5 Reasons Why Removal of Forward Camps Will Save PvP in ESO

Zintair

I wish they would add in the DAOC feature of having YOUR guild own the keep and have the Guards report when enemies are in the area and the guard was killed.

God forbid claiming a keep could become important to a faction. We wouldn't want Guilds to become important or anything.

At the moment walls flag WAY to fast and PvDooring is the way to success. Offer a more dynamic solution to a keep being attacked than just the logo lit up like it is now.

trimsic_ESO

Lfehova wrote: »

1. It indirectly will fix the lag and server issues (if ZoS doesnt break something else with this patch).

The root cause of server lag and attacks not registering is the sheer number of players in one location spamming heals and attacks. The never ending balls of people piling in because of forward camps. The removal of camps will cause travel time, fights will be spread out to multiple keeps. Fights will start and end more definitively. And there will be less lagball fights where people keep spawning until numbers hit a critical mass and cause attacks to stop registering.

During the last two days, huge zergs have been formed, and the fights have been limited to two different front lines. I think this is because people are afraid of having to ride for a long time in case they die. So they stick to large zergs, as a mean to die less, and be resurrected by someone else in case of issue.

Lfehova wrote: »

3. The return of travel time and small scale pvp.

While I lead a guild and primarily group pvp, I am sad that the small scale pvp died in this game due to the availability of forward camps. I believe the game was a lot more fun when nobody could afford forward camps and most people had to travel to a fight. Small skirmishes with a death penalty like travel time, can be exhilarating.

This is currently not happening. As said earlier, the death penalty is refraining people from doing small scale PvP.

Lfehova wrote: »

4. This will reward smart strategies and skilled players and make risks meaningful

Pre-patch. Defenders routinely threw themselves off walls and just mindlessly slammed their heads against siege engines and players. Death just meant easy travel back to the keep where you could collect your ap tick or mindlessly charge out again. Assaulters played the role of mind numbingly brainless dimwits slamming their heads into an open inner breach. Over and over, until one side has an organized group destroy an assault or defense forward camp to end the siege. But all it took was on person to escape and drop a camp, and instantly the keep was filled with mindless Zerging. Is it fun to fight knowing that the kills you achieve mean nothing because your enemy will respawn in .5 seconds? Is it fun to fight knowing your death means nothing because you can respawn to defend in .5 seconds. Now each decision made, to rush up the stairs of a keep, or stack on back flag, or whatever choice you make strategically, we have a paramount impact on whether or not your alliance takes or defends a keep. It makes strategy meaningful.

Unfortunately, as it currently works, keep defenders have a huge advantage over the attackers. They can respawn inside the keep when they die, while the attackers have to ride.

I'm not arguing that removing the forward camps was a bad idea. But there are now new issues that have to be addressed:
- There is currently more zergs at the front line
- Defenders have too many advantage in a fight for a keep

Suggestions: at least grant a passive horse speed buff in Cyrodiil.

NadiusMaximus

It's gonna be awesome selling f'c now. Attacking? You don't have any? Need one dropped? 500k! I'm a mercenary. Glad I bought 20 of them Sunday.

Maulkin

NadiusMaximus wrote: »

It's gonna be awesome selling f'c now. Attacking? You don't have any? Need one dropped? 500k! I'm a mercenary. Glad I bought 20 of them Sunday.

Are you in the US? That's an astonishingly low number for EU. The person with the most camps in our guild has 800. Nobody has below 100.

Vizier

PvP has been GREAT. Lots of fights. Fights all over the map. Death has an impact. Also a side effect of all this is a real camaraderie developing over soul gem rez. Groups are developing a discipline to rez when they can during combat. Single rez has a great impact in keeping folks in the fight or at least nearer to it.

The other aspect I've noticed is while Zerg groups and guilds are still doing their thing the Pain-Train, Impulse Spam groups are not as prominent as they were. I'm seeing them have some success but only to a point. They are also being melted by equal groups using different tactics which you just didn't see before so the balance tweaks are making a difference.

Enjoying PvP more than ever despite the weapon swap stealth bug on my NB. Just have to be thoughtful and mindful of when and where I swap out...shrug.

Koensol

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

NadiusMaximus wrote: »

It's gonna be awesome selling f'c now. Attacking? You don't have any? Need one dropped? 500k! I'm a mercenary. Glad I bought 20 of them Sunday.

Are you in the US? That's an astonishingly low number for EU. The person with the most camps in our guild has 800. Nobody has below 100.

It's only postponing the inevitable. Kind of pathetic as well to want to "outsmart" a dev decision by hoarding camps. I hope you have fun playing the game as it clearly isn't intended at this point. But isn't that what all hc pvpers do since launch?

heng14rwb17_ESO

wow,look like there is a lot of benefits to remove FC..........
But is it really?

This is the real effect of FC removal.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/138225/low-population-bonus-300-points#latest

Ifthir_ESO

Koensol wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

NadiusMaximus wrote: »

It's gonna be awesome selling f'c now. Attacking? You don't have any? Need one dropped? 500k! I'm a mercenary. Glad I bought 20 of them Sunday.

Are you in the US? That's an astonishingly low number for EU. The person with the most camps in our guild has 800. Nobody has below 100.

It's only postponing the inevitable. Kind of pathetic as well to want to "outsmart" a dev decision by hoarding camps. I hope you have fun playing the game as it clearly isn't intended at this point. But isn't that what all hc pvpers do since launch?

Whats worse is someone had been sitting on 5.6m AP to even be able to buy 800 of them.

That means that AP on EU is easy to come by or they never bought FC's/repair kits before.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

Ifthir_ESO wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

NadiusMaximus wrote: »

It's gonna be awesome selling f'c now. Attacking? You don't have any? Need one dropped? 500k! I'm a mercenary. Glad I bought 20 of them Sunday.

Are you in the US? That's an astonishingly low number for EU. The person with the most camps in our guild has 800. Nobody has below 100.

It's only postponing the inevitable. Kind of pathetic as well to want to "outsmart" a dev decision by hoarding camps. I hope you have fun playing the game as it clearly isn't intended at this point. But isn't that what all hc pvpers do since launch?

Whats worse is someone had been sitting on 5.6m AP to even be able to buy 800 of them.

That means that AP on EU is easy to come by or they never bought FC's/repair kits before.

It's not that much, if you do zerg balling (stacking with your group) against non stacked groups, you can easily make 100k AP per group members under an hour. I can imagine people doing that for months having more than than a few millions in AP saved up and not knowing what to do with it.

Lfehova

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Ifthir_ESO wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

NadiusMaximus wrote: »

It's gonna be awesome selling f'c now. Attacking? You don't have any? Need one dropped? 500k! I'm a mercenary. Glad I bought 20 of them Sunday.

Are you in the US? That's an astonishingly low number for EU. The person with the most camps in our guild has 800. Nobody has below 100.

It's only postponing the inevitable. Kind of pathetic as well to want to "outsmart" a dev decision by hoarding camps. I hope you have fun playing the game as it clearly isn't intended at this point. But isn't that what all hc pvpers do since launch?

Whats worse is someone had been sitting on 5.6m AP to even be able to buy 800 of them.

That means that AP on EU is easy to come by or they never bought FC's/repair kits before.

It's not that much, if you do zerg balling (stacking with your group) against non stacked groups, you can easily make 100k AP per group members under an hour. I can imagine people doing that for months having more than than a few millions in AP saved up and not knowing what to do with it.

I lead a guild that makes 100k AP an hour and I sit around 1-2mil AP because all the AP I make I spent on repair kits and siege and camps to help the alliance. A lot of the time I put up 2-8 ballista and hope alliance mates use it

Aoe_Barbecue

Lfehova wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Ifthir_ESO wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

NadiusMaximus wrote: »

It's gonna be awesome selling f'c now. Attacking? You don't have any? Need one dropped? 500k! I'm a mercenary. Glad I bought 20 of them Sunday.

Are you in the US? That's an astonishingly low number for EU. The person with the most camps in our guild has 800. Nobody has below 100.

It's only postponing the inevitable. Kind of pathetic as well to want to "outsmart" a dev decision by hoarding camps. I hope you have fun playing the game as it clearly isn't intended at this point. But isn't that what all hc pvpers do since launch?

Whats worse is someone had been sitting on 5.6m AP to even be able to buy 800 of them.

That means that AP on EU is easy to come by or they never bought FC's/repair kits before.

It's not that much, if you do zerg balling (stacking with your group) against non stacked groups, you can easily make 100k AP per group members under an hour. I can imagine people doing that for months having more than than a few millions in AP saved up and not knowing what to do with it.

I lead a guild that makes 100k AP an hour and I sit around 1-2mil AP because all the AP I make I spent on repair kits and siege and camps to help the alliance. A lot of the time I put up 2-8 ballista and hope alliance mates use it

Hova's a gentlemen. If a pug steals one of my ballistae I typically type obscenities at him and/or his mother.

Rooty

Aoe_Barbecue wrote: »

Lfehova wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Ifthir_ESO wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

NadiusMaximus wrote: »

It's gonna be awesome selling f'c now. Attacking? You don't have any? Need one dropped? 500k! I'm a mercenary. Glad I bought 20 of them Sunday.

Are you in the US? That's an astonishingly low number for EU. The person with the most camps in our guild has 800. Nobody has below 100.

It's only postponing the inevitable. Kind of pathetic as well to want to "outsmart" a dev decision by hoarding camps. I hope you have fun playing the game as it clearly isn't intended at this point. But isn't that what all hc pvpers do since launch?

Whats worse is someone had been sitting on 5.6m AP to even be able to buy 800 of them.

That means that AP on EU is easy to come by or they never bought FC's/repair kits before.

It's not that much, if you do zerg balling (stacking with your group) against non stacked groups, you can easily make 100k AP per group members under an hour. I can imagine people doing that for months having more than than a few millions in AP saved up and not knowing what to do with it.

I lead a guild that makes 100k AP an hour and I sit around 1-2mil AP because all the AP I make I spent on repair kits and siege and camps to help the alliance. A lot of the time I put up 2-8 ballista and hope alliance mates use it

Hova's a gentlemen. If a pug steals one of my ballistae I typically type obscenities at him and/or his mother.

*BBQ grumble*

Hoodster92_ESO

I just returned to this game after a couple of months gone. I can tell you I enjoy PvP a million times more now, when someone dies I feel like we are actually widdling down their numbers instead of fighting zerglings. It makes keep battles that much more important that people stick to the strategy and keep themselves alive.

What pissed me off so much about Forward Camps was that I ususally just spent 3-5 minutes killing a single Dragon Knight.... all of a sudden a second later there he is again on the wall of the keep getting ready to *** us off for another 5 minutes! Something like that needs to stay dead.... or at least take a while to run back so I can get my sanity back in check.....

Tintinabula

why it won't save PvP: They're being brought back

Lfehova

Tintinabula wrote: »

why it won't save PvP: They're being brought back

Yeah well the alterations to forward camps that wheeler was talking about, will actually achieve the same purpose the removal was supposed to cause. But add in some sense of instant gratification for the call of duty generation. The key alteration being a global cooldown on spawning at a fwc.

Tripwyr

This thread gave me a good laugh, thanks guys!

Subtomik

Tripwyr wrote: »

This thread gave me a good laugh, thanks guys!

Nice of you to stop by the alliance war section!

heng14rwb17_ESO

Pvp population is lower now than before.

Lfehova

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Pvp population is lower now than before.

I personally have been doing a ton of PvE. Farming undaunted sets and points.

kijima

Seeing quite a few comments from well known PvP'ers in my guild chats with things like: LF DPS for dailies etc.

Plenty of regular PvP'ers out of Cyrodiil at the moment trying to get rare loot drops etc so they can come back to PvP with a few tricks up their sleeve.

When the bar was raised from VR10 to VR12 PvP was quiet, again with VR14 as everyone spent a few days in Grindlorn in preparing for PvP. The forum had plenty of posts saying PvP is dead, a few days later it's pop locked again.

The new release of some of the newer sets has done the same thing. Go PvE to grab some gear and come back to PvP.

Tripwyr

PvPers are PvEing because of the debilitating lag at all major combat locations.

We lost all 4 of the highest ranked PvPers last time lag stopped the game from functioning, who do you think we'll lose this time?

Insurrektion

Rylana wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Lettigall wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

I often see people mentionning "I don't want to stay in a keep to defend".
And you hear that non sense in every game trying to implement strategic play on top of tactical play.

Here's the secret: The best defense is offense.

You're not defending by maning the wall but by keeping the pressure on that frontline. By keeping momentum and pushing ever forward towards their next base, you're never waiting.
If you get flanked or bypassed and they are attacking behind you, then start to use scouts. If you're not in an organized group, try to be those scouts sometimes and experiment with a new strategic role.

The best defense is offense- not anymore. If your keep is under attack trying to wipe siegers is way to risky. If you are wiped none will be able to res you and you have to raid(most likely sneak) back from another keep to help defend.

And while you ride enemies gonna res their players and most likely take the keep. Victory even more gonna depend from big trains

Not what I meant.

The best defense is to be always the one sieging and keeping them behind their walls. Just don't wait for them to regroup and come back but push on them to the next keep. It's less grave to lose a fight in between two keeps rather than lose when you're already on your walls and the transitus network is already cut.

Overextending is an extremely poor strategy. I see it every single day in Thornblade. As soon as AD has gotten to Ash or BRK, they attempt to push Glade/Ales or Arrius/Chalman (or both at once)

Immediately Fare/BB/BM get hit (and usually by the third faction since they know those keeps are vulnerable), the whole faction ends up responding to that, Ash/BRK get lost almost at the same time, Fare ends up being the only home triangle keep standing because of the obsession with holding that one keep at all costs... and soon enough the entire faction collapses in on itself losing everything.

You MUST have both offense and defense on the field. You cant go all or nothing like that. All defense does not work, all offense does not work. You must have reserves holding keeps to prevent backcaps.

And FFS stop chasing the defense tick so much, all that does is push 50 people into one place, dilute the reward to pointless anyway, and leave something else on the field undefended.

Its no real wonder AD struggles without a camp to save them every time (i watched it happen at fare last night, if not for someone dropping a camp vs blue, we would have lost our final keep on the map, realize this strategy is doomed once all existing camps are gone)

This is pretty god damned accurate. Several days ago the AD looked like they were going to crown an emp. We (DC) were losing our fights and EP didn't look like they were doing any better. After I started telling ppl in zone chat to hit deep in AD territory while they were pushing at the north and east end of the center keeps, the AD momentum fell apart. We managed to throw them off balance and split up their forces. Then DC and EP went on a forced march south taking keep after keep. I didn't stay logged on long enough to see how it ended, but the simple fact that military strategies like this can actually be used it pretty damn awesome. Kuddos to AD for having the balls to stick their necks out, and kuddos to DC and EP for using strategy against a superior force to win the day.

Take that by the way as a hint about what I think of zergs. If a faction is going to lump their forces up so hard they can be hit from multiple locations at the same time, forcing them to only win 1 or 2 of the multitude of battles. They may win the day, but they'll lose the war. We have the opportunity to force an anti-zerg meta by following just this type of tactic. People will do what they need to do to win....or just loose and look like assbutts.

Columba

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Pvp population is lower now than before.

lol. if you play at 3 am?

Zed

Columba wrote: »

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Pvp population is lower now than before.

lol. if you play at 3 am?

Thornblade during oceanic prime time can be pretty empty. It used to be fairly active but not so much recently. Can't say when @heng14rwb17_ESO plays though.

Domander

smassareub17_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@c0rp Siege damage vs. Players and Walls/Doors are next on the list to look into after the dust of Forward Camps settles. As I'm sure everyone in this thread and the Alliance War thread knows as a whole, moving one piece in the jenga castle of Cyrodiil isn't as easy as it always sounds

Semfim wrote: »

diskiukas wrote: »

That is very bad change, that only benefits only all you awesome players from awesome guilds. Casual players, that actually keep this game afloat, since they are biggest contributor to sub fees will not want to die over and over. Yes , I know you going to say -learn to play, spend 7 hours every day to study all skills and which works or not in PVP, find a group etc, but that is not that casuals going to do. If you think that they will stay just for the horse ride, I suggest you think again. I enjoyed PVP so far immensely, Maybe I am wrong and it'll turn to be great change, however I don't see it.

Not really. The big problem with PvP before this patch was that big trains of said not casual players would blood port where ever there was a menace. Where I play (hello Azura EU) a very organized guild just storms every single move made against their faction using blood porting. It's not like the opponents don't use blood porting but the more time stronger groups need getting to places where the action is greater are the chances of PUG's to do something meaningful. The practical uses of this include 2 groups attacking very distant but important keeps and have the big players go to one place and not being able to prevent the other group from succeding.

I still havent played the new patch but I'm waiting for good times. I literally hated the mechanics of "we need to be somewhere fast, everyone suicide at a enemy resource, OH AND DONT FORGET NOT TO USE SKILLS SO THE WE DONT TAKE THE RESOURCE"... Gankers will also have a use, not just being a fast travel mechanism.

Of course I know that keep attacks be riskier, mainly with the crazy NPC's that detect stealthed chars from miles away, take a bunch of non elite people to take down and mostly make it easier to defend than to attack. But i feel the game now will be more leveled and will allow for strategies other than best builds and group synergies.

Everyone "dies" in the PVP area. Just wait ....after your tenth death....and you are riding yet again to be with your group.....and you have lost tons of AP cause you are not with your group.....oh, and you get pulled off your horse again!~ not so much to look forward to is there?

Tintinabula wrote: »

so yea..even people who are fine with it are admitting they're having to totally rebuild their char and rotations...

This is a RIFT ackward bass way of forcing your client base to respec every month in order to keep them a little longer and draw out their sub.

If you think that's bad, just wait until next update, and then the champion system.

sigh, hopefully it won't be bad. I like where the game is now, if they just add to it, it would be great.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

@Rylana‌ and @Insurrektion‌

I think this is an interesting discussion. One that has been brought by the removal of FC and is a compliment to that change.
We wouldn't have any opportunity to disagree as the FC's best use was way too straightforward and boring.

My comment about offense being the best defense was more about how people believe they have to use scouts or "man the walls" and wait for attackers to show up now that FCs are gone.

This is wrong and a remnant of the old meta of being able to pile all the population of a campaign in one or two fights.

All you have to do is man the frontlines, and keep the fights active rather than wait.
Groups should spread themsleves out and keep the fights going on their frontline, applying pressure and having reserve groups switching lines to create local contexts with an advantage.

Think about mobas and how you have various lane, with junglers and support units. Imagine that now at a larger scale with each unit being a group of organized players and the creep being the solo players holding the front.

It's also more advantageous to fight in the field rather than let the enemy get to your walls, as you keep the transitus up longer. If you fail, you still have a second chance either trhough the transitus, or through falling back to man your walls. If you win, you're already half way to the opposing keep and can get there before they have time to fully regroup.

Anazasi

On Thorn, the removal of camps has not impacted lag, zerg-balls, or the rebirth of small scale pvp. The removal of camps has only instituted a moratorium on low population factions.

JamilaRaj

Lfehova wrote: »

Tintinabula wrote: »

why it won't save PvP: They're being brought back

Yeah well the alterations to forward camps that wheeler was talking about, will actually achieve the same purpose the removal was supposed to cause. But add in some sense of instant gratification for the call of duty generation. The key alteration being a global cooldown on spawning at a fwc.

Except that key alteration is not all that important for several reasons:
1) One free res is enough to render traps or some unexpected attacks again pointless, because even if executed well, wiped out enemies will have second attempt instead of you being granted time to e.g. cap or repair.
2) It is also enough to encourage people to launch risky or rather borderline idiotic attacks, because there will be in fact no risk. This will become meta, they will base their attacks on it.
3) Cooldown does not matter. If they make it something between 60-90 seconds, for it to be obviously shorter than travel time of 2mins (which may be actually longer but that is the only number readily available) and, more importantly, not to make people bitching about Elder Cavalry Online just start bitching about Elder Lying On The Ground Online instead, fighting any player capable of surviving close to that, which is not a great feat, will be completely pointless too, because he will be back on you in full strength before you will say "cannot swap weapons now".

Thechemicals

Im learning that for the most part, you cant teach most players strategy and organization. People want to have fun and not have to think about tactics, just move move move. For this reason, maybe forward camps should be restored to a limited level. Perhaps only vr14 can set them and only at a resource.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

Thechemicals wrote: »

Im learning that for the most part, you cant teach most players strategy and organization. People want to have fun and not have to think about tactics, just move move move. For this reason, maybe forward camps should be restored to a limited level. Perhaps only vr14 can set them and only at a resource.

It is not an excuse.
You can teach some players, and this subpart of the population is worth trying to reach. Give players a game they can sink their teeth in and they'll remain interested and involved with the game for far longer than if they could just have to "move move move".

Because if you want move move move, you can just play chivalry or planetside 2.
But for strategy, there can only be ESO if it stay its course of improving the game.