PC/NA Vivec

NightbladeMechanics

Satiar wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

@Satiar You're right, I shouldn't dis VE like that. Or any of the guilds I might call out in zone chat when I feel there's a competitive imbalance. I largely respect our opponents, including VE. I don't think my POV is as invalid as you say, but this isn't about VE or me.

On the other hand, you've been part of an ESO organization for so long, perhaps you forget what it's like to be on the other side, if you ever knew at all. Maybe back in 1.3 when AD was still dominant and you played solo and in small groups?

It's been very frustrating for many AD at all levels to deal with the competitive imbalance that exists. We still have some great guilds and many awesome and experienced players. I'm not dissing our guilds or players either. But I think it's widely accepted that AD has the greatest percentage of random casuals. I think this has been true for a long time and a greater issue now than ever.

Again, I'm not just talking about prominent guilds. I am talking about guilds and groups of all sizes.

My OP was a kneejerk reaction to another tough night for the faction, and though I didn't intend to post, I think it needed to be said for the good of the game. The best fights and map play come from competitive parity. Laydown wins should be boring to any truly competitive player. AD needs an infusion of experienced players to replace all those we've lost.

But here's the thing: at some point something in the game broke down. Every MMO I've played people looked up to the top guilds. You wanted to beat them, you wanted to play with them! I looked at Deci and I wanted to be better than them. Getting rocked by Deci/NM and playing with Havoc showed me what was possible from a really high end group and that was an inspiring challenge. Nowadays tho? No one respects the top guilds, no one really likes them and no one wants to play with them. The high end community is generally regarded as a cancer, a bunch of exploiting, skill spamming elitist zerglings. Which, ok, every community has its problems. But I'd say in this game there is very little desire to be a part of that community, and so you have very few people striving for that (as opposed to early game). The heroes of this game aren't the guilds, it's the small scalers and soloers. And once you get a faction of those, well... in a RvRvR game that's rough. Because I'm gonna roll up with a well-oiled raid and take Nikel and Roe, and EP will do the same in the east and now it's discouraging.

People don't like large groups because they create lag, which detracts from everyone else's gameplay experience.

People haven't liked soloers and small groups ever since a lot were shown to be using CE.

I would say these two attitudes are results of poor game design by ZOS -- in that their game lags and they didn't institute a proper anti-cheat safeguard for so long.

I wouldn't say the general playerbase considers either group the heroes. From my perspective, the mid tier casual guilds who try to win the campaign but don't tryhard to win every fight, min/max their group, or master the game per se are considered the heroes. You're just an elitist destro ult spamming zergling, and I'm just an elitist tree-humping hacker...

This is also partly a result of millennial generations' "give me more for less" attitudes about life, but I digress...

Minno

Satiar wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

If you're trying to drive the remaining AD from Vivec, GJ.

Despite the fact AD is hopelessly behind in the score, we face constant pressure from groups of all sizes. When I look at the groups hitting us, I see many ex-AD who have joined the farm AD bandwagon.

It's pretty clear most of you aren't interested in actually good, competitive fights.

No, actually we really are interested in good fights.

What you are experiencing is known as a "delusional break from reality." Every faction gets frequently assaulted by the other two factions simultaneously. It's not a unique experience by AD, nor is getting double teamed while in 3rd place.

We all experience it, and it can suck, but AD is most certainly not a victim. Perhaps if we could leave Ash unattended for 2 minutes to fight the full EP faction in the Ales-Chal corridor - without Ash turning yellow - DC might feel some pity for you.

The only pitiable feature of Vivec AD on PC/NA is the seeming lack of guild power.

In AD's defense, when DC has 95+% of its playerbase at Chalman, a old lady and her broom could knock over Ash at that point.

And it's not like DC doesn't do its level best to spend 6+ hours a day squatting in Roe and Brindle, just like EP does at Alessia. Roe's as much an AD keep as Alessia is.

AD draws attention to itself. If I'm fighting EP guilds in the north, AD pushes DC.... even if they don't own Alessia. So I push em back to Fare and camp Roe till they get it in thier heads to attack EP.

I'll never understand why AD would rather run into the meat grinder we set up at Roe/Nikel than attack Alessia.

Though, AD should increases pushes on DC/EP resources at score tick (DC loves to leave rayles/warden empty.

If they can keep the two below 45 points, I'd imagine another long win for AD over the other two factions.

OdinForge

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

@Satiar You're right, I shouldn't dis VE like that. Or any of the guilds I might call out in zone chat when I feel there's a competitive imbalance. I largely respect our opponents, including VE. I don't think my POV is as invalid as you say, but this isn't about VE or me.

On the other hand, you've been part of an ESO organization for so long, perhaps you forget what it's like to be on the other side, if you ever knew at all. Maybe back in 1.3 when AD was still dominant and you played solo and in small groups?

It's been very frustrating for many AD at all levels to deal with the competitive imbalance that exists. We still have some great guilds and many awesome and experienced players. I'm not dissing our guilds or players either. But I think it's widely accepted that AD has the greatest percentage of random casuals. I think this has been true for a long time and a greater issue now than ever.

Again, I'm not just talking about prominent guilds. I am talking about guilds and groups of all sizes.

My OP was a kneejerk reaction to another tough night for the faction, and though I didn't intend to post, I think it needed to be said for the good of the game. The best fights and map play come from competitive parity. Laydown wins should be boring to any truly competitive player. AD needs an infusion of experienced players to replace all those we've lost.

But here's the thing: at some point something in the game broke down. Every MMO I've played people looked up to the top guilds. You wanted to beat them, you wanted to play with them! I looked at Deci and I wanted to be better than them. Getting rocked by Deci/NM and playing with Havoc showed me what was possible from a really high end group and that was an inspiring challenge. Nowadays tho? No one respects the top guilds, no one really likes them and no one wants to play with them. The high end community is generally regarded as a cancer, a bunch of exploiting, skill spamming elitist zerglings. Which, ok, every community has its problems. But I'd say in this game there is very little desire to be a part of that community, and so you have very few people striving for that (as opposed to early game). The heroes of this game aren't the guilds, it's the small scalers and soloers. And once you get a faction of those, well... in a RvRvR game that's rough. Because I'm gonna roll up with a well-oiled raid and take Nikel and Roe, and EP will do the same in the east and now it's discouraging.

People don't like large groups because they create lag, which detracts from everyone else's gameplay experience.

People haven't liked soloers and small groups ever since a lot were shown to be using CE.

I would say these two attitudes are results of poor game design by ZOS -- in that their game lags and they didn't institute a proper anti-cheat safeguard for so long.

I wouldn't say the general playerbase considers either group the heroes. From my perspective, the mid tier casual guilds who try to win the campaign but don't tryhard to win every fight, min/max their group, or master the game per se are considered the heroes. You're just an elitist destro ult spamming zergling, and I'm just an elitist tree-humping hacker...

This is also partly a result of millennial generations' "give me more for less" attitudes about life, but I digress...

The "heroes of ESO" aren't top small-scale or solo players either, it's the masses of sub-par players who reassure themselves that everyone else is just using cheat engine to rationalize getting outplayed. And at this point the line between top guild/group players and top solo/small-scale players is starting to get really blurred, both are dabbling with the other with good success.

What it comes down to is the old time players are becoming fewer, and the sub-par masses are the majority. They take over zone chat and huddle in groups of other like minded players. When they get outplayed it's okay, because that person just used CE. When they zerg that same player down later it's an achievement for fulfilling their witch hunt. On several occasions I've seen friends on other factions getting accused of cheating in my faction zone. They don't care about either top small scale players or top guilds, both are part of their witch hunt as both regularly outplay them.

And the irony is that the most widely known and documented example of CE use came from a top guild player, and that player was simply bringing attention to something that's been an ignored issue since launch. The majority of the community ignored the fact that thanks to him ZOS was forced to do something, and instead became like disillusioned brats.

Joy_Division

It's hard for me to have much sympathy for the "woe is us AD, getting doubled teamed by the Purple Alliance" when AD won, rather handily, the last campaign.

OK so this campaign's scoreboard says AD are getting trounced. Well guess what, last campaign AD was getting trounced and then emerged from the weeds to win the campaign. Sorry, not falling for it this time. Your faction clearly has the potential, how about actually trying to tap that potential instead of whining on these forums?

This stuff is cyclical. Faction strength ebb and flows. People quit, guilds break up, new forces emerge. Your faction in last place? Suck it up and actually do something about it that goes beyond asking others not to pick on you. Give me a break, your faction is popped locked just like the other ones are and it's not like the AD faction-stacks I run into are inclined to show clemency.

AD's issue right now is the same as EP's was when it came in third for like 6-7 campaigns in a row: organization. AD has many good players, but those players have little collective presence - indeed a fair number of them are playing on other factions (perhaps because they want to play in an organized manner and find it hard to do so on AD). It's the "whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts" thing. I get it running guilds, organizing raids, dealing with egos is a thankless job that pays nothing except aggravation, but if people don't step up and provide the faction with a strong organized force that can brute force enemy strongholds, your AD PuGs will continued to get farmed at Red Alessia and Blue Roe. And, no, I am not going to leave Red Alessia because I am supposed to feel sorry for last campaign's champions, who very easily have the potential to be in first place and farming me at BRK.

Dreyloch

Drummerx04 wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

If you're trying to drive the remaining AD from Vivec, GJ.

Despite the fact AD is hopelessly behind in the score, we face constant pressure from groups of all sizes. When I look at the groups hitting us, I see many ex-AD who have joined the farm AD bandwagon.

It's pretty clear most of you aren't interested in actually good, competitive fights.

No, actually we really are interested in good fights.

What you are experiencing is known as a "delusional break from reality." Every faction gets frequently assaulted by the other two factions simultaneously. It's not a unique experience by AD, nor is getting double teamed while in 3rd place.

We all experience it, and it can suck, but AD is most certainly not a victim. Perhaps if we could leave Ash unattended for 2 minutes to fight the full EP faction in the Ales-Chal corridor - without Ash turning yellow - DC might feel some pity for you.

The only pitiable feature of Vivec AD on PC/NA is the seeming lack of guild power.

Let me add to the italics there. Rayles, Glademist and Warden included...Many times I've seen DC start to get a good offensive going against EP and low-n-behold...AD is on our back lines taking advantage. How often does DC even hit your tri-keeps? It's pretty rare that DC even gets Roe for very long, or takes anything beyond it most of the time. You also almost always have the 2 towns on the south side of the map and most of your resources. How often do you see DC taking all kinds of resources at the eval tick from AD? I assure you, most of the time we're defending our own.

Agrippa_Invisus

Dreyloch wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

If you're trying to drive the remaining AD from Vivec, GJ.

Despite the fact AD is hopelessly behind in the score, we face constant pressure from groups of all sizes. When I look at the groups hitting us, I see many ex-AD who have joined the farm AD bandwagon.

It's pretty clear most of you aren't interested in actually good, competitive fights.

No, actually we really are interested in good fights.

What you are experiencing is known as a "delusional break from reality." Every faction gets frequently assaulted by the other two factions simultaneously. It's not a unique experience by AD, nor is getting double teamed while in 3rd place.

We all experience it, and it can suck, but AD is most certainly not a victim. Perhaps if we could leave Ash unattended for 2 minutes to fight the full EP faction in the Ales-Chal corridor - without Ash turning yellow - DC might feel some pity for you.

The only pitiable feature of Vivec AD on PC/NA is the seeming lack of guild power.

Let me add to the italics there. Rayles, Glademist and Warden included...Many times I've seen DC start to get a good offensive going against EP and low-n-behold...AD is on our back lines taking advantage. How often does DC even hit your tri-keeps? It's pretty rare that DC even gets Roe for very long, or takes anything beyond it most of the time. You also almost always have the 2 towns on the south side of the map and most of your resources. How often do you see DC taking all kinds of resources at the eval tick from AD? I assure you, most of the time we're defending our own.

You realize that Innocents Abroad (a large DC guild that recruits pugs from /zone) regularly rotates through Brindle, Black Boot, Bloodmayne, and Faregy (usually in that order, but they swap it up sometimes) on a near daily basis? They alternate doing this between EP and AD and don't seem to have much interest in logical strategy.

That if DC has Nikel, Roe gets potatoed almost as hard as Chalman (and especially hard if DC has Chalman). DC regularly uses Brin/Roe as points soaks for themselves if they are getting stonewalled at Chalman.

Hell, I'm EP and I can read a map well enough to see these things going on.

Let's not pretend DC is AD's friend. They're not. DC smacks AD around every bit as much as EP does. Roe and Brin regularly lose their resources near eval, or for farming puproses.

During prime time it is rare to see DC push into the AD tri-keeps -- and that's due to the DC guilds understanding the worthlessness of scrolls at this time. Holding Brindle, Nikel, and Roebeck (and their resources) is a +9 to your PPH and a -18 to AD's. That cripples AD's earnings and gives you enough to keep up with or exceed EP.

This is why AD is in 3rd right now. Not from losing Alessia. It's from losing their western 1/3rd on a regular basis and periodically Bloodmayne and most of the Alessia resources due to farming EP.

It's the same reason when EP's shoved back to Arrius we usually don't retake Chalman first. Not only does DC tend to faction stack Chalman to farm, but it's much more important for our PPH to get BRK, Drake, and Sejanus back due to the amount of keeps and resources involved instead of just a single keep and its resources. Without our southern front, our PPH earning is crippled. And it's why EP always seems the bigger threat to DC -- we're going to hit Dragon and Aleswell and Bleakers. A much bigger hit than just losing Ash.

As for getting hit at Ash while attacking EP -- welp, I've seen Roe flip blue while BRK is under siege plenty. Don't think this isn't a three way roundabout. Here's a tip for preventing that -- Stop faction stacking into a single keep and actually leave some defenses at Ash.

Telel

Would anyone like to bring up the EP group that routinely (E.G whenever they can't just zerg surf behind the other EP) comes over on their alts to 'help prove how bad AD is' by messing up scroll runs, sabotaging sieges, and engaging in other such elfish antics?

If you need an example the attempt to recover altadoon from yesterday. 2 bars AD, 3 bars EP, 3 bars DC, and these oh so brave 'good players' chose to come over and use alts to snatch back the scroll. These elfing elf faces then ran it into the waters near IC, and used toons from different factions to keep anyone from picking it back up.

And all the while they were posting in zone about how AD players were bad because of how 'salty' they are. Not to mention spamming the server with scroll messages in an attempt to annoy certain someones.

All of which is more or less recorded during the stream yesterday, including the names of two of the children involved. Hopefully once middle school starts back up they'll make themselves more scarce than an guard who doesn't accuse humble khajiit of wrongdoing.

Ghost-Shot

I am AoE Barbecue.

Telel

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

I am AoE Barbecue.

As you do not go well with mustard Telel must humbly disagree with that statement.

zyk

So here's an example of what it's like to be AD right now. At Alessia, we have:

- a khole group (DC)
- addison's group (AP and Chill) (EP)
- jules and kodi (EP)
- another decent DC group
- chuwy (a decent ex-AD player) has a group of a few (EP)
- + EP randoms

All attempting to farm AD randoms. Is this good gameplay? Is this why you form OP groups with optimal builds? To farm randoms?

In Counterstrike, if a decent clan was to all play on the same side on a public server against randoms, they'd easily wipe the floor with them and be considered big jerks for it.

Yet this is what organized groups do in ESO every night. Worse, they switch factions to facilitate this. Good fights, right?

Keiryan

It's going to be a lot easier to find someone that rolls a lot of natural 20s on charisma checks and have them start their own cult of personality...err guild then it is to convince 30 people to re roll characters they've put a lot of effort into, especially when it comes to the PvP rank of which some people legitimately care about.

I feel like there should be an ad discussion thread about how wants to start a new super power ad guild, who is willing to lead, must comply with group templates and be willing to adapt. It would literally take 5 minutes to write.

All it takes is one person to start the guild, I feel that is a much more productive use of time and energy than coming to the forums and complaining that no one else will come and do the work for you and your faction

Keiryan

To add to that... k hole wasn't even meant to be a guild, and I've never actually ran it as a guild with any real structure. The whole point of having the guild was so it would be easier for people to see when I was online and join group via auto inviter.

You don't even have to be good lol like I'm a pretty average player at best, success like anything in life is about how much dedication you have, and consistency in your groups.

I suppose it helps I have one of the most amazing rosters around, but that's a minor detail.

Artis

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

In AD's defense, when DC has 95+% of its playerbase at Chalman, a old lady and her broom could knock over Ash at that point.

And it's not like DC doesn't do its level best to spend 6+ hours a day squatting in Roe and Brindle, just like EP does at Alessia. Roe's as much an AD keep as Alessia is.

In common sense's defense, why would you attack DC when you don't have Alessia or if you do , when EP is winning and you can attack EP so they will be focused?

Satiar wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

@Satiar You're right, I shouldn't dis VE like that. Or any of the guilds I might call out in zone chat when I feel there's a competitive imbalance. I largely respect our opponents, including VE. I don't think my POV is as invalid as you say, but this isn't about VE or me.

On the other hand, you've been part of an ESO organization for so long, perhaps you forget what it's like to be on the other side, if you ever knew at all. Maybe back in 1.3 when AD was still dominant and you played solo and in small groups?

It's been very frustrating for many AD at all levels to deal with the competitive imbalance that exists. We still have some great guilds and many awesome and experienced players. I'm not dissing our guilds or players either. But I think it's widely accepted that AD has the greatest percentage of random casuals. I think this has been true for a long time and a greater issue now than ever.

Again, I'm not just talking about prominent guilds. I am talking about guilds and groups of all sizes.

My OP was a kneejerk reaction to another tough night for the faction, and though I didn't intend to post, I think it needed to be said for the good of the game. The best fights and map play come from competitive parity. Laydown wins should be boring to any truly competitive player. AD needs an infusion of experienced players to replace all those we've lost.

It's all good.

I really dunno what ADs gonna do. You're right, its good players are scattered. It is a sad day when you realize that many if not most of the "big name" AD players remaining in the game have rerolled to DC and EP. In the end the only thing that will solve it is leadership. When VE leadership took a break from the game you can see pretty much the same thing: some left the game, some left the large scale scene to small man, some went to Khole, some Fantasia, etc. And I reckon that's what happened to AD, thier leads stopped leading and the players scattered.

But for inspiration, look at EP. I'm obviously not a big fan of Drac but when the EU guys came over and started leading on the regular they absolutely revitalized the high end PvP community there. People rerolled to trial with them. The old Haxus crew went from a dwindling group that ran 10+ on occasion to a regular force. It shows there are obviously players who want to play, they just need a lead and a place to play.

As for me, I remember. I remember taking a bunch of zone pugs to BRK and getting rocked by Decibel and Alacrity a dozen times a night. I remember combining groups with Havoc one night cuz they couldn't do *** either; that went rly bad, I don't think Anon knew how raw our trainees were.

But here's the thing: at some point something in the game broke down. Every MMO I've played people looked up to the top guilds. You wanted to beat them, you wanted to play with them! I looked at Deci and I wanted to be better than them. Getting rocked by Deci/NM and playing with Havoc showed me what was possible from a really high end group and that was an inspiring challenge. Nowadays tho? No one respects the top guilds, no one really likes them and no one wants to play with them. The high end community is generally regarded as a cancer, a bunch of exploiting, skill spamming elitist zerglings. Which, ok, every community has its problems. But I'd say in this game there is very little desire to be a part of that community, and so you have very few people striving for that (as opposed to early game). The heroes of this game aren't the guilds, it's the small scalers and soloers. And once you get a faction of those, well... in a RvRvR game that's rough. Because I'm gonna roll up with a well-oiled raid and take Nikel and Roe, and EP will do the same in the east and now it's discouraging.

Anyways, I did come back at you hard avd for that I apologize. I could have set the record straight with less fervor.

This is an awesome comment. I like the part about not wanting to play and not respecting top guilds. I was feeling something similar too, and I think it actually happened a while ago. Not just in PvP, in PvE as well. Long gone are the days where trial leader boards would fill up and you couldn't count on staying there for a weekly..

I personally think that high-end community brought this all on themselves and it's only up to them to fix it, but I don't think they can - not right now, not most people that it consists of and that lead to having this "crysis" in the first place. I don't think it's because of CE. Who even remembers that? New players don't even know. Right now I strongly believe it's about elitism.

Players don't want to play with top guilds? Yes, we do. And some of us tried but got rejected. And of course we resent people who said we aren't good enough to play with them and what they stand for.

And the concept of guild is very different in ESO. Here it seems to be nothing but a discord/TS server players share access to. It's not about guilds now, it's about players. You have the same players who all know each other rotating between a few guilds. There is no reason for them to get fresh blood/players who aren't good already and play with them as they become better. The high-end game community is pretty closed (elitism) and stagnant. Sure, sometimes a few really dedicated or gifted players who became good already join, but that doesn't happen very often.

In PvP: no one wants really wants to run with a lot of weak players. They'd rather join somebody who's already good. But same goes to recruitment - there are always other good players who left their guild for some reason or whose guild is running on different nights so they can run these nights with another top guild. I don't even remember last time I saw a recruitment ad in zone. It was some time before Morrowind, I remember it was in Rivenspire - that's where I "lived" before Vivec. And I go to Cyrodill every other day (almost every day except for Fri and Sat (sometimes Sun), actually) - and don't see guilds recruiting there either. No, players are expected to find the ways to join guilds themselves. Which again, I don't blame anyone for it. Guilds have enough good, already familiar, players to run with. And as this thread shows - no one is really keen on starting their own guild from scratch. They're, in fact, asking other guild to reroll and fight for their faction. Do you see what I'm saying?

But I noticed the same tendency in PvE as well, and long ago, too. Admittedly, I spent much more time there.

In PvE: in a similar manner, no one wants to run with weak players who haven't already proven themselves. It's understandable that no one wants to PUG hard content, of course. But let's look at raiding guilds. And what I'm saying is nothing new, it's been like that for a while, the first time I encountered it was in 2014. There is no such thing as guild spirit or unity. You don't get to play with a core team if you aren't among the best. And if there's an opening in a core team, guess what happens? Sure, they will announce the recruitment. But they would rather invite a person from outside the guild than a guild mate if they liked that person/his performance more. Where will they get that person? From another guild they are in. As I said - a few top guilds share most top players. Just look at the leader boards. Again - not blaming them for it, nobody owes anything to anyone. The point is - guilds don't matter. It doesn't matter that you're in a guild, it doesn't give you any advantages over players that are not in the guild. You don't really progress inside the guild, the guild doesn't really care about that. It just wants the best player it can get right now. Joining a new guild doesn't mean anything either. They won't stop recruiting until they get enough to choose from. They won't be growing together as a team once they got critical mass to consistently have a raid going.

Of course, there are exceptions in both PvE and PvP.

I honestly don't see a solution to this. Only time and a new generation of players can fix this unless it gets sucked into the current system. Or players need to willingly stop pursuing the most efficient way, but can't really expect that from all of them. They just want to have fun, too, and don't necessarily care what others think about them.

Agrippa_Invisus

Artis wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

In AD's defense, when DC has 95+% of its playerbase at Chalman, a old lady and her broom could knock over Ash at that point.

And it's not like DC doesn't do its level best to spend 6+ hours a day squatting in Roe and Brindle, just like EP does at Alessia. Roe's as much an AD keep as Alessia is.

In common sense's defense, why would you attack DC when you don't have Alessia or if you do , when EP is winning and you can attack EP so they will be focused?

Alessia, Roebeck, and Brindle are all worth the same amount of points.

What makes Alessia worth sacrificing, Roebeck, Brindle, and probably Nikel over?

If the response is either 'because EP' or 'because the bridge' then that's the very mentality that has mired you guys in third.

Play for the points or don't win.

You should be playing to increase your own points earning (PPH) over the other factions. Not one faction, both factions.

The way you do this is you maintain your home keeps. All your home keeps. And if double teamed and forced to sacrifice them, you sacrifice as few as possible and regain as many as possible as quickly as possible. Nothing maintains PPH like keeping your home keeps, because it allows you to remain solvent if one faction is withering under the third and giving it tons of additional points.

If DC is sitting in Chalman, they're earning 54 PPH, while EP is 42 due to the loss of a home keep. If you take Drake, but lose Brindle, while EP is down to 34, you are now down as well at 46, while DC is up to 58. If all you did was maintain at 50ish due to holding onto your 6 home keeps, then as EP/DC swing back and forth over the Bleakers corridor you can avoid the vicissitudes of that struggle while maintaining your own position.

Notice something here? You're never catching up to at least one of the two factions. In fact you're falling further behind. How do you prevent this?

Home keeps. Maintain them, immediately retake them, back cap extensively to recap if you have to. Anything else, and you're always 2nd or 3rd place. When double teamed and pushed back to Faregyl (or if you lose scrolls), remember that the goal is to get as many home keeps as possible back into your control as fast as possible. That means taking the blue ones, too.

Artis

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

In AD's defense, when DC has 95+% of its playerbase at Chalman, a old lady and her broom could knock over Ash at that point.

And it's not like DC doesn't do its level best to spend 6+ hours a day squatting in Roe and Brindle, just like EP does at Alessia. Roe's as much an AD keep as Alessia is.

In common sense's defense, why would you attack DC when you don't have Alessia or if you do , when EP is winning and you can attack EP so they will be focused?

Alessia, Roebeck, and Brindle are all worth the same amount of points.

What makes Alessia worth sacrificing, Roebeck, Brindle, and probably Nikel over?

If the response is either 'because EP' or 'because the bridge' then that's the very mentality that has mired you guys in third.

Play for the points or don't win.

You should be playing to increase your own points earning (PPH) over the other factions. Not one faction, both factions.

The way you do this is you maintain your home keeps. All your home keeps. And if double teamed and forced to sacrifice them, you sacrifice as few as possible and regain as many as possible as quickly as possible. Nothing maintains PPH like keeping your home keeps, because it allows you to remain solvent if one faction is withering under the third and giving it tons of additional points.

If DC is sitting in Chalman, they're earning 54 PPH, while EP is 42 due to the loss of a home keep. If you take Drake, but lose Brindle, while EP is down to 34, you are now down as well at 46, while DC is up to 58. If all you did was maintain at 50ish due to holding onto your 6 home keeps, then as EP/DC swing back and forth over the Bleakers corridor you can avoid the vicissitudes of that struggle while maintaining your own position.

Notice something here? You're never catching up to at least one of the two factions. In fact you're falling further behind. How do you prevent this?

Home keeps. Maintain them, immediately retake them, back cap extensively to recap if you have to. Anything else, and you're always 2nd or 3rd place. When double teamed and pushed back to Faregyl (or if you lose scrolls), remember that the goal is to get as many home keeps as possible back into your control as fast as possible. That means taking the blue ones, too.

You absolutely need to maintain home keeps. I was talking about trying to get DC keeps. The quote I replied to was about Ash. What I'm saying is, you're better off attacking EP who're leading the campaign at that point than attacking those who figh them, thus making it easier for EP to keep scoring. Sure thing, the best is if you can take keeps from both EP and DC, but you can't and hence - this thread. And if you could, AD most likely would be leading anyway. But when it's prime time and EP is winning and DC is fighting them up North......

zyk

Keiryan wrote: »

It's going to be a lot easier to find someone that rolls a lot of natural 20s on charisma checks and have them start their own cult of personality...err guild then it is to convince 30 people to re roll characters they've put a lot of effort into, especially when it comes to the PvP rank of which some people legitimately care about.

I feel like there should be an ad discussion thread about how wants to start a new super power ad guild, who is willing to lead, must comply with group templates and be willing to adapt. It would literally take 5 minutes to write.

All it takes is one person to start the guild, I feel that is a much more productive use of time and energy than coming to the forums and complaining that no one else will come and do the work for you and your faction

What I'm doing is pointing out a problem. Competitive parity is a good thing. In most PVP games I've played, hardcore players actually liked good fights rather than just saying they do.

Further, I think the lack of competitive parity is bad for the health of the game. I am certain it dives players away.

It's not about me at a personal level. I can find my own fights or join the groups I am invited to when the guild I'm in isn't running (it's normally not). But I enjoy helping my random teammates on the battlefield. I've lead in other games, but I don't have the energy for that now.

The irony is that the average farmer thinks they're doing something special because they're fighting outnumbered when the reality is that it's much more challenging to wipe good groups with unorganized randoms than it is to farm randoms with a good group.

@Artis It's just basic human nature. Most are sheep and are naturally compelled to follow to greener pastures. Competitive balance has been an issue in online gaming on public servers from the start. But I expect more from those who consider themselves to be hardcore gamers.

A pleb isn't necessarily a bad player. A pleb is someone who looks for easy wins all the time and follows the path of least resistance.

Agrippa_Invisus

Artis wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Artis wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

In AD's defense, when DC has 95+% of its playerbase at Chalman, a old lady and her broom could knock over Ash at that point.

And it's not like DC doesn't do its level best to spend 6+ hours a day squatting in Roe and Brindle, just like EP does at Alessia. Roe's as much an AD keep as Alessia is.

In common sense's defense, why would you attack DC when you don't have Alessia or if you do , when EP is winning and you can attack EP so they will be focused?

Alessia, Roebeck, and Brindle are all worth the same amount of points.

What makes Alessia worth sacrificing, Roebeck, Brindle, and probably Nikel over?

If the response is either 'because EP' or 'because the bridge' then that's the very mentality that has mired you guys in third.

Play for the points or don't win.

You should be playing to increase your own points earning (PPH) over the other factions. Not one faction, both factions.

The way you do this is you maintain your home keeps. All your home keeps. And if double teamed and forced to sacrifice them, you sacrifice as few as possible and regain as many as possible as quickly as possible. Nothing maintains PPH like keeping your home keeps, because it allows you to remain solvent if one faction is withering under the third and giving it tons of additional points.

If DC is sitting in Chalman, they're earning 54 PPH, while EP is 42 due to the loss of a home keep. If you take Drake, but lose Brindle, while EP is down to 34, you are now down as well at 46, while DC is up to 58. If all you did was maintain at 50ish due to holding onto your 6 home keeps, then as EP/DC swing back and forth over the Bleakers corridor you can avoid the vicissitudes of that struggle while maintaining your own position.

Notice something here? You're never catching up to at least one of the two factions. In fact you're falling further behind. How do you prevent this?

Home keeps. Maintain them, immediately retake them, back cap extensively to recap if you have to. Anything else, and you're always 2nd or 3rd place. When double teamed and pushed back to Faregyl (or if you lose scrolls), remember that the goal is to get as many home keeps as possible back into your control as fast as possible. That means taking the blue ones, too.

You absolutely need to maintain home keeps. I was talking about trying to get DC keeps. The quote I replied to was about Ash. What I'm saying is, you're better off attacking EP who're leading the campaign at that point than attacking those who figh them, thus making it easier for EP to keep scoring. Sure thing, the best is if you can take keeps from both EP and DC, but you can't and hence - this thread. And if you could, AD most likely would be leading anyway. But when it's prime time and EP is winning and DC is fighting them up North......

Ahh. My misunderstanding. I also wasn't referring to hitting Ash when you don't have Alessia. That's perfectly reasonable to avoid doing until you have at least your home keeps.

I was referring to those nights when everyone mostly has their home keeps and then DC drops 80 players into Chalman and Ash has three level 30s and an AFK 506 CP player as the only defense due to that. Yeah, Ash is gonna flip. The only people to fault in that situation is DC for being dunderheads.

Akinos

I'm most likely going to catch alot of flak and salt for this but I feel it needs to said without sugarcoating it. And I hope nobody takes this personally because I'm not directing it at any one person.

The guilds of the Aldermeri Dominion faction on Vivec PC NA are just terrible. Now don't take this the wrong way, there are alot of good, respectable players on AD, good guilds though? I've not seen any AD guilds perform any amazing feats lately.
I feel like the guilds of AD at this current time, well I don't even see them as organized guilds anymore, they are just pugs all wearing the same guild tabard who just happen to be in the same area at the same time, whether they are PvDooring empty keeps and avoiding actual fights or chasing solo players halfway across the map to zerg them down. To me it looks like AD lacks the competitive will to get better or to win. Even though AD does have what it takes to win based on the last campaign cycle, it doesn't look that way this campaign though.

AD is losing by over 2000 points because of AD, not because any double teaming, not because anybody using CE or w/e, not because EP and DC have too many guilds or whatever other excuse AD has made in the past. It's because AD looks as if they aren't learning from their mistakes. When 30+ AD from organized guilds and some pugs get constantly farmed by a group of 16 players for X amount of time, AD should ask themselves, "How do we do this? How do I get to the point of where these guys are? How do I become a better player or leader?" They don't, because it's easier to just accuse others for your own failures.
It's human nature to hate what you don't understand, and AD doesn't seem to understand why EP and DC can do what they do, so they just place blame. To me it feels like not enough AD are trying hard enough to better themselves or take initiative, instead they just make threads on the forum. I hate to say it AD, but it's a literal L2P issue.

Here's just one example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGI8zzabDTg
You have to wonder why whoever was leading AD here made the call to push out of the outpost like that, single file like a bunch of lemmings. And then did it a second time. And what their thought process was in doing so, were they just hoping to overwhelm with superior numbers? Did they not think it through? Were people not using comms? Was anybody even leading?
If I wasn't clear in my first two paragraphs in this post, maybe that video will help people to understand that it's AD, not EP and not DC either. I can name a few AD in that video that have been getting farmed and making poor choices since 2014. Asking people and guilds not to play other factions or to reroll AD is going to fix the problem with AD.

AD just makes too many mistakes, and it seems like they never learn from them, or haven't been anyways.

zyk

Akinos wrote: »

I'm most likely going to catch alot of flak and salt for this but I feel it needs to said without sugarcoating it. And I hope nobody takes this personally because I'm not directing it at any one person.

The guilds of the Aldermeri Dominion faction on Vivec PC NA are just terrible, at almost every aspect of PvP. Now don't take this the wrong way, there are alot of good players on AD, good guilds though? I've not seen any AD guilds perform any amazing feats lately.

<snip>

It's human nature to hate what you don't understand, and AD doesn't seem to understand why EP and DC can do what they do, so they just place blame. To me it feels like not enough AD are trying hard enough to better themselves or take initiative, instead they just make threads on the forum. I hate to say it AD, but it's a literal L2P issue.

What you're describing is a lack of competitive parity. It's actually what this thread is about. But thank you for at least recognizing it exists.

There is no hate or lack of understanding here. Some would say the foundations of ESO guild play were laid down by AD. It's well-understood by all experienced players.

There is also nothing wrong with AD guilds. No, they're not all top tier. Nor are all EP and DC guilds. That's not a problem in itself. The problem is that AD lacks guilds at all tiers and especially at the top end. This really pressures the existing AD guilds who, in general, work hard to play the map.

There's also nothing wrong with supporting teammates and driving farmers away from objectives.

The issue is the distribution of players. This is akin to 1.5 when EP attracted most competitive players and neither AD or DC guilds could put up a fight on the main campaign, Thornblade. Eventually, it killed TB. The reason this imbalance existed is because so many players followed DiE to EP. When EP began to roll everyone every night, the problem began to feed itself with more and more players rerolling EP.

Consider the former AD guild Rage. Of its players that still play ESO, who do they play for now? This isn't only true of former Rage players, but of former AD of all tiers. I think if one was to take all of the former AD currently playing for top EP and DC guilds and groups, that would be a top guild worth of players.

In any case, none of us were born AD/DC/EP. We're people playing a game. Games are best when teams are balanced. Right now, they're not. It's not a problem for one person or guild to solve, but an issue the community as a whole has a vested interest to solve for the sake of good gameplay. There's no magic fairy dust that's going to turn casuals into an elite fighting force. AD needs good players to come over. The benefit to those who do are better fights.

CyrusArya

zyk wrote: »

The irony is that the average farmer thinks they're doing something special because they're fighting outnumbered when the reality is that it's much more challenging to wipe good groups with unorganized randoms than it is to farm randoms with a good group.

Are you really over here advocating pug zerging organized groups down as challenging? And implying that fighting outnumbered is not? Lol. The reality is this. How challenging a fight is or is not is variable on a lot of factors beyond just the numbers involved. Can't exactly compare scenarios like you're trying to, because each fight in cyrodiil has different dynamics from the next. Each fight has to be appraised on an individual basis.

Your comment is very insightful tho. You wonder why AD is hemorrhaging players? It's because of this mentality that pervades your faction these days. The demonizing of skilled players and groups, labelling them as cheaters and evil farmers, and then using these false rationalizations to justify running around in massive pug zergs. AD has no champions any more outside of Miat & Co, the occasional Adamant group, and Homunculus (once he gets geared up after his extended break). This is because the environment fostered on your faction (by certain zone chat characters and forum threads such as this one) is not one that encourages excellence. It is one that encourages excuses. It is one that promotes mediocrity.

This is why AD may win campaigns with its pug zergs, but is not a faction that players find pride fighting under the banner of. You did this.

zyk

CyrusArya wrote: »

You did this.

Oh yes. Forget about the fact I've usually been super casual and hardly in Cyrodiil for most of the past 18 months while this has happened, it's my fault. Until recently, when I had been on, I played with my guild and usually didn't even read zone chat.

Competitive parity issues are normal in all games with teams and public servers. ESO has no mechanisms to encourage parity. There are issues on all platforms in both NA and EU.

I know you and a lot of your friends don't like me very much, but don't make this about me or any other individual.

If you want to look at actual factors, I would point to the disbanding of Rage and the departure of charismatic leaders like Lolimage as significant triggers.

CyrusArya

I assure you I dont like or dislike you in game, am neutral.

When I say 'you', I mean the proponents of this mentality I described on your faction, not you specifically. The mentality you are pushing on this thread. "Boo Hoo poor AD woe is us, how can we compete with the hackers and elitist guilds on EP and D.C. QQ "

zyk

CyrusArya wrote: »

I assure you I dont like or dislike you in game, am neutral.

When I say 'you', I mean the proponents of this mentality I described on your faction, not you specifically. The mentality you are pushing on this thread. "Boo Hoo poor AD woe is us, how can we compete with the hackers and elitist guilds on EP and D.C. QQ "

There's no QQ. I'm pointing out a legitimate issue. This is why first person shooter pubs have auto-balance and why pro sports have salary caps and give under-performing teams top draft picks.

CyrusArya

zyk wrote: »

There's no QQ. I'm pointing out a legitimate issue. This is why first person shooter pubs have auto-balance and why pro sports have salary caps and give under-performing teams top draft picks.

Except according to the only sanctioned means of keeping score, AD just won the most recent campaign. They just won the last super bowl. So pray tell me how AD is underperforming?

zyk

CyrusArya wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

There's no QQ. I'm pointing out a legitimate issue. This is why first person shooter pubs have auto-balance and why pro sports have salary caps and give under-performing teams top draft picks.

Except according to the only sanctioned means of keeping score, AD just won the most recent campaign. They just won the last super bowl. So pray tell me how AD is underperforming?

Because the campaign score isn't always reflective of competitive parity. I think most experienced AD will tell you that we won the last campaign because we worked harder at a map level than our competition. I think that if all of EP's top guilds were as focused on the map in the previous campaign, they would likely have easily won.

If you read all of the responses in this thread, you will see experienced EP and DC leaders and players recognizing the issue exists.

Telel

Akinos wrote: »

I'm most likely going to catch alot of flak and salt for this but I feel it needs to said without sugarcoating it. And I hope nobody takes this personally because I'm not directing it at any one person.

The guilds of the Aldermeri Dominion faction on Vivec PC NA are just terrible. Now don't take this the wrong way, there are alot of good, respectable players on AD, good guilds though? I've not seen any AD guilds perform any amazing feats lately.
I feel like the guilds of AD at this current time, well I don't even see them as organized guilds anymore, they are just pugs all wearing the same guild tabard who just happen to be in the same area at the same time, whether they are PvDooring empty keeps and avoiding actual fights or chasing solo players halfway across the map to zerg them down. To me it looks like AD lacks the competitive will to get better or to win. Even though AD does have what it takes to win based on the last campaign cycle, it doesn't look that way this campaign though.

AD is losing by over 2000 points because of AD, not because any double teaming, not because anybody using CE or w/e, not because EP and DC have too many guilds or whatever other excuse AD has made in the past. It's because AD looks as if they aren't learning from their mistakes. When 30+ AD from organized guilds and some pugs get constantly farmed by a group of 16 players for X amount of time, AD should ask themselves, "How do we do this? How do I get to the point of where these guys are? How do I become a better player or leader?" They don't, because it's easier to just accuse others for your own failures.
It's human nature to hate what you don't understand, and AD doesn't seem to understand why EP and DC can do what they do, so they just place blame. To me it feels like not enough AD are trying hard enough to better themselves or take initiative, instead they just make threads on the forum. I hate to say it AD, but it's a literal L2P issue.

Here's just one example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGI8zzabDTg
You have to wonder why whoever was leading AD here made the call to push out of the outpost like that, single file like a bunch of lemmings. And then did it a second time. And what their thought process was in doing so, were they just hoping to overwhelm with superior numbers? Did they not think it through? Were people not using comms? Was anybody even leading?
If I wasn't clear in my first two paragraphs in this post, maybe that video will help people to understand that it's AD, not EP and not DC either. I can name a few AD in that video that have been getting farmed and making poor choices since 2014. Asking people and guilds not to play other factions or to reroll AD is going to fix the problem with AD.

AD just makes too many mistakes, and it seems like they never learn from them, or haven't been anyways.

Please permit a humble one to make a simple rebuttal. A rebuttal that shall take about a half hour to go over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KAvXnM0Ew8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=untM_GYM2uw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQJXrNaEgGk

So about that L2P issue, and people relying on numbers....

Roaldy

CyrusArya wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

The irony is that the average farmer thinks they're doing something special because they're fighting outnumbered when the reality is that it's much more challenging to wipe good groups with unorganized randoms than it is to farm randoms with a good group.

Are you really over here advocating pug zerging organized groups down as challenging? And implying that fighting outnumbered is not? Lol. The reality is this. How challenging a fight is or is not is variable on a lot of factors beyond just the numbers involved. Can't exactly compare scenarios like you're trying to, because each fight in cyrodiil has different dynamics from the next. Each fight has to be appraised on an individual basis.

Your comment is very insightful tho. You wonder why AD is hemorrhaging players? It's because of this mentality that pervades your faction these days. The demonizing of skilled players and groups, labelling them as cheaters and evil farmers, and then using these false rationalizations to justify running around in massive pug zergs. AD has no champions any more outside of Miat & Co, the occasional Adamant group, and Homunculus (once he gets geared up after his extended break). This is because the environment fostered on your faction (by certain zone chat characters and forum threads such as this one) is not one that encourages excellence. It is one that encourages excuses. It is one that promotes mediocrity.

This is why AD may win campaigns with its pug zergs, but is not a faction that players find pride fighting under the banner of. You did this.

This!

Artis

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Ahh. My misunderstanding. I also wasn't referring to hitting Ash when you don't have Alessia. That's perfectly reasonable to avoid doing until you have at least your home keeps.

I was referring to those nights when everyone mostly has their home keeps and then DC drops 80 players into Chalman and Ash has three level 30s and an AFK 506 CP player as the only defense due to that. Yeah, Ash is gonna flip. The only people to fault in that situation is DC for being dunderheads.

Oh no, you're absolutely right, they can't blame anyone by themselves. But you should agree that AD can't blame them for punishing AD for that. I mean, they just put a stick in a beehive - what do they expect?

Roaldy

Telel wrote: »

Would anyone like to bring up the EP group that routinely (E.G whenever they can't just zerg surf behind the other EP) comes over on their alts to 'help prove how bad AD is' by messing up scroll runs, sabotaging sieges, and engaging in other such elfish antics?

If you need an example the attempt to recover altadoon from yesterday. 2 bars AD, 3 bars EP, 3 bars DC, and these oh so brave 'good players' chose to come over and use alts to snatch back the scroll. These elfing elf faces then ran it into the waters near IC, and used toons from different factions to keep anyone from picking it back up.

And all the while they were posting in zone about how AD players were bad because of how 'salty' they are. Not to mention spamming the server with scroll messages in an attempt to annoy certain someones.

All of which is more or less recorded during the stream yesterday, including the names of two of the children involved. Hopefully once middle school starts back up they'll make themselves more scarce than an guard who doesn't accuse humble khajiit of wrongdoing.

Them EP alts are the worst!

Kilandros

You aren't going to get any kind of massive reroll like VE did a couple of years ago. You just aren't. No guild can be confident enough in the longevity of PvP in this game to ask its members to start over from scratch. A year ago, maybe. Even then, people were nervous about the future of PvP. But after Morrowind, and the influx of players it DID NOT bring to PvP, there just isn't much hope IMO. We're continuing to lose established PvPers at a fairly alarming rate and there just aren't enough newer players starting up to replenish the playerbase.

I did make an AD alt recently to play when EP is steamrolling Vivec. But I'm doing this so I can find fights, not to help AD. There was a time when we had a backup campaign to go to when one map was looking grim, and the fact that we don't have backup campaigns anymore--and the fact that Vivec failed to poplock at all this week until around 7-8pm EST--is pretty scary.