Blackwater Blade: Yeah, these things need to happen

Alucardo

The upcoming change with gear/attributes is a great step forward. It's going to be tough at first, but we'll adapt and it will be better all-round. However, just a couple of outstanding issues need to be rectified to make this the perfect place for non-veteran combat.

Damage reduction removed or increased to 70-80%
It just takes too long to kill any thing. By the time you get them down to 50% they've run through a door or behind some guards at a resource, or even had time to call for help from people in their party. Want to kill a DK wearing heavy armour and Undeath? Yeah, good luck with that.
I can see why this reduction would make sense on vet campaigns, but nobody really has that damage output on BwB, so it just doesn't make any sense.

Champions Points NEED to be removed from non-vet
Why do they exist in non-vet campaigns? I've duelled enough to know what a difference it makes. It literally turns a standard 2.5-3k wrath explosion into 6-8k. I'm not kidding. It turns a 2k frag into 4-5k. It gives you stupid amounts of mitigation on top of the 50% reduction.
Newer players don't even know what the hell CPs are, and you expect them to face people with increased passives and not feel disheartened, or wonder why their damage is incredibly low compared to others?
No, remove them. CPs are for veterans, not non-veterans. They don't belong here.

Siege needs to be more fearsome than getting hit with a water balloon
Oh no, I got hit by a firepot. Cloak, rally. OK, I'm good now. Oil still hits pretty hard, and it's the cause of many, many deaths for breach campers, smh. Meatbags are useful for debuffs, but yeah, other sieges just aren't what they used to be.

That's pretty much all I can think of that would make BwB a better place, and a better campaign for beginners to PvP. Because after all, that's what it is. It's not a veterans playground, and never should have been.

Another thing, although confrontational, is to allow vets in BwB to still accumulate CPs (although not be able to use them in non-vet). I spend a lot of time in BwB grinding alts because I don't like to PvE, but while I'm doing this I'm missing out on gaining CPs for my vets and get left behind.
This isn't important by any means, and was just an idea.

maxjapank

I agree with everything you said. Before IC, BWB was the most fun I had in Cyrodiil. Siege hurt. NPCs hurt. Players were for the most part equal, except for those with tons of CP. It's sad, too, that there is no way to earn CPs there. I missed out on a ton because I was having so much fun there. Thank goodness for a catch-up mechanic.

Best thing about BWB was hardly anyone had Barrier. No one had Magical Detonation. Purge was less frequent. And Steel Tornado, though used, was used less frequently. In general, single target and Ultimates were the way to go. It really made for some fantastic gameplay.

zornyan

maxjapank wrote: »

I agree with everything you said. Before IC, BWB was the most fun I had in Cyrodiil. Siege hurt. NPCs hurt. Players were for the most part equal, except for those with tons of CP. It's sad, too, that there is no way to earn CPs there. I missed out on a ton because I was having so much fun there. Thank goodness for a catch-up mechanic.

Best thing about BWB was hardly anyone had Barrier. No one had Magical Detonation. Purge was less frequent. And Steel Tornado, though used, was used less frequently. In general, single target and Ultimates were the way to go. It really made for some fantastic gameplay.

There's a 501 cp cap coming in orsinium , regardless people will still be able to faceroll you regardless of their cp.

Players wernt exactly equal in bwb either, a level 45 vs a level 15 was easy pickings.

Level 15 had 2 maybe 3 skill passives. And 3 racials.

Level 45 had all armor passives. Weapon passives and skills, racials and plenty of other buffs that others couldn't access.

Daveheart

I'm just curious. Have you tried dueling anybody on the PTS with the updates to Battle Spirit? It should make higher damage output possible. It may be that once these changes are in, you may want to split the difference between current damage reduction and what you want.

Alucardo

Daveheart wrote: »

I'm just curious. Have you tried dueling anybody on the PTS with the updates to Battle Spirit? It should make higher damage output possible. It may be that once these changes are in, you may want to split the difference between current damage reduction and what you want.

Nah I haven't unfortunately. With the limited space on my HDD I can't really afford another 40GB or so for PTS. I wondered myself if it would make a difference, but I'll guess we'll see next month and might be able to cross number one off the list.

Alucardo

zornyan wrote: »

There's a 501 cp cap coming in orsinium , regardless people will still be able to faceroll you regardless of their cp.

Players wernt exactly equal in bwb either, a level 45 vs a level 15 was easy pickings.

Level 15 had 2 maybe 3 skill passives. And 3 racials.

Level 45 had all armor passives. Weapon passives and skills, racials and plenty of other buffs that others couldn't access.

Sure, level helps unlocking extra passives and spells, but it still doesn't mean that much. Couple of days ago I went to duel a level 20 friend from EP (NB). Unfortunately 2 of my allies were close by, a sorc and nb (around level 38-42). I stood there while he wiped them completely, then we moved away and began our duel.
If you've got the skill, level means nothing when battle levelled.

maxjapank

zornyan wrote: »

There's a 501 cp cap coming in orsinium , regardless people will still be able to faceroll you regardless of their cp.

Players wernt exactly equal in bwb either, a level 45 vs a level 15 was easy pickings.

Level 15 had 2 maybe 3 skill passives. And 3 racials.

Level 45 had all armor passives. Weapon passives and skills, racials and plenty of other buffs that others couldn't access.

Faceroll me? I don't think you know who you're talking to. They will body slam me. But jokes aside, many BWB players had absolutely no CPs. I know because the groups I ran with would tell me. But please don't downplay how powerful CPs are. That's so naive. Just the resource reduction, saving 8% or more in Magicka is the equivalent to the 5p Seducer bonus. And that's pretty massive.

Your of course right about a level 15 vs a level 45 who will level out of BWB soon. They weren't equal with passives missing. But not so much with battle leveling normalizing spell and weapon power. But one difference that did help to even the odds were NPCs and Siege. Even low levels could turn the tide of battle using siege. Assuming you had enough AP to buy them. Lol.

Valencer

CP more than doubles the damage of a Crystal Frag? Come on, don't be ridiculous. Thaumaturge gives a 25% (not 100%+) damage bonus at best (iirc), and nobody puts that many points into 1 passive except for people who will be limited by the upcoming CP cap anyway.

Don't see the point in asking them to go to the trouble of programming in a way to disable CP in 1 specific campaign while BwB has far bigger (and maybe even easier to fix) issues.

Alucardo

Valencer wrote: »

CP more than doubles the damage of a Crystal Frag? Come on, don't be ridiculous. Thaumaturge gives a 25% (not 100%+) damage bonus at best (iirc), and nobody puts that many points into 1 passive except for people who will be limited by the upcoming CP cap anyway.

Don't see the point in asking them to go to the trouble of programming in a way to disable CP in 1 specific campaign while BwB has far bigger (and maybe even easier to fix) issues.

Yeah I'm pretty sure CP wasn't the only thing that made a difference there. Even he was pretty shocked at the damage.

Considering they were toying with the idea of a non-CP campaign, it wouldn't surprise me if they already have a mechanism for disabling them.
The only people who wouldn't want them shut off in non-vet campaigns is those who enjoy their distinct advantage against others who don't even know what CPs are. Like I said, it's a veterans playground, Luci.

raviour

lol fix the spying luci, red are a joke

Asmael

CPs

The CP issue is VERY exaggerated, to the point where it becomes ridiculous, and where I have to explain that "no, my CPs don't reduce the damage of your surprise attack, outside crits thanks to a 3.5% damage reduction", to the point where even when I didn't even know about CPs and shieldstacking, a stam sorc whispered me asking me how many CPs I had and if I was running a shield stacking build (no, that's called Healing Ward spam...). I even thought CPs was a shortcut for "Shieldstacking builds" of some kind (hint: it wasn't).

However, I do agree that CPs should be fixed. Read fixed as "everyone has the same amount" (which can be 0). I'd tend to favor everyone having a certain amount, to encourage build diversity, even if it's a low amount (90 or 120).

Mitigation

With the upcoming patch (Orsinium), it's hard to tell how damage will be, so since it's already going... Wait and see.

Sieges

Same thing as above, we need to know what the average health pool will be.

#Edit: deleted potential troll part that would lead to flame war, tears and all

Rikumaru

Valencer wrote: »

CP more than doubles the damage of a Crystal Frag? Come on, don't be ridiculous. Thaumaturge gives a 25% (not 100%+) damage bonus at best (iirc), and nobody puts that many points into 1 passive except for people who will be limited by the upcoming CP cap anyway.

Don't see the point in asking them to go to the trouble of programming in a way to disable CP in 1 specific campaign while BwB has far bigger (and maybe even easier to fix) issues.

CP is a big issue in BwB. It is a non-vet campaign and new players will have no access to CP. Its not very fair that players with 100+ CP are rolling in BwB facerolling people when newer players have no way to access these bonuses to stats. When battle levelling changes so you can stack weapon / spell damage with lower health pools the problem is only going to get worse.

Also a 10-25% increase in damage or regen is huge, 8% damage is equal to a grim focus and 15% regen is a willows path.

Alucardo

Rikumaru wrote: »

CP is a big issue in BwB. It is a non-vet campaign and new players will have no access to CP. Its not very fair that players with 100+ CP are rolling in BwB facerolling people when newer players have no way to access these bonuses to stats. When battle levelling changes so you can stack weapon / spell damage with lower health pools the problem is only going to get worse.

This is the part that worried me, and why I'm bringing it up now before the change is released. I do like what they're planning to do with battle levelling, but the continuance of allowing CPs when it happens is just going to amplify the damage and mitigation from veteran players.

Rikumaru wrote: »

Also a 10-25% increase in damage or regen is huge, 8% damage is equal to a grim focus and 15% regen is a willows path.

This is true also. Even a mere 5% extra (which is like what, only 10 points or so?) makes a huge difference. If you're in a fight and you're mitigating or dealing 5% damage every single hit, that's going to add up.

I have multiple veterans, and I have CPs, so I can safely say there's no bias here. I just want every non-vet to be on equal ground.

Master_Fluff

Its not very fair that players with 100+ CP are rolling in BwB facerolling people when newer players have no way to access these bonuses to stats

I've got 218 champion points on my oldest account (only one character in non-vet right now) and I do not faceroll new players who have 0 points. Granted, that character is a khajiit stamina nightblade, so probably not the best class/race choice for pvp.

Reznique

Damage mitigation is the biggest issue imo, as it actually makes it unplayable on BWB unless you zerg

Cody

the damage reduction definitely needs reducing; I dare say it should be removed entirely as damage in BWB is already limited due to the forced stats. I feel weak as fudge with my non-vet DK; I barely even make a dent in people:( in fact, that's the case for everyone. It needs fixing. Maybe this works in a vet campaign where people can get hits up to over 10K, but lets face it, no one is going to get that in BWB. Get rid of the damage reduction.

Alucardo

ulrik.igerupb16_ESO wrote: »

I've got 218 champion points on my oldest account (only one character in non-vet right now) and I do not faceroll new players who have 0 points. Granted, that character is a khajiit stamina nightblade, so probably not the best class/race choice for pvp.

Keep in mind it's not just about damage. 218 CPs will give you significantly more regen and mitigation, keeping you in the fight longer.

Valencer

Still think the zergfest is a 10x bigger issue than CP will ever be

Alucardo

Valencer wrote: »

Still think the zergfest is a 10x bigger issue than CP will ever be

Yeah this is definitely a huge issue, and affects pretty much every campaign, not just BwB.

Valencer

One day I'd like to be omnipotent and find out just how big the ratio of vets to newbies is in non-vet. I think the results may be surprising. Certainly see plenty of stamina chars running around who so obviously have maxed out their Mighty passive

dodgehopper_ESO

I agree. BwB should be about the 'new player experience' even for experienced players. If I'm going to BwB with a newbie alt, I don't want to roll in there with an overwhelming CP advantage, or for other players to do so. It kills the fun for new guys, who already have a lot to learn about the game anyway. Veteran players have the advantage of experience and knowledge already, they shouldn't also have overwhelming buffs to their stats. That's like me golfing with Arnold Palmer and he got the handicap. Its like me playing basketball against Kobe Bryant, and he starts out with 100 points. It makes no sense. The new guys already have to contend with knowledgeable players coming to their turf, they don't need any further handicaps. On the flip side I think everyone should be able to play BwB with a low level alt. We deserve the ability to enjoy pvp at all levels as well.

Alucardo

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

I agree. BwB should be about the 'new player experience' even for experienced players. If I'm going to BwB with a newbie alt, I don't want to roll in there with an overwhelming CP advantage, or for other players to do so. It kills the fun for new guys, who already have a lot to learn about the game anyway. Veteran players have the advantage of experience and knowledge already, they shouldn't also have overwhelming buffs to their stats. That's like me golfing with Arnold Palmer and he got the handicap. Its like me playing basketball against Kobe Bryant, and he starts out with 100 points. It makes no sense. The new guys already have to contend with knowledgeable players coming to their turf, they don't need any further handicaps. On the flip side I think everyone should be able to play BwB with a low level alt. We deserve the ability to enjoy pvp at all levels as well.

Agreed 100%

Master_Fluff

Valencer wrote: »

One day I'd like to be omnipotent and find out just how big the ratio of vets to newbies is in non-vet. I think the results may be surprising. Certainly see plenty of stamina chars running around who so obviously have maxed out their Mighty passive

Some of those vets may have bwb characters on accounts without vets. I am one those. Have 5 bwb characters, only 1 of them is from my champion point account. Considered weird by some of my guild mates.

laksikus

totally.
I dont even know what i would need a seconds account for atm.
maybe for bank, but now that i have that finally maxed i dont rly run into space problems anymore.

Tillalarrien

I agree with all the points here, made several treads with this topic, got no official reply.. Now im hoping new battle scaling fixes them: Ppl will have about 1/3 hp less and also less magicka,stamina -> making purge spamming on nonhealer chars imposible -> making sieges more important

This are just my hopes ofc.. We will see soon

About CP, i agree they need to be removed tough i wouldnt exect it before removal of vet ranks they r promising some tim after orsinium - my guess february. Then all campaigns will be 0-50 so i guess BWB will just be CP free version of this.

Master_Fluff

With the new champion point catchup mechanic, I'm not sure they will be removed. By the time next DLC comes along and says: "hello, want to play with me?" many currently new players will have acquired plenty points, I'm sure.

Angarato

Valencer wrote: »

One day I'd like to be omnipotent and find out just how big the ratio of vets to newbies is in non-vet. I think the results may be surprising. Certainly see plenty of stamina chars running around who so obviously have maxed out their Mighty passive

i thought you said in your previous post that cp didnt really matter and now you can obviously tell someone maxxed out 1 of their passives.

Valencer

CPs don't really matter that much in Cyrodiil as a whole. Strong players get zerged, newbies get picked off. Such is life in Little Cyrodiil. 1v1s are for the most part irrelevant, except for duellers desperately holding onto memories of times when 2 competent players could actually end a fight at some point. (this may change with orsinium)

That doesn't mean I deny CPs don't make you stronger... of course they do. Hell, I've got a little magicka nightblade at the moment who gets +18% extra magic damage from CP. That's huge.

In the end, what you're all going to have to accept sooner or later is that the people wrecking you right now will most likely still wreck you if/when CP are removed. They just might get zerged down a couple of seconds faster by 10-15 people. That's kind of my point about the whole CP ruckus.... you're all staring at it and making a big deal out of it when the current zerg meta is doing a far better job ruining Cyrodiil right in front of your eyes.

And honestly, the amount of times people use CP as an excuse for dying to other players is a little ridiculous. I used to take on small groups solo on my DK before the IC update and got tons of whispers asking me how many CP I had (or even "politely" telling me to **** off to vet) when I actually had relatively little back then.

Alucardo

Valencer wrote: »

And honestly, the amount of times people use CP as an excuse for dying to other players is a little ridiculous. I used to take on small groups solo on my DK before the IC update and got tons of whispers asking me how many CP I had (or even "politely" telling me to **** off to vet) when I actually had relatively little back then.

I've duelled enough to know CPs don't always predict the outcome of a fight. They can make the fight slightly smoother with increased resource management and damage mitigation, but it doesn't mean you won't be beaten by someone with less points and more skill.
You're bang on about zerging being a problem, and should have really been something I highlighted in the OP.
In any case, Blackwater is one of the most balanced campaigns you'll find, I just wanted to make it even more so with the removal of something only vets can obtain. People could no longer use the poor excuse, "I was beaten because X had more CPs me than me". Sounds worth it to me.

Valencer

Well, you're totally right about that. And of course, removing them seems sensible. It'll make me a little sad since I like the extra customization a lot, but what can you do yes?

Alucardo

Valencer wrote: »

Well, you're totally right about that. And of course, removing them seems sensible. It'll make me a little sad since I like the extra customization a lot, but what can you do yes?

I actually really like the Champion System, and after spending a lot of time in IC on my vet, I've earned a significant amount more CPs and really enjoy the customisation as you say.
Still, I think we're better off without them on BwB. I doubt it'd happen anyway, but one can dream.