"O" ticks should have a very low base AP rate to start like "D" ticks have, and then make them both escalate better based on the combat list at the point of interest being fought over. If you PvDoor a keep it should be for very little AP, whatever the lowest "D" tick now is, couple hundred, maybe less. The more people that are involved, the more it should be worth. Promote PvP within the siege warfare system rather than promoting PvDoor within that same system. Siege warfare is great, but without a defending faction its just siege, there is no warfare.

In regards to population they could put modifiers on the AP escalators being used based on player counts on combat lists for taking or defending a point of interest so that if you faction is locked it is unmodified. If your faction is at 3 bars it is modified 1.5X. If your faction is at 2 bars it is modified 2X. If your faction is at 1 bar it is modified 4X. This way people who play during low pop hours are compensated with comparable AP numbers to those who play at prime time, but PvDoor is still only worth a couple hundred AP. If you are 1 bar and win with a combat list of 15 players it would yield the same AP as a locked faction with a combat list of 60 players, but PvDoor is a couple hundred no matter how many people are online.

Major_Lag wrote: »

I agree that D ticks should be buffed slightly, but there's something else about them that I find annoying:

If a keep is lost after a protracted siege, you get NOTHING out of it - other than any AP directly gained from killing the attackers.

This is supremely annoying when there are very long sieges - I'm talking about those that last upwards of 20-30 minutes (sometimes over an hour!), with maxed out siege limits, multiple FCs being deployed on both sides, and piles of dead bodies everywhere.

IMO when there is a defense in progress and the keep has already been under siege for more than, say, 15 minutes, there should be additional smaller ticks awarded every couple of minutes for successfully continuing to hold the objective against the attackers' siege.
With the final large D tick being awarded when all the fighting ceases, just as it works currently. Losing the objective forfeits only the final tick.

Obviously the values would have to be balanced in such a way as to discourage AP farming by permanently keeping objectives under siege in otherwise dead maps, but that's mostly a matter of tweaking the numbers.

Love it!!

Bergzorn wrote: »

Maybe get rid of the x1 x3 x5 multiplier depending on keep level and always make it x3.

After a prolonged defense, keeps are often down to lvl 0. Defticks of 10k or above are rare. When I kill a lost PvE guy or a troll sieger at a lvl 2 keep, I get about 2k AP for the kill and 10k as def tick. This feels a bit off.

Another problem with the current system is that after a very long keep defense, the D tick is usually lower than what you will have spent on sieges and repair kits

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

The problem with ticks is that if you make them too high with their current system the game is just gnna end up like "last emp keep" scenarios constantly.

i.e. a laggy mess where people are trying to get to the 1 keep that is UA and crashing


That being said its also hard to find a system that will be fair to all sides.

Yet the way they currently work encourages PvDooring empty objectives instead.

To the degree that certain guilds "specialize" in such PvDoor raids, setting up close to the siege limit in a couple of seconds and flagging the objective before any defense can be assembled - and then they capture it so fast that it's already flipped and repaired by the time any defense forces can arrive.

Yet if you manage to get a drop on those guilds, they are a complete pushover and easily wipe against even the most incompetent pushes - obviously they aren't built and prepared for any actual PvP.

Buffing D-ticks makes for great PVP since people actually want to show up and defend in large numbers.

Buffing D-ticks also makes for bad server performance because the servers can't handle it when people show up to defend in large numbers.

If only ZOS would fix performance so we could have nice things.

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

"O" ticks should have a very low base AP rate to start like "D" ticks have, and then make them both escalate better based on the combat list at the point of interest being fought over. If you PvDoor a keep it should be for very little AP, whatever the lowest "D" tick now is, couple hundred, maybe less. The more people that are involved, the more it should be worth. Promote PvP within the siege warfare system rather than promoting PvDoor within that same system. Siege warfare is great, but without a defending faction its just siege, there is no warfare.

Why is the initial plan of people to simply "nerf" something?

Nerfing AP is a poor idea. Look at MYM when it comes up. It's lively because there's more AP on offer. People are out there taking keeps. People are defending same keeps.

Think of it as nerfing PvDoor. What is it that you don't understand about human nature that requires negative consequences be put on negative actions in order to reduce those negative actions? You enjoy PvDoor, or think of it as good game play? It's only a nerf if you PvDoor. It does not require necessarily that there be a ton of deaths to get to the point that "O" ticks offer the same AP as they do now. For example say it is determined that 40 deaths should be required for a 6k tick at locked pop. So the first 40 deaths would add 150 AP to the base 200 getting the tick to 6.2kAP. That means with the modifiers that you chose to glean out it would require 30 at 3 bar, 20 at 2 bar and 10 at 1 bar to get that 6.2k tick. All of these situations would yield the same tick as people get now from PvDooring. Maybe that is too much. So make it 20, 15, 10, and 5. At pop lock each death for the first 20 would add 300 AP to the base, at 1 bar each death for the first 5 would add 1200 AP to the base getting you to 6.2k. I personally think this would be too low, but that is just my opinion of it. Do the same thing to "D" ticks and now suddenly defending is also a viable option to gain AP no matter what the population level is at. If you take a keep and there are 0 deaths then it is worth 200AP no matter the population level. Why should anyone get more than that for killing NPC's and standing on a flag?

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Major_Lag wrote: »

To the degree that certain guilds "specialize" in such PvDoor raids, setting up close to the siege limit in a couple of seconds and flagging the objective before any defense can be assembled - and then they capture it so fast that it's already flipped and repaired by the time any defense forces can arrive.

I belong to 2 hardcore pvp guilds, pug plenty, and fast sieging is ALWAYS the objective.

If you're standing around out front with 20 people huddled around 1 ballista waiting for the defense to arrive, you're doing it wrong.

That's not what I was talking about.

Of course "fast siege" is almost always the goal (why? to avoid any PvP? ehh...) - but some guilds appear to be built exclusively for PvDoor, and they are hilariously incompetent in actual PvP if/when it eventually happens.
Those guilds also tend to mostly siege objectives which appear to be undefended and frequently have little strategic value at the time.

Fighting against those guilds (PvP, not countersiege) is like slaughtering unprepared PvEers. They crutch a lot on their heal and purge spam, but tend to otherwise lack even the most basic PvP skills.
They are however great AP pinatas

But I digress - the root of the issue here is that the base O tick is too large; the base value of the O tick should be decreased but the scaling (per player killed) should be buffed.
This would hopefully discourage mindlessly PvDooring empty keeps, and instead help promote actual PvP.

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Too complicated. If you kill 7 people at 1 bar pop then you get 170 AP / number of people in your attacking group, plus a multiplier based on what day of the week it is... bah.

It's really quite simple. Do you know the math that is going into the 7k "O" tick, or the 4k "D" tick you are receiving right now? Do you know exactly how many deaths are required for each of those specific ticks? What about a 2148 "D" tick, specifically? No, but you get the tick and roll with it. Pointing out the math was done to show how easy it would be to implement something that can fluctuate with population so that it's fair regardless of population limitations, and can make PvDoor worth the AP gains that it should be worth regardless of population, not so that you can count the deaths and predict what your AP will be for taking/defending the objective.

What day of the week it is? Talk about strawman.

Major_Lag wrote: »

I agree that D ticks should be buffed slightly, but there's something else about them that I find annoying:

If a keep is lost after a protracted siege, you get NOTHING out of it - other than any AP directly gained from killing the attackers.

This is supremely annoying when there are very long sieges - I'm talking about those that last upwards of 20-30 minutes (sometimes over an hour!), with maxed out siege limits, multiple FCs being deployed on both sides, and piles of dead bodies everywhere.

IMO when there is a defense in progress and the keep has already been under siege for more than, say, 15 minutes, there should be additional smaller ticks awarded every couple of minutes for successfully continuing to hold the objective against the attackers' siege.
With the final large D tick being awarded when all the fighting ceases, just as it works currently. Losing the objective forfeits only the final tick.

Obviously the values would have to be balanced in such a way as to discourage AP farming by permanently keeping objectives under siege in otherwise dead maps, but that's mostly a matter of tweaking the numbers.

I agree that this sort of system would be good, as even with improved D ticks there is still no incentive if players think defending the keep is a lost cause. This sort of idea would mean there still is incentive to try.

On a side note, this sort of thing does actually already happen sometimes, but I'm not exactly sure of the required conditions although I have only ever noticed it when there are low numbers of attackers and defenders (I am Oceanic so low numbers is common for me). It could be some bug that with low numbers the game for some reason thinks the siege has ended even though it hasn't because there is less action occurring.

For example on multiple occasions I have been trying to solo defend a keep (most frequently Drakelowe... I always seem to end up there) against maybe 4-6 players. This generally involves oils as they set up rams or picking off individuals that stray from the group while they move from outer to inner door. Anyway, if I manage to get a few kills and then draw the siege out for a while I have may suddenly get something like a 6-10k tick, even though the siege is still in progress and the keep has never unflagged. This can repeat until either I successfully defend and get the normal D tick, or fail and they take the keep. I think the most I ever noticed was was something like a total of ~50k AP (spread across a few of these ticks) for a defense that I was the only defender for but eventually failed after half an hour or so.

Bergzorn wrote: »

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

On a side note, this sort of thing does actually already happen sometimes, but I'm not exactly sure of the required conditions

Def ticks are payed out to the contributing defenders as soon as no fresh AP is added to the tick pool for sixty seconds.

Ah that would explain it, thanks. Makes sense that its most common with low numbers as that makes it more likely that no fresh ap gets added for a minute.