it's fine but that's it - I fear ESOs combat / PvP could become similar to Vengeance, this would be a disaster

Do you have any general feedback?

My take on Vengeance test campaign feedback:

For testing I think a temporary test campaign like Vengeance is fine. Whatever helps the devs on hopefully improving the game.

Besides gathering data for ZOS I think this kind of PvP combat is just awful. I can't put this nicely. It's boring, it's lame, there is nothing interesting about it.

One of ESO biggest upsides is the beaufiful combat and adjustments like in Vengeance would kill it for good. Another great thing about ESO is build diversity and theory crafting, which would also be dead in an Vengeance type environment. Hybridisation and lately scribing already harmed class identity and build identity. People got diffent opinions about hybridisation and scribing, some like it, some hate it. But there is a reason most people who engage in PvP did not like the Vengeance test campaign.

Of course there is different kind of feedback. For instance People who dislike ESO combat cause its too complicated for them or people who don't want to spend time on creating a build or figuring out how sets and abilities work did like Vengeance. It's relatable. ESO PvPs skill ceiling is quite high and a rather unpleasant experience for a newer player - even for players who have played PvP for a long time.

It would be nice if the skill gap could be less wide and if more people would participate in PvP in general. PvP is still PvP and therefore is not for everyone. Someone who is super casual or just wants PvP to be like PvE just shouldn't play PvP then. Also ball groups must be worked on. If it's finally nerfing nasty cross heals or introducing more counter sets or whatever. But sacrificing one of ESOs greatest strengths to achieve PvP being more accessible would be fatal. Also why keep playing a game for a longer period of time which won't give you juicy rewards of success for working on improvement? Totally getting update 35 vibes with Vengeance...

If you want to get all the "toxic" PvPers out of the game for good, implement Vengeance for Cyro and IC + BG's permamently. I doubt this will work for ZOS in the long run tho. The so called toxic or sweaty players mostly keep your game running.

What I did like about Vengeance was seeing that a lot of players would actually be interested in doing PvP. It would be nice to have a PvP environment which would still be enjoyable for people who love the current ESO combat system and also people who play more casual.

And damn how nice Cyrodiil would be without stuck in combat bug!

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, much better.

What you think of the simplified abilities? - I do not think those abilites did much in the way of classes balance as the actual flatting out of everyone's stats did, and lack of abilities, passives, weapons, and of course builds actually did the job rather than said abilities. So I doubt this is a viable way for the future. So perhaps consider ways of eavening out the way in all of these excluded aspects rather than actual class skills.

Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? - No. I did however experience one big crash when I tried to use the new rattle-dance emote from the new crates.

The experience was very insightful, fun and definitely hopeful, especially as far as number of players per server, allowing of actual big battles, something I doubt I ever seen before in Cyrodiil, as a newer player at that ( 2021-2022 for me was Cyrodiil start). That definitely gives the feeling of AvA, as opposed to tiny group vs tiny group we now have, with the occasional zerg vs zerg and the by now natural ballgroup vs everyone else times we are now living. So I am definitely looking forward to a clean AvA in the future, as it is my understandig that such was the original intent of the game.

I did not play more than two classes, of which the sorccerer felt heavily undermined through the simplified skills, making it slow, clunky and anything else rather than sorcerer in this test.

Thank you for the double ap.

I have another suggestion for future Cyrodiil... a PVE instance portable just to the faction's wayshrine, wholly outside the PVP system.

One of the reasons people were so engaged in grouping together was because there was literally nothing else to do in the campaign. All of the PVE-focused quests really belong in a PVE instance, for these reasons:

• Population counts are frequently "tied up" by people who are just there to quest (or material farm)
• People who are just trying to quest are unable to do so every time some [classy person] wants to farm PVE
• All of the extra server calcs are wasted on PVE considerations
• The AP awarded are an okay amount, but not so rich that it's going to take away from those who really want to PVP

There will be those who'd argue there should be no Alliance Points awarded for these quests if there is not the threat of player violence, but that's an arbitrary distinction. PVP relies on things obtainable only outside of PVP areas, so there's no reason that the amount of Alliance Points granted by those quests couldn't be obtainable as PVE. It's very engaging and well-written PVE content, and it's considered respectable behavior to leave questers alone.

Some may argue that we could do without the quests, but the rich and engaging quests and stories are why so many of us keep coming back to TES games!!

gariondavey wrote: »

moving forwards there should only be 1 campaign for cyrodiil and it should be vengeance (put all cyrodiil resources into allowing a large population for this).

Big scale fights that are casual and beginner friendly and involve siege weapons - cyrodiil vengeance
Intermediate fights where what you do matters more due to smaller numbers - solo queue bgs
Sweaty ultra coordinated play - group bgs
Small scale, ganking, sorcing, 1vxing, money making - ic

By having only 1 campaign you can focus on having cyrodiil be a place for army style fighting, instead of trying to cater to gankers, streakers, tower humpers, bombers, ball groups, zergs, etc.
This will allow people who are interested in smaller scale pvp to do your newly updated bgs, and people who care about highly coordinated gameplay to do group bgs.
And for the tower humpers and 1vxers, it would leave ic where they won't have to ride 10 minutes to find a fight, or deal with siege.

This response took me by surprise. The idea that ball groups should focus on group BGs is an interesting one, but I don't think many ball group guilds would go for it.

But if ZOS were to be serious about that potential route, they'd be advised to introduce a 12-person team option, and a private lobby system for guilds to arrange group v group battles.

I wholeheartedly agree that small scale and 1vXing would be completely fine in IC.

Awesome experience little or no lag, fun and enjoyable game play, huge numbers and no ball groups.

@ZOS_Kevin I just wanted to provide an update to my feedback now that it's been the full week of the test, I've had a chance to play all 7 classes and I've also had some time to gather my thoughts.

• Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
  Yes I was able to, no change to my feedback here.
  
• Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
  Not much changed here for my feedback overall, but a few things to repeat/add:
  - Latency was decent to good over the whole week.
  - The combat responsiveness at the start of the week had minimal delays (if any), but those skill delays started to occur more as the week went on (and assuming as the population was increased).
  - The combat being fun was still mixed. It was definitely still very numbers focused, and the large scale battles of 100s of players on each side battling it out was great when the numbers were decently even, but towards the end of the week there were some frustrations/metas that were becoming more frequent that should have been addressed in design/balancing:
  - DK chains (needed a cooldown)
  - Arc heal beam (needed lower target cap)
  - necro res ult (regular res could have been made a bit faster to help even this out)
  - no counter to invis (at least provide a basic detection potion, even if that's all that potion did)
  - the only effective defensive siege available was oils with their extremely limited range, (needed fire ballistas or some way to slow down a ranged siege of a keep/way to defend the flags/yard of a keep from the large zergs pushing in)
  These were the more problematic aspects that popped up from what I experienced during Vengeance/Champions.
• What did you think of the simplified abilities?
  I got a chance to test all classes during this test, and for every simplified ability that I liked, there were also some very glaring balance issues with other abilities (I get balance wasn't the aim, but some of these were just too egregious to have been left as they were without even simple adjustments).
  Note: ST = Single Target
  Aspects of abilities that I liked and would like to see integrated into the regular versions of those abilities:

  - Necro Skulls - as mentioned before, the increased projectile speed and less reliance on convoluted corpse/GLS interactions made this ability much better.
  - Warden Dive - as mentioned before, same as necro, with the increased projectile speed and less reliance on the off balance and conditional bonus weapon/spell damage made this ability much better.
  - Pets - as mentioned before, making these into targeted abilities (DoTs/heals/damage) was a nice change, making them useful tools in combat.
  - Arcanist Portal - felt great to use, on par with streak (bolt escape), just without the stun attached.
  - DK Stonefist - simple, effective and fluid to use, no convoluted multi-casting.
  - Plar Backlash - simple, effective and impactful. On par with sorc curse.
  - Sorc Overload - I was hoping something like this would be done for 1 morph of this ability when I was discussing sorc reworks back in U36/37.
  - DK Inhale - simple, effective and combo'd well with the rest of DK's kit. Gave DK a nice burst combo to go for.
  - Necro Grave Grasp - simple, effective, and allowed necro to setup combos even without a stun.

  Ability aspects that could have been adjusted (buffed or made easier to use):

  - Necro Sacrificial bones - Could have been made more like blighted blastbones as an ability similar to skeletal archer, but as burst damage instead of damage over time. Detonating Siphon was an ok replacement for the test, but fell to the same issues live necro suffers from, too much reliance on corpses that are not reliable.
  - Necro Totem - could have been given a range (say 15m). Melee around the caster just felt so lackluster without access to a gapcloser and everyone just range spam as they run towards you, forcing you backwards away from them and even further out of reach of AoE abilities that are centered on the caster.
  - Necro Render Flesh - could have removed the healing debuff, but at least expunge was useful as a counter to oils, making this downside less impactful that it would have been without expunge being so useful already).
  - Plar Solar Flare - plars offensive kit was kind of awkward to utilize, everything is ranged except for jabs, so you had to either make melee work in ranged combat (using 2 GCDs for a spammable (charge + jabs) compared to everyone else using 1 GCD on their spammable) or you lacked a spammable (solar flare was non-functional with it's 1.5s cast time) and relied on others to enable the rest of the offensive kit.
  - Sorc Surge - 6 seconds cooldown on surge was insane when no other ST burst heal had any cooldown at all despite having the exact same heal value as surge. Half of the other 6 classes also had access to shields and could reliably mimic sorcs potential shield + heal combo, but with much greater ease due to no cooldowns on their ST burst heals. Arc especially had the same ward + surge combo in runemend + runespite and had a blink with portal, but no cooldowns on runemend or runespite. Not saying zero cooldown was needed, but 2-3 seconds would have sufficed over the 6 seconds it had.
  - Sorc Frags - the cast time felt horrible to use properly (not as bad as solar flare, but still bad) and left sorc without a reliable ST spammable, causing sorc to rely on overload (ultimate) to fill this basic function of combat. Could have removed the cast time and reduced the damage using the live frags proc version as the base for this ability (visuals, animations, sounds etc).
  - NB Strife - Should have had it's damage and healing values swapped. Allowing for a limited ranged playstyle for NB.

  Ability aspects that could have been adjusted (nerfed):

  - NB Cloak - this ability was blatantly too strong despite the cooldown, the heal should have been halved (if any heal included at all), especially since there were zero counters to invisibility included in the vengeance templates.
  - DK Chains - this ability was getting heavily abused towards the end of the campaign, and basically removed any potential to outplay other players/slightly larger groups, who had 1 or more DKs in their group. Keep battles for breaches, when the numbers were fairly equal, often boiled down to whichever sides DKs could spam pull the other side into the kill zone the best. This ability was heavily bugged as well, completely ignoring line of sight once cast and even pulling targets back through closed walls/doors. While it was fine 1v1, it became a significant pain point in large fights and especially outnumbered fights (even slightly outnumbered such as 1v2/1v3s).
  - Arc Remedy cascade - basically every zerg had multiple Arcanist allowing them to easily siege and push through a breach and almost completely ignore the only somewhat effective defensive siege (oils) due to being a very strong heal over time. The group healing from this ability on sieges was completely unmatched by any other class heal. Probably could have had its targets reduced from 3 to 2.
  - Plar Eclipse - extremely strong instant ranged stun, felt as strong as the pre-nerf rune-cage that sorc had way back in 2018.
  - Sorc Rune Cage - (see eclipse above).
• 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 corrupted characters as far as I could tell.
  I did crash once during the test on my templar on the forth(?) day as I was riding from Nikel Outpost to Ash Milegate, but I was able to log back in, and rejoin cyrodiil with no issue.
  
• What are your initial thoughts on Cyrodiil Champions (Vengeance Campaign)?
  Initial thoughts:
  Positives:

  - Large scale battles were awesome to see again, especially considering the performance (for me) of the first few days was almost perfect despite the numbers of players and the condensed 3-way battles.
  - Combat bug being completely gone has spoilt me (and I'm sure many others). Seeing it return was a very harsh reality to come back to now that the test is over.
  - Simplified skills, stats, made for a nice change. Despite the lengthy balance "issues" listed above, the overall feeling of combat was much more balanced than many of the egregious (and unfixed) balance issues that plague live such as Rush of Agony, heal/shield stacking, snowtreaders, ball groups etc.
  - Lack of proc sets allowed for combat to feel more skill based in 1v1s and small scale fights, where casting abilities mattered much more than what proc-sets you had equipped.
  - Lack of immortal ball group trains rolling over the server, either lagging players from the server or simply causing all PvP to simply end while they feed on the PuGs that remain allowed for a much more fun ebb and flow of the map when the factions were fairly evenly spread as was the case for the first few days.
  - Lack of proc based bomb builds that could instantly pull in and wipe large numbers of players forcing a constant state of intense concentration all the time, allowing for moments to relax for a second, even mid battle.
  - Lack of multiple over time heals really helped battles to progress. Players would drop and the decision to heal felt skilled and tactile, especially in smaller scale battles.
  - Lack of battle spirit passive adjustments combined with an appropriate increase to stats to keep things equivalent was nice to simplify combat, abilities felt more like they did what their tooltips described instead of barely doing anything.

  Negatives:

  - Lack of weapon/global abilities and morphs really hampered some classes more than others and this compounded the balance issues raised above.
  - The simplified skills combined with the AoE caps really hampered a lot of factors that help balance large scale battles in cyrodiil. Probably should have had damage abilities AoE caps be 6 instead of 3.
  - Available sieges for the campaign were very heavily biased towards taking keeps, almost to where it felt like there was no point defending a keep at all if the attackers outnumbered the defenders. There was also almost no way to slow down a ranged siege of a keep since oils could only threaten directly below them and there were no fire ballistas or catapults to attempt to push players off ballistas or trebuchets to attack a keep from range.
  - Slow mount speed and the lack of port stones made riding between keeps to get to battles as difficult as it is on live despite no combat bug to prevent mounting up.
  - Lack of fall damage mitigation champion point made it so there were many more falls (even some that seem very tiny) that were now very lethal.
  - Lack of sets, morphs and non-class abilities made classes feel very limited, with very little variety (All DKs felt the same, as did sorcs, NBs, etc.). It felt very stifling to build creativity (not that live is much better with the same ~10-15 sets being on almost every PvP build, but the lack of skill variety was definitely a big part of this).

  Overall, I think this vengeance ruleset has a very good core. It seems to function well in terms of performance and it has a good base to build upon. There is a lot of work required to bring it up to par as a full fledged mode though.
  
  That being said, I would love to see a fully fleshed out version of vengeance that includes non-class skills, morphs, attributes, consumables, more sieges, some simplified sets and some way to help balance out populations better, as a very strong mode for a more "beginner friendly" Cyrodiil campaign to replace the Under 50 and no-champion point campaigns.
• Do you have any general feedback?
  As noted in my initial thoughts, the foundations of the vengeance mode are there, but there is a lot required in terms of balance, quality of life, etc to get things right to make it a full fledged mode.
  
  I'm looking forward to seeing what ZOS found out from the test and where they intend to go from here. Hopefully as much of the results/directions can be shared with players as possible so we players can continue working with ZOS on returning Cyrodiil back to that large scale fun with room for build creativity that we all know it can be/was originally advertised as.