Should Zenimax re-examine keeps/sieges in ESO?

Aoife32001

In Lineage II, each castle was unique. This would lead to far more dynamic gameplay (and less of a boring rinse-and-repeat experience), as each siege required subtly different tactics. There was also actually a sense of pride in one's own guild for owning that castle. Each castle had its own unique atmosphere and tactics.







Moreover, castle ownership came with tangible benefits (beyond just bragging rights) for the guild, which could use its castle to collect taxes from material harvesting taking place around the castle and its accompanying village/city. There was a real source of pride at owning and a compelling personal reason for defending any given castle.

There are many ways ESO could bring this into Cyrodiil, and it would greatly improve player experience, I feel, if done with proper mitigation of the risks involved (such as the same guild essentially controlling five keeps through one main and four dummy guilds). Is this something only I would be interested in seeing, or would others like to see Zenimax, at some point in the future, look at bringing these features to ESO?

What other ways might you suggest ESO look at changing keeps/sieges?

reften

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

yeah would definitely be more fun...keeps kinda are different because the landscape around them is different. But the whole process of taking a keep is identical.

It's a lot of fun right now the way it is, just a little too repetitive. Keeps change hands too often IMO.

My big change would be to allow guilds to claim ownership of a keep, then use AP to defend them.

i.e. 100,000 ap doubles the number of guards, 500,000 ap triples the strength of walls/doors, 1,000,000 ap adds a moat around the keep. 200,000 ap adds guards with fire ballistas on the walls, 10,000,000 ap allows for a FC on the inside of the keep. Just spitballing here.

Then you can donate your AP to the guild AP bank, and select members of a guild can spend them to improve the keep.

EDIT: And yes, the longer a guild holds a keep, the more taxes the guild receives from the keep.

Thrymbauld

Just leave keeps as they are, period

The PvP dynamic of this game is that keeps defend and open up the strategic possibility of making further progress. The very nature of this means that they'll change hands extremely often. In fact, it's not entirely different than the real world way that most keeps where built, and the strategy behind taking them and moving through terrain--provided you condense months or years of effort into mere hours here.

Many balance and polish changes will change keeps more than layouts would. A removal of the AE cap, for example, will likely mean that one breach and charge is likely not a viable solution for taking them. Miscellaneous class or weaponry changes would also likely change the dynamic.

We wouldn't want keeps to be drastically stronger anyway, nor any huge investment in them, in my opinion. In the case of Thornblade, the map tends to switch fairly reliably at different times of the day simply because the realms seem to have noticeably different play schedules. Dumping a million AP into a keep that somebody is going to take while you're at work is not going to be a great experience.

Gedalya

Other

I do like the idea of expanding Cyrodiil; in this case expanding on forts/keeps, and outposts with regards to their merit/value. Right now you get from keeps:

• A base
• A link in the transit schema
• A store (via the merchant)
• Theme with Tabard for controlling guild

It would be nice to see new additions; more theming options would be nice for the controlling guild. Perhaps adding an option for a guild to purchase features for the keep; maybe (some thoughts):

• fixed siege weapons inside the keep
• sellswords to man the battlements
• barracks w/ a rest like bonus for guild members
• kitchen w/ food stuffs available to guild members; with the food stuffs having some reasonable buffs
• perhaps stations for crafting and the like

In Oblivion my first steps always involved getting Battlehorn castle; and as I played buying the features for it. I loved it.

Akula

Didnt you already post this same damn thing word-for-word?

ZOS_UlyssesW

Hey, all. We've moved this thread from the General Discussion - English section to the Alliance War section. Thanks!

DezIsDead

Just leave keeps as they are, period

i voted leave them, because if they change them i envision server crash/rollbacks occurring every 10-15 minutes. the keeps already struggle to function during primetime locked servers, imagine if you made them more detailed and unique, which would be cool, how bad lag would be.

Columba

Other

Make keeps less important by creating scoring for hills, roads, bridges, etc.

Braidas

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

much needed pls do

FluffiestOne

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

Specifically a keep designed for the glory of His Lord Fixate, feel free to pm me, ZoS, I have 20 Chinese workers that can get you some concept art or blueprints.

Beega

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

Yes, this would be great.

Oughash

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

Columba wrote: »

Make keeps less important by creating scoring for hills, roads, bridges, etc.

I don't want the keeps to be less important, but I certainly agree that adding objectives for control of roads, bridges, towns, terrain, etc should be added. It would spread the player base (help reduce lag), add smaller scale PvP dynamics, encourage both new tactics and strategies, and force the player base to explore more of Cyrodil (which is totally awesome.... but empty).

Xallus

Part of me would love unique keeps, or even recustomizable when you capture... but it could lead to "OP" keeps vs not so much, kind of like Glademist VS Faregyl for example... but everywhere.

I'm 100% for Columba's point though, there should be smaller objectives everywhere, maybe something to consider for when camps go away.

JaJaLuka

Other

Zenimax should re-examine a lot of things...
but yes I think it may add something extra
oh and in case I haven't made my point with the other billion posts on this, duelling would be a nice touch.

DaggerfallTradeMasters

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

This would be awesome it would really make you feel responsible for your guild keep.
I really think you should do this.
Now we take a keep but what do we really get for it? The guards wear our tabard and we got our guild store there (we are a PVP only guild (DPM thornblade EU) so it doesn't really matter.

Honfold

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

Dude, the first time I entered Cyrodiil to see keep warfare I was very disappointed. I though it was going to be something like Lineage II where owning a keep was a big deal.

The lack of variety in keep layout was one of the main issues that brought me to end my subscription. I guess ill wait to see if they do anything with keeps, but I think they will not.

Aoife32001

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

Honfold wrote: »

Dude, the first time I entered Cyrodiil to see keep warfare I was very disappointed. I though it was going to be something like Lineage II where owning a keep was a big deal.

The lack of variety in keep layout was one of the main issues that brought me to end my subscription. I guess ill wait to see if they do anything with keeps, but I think they will not.

Short of such significant PvP changes, I'll most likely end my subscription as well once I am done with the PvE main story (yes, I play very slowly). Although I love PvP in general, ESO PvP is definitely not what I had hoped for in this regard. (Obviously) keep sieges/ownership is a huge piece of PvP for me, and ESO is really disappointing in this regard

Minnesinger

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

The keeps are too simplified. I would like to see them changed to resemble the Medieval castles in Europe. More towers that can be manned, throne rooms, stairs, moats, heraldry, stables, fireplaces and higher walls. Anything to make them look like they are used in the wars.

Evergnar

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

Great thread OP. I'm totally for adding more interesting aspects to keeps and PvP but the problem is they couldn't (can't) even get freak'n doors to work. So I'm not sure I would have any confidence in the current dev team with the current state PvP is in to ask for something this major. Like the idea of it though.

ghengis_dhan

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

I'm all for adding more variety to the different keeps, even if they are not big changes.

I'd like to see more objectives. Perhaps adding some outposts along the edge of the map, or adding a flag and some guards at the mile gates and bridges.

Junipus

Adding some extra features within Cyrodiil would be nice.

Perhaps changing the gates between keeps, e.g. Ash gate or Chalman gate, to be locked if one alliance owns both keep and outpost but also siegeable should the enemy want to move behind the lines. If the outpost and keep are owned by different alliances then the gate is open as it normally is in PvP now.

Additionally, changing it so that the gate is destructible would help create more fights at the gate with more fluidity instead of a single ground entry point with an oil defense that stops all but the most determined groups from getting through.

Similarly, the bridge(s) between Sejanus and Alessia can be changed to introduce gatehouses in order to both stop and facilitate bridge camping.

Lastly, changing the rules behind scroll gates to only allow them to be opened if there is a direct line between that alliance's keeps and the scroll keep (e.g. AD owning Roe, Ash, Glade and Rayles) would put more focus on the central keeps and make for more intense fights as both scrolls and emperorship would be up for grabs. The other keeps could still be captured which could lead to a single desperate keep defense without having to split the defending faction between two scroll gates and the inner keeps.

SRIBES

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

This

Vizier

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

I would love to see each keep as a unique structure, designed according to the terrain it sits on.

Some could argue the keeps are different and technically they are right. The walls around them are not all the same configuration.

They are, however, the same wall segments, same towers, same inner keeps, same gates etc. I hope they do work on a redesign. It's not a game changer for me if they don't. I can see how there would be serious balance challenges by the creation of unique keeps...would still be very cool IMO.

OrangeTheCat

Other

I don't really care what the keeps look like. I am there to destroy reds and blues and rake their bodies.

But that lag and fps drop. OMG. Seriously, I think if ZOS is unable to fix their own game, as appears to be the case, then maybe remove all AoE abilities from PvP.

Muizer

Other

The keeps aren't the problem. It's the pfx heavy ranged/aoe magica that's the problem. There's too much of it. If taking a keep was mostly hand to hand fighting they'd be fine.

Lukeh Shadyvale

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

Cyrodiil has NO immersion. I was having this discussion also just wondering why there are farms, lumber and mines building up resources for a random set of 4 walls and a roof in the middle of no where...

Needs more life, more detail,

wookiefriseur

Replace all AD keeps by that one:

TheLaw

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

We are forced to play large scale keep-capture pvp...so you better give us some variety.

Itoq

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

Muizer wrote: »

The keeps aren't the problem. It's the pfx heavy ranged/aoe magica that's the problem. There's too much of it. If taking a keep was mostly hand to hand fighting they'd be fine.

Lay out some keeps, such that at some keeps, one flag, both flags or even a third flag can be better covered/taken by stam builds. A large open area should do - double outer walls with second inner at 130% of normal strength.

Hand to hand and some other builds are strong in the open field, but a bit less strong in tight confines - so open up the area around flags on some keeps.

Adding a second or third flag to resources would help as well. With only needing to take two of the flags to capture all three. More area to work with leads to more spread out fights at resource taking.

Anyways, any changes to the keep layouts, difficulties, and/or rewards would be a substantial improvement to ESO.

That said, I don't think that greatly increasing keep complexity (similar to pictured in the OP) would help the game, if it hurt server and/or client performance.

Artis

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

Good idea. And no need to hurry, ZoS. Just add them one by one(for each alliance), not necessarily all keeps must be updated at the same time.

However, let me note that it's not the issue that must be addressed first anyway. It's not bad that keeps are the same You have 4 classes to balance (or even better, remove).

Aoife32001

Make each keep unique in its appearance, layout, difficulty, and/or reward for ownership

That said, I don't think that greatly increasing keep complexity (similar to pictured in the OP) would help the game, if it hurt server and/or client performance.

Keeps certainly wouldn't need to be as rich as they were in Lineage II. Zenimax could certainly do more, though, without compromising server/client performance. Lineage II itself is an old game, and even the keeps they had did not significantly impact performance back in 2005.