Do you think ZOS has abandoned Grey Host?

moderatelyfatman · April 21

Yes

joshisanonymous wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

So, Vengeance is now becoming a permanent mode which allows for 3 times the player population caps of current Gray Host(since the other Campaigns are being removed). This would be the ''higher population'' option.

Then we have this new ''small/medium sized Cyrodiil'' that they are also developing. This would be the option with ''no changes to their characters''.

Idk about you guys, but I don't see a third option.

Yeah I really don't understand how this has been ZoS's conclusion. I do understand that not changing anything about how GH works gameplay-wise will not allow them to improve performance is increase the player cap, but why are the only two options 1) to keep GH exactly the same or 2) to remove practically every character build option in the game to produce Vengeance? There's an entire world of options between those two. Why are none of those being considered?

I agree: just because they can't 'fix' something doesn't mean they can't make it better. This looks like a terrible excuse to give up.

xR3ACTORx · April 21

Yes

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

joshisanonymous wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

So, Vengeance is now becoming a permanent mode which allows for 3 times the player population caps of current Gray Host(since the other Campaigns are being removed). This would be the ''higher population'' option.

Then we have this new ''small/medium sized Cyrodiil'' that they are also developing. This would be the option with ''no changes to their characters''.

Idk about you guys, but I don't see a third option.

Yeah I really don't understand how this has been ZoS's conclusion. I do understand that not changing anything about how GH works gameplay-wise will not allow them to improve performance is increase the player cap, but why are the only two options 1) to keep GH exactly the same or 2) to remove practically every character build option in the game to produce Vengeance? There's an entire world of options between those two. Why are none of those being considered?

I agree: just because they can't 'fix' something doesn't mean they can't make it better. This looks like a terrible excuse to give up.

I see it like when ZOS reworked Battlegrounds.

It was fun while it lasted.

BXR_Lonestar · April 21

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

I am a ten year player who has all but quit PvP. I still do play it and I dont even know why (I am PvP too). The more I see what's happening there, the more disgusted I become. It is no longer PvP. It is Skill Line vs Skill line (Subclassing disaster). It is cherry picking without rules or consequences. It is an absolute out of control meta (in PvE too). It is out of control cherry picked buffs. It is out of control dps (In PvE too). It is a 1 shot stop for new players. It is a neon sign that says 'This is not in any way fun or fair whatsoever" Nearly everyone I game with has for one reason or another quit and there are many. I think this number is growing. I think the developers know this and can see it.

I think there are certain limitations to what they (the developers) can do. There is also a lot of time required to undertake changes such as a new PvP area. This game has far outlasted its original PvP design and I have no doubt there are unintended consequences involved in this on the developer side. This isn't entirely their fault. It would not be this bad if they removed Subclassing either (which is the same thing as enforcing rules on the developer side).

It is far far beyond time to stop nerfing our characters and gear. Or changing them after the fact to suit PvP. Or attempting to sabotage characters before they're even created or released to accommodate PvP. This has only and will only continue to drive players away and discourage new players from engaging in it.

Every time something new and fun comes out, here comes the hammer from PvP. Or the misuse of its intended purpose (exploit). This, everything is about dps coming out of there. 'Just a few more dps and PvP will be ok' - It will not (And that's true in PvE too). People have had enough of it. I am one of many of those. Continuing to repeat the same problematic things is not going to solve the problem. Continuing to cater to the same people who called for it to be this way is not the answer. ***The developers need to halt what is going on there and start implementing and establishing and reestablishing rules. That they (the developers) decide. And enforce them.

Vengeance is a very good thing. I have and will continue to play it. If it is available, my guilds will play it too. There are RULES involved. There is actually SKILL involved, not just builds.

@ModeratelyFM- They may have to give up on GH because its unworkable for various reasons. I believe this to be out of their control due to system constraints. ***As far as the PEOPLE in GH I do not think they will hang this population out to dry.*** I do believe what they said about a new PvP area. I would rather see them just finally separate PvP and PvE entirely if this broken (cutrent) state must continue. That is, any and all PvE sets cause you to deal 0 damage and have 0 resistances in PvP. They could still tailor the skills to be PvE only but again, if that's happening, its not really our characters in there anyway.

I usually agree with you on a lot of things, but we differ on our opinions on Vengeance. I was just in it last night and it was straight up boring and frustrating. I HAVE enjoyed Vengeance in the past - when all 3 alliances were 3 barred in there and we were having 300 vs 300 vs 300 player battles for just a single keep for 3-4 hours straight, getting 3, 4, and 500k D Ticks. But it hasn't been like that on XBOX NA since the first Vengeance on Xbox. And it has made it a really boring and frustrating experience overall, mainly because there is always one alliance that outnumbers the others and they ALWAYS win. In there, numbers count for everything. They can have more seige than you, they can have more damage output collectively than you, and not that healers matter in there, but to the extent that there are healers running, they have more healing output than you due to raw numbers. Individual player skill doesn't really factor into it at all anymore.

I don't think Vengeance is the answer. But I agree with you in that I think for the betterment of the game, they're going to have to start dialing back a lot of things, re-establishing deterrance for stuff like glitch exploits (I am SO sick of getting hit with shield tosses and getting locked down for no reason), and maybe embrace a rock-paper-scissors style balancing scheme where every class has innate weaknesses to some classes, and innate advantages vs. other classes. I'm not just talking that they match up well vs one class and poorly vs. another, but there should be built in damage modifiers so that one class takes more damage when the damage source is from Class X, and they deal more damage to a class when facing Class Y. This would REALLY make it where there is no superman so to speak, where a player or group of players can hide weaknesses through a clever build.

MincMincMinc · April 21

Yes

katanagirl1 wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

If they've abandoned GH, it's partly due to the community's attitude and refusal to help test stuff on Vengeance. Sorry to say it, but why should the devs try again?

If the devs made a version of GH that performed well, it would have to be a bit different from GH given that GH doesn't perform well. Is the PvP community going to bother testing it though? Or will we have another round of players refusing to engage constructively? I'm betting on the latter. Even if the new GH was as close to the old one as possible, I think most of the GH PvPers will still reject it. So why should ZOS put more money into fixing GH at this point?

I understand the reasons players don't like Vengeance, I really do. It absolutely isn't a satisfactory conclusion to the testing that was done. BUT I've never seen a game where devs put in this kind of effort to understand PvP problems and test on this scale. To see such a petulant response from players is just frustrating. Vengeance is now "PvErs and players who can't PvP" from what I've heard lol.

I don’t know the answer to the poll question, but I have participated in all of the tests on console so far and I have yet to hear what was learned from all of them. They have also not addressed many concerns about certain sets in GH yet or the effect of grouping on healing and shielding to my knowledge. The last Vengeance test didn’t even have gear sets in them. If they have not learned anything from Vengeance at this point, then it is time to stop testing. GH performance is not bad on my original PS5 (Vengeance was much worse) so maybe the ones having problems are on old PCs or something.

I will be in the Vengeance campaign when it is up basically because I have no choice since it will be the only Cyrodiil campaign. It’s not horrible, but it is not busy enough to do much. It gets boring when there are no battles and GH is busy now.

They had several livestreams talking about vengeance already. One in particular to go over the numbers engineering side of things for the first test. I have not seen a similar stream with the following tests, but likely because not much has been added or changed which significantly affected performance. Zos has mainly been trying to add elements back in to make more people happier while staying within their restrictions.

Heres a basic recap

Veng 1 was able to hold 900 players without lag compared to the greyhost 300 player cap with lag. They did try and go up to 1200 players, but started getting lag. They did show graphs and data comparing GH and veng pop vs lag.
Veng 2 added more group tools and weapon skills because there wasn't enough variety. Primetime PCNA only saw a few stutter instances of serverside lag during full pop lock which either was from the aoe heal spam mechanics now introduced, or zos could have been fiddling in the background during peak server load.
Veng 3 was guild skills and armor skills(useless) and more seige options because people were complaining about not having anti breach tools like catapults. I dont remember seeing pop lock, but i only got to play on the last day
Veng 4 I believe was the one which happened alongside greyhost and during the undaunted event where they also introduced perks and loadouts. Which data wise basically useless since zos was incentivizing other content. At best they could make a list of vengeance diehard players. The intent here was to mimic basic stat gear combinations. However its like bowling with the gutter rails on. You are forced to pick stat pools. IMO zos could have just made a fake build editor I will describe below.
Veng 5 is ongoing and I assume they are doing background testing of systems while the only change noted was increasing aoe damage vs aoe healing to help prevent zerg combat from stagnating. Unlike test 4 being dead completely the test last night PCNA was nearing pop locked again. I also dont remember hearing anything about rewards or incentives.

Really the main takeaway is that they cut out all the event call functions that happen during combat code wise and the server is monumentally better off. Their goal with having no gear sets and just using a UI based perk system was so you only have "sets" that modify your character sheet without having to constantly be updated and checked. At the same time we dont have many proc events from item set bonuses, enchants, poisons, passives, morphs, racial passives, armor passives, cp, etc. all trying to make checks every millisecond from each player.

IMO if I was to design it I would replace the perk and loadout stat layouts with a UI based build editor concept. In the veng menu just give me a dropdown for what mundus bonus, or food, or armor enchants. Make a vengeance item set stickerbook with UI based gear sets I can drag and drop on my character..........The slippery slope is what proc effect do you allow? Maybe something longterm and not intensive like clever alchemist would be fine compared to proc events like status effects trying to roll the dice every damage tick? Maybe item sets like bloodspawn trying to check every damage received tick is a bad idea? These are things that are fine in a single player game, but when multiplied on a server 1000x the same designs start to have runaway issues. You could design in a limited fashion, like maybe if they reintroduce passives each class only gets one proc passive? Maybe keep a 3-6 player aoe cap on skills, but ultimates and seige have no aoe cap.

It also seems very clear that PvE players and newer players in general are way more prone to try pvp when it is easy to get into and not a gated hurdle to jump over. Having the veng UI based system swap over to pvp kit saves them an hour+ each day changing over gear on their character. Regardless of vengeance, splitting pve and pvp inventory setups doesn't seem like a bad idea.

L_Nici · April 21

Yes

MincMincMinc wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

If they've abandoned GH, it's partly due to the community's attitude and refusal to help test stuff on Vengeance. Sorry to say it, but why should the devs try again?

If the devs made a version of GH that performed well, it would have to be a bit different from GH given that GH doesn't perform well. Is the PvP community going to bother testing it though? Or will we have another round of players refusing to engage constructively? I'm betting on the latter. Even if the new GH was as close to the old one as possible, I think most of the GH PvPers will still reject it. So why should ZOS put more money into fixing GH at this point?

I understand the reasons players don't like Vengeance, I really do. It absolutely isn't a satisfactory conclusion to the testing that was done. BUT I've never seen a game where devs put in this kind of effort to understand PvP problems and test on this scale. To see such a petulant response from players is just frustrating. Vengeance is now "PvErs and players who can't PvP" from what I've heard lol.

I don’t know the answer to the poll question, but I have participated in all of the tests on console so far and I have yet to hear what was learned from all of them. They have also not addressed many concerns about certain sets in GH yet or the effect of grouping on healing and shielding to my knowledge. The last Vengeance test didn’t even have gear sets in them. If they have not learned anything from Vengeance at this point, then it is time to stop testing. GH performance is not bad on my original PS5 (Vengeance was much worse) so maybe the ones having problems are on old PCs or something.

I will be in the Vengeance campaign when it is up basically because I have no choice since it will be the only Cyrodiil campaign. It’s not horrible, but it is not busy enough to do much. It gets boring when there are no battles and GH is busy now.

They had several livestreams talking about vengeance already. One in particular to go over the numbers engineering side of things for the first test. I have not seen a similar stream with the following tests, but likely because not much has been added or changed which significantly affected performance. Zos has mainly been trying to add elements back in to make more people happier while staying within their restrictions.

Heres a basic recap

Veng 1 was able to hold 900 players without lag compared to the greyhost 300 player cap with lag. They did try and go up to 1200 players, but started getting lag. They did show graphs and data comparing GH and veng pop vs lag.

Veng 2 added more group tools and weapon skills because there wasn't enough variety. Primetime PCNA only saw a few stutter instances of serverside lag during full pop lock which either was from the aoe heal spam mechanics now introduced, or zos could have been fiddling in the background during peak server load.

Veng 3 was guild skills and armor skills(useless) and more seige options because people were complaining about not having anti breach tools like catapults. I dont remember seeing pop lock, but i only got to play on the last day

Veng 4 I believe was the one which happened alongside greyhost and during the undaunted event where they also introduced perks and loadouts. Which data wise basically useless since zos was incentivizing other content. At best they could make a list of vengeance diehard players. The intent here was to mimic basic stat gear combinations. However its like bowling with the gutter rails on. You are forced to pick stat pools. IMO zos could have just made a fake build editor I will describe below.

Veng 5 is ongoing and I assume they are doing background testing of systems while the only change noted was increasing aoe damage vs aoe healing to help prevent zerg combat from stagnating. Unlike test 4 being dead completely the test last night PCNA was nearing pop locked again. I also dont remember hearing anything about rewards or incentives.

Really the main takeaway is that they cut out all the event call functions that happen during combat code wise and the server is monumentally better off. Their goal with having no gear sets and just using a UI based perk system was so you only have "sets" that modify your character sheet without having to constantly be updated and checked. At the same time we dont have many proc events from item set bonuses, enchants, poisons, passives, morphs, racial passives, armor passives, cp, etc. all trying to make checks every millisecond from each player.

IMO if I was to design it I would replace the perk and loadout stat layouts with a UI based build editor concept. In the veng menu just give me a dropdown for what mundus bonus, or food, or armor enchants. Make a vengeance item set stickerbook with UI based gear sets I can drag and drop on my character..........The slippery slope is what proc effect do you allow? Maybe something longterm and not intensive like clever alchemist would be fine compared to proc events like status effects trying to roll the dice every damage tick? Maybe item sets like bloodspawn trying to check every damage received tick is a bad idea? These are things that are fine in a single player game, but when multiplied on a server 1000x the same designs start to have runaway issues. You could design in a limited fashion, like maybe if they reintroduce passives each class only gets one proc passive? Maybe keep a 3-6 player aoe cap on skills, but ultimates and seige have no aoe cap.

It also seems very clear that PvE players and newer players in general are way more prone to try pvp when it is easy to get into and not a gated hurdle to jump over. Having the veng UI based system swap over to pvp kit saves them an hour+ each day changing over gear on their character. Regardless of vengeance, splitting pve and pvp inventory setups doesn't seem like a bad idea.

For test 4 as you said there was an alternative. During Test 4 the other campaigns stayed online, which is probably why Vengeance was as dead as it was. Now with test 5 they closed all other campaigns again, (I wonder why) so people have no choice.

MincMincMinc · April 21

Yes

L_Nici wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

If they've abandoned GH, it's partly due to the community's attitude and refusal to help test stuff on Vengeance. Sorry to say it, but why should the devs try again?

If the devs made a version of GH that performed well, it would have to be a bit different from GH given that GH doesn't perform well. Is the PvP community going to bother testing it though? Or will we have another round of players refusing to engage constructively? I'm betting on the latter. Even if the new GH was as close to the old one as possible, I think most of the GH PvPers will still reject it. So why should ZOS put more money into fixing GH at this point?

I understand the reasons players don't like Vengeance, I really do. It absolutely isn't a satisfactory conclusion to the testing that was done. BUT I've never seen a game where devs put in this kind of effort to understand PvP problems and test on this scale. To see such a petulant response from players is just frustrating. Vengeance is now "PvErs and players who can't PvP" from what I've heard lol.

I don’t know the answer to the poll question, but I have participated in all of the tests on console so far and I have yet to hear what was learned from all of them. They have also not addressed many concerns about certain sets in GH yet or the effect of grouping on healing and shielding to my knowledge. The last Vengeance test didn’t even have gear sets in them. If they have not learned anything from Vengeance at this point, then it is time to stop testing. GH performance is not bad on my original PS5 (Vengeance was much worse) so maybe the ones having problems are on old PCs or something.

I will be in the Vengeance campaign when it is up basically because I have no choice since it will be the only Cyrodiil campaign. It’s not horrible, but it is not busy enough to do much. It gets boring when there are no battles and GH is busy now.

They had several livestreams talking about vengeance already. One in particular to go over the numbers engineering side of things for the first test. I have not seen a similar stream with the following tests, but likely because not much has been added or changed which significantly affected performance. Zos has mainly been trying to add elements back in to make more people happier while staying within their restrictions.

Heres a basic recap

Veng 1 was able to hold 900 players without lag compared to the greyhost 300 player cap with lag. They did try and go up to 1200 players, but started getting lag. They did show graphs and data comparing GH and veng pop vs lag.

Veng 2 added more group tools and weapon skills because there wasn't enough variety. Primetime PCNA only saw a few stutter instances of serverside lag during full pop lock which either was from the aoe heal spam mechanics now introduced, or zos could have been fiddling in the background during peak server load.

Veng 3 was guild skills and armor skills(useless) and more seige options because people were complaining about not having anti breach tools like catapults. I dont remember seeing pop lock, but i only got to play on the last day

Veng 4 I believe was the one which happened alongside greyhost and during the undaunted event where they also introduced perks and loadouts. Which data wise basically useless since zos was incentivizing other content. At best they could make a list of vengeance diehard players. The intent here was to mimic basic stat gear combinations. However its like bowling with the gutter rails on. You are forced to pick stat pools. IMO zos could have just made a fake build editor I will describe below.

Veng 5 is ongoing and I assume they are doing background testing of systems while the only change noted was increasing aoe damage vs aoe healing to help prevent zerg combat from stagnating. Unlike test 4 being dead completely the test last night PCNA was nearing pop locked again. I also dont remember hearing anything about rewards or incentives.

Really the main takeaway is that they cut out all the event call functions that happen during combat code wise and the server is monumentally better off. Their goal with having no gear sets and just using a UI based perk system was so you only have "sets" that modify your character sheet without having to constantly be updated and checked. At the same time we dont have many proc events from item set bonuses, enchants, poisons, passives, morphs, racial passives, armor passives, cp, etc. all trying to make checks every millisecond from each player.

IMO if I was to design it I would replace the perk and loadout stat layouts with a UI based build editor concept. In the veng menu just give me a dropdown for what mundus bonus, or food, or armor enchants. Make a vengeance item set stickerbook with UI based gear sets I can drag and drop on my character..........The slippery slope is what proc effect do you allow? Maybe something longterm and not intensive like clever alchemist would be fine compared to proc events like status effects trying to roll the dice every damage tick? Maybe item sets like bloodspawn trying to check every damage received tick is a bad idea? These are things that are fine in a single player game, but when multiplied on a server 1000x the same designs start to have runaway issues. You could design in a limited fashion, like maybe if they reintroduce passives each class only gets one proc passive? Maybe keep a 3-6 player aoe cap on skills, but ultimates and seige have no aoe cap.

It also seems very clear that PvE players and newer players in general are way more prone to try pvp when it is easy to get into and not a gated hurdle to jump over. Having the veng UI based system swap over to pvp kit saves them an hour+ each day changing over gear on their character. Regardless of vengeance, splitting pve and pvp inventory setups doesn't seem like a bad idea.

For test 4 as you said there was an alternative. During Test 4 the other campaigns stayed online, which is probably why Vengeance was as dead as it was. Now with test 5 they closed all other campaigns again, (I wonder why) so people have no choice.

Right, but even then it wasnt a good test with just greyhost vs vengeance because the previous week was a MYM event which alot of people would have burned out on and the same time during the test was an undaunted event.

They should definitely do another greyhost vs veng test without the outside factors......granted it seems like zos higher ups already plan on shoehorning GH pvp into the mini one keep campaign to cut down on player pop lag. >> In the PvP forum I have a concept thread where they could use meshing to connect multiples of these one keep maps together. Basically if you split up the cyrodil map into one server per keep. Then allow travel between them like how you can walk from greenshade to malbaltor.

SaffronCitrusflower · April 21

Yes

Muizer wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Idk about you guys, but I don't see a third option.

Legacy mode: Whoever continues to play on GH will just have to accept whatever changes spill over from PvE and small scale PvP and not expect any resources being spent on fixing any adverse impacts on large scale PvP. Arguably, not much changes then, except for ZOS no longer making promises they can't keep.

So, the same as it's been since 2015 then. I'm not happy about that at all, but it's a vastly superior option to vengeance.

BardokRedSnow · April 21

Yes

CalamityCat wrote: »

If they've abandoned GH, it's partly due to the community's attitude and refusal to help test stuff on Vengeance. Sorry to say it, but why should the devs try again?

Why should I as a paying customer have to cater to the developers and what they want, it is supposed to be the other way around. I would rather they abandon greyhost and pvp entirely than be forced to play Vengeance, it is garbage pvp and doing so would amount to just about the same thing, me quitting this game entirely.

Pepegrillos · April 21

I once heard someone say the average ESO player was 35+. Then you read people in posts like these and it's almost impossible to believe.

BardokRedSnow · April 22

Yes

Pepegrillos wrote: »

I once heard someone say the average ESO player was 35+. Then you read people in posts like these and it's almost impossible to believe.

If you're vague posting about my response, I would double down and say this game can't exist without the consumer. They're making a product for us, we're not playing and paying them out of our good graces.

It is insane to me that people think its okay for a 12 year old game to force players into a test, and that other players want to try and guilt trip those who refuse to partake. In the game market where there is so much competition and there's been so many dying mmos as of late, the audacity is pretty astounding.

It is especially astounding also when they literally just brought in thousands of new and returning players due to the class refreshes starting with the DK, only to then once again damage the good will by forcing this test on all cyrodiil pvp enjoyers for the sake of a community that doesn't even like pvp enough to maintain a dedicated population in vengeance.

If this isn't in response to me specifically, oh well, was a good opportunity to state again how bad a decision this was on their part.

xR3ACTORx · April 22

Yes

L_Nici wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

If they've abandoned GH, it's partly due to the community's attitude and refusal to help test stuff on Vengeance. Sorry to say it, but why should the devs try again?

If the devs made a version of GH that performed well, it would have to be a bit different from GH given that GH doesn't perform well. Is the PvP community going to bother testing it though? Or will we have another round of players refusing to engage constructively? I'm betting on the latter. Even if the new GH was as close to the old one as possible, I think most of the GH PvPers will still reject it. So why should ZOS put more money into fixing GH at this point?

I understand the reasons players don't like Vengeance, I really do. It absolutely isn't a satisfactory conclusion to the testing that was done. BUT I've never seen a game where devs put in this kind of effort to understand PvP problems and test on this scale. To see such a petulant response from players is just frustrating. Vengeance is now "PvErs and players who can't PvP" from what I've heard lol.

I don’t know the answer to the poll question, but I have participated in all of the tests on console so far and I have yet to hear what was learned from all of them. They have also not addressed many concerns about certain sets in GH yet or the effect of grouping on healing and shielding to my knowledge. The last Vengeance test didn’t even have gear sets in them. If they have not learned anything from Vengeance at this point, then it is time to stop testing. GH performance is not bad on my original PS5 (Vengeance was much worse) so maybe the ones having problems are on old PCs or something.

I will be in the Vengeance campaign when it is up basically because I have no choice since it will be the only Cyrodiil campaign. It’s not horrible, but it is not busy enough to do much. It gets boring when there are no battles and GH is busy now.

They had several livestreams talking about vengeance already. One in particular to go over the numbers engineering side of things for the first test. I have not seen a similar stream with the following tests, but likely because not much has been added or changed which significantly affected performance. Zos has mainly been trying to add elements back in to make more people happier while staying within their restrictions.

Heres a basic recap

Veng 1 was able to hold 900 players without lag compared to the greyhost 300 player cap with lag. They did try and go up to 1200 players, but started getting lag. They did show graphs and data comparing GH and veng pop vs lag.

Veng 2 added more group tools and weapon skills because there wasn't enough variety. Primetime PCNA only saw a few stutter instances of serverside lag during full pop lock which either was from the aoe heal spam mechanics now introduced, or zos could have been fiddling in the background during peak server load.

Veng 3 was guild skills and armor skills(useless) and more seige options because people were complaining about not having anti breach tools like catapults. I dont remember seeing pop lock, but i only got to play on the last day

Veng 4 I believe was the one which happened alongside greyhost and during the undaunted event where they also introduced perks and loadouts. Which data wise basically useless since zos was incentivizing other content. At best they could make a list of vengeance diehard players. The intent here was to mimic basic stat gear combinations. However its like bowling with the gutter rails on. You are forced to pick stat pools. IMO zos could have just made a fake build editor I will describe below.

Veng 5 is ongoing and I assume they are doing background testing of systems while the only change noted was increasing aoe damage vs aoe healing to help prevent zerg combat from stagnating. Unlike test 4 being dead completely the test last night PCNA was nearing pop locked again. I also dont remember hearing anything about rewards or incentives.

Really the main takeaway is that they cut out all the event call functions that happen during combat code wise and the server is monumentally better off. Their goal with having no gear sets and just using a UI based perk system was so you only have "sets" that modify your character sheet without having to constantly be updated and checked. At the same time we dont have many proc events from item set bonuses, enchants, poisons, passives, morphs, racial passives, armor passives, cp, etc. all trying to make checks every millisecond from each player.

IMO if I was to design it I would replace the perk and loadout stat layouts with a UI based build editor concept. In the veng menu just give me a dropdown for what mundus bonus, or food, or armor enchants. Make a vengeance item set stickerbook with UI based gear sets I can drag and drop on my character..........The slippery slope is what proc effect do you allow? Maybe something longterm and not intensive like clever alchemist would be fine compared to proc events like status effects trying to roll the dice every damage tick? Maybe item sets like bloodspawn trying to check every damage received tick is a bad idea? These are things that are fine in a single player game, but when multiplied on a server 1000x the same designs start to have runaway issues. You could design in a limited fashion, like maybe if they reintroduce passives each class only gets one proc passive? Maybe keep a 3-6 player aoe cap on skills, but ultimates and seige have no aoe cap.

It also seems very clear that PvE players and newer players in general are way more prone to try pvp when it is easy to get into and not a gated hurdle to jump over. Having the veng UI based system swap over to pvp kit saves them an hour+ each day changing over gear on their character. Regardless of vengeance, splitting pve and pvp inventory setups doesn't seem like a bad idea.

For test 4 as you said there was an alternative. During Test 4 the other campaigns stayed online, which is probably why Vengeance was as dead as it was. Now with test 5 they closed all other campaigns again, (I wonder why) so people have no choice.

There is always a choice. It's not like people are forced to play the game.

Muizer · April 22

Yes

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Idk about you guys, but I don't see a third option.

Legacy mode: Whoever continues to play on GH will just have to accept whatever changes spill over from PvE and small scale PvP and not expect any resources being spent on fixing any adverse impacts on large scale PvP. Arguably, not much changes then, except for ZOS no longer making promises they can't keep.

So, the same as it's been since 2015 then. I'm not happy about that at all, but it's a vastly superior option to vengeance.

As far as Cyrodiil performance is concerned, yes. Had it been a factor in the development of abilities and sets etc.. it would never have developed beyond the level of complexity (or simplicity if you will) where Vengeance is at now in the first place.

Cyrodiil balance is a different matter. I think ZOS have considered that in the past. True legacy mode would mean that's no longer a commitment either.

CalamityCat · April 22

No

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Why should I as a paying customer have to cater to the developers and what they want, it is supposed to be the other way around. I would rather they abandon greyhost and pvp entirely than be forced to play Vengeance, it is garbage pvp and doing so would amount to just about the same thing, me quitting this game entirely.

I'm a paying customer too, but I don't expect the devs to magically fix Cyro without my testing or feedback. That doesn't mean I like Vengeance, or that anyone has to like it. But I have at least bothered to actually play and test it. I'll try and offer constructive feedback as I do in the rest of the game. That's not "catering to the developers," that's catering to myself! How can they give me the product I want if they don't know what that looks like?

The alternative is to test nothing and complain because the devs didn't magically know what I wanted. I just cannot see any value or benefit in doing that.

Devilon · April 22

I didn't choose an option because I simply don't know if they will or will not abandon it - but I hope they do and will explain why.

Cyrodiil is a unique MMO pvp experience on a massive battleground. It is imperative to revert back to the very essence of that which is putting numbers of players involved above individual role playing and individual character development to the degree it has developed into.

The latter must be sacrificed and paired back a bit. The sheer amount of individual variables in combat are out of control and the main cause of lag. If we want large scale battles (the very essence of what Cyrodiil is), we need less calculations being processed - and this is where the vengeance style of non-morph skills, no champion points and no sets; succeeds in delivering that very experience.

Also, all of the above is just a barrier to entry which is why Cyrodiil pvp has developed into an exclusive game mode that shuts out a lot more players than it serves. The Benny Hill experience of dozens of players chasing and trying to kill one enemy player is completely against the very concept of mass combat. It's comical, disheartening and unappealing.

In vengeance, I get my behind handed to me by players with absolute skill and I have so so much respect for them. There is no excuse of them having an OP build whatsoever. It's straight up skill and I love it. (Respect to them players). And in vengeance, I eagerly return to battle to go try again because there is chance - a very small chance - that I might just defeat them next time.

This perceived chance does not exist in Grey Host where it is felt that I will never defeat them - not a hope in hell. I can spend hours researching the wrong builds, the wrong information and building a suboptimal character only to discover and learn it was all in vain and then choose to do it all over again or just quit. It's exhausting. That problem doesn't exist in vengeance. Go and play and get gud, and salute the enemies that defeat you skilfully on that very journey of improving.

I hope ZOS go full steam ahead with the vengeance model. I see it being well received universally by the gaming community going forward and the numbers of participants will boost rapidly over time, and will massively outnumber the exclusive group who wish to maintain their self-entitled strangle hold on the game mode going forward.

A MMO battleground requires masses of players and simplicity and I argue it is not the appropriate environment for developing extreme complexities of individual character development, which needs to be directed to much smaller scale content.

Thanks for coming to my lecture. See you in Cyrodiil Vengeance!

MincMincMinc · April 22

Yes

The shameful part is how much zos has kicked pvp to the curb and people always believed that the pvp community was so small. Yet if you combine these veng numbers and normal cyrodil numbers the number of people that participate in pvp is easily around 1/3 the steamchart population. Probably more like 50% or more if you disregard the bots, afkers, and daily login chore grind numbers.

Mind you 1/3 the pop is participating in this content even though it has been VASTLY undeveloped for 12 years! PvP is an easy money maker waiting. The players make their own content, zos doesn't need voice actors, dungeon designers, extensive lore, etc..... They can design a single new map and people would be happy for years. Versus PvE where the demand is all of the above every quarter.

Another sad part is that people forget the barrier to entry in pvp is getting worse and worse for new players, without new players coming in to replace those that leave the game continues to decline in population. Not even just talking pvp and set/skill complexity. The game as a whole is a daunting wall of learning. Unlike when a lot of us started, now new players have to learn 10x the systems off the bat before they even start pvping. Stickerbook, psijic, transmutation, scribing, excavating, tomes, companions, housing, Hundreds of daily chores for each dlc, etc. I mean go down the list.

ksbrugh · April 22

Yes

PVP should remove subclassing and only be able to wear PVP sets and craftable sets only. This would encourage Theory crafting increase players wanting to become mastercrafters. I would be fine with just allowing only crafted sets cuz that would get rid of all the pull sets that are stupid and annoying lol

SneaK · April 22

Yes

CalamityCat wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Why should I as a paying customer have to cater to the developers and what they want, it is supposed to be the other way around. I would rather they abandon greyhost and pvp entirely than be forced to play Vengeance, it is garbage pvp and doing so would amount to just about the same thing, me quitting this game entirely.

I'm a paying customer too, but I don't expect the devs to magically fix Cyro without my testing or feedback. That doesn't mean I like Vengeance, or that anyone has to like it. But I have at least bothered to actually play and test it. I'll try and offer constructive feedback as I do in the rest of the game. That's not "catering to the developers," that's catering to myself! How can they give me the product I want if they don't know what that looks like?

The alternative is to test nothing and complain because the devs didn't magically know what I wanted. I just cannot see any value or benefit in doing that.

Balance and performance, not at the cost of losing identity or severing pvp from the rest of the game. It’s astounding that this dev team doesn’t know that, frankly it’s insulting. Literally no one can say Vengeance is good with a straight face, it’s quite possibly the dumbest thing ZOS has ever done. I’m curious what the fallout will be for the team that pushes it when it fails miserably.

BardokRedSnow · April 22

Yes

CalamityCat wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Why should I as a paying customer have to cater to the developers and what they want, it is supposed to be the other way around. I would rather they abandon greyhost and pvp entirely than be forced to play Vengeance, it is garbage pvp and doing so would amount to just about the same thing, me quitting this game entirely.

I'm a paying customer too, but I don't expect the devs to magically fix Cyro without my testing or feedback. That doesn't mean I like Vengeance, or that anyone has to like it. But I have at least bothered to actually play and test it. I'll try and offer constructive feedback as I do in the rest of the game. That's not "catering to the developers," that's catering to myself! How can they give me the product I want if they don't know what that looks like?

The alternative is to test nothing and complain because the devs didn't magically know what I wanted. I just cannot see any value or benefit in doing that.

You being a paying customer is irrelevant, if they took away all of pvp today and pvers said this and go well we're paying customers too and we want more pve, it would show exactly why this response is pointless.

A large portion of the fanbase here is having their favored content taken away at the peak of its resurgence for an entire week when pvp was populated and doing very well. Just because some of you are okay with this doesn't justify the rest of us having to put up with it.

I tried it too when it first came out, because I was forced to of course and had no choice if I wanted to be in cyrodiil. Even so I tested and have concluded since long ago I hate everything about it. This is the fourth test I believe. I am done.

If it truly were a test they'd have Greyhost available during all of them. Most tests have a control group.

Besides that, they get plenty of feedback, constant feedback and to their credit, recently they finally started listening to it in the pts. As I have stated many times:

If they did not strip away Greyhost for these "tests" there wouldn't be an issue. I would even have given my time to play it more for the double ap if nothing else and to give my input because its probably a better beginners zone than ravenwatch or below 50.

Instead all its done is create animosity and ensure I never pvp there again.

Poss · April 22

^ this

I don’t care about vengeance. Play whatever you want, but GH was popping since the new update and it’s been taken away. Again.

Vaqual · April 22

ksbrugh wrote: »

PVP should remove subclassing and only be able to wear PVP sets and craftable sets only. This would encourage Theory crafting increase players wanting to become mastercrafters. I would be fine with just allowing only crafted sets cuz that would get rid of all the pull sets that are stupid and annoying lol

Hehe, no. Lots of theories to be crafted from those remaining 10 sets, I am sure. But no, thanks.

MincMincMinc · April 23

Yes

Vaqual wrote: »

ksbrugh wrote: »

PVP should remove subclassing and only be able to wear PVP sets and craftable sets only. This would encourage Theory crafting increase players wanting to become mastercrafters. I would be fine with just allowing only crafted sets cuz that would get rid of all the pull sets that are stupid and annoying lol

Hehe, no. Lots of theories to be crafted from those remaining 10 sets, I am sure. But no, thanks.

I keep saying that zos should have not done the perk and loadout bonuses for veng and they should have just made a veng stickerbook where they can start dropping in sets that are performative. Easy to start off with the noproc list from before. Then start adding the less server intensive proc sets. Maybe clever alch works fine on the server because its a simple player driven single proc event.......however maybe something like bloodspawn or similar sets isnt because it can check every tick?

We dont even need "real" gear. They could just make it all in a UI stickerbook that you drag on your veng character builds. Removes alot of QoL headaches by splitting pve and pvp gear chores.

The theorycrafting people really enjoy is figuring out the puzzle pieces to fill out a build with set bonuses that work for their playstyle. The perk system is not fulfilling that puzzle concept.....not to mention the setups zos made tradeoff stats in weird ways.

xylena · April 23

No

Condensing the queue to only GH and Vengeance shows investment in GH. Vengeance wasn't competing for Blackreach players, so this effectively adds to the GH player pool.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Then start adding the less server intensive proc sets.

Players keep underestimating technical limitations every time the devs address this subject. They even said that build system calculations were the main cause of lag. We don't know how even simple sets like Hunding's Rage are actually coded, so I'm gonna trust the devs on this.

Also: they did No Proc Cyro for a whole patch and it did NOT solve the lag, it was boring one build Beekeeper tank meta. I don't know why so many players forget this.

MincMincMinc · April 23

Yes

xylena wrote: »

Condensing the queue to only GH and Vengeance shows investment in GH. Vengeance wasn't competing for Blackreach players, so this effectively adds to the GH player pool.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Then start adding the less server intensive proc sets.

Players keep underestimating technical limitations every time the devs address this subject. They even said that build system calculations were the main cause of lag. We don't know how even simple sets like Hunding's Rage are actually coded, so I'm gonna trust the devs on this.

Also: they did No Proc Cyro for a whole patch and it did NOT solve the lag, it was boring one build Beekeeper tank meta. I don't know why so many players forget this.

People always bring up the noproc didnt work.......well for one zos said it was not significant enough to backtrack on all the procs and designs in the game. We never got numbers on the issue because it wasnt a silver bullet, maybe it helped 5%, 10% but we simply were never shown any data. When the data was insignificant it was the people in charge of finance to decide to overhaul the game or live with the inefficiency and focus on pushing profit content. (they went with the obvious choice)

Why wasnt it a silver bullet though? Now I dont know how the ESO game engine handles things, but I have played with unreal engine enough where in there I think item sets, skills, and other proc effect would be handled very similarly. So what are other possible proc effects that happen in the game?

Weapon enchants proc off light attacks and have timers and following procs with things like status effects >>
status effects have their own calculations and side effects like aoe or dots with debuffs not to mention the whole chance mechanics
Each tick has a crit chance effect
Passives like burning light are a proc effect
Potions are a proc effect
even racials have procs in them like orc's healing, redguard stam
Skills like critsurge proccing off every crit or just general bloated 5 paragraph description skills that do 20 things
Half the CP in the game probably do proc like effects.
then there are the item sets of course where you can distinguish stat proc sets and proc effect sets or proc buff sets if we'd like

Point is that with all the above a build maybe has upwards of 50+ proc conditions waiting to trigger. Removing the item sets that contribute maybe 4-5 of those is a drop in the hat. The whole game is bloated, you either trim the fat or reduce your expectations for player capacity. Veng atleast showed us that if all the above is removed it goes back to the expected server capacity. Zos decided to reduce expectations and just lower the player capacity thus we are getting GH shoved into a one keep campaign.

xylena · April 23

No

MincMincMinc wrote: »

People always bring up the noproc didnt work

Not just the lag. Everyone complained about the limited build system with only vanilla sets. So it was the worst of both worlds, the lag of GH, the limited builds of Vengeance.

YandereGirlfriend · April 23

No

MincMincMinc wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Condensing the queue to only GH and Vengeance shows investment in GH. Vengeance wasn't competing for Blackreach players, so this effectively adds to the GH player pool.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Then start adding the less server intensive proc sets.

Players keep underestimating technical limitations every time the devs address this subject. They even said that build system calculations were the main cause of lag. We don't know how even simple sets like Hunding's Rage are actually coded, so I'm gonna trust the devs on this.

Also: they did No Proc Cyro for a whole patch and it did NOT solve the lag, it was boring one build Beekeeper tank meta. I don't know why so many players forget this.

People always bring up the noproc didnt work.......well for one zos said it was not significant enough to backtrack on all the procs and designs in the game. We never got numbers on the issue because it wasnt a silver bullet, maybe it helped 5%, 10% but we simply were never shown any data. When the data was insignificant it was the people in charge of finance to decide to overhaul the game or live with the inefficiency and focus on pushing profit content. (they went with the obvious choice)

Why wasnt it a silver bullet though? Now I dont know how the ESO game engine handles things, but I have played with unreal engine enough where in there I think item sets, skills, and other proc effect would be handled very similarly. So what are other possible proc effects that happen in the game?
Weapon enchants proc off light attacks and have timers and following procs with things like status effects >>

status effects have their own calculations and side effects like aoe or dots with debuffs not to mention the whole chance mechanics

Each tick has a crit chance effect

Passives like burning light are a proc effect

Potions are a proc effect

even racials have procs in them like orc's healing, redguard stam

Skills like critsurge proccing off every crit or just general bloated 5 paragraph description skills that do 20 things

Half the CP in the game probably do proc like effects.

then there are the item sets of course where you can distinguish stat proc sets and proc effect sets or proc buff sets if we'd like

Point is that with all the above a build maybe has upwards of 50+ proc conditions waiting to trigger. Removing the item sets that contribute maybe 4-5 of those is a drop in the hat. The whole game is bloated, you either trim the fat or reduce your expectations for player capacity. Veng atleast showed us that if all the above is removed it goes back to the expected server capacity. Zos decided to reduce expectations and just lower the player capacity thus we are getting GH shoved into a one keep campaign.

Honestly, the nonexistent performance gains of No-Proc felt as though all of the logic for proc sets continued to function and operate in the background but that only the actual proc effects were prohibited from firing.

Which would be like, if true... completely missing the point... of how to realize performance gains from that ruleset.

And then, of course, everything else that you say is true. So many ambient procs operating 24/7 and baked-into basically every subsystem in the game.

MincMincMinc · April 23

Yes

xylena wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

People always bring up the noproc didnt work

Not just the lag. Everyone complained about the limited build system with only vanilla sets. So it was the worst of both worlds, the lag of GH, the limited builds of Vengeance.

Kinda why I pointed out earlier on that it may be possible to design more performative proc sets and slowly introduce them, but starting out you'd obviously make a nonproc system. Like do we really think clever alchemist proccing once every 1-2mins in combat will cause the same performance load as rallying cry? Or god, think of old sets that used to roll the dice EVERY tick that hit you and decide a % roll whether it'd proc. Clever is a perfect example of a low impact rare condition that is not very often. Unlike some procs that trigger off every hit, light attack, damage received, etc.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Condensing the queue to only GH and Vengeance shows investment in GH. Vengeance wasn't competing for Blackreach players, so this effectively adds to the GH player pool.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Then start adding the less server intensive proc sets.

Players keep underestimating technical limitations every time the devs address this subject. They even said that build system calculations were the main cause of lag. We don't know how even simple sets like Hunding's Rage are actually coded, so I'm gonna trust the devs on this.

Also: they did No Proc Cyro for a whole patch and it did NOT solve the lag, it was boring one build Beekeeper tank meta. I don't know why so many players forget this.

People always bring up the noproc didnt work.......well for one zos said it was not significant enough to backtrack on all the procs and designs in the game. We never got numbers on the issue because it wasnt a silver bullet, maybe it helped 5%, 10% but we simply were never shown any data. When the data was insignificant it was the people in charge of finance to decide to overhaul the game or live with the inefficiency and focus on pushing profit content. (they went with the obvious choice)

Why wasnt it a silver bullet though? Now I dont know how the ESO game engine handles things, but I have played with unreal engine enough where in there I think item sets, skills, and other proc effect would be handled very similarly. So what are other possible proc effects that happen in the game?
Weapon enchants proc off light attacks and have timers and following procs with things like status effects >>

status effects have their own calculations and side effects like aoe or dots with debuffs not to mention the whole chance mechanics

Each tick has a crit chance effect

Passives like burning light are a proc effect

Potions are a proc effect

even racials have procs in them like orc's healing, redguard stam

Skills like critsurge proccing off every crit or just general bloated 5 paragraph description skills that do 20 things

Half the CP in the game probably do proc like effects.

then there are the item sets of course where you can distinguish stat proc sets and proc effect sets or proc buff sets if we'd like

Point is that with all the above a build maybe has upwards of 50+ proc conditions waiting to trigger. Removing the item sets that contribute maybe 4-5 of those is a drop in the hat. The whole game is bloated, you either trim the fat or reduce your expectations for player capacity. Veng atleast showed us that if all the above is removed it goes back to the expected server capacity. Zos decided to reduce expectations and just lower the player capacity thus we are getting GH shoved into a one keep campaign.

Honestly, the nonexistent performance gains of No-Proc felt as though all of the logic for proc sets continued to function and operate in the background but that only the actual proc effects were prohibited from firing.

Which would be like, if true... completely missing the point... of how to realize performance gains from that ruleset.

And then, of course, everything else that you say is true. So many ambient procs operating 24/7 and baked-into basically every subsystem in the game.

Yeah like I said, they turned off maybe 4-5 proc effects from sets on your character, when you have a hundred more triggering through passives, cp, poisons, status effects, status effect effects, skills, racials........Seems like dropping the ball to me. At the very least it would have been easy and low impactful to disable cp, poisons, status effects, enchants. I understand recoding all the skills and passives to be functional takes more effort to stop the activations in each skill code.