Cyrodiil Tactics in Celarus - PVP exploits\un-intended functions

Dleatherus

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We are aware of many of the tactics noted here and actively working on solutions to them without removing the effectiveness of ability usage or siege weaponry in combat situations that are within the spirit of Cyrodiil warfare against enemy Alliances. There will be more information on this as they go through the entire approval process internally and get pushed to Live.

ty @ZOS_BrianWheeler‌

many of us here understand that the game is new, that there are going to be flaws, and abuses of those flaws, and that fixing them can take time

it has been frustrating to say the least not having heard anything 'officially' addressing these issues until now, even though they have been reported countless times over the past 3-4 weeks, and having those exploiting the flaws actually claim that they have talked to ZOS personnel and that you guys are fine with it all

even 'small' one paragraph updates such as the one @Jessica_Folsom put out regarding the caltrops issue, that acknowledged it existed, that fixing it would take time, but was being addressed, are of huge help

perhaps there's a small glimmer of hope for the 'legit' players after all?

thank you

D.

p.s. HUGE STANDING OVATION for @Citidel for having the huevos of potentially losing access to a game he is passionate about, in addressing this issue - ty

Ragnar_Lodbrok

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We are aware of many of the tactics noted here, and are actively working on solutions to them without removing the effectiveness of ability usage or siege weaponry in combat situations that are within the spirit of Cyrodiil warfare against enemy Alliances. There will be more information on this as they go through the entire internal approval process, and eventually get pushed to Live.

I doubt this balanced small step approach as thats not what you have done the first several patches.

Citidel

My suggestion for Celarus is disable Emperor till you guys get things solved... PVP is in Wabba, PVP will come to Celarus.

Maybe even Rollback all the Emperors that have gotten it on Celarus... I know that's kicking a ton of people in the shins but lordy how many are there? I hate fighting a full 24mans of Former Emperors... it just makes me feel like all I get in PVP is my fancy title from Ranks and that cool icon. They get buffs that follow them everywhere for little work to be honest.

While I sit there with 0 gold and 0 AP from repairing walls, buying siege that I cant even put up...

Dleatherus

Citidel wrote: »

My suggestion for Celarus is disable Emperor till you guys get things solved... PVP is in Wabba, PVP will come to Celarus.

Maybe even Rollback all the Emperors that have gotten it on Celarus... I know that's kicking a ton of people in the shins but lordy how many are there? I hate fighting a full 24mans of Former Emperors... it just makes me feel like all I get in PVP is my fancy title from Ranks and that cool icon. They get buffs that follow them everywhere for little work to be honest.

While I sit there with 0 gold and 0 AP from repairing walls, buying siege that I cant even put up...

i second this proposal

D.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We are aware of many of the tactics noted here, and are actively working on solutions to them without removing the effectiveness of ability usage or siege weaponry in combat situations that are within the spirit of Cyrodiil warfare against enemy Alliances. There will be more information on this as they go through the entire internal approval process, and eventually get pushed to Live.

So "abuse early, abuse often" applies yet again. I see no mention of penalties for these abusers so anyone not doing so is clearly missing out on yet another bonanza.

Mykah

Just remove Former Emperor buffs, problem solved.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We are aware of many of the tactics noted here, and are actively working on solutions to them without removing the effectiveness of ability usage or siege weaponry in combat situations that are within the spirit of Cyrodiil warfare against enemy Alliances. There will be more information on this as they go through the entire internal approval process, and eventually get pushed to Live.

So "abuse early, abuse often" applies yet again. I see no mention of penalties for these abusers so anyone not doing so is clearly missing out on yet another bonanza.

This game dishes out no punishment for bad behavior, they only punish naysayers from the forums

Imperator_Clydus

While I think many of us knew Celarus was going to be nothing more than a emperor farm fest, it's good that ZOS recognizes AvA is being abused and taken advantage of in such unintended ways.

Implementing the 5 and 7 day campaigns would have merely reinforced this mentality and we wouldn't have quality AvA anywhere. ZOS needs to take steps in revamping how AP is gained and focusing on making the objectives priority.

Basing AP almost entirely on kills encourages the elder scroll hijacking and farming, and players need incentive to defend/attack keeps, and not sit by while they get an AP gain.

There's a lot of consideration that ZOS needs to do, including the way the emperorship works altogether. Hopefully, this is a step in the right direction and maybe, just maybe, we can actually have some quality AvA like we experienced in beta.

Citidel

Mykah wrote: »

Just remove Former Emperor buffs, problem solved.

I may be wrong here and would love to be corrected but the main reason to get said buffs is Trials times, not PVP.

Which is fine, I just would love to see that not be the case. But there are many threads on this and not worth bogging this one down with 101 suggestions on how to "fix" emperor.

Future thread at a future date I'll put together the cool ideas I've seen from here and in talking with other people who PVP.

Terminus

Mykah wrote: »

Just remove Former Emperor buffs, problem solved.

I hate to say it but this really IS a solution.
Remove emperor buffs and they have nothing left to farm.

Even if the buffs end at the end of the campaign, even if they're active for ANY TIME after players are no longer Emperor, people will want to farm it. Hell, they'll probably still farm it just for the title.

Actually, many of the farmers believe it will never come to this.
They don't think Zenimax cares enough about their community to do it.

Mujuro

Tintinabula wrote: »

I would "hope" that if a server were reported enough(like gold bots) that a GM would show up to a server to investigate this type of behavior and yes, shut it down if they saw fit.

To all the folks asking for ZOS action ... presumably a ban ... Even assuming, arguendo, a GM were there and witness each and every action and actor described in the OP's post, ZOS would not do anything to any of these players. Why (not)? The answer should be obvious. Instead, ZOS will *attempt* to create in-game controls and mechanics to "prevent" this sort of behavior in the future with the PvP update in a few months.

Rylana

Move the resource flag inside the tower.

Youre welcome.

Huckdabuck

Terminus wrote: »

They don't think Zenimax cares enough about their community to do it.

Honestly.....what makes you think that they DO care enough about the community to do it? What actions have you seen suggest that they do?

Imperator_Clydus

Citidel wrote: »

Mykah wrote: »

Just remove Former Emperor buffs, problem solved.

I may be wrong here and would love to be corrected but the main reason to get said buffs is Trials times, not PVP.

Which is fine, I just would love to see that not be the case. But there are many threads on this and not worth bogging this one down with 101 suggestions on how to "fix" emperor.

Future thread at a future date I'll put together the cool ideas I've seen from here and in talking with other people who PVP.

Incorrect. The former emperor passives are only active in Cyrodiil. They have zero impact outside of PvP. It's much like the Assault skill line and Support skill lines and it's included with those under the Alliance War branch.

Citidel

Mujuro wrote: »

To all the folks asking for ZOS action ... presumably a ban ...

I dont really want them banned, I want them to stop making PVP for me harder then it needs to be.

I should not have to contend with my own faction in AvAvA, this isn't me - VS- AvAvA, My faction should not be a detriment to my playtime. Once it is, its griefing, harassment and otherwise unsportsmen-like and that is the most disparaging thing.

if they were level 10 alts and whatnot sure fine, ok grief all you want. These are these people's main toons doing this. With resources I cannot match, either guild supported or supported by people they play with. 16,000 AP for the 20 oil pots, and refreshing them till the keep falls is not a clip I can keep up with. And doing so at many keeps just makes it worse.

Imperator_Clydus

Terminus wrote: »

Mykah wrote: »

Just remove Former Emperor buffs, problem solved.

I hate to say it but this really IS a solution.
Remove emperor buffs and they have nothing left to farm.

Even if the buffs end at the end of the campaign, even if they're active for ANY TIME after players are no longer Emperor, people will want to farm it. Hell, they'll probably still farm it just for the title.

Actually, many of the farmers believe it will never come to this.
They don't think Zenimax cares enough about their community to do it.

People are typical. They want any advantage they can have, and they'll do whatever it takes, even if it means not playing by the rules. Even though one person having the former emperor passives really isn't that big of a deal, the problem is these entire guilds trying to farm it for all of their buddies.

They essentially take a great system that would have largely been exclusive and very small, and have ruined it by turning it into a lifeless and uninteresting farming simulator. At this point removing the passives would just be a better way to go. It gives them a lot less incentive to break AvA, but honestly, ZOS should just revamp how AP gains work. Basing it almost entirely on kills was a huge mistake.

It's not encouraging quality AvA in the slightest. It's merely killing it.

Armitas

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We are aware of many of the tactics noted here, and are actively working on solutions to them without removing the effectiveness of ability usage or siege weaponry in combat situations that are within the spirit of Cyrodiil warfare against enemy Alliances. There will be more information on this as they go through the entire internal approval process, and eventually get pushed to Live.

Awesome! Thank you for stepping away to give us the note of encouragement.
____
I wanted to bold this part of his statement to make clear that just like most things there is a letter of the law and a spirit of the law. That, just because it is currently possible to do something doesn't mean that it is intended that you should do that something.

Dleatherus

Mujuro wrote: »

Tintinabula wrote: »

I would "hope" that if a server were reported enough(like gold bots) that a GM would show up to a server to investigate this type of behavior and yes, shut it down if they saw fit.

To all the folks asking for ZOS action ... presumably a ban ... Even assuming, arguendo, a GM were there and witness each and every action and actor described in the OP's post, ZOS would not do anything to any of these players. Why (not)? The answer should be obvious. Instead, ZOS will *attempt* to create in-game controls and mechanics to "prevent" this sort of behavior in the future with the PvP update in a few months.

personally i'm not advocating for bans, though i wouldn't mind seeing them

cheats, exploiters, *cough* i mean people 'creatively using game mechanics because nothing says i can't' have existed since i started playing my first mmo, Ultima Online 17 years or so ago

I don't expect ZOS to have to spell out every code of conduct ethic regarding the game since the personality of most of those involved will now just find a new way to 'creatively' interpret and twist those words - cheats and exploiters will always be cheats and exploiters

I DO expect ZOS to be proactive in removing benefits from those involved in these 'creative' ventures that damage the rest of the community at large

I DO expect ZOS to communicate with us on a far more frequent basis regarding these issues in terms of acknowledging in a VERY timely manner that they exist, are aware of them, and are working on a solution

it would save a lot of frustration, and ultimately folks unsubbing from the game - i know many who have done so just from this particular episode of emperor farming saying 'if ZOS can't be bothered to address this, &*^% it!!! - i'm out'

@ZOS_BrianWheeler statement is a small but welcome move in the right direction

D.

Citidel

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

Incorrect. The former emperor passives are only active in Cyrodiil. They have zero impact outside of PvP. It's much like the Assault skill line and Support skill lines and it's included with those under the Alliance War branch.

I thought the 4% ult reduction and the healing increase by 1% worked outside... as their wordage seems to make apparent. (being the only 2 that don't involve siege or cyrodiil in their text. )

as for the Alliance war passives, no they do not work outside of PVP because that is how they are stated (most are "near a keep") but the actives work just fine.

I'm not an emperor or former so I have no clue either way.

Thank you for letting me know I'll chat with those in my guild that managed to get Emp and see if I really am wrong.

Agrippa_Invisus

I feel the easiest course of action to "correct the game state", as it were would be to remove the Former and Current Emperor titles and skill lines from anyone that gained it on Celarus in the EP/AD emperor farm groups.

Aside from the guy who farmed scouting missions on Skullcrusher, those emperors from other servers typically busted their humps to get where they were.

Celarus is the definition of "This is why we can't have nice things". Take the title, the skill line, and the regalia away. Inform those people with them that there's a flag on their account to watch for further exploitation, and bans are coming if it happens again.

Imperator_Clydus

Citidel wrote: »

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

Incorrect. The former emperor passives are only active in Cyrodiil. They have zero impact outside of PvP. It's much like the Assault skill line and Support skill lines and it's included with those under the Alliance War branch.

I thought the 4% ult reduction and the healing increase by 1% worked outside... as their wordage seems to make apparent. (being the only 2 that don't involve siege or cyrodiil in their text. )

as for the Alliance war passives, no they do not work outside of PVP because that is how they are stated (most are "near a keep") but the actives work just fine.

I'm not an emperor or former so I have no clue either way.

Thank you for letting me know I'll chat with those in my guild that managed to get Emp and see if I really am wrong.

Well yes, you can technically use a siege shield, for example, outside of Cyrodiil. It's absolutely worthless, however. The Alliance War skill lines are meant for AvA and nothing else. The Emperor skill line is included under that same umbrella.

Tintinabula

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

I feel the easiest course of action to "correct the game state", as it were would be to remove the Former and Current Emperor titles and skill lines from anyone that gained it on Celarus in the EP/AD emperor farm groups.

Aside from the guy who farmed scouting missions on Skullcrusher, those emperors from other servers typically busted their humps to get where they were.

Celarus is the definition of "This is why we can't have nice things". Take the title, the skill line, and the regalia away. Inform those people with them that there's a flag on their account to watch for further exploitation, and bans are coming if it happens again.

or grant emp to anyone with 3 mil AP accumulated or higher. Otherwise the game is a sham.

Halrloprillalar

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

Citidel wrote: »

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

Incorrect. The former emperor passives are only active in Cyrodiil. They have zero impact outside of PvP. It's much like the Assault skill line and Support skill lines and it's included with those under the Alliance War branch.

I thought the 4% ult reduction and the healing increase by 1% worked outside... as their wordage seems to make apparent. (being the only 2 that don't involve siege or cyrodiil in their text. )

as for the Alliance war passives, no they do not work outside of PVP because that is how they are stated (most are "near a keep") but the actives work just fine.

I'm not an emperor or former so I have no clue either way.

Thank you for letting me know I'll chat with those in my guild that managed to get Emp and see if I really am wrong.

Well yes, you can technically use a siege shield, for example, outside of Cyrodiil. It's absolutely worthless, however. The Alliance War skill lines are meant for AvA and nothing else. The Emperor skill line is included under that same umbrella.

I was under the impression that siege shield reduces ranged damage taken as well? I know you can cast it outside of Cyro, same with purge and rapid maneuver (both quite useful even in PVE).

Nonetheless, I'd be perfectly happy if emp bonuses only applied in cyrodiil and only in the campaign where they were obtained.

Tintinabula

why would they apply anywhere else? It makes no sense you can even show your title in another campaign..you cant even wear the costume unless your "acting" emp

NordJitsu

Ifthir_ESO wrote: »

Citidel wrote: »

I'm kinda amazed they didn't give Stands-In-Puddles Emperor in the last cycle so they could call him a Hypocrite this go round.

They did a similar thing in PTS when AD dumped to @Izkimar‌ so that @NordJitsu‌ and his crew wouldn't become Emperor either. I hoped it happening then would help the ZoS team be more vigilant in regards to shenanigans with Emperor but I sadly must admit that AvA seems to be largely unpoliced.

Shame, if they spent as much time policing AvA as they did crushing the gold spammers, we'd all have very little to complain about.

Ya I don't understand how they could have seen that situation play out and still made zero changes to the Emperor system prior to launch.

Manoekin

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

While I think many of us knew Celarus was going to be nothing more than a emperor farm fest, it's good that ZOS recognizes AvA is being abused and taken advantage of in such unintended ways.

Implementing the 5 and 7 day campaigns would have merely reinforced this mentality and we wouldn't have quality AvA anywhere. ZOS needs to take steps in revamping how AP is gained and focusing on making the objectives priority.

Basing AP almost entirely on kills encourages the elder scroll hijacking and farming, and players need incentive to defend/attack keeps, and not sit by while they get an AP gain.

There's a lot of consideration that ZOS needs to do, including the way the emperorship works altogether. Hopefully, this is a step in the right direction and maybe, just maybe, we can actually have some quality AvA like we experienced in beta.

Only way to do this is to remove the diminishing returns/shared AP by every person in the area. The reason why groups do scroll plays and take bleakers or resources is because it's far better AP gain with just your small group than if you had to share that AP with 100 other people. They can't make objectives the main source of AP because then you'd have guilds just exchanging keeps back and forth or finding low pop campaigns to take a lot of keeps. Again, the only way is to give people a reason to play with the group. A possibility here is to reduce the amount of AP gained across the board because otherwise the AP gain would be enormous.

Emperor... is a bit tricky. Everyone is really upset about it and I get that. I don't think banning people is the right way to do it. I think a good fix for the future which should be doable almost immediately in a small patch is make it so once all 6 keeps are captured by a given faction the top player of that faction becomes Emperor-in-waiting. Require then that faction to hold those 6 keeps for 1-3 hours in order to gain Emperor. Upon taking all 6 keeps, a global message could even be sent out to every player notifying them of the time limit to emperor. This would encourage players to go defend/attack in that campaign. I know people don't like guesting really, but with the stricter rules coming you could even open that campaign for temporary guesting by everyone to draw more players in. This would make the achievement mean a whole lot more, and the experience way more epic.

I also like the idea of an AOE buff of 30-40 meters radiating from a current Emperor/Emperor-in-waiting.

Manoekin

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

Citidel wrote: »

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

Incorrect. The former emperor passives are only active in Cyrodiil. They have zero impact outside of PvP. It's much like the Assault skill line and Support skill lines and it's included with those under the Alliance War branch.

I thought the 4% ult reduction and the healing increase by 1% worked outside... as their wordage seems to make apparent. (being the only 2 that don't involve siege or cyrodiil in their text. )

as for the Alliance war passives, no they do not work outside of PVP because that is how they are stated (most are "near a keep") but the actives work just fine.

I'm not an emperor or former so I have no clue either way.

Thank you for letting me know I'll chat with those in my guild that managed to get Emp and see if I really am wrong.

Well yes, you can technically use a siege shield, for example, outside of Cyrodiil. It's absolutely worthless, however. The Alliance War skill lines are meant for AvA and nothing else. The Emperor skill line is included under that same umbrella.

Siege Shield is far from useless in group PvE

I also don't think the skill lines were meant for only AvA. PvP is a big part of this game and I would think they want to encourage it by making it beneficial to you in PvE. None of the skills will make you OP and for that reason I don't see a reason to change it. If someone doesn't like PvP it isn't game breaking, but really PvP is the central part of this game.

eliisra

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

Well yes, you can technically use a siege shield, for example, outside of Cyrodiil. It's absolutely worthless, however. The Alliance War skill lines are meant for AvA and nothing else. The Emperor skill line is included under that same umbrella.

The Alliance skill line is excellent in PvE. Some of the best PvE skills comes from grinding Cyrodiil. Barrier, Razor Caltroops and Raid Manoeuvre for example. I always have them slotted in PvE and especially in trials.

Not that it's really related to the discussion tho. I mean you get those already at support/assault level 6. Couple of weeks of casual PvP'ing and you get the best defensive group ultimate in the game. What to do after that? Grind emperor or go to Celarus and try to stop your own faction from crowning emperors lol. Fun fun.

This emperor stuff creates to much greed, backstabbing, *** crossfaction politics and drama anyway. It really needs to go.

If anything they should redo the entire PvP progression system. I'm all for removing former buffs and making emperor a faction buff only. Should be replaced with a new progression/reward system based on your own scores and achievements in PvP. The current skill line ain't enough. We need more incentives for blowing up keeps really.

thelg

Incentives for blowing keeps = keep trading. All day every day. Basically having keep should be reward in itself, anything past that and we gona go back to WAR keep trading

They need to kill guesting and travel to player, remove former emperor buffs. Add more stuff to the pvp line. Then they can start trying to figure out how they can deal with current meta of stacking with barrier and aoe crap, also a lot of oil..

FENGRUSH

I think there should be a leaderboard added for how quickly you can trade out an emp.... time trialed like the AA.