PVP Update, June 2015

skillastat

I don't care about former emp buff removal.

I like to be emp and be super OP, that will be the reward.

skillastat

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Will you do something against animation cancelling ?

I think it's a disease for this game.

Garion

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

@zos_ro

frozywozy wrote: »

Suggestions :

- Increase cost of efficient purge
- Give the bolt escape treatment to efficient purge
- Add a cast time on efficient purge
- Reduce the number of people affected by efficient purge
- Make it so efficient purge remove player debuffs and purify ritual removes siege debuffs
- Increase the cost of retreating maneuver
- Reduce the number of people affected by retreating maneuver
- Reduce the duration of retreating maneuver
- Change the oil catapults so they can hit only 4 targets and those cannot be purged
- Reduce the duration of Barrier
- Give Barrier strength a determined number which can only be increased by Bastion
- Change the siege damage so it goes through shields

Only ones I really agree with. Retreating should get the immovable treatment imo. Lately I've just been using retreating + an immovable pot for like 13 seconds of complete immunity to everything while moving fast as hell. No way should I be able to do that. And I've always been a proponent of making every shield health percent based like Blazing Shield. It's by far the easiest way to balance it out, and you can give shields that don't have a special effect one to compensate for maybe not being as strong after. It also encourages people to spend a little more in health than the other stats though you can argue people wouldn't do that.

I feel efficient purge is fine... if you're using that you're probably hurting your group anyway. Cleanse is much better with a much higher cost to balance it out. ZOS actually thought it wasn't good because no one used it and they buffed it in 1.6 PTS until we had to tell them how stupidly strong the skill is, and then they not only reverted it but nerfed it slightly. I'd be okay with them making purge only hit 12-16 people since if you have more than that you likely have multiple people purging anyway. Oil catas already discussed for my pov, and siege damage + shields would be better with a change to how shields work.

cleanse? the healing morph? what does the morph have to do with anything in the fact that purge is basically able to 100% immunize a group? the cost is not the issue, AT all. its the sheer number of purge per second that is the issue, and the fact that even with a cast time or recast increase on the base skill, it will still go as fast as it does.

Purge itself does not immunize you. You still take a lot of damage from the initial hits. If you are purging you are not healing or doing damage(if you are using cleanse at least you are healing), and you can get debuffs stacked on you just as fast as you can purge them off. Seems fair to me.

alright... clearly you have not seen how purge functions in those blob groups...

Not having enough heals is DEFINITLY not a issue in those groups....

And you did not understand what I said lol.

you are saying that taking the clense morph is better because it heals, which those who run the other morph do not do.. and since the ones who purge generally just spam it infinitely (cost reduction + regen) they are not helping out with heals or DPS.

what you did not get, is that those groups already have so much of both healing and DPS that anything from the clense spell is redundant, and because it only procs when it clears a debuff, is generally a waste of mana since you cannot spam that spell infinitely like you can the other morph.

the cost is so massive that it cannot be sustained, and those groups want the sustained because it allows them to completely ignore any CC or DOT that hits them for the most part. in that respect the healing morph will never be a good option..

its not even a better option in small groups... the cost is so high and the restore is lower than the damage generally taken that is caused by the effects removed that healing is still needed in addition. better to have the lower cost there and just pop off a single heal instead.

if you try and use cleanse in a situation where you are a dedicated purge bot... you are the one hurting your group...

Funnily enough I use this morph. I can spam it as much as I need to without my mana being completely lost. But then perhaps that's because I only use it when it is needed, rather than it simply being the only button I press. Because I play in groups of <12, I actually have to use more than one button if I am to contribute to the group. With that said, cleanse is by far the best morph for me. I can use it often (and even spam it across a short period of necessary) and it also provides a benefit to the group by providing some heals. It is practically a no brainer... So I would argue that far from hurting the group, I am being more effective and providing more benefit than if I was to use the efficient morph.

Not to mention cleanse is by far the better option for solo play.

Sacadon

skillastatb16_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Will you do something against animation cancelling ?

I think it's a disease for this game.

It's only a disease if you resist believing it's a feature to enjoy (watch animation) or to not enjoy (get on with the killing).

Brian is not responsible for combat. That is Eric Wrobel's area. So recommend you mention in the combat section where he probably focuses his attention.

Septimus_Magna

Garion wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

@zos_ro

frozywozy wrote: »

Suggestions :

- Increase cost of efficient purge
- Give the bolt escape treatment to efficient purge
- Add a cast time on efficient purge
- Reduce the number of people affected by efficient purge
- Make it so efficient purge remove player debuffs and purify ritual removes siege debuffs
- Increase the cost of retreating maneuver
- Reduce the number of people affected by retreating maneuver
- Reduce the duration of retreating maneuver
- Change the oil catapults so they can hit only 4 targets and those cannot be purged
- Reduce the duration of Barrier
- Give Barrier strength a determined number which can only be increased by Bastion
- Change the siege damage so it goes through shields

Only ones I really agree with. Retreating should get the immovable treatment imo. Lately I've just been using retreating + an immovable pot for like 13 seconds of complete immunity to everything while moving fast as hell. No way should I be able to do that. And I've always been a proponent of making every shield health percent based like Blazing Shield. It's by far the easiest way to balance it out, and you can give shields that don't have a special effect one to compensate for maybe not being as strong after. It also encourages people to spend a little more in health than the other stats though you can argue people wouldn't do that.

I feel efficient purge is fine... if you're using that you're probably hurting your group anyway. Cleanse is much better with a much higher cost to balance it out. ZOS actually thought it wasn't good because no one used it and they buffed it in 1.6 PTS until we had to tell them how stupidly strong the skill is, and then they not only reverted it but nerfed it slightly. I'd be okay with them making purge only hit 12-16 people since if you have more than that you likely have multiple people purging anyway. Oil catas already discussed for my pov, and siege damage + shields would be better with a change to how shields work.

cleanse? the healing morph? what does the morph have to do with anything in the fact that purge is basically able to 100% immunize a group? the cost is not the issue, AT all. its the sheer number of purge per second that is the issue, and the fact that even with a cast time or recast increase on the base skill, it will still go as fast as it does.

Purge itself does not immunize you. You still take a lot of damage from the initial hits. If you are purging you are not healing or doing damage(if you are using cleanse at least you are healing), and you can get debuffs stacked on you just as fast as you can purge them off. Seems fair to me.

alright... clearly you have not seen how purge functions in those blob groups...

Not having enough heals is DEFINITLY not a issue in those groups....

And you did not understand what I said lol.

you are saying that taking the clense morph is better because it heals, which those who run the other morph do not do.. and since the ones who purge generally just spam it infinitely (cost reduction + regen) they are not helping out with heals or DPS.

what you did not get, is that those groups already have so much of both healing and DPS that anything from the clense spell is redundant, and because it only procs when it clears a debuff, is generally a waste of mana since you cannot spam that spell infinitely like you can the other morph.

the cost is so massive that it cannot be sustained, and those groups want the sustained because it allows them to completely ignore any CC or DOT that hits them for the most part. in that respect the healing morph will never be a good option..

its not even a better option in small groups... the cost is so high and the restore is lower than the damage generally taken that is caused by the effects removed that healing is still needed in addition. better to have the lower cost there and just pop off a single heal instead.

if you try and use cleanse in a situation where you are a dedicated purge bot... you are the one hurting your group...

Funnily enough I use this morph. I can spam it as much as I need to without my mana being completely lost. But then perhaps that's because I only use it when it is needed, rather than it simply being the only button I press. Because I play in groups of <12, I actually have to use more than one button if I am to contribute to the group. With that said, cleanse is by far the best morph for me. I can use it often (and even spam it across a short period of necessary) and it also provides a benefit to the group by providing some heals. It is practically a no brainer... So I would argue that far from hurting the group, I am being more effective and providing more benefit than if I was to use the efficient morph.

Not to mention cleanse is by far the better option for solo play.

I also use Cleanse but I understand why people choose Efficient Purge if they struggle with magicka sustain.

Cleanse also has another benefit, it regens ultimate when you heal someone that isnt already receiving heals.

Cormore

LazyLewis wrote: »

LazyLewis wrote: »

So firstly My Wheeler lets talk about locking people down on campaigns so they can't jump to one another when they wish. This will have DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES. For Example. Just now I was in a 10 man group in AD and we were at Faregyl defending our last keep on the map. There was a full population EP trying to get the keep. 70 Minimum. They have now taken everything on the entire map 6-7 hours into the new campaign There was maybe 20 AD at Fare defending because other AD were on other campaigns. So if for the next two weeks the entire map was like this wouldn't my group get bored? Wouldn't my group want to move campaigns because they cannot take on 70 EP? Would we not think "What's the point, we're stuck in this campaign there's nothing we can do". In Situations like this people generally go to a campaign which is more balanced...why?....because They can. They don't want to get rolled over by 70 dudes so they change. With your plans they will be stuck while all the other AD guilds are in other campaigns. Locking people down will make people quit/not pvp/pvp a lot less. (This is not a complaint at EP too many guilds homed Chillrend this time round simple as)

Secondly. You want to take away my former Emperor Buff? The one I grinded for. The one I stayed awake for 38 hours straight for? The buff that I booked a few days off work for? The buff that I invested hundreds of thousands of gold into? Im sorry that there are some people out there who will never get Emp but some of us have spilled blood and sweated for this!

Lets go over Former Emp Buffs

Increase Healing Taken by 1% - On a 15k Breathe of Life this 150 Extra healing which is about 0.75% of the average Max health in PvP

5% Cost on Ultimate Reductions - This is the best one but when you crunch the numbers it allows you to get Ultimate (lets say the ultimate cost 100) 3 seconds faster than someone else.

2% Max Magika, Stamina, Health - If someone has 25k Health that an extra 500 Health. That's half of what you could get from an Infused Kuta Health Enchant.

Increase Siege against keeps by 2% - This is 40 more Damage on a Ballista with an overall of 2000 - If you crunch some numbers this means that if 20 people had 20 Dominion Balista's on a keep wall and they were all former Emperor's they would get the wall down 2% faster which is 1.2 Seconds faster if it took 1 minute to siege the wall down! (OP MUCH? Please see the sarcasm in this)

Emperor Buffs are not game breaking. Who ever say's they are they need to re-evaluate their build and they play their game. If I have seen a level 30 kill a V14 then a Non Ex Emp Group can kill a Full ex Emp Group! It happens all the time!

Right here it may look like i'm trying to make the Emp Buffs look like less than they are so they are not taken away. They are not Game Breaking. They are not gaming change BUT I earned my 2% Max Magika! I earned My my 5% Ultimate Cost reduction and HOW DARE YOU TRY TAKE IT AWAY!

Al the other changes do not bother me but maybe someone else might show their opinion here!

amen lewis! amen! its not a big difference if they leave it. it makes something worth going for in the game. now its just like meh. The person who gets the most ap will stay up top and will never drop for new emps to have fun with or anything like that. It just going to be someone holding it 14-30days long

Vinyl_Scrtch

Uggh there goes my day off for playing..... Stupid 15 gb update

Garion

Vinyl_Scrtch wrote: »

Uggh there goes my day off for playing..... Stupid 15 gb update

Relevant.

Boomjackal

Thought I would have a quick look to see if much as changed since 6 months after release when I quit and there are still performance issues in cyrodil after all this time hahaha. What a joke and still no small scale PVP 10 vs 10 15 vs 15 games to stop getting noob trained ahhhhhh. Ill have another look next year thats if this game is still going. Was just reading all the issues console players have been having as well.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Bashing & Slanderous Comments]

King Bozo

Boomjackal wrote: »

, Thought I would have a quick look to see if much as changed since 6 months after release when I quit and there are still performance issues in cyrodil after all this time hahaha. What a joke and still no small scale PVP 10 vs 10 15 vs 15 games to stop getting noob trained ahhhhhh. Ill have another look next year thats if this game is still going. Was just reading all the issues console players have been having as well .

Maybe you need another game to play.
[Moderator Note: Edited quote to match moderated version]

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

King Bozo wrote: »

Boomjackal wrote: »

(rant deleted)

Maybe you need another game to play.

He does, no doubt, but isn't that exactly the point, when you look beyond the rude insults? So many people who would have played this game are now playing something else because the game failed to live up to their expectations. You can't say that all the people who quit were whiners with no patience and that we are better off without them. I made many friends in the game over the past year, but looking at my guilds and my friends list, almost none of them are still playing. I know why at least some of them quit, and it wasn't because they had unreasonable expectations or played the game for so long that they were bored. They just expected the game to work, but it didn't, so they moved on.

Sighlynce

k1llorbek1lled wrote: »

Vynn wrote: »

I agree with a good portion of the changes listed here. But I think removing former employee passive buffs is a spit in the face of people who earned it. I used vacation time to take off during a server reset, spent 14 hours straight grinding AP to get ahead of the competition and push for the Emp keeps. No one handed it to me, people don't care if you are pushing for it, your whole faction doesn't try to help you(some did, others were verbally abusive about opposing my pushing for it). Emp trading is definitely a problem, but spitting in the face of your player base is not how you go about fixing it. These passives are not ruining pvp. The only people that whine about them are people who don't take the time and put in the effort to get them. I have continued supporting ESO through my subscription because I see the room for improvement on a fun game. But taking away things that have been earned will only confirm for me that Zenimax doesn't care about loyal fans, and my subscription will end as I will not support my time and effort being dismissed.

Well said... read this Brian Wheeler, because it's how I feel toooo.....

This really needs to be looked at. When my PVP guild leader earned his Emperor title it was the result of the entire guild supporting him. All of us worked tirelessly for this achievement , at NO point was this a one man show. During one push for Emperor , it seemed like we even had to take on our OWN alliance because of their lack of support for him. It was a month of complete Insanity. Its true some Emperor-ships were farmed and its sad there's no way to figure out who earned what. Taking any buffs that were offered and earned when these players made Emperor is unfair and to quote @Vynn , ' spitting in the face of your player base ' . I really think you need to revisit this idea. Want Emperors to lose their buffs, fine . Implement the changes to future campaigns not previous ones.


edit - corrected quote

frozywozy

In regard to all the negative posts out there.

In my opinion, alot of people who quit do it because they heard from people ingame or in the forums alot of constant whinning about the state of the game and pessimist / negative attitudes in general. I understand how frustating it is to wait for some results that seem to never happen but trust me, Zenimax do alot of work out there and we tend to notice more what hasn't been fixed than what has been fixed because most of small bugs Zenimax fix don't appear in patch notes.

This been said, if people would stop trying to discourage other players by their constant whinning and pessimist attitude in their forums, I'm sure the health of the game would be much better.

Pricking on Zenimax all day in a non constructive way does only one thing : It convinces people to leave the game. If that's your objective as a troll, then you lack alot of maturity.

Eucken

Is the update coming this month? because of the thread title

Enodoc

Eucken wrote: »

Is the update coming this month? because of the thread title

The thread title refers to the time when Brian posted it, so that it's easy to see when looking back in the future. More details about when the update is coming will be out in July.

Jack_Handey

Please keep former emp buff

Leandor

@ZOS_BrianWheeler
I don't know if it has been brought up in this thread before as I have not followed it in detail all along, so please excuse me if it is a repeat.

With the much appreciated change that PvP buffs in the future do not apply outside of Cyrodiil, please change the keep bonus to increase experience point gain into increase in AP, respectively remove the Experience Point bonus.

Otherwise, Cyrodiil will all the more be overrun with players having no interest in partaking in PvP and only be there because it is the best CP per time value.

This already has an influence on the PvP game as a not insignificant part of the players exclusively grind in the delves and their PvP is limited to ganking others in there. It handicaps those who aspire to progress their faction by limiting the available resources. Please do not exacerbate this issue further by having the experience point gain bonus only work inside of Cyrodiil.

Also, I would like to repeat my concern over the decision to retain only one 30-day campaign while having three substantially different (in view of scoring functionality) 7 day campaigns. Especially on the EU server, most campaigns are very active and I fear that a single 30-day will generate massive queues on it because of the item reward methodology.

In that respect, will you continue to uphold the number of items based on campaign duration, i.e. will all 7-days generate a one-item-reward and the 30-day a five-item-reward for placement on the leaderboard?

Areso1

It would be nice if you added a tier system to the elite gear so lower level players have something to look forward to in pvp instead of having to wait till v13

Leandor

Areso1 wrote: »

It would be nice if you added a tier system to the elite gear so lower level players have something to look forward to in pvp instead of having to wait till v13

In a manner, you have this. At the non elite vendors, you can by those sets for lower levels, not everything for all levels, but Cyrodiil's Light for example is available there for Veteran Rank 6. I think Curse Eater is there for Veteran 1 or 2 and a lower level version of the Ravager set also is available if I remember correctly. Not sure about the level, though.

Akavir_Sentinel

I absolutely love every change listed and hope they all get implemented as currently written.

[snip]
[edited for trolling]

Leandor

Akavir_Sentinel wrote: »

[snip]

I think you are confusing things a bit, there. Us purely PvP players didn't really give a rat's behind about the PvP buffs outside of Cyrodiil and actually there are post from April 2014 that are asking for removal of the buffs from PvE. The only thing most of us were aggravated about was the change where your home campaign buffs did not apply in guest campaigns anymore and even that was not that much of an issue.

Now as to the former emperor bonuses, I feel that these are not necessarily complained about by any specific group, because they would apply to all parts of the game, PvP as well as PvE.

My feeling is that the biggest advocates against PvP buff removal outside Cyrodiil are those that compete for the top spots on the PvE leaderboards (trials and DSA), so PvE players complaining about removal of PvP buffs.

[edited to remove quote]

Akavir_Sentinel

Leandor wrote: »

Akavir_Sentinel wrote: »

I've just got to laugh at all of the PvP players who have insisted from day 1 that ESO was made solely for PvP. Now they are crying because they can't get their PvE buffs outside of Cyrodiil anymore.

I think you are confusing things a bit, there. Us purely PvP players didn't really give a rat's behind about the PvP buffs outside of Cyrodiil and actually there are post from April 2014 that are asking for removal of the buffs from PvE. The only thing most of us were aggravated about was the change where your home campaign buffs did not apply in guest campaigns anymore and even that was not that much of an issue.

Now as to the former emperor bonuses, I feel that these are not necessarily complained about by any specific group, because they would apply to all parts of the game, PvP as well as PvE.

My feeling is that the biggest advocates against PvP buff removal outside Cyrodiil are those that compete for the top spots on the PvE leaderboards (trials and DSA), so PvE players complaining about removal of PvP buffs.

Agreed. That too.

The Uninvited

Meh, up until a few weeks ago I was mostly playing PVE but I never cared for the PVP buffs. Granted, they saved me a few times but I always thought it was strange to have those buffs in PVE.

Kloud

I'm ready for whatever ever changes they make I just want an pvp arena with in the next year or so

granty2008cyb16_ESO

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have discussed the ability to remove your home and guest assignment entirely, but won't make it in for this update. It has been a highly requested feature and we will work to get it in the future.

bet its coming "SOON"

where is the dual option ? ever coming ? i want to be able to fight my friends :-(

CavalierKing

So, while there are certainly legitimate issues that are being corrected by this patch, I do not believe that they will have all the consequences you are looking for. Instead, I think there will be a number of unintended consequences.

#1: Jump to friend - this is clearly detrimental as you can both work around the home/guest system, and you can create massive groups quickly. However, removing this will obviously reduce PvP participation as people absolutely want to play with their friends without major hoops to jump through. It should be easy, not hard. Instead, make it so that you can only jump to friend if they are in a campaign that is the same as either your home or guest campaign. Furthermore, make it so that only group leaders can invite players to jump to campaign - that way, it is either time consuming to make a large group this way (manually typing gamertags), or the groups are created separately (each friend has to create their own group). Finally, put them at the end of the solo queue. This should fix those issues without taking it entirely away.

#2: PvP bonuses - the buff servers are a huge issue, however, if these are removed, it takes away one of the things that makes this game unique and so appealing: the game's total integration. Doing this will entirely separate PvP from PvE. Of course, it will still be connected by the story, but every other game with PvP does that. Moreover, integrating the two gave PvE players incentive to do PvP (to get the bonuses), and gave PvP players incentive to do PvE (because they had the bonuses). Removing the bonuses would likely ensure that players stick to their respective realms. There are a couple of ways to fix this. First, reset everything (keeps, elder scrolls, etc.) after the campaign ends. Second, create a home campaign population percentage cap. In addition to the cap on how many players can be in a particular campaign at once, create a cap on how many characters in an alliance can make a particular campaign their home campaign. It could be simple, something like only 20% of all Ebonhart Pact players can make the Hestra campaign their home campaign. However, anybody could still make it their guest campaign. This way, not everyone can have the same buff server, and it encourages players to spread out, while still allowing people to play with friends and find competitive campaigns.

#3: Former emperor buffs - it's certainly a problem to have groups just continue to cycle players through emperorship in order to get a huge group of former emperors. It degrades the status and is unfair. Even still, becoming emperor is an amazing achievement and it should come with more than just a title, achievement unlock, and a costume. You used to be the emperor, you should be able to rally the troops and strike fear into enemies! Instead of removing it, weaken it some, make sure that the bonuses don't stack (two former emperors cannot give double bonus to others), former emperors cannot boost other former emperors with the same bonuses, and the current emperor is not inspired by former emperors and his bonuses trump former emperor bonuses (again, no stacking). This would largely remove the issue of having lots of former emperors all together to make a super group. They would all have to lead their own groups and spread out to be effective. Furthermore, make some former emperor bonuses for PvE. Again, connect the two worlds. Finally, having home keep population caps and campaign end resets would help this also. Getting full current emperor bonuses is a great idea though since it doesn't always last very long.

#4: Low population/underperforming alliances - yes, more alliance points would help, but that's not nearly enough. The big problem is that it's just not fun. Nobody wants to get their butt kicked up and down the battlefield. Yes, alliance points means more siege and repair kits which are helpful, but sometimes your team is just too small or too bad. Instead, losing teams need buffs. They need more health, stamina, magicka, damage and speed. Their keeps and siege need to last longer and repair quicker. Essentially, they just need some help to turn the tide against a larger, better skilled, better geared, better organized enemy. It'll take more than just more siege and repair kits and the psychological warm fuzzies of your score increasing. Of course, it could be scaled to how poorly a team is performing and how short they are on players. Again, the relief of a campaign reset and removing buff servers would help this.

#5: Guest reassignment: this should be shorter, not longer. This is meant to merely be for finding a fun game in case you can't get into the same home campaign with your friends, or your home campaign is uncompetitive. As long as there is a cool down of at least a day, you can't just go around getting as many people as possible together to create a super team. #1 also helps fix this issue and removing buff servers and campaign resets return the competitiveness to campaigns. The harder you make it for people to switch though, the more likely people are to end up with two disappointing campaigns that they can't leave for at least 4 days and they end up getting frustrated and quitting at least PvP, if not ESO.

#6: Similar to #5, however, it should be more difficult to change. Perhaps include a cool down of 7 days without entering to switch for free. That way, it's obvious you're serious and you aren't just moving just whenever you feel like it. 150,000 also seems quite steep and most players will never reach that amount. Think if a causal player entered a 30 or longer campaign. They'd have to wait at least a month to switch! Moreover, setting population percentage caps would fix the players searching for a buff server.

The other fixes seem totally fine to me.

In summary, a lot of these patches seem to be attempting to fix the same issues and it's going to end up being overkill. A lot of players are going to be frustrated with their campaigns and how long they're stuck in it and stick to PvE with no incentive to do PvP. They may even quit ESO altogether because good PvP is important. However, home keep population percentage caps and campaign resets would fix most of these issues and make the campaigns more competitive without frustrating all but the most competitive who will play anyways.

If you like any of these ideas, please like and comment on your favorite ideas!

CavalierKing

So, after reading this thread, I see that there are a couple of other major issues - zerging and lagging.

To start, much of the server issues and lagginess come from zerging - too many people in a single area spamming AoE. So if zerging gets fixed, lagging should too. So why do people zerg? Because keeps and Elder Scrolls are difficult to take - as they should be. But why zerging specifically? Why form groups of up to 100 to just quickly roll through one keep to the next, making sure to stick together and attack everything together? Because it's the most effective overall strategy. One of the reasons for this is because it's so costly to die. In large groups, you have a better chance at survival and know exactly where to go to find the battle if you do happen to die. However, in small groups, you are more likely to get killed, and the chances of the battle being over by the time you spawn and run all the way back is huge. The worst thing in PvP is dying because of the load times, the run times, and not knowing where the battle is.

So, suggestion #1 is to bring back forward camps. I'm not sure how they used to work, but basically, it needs to be a place to spawn. These would be extremely weak - easy to capture or destroy. If they're destructible, they would be costly and time consuming to build and difficult to defend. However, they would give players another location to attack which could be taken by small groups, encouraging small groups to branch off and attack these scattered forward camps. Furthermore, it encourages small group tactics as it would be easier to flank a keep from multiple sides. Finally, it gets rid of the worst part of PvP - the running.

Another reason is because NPCs are so strong. No, we don't want small groups taking keeps, but why should you need a large group to take it without spending an hour or more on the same place? Instead, make the walls stronger and the NPCs weaker. Make it so that a medium sized group is able to take it if they commit long enough and don't encounter major resistance. This gives players an incentive to go off to a generally uncontested keep and try to take it. They have more work to do with destroying walls, but they are less likely to be demolished by NPCs. This will also incentivize players to take resources which are largely ignored or zerged.

So, suggestion #2 is make guards weaker and walls stronger.

Speaking of weak walls, many groups don't repair them because they are so weak. They know that a zerg could come through and quickly destroy them anyways, so there isn't much point in wasting the time and alliance points to repair it.

So, suggestion #3 is do #2 and repair kits need to repair more and be cheaper so that people have incentives to repair it. This way, players will spend time after taking a keep repairing it.

Zergs also happen because spawn control is extremely easy. It's easy to send one player with a siege weapon to the keep nearest your real target and have them make it under attack so that they can't spawn there. This is a huge problem as not only is it super easy to control your opponent while the rest of the army zergs, it exacerbates the problem of too much running.

I don't have a specific suggestion #4, but this needs to be fixed. Either the cool down from shots fired and under attack to no longer under attack and spawnable needs to be shorter, or there needs to be more siege weapons attacking than just 1, or it needs to be considered under attack when enough opposing players are in the area. This would balance defense vs. offense, and encourage medium sized groups to just attack. Particularly in conjunction with other suggestions.

A final way to reduce zerging is to have quests outside keeps that give alliance points. Perhaps questing in Cyrodiil gives points. Perhaps there are quests for collecting materials for the alliance, or killing creatures and making the place safe. Perhaps killing imperials helps. Who knows? Whatever the case, people need to be rewarded for doing things other than during.

AhPook_Is_Here

CavalierKing wrote: »

So, after reading this thread, I see that there are a couple of other major issues - zerging and lagging.

To start, much of the server issues and lagginess come from zerging - too many people in a single area spamming AoE. So if zerging gets fixed, lagging should too. So why do people zerg? Because keeps and Elder Scrolls are difficult to take - as they should be. But why zerging specifically? Why form groups of up to 100 to just quickly roll through one keep to the next, making sure to stick together and attack everything together? Because it's the most effective overall strategy. One of the reasons for this is because it's so costly to die. In large groups, you have a better chance at survival and know exactly where to go to find the battle if you do happen to die. However, in small groups, you are more likely to get killed, and the chances of the battle being over by the time you spawn and run all the way back is huge. The worst thing in PvP is dying because of the load times, the run times, and not knowing where the battle is.

So, suggestion #1 is to bring back forward camps. I'm not sure how they used to work, but basically, it needs to be a place to spawn. These would be extremely weak - easy to capture or destroy. If they're destructible, they would be costly and time consuming to build and difficult to defend. However, they would give players another location to attack which could be taken by small groups, encouraging small groups to branch off and attack these scattered forward camps. Furthermore, it encourages small group tactics as it would be easier to flank a keep from multiple sides. Finally, it gets rid of the worst part of PvP - the running.

Another reason is because NPCs are so strong. No, we don't want small groups taking keeps, but why should you need a large group to take it without spending an hour or more on the same place? Instead, make the walls stronger and the NPCs weaker. Make it so that a medium sized group is able to take it if they commit long enough and don't encounter major resistance. This gives players an incentive to go off to a generally uncontested keep and try to take it. They have more work to do with destroying walls, but they are less likely to be demolished by NPCs. This will also incentivize players to take resources which are largely ignored or zerged.

So, suggestion #2 is make guards weaker and walls stronger.

Speaking of weak walls, many groups don't repair them because they are so weak. They know that a zerg could come through and quickly destroy them anyways, so there isn't much point in wasting the time and alliance points to repair it.

So, suggestion #3 is do #2 and repair kits need to repair more and be cheaper so that people have incentives to repair it. This way, players will spend time after taking a keep repairing it.

Zergs also happen because spawn control is extremely easy. It's easy to send one player with a siege weapon to the keep nearest your real target and have them make it under attack so that they can't spawn there. This is a huge problem as not only is it super easy to control your opponent while the rest of the army zergs, it exacerbates the problem of too much running.

I don't have a specific suggestion #4, but this needs to be fixed. Either the cool down from shots fired and under attack to no longer under attack and spawnable needs to be shorter, or there needs to be more siege weapons attacking than just 1, or it needs to be considered under attack when enough opposing players are in the area. This would balance defense vs. offense, and encourage medium sized groups to just attack. Particularly in conjunction with other suggestions.

A final way to reduce zerging is to have quests outside keeps that give alliance points. Perhaps questing in Cyrodiil gives points. Perhaps there are quests for collecting materials for the alliance, or killing creatures and making the place safe. Perhaps killing imperials helps. Who knows? Whatever the case, people need to be rewarded for doing things other than during.

I don't think most of what you said actually reflects the PC experience of veteran players on competitive campaigns. FCs were removed to reduce lag, guards aren't tough to vet players, nor are walls. People love to repair walls for easy AP, even though you spend it to earn it at a net loss, it advances your alliance rank.

Making walls weaker might not be a bad idea. This way if one zerg of 100+ is blobbing from keep to keep, 2 16 man groups could take 2 keeps away from their blob for every 1 keep they took forcing them to split if they were trying to crown.

Firellight

What about zergs?

CavalierKing

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

I don't think most of what you said actually reflects the PC experience of veteran players on competitive campaigns. FCs were removed to reduce lag, guards aren't tough to vet players, nor are walls. People love to repair walls for easy AP, even though you spend it to earn it at a net loss, it advances your alliance rank.

Making walls weaker might not be a bad idea. This way if one zerg of 100+ is blobbing from keep to keep, 2 16 man groups could take 2 keeps away from their blob for every 1 keep they took forcing them to split if they were trying to crown.

So first of all, you contradicted yourself by saying that walls aren't tough for vets and then saying that it would be good if walls were weaker. If 16 players coordinating together to attack a keep, without any human resistance, can't take it in under 30 minutes, then it's too difficult. However, it shouldn't be possible for even 20 stone trebuchets to take down two fully repaired walls in 10. Therefore, the solution is to weaken NPCs and strengthen the walls.

Secondly, this isn't a game merely for vets. It should be accessible to causal players also. A casual player with no guild and no group should be able to jump into PvP for an hour and have some fun, not just spend all their time looking for a good battle and then trying to constantly run back to it after dying. They'd be lucky to get 3 respawns and 1 battle in an hour.