Ive captured a scroll solo
Ive captured a scroll with the gate closed solo
Ive ran a scroll all the way around a map solo, like clockwise iirc (to be fair i was emperor on the lowbie server at the time)
Ive 1vXed with a scroll (both as emp and not)
Ive farmed 500k AP in a single session with a scroll

I was part of the very first live game scroll run (first release day for early access, iirc it was on auriels bow?, that was a long time ago, almost six years)

Ive also done most of the above with groups of 100

and groups of 8

and 5

and 200

All of that before I retired and uninstalled 2 1/2 years ago

So I mean, really?

This is still a discussion?

Why shouldn't a small group of players who know that they are doing be able to capture a scroll?

Your alliance has ample opportunities to stop them. In order to capture a scroll, you have to lose two specific tri-Keeps, they have to make it past the NPC-defended Gate (which now dismounts you), and the scroll guards. If you stop them at any point or retake one of the tri-Keeps, they can't take your scroll.

That's one reason for a low time requirement, by the way. If you go recapture a tri-keep, a barrier slams down around that scroll that does a million damage to any enemy trying to grab it. Groups that grab scrolls have to be quick or else risk losing their chance.

If this group of 5 only faced NPCs or weak players all that time, again, why shouldn't they be able to take your scroll?

Cyrodiil is Player vs Player. The people who should be doing the bulk of the defending and attacking are Players, not NPCs. If your players aren't doing a good job of defending for whatever reason, you will lose your scrolls if the enemy is competent. NPCs should not be upgraded because your alliance didn't defend their scrolls against a decent small group.

I still don't see it.

Capturing a keep means breaking down a wall and a door, or two doors, capturing two flags, and repairing the keep.

Capturing a scroll means capturing two keeps and holding them long enough to grab the scroll, racing past the choke point at the gate, taking the scroll from the temple, then racing back out the choke point at the gate, and guarding the scroll runner all the way back to home territory.

A. Taking a scroll is plenty difficult enough in my opinion. The difficulty goes beyond just grabbing the scroll from the Temple.

B. There are ample opportunities for enemy players to interfere effectively with a scroll grab. If they don't, for whatever reason, NPCs should not be picking up the slack more than they already do.

C. You acknowledge that this is a problem at low population times and in your OP ackniwledged that empowering NPCs in addition to players during competitive times would be too much. So far, ZOS has been unwilling to balance for Cyrodiil's low population hours.

In short, I think Cyrodiil is largely a Player vs Player zone. If you dont want 4 or 5 players stealing your scrolls, your alliance needs to respond effectively to interfere with the scroll take. Even a few players ought to be able to take advantage of the choke points or the NPC presence at the temple to mess up a small group trying to take a scroll. And if nobody comes to defend or the defenders can't manage to beat a group of 4-5 (or solo, LOL) with NPC support, as far as I'm concerned, that small group deserves to get the scroll if they are good enough to grab it and take it home.

Yes.

Holycannoli wrote: »

I don't know, it just makes me wonder what the point of all those NPC guards. They do nothing at the gate and they do nothing at the scrolls so why even them have them there? What is their point?

For one, they keep enemy players in combat so they can't mount up and move quicker to and fron the temple and the gate, making it easier for defenders to catch them or get in position. Yes, that's quite important during a competitive scroll take when we're fighting or trying to escape defenders.

Being in combat can also complicate actually picking up the scroll. Again, important when we're dealing with actual players coming to defend the scroll.

But you seem to want the guards to be able to handle players on their own, and that's just not the case. The guards can be invaluable supports to allied players in the vicinity - I can't tell you how many times my raid ate a guard thrown negate at the worst possible time or players got dismounted or hels in combat by NPCs - but NPCs do not replace actual players defending objectives. They supplement, not replace and IMO that's exactly how it ought to be.

The actual answer for how to keep a small group of 4 or 5 players from taking your scrolls is for players to show up and help those NPCs defend the scroll like the Player vs Player zone that Cyrodiil is.

Merlight wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

The guards can be invaluable supports to allied players in the vicinity - I can't tell you how many times my raid ate a guard thrown negate at the worst possible time...

And apart from Negate, they're just Inhale, Sap and Batswarm fodder.

VaranisArano wrote: »

The actual answer for how to keep a small group of 4 or 5 players from taking your scrolls is for players to show up and help those NPCs defend the scroll like the Player vs Player zone that Cyrodiil is.

Agreed, with a twist. If Cyrodiil is so Player vs Player focused, why is Player vs Non-Player-Character heavily rewarded?

By that, I'm guessing you mean PVDooring keeps and scrolls for AP and points? Again, the incentive is for players to show up and defend objectives or else they are very likely to lose objectives and points to the enemy faction. If the enemy wants easy points/AP, they'll go for less defended targets even though they miss the extra AP for killing more players at heavily defended targets.

Cyrodiil has guards NPCs to slow down and inconvenience the enemy while the defending players are supposed to be the real threat. If the defending players don't show up to defend their territory, the NPCs usually aren't sufficient to hold it unless the attacking players are not very good.

That's exactly what we see with scroll takes. NPC guards slow down enemies, dismount them, and keep them in combat, thus making it easier for defenders to get in position and intercept the scroll capture group. The real bulk of the work of defending the scroll has to be done by players or else the players are going to lose the scroll.

I don't really have a problem with that. These factions are made up of players, and if players aren't going to defend their scrolls against a small groups of 4 to 5 players, the problem isn't that the NPCs can't handle the enemy. or that the small group got "rewarded" for pursuing an objective that no one showed up to defend.

Merlight wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Cyrodiil has guards NPCs to slow down and inconvenience the enemy...

But they can't do that anymore. I remember when guards did not melt under 2 ballista shots. It was such an inconvenience that ZOS turned them into wet paper dolls.

VaranisArano wrote: »

That's exactly what we see with scroll takes. NPC guards slow down enemies, dismount them, and keep them in combat

If it was not for the stuck-in-combat-for-five-years feature, this slowing down would amount to a few seconds at best, practically irrelevant.

In my experience, its not irrelevant when we're facing actual player enemies during a competitive scroll take and that was true even before the stuck-in-combat-forever bug. Which is the point, after all. Its a supplement to what the player defenders are supposed to be doing, not a full NPC defense of the scroll capable of beating attacking players who know what they are doing.

But I suspect we'll have to agree to disagree.

Holycannoli wrote: »

Getting through the gate is one thing, but the scroll guards have no way to stop a small dungeon-size group from capturing a scroll?

Maybe it's my old DAOC thinking but scrolls should require a raid. 5 people should be guaranteed to meet their doom. The scrolls are surrounded by guards that can't do their job.

I do understand though that scroll guards that are actually capable of doing their job + player defenders would be too much.

I agree, increasing the difficulty to get an enemy scroll should be increased. It would at the very least prevent/deter night capping which is a big problem on many campaigns.

Another former DAoC player! Yes! Hibernian Ranger here XD

Elong wrote: »

Less skill more zergs please.

If I have to do more than 1 spamable aoe + LA then ulti bomb on crown it's a bad day.

Holycannoli wrote: »

If you uninstalled 2 1/2 years ago why are you here commented on my post? And it doesn't change the fact that scrolls should not be capturable by tiny groups, let alone soloed.

It's currently many times more difficult to capture keeps, if only because of the time required. Maybe the scrolls should be behind walls and doors too.

this was worth reading this post.

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Steelshiv wrote: »

I agree, increasing the difficulty to get an enemy scroll should be increased. It would at the very least prevent/deter night capping which is a big problem on many campaigns.

You do know that some of what you guys call "night capping" is people from other parts of the world playing, right? Parts of the world where it's not necessarily night time....

Yes people are aware. The problem is, at least on PC/NA is that outside of Vivec which has pretty even pops through out the day, other campaigns just get PvDoored. There’s a group of AD on Shor that have been PvDooring scrolls and tri keeps almost every “night” for actual years when there’s no one else playing the map. But what can you do? You can jsut say people can’t play at certain hours.

Holycannoli wrote: »

If you uninstalled 2 1/2 years ago why are you here commented on my post? And it doesn't change the fact that scrolls should not be capturable by tiny groups, let alone soloed.

It's currently many times more difficult to capture keeps, if only because of the time required. Maybe the scrolls should be behind walls and doors too.

They are...