Gray Host or Vengeance?

Swarog · July 27

I’d like to know which campaign players will prefer once Gray Host and Vengeance are both available again. But first, here is my brief feedback on the latest test.

What I liked about Vengeance was the scale of the battles, the relatively low amount of lag, and double AP. I’m already going to miss all of that.

For now, double AP is the biggest draw for me because I’m still working my way toward Grand Overlord. Once I finally reach it, double AP will matter much less to me.

Second is the scale of the battles. They were genuinely epic. Without double AP, this would easily have been number one for me.

Third, but still extremely important, was the relatively low amount of lag. I could actually play the game instead of fighting the server.

I also liked that meta builds had much less of an advantage. It allowed me to relax and confirm that my own skill was not the problem. I always create my own builds and never copy ready-made builds from websites.

The main downside was that item sets did not function normally. Most final set bonuses were active, but the 2–4-piece bonuses were disabled, and some sets did not work at all. I enjoy theorycrafting and creating builds, so this restriction mattered to me. Still, the campaign was perfectly playable, and it was possible to adapt to these limitations.

Once Gray Host and Vengeance are both available again, which one will you play?

Swarog · July 28

Vengeance

I chose Vengeance. I played there yesterday and overnight into today, and I plan to continue playing it.

Vengeance has its own distinct mechanics, which immediately interested me because of both their simplicity and, surprisingly, a certain amount of variety. I think the result is quite well balanced.

The main thing currently missing is a clearer understanding of what works and what does not. At the moment, players sometimes have to guess or test mechanics manually.

Vengeance currently suffers from a lack of population. Most players are accustomed to traditional Cyrodiil PvP and may not be eager to change something they already know, which is natural.

However Vengeance is a breath of fresh air. It can and should be developed carefully, while preserving and improving its performance.

To make Vengeance more attractive and therefore increase its population, I would suggest making double AP permanent but only for AP earned through actual PvP.

For example, double AP should apply to:

killing enemy players;
assisting with enemy-player kills;
healing allies who are actively participating in PvP combat;
resurrecting allies during PvP combat;
the combat-related portion of offensive and defensive objective ticks.

Double AP should not apply to:

repairing walls and doors;
capturing undefended keeps, outposts, resources, or towns;
standing near an objective without actively participating in the battle;
other activities that allow players to farm AP while doing very little actual PvP.

Normal AP could still be awarded for those activities, but without the ×2 multiplier.

This would keep the idea very simple: real PvP in Vengeance gives double AP, while passive AP farming does not.

The bonus also needs to be large enough to influence player behaviour. A small bonus, such as only 10%, would probably not be enough to attract the population that Vengeance needs for truly large-scale battles.

Usureki · July 28

Gray Host

Swarog wrote: »

I chose Vengeance. I played there yesterday and overnight into today, and I plan to continue playing it.

Vengeance has its own distinct mechanics, which immediately interested me because of both their simplicity and, surprisingly, a certain amount of variety. I think the result is quite well balanced.

The main thing currently missing is a clearer understanding of what works and what does not. At the moment, players sometimes have to guess or test mechanics manually.

Vengeance currently suffers from a lack of population. Most players are accustomed to traditional Cyrodiil PvP and may not be eager to change something they already know, which is natural.

However Vengeance is a breath of fresh air. It can and should be developed carefully, while preserving and improving its performance.

To make Vengeance more attractive and therefore increase its population, I would suggest making double AP permanent but only for AP earned through actual PvP.

For example, double AP should apply to:
killing enemy players;

assisting with enemy-player kills;

healing allies who are actively participating in PvP combat;

resurrecting allies during PvP combat;

the combat-related portion of offensive and defensive objective ticks.

Double AP should not apply to:
repairing walls and doors;

capturing undefended keeps, outposts, resources, or towns;

standing near an objective without actively participating in the battle;

other activities that allow players to farm AP while doing very little actual PvP.

Normal AP could still be awarded for those activities, but without the ×2 multiplier.

This would keep the idea very simple: real PvP in Vengeance gives double AP, while passive AP farming does not.

The bonus also needs to be large enough to influence player behaviour. A small bonus, such as only 10%, would probably not be enough to attract the population that Vengeance needs for truly large-scale battles.

Treating GH players as second class citizens with half AP earned?
No thanks.

SeaGtGruff · July 28

Vengeance

I'm sticking with Vengeance for the time being. I changed my Home Campaign from Gray Host to Vengeance some months back when Vengeance became a permanent campaign-- not because I don't enjoy Gray Host, because I do-- but because I'd like to give Vengeance a thorough and fair testing, and I figured I wouldn't be as likely to do that if I were to keep Gray Host as my Home Campaign, since that would just encourage me to play more often on Gray Host and less often on Vengeance. So far, I've been enjoying my experiences in Vengeance, although it took almost a week to adjustment to the differences.

It does seem to me that performance on Vengeance has been slipping a bit, especially when there are a lot of players on. In particular, I've been experiencing occasional instances of getting slammed by guards and sent sliding along the ground, or through the air, or through terrain or architecture, for several seconds before finally coming to a stop and then being returned to my original location. That's something that used to happen to me on Gray Host from time to time. It got worse during the weeklong Vengeance test, as far as happening more frequently, and I'm hoping it goes back to being just an occasional thing now that the test is over.

blktauna · July 28

Vengeance

I play in Vengence now as a rule. The combat is more fun, no ball groups, no cheese, very fun large scal battles and wild keep fights. The bonus also my screen doesn't turn into a slideshow when certain people show up and my skill actually work for the most part. GH has been a festival of crashing, no barswapping and 5 second skill delay for ages and I just don't enjoy it now.

Luneca · July 28

Gray Host

Gray Host. I can fire 6 coldfires siege. I'm practicing using 8. Really difficult tbh.

SeaGtGruff · July 28

Vengeance

Luneca wrote: »

Gray Host. I can fire 6 coldfires siege. I'm practicing using 8. Really difficult tbh.

Yes, there are things I really like about Gray Host, and things I really like about Vengeance-- and things I dislike about each.

The free siege and repair kits (and forward camps) in Vengeance are very nice, as opposed to having to spend your gold or AP to buy those things in Gray Host.

And the way that repairing continues automatically in Vengeance once you begin is a lot nicer than having to repeatedly spam the repair kit (hopefully at just the right rhythm for maximum repair speed) in Gray Host-- except, if a wall is badly damaged in Vengeance and you're repairing it by yourself, after a period of time the continuous repair seems to stop while the wall is still below full health, like there's a maximum time limit, so sometimes you must restart the continuous repair process to repair a wall back to full health.

But the ability to place multiple siege engines of the same type in Gray Host is definitely nice if you're trying to solo-siege an outpost or keep, whereas being limited to just one of each in Vengeance is not so nice.

meekmiko · July 28

Vengeance

I personally prefer Vengeance over Blackreach/Gray Host but I flip-flop between all three.

And I wasn't a fan of Dark Convergence rearing its ugly head again with the latest Vengeance testing though. Its more annoying than it is deadly. (as is anything that makes you lose control of your character, because it loves to desync pretty bad afterwards.) /rant

Swarog · July 30

Vengeance

Some time has passed, and I already find myself missing the truly large-scale PvP we had during the test week, with little to no lag, at least in my experience.

Right now, I would rather play that version of Vengeance, with massive battles and minimal lag, than either the current Vengeance (low population) or Gray Host (lags).

Romilly · August 7

Vengeance, Prime time, during Midyear Mayhem - Red has the entire map, both other factions gated, pop bars 1:1:1

Gray Host: 2 hour login queue.... I can't report on the state, but I'd suspect it's in its normal state of back and forth.

Dojohoda · August 7

Vengeance

I don't want to wait a long time to get into Gray Host.

Lucasl402 · August 7

Gray Host

And we know that most of the votes for vengeance are from PvE'rs who won't even play vengeance with any kind of regularity.

How is ZOS not catching a clue about how wrong headed investing in vengeance is? Most of us view it as vengeance against the PvP community because that's what it looks and feels like.

ADawg · August 12

"I Love Vengeance, its so awesome"

followed by

"How to force population in Vengeance"

PVPers hate vengeance. How hard is this to comprehend!?

ADawg · August 12

Lucasl402 wrote: »

And we know that most of the votes for vengeance are from PvE'rs who won't even play vengeance with any kind of regularity.

How is ZOS not catching a clue about how wrong headed investing in vengeance is? Most of us view it as vengeance against the PvP community because that's what it looks and feels like.

They are catching a clue lol...well, half of them are

Divine1976 · August 12

Gray Host

Gray Host, as Vengeance is too limited. I understand the appeal though and some sieges were epic but its not for me.

However, I am also really tired of immortal ball groups/overpowered DKs, etc., lack of class/build diversity, and Zos's apparent lack of interest in Grey Host.

Not too motivated at the moment but we'll see

Zama666 · August 14

Gray Host

Wow!

I did not expect so many votes for Vengeance!

I voted GH but do like Vengeance because there are no metas, ballgroups, trolls and queues...
And you rely on your faction

GH does give a lot more variety though and it really differentiates ESO in pvp

Necrotech_Master · August 14

Vengeance

i definitely prefer vengeance over GH mostly because of performance and balance that are basically absent on GH

i still play GH from time to time, but usually will get frustrated because 90% of the time i get in there, the only action is a tower troll or a ball group that nobody can kill along with people being absurdly tanky but also dealing absurd amounts of dmg

SeaGtGruff · August 14

Vengeance

Zama666 wrote: »

Wow!

I did not expect so many votes for Vengeance!

I voted GH but do like Vengeance because there are no metas, ballgroups, trolls and queues...
And you rely on your faction

GH does give a lot more variety though and it really differentiates ESO in pvp

I suspect that Vengeance does have METAs, but they are different from Gray Host's METAs because there are no CP perks, no buffs from Provisioning and Alchemy, and (for now, anyway) no bonuses from item sets. But there are probably METAs based around the things that Vengeance does have.

Just_Attivi · August 14

Gray Host

yea... Vengeance Meta is basically Sorc or NB (infinite sustain, good mobility, good escape tools, on both of those classes) with at least 2 back bar HOTs. 3 front bar DOTs and some kind of CC and Burst (like merciless). Scout kit is most ideal. once you figure out the spreadsheet math, its quite literally the most boring thing with no way to beat a player of equal skill. Its why so many healing and damage values desperately need adjusting before vengeance has any hope of being more than siege simulator or Zerg all one color , CRISS CROSS, repeat as the next color. But instead, lets add siege tiers so siege does more damage instead of.... literally anything interesting.

WaywardArgonian · August 14

Gray Host

Gray Host because I like a modicum of skill expression in my online video game.

peacenote · August 14

Gray Host

I want to be able to design the builds of my PvP characters and then take those builds across Cyro, BG's, and IC
I want to be able to use all of the combat features of the game in PvP (subclassing, scribing, champion system)
The "similar but different/limited" ability concept is frustrating to me; I want my abilities to behave the same across all content and not have to remember what an ability does in Vengeance vs. elsewhere, especially other PvP scenarios
I greatly dislike templated play in general; I play MMOs because typically they are not like this
Honestly, maybe I was lucky but my performance in GH was never SO bad as to make the performance improvements visible in Vengeance a strong pro over its cons
I don't care about massive battles so much as I care about strategic (or random) play disrupting foregone conclusions to have unique and surprising experiences - joining a fight as a solo healer and making a difference, people arriving to turn the tide of a battle, small teams or solo players cutting resources, someone dropping a camp just at the right time so you rally and win the keep, etc. and from what I've read, this is less likely in Vengeance as people are saying it's a siege numbers game. I can't speak to this fully as I haven't played enough Vengeance (per my other reasons) to vouch for this myself out of personal experience, but it makes sense - the same reason ball groups aren't effective in Vengeance would be the same reason you can't turn the tide or disrupt; if everyone is evenly matched with limited choices there are just not enough levers or chaos.

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Gray Host or Vengeance?

Gray Host or Vengeance? 81 votes