ZOS: No plans to gate all campaigns

Stikato

In ESO live, ZOS commented that they have no plans to implement a gating mechanic for all Cyrodiil campaigns.

I have stated my own opinion plenty of times:

-Gating individual campaigns is virtually pointless
-IC was not conceived to be strip-mined of loot 24/7; the change to B2P compromised this design
-Cyrodiil will never be the same as long as any campaigns remain ungated; maybe ZOS likes this as it reduced pvp lag, by killing the main pvp zone
-The fact that getting access to good content through teamwork is viewed as a chore or a bother makes me crazy

What do you all think of this comment by ZOS? Thanks.

MissBizz

Unfortunately I kind of agree with them. Yes, locked campaigns sound cool.. But if someone buys the DLC and can't get on for a week because their alliance isn't doing so well... They would be pissed.

Alomar

Just another poor decision by ZOS that caters to pve'ers that we'll add to the pile when the remaining 1/25 of us pvp'ers leave in the coming months.

Stikato

MissBizz wrote: »

Unfortunately I kind of agree with them. Yes, locked campaigns sound cool.. But if someone buys the DLC and can't get on for a week because their alliance isn't doing so well... They would be pissed.

I certainly agree that the "paid" element of the DLC forced their hand to some extent.

At the same time, it's not a good decision for the overall health of the game. This is supposed to be a war in Cyrodiil. In war there are winners and losers. To the victors go the spoils. (Unless you pay $25 for DLC, in which case, oooh look at shiny TV stones and trophies).

If the DLC was free, would your opinion change?

MissBizz

Stikato wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

Unfortunately I kind of agree with them. Yes, locked campaigns sound cool.. But if someone buys the DLC and can't get on for a week because their alliance isn't doing so well... They would be pissed.

I certainly agree that the "paid" element of the DLC forced their hand to some extent.

At the same time, it's not a good decision for the overall health of the game. This is supposed to be a war in Cyrodiil. In war there are winners and losers. To the victors go the spoils. (Unless you pay $25 for DLC, in which case, oooh look at shiny TV stones and trophies).

If the DLC was free, would your opinion change?

@Stikato it absolutely would. If this was not a paid DLC I would say it would be nice to be gated. You still have population imbalance, but I think the fact it's paid content that changes the situation.

[Edit] oh. And just so you know, this is coming from a PvE'r. I have guested axe actually because the whole idea intrigued me and I would like to learn more about PvP. I feel earning my spot in IC would feel soooo good. Although, of course... I homed an ungated campaign so I can access IC at my leisure. When I only have an hour to play and have my heart set on IC it is nice to just go to it.

Stikato

delete

Stikato

It is a reasonable position that you have.

It just sucks, because I know from experience (Darkness Falls) that gated access would actually help the population imbalance. It would shift those in the higher pop faction into IC, while the lower pop faction has an opportunity to fight on more even terms in Cyrodiil to kick the higher pop alliance out. Things like daring behind-the-front-lines raids on enemy home keeps would have huge significance by causing an immediate IC lockout. Which would create that reason to avoid the Alessia to BRK, Roe to Ash, Chal to Ales highways, alleviate zerging, create small group objectives, and reduce lag.

Meanwhile, within the city, all of sudden pvp wins and losses take on a much greater significance. Because for a lot of fights, there will be the potential that someone was allowed to remain in IC by winning, or forced to respawn outside of IC by losing.

Darlgon

MissBizz wrote: »

Unfortunately I kind of agree with them. Yes, locked campaigns sound cool.. But if someone buys the DLC and can't get on for a week because their alliance isn't doing so well... They would be pissed.

By that same logic, i am getting ripped off by my cable company because my TV only shows me two channels at a time with P-in-P. I am paying for all 150 channels, put them on my screen NOW.

Manoekin

Darlgon wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

Unfortunately I kind of agree with them. Yes, locked campaigns sound cool.. But if someone buys the DLC and can't get on for a week because their alliance isn't doing so well... They would be pissed.

By that same logic, i am getting ripped off by my cable company because my TV only shows me two channels at a time with P-in-P. I am paying for all 150 channels, put them on my screen NOW.

Not quite, but I think the current situation should be flipped and there should only be one campaign that isn't gated. Give PvPers options, and if people just wanna clog up a PvE zone they can do it on their own campaign. If I wanna go and destroy them, then I know where to go also.

aco5712

Manoekin wrote: »

Darlgon wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

Unfortunately I kind of agree with them. Yes, locked campaigns sound cool.. But if someone buys the DLC and can't get on for a week because their alliance isn't doing so well... They would be pissed.

By that same logic, i am getting ripped off by my cable company because my TV only shows me two channels at a time with P-in-P. I am paying for all 150 channels, put them on my screen NOW.

Not quite, but I think the current situation should be flipped and there should only be one campaign that isn't gated. Give PvPers options, and if people just wanna clog up a PvE zone they can do it on their own campaign. If I wanna go and destroy them, then I know where to go also.

+1 agree

Teargrants

Manoekin wrote: »

Darlgon wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

Unfortunately I kind of agree with them. Yes, locked campaigns sound cool.. But if someone buys the DLC and can't get on for a week because their alliance isn't doing so well... They would be pissed.

By that same logic, i am getting ripped off by my cable company because my TV only shows me two channels at a time with P-in-P. I am paying for all 150 channels, put them on my screen NOW.

Not quite, but I think the current situation should be flipped and there should only be one campaign that isn't gated. Give PvPers options, and if people just wanna clog up a PvE zone they can do it on their own campaign. If I wanna go and destroy them, then I know where to go also.

Such a crazy, innovative idea! Could you imagine what it would be like if a company like ZOS had originally planned to do exactly this, and then not wussed out at the last moment before launch and made everything open access instead?

Darlgon

Manoekin wrote: »

Darlgon wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

Unfortunately I kind of agree with them. Yes, locked campaigns sound cool.. But if someone buys the DLC and can't get on for a week because their alliance isn't doing so well... They would be pissed.

By that same logic, i am getting ripped off by my cable company because my TV only shows me two channels at a time with P-in-P. I am paying for all 150 channels, put them on my screen NOW.

Not quite, but I think the current situation should be flipped and there should only be one campaign that isn't gated. Give PvPers options, and if people just wanna clog up a PvE zone they can do it on their own campaign. If I wanna go and destroy them, then I know where to go also.

Oh, I agree, except thats not how ZoS is viewing it, in response to the "masses".

How about one PVE version of Cyro, so PvEers can get all their achivements, do IC in peace and then leave Cyro forever.. Oh, wait, no.. ZoS already said thats not gonna happen, so.. we get open campaigns for all, almost. They also know that that campaign would be flooded with people farming TV stones and NOT giving them to other players.

Gilvoth

i think its a Good and Great thing that there are no plans to gate all campaigns.
people paid for that content and they damn well diserve it, they dont diserve the stupid forced vent and forced grouping with horrible groups for weeks on end just to get into content they paid real life money for!

AhPook_Is_Here

Darlgon wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

Unfortunately I kind of agree with them. Yes, locked campaigns sound cool.. But if someone buys the DLC and can't get on for a week because their alliance isn't doing so well... They would be pissed.

By that same logic, i am getting ripped off by my cable company because my TV only shows me two channels at a time with P-in-P. I am paying for all 150 channels, put them on my screen NOW.

But you are getting ripped off by your cable company, but that isn't the reason why

That also isn't the same logic, because your agreement with your cable company is not your agreement with ZoS. You also don't compete with other viewers for who can watch channels, you and all your neighbors can enjoy FOX News at the same time, you all pay for FOX and all the other great channels like HSN network and all of you can access all of them, even at the same time!

Anyway I don't care too much about what they do at this point, if they don't lock all of them they may as well lock none of them. Even if they lock all of them 3 will become defunct grinding servers with no competition, I am 100% sure of that.

Sublime

Ideal scenario:

• 1 gated Campaign
• 1 ungated Campaign

Problem:

Lag

LarsS

Dont see any need for gated campaigns, but have nothing against them. I dont think that ungated campaigns kill pvp. EU Azura has lots of pvp. There will be more pvp when people have done the upgrading they need to do. IC is not a pve zone you can have some very nice pvp especially in the IC districts.

Zavus

Should just make all campaigns gated, but one.

Stikato

LarsS wrote: »

Dont see any need for gated campaigns, but have nothing against them. I dont think that ungated campaigns kill pvp. EU Azura has lots of pvp. There will be more pvp when people have done the upgrading they need to do. IC is not a pve zone you can have some very nice pvp especially in the IC districts.

Are you talking about pvp in the city, or Cyrodiil?

Because right now there is this giant, mostly empty map that was supposed to contain giant pvp battles.

And then there is call of duty ESO in Memorial. And zergin-down-a-corridor in the sewers.

I liked it when the giant pvp battlefield was full. And we were told, for a year, that Imperial City was what we were going to be fighting for. Now we have this mess. It's still pretty fun.

Is pvp going to be fun a month from now? Six months from now? There are virtually no changes announced or expected in that time.

This is our pvp game now. What do you think?

Darlgon

Stikato wrote: »

LarsS wrote: »

Dont see any need for gated campaigns, but have nothing against them. I dont think that ungated campaigns kill pvp. EU Azura has lots of pvp. There will be more pvp when people have done the upgrading they need to do. IC is not a pve zone you can have some very nice pvp especially in the IC districts.

Are you talking about pvp in the city, or Cyrodiil?

Because right now there is this giant, mostly empty map that was supposed to contain giant pvp battles.

And then there is call of duty ESO in Memorial. And zergin-down-a-corridor in the sewers.

I liked it when the giant pvp battlefield was full. And we were told, for a year, that Imperial City was what we were going to be fighting for. Now we have this mess. It's still pretty fun.

Is pvp going to be fun a month from now? Six months from now? There are virtually no changes announced or expected in that time.

This is our pvp game now. What do you think?

I think when Orcsinium comes out, we will be watching a movie with a voice over saying, " The Soulburst has ended. Molag Bal's invasion has been stopped. By adventurers like you defeating him, Tamriel has been saved. Time has now reverted, so create a new character and start your adventures for real."

Wollust

I don't see the problem with making every campaign gated.
There will be one alliance only dominated campaigns anyway, making the farm safer for pveers.
Plus I don't get the thing with "paying for the DLC i want perfect access to it"? You buy the DLC with the knowledge you might not have access under certain circumstances. Why should someone whine about it. Has always been clear how it is gonna be. But yeah, ZOS catering once more

Darlgon

Wollust wrote: »

I don't see the problem with making every campaign gated.
There will be one alliance only dominated campaigns anyway, making the farm safer for pveers.
Plus I don't get the thing with "paying for the DLC i want perfect access to it"? You buy the DLC with the knowledge you might not have access under certain circumstances. Why should someone whine about it. Has always been clear how it is gonna be. But yeah, ZOS catering once more

Basically, a 22-page WHINE from the PTS is why. Here.. read away.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/202328/there-cannot-be-access-gates-to-the-imperial-city-paid-dlc/p1

LarsS

I am speaking about regular pvp in EU azura with all 3 alliances at equal strenght. Just left after 4 hours of war with my guild.

redspecter23

My response is simple. I'm a DC (NA PC) player. If they gate all the campaigns, I reroll to EP so I can play.

LarsS

That is another interesting difference between EU and NA. DC is the strongests faction in EU, dont know why, my guess is that it have lots of simmilarities with medival Europe.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Why does everyone pay so much attention to the gated access issue and yet forget that, when announced, the Imperial City was supposed to have actual PvP objectives.

• You were supposed to be able to hold districts for your alliance and gain AP by holding them
• Only one alliance can own a district, you can come in to flip it and kill all the other alliance players that are in there.
• You were supposed to be able to actually drive back the daedric invasion.
• Fighting in the IC was originally designed WITH a purpose and WITHOUT telvar.

Now its just a grinding/zerging moshpit of indiscriminate killing where killing monsters and players mean nothing as they both respawn near instantly.

Check the notes from this post July 2014
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/120864/full-quakecon-panel-transcript-all-in-one-spot-so-people-dont-have-to-search

Teargrants

Gated campaigns needs to happen for any semblance of Cyrodiil pvp to come back that isn't just fights between an handful of guilds until one side logs off and the server gets painted one color again.

This whole whiny argument of "I paid for it you can't gate access" is just BS. All 3 factions are capable of fielding the numbers needed to hold their home keeps during primetime hours. Your faction doesn't have access? Get a group together and begin retaking your home keeps. This is an MMO, and a mass scale pvp one at that. It's designed for large scale group oriented combat. The problem you should actually be complaining about is population imbalance, not gated access, which can be addressed through things like paid faction transfers. ZOS makes money, players get balanced factions, everyone's happy.

And before you start whining again, the original conception of the IC update was for Haderus to be the open access server, where all the carebears could go and enter IC whenever they wanted.

The intended purpose of IC was to finally provide an overarching goal for alliances to fight for besides just emperorship. Gated access was stated time and again every time the devs discussed IC (up until the last minute change to open access) as the mechanism that would balance cyrodiil vs IC population & combat. The stronger faction would open access to IC and lose cyrodiil players to IC until the other factions are able to push them back and lock them out of IC. Following this, the new faction flows into IC and hunts down stragglers who now have no respawn there.

As you can see, this dynamic is not at all like what we have. Instead we just have a bunch of dead campaigns that are painted 1 color about 20hrs a day because cyrodiil means absolutely nothing except how long you have to ride to get to the sewers when you zone in.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Teargrants wrote: »

Gated campaigns needs to happen for any semblance of Cyrodiil pvp to come back that isn't just fights between an handful of guilds until one side logs off and the server gets painted one color again.

This whole whiny argument of "I paid for it you can't gate access" is just BS. All 3 factions are capable of fielding the numbers needed to hold their home keeps during primetime hours. Your faction doesn't have access? Get a group together and begin retaking your home keeps. This is an MMO, and a mass scale pvp one at that. It's designed for large scale group oriented combat. The problem you should actually be complaining about is population imbalance, not gated access, which can be addressed through things like paid faction transfers. ZOS makes money, players get balanced factions, everyone's happy.

And before you start whining again, the original conception of the IC update was for Haderus to be the open access server, where all the carebears could go and enter IC whenever they wanted.

The intended purpose of IC was to finally provide an overarching goal for alliances to fight for besides just emperorship. Gated access was stated time and again every time the devs discussed IC (up until the last minute change to open access) as the mechanism that would balance cyrodiil vs IC population & combat. The stronger faction would open access to IC and lose cyrodiil players to IC until the other factions are able to push them back and lock them out of IC. Following this, the new faction flows into IC and hunts down stragglers who now have no respawn there.

As you can see, this dynamic is not at all like what we have. Instead we just have a bunch of dead campaigns that are painted 1 color about 20hrs a day because cyrodiil means absolutely nothing except how long you have to ride to get to the sewers when you zone in.

Yes, the original intention was to have the Imperial City be the prize that your alliance won. Yours to farm and hold per right of conquest.

However there is no way to control the Imperial City. No PvP objectives. The most interesting part of the city, White Gold Tower and the throne room is completely disjointed from the rest of the city and boringly turned into a PvE dungeon.

If you were an invading army marching into the imperial city after taking ALL of cyrodiil by force, wouldn't you march into the imperial city, smash the Daedra, kick that Clivia chick to the curb, and sit down on the imperial throne??

WHY CANT WE DO THIS???

Darlgon

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Why does everyone pay so much attention to the gated access issue and yet forget that, when announced, the Imperial City was supposed to have actual PvP objectives.

• You were supposed to be able to hold districts for your alliance and gain AP by holding them
• Only one alliance can own a district, you can come in to flip it and kill all the other alliance players that are in there.
• You were supposed to be able to actually drive back the daedric invasion.
• Fighting in the IC was originally designed WITH a purpose and WITHOUT telvar.

Now its just a grinding/zerging moshpit of indiscriminate killing where killing monsters and players mean nothing as they both respawn near instantly.

Check the notes from this post July 2014
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/120864/full-quakecon-panel-transcript-all-in-one-spot-so-people-dont-have-to-search

My first thoughts.. "Well.. they DID promise at Quakecon.." How successful have they been at delivering stuff, "AS PROMISED" at Quakecon?

All of the things you listed would ALSO discourage the zergs.

Manoekin

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler Why not gate all but 1 campaign? Also, introduce something other than gear farming for IC soon otherwise it's going to be dead since PvP players have no reason to go there when they have the gear and fights mean nothing. Either that or put swords on the map to indicate a PvE combat engagement like you do for PvP battles so we can find people to fight instead of the mindless pvp you get in memorial district.

Stikato

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

Gated campaigns needs to happen for any semblance of Cyrodiil pvp to come back that isn't just fights between an handful of guilds until one side logs off and the server gets painted one color again.

This whole whiny argument of "I paid for it you can't gate access" is just BS. All 3 factions are capable of fielding the numbers needed to hold their home keeps during primetime hours. Your faction doesn't have access? Get a group together and begin retaking your home keeps. This is an MMO, and a mass scale pvp one at that. It's designed for large scale group oriented combat. The problem you should actually be complaining about is population imbalance, not gated access, which can be addressed through things like paid faction transfers. ZOS makes money, players get balanced factions, everyone's happy.

And before you start whining again, the original conception of the IC update was for Haderus to be the open access server, where all the carebears could go and enter IC whenever they wanted.

The intended purpose of IC was to finally provide an overarching goal for alliances to fight for besides just emperorship. Gated access was stated time and again every time the devs discussed IC (up until the last minute change to open access) as the mechanism that would balance cyrodiil vs IC population & combat. The stronger faction would open access to IC and lose cyrodiil players to IC until the other factions are able to push them back and lock them out of IC. Following this, the new faction flows into IC and hunts down stragglers who now have no respawn there.

As you can see, this dynamic is not at all like what we have. Instead we just have a bunch of dead campaigns that are painted 1 color about 20hrs a day because cyrodiil means absolutely nothing except how long you have to ride to get to the sewers when you zone in.

Yes, the original intention was to have the Imperial City be the prize that your alliance won. Yours to farm and hold per right of conquest.

However there is no way to control the Imperial City. No PvP objectives. The most interesting part of the city, White Gold Tower and the throne room is completely disjointed from the rest of the city and boringly turned into a PvP dungeon.

If you were an invading army marching into the imperial city after taking ALL of cyrodiil by force, wouldn't you march into the imperial city, smash the Daedra, kick that Clivia chick to the curb, and sit down on the imperial throne??

WHY CANT WE DO THIS???

This statement makes me feel stupid now for saying it:

I truly, actually thought that this was how we were going to crown our emperors, and that the whole "Inner Ring" was just a placeholder. Until IC was revealed a couple of months ago.

God forbid we have team-based, difficult pvp objectives. Or that someone can't access precious content every minute they want to.

Ichnaea

My problem has always been the WAY in which you enter IC. Why the hell did they make it a tiny sewer entrance? It shouldn't even be considered a part of Cyrodiil at this point, because it's instanced. It's like saying cyro is pvp1 and IC is pvp2. If they made all but one campaign a gated server (an idea I happen to like), this problem would still exist.

There are bridges around IC with daedric forces on them. Why couldn't these have been cleared and they lead to a district of each respective faction? And by this I mean no doors either. I don't understand why there are doors to each district in IC. For the sake of PVP this doesn't make sense. Bruma is not instanced. Cheydinhal is not instanced. I'm sure you could keep the sewers instanced the way it is...feels more like PVE anyways

This is my same argument for how I think they will finally implement player housing. A house that anyone can buy, it's the same house for everyone on the outside. When you enter said house, it is instanced to your interior. It's just dumb and I know it will happen.