Elder Scrolls Online - Performance Updates and AOE Test Coming to Cyrodiil

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Elder Scrolls Online - Performance Updates and AOE Test Coming to Cyrodiil

As part of Elder Scrolls Online's ongoing plan to increase performance in Cyrodiil, Zenimax Online Services Creative Director Rich Lambert has addressed some changes that they will be testing in hopes to optimize your PvP experience. The post gets quite in depth about how the system currently handles ability usage, and how AOE abilities factor into that.

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keithian

It's this just in Cyrodiil, or also across all zones? I don't PVP, but this would basically unwind all the work I put into my AOE Necromancer and why I place things on the skill bar in the order I do if it applies outside of Cyrodiil as well. How horrible, unless I am not understanding something.

maskedweasel

keithian said:

It's this just in Cyrodiil, or also across all zones? I don't PVP, but this would basically unwind all the work I put into my AOE Necromancer and why I place things on the skill bar in the order I do if it applies outside of Cyrodiil as well. How horrible, unless I am not understanding something.

Seems like it's just in Cyrodiil.

Abimor

So ya that is something, I am not sure what to think I know all of the so called fixes they have unleashed so far have done nothing for me. It still takes forever to switch between characters it still takes forever when first logging in. I enjoy the game but it seems like they are out of their league in trying to fix performance.

Iselin

Abimor said:

So ya that is something, I am not sure what to think I know all of the so called fixes they have unleashed so far have done nothing for me. It still takes forever to switch between characters it still takes forever when first logging in. I enjoy the game but it seems like they are out of their league in trying to fix performance.

Yeah, they've shown that.

This is just a trial "fix" to one particular case of bad performance in Cyrodiil only. They are essentially blaming poor performance there on players' AOE spamming and I'm almost 100% sure that's not the full story.

They all but admitted that some of the cosmetics fluff is causing problems too in another one of their blurbs about limiting what gets rendered (no pets nor personalities, etc.) in congested areas.

Also interestingly in the recent Ashes of Creation reddit AMA they talked about how they will be doing some cosmetics armor culling (presumably defaulting to a base character model) in congested areas as part of their performance strategy even at this early stage in development.

It's foolish to think that ESO's ability to customize each piece of gear independently to one of hundreds of possible textures and colors - which is a great thing if customization is your thing - does not introduce performance issues.

This AOE spamming problem may in fact be a real problem (I'll have to take their word for it) and limiting it may improve things, but this is not THE only performance problem so this won't be THE fix. 

Thomas2006

If cosmetics was a big part of the problem then why not just give each side default looking armor while in Cyrodil and the problem is fixed in that case. But I doubt that really adds much to it if other games like FFXIV are anything to go by and it has way more customization options.

From what was originally posted the AOE problem more stims from certain builds being able to instantly and endless spam AOE and if what was said is indeed true then that is more of a combat design problem and maybe they need to rework there combat to eliminate such options and builds. If the speed of abilities is the problem then why not slow the speed of combat down overall. We also need to seperate client side lag (aka graphics lag) from server side lag (aka the server tick rate slowing down).

Iselin

Thomas2006 said:

If cosmetics was a big part of the problem then why not just give each side default looking armor while in Cyrodil and the problem is fixed in that case. But I doubt that really adds much to it if other games like FFXIV are anything to go by and it has way more customization options.

Different engines and back ends handle things differently. Maybe FFXIV can just handle what it does better.

Besides I'm not saying this is THE problem but just a contributing factor in ESO. They were the ones who said they are clamping down on rendering personalities, pets and other things in congested areas for performance reasons so in ESO and its engine it's obviously something they have identified as an issue.

I've also spent hundreds of hours in Cyrodiil and the AOE spamming they're referring to is situational. It only ever happens during the rush stages of keep battles when one side is going through a breach or in bomb group vs. bomb group fights. In smaller scale fights there, which are more frequent, you actually want to use more single target abilities and CC than AOE spam.

I have been in many of those AOE situations and honestly never saw it having any kind of immediate effect on the performance where it was happening. Bad performance in Cyrodiil PvP is much more random and inexplicable often happening during mostly idle times.

I seriously doubt this AOE spamming thing is the only or even main problem.

Scot

Well FFXIV graphics are simply not as good as ESO, it could just be down to that? I suggested before that they just take away customisable outfits and personalities in Cyrodiil, that seems guaranteed to help performance. ((I tried to quote you but got a double quote and nearly lost what I wrote editing it. That's the second time today, so that's my posts finished for today, getting fed up of this sort of nonsense.))

Thomas2006

Scot said:

Well FFXIV graphics are simply not as good as ESO, it could just be down to that? I suggested before that they just take away customisable outfits and personalities in Cyrodiil, that seems guaranteed to help performance.



((I tried to quote you but got a double quote and nearly lost what I wrote editing it. That's the second time today, so that's my posts finished for today, getting fed up of this sort of nonsense.))

FFXIV graphics are not as good as ESO.. Have you played FFXIV lately? Character to Character FFXIV characters have way more customization both in the base model itself and in the sheer amount of clothing options and dyeing options. Environment wise I would say they are on par with each other both being older games.

I still tend to think it has to be something with how they are crunching numbers on the back end. Or some silly hidden bug that just randomly pops up when certain things are done together.

Abimor

Thomas2006 said:

Scot said:

Well FFXIV graphics are simply not as good as ESO, it could just be down to that? I suggested before that they just take away customisable outfits and personalities in Cyrodiil, that seems guaranteed to help performance.







((I tried to quote you but got a double quote and nearly lost what I wrote editing it. That's the second time today, so that's my posts finished for today, getting fed up of this sort of nonsense.))

FFXIV graphics are not as good as ESO.. Have you played FFXIV lately? Character to Character FFXIV characters have way more customization both in the base model itself and in the sheer amount of clothing options and dyeing options. Environment wise I would say they are on par with each other both being older games.



I still tend to think it has to be something with how they are crunching numbers on the back end. Or some silly hidden bug that just randomly pops up when certain things are done together.

I honestly wonder if it is them just being cheap and wanting to skimp on having enough servers? I do not know anything about that tech and it would be wrong to wildly speculate on my part. It just seems like these problems should be solvable for them, maybe it does meen combat needs to be reworked. I do not mind the animation canceling I agree with @iselin that damage should be moved to the end or spread out.

Theocritus

It just shows how stagnant the MMO horizon is when games like ESO and FFXIV are still two of the biggest draws. I wouldn't give either game more than a 5/10.

Mendel

If the problem is server side, as they suggested, and it involves N people casting AOE spells at or near the same time, then a cool-down timer won't fix the problem when 5xN people are in the area casting AOE spells.

Nanfoodle

Mendel said:

If the problem is server side, as they suggested, and it involves N people casting AOE spells at or near the same time, then a cool-down timer won't fix the problem when 5xN people are in the area casting AOE spells.

The real problem is the number of skill press per player in a large scale battle. Animation cancelling in this game lets you daisy chain many skills in a row and everything becomes insta cast. Everyone makes their builds with this in mind. The cool downs they are adding is to try and stop that. AoE compounds the problem. All issues need to be addressed to fix the problem. Only the ESO community, most of them, love animation cancelling. Its been there since launch and changing it now would mean everyone would need to relearn how to play and every build created would be set to zero. There is a much bigger problem that Zeni does not want to address. 

Ozmodan

keithian said:

It's this just in Cyrodiil, or also across all zones? I don't PVP, but this would basically unwind all the work I put into my AOE Necromancer and why I place things on the skill bar in the order I do if it applies outside of Cyrodiil as well. How horrible, unless I am not understanding something.

As if changing your necromancer is a big deal.  Any kind of AOE is an anathema to any form of pvp.  It is obvious to anyone that is even remotely familiar with the mechanics of such that is overburdening to the server.   Every game I any familiarity with has had to tone down AOE in pvp at some point.  So your necromancer build has been living on borrowed time.  Accept that you ignored the obvious and move on.

And yes animation canceling is another huge problem with the game that will have to be addressed someday.  Gives those that use it a huge advantage which is just unacceptable.