The ESO PvP system is failing.....

Agrippa_Invisus

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

The last thing I want is a increased mitigation or increased damage based on population of the other side.

I don't want solo fights and such won for me just because the other side might have more people.

A better suggestion would simply be to remove the point system entirely, or if you don't wanna do that... scale how much points you get for objectives based on how much population you have over the other side...If you're sitting at 3 Bars or locked population, and the other 2 sides are at 1 bar...your side should receive far less per objective then the other two sides should. For example..if the max right now is 400 points for owning everything...If you had Locked population and the other side had 1 bar..You should only receive 75 points per tic instead.

This would mean night capping when no one was on would be less valuable if you outnumber everyone, while at the same time making sure on servers were people play at night and aren't outnumbering people the point system could remain.

Other options that I've heard of (and heard other games do) is the scaling/sliding soft lock. Anywhere from 5-20 additional players and no more.

So if 20 AD are logged on, then no more than 25-40 of any one other faction can be in Cyro. If there are 100 EP (and at that moment, they're the least populous faction) then no more than 105-120 of the other factions are allowed in. People currently logged in are grandfathered, but when they log/leave their slot does not remain open if their side is the most populous.

Then you can also offer the carrot (and not just a stick) by offering free xp or free levels to the lesser populated factions on the NA and EU megaservers. AD the most populous? Have a max level AD toon? Reroll EP/DC and type /level and BAMF! free level 40 with green gear.

Absinthe

Remove the AoE caps...

problem solved.

Keron

No it's not. The zerg just is killed faster but it's still going to be zergball vs zergball. You just have to stack more healers. And AoE caps do nothing in regards to the topic discussed here mainly: pop imbalance.

Do everyone a favour and at least read what the discussion is about instead of blindly repeating shite to derail a good discussion.

Xsorus

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

The last thing I want is a increased mitigation or increased damage based on population of the other side.

I don't want solo fights and such won for me just because the other side might have more people.

A better suggestion would simply be to remove the point system entirely, or if you don't wanna do that... scale how much points you get for objectives based on how much population you have over the other side...If you're sitting at 3 Bars or locked population, and the other 2 sides are at 1 bar...your side should receive far less per objective then the other two sides should. For example..if the max right now is 400 points for owning everything...If you had Locked population and the other side had 1 bar..You should only receive 75 points per tic instead.

This would mean night capping when no one was on would be less valuable if you outnumber everyone, while at the same time making sure on servers were people play at night and aren't outnumbering people the point system could remain.

Other options that I've heard of (and heard other games do) is the scaling/sliding soft lock. Anywhere from 5-20 additional players and no more.

So if 20 AD are logged on, then no more than 25-40 of any one other faction can be in Cyro. If there are 100 EP (and at that moment, they're the least populous faction) then no more than 105-120 of the other factions are allowed in. People currently logged in are grandfathered, but when they log/leave their slot does not remain open if their side is the most populous.

Then you can also offer the carrot (and not just a stick) by offering free xp or free levels to the lesser populated factions on the NA and EU megaservers. AD the most populous? Have a max level AD toon? Reroll EP/DC and type /level and BAMF! free level 40 with green gear.

i don't like that idea because it forces long queues on players. People don't play games with long queues.. a Perfect example is Rift, my guild and I were enjoying playing that game...Then all of a sudden Trion got it into there head that anyone in a group of 3 or more should be placed in a Premade queue..Problem with that is if you didn't have any body in that queue..the queue would be 40 mins to an hour long....No one is going to wait 40 mins to an hour to PvP in a game... So the solution either wasn't to play with my guildies or quit..Most of us flat out quit the game.

So anything that increases a queue on players is bad in my opinion.

Simply doing things like scaling the points you get per objective based on population, increasing the strength of walls and npcs based on population would also work as well.

Agrippa_Invisus

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

The last thing I want is a increased mitigation or increased damage based on population of the other side.

I don't want solo fights and such won for me just because the other side might have more people.

A better suggestion would simply be to remove the point system entirely, or if you don't wanna do that... scale how much points you get for objectives based on how much population you have over the other side...If you're sitting at 3 Bars or locked population, and the other 2 sides are at 1 bar...your side should receive far less per objective then the other two sides should. For example..if the max right now is 400 points for owning everything...If you had Locked population and the other side had 1 bar..You should only receive 75 points per tic instead.

This would mean night capping when no one was on would be less valuable if you outnumber everyone, while at the same time making sure on servers were people play at night and aren't outnumbering people the point system could remain.

Other options that I've heard of (and heard other games do) is the scaling/sliding soft lock. Anywhere from 5-20 additional players and no more.

So if 20 AD are logged on, then no more than 25-40 of any one other faction can be in Cyro. If there are 100 EP (and at that moment, they're the least populous faction) then no more than 105-120 of the other factions are allowed in. People currently logged in are grandfathered, but when they log/leave their slot does not remain open if their side is the most populous.

Then you can also offer the carrot (and not just a stick) by offering free xp or free levels to the lesser populated factions on the NA and EU megaservers. AD the most populous? Have a max level AD toon? Reroll EP/DC and type /level and BAMF! free level 40 with green gear.

i don't like that idea because it forces long queues on players. People don't play games with long queues.. a Perfect example is Rift, my guild and I were enjoying playing that game...Then all of a sudden Trion got it into there head that anyone in a group of 3 or more should be placed in a Premade queue..Problem with that is if you didn't have any body in that queue..the queue would be 40 mins to an hour long....No one is going to wait 40 mins to an hour to PvP in a game... So the solution either wasn't to play with my guildies or quit..Most of us flat out quit the game.

So anything that increases a queue on players is bad in my opinion.

Simply doing things like scaling the points you get per objective based on population, increasing the strength of walls and npcs based on population would also work as well.

Then lead with the carrot.

Incentivize people to reroll different factions (free levels, free gear, extra XP, etc) without penalizing them.

Xsorus

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

The last thing I want is a increased mitigation or increased damage based on population of the other side.

I don't want solo fights and such won for me just because the other side might have more people.

A better suggestion would simply be to remove the point system entirely, or if you don't wanna do that... scale how much points you get for objectives based on how much population you have over the other side...If you're sitting at 3 Bars or locked population, and the other 2 sides are at 1 bar...your side should receive far less per objective then the other two sides should. For example..if the max right now is 400 points for owning everything...If you had Locked population and the other side had 1 bar..You should only receive 75 points per tic instead.

This would mean night capping when no one was on would be less valuable if you outnumber everyone, while at the same time making sure on servers were people play at night and aren't outnumbering people the point system could remain.

Other options that I've heard of (and heard other games do) is the scaling/sliding soft lock. Anywhere from 5-20 additional players and no more.

So if 20 AD are logged on, then no more than 25-40 of any one other faction can be in Cyro. If there are 100 EP (and at that moment, they're the least populous faction) then no more than 105-120 of the other factions are allowed in. People currently logged in are grandfathered, but when they log/leave their slot does not remain open if their side is the most populous.

Then you can also offer the carrot (and not just a stick) by offering free xp or free levels to the lesser populated factions on the NA and EU megaservers. AD the most populous? Have a max level AD toon? Reroll EP/DC and type /level and BAMF! free level 40 with green gear.

i don't like that idea because it forces long queues on players. People don't play games with long queues.. a Perfect example is Rift, my guild and I were enjoying playing that game...Then all of a sudden Trion got it into there head that anyone in a group of 3 or more should be placed in a Premade queue..Problem with that is if you didn't have any body in that queue..the queue would be 40 mins to an hour long....No one is going to wait 40 mins to an hour to PvP in a game... So the solution either wasn't to play with my guildies or quit..Most of us flat out quit the game.

So anything that increases a queue on players is bad in my opinion.

Simply doing things like scaling the points you get per objective based on population, increasing the strength of walls and npcs based on population would also work as well.

Then lead with the carrot.

Incentivize people to reroll different factions (free levels, free gear, extra XP, etc) without penalizing them.

Things like XP bonuses I wouldn't mind either.

There are a bunch of different ways to improve it.. but i don't think caps or damage increases or anything like that is a good idea.

Absinthe

Keron wrote: »

No it's not. The zerg just is killed faster but it's still going to be zergball vs zergball. You just have to stack more healers. And AoE caps do nothing in regards to the topic discussed here mainly: pop imbalance.

Do everyone a favour and at least read what the discussion is about instead of blindly repeating shite to derail a good discussion.

Given that most "zergballs" are generally bad I truly believe that removing AoE caps would solve most issues. This would further increase the effectiveness of a smaller group of skilled players vs a larger and unskilled group. Per population imbalance...that issue can not be easily solved.

Keron

@Absinthe
First of all, sorry for being so aggressive. I just think that the pop discussion here had some really good ideas floating around and want this to continue.

I have little issue with the bad ones, you can usually evade them pretty easy and small groups with the right synergies can blow them up even now with caps. The real issue (at least in my opinion) with zergballs are the strong ones, where player skill comes together with "creative use of game mechanics" to result in more or less unbeatable trains.

Those would not be (significantly) less unbeatable with the AE cap removed, I'm pretty sure.

But please let's get back to the faction imbalance discussion

darkdruidssb14_ESO

PlagueMonk wrote: »

Since this is my thread I feel responsible to respond to everything......

darkdruidssb14_ESO wrote: »

We definitely need more topics on this. Also ZOS has said they were creating a "underdog" system, but they haven't talked about it in detail or even at all recently.

I believe you are being sarcastic and am well aware of the similar threads. Believe me I was weary about creating another topic but I felt if I had posted this as part of another thread it would have simply been lost.

darkdruidssb14_ESO wrote: »

While I think the OP is going the right direction the problem I see is that say you have a high pop faction and a med pop faction. What is going to stop the med pop faction from zergballing against the low pop faction?

I did address this........your buffs would be relative to each faction. So in your case the low pop faction (1 bar) would have a 1 bar bonus if attacking the med pop (2 bars) while the med pop would get no bonus when attacking the low pop. The low pop would then get the 3 bar bonus if attacking the capped pop faction. While the med pop would get a 2 bar bonus against the same, capped faction. These bonuses should be updated on the fly.

Maybe a better solution is that the objectives themselves have buffs/debuffs based on number of allies/enemies in the area of the objective. Keeps already track if you are near them or not so that some buffs activate in the Assault skill line. Expand that tracking to all players within a radius of the objective and adjust the NPCs and possibly the players themselves scale with enemy population around them.

That would be more like tuning the encounter to be competitive for everyone instead of flat buffs/debuffs depending on faction pop.

Your proposed system would be highly complex and time consuming to implement and still do nothing to help the skirmishers whos sole objective would be to kill individuals of the other faction. Solo players on low pop factions deserve a buff also.

Wow, I think you could have made it harder to respond to you, but not much.

Yes, the first comment was sarcastic, but I also partially agree with you on ZOS needing to give feedback to resolve this.

The 2nd and 3rd comments. Yes, my idea is a little more complex.. but I think yours is a little too simple. My idea really isn't that much more complex than yours. We already know the system tracks how many of each faction are fighting in a specific area... that is how the marks get put on the map of where skirmishes are happening. The system also already tracks siege present at an objective.

A few people ganking a few others won't pop a marker on the map, but a group clashing with another group will.... I'm not worried about outlier skirmishes. Since it's small scale no one should have an advantage due to population cap.. those should be more skill based.

Under your system if I was a solo 1bar ganker then I would be super buffed if I go after solo 3bar players. It would actually be more advantageous to play on the low pop side as a lone wolf. I think that is counter intuitive to what you are trying to accomplish because now a good portion of you limited population is out fighting away from objectives because they can gank easier.

My system would scale the objectives where large scale battles mean more to the amount of players that are actively participating in each faction. Meaning that if there was a keep with very little presence there to defend then they would get buffed, along with the NPCs to give them a fighting chance against the opposing force trying to take the keep with more numbers.

This way the population of each faction matters less than where all of those players are concentrating. If the massive zerg shows up to a keep with very little defense then they will have a much tougher fight than if they had less people attacking the keep. It would discourage zergs from massing at objectives regardless of their faction population total. Also small parties would like wise be buffed if they were attacking highly defended keeps with enemies that out numbered them.

Cody

Bushrat wrote: »

I posted this in another thread, but thought it was relevant here:

1. Give more AP to killing/attacking the lead faction... the greater the lead the more AP you get from attacking them.. give less and less for attacking the underdog. This way ppl will be more inclined to attack the lead faction and not the underdog.. it will balance out over time.
2. Give major point reduction to over populated groups... like was mentioned in other threads (thanks for pointing that out Keron) the greater population you have over others the less AP you get.
3. Limit the amount of times you can switch campaigns. AND if you guest in another one you get 0 AP for it.
4. You only get buffs in your home campaign and PvE zones.. not in other campaigns.
5. Give drop in bonuses for arriving and staying and playing in the campaign when its under populated. So when you go to a low populated time and you are very out numbered you get some AP or loot as a bonus.
6. Give us some of the nice V12 loot drops that you get in trials for playing in Cyrodiil.. the best loot should be in trials AND Cyrodiil... not just trials... 2 hours of hard fighting in Cyrodiil is easily worth a couple of Trials runs.

You should only gain PvP buffs in the PvP campaign you "earned" it in. not in PvE.

Honfold

I posted this in another discussion that fell into oblivion:

"I agree that the point system is not working right now, but I do not see them getting rid of it. I think that points an alliance earn at any given time should be determined by the balance of populations.

Example:

AD/DC/EP all have 1 bar of population, then they all earn 100% of the potential points per tick.

AD has 2 bars of pop to DC and EP's 1 bar, AD earns 75% of the potential points.

DC has 3 bars of pop to AD and EP's 1 bar, DC earns 50% of the potential points.

EP is locked pop to AD and DC's 1 bar, EP earns 25% of the potential points.

If an alliance has 1 bar of pop to another alliances pop lock then I am not sure if they should be given bonuses to points, like an additional 50-100 pt "underdog bonus", or something along those lines.

I think that this would help facilitate an even distribution of the player base across two or three campaigns since being pop locked could be detrimental. Also this would not specifically target players who only play during the graveyard shift."

I think this could work well enough. It isn't perfect, but I think it would help with population balance.

In addition, I think there should be another lower population indicator since one bar of pop can mean 1 person is on DC/EP/AD. maybe a transparent 1 bar would do.

So in practice, 1 pop locked alliance would only earn 1/8th the alliance points if it was facing two 1 transparent bar population alliances.

JamilaRaj

Absinthe wrote: »

Given that most "zergballs" are generally bad I truly believe that removing AoE caps would solve most issues. This would further increase the effectiveness of a smaller group of skilled players vs a larger and unskilled group. Per population imbalance...that issue can not be easily solved.

Indeed. Small group of skilled players would skillfully place AoEs into the centre of large group of unskilled players ineptly spamming way more of exact same AoEs with way more AoE heals stacked up, and the large zergball would somehow die.

Bushrat

I think messing with combat buffs and penalties may indeed cause some problems with latency. I think rewards adjustment higher or lower may be the best and easiest way to entice low population Alliances to come play and handicap over populated Alliances. However getting players to play for an underdog alliance would be difficult... it seems that many players just prefer to play in the EP over the AD and DC.

zScars

most idiotic idea ever

ferzalrwb17_ESO

zScars wrote: »

most idiotic idea ever

Thanks for contributing.

Tamanous

Absinthe wrote: »

Remove the AoE caps...

problem solved.

Not even close. Why do players stand on each other? Because most heals are and buffs are aoe and have limited range. You stand too far from the healer and you do not get healed. You stand outside of the aura range of buffs you do not get buffed.

This game is entirely designed to be standing on top of each other. It if a fundamental game design limitation. Removing aoe caps will only slightly impact how players will zerg. You have to zerg because all of your support vanishes the second you step 2 feel out side or buff and heal ranges. This isn't even mentioning that the vast majority of dps builds rely entirely on pbaoe and the ONLY way to focus this type of damage is to stand on top of each other.

Developers like City State (headed by MJ who designed DAoC) know how badly zerging can hurt an RvR style game and and understand that the core combat system must be designed to avoid it. ESO's combat system is designed entirely to support zerging. It has done every single thing wrong in order to maximize zerg benefits. One silly little change such as removing aoe caps is but a drop in the bucket on the way to correcting all the reason why zerg balling is the ONLY tactic in both pve and pvp in this game.