We Need To Have A Talk: Gray Host Queue

Hamfast · June 16

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.

LOL, I would like a no PvP version of Cyrodiil just so I could get the items :-)

React · June 16

LadyGP wrote: »

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.

If all camps are going to be faction locked, then faction locking should be reworked into a shorter window such as 24/48 hours.

Ironically some of us just want to play with friends and/or be on the faction with the best potential for PVP, which is often the lowest populated faction or the "underdog".

BardokRedSnow · June 16

React wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

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.

If all camps are going to be faction locked, then faction locking should be reworked into a shorter window such as 24/48 hours.

Ironically some of us just want to play with friends and/or be on the faction with the best potential for PVP, which is often the lowest populated faction or the "underdog".

You're always on DC though lately, they havent been the underdog in a good long while, certainly not now.

That said, faction locking is best for this, or you'll be rotating toons every other day because people will switch factions to the most zergiest faction for easy "fights" and ap.

BardokRedSnow · June 16

Hamfast wrote: »

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.

LOL, I would like a no PvP version of Cyrodiil just so I could get the items :-)

Im sure you and others would, I'd like that fire and ice mount from trifecta Sunspire, but I still think its better when things have to truly be earned. Good for the economy in the case of pvp gear, good for the game in the long term.

LadyGP · June 16

React wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

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.

If all camps are going to be faction locked, then faction locking should be reworked into a shorter window such as 24/48 hours.

Ironically some of us just want to play with friends and/or be on the faction with the best potential for PVP, which is often the lowest populated faction or the "underdog".

I agree - if they do make said change they need to iterate on it so it's not a 100% deal breaker. Just need to set something up to prevent the "oh this camp is dominating lets go join them".

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

React wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

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.

If all camps are going to be faction locked, then faction locking should be reworked into a shorter window such as 24/48 hours.

Ironically some of us just want to play with friends and/or be on the faction with the best potential for PVP, which is often the lowest populated faction or the "underdog".

You're always on DC though lately, they havent been the underdog in a good long while, certainly not now.

That said, faction locking is best for this, or you'll be rotating toons every other day because people will switch factions to the most zergiest faction for easy "fights" and ap.

FWIW - been trying to get DC day crew to go EP/AD so it's not.. 100% blue all of the time.

tomofhyrule · June 16

I feel like a shorter lock window would be appropriate though.

If the issue is people jumping ship to cheese scores or act as spies, then a lock is needed. But after 24h, it’s too late to really make reports on troop movements. And then if you’re playing with your DC friends, you’re not blocked from your EP main for a month.

It does seem a bit like this is the difference between the BG requests: some people try to play objective to win the score, while others see playing objective as “avoiding PvP” and they care more about their K/D than the score they get.

Lucasl402 · June 16

Hamfast wrote: »

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.

LOL, I would like a no PvP version of Cyrodiil just so I could get the items :-)

And some of us would like a PvP version of all of Tamriel. Better to not start with these kinds of comments.

LadyGP · June 16

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I feel like a shorter lock window would be appropriate though.

If the issue is people jumping ship to cheese scores or act as spies, then a lock is needed. But after 24h, it’s too late to really make reports on troop movements. And then if you’re playing with your DC friends, you’re not blocked from your EP main for a month.

It does seem a bit like this is the difference between the BG requests: some people try to play objective to win the score, while others see playing objective as “avoiding PvP” and they care more about their K/D than the score they get.

Spies are a thing - always have been - always will. People have multi accounts logged in at the same time. It is what it is. All is fair in war.

LadyGP · June 16

I don't though... want some EP troll to be able to hop on DC.. hang out for a bit... then like 5 days into the camp go back to ep... then a few days later come back to DC to talk poop.. then hop back.

We already have enough trolls.

Eldovar · June 16

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.

Since it seems while reading the forums and Reddit past years it seems most people have more than one account, so people will just relog anyway.

Also you prefer GH, which is already faction locked. And you got Blackreach back. Leave the mode you clearly hate alone for people who actually play it and actually like how it is currently and focus feedback on the mode you love. I played every evening since it launched with groups of 24 who like the mode as it is. It won’t bother you over there in GH

Destai · June 16

Wow, thanks for siding with the community on this one. Feels good! Keep it up guys!

Ostonoha · June 16

LadyGP wrote: »

Ostonoha wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

DC has had a queue issue for a while too, but it would sit in the 30s and, while frustrating, we could manage. It would take about 45 minutes to get through it.

Post U50 it's spiked significantly. Whichi is kind of why the 2 weeks of data... just roll that time range back a month or two and you'll have all the data you need. Pop has been stable, people want to be in GH, and it is what it is.

30 Que would be a dream for EP. EP on prime time even during the week would hit 60+ on the weekends 90+. But like it was said earlier. People want to play on the populated server. Not the semi empty one.

BardokRedSnow · June 16

Eldovar wrote: »

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.

Since it seems while reading the forums and Reddit past years it seems most people have more than one account, so people will just relog anyway.

Also you prefer GH, which is already faction locked. And you got Blackreach back. Leave the mode you clearly hate alone for people who actually play it and actually like how it is currently and focus feedback on the mode you love. I played every evening since it launched with groups of 24 who like the mode as it is. It won’t bother you over there in GH

That doesnt stop any of you from commenting on Greyhost when you dont even PvP

You should be thankful I offered a way to help fix Vengeance so its not so one sided always, I have no horse in the race but its pretty clear faction lock needs to be a thing, they can start with 24/48 hours for vengeance and blackreach, and go from there. See how it affects things.

Demonwolff · June 16

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.

I would love to thank you and the crew. Yet, I believe this was result was predicted by not just the experienced players but the newest of us.

Can we PLEASE stop the mentality that you know what we want better than we do. I understand that much of what we want isn't in the cards. I know that some of the asks are so far out there that its Ludicris. BUT much of what we ask for is in the realm of possibility. You listen to the min maxers, you listen to the whiners, but you rarely listen to the ones that have been here grinding PVP in the way the game was designed. Differentiating builds, new looks and styles. knowledge that doesn't exclude new players, but encapsules and includes them.

I understand why not everyone can post, It can get very murky and grim with a ton of over talk. YET we get that anyway. So I suggest a (since we now have a mail system that's pliable) A Poll during the pts WEEK 1-3 That hits the live server and all players for feedback. WHICH is then posted so we know the majority vote and an explanation as to why or why not we are doing this with an open conversation about it.

Lucasl402 · June 16

LadyGP wrote: »

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.

The average life span for high use physical servers is 3-5 years. We are at that mark now. We were double that time frame last time they replaced the physical servers.

I didn't say "more" servers". I said new servers. You changed the point I made to something different. I said new servers because high use physical servers wear out and start malfunctioning after very short lifespans. These are servers that have to exist in special rooms with elevated floors and massive cooling systems for a reason. We are at the end of life due to age for the physical servers replaced in 2022-2023.

If ZOS doesn't have the resources to do what they know is needed to fix performance issues then they don't have the resources to keep the game going and are just stringing us along at this point.

And finally, vengeance in no way what so ever prepares players for the PvP we bought the game to play.

LadyGP · June 16

Demonwolff wrote: »

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.

I would love to thank you and the crew. Yet, I believe this was result was predicted by not just the experienced players but the newest of us.

Can we PLEASE stop the mentality that you know what we want better than we do. I understand that much of what we want isn't in the cards. I know that some of the asks are so far out there that its Ludicris. BUT much of what we ask for is in the realm of possibility. You listen to the min maxers, you listen to the whiners, but you rarely listen to the ones that have been here grinding PVP in the way the game was designed. Differentiating builds, new looks and styles. knowledge that doesn't exclude new players, but encapsules and includes them.

I understand why not everyone can post, It can get very murky and grim with a ton of over talk. YET we get that anyway. So I suggest a (since we now have a mail system that's pliable) A Poll during the pts WEEK 1-3 That hits the live server and all players for feedback. WHICH is then posted so we know the majority vote and an explanation as to why or why not we are doing this with an open conversation about it.

I think I get the point you're trying to make but I couldn't disagree with you more.

For one there are tons of studios that listened to the majority of their gamers and it nuked their game. So many people have such a closed minded/tunnel vision view on certain things and very few can see the downstream impacts of said changes.

As for surveys/poll/forums/reddit posts... it's pretty easy to manipulate those numbers if someone with a motive wanted to do it.

The studio lets the data speak for itself - is Vengence fun? To me, not even close, to some sure, overall - no idea. Whats the pop at, how many people log in to play it each day, what is their average play time, do they return the next day, if so, same trends I'd want to ask about... those answers will tell you if it's fun or not and what direction the studio needs to head in.

I will say though, and I think this was the heart of the point you were trying to make is that they need to get their ear closer to the pvp community. They need to get their hands dirty, see what is actually happening during prime time, look at logs, look at streams, look at hard data, overlap all of the data together to get a cleaner picture of what the problems are, and figure out solutions.

There are some really good people on the forums who have really good feedback/alternative angles to solve some of these problems.. reach out to them and have a conversation. There is nothing wrong with soliciting feedback from people.. who knows something they say might spark something from a dev and now you've got a whole new approach to go down and see what becomes of it.

IMO the studio isn't "only listening" to the loudest, the sweat lords, the min/maxers, the ball groupers, etc etc etc. Just because you're not getting the desired outcome you want doesn't mean there is malice behind said decisions.

thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

LadyGP · June 16

Lucasl402 wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

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.

The average life span for high use physical servers is 3-5 years. We are at that mark now. We were double that time frame last time they replaced the physical servers.

I didn't say "more" servers". I said new servers. You changed the point I made to something different. I said new servers because high use physical servers wear out and start malfunctioning after very short lifespans. These are servers that have to exist in special rooms with elevated floors and massive cooling systems for a reason. We are at the end of life due to age for the physical servers replaced in 2022-2023.

If ZOS doesn't have the resources to do what they know is needed to fix performance issues then they don't have the resources to keep the game going and are just stringing us along at this point.

And finally, vengeance in no way what so ever prepares players for the PvP we bought the game to play.

My apologies then for reading your "new" servers as "more" servers. I've lost count of the "add more servers" argument. It's exhausting so anytime I hear the server complaints from people my brain just starts to dissolve from all the salt that is being thrown my way.

xR3ACTORx · June 16

I like how ZOS went from "Historically, we need to monitor population data for at least two weeks..." to "After further discussions and monitoring things overnight..."

Udrath · June 16

Why don’t people go to imperial city?

imPDA · June 16

Udrath wrote: »

Why don’t people go to imperial city?

Lack of POI. Tel-Vars are not important, flags are not interesting to fight for.

decairn · June 16

People have been going to IC while they wait, at least getting to 2 bar mid-week evenings. Not enough to make a big difference though.

Beyond Blackreach reducing queue or pop pressure on Grey Host, it isn't actually solving anything for Grey Host Cyrodiil campaign. Hey ZOS, if you're listening, please communicate what your plans are for Grey Host other than doing nothing. It's a strong community with opinions, and it is crying out for some love and attention. My question is what does it take to get to double the current pop cap on Grey Host? Or, thinking a bit differently, Grey Hosters love commitment to a faction, with CP and proc sets, territy siege mechanics to drive fights, how about multiple maps rolling up to a larger win for a campaign to the players naturally have multiple fronts to fight on but essentially different servers and natural splitting of the population to chase multiple territories at once?

shadyjane62 · June 16

Keep Raven dead and bring back Blackreach.

And give me back my originals jabs as long as I am asking for the Moon.

Demonwolff · June 17

LadyGP wrote: »

Demonwolff wrote: »

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.

I would love to thank you and the crew. Yet, I believe this was result was predicted by not just the experienced players but the newest of us.

Can we PLEASE stop the mentality that you know what we want better than we do. I understand that much of what we want isn't in the cards. I know that some of the asks are so far out there that its Ludicris. BUT much of what we ask for is in the realm of possibility. You listen to the min maxers, you listen to the whiners, but you rarely listen to the ones that have been here grinding PVP in the way the game was designed. Differentiating builds, new looks and styles. knowledge that doesn't exclude new players, but encapsules and includes them.

I understand why not everyone can post, It can get very murky and grim with a ton of over talk. YET we get that anyway. So I suggest a (since we now have a mail system that's pliable) A Poll during the pts WEEK 1-3 That hits the live server and all players for feedback. WHICH is then posted so we know the majority vote and an explanation as to why or why not we are doing this with an open conversation about it.

I think I get the point you're trying to make but I couldn't disagree with you more.

For one there are tons of studios that listened to the majority of their gamers and it nuked their game. So many people have such a closed minded/tunnel vision view on certain things and very few can see the downstream impacts of said changes.

As for surveys/poll/forums/reddit posts... it's pretty easy to manipulate those numbers if someone with a motive wanted to do it.

The studio lets the data speak for itself - is Vengence fun? To me, not even close, to some sure, overall - no idea. Whats the pop at, how many people log in to play it each day, what is their average play time, do they return the next day, if so, same trends I'd want to ask about... those answers will tell you if it's fun or not and what direction the studio needs to head in.

I will say though, and I think this was the heart of the point you were trying to make is that they need to get their ear closer to the pvp community. They need to get their hands dirty, see what is actually happening during prime time, look at logs, look at streams, look at hard data, overlap all of the data together to get a cleaner picture of what the problems are, and figure out solutions.

There are some really good people on the forums who have really good feedback/alternative angles to solve some of these problems.. reach out to them and have a conversation. There is nothing wrong with soliciting feedback from people.. who knows something they say might spark something from a dev and now you've got a whole new approach to go down and see what becomes of it.

IMO the studio isn't "only listening" to the loudest, the sweat lords, the min/maxers, the ball groupers, etc etc etc. Just because you're not getting the desired outcome you want doesn't mean there is malice behind said decisions.

thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

I

If you want this conversation Im more than willing to have it, I dont think you will like the result.
Lets start Light. Your correct alot of studios went out listening to the crowd..... NON of them had 10 years in the game

BUT

WoW EQ EQ2 and good god RuneScape are still around. WHY?

FlopsyPrince · June 17

Udrath wrote: »

Why don’t people go to imperial city?

I don't know at all because I can't leave with Telvar except by dying and losing at least half, or going through the sewers back to my base. Idiotic.

And I didn't do much before because of the gankers and the fact I suck at PvP. They made it worse so it rewards the gankers even more! This should work well for everyone, right?

Vulkunne · June 17

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Funny thing... finally done with work around the house.. have a few hours to relax... just queued up... q70.

Another point I didn't cover in my initial post is the use of AFK macros or "mouse gigglers" now that the long queues are back... thus making the afk in cyro and longer queue problems even worse.

GH hasn't been this busy in eons

Listen, buddy. You don't have to participate in every thread just because it exists. I wish people here would stop larping as pvpers and speaking on matters you don't know about.

GH is so active that on a weekday I have to queue up by 5pm to avoid waiting in line, and if im not in by 7:30 at least im probably not getting in til after 9pm. Its been like this since at least the dragonknight remake.

Many of y'all here I see haven't even logged into eso in months, sometimes years, but are here commenting like you're in it day in day out. Stop it.

There is no 'us'. There are those who want things to ... stay the way they are ... if you can even imagine that ... and there are those who are tired of dealing with the same bad actors, the same groups and emps always winning, always having their way.

There is no us. Make no mistake. Let's move forward and now recognize the other side who is looking for change and who is standing up for what is right. And I cannot speak for ZOS, but to their credit, they seem to understand this now and are leading the way to bring us better options.

Things cannot stay the way they are. Perhaps it's ironic that certain servers are gone and that GH is now a waiting list for people who want to be there. They want to be there, but I'm sure even for the ones who don't like Vengeance, they would not appreciate having their time wasted.

And when people see and experience how long it takes to get in and then in some instances how they may end up, end of the day I can only hope that others will start asking questions, bringing some better ideas to the table and not letting us stay stuck in where things were. You waited uh 20/30 minutes to get in just to provide AP and entertainment for 8 to 15 players in a group to heal/buff one player so they can stroke their ego by wiping two factions (by themselves) and not dying for over an hour. Is that ... is that what you guys are waiting for?

A siege begins, oh what fun let's siege the keep, we got a desperate/dramatic thing going on here annnnnnnd one group comes along, kills everyone, sieges the keep themselves, kills everyone inside/outside the keep themselves without taking a lick of damage and it's over. Is that what ya'll waited so long for? Surely this cannot be true.

LadyGP · June 17

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

I like how ZOS went from "Historically, we need to monitor population data for at least two weeks..." to "After further discussions and monitoring things overnight..."

Cant tell if you're trolling but I appreciate their willingness to look maybe at historical data (month prior to u50) or just seeing how bad in the moment the q is and making a change. Reacting quicker is things studios aren't very good at tbh.. it's a lot "safer" to take weeks/months to make decisions so good on them for acting fast.

Demonwolff wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Demonwolff wrote: »

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.

I would love to thank you and the crew. Yet, I believe this was result was predicted by not just the experienced players but the newest of us.

Can we PLEASE stop the mentality that you know what we want better than we do. I understand that much of what we want isn't in the cards. I know that some of the asks are so far out there that its Ludicris. BUT much of what we ask for is in the realm of possibility. You listen to the min maxers, you listen to the whiners, but you rarely listen to the ones that have been here grinding PVP in the way the game was designed. Differentiating builds, new looks and styles. knowledge that doesn't exclude new players, but encapsules and includes them.

I understand why not everyone can post, It can get very murky and grim with a ton of over talk. YET we get that anyway. So I suggest a (since we now have a mail system that's pliable) A Poll during the pts WEEK 1-3 That hits the live server and all players for feedback. WHICH is then posted so we know the majority vote and an explanation as to why or why not we are doing this with an open conversation about it.

I think I get the point you're trying to make but I couldn't disagree with you more.

For one there are tons of studios that listened to the majority of their gamers and it nuked their game. So many people have such a closed minded/tunnel vision view on certain things and very few can see the downstream impacts of said changes.

As for surveys/poll/forums/reddit posts... it's pretty easy to manipulate those numbers if someone with a motive wanted to do it.

The studio lets the data speak for itself - is Vengence fun? To me, not even close, to some sure, overall - no idea. Whats the pop at, how many people log in to play it each day, what is their average play time, do they return the next day, if so, same trends I'd want to ask about... those answers will tell you if it's fun or not and what direction the studio needs to head in.

I will say though, and I think this was the heart of the point you were trying to make is that they need to get their ear closer to the pvp community. They need to get their hands dirty, see what is actually happening during prime time, look at logs, look at streams, look at hard data, overlap all of the data together to get a cleaner picture of what the problems are, and figure out solutions.

There are some really good people on the forums who have really good feedback/alternative angles to solve some of these problems.. reach out to them and have a conversation. There is nothing wrong with soliciting feedback from people.. who knows something they say might spark something from a dev and now you've got a whole new approach to go down and see what becomes of it.

IMO the studio isn't "only listening" to the loudest, the sweat lords, the min/maxers, the ball groupers, etc etc etc. Just because you're not getting the desired outcome you want doesn't mean there is malice behind said decisions.

thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

I

If you want this conversation Im more than willing to have it, I dont think you will like the result.
Lets start Light. Your correct alot of studios went out listening to the crowd..... NON of them had 10 years in the game

BUT

WoW EQ EQ2 and good god RuneScape are still around. WHY?

Yeah I have no idea why you're being semi agressive but... uhm because almost all MMOs of recent times have been trash.

There is a reason most of us play games and tend to always come back to ESO.

I'm not ready to have a conversation, sit down.

fizzybeef · June 17

reopening BR is the first right step, second is stomping the failed vengeance project

xR3ACTORx · June 17

LadyGP wrote: »

Cant tell if you're trolling but I appreciate their willingness to look maybe at historical data (month prior to u50) or just seeing how bad in the moment the q is and making a change. Reacting quicker is things studios aren't very good at tbh.. it's a lot "safer" to take weeks/months to make decisions so good on them for acting fast.

I agree. I'm just prasing ZOS for changing their minds so quickly and for holding team meetings in the middle of the night. That's real work ethics.

LadyGP · June 17

fizzybeef wrote: »

reopening BR is the first right step, second is stomping the failed vengeance project

I think it's more than fair to let vengence play out for a few months - it's not really hurting anything just to see what happens.

I'd say "in it's current format" Vengence hasn't lived up to what they hoped it would so at this point they have a few options...

- Leave it as is and just move onto something else
- End the camp and just walk away
- Take some more feedback, try to rework the skills again (make them closer to OG skills but with less calcs/impact on the server, add proc sets in, let people use more than one siege, etc.

I'd say at some point, not sure when that point is, they will gravitate to the third option and start to expand it closer to being like GH but with the skills tweaked. I'm all for having slightly simplified skills if it fixes performance (or even just has a noticeable impact when ball groups/zergs happen) but what they did was take every single thing from every single skill that made it feel impactful and replace with with just... static.

It's like.. say you're trying to cut back on soda to lose weight.. so instead of getting a regular;ar you got a diet... and when it came to the table there was almost no syrup in the drink and it was just water with a splash of... something that made it look like slightly yellow tinted water.

No, lets replace the syrup bag in the back and get to work on how we can expand the skills closer to what they are and try to reduce calculations.

Honestly.. and this might set some people off... I think they should do a test where they just do a weekend in GH where they remove sub classing and scribing.. "just to see".

It's not going to fix all of the lag but..it might make it so when a ball group says buff up shalks/proxy in 3.. I don't feel my name completely lock up for 2 seconds or a few frames before they push into a keep.

I haven't had coffee yet and just rambling.

TLDR grat job reacting fast. Now I'm excited to see what happens with vengence and what/if any changes you make as you iterate on it.

SneaK · June 17

Like @Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO said, the actual issue is how they’ve lowered the population caps randomly throughout the years.

While BR will help the queue, it still doesn’t really address the underlying issue that people want to play in the most dense faction locked Cyro server with a GH ruleset. It’s always been this way. Haderus used to have 100+ queues, so did Scourge. The 7days and the niche camps have never really seen that.

All the new updates are exciting, people are coming back, ZOS should have planned better. Vengeance was never the answer and a year of tests proved that, it’s absurd to think how this has all went down tbh. I would imagine there’s some tuff conversations to be had in the mgmt world at ZOS.

At the end of the day, they need to spend some money on hardware and increase our pop caps to the normal ruleset camps.