NPC Buff Makes Cyrodiil PVE

zenmogwai

My campaign is dominated by one faction. The other factions have very few players that still participate. I play for an underdog faction.

Previously if we had a strong group of 12 (or more) we could take keeps and resources quickly before the enemy zerg arrived. This kept the campaign fun and interesting even though our faction was dominated. Now with the NPC buff the enemy doesn't even have to show up.

NPC mages kill v12 players in 3 shots. Players under 50 are completely useless against them. Small scale sieges are utterly pointless. Over the past few days our faction has become even more demoralized. We can punch holes in the wall, fight off the defenders and then move to the flag only to wipe repeatedly to the NPCs.

Even when we take a flag by the time we start moving to the next, the NPCs start to respawn. Cyrodiil is not supposed to be about PVE. If the enemy has been repelled a keep should not be defended by NPCs alone.

If the intention is that groups under a certain size/level should not be able to take keeps, Zenimax needs to publish this information so we don't waste our time. Since the patch keeps have sat open and undefended with holes in the wall defended only by NPCs but the underdog faction could not take them.

Vampiresbane

The NPC Buff is making things a lot more difficult for the underdog. Even with a full raid group, it can be hard to take a keep when it has no defense. I would hope at some point, this gets toned down a bit.

ishilb14_ESO

You guys are late, Zenimax said they don't want players fighting other players, so they are forcing players to PvE in Cyrodiil, why do you think Mercenary mages are so good and caltrops block siege damage duh lol

zenmogwai

I guested on a (well really THE) higher population campaign yesterday. Now I see why more people aren't complaining about this. The NPC changes have no impact whatsoever on large groups. It is only small/low level groups that have problems.

I'm not sure what Zenimax is telling the small group of day time players in my normal campaign to do. Change campaigns if they want PvP during the day? PvE during the day only? Quit playing during the day?

It is pretty demoralizing when you have a handful of new players in zone itching to take a keep and you either refuse to lead them because you know if it will be a waste of time or take them anyway and they wipe repeatedly on the NPCs.

Either way instead of having excited new players for your faction, you have players that now have a bad impression of Cyrodiil. I reiterate that keep defense is supposed to be done by players. If players aren't there, NPCs should not be able to hold it for them. Why should Zenimax care if real players are able to flip undefended keeps? At least those players are having fun.

AzureButterfly

Back in one of the earliest PvP builds, you were able to take NPC controlled resources by yourself with a bit of patience - you could lure out the Honor Guards one by one without aggroing the rest, and they had at least five minutes before they would respawn. That way, a small group of two or three could easily capture a keep on the outskirts (Dragonclaw, Brindle, ect) to distract the opposing teams.

It was a lot more fun.