Cyrodiil Rework

Fvh09NL

Hello fellow PvP'ers/ESO players,

I have thought about this for a while now and I would really love to see changes to Cyrodiil to make PvP more interesting, and try and make all parts of Cyrodiil important in some way. I think it adresses issues like zerging and fights only really happening around the Emperor-keeps, but of course I would like to hear your thoughts as I certainly have overlooked some things.

First off; in my opinion I would love to see Imperial City (IC) integrated into Cyrodiil to make it as significant as it should be, thus this scenario is based on that as well. I'll start with explaining Cyrodiil and after that how IC can be integrated.

Cyrodiil (map is below the text for reference):

• Cyrodiil can be considered to more or less be divided into three sections per Alliance; the central ring around IC (2 keeps and 1 outpost per Alliance), the section closest to that Alliance’s respective home territories (3 keeps and 1 town) and the outskirts where the least battles take place at the moment (1 keep and 1 town).

• Central section holds 2 keeps and 1 outpost, when the two keeps are in control of your Alliance the bridge to IC opens for your Alliance (more details in the IC section). Controlling the outpost will give your Alliance guards at the chokepoints in the central ring, on the side facing away from the outpost (e.g. when you control Sejanus Outpost, guards of your Alliance will spawn on the side of the bridge facing towards Castle Alessia). Other chokepoints will never be defended, thus creating more incentive to go through those, especially for smaller groups.

• The section closest to the Alliance’s respective home territories hold 3 keeps and 1 town (Cheydinhal in EP, Chorrol in DC and Bravil in AD (should be added in this case)), holding the keeps remains the same as it currently is, however, the towns are given a role as well. These towns should have the same flag-system as Cropsford, Bruma and Vlastarus have, but in my opinion with more guards (it is closer to the home territory so…). When your Alliance holds your respective town you gain a defensive bonus to keeps in your Alliance’s territory (all keeps are for EP, all castles are for AD and all forts are for DC), for example an increase of 30% health to walls and gates and possibly more guards.

• The outskirts hold 1 keep and 1 town per Alliance, being Cropsford for EP, Bruma for DC and Vlastarus for AD. Controlling the towns by capturing the three flags like it is now, should give your Alliance an offensive bonus to siege weapons against buildings (ONLY BUILDINGS), no matter where you use them, for example a 20% increase in damage against buildings. This way, whenever you hold your own outskirt town, you do more damage against other Alliance’s buildings, which is extremely convenient when you enter their territory and they have control of their home territory town, in this case your damage will almost compensate for their increased resistance. There are no guards in these towns, except for when you control the nearby keep (Drakelow for Cropsford/EP, Dragonclaw for Bruma/DC and Brindle for Vlastarus/AD), then there should be a lot (I have no idea of exact numbers). Keep the special gear vendors here as well, or maybe divide them to give the towns closest to the home territory some as well. This creates double incentives for the towns; bonusses to your effectiveness in Cyrodiil and special gear.

I decided to keep the offensive bonus lower than the defensive bonus because I think it makes it easier for Alliances that are outnumbered, but feel free to offer other sugestions!
All other bonusses concerning keeps and scrolls and the mechanism for the scroll gates, etc. can remain the same.

Here is a map of Cyrodiil showing schematically what is written above:



Imperial City:

• Integrate IC into Cyrodiil.

• The allowed amount of players in IC (+sewers) should be a percentage of the overall population cap of the Alliance, for example 10 or 20%.

• The top player of the Alliance that controls IC will be crowned Emperor, instead of controlling the six keeps around the IC (sounds more logical to me).To control IC all 6 districts must be in control of your Alliance.

• Each district in IC now has 3 flags, controlling the flag closest to the WGT gives you control of that district (the flag that already exists at this moment). Controlling the other two flags gives your Alliance a defensive bonus in that specific district (e.g. 3% more damage mitigation, thus 1 flag gives 1,5%).
• IC is accessible through the three bridges that are unlocked by capturing the two keeps near them (e.g. to get to IC from the EP area you must control Chalman Keep and Blue Road Keep). Losing both keeps will lock the bridge for your Alliance. Your way out will be through the Sewers (explained below) or other bridges in control of your Alliance.

• IC Sewers is a hard one, and other solutions are really welcome:

• Option 1: the IC Sewer entrances remain and still port the player to the Sewer Base of that Alliance, but inside the Base the ladders up to the IC surface are removed. The Sewers still remain infested with Daedra and if players want to get to the surface they need to traverse the Sewers and climb the corresponding ladders to enter the desired district. This would create the incentvie to really play the sewers, but actually only the part closest to your Alliance Base; therefore I came up with option two.

• Option 2: the IC Sewer entrances remain and still port the player to the Sewer Base of that Alliance, but now the Alliances do not have a specific base, but on which side of the sewers you enter depends on which entrance on the Cyrodiil mainland you take (e.g. if you take the entrance near Fort Ash you enter the now DC district, if you take the entrance near Chalman Keep you enter the now EP district and if you take the entrance near Castle Alessia you enter the now AD district. This would create the incentive to really play the sewers as well but makes you have to chose carefully which entrance you take. In this case which exit you need to take is dependent on where you want to come out on the mainland.

• Option 3: let the IC Sewers and the Sewer ladders to the IC surface remain the same, but make it so that there is a shady guy near the Sewer entrances on the Cyrodiil mainland where you can buy your way in like with human trafficking (e.g. 25.000 AP/10.000 Gold).

I think all three options favor small-scale PvP, what is exactly what the sewers need in my opinion. Small groups who can enter the IC without being seen so to speak. The same goes for IC, that is where to percentage-based population cap is for.

Here is a map of IC showing where the flags are currently (grey) and where the other two per district should be (green):



I know this means a lot of changes and probably won't happen, but maybe at least some ideas can help to improve Cyrodiil, IC and PvP.
Because that is what I'm aiming for and hopefully I'm thinking in the right direction!

SneaK

Most of this would be pretty good but I have some feedback on a few parts.

I don't really understand adding the NPC's once controlling the outposts. I think that would make it a little harder on the low level solos and questers. I dunno, just doesn't seem that important.

I disagree with making the emperor be the most powerful in IC, and I also don't really like that you'd only have to cap six flags in IC to claim emperor. It seems too easy. Emperors would flip flop multiple times daily. Plus, some players don't even own the IC DLC. If anything, to tie IC to emperor-ship, I'd say the 6 inner keeps would have to be a prerequisite. Then, you'd have to go cap the IC districts. I'm not crazy about that though either. I like the ideas around gated access with home keeps/etc. And if getting IC to be more relevant is the goal, i'd just flat out suggest an AP boost for people in IC. With the gated access and lower population cap in IC, smaller scale combat down there could be rewarded maybe equal to AP farming ball groups up top. Which in turn, might mean that the emperor that gets crowned is the strongest in IC anyway..

Bonuses, most I agree with, I like how the defensive/offensive bonuses would somewhat even out. But in terms of the two extra flags in each IC district, I just don't see anyone capping them if all they do is provide a bonus to that specific district. I think maybe the two extra flags are unnecessary. I would like to propose another change, which I have in many previous posts. Which would be to change the current Home Keep Bonus to the current Blessing of War bonus. I think this would promote a healthier Cyrodiil in that most alliances, even AP farmers, would have incentive to own/defend their home keeps.

caeliusstarbreaker

ZoS doesn't listen it's player base and are arguably too inept to change or improve anything... Sadly.

Publius_Scipio

I think it would be cool to have some sort of Cyrodiil 2.0 in a PvP update. I can understand during development there are time constraints to meet game launch so things to a degree become cookie cutter.

I'd like too see each keep and outpost redesigned to be individually unique. Make them look like menacing forts that are in the middle of a brutal war. Right now the keeps look so quiet and quaint for my personal taste.

Each keep should have unique designs in height, footprint, corridors, flag placement, etc. This will make each siege and defense unique to a keep and keep things interesting. Right now it's the same siege positions, run to the same spot in every keep, NPC guards placed in the same position, etc.

Sheuib

A gated IC campaign was the experiment before the no champion point campaign. It was played even less than the no champion point campaign. What they really need is a campaign with no IC.

Don't bother with guards at choke points they would only be a small speed bump. Most people can solo the guards at resources so why would they make a difference at a choke point. The only time guards make a difference is when there is a few players there which in turn would promote having to zerg the players down with the guards.

Don't connect the emp to the IC districts they are way to easy to flip.

There was also a suggestion of making the keep unique. That is not good either. The keeps are the same so that it is equal for all factions. If they were unique inevidably someone would end up with a design that is easier to take or easier to defend.

The best suggestion I have seen for spreading out fights was a way to crown the Usurper. Basically, if a faction that doesn't have emp can hold their home keeps along with the other two out keeps, Brindle, Drakelowe, and Dragonclaw, they can crown the Usurper which would be the top person on the leader board with the same buffs as the emp. It would give at least one side a counter to the emp and it would give insetive for the emp to not turtle in the last emp keep.

Etaniel

You have to keep in mind two things :

-IC is a dlc, you can't make IC objectives mandatory in getting emperorship for example or even give bridge access to enter the districts, and you can't change the sewer exits to place you at the corresponding lake door, because that has a direct impact on balance > it becomes Pay to Win. Which means you'd have to make changes as to what the DLC gives access to, and what the base game gives access to, which leads me to the second point.


-The PvP population is less than 2 % of the overall ESO playerbase, so spending time and money doing major changes to content that isn't played by the great majority of their playerbase is not worth it for ZOS.

And the second point sucks because your ideas about IC are for the most part great, and would help a great deal in reducing lag and zerg stacking, especially connecting the 3 bridges to the island. But that would require artists to redraw the broken bridges, and create openings in the outer wall and pretty much redesign the entire island around IC, and i'm guessing that ain't cheap.

If ZOS ever had the time/money allocated to Cyrodiil, they should allow access to the IC districts to everyone and fix the bridges, make it so only players with ESO + or access to the DLC can drop tel var off the monsters/enemy players.

I'm not sure if there would be any point in adding more objectives in the districts anyways, because just opening it up would create player traffic since people would probably use IC to cross to the opposing part of the map, while avoiding the ash/chalman gates and the alessia bridge.


But since that is never going to happen, or at least not in a foreseeable future, we should focus on things that are easy and cheap for Zos to implement, using the current structure of the map. That means adding buffs/rewards instead of physical changes to the map.

The easiest way to do that is to give more value to the capturable towns and outer rim keeps.

First, give them a higher scoring value for the campaign. Not everyone cares about campaign scores, but some do, and that would give some incentive to fight for them. If a percentage of people fight there, even the people not interested in scoring would head there to get fights.

And while we are on about campaign scoring, significantly boost the rewards for winning a campaign.
the risk in doing that : increase the nightcapping (but that happens already anyways so....)

Add faction wide buffs for controlling the capturable towns and outer rim keeps. Your siege buff vs building idea is a nice one, but wouldn't appeal to enough people. Add something like a minor AP buff... Buffing damage or survivability might not be a great idea in the current meta. Proctatoes and 60k hp malutanks don't need their ridiculous builds buffed even more.

Fvh09NL

Ok so owning two keeps and then flipping the six flags at the same time might be too easy (although controlling all flags means you have to spread out to control them all at the same time Or the other Alliance will flip it), I can understand that. Maybe like SneaK proposed, first get the 6 keeps surrounding the IC before you can go and flip them.

About the chokepoints, I didn't really know what to do about those, I was trying to find a way what would make players go through the other ones outside the Emperor circle as well, spreading out a bit.

I do think a gated IC works, but in order for it to work it needs to be connected to Cyrodiil and in my opinion Emperor. And although I would love to see that happen, like SneaK and Etaniel say, and me as well in saying before it won't happen probably, I know IC is a DLC and that makes it difficult. So maybe stick to the Cyrodiil changes then

I like the ideas around the Usurper, AP buff for taking outskirts and Blessing of War bonus btw, good stuff

Etaniel

Sheuib wrote: »

A gated IC campaign was the experiment before the no champion point campaign. It was played even less than the no champion point campaign. What they really need is a campaign with no IC.

The only reason why gated access was a failure is that it wasn't implemented on 100% of the campaigns.
Why would you fight for something you need when you can get it for free on another campaign. It's as simple as that, and it blew my mind when ZOS announced there would only be one gated campaign.

Publius_Scipio

Etaniel wrote: »

Sheuib wrote: »

A gated IC campaign was the experiment before the no champion point campaign. It was played even less than the no champion point campaign. What they really need is a campaign with no IC.

The only reason why gated access was a failure is that it wasn't implemented on 100% of the campaigns.
Why would you fight for something you need when you can get it for free on another campaign. It's as simple as that, and it blew my mind when ZOS announced there would only be one gated campaign.

Yes, but at the same time I remember many players were asking ZOS for a gated campaign. So ZOS gave us one and no one took them up on the offer, even those that were saying they wanted one. If ZOS has made every campaign gated then there would have been a tsunami of complaints from players all over about how they are locking content behind a stupid gate, their alliance sucks so they can never enter IC, etc etc.

ZOS did very well to hedge their bets and test the waters with one gated campaign.

Ghost-Shot

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Sheuib wrote: »

A gated IC campaign was the experiment before the no champion point campaign. It was played even less than the no champion point campaign. What they really need is a campaign with no IC.

The only reason why gated access was a failure is that it wasn't implemented on 100% of the campaigns.
Why would you fight for something you need when you can get it for free on another campaign. It's as simple as that, and it blew my mind when ZOS announced there would only be one gated campaign.

Yes, but at the same time I remember many players were asking ZOS for a gated campaign. So ZOS gave us one and no one took them up on the offer, even those that were saying they wanted one. If ZOS has made every campaign gated then there would have been a tsunami of complaints from players all over about how they are locking content behind a stupid gate, their alliance sucks so they can never enter IC, etc etc.

ZOS did very well to hedge their bets and test the waters with one gated campaign.

No they didn't, it was never going to work if only one campaign had that rule set, its an all or nothing rule or people will just ignore the campaign.

Publius_Scipio

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Sheuib wrote: »

A gated IC campaign was the experiment before the no champion point campaign. It was played even less than the no champion point campaign. What they really need is a campaign with no IC.

The only reason why gated access was a failure is that it wasn't implemented on 100% of the campaigns.
Why would you fight for something you need when you can get it for free on another campaign. It's as simple as that, and it blew my mind when ZOS announced there would only be one gated campaign.

Yes, but at the same time I remember many players were asking ZOS for a gated campaign. So ZOS gave us one and no one took them up on the offer, even those that were saying they wanted one. If ZOS has made every campaign gated then there would have been a tsunami of complaints from players all over about how they are locking content behind a stupid gate, their alliance sucks so they can never enter IC, etc etc.

ZOS did very well to hedge their bets and test the waters with one gated campaign.

No they didn't, it was never going to work if only one campaign had that rule set, its an all or nothing rule or people will just ignore the campaign.

You think people were going to spend money on a DLC and have it locked behind gated campaigns and not be upset? Even the best players ranting on streams about not being able to get into IC because they need an alliance effort to get the gates open? I definitely never saw ZOS taking that route.

Ghost-Shot

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Sheuib wrote: »

A gated IC campaign was the experiment before the no champion point campaign. It was played even less than the no champion point campaign. What they really need is a campaign with no IC.

The only reason why gated access was a failure is that it wasn't implemented on 100% of the campaigns.
Why would you fight for something you need when you can get it for free on another campaign. It's as simple as that, and it blew my mind when ZOS announced there would only be one gated campaign.

Yes, but at the same time I remember many players were asking ZOS for a gated campaign. So ZOS gave us one and no one took them up on the offer, even those that were saying they wanted one. If ZOS has made every campaign gated then there would have been a tsunami of complaints from players all over about how they are locking content behind a stupid gate, their alliance sucks so they can never enter IC, etc etc.

ZOS did very well to hedge their bets and test the waters with one gated campaign.

No they didn't, it was never going to work if only one campaign had that rule set, its an all or nothing rule or people will just ignore the campaign.

You think people were going to spend money on a DLC and have it locked behind gated campaigns and not be upset? Even the best players ranting on streams about not being able to get into IC because they need an alliance effort to get the gates open? I definitely never saw ZOS taking that route.

I would buy that argument if it wasn't content that was supposed to be added shortly after launch.

AbraXuSeXile

We had emp on gated campaign but they took enough keeps and jumped in sewer never to be seen again.

Etaniel

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Sheuib wrote: »

A gated IC campaign was the experiment before the no champion point campaign. It was played even less than the no champion point campaign. What they really need is a campaign with no IC.

The only reason why gated access was a failure is that it wasn't implemented on 100% of the campaigns.
Why would you fight for something you need when you can get it for free on another campaign. It's as simple as that, and it blew my mind when ZOS announced there would only be one gated campaign.

Yes, but at the same time I remember many players were asking ZOS for a gated campaign. So ZOS gave us one and no one took them up on the offer, even those that were saying they wanted one. If ZOS has made every campaign gated then there would have been a tsunami of complaints from players all over about how they are locking content behind a stupid gate, their alliance sucks so they can never enter IC, etc etc.

ZOS did very well to hedge their bets and test the waters with one gated campaign.

Those complainers weren't the brightest imo, because we would have had buff campaigns anyways and everyone and their mother would have been able to enter IC without an effort despite the gate.

If a dlc with a new trial was released , I wouldn't complain that I can't get the trial gear because it's behind a pve gate, it's utterly ***. Same goes with IC, your ability to enter IC depends on you and your faction's ability to gain access to it.
And it balances itself out, if a faction dominates you in Cyro, they have a population deficit when some of their members are down in the sewers and not defending the keeps.

And if you don't wanna put the effort, well don't buy the dlc.

BuggeX

Etaniel wrote: »

Sheuib wrote: »

A gated IC campaign was the experiment before the no champion point campaign. It was played even less than the no champion point campaign. What they really need is a campaign with no IC.

The only reason why gated access was a failure is that it wasn't implemented on 100% of the campaigns.
Why would you fight for something you need when you can get it for free on another campaign. It's as simple as that, and it blew my mind when ZOS announced there would only be one gated campaign.

but you know... all the mimimi from pve players

Shey

Good Idea but every top emp can easely defeat 20-40% of enemy faction. And every emperor will camp those 36 flags..

Shey

Its the Elder Scrolls Online, Emperor gets crowned when your alliance controls all Scrolls.

Shey

And you need to spend 1M tel var for getting emperor. At the time you are getting crowed you have to deposit that million already otherwise the #2 will be crowned but only if he did the same and so on

Shey

When you lose emp ship the tel var will split up to all #3 #2 #1 of the enemy factions

Shey

Emperor requires DLC imperial city.

D382H

I think the PvP map needs landmarks for all locations and not just campaign locations!

Preyfar

Cyrodiil just doesn't work in the grand scheme of things. It lacks a good combat flow, it lacks points of interest, it lacks and real reason to venture off the beaten path. The few NPC areas there are are kind of lackluster and empty. I'd really love to see Cyrodiil rebooted from the ground up.

s_jscorpiorwb17_ESO

Sheuib wrote: »

A gated IC campaign was the experiment before the no champion point campaign. It was played even less than the no champion point campaign. What they really need is a campaign with no IC.

Don't bother with guards at choke points they would only be a small speed bump. Most people can solo the guards at resources so why would they make a difference at a choke point. The only time guards make a difference is when there is a few players there which in turn would promote having to zerg the players down with the guards.

Don't connect the emp to the IC districts they are way to easy to flip.

There was also a suggestion of making the keep unique. That is not good either. The keeps are the same so that it is equal for all factions. If they were unique inevidably someone would end up with a design that is easier to take or easier to defend.

The best suggestion I have seen for spreading out fights was a way to crown the Usurper. Basically, if a faction that doesn't have emp can hold their home keeps along with the other two out keeps, Brindle, Drakelowe, and Dragonclaw, they can crown the Usurper which would be the top person on the leader board with the same buffs as the emp. It would give at least one side a counter to the emp and it would give insetive for the emp to not turtle in the last emp keep.

You could still have unique keeps you would just have to have them similar to the other factions. So the 2 inner keeps of each faction are similar etc.