Bring back Forward Camps

PainfulFAFA

ZOS its about time we started looking into bringing back FCs.
With that state of Cyrodiil as it is and nothing of value with AP i believe this will bring back life to PvP.

Lets take a look at some of the reasons FC were removed in the past.

1). Troll Camps - The act of intentionally placing a camp out of place to deter alliances from placing a useful camp.
Solution: Make it so that camps can ONLY be placed on RESOURCES controlled by your alliance (only on the flag OR on tower).

2) Performance Issues - An alliance is sieging a keep and places a camp to call on reinfocements. The Defending alliance does the same to call out more defenders. The result - a zerg fight.
Solution: Since we can only place camps on resources, defense and offense need to spread out around the keep to place camps. The people spawning are gonna have to run back inside at the risk of being ganked or wiped on the resource. Controlling resources would be much meaningful in a keep fight.
Memorial district is a constant fight between all three alliances (on top of the daedra) and I never experience anything detrimental to performance. Why should adding FCs be any different?

3) It will reward the alliance with the most numbers - This was a problem because the old FCs could allow up to 20 spawns per FC at the cost of 7.2k AP.
The result - a full raid spawned in a second. In 5 seconds, a 2nd full raid would spawn.
Solution: Make it so that no more than 10 people can spawn and increase the cost of FCs (10k-20k ea) so that it is meaningful to spend one instead of having FC mules putting 10 camps at once.

Go on and search for "forward camps" and read what people posted months ago about why the removal of FCs was justifiable.
It was a different game back then and I believe the same justifications can't be applied for this update now that we have IC.

Maybe I'm missing something but in any case I'd like to start talking about this and I'm open to criticism.
ZOS did say they were bringing FCs back with a few tweaks but that was MONTHS ago. What does the community think about this?

Cathexis

I believe the plan was to make them only allow respawn within a field. I think the key mechanism that makes them important was the capacity to allow a small group to defend a keep under attack by a large group through strategic placement in or around the keep.

Poxheart

Camps aren't going to change anything, only a time machine will.

PainfulFAFA

Cathexis wrote: »

I believe the plan was to make them only allow respawn within a field. I think the key mechanism that makes them important was the capacity to allow a small group to defend a keep under attack by a large group through strategic placement in or around the keep.

I still don't see how the spawn-within-range format would stop troll camps. Unless of course we suicide somehow out in the middle of nowhere...
The key to that design is the size of the range.

Lets take this image for example.


The white circles you see is the range of the FCs meaning you cannot put a FC anywhere inside that white circle. If you died anywhere in the map you could use any FC to res at.

Will the white circles be the spawn range for the new FCs?
If so, whats gonna stop a troll from placing a camp out in the desert?
Will it be something smaller than that? Even worse if trolls troll.

PainfulFAFA

Poxheart wrote: »

Camps aren't going to change anything, only a time machine will.

Lol ikr.

Wouldn't hurt to try and see how it goes. :P

AhPook_Is_Here

I think it would be more fun if they brought them back without placement rules or restrictions so you could set up 3 each from a different faction right next to each other for duels, gvg stuff and so on.

Fizzlewizzle

Only leaders of groups with more than 12 people can place a forward camp.

I agree that they should come back. I loved PvP more than horseriding Sim.

krim

They should have just made the price of camps super high and super heavy so you can only carry one.

PainfulFAFA

krim wrote: »

They should have just made the price of camps super high and super heavy so you can only carry one.

Exactly
Back in the day you'd have 1 person placing 10 camps in a row.
You would still be able to do that but you'd have to walk to merchant every time.

Alomar

They had this same exact "intended" change to camps in mind the moment they removed them what almost a year ago? I think it's safe to assume it's either too hard for the amateur coders left at ZOS or they're just not interested in doing it.

Sanct16

PainfulFAFA wrote: »

3) It will reward the alliance with the most numbers - This was a problem because the old FCs could allow up to 20 spawns per FC at the cost of 7.2k AP.
The result - a full raid spawned in a second. In 5 seconds, a 2nd full raid would spawn.
Solution: Make it so that no more than 10 people can spawn and increase the cost of FCs (10k-20k ea) so that it is meaningful to spend one instead of having FC mules putting 10 camps at once.

But it is not intended for small groups to be viable. ZOS wont make any changes that would promote playing in small groups. Thats why they wont bring back camps in the first place.

NPC merchants allowed small groups to hold off way bigger groups -> removed and never talked about
Forward Camps allowed small groups to defend objectives against bigger numbers easier. As it is now, the big zerg can just rez each other with soul gems while a small group has only one life.

PainfulFAFA

Sanct16 wrote: »

PainfulFAFA wrote: »

3) It will reward the alliance with the most numbers - This was a problem because the old FCs could allow up to 20 spawns per FC at the cost of 7.2k AP.
The result - a full raid spawned in a second. In 5 seconds, a 2nd full raid would spawn.
Solution: Make it so that no more than 10 people can spawn and increase the cost of FCs (10k-20k ea) so that it is meaningful to spend one instead of having FC mules putting 10 camps at once.

But it is not intended for small groups to be viable. ZOS wont make any changes that would promote playing in small groups. Thats why they wont bring back camps in the first place.

NPC merchants allowed small groups to hold off way bigger groups -> removed and never talked about
Forward Camps allowed small groups to defend objectives against bigger numbers easier. As it is now, the big zerg can just rez each other with soul gems while a small group has only one life.

I'm still a bit confused after reading your post.

A small group (lets say 8-16) can definitely turn the tide against a zerg provided they play smart and use FCs.
The problem back in the day was that zergs could use FCs to spawn more zergs which led to an a never-ending fight.

With the new FCs, if you want to spawn your zerg, you're gonna have to pay more AP and it would take longer since only 8-10 people can res with each FC.

JamilaRaj

I, for one, liked troll camps, how they prevented morons from respawning over and over again.

Gol Barr

it would give me something to do with my AP....

PainfulFAFA

Gol Barr wrote: »

it would give me something to do with my AP....

Other than buying outdated lockboxes, consumables that don't stack (drinks with food), and sigil stones for that never ending grind?

Draxys

JamilaRaj wrote: »

I, for one, liked troll camps, how they prevented morons from respawning over and over again.

Rez sickness/timer would accomplish the same, but like plenty of other things, they'd rather just cover up the issue by removing them instead of actually working on them.

PainfulFAFA

Draxys wrote: »

JamilaRaj wrote: »

I, for one, liked troll camps, how they prevented morons from respawning over and over again.

Rez sickness/timer would accomplish the same, but like plenty of other things, they'd rather just cover up the issue by removing them instead of actually working on them.

Or only being able to res once or twice with the same FC.

Erondil

Soon™

Garion

Going to post here what I posted in this thread - http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/165195/a-critical-discussion-on-the-current-state-of-pvp-and-suggestions-for-improvement-lengthy-thread/ - rather than having to retype my thoughts and feelings... but essentially I agree, camps should be brought back to the game, and I am personally of the opinion that their removal aggravated the zerging mindset.

Moving on and directly related to the "spreading out" issue that Zenimax has highlighted and siege changes failed to resolve. I strongly believe that the reintroduction of Forward Camps will help to spread people out in Cyrodiil. I know that a lot of people will be against this change, but before I go into detail I ask you to think back to before forward camps were removed and think about the number of fights that were spread across the map. I genuinely believe that the removal of forward camps has meant that fights are forced into corridors which results in the zerg type behaviour.

Take for instance TB EU. There are rarely more than two large fight markers on the map and this is genuinely in the corridor between the keeps of two opposing factions.

The main argument against forward camps is that they will mean lots of people spawn in one place but I think the opposite is true. By reintroducing forward camps you are increasing the number of viable spawn points across the map which means people are more likely to spread out. For instance, that one group of 24 might choose to take a keep in the emperor ring while the rest of their faction are elsewhere. The removal of camps means it is only really viable to fight in one place - their reintroduction would mean creating fights in different locations and, more importantly, maintaining those battles once they have been created.

When the 'issue' of forward camps was discussed several excellent suggestions were proposed as solutions to the problem. These included creating transitus shrines outside of the normal network that could be captured and defending, increasing the spawn points across Cyrodiil through to making it so you could only spawn if you died within the radius of a camp. Personally, I am all for the return of camps in their original form however I understand that would meet a lot of opposition and therefore I am very open to suggestions for alternatives.

Above all, ZOS promised us quite some time ago when camps were removed in 1.4 that they would be reintroduced in a different format. We are now quite some way down the line and nothing has been delivered. I believe it is high time something is introduced, as we have tolerated the lag - and other issues (see above!) for quite some time now.

Soris

WTS camps. I can place them where ever you like for only 10k each (i have 30 dominion camps so far)