Nightcapping PS NA

Tzirzhalir

I play on PS NA server. I have noticed a recurring problem in the GrayHost campaign for months if not years now regarding nightcapping. EP have been the most prominent faction doing this. I would like to clear up the fact that this is not due to Australians, New Zealanders, Asia or European/UK players or anyone else from a different country, these players are still the minority in PS NA. The majority of these players are from North America and the time nightcapping takes place is usually around 3 am (NY time) or 1 am (LA time). People are staying up all night then probably sleeping all day so they can be up again the next night to rinse and repeat taking over the entire cyrodiil map. This inevitably makes a ridiculous score lead of over 10,000 for the faction nightcapping meaning other factions never win any campaigns. It is making pvp an awful experience. I came up with a few ideas to stop nightcapping which are -
1. Remove score completely.
2. Remove leaderboards (however this takes the competitiveness out).
3. Have cooling down periods in Cyrodiil in off-peak times, ie: shut it down for 4 to 6 hours, may be an opportunity for ZOS to fix Cyrodiil zone bugs in these times.
4. Put a freeze on Score during off-peak times.
5. Put a freeze on AP gain during off-peak hours.
6. Minimize to only 1 bar population during off-peak times on all factions.
Please share any other new ideas to stop the nightcapping, I would really appreciate the feedback. Cyrodiil is meant for all alliances to enjoy not only one alliance. Many players are leaving as they predominantly only pvp most of the time. It is sad to see and it is not good for ESO that so many are leaving because of this. Nightcapping, boosting score, AP/scroll farming etc makes he game unfair and unbalanced. I am hoping ZOS will come up with a new and improved system for Cyrodiil.

xDeusEJRx

Nightcapping has always been a problem thing. Personally I think the most amount of points should be allocated into prime time of your server and during off-hours when most players are sleep you accrue far less points.

To encourage people to actually go really all out during day-time. Also this would make a difference in more dead campaigns where people aren't super active and there's a massive difference in leaderboard score, that could reduce the gap in campaigns where 1 single faction is dominating everyone else and could encourage people to play (because there's a chance to win)

CameraBeardThePirate

"People shouldn't be allowed to play if it isn't the same time that I'm playing!!!"

People live in different timezones. People work night shifts. People might have a different sleep schedule. Players that complain about nightcapping seem to forget these facts. It's not broken, it's not cheesy, it's just a result of people having different schedules.

Think of how bad it would feel if you worked an evening shift, got home at about 2am excited to play Cyrodiil, only to realize that your score doesn't count because you're "Nightcapping".

Get over it.

Editing to add: there's a 3 hour difference between LA and NY, not 2 hours like you said. Someone living in LA should absolutely be allowed to start playing at 2-3am NY time - that wouldn't even be past midnight for them.

Tzirzhalir

The fact remains that people are purposefully staying up, not because of their schedule. How can there be 3 bars of EP in off-peak times? Clearly something is not right. I apologise not knowing your different times in your country. What I do know is that the EP alliance are most definitely using off peak hours to boost score. EP currently have an 11,000 score lead and that is not for the small amount of people working night shift. Majority of EP players make Cyrodiil GH their career. Some of these people are on the game for more than 12 hours. Assuming it's just because of some people working night shifts is short sighted. I will keep asking zos to come up with something to stop this obvious exploit.

valenwood_vegan

I think the servers should just be turned off whenever I'm logged out.

geonsocal

yep, sure are a whole lot of red out there late night pacific standard time zone on the NA server...

I play covenant on both the EU and NA servers...

night time pacific standard time zone on the EU is pretty dead (map either all red or all yellow), or super small scale...

I mean c'mon, it's the year 2023 already - can't we all just have one freaking time zone, instead of like 30 different ones

Tzirzhalir

OK, so EP alliance will win every campaign because they are lucky enough to have 3 bars every day between 3 am and 6 am regardless of time zones. AD and DC alliances will never win, are not allowed to try to push the map because they are overrun by 10 EP if you dare to take one resource. This will continue for hours until the small amount of opposite alliances just quit because they have 0 bars. This happens every day of the week. Why even bother returning to the game? AD/DC cannot progress or let's just use an alliance change token and join EP to make it even larger so we can really break pvp properly, so it's unbalanced and unplayable for AD/DC alliances. Do you see why this is a problem? Anyone can sit back and say different time zones etc. Regardless it is making cyrodiil GH campaign a one alliance campaign which takes the strategy of the 3 alliance warfare out the window. If this problem is ignored cyrodiil pvp will end up being a dead zone with EP twiddling their thumbs praying a DC or AD show up so they can zerg down 1 person. AD and DC will be reduced to a 0 to 1 bar status predominantly most of the time because nobody wants to join a dead alliance, right? There is no point if a 3 alliance war ends up being a 1 alliance war. Pvp is finished. Majority of players will get fed up and leave, pvpers are players who spend huge amounts on crown crates because cyrodiil is the best place to show off mounts as its the biggest zone in Tamriel. If this issue is ignored ESO will lose a lot of people from the game. So keep saying its because of people's work or sleep schedules or world time zones and watch slowly how cyrodiil will die. This is an issue that needs to be looked at, I trust Zos will come up with a way to stop this problem.

Tzirzhalir

Ep alliance are most definitely using off peak times to boost score not because of work and sleep schedules, not because of world time zones. Ep are exploiting and boosting score to win every campaign. Majority of EP players are American who are fortunate to sleep all day and stay up all night. How can 3 bars all have different work schedules? It looks very much that most of ep population don't work.

CameraBeardThePirate

Tzirzhalir wrote: »

Ep alliance are most definitely using off peak times to boost score not because of work and sleep schedules, not because of world time zones. Ep are exploiting and boosting score to win every campaign. Majority of EP players are American who are fortunate to sleep all day and stay up all night. How can 3 bars all have different work schedules? It looks very much that most of ep population don't work.

This is entirely speculation though. You don't know those players, you don't know their personal life. And regardless, it isn't exploiting to play at off-times. If anything, it's smart. You're literally complaining about people playing a game during the times you're not playing.

fizl101

I'll be honest, it doesn't make sense to me that it is a problem that needs fixing.

I can't imagine that one faction is the only faction that has players whos lifestyle allows them to play at US local night time. There isn't anything as far as I know stopping other factions also playing at night. Maybe it is just up to some pvp guilds to organise night time groups in the other factions

Veinblood1965

Nobody is keeping others from staying up late and taking over the map. We just take it back in the afternoon anyway.

xylena_lazarow

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

Nobody is keeping others from staying up late and taking over the map.

Ah yes nobody, certainly not employers, families, or being a mere mortal that needs to sleep at some point.

It has been suggested to scale score with overall server pop, which to me would solve a lot of the nightcap/daycap issues (it's often a huge problem during NA daytime afternoons too). You wouldn't be "punished" for playing during low pop hours if your faction can actually hold its PvDoored territory into the populated hours.

RoseTheSnowElf

I'm PS NA. I've been in Cyro almost exclusively for close to 3 years now. 2 1/2 of that time I was AD. I've been EP for the last 6 months now. (I didn't leave to win, I left for a friend)

Yes, the nightcapping isn't fun. I've been on the team that was always 10's of thousands behind and being steamrolled no matter where we went. And it always seemed that no matter how hard we tried we would never win. But the reality is, it was different month to month. There were a number of months we ALMOST won that the score was so close for all 3 teams, we had no idea which team would actually win. I was on during those hours leading up to the end of camp, when ppl on our own team made decisions and call outs that ultimately lost the camp.

Being AD for over 2 years, I've seen many months were EP and DC would seem to trade off who was nightcapping that month. It's not always EP.

And as AD I was never mad towards the ppl that nightcapped, they had every right to play when they wanted to play, but I always felt the reason AD lost so regularly was because for whatever reason AD DIDN'T have a night crew.

Now 6 months on the team that always seems to nightcap, honestly it ain't all that great. Logging in to basically do nothing isn't all that fun either. And there are a bunch of other reasons why it can be un-fun, but I won't get into it here.

What I'm getting at is that "Nightcapping" isn't a player problem. It's not an exploit, it's not ppl playing unfairly. It's not even really something Zos should fix in and of itself or penalize players for.

But what it is is the natural result of the game and scoring systems Zos designed coupled with the unfortunate reality that the PvP population in this game has just dropped so dramatically that the total amount of regular PvPers in this game cannot fill up even 1 Camp server 24hrs a day let alone 3.

Another thing I rarely see anyone comment on is the culture of each respective mega server.

Anyone that plays on PS NA long enough will recognize players and their so social circles and when those circles shift as players faction hop and take entire groups or guilds with them. And since we all are in such a relatively small sub community and spend so much time together, animosities are sure to develop and ppl are bound to use this game to prove a point. (And whatever other personal motivations they may have)

So all those players that are free to play on the game during NA "nightcap" hrs are going to do so. They are not doing anything wrong.

The only thing that will "fix" this problem is if Zos can ultimately figure out some strategy that will encourage lasting growth of their PvP community.

I guess instead of trying to penalize players for playing the game the way it was designed, help Zos come up with ways to improve PvP in this game that might appeal to new players and organically grow the overall PvP community.

Tzirzhalir

This is on PS NA. If you do not play on PS console then you cannot comment on what is currently happening in GH campaign. I do not need to know people personally. I see them in cyrodiil enough to know they spend the majority of their time there. Right now EP still dominates the map since 3 am and the map has not changed. I stand by my discussion that zos need to look into this and find a solution to it.

valenwood_vegan

I just... really don't see Zos punishing their customers for playing a 24/7 [urge... to make... a maintenance-related comment... resisted] live service game at a time of day that others don't approve of.

And where would this end? I can't be up in the middle of the night to buy things on traders so I miss out on good deals while the night owls snag them. Should the traders be shut down when I can't play?

Tzirzhalir

Many players share accounts to stay on the map of cyrodiil in GH campaign. Meaning that there is always someone online while the other sleeps. This kind of thing happens on PS console all the time. It is currently afternoon, it's impossible to take a keep because EP zerg down your every move. As I have said before people are not interested in that kind of frustrating gameplay and generally just log out of the game.

Tzirzhalir

I do not have any personal outlooks on this, if my own preferred alliance were winning as much as EP are winnng (almost 15k lead) I would still be typing this here. People need to wake up to the kinds exploitation taking part in Cyrodiil GH PS NA.I have already said that this type of "nightcapping" jumping onto the winning side mid campaign using an alliance change token glitch is making the game unplayable for the losing alliances. EP have always been the larger of alliances, then AD and after that DC. Now because of a certain prominent guild being in EP, a guild full of elite gamers who have godslayer titles, so many people have just flocked over to EP, now EP is bursting at the seams, having a 2 - 3 bar status most of the time while other alliances sit on 0 -1. I am confident that ZOS and it's DEVS will come up with a solution to this issue. It is not up to me to sit and guess up ways to stop it. I am here to make ZOS aware of it. PVP makes a big part of ESO even with all of its problems with lag etc, it's about communities of people working together large scale. I have read all of your comments and thank you for them, they have been very inciteful. I do stand firm in what I believe in. Things need to change to make PVP Cyrodiil a more balanced experience.

Tzirzhalir

Let me clarify that I am not trying to "punish" any particular player or "shut down" PVP Cyrodiil. As I have just commented, It is not up to me to make decisions on what should or should not happen in Cyrodiil. I am here making ZOS aware of what is happening and how unbalanced cyrodiil has become and if possible to make some changes.

Tzirzhalir

In response to Rose the Snowelf, thank you for your inciteful comment. I have a question for you. Why is it necessary to have a "NIGHT CREW" at all on any alliance? A night crew is there to do one thing, that being having a bigger population when it is known that other alliances will lose a bar or two. A NIGHT CREW is there to NIGHTCAP or PVDOOR however you want to put it. I am not against night crews but there motive is clear, they want to boost score on an empty server. If AD don't have a NIGHT CREW it means they just folk who go to bed at a decent time, people who have a job to go to etc. Come to think of it AD used to PVDOOR just as much about 6 years ago, that is because of a larger community of Australians on AD, and again DC had the same elite guild full of godslayers around 2 to 3 years ago where no one could touch anything on the map for around 3 to 4 campaigns making gameplay completly miserable. This type of thing has been going on for years, this is not a new thing, I am just making ZOS aware of it and hopefully things need to be changed. I'm more for a balanced type of 3 banner war than having one alliance win the majority of campaigns because they go to extra lengths of creating NIGHT CREWS, SHARING ACCOUNTS so someone is online 24/7 while the other person sleeps and recently using an alliance change token glitch to hop alliances mid GH campaign to either "spy" or AP BOOST for their friend on the other alliance. It's all very corrupt and this is why I use the word "exploit". To me PVP Cyrodiil should be a fun thing to do but many people have made their time on a game a type of religion. It concerns me that many people are actually at a health risk staying up for more than 12 hours at a time because of this incredible need to feel they are winning. I really am very grateful to you fellow PS NA player for being here to share your views and thoughts. I do hope things will change and see you out there on the battlefield!

CameraBeardThePirate

Tzirzhalir wrote: »

This is on PS NA. If you do not play on PS console then you cannot comment on what is currently happening in GH campaign. I do not need to know people personally. I see them in cyrodiil enough to know they spend the majority of their time there. Right now EP still dominates the map since 3 am and the map has not changed. I stand by my discussion that zos need to look into this and find a solution to it.

It doesn't matter if you recognize their screen names - you have literally no idea who the person holding the controller is. You have no grounds to say they're "staying up all night", or "sharing accounts". They're literally just playing at a time you aren't. ZOS has no reason to make any changes to discourage Nightcapping, nor should they. Saying that nightcapping should be discouraged is being entitled, and a bit of a sore loser.

Tzirzhalir

In response to Camerabeardthepirate It seems your own negativity regarding this subject is shining through. I really don't appreciate you baiting me into some type of argument. I am here to simply make ZOS aware of what is happening on PS4/5 NA. Are you a console player? Have you experienced any of the above that I have been typing? I want a more balanced 3 banner war experience and I am entitled to say how I feel. You have no right to stand in judgement of that or call me names. That is just being toxic. I will put you on ignore from this point. It is not my intention to "argue" here but to put my information across. Have a lovely day

NordSwordnBoard

Tzirzhalir wrote: »

This is on PS NA. If you do not play on PS console then you cannot comment on what is currently happening in GH campaign. I do not need to know people personally. I see them in cyrodiil enough to know they spend the majority of their time there. Right now EP still dominates the map since 3 am and the map has not changed. I stand by my discussion that zos need to look into this and find a solution to it.

A lot of EP players are switching sides next camp because they're bored with what you describe. It was Yellow doing the nightcap gating when I first started playing. We have had some really competitive camps this year, but this one is looking to be a blowout. I hope it balances out, but we are dependent on the whims of the mob for that.

I play PS grayhost, its the same phenomenon across all platforms for different sides, ours is not unique in any way. There has never been a verifiable solution other than better players and whole guilds switching to the underdog alliance.

CameraBeardThePirate

Tzirzhalir wrote: »

In response to Camerabeardthepirate It seems your own negativity regarding this subject is shining through. I really don't appreciate you baiting me into some type of argument. I am here to simply make ZOS aware of what is happening on PS4/5 NA. Are you a console player? Have you experienced any of the above that I have been typing? I want a more balanced 3 banner war experience and I am entitled to say how I feel. You have no right to stand in judgement of that or call me names. That is just being toxic. I will put you on ignore from this point. It is not my intention to "argue" here but to put my information across. Have a lovely day

I'm not baiting anyone and I never called you any names. The current system is balanced, at least in regards to playing during peak times vs off times. Punishing players for playing at a certain time of day would not be balanced. The game's servers run 24 hours a day, barring maintenance. There are plenty of people across all of the NA servers that don't even live in the America's. Your proposal would be punishing them for that, period. You can say your intention isn't to punish these players, but at the end of the day, any system to discourage nightcapping would do just that.

RoseTheSnowElf

@ OP:

A night grew is simply there to hold the map during that respective server's "night time". Just as we have so called "day crew" and "afternoon crew" and "evening crew".

Since we are playing on a NA server, our prime time is somewhere between 5pm est til probably 9 or 10 pm est (I'm guesstimating here). This is probably most noticeable because of server pop lock and server lag increase, because the majority of the NA population is infact home from school or work, or whatever other rl responsibilities that individual may have. (This is just the most common type of schedule, not the only type of schedule)

However, this does not speak for every single persons personal rl schedule. There are many ppl who don't have conventional schedules, but who do in fact work, go to school or have other rl obligations that take place during certain hrs of the day that would make their available play time during late night / early morning.

And no one, not even Zos is in a position to determine when those individuals should be allowed to play. Also, their efforts shouldn't mean less or be rewarded less just because they play during off peak hrs.


Again, my observation still remains, the real problem is that the PvP population is just too small to result in full (or almost full) Camp servers 24hrs a day, therefore there is an imbalance in the pop and Nightcapping becomes extreme.


My position still remains, Nightcapping is not cheating nor an exploit. But many of the other things you have mentioned, per the ToS are in fact cheating, or can be determined as cheating by Zos if it is brought to their attention with documented evidence.

Trust me, Zos is very aware of the Nightcapping. I'm sure they are more aware than we are of how much the PvP population has changed over the life span of this game.

Tzirzhalir

Thank you for your opinions. I still stand by what I say. Night capping is and will always be a cheat to boost score. The score in Cyrodiil is an absolute joke. Cheesing wins by being completely dishonorable and using low tactics and strategy. Yes all alliances do it but EP have been doing for the last 2 years progressively. I still hope Zos will balance out what a cyrodiil has become. Cyrodiil is just corrupt.

disintegr8

Other people playing when you need to sleep or work, how dare they.

Some people don't have a choice but to play during those hours, there are only NA or EU servers, so they have to choose one. They shouldn't be penalized because you think everyone playing 'overnight' is cheating.

And on your last post comment "Cyrodiil is just corrupt", yes it is, as is the nature of war. PVP has always brought out the worst in a lot of players; t-bagging, ganking, spying, collusion, etc. Chivalry is a myth, anything is fair game.

Nord_Raseri

The biggest issue is the amount of pvpers that stopped playing, or play a tiny fraction of the time. My pvp guild had 1-2 full groups of aussies, kiwis, and night owls (as did other guilds) late night and there were great fights. We did this for years. Now there's rarely more than 3 people online at night. Out of a few hundred. We all stopped or greatly reduced our eso playtime. Others, like myself, finally said enough to all the issues with lag, positional desyncs, and other bugs cyrodiil. The only thing that zos can do to bring us back is fix the glaring issues in cyrodiil and slow the wide pendulum swings of combat changes. Sorry for the long rant.

Tzirzhalir

PVP is dying because of unfair score. How is unfair score developed? My alliance never wins and never will. Not because my community are bad players but because of players using off peak times to boost score. Having a 20,000 lead score almost every campaign. What is the point if there is no chance for competition between alliances? It is a cheat method and it's why the pvp population is low more so than performance issues like lag etc. Keep saying its because I went offline so others can't play. I live in a completely different time zone which is 5 hours ahead. When I log on the pvp servers are usually empty so I see this issue more. My alliance have usually taken their scrolls back and deposed emp at this stage but as soon as my alliances bars drop go 1 to 0 EP alliance will gain 3 when at this time ALL alliances should be at 1 to 0 bars. It is obvious that this is a tactic used to boost score ensuring AD and DC alliances never win a campaign. This is happening almost every campaign. It's ridiculous. Something needs to be done to stop it. If there is no competition then there is no point. EP will keep on doing it or if it's not EP another alliance because it's easy and is allowed. This discussion is valid and if it is ignored ESO will suffer more player losses.

CameraBeardThePirate

As they say, all is fair in love and war. The famous painting of George Washington rowing across the Delaware River depicts him leading soldiers to ambush the British in the middle of the night. War doesn't stop just because one side is tired and needs to sleep - it's no different in an MMO. If you're really that upset about it, try to rally your faction to do the same.

PvP isn't dying because of nightcapping - it's dying because ZOS hasn't touched anything related to PvP since the last BG map was released years ago. It's dying because of a boring, tanky, stale meta and huge swings in balance thanks to grossly overperforming mythics.

jaws343

Tzirzhalir wrote: »

The fact remains that people are purposefully staying up, not because of their schedule. How can there be 3 bars of EP in off-peak times? Clearly something is not right. I apologise not knowing your different times in your country. What I do know is that the EP alliance are most definitely using off peak hours to boost score. EP currently have an 11,000 score lead and that is not for the small amount of people working night shift. Majority of EP players make Cyrodiil GH their career. Some of these people are on the game for more than 12 hours. Assuming it's just because of some people working night shifts is short sighted. I will keep asking zos to come up with something to stop this obvious exploit.

The irony of not knowing the time zones that represent the majority of the NA server playerbase, and then complaining that players who have alternate schedules, or just play later than most, are cheating. It is a fact that players on the West coast could start playing at 11PM and that would be 2AM for the East coast. Are West coast players not allowed to play before midnight? Are they only allowed to play before 7PM?

It all leads me to think you are in Europe, playing on the NA server. So, likely, your own playtime is likely outside of NA primetime, and therefore some level of day/night capping for the majority of NA players.

jaws343

Tzirzhalir wrote: »

The fact remains that people are purposefully staying up, not because of their schedule. How can there be 3 bars of EP in off-peak times? Clearly something is not right. I apologise not knowing your different times in your country. What I do know is that the EP alliance are most definitely using off peak hours to boost score. EP currently have an 11,000 score lead and that is not for the small amount of people working night shift. Majority of EP players make Cyrodiil GH their career. Some of these people are on the game for more than 12 hours. Assuming it's just because of some people working night shifts is short sighted. I will keep asking zos to come up with something to stop this obvious exploit.

Also, the only way you could possibly know if these players are on the game for more than 12 hours is if you yourself are also on the game for more than 12 hours.

And even if they are on the game for more than 12 hours, so what? Is there a time limit to how much someone is allowed to play the video game they paid for? Are retired people not allowed to spend their free time playing games? Or those who maybe don't need to work during the summer, or during certain times of year, or on vacation?