Mage Guards/Archers/Oil Pots

AydzPredatorofEP

Ok fine.

If you are going to make it so hard to assault a keep, at least give the attackers the opportunity to siege the keep until it is a pile of stones.

SwampRaider

someone doesn't know any tactics?

AydzPredatorofEP

no no... you're right. its the "tactics"

Animus

you mean tictacs?

Cody

the mage guards are a little ridiculous in their power right now. but the oil pots can be dealt with(idk what problem you have with archers). assaulting a keep is SUPPOSED to be hard. be thankful people can no longer do AOE spam trains thru the keeps like they did when the guards were at lvl 50 and not VR5

Breea

Yes, the mobs are harder to kill. You now need groups and have to work together with a plan in order to take keeps and resources. I hear the same grip over and over again, "It's too hard!" Well, either adapt, or don't PVP. It's not a requirement. They made it harder intentionally because a single person using the right tactics could basically solo all the npcs in the zone. They also made it so that vet ranked players wouldn't all be nerfed down to V1. There's pros with the cons.

As far as being able to leave them as rubble. You could almost do that already. You can take down most of the walls of a keep if you wanted to, however if you want to keep it you'd probably want to build them back up too. Just saying.

dcincali

On low pop servers its a bit difficult to take a keep when all you have on is 8 people. It can be done over the course of a few deaths. Maybe the Keep HP/DPS should reflect the current opposing factions population.

Snit

My sorcerer wants to be a Tower Mage when he levels up!

Those guys hurt.

Sharee

The debate whether this or that is overpowered aside, the opportunity to siege the keep until it is a pile of stones is not a bad idea.

leewells

Sharee wrote: »

The debate whether this or that is overpowered aside, the opportunity to siege the keep until it is a pile of stones is not a bad idea.

I would like to say for the record, this is "almost" possible. One night my guild took down every wall, door, and roof in a keep one night and left it in utter ruins to troll the other side. It looked quite awesome actually and appeared to be near rubble (we have a youtube of it running around somewhere). The event was so awesome that just a little over half-way through us tearing down the last wall, we turn around and look and notice we have a huge audience watching, both AD and DC, just watching in awe. This was the first time I had ever seen all three factions within feet of each other not swinging. This did repeat, the peaceful assembly, once again a few days later when we went troll fest again on week 2 after pre-release and threw DC's scroll in the slaughterfish (actually they were going after our defensive scroll at the time and had us cut off, so to prevent them from picking ours up so we had time to defend our scroll, we toss their mess in the water -- Go fish, was the /zone message ).

SwampRaider

8 people can take a keep with NO deaths.

4 people can take a keep with many deaths, but it is still possible.

Sharee

leewells wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

The debate whether this or that is overpowered aside, the opportunity to siege the keep until it is a pile of stones is not a bad idea.

I would like to say for the record, this is "almost" possible. One night my guild took down every wall, door, and roof in a keep one night and left it in utter ruins to troll the other side. It looked quite awesome actually and appeared to be near rubble (we have a youtube of it running around somewhere). The event was so awesome that just a little over half-way through us tearing down the last wall, we turn around and look and notice we have a huge audience watching, both AD and DC, just watching in awe. This was the first time I had ever seen all three factions within feet of each other not swinging.

Interesting, i thought on inner keep only the main door and the two postern walls can be destroyed.

leewells

Sharee wrote: »

leewells wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

The debate whether this or that is overpowered aside, the opportunity to siege the keep until it is a pile of stones is not a bad idea.

I would like to say for the record, this is "almost" possible. One night my guild took down every wall, door, and roof in a keep one night and left it in utter ruins to troll the other side. It looked quite awesome actually and appeared to be near rubble (we have a youtube of it running around somewhere). The event was so awesome that just a little over half-way through us tearing down the last wall, we turn around and look and notice we have a huge audience watching, both AD and DC, just watching in awe. This was the first time I had ever seen all three factions within feet of each other not swinging.

Interesting, i thought on inner keep only the main door and the two postern walls can be destroyed.

Now why would we troll another faction by razing an inner keep? No no, it was their gate keep. In which, the roof can come completely down.

SwampRaider wrote: »

8 people can take a keep with NO deaths.

4 people can take a keep with many deaths, but it is still possible.

I'll call that one. You have to have a very specific combination of people to take a keep with 4 people and the keep has to be completely undefended because one unexpected event and its over. A sorc is a key player for negate, and DK's for standard, and everyone has to be running impulse but a dedicated healer. This is the only way I've ever seen a keep taken by less than 6 people, and it was 3-4 deaths, and a lot of going back and forth between flags because mobs respawn before you could finish the last flag.

It is possible, but it is not plausible, profitable, or desirable.

TomLukman

Assaulting keeps shouldn't be easy, but Cyrodiil wasn't designed to be a PvE area so including any kind of OP mobs that can hit three times harder then average player was in one simple word stupid. Even groups of 20 or more players fail because any of those guards could one shot Molag Bal.

kirnmalidus

Archer Guards are hitting with 1000 damage light attacks. That's a bit ridiculous.

SwampRaider

TomLukman wrote: »

Assaulting keeps shouldn't be easy, but Cyrodiil wasn't designed to be a PvE area so including any kind of OP mobs that can hit three times harder then average player was in one simple word stupid. Even groups of 20 or more players fail because any of those guards could one shot Molag Bal.

it clearly is just a measure of what tactics you use.

I've taken keeps with 11 people even with 7-10 defenders. They key is what your group is composed of and what ultimate are used. Barrier, War Horn,Negate Magic, Standard of Might.. if you are all on Team speak or any other voice comms, even OP keep guards get wrecked.

ALSO, Oil pots play a big part. Offensively place oil pots on the enemy flags to give yourself an insurance policy just in case the enemies try to re cap.

if 20 people can't take a keep. they aren't synergizing and using ultimates in tandem and communicating

TomLukman

SwampRaider wrote: »

if 20 people can't take a keep. they aren't synergizing and using ultimates in tandem and communicating

I agree with all you said but that's not the point. Cyrodiil should be about PvP combat. If someone wants to do challenging missions against mobs they can have a lot of fun doing quests, dungeons or trials.

My PvP team, for example, specializes in flanking and attacking larger groups and we don't have problems going against double or triple our numbers of players but it's on the other hand stupid that we have to be on our toes about an equal sized group of guards or some exploiter placing a dozen mercenaries somewhere we can't see them before it's too late. Also, to be clear, we use normal combat and coordinated tactics, and no oil abuse or other exploits.

Any form of siege takes long enough for the other side to respond (and if not the case they could always make walls harder to break) so I really don't see a reason to make guards as powerful as they are right now.

SwampRaider

the guards help small groups of people have a chance of defending keeps if vastly outnumbered.

I've been part of small groups that instantly lose keeps, and ive been part of small groups that defend keeps for hours.

AydzPredatorofEP

Ok... I've read all the posts. Maybe I should try wording this another way.

1. High Pop servers - Zergs (obviously) Damage output for mages and the new archers are probably on par.
2. Low pop servers - no zergs (20 people is not a zerg) Enemy guards can now negate magic. Leaving many skills (veil of blades, heals, etc) that contain damage mitigation gonzo.
3. Mage guards AOE has HUGE area.... HUGE.
4. OIL POTS = the new spammable "iwin" button. STFU and read. Focus the guards? enemies spam oil. Focus the players? Guards one shot, and Mages AOE group. Spread the damage? Die slowly by everything.

This isnt a "TACTICS" thing. We run all the same *** you are. Low pop servers with 20 people... 8 opposition players with enough oil can stop anyone that isn't a zerg group.

Damage for Oil/Mage/Archers should SCALE ON POPULATION.

You CANNOT "set it and forget it" on low peak hours, or low pop servers. THATS LAZY.

TomLukman

5. Allow only one siege per player to be deployed - deploying another siege weapon destroys the previously deployed one. This would stop oil spamming and help reduce lag.

AydzPredatorofEP

Great idea Tom. I actually agree with that.

Jaxom

TomLukman wrote: »

5. Allow only one siege per player to be deployed - deploying another siege weapon destroys the previously deployed one. This would stop oil spamming and help reduce lag.

Easy and Simple solution to a few different problems.

+1 Insightful Sir

Halrloprillalar

Jaxom wrote: »

TomLukman wrote: »

5. Allow only one siege per player to be deployed - deploying another siege weapon destroys the previously deployed one. This would stop oil spamming and help reduce lag.

Easy and Simple solution to a few different problems.

+1 Insightful Sir

and will further encourage big zergs... meh
I wish they'd relax the aoe cap tbh. PVP should be about strategy, not who can get more people to blob together

Jaxom

Halrloprillalar wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

TomLukman wrote: »

5. Allow only one siege per player to be deployed - deploying another siege weapon destroys the previously deployed one. This would stop oil spamming and help reduce lag.

Easy and Simple solution to a few different problems.

+1 Insightful Sir

and will further encourage big zergs... meh
I wish they'd relax the aoe cap tbh. PVP should be about strategy, not who can get more people to blob together

I see where you are coming from. You need to bring 20 people to hit the 20 seige cap. The thing with zergs is that they will always be there no matter what. It's the path of least resistance and requires the least amount of thought and planning. I do agree with the AoE cap. They really should remove it.

This suggestion would help detract from seige capping your own faction for Emperor farming and detract from Oil pot farming. Two hotly debated topics currently.

My only counter suggestion would be to let people place multiple seige down, but any unmanned seige would degrade at a rapid rate (say 5% per second). This let's smaller groups still place multiple seige down for a quick castle seige but would make the aforementioned problems more difficult to achieve.

Halrloprillalar

Honestly I think oil is a very niche and minor issue in the big scheme right now.

I feel it is perfectly fine to be able to siege cap and blitz a keep with a smaller group (say 8 ).

Having a bigger or no AOE cap would also allow smaller organized groups to defend/take keeps and prevent emp farming more easily. It would also discourage zerging because you could get wiped out by a much smaller force... and if your whole faction zergs and gets wiped by a fraction of the other's force? you lose. The only flipside would be the effect on pve, but I'm past caring about that tbh.

It always pained me to see all the zerglings sitting in bat swarm pre-nerf because I knew as soon as there weren't people in range of it the vamp would get nuked down pretty quick...

Oil pot farming can be easily fixed by having oil hit as a lot of smaller ticks instead of giant whomps... that way you couldn't super stack them as much and cleanse + bubbles would be even more effective.

JamilaRaj

jakec1481b14_ESO wrote: »

Damage for Oil/Mage/Archers should SCALE ON POPULATION.

Measures to spread out players more evenly throughout the campaigns should be taken in first place. Adjusting game mechanics to imbalanced population is horrible antipattern.

TomLukman wrote: »

Cyrodiil should be about PvP combat. If someone wants to do challenging missions against mobs they can have a lot of fun doing quests, dungeons or trials.

Guards _enable_ PvP combat, as they provide pillar the weaker group (whichever it is at he moment) can take advantage of, instead of logging off or going guesting elsewhere.
Same goes for heavy oiling by defenders.