Deimus wrote: »

Aquatorch wrote: »

*sigh*

The last Vengeance was horrible and boring. I've spent thousands of hours farming gear and theory crafting builds only for vengeance to allow absolutely nothing other than WWI style fighting that has no skill, tact, or planning...

Vengeance is more challenging and skill intensive. No carry sets so you must rely on your skills and timing, everyone is playing with similar stats so the playing field is more even, sustain is worse so you can't just press buttons, every mistake is more punishing, and groups still have benefit in coordination they just can't turn on cheese godmode by abusing bad mechanics like heal/shield stacking then crutch on pull sets to ult dump.

Vengeance was the most players they've ever had in Cyrodiil at once, fights all over the map, seeing messages like "Your alliance has reached the maximum capacity for forward camps" for the first time, performance was pristine I only experienced lag a couple of times the entire test, and it actually felt like a battlefield and keep sieges. If that's horrible and boring, but you think live Cyrodiil where plan A is stacking so many HoTs and shields where you can ignore all incoming damage and plan B is resource/rock/tower hugging is the epitome of skill, planning, and engaging gameplay idk what to tell you.

I think ZOS could've done better letting players know the test was even happening by using in game announcements since the last couple of days when players came to check out the golden vendor zone chat was filled with players who knew nothing about the test. Hitting record numbers when you fail to advertise your test just shows how much potential Cyro has and puts a spotlight on how much they dropped the ball with live Cyro to where many PvPers myself included won't even touch it from how many issues they've let fester.

Yep, with Vengeance it will be whoever brings the most bodies wins, alliance stacking zerg heaven, how skillful!

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

Aquatorch wrote: »

*sigh*

The last Vengeance was horrible and boring. I've spent thousands of hours farming gear and theory crafting builds only for vengeance to allow absolutely nothing other than WWI style fighting that has no skill, tact, or planning...

Vengeance is more challenging and skill intensive. No carry sets so you must rely on your skills and timing, everyone is playing with similar stats so the playing field is more even, sustain is worse so you can't just press buttons, every mistake is more punishing, and groups still have benefit in coordination they just can't turn on cheese godmode by abusing bad mechanics like heal/shield stacking then crutch on pull sets to ult dump.

Vengeance was the most players they've ever had in Cyrodiil at once, fights all over the map, seeing messages like "Your alliance has reached the maximum capacity for forward camps" for the first time, performance was pristine I only experienced lag a couple of times the entire test, and it actually felt like a battlefield and keep sieges. If that's horrible and boring, but you think live Cyrodiil where plan A is stacking so many HoTs and shields where you can ignore all incoming damage and plan B is resource/rock/tower hugging is the epitome of skill, planning, and engaging gameplay idk what to tell you.

I think ZOS could've done better letting players know the test was even happening by using in game announcements since the last couple of days when players came to check out the golden vendor zone chat was filled with players who knew nothing about the test. Hitting record numbers when you fail to advertise your test just shows how much potential Cyro has and puts a spotlight on how much they dropped the ball with live Cyro to where many PvPers myself included won't even touch it from how many issues they've let fester.

Yep, with Vengeance it will be whoever brings the most bodies wins, alliance stacking zerg heaven, how skillful!

This. I'm not sure how anyone can say vengeance was more "skillful" with how shallow the experience was. There was practically zero room to express skill. It compressed the skill floor and skill ceiling to a crawlspace, and unless they change how the target caps in Vengeance work, it will never be anything more then "the big zerg wins" because there will never be a way to fight against big groups.

That being said, live right now is also a hot mess, so pick your poison I guess. Do you want a lag filled Rush of Agony fest where you spend 30 minutes looking for a single fight that isn't against a ballgroup? Or do you want to zerg surf the night away on a server with perfect performance but not have any hope of fighting against a zerg without one of your own by your side?

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

Aquatorch wrote: »

*sigh*

The last Vengeance was horrible and boring. I've spent thousands of hours farming gear and theory crafting builds only for vengeance to allow absolutely nothing other than WWI style fighting that has no skill, tact, or planning...

Vengeance is more challenging and skill intensive. No carry sets so you must rely on your skills and timing, everyone is playing with similar stats so the playing field is more even, sustain is worse so you can't just press buttons, every mistake is more punishing, and groups still have benefit in coordination they just can't turn on cheese godmode by abusing bad mechanics like heal/shield stacking then crutch on pull sets to ult dump.

Vengeance was the most players they've ever had in Cyrodiil at once, fights all over the map, seeing messages like "Your alliance has reached the maximum capacity for forward camps" for the first time, performance was pristine I only experienced lag a couple of times the entire test, and it actually felt like a battlefield and keep sieges. If that's horrible and boring, but you think live Cyrodiil where plan A is stacking so many HoTs and shields where you can ignore all incoming damage and plan B is resource/rock/tower hugging is the epitome of skill, planning, and engaging gameplay idk what to tell you.

I think ZOS could've done better letting players know the test was even happening by using in game announcements since the last couple of days when players came to check out the golden vendor zone chat was filled with players who knew nothing about the test. Hitting record numbers when you fail to advertise your test just shows how much potential Cyro has and puts a spotlight on how much they dropped the ball with live Cyro to where many PvPers myself included won't even touch it from how many issues they've let fester.

Yep, with Vengeance it will be whoever brings the most bodies wins, alliance stacking zerg heaven, how skillful!

This. I'm not sure how anyone can say vengeance was more "skillful" with how shallow the experience was. There was practically zero room to express skill. It compressed the skill floor and skill ceiling to a crawlspace, and unless they change how the target caps in Vengeance work, it will never be anything more then "the big zerg wins" because there will never be a way to fight against big groups.

That being said, live right now is also a hot mess, so pick your poison I guess. Do you want a lag filled Rush of Agony fest where you spend 30 minutes looking for a single fight that isn't against a ballgroup? Or do you want to zerg surf the night away on a server with perfect performance but not have any hope of fighting against a zerg without one of your own by your side?

Easy. Take two people of similar physical and athletic ability and put them in a ring. No weapons, gloves, body armor, or performance enhancers the winner will be the one with more applied combat experience. That's the biggest deciding factor and that's what Vengeance was. The more skilled player still came out on top 9 times out of 10. The simplified lack of expression is what made it a bigger skill check compared to live.

Expression is already an illusion of choice. Hybridization cut the number of builds in half, and subclassing further narrowed that expression to a few overperforming skill lines. Even if you stick to your main on an underperforming class you're most likely running at least one of these skill lines Assassination, Restoring Light, Storm Calling, Animal Companions, or Aedric Spear. 5% of people will try and make something work that fits in with the identity of their character like before when you had a handful of Necros and Arcs. While the other 95% will be some variation of Shalks, Incap, double Spec Bow and Streak away if that didn't work.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

It's on live servers like the last Vengeance Test was. We will have an updated FAQ for the Vengeance Test the morning it goes live. We will also have some news later this week to share regarding more Vengeance Test info.

Serious question: can we have one of these tests with add-ons completely disabled in Cyrodiil?

IMO, that is a data point that really needs to be collected to get an accurate picture of what costs what in terms of game performance.

Why? With the sole exception of information you share with group members over the highly regulated data sharing API, (and formerly the MapPings API), your addons have zero impact anyone else. Disabling addons would give ZOS no additional information about server-side performance issues, which is what these tests are about.

There's zero harm in simply collecting the data point. Surely add-on users can survive without them for a week.

We also heard this same line of argumentation about how there was no possible way that Bandits could impact other people not running it it. And yet that was simply not true. It did. All of the doubters were instantly edified.

Simply gather the data and let the chips fall where they may. Maybe it's true and there is no impact. Or maybe it's just a collective blind-spot from add-on users trying to keep hold of their toys, like the case of Bandits.

We also know that the impact of add-ons isn't free. Nothing in computing is. Hence the cap on server calls. But that cap was last revised ages ago AFAIK and the appropriate value in 2018 may or may not still be the appropriate value in 2025.

Finally, add-on developers are always one (or many...) steps ahead of the ZOS devs in this. For example, the Map Pins situation was not an anticipated use case by the devs of the API. And it literally took a forum user to bring that to their attention. Do we really naively think that this is the only such instance of that? Because I don't.

I’m not here to argue about add-ons—I know you’re ride-or-die about this issue, and I respect that. You’ve made your stance clear over the years, and I’m not trying to change your mind. My point is, nobody, not even ZOS, denies that piling on add-ons hits performance. Is it a tiny dip or a big one? Doesn’t matter much to me. Anyone can whip up an add-on and toss it out there, and expecting ZOS to optimize their game while babysitting every single one is unrealistic. They’ve got enough on their plate fixing performance issues. What they can do—and I think they’re doing—is focus on the core stuff, like the API and libraries. They’ve worked with add-on devs, made solid improvements to the API, and keep pushing that forward. That’s where their head should be at.

Turning off add-ons for this Vengeance test? I don’t see it moving the needle. I’ve been in software dev for years, and I’d bet my left arm ZOS has analytics out the wazoo—server framerates, latency, FPS, disconnects, you name it. They’re probably logging every player’s ping, what add-ons they’re running, what gear they’ve got, all that jazz. With a decent BI team (and I’m sure they’ve got one), they can slice and dice that data to spot problems fast—trends, crashes, whatever. If they wanted, they could build a dashboard to track disconnects or lag spikes and tie it to stuff like hardware, add-ons, or what you were doing in-game.

Point is, disabling add-ons for this test ain’t gonna unlock some game-changing insight. They’ve already got the data to figure out what’s what.

Deimus wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

Aquatorch wrote: »

*sigh*

The last Vengeance was horrible and boring. I've spent thousands of hours farming gear and theory crafting builds only for vengeance to allow absolutely nothing other than WWI style fighting that has no skill, tact, or planning...

Vengeance is more challenging and skill intensive. No carry sets so you must rely on your skills and timing, everyone is playing with similar stats so the playing field is more even, sustain is worse so you can't just press buttons, every mistake is more punishing, and groups still have benefit in coordination they just can't turn on cheese godmode by abusing bad mechanics like heal/shield stacking then crutch on pull sets to ult dump.

Vengeance was the most players they've ever had in Cyrodiil at once, fights all over the map, seeing messages like "Your alliance has reached the maximum capacity for forward camps" for the first time, performance was pristine I only experienced lag a couple of times the entire test, and it actually felt like a battlefield and keep sieges. If that's horrible and boring, but you think live Cyrodiil where plan A is stacking so many HoTs and shields where you can ignore all incoming damage and plan B is resource/rock/tower hugging is the epitome of skill, planning, and engaging gameplay idk what to tell you.

I think ZOS could've done better letting players know the test was even happening by using in game announcements since the last couple of days when players came to check out the golden vendor zone chat was filled with players who knew nothing about the test. Hitting record numbers when you fail to advertise your test just shows how much potential Cyro has and puts a spotlight on how much they dropped the ball with live Cyro to where many PvPers myself included won't even touch it from how many issues they've let fester.

Yep, with Vengeance it will be whoever brings the most bodies wins, alliance stacking zerg heaven, how skillful!

This. I'm not sure how anyone can say vengeance was more "skillful" with how shallow the experience was. There was practically zero room to express skill. It compressed the skill floor and skill ceiling to a crawlspace, and unless they change how the target caps in Vengeance work, it will never be anything more then "the big zerg wins" because there will never be a way to fight against big groups.

That being said, live right now is also a hot mess, so pick your poison I guess. Do you want a lag filled Rush of Agony fest where you spend 30 minutes looking for a single fight that isn't against a ballgroup? Or do you want to zerg surf the night away on a server with perfect performance but not have any hope of fighting against a zerg without one of your own by your side?

Easy. Take two people of similar physical and athletic ability and put them in a ring. No weapons, gloves, body armor, or performance enhancers the winner will be the one with more applied combat experience. That's the biggest deciding factor and that's what Vengeance was. The more skilled player still came out on top 9 times out of 10. The simplified lack of expression is what made it a bigger skill check compared to live.

Expression is already an illusion of choice. Hybridization cut the number of builds in half, and subclassing further narrowed that expression to a few overperforming skill lines. Even if you stick to your main on an underperforming class you're most likely running at least one of these skill lines Assassination, Restoring Light, Storm Calling, Animal Companions, or Aedric Spear. 5% of people will try and make something work that fits in with the identity of their character like before when you had a handful of Necros and Arcs. While the other 95% will be some variation of Shalks, Incap, double Spec Bow and Streak away if that didn't work.

Sure, in an even number fight yes, the more skilled player came out on top in Vengeance; but there's almost never an even number fight, and Vengeance made it nigh impossible to fight heavily outnumbered due to target caps.

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

Aquatorch wrote: »

*sigh*

The last Vengeance was horrible and boring. I've spent thousands of hours farming gear and theory crafting builds only for vengeance to allow absolutely nothing other than WWI style fighting that has no skill, tact, or planning...

Vengeance is more challenging and skill intensive. No carry sets so you must rely on your skills and timing, everyone is playing with similar stats so the playing field is more even, sustain is worse so you can't just press buttons, every mistake is more punishing, and groups still have benefit in coordination they just can't turn on cheese godmode by abusing bad mechanics like heal/shield stacking then crutch on pull sets to ult dump.

Vengeance was the most players they've ever had in Cyrodiil at once, fights all over the map, seeing messages like "Your alliance has reached the maximum capacity for forward camps" for the first time, performance was pristine I only experienced lag a couple of times the entire test, and it actually felt like a battlefield and keep sieges. If that's horrible and boring, but you think live Cyrodiil where plan A is stacking so many HoTs and shields where you can ignore all incoming damage and plan B is resource/rock/tower hugging is the epitome of skill, planning, and engaging gameplay idk what to tell you.

I think ZOS could've done better letting players know the test was even happening by using in game announcements since the last couple of days when players came to check out the golden vendor zone chat was filled with players who knew nothing about the test. Hitting record numbers when you fail to advertise your test just shows how much potential Cyro has and puts a spotlight on how much they dropped the ball with live Cyro to where many PvPers myself included won't even touch it from how many issues they've let fester.

Yep, with Vengeance it will be whoever brings the most bodies wins, alliance stacking zerg heaven, how skillful!

This. I'm not sure how anyone can say vengeance was more "skillful" with how shallow the experience was. There was practically zero room to express skill. It compressed the skill floor and skill ceiling to a crawlspace, and unless they change how the target caps in Vengeance work, it will never be anything more then "the big zerg wins" because there will never be a way to fight against big groups.

That being said, live right now is also a hot mess, so pick your poison I guess. Do you want a lag filled Rush of Agony fest where you spend 30 minutes looking for a single fight that isn't against a ballgroup? Or do you want to zerg surf the night away on a server with perfect performance but not have any hope of fighting against a zerg without one of your own by your side?

Easy. Take two people of similar physical and athletic ability and put them in a ring. No weapons, gloves, body armor, or performance enhancers the winner will be the one with more applied combat experience. That's the biggest deciding factor and that's what Vengeance was. The more skilled player still came out on top 9 times out of 10. The simplified lack of expression is what made it a bigger skill check compared to live.

Expression is already an illusion of choice. Hybridization cut the number of builds in half, and subclassing further narrowed that expression to a few overperforming skill lines. Even if you stick to your main on an underperforming class you're most likely running at least one of these skill lines Assassination, Restoring Light, Storm Calling, Animal Companions, or Aedric Spear. 5% of people will try and make something work that fits in with the identity of their character like before when you had a handful of Necros and Arcs. While the other 95% will be some variation of Shalks, Incap, double Spec Bow and Streak away if that didn't work.

Sure, in an even number fight yes, the more skilled player came out on top in Vengeance; but there's almost never an even number fight, and Vengeance made it nigh impossible to fight heavily outnumbered due to target caps.

Sure, but even in live currently the fights are never even. They have a stream coming up in 30 minutes I think where they are going to talk about the next test. I expect to see more skill lines added and fingers crossed more siege. Siege can turn the tide in a fight easily.

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

I respect taking a stand with your wallet, but for some of us, this shift toward performance and actual system reworks is exactly the sign of hope we’ve been waiting for. We’re not going anywhere.

If/when Vengeance is a finished product that delivers the PvP experience I want, I'll gladly pay again. It shows a lot of promise, but next week is still just a test, not a permanent addition.

Yes, I agree with everything you just said. ZoS has made it clear it's not permanent. This is just the next iteration of their test and attempt to collect more data.

Not permanent ....for now. ZOS has backtracked on a lot of statements in the past though when it comes to PvP commitments.

Sure - I agree. Game development is fluid 100%. BUT I don't think it's fair to them to hold this against them. I'll take them at their word that the current state of vengeance test isn't their end goal. I have no reason to not believe them.

LadyGP wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

Aquatorch wrote: »

*sigh*

The last Vengeance was horrible and boring. I've spent thousands of hours farming gear and theory crafting builds only for vengeance to allow absolutely nothing other than WWI style fighting that has no skill, tact, or planning...

Vengeance is more challenging and skill intensive. No carry sets so you must rely on your skills and timing, everyone is playing with similar stats so the playing field is more even, sustain is worse so you can't just press buttons, every mistake is more punishing, and groups still have benefit in coordination they just can't turn on cheese godmode by abusing bad mechanics like heal/shield stacking then crutch on pull sets to ult dump.

Vengeance was the most players they've ever had in Cyrodiil at once, fights all over the map, seeing messages like "Your alliance has reached the maximum capacity for forward camps" for the first time, performance was pristine I only experienced lag a couple of times the entire test, and it actually felt like a battlefield and keep sieges. If that's horrible and boring, but you think live Cyrodiil where plan A is stacking so many HoTs and shields where you can ignore all incoming damage and plan B is resource/rock/tower hugging is the epitome of skill, planning, and engaging gameplay idk what to tell you.

I think ZOS could've done better letting players know the test was even happening by using in game announcements since the last couple of days when players came to check out the golden vendor zone chat was filled with players who knew nothing about the test. Hitting record numbers when you fail to advertise your test just shows how much potential Cyro has and puts a spotlight on how much they dropped the ball with live Cyro to where many PvPers myself included won't even touch it from how many issues they've let fester.

Yep, with Vengeance it will be whoever brings the most bodies wins, alliance stacking zerg heaven, how skillful!

This. I'm not sure how anyone can say vengeance was more "skillful" with how shallow the experience was. There was practically zero room to express skill. It compressed the skill floor and skill ceiling to a crawlspace, and unless they change how the target caps in Vengeance work, it will never be anything more then "the big zerg wins" because there will never be a way to fight against big groups.

That being said, live right now is also a hot mess, so pick your poison I guess. Do you want a lag filled Rush of Agony fest where you spend 30 minutes looking for a single fight that isn't against a ballgroup? Or do you want to zerg surf the night away on a server with perfect performance but not have any hope of fighting against a zerg without one of your own by your side?

Easy. Take two people of similar physical and athletic ability and put them in a ring. No weapons, gloves, body armor, or performance enhancers the winner will be the one with more applied combat experience. That's the biggest deciding factor and that's what Vengeance was. The more skilled player still came out on top 9 times out of 10. The simplified lack of expression is what made it a bigger skill check compared to live.

Expression is already an illusion of choice. Hybridization cut the number of builds in half, and subclassing further narrowed that expression to a few overperforming skill lines. Even if you stick to your main on an underperforming class you're most likely running at least one of these skill lines Assassination, Restoring Light, Storm Calling, Animal Companions, or Aedric Spear. 5% of people will try and make something work that fits in with the identity of their character like before when you had a handful of Necros and Arcs. While the other 95% will be some variation of Shalks, Incap, double Spec Bow and Streak away if that didn't work.

Sure, in an even number fight yes, the more skilled player came out on top in Vengeance; but there's almost never an even number fight, and Vengeance made it nigh impossible to fight heavily outnumbered due to target caps.

Sure, but even in live currently the fights are never even. They have a stream coming up in 30 minutes I think where they are going to talk about the next test. I expect to see more skill lines added and fingers crossed more siege. Siege can turn the tide in a fight easily.

Adding more skill lines and siege won't really change anything if theyre still dead set on target caps though - that's the problem.

Yes, fights are always uneven in Cyrodiil, and that's my point. On live you can at least time all your burst and hit an entire group of players to fight them outnumbered (and I'm not even talking about using Rush - people managed to fight outnumbered years before that was ever introduced).

Target caps inherently remove a layer of skill from the game. Want to target the healer in the group? Want to focus the squishier players down while still hitting the rest of the group? Too bad, youre running AoE skills so the game is going to pick 3 random targets for you. You successfully timed your ult dump with the rest of the group in a pro gamer combo you cooked up? Too bad, the game decided that you and your teammates all damaged different targets despite placing your AoEs in the exact same place.

Highwayman wrote: »

I don't understand the arguments for vengeance not being skilled. It seems to me it it just changes the necessary skill from largely strategic (group comp, build) to largely tactical (positioning, timing).

Additionally, it hasn't been around long enough for emergent systems to show themselves. There will be play options that present themselves after awhile that are not apparent right now.

Positioning and Timing mean nothing with target caps - that's why it's unskilled.

Awesome! Your group positioned yourselves perfectly, timed your ult dump together, and positioned all your aoes in the perfect place! Too bad the game picked 3 targets at random for each of you so none of your damage synced up and no one in that Zerg you're fighting died.

If there were no target caps then yes, Vengeance would lead to skillful tactics and gameplay. However when the game decides whom you get to damage with no way to decide that yourself, you're playing an RNG slot machine every time you ult dump.

I'm looking forward to this test. Hopefully the addition of weapon and assault/support skill lines will make up for the lack of class balance that was present in the first test. Skills also costing stamina will help with some of the sustain issues. Hopefully we get to see the addition of passives soon

LadyGP wrote: »

This. Test. Is. Not. To. Test. Systems. Or. How. Combat. Feels.

This. Is. Simple. A. PERFORMANCE. Related. Test.


I don't know how many more times, different ways, etc this can be said. The "skill" conversations literally has NOTHING to do with this test because it is NOT WHAT THEY ARE TESTING RIGHT NOW.

(takes a deep breath).

Yes, we are all aware this is a performance test - that doesn't mean it isn't important to point these things out though, because if we don't, we run the risk of it being implemented as-is (i.e., with target caps).

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

This. Test. Is. Not. To. Test. Systems. Or. How. Combat. Feels.

This. Is. Simple. A. PERFORMANCE. Related. Test.


I don't know how many more times, different ways, etc this can be said. The "skill" conversations literally has NOTHING to do with this test because it is NOT WHAT THEY ARE TESTING RIGHT NOW.

(takes a deep breath).

Yes, we are all aware this is a performance test - that doesn't mean it isn't important to point these things out though, because if we don't, we run the risk of it being implemented as-is (i.e., with target caps).

They have already said multiple times they aren't tyring to make cyro feel like this from a skill perspective.

I really had fun in the last one. Cryodiil in its normal day-to-day mode seems very dry and cliquey to me, especially since the population is on the smaller side compared to the size of the map.

Cooperharley wrote: »

Will this be just on PTS? I wish console players could participate.

I sort of wish we could too. I’d love to see the huge battles. Not sure how I feel about template characters, though. I’m not super meta but use a good build and make some changes to accommodate that I have to run a resto staff on the back bar for solo play and sieging. I’m not great at 1v1 but usually it’s more like 1v10 so it doesn’t matter.

Hope you guys get some good data from your Vengeance test.

Just Curious...

Who's idea was it to run a test during the middle of an event? Who thinks it is a smart decision to shut down the servers for several hours during said event? And why is it that every time something focused around PvP comes around non-PvPers get completely shafted while the opposite is not true?