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.
For players who have spent any time in Cyrodiil they may have encountered performance issues that felt as though they took an arrow to the knee. Luckily ZOS is on the case, as they are pointing to Update 27s release as fixing the core problem relating to performance problems on the AOE spectrum. To do this they have planned some tests and released details regarding those tests as follow:
- Test 1 – Shared global AOE cooldown - 3 second timer. This test adds a global 3 second shared cooldown to any AOE ability. This means that when you cast an AOE, you will not be able to cast another for 3 seconds. For example, as a Templar, if I cast Ritual of Retribution, I wouldn’t be able to cast Puncturing Sweep for 3 seconds.
- Test 2 – Individual AOE cooldown - 3 second timer. This test adds an individual AOE cooldown to each AOE ability. This means that when you cast an AOE, you will not be able to cast that same AOE ability for 3 seconds. For example – as a Templar, if I cast Puncturing Sweep, I wouldn’t be able to cast Puncturing Sweep again for 3 seconds.
- Test 3 – No cooldown, global ramping AOE cost. This test adds a global ramping AOE cost for each AOE cast. Similar to how streak or roll dodge works, where when you cast an AOE you receive a debuff for 5 seconds, each stack of the debuff increases the cost of any AOE cast.
- Test 4 – Individual AOE cooldown – 3 second timer, global ramping AOE cost. This test adds an individual AOE cooldown to each ability as in test 2, but also combines that with a global ramping cost from test 3.
During the times that the tests are active, ZOS has opted to reward players with Double Alliance Points. Update 27 is set to release on August 24th for PC, but you can check them out on the PTS now. If you’re opting to wait until the official release with Update 27, why not weigh in on Gabriel Moss’s article on how Elder Scrolls Online could vastly improve its gameplay?
