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Some of the core issues remaining, and suggestions for fixes.
Obviously, these aren't all the issues existing at this time, but those I consider having the most ramification and impact on gameplay and/or those I have concrete solutions to offer.
I am not going to mention lag or bugs, as these are technical rather than design.
I'm going to stay on stuff that work "as intended" but should be improved.
Now that the intro is done, on to the list:
1) Population imbalance, guesting and buff campaigns:
This is by far the most destructive issue currently.
At its core, it's due to the lack of incentive to fight back when losing and the lack of incentives to fight at all when wining.
My suggestion is in this separate thread.
In short, it is to give Ap/Xp gains buffs when losing and fighting the wining side combined with buffs only offered when "active" and having contributed to the fight.
Please read on for more details.
2) The aoe target cap and the "stacking" it causes:
This has been a core issue for months now, and it doesn't need any more explaining. It simply needs to be gone.
A solution is being considered by the devs, but it cannot come soon enough.
It seems a lot like we're getting a soft cap implemented instead of a hard cap, but we'll see how it turns out.
My personal solution would have been to uncap all the 6 targets abilities, both damage and healing ones. With the current resource costs, radius and damage calculation, it will be fine.
And in case one or two abilities act up, they can be balanced on a case by case basis with interesting lore friendly mechanics.
3) Forward camps and spicing up travel time:
Not so much an issue, but more of a hot topic.
Removing forward camps was the right move. It has improved the game greatly and no forms of camps should ever return.
Those that are stockpiled should be destroyed and their Ap reimbursed.
Any form of instant travel outside of the transitus network is detrimental to AvA.
However, we could have forms of fast travels that would complement the structure of the game.
For instance:
- faster travel speed on roads that would also serve as a soft choke point.
- relays/inns on roads or in the npc towns where you can feed your horse to have a temporary speed buff to serve as side objectives that aren't keeps and give stuff for smaller forces to do.
- some alternate wooden bridges that can be built/destroyed by anyone to cut travel times and avoid the stone bridges, but costs AP to maintain.
All of which add depth and alternatives to the game without removing the possibility of emergent gameplay.
4) Armor balance, immovable and gear commitment:
I find the undaunted passive interesting albeit a bit weird. Buffing people for wearing the three kind of armors at the same time is strange.
The same way it is a bit weird that the armor actives can be cast without even wearing one piece of that armor, but I understand why.
They wanted to let us chose and perhaps have a bit of all and "play as we want".
The usual suggestion is to have active abilities being unlocked only when wearing 5 pieces of the armor.
A more complex change but perhaps remaining true to the original idea: You get exponential bonuses instead of linear with secondary effects starting at 5 pieces.
The max bonus is buffed to reward specialisation even more.
For instance with Immovable:
- the cc immunity is the secondary effect to the armor/spell pen increase and starts at 5 parts minimum.
- the damage increase of Immovable brute morph is:
0.5% - 1% - 3% - 6% - 10% - 15% - 21%
- the duration increase of Unstopable morph is:
1% - 2% - 4% - 8% - 16% - 32% - 64%
This way, wearing an entire set get's a real use out of the active abilities, but you can still mix and match effects at a lower efficiency.
Similar effects could be apply to more passives too.
5) Revives and soul gems:
I commend the fact that you listenned and implemented soul gems for AP very quickly. It is good to be able to buy them with the resource earned in PvP and as others have calculated in various threads, the price is right so as to no not wreck the gold based economy.
However, people still don't use it outside of their close group of friends and we see solo players getting ignored quite often.
A solution would be to give a very decent amount of XP for reviving someone:
- It would reinforce the Ap/gold sink aspect of this mechanic
- Solo/lower level players would get a better experience
- There would be a better sense of camaraderie faction wide rather than only groups
Of course, the revive xp bonus should only be awarded on PvP death, not Npc kills, and a malus based on the duration since last death should occur to prevent farming.
Thanks for reading.
Edited by frosth.darkomenb16_ESO on November 18, 2014 8:54AM I am not going to mention lag or bugs, as these are technical rather than design.
I'm going to stay on stuff that work "as intended" but should be improved.
Now that the intro is done, on to the list:
1) Population imbalance, guesting and buff campaigns:
This is by far the most destructive issue currently.
At its core, it's due to the lack of incentive to fight back when losing and the lack of incentives to fight at all when wining.
My suggestion is in this separate thread.
In short, it is to give Ap/Xp gains buffs when losing and fighting the wining side combined with buffs only offered when "active" and having contributed to the fight.
Please read on for more details.
2) The aoe target cap and the "stacking" it causes:
This has been a core issue for months now, and it doesn't need any more explaining. It simply needs to be gone.
A solution is being considered by the devs, but it cannot come soon enough.
It seems a lot like we're getting a soft cap implemented instead of a hard cap, but we'll see how it turns out.
My personal solution would have been to uncap all the 6 targets abilities, both damage and healing ones. With the current resource costs, radius and damage calculation, it will be fine.
And in case one or two abilities act up, they can be balanced on a case by case basis with interesting lore friendly mechanics.
3) Forward camps and spicing up travel time:
Not so much an issue, but more of a hot topic.
Removing forward camps was the right move. It has improved the game greatly and no forms of camps should ever return.
Those that are stockpiled should be destroyed and their Ap reimbursed.
Any form of instant travel outside of the transitus network is detrimental to AvA.
However, we could have forms of fast travels that would complement the structure of the game.
For instance:
- faster travel speed on roads that would also serve as a soft choke point.
- relays/inns on roads or in the npc towns where you can feed your horse to have a temporary speed buff to serve as side objectives that aren't keeps and give stuff for smaller forces to do.
- some alternate wooden bridges that can be built/destroyed by anyone to cut travel times and avoid the stone bridges, but costs AP to maintain.
All of which add depth and alternatives to the game without removing the possibility of emergent gameplay.
4) Armor balance, immovable and gear commitment:
I find the undaunted passive interesting albeit a bit weird. Buffing people for wearing the three kind of armors at the same time is strange.
The same way it is a bit weird that the armor actives can be cast without even wearing one piece of that armor, but I understand why.
They wanted to let us chose and perhaps have a bit of all and "play as we want".
The usual suggestion is to have active abilities being unlocked only when wearing 5 pieces of the armor.
A more complex change but perhaps remaining true to the original idea: You get exponential bonuses instead of linear with secondary effects starting at 5 pieces.
The max bonus is buffed to reward specialisation even more.
For instance with Immovable:
- the cc immunity is the secondary effect to the armor/spell pen increase and starts at 5 parts minimum.
- the damage increase of Immovable brute morph is:
0.5% - 1% - 3% - 6% - 10% - 15% - 21%
- the duration increase of Unstopable morph is:
1% - 2% - 4% - 8% - 16% - 32% - 64%
This way, wearing an entire set get's a real use out of the active abilities, but you can still mix and match effects at a lower efficiency.
Similar effects could be apply to more passives too.
5) Revives and soul gems:
I commend the fact that you listenned and implemented soul gems for AP very quickly. It is good to be able to buy them with the resource earned in PvP and as others have calculated in various threads, the price is right so as to no not wreck the gold based economy.
However, people still don't use it outside of their close group of friends and we see solo players getting ignored quite often.
A solution would be to give a very decent amount of XP for reviving someone:
- It would reinforce the Ap/gold sink aspect of this mechanic
- Solo/lower level players would get a better experience
- There would be a better sense of camaraderie faction wide rather than only groups
Of course, the revive xp bonus should only be awarded on PvP death, not Npc kills, and a malus based on the duration since last death should occur to prevent farming.
Thanks for reading.
4
-
Small bump.
Similar discussions occur in the various thread out there and I feel that a centralized version could be useful for the devs.
Any other suggestions or comments?0 -
Fix the lag
As I said, I was talking only about design choices, not technical one.
Although, removing the target cap would go a long way towards improving the lag for a lot of players.
ESO is like most massive games CPU bound ,and having a mechanic in game encouraging spaming of abilities is hard on both the servers and the clients.
It's not a silver bullet, but it would contribute.
But of course, the main motivation of this choice is gameplay wise, to add more varied and interesting gameplay.
ps: Edited the OP to add a fifth proposition about soulgems and their usage.
In short, they should give enough XP to motivate players to revive even those outside of their group.
Since XP are suposedly tracked in anticipation of the champion system, everyone needs it and it creates a great gold/ap sink and could improve the sense of belonging to a tightly knit faction.
You can never have enough positive interactions.0 -
Sleep✭✭✭✭My opinions:
1. Relative population cap, remove home campaign buff in PvE.
2. Remove lag and crash first.
5. Reviving costs Revivee a filled soul gem and gives reviver some AP. And make this AP unfarmable like killing the same enemy player over and over can't give much AP (that's what I heard of). So people will be more willing to revive others.0 -
My opinions:
1. Relative population cap, remove home campaign buff in PvE.
2. Remove lag and crash first.
5. Reviving costs Revivee a filled soul gem and gives reviver some AP. And make this AP unfarmable like killing the same enemy player over and over can't give much AP (that's what I heard of). So people will be more willing to revive others.
1. Relative population caps are not a solution. They would add more issues and make the one they are aimed at fixing worse. Take a look at some of the comments in the thread I posted for more explanation.
Also, the buffs in PvE are necessary and an intrinsic part of the RvR style of the game. they have to stay, but they have to be earned.
With balanced campaigns, there shouldn't be any faction at an advantage/disadvantage so they wouldn't be an issue for trials or things like that. It would just be an aspect of the game reinforcing the virtual world feel.
PvE, PvP and crafting should feed off one another.
2. This is part of removing the lag and crashes. The target cap is the biggest cause of lag currently in the game. It encourages spamming behaviors and creates everlsting fights that eventualy end up desynching the server.
5. Interesting. It could be a choice given to the players:
- If you use up the soulgem of the dead person, then you gain/spend nothing.
- If you use one of your soul gems, then you gain XP.
I believe it should remain XP rather than Ap, so that it remains a gold/ap sink.
It shouldn't end up paying for itself because we have nothing to spend Ap.
if it is a sizeable amount of xp, then it would be motivation enough to spend, which then would add to the motivation to fight, especially in light of the upcoming champion system.
It would also increase the demand for soulgems in the gold economy and it would be an easy way for newer players to make gold by filling up and selling gems on guild stores.0
