[PODCAST] Dracast - Episode 6: The Bashening - How to adapt to change.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Hey Everyone,

After a long break Dracast is back for a new episode aiming to help groups and guilds who are trying to adapt to changes in new patches and fix problems in groups.
Please feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions for future topics.

https://youtu.be/tgOmN6zFhnA

I recommend also reviewing Episode 5 if you haven't watched it as it gives some ideas of the changes we'd like to see to Cyro and how to implement them.


About us:
Dracast is a podcast for the PVP Community with a focus on organised raid-style pvp.
We wanted to promote this style of gameplay (as you will hear in the podcast) because the level of such kind of group gameplay compared to numbers of solo / '1vX' style and faction groups is extremely low right now and has been for some time.
Many guilds have quit or are no longer competitive and fights are becoming more and more just one event on the map.
There are also a lot of misconceptions about how high level raids actually function and play and what impacts a raid.

Hopefully you enjoy this. If you have questions you would like us to discuss or any constructive feedback feel free to contact us.
If it doesn't interest you, no problem, it won't be for everyone.

Thanks to @Sanct16 for co-hosting this recent episode and @Rin_Senya, @Vilestride and @Ellwin for past episodes!


-Iza


Past Episodes 1-4

Dracast Episode 4: Leading 101
https://youtu.be/uVxcmvifqrs

Dracast Episode 3: How to train your dragons
https://youtu.be/qYAJ5Ev-NXM

Dracast Episode 2: A Trip down memory lane
https://youtu.be/dOkrrqp10bM


Dracast Episode 1: Groupaholics anonymous
https://youtu.be/95xyITTQ3S4

Episode 5 - Bring the fight back to Cyrodiil

Patchnotes: (Link for fullscreen here) - *See Video for explanation please*


Patchnotes Explained:
https://youtu.be/Y8Vd5mNL8EI

Image Regarding Scoring Evaluation Timer:

Kaeriz

What a creative way to foster a community. Kudos for such a positive addition.

Elong

Decent listen guys, nice to have some community love.

Regarding groups, zerg surfing etc etc.

I think there's a group of us who fit into a few categories, or perhaps a category of our own. It's also linked to why there's less and less leadership in factions. Some of us are just tired! We've been here since Beta, we've got the ranks, we've played with the top guilds, helped train new guilds, created guilds, spent countless days and weeks into campaigns.

I can't speak for everyone in this group of us, I can think of a couple of names, Agrippa for one, we care immensely about the faction and help in any way we can, but I think some of us have been there done that. The fact you guys still have the passion and fire to keep rolling is a credit to you.

Most nights now, I'm just happy to log in, troll zone chat, get EP's home keeps back and hopefully grab some AP and good fights at the same time

Vilestride

This was alot of fun to put together so I hope a few of you enjoy it.

@Elong I definitely can sympathize with what you are saying and honestly that feeling of getting burnt out is part of what made us do this. Whether it's a lost cause or not we need to try to get more people playing and learning and evolving with the game. Otherwise we will just keep heading down the same road.

Elong

Vilestride wrote: »

This was alot of fun to put together so I hope a few enjoy it.

@Elong I definitely can sympathize with what you are saying and honestly that feeling of getting burnt out is part of what made us do this. Whether it's a lost cause or not we need to try to get more people playing and learning and evolving with the game. Otherwise we will just keep heading down the same road.

I get ideas about starting up a guild, heavens knows we need one in our time slot, but it's a taxing thought at this stage, coupled with work projects I have on. Who knows, it might happen, there's a lot of potential in late night EP, they're a terrific bunch that work together with a bit of confidence.

Joy_Division

I wish you the best of luck with your project here.

The podcast raised a lot of important points, current issues facing guilds, and Cyrodiil in general. I'll share my observations from someone who has run in the sort of "hardcore" or serious guild whose goals were very much in line with your own.

• That guild (VE) is no longer. We disbanded once before. Then as no other decent game came out, we dedicated to reform and go hardcore again. Lasted about 3 months and it's pretty clear it's for good this time. We didn't break up because of internal rivalries or personality conflicts - we loved playing in a group together. The meta has been stale for too long, there aren't that many other organized guilds to fight, and it just got boring. Only so many times bomb-scatter-counterbomb with three ultimates dominating play is interesting. That's not burn-out, that's boring gameplay.
• The podcast mentioned there's toxicity toward the sort of organized raiding you're trying to promote. While I think there's going to be some condescension from other players who dislike that play-style, the terrible performance of ZoS's servers amplifies those negative feelings a thousandfold. Nobody likes getting zerged down. But it's really isn't a big deal as there's no penalty for dying. Just rez at waysrhine. But when the server performance goes down the toilet, there is a strong belief that the sort of things organized raids do (high concentration of players, continuous spamming of AoE abilities, many server calculations, etc) is a major contributing factor and that pisses people off and organized raid guilds take the brunt of peoples frustrations. How accurate that belief is is irrelevant because that's the perception and it sounds logical. What can we do here? Unfortunately nothing. ZoS is trying to run the game on the cheap and this problem will not go away.
• I don't know if this is the case for other MMOs, but toward the end of the podcast you hit on another important point: it's very hard to be a top-notched guild. Anyone who says skill doesn't matter in this game or that "stack on crown" guilds is easy-mode has no clue what they are talking about. Maybe in the game's beginnings it was different. Not now. Damage is so high and so fast, one mistake typically means wipe. There's hardly any margin for error and that's why the better guilds will trounce (not just beat) the less experienced, less skilled, less organized, less whatever and it's almost always a decisive if not flawless victory. It's got to be damn discouraging for non-hardcore guilds, even if they have some really good players, to be virtually beat before a fight begins.
• Adding to the difficulty of starting a guild now is the point @Elong raised. There are a lot of high ranked and skillful players who log in every night who just do our thing ("our" because I am now one of them). If there's anything approaching even numbers, even we "PuGs" stand a relatively decent chance of holding our own and maybe even winning against a non-hardcore guild. I don't know if this is because those guilds aren't very good or ESO gameplay mechanics require a very high level of organization to achieve actual group synergy. The number of active guilds that can roll a respectable opposing force of PuGs + players that Elong is describing is VERY small of PC NA.
• I think people want to play the class they like and feel like they are making a meaningful contribution. That's hard today. If I'm a DPS, then that means I'm a magicka NB. What if I want to play stam? You're stuck spamming rapid maneuvers. What's that you have a DK? Since you're a founding member, we'll grandfather your DK in for a Leap we can live with, but everyone else grind wardens. No tanks, go join a PvE trials guild! Because of the Champion System, ZoS's incessant nerfing, and the introduction of dubious OP gears sets, a lot of the legitimately interesting and unique things classes could offer a group are gone or is available elsewhere more efficiently. This has not only led to the problem mentioned in the podcast of players having to drop their builds to run what is deemed most efficient, but for all players and play-styles: nobody wants to play what they feel is an unnecessarily nerfed class and we lost a lot of Cyrodiil's player base because of this.

That's a lot of obstacles for an aspiring PvP guild. And we need ZoS's help to make Cyrodiil a dynamic place again. Unfortunately, their business model is Crown Store and new PvE content so that help is not forthcoming for the foreseeable future.

Vilestride

Joy_Division wrote: »

I wish you the best of luck with your project here.

The podcast raised a lot of important points, current issues facing guilds, and Cyrodiil in general. I'll share my observations from someone who has run in the sort of "hardcore" or serious guild whose goals were very much in line with your own.

• That guild (VE) is no longer. We disbanded once before. Then as no other decent game came out, we dedicated to reform and go hardcore again. Lasted about 3 months and it's pretty clear it's for good this time. We didn't break up because of internal rivalries or personality conflicts - we loved playing in a group together. The meta has been stale for too long, there aren't that many other organized guilds to fight, and it just got boring. Only so many times bomb-scatter-counterbomb with three ultimates dominating play is interesting. That's not burn-out, that's boring gameplay.
• The podcast mentioned there's toxicity toward the sort of organized raiding you're trying to promote. While I think there's going to be some condescension from other players who dislike that play-style, the terrible performance of ZoS's servers amplifies those negative feelings a thousandfold. Nobody likes getting zerged down. But it's really isn't a big deal as there's no penalty for dying. Just rez at waysrhine. But when the server performance goes down the toilet, there is a strong belief that the sort of things organized raids do (high concentration of players, continuous spamming of AoE abilities, many server calculations, etc) is a major contributing factor and that pisses people off and organized raid guilds take the brunt of peoples frustrations. How accurate that belief is is irrelevant because that's the perception and it sounds logical. What can we do here? Unfortunately nothing. ZoS is trying to run the game on the cheap and this problem will not go away.
• I don't know if this is the case for other MMOs, but toward the end of the podcast you hit on another important point: it's very hard to be a top-notched guild. Anyone who says skill doesn't matter in this game or that "stack on crown" guilds is easy-mode has no clue what they are talking about. Maybe in the game's beginnings it was different. Not now. Damage is so high and so fast, one mistake typically means wipe. There's hardly any margin for error and that's why the better guilds will trounce (not just beat) the less experienced, less skilled, less organized, less whatever and it's almost always a decisive if not flawless victory. It's got to be damn discouraging for non-hardcore guilds, even if they have some really good players, to be virtually beat before a fight begins.
• Adding to the difficulty of starting a guild now is the point @Elong raised. There are a lot of high ranked and skillful players who log in every night who just do our thing ("our" because I am now one of them). If there's anything approaching even numbers, even we "PuGs" stand a relatively decent chance of holding our own and maybe even winning against a non-hardcore guild. I don't know if this is because those guilds aren't very good or ESO gameplay mechanics require a very high level of organization to achieve actual group synergy. The number of active guilds that can roll a respectable opposing force of PuGs + players that Elong is describing is VERY small of PC NA.
• I think people want to play the class they like and feel like they are making a meaningful contribution. That's hard today. If I'm a DPS, then that means I'm a magicka NB. What if I want to play stam? You're stuck spamming rapid maneuvers. What's that you have a DK? Since you're a founding member, we'll grandfather your DK in for a Leap we can live with, but everyone else grind wardens. No tanks, go join a PvE trials guild! Because of the Champion System, ZoS's incessant nerfing, and the introduction of dubious OP gears sets, a lot of the legitimately interesting and unique things classes could offer a group are gone or is available elsewhere more efficiently. This has not only led to the problem mentioned in the podcast of players having to drop their builds to run what is deemed most efficient, but for all players and play-styles: nobody wants to play what they feel is an unnecessarily nerfed class and we lost a lot of Cyrodiil's player base because of this.

That's a lot of obstacles for an aspiring PvP guild. And we need ZoS's help to make Cyrodiil a dynamic place again. Unfortunately, their business model is Crown Store and new PvE content so that help is not forthcoming for the foreseeable future.

Well said. And I don't think there are many people playing the game anymore who would disagree with this. I just want to reiterate that all the balance issues within the meta are definitely not something we necessarily agree with despite participating in it. I think we would all love to see more viable build diversity and have all the classes offer something that is truly unique and valuable for group play. Balance is definitely something we want to talk about in future.

Kas

Tbh, I disagree with a lot of the sentiment around community perception and the claim that it's weird that people look down on "specialists". Imho it's not so much about specialization:

E.g., I regularly run in raid groups (though by far not exclusively and it's currently not my main focus) and when I do, I'll log/level/equip/slot whatever we need for the group and focus on my role. I have about many different class/set loadouts and I loved playing purge/encase bot for quite some time. Thus, I do not need to be sold on that idea.
However, everything combat realted in this game is fairly easy to learn and even moderately easy to master. From making your "one button group-play" as effective as possible to la-skill-bash weaving. It may take some time to master but never too much. What's FAR more difficult is decision making in terms of engage and disengage. It's crucial to all, solo play (especially without cloak or streak but even with it), small scale, and large raids.

Maybe one could say it's even most important for raids and thus there's alot of skill involved. I don't question this, but the thing is, that this decision making is distilled into one person. Sure, there are few situations where initiative by individual players still is important (e.g. quick ults when your group gets caught off-guard), but in general it is MUCH easier to become a part of a successful group than to successfully play on your own.

Thus, leaders deserve a lot of respect, but I really don't think that it is weird to not praise some random grand overlord who just logs in every night and goes with the flow.

Add to that, that some "follower-only" members seem to:
1) Apply to whatever guild is performing better than them
2) Love to talk in zone chat like they were actually leading a group
3) Never ever show up at duel spots, yet claim to be experts on PvP as a whole

Sure, leading isn't for everyone. I don't lead large groups, either. But I barely use zone chat, I don't sell my group's achievments as my own, and am very happy to take all solo/small scale challenges. I will continue laughing at / looking down on people who get 1v3'd as GO's -- no matter if they afk flipped bleakers during double AP or mindlessly follow their leader every night. That as little to do with rejecting specialization and a lot more with follow-only group members thingking of themselves as bigger fish then they are

Taonnor

I like your idea of the podcast. Thumbs up guys.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Thanks everyone for the feedback and support good to promote discussion and thoughts.

Kas wrote: »

I will continue laughing at / looking down on people who get 1v3'd as GO's -- no matter if they afk flipped bleakers during double AP or mindlessly follow their leader every night. That as little to do with rejecting specialization and a lot more with follow-only group members thingking of themselves as bigger fish then they are

Taking your example of a support mag sorc.
There are many ways to vastly improve your role in a raid aside from just "spamming one button". If someone dedicates to playing that role and masters it (I'm not talking about animation cancelling) they can make a huge impact.

You mentioned knowledge of when to engage disengage. Sure that is partly down to a group leader however in higher levels of raid pvp it's not just the leaders call. There is a huge amount of prediction and independence especially on sorc. But that's a topic for another time, perhaps a future episode.

As we said the game is healthiest when you have a wide mix of all players. GO is just an accumulation of points over time. Sure you might expect this player to be better but that is relative to your own level and their level. Maybe you can 1vX them and they could 1vX worse players. You should feel proud that you can beat them but perhaps "laughing and looking down on them" is a step too far? Especially if they have no interest in solo pvp and haven't built for it. I'm fairly sure anyone could kill my support sorc if I was running that gear open world (although I did kill a couple of players with negate and heavy attacks )
Equally often players are unwilling to go bring their raid to challenge that players raid and fight on their enemies term instead of on their own.

Equally, from the other side of the coin, players should respect achievement and not simply fall back on "cheats etc" instead striving to improve at all levels.

Biro123

I'm impressed you guys managed to do all that talking while also playing!! But then when you only press one button....

But joking aside.. You guys hit the nail on the head in saying that PVP is at its healthiest when all playstyles are involved. At the minute though, it isn't. Some organised groups are dominating because they don't have the competition. There either needs to be more (or less) of that particular style - because it does become bad for the game. Arguably that lack of competition results in the mega-zergs (but its probably more likely just the layout of Cyro, and the tendancy of people to rush to the nearest conflict).

I do think that a playstyle that revolves around farming as many people as absolutely possible is detrimental to the game as a whole. Yeah, I get that you're looking for a challenge/testing yourself etc. but at the end of the day - it's mostly just farming pugs. And when this aoe-centric game makes the organised groups into a rolling ball of death, the only option for anyone less organised it to simply avoid it.
Anything that makes people avoid combat or instantly die is bad for the game.

But it does astound me how many people will repeatedly run into that rolling ball of death in an unimportant location, while at the same time we're losing home-keeps to the pug groups.. People can get soo tunnel-visioned sometimes.
Honestly though, there's sometimes no choice. There are times when its been ZS at nickel, UF at Ales farm, and as a zerg surfer, its like, 'Who shall I get farmed by today?' Or is it the long ride to Alessia bridge instead... Sod it, Netflix.

I also hate the constant looking down on different playstyes whether pugs/zergs, whatever you want to call them, organised groups, zerg-surfers or gankers. Large-scale is where the core of the game should be. Whether that 'large-scale' comprises of a mix of all these doesn't matter as long as it happens.

Really I think what keeps the game at its healthiest (even though I do not partake in it) are pug groups. Most friendly to new players, likely to play the map, likely to start new attacks/sieges. Without anything starting, then there's nothing for a poor zerg-surfer like me to add on to!
Sadly though, these are the guys who are most looked-down on.

Publius_Scipio

Now I understand, all this time I have been battling people who have that European and Australian mentality. Hello!? Sneaky Pickle!? Where are you!?

MipMip

Really nice - repeating here what I wrote as a comment on Youtube: 'Wow!!! Really nice podcast, many thanks for creating this and for promoting organized group play! So many quotable statements... tempted to listen again and transcribe some of them And looking forward to the next one - yes some 'ESO history' will be very interesting, especially to someone like me who unfortunately missed out on the first years...'

And you have also managed to initiate an excellent discussion here!

pzschrek

There is a lot of wisdom here.

Since Sotha has collapsed at long last and I've been zerg-surfing or small-manning (which usually turns into zerg serfing) in Vivec, I've seen a bit more of the community and I think you can count on one hand the number of guilds that do this anymore, and to me, it's the highest form of PvP.

It's too bad. I started playing this in spring and I think group-synergy PvP is amazing, but to be honest I can't help but feel like I missed the train. I'm glad to see you're keeping the candle burning.

Vilestride

Biro123 wrote: »

I'm impressed you guys managed to do all that talking while also playing!! But then when you only press one button....

But joking aside.. You guys hit the nail on the head in saying that PVP is at its healthiest when all playstyles are involved. At the minute though, it isn't. Some organised groups are dominating because they don't have the competition. There either needs to be more (or less) of that particular style - because it does become bad for the game. Arguably that lack of competition results in the mega-zergs (but its probably more likely just the layout of Cyro, and the tendancy of people to rush to the nearest conflict).

I do think that a playstyle that revolves around farming as many people as absolutely possible is detrimental to the game as a whole. Yeah, I get that you're looking for a challenge/testing yourself etc. but at the end of the day - it's mostly just farming pugs. And when this aoe-centric game makes the organised groups into a rolling ball of death, the only option for anyone less organised it to simply avoid it.
Anything that makes people avoid combat or instantly die is bad for the game.

But it does astound me how many people will repeatedly run into that rolling ball of death in an unimportant location, while at the same time we're losing home-keeps to the pug groups.. People can get soo tunnel-visioned sometimes.
Honestly though, there's sometimes no choice. There are times when its been ZS at nickel, UF at Ales farm, and as a zerg surfer, its like, 'Who shall I get farmed by today?' Or is it the long ride to Alessia bridge instead... Sod it, Netflix.

I also hate the constant looking down on different playstyes whether pugs/zergs, whatever you want to call them, organised groups, zerg-surfers or gankers. Large-scale is where the core of the game should be. Whether that 'large-scale' comprises of a mix of all these doesn't matter as long as it happens.

Really I think what keeps the game at its healthiest (even though I do not partake in it) are pug groups. Most friendly to new players, likely to play the map, likely to start new attacks/sieges. Without anything starting, then there's nothing for a poor zerg-surfer like me to add on to!
Sadly though, these are the guys who are most looked-down on.

I understand what you're saying and I agree with alot of the sentiment. There are 2 points I want to make though regarding fighting pugs. First it's important that I think we'd all agree that the best fights and the fights any raid is looking for the most are not the fights against 50 pugs. It's the fights against the other large groups. In my opinion the best fights over the last few months are against guilds like fantasia and VE when they were playing. Hence the reason we want to help promote and grow more groups like this.

Secondly though farming pugs is far from exclusive to large raids. This is not an attack but the majority of good 1vX clips are built off the back of the same string then kill less experienced players gameplay. To add to that though sometimes it's unavoidable I mean we are all just playing. If people didn't engage on fights on the basis souly of competitive parity then there would be next to no action.

Biro123

Vilestride wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

I'm impressed you guys managed to do all that talking while also playing!! But then when you only press one button....

But joking aside.. You guys hit the nail on the head in saying that PVP is at its healthiest when all playstyles are involved. At the minute though, it isn't. Some organised groups are dominating because they don't have the competition. There either needs to be more (or less) of that particular style - because it does become bad for the game. Arguably that lack of competition results in the mega-zergs (but its probably more likely just the layout of Cyro, and the tendancy of people to rush to the nearest conflict).

I do think that a playstyle that revolves around farming as many people as absolutely possible is detrimental to the game as a whole. Yeah, I get that you're looking for a challenge/testing yourself etc. but at the end of the day - it's mostly just farming pugs. And when this aoe-centric game makes the organised groups into a rolling ball of death, the only option for anyone less organised it to simply avoid it.
Anything that makes people avoid combat or instantly die is bad for the game.

But it does astound me how many people will repeatedly run into that rolling ball of death in an unimportant location, while at the same time we're losing home-keeps to the pug groups.. People can get soo tunnel-visioned sometimes.
Honestly though, there's sometimes no choice. There are times when its been ZS at nickel, UF at Ales farm, and as a zerg surfer, its like, 'Who shall I get farmed by today?' Or is it the long ride to Alessia bridge instead... Sod it, Netflix.

I also hate the constant looking down on different playstyes whether pugs/zergs, whatever you want to call them, organised groups, zerg-surfers or gankers. Large-scale is where the core of the game should be. Whether that 'large-scale' comprises of a mix of all these doesn't matter as long as it happens.

Really I think what keeps the game at its healthiest (even though I do not partake in it) are pug groups. Most friendly to new players, likely to play the map, likely to start new attacks/sieges. Without anything starting, then there's nothing for a poor zerg-surfer like me to add on to!
Sadly though, these are the guys who are most looked-down on.

I understand what you're saying and I agree with alot of the sentiment. There are 2 points I want to make though regarding fighting pugs. First it's important that I think we'd all agree that the best fights and the fights any raid is looking for the most are not the fights against 50 pugs. It's the fights against the other large groups. In my opinion the best fights over the last few months are against guilds like fantasia and VE when they were playing. Hence the reason we want to help promote and grow more groups like this.

Secondly though farming pugs is far from exclusive to large raids. This is not an attack but the majority of good 1vX clips are built off the back of the same string then kill less experienced players gameplay. To add to that though sometimes it's unavoidable I mean we are all just playing. If people didn't engage on fights on the basis souly of competitive parity then there would be next to no action.

I get that, I really do. I know its about the challenge and I know how it goes that anyone can get stuck in a long combat (no matter what scale it is) and it will always grow as more people add to it. I also kind of think that if all the zerg-surfers and pugs learned to actually go elsewhere, then this playstyle could well die out unless you can find a good number of competitive opposition.

And yes, it isn't exclusive o large raids but the big difference with 1vx is that the pugs have a chance vs 1 :-)

(btw, since you guys touched on some terms in the vid, I'm gonna touch on 'pug'.. it seems its meaning has morphed a bit from the original 'pick-up-group' to also include anyone not grouped too - I'm pretty sure that over half of the 'pugs' that you farm are not grouped at all. Actually it would be kind of interesting to know what proportion of people usually run in organised/pug/small-scale/solo)

Anazasi

Joy_Division wrote: »

I wish you the best of luck with your project here.

The podcast raised a lot of important points, current issues facing guilds, and Cyrodiil in general. I'll share my observations from someone who has run in the sort of "hardcore" or serious guild whose goals were very much in line with your own.

• That guild (VE) is no longer. We disbanded once before. Then as no other decent game came out, we dedicated to reform and go hardcore again. Lasted about 3 months and it's pretty clear it's for good this time. We didn't break up because of internal rivalries or personality conflicts - we loved playing in a group together. The meta has been stale for too long, there aren't that many other organized guilds to fight, and it just got boring. Only so many times bomb-scatter-counterbomb with three ultimates dominating play is interesting. That's not burn-out, that's boring gameplay.
• The podcast mentioned there's toxicity toward the sort of organized raiding you're trying to promote. While I think there's going to be some condescension from other players who dislike that play-style, the terrible performance of ZoS's servers amplifies those negative feelings a thousandfold. Nobody likes getting zerged down. But it's really isn't a big deal as there's no penalty for dying. Just rez at waysrhine. But when the server performance goes down the toilet, there is a strong belief that the sort of things organized raids do (high concentration of players, continuous spamming of AoE abilities, many server calculations, etc) is a major contributing factor and that pisses people off and organized raid guilds take the brunt of peoples frustrations. How accurate that belief is is irrelevant because that's the perception and it sounds logical. What can we do here? Unfortunately nothing. ZoS is trying to run the game on the cheap and this problem will not go away.
• I don't know if this is the case for other MMOs, but toward the end of the podcast you hit on another important point: it's very hard to be a top-notched guild. Anyone who says skill doesn't matter in this game or that "stack on crown" guilds is easy-mode has no clue what they are talking about. Maybe in the game's beginnings it was different. Not now. Damage is so high and so fast, one mistake typically means wipe. There's hardly any margin for error and that's why the better guilds will trounce (not just beat) the less experienced, less skilled, less organized, less whatever and it's almost always a decisive if not flawless victory. It's got to be damn discouraging for non-hardcore guilds, even if they have some really good players, to be virtually beat before a fight begins.
• Adding to the difficulty of starting a guild now is the point @Elong raised. There are a lot of high ranked and skillful players who log in every night who just do our thing ("our" because I am now one of them). If there's anything approaching even numbers, even we "PuGs" stand a relatively decent chance of holding our own and maybe even winning against a non-hardcore guild. I don't know if this is because those guilds aren't very good or ESO gameplay mechanics require a very high level of organization to achieve actual group synergy. The number of active guilds that can roll a respectable opposing force of PuGs + players that Elong is describing is VERY small of PC NA.
• I think people want to play the class they like and feel like they are making a meaningful contribution. That's hard today. If I'm a DPS, then that means I'm a magicka NB. What if I want to play stam? You're stuck spamming rapid maneuvers. What's that you have a DK? Since you're a founding member, we'll grandfather your DK in for a Leap we can live with, but everyone else grind wardens. No tanks, go join a PvE trials guild! Because of the Champion System, ZoS's incessant nerfing, and the introduction of dubious OP gears sets, a lot of the legitimately interesting and unique things classes could offer a group are gone or is available elsewhere more efficiently. This has not only led to the problem mentioned in the podcast of players having to drop their builds to run what is deemed most efficient, but for all players and play-styles: nobody wants to play what they feel is an unnecessarily nerfed class and we lost a lot of Cyrodiil's player base because of this.

That's a lot of obstacles for an aspiring PvP guild. And we need ZoS's help to make Cyrodiil a dynamic place again. Unfortunately, their business model is Crown Store and new PvE content so that help is not forthcoming for the foreseeable future.

All of your points are valid, But DK has met each challenge and has managed to survive in fact thrive more in the current environment. We never set out to be the best, we simply play well together and have fun. It's really not that hard once you understand the gaming community.

pzschrek

Vilestride wrote: »

btw, since you guys touched on some terms in the vid, I'm gonna touch on 'pug'

I think at this point "pug" basically means "Anyone who is not in my group."

AyelineESO

pzschrek wrote: »

Vilestride wrote: »

btw, since you guys touched on some terms in the vid, I'm gonna touch on 'pug'

I think at this point "pug" basically means "Anyone who is not in my group."

for me a "pug" is a player that has no pvp guild and runs in a pug or just follows the zerg (without group). I know pug means Pick Up Group but since most players that are not in an organized guild play kinda like those Pick Up Groups, I just call them pugs anyway. Everything unorganized is a pug for me imo.

Biro123

Gotta love those pugs..:

NirnStorm

Great podcast @Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO and Dracarys. Loved the idea!
I hope it can help more guilds and groups of this type return to Cyrodiil again!

Ghostbane

Interesting. Look forward to the next one.

Vilestride

HaroniNDeorum

I think is a great idea this podcast and also i appreciate your effort to do it. Sometimes the community seems to be in a limbo and projects like this are really helpful to share experiences and make a connection between new players and veterans.

Probably you must not show a fight because couple times i got distracted by the battles instead of listen all ideas and comunication between you guy, but maybe it`s just personal due to i love medium group pvp too.

CP, skil lines variety, addons and other stuff are good ideas for future podcast I hope you guys keep doing it!

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Hey All,

Episode 2 up, let us know your thoughts and memories of early ESO and how it is now.
https://youtu.be/dOkrrqp10bM

Vilestride

As illustrated by the first part of the background clip the worst thing to happen to cyrodil was the extinction of the deer population.

Etaniel

Good initiative

InvitationNotFound

hmmm was expecting crap , surprisingly it wasn't. at least the first video. haven't had time for the second. maybe later today.

anyway, what kind of fancy compass did i saw in the first video? looks awesome (maybe you should take a look at something i've recently released as well^^)

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

hmmm was expecting crap , surprisingly it wasn't. at least the first video. haven't had time for the second. maybe later today.

anyway, what kind of fancy compass did i saw in the first video? looks awesome (maybe you should take a look at something i've recently released as well^^)

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it
I'm already using your compass addon

Derra

And now for the next podcast: Why do you think people do not bother to create/manage a guild capable of doing large group pvp?

Joy_Division

Derra wrote: »

And now for the next podcast: Why do you think people do not bother to create/manage a guild capable of doing large group pvp?

Don't think a video is needed for that.

• Poor performance (lag, loadscreens, disconnects, etc.) drives away too many core members
• Group compositions are overly narrow and boring, i.e. low number of viable builds
• Little variety / boring gameplay (just bomb with destro/sleets/negate or move out of the way)

To that can add lack of incentive for winning campaigns, not many opposing guilds to fight in the first place, and to be a strong/impactful guild takes a lot of experienced players. Lot of factors. It's just easier and usually more fun to do something else.