Upcoming Campaign Changes

justin.sniesakub17_ESO

zazamalek wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

These changes are slated for the third major update to the game (not standard maintenance windows) which isn't for a while yet.

So my assumption is that we'll go into another 90-day campaign first?



(I'm probably one of possibly 10 players who actually like 90-day campaigns).

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

As for population being condensed and the worry of over-crowding, all the population data we've gathered so far shows that should be at least 1 campaign in both the EU and US that players can join without a queue.

Could we at least see a reduction of the current campaigns to more accurately reflect this population? At the end of the current run, that is. It would be a good opportunity to test what the "real" population is, I'm 'worried' that a bunch of players would flock back to PvP if the campaigns accurately reflected the population and queue up the joint. Maybe the next run is a good opportunity to cut campaigns and add more as needed.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Also note we are aware of the Forward Camp issues and Postern Doors and actively working on fixing those as well!

Awesome! Can't wait for those fixes to drop!

This would at least be something. Skull crusher and Hopesfire should have been closed weeks ago.

Snit

At the very least, you must condense the number of campaigns for this second round. Another three months of mostly dead PvP will kill it for good, as new players get the (false) impression that Cyrodil is too big, too empty and boring.

Obscure

IMO 7 day campaigns might be a touch too short. We'll begin seeing what we saw in the PTS in regard to "Throne Snipers" doing everything they can to snag Emperor by using some less than honest tactics that circumvent the design intent of certain mechanics to obtain the top spot on the leader board.

I think we should at least consider throwing in a quest that can only be done once in your home campaign during each 7 day period that awards a level appropriate loot box, gold, alliance points, and XP/VP. The rewards are really not important, but the point of this quest is to create a time gate to emperorship, as it would be a required quest to be eligible for Emperor in your campaign. The requirements for quest completion would be something like:

•Kill 100 Players
•Capture 2 Emperor Keeps
•Complete Each Alliance Mission Board Quest Once

Making this a prerequisite to be in the running for Emperor will prevent sniping the throne, add a measure of difficulty to obtaining Emperor, and force a perspective Emperor to be involved directly with his or her crowning. Levels the playing field.

bruceb14_ESO5

This was disappointing to read, campaigns not changing at the end of this 90 day run or at the next major update coming out next week.

Perhaps it will work well, getting to know some different people, possibly switching campaigns. Initial reaction, arrrghhh.

frwinters_ESO

@zos_brianwheeler the campaign changes have to come sooner. Just as some people have said, they cant get enough action to get AP to get out of dead campaigns and with a new season starting up, no one wants to guest and not be on a leaderboard. More people will farm Emperorship on dead campaigns which will flood the servers with former emperor's who probably do not deserve it. Something has to give very soon or PvP, a staple for this game, is going to drive people away.

Reconsider your time frame. Needs to be sooner than later.

Turelus

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

As for population being condensed and the worry of over-crowding, all the population data we've gathered so far shows that should be at least 1 campaign in both the EU and US that players can join without a queue.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler I'm a little confused about this comment, you say there should be at least one campaign we can all join without a queue, what if this isn't the campaign we want to play in or choose as our home campaign?

Maybe this is just written badly but it comes off as "if you can't join the one you want there will always be another one you can join without a queue." which I'm sure I don't need to say would annoy a very large number of players.

Your data gathered so far surely can't tell which campaign players want to play on most out of these new choices? Right now you have nine 90day campaigns and one 14day campaign and the new options are nothing like those. What happens if 80% of the player base want to only play the 30 day campaign you have listed, that's going to become very over populated and face queues like the popular campaigns already face.

Kalanar Highwatch

Snit wrote: »

At the very least, you must condense the number of campaigns for this second round. Another three months of mostly dead PvP will kill it for good, as new players get the (false) impression that Cyrodil is too big, too empty and boring.

It shouldn't be another 3 months. He said it would be when the 3rd update hits, which likely would not be at the natural end of the 90 day campaigns. The second content update is coming out next week and they've said their goal is to release content updates every 6 weeks or so. That would put this about 7 weeks out. I do agree though that it would have been best for this to happen next week when the current 90 day campaigns end.

Turelus wrote: »

Maybe this is just written badly but it comes off as "if you can't join the one you want there will always be another one you can join without a queue." which I'm sure I don't need to say would annoy a very large number of players.

Well it's already the case that you can't join any campaign you want without a queue. On North American servers I routinely find myself 100th or higher in the queue to join Wabbajack during primetime. I understand from other posters in this thread that European servers can have up to 4 campaigns full at once. I think Mr. Wheeler's point is just that their analysis shows there should always be at least one campaign you can guest to and get into immediately (maybe while you wait for your home campaign queue to pop). It doesn't matter if there are 2, 5 or 10 campaigns. They will never be able to guarantee you the one you want to play in won't be full when you want to play in it because people might do the same thing they do now on North America and stack in a single campaign.

Forztr

Smart thing to do would be:-

• drop the number of campaigns to 6 when the current ones end
• reduce the length from 90 to 60 days
• introduce your new campaigns when the 60 day campaigns finish

frwinters_ESO

Forztr wrote: »

Smart thing to do would be:-

• drop the number of campaigns to 6 when the current ones end
• reduce the length from 90 to 60 days
• introduce your new campaigns when the 60 day campaigns finish

I say 5 campaigns and all 30 days at least for now. If you then still want some 14 day or vet/non-vet only campaigns do it by the next content patch. Bottom line, the campaigns need to be reduced, like yesterday, and everyone given a free home reset.

Turelus

frwinters_ESO wrote: »

Forztr wrote: »

Smart thing to do would be:-

• drop the number of campaigns to 6 when the current ones end
• reduce the length from 90 to 60 days
• introduce your new campaigns when the 60 day campaigns finish

I say 5 campaigns and all 30 days at least for now. If you then still want some 14 day or vet/non-vet only campaigns do it by the next content patch. Bottom line, the campaigns need to be reduced, like yesterday, and everyone given a free home reset.

I have to agree with this. The problem with not reducing the numbers at the end of this campaign is you (ZOS) make it harder for players who want to leave a campaign to know where they should go. With only five choices over nine you can guarantee that more players will find conflict rather than players leaving a busy campaign to fight the overpowered forces in another only to find their opponents there left because they were bored of nothing to do.

TL;DR less campaigns or tools to know where the good ones will be after the current ones end.

veneficus

I think that the veteran campaigns should be broken up more. Few PvP players want to be cannon fodder. Currently there are huge power differences between the lower rank veteran players and those who are higher rank.

A couple of suggestions I have for veteran rank campaigns:

-Decrease the power differential between the maxed rank veteran players and those who are in the lowest ranks. Perhaps make every veteran player veteran 10 or 12 with regards to boosting. This would prevent the current environment where people aren't entering PvP due to the super powerful veteran 12 characters mopping up the field.

-Split up veteran campaigns into more discrete groupings such as veteran 1-6 and 7-12. That would help mitigate the problem that lower ranked veteran players simply do not want to enter a campaign due to the extreme power difference between them and the veteran 12 characters.

I really don't think just having veteran campaigns or campaigns where everyone can join will work. Until the serious power differential is dealt with between veteran 12's and the rest of the population you will continue to see people avoiding Cyrodiil.

Darlgon

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌
Hate to say this.. but a lot of people were planning on the new campaigns next week based on:

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

All current campaigns will be shut down, and players will be rewarded appropriately according to the campaign score, leaderboard status and reward tier at the time of shut down.

Veteran rank modifiers on NPCs will be looked into to see what we can do for the non veteran rank players but if we can't adjust the NPC levels, we will more than likely crank up the bolstered stats higher.

Now you are saying wait another campaign cycle to see anything? Sorry.. even the people like me who are waiting until they are VR12, because we got one-shotted going into Cyrodiil as level ups, won't wait around for six months with the desolate home campaigns. In other games, even as a lowbie levelup I felt I did something, but right now.. level-ups feel useless.

And.. yeah.. it sucks.. I am indeed asking for a knee jerk response.. of at LEAST shutting down some of the less-populated campaigns when they expire.. and not risking another round of Scourge, "oops, we pulled the plug on the wrong one" when only three campaigns, one for each dominant faction, settle down after a week, resulting in, "Oh, we need to pull the plug on some campaigns because the other people are too spread out".

Mojomonkeyman

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌

Do you plan on taking the differences in pvp population and playstyle between EU and NA servers into account? Because your proposed approach seems to focus heavily on the NA side of things and is not really adressing the different picture here in EU. We have different populations to NA and quite a bunch of pvp/rvr only players who are not against long(er) term campaigns.

Yet I cannot find any word mentioning a region specific solution to customize the new campaign system to every region`s needs and demans. I`m afraid you won`t satisfy the EU side of things with a simple mirrored NA version of your consolidation ideas.

PvP was advertized as THE major endgame content in the game, at least how I and the people I play with perceived it. I am very glad that there is some pvp only people left even if almost all efforts and work of the dev team seems to be focusing on the pve side of things since release. How about making some of us stay with at least taking regional differences into account?

Best regards

justin.sniesakub17_ESO

Darlgon wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌
Hate to say this.. but a lot of people were planning on the new campaigns next week based on:

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

All current campaigns will be shut down, and players will be rewarded appropriately according to the campaign score, leaderboard status and reward tier at the time of shut down.

Veteran rank modifiers on NPCs will be looked into to see what we can do for the non veteran rank players but if we can't adjust the NPC levels, we will more than likely crank up the bolstered stats higher.

Now you are saying wait another campaign cycle to see anything? Sorry.. even the people like me who are waiting until they are VR12, because we got one-shotted going into Cyrodiil as level ups, won't wait around for six months with the desolate home campaigns. In other games, even as a lowbie levelup I felt I did something, but right now.. level-ups feel useless.

And.. yeah.. it sucks.. I am indeed asking for a knee jerk response.. of at LEAST shutting down some of the less-populated campaigns when they expire.. and not risking another round of Scourge, "oops, we pulled the plug on the wrong one" when only three campaigns, one for each dominant faction, settle down after a week, resulting in, "Oh, we need to pull the plug on some campaigns because the other people are too spread out".

Yep. My wife and I were really planning on this happening at this time. Waiting 7 more weeks? No thanks, pass. PvP was one of the biggest draws of this game for me and honestly if they just wait till update 3, my money is better spent elsewhere. Not a threat, just a dejected accurate statement.

Cogo

I can only speak for the EU server and my guild, along with other guildleader I communicate with.

On tuesday patch 1.2.3, when the group lag bug is fixed. We already have plans to go as a guild, for the first time! Others have as well.

I think it the group lag bug that simple made people not want to go to Cyro....couldnt play unless you where a small group, and those groups where always ELITE PvP player....you had NO chance is hell doing anything.

IF, and I really believe so, there will be large armies again, the EU Cyro will be much more populated.

I for one cant wait!

On a side note. Is it just me or are PvP players less patient then PvE players?

To back up my statement, I REALLY want the 2 new guilds, justice system and the new spell skills. I want them right now!

But as stated, they will be introduced in good time with justice system first, but they will come. This is good enough for me! Sure...I have to wait, but as long I know they are confirmed. I am happy.

Phaade

Greetings ZoS,

Speaking of course only for myself and the 10 or so people I know that have left the game, the single biggest change I (or we) would like to see is an option to go to a smaller map. The zerg v zerg is impressive and all, but I like small fights that are skill based, not numbers based.

The small group encounters are awesome, but, they are hard to find and once you find them, dying usually means 10 minutes of horseback touring (unless some good Samaritan rezzes you).

I know about 10 more people from my guild in a different MMO that are consistently saying they will not buy this game because of what they have heard about PvP - it's not PvP it's ZvZ. Well - I try to explain to them that you can find PvP, like the small gate fights or the questing hub battles/ganks, it's just that you need to hunt a bit...they are not biting...and frankly I too am losing interest.

While I only played SWTOR for 6 months or so, I have to admit their 'scenario' based arena fights (like huttball...which I effin hate) solved this problem. You could always find relatively balanced small group action.

Please speak up as to whether or not you plan to address this - campaign duration is irrelevant...campaign scope and geography are the issues for players like me (well some anyway...but I think there's quite a few of us).

Please give those of us that want small group and solo action a place to go. My bet, you'll be stunned at how much traction you get...if you have no intentions of doing this (making a smaller map or arena function) - PLEASE SAY SO...so I can stop wasting my time (and my credibility with old guildies) and move on ;-) It would be a no hard feeling parting of ways and props to you all for shooting straight. If you are going to do something like this, awesome, I am in it for the long run.

Good Hunting,

Phaade
VR12/PvP-R15 NB

Arora

Could I suggest a free transfer if you hit Vet Level ???

Lodur

I would like to see a couple changes.

1) Let people changes home campaigns without out an AP cost. Let them play where they want, where there guild or friends are. But when you join a campaign you do NOT get the alliance buffs until you earn X AP (where X is the proposed AP cost to change now.) in the new campaign. Free to move, but must earn the buffs for your self.

2) Let emperor and former emperor status be reset with the campaigns and not be transferable between campaigns. Ends any point to trading emperor in a low pop campaign for use in the high population campaigns. Change all emperor passives to be in-campaign-earned-in only.

3) Losing Emperor should lower your standing on the emperor board by at least putting them below the next highest, preferably putting them at their alliance's mean AP level.

frwinters_ESO

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌

Do you plan on taking the differences in pvp population and playstyle between EU and NA servers into account? Because your proposed approach seems to focus heavily on the NA side of things and is not really adressing the different picture here in EU. We have different populations to NA and quite a bunch of pvp/rvr only players who are not against long(er) term campaigns.

Yet I cannot find any word mentioning a region specific solution to customize the new campaign system to every region`s needs and demans. I`m afraid you won`t satisfy the EU side of things with a simple mirrored NA version of your consolidation ideas.

PvP was advertized as THE major endgame content in the game, at least how I and the people I play with perceived it. I am very glad that there is some pvp only people left even if almost all efforts and work of the dev team seems to be focusing on the pve side of things since release. How about making some of us stay with at least taking regional differences into account?

Best regards

justin.sniesakub17_ESO wrote: »

Darlgon wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌
Hate to say this.. but a lot of people were planning on the new campaigns next week based on:

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

All current campaigns will be shut down, and players will be rewarded appropriately according to the campaign score, leaderboard status and reward tier at the time of shut down.

Veteran rank modifiers on NPCs will be looked into to see what we can do for the non veteran rank players but if we can't adjust the NPC levels, we will more than likely crank up the bolstered stats higher.

Now you are saying wait another campaign cycle to see anything? Sorry.. even the people like me who are waiting until they are VR12, because we got one-shotted going into Cyrodiil as level ups, won't wait around for six months with the desolate home campaigns. In other games, even as a lowbie levelup I felt I did something, but right now.. level-ups feel useless.

And.. yeah.. it sucks.. I am indeed asking for a knee jerk response.. of at LEAST shutting down some of the less-populated campaigns when they expire.. and not risking another round of Scourge, "oops, we pulled the plug on the wrong one" when only three campaigns, one for each dominant faction, settle down after a week, resulting in, "Oh, we need to pull the plug on some campaigns because the other people are too spread out".

Yep. My wife and I were really planning on this happening at this time. Waiting 7 more weeks? No thanks, pass. PvP was one of the biggest draws of this game for me and honestly if they just wait till update 3, my money is better spent elsewhere. Not a threat, just a dejected accurate statement.

@zos_brianwheeler your basically going back on your word. As previously posted you said the campaigns were going to end early and start a new. Most of us who are still here from start are probably in guilds whether large or small and have to start planning events and our days around a game we pay for.

Now you tell us another possible 4-6 weeks with only a week to go to the next logical update? That's just not good customer service. Telling your customers one thing, but doing another without any solid explanation is not right. If this was a free to play game, we would have no recourse, but we are your customers paying for a product. Any company who offers a service, makes a statement, then retracts that statement with no explanation will draw people away from you.

Sure you may recoup people you lose in a month or two, but you are getting to the point that you need to keep the core ESO players to make this last. I'm rethinking my 6 month sub here only because of the service here today. I am disappointed.

Samadhi

Cogo wrote: »

...
On a side note. Is it just me or are PvP players less patient then PvE players?
...

No, we just deal with more experience-breaking issues in our portion of the game and receive fixes at a much less rapid pace.

Cogo

Samadhi wrote: »

Cogo wrote: »

...
On a side note. Is it just me or are PvP players less patient then PvE players?
...

No, we just deal with more experience-breaking issues in our portion of the game and receive fixes at a much less rapid pace.

Ah thanks! And here I was under the impression that the group lag bug was a server problem and not Cyro problem because lots of raid guild have this group lag bug in craglorn as well, with the same problems.

Also the devs that confirmed it was not located to cyro, but server, must been wrong then.

And I guess the upcoming adds to Cyro like more pvp quests, before the new PvE quests coming....must got that wrong too.

And experience breaking issues? There is no zone in the game that gives more exp then Cyro. I was just there, and got more exp in 1 hour then I had all day.

I must imagine that too.....

Akalukz

Get rid of past Emperor Buffs/Passives and leader board gimmicks will change.

Yasha

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Hey gang!

These changes are slated for the third major update to the game (not standard maintenance windows) which isn't for a while yet.

Thanks for letting us know. I think these changes are going to be great for the game, but I extremely disappointed that we have to wait so much longer (what I guess will be 2 months or so?).

If you could just add a non-vet campaign really soon- like tomorrow or next week- to tide us over it would be awesome.

WebBull

3rd major update..........? Cyrodiil needs help now! This is extremely disappointing.

Samadhi

Cogo wrote: »

Ah thanks! And here I was under the impression that the group lag bug was a server problem and not Cyro problem because lots of raid guild have this group lag bug in craglorn as well, with the same problems.

Also the devs that confirmed it was not located to cyro, but server, must been wrong then.
...

I don't really give a crap about the group lag bug, the largest group I roll in is 2 people.

I still get lag in Cyrodiil like everyone else in Wabbajack complains about anyway.

Cogo wrote: »

...
And I guess the upcoming adds to Cyro like more pvp quests, before the new PvE quests coming....must got that wrong too.
...

People have been asking for new PvP quests since the Kill 20 Enemy Players quest was nerfed down to daily at launch.
We received Craglorn an entire PvE zone before any new quests in PvP.

The two most significant changes to Cyrodiil since launch have been nerfing the Kill 20 Enemy Players quest (the only quest in game that gave bonuses for killing players); and the increase of Cyrodiil NPCs to VR 5.

Cogo wrote: »

...
And experience breaking issues? There is no zone in the game that gives more exp then Cyro. I was just there, and got more exp in 1 hour then I had all day.

I must imagine that too.....

I was not referring to the rate of EXP gain through PvP.

Please do feel free to continue to post all about how EXP gains in PvP are faster than any PvE zone though.

TheGrandAlliance

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

As for population being condensed and the worry of over-crowding, all the population data we've gathered so far shows that should be at least 1 campaign in both the EU and US that players can join without a queue.

LOL... you mean during nightime right?... I somehow doubt all players gonna fit into one 30 day campaign....

Imperator_Clydus

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Hey gang!

These changes are slated for the third major update to the game (not standard maintenance windows) which isn't for a while yet.

As for population being condensed and the worry of over-crowding, all the population data we've gathered so far shows that should be at least 1 campaign in both the EU and US that players can join without a queue.

Duration of Campaigns we're still discussing but rewards will be adjusted to be in relation to the duration of the campaign. We are aware of Celarus and what's going on in that Campaign.

Also note we are aware of the Forward Camp issues and Postern Doors and actively working on fixing those as well!

While I'm not particularly thrilled about the first major PvP update coming so late, I do appreciate that we have somewhat of a time table at this point.

Honestly, far better to have a campaign with queues rather than empty and dead ones, in my personal opinion. As long as we can have close to full sized populations for all alliances at peak hours on most, if not all, of the campaigns, that is ideal.

I definitely believe you should consider campaigns longer than five or seven days. As is the current issue on Celarus, the campaign is littered with emperor farming and very little else. I feel in order to have a quality AvA experience, this AP farming mentality must be discouraged for players to focus on what actually matters, the Alliance War.

Thanks for letting us know that you are aware of the issues with forward camps and postern walls and hopefully that is something that can be resolved sooner rather than later.

Is it possible at all for you to give us an update on the Imperial City? I assume it will not be part of Update 3. Is this something that we will see at some point during this year?

Thanks again Mr. Wheeler.

justin.sniesakub17_ESO

Yasha wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Hey gang!

These changes are slated for the third major update to the game (not standard maintenance windows) which isn't for a while yet.

Thanks for letting us know. I think these changes are going to be great for the game, but I extremely disappointed that we have to wait so much longer (what I guess will be 2 months or so?).

If you could just add a non-vet campaign really soon- like tomorrow or next week- to tide us over it would be awesome.

Hell this step alone would be a MASSIVE step in the right direction......keep the update 3 date, close the least most imbalanced campaign, convert to non vet, and disable past Emperor rewards. You just fixed 50% of the PvP issues right there

justin.sniesakub17_ESO

TheGrandAlliance wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

As for population being condensed and the worry of over-crowding, all the population data we've gathered so far shows that should be at least 1 campaign in both the EU and US that players can join without a queue.

LOL... you mean during nightime right?... I somehow doubt all players gonna fit into one 30 day campaign....

Another problem. Only ONE thirty day campaign being proposed

justin.sniesakub17_ESO

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Hey gang!

These changes are slated for the third major update to the game (not standard maintenance windows) which isn't for a while yet.

As for population being condensed and the worry of over-crowding, all the population data we've gathered so far shows that should be at least 1 campaign in both the EU and US that players can join without a queue.

Duration of Campaigns we're still discussing but rewards will be adjusted to be in relation to the duration of the campaign. We are aware of Celarus and what's going on in that Campaign.

Also note we are aware of the Forward Camp issues and Postern Doors and actively working on fixing those as well!

While I'm not particularly thrilled about the first major PvP update coming so late, I do appreciate that we have somewhat of a time table at this point.

Honestly, far better to have a campaign with queues rather than empty and dead ones, in my personal opinion. As long as we can have close to full sized populations for all alliances at peak hours on most, if not all, of the campaigns, that is ideal.

I definitely believe you should consider campaigns longer than five or seven days. As is the current issue on Celarus, the campaign is littered with emperor farming and very little else. I feel in order to have a quality AvA experience, this AP farming mentality must be discouraged for players to focus on what actually matters, the Alliance War.

Thanks for letting us know that you are aware of the issues with forward camps and postern walls and hopefully that is something that can be resolved sooner rather than later.

Is it possible at all for you to give us an update on the Imperial City? I assume it will not be part of Update 3. Is this something that we will see at some point during this year?

Thanks again Mr. Wheeler.

Completely agree and I REALLY hope they are taking these suggestions to heart. We all love this game and it kills me that they are not seeing what needs to be NEXT WEEK, not in JULY