Joy_Division wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Elendir2am wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Can you provide any substantial details how this targets AvA players? I am calling for AvA players to have actual rewards and reasons for contributing to the campaign?

You did not address any problem average AvA player has suffer most, when they want to play a map. Your post has many points and Some of them look nice. But most of them would punish AvA players most of all.

One example. Slowing mount speed. Tower nihilist and BGs can use mount as well. You kill tower nihilist and 2 min later they are back from near keep. It is that they are spending most of their time running around tower, or in case of BG running around keep.

Slower mount would mean that it would take 3 min for tower nihilist to return and PvDoor BG would take 7 instead 5 min to get at other part of map. But its AvA players who use mount most (if they are not in combat bug).

I dont understand what you are trying to convey. Are you saying slower mount speed favors people that run around towers? Everyone's mount speed would be reduced, even ball groups. That's the whole point, to have an actual consequence for dying.

I understand losing speed is painful for people with no patience, but at a certain point we have to stop/reverse the power creep..............this is coming from a max speed stamsorc player of nearly 10 years now. If I can come to terms with it, so can you.

They are basically saying that these reforms will punish people who are trying to play "the map." If my alliance is successful in taking a keep, why is the enemy team awarded with a buff? If my alliance wants to use strategy hitting undefended keeps, why can;t we do that instead of having to hit a front line keep with a transitus node.

While I think some of the ideas in the OP are worth trying, the mount speed decrease is absolutely a bad idea. In the ten years I've been in Cyrodiil, "horse riding simulator" has been in the top three of complaints. As it is now, even with permanent major gallop, it is not easy to respond in time to an attack with 20 siege on the front door.

It's not the mount speed that is the issue, it is player speed like your stam sorc, which is a huge component of the "tank" meta (a misleading term. The excessive survivability players have now is not just because they damage they take gets reduced so much, it's because the damage often never reaches them in the first place because they move out of range or LOS attacks).

Well no they were trying to say something about how lower mount speed disproportionally affects AvA zerg players. I've been playing for 10 years aswell, playing in vet 1vX and also running a guild in the u50 campaign teaching new players. It isnt like seige destroys keeps faster now adays, but mounts are like 3x the speed due to power creep (gallop, cp added, mountspeeds maxed). u50 and even nocp function fine, arguably better since players cant "rez and ride" back to a keep they died at repeatedly. Why is lower mount speed a bad idea? Is it because you think players will complain about reverse power creep and not wanting to feel slower? I will never agree with people who accept power creep and argue in bad faith for it

There may still be undefended keeps to attack. The OP points out adding new transit lines to open up other avenues where combat can spread out. This acts as a soft limit to keep PvDoor abuse in check. For instance if AD is attacking ash, but there is resistance, leaders may want to attack another keep. So they could go from the new carmala transit to glade/rayles to seige a back keep. When keep fights arent streamlined the new player population gets confused and may give up on combat. Remember 5 years ago the playerbase was high enough that factions were balanced and cyrodil was functional. With such a low population, the map feels empty and new players cant quickly understand where the frontline zerg is(the best place for new players to learn)

The intent of the losing faction gaining buffs is to prevent the loss of players when a faction is gated. On low pop campaigns(anything that isnt greyhost) what happens is the maps flip all one color and nobody logs in cuz it frankly sucks to have to seige back 5-6 keeps every day just so players will log in. What is worth more, a few players getting useless campaign score that achieves nothing, or people actually logging into the game to play? I understand the thought process of my faction won, so we should be rewarded. This would still be true, you won and you would get ap rewards and perhaps ap buffs. However the losing faction needs help pushing back, so they should get combat buffs.

I also agree that playerspeed is a major issue as I pointed out in my movement speed and Immobilize immunity thread. Link In short average players walking movement speed was between 90-130% and now the average build sits between 130% and 200% walking speed. Immobilizes have terrible counterplay options and transparency, creating a redlight/greenlight type of gameplay. I will counter that stamsorc isnt the speed class anymore besides streak, considering warden has a built in buff of 6s major and immob immunity. Generally my warden sits at a higher speed in combat.... which hurts my soul. I would also add other reasons along with speed creep to the tank meta, but that discussion would derail this thread too far off cyrodil topics. Feel free to read that speed thread and comment there though.

Lower mount speed is bad because people have consistently complained it takes to long to get to fights and Cyrodiil being a "horse riding simulator." It's not a bad faith argument. People don;t like it. Especially now with the pop caps so low that there aren;t many fights to go to to begin with.

I don;t get the hate for PvDoor. Some people might call it effective strategy. If a group wants to ride all the way (re: horse riding simulator) to Arrius or what not to take it, I don;t see the problem.

For me I just weigh the value of death risk/penalty way higher than impatient players being upset. Just like with movement speed mount speed is so high you practically are breaking the physics engine of the game. When its at the point where I can take flight going over hills it has obviously gone too far. Anyways Mount speed doesnt have to change as it doesnt affect the other OP points. I simply want to highlight what value it used to bring to the game.

I'm fine with pvdoor existing, but also recognize that it postpones potential fights and can make it difficult for new players to find the front line. Without the majority of players fighting on the main contested transitus, new players just sit around. Or they themselves go on a wild goose chase to empty keeps.

Cyrodil these days is a lot of fun for me. There are some issues but overall it’s a great time whether I’m solo or in a small to large group.

Couple of thoughts to add to the discussion:

One simple idea - I think there should be achievements for leading groups in cyrodil. Having groups you can join as a new player feels critical to learning the ropes, and people who choose to lead should have some kinda simple reward. Maybe after 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 “player hours” of leading (ie leading a group of 4 for an hour = 3 players x 1 = 3 player hours) there could be an achievement. I feel strongly that solo stuff should be happening in cyrodil, but groups are kinda at the heart of cyrodil too and those who take it on themselves to form and lead groups are appreciated.

And then here’s a much wackier idea- One of the largest issues with cyrodil has always been inconsistent population balance. You know what I think would be awesome? Computer / AI driven mercenary NPC’s that spawn to help whatever is the lower pop faction. They would despawn whenever actual player #’s even out. They would roll around flagging and taking keeps and resources, and perhaps could even be hired by players for certain chunks of time using AP, at which point they’ll follow and do stuff with you. Alternately players could follow/join these groups on a mission. Something like this could even out the balance in non peak hours and keep things semi competitive when the campaign is unbalanced. Mind you, I have zero hope of this being implemented but I think it would be super cool.

Another idea to bring up would be to remove the 30 day campaign and replace it with a 7 day campaign. Aiming to bring in weekend warriors again. Currently with the 30day players may only play for 1/30 days.

So the campaign flip would be at 12pm EST or 9pm PST on Saturdays. This gives each campaign one day per weekend for players to get invested. Which could lead to players being involved in 2/7(8.6/30) of the campaign days.

Having a more uniform schedule also helps with a declining population. Its somewhat of a meme now, but the "two week Minecraft phase" partly has to do with people not logging in or playing at the same time.

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Other benefits

• Bringing in players for rewards (granted the rewards should be reworked to be useful/enticing to farm for years to come)
• Giving more chances for emp pushes
• Bringing in players for Transmutes

moosegod wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Another idea to bring up would be to remove the 30 day campaign and replace it with a 7 day campaign. Aiming to bring in weekend warriors again. Currently with the 30day players may only play for 1/30 days.

So the campaign flip would be at 12pm EST or 9pm PST on Saturdays. This gives each campaign one day per weekend for players to get invested. Which could lead to players being involved in 2/7(8.6/30) of the campaign days.

Having a more uniform schedule also helps with a declining population. Its somewhat of a meme now, but the "two week Minecraft phase" partly has to do with people not logging in or playing at the same time.

---

Other benefits

• Bringing in players for rewards (granted the rewards should be reworked to be useful/enticing to farm for years to come)
• Giving more chances for emp pushes
• Bringing in players for Transmutes

I like this idea. The 30-day campaign is pointless with the tiny population in Cyrodiil these days. The score doesn't matter after the first couple weeks cause one alliance gets so far ahead no one can catch up (DC won the November campaign by like 10k points). A 7 day campaign would keep things fresh. Personally, I think 14 days would be ideal. Currently a lot of players get to 100k AP for reward tier and then don't come back until next month.

Right, rewards and tiers should be redone. I prefer 7 because If you mainly played on the 7 day campaigns with old playercaps, each week was crazy when the reset happened. I think it was solely because the campaign was even again. Even halfway through the week it could get ruined by nightcappers.

Sorry to my aussie friends, but flipping the map one color completely ruins the game for everyone else. For the u50 campaign, the declining population due to zos's inaction put the campaign in the ground. However nightcapping was the final nail in the coffin. Cyrodil would need a low pop protection method to stop this. If a faction was low pop, the unflagged keeps would be unseigable. Instead during these times, player(not leaderboard) ap gains could be doubled as compensation for being online off hour.

Kartalin wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

When you design a zone around 600 vs 600 vs 600 and then reduce the population to 60 v 60 v 60 while adding an unbelievable amount of power creep and allowing heal stacking on ancient spaghetti code on insufficiently strong enough servers it isn't really a mystery why the zone has devolved into the absolute mess it is.

25 percent streaking sorcs and ranged nbs
25 percent ball groups
25 percent professional siegers
25 percent pugs or small scales looking for fun fights.

The zone doesn't work with the insane power you can have as a ball group, with the population you have reduced it to.

3 choices:
-balance healing in the game so ball groups can die
-make the population big enough that people can choose various fights
-make the map smaller so it isn't a massive empty zone

I've advocated for a smaller cyrodiil map multiple times in the past with very little traction. I feel like we can just move the home gates forward and focus the playable map around the six imperial keeps and the three outposts, with 1 scroll temple per faction. Smaller area with the same population should make it feel more populated, and have more random encounters between destinations as well as limit distances needed to travel. There won't be any random groups (ball groups or otherwise) harassing your tri keeps because there won't be any back lines for them to harass. We'd probably need a separate full-map cyrodiil for pvers to do their questing, but honestly they've wanted that all along and it would keep them from filling up the campaigns with non-combatants -- not that it's that big of a problem now.

Healing and shielding still need balancing and tweaking regardless.

Sadly this becomes more and more likely. The current cyrodil map is not functional with the current population value. Either the map needs to match the population or vice versa.

To be able to increase the pop cap fundamental game rules would have to be reversed to cut down on lag. The fact that one group of 12 players can bog down the server simply wont work out well if we increase population cap. However the changes that should/would have to happen are too much for your average player to agree to. 90% of players will reject the ideas without trying them.

WELL WELL WELL, who would have guessed the recent events.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Below are some points of consideration to bring life back into cyrodil. Ideally the aim is to

• break up the zerg v zerg PvDoor.
• Reduce pop drops on losing factions.
• Reduce server load by spreading out the playerbase.
• Entice players to pvp instead of sitting on walls.
• Have players of all skill levels solo and small man.

Here are some talking points for potential system changes.

• Buffs should be flipped. When your faction loses a home keep, your faction gains a buff. Scrolls would act in a similar way. This prevents the losing factions from flopping like in tug of war. Instead they get stronger the more they are pushed. To go further, AP multipliers could be added for factions with less keeps.

I agree that the faction not having keeps should get the buffs.
Winning fights is already a reward itself and you also get ap for kills and taking keeps and campaign score.
Players will take the same flag or chase down the same players to kill them repeatedly despite not getting reward after the first time and not having reason for revenge just because they like winning.

I doubt that many players take objectives for buffs other than 1 every 10 minutes for the individual buff „continuous attack“, most players probably dont care or forget about factionbuff for holding keeps and scrolls.
ZOS should not encourage winning faction to stamp loosing faction in the face until the last of their players quit.
Outnumbered factions need buffs more than outnumbering factions.
Balancing factions to have equal strength should be more important than reward stronger faction (usually by outnumbering) with even more strength.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

[*] Keep resources must play a larger part. To siege the walls you must control the mine. To siege the front door, you must hold the lumber. The farm would give the guards a buff equivalent to the difference of normal vs vet dungeons. This prevents faction stacks of 50 players simply just mounting and riding straight to the front door over and over again. Right now heal stacking and movement speed easily beats out counterseige.
[*] Transit line functions should be reworked such that only frontline keeps with a contested transit line can be sieged. More transit lines should be added to connect the outposts to the inner keeps. Examples being Cropsford to BM, or Carm to Rayles. Transit lines should provide AP multiplier bonuses for fighting in certain areas that have lower population. (other trifaction games have implemented systems like this to keep the map busy and guide new players towards the fight.)

Taking the resources before the keep already makes it significantly easier althought it takes a few minutes for the keep to downgrade which is often too long as the siege starts and often also ends before. An outpost or keep without food is soloable while a keep with lvl2 food is definitely not. The hp of walls and gates is increased and walls get extra parts when owning ressoursse, maybe this could be increased and wall/gate hp reduced faster after owner looses mine/lumber.

It is mainly PvDoor guilds sieging backline keeps to take them and ballgroups sieging them to troll there, most PuGs, zergsurfers usw are too bored and lazy and go directly to next keep. Having more options to siege at the same time also makes the game more strategic and allows outnumbered faction to siege a keep the zerg is not defending althought more often zerg is doing it themself to avoid the few defenders.
If ZOS was against PvDoor they could make siege visible before making porting impossible allowing players to port there especially when keep owning guild members already get message when guards are killed.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

[*] Mount speed is too high in cyrodil. When was the last time anyone got ganked or pulled off their mount? Death has next to no downside anymore, when mount speeds are so high a larger pop faction can just waterfall people into the fight without risk of losing when wiped. The benefit of being a defender back in the day was you could wipe a group and then repair.

Last time anyone got ganked or pulled of their mount was probably last time someone mounted got in range of a ranged build so pretty recently. It happens all the time probably multiple times a hour.

Any player with elemental suspectability or another ranged dot can cast it on a rider and he will get pulled of their mount and a real ranged build can oneshot them on horse, force them to dismount or pull them off their mounts fast than finish them when they have unbreakable dismounted stun.

Mount speed reduction is very unpopular idea and should not happen as many players consider mounts too slow already and Cyrodiil a horse riding simulator and often players riding back find the door or breach closed and often get dismounted and killed Xv1 by a ganksquad if they not already got on the way. Having to ride back already is a big turnoff so much that many player stay dead waiting to get resurrected or don't come back. If killing the remaing enemys takes a while and they have near respawn it happens some players return but should be able to kill them again when you already did.
Larger pop factions often have a camp or resurrect their players.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

[*] PvP ap stores need updating and monetary benefit. Much like hakeijo or alk supplies in telvar, perhaps do something similar with AP. Jewelry mats? tempers? Purchasable transmute geodes?
[*] Campaign rewards must be more lucrative. Bring back drops like the gold arena weapons or maybe random mythic lead drops. I think there should be no faction lock to play, but instead you can only receive rewards on one faction that you sign up for during that campaign.
[*] Remove the hammer, or make it only drop once per campaign. Currently this just does the sole opposite of what pvp needs. It bunches people up in one location on the server leading to lag and faction stacking.
[*] Servers must be condensed again since the lowbie server is not functional PCNA. At least condense down to the 30day, 7day, and 30day nocp+u50. I could also see arguments for there to only be 2 servers, under 1000cp and over 1000cp accounts.


Otherwise some other general cyrodil changes:

• Add more buildings/terrain. An example would be outside of aleswell. Fighting in the town is really fun. Adding more buildings and streets could create a different combat dynamic similar to imperial city pvp. Maybe some keeps have forests outside. Literally they could just drop in some assets to change up the map a bit
• Add "goat paths" between the primary bridge/gates and the secondary bridge/gates. Example being if the Ash gate gets blocked, there would be a mineshaft that goes to the ash mine. Also this would require that they make the walls break entirely such that nobody can cross either direction. (Currently players can jump their way through the broken gate both directions. Also on the AD side of allessia you can jump across the bridge and climb up the rocks.
• Guard/npc skills could be reworked. Many players dont understand how guards work, simply because they use old versions of skills from launch.

What are your thoughts? Any other points to add? Rewards? Incentives? How to bring in new players?