Thornblade - the most competitive NA campaign?

Blud

Looks like EP wins again.

imgur.com/gallery/yVcVYPM/new

Sypher

EP has a bigger/consistent presence on the server compared to the other two alliances.

Can't blame them, it's up to ZOS to facilitate population/scoring to make it even. Not the players responsibility.

Blud

Sypher wrote: »

...t's up to ZOS to facilitate population/scoring to make it even. Not the players responsibility.

How do you think this could be done?

Columba

amazing what lagging out the server can do for you!

Blud

I agree with Sypher and I'm not blaming EP players. I play AD and our faction was dominant at the beginning. Seems like a long time ago, now, though.

There just needs to be some way to make Cyro more fun for all the players. I wouldn't have much fun as EP if our victory was always assured and we almost always had more people on.

I would just like to know what can be done. Any ideas?

RedTalon

Until there is a way to draw interest besides faction a steamrolls everything, then another faction steam rolls stuff. Not sure what can be done, its being going in circles from day one which faction is steam rolling the others.

With no new updates after the next one till the end of the year based on what is being said, not sure what all can be done at this point to make faction play more even, may get more solid numbers across the board when update six goes live people testing out how things work when everything is finished final patches to the update done before it hits live. but beyond that see nothing to balance pops or incentives to do so in the near future.

Angavar

Already responded in the nightcapping thread, but same applies here. Some kind of dynamic pop lock for when one faction greatly outnumbers the others in off peak times, or scaling guard/keep/player hp for the underpopulated factions would go a long way in keeping campaigns competitive.

Some kind of input or comment from the devs would be awesome, are they aware of these issues? Do they have any plans to implement a solution in the near future?

Reverb

Angavar wrote: »

Some kind of input or comment from the devs would be awesome, are they aware of these issues? Do they have any plans to implement a solution in the near future?

We have been given no reason to believe that ZoS considers population imbalance to be an issue, and certainly no reason to believe that they ever intend to do anything about it.

Angavar

I seem to remember seeing a quote recently saying they were looking into it, but don't think it was on the forums. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Blud

Angavar wrote: »

Some kind of input or comment from the devs would be awesome, are they aware of these issues? Do they have any plans to implement a solution in the near future?

I would imagine that they know about it. They would say something if they had plans to do anything.

It could be that they are waiting for a hopefully huge influx of players after March 17, which would fill up all the campaigns and make faction balance a moot point.

Who knows?

Will the console players be playing on the same megaservers as PC players? If so, we could get more pop all around and have universal queue times --which I would prefer to current situation.

Angavar

No, consoles will have their own megaservers. But I agree about the b2p transition, they may be holding out to see if it fixes the pop imbalances.

Still, that's 2 campaigns away, and this is pretty game breaking for those of us who are AD and DC playing off peak times daily. For the 'most competitive' campaign, that score is a joke.

Blud

I agree. I haven't had much motivation to go in there for the last couple of campaigns. I'm sure I'm not alone.

AvA is the main endgame for a lot of people, so I hope something changes.

Sallington

I wish they would give us exact numbers for current faction populations, because the 3-bar/lock system is a terrible representation.

There's been many, many time where there's a lock on DC, but I get in right away with no queue. Would it be hard to just show us the real numbers?

SoulScream

I've been bouncing around camps to find pvp I like and have fun. When one side even my own gets a huge zerg going I go elsewhere.

ZOS posted long ago lock shows at 90% of max.

Vorpan

I have a feeling that when the game goes B2P new players will ask which alliance is more dominant in PVP, and just go there.

Blud

Vorpan wrote: »

I have a feeling that when the game goes B2P new players will ask which alliance is more dominant in PVP, and just go there.

People even re-roll once they have vet characters.

I'm just guessing, but I think a lot of the pvpers that didn't buy the Imperial edition wanted to roll Dunmer DKs. And maybe a lot of Skyrim fans wanted to roll Nords. Maybe that's why EP has such a huge population.

And with pve players wanting their buffs, I'm sure it's also a lot easier to just roll EP.

Suru

Thorneblade Timeline (this cycle)

1. Begining is competitive to the best of AD, and DC's ability
2. DC lackluster since a relatively core group of DC players getting emperor, farming haderus carebears, and lack of tolerance for Thornblade Lag
3. DC tries their best
4. AD groups follow suit halfway through, get some players well deserved emperorships and to overall have more fun than on thornblade
5. Thornblade still competitive in points between AD and DC
6. AD as a whole doing the best they can to fight EP even tho we cannot match their numbers and maintaining second place

It is competitive, and we can try our best, its just unfortunate when you know you will be playing for second place, a week into the campaign. ZoS could do somthing about this, but overall it was the decision for many players to partake in a mass exodus to EP, as well which created an unforeseen pop imbalance which we can try and deal with in terms of organization. Already seeing new AD groups in thorn which I am excited about

WRX

See you guys there next campaign

Blud

Suru wrote: »

Thorneblade Timeline (this cycle)

1. Begining is competitive to the best of AD, and DC's ability
2. DC lackluster since a relatively core group of DC players getting emperor, farming haderus carebears, and lack of tolerance for Thornblade Lag
3. DC tries their best
4. AD groups follow suit halfway through and get some players well deserved emperorships and to overall have more fun than on thornblade
5. Thornblade still competitive in points between AD and DC
6. AD as a whole doing the best they can to fight EP even tho we cannot match their numbers and maintaining second place

It is competitive, and we can try our best, its just unfortunate when you know you will be playing for second place, a week into the campaign. ZoS could do somthing about this, but overall it was the decision for many players to partake in a mass exodus to EP, as well which created an unforeseen pop imbalance which we can try and deal with in terms of organization. Already seeing new AD groups in thorn which I am excited about

Eventually some of the real pvpers in EP will get bored and re-roll to DC and AD to get more of a challenge.

Columba

Blud wrote: »

Suru wrote: »

Thorneblade Timeline (this cycle)

1. Begining is competitive to the best of AD, and DC's ability
2. DC lackluster since a relatively core group of DC players getting emperor, farming haderus carebears, and lack of tolerance for Thornblade Lag
3. DC tries their best
4. AD groups follow suit halfway through and get some players well deserved emperorships and to overall have more fun than on thornblade
5. Thornblade still competitive in points between AD and DC
6. AD as a whole doing the best they can to fight EP even tho we cannot match their numbers and maintaining second place

It is competitive, and we can try our best, its just unfortunate when you know you will be playing for second place, a week into the campaign. ZoS could do somthing about this, but overall it was the decision for many players to partake in a mass exodus to EP, as well which created an unforeseen pop imbalance which we can try and deal with in terms of organization. Already seeing new AD groups in thorn which I am excited about

Eventually some of the real pvpers in EP will get bored and re-roll to DC and AD to get more of a challenge.

lol WHAT real pvprs on EP thorne? I haven't seen any.

Blud

Columba wrote: »

Blud wrote: »

Suru wrote: »

Thorneblade Timeline (this cycle)

1. Begining is competitive to the best of AD, and DC's ability
2. DC lackluster since a relatively core group of DC players getting emperor, farming haderus carebears, and lack of tolerance for Thornblade Lag
3. DC tries their best
4. AD groups follow suit halfway through and get some players well deserved emperorships and to overall have more fun than on thornblade
5. Thornblade still competitive in points between AD and DC
6. AD as a whole doing the best they can to fight EP even tho we cannot match their numbers and maintaining second place

It is competitive, and we can try our best, its just unfortunate when you know you will be playing for second place, a week into the campaign. ZoS could do somthing about this, but overall it was the decision for many players to partake in a mass exodus to EP, as well which created an unforeseen pop imbalance which we can try and deal with in terms of organization. Already seeing new AD groups in thorn which I am excited about

Eventually some of the real pvpers in EP will get bored and re-roll to DC and AD to get more of a challenge.

lol WHAT real pvprs on EP thorne? I haven't seen any.

I have.

Asgari

Blud wrote: »

Suru wrote: »

Thorneblade Timeline (this cycle)

1. Begining is competitive to the best of AD, and DC's ability
2. DC lackluster since a relatively core group of DC players getting emperor, farming haderus carebears, and lack of tolerance for Thornblade Lag
3. DC tries their best
4. AD groups follow suit halfway through and get some players well deserved emperorships and to overall have more fun than on thornblade
5. Thornblade still competitive in points between AD and DC
6. AD as a whole doing the best they can to fight EP even tho we cannot match their numbers and maintaining second place

It is competitive, and we can try our best, its just unfortunate when you know you will be playing for second place, a week into the campaign. ZoS could do somthing about this, but overall it was the decision for many players to partake in a mass exodus to EP, as well which created an unforeseen pop imbalance which we can try and deal with in terms of organization. Already seeing new AD groups in thorn which I am excited about

Eventually some of the real pvpers in EP will get bored and re-roll to DC and AD to get more of a challenge.

A lot of the EP are AD lol

AhPook_Is_Here

Vorpan wrote: »

I have a feeling that when the game goes B2P new players will ask which alliance is more dominant in PVP, and just go there.

Then you will be lucky as you will have a lot of low hanging fruit to eat. I was hoping they'd mostly go AD. I'm not sure anyone can really say though what will happen.

I think that when this campaign was close it was at its most entertaining. DC could have made a stronger effort, and was actually #1 for a few days this campaign. DC had a good shot at 2nd until a week ago when they threw it away slamming against an EP beyond their reach to give all of their points up to AD for I don't know what, spite? I was saddened to see a whole faction put their self-interest aside for whatever reason that still eludes me.

AD also could have won if they would have kept their initial momentum. They have shown they can put up numbers as large as EPs and even larger on some days when they have tightened their ranks to do it.

I think what it is with EP is we really have taken ownership of Thornblade. The PVPers here don't care about Azura's or any of the buff servers, this is our core focus. When things are quiet on TB we might hop off to another server to say hi, but we don't stay long. I don't feel like AD or DC have taken ownership of Thornblade, their interests lie at their buff servers, and that is fine but it dilutes your population at the defacto "official server of serious business competition".

Asgari

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Vorpan wrote: »

I have a feeling that when the game goes B2P new players will ask which alliance is more dominant in PVP, and just go there.

Then you will be lucky as you will have a lot of low hanging fruit to eat. I was hoping they'd mostly go AD. I'm not sure anyone can really say though what will happen.

I think that when this campaign was close it was at its most entertaining. DC could have made a stronger effort, and was actually #1 for a few days this campaign. DC had a good shot at 2nd until a week ago when they threw it away slamming against an EP beyond their reach to give all of their points up to AD for I don't know what, spite? I was saddened to see a whole faction put their self-interest aside for whatever reason that still eludes me.

AD also could have won if they would have kept their initial momentum. They have shown they can put up numbers as large as EPs and even larger on some days when they have tightened their ranks to do it.

I think what it is with EP is we really have taken ownership of Thornblade. The PVPers here don't care about Azura's or any of the buff servers, this is our core focus. When things are quiet on TB we might hop off to another server to say hi, but we don't stay long. I don't feel like AD or DC have taken ownership of Thornblade, their interests lie at their buff servers, and that is fine but it dilutes your population at the defacto "official server of serious business competition".

It's supposed to be 1v1v1 with the occasional 2v1. However, with how the pops sit it's like 10v1v.5 .. DC will not win a Thornblade ever; unless a massive pop increase occurs during off peak hours.

Roselle

It's hard to have momentum when "teaming up" becomes:

You cannot swap weapons now

You cannot swap weapons now
You cannot swap weapons now

Okay hold on let me hit escape---s**t double weapon swapped

I got this. S**t I'm by myself now. I don't got this.

driosketch

Angavar wrote: »

I seem to remember seeing a quote recently saying they were looking into it, but don't think it was on the forums. I'll see if I can dig it up.

From the tread asking what happened to Brian Wheeler.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Some of the things mentioned in the Summit (and on these forums) will be addressed in Update 6, such as Siege damage, keep wall health, and underscore bonus time frames in the 30 day campaigns. We're also adding Veteran 13 and 14 gear to the rewards you can receive in Cyrodiil, in Update 6.

We are well aware there are more things to address in Cyrodiil (making fights more meaningful and general population balance to name a few), but to be direct, our immediate primary focus is addressing the performance spikes. Granted, I don't know C++ and digging into the nitty-gritty of our net-code and engine, but we do have people that are working on this complex issue. I hear it every day, not just from you (the players) but internally too. We are working on it, and will continue to do so.

The population change was not something we did lightly and while the deer and torchbug nuke was seen as something a bit silly, it does help in the overall game performance in Cyrodiil. We know there are more recent concerns with population and finding fights, and we are looking at addressing those in the future as well. There are several changes in Update 6 with underlying systems to tweak and push performance to achieve improvements, and I know they are not nearly as fancy as new systems and new gear, but all of that is for nothing if performance is not up to par.

So, thank you for continuing to voice your concerns and suggestions. We do see them, and are dedicated to improving the PVP experience in ESO for all our current and future players.

See you all on the battlefield!

Minnesinger

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Vorpan wrote: »

I have a feeling that when the game goes B2P new players will ask which alliance is more dominant in PVP, and just go there.

Then you will be lucky as you will have a lot of low hanging fruit to eat. I was hoping they'd mostly go AD. I'm not sure anyone can really say though what will happen.

I think that when this campaign was close it was at its most entertaining. DC could have made a stronger effort, and was actually #1 for a few days this campaign. DC had a good shot at 2nd until a week ago when they threw it away slamming against an EP beyond their reach to give all of their points up to AD for I don't know what, spite? I was saddened to see a whole faction put their self-interest aside for whatever reason that still eludes me.

AD also could have won if they would have kept their initial momentum. They have shown they can put up numbers as large as EPs and even larger on some days when they have tightened their ranks to do it.

I think what it is with EP is we really have taken ownership of Thornblade. The PVPers here don't care about Azura's or any of the buff servers, this is our core focus. When things are quiet on TB we might hop off to another server to say hi, but we don't stay long. I don't feel like AD or DC have taken ownership of Thornblade, their interests lie at their buff servers, and that is fine but it dilutes your population at the defacto "official server of serious business competition".

Based on the popularity of Skyrim I am disagreeing with you. If all the new players choose what might feel like the easiest faction (and they follow what is the scoreline) they will play EP and Thornblade. Unlike a year ago when the huge population of AD was due to the many gaming communities that chose AD we have individual players. Of course, if these new players were aware of the current imbalance problems and they could be reasoned with they would play imbalanced Factions. But there is nothing like this planned.

What comes to Thornblade, I felt it was boring. The lack of DC made it easy for EP to focus on AD. Even if AD and DC had combined their effort EP had numbers to deal with it. Eventually, the numbers of AD diminished too. EP took the full advantage of the situation and pushed both factions to their base and kept all 6 scrolls and the Emperorship in many occassions. Hardly a competitive campaign.

Laggus

Vorpan wrote: »

I have a feeling that when the game goes B2P new players will ask which alliance is more dominant in PVP, and just go there.

When all 3 factions are pop locked I don't recall EP ever coming out on top during those times. So hopefully it will be more evenly balanced when the B2P people come along. If people want to join EP then and wait for 2 hours in a queue to get onto the campaign..fine by me.

Subtomik

You know what gets old as DC.

The constant crushing weight of numbers

The oceanic players that cap everything while we sleep because we have no real oceanic presence

The constant loss of our best pvpers to the games bugs, lag, and overall attrition.

The constant too many chiefs not enough Indians that plague zone

And this is on top of the lag, bugs etc that everyone plays with.

After 8-9 months of it you get worn out.

I had some of the best pvp since I started this game on the PTS fighting some of the best in the game, winning, losing, and loving every second of it.

It was intense, new, fresh peoples abilities changed every fight, tactics shifted, hardly no AOE, and a lot of these so called broken abilities were used and tested and nothing felt game breaking

I have a lot of hope for 1.6 I just hope they can add the pvp love we deserve before there are none of us left.

I know you guys for the most part realize 90% of my time here is me being a troll killing time or just shooting the bs, but this is my attempt at being serious.

You don't know how depressing it gets when people consider me an old school DC pvper when I was fighting the real ones on bloodthorn as an EP for months and I look at my guild roster and see people who haven't been on in 8 months that aren't much lower pvp rank than I am lol

Lava_Croft

For the Ebonheart Pact! \o/

LonePirate

Braidas wrote: »

ep nightcaps map, claims skill

Hmmm... I logged in this morning for mail and AD grabbed a fourth scroll and the final emperor keep. What is this EP nightcapping of which you speak? A typo perhaps?