My Overly Honest Vengeance Report Card

The_Meathead · December 4

So, let me preface all of this by saying I loathe Templates in general, enjoy current (Grey Host) Cyrodiil tremendously, and am very conceptually against what Vengeance does to the customization I find integral to this game. I am absolutely not someone who's out to convince anyone else Vengeance is great and the path towards total success. What I am, however, is someone who's trying hard to give it a go and be objective in my analysis, because I feel (fear, frankly) it will end up being the eventual sole form of Cyrodiil. It's as if I didn't want what's been chosen for dinner, but feel like I should try it before I adamantly deny any potential of liking it because... well, you never know, right? So here we go:

PERFORMANCE: A
Performance is good, had some very very big fights that showed absolutely zero lag. Population seems enough to support the play, if not what it was the first "performance test" (yeah, I use those words lightly), though I think Vengeance's gameplay is so dependent on huge numbers to be any fun that it's gonna be really hard to keep them up without tremendous reward incentive to lure in those who don't normally PvP if it's possible at all.

I might even give it an A+, but I'm gonna hold off till I see it continue.

GAMEPLAY: C+, maybe even B- when it's really hopping?
Gameplay is ok-ish. It's not quite full-on bumper rails PvP like the first go, but it's not far removed. It's very smooth, but frankly so is normal Cyrodiil when Ballgroups aren't present, and the massive sieges and Zerg on Zerg really are fun. Stuff like mounting more readily and continued Repairing without needing to press another button are nice and should be in regular Cyrodiil, and I'm having fun when the action gets heavy and it's very easy to find.

I lose sight of how bland it is at times when I'm heavily immersed, but it IS bland by comparison to the standard. I eventually notice, each time I play. If Vengeance tops out at a B- for me, normal Cyrodiil ranges all the way up to a legit A at the best of times in my opinion, so it's a big gap, but I will say Vengeance feels very consistent - though that might just be because of the good-sized population that's currently participating, which is something I am dubious will remain.

CUSTOMIZATION: D+
The "builds" (again, I use that word lightly) are... better... than the past tests, but still very limited. I don't like how little true personalization is possible and miss my Sets, Passives, and CP for sculpting something that feels my own and suits me fully. There's some, but there could be a lot more and honestly it just makes me miss the norm as I try to cobble something together that has a real direction or intent.

I recognize how much effort has gone into adding options and how much more is there compared to earlier sessions (which I'd give a D- or even F on this), but it still feels incredibly cookie cutter and loses the meat of what I enjoy about this game. These aren't "my characters," and I feel that entirely too much. This isn't my account or personalized effort being put to use, this is a side game.

BALANCE: C-
It seems strange that class balance isn't something that's just baked-in perfection, given how much less arduous of a task if must be with this design, but anyone who is familiar enough and puts in some playtime can pick out a few outliers that are going to be problematic going forward if this is indeed how it's going to be. A Magblade build, for example, is just head and shoulders above damn near everyone else in small scale or 1v1, and it's no shock that I already see some names I'm VERY familiar with using that set up almost exclusively.

There's no real excuse for this, unless they wanna tell us they just haven't bothered with trying to fully balance things yet (which I'd buy.) I don't doubt that tweaking will happen over time, but without Sets or the ability to truly set up counter-Builds or specific types of opposition, some Classes (again, I'll use Magblade as an example) have such heavily baked in advantages, it's gonna be really obvious and cause frustration if things continue as they are.

OVERALL SCORE: C+
I don't hate it, though I want to.

I don't love it, though I'd honestly like to.

What I want is normal (Grey Host) Cyrodiil with some serious changes made to Ballgroups and whatever the mechanics, AddOns, or structural woes that make them tank server performance, with some major trimming to Heal/Shield stacking, problematic things like RoA and Warden Charm, and for that to be the big focus. That makes the most sense to me, and I don't get why reinventing the wheel was the priority.

I don't think I'd stick around for Vengeance-only. There's not enough of the RPG element I love present and it removes years of effort I've put into collecting Sets and building my characters for PvP, but if I'm being fully objective and not personal about it, the current Vengeance campaign is very functional and playing well if a little bland. I'd prefer it was used as an "on ramp" for those who want to dip their toe into PvP and that the real lion's share of focus went to Grey Host/standard Cyrodiil, but I'm trying (very hard!) not to color my evaluation with my personal preferences.

It IS better than past sessions. I've won many 1v2s, a 2v5 and a 2v4 and also gotten smoked in a 3v1 by a very talented opponent, for example, so player skill is more impactful this time when the opportunity presents. The Customization has improved as well, so you can at least get a hint of a flavor of your own character (ah, the La Croix of MMORPG play!), and the performance that is their biggest goal is definitely very good. The sieges are fun, but I've always been someone who really likes big zerg on zerg and the fighting that happens at the edges, so your mileage might vary a lot.

I think much like Subclassing, Hybridization, and some other decisions, Vengeance wasn't the path I'd have wanted ZOS to choose but just like those other things, if I'm gonna stick around I plan to make the most of them and enjoy them for what they do offer. If that isn't enough or if what I enjoy is just too gone from PvP, I'll move on.

Anyway, that's my take as a guy who doesn't like the base concept of Vengeance or Templates but is willing to put that aside and really try it once more.

How about you? What grades do you give?

Gabriel_H · December 4

The_Meathead wrote: »

What I want is normal (Grey Host) Cyrodiil with some serious changes made to Ballgroups and whatever the mechanics, AddOns, or structural woes that make them tank server performance, with some major trimming to Heal/Shield stacking, problematic things like RoA and Warden Charm, and for that to be the big focus. That makes the most sense to me, and I don't get why reinventing the wheel was the priority.

I just want to pick this out for a moment: You mention AddOns, and I've seen other people talk about this recently - AddOns do not affect the server, they are entirely client-side. So while it may affect an individual's performance it doesn't affect anyone else.

The problem with Cyro is the skills. They pared them back and the performance shot up. I'm not a particular fan of Vengeance, not so much the altered build, but rather it is too blunt an instrument. They've added back all the skill lines, and a chunk of them are pointless at present - weapon skills in particular have lost all utility and the function they had of applying poisons/enchants, and without the passives there is zero distinction between the weapons. It's dull.

There were other ways to address the skills overloading the servers. They could have trimmed the Heal/Shield stacking, but even that wouldn't be enough. They'd need to also limit DoT and AoE effects too. That could not be done with the skills as is, so whether it was Vengeance as is, or something more nuanced how the underlying skills behave would have to change.

I personally would advocate for ZOS to try a different test. Keeps the skills as they are normally, but limit the number of HoTs/DoTs, AoEs and Shields that can be active on a player at any one time. And just see what the performance is like. If it is comparable to Vengeance as is, then there would be no need to re-write entire skill lines but rather just the underlying mechanics. Try only one flame, frost, disease etc DoT/AoE allowed at any one time. See what the performance is.

In terms of balancing things, ZOS already broke the 4th wall by having some skills/sets affect monsters or players, they could expand that out so they can balance in PvP without affecting PvE.

YandereGirlfriend · December 5

Gabriel_H wrote: »

The_Meathead wrote: »

What I want is normal (Grey Host) Cyrodiil with some serious changes made to Ballgroups and whatever the mechanics, AddOns, or structural woes that make them tank server performance, with some major trimming to Heal/Shield stacking, problematic things like RoA and Warden Charm, and for that to be the big focus. That makes the most sense to me, and I don't get why reinventing the wheel was the priority.

I just want to pick this out for a moment: You mention AddOns, and I've seen other people talk about this recently - AddOns do not affect the server, they are entirely client-side. So while it may affect an individual's performance it doesn't affect anyone else.

The problem with Cyro is the skills. They pared them back and the performance shot up. I'm not a particular fan of Vengeance, not so much the altered build, but rather it is too blunt an instrument. They've added back all the skill lines, and a chunk of them are pointless at present - weapon skills in particular have lost all utility and the function they had of applying poisons/enchants, and without the passives there is zero distinction between the weapons. It's dull.

There were other ways to address the skills overloading the servers. They could have trimmed the Heal/Shield stacking, but even that wouldn't be enough. They'd need to also limit DoT and AoE effects too. That could not be done with the skills as is, so whether it was Vengeance as is, or something more nuanced how the underlying skills behave would have to change.

I personally would advocate for ZOS to try a different test. Keeps the skills as they are normally, but limit the number of HoTs/DoTs, AoEs and Shields that can be active on a player at any one time. And just see what the performance is like. If it is comparable to Vengeance as is, then there would be no need to re-write entire skill lines but rather just the underlying mechanics. Try only one flame, frost, disease etc DoT/AoE allowed at any one time. See what the performance is.

In terms of balancing things, ZOS already broke the 4th wall by having some skills/sets affect monsters or players, they could expand that out so they can balance in PvP without affecting PvE.

Data-sharing add-ons of the sort that principally ballgroups and super sweat small-mans use have an unknown performance impact on the server.

Nobody knows, not me, not you, not even likely ZOS themselves, what that actual impact is or is not. Which is why we should have a test where data-sharing at the very least is turned off in Cyrodiil - and to let the chips fall where they may.

We can all believe that we know the answer, but, as I love to remind people, we all thought that we knew that Map Pings had only a negligible performance impact and that turned out to be completely false. ZOS did not detect that, add-on devs did not detect that; it literally took a random user using Wireshark on their own home network to come forward and blow the whistle on it. Which should be a cautionary tale for the "data-sharing is lightweight" crowd.

Suspend your priors and approach the situation with an open mind. It could be that specifically data-sharing amongst ballgroups in high-population Cyrodiil fights has a particularly deleterious effect for reasons that we can only speculate at. But we'll never know until we actually test it and find out.

Vulkunne · December 5

Just finally found some time to try this one out. Traditionally, I've played a DK, and this time tried a Templar.

So, lemme see. I don't want to come off as a negative nelly but the gameplay as anything other than like maybe a DK or Necro is bad. It's not bad because I don't like Vengeance its bad because of... well watch how this works...

Remember those ball groups from before? Now they've been replaced by...

a) Flash mobs all frequently using CC in their attacks coupled with the fact that...
b) You have virtually no mitigation and no skill defensive bonuses annnnnd worst of all...
c) Those little niche bonuses are awful. They're kind of mean. Do I want 3% Health or another 1.4kish armor. Really?

Do I get a little wine with that cheese huh?

It doesn't work when you pool all of this together. There's just too much CC. Sooo this means the net result is, you guessed it, the same. Good guess. The gameplay is just as bad. I can kind of understand taking enormous damage from an artillery blast, ok, so that is o.k., but it sucks. I have no time to react; I have no armor to protect and no real bonuses from skills to make up for that. It's a bad combination and not the replacement I would recommend.

Personally, I view Vengeance as a steppingstone to addressing Cyrodiil issues so once again, for that purpose I am glad we're testing. But at same time, I still agree with others that we need to keep at a minimum Grayhost and potentially Blackreach too. I really do not feel it is wise to get rid of them.

I do have hope that in time Vengeance will improve and I don't hate it. But for right now I can't take 5 steps in Arrius without getting CC'd to death. There are just not enough options to cover a break free and counterattack. No real options to reliably escape getting surrounded by a server's worth of angry CCers. The old problems are still there but different direction. It seems eliminating the ball groups, doesn't necessarily fix the abusive gameplay. Which comes has no surprise to me.

YandereGirlfriend · December 5

Vulkunne wrote: »

Just finally found some time to try this one out. Traditionally, I've played a DK, and this time tried a Templar.

So, lemme see. I don't want to come off as a negative nelly but the gameplay as anything other than like maybe a DK or Necro is bad. It's not bad because I don't like Vengeance its bad because of... well watch how this works...

Remember those ball groups from before? Now they've been replaced by...

a) Flash mobs all frequently using CC in their attacks coupled with the fact that...
b) You have virtually no mitigation and no skill defensive bonuses annnnnd worst of all...
c) Those little niche bonuses are awful. They're kind of mean. Do I want 3% Health or another 1.7kish armor. Really?

Do I get a little wine with that cheese huh?

It doesn't work when you pool all of this together. There's just too much CC. Sooo this means the net result is, you guessed it, the same. Good guess. The gameplay is just as bad. I can kind of understand taking enormous damage from an artillery blast, ok, so that is o.k., but it sucks. I have no time to react; I have no armor to protect and no real bonuses from skills to make up for that. It's a bad combination and not the replacement I would recommend.

Personally, I view Vengeance as a steppingstone to addressing Cyrodiil issues so once again, for that purpose I am glad we're testing. But at same time, I still agree with others that we need to keep at a minimum Grayhost and potentially Blackreach too. I really do not feel it is wise to get rid of them.

I do have hope that in time Vengeance will improve and I don't hate it. But for right now I can't take 5 steps in Arrius without getting CC'd to death. There are just not enough options to cover a break free and counterattack. No real options to reliably escape getting surrounded by a server's worth of angry CCers. The old problems are still there but different direction. It seems eliminating the ball groups, doesn't necessarily fix the abusive gameplay. Which comes has no surprise to me.

Exactly.

Balance is crazily weighted toward mindlessly spamming CC and those classes that have easy CC in their toolkit, like DKs, are the most oppressive.

Like, DKs can Talons you every 3 seconds and you have to Dodge-Roll or use like Alliance Purge (a godly expensive skill) in order to remove it? Literally no dedicated abilities exist to cleanse or provide immunity to it? Bruh.

It should be the other way around. CC abilities should be godly expensive (and never deal damage on their own) so that you have to actually plan and be intentional with its use as part of an actual thoughtful combo - not simply spam it on everything, all the time, as the solution to every scenario.

Gotta take that one back to the lab again, ZOS.

xylena · December 5

DK chain pull spam is the Rushing Agony of Vengeance, nothing but a "haha screw you in particular" to solos while doing nothing to move the needle in large scale. Delete this garbage. DK needs better class identity in Vengeance since generic dots give NB just as much pressure.

NB is cracked as usual. Jack of all trades, master of all. Infinite resources, burst heal invisibility on a short cooldown, burst nuke damage on a short cooldown, and dot pressure fueled by the loaded Cripple. No reason to play anything else for offensive solo/smallscale.

Fall damage is idiotic. Jump off the roof, survive. Run down the stairs, die. Forget the yellow perk. Nerf fall damage into the ground. Nonsensical + punishing = rage quit. Base movement speed could stand to be slightly faster.

Otherwise it's a big improvement over the previous test, faster paced TTK, stronger siege damage and siege engine variety, more dynamic siege battles with less heal blobbing, reasonable build options without introducing gross power creep.

Gabriel_H · December 5

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Data-sharing add-ons of the sort that principally ballgroups and super sweat small-mans use have an unknown performance impact on the server.

Nobody knows, not me, not you, not even likely ZOS themselves, what that actual impact is or is not. Which is why we should have a test where data-sharing at the very least is turned off in Cyrodiil - and to let the chips fall where they may.

What the data-sharing addons do is retrieve information that is already on the server. They then calculate and process that data client-side. The only impact on the server is the request for what amounts to a tiny piece of data vs everything else that is going on - it's like someone pouring a glass of water into a flood that is already neck high.

And of course ZOS know. They can see the server requests for the API.

Faltasë · December 5

I think vengeance is so boring unless you're actively in a zerg or big group.

Sure, my evidence is anecdotal, but on an earlier build of vengeance i remember being unable to kill people as a solo sorcerer. Like if i was one v one to someone else, often times if we are both of equal skill... no one dies. It would always take a second enemy or a second teammate for anyone to make a difference in the field.

I'm not particularly sure how Zerging being the only effective method to get upward momentum in PvP is the best route to take.

Yudo · December 5

You cannot convince me loadout and perks do anything, a 10% shift in this or that. Yeah purely cosmetic and boring.

Vulkunne · December 5

xylena wrote: »

DK chain pull spam is the Rushing Agony of Vengeance, nothing but a "haha screw you in particular" to solos while doing nothing to move the needle in large scale. Delete this garbage. DK needs better class identity in Vengeance since generic dots give NB just as much pressure.

NB is cracked as usual. Jack of all trades, master of all. Infinite resources, burst heal invisibility on a short cooldown, burst nuke damage on a short cooldown, and dot pressure fueled by the loaded Cripple. No reason to play anything else for offensive solo/smallscale.

Fall damage is idiotic. Jump off the roof, survive. Run down the stairs, die. Forget the yellow perk. Nerf fall damage into the ground. Nonsensical + punishing = rage quit. Base movement speed could stand to be slightly faster.

Otherwise it's a big improvement over the previous test, faster paced TTK, stronger siege damage and siege engine variety, more dynamic siege battles with less heal blobbing, reasonable build options without introducing gross power creep.

Hah. This is great. Thanks for sharing.

Vulkunne · December 5

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

Just finally found some time to try this one out. Traditionally, I've played a DK, and this time tried a Templar.

So, lemme see. I don't want to come off as a negative nelly but the gameplay as anything other than like maybe a DK or Necro is bad. It's not bad because I don't like Vengeance its bad because of... well watch how this works...

Remember those ball groups from before? Now they've been replaced by...

a) Flash mobs all frequently using CC in their attacks coupled with the fact that...
b) You have virtually no mitigation and no skill defensive bonuses annnnnd worst of all...
c) Those little niche bonuses are awful. They're kind of mean. Do I want 3% Health or another 1.7kish armor. Really?

Do I get a little wine with that cheese huh?

It doesn't work when you pool all of this together. There's just too much CC. Sooo this means the net result is, you guessed it, the same. Good guess. The gameplay is just as bad. I can kind of understand taking enormous damage from an artillery blast, ok, so that is o.k., but it sucks. I have no time to react; I have no armor to protect and no real bonuses from skills to make up for that. It's a bad combination and not the replacement I would recommend.

Personally, I view Vengeance as a steppingstone to addressing Cyrodiil issues so once again, for that purpose I am glad we're testing. But at same time, I still agree with others that we need to keep at a minimum Grayhost and potentially Blackreach too. I really do not feel it is wise to get rid of them.

I do have hope that in time Vengeance will improve and I don't hate it. But for right now I can't take 5 steps in Arrius without getting CC'd to death. There are just not enough options to cover a break free and counterattack. No real options to reliably escape getting surrounded by a server's worth of angry CCers. The old problems are still there but different direction. It seems eliminating the ball groups, doesn't necessarily fix the abusive gameplay. Which comes has no surprise to me.

Exactly.

Balance is crazily weighted toward mindlessly spamming CC and those classes that have easy CC in their toolkit, like DKs, are the most oppressive.

Like, DKs can Talons you every 3 seconds and you have to Dodge-Roll or use like Alliance Purge (a godly expensive skill) in order to remove it? Literally no dedicated abilities exist to cleanse or provide immunity to it? Bruh.

It should be the other way around. CC abilities should be godly expensive (and never deal damage on their own) so that you have to actually plan and be intentional with its use as part of an actual thoughtful combo - not simply spam it on everything, all the time, as the solution to every scenario.

Gotta take that one back to the lab again, ZOS.

I agree for most part. What they have isn't really that bad, it isn't terrible, but it gets kind of old fast with so much CC flying around from mobs of angry little reds charging from 3 different directions. Some CC is fine, but it just seems a bit too much. Little more refinement would def help out. Adding things like Race Against Time... to me... seems like a reasonable work around vs the expensive Rapids skill which I hate using.

Another thing I don't like is how Templar Cleansing Ritual does not affect allies. Rapids and the Alliance Purge are so expensive, in my opinion.... slot wise also somewhat unwieldy and so I have basically dismissed both of these from my builds, except I still use Eff Purge in some instances where in those cases it is a good fit actually. But Rapids is just awwwwful.

The_Meathead · December 5

The bonus AP is nice, but it's really the only big reason I'll play and not just sit out till GH comes back.

I've given a very open-minded go, tried hard to embrace what there is to embrace, but... it just makes me miss my own build and control over my character far too much. People talk about the meta being a problem in current PvP, but if Vengeance comes to be in this form, the Meta is literally going to be "pick NB for your class." It makes the small scale fighting completely unfun, and you can't set up to effectively counter it because... well.. it's Vengeance.

I understand the intent of increased Performance, and I get why some players who don't fully jive with current Cyrodiil want this to come to pass (let's face it, Ballgroups, RoA, Warden Charm, and such ARE oppressive misery, so most of us feel that way at times.) Vengeance isn't the solution, though. You give up too much to get rid of those things imo. The solution is making the necessary changes to current/GH Cyrodiil, and the post by Jessica on page 12 of Community Update - Vengeance thread is the first time I can remember green text truly addressing Ballgroups and Heal/Shield stacking so directly, let alone talking about how they can/will be countered with Battle Spirit.

So...

Man, I tried hard to give Vengeance an open mind, but it's not for me. It's a side game, and that's not good enough.

Here's hoping the good that comes of the testing it provided does something good for PvP as a whole, and the fact they've finally put Ballgroups/stacked HoTs/Shields on the radar means we'll see some real improvement on the Campaign where we don't have to toss everything we've ever learned or earned out the window to play.

LennaTheRussian · December 5

It can be fun but it quickly loses it's steam once an enemy faction has more numbers than yours. It's almost impossible to win when you're outnumbered. Which is also the case in normal cyrodiil too but it's worse here since there's more people and no bombs.

Also I don't know if this is the average experience for people in Vengeance but I have an RTX2050 and oof the fps in a big fight, but that's not really a knock for Vengeance.

The_Meathead · December 5

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Nobody knows, not me, not you, not even likely ZOS themselves, what that actual impact is or is not. Which is why we should have a test where data-sharing at the very least is turned off in Cyrodiil - and to let the chips fall where they may.

We can all believe that we know the answer, but, as I love to remind people, we all thought that we knew that Map Pings had only a negligible performance impact and that turned out to be completely false. ZOS did not detect that, add-on devs did not detect that; it literally took a random user using Wireshark on their own home network to come forward and blow the whistle on it. Which should be a cautionary tale for the "data-sharing is lightweight" crowd.

Suspend your priors and approach the situation with an open mind. It could be that specifically data-sharing amongst ballgroups in high-population Cyrodiil fights has a particularly deleterious effect for reasons that we can only speculate at. But we'll never know until we actually test it and find out.

Thank you for sharing this, YG.

I vaguely remembered the Map Pings thing and it's exactly why I don't ever fully buy that there's no chance that AddOns have an impact on a Campaign's performance.

I rarely if ever see significant or even noticeable lag in Cyrodiil and never see any at all unless a Ballgroup or, more typically, multiple Ballgroups are present. Big zerg on zerg doesn't impact me in the slightest, no matter how huge. It's only when a Ballgroup comes in that I can see something occur, and even then, it's far more likely with two+ or (and this always makes me wonder) with very specific BGs. There's also one small group on DC in Grey Host that was causing noteworthy lag for a lot of us a couple months back, per Zone chat mentions and rants, and that's always made me suspicious of something along these lines as well.

Appreciate you responding and saying what I couldn't quite remember, and you're right - it's worth close scrutiny. If Gabriel is right and there's nothing there, then great! But it's happened at least once in the past, and I think there's reasonable correlation to at least really pay heavy attention to the possibility, even if correlation doesn't always equal causation.

Seems like they're finally acknowledging how impactful BGs can be on performance, though, so hopefully all reasons are uncovered and corrected, whatever they may be.

Durham · December 5

The_Meathead wrote: »

So, let me preface all of this by saying I loathe Templates in general, enjoy current (Grey Host) Cyrodiil tremendously, and am very conceptually against what Vengeance does to the customization I find integral to this game. I am absolutely not someone who's out to convince anyone else Vengeance is great and the path towards total success. What I am, however, is someone who's trying hard to give it a go and be objective in my analysis, because I feel (fear, frankly) it will end up being the eventual sole form of Cyrodiil. It's as if I didn't want what's been chosen for dinner, but feel like I should try it before I adamantly deny any potential of liking it because... well, you never know, right? So here we go:

PERFORMANCE: A
Performance is good, had some very very big fights that showed absolutely zero lag. Population seems enough to support the play, if not what it was the first "performance test" (yeah, I use those words lightly), though I think Vengeance's gameplay is so dependent on huge numbers to be any fun that it's gonna be really hard to keep them up without tremendous reward incentive to lure in those who don't normally PvP if it's possible at all.

I might even give it an A+, but I'm gonna hold off till I see it continue.

GAMEPLAY: C+, maybe even B- when it's really hopping?
Gameplay is ok-ish. It's not quite full-on bumper rails PvP like the first go, but it's not far removed. It's very smooth, but frankly so is normal Cyrodiil when Ballgroups aren't present, and the massive sieges and Zerg on Zerg really are fun. Stuff like mounting more readily and continued Repairing without needing to press another button are nice and should be in regular Cyrodiil, and I'm having fun when the action gets heavy and it's very easy to find.

I lose sight of how bland it is at times when I'm heavily immersed, but it IS bland by comparison to the standard. I eventually notice, each time I play. If Vengeance tops out at a B- for me, normal Cyrodiil ranges all the way up to a legit A at the best of times in my opinion, so it's a big gap, but I will say Vengeance feels very consistent - though that might just be because of the good-sized population that's currently participating, which is something I am dubious will remain.

CUSTOMIZATION: D+
The "builds" (again, I use that word lightly) are... better... than the past tests, but still very limited. I don't like how little true personalization is possible and miss my Sets, Passives, and CP for sculpting something that feels my own and suits me fully. There's some, but there could be a lot more and honestly it just makes me miss the norm as I try to cobble something together that has a real direction or intent.

I recognize how much effort has gone into adding options and how much more is there compared to earlier sessions (which I'd give a D- or even F on this), but it still feels incredibly cookie cutter and loses the meat of what I enjoy about this game. These aren't "my characters," and I feel that entirely too much. This isn't my account or personalized effort being put to use, this is a side game.

BALANCE: C-
It seems strange that class balance isn't something that's just baked-in perfection, given how much less arduous of a task if must be with this design, but anyone who is familiar enough and puts in some playtime can pick out a few outliers that are going to be problematic going forward if this is indeed how it's going to be. A Magblade build, for example, is just head and shoulders above damn near everyone else in small scale or 1v1, and it's no shock that I already see some names I'm VERY familiar with using that set up almost exclusively.

There's no real excuse for this, unless they wanna tell us they just haven't bothered with trying to fully balance things yet (which I'd buy.) I don't doubt that tweaking will happen over time, but without Sets or the ability to truly set up counter-Builds or specific types of opposition, some Classes (again, I'll use Magblade as an example) have such heavily baked in advantages, it's gonna be really obvious and cause frustration if things continue as they are.

OVERALL SCORE: C+
I don't hate it, though I want to.

I don't love it, though I'd honestly like to.

What I want is normal (Grey Host) Cyrodiil with some serious changes made to Ballgroups and whatever the mechanics, AddOns, or structural woes that make them tank server performance, with some major trimming to Heal/Shield stacking, problematic things like RoA and Warden Charm, and for that to be the big focus. That makes the most sense to me, and I don't get why reinventing the wheel was the priority.

I don't think I'd stick around for Vengeance-only. There's not enough of the RPG element I love present and it removes years of effort I've put into collecting Sets and building my characters for PvP, but if I'm being fully objective and not personal about it, the current Vengeance campaign is very functional and playing well if a little bland. I'd prefer it was used as an "on ramp" for those who want to dip their toe into PvP and that the real lion's share of focus went to Grey Host/standard Cyrodiil, but I'm trying (very hard!) not to color my evaluation with my personal preferences.

It IS better than past sessions. I've won many 1v2s, a 2v5 and a 2v4 and also gotten smoked in a 3v1 by a very talented opponent, for example, so player skill is more impactful this time when the opportunity presents. The Customization has improved as well, so you can at least get a hint of a flavor of your own character (ah, the La Croix of MMORPG play!), and the performance that is their biggest goal is definitely very good. The sieges are fun, but I've always been someone who really likes big zerg on zerg and the fighting that happens at the edges, so your mileage might vary a lot.

I think much like Subclassing, Hybridization, and some other decisions, Vengeance wasn't the path I'd have wanted ZOS to choose but just like those other things, if I'm gonna stick around I plan to make the most of them and enjoy them for what they do offer. If that isn't enough or if what I enjoy is just too gone from PvP, I'll move on.

Anyway, that's my take as a guy who doesn't like the base concept of Vengeance or Templates but is willing to put that aside and really try it once more.

How about you? What grades do you give?

for me

Performance A
Gameplay C- (currently), If I played this for a couple of months of this I could see myself giving it (D)
Customization D- This is more of a FPS set up.
Balance D (Nightblade)

I give an overall score of C- with it becoming a D+ over time due to lack of depth.

The_Meathead · December 5

Durham wrote: »

for me

Performance A
Gameplay C- (currently), If I played this for a couple of months of this I could see myself giving it (D)
Customization D- This is more of a FPS set up.
Balance D (Nightblade)

I give an overall score of C- with it becoming a D+ over time due to lack of depth.

Yeah, if I was to edit my initial scoring after another day (and especially after more small action NBs haha), I'd probably agree very closely with this.

Any time it's not just a massive number of players in one place, the flaws shine brighter.

MorallyBipolar · December 5

Vengeance will always get an F from me.

ZOS is supposed to be working on fixing Grey Host.....you know, like they've told us for more than a decade they were doing.

imPDA · December 5

Gabriel_H wrote: »

What the data-sharing addons do is retrieve information that is already on the server

It depends on the way we define "already on the server". If you mean the data available via the usual API - no, data-sharing addons can share anything. It is basically a raw stream of data, and you can send and receive things that were not intended to be shared - for example, the DPS of every team member. If I am not mistaken, there is no default API to get the DPS of every group member - that is why Hodor exists; it provides this feature.

But I tend to agree with the point about performance. It was already stated that this feature can be disabled if it causes trouble, so I believe it is monitored. If not - I would like to see a test with this feature disabled - it shouldn't take much time to set up. Idk, maybe the dev team will see this question and settle the controversy?

My honest report:
While I am not playing Vengeance this test, a couple of friends of mine joined and tested it on the first day, and they said it is the same as it was before. The problem and blessing of Vengeance - it diminishes the ability of good players to play better, and it increases the ability of bad players to play better, it homogenizes players because there is not much difference in builds. Pugs become more tanky, harder to kill because there is not enough damage to outperform healing, and AOE is limited to 3 targets (correct me if I am wrong), so you can't nuke a group with stacked damage.

Previously, you could play full-damage risky builds, where you had to know the flow and when to charge and retreat, but you were able to kill a group of players or part of it - high risk, high reward. Or you could play solo, capturing a resource and waiting for people to come and kill them one by one, etc, etc. I know it is not the gameplay everyone likes, and it is probably mostly hated (by dead haters), but it is top-skill content, which required a lot of experience and game sense, and this playstyle is respected by me.

In the current Vengeance - you just can't do it. With all your skill, you will be limited by the game design. If I had seen this type of PvP when I started playing in Cyrodiil, I would never have invested my time into it. It is soy. It is boring. It is like a modern, simple indie team game - good to learn fast, reach peak performance, kill some time and leave, then enter another indie game. It has no replayability.

Yes, I like being unkillable while still being able to nuke a group one by one; I like playing in a 2/3/4-man group being able to nuke a 12-person group, and I think that is fair. Just as a less experienced football team (or any other competitive activity) loses, less experienced PvP players lose. Yes, I don't like when players homogenized, it was done multiple times over last N years tho.

If you like Vengeance, I am OK with that - I understand why you like it - but I am not going to play it. It is subjective after all, and I am trying to express my vision and say what I personally like and why I played this game. I am waiting for the other medium-size PvP option. There are no details on it, but it is the only thing I can wait for to probably change the gameplay, as GH will never be fixed according to ZOS, and my thoughts on Vengeance are as I just expressed above.

LadyGP · December 5

They lost me when they said they were going to have loadouts.

I didn't have Cyrodiil becoming Battlefield 6 on ym bingo card but here we are.

mdjessup4906 · December 6

Ill be popping my necro in vengeance to hopefully finish out his alliance line. As a primary pver its nice to just be able to jump in and fight instead of being reduced to keep repair duty if you dont have a build ready.

In theory. Apparently necro sucks in vengeance too

katanagirl1 · December 7

Thanks for the info, I don’t think anyone here is on PS so this has got to be the PC version of Vengeance.

Many times before the campaign started, people have been posting in various zone text chats to boycott Vengeance. That was not my intent, but I just can’t get the enthusiasm to participate.

I was planning to play Vengeance this week, but first seeing all three factions at zero bars made me not want to bother, then seeing EP at one bar and everyone else at zero bars solidified the deal.

I hope you don’t kill Cyrodiil for good for us on PS NA with this last test. We’ve been hurting for a long time.

heaven13 · December 7

Durham wrote: »

The_Meathead wrote: »

So, let me preface all of this by saying I loathe Templates in general, enjoy current (Grey Host) Cyrodiil tremendously, and am very conceptually against what Vengeance does to the customization I find integral to this game. I am absolutely not someone who's out to convince anyone else Vengeance is great and the path towards total success. What I am, however, is someone who's trying hard to give it a go and be objective in my analysis, because I feel (fear, frankly) it will end up being the eventual sole form of Cyrodiil. It's as if I didn't want what's been chosen for dinner, but feel like I should try it before I adamantly deny any potential of liking it because... well, you never know, right? So here we go:

PERFORMANCE: A
Performance is good, had some very very big fights that showed absolutely zero lag. Population seems enough to support the play, if not what it was the first "performance test" (yeah, I use those words lightly), though I think Vengeance's gameplay is so dependent on huge numbers to be any fun that it's gonna be really hard to keep them up without tremendous reward incentive to lure in those who don't normally PvP if it's possible at all.

I might even give it an A+, but I'm gonna hold off till I see it continue.

GAMEPLAY: C+, maybe even B- when it's really hopping?
Gameplay is ok-ish. It's not quite full-on bumper rails PvP like the first go, but it's not far removed. It's very smooth, but frankly so is normal Cyrodiil when Ballgroups aren't present, and the massive sieges and Zerg on Zerg really are fun. Stuff like mounting more readily and continued Repairing without needing to press another button are nice and should be in regular Cyrodiil, and I'm having fun when the action gets heavy and it's very easy to find.

I lose sight of how bland it is at times when I'm heavily immersed, but it IS bland by comparison to the standard. I eventually notice, each time I play. If Vengeance tops out at a B- for me, normal Cyrodiil ranges all the way up to a legit A at the best of times in my opinion, so it's a big gap, but I will say Vengeance feels very consistent - though that might just be because of the good-sized population that's currently participating, which is something I am dubious will remain.

CUSTOMIZATION: D+
The "builds" (again, I use that word lightly) are... better... than the past tests, but still very limited. I don't like how little true personalization is possible and miss my Sets, Passives, and CP for sculpting something that feels my own and suits me fully. There's some, but there could be a lot more and honestly it just makes me miss the norm as I try to cobble something together that has a real direction or intent.

I recognize how much effort has gone into adding options and how much more is there compared to earlier sessions (which I'd give a D- or even F on this), but it still feels incredibly cookie cutter and loses the meat of what I enjoy about this game. These aren't "my characters," and I feel that entirely too much. This isn't my account or personalized effort being put to use, this is a side game.

BALANCE: C-
It seems strange that class balance isn't something that's just baked-in perfection, given how much less arduous of a task if must be with this design, but anyone who is familiar enough and puts in some playtime can pick out a few outliers that are going to be problematic going forward if this is indeed how it's going to be. A Magblade build, for example, is just head and shoulders above damn near everyone else in small scale or 1v1, and it's no shock that I already see some names I'm VERY familiar with using that set up almost exclusively.

There's no real excuse for this, unless they wanna tell us they just haven't bothered with trying to fully balance things yet (which I'd buy.) I don't doubt that tweaking will happen over time, but without Sets or the ability to truly set up counter-Builds or specific types of opposition, some Classes (again, I'll use Magblade as an example) have such heavily baked in advantages, it's gonna be really obvious and cause frustration if things continue as they are.

OVERALL SCORE: C+
I don't hate it, though I want to.

I don't love it, though I'd honestly like to.

What I want is normal (Grey Host) Cyrodiil with some serious changes made to Ballgroups and whatever the mechanics, AddOns, or structural woes that make them tank server performance, with some major trimming to Heal/Shield stacking, problematic things like RoA and Warden Charm, and for that to be the big focus. That makes the most sense to me, and I don't get why reinventing the wheel was the priority.

I don't think I'd stick around for Vengeance-only. There's not enough of the RPG element I love present and it removes years of effort I've put into collecting Sets and building my characters for PvP, but if I'm being fully objective and not personal about it, the current Vengeance campaign is very functional and playing well if a little bland. I'd prefer it was used as an "on ramp" for those who want to dip their toe into PvP and that the real lion's share of focus went to Grey Host/standard Cyrodiil, but I'm trying (very hard!) not to color my evaluation with my personal preferences.

It IS better than past sessions. I've won many 1v2s, a 2v5 and a 2v4 and also gotten smoked in a 3v1 by a very talented opponent, for example, so player skill is more impactful this time when the opportunity presents. The Customization has improved as well, so you can at least get a hint of a flavor of your own character (ah, the La Croix of MMORPG play!), and the performance that is their biggest goal is definitely very good. The sieges are fun, but I've always been someone who really likes big zerg on zerg and the fighting that happens at the edges, so your mileage might vary a lot.

I think much like Subclassing, Hybridization, and some other decisions, Vengeance wasn't the path I'd have wanted ZOS to choose but just like those other things, if I'm gonna stick around I plan to make the most of them and enjoy them for what they do offer. If that isn't enough or if what I enjoy is just too gone from PvP, I'll move on.

Anyway, that's my take as a guy who doesn't like the base concept of Vengeance or Templates but is willing to put that aside and really try it once more.

How about you? What grades do you give?

for me

Performance A
Gameplay C- (currently), If I played this for a couple of months of this I could see myself giving it (D)
Customization D- This is more of a FPS set up.
Balance D (Nightblade)

I give an overall score of C- with it becoming a D+ over time due to lack of depth.

Pretty much agree with all of this.