PVP Update, June 2015

ZOS_BrianWheeler

Currently switching at the end of a Campaign costs 5000 AP. You may have a freebie if you've never switched or if you never used a freebie that we've issued in the past.

ZOS_BrianWheeler

@VirtualElizabeth All campaign assignments will be wiped when this change goes through. We've done that before when we removed the initial 10 we launched with on PC\Mac last year

<<Waits for the obligatory SCOURGE~! comment>>

Domander

Manoekin wrote: »

Heresiarch wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Domander wrote: »

so... what are you doing to encourage solo and small group pvp?

It looks like very little or nothing.

Ignoring all questions about small group pvp it appears.

Is there anything you see in these changes that could help small groups, Feng?

Play on the resource campaign and take ALL OF THE RESOURCES!!!!

Yes, but when you try to pvp solo or small group and the only fights you can find are 20+ groups, it's very frustrating and not fun.


sigh

Makkir

Soul_Demon wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Just to clarify, you will keep the Emperor Dye and "former emperor" titles.

I did not spend three days with just a couple hours sleep to get dye or titles, I did it for the passives and the satisfaction of achieving it. Working hard to see the inherit gain by dismissing something like this as a 'solution' to anything currently impacting the game play in cyro.

But, I will keep reading the 'supporters' comments to see if I have missed just what this does to help mechanics of the game that have not been addressed over time and led to abuse and exploiting. Much higher on my list of things to do, but maybe that is just me...

All the other changes seem to be directly connected to issues that impact games current state and I can clearly see where you are going with them, great job at listening to some of the concerns with PvP players in the game.

And that is why it's being changed. The whole concept was the Emperor played a critical role for his/her faction (this would ideally be someone who is online a lot and actually contributing to Cyrodiil being AvA type of action...not a min/max'er who is solo farming or repairing walls just to grab a few extra % in stats).

New system will help factions because hopefully Emperor will actually be around long enough to actually contribute to his/her faction. It really sucks when your faction's Emperor is finally crowned then runs off to do 1vX videos or logs out for the night.

themizario

All the former emps are like "can I get some french cries to go with my wahburger?" The point is to balance PvP that's why the battle boost will be close to V14. People have farmed emp for the passives because it gives them an edge in PvP and PvE.

If you feel like your loosing your edge over other players then you should have a problem with a V1 being boosted to V14

Edit: if the passives aren't that good - then you should be happy with your title and be on your way

Domander

Will there be enough players in pvp with no buffs to pull them in or make them care about the campaign?

InvictoNZ

ITT: "former emperors" identifying themselves. Should not name and shame

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have talked about removing the ability to respawn in enemy controlled keeps if they are not connected to a transit line, but hasn't gotten any traction other than discussions at the moment.

All basic mechanics of keep capture, scroll capture, etc. remain the same in terms of holding a scroll in your temple or in your keeps. They still have to be CTF ran to be captured/recaptured unless they've been "in the wild" for too long of a period (as they currently operate).

Respawn at friendly resources near your death.

Elsonso

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@VirtualElizabeth All campaign assignments will be wiped when this change goes through. We've done that before when we removed the initial 10 we launched with on PC\Mac last year

<<Waits for the obligatory SCOURGE~! comment>>

For the record, I am OK with this.

sirston

@ZOS_BrianWheeler these changes seem like a fresh breath of air from the usually stale air; but the problem I see with your idea is the continuities removal of functions from PVP. And no new content to replace it with, for example mercenary contracts, forward camps, lowering of PVP ability's to level 5? and now removal of keep bonus. Seems like its just dumping down this games functions down way to much, on top of that the reduction of graphics of AOE's or abilitys. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the idea of fighting with hundreds of players and idea of not lagging after a group of 20 well organized players run in But what im reading seems like a last ditch effort after getting hammered/slammed day and night for a years worth of complaints from the community and your Boss probability

until you guys can show this idea of a perfect PVP zone from your trailers, and have legit proof you have fixed this issue I will still continue to be retired from playing the game with the many of other frustrated PVP players.
Your friend,
Sirston

PS. Stop with the Soon™ Post, getting hopes up for nothing is not your job; its the HR departments.

frozywozy

Erwen wrote: »

dont agree with the former emp removal. simple, there is no reason to take this off, NO REASON!

Yes. It it a first step to totally destroy emp farming and changing the emperor buff into something really meaningful. A buff that reward a player who work for the scoreboard and not the leaderboard.

I earned my emperorship on Thornblade 2.0 fighting hard for it and I'm still up for this change, 100%.

Sublime

InvictoNZ wrote: »

ITT: "former emperors" identifying themselves. Should not name and shame

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have talked about removing the ability to respawn in enemy controlled keeps if they are not connected to a transit line, but hasn't gotten any traction other than discussions at the moment.

All basic mechanics of keep capture, scroll capture, etc. remain the same in terms of holding a scroll in your temple or in your keeps. They still have to be CTF ran to be captured/recaptured unless they've been "in the wild" for too long of a period (as they currently operate).

Respawn at friendly resources near your death.

I really like the base idea, it might however make taking ressources against large enemy forces extremely difficult since they will always respawn? But I think this could be fixed by adding a 30s-1min cooldown.

Ffastyl

@frozywozy sparked an idea for alternative leaderboards:

Track which players were present/participated in the capturing of a location and award them point(s) for each scoring interval the location is still held. For example, in the proposed scoring changes, a player captures a resource, contributing 1 point to their alliance's score. Each scoring interval the player is awarded 1 point for each contributed to the overall alliance score. 1 point is awarded on capturing the location.

Each player is ranked based on how much score s/he has contributed to his/her alliance. Holding locations becomes more important (to emperorship) than farming alliance points.

Awarding a point on capture may encourage resource/outpost/keep flipping as it bypasses the scoring intervals. Eliminating this feature or restraining locations to award 1 point per scoring interval will solve potential exploitation.

VirtualElizabeth

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@VirtualElizabeth All campaign assignments will be wiped when this change goes through. We've done that before when we removed the initial 10 we launched with on PC\Mac last year

<<Waits for the obligatory SCOURGE~! comment>>

Awesome. Thank you!

Valnas

themizario wrote: »

All the former emps are like "can I get some french cries to go with my wahburger?" The point is to balance PvP that's why the battle boost will be close to V14. People have farmed emp for the passives because it gives them an edge in PvP and PvE.

If you feel like your loosing your edge over other players then you should have a problem with a V1 being boosted to V14

Edit: if the passives aren't that good - then you should be happy with your title and be on your way

people farming cp's in caves have a much much greater advantage than people that waged massively coordinated war efforts in some major way.

Some_Guy

I"ve had 4 people today tell me they were quitting. I'm a casual PvPer, so the effect these have on me isn't going to make me quit, but they were the kind of people who "lived" in Cyrodiil, only one was a former emperor. Kudos for trying, but I agree with a few on here in the belief that this may very well slow down pvp.
"Low Pop campaigns" give more AP, which encourages people to spread out more, but it's going to cost AP in the hopes that you can make up for the population difference and make that AP back and then more, otherwise it's not even worth going to a low pop campaign.
But at the same time, safety in numbers means that opposing factions with lower populations may avoid your campaign because they will see it as a waste of time and AP to come to your faction's campaign in the hopes of getting AP.
I can see the reasoning behind most of these changes, and they were made for good reason, and while they have a potential to make great change, they also have the potential to make many more quit.

Vurian97

Greetings to you all. The wonderful ESO community that we are all part of. I come here to voice my opinion like so many of you have.

This whole removing of the Emperor Buff. It's been one that has brought upon great debate today. I am here to bring some insight on it from a lore / immersive perspective. If you view it in the matter that, a Former Emperor is essentially a failed Emperor. Someone who has been dethroned. They deserve their skills lost. They no longer rule an Empire. No longer have the backing they once had. The buff is intended to make the difference in an Emperor and a simple soldier.

Look at in the manner that, as an Emperor, you clearly deserve to be stronger because you are #1 and you rule an Empire. Once you lose that Empire, and the power that you once hold. It shouldn't be limited at that point, it should be lost in total. That skill line lead to a lot of Vet PvPers coming into the Non-Vet Campaign and would bring their Vet PvP guilds into the Non-Vet campaign and ruin it for a week just to get their Vet PvP alts Emperor so they could "get that boost".

Emperorship deserves the skills ONLY for emperors for that reason.

Now for the whole, you can't Travel-To-Player feature. Pure genius. I love it. Back in May Haderus had been a Daggerfall Covenant Buff Server. I'm sure people remember it well. They held it locked down pretty well. I ended up going there for the small skirmishes that would of course entail from a buff server. Fell in love with it. Infact, I lead an EP group that ended up taking all of our home keeps back on the day I joined Haderus. Not gloating, just saying, sometimes buff servers aren't bad. It's the players in them. The day following of the home keep's being reclaimed, we had MULTIPLE guilds "Travel-To-Player" from Chillrend and Thornblade to come pay us a visit and crown an EP Emperor, just because they saw the chance... It was very annoying, it ruined Haderus's small-skirmish PvP. The EP didn't leave until just about a week or 2 ago when AD turned Haderus into their fancy buff server.

This eliminating of Travel-To-Player is wonderful. There will be some campaigns that will remain "Large-Scale" and others that will be "Medium" and some "Small". I will be very excited to see which is which. By assumption though, we can easily tell who will go where based on leaderboard point styles.


This update has a bright side to it that I'm very excited for, but we all must remember, there will be the down side to everything that is good.

Vurian97

Posting another post because a few people had posted stuff I had yet to see.

A true emperor does not get simply dethroned after he gets tired and goes to sleep. A true emperor has an army behind him that, even when he goes down, they fight on to defend his throne.

Removing these abilities when someone gets dethroned will motivate people to defend the throne if it is a GOOD emperor! It will motivate people to have more FACTION pride! It will give certain guilds more reason to recruit more 'around the clock' players. Some guilds focus on playing on a 2-3 hour window each day. They will soon expand their times to defend their favorite and most skilled players. This will be a good change. It will bring more active PVP throughout the day, my friends. This isn't something to be upset about because you lose your skill points. Certainly, I know how it feels to push emperor. It is hard work. However, that hard work shouldn't be what you focus on. The hard work is in defending your throne.

uso245

I gotta say I am truly excited about these changes and glad to see our feedback is actually being read regarding players using exploits to the game. I would like to see this sooner rather then later but I can bide my time for it

S1ipperyJim

I like the battle leveling idea, but removing buffs outside Cyrodiil I don't like. Although I play on a server where we rarely get any buffs due to being dominated by another alliance, I liked the fact that your efforts in Cyrodiil had a direct impact on other players outside Cyrodiil, to me this provided an authentic story related incentive to fight for your alliance for the benefit of other players in your alliance.

Publius_Scipio

I don't understand some of you. You keep complaining about ZOS "taking things away" from PvP and that its not a solution to all the problems, you essentially (if i am to understand correctly) say that its a "cop-out". Let's break this all down nice and simple.

ESO is a little over a year old. ZOS had ideas, developed the game, and released it. There have been many issues, headaches, the game working not in a way ZOS intended, etc. So now they are going to do things to smooth things out and (hopefully) ultimately increase the fun factor for all.

"Fixing" the game REQUIRES "taking away" what didn't work (i.e. emp farming and former emp buffs to name one).

I don't see one thing in Brian Wheeler's post that would lead to some players having an advantage over others. Sounds like much needed tweaks to PvP that leaves everyone on a level playing field. Again, it seems like some are complaining because they can't let go of former emp buffs and enjoy playing in the new era of ESO PvP.

frozywozy

Atropos wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Removing the ability to spawn at disconnected keeps would also change another aspect of the Cyrodiil map.

The two gate keeps of each faction (Rayles, Warden, KC, Farragut, BB, BM) become near impossible to for any long term period of time. If enemies can only respawn at a captured Arrius, Glademist, of Faregyl, it becomes simply a matter of time before the native faction overwhelms the force camping their gates and then closes them.

Pushing for the scrolls would require a concerted organized effort most of the time, as you'd be unlikely to retain those gate keeps without babysitting them or keeping the enemy so busy (defending scroll temples for instance) that they're not attacking the gate keep.

It would also give the faction defending their scrolls much more time to rally and counter attack after any failed attempt to push the gates or take the temple.

@Agrippa_Invisus, The scenario you just described sounds exactly like how Cyrodiil dynamics should work. It should be extremely difficult to hold the gate keeps. This naturally balances the map, gives a natural equalizer to the losing faction, and prevents people from rage-quitting or skipping to a different campaign. Pushing for scrolls should require a concerted effort. Scroll caps are too frequent at the moment.

While I agree with everything Agrippa said, scroll caps are frequent for a very simple reason nowadays. Every single faction stack one campaign and make it very easy to capture scrolls.

Generally, for the past weeks-months :

- AD owns Haderus and Azura
- EP owns Thornblade and Chillrend

No matter the amount of times EP will gain their scrolls and keeps back at primetime, DC and AD have both strong and considerably large oceanic / australian guilds who will always nightcap / early day cap everything back.

This is one of the main reason why we see alot of scroll captures. By discouraging emp farming, buff campaigns and by giving more AP to people playing in campaigns where their faction is out numbered, it is one way in the right direction.

BTW, I don't remember who mentionned that but I REALLY LIKE the idea of merging the scoreboard of all campaigns together.

and if I can add my own touch : I think it would be nice to change the grouping system like this :

- 30days campaigns : 24men group
- 14days campaign : 16 men group
- 7days campaign : 12men group

I understand that groups could still follow each other while communicating in TS, but it would still encourage people to go where they can find equal competition and interests, small scale VS large scale. (I hope)

Rylana

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

I don't understand some of you. You keep complaining about ZOS "taking things away" from PvP and that its not a solution to all the problems, you essentially (if i am to understand correctly) say that its a "cop-out". Let's break this all down nice and simple.

ESO is a little over a year old. ZOS had ideas, developed the game, and released it. There have been many issues, headaches, the game working not in a way ZOS intended, etc. So now they are going to do things to smooth things out and (hopefully) ultimately increase the fun factor for all.

"Fixing" the game REQUIRES "taking away" what didn't work (i.e. emp farming and former emp buffs to name one).

I don't see one thing in Brian Wheeler's post that would lead to some players having an advantage over others. Sounds like much needed tweaks to PvP that leaves everyone on a level playing field. Again, it seems like some are complaining because they can't let go of former emp buffs and enjoy playing in the new era of ESO PvP.

I think those of us that feel the strongest about out former emp buffs are the ones that didnt celarus or buff server farm them.

the legit emps shouldnt lose even the little bonuses we have just because a bunch of pve carebears farmed emp on celarus for trials

at the end of the day people use the two arguments, i will address them both

1. The former emp bonuses are too powerful and no one should have such an advantage
I disagree, they individually are not much, the undaunted passives are actually stronger, except perhaps the ulti cost reduction one, which is somewhat significant, it is equivalent to 1/3 of the potentates or dragonguard set bonus. Not dismissable but not a huge advantage. However a whole group of former emperors does have a pretty significant advantage, due to having that much more ultimate to dump consistently.

2. The former emp bonuses are so weak you wont miss them then
I disagree, some players have crafted long standing builds and setups incorporating those bonuses into them. This would be akin to basing a setup min/max around say picking a certain racial bonus set or getting rank 9 undaunted, and then losing either one of those.



So to put this all into perspective how I feel.

I got emp legitimately, and now am going to lose my passives I earned. Whether they are too powerful or meager, it is still a net loss for doing nothing wrong (in fact i did it right, considering i was an emperor)

It would be no different than ZOS coming in tomorrow and saying "we are removing the undaunted passives because we feel that will balance trials and dungeons"

if the shoe was on the other foot, these casuals being snarky in this thread would be in an absolute uproar (instead of just sounding like a bunch of crybabies that could never get emp, now feeling like they are sticking it to those who were)

cjthibs

Rylana wrote: »

It would be no different than ZOS coming in tomorrow and saying "we are removing the undaunted passives because we feel that will balance trials and dungeons"

If that were the case I would support them.
I play the game to have fun, not to obsess over 1% here, 1% there.

I can have just as much, if not more, fun by just not worrying about every single detail.

Edit: It's their job to obsess over the numbers, and they have far more access to those numbers than we do.

frozywozy

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Don't forget guys that these changes are all due in the next major update. i.e, the one that adds Imperial City. That should give enough people an incentive to go to Cyrodiil, even if just for a short while to see what it's all about.

I hope it is sooner than that, they won't even talk about imperial city much till July according to the front page update. That's more than a year after they first announced it, and nobody is really going to be expecting the content till September-November.

Not to forget that Fallout 4 release was officially announced in the last E3 for november coming up. The Elder Scrolls Online was discussed for approximately 5 minutes of the full 2hours and a half duration of E3. More than half of the presentation was regarding Fallout 4, which seem to be their main focus since TESO console release is over.

Really disappointed, personally. Not about the state of the game of TESO (that I love no matter the problems), but because of the direction Bethesda is taking putting their efforts into a single player game instead of one of the most promising mmos of all times.

Publius_Scipio

Rylana wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

I don't understand some of you. You keep complaining about ZOS "taking things away" from PvP and that its not a solution to all the problems, you essentially (if i am to understand correctly) say that its a "cop-out". Let's break this all down nice and simple.

ESO is a little over a year old. ZOS had ideas, developed the game, and released it. There have been many issues, headaches, the game working not in a way ZOS intended, etc. So now they are going to do things to smooth things out and (hopefully) ultimately increase the fun factor for all.

"Fixing" the game REQUIRES "taking away" what didn't work (i.e. emp farming and former emp buffs to name one).

I don't see one thing in Brian Wheeler's post that would lead to some players having an advantage over others. Sounds like much needed tweaks to PvP that leaves everyone on a level playing field. Again, it seems like some are complaining because they can't let go of former emp buffs and enjoy playing in the new era of ESO PvP.

I think those of us that feel the strongest about out former emp buffs are the ones that didnt celarus or buff server farm them.

the legit emps shouldnt lose even the little bonuses we have just because a bunch of pve carebears farmed emp on celarus for trials

at the end of the day people use the two arguments, i will address them both

1. The former emp bonuses are too powerful and no one should have such an advantage
I disagree, they individually are not much, the undaunted passives are actually stronger, except perhaps the ulti cost reduction one, which is somewhat significant, it is equivalent to 1/3 of the potentates or dragonguard set bonus. Not dismissable but not a huge advantage. However a whole group of former emperors does have a pretty significant advantage, due to having that much more ultimate to dump consistently.

2. The former emp bonuses are so weak you wont miss them then
I disagree, some players have crafted long standing builds and setups incorporating those bonuses into them. This would be akin to basing a setup min/max around say picking a certain racial bonus set or getting rank 9 undaunted, and then losing either one of those.



So to put this all into perspective how I feel.

I got emp legitimately, and now am going to lose my passives I earned. Whether they are too powerful or meager, it is still a net loss for doing nothing wrong (in fact i did it right, considering i was an emperor)

It would be no different than ZOS coming in tomorrow and saying "we are removing the undaunted passives because we feel that will balance trials and dungeons"

if the shoe was on the other foot, these casuals being snarky in this thread would be in an absolute uproar (instead of just sounding like a bunch of crybabies that could never get emp, now feeling like they are sticking it to those who were)

I see what you are saying, and you are entitled to your opinion. Nothing you said is flat out wrong. However, emp farming is/was not a positive thing. In my opinion emp should never have given former emp buffs to begin with. You work your tail off to make emp, you become the biggest badass on the battlefield, you work hard to hold the crown. Once you are dethroned you shouldn't be treated to any residual emp powers (you aren't emp anymore).

If you need "incentive" to fight for emp (and don't see being emperor in and of itself is incentive enough), then don't invest the time to make emp if you don't want to. If I sit back and think objectively about the change, I don't see how it is a detriment to ESO PvP at a macro level. I personally think it is a welcomed change.

frozywozy

Preyfar wrote: »

Giraffon wrote: »

TheBull wrote: »

Kinda sucks losing former emp buffs

I'm wondering if it's because they don't have any way of knowing who earned it vs. who didn't. I like that they are doing this but I would like to see them give all of the former emperors something in recognition of their status that wouldn't affect other players. How about some crown store credits? If I had that achievement and the were talking about removing it, I could probably be bought out with some extra crowns.

The title, the dye and the achievement aren't enough?

I personally didn't care about the passives and I could care less about the title, the dye and the achivement. What's important is that people who have been around for a while will remember the way you earned it and the energies you spent to make that happen.

My personnal touch would be to change the former emperor title to former emperor of [insert_campaign] [insert_campaign_cycle_in_roman_numeral]

For example, mine would be : Former Emperor of Thornblade II

They could easily track that by doing a check on the emperor achievement datetime and make it match with the related campaign and cycle.

TagaParti

i love and like all the proposed changes.
i am also fine with the removal of former emperor buffs.
BUT, dont remove the former emperor/empress title!
I and lots of other players worked hard for that title,
i even got sick trying to be on top of that leaderboard.
it is 1 thing that a player can be proud of, 1 thing to aim for,
1 thing to see who are the more dedicated players on pvp.
the title is not a problem in the game, it didnt contribute
anything about lag in pvp. it is a form of competition tho,
which is good to have in this massive pvp setup.
i only enjoyed pvp when i aim to get emperor title, dont take
that reward away from me and those others who deserve it.
take away that former emp buffs, leave our title alone!
we worked hard for it, very hard. like i never sleep for
2 WHOLE NIGHTS.

Please ignore my comments, they already confirmed they
wont remove Former Emperor title.. thanks!

Malveria

Get rid of the points system altogether.

Too many people have it in their head that they want to win at any cost. This is where a lot of the exploiting comes from, because they just want that victory. They want that Emperorship. They want to win. They'll do anything to get it.

Make PVP about PVP.

WRX

After reading this I am torn. I love hearing what you are actively investigating for lag, etc, so that is good news. However there are some things I am concerned about.

-No PvE buffs then mean no PvEr's to fight in Cyrodiil. Computer's population is already extremely low, and this lowers it further. Need some reason for them to come play again.

-The no travel option to me is the biggest issue however. With the current state of PvP, and I am not joking, the first 30 minutes is always the group going to the few active campaigns and trying to find the most fun fights WITHOUT LAG.

If I can not travel out of a campaign on a Saturday when its a laggy mess, I know myself and 80% of Decibel will simply go play something else. This will be a major issue as fighting with lag every 10-15 minutes really hurts the flow of a team.

-Lastly is the Emp passives. I would very much like them to stay personally. If you farmed it, honestly, who cares? Mechanic was bad, but so were/are CP grinds, duping, bots farming mats, and all the other issues so far. If you farmed emp, you are likely a bad player anyways so you will still die. This seems to be more of a PR stunt and appealing to the casual (I understand, a fish has to swim though) and is kind of a punishment to players who have PvP'd. Its a buff you earn with passives, just like mages and fighters guild, legermaine (sp) and many others.


I am mostly excited that you guys are fulfilling your promise and are now back to working on PvP and PC. Just hope some of this feedback is taken into consideration, even though I know this is likely locked in.

Xsorus

WRX wrote: »

After reading this I am torn. I love hearing what you are actively investigating for lag, etc, so that is good news. However there are some things I am concerned about.

-No PvE buffs then mean no PvEr's to fight in Cyrodiil. Computer's population is already extremely low, and this lowers it further. Need some reason for them to come play again.

-The no travel option to me is the biggest issue however. With the current state of PvP, and I am not joking, the first 30 minutes is always the group going to the few active campaigns and trying to find the most fun fights WITHOUT LAG.

If I can not travel out of a campaign on a Saturday when its a laggy mess, I know myself and 80% of Decibel will simply go play something else. This will be a major issue as fighting with lag every 10-15 minutes really hurts the flow of a team.

-Lastly is the Emp passives. I would very much like them to stay personally. If you farmed it, honestly, who cares? Mechanic was bad, but so were/are CP grinds, duping, bots farming mats, and all the other issues so far. If you farmed emp, you are likely a bad player anyways so you will still die. This seems to be more of a PR stunt and appealing to the casual (I understand, a fish has to swim though) and is kind of a punishment to players who have PvP'd. Its a buff you earn with passives, just like mages and fighters guild, legermaine (sp) and many others.


I am mostly excited that you guys are fulfilling your promise and are now back to working on PvP and PC. Just hope some of this feedback is taken into consideration, even though I know this is likely locked in.

Its possible that because it'll be harder to travel you might be able to avoid lag a lot easier, right now those groups just port around following the people escaping the lag.