In defense of the Cyrodiil ganker

Lewandowsky

Hello,
A review of the forums finds that sentiment is widely against ganking, and that ganking has few defenders. I think there is value in putting out a post that will at least expose others to a different perspective, one that is not widely encountered and that may add some context.
Main points:
1) It is often of real and practical strategic value
2) Evidence indicates it is not an exploit
3) It's quite a lot of fun
4) To blame the ganker solely for an inconvenience experienced, or expect a consistently different type of fight, is willfully naive

1) It is often of real and significant strategic value
I myself nearly always gank solo or in a small group in Cyrodiil, along routes traveled by my enemies as if they were reinforcing my enemies in a large scale fight. An example is the bridge between Alessia and Sejanus when there is a fight at either one of those locations, and a location is flagged. Strategically and practically my picking off enemy reinforcements is of great help to my alliance, and translates well into any real-world warfare context. To not do this, in fact, would be negligent. An alliance should not be expected not to do it because it makes another side sad. Compare to trolling repairs, NB siege harassment, and bait-and-rush farming for context.

2) Evidence indicates it is not an exploit
Traveling the fast way in ESO, i.e. by mount, does make you more vulnerable. This vulnerability can however be mitigated by increasing mount stamina, and not exhausting your mount while fast traveling. That the fast-travel on your way to a fight with my allies makes you more vulnerable is very logical, and is a trade-off. Getting knocked off your mount meaning a stun in Cyrodiil cannot be an accident. It is part of the trade off, is intentional and logical, and is not an exploit. You are free not to ride, keep your ride high in stamina, and improve your mount.

3) It's quite a lot of fun
Isn't that why we all play? Someone loses each time in PVP. Losses are often, though not always, more spectacular in ganking, and so less fun for 1 party, but quite a rush for the ganker. It's not to cause you grief, make you rage-quit or sad. No one ganks just to be mean, wouldn't they rather be off punching kittens? We're having a very good time, and typically without ill will. There is never something personal in ganking for me, and probably for most gankers.

4) To blame the ganker solely for an inconvenience experienced, or expect a consistently different type of fight, is willfully naive
I as a solo ganker succeed in about half of 1v1 encounters. Typically when I do succeed I am encountering enemies that are vampires and getting a big boost from camo hunter, and they are in less than heavy armor. If you ride such a character in active areas you are taking enormous risk and you know it. You're making a bet on faster travel to aide your allies (and to kill mine) vs higher risk of death en route. You have made deliberate, specific choices that contributed to your getting ganked, as evidenced by my frequent fails at ganking and subsequent squashing by other players. You can build differently, ride with allies, or travel more slowly. You have choices. If you make a bet you are sure to lose sometimes, don't blame the house. You also cannot expect such dramatically different classes in this game to have 1v1 dueling-type matches based on distorted principles of fairness. Burst NBs are not a match for many DK builds for example, they have different roles. Attacking the enemy on their terms when they are expecting it is insane, and for you to expect to be handed this type of encounter is ridiculous. Often my enemy's idea of dueling or a fair fight is more often "come fight me where I see you coming at me and can use all my build advantages, to the detriment of yours." Not logical, and not fair, even as my enemy often envisions fairness.

Some points of context also:
People in your alliance gank too, probably just as many as on the other alliances.
Your gankers have been ganked. Innumerable times. Everyone knows what it's like.
_____________
A personal code of conduct might also be worth putting out there. Not everyone will follow, but if people know that I strive to, and a few others consider it, who knows what could happen.

a) I will not tea-bag your body or hate-whisper, even if you've to me previously. I will practice sportsmanship to try to serve as your example. I will conduct myself in a manner I would like my enemy to conduct themselves.

b) I will not preferentially target low-level or inexperienced (i.e. low-alliance rank) players. They do not however get an entirely free pass. In contrast, those experienced players, who have been ganked and come the same way in the same manner, racing off to fight my allies on a keep fight, will again be bursted down. You should have learned something, and I will not spare you, so that you can kill my friends, just because you want it to go your way.

c) I will not camp quest-givers or dungeons, though if I accidentally encounter an enemy there they will not be spared, as I would not be.

d) When I gank-fail I will often in a friendly and good-spirited way congratulate the victor and comment on something they seem to do very well.

___________________
I dedicate this lengthy work to my victims/fellow players. Good luck, and on some level I hope that you continue to surprise me and make me fail often.

sluice

We all complain about it
we all do it
and we all should get over it.

Minalan

I got ganked last night on my sorc, it was a one or two shot kill. Everyone hates that, but it happens.

I went back with food, radiant light, shields, and overload up. The stun immunity and passive defense against stealth attacks worked, he couldn't recloak, then one streak, curse, and three or four quick light attacks later (missing once to a dodge roll) and he was out. That made 20/20 nightblades on my bounty.

NB magicka are the "worst offender" instant gankers, but they are glass cannons without stealth. Cheap shot one button tactics have cheap one button counters. Those counters are available to everyone - use them.

emily3989

Play as you want -- I thought I heard that somewhere before...

Lokey0024

Ganking 4 on 1 is just cowardly. If your doing it to keep them out of a keep fight thats a diffrent matter. But if your camping Bruma with 5 people and dont give them a chance your trash.

Lewandowsky

Edited the first reply cause I can't read apparently.

I hear you and it stinks for that person. It is cyro though. There is too much non-PVP content for me to feel badly for them. Walking with a real bounty on your head you've gotta expect it or work to protect against.

Forestd16b14_ESO

There is a difference between killing players between keeps or for objective reasons such as killing players riding in between a keep and outpost. Then you have real gankers such as you are trying to defend who camp out in towns and quest givers just for a easy kill.

Please know the difference between the 2.

Lord_Wrath

I agree with most of this. There is a time and place for ganking. There is however a fine line between ganking to support your alliance and ganking because you cant pvp. Ganking is a tactic. If you're only getting kills because you can stealth around and spam a few buttons before the enemy has a chance to even fart, nobody will remember you as a 'good' player whether it matters or not. That to me is not skill.

You can always tell who they are, because if they fail then they attempt to cower off with little defense and try again.

Totalitarian

I hate being ganked in IC sewers.

But I have gone and ganked player in IC sewers, and it's fun.

kargen27

The ones I really wish ill towards are the ones that jump me while I am fishing. I don't mind when I am riding between holes if I get jumped, I expect it even as they have no idea what I am doing out there. See me fishing though please just ride on by. The few points you may get will be of little solace if even a fraction of the curse I hurl your general direction comes to pass.

I also don't like when someone that is obviously just questing gets jumped. I really don't like it when it is me that gets jumped. And again may you find yourself dancing forever in pits of lava if you wait until I am at my weakest to jump me. I actually had one person wait until I recovered before he jumped me and left me for dead. I wasn't looking for a fight and made that obvious but at least he waited before thumping me.

Sitting on top of the sewer gates and jumping people... there are no words for the despair you will suffer in the afterlife.

And yeah I do realize there is an abundance of PVE content for us to play in but a few of us have been cursed with the need to complete everything. We gotta look under every rock and behind every tree and that includes the ones in Cyradiil. You will know us when you see us, I ask just let us be and soon enough we will be on our merry way. At the very least let us complete the task at hand before you thump us so we can get the hell out of your way and let you get back to protecting your alliance.

Just remember all that lag is caused by PVE'rs who are going to keep coming back until you leave them alone long enough to get the current accomplishment done. The sooner we can go the better for all!

raasdal

Well, in my opinion the major problem is that people forget what the word GANKING actually means. I will put in from the Urban Dictionary here;

It is a word commonly used in online video games, usualy used in an MMORPG. Ganking is the process in which a group of charecters gang up on one or more players that do not have a chance to defend themselves, Or when one high level player does the same action to a player way below his or her own level

By this definition, my VR1 Magicka NB, is never GANKING. He is Solo AMBUSHING VR16 players. To me, there is a huge difference. I do not enjoy going 2v1 or stuff like that. When i go AMBUSHING i often find myself in 1vX situations, which is what i play for.

But yeah. Any kind of gank or ambush outside of normal battlefield areas is not very nice. Like questcities etc. Do not get why people want to do that. But IC is free market in my mind. But does not matter, since it is mainly empty

Lewandowsky

St

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

There is a difference between killing players between keeps or for objective reasons such as killing players riding in between a keep and outpost. Then you have real gankers such as you are trying to defend who camp out in towns and quest givers just for a easy kill.

Please know the difference between the 2.

kargen27 wrote: »

The ones I really wish ill towards are the ones that jump me while I am fishing. I don't mind when I am riding between holes if I get jumped, I expect it even as they have no idea what I am doing out there. See me fishing though please just ride on by. The few points you may get will be of little solace if even a fraction of the curse I hurl your general direction comes to pass.

I also don't like when someone that is obviously just questing gets jumped. I really don't like it when it is me that gets jumped. And again may you find yourself dancing forever in pits of lava if you wait until I am at my weakest to jump me. I actually had one person wait until I recovered before he jumped me and left me for dead. I wasn't looking for a fight and made that obvious but at least he waited before thumping me.

Sitting on top of the sewer gates and jumping people... there are no words for the despair you will suffer in the afterlife.

There is a difference. However it is not as profound as you may have been implying. I take you back to numbers 2, 3, and 4 in the original post. Camping quest givers does probably merit at least some devil's advocate type defense.

For a ganker to let a player go about his business in a town, especially when the ganker spots the other first, is expecting him to pass up a good chance at a free lunch, something worth these days up to 1,850 AP, or to put it another way more than entire siege engine or 0.9% of a monster helm, plus bounty quest and CP progression.

The ganker should assume that if you spotted him first you'd let him go about his business? That you wouldn't have killed one of his buddies if you found that buddy first? And if you're on the way to the sewers aren't you on your way there to take his buddies'' Tel Var stones? Is there a chance that the ganker was a quester himself, and figures you're as likely to kill him vs the other way? Even if not, to expect someone to make these assumptions and let you ride on in a setting where PVP is expected, encouraged, and rewarded, you may be asking too much for human nature and missing a bit of the ganker's perspective.

Minalan

Every MMO out there seems to NEED a stealth class, a 'rogue' template with high damage and little defense that can vanish anywhere and 'hide'. The archetype attracts a special type of Internet sociopath that enjoys this gameplay, where PVP is little more than a quick alpha strike on an unprepared or helpless player.

...And it feels like absolute gold when you're good enough to kill one of them. I wouldn't change it for anything.

Just remember though, everyone can hide and most of a NB's alpha strike is flatlined by putting a single skill on your back bar that's available to everyone. This game doesn't cater to them.

Dalsinthus

I have several characters, one of which is a stamblade. When I'm on the Stamblade, I regularly ambush enemy reinforcements, harass the siege line, and nuke isolated players. I see this as legit and strategic game play. I do not gank in the questing towns; although I have done this a few times, the amount of hate mail and grief it caused led me to stop.

That said, if I am running quests in a town, doing Cyrodiil delves, or other pve content in a pvp zone, I don't hesitate to kill other players that I encounter. The only exception is if it is really obvious that they have no intention of fighting or harassing me - but even then I'm torn on whether or not the risk is worth it. There have been too many times where I have tried to leave other players alone and been burned for it.

mrdankles

I love ganking with my stamblade in IC. HAHA

kadar

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

There is a difference between killing players between keeps or for objective reasons such as killing players riding in between a keep and outpost. Then you have real gankers such as you are trying to defend who camp out in towns and quest givers just for a easy kill.

Please know the difference between the 2.

Isn't it the players responsibility to be prepared for a would-be ganker while questing/dolmen/delving? It is, after all, a PVP zone. Just by entering you sign away your right to quest in peace, imo (especially in a game with PLENTY of questing).

SRIBES

GANKING IS LOVE GANKING IS LIFE

I became a ganker about two weeks ago and it has completely changed my perspective on the game. It has so much room for theorycrafting because it's shunned by the majority of players as a no skilled play style. I find that hypocritical because many of those people say that run in large groups. Pulling off the initial gank where you instantly kill someone doesn't take much skill but the escape does with the use of detection potions, AoE's, Revealing flare, and mage light. The theorycrafting aspect also takes skill because spamming snipe like a noob will get you killed most of the time. I became a ganker because it gave me an adrenaline rush when I first started doing it while 1vX and duels became extremely repetitive and stale (it also doesn't help everyone runs the same builds now).

joe.smith21b14_ESO

SRIBES wrote: »

GANKING IS LOVE GANKING IS LIFE

Well said good sir.

joe.smith21b14_ESO

Lord_Wrath wrote: »

I agree with most of this. There is a time and place for ganking. There is however a fine line between ganking to support your alliance and ganking because you cant pvp. Ganking is a tactic. If you're only getting kills because you can stealth around and spam a few buttons before the enemy has a chance to even fart, nobody will remember you as a 'good' player whether it matters or not. That to me is not skill.

You can always tell who they are, because if they fail then they attempt to cower off with little defense and try again.

So what your saying is if I kill 6 of you by myself with only two buttons I have no skill right......

Samadhi

Having the opportunity to fight gankers at the quest hubs is what keeps me returning to Cyrodiil for PvE dailies.
It is the defining feature that makes PvE in Cyrodiil more interesting than PvE in the alliance zones.
The quests themselves are not all that interesting, but the constant threat of attack and resulting fights keeps things interesting and helps reinforce the sentiment that Cyrodiil is a contested warzone.

Gankers along reinforcement lines provide similar levels of interest -- however, their presence in AvAvA does not seem to be quite so contentious.

Hurika

Ganking is fine - the problem is griefing. Killing the same person over and over when there are plenty around is what causes problems most of the time. I've let folks ride by and not touch them because we just fought. It's not about harassing people. Killing people on the backline with siege is fine if you're doing it to buy your alliance time to get resources there to defend before it gets lit or breached.

Glass cannon is fun cause if you mess up or they are ready for you, you usually die. More about stalking and striking at the right time. Unfortunately folks that die to that spec don't realize 1-2 things could have drastically changed the outcome. When I play my DK I try to avoid doing what I look for when ganking and use counters that work well against me.

Again, gank but don't be a jerk about it.

DaveMoeDee

As a gankee, I have zero problem with ganking. We should call it what it really is. It is an ambush.

The only time it is unacceptable is when it is taking advantage of load screens.

Lexxypwns

Here's my personal view.
1. I don't mind gankers, they definitely have some minor strategic value, or in the case of the sewers, profit value
2. I don't mind small group players who engage in open field battles where there's heavy cross traffic
3. I don't even mind larger groups stealthing up to bomb a bigger or more dangerous group than themselves
4. I hate the 6 man group that stealths up and bursts people one person off their horse, you're not getting any real AP that way

AmalgamousPrime

Minalan wrote: »

Every MMO out there seems to NEED a stealth class, a 'rogue' template with high damage and little defense that can vanish anywhere and 'hide'. The archetype attracts a special type of Internet sociopath that enjoys this gameplay, where PVP is little more than a quick alpha strike on an unprepared or helpless player.

...And it feels like absolute gold when you're good enough to kill one of them. I wouldn't change it for anything.

Just remember though, everyone can hide and most of a NB's alpha strike is flatlined by putting a single skill on your back bar that's available to everyone. This game doesn't cater to them.

You are very proud of the fact you killed a magicka NB one time while playing as the most disgustingly OP class ever featured in an MMO. You are playing the class that absolutely dominates every other magicka build because of harness magicka and hardened ward. I'm sorry, but if you got ganked by a magicka NB as a magsorceror it's entirely your own fault.

Durham

Not such thing as a ganker.

smacx250

I don't gank, and get ganked all the time. Do I "care"? Sure. Do I complain about it? No. Play on...

Minalan

AmalgamousPrime wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Every MMO out there seems to NEED a stealth class, a 'rogue' template with high damage and little defense that can vanish anywhere and 'hide'. The archetype attracts a special type of Internet sociopath that enjoys this gameplay, where PVP is little more than a quick alpha strike on an unprepared or helpless player.

...And it feels like absolute gold when you're good enough to kill one of them. I wouldn't change it for anything.

Just remember though, everyone can hide and most of a NB's alpha strike is flatlined by putting a single skill on your back bar that's available to everyone. This game doesn't cater to them.

You are very proud of the fact you killed a magicka NB one time while playing as the most disgustingly OP class ever featured in an MMO. You are playing the class that absolutely dominates every other magicka build because of harness magicka and hardened ward. I'm sorry, but if you got ganked by a magicka NB as a magsorceror it's entirely your own fault.

Wow. U Mad?

The sneaky ones still get you. I was Standing in front of nickel in a group of ten or so other players. No enemies around. I went to swap some PVE skills out. Bang. One shotted. Good one. I give credit where it's due.

Should you be able to do that to a fully buffed and ready player? Definitely not, the fight should be a *** if the player has any skill and preparation.

Is a sorc defense too much? Just about everyone agrees that shield stacking (or at least just harness magicka) will get toned down in the DB expansion coming, but then everything will get rebalanced with the VR system going away. Who's to say that Stam builds won't be back on top?

The question is whether the NB ambush attacks out of stealth, or the radiant light counter are too much. With radiant light, even my magicka DK doesn't have too much trouble with you guys.

Lexxypwns

Minalan wrote: »

AmalgamousPrime wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Every MMO out there seems to NEED a stealth class, a 'rogue' template with high damage and little defense that can vanish anywhere and 'hide'. The archetype attracts a special type of Internet sociopath that enjoys this gameplay, where PVP is little more than a quick alpha strike on an unprepared or helpless player.

...And it feels like absolute gold when you're good enough to kill one of them. I wouldn't change it for anything.

Just remember though, everyone can hide and most of a NB's alpha strike is flatlined by putting a single skill on your back bar that's available to everyone. This game doesn't cater to them.

You are very proud of the fact you killed a magicka NB one time while playing as the most disgustingly OP class ever featured in an MMO. You are playing the class that absolutely dominates every other magicka build because of harness magicka and hardened ward. I'm sorry, but if you got ganked by a magicka NB as a magsorceror it's entirely your own fault.

Wow. U Mad?

The sneaky ones still get you. I was Standing in front of nickel in a group of ten or so other players. No enemies around. I went to swap some PVE skills out. Bang. One shotted. Good one. I give credit where it's due.

Should you be able to do that to a fully buffed and ready player? Definitely not, the fight should be a *** if the player has any skill and preparation.

Is a sorc defense too much? Just about everyone agrees that shield stacking (or at least just harness magicka) will get toned down in the DB expansion coming, but then everything will get rebalanced with the VR system going away. Who's to say that Stam builds won't be back on top?

The question is whether the NB ambush attacks out of stealth, or the radiant light counter are too much. With radiant light, even my magicka DK doesn't have too much trouble with you guys.

idk why he's so salty about it, but magblade lacks the tool set to defeat mag sorc 1v1, unless the sorc is drastically outplayed or a bad build

AmalgamousPrime

Minalan wrote: »

AmalgamousPrime wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Every MMO out there seems to NEED a stealth class, a 'rogue' template with high damage and little defense that can vanish anywhere and 'hide'. The archetype attracts a special type of Internet sociopath that enjoys this gameplay, where PVP is little more than a quick alpha strike on an unprepared or helpless player.

...And it feels like absolute gold when you're good enough to kill one of them. I wouldn't change it for anything.

Just remember though, everyone can hide and most of a NB's alpha strike is flatlined by putting a single skill on your back bar that's available to everyone. This game doesn't cater to them.

You are very proud of the fact you killed a magicka NB one time while playing as the most disgustingly OP class ever featured in an MMO. You are playing the class that absolutely dominates every other magicka build because of harness magicka and hardened ward. I'm sorry, but if you got ganked by a magicka NB as a magsorceror it's entirely your own fault.

Wow. U Mad?

The sneaky ones still get you. I was Standing in front of nickel in a group of ten or so other players. No enemies around. I went to swap some PVE skills out. Bang. One shotted. Good one. I give credit where it's due.

Should you be able to do that to a fully buffed and ready player? Definitely not, the fight should be a *** if the player has any skill and preparation.

Is a sorc defense too much? Just about everyone agrees that shield stacking (or at least just harness magicka) will get toned down in the DB expansion coming, but then everything will get rebalanced with the VR system going away. Who's to say that Stam builds won't be back on top?

The question is whether the NB ambush attacks out of stealth, or the radiant light counter are too much. With radiant light, even my magicka DK doesn't have too much trouble with you guys.

I'm not mad at all, I just think its funny that a magicka sorcerer can call any other build "cheap one-shot button tactics" when you can easily retain a pool of over 30k HP (uncrittable mind you) at all times outside of combat and still have the best damage output AND burst potential in PVP.

Magicka NB is a novelty, even before TG sorcerors could easily dispatch a magicka NB, now with the broken cloak and new magelight it made a bad matchup even more one-sided.

You commend the nightblade who ganked you because you were in a menu? You might as well have been AFK. I just think it's asinine to exclaim how skilled you are because you slotted magelight and immovable pots which aren't even needed to take down a much weaker class build, turning an already unfair fight into the equivalent of an octagon fighter sparring a baby.

This whole DB thing is reminiscent to game of thrones, "Rebalances are coming". They have been saying since last year VR was getting removed and pushing it back every time the new deadline gets close. I'll believe it when I see it.

Aztlan

Big thumbs up for this post. I have been playing a khajiit ambusher (pouncer!) for a long time, and I believe it is a fun and legitimate playstyle. And for me too, it isn't personal and I will often acknowledge an opponent when I have been bested. Thank you for presenting this perspective.

Johngo0036

I love to gank but sometimes we chew off more than we can handle,

Magicka DK's are sometimes the most difficult as you have to keep hammering away at their defenses and sometimes its best to run...

Magicka templars are in the same class coz if you miss the oppportunity to FEAR them they heal up in no time,

Sorcs are the easiest especially if they are on a horse and dont have the stamina levelled,
they rely so heavily on their shields that without them they die quite quickly,

Nb's can be an easy or difficult target, depending on their ability... again here stamina levelled on horse makes the difference...

I detest gankers that run in packs as this is cowardly and i detest gankers who sit in bruma or chey and gank lowbies doing their dailies...

Even gankers should have honour..