This is why we need gated access.

IxSTALKERxI

Our group of 10 went on to Azura's Star today to find every single keep and scroll owned by EP.

The server population was as follows:


With the help of 2 pugs (only other AD not inside IC), we captured Faregyl, Bloodmayne, Blackboot and Alessia, hoping to get some kind of fight but there was no EP to be seen.

So we continued on our mission. We then took Sej and BRK. At BRK we found our first EP player, just one all by himself on the back flag. At this point, a DC group had also come on and started taking some keeps.

Still not satisfied with the response, we went and captured Chalman from about 5 EP defenders.

At this point the map looked like this:


To draw attention, Mojican picked up our scroll and was standing all by himself outside of chalman for 10 minutes. Still no EP to be seen. The whole map a ghost town. We started heading to BRK and finally, a group of 20 random EP showed themselves.

This is why we need gated access and some sort of incentive to PvP other than Grand Warlord Sorcalin's super helpful 5 repair kits.

Lucky28

Yeah. i don't know about the rest of EP. But i intentionally ignored you all, trying to get the map un-red and a bit more PvP there. few hours later logged back in and the map was red again. all for naught.

IxSTALKERxI

Lucky28 wrote: »

Yeah. i don't know about the rest of EP. But i intentionally ignored you all, trying to get the map un-red and a bit more PvP there. few hours later logged back in and the map was red again. all for naught.

Yeah it's not like AD are gonna defend anything. Why do that when they can go kill some daedra, or just play on a different campaign.

babanovac

There is one campaign with gated access. Didn't seem to help much.

Takllin

babanovac wrote: »

There is one campaign with gated access. Didn't seem to help much.

Why play on a gated access when there are open access ones...

Also, the fact that it was completely flipped, and continued to be completely painted red or yellow didn't help either. It was also a fairly dead campaign(Thornblade) before they axed it for the new one. Hard to get people to rehome without much notice as well. It was a nice idea but a complete failure.

babanovac

Sorry, but i don't think gated access is a solution. We had that in Warhammer Online, for one of the zones, and it's just crap. The real solution is to fix the incentives for being in Cyrodiil vs the new incentives for being in IC. This gated access thing is just an annoying band aid.

thelordoffelines

Idk what you guys are talking about but those 5 repair kits have really breathed some life into cyrodiil. Finally an incentive with some good rewards i bet everyone is clamoring for those leaderboard spots to get those repair kits! It really shows how much zos knows us that they would Add such amazing rewards.

Farorin

babanovac wrote: »

Sorry, but i don't think gated access is a solution. We had that in Warhammer Online, for one of the zones, and it's just crap. The real solution is to fix the incentives for being in Cyrodiil vs the new incentives for being in IC. This gated access thing is just an annoying band aid.

I agree, I think providing more encouragement and incentive is the way to go. That way players don't feel forced, but rather feel like they have options.

ScruffyWhiskers

Yeah surface dwelling pvp is just silly at the moment. The dynamics aren't great during prime US EST on Azura either. Last night DC was putting up good numbers against the red ring but without a counter force from AD, it was not going to work. All three factions have to show up topside in order for the system to be in a dynamic equilibrium...otherwise it goes asymptotic.

I've been spending time guesting in Haderus. AD and DC have this weird thing going on there. They pretty much just ignore EP because there are maybe 5 EP players trying to PvP in Cryodiil proper and go after objectives.

Edit to clarify time being discussed.

Taonnor

babanovac wrote: »

Sorry, but i don't think gated access is a solution. We had that in Warhammer Online, for one of the zones, and it's just crap. The real solution is to fix the incentives for being in Cyrodiil vs the new incentives for being in IC. This gated access thing is just an annoying band aid.

And how you will motivate peoples to come to cyrodiil?

On EU we have at the moment following situation.


Azura Star EU

Full of Cyrodiil PvP, but these campaign is not gated. Why so many peoples are in Cyrodiil? Take a BIG BIG thank you to the community. The EU community set these campagin to the "Cyrodiil" campaign. The problem is these campaign is totally full. More than 100 peoples queue in the afternoon.

Is this not great?

Our guild PvP starts around 8pm and if we want to play on Azura Star we must wait 1 hour to begin with our guild pvp. First peoples goes in this time offline. So we must search for another option for our guild pvp. ZOS started a gated access campaign. We started on these campaign. First week was locked by EP and we was only 1 AD group on these server, because all other campaigns are running and Azura Star was set by the community.

2 weeks later Axe is nearly dead. We started to farm the EP players with our alliance and as the PvE players saw that they have not unlimited access to IC they changed the campaign to another. The EP did that what some peoples before already said if only a specific number of gated campaigns will be started and not -> "All gated or nothing gated".

See here:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2236660/#Comment_2236660

Docmandu wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We are planning on introducing a Campaign or two that have Gated Imperial City access and we are looking into other things to add into Cyrodiil for pulling people back into the warzone.

If you give people the choice, they well ofcourse pick the ungated one everytime imho. Path of least resistance.

Taonnor wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We are planning on introducing a Campaign or two that have Gated Imperial City access and we are looking into other things to add into Cyrodiil for pulling people back into the warzone.

Ehm... So you plan to have campaigns with gated access and campaigns without? Will this work?

I mean if we have these situation i will set my home campaign to gated access campaign and my guest campaign to open access. If i want to farm equip i go into the open access campaign. So why should i go into IC on a gated access campaign?

This feels strange. I think the best is all gated or nothing gated.

So. Please. Please! @ZOS_BrianWheeler adjust the gated access again. Our guild pvp on cyrodiil is nearly dead and the peoples begins to lesser login, because of there is nothing todo for PvP peoples.

Lucky28

@Taonnor

Personally what i would do to motivate Cyrodiil PvP.

1. Add back in Cyrodiil buffs applying in PvE. Used to be i was always interested in what was happening in Cyrodiil if i was in PvE or PvP Cyrodiil was important. now it's not, if i'm in PvE i don't give a flying **** what's happening in Cyrodiil, it doesn't matter anymore. That's a problem.

The reason they got rid of those buffs was to try and get rid of buff servers and that failed, so re-add them.

2. upgrade the AP store. for obvious reasons.

3. change Cyrodiil topside to 1.6 with minor adjustments and give IC it's own "curse" to lower damage and what not. because of the TTK Cyrodiil is just not that exciting anymore.

just a few things i would like and think would make Cyrodiil fun again.

xylena

trying to integrate IC into cyro mechanics looked great on paper but has created a mess



you're gonna have to force players onto one primary server somehow, cyro simply doesn't work when there's only 2 factions competing... gating IC access will just drive away anybody who doesn't want to have to do PvDoor chores before playing new content they paid for... the camp rewards are a giant middle finger waving at anyone who would rather pvp than grind trash mobs (lol 5 unstackable wall kits, i can't even)

me_ming

Lucky28 wrote: »

@Taonnor

2. upgrade the AP store. for obvious reasons.

This! Seriously!!!

ZOS_BrianWheeler

Gated access on more campaigns is something we are discussing along with closing campaigns to compress population. We are also talking about removing Alliance restrictions in terms of only allowing players to have 1 alliance tied to campaigns along with the ability to "unassign" yourself. Several of these changes are tied to campaign population and performance issues however, which plan on addressing in incremental patches.

Recremen

I think if Imperial City had meaningful (or even just any, at this point) PvP objectives, then it would be easier to find fights and get people to participate. Gated access will only be so good of a solution.

RinaldoGandolphi

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Gated access on more campaigns is something we are discussing along with closing campaigns to compress population. We are also talking about removing Alliance restrictions in terms of only allowing players to have 1 alliance tied to campaigns along with the ability to "unassign" yourself. Several of these changes are tied to campaign population and performance issues however, which plan on addressing in incremental patches.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Brian, are you folks planning to wait on Orsinium before gating access on all the campaigns? I only ask because there are many casuals and even semi-hardcore players(like myself) that simply do not have any of my toons in VR16 gear yet nor am i even close to having enough matts simply because of work and life obligations don't allow us to have 6-10 hours a day to grind in the IPC.

Many casauls and semi-hardcore players would see it as unfair that 10-15% of your game population has been able to grind out all VR16 gear already and then have the access gated barring everyone else from having the same open access to get their gear. This is one of the core problems i saw with openeing access early on and then closing it.

I am hoping that if the Vet level will not go up with the release of Orsinium, that you guys and gals would wait until Orsinium comes before closing off access to the IPC so that way casuals and semi-hardcore players are given the same equal chance to grind their gear as those who have spent a huge amount of time in the IPC currently.

or at the very least have 1 campaign with open access?

xylena

We are also talking about removing Alliance restrictions in terms of only allowing players to have 1 alliance tied to campaigns along with the ability to "unassign" yourself

@ZOS_BrianWheeler yes yes yes yes thank you!!!

we know that balancing MMO games takes years and that ESO in particular is very complicated and ambitious compared to closed arena e-sports type games... but watching so many dedicated players and guilds leave over the past few months, we are worried that pvp will die before you guys can perfect it

Weberda

The bulk of the players that show as 3 bars+ plus on the campaigns are PvE folks who could care less about AvA. Gate the campaigns and you'll get heaps of crying about access content they "paid" for. Most won't join the overland campaign.

Ironically, release Orsinium and these hordes will instantly disappear from Cyrodiil along with the maybe two campaigns-worth of regular PvP players still in the game all of whom will once again grind the new content for all it's worth. After that it remains to be seen what the actual PvP population will look like. I'm not very optimistic about it.

Turelus

Thank you for the reply Brian, it's been frustrating to have so many complaints about the current status of compains and not being sure when something would be done.

I understand not locking all campaigns due to how the DLC is sold to players but I would encourage you to do the closure and compression of populations sooner rather than later as while many of the PvE player base are happy and enjoying their buff/farming campaigns the PvP community (which this DLC was meant to be fore) are losing patience.

I run a 80-90 player PvP guild and have spent the better part of the last three weeks trying to figure out where to home because there simply are no good PvP campaigns on EU bar Azura. Joining that will fix the problem but also means we're back to waiting in queues for upto an hour every night once home from work and suffer the issues of lag due to so many playing there.

AbraXuSeXile

Just make IC a seperate population and nothing to do with cyrodiil then we can have our pvp again.

Dreyloch

Lucky28 wrote: »

@Taonnor

Personally what i would do to motivate Cyrodiil PvP.

1. Add back in Cyrodiil buffs applying in PvE. Used to be i was always interested in what was happening in Cyrodiil if i was in PvE or PvP Cyrodiil was important. now it's not, if i'm in PvE i don't give a flying **** what's happening in Cyrodiil, it doesn't matter anymore. That's a problem.

The reason they got rid of those buffs was to try and get rid of buff servers and that failed, so re-add them.
Sorry but...NO just NO. You wanna PvE and not help the faction? NO BUFFS FOR JOO!

2. upgrade the AP store. for obvious reasons. Yes, very much so yes!! I think this alone would make things a lot better. Vr16 gear with good AP cost. I'm tired of getting one random piece of gear from a set I don't need and will never wear from reward bags. Which btw are not coming at the pace they used to. It's like they upped the amount of AP needed to get one.

3. change Cyrodiil topside to 1.6 with minor adjustments and give IC it's own "curse" to lower damage and what not. because of the TTK Cyrodiil is just not that exciting anymore. Not sure what excitement has to do with how long it takes to kill another player. I've been out there, and it doesn't seem that bad with the right gear and build.Maybe a little tougher, but I'm still using VR15 stuff for now.

just a few things i would like and think would make Cyrodiil fun again.

Trayyacakes

Players that are serious about PVP and the future health of PVP in this game need to home the gated campaign. We need to pop lock the eff out of it on all factions to show that it is what we actually want, campaigns were Cyrodiil matters. IMO it isn't gated enough on that campaign though. I would love a campaign where it requires home keeps and a reigning emp to enter IC. that way the factions that are losing the at that moment have a chance to take back a lot of the map while the winning faction is roaming IC. of course some of the winning faction will just be in IC to farm and stay there even after dethrone. Once IC changes hands the new faction owning IC can "storm" the city and hunt out the players still inside while they quickly flee to try and bank there stones, rinse and repeat.

Psilent

Let's not remove campaigns until queue issues are not a problem. I don't want to spend my play time sitting in Craglorn waiting in a 500 person queue. Especially when I'm paying for ESO Plus membership; give queue priority and I'll be happy.

Dreyloch

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Gated access on more campaigns is something we are discussing along with closing campaigns to compress population. We are also talking about removing Alliance restrictions in terms of only allowing players to have 1 alliance tied to campaigns along with the ability to "unassign" yourself. Several of these changes are tied to campaign population and performance issues however, which plan on addressing in incremental patches.

This bolded part should not be discussed at all Brian. This is what leads to more spies and allows population imbalance to run rampant. This is NOT a good idea. But if this is the way you decide to go, then we need to be able to make a toon on the other faction become instantly the same level as our highest toon. Skill points and CP's included. For free. Because I'll be damned if I'm gonna level another toon from scratch just to play the same campaign with another faction. I think many in the player base would agree.

Lettigall

Reduce number 30 day campaigns to 3 and 2 of them gated, 7 days to 2 and 1 of them gated. If problems with queue- increase number of people allowed in campaign not number of campaigns.
And for the love of God make IC part of alliance war. At least make possible to capture districts- if district captured enemies can't re spawn there until it is retaken.

xylena

This is what leads to more spies

This is what leads to more spies

This is what leads to more spies

OMG SPAI

seriously though you need some semblance of competition and reward for "spies" to even remotely matter, nobody is spying when all that's at stake is unstackable repair rocks and unusable sets with "sturdy" trait... also the population bars give you all the info you need

Joy_Division

I don't think gated access will necessarily fix things.

• Even if you convince ZoS to gate all the campaigns, something they are not going to do because a lot of their customer base rioted over their original intention to do so, this is easily circumvented by guest / group que to jump to a map where access is available and the do not have to fight it.
• How many rage posts you think ZoS if you make it so you can't release in IC when access isn't available (one of the more popular gated suggestions) and put them into a 5 minute loading screen when they get zerged, one-shotted, their skills lock out, or one of the many other fun ways to die?
• Open access isn't necessarily a bad thing because it does allow people to pick fights in the IC. If I go to the Memorial District or the enemy sewers, I am assured of a constant stream of enemy player I can always fight at just about any time. A lot of the PvP that happens in the IC will not happen with gated access, because people wither won't be there (jumped to another server, never got in, were kicked out when died, etc) which defeats the intended purpose of a PvP zone.

What I would do:

• There have always been too many campaigns and too many players. Get rid of the two dead NA campaigns, increase population caps slightly (to preempt que complaints) because with people instanced in the IC it looks like the server can handle it.
• You do not just earn trophies / TV stones from nuking PvE mobs. With every AP you gain, you get a chance for an IC goody. The better an enemy alliance is doing in the campaign, the higher the chance/multiplier for this happening (i.e. it's an underdog balancing mechanism).
• Access to the sewers is always open, but a series of incentives will encourage people to PvP so that they will only want to go to the IC when their faction is doing well: PvP buffs should be much more pronounced in the IC sewers, severing the transit line from home base to sewers (e.g. AD would need a link to either Alessia or Roe) confers a penalty to players in the IC, better drop rate for IC goodies. Note: Bonuses are only active in a contested campaign.
• The IC is not just a place to farm gear. It has PvP objectives.
• Districts have some stationary, some mobile, some randomly appearing objectives that simulate the FPS games that are tried and true. Successful control yields TV stones, trophies, AP, and contributes to Campaign scoring.
• Sewers also have objectives in the form of castle/resource flags to represent control. An alliance that had all of "its" sewers under control would receive a TV stone multiplier and player bonuses fighting anywhere in the IC, An alliance that controlled all of an enemy sewers receives a temporary battle buff and can transit outside the enemy faction's sewers from the IC.

Now we don't have to PvE to gear up, what goes on in the IC actually affects the campaign, players will much rather fight in the IC under the "gated" people keep asking for, and there are reasons to go into the IC after Orsinium is released.

Lucky28

@Dreyloch

1. The Idea of Cyrodiil buffs in PvE is a good one. Yes, it is unfortunate that there are some players who do not participate in PvP and will just take advantage of the buffs without contributing. however, for those of us who do PvP and PvE those buffs are very interactive, and i loved the way it blended PvP and PvE making it feel like i was fighting for something real. it was nice.

3. in regards to the excitement factor. other players are not threatening. you think you got under-leveled gear?, i'm in V12-V14 purple gear and don't often die unless i'm outnumbered. 1v1 forget about it, just walk away bolt is not even necessary.

Ishammael

Joy_Division wrote: »

I don't think gated access will necessarily fix things.

• Even if you convince ZoS to gate all the campaigns, something they are not going to do because a lot of their customer base rioted over their original intention to do so, this is easily circumvented by guest / group que to jump to a map where access is available and the do not have to fight it.
• How many rage posts you think ZoS if you make it so you can't release in IC when access isn't available (one of the more popular gated suggestions) and put them into a 5 minute loading screen when they get zerged, one-shotted, their skills lock out, or one of the many other fun ways to die?
• Open access isn't necessarily a bad thing because it does allow people to pick fights in the IC. If I go to the Memorial District or the enemy sewers, I am assured of a constant stream of enemy player I can always fight at just about any time. A lot of the PvP that happens in the IC will not happen with gated access, because people wither won't be there (jumped to another server, never got in, were kicked out when died, etc) which defeats the intended purpose of a PvP zone.

What I would do:

• There have always been too many campaigns and too many players. Get rid of the two dead NA campaigns, increase population caps slightly (to preempt que complaints) because with people instanced in the IC it looks like the server can handle it.
• You do not just earn trophies / TV stones from nuking PvE mobs. With every AP you gain, you get a chance for an IC goody. The better an enemy alliance is doing in the campaign, the higher the chance/multiplier for this happening (i.e. it's an underdog balancing mechanism).
• Access to the sewers is always open, but a series of incentives will encourage people to PvP so that they will only want to go to the IC when their faction is doing well: PvP buffs should be much more pronounced in the IC sewers, severing the transit line from home base to sewers (e.g. AD would need a link to either Alessia or Roe) confers a penalty to players in the IC, better drop rate for IC goodies. Note: Bonuses are only active in a contested campaign.
• The IC is not just a place to farm gear. It has PvP objectives.
• Districts have some stationary, some mobile, some randomly appearing objectives that simulate the FPS games that are tried and true. Successful control yields TV stones, trophies, AP, and contributes to Campaign scoring.
• Sewers also have objectives in the form of castle/resource flags to represent control. An alliance that had all of "its" sewers under control would receive a TV stone multiplier and player bonuses fighting anywhere in the IC, An alliance that controlled all of an enemy sewers receives a temporary battle buff and can transit outside the enemy faction's sewers from the IC.

Now we don't have to PvE to gear up, what goes on in the IC actually affects the campaign, players will much rather fight in the IC under the "gated" people keep asking for, and there are reasons to go into the IC after Orsinium is released.

I'm gonna agree with Joy.

Bottom line: make IC part of the Alliance War and we're solid.

Defilted

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Gated Campaign IMO will never work when there are other campaigns not gated. To force true and response type PVP with ever player that likes PVP involved in IC and in Cyrodil you need One Campaign period that is gated with no other campaigns available. This solves buff campaign issues. Solves Population issues. Solves the issues with players not interested in leaving IC because they do not have too.

DAOC is a great model for this. Gated content that Alliances had to work together to unlock and hold. Fantastic and fast pace fun.

Joy_Division

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We are also talking about removing Alliance restrictions in terms of only allowing players to have 1 alliance tied to campaigns along with the ability to "unassign" yourself.

Yes. Please. Do it yesterday