SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »In every post, every livestream, and every statement ZOS has made it very clear that the purpose of the Vengeance tests is to test Vengeance.
But this isn’t true at all. We were all gaslit into believing the purpose of Vengeance was to tackle the issues in normal Cyrodiil. Never was it ever announced that Vengeance would one day be a permanent gamemode.
Exactly! It's like people have some weird amnesia or something.
Can you tell me where they said this?
Can you get me a link? A quote where a ZOS dev says the purpose of Vengeance is to apply the results to improve Greyhost?
Everyone talks as if it's an undisputable fact. But it's not on OP's screenshot, and it's not on anything I have ever read.
Everyone who's been following this issue from the beginning knows what ZOS' original statement of purpose was with vengeance. If the posts aren't still in the announcements section of the forum it's because the threads have been deleted or just moved down the list so far they're distant history, but I'm sure they can be found if you search for them.
SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »Definitely not. And the fact people are voting yes baffles me. “Do you feel that the ZOS devs have been honest about the original intent of the Vengeance Campaign?” - how have they been truthful? Man, this community…
I'm not understanding how anyone can see this any other way. ZOS said one thing all the while intending to do another. It's not ambiguous even in the remotest sense.
There must be some psychological phenomenon at play here.
spartaxoxo wrote: »That said they amount of iterative development certainly makes them lying about it a possibility too. Like, who needs to create perks and load outs for a temporary test? That also doesn't make much sense to me.
SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »In every post, every livestream, and every statement ZOS has made it very clear that the purpose of the Vengeance tests is to test Vengeance.
But this isn’t true at all. We were all gaslit into believing the purpose of Vengeance was to tackle the issues in normal Cyrodiil. Never was it ever announced that Vengeance would one day be a permanent gamemode.
Exactly! It's like people have some weird amnesia or something.
Can you tell me where they said this?
Can you get me a link? A quote where a ZOS dev says the purpose of Vengeance is to apply the results to improve Greyhost?
Everyone talks as if it's an undisputable fact. But it's not on OP's screenshot, and it's not on anything I have ever read.
Everyone who's been following this issue from the beginning knows what ZOS' original statement of purpose was with vengeance. If the posts aren't still in the announcements section of the forum it's because the threads have been deleted or just moved down the list so far they're distant history, but I'm sure they can be found if you search for them.
So all your evidence was deleted? How convenient.
I insist. Get us a screenshot or quote where ZOS claims the purpose of Vengeance is to improve Greyhost.
SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »In every post, every livestream, and every statement ZOS has made it very clear that the purpose of the Vengeance tests is to test Vengeance.
But this isn’t true at all. We were all gaslit into believing the purpose of Vengeance was to tackle the issues in normal Cyrodiil. Never was it ever announced that Vengeance would one day be a permanent gamemode.
Exactly! It's like people have some weird amnesia or something.
Can you tell me where they said this?
Can you get me a link? A quote where a ZOS dev says the purpose of Vengeance is to apply the results to improve Greyhost?
Everyone talks as if it's an undisputable fact. But it's not on OP's screenshot, and it's not on anything I have ever read.
Everyone who's been following this issue from the beginning knows what ZOS' original statement of purpose was with vengeance. If the posts aren't still in the announcements section of the forum it's because the threads have been deleted or just moved down the list so far they're distant history, but I'm sure they can be found if you search for them.
So all your evidence was deleted? How convenient.
I insist. Get us a screenshot or quote where ZOS claims the purpose of Vengeance is to improve Greyhost.
You can do your own homework.
SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »In every post, every livestream, and every statement ZOS has made it very clear that the purpose of the Vengeance tests is to test Vengeance.
But this isn’t true at all. We were all gaslit into believing the purpose of Vengeance was to tackle the issues in normal Cyrodiil. Never was it ever announced that Vengeance would one day be a permanent gamemode.
Exactly! It's like people have some weird amnesia or something.
Can you tell me where they said this?
Can you get me a link? A quote where a ZOS dev says the purpose of Vengeance is to apply the results to improve Greyhost?
Everyone talks as if it's an undisputable fact. But it's not on OP's screenshot, and it's not on anything I have ever read.
Everyone who's been following this issue from the beginning knows what ZOS' original statement of purpose was with vengeance. If the posts aren't still in the announcements section of the forum it's because the threads have been deleted or just moved down the list so far they're distant history, but I'm sure they can be found if you search for them.
So all your evidence was deleted? How convenient.
I insist. Get us a screenshot or quote where ZOS claims the purpose of Vengeance is to improve Greyhost.
You can do your own homework.
I'm not the one accusing the devs of lying. The burden of proof is on the accuser.
moderatelyfatman wrote: »So this was the announcement from March 22nd:
In particular the phrase: "Anything you see that's enabled or disabled during this test is purely for the sake of performance and getting calculations as low as possible on the server." emphasises to the players that Vengeance I was purely for testing.
Yet out of the two Tests so far, we are yet to see any testing on the Grey Host and Blackreach Campaign or even a test campaign with some minor disabling of features that can still preserve the majority of the original campaigns. The devs should have a pretty decent idea of what is causing the performance drop and an improvement of as little as 5% per player could be enough to pull Cyrodiil back into a playable state.
This lack of interest in testing these fixes in a regular campaign indicate to me the Vengeance Testing was less about fixing existing campaigns and introducing the Vengeance campaign.
ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »(The following answer was provided by our Engineering team.)Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »I understand that the team has stated that Gray Host can never be performant with higher player numbers in their eyes. However as players we have seen a massive increase to performance around the time that the servers first got upgraded on both NA and EU. This performance slowly over time degraded but was seen on both servers directly after the upgrades. To us players it feels like directly after the upgrade the servers were on a higher performance mode or package and they have been downgraded. It could also be as a result of more and more sets being added like Mara's balm etc. but this wouldn't really explain why things got better on EU after their upgrades considering the upgrades were quite far apart and NA performance was already degrading by the time EU got their upgrade. Why does the team think this performance downgrade happened after the upgrades to the servers were initially so rewarding performance wise?
This is hard to answer without a more holistic view of Cyrodiil's upbringing and natural cyclical behavior, so bear with me. Cyrodiil was introduced at a time when the game as a whole was much simpler (in regards to player systems and general complexity, item set complexity, class complexity, etc.), so the main factor that controlled performance degradation was population. We accounted for this and planned for a time when populations would need to shrink as player complexity grew. We made it a priority to adjust populations sparingly and eventually decided on populations that felt close to the intended 'massive group player experience' with a reasonable expectation of increased latency at higher populations.
Over time, pre hardware upgrade, we recognized that the combination of new systems, ability complexity scope creep, uncapping of area effects, etc, was drastically pushing the limit of what we and players considered 'a reasonable expectation of increased latency at higher populations', and we either needed to adjust populations further, or investigate the issue at its core. In attempt to avoid hindering player experience too much, we opted for the latter. Two efforts immediately began to account for this - a general pass on gameplay systems focused on optimization in mass PvP environments, and the hardware upgrade. While the former would inevitably become a long-term effort, evolving into today's Vengeance campaign, the hardware upgrade provided an immediate measurable result that was easily noticeable and overwhelmingly positive.
While the improvement was drastic, we did notice inconsistent changes over time - during non-peak hours, things remained consistently stable, but at peak hours, performance could shift drastically and frequently, just as it did before the upgrade (albeit in lower magnitude). This was somewhat expected with limited changes to gameplay, and after some investigation the result simply led us back to the secondary efforts noted above, and is in part why we've made such a drastic shift towards something like Vengeance more recently. Even before exploring Vengeance, we made many changes that aimed to reduce some of the load that comes with hundreds of players engaging in combat - some of these changes were very visible and announced (early changes to core mechanics like sprint and block, area effect improvements, etc.), while others were made silently in the background with no expected changes to gameplay experience. These changes resulted in noticeable improvements in specific scenarios, but had no impact on others, and it can be difficult to identify problem areas and make improvements while not drastically changing player experience across the game as a whole. An isolated change that improves a specific spike in 'lag' often results in no overall improvement if immediately replaced by a different behavior, or if surrounding spikes continue to exist.
In the time between identifying that we needed to focus on these efforts and the hardware upgrade, player behavior as a whole had changed generally in Cyrodiil to account for the noticeable performance degradation, and this behavior varied by day, hour, and realm. This pattern, or in some ways lack of pattern, was identified pre hardware upgrade at a high level, but had naturally declined in severity as degradation led to unplayable circumstances. Given the scale of the issue at the time, it was hard to identify behaviors that could use a focused effort. Post hardware upgrade, that general behavior and load remained as it was in a time of increased latency. Over time, behaviors changed to fill the gaps that arose as a result of the upgrade. While it is true that some realms don't share the same experiences most of the time, we often see variations of the same behaviors that lead to a degradation in performance or increased latency at peak hours across all realms, and non-peak hours remain consistently stable.
All of this is to say that the hardware upgrade dramatically improved the general experience on all live realms, and that remains true to this date - but adding something as simple as a new item set can shift behaviors in a way that leads to inconsistencies that we need to account for and address. Our efforts noted above continue to this date as well, alongside new systems and general additions to combat and the game as a whole. These changes aim to reduce natural debt that comes with an ever-evolving game like ESO. Vengeance is on one hand a big attempt to reset the scales, providing a new sandbox for us to experiment with, keeping these limitations in mind from the beginning. On the other hand, it has also proven a valuable tool for verifying some of these changes in isolation. While the results of Vengeance are overwhelmingly positive from a performance standpoint, we've already identified degradation at the same levels as Greyhost, albeit at much lower frequencies.
The isolation of these incidents has already led to a slew of changes that we can make in the background, benefitting the game as a whole with no perceived changes in gameplay. We've already started to trickle these changes in with U48, but plan to continue these efforts until degradation is reduced in Cyrodiil, and the game as a whole. It's important to note that all of the above is in the context of Cyrodiil simply because that is where the core issues are easier to identify, but all improvements are shared across the game where applicable.
I'm not the one accusing the devs of lying. The burden of proof is on the accuser.
Part of the ongoing effort to improve performance and stability in ESO’s open-world PvP experience, Cyrodill Champions has now found its way to the PC/Mac live servers with the Vengeance campaign. . . Note that the templatizing of characters is an experiment and does not necessarily mean that these changes will be made to the Alliance War in the future. By introducing templatized characters for this specific test, we can isolate the variables that impact performance, helping us plan future improvements.
Q. What are the next steps after the Cyrodiil Champions testing? For example, if maxing player population is the performance goal, and it's met, will the next step be adding additional skills to the character template and seeing where it breaks? How would that be done? E.g., adding a few weapon skills or adding a few sets. – kiheikat
A. The whole goal of the test is to prove out if the complexity of abilities is a core problem performance-wise. We've run a number of tests looking at various other things over the last few years on live, (CP/No-CP, Proc sets, group healing, population caps, target caps, hardware...etc.) and this is the next step in that progression.
The results of the test will determine our next steps - either way, though, what is on PTS today is not even close to a full feature. Anything we move forward with will need loads of work to flesh out.
Not only does this campaign help test Cyrodiil’s performance while under specific conditions, but it also allows you to battle your fellow players on a completely even playing field. No matter your experience level or items, everybody who enters the Vengeance campaign is at the same power level—leaving only your skill to determine the victor!
spartaxoxo wrote: »I'm not the one accusing the devs of lying. The burden of proof is on the accuser.
The devs have claimed it was about performance from the jump and there's several websites that cite this information. It's fine if you don't think the devs are lying but it's obvious that people aren't making this claim for no reason.
Some of it was on streams which is why it's difficult to surface.
I have quoted relevant parts of the new posts here but you can view the whole initial announcement for yourself.
Part of the ongoing effort to improve performance and stability in ESO’s open-world PvP experience IN VENGEANCE, Cyrodill Champions has now found its way to the PC/Mac live servers with the Vengeance campaign. . . Note that the templatizing of characters is an experiment IN VENGEANCE and does not necessarily mean that these changes will be made to the Alliance War IN VENGEANCE OR GREYHOST in the future. By introducing templatized characters TO VENGEANCE for this specific test IN VENGEANCE, we can isolate the variables that impact performance IN VENGEANCE, helping us plan future improvements FOR VENGEANCE.
Q. What are the next steps after the Cyrodiil Champions testing? For example, if maxing player population IN VENGEANCE is the performance goal, and it's met, will the next step be adding additional skills to the character template IN VENGEANCE and seeing where VENGEANCE breaks? How would that be done? E.g., adding a few weapon skills or adding a few sets TO VENGEANCE. – kiheikat
A. The whole goal of the test is to prove out if the complexity of abilities IN VENGEANCE is a core problem performance-wise FOR VENGEANCE. We've run a number of tests IN GREYHOST looking at various other things over the last few years on live GREYHOST, (CP/No-CP, Proc sets, group healing, population caps, target caps, hardware...etc.) and this is the next step in that progression.
The results of the test will determine our next steps FOR VENGEANCE - either way, though, what is on PTS today is not even close to a full feature VENGEANCE. Anything we move forward with IN VENGEANCE will need loads of work ON VENGEANCE to flesh out VENGEANCE.
Right. The devs said the goal of the first tests was to test the performance...
The performance of Vengeance.
That's just basic reading comprehension. If I tell you "I'm going to take the car for repairs. Do you know where the keys are?" it's pretty obvious I'm asking for the car keys. Not the house keys, not the motorcycle keys. The car keys.
I think this is where a lot of confusion and perceived dishonesty comes from. People read statements ZOS said about Vengeance, and imagined they were talking about Grey Host.
I feel utterly ridiculous even typing this, but here are the quotes, with some extra stuff on bold to make it more clear. It shouldn't be necessary, but apparently the community has no reading comprehension.
Part of the ongoing effort to improve performance and stability in ESO’s open-world PvP experience, Cyrodill Champions has now found its way to the PC/Mac live servers with the Vengeance campaign
spartaxoxo wrote: »I'm not the one accusing the devs of lying. The burden of proof is on the accuser.
The devs have claimed it was about performance from the jump and there's several websites that cite this information. It's fine if you don't think the devs are lying but it's obvious that people aren't making this claim for no reason.
Some of it was on streams which is why it's difficult to surface.
I have quoted relevant parts of the new posts here but you can view the whole initial announcement for yourself.
Right. The devs said the goal of the first tests was to test the performance...
The performance of Vengeance.
That's just basic reading comprehension. If I tell you "I'm going to take the car for repairs. Do you know where the keys are?" it's pretty obvious I'm asking for the car keys. Not the house keys, not the motorcycle keys. The car keys.
I think this is where a lot of confusion and perceived dishonesty comes from. People read statements ZOS said about Vengeance, and imagined they were talking about Grey Host.
The whole goal of the test is to prove out if the complexity of abilities is a core problem performance-wise. We've run a number of tests looking at various other things over the last few years on live, (CP/No-CP, Proc sets, group healing, population caps, target caps, hardware...etc.) and this is the next step in that progression.
spartaxoxo wrote: »Right. The devs said the goal of the first tests was to test the performance...
The performance of Vengeance.
That's just basic reading comprehension. If I tell you "I'm going to take the car for repairs. Do you know where the keys are?" it's pretty obvious I'm asking for the car keys. Not the house keys, not the motorcycle keys. The car keys.
I think this is where a lot of confusion and perceived dishonesty comes from. People read statements ZOS said about Vengeance, and imagined they were talking about Grey Host.
I feel utterly ridiculous even typing this, but here are the quotes, with some extra stuff on bold to make it more clear. It shouldn't be necessary, but apparently the community has no reading comprehension.
You added the extra stuff and it is not what was stated.Part of the ongoing effort to improve performance and stability in ESO’s open-world PvP experience, Cyrodill Champions has now found its way to the PC/Mac live servers with the Vengeance campaign
Here's the actual first part of that quote. It does not say "in vengeance." That's something you added.
Vengeance wasn't ongoing. It was new. The ongoing effort was Grey Host and other already existing campaigns.
ZOS is going to have to start writing their posts like they're talking to babies. Because people really go out of their way to misread every word.
tomofhyrule wrote: »To your example, that's someone saying "I'm going to take the vehicle for repairs." and then completely ignoring the car in the driveway to go buy a motorcycle to repair. Sure, it wasn't specified that they weren't talking about the car... but that was the only thing in the driveway until they got back from the repair shop with a motorcycle.
Yeah, mostly. Vengeance I pretty much stripped out everything except the bare essentials: limited class-based skills only, few weapon skills, no guild skills, no sets, no procs, etc. All the PvE stuff in the zone was disabled, so no merchants, no dailies, no resource harvesting, no fishing, etc. This also meant that new players couldn't do the Cyrodiil tutorial because no quests at all.
Vengeance II added some stuff back in and Vengeance III added a bit more. Vengeance IV has Cyrodiil itself pretty much fully turned on again, but still with reduced sets, skills, procs, and such.
While I get that regular PvP'ers are upset (I disagree with their reasons for being upset, but I get it), ZOS is doing exactly what anyone would do to methodically troubleshoot a problem: strip it down to bare minimums, then add stuff back in a little at a time to see at which point it breaks. I think some folks are just reading a lot into it, probably because it makes "ZOS hates us" more believable.
moderatelyfatman wrote: »ZOS's behaviour after the first Vengeance test could fit the explanation you have given. But if the intent was to improve Regular Cyrodiil, where has the follow up occurred?
We should have been receiving testing in Greyhost or Blackreach by now. Where is the skill changes, limitations to desyc producing proc-sets (DC and RoA), cross healing etc?
This absolute lack of changes to Regular Cyrodiil lead me to believe that ZOS never intended to fix these but instead to foist of a casual friendly version of PvP to bolster their numbers.