Easy IC fix to bring players back

Baconlad · April 2023

I always loved IC since launch. Been trying to farm telvar again. But I'll tell you the biggest thing that makes even me not want to be down there.

1-lack of anything to do in sewers. I think they should add three flags per portion of the sewers, increasing telvar gain similarly to the city flags but only for the zone ur in. I think their are seven zones in IC? So three flags per zone. Also no NPCs on flags please....or you can make the boss kills dependent on whether you own an area of the sewers. You kill the roaming boss you own the area.

2-the risk is too high compared to the reward. I'm not opposed to risk, but the setup we have is too heavily leaning on sneak and stealth...nightblades have the greatest advantage in the gold to be made in the whole of IC. Ur either a solo NB, a solo tank, or a zero. If you're outside of that. Expect to lose a ton of telvar, I think lowers lost stones to maybe 1k when you die. That way ur encouraged to still go for telvar, but if you die to gangs or ganks ull only lose a small portion. Allowing you to carry more and not sweat too much. This IMO is the biggest change to bring players to IC, don't even have to change anything else if you don't want to.

3-add flags to each upstairs district, and also dramatically lower the amount of telvar gained from flag ownership, instead of 33% make it 10% or 50% for only that zone. You don't need to add more flags...just change the numbers around a bit. You want to kill the boss in this district, then own the flag to maximize telvar instead of all 6 flags.

These changes right here will see IC explode with populations, some players won't want it...they rely on the gold income. But it's an unhealthy environment as it is. These changes are super easy to implement. Even if you don't change the flags or the amount of flags, just messing with numbers for telvar gained and lost will make zeni win

Baconlad · April 2023

Common zos I know ur busy making money off of crown crates...this is easy, should take 1 day of man hours to complete, a week to test, and launch in an incremental...easy. you'll find more praise than hate from this. Think of all the streamers who will praise you live on twitch!

jaws343 · April 2023

I farm tel var in my straight up PVE solo setup and rarely run into other players in the sewers. The trick is to choose a farming route that stays within the first 2 sections of your alliance. Less likely to run into other faction players there.

Baconlad · April 2023

Yeah I'm good with telvar farming. I'm not crazy fast at farming buckets of telvar. But I enjoy just going into the sewers and destroying mobs. I am a vampire stage four so stealthily, while difficult under attack isn't impossible for me.

I would just love to see IC have better populations. My suggestions counter most issues people have with IC, and that's how hard it is to gain TV especially upstairs. Only due to the enemy players running in stealth or packs that you can't touch, but will dominate you if you don't have stealth. There's no escape.

These suggestions would also encourage more actual PvP instead of running away. If I have 20k TV on me, I know that if I die ill only lose 1k stones. I will be more open to fighting as 1k stones earned at the slowest only takes 3-5 minutes! It would encourage more than just NBs to run around as well.

Overall I believe my suggestions would be best for everyone but the group that farms TV day in and day out. Everyone who loves IC but can't deal with the massive penalty to losing. Losing should never be as punishing as it is in IC, there's a reason WoW became so popular so fast when it launched, because you weren't penalized to heavily for death. In everquest at the time you dropped your gear on death! Which could be picked up by enemy players!

People don't mind losing, but losing hours worth of time for something like a gank you can't control, is a bit unfair. And I'm not just saying that because I've been ganked. I don't mind losing an hour of TV gain. I'm ultimately not in IC for TV. I'm there because I love the environment and aesthetic and story line. I'm repeating concerns I've heard for years on IC.

For whatever reason ZOS is afraid to mess with ICs current formula. I get it, it's something they've been standing firm on for years, but at some point they need to man up and admit that IC isn't fun for the masses, and they can EASILY change that. Just need to accept that they were wrong and fix it!

Necrotech_Master · April 2023

i usually like running into the middle and killing molag bal (even when solo)

the biggest detractor for why im not there more frequently is im working on gear collections, or trying to hit my first alliance rank 50 on my NB

IC drops NO gear whatsoever outside of the monster heads, which with curation only take a minimum of 3 kills each to get all of them, there is literally no other gear drops there but instead your forced to waste tel var on uncurated boxes

the other part of what i mentioned, is the AP, there is virtually no AP to be gained in IC, you get a little (1500) for capping the flags and killing other players, but that is it so for a pvp zone, your barely even rewarded a pvp currency

other suggestions that ive seen would include adding a leaderboard that could be based on tel var gained or some other factor, and my own addition to this could be like a emperor type position (it obviously wouldnt be as strong as the normal cyro emp, but works similar, you would just be #1 on the leaderboard and then cap all 6 districts flags to grant some kind of extra bonus)

gariondavey · April 2023

Check out @React 's long post for an ic rework.

6 man max size group, everyone is hostile outside of your group
Can rez in any zone regardless of flag status
Higher telvar scaling multipliers above 10k
Only can obtain stones equal to what you have on you.

Baconlad · April 2023

Yeah garion. I disagree with those...that would not convince anyone to come to IC. The goal is not to make IC more of a small team players area than it already is. The goal is to encourage solo players.

In order to do that you need to make stealth less of a crutch, and dying less punishable.

You farm for two hours and have an hours worth removed because of a stealthblade...that's not right.

The whole system of gaining more telvar based on multiplier and flag ownership is not right for the goal either. It encourages you to run 6 or more deep so you can make the flags all yours, and if you decide to jump into IC solo against them ur screwed. You don't get the flags and you get steamrolled for the little telvar you were able to get.

Yall might think I'm asking for IC to be a habdholding PvP experience...truth be told, if that's what it takes to make IC alive then that's what I'm asking for. 99% of people who pvp don't mind it if they aren't going to lose progress, the 1% who are still there are either nightblades, super tanky super skilled soloers or small teams...which is such a minority of the playerbase in PvP. We need to find a way to open IC to the masses. My suggestions will do that.

Personally I'd be ok with a set amount of telvar gained with no modifiers at all. No stones lost on death. No flags for ownerships. At the a set of flags for the zone you have to hold to gain a x2 modifier for that zone only. If the 1% of pvpers that normally farm IC don't like it and leave? Good riddance, cause that means 99% left over will come in to enjoy themselves in it

xylena_lazarow · April 2023

Remove spawn restrictions, bring back the endless Memorial brawl.

Cap telvar winnings based on how much you wager yourself.

CameraBeardThePirate · April 2023

Baconlad wrote: »

Yeah garion. I disagree with those...that would not convince anyone to come to IC. The goal is not to make IC more of a small team players area than it already is. The goal is to encourage solo players.

In order to do that you need to make stealth less of a crutch, and dying less punishable.

You farm for two hours and have an hours worth removed because of a stealthblade...that's not right.

The whole system of gaining more telvar based on multiplier and flag ownership is not right for the goal either. It encourages you to run 6 or more deep so you can make the flags all yours, and if you decide to jump into IC solo against them ur screwed. You don't get the flags and you get steamrolled for the little telvar you were able to get.

Yall might think I'm asking for IC to be a habdholding PvP experience...truth be told, if that's what it takes to make IC alive then that's what I'm asking for. 99% of people who pvp don't mind it if they aren't going to lose progress, the 1% who are still there are either nightblades, super tanky super skilled soloers or small teams...which is such a minority of the playerbase in PvP. We need to find a way to open IC to the masses. My suggestions will do that.

Personally I'd be ok with a set amount of telvar gained with no modifiers at all. No stones lost on death. No flags for ownerships. At the a set of flags for the zone you have to hold to gain a x2 modifier for that zone only. If the 1% of pvpers that normally farm IC don't like it and leave? Good riddance, cause that means 99% left over will come in to enjoy themselves in it

Stealth is neutered in IC if they make the simple change of only being able to take Tel Var from other players up to however much Tel Var you're already carrying. That one small change alone would mean you'd no longer have gank blades following you for hours trying to gank you while holding no stones themselves.