SeaGtGruff wrote: »I did think the Vengeance 1 test was fun to participate in when I was able to zerg with a lot of players from my alliance and get into large battles, but that was because the large battles themselves were fun. And I can get into large battles outside of the Vengeance tests when all three alliances are pop-locked. Outside of that, when the population of my alliance was low or when I tried to solo capture resources-- which is something I enjoy doing in the Gray Host campaign-- I was pretty miserable in the Vengeance 1 test due to not being able to successfully do the things I normally enjoy doing in Gray Host.MincMincMinc wrote: »At the same time these new players and casual players prefer vengeance and normally wouldnt be able to play in GH because it is a terrible environment unless you are a 1vXer, ball grouper, or in a zerg guild.
The Vengeance 2 test was much more fun for me than the Vengeance 1 test had been, because it felt closer to Gray Host-- not as far as my ability to solo capture resources, which still wasn't up to snuff compared to Gray Host, but more because I could slot the weapon skills I was used to using (or, at least, the Vengeance 2 version of those skills), so I had an easier time with pressing the buttons I've grown accustomed to pressing, rather than reflexively pressing those same buttons and having class skills I'm not used to using fire off instead of the expected weapon skills. But I was still weaker in Vengeance 2 than in Gray Host; I just wasn't totally flummoxed as in Vengeance 1 due to not being able to set up my ability bars the way I like.
The level of build customization might appeal to players now, but the PvP community used to be much different. There were a lot of great players I never saw again after One Tamriel. That's also the patch where some of the big streamers like KingRichard started to get fed up too. In fact, if you want a throwback, watch his video called "Elder Scrolls Online Dueling Exposed King Richard Edition" where he rants about exactly what I'm talking about.
Anyway, once poisons, procs, and ridiculous builds like tremorscale/viper came into the game, a lot of the veteran PvPers at the time just quit. They saw what ESO was becoming and they jumped ship, lots of them went to more skill based games. This basically worked like natural selection and a lot of the people who continued to play at least somewhat tolerated the declining role of skill in ESO. This trend has continued over the past 9 years to now. So maybe you're right that the majority of regular pvpers now appreciate the level of build customization in ESO, but they were selected for. It's a very small number of people cause everyone who didn't like it jumped ship eventually. I think that ZOS would win back way more people than they would lose by reeling the build customization back in (or at least getting the set and subclassing systems under control).
licenturion wrote: »Pretty sure they will add Vengeance as an OPTION in the future and leave the current Cyro PvP model intact until the end of ESO.
This is great because people who enjoy Vengeance can play that and others who enjoy the current system can keep playing that.
But for some reason a lot of current Cyro players want Vengeance killed as soon as possible because they see this optional choice as a threat because they fear a lot of people would switch to Vengeance.
Which also clearly signifies they actually understand why Vengeance is so popular compared to live Cyro, if they are so afraid of it.
Vengeance is basically what Hearthstone (the card game) did. At some point they had so many cards and abilities that it became impossible to balance so they created a wild 'anything goes' mode (like current Cyro) and the standard mode that has a curated number of cards and abilities (like Vengeance). Lots of games with so many years of content do this for accessibility and balance reasons.
IMO, if someone is serious about PvP, they shouldn't shy away from investing the time and resources to take full advantage of ESO's complex builds. Knowing how to theorycraft and leverage an effective setup is part of what makes someone skilled at the game. If one person is CP 3000 with all stickers learned, tens of millions of gold/AP earned, tens of thousands of raw mats hoarded, and thousands of hours of practice, I don't think it's unreasonable for that to represent a material advantage when they fight a CP 140 who just started the game a month prior. What's wrong with asking a new player to put in some time and effort and earn their power?
To your point: why would someone serious about PvP put up with "that" ^? Because that's literally ESO's gameplay loop. That's what makes ESO, ESO. Play the game, earn resources, invest them, grow stronger. If that's too much of a hassle for someone who claims to enjoy "skill-based" games, then perhaps that's just an excuse they're telling themselves to avoid putting in a modicum of work.
You say you are a long-time Cyrodiil enjoyer. You've had therefore the possibility to start in a much simpler version, with fewer systems, sets and possibilities. You were able to incorporate all those new features as they were added, one by one, not all at once. New players don't have that luxury; they have to navigate a very complex reality that is simply overwhelming. That should be taken into account before suggesting that players who are lost and struggle to understand how to build properly are just lazy or stupid.
And before anyone mentions online guides and youtube videos - these aren't very helpful. I did consult such sources, and in the majority of cases, they don't teach you anything useful. They give you some examples of builds, but don't explain the logic behind them. Reading PTS forums is more enlightening than watching top content creators, but it is not a place where any new player would naturally look for advice.licenturion wrote: »
But for some reason a lot of current Cyro players want Vengeance killed as soon as possible because they see this optional choice as a threat because they fear a lot of people would switch to Vengeance.
Which also clearly signifies they actually understand why Vengeance is so popular compared to live Cyro, if they are so afraid of it.
Maybe some players will switch to whatever will be the final version of Vengeance, but I don't think we can expect a mass exodus. In my understanding, those who still hang around Cyrodiil and enjoy it will stay there no matter what. Those who don't enjoy it have already stopped playing. My point is that by denying an alternative, learner-friendly campaign, vet PvPers aren't boosting their campaign numbers anyhow. Players who refuse to play the current Cyro will continue to stay away from it, whether there is an alternative or not.JustLovely wrote: »Every thread on vengeance is the same three or four people talking amongst themselves about the virtues of vengeance and the lost cause you'd like live cyrodiil to become. It's like you're trying to push the live system we already have out of the conversation.
From my PoV, every thread on Vengeance is the same three or four people talking between themselves about how much they hate Vengeance. It's basically the same handful of people with opposing opinions exchanging their arguments in favor and against. Just a healthy discussion, without hidden agendas and malicious intent.
Beyond that, this is PvP we are talking about. With ESO’s customization, 2 players can be fully geared out at max level and 1 of those players can literally have double the raw power of the other person. There’s so many situations where one build is simply better than another without any tradeoffs at all.
If someone is serious about fair PvP, why would they put up with that? Truly competitive players or pvpers want to win or lose based on skill, otherwise they’ll quit for more skill based games. The lack of balance and the level at which you can outbuild someone keeps ESO unappealing to many of the people who enjoy PvP games.
Some level of build customization in ESO is fine. With sets and skill lines so wildly out of balance with each other though, it’s become a huge issue, both for accessibility and skill expression.
There’s definitely a vocal group of ESO “pvpers” that must love farming players with builds that can’t compete. If you really deserve to be getting kills, you’ll do just fine on more equal footing.
We clearly have very different ideas of what makes someone good at the game, and that's OK. Fortunately for you, it seems the devs agree with yours and don't agree with mine.
IMO, if someone is serious about PvP, they shouldn't shy away from investing the time and resources to take full advantage of ESO's complex builds. Knowing how to theorycraft and leverage an effective setup is part of what makes someone skilled at the game. If one person is CP 3000 with all stickers learned, tens of millions of gold/AP earned, tens of thousands of raw mats hoarded, and thousands of hours of practice, I don't think it's unreasonable for that to represent a material advantage when they fight a CP 140 who just started the game a month prior. What's wrong with asking a new player to put in some time and effort and earn their power?
Joy_Division wrote: »
Beyond that, this is PvP we are talking about. With ESO’s customization, 2 players can be fully geared out at max level and 1 of those players can literally have double the raw power of the other person. There’s so many situations where one build is simply better than another without any tradeoffs at all.
If someone is serious about fair PvP, why would they put up with that? Truly competitive players or pvpers want to win or lose based on skill, otherwise they’ll quit for more skill based games. The lack of balance and the level at which you can outbuild someone keeps ESO unappealing to many of the people who enjoy PvP games.
Some level of build customization in ESO is fine. With sets and skill lines so wildly out of balance with each other though, it’s become a huge issue, both for accessibility and skill expression.
There’s definitely a vocal group of ESO “pvpers” that must love farming players with builds that can’t compete. If you really deserve to be getting kills, you’ll do just fine on more equal footing.
We clearly have very different ideas of what makes someone good at the game, and that's OK. Fortunately for you, it seems the devs agree with yours and don't agree with mine.
IMO, if someone is serious about PvP, they shouldn't shy away from investing the time and resources to take full advantage of ESO's complex builds. Knowing how to theorycraft and leverage an effective setup is part of what makes someone skilled at the game. If one person is CP 3000 with all stickers learned, tens of millions of gold/AP earned, tens of thousands of raw mats hoarded, and thousands of hours of practice, I don't think it's unreasonable for that to represent a material advantage when they fight a CP 140 who just started the game a month prior. What's wrong with asking a new player to put in some time and effort and earn their power?
If a player is so clever and so "skilled" as you say, then they why do need to crutch on having more resources? The answer is simple. They don't. They just enjoy deleting noobs without fear of ever losing. There is nothing "truly competitive" about that at all. It's more about being indignant that a new player can have the same amount of resources without having to run those dungeons or dig up those leads.
MincMincMinc wrote: »Joy_Division wrote: »
Beyond that, this is PvP we are talking about. With ESO’s customization, 2 players can be fully geared out at max level and 1 of those players can literally have double the raw power of the other person. There’s so many situations where one build is simply better than another without any tradeoffs at all.
If someone is serious about fair PvP, why would they put up with that? Truly competitive players or pvpers want to win or lose based on skill, otherwise they’ll quit for more skill based games. The lack of balance and the level at which you can outbuild someone keeps ESO unappealing to many of the people who enjoy PvP games.
Some level of build customization in ESO is fine. With sets and skill lines so wildly out of balance with each other though, it’s become a huge issue, both for accessibility and skill expression.
There’s definitely a vocal group of ESO “pvpers” that must love farming players with builds that can’t compete. If you really deserve to be getting kills, you’ll do just fine on more equal footing.
We clearly have very different ideas of what makes someone good at the game, and that's OK. Fortunately for you, it seems the devs agree with yours and don't agree with mine.
IMO, if someone is serious about PvP, they shouldn't shy away from investing the time and resources to take full advantage of ESO's complex builds. Knowing how to theorycraft and leverage an effective setup is part of what makes someone skilled at the game. If one person is CP 3000 with all stickers learned, tens of millions of gold/AP earned, tens of thousands of raw mats hoarded, and thousands of hours of practice, I don't think it's unreasonable for that to represent a material advantage when they fight a CP 140 who just started the game a month prior. What's wrong with asking a new player to put in some time and effort and earn their power?
If a player is so clever and so "skilled" as you say, then they why do need to crutch on having more resources? The answer is simple. They don't. They just enjoy deleting noobs without fear of ever losing. There is nothing "truly competitive" about that at all. It's more about being indignant that a new player can have the same amount of resources without having to run those dungeons or dig up those leads.
Hard to delete noobs, when they don't even participate anymore lol. Cyro has skewed so far in favor of organized groups that we only see noobs and people learning in bgs. Which we shouldn't even see.....but the MMR system resets and keeps pairing up 10year veteran pvpers against cp160 fresh off the boat players. Even the past MyM events have hardly brought in people to try pvp. I only saw a handful of questers this MyM too when normally there used to be hundreds. Its so bad I can count the number of hatetells with one hand.
To be fair the hard part isnt putting in the work. It takes less than an hour to go pickup RallyingCry and then craft stuhns or orders wrath and be 90% the way there. Most people have some monster set they can fill in and even the basic mythics like markyn or DDF will do fine.
The real hard part is learning all of the tips and tricks that are necessary in pvp, like simple get up and go tricks like needing all impen. Jewels of misrule. Which skillines are efficient like Assassin, animal, stormcalling. Which traits and enchants frontbar and backbar. How to rebind your cc break.
Take a new player without any prior knowledge and toss em into greyhost......how do we seriously expect their pvp experience to be? Its 2025 and we still see people asking how to leave cyrodil from time to time.
Joy_Division wrote: »MincMincMinc wrote: »Joy_Division wrote: »
Beyond that, this is PvP we are talking about. With ESO’s customization, 2 players can be fully geared out at max level and 1 of those players can literally have double the raw power of the other person. There’s so many situations where one build is simply better than another without any tradeoffs at all.
If someone is serious about fair PvP, why would they put up with that? Truly competitive players or pvpers want to win or lose based on skill, otherwise they’ll quit for more skill based games. The lack of balance and the level at which you can outbuild someone keeps ESO unappealing to many of the people who enjoy PvP games.
Some level of build customization in ESO is fine. With sets and skill lines so wildly out of balance with each other though, it’s become a huge issue, both for accessibility and skill expression.
There’s definitely a vocal group of ESO “pvpers” that must love farming players with builds that can’t compete. If you really deserve to be getting kills, you’ll do just fine on more equal footing.
We clearly have very different ideas of what makes someone good at the game, and that's OK. Fortunately for you, it seems the devs agree with yours and don't agree with mine.
IMO, if someone is serious about PvP, they shouldn't shy away from investing the time and resources to take full advantage of ESO's complex builds. Knowing how to theorycraft and leverage an effective setup is part of what makes someone skilled at the game. If one person is CP 3000 with all stickers learned, tens of millions of gold/AP earned, tens of thousands of raw mats hoarded, and thousands of hours of practice, I don't think it's unreasonable for that to represent a material advantage when they fight a CP 140 who just started the game a month prior. What's wrong with asking a new player to put in some time and effort and earn their power?
If a player is so clever and so "skilled" as you say, then they why do need to crutch on having more resources? The answer is simple. They don't. They just enjoy deleting noobs without fear of ever losing. There is nothing "truly competitive" about that at all. It's more about being indignant that a new player can have the same amount of resources without having to run those dungeons or dig up those leads.
Hard to delete noobs, when they don't even participate anymore lol. Cyro has skewed so far in favor of organized groups that we only see noobs and people learning in bgs. Which we shouldn't even see.....but the MMR system resets and keeps pairing up 10year veteran pvpers against cp160 fresh off the boat players. Even the past MyM events have hardly brought in people to try pvp. I only saw a handful of questers this MyM too when normally there used to be hundreds. Its so bad I can count the number of hatetells with one hand.
To be fair the hard part isnt putting in the work. It takes less than an hour to go pickup RallyingCry and then craft stuhns or orders wrath and be 90% the way there. Most people have some monster set they can fill in and even the basic mythics like markyn or DDF will do fine.
The real hard part is learning all of the tips and tricks that are necessary in pvp, like simple get up and go tricks like needing all impen. Jewels of misrule. Which skillines are efficient like Assassin, animal, stormcalling. Which traits and enchants frontbar and backbar. How to rebind your cc break.
Take a new player without any prior knowledge and toss em into greyhost......how do we seriously expect their pvp experience to be? Its 2025 and we still see people asking how to leave cyrodil from time to time.
I do agree this is more of an issue than the material advantage players accumulate through CP or grinding. In particular the tiny replacement pool of future PvP players to replace those who will eventually leave.
I don;t think that enough players get this. It might be fun to play in an environment that has such a high skill level requirement or having access to powerful things that newer players lack, but it's going to necessarily mean a niche setting where only a dedicated few are going to have fun and play. Perhaps that's ultimately what some folks want, but ESO is a product that requires labor, development, and resources to maintain and improve, and those are not going to be made available if Cyrodiil is a ghost town.
You're absolutely right that most new players joining GH are not going to have the sort of experience to come back, let alone be motivated to do any sort of loop grind. Cyrodiil was not always like this.