Thornblade EU

Iradicus

Ok, for a week now EP has well over double the numbers of both AD and DC combined. How can you call this balanced! There is no point going there anymore, and when i go to chillrend the whole map is blue!

There needs to be a way to balance this, queue people if one side has way much more members then the others!
Late in the evening EP can keep 3 keeps defended, capture 2 scrolls and take any keep they want with nothing stopping them.
Most of the good PvP guilds have left Thornblade for just this reason.

Balance it out somehow, plz...or PvP (which is awesome in this game) will die a slow death by faction controlling their own map and no real PvP being played on any of them.

Bushrat

Agreed, I think Zenimax has to do something. ATM it totally sucks in Thornblade as AD we never have enough players on to come close to EP numbers... Just when you are making progress... here comes a big red mob to wipe everyone. Maybe fun for EP but its not fair to always have more players on than everyone else. maybe EP can have their own server and divide up into teams and kill each other so the rest of us can enjoy the game.

Garion

I generally see all of the factions locked when I see Thornblade (at prime times, any way) including AD. Is this no longer the case?

Iradicus

Garion wrote: »

I generally see all of the factions locked when I see Thornblade (at prime times, any way) including AD. Is this no longer the case?

This is the case for a limited time in the evening, then both DC and AD numbers drop and EP will stay full for hours longer.
So they take everything back again before morning.

Keron

I regularly play EP side on Thornblade EU. My view of why we manage to defend our keeps and attack at the same time? Mobility. I am constantly impressed at our strong groups/guild groups how fast they come to critical locations.

Especially with the double attacks going on in the last few days. Groups pop up at a keep, wipe the majority of the attackers to give the defenders breathing room for wall repairs, immediately go wipe on an enemy resource and pop up seconds later at the other attacked keep.

I can very well see that this might come across as severly overpopulated faction, but to be honest: How many 50+ player zergs do you see on EP side? We have 4 or 5 very strong and coordinated groups with 15 to 20 players each constantly roaming the battlefield. And we have an Emperor (aside from playstyle and all) who puts a tremendous effort into coordinating those groups.

I have felt exactly the same on this campaign, seeing a bombtrain with at least 50, possibly as much as 100 yellow players crushing down on a single keep and thinking: "how the eff can they mobilize such a strike force if we can get barely 20 EP to this keep? They must have found a way to beat the pop cap!"

I don't consider this view to be the only correct one, see it more as an input for your own thought process.

Morostyle

AGREE'S this is killing the last fun there is left in this game (PVP)

Orchish

All 3 are locked during prime time making it pretty balanced. However, EP have a couple of night trains who stay up all night capping the entire map. This means during the next day as all 3 factions start to fill up, EP have a great advantage with all the bonuses plus the same numbers. It also doesn't help that DC and AD keep attacking each other over ASH when we should both be destroying EP back to their gates like we did yesterday before EP numbers became twice ours combined.

This is Thornblade as it was just under an hour ago, i logged right back off and shall come back a bit later when more DC players get back from work and start to retake some keeps.

Iradicus

Keron wrote: »

.I have felt exactly the same on this campaign, seeing a bombtrain with at least 50, possibly as much as 100 yellow players crushing down on a single keep and thinking: "how the eff can they mobilize such a strike force if we can get barely 20 EP to this keep? They must have found a way to beat the pop cap!"
.

Are you even playing on EU, when did AD ever have a 50-100 man group, that has not happened for an age.

Bushrat

How about a green alliance?

Keron

@Iradicus
Yes, as stated I do play on Thornblade EU. Yes, I have seen them, in this current campaign. Yes, it does not happen as much as before (especially on former campaign, AB), at least on the upper end of that spectrum.

The last time I have seen a 50+ train of yellows was yesterday evening, at around 8.30pm, attacking BRK while blue was with a similar group on Chalman. And yes, we lost both keeps and the scroll due to that.

Orchish

I think he is getting random zergs (very large numbers of non grouped players just following each other around with no coordination) mixed up with organised guilds. All 3 factions have large zergs, i saw massive DC,EP and AD numbers yesterday. However, when it comes to organised guilds, all 3 have them, but EP have more. A lot more right now. The fact they manage to get 3 full raids up at 4am while the other two barely get 20 players together is the reason the map gets painted red.

AD players, what happened to Shidos night train that used to cap on AB? Get him over to Thornblade and the same goes for DC. Where are the top ranked players from DC that were on AB playing right now? they certainly don't seem to be on Thornblade which is a shame because Thornblade could be an awesome campaign if all 3 factions were fairly balanced in terms of numbers and organisation.

Right now, i get the impression that each of the 3 alliances top guilds have all gone to separate servers to ensure that they avoid each other. So that all get their own campaign to dominate and thus receive the bonuses.

kama_kib16_ESO

Map is all red and ep is locked atm.

Keron

@Orchish
Nope. Except the ~40 Yellow training into BRK and rushing along the walls clearing everything we could muster by blobbing was a random group. If so, kudos, we don't have randoms with this level of coordination. Sure, there were some 10, 15 tag-along randoms, bringing the total number up to said 50+, but the core was an organized group.

Of course, it may very well be that this is an exceptional occurence, happening once or twice during prime time and me seeing exactly only that because I tend to travel from keep to keep to place tents and help the organized groups moving.

But at the end of the day, my point is: faction population is just perception, we do not have the possibility to extract precise numbers (as far as I know of).

The night capping is a completely separate issue. I don't like it as well, even though we have the upper hand on that right now. It's being done by all (who doesn't remember the famous AD train on Auriel's who did exactly that to flip the campaign score) and to be honest, I have no idea how we can stop it. If I see a sensible idea popping up, rest assured that I will support you on it.

EDIT: Missed that one, but Shido's train was on Thornblade - he joined a little late and did not stay long. I guess that was because during prime time we (loosely applied designation, I am not part of one of our strong groups and certainly did not personally add to this) used to wipe the trampled down ground with his group :P

Bushrat

Keron wrote: »

@Iradicus
Yes, as stated I do play on Thornblade EU. Yes, I have seen them, in this current campaign. Yes, it does not happen as much as before (especially on former campaign, AB), at least on the upper end of that spectrum.

The last time I have seen a 50+ train of yellows was yesterday evening, at around 8.30pm, attacking BRK while blue was with a similar group on Chalman. And yes, we lost both keeps and the scroll due to that.

Keron,

so, let me get this straight, you guys held ALL the scrolls, and the say how 'how did you manage to get so many players online'? Basically looks like we wanted our scroll back and most ppl went there to get it nearly the same time... very few pvp guild are left playing Thornblade atm. Stop pretending that your sheer numbers are not accounting for a major part of your victory. I was on this morning when EP had med, and AD had low as well as DC low..there was soooo many Ep players we could not take a keep back... as you guys took ALL keeps scrolls and resources last night...

We are not asking for anything except FAIR PLAY.. which means numbers are basically equal.

Garion

Iradicus wrote: »

Garion wrote: »

I generally see all of the factions locked when I see Thornblade (at prime times, any way) including AD. Is this no longer the case?

This is the case for a limited time in the evening, then both DC and AD numbers drop and EP will stay full for hours longer.
So they take everything back again before morning.

I see. I rarely frequent Thornblade (lag, queues etc - I only really play on evenings and weekends) so my limited experience of the campaign gave me the impression that it was fairly balanced - which I suppose it is, but for only limited periods of time each day.

Night capping is a huge problem on Chillrend also. I do wonder how it would be possible to counter these issues, but would like to see some people's suggestions on how it could be dealt with. I have seen many, varying from buffing NPCs in the evenings to make a smaller player defence more viable and lower population caps during the evenings etc.

The biggest question (for me, at least) is do you EP who partake in this play style actually enjoy it? To me, it seems incredibly boring:

1. You are playing predominantly against NPCs in the late evenings / early mornings and thus your are PvEing. The thing that makes PvP so much fun for me is that I am playing against other real people who are far more dynamic and reactive than your average NPC.
2. The next day is surely rather boring? I find that when an entire map is capped, the number of truly epic large scale battles that take place drops considerably, if not altogether. Yes, you can hit a few nubs at the gate not expecting your presence but you have no keeps to defend, no keeps to try and take? No choke points to defend or assault? It must become something of a bore just waiting around for something to happen while the populations build up to a point where you can actually be challenged?

My two cents.

Alleviant

As an EP on Chillrend; definitely wouldn't mind some more reds and yellows there...

Keron

Bushrat wrote: »

Keron,

so, let me get this straight, you guys held ALL the scrolls, and the say how 'how did you manage to get so many players online'? Basically looks like we wanted our scroll back and most ppl went there to get it nearly the same time... very few pvp guild are left playing Thornblade atm. Stop pretending that your sheer numbers are not accounting for a major part of your victory. I was on this morning when EP had med, and AD had low as well as DC low..there was soooo many Ep players we could not take a keep back... as you guys took ALL keeps scrolls and resources last night...

We are not asking for anything except FAIR PLAY.. which means numbers are basically equal.

@Bushrat
But, you're not getting it straight. As said earlier on:

I do NOT condone night capping - I think it's a lame way of playing.
I do NOT think that a 20k faction point lead makes it an interesting game.
I do NOT say that EP does not have an advantage due to higher number of organized groups.

I DO say that for prime time play (meaning 5pm CEST to 12am CEST), faction pop is largely balanced - all factions are capped.
I DO say that precisely the fact that we have a high number of very organized, very mobile groups does tend to give the impression we have higher pop.
I DID use the 50-100 yellow train example to show why I personally got the exact opposite impression at times ("personally" being the pivotal expression here)

I wanted to make the point that fiddling with the pop cap will not help resolve this issue. Limiting campaign hopping does. Limiting campaigns does. Limiting use of "guested bonus" does.

kama_kib16_ESO

7 hours balanced and 17 hours not. The second 30day campaign hopefully change something.

Garion

kama_kib16_ESO wrote: »

7 hours balanced and 17 hours not. The second 30day campaign hopefully change something.

Well it certainly won't if everyone thinks "Thornblade is terrible, too much lag, too many rollbacks, too many bomb trains and too much night capping. To the next 30 day campaign I go".

Guess what, Thornblade V2

kama_kib16_ESO

All Auriels bow guys stay on Thornblade and the Bloodthorn guys move to Azura's star. Problem fixed.

Nermy

Bushrat wrote: »

We are not asking for anything except FAIR PLAY.. which means numbers are basically equal.

What do you expect EP to do? Stop people playing because AD and DC can't raise the numbers? Or play between certain hours because you don't have night players?

I play EP and the groups/raids are extremely well co-ordinated, all the leaders talk to each other and as has been said, we have a (Potential and Ex) Emperor who is extremely good at co-ordinating the groups, boosting moral and giving a big thumbs up to groups who do well.

Are you blaming us for playing the game within the boundaries that we have been given? Wake up and smell the coffee dude... you need to get your factions sorted and give us a fight which we would all welcome...

See you on battlefield dude...

themdogesbite

Nermy wrote: »

Bushrat wrote: »

We are not asking for anything except FAIR PLAY.. which means numbers are basically equal.

What do you expect EP to do? Stop people playing because AD and DC can't raise the numbers? Or play between certain hours because you don't have night players?

I play EP and the groups/raids are extremely well co-ordinated, all the leaders talk to each other and as has been said, we have a (Potential and Ex) Emperor who is extremely good at co-ordinating the groups, boosting moral and giving a big thumbs up to groups who do well.

Are you blaming us for playing the game within the boundaries that we have been given? Wake up and smell the coffee dude... you need to get your factions sorted and give us a fight which we would all welcome...

See you on battlefield dude...

Oh look, another "nightcapping isn't completely ruining campaigns" guy. There´s a reason why chillrend went from being a fairly balanced campaign to a empty one. The same thing will start to happen to thornblade aswell.

rsciw

This thread is hilarious
I remember people complaining directly at us for doing that too, from your side, now our side (AD) complains about you (EP), just bloody hilarious

And generally, SWAT was on TB from the beginning, and still is from time to time, but we're also elsewhere. In fact all three factions had all major groups here, which is probably a reason some spread around to other servers, as hitting a button and seeing it execute two minutes later gets uninteresting fast.

Also, night capping happens, and will continue to do so, deal with it (no matter which faction). My lifestyle and timezone are different than your (generally addressed, not at a specific person) lifestyle/timezone, allowing me to play other hours than you. Do some of you really in all seriousness expect people to adjust to playing when you play, or have a certain playtime only enforced by the servers because some people cannot stand the fact that in an >online< (as in 24/7) world someone may be around at a different time that you can't be online?

Adjust NPCs/lower population cap/etc. at specific times to penalise people who have more freedom when to play than you or are just online at different times for whatever matter that doesn't concern you and is none of your business, wtf?

Yep, as above, this thread is hilarious

Bushrat

Nermy wrote: »

Bushrat wrote: »

We are not asking for anything except FAIR PLAY.. which means numbers are basically equal.

What do you expect EP to do? Stop people playing because AD and DC can't raise the numbers? Or play between certain hours because you don't have night players?

I play EP and the groups/raids are extremely well co-ordinated, all the leaders talk to each other and as has been said, we have a (Potential and Ex) Emperor who is extremely good at co-ordinating the groups, boosting moral and giving a big thumbs up to groups who do well.

Are you blaming us for playing the game within the boundaries that we have been given? Wake up and smell the coffee dude... you need to get your factions sorted and give us a fight which we would all welcome...

See you on battlefield dude...

Of course I realize everything you are saying. We used to have that when Shido was around, but he left for another campaign. Also *** is not what it used to be....however lack of coordination and the continuation of good coordination on the part of EP is only part of the reason that EP has almost double to points of the other alliances. I always see that EP has more players on than AD and DC. Thats a big boost to you guys. And you are right... its not totally fair that you may not be able to play if the other factions can't raise the numbers... but on the flip side... is it fair to dominate because you have the numbers? I am not saying the solution will be easy to find... but I am sure some creative game master out there can think of something that would work. Again.. fair play is all we are asking for. Being steamrolled by EP mobs because you have low numbers is not very fun.

Also; I am playing a NB and specialize in ganking- stealth killing. My little group roams the map looking for good transit spots to kill travelling enemy players or enemies on their own, or even anti-ganking.. taking out the enemies doing the same thing to us. My observation is that the DC is easier to do this to because they tend not to travel in such large numbers as the EP does. sometimes is impossible to high-jack any EP players because of the steady stream of EP players travelling through or the gigantic EP mob that clears out an area we have been hunting. AND the EP ganking groups tend to be fairly large. You guys are tough competition-- which I enjoy-- but equal numbers on each faction makes for a better game for everyone IMO.

Junipus

It's just the facts of a PvP MMO.

Being in one of the better organised DC groups within TB, I can say it's only in the last week or so that EP have gotten much more organised and been able to dominate. Before then it was a close run between each faction and we regularly would log in early evening to see everyone with their scrolls and a roughly equal number of keeps.

However, things have changed from a mixture of night capping (nothing wrong with it) and DC/AD groups leaving for other campaigns for a variety of reasons. Combined with EP posters stating they have a number of organised groups, that is what's allowed them to gain the huge advantage.

I will state however, that during prime time hours EP get absolutely hammered by both DC and AD, losing most of the keeps gained during the night and the occasional scroll as well. Whilst I generally refrain from any sort of "trash talk", it does seem that EP wins with quantity over quality.

Nermy

Bushrat wrote: »

You guys are tough competition-- which I enjoy-- but equal numbers on each faction makes for a better game for everyone IMO.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that. I could say that at times it seems like there are more DC or AD but then we'd be going in circles...

While it's great to be winning, I think we would all prefer a balanced contest but with the sorts of numbers that we have in Cyro, that's always gonna be hard.

What I will say is that battles have been won by the side with less resources before, using good communication and leadership and I think time would be better spent trying to win than slagging EP off because they can raise the numbers, co-ordinate and communicate.

The shoe will be on the other foot at some point.

synnerman

dap_robertb16_ESO wrote: »

It's just the facts of a PvP MMO.

I will state however, that during prime time hours EP get absolutely hammered by both DC and AD, losing most of the keeps gained during the night and the occasional scroll as well. Whilst I generally refrain from any sort of "trash talk", it does seem that EP wins with quantity over quality.

It makes me laugh when you say this...of course we get hammered because we are being attacked by 2 full factions in primetime because the blues and yellows cant hold on to their scrolls and keeps outside of primetime.

Blues did the same thing on Dawnbreaker and yellows did the same on Auriels Bow. Don't blame reds for capping during the evening when that was your tactics on the main 90 day campaigns. Its just that most of your guilds have bottled it because even in primetime now you cant take your scrolls back so they run off to blob and dominate minnows on other campaigns and resturn now and again with buffs.

Bushrat

Nermy wrote: »

Bushrat wrote: »

You guys are tough competition-- which I enjoy-- but equal numbers on each faction makes for a better game for everyone IMO.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that. I could say that at times it seems like there are more DC or AD but then we'd be going in circles...

While it's great to be winning, I think we would all prefer a balanced contest but with the sorts of numbers that we have in Cyro, that's always gonna be hard.

What I will say is that battles have been won by the side with less resources before, using good communication and leadership and I think time would be better spent trying to win than slagging EP off because they can raise the numbers, co-ordinate and communicate.

The shoe will be on the other foot at some point.

Don't get me wrong, I am not slagging EP in any way, I have always said to my guild-mates that EP is the best organized out of the three Allainces. The main gist of what I am saying is that EP has far more players in general and more players in organized guilds that AD (or DC from what I can see). The numbers alone are the main complaint I have, also I am totally fine with night raids, AD did that very successfully last campaign with excellent success. PvP is still an evolving game and lets hope they find fair ways to balance out the population issue.

hamon

well Dc don't seem to be too bothered about steamrolling chillrend to death these days. and AD seem perfectly happy to own bow or haderus.

So why complain about thornblade?

at least thornblade is by far and away the closest server to population balance. with all 3 locked for a good portion of the day. 8 hours out of every day roughly.

Junipus

synnerman wrote: »

dap_robertb16_ESO wrote: »

It's just the facts of a PvP MMO.

I will state however, that during prime time hours EP get absolutely hammered by both DC and AD, losing most of the keeps gained during the night and the occasional scroll as well. Whilst I generally refrain from any sort of "trash talk", it does seem that EP wins with quantity over quality.

It makes me laugh when you say this...of course we get hammered because we are being attacked by 2 full factions in primetime because the blues and yellows cant hold on to their scrolls and keeps outside of primetime.

Blues did the same thing on Dawnbreaker and yellows did the same on Auriels Bow. Don't blame reds for capping during the evening when that was your tactics on the main 90 day campaigns. Its just that most of your guilds have bottled it because even in primetime now you cant take your scrolls back so they run off to blob and dominate minnows on other campaigns and resturn now and again with buffs.

You missed out the part where I mentioned that there was nothing wrong with night capping, but good try though.

Yes we (DC, not myself) did this on DB and yellows on AB. Used to have quite a lot of fun hammering the yellows on AB just as we're doing the reds now on TB during prime time.

I also agree that there's fewer organised groups on DC during the evenings, but that's a natural byproduct of dominance. The same as I suspect a large number of players from EP have left the other, non-EP dominated campaigns to spend their time in TB. Hence my statement of quantity over quality.

Tonight (22/23rd) EP got Emperorship, and congrats again for that, but only around 2am BST when most semi-organised DC groups had left and we valiantly tried to defend against a 40-50+ EP group with 16 of us. Earlier we'd been wiping EP and AD whilst naked and using light attacks, so I'd definitely say EP tend to go for quantity over quality.

eliisra

Chillrend = Blue
Haderus = Yellow
Thornblade = Red

It's obviously a design issue. Everyone joins whatever campaign their faction is currently winning (than rages about the queue), creating imbalance in population. It's certainly not going to get better with the Imperial City, when being on the winning side means even more.

Thornblade is still the most balanced campaign on EU. All factions are locked during peak hours. EP just happens to have more organised and communicating raids when I'm tucked in bed or at work. This while AD/DC seems to have a lot of AP farm trains running about, not so bothered about winning the campaign.

Not sure how much the night-capping matter on Thornblade either, since all scrolls resets at least twice a day when the server is crashing. Regardless, all 3 factions are guilty of night capping, if not this very second, they did so in the past. No one is allowed to cry about it. I'm not a fan myself, but we cant really close Cyrodiil outside of office hours.