Small (relatively) easy changes to IC to encourage PvP

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2023

IC is in a weird spot right now. At times, it's the most fun PvP in the game, with dangerous mobs, tons of line of sight to fight larger groups with, and a great risk vs reward system with TelVar. The problem? Besides TelVar, there really isn't a reason to go there, so more often than not, the entire city is a ghost town.

Small changes could encourage people to go there. Here's a random list of suggestions that I don't think would take too much developer time.

1) Adding a leaderboard - A leaderboard would encourage people to fight. 1st place could get a special title/achievement, along with a big TelVar jackpot or other rewards.

2) Reverting the respawn changes - One of the reasons IC feels so empty now is because of the fact that it takes a long time to get back into the fights. Reverting the change to respawns and allowing anyone to respawn in any zone no matter the ownership would help speed up downtime between engagements.

3) Changes to TelVar gain - This one is a little nebulous, but changing how TelVar is gained could encourage more people to venture into IC. For example, if TelVar gains were increased, but dying gave a larger percent of your TelVar to the enemy, the Risk vs Reward of IC would be even higher. To discourage an increase in ganks, stealing TelVar could be limited to however much you have on your person at the time. Bosses in the sewers should give more TelVar as well.

4) Adding "bonuses" in the sewers - There's absolutely no reason to go down into the Sewers right now. Some sort of obtainable buff that's visible on the map and hidden in/near the center could encourage people to venture down into the sewers. The buff could be offensive in nature or give a buff to TelVar gain for 30/60 minutes. The buff could even be tied to killing Molag Bal to encourage people participating in that event. Perhaps killing Molag Bal would give a buff against the roaming horrors; the possibilities are endless here.

5) Moving the dailies into the sewer bases - This is just a quality of life change, but improving the QoL of IC will help its health regardless.

These are just some suggestions, but the idea is there are a lot of small, easy-to-implement changes that could inject some life back into this zone. The PvP there really is unique, but it's empty more often than not.

Norith_Gilheart_Flail · June 2023

People don't like risk vs reward.

As evidenced by how dead it is outside MYM when there is no incentive for people to go in there, if nothing of interest offered.

Kartalin · June 2023

Hmm, double AP at all times and a max group size of 4? Should be fun 😉

Necrotech_Master · June 2023

wholly agree with points 1, 2, and 5

point 3, i think it makes sense for the surface since that is the more "pvp focused" area, so a higher risk vs reward might be more exciting

point 4 the main bonus is see is that there is much less risk to run into other players down there, so i usually actually prefer to farm tel var in the sewers (banner bosses can still give a respectable amount of tel var when solo or 2 person group)

the main complaint i actually see is the risk vs reward, a lot of people hate losing their tel var (probably the same people who hate dying in pvp to begin with)

my proposal to solve that would be an adjustable bonus, you would lose less tel var on death, but you would gain tel var slower and vice versa

so the current rate would be like normal 100% gain with 50% loss on death

a "low risk" would be -10% loss on death, but you would only gain tel var at like 25% the normal rate
a "high risk" would be -80% loss on death, but you would gain tel var at like 150% the normal rate
(actual values could be balanced to more appropriate levels, but this would allow you to set your own risk vs reward)

xylena_lazarow · June 2023

Revert the respawn restrictions. Limit telvar winnings to the amount you're actually risking. Increase the amount of telvars you gain from mobs, especially in the sewers.

HidesInPlainSight · June 2023

Id have to hard disagree.

1) leaderboards don't make any sense for the content that IC offers.

2) Respawn timers helps fighting larger groups. You flip the flag, and now every enemy you killed has a longer time to get back to the zerg that is trying to kill you. It also has power dynamics between farmers.

3) Telvar gain and loss is perfect as it stands now. Plenty of Telvar to be made, if you are not zerging. Zerging is what kills IC. IC is meant for small scale pvp. Midyear Mayhem and other pvp related events are the only time zerging in IC is acceptable. IC is the last remaining small scale pvp, pvpers have left in this game. Also, changing the rate of Telvar gain, would crash the economy, tanking the price of mats immediately. IC funds the majority of the in-game economy. Take a look at what happened to Telvar / Mat Prices when they consolidated IC into 2 campaigns compared to when they had 3x CP, No Cp, and an Under 50. Even back then the maps were contested all day, some of us regulars would farm in the Under 50 campagin.. Or when they added storage chest farming.

IC is actually fairly busy everyday, all day. You just don't see because players stealth and swap alliances as the map changes. Plenty of regulars are there all day, and it takes quite a bit of effort to control the map and bosses. Regulars all know each other and their tricks. I have 3x of each of my farmers / pvpers for multiple class on two accounts, soley for IC pvp / farming.

4) Sewers are unique, they are not empty, but could some something. I level all my characters in the sewers and have to fight for the xp loop the entire time im down there.

5) Dailies suck, no matter what you do. Thousands and thousands of hours in IC, and the only time I ever do dailies is for Events.

The problem with IC is that PvE'rs do not like loosing Telvar, so they seek safety in numbers, which turns into zerging. Well when you get zerged down for the 10th time, you leave, unless you can somehow form your own zerg. Which then eventually one zerg wins and steamrolls the PvE content in a few minutes, then they have to wait 15 minutes for the respawns. So they get bored and leave. IC is meant for small groups at most. Farming telvar, anything more then 3-manning bosses is waste of time.

Even farmers will take the easy route if the enemy faction numbers are too high, and swap over to controlling faction and farm the bosses out from underneath you.

Its a high risk, high reward, small scale PvEvP zone, that has the best small scale pvp fights in the game. If you want to increase player traffic to the zone. ZoS needs to balance PvP better and restrict group sizes or create Instances of IC's and cap the number of players in each instance for each faction, merging instances as players leave and join.

Necrotech_Master · June 2023

there are no "respawn timers" in IC, that only exists in BGs

removing the option to respawn in a district at all is what killed IC and enforces zerging, if you arent zerging, you have no control of the surface and thus no respawns, which means if your trying to do your dailies and die, you have to get thrown either halfway across the districts from where you were doing dailies or back in the sewer (which means you need more time to get to the right district and more load screens)

if respawns were not tied to the flags, then it would much more support your small scale pvp cause people could just respawn back into the fights while people doing dailies could respawn and do their own thing

i wouldnt really call IC busy when its at 1 bar pops 90% of the time, and 10% of the time 1 faction has 2+ bars (hence zerging and impossible to do anything on the surface when thats the case)

and i dont see why a leaderboard for say tel var gained would be an issue, its exactly the same as the emp leaderboard for AP gained in cyro, you can pay attention to it, or not, entirely up to you

heck i think adding a leaderboard with cyro style campaign tiers and end of campaign rewards would actually significantly increase the activity in IC, as it would be an additional source of transmutes

gariondavey · June 2023

@ZOS_Kevin please help rejuvenate ic

endgamesmug · June 2023

Remove flags

Credible_Joe · June 2023

Just off the top of my head

Adding boss bounty quests for the sewers, especially in enemy corridors
Adding capture-the-relic gameplay in the sewers. Big tel var bonuses while holding a relic. Double jeopardy while holding two
PvP set drops from bosses and chests. Junk weapons and armor clogging my inventory is very aggravating

pedrogonzalez · June 2023

Kartalin wrote: »

Hmm, double AP at all times and a max group size of 4? Should be fun 😉

Max group size of 2. And no alliances. All other players - enemies.

pedrogonzalez · June 2023

I will start with map. There are no sewers. Only base room with banker and traders.
Next goes alliances. There no alliances in this version of IC. Everyone who is not in you group is your enemy. Maximum group capacity limited to 2 players.
Telvar gain lock to x4. Bosses x2 weaker, respawn x2 faster.
There no flags in city. Instead of them let’s place there 3 random sigils with 5min cd in each district.
Also as it’s a PvPvE location let’s replace telvars with *generic name coin*, with what you will pay traders for lootboxes. And here it comes: traders will have this boxes:
1. Dungeonname armor box for 10k (any dungeon in game)
2. Dungeonname weapon box for 20k
3. Transmutation box with 50 transmute stones for 50k
So with that people who don’t like pve can just full their collection for crafting (I know how it looks for zos, so let’s say - you may have eso+ or buy a dungeon dlc to use this boxes). Also add some boxes with tradeables, as in classic IC.
It’s not supposed to replace classic IC, but add additional campaign with different ruleset.
What problems will help to solve this campaign:
1. People can farm gear while getting fun (many have fun doing dungeons, but I think I am not only one around here who just hate dungeons)
2. Area for some duos, where you can play without 5 wardens frostclench you, while some sniper snipes in hope of desync.
3. Since only 2 players allowed in party - no crosshealing from random folks
4. No zergs.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2023

Credible_Joe wrote: »

Just off the top of my head
Adding boss bounty quests for the sewers, especially in enemy corridors

Adding capture-the-relic gameplay in the sewers. Big tel var bonuses while holding a relic. Double jeopardy while holding two

PvP set drops from bosses and chests. Junk weapons and armor clogging my inventory is very aggravating

A capture the flag with TelVar bonuses would be super fun in the sewers and might actually persuade people to go down there

Xarc · June 2023

+leaderboard for ic, including telvar
+daily quest for "take this district flag", "kill this district boss", etc

Amottica · June 2023

HidesInPlainSight wrote: »

Id have to hard disagree.

1) leaderboards don't make any sense for the content that IC offers.

2) Respawn timers helps fighting larger groups. You flip the flag, and now every enemy you killed has a longer time to get back to the zerg that is trying to kill you. It also has power dynamics between farmers.

3) Telvar gain and loss is perfect as it stands now. Plenty of Telvar to be made, if you are not zerging. Zerging is what kills IC. IC is meant for small scale pvp. Midyear Mayhem and other pvp related events are the only time zerging in IC is acceptable. IC is the last remaining small scale pvp, pvpers have left in this game. Also, changing the rate of Telvar gain, would crash the economy, tanking the price of mats immediately. IC funds the majority of the in-game economy. Take a look at what happened to Telvar / Mat Prices when they consolidated IC into 2 campaigns compared to when they had 3x CP, No Cp, and an Under 50. Even back then the maps were contested all day, some of us regulars would farm in the Under 50 campagin.. Or when they added storage chest farming.

IC is actually fairly busy everyday, all day. You just don't see because players stealth and swap alliances as the map changes. Plenty of regulars are there all day, and it takes quite a bit of effort to control the map and bosses. Regulars all know each other and their tricks. I have 3x of each of my farmers / pvpers for multiple class on two accounts, soley for IC pvp / farming.

4) Sewers are unique, they are not empty, but could some something. I level all my characters in the sewers and have to fight for the xp loop the entire time im down there.

5) Dailies suck, no matter what you do. Thousands and thousands of hours in IC, and the only time I ever do dailies is for Events.

The problem with IC is that PvE'rs do not like loosing Telvar, so they seek safety in numbers, which turns into zerging. Well when you get zerged down for the 10th time, you leave, unless you can somehow form your own zerg. Which then eventually one zerg wins and steamrolls the PvE content in a few minutes, then they have to wait 15 minutes for the respawns. So they get bored and leave. IC is meant for small groups at most. Farming telvar, anything more then 3-manning bosses is waste of time.

Even farmers will take the easy route if the enemy faction numbers are too high, and swap over to controlling faction and farm the bosses out from underneath you.

Its a high risk, high reward, small scale PvEvP zone, that has the best small scale pvp fights in the game. If you want to increase player traffic to the zone. ZoS needs to balance PvP better and restrict group sizes or create Instances of IC's and cap the number of players in each instance for each faction, merging instances as players leave and join.

I agree with this. Especially points 1 through 4 and the followup points.

Necrotech_Master · June 2023

pedrogonzalez wrote: »

I will start with map. There are no sewers. Only base room with banker and traders.
Next goes alliances. There no alliances in this version of IC. Everyone who is not in you group is your enemy. Maximum group capacity limited to 2 players.
Telvar gain lock to x4. Bosses x2 weaker, respawn x2 faster.
There no flags in city. Instead of them let’s place there 3 random sigils with 5min cd in each district.
Also as it’s a PvPvE location let’s replace telvars with *generic name coin*, with what you will pay traders for lootboxes. And here it comes: traders will have this boxes:
1. Dungeonname armor box for 10k (any dungeon in game)
2. Dungeonname weapon box for 20k
3. Transmutation box with 50 transmute stones for 50k
So with that people who don’t like pve can just full their collection for crafting (I know how it looks for zos, so let’s say - you may have eso+ or buy a dungeon dlc to use this boxes). Also add some boxes with tradeables, as in classic IC.
It’s not supposed to replace classic IC, but add additional campaign with different ruleset.
What problems will help to solve this campaign:
1. People can farm gear while getting fun (many have fun doing dungeons, but I think I am not only one around here who just hate dungeons)
2. Area for some duos, where you can play without 5 wardens frostclench you, while some sniper snipes in hope of desync.
3. Since only 2 players allowed in party - no crosshealing from random folks
4. No zergs.

if there were no sewers, i would lose all interest in IC, the sewers are my favorite part of IC

i also would greatly dislike "no alliances" that means you have 33% more people you have to watch out for, as soon as you leave the base your own former allies in the base could stab a knife in your back, no thank you, do not want

i would never go into IC again if those 2 changes happened, it would kill all fun for me in that zone

Trensharo · June 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

if there were no sewers, i would lose all interest in IC, the sewers are my favorite part of IC

i also would greatly dislike "no alliances" that means you have 33% more people you have to watch out for, as soon as you leave the base your own former allies in the base could stab a knife in your back, no thank you, do not want

i would never go into IC again if those 2 changes happened, it would kill all fun for me in that zone

That's not actually how it works. That assumes that each alliance has an equal number of people in the zone. It also assumes that the zone is relatively evenly distributed in terms of which alliances control which areas - which serves as a de facto deterrent, as some people will naturally veer closer to where their faction has more power and control. In addition to that, if the zone is very imbalanced, then it disincentivizes people from opposing factions from even participating at all.

I have barely ever seen balanced maps in Cyrodill or IC. It's almost always incredibly unbalanced. Either your faction controls almost everything, or the zone is bordering on unplayable - even in the No-CP campaigns it is like this.

Right now, IC is almost entirely blue, so you can't really go anywhere as there are enemy players basically sitting on the high ground camping anyone who runs through. Once you're in range, 3-5 of them jump out and start zapping you with Lightning Staves and Spells. It's practically unplayable.

And once someone zones in and sees this, the chances that they will waste their time running around under those conditions is pretty low.

It is not an active PvP zone. It is just a gank fest where no one goes out into the zone and actually utilizes the content unless their faction owns almost everything and they have safety in numbers to sit up there for hours waiting on stragglers (often new players or alts trying to get the Major Gallop passive) to kill for free.

So, it actually turns out being about 75% of players from one faction, usually in groups, vs. randoms (often newbies who will leave and never return after that experience) from the other factions who are more often than not alone.

There is a difference between enjoyable Risk vs. Reward gameplay (actually entertaining) and masochism (forcing yourself to endure unreasonable frustration to give validation to the weak arguments of random forumers here :-P ).

Necrotech_Master · June 2023

Trensharo wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

if there were no sewers, i would lose all interest in IC, the sewers are my favorite part of IC

i also would greatly dislike "no alliances" that means you have 33% more people you have to watch out for, as soon as you leave the base your own former allies in the base could stab a knife in your back, no thank you, do not want

i would never go into IC again if those 2 changes happened, it would kill all fun for me in that zone

That's not actually how it works. That assumes that each alliance has an equal number of people in the zone. It also assumes that the zone is relatively evenly distributed in terms of which alliances control which areas - which serves as a de facto deterrent, as some people will naturally veer closer to where their faction has more power and control. In addition to that, if the zone is very imbalanced, then it disincentivizes people from opposing factions from even participating at all.

I have barely ever seen balanced maps in Cyrodill or IC. It's almost always incredibly unbalanced. Either your faction controls almost everything, or the zone is bordering on unplayable - even in the No-CP campaigns it is like this.

Right now, IC is almost entirely blue, so you can't really go anywhere as there are enemy players basically sitting on the high ground camping anyone who runs through. Once you're in range, 3-5 of them jump out and start zapping you with Lightning Staves and Spells. It's practically unplayable.

And once someone zones in and sees this, the chances that they will waste their time running around under those conditions is pretty low.

It is not an active PvP zone. It is just a gank fest where no one goes out into the zone and actually utilizes the content unless their faction owns almost everything and they have safety in numbers to sit up there for hours waiting on stragglers (often new players or alts trying to get the Major Gallop passive) to kill for free.

So, it actually turns out being about 75% of players from one faction, usually in groups, vs. randoms (often newbies who will leave and never return after that experience) from the other factions who are more often than not alone.

There is a difference between enjoyable Risk vs. Reward gameplay (actually entertaining) and masochism (forcing yourself to endure unreasonable frustration to give validation to the weak arguments of random forumers here :-P ).

33% more people is just the rough estimate assuming all populations were even, because then your against your own faction instead of just the 2 enemy factions, so instead of 66% its 99% (the 1% would be the people your grouped with that you wouldnt be fighting)

i know its full of zergs right now, the thing that caused that was their removal of the ability to respawn in any surface district regardless of who controls the flags, back in the early days everything was much more spread out and there were more little fights here or there

90% of the time i go there now, its usually a ghost town, or its reds that are zerging (on PC NA), i have actually on a non stealthed toon done all 6 district dailies without hardly even seeing another player when going in at non-primetime

i still stand by my opinion that i would refuse to play there if IC went factionless