I'll also add, as a DC Xbox NA player - I've not seen Blue's exploiting this ability. I've mostly seen it on reds and from a few yellow groups. My guild has the clips to show who's doing it.

Also @BradTheNord might be wise to change the title of the thread to something a little more descriptive lol

This is one of the worst bugs/exploits ever in PvP

I have been desynced for 30 seconds or more from this(unless there is another knock back that also desynces)

In your screen you are running around but unable to cast skills or switch bars. In reality you are standing still and can be killed

After 30 seconds or so you revert to the “real” position and are often dead

Last night however I didn’t revert and after almost a minute had to reload up to end the desync

I would love to banish ALL of these position displacement abilities back to the Shadow Realm because they ALL cause de-sync and are spammed for that very purpose.

Radiate77 wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I would love to banish ALL of these position displacement abilities back to the Shadow Realm because they ALL cause de-sync and are spammed for that very purpose.

Position displacement abilities make the game have impact, and the less we have of them, the more floaty our combat feels.



One of the biggest complaints that people have with ESO when asked why they wouldn’t stick with the game is that the combat feels too floaty, so rather than remove ALL position displacement skills, they should just fix how the skills interact with ZOS net-code.

Then we could go the other way with it, and add more position displacement skills, like returning Mass Hysteria to it’s roots and maybe people wouldn’t complain about ballgroups so much because they would finally be able to do something about them.

That is simply your personal opinion.

Others aren't out here trying to play a fighting game with juggles and edge-guards or shoe-horning in mechanics that don't fit the engine or the genre.

We've put up with getting Warden Charmed underground, Meteored into ceilings and walls, and de-synced to death by a dozen other skills for long enough.

Radiate77 wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I would love to banish ALL of these position displacement abilities back to the Shadow Realm because they ALL cause de-sync and are spammed for that very purpose.

Position displacement abilities make the game have impact, and the less we have of them, the more floaty our combat feels.



One of the biggest complaints that people have with ESO when asked why they wouldn’t stick with the game is that the combat feels too floaty, so rather than remove ALL position displacement skills, they should just fix how the skills interact with ZOS net-code.

Then we could go the other way with it, and add more position displacement skills, like returning Mass Hysteria to it’s roots and maybe people wouldn’t complain about ballgroups so much because they would finally be able to do something about them.

That is simply your personal opinion.

Others aren't out here trying to play a fighting game with juggles and edge-guards or shoe-horning in mechanics that don't fit the engine or the genre.

We've put up with getting Warden Charmed underground, Meteored into ceilings and walls, and de-synced to death by a dozen other skills for long enough.

When you have skills that lock you down, and/or into set motions, it creates a more rigid, less floaty combat.

Floaty is a descriptive word meaning free or uncontrolled, what you’re advocating is for a removal of sources of control, and in turn, a more floaty combat.

It is also not my opinion that people complain about combat and monetization (inventory falls into this category) primarily when referring to ESO. Outside of a review bomb for the 2023 ToS update, those two reasons are repeatedly coming up under Steam Reviews by players under 1,000 hours, anyone can go check them out.

In all the years I've played this game, you are literally the only person I've ever witnessed saying they want to be CCed more!

Adding in more CC to a game like this wouldn't likely improve the sensation but rather just add to frustration at the lack of a coherent battle. It's not really a lack of being CCed but more generally, a lack of weight and momentum are what causes the sensation of floatyness. I have to admit I've long lost that sensation as I've become very accustomed to the feel of ESO but I do recall very much that being a problem I had with the game when I first started. I spent a good amount of time actually trying to break it down and the things I came up with were:

1) The character controller is not particularly well made. It doesn't stick to the ground when it should and seems to alternate between a fully kinematic body and a purely physics-driven one. It bounces around off of floors and walls, reacts poorly to my inputs, and generally at times doesn't feel like I'm controlling a person so much as a slightly deflated beech ball. I appreciate some aspects such as being able to turn on a dime and accelerate instantly but I don't really like when I have to do things like run diagonally on stairs to avoid going airborn or block at certain areas to avoid flying off a cliff because there's a small bump that will send me careening if I am moving full speed.

2) There is almost zero indication of taking damage. There are a few sound cues but outside of that, your character often just trucks right through it with little indication. I *still* often get killed in combat because I have no idea if and when my opponents are actually attacking me and with things like animation and healthbar desync it all becomes a game of guess-whats-happening-and-randomly-block-heal-and-dodge. This is probably closest to what you are getting at but I think it's important to maintain that the one thing players hate more than anything is loosing control of their character. To a certain extent it's possible to learn how to "feel" what's happening to your characer but I'll admit that it takes months if not years to get to that point.

3) Animations aren't tied to motion. Some games will stop your character dead in their tracks and lock you into a fixed animation any time you perform an action. This probably is the biggest reason people have this sensation as their actions and their movements are entirely independent. Personally, this is a feature of ESO that I greatly enjoy so I'd hate to see it go but I'm willing to admit that it probably has the single biggest impact on the sensation of floatyness and as newer games have leaned much more into this style of design it's become very common place. ESO still maintains a kind of FPS vibe where you can run-and-gun rather than have to commit to body oriented melee attacks.


Some solutions that I don't think work well:

a) Simple stuff like UI indicators and screenshake can help but I'm the type of person that greatly dislikes those effects (they make me motion sick) and will disable them asap so I don't ever try to come up with designs that require them as the main source of adding weight and emphasis.

b) Knockbacks on every hit. What makes it work in a game like Sonic or Mario are the invincibility frames after taking a hit but in a game like this that simply would be a nerf to any form of coordinated attack. It also works in those kinds of games better because they aren't online. Syncing displacements like that over the network is an absolutely pita and is guaranteed to feel bad and almost random to everyone involved.

c) Hitstuns and knockdowns similar to fighting games. Networking makes this pertty much DoA. I've known some professional fighting game players and one they they all have in common is that they *hate* how different the game feels online. Things that aren't meant to work do and things that always should might not. Another issue here is that fighting games can use a special kind of networking mechanism that simply isn't going to work in a game like ESO, the main reason being that fighting games are typically just two people. Once you add a third in there then anything involving displacement, knockbacks, stuns, etc really starts to break down over the network because there is absolutely no way to ensure everyone is in sync. It turns into pure chaos - exactly the kind of chaos we in fact see in Cyrodiil. Ever shot a guy with scattershot and watched him fly straight at you? How about stunning a person and watching them slide around on the ground for a few seconds and breaking free so long after that you never actually get to follow up with anything? Ever go to stun a guy and see him breakfree before your own cooldown from the skill that caused the stun has ended? What about going for a killing blow only to see 'target out of range' and *then* see them fly twenty feet to the right and get stunned? Networking two people is hard. Networking three or more is controlled chaos at best.


I think sound design would be the biggest improvement here. Having distinct sounds that only *you* can hear when *you* are taking damage and designing them with the proper umph would go a long way to helping. Adding on top of that Some animations that blend nicely with your current action that indicate taking a hit while *not* disabling your current moves would also help greatly. Something that gives distinct and succinct senses of impact without require magic time-traveling network packets or completely disabling your character's ability to navigate and move freely.

This is all the more reason we should be separating skills with different effects for PvE and PvP the way they do in MMOs like BDO or GW2.

If we had that for ESO there would be no more need to compromise skills between the two formats.

Sluggy wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I would love to banish ALL of these position displacement abilities back to the Shadow Realm because they ALL cause de-sync and are spammed for that very purpose.

Position displacement abilities make the game have impact, and the less we have of them, the more floaty our combat feels.



One of the biggest complaints that people have with ESO when asked why they wouldn’t stick with the game is that the combat feels too floaty, so rather than remove ALL position displacement skills, they should just fix how the skills interact with ZOS net-code.

Then we could go the other way with it, and add more position displacement skills, like returning Mass Hysteria to it’s roots and maybe people wouldn’t complain about ballgroups so much because they would finally be able to do something about them.

That is simply your personal opinion.

Others aren't out here trying to play a fighting game with juggles and edge-guards or shoe-horning in mechanics that don't fit the engine or the genre.

We've put up with getting Warden Charmed underground, Meteored into ceilings and walls, and de-synced to death by a dozen other skills for long enough.

When you have skills that lock you down, and/or into set motions, it creates a more rigid, less floaty combat.

Floaty is a descriptive word meaning free or uncontrolled, what you’re advocating is for a removal of sources of control, and in turn, a more floaty combat.

It is also not my opinion that people complain about combat and monetization (inventory falls into this category) primarily when referring to ESO. Outside of a review bomb for the 2023 ToS update, those two reasons are repeatedly coming up under Steam Reviews by players under 1,000 hours, anyone can go check them out.

In all the years I've played this game, you are literally the only person I've ever witnessed saying they want to be CCed more!

Adding in more CC to a game like this wouldn't likely improve the sensation but rather just add to frustration at the lack of a coherent battle. It's not really a lack of being CCed but more generally, a lack of weight and momentum are what causes the sensation of floatyness. I have to admit I've long lost that sensation as I've become very accustomed to the feel of ESO but I do recall very much that being a problem I had with the game when I first started…

I appreciate your perspective, but I have to say that wanting to be CC’d more isn’t something that I want to deal with, but my desire to capitalize on a play from a CC balances that out.

What I love about ESO is that the game has CC immunity on break-free, and let me tell you from having played other games without it… it can be a nightmare.

Throne & Liberty comes to mind, when playing that for the first year, a group of players could near infinite stun lock you, and the game had one CC-break tool with a 2 minute cooldown, I have never been so annoyed with an MMO in my life over something so simple that ESO solved before the game even came out near a decade ago.

That’s the beauty of it… adding more robust CC options, will not change combat in a detrimental way as long as they adhere to the rules we were given.

Speaking of which, something not explicitly stated anywhere, but displacement CCs function much better than a regular stun, where they typically enable a free attack after. Normally you could break free from a stun and proceed to then block before any direct damage.

I’m of the mindset that ALL stuns need to enable at least one instant cast attack before break-free, especially now that Fossilize has been properly balanced, regardless of how annoying that would be to fight. Not everything needs to be balanced around group-play, and as a solo player, going out of your way to have a typical stun on any build not running DoTs is a waste of a skill slot and I’d rather have more meaningful choices when designing builds.

I also want to add, I feel like most of the frustration with these types of CC fall back on the inconsistency of them, where often times you’ll get the free attack after a knockback, yet sometimes you won’t, so it creates this illusion that you’re cheated when you’re unable to break free fast enough.

I could talk about CC all day, and I’ll probably make an entirely new thread going over the importance of a variety of CC, consistency, and proper descriptions in games at some point instead of derailing this one.

So back to the topic at hand, yes, it sucks when you get desynched, not sure if Snipe/Silver Bolts have been fixed yet, but that used to be the biggest offender and gankers would exploit that endlessly so I definitely understand the frustration with this Shield Throw even though I have never experienced it personally.

Poss wrote: »

I get what you’re saying but shield throw is a tank script. I can’t think of a single reason for any other class to use it. I also can’t think of a single reason why a tank would use the knock back focus in any kind of content. My point is, people are using this combination purposely to desync people. ZoS could delete this whole combination right now and no one in PvE would care

Some people would care I'm sure. Deleting it entirely is a poor and lazy way of fixing the problem. If ZoS would just take the time to bug fix stuff then the problem would be solved. Zero clue why they've been slacking on complaints, even some simple bugs in pve still aren't fixed a year later.

Velocious_Curse wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin can we go ahead and get some transparency please? This is still going on and the number of people exploiting/abusing is growing like a cancer

Honestly, the only way it will attract enough attention to force them to act is for everyone to use this combination of scripts and make use of the skill as well. When enough people complain, they'll be forced to take action.

It sucks, but I'm not sure how else to draw attention to it because if this is only being used by a relatively small number of players, and only a few players are complaining, they don't have much motivation to do anything about it.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone! We wanted to let you know that we have been looking into the issues report in this thread, particularly the combination of Shield Throw with the knockback script. We've seen videos of this happening, know this tends to happen in Cyrodiil during high load situations, and have been attempting to get a solid repro on our internal servers so we can pinpoint the exact factors that result in the desync occurring. So far, we have not been successful and would like to ask for your help.

If you have any examples of this happening in an isolated case with a 100% repro rate, that would help us a great deal. Details that would also help are if you notice this is happening when the recipient is in a very specific state or position.

Thank you, and we will continue to investigate this and work toward getting an internal repro.

Here is some helpful advice: you know it is an issue, so why not disable the skill/skill combination until you figure out a fix for it?

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone! We wanted to let you know that we have been looking into the issues report in this thread, particularly the combination of Shield Throw with the knockback script. We've seen videos of this happening, know this tends to happen in Cyrodiil during high load situations, and have been attempting to get a solid repro on our internal servers so we can pinpoint the exact factors that result in the desync occurring. So far, we have not been successful and would like to ask for your help.

If you have any examples of this happening in an isolated case with a 100% repro rate, that would help us a great deal. Details that would also help are if you notice this is happening when the recipient is in a very specific state or position.

Thank you, and we will continue to investigate this and work toward getting an internal repro.

As far as examples, should we just clip times when this is happening and post it in here or is there a better way to go about it? I know it'd be difficult to blur out names of players all around in a fight but also showcase the issue at the same time.

Obviously I dont want it to end up being a witch hunt for people abusing it. But it does happen with a bunch of the same individuals who consistently use that skill on groups and just kills a vibe for the whole group who can't do anything.

I use shield throw with knockback on one of my battlegrounds builds, it seems to work as normal in bg’s at least. Havent tried that build in Cyro tho so might work diffrent there with more stress on the server and all.

The_Meathead wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone! We wanted to let you know that we have been looking into the issues report in this thread, particularly the combination of Shield Throw with the knockback script. We've seen videos of this happening, know this tends to happen in Cyrodiil during high load situations, and have been attempting to get a solid repro on our internal servers so we can pinpoint the exact factors that result in the desync occurring. So far, we have not been successful and would like to ask for your help.

If you have any examples of this happening in an isolated case with a 100% repro rate, that would help us a great deal. Details that would also help are if you notice this is happening when the recipient is in a very specific state or position.

Thank you, and we will continue to investigate this and work toward getting an internal repro.

Hey Jessica, I have a question... and it's tremendously sincere, so please don't think it otherwise.

Why is THIS getting attention/green text while similar buggy concerns about Warden Charm have gone unanswered in several dozen threads?

I personally play a Bash Build, and though I've never put Knockback on my Shield Throw I'm pretty hyper-aware of other people using that ability because of competitive pride (and because it's visibly noticeable) and I've don't know that I've ever actually seen it, let alone experienced de-sync because of it - and I'd have noticed. All of us are weirdos about our own builds or playstyles, we definitely take note when someone else is using one.

The folks talking about the Shield Throw Knockback here have a heavy representation of Ballgroupers. It sounds/seems to me like this particularly has impact on them, and likely probably because they already strain the bazjeezus out of the server with their own playstyle (not knocking them for taking advantage, limitations to prevent that are ZOS's domain and we've finally seen some dialogue and action beginning.) It's happening when there's already lag, that THEIR playstyle causes. I fail to have a ton of sympathy, and if I'm being entirely honest am tempted to plug Knockback on my own Shield Throw because Ballgroups do so much to diminish other player's enjoyment of Cyrodiil (and use the heck of out Charm in their pull rotation, for that matter) and I'd love to rain on their endless parade.

The Azureblight nerf a while back left a bad taste in my mouth and probably many others where it came across like you gave heavier concern to Ballgrouper complaints than the larger bulk of players in Cyrodiil. This is giving me similar feeling.

I got de-synced into death by this literally last night while sieging Faregyl keep.

It didn't click fully until I saw a group of two or three troll tanks all spamming this ability on me and players near me while we were trying to use our siege. Like that was literally the only cast that they were making. Two others in my group got de-synced for about 20 seconds each by them as well.

This is like a known strategy by those that use it and it 1000% should be considered an exploit with actionable repercussions. I started recording immediately afterward to collect clips for Report tickets.