PVP Update, June 2015

Lava_Croft

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have no plans for Battlegrounds or Arenas at this time with "flag matches" or death-match mechanics, however our play-tests of a certain zone that resides in the center of Cyrodiil has scratched a very specific itch...

I see what you did there, damnit.

Takllin

Gravord wrote: »

Kloud wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have no plans for Battlegrounds or Arenas at this time with "flag matches" or death-match mechanics, however our play-tests of a certain zone that resides in the center of Cyrodiil has scratched a very specific itch...

What does this mean the itch you speak of! talking In riddles or maby I'm dumb probably the latter xD

[snip]

Yeahhhh no. Look at the kinds of things that PvPers have asked for that are similar to battlegrounds/arenas and then you can narrow down a list as to what he is talking about...

[edited to remove quote]

Dagoth_Rac

"What are these PvP buffs you keep speaking of?"

-Every DC Player

Own

Weberda wrote: »

Ummm...like wow, I mean like really really wow. No buff servers...different campaigns will require different strategies. There is going to be a ton of conversation about all of this but as a dedicated PvP'r all I can say right now is "Thank You".

This. Also, big Pvp buffs are kind of lame. I like testing skill and this makes it hard. It should be ap bonuses and bag chance or something.

Ethoir

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Have you guys thought about a global limit on how many forward camps can be active at any given moment? Like 2 per alliance for example? (I'd prefer one per alliance) And a cooldown limiting how often they can be deployed?

As for emperor buffs... Would it be doable to let former emperors keep the skill tree they unlocked the tree, but as long as that player is a "former emperor" those passives will remain deactivated? This may help avoid seeing messages like "Emperor Tree Unlocked" whenever that former emperor regains active emperor status.

And how about giving keeps specific roles? Each Alliance has 6 keeps. If half were offensive and the other half defensive, the current holders of the keeps would get a defense (or offense) bonus as long as they are within range of the siege weapons that could be set up. Resources would matter as a supplement to this local buff, making capturing them more important to weakening the defensive as capturing them would weaken the offensive abilities of the keep's defenders.

Giraffon

Idea for forward camps: You have to have eight or more players at the camp guarding it or the expiration timer accelerates like crazy and it falls apart. Kind of like a battering ram. It would show how many players are guarding it and if it's not the minimum, then the timer counts down faster for each empty slot.

It makes sense to me anyway. Forward camps should not be unguarded tents.

Merlin13KAGL

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Forward camps are still needing some UI tweaks and heavy testing before being brought back and in case anyone needs a refresher, they'd come back with a smaller respawn radius (keep sized), can only respawn within the radius if you die in the radius, and would have a global cooldown on when you can respawn at ANY

Was going to comment on this (the respawn at non-transitus connected keep), but it looks like you already kinda have it under control.

My thinking was that if you died in the relative vicinity, you should be able to rez at any owned keep within that vicinity, so long as:

1. It's actually owned by your faction.
2. It's above 50% health.
3. You died in the immediate area or were already present in the immediate area.

I don't think it's unreasonable to rez at a keep that has not yet been overrun, transitus attached or not. The transitus cutoff, in itself, would prevent bloodporting (you could only get near, not to the keep in question) but it wouldn't completely penalize you if you were already legitimately in the area.

Lets transitus cutoff have value (as it should), lets being in the right place to defend not lose value. Provides no benefit for dying pointlessly.

The other aspect is the travel-to-player issue that some are concerned over. It's argued that people used this to find fights (which may be true to an extent.) With this no longer an option for anyone, the individuals that are also hopping, in efforts to equally try to find you, will no longer be hopping.

Short version: If you're locked into a campaign, you're not leaving it (without incurring major AP cost), so it seems more reasonable that there will be fights available in your own back yard. This should be further helped by the fact that people are going to join similarly goaled campaigns (regarding what provides points).

Granted, it's going to take a few rounds to level out (people trying different campaign styles), but the justification for the need to travel to a friend should cease to be an issue at all.

Realistically, it will be one less item in the trollbox...I mean, toolbox.

Manoekin

Soulac wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have no plans for Battlegrounds or Arenas at this time with "flag matches" or death-match mechanics, however our play-tests of a certain zone that resides in the center of Cyrodiil has scratched a very specific itch...

What about a simple duel function.
Like a trade invite you invite people to a duel..

This would make many people very happy

But then they'd have to add an extra button to the wheel and it wouldn't look as pretty.

Sanct16

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

"What are these PvP buffs you keep speaking of?"

-Every DC Player ON THE NORTH AMERICAN SERVER

fixed that for you

StihlReign

Ethoir wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Have you guys thought about a global limit on how many forward camps can be active at any given moment? Like 2 per alliance for example? (I'd prefer one per alliance) And a cooldown limiting how often they can be deployed?

Would invite trolling, which would return full force.

StihlReign

Emperor Buffs should be a passive everyone can unlock by participating in Cyrodiil.

Make the passives available via Alliance rank.

Make them active when your Alliance is Emperor.

Tie the buffs to a timer for PvE. Every hour of PvP adds 3 hours to your PvE timer.

There are no increments. 1 continuous hour = 3 hours on the timer.

You can no longer add to the timer if your alliance no longer holds Emperor.

Simple.

With that said...thank goodness for the changes. Can't wait to see a new semblance of order. Maybe PvP will become fun again....

firewatch

timidobserver wrote: »

Good stuff though I expect to see fewer people's in PvP now that pvers have no reason to participate. Pvers defending their buffs accounts for at least 50% of the activity on some servers.

This! - populations in PvP are already down and its not because of PvE buffs or Emp buffs. The major reasons people have left PvP in droves are lag, bugs, exploits and imbalances. Your are really putting the cart before the horse here. I don't understand why you would want to disincentivize people from playing PvP by removing buffs. If anything, you should be looking for new ways to encourage players to participate in PvP, not discourage them. This might make sense if campaigns were full or over populated but the opposite is true. I am afraid this is going to have a really negative effect on populations in Cyrodiil.

Armitas

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

however our play-tests of a certain zone that resides in the center of Cyrodiil has scratched a very specific itch...

Did someone say itch?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJOriEXf4qY

VirtualElizabeth

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Any time frame yet for implementation?

Ghostbane

I would like Emperor buffs to be removed, and on becoming Emperor, you are temporarily bestowed an actual Wabbjack. Turn your enemies into the chickens or other random kitchen utensils that they are.

GaldorP

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

• Jump-to-Friend: Social jumping into Cyrodiil or any PVP space is being disabled. This has long been the way to get around the Guest/Home campaign assignment. With this change, we’re closing that loophole as it's detrimental to the overall PVP experience and integrity of the campaign system.
• PVP Bonuses: Keep, Elder Scroll, and the Emperorship bonuses (passive buffs) will apply only in PVP spaces. This change will effectively do away with the concept of “buff servers.” Originally, we wanted these bonuses to provide a game-wide benefit, but we’ve seen this design become detrimental to the PVP experience due to alliances having "buff servers."
• Emperor Buffs/Skill Line: The "Former Emperor" buffs are being removed from the game. With this new system, you will only get Emperor buffs while your character is actively Emperor. Also, you will be granted the Emperor skill line and abilities upon earning Emperorship, without the need to spend ability points. All players that have spent points in the Emperor skill line will be refunded those skill points.
• Low Population Campaigns/Underscoring Alliances: Players participating in a low-population campaign or as part of an underscoring alliance will now gain 20% more AP within the campaign they're earning that bonus for, instead of 10%. Population polling has also been sped up to apply the underdog/low-population bonuses more often; however, this also means they have the opportunity to expire faster.
• Guest Campaign Reassignment: The cooldown on Guest Campaign reassignment will be increased to 4 days from 3.
• Home Campaign Reassignment: The cooldown on Home Campaign reassignment has been changed to 12 hours from 3 days, but the cost to switch will be 150,000 AP instead of 15,000. Also, switching home campaigns at the end of a campaign period will now cost 100 AP instead of 5,000 AP.
• Battle Leveling: The Battle Leveling system has been updated to include Veteran Ranks. Players that opt into Battle Leveling will be roughly equivalent in power to a VR14 player in moderate-quality gear.
• Elder Scrolls & Gates: A fix is in the works that will prevent enemy player characters from getting through the Elder Scroll Gates while the gates are closed. (Gate jumpers beware. Your days are numbered.) Also, a new protective barrier will now surround the Elder Scrolls while in their temples, if the Elder Scroll Gates are closed. This barrier will drop if the gate opens.

Amazing changes Glad to see campaign-hopping, one-sided campaigns and Emperor-farming will finally come to an end

frozywozy

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Forward camps are still needing some UI tweaks and heavy testing before being brought back and in case anyone needs a refresher, they'd come back with a smaller respawn radius (keep sized), can only respawn within the radius if you die in the radius, and would have a global cooldown on when you can respawn at ANY

Was going to comment on this (the respawn at non-transitus connected keep), but it looks like you already kinda have it under control.

My thinking was that if you died in the relative vicinity, you should be able to rez at any owned keep within that vicinity, so long as:

1. It's actually owned by your faction.
2. It's above 50% health.
3. You died in the immediate area or were already present in the immediate area.

I don't think it's unreasonable to rez at a keep that has not yet been overrun, transitus attached or not. The transitus cutoff, in itself, would prevent bloodporting (you could only get near, not to the keep in question) but it wouldn't completely penalize you if you were already legitimately in the area.

Lets transitus cutoff have value (as it should), lets being in the right place to defend not lose value. Provides no benefit for dying pointlessly.

The other aspect is the travel-to-player issue that some are concerned over. It's argued that people used this to find fights (which may be true to an extent.) With this no longer an option for anyone, the individuals that are also hopping, in efforts to equally try to find you, will no longer be hopping.

Short version: If you're locked into a campaign, you're not leaving it (without incurring major AP cost), so it seems more reasonable that there will be fights available in your own back yard. This should be further helped by the fact that people are going to join similarly goaled campaigns (regarding what provides points).

Granted, it's going to take a few rounds to level out (people trying different campaign styles), but the justification for the need to travel to a friend should cease to be an issue at all.

Realistically, it will be one less item in the trollbox...I mean, toolbox.

The reason why they wanna make it so you cannot respawn on an enemy home gate keep such as Farragut, Kingscrest, Warden, Rayles, Bloodmayne and Black-boot is to discourage gate farming and give the outnumbered / disorganized faction a better chance to recover and catch up.

Otherwise, people get discouraged pretty quick by the poor act of sportmanship of gate camping and leave to another campaign. Then a new "buff" or "one sided campaign" is made. Such as what happened on Azura's Star 1month and a half ago.

I also understand that killing JohnyEP 10times in a row before reaching the temple is also an issue. This is why I would strongly recommend adding resurrection timers (not only from players but when you actually resurrect at a wayshrine).

For example, it could go like this :

Everytime you die and resurrect at a wayshrine or get resurrected by a player into a period of two minutes :

- First time : instant
- Second time : 15 seconds
- Third time and above : 30 seconds

Snit

frozywozy wrote: »

...people get discouraged pretty quick by the poor act of sportmanship of gate camping and leave to another campaign. Then a new "buff" or "one sided campaign" is made. Such as what happened on Azura's Star 1month and a half ago.

Good point.

ZOS should do everything they can to ensure that no faction is ever pushed out of a campaign. One- or two-color maps are bad for PvP, as they risk making new or less experienced players think things are hopeless. Ideally, nobody should log into Cyrodiil and find that their faction has already achieved complete victory or suffered absolute defeat.

I'm sick of telling new players that, after they finish "Welcome to Cyrodiil" and pick up their two points, they should switch to an 'active' campaign.

Flaminir

Enodoc wrote: »

Applying the same importance to an Elder Scroll as to a Resource would basically make capturing Elder Scrolls pointless. In the campaign where Keeps and Scrolls are both worth 0, what's the point in capturing Keeps?

Very little point...... But that's the whole point because the different rule sets are all an experiment into player behavior.

With this one my guess into their thinking would be "If we make it more beneficial for the players to go and capture the 56 resources then they will be spread across the map, in smaller groups, less zerging...... and this should reduce the lag"

And to be honest, it may have a chance of working. Only time will tell.

Lorkhan

@ZOS_BrianWheeler, this is the communication we players always expected.
nice job, thank you. i wish this happen more often.

Darklord_Tiberius

Makkir wrote: »

I think people should stop sticking the label "casuals" on others like it's a bad thing to play a video game in moderation. That's almost like arguing who has the bigger "no life."

LOL! So true, that is what elitist culture is and always has been; even back in the glory days of WoW raiding.

Darklord_Tiberius

Xsorus wrote: »

WRX wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

WRX wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

WRX wrote: »

Makkir wrote: »

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.

.

Lol,

You realize the spamming zerg ball you run is creating the lag you complain about, right? New system will likely keep players grounded to their chosen campaign, which means you can't continually run to campaigns you outnumber for easy wins. The one thing guild leaders will need to do is work on communication among each other to make sure they end up on the right campaigns together.

And I don't know what you are talking about in regards to your last comment. The proposed changes to Emp seem more like a deterrence to casuals not an appeal. An appeal to casuals would be dumbing content down and making it easier to obtain Emp...you'll see more competition now to obtain Emp in order for a player to maintain his Emp powers which means casuals probably don't have a good shot at it now (which they shouldn't, imo).

My "zergball" is constantly running smaller groups than essentially all our competition. Roughly 2 times a week we will go over that. No clue what group you run with or if you are a solo player, but Deci avoids lag at any cost.

And no, this is catering to the people that think the emperor passive is the reason they are losing, when it really has nothing to do with it. I am all for helping the health of the game though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoU5jqjdrmU

Here is a video of you guys running 24...and you + VE are lagging the game out

This is exactly what a lot of us want to avoid when we leave servers...Because that type of gameplay lags the servers

That was a time, setup to do that

And the lag came from BRK keep fight. This is exactly what a lot of us want to avoid when we leave servers.

Stop running a 24 man zerg ball..and you'll avoid it a lot easier.

We don't typically run a 24 man ball.

<<Insert DAOC comment>>

But you do run 24 man zerg balls do you not?

You usually run what? 16? Again that will cause lag

Just zerg balling general will cause lag.

Honestly though, we should be able to run 24 man raids without fear of lagging the world. The problem has to do how certain skills work in large combat situations and like Brian said, they are working on them.

Just to name a few:
Caltrops
Cleanse
Grand healing
AOEs

These skills cause massive lag because of the process involved, what they do and their animation/effects. I love this games PvP, but the way healing and damage is set up right now in ESO it only encourages zerging. A perfect example is the Magika Det, impulse, whirling blades etc.; when you get a raid full of people spamming these types of attacks because they do more damage than most single target attacks, the end result is an enemy raid responding with grand healing, cleanse, combat prayer, barrier etc.

That is why the server lags. Until they change and balance single target damage/healing to be more effective than AOE damage/healing; zergs will rule Cyrodiil.

Darklord_Tiberius

Oh and @ZOS_BrianWheeler when will the spamming of Caltrops be over? Do you at ZOS not find it ridiculous that people use this skill not for tactical advantage most of the time, but purely for the sake of proc'ing set bonuses? Why cant damage procs only be applied to single target attacks light/heavy and skills and exclude DoTs?

Draxys

Darklord_Tiberius wrote: »

Oh and @ZOS_BrianWheeler when will the spamming of Caltrops be over? Do you at ZOS not find it ridiculous that people use this skill not for tactical advantage most of the time, but purely for the sake of proc'ing set bonuses? Why cant damage procs only be applied to single target attacks light/heavy and skills and exclude DoTs?

Considering that there's a set that works off I dots proccing, I'd just change caltrops to not proc so many things. The vast array of things it can proc is what's making it overpowered right now.

Soul_Demon

Makkir wrote: »

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.

Do you have the achievement? The statement "be someone who is online a lot and actually contributing to Cyrodiil being AvA type of action" Sounds to me very much like you don't fully understand how it is accomplished in reading that post, or maybe you just are speaking of those who did not sacrifice countless days of effort to gain it and are speaking from that perspective alone.

When I read this it occurs to me you miss some important points, one man does not take emp on any server. It requires coordinated effort over time to take the keeps and hold them for the alliance in order to be crowned. This is not done by small groups of three or four players but by coordinated attacks and defends of these keeps from much of the alliance pushing for the emp. This requires interaction of many players and can improve the social dynamic built into the game...it isn't the only social communication, but one of the ways interaction in a faction is encouraged and in some cases when the first interactions occur for players. It also means that it is usually not done in an hour or less of playtime- Be prepared to be online in Cyro for an extended period of time, so few casual will see this as an attractive endeavor. But, they will participate as the action picks up on servers meaning more players come online to PvP. In my opinion a good thing.

This in turn brings out coordinated game-play to block the crown of enemy emps (from both factions opposing it) as they add buffs to the faction that has it. This stimulates AvAvA warfare and tactics, not min maxer one man shows. It also creates a dynamic environment that is not exclusive to groups that are large...in fact it becomes gankers paradise as the map is constantly shifting and players are moving all over the map for their small group encounters in open field or at choke points. I dare say small groups benefit dramatically from the influx of players logging in to either block or take emps.

The idea that you read the post, quoted it and then suggest that former emps did nothing for the game environment seems shortsighted to me, or possibly your only experience with this was a emp 'trade' on a server. I assure this is not what many, many players did and for that to loose the buffs that are a nice reminder of that seems to be a dismissal of the effort, time and sacrifice many made to achieve it.

Lets come back full circle now, how does taking the buff away discourage emp trading and server hopping to farm it......I still do not see how that will impact it in a meaningful way, matter of fact- I think it will make the environment apathetic and less likely to do the things that are necessary to successfully do these pushes as someone has to WANT to have the accomplishment in the first place and try to get something going in a faction to get it. A personal goal to justify the effort. For me it was the passives as well as the satisfaction.....not a color or title. In this I might be the minority.

The increased AP cost- now that discourages server hopping, travel to player seems to also be something that would discourage some of the more negative behaviors to me, but sadly I still do not see the pendulum of balance being brought right with dismissing something in my personal experience that impacted the game in a positive way.

As I posted before, just one man and one opinion, but I still read little here that seems to actually show me the gain of dismissing an accomplishment and admittedly small buff in favor of.....just what exactly?

Swarog

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

• Emperor Buffs/Skill Line: The "Former Emperor" buffs are being removed from the game. With this new system, you will only get Emperor buffs while your character is actively Emperor. Also, you will be granted the Emperor skill line and abilities upon earning Emperorship, without the need to spend ability points. All players that have spent points in the Emperor skill line will be refunded those skill points.

I'm the Former Emperor and I'm in rage after such news!
I've spent a lot of time to achieve it. How can you do such with me?!
It's one of the best achievement and bonuses in the game. STOP DO IT!

Darklord_Tiberius

Draxys wrote: »

Darklord_Tiberius wrote: »

Oh and @ZOS_BrianWheeler when will the spamming of Caltrops be over? Do you at ZOS not find it ridiculous that people use this skill not for tactical advantage most of the time, but purely for the sake of proc'ing set bonuses? Why cant damage procs only be applied to single target attacks light/heavy and skills and exclude DoTs?

Considering that there's a set that works off I dots proccing, I'd just change caltrops to not proc so many things. The vast array of things it can proc is what's making it overpowered right now.

Either way it needs to be changed. It caused massive lag last summer in PvP until they fixed it and again it is adding to the the lower server performance. Unless the damage set bonus specifically applies to DoTs; no DoTs should proc a set bonus.

Rune_Relic

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Well this is a bolt from the blue.
Thanks. Thanks very much.
There is hope for cyrodiil on the campaign jumping, buff server and emp farming front.
I personally would have preferred campaign locking until the campaign is over....but dropping the lengths and changing the objectives is a nice idea.

As for the combat rewrite......I'll just fetch the popcorn.
You seem like you've been thorough about picking the traffic apart that causes the lag.
That must have been one hell of an undertaking.
I look forward to the associated corrective updates.
/thumbsup

I should be jumping over the moon now TBH.
Im a bit jaded like many others though.
Huge Pat on the back to you and the team anyway.
Even if its just a heads up for now, I look forward to returning to cyrodiil SOOOOON! tm.

Jitterbug

Kloud

Still wondering about the itch lol