Bring back the old IC, the battles were epic.

azrual

Take the capture BS away since we have BGs coming and let it go back to the days of a 3 way battle in the arena district!

IcyDeadPeople

The flags didn't make people leave the IC. It was pretty empty for a long time before that.

I think the way to get people back there would be to have some double TV stone weekend events and add a vendor to IC who sells monster helms and dungeon/trials sets. Maybe add a campaign that just ports you directly to the sewer base with no keeps or emperor etc.
.

azrual

Not sure where you played but we had a blast on Xbox NA.

zyk

The problem with IC are the primitive capture/hold and respawn mechanics. They are straight from the 90s. Quake mods were better designed. (qwtf canal zone, anyone?)

I'm sure everyone at ZOS recognizes this too. But our audience isn't what pays the bills, it seems.

azrual

zyk wrote: »

The problem with IC are the primitive capture/hold and respawn mechanics. They are straight from the 90s. Quake mods were better designed. (qwtf canal zone, anyone?)

I'm sure everyone at ZOS recognizes this too.

Thats why I said get rid of the capture BS and take it back to how it first was.

zyk

azrual wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

The problem with IC are the primitive capture/hold and respawn mechanics. They are straight from the 90s. Quake mods were better designed. (qwtf canal zone, anyone?)

I'm sure everyone at ZOS recognizes this too.

Thats why I said get rid of the capture BS and take it back to how it first was.

Or, they could actually try and invest the resources necessary to implement modern mechanics and gameplay.

azrual

zyk wrote: »

azrual wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

The problem with IC are the primitive capture/hold and respawn mechanics. They are straight from the 90s. Quake mods were better designed. (qwtf canal zone, anyone?)

I'm sure everyone at ZOS recognizes this too.

Thats why I said get rid of the capture BS and take it back to how it first was.

Or, they could actually try and invest the resources necessary to implement modern mechanics and gameplay.

Whats wrong with death match style play? That's how it used to be and it seemed to work, people would get tired of the grind up top and come down for some close quarters battles.

Magus

It was actually arboretum where the 3 bases were right there next to each other and there was a mini king of the hill type battle in front of AD spawn where all 3 factions tried to hold it while AD stood in their base sniping lol. Die and instant respawn and jump right back into the fight 5 seconds later.

azrual

Magus wrote: »

It was actually arboretum where the 3 bases were right there next to each other and there was a mini king of the hill type battle in front of AD spawn where all 3 factions tried to hold it while AD stood in their base sniping lol. Die and instant respawn and jump right back into the fight 5 seconds later.

I think all of the districts had some sort of large conflict. Similar fights to yours in Arena, then someone trains the boss on you hahah!!

The_Duke

On PS4 the Arena was epic. Its where I went to test new builds and spent most of my time. Zos ruined a great thing. Im pretty sure they don't play their game nearly enough to understand it.

Juhasow

azrual wrote: »

Take the capture BS away since we have BGs coming and let it go back to the days of a 3 way battle in the arena district!

Yes excatly remove the flags so we'll have still empty place but without the flags. IC hype have ended long time ago.

zyk

Look at it this way: When I most recently checked a few days ago, NA TF had approx 6500 players homed on it who had earned AP since the last campaign reset.

There are probably small clusters of a few CS public servers operated by individuals with more active players.

Despite what the pollyannas will tell you, at a commercial level, ESO AvA is a dead game. It's that way because ZOS made the decision to put it on life support in 2014 to focus on other areas of the game. So most players left.

ZOS devs aren't idiots. They can do *much* better -- even if just by copying standard mechanics from other games. It chooses not to invest the money to do so.

My hope is that Battlegrounds is successful enough to revive interest in IC and Cyrodiil so that ZOS may consider actively developing AvA again.

geonsocal

azrual wrote: »

Not sure where you played but we had a blast on Xbox NA.

we had the same thing going on in ps4/na - it was glorious...only complaint was the AD platform being too far from the DC and EP platforms

geonsocal

The_Duke wrote: »

On PS4 the Arena was epic. Its where I went to test new builds and spent most of my time. Zos ruined a great thing. Im pretty sure they don't play their game nearly enough to understand it.

I don't know how familiar you are with all the different players - but, ran into 'dubious cannabis' last night in IC...brought back a lot of good memories fighting against and alongside a lot of different players...

seemed whomever the emp was at the time would always come down late at night to party there...

play all factions, but i used to love taking my DC stamblade and torment folks on the EP platforms from atop the cages with my bow...

good times...

The_Duke

geonsocal wrote: »

The_Duke wrote: »

On PS4 the Arena was epic. Its where I went to test new builds and spent most of my time. Zos ruined a great thing. Im pretty sure they don't play their game nearly enough to understand it.

I don't know how familiar you are with all the different players - but, ran into 'dubious cannabis' last night in IC...brought back a lot of good memories fighting against and alongside a lot of different players...

seemed whomever the emp was at the time would always come down late at night to party there...

play all factions, but i used to love taking my DC stamblade and torment folks on the EP platforms from atop the cages with my bow...

good times...

Never ran into Dubious before but I had alot of fights against MadHessian and a few other notables. I'd prefer it to battle grounds to be honest.

mtwiggz

zyk wrote: »

Look at it this way: When I most recently checked a few days ago, NA TF had approx 6500 players homed on it who had earned AP since the last campaign reset.

There are probably small clusters of a few CS public servers operated by individuals with more active players.

Despite what the pollyannas will tell you, at a commercial level, ESO AvA is a dead game. It's that way because ZOS made the decision to put it on life support in 2014 to focus on other areas of the game. So most players left.

ZOS devs aren't idiots. They can do *much* better -- even if just by copying standard mechanics from other games. It chooses not to invest the money to do so.

My hope is that Battlegrounds is successful enough to revive interest in IC and Cyrodiil so that ZOS may consider actively developing AvA again.

This is the most insightful post I've seen on this forum in what seems like eons. Kudos to you.

Joshua261

On PS4 EU we used to go to the Arena district and you would always see a huge war between DC and EP and you would see the occasional AD group try to sneak in and both alliances would turn around and just incinerate the., then turn round and start the war again. I would pick up the bounty quests occasionally and just do them for some alliance point as i was farming Marksman and Leki at the time.

Syrusthevirus187

The old ps4 arena was amazing. I used to park a character in my home base and if i had a spare half hour or so I could get action quickly. I even logged on to a different toon beforehand to check campaign population so I wouldn't get booted out of IC when I logged in. Lol
P.s that reminds me. I want an instant port to IC please and I would use it more.

Emma_Overload

Yes, ZOS, please bring back Arboretum Deatmatch! It was the most fun I've ever had in this game.

React

Lol I have a feeling that nowadays capture points are some of the (minuscule) incentive that draws people to IC. I personally love IC, however like OP said it's been pretty dead these days (also XB NA). There NEEDS to be some incentive for people to go there, such as a unique TV vendor (that sells something aside from the sets already present and accessible in PVP, such as a "golden" of IC. Perhaps a daedric version requiring either key fragments OR tel var to purchase it's wares? Monster helmets or shoulders on a weekly rotation could be sold for 50k tel var, or golden weapons, jewelry, etc.

Rickter

Its a very old DLC as well folks. please keep that in mind. If you dont count Craglorn - Imperial City was the very first DLC content that came out. Im not sure where the expectation of infinite gameplay came from, but you dont see very many max level players revisiting stros mkai right?

Personally, I dont appreciate the "IC is dead" comments. every single time i have taken my guild into the sewers, I run into another group around the same size. sometimes i dont, sometimes i run into a lot more. IC is a hybrid PvE/PvP zone so it doesnt attract the same crowds as Cyrodiil proper.

I am hosting a new comers event this thursday due to explicit desire and request of my guildmates - there are a lot of people that want to go to IC but they are straight up intimidated. why do you think Guild Halls are getting IC Attuned set stations? 1) for people that dont sub/dont have the dlc but also 2) because its a CHORE to slosh through the NPC adds and roaming bosses without a group of friends.

Like seriously - you guys live in a bubble. There is tremendous interest in IC. always.

KingKalbo

Just having a mission board for certain district flag captures and Champion kills might spice it up. I'm all for taking the flag out of Arena district too; take it back to no mans land so we can get some free for all going again.

adriant1978

As someone who is pretty bad at PvP, and prepared to admit as such, the quick respawn mechanics of the original IC were a godsend compared to the Cyrodiil Horse Simulator.

NightbladeMechanics

adriant1978 wrote: »

As someone who is pretty bad at PvP, and prepared to admit as such, the quick respawn mechanics of the original IC were a godsend compared to the Cyrodiil Horse Simulator.

As someone who likes competitive fights with winners and losers based on skill, the instant respawn mechanics of IC's past and of the current districts when you own the flags were and are my least favorite thing about PvP in this entire game. There's always someone with a differing opinion.

I'd be down for 3-way instant respawn in one district. Perhaps Arena. ZOS could even have hour long death matches with scoring based on total killing blows compared to total deaths of your faction in that district. That'd be fun as hell.

But my god I hate instant respawns in general, and I want them gone from IC other than some mass brawl location like that. If a player dies in a fight, he should not be able to instantly rejoin the fight. That completely defeats the purpose of the fight in the first place, as long as its purpose is to have a deserving winner and loser.

Vitaely

I'm a great supporter of IC PVP. It's where I started dueling; also Arboretum was the OG battlegrounds for having crazy 3-alliance fights with tons of people. Aptly put, the "Arboretum Deathmatch".

The current flag capture system is better than some might think; flag changes make it easier to detect enemy movements, and the telvar bonus you get out of it is actually worth the time.

However, the only broken mechanic with the capture system is the respawn. The flags take forever to get lit, even then they don't stay lit if your opponent outnumbers you. This makes outnumbered battles favor enemies more than necessary, as long as they have a few more people, they get infinite really CLOSE respawns, and fighting on the flag becomes impossible. Before you say L2P, go check how many large pug groups take a flag and simply camp it. It's a really common issue. To overcome this issue, the flags should immediately burst and stay burst as long as any enemies are in combat near it.

Sewers feel a bit undermanned other than the odd CP grinder, a few changes/additions to the centrata event and sewers roaming bosses might be called for.

The flower satchels a great addition to telvar merchants, putting more incentives on telvar would be interesting. Gold mats ZOS? Monster helms might be a stretch, unless they go for some monumental amount of stones.

Rickter

I really like the idea of the Arena actually being an Arena. . . instant respawns, faction winner determined in one hour increments so players can dip in and out. gankers would be happy as they could gank players trying to leave the arena combat

NightbladeMechanics

@Vitaely actually Memorial district was the site of the very first 3-way death matches beginning the instant IC was released (at least on NA). I remember it was packed with people jumping off the walls into each other's zergs 24/7. I watched Skaffa tank and kill so many people there.

I remember the Arboretum death matches, but those were later. Thieves Guild time period maybe?

I hated both though because of the instant respawns and endless fights. I preferred to stick to the sewers alone or with my little groups. There were lots of enemies to fight there too, but fights were less predictable, had ends with victors and losers, and more interesting and varied terrain.

NightbladeMechanics

Rickter wrote: »

I really like the idea of the Arena actually being an Arena. . . instant respawns, faction winner determined in one hour increments so players can dip in and out. gankers would be happy as they could gank players trying to leave the arena combat

I'd vote to revert that district's flag to the old unrestricted respawn points up on those towers, and let the scoring and brawl extend over the whole district. The main fight would naturally move across the whole place over time, like a living thing, and smaller skirmishes would happen all around. Sounds fun....in small doses for me. But clearly a lot of people would just live there! Lol

Vitaely

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

I remember the Arboretum death matches, but those were later. Thieves Guild time period maybe?

Orsinium and Thieves Guild patches mostly, yeah.

t3hdubzy

I like the flags, but i like the old deathmatch. If the spawn bases were moved to the back of each district, i can see how we could have both.


Revive counter multiplied by recent deaths, up to say 1 minute.

Flag capture reduces revive time by 50 percent?


Alternatively you could make each district different.

Id invest more time in layinf out options, but will only fall on deaf ears.

NightbladeMechanics

t3hdubzy wrote: »

I like the flags, but i like the old deathmatch. If the spawn bases were moved to the back of each district, i can see how we could have both.


Revive counter multiplied by recent deaths, up to say 1 minute.

Flag capture reduces revive time by 50 percent?


Alternatively you could make each district different.

Id invest more time in layinf out options, but will only fall on deaf ears.

We won't get any changes with that kind of attitude. ZOS does listen.