Ravenwatch Proc Changes LOL

ADawg · September 8

Ravenwatch main here. So let me give everyone a quick and dirty update:

1. Devs added procs and hammer
2. Had a huge spike of population from CP campaigns for a few nights
3. Back to dead late night DC crew ghost capping bases and stomping anyone who scratches the paint on a keep (its been well over a year+ of this, not kidding)
4. Gray Host remains full bars even late at night to include weekend late nights.

ESO developers, your PVP community is what it is. We are dying off. Adding procs did nothing but entice a few CP players to come check things out then go right back to what they were doing. It did not grow the ravenwatch population, but rather pulled a few players from other campaigns. The PVP community is not growing by any means. I'm not talking smack, this is an observation from several years of playing this game.

We need a SERIOUS update to PVP!

Look, I have invested probably thousands into this game over the past decade. I maintain 5 accounts in my household and regularly buy updates, expansions, crown, etc. I main PVP. I like P*V*P. I'm just letting you know, a paying customer x5 who likes PVP and PVPs with his kiddos is saying you need to give some love to PVP.

In my OPINION, the way to make Ravenwatch better is as follows:

1. Remove volendrung. It spawns at ridiculous late times when factions are already steamrolling. The dominant faction then gets the hammer and steamrolls faster, resulting in other 2 factions simply logging off.
2. Faction lock. Please for the love of sanity faction lock Ravenwatch. We don't have the population to afford a few dozen people hopping onto the winning team. The low population makes territory cap very difficult.
2a. If you don't do a full account faction lock at least institute a 12hr lock so people cant flip flop factions mid major fights. (I personally prefer a 30 day lock, however). This would still allow people to play with their "buddies on the other team" the next night, but not mid fights.
3. Please adjust low pop bonuses and low score bonuses. The algorithm helps, but not enough. It needs to better balance during extreme population edge conditions.
4. I would like to see new mechanics added for defenses of the Tri Keeps. We need a way to counter lopsided factional population, but only in the tri keeps. This helps defenders, but adds nothing to the capture process of the "ring" and obtaining Emperor.
4a. We need the ability to bolster defenses beyond the current Lumber Mill/Mine/Farm mechanics. Allow the older system that ranks up the towers/walls with higher tier statuses and require some player involvement. I remember the resources having a much higher tier and they were reduced to two or three a few years back.
4b. Add a "defender champion" bonus. Essentially a "mini-emperor" who can oppose the current emperor, but only near the tri keeps/scroll temples. This would help counter an enemy zerg+emp+hammer+scroll buffs+broken builds...its just ridiculous. the Defender Champion should fall to the highest ranked player of the defending faction who is actually online at the time.
5. Overhaul the Emperor system. IMO falling to the highest scoring AP player is silly. We constantly see cheesy AP farming nonsense where someone exploits the AP system to be the Emperor. Instead let it fall to a combination of things: ie guild leaders, kills, keep captures, healing output, damage taken, etc etc etc. Allow players to see a chart of stats ranked in various ways and do a vote system similar to other games. Essentially let the players in the faction decide which leader they WANT to lead and not just the person who logs on and farms AP when working adults are sleeping to make money to keep this game financially afloat.

Look devs...this game is amazing when its working. Its fun as hell, especially with the combat system and large scale PVP. Please read these words and formulate some innovative ideas for PVP. I will grab my wallet so fast its not even funny. FYI I'm grossing almost $200k a year and I'm not just saying that. I have MONEY to spend on this game, but refuse to do so if its not worht it for PVP.

LETS GO! I will be maining Gray Host until Ravenwatch gets some real love. Its been real Ravenwatch! /salute!

WaywardArgonian · September 8

Idk how a faction lock would help anything. Adding an extra barrier of entry will just make it even less attractive as an alternative to Gray Host. Also, players looking for an easy campaign win aren't necessarily a problem population-wise. PVP regulars are more likely to play a campaign if there are a bunch of lower skill players to farm on the opposite side. The issue with Ravenwatch is that, most of the time, there is quite literally nothing to do.

gotdank · September 8

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Idk how a faction lock would help anything. Adding an extra barrier of entry will just make it even less attractive as an alternative to Gray Host. Also, players looking for an easy campaign win aren't necessarily a problem population-wise. PVP regulars are more likely to play a campaign if there are a bunch of lower skill players to farm on the opposite side. The issue with Ravenwatch is that, most of the time, there is quite literally nothing to do.

It would help by stopping people from logging in on one character, seeing that their faction is losing and being overwhelmed by another faction, and instead of dealing with having to fight the more difficult fight...choosing to jump over to the winning faction and help overwhelm the already overwhelmed faction(s) fighting back. This leads to one faction bullying the entire zone and the other 2 factions (the people who don't faction hop) logging and not playing. This happens night after night. At the very least, if not 30 days...there should be a 12-24 hour faction lock. Pick a faction and play it.

ADawg · September 8

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Idk how a faction lock would help anything. Adding an extra barrier of entry will just make it even less attractive as an alternative to Gray Host. Also, players looking for an easy campaign win aren't necessarily a problem population-wise. PVP regulars are more likely to play a campaign if there are a bunch of lower skill players to farm on the opposite side. The issue with Ravenwatch is that, most of the time, there is quite literally nothing to do.

let me break it down

1. 10 DC players vs 10 EP
2. 5 of those EP also have DC toons.
3. DC is winning, the 5 EP/DC players feel bad and want to feel like winners.
4. the 5 EP/DC players go play with DC...
5. now its 15 DC vs 5 EP
6. EP starts REALLY losing. 3 EP log off
7. then its me and my buddy fighting 15 DC

We have been doing this late night for months and for me, years.

Its ok, we left RW. The more it dies the better chances we have to get change!

WaywardArgonian · September 9

ADawg wrote: »

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Idk how a faction lock would help anything. Adding an extra barrier of entry will just make it even less attractive as an alternative to Gray Host. Also, players looking for an easy campaign win aren't necessarily a problem population-wise. PVP regulars are more likely to play a campaign if there are a bunch of lower skill players to farm on the opposite side. The issue with Ravenwatch is that, most of the time, there is quite literally nothing to do.

let me break it down

1. 10 DC players vs 10 EP
2. 5 of those EP also have DC toons.
3. DC is winning, the 5 EP/DC players feel bad and want to feel like winners.
4. the 5 EP/DC players go play with DC...
5. now its 15 DC vs 5 EP
6. EP starts REALLY losing. 3 EP log off
7. then its me and my buddy fighting 15 DC

We have been doing this late night for months and for me, years.

Its ok, we left RW. The more it dies the better chances we have to get change!

The fact there are that few players on to begin with means the campaign is dead. Some people switching to the winning side normally doesn't matter because good players usually don't want to play on the side that has all the keeps.

RW does not have the population to sustain a healthy PVP environment and a faction lock is not going to change that.

CameraBeardThePirate · September 9

gotdank wrote: »

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Idk how a faction lock would help anything. Adding an extra barrier of entry will just make it even less attractive as an alternative to Gray Host. Also, players looking for an easy campaign win aren't necessarily a problem population-wise. PVP regulars are more likely to play a campaign if there are a bunch of lower skill players to farm on the opposite side. The issue with Ravenwatch is that, most of the time, there is quite literally nothing to do.

It would help by stopping people from logging in on one character, seeing that their faction is losing and being overwhelmed by another faction, and instead of dealing with having to fight the more difficult fight...choosing to jump over to the winning faction and help overwhelm the already overwhelmed faction(s) fighting back. This leads to one faction bullying the entire zone and the other 2 factions (the people who don't faction hop) logging and not playing. This happens night after night. At the very least, if not 30 days...there should be a 12-24 hour faction lock. Pick a faction and play it.

Except it would also stop all the people that want actual PvP and log into the least populated faction.

People think faction lock actually does something but it really doesn't. For every player that wants an easy fight, there's a player that wants to fight outnumbered.

Major_Mangle · September 9

I´ve spend a fair share of time on PCEU ravenwatch since the update came and what we´re seeing is just a symptom of ZOS ignoring PvP/Cyrodiil for too long. It goes way beyond the "no-proc vs proc vs faction lock etc" debate and discussions.

PCEU Ravenwatch is still hostage by a small group of DC who treats the campaign like a 9-5. Same in NOCP IC where a small bunch of players will go to some really absurd lengths to prevent anyone outside their little circle to farm any tel-var ("big surprise" when these groups in NOCP IC and Ravenwatch are from same community).

ZOS left nocp untouched for way too long (should´ve never been turned to no-proc to begin with, or they could´ve made Icereach no proc and removed sub 50) and the reputation of the campaign is damaged beyond the point of return. As much as I prefer nocp PvP, since it offers the best balanced PvP experience, I´d rather play in a campaign that has population.

Aggrovious · September 9

ADawg wrote: »

Ravenwatch main here. So let me give everyone a quick and dirty update:

1. Devs added procs and hammer
2. Had a huge spike of population from CP campaigns for a few nights
3. Back to dead late night DC crew ghost capping bases and stomping anyone who scratches the paint on a keep (its been well over a year+ of this, not kidding)
4. Gray Host remains full bars even late at night to include weekend late nights.

ESO developers, your PVP community is what it is. We are dying off. Adding procs did nothing but entice a few CP players to come check things out then go right back to what they were doing. It did not grow the ravenwatch population, but rather pulled a few players from other campaigns. The PVP community is not growing by any means. I'm not talking smack, this is an observation from several years of playing this game.

We need a SERIOUS update to PVP!

Look, I have invested probably thousands into this game over the past decade. I maintain 5 accounts in my household and regularly buy updates, expansions, crown, etc. I main PVP. I like P*V*P. I'm just letting you know, a paying customer x5 who likes PVP and PVPs with his kiddos is saying you need to give some love to PVP.

In my OPINION, the way to make Ravenwatch better is as follows:

1. Remove volendrung. It spawns at ridiculous late times when factions are already steamrolling. The dominant faction then gets the hammer and steamrolls faster, resulting in other 2 factions simply logging off.
2. Faction lock. Please for the love of sanity faction lock Ravenwatch. We don't have the population to afford a few dozen people hopping onto the winning team. The low population makes territory cap very difficult.
2a. If you don't do a full account faction lock at least institute a 12hr lock so people cant flip flop factions mid major fights. (I personally prefer a 30 day lock, however). This would still allow people to play with their "buddies on the other team" the next night, but not mid fights.
3. Please adjust low pop bonuses and low score bonuses. The algorithm helps, but not enough. It needs to better balance during extreme population edge conditions.
4. I would like to see new mechanics added for defenses of the Tri Keeps. We need a way to counter lopsided factional population, but only in the tri keeps. This helps defenders, but adds nothing to the capture process of the "ring" and obtaining Emperor.
4a. We need the ability to bolster defenses beyond the current Lumber Mill/Mine/Farm mechanics. Allow the older system that ranks up the towers/walls with higher tier statuses and require some player involvement. I remember the resources having a much higher tier and they were reduced to two or three a few years back.
4b. Add a "defender champion" bonus. Essentially a "mini-emperor" who can oppose the current emperor, but only near the tri keeps/scroll temples. This would help counter an enemy zerg+emp+hammer+scroll buffs+broken builds...its just ridiculous. the Defender Champion should fall to the highest ranked player of the defending faction who is actually online at the time.
5. Overhaul the Emperor system. IMO falling to the highest scoring AP player is silly. We constantly see cheesy AP farming nonsense where someone exploits the AP system to be the Emperor. Instead let it fall to a combination of things: ie guild leaders, kills, keep captures, healing output, damage taken, etc etc etc. Allow players to see a chart of stats ranked in various ways and do a vote system similar to other games. Essentially let the players in the faction decide which leader they WANT to lead and not just the person who logs on and farms AP when working adults are sleeping to make money to keep this game financially afloat.

Look devs...this game is amazing when its working. Its fun as hell, especially with the combat system and large scale PVP. Please read these words and formulate some innovative ideas for PVP. I will grab my wallet so fast its not even funny. FYI I'm grossing almost $200k a year and I'm not just saying that. I have MONEY to spend on this game, but refuse to do so if its not worht it for PVP.

LETS GO! I will be maining Gray Host until Ravenwatch gets some real love. Its been real Ravenwatch! /salute!

My hot take to this is, where is the map is terrible and 3 factions fighting eachother is terrible gamedesign critique at? They should either add a fourth faction called the Daedric or take a faction out. Same thing about battlegrounds. Cool concept, but dreadfully unbalanced

xDeusEJRx · September 10

I dont think the special ruleset is why a server does or does not have any tangible effects on population. There might be 10 max people who would be dissuaded because of it, but not tangible enough to where it becomes an all around active campaign daily. Faction lock, procs, no procs, none of that matters in the grand scheme of things

The real campaign killer is faction imbalance, no one's gonna play in a campaign where a single faction holds the entire server hostage.
The reason why Gray host is always active is because its always been the most populated campaign in most of ESO history, plus there's population balance because it's almost always pop-locked. The other campaigns will naturally never measure up to GH because they don't have 24/7 locked campaigns, GH will always be appealing no matter the ruleset.

The only way to save ravenwatch is to revitalize pvp. Years ago no cp was thriving and it had nothing to do with rulesets, it was because pvp was fun and enjoyable and got updates. PVP nowadays gets nothing, if players had reason to start pvp'ing more then every campaign would gain more players. RW included.

TLDR: The real issue here is pvp is neglected, and because of the neglect, there's no sustainable population and that results in server imbalance which results in servers dying out quicker because of no chance at competition

ADawg · September 10

Look guys, the overall point was this:

Argument: Adding procs back to Ravenwatch will increase its dead population

Actual result: It lasted 2 days and is back to what it was.

that was my point. Faction lock was an idea to counter faction hoppers that tip the scales to a much larger effect in small popualtion situations.

Pick a team, fight for that team for the 30 days. Swap teams when its over.

Or make it a 7 day campaign or something I dunno.

Or criticize every suggestion I make and squabble on the forums while also enjoying zero PVP attention...lol seems like the best option!

ADawg · September 10

Playing in Gray Host...

LOL. Everyone has 40k health and murders everyone in sight.

This game is so beyond busted for PVP

Joy_Division · September 11

ADawg wrote: »

Look guys, the overall point was this:

Argument: Adding procs back to Ravenwatch will increase its dead population

Actual result: It lasted 2 days and is back to what it was.

that was my point. Faction lock was an idea to counter faction hoppers that tip the scales to a much larger effect in small popualtion situations.

Pick a team, fight for that team for the 30 days. Swap teams when its over.

Or make it a 7 day campaign or something I dunno.

Or criticize every suggestion I make and squabble on the forums while also enjoying zero PVP attention...lol seems like the best option!

Of the options listed, criticize every suggestion is the most practical.

It's not 2018 anymore. We know what happens when the faction lock is used. Nothing changes. There is still one campaign everybody goes to (which will be a CP campaign) and then there is the no CP campaign where a minority of players that do not like CP will go. And then there is the other CP campaign where people who disliked zergs go and others que in for while waiting for the main campaign que to pop. It's been like this for ten years. At least for PC/NA.

It's nice that you are trying to fire up the community to start of push for PvP development, but the devs made it perfectly clear that they will not spend a single dollar on cyrodiil because they know they can't fix the lag and thus anything invested in Cyrodiil is a wasted money as it will just make things worse and lead to ingratitude from the community (re: hammer).

The only PvP updates we will ever see will be restricted to Battlegrounds or dueling because as bad as ESO's performance is, these instances are so small they can handle even poorly optimized hardware/coding. This has all but been confirmed today as the sole PvP update we have had in 5 years is a switch in BG format.

If you note the dates of the threads on this sub forum, you will see that the ESO community has pretty much given up on even commenting on PvP/Cyrodiil because it's a waste of time. Just read the "Alliance war FAQ" if you need confirmation about the effort ZOS puts into cyrodiil. That hasn't been updated since launch.

acastanza_ESO · September 11

I absolutely love the idea of big buffs to defending trikeeps.

The idea of there being some mech to empower someone actively defending to be able to go toe-to-toe with the emp at those keeps is great.

Lots of good ideas here

J18696 · September 14

Since removing the procs in the first place absolutely nuked the population to begin with they left this ruleset in place for far to long and the people who use to play here have either adjusted to cp pvp or moved on to other things I think it will take a long time for it to recover

ADawg · September 15

Joy_Division wrote: »

ADawg wrote: »

It's not 2018 anymore. We know what happens when the faction lock is used. Nothing changes. There is still one campaign everybody goes to (which will be a CP campaign) and then there is the no CP campaign where a minority of players that do not like CP will go. And then there is the other CP campaign where people who disliked zergs go and others que in for while waiting for the main campaign que to pop. It's been like this for ten years. At least for PC/NA.

Still one campaign everyone goes to...the FACTION LOCKED ONE...LOL exactly! Pick a team and play for said team.

Joy_Division wrote: »

ADawg wrote: »

It's nice that you are trying to fire up the community to start of push for PvP development, but the devs made it perfectly clear that they will not spend a single dollar on cyrodiil because they know they can't fix the lag and thus anything invested in Cyrodiil is a wasted money as it will just make things worse and lead to ingratitude from the community (re: hammer).

Thank you, someone has to. If you like I can go in person to ESO events in my cosplay NORD costume and demand update to PVP. Vote me as the champion for PVP and I shall fight for you all! LETS GO!

Joy_Division wrote: »

ADawg wrote: »

The only PvP updates we will ever see will be restricted to Battlegrounds or dueling because as bad as ESO's performance is, these instances are so small they can handle even poorly optimized hardware/coding. This has all but been confirmed today as the sole PvP update we have had in 5 years is a switch in BG format.

I need to get up to speed on the latest announcements, have been busy IRL...imagine IRL activities!