StihlReign wrote: »

The healing for the Vengeance 2 test was definitely much stronger and revealed/confirmed core issues plaguing PvP performance on Live. We discovered early in the test it was rather easy to become almost unkillable, similar to live, and the sequence provided to test was incredibly simple. I removed the second ability for the remainder of the test after the first few hours.

That's because it's always been easy to survive with heals and damage shields in ESO PVP.... unless one runs out of resources or has little power.

IMO, a key problem most people have overlooked because they enjoy having it is how easy sustain is in ESO.

Another problem created by the wish of players was the reduction in snares and immobilizations while buffing movement speed. We could see during Vengeance how long players could LOS even without all of the speed buffs available to them normally.

Neither of these things were so easy the first couple of years. Remember how large an area the orginal caltrops covered?

No one likes running out of resources or being snared and immobilized, yet those things are essential tactical components.

My favorite iteration of Cyrodiil was 2.1 (IC) through 2.3 (TG) prior to the first heavy armor buff. Heavy armor was significantly buffed because casual PVE tanks had problems perma-blocking after the adjustments made to discourage it. The first heavy armor buff was absurd. Recent iterations corrected it, but from a PVP POV 2.1-era heavy armor was much better and completely balanced.

The only thing holding back Cyrodiil then was its performance and stability issues.

After 2.3, every update degraded PVP gameplay more and more. The heavy armor buff. More carry sets like the original earthgore. HP scaled heals and shields. As they made the PVE side of the game easier and easier, PVP gameplay completely fell apart.

Again, I love the core concept of the Vengeance: find a performant baseline and build from there without sacrificing performance. But the most recent template build is not one that results in quality. Bring us all the way back to 2015 when players had to run with 18-25k hp if they wanted enough power to do anything. When every decent build outside of gank builds had to consider sustain, yet would still run out of resources if they spammed abilities. When Stam had to be carefully managed to avoid a catastrophic stunlock. When perma-blocking flat out didn't work outside of highly specialized builds that had to sacrifice to have it.

And also, stop trying to design pvp for casual pve players!! They will never enjoy good pvp because good pvp results in a lot of losses. These are players not even willing to die in pve.

Despite the annoyance of greatly reduced sustain and more snares and immobilizations, that era of PVP was way more popular than it is now. We had much higher pop caps and had two main 30 day servers for years. We need to have veggies too, it can't all be cake.

Stridig wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

Just FYI. Results from surveys of first test. Just for fun.

I don't believe those numbers for a second. What I hear and see is the opposite of these numbers. Sometimes surveys can be pretty selectively read or interpreted and this is clearly one of those cases.

I do think the questions in this survey are very... interestingly chosen from a data analytics standpoint. IMO there are too many "I want to select this but I also want to select this and this".

The bottom of this survey though is extremly concerning. Skill/build diversity is one of the most important things in an MMO and keeps players coming back. They should be concerned about these numbers.

Just because you're having fun or enjoy the lag free experience (who doesn't have the last 7 years) doesn't mean you're heading in the right direction for a long term PvP experience.

You know what also performs good - a dead server.

What concerns me most about this post from ZOS is the fact that none of the data they shared has anything to do with why they say they're doing the "testing". Never once have they said they were doing a vengeance test to see how much "fun" people have. The data they chose to share leads me to believe that vengeance IS the long term plan and these numbers help build the case. Some PvPers (not many) like vengeance but those numbers really represent the PvE community who wants a PvE Cyrodiil. They'll get their wish soon enough it appears.

These numbers seem skewed to promote ZOS' chosen path forward. The poll results are the opposite of what I hear coming from the PvP community regarding vengeance mode. Something very wrong with these published numbers I think.

For those who were afraid the most recent test would go live, from the pts patch notes:



And from the wording it doesn't sound like this will be the final test either.

OccultOverload wrote: »

I really am getting tired of being forced to beta test on the live paid version of the game for them. It's clear that the event was designed for casual players, and while that's fine for new players being able to have fun without getting rolled over, it's been a monstrous letdown for the hardcore crowd.

The strategic depth which formerly defined PvP was gone—now it's just massive zergs engulfing everything, and small, veteran groups can't even dream of keeping up. Theorycrafting is a waste because the event level-flattens the power curve, and all the effort put into optimizing builds is for nothing.

The skill gap has more or less vanished, so outplaying someone no longer really feels rewarding. Secondly, the Vengeance-specific skills are slow and clunky, breaking up the smooth battle rhythm that ESO otherwise has. Everything leads one to believe that ZOS is embarking on a larger shift in direction—one toward short-term accessibility at the cost of long-term complexity. While it might attract new players for the short term, it could potentially scare off the hard-core vets who've kept the PvP community going for years.

For a lot of us, it feels like the core of competitive PvP is being ripped out, and that is a pill that will be more and more difficult to swallow the more we are forced to endure these "tests".

as a long time ravenwatch player I'm not having trouble in vengeance I have to disagree. then again with no proc no CP, I never relied on that to win

reazea wrote: »

I wonder how many "tests" before the PvP main crowd just stops logging on.

What, all 500 of them? Cyrodiil died a long time ago. What remains is a writhing corpse that fails at pretty much every level from performance to gameplay to its pop cap.

If player estimates of a per-faction pop cap of 80-100 players are correct and each platform/region can only poplock a single server, that's a minuscule audience.

It is an undeniably dead game mode already played by a fringe audience -- I would bet most are pve players there to level skill lines, grind transmutes, collect shards, get achievements, etc... if I'm there these days, it's just to level alliance war skills for trial pve.

Most actual pvp regulars don't even want to seem to fight each other most of the time. Watch pvp streams if you don't believe me. The last time I put effort into making a build and tried hard, it was either obliterating pve players, stalemates (SO MANY), or getting zerged down by practically invincible ball groups 99% of the time. I wanted so badly to like it, but it was horrible. And that was pre-scribing, so performance was better than it is today, but still intolerable.

Plus if the remaining Cyrodilic regulars haven't given up on the basis of what Cyrodiil is on a day to day basis, I doubt a 1 week test every couple of months is going to make much of a difference.

I have never seen Cyrodiil so dead before, this Vengeance nonsense was probably the worst thing I've ever seen in this game since before One Tamriel.
To bring it out RIGHT when Subclassing got put in the game was a choice, a bad one.

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

SadnessInSolace wrote: »

I have never seen Cyrodiil so dead before, this Vengeance nonsense was probably the worst thing I've ever seen in this game since before One Tamriel.
To bring it out RIGHT when Subclassing got put in the game was a choice, a bad one.

Wich server are you playing on ? PS EU?

From what I have heard PSEU was dead while PCEU was often population locked. Shame that cross play isn't a thing as it could have helped the PS community enjoy it more to be on a busier server.

Arrow312 wrote: »

What i heard and read here... PSEU and XEU (know it form my friends there) was nearly dead in case of PvP after a few days.

It was. Literally nothing going on, i was online daily and seen that „progress“