Non Vet Campaign - NA (It's like playing PvP on game's release)

kijima

This is a little bit of a read, but if you think PvP is stale right now, I have an answer for you.

This is just my humble view from someone that loves ESO and has played since early Beta, and has done everything you can do in game, plenty of PvE and PvP, and I'd call myself an average player with the occasional showing of brilliance!

So, I played for a few hours last night on the non-vet campaign as I was bored, all I can say is...how refreshing compared to the laggy, grinding feeling of current PvP. Cured my boredom very quickly.

I say refreshing, because as a non veteran rank, you don't have access to every skill like a VR14 does, and it's for that sole reason it's a whole lotta fun. Let me explain.

No one is Over powered... no one!

Your not finding Sorcs spamming Bolt escape or elemental ring, and your not fighting snipe from every direction or being one/two shot, and you don't have unkillable DK's with flappy flap coupled with green dragon blood and there are very few vamps around. Didn't see one bat swarm... at... all!

Hell, even with my paper mache Sorc running no impen, just green crafted gear that is about 10 levels below my current level, I was able to 1v1 an equal levelled DK like it wasn't a death sentence. No Lag to speak of what-so-ever and I found myself greatly enjoying the game, so much so I was up till 2:30am playing when I had work the next day. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I haven't done that before playing ESO, but not recently! Not in the last 3 months truth be told. PvP doesn't hold my attention like it used to, not so on the Non Vet Campaign, had an absolute blast!

So, I've told you what I didn't have, how about what I did have? Well, I had a few friendly tell's after I killed a few people, one of which wanted a re-match which I gladly accepted (got him a second time too, but it was close) and this was brilliant, great attitudes by most and all in all no douchebagery anywhere.

For those of you who didn't play in Beta, non vet campaign is pretty much how Cyrodiil felt when the game started, PvP's glory days if you will, obviously with lots of people though And for those that did play in Beta, you'd remember how much fun Cyrodiil was, and I gotta say this is exactly the same right now, just without numbers.

And this is the part of this thread which is important, Plenty of people are complaining about the current state of PvP, lag, balance etc yet no one is playing non-vet campaigns where none of this is a problem.
If you are sick of the grindy and flat feeling of Cyrodiil, come over to the non-vet campaign! This is the fix for PvP.

Now, I know that PvP'ers that are end gamers will say things like this is stupid, and this isn't a fix for PvP, well your right, it isn't but it's the best option you have in front of you right now. Sure, some will say that I don't want to play with a toon that I haven't invested heavily in ra ra ra, and I want to play at the high end of the game, with highly skilled players yada yada yada. I get all of that, and I'd agree mostly but do yourself a favor and give it a go if you haven't all ready. You may well be suprized with what you'll find. I know I was pleasantly suprized.

The NA non-veteran campaign needs more people playing, that's it in a tea cup. My advice to ZOS would be, stop all entry of non-vets into vet campaigns period as that should boost numbers a little, and maybe a small nerf to NPC's too ZOS, currently some of them are dealing out a little too much damage IMHO.

That's it, I'm done for now. Although I'm thinking I might start up a non-veteran guild now.

Rylana

Currently playing blackwater on my fifth toon to do so.

Been there since it came out and it has been the most fun PvP ongoing since the campaigns flipped over back in 1.3.

There are three main issues
- A core group of BB players formed a guild and faction flip together constantly to try to emperor farm, which pretty much imbalances it every time they do it
- The NPC guards make life a living hell for offense
- The loss of forward camps really hurt this campaign, because of the above reason. Literal archer guard one shots are common, most people dont have a leveled up horse, and some dont have a horse at all so time just sinks harder

Other than that, best PvP out there, but do be a DK in the near term, the bowspam is real.

Bouvin

In other words, time to start twinking toons.

I can see the level 20 DK LA Vampires flooding in soon.

kijima

Rylana, agreed with your points you've made.

- NPC's deal too much damage too quickly for non veterans
- Need camps because death from NPC can come swiftly and most non veterans don't have a fast horse or have bothered to unlock things like rapid maneuvers etc.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌ I'm sure you've got a lot on your plate with PvP at the moment given the forum, but you could use the non-veteran campaign as a decent PvP building block for both newcomers and stalwarts alike.

Just a thought.

Cody

Blackwater blade is very fun. If it was not for its low population, it would probably be the best campaign in the game to play in.

The only problem, is that some people(like me) don't feel good about ourselves unless we can take on vet level players.

saintmurray

I love this post. As a person who onlys pvps its great to have a break and I dont really enjoy the pve in this game... If was going to ask for a few things for the non vet campaign they would be

-The option to turn off leveling (still collect xp, just have it counted until you turn leveling on again then have it awarded at that time)

-The availability of pvp sets from vendors (The same as the other ones just scaled say 30,40,45,49)

-V1 npcs (currently it is nearly impossible unless you have a large group to take resources etc)

Surely these changes wouldn't be too hard to implement, particularly the NPCs part.

kijima

Bouvin wrote: »

In other words, time to start twinking toons.

I can see the level 20 DK LA Vampires flooding in soon.

Lol, yeah I can see a few people thinking of some trick builds that wouldn't take to long to cobble together for some fun in PvP.

You could over invest in a toon for the non-veteran campaign, yellow crafted gear, spaz enchants etc but it would be all over very quickly.

Don't think your going to find a DK that can tick all the boxes at level 20 though

k2blader

By playing non-vet, do you mean there are enough people on all factions to actively pursue objectives, e.g. take keeps & scrolls? If it's just dueling or waiting to see where little swords pop up on the map, meh. Also, last I set foot in non-vet there were too many exploiters and twinks such that they didn't make for fun fights, imo.

kijima

Taking a resource is hard graft when you are pre-vet in small numbers, taking a keep is harder, unless you have a group in numbers it's impossible.

As far as exploiters, what exactly did you see?

Cody

k2blader wrote: »

By playing non-vet, do you mean there are enough people on all factions to actively pursue objectives, e.g. take keeps & scrolls? If it's just dueling or waiting to see where little swords pop up on the map, meh. Also, last I set foot in non-vet there were too many exploiters and twinks such that they didn't make for fun fights, imo.

exploiters? I played BB for 3 months straight on the same character(PvP levels slow as heck) what exploits?

KBKB

kijima wrote: »

Rylana, agreed with your points you've made.

- NPC's deal too much damage too quickly for non veterans
- Need camps because death from NPC can come swiftly and most non veterans don't have a fast horse or have bothered to unlock things like rapid maneuvers etc.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌ I'm sure you've got a lot on your plate with PvP at the moment given the forum, but you could use the non-veteran campaign as a decent PvP building block for both newcomers and stalwarts alike.

Just a thought.

He is hiding under a rock these days, people woke up to the fact he is actually doing a pretty terrible job.

JamilaRaj

Rylana wrote: »

- The NPC guards make life a living hell for offense
- The loss of forward camps really hurt this campaign, because of the above reason. Literal archer guard one shots are common, most people dont have a leveled up horse, and some dont have a horse at all so time just sinks harder

This is however in part why is the campaign so much fun.
- strong NPCs help reduce off-hours capping
- strong NPCs punish leeeeroys without mercy
- impact of camps had been already moderated to a degree by relatively low AP gains (thanks to BWB being low pop campaign) and staggering numbers of fatalities (again thanks to guards fighting noob raids with utmost valour), though many poured in camps from their vet toons and gameplay still revolved around camps
- then they went away completely and...death matters (thank you too, slow lazy horses)

Two other factors that contribute too, just for completness:
- low magicka/stamina regen, no skill spam - one makes his five or so attacks and that is it for good 4-6 seconds
- relatively high damage from siege engines to players, compared to theirs stats and ability to heal


ZOS really should stop and think what makes this campaign intriguing and vet campaigns suck.

Rylana

Yeah but death in Blackwater is a little too easy, especially considering one person can literally defend an outpost, resource, or keep solo with a single piece of siege more times than not.

Serious balance issue there, and most lowbies dont have purge or purifying ritual unlocked yet. Its not even L2P at that point, its "dont have the skills yet so im boned"

If anything they need to either increase health another 500 or so for everyone (2405 would be much more on par with what we have in vet campaigns as a baseline and would eliminate the one shot archer guard problem) or create a separate instance campaign with old level 50 guards.

I took my DC DK on there a week ago, sat on the Roebeck farm and killed 15 people all at the same time with 2 fire ballista shots and a standard, completely on my own. Isnt that more than a little broken you think?

14k AP in 30 seconds. Not because my char is twinked badass or that I am something super special, but because I knew full well that the DoTs from 2 fire ballistas and the tick/healcut from a standard on that flag would annihilate 1905 health almost instantly, regardless of healing springs/etc.

Add in the guards and its academic at that point. I wont even go into what happened at Bleakers back in August that led to my emperor reign on the red side. Lets just say 1 hour solo at bleakers, 90k or so AP. No one else was on to defend (or didnt bother showing up), so there ya go. The fact I was able to generate enough kills by myself with just a bunch of v5 guards to get 90k AP in an hour should speak volumes. Players need better survivability overall there, from both siege and guards.

Little wonder I can pretty much show up on the campaign and get first place at whim because I know this fact. Anyone whos been around a while know the tricks, too.

Vilestride

I think one major factor with what some may be perceiving as fun PvP in the non vet campaign as opposed to normal ones, is that there are less large and organized guilds rolling around. This creates both lag and game congestion that leads to very stale repetitive objectives and fights.

That being said you can't say no grouping or guilding, but rather than everyone just play non vet campaign we need to more-so focus on what makes it fun and apply these things to the other campaigns as best as possible.

Rylana

Giahh wrote: »

I think one major factor with what some may be perceiving as fun PvP in the non vet campaign as opposed to normal ones, is that there are less large and organized guilds rolling around. This creates both lag and game congestion that leads to very stale repetitive objectives and fights.

That being said you can't say no grouping or guilding, but rather than everyone just play non vet campaign we need to more-so focus on what makes it fun and apply these things to the other campaigns as best as possible.

Dont get me wrong, my only beef with the campaign is the guard/siege issue. Besides that the campaign is pretty much perfect. Classes and skills feel balanced. There are no super synergies from stacking max rank undaunted+guild+class+alliance passives and skills. All in all the actual fighting is more on par with what youd actually expect to happen.

I really wish more people would come and just play it, not to build a superstack or try to dominate the campaign, but just to mess about and have a good time. the whole reason the superstacks/bomb groups exist is due to minmaxed overpowered when used together synergies and ultimate stacking.

Cant get that here.

Psilent

Making a Sorc DC side to play over on BWB. Should be fun!

JamilaRaj

Rylana wrote: »

I took my DC DK on there a week ago, sat on the Roebeck farm and killed 15 people all at the same time with 2 fire ballista shots and a standard, completely on my own. Isnt that more than a little broken you think?

Not really, because even though defending is easier, groups of 15 can and do conquer defended whatever.

Rylana wrote: »

Add in the guards and its academic at that point. I wont even go into what happened at Bleakers back in August that led to my emperor reign on the red side. Lets just say 1 hour solo at bleakers, 90k or so AP. No one else was on to defend (or didnt bother showing up), so there ya go. The fact I was able to generate enough kills by myself with just a bunch of v5 guards to get 90k AP in an hour should speak volumes.

Not about guards.

Grim13

Yeah, the Guards are ridiculous.

One of the easiest ways to defend a Keep or Resource is to sit back and heal the NPCs, lol.

Dirty but effective. Less AP, though.

david.haypreub18_ESO

Non-vet PvP is the bomb!

I'm not sure I would like the return of forward camps, but I do wholeheartedly agree that the guards need to be toned down.

Urai

david.haypreub18_ESO wrote: »

Non-vet PvP is the bomb!

(EU)
Yes and I went to see how it goes in non vet with some lvl 38 DK I had ,collecting dust at loading screen, It was and 'is' kind of fun until the point I found a VR1 healing everyone up to max...aaaannnnd there we go again...

kijima

The VR1 might have leveled up from 50 while in Cyrodiil, it does happen. All that means is, when he/she logs out, that will be their final time they will be allowed to compete in that campaign.

Urai

Not that it's of any importance, had a chat with him/her he was definitely planning to stay kinda had the feeling he did it for a while actually....but say no more! the disease is already there...

IxSTALKERxI

I actually started leveling a lowbie character specifically to play in Blackwater Blade. I'll see you there soon.

Sotha_Sil

We know it's great but... I want the same with my VR14 character...

Lilarna

There's only so much you can stay logged on you know ^^ This vtr 1 is bound to sleep one day lol (and no, autorun won't keep you logged)

As for the level of guards, I think it's partly the key of what makes the place a real challenge. We all know that beyond 10 veteran players in vet campaigns, the npcs in a keep are as good as absent in a lot of situations, it's not them that will mlake the difference since good players know the mechanics to be close to unharmed by them (DKs keeping aggro on guards & using scales + immovable for example).

On non-vet campaign, yes, you can wipe 15 players who don't know how to roll dodge out of obvious red circles from siege, who will stand in front of a breach that you're defensively firing at, and who will stand waiting for death inside the Standard of Mijht you planted, sure.
However, if they are smart, it will not happen this way. They will pull out the npcs one by one to eradicate them, dodge or stay away from the red siege circles, and not rush in to try and cap a keep while being meatbagged, etc etc.

At least, the keeps are not just some casual environment esthetic change, but represent a real advantage to hold.

I just pray for having vtr 12 or even vtr 14 npcs in Cyrodiil "normal" campaigns ! Instead of these ridiculously outlevelled trash mobs that they present to us as soldiers of the Covenant or whichever traitor alliance !

Rylana

See this is why we cant have nice things. Log in to BB tonight, see it has reset, start doing my usual thing, fixing up the place, killing some people, claiming some keeps, just doing cyrodiil

The moment i hit the top of the leaderboard people get all buttmad. Why? I am starting to think people dont like it when I am number 1 or something =/

Not that they werent doing the exact same thing, right? Climbing dem boards, they were just a little upset someone got ahead of their sense of entitlement. (not to mention the primary antagonist has been trying so hard for months to get emp on so many different toons on different campaigns, he just cant stand it I guess? maybe stop logging on to the "winning faction of the week" and just play the game)

I mean I heard EP was about to crown emp, so I decided to play AD this time around, always playing the underdog as usual.

Why must this emp thing be so bloody important to people that it divides the faction and causes such ruckus. Ah well, I shall be back for more. This marks the sixth time ive gotten to the top, there will be a seventh >=]

That being said, the community regulars from months past have gotten quite toxic it seems. "hurr durr we wont push you because it should be me blahblahblah" K then. Implying I expected anything resembling a push anyway, considering you were trying to nightcap the map and EP wont have any of it come tomorrow.

I do get it though, some of you view BB as an emp farming playground. Got some news for you, BB has only had about 10 or 12 total emperors in its entire six month lifespan. Might not want to worry about it so much. That ring is an absolute nightmare to cap, not to mention there is no one faction to rule them all, so they will be defended. Just a heads up.

kijima

Rylana, have you been told your awesome today?

Gankimus

Gankimus and his merry band of murderers have ALTs that run in BWB on a regular basis. DIG has been running AD non-vet for some time and Gank admits that he enjoys it thoroughly. The NPCs are challenging, requiring more care and organization and pushing a keep without camps is a difficult task. Most engaging and interesting, or so this one thinks.

There have been balance issues in the past and, unlike the vet-campaigns, if BWB turns all yellow for a week or two and gets boring Gank cannot easily move to another campaign where the action is better. So, Gank and some of his friends rolled DC ALTs and spent some time fighting against our own raid leaders. Like dueling for raids, it was most entertaining and educational. No Emps were flipped, because that is icky exploity and Gank does not approve, but this exercise did help to re-balance a boring campaign as well as advance our PvP game.

Joy_Division

Backwater Blade has the potential to be that nostalgic Beta PVP experience that we recall for many of the reasons the OP lists. But:

1) The population is too small and it is hard to find fights. There is no getting around this. Beta PvP had hundreds of players on each side. In BB, you are lucky to get a few dozen.

2) Trying to take an enemy keep is an exercise in frustration. Really listen to the tone of people's voices next time you are on teamspeak after a failure: the sound of dejection you hear is the product of multiple failures of a raid of 24 lowbies trying to overcome OP guards, 14 enemies with the natural advantage of defense, and siege weapons that can one-shot. I get it, taking keeps should be a difficult proposition. But because of the low population and inherent weakness in non-vet characters, it is *very* difficult to mobilize the amount firepower and staying power necessary to accomplish the task.

3) The political element seems much more prevalent here than in the other campaigns. If I log onto Thornblade, I can just fight and more or less whatever Epeen issues are going on inter or intra factions are irrelevant because there are fights everyone and there are so many players that a single guild or a single player cannot skew the game's mechanics to crown themselves emperor. BB has cross faction alts, low populations, and if you thought the (exaggerated) cross-faction cooperation was a problem in Vet campaigns, just wait until you log into BB and see two different colors fighting side by side against you.

Samwell Slayer

Rylana wrote: »

See this is why we cant have nice things. Log in to BB tonight, see it has reset, start doing my usual thing, fixing up the place, killing some people, claiming some keeps, just doing cyrodiil

The moment i hit the top of the leaderboard people get all buttmad. Why? I am starting to think people dont like it when I am number 1 or something =/

Not that they werent doing the exact same thing, right? Climbing dem boards, they were just a little upset someone got ahead of their sense of entitlement. (not to mention the primary antagonist has been trying so hard for months to get emp on so many different toons on different campaigns, he just cant stand it I guess? maybe stop logging on to the "winning faction of the week" and just play the game)

I mean I heard EP was about to crown emp, so I decided to play AD this time around, always playing the underdog as usual.

Why must this emp thing be so bloody important to people that it divides the faction and causes such ruckus. Ah well, I shall be back for more. This marks the sixth time ive gotten to the top, there will be a seventh >=]

That being said, the community regulars from months past have gotten quite toxic it seems. "hurr durr we wont push you because it should be me blahblahblah" K then. Implying I expected anything resembling a push anyway, considering you were trying to nightcap the map and EP wont have any of it come tomorrow.

I do get it though, some of you view BB as an emp farming playground. Got some news for you, BB has only had about 10 or 12 total emperors in its entire six month lifespan. Might not want to worry about it so much. That ring is an absolute nightmare to cap, not to mention there is no one faction to rule them all, so they will be defended. Just a heads up.

You're talking about me, and it seems both of your major points are wrong and misleading.

1) I was not pissy, I was suggesting that you would be more likely to generate support for an emp push if you were seen fighting instead of earning all of your AP repairing. This impression is based on first hand experience considering what numerous people were saying to me in TS. You earned all of your AP from repairing, not fighting.

2) Never switched to a stronger side. I've always switched to a weaker side. I moved to yellow and then red as soon as all the reds went DC. I was yellow the day Dark Rubixy was crowned emp. I went over to blue after it had been several days, DAYS, since the last time they had taken a resource.

3) How can you say that you went to the weaker side and I went to the stronger side when WE WERE PLAYING ON THE SAME SIDE?

Samwell Slayer

You also called the scroll push hopeless, and we ended up getting the scroll about 30 minutes later. Not the kind of thing you say to people if you expect them to want to push you for emp.