ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, we wanted to let you know that we have been reading this thread (and others like it) and would like to reiterate what we mentioned on the U50 patch notes. We are reading, monitoring the Cyrodiil campaign graphs, and watching queue times. We recognize that the current queue times for Gray Host are frustrating.

Historically, we need to monitor population data for at least two weeks after a change like this, to get a clear view of long-term trends. We want to avoid a situation where prematurely opening another "traditional" campaign dilutes the Cyrodiil population even more. If populations and the queue continue to hold where they are now by the end of this week, we will consider opening a Blackreach Cyrodiil campaign for Gray Host overflow.

Thank you all for bearing with us for just one more week of monitoring.

Also just want to mention the server FPS has gotten really....really bad post U50.

Was very healthy pre U50.

Make VENGEANCE a 3 day (Fri, Sat, Sun) weekend only.

Bring back a 7 day campaign.

Lucasl402 wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Dojohoda wrote: »

To reduce the waiting time, the population allowed would have to be increased by about 175%. I would love that. GH struggles to always function with current population. It's mostly okay but when it's bad, it's bad. I'll never forget the times that it worked better, especially that bit of time after the hardware refresh. Too bad that didn't last, it was a great time.

I would agree with you... until U50. The performance in Cyro (GH) since U50 has been... terrible at best. I'm not sure if it's the calculations from class masteries or some other set/skill but something is dragging the server FPS into the ground.

I've had zero lag for a year and literally the day U50 hit it's been terrible. This isn't a ping issue, ISP issue, etc, it's a server wide massive server fps slowdown during heavy fights.. that wasn't an issue for a while.

Sure we have had blips of lag when there are 3 or 4 ball groups and the server inside a keep fighting for an hour straight but since U50 you can "feel" the server having to stop and think about things. It almost feels like the "slideshow" feeling we used to have 4 or 5 years ago.

Conversation for a different thread... main point was to say.. I was with you on just screw it raise the pop... but my view on that has chance post U50... the server would melt.

Maybe they could install servers that aren't 10 years old again. Just a thought. Isn't a servers physical lifespan closer to 5 years anyway?

To be fair... just throwing more servers at it doesn't fix the problem.

If you were being fair you'd recall that when ZOS replaced the servers it did, in fact, massively increase performance.

Yes, because of how widly old they were. That was an unintended consequence. Once you get to modern hardware, adding more servers to it doesn't exactly resolve a calculation throughput issue.

Also, you assume they have infinite resources for more server. I'm sure they are having tight pulls on their margins from MS so.. again.. just throwing more servers at it doesn't solve the problem.

keto3000 wrote: »

Make VENGEANCE a 3 day (Fri, Sat, Sun) weekend only.

Bring back a 7 day campaign.

No, because there are some people who truly do like vengence and it's a great entry to pvp camp or U50 camp.

Red_Nine wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, we wanted to let you know that we have been reading this thread (and others like it) and would like to reiterate what we mentioned on the U50 patch notes. We are reading, monitoring the Cyrodiil campaign graphs, and watching queue times. We recognize that the current queue times for Gray Host are frustrating.

Historically, we need to monitor population data for at least two weeks after a change like this, to get a clear view of long-term trends. We want to avoid a situation where prematurely opening another "traditional" campaign dilutes the Cyrodiil population even more. If populations and the queue continue to hold where they are now by the end of this week, we will consider opening a Blackreach Cyrodiil campaign for Gray Host overflow.

Thank you all for bearing with us for just one more week of monitoring.

To be fair, this has been a problem since the last Whitestrake's event. Months ago.

Yes, it has... but its gotten much....much worse since U50.

JohnG wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, we wanted to let you know that we have been reading this thread (and others like it) and would like to reiterate what we mentioned on the U50 patch notes. We are reading, monitoring the Cyrodiil campaign graphs, and watching queue times. We recognize that the current queue times for Gray Host are frustrating.

Historically, we need to monitor population data for at least two weeks after a change like this, to get a clear view of long-term trends. We want to avoid a situation where prematurely opening another "traditional" campaign dilutes the Cyrodiil population even more. If populations and the queue continue to hold where they are now by the end of this week, we will consider opening a Blackreach Cyrodiil campaign for Gray Host overflow.

Thank you all for bearing with us for just one more week of monitoring.

When looking at the statistics please also take into account the number of people who are logging in, seeing a 1-2 hour long queue, and deciding they would rather just play another game for the night.

You are right, the queue will go down over time because players no longer bother. Who in there right mind sits for hours in queue. PvP population must be truly non existent that this standard of performance is still in the game. And then you get in but the lag and disconnects? This is some indie pre-alpha business that has been going on for years.

Honestly they should already have this data from before U50, and it was flagged that queue will be high before the release which they acknowledged, but the strategy was to release and monitor in this way anyway.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, we wanted to let you know that we have been reading this thread (and others like it) and would like to reiterate what we mentioned on the U50 patch notes. We are reading, monitoring the Cyrodiil campaign graphs, and watching queue times. We recognize that the current queue times for Gray Host are frustrating.

Historically, we need to monitor population data for at least two weeks after a change like this, to get a clear view of long-term trends. We want to avoid a situation where prematurely opening another "traditional" campaign dilutes the Cyrodiil population even more. If populations and the queue continue to hold where they are now by the end of this week, we will consider opening a Blackreach Cyrodiil campaign for Gray Host overflow.

Thank you all for bearing with us for just one more week of monitoring.

Create a 2nd faction-locked campaign, exactly identical to Grey Host. (CP-enabled and faction-locked.)
Blackreach (no-CP) is NOT the answer. We already have Vengeance; which (positively) replaces Blackreach.
Players do not want to grind 3,600 CP just to not be able to use any of it in PvP areas. Don't waste our time.
PvP content is already dominated by non-CP options in all modes: Battlegrounds, Cyrodiil, and Imperial City.
Battlegrounds are no-CP, Imperial City is half-no-CP, and Vengeance is another option entirely (also no-CP).

In fact, a 2nd CP-enabled faction-locked Cyrodiil campaign, identical to Grey Host, would make PvP more attractive because the faction in 3rd place on Grey Host would have the opportunity to be in 1st place on the second identical campaign.
If Grey Host supports 100 vs 100 vs 100 (or similar), and player queues are 100+ (on each faction), then there is enough player population at peak playtime to support two permanent faction-locked CP-enabled Cyrodiil campaigns.
The math is simple, really. It doesn't take a degree in data analytics to know that the demand is there.
ESO has supported many Cyrodiil campaigns in the past, especially during the Whitestrake's Mayhem PvP event.
The ESO dev team's latest vision is to "experiment with different approaches to game design and seasonal content", then give this a try for a few weeks/months and then update us with another ESO Live stream about Cyrodiil analytics, as Brian Wheeler has done in the past.

TL;DR: Grey Host, plus another identical copy of Grey Host, plus Vengeance. Give it a try. That is all.

ok

Dragonclaw1337 wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, we wanted to let you know that we have been reading this thread (and others like it) and would like to reiterate what we mentioned on the U50 patch notes. We are reading, monitoring the Cyrodiil campaign graphs, and watching queue times. We recognize that the current queue times for Gray Host are frustrating.

Historically, we need to monitor population data for at least two weeks after a change like this, to get a clear view of long-term trends. We want to avoid a situation where prematurely opening another "traditional" campaign dilutes the Cyrodiil population even more. If populations and the queue continue to hold where they are now by the end of this week, we will consider opening a Blackreach Cyrodiil campaign for Gray Host overflow.

Thank you all for bearing with us for just one more week of monitoring.

Create a 2nd faction-locked campaign, exactly identical to Grey Host. (CP-enabled and faction-locked.)
Blackreach (no-CP) is NOT the answer. We already have Vengeance; which (positively) replaces Blackreach.
Players do not want to grind 3,600 CP just to not be able to use any of it in PvP areas. Don't waste our time.
PvP content is already dominated by non-CP options in all modes: Battlegrounds, Cyrodiil, and Imperial City.
Battlegrounds are no-CP, Imperial City is half-no-CP, and Vengeance is another option entirely (also no-CP).

In fact, a 2nd CP-enabled faction-locked Cyrodiil campaign, identical to Grey Host, would make PvP more attractive because the faction in 3rd place on Grey Host would have the opportunity to be in 1st place on the second identical campaign.
If Grey Host supports 100 vs 100 vs 100 (or similar), and player queues are 100+ (on each faction), then there is enough player population at peak playtime to support two permanent faction-locked CP-enabled Cyrodiil campaigns.
The math is simple, really. It doesn't take a degree in data analytics to know that the demand is there.
ESO has supported many Cyrodiil campaigns in the past, especially during the Whitestrake's Mayhem PvP event.
The ESO dev team's latest vision is to "experiment with different approaches to game design and seasonal content", then give this a try for a few weeks/months and then update us with another ESO Live stream about Cyrodiil analytics, as Brian Wheeler has done in the past.

TL;DR: Grey Host, plus another identical copy of Grey Host, plus Vengeance. Give it a try. That is all.

This is an excellent idea; and, to add to it, this option also provides players with the opportunity to play CP-enabled Cyrodiil with multiple faction characters. Most players have many characters across all 3 factions, even if they primarily play 1 faction.

A 2nd faction-locked campaign, an identical copy of the Grey Host campaign, allows multi-faction players to experience CP-enabled Cyrodiil with other faction characters without tainting the good-natured faction-locked PvP experience.
Currently, 2/3rds of players' characters are unusable in CP-enabled Cyrodiil. In addition, if a player only exclusively plays one faction, they have the opportunity to play only 2 faction-locked campaigns with the same character faction if they want to.
A duplicate version of Grey Host allows 2/3rds of players' characters to be used, especially if Grey Host has too long of a queue.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Dragonclaw1337 wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, we wanted to let you know that we have been reading this thread (and others like it) and would like to reiterate what we mentioned on the U50 patch notes. We are reading, monitoring the Cyrodiil campaign graphs, and watching queue times. We recognize that the current queue times for Gray Host are frustrating.

Historically, we need to monitor population data for at least two weeks after a change like this, to get a clear view of long-term trends. We want to avoid a situation where prematurely opening another "traditional" campaign dilutes the Cyrodiil population even more. If populations and the queue continue to hold where they are now by the end of this week, we will consider opening a Blackreach Cyrodiil campaign for Gray Host overflow.

Thank you all for bearing with us for just one more week of monitoring.

Create a 2nd faction-locked campaign, exactly identical to Grey Host. (CP-enabled and faction-locked.)
Blackreach (no-CP) is NOT the answer. We already have Vengeance; which (positively) replaces Blackreach.
Players do not want to grind 3,600 CP just to not be able to use any of it in PvP areas. Don't waste our time.
PvP content is already dominated by non-CP options in all modes: Battlegrounds, Cyrodiil, and Imperial City.
Battlegrounds are no-CP, Imperial City is half-no-CP, and Vengeance is another option entirely (also no-CP).

In fact, a 2nd CP-enabled faction-locked Cyrodiil campaign, identical to Grey Host, would make PvP more attractive because the faction in 3rd place on Grey Host would have the opportunity to be in 1st place on the second identical campaign.
If Grey Host supports 100 vs 100 vs 100 (or similar), and player queues are 100+ (on each faction), then there is enough player population at peak playtime to support two permanent faction-locked CP-enabled Cyrodiil campaigns.
The math is simple, really. It doesn't take a degree in data analytics to know that the demand is there.
ESO has supported many Cyrodiil campaigns in the past, especially during the Whitestrake's Mayhem PvP event.
The ESO dev team's latest vision is to "experiment with different approaches to game design and seasonal content", then give this a try for a few weeks/months and then update us with another ESO Live stream about Cyrodiil analytics, as Brian Wheeler has done in the past.

TL;DR: Grey Host, plus another identical copy of Grey Host, plus Vengeance. Give it a try. That is all.

I disagree. Blackreach would be a better third option for the mid-tier.

Blackreach is CP-enabled (Ravenwatch was the no-CP), but the faction lock did actually serve as a deterrent for the less-sweaty players. I realize that the point of a faction lock is to prevent treachery, but there’s a large portion of the non-sweaty PvP base that doesn’t really care about their faction as much as they just want to play with their friends. I could even see a faction lock lasting like 24h in that case, but locking someone off of being able to play their main in PvP because they helped a friend with a Conquest mission seems like a deterrent more than anything else.

My social guild does PvP nights where we mostly stick to strategically taking keeps and doing the delve buffs and the like, but we all have PvP-specific builds. It’s more than casual, but sweaty PvPers would just scoff it as “ugh, PvD.” Vengeance is unsatisfying since we don’t have our builds, but it’s obvious that we’d otherwise be taking up space in GH that other people could use. Blackreach was always the perfect option for us.

And to your comment of the MYM temp campaigns, GH was the only one of those that was alliance locked. The others were essentially copies of Blackreach (CP) or Ravenwatch (noCP) lasting a week.

I fully agree that another standard Campaign is needed, but I really think it would be better to have an alliance-unlocked one so the more casual PvPers could go there instead of taking up space in GH, and then the ruleset is still the same so GH players who are in queue can still do something.

With a non faction lock, FWIW, you pretty much always end up with a map where every scroll, every keep, everyting is on faction all the time.

I get the " I want to play with my friends" comment but truthfully... I don't know anyone who wants to play with their friends that didn't just switch their toons to the sam faction.

From an overall player experience a non lock for a secondary camp would be an instant killer.. IMO.

LadyGP wrote: »

Eldovar wrote: »

At this point I think it would be an interesting technical and social experiment to just copy GH ruleset and make a GH1 and GH2.

In theory it would fix and double the queues. But in practice people would probably keep queuing into GH1 only and keep complaining about queues.

I'm with you but... gamers are too hard headed. We will go to the "OG GH" where all our friends, and enemies, are. If that means I have to sit through a 2 hour queue to be able to spend my night killing people who hate whisper me all night... so be it.

Its not just wanting to fight with your battle hardened teammates against familiar rivals. Its also about Vengeance just legit not being fun.

I remember the first Vengeance when it was stacked 3 bars for each population. THAT was legitimately fun. Enormous battles the likes of which we've not seen in quite some time. The population issue was much less because there was players everywhere and the fights were more or less even because people rallied to those big fights. But Vengeance hasn't been like that since the first test, and most people have tried it enough now to give honest feedback on it.

And when their honest feedback is "not fun, won't play under any circumstances" Zos should listen.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, we wanted to let you know that we have been reading this thread (and others like it) and would like to reiterate what we mentioned on the U50 patch notes. We are reading, monitoring the Cyrodiil campaign graphs, and watching queue times. We recognize that the current queue times for Gray Host are frustrating.

Historically, we need to monitor population data for at least two weeks after a change like this, to get a clear view of long-term trends. We want to avoid a situation where prematurely opening another "traditional" campaign dilutes the Cyrodiil population even more. If populations and the queue continue to hold where they are now by the end of this week, we will consider opening a Blackreach Cyrodiil campaign for Gray Host overflow.

Thank you all for bearing with us for just one more week of monitoring.

Just so you know the problem isn't the number of campaigns, its the fact that the GH population limit is too low. People won't want to play on a dead Blackreach campaign any more than they want to play on a dead Vengeance campaign. There will always be a very small population looking for empty campaigns to flip in relative safety but the core PVP playerbase want 1 high pop active campaign with actual ESO combat.

QFE

It’s wrong but it’s kinda nice to see the other factions having the que problem that EP (NA GH) has had for the past few months. These 2 hour ques were the norm for EP even before this update.

This also leads to people Queing up 2 hours earlier and going afk in a corner until their friends log in. Pop might be 120 or whatever it is I don’t remember the exact number. But at least 25% of that is prob afk in a corner heavy attacking a wall.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone, we have an update for you. After further discussions and monitoring things overnight, we are going to move up the timeline for opening a Blackreach campaign on all servers to help alleviate the Gray Host queue times. This will happen tomorrow morning (Wednesday.)

On the more long-term front, we agree that the current Cyrodiil population meters could be improved, especially now that we have two Cyrodiil campaigns with different population caps. (One bar equates to a different number, depending on the campaign.) We are exploring options and will share more details as we have them.

Thank you all for your patience. We will communicate when the Blackreach campaign is open tomorrow.

Awesome news, Jessica. Thank you and the team for being open/transparent about the issues we have been facing!

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone, we have an update for you. After further discussions and monitoring things overnight, we are going to move up the timeline for opening a Blackreach campaign on all servers to help alleviate the Gray Host queue times. This will happen tomorrow morning (Wednesday.)

On the more long-term front, we agree that the current Cyrodiil population meters could be improved, especially now that we have two Cyrodiil campaigns with different population caps. (One bar equates to a different number, depending on the campaign.) We are exploring options and will share more details as we have them.

Thank you all for your patience. We will communicate when the Blackreach campaign is open tomorrow.

This is great news, thank you for siding with the community on this one.

Precise population numbers have been something people have requested since at least 2020, excited to see what the team comes up with in this regard.

First off, I have to admit, I do not like, nor have I ever enjoyed PvP (I have done it with friends and guild mates, but it is just not my cup of tea)

My wife on the other hand, enjoys PvP... she likes Grey Host (with friends and guild mates) she likes Vengeance (with friends and guild mates) but she prefers Grey Host rules to Vengeance rules (I asked her).

It would seem to me, and this is just my unenlightened opinion, that if Grey Host has queues that last more than what is reasonable (30 minutes? 1 hour?) for the most active part of a day then another server with the same ruleset is needed...

Note: The Ruleset has nothing to do with being alliance locked or not, just how PvP is done on that server.

As there seems to be sufficient population attempting to get into Grey Host to cause unacceptable Queues, a second (and perhaps third) PvP server should be made available, the question is the style of that server (Alliance Locked or not, CP or not)

Again, my opinion, is that a No CP normal Ruleset would be less desirable, I could be wrong... but perhaps a permeant Sub-50 no CP server should be added...

The question then is Alliance Locked or not?

Would it be possible for that new server to be triggered if and when Grey Host started getting a queue (1 faction or 2? More than 30 minutes? 1 hour?) and only available when it had sufficient population (Multiple factions have people) and activity (people standing around in the alliance bases don't count) and if those requirements are met for an extended period of time (Days) then ZOS could have sufficient reason to add that server without the trigger.

I am done rambling, good luck folks, hope you can all get what you want.

LadyGP wrote: »

Hamfast wrote: »

removed for brevity

I like you thinking out of the box here.. few notes from someone who has been playing PvP since... whenever the first day GH went live was..

- Faction locked camp is 100% needed (non negotiable IMO)
- Anyone looking for a no CP/under 50 need to be going to vengence
- Spinning up another server ONLY when there is a queue wont work (does everything just get deleted when the queue goes away, what about scores, etc).

Thank you for your reply...

My thinking for the Under 50/no CP server is for those who are learning to PvP, those helping them, and perhaps testing or whatever, the Vengeance server will not help with that because of the limitations on Gear (can be made for under 50 players) and skills.

I also understand that spinning up another server would also be problematic for the reasons you mentioned as well as if it would even be possible (perhaps the point is moot as it seems another campaign is being added), but the timeframe (perhaps minimum 24 hours?) and the resources (Start with a copy of Grey Host?) and points (Roll them into Grey Host?) would need to be determined.

We know instances are possible, it happens with Dungeons and Trials all the time, the question is would an instanced Grey Host even be possible?

Of the normal PvP servers, it seems Grey Host is the most popular, for whatever reason. While adding the Black Reach server may help a bit, those that are fighting for their faction will not get what they want, but it may alleviate the over population of Grey Host (evidenced by the queue) by allowing those who are not worried about fighting for their faction to go someplace else.

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

This will tick off a good portion of people who like the convenience of just switching toons etc but imo all campaigns, including vengeance, need to be faction locked if you want even a hope of any of them being competitive for all three factions.

Vengeance is in need of it most, even I see that and can suggest it and I despise the game mode. If you want it to be more than siege simulations and ap farming, faction locked is the way to go. Especially if you actually want it to be an introduction to the main pvp mode, Greyhost, and thats not just a thinly veiled cop out statement. The other thing they need is being able to siege with more than one siege or increase the damage with the one siege, if its faction locked. That way when there is a population discrepancy, players there can have a better chance holding back the bigger faction by more quickly backlighting keeps and cutting off supply lines.

Do those things and despite noise made here, your game mode wont be as much of a failure. As it is now it shows a severe lack of understanding of why people prefer greyhost more. Its not just sets and skills though yea thats the main issue, but its also that greyhost is (usually) competitive, certainly moreso than the other campaigns.

Slowly creeping in proc sets and more skills is nice but faction locking and more siege (ironic i know) is necessary.

Blackreach needs to be locked also, not sure why Zos thinks that its a good thing to be able to gain ap and pvp items from cyrodiil by switching to a high pop faction and not actually having to pvp much at all. And if its more competitive, it will alleviate greyhost's queue even more.

Wait, Veng is still only 1 siege per person - I thought that was just for the test.

Yeah no wonder its... the way it is. My tiny group always run somewhere, lay down 4 siege per person, and backcap/flag a keep to take pressure of.

Just another data point that pushes it to veng being a zerg simulator.

But to your point, yeah, it's going to frustrate a small (but very loud) group of players but for the better health of all camps they need to be faction locked - full stop.