How Important is Siege/Keep Gameplay in Cyrodiil to you?

Erickson9610

Also colloquially known as "PvDoor", how important do you consider gameplay involving siege warfare and keep ownership to be? Is this the primary reason you play Cyrodiil instead of another PvP mode, or is there something else unique to Cyrodiil that is more important?

virtus753

Isn’t PvDoor the pejorative term for the situation where a keep or outpost take is uncontested? That’s the way I’ve always seen it used, at least.

As someone who vastly prefers Cyro precisely for contested keep battles, I am generally disappointed by PvDoor (in the sense I mentioned above). So PvDoor is not important to me, while keep warfare is very important.

heaven13

virtus753 wrote: »

Isn’t PvDoor the pejorative term for the situation where a keep or outpost take is uncontested? That’s the way I’ve always seen it used, at least.

As someone who vastly prefers Cyro precisely for contested keep battles, I am generally disappointed by PvDoor (in the sense I mentioned above). So PvDoor is not important to me, while keep warfare is very important.

This exactly. Keep battles are what I enjoy most in Cyro. Successfully defending a keep (especially when they get all the way to inner and you manage to push them back/out) or managing to take a keep even against heavy defenses is what makes Cyro, well, Cyro. That is not PvDoor though. PvDoor is essentially PvE in Cyro where your only opponents are the NPC guards.

ToddIngram

Very Important

It's the points from keeps and resources that determine who wins the campaign.

Cyrodiil does not have the population to support a bunch of solo yolo's who don't help their faction anymore.

Brakkish

Not Important

Cyrodil, I personally don't consider it PvP.

Spend 80% of your time mounted running from point A to B, zerg down some random straggler on the way, get to point B, bash down a door or two, stand on a flag. Mount and run to point C, repeating steps from A,B.

It's PVE, with players getting in the way from time to time.

Battlegrounds is where PVP happens.

Vonnegut2506

Very Important

I wish they would make siege more powerful. When the game first came out, I was terrible at the 1v1 portion of PvP so I grabbed siege weaponry and helped defend keeps that way. If you hit a group with a flaming ballista, it actually hurt them. Even my slow reflexes could be useful in there. Nowadays, people just shrug it off as it does hardly any damage.

Theignson

Big keep battles, 50 or 100 on each side, are one of the most fun and unique aspects of the game. You can't have that experience in most other games. And at the end, successfully defending a keep or taking one after a huge battle is pretty fun.

PvDoor, however, refers to taking keeps when no one is there, or only a few defenders. That is really boring.

Equal fights are the most fun. 25 people taking an empty keep = not fun, immortal ball group bombing 2-3 pugs every 8 seconds (using Crutch of Agony, vapid death, Warden Churm, and fear plus ultis) = boring.

i11ionward

How important is siege and keep gameplay in Cyrodiil to you?
For me, it’s important. It’s a way to take a break from regular PvP, change the pace, and just have fun. Siege battles and keep fights are a core part of Cyrodiil, and defending a keep or turning a fight around can be very satisfying.

In your first post you mention PvDoor, but that’s not exactly the same as the siege/keep gameplay mentioned in the thread title. PvDoor usually means taking a keep with little or no resistance, which is a different topic. Because of that, it’s hard to give a precise answer to this poll.

Soarora

Very Important

I don’t play Cyrodiil often but when I do, I have a blast breaking into and defending keeps. I don’t care about fighting giant groups of people, I care about throwing siege at them!

SeaGtGruff

Somewhat Important

I'm not sure which response is most appropriate, given the inclusion of the term "PvDoor," so I've answered based on the part where it specifically asks "to you?"

To me, keep warfare is usually where the most fun is to be had (and where the most AP is earned) in Cyrodiil-- as long as the populations of the two or three sides involved are not too lopsided.

But if my side is at a severe numbers disadvantage, then capturing resources is more important to me.

As far as "PvDoor," I've never been able to capture a keep solo, although I've come close a few times. But I won't even attempt it unless I think there are other players of my alliance around (as indicated by seeing activity on the map) who'll come help if I call out in zone chat and they see the keep lit up. Unfortunately, no one came the few times I've tried doing that, so I won't be foolish enough to expect help in the future. Henceforth I'll stick to soloing resources if I'm basically all alone in Cyrodiil.

YandereGirlfriend

Somewhat Important

IMO, PvDoor is actively lame and it is always a huge bummer to attack a keep and then just... finish taking it... without anybody showing up. There is nothing of value to be had with that sort of gameplay basically for anyone.

OTOH, like others have said, big keep battles are fun and definitely some of the best content that Cyrodiil has to offer.

PathosDante

Not Important

Most of the player population is in Cyrodiil.
The keep-based gameplay feels unnecessary to me.
That’s why I played in Imperial City for years.

Radiate77

Not Important

Gonna be honest here, not really that important.

After pushing for Emperor at the end of 2016, I haven’t really been involved in Siege. Some people love it, and more power to them, I’ve just never been much of a fan.

DerethDawnblade

Very Important

Cyrodiil needs some freshening up, but I believe sieges should always remain since it has always been such a big part of Cyrodiil.

Maybe more Artifact Weapons like Volendrung to add a little more chaos to things. Imagine all 3 factions getting Artifact Weapons with crazy effects and having a 3 way battle. There would have to be some sort of mechanic to lock a faction out of getting other weapons once they grab one, but there are ways it could be balanced.

That said, there should be more PvP zones added, perhaps even some of the currently missing parts of Cyrodiil, but with new gimmicks. Something bigger than a Battleground, but smaller than the Imperial City, where larger groups of players can duke it out with maybe smaller scale siege mechanics, and traps. Give players Grappling Crossbows to chase each other through the map in 3 dimensions.

spartaxoxo

Very Important

What would even be the point without it?

Zodiarkslayer

Not Important

spartaxoxo wrote: »

What would even be the point without it?

Exactly. What is the point of Cyrodiil, these days?

Necrotech_Master

Very Important

good keep fights are what make cyro cyro lol

however i see a lot of problems with current keeps:

• no way to stop ballgroups inside a keep, especially if they are on inner and running around the upper floors of the keep where its impossible to set up siege without getting run over by them
• like others said siege needs to be buffed, like across the board (the only siege that even really does anything is meatbags, oil, and coldfire) (i think part of this problem why siege feels so bad is that healing is so insanely strong right now especially heal/shield stacking is what makes groups near unkillable)

i dont mind a good pvdoor occasionally too, as it is good way to farm AP, but its definitely not as satisfying as finishing a long siege battle and then get rewarded with a 100k+ AP tick

GloatingSwine

Very Important

It's kinda the point of the mode. If you didn't have the keeps as nodes to concentrate players it would just be a giant version of imperial city where nobody ever met each other.

loosej

Very Important

Very important, but as said by others, siege warfare doesn't equal pvdoor. This poll could use an update to the description.

Tommy_The_Gun

Very Important

Calling taking enemy keeps as PvDoor is very misleading. PvDoor is only when you take empty keeps. Taking keeps that has actual Player defenders is way harder. The problem is that both activities give same amount of potential points while one is a PvE activity and the other is PvP activity. So what ends up happening is that in the end, the ones who will wait till enemy is gone and there are no players left to defend - the faction that that PvE late at night / early in the morning wins a PvP campaign - as they have highest potential point bonus for longer time.

Winning PvP mode by doing PvE content should never be the case. The potential point bonus for capturing objectives during prime time when there are actual players that stand in your way should be way higher to combat night / morning capping.

Sylosi

Not Important

It would be important if the mode actually worked on a competitive level so "winning" actually mattered, but of course that is not the case. Only roleplayers playing in some sort of suspended disbelief think a 24/7 game mode, with different numbers on each team, new players vs veterans, casuals vs tryhards and no matchmaking is "competitive" or even functioning as a PvP mode.

So outside of the convenience of getting from a to b more easily, owning an objective is basically meaningless. And even then as the map has been far too big for the pitiful population caps Cyrodiil has had for years, fights are endlessly in the same locations so most of the time even in terms of convenience you only care about a handful of keeps.

Then you also have from a gameplay point of view much of it is boring AF. Actual PvDoor like some do when there is basically no one else (or no real opposition) on the map is mind numbing, imagine playing a PvP game for that, LOL.

Same with siege, I don't play a PvP game with a bunch of skills, lots of movement, etc to sit on siege pressing the same button over and over again, I can go play some idle clicker game if I wanted that.

SaffronCitrusflower

Very Important

Keeps, resources and scrolls are how points are calculated. Points determine the winner of the campaign.

SeaGtGruff

Somewhat Important

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Calling taking enemy keeps as PvDoor is very misleading. PvDoor is only when you take empty keeps. Taking keeps that has actual Player defenders is way harder. The problem is that both activities give same amount of potential points while one is a PvE activity and the other is PvP activity. So what ends up happening is that in the end, the ones who will wait till enemy is gone and there are no players left to defend - the faction that that PvE late at night / early in the morning wins a PvP campaign - as they have highest potential point bonus for longer time.

Winning PvP mode by doing PvE content should never be the case. The potential point bonus for capturing objectives during prime time when there are actual players that stand in your way should be way higher to combat night / morning capping.

As far as giving more points for capturing keeps that are being actively defended by enemy players than for capturing empty keeps, isn't that already built into the game through all of the AP you earn by killing enemy players? The points you get after a battle (from the "tick") are generally higher than the points for flipping the keep. I don't know whether that gets factored into campaign scoring, but it does reward and incentivize players for engaging in "actual PvP" rather than just "PvDoor."

edward_frigidhands

Very Important

Large scale siege pvp is the literal reason I bought the game and have been subscribed all these years.

JustLovely

Very Important

Is the OP trying to figure out who the players are who refuse to play in a fashion that helps their faction?

Points are what determines the winner of the campaign. So a player who does nothing to gain points for their campaign is dead weight and not helping their team.

Avran_Sylt

Very Important

I adore long drawn out siege/keep battles.

I also love how flagging the keep (and forward camp respawn limits) causes death to be more significant, providing greater focus on not running straight to your death and providing incentives to revive players (something non-existent in battlegrounds).

I also love how you can disrupt enemy respawn points through the flagging of nearby spawning keeps/ganking those coming to the fight.

I'm not a huge fan of just attacking an empty keep with no logistical value, but that at least provides an indicator of a place to fight.

Radiate77

Not Important

JustLovely wrote: »

Is the OP trying to figure out who the players are who refuse to play in a fashion that helps their faction?

Points are what determines the winner of the campaign. So a player who does nothing to gain points for their campaign is dead weight and not helping their team.

Yet, without those of us killing everyone, you’d all be picked off of your Siege Weapons. Some of us go where the fight is, whether it’s a random keep resource, or a drawn out castle fight.

Part of the allure of Cyrodiil is random PvP encounters. I’d rather an evolution of Cyrodiil exploration, than one of Siege.

heaven13

Radiate77 wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

Is the OP trying to figure out who the players are who refuse to play in a fashion that helps their faction?

Points are what determines the winner of the campaign. So a player who does nothing to gain points for their campaign is dead weight and not helping their team.

Yet, without those of us killing everyone, you’d all be picked off of your Siege Weapons. Some of us go where the fight is, whether it’s a random keep resource, or a drawn out castle fight.

Part of the allure of Cyrodiil is random PvP encounters. I’d rather an evolution of Cyrodiil exploration, than one of Siege.

I consider siege warfare to be more than just literally being on siege. It means some people are on siege, some are defending siege, some are healing the siegers, some are pushing in/out depending on which side of the offensive your team is on, etc. Everyone can have a part to play.

There were a couple of large battles I participated in where I had a meatbag right at the break point. I was able to keep that siege going and prevent the defenders from closing/pushing out because I was being both defended and healed (I also don't just stand on siege but esc out when waiting to reload to replenish buffs, hots, throw some damage on enemies trying to break out, etc).

Successful siege battles, imo, usually rely on several different types of players doing different tasks because, yes, without that, people just standing on siege will be slaughtered.

Radiate77

Not Important

heaven13 wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

Is the OP trying to figure out who the players are who refuse to play in a fashion that helps their faction?

Points are what determines the winner of the campaign. So a player who does nothing to gain points for their campaign is dead weight and not helping their team.

Yet, without those of us killing everyone, you’d all be picked off of your Siege Weapons. Some of us go where the fight is, whether it’s a random keep resource, or a drawn out castle fight.

Part of the allure of Cyrodiil is random PvP encounters. I’d rather an evolution of Cyrodiil exploration, than one of Siege.

I consider siege warfare to be more than just literally being on siege. It means some people are on siege, some are defending siege, some are healing the siegers, some are pushing in/out depending on which side of the offensive your team is on, etc. Everyone can have a part to play.

There were a couple of large battles I participated in where I had a meatbag right at the break point. I was able to keep that siege going and prevent the defenders from closing/pushing out because I was being both defended and healed (I also don't just stand on siege but esc out when waiting to reload to replenish buffs, hots, throw some damage on enemies trying to break out, etc).

Successful siege battles, imo, usually rely on several different types of players doing different tasks because, yes, without that, people just standing on siege will be slaughtered.

Then my poll answer would be different.

Large scale Keep fights are important to Cyrodiil, there is just nothing I enjoy about using siege weapons. 😂

bmnoble

Very Important

Other than the large scale battles between players, isn't the siege warfare the entire gimmick of the zone.

JustLovely

Very Important

Radiate77 wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

Is the OP trying to figure out who the players are who refuse to play in a fashion that helps their faction?

Points are what determines the winner of the campaign. So a player who does nothing to gain points for their campaign is dead weight and not helping their team.

Yet, without those of us killing everyone, you’d all be picked off of your Siege Weapons. Some of us go where the fight is, whether it’s a random keep resource, or a drawn out castle fight.

Part of the allure of Cyrodiil is random PvP encounters. I’d rather an evolution of Cyrodiil exploration, than one of Siege.

I'm a top tier PvP player. I'm almost certainly a stronger player than you are. I just don't consider myself superior to doing the work of taking/holding keeps and repairing them, and that requires siege. I want to win the campaign as well as get in good fights. Plus, I love those ticks when they're over 50k, or even over 15k for that matter.

Cyrodiil is a team activity. If you think of yourself as too good to play for your team maybe you should find another game. BTW, I've read many of your posts regarding vengeance, and it sounds like you'd prefer it. That tells me you're not that much into PvP in the first place.