On sieges and how broken they are

covenant_merchant

Let's talk about sieges. Among the broken and most hated Cyrodiil mechanics, one which requires absolutely no skill to play, is siege. Following are a few screenshots of the insane damage said sieges do. The problem with siege is that it utterly and completely destroys smallscale and advantages outnumbering pug groups.
Imagine you are a 6 man group, fighting in a keep or resource and what not. It only requires one pug, one no-skilled little scrub, far too lazy to fight to place a siege and ruin any attempts at finding decent PvP.
You might think my post sounds salty, and yes I sure as hell am. For the past two months, over 90% of my deaths were due to siege. In a large group, it doesn't matter since at least one person runs purge and you overwhelm the enemies with your numbers and coordination at any rate. However, as I mentioned before, when you're the ones being outnumbered, tryharding enemies setting up sieges is a death sentence for you.

My suggestion: make sieges work like detonation i.e. the more people you hit, the higher the damage. That would give smaller organised groups at least a semblance of hope and a chance at survival. How broken is it that while being in a group of 3, away from any major zergs/large battles, you get hit by 20+k bolts, fired with love by no-skilled, lazy players, who will then proceed to affectionately teabag your smallscaling corpse, since they clearly outmatched you. After all, surviving 20k bolts from multiple people, as well as all the beams and melee attacks is merely a l2p issue.

Here, enjoy. I have erased the names, but those guys are pretty known on PC EU from their glorious contribution to PvP via siege. As in, they go as far as placing siege in 1v1. But hey, at any rate, there you go. Please, do take into account the AvA ranks as well as the number of people sieging.









If you have any suggestions as to what/if anything should be done with that insane damage, feel free to post your opinions.

AverageJo3Gam3r

With the names whites out its hard to say, but it looks like you took hits from multiple players on siege. At that point, it doesn't really matter if they were on seige or not. If they hit you with ambush, or crit rush, or RD instead, you'd still die. I think it's more of a problem with zergs than it is a problem with siege.

Minalan

To be fair, if you're hit by something big enough to knock a castle wall down... It should probably hurt.

All the more reason to charge the siege line first.

Soris

To be fair you shouldn't be allowed to put a *** trebushet into your backpack.

Morostyle

even a faking stone treb hits people for 17k
I saw 1 dude wipe a 16 man zerg with 1 treb, like eeeeeh?

P.S THEY SCALE WITH PHYSICAL DAMAGE CP

Vaoh

I actually like that these things can put out very high damage....

Look at the size of these siege engines! Avoid the red circles.

If three massive blue balls of death (Coldharbour Stone Trebs) strike a stacked group of 24 at the exact same time, would it be so bad if some of them died?

Idk.... Imo it is a good thing that these things do more than tickle you.

Remember we asked for siege damage to get buffed so they can serve a purpose!

Astanphaeus

I see no problem with how siege is. I love to run around by myself, in small groups, and with outright zergs, and I have honestly never had trouble with siege when on my own. And I also use counter siege which I won't even waste on small groups or individuals, because it is easily countered. It's only effective against people standing still, traveling along obvious paths, or against those so wrapped up in a huge battle with spells flying everywhere that they can't see the siege coming. I mean seriously, when you are by yourself, it creates a huge frickin red circle that you can easily walk or dodge roll out of. Heck, there is even a spell specifically for helping counter siege called siege shield.

As for its main counter, I'm going to say this slowly for you: Puuurrrrrggggggeeeeee

ToRelax

Don't have a problem with sieges. Sure they can be annoying, but after all I'd say we still make better use of them than our opponents, despite using fewer and more rarely.

Minnesinger

Sure it feels that for a big chunk of players siege is their best dps. A strange thing to happens when in an open field battle you are being hit by a trebuchet. Maybe they should consider where you can set siege.

KenaPKK

Don't stand in the red.

Master_Kas

KenaPKK wrote: »

Don't stand in the red.

You mean the invisible red circle which sometimes doesn't show up? Roger that!

Bdawwg

Yeah siege is meant to hit hard it is after all a weapon that destroys walls. If they're using siege to kill you tough tbh. You're gonna die in the game at some point why complain every time it happens. People new to pvp use siege to slowly get into pvp,

Master_Kas

Bdawwg wrote: »

Yeah siege is meant to hit hard it is after all a weapon that destroys walls. If they're using siege to kill you tough tbh. You're gonna die in the game at some point why complain every time it happens. People new to pvp use siege to slowly get into pvp,

There are some people who are not so new, who only sits behind their cold harbour fire ballistas instead of actually fighting to get easy kills on people who are already fighting. Not only new to pvp use it

I wouldn't mind it if purge worked as it should tbh.

Rohamad_Ali

My biggest issue with siege is the camera bugs on meatbag , oilpot and scatter shots . Camera gets stuck too close the ground and you can't see where your firing sometimes .

DHale

Let me tell you about this very old skill called purge... Get it... or don't stand in red circles. As for skill it does not take skill to press dizzying swing or radiant oppression or overload light attacks or snipe or ambush or bats. I could go on but why would I.

Scamandros

If your seige is broken try applying a repair kit, purchaseable from any seige merchant or quartermaster belonging to your faction.

rfennell_ESO

The cold fire varieties seem to do a little too much damage imo.

Past that... eh right about on mark right now.

Zheg

DHale wrote: »

Let me tell you about this very old skill called purge... Get it... or don't stand in red circles. As for skill it does not take skill to press dizzying swing or radiant oppression or overload light attacks or snipe or ambush or bats. I could go on but why would I.

Let me tell you about this very new bug called purge only hits the first 6 people that joined a group. Let me also tell you about how eso performance is garbage and siege very often is invisible in both the animation and the red circle during lag. As for skill, someone actually using their abilities and putting themselves in the middle of the fight deserves far more reward than someone way in the back left clicking from safety and getting more KB's than the people actually making themselves vulnerable. I could go on but why would I?

Ishammael

This is one of the main reasons I avoid AZ campaign. Too much damn siege.

Telel

This one does not mean to offend the OP to openly but they feel a few things must be pointed out.

Firstly if you have six people fighting against one 'scrub' manning one siege and you all die then khajiit feels that you were not likely going to take the keep from the NPCs inside either.

You see, those various people inside also do damage, and hurl out AOEs, and do many many things which make people dead if they're not wise enough to try and not die.

Incidentally the things that make you not die are also the things that'd make one siege weapon effectively impotent in the face of six people attacking a keep with a sole defender.

Now, if you are having trouble with your six people being killed by one fire ballista this one does have a few words of wisdom for you.

1) Khajiit reccomends some of you try healing the other members of your group. Certainly if you've chosen to run in such small numbers at least one of you was wise enough to not be a pure glass cannon newb ganking build.

2) Purging fire is good. This one reccomends two or more of you trying it. or you can try to keep the elves still long enough to get the marshmallows lightly toasted.

3) People can run multiple siege. A group of six with two dedicated healers still has four people who can run 2-4 siege. That's a potential 16 siege you can use to batter down walls, or respond to that one lone defender with their one lone weapon.

4) Move.

5) The red circles are hot lava. Don't stand in the hot , sometimes invisible, lava.

MoreDino

Zheg wrote: »

As for skill, someone actually using their abilities and putting themselves in the middle of the fight deserves far more reward than someone way in the back left clicking from safety and getting more KB's than the people actually making themselves vulnerable.

You're right, nerf RD.

Darnathian

Dumb post. Youplay a game designed for large scale pvp and siege warfare and complain about both. This is why this game gets worse.

They took years planning the design and then throw it out the window for whinners who want the game changed for the minority.

covenant_merchant

Me thinks most of you are rolling templars and running in large groups, and generally have no idea what you're talking about.
When you're 6 people fighting in a tower, be it a keep or a resource for example, even on the off-chance you have a mana templar in your group, purge is an expensive skill, and said templar won't be able to spam it, and heal, provide support or do the jesus beam from full health like so many cancerous players. Especially when you're being outnumbered and CCed constantly. Purge is expensive. So is siege shield.


I play stamsorc. What exactly do you expect me to do to cleanse that dot, which deals up to 5k damage per second, apart from frantically trying to vigor/rally up and look for that blessed purify synergy, on the off chance that somebody is actually a templar and uses it. Having no major mending and being constantly debuffed by other players, considering you are not dealing with one poor little sieger only but with a butbutload of enemies, doesn't help either.

For all of you saying "dodge", let me explain to you how outnumbered situations work, since clearly you haven't been in one for awhile:
When you're being outnumbered, generally standing or even moving in large,open spaces is a bad idea. While you're moving, some of you will get gap closed, or otherwise rooted, and the fact that rapids disappear with healing certainly doesn't help.
So you try and find enclosed small spaces, choke points, rocks, pve towers, to group up the enemies who followed you like sheep and burst them down. And this is where sieges are a death sentence. Because in a small space, you cannot roll dodge very far, and in open field, you will die from all the other *** ton of damage you're taking, siege notwithstanding.

I do not particularly care for lonely people trying to siege and defend a keep on their own. Those people won't hit you, and you won't die.
I do care however about siegers dealing up to 24k damage on you while you are already fighting a *** ton of people in melee. Look at the AvA in the screeshots. Does it look like "newbies" to you?

As for that last poster whose name I'm too lazy to scroll up for, I fail to understand you. This is an open world game, with every type of PvP existant and available. If you want to run around or in zergs, feel free to do so. Know that no one will care, only silently shake their heads in despair at your choice of playstyle. However, running in lag-inducing large groups isn't everyone's preference, and mechanics have been included to help out outnumbered groups (see vicious death, intended as zerg buster, its practical applications not withstanding).
Until the devs take a firm stance against smallscale, it will be there, somewhere in the corner of your mind and Cyrodiil. And we will cry out and complain about completely broken mechanics.
See, if gap closers weren't broken, or if rapids worked the way it used to, you could be able to move or fight your way out in open field and not be hit by siege. Unfortunately, they don't. And so you're forced into the aforementioned tight spaces, where technically you should be able to compensate for the enemies' overwhelming numbers by bursting them down, but are unable to do so because of one or two or three *** in the backline, some of them palatines nonetheless, just chilling and clicking one button inb4 delivering fiery death and destruction upon you.

covenant_merchant

@Telel as for your insightful post, I think that you haven't read very carefully the op, for whatever reason. Or, if I haven't put enough emphasis on the OUTNUMBERED part, then I apologize.
If you actually die in a group or even alone against only one sieger and NPCs, then you deserve it and should just hide in a corner in shame and not complain on forums. This is not the situation I am talking about. I am talking about multiple sieges being responsible for your death when you are fighting zergs or 20+ man unorganized groups at any rate. Playing a healbot is not everyone's preference, nor should people feel pressured to reroll because of a game and broken mechanics.
I usually play with mana dks and stam sorcs, because these are our chars, and making fotm rerolls is a bit disheartening. And let me tell you, that in a group of magicka dks and stamina sorcs, while fighting 20+ enemies and several siegers, you can just feel the purges flow. We purge ourselves, our allies, the occasional dc random that strolled past our tower defence, and your mother too.

As for that whole "taking keeps against npcs" part, this is where I've been sieged to death last night for instance. And this is where over 24+ people followed us just to set up siege and lazily left-click while others fought.



Is making sieges scale with numbers, just like detonation, such a bad idea or will ruin your large group so much you even refuse to consider it?

Hempyre

Siege isnt broken, at least not in the way the OP thinks.

Don't play in the red circles, seriously...

Learn to heal, roll didge, sprint etc... change your stats around a bit to be more tanky.

Some folks stack all damage and dont know why they get one shotted...

Nobody gets to stand up front and eat damage without consequence.

covenant_merchant

@Dred76 if only you could move... Thing is, with every single patch, mobility is more and more reduced. Increasing the cost of dodge rolls, making rapids 30% instead of 40% and disappear with healing received... Not to mention all dem invisible meteors which you cannot block because they hit with a delay and force you to be rollbacked into the pursuing zerg, and all the rooting/snaring gap closers.
If you could move, then siege would not be an issue. Unfortunately, you cannot move. Hence siege becoming a problem.

Hempyre

Yep i get hit with bow stuff all the time when im waaay out of range due to the lag it was a real problem on my glass cannon, not so much on my heavy impen 30k hp templar though.

Hempyre

Gotta have breakout which means enough stam to breakout. Gotta have purge, which is a slot, etc...

Work the problem

covenant_merchant

@Dred76 Oh, you're playing heavy armor magicka templar. I guess all my posts fall on deaf ears then. But let me try again nonetheless:
You need to be able to slot purge in the first place aka be a templar or a magicka sorc. Which I am not, nor are the people I usually play with. And let me reiterate once again: purge is *** expensive. Even on the off-chance you have one magicka templar with purge, whenever he's CC'ed, you got no purge. And considering all the buttload of damage you take in that short window of time, and the delay people experience on CC breaks because this game is broken, you die inb4 your templar can break free.

Regarding CC break and roll dodge, I was about to write how nearly impossible it is when you're fighting 24 people and lag or being in towers where there is nowhere to dodge roll that massive red circle, but I honestly don't think that you would understand, and this is the saddest part.
If even after reading all the novel-lengthy posts I made, you still fail to see that when fighting outnumbered and being constantly rooted, cc'ed, gap closed, hit by invisible, unblockable meteors, and moving at a snail's speed because of the changes to rapids, you cannot roll dodge several red circles, then... well there's nothing I can do about it. Just keep up your glorious, broken-class performance, comrade. Or if you can empathize with other, purge-less, outnumbered people's struggles, then campaign for some change.

Hempyre

I understand all to well, I main a sorc... and I struggled, especially in the first few months as I was figuring out the mechanics. I know exactly -exactly...- what you're talking about.

And ya purge is expensive, however EVERYONE can have it, its in your alliance line, up to you if you want to use it. Barrier is also in there, and that's sweet as pie for survivability.

the lag is an issue, and all the points you make are accurate, and we all have to deal with the same thing... However, all the tools are there. In character choice, skill lines, and build depth. And lets not forget playstyle... if you've got 24 peeps zerging you and you're standing in several red circles then you didn't leave when you should have. Simple as that. I get caught on my templar in that situation i get burned down instantly too.

zyk

My only issue with siege is the bug that sometimes prevents the red circle from displaying.

Siege damage is easy to avoid and mitigate. I usually play solo without purge or shields in siege heavy environments.