Upcoming siege changes in next major update

Darlgon

The more closely I examine the changes on this.. the less I like them.

But, my full answer is here.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/233820/20151201-darlgon-telvanni-on-aoe-caps-and-siege?new=1

ZOS_BrianWheeler

For clarification, Battlespirit is not changing and the damage values on Siege were increased to make up for the damage reduction increase of Battlespirit.

And yes, I've read every bit of the 21 pages so far.

Turelus

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For clarification, Battlespirit is not changing and the damage values on Siege were increased to make up for the damage reduction increase of Battlespirit.

And yes, I've read every bit of the 21 pages so far.

I feel sorry for you.

Thanks for clarification Brian. I will make the point one last time though (sorry!).

Unless this is due to coding issues/time it seems backwards to balance siege around a 50% damage reduction which could change in future updates if needed, rather than omitting siege from Battlespirit and balance damage independently.

frozywozy

Satiar wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

@frozywozy

Agreed, you know I have advocated for un-purgable siege for nearly a year now, and you were one of the first ones on here to see why it was necessary. It is necessary, Siege is useless in its current form.

What many people don't understand is Siege has to be the zerg buster, thats its role, artillery is designed for. Its ridiclious these people can stand in concentrated siege fire and oil pots and not die. I saw a group of 20 get hit by 3 fire ballistas, a fire treb, and a cold harbor fire ballista all at nearly the same time right into the middle of their group and not a single person died, it didn't even make a scratch, thats just outright rubbish plain and simple.

These people are not looking at the bigger picture, Siege has the following DISADVANTAGES:

1. it can only be placed on perfectly flat surfaces
2. around keeps and such the limit is 20
3. while using the siege weapon your 5 abilities and ultimate can not be used without getting off the siege.
4. While using the siege weapin you are a sitting duck with no defense, vulnerable to any one sneaking up and killing you.
5. Siege weapons are slow to turn, have a slow fire rate, and their projectiles travel slowly to far away targets
6 Have a slow reload rate
7. Must be packed and unpacked
8. Each one takes up an inventory slot
9. Cost AP to buy
10. Cost AP to repair
11. Wear out pretty quick
12. Can be destroyed

There is 12 BIG disadvantages to using a siege weapon, its needs to have some benefits for all the drawbacks to using them. Right now the drawbacks far outweigh any advantage there is to using them.

These coming changes will alleviate those drawbacks somewhat, and yes just charging through a breech or chokepoint like you can right now just ignoring siege fire will get you killed...it was probably meant to be this way from the beginning.....right now the only way to defend a keep is to drop off the walls with a larger zerg and just zerg them over, defense of any objective in this game right now is utterly pointless with how useless eige is currently and how OP Purge and Barrier are....

These changes to siege will be the best changes ZOS has ever made to ESO and will actually not only allow defense of objectives being viable, but small scale 4v4 and 6v6 at resources with siege fire from both sides and seeing who cna outflank who will be common place.

Yes playing with strategy and being forced to flank your opponents siege line instead of everyone just zerg stomping everything i think is a win-win.

I think these changes will be great, and i look forward to them...i look forward to the day that actually have a "high ground" defensive advantage will actually be a tactical advantage for a change instead of the current just zerg stomp everything...just my 2 cents

I want siege to help. I want a good group to set up defensive siege and use that advantage to beat me. I don't want them to set up siege, and than simply win because my group can't move, can't heal, can't sustain doesn't want to spread out . Point and click to win is horrible gameplay for an action based mmo.

Here, fixed that for you.

Oh right, I'll spread out while moving through a choke, why didnt I think of that?

@Satiar - I understand that this thread has now 20pages+ of comments in a two days period. But I have read and aknowledged all of it. I've replied to several players telling me the same argument. The main reason why all the small group folks want to buff siege is to give us a chance to hold the ballgroup as long as possible to give a chance to reinforcements to arrive. In most scenarios, people try to siege a keep with low defense and this is totally right to do so.

As I pointed out in different posts, when you siege a keep that is well defended already, you should not expect to capture it with only a medium group. You should need an army to get it. When the breach goes down and defenders properly deployed counter-sieges aiming at the breach, YOU SHOULD BE FORCED to pick between two options :

1) You spread out into smaller groups and jump inside between each siege volley
2) You get an additional wall down

There is no "How am I supposed to spread out when going inside a choke point". If people are covering a choke point with sieges, you simply don't go into that choke point. Simple enough right? Siege > Ball group. I understand that the skill involved in using a siege is not at the same level as running an organized group. BUT the point to have sieges is to COUNTER organized groups trying to capture a keep without the necessity to have our own organized group.

This solution could be temporary until Zenimax finds a way to improve the latency. Because right now, when two different 24men groups fight each other inside a keep, it is unplayable. Whoever have the more numbers win because it takes too much time to cc break, weapon swap and all kind of crap. I personally would like these siege changes to stay in place even if we don't have latency problems anymore. Because I don't think the only counter to a ballgroup should be a ballgroup. We need another zerg buster and since Prox det totally failed this purpose, siege will do it entirely.

frozywozy wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

@frozywozy

Agreed, you know I have advocated for un-purgable siege for nearly a year now, and you were one of the first ones on here to see why it was necessary. It is necessary, Siege is useless in its current form.

What many people don't understand is Siege has to be the zerg buster, thats its role, artillery is designed for. Its ridiclious these people can stand in concentrated siege fire and oil pots and not die. I saw a group of 20 get hit by 3 fire ballistas, a fire treb, and a cold harbor fire ballista all at nearly the same time right into the middle of their group and not a single person died, it didn't even make a scratch, thats just outright rubbish plain and simple.

These people are not looking at the bigger picture, Siege has the following DISADVANTAGES:

1. it can only be placed on perfectly flat surfaces
2. around keeps and such the limit is 20
3. while using the siege weapon your 5 abilities and ultimate can not be used without getting off the siege.
4. While using the siege weapin you are a sitting duck with no defense, vulnerable to any one sneaking up and killing you.
5. Siege weapons are slow to turn, have a slow fire rate, and their projectiles travel slowly to far away targets
6 Have a slow reload rate
7. Must be packed and unpacked
8. Each one takes up an inventory slot
9. Cost AP to buy
10. Cost AP to repair
11. Wear out pretty quick
12. Can be destroyed

There is 12 BIG disadvantages to using a siege weapon, its needs to have some benefits for all the drawbacks to using them. Right now the drawbacks far outweigh any advantage there is to using them.

These coming changes will alleviate those drawbacks somewhat, and yes just charging through a breech or chokepoint like you can right now just ignoring siege fire will get you killed...it was probably meant to be this way from the beginning.....right now the only way to defend a keep is to drop off the walls with a larger zerg and just zerg them over, defense of any objective in this game right now is utterly pointless with how useless eige is currently and how OP Purge and Barrier are....

These changes to siege will be the best changes ZOS has ever made to ESO and will actually not only allow defense of objectives being viable, but small scale 4v4 and 6v6 at resources with siege fire from both sides and seeing who cna outflank who will be common place.

Yes playing with strategy and being forced to flank your opponents siege line instead of everyone just zerg stomping everything i think is a win-win.

I think these changes will be great, and i look forward to them...i look forward to the day that actually have a "high ground" defensive advantage will actually be a tactical advantage for a change instead of the current just zerg stomp everything...just my 2 cents

I want siege to help. I want a good group to set up defensive siege and use that advantage to beat me. I don't want them to set up siege, and than simply win because my group can't move, can't heal, can't sustain. Point and click to win is horrible gameplay for an action based mmo.

But you can move, heal, sustain if you avoid siege. Right now, you don't need to do anything but stack and purge. Now I'm not completely on board with 6 seconds of unpurgable debuffs. Perhaps numbers can be adjusted. But overall, I see some good things with these changes.

When pushing a choke in a keep, the whole point is it is a choke. if I can't move for shares, can't block or dodge for Stam reduction, can't heal for magica reduction and heal rebuffs, cannot purge these debuffs, what am I supposed to do? It's suicide and everyone knows it.

There's only a few spots siege can fire at from in a keep..A lot of it can't hit the same spot or spots near the choke point..You'll have to time when ya go in...and maybe not rush all in at once (As in half go in to draw fire then the other half rush in right afterwards when they're moving their weapon to hit the people who just ran in)

Going through a choke point thats well defended will be dangerous....compared to now where you just ignore it.

It is still extremely dangerous as is. Pushing into keeps you can put one siege on flag, one on opposite postern, one breach mid stairs, one top breach stairs, and two and the U that can all be set to bombard the breach. As is if defenders know what they are doing a group is usually annihilated on the breach or shortly after.

But most defenders would rather whine about ball groups and clamor for increased siege damage than watch what groups like Haxus do with un-buffed siege and a few ultis beneath oils.

Are you seriously claiming that sieges inside keeps are dangerous as it is right now? You must be kidding me. You are one of the few groups who don't even bother going straight on flags when you get inside an inner. Often I see your group running up the stairs to the back flag to the inner breach, and up the stairs again doing your lil maneuvers for 5minutes straight, killing people NOT because it is necessary and because you risk wiping BUT for the show and for the extra APs, even if you will never admit it.

Siege does absolutely nothing and bring no threat whatsoever to your 4-5 barriers rotation, purge and regen maneuver spammers 24men group. Don't even try..

Wait what?

How I take a keep depends entirely on who is inside it. There are several ways to play a keep take. You can push through to flags and force an enemy to engage you there, you can go up far or near side stairs and attempt to control the top, you can paintrain around to beat down resistance before taking flags. I'll never deny trying to get my guys some AP and kills, but serious keep takes with serious resistance are entirely different.

Siege on its own isn't going to kill me, obviously. I have 24 people specced to heal, purge and maintain the raid. if any random person could put siege on me and ruin me, that'd be silly. What ruins me in keep takes is a well-coordinated group using their defensive choke to force me into a bad situation. Honestly, the main guild that does this now is Haxus. Most other groups try to bomb me on back flag, or on front flag, or at the top of the stairs-- meh. I'd say 90% of my keep wipes come from getting ult-dumped in the breach. All it takes is one good burst of DPS and CC there, and suddenly everything catches up: the oils, the meatbags, the fire trebs/ballista. And than we die, and it's tragic.

@Satiar - Like I've said in my post, it is easy to see the difference between a large group going upstair to clear the oils, going on the flags to flip the keep, etc. Alot of times, when I see you guys taking Chalman, this is NOT what you do. You spend 5 minutes running arround the inner keep to farm people for the show, not because they apply any threat whatsoever to you. Siege is a joke as it is. I fire your guys with meatbags, fire balistas and what are the results? As soon as my siege reach your guys, there is another barrier popping up.

Can most people do it to us? Yes, but they don't. You have no idea how many times I've been defending a keep or outpost on DC and seen everyone huddled upstairs and pounding the breach with siege as if that's supposed to do something. Siege is a tool, a force amplifier, something you use to make your group's defensive position stronger. Buffing it to godly levels because you can't be bothered to learn how to use your other tools (your group) in addition to using point and click siege is just silly.

This thread is not a patch note. This thread is an open discussion opened by Brian Wheeler months in advance to hear our feedbacks and suggestions. Like most people, including me pointed out, the siege buffs are overkilled. I have given several suggestions to tweak it down but in the end, the UTILITY of the sieges HAVE to change. It is not only a matter of damage.

My suggestions, again, in case you missed it :

1) Meatbag and oil catapult debuffs/snares SHOULD be purgable, but not with any morph of Purge. Purge should be used only to remove player debuffs/snares. Cleansing Ritual should remove every negative effect. It would require individual player interaction using the synergy himself.

2) Oil catapult / Lightning balista should deal only 2k damage (for testing purposes - adjust if needed afterward)

3) Retreating Maneuvers should NOT remove or give immunity to siege snares (only player snares). Charging Maneuvers should remove siege snares but NOT give immunity.

Satiar wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

@frozywozy

Agreed, you know I have advocated for un-purgable siege for nearly a year now, and you were one of the first ones on here to see why it was necessary. It is necessary, Siege is useless in its current form.

What many people don't understand is Siege has to be the zerg buster, thats its role, artillery is designed for. Its ridiclious these people can stand in concentrated siege fire and oil pots and not die. I saw a group of 20 get hit by 3 fire ballistas, a fire treb, and a cold harbor fire ballista all at nearly the same time right into the middle of their group and not a single person died, it didn't even make a scratch, thats just outright rubbish plain and simple.

These people are not looking at the bigger picture, Siege has the following DISADVANTAGES:

1. it can only be placed on perfectly flat surfaces
2. around keeps and such the limit is 20
3. while using the siege weapon your 5 abilities and ultimate can not be used without getting off the siege.
4. While using the siege weapin you are a sitting duck with no defense, vulnerable to any one sneaking up and killing you.
5. Siege weapons are slow to turn, have a slow fire rate, and their projectiles travel slowly to far away targets
6 Have a slow reload rate
7. Must be packed and unpacked
8. Each one takes up an inventory slot
9. Cost AP to buy
10. Cost AP to repair
11. Wear out pretty quick
12. Can be destroyed

There is 12 BIG disadvantages to using a siege weapon, its needs to have some benefits for all the drawbacks to using them. Right now the drawbacks far outweigh any advantage there is to using them.

These coming changes will alleviate those drawbacks somewhat, and yes just charging through a breech or chokepoint like you can right now just ignoring siege fire will get you killed...it was probably meant to be this way from the beginning.....right now the only way to defend a keep is to drop off the walls with a larger zerg and just zerg them over, defense of any objective in this game right now is utterly pointless with how useless eige is currently and how OP Purge and Barrier are....

These changes to siege will be the best changes ZOS has ever made to ESO and will actually not only allow defense of objectives being viable, but small scale 4v4 and 6v6 at resources with siege fire from both sides and seeing who cna outflank who will be common place.

Yes playing with strategy and being forced to flank your opponents siege line instead of everyone just zerg stomping everything i think is a win-win.

I think these changes will be great, and i look forward to them...i look forward to the day that actually have a "high ground" defensive advantage will actually be a tactical advantage for a change instead of the current just zerg stomp everything...just my 2 cents

I want siege to help. I want a good group to set up defensive siege and use that advantage to beat me. I don't want them to set up siege, and than simply win because my group can't move, can't heal, can't sustain. Point and click to win is horrible gameplay for an action based mmo.

But you can move, heal, sustain if you avoid siege. Right now, you don't need to do anything but stack and purge. Now I'm not completely on board with 6 seconds of unpurgable debuffs. Perhaps numbers can be adjusted. But overall, I see some good things with these changes.

When pushing a choke in a keep, the whole point is it is a choke. if I can't move for shares, can't block or dodge for Stam reduction, can't heal for magica reduction and heal rebuffs, cannot purge these debuffs, what am I supposed to do? It's suicide and everyone knows it.

There's only a few spots siege can fire at from in a keep..A lot of it can't hit the same spot or spots near the choke point..You'll have to time when ya go in...and maybe not rush all in at once (As in half go in to draw fire then the other half rush in right afterwards when they're moving their weapon to hit the people who just ran in)

Going through a choke point thats well defended will be dangerous....compared to now where you just ignore it.

It is still extremely dangerous as is. Pushing into keeps you can put one siege on flag, one on opposite postern, one breach mid stairs, one top breach stairs, and two and the U that can all be set to bombard the breach. As is if defenders know what they are doing a group is usually annihilated on the breach or shortly after.

But most defenders would rather whine about ball groups and clamor for increased siege damage than watch what groups like Haxus do with un-buffed siege and a few ultis beneath oils.

Are you seriously trying to claim a breech is extremely dangerous right now for a Ball Group?

/facepalm

Against anyone who knows what they are doing, yes. Turns out when you work together as a team and employ basic tactics a heavily defensible position can be ... wait for it... easily defended.

You have a choke you can clog with siege and dump ultis on that your enemy MUST pass through. It's a defenders wet dream. That you don't recognize this is why I mostly don't trust your opinion in group play, as you clearly dont get even basic things like this.

Having personally defended keeps with my "Zerg" of 8-12 people precisely because of siege and convenient chokes, I just don't get what the hell you've going on about

The fact that your medium group successfuly defended a keep against larger numbers doesn't prouve anything. You simply faced disorganized pugs / groups / guilds. You didn't faced Vehemence.

I mean, sure. I think you sometimes forget Vehemence wasn't always this way. We didn't clamor for siege buffs and nerfs to group skills, etc., to beat the guilds and groups that were beating us: we learned from the groups that were winning, and learned to win ourselves. Bombing the breach with siege as backup has been extremely effective for us as a group, and it's something I remember learning from Crystalize. He used to go down on the mid-stairs, meatbag across the way and at the top, oils on the lip, and just pour DPS on people coming in the breach. It doesn't take a lot to break the purge/barrier spam of a group if you do it right, I've seen good raids melted when a well-timed leap or meteor broke up their cycle and they never recovered from the debuffs/oil/fire and subsequent damage.

I'm all kinds of fine with siege getting a buff. Eh, whatever. I can manage that. Sure, why not. But the buff amounts we're talking here are insane. The response to "spread out" is also kinda hilarious. Sure, I'll spread out my 20 people when running into a group of 40-50, that's gonna work out just fine. Surely, we won't be separated and dragged down by superior numbers except OF COURSE we will because that's the whole idea of an elite raid in this game: a collection of players that play together in such a way that their effectiveness is greater than the sum of all parts. Once you remove a group's ability to play as a team than you're not going to win outnumbered anymore.

It's funny that you talk about spreading out your numbers (24+ group) against a group larger than yours. Seriously, how many times a night do you face larger numbers against your group? If you face larger numbers, you SHOULD have a major disadvantage. Especially when fighting openfield. It is the same for small/medium group fighting your large group, we have a disadvantage facing you openfield. During keep battles, sieges should have a major impact into the war as it was intended before this game got released.

You fight in an area and people start deploying too many sieges against you? Spread out, move to a different location, use LoS or die. Simple enough.

GoS does it really well. Even with a 24men group, they rarely ball up. They fight with a certain distance between each other and they win against skilled groups. This behaviour will help them a ton when new siege changes get in place.

Docmandu

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

And yes, I've read every bit of the 21 pages so far.

Anything useful in there, so far?

Catblade

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For clarification, Battlespirit is not changing and the damage values on Siege were increased to make up for the damage reduction increase of Battlespirit.

And yes, I've read every bit of the 21 pages so far.

Thanks for pouring through all the opinions on this. Hopefully you guys find a happy medium.

ZOS_BrianWheeler

@Turelus Correct! However we don't have a way to omit siege damage from Battlespirit as the server considers siege damage originating from a player since it needs an "anchor".

@Enodoc At one point Siege was stackable but in a later patch note during that cycle, we pulled that capability due to getting overwritten HP values on Siege weapons once stacked. Sometimes it fully healed the entire stack, sometimes it nuked the entire HP of all weapons in that stack.

@Docmandu There's always useful info in these posts and the combat gang has also been made aware of Purge opinions here too.

Turelus

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Turelus Correct! However we don't have a way to omit siege damage from Battlespirit as the server considers siege damage originating from a player since it needs an "anchor".

Thanks for the clarification Brian, good to know the reason behind the choice and apologies for being nit-picky.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Enodoc At one point Siege was stackable but in a later patch note during that cycle, we pulled that capability due to getting overwritten HP values on Siege weapons once stacked. Sometimes it fully healed the entire stack, sometimes it nuked the entire HP of all weapons in that stack.

In EVE Online there is a system where items have two states "packaged" and "unpacked" while an item is packaged it can be stacked, however once unpacked it can't be stacked again. Items which have damage can't be returned to the packaged state.

Would it be possible to add a system in where if a siege has 100% health it's able to stack but once it has health damage it becomes its own item and no longer functions as a stack item.

Nafirian

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For clarification, Battlespirit is not changing and the damage values on Siege were increased to make up for the damage reduction increase of Battlespirit.

And yes, I've read every bit of the 21 pages so far.

Well listening at least witch is nice. But can you give us more reason to use the PTS please liek gvie us a new system to test way before that update comes out forcing us things we never wanted (AOE Caps and static ult gen) is not a good way to keep people playing. But hey thanks for listening but theres a reason you have a "Test" server would be nice to see it used more often not just for 2-6 days every 2-3 months give us things to test so we can give you feedback you have a community here that will help you make a great game if you give us the tools.

Also the new changes to Batista and oil catapults as "stamina/magicka dmg" are waaay to strong a quickly firing Balista/catapult will make it a issue for smaller grps and their healers to heal because their magicka will be rip 5000 per resource is very hefty. The current siege dmg is kinda pitiful yes nice to see your scaling it to the new battle spirit as a fire balista on a breach vs a pug grp or a grp that didn't purge was deadly now its just out healed easily nice to see siege will now be a threat again. Keep it up but please reconsider a few of these things if these things go through as they are intended cyrodiil will be a very sad place.

frozywozy

Satiar wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

The fact that a lot the so-called pro's instantly start crying without even taking the slightest moment to think about how they can adapt to the situation is just cute.

l2p.

Funny how all the people who don't want to learn how to beat a good guild come out of the woodwork to cheer a further dumbing down of ESO PvP.

But this has been #1 ESO PvP Strategy since day one: Can't beat a group/guild/person? Don't bother getting better at the game, get even by complaining until the devs tilt the game in your favor!

It should say something that most everyone who actually leads a group and understands game mechanics saw these changes and went, "Hold on now," while those cheering it are mostly those who die to said groups. Because again, easier to have the devs change the game than to get better at the game, right?

It's not about getting good at the game to counter your group. It's about giving an opportunity to smaller groups to deal with larger ones AND to help improve server performances, because as I mentioned in my previous post, two organized 24 men groups fighting each other inside a keep is NOT doable at the moment with the system in place.

Joy_Division

In general I don't think long debuffs that can not be countered once hit with them is compelling or interesting gameplay. A 6 second snare is an eternity (especially as these are not minor snares) and a long healing debuff is absolutely brutal with all the damage flying around without softcaps. I don't think people are considering that the main tools which rendered siege obsolete like purge are also getting nerfed and the two changes together will tip the pendulum too far the other way. I am of the belief that player abilities should be the things Zergs fear with siege complementing them, not the other way around.

More specifically:

• Thank you Brian for continued communication and actually attempting to work this out with us and breaking the ZoS "secret laboratory" precedent.
• Right now, siege very rarely makes a difference. Something had to be done.
• Losing 5000 of a resource is rather significant.
• The proposed oil catapult is too strong. 6 second unpurgable snare and 5000 stamina hit on a rapid fire siege weapon is a double whammy and a highly significant one at that. It should snare.
• Lightning ballista are also rapid fire and thus the double whammy of snare + take away resources. Have it do respectable damage and resource drain (again traditional Elder Scrolls theme).
• The stamina drain should go to Ice Catapult. These weapons are just bad and the double whammy is best placed with the, since because they are slow to fire and difficult to aim. Also ice traditionally drains stamina in Elder Scrolls and in the proposed system there is still little reason to use ice siege weaponry
• Healing debuff should not stack with defile. From this thread, I got the impression they are separate debuffs.
• You should have a long long long long talk with Eric Wrobel because our player abilities, which should be the focus of gameplay, are completely overshadowed by these proposed siege weapon changes. Check that, not just overshadowed but rendered completely useless because I can't even purge these things. He better do his job so I just dont insta-die when on a breech with all these unpruagble effects.

I'll say it again. I'm all up for having effective siege weapons be complementary tools for successful keep defense, but I would find it *much* more interesting if it was my presently pointless wall of elements and volley and blazing spear skills that were actually considered the "zerg-busters" rather than stuff in my inventory.

frozywozy

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

These sweeping changes aren't the kind of thing that should be pushed at once, it needs to be done incrementally to allow fine tuning. Let's look at some of this:

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Battlespirit did indeed change the value of damage from Siege weapons, which we are looking to correct with these changes.

- 30% dmg buff on top of removing the Battle Spirit debuff from siege dmg equates to siege doing 260% more dmg than on Live. Normal Fire Balistas alone will do 13k+ dmg on the initial hit + almost that much on the next tick. That's already enough to kill most people in Cyrodiil if they don't get it purged off immediately. We should all know what this means for Cold Stone Trebs, which will probably actually be one shotting ppl.

- Unpurgable status effects. Unpurgable disease is insane, there's a reason heal debuff stacking was removed. This change falls into a similar vein. What's this going to encourage groups to do? RUN BIGGER BY STACKING MOAR HEALERS TO HEAL THROUGH DISEASE.

- Flat value Magicka/Stamina dmg. Instant 5k resource loss is particularly stacked against Magicka builds. As Brian already pointed out, Oil Cats take an instant 5k Stam, while Lightning Balistas take 2.5k, then another 2.5k on the next tick. Already here, you can hit peoples Stam instantly twice as hard. This is compounded when you hit Magicka builds who don't have more than 10-15k Stam to begin with. 2-3 concurrent Oil Cat hits, and a Mag build is stuck + snared, any CC + a fire siege hit and they just sit there watching their toon die. Stam builds would still be able to CC break and dodge roll out.

Of course, predictably, this thread is full of people who either didn't think about this or think that precisely this is healthy for competitive PvP somehow. If you think this siege buff is going to be even remotely like the siege buff of 1.6, you're very wrong. This time it's not just a siege dmg increase, it's compounded by us now having Cold Harbor siege, by us now having 30% less healing, by us now having unpurgable heal debuff siege, and by us now having unpurgable snare + stam dmg siege.

I dont see how this will affect smaller/spread groups, its not like you have a big chance of hitting a couple people who are spread out and dont stay locked on siege.

As for the resource reduction numbers I definitely agree, 5k stam loss will restrict magicka builds to a single break-free, 2.5k stam reduction would seem fair to me. Either that or make it scale off the resource pool, for example 15-25% stam/mag reduction. The most important thing is that this effect should not be reapplied until the 6 sec snare duration has ended.

The (un)purgeable healing debuff is another difficult matter, in my opinion there are 3 options.
Option 1: unpurgeable, with a relative small healing debuff value, something like 20-30%.
Option 2: purgeable with an average healing debuff value, something like 40-60% with increased cost for eff. purge.
Option 3: purgeable, with a relative high healing debuff value, something like 50-75% with current cost for eff. purge.

Organized groups will run eff. purge anyway so I think the best way to go is to increase the cost significantly and give it a different effect.

Regarding Purge, increasing the cost, decreasing the amount of players it affects and every similar tweaks change nothing. It only encourages people to have more people running purge, to spam it more, creating more calculations for the server and decreasing server performances even more.

Nafirian

Joy_Division wrote: »

In general I don't think long debuffs that can not be countered once hit with them is compelling or interesting gameplay. A 6 second snare is an eternity (especially as these are not minor snares) and a long healing debuff is absolutely brutal with all the damage flying around without softcaps. I don't think people are considering that the main tools which rendered siege obsolete like purge are also getting nerfed and the two changes together will tip the pendulum too far the other way. I am of the belief that player abilities should be the things Zergs fear with siege complementing them, not the other way around.

More specifically:

• Thank you Brian for continued communication and actually attempting to work this out with us and breaking the ZoS "secret laboratory" precedent.
• Right now, siege very rarely makes a difference. Something had to be done.
• Losing 5000 of a resource is rather significant.
• The proposed oil catapult is too strong. 6 second unpurgable snare and 5000 stamina hit on a rapid fire siege weapon is a double whammy and a highly significant one at that. It should snare.
• Lightning ballista are also rapid fire and thus the double whammy of snare + take away resources. Have it do respectable damage and resource drain (again traditional Elder Scrolls theme).
• The stamina drain should go to Ice Catapult. These weapons are just bad and the double whammy is best placed with the, since because they are slow to fire and difficult to aim. Also ice traditionally drains stamina in Elder Scrolls and in the proposed system there is still little reason to use ice siege weaponry
• Healing debuff should not stack with defile. From this thread, I got the impression they are separate debuffs.
• You should have a long long long long talk with Eric Wrobel because our player abilities, which should be the focus of gameplay, are completely overshadowed by these proposed siege weapon changes. Check that, not just overshadowed but rendered completely useless because I can't even purge these things. He better do his job so I just dont insta-die when on a breech with all these unpruagble effects.

I'll say it again. I'm all up for having effective siege weapons be complementary tools for successful keep defense, but I would find it *much* more interesting if it was my presently pointless wall of elements and volley and blazing spear skills that were actually considered the "zerg-busters" rather than stuff in my inventory.

Sometimes i just like to sit an read what post.

Turelus

Joy_Division wrote: »

More specifically:

• Thank you Brian for continued communication and actually attempting to work this out with us and breaking the ZoS "secret laboratory" precedent.
• Right now, siege very rarely makes a difference. Something had to be done.
• Losing 5000 of a resource is rather significant.
• The proposed oil catapult is too strong. 6 second unpurgable snare and 5000 stamina hit on a rapid fire siege weapon is a double whammy and a highly significant one at that. It should snare.
• Lightning ballista are also rapid fire and thus the double whammy of snare + take away resources. Have it do respectable damage and resource drain (again traditional Elder Scrolls theme).
• The stamina drain should go to Ice Catapult. These weapons are just bad and the double whammy is best placed with the, since because they are slow to fire and difficult to aim. Also ice traditionally drains stamina in Elder Scrolls and in the proposed system there is still little reason to use ice siege weaponry
• Healing debuff should not stack with defile. From this thread, I got the impression they are separate debuffs.
• You should have a long long long long talk with Eric Wrobel because our player abilities, which should be the focus of gameplay, are completely overshadowed by these proposed siege weapon changes. Check that, not just overshadowed but rendered completely useless because I can't even purge these things. He better do his job so I just dont insta-die when on a breech with all these unpruagble effects.

These are some great points.

What about:
Lightning Ballista: 25% Snare + Magicka Damage + Low HP Damage.
Ice Trebuchet: 25% Snare + Stamina Damage + Low HP Damage.
Oil Pot Catapolt: 50% Snare + Moderate HP Damage.

This way we give the Ice Trebuchet a purpose in life (and how did I forget Ice = Stam Damage!?!) the Lightning Ballista and Ice Treb have slightly weaker snares because they already have other effects which should be their main focus. The Oil Pot Catapolt becomes the snare weapon for people looking to snare.

kevlarto_ESO

If the zerg cant purge the zerg will die faster, I guess they will swap out their designated purger's and add more healers, to try to keep the zerg alive, but both small and large groups will be hit with this, will be interesting to see how this plays out, it could make zergs stronger it might help weaken them, hard to say until it goes into play.

Thanks Brian for the update.

frozywozy

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

DeanTheCat wrote: »

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

DeanTheCat wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

How would people feel about efficient purge being self target only? So if people want that spammable immunity they have to bring it themselves and use their own resources. Then have the healing variant which is already costly be the AoE one.

I know this is a little more skill based and @Wrobel 's area but seems rather relevant to this thread and the issues on hand.

Problem with that is that is only usable for Magicka builds (I'm not asking for a stam purge, so put down your pitchforks), and will further cement the utility disadvantage that Stamina builds face in PvP. It also means that there will be less purges available from allies for Stam builds to purge of siege effects, as a lot of people will most likely still take the efficient morph.

Perhaps instead of making Purge single target only, make it work like a Templar's Cleansing Ritual. This means that if an ally uses a purge near you, you have to manually hit X in order to purge yourself. This purge synergy could have a longer cooldown as compared to the Templar version and use separate cooldowns, but it still allows nearby allies have a chance of purging negative effects.

Another idea is to creat a few "Tiers" of siege effects. For example, let's take the meatbag.

Tier 1: 25% healing reduction, 3 seconds
Tier 2: 50% healing reduction, 6 seconds

When a purge is used, all Tier 2 effects currently applied are turned into Tier 1 effects which are unpurgable. Being hit again by the same type of siege refreshes the duration and reverts the effect back to Tier 2. This allows siege to still have some impact on the battlefield, while still allowing a counter to be used to dampen the effect of the impact.

Magicka builds need to invest in stamina management if they don't run in huge groups, sacrificing damage. I don't understand why stamina builds are so unwilling to invest in magicka management. It's a choice. It's perfectly doable to have a stamina build that also allows one to use efficient purge relatively often. Purge even gives more magicka regen when it's slotted.

I can purge negative effects with my cloak easily, and I have put CP into Magicka cost reduction and regeneration (As well as using magicka regen drinks) to help further sustain my self purging. However, not every stamina based player is a Templar or a Nightblade, and the cost of Efficient Purge for them will be too high to properly sustain, especially since it doesn't offer any secondary effect (Invis for Cloak, Cleansing Ritual removes 5 effects) to the caster.

It's kinda the same thing as expecting a Magicka build to spam something like Rapids/Caltrops/Circle of Protection/Immovable. They simply don't have the resources to pull it off, even when dedicating a significant portion of their power to doing so.

Well, drawing on my actual gameplay experience as a Dunmer stamina dk, I'm able to use efficient purge. ^^ With 6 medium, 1 light, using food. Running the Atronach mundus.

I would be too if I didn't have to use class key abilities that don't have any stamina morph (hardened armor, fossilize, dragon fire scales). I even use max health + stam regen + magicka regen food, rings with arcane on them, 25 points in warlord, 15 points in magician but it is still not enough (I'm stam DK btw). I run out of magicka quickly after 1 minute fighting.

EDIT: I just realized that @DeanTheCat pointed out exactly what I just explained further in the thread.

Enodoc wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Many people have said that to avoid the siege debuffs, don't stand in the siege. This is being countered by "but you need to stack on flags" and "but I'm going through a choke point". Have you considered, perhaps, that this is actually the point of the siege debuffs? You need to decide whether to hold your position, or to leave the area for a (relatively short) period of time and then go back. For example, if you're on a flag, leave the flag to avoid the siege, then go back to it. If you're going through a choke, back up to avoid the siege then go for it again.

I'm one for the changes but I have to agree with some of the players making the point about flags and stacking. I don't think this is an issue which can be fixed by siege changes alone. The siege changes will work, if a bunch of other things are done. However alone and in current build of skills/flag ranges/AoE.

I think the idea of larger flag capture zones is a good one (of course I do I said it!) so that even with sieges placed and shooting towards the flag groups can use the cover offered by walls and line of sight to protect themselves from the sieges.

Sure, it's the capture zone mechanics that promote stacking the flag. If I remember rightly, the more people you have in the capture zone, the faster it changes; how many people do you need before that caps off? Maybe that number should be reduced, and overall time extended. I like the idea of a larger capture zone. Something that effectively covers the whole "room" that the flag is in. Or maybe players should be required to actively burn the flag (like you do with a siege engine) rather than the flag automatically burning just because you're standing next to it. This would bring a new dynamic in because people flipping the flag would be taken out of the combat numbers. They would need to be defended by their allies while burning the flag so that they are not interrupted. The numbers benefit would remain; the more people burning the flag, the faster the flag goes down, but the less people there are to fight the defenders. Defenders would have to kill the flag burners first, then douse the flames (like you do with a siege engine) to restore the flag. Dousing the flames would also take them out of the battle, so defenders would have to decide whether restoring the flag is more important than killing the attackers. Raising the new flag (once the neutral state has been reached) would be similar, and would require players to actively raise the flag. By this time, in an efficient attack, there shouldn't be any defenders left, so attacker time can be spent entirely on raising the flag. If the flag raising is interrupted by defenders to the point where there are no attackers actively raising the flag, then it falls back to neutral. At any time when the flag is neutral (perhaps after an initial cooldown period), defenders would also be able to re-raise their own flag, but that would also fall back to neutral if they were all interrupted.

Erondil wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Many people have said that to avoid the siege debuffs, don't stand in the siege. This is being countered by "but you need to stack on flags" and "but I'm going through a choke point". Have you considered, perhaps, that this is actually the point of the siege debuffs? You need to decide whether to hold your position, or to leave the area for a (relatively short) period of time and then go back. For example, if you're on a flag, leave the flag to avoid the siege, then go back to it. If you're going through a choke, back up to avoid the siege then go for it again.

But you cant leave the flags when there are at least 10 ennemies inside, otherwise they will flip the keep and the battle is lost. Also in a keep fight when you're heavily outnumbered sometimes there are sieges hitting wherever you go (oils above posterns and maingate flag, 3+ meatbags/ballista hitting the back flag from outside the breach, 2-3 sieges upstairs too just in case etc...)

If you have attacking siege outside and defending siege upstairs, the effects should balance out. If you have attacking sieges both outside and upstairs then maybe that situation should be a lost cause. Standing in one place should not be an effective defensive mechanism alone; but this again goes back to the capture zone mechanics. Maybe capture time should be increased so that it would take longer to flip the flag. Perhaps also there should be a cool-down period between "burning" the old flag and "raising" the new flag, during which time its state cannot change. This would help the defenders have enough time to regroup and try to destroy the attackers before they can complete the flip.

6 is the maximum players you can stack to increase the time it takes to flip a flag.

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

So, while @Wrobel is now using "hit & run tactics" on the forums (nice term whoever brought that up in this thread), @ZOS_BrianWheeler seems to be giving his best in listening to the PvP community. And as a response mostly gets back a rediculous amount of whining and complaining, wich is really sad.

I'll go over some complaints I read in this thread so far, though I can't possibly quote them all now, this thread just exploded since yesterday.

1) "This is going to help larger numbers!"
If everything in this game was the fight between the small numbers and the large ones, maybe. You need to specify that more, this is definitely not going to help zergballs (ball groups, organized raids, bombgroups, guildgroups, just dont tell me I'm insulting you by telling you you're a zerg, okay?). It is true that this change will make it easier for a spread out random zerg to break up a (for whatever reason) tightly packed enemy group be it a big or small one. It is also true that smaller groups can make use of siege less consistently than larger ones, just like it is with Maneuver, Barrier, Purge, rezzing and a lot of other things. Not everything is designed to help small groups wipe large ones, but it's not the other way around either. This change is to make keep defense easier and to help anyone against stacked up zergballs. As far as I'm concerned that's a positive thing.

2) "But right now I can take a well defended keep with only 12-24 players, heavily outnumbered, and it may not work after this change!"
Well it's nice for you how you can just run past defended breaches and choke points, but not so much for your enemies, right? What do you suppose them to do, stack up like yourself? Maybe that's just not very enjoyable for them. You know, maybe they are only there because they don't really want to lose the keep you are trying to take, that doesn't mean they want to adapt to the same zergball meta you already have.
But enough of today, let's try to remember how it was a year ago, in the (at that time already far too rare) case that no invincible zergball came along. It was dangerous to go through a breach with oils and meatbags up. And I don't mean that "dangerous" as some people in this thread seem to interpretate it, as something that gives an advantage to the enemy blob, or in that some group members could die to gankers waiting for the barrier to go down. I mean if you went in without someone spamming Purge and another one Healing Springs, you'd probably die. And that was good, because keeps should be hard to take, especially if you are outnumbered (though we don't need any artificial advantages to larger groups, tyvm @Wrobel ).
So, you would have to be a bit creative and adapt to the situation. Some tactics/strategies we used included sieging from different sides, sending in NBs/Sorcs to take out siegers, using DK tanks to draw sieges and archers on them so the rest could break through, send one or two players to siege the next keep while keeping up the siege, to storm the keep, die, bloodport and take the next keep once it's flagged. And yes, I consider that to be more fun than making one breach and running on the flag, maybe even clearing upstairs.

3) "Storming a choke point or breach IS dangerous for my relatively small zergball... But how are we to survive after this change, you have to get into AoE range of each other to pass..."
...wich is the #1 reason that should make a choke point an easily defensible position. But as I already told you, there are counter tactics to that. For example you can send in those players who can take the heat for a moment, so the others can rush in thanks to a poorly timed AoE burst. Or you can send in those players who can get through on their own, to draw out the fight behind the gate or to focus down siegers, so the rest can follow. Or you could actually make the way to the next gate and attack the enemy from behind (equivalent to 2nd siege against a keep).
And one more thing to think about. When we first had raids at tthe start of the game, we were glad when we stormed a breach together and more than 2/3 of the players actually survived so they could get a hold on the upper level. It seems in this thread everyone sees that as equal to a wipe...

4) "Both to take and defend a keep you need to stack on the flag, you can't avoid siege than always."
That is correct, and the fact that the attacking force can turn the flag just by superior numbers without killing anyone alone should be enough to tell you what the problem is here. Tip: it's not the siege.
The flag system, as well as strenght of NPCs need to be overhauled/adjusted, but that doesn't justify holding back another change that is designed to combat zergballs as well. The game is not in some sweet spot right now where we better don't touch anything. I hope all who need to agree on that will do so.

5) "The siege is more dangerous to magicka players with low stamina pools." "No, magicka can use more utility and shields, stamina will be screwed with less mobility!" "Does anyone think of Templars and DKs, too? " More imbalance!

You know, even if some or even all of this is true - even if your character will be at a distinct disadvantage with these changes - can you not rather make suggestions about how to buff and diversify certain classes/builds with these changes in mind? Instead of attacking the lucky neighbor who is playing a less effected spec atm?

Here is a suggestion for @Wrobel and @ZOS_BrianWheeler :
- Make Efficient Purge a self purge that only effects the caster. Also let Efficient Purge, as well as Cleansing Rituals and it's morphs and syngergy, remove secondary siege effects.
This would give everyone a way to counter siege. This is a magicka skills and costs a skill slot, but with skillful play and a Templar in the group, everyone can make use of the synergy, and this won't be a problem because it's not spammable. The problem we have today is largely because the existence of an instant spammable group purge.
I also thought about letting Purge have no effect during the 6 seconds of reduced debuff time. But I don't think it's a good idea because of the way debuffs work in this game. So if you get hammered with debuffs, Purge would be useless and never remove the one debuff you actually want to get rid of.

Edit: You can also make Shuffle work vs oil catapults.

6) "I don't want to stay on some siege all the time and press left mouse button every 12 seconds. That's not engaging gameplay!"
That's such a stupid argument, sorry. Firstly, sieging has big drawbacks and is mostly useless in the open field against someone who knows what he is doing. Is killing bad players more fun using Overload or Surprise Attack? Then, you are making yourself a target by sieging. If the enemy players are clever, they will try to take you out, making it a dangerous job if you are outnumbered, so you have to be on your guard. And thirdly, one player can use several siege weapons on cooldown, wich isn't that easy if you are also getting attacked. Instead of this argument, you could also say a big ranged AoE nuke with a medium to long cooldown time is a boring thing (except that it's less dangerous to use, because siege forces you to sheathe your weapon and operate form a very specific location, plus it takes time to turn it around). And I can't see any reasoning behind that.
I can, however, understand if some people would like siege to be restricted to keep/outpost/resource areas. I do not have a problem with being able to use them anywhere myself though, and even if this would be changed, ZOS should increase these areas to include all the places players commonly siege from.

I also think @frozywozy had some good ideas earlier in this thread.

And if I forgot some more complaints, feel free to send them in for a discussion. Thank you.

One could say that it's good that zergballs can be stopped at least half the time after this change, when defending a keep is easier against them. Something needs to be done about groups being able to ignore choke points totally by just running through them unaffected (with full HP and being able to run through even if someone is trying to root them).

Even though I've pointed out some severe issues with this for magicka templars and DKs, in general I think that these changes would still be better than what we currently have.

So buff those classes' magicka builds on the class level, and don't forget them when planning general changes to Cyrodiil. Magicka DKs keep getting nerfed because of general changes to Cyrodiil and gameplay (0 stamina regen, much slower ultimate gain rate). The least mobile classes are the ones affected the most by siege because they get hit the most by them. If those classes then also happen to be the ones who suffer the most from the debuffs, that's not good at all from a class balance perspective.

I want more changes from the Wrobel department (no aoe caps, purge, rapid maneuver and barrier affecting MUCH fewer people, dynamic ulti gain), they are a must. Meatbag should be purgable - it's too unfair for different classes otherwise. Just make everyone in a ball group / zerg have to do things in order to survive instead of having a couple of support characters do everything for the rest of the 24 person group (getting rid of everyone's roots, healing debuffs, dots). But I'm not saying make the support skills only affect one person, because I do see value in playing as a group. I want to be able to help someone with purge, or to be able to be purged when I'm CCd. It's just where to draw the line, how many people should purge affect? I'm beginning to think a good number is three - and when you think of it, that's how templar instaheal kinda works too. It doesn't heal ten people in the group. Purge is a powerful skill. Let it stay powerful, but something that isn't automatic just because a couple of people keep spamming it in a big group. It shouldn't have a cooldown because sometimes you really do get a lot of debuffs thrown your way, and there needs to be a counter to them. And the thing is, the more people need to use purge individually, the less time they have to use other defensive or offensive skills anyway.

You mention DK tanks drawing sieges and archers on them. How do you see that part of the play going now if these siege changes take place? DKs back then were able to have nearly endless immunity against projectiles, and they were able to purge meatbags, and they wouldn't be rooted forever, and they were able to block a lot. Would this kind of tanky drawing of enemy fire be possible at all these days with this proposed siege change? How?

I do love the idea of keeps needing to be breached from multiple sides again - this would hopefully spread fights out and give more options for small groups to contribute to keep fights too. I can also see the potential for wiping a zerg in a keep while defending even with a small group if the big group/zerg cannot/hasn't invested in being able to counter siege. These changes would hopefully bring more variety to Cyrodiil. Thing is, we just need more support for variety also from Wrobel, in the form of buffing tanking in Cyrodiil, for instance. DKs used to be good at managing zergs by the way... Yet they certainly weren't completely op in duels back in the day. The 0 stamina regeneration while blocking was a huge hit to build variety in Cyrodiil.

Indeed, the way it is right now, if you want to tank, you must wear reactive set. If you want to burn sorc shields, you must use shieldbreaker. Devs need to figure out counters in a different way than giving certain gear sets for certain purposes. They should work on the game mechanics instead (CP system, abilities, passives).

frozywozy

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

So, while Wrobel is now using "hit & run tactics" on the forums (nice term whoever brought that up in this thread), ZOS_BrianWheeler seems to be giving his best in listening to the PvP community. And as a response mostly gets back a rediculous amount of whining and complaining, wich is really sad.

I'll go over some complaints I read in this thread so far, though I can't possibly quote them all now, this thread just exploded since yesterday.

1) "This is going to help larger numbers!"
If everything in this game was the fight between the small numbers and the large ones, maybe. You need to specify that more, this is definitely not going to help zergballs (ball groups, organized raids, bombgroups, guildgroups, just dont tell me I'm insulting you by telling you you're a zerg, okay?). It is true that this change will make it easier for a spread out random zerg to break up a (for whatever reason) tightly packed enemy group be it a big or small one. It is also true that smaller groups can make use of siege less consistently than larger ones, just like it is with Maneuver, Barrier, Purge, rezzing and a lot of other things. Not everything is designed to help small groups wipe large ones, but it's not the other way around either. This change is to make keep defense easier and to help anyone against stacked up zergballs. As far as I'm concerned that's a positive thing.

2) "But right now I can take a well defended keep with only 12-24 players, heavily outnumbered, and it may not work after this change!"
Well it's nice for you how you can just run past defended breaches and choke points, but not so much for your enemies, right? What do you suppose them to do, stack up like yourself? Maybe that's just not very enjoyable for them. You know, maybe they are only there because they don't really want to lose the keep you are trying to take, that doesn't mean they want to adapt to the same zergball meta you already have.
But enough of today, let's try to remember how it was a year ago, in the (at that time already far too rare) case that no invincible zergball came along. It was dangerous to go through a breach with oils and meatbags up. And I don't mean that "dangerous" as some people in this thread seem to interpretate it, as something that gives an advantage to the enemy blob, or in that some group members could die to gankers waiting for the barrier to go down. I mean if you went in without someone spamming Purge and another one Healing Springs, you'd probably die. And that was good, because keeps should be hard to take, especially if you are outnumbered (though we don't need any artificial advantages to larger groups, tyvm Wrobel ).
So, you would have to be a bit creative and adapt to the situation. Some tactics/strategies we used included sieging from different sides, sending in NBs/Sorcs to take out siegers, using DK tanks to draw sieges and archers on them so the rest could break through, send one or two players to siege the next keep while keeping up the siege, to storm the keep, die, bloodport and take the next keep once it's flagged. And yes, I consider that to be more fun than making one breach and running on the flag, maybe even clearing upstairs.

3) "Storming a choke point or breach IS dangerous for my relatively small zergball... But how are we to survive after this change, you have to get into AoE range of each other to pass..."
...wich is the #1 reason that should make a choke point an easily defensible position. But as I already told you, there are counter tactics to that. For example you can send in those players who can take the heat for a moment, so the others can rush in thanks to a poorly timed AoE burst. Or you can send in those players who can get through on their own, to draw out the fight behind the gate or to focus down siegers, so the rest can follow. Or you could actually make the way to the next gate and attack the enemy from behind (equivalent to 2nd siege against a keep).
And one more thing to think about. When we first had raids at tthe start of the game, we were glad when we stormed a breach together and more than 2/3 of the players actually survived so they could get a hold on the upper level. It seems in this thread everyone sees that as equal to a wipe...

4) "Both to take and defend a keep you need to stack on the flag, you can't avoid siege than always."
That is correct, and the fact that the attacking force can turn the flag just by superior numbers without killing anyone alone should be enough to tell you what the problem is here. Tip: it's not the siege.
The flag system, as well as strenght of NPCs need to be overhauled/adjusted, but that doesn't justify holding back another change that is designed to combat zergballs as well. The game is not in some sweet spot right now where we better don't touch anything. I hope all who need to agree on that will do so.

5) "The siege is more dangerous to magicka players with low stamina pools." "No, magicka can use more utility and shields, stamina will be screwed with less mobility!" "Does anyone think of Templars and DKs, too? " More imbalance!

You know, even if some or even all of this is true - even if your character will be at a distinct disadvantage with these changes - can you not rather make suggestions about how to buff and diversify certain classes/builds with these changes in mind? Instead of attacking the lucky neighbor who is playing a less effected spec atm?

Here is a suggestion for Wrobel and ZOS_BrianWheeler :
- Make Efficient Purge a self purge that only effects the caster. Also let Efficient Purge, as well as Cleansing Rituals and it's morphs and syngergy, remove secondary siege effects.
This would give everyone a way to counter siege. This is a magicka skills and costs a skill slot, but with skillful play and a Templar in the group, everyone can make use of the synergy, and this won't be a problem because it's not spammable. The problem we have today is largely because the existence of an instant spammable group purge.
I also thought about letting Purge have no effect during the 6 seconds of reduced debuff time. But I don't think it's a good idea because of the way debuffs work in this game. So if you get hammered with debuffs, Purge would be useless and never remove the one debuff you actually want to get rid of.

Edit: You can also make Shuffle work vs oil catapults.

6) "I don't want to stay on some siege all the time and press left mouse button every 12 seconds. That's not engaging gameplay!"
That's such a stupid argument, sorry. Firstly, sieging has big drawbacks and is mostly useless in the open field against someone who knows what he is doing. Is killing bad players more fun using Overload or Surprise Attack? Then, you are making yourself a target by sieging. If the enemy players are clever, they will try to take you out, making it a dangerous job if you are outnumbered, so you have to be on your guard. And thirdly, one player can use several siege weapons on cooldown, wich isn't that easy if you are also getting attacked. Instead of this argument, you could also say a big ranged AoE nuke with a medium to long cooldown time is a boring thing (except that it's less dangerous to use, because siege forces you to sheathe your weapon and operate form a very specific location, plus it takes time to turn it around). And I can't see any reasoning behind that.
I can, however, understand if some people would like siege to be restricted to keep/outpost/resource areas. I do not have a problem with being able to use them anywhere myself though, and even if this would be changed, ZOS should increase these areas to include all the places players commonly siege from.

I also think frozywozy had some good ideas earlier in this thread.

And if I forgot some more complaints, feel free to send them in for a discussion. Thank you.

One could say that it's good that zergballs can be stopped at least half the time after this change, when defending a keep is easier against them. Something needs to be done about groups being able to ignore choke points totally by just running through them unaffected (with full HP and being able to run through even if someone is trying to root them).

Even though I've pointed out some severe issues with this for magicka templars and DKs, in general I think that these changes would still be better than what we currently have.

So buff those classes' magicka builds on the class level, and don't forget them when planning general changes to Cyrodiil. Magicka DKs keep getting nerfed because of general changes to Cyrodiil and gameplay (0 stamina regen, much slower ultimate gain rate). The least mobile classes are the ones affected the most by siege because they get hit the most by them. If those sieges then also happen to be the ones who suffer the most from the debuffs, that's not good at all from a class balance perspective.

I want more changes from the Wrobel department (no aoe caps, purge, rapid maneuver and barrier affecting MUCH fewer people, dynamic ulti gain), they are a must. Meatbag should be purgable - it's too unfair for different classes otherwise. Just make everyone in a ball group / zerg have to do things in order to survive instead of having a couple of support characters do everything for the rest of the 24 person group (getting rid of everyone's roots, healing debuffs, dots). But I'm not saying make the support skills only affect one person, because I do see value in playing as a group. I want to be able to help someone with purge, or to be able to be purged when I'm CCd. It's just where to draw the line, how many people should purge affect? I'm beginning to think a good number is three - and when you think of it, that's how templar instaheal kinda works too. It doesn't heal ten people in the group. Purge is a powerful skill. Let it stay powerful, but something that isn't automatic just because a couple of people keep spamming it in a big group. It shouldn't have a cooldown because sometimes you really do get a lot of debuffs thrown your way, and there needs to be a counter to them. And the thing is, the more people need to use purge individually, the less time they have to use other defensive or offensive skills anyway.

You mention DK tanks drawing sieges and archers on them. How do you see that part of the play going now if these siege changes take place? DKs back then were able to have nearly endless immunity against projectiles, and they were able to purge meatbags, and they wouldn't be rooted forever, and they were able to block a lot. Would this kind of tanky drawing of enemy fire be possible at all these days with this proposed siege change? How?

I do love the idea of keeps needing to be breached from multiple sides again - this would hopefully spread fights out and give more options for small groups to contribute to keep fights too. I can also see the potential for wiping a zerg in a keep while defending even with a small group if the big group/zerg cannot/hasn't invested in being able to counter siege. These changes would hopefully bring more variety to Cyrodiil. Thing is, we just need more support for variety also from Wrobel, in the form of buffing tanking in Cyrodiil, for instance. DKs used to be good at managing zergs by the way... Yet they certainly weren't completely op in duels back in the day. The 0 stamina regeneration while blocking was a huge hit to build variety in Cyrodiil.

I only suggested the Efficient Purge morph should be self purge only. I think the high cost of Cleanse is perfectly reasonable for a group purge, but a group purge like that is one of the problems we have now. Also dont forget that Purifying ritual still acts as a more powerful self purge for the Templar, who can also support his group with the synergy. But the synergy has to be activated individually and has a cooldown, wich Efficient Purge is lacking. I mean I understand you want to be able to support your group - and I'd like if you did :P - but allowing players to survive without reacting to enemy actions individually is exactly what brought us here.

Right now tanking in PvP is a joke compared to what it used to be, as you well know. As an alternative now a Sorc could go in first and up the second stairs. If my suggested change to purges would be implemented 1:1, a Templar tank could go first with Purifying Ritual, but that would still cost a lot of resources the group is then lacking in the subsequent fight on the upper end of the stairs. If Efficient Purge was enough as well, a DK may be a better choice as he can restore his resources with a banner on the stairs, or all along use Magma Armor to run inside. In short, I can't tell, we'll have to see how it actually plays out.
But I agree that especially siege battles would be much more fun if tanking would become more realistic again. I mean, if someone can survive a lot while standing in one spot, that would already be very useful now. We don't need stuff like guard that cost loads of resources to take even more damage because getting hit is not the problem, sustaining it is.

@Wrobel , because I deleted all the tags from the quote

Sustain is definitely a problem now when trying to tank in PvP.
Also, magma armor doesn't really give a very long time to tank concentrated fire, given how much it costs in comparison. Also, getting sweeped I think counts as four attacks and is a very fast way to lose health even with it active. Yep I know, one should move out of the way, but still. Relying on a 200 costing ultimate for tanking a brief amount of time really doesn't make up at all for what was lost with the past two major updates to the game.

I feel that the cost of Cleanse would still be too cheap for purging and healing a huge number of people. Groups could still have a couple of dedicated cleansers around with a lot of magicka regen and go about purging nearly the same as before. There really needs to be a cap on targets affected.

Increase the duration of Magma armor to 15seconds, approuved 100%!

Galalin

Idk still feel the effect of stam and magicka loss are to harse simce the stam nerf to block and dodge roll... a class like a DK with no mobility is going to now be even worse off... but who really cares at this point DK is already doomed... but atleast we may get a purgeable dot buff..... yippie!!!

DK SCRUB OUT

Enodoc

Talcyndl wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

At one point, sieges were supposed to stack to 5. I wonder what happened to that idea:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote:

Siege equipment can be stacked to five in the inventory (with the exception of forward camps and mercenary contracts).

This is from Patch Notes 1.1.2, May 2014. I haven't found any patch notes saying this was changed, but it's clearly not the case currently.

ZOS happened.
It made the patch notes, but never actually into the game.
Apparently, they had issues stacking siege that had taken damage/decayed.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

At one point Siege was stackable but in a later patch note during that cycle, we pulled that capability due to getting overwritten HP values on Siege weapons once stacked. Sometimes it fully healed the entire stack, sometimes it nuked the entire HP of all weapons in that stack.

Ah, now that you mention that I do seem to recall something along those lines. As Turelus said, perhaps the solution then is to try and find a way to allow stacking of the sieges which have full HP, and not those which have been damaged. Any siege which has been repaired to full HP using Siege Repair would ideally be able to stack with the others again.

Ghostbane

Brian,

Not sure if this is taboo, or not following the Lore, but,



Ground Oils?

Merlight

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Turelus Correct! However we don't have a way to omit siege damage from Battlespirit as the server considers siege damage originating from a player since it needs an "anchor".

And that will lead to regressions every time you tinker with Battle Spirit. In combat events siege damage comes with ACTION_SLOT_TYPE_NORMAL_ABILITY and POWERTYPE_MAGICKA, that doesn't make much sense. If it carried a separate action slot type, you could exclude it at the receiving end.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Enodoc At one point Siege was stackable but in a later patch note during that cycle, we pulled that capability due to getting overwritten HP values on Siege weapons once stacked. Sometimes it fully healed the entire stack, sometimes it nuked the entire HP of all weapons in that stack.

IMO the inability to carry 500 ballistae with you is not something that needs addressing. But in case you haven't dropped that idea entirely, you could instead add pocket wagons containing 5 siege weapons each... to the Crown Store.

TheBull

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Turelus Correct! However we don't have a way to omit siege damage from Battlespirit as the server considers siege damage originating from a player since it needs an "anchor".

@Enodoc At one point Siege was stackable but in a later patch note during that cycle, we pulled that capability due to getting overwritten HP values on Siege weapons once stacked. Sometimes it fully healed the entire stack, sometimes it nuked the entire HP of all weapons in that stack.

@Docmandu There's always useful info in these posts and the combat gang has also been made aware of Purge opinions here too.

Please don't fall for the lame zerger arguments about purge. Purge has been the bane of PvP since and the zerger go to crutch. Look at any zerg group video. All you see is purge purge purge purge purge.......purge purge....

Ishammael

Ghostbane wrote: »

Brian,

Not sure if this is taboo, or not following the Lore, but,



Ground Oils?

W T B Waffles Ground Oil!

Galalin

TheBull wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Turelus Correct! However we don't have a way to omit siege damage from Battlespirit as the server considers siege damage originating from a player since it needs an "anchor".

@Enodoc At one point Siege was stackable but in a later patch note during that cycle, we pulled that capability due to getting overwritten HP values on Siege weapons once stacked. Sometimes it fully healed the entire stack, sometimes it nuked the entire HP of all weapons in that stack.

@Docmandu There's always useful info in these posts and the combat gang has also been made aware of Purge opinions here too.

Please don't fall for the lame zerger arguments about purge. Purge has been the bane of PvP since and the zerger go to crutch. Look at any zerg group video. All you see is purge purge purge purge purge.......purge purge....

I couldn't agree more about purge... but siege is not the way to fix it.... hell i would even like to see it remived from the game.

DK SCRUB OUT

MisterBigglesworth

If Purge gets nerfed and healing reductions from seige gets stronger... won't that lead to more shield stacking?

Bazeric

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

If Purge gets nerfed and healing reductions from seige gets stronger... won't that lead to more shield stacking?

There's only one class that shield stacks effectively, and they already play that way so nothing would change there.


-on topic-

I am liking most of the ideas here's. Siege needs a buff. I am also concerned that the purge situation is a poor solution. Purge was obviously designed to be a counter siege alliance war skill in the beginning and to have it completely ineffective might be too far. I was thinking if purge was only 50% effective against siege effects might be good but I fear it'd be too hard to implement and might not help performance.

One thing to note is how active the forum is when a Dev gets into meaningful discussions with players. So good job Brian. It surely can't be easy, but I hope it is for the better/best.

akredon_ESO

i am stupid excited to check this out and see how this goes

i3ig_Gun

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

I think this was a great idea, Thank you for fixing the siege weapons.

Zheg

Bazeric wrote: »

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

If Purge gets nerfed and healing reductions from seige gets stronger... won't that lead to more shield stacking?

There's only one class that shield stacks effectively, and they already play that way so nothing would change there.


-on topic-

I am liking most of the ideas here's. Siege needs a buff. I am also concerned that the purge situation is a poor solution. Purge was obviously designed to be a counter siege alliance war skill in the beginning and to have it completely ineffective might be too far. I was thinking if purge was only 50% effective against siege effects might be good but I fear it'd be too hard to implement and might not help performance.

One thing to note is how active the forum is when a Dev gets into meaningful discussions with players. So good job Brian. It surely can't be easy, but I hope it is for the better/best.

Aye, Brian gets mad props for actually doing followup posts that demonstrate he's actually read and understood the pages of feedback. I can count on one hand the number of times this has actually happened with a dev.

I'm less concerned/disappointed than I initially was when I read the OP because it seems like there's actually debate on their side as to what should be implemented as is, changed, or removed - and we so rarely get to see that or be apart of the conversation before it's pushed to a patch. I won't agree 100% with what the final decisions are, but I finally have some confidence I won't disagree 100% with their intentions - at least on this front...

Regardless of what happens with siege, we need significant backlogged work from wroebel, on pretty much every front.

Taonnor

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Enodoc At one point Siege was stackable but in a later patch note during that cycle, we pulled that capability due to getting overwritten HP values on Siege weapons once stacked. Sometimes it fully healed the entire stack, sometimes it nuked the entire HP of all weapons in that stack.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler there i have a simple solution for that problem. All sieges with not 100% life (already used) are not stackable. All unused sieges are stackable. The Q slot shows you as first in the list the siege with the lowest HP (used sieges first). If only unused sieges in Q list, unstack one siege and mark them as used (not more stackable).

This should be simple implemented and is a good middle way to stack sieges.