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Cyrodiil & Imperial City – Community Q&A
ZOS_Kevin
Community Manager
Below is part three of our written PVP Q&A, based on questions from the official ESO forums and ESO Reddit communities. This next one covers questions and answers about Cyrodiil & Imperial City. Thank you to everyone who asked a question!
Bugs & Issues
Q. Sometimes, quality of life fixes are appreciated even if performance cannot be improved. How are you all doing with the "Stuck in Combat" bug?
Being stuck in combat is something every PVPer dislikes. There was a time, just before how defensive ticks were changed, when we could get out of combat after six seconds. Everyone was amazed how being "stuck in combat" was finally fixed. But soon after the new patch that introduced the new defensive ticks, we were back to being "stuck in combat." No reason was ever given as to why it was reintroduced. And I vaguely remember you all saying that you didn't want a "bandaid" fix, but that you were working on it. But...it's been years since then and we still suffer from being "stuck in combat." Fixing this would go a long way with the PVP community. - maxjapank
A. This was one of our most asked about topics. The stuck-in-combat bug is, in a nutshell, an extremely complicated issue. Over the years, we’ve tried various potential fixes, only to have the issue persist. The number of factors that contribute to the “in combat” state are part of the complexity. We must check things like ongoing kill credit, monster hate lists, and more.
That being said, we implemented some fixes in Update 46. They are currently working, and thus cutting down on reports of players being stuck-in-combat. We continue to monitor this and will continue to explore other places where we can make improvements to cut down on occurrences where players are getting stuck-in-combat in Cyrodiil.
Q. Are you planning to address map irregularities/disadvantages in Cyrodiil? (i.e. ability to siege Glademist or Faregyl from mine and/or cliffs without showing siege count (distance issue) or range to that location for defensive siege? - TenebraeUmrosus
A. Some of the map nuances you described are things we’re aware of, and any changes are dependent on world building availability bandwidth. So, it’s possible that we could address some of the more problematic ones at some point. The reason the map and much of the world building are the way they are is to stay true to Cyrodiil's original design from other Elder Scrolls games, and to provide some environmental variety to each keep and fort.
Additionally, we also want to provide advantages that offer distinct differences in maps and gameplay. Anything that allows for bypassing keep defenses or accessing areas regardless of being on the attack or defense side of things, are areas where we would like to address as time and team bandwidth allow.
Q. When will the fortress door bug be fixed? In big fights you either can't activate it, or it activates twice and you're outside again... - katemedina666
A. This is an issue with lag, in general. When lag hits, actions like door activations can get delayed. We see this more commonly in non-Vengeance campaigns such as Gray Host. This is something we are still looking to address in the future as we continue to investigate ways for Cyrodiil to be more performant.
Q. In the thread regarding lags and freezes, the devs recently wrote that the Bandits UI addon affects the game's performance via MapPingAPI. What measures have you taken or are you planning to take to fix the situation? And how will this affect other addons using this API. - katemedina666
A. In the case of Bandit UI, it utilized a sort of back door add-on to add-on communication pipeline to function. Something about hitting that backdoor too much started causing noticeable issues in client performance, even for folks not using the add-on. So, we worked with the Bandit UI add-on devs to temporarily disable the backdoor part of the add-on. We worked to add a new bespoke pipeline to let add-ons communicate within reasonable limitations and no longer needing the backdoor pipeline. The add-on community created a new library (LibGroupSocket) to utilize this new pipeline and integrated it into any add-ons that were relying on the backdoor. If there are similar instances with other add-ons, we’re more than happy to take a look and work with add-on creators to see what can be addressed.
Q. Has the team investigated the disconnect that occurs when approaching structures where large amounts of players are fighting? From our investigation it appears to be due to the order that objects are being loaded and failing as large numbers of players are loaded. Perhaps a more gradual loading system or reduced asset initial load could be considered? - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. We have. It is a combination of what you're suggesting along with graphics settings, and add-ons that create a heavy load on the client. If you're disconnecting/crashing a lot in Cyrodiil, consider removing your add-ons to see if it helps. Managing your add-ons is something you can do on your end while we continue work on making the experience better on our end.
Future Improvements
Q. Will there be more ways to communicate with the rest of your faction? At the moment the map tells very little with text chat blowing up. I'd like to ping enemy locations and other things.
A. We do have some ideas for this to help players better communicate with others in their alliance in Cyrodiil, and to make the map more interactive, like you suggested! Something that will help with communication in-game, rather than using external sources like Discord. However, this is a longer-term project and will take us some time to get to.
Q. At the moment, organized groups are difficult to kill without specific bomb strategies. Is there something in the works to reduce the raw survivability? I believe excessive healing may be a culprit. Personal healing seems fine, but healing to other targets seems over-tuned. This allows non-healers to heal the group a bit too much.
There's currently a burst meta going on causing non burst players to build very tanky. To remedy this, I suggest reducing damage taken and reducing healing by even more. This allows short fights to last longer and long fights to be shorter. Burst would no longer be king and unkillable tanks would cease to exist. - WhitishRogue
A. We are actively working on ways to combat identified strategies, like heal stacking, among others. You will see the first steps to address this in Update 49, next year. As noted in some of the answers here, we are leaning into solutions that utilize Battle Spirit.
Q. Is there a chance of destructible resource towers returning to Cyrodiil? - RonaldRegan18
A. There’s a possibility, yes, but any destructible structures in Cyrodiil come with a client-side perf cost, especially on lower-end machines. (Crashes can occur due to lack of memory, for example.) This is something we will need to measure against older platforms in order to make a more informed choice. All destructible structures in Cyrodiil have a client memory footprint tradeoff, and they are not all equal. We understand this is something many of our PvP players would like to see, though.
Q. Can you have a Guard Boss in each keep that is essentially a world boss that has to be defeated to be able to take the keep? Reason for it would be to deter the ability to take a keep solo and require more group incentives. There could also be a specific rare drop that the different Guard Boss's drop to compete a style, skin, or mount. For example, the 6 Emperor keeps have the boss drop for the mount, then the 3 AP buff resources drop the skin parts and home keeps drop the style pages that would add a lot more reason for people to go into the lesser populated campaigns. - RonaldRegan18
A. This is a neat idea for Cyrodiil and itemization – we'd have to discuss the use cases. For example, if we implemented a monster kill requirement to claim/flip keeps, that can be broken and/or exploited. We also want to avoid anything that would encourage keep-trading behavior. We could have a “keep lord” as an extra bonus, just not a requirement to flip the keep.
Q. Could you add an AP/EXP bonus for being in a group of 3 or more? (This could be something small like 2.5-5% to incentivize people to group up more instead of going solo and allow for more community building.) - RonaldRegan18
A. Maybe! We'd want to think through the use cases and if this would lead to people feeling like they have to group. We don't want to penalize solo and small group players. Groups already have a significant advantage in Cyrodiil and Imperial City, including a better chance to get more XP/AP, better survivability, etc. You’re already more likely to “win” when grouped.
Q. Have you guys discussed allowing players to mount in combat while in Cyrodiil to circumvent the stuck in combat bug? In the same area as this question to also allow players to add siege or potions to their quickslot while in combat. - _Satyrical_
A. We would rather address the stuck-in-combat issue at its core than implement ways to get around it. As mentioned earlier, we had an additional fix to the stuck-in-combat issue earlier this year, and it has reduced the frequency in which the bug comes up.
Q. Have you guys any plans to update the Cyrodiil Experience? Update map, new structures, etc? - Tourniquet88
A. As we followed up with our latest Vengeance Testing and Cyrodiil Update, there are a few things we are doing. One, we are working on revamping rewards as part of a PvP progression system (more on this in 2026). We will also continue to look at ways to improve the overall performance of all available Cyrodiil campaigns such as Gray Host. We are also looking into offering a smaller scale PvP space that is thematically similar to Cyrodiil to offer a fresh take on three-faction combat. Lastly, we would like to offer a Vengeance special ruleset campaign to round out the larger scale combat fantasy with reduced performance issues. As noted, we are still looking into how this will evolve, but our preference would be to give everyone choice in the experience they would like to play.
Q. Are there any plans to update the gameplay of Imperial City? - spartaxoxo
A. We don’t have anything planned for the immediate future. While this is something we would like to work on later down the line, right now our work on Cyrodiil.
Cyrodiil Population & Campaigns
Q. Is there going to be a way to get more people on a PVP server in Cyrodiil? I don't often do PVP, but when I do, it's the Cyrodiil map and Imperial City. I kinda like it but it's always quite "empty" or a bit lifeless even. There's all the NPCs you fight when taking mills and forts and whatnot, but they seem to be it. It could also be that I happen to join at a time no one is really playing but that can't just be every time I play it right? - Frozen-Thunder
A. Increasing the overall population caps in Cyrodiil is one of our main goals for the Vengeance tests. We agree with you that a higher population makes every Cyrodiil campaign more active and fun, and increases the opportunities for more of everything from small skirmishes to large-scale keep battles against other players. Throughout the testing we’ve done this year, we have found that Gray Host does suffer quite a bit once we raise the cap above 360 total players. With the added work in Vengeance to have lighter-weight skills, and class templates, we are able to push the cap much higher without massive performance hits. As it currently stands, Gray Host will have cap of 360 total players and Vengeance will be set to 900 total players. We will continue to look for ways to improve the experience, but these are the current total player caps for each campaign.
Q. Will there be a handicap system to replace the Low Population Bonus which has many problems in its design? There are many alternatives, but the simplest would be a point handicap system inversely proportional to population. For instance, hourly tick points would be the current points for a faction at 1 bar, 1/2 points for a faction at 2 bars, 1/4 points for a faction at 4 bars and so on (could be more accurate with actual population or even active population and not bars). - Dyngrin
A. Thanks for the suggestion! This is something we can look into for the future. We know from player feedback that there could be an alternative to this. As for right now, you do get an AP/EXP bonus when you have a lower score. Applying a combat bonus could open pathways to exploiting, so that is something we need to be careful of, but we will continue to explore and see what is possible.
Q. When will the campaign point and buff system be revised? Campaigns are decided when Cyrodiil is empty, so why care about the campaigns? In addition, the alliance dominating the map get buffed. Why? - LarsS
A. We are exploring ways to give interim or during campaign benefits to alliances, regardless of whether they are winning or losing. Nothing to announce yet, but this is something we are aware of and looking into, and will want everyone’s feedback on.
Q. Is the team planning to adjust campaign scoring to consider population ratios? Currently the factions have very imbalanced populations and campaign score is usually determined solely by non prime time population imbalance. - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. We do have some form of campaign scoring adjustments based on population. However, we are open to revisiting this system if the current mechanisms triggering current benefits are not seen as beneficial.
Q. Have you guys considered NPC raid groups in Cyrodiil that join whatever is the low pop faction - groups capable of sieging / taking / defending keeps - as a solution to population imbalances throughout the 24-hour cycle? - Celas_Dranacea
A. That has been talked about in the past (mercenary groups that players could deploy, which existed during launch). These caused server performance issues - they have some technical overhead due to always being "awake" (checking and always there) and needing to path.
We may be able to revisit this in Vengeance since there is less performance overhead compared to traditional campaigns like Gray Host.
Q. Why did you stop changing the names of campaigns to align with the content cycle that we're on, and, can we please go back to changing the names of campaigns to align with the content cycle that we're on? It's a super, super, tiny thing, but it just helps make PVP feel cared about. - acastanza_ESO
A. We wouldn't mind going back and revisiting this. It does create some uniqueness per year! This is something we are open to, and we’d want your input on names.
Q. Any plans to update the Under 50 "newbie" campaign so it is actually a helpful training ground for new Level 10 PVP players? Encouraging new players in a better atmosphere may lead to healthier PVP in general. - anadandy
A. Unfortunately, the current reality of level 10-49 Cyrodiil is that it doesn't get a very high population. In internal conversations, we’ve talked about introducing more tutorials to the campaign to make it a true new-player-friendly experience. This would be nice to do, but there is nothing planned at the moment.
Q. In order to encourage more low-level and introductory players to join Cyrodiil, can double AP and double XP be permanently enabled on the below level 50 campaign? These should be doubled again to 4x normal amounts during the Whitestrake events. - LonePirate
A. This is something we are exploring with the new midsized PvP zone discussed in our Vengeance Test and Cyrodiil Update. This is still in early development and we look forward to sharing more details with you next year.
Q. Why are characters under level 50 allowed in regular campaigns? The majority I encountered probably got there mostly by accident. But shouldn't they be restricted to that one training campaign? Provide more insight on how the joining of campaigns happens, and better tutorials for newcomers. - Erissime
A. There are two sides to this from our perspective. As noted in the question above, we would love to have more tutorials to create a better onboarding experience for new and returning players that builds up to to the level 50 campaign. However, we are also a social game. We want folks to be able to play with their friends and having that restriction could hinder Veterans who would like to coach/teach new and returning players in a full competitive environment. We don’t want to create barriers there.
All that being said, that is not to say there isn’t a better way to approach this. This is just where we are right now. We’re happy to take suggestions for our teams to chew on.
Rewards
Q. Can the rewards for activity in Cyrodiil and rank up be revised? The current situation is that the AP reward in Battlegrounds is higher and more stable than the average reward in Cyrodiil. Meanwhile, Cyrodiil is much more time-consuming and difficult. Rank up also requires a lot of time, perseverance, and skill from the player. It would be cool to give special collectibles for rank up that cannot be earned in any other way, like in PVE trials. One bear is not enough...Perhaps in order to earn these rewards, more players who currently have no incentive will begin to delve into the PvP mode. - katemedina666
A. We are always looking for ways to reward players more for participating in the game content they love. The original intent for Rewards of the Worthy was meant to be equal to that of PvE rewards. As mentioned in one of the answers above, we are revisiting rewards for participating in PvP content as part of a holistic PvP progression system that we’ll share more details about – and get your input on – next year.
Miscellaneous
Q. PvP is pleasantly but dauntingly complex. I am part of a small community of veteran PvPers on XBOX NA trying to help make PvP more accessible to PvEers and new players by teaching what we know. What else can or will be done (either in collaboration with the community, or from ZeniMax's team) to demystify and help new(er) and returning PvPers learn to PvP? - TenebraeUmrosus
A. So this is something we would like to address in the future. Cyrodiil 101, streams, etc. To teach new players the ropes from fellow community members is something we want to cultivate over time. We love that there are players out there, like you, who enjoy teaching others aspects of ESO.
Currently, collaboration with some of our ZOS Community Team and Web Team friends for Cyrodiil 101 type opportunities is the way to go. They do a great job of doing community round ups and collaborating with creators to help amplify the hard work of people like yourself. If you’re hosting an event that you’d like to amplify, we may also be able to help give it a boost! You can reach out via the forums or our official social media channels.
Q. Could we be able to mount when in combat but with no mount stamina (meaning any damage, even DoTs will dismount you)? - BixenteN7Akantor
A. Unfortunately no. We'd need to redo dozens upon dozens of animations. Also, the server having to keep up with combat while on a mount, is the main reason. Being able to hit someone at an accelerated rate and have the server catch up will create contact issues in combat and add to overall performance degradation, as well as possible exploitable situations.
Q. Have you considered updating the reward structure and the rank system in Cyrodiil? Would you consider adding new ranks after rank 50 so older PvP players have something to strive for? - Wolfkeks
A. It’s a little early, so we can’t share much right now. What we will say is you’ll hear about some of our additional PvP plans early next year, and be able to test later in 2026. What we are working on is something we’ll want the community’s early input on, so keep an eye out for more detailed news next year.
Q. Perhaps the least Cyrodiil related issue - but reflective of it I should like to propose is the choice of Guild Alliance. Namely a token of sorts which may enable a guild to switch to a desired alliance. I figure that since we have alliance change tokens, a similar thing should exist for guilds as well. Why? Because (this being my own particular case) I created my guild long before I even considered joining PvP, and I just went with whatever character I had logged in at the time, completely disregarding that choice. Nowadays my alliance of choice is quite another, and unlikely to change anytime soon, but I cannot in any way either disband the guild and re-create it, nor am I happy with my (noob-then) choice. - Erissime
A. While there are no current plans to do this, we can certainly look at allowing guilds to change alliance affiliation. However, we do want to stress, if this is something we do in the future there will need to be some limitations such as a lengthy cooldown, to prevent issues with alliance spying and exploiting. We’ll look into it!
Q. Are you planning to introduce more PvE elements with very strong bosses in Cyrodiil? Or significantly increase the difficulty and change the reward for closing dolmens specifically in Cyrodiil? For example, some new very valuable currency like Telvar? I assume that this would lead to the emergence of new points of confrontation between the sides and would motivate to explore the map outside the transit lines between castles. - Noreno
A. Yes, we would love to do so. We would need to measure this against Cyrodiil server perf. With the Vengeance campaign being in a more optimal place performance-wise, it is a better candidate, but all Cyrodiil campaigns share the same world space. So, this one is a “Maybe” and we’ll let the community know if it’s something we move forward with testing.
Q. What do you think about the ability to leave a battle that is unfavorable for you with impunity by simply moving to the Imperial Sewers and back during the battle? Is it fair? - Noreno
A. We can confirm we’re looking at adjusting this, but we don’t have any specifics to share today. We will keep you updated as we have more info.
Q. Movement speed increases in Cyrodiil are causing severe issues with targeting and rendering. Are there any plans to reduce speed via Battle Spirit or otherwise address the targeting issues? - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. We have ongoing discussions about utilizing Battle Spirit to slow down in-combat player speed in Cyrodiil and Imperial City. (This would only be while in combat.) This is in the exploration phase, so we don’t currently have any additional details to share.
Q. When new features are introduced, such as armory and scribing, Cyrodiil often feels like an afterthought, stations not being added etc. Is the reason for this due to the complexity of the zone or is it for some other reason? For example it took almost a year to get an armory station in Cyrodiil. - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. To be clear, the main concern about performance hits is the singular reason why items introduced in the rest of the game are not added into Cyrodiil. Ironically, it’s performance being in the forefront, rather than an afterthought.
As we determine that these systems do/do not have significant overhead, we will look to add them back into PvP zones.
Q. Does the team feel that faction locks are still beneficial considering the current population? - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. Yes, we still believe they are beneficial. Faction locks help to reinforce alliance identity and the social aspect of the game. They are more of a social reinforcement rather than a technical issue. Population really isn’t a factor here with the exception of cutting down on spying and strengthening the social contact among active players.
Q. Destructible objects were introduced for the bridge and milegates whilst resource towers were removed in the name of performance. Would the team consider changing either of these back to the original versions to freshen up the map? (Perhaps on 3-month rotation for example.) - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. Sure, it’s something we could consider! It would need to be one or the other, but we could talk about a rotation. Those memory issues leading to performance degradation are still a factor, but something we could chat about seeing how far we could push things while still ensuring a performant experience.
Q. Have you considered that not the Skills, but other things lead to the poor performance? For example certain server side updates, which lead to big performance regressions. Even if you run around alone in Cyrodiil, running can be slowed down, or riding on your mount can be sluggish and get slow downs, without ANYONE being near. - RedJohn_COF
A. Yes, we've considered and tested what contributes to game performance impact and have looked at the various things including physics processes (the things that control destructible states on keeps and such). We’ve looked into collections, outfit stations, quests, inventory, etc. Everything pales in comparison to ability usage combined with passives (this includes item sets, CP, and skill line passives), which is why they were the focus of our Vengeance tests.
Q. Are you planning to fix Volendrung spawning? There are soooo many spawn points over the map but it only spawns in the same 3 spawn points for every alliance, which leads to people going to them right away. Why isn't it really random? - RedJohn_COF
A. We do plan to address the respawn logic, as we have time. We’re looking at the location of where players and the Emperor are, keep ownership statuses, recent combatant locations, and how that all contributes to where Volendrung spawns.
Q. I'm not a PVP player. Are there any plans to have a version of Cyrodiil that PVE geeks can come visit and do silly little quests without getting our innards polymorphed into outards? - Avoriaa
A. We do hear this suggestion from time to time. While we think it’s an interesting concept, there are no plans for a PvE version of Cyrodiil at this time.
Q. Is it possible to increase the drop rate of Cyrodilic Cakes? They are simply impossible to find. - katemedina666
A. We did revisit this when we did 2-sided battlegrounds in Update 44. If this has still been a concern in the later months of 2025, please let us know and we can investigate this in early 2026.
Q. Do you have understanding, knowledge and/or insight in what addons that are "private" / "non-official" and used in PVP? Do and do you have plans to monitor or limit the behavior of such addons? - Idinuse
A. We’d like to provide a bit on our philosophy before answering this question. From a technical sense, in our perspective, there is no such thing as a private or unofficial mod. All mods are technically unofficial, since we don’t have a verification process.
Now in the sense that a “private” add-on is something someone made and didn’t post it for wider distribution, we do have a way to keep track of those by user. However, that does not give a clear indicator of what every add-on does. We go by reports and behaviors. So, if we see behavior that shouldn't be possible, or a user reports that an addon-on someone built is suspected of allowing for actions or behaviors that violate our Terms of Service, we investigate, close any API loopholes we find, and ban anyone caught exploiting. To be fair, the add-on community is rather good at self-managing instances like this. They would rather settle it among themselves without our intervention, as that could lead to everyone unintentionally losing more tools in their creative toolkit.
If you see instances where someone is exploiting through add-on usage, please report it to us so we can properly investigate and reduce the harm done.
Q. Can healers PLEASE get credit for assists? After all, we gave up a lot in order that our friends can continue further and take out the people trying to kill us. Edit: I may not have LA the guy, but I still feel like I contributed to my team’s success. That healing gets no credit is pretty disappointing. - BetweenMidgets
A. Regarding battleground medals, we do plan to revisit these for heal assists. We intend to look at our timelines and see where we can add it in, but we do want to revisit this. If this is for quest credit, that gets into revisiting quest conditions and requires a bit more in-depth adjustment.
We'll move this to the PvP forum section on Monday, Dec. 22. That way, the Q&A will be in the same section as the others.
Edited by ZOS_Kevin on December 16, 2025 8:19PM Bugs & Issues
Q. Sometimes, quality of life fixes are appreciated even if performance cannot be improved. How are you all doing with the "Stuck in Combat" bug?
Being stuck in combat is something every PVPer dislikes. There was a time, just before how defensive ticks were changed, when we could get out of combat after six seconds. Everyone was amazed how being "stuck in combat" was finally fixed. But soon after the new patch that introduced the new defensive ticks, we were back to being "stuck in combat." No reason was ever given as to why it was reintroduced. And I vaguely remember you all saying that you didn't want a "bandaid" fix, but that you were working on it. But...it's been years since then and we still suffer from being "stuck in combat." Fixing this would go a long way with the PVP community. - maxjapank
A. This was one of our most asked about topics. The stuck-in-combat bug is, in a nutshell, an extremely complicated issue. Over the years, we’ve tried various potential fixes, only to have the issue persist. The number of factors that contribute to the “in combat” state are part of the complexity. We must check things like ongoing kill credit, monster hate lists, and more.
That being said, we implemented some fixes in Update 46. They are currently working, and thus cutting down on reports of players being stuck-in-combat. We continue to monitor this and will continue to explore other places where we can make improvements to cut down on occurrences where players are getting stuck-in-combat in Cyrodiil.
Q. Are you planning to address map irregularities/disadvantages in Cyrodiil? (i.e. ability to siege Glademist or Faregyl from mine and/or cliffs without showing siege count (distance issue) or range to that location for defensive siege? - TenebraeUmrosus
A. Some of the map nuances you described are things we’re aware of, and any changes are dependent on world building availability bandwidth. So, it’s possible that we could address some of the more problematic ones at some point. The reason the map and much of the world building are the way they are is to stay true to Cyrodiil's original design from other Elder Scrolls games, and to provide some environmental variety to each keep and fort.
Additionally, we also want to provide advantages that offer distinct differences in maps and gameplay. Anything that allows for bypassing keep defenses or accessing areas regardless of being on the attack or defense side of things, are areas where we would like to address as time and team bandwidth allow.
Q. When will the fortress door bug be fixed? In big fights you either can't activate it, or it activates twice and you're outside again... - katemedina666
A. This is an issue with lag, in general. When lag hits, actions like door activations can get delayed. We see this more commonly in non-Vengeance campaigns such as Gray Host. This is something we are still looking to address in the future as we continue to investigate ways for Cyrodiil to be more performant.
Q. In the thread regarding lags and freezes, the devs recently wrote that the Bandits UI addon affects the game's performance via MapPingAPI. What measures have you taken or are you planning to take to fix the situation? And how will this affect other addons using this API. - katemedina666
A. In the case of Bandit UI, it utilized a sort of back door add-on to add-on communication pipeline to function. Something about hitting that backdoor too much started causing noticeable issues in client performance, even for folks not using the add-on. So, we worked with the Bandit UI add-on devs to temporarily disable the backdoor part of the add-on. We worked to add a new bespoke pipeline to let add-ons communicate within reasonable limitations and no longer needing the backdoor pipeline. The add-on community created a new library (LibGroupSocket) to utilize this new pipeline and integrated it into any add-ons that were relying on the backdoor. If there are similar instances with other add-ons, we’re more than happy to take a look and work with add-on creators to see what can be addressed.
Q. Has the team investigated the disconnect that occurs when approaching structures where large amounts of players are fighting? From our investigation it appears to be due to the order that objects are being loaded and failing as large numbers of players are loaded. Perhaps a more gradual loading system or reduced asset initial load could be considered? - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. We have. It is a combination of what you're suggesting along with graphics settings, and add-ons that create a heavy load on the client. If you're disconnecting/crashing a lot in Cyrodiil, consider removing your add-ons to see if it helps. Managing your add-ons is something you can do on your end while we continue work on making the experience better on our end.
Future Improvements
Q. Will there be more ways to communicate with the rest of your faction? At the moment the map tells very little with text chat blowing up. I'd like to ping enemy locations and other things.
A. We do have some ideas for this to help players better communicate with others in their alliance in Cyrodiil, and to make the map more interactive, like you suggested! Something that will help with communication in-game, rather than using external sources like Discord. However, this is a longer-term project and will take us some time to get to.
Q. At the moment, organized groups are difficult to kill without specific bomb strategies. Is there something in the works to reduce the raw survivability? I believe excessive healing may be a culprit. Personal healing seems fine, but healing to other targets seems over-tuned. This allows non-healers to heal the group a bit too much.
There's currently a burst meta going on causing non burst players to build very tanky. To remedy this, I suggest reducing damage taken and reducing healing by even more. This allows short fights to last longer and long fights to be shorter. Burst would no longer be king and unkillable tanks would cease to exist. - WhitishRogue
A. We are actively working on ways to combat identified strategies, like heal stacking, among others. You will see the first steps to address this in Update 49, next year. As noted in some of the answers here, we are leaning into solutions that utilize Battle Spirit.
Q. Is there a chance of destructible resource towers returning to Cyrodiil? - RonaldRegan18
A. There’s a possibility, yes, but any destructible structures in Cyrodiil come with a client-side perf cost, especially on lower-end machines. (Crashes can occur due to lack of memory, for example.) This is something we will need to measure against older platforms in order to make a more informed choice. All destructible structures in Cyrodiil have a client memory footprint tradeoff, and they are not all equal. We understand this is something many of our PvP players would like to see, though.
Q. Can you have a Guard Boss in each keep that is essentially a world boss that has to be defeated to be able to take the keep? Reason for it would be to deter the ability to take a keep solo and require more group incentives. There could also be a specific rare drop that the different Guard Boss's drop to compete a style, skin, or mount. For example, the 6 Emperor keeps have the boss drop for the mount, then the 3 AP buff resources drop the skin parts and home keeps drop the style pages that would add a lot more reason for people to go into the lesser populated campaigns. - RonaldRegan18
A. This is a neat idea for Cyrodiil and itemization – we'd have to discuss the use cases. For example, if we implemented a monster kill requirement to claim/flip keeps, that can be broken and/or exploited. We also want to avoid anything that would encourage keep-trading behavior. We could have a “keep lord” as an extra bonus, just not a requirement to flip the keep.
Q. Could you add an AP/EXP bonus for being in a group of 3 or more? (This could be something small like 2.5-5% to incentivize people to group up more instead of going solo and allow for more community building.) - RonaldRegan18
A. Maybe! We'd want to think through the use cases and if this would lead to people feeling like they have to group. We don't want to penalize solo and small group players. Groups already have a significant advantage in Cyrodiil and Imperial City, including a better chance to get more XP/AP, better survivability, etc. You’re already more likely to “win” when grouped.
Q. Have you guys discussed allowing players to mount in combat while in Cyrodiil to circumvent the stuck in combat bug? In the same area as this question to also allow players to add siege or potions to their quickslot while in combat. - _Satyrical_
A. We would rather address the stuck-in-combat issue at its core than implement ways to get around it. As mentioned earlier, we had an additional fix to the stuck-in-combat issue earlier this year, and it has reduced the frequency in which the bug comes up.
Q. Have you guys any plans to update the Cyrodiil Experience? Update map, new structures, etc? - Tourniquet88
A. As we followed up with our latest Vengeance Testing and Cyrodiil Update, there are a few things we are doing. One, we are working on revamping rewards as part of a PvP progression system (more on this in 2026). We will also continue to look at ways to improve the overall performance of all available Cyrodiil campaigns such as Gray Host. We are also looking into offering a smaller scale PvP space that is thematically similar to Cyrodiil to offer a fresh take on three-faction combat. Lastly, we would like to offer a Vengeance special ruleset campaign to round out the larger scale combat fantasy with reduced performance issues. As noted, we are still looking into how this will evolve, but our preference would be to give everyone choice in the experience they would like to play.
Q. Are there any plans to update the gameplay of Imperial City? - spartaxoxo
A. We don’t have anything planned for the immediate future. While this is something we would like to work on later down the line, right now our work on Cyrodiil.
Cyrodiil Population & Campaigns
Q. Is there going to be a way to get more people on a PVP server in Cyrodiil? I don't often do PVP, but when I do, it's the Cyrodiil map and Imperial City. I kinda like it but it's always quite "empty" or a bit lifeless even. There's all the NPCs you fight when taking mills and forts and whatnot, but they seem to be it. It could also be that I happen to join at a time no one is really playing but that can't just be every time I play it right? - Frozen-Thunder
A. Increasing the overall population caps in Cyrodiil is one of our main goals for the Vengeance tests. We agree with you that a higher population makes every Cyrodiil campaign more active and fun, and increases the opportunities for more of everything from small skirmishes to large-scale keep battles against other players. Throughout the testing we’ve done this year, we have found that Gray Host does suffer quite a bit once we raise the cap above 360 total players. With the added work in Vengeance to have lighter-weight skills, and class templates, we are able to push the cap much higher without massive performance hits. As it currently stands, Gray Host will have cap of 360 total players and Vengeance will be set to 900 total players. We will continue to look for ways to improve the experience, but these are the current total player caps for each campaign.
Q. Will there be a handicap system to replace the Low Population Bonus which has many problems in its design? There are many alternatives, but the simplest would be a point handicap system inversely proportional to population. For instance, hourly tick points would be the current points for a faction at 1 bar, 1/2 points for a faction at 2 bars, 1/4 points for a faction at 4 bars and so on (could be more accurate with actual population or even active population and not bars). - Dyngrin
A. Thanks for the suggestion! This is something we can look into for the future. We know from player feedback that there could be an alternative to this. As for right now, you do get an AP/EXP bonus when you have a lower score. Applying a combat bonus could open pathways to exploiting, so that is something we need to be careful of, but we will continue to explore and see what is possible.
Q. When will the campaign point and buff system be revised? Campaigns are decided when Cyrodiil is empty, so why care about the campaigns? In addition, the alliance dominating the map get buffed. Why? - LarsS
A. We are exploring ways to give interim or during campaign benefits to alliances, regardless of whether they are winning or losing. Nothing to announce yet, but this is something we are aware of and looking into, and will want everyone’s feedback on.
Q. Is the team planning to adjust campaign scoring to consider population ratios? Currently the factions have very imbalanced populations and campaign score is usually determined solely by non prime time population imbalance. - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. We do have some form of campaign scoring adjustments based on population. However, we are open to revisiting this system if the current mechanisms triggering current benefits are not seen as beneficial.
Q. Have you guys considered NPC raid groups in Cyrodiil that join whatever is the low pop faction - groups capable of sieging / taking / defending keeps - as a solution to population imbalances throughout the 24-hour cycle? - Celas_Dranacea
A. That has been talked about in the past (mercenary groups that players could deploy, which existed during launch). These caused server performance issues - they have some technical overhead due to always being "awake" (checking and always there) and needing to path.
We may be able to revisit this in Vengeance since there is less performance overhead compared to traditional campaigns like Gray Host.
Q. Why did you stop changing the names of campaigns to align with the content cycle that we're on, and, can we please go back to changing the names of campaigns to align with the content cycle that we're on? It's a super, super, tiny thing, but it just helps make PVP feel cared about. - acastanza_ESO
A. We wouldn't mind going back and revisiting this. It does create some uniqueness per year! This is something we are open to, and we’d want your input on names.
Q. Any plans to update the Under 50 "newbie" campaign so it is actually a helpful training ground for new Level 10 PVP players? Encouraging new players in a better atmosphere may lead to healthier PVP in general. - anadandy
A. Unfortunately, the current reality of level 10-49 Cyrodiil is that it doesn't get a very high population. In internal conversations, we’ve talked about introducing more tutorials to the campaign to make it a true new-player-friendly experience. This would be nice to do, but there is nothing planned at the moment.
Q. In order to encourage more low-level and introductory players to join Cyrodiil, can double AP and double XP be permanently enabled on the below level 50 campaign? These should be doubled again to 4x normal amounts during the Whitestrake events. - LonePirate
A. This is something we are exploring with the new midsized PvP zone discussed in our Vengeance Test and Cyrodiil Update. This is still in early development and we look forward to sharing more details with you next year.
Q. Why are characters under level 50 allowed in regular campaigns? The majority I encountered probably got there mostly by accident. But shouldn't they be restricted to that one training campaign? Provide more insight on how the joining of campaigns happens, and better tutorials for newcomers. - Erissime
A. There are two sides to this from our perspective. As noted in the question above, we would love to have more tutorials to create a better onboarding experience for new and returning players that builds up to to the level 50 campaign. However, we are also a social game. We want folks to be able to play with their friends and having that restriction could hinder Veterans who would like to coach/teach new and returning players in a full competitive environment. We don’t want to create barriers there.
All that being said, that is not to say there isn’t a better way to approach this. This is just where we are right now. We’re happy to take suggestions for our teams to chew on.
Rewards
Q. Can the rewards for activity in Cyrodiil and rank up be revised? The current situation is that the AP reward in Battlegrounds is higher and more stable than the average reward in Cyrodiil. Meanwhile, Cyrodiil is much more time-consuming and difficult. Rank up also requires a lot of time, perseverance, and skill from the player. It would be cool to give special collectibles for rank up that cannot be earned in any other way, like in PVE trials. One bear is not enough...Perhaps in order to earn these rewards, more players who currently have no incentive will begin to delve into the PvP mode. - katemedina666
A. We are always looking for ways to reward players more for participating in the game content they love. The original intent for Rewards of the Worthy was meant to be equal to that of PvE rewards. As mentioned in one of the answers above, we are revisiting rewards for participating in PvP content as part of a holistic PvP progression system that we’ll share more details about – and get your input on – next year.
Miscellaneous
Q. PvP is pleasantly but dauntingly complex. I am part of a small community of veteran PvPers on XBOX NA trying to help make PvP more accessible to PvEers and new players by teaching what we know. What else can or will be done (either in collaboration with the community, or from ZeniMax's team) to demystify and help new(er) and returning PvPers learn to PvP? - TenebraeUmrosus
A. So this is something we would like to address in the future. Cyrodiil 101, streams, etc. To teach new players the ropes from fellow community members is something we want to cultivate over time. We love that there are players out there, like you, who enjoy teaching others aspects of ESO.
Currently, collaboration with some of our ZOS Community Team and Web Team friends for Cyrodiil 101 type opportunities is the way to go. They do a great job of doing community round ups and collaborating with creators to help amplify the hard work of people like yourself. If you’re hosting an event that you’d like to amplify, we may also be able to help give it a boost! You can reach out via the forums or our official social media channels.
Q. Could we be able to mount when in combat but with no mount stamina (meaning any damage, even DoTs will dismount you)? - BixenteN7Akantor
A. Unfortunately no. We'd need to redo dozens upon dozens of animations. Also, the server having to keep up with combat while on a mount, is the main reason. Being able to hit someone at an accelerated rate and have the server catch up will create contact issues in combat and add to overall performance degradation, as well as possible exploitable situations.
Q. Have you considered updating the reward structure and the rank system in Cyrodiil? Would you consider adding new ranks after rank 50 so older PvP players have something to strive for? - Wolfkeks
A. It’s a little early, so we can’t share much right now. What we will say is you’ll hear about some of our additional PvP plans early next year, and be able to test later in 2026. What we are working on is something we’ll want the community’s early input on, so keep an eye out for more detailed news next year.
Q. Perhaps the least Cyrodiil related issue - but reflective of it I should like to propose is the choice of Guild Alliance. Namely a token of sorts which may enable a guild to switch to a desired alliance. I figure that since we have alliance change tokens, a similar thing should exist for guilds as well. Why? Because (this being my own particular case) I created my guild long before I even considered joining PvP, and I just went with whatever character I had logged in at the time, completely disregarding that choice. Nowadays my alliance of choice is quite another, and unlikely to change anytime soon, but I cannot in any way either disband the guild and re-create it, nor am I happy with my (noob-then) choice. - Erissime
A. While there are no current plans to do this, we can certainly look at allowing guilds to change alliance affiliation. However, we do want to stress, if this is something we do in the future there will need to be some limitations such as a lengthy cooldown, to prevent issues with alliance spying and exploiting. We’ll look into it!
Q. Are you planning to introduce more PvE elements with very strong bosses in Cyrodiil? Or significantly increase the difficulty and change the reward for closing dolmens specifically in Cyrodiil? For example, some new very valuable currency like Telvar? I assume that this would lead to the emergence of new points of confrontation between the sides and would motivate to explore the map outside the transit lines between castles. - Noreno
A. Yes, we would love to do so. We would need to measure this against Cyrodiil server perf. With the Vengeance campaign being in a more optimal place performance-wise, it is a better candidate, but all Cyrodiil campaigns share the same world space. So, this one is a “Maybe” and we’ll let the community know if it’s something we move forward with testing.
Q. What do you think about the ability to leave a battle that is unfavorable for you with impunity by simply moving to the Imperial Sewers and back during the battle? Is it fair? - Noreno
A. We can confirm we’re looking at adjusting this, but we don’t have any specifics to share today. We will keep you updated as we have more info.
Q. Movement speed increases in Cyrodiil are causing severe issues with targeting and rendering. Are there any plans to reduce speed via Battle Spirit or otherwise address the targeting issues? - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. We have ongoing discussions about utilizing Battle Spirit to slow down in-combat player speed in Cyrodiil and Imperial City. (This would only be while in combat.) This is in the exploration phase, so we don’t currently have any additional details to share.
Q. When new features are introduced, such as armory and scribing, Cyrodiil often feels like an afterthought, stations not being added etc. Is the reason for this due to the complexity of the zone or is it for some other reason? For example it took almost a year to get an armory station in Cyrodiil. - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. To be clear, the main concern about performance hits is the singular reason why items introduced in the rest of the game are not added into Cyrodiil. Ironically, it’s performance being in the forefront, rather than an afterthought.
As we determine that these systems do/do not have significant overhead, we will look to add them back into PvP zones.
Q. Does the team feel that faction locks are still beneficial considering the current population? - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. Yes, we still believe they are beneficial. Faction locks help to reinforce alliance identity and the social aspect of the game. They are more of a social reinforcement rather than a technical issue. Population really isn’t a factor here with the exception of cutting down on spying and strengthening the social contact among active players.
Q. Destructible objects were introduced for the bridge and milegates whilst resource towers were removed in the name of performance. Would the team consider changing either of these back to the original versions to freshen up the map? (Perhaps on 3-month rotation for example.) - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. Sure, it’s something we could consider! It would need to be one or the other, but we could talk about a rotation. Those memory issues leading to performance degradation are still a factor, but something we could chat about seeing how far we could push things while still ensuring a performant experience.
Q. Have you considered that not the Skills, but other things lead to the poor performance? For example certain server side updates, which lead to big performance regressions. Even if you run around alone in Cyrodiil, running can be slowed down, or riding on your mount can be sluggish and get slow downs, without ANYONE being near. - RedJohn_COF
A. Yes, we've considered and tested what contributes to game performance impact and have looked at the various things including physics processes (the things that control destructible states on keeps and such). We’ve looked into collections, outfit stations, quests, inventory, etc. Everything pales in comparison to ability usage combined with passives (this includes item sets, CP, and skill line passives), which is why they were the focus of our Vengeance tests.
Q. Are you planning to fix Volendrung spawning? There are soooo many spawn points over the map but it only spawns in the same 3 spawn points for every alliance, which leads to people going to them right away. Why isn't it really random? - RedJohn_COF
A. We do plan to address the respawn logic, as we have time. We’re looking at the location of where players and the Emperor are, keep ownership statuses, recent combatant locations, and how that all contributes to where Volendrung spawns.
Q. I'm not a PVP player. Are there any plans to have a version of Cyrodiil that PVE geeks can come visit and do silly little quests without getting our innards polymorphed into outards? - Avoriaa
A. We do hear this suggestion from time to time. While we think it’s an interesting concept, there are no plans for a PvE version of Cyrodiil at this time.
Q. Is it possible to increase the drop rate of Cyrodilic Cakes? They are simply impossible to find. - katemedina666
A. We did revisit this when we did 2-sided battlegrounds in Update 44. If this has still been a concern in the later months of 2025, please let us know and we can investigate this in early 2026.
Q. Do you have understanding, knowledge and/or insight in what addons that are "private" / "non-official" and used in PVP? Do and do you have plans to monitor or limit the behavior of such addons? - Idinuse
A. We’d like to provide a bit on our philosophy before answering this question. From a technical sense, in our perspective, there is no such thing as a private or unofficial mod. All mods are technically unofficial, since we don’t have a verification process.
Now in the sense that a “private” add-on is something someone made and didn’t post it for wider distribution, we do have a way to keep track of those by user. However, that does not give a clear indicator of what every add-on does. We go by reports and behaviors. So, if we see behavior that shouldn't be possible, or a user reports that an addon-on someone built is suspected of allowing for actions or behaviors that violate our Terms of Service, we investigate, close any API loopholes we find, and ban anyone caught exploiting. To be fair, the add-on community is rather good at self-managing instances like this. They would rather settle it among themselves without our intervention, as that could lead to everyone unintentionally losing more tools in their creative toolkit.
If you see instances where someone is exploiting through add-on usage, please report it to us so we can properly investigate and reduce the harm done.
Q. Can healers PLEASE get credit for assists? After all, we gave up a lot in order that our friends can continue further and take out the people trying to kill us. Edit: I may not have LA the guy, but I still feel like I contributed to my team’s success. That healing gets no credit is pretty disappointing. - BetweenMidgets
A. Regarding battleground medals, we do plan to revisit these for heal assists. We intend to look at our timelines and see where we can add it in, but we do want to revisit this. If this is for quest credit, that gets into revisiting quest conditions and requires a bit more in-depth adjustment.
We'll move this to the PvP forum section on Monday, Dec. 22. That way, the Q&A will be in the same section as the others.
Community Manager for ZeniMax Online Studio and Elder Scrolls OnlineDev Tracker | Service Alerts | ESO Twitter
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thejadefalcon✭✭✭✭✭
✭The stuck-in-combat bug is, in a nutshell, an extremely complicated issue. Over the years, we’ve tried various potential fixes, only to have the issue persist. The number of factors that contribute to the “in combat” state are part of the complexity. We must check things like ongoing kill credit, monster hate lists, and more.
Oh good, it starts with a complete non-answer, this Q&A should be worth the time. /s
I've literally sat doing nothing before, safe inside an empty keep, and been stuck in combat for 10 minutes. What kills could I be getting? What monsters could be aggroed on me? Yes. If you are in combat, you are in combat. That's how the game works. We already knew that, that's why there was clearly a bug, which has been talked about for years on end now.2 -
LunaFlora✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭thanks for the many answers about PvP.
Looking forward to more about 2026miaow! i'm Luna ( she/her ).
🌸*throws cherry blossom on you*🌸
"Eagles advance, traveler! And may the Green watch and keep you."
🦬🦌🐰
PlayStation and PC EU.
LunaLolaBlossom on psn.
LunaFloraBlossom on pc.1 -
React✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Thanks for this.
A. We are actively working on ways to combat identified strategies, like heal stacking, among others. You will see the first steps to address this in Update 49, next year. As noted in some of the answers here, we are leaning into solutions that utilize Battle Spirit.
Looking forward to hearing more about this. It is an issue that we've been begging to be addressed going on several years now, basically since the introduction of plaguebreak, which has only been exacerbated by hybridization, scribing, and subclassing.
Q. What do you think about the ability to leave a battle that is unfavorable for you with impunity by simply moving to the Imperial Sewers and back during the battle? Is it fair? - Noreno
A. We can confirm we’re looking at adjusting this, but we don’t have any specifics to share today. We will keep you updated as we have more info.
I know the commenter posted this question in regards to a player leaving a fight in cyrodiil, but I want to point out the much more frustrating version is a player leaving imperial city to escape tel var loss. Currently, every single person who farms tel var on PC NA utilizes the queue to escape every single time they get attacked. They will farm tel var on something that cannot be killed without a long fight, as soon as you hit them they pop a defensive ult and activate the queue, and in under 10 seconds they disappear from the campaign. This completely circumvents the risk/reward nature of imperial city and makes farming telvar effectively completely safe. Many people complain that only gankers play in IC these days - but when you cannot kill these farmers without doing 40k damage to them from stealth because they'll just queue out, it definitely makes sense why people don't bother attacking them on anything other than gankers.
Edited by React on December 16, 2025 4:55PM@ReactSlower - PC/NA - 2000+ CP
React Faster - XB/NA - 1500+ CP
ContentTwitch.tv/reactfaster
Youtube.com/@ReactFaster6 -
McMasterx✭✭✭thejadefalcon wrote: »The stuck-in-combat bug is, in a nutshell, an extremely complicated issue. Over the years, we’ve tried various potential fixes, only to have the issue persist. The number of factors that contribute to the “in combat” state are part of the complexity. We must check things like ongoing kill credit, monster hate lists, and more.
Oh good, it starts with a complete non-answer, this Q&A should be worth the time. /s
I've literally sat doing nothing before, safe inside an empty keep, and been stuck in combat for 10 minutes. What kills could I be getting? What monsters could be aggroed on me? Yes. If you are in combat, you are in combat. That's how the game works. We already knew that, that's why there was clearly a bug, which has been talked about for years on end now.
Yeah, this was one of the big things I thought Vengeance was gonna address: Slowly dripfeed features back into the game until bugs start reappearing.
The Vengeance Campaigns do not have the same Combat Bug as Live Grayhost, I can fight some huge zerg inside a keep, back off six feet, wait seven seconds, and I'm out of combat free to change my skills and quickwheel. I had honestly thought Vengeance would've followed up on this by figuring out what was removed that generates the bug.Pc/Na4 -
allochthons✭✭✭✭✭
Please be very careful with this. I use that trick when doing my IC quests, and when in Cyrodiil doing solo things like questing. I don't think I've ever used it in a PvP battle.Q. What do you think about the ability to leave a battle that is unfavorable for you with impunity by simply moving to the Imperial Sewers and back during the battle? Is it fair? - Noreno
A. We can confirm we’re looking at adjusting this, but we don’t have any specifics to share today. We will keep you updated as we have more info.
If I have to spend my AP to buy the travel tokens, or lose 50% of my tel var to death porting (much less run back through the sewers to be able to leave IC), I'll stop doing what little I do right now in PvP.
I'm not saying it doesn't get abused or that it doesn't need updating. Please just consider all the ways it is used.She/They
PS5/NA (CP3000+)12 -
acastanza_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭thejadefalcon wrote: »The stuck-in-combat bug is, in a nutshell, an extremely complicated issue. Over the years, we’ve tried various potential fixes, only to have the issue persist. The number of factors that contribute to the “in combat” state are part of the complexity. We must check things like ongoing kill credit, monster hate lists, and more.
Oh good, it starts with a complete non-answer, this Q&A should be worth the time. /s
I've literally sat doing nothing before, safe inside an empty keep, and been stuck in combat for 10 minutes. What kills could I be getting? What monsters could be aggroed on me? Yes. If you are in combat, you are in combat. That's how the game works. We already knew that, that's why there was clearly a bug, which has been talked about for years on end now.
No offense, but this take seems... outdated. The fixes ZOS introduced in U46 were substantial, to the point where we noticed it immediately after the patch and were actively talking about it in zone chat wondering if ZOS changed something, long, long, before they acknowledgd that they'd done anything. Perma-stuck in combat is now a rarity instead of a constant. Admittedly it does still happen, but even then it does generally fall off eventually unlike before. Admittedly you still don't get out of combat as fast as you do in Vengeance, but you also get more kill credit than you do in Vengeance from that logic that is keeping you "in combat" a little longer, a tradeoff that they mentioned in the Q&A.. I'm generally a pretty hard critic of ZOS, but credit where credit is due, they did manage to make a meaningful improvement here, and frankly I think the combat bug has been basically reduced to the point where it's no longer a top 10 Cyrodiil issue.Edited by acastanza_ESO on December 16, 2025 6:26PM5 -
Destai✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Q. Sometimes, quality of life fixes are appreciated even if performance cannot be improved. How are you all doing with the "Stuck in Combat" bug?
Being stuck in combat is something every PVPer dislikes. There was a time, just before how defensive ticks were changed, when we could get out of combat after six seconds. Everyone was amazed how being "stuck in combat" was finally fixed. But soon after the new patch that introduced the new defensive ticks, we were back to being "stuck in combat." No reason was ever given as to why it was reintroduced. And I vaguely remember you all saying that you didn't want a "bandaid" fix, but that you were working on it. But...it's been years since then and we still suffer from being "stuck in combat." Fixing this would go a long way with the PVP community. - maxjapank
A. This was one of our most asked about topics. The stuck-in-combat bug is, in a nutshell, an extremely complicated issue. Over the years, we’ve tried various potential fixes, only to have the issue persist. The number of factors that contribute to the “in combat” state are part of the complexity. We must check things like ongoing kill credit, monster hate lists, and more.
That being said, we implemented some fixes in Update 46. They are currently working, and thus cutting down on reports of players being stuck-in-combat. We continue to monitor this and will continue to explore other places where we can make improvements to cut down on occurrences where players are getting stuck-in-combat in Cyrodiil.
After taking most of the year, this is the first answer get it. Wow. We all know it's complicated. That's why we keep asking about it. One of the biggest factors to being stuck in combat is the monster AI. I can go halfway across any map, and some mob won't disengage until he gets a "tee-hee, BOOP! Can't catch me!" in with his hammer. That's one of the biggest problems. When's that being fixed?
Taking a step back - we shouldn't get vague answers like this. It feels like the devs need to better support the CMs. The devs should know by now it's just going to be litany of questions and quips in response. I don't really know how people could be more clear - stop with the "stay tuned" messaging. Telling us you're monitoring isn't helpful. I'm sorry it's not. If you're actively working on something tell us what. You mentioned other places they're exploring - can you elaborate? You listed "kill credit, monster hate lists, and more". What's the "more" here?Q. Have you considered that not the Skills, but other things lead to the poor performance? For example certain server side updates, which lead to big performance regressions. Even if you run around alone in Cyrodiil, running can be slowed down, or riding on your mount can be sluggish and get slow downs, without ANYONE being near. - RedJohn_COF
A. Yes, we've considered and tested what contributes to game performance impact and have looked at the various things including physics processes (the things that control destructible states on keeps and such). We’ve looked into collections, outfit stations, quests, inventory, etc. Everything pales in comparison to ability usage combined with passives (this includes item sets, CP, and skill line passives), which is why they were the focus of our Vengeance tests.
Ok, I think the question was misunderstood. Have the devs at all considered the issue is former server side calculations being moved to client-side calculations?Edited by Destai on December 16, 2025 10:47PM2 -
Darkmage1337✭✭✭✭✭
✭Q. Sometimes, quality of life fixes are appreciated even if performance cannot be improved. How are you all doing with the "Stuck in Combat" bug?
Top Priority #2 (with stability/performance being the #1 focus).
Q. Are you planning to address map irregularities/disadvantages in Cyrodiil? (i.e. ability to siege Glademist or Faregyl from mine and/or cliffs without showing siege count (distance issue) or range to that location for defensive siege?
Honestly, this should be better addressed and fixed for a fair fight.
Add a wooden or stone wall. Or move a rock or a tree. Do something.
How is this not exploitive behavior? Seriously. It's beyond ridiculous.
Q. Why did you stop changing the names of campaigns to align with the content cycle that we're on, and, can we please go back to changing the names of campaigns to align with the content cycle that we're on? It's a super, super, tiny thing, but it just helps make PVP feel cared about.
Agreed. (Althought this is a pedantic non-issue.) But, Greymoor released back in 2020, over 5 years ago.
Instead of campaigns being named after seasons/chapters, give them generic names, like "Vengeance".
Q. Any plans to update the Under 50 "newbie" campaign so it is actually a helpful training ground for new Level 10 PVP players? Encouraging new players in a better atmosphere may lead to healthier PVP in general.
Q. Why are characters under level 50 allowed in regular campaigns? The majority I encountered probably got there mostly by accident. But shouldn't they be restricted to that one training campaign? Provide more insight on how the joining of campaigns happens, and better tutorials for newcomers.
(These two sort of go together in my response/critique.)
Perhaps eliminate the lvl 10-49 campaign instances altogether and simply give new-players a basic lvl 50 or CP-160-equivalent character-stat template while in a regular campaign. (For both Cyrodiil and Imperial City.) This would allow new players and veteran players to better play together, increase Cyrodiil player population, and promote the socialization and growth of the PvP community (and ESO, overall). The lvl 10-49 campaign is drastically underpopulated as is. And, lvl 40+ characters already have a significant advantage over lvl 10 characters, anyway. (e.g. lvl 40+ players have many more skillpoints for abilities and passives versus a lvl 10 player.) So, get rid of the lvl 10-49 instances and give lvl 10-49 players a basic entry-level stat-starter template in regular campaigns. (You are already doing character-templates in Vengeance anyway. So, streamline it.)
Q. Perhaps the least Cyrodiil related issue - but reflective of it I should like to propose is the choice of Guild Alliance. Namely a token of sorts which may enable a guild to switch to a desired alliance. I figure that since we have alliance change tokens, a similar thing should exist for guilds as well.
This would be a nice feature. I believe customer support has the power to change a guild's alliance upon request. But, an ingame option would be welcomed. To prevent guild alliance-swapping abuse, I propose a 30, 60, or 90-day cooldown period before a guild is able to swap it again. (Along with the alliance-swap effect not being instant and only taking place after the current campaign duration ends. Again, to prevent abuse.) This is a reasonable request.
Q. What do you think about the ability to leave a battle that is unfavorable for you with impunity by simply moving to the Imperial Sewers and back during the battle? Is it fair?
React already mentioned this in detail, and I echo the sentiment in that it is too easy to escape Imperial City combat with Tel Var when another player attacks you and you can instantly teleport away by queueing to a different campaign (both Imperial City and Cyrodiil). A simple solution would be to not allow campaign queueing while a player is in combat. (Although, this could be an issue for group-queues with some players in-combat in one area and others not in combat in a different area.) So, perhaps a group-queue would not work while someone in the group is in combat and the group would either have to wait until all group members are out-of-combat; or, they would have to each solo-queue. Either way, please address the instance-swapping while midfight. It is infuriating.
Q. Are you planning to fix Volendrung spawning? There are soooo many spawn points over the map but it only spawns in the same 3 spawn points for every alliance, which leads to people going to them right away. Why isn't it really random?
I agree. There are over 20 spawn locations for Volendrung, but Volendrung typically spawn in the same few locations. So, please increase the randomness probability of the spawns; or, remove the other spawn locations that never get used.
Q. Can healers PLEASE get credit for assists? After all, we gave up a lot in order that our friends can continue further and take out the people trying to kill us.
Agreed. Healers need more love! This would incentivise better group-play in all aspects of PvP. This is a major design oversight that has gone on for far too long.
Extra/other questions (from my own past ideas and comments throughout the years):
Any chance of other Daedric Artifacts being added to Cyrodiil in order to spice up gameplay, aside from Volendrung? (I believe Auriel's Bow was used at an ESO experimental demostration at a convention, many years ago.) Other Daedric Artifacts could share the same or separate respawn timer as Volendrung. (An additional Daedric Artifact could also help counter Volendrung.) Plus, a There are already 20+ spawn locations, with the majority being entirely unused. Different Daedric Artifacts with different gameplay functions would spice up Cyrodiil gameplay. (e.g. Volendrung is a siege-breaker. Auriel's Bow could be a long-range volley of some sort.) There are plenty of Daedric Artifacts to experiment with and choose from.
Give us Bravil! It is the last major city from TES IV: Oblivion and the only one that is inaccessible in ESO.
We have Imperial City, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Anvil, Bruma, Leyawiin, Kvatch, Skingrad. (And even Sutch!)
Bravil could be a small-scale street-fight-style zone, a part of Cyrodiil, or a Battleground, or other PvP mode or PvE area.
The past idea of the inclusion of variable-timed spawns of mobile roadside caravans (horse carriages guarded by elite NPCs) would be a cool radiant/timed moving-objective for factions to take control of and fight over. This would be a nice addition to spice up action on the roads between Keeps, which often go entirely unused due to keep-to-keep Transitus shrines. Once captured, the caravan would travel to the nearest identical faction-owned keep and an AP reward awaded for escorting it.
There is so much unused area in Cyrodiil to take advantage of, and simple additions like more quests would be welcomed. (Story-quests, not the typical repeatable safezone and city dailies.)
Any chance of making Cloud Ruler Temple accessible? Maybe add a world boss or some kind of unique encounter there.
*Any/all of the above ideas/suggestions would be subject to performance-checks to ensure that they have little-to-no strain on server resources/performance.
Anyways. Those are my some of my current thoughts.
A lot of the current Q&A was focused on "continued dialogue and to check back in 2026" as opposed to upcoming concrete actionable changes and solutions, which I think was what most PvPers were looking for here. Myself included.ESO Platform/Region: PC/NA. ESO ID: @Darkmage1337GM of Absolute Virtue. Co-GM of Absolute Vice. 8-time Former Emperor, out of 13 characters. 3 Templars, 3 Sorcerers, 2 Nightblades, 2 Dragonknights, 1 Warden. 1 Necromancer, and 1 Arcanist. The Ebonheart Pact: The Dark-Mage (Former Emperor), The Undying Nightshade, The Moonlit-Knight, The Killionaire (Former Emperor), Swims-Among-Slaughterfish (Former Emperor), The Undead Mage, and The Dark-Warlock. The Aldmeri Dominion: The Dawn-Bringer (Former Empress), The Ironwood Kid (Former Emperor), and The Storm-Sword. The Daggerfall Covenant: The Storm-Shield (Former Empress), The Savage-Beast, and The Burning-Crusader CP: 1,999.5 -
SeaGtGruff✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭allochthons wrote: »
Please be very careful with this. I use that trick when doing my IC quests, and when in Cyrodiil doing solo things like questing. I don't think I've ever used it in a PvP battle.Q. What do you think about the ability to leave a battle that is unfavorable for you with impunity by simply moving to the Imperial Sewers and back during the battle? Is it fair? - Noreno
A. We can confirm we’re looking at adjusting this, but we don’t have any specifics to share today. We will keep you updated as we have more info.
If I have to spend my AP to buy the travel tokens, or lose 50% of my tel var to death porting (much less run back through the sewers to be able to leave IC), I'll stop doing what little I do right now in PvP.
I'm not saying it doesn't get abused or that it doesn't need updating. Please just consider all the ways it is used.
Can we actually use this to get out of a battle? I mean, if we're actively in combat. If we can't join a queue while in combat, how can we queue to IC as a way of getting out of a fight that's unfavorable to us-- unless we aren't actually involved in said fight in the first place?
Besides, blood porting is a lot faster than queuing back and forth between IC and Cyrodiil. Plus, blood porting lets us respawn at any friendly keep or outpost that isn't under attack, so it can be a very quick and convenient way to get to a keep that's just been cut and is about to be attacked, or to reach a distant friendly keep or outpost that isn't connected by Transitus Network when we want to get to an enemy keep, resource, outpost, or town that's on the far side of the map.
So I'm inclined to think that this "queuing to IC to escape an unfavorable fight" scenario is probably a lot less common than some people feel it is. I think it's more likely to be used as a convenient way to get out of Cyrodiil entirely when we want to go do other things in the game, or used by players during Mayhems as a way to quickly grab their event tickets or reward coffers in Cyrodiil and IC without having to get involved in PvP situations that they don't enjoy (and then leave Cyrodiil and IC entirely once they've got their tickets and reward coffers). I've read that there's an addon which helps make queuing this way a lot faster and more convenient, and seen claims that some players use that addon to escape "unfavorable fights," but I don't see how that could be as big of a problem as claimed.
In my opinion, queuing out of IC or Cyrodiil should not be something that can be interrupted by enemies once the queue has popped and been accepted. I would personally be okay with there being some sort of brief "wait time" of, say, a few seconds between requesting a queue and actually getting placed into said queue, so players can't abuse that addon by "insta-queuing" out of an impending attack by simply pressing a key in the brief moments before an incoming enemy player can attack them, but removing the ability entirely would be a mistake in my opinion.I've fought mudcrabs more fearsome than me!3 -
tomofhyrule✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Q. Will there be a handicap system to replace the Low Population Bonus which has many problems in its design? There are many alternatives, but the simplest would be a point handicap system inversely proportional to population. For instance, hourly tick points would be the current points for a faction at 1 bar, 1/2 points for a faction at 2 bars, 1/4 points for a faction at 4 bars and so on (could be more accurate with actual population or even active population and not bars). - Dyngrin
A. Thanks for the suggestion! This is something we can look into for the future. We know from player feedback that there could be an alternative to this. As for right now, you do get an AP/EXP bonus when you have a lower score. Applying a combat bonus could open pathways to exploiting, so that is something we need to be careful of, but we will continue to explore and see what is possible.
This is actually one of my biggest issues with Cyrodiil, and I really think it's basically led to the death of most of the non-GH campaigns.
We've seen too many times that one alliance ends up taking the map, and then because they don't consider playing for other alliances, that map just stays one color. Maybe you may have a two-way fight with one alliance active in the morning and one at night, but I've seen so many times where one or more alliances just get pushed out completely.
I used to home Blackreach on PCNA and go in now and then. But then a lot of the EP guilds stopped coming, and Blackreach turned into AD vs DC, where EP usually had like two resources. And if you went in to just solo a resource, people would actually be parked at the EP gates to kill anyone running in instead of actually engaging in the AD/DC emp fights on the opposite end of the map. The scores were usually along the lines of 10k/10k/3k, and EP never got the "low score" or "low pop" bonuses despite the massive score and population imbalances.
Eventually I found out that all of the EP guilds ended up going to Grey Host, since they were essentially blocked out of BR. And as a result, I pretty well stopped going into Cyrodiil since it wasn't my main thing and I didn't feel like dealing with the experts. I don't know if BR changed back in the past year or so, but I guess it's not hanging around either way.
But anyway, my point is that the bonuses that are offered are 1) inconsitently applied, and most of the time going onto the alliances that are not in the underdog position, and 2) not enough to get people to come in on the underdog alliances.3 -
React✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭SeaGtGruff wrote: »allochthons wrote: »
Please be very careful with this. I use that trick when doing my IC quests, and when in Cyrodiil doing solo things like questing. I don't think I've ever used it in a PvP battle.Q. What do you think about the ability to leave a battle that is unfavorable for you with impunity by simply moving to the Imperial Sewers and back during the battle? Is it fair? - Noreno
A. We can confirm we’re looking at adjusting this, but we don’t have any specifics to share today. We will keep you updated as we have more info.
If I have to spend my AP to buy the travel tokens, or lose 50% of my tel var to death porting (much less run back through the sewers to be able to leave IC), I'll stop doing what little I do right now in PvP.
I'm not saying it doesn't get abused or that it doesn't need updating. Please just consider all the ways it is used.
Can we actually use this to get out of a battle? I mean, if we're actively in combat. If we can't join a queue while in combat, how can we queue to IC as a way of getting out of a fight that's unfavorable to us-- unless we aren't actually involved in said fight in the first place?
Besides, blood porting is a lot faster than queuing back and forth between IC and Cyrodiil. Plus, blood porting lets us respawn at any friendly keep or outpost that isn't under attack, so it can be a very quick and convenient way to get to a keep that's just been cut and is about to be attacked, or to reach a distant friendly keep or outpost that isn't connected by Transitus Network when we want to get to an enemy keep, resource, outpost, or town that's on the far side of the map.
So I'm inclined to think that this "queuing to IC to escape an unfavorable fight" scenario is probably a lot less common than some people feel it is. I think it's more likely to be used as a convenient way to get out of Cyrodiil entirely when we want to go do other things in the game, or used by players during Mayhems as a way to quickly grab their event tickets or reward coffers in Cyrodiil and IC without having to get involved in PvP situations that they don't enjoy (and then leave Cyrodiil and IC entirely once they've got their tickets and reward coffers). I've read that there's an addon which helps make queuing this way a lot faster and more convenient, and seen claims that some players use that addon to escape "unfavorable fights," but I don't see how that could be as big of a problem as claimed.
In my opinion, queuing out of IC or Cyrodiil should not be something that can be interrupted by enemies once the queue has popped and been accepted. I would personally be okay with there being some sort of brief "wait time" of, say, a few seconds between requesting a queue and actually getting placed into said queue, so players can't abuse that addon by "insta-queuing" out of an impending attack by simply pressing a key in the brief moments before an incoming enemy player can attack them, but removing the ability entirely would be a mistake in my opinion.
To be clear - yes, you can START AND ACCEPT a queue while in combat. There are addons where you can keybind the start queue function to a single key on your keyboard, and then another addon will automatically accept the queue as soon as it "pops". So the problematic scenario is in imperial city, people abuse this to farm telvar risk free. They run a build with 40-50k HP that cannot be killed easily/at all by one person, hold their ult while farming bosses, and the moment they see or get hit by an enemy player, they pop their defensive ult, hit the hotkey for the queue, and 10 seconds later they're pulled out of imperial city with no consequences whatsoever.
This IS an exploit of how the system is supposed to work, and we know this for a fact based on how the "get me unstuck" feature works in imperial city, and the existence of imperial retreat sigils. If you use "get me unstuck" while in imperial city, you are notified you will lose half of your carried telvar - because the developers did not intend for you to be able to poof away at will consequence free with your telvar. The retreat sigil exists for this very reason as well - to provide a way to return to base without having to run all the way back, that doesn't take your telvar the way that "get me unstuck" does. This wasn't an issue when imperial city first came out because imperial city was not it's own "instance" and you didn't queue in to access it. It was originally part of each individual cyrodiil campaign, and was accessed physically via the sewer entrances within the campaign itself, thus there was no cyrodiil queue that could be activated to escape IC.
The solution is simple. You should not be able to start a queue while you or anyone in your group is in combat in imperial city, and the "safe zones" on the doors in IC should remove you from combat automatically. This way people cannot abuse the queue to escape being attacked, but if they're not directly in combat and able to go through a door, they'll be able to start a queue.
Even imposing the "half your telvar" penalty on the queue won't stop these people from abusing it - they'd rather lose their telvar to the void than get killed by you for it.Edited by React on December 16, 2025 8:13PM@ReactSlower - PC/NA - 2000+ CP
React Faster - XB/NA - 1500+ CP
ContentTwitch.tv/reactfaster
Youtube.com/@ReactFaster7 -
The_Meathead✭✭✭✭✭Absolutely superb.
Look, I've been a doubter since about U35, so this isn't a small thing to me.
You guys are being straight-forward, addressing LOOOOONG held concerns and questions that were danced around or avoided for years (Ballgroups/heal-stacking, AddOns and their effect on performance), and you're really showing me something here. I have been impressed by the huge amount of effort and interaction I've seen regarding PvP and Cyrodiil to a point I didn't see coming.
I may not agree with every decision you wind up making, but I certainly admire the energy, process, and open discussion, and that means a LOT.
Thank you, thank you, and thank you.
KEEP IT UP!
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thejadefalcon✭✭✭✭✭
✭acastanza_ESO wrote: »thejadefalcon wrote: »The stuck-in-combat bug is, in a nutshell, an extremely complicated issue. Over the years, we’ve tried various potential fixes, only to have the issue persist. The number of factors that contribute to the “in combat” state are part of the complexity. We must check things like ongoing kill credit, monster hate lists, and more.
Oh good, it starts with a complete non-answer, this Q&A should be worth the time. /s
I've literally sat doing nothing before, safe inside an empty keep, and been stuck in combat for 10 minutes. What kills could I be getting? What monsters could be aggroed on me? Yes. If you are in combat, you are in combat. That's how the game works. We already knew that, that's why there was clearly a bug, which has been talked about for years on end now.
No offense, but this take seems... outdated. The fixes ZOS introduced in U46 were substantial, to the point where we noticed it immediately after the patch and were actively talking about it in zone chat wondering if ZOS changed something, long, long, before they acknowledgd that they'd done anything. Perma-stuck in combat is now a rarity instead of a constant. Admittedly it does still happen, but even then it does generally fall off eventually unlike before. Admittedly you still don't get out of combat as fast as you do in Vengeance, but you also get more kill credit than you do in Vengeance from that logic that is keeping you "in combat" a little longer, a tradeoff that they mentioned in the Q&A.. I'm generally a pretty hard critic of ZOS, but credit where credit is due, they did manage to make a meaningful improvement here, and frankly I think the combat bug has been basically reduced to the point where it's no longer a top 10 Cyrodiil issue.
It's not about whether it's outdated in that the bug is in a better period right now, it's about how completely and utterly uninformative the answer was. It didn't explain anything at all about what actually causes it. Of course the game sees you're in combat when you're in combat,* the problem is more why it continues to keep you in combat when none of those things that they mentioned are relevant.
*Usually. Even that's not a guarantee. I've had one time where I was fighting someone, I retreated and, despite them having an actively damaging spell on me that prevented me from mounting to retreat, they were more than capable of mounting and running me down, being freed from combat despite those "are you in combat" checks that should have been returning "yes."1 -
SeaGtGruff✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭@React, I don't think I've ever been able to queue for IC when I'm "in combat" in Cyrodiil; I'm pretty sure the game doesn't let me, just like not being able to mount while "in combat."
As far as the other way around, I'm not sure why it would be any different if you're in IC and want to join a queue for Cyrodiil. Note, I don't have any addons installed, and have never used any addons in ESO, so I don't know how that particular addon works. If it lets players join a queue while they're already "in combat," then that is not good in my opinion. But I've never been able to queue out of IC while in combat just because I'd never be able to open the campaigns screen, select a campaign, and try to join a queue before getting killed. Maybe I'll go aggro one of the wandering sewer bosses, run far enough away from it, and try to queue out to Cyrodiil to see if the game will let me join a queue while "in combat." /rubs_chin
Like I said, I'd be okay with some sort of brief "waiting period" being added to the queuing process, such as taking the action to join a queue-- which in my case means pressing L, choosing a campaign, and then selecting the option to join the queue for that campaign (which already takes me several seconds to do)-- but having it take a few seconds after that before the game actually places me in the requested queue (queuing for a queue, as it were). That wouldn't prevent players from "legitimately" queuing back and forth between Cyrodiil and IC, but it should put a stop to anyone abusing an addon that lets them exploit the queuing process in an unfair manner.I've fought mudcrabs more fearsome than me!2 -
ZOS_KevinCommunity Managerthejadefalcon wrote: »It's not about whether it's outdated in that the bug is in a better period right now, it's about how completely and utterly uninformative the answer was. It didn't explain anything at all about what actually causes it.
Wanted to address this part. The intention was not to give a "non-answer" but to address the fact that it isn't one cause or a few sets of causes. One of the big issues with stuck in combat is triggering the bug itself is very circumstantial and can have many triggers. The way it was described when talking to some of the folks who provided some fixes in U46 was "there are many factors and ways to possibly become stuck in combat". It's why we are continuing to track when examples come in. To note those and see where commonalities occur and see other areas to fix. Items listed in our answer, like ongoing kill credit and monster hate lists we among the more common instances of the things addressed in the U46 fix. But there are more circumstantial instances that are either few in occurrence, or have not been reported to thread some common points to pinpoint a fix. So it isn't us trying to not be informative, but rather the specific circumstance instance list is long with little connecting data.
But as we have noted, the fixes we have done have significantly reduced the occurrences of stuck in combat generally.Community Manager for ZeniMax Online Studio and Elder Scrolls OnlineDev Tracker | Service Alerts | ESO Twitter4 -
imPDA✭✭✭SeaGtGruff wrote: »@React, I don't think I've ever been able to queue for IC when I'm "in combat" in Cyrodiil; I'm pretty sure the game doesn't let me, just like not being able to mount while "in combat."
You can, try again. You can go and test it with mobs in Cyro for example:
Step into combat with mob
Open campaigns tab
Click RMB -> Enter or just doubleclick on any IC campaign
Open notifications tab (N is default keybind if I remember right)
As soon as you are ready to port, you will see new notification
Press checkmark
Addons just makes it without opening the UI, which is a bit faster. You are probably not very scary to people around, but I used to see people running and queueing the second they saw me
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React✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭SeaGtGruff wrote: »@React, I don't think I've ever been able to queue for IC when I'm "in combat" in Cyrodiil; I'm pretty sure the game doesn't let me, just like not being able to mount while "in combat."
As far as the other way around, I'm not sure why it would be any different if you're in IC and want to join a queue for Cyrodiil. Note, I don't have any addons installed, and have never used any addons in ESO, so I don't know how that particular addon works. If it lets players join a queue while they're already "in combat," then that is not good in my opinion. But I've never been able to queue out of IC while in combat just because I'd never be able to open the campaigns screen, select a campaign, and try to join a queue before getting killed. Maybe I'll go aggro one of the wandering sewer bosses, run far enough away from it, and try to queue out to Cyrodiil to see if the game will let me join a queue while "in combat." /rubs_chin
Like I said, I'd be okay with some sort of brief "waiting period" being added to the queuing process, such as taking the action to join a queue-- which in my case means pressing L, choosing a campaign, and then selecting the option to join the queue for that campaign (which already takes me several seconds to do)-- but having it take a few seconds after that before the game actually places me in the requested queue (queuing for a queue, as it were). That wouldn't prevent players from "legitimately" queuing back and forth between Cyrodiil and IC, but it should put a stop to anyone abusing an addon that lets them exploit the queuing process in an unfair manner.
I'm not sure why you'd bother arguing this point when you don't understand how this works. You could go and verify this yourself in minutes if you weren't positive about the functionality of the queue in combat.
The addons only exacerbate the issue by making it easier for people do do. Here is an example of me doing this manually without an addon, while actively engaged with two players, using a controller on console UI which is far slower than doing it with a mouse and keyboard.
https://youtu.be/LWsTZhWxJaM?si=4onLiy9BkShKb_KH
The solution I gave above is completely viable and would fix this issue entirely without impacting anybody utilizing the queue normally, including people accepting pre-existing cyrodiil queues or BG queues that they started before entering combat. It would even solve the stuck in combat concern as far as IC goes, since you're already able to enter imperial city doors whilst in combat as long as you haven't dealt or received damage directly within 15 seconds or so.The solution is simple. You should not be able to start a queue while you or anyone in your group is in combat in imperial city, and the "safe zones" on the doors in IC should remove you from combat automatically. This way people cannot abuse the queue to escape being attacked, but if they're not directly in combat and able to go through a door, they'll be able to start a queue.
Edited by React on December 16, 2025 9:56PM@ReactSlower - PC/NA - 2000+ CP
React Faster - XB/NA - 1500+ CP
ContentTwitch.tv/reactfaster
Youtube.com/@ReactFaster2 -
SeaGtGruff✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭You could go and verify this yourself in minutes if you weren't positive about the functionality of the queue in combat.
Wow. It does in fact let me join a queue for IC while the NPC guards are actively attacking me. I'm flabbergasted. That ought to be changed ASAP.I've fought mudcrabs more fearsome than me!2 -
imPDA✭✭✭Q. Have you considered that not the Skills, but other things lead to the poor performance? For example certain server side updates, which lead to big performance regressions. Even if you run around alone in Cyrodiil, running can be slowed down, or riding on your mount can be sluggish and get slow downs, without ANYONE being near. - RedJohn_COF
A. Yes, we've considered and tested what contributes to game performance impact and have looked at the various things including physics processes (the things that control destructible states on keeps and such). We’ve looked into collections, outfit stations, quests, inventory, etc. Everything pales in comparison to ability usage combined with passives (this includes item sets, CP, and skill line passives), which is why they were the focus of our Vengeance tests.
@ZOS_Kevin Vengeance loadouts can only be changed at base because they then become locked, constant for this particular player. But in all other parts of the game, each passive is used in calculations every time (every cast, tick, etc., depends on the nature of passive), right?
Take "Dark Veil" as an example. It adds 2 seconds to Shadow abilities, and if I understand correctly, it applies a passive (36552) that is used to calculate the duration each time a Shadow ability casted. Is that right? If so, it's good design for a flexible environment where everything can be changed on the fly and still calculates correctly, but it adds significant overhead when unnecessary. I wonder if this has been discussed internally, because I see big potential for optimization here.
Possibility one: It could be possible to "snapshot" these values when a player leaves a faction base - with their bars and gear locked from changes (similar to Vengeance). By snapshotting, I mean making them constant for that player, so these values would no longer be recalculated on the fly each cast (or tick) but taken pre-calculated. The same for gear: take stats from gear, add them to base stats, and store them server-side when the player leaves base, and restrict gear changes. Considering these elements won’t be changed during combat anyway, it’s safe to make them constant server-side and remove part of the calculations. This "snapshotting" could safely apply to 90% of passives, skills, and gear. The only limitation is that to change your build, you’d have to return to base. That’s an okay trade-off if it helps improve performance imo.
Possibility two: Create separate skills for PvP, as was done for Vengeance, but take default skills and recalculate base values including all constants. For example, Battle Spirit decreases damage by 50% - make a copy of every available skill with 50% less damage (do the same for healing and shield) - and you can remove Battle Spirit from calculations. Next, require players to fully level skill lines before using them in PvP. That way, you could bake all skill line passives into the skill itself. Using the "Dark Veil" example, every skill would simply be 2 seconds longer by default, not calculated. And again, this applies to almost all passives. Allow players to join Cyrodiil only after level 50 with all passives purchased - then add class passives to base stats (regeneration, stamina, magicka, etc.). This would change nothing for 95% of players (who have everything leveled anyway), while reducing calculation overhead. Only 5% of players might be affected (they would have to finish leveling skills up before entering PvP), but the performance gain could be substantial.
I hope it can be seen by the correct person, who can say if these ideas were discussed previously, if they are viable, if they can be tested, etc. It can turn out to be undoable with current codebase, so while it would help with performance, it is simple can't be done in observable period of time, or it can turn out that these approaches are doable but simply was not considered before. Is it worth to write ideas like this at all?3 -
Saccopharynx✭✭✭On my old account once I had finished all of the End-Game PVE content, I spent about 8ish months of daily PVP and did nothing else for hours every day. The big concerns I experienced seem to have been answered, but there is one PVE comment I'd like to make and get insight on if possible.
I don't understand why the PVE Cyrodill idea hasn't been implemented by now. I've seen that request for years and I just feel like personally this has a couple of advantages that could make the PVP experience better.
- For one, people who aren't interested in PVP won't only show up for rewards during events and then leave when its over, or frustrate the veterans who don't want to deal with trying to educate a person on how PVP combat works knowing that person will never come back.
- A "soft" PVP experience in a PVE zone (let people take keeps against the npcs) could be a teaching moment in a way for people to get into the understanding of how it works to run keeps. I distinctly remember when I was in a PVP guild the new players we got were discouraged about being killed while they were still trying to learn the map and understand how Cyrodiil works, and a lot of them just never came back. There IS a learning curve to PVP and, in my opinion, a lot of it comes from learning the map and mechanics (the other half is understanding the actual player vs player part). If a PVE only map was made that also featured the chance to give the PVP part a gentle shot, it might encourage people to actually try actual PVP out. I saw mention of a more friendly tutorial for newbies, why not do it there?
- This isn't really an advantage or benefit just that its been requested so many times now that it seems odd that it's not even being considered.
Also, and I apologize for my possible ignorance here and I welcome being corrected by people who know better, but would removing all of the PVE bloat out of Cyrodiil into its own thing help with any of the performance issues at all?Xbox NA EST (10pm-3am hours) - Find me In-Game @Saccopharynx1 -
Xarc✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Hello.
Unfortunately, no concrete answers. Only "we find it interesting, we're working on it, you'll see in 2026," or "we haven't planned for that."
It's a real shame. Cyrodiil is waiting... and so are we, for far too long.@xarcs FR-EU-PC -Please visit my house ingame !
sorry for my english, it's not my native language, I'm french
"Death is overrated", Xarc
Xãrc -- breton necro - DC - AvA rank50
Xarcus -- imperial DK - DC - AvA rank50 - [pve] pureclass
Elnaa - breton NB - DC - AvA rank50
Xärc -- breton NB - DC - AvA rank49 - [pve] pureclass
Isilenil - Altmer NB - AD - AvA rank41
Felisja - Bosmer NB - DC - AvA rank43
Glàdys - redguard templar - DC - AvA rank40 - [pve & pvp] pureclass
Xaljaa - breton NB - now EP - AvA rank40
Bakenecro - khajiit necro - DC - AvA rank28
Xalisja - bosmer necro - DC - AvA ?
Shurgha - orc warden EP - AvA rank? [pve & pvp]pureclass
Scarlętt - breton templar DC - AvA rank?
- in game since April 2014
- on the forum since December 20144 -
ShutUpitsRed✭✭✭✭Just a note on queuing between IC/Cyro, as much as it can be abused, IME the most frequent use case is having to queue a whole group out at once because an unkillable hit-and-run troll is keeping the group in combat so they can't use doors to move between IC areas, then turning around and running off when confronted. Sometimes queuing out is literally the only way to get out of the zone short of logging off because of the limitations of being stuck in combat.
In general, IC needs more ways to leave and doors that function while "in combat."
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YandereGirlfriend✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Q. Do you have understanding, knowledge and/or insight in what addons that are "private" / "non-official" and used in PVP? Do and do you have plans to monitor or limit the behavior of such addons? - Idinuse
A. We’d like to provide a bit on our philosophy before answering this question. From a technical sense, in our perspective, there is no such thing as a private or unofficial mod. All mods are technically unofficial, since we don’t have a verification process.
Now in the sense that a “private” add-on is something someone made and didn’t post it for wider distribution, we do have a way to keep track of those by user. However, that does not give a clear indicator of what every add-on does. We go by reports and behaviors. So, if we see behavior that shouldn't be possible, or a user reports that an addon-on someone built is suspected of allowing for actions or behaviors that violate our Terms of Service, we investigate, close any API loopholes we find, and ban anyone caught exploiting. To be fair, the add-on community is rather good at self-managing instances like this. They would rather settle it among themselves without our intervention, as that could lead to everyone unintentionally losing more tools in their creative toolkit.
If you see instances where someone is exploiting through add-on usage, please report it to us so we can properly investigate and reduce the harm done.
With respect, this policy is SO backward.
This overly permissive stance toward the use of API features allows bad actors to run roughshod over the restrictions that are commonly believed to be in place (but in reality ARE NOT) and the burden is somehow on the rest of the community to out them and bring them to justice? Do you realize how unreasonable of a standard that is to set? To successfully bust a private and nefarious add-on you are forcing players to literally infiltrate those groups of users in order to expose them. Or to rely upon the sloppiness of those users to out themselves. Both of which are tasks that should fall upon ZOS not players.
Further, for the cost of add-on performance, particularly on the game conditions of NON-USERS, it is IMO outrageous that there is seemingly no effort being made to track the impact of add-ons that are being run in the wild. Recall that it took a random forum poster to blow the whistle on Bandits and the Map Pins hack that was degrading the performance of users and non-users alike. It wasn't an add-on dev or ZOS technical staff. It was a motivated player with Wireshark. That should never happen!
Make these add-on devs prove that their mods are behaving as they claim. Make them prove that they are only impacting the user of the mod. This burden should always fall upon add-on devs and their users and never on non-users.
It was alluded to that ZOS was monitoring the server overhead of the new data-sharing library. May we have a report on those findings? Is it being actively monitored or is it simply able to be monitored but nobody is really checking-in on it? IMO, it feels bad to know that common server resources are being siphoned away to transact the essentially private requests of add-on users. No matter how large or small those requests may be. It is unofficial and unsupported software, after all.
Finally, may we finally have a TEST of removing add-ons (and at the very least data-sharing add-ons) from Cyrodiil? It boggles the mind that, among all of the other iteration in Vengeance, this was never even attempted. Even if you think you know the answer it's worth doing anyway to gather actual hard data under real-world conditions. Just as with Map Pins... the conventional wisdom was that the hack was harmless... until it was actually scrutinized and that turned out emphatically not to be the case. This could well turn out to be the case again.4 -
RaidingTraiding✭✭✭Q. Does the team feel that faction locks are still beneficial considering the current population? - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. Yes, we still believe they are beneficial. Faction locks help to reinforce alliance identity and the social aspect of the game. They are more of a social reinforcement rather than a technical issue. Population really isn’t a factor here with the exception of cutting down on spying and strengthening the social contact among active players.
It's literally limiting the social aspect. A lot of people have more than 1 group of friends that they play with and when it's locked you can't play with some people. There's a large number of players who couldn't care less about spying and campaign score and would rather play an mmo with more than a select number of friends.2 -
RaidingTraiding✭✭✭Curious why they pick 3 questions on below 50 and a handful on adding pve into cyro, but no mention of addressing rush of agony.2
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Turtle_Bot✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭@ZOS_Kevin Thanks for getting this out there.
A few things:- In regards to Stuck in Combat has the team considered implementing the same fix they did for things like IC doors where they can be used if not actively dealing/taking damage or healing another player/monster within the past X seconds, but applying it to combat more broadly?
There really should be no need to check multiple lists for things like monster aggro, kill credit, etc. just to see if someone is still in combat or not, at least there shouldn't be outside of specific content such as group dungeons and trials.
- I appreciate the response to the ball group topic (heal stacking, etc.), but there was a distinct lack of insight into the other big balance topic of Cyrodiil (and ball groups) that being the set, "Rush of Agony" (or "Rushing Agony"). What are the plans (if any) to tackle this set and the toxic play patterns that this set (and similar mass pull sets) enable in PvP?
This set, even in it's post "fixed" state still has the effect of enabling organized raids (who have zero need of this kind of power like they have zero need of the current heal/shield/buff stacking mechanic magnifiers they also have access to) to create their own "choke points" anywhere they want for their turn and burn ultimate dumps. This set is still so obnoxious/overpowering in PvP zones that it still remains a borderline exploit (albeit one that ZOS themselves designed and added to the game). If ZOS does plan to address mechanic magnifiers that groups are able to take extreme advantage of, then this set also needs to be addressed (made PvE only).
- In regards to Faction Locks (preventing spying etc.), is the team looking into shortening the cooldown on the lock from 30 days to say 24/48 hours.
This duration still solves the spying issue since players won't be able to relog into another alliance for 24/48 hours which allows for a long time for the map/situation to change making such spying worthless/pointless, but allows players who have friends across different alliances to play with 1 group 1 day, but the next day (or 2 days later) they can play with their other friends on a different alliance without having to wait a full month to play with that second group to then only be locked out of playing with their first group of friends for an entire month).
- Lastly (for now, also this was briefly touched on, but more answers are needed), there's the issue of population imbalances in Cyrodiil that is doing as much harm to PvP as poor performance and bad balancing have had. What is the team looking at doing in this regard to better balance the populations to prevent this issue in the future.
Multiple suggestions have been put forward, ranging from combat buffs/debuffs to significant adjustments to AP/rewards gain to adjustable population caps and the queue system to function more like battlegrounds where it puts players into the lowest populated alliance first.
Edited by Turtle_Bot on December 17, 2025 2:19AM5 - In regards to Stuck in Combat has the team considered implementing the same fix they did for things like IC doors where they can be used if not actively dealing/taking damage or healing another player/monster within the past X seconds, but applying it to combat more broadly?
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LarsS✭✭✭✭✭Q. When will the campaign point and buff system be revised? Campaigns are decided when Cyrodiil is empty, so why care about the campaigns? In addition, the alliance dominating the map get buffed. Why? - LarsS
A. We are exploring ways to give interim or during campaign benefits to alliances, regardless of whether they are winning or losing. Nothing to announce yet, but this is something we are aware of and looking into, and will want everyone’s feedback on.
This did not really answer my question, even though some other answers gave some valuable information.
Still, I am sure it is obvious to anyone playing in Cyro that the present campaign point system which gives equal weight to times when few are playing as when the server is full is detrimental to the player participation in the campaigns. I have seen many coming to cyro trying to help their alliance win the campaign, but soon losing interest, when they realized that, campaigns are decided when few are online not at prime time.
The fact that the dominant faction get buffed makes it hard for the other alliances to counterattack. One example during the day on PC/EU an underdog alliance may be able to find 10 active players if they are lucky, they won’t be able to counterattack against the dominant faction which have at least similar numbers and all the advantages. The effect is that people are login off again.
It is obvious that this must be rebalanced to bring the Cyro population up again. The exact solution is something that could be tested on live. The direction is clear though, weight the campaign points based on the population, and buff the combat strength of factions, based on their numbers or possession of cyro structures.GM for The Daggerfall Authority EU PC2 -
Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Hi Kevin,
thanks to you and the Devs involved in providing some answers, It would be really nice to be able to follow up on some of these questions as in some cases the question has been misinterpreted or the answer doesn't seem to address it.Q. In the thread regarding lags and freezes, the devs recently wrote that the Bandits UI addon affects the game's performance via MapPingAPI. What measures have you taken or are you planning to take to fix the situation? And how will this affect other addons using this API. - katemedina666
A. In the case of Bandit UI, it utilized a sort of back door add-on to add-on communication pipeline to function. Something about hitting that backdoor too much started causing noticeable issues in client performance, even for folks not using the add-on. So, we worked with the Bandit UI add-on devs to temporarily disable the backdoor part of the add-on. We worked to add a new bespoke pipeline to let add-ons communicate within reasonable limitations and no longer needing the backdoor pipeline. The add-on community created a new library (LibGroupSocket) to utilize this new pipeline and integrated it into any add-ons that were relying on the backdoor. If there are similar instances with other add-ons, we’re more than happy to take a look and work with add-on creators to see what can be addressed.
Follow up: Was this functionality disabled or just removed from Bandits? I'm fairly sure I have and see others use quite a few addons which use these map ping methods still - surely if it is such a detrimental to performance problem it would have been better to completely remove the option from the API?Q. Could we be able to mount when in combat but with no mount stamina (meaning any damage, even DoTs will dismount you)? - BixenteN7Akantor
A. Unfortunately no. We'd need to redo dozens upon dozens of animations. Also, the server having to keep up with combat while on a mount, is the main reason. Being able to hit someone at an accelerated rate and have the server catch up will create contact issues in combat and add to overall performance degradation, as well as possible exploitable situations.
Follow-up: This question appears to have been misunderstood - the commenter is asking for a system whereby a player could mount whilst 'stuck in combat' but when doing so the mount stamina would be empty upon mounting thus if a player tried to abuse the mechanic to 'run away' from a fight any amount of damage would end up knocking them off the mount as soon as they mounted up (due to the empty stamina). This would fix both the 'stuck in combat' issue and the potential exploit.Q. Movement speed increases in Cyrodiil are causing severe issues with targeting and rendering. Are there any plans to reduce speed via Battle Spirit or otherwise address the targeting issues? - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. We have ongoing discussions about utilizing Battle Spirit to slow down in-combat player speed in Cyrodiil and Imperial City. (This would only be while in combat.) This is in the exploration phase, so we don’t currently have any additional details to share.
Follow-up: Please be careful in considering all type of movement speed increase - Swift on Jewellery, Celerity in Red CP as well as Major/Minor Expedition. Battle spirit adjusting this might be confusing unless it's clearly markedQ. When new features are introduced, such as armory and scribing, Cyrodiil often feels like an afterthought, stations not being added etc. Is the reason for this due to the complexity of the zone or is it for some other reason? For example it took almost a year to get an armory station in Cyrodiil. - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. To be clear, the main concern about performance hits is the singular reason why items introduced in the rest of the game are not added into Cyrodiil. Ironically, it’s performance being in the forefront, rather than an afterthought.
As we determine that these systems do/do not have significant overhead, we will look to add them back into PvP zones.
Follow-up: As player's it is very confusing to understand why adding a station to the alliance base to change a skill would cause a performance hit. Could you elaborate?Q. Has the team investigated the disconnect that occurs when approaching structures where large amounts of players are fighting? From our investigation it appears to be due to the order that objects are being loaded and failing as large numbers of players are loaded. Perhaps a more gradual loading system or reduced asset initial load could be considered? - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. We have. It is a combination of what you're suggesting along with graphics settings, and add-ons that create a heavy load on the client. If you're disconnecting/crashing a lot in Cyrodiil, consider removing your add-ons to see if it helps. Managing your add-ons is something you can do on your end while we continue work on making the experience better on our end.
(no follow up required just more info) As I mentioned during our testing the problem was only related to the player-loading step of the load order. We tested without any addons installed to ensure that this was not a factor. if you consider working on this please adjust how 'heavy' the player load step is and consider options for a lighter load e.g. the player stand-in (shadow texture) could be used to reduce effects etcQ. Is the team planning to adjust campaign scoring to consider population ratios? Currently the factions have very imbalanced populations and campaign score is usually determined solely by non prime time population imbalance. - Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
A. We do have some form of campaign scoring adjustments based on population. However, we are open to revisiting this system if the current mechanisms triggering current benefits are not seen as beneficial.
(no follow up required just more info) The existing campaign scoring adjustment does not work correctly and the score is too heavily outweighed by low population timezone scoring.
@Solar_Breeze
NA ~ Izanerys: Dracarys (Videos | Dracast)
EU ~ Izanagi: Banana Squad (AOE Rats/ Zerg Squad / Roleplay Circle)0 -
alternatelder✭✭✭✭✭
✭For me, these are the two most disappointing answers. 1) Just remove Volendrung, the moment it shows up is when performance all over Cyrodiil goes in the toilet. 2) No plans for a pve version after this long is extremely disappointing for those looking to actually explore and finish up the zone without being griefed.
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The_Meathead✭✭✭✭✭YandereGirlfriend wrote: »Q. Do you have understanding, knowledge and/or insight in what addons that are "private" / "non-official" and used in PVP? Do and do you have plans to monitor or limit the behavior of such addons? - Idinuse
A. We’d like to provide a bit on our philosophy before answering this question. From a technical sense, in our perspective, there is no such thing as a private or unofficial mod. All mods are technically unofficial, since we don’t have a verification process.
Now in the sense that a “private” add-on is something someone made and didn’t post it for wider distribution, we do have a way to keep track of those by user. However, that does not give a clear indicator of what every add-on does. We go by reports and behaviors. So, if we see behavior that shouldn't be possible, or a user reports that an addon-on someone built is suspected of allowing for actions or behaviors that violate our Terms of Service, we investigate, close any API loopholes we find, and ban anyone caught exploiting. To be fair, the add-on community is rather good at self-managing instances like this. They would rather settle it among themselves without our intervention, as that could lead to everyone unintentionally losing more tools in their creative toolkit.
If you see instances where someone is exploiting through add-on usage, please report it to us so we can properly investigate and reduce the harm done.
With respect, this policy is SO backward.
This overly permissive stance toward the use of API features allows bad actors to run roughshod over the restrictions that are commonly believed to be in place (but in reality ARE NOT) and the burden is somehow on the rest of the community to out them and bring them to justice? Do you realize how unreasonable of a standard that is to set? To successfully bust a private and nefarious add-on you are forcing players to literally infiltrate those groups of users in order to expose them. Or to rely upon the sloppiness of those users to out themselves. Both of which are tasks that should fall upon ZOS not players.
Further, for the cost of add-on performance, particularly on the game conditions of NON-USERS, it is IMO outrageous that there is seemingly no effort being made to track the impact of add-ons that are being run in the wild. Recall that it took a random forum poster to blow the whistle on Bandits and the Map Pins hack that was degrading the performance of users and non-users alike. It wasn't an add-on dev or ZOS technical staff. It was a motivated player with Wireshark. That should never happen!
Make these add-on devs prove that their mods are behaving as they claim. Make them prove that they are only impacting the user of the mod. This burden should always fall upon add-on devs and their users and never on non-users.
It was alluded to that ZOS was monitoring the server overhead of the new data-sharing library. May we have a report on those findings? Is it being actively monitored or is it simply able to be monitored but nobody is really checking-in on it? IMO, it feels bad to know that common server resources are being siphoned away to transact the essentially private requests of add-on users. No matter how large or small those requests may be. It is unofficial and unsupported software, after all.
Finally, may we finally have a TEST of removing add-ons (and at the very least data-sharing add-ons) from Cyrodiil? It boggles the mind that, among all of the other iteration in Vengeance, this was never even attempted. Even if you think you know the answer it's worth doing anyway to gather actual hard data under real-world conditions. Just as with Map Pins... the conventional wisdom was that the hack was harmless... until it was actually scrutinized and that turned out emphatically not to be the case. This could well turn out to be the case again.
Very well said.
I've always been tremendously suspicious a certain small group on PC NA is using some sort of AddOn or 3rd party interactions, as they are the only one of their kind (that I've ever run into) that generates the same sort of lag that the most impactful ball groups do.
I rarely if ever see lag in Cyrodiil, not even in the biggest zerg on zerg Faction Stack fights, unless multiple or specific individual Ball Groups are present. That alone has always made me wonder just why certain ones are so much more damaging to server performance (seriously, after so much gameplay, I can identify when specific ones arrive before I even see them just by the type of lag, because I don't see it otherwise.) To me, the possibility that AddOns and their interaction are playing a role seems VERY probable, but I admit I'm far from expert.
The fact a particular small group that's less than half ball group size manages to do the same (and I've seen Zone Chat wide complaints to know I'm not alone in noticing) kinda screams 3rd party something to me, because they certainly couldn't be generating the same amount of ability calculations as a much larger Ball Group, let alone multiple, in a similar area, right?
It's supposition on my part, certainly, but what's been stated here doesn't exactly fill me with certainty that it's being carefully monitored either.
Any chance we can get more on that topic, @ZOS_Kevin ? I know people love their AddOns, but I'd MUCH rather go without them in Cyrodiil entirely if they're not being watched with tremendous and constant scrutiny by you guys for their impact on performance.
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