...Was Cyrodiil Worth It?

psychotrip

Not making this a poll since this is a complicated question.

So I obviously have my own opinions on why the game is in the state its in (which I'll spare you from in this post) but one issue you all keep bringing up is Cyrodiil itself.


I've been lurking through these discussions, and I've noticed a trend in the complaints. More than a few posters suggest that the mechanical issues facing ESO are caused, in large part, by Cyrodiil. Specifically the need to "balance" pvp in Cyrodiil, or even just to reduce the incessant lag for which it's become infamous.

In light of this I have to ask: was centering the entire game around a 3 way faction war in the empire's largest province a good idea? Has it been worth it?

Rewind to 2014. Is this what people wanted from an Elder Scrolls MMO? Is this, by and large, what the fanbase was begging for? Personally, I was just kind of confused by the decision.

And yet, everything else in the game, from the factions, to the story, to the starter zones, was built around this feature.

Fast forward to 2022. Cyrodiil's lag is legendary, entire playstyles feel useless, it's hard for new players to integrate, it barely feels like a factor in the story, and yet the game is still being balanced around this massive pvp mode that no one asked for.

That last bit may be a little harsh, as I know Cyrodiil has its fans, but if ZOS cant balance this mode, or even get it working sometimes, then all I can do is sit and wonder why they thought this is what an Elder Scrolls MMO needed in the first place, instead of focusing on more thematically appropriate features.

For me anyway, Cyrodiil has become this game's original sin. I would've been happy with arena pvp and some specific, lore-appropriate battlegrounds. Instead they pushed the franchise in a direction no one asked for, contriving 3 factions that barely make sense to fight over some generic farmland, and they didn't even do it well.

But that's just my opinion, from a primarily pve player, who would pvp more often were it not for Cyrodiil. What do you think?

Casul

I have played both content types since about 2015. Is it worth it? Yes, without PvP and Cyrodiil I would not have an endgame. After having gone through every quest in the game, achieving my goals for early high end PvE. I am left with only one thing that can give me a constantly changing, ever adapting challenge. Another real player.

The only thing keeping me playing this game (almost threw in the towel permanently in January) is the excitement I get from a well fought PvP match.

One thing you need to keep in mind is PvP does not get new content often. If my memory serves me, the last update was Murkmire. Thus the only thing to keep the gears moving is new armor, which needs to be balanced if it is too weak or strong.

PvE gets the majority of the content, which is fine by me, I just want Cyrodiil to work and keep working for more build diversity and balance (never 100% achievable but we can target the outliers). And while I understand the this balance comes at an impact to PvE. This is the boat we are in and we should not try to sink it. I don't hate you for getting content, you don't hate me for balancing changes.

Four_Fingers

Yes, a lot of us would never have played ESO if it were not for Cyrodiil PvP.

Didgerion

I like Cyrodiil. I spend 95% of may playtime in there.

VaranisArano

I mean, much to my surprise as a player who came here from Skyrim, I wound up loving Cyrodiil's PVP.

There's not really a lot of other places that I can get large battles where I'm working with 24 teammates to siege open a keep, supported by 60+ random and guild players on my alliance to depose an Emperor supported by two raids of their own, and there's probably a raid of the third faction hitting the other side of the keep to make sure that the Emperor goes down. Meanwhile, we're all keeping a nervous eye on the map because we know that the Emperor has a third raid fighting to recapture a different ring keep and so we have to take the flags on this one fast. It was a narrow, clutch victory.

I could tell dozens of stories like that of battles that were as meaningful to us as a hard trial clear or a dungeon run with good friends. In Cyrodiil, ZOS doesn't tell the stories of the war: we do, night after night, day after day.

Well, sadly, I can't have that sort of Cyrodiil anymore. No more 24 player raids, and my guild has moved on due to years of poor performance.

But I will say that my ESO journey has been greatly enriched by Cyrodiil's PVP and the players I met, played alongside, and fought against.

And even from a purely PVE roleplaying perspective, Pact Captain Varanis Arano would've never existed without the war in Cyrodiil. Even when I was a PVE-only player, her backstory was always a Pact Captain who got killed by Manninarco, and her story is that of the Pact Hero. It was a surprisingly proud moment when I'd PVPed enough to actually earn her proper title.

So yeah, Cyrodiil was worth it for me. I'd be a very different player without it and arguably a different person, thanks to the friends I've made and positive experiences I've had in Cyrodiil.

OBJnoob

The game is not balanced for PvP or pve its balanced for balance. Between skill and skill and class and class. Sometimes PvP is the first to highlight something out of balance and sometimes pve is. Neither is more important than the other and so yes, it is worth it, because its what the game is so they need to keep it working.

psychotrip

Loving this response so far. So, the people above definitely still enjoy Cyrodiil. I'm fine being in the minority here, as I'm mostly just curious where the community is at large.

So in light of that, how do you view cyrodiil from a performance standpoint? I noticed some folks claiming that some of the patch changes may be an attempt to improve stability in Cyrodiil. Do you think theres any truth to that? I dont know much about that sort of thing myself. I cant tell if its just baseless speculation or if its a real possibility.

Keep the responses coming. Like I said, I like to see what the community thinks about this stuff, even if I'm personally just sick and tired of Cyrodiil. I kinda wish we had some new, different pvp content, but that's just me ;P

Indigogo

I would have left this game years ago and not spent thousands of dollars on it, had I not got addicted to Cyrodiil.
It's the only thing that keeps me playing. I love it so much that I put up with lag, crashes, horrendous performance...
Because when it's good, it's the most fun I've ever had on a game.

Firstmep

It's not like Cyrodiil has the monopoly on bad balance or even bad performance.
The game was originally sold to us as 3 way faction endgame type of deal.
Hell, trials weren't even thing back then.
We had, Adventure zones and dungeons.
The game came a long way since, and frankly anyone who thinks pvp is holding this game back is massively mistaken.
U35 is the perfect example, where the vast majority of changes were purely pve driven. I am not saying this go spite pve players, I participate in pretty much all content myself after all.
It's just a fact.

Casul

psychotrip wrote: »

Loving this response so far. So, the people above definitely still enjoy Cyrodiil. I'm fine being in the minority here, as I'm mostly just curious where the community is at large.

So in light of that, how do you view cyrodiil from a performance standpoint? I noticed some folks claiming that some of the patch changes may be an attempt to improve stability in Cyrodiil. Do you think theres any truth to that? I dont know much about that sort of thing myself. I cant tell if its just baseless speculation or if its a real possibility.

Keep the responses coming. Like I said, I like to see what the community thinks about this stuff, even if I'm personally just sick and tired of Cyrodiil. I kinda wish we had some new, different pvp content, but that's just me ;P

Personally playing on NA/PS4 and NA/PC. Console is bad still, but PC has been very smooth. I only crashed one time during MYM, and it was an internet crash not a game crash.

I wouldn't mind 6v6 BG.

Edit: and PVP zones in our houses.

p4l4mu7

Why pve player can never respect pvp, Cyrodiil is like another game by itself there isn't a single other content in this game you can put so much time and still enjoy. Open world pvp didn't get any dlc since Imperial City yet I know people that have been playing pvp in Cyrodiil since 2015,
You may get in Cyrodiil instantly get killed by another player and think this is a terrible content but this game has a massive community exclusively playing pvp outside of farming sets for pvp.
You have an entire continent in front of you as a pve player and yet you still complain that pvp players have a single map of their own.

Vevvev

If there wasn't going to be open world PvP in any form I wouldn't be here. I'd be playing the single player TES games or something else tbh. I didn't care in which form it took as long as it was a TES with an open world PvP component.

Holycannoli

Yes it was. It worked very well in DAOC and ESO's version was like DAOC's on crack.

IC too was like DAOC's Darkness Falls. Remember when you couldn't enter IC unless your faction owned the inner keeps?

It's good that the game evolved beyond those early days, but it also became so bloated with sets and procs and all these things that have to be calculated now that the game performance suffers.

Oakenaxe

Indigogo wrote: »

I would have left this game years ago and not spent thousands of dollars on it, had I not got addicted to Cyrodiil.
It's the only thing that keeps me playing. I love it so much that I put up with lag, crashes, horrendous performance...
Because when it's good, it's the most fun I've ever had on a game.

I second this, Cyrodiil is what keeps me in this game. The most fun I had since the beggining of Aion, which had a similar PvP style of sieging, capturing castles and resources, claiming them for your guild, etc. That was the most fun I've ever had in MMOs... imagine a 3 layered Cyrodiil where you can fly and PvP in mid-air as well. A concept that I loved there was the existence of a NPC faction that would keep things balanced. This third NPC faction would attack the castles sometimes, usually focusing the player faction that had most control over the map, keeping this balanced. Instead of flags, to flip a keep you had to defeat a boss that was inside, in the "basement", and it took lots of players, they were like raid bosses. Man, the memories :´)

Tandor

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Yes, a lot of us would never have played ESO if it were not for Cyrodiil PvP.

While many more of us would never have played it if had truly always been marketed as a PvP-centred game as some claim. The back of the original box makes it clear that wasn't the case, while the two things that really have bedevilled the game since then have been both the performance issues in Cyrodiil and the lack of balancing separation between PvP and PvE. ZOS seem to be working with some success now on the former, it's time they addressed the latter.

Dawnblade

Cyrodiil gets a bad rap - some just for being a PVP zone, though some are also on the developers.

PVP should be balanced separately from PVE, though how much or to what degree is debateable. That the developers continue to make sweeping changes in everything from skills to sets based on their over / under performance in one area of the game that then negatively affect the other is an utter failure on their part.

I should state that I don't care for Cyrodiil as it is, I prefer balanced (both numbers-wise and character power-wise) PVP modes with smaller scale (though not necessarily as small as current ESO BGs) with time / win condition boundaries. A giant map with no win condition with no semblance of balance with PvDoor and PvWall just doesn't interest me.

That said, many people seem to enjoy it and I don't hate it so much that I've never spent time there, and as evergreen content that requires minimal updates, it's probably pretty good for the game to have such a zone.

Of course, that doesn't change my opinion on their abysmal performance in balancing aspects of the game where it seems to be standard practice to make changes that cause a lot of angst by making a 'fix' for one area only to bork up the other.

kargen27

"More than a few posters suggest that the mechanical issues facing ESO are caused, in large part, by Cyrodiil. Specifically the need to "balance" pvp in Cyrodiil"

I disagree with this premise. The biggest changes to the game have been made to compensate for power creep. ZoS doesn't like that some groups can burn through new hard mode content sometimes within hours of release. They also have shown concern that players could just push DPS to skip mechanics.

"Fast forward to 2022. Cyrodiil's lag is legendary, entire playstyles feel useless, it's hard for new players to integrate, it barely feels like a factor in the story, and yet the game is still being balanced around this massive pvp mode that no one asked for."

I don't believe this to be true at all. Again most the really big changes have been made to reel in power creep. Edited to add it can be hard for new players to integrate but I'm thinking that is more a player problem than a game problem. THe established PvPr's sometimes are not as helpful as we can be. Dropping group size to twelve makes it much harder though to include players new to PvP.

Performance in Cyrodiil took a big hit when calculations had to be moved server side to combat cheat engine. Performance still hasn't recovered from that but I do believe ZoS is trying to improve performance. Cyrodiil can still be a blast to play though and is better than it was a couple of years ago. Improvements have been made.
Imperial City is all kinds of fun during PvP events. I would like to see some changes made there to bring back the huge battles we had before the districts all got flags.

FluffWit

You take out the large scale open world pvp that's completely separated from 99% of the pve content and I prolly woulda got bored and quit 5 years ago.

For me it's the end game. It's not perfect but theres nothing else like it on console.

Raammzzaa

Yes, no question. Other MMOs include raids, dungeons, and overland content. The large scale multi-factor combat of ESO is fairly unique outside of e.g. DAoC a title which ESO is viewed by many as the spiritual successor of, and clearly attracts players and keeps us coming back. In no small part, I think a lot of the reason ESO is still going strong is that it has so little competition among other Western MMOs in that way.

MEBengalsFan2001

I started off in PVE and left the game because it got boring. I did all type of content from open world exploring, dungeons, vet dungeons, trial, and vet trials.

I do like trials and dungeons but I got bored with them. Having played other MMO games, this game PVP is really well thought out and is actually why I came back. I almost didn't return to ESO but after 3 months of my friend bothering me daily to join a PVP guild and play again I did and the only regret I have is I actually don't have the time I use to have to play the game. In fact, looking back, I wish I would have gone into PVP sooner.

I believe PVP can be fixed and improved upon.

EnerG

I am a pve player, but a casual pvp enjoyed, my issue is when pve sets become used in pvp they tend to get nerfed very badly, while pvp sets really find no footing in pve spaces.

Zos needs to start balancing sets with "while under the effects of battle spirit all effects of a set are 15% less effective" or some other number that makes that set more balanced for pvp.

Or even "while under the effects of battle spirit 5set piece bonus has a 40 second cooldown" instead of 10

Stuff like this, easy blanket effects that directly alter a sets numbers while in pvp so that it's not causing much additional lag checking for different values.

Saucy_Jack

kargen27 wrote: »

I disagree with this premise. The biggest changes to the game have been made to compensate for power creep. ZoS doesn't like that some groups can burn through new hard mode content sometimes within hours of release.

The reason they "burn through new hard mode content sometimes within hours of release" is because they spend weeks/months on the PTS practicing for the speedrun/hardmode achievements for when it DOES drop, so of course when it actually goes live it's only going to take a couple of hours to blow through it.

Czeri

To me it seems like Elder Scrolls players, i.e. people enjoying the solo RPG experience of the Elder Scrolls games are hardly the ideal audience for PvP, so no, I don't think centering the game on the three banners war made any sense. Luckily it has been easy enough to ignore those parts of the game.

I do hate the nerfs designed to "balance" PvP, though, so would be quite happy if the war was brought to an end like the High Isle main quest suggests it might.

baltic1284

psychotrip wrote: »

Not making this a poll since this is a complicated question.

So I obviously have my own opinions on why the game is in the state its in (which I'll spare you from in this post) but one issue you all keep bringing up is Cyrodiil itself.


I've been lurking through these discussions, and I've noticed a trend in the complaints. More than a few posters suggest that the mechanical issues facing ESO are caused, in large part, by Cyrodiil. Specifically the need to "balance" pvp in Cyrodiil, or even just to reduce the incessant lag for which it's become infamous.

In light of this I have to ask: was centering the entire game around a 3 way faction war in the empire's largest province a good idea? Has it been worth it?

Rewind to 2014. Is this what people wanted from an Elder Scrolls MMO? Is this, by and large, what the fanbase was begging for? Personally, I was just kind of confused by the decision.

And yet, everything else in the game, from the factions, to the story, to the starter zones, was built around this feature.

Fast forward to 2022. Cyrodiil's lag is legendary, entire playstyles feel useless, it's hard for new players to integrate, it barely feels like a factor in the story, and yet the game is still being balanced around this massive pvp mode that no one asked for.

That last bit may be a little harsh, as I know Cyrodiil has its fans, but if ZOS cant balance this mode, or even get it working sometimes, then all I can do is sit and wonder why they thought this is what an Elder Scrolls MMO needed in the first place, instead of focusing on more thematically appropriate features.

For me anyway, Cyrodiil has become this game's original sin. I would've been happy with arena pvp and some specific, lore-appropriate battlegrounds. Instead they pushed the franchise in a direction no one asked for, contriving 3 factions that barely make sense to fight over some generic farmland, and they didn't even do it well.

But that's just my opinion, from a primarily pve player, who would pvp more often were it not for Cyrodiil. What do you think?

you do bring up some good points on the Cyrodiil, when they did announce that it was going to be in the game the faction system worked if you were locked into a faction period, thing is they changed it to where you could be any race in any faction completely destroying the point of having a PVP zone.
Many new player dont do much PVP anymore for mainly two reason the biggest is the performance of it dont get me wrong on that the other is the PVP community itself, generally becoming so toxic towards the new player trying it out and so on that most just walk away from it and. call it a day, if the community itself would stop being toxic and be more understanding of others in the game then that would be one less thing driving players away from PVP.
IS Cyrodill worth what it has done to the game in general and overall, I have to say no it isn't worth it at all, what you can get from PVP you can do as you said in Arena matches that are for PVP only, make Cyrodill a PVE zone and move on for the missions and lore and dungeons and such. What i do find funny is that the PVP cry and complain about PVE in Cyrodiil and the Imperial City but they are always PVPing in the PVE zones which i do find humorous.
No im not tyring to break rules or anything just stating what i see as the issues.

deleted221205-002626

psychotrip wrote: »

Not making this a poll since this is a complicated question.

In light of this I have to ask: was centering the entire game around a 3 way faction war in the empire's largest province a good idea? Has it been worth it?

Rewind to 2014. Is this what people wanted from an Elder Scrolls MMO? Is this, by and large, what the fanbase was begging for? Personally, I was just kind of confused by the decision.

And yet, everything else in the game, from the factions, to the story, to the starter zones, was built around this feature.

The LARGE SCALE PVP is one of the primary selling features on the brochure at the time and the kewlest feature!

IMO it still is!

ZOS just needs to focus more on mechanics and sets for pve instead of skyrocketing dps so it has to be nerfed back down and sets disabled for pvp.. Rebalance everything so all works everywhere the same way and adjust mob hp etc to match.

TechMaybeHic

Cyrodiil is what makes the game not just another run of the mill MMO with Elder Scrolls skin. Really, you can do arenas or battlegrounds practically in every MMO. Same for dungeons and raids.

And if argue a lot of this stuff is not balanced around PvP. This DOT and weaving tweak stuff is completely despite of where they stand in PvP rather than because of it.

chessalavakia_ESO

No, it didn't fit with the game's economic situation.


DAOC was a niche game which worked quite well because it was relatively cheap to make.

ESO on other hand was built at massive expanse with an IP who's audience slanted towards single player games.

Copying DAOC in ESO's situation was stupid because the design simply doesn't pull enough players to cover costs in a timely manner.

I'd argue most of the reasons ESO isn't more successful are due to early choices to try more niche approaches that simply don't work well for larger audiences.

TheGreatBlackBear

As it stands now it’s a waste of important TES zones tbh.And the source of most of the game’s woes. If the devs were to do it over again I’m fairly certain there’d be no Cyrodiil as a PVP zone. Stories like the ones above are cute and all but they’re outliers. For every happy memory there probably a 100 or more ones of frustration.

Agenericname

Saucy_Jack wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

I disagree with this premise. The biggest changes to the game have been made to compensate for power creep. ZoS doesn't like that some groups can burn through new hard mode content sometimes within hours of release.

The reason they "burn through new hard mode content sometimes within hours of release" is because they spend weeks/months on the PTS practicing for the speedrun/hardmode achievements for when it DOES drop, so of course when it actually goes live it's only going to take a couple of hours to blow through it.

That depends on what the content is. For trials, yes, they spend a lot of time practicing. For dungeons, it isnt nearly that much time. Blackdrake Villa, The Cauldron, and Red Petal Bastion we cleared blind, on hard mode, the day we tried them without ever having seen them on the PTS.

Average groups aren't beating the new trial HMs within hours, even if they were on the PTS, so I kind of assume that comment was taking the DLC dungeons into account.

ZOS sees this. In the past they have removed/reduced difficulty based on what they saw. So Im sure that it has some influence over their balance decisions, but I'd be guessing at how much.

As for Cyrodiil, yes, definitely worth it. Ive had a lot of fun there. Its unique and fun, though I spend a lot less time there these days.

I really dont put much stock into the pvp vs pve balance thing. Changes were coming one way or the other. I think people just look for something or someone to blame sometimes. Even Oakensoul cant be laid at the feet of PvP balance. Before it was ever released they had the data that showed how that would play out. Predictably it played out like that. Then, after everyone bought and farmed, it was predictably nerfed.

Any anger at the PvP community over that seems a little misplaced to me. Its unfortunate, because something like that could be good, if not great, but Im not sure this was ever going to end any other way.

MidniteOwl1913

I don't understand why what is a fraction of content gets so much "balance".

I think the areas should be completely separate. With different rules for each suited to the different purposes of each.
ZOS is trying to make both happy and failing.

In PVE no one (or mostly no one) complains if you and your build are great at killing monsters. In PVP other players are the monsters and they object if they think you and your build is unfairly killing them. I don't know how that can be balanced. It has an inherent conflict.

Ratzkifal

Yes, absolutely worth it. The PvP experience at launch was absolutely amazing. I think an Elder Scrolls MMO could have been done without having factions like this, but ESO was the biggest opportunity to give us something that no single-player game could have but a lot of us have always wanted - which is massive battles. You read about the war between the Empire and Dominion and how the Imperial City was taken and then you compare it to the battle of Whiterun. ESO promised to deliver on that and it succeeded. It also was a great premise for the story.

Sadly ZOS dropped the ball by not building future-proof hardware so the upgrade process turned out to be a nightmare that they only ended up tackling now. So performance went bad. The other issue was that the factions sort of lost all relevance story-wise and remained poorly fleshed out. And then ZOS also started neglecting PvP content-wise and reward-wise. So while it was a good decision at the time, right now we are not making the most of this decision, so it's understandable that some people are dissatisfied with it but that isn't the decision's fault. It's ZOS' fault to let it all decay and to underdeliver time and time again.

So basically, in the right hands, this decision would have been worth it and ZOS could still turn it all around. In theory. Whether they will actually do that is another matter.