ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Here’s a general update on what we are doing to alleviate some of the pain points in Cyrodiil. This includes systems/mechanics that promote poor sportsmanship, and undesirable reliances, and Cyrodiil-related performance problems that many of you are seeing, especially in Veteran campaigns. Please note that this summarizes our current thinking, but we may change this plan as events warrant.

As I’m sure many of you have noticed, there are far fewer performance problems in non-Veteran campaigns. We have been investigating why non-Veteran campaigns perform better than their Veteran counterparts, and are starting to make some changes based on what we have found. As some of you already know, what we’re seeing is this: there is a point where if too many players are too close together and perform too many AoE and other instant-cast types of spells that server performance starts to degrade. As lower level characters don’t have many of these types of spells, non-Veteran campaigns generally don’t run into this trouble.

As such, the combat team is currently making adjustments to line-of-sight checks for area-of-effect abilities that have been causing the majority of server congestion in Cyrodiil. This has resulted in us taking a close look at higher level abilities/items to root out line-of-sight checks and other potential client-to-server message overflow issues.

There are also many other issues that will be addressed in the near future, some of which are related to players exploiting PvP buffs, social systems, and the Emperor system. Many of these issues came to use via direct feedback from players – thank you so much for your help, everyone who has taken the time to give us well documented feedback. It makes our jobs far easier.

With all this in mind, a multi-pronged change is coming to campaigns, the Emperor system, and campaign assignment that will be a major adjustment. The goal of this change is to address population imbalance issues, the reliance on “buff servers,” and Emperor farming. Read below for an explanation of the changes you can expect to see coming to Cyrodiil in our next major update.

• Jump-to-Friend: Social jumping into Cyrodiil or any PVP space is being disabled. This has long been the way to get around the Guest/Home campaign assignment. With this change, we’re closing that loophole as it's detrimental to the overall PVP experience and integrity of the campaign system.
• PVP Bonuses: Keep, Elder Scroll, and the Emperorship bonuses (passive buffs) will apply only in PVP spaces. This change will effectively do away with the concept of “buff servers.” Originally, we wanted these bonuses to provide a game-wide benefit, but we’ve seen this design become detrimental to the PVP experience due to alliances having "buff servers."
• Emperor Buffs/Skill Line: The "Former Emperor" buffs are being removed from the game. With this new system, you will only get Emperor buffs while your character is actively Emperor. Also, you will be granted the Emperor skill line and abilities upon earning Emperorship, without the need to spend ability points. All players that have spent points in the Emperor skill line will be refunded those skill points.
• Low Population Campaigns/Underscoring Alliances: Players participating in a low-population campaign or as part of an underscoring alliance will now gain 20% more AP within the campaign they're earning that bonus for, instead of 10%. Population polling has also been sped up to apply the underdog/low-population bonuses more often; however, this also means they have the opportunity to expire faster.
• Guest Campaign Reassignment: The cooldown on Guest Campaign reassignment will be increased to 4 days from 3.
• Home Campaign Reassignment: The cooldown on Home Campaign reassignment has been changed to 12 hours from 3 days, but the cost to switch will be 150,000 AP instead of 15,000. Also, switching home campaigns at the end of a campaign period will now cost 100 AP instead of 5,000 AP.
• Battle Leveling: The Battle Leveling system has been updated to include Veteran Ranks. Players that opt into Battle Leveling will be roughly equivalent in power to a VR14 player in moderate-quality gear.
• Elder Scrolls & Gates: A fix is in the works that will prevent enemy player characters from getting through the Elder Scroll Gates while the gates are closed. (Gate jumpers beware. Your days are numbered.) Also, a new protective barrier will now surround the Elder Scrolls while in their temples, if the Elder Scroll Gates are closed. This barrier will drop if the gate opens.

That’s not all—the combat team has been hard at work tweaking numbers on abilities and items, too. Expect to see more details about those changes in future patch notes…considering these aren’t patch notes.

Last but certainly not least, we have some changes coming for each of the campaigns. We will be making some scoring adjustments to the campaigns in order to provide 4 different campaign styles, each with with different scoring parameters. In all cases the keep transit system, keep bonuses, scroll bonuses, emperorship crowning/deposing, and leaderboards will remain the same except for the scoring and duration changes noted below:

• Azura: Ownership of keeps, resources, Elder Scrolls, and outposts will generate 1 point each per scoring cycle and last 30 days.
• Blackwater Blade: Ownership of keeps, resources, Elder Scrolls, and outposts will generate 1 point each per scoring cycle and last 5 days. (Non-Veterans only.)
• Chillrend: Keeps, outposts, and resources will generate zero points. Ownership of Elder Scrolls will generate 1 point per scoring cycle and last 7 days.
• Haderus: Keeps, outposts, and Elder Scrolls will generate zero points. Ownership of resources will generate 1 point per scoring cycle and last 7 days.
• Thornblade: Resources, outposts, and Elder Scrolls will generate zero points. Ownership of keeps will generate 1 point per scoring cycle and last 7 days.
• Versidue-Shae (Console Only): Ownership of keeps, resources, Elder Scrolls, and outposts will generate 1 point each per scoring cycle and last 5 days. (Non-Veterans only.)

All campaigns noted above will be ended when the patch with these changes is live, and start at a score of 0. We have not yet determined if we will reset all objectives to their starting alliances. We will communicate this in the associated patch notes.

As always, these changes are subject to change based on feedback and testing, but this is the direction we’re going with PVP and Cyrodiil. Hopefully this post shows we are dedicated to delivering a solid PVP experience, and we thank you again for your loyalty to the war in Cyrodiil and your feedback!

We’ll see you on the battlefield!

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Here’s a general update on what we are doing to alleviate some of the pain points in Cyrodiil. This includes systems/mechanics that promote poor sportsmanship, and undesirable reliances, and Cyrodiil-related performance problems that many of you are seeing, especially in Veteran campaigns. Please note that this summarizes our current thinking, but we may change this plan as events warrant.

As I’m sure many of you have noticed, there are far fewer performance problems in non-Veteran campaigns. We have been investigating why non-Veteran campaigns perform better than their Veteran counterparts, and are starting to make some changes based on what we have found. As some of you already know, what we’re seeing is this: there is a point where if too many players are too close together and perform too many AoE and other instant-cast types of spells that server performance starts to degrade. As lower level characters don’t have many of these types of spells, non-Veteran campaigns generally don’t run into this trouble.

As such, the combat team is currently making adjustments to line-of-sight checks for area-of-effect abilities that have been causing the majority of server congestion in Cyrodiil. This has resulted in us taking a close look at higher level abilities/items to root out line-of-sight checks and other potential client-to-server message overflow issues.

There are also many other issues that will be addressed in the near future, some of which are related to players exploiting PvP buffs, social systems, and the Emperor system. Many of these issues came to use via direct feedback from players – thank you so much for your help, everyone who has taken the time to give us well documented feedback. It makes our jobs far easier.

With all this in mind, a multi-pronged change is coming to campaigns, the Emperor system, and campaign assignment that will be a major adjustment. The goal of this change is to address population imbalance issues, the reliance on “buff servers,” and Emperor farming. Read below for an explanation of the changes you can expect to see coming to Cyrodiil in our next major update.

• Jump-to-Friend: Social jumping into Cyrodiil or any PVP space is being disabled. This has long been the way to get around the Guest/Home campaign assignment. With this change, we’re closing that loophole as it's detrimental to the overall PVP experience and integrity of the campaign system.
• PVP Bonuses: Keep, Elder Scroll, and the Emperorship bonuses (passive buffs) will apply only in PVP spaces. This change will effectively do away with the concept of “buff servers.” Originally, we wanted these bonuses to provide a game-wide benefit, but we’ve seen this design become detrimental to the PVP experience due to alliances having "buff servers."
• Emperor Buffs/Skill Line: The "Former Emperor" buffs are being removed from the game. With this new system, you will only get Emperor buffs while your character is actively Emperor. Also, you will be granted the Emperor skill line and abilities upon earning Emperorship, without the need to spend ability points. All players that have spent points in the Emperor skill line will be refunded those skill points.
• Low Population Campaigns/Underscoring Alliances: Players participating in a low-population campaign or as part of an underscoring alliance will now gain 20% more AP within the campaign they're earning that bonus for, instead of 10%. Population polling has also been sped up to apply the underdog/low-population bonuses more often; however, this also means they have the opportunity to expire faster.
• Guest Campaign Reassignment: The cooldown on Guest Campaign reassignment will be increased to 4 days from 3.
• Home Campaign Reassignment: The cooldown on Home Campaign reassignment has been changed to 12 hours from 3 days, but the cost to switch will be 150,000 AP instead of 15,000. Also, switching home campaigns at the end of a campaign period will now cost 100 AP instead of 5,000 AP.
• Battle Leveling: The Battle Leveling system has been updated to include Veteran Ranks. Players that opt into Battle Leveling will be roughly equivalent in power to a VR14 player in moderate-quality gear.
• Elder Scrolls & Gates: A fix is in the works that will prevent enemy player characters from getting through the Elder Scroll Gates while the gates are closed. (Gate jumpers beware. Your days are numbered.) Also, a new protective barrier will now surround the Elder Scrolls while in their temples, if the Elder Scroll Gates are closed. This barrier will drop if the gate opens.

That’s not all—the combat team has been hard at work tweaking numbers on abilities and items, too. Expect to see more details about those changes in future patch notes…considering these aren’t patch notes.

Last but certainly not least, we have some changes coming for each of the campaigns. We will be making some scoring adjustments to the campaigns in order to provide 4 different campaign styles, each with with different scoring parameters. In all cases the keep transit system, keep bonuses, scroll bonuses, emperorship crowning/deposing, and leaderboards will remain the same except for the scoring and duration changes noted below:

• Azura: Ownership of keeps, resources, Elder Scrolls, and outposts will generate 1 point each per scoring cycle and last 30 days.
• Blackwater Blade: Ownership of keeps, resources, Elder Scrolls, and outposts will generate 1 point each per scoring cycle and last 5 days. (Non-Veterans only.)
• Chillrend: Keeps, outposts, and resources will generate zero points. Ownership of Elder Scrolls will generate 1 point per scoring cycle and last 7 days.
• Haderus: Keeps, outposts, and Elder Scrolls will generate zero points. Ownership of resources will generate 1 point per scoring cycle and last 7 days.
• Thornblade: Resources, outposts, and Elder Scrolls will generate zero points. Ownership of keeps will generate 1 point per scoring cycle and last 7 days.
• Versidue-Shae (Console Only): Ownership of keeps, resources, Elder Scrolls, and outposts will generate 1 point each per scoring cycle and last 5 days. (Non-Veterans only.)

All campaigns noted above will be ended when the patch with these changes is live, and start at a score of 0. We have not yet determined if we will reset all objectives to their starting alliances. We will communicate this in the associated patch notes.

As always, these changes are subject to change based on feedback and testing, but this is the direction we’re going with PVP and Cyrodiil. Hopefully this post shows we are dedicated to delivering a solid PVP experience, and we thank you again for your loyalty to the war in Cyrodiil and your feedback!

We’ll see you on the battlefield!

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Weberda wrote: »

@Zos-BrianWheeler Do you have any concerns about the affect of dropping an Imperial City in the middle of a Cyrodiil that is experiencing the latency problems like what is happening on Azura's Star N/A?

Do you have people that actually go online in these campaigns and experience the problems first hand and see what brings about their creation? This question comes up quite often in zone chat although the exact wording I can't use here because of the T.O.S.

What will happen to players on low population campaigns with regard to access of the Imperial City. As it stands now DC or EP players on Thornblade would have no access to it for example?

It's going to be a different zone. It will let pressure off cyrodiil population like that balloon tank on your water heater.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Performance is high priority and we are looking into more ways besides just the LOS changes to help.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Performance is high priority and we are looking into more ways besides just the LOS changes to help.

Turelus wrote: »

pjwb16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Performance is high priority and we are looking into more ways besides just the LOS changes to help.

how about reverting the 1.3 lightning patch

They have already stated it wasn't the lighting patch which did it.

They did at the same time however deploy their anti-bottting methods which many thing might contribute to the cause by increasing checks required by the server.

Lag is there for the same reason as all games, too many data packets trying to get back and forth at the same time. No game yet has found a instant cure for it, EVE Online ended up adding time dialation and slowing the game down to 90% speed to help with it in the end.

pjwb16_ESO wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

pjwb16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Performance is high priority and we are looking into more ways besides just the LOS changes to help.

how about reverting the 1.3 lightning patch

They have already stated it wasn't the lighting patch which did it.

They did at the same time however deploy their anti-bottting methods which many thing might contribute to the cause by increasing checks required by the server.

Lag is there for the same reason as all games, too many data packets trying to get back and forth at the same time. No game yet has found a instant cure for it, EVE Online ended up adding time dialation and slowing the game down to 90% speed to help with it in the end.

then revert the *** bot patch imo, lag is much worse then bots grinding boss caves in pve, endgame isnt affected by the bots then anyway -.-

Leandor wrote: »

Considering that the so far known changes to combat mechanics seem to favor magicka builds (again) and the biggest nerf (aside from BE, but nerf sorcs!) is targeted at stamina builds, I would like to propose a change to vigor.

Please increase the healing done by this ability when and if less than the maximum number of targets are hit. With direct buffs to things like cloak-prox and with the re-"design" of nirnhoned, magicka will again have a substantially higher damage output than stamina. The stamina advantage (burst damage) will be equalised while sustained damage will remain magicka's proclivity.

In view of this, it would be a point of balance to make stamina healing superior, since survivability and damage will again be magicka's domain. Increase healing, reduce cost and add an instant health component to vigor & morphs, since the only way to survive as stamina build in the future will be if I can outlast the damage dealers (magicka builds) with my healing.

Or, alternatively make proximity detonation be the stamina morph. I mean stamina is supposed to be the melee choice, isn't it?

Most_Awesome wrote: »

Seeing as the thread I was about to put this in was deleted I'll post it here this is ESO PVP

This is why people complain because of crap like this, this is the reason why the majority of players don't even want to step foot into Cyrodiil
21:21:41 =Ambush 4,046
21:21:41 =Surprise Attack 6,769
21:21:41 =Light Attack 3,246
21:21:41 =Befouled Wpn 300
21:21:41 =Soul Harvest 8,423

No lag, as soon as the Ambush hit me I died, GG Animation Cancelling

Valnas wrote: »

nothing in that death recap is an exploit .... thats just how nb abilities fire. Like if you use a heavy destro folowing by a insta frag followed by a lt crush shock it'll all land w/o 1 second. this is called burst mechanics. stop calling hacks.