First off, I absolutely LOVE the idea of having skill trees for Aedra/Daedra worship! This is one of those forehead slapping moments where you wonder why this already isn't in the game.
So… I’m going to take what you have here and just RUN with it, ok? lol
While my gut reaction is to suggest that there be a strong single-player quest line component I must admit that the multiplayer component to this concept is interesting. I do think worshiping should be a much broader concept within ESO. Having the skill-lines is a really clever way to decide on the Daedra/Aedra you are worshiping. I DO think, however, that players who are worshiping a Daedra/Aedra should be able to pray to that Daedra/Aedra OUTSIDE of this system within Nirn once per day and that prayer will give the praying player a 24 hour buff and all players within this arena type system a temporary, diminishing buff of… 2 minutes or so.
I also think the passives for the skill-line should be active while out in Nirn in PVE, in Cyrodiil or wherever. I like the idea of your active skills “unlocking” once you enter these arenas in the service of your chosen Daedra/Aedra.
Also, I think earned points should diminish over time in the order in which they are placed. So, if you stop “worshiping” you eventually lose the blessings and perks. Once all your points have weaned, you may choose to worship another Daedra/Aerdra with no ill effect. If you choose to abandon your Daedra/Aedra before all your points are gone and you worship another Daedra/Aedra, you become a Blasphemer and you are cursed with some sort of debuff. The only way to remove this debuff is to spend points to lessen, and eventually break the curse… making it harder to build up the next skill line.
The battle types could be geared a bit more toward lore and worship. This is just ‘window-dressing’ sure, but it would help these matches from feeling out of place in the ESO universe. Here are a few examples to get the ‘feel’ of what I’m talking about.
Team Death Match = Mass Sacrifice : One team worships a Daedric prince and are trying to sacrifice the other team. The team that is being sacrificed can be made up of any mixture of other worshipers and must fight for their life. In this, ALL players on the sacrificing team will be worshiping the same Daedric Prince. Certain Daedric Princes would never be the tribute Daedra of these matches, such as Azura and Meridia. The slaughtering players could be granted random special gifts by their Prince. Perhaps, if certain conditions are met, the princes themselves might intervene, but would they be there to collect their sacrifices or punish their followers for a pitiful display of devotion?
Capture the Flag = The Sigil Feud: Players are trying to open/close portals to their respective/the opposing Daedric Prince’s realm. In the middle of the map a sigil stone awaits, dormant. The sigil stone can be taken and carried by any player and can be hidden and protected in temples while it’s dormant. Players can kill those with the sigil and the sigil returns if it is not in someone’s possession for 5 seconds (basic Capture the Flag Stuff).
- Daedric Worshipers: They must kill players of the opposing teams to fill their anchor pinion. Once the pinion is full, they can activate the pinion, opening their portal, and the Sigil Stone springs to life. Opposing teams must try to prevent the Sigil Stone from being brought through to the realm of Oblivion. Once a Daedric Oblivion portal is open, lesser Daedra pour through, aiding in the fight. The Sigil Stone must be in place in the Oblivion Plane for a certain amount of time for the portal to remain open (for the team to win). During this time players can steal the sigil stone and place it in their own Daedric Realm, if they’ve killed enough players to open it.
- Aedra Worshipers: Teams of Aedra worshipers will have temples in which they can store and hide the Sigil Stone. As the Aedra Worshipers kill the opposing teams the blessings on their temple increase and that team gains buffs and opposing teams get debuffs while in their temple. This is to balance the opposing gameplay of having additional creatures to fight while sieging an open oblivion gate. If the Aedra Worshipers are able to keep the Sigil Stone safe for a certain amount of time, their team wins.
- Each team would receive points for whatever they accomplished during the match. Matches always include at least one Daedric group and one Aedric group and can include up to 6 opposing teams. Players on the winning SIDE (Daedric worshipers or Aedric worshipers) get specific points too. This is so that if one team gains the upper hand, it might behoove the other worshipers to assist in the defense of the sigil to gain the extra bonuses… or they can be greedy and try to be the winning team to get the MOST points.
Anyway… you get the idea. There are many ways to flavor this type of game play specifically to the themes presented in ESO and the service to the Aedra or Daedra should always be clear and center stage.
I think this should take place outside of the faction war… HOWEVER, all of the followers of Daedra/Aedra that is the best worshiped (on the leaderboard) in these arena games will be granted a blessing IF the majority of players that are online, at that time, in their faction, worship that Daedra/Aedra. This COULD lead to multiple factions receiving the blessing at once. If that happens, I feel sorry for that 3rd faction. Yikes! This could be updated once an hour or so. These would be on TOP of the leaderboard buffs mentioned in OP.
Heretics: An independent group could be added at some point that is the “wild-card” in all of this. These players hold no allegiance and could have their own skill-tree of “Secular Abundance” They earn points if the side they chose to play for wins a match. Let’s introduce another game type to illustrate the role a Heretic can play:
Lamb to the Slaughter: 1 VS 1-24 (however many). In this game the one player is the sacrifice, the others are the worshipers. The sacrifice has as many lives as there are worshipers (eg: 24 lives). Each Worshiper has 1 life. If the worshiper all dies, the sacrifice wins! If the worshipers take all the sacrifice’s lives, the worshipers win!
Enter the Heretics: 3 Heretics enter the match. If the Heretics kill the Worshipers more than they kill the Sacrifice and the Sacrifice wins… so do they! If worshipers win… they loose.
- Heretics do NOT join sides prior to being in the match, their side is decided by their actions.
- Heretics are NOT on a team. Each Heretic is free to decide which team to play for and may need to kill opposing heretics
- The number of Heretics should equal no more than 1/4 of the total number of players in the match.
- Heretics never have a limited number of lives.
- A Heretic’s death has no impact on the match, one way or the other.
Oh and one last thing… we would absolutely need a game called:
TheWonderousWabbajackAttack: There are multiple Wabbjacks but only one is the REAL Wabbajack and the only way you know if it’s the real Wabbajack is to USE the Wabbajack. If you have a fake Wabbajack, it backfires and you become a chicken, a mudcrab, cheese, a goat, a sweetroll, a book, or you can heal yourself, a statue, a Dremora Lord (and you become bloody POWERFUL) or whatever else could happen (decapitation, explosion become nude… etc.).
If you have the real Wabbajack you can fire the Wabbajack at players and cause them to turn into any of the above mentioned. Players can also just outright fight. The way the match is scored is dependent on a dozen or so set of different rules and the player doesn’t know which set of rules by which they are playing. At the end of the match, old Sheo comes about to announce the winner, make everyone the winner, to kill everyone and there is no winner, or to fill all the empty slots in your inventory with moldy cheese.
I really love the groundwork you’ve laid here and I think it would be a really awesome addition to ESO with a frightening amount of possibilities. I also think this would be a perfect way to slowly roll out content. ZOS could introduce different play types gradually so that at first there is one type of match and then once every few months a new type of match could be introduced, expanding the gameplay.
I really hate to suggest this, but the ability to play the different game types COULD be sold in the crown store to tie this concept in with that monetizing agent. Any other (different) ideas on how ZOS can make money off of this concept would be MORE than welcomed.
xMovingTarget wrote: »It´s a good idea. And most likely brings back some fire to the PvP crowd. I do support that!
ZoS needs to make this happen since B2P is just around the corner and Cyro is going to be even worse of a lagfest than it is now once the flood of new Players starts pouring in there.
Paul later expanded further by adding:“We are still looking at plans for possible 'battlegrounds' being introduced to the game. Whether such content would be DLC (paid for expansion) or something we deliver in a normal update is not known at this time.”
There are some exciting possibilities in these two statements. Add-on authors using the available api for add-ons, have found some new strings within ESO 1.6.x that refer to these possible new game modes. Let’s look at a few now.“ESO Style battlegrounds. Currently looking at defined play times (12 minutes for example) with objectives centering around varying play-styles. Capture the flag, kill the Emperor, etc. These are all still in the exploratory phase.”
Classic capture the flag! Three flags spawn on each of the bridges which are owned by each Alliance by default. Capture the enemy flag while keeping yours safe! Flags cannot be taken into your home starter location.
Welcome to ESO's version of "Keep away!" A banner will spawn on the [direction] Bridge. Grab the banner to earn points over time for as long as you hold the banner. Banners cannot be carried into your starting location!
Capture multiple banners from around the map and bring them back to your target location! Capture locations are marked with crosshairs on your map! Flag captures result in points for your team and victory!
Three banners will spawn on each of the bridges. Grab any of the banners to earn points over time for as long as you hold the banner. Banners cannot be carried into your starting location.
Earn points over time for holding the flag. Capture the flag at your Alliance colored Tower to earn 50 points. Game ends at 500 points! Game requires 15 players to start!
Get the Flag in the middle. Kill people. Earn points for holding the flag as long as you can.
Here is a map for the potential “Balfiera Keep and Resources” Battle Ground: http://i.imgur.com/8DE4hxU.jpg
Balfiera Island is contested by all three alliances of Tamriel. It's a constant battlefield. Dangerous, yes, but this may be an advantage. Reinforcements are constantly being sent to Balfiera. You should have no problem joining up and shipping out with them.
Your friends in the Daggerfall Covenant would gladly send you to Balfiera Island. They always need more reinforcements for their war. Just ask for a battlemaster in one of your alliance cities.
The fight for Balfiera is more than just capturing the Fort at the center! There are many other aspects to war on this small slab of rock.
Battle Tasks are always running because the fight is always changing! Be on the lookout for flags that mark key locations to capture every fifteen to twenty minutes!
Fort Balfiera is fueled by support structures we call Resources. There are three of these per keep: a Farm, Mine and Lumbermill. Capture these to cripple the keep!
The Fort is the primary objective on this island. Capture Fort Balfiera, and our entire Covenant reaps the rewards both here on the island and abroad.
heroofnoneb14_ESO wrote: »Nice to see some things are in place for a lot of these ideas, but still want to see/hear more on the over all system and rewards and how this would tie into the AvAvA of Cyrodiil. Seems a lot of this is still faction locked, and is limited in scope.
**Long rant**SpoilerI remember a lot of this.... seeing the quake con footage, reading the responses and reading/listening to @ZOS_PaulSage 's statements regarding the future of pvp. It was promising to say the least. At this point a lot of us are 'settling' for pvp at its current inception. Not that it's a bad environment all the time, but it has become stale and at other times, cumbersome. Some people have become frustrated with the lack of development and the hiccups surrounding its shortcomings. This isn't because the pvp system is wholly bad, it's likely because a lot of us recognize the broad potential for more and have become frustrated with the less than luke-warm response ZOS have offered along with the lack of (perceived) easy fixes to certain mechanics.
We're all still here, we've paid our monthly $15, lots of us participated in beta. We still exhibit a true interest in the game, not just in its current state, but in all its possibilities as well. We're veterans, we're alumni. Our voice should count for something, but we need to use it in a constructive way.
Come early June, this game opens up to consoles. A date planned likely near, and around summer break (I don't know, I don't go to school anymore, but it seems about right). There will be an almost guaranteed influx of new players into this game, likely even bigger than next week's Tamriel Unlimited release.
That's when the timer starts.
People are going to eat through the content faster than ZOS's anticipations. Doesn't matter if they read every dialog line or not, some will, some won't, but it'll be a push and when they reach the end game, they're going to hit up PvP sooner or later, and they going to swiftly learn all the things us veterans and alumni already understand. Cyrodiil will not be a pretty place at that point if things do not change.
Like you stated earlier this evening to us in TS, PVP might consist of about 10% or so of the real player base. That's fine. But I can't imagine a company that's okay with frustrating even 1% of that base. The forums have become rife with toxic complaining, and I totally get that it probably polarizes the development team's interaction with the playerbase. We need to stand up and speak with a clear, mature and respectful tone. (obviously you do as much already with your contributions, it could stand that others attempt to do the same.)
ZOS had their guild summit a while back, and while it was a laudable approach, I think it was mostly efforts wasted. I don't think the communication was 'two way' enough, and I don't think the guild representation was honest to the common player. Most of the people here don't care what IR, No Mercy (what's left of them) Havoc, DiG, etc... think. (I'm using them as examples, not suggesting those were the names at said summit) Such prominent guilds have become synonymous with exploiters, cheaters, lag spammers, jaded people who do not properly represent the common everyday player. While they speak with a significantly louder voice, they do a poor job at maturely representing everyone's concerns, even if those concerns are shared and valid.
This post, the data mining, and, @ZOS_PaulSage 's very statements promises more than a hint of potential for things to come. I'm sure as a business they recognize the need to satisfy every last customer (because, at the end of the day, that is what we all are.). However, at the same time, we need to take a more constructive approach as well to ensure ZOS put this desired content on it's true 'to-do' list.
When 1.6 was on PTS there was a significant difference between the US and EU feedback. The overall EU tone offered more constructive feedback while most of US whined. Without splitting hairs over the cultural differences that likely contribute to either approach, at the end of the day, ZOS can only process so much feedback. They're likely to disregard the childish and insulting complaining and focus on the mature honest constructive criticism. I can almost guarantee that some things did not get fixed because of the insulting and immature way they were presented. It's human nature, we all do it. (Have you ever just just NOT return a phone call because you didn't like the tone of the message?)
The infrastructure for a better pvp system is obviously in place. we're all aware that ZOS is hesitant to release a thing that isn't 'well polished' (even if we may not agree with the considerations of that term). Cyrodiil is obviously a thing that isn't high up on their priority list, the re-launch and console launch is paramount at the moment. After that we know they're working on 5 PVE zones...
Generalizing here... Maybe, if we speak up clearly, maturely, and vocalize that we want more pvp content, Imperial city, arenas... if the smaller percentage making up the whole try to contribute and open a constructive dialog we can see this happen, right? Rather than venting frustrations in an immature way, or blatantly exploiting broken mechanics as a means of open defiance under the presumption that it'll gain the proper attention to the issue... rather than act in a petulant childish way we took a deep breath and spoke as adults.. .something might go our way for once.
Because honestly, if I were Paul Sage, and I dug through these forums and read the entitled childish complaining that some people try to pass off as constructive feedback... I'd let pvp rot in hell too.
This community has a lot of good ideas, we need to push harder, but respectfully to see them realized. We need to show ZOS how pvp can help them improve their product.
(holy hell, wall of text, I'm going to bed, no more whiskey)
Spottswoode wrote: »http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/122373/idea-cult-factions#latest
I came up with an idea that had something similar to this (although more designed to emulate the covenant system from Dark Souls) thoug I very much like this idea. Arena style combat would be signifcantly less hectic.
fassenkugelcub18_ESO wrote: »Nice work. Good ideas. But a single problem: nobody care with.just remember the eso is out a years ago but they still did not made usefull the dungeon finder, and thats why nobody use it... and still no real endgame content in the game. Now when they change to b2p i did not except anything new...
lol I was tagged into a sea of text!
I myself would never log into cyrodiil again if there was structured PvP. Tired of the FoTM broken builds, zergs, exploiters and just general ***.
Like I said last night though, the overall ROI on PvP is less than PvE for ZOS, so its ignored.
Simple math is simple.
lol I was tagged into a sea of text!
I myself would never log into cyrodiil again if there was structured PvP. Tired of the FoTM broken builds, zergs, exploiters and just general ***.
Like I said last night though, the overall ROI on PvP is less than PvE for ZOS, so its ignored.
Simple math is simple.
It would sort of starve the Faction War.... I personally don't care about cyrodiil now, so this idea would gain my attention without pulling it from cyrodiil. Maybe there would be a way to incorporate these idea INTO the Faction War.
IcyDeadPeople wrote: »As we saw in last year's QuakeCon ESO PVP Tournament, 4v4v4 battlegrounds appear to be feasible and look like a lot of fun.
QuakeCon ESO PVP Tournament Day 1
QuakeCon ESO PVP Tournament Day 2
I imagine the main concern is how to attract players to return to Cyrodiil instead of spending all their time in the arena. I say this as someone who would probably spend all my game time playing in the arena.
Like I said last night though, the overall ROI on PvP is less than PvE for ZOS, so its ignored.
Simple math is simple.
No thx to Battlegrounds. Open worl pvp or large pvp zones. Not all this small pvp crap.
It will take people away from the other pvp areas as it always is more easy to farm pvp levels.
heroofnoneb14_ESO wrote: »
@kongkim did you read though the rewards section? separate, no AP, with different rewards. I agree that AP farming levels would be an issue, so offering alternate rewards was my first objective.
Ok i missed thatBut still never liked BG's in any game. So not something i like to see.
What i would really like is open world pvp. But that will never happen