Goldbrand NA has been taken over by exploiting night cappers

AnteCoyote

I've been on this campaign since the very beginning, and I've had some very good fights here. The campaign has seen it's fair share of emperor farmers on the other side, but for the most part they played the game as it was intended and they were fun to fight. The last EP emperor farmer group has since left and been replaced by a group who has been keeping the map red by any means possible. During their big pushes they vastly outnumber AD and DC and take several keeps at once. Once they have everything, one specific group of them stays on to defend by any means necessary. They used to love their caltrops, but now it's all about going stealth and setting out mercs all around us, or setting up mercs all over choke points, many of which are unkillable due to the exploit, which one of their players has admitted to intentionally using.

Long story short: this campaign needs help. Both AD and DC have a dedicated player base, but it's not nearly as large as EP's during their peak hours. I don't know about DC, but when the mages are put out in broken walls it usually results in a stalemate between AD and EP until EP reinforcements arrive and wipe us. It doesn't help that AD isn't extremely organized and we almost never have DKs or any sort of tanks at all in our groups to take damage or yank their healers out so we can kill them and actually kill the guys out front.

Even when we do make progress, usually by splitting the cheesers up between defending from AD and DC, all progress is erased late at night when we get off, leaving us starting from nothing every single day. We're afraid we won't ever get any reinforcements because the map is so red so often, it seems like an unbalanced campaign. And while it is, these guys aren't unstoppable. It's usually only red because they spend all night taking the map back. Sometimes they zerg it back while we are still on, but lately it's mostly been taken late at night.

DC, AD, anyone, I would love for these guys to be beat back for bringing their cheesy tactics and exploits to one of the most competitive small scale campaigns I've played on.

Lord_Draevan

This reminds me of NA Auriel's Bow during the first month or so, where AD were locked at Full pop at night while EP and DC were at Low... eventually we abandoned the server entirely since we always lost everything at night. AD eventually gave up too, now the server's pretty much a ghost town. Might not be the 15-20 to 1 imbalance on Goldbrand, but hopefully it won't go the same way as Auriel's.

Permafrost

We (Ganked Again) have been on the campaign for a while now and we’ve had a blast for the most part. However, I have to agree that the EP antics are pretty tiresome. Consistently, it’s that faction who either blatantly exploits who abuses broken mechanics. I cannot say we’re angels as we have retaliated with some cheese, but we’re not the ones running around with Templars who magically 1-shot everyone with heavy attacks (if you get my drift).

This is a 3-faction game and that’s awesome. Right now, GA is absolutely game for sticking it right back into the hornet’s nest of EP so we welcome AD along with anyone who would want to join us on DC. If there’s any other like-minded, non-zerg lemmings, come over to the campaign! If there are any soloers out there who are looking for some awesome times, we welcome you to guest over and run with us. We’re out 7 days a week both during primetime and into some off hours.

You check out more about us over at our quick guild thread or just hit me up in game if you want to see some fun on DC-GB.

Oblongship

The time of day/night when you play is now considered an exploit...

You heard it here folks.

AnteCoyote

Actually read over my post and Permafrost's, buddy. Capping everything at night is annoying, but that's not the exploits we're talking about. We're talking invincible mages, exploited builds and previously caltrops, here. The fact that they PvE all of our keeps down every night wouldn't be so annoying if they didn't exploit while defending them the next day.

edit: Let me just specify that by "invincible mages", I mean invincible mercenary mages. I don't mean "wow these mages are too hard". I mean they literally cannot be damaged due to a bug that these people are exploiting. I'm not one of those guys crying about non-glitched mages. Honestly, those things are only good for slowing decent groups down. Even without tanks, we can heal through what they dish out and kill them pretty quick, and even if some invincible ones are left, we can often just heal through what they dish out as well. We just can't take all of that damage while these guys are also hiding behind them nuking us from a distance.

SwampRaider

you know. you can turn them vulnerable by de aggro them(run awayt and let them all reset)

AnteCoyote

Merc vendors have been removed. :]

Grunt1012rwb17_ESO

Okay J'Ualizz you are a disgrace to the Emperorship!
First up, when the EP "player base" arrived onto Goldbrand, it was a shared and stagnant server, no one any side did anything. Since we have arrived we have encountered a skilled DC player base, unlike the AD who sit in their keeps, Mage spamming until we capture the keep. The AD army only zerg, they are pathetic. We have captured a keep with only 2-3 pre-VR level people defending it. If you haven't noticed the DC are helping you people. Also with servers Goldbrand is the only EP held server, unlike Wabbajack and Auriel's Bow.

Personally I have seen you solo Zerg into 4 people and die. Instead of crying about us, get better, get better players or get the hell off Goldbrand! You are a disgrace to the leader board, YOU ARE THE TOP PLAYER! Learn to deal with it.

From Torvald Nom
Proud member of the Ebonheart Pact!

Tintinabula

I fail to see how logging on at any given time can be called an "exploit"....

AnteCoyote

Tintinabula wrote: »

I fail to see how logging on at any given time can be called an "exploit"....

I didn't call logging on exploiting. I called making mage mercs invincible exploiting.

Grunt1012rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Okay J'Ualizz you are a disgrace to the Emperorship!
First up, when the EP "player base" arrived onto Goldbrand, it was a shared and stagnant server, no one any side did anything. Since we have arrived we have encountered a skilled DC player base, unlike the AD who sit in their keeps, Mage spamming until we capture the keep. The AD army only zerg, they are pathetic. We have captured a keep with only 2-3 pre-VR level people defending it. If you haven't noticed the DC are helping you people. Also with servers Goldbrand is the only EP held server, unlike Wabbajack and Auriel's Bow.

Personally I have seen you solo Zerg into 4 people and die. Instead of crying about us, get better, get better players or get the hell off Goldbrand! You are a disgrace to the leader board, YOU ARE THE TOP PLAYER! Learn to deal with it.

From Torvald Nom
Proud member of the Ebonheart Pact!

I'm not an emperor. I'm a former emperor. I'm also a squishy nightblade and I'm not set up to solo a group of 4 people, especially groups with healers and tanks. I don't see how not being able to take on an organized group of 4 people alone makes me a bad player.

As for getting better players, what do you think I'm doing? My guild doesn't play on goldbrand. They are busy elsewhere. I'll be homing with them the next campaign cycle. I'm not going to ragequit the campaign like so many other people have. That'll only make the problem worse. I'm not the sort to run to a AD-dominated server. Those are boring as hell.

As for zerging, are you nuts? The max I've seen for AD recently was probably 24 players. The last "zerg" I've seen was a guest zerg that left an hour after joining weeks ago.

Grunt1012rwb17_ESO

J'Ualizz you call us Exploiters. Yet every time we attack AD there are a ungodly amount of Mercenaries, don't be a hypocrite.

Avidus

I do not believe that anybody has any right to call anybody exploiters.
Since the merc mage spamming has been done by.. You guessed it! all 3 alliances.
Do not try to argue that.

So now that is made redundant, lets move to the next topic.

EP arrival!
Blame the closing of Scourge for that one, thats where we come from.
Also Night capping? That is a terrible accusation, because when i play, its night time for you, so does this mean I am not allowed to play? Or that I should play when its convenient for you, and not for me? Get real, don't be so inconsiderate.

Next on the list of things!
The imbalance? EP do not always have superior numbers, sometimes yes, but not all the time.
AD have no players, and the ones that do play do not have a lot of skill and die a lot.
DC, I enjoy fighting these DC players when there are no exploits being used, they have skill, they have numbers and they have strategy!

One thing playing as EP I do notice however.
AD or DC will log on, do some damage.
Then when our EP players are online and we fight back, as soon as we defend from AD, or attack, if we succeed the AD just leave. They don't try if they are losing, they just give up and leave.

DC on the other hand, they stick around and give some amazing battles.
Some pretty fun stuff happens there. But every successful move we make it seems that DC leave, until it comes down to the last keep for DC to protect to stop us getting Emperor. And they have 5 players left.

So to those 5 DC, thank you.
AD? pick up your game and stop crying.

AnteCoyote

I never use mercs. Ever. I don't have the AP for that. We spend most of our AP repairing since we have to push every day. I don't know who you're running into, or if you're just lying because I can't prove that I don't use them.

Avidus

AnteCoyote wrote: »

I never use mercs. Ever. I don't have the AP for that. We spend most of our AP repairing since we have to push every day. I don't know who you're running into, or if you're just lying because I can't prove that I don't use them.

You might not, but your buddies do.

AnteCoyote

I'm on most of the defenses and I've never seen anything like what you are describing. The burden of proof is on you.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Naming & Shaming]

InvictoNZ

This makes me laugh, you could swap the names of the alliances and the argument is still "true". (I am EP).

I spend all my time capturing DC keeps defended by hundreds of NPC. I personally log out at about midnight my time. If you don't like my timezone that is your problem, not ours.

This is extremely boring PvE. The PvP battles which break out between the agro ranges of Mercs is sometimes enjoyable. I would say about 90% of "PvP" happens with several invulnerable Mercs, and about 10% with just players. (that's being generous)

Had a lot of fun on Sunday with a huge group of 4-6 players defending against the entire AD zerg. Lucky I got that day in before the DK nerfs. Every tactic we used had a counter, you just chose not to.

Our leader did not let us use Caltrop while they were bugged. I have spawned a grand total of 10 mages ever and have another 10 in my bag the last time I looked.

By the way, the Templar is back, so if you see him approaching, run for you life, and hope he doesn't 1 shot you.

AnteCoyote

We can't counter everything without DKs. That's our fault, not yours. We're mostly a bunch of solo players who didn't really build ourselves up as a group, and AD's races tend to lend themselves best to nightblades and mages.

As for the AD zerg; lol? I wish we had one.

OtarTheMad

As soon as we in the AD found out about the mercs exploit we forbid people to use them. I can only speak of the guild I am in however and the times I was actually there for the attack/defense but we do not and will not allow exploiting in our guild.

I almost rolled on the floor laughing when someone mentioned the amazing Ad "zerg"... I would love to know where that is because we haven't had mass numbers in a very long time.

We in our guild do not condone exploiting which why when the caltrops exploit was found out we forbid guild members from using it, same now with mercs. We have seen on numerous occasions EP using them, one of you even admitted to someone else in our guild that you knew about the merc exploit and were going to use it.

The night capping is just sort of annoying but I understand that the timezone difference is a factor and that's not really anyone's fault. Maybe Zenimax should make a campaign that is for the Oceanic guys and those who are basically awake when we over here are asleep.

tmbandbuddy_ESO

Sup folks. First off, I'm Thalgorn in game, leader of the only AD guild on Goldbrand. Second, we didn't use the mage merc exploit, I made sure none of my guys did. Third, EP you're right, you are not always zerging, we do outnumber you at times. However during that time you chose to use the merc exploit like no other so we couldn't take keeps. This comes to an end only once your zerg is on. Whether or not you are using them personally isn't the point, your alliance as a whole is abusing it(I haven't seen DC or AD use it once since the exploit became clear).

And I'm with AnteCoyote. What AD Zerg? On a good day we have 16 people, an amazing day we might have 12. We managed to get a guild to guest in on saturday and probably had around 30 folks but it was worthless cause their was a billion invicible mage mercs being placed.

The night capping I'm fine with, but its the fact we can't capture anything. So many players have quit due to the abuse of the mage mercs, making it only harder. To add insult to injury, I've seen EP use mage mercs when they're not even close to being outnumbered. On top of that EP has their little tool bag with the 1 hit kill exploit, angering even more.

So to anyone reading this wanting a campaign we can hopefully turn around(Considering caltrops are fixed and the Mercs can no longer be purchased), feel free to message me in game @Thalgorn. And to the EP who know this post is about them, I sincerely hope you're banned

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Naming & Shaming]

Avidus

tmbandbuddy_ESO wrote: »

snip

I can't hear you all the way up there!!!

Seriously mate, Ive witnessed Merc Mage spam from all 3 Alliances, I know my guild will not use them unless they have been used against us.
You talk about how you cant capture keeps etc.
Well as EP we are constantly fighting DC and occasionally AD.
its usually a 2v1 battle of AD and DC vs EP.
On a good day we are outnumbered.

But seriously, you want to come on the forums and name and shame, that is against the rules, so lets face it, you have no trouble breaking the rules here, why should we believe that you don't do it in game?

Just because you lose to us, does not give you the right to come crying on the forums..

DC have dethroned us before, so let me ask you why AD deserves special treatment?
If they can do it, you can.

tmbandbuddy_ESO

I was not aware I was asking for special treatment? We're asking for more people to come on as we're drastically underpopulated compared to you Sherlock.

And yes on most days it is DC & AD vs EP because we can't get to each other in the first place Mr.Geography. And again, I have never seen anyone use the Merc Mage spam besides you guys. Not any of my guys, none of the DC, just y'all. We had some AD in last week using caltrops to dodge oil(Don't worry the mage mercs got them) and we reported those AD but that's all I've seen.

And now aren't you shaming me by accusing me of cheating in game because I broke a rule I didn't know existed in these forums? Some might call that hypocritical.

We didn't come to cry on the forums, we came to ask for help from other Dominion members on here, but it looks like you decided to come in here, throw your hands up in rage over because we're stating well known facts and because calling out one of the many EP exploiters is a sin against all in your book.

And also: "I know my guild will not use them unless they have been used against us.". So tell me why they we're being used at Bloodmayne the other day when we had no keeps, they we're throwing down mercs, because we obviously didn't use it first that time(Nor have we ever).

Finally: "Just because you lose to us, does not give you the right to come crying on the forums.." We(And DC from what they've told me) beat you in open battle every time when we have similar numbers on. However the second we attempt to take a keep, its merc after merc which wouldn't be so bad if they weren't invincible. So yes congrats I hope one day I can exploit as well as EP so I can win in a defense.

Now, why don't you quit crying about how everyone is against EP, how EP is so outnumbered, and how DC/AD are just a bunch of exploiters, when its quite to the contrary.

ZOS_JordanH

Greetings, all. This is a friendly reminder to keep all discussion polite, constructive, and in line with our Code of Conduct. Thank you.

SirAndy

Looks like it's time for The Naked Nords to have another outing on Goldbrand.

In case you haven't heard of us, we're the most dis-organized group of naked (duh!) EP players you'll ever run into.

No voice chat, no rules, no leader, no clue, easily distracted and generally confused.

SC0TY999

People, regardless of what faction you're in no one is to blame for the bugged mercs some just happen to have the bug when dispatched it's no exploit. Zenimax need to fix the bugged mercs! Anyhow saying that I do believe it's extremely unfair that the dominating faction are able to use them at a time when the considerably outnumber the other factions who are attacking. I keep sending reports in to ZoS stating that the game is desperate for population control / detection i.e. If one faction outnumbers the other then the use of mercs is prohibited. However ZoS don't appear to be listening or respond / address any of the issues we're all complaining about. Don't argue with each other! Direct your frustration at Zenimax who knows maybe they'll start to listen.

hammer_fella

The whole campaign is a bore period. At this point it's a fight for second place and I doubt anyone much cares the outcome.

- EP typically sweeps the map when it's undefended, then uses mercs and whatever other lame tactics/exploits they can, even when odds are usually already vastly in their favour. If the battle becomes even remotely competitive, a guest zerg arrives to save the day.

- DC occasionally farms emperor but promptly disappears and never defends what they've taken. Their core players seem content to troll AD when we siege EP more often than actually taking the map themselves, making it even easier for the map to stay red.

- AD has an unbeatable (former-)emperor and a completely apathetic player base that has mostly rage quit after repeated losses and overwhelming odds.

It's really a perfect microcosm for why ESO's PvP mechanics are ultimately a failure as is. There is absolutely no balance between strategic, small scale skirmishes and zerg tactics. There is essentially no individual reward for those in a losing alliance who have no hope of being emperor. And so people just stop playing or go to another campaign where there is a greater likelihood of success.

hammer_fella

Having said all that, as boring as Goldbrand is from an AD standpoint, it must be even worse from an EP POV. I mean, what could be more boring than being part of an unbeatable zerg with no real competition to speak of?

Avidus

I play on EP, and its quite fun playing against DC.
Today I played an entirely exploit free session. (I cant say if any exploits were used before I logged on.)
as EP we still won. Imagine that.
Our numbers were nothing spectacular. I was in a group that consisted of 12 people from 3 different guilds.
And I know we had another group with slightly less in it.
Which we do to avoid the rampant disconnects that plague their way through, at least this way we do not all disconnect!

We had some awesome open field battles, where DC pushed us back something fierce.
However EP ended up victorious over them through one simple reason.
Lack of coordination from a lot of the less skilled players, spreading too far and too thin, getting to eager and getting caught. which reduced their numbers in the field to the point we could overwhelm them.

Only once has EP on GB had a zerg force, and that was when Wabbajack died and we had them guest in. (uninvited.)
Which was funny because they fought head on with DC and took forever to achieve little.
While our organised force took on AD.

As for AD saying they only see EP use Mages, its probably because you are unable to cause DC enough stress to even think about it.
I can tell you now, I personally report anybody who knowingly exploits. The only exception is when an opposing alliance has done it to us.

Also this thread, look at the title. Its a clear message insulting the EP players on this campaign.
You discredit us out of rage.
You insult us for beating you.

I'm sorry, but I will not have my hard work and my countless hours (I am talking about 6 hour sieges of a single keep.)
dismissed as exploiting and night capping.
So sorry mate, but you need to learn how to play better.

tmbandbuddy_ESO

Allow me to explain myself,

I am not calling you as an individual an exploiter, I don't even know your in-game name so please stop taking it personally. But a lot of players on your alliance did use the Mage Merc exploit(And we are angry because some admitted to intentionally doing it for the invincible mercs).

Also, if you take a keep after 6 hours of siege, congrats its yours, you obviously earned it, but I am yet to see such an engagement on the AD side of things.

Plus, you are night capping!!!! I understand it is day for you, and I would do the same thing in your shoes, but when you look at things from our POV you see this: We spend all day fighting mage mercs and cap maybe 3 keeps with the 12-16 people we have, and then by the time you and your folks begin to get on we have anywhere from 5-8 people left defending against 20-30 EP. It is night capping none the less. I'm not saying you're bad people for night capping as you Oceanic players really don't have a choice. This weekend(When Wabba was not down) there was a 40-50 zerg of EP on. We resulted to hiding inside of Faregyl upstairs and recapping it once the EP had zerged in and taken it, then left(Which was quite fun/humorous).

As for this: "As for AD saying they only see EP use Mages, its probably because you are unable to cause DC enough stress to even think about it."

All I can really say to this is point out the fact we can't get to DC on the map. We are to busy spending our day trying to get Black Boot, Bloodmayne, and Faregyl while fighting mage mercs. We could barely get 12 people on to do that.

So on a final note, stop taking this all so personally. This post isn't about you as an individual it's to get AD on Goldbrand cause we need some. And yes there are some insults being thrown at EP because we have seen nothing but certain EP members exploiting for the past 2 weeks, but its to those exploiting! If you aren't exploiting, stop taking this so personally, it's not directed to you. There are plenty of EP I enjoy fighting(I even chat with a few every now and then), but there are also a few I would gladly see banned.

Krinaman

Thankfully caltrops and mages have been addressed.

But let's be real all sides had players doing it. It's just human nature to notice it being used against you. But I can assure you I fought wave after wave after wave of mages fighting EP just as I have seen DC players spawning waves of them.

I also can't blame EP for getting on when it's convenient for them nor for vastly outnumbering us. The only fix for that is ESO implementing some sort of population control like most MMOs have. Until that occurs maps will be completely dominated by whichever faction has the numbers. For Goldbrand that means EP right now.

The sad part is that these unbalanced playing fields drive players away. I see few players on our side each night with them logging out earlier each night.

mjspnrb18_ESO

Okay okay so...my in game name is Zazeer, I lead the EP on goldbrand and am the guild master of Guild of Shadows, I've been watching this thread since it was posted just shaking my head, firstly I would like to say to DC and AD players alike that yes it completely sucks to be you, you can be outnumbered at any stage of the day or night as I am able to access a large pool of EP players to call in, however in saying that I most often don't, I will fight you with 16 players most of the time, I often stay online for 1-2 1/2 days straight at a time and as such am able to keep a watchful eye. The exploiting I do not condone, I have never once allowed my guild to use caltrops, the mages I did not enjoy using and even had a temporary truce with DC where we didnt use them for a day, then DC got a keep and I went to take it back and was met with an uncountable army of bugged Mercs which took me several hours to fight through, at which point I announced to EP that the deal was off, also in open battle....yeah AD has never once beaten us lol! I farmed you for 3hrs straight in an open field, DC on the other hand is a good fight, I have respect for the DC on this campaign, however I do not intend to balance the campaign anytime soon as I have already done that before but Zenimax felt the need to delete the campaign I balanced and quite frankly I think I'll just have my buffs now. Hate me if you will, I've been in your position I know it sucks, if you manage to bring in some players from different time zones like I've got then your efforts may not be for nothing, good luck and may you bring your faction glory

Leaok

Multiple factors have made it more difficult for us to combat the EP zerg, to me the greatest factor has been AoE cap seconded by ultimate regen. Ganked Again used to handle numbers 2x-3x times greater than them by synergizing Ultis and AoEs. Now it is much much harder to deal with the numbers even when the opposing side is clearly not fighting coordinated at all. They just have to rush us and they will wear is down faster than we can wear them down.

DC has dropped merc we wont deny it. I assume the mercs were originally intended to help out a side that had a lower population. Which is in most cases how it is when EP and DC go against each other. Way more EP than DC.