Some questions for the PvP team inside.

Legedric

Hey guys,

first of all: No, he didn't leave (edited this one in here to make it more obvious)

But thank you for your undevided attention!

No, this is not a pure troll thread as I want to use this thread and its somewhat "other" title to ask some (hopefully) constructive questions to the team of @ZOS_BrianWheeler to get a better understanding about what they are responsible for, what they are working on right now and what have they been working on in the past. Especially as the last "PvP Update" posting is 4 months old already.

TLDR;
Scroll down to the last part, my questions.

First of all let's collect some facts we got from the past:
- The PvP team surrounding @ZOS_BrianWheeler is not responsible for class or race balancing
- The PvP team surrounding @ZOS_BrianWheeler is not responsible for itemization, not even for AP items (other than siege)
- The PvP team surrounding @ZOS_BrianWheeler is responsible for Cyrodiil, Campaigns, Keeps and Siege, Imperial City

So we got that.

But let's look at the past again to see what exactly happened:
- Pre 1.6 the overall PvP experience was ok regarding mechanics, rewards and gameplay. The only reoccuring huge complaint was lag and overall performance in Cyrodiil
- 1.6 had little to no changes for Cyrodiil or PvP in general other than siege damage being pushed
- Between 1.6 and IC (1.7) we only got some new coldfire siege weaponry
- 1.7 (IC update) brought us some updates to Cyrodiil campaigns, emperorship, pop balancing and some other minor changes noone asked for
- The Imperial City DLC introduced no new PvP mechanics, no new PvP rewards, no PvP related stuff at all

Ok, I think you can guess where I am heading with this, right?

So other than some unnecessary new siege weaponry, changes to our beloved campaigns and some pop balancing and buff mechanic changes they added nothing to PvP up until now.

The Imperial City DLC was once announced as THE huge update that brings exciting stuff for us PvP players but let's again have a look at what the DLC actually delivered to us:
- 2 new dungeons with new gear sets that are RNG and bind on pickup (PvE)
- 3 new weapon/jewelry sets you get from trophy farming (PvE)
- Update of the existing Undaunted sets to VR 16 still bind on pickup (PvE)
- 6 new sets you can buy with Tel Var stones (PvE/PvP if you are lucky)
- 7 new zones (counting sewers as one) you can quest and farm mobs in (PvE)
- No special mechanics for PvP at all in Imperial City other than being able to loot TV stones

So let's draw a line here real quick.

What's the summary of IC?
Correct, we got several new stuff, items etc. for PvE but NOTHING for PvP. They simply forgot about PvP entirely in this once announced PvP DLC. No new rewards, no mechanics inside the IC zones, hell they even forgot the campaign rewards and just upgraded some crap sets to VR16 so we don't even get master weapons out of this anymore...

Right, that's pretty much what we got with IC DLC so let's have a look what PvP players can expect from Orsinium (at least what we know today):
- We get the possibility to buy Akaviri crafting style fragments for AP

Anything else? No, as @ZOS_BrianWheeler said in another thread, don't expect any VR16 stuff for AP until whatever point of time:

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Vendor Gear will be updated to max level (VR) in a later patch.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

The "Why not now" is simply a matter of scheduling and timing of resources available to do those changes based on the itemization plan laid out by the itemization and combat team for their desired cadence of gear introduction.

Edit - My constructive examples for new PvP rewards:
Some examples of what I (and I am only a Software Developer, no PvP lead ) would have added to IC for us PvP players to get some progress from PvP instead of doing PvE:

1. Add like 5-10 trophies of each type to the "Rewards for the Worthy" bags.

2. Add a daily quest to the IC NPCs for "Kill X players/class type inside IC districts or sewers"
- Where X is more like 50 or more so it's not as easy as with Cyrodiil's quests
- NON-sharable quests!
- Rewards would be 10-20 trophies of a random type
- Additional 10% chance of receiving one of the new BoP set items from Vet WGT/prison
- Additional 5% chance of receiving an undaunted set piece
- This quest would be the PvP daily quest like the Undaunted plegdes are for PvE (long overdue to get sth. like this anyway...)



Ok. Now I am ready to ask my questions:
1. Why didn't you update existing sets you can buy for AP with the IC update to VR16? Why wasn't it on the plans of the item/combat team right away?

2. Why didn't you introduce ANY way for a PvP player to aquire the new VR16 dungeons sets and VR16 trophy sets by doing PvP?

3. (Edited) Why didn't you come up with ideas like the above mentioned examples to make us PvP players happy in some way?

4. Why do you want players loving this game for its PvP to desperately force them into PvE without giving us ANY chance to advance our gear by doing what we love instead?

5. What was you work for IC? What exactly did your PvP team work on for IC if you are not responsible for itemization and introduced no PvP related stuff at all with this DLC? I guess you had some work on zone design to get glitches and other "creative" PvP exploits out of it, but other than that?

6. What are you working on right now as Orsinium seems to provide nothing (even less than IC, although that's hardly possible) for us PvP players?

7. Why should we PvP players still hope for you team to finally listen to our requests and demands?

8. What do you want to say to us, those that lost hope, faith and trust in you and your PvP team during the past couple of months?

That's it.

I know not everyone may share my view on the above mentioned topics but I also know there are plenty of people out there asking the same questions over and over to either themselves or here on the forums and until now, we only get some quick one-line-answers from @ZOS_BrianWheeler providing no real content and nothing really noteworthy regarding the future of PvP and clarification on some decisions they made in the recent past.

Best regards,

Legedric

Publius_Scipio

Wtf is this? Who are you and what are you doing in my forums?

r.jan_emailb16_ESO

I'd be very interested in the answers

Legedric

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Wtf is this? Who are you and what are you doing in my forums?

I am the new guy.

Well, no... actually I am not... have been here for a good while now

Publius_Scipio

Well I will give you credit for being muscular enough to type that all out.

Itoq

What is the evidence that PVP team exists?

Jitterbug

Great post.

I think they deliberately did not level up the well known items to "force" people into the new content. I can understand that.
If they bring back, even only selected, items to the AP vendors so we can actually build again I imagine all will be well.

From my viewpoint, what we need is jewelry so people can build 2x5 set bonuses. What we have now is really boring to theorycraft around.

Legedric

Jitterbug wrote: »

Great post.

I think they deliberately did not level up the well known items to "force" people into the new content. I can understand that.

And that's ok for me, too. But I want to experience the new content more on a PvP level and not the current mindless grind (especially as I am a Stamina user...). So they should have thought about an option to aquire the new sets via PvP.

For example by adding like 10 trophies of each type to the "Rewards for the Worthy" bags. (Numbers are just an example)

There is no viable reason why they didn't come up with ideas like that in the first place...

Jitterbug

What you're saying makes perfect sense, but if they released IC with vr16 ravaging and cyro's light sets for AP people would just have spent their millions of spare AP without ever seeing the new content. Which would have been great for us PvP'ers (and theorists), but I can understand it from a dev viewpoint.

Legedric

I agree, but here is another example of what they could have come up with for IC:

Add a daily quest to the IC NPCs for "Kill X players/class type inside IC districts or sewers"
- Where X is more like 50 or more so it's not as easy as with Cyrodiil's quests
- NON-sharable quests!
- Rewards would be 10-20 trophies of a random type
- 10% Chance of one of the new BoP set items from Vet WGT/prison

This would at least give us PvP players the opportunity to advance our gear while doing PvP inside the new content zones without destroying anything regarding upgrading old sets or hurting PvE players that prefer mob grinding.

I just can't get it why players come up with ideas like that and not the devs. So simple and easy to get into the game and many of us would be happy and clap applause for the devs if they would have done it like that...

And it's still not too late to add some simple quests like that to IC during the next couple of weeks.

Bashev

Good points OP!

Jitterbug

Yeah that does sound good.

hammayolettuce

RIP

Turelus

Where was the announcement/news he left? I missed that.

I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing for PvP in the game. Hopefully either way it's a start of a new ZOS where they engage the community and work with them to solve issues. Even if they don't want to cater to us it would be nice for them to state their reasons and stand their ground.

r.jan_emailb16_ESO

Turelus wrote: »

Where was the announcement/news he left? I missed that.

I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing for PvP in the game. Hopefully either way it's a start of a new ZOS where they engage the community and work with them to solve issues. Even if they don't want to cater to us it would be nice for them to state their reasons and stand their ground.

He didn't say Brian left the team, it's just to draw attention to this thread . And because the PvP team didn't deliver that much in the past months.

Legedric

Turelus wrote: »

Where was the announcement/news he left? I missed that.

I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing for PvP in the game. Hopefully either way it's a start of a new ZOS where they engage the community and work with them to solve issues. Even if they don't want to cater to us it would be nice for them to state their reasons and stand their ground.

Got ya!

You didn't read much of the original post, did you?

SkylarkAU

The whole calling out ZOS employees and interrogating them against the backdrop of your own personal expectations is a bit rude imo.. I mean really what do you expect from this thread OP.

Legedric

SkylarkAU wrote: »

The whole calling out ZOS employees and interrogating them against the backdrop of your own personal expectations is a bit rude imo.. I mean really what do you expect from this thread OP.

I expect answers and attention to current hot topics for PvP.
Maybe you think it's rude to call them out and that's ok.

But Brian is responsible for the Alliance War part of ESO as PvP lead and so I dare to call him out as he (or anyone else at ZOS) barely reacts to our questions and requests on these forums.

As it seems I am not the only one waiting for something from the PvP team so this is not only about personal expectations.

Turelus

r.jan_emailb16_ESO wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Where was the announcement/news he left? I missed that.

I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing for PvP in the game. Hopefully either way it's a start of a new ZOS where they engage the community and work with them to solve issues. Even if they don't want to cater to us it would be nice for them to state their reasons and stand their ground.

He didn't say Brian left the team, it's just to draw attention to this thread . And because the PvP team didn't deliver that much in the past months.

I thought it might have been but I am only one sip into my morning coffee. I got worried.

Still I will forever stand by that ZOS developers need to start working more like CCP Games and working with their players than just hiding away and never giving us anything. I would love to see monthly blogs from each of the division heads with what they're working on etc.

I know it could be seen as wasted time and time they're not "working" on the game but honestly the community contact goes a long way to keeping people happy and updated.

The community team to a great job and ESO Live is nice but it's not regular written updates which we can have dedicated threads to for feedback.

Legedric wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Where was the announcement/news he left? I missed that.

I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing for PvP in the game. Hopefully either way it's a start of a new ZOS where they engage the community and work with them to solve issues. Even if they don't want to cater to us it would be nice for them to state their reasons and stand their ground.

Got ya!

You didn't read much of the original post, did you?

Yes... I skim read but must have missed it. I am still going with the lack of coffee...

Legedric

Turelus wrote: »

r.jan_emailb16_ESO wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Where was the announcement/news he left? I missed that.

I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing for PvP in the game. Hopefully either way it's a start of a new ZOS where they engage the community and work with them to solve issues. Even if they don't want to cater to us it would be nice for them to state their reasons and stand their ground.

He didn't say Brian left the team, it's just to draw attention to this thread . And because the PvP team didn't deliver that much in the past months.

I thought it might have been but I am only one sip into my morning coffee. I got worried.

Still I will forever stand by that ZOS developers need to start working more like CCP Games and working with their players than just hiding away and never giving us anything. I would love to see monthly blogs from each of the division heads with what they're working on etc.

I know it could be seen as wasted time and time they're not "working" on the game but honestly the community contact goes a long way to keeping people happy and updated.

The community team to a great job and ESO Live is nice but it's not regular written updates which we can have dedicated threads to for feedback.

I couldn't agree more, especially on your comparison to CCP Games but I highly doubt something similar will ever happen at any other bigger game developer at all.

For those that don't know what we are talking about: CCP Games established a council of players (elected by the players) and is always in direct contact with them regarding development plans, actual developments, player feedback etc. with meetings at CCP's HQ and remotely. Surely has its pros and cons and is not adoptable 1:1 for every company/game.

Ghostbane

Have any of you ever considered that the 'PVP Team', may be just Brian, Ted the QA guy and a water cooler?

Wollust

The only thing I want to know from them is the following:

Do you guys from the PVP team really prefer the lagfest Cyrodiil is so much that you won't give us any means to fight those zerg and make PVP kinda possible at primetimes? You know exactly what is needed to fight it, to spread out the fighting a bit more instead of having 50 people stack up on each other. But do you simply not care?


Oh and btw, at least we're getting the akaviri motif for rather high ap prices. I appreciate that, but I really do hope they won't cater to the QQing about it and make it available for every steel tornado zergling with a bit of ap.

VincentBlanquin

agree with every word. great post. ZOS you need change your plans asap

Erynyes

signed, where's our pvp content ZOS, what about forward camp, are you even working on any pvp related content/fix?

Rylana

The moment you mentioned it was a bait title, you completely turned me off of actually reading any of it.

No idea what you said, really dont care. Dont be "that guy"

Seriously.

Zorgon_The_Revenged

I don't agree with much you've said and you seem to be expecting a quick reward and have missed the pvp aspect of the telvar stone system, but that is the only pvp objective in the whole DLC, kill npc's for rewards or kill the players for the rewards.

The sewers are great for the pvp and pve but the districts need pvp objectives, where is the "control" a district? I can spawn right back there, at least spawn me back at the base so I have to walk to a ladder and have to tackle the loading screen boss.

The pve dailies aren't worth doing and waiting around to fight players doing these quests for the very few stones they have isn't worth it, I can find better things to do.

I have enjoyed and still am enjoying the IC but there feels like there is so much missing from it.

Legedric

Rylana wrote: »

The moment you mentioned it was a bait title, you completely turned me off of actually reading any of it.

No idea what you said, really dont care. Dont be "that guy"

Seriously.

To quote yourself:
Really don't care. Seriously.

FireCowCommando

I guess he might have given insight on how many TV stones should be dropping off other players?

I dont really see anything else in the PvP update that he could have even touched on.

Oh, on second thought, the battle spirit changes. But IMO he could have just phoned that one in.

Edited for clarity:

Theres absolutely things that could have been added, simply commenting on what was released.

Soulac

FireCowCommando wrote: »

I guess he might have given insight on how many TV stones should be dropping off other players?

I dont really see anything else in the PvP update that he could have even touched on.

Oh, on second thought, the battle spirit changes. But IMO he could have just phoned that one in.

IC has no meaning, nothing worth to PvP there.
You kill players and gain tel var stones for your gear, except that you got nothing there.
Imo he could've worked on implementing objectives, a good system for gated campaigns and encourage small scale inside the IC like no drops for groups bigger than four or whatever.
There is so much stuff they could've done, but in the end IC will be the most empty zone once orsinium is released.

Minno

Well, according to ZOS website, their description of IC is a PVE zone with PVP enabled.

Our pvp is still main cyro. So gear up, buff up and get back to our regular scheduled pvp programming.

FireCowCommando

Minno wrote: »

Well, according to ZOS website, their description of IC is a PVE zone with PVP enabled.

Our pvp is still main cyro. So gear up, buff up and get back to our regular scheduled pvp programming.

At least they are finally calling it what it is, a PvE zone. It would have been nice to not hear them calling it a PvP zone for 18 months prior