PTS Discussion: AP needed to get Alliance War skills to 10

MormondPayne_EP · February 2016

Freaking carebears...

Grunim · February 2016

I don't have a main character, I never have had a main character. I have multiple characters that enjoy Cyro play and none of them have yet unlocked all the Alliance passive skills. I'm retired and I have played this game since launch for many many hours and I enjoy Cyro play more than end game PvE play and many of you in this thread have fought along side me or killed me if you play on NA PC.

I like this AP change to Alliance Rank 10. Thank you, ZOS

Berserkur · February 2016

Will be fun to run a proxi det in BwB

FMonk · February 2016

Make undaunted require 10% of the current XP to get max level too please.

CITADALO · February 2016

Crown wrote: »

670k AP can be made in one day with the doubling of AP gains.

On the one hand it levels the playing field for new people, on the other it doesn't seem like much of an achievement any more.

As I've said many times, the changes they make to the game are to satisfy the 90% (the grand majority of players).

Lol , i think 90% of players are those who play in ball groups like you, 10% left are the solo players.

Erondil · February 2016

CITADALO wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

670k AP can be made in one day with the doubling of AP gains.

On the one hand it levels the playing field for new people, on the other it doesn't seem like much of an achievement any more.

As I've said many times, the changes they make to the game are to satisfy the 90% (the grand majority of players).

Lol , i think 90% of players are those who play in ball groups like you, 10% left are the solo players.

90% of players are ungrouped pugs following the pug megazerg and then claiming they are solo.

LegendaryChef · February 2016

Crown wrote: »

As I've said many times, the changes they make to the game are to satisfy the 90% (the grand majority of players).

The AoE cap poll says otherwise

Sanct16 · February 2016

Don't understand all the complaining here to be honest. Are you all afraid that you get rekt now because everyone has the same passives as you do?

Reaching AR24 isnt really an achievement in the first place. It just discourages making new chars because of how long it takes to get. Whats the point in forcing people to PvP for certain skills if they have no interest in PvP? If they like it, they will play it anyway even with already having all the passives and will increase overall fairness. If they don't like it, well even better, more space for people who want to pvp.

CatchMeTrolling · February 2016

Sanct16 wrote: »

Don't understand all the complaining here to be honest. Are you all afraid that you get rekt now because everyone has the same passives as you do?

Reaching AR24 isnt really an achievement in the first place. It just discourages making new chars because of how long it takes to get. Whats the point in forcing people to PvP for certain skills if they have no interest in PvP? If they like it, they will play it anyway even with already having all the passives and will increase overall fairness. If they don't like it, well even better, more space for people who want to pvp.

Sound new to mmos if you don't see what's the issue with the change, plus it's way too easy to get now. Having a few new passives isn't going to make someone good and I see people rolling new toons all the time regardless of the grind.

If they're going to cheese PVP they need to change certain things about pve as well.

RinaldoGandolphi · February 2016

So this explains why My Templar who has a lower rank then my sorc had so many Allaince war passives unlocked...i thought it was a bug...

Sanct16 · February 2016

CatchMeTrolling wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

Don't understand all the complaining here to be honest. Are you all afraid that you get rekt now because everyone has the same passives as you do?

Reaching AR24 isnt really an achievement in the first place. It just discourages making new chars because of how long it takes to get. Whats the point in forcing people to PvP for certain skills if they have no interest in PvP? If they like it, they will play it anyway even with already having all the passives and will increase overall fairness. If they don't like it, well even better, more space for people who want to pvp.

Sound new to mmos if you don't see what's the issue with the change, plus it's way too easy to get now. Having a few new passives isn't going to make someone good and I see people rolling new toons all the time regardless of the grind.

If they're going to cheese PVP they need to change certain things about pve as well.

I would like it if the Alliance Ranks were account wide and the AP values needed unchanged. However, like this it will still be a grind but you can reach it in a couple days, rather than a couple months which is a good change imo.

I personally don't care too much about it since I only PvP anyway but for example I would appreciate if Undaunted passives would be easier to get on a new char because I don't feel like spending so much time doing something I absolutely hate. Why should someone who starts a new char need 7 Million AP just to max the skillline? Even if you're playing only in 24 man raids for maximum nobrain AP gain you will need over 100 hours. And its not even like you feel great then because you achieved something special, you just got something you already had before (if you rerolled) and that most people have anyway.

Imagine if you would need to kill zombies for 100 hours to get fighters guild 10 or collect lorebooks for 100 hours to get mages guild 10... It just doesn't make sense, so it astonishes me that so many people actually complain so much about the change.

Catering to casuals would be reducing Ap needed for Grand Overlord since that an actual achievement, unlike some rather unimportant passives.

Its indeed my first MMO tho, so feel free to explain what the issue with the change is.
If you want to play PvP you shouldnt be forced to grind *** in PvE. If you want to do trials you shouldnt be forced to play PvP or grind whatever. I understand that having long term goals makes the game more interesting and are therefor needed in an MMO, since ppl would quit soon if they would get everything instantly. I simply think it would be better if those goals would be achievable by something you enjoy, rather something you dont enjoy. As an example, in PVE the goal could be clearing certain dungeons that are very hard and require lot of theorycrafting etc or in PvP Alliance Ranks (with maybe cooler rewards, special mounts/costumes/etc). In the end most people play the game to have fun, so why force them to do something that they dont enjoy first in order to have fun later.

Ghost-Shot · February 2016

Sanct16 wrote: »

CatchMeTrolling wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

Don't understand all the complaining here to be honest. Are you all afraid that you get rekt now because everyone has the same passives as you do?

Reaching AR24 isnt really an achievement in the first place. It just discourages making new chars because of how long it takes to get. Whats the point in forcing people to PvP for certain skills if they have no interest in PvP? If they like it, they will play it anyway even with already having all the passives and will increase overall fairness. If they don't like it, well even better, more space for people who want to pvp.

Sound new to mmos if you don't see what's the issue with the change, plus it's way too easy to get now. Having a few new passives isn't going to make someone good and I see people rolling new toons all the time regardless of the grind.

If they're going to cheese PVP they need to change certain things about pve as well.

I would like it if the Alliance Ranks were account wide and the AP values needed unchanged. However, like this it will still be a grind but you can reach it in a couple days, rather than a couple months which is a good change imo.

I personally don't care too much about it since I only PvP anyway but for example I would appreciate if Undaunted passives would be easier to get on a new char because I don't feel like spending so much time doing something I absolutely hate. Why should someone who starts a new char need 7 Million AP just to max the skillline? Even if you're playing only in 24 man raids for maximum nobrain AP gain you will need over 100 hours. And its not even like you feel great then because you achieved something special, you just got something you already had before (if you rerolled) and that most people have anyway.

Imagine if you would need to kill zombies for 100 hours to get fighters guild 10 or collect lorebooks for 100 hours to get mages guild 10... It just doesn't make sense, so it astonishes me that so many people actually complain so much about the change.

Catering to casuals would be reducing Ap needed for Grand Overlord since that an actual achievement, unlike some rather unimportant passives.

Its indeed my first MMO tho, so feel free to explain what the issue with the change is.
If you want to play PvP you shouldnt be forced to grind *** in PvE. If you want to do trials you shouldnt be forced to play PvP or grind whatever. I understand that having long term goals makes the game more interesting and are therefor needed in an MMO, since ppl would quit soon if they would get everything instantly. I simply think it would be better if those goals would be achievable by something you enjoy, rather something you dont enjoy. As an example, in PVE the goal could be clearing certain dungeons that are very hard and require lot of theorycrafting etc or in PvP Alliance Ranks (with maybe cooler rewards, special mounts/costumes/etc). In the end most people play the game to have fun, so why force them to do something that they dont enjoy first in order to have fun later.

I would like to see them make your alliance rank account wide but not the skill line, some of the abilities and passives I feel should be reserved for late game. That being said I'm totally in favor of reducing AP needed for the skill line but not as far as they went with it, I think something more in line with the time required to get Fighters Guild/Mages Guild 10 or Undaunted 9 would be fair for everyone.

Crown · February 2016

@Ghost-Shot I believe that they have actually brought Assault Skill Line 10 to similar play time as Fighter's / Mage's guild leveling.

We have a few friends who power levelled their Fighter's Guild to get Dawnbreaker in BwB. It took them about 10 hours of grinding.

I recently went to get all the lore books on my level 20 something Templar, and spent about 90 minutes per zone (also getting sky shards) - so 6 (or was it 7?) zones is about that same 10 hours.

Undaunted to level 9 is probably a few hours more if you have a solid group doing achievement runs. I'm going to subjectively say 20 hours of play sounds about right for a normal player - though that 20 hours will be split over a month.

In Cyrodiil, a reasonable group will make about 30k AP / hour (we're not talking hard core AP farming), so it will be close to 20 hours of play for Assault 10. Relatively new players who don't do well will probably make half that, so 40 hours of play (over a week) seems like the upper limit.

@Sanct16 I believe that 20-40 hours of PvP for a PvE player is reasonable to max the skill line and get all the passives. Getting 8 million (as it is pre-patch) makes it realistically infeasible for most people. This puts everyone on a level playing field for passives (regen / damage / rez speed / ult generation / etc) and makes it more fair all around. It will be less painful to play alts now.

Ghost-Shot · February 2016

Crown wrote: »

@Ghost-Shot I believe that they have actually brought Assault Skill Line 10 to similar play time as Fighter's / Mage's guild leveling.

We have a few friends who power levelled their Fighter's Guild to get Dawnbreaker in BwB. It took them about 10 hours of grinding.

I recently went to get all the lore books on my level 20 something Templar, and spent about 90 minutes per zone (also getting sky shards) - so 6 (or was it 7?) zones is about that same 10 hours.

Undaunted to level 9 is probably a few hours more if you have a solid group doing achievement runs. I'm going to subjectively say 20 hours of play sounds about right for a normal player - though that 20 hours will be split over a month.

In Cyrodiil, a reasonable group will make about 30k AP / hour (we're not talking hard core AP farming), so it will be close to 20 hours of play for Assault 10. Relatively new players who don't do well will probably make half that, so 40 hours of play (over a week) seems like the upper limit.

@Sanct16 I believe that 20-40 hours of PvP for a PvE player is reasonable to max the skill line and get all the passives. Getting 8 million (as it is pre-patch) makes it realistically infeasible for most people. This puts everyone on a level playing field for passives (regen / damage / rez speed / ult generation / etc) and makes it more fair all around. It will be less painful to play alts now.

@Crown Oh wow I didn't realize it was that fast, I've never actually done grinding for FG its just leveled it as I go, undaunted thats a good point, it really doesn't take long. I guess its really not the worst thing ever to unlock skills early, its just hard to fathom unlocking in a day what has taken months per character in the past.

Crown · February 2016

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

its just hard to fathom unlocking in a day what has taken months per character in the past.

It's the standard MMO "thing" whereby people who worked hard for something then see it given away to others get a bit upset that said others have it easy-mode.. I feel it too, though I understand why they do it and actually appreciate the change for my alts..

Mac10murda · February 2016

So we going to get a fast way to level undaunted also

Crown · February 2016

Mac10murda wrote: »

So we going to get a fast way to level undaunted also

No

AbraXuSeXile · February 2016

Undaunted should be reduced. This alliance skill line change is purely because pve players cry.

Dyride · February 2016

AbraXuSeXile wrote: »

Undaunted should be reduced. This alliance skill line change is purely because pve players cry.

To be fair, we now get the special gear vendor to buy monster helms. But I get what you're saying. Others can also buy from the special vendor using gold so it is a boon for everyone.

Mojmir · February 2016

Anybody stop to think maybe some people don't want to be in cyrodiil in the first place? Just saying maybe they just want the cool skills and then GTF outta Dodge? I would say the same for pvpers who just want to get there *** dialed in and then back to the front.

BackFreckle · February 2016

Crown wrote: »

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

its just hard to fathom unlocking in a day what has taken months per character in the past.

It's the standard MMO "thing" whereby people who worked hard for something then see it given away to others get a bit upset that said others have it easy-mode.. I feel it too, though I understand why they do it and actually appreciate the change for my alts..

As someone who has max undaunted and max assault on 2-3 of my characters, is it weird that I don't feel that they are taking something that I earned away and making this change and instead am happy and optimistic about it? I think you hit the nail on the head on your post about the time it takes for the different skill lines to be maxed out and it just makes sense.
So many people are going off about how absurd it going to be that people will have all these "things" but since when did other people having "things" made them better than you? I don't think this is a pve vs pvp change, it's just a sort of balance in the skill lines. Some want undaunted quicker but it has been pointed out that it can be done within 2-3 if they wanted it. Not to mention pvpers are going to get the special vendor in Cyro and as someone who has grinded monster sets I feel that's awesome for those who don't like running dungeons. Idk call me naive for not seeing the negatives here.

Morbash · February 2016

The only problem I have with this is how grossly overpowered battle resses will be with this new change. It's already ridiculously overpowered now. But with the new update, its impact will be considerably more apparent with everyone and their mother having access to Battle Ressurection. If people die, it won't matter. We can just chain res each other over and over with zero downsides or risks.

I expect this is going to put an even greater strain on both the servers and our local machines.

Zavus · February 2016

I'm happy with the new change, can finally play my *** alts in cyro without having to spend ages grinding passives.

Crown · February 2016

For those complaining that new players and alts will have more ult generation from kills and faster rez, why should they have to play for months in order to get the same bonuses that experienced players or older toons have?

They'll play and learn for a week or two, the same as any PvP player will play and learn doing dungeons for undaunted achievement runs. The difference is for undaunted, the PvP player is going to spend an hour per day for two weeks. The PvE player in Cyrodiil is going to spend 8 hours per day for two weeks.

This change makes sense to get new players interested and keep players playing and rolling alts in PvP.

It also lowers the barrier to entry for quality players in small groups, as you will want everyone to have all the passives to be as powerful a group as possible. Training up a new player takes a month before they can really pull their weight, so this way they'll be able to contribute to the group similarly to an old-timer once they're trained up.

Look to @Lightingale as an example, she played a templar since day 1, and messed around on other toons in PvE only. I spent about three weeks training her on her NB, which got her to Skill Line 7 (for proxy) prior to her emp run, and she was Skill Line 8 (first battle frenzy passive) while emp. It would have been even more amazing if she had the second passive as emp. Now, new players who show that much skill and promise can have what they need to perform at the same level as the old timers (many of whom simply have the passives as they've been around long enough and not because they are particularly amazing players) in a week or two of play. Potentially in a day or two if they farm AP well.

Again, I don't see the negative, other than the emotional response of having put a LOT of effort into it, and others getting it easy mode - though that's a NORMAL thing in MMOs that happens after a time for almost anything. Look at undaunted - earlier in the game timeline you had to do achievements, which a lot of people couldn't get groups for. Now almost anyone can do the dailies (scaled down if need be) to get their skill line up.

Personally, this gives me incentive to spend 7-8 days (of /played time) levelling up my templar and doing the quests for skill points, leveling up both morphs of all his skills, and getting all the sky shards as I know he'll be able to perform in PvP after a day or two of play. I'm sure I'll learn more about the game playing as a templar - and won't feel less effective or that I *should* swap to another toon because I don't have the passives that give so much power (weapon/spell damage, regen, ult, range, rez speed) when in combat.

@ZOS_GinaBruno It would be nice to know the ZOS reason(s) for this change - is what I wrote above close to the mark?

Morbash · February 2016

Crown wrote: »

For those complaining that new players and alts will have more ult generation from kills and faster rez, why should they have to play for months in order to get the same bonuses that experienced players or older toons have?

They'll play and learn for a week or two, the same as any PvP player will play and learn doing dungeons for undaunted achievement runs. The difference is for undaunted, the PvP player is going to spend an hour per day for two weeks. The PvE player in Cyrodiil is going to spend 8 hours per day for two weeks.

This change makes sense to get new players interested and keep players playing and rolling alts in PvP.

It also lowers the barrier to entry for quality players in small groups, as you will want everyone to have all the passives to be as powerful a group as possible. Training up a new player takes a month before they can really pull their weight, so this way they'll be able to contribute to the group similarly to an old-timer once they're trained up.

Look to @Lightingale as an example, she played a templar since day 1, and messed around on other toons in PvE only. I spent about three weeks training her on her NB, which got her to Skill Line 7 (for proxy) prior to her emp run, and she was Skill Line 8 (first battle frenzy passive) while emp. It would have been even more amazing if she had the second passive as emp. Now, new players who show that much skill and promise can have what they need to perform at the same level as the old timers (many of whom simply have the passives as they've been around long enough and not because they are particularly amazing players) in a week or two of play. Potentially in a day or two if they farm AP well.

Again, I don't see the negative, other than the emotional response of having put a LOT of effort into it, and others getting it easy mode - though that's a NORMAL thing in MMOs that happens after a time for almost anything. Look at undaunted - earlier in the game timeline you had to do achievements, which a lot of people couldn't get groups for. Now almost anyone can do the dailies (scaled down if need be) to get their skill line up.

Personally, this gives me incentive to spend 7-8 days (of /played time) levelling up my templar and doing the quests for skill points, leveling up both morphs of all his skills, and getting all the sky shards as I know he'll be able to perform in PvP after a day or two of play. I'm sure I'll learn more about the game playing as a templar - and won't feel less effective or that I *should* swap to another toon because I don't have the passives that give so much power (weapon/spell damage, regen, ult, range, rez speed) when in combat.

@ZOS_GinaBruno It would be nice to know the ZOS reason(s) for this change - is what I wrote above close to the mark?

The bolded isn't an issue I personally have with the new changes. I don't mind if new players have access to the same skills that I do. The issue is that the passives are too strong (for everyone), specifically the Battle Resurrection passive. If someone dies, there's zero consequence for dying. Simply call out in TS and you're back up literally one second later. Resses are so fast there's no time to think about what you did incorrectly and what you could have done to prevent that death. None of that matters now. And it'll matter even less with the new patch.

The rate at which players will be able to resurrect each other will simply overcome strategy. Dying will be of little consequence. It's going to be Battlefield 3 64v64 Operation Metro all over again. "Oops, I died. Oh well, don't care...got like 20 medics next to me. I'll be revi...oh there it is. And off we go." The only difference between BF3 and ESO is that ESO is going to be on a greater scale and will introduce greater strain on hardware. The AOE zerg blobs will never end, and I really doubt the siege, purge, and barrier changes will be a sufficient counter to this.

Yolokin_Swagonborn · February 2016

Sallington wrote: »

RIP servers when literally everyone is using caltrops and proxy det.

Yeah using these skills is only ok when the elite do it /s

I will laugh my face off when the hardcore guilds and players start calling for nerfs or removal of caltrops and prox det.

"It was OK when only a select few of my high rank AP-rich farming buddies use it but now that every pug can use it, its terrible for the game and the servers. Remove it nowwwwww!"

themdogesbite · February 2016

My argonian templar will still suck

CatchMeTrolling · February 2016

DeusAres wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

For those complaining that new players and alts will have more ult generation from kills and faster rez, why should they have to play for months in order to get the same bonuses that experienced players or older toons have?

They'll play and learn for a week or two, the same as any PvP player will play and learn doing dungeons for undaunted achievement runs. The difference is for undaunted, the PvP player is going to spend an hour per day for two weeks. The PvE player in Cyrodiil is going to spend 8 hours per day for two weeks.

This change makes sense to get new players interested and keep players playing and rolling alts in PvP.

It also lowers the barrier to entry for quality players in small groups, as you will want everyone to have all the passives to be as powerful a group as possible. Training up a new player takes a month before they can really pull their weight, so this way they'll be able to contribute to the group similarly to an old-timer once they're trained up.

Look to @Lightingale as an example, she played a templar since day 1, and messed around on other toons in PvE only. I spent about three weeks training her on her NB, which got her to Skill Line 7 (for proxy) prior to her emp run, and she was Skill Line 8 (first battle frenzy passive) while emp. It would have been even more amazing if she had the second passive as emp. Now, new players who show that much skill and promise can have what they need to perform at the same level as the old timers (many of whom simply have the passives as they've been around long enough and not because they are particularly amazing players) in a week or two of play. Potentially in a day or two if they farm AP well.

Again, I don't see the negative, other than the emotional response of having put a LOT of effort into it, and others getting it easy mode - though that's a NORMAL thing in MMOs that happens after a time for almost anything. Look at undaunted - earlier in the game timeline you had to do achievements, which a lot of people couldn't get groups for. Now almost anyone can do the dailies (scaled down if need be) to get their skill line up.

Personally, this gives me incentive to spend 7-8 days (of /played time) levelling up my templar and doing the quests for skill points, leveling up both morphs of all his skills, and getting all the sky shards as I know he'll be able to perform in PvP after a day or two of play. I'm sure I'll learn more about the game playing as a templar - and won't feel less effective or that I *should* swap to another toon because I don't have the passives that give so much power (weapon/spell damage, regen, ult, range, rez speed) when in combat.

@ZOS_GinaBruno It would be nice to know the ZOS reason(s) for this change - is what I wrote above close to the mark?

The bolded isn't an issue I personally have with the new changes. I don't mind if new players have access to the same skills that I do. The issue is that the passives are too strong (for everyone), specifically the Battle Resurrection passive. If someone dies, there's zero consequence for dying. Simply call out in TS and you're back up literally one second later. Resses are so fast there's no time to think about what you did incorrectly and what you could have done to prevent that death. None of that matters now. And it'll matter even less with the new patch.

The rate at which players will be able to resurrect each other will simply overcome strategy. Dying will be of little consequence. It's going to be Battlefield 3 64v64 Operation Metro all over again. "Oops, I died. Oh well, don't care...got like 20 medics next to me. I'll be revi...oh there it is. And off we go." The only difference between BF3 and ESO is that ESO is going to be on a greater scale and will introduce greater strain on hardware. The AOE zerg blobs will never end, and I really doubt the siege, purge, and barrier changes will be a sufficient counter to this.

Yeah just the other day we had this problem with our emp group, we were fighting about 100 ad we would wipe them but they would just keep reviving because it was so many. Long story short the fight went on longer than it needed to, could just imagine how annoying battle resurrection will be next patch.

Btw they had a bunch of Templars sigh

Crown · February 2016

CatchMeTrolling wrote: »

Yeah just the other day we had this problem with our emp group, we were fighting about 100 ad we would wipe them but they would just keep reviving because it was so many. Long story short the fight went on longer than it needed to, could just imagine how annoying battle resurrection will be next patch. Btw they had a bunch of Templars sigh

Caught you trolling! If there were 100 AD there, then you probably couldn't get a skill off in less than four seconds, and regardless of people taking enough damage to kill them it would only have caught up a minute later.. Even if you're fighting 12 vs 12 and half of one group die, two templars in Kagrenac's will have them all up quickly enough to continue.

CatchMeTrolling · February 2016

Crown wrote: »

CatchMeTrolling wrote: »

Yeah just the other day we had this problem with our emp group, we were fighting about 100 ad we would wipe them but they would just keep reviving because it was so many. Long story short the fight went on longer than it needed to, could just imagine how annoying battle resurrection will be next patch. Btw they had a bunch of Templars sigh

Caught you trolling! If there were 100 AD there, then you probably couldn't get a skill off in less than four seconds, and regardless of people taking enough damage to kill them it would only have caught up a minute later.. Even if you're fighting 12 vs 12 and half of one group die, two templars in Kagrenac's will have them all up quickly enough to continue.

When you play in other alliance buff servers it's pretty common to fight that many and that's the point you don't even have to be a Templar in kags to get a quick revive now. Do you know how annoying it is when people are reviving in your face when you're already severely outnumbered? You wipe one group then you turn around and see people reviving just to repeat the cycle.