PvP campaign rewards: Why the current system is broken and drives poor behavior

AssaultLemming

So I've been playing Splatoon lately, and what really stands out for me is that all the rewards are based around winning the match. No reward for how many kills you get so KDR is totally irrelevant. It makes for the most engaging game style, everyone plays the objectives and works to support the team.

Eso could learn a lot from this. Currently in PvP the only real rewards are from AP for the majority of the players, with only a tiny percentage getting any sort of real reward from winning the campaign. I find myself not caring who wins or loses because I can't put in enough hours to get to the top 2% so my focus is on earning as much AP as possible and I see this same behavior in a lot of other players too. It's a direct result of the poor campaign rewards.

Now I have characters who would really like Master's weapons, but I'm really not in a position to grind out hours and hours of Dsa to earn them, plus I'm already bored of PvE having played since beta.

It would be great if PvP campaign rewards could be significantly increased, preferably with a chance for everyone from the winning alliance to get something nice. Higher scoring people should certainly get more rewards or a better chance, but everyone should get at least some lottery bags and a shot at a master's weapon.

The last few campaigns I've placed somewhere between 200 and 300 and got about 4500g which really feels like a slap in the face. Seriously it doesn't even cover my costs, not even close.

With the new campaign structures announced I really hope they are going to do something about the poor state of campaign rewards, because at the moment it looks like the same problems will be there, so why would I join a campaign focused around resources or elder scrolls when it's likely that the best ap rewards will be found in the campaign based around keeps?

Just my two cents.

Sile

Inversely you can get crummy luck if you're in the top 2% (I just got 3 Master's Daggers from the AS reset, and I don't even stam anymore).

I agree with you though, a lot of players look to farm AP rather than get the good fight.

Perhaps a seperate scoring system that acts as a secondary PvP currency? e.g.

1 Point for a defence of anything including resources
2 points for taking a keep
5 points for being in the campaign when a scroll is capped

These points are awarded to your currency pool as you play, and are used to buy PvP bag sets? Masters / PVE high end sets such as the Trial sets? Winning a campaign could offer a total campaign accrued bonus, say 20-33% extra points.

We already have a mechanic that could track what is considered a defence / offence in the O/D ticks.

BrassRazoo

So only the winning Alliance 'gets something nice"
This sounds like a recipe for "reward campaigns" similar to buff servers.

AhPook_Is_Here

AssaultLemming wrote: »

So I've been playing Splatoon lately, and what really stands out for me is that all the rewards are based around winning the match. No reward for how many kills you get so KDR is totally irrelevant. It makes for the most engaging game style, everyone plays the objectives and works to support the team.

Eso could learn a lot from this. Currently in PvP the only real rewards are from AP for the majority of the players, with only a tiny percentage getting any sort of real reward from winning the campaign. I find myself not caring who wins or loses because I can't put in enough hours to get to the top 2% so my focus is on earning as much AP as possible and I see this same behavior in a lot of other players too. It's a direct result of the poor campaign rewards.

Now I have characters who would really like Master's weapons, but I'm really not in a position to grind out hours and hours of Dsa to earn them, plus I'm already bored of PvE having played since beta.

It would be great if PvP campaign rewards could be significantly increased, preferably with a chance for everyone from the winning alliance to get something nice. Higher scoring people should certainly get more rewards or a better chance, but everyone should get at least some lottery bags and a shot at a master's weapon.

The last few campaigns I've placed somewhere between 200 and 300 and got about 4500g which really feels like a slap in the face. Seriously it doesn't even cover my costs, not even close.

With the new campaign structures announced I really hope they are going to do something about the poor state of campaign rewards, because at the moment it looks like the same problems will be there, so why would I join a campaign focused around resources or elder scrolls when it's likely that the best ap rewards will be found in the campaign based around keeps?

Just my two cents.

Honestly you should just pvp for fun. If you are PVPing for master weapons you can get them much faster in VDSA. IMO fun is the best reward for pvp when the game works.

Draxys

Yea I would stay away from better rewards for the winners while we have population imbalance issues.

We need a token reward system. I'm tired of getting 5 pieces of Cyrodiil's effing Crest. Just give me 5 purple or a couple yellow mats so we can cut out the middle steps if nothing else.

AssaultLemming

Reward campaigns could be a problem I agree, although I quite like Sile's suggestion regarding objective based scoring which would be a creative way to solve for that.

I'm not wedded to the idea that rewards are only for the winning alliance, the outcome I'm looking for is for rewards to be more closely tied to playing to win, so his suggestion of points accumulated by attacking/defending objectives sounds like an option, although it doesn't necessarily encourage players to be more strategic about which keeps to attack/defend if points are evenly weighted.

The idea is that you should be trying to win the campaign, and that the reward you get for doing so should outweigh any rewards you might get by acting against the interests of your faction...

For instance...I'm attacking a poorly defended yellow keep, and a large blue force attacks a red keep. Currently I may as well keep attacking because that's guaranteed ap vs leaving the attack to go and defend which is less likely to generate ap. Thus my faction suffers but individually I am rewarded.

I see the problem you have raised regarding buff campaigns, can you propose a solution? Perhaps rewards actually get less if the gap between factions points is too large? That at least might encourage people to move campaigns to a more competitive one, evening out population imbalances...

AssaultLemming

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

AssaultLemming wrote: »

So I've been playing Splatoon lately, and what really stands out for me is that all the rewards are based around winning the match. No reward for how many kills you get so KDR is totally irrelevant. It makes for the most engaging game style, everyone plays the objectives and works to support the team.

Eso could learn a lot from this. Currently in PvP the only real rewards are from AP for the majority of the players, with only a tiny percentage getting any sort of real reward from winning the campaign. I find myself not caring who wins or loses because I can't put in enough hours to get to the top 2% so my focus is on earning as much AP as possible and I see this same behavior in a lot of other players too. It's a direct result of the poor campaign rewards.

Now I have characters who would really like Master's weapons, but I'm really not in a position to grind out hours and hours of Dsa to earn them, plus I'm already bored of PvE having played since beta.

It would be great if PvP campaign rewards could be significantly increased, preferably with a chance for everyone from the winning alliance to get something nice. Higher scoring people should certainly get more rewards or a better chance, but everyone should get at least some lottery bags and a shot at a master's weapon.

The last few campaigns I've placed somewhere between 200 and 300 and got about 4500g which really feels like a slap in the face. Seriously it doesn't even cover my costs, not even close.

With the new campaign structures announced I really hope they are going to do something about the poor state of campaign rewards, because at the moment it looks like the same problems will be there, so why would I join a campaign focused around resources or elder scrolls when it's likely that the best ap rewards will be found in the campaign based around keeps?

Just my two cents.

Honestly you should just pvp for fun. If you are PVPing for master weapons you can get them much faster in VDSA. IMO fun is the best reward for pvp when the game works.

Personally I like a carrot to chase, if there is no reward for playing I quickly get bored. I know I'm not alone in this, plenty of mmo players are like this. I play for fun to a certain extent, but mmo gameplay is so repetitive that I need something else to keep me going. If I can't meaningfully advance my character I may as well shelve it and play a new character or another game...

WarrioroftheWind_ESO

I'd like master weaps too but every vetDSA grp I see in chat asks for only 'experienced players'. Well you'r not gonna get experienced if you don't get EXPERIENCE. Not only that past few runs I been in for even normal DSA have been prone to very flaky tanks. I managed to get master weaps twice in the few times I qualified for gold, but both times got something I didn't need or already had one of. I get it's meant to reward the creme of the crop, but unfortunately 'cream of the crop' doesn't mean 'good' it means 'what guild can spend 2 hours farming AP at Nikel while other pvp grps are struggling to siege Chalman".

Rewards are fine as they are. Heck, if I could buy a master weap for 2 mill AP I'd be all for it, but I'd rather they change AP gains so that it awards individual performance instead of who sits spamming HS the most.

Rasimir

Perhaps rewards should be cross campaign. That way you won't have buff servers of any kind, and you would encourage people to spread out across all campaigns which would be good for the performance as well.

Leandor

The change needed is to make the rewards actually be worthy. My nightblade has for the 5th time in a row gotten tank set items, and now even two identical pieces (two belts of cyrodiil's ward, with the only difference between them the racial style).

Since PvP is not fun anymore for me (I do not run with a train), the rewards are the only motivation left and this was the last chance I gave that system, I am in a bit of a fix. Were it not for the people I run with, I would have quit today.

Oh yeah, and spare me the RNG comments.

BigTone

I finished in the top 2% of a 30 day campaign and got nothing useful. very frustrating. It would be nice if we could get some sort of say in terms of what items we get.

AssaultLemming

Some improvement is definitely needed before update 7, if it goes ahead with the same useless campaign rewards as now I will likely cancel my sub, I've run out of things to do anyway, I've got a million ap and nothing to spend it on.

Even if they just expanded the rewards to the top 20%, I mean 2% is ridiculous...