April 20th Vengeance Only..

SneaK · April 9

Hi ZOS,

Stop doing this, the majority of your PvP base does not want this washed game mode. We don’t want to contribute anything to your “testing” because we are against it. Frankly, it’s a waste of time. With all the good that’s being done recently in the studio this is the remaining outlier of a team clinging to one last bad decision. It feels like we’re just being reminded to stay skeptical of the PvP dev team’s vacuum decision making philosophy.

*edit*
Can we test PvE Vengeance on April 20th too?

Poss · April 9

Brace yourself for an influx of pvers about to give you their wisdom on why Vengeance is better

Is Greyhost disabled again? Please say it isn’t

Maitsukas · April 9

If they would stop doing these tests (as the very vocal anti-Vengeance players demand it), what should ZOS be doing instead? If the answer is nothing, then you've pretty much doomed Cyrodiil for everyone.

tomofhyrule · April 9

Poss wrote: »

Brace yourself for an influx of pvers about to give you their wisdom on why Vengeance is better

Is Greyhost disabled again? Please say it isn’t

It is disabled again, for that week only.

It has also been confirmed that permaVengeance will drop in U50 alongside Grey Host as the two options

SneaK · April 9

Maitsukas wrote: »

If they would stop doing these tests (as the very vocal anti-Vengeance players demand it), what should ZOS be doing instead? If the answer is nothing, then you've pretty much doomed Cyrodiil for everyone.

Just stop taking away normal Cyrodiil, it’s not a hard concept. They have to though cause participation in Vengeance is abysmal when they run side by side.

Orbital78 · April 9

honestly I think they should have at least Greyhost active along side Vengeance to see how well the two will perform. As it is the plan to have both operating at the same time. I just hope this test doesn't have other major events running along side it. I don't know why they didn't have a Vengeance campaign active during MYM.

Erickson9610 · April 9

When Vengeance becomes permanent in Update 50, you should be able to queue in there instantly and then PvP in there while waiting for the queue for Gray Host. Update 49 added the ability to queue for other Cyrodiil/IC campaigns while you're already in one.

I like both Vengeance and Gray Host. I hope ZOS adds Werewolf to Vengeance soon, preferably some time after we get the reworked Werewolf in Update 50.

Necrotech_Master · April 9

Erickson9610 wrote: »

When Vengeance becomes permanent in Update 50, you should be able to queue in there instantly and then PvP in there while waiting for the queue for Gray Host. Update 49 added the ability to queue for other Cyrodiil/IC campaigns while you're already in one.

I like both Vengeance and Gray Host. I hope ZOS adds Werewolf to Vengeance soon, preferably some time after we get the reworked Werewolf in Update 50.

technically speaking, you have always been able to queue up for multiple cyro camps at the same time

what ive done in the past is queue for grey host (notice i has 20-30 person queue) and then queue for blackreach (which pops immediately), so i can be in blackreach while i still am queued for grey host

the recent update just made it easier by allowing you to start the queue while already in cyro instead of having to jump outside of cyro to do the same thing

React · April 10

Vengeance has been confirmed to be coming as a permanent feature alongside GH with update 50, and they've even gone as far as making a large number of the "rewards" offered through the new PVP progression system vengeance-specific.

Still can't help but believe this is a terrible misstep in what is otherwise a stellar year for the studio. I've seen some people in favor of vengeance, but far more seem opposed, especially within the PVP community itself. As far as population goes, the last vengeance test was practically dead on PC NA after the first night, with GH having more players on it every single evening even when considering the different population caps.

I find myself wishing they'd have scrapped this altogether and focused their PVP-related efforts on improving the existing content, as well as further developing the upcoming mid-size zone and reward system.

moderatelyfatman · April 10

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Poss wrote: »

Brace yourself for an influx of pvers about to give you their wisdom on why Vengeance is better

Is Greyhost disabled again? Please say it isn’t

It is disabled again, for that week only.

It has also been confirmed that permaVengeance will drop in U50 alongside Grey Host as the two options

Will Blackreach still be up? It's going to really suck if there is nowhere for people to go if there is a queue to get into GH.

@React
It feels like a step backwards given that the devs seemed like they were starting to listen to the players.
ZOS keeps ignoring the fact that PvPers, while small in number, are some of their best long term customers.

dcrush · April 10

React wrote: »

Vengeance has been confirmed to be coming as a permanent feature alongside GH with update 50, and they've even gone as far as making a large number of the "rewards" offered through the new PVP progression system vengeance-specific.

Still can't help but believe this is a terrible misstep in what is otherwise a stellar year for the studio. I've seen some people in favor of vengeance, but far more seem opposed, especially within the PVP community itself. As far as population goes, the last vengeance test was practically dead on PC NA after the first night, with GH having more players on it every single evening even when considering the different population caps.

I find myself wishing they'd have scrapped this altogether and focused their PVP-related efforts on improving the existing content, as well as further developing the upcoming mid-size zone and reward system.

I agree. It really comes off as a combination of tunnel vision with sunken cost fallacy to continue with Vengeance.

amiiegee · April 10

Maitsukas wrote: »

If they would stop doing these tests (as the very vocal anti-Vengeance players demand it), what should ZOS be doing instead? If the answer is nothing, then you've pretty much doomed Cyrodiil for everyone.

Would rather have them doing nothing then splitting the shrinked community even more

DrMedBorn · April 10

yeah they should remove this feature because 6 1/2 people on the forums dont like it.

xylena · April 10

amiiegee wrote: »

Would rather have them doing nothing then splitting the shrinked community even more

Gray Host took a PvP community of thousands and reduced it to dozens.

But another idiotic "test" after a year of this crap is only souring people on Vengeance.

Estin · April 10

I don't do cyro, but I think it's a bad idea to only have GH as a normal cyro. I've seen what the queue times are at prime time, especially on the weekends. Queues can be upwards to an hour or two. Queue times are only going to get worse when U50 drops when people will be able to use their non DK pure class builds again. I imagine a lot of players aren't going to be happy that their only options are IC or BGs if they want to play regular PvP while they wait for GH. Blackreach was always the hold over and what also enabled people to play their characters from other factions. With that gone, I do think there's going to be a lot of problems. At the very least, Blackreach should stay and just get rid of Ravenwatch and Icereach.

robwolf666 · April 10

If Gray Host and Vengeance are going to be the only PvP Cyrodiil zones going forward, at least that's what I think I heard, how about turning one of those others you intend to close into a PvE zone instead? @ZOS_Kevin

tomofhyrule · April 10

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Poss wrote: »

Brace yourself for an influx of pvers about to give you their wisdom on why Vengeance is better

Is Greyhost disabled again? Please say it isn’t

It is disabled again, for that week only.

It has also been confirmed that permaVengeance will drop in U50 alongside Grey Host as the two options

Will Blackreach still be up? It's going to really suck if there is nowhere for people to go if there is a queue to get into GH.

They said that only Vengeance and GH would be the options.

They did say that they'd look at adding a new campaign if the population demanded it, and gave the example of if both Vengeance and GH had long queues to get in. I do think a more realistic scenario is that GH has an hourslong queue and Vengeance is still at one bar, but they didn't say anything about that case.

Jsmalls · April 10

I haven't played Vengeance yet but plan to try it on April 20th. What are the issues with it? Is it unfun? Is it because you're progression isn't included? Etc

I imagine this is a very important test for when crossplay is finally introduced because while the PvP community is small there are still niches that exist on each platform. And combining those niches will allow for the possibility of the larger scale cap that Vengeance offers.

Really hoping between the Veterancy system, the planned mid sized zone, and crossplay that PvP's population sees a significant increase. Something we all want. And if that is the case then Vengeance would be necessary.

virtus753 · April 10

tomofhyrule wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Poss wrote: »

Brace yourself for an influx of pvers about to give you their wisdom on why Vengeance is better

Is Greyhost disabled again? Please say it isn’t

It is disabled again, for that week only.

It has also been confirmed that permaVengeance will drop in U50 alongside Grey Host as the two options

Will Blackreach still be up? It's going to really suck if there is nowhere for people to go if there is a queue to get into GH.

They said that only Vengeance and GH would be the options.

They did say that they'd look at adding a new campaign if the population demanded it, and gave the example of if both Vengeance and GH had long queues to get in. I do think a more realistic scenario is that GH has an hourslong queue and Vengeance is still at one bar, but they didn't say anything about that case.

Is this in the stream? I’d like to watch it when I am not stuck at work.

This sounds like exactly the opposite of what they’d said about these campaigns in the thread here on the forums. They said they were going to monitor their population and then decide whether to keep them. It’s disappointing if they’ve changed approach from “we’ll cancel them if they can’t keep population” to “they’re cancelled unless the other two get full.”

Communication needs to get better (speaking of which, have they outlined this new approach in the relevant thread yet? It’s not on the Dev Tracker), but its content also has to be honored. When they said in no uncertain terms that seasonal content wouldn’t go away, and now it’s going away, when they say camps will stay unless their own population declines, and now they’re going away unless the populations of other camps creates demand, that means even clear and timely communication doesn’t work because its content isn’t true beyond the moment it’s issued. They need to communicate and behave in such a way as to engender trust rather than disappoint it.

tomofhyrule · April 10

virtus753 wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Poss wrote: »

Brace yourself for an influx of pvers about to give you their wisdom on why Vengeance is better

Is Greyhost disabled again? Please say it isn’t

It is disabled again, for that week only.

It has also been confirmed that permaVengeance will drop in U50 alongside Grey Host as the two options

Will Blackreach still be up? It's going to really suck if there is nowhere for people to go if there is a queue to get into GH.

They said that only Vengeance and GH would be the options.

They did say that they'd look at adding a new campaign if the population demanded it, and gave the example of if both Vengeance and GH had long queues to get in. I do think a more realistic scenario is that GH has an hourslong queue and Vengeance is still at one bar, but they didn't say anything about that case.

Is this in the stream? I’d like to watch it when I am not stuck at work.

Right around the 18:30 mark

robwolf666 · April 10

tomofhyrule wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Poss wrote: »

Brace yourself for an influx of pvers about to give you their wisdom on why Vengeance is better

Is Greyhost disabled again? Please say it isn’t

It is disabled again, for that week only.

It has also been confirmed that permaVengeance will drop in U50 alongside Grey Host as the two options

Will Blackreach still be up? It's going to really suck if there is nowhere for people to go if there is a queue to get into GH.

They said that only Vengeance and GH would be the options.

They did say that they'd look at adding a new campaign if the population demanded it, and gave the example of if both Vengeance and GH had long queues to get in. I do think a more realistic scenario is that GH has an hourslong queue and Vengeance is still at one bar, but they didn't say anything about that case.

Is this in the stream? I’d like to watch it when I am not stuck at work.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2743916226
Right around the 18:30 mark

Edit: Never mind - it was the content warning for me until I clicked on it.

SneaK · April 10

Estin wrote: »

I don't do cyro, but I think it's a bad idea to only have GH as a normal cyro. I've seen what the queue times are at prime time, especially on the weekends. Queues can be upwards to an hour or two. Queue times are only going to get worse when U50 drops when people will be able to use their non DK pure class builds again. I imagine a lot of players aren't going to be happy that their only options are IC or BGs if they want to play regular PvP while they wait for GH. Blackreach was always the hold over and what also enabled people to play their characters from other factions. With that gone, I do think there's going to be a lot of problems. At the very least, Blackreach should stay and just get rid of Ravenwatch and Icereach.

This is a really interesting and likely accurate take. There will probably be a lot of people showing up for the masteries cause it’ll be a full year since subclassing destroyed the class system. The queue time on GH is going to be awful, we’ll be forced to join Vengeance while waiting for GH to pop and in that watered down mode we won’t be able to even use our builds with the masteries. U50 is an exciting update but cause of what they’re doing with the campaigns there’s gonna be a lot of people left with a bad taste in their mouths.

virtus753 · April 10

tomofhyrule wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Poss wrote: »

Brace yourself for an influx of pvers about to give you their wisdom on why Vengeance is better

Is Greyhost disabled again? Please say it isn’t

It is disabled again, for that week only.

It has also been confirmed that permaVengeance will drop in U50 alongside Grey Host as the two options

Will Blackreach still be up? It's going to really suck if there is nowhere for people to go if there is a queue to get into GH.

They said that only Vengeance and GH would be the options.

They did say that they'd look at adding a new campaign if the population demanded it, and gave the example of if both Vengeance and GH had long queues to get in. I do think a more realistic scenario is that GH has an hourslong queue and Vengeance is still at one bar, but they didn't say anything about that case.

Is this in the stream? I’d like to watch it when I am not stuck at work.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2743916226
Right around the 18:30 mark

Thank you so much! Really appreciate it.

SneaK · April 10

Jsmalls wrote: »

I haven't played Vengeance yet but plan to try it on April 20th. What are the issues with it? Is it unfun? Is it because you're progression isn't included? Etc

I imagine this is a very important test for when crossplay is finally introduced because while the PvP community is small there are still niches that exist on each platform. And combining those niches will allow for the possibility of the larger scale cap that Vengeance offers.

Really hoping between the Veterancy system, the planned mid sized zone, and crossplay that PvP's population sees a significant increase. Something we all want. And if that is the case then Vengeance would be necessary.

It is unfun. Nothing in there feels unique or close to ESO, basically feels like an Alpha version where you have no gear. You can show up as a naked level 10 and have the same stats as everyone else. Sheer numbers pretty much always win.

It’s a good place to level alts and a decent alternative for an under 50 campaign. And they’ll likely give away double AP cause ya know why not.

moderatelyfatman · April 10

YES!!! Finally, a safe space for PvErs!

CatalinaWineMixer2 · April 10

The current state of PvP is due to constant nerfs, ruining sets, ruining/nerfing our characters, Subclassing and placing what's left of what was once a fun and vibrant PvP comunity above the rest of the entire Eso population. We all talk about how it used to be. Most of the people who do have quit PvP. Some of the new players look at us like we are telling a fairytale when we speak of it. Its been going on for ten years. We need change. Vengeance is a part of this and there are many looking forward to it.

SneaK · April 10

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

The current state of PvP is due to constant nerfs, ruining sets, ruining/nerfing our characters, Subclassing and placing what's left of what was once a fun and vibrant PvP comunity above the rest of the entire Eso population. We all talk about how it used to be. Most of the people who do have quit PvP. Some of the new players look at us like we are telling a fairytale when we speak of it. It’s been going on for ten years. We need change. Vengeance is a part of this and there are many looking forward to it.

lol

MincMincMinc · April 10

React wrote: »

Vengeance has been confirmed to be coming as a permanent feature alongside GH with update 50, and they've even gone as far as making a large number of the "rewards" offered through the new PVP progression system vengeance-specific.

Still can't help but believe this is a terrible misstep in what is otherwise a stellar year for the studio. I've seen some people in favor of vengeance, but far more seem opposed, especially within the PVP community itself. As far as population goes, the last vengeance test was practically dead on PC NA after the first night, with GH having more players on it every single evening even when considering the different population caps.

I find myself wishing they'd have scrapped this altogether and focused their PVP-related efforts on improving the existing content, as well as further developing the upcoming mid-size zone and reward system.

They picked up on the notion of there needs to be a better entry into pvp because the old school concept of under50 into nocp into vet pvp doesnt work now that people level to cp160 within a week and only see population in the main campaign.

My biggest gripe is why did they do the vengeance perk system in such a goofy way. Why confuse new players even more by making a new convoluted system to learn? If I was designing vengeance I would have just made the perk system LOOK like fake gear unlocks and slottable gear only in pvp. They could have made essentially vengeance only gear that was basic noproc stat gear and simple stat gear effects like clever alchemist. A basic gear campaign like this actually could have been a good learning environment that is low investment. They could even redesign the alliance vendors and such to accommodate the new vengeance gear and etc.

Subclassing was probably already planned to get them through the class reworks so players had the cop-out where if they didn't have a DK they could still slot the OP meta dk skills on their character.

It seems like the "performance" aspect of the test was abandoned as we have seen that the DK and 2handed changes were already on their way a while ago. Meaning they began reworking way before any vengeance data was digested to make decisions off of. We never even tested interactions of set bonuses or stats with vengeance skills.....why would you start redesigning all of the skills in the game before you even knew how to design them to avoid performance issues with the rest of your systems?

The zos brass just put pvp on the backburner again like they have done every time in the past when they "fixed" cyrodil by reducing the player population cap. They could have chosen streamlined skills with light animations with no lag and 900 player full population cyrodil........ But instead they decided to turn the game into a hack and slash experience with Flamboyant overdone VFX complicated 5 paragraph proc skills and low server population lag >> need to reduce cyro population again >> Cyro is too big for 300 already, so we need a mini cyrodil so we can reduce the population again.

At a certain point we will see pve start to lag out and zos wont know what to do because they just kept digging the hole deeper.

SneaK · April 10

MincMincMinc wrote: »

React wrote: »

Vengeance has been confirmed to be coming as a permanent feature alongside GH with update 50, and they've even gone as far as making a large number of the "rewards" offered through the new PVP progression system vengeance-specific.

Still can't help but believe this is a terrible misstep in what is otherwise a stellar year for the studio. I've seen some people in favor of vengeance, but far more seem opposed, especially within the PVP community itself. As far as population goes, the last vengeance test was practically dead on PC NA after the first night, with GH having more players on it every single evening even when considering the different population caps.

I find myself wishing they'd have scrapped this altogether and focused their PVP-related efforts on improving the existing content, as well as further developing the upcoming mid-size zone and reward system.

They picked up on the notion of there needs to be a better entry into pvp because the old school concept of under50 into nocp into vet pvp doesnt work now that people level to cp160 within a week and only see population in the main campaign.

My biggest gripe is why did they do the vengeance perk system in such a goofy way. Why confuse new players even more by making a new convoluted system to learn? If I was designing vengeance I would have just made the perk system LOOK like fake gear unlocks and slottable gear only in pvp. They could have made essentially vengeance only gear that was basic noproc stat gear and simple stat gear effects like clever alchemist. A basic gear campaign like this actually could have been a good learning environment that is low investment. They could even redesign the alliance vendors and such to accommodate the new vengeance gear and etc.
Subclassing was probably already planned to get them through the class reworks so players had the cop-out where if they didn't have a DK they could still slot the OP meta dk skills on their character.

It seems like the "performance" aspect of the test was abandoned as we have seen that the DK and 2handed changes were already on their way a while ago. Meaning they began reworking way before any vengeance data was digested to make decisions off of. We never even tested interactions of set bonuses or stats with vengeance skills.....why would you start redesigning all of the skills in the game before you even knew how to design them to avoid performance issues with the rest of your systems?

The zos brass just put pvp on the backburner again like they have done every time in the past when they "fixed" cyrodil by reducing the player population cap. They could have chosen streamlined skills with light animations with no lag and 900 player full population cyrodil........ But instead they decided to turn the game into a hack and slash experience with Flamboyant overdone VFX complicated 5 paragraph proc skills and low server population lag >> need to reduce cyro population again >> Cyro is too big for 300 already, so we need a mini cyrodil so we can reduce the population again.

At a certain point we will see pve start to lag out and zos wont know what to do because they just kept digging the hole deeper.

PvE already lags but it’s not the guinea pig farm that PvP is for ZOS. They don’t care, really. Trial groups lagging out of instances doesn’t stop them from selling twilights with glowing bow ties to solo questers. And what better platform to dilute skills down to 2004 PS2 visuals/calcs than the PvP community that just screams into the void.

The whole thing is just dumb, here we are 10 years later getting updates to the game, but going back in time 10 years in PvP.

Kickimanjaro · April 10

I trusted them when they said Vengeance was a test, but it is clear now that they intend to just add it as a separate mode to further split the community and "teach" people how to PvP in a way that doesn't apply outside that one specific gamemode...

I was so excited to see them try to fix the performance issues of Cyrodiil to bring about a new age of massive three-faction open-world PvP in this game with so many sets and skill combinations... now I'm worried we won't see that, and instead just see the performance improvements only in Vengeance and continued population issues in Grey Host.

Man, I just want a performant Grey Host. Imagine how cool that would be...

L_Nici · April 10

Its not just that they disable Grey Host in that week once more, but also with Update 50 and the big PvP reward system, the first 30!!!! ranks are basically Vengeance only rewards. They keep forcing it onto us, they do not listen, that the majority of PvP players do not want Vengeance. Its just PvE people liking it, because then they can just jump in, change nothing and be good at it.
When Vengeance PvE rules for Trifecta btw? I don't want to change my build for that and I expect to be able to do it with absolutely no effort, thank you.