Adding events in Cyrodiil?

tinythinker

Was thinking after reading these threads:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/486868/would-you-care-about-winning-campaigns-if-zos-improved-rewards-and-competitive-balance

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/485722/i-want-an-end-to-the-alliance-war

And wasn't sure which to place this under, so I started a new thread

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So no matter what I write, someone will post "nothing new until lag is fixed", but as I've written before, waiting for that is pointless. Maybe the new agenda that was announced for improving performance will work out well, maybe not. But this is about the concept of Cyrodiil, what would (assuming performance allows) make it more fun, especially with so many players having done the same thing over and over and over. They've made capturable towns and added new outposts, even some Hammer.

But from what I've read/heard from players over the years and my own experience, there seems to be a missing middle ground. To allow a sense of accomplishment and payoff come faster and to reset the scores more often, we went from 90 days campaigns to 30 days and then 7 day campaigns were added in. OK. But still, either you and your group are doing your own thing or you are doing the same "capture resources for points" and painting keeps blue, red, or yellow. Which is fine. But again, if that loses some luster, the other payoff doesn't hit until the end of the campaign. And not everyone is so impressed with that payoff. Especially if their faction is an underdog.

Many people (myself included) have written about improving faction pride, making it harder and worthwhile to PvDoor during deeply low pop hours, etc. Which of course would also help! I can link to that stuff anytime...

SKIP HERE IF SKIMMING: Yet, what about something in between the challenge/reward loot of capturing a keep and winning a campaign?

This is where events come in.

I don't have a particular favorite way to implement them, but here are some broad outlines I would personally endorse:

• some for all factions/some faction specific (to address pop imbalances and gap between campaign scores between factions)
• limited time (to encourage immediate response)
• pop based (some events might pop up less frequently or not at all based on overall pop levels and pop balance between factions, or rewards might change)
• randomly generated (within a framework, so you'll see the parameters after you've witnessed several events)
• locations can spawn all over map
• variety of rewards (nice piece of gear or crafting materials, large bag of gold, big AP haul or a buff to earning AP, Cyro specific buffs like more damage with siege, unique siege like another variety of cold fire, points that are directly added to campaign total for your faction, etc.)

End of campaign rewards could be buffed a bit to make sure these event's "medium" rewards are good enough to do events for their own sake and also to encourage chasing event rewards to help win the campaign.

So, let's say AD has only 1 bar, EP is almost full, and DC is pop locked. Maybe AD gets a faction-specific event in their territory (only they would see the notification). During low pop hours, there may be fewer events with weaker rewards. Or good rewards but of a different nature. This doesn't solve everything, but it means each faction always has something to do to get a reward and something to do to boost their chances of winning the campaign. Factions with larger pops and a big lead might get fewer faction specific events but have an advantage on the all-faction events. Or they might get a shot at rewards for being in a comfortable lead but not things that would more directly increase their lead.

As for the nature of events, there are tons of possibilities, of which I list only a very, very few:

• capture the spy (NPC with cc immunity and fast speed trying to flee your home gate to enemy territory)
• capture/defend the caravan (basically a mobile flag, with a big pop or big lead faction defending a caravan against other two factions)
• liberate the town (a capturable town has been taken by one of many fourth factions - think of the NPC factions in Cyro like Imperials, bandit groups, etc.)
• rescue NPC troops behind enemy lines
• etc., etc.

I'm sure others can come up with many more ideas.

Other events could be added to IC as well to spice it up as well.

And that's it. That's the basic concept with a few random examples tossed in for illustration purposes.