U50 Feedback Thread for Vengeance Campaign

ZOS_Kevin · April 13

This is the official feedback thread for the new Vengeance Test Campaign. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

Were you able to successfully get into large-scale battles?
Did large-scale battles feel better latency-wise and how combat feels (responsive or not, fun or not, etc.)?
Did any of your characters become ‘corrupted’ if they leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, hit lag, etc? If you encounter character corruption, please provide the following feedback when using /bug in-game.
account name
character name
What happened to trigger the corruption (leave Cyrodiil mid battle, lost connection, got booted, etc)?
Time of day this occurred
screenshots and video
Do you have any general feedback?

Blackrim · April 13

General Feedback:

Do not overshadow Grey Host with Vengeance. Despite Vengeance remaining more accessible, you will very much so find out very quickly that it will become less sustainable long term. I'm basing this on intuition where other games have done something quite similar to what you are doing here and the huge population decrease when vengeance was used earlier in the year in the PvP campaigns. I

At the very least, I would recommend placing Grey Host at the top of the Cyrodiil que list with Vengeance where Blackreach is now. You don't want to kill Cyrodiil PvP. Zenimax has something very special with the open fight sandbox simulator in ESO that no other game (Ashes of Creation, Crowfall, New World) can quite master. I even see lots of people saying they're choosing ESO PvP over GW2 which is a feat in itself.

Moral of the story, don't devalue what you had before Vengeance, its a whole entire community in itself.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · April 14

What is the plan for allowing players with characters on more than 1 faction access to a regular PvP environment if you are removing the only option for non alliance locked cyrodiil outside of vengeance?

tomofhyrule · April 14

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

What is the plan for allowing players with characters on more than 1 faction access to a regular PvP environment if you are removing the only option for non alliance locked cyrodiil outside of vengeance?

This is making me a bit nervous.

Granted, I'm not a huge PvPer (but I'm gonna have to grind this Veterancy to get that shield bash), but having the only two options be "standard, but only on one specific faction so I can't play with friends" and "vengeance, so I can't play with standard rules" is a bit awkward.

Are we really expected to have an account-wide 'primary' faction for PvP and then the other two are for Vengeance only? Didn't ESO decide like 11 years ago that faction-locking you away from your friends was not a good idea?

decairn · April 15

General feedback:

If Vengeance is anywhere as near as popular as you hope it will be there will be queues, and Golden Vendor will be difficult to get to; consider moving Golden Vendor out to PVP merchants with the battlegrounds guys.

People are going to want unlocked faction option. The Grey Host crew definitely don't want unlocked faction so there needs to be another option. Is that Vengeance? I dunno.

Please replicate that channeled siege repair from Vengeance onto Grey Host. Its a good QoL improvement.

Please actually spend some time improving performance on Grey Host. You seem committed to keeping it around. You need to give it some love. The performance is poor, the scoring mechanisms are broken / unbalanced, the map is unbalanced, yet the character build and PvPvE mechanisms drive a lot of player retention. I know software is super hard and risky to change, so just throw more hardware at it and dedicate to Grey Host to get some more headroom on calculations.

Darethran · April 15

Oh my god Vengeance is back. When can we expect to see it released on the main server? It would also be good to hear how sets will be treated in the future, as it would be nice to have variety even if they're simple stat boosts and accessory effects like Kagrenac's Hope having 50% faster revive speeds.

salander7 · April 15

General feedback:
Leave a non-alliance locked campaign outside of Vengeance if you want to keep Grey Host alliance locked. Edit: Discussion on this thread.

I get Vengeance is there for casual players, but it's a washed down lack-lusting version of pvp. Considering the cost of alliance change tokens, and how most players have chars on all 3 alliances, it is a big "you can't play actual pvp on over half of em".

I would suggest to not make Vengeance permanent since it's clear people like regular Cyro way more, but it's pointless considering how adamant ZoS is about it.

PvP in ESO in 2026 feels like the Monty Python's Spam sketch. We'd like the egg and bacon, you can keep the Vengeance off, thanks.

Gh0stDaddy · April 17

"Gray Host campaign will also be available. However, Ravenwatch, Icereach, and Blackreach campaigns will be closed down."

I think that this is a huge mistake. We are gaining 1 campaign at the expense of 3. I think having Gray Host, Blackreach and Vengeance would be the way to go.

If you are basing your decision to eliminate the other campaigns off of older population data, i.e. during subclassing or before, I'd encourage you to look at current data. Currently, the pvp side of the game is actually growing. I've seen queues of over 150 for Gray Host, at points during this new patch. Keep in mind that this is with pvp not in full swing. As it's been an unfun Dragonknight fest with overpowered subclassing still dominating for most of this patch.

Also, getting booted and/or not being able to get back in or into Gray Host in the first place, I think will be very disappointing to many. Vengeance is a completely different game mode from Gray Host, which is a welcomed change. But this makes Gray Host the only option when there are often huge queues. Imagine doing dungeons or trials and getting booted due to a service error and being stuck playing tales of tribute for the rest of the night. That's how different these game modes are and that won't be positive for anyone. Player choice is paramount.

Also, as others have said: Gray Host is alliance locked. So you're extremely limited right there.

Blackreach has always served as a middle ground. I believe that it is imperative that it continues to do so. Eliminating all other campaigns besides Gray Host and Vengeance, I think will be a huge setback for the game and will not allow for the population cap and player choice that is and will be needed for old and new players alike, as the great changes that have and are being made such as the class refreshes, class masteries and others take effect.

Thank you for your consideration.

MincMincMinc · April 17

The veterancy system is just not a good idea. It is giving players a reason to not play because they are fundamentally behind. There are already enough reasons to not pvp, like hard faction locks preventing players from playing with friends.

For faction locks IMO you should update the system and make it so at the start of a campaign any character from any alliance can sign up for a faction. Make the game more streamlined and less of a chore for people to play the game. Originally Faction based characters were a design to create replayability........we are 12+ years down the line with tens of thousands of hours of content. We dont need this gimmicky roadblock preventing people from playing months on end.

Kelinmiriel · April 17

Every time Vengeance has been up, there has been a queue to get in. There is often a queue to get in to Gray Host - my friends who actually play in that campaign tell me that they're waiting for an hour or more. One of the reasons I play in Blackreach is to avoid the queues.

I like playing with champion points. Gray Host is not for me, and even if it was, it's alliance-locked, so 2/3 of my characters couldn't go there. Vengeance is no-cp. Another reason I play in Blackreach. (I can't solo a resource without my cps. Other players in no-cp campaigns are equally nerfed, but NPCs, guards, monsters, are not. I have a hard time staying alive, and can't do as much damage as I'm used to.)

I've enjoyed Vengeance when it was a special event, and if it was added permanently, I would go there sometimes, on some characters. It's fun. Is there a problem with running three campaigns? Why can't we have Gray Host, Vengeance, AND Blackreach?

If it's a choice between Vengeance and Blackreach - my vote is for Blackreach. Bring out Vengeance for special events - and stop doing it when there's a PvE event running so I don't have time to go there!

Pepegrillos · April 18

MincMincMinc wrote: »

The veterancy system is just not a good idea. It is giving players a reason to not play because they are fundamentally behind. There are already enough reasons to not pvp, like hard faction locks preventing players from playing with friends.

No system in the game is as big of a hurdle for new pvp players than the CP system grind and power differences. Whatever veterancy is doing is not even close.

xylena · April 18

Are there any plans to address combat balance on Vengeance?

In solo DD play NB is still far ahead of the other 6 classes with its unmatched sustain and utility, mostly Shadow Cloak and Siphoning Strikes. You can tune it to whatever playstyle you want with generics. Run generic dots and now you are a stronger dot pressure brawler than any DK. Templar seemed similarly far ahead defensively. Rather than nerf NB or Templar, the other 5 classes need more to make themselves stand out.

In group play, large scale fights feel artificially choked by the low AoE damage cap. Restricting AoE healing is absolutely the right move, but right now they're both capped at 3 and healing scales higher than damage. This means that groups will ignore combat and simply stack heals until their raw numbers prevent them from ever dying, turning zerg engagements into nothing but a player count. Similar problems have plagued Gray Host. Meatbag siege needs area denial.

Crow_IX · April 19

Firstly, this is going to add more to the divide of an already low population portion of the game.
Secondly, nothing about this sounds like a good idea.
Lastly, you're acknowledging an imbalance and an over tuning issue to aoe's and ball groups. Maybe you should address the problem directly instead of throwing out something on the side as a very loose set band aid.

annathepiper · April 19

New on the forums, but not new to ESO, so chiming in here to say that:

1. I actually actively like Vengeance and this is why: technically I'm a PC player*, but I play the PC build of ESO on a Steam Deck. I've tried to participate in fights in Gray Host and the Deck _cannot handle it_. The times I've tried to jump in on fights there, even just to throw heals around, there's so much going on that within a minute or two I typically get thrown right off the server. I never have a chance to actually do much at all and that's not fun. By contrast, the last time Vengeance was up, I was actively able to participate, and that was _fun_. I'm looking forward to doing it again.
2. That said: I don't want Gray Host to go away either, or Blackreach. Gray Host is near and dear to too many players' hearts. But like Kelinmiriel further up the thread (she and I are in the same guild actually), I appreciate having a campaign available that isn't alliance-locked. I like being able to get in there with any of my characters if all I want to do is spend some time quietly repairing keeps.

So in short, if at all possible, I'd love to see Gray Host, Blackreach, and Vengeance be the final combo.

* I also play the Mac build of ESO since my laptop is a MacBook Pro. But the times I've tried to go into Cyrodiil on my Mac, I've had only slightly better results in Gray Host than I do playing on the Deck.

Pepegrillos · April 20

An odd point of feedback: you guys should get rid of the drab and depressing skybox. I have a hard time believing people will spend much time in a zone that looks like that (I'm assuming here they enjoy the mode). I know there is data about this in other MMORPGS, and I'm sure you have data of your own. People don't chill or stick around in places that look like that.

xylena · April 20

Pepegrillos wrote: »

An odd point of feedback: you guys should get rid of the drab and depressing skybox.

Agreed. Kinda like the purple sky, but the red tinted lighting and black rain are depressing.

Maitsukas · April 20

xylena wrote: »

Pepegrillos wrote: »

An odd point of feedback: you guys should get rid of the drab and depressing skybox.

Agreed. Kinda like the purple sky, but the red tinted lighting and black rain are depressing.

The skybox on the PTS Vengeance Campaign is using the regular Cyrodiil one, so I'd expect it to appear once U50 launches in June.

Ratzkifal · April 21

annathepiper wrote: »

New on the forums, but not new to ESO, so chiming in here to say that:

1. I actually actively like Vengeance and this is why: technically I'm a PC player*, but I play the PC build of ESO on a Steam Deck. I've tried to participate in fights in Gray Host and the Deck _cannot handle it_. The times I've tried to jump in on fights there, even just to throw heals around, there's so much going on that within a minute or two I typically get thrown right off the server. I never have a chance to actually do much at all and that's not fun. By contrast, the last time Vengeance was up, I was actively able to participate, and that was _fun_. I'm looking forward to doing it again.
2. That said: I don't want Gray Host to go away either, or Blackreach. Gray Host is near and dear to too many players' hearts. But like Kelinmiriel further up the thread (she and I are in the same guild actually), I appreciate having a campaign available that isn't alliance-locked. I like being able to get in there with any of my characters if all I want to do is spend some time quietly repairing keeps.

So in short, if at all possible, I'd love to see Gray Host, Blackreach, and Vengeance be the final combo.

* I also play the Mac build of ESO since my laptop is a MacBook Pro. But the times I've tried to go into Cyrodiil on my Mac, I've had only slightly better results in Gray Host than I do playing on the Deck.

@annathepiper So the reason you "like Vengeance" is the performance. You don't actually like Vengeance, you like the performance of it. Your feedback shouldn't be "I actively like Vengeance and I want Vengeance to stay", your feedback should be "I want Gray Host to have as good of a performance as Vengeance".
Unless you have other reasons to like Vengeance. Let's hear them! Because I genuinely cannot see what's supposed to be fun about reverting ESO's combat to a pre-beta state.

Aces-High-82 · April 21

Sorcerer
Can we get a 5 sec timer instead of the cast time on Crystal Shard please.
Burst lineup rewards mechanical execution which I miss very here.

xylena · April 21

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I want Gray Host to have as good of a performance as Vengeance

And I want a trillion dollars and a pony.

I like both the gameplay and performance of Vengeance and look forward to it going live.

Some of the criticisms of its gameplay are valid, like how large scale can devolve into a zergy numbers count (due to stacked healing far outpacing damage), or how small scale feels limited when every sweaty player is on pretty much the same dot NB spec.

I would like to see a buff to large scale AoE damage, or a nerf to stacked healing. I don't want NB nerfed, I want other classes buffed and to stand out with unique mechanics like NB.

Ratzkifal · April 21

xylena wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I want Gray Host to have as good of a performance as Vengeance

And I want a trillion dollars and a pony.

How very dismissive of you. You can take this approach with any customer feedback. You want solo dungeons? Trillion dollars and a pony. Overland difficulty? Trillion dollars and a pony. No crashes? You guessed it, trillion dollars and a pony.
When trials were experiencing massive lag in, I think it was Greymoor, did ZOS introduce Vengeance trials because expecting good performance in trials is a trillion dollars and a pony? No, they went and fixed the problem.

If you stop expecting a good product you will never get a good product.

xylena wrote: »

I like both the gameplay and performance of Vengeance and look forward to it going live.
[...]

I invite you too to elaborate on what it is you actually like about the gameplay of Vengeance, which as a reminder is also the purpose of this feedback thread.
Do you like it when out of the 50 people standing in front of a keep only 25-30 get to use a siege weapon because the siege limit simply does not allow for more?
Do you like it when there is no point to counter-sieging because your enemy can never run out of siege?
Do you like not having item sets? I wonder how that's sustainable, because every shiny new toy the game throws at us won't make it into Vengeance and leave people bored, just like how the no-proc campaign died off.

I'm not going to discuss balance with you. If the reason you like Vengeance is that it has better balancing than Gray Host, go and ask for better balancing.

xylena · April 21

Ratzkifal wrote: »

If you stop expecting a good product you will never get a good product

This isn't about features, its a technical limitation, like complaining that your car can't break the sound barrier. Devs stated that the major factor in GH lag is build system calculations. So to fix the lag they had to make a new build system. The simplified mechanics kill 2 birds with 1 stone, dealing with both the lag (performance) and the ball group problem (accessibility).

Maybe when they have reworked all 7 classes and everyone is on modern skill designs, GH will perform better, but that is still in the future, for now they keep lowering the pop caps.

Ratzkifal · April 21

xylena wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

If you stop expecting a good product you will never get a good product

This isn't about features, its a technical limitation, like complaining that your car can't break the sound barrier. Devs stated that the major factor in GH lag is build system calculations. So to fix the lag they had to make a new build system. The simplified mechanics kill 2 birds with 1 stone, dealing with both the lag (performance) and the ball group problem (accessibility).

Maybe when they have reworked all 7 classes and everyone is on modern skill designs, GH will perform better, but that is still in the future, for now they keep lowering the pop caps.

Nothing of what you just said justifies Vengeance as a permanent gamemode. If the class rework could or is intended to fix performance, there would be no need for Vengeance.

The ball group problem runs deeper, because they are a major cause of lag, along with bash builds which can cause lag even in duels and BGs, so addressing this problem could result in significant performance gains when done correctly, but so far not much testing was done to even verify or disprove this hypothesis.
Instead the devs threw the possibility of the complete removal of Gray Host into the conversation while already very much intending on removing all other campaigns, leaving us only with faction-locked PvP or Vengeance - a horrible choice for those who like to play actual PvP with friends across multiple alliances.
Considering that performance in Cyrodiil used to be good shows us that it is possible. The server refresh and Whitestrake's Mayhem performance show us that good performance is possible. The test-removal of cross-healing shows us that good performance is possible. You liken something that is very possible, even if difficult, to something nonsensical like wanting a car to break the sound barrier. If that's not arguing in bad faith, I don't know what is.
To me this is more akin to having a flat tire on your bike, and instead of fixing the tire, the proposed solution is having your bike modified into a unicycle and telling anyone who dares to complain that this is a perfectly good unicycle and that there is nothing to complain about. Even if it is a good unicycle, it's not a bike. It's not the same and it never will be until it stops being a unicycle and starts being a bike again.

xylena · April 21

Ratzkifal wrote: »

justifies Vengeance as a permanent gamemode

Considering that performance in Cyrodiil used to be good

What justifies GH as a permanent game mode? Struggling to hit 3 digits of players?

But sure I'd take ESO Classic 1.3 Wabbajack over Vengeance.

ceruulean · April 21

Can you please reintroduce fire ballistas and make siege limited and purchasable? It makes defending a keep on an underdog faction harder when the enemy just keeps spawning siege. The whole point of selling 90 gold fire siege was so that newbies can contribute in defense when they have 0 AP. Scattershot is not good, it's too big and hard to aim when placed on the rampart. I'm ok with unlimited pots and siege for a test, but it really shouldn't be an official game feature. I'm hoping the unlimited siege on PTS won't be part of release.

Ratzkifal · April 21

xylena wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

justifies Vengeance as a permanent gamemode

Considering that performance in Cyrodiil used to be good

What justifies GH as a permanent game mode? Struggling to hit 3 digits of players?

But sure I'd take ESO Classic 1.3 Wabbajack over Vengeance.

Nice try, but, speaking for PC EU, Gray Host is always quite full and well into the 3 digits even at off hours. During prime time even 4 digits are no problem, especially when you also count the people waiting in queue to get in.

So what justifies Gray Host? GH is the original MMO PvP experience. You levelled up by questing, you farmed your gear, you got your skill points, you did the progression. So what now? Now you make your build, set your CP, apply everything you've learned and step into the endgame. For PvP, that's Gray Host (and Blackreach).
If you strip down the game to its bones, you might as well remove all the sets from the game. You cannot use them in Vengeance anyway. If the idea of Vengeance interests someone, the rest of the game doesn't matter anymore. Might as well bring Vengeance to Overland and Trials as well. There are other games that give you loadout based PvP. That's not how PvP in an MMO should be because it invalidates the rest of the MMO's progression system.

See? I can articulate exactly what I like about Gray Host and I can also articulate what I dislike about Vengeance. You keep dodging the question and reply with another question. What is it you like about Vengeance?

annathepiper · April 22

Ratzkifal wrote: »

@annathepiper So the reason you "like Vengeance" is the performance. You don't actually like Vengeance, you like the performance of it. Your feedback shouldn't be "I actively like Vengeance and I want Vengeance to stay", your feedback should be "I want Gray Host to have as good of a performance as Vengeance".
Unless you have other reasons to like Vengeance. Let's hear them! Because I genuinely cannot see what's supposed to be fun about reverting ESO's combat to a pre-beta state.

It's as simple as "I like Vengeance because I can actually play it", nothing more complicated than that. Since nothing I currently own to game on is really up to the performance task of handling Gray Host, I legit don't have a basis of comparison between it and what I see in Vengeance--at least not in terms of my personal experience. All I can go by is what I've seen people posting here. And I have been lurking a while, so I've seen a bunch of threads from the experienced PVP players and what they think. I respect all the points I've seen raised and feel ZOS should be listening to them.

I wouldn't be upset if ZOS decided to go down the path of "let's take lessons learned from Vengeance and go apply them to the other campaigns". If that resulted in all the experienced PVP players still getting to have Gray Host and gave me some campaign I could also play, that would be ideal. I'm not deadset on Vengeance in its current exact form. Really, I just want something I can actually play too, and learn more about how to function as a healer in Cyrodiil.

And since you asked: there are a couple other bits of Vengeance in its current form that I do like, aside from the "I can actually play it" aspect:

1. The QoL improvement of only needing a single repair kit to fix a keep
2. Proposed loadouts to choose from, which appeal to me as a PVP newb, it lowers the barrier to my entry*

* That said, while I like the proposed loadouts given when you enter the campaign, I would also still like to be able to use actual sets. I've barely scratched the surface of learning what all the PVP sets can do, and the distinctions between what a good PVE build on a healer is, and what a good PVP healer build is. I can't learn that if the campaign doesn't actually let me use sets! In my ideal world I'd get some sort of happy medium where I could either pick a proposed loadout or do my own custom build.

Edited to add: Adverb removal because I am verbose like that. XD

Whizzinglane · April 22

I am having too much fun at the moment. I will come back and edit this post at the end of the campaign!

xylena · April 22

Ratzkifal wrote: »

During prime time even 4 digits are no problem

You've got 900+ people in queue for GH EU? Serious doubt.

Remember all those players who really cared about the AvAvA and winning the campaign? The mid tier sweat crowd loved to make fun of the faction guys, but without them, who are you "farming" nobody lol. GH players afraid to lose all the remaining easy targets to Vengeance.

They're long gone because the campaign score means nothing, years and years of any map advancement you make soon to be wiped away by like 10 guys doing off hours PvDoor. The game mode itself is mechanically dead until the intended AvAvA gameplay becomes viable.

Decimus · April 22

Some general feedback:

As a long term player, having this as a limited time event is alright and provides a break from the monotony that can be regular PvP. However, I'm not so sure this campaign will fare better than no-CP Cyrodiil for example when it comes to long term population count.

I would highly recommend having Vengeance as a limited time experience, similar to Night Market.

Perks & Loadouts:

Some of the new perks added are cool and interesting, but I will say the new loadout abilities kind of ruin what Vengeance is supposed to provide. One of the positives of this game mode is having class identity... How is this the case if everyone gets access to invisibility or insane mobility? A lot of the new abilities also just feel cheap from animations/design PoV and honestly don't need to be there.

You're also making things a lot more complicated for new players without really achieving anything besides removing the meaningfulness of class choice.

If development resources need to be put into designing new Vengeance skill lines, atleast make them unique and not steal from the existing classes (NB invis, Sorc mobility etc). You're re-introducing the same problem subclassing first provided us, where everyone will just have the "same build" regardless of class. We all know how that turned out.

Kelinmiriel · April 22

Has anyone given a reason why we have to give up Blackreach to have Vengeance running all the time?

I mean, the massive clamor of PvP people whining about the loss of Gray Host whenever Vengeance was running makes it obvious why they couldn't live without THAT. Not even for a minute, much less for the long run.

Those of us who play in Blackreach are, perhaps, more casual, and more patient, and didn't complain much about it being gone for a week at a time when Vengeance was running. Was that taken as a sign that nobody cared about it, and that it should just be removed permanently?

That's pretty sad, if that's the reason.

Why? Why is Blackreach being killed forever? Is there a reason?