There CANNOT be access gates to the Imperial City paid DLC

Robbmrp

The whole point of having a certain number of home and enemy keep requirements is to keep people playing normal Cyrodil. If there was no requirement for this, everyone would abandon their keeps and fight in IC. They need this to keep things in order with Cyrodil.

Personally, I think that IC access should be based off 6-7 keeps. This will ensure that there is always one faction locked out and will force them to work together to get back in. Right now people don't really care about keep defense in some campaigns. This will help stop the AP farmers out there and bring people back together. This is a Faction V Faction war, everyone in the same one should be working together.

With that being said, I understand your situation and maybe the solution is to lower the number of campaigns and increase the players allowed in them.

We are after all, supposed to be able to have HUGE pvp battles as advertised.

cjthibs

Will the home keep requirement cause some frustration? Yes.

Is it necessary? Yes.

Without access changing from time to time IC will get stale. It will need an influx of different players from time to time and occasionally kicking a faction out will allow factions already in to progress further.

It's going to make the flow of things within IC more dynamic. In my opinion, it's a good thing.

Also, I still want to play outside IC. This gives me and others incentive to still do so.

MrGhosty

Pirhana7_ESO wrote: »

The thing you fail to mention is that while DC is locked out of IC their FULL force will be in Cyrodiil while the other alliances will have half their forces in IC. While this happens there is no reason DC shouldn't be bale to take back their home keeps + to gain access to IC.

Yes they are out number and will lose IC access again and over time they will have the least amount of access time. But the design will allow them to gain access. every day, multiple times.

Controlling or having access to IC is a reward. So why shouldn't the sides that are winning the most have the most access?

When a side can cut off access to another alliance they make the content inside much more controlled. A lot of people would rather have a little bit of controlled PVE acces inside rather than being able to go their 24/7 and having it always pure gankfest where nothing can be accomlished

If they weren't charging for the IC I would completely agree with you that this makes a nice reward and good objective. I would even be ok with the imbalance of not being able to get in on one faction as frequently as on others. You cannot lock people out of content they paid for, particularly when this is the only content people of any gameplay (PvP/PvE) will be getting until at least November provided there are no setbacks or delays with that content.

What will happen is that most gamers are min/maxers if they find that AD has the most IC access including access with little PvP to hurdle many will simply roll an AD character to maximize their time grinding out all of the new loot and it will make the imbalances even worse. When you get people choosing that many sides the second faction will also begin to suffer which will mean one faction will hold the IC always and every so often the other two might get in. That doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.

Dagoth_Rac

Stikato wrote: »

Just a thought, but if there is free access to IC, what is the point of Cyrodiil. IC has all of the rewards of Cyrodiil plus TV stones, vet 15 resources, trophy room drops, etc.

Unless you have a preference for siege warfare, playing in Cyrodiil will be functionally inefficient and less rewarding then being in IC.

This is part of the conundrum. If you go with no access restrictions, it kind of makes Cyrodiil pointless. And the underpopulated faction will still be in big trouble in IC, as they will just be out-manned in a smaller space. If you make factions hold their keeps to get access, high population factions will still essentially have 24/7 access to IC and all its endgame goodies. For underpopulated factions, they will have to spend a lot of time in Cyrodiil just getting access. But, as you said, Cyrodiil proper is very unrewarding now. Are people going to spend a lot of time in unrewarding Cyrodiil action, just to get brief access to IC before some zerg-griefers roll another keep to cut off access? Then it is back to an unrewarding Cyrodiil to regain access?

Lots of time in an unrewarding Cyrodiil, followed by brief periods of being highly outnumbered inside IC? That is going to get old fast. There is a real risk of a downward spiral here where some underpopulated faction players just get tired of the grind/hassle to get to satisfying endgame, making it more of a grind/hassle for the remaining faction players, and then more players quit, making it more of a grind/hassle for those remaining, and more people leave, etc.

I do not know the solution. But the population imbalance problems that have always been bubbling under the surface are going to become a huge issue now that faction imbalance will have such a huge impact on endgame content.

olemanwinter

Xendyn wrote: »

Also, I know there is at least one large EP guild in the process of rerolling to DC. Does that improve your outlook at all?

Not at all. I'm against the access gate on principle, not just because my alliance is locked out. If EP suddenly finds itself in our shoes, that's just as bad for the overall community and Zos imo.

But I'm quite skeptical. There is a big difference between "thinking about" rerolling to DC and actually having an entire guild make new characters and grind them up to max VR. I know of a few guilds that have fallen apart with defections when attempting that.

Ya know, I've been hearing about how DC was going to get better since launch.
- First it was "when the other alliances get overpopulated people will come back to DC"
- Then it was "when Tamriel Unlimited starts and so many more players join DC will catch up"
- I also heard "when console hits all those zergs on EP and AD will leave and more DC will remain"
- Recently I heard "Chuck Norris is branching off from NPK and that will make DC win"
- And now finally, "An EP guild is in the process of rerolling DC"

In the end, DC still controls 8% of PvP. We only control 1 out of 4 campaigns for only a few hours a day. I think it's time to start planning the game based on the premise of 'WHAT IF' things never improve for DC. It's time to start planning the game so that it functions effectively no matter what.

reften

The fatal flaw in ESO, big picture wise, is they put the most popular class/race combinations in two of the alliances. And it's too late to turn back.

Preyfar

olemanwinter wrote: »

There is a big difference between "thinking about" rerolling to DC and actually having an entire guild make new characters and grind them up to max VR. I know of a few guilds that have fallen apart with defections when attempting that.

And even then, good luck. PVP has massive trust issues as it is. I've been playing with DC characters who are mainly AD, and I never fully know if I can trust them. I recently had a DC guy outright lure AD nightblades to my location when I was just idling. Watching the screen, the dude was just standing on my location, moved, then I got smacked from stealth.

I never really know if my team is actually "my team" or just some guy looking to get emp again. I literally had somebody tell me they were going for Emp on their THIRD alt. I've been trying for emp fro months, and people are going for a second or third time on different characters.

Trust has become a huge issue, especially amongst the shards of what's left of DC.

olemanwinter

Robbmrp wrote: »

Also, I still want to play outside IC. This gives me and others incentive to still do so.

I don't understand this logic. You need an incentive to do something you already want to do???

And this incentive should come in the form of a barrier to me doing what I want to do?

reften

My idea - Allow access to IC for all factions at any time. For the faction that is losing that campaign...make IC population NOT count towards that campaign's total pop...and whether is locked or not.

olemanwinter

Preyfar wrote: »

olemanwinter wrote: »

There is a big difference between "thinking about" rerolling to DC and actually having an entire guild make new characters and grind them up to max VR. I know of a few guilds that have fallen apart with defections when attempting that.

And even then, good luck. PVP has massive trust issues as it is. I've been playing with DC characters who are mainly AD, and I never fully know if I can trust them. I recently had a DC guy outright lure AD nightblades to my location when I was just idling. Watching the screen, the dude was just standing on my location, moved, then I got smacked from stealth.

I never really know if my team is actually "my team" or just some guy looking to get emp again. I literally had somebody tell me they were going for Emp on their THIRD alt. I've been trying for emp fro months, and people are going for a second or third time on different characters.

Trust has become a huge issue, especially amongst the shards of what's left of DC.

I agree. I've watched too many "Scroll deliveries" to farm AP. Remember that guy who everyone hated on EP and accused of exploiting come over to DC and lead the campaign ...into the ground and then switch back? A coincidence perhaps, but Thornblade was the main contested battleground when he went from an accused EP exploiter to a DC 'leader'. When he went back to EP....thornblade was an empty EP buff server.

But hey, at least we got to watch him exploit into keeps and outposts all the time. Neato.

Bottom line is that you are 100% correct, nobody on the DC side trusts anyone inside or outside of the alliance.

And DC leadership has become like modern politics, where the only people still trying for the positions aren't worth electing. The only people worthy of following in a DC campaign want nothing to do with it.

KerinKor

Timeetyo wrote: »

Bottom line is this: people have limited game time and want to log in and play towards their own goal and not have that dictated by the server status.

This simple truth seems to elude ZOS regularly .. your reference to Warhammer is spot on.

ewhite106b16_ESO

Imperial City is really the only location for players that have been waiting for small scale pvp, been locked out of that because your zerg is having a bad day and theres no open access to IC campaign quite simply......blows. Cyrodil proper is horribly lacking in pvp objectives for smaller groups (yes you can have a huge war or seige and have small squads make a difference - Planetside 1 was a great example and Planetside 2 as well). Cyrodil keeps long term IMO really need a re-design so there are more capture points on each objective to split up forces but that is another post altogether.

Point being, lot of PVPers are really sick of pvp trains and zerg blobs - IC is currently the hope of being able to get away from that. Forcing players to wade through zergs to get to the pvp content they really want isnt a good move. IC does need removal/restriction of respawns in same district and transit ladders from faction bases, but once that is done IMO its not good zerg territory...which would be awesome.

Edit: I think with patch changes to campaign rewards and rewards for the worthy Cyrodil proper is definitely still worth playing in from the rewards standpoint, and unlike IC players dont have to worry about losing those rewards. Given these factors I dont think Cyrodil will be abandoned.

Preyfar

olemanwinter wrote: »

Bottom line is that you are 100% correct, nobody on the DC side trusts anyone inside or outside of the alliance.

I think ZOS is doing the right thing trying to shake up PVP. The status quo can not continue to exist. But I really worry that the new changes will hurt PVP long term by reducing the effectiveness of AP and removing the benefits to a lot of the campaign rewards. It's hard to tell, and I have this lingering fear that buff servers are just going to be replaced with Imperial City servers. The buffs are just replaced by IC access to help empires gear up.

Pyr0xyrecuprotite

Keep in mind the longer view...
For the first couple of weeks (well, month or so) after 2.1 is released, Cyrodiil PvP and IC will be crazy busy, and populations/ownership changing a lot. One month later, most of the hardcore will have figured out whatever works best for them (and what they like doing etc), and settle into patterns. A lot of the PvE'rs will still be gradually working their way up to v15/16 level, and trying to sneak into IC in small groups to provide fodder for the remaining hardcore PvP Tel Var farmers, but Cyrodiil will become much more static as the new "meta" appears.
One month after that, and everyone will be looking forward to the Orsinium DLC...
And when Orsinium is released, IC will be largely empty of PvE'rs, leaving only a few high level PvP'rs and those who are trying to complete the achievements or get the new sets/motifs/mats etc. - leaving probably only about a third of the initial 2.1 patch launch populations. That will shake up the IC and Cyrodiil meta/ownership patterns a fair bit again, at least for a while. It will be another month or two before PvE'rs have finished the Orsinium content sufficiently to try doing more back in IC.

CN_Daniel

What are you all talking about? If anything I see red as being in the worst position now. DC is not the weakest faction anymore. When we stack faction vs faction -- DC wins now.

And DC has no leaders, really?

olemanwinter

davidbarryb16_ESO wrote: »

snip

That all sounds about right, but doesn't seem to do have much to do with my main issue. If we were talking about if there were too many or too few people in IC, or the IC combat, or the Tel Var system, etc.....that would seem germane, but although I agree with almost everything you said, I don't see how it justifies the conditions I describe in my original post.

olemanwinter

NPK Daniel wrote: »

What are you all talking about?

The new DLC Imperial City. You can access it on the Public Test Server. The game is Elder Scrolls Online, the forums for which you are now in.

Pirhana7_ESO

olemanwinter wrote: »

Pirhana7_ESO wrote: »

The thing you fail to mention is that while DC is locked out of IC their FULL force will be in Cyrodiil while the other alliances will have half their forces in IC.

There is no full force.
Our FULL force gets us control of 25% of the campaigns for 33% of the day.
Or in other words, our FULL force grants us control over approx 8% of PvP.

Currently EVERY faction has full PVP force in Cyrodiil because its the only PVP place......... So when IC is available.... The sides that have access to it will have half if not more of their forces inside of it, leaving very little forces in Cyrodiil to stop your DC's FULL force from taking back your homes keeps + what ever is required for access. yes once you lock out another alliance their full force with greater numbers will come take it back from you but will still have access for a bit.

So even tho DC population is much less in Cyrodiil.. When half of the enemies armies are in IC, DC's Cyrodiil population (force) will actually be bigger than ADs or EPs in Cyrodiil so you then have teh advantage

Lorkhan

well pointed, op.

olemanwinter

NPK Daniel wrote: »

DC is not the weakest faction anymore. When we stack faction vs faction -- DC wins now.

Oh, you're being serious. Alright.

Currently there are 4 Veteran Campaigns. DC is leading in 1 of the 4. 25%.

13 hours ago, at 1:00 am DC only controlled 4 keeps in spite of that lead. 1 hours ago when I last checked at 1:00 pm we hold only 3 keeps.

Those are facts. These can be used to help check delusions of grandeur

NPK Daniel wrote: »

And DC has no leaders, really?

I didn't say we had no leaders. I specifically said we have no leaders worth following.

Wycks

I am very against the carebear approach of open access, and carebears in general, they ruin the context in a game.

The whole reason darkness falls in DAOC was cool was because it was controlled by PVP. It wasn't handed to you, you had to work for it, sometimes 2 weeks went by without having access.

When your realm is the underdog it creates leaders and communities to overcome, organize, startegize, now it just creates a bunch of whiners.

Why do people even want to play a PvP MMO if everything is handed to them...

olemanwinter

bob.ellisonb16_ESO wrote: »

I am very against the carebear approach of open access, and carebears in general, they ruin the context in a game.

You do understand that the ability of the ALLIANCE of DC to compete doesn't reflect on my specific personal ability or yours, right?

Terranjoe

Perhaps they could implement IC access similar to the scoring system of each individual campaign. People should be picking their new campaigns based on the objective which is beneficial to thei styles of play wether that is capturing resources, keeps, outposts, scrolls, or all of the above combined.

Based on that they could determine your alliances access to the IC, such as capture 1/3 of keeps (could be home keeps or not), capture 1/3 of resources on the map from any keeps, have control of 1 outpost and so on.

This could result in people playing pvp that they will enjoy capturing the objectives that they want to with IC being the reward as well as gaining points for your alliance. Of course some servers may give you easier access to the IC such as controlling 1 outpost, but it could just as easily be taken away.

I also see where some of you are coming from saying that you pay for DLC so there should be no restrictions, and I agree with this to an extent. Perhaps to accomodate to this there could be a server where IC will always be accessible.

Tell me what you think could be added or removed from what I said.

Thanks for reading!

Furor

olemanwinter wrote: »

If there is unrestricted access to IC then people will be free to play in whichever campaign they want...whenever they want.

Except even with no gate requirement IC access is still restricted based around population...

Wycks

olemanwinter wrote: »

bob.ellisonb16_ESO wrote: »

I am very against the carebear approach of open access, and carebears in general, they ruin the context in a game.

You do understand that the ability of the ALLIANCE of DC to compete doesn't reflect on my specific personal ability or yours, right?

Yes and that's why the pve content up date is for people like you.

olemanwinter

bob.ellisonb16_ESO wrote: »

olemanwinter wrote: »

bob.ellisonb16_ESO wrote: »

I am very against the carebear approach of open access, and carebears in general, they ruin the context in a game.

You do understand that the ability of the ALLIANCE of DC to compete doesn't reflect on my specific personal ability or yours, right?

Yes and that's why the pve content up date is for people like you.

Allow me to rephrase.

You do realize the ability of the alliance of DC as a whole to compete doesn't reflect on my specific personal PvP ABILITY AND SKILLS or yours, right?

Davkin

I dont know why people think if there are no requirements for the imperial city, no one will have an incentive to play cyrodil anymore. People will still play cyoridl, because its another form of pvp then the imperial city. Alot of people prefer large scale batte with sieges and defending of castles. What was the incentive until now to play cyordil? After the first few million AP its to have fun. For example guildwars 2 also has two different pvp options, large scale world war like cyrodil and small maps for just a few players. Both coexist because some people like the constant direct engagement, while other like to play towards a greater goal then just the Kill/death-rate or a plain onslaugt. There is no need to force people to play stuff.

Thymos

I certainly would hate it if my only way to get into Cryodiil hinged on the timing of when most of my alliance is online playing in Cyrodiil.

If I paid for this content, and couldn't have my gametime sync up to the times it is open to my alliance, I would definitely be upset.

I wont be buying it if this is how it ends up. Why buy something that I will barely get to enjoy?

NovaShadow

Personally I want access at all times. I play on DC. There's all this talk about making zergs less of a thing. All I see IC doing if rules are in place is make it a necessity to zerg if you want access to something you paid for. If you don't zerg you don't get in. Kinda pointless for DC since the zerg just ain't there.

Then once you're in, especially for DC, who's left outside to defend keeps when the crazy numbers of the other 2 factions team up. When this hits live and if all camps have these kinds of rules I foresee buff camps becoming mandatory and a LOT of QQ and people rage quitting.

Slylok

I would have to agree.. There needs to be another way. A paid DLC that may not even be open to some people when they logon isnt a good idea. If it were something that a faction could work toward without needing to worry that they are outnumbered and may never get the keep requirement ( Also true that this hurt Warhammer A LOT ).. Which would eventually cause DC to become even less populated because people will want to play the DLC they paid for as much as possible.