IC issues and comments

Crown

First I'll start with the obligatory "HEY! PAY ATTENTION TO ME" @ZOS_BrianWheeler and @ZOS_GinaBruno (with a shout out to Matt and Lloyd of the escalation support team).

The first thing I noticed about districts and the sewers is the Battle Spirit buff gets removed when shifting from one to the other for quite a few of us. Another thread of mine has details of how long this has been going on at http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/171717/battle-spirit-buff-not-being-applied with confirmation of what/where/etc. There are four people who I run with regularly who are experiencing this, and about twenty that I'm aware of who have the same issue but whom I have not spoken with. THIS MAKES IC UNPLAYABLE FOR US. In order to keep Battle Spirit (and the 50% damage reduction that lets us not be 1-shot), we have to remove ALL of our gear before transitioning between sewers and district. Considering the numbers of people running around, this just isn't feasible.

Regarding the 50% damage reduction and the numbers required in group, there's another thread at http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/212344/yeah-this-50-damage-reduction-is-not-cutting-it with some discussion and another at http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/212386/numbers-win that makes a good point. There are two styles I love to play, and one I play when necessary to combat what others are doing:

• I usually have 10-15 duels per week with an average time of 50 seconds. Last night I had six, and all of them went on for over five minutes. The amount of damage going out and resource management is not sufficient for kills vs a single person in a reasonable amount of time. Shields are a lot weaker, though healing ward spam still seems to be a stable way to get your opponent out of resources whereby you'll both just stand there to regen. I'm looking forward to seeing the commentary of people who spend most of their time duelling or in solo play. @FENGRUSH surely has something interesting to say about this.
• Small group play (of 4 to 8 members) has become the norm for me these past months. Pre-patch, we would all be in either glass cannon or 1vX builds, and we could usually take on 2-3 times our numbers and win. Consistently. With the damage reduction as is, opposing groups with half a dozen or more healers blanketing the ground with healing springs, there is no way that these numbers will kill opponents. It just won't happen.
• I grant that we only had about 5 hours of play in groups, though it was painfully obvious that the winning group will be the largest one. Winning groups were consistently the ones with about four people spamming snares, about 1/3 of participants providing a healing springs blanket, and 2/3 doing the proxy tornado thing that has become all too common these past few months. Fighting full groups of 24, it took us getting to 18 in group before we could viably take them out, and even then it was a fight of attrition. The group that ran out of resources first lost.
• Emperors don't mean much anymore. We have an emperor in a small group, and are not standing up to groups that should easily be wiped. You can make all the jokes about bad player you want, though a group of 5 of some of the best small group players on AD with the emperor in group shouldn't have this much trouble.

There are some game changing bug like talons and encase getting people stuck in the air until the snare is over. I expect those will be fixed soon, and bug reports were made already.

We'll see how it goes tonight, though if this is the way the game is going to be now, there are a lot more of us who will leave to find something else to play. I don't mean that to be a threat of the type, "change this or we'll leave", more of an, "FYI - the game is not fun, so unless it can become fun again we're going to do something else that is fun".

Crown

One of the things that most of us would REALLY appreciate from ZOS is an indication on where you're going and what you're intending with PvP. I've participated in many of the guild meetings with Jessica and others, and while you do listen to what we have to say, we've never really gotten a definitive idea of what you intend.

Do you want people to be able to play 1vX, in small groups, or only in large groups?

Looking at the sets that are available now, there are only 3 or 4 combinations that people will use (not counting the novelty builds). I'm sure you want to support diversity, though with what we can see as option, the options just aren't there if you want to be effective.

I would LOVE to have some of you come PvP with us one evening. Live through what we do, feel our pain, etc. If you don't want people knowing who you are, then just let me know and I'll note that you're a recruit who is trialling with us so people don't bug you.

I truly believe that you need to play the game the way we do in order to understand what we see as issues and challenges.

Zhoyzu

So the state of the game has yet to improve to a point where its worth returning?

By the tone of this post it would seem no its not worth returning yet.

EnOeZ

Crown wrote: »

One of the things that most of us would REALLY appreciate from ZOS is an indication on where you're going and what you're intending with PvP. I've participated in many of the guild meetings with Jessica and others, and while you do listen to what we have to say, we've never really gotten a definitive idea of what you intend.

Do you want people to be able to play 1vX, in small groups, or only in large groups?

Looking at the sets that are available now, there are only 3 or 4 combinations that people will use (not counting the novelty builds). I'm sure you want to support diversity, though with what we can see as option, the options just aren't there if you want to be effective.

I would LOVE to have some of you come PvP with us one evening. Live through what we do, feel our pain, etc. If you don't want people knowing who you are, then just let me know and I'll note that you're a recruit who is trialling with us so people don't bug you.

I truly believe that you need to play the game the way we do in order to understand what we see as issues and challenges.

I really had to read twice, I thought these were my words.
In case I am not clear : I fully agree.

Ezareth

The information on the battle spirit bug is interesting. I wonder if this is impacting some campaigns more frequently than others? I didn't see or hear anything like this on Chillrend.

I made a very similar post on PTS myself and didn't get any developer response. It had a ton of feedback from those of us who spent a ton of time playing on PTS and saw many of the same issues.

What you are seeing is only the beginning. The strength of the zerg is a force multiplier. It took me, Qaevir and Cinn a good 5 minutes of beating on 7 people who looked to be relative PvP newbs last night before we were successful and it wasn't easy! Two of them were spamming healing springs, one was steel tornado, another spamming jabs for the CC etc. You just couldn't do enough damage to focus guys down fast enough even when you debuff them with both major and minor defile!

I found that the most effective strategy was just spamming wrecking blow over and over until my target ran out of stamina and couldnt get up. Sound like exciting PvP!?

Here is my thread on the PTS which is similar to this:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/210641/pts-feedback-combat-has-become-uninteresting-and-far-less-enjoyable/p1

I find IC so far to be enjoyable because it is new and I'm trying to avoid thinking about the intrinsic flaws that as a theorycrafter I know are present. At some point the reality is going to set in for everyone. We need some changes sooner rather than later.

Crown

@Ezareth The zerg challenge is getting to be irritating. I run with a group of 4, and get rolled by 40+ DC. Come back with 12, and get rolled by the same 40. Try 24, and we hold off long enough for a stalemate - a few deaths on each side, and for fun 10 of us start /dancedrunk in the middle of the healing springs while we have 3 people spam efficient purge and another 10 spam healing springs. I don't have words for how stupid that feels. On top of that, 20 whispers in a span of 10 minutes from people complaining that we're zerging.

Ezareth

Crown wrote: »

@Ezareth The zerg challenge is getting to be irritating. I run with a group of 4, and get rolled by 40+ DC. Come back with 12, and get rolled by the same 40. Try 24, and we hold off long enough for a stalemate - a few deaths on each side, and for fun 10 of us start /dancedrunk in the middle of the healing springs while we have 3 people spam efficient purge and another 10 spam healing springs. I don't have words for how stupid that feels. On top of that, 20 whispers in a span of 10 minutes from people complaining that we're zerging.

The only solution I see to that is there are 5 campaigns and the Districts and Sewers are a pretty big place. I hope I don't regularly see a 40 man zerg anywhere I'm PVPing otherwise I'll start campaign shopping.

Beyond that the only thing you can do is stay alert, keep your eyes on an exit route on both sides and always keep caltrops slotted to slow your pursuers.

Starshadw

Ezareth wrote: »

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Crown wrote: »

@Ezareth The zerg challenge is getting to be irritating. I run with a group of 4, and get rolled by 40+ DC. Come back with 12, and get rolled by the same 40. Try 24, and we hold off long enough for a stalemate - a few deaths on each side, and for fun 10 of us start /dancedrunk in the middle of the healing springs while we have 3 people spam efficient purge and another 10 spam healing springs. I don't have words for how stupid that feels. On top of that, 20 whispers in a span of 10 minutes from people complaining that we're zerging.

The only solution I see to that is there are 5 campaigns and the Districts and Sewers are a pretty big place. I hope I don't regularly see a 40 man zerg anywhere I'm PVPing otherwise I'll start campaign shopping.

Beyond that the only thing you can do is stay alert, keep your eyes on an exit route on both sides and always keep caltrops slotted to slow your pursuers.

I was in three of the five campaigns last night and I can tell you there were zergs of all three colors in every single one. I wish I could tell you if anything's changed, but I've been defeated by 5+ minute or worse, unending, loading screens today, and am now only 28% of the way through a repair that I started over three hours ago.

I would expect the zerging to continue - because most people don't want to risk losing their TV stones, and being in a big zerg is the best insurance against death.

JDar

Zhoyzu wrote: »

So the state of the game has yet to improve to a point where its worth returning?

By the tone of this post it would seem no its not worth returning yet.

I have been pvp'ing all afternoon and I have to say that for the first time in a long time, I found myself saying after defending Nikel against a group of about 15 blues (Egypt's group) with fairly equal numbers on our side (ungrouped)...that I was having FUN.

Lag in Cyrodiil is lower now, and while that may have everything to do with the fact that well over half of the server was in the sewers or the city, I frankly don't care any more. I had a fun keep battle for the first time, and it wasn't an AP farm, wasn't a zerg battle, it was just fun 15 vs 15 outpost the way it was meant to be.

I had the opportunity to have several street-corner 2 on ones and three on twos and one on ones in IC too, so there is the option for that too. And of course there are spontaneous sewer encounters too that are sort of a different animal. I think there are more ways to play your game now than ever.

Not to put words in his mouth but I think what you can take away from Crown's post is not that the game is ruined but that the game has some quantifiable and manageable issues that do need to be addressed. If he was really close to giving up on the game he probably wouldn't waste time providing such detailed constructive feedback. Furthermore if I was having issues with Battle Spirit I think I would be playing Metal Gear Solid right now (or worse, go back to Football Manager). Most of us don't seem to have that problem.

There's hope for the game now in my opinion. I'm unhappy about some things but progress has been made.

I'd give it a shot, at the very least the PvE is fun. Very challenging in the sewers, really well done visually and creatively.

Publius_Scipio

JDar wrote: »

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Zhoyzu wrote: »

So the state of the game has yet to improve to a point where its worth returning?

By the tone of this post it would seem no its not worth returning yet.

I have been pvp'ing all afternoon and I have to say that for the first time in a long time, I found myself saying after defending Nikel against a group of about 15 blues (EGYPT's group) with fairly equal numbers on our side (ungrouped)...that I was having FUN.

Lag in Cyrodiil is lower now, and while that may have everything to do with the fact that well over half of the server was in the sewers or the city, I frankly don't care any more. I had a fun keep battle for the first time, and it wasn't an AP farm, wasn't a zerg battle, it was just fun 15 vs 15 outpost the way it was meant to be.

I had the opportunity to have several street-corner 2 on ones and three on twos and one on ones in IC too, so there is the option for that too. And of course there are spontaneous sewer encounters too that are sort of a different animal. I think there are more ways to play your game now than ever.

Not to put words in his mouth but I think what you can take away from Crown's post is not that the game is ruined but that the game has some quantifiable and manageable issues that do need to be addressed. If he was really close to giving up on the game he probably wouldn't waste time providing such detailed constructive feedback. Furthermore if I was having issues with Battle Spirit I think I would be playing Metal Gear Solid right now too. Most of us don't seem to have that problem.

There's hope for the game now in my opinion. I'm unhappy about some things but progress has been made.

I'd give it a shot, at the very least the PvE is fun. Very challenging in the sewers, really well done visually and creatively.

What? lol

JDar

Crown wrote: »

@Ezareth The zerg challenge is getting to be irritating. I run with a group of 4, and get rolled by 40+ DC. Come back with 12, and get rolled by the same 40. Try 24, and we hold off long enough for a stalemate - a few deaths on each side, and for fun 10 of us start /dancedrunk in the middle of the healing springs while we have 3 people spam efficient purge and another 10 spam healing springs. I don't have words for how stupid that feels. On top of that, 20 whispers in a span of 10 minutes from people complaining that we're zerging.

I've been defending people who want to play in a group of say 15ish or more as a legitimate AvA tactic. But in IC there's really no excuse. It takes about 24 people to capture a well-defended keep. There's no objective I can see where you need that kind of organization in IC. They really need to stahp.

JDar

Ezareth wrote: »

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Crown wrote: »

@Ezareth The zerg challenge is getting to be irritating. I run with a group of 4, and get rolled by 40+ DC. Come back with 12, and get rolled by the same 40. Try 24, and we hold off long enough for a stalemate - a few deaths on each side, and for fun 10 of us start /dancedrunk in the middle of the healing springs while we have 3 people spam efficient purge and another 10 spam healing springs. I don't have words for how stupid that feels. On top of that, 20 whispers in a span of 10 minutes from people complaining that we're zerging.

The only solution I see to that is there are 5 campaigns and the Districts and Sewers are a pretty big place. I hope I don't regularly see a 40 man zerg anywhere I'm PVPing otherwise I'll start campaign shopping.

Beyond that the only thing you can do is stay alert, keep your eyes on an exit route on both sides and always keep caltrops slotted to slow your pursuers.

How about a new urban siege weapon like say, a magicka detonation that can be placed on a certain part of a street, and if 10 players from the same alliance move over it in a certain timeframe, it explodes over a radius of 50m?

Maybe that idea needs some work, but I can definitely see some room in the game for a new ability or siege weapon or even an Alliance War passive that has IC in mind.

JDar

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

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JDar wrote: »

Zhoyzu wrote: »

So the state of the game has yet to improve to a point where its worth returning?

By the tone of this post it would seem no its not worth returning yet.

I have been pvp'ing all afternoon and I have to say that for the first time in a long time, I found myself saying after defending Nikel against a group of about 15 blues (EGYPT's group) with fairly equal numbers on our side (ungrouped)...that I was having FUN.

Lag in Cyrodiil is lower now, and while that may have everything to do with the fact that well over half of the server was in the sewers or the city, I frankly don't care any more. I had a fun keep battle for the first time, and it wasn't an AP farm, wasn't a zerg battle, it was just fun 15 vs 15 outpost the way it was meant to be.

I had the opportunity to have several street-corner 2 on ones and three on twos and one on ones in IC too, so there is the option for that too. And of course there are spontaneous sewer encounters too that are sort of a different animal. I think there are more ways to play your game now than ever.

Not to put words in his mouth but I think what you can take away from Crown's post is not that the game is ruined but that the game has some quantifiable and manageable issues that do need to be addressed. If he was really close to giving up on the game he probably wouldn't waste time providing such detailed constructive feedback. Furthermore if I was having issues with Battle Spirit I think I would be playing Metal Gear Solid right now too. Most of us don't seem to have that problem.

There's hope for the game now in my opinion. I'm unhappy about some things but progress has been made.

I'd give it a shot, at the very least the PvE is fun. Very challenging in the sewers, really well done visually and creatively.

What? lol

Big New Game that everyone else seems to be playing. There was a typo in that, please disregard the word "too".

My point is there are a lot of other games to play out there this fall...

JDar

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

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JDar wrote: »

Zhoyzu wrote: »

So the state of the game has yet to improve to a point where its worth returning?

By the tone of this post it would seem no its not worth returning yet.

I have been pvp'ing all afternoon and I have to say that for the first time in a long time, I found myself saying after defending Nikel against a group of about 15 blues (EGYPT's group) with fairly equal numbers on our side (ungrouped)...that I was having FUN.

Lag in Cyrodiil is lower now, and while that may have everything to do with the fact that well over half of the server was in the sewers or the city, I frankly don't care any more. I had a fun keep battle for the first time, and it wasn't an AP farm, wasn't a zerg battle, it was just fun 15 vs 15 outpost the way it was meant to be.

I had the opportunity to have several street-corner 2 on ones and three on twos and one on ones in IC too, so there is the option for that too. And of course there are spontaneous sewer encounters too that are sort of a different animal. I think there are more ways to play your game now than ever.

Not to put words in his mouth but I think what you can take away from Crown's post is not that the game is ruined but that the game has some quantifiable and manageable issues that do need to be addressed. If he was really close to giving up on the game he probably wouldn't waste time providing such detailed constructive feedback. Furthermore if I was having issues with Battle Spirit I think I would be playing Metal Gear Solid right now too. Most of us don't seem to have that problem.

There's hope for the game now in my opinion. I'm unhappy about some things but progress has been made.

I'd give it a shot, at the very least the PvE is fun. Very challenging in the sewers, really well done visually and creatively.

What? lol

Why did you highlight Egypt? Isn't that one of your group leaders?

Publius_Scipio

JDar wrote: »

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Publius_Scipio wrote: »

JDar wrote: »

Zhoyzu wrote: »

So the state of the game has yet to improve to a point where its worth returning?

By the tone of this post it would seem no its not worth returning yet.

I have been pvp'ing all afternoon and I have to say that for the first time in a long time, I found myself saying after defending Nikel against a group of about 15 blues (EGYPT's group) with fairly equal numbers on our side (ungrouped)...that I was having FUN.

Lag in Cyrodiil is lower now, and while that may have everything to do with the fact that well over half of the server was in the sewers or the city, I frankly don't care any more. I had a fun keep battle for the first time, and it wasn't an AP farm, wasn't a zerg battle, it was just fun 15 vs 15 outpost the way it was meant to be.

I had the opportunity to have several street-corner 2 on ones and three on twos and one on ones in IC too, so there is the option for that too. And of course there are spontaneous sewer encounters too that are sort of a different animal. I think there are more ways to play your game now than ever.

Not to put words in his mouth but I think what you can take away from Crown's post is not that the game is ruined but that the game has some quantifiable and manageable issues that do need to be addressed. If he was really close to giving up on the game he probably wouldn't waste time providing such detailed constructive feedback. Furthermore if I was having issues with Battle Spirit I think I would be playing Metal Gear Solid right now too. Most of us don't seem to have that problem.

There's hope for the game now in my opinion. I'm unhappy about some things but progress has been made.

I'd give it a shot, at the very least the PvE is fun. Very challenging in the sewers, really well done visually and creatively.

What? lol

Why did you highlight Egypt? Isn't that one of your group leaders?

EGYPT is one of the original and most decorated DC leaders. I honor his name by capitalizing it. I am not part of any guild or group. I AM ONLY PART OF THE COVENANT AS A WHOLE!

And you are right. I can't believe Solid Snake is still around. His new adventure Biceps Gear Solid: The Greek Yogurt Pain has released.

Zheg

Crown wrote: »

@Ezareth The zerg challenge is getting to be irritating. I run with a group of 4, and get rolled by 40+ DC. Come back with 12, and get rolled by the same 40. Try 24, and we hold off long enough for a stalemate - a few deaths on each side, and for fun 10 of us start /dancedrunk in the middle of the healing springs while we have 3 people spam efficient purge and another 10 spam healing springs. I don't have words for how stupid that feels. On top of that, 20 whispers in a span of 10 minutes from people complaining that we're zerging.

I won't argue with you on how many you run with because for all everyone knows you really could be in a group of 4, but every time I've run into you on Azura's you're embedded in a group well in abundance of 24 and you all seem to be moving in the tell-tale signs of a single group.

Not looking to pick a fight, just stating what has been my experience running into you over the past few months.

More importantly, other threads have already hinted at it, but I'm pretty sure we won't see large groups in IC after a few weeks. The returns simply aren't there. You get hardly any loot (bugged?) and barely any stones. The unfortunate thing is that there's zero incentive to do regular cyrodiil pvp if IC is open access and AP is worthless, and running more than 10 people in IC will probably net you some serious diminishing returns.

I agree with you that the damage mitigation makes for bizarre fights now, and would add an addendum to the OP saying that large-scale pvp fights probably won't be happening inside or outside IC after a few weeks, which is disheartening.

Crown

@Zheg The 40 person DC group I was referring to took place today about 10 minutes before I posted. Combat Analytics is working post-patch with a few modifications, and the counter was 43 unique names. Sonya (EP) witnessed it as well. There were a few people wanting to complete the round of quests in the districts, so everyone grouped up in a 24-person in order to do so without being rolled.

Regarding yesterday, that was a 12 person RAGE group that you rolled over a few times while we were getting used to IC.

Regarding Azuras in general, if you see me around a large group, that's Misfitz - usually around 7pm eastern. Later at night (usually after 10pm) I'm usually with RAGE - and it's rare that we have more than 8.

Zheg

Crown wrote: »

@Zheg The 40 person DC group I was referring to took place today about 10 minutes before I posted. Combat Analytics is working post-patch with a few modifications, and the counter was 43 unique names. Sonya (EP) witnessed it as well. There were a few people wanting to complete the round of quests in the districts, so everyone grouped up in a 24-person in order to do so without being rolled.

Regarding yesterday, that was a 12 person RAGE group that you rolled over a few times while we were getting used to IC.

Regarding Azuras in general, if you see me around a large group, that's Misfitz - usually around 7pm eastern. Later at night (usually after 10pm) I'm usually with RAGE - and it's rare that we have more than 8.

I edited my original post, after re-reading yours, it was hard to tell if you were talking about cyro in general or specifically IC last night. When we encountered you last night, it was 24, and no more. As to regular pvp, I said it above too, but I won't argue with you on how many you run with because I'm not in your group so I could end up talking out my rear. It's just been my experience that when I see you, it's when the yellow zerg does meteor battles with the blue zerg at ash mine during primetime azura's (so you could certainly be in an 8 man, but from an enemy perspective all we ever see is buzzing bees).

Psilent

Crown wrote: »

First I'll start with the obligatory "HEY! PAY ATTENTION TO ME" @ZOS_BrianWheeler and @ZOS_GinaBruno (with a shout out to Matt and Lloyd of the escalation support team).

The first thing I noticed about districts and the sewers is the Battle Spirit buff gets removed when shifting from one to the other for quite a few of us. Another thread of mine has details of how long this has been going on at http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/171717/battle-spirit-buff-not-being-applied with confirmation of what/where/etc. There are four people who I run with regularly who are experiencing this, and about twenty that I'm aware of who have the same issue but whom I have not spoken with. THIS MAKES IC UNPLAYABLE FOR US. In order to keep Battle Spirit (and the 50% damage reduction that lets us not be 1-shot), we have to remove ALL of our gear before transitioning between sewers and district. Considering the numbers of people running around, this just isn't feasible.

Regarding the 50% damage reduction and the numbers required in group, there's another thread at http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/212344/yeah-this-50-damage-reduction-is-not-cutting-it with some discussion and another at http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/212386/numbers-win that makes a good point. There are two styles I love to play, and one I play when necessary to combat what others are doing:

• I usually have 10-15 duels per week with an average time of 50 seconds. Last night I had six, and all of them went on for over five minutes. The amount of damage going out and resource management is not sufficient for kills vs a single person in a reasonable amount of time. Shields are a lot weaker, though healing ward spam still seems to be a stable way to get your opponent out of resources whereby you'll both just stand there to regen. I'm looking forward to seeing the commentary of people who spend most of their time duelling or in solo play. @FENGRUSH surely has something interesting to say about this.
• Small group play (of 4 to 8 members) has become the norm for me these past months. Pre-patch, we would all be in either glass cannon or 1vX builds, and we could usually take on 2-3 times our numbers and win. Consistently. With the damage reduction as is, opposing groups with half a dozen or more healers blanketing the ground with healing springs, there is no way that these numbers will kill opponents. It just won't happen.
• I grant that we only had about 5 hours of play in groups, though it was painfully obvious that the winning group will be the largest one. Winning groups were consistently the ones with about four people spamming snares, about 1/3 of participants providing a healing springs blanket, and 2/3 doing the proxy tornado thing that has become all too common these past few months. Fighting full groups of 24, it took us getting to 18 in group before we could viably take them out, and even then it was a fight of attrition. The group that ran out of resources first lost.
• Emperors don't mean much anymore. We have an emperor in a small group, and are not standing up to groups that should easily be wiped. You can make all the jokes about bad player you want, though a group of 5 of some of the best small group players on AD with the emperor in group shouldn't have this much trouble.

There are some game changing bug like talons and encase getting people stuck in the air until the snare is over. I expect those will be fixed soon, and bug reports were made already.

We'll see how it goes tonight, though if this is the way the game is going to be now, there are a lot more of us who will leave to find something else to play. I don't mean that to be a threat of the type, "change this or we'll leave", more of an, "FYI - the game is not fun, so unless it can become fun again we're going to do something else that is fun".

The Battle Spirit bug needs to be fixed as soon as possible, I agree 110% with you. Losing 5,000 health and 50% damage mitigation is game breaking; I'd go as far as shutting the servers down to fix it.

I have to disagree with you on the 50% damage mitigation. I love it! It's Fantastic! Those snipers that used to one shot me can't anymore, they actually have to fight back! I have yet to die to a ganker in IC. Only times I die is when I'm outnumbered, except yesterday when myself and another guildmate took down 7 AD that were questing in the Elven Gardens. Anyway, I love it because it allows you to fight back.

I ran into your small group yesterday in the Nobles District. Think you had 5 in group; needless to say, you all got me down quick. Looking at the death recap, it looks like your group is still using builds from 1.6. Looking at your appearance it looked like your gear hadn't changed either. Have you tried out a new setup yet?

What I'm getting at is maybe, just maybe we should hold our judgment on this patch until we're in full VR16 gear.

I don't know if the developers got it right or not yet, but this PvE lot, you see them out here surviving and that's fantastic! Really loving IC right now, if you can't tell.

Zheg

Psilent wrote: »

show previous quotes

Crown wrote: »

First I'll start with the obligatory "HEY! PAY ATTENTION TO ME" @ZOS_BrianWheeler and @ZOS_GinaBruno (with a shout out to Matt and Lloyd of the escalation support team).

The first thing I noticed about districts and the sewers is the Battle Spirit buff gets removed when shifting from one to the other for quite a few of us. Another thread of mine has details of how long this has been going on at http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/171717/battle-spirit-buff-not-being-applied with confirmation of what/where/etc. There are four people who I run with regularly who are experiencing this, and about twenty that I'm aware of who have the same issue but whom I have not spoken with. THIS MAKES IC UNPLAYABLE FOR US. In order to keep Battle Spirit (and the 50% damage reduction that lets us not be 1-shot), we have to remove ALL of our gear before transitioning between sewers and district. Considering the numbers of people running around, this just isn't feasible.

Regarding the 50% damage reduction and the numbers required in group, there's another thread at http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/212344/yeah-this-50-damage-reduction-is-not-cutting-it with some discussion and another at http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/212386/numbers-win that makes a good point. There are two styles I love to play, and one I play when necessary to combat what others are doing:

• I usually have 10-15 duels per week with an average time of 50 seconds. Last night I had six, and all of them went on for over five minutes. The amount of damage going out and resource management is not sufficient for kills vs a single person in a reasonable amount of time. Shields are a lot weaker, though healing ward spam still seems to be a stable way to get your opponent out of resources whereby you'll both just stand there to regen. I'm looking forward to seeing the commentary of people who spend most of their time duelling or in solo play. @FENGRUSH surely has something interesting to say about this.
• Small group play (of 4 to 8 members) has become the norm for me these past months. Pre-patch, we would all be in either glass cannon or 1vX builds, and we could usually take on 2-3 times our numbers and win. Consistently. With the damage reduction as is, opposing groups with half a dozen or more healers blanketing the ground with healing springs, there is no way that these numbers will kill opponents. It just won't happen.
• I grant that we only had about 5 hours of play in groups, though it was painfully obvious that the winning group will be the largest one. Winning groups were consistently the ones with about four people spamming snares, about 1/3 of participants providing a healing springs blanket, and 2/3 doing the proxy tornado thing that has become all too common these past few months. Fighting full groups of 24, it took us getting to 18 in group before we could viably take them out, and even then it was a fight of attrition. The group that ran out of resources first lost.
• Emperors don't mean much anymore. We have an emperor in a small group, and are not standing up to groups that should easily be wiped. You can make all the jokes about bad player you want, though a group of 5 of some of the best small group players on AD with the emperor in group shouldn't have this much trouble.

There are some game changing bug like talons and encase getting people stuck in the air until the snare is over. I expect those will be fixed soon, and bug reports were made already.

We'll see how it goes tonight, though if this is the way the game is going to be now, there are a lot more of us who will leave to find something else to play. I don't mean that to be a threat of the type, "change this or we'll leave", more of an, "FYI - the game is not fun, so unless it can become fun again we're going to do something else that is fun".

The Battle Spirit bug needs to be fixed as soon as possible, I agree 110% with you. Losing 5,000 health and 50% damage mitigation is game breaking; I'd go as far as shutting the servers down to fix it.

I have to disagree with you on the 50% damage mitigation. I love it! It's Fantastic! Those snipers that used to one shot me can't anymore, they actually have to fight back! I have yet to die to a ganker in IC. Only times I die is when I'm outnumbered, except yesterday when myself and another guildmate took down 7 AD that were questing in the Elven Gardens. Anyway, I love it because it allows you to fight back.

I ran into your small group yesterday in the Nobles District. Think you had 5 in group; needless to say, you all got me down quick. Looking at the death recap, it looks like your group is still using builds from 1.6. Looking at your appearance it looked like your gear hadn't changed either. Have you tried out a new setup yet?

What I'm getting at is maybe, just maybe we should hold our judgment on this patch until we're in full VR16 gear.

I don't know if the developers got it right or not yet, but this PvE lot, you see them out here surviving and that's fantastic! Really loving IC right now, if you can't tell.

The problem isn't so much surviving as it is dying. I've had way too many fights that last minutes and usually end in someone running away, and that's where the dmg mitigation needs to be toned down. It's nice not dying in <1 second due to an animation cancelled snipe + camo + ambush or whatever, but it's awful trying to kill someone solo now. I'm not sure I have too much confidence in Eric Wroebel to actually fix it though. I think the whole Battle Spirit buff is bizarre - if your mechanics and numbers are so out of balance that you need to add 5k health and damage mitigation, on top of reducing heals and damage shields, what does that say about the original numbers? It seemed like the intended fix for sorc shields was to make all damage shields 50% less effective, when the real problem is just that they scale off magicka and allow glass cannon builds to be tankier than tank builds. Templar shield lasts 6 seconds and scales off health, DK lasts ~25 and scales off health, NB no shield at all, Sorc shield lasts ~ 25 seconds and scales of magicka - the imbalance is pretty obvious. He should have just improved sorc survivability and then made hardened ward work like DK's shield, but now all dmg shields are less effective across the board and we're in the same spot as we were in 1.6. It might even be worse actually since the only way you used to be able to kill a sorc was to get in enough burst all at once to get through their shields after a CC. With the increased damage mitigation, they have more time to react and recast their shields.

Hopefully they keep tweaking the numbers, because they've added new problems and left old ones unaddressed. But then again, this is all coming from the team that buffed Altmer and Bosmer racials (before they got called out for it) after giving us the current Argonian racials, so... yeah...

FireCowCommando

I wonder if some of the over survivability introduced this update will be resolved with more CP's, and gear in the coming months.

It's possible the 50% reduction is a bandaid to give them time to work on the next updates, letting the champion system fix their self created balance issues in the longer run.

I have never played around with more CP then i have currently, do higher CP amounts give more defensive bonus then offense? Curious if one outpaces the other eventually.

Force-Siphon

The biggest problem right now is that pvp is confined to call of duty-style gear farming. On azuras the only action on the map will usually be one faction having a raid just roll the map while everyone is in IC bc there is zero incentive to play the map. IC is okay in spurts but if this is the main source of pvp then it will last about another week or two before we start bleeding players again.

Please introduce strong campaign rewards for winning or something bc grinding pve mobs until u get zerged or ganked (or inversely having to zerg or gank) will lose its shine very quickly. But knowing how these things go it won't be hot fixed and will take until orsinium dlc to indtroduce new ways of incentivizing cyrodiil play...and the pvp community will not be the same then.

But gratz on finally fixing the lag...cyrodiil is now empty even when pop locked!!!!

asneakybanana

Honestly with the lag gone I feel it's easier to take out groups that outnumber you within reason. 2 or 3:1 with an organized group vs bad groups is very very doable. Had no more than 11 last night and over the course of the night wjped tko and npk multiple times. Wasn't until we went down to under 8 that we were starting to struggle vs full raids. Then ve came around and there was nothing we could really do against their full raid of guildies and half raid of pugs so we went down to the sewers which was a blast just roaming around in the ad and DC areas killing unsuspecting pve'rs.

Crown

Psilent wrote: »

I have to disagree with you on the 50% damage mitigation. I love it! It's Fantastic! Those snipers that used to one shot me can't anymore, they actually have to fight back! I have yet to die to a ganker in IC. Only times I die is when I'm outnumbered, except yesterday when myself and another guildmate took down 7 AD that were questing in the Elven Gardens. Anyway, I love it because it allows you to fight back.

The snipers can't kill you in seconds anymore, though you can still kill someone in about 3 seconds with the right combo from up close and personal. The big challenge I see right now is exactly what you stated - the only time you die is when you're outnumbered.

It doesn't matter how good you are, how much skill you've developed, or how you play, as long as you have more people than your opponents.

We've been consistently able to take on groups in a 4 (us) to 5 (them) ratio, though not more. Most group fights end up with the one who has the most healing springs winning. It's a big change from the days of *skilled* players being able to take on 3 or 4 times their numbers. The fact that the emperor only now counts for 2 instead of 8 people is very significant too.

Psilent wrote: »

I ran into your small group yesterday in the Nobles District. Think you had 5 in group; needless to say, you all got me down quick. Looking at the death recap, it looks like your group is still using builds from 1.6. Looking at your appearance it looked like your gear hadn't changed either. Have you tried out a new setup yet?

Most of my gear looks the same - I'm still using VR14 gear, though have been using more of what I used to use for PvE in PvP, and it's going quite well. Sap crits at 9k are quite nice in the sewers, and I've worked out how to solo up to three of the big mobs (dawnbreaker proc'ing evil hunter is very OP broken).

Crown

Force-Siphon wrote: »

Please introduce strong campaign rewards for winning or something

This last campaign I got 4 heads and 1 shoulders of crafted sets that are completely useless. They turned into 5 gold upgrade mats.

Once again, I believe that the biggest problem that ZOS has is that the people making decisions don't actually play the game. Many of the decisions they've made show that they have played OTHER games, or the original SOLO elder scrolls games and are trying to use the knowledge and balance that they've developed on said games for ESO - and thus why so many of us who play ESO believe that PvP is broken.

CN_Daniel

People complained we were a zerg on IC launch night with 24. Just for them I took it old school and we formed up to 48.

Force-Siphon

Def agree with u crown...they need to play their own game.

asneakybanana

NPK Daniel wrote: »

People complained we were a zerg on IC launch night with 24. Just for them I took it old school and we formed up to 48.

Lol cuz you didn't do that out of need to not wipe to half your numbers. How many times last night did you get wiped by less than 12 people and ran to a different district afterwards?

Crown

Running with 50 people can be a viable strategy.. Let them get wiped by a few opponents, then kill those opponents to redistribute / steal their stones ;-)

Minno

Ezareth wrote: »

show previous quotes

Crown wrote: »

@Ezareth The zerg challenge is getting to be irritating. I run with a group of 4, and get rolled by 40+ DC. Come back with 12, and get rolled by the same 40. Try 24, and we hold off long enough for a stalemate - a few deaths on each side, and for fun 10 of us start /dancedrunk in the middle of the healing springs while we have 3 people spam efficient purge and another 10 spam healing springs. I don't have words for how stupid that feels. On top of that, 20 whispers in a span of 10 minutes from people complaining that we're zerging.

The only solution I see to that is there are 5 campaigns and the Districts and Sewers are a pretty big place. I hope I don't regularly see a 40 man zerg anywhere I'm PVPing otherwise I'll start campaign shopping.

Beyond that the only thing you can do is stay alert, keep your eyes on an exit route on both sides and always keep caltrops slotted to slow your pursuers.

I've been noticing more rewards in areas where less players are in. More dark ether drops etc.
Maybe it's a rewards incentive they aimed for to move zergs?

Ezareth

Minno wrote: »

show previous quotes

Ezareth wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

@Ezareth The zerg challenge is getting to be irritating. I run with a group of 4, and get rolled by 40+ DC. Come back with 12, and get rolled by the same 40. Try 24, and we hold off long enough for a stalemate - a few deaths on each side, and for fun 10 of us start /dancedrunk in the middle of the healing springs while we have 3 people spam efficient purge and another 10 spam healing springs. I don't have words for how stupid that feels. On top of that, 20 whispers in a span of 10 minutes from people complaining that we're zerging.

The only solution I see to that is there are 5 campaigns and the Districts and Sewers are a pretty big place. I hope I don't regularly see a 40 man zerg anywhere I'm PVPing otherwise I'll start campaign shopping.

Beyond that the only thing you can do is stay alert, keep your eyes on an exit route on both sides and always keep caltrops slotted to slow your pursuers.

I've been noticing more rewards in areas where less players are in. More dark ether drops etc.
Maybe it's a rewards incentive they aimed for to move zergs?

I haven't grouped with more than 2 others since 2.1 so far but I've probabably made 90 or so purple "trophy" items, and around 14,000 stones n about 4 hours of playing almost exclusively in the sewers. I've to this point stayed out of the Districts to avoid having to fight players who have just died and the zergs running around up there.

Most of the players I've come across from other factions have been carrying around 400-500 stones each from what I can calculate. I've had a couple guys with over 1000 and a ton of next to zerg.

When I played on PTS I played almost exclusively in the districts and notice a bit less purple item drops so there may be some truth to what you say.