The reasoning behind the 12-player group limit has been confirmed by Elder Scrolls Online Community Manager, Gina Bruno. In a recent forum post, she confirmed the driving factor here is, as most guessed, performance.
The forum thread first popped up last month questioning this 12-player group limit. Several commenters surmised the reason behind this limit must be down to performance. Late last week, Gina Bruno hopped into the thread and confirmed what the community had been guessing for some time,
“As some of you have guessed, this change ultimately comes down to performance. We’ve been continually looking at ways to improve performance and stability across the game and we found reducing the group size was an effective way to ensure there would be fewer situations where you hit critical memory. Additionally, there’s a fair amount of data that has to be exchanged on the backend for every person in your group. By limiting the group size to 12, we’re introducing additional performance gains.”
Reactions have been expectedly mixed. Some seem to understand the reasoning behind this limit. Others are noting that this limit places a real hamper on some guild activities like tours,
“This is going to be so difficult during Guild Housing Tours. We already need to split the group when we move to the 12 person houses, but we use group chat to communicate where there is space for the next person to visit. I can't even imagine it as well with the 6 person houses.”
Recently, ESO’s game director, Matt Firor, discussed the game’s success and the future in an interview. Meanwhile, check out new info on the Oblivion Portals arriving alongside the Blackwood chapter next month. And if you’re interested in the new companions system, we’ve got you covered there too.
