Upcoming Campaign Changes

Docmandu

Regarding lopsided campaigns... I get the impression this is a structural issue with Cyrodiil's layout. If I compare this to the other RvR game I know well, DAoC, there each alliance / realm has a homeland and it takes quite some travel time (boat ride) to get to the enemy land (unless you're able to capture a keep and it's 4 controlling towers, which opens a teleport option).

Which is another difference, in ESO you can port to a keep until all 3 resources are taken away, whereas in DAoC, port would be broken as soon as 1 of the 4 surrounding towers was taken.

All in all, in ESO it's very very easy to get back to the fight once you die. It even goes as far that people allow 1 resource to remain in enemy hands, as to have a very easy / quick way to suicide and port to the next FC.

If ESO had the DAoC mechanic, people couldn't leave 1 resource in enemy hands as that would mean you can't port there anymore.

On the other hand, in DAoC you actually got a rez from people, as it cost nothing and even gave RP (AP in ESO lingo). Whereas in ESO it just costs money for the rezzer, so most people say scr.w it. Better would be if the cost is paid by the dead person, imho.


Imperial City might help a bit with lopsided campaigns, as it takes out a reasonable chunk of the winning players from the Cyrodiil battleground, giving the other 2 alliances a better chance.

IcyDeadPeople

demonlkojipub19_ESO wrote: »

Really, there needs to be some way to more forcefully spread players across the servers. They can be all 30 day ones, but there will always be the few that are empty most of the time and all one color. I thot chillrend was the 2nd go-to place for some action, but that place is all red like bow of shadows use to be. Now its currently Bow = Blue, Had = Yellow, Chill = red.

Easiest way to do it is to reduce the number of cyrodil servers again. Looking at things right now, there should probably just be 3 servers of the same duration. One for everyone, one for vet only, one for non-vet.

On NA server I'm not sure we currently have sufficient player base to support two campaigns. Neither Thornblade nor Chillrend are comparable to the old Wabbajack in terms of being able to find battles across the map at any time of day.

curlyqloub14_ESO

Whatever happens, PLEASE don't reduce the number of campaigns any more. The current setup already makes things extremely difficult for anyone who has more than one character in different alliances.

I have friends in both AD and DC. So I made a character in both. Little did I realize that you cannot have opposing faction characters in the same campaign. It makes sense, and I understand why this rule is in place, but when you combine this rule with the 72-hour lockout and cost to switching campaigns, it makes things really difficult for anyone with two characters in opposing factions.

If a player's characters are all vet level, there are currently 4 campaign options. One of the four (Haderus) is pretty much empty, so that's pretty useless. And the vet-only campaign is a 7-day duration just like Haderus, so (though I have not been there,) I wouldn't be surprised if it is equally deserted. This leaves just two campaigns as viable options. So I could have a home campaign for each char, and well, that's it. If anyone wants to make a char in each of the 3 factions, they are pretty much screwed.

I like the non-vet campaign a lot, but obviously that's only good until a character hits vet rank.

I think making fewer campaigns was a good call, but the current setup is very limiting. Expand or change the current unpopular campaigns, but please don't eliminate any more.

JamilaRaj

Docmandu wrote: »

Regarding lopsided campaigns... I get the impression this is a structural issue with Cyrodiil's layout.

I would guess possibility to choose campaign. Most people a) choose more over less populated campaigns, eventually forcing remaining people to follow or else they log into unfun campaigns oscillating between no action whatsoever and spikes of emp/scroll farming zergs aided by guests, and b) if not choosing campaigns outright dominated by their faction, then at least leaving campaigns where their faction is pressed, again further aggravating situation for the remaining. Unless there is less than three campaigns, factions will tend to settle with one campaign each.

So...I would suggest to elaborate on megaserver approach pioneered in PvE: to abolish campaigns completely, or more precisely their public front end, leaving just internal instances of Cyrodiil, and use algorithm evaluating populations and to a degree social bonds to machine-spread people into these instances with option of travel to player.
But but but....what about persistence? One would re-enter Cyrodiil and it would be different, no? Probably not; unless major migration of nations occured (roughly equals to mass travel to player abuse on part of players deliberately trying to concentrate huge forces in same instance) or he overhauled his guild allegiances or friends list.
Anyway, the idea of being in different instance after re-enter is not per se to be feared. Either one re-enters quickly and is placed into same instance without evaluation, similarily to how player is allowed to locked campaign without waiting in queue after he relogs, provided he does it quickly. Or one re-enters after some period of time, in which case, because, despite conclusions of radical empiricists, campaigns go on and change even when not observed, being in different instance is not different from being in same instance but different, as it is now.

Tintinabula

PvP isn't supposed to be a buffet of choices..we already get that with skills and classes and armor for goodness sakes.

The person complaining about not being able to have different toons in different factions but all in the same guild with friends bla bla bla just amazes me. Pick one..stay!...good pvper.

Anu_Saukko_Tutkija

Tintinabula wrote: »

PvP isn't supposed to be a buffet of choices..we already get that with skills and classes and armor for goodness sakes.

The person complaining about not being able to have different toons in different factions but all in the same guild with friends bla bla bla just amazes me. Pick one..stay!...good pvper.

I would want see 1 more 30 days campaign, becouse i want to play there and im always at solo queue 180+ lol, or something like that

Vizier

PvP is fun but the campaign has about as much appeal as a RTS death match. The design as is, is a lost opportunity for epic PvP. I'm not speaking of PvP mechanics but rather campaign design.

Right now it's nothing more than a grind and honestly it makes almost no difference whether it's a 30 day campaign or a 7 day campaign when all keeps can and do change hands in under 2 hours.

The rest of the map means nothing and the inner keeps everything especially when forward camps work as they do.

There are alot of little farms, towns, churches, etc that should be controlled before adjacent keeps in the inner circle should be siege-able. Most definitely should need to control alliance primary outer keeps before you can even think about successfully siegeing the inner keeps. -- This would give more importance to the rest of the map, spread the fights around and give more importance to skirmishing.

Forward camps need to be totally reworked to allow for guild/group camps, reduce the area of effect of camps and require death to have occurred within that sphere of influence to curb blood porting and require troops to travel by land at least for initial reinforcements.--- This would require more coordination from alliance/covenant guilds, pretty much end "blood porting," give guilds and groups control of their camps and the AP spent on them. Additionally it would mean reinforcements would have to actually "hoof" it and offer more strategic and tactical elements to the battles. For instance small groups could interfere with reinforcement efforts.

Siege equipment should do far less damage to walls at least 50%, I'd like to see 25%, with oil pots only working from elevated positions. ---Walls are brought down way too fast. Keeps and Castles used to be sieged for months sometimes years. I'm not suggesting we go for ultimate realism but if some of the above changes were implemented I think it would be necessary to allow time for reinforcements to arrive.

Player collision should be added as well to give true ability for small groups to hold choke points.--- self explanatory.

I happy side effect of all these types of changes would be a reduction and likely an end to emperor flipping since taking keeps with super small groups would be next to impossible.

Small groups would still be viable and there would be much possibility for fights and skirmishes but the larger actions of taking keeps would be for more epic actions.

purgation

For better or worse, there will always be players who feel the need to "farm" a completely imbalanced campaign, and will switch to easy mode if they are given that option.

It seems like you are trying to solve a second order issue (variety of instances, different lengths, vet-vs not vet, etc.) at the expense of THE first order issue -- maintaining active, competitive campaigns.

Warhammer had this issue, it killed the game. Don't make the same mistake.

In the short run, you need to limit the number of instances, and 5 is too many. As I type this in prime time EST NA, There are three cap locks, one for each faction, spread among 5 campaigns. Try two. Maybe three, with slightly lower population caps - - bonus! you might see fewer performance issues!

In the longer run, you need campaigns with dynamic caps. The ideal cap should be the one that creates a queue >0 on all three factions for a campaign but minimizes total queue size. The caps should adjust relative to population of all 3 factions, and they should STRONGLY favor keeping populations at or near even at the cap... even at the expense of long queues for a faction with too much demand at that time.

Long queues give the right incentive... to shift to a campaign where that that faction is more in demand. The great thing about your campaign system is that if things really get out of hand with queues, you can always spin up another campaign at the next cycle.

TL;DR. Queues and fewer campaigns are better than a wide selection of wildly imbalanced campaigns.

purgation

JamilaRaj wrote: »

Unless there is less than three campaigns, factions will tend to settle with one campaign each.

This is another reason why two is a good number. up to 4 might work if there was a Vet only, non-vet only, and a combo with strong reward incentives (e.g. good XP in non-vet, compelling vet rewards in the vet only, etc.)

Drachenmutter

Would be great we as Germans have the same information. Is it a little bit ashamed to ask, why we have not such informations to discuss on the german boarder of yours!? "IHR SEID SCHEISSENDRECK!"
Wer so etwas vorenthält, der müsste eigentlich Strafe zahlen!
Guess the same on the french boarders to!

Monsoon

Vizier wrote: »

Player collision should be added as well to give true ability for small groups to hold choke points.

Perfect recipe for massive disaster of trolling epicness. Do you have any idea the amount of griefing and trolling this will create? Put two people in the stairs and BAM you can t go upstairs in a keep and place siege.

Worst idea I have ever read on any board about any game...ever...ever. It is as if you have no understanding of what this would create and worst that you have not played ANY other mmos where the devs at first made that mistake too only to see that the power of trolling /griefing was 100% bigger than any game objective.

Player collision would make the game a massive clusterf*** as any idiot and friend can now block access to a bank or shrine.

It boggles the mind

Monsoon

As for PVP, one of the stupidest game mechanics is the rezzer paying the cost of the rez instead of the dead player. This was designed with guilds in mind but in Cyrodill that does not work.

The cost should be payed by the dead person. If they have a shard they can be revived...end of story. The current mechanic forces the use of FCs which are then abused and used to troll by spied who plant camps at the edge of the keep radius so that people will res a mile away form the keep and many times have to make large detours. Camp trolling is a constant now on EP Thornblade. We have AD spied who every night put camps on the other side of the map or at the edge of the combat zone to block any closer camps...its ridiculous

Vortimere

Monsoon wrote: »

As for PVP, one of the stupidest game mechanics is the rezzer paying the cost of the rez instead of the dead player. This was designed with guilds in mind but in Cyrodill that does not work.

The cost should be payed by the dead person. If they have a shard they can be revived...end of story. The current mechanic forces the use of FCs which are then abused and used to troll by spied who plant camps at the edge of the keep radius so that people will res a mile away form the keep and many times have to make large detours. Camp trolling is a constant now on EP Thornblade. We have AD spied who every night put camps on the other side of the map or at the edge of the combat zone to block any closer camps...its ridiculous

Would the dead player's shard be consumed immediately upon someone else rezzing him? Seems like spy players (or just uninformed from your own faction) could easily abuse this if there's no option for the dead player to decline using one of his shards when he didn't ask for it.

"The current mechanic forces the use of FCs which are then abused..." -- Seems like your real complaint is with the way forward camps work. That should be solved when they introduce guild-only or party-only forward camps (the original camps will still be purchasable also, but who would ever use those again, since as you say, their cost-benefit sucks). The sooner the guild-only (or party-only) camps are introduced, the better!

demonlkojipub19_ESO

Defensive tic radius should be increased. Too often after pushing the enemy back, people that push them back too far, resources being too far, end up not getting the defensive tic for helping defend the keep.

It would also be better if defensive tic wasn't just 1 big tic at the end of it all, but rather smaller tics every 10m or so.

Vizier

Monsoon wrote: »

Vizier wrote: »

Player collision should be added as well to give true ability for small groups to hold choke points.

Perfect recipe for massive disaster of trolling epicness. Do you have any idea the amount of griefing and trolling this will create? Put two people in the stairs and BAM you can t go upstairs in a keep and place siege.

Worst idea I have ever read on any board about any game...ever...ever. It is as if you have no understanding of what this would create and worst that you have not played ANY other mmos where the devs at first made that mistake too only to see that the power of trolling /griefing was 100% bigger than any game objective.

Player collision would make the game a massive clusterf*** as any idiot and friend can now block access to a bank or shrine.

It boggles the mind

MMO's in the past have implemented mechanism for these "trolling/griefing" situations. For instance AoC merely had folks crouch to get by allied players in their way. In other words crouching removed player collision for the time.

I'm not saying crouching would or should be the solution here but a toggle to get by friendlies is not out of the question.

Sorry but your fear, while valid, is easily addressed.

Drachenmutter

Monsoon wrote: »

As for PVP, one of the stupidest game mechanics is the rezzer paying the cost of the rez instead of the dead player. This was designed with guilds in mind but in Cyrodill that does not work.

The cost should be payed by the dead person. If they have a shard they can be revived...end of story. The current mechanic forces the use of FCs which are then abused and used to troll by spied who plant camps at the edge of the keep radius so that people will res a mile away form the keep and many times have to make large detours. Camp trolling is a constant now on EP Thornblade. We have AD spied who every night put camps on the other side of the map or at the edge of the combat zone to block any closer camps...its ridiculous

Never saw i such unsense! It should be a pleasure to rezz someone of his death, so he can help again against the enemie in PvP. Such egoism comes from the best game forever, with 1o or 14 millions stupid gamers in the backround.I guess,you are the one, who have no mind in thinking, so please be quite. I guess you have played to long bad games for your poor mind!

dcincali

There should not be resource ticks and keep ticks as people just farm the resource. The keep tick should encompass all the resources however the resource benefits should be immediate instead of taking hours to reach max level.

Mojomonkeyman

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

This is now on PTS and will get to the mainline servers in the US and EU in the package 4 update:

A new 30 day Standard Campaign “Azura’s Star” is being added for the EU and US.
The Veteran Campaign “Bow of Shadows” will be shut down due to inactivity in both the EU and US.

Also note players that have earned Tier 1, 2 or 3 reward status will get their rewards similar to when Update 3 launched and the Campaigns all changed to 5.

Please consider not further cutting down the number of campaigns. I refuse to play on locked servers at prime time since the experience is terrible.

A boring and aweful lagfest, where zergs & impuls blobs fight each other in stop motion for centuries, because of endless campspam reinforcements & skill delays. This is not PvP. Neither your servers nor my PC can cope with that.

An additional small to medium server (like it is now on chillrend EU) to dodge max pop servers is necessary since it is the only ones were smallscale & actual pvp fights can happen at eu primetime.

Thanks.

Davadin

Just my 2c: My PC is fine. And my 30Mb/15Mb cable is also fine.

But please fix your servers.

I'm tired of suddenly everyone around me start frozen/walking/running in the spot, and special FX never stops, and chat doesn't work, but everything else is OK!
Then a few sec (or min)(or the game crash) after that, everything is fast-forwarded and then I die....

KhajiitiLizard

I'm annoyed, because as one who only did PvE who wanted to get into some PvP, I can't join the newbie campaign because my character is veteran rank. Rather I say we have a casual campaign type and a hardcore type. Causal would make everyone level 50 and the hardcore would be VR5. VR players could enter the casual but be scaled down to lvl 50.

demonlkojipub19_ESO

I would like to get some kind of update on whether or not anything is going to be done about the defense tick radius. People that carry on the push in order for that defense tick to happen are constantly not getting their AP for their effort. I'm sure others do too.

Monsoon

demonlkojipub19_ESO wrote: »

I would like to get some kind of update on whether or not anything is going to be done about the defense tick radius. People that carry on the push in order for that defense tick to happen are constantly not getting their AP for their effort. I'm sure others do too.

And if you add the massive number of crashes where you log back in and you got no tick whatsoever because the tick happened while the client crashed. Why do you have to be in the place to get the tick/ap why can t it be managed at the server level? You defend a keep, no matter if you crash your account gets the ap...why is that so hard to implement?

JamilaRaj

demonlkojipub19_ESO wrote: »

I would like to get some kind of update on whether or not anything is going to be done about the defense tick radius. People that carry on the push in order for that defense tick to happen are constantly not getting their AP for their effort. I'm sure others do too.

People carrying out push for defense tick to happen deserve nothing anyway. True samurai carries out push selflessly for the good of country and emperor, and that he had opportunity to take part in it is utmost honour and reward for him.

Monsoon

My sub ends in 7 days. I ll be back when you fix your server and your code. Changes to the campaign itself wont suffice in not crashing, not being surrounded with exploits, lag and a terrible gaming experience.

nothing2591

What happened to the Bow of Shadows : Vet only campaign ?? now would be the perfect time xD

Pancake-Tragedy

nothing2591 wrote: »

What happened to the Bow of Shadows : Vet only campaign ?? now would be the perfect time xD

It wasn't really popular when it was implemented.