Vengeance Isn't Working & What Comes Next?!

Gabriel_H · June 28

Let me start by repeating myself: Current Cyrodiil is a performance nightmare. Stacking HoTs, DoTs, Shields and having mass AoEs, along with the truckload of server calculations that come with all of that are the problem. I do not like Vengeance. The underlying concept has potential but the implementation is problematic at the least - I'm not talking about the combat per se, but the whole over-arching implementation.

Preamble

Some quests in Cyrodiil can be shortened by using Intimidation or Persuasion
Repairing a door causes the door to close and you find yourself pushed to the middle of the room away from the door
NPCs/Mobs are relatively much more powerful

1) This isn't just about a couple of quests but the lack of passives as a whole. The 6 Keen Eye passives from crafting skill lines for example mean that harvesting nodes are harder to spot. This effect gets worse when accounting for the lack of CPs, particularly the Green CPs, as harvesting yields less and takes longer. Obviously Cyro isn't about harvesting, it's about AvA, but it is also a PvE zone as well as a PvP one. There are times when there is a lull in fighting, or a stalemate is reached, and nothing better to do, as well as there being PvE objectives in the zone.

This extends out further into the lack of class and weapon passives. Weapon choice becomes merely about flavour and possibly one skill, as the lack of passives restrict build-crafting. The lack of class passives result in the same problem, but also affects the power or utility of class skills, leaving a whole heap of worthless ones.

2) This is an old bug, but that it exists shows that Vengeance isn't Cyrodiil re-built from the ground up. The quests having the intimidate/persuasion options further demonstrates this. Cyrodiil Vengeance is a copy-paste. So while this game mode has cost some development time, that appears solely to be on the restricted skills rather than rebuilding the game world. So, if Vengeance were to be scrapped the loss isn't anywhere near as significant as it could have been.

3) Mobs haven't been tuned in Vengeance. The drop in power due to the ruleset is noticeable to the point I'd compare a resource mob pack to a Night Market mob pack. This supports in part the second point, as it shows there has been no tuning for the reduced power of the Vengeance ruleset. It also affects non-PvP mobs as well, again making the PvE aspects in Cyrodiil harder.

Vengeance Isn't Working
This is what leads me to say that Vengeance isn't working. Using the same base Cyrodiil is the root of the problem. While Vengeance is designed for Cyrodiil AvA, Cyrodiil isn't itself designed for Vengeance.

While Vengeance is still being worked on, it is clear that ZOS, by making it permanent, have very much locked in on this as a game mode. If they have they need to tell us directly. If there are big changes coming to the underlying incompatibility with Cyrodiil they need to be upfront about it.

What Comes Next?!
Even if ZOS resolved the underlying incompatibility there is still the issue of the actual combat itself. They could do things like allowing multiple perks, or having "Green Perks" that allows for things like faster harvesting, plan drop chances, fishing etc. But that would still feel like mashing two different systems together.

There is the issue around forcing primary resource builds on players. The lack of any meaning to which weapon you choose. Resolving issues like that while keeping the template model isn't going to work in my opinion, and not resolving them is not going to get an engagement increase with the game mode. It's clear at this point that Vengeance, while not unpopular, is not anywhere near close to hitting the population caps. Which then throws up the question of is 300 per alliance necessary for Cyrodiil to work?

What would happen if the campaign was pop locked. Instead of one or two focal points for large scale battles you'd have three or four, maybe five? Is that really an improvement to player experience, especially considering movement around the map is much slower due to lack of passives and CPs?

There were and are other solutions to the performance issues in Cyrodiil. They could severely limit the stacking HoTs, DoTs, Shields and having mass AoEs. Some of that would be limitations on some skills, like an AoE only hitting 3 instead of 6, and only allowing 1 DoT per damage type active on a player. What would be the outcome to performance of that? We don't know, because ZOS never tested it publicly.

I want Cyrodiil to work. I agree the amount of server calculations are the problem. I understand that class balance can be difficult due to scaling. However, the current offering does not provide a long-term solution. @ZOS you need to communicate your plans for the future, you need to be more open to ideas about resolving the performance problems outside of the tunnel vision on Vengeance, because as it stand Vengeance isn't working, and it's not going to have long-term sustainability.

Lucasl402 · June 28

What should happen next is ZOS actually, for reals, commits to improving performance in Grey Host and raising the population caps in Grey Host.

But, that's what ZOS told us for a decade they were doing and the result was vengeance. I hope nobody at ZOS is wondering why the community doesn't trust them to follow through on their commitments.

Taarente · June 28

I think there are some good points here, particularly around communication. If Vengeance is intended to be the future direction for Cyrodiil then I would also like ZOS to be much clearer about what their long-term plan is.

Where my experience differed was in what actually happened once players got into the campaign.

I spent a fair amount of time in Vengeance while chasing Alliance Points, and one thing that stood out to me was that most players didn’t fundamentally change how they played. They adapted their existing style to the ruleset instead. Organised groups were still organised groups, defensive players were still defensive players, and objective-focused players still focused on objectives. The restrictions changed the tools, but not necessarily the behaviour.

That makes me wonder whether some of Cyrodiil’s problems are mechanical and some are simply the result of how people choose to play. If players naturally optimise whatever ruleset they’re given, then changing the rules alone may never produce the experience people are hoping for.

I also think it’s worth separating two questions:

1. Does Vengeance improve server performance?
2. Is Vengeance a better version of Cyrodiil?

Those aren’t necessarily the same question. A ruleset could improve performance while still not being the preferred way to play, or vice versa.

Personally, I don’t think Vengeance convinced me that simplified templates are the long-term answer. Equally, I don’t think it proved they can’t work. What it mainly showed me was how quickly the player base adapts and optimises around whatever rules are available.

For me, the bigger question is whether there are other ways to reduce server load—such as limiting the amount of simultaneous effects or calculations—without removing as much of the character progression and build identity that people enjoy.

Gabriel_H · June 28

Lucasl402 wrote: »

What should happen next is ZOS actually, for reals, commits to improving performance in Grey Host and raising the population caps in Grey Host.

But, that's what ZOS told us for a decade they were doing and the result was vengeance. I hope nobody at ZOS is wondering why the community doesn't trust them to follow through on their commitments.

They can't improve it without changing the ruleset. Whether that be Vengeance or some other drastic limitation on server calculations.

As it stands, if they managed to improve performance in GH it wouldn't come with an increase in population cap as that increase would erase the performance gains.

However, the cap in Vengeance is very high, so they can afford to make Vengeance (or some version of it) more like GH, but reduce the current cap from 900 to (lets say) 600.

Stamicka · June 28

Lucasl402 wrote: »

What should happen next is ZOS actually, for reals, commits to improving performance in Grey Host and raising the population caps in Grey Host.

But, that's what ZOS told us for a decade they were doing and the result was vengeance. I hope nobody at ZOS is wondering why the community doesn't trust them to follow through on their commitments.

Yup they gotta press that 'fix it' button that they've been neglecting to press... for whatever reason.

On a real note, I think that it's very likely that ZOS is being honest about how much strain the current level of calculations has on the server. What other games have something as large scale as Cyrodiil with as fast and complex combat as ESO has? You will see complaints of lag in other MMOs with PvP and they have even smaller scale PvP than ESO has. Large scale performant multiplayer combined with fast and complex combat is difficult to pull off from a technical perspective. That's probably why we don't really see it done elsewhere. You should also consider that ESO started development in 2007 and the development landscape was way different. Some of the choices they made due to the constraints of the time probably still come back to bite them today.

Comments like yours remind me of that recent post here on the forums that basically said "build another engine ZOS!" which is laughable as that's not something they could just easily do. It's easy to pound the table and demand change from our positions, but a lot of the time it's just not feasible at the moment.

But let's just entertain the conspiracy that ZOS secretly knows how to fix Cyrodiil performance, but just doesn't because it would cost too much. When you think about calculation heavy PvP mechanics like cross healing, stacking tons of group buff sets, paragraph long proc sets, and status effects, I don't know why you want that in the game anyway. Those things should be removed or heavily reduced even if calculations are not the problem with Cyrodiil performance. Performance is just one of several issues that keep PvP from being as lively as it once was.

tsaescishoeshiner · June 28

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

Stamicka · June 28

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

amiiegee · June 29

Stamicka wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

Speaking for yourself, on EU we see a huge chunk of new players and pve players currently playing the real GH Cyrodiil and MyM is always a blast, double pop locked with massive queues.

For a lot of people (me included) Cyrodiil was the reason to buy this game, because of the way how it was advertised.

The „I play this game like a solo game cuz Skyrim“ folks came later

Gabriel_H · June 29

amiiegee wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

Speaking for yourself, on EU we see a huge chunk of new players and pve players currently playing the real GH Cyrodiil and MyM is always a blast, double pop locked with massive queues.

For a lot of people (me included) Cyrodiil was the reason to buy this game, because of the way how it was advertised.

The „I play this game like a solo game cuz Skyrim“ folks came later

"Massive queues" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Before they brought Blackreach back online I was seeing and hearing of queues that were 70, 80, 90 even 120 - BUT that 120 is just the same as having another campaign. As was demonstrated when Blackreach was brought back. I have yet to see both campaigns pop locked at the same time, and even the pop lock is misleading - The lock icon kicks in at 101 players, up to the maximum of 120.

So yes, the queues were long, but they also highlight that per alliance there are less than 240 regular Cyrodiil PvPers at any given moment including primetime, meaning less than 750 (I rounded up) total per server. Which works out around 6% of the playerbase, which is in keeping with typical MMO %s for PvPers.

This is likely why ZOS are homing in on getting Vengeance to work with 300 players per alliance. They should look at reducing that to 200 players, with the spare calculation capacity going into making Vengeance look more like traditional Cyro, and simply putting up two instances, one alliance locked the other not.

aetherix8 · June 29

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Let me start by repeating myself: Current Cyrodiil is a performance nightmare. Stacking HoTs, DoTs, Shields and having mass AoEs, along with the truckload of server calculations that come with all of that are the problem. I do not like Vengeance. The underlying concept has potential but the implementation is problematic at the least - I'm not talking about the combat per se, but the whole over-arching implementation.

Preamble
Some quests in Cyrodiil can be shortened by using Intimidation or Persuasion

Repairing a door causes the door to close and you find yourself pushed to the middle of the room away from the door

NPCs/Mobs are relatively much more powerful

1) This isn't just about a couple of quests but the lack of passives as a whole. The 6 Keen Eye passives from crafting skill lines for example mean that harvesting nodes are harder to spot. This effect gets worse when accounting for the lack of CPs, particularly the Green CPs, as harvesting yields less and takes longer. Obviously Cyro isn't about harvesting, it's about AvA, but it is also a PvE zone as well as a PvP one. There are times when there is a lull in fighting, or a stalemate is reached, and nothing better to do, as well as there being PvE objectives in the zone.

This extends out further into the lack of class and weapon passives. Weapon choice becomes merely about flavour and possibly one skill, as the lack of passives restrict build-crafting. The lack of class passives result in the same problem, but also affects the power or utility of class skills, leaving a whole heap of worthless ones.

2) This is an old bug, but that it exists shows that Vengeance isn't Cyrodiil re-built from the ground up. The quests having the intimidate/persuasion options further demonstrates this. Cyrodiil Vengeance is a copy-paste. So while this game mode has cost some development time, that appears solely to be on the restricted skills rather than rebuilding the game world. So, if Vengeance were to be scrapped the loss isn't anywhere near as significant as it could have been.

3) Mobs haven't been tuned in Vengeance. The drop in power due to the ruleset is noticeable to the point I'd compare a resource mob pack to a Night Market mob pack. This supports in part the second point, as it shows there has been no tuning for the reduced power of the Vengeance ruleset. It also affects non-PvP mobs as well, again making the PvE aspects in Cyrodiil harder.

Vengeance Isn't Working
This is what leads me to say that Vengeance isn't working. Using the same base Cyrodiil is the root of the problem. While Vengeance is designed for Cyrodiil AvA, Cyrodiil isn't itself designed for Vengeance.

While Vengeance is still being worked on, it is clear that ZOS, by making it permanent, have very much locked in on this as a game mode. If they have they need to tell us directly. If there are big changes coming to the underlying incompatibility with Cyrodiil they need to be upfront about it.

What Comes Next?!
Even if ZOS resolved the underlying incompatibility there is still the issue of the actual combat itself. They could do things like allowing multiple perks, or having "Green Perks" that allows for things like faster harvesting, plan drop chances, fishing etc. But that would still feel like mashing two different systems together.

There is the issue around forcing primary resource builds on players. The lack of any meaning to which weapon you choose. Resolving issues like that while keeping the template model isn't going to work in my opinion, and not resolving them is not going to get an engagement increase with the game mode. It's clear at this point that Vengeance, while not unpopular, is not anywhere near close to hitting the population caps. Which then throws up the question of is 300 per alliance necessary for Cyrodiil to work?

What would happen if the campaign was pop locked. Instead of one or two focal points for large scale battles you'd have three or four, maybe five? Is that really an improvement to player experience, especially considering movement around the map is much slower due to lack of passives and CPs?

There were and are other solutions to the performance issues in Cyrodiil. They could severely limit the stacking HoTs, DoTs, Shields and having mass AoEs. Some of that would be limitations on some skills, like an AoE only hitting 3 instead of 6, and only allowing 1 DoT per damage type active on a player. What would be the outcome to performance of that? We don't know, because ZOS never tested it publicly.

I want Cyrodiil to work. I agree the amount of server calculations are the problem. I understand that class balance can be difficult due to scaling. However, the current offering does not provide a long-term solution. @ZOS you need to communicate your plans for the future, you need to be more open to ideas about resolving the performance problems outside of the tunnel vision on Vengeance, because as it stand Vengeance isn't working, and it's not going to have long-term sustainability.

I wouldn't say that Vengeance isn't working, but it is definitely unfinished.

Harvesting nodes are a very good example, as it is blatantly inconsistent. There are the starter and vet nodes on the map (e.g., maple and ruby ash), but they all drop the same resource (you get rough ruby ash from a maple node, to follow the example), and only one. One!!! On the other hand, flowers always drop two, even though Plentiful Harvest doesn't work in Vengeance. This is obviously not how it is supposed to work.

I would also like to hear more about incoming improvements, as the current state of Vengeance is more of a draft than a finished product. But I suspect ZOS is mostly working on the mid-sized map, and we might not hear much about future Veng adjustments before this new PvP content is released.

seventy_kg · June 29

when are we supposed to get the mid sized map

Orbital78 · June 29

seventy_kg wrote: »

when are we supposed to get the mid sized map

Probably around when we get another 12man trial. I don't think they narrowed down dates, maybe update 51+.

Stamicka · June 29

amiiegee wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

Speaking for yourself, on EU we see a huge chunk of new players and pve players currently playing the real GH Cyrodiil and MyM is always a blast, double pop locked with massive queues.

For a lot of people (me included) Cyrodiil was the reason to buy this game, because of the way how it was advertised.

Like I said, even if you see both Blackreach and Grey Host pop locked at the same time (I don’t ever see this anymore) outside of an event, that’s not even a full pop locked 2015 campaign. The PvP population has declined massively. There’s no way around it.

amiiegee wrote: »

The „I play this game like a solo game cuz Skyrim“ folks came later

Yea that’s actually part of what I was saying when I said part of the problem was a “demographics issue” we probably agree there.

I think a lot of the game’s recent combat decisions were made with the solo questing crowd in mind. I think they are trying to make the game more Skyrim like.

End game PvErs and PvPers will complain that things like subclassing and hybridization have made the game more homogenized. A solo quester/casual response to that is usually “you don’t HAVE to play meta!” That’s easy to say when you’re out in overland and you don’t have to worry about how you do compared to others.

The balancing efforts for these two crowds do not mesh well whatsoever. There needs to be a way to isolate PvP from future combat decisions that are aimed towards the more casual crowd.

Vengeance is an isolated PvP environment. Even if ZOS decided to keep making these combat changes that are unpopular with PvPers, it wouldn’t necessarily touch Vengeance.

I can’t say this enough, but PvPs current problems are so multi faceted that I think something like Vengeance is really the best way to address it all.

And again, I know Vengeance in its current state isn’t working out well right now. Like I said though, there's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding. I just talked a bit about how a well implemented Vengeance (which it’s not right now) could help a bit with the demographics thing. I could make a case for the rest, but this is already a long reply.

You can forget solving such systemic issues with Grey Host though. Given how the current PvP community is acting about Vengeance right now, it’s probably too late. They can’t even fathom the idea that Vengeance could be changed to have simple sets and more complex abilities and lower time to kill. They are shooting down their last hope without realizing it. It is what it is.

IZZEFlameLash · June 29

Gabriel_H wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

Speaking for yourself, on EU we see a huge chunk of new players and pve players currently playing the real GH Cyrodiil and MyM is always a blast, double pop locked with massive queues.

For a lot of people (me included) Cyrodiil was the reason to buy this game, because of the way how it was advertised.

The „I play this game like a solo game cuz Skyrim“ folks came later

"Massive queues" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Before they brought Blackreach back online I was seeing and hearing of queues that were 70, 80, 90 even 120 - BUT that 120 is just the same as having another campaign. As was demonstrated when Blackreach was brought back. I have yet to see both campaigns pop locked at the same time, and even the pop lock is misleading - The lock icon kicks in at 101 players, up to the maximum of 120.

So yes, the queues were long, but they also highlight that per alliance there are less than 240 regular Cyrodiil PvPers at any given moment including primetime, meaning less than 750 (I rounded up) total per server. Which works out around 6% of the playerbase, which is in keeping with typical MMO %s for PvPers.

This is likely why ZOS are homing in on getting Vengeance to work with 300 players per alliance. They should look at reducing that to 200 players, with the spare calculation capacity going into making Vengeance look more like traditional Cyro, and simply putting up two instances, one alliance locked the other not.

It is more likely because Gray Host campaign was nearing the end when it was brought back and people want to lock in their rewards. On top of that, it is also more likely their friends and guild group had migrated already to GH. We will have to see in the next cycle. People tend to be stingy about re-home AP spending.

Gabriel_H · June 29

Stamicka wrote: »

The balancing efforts for these two crowds do not mesh well whatsoever. There needs to be a way to isolate PvP from future combat decisions that are aimed towards the more casual crowd.

Vengeance is an isolated PvP environment. Even if ZOS decided to keep making these combat changes that are unpopular with PvPers, it wouldn’t necessarily touch Vengeance.

The thing is ZOS have already demonstrated that they CAN separate the two without a change to the ruleset. I have long advocated for them to pursue this route, as they for a long time have broken the 4th wall and put things in game distinguishing between monsters and players (a lot of MMOs don't do that as it's viewed as immersion breaking).

ZOS turbo charged this recently with class mastery. This was the comment by the Devs on having differing values in PvE and PvP:

The comment isn't strictly accurate as they have separated the two before. For example, there is a Templar passive that has been in-game for years that increases block % but only against players. I can only presume they meant within the context of an active skill.

tomofhyrule · June 29

Gabriel_H wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

Speaking for yourself, on EU we see a huge chunk of new players and pve players currently playing the real GH Cyrodiil and MyM is always a blast, double pop locked with massive queues.

For a lot of people (me included) Cyrodiil was the reason to buy this game, because of the way how it was advertised.

The „I play this game like a solo game cuz Skyrim“ folks came later

"Massive queues" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Before they brought Blackreach back online I was seeing and hearing of queues that were 70, 80, 90 even 120 - BUT that 120 is just the same as having another campaign. As was demonstrated when Blackreach was brought back. I have yet to see both campaigns pop locked at the same time, and even the pop lock is misleading - The lock icon kicks in at 101 players, up to the maximum of 120.

Because. You. Are. On. EU.

Every thread where people are talking about Vengeance versus Blackreach, people are leaving out the one tiny detail of their server. They think that obviously the other megaserver plays the same as theirs does. And the one time it came up in conversation, then it really showed that that was not the case.

On PC, this is how we’re seeing things:
NA Vengeance was nowhere near as populated as EU Vengeance. NA preferred staying in 100+ queues for GH rather than going into Vengeance. They needed BR for overflow. They actually used BR before Vengeance.
EU players were more amenable to Vengeance. The GH overflow was already going into Vengeance and therefore BR was unnecessary and ended up totally dead.

So anyone making a “Vengeance is dead!” or “Blackreach is dead!” or anything like that might actually be telling the truth even if that’s not what you’re seeing. They might be on a different server.

And again, the “lol BR isn’t poplocked” is not the point. The point is to give GH people a place to go if they refuse Vengeance… which they do on NA and not on EU.

Gabriel_H · June 29

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

Speaking for yourself, on EU we see a huge chunk of new players and pve players currently playing the real GH Cyrodiil and MyM is always a blast, double pop locked with massive queues.

For a lot of people (me included) Cyrodiil was the reason to buy this game, because of the way how it was advertised.

The „I play this game like a solo game cuz Skyrim“ folks came later

"Massive queues" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Before they brought Blackreach back online I was seeing and hearing of queues that were 70, 80, 90 even 120 - BUT that 120 is just the same as having another campaign. As was demonstrated when Blackreach was brought back. I have yet to see both campaigns pop locked at the same time, and even the pop lock is misleading - The lock icon kicks in at 101 players, up to the maximum of 120.

Because. You. Are. On. EU.

Every thread where people are talking about Vengeance versus Blackreach, people are leaving out the one tiny detail of their server. They think that obviously the other megaserver plays the same as theirs does. And the one time it came up in conversation, then it really showed that that was not the case.

On PC, this is how we’re seeing things:
NA Vengeance was nowhere near as populated as EU Vengeance. NA preferred staying in 100+ queues for GH rather than going into Vengeance. They needed BR for overflow. They actually used BR before Vengeance.
EU players were more amenable to Vengeance. The GH overflow was already going into Vengeance and therefore BR was unnecessary and ended up totally dead.

So anyone making a “Vengeance is dead!” or “Blackreach is dead!” or anything like that might actually be telling the truth even if that’s not what you’re seeing. They might be on a different server.

And again, the “lol BR isn’t poplocked” is not the point. The point is to give GH people a place to go if they refuse Vengeance… which they do on NA and not on EU.

Given what you just said, the server seems irrelevant.

Me: I was seeing and hearing of queues that were 70, 80, 90 even 120
You: NA preferred staying in 100+ queues for GH rather than going into Vengeance

Spot the difference? Because I can't.

RaidingTraiding · June 29

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There were and are other solutions to the performance issues in Cyrodiil. They could severely limit the stacking HoTs, DoTs, Shields and having mass AoEs. Some of that would be limitations on some skills, like an AoE only hitting 3 instead of 6, and only allowing 1 DoT per damage type active on a player. What would be the outcome to performance of that? We don't know, because ZOS never tested it publicly.

Wasn't this the point of the aoe tests they did a few years back? They did several tests on this and in the end said something to the effect of it didn't have any meaningful impact on performance.

JustLovely · June 29

Lucasl402 wrote: »

What should happen next is ZOS actually, for reals, commits to improving performance in Grey Host and raising the population caps in Grey Host.

But, that's what ZOS told us for a decade they were doing and the result was vengeance. I hope nobody at ZOS is wondering why the community doesn't trust them to follow through on their commitments.

^This. This is what should happen next.

JustLovely · June 29

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Lucasl402 wrote: »

What should happen next is ZOS actually, for reals, commits to improving performance in Grey Host and raising the population caps in Grey Host.

But, that's what ZOS told us for a decade they were doing and the result was vengeance. I hope nobody at ZOS is wondering why the community doesn't trust them to follow through on their commitments.

They can't improve it without changing the ruleset. Whether that be Vengeance or some other drastic limitation on server calculations.

As it stands, if they managed to improve performance in GH it wouldn't come with an increase in population cap as that increase would erase the performance gains.

However, the cap in Vengeance is very high, so they can afford to make Vengeance (or some version of it) more like GH, but reduce the current cap from 900 to (lets say) 600.

Of course ZOS can fix some performance issues in Grey Host. They essentially haven't even tried is the problem. They still haven't even tried limiting heal or shield stacking yet. So if you honestly believe ZOS is powerless to improve their own product, I don't know what to tell you. Because if this is true, then they're just as powerless to create a whole new system from scratch.

BardokRedSnow · June 29

....

Gabriel_H wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

Speaking for yourself, on EU we see a huge chunk of new players and pve players currently playing the real GH Cyrodiil and MyM is always a blast, double pop locked with massive queues.

For a lot of people (me included) Cyrodiil was the reason to buy this game, because of the way how it was advertised.

The „I play this game like a solo game cuz Skyrim“ folks came later

"Massive queues" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Before they brought Blackreach back online I was seeing and hearing of queues that were 70, 80, 90 even 120 - BUT that 120 is just the same as having another campaign. As was demonstrated when Blackreach was brought back. I have yet to see both campaigns pop locked at the same time, and even the pop lock is misleading - The lock icon kicks in at 101 players, up to the maximum of 120.

Because. You. Are. On. EU.

Every thread where people are talking about Vengeance versus Blackreach, people are leaving out the one tiny detail of their server. They think that obviously the other megaserver plays the same as theirs does. And the one time it came up in conversation, then it really showed that that was not the case.

On PC, this is how we’re seeing things:
NA Vengeance was nowhere near as populated as EU Vengeance. NA preferred staying in 100+ queues for GH rather than going into Vengeance. They needed BR for overflow. They actually used BR before Vengeance.
EU players were more amenable to Vengeance. The GH overflow was already going into Vengeance and therefore BR was unnecessary and ended up totally dead.

So anyone making a “Vengeance is dead!” or “Blackreach is dead!” or anything like that might actually be telling the truth even if that’s not what you’re seeing. They might be on a different server.

And again, the “lol BR isn’t poplocked” is not the point. The point is to give GH people a place to go if they refuse Vengeance… which they do on NA and not on EU.

Given what you just said, the server seems irrelevant.

Me: I was seeing and hearing of queues that were 70, 80, 90 even 120
You: NA preferred staying in 100+ queues for GH rather than going into Vengeance

Spot the difference? Because I can't.

Buddy if you’re so sure maybe you should come to our server and see for yourself. PCNA yesterday in GH was locked out by 2pm eastern, by 3pm there was a queue

Same time vengeance was a ghost town, no one was in there, dead as dead can be and I checked all around

JustLovely · June 29

Stamicka wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

Every MYM event has been pop locked earlier than normal even with the most recent events. You must not have even tried to log onto them or you'd have noticed.

Eldovar · June 29

I keep repeating this, but terms like “massive queues” and “hugely popular” really need perspective. Vengeance or not.

When Grey Host is pop‑locked, that means 360 players are actively in the campaign. Since Blackreach was added, it’s usually sparsely populated, sitting around ~120 players as overflow. So in total you’re looking at roughly 480 people playing PvP (on PC).

Now compare that to other live‑service PvP‑focused games like extraction shooters, battle royales, hero shooters, MOBAs — which routinely pull 80,000+ concurrent players on a weekday on PC alone. Suddenly those ESO numbers look tiny.

Even compared to ESO’s own Steam concurrency (which is only a fraction of the total playerbase because of ZOS and other launchers), PvP participation numbers are abysmal and it makes financially sense that ZOS is only spending a fraction of resources to this part of the game.

Gabriel_H · June 29

JustLovely wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Lucasl402 wrote: »

What should happen next is ZOS actually, for reals, commits to improving performance in Grey Host and raising the population caps in Grey Host.

But, that's what ZOS told us for a decade they were doing and the result was vengeance. I hope nobody at ZOS is wondering why the community doesn't trust them to follow through on their commitments.

They can't improve it without changing the ruleset. Whether that be Vengeance or some other drastic limitation on server calculations.

As it stands, if they managed to improve performance in GH it wouldn't come with an increase in population cap as that increase would erase the performance gains.

However, the cap in Vengeance is very high, so they can afford to make Vengeance (or some version of it) more like GH, but reduce the current cap from 900 to (lets say) 600.

Of course ZOS can fix some performance issues in Grey Host. They essentially haven't even tried is the problem. They still haven't even tried limiting heal or shield stacking yet. So if you honestly believe ZOS is powerless to improve their own product, I don't know what to tell you. Because if this is true, then they're just as powerless to create a whole new system from scratch.

To quote myself:

They can't improve it without changing the ruleset. Whether that be Vengeance or some other drastic limitation on server calculations.

Bolded for emphasis

To quote my own opening post:

Current Cyrodiil is a performance nightmare. Stacking HoTs, DoTs, Shields and having mass AoEs, along with the truckload of server calculations that come with all of that are the problem.

Heck I even said it twice in the same post!

There were and are other solutions to the performance issues in Cyrodiil. They could severely limit the stacking HoTs, DoTs, Shields and having mass AoEs. Some of that would be limitations on some skills, like an AoE only hitting 3 instead of 6, and only allowing 1 DoT per damage type active on a player. What would be the outcome to performance of that? We don't know, because ZOS never tested it publicly.

Stamicka · June 29

JustLovely wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There's also the mid-sized PvP content coming at some point, that we got a very early glimpse of and should hear more about sometime this year (though not sure when it comes out). One way to fix the performance problems of Cyrodiil are to open other competitive content that appeals to the same players that performs better.

It doesn't matter though, that's the thing. They can revamp IC, they could get this new mid sized PvP zone out, they can fix Cyrodiil performance, they can even have a 10X AP event. PvP will still be niche and all of those things will still have low population.

Even when they fixed Cyrodiil for a few months after the server refresh, the PvP population was nothing compared to where it was. A pop locked Grey Host and Blackreach of today could both fit into a 2015 Haderus and it wouldn't even fill it. Haderus pop locked every night, and so did other campaigns alongside it.

When Whitestrake's Mayhem comes around now, people hardly show up. It's way deeper than performance. There's a demographics issue, an accessibility issue, a balance issue, and a skill expression issue all colliding.

Every MYM event has been pop locked earlier than normal even with the most recent events. You must not have even tried to log onto them or you'd have noticed.

I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I’ve been apart of every Whitestrake’s event since it started.

The turnout is way way lower. It’s been gradually getting lower for quite some time now.

I’ve made a thread about it in the past and others noticed the same thing:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/681203/extremely-low-midyear-mayhem-turnout-why/p1