Potential solutions for making the Emperorship more accessible.

Imperator_Clydus

Greetings and salutations members of The Elder Scrolls Online community,

For any of you avid AvA fans out there, you realize how truly exclusive and difficult it can be to become the Emperor of Tamriel for your campaign. In some regards, I would say it's too difficult, and even in many ways takes away from what actually matters, the Alliance War. What I mean by this is the constant AP grind that the rise to emperorship leads to.

As the system currently stands, the #1 player in the winning alliance will be crowned emperor, assuming their alliance captures all six Imperial Keeps. This is all well in good initially, but here is where the problem arises. If this particular individual is so far above in AP to the next potential emperor-elect, if he/she is ever deposed, he/she will become emperor again if their alliance claims all six keeps around the Imperial City.

This is an issue as it leads to a never-ending AP grind. It also severely limits the availability of this great privilege, and distracts many from actually winning and defending keeps. My solution to fix this is if the to player becomes emperor and then is deposed, they will be unable to become the emperor again until the campaign resets.

With this system implemented, it would first and foremost make those who are emperor care about the Alliance War and defending the keeps for their throne. Not only would they care more, but once he/she loses emperorship, they will not have another chance until reset goes into effect. This would allow the players below to have a chance at becoming emperor and focus on performing well in the Alliance War, rather than farming kills for AP.

I believe more could be done to make players more focused on performing well in AvA and less on grinding kills for emperorship, such as reducing the amount of AP from kills and increasing more from objectives. However, that is a much more invasive and trickier issue. For now, I believe term limits on the emperorship would not only keep players more focused on the Alliance war, but make the system overall more fair.

Feel free to post your comments below and let me know how you feel about term limits on the emperorship. From my own personal experiences with the emperors who have come after me, most of them never communicate with the faction, they never help to fight the war, they essentially are just carried to the throne because they ground AP solo or in smaller groups. This behavior, in my opinion, needs to be discouraged.

This is one small step that I believe would help encourage players to be more objective-oriented in AvA, which is really what it's all about.

I look forward to your comments and anything you have to add to the discussion.

Regards,

Imperator Clydus

OtarTheMad

Good idea. I would also say that sometimes an Emperor is crowned and they aren't even online when their alliance gets all 6 keeps. So to change that if the person who is at the top of your alliance leaderboard is not online then the Emperorship falls to the person who is next highest on the leaderboard out of their alliance and they're online.

I've also seen some threads and comments mentioning that their Emperor while still in the campaign does not log on anymore or just doesn't PvP anymore so to counter that if the Emperor is not online for and/or does not enter Cyrodiil for 3 days then they're dethroned and it goes to the next highest person of the ruling alliance.

nukeyoo

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Good idea. I would also say that sometimes an Emperor is crowned and they aren't even online when their alliance gets all 6 keeps. So to change that if the person who is at the top of your alliance leaderboard is not online then the Emperorship falls to the person who is next highest on the leaderboard out of their alliance and they're online.

I've also seen some threads and comments mentioning that their Emperor while still in the campaign does not log on anymore or just doesn't PvP anymore so to counter that if the Emperor is not online for and/or does not enter Cyrodiil for 3 days then they're dethroned and it goes to the next highest person of the ruling alliance.

^^ this.. myself and many others were saddened to find out that this wasn't the case. The high score should be required to be online and in Cyrodiil to be crowned when all the keeps are taken; otherwise defaulting to the next person to meet all 3 criteria. Highest score that is online and in Cyrodiil. This just seems like a basic rule of thumb that should have been implemented from day 1.

A cool down period of some sort would be nice also rather then the complete lockout for entire campaign after being dethroned. Needless to say you're not going to be able to make everyone happy.

Igolbug

nukeyoo wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Good idea. I would also say that sometimes an Emperor is crowned and they aren't even online when their alliance gets all 6 keeps. So to change that if the person who is at the top of your alliance leaderboard is not online then the Emperorship falls to the person who is next highest on the leaderboard out of their alliance and they're online.

I've also seen some threads and comments mentioning that their Emperor while still in the campaign does not log on anymore or just doesn't PvP anymore so to counter that if the Emperor is not online for and/or does not enter Cyrodiil for 3 days then they're dethroned and it goes to the next highest person of the ruling alliance.

^^ this.. myself and many others were saddened to find out that this wasn't the case. The high score should be required to be online and in Cyrodiil to be crowned when all the keeps are taken; otherwise defaulting to the next person to meet all 3 criteria. Highest score that is online and in Cyrodiil. This just seems like a basic rule of thumb that should have been implemented from day 1.

A cool down period of some sort would be nice also rather then the complete lockout for entire campaign after being dethroned. Needless to say you're not going to be able to make everyone happy.

Too bad, try to catch Johnny if you wanna be Emperor.

Estwing

We do need some sort of update to fix this revolving door effect of emperors that campaign hop just to get the passives then leave the campaign. I know a increase in AP to transfer will be put in place in time but the damage has already been done. I hope there is some sort of revert but I doubt this will happen so I also suggest the passive is taken out of the game even with its small bonuses because as group of these passives will make these former emperors even stronger and that's what has happened. The majority of these formers all group together and farmed AP just for this reason.

ruzlb16_ESO

I'd support the idea of only crowning the top online scorer in a faction, tbh. It's really annoying to take all the keeps and have some bloke who hasn't PvPed in a week get crowned.
I'd also potentially support a blanket score drop every night of, say, 1000 points per player. That'd counter the PvP quest and would punish inactivity, so that an emp who decided to disappear for 3 weeks would start t drop down the scoreboard.
OTTH, I don't think we can look at the present campaign as truly representative of how Cyrodiil will work in future anyway; a lot of pre-launch players built up unrealistically high AP scores from just doing the kill quest over and over again before it was made into a daily. This basically gave most of us a >100,000 leg-up that players post-launch could not possibly replicate - along with the in-built advantages we had from having week-old level 50ish characters by the time the fresh blood arrived in PvP. Combined with certain builds not having common counters in place atm (not being OP/uncounterable, but rather the counters not being in common circulation yet), this means that emp was basically unreachable for the majority of players from day 1. That won't be the case after the next campaign reset.

Imperator_Clydus

ruzlb16_ESO wrote: »

I'd support the idea of only crowning the top online scorer in a faction, tbh. It's really annoying to take all the keeps and have some bloke who hasn't PvPed in a week get crowned.
I'd also potentially support a blanket score drop every night of, say, 1000 points per player. That'd counter the PvP quest and would punish inactivity, so that an emp who decided to disappear for 3 weeks would start t drop down the scoreboard.
OTTH, I don't think we can look at the present campaign as truly representative of how Cyrodiil will work in future anyway; a lot of pre-launch players built up unrealistically high AP scores from just doing the kill quest over and over again before it was made into a daily. This basically gave most of us a >100,000 leg-up that players post-launch could not possibly replicate - along with the in-built advantages we had from having week-old level 50ish characters by the time the fresh blood arrived in PvP. Combined with certain builds not having common counters in place atm (not being OP/uncounterable, but rather the counters not being in common circulation yet), this means that emp was basically unreachable for the majority of players from day 1. That won't be the case after the next campaign reset.

I believe you are grossly overestimating the power of the old kill bounty repeatable. Yes, it helped to accumulate more AP, but it hasn't been a part of the game for some time now.

On my own campaign alone, there are players who were nowhere near the top when the repeatable was active and now they are. It had nothing to do with grinding the 20 kill bounty. The problem is inherently with how easy it is to accumulate AP solo or in a small group.

Part of it has to do with class (sorcerers and nightblades having the easiest time), but largely just being effective at killing and being in smaller groups generates more AP, allowing you to easily outpace large groups and anyone else.

What we are going to need to see is a revamping of the AP system, otherwise we will continue to see players who far outpace the rest and will always maintain emperorship. This is why I believe term limits should be implemented and why AP also needs to be reconsidered by ZOS.

ruzlb16_ESO

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

I believe you are grossly overestimating the power of the old kill bounty repeatable. Yes, it helped to accumulate more AP, but it hasn't been a part of the game for some time now.

On my own campaign alone, there are players who were nowhere near the top when the repeatable was active and now they are. It had nothing to do with grinding the 20 kill bounty. The problem is inherently with how easy it is to accumulate AP solo or in a small group.

Part of it has to do with class (sorcerers and nightblades having the easiest time), but largely just being effective at killing and being in smaller groups generates more AP, allowing you to easily outpace large groups and anyone else.

What we are going to need to see is a revamping of the AP system, otherwise we will continue to see players who far outpace the rest and will always maintain emperorship. This is why I believe term limits should be implemented and why AP also needs to be reconsidered by ZOS.

Oh, you'll always have hardcore players at the top anyway - anyone who spends 10 hours a day in Cyrodiil will have more points than anyone else. But the leg-up effect of the kill quest created a lock-out effect for many players. Remember how competitive Emp was at <100k. We had a new emperor every time the crown switched faction. Over 100k, the scoreboard really started to spread out with a small pack building a huge lead. The fact that, by the time prelaunch was over, we'd already got players on half a million or more AP meant that much of the population really don't have a chance in hell of Emp, and never did; it was basically impossible to catch up without making up the 24 hours /played plus that preorder players had over them.
I think that should be taken into account before we worry too much about Emphood being exclusive - it's not so bad early in the campaign, but only if you're there early in the campaign Much of the player base was not, and so cannot really judge the emperor dynamics atm, since they weren't there for the intensive competition phase.

Imperator_Clydus

ruzlb16_ESO wrote: »

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

I believe you are grossly overestimating the power of the old kill bounty repeatable. Yes, it helped to accumulate more AP, but it hasn't been a part of the game for some time now.

On my own campaign alone, there are players who were nowhere near the top when the repeatable was active and now they are. It had nothing to do with grinding the 20 kill bounty. The problem is inherently with how easy it is to accumulate AP solo or in a small group.

Part of it has to do with class (sorcerers and nightblades having the easiest time), but largely just being effective at killing and being in smaller groups generates more AP, allowing you to easily outpace large groups and anyone else.

What we are going to need to see is a revamping of the AP system, otherwise we will continue to see players who far outpace the rest and will always maintain emperorship. This is why I believe term limits should be implemented and why AP also needs to be reconsidered by ZOS.

Oh, you'll always have hardcore players at the top anyway - anyone who spends 10 hours a day in Cyrodiil will have more points than anyone else. But the leg-up effect of the kill quest created a lock-out effect for many players. Remember how competitive Emp was at <100k. We had a new emperor every time the crown switched faction. Over 100k, the scoreboard really started to spread out with a small pack building a huge lead. The fact that, by the time prelaunch was over, we'd already got players on half a million or more AP meant that much of the population really don't have a chance in hell of Emp, and never did; it was basically impossible to catch up without making up the 24 hours /played plus that preorder players had over them.
I think that should be taken into account before we worry too much about Emphood being exclusive - it's not so bad early in the campaign, but only if you're there early in the campaign Much of the player base was not, and so cannot really judge the emperor dynamics atm, since they weren't there for the intensive competition phase.

I understand your point, but the way AP works is incredibly gimmicky and contradicts the point of AvA. If anyone wants to actually efficient generate AP in a timely manner, they will resort to small groups and focus on killing players. Regardless of where the campaign is during it's cycle, those players will always outpace the rest.

They don't even need to play the most. They just need to play efficiently with the time they have. That is an issue that will need to be addressed if ZOS is interested in more than the same three players fighting over emperorship. As I stated in the original post, term limits would also help significantly.

nukeyoo

Igolbug wrote: »

Too bad, try to catch Johnny if you wanna be Emperor.

Someone seems salty... I do enjoy randoms stalking me!

Imperator_Clydus

This thread isn't nearly getting enough attention. I know this is a major issue as many in my campaign have already begun leaving.

The #1 player in our alliance is currently about 1.2 million AP ahead of the next closest guy. As many can imagine, this guarantees the top player will be the permanent alliance emperor for more or less the rest of the campaign until it resets.

Now I personally have no issue with the guy wanting to maintain his lead. That is his right and the game allows him to do so. My issue though, is that this has begun to cause an adverse effect in AvA.

Many players under the #1 guy have decided to leave due to never having a chance at being crowned emperor. I personally think they are rather over-dramatic and selfish, but I do see their perspective and why the current system can be deemed as unfair.

Again, to reiterate earlier points, I believe a term limit is necessary to give the top players for their faction on the leaderboard a fair shot of the emperorship. Allow the top guy to only be emperor until he is deposed. Once he is deposed, he would need to wait until reset.

This way, regardless of his AP, those below him would have a chance at being crowned emperor until they are deposed. I believe this is also a better alternative instead of cutting their AP gain in half as that would be more of a punishment for receiving this special status.

This way the top players all have a fairly decent chance of being crowned and there is more variety in the emperorship. The current system has become a constant reminder for many of how they are never able to catch up and the top guy will always have permanent benefits.

maholi

No. The person shouldn't have to be online to get the crown. That would just lead to macroing to stay online.
Also, as a former Emperor, I find that defending Keeps is the best way to get points. I was never tempted to let a Keep fall. Even if I ever was tempted, it's not like you have the support of the server. :P

Hattorii_Hanzo

Emperor status is supposed to be rare and is supposed to be coveted. They dont need to make it so that it is easier for everyone to get. If all you care about is getting emperor then work for it. At this point in time, there are enough empty campaigns that you can goto where the point totals are low for your faction and try to grind there if all you want is the title and passives.

They dont need to rotate the emperor, that person is the top because they put in the work to be there. If you want to be emperor, then pass them. Anything that is based on an aggregate point total is always going to favor people who put in the time.

The system works as it is. The solution is that they make the campaigns shorter, 90 days is insanely long and the point totals continue to climb. If they made them 30 days, it would create a lot more competition.

Imperator The emperor on your own campaign doesnt play in small group, he runs around with the zerg heal spamming for points. The fact that you choose to lead the giant zerg of pugs on bloodthorn and PVD (player vs door) all day and night is your own fault.

Imperator_Clydus

maholi wrote: »

No. The person shouldn't have to be online to get the crown. That would just lead to macroing to stay online.
Also, as a former Emperor, I find that defending Keeps is the best way to get points. I was never tempted to let a Keep fall. Even if I ever was tempted, it's not like you have the support of the server. :P

I agree. It's best if whoever is at the top should be crowned. The term limits itself would limit that same person just hoarding the emperorship permanently.

Imperator_Clydus

Hattorii_Hanzo wrote: »

Emperor status is supposed to be rare and is supposed to be coveted. They dont need to make it so that it is easier for everyone to get. If all you care about is getting emperor then work for it. At this point in time, there are enough empty campaigns that you can goto where the point totals are low for your faction and try to grind there if all you want is the title and passives.

They dont need to rotate the emperor, that person is the top because they put in the work to be there. If you want to be emperor, then pass them. Anything that is based on an aggregate point total is always going to favor people who put in the time.

The system works as it is. The solution is that they make the campaigns shorter, 90 days is insanely long and the point totals continue to climb. If they made them 30 days, it would create a lot more competition.

Imperator The emperor on your own campaign doesnt play in small group, he runs around with the zerg heal spamming for points. The fact that you choose to lead the giant zerg of pugs on bloodthorn and PVD (player vs door) all day and night is your own fault.

This isn't about making emperor easier to gain. Considering I was the first DC emperor on Bloodthorn, this system wouldn't benefit me in the slightest. I would have to wait until reset with the suggested term limit.

I could care less about grinding the emperorship. The point is why even have an emperor leaderboard if one guy can hoard it if he is so far ahead in points? Why should people have to wait three months for having a shot at getting the emperorship?

This is about making the claim more competitive and fun actually. Not easier. Most of the current emperors were playing broken vampires to get emperorship, so don't come to me saying they "put in the work."

I don't believe shorter campaign cycles is necessarily needed. By having them this long, it gives underdog factions a chance to turn the tide and win a campaign. This will definitely make more sense with ZOS slowing the pace of flipping keeps with 1.1.

If you really think Wild Fire is just spamming heals for points, you really don't know how AP works. That is a terrible way of accumulating AP. The best way is getting kills in small groups or solo. None of the guys at the top run around in large groups.

I choose to actually play the way the game is intended. Focusing on objectives. Cutting transitus. Going for elder scrolls. Undermining the enemy and slowing their reinforcements. This game isn't just team death match as many seem to believe it to be. I can play Call of Duty or Halo for that.

I know this may be difficult for you to believe, but AvA is more than just mindless killing. With that said, being a former emperor myself, I believe more should have a shot at it.

If people know they have a chance of claiming the Ruby Throne, it keeps AvA lively and interesting. If people realize they will never get emperorship, they either leave the campaign or quit the game. I prefer the former being the outcome for this game.

jwwputnam_ESO

Concur and previously recommended that the process of becoming emperor should be changed so that previously crowned emperor's will not be re-crowned for the current campaign. (Once they have been deposed, they are deposed OR you place a limit on the faction - i.e.: Emperor for a Day (EfaD).)

This would allow active players to continue to strive to earn AP to move up the ranks. If the EfaD limit was imposed, then potentially the top 90 players within a faction could potentially be an emperor during a campaign. (Now this could lead to 270 former emperors running around in a campaign, so a broader time frame might added other than a 24 hour period.)

Dleatherus

as the current reigning emperor of Skull Crusher i fully agree with having a mechanic installed that when an emperor is deposed they can't become emperor again for the duration of that particular campaign

this would go such a long way to making the rest leaderboards other than #1 far more meaningful, and keeping more folks engaged in their campaign knowing they might have a legitimate shot at the throne

@Imperator_Clydus‌

this is one of the best suggestions i have seen for the game yet. period.

D.

FireCowCommando

Yeah... Nothing like a 1+ million point gap between first and second... Only way to catch up in that situation is if they stop playing for a while. Granted, thats if they want anyone else on their side to be allowed to get emperor. Really needs to be something other than the default #1 position always gets it.

Imperator_Clydus

jwwputnam_ESO wrote: »

Concur and previously recommended that the process of becoming emperor should be changed so that previously crowned emperor's will not be re-crowned for the current campaign. (Once they have been deposed, they are deposed OR you place a limit on the faction - i.e.: Emperor for a Day (EfaD).)

This would allow active players to continue to strive to earn AP to move up the ranks. If the EfaD limit was imposed, then potentially the top 90 players within a faction could potentially be an emperor during a campaign. (Now this could lead to 270 former emperors running around in a campaign, so a broader time frame might added other than a 24 hour period.)

Are you suggesting that the lockout timer after being deposed would only be 24 hours? With the move on ZOS' part to slow the pace of AvA, I don't see emperors being crowned and deposed that often.

I believe having a longer lockout period would be better and preferred as it would give more a chance to achieve the Ruby Throne. As I stated earlier, it also means when you are crowned, you care for it more and you want to sustain it.

If you are #1 and you know you won't be passed, you could care less whether you are deposed or not as it currently stands. You know eventually you will just be crowned again, especially if your alliance dominates the campaign most of the time.

NordJitsu

That sounds like a rather nice solution.

Personally I'd prefer a complete revamp to the way the leaderboards work.

Getting the #1 spot on something called a LEADERboard should not be about finding the most effective ways to grind Alliance Points. This is why we're seeing people do things like take Elder Scrolls and go sit inside of buildings so they can kill people with oil while the load.

People aren't playing the tactics of the campaign in an attempt to beat their opponents. They're looking for the best farming mechanisms to beat the game's mechanics.

Instead, I'd like to see the leaderboards based on a cocktail of skill based metrics that is entirely hidden from the players (so we can't game it.)

Thing it should take into account:

1. Kill death ratio
2. Amount of damage done vs. amount of damage recieved
3. Amount of healing done
4. Total number of kills (measured in kill shots, not just standing near a fight)
5. Number of Emperorship keeps captured or defended
6. Participation in scroll captures and defense


And again, it would preferably be quite a complex algorithm.

That's not going to happen though. I'm asking for too much (which is sad) considering we couldn't even get a proper scaling system. Maybe they could outsource it to Google? lol

Anyway...

Your solution is simpler and therefore probably more realistic.

Imperator_Clydus

Dleatherus wrote: »

as the current reigning emperor of Skull Crusher i fully agree with having a mechanic installed that when an emperor is deposed they can't become emperor again for the duration of that particular campaign

this would go such a long way to making the rest leaderboards other than #1 far more meaningful, and keeping more folks engaged in their campaign knowing they might have a legitimate shot at the throne

@Imperator_Clydus‌

this is one of the best suggestions i have seen for the game yet. period.

D.

Appreciate that! I think it only makes the game that much more competitive and exciting when those who have worked hard have a better chance of claiming it. I don't believe it's any fun at all if the top guy has an astronomical amount of AP and there is no way of catching him.

This not only makes the emperorship more competitive and encourages people to play, but also makes it more meaningful once you have it. I only see a system like this adding to the experience that is being crowned an emperor.

Anazasi

So let me make sure I understand this. You don't think its fair for the number one player to be able to get emperor over and over? Well I think that's a little bit silly. Shouldn't those who play the most win that honor?
Here is the perfect example of what happens in our campaign. About 2 weeks ago we had a reasonable balance in players. The fights were hard but the AD was able to get emperor and actually held it for a week or so. Then the DC got a huge influx of players and deposed the small core group of AD players and took the emperor title. Now the most logical thing to do is recruit more player and retake it right. Well that's what we did and retook it, crowning the rightful player of our alliance with the most AP. The next day DC retakes it but this time the emperor leaves campaign the following morning. Keep in mind when you leave a campaign for whatever reason the title is vacated. So AD retakes the crown again. DC retakes the following day. 2 days later the DC looses it back to AD and the former DC emperor leaves campaign. Now look at the pattern. Players are farming titles based on who's next in line for the faction. The crux of the issue is it has now become a PVE title farm in our campaign which is not the intended A V A purpose.
The problem is everyone wants to be emperor but no one wants to actually do the work. It's just like SWG pre CU everyone wants to be a Jedi but they don't want to do the work to get there. So, if we can learn anything from the past and apply it here, I would say that its time you get off your lazy a*&%$% and do the work. You all are stuck on titles and achievements and not the rewards that come at the end of the campaign. Stop whining about oh he got it again that's not fair, OMG he must be hacking. Get over it. You are not entitled to anything if you don't do the work.
Of course you could just zerg and title farm on a low population server like the DC are doing now.

Imperator_Clydus

FireCowCommando wrote: »

Yeah... Nothing like a 1+ million point gap between first and second... Only way to catch up in that situation is if they stop playing for a while. Granted, thats if they want anyone else on their side to be allowed to get emperor. Really needs to be something other than the default #1 position always gets it.

Agreed. On my campaign alone, the top guy has been getting consistently harassed and berated for hoarding the emperorship for himself. He is around 1.2 million AP or so ahead of the second guy. I cannot personally blame the guy for how the system works. He is just playing the game the way ZOS intended.

What I can say is I believe the system should be more flexible and not just allow a person to maintain control as long as they have the most points. Especially with how quirky AP gains are, this suggestion would establish more variety in the system. This also might help to discourage players from abdicating the Ruby Throne and trading emperorship amongst their friends.

Imperator_Clydus

NordJitsu wrote: »

That sounds like a rather nice solution.

Personally I'd prefer a complete revamp to the way the leaderboards work.

Getting the #1 spot on something called a LEADERboard should not be about finding the most effective ways to grind Alliance Points. This is why we're seeing people do things like take Elder Scrolls and go sit inside of buildings so they can kill people with oil while the load.

People aren't playing the tactics of the campaign in an attempt to beat their opponents. They're looking for the best farming mechanisms to beat the game's mechanics.

Instead, I'd like to see the leaderboards based on a cocktail of skill based metrics that is entirely hidden from the players (so we can't game it.)

Thing it should take into account:

1. Kill death ratio
2. Amount of damage done vs. amount of damage recieved
3. Amount of healing done
4. Total number of kills (measured in kill shots, not just standing near a fight)
5. Number of Emperorship keeps captured or defended
6. Participation in scroll captures and defense


And again, it would preferably be quite a complex algorithm.

That's not going to happen though. I'm asking for too much (which is sad) considering we couldn't even get a proper scaling system. Maybe they could outsource it to Google? lol

Anyway...

Your solution is simpler and therefore probably more realistic.

I agree with you entirely. The current system just encourages players to grind AP and farm kills. Most of the guys at the top of the leaderboard aren't actually leading groups and they certainly aren't playing objectives. Why should these individuals who aren't actually participating in AvA be crowned emperor at all?

I'd personally like to see a greater focus on AP being gained through objectives rather than just killing. I think this heavy focus on killing in one of the main detractors of AvA as it currently stands, encouraging mindless zergs and bad behavior with camping towers, elder scrolls, etc.

It probably would help as well if ZOS didn't allow AP gains to be seen in the API. As you suggested, no one besides ZOS should really know how AP accumulation works. As it stands, anyone with an add-on can easily see where they get the most bang for their buck.

Putting term limits on the emperorship is certainly a start to give more players at the top a shot of being crowned. Perhaps after that ZOS can heavily reconsider AP and potentially overhaul it.

Imperator_Clydus

Anazasi wrote: »

So let me make sure I understand this. You don't think its fair for the number one player to be able to get emperor over and over? Well I think that's a little bit silly. Shouldn't those who play the most win that honor?
Here is the perfect example of what happens in our campaign. About 2 weeks ago we had a reasonable balance in players. The fights were hard but the AD was able to get emperor and actually held it for a week or so. Then the DC got a huge influx of players and deposed the small core group of AD players and took the emperor title. Now the most logical thing to do is recruit more player and retake it right. Well that's what we did and retook it, crowning the rightful player of our alliance with the most AP. The next day DC retakes it but this time the emperor leaves campaign the following morning. Keep in mind when you leave a campaign for whatever reason the title is vacated. So AD retakes the crown again. DC retakes the following day. 2 days later the DC looses it back to AD and the former DC emperor leaves campaign. Now look at the pattern. Players are farming titles based on who's next in line for the faction. The crux of the issue is it has now become a PVE title farm in our campaign which is not the intended A V A purpose.
The problem is everyone wants to be emperor but no one wants to actually do the work. It's just like SWG pre CU everyone wants to be a Jedi but they don't want to do the work to get there. So, if we can learn anything from the past and apply it here, I would say that its time you get off your lazy a*&%$% and do the work. You all are stuck on titles and achievements and not the rewards that come at the end of the campaign. Stop whining about oh he got it again that's not fair, OMG he must be hacking. Get over it. You are not entitled to anything if you don't do the work.
Of course you could just zerg and title farm on a low population server like the DC are doing now.

No. Not really. When I was the first emperor of DC on Bloodthorn, I didn't think it was fair that no one could actually catch me on the leaderboard. It also kills the thrill of being emperor and trying to sustain it if you know you will just be crowned again. If this were real life, being deposed would likely mean you were killed, meaning you wouldn't be crowned again.

I'm not even sure what happened to the latter part of your post as it degenerated into a mindless rant. What I will say is that I've already been emperor. I actually did it the proper way playing objectives, leading groups, and working with others in the alliance. The issue you are addressing has to do with players exploiting the emperorship and trading it with friends.

This is largely happening because the top guy can literally maintain emperorship solely unopposed. If there was a term limit, there wouldn't be a need for players trading the emperorship to begin with, regardless of their intentions. The current system encourages bad behavior and players taking advantage of it.

If ZOS imposes term limits, which would make the emperorship more competitive, as well as reconsiders AP gains, this system would be a lot better and work as intended. Lets not even get into the argument that half of the emperors "earned it" as many were playing broken vampire builds intentionally exploiting and farming kills. Most of the emperors who came after me on Bloodthorn never helped the alliance, never participated in large groups, and just farmed kills with their buddies to gain the most AP.

FireCowCommando

On NA AB, theres people working together on two teams in order to by pass scroll defenses in order to draw people to the quest zones to farm points. Sometimes they even give up their teams own scroll in order to farm points for 30 minutes to 2/3 hours. These are potentially future emperors for their faction.

These players are contributing zero to the offensive effort, and work against their own team drawing players to a scroll carrier that has no intention of capturing/returning the scroll they exploited to grab.

Obviously this is a slightly different issue, but it highlights that the point system drives players to find dynamic solutions (even if they hurt their own faction) to try to climb to the top of the point ladder.

To be clear, being number 1 on your faction currently has no basis on actually contributing to your factions efforts. In fact, many emperors have put little effort into going for an objective, they are too busy farming points.

Imperator_Clydus

FireCowCommando wrote: »

On NA AB, theres people working together on two teams in order to by pass scroll defenses in order to draw people to the quest zones to farm points. Sometimes they even give up their teams own scroll in order to farm points for 30 minutes to 2/3 hours. These are potentially future emperors for their faction.

These players are contributing zero to the offensive effort, and work against their own team drawing players to a scroll carrier that has no intention of capturing/returning the scroll they exploited to grab.

Obviously this is a slightly different issue, but it highlights that the point system drives players to find dynamic solutions (even if they hurt their own faction) to try to climb to the top of the point ladder.

To be clear, being number 1 on your faction currently has no basis on actually contributing to your factions efforts. In fact, many emperors have put little effort into going for an objective, they are too busy farming points.

I agree entirely. Half of the DC emperors after me participated in such nefarious activities. They even had the gall to ask me to help them claim the imperial keeps so they could be crowned emperor, and then trade it to their friends.

I believe ZOS needs to heavily reconsider how AP gains work and what kind of behavior they are encouraging amongst the player base. Those who are emperors should have actually contributed to AvA. Grinding kills and farming players it not contributing and is merely exploiting a system not working as intended.

NordJitsu

Sad thing is, I told them so.

For anyone who was on the closed beta PTS, you might remember my controversial and eventually locked thread titled "Stealing Emperor and Cheating the System."

The post was about how a player intentionally exploited the point system and the campaign reset to jump a dramatic number of points in minutes and nab Emperorship from those who had actually earned it.

ZOS assured us that they were paying attention to the feedback, but it went 100% ignored.

Starshadw

I agree with some points here, and disagree with others.

First and foremost, the Emperorship isn't supposed to be "accessible" to many. Emperors and past-Emperors are meant to be rare. I do not want to see every Tom, *** and Harry as "past Emperors." In fact, we have a serious issue right now with Emperor-farming, specifically because people want access to the Emperor skill line.

So no, I do not want to see even 20% of the PvP population with the "past Emperor" tag.

I would submit that there really should be more criteria than "who has the most AP?" when it comes to Emperorship. I'd much rather see someone crowned Emperor who goes out of their way to unite their faction on their campaign - meaning they don't run in a small, exclusive group but rather run in the larger groups, than I would someone who has the most AP. What would be very cool - though I doubt it's possible - would be some sort of pop-up that appeared when all the keeps were taken, that allowed all faction members online 2 minutes to place a vote for any one of the top 5 AP of their faction or something. This would mean that a high-AP player who was a jerk would be less likely to become Emperor than perhaps the #3 on the list who treated the players of his/her faction with respect and tried to be inclusive when it came to forming raids, etc.

Targrim

The main reason for so many Emperors right now is the Zenomax failed to clean up their mess when they patch ed the dupping ring. Yes they ban the players (they could find), but they did not wipe the stacks that were handed off to others and now you have DC with roughly 80%+ of their population are past Emperor, Not because they stayed up since launch and ran the grind until their eye bled. They simply have unlimited resources and unlike the other 2/3 of the game. We should all just welcome F2P now and add in the WoW ui change. That is were ths game is headed because the DEV refuse to clean up.

e.gamemarkb14_ESO

The biggest issue here is that if someone spent a lot of time grinding up the AP points, then goes to bed, it wouldn't be fair for a different time zone group of players to capture all the keeps and bypass Emperorship to that player, just because they were offline at the time all the keeps were taken.

I had recommended a different solution that I felt was more fair, such as:

After obtaining emperor status, utilize an internal clock that looks at total time the player has been Emperor. Once that time period is up (say 48-72 hours), that player will lose 50% of their AP points (on the leader board, not spendable AP) they had at the time they obtained Emperor status.

This does a couple of things such as:

1. Gives anyone who becomes Emperor a reasonable amount of time to maintain that status before losing their leader board AP. If that faction loses their Emperor status shortly after obtaining it, that still gives that player an opportunity to regain it until an internal clock shows 48-72 hours worth of total time as Emperor.

2. This would give others an opportunity to gain this coveted position and share in that experience, while still giving the former Emperor a chance to catch back up again if they decide to put in the time.

I see it as a progressive ladder system with diminishing returns in a sense, without wiping the board clean or preventing that player from obtaining Emperor status again.