Argh with the low defense AP ticks

davey1107

I went to Brindle and there was a fight of 4 golds vs a dozen reds. We managed to kill the reds at the inner flag through luck and chanceits , then they respawned at their camp and came back and we had to kill half of them again before getting the door up.

We won the day for...1.1k AP?? Ugh. And there weren't many other golds around, if any. I took my mount around to check after the tick. Maybe a group was passing through, but this is pretty standard for the defense ticks now. I mean, I got AP from the kills...but still.

I'd like to see some incentive to defending keeps. In all honesty, as a nightblade I could have hidden, let them take it, then gotten more AP ganking or retaking the keep when they left. It's probably part of the reason the map has become roving bands taking undefended back keeps in circles.

Anazasi

Home keep defense ticks should be doubled or even trippled at this point. Keep in mind the key word here is HOME KEEP.

Takes-No-Prisoner

Anazasi wrote: »

Home keep defense ticks should be doubled or even trippled at this point. Keep in mind the key word here is HOME KEEP.

I wouldn't mind this. More incentives to protect keeps the better.

apostate9

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

Home keep defense ticks should be doubled or even trippled at this point. Keep in mind the key word here is HOME KEEP.

I wouldn't mind this. More incentives to protect keeps the better.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

This would be pretty simple to implement and could only be to the good...right?

Takes-No-Prisoner

apostate9 wrote: »

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

Home keep defense ticks should be doubled or even trippled at this point. Keep in mind the key word here is HOME KEEP.

I wouldn't mind this. More incentives to protect keeps the better.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

This would be pretty simple to implement and could only be to the good...right?

I think also adding additional buffs to owning individual keeps could also help, not just having AP defensive ticks increased. Cause as we already know, there are guys out there that only go out and siege / take empty keeps. Which isn't good for both parties cause you don't get AP and they do for taking something that's unoccupied.

For example of the Keep buffs I mentioned, since you're EP;

if, EP owns Kingcrest, they get a small bonus to Healing

if, EP owns Farragut, they get a small bonus to Max Magic / Max Stamina (Emperorship grants around ~2K health don't forget)

if, EP owns Arrius, they get a small bonus to Weapon/Spell Power

if, EP owns Chalman, they get a small bonus to Spell Resist/Physical Resist

if, EP owns Blue Road, they get a small bonus to Magic/Stamina/Health Recovery

if, EP owns Drakelowe, they get a small bonus to Critical Resistance

But let's take this a step further. We all know keeps level up right? Well, if the keep reaches certain levels, it should grant a bigger bonus-- not too big, but enough to make it worth defending long-term.


If AD comes in and takes BRK and Farragut, they lose the bonus. AD does not get the bonus from owning BRK and Farragut, but they do from their own native keeps. Plus, there is already Weapon/Spell crit and AP/gold bonuses for owning enemy keeps IIRC.

geonsocal

i used to earn decent AP parking a character afk at one of the outposts while eating dinner...

no so much these days...now it's rapid maneuvers and a fast mount for grabbing AP...

I passed up a couple of fights (folks trying to ambush/snipe) yesterday just to try to get close to a keep before it flipped...

didn't even need the AP, just some subliminal programming at this point...chase AP, chase AP, chase AP...

GreenSoup2HoT

Even if you change Defensive ticks whats the point when the keep flips 30-60 seconds after it becomes flagged? I don't even have time to ride over on a mount with rapid's before it's flipped. Whats the point Defending even Empty keeps when you can't even get there before it flips.

Point being, RAM's need a big fat nerf. The time to break down a front door needs to talk longer. Nobody even sieges walls anymore since front door is significantly faster.

I cant remember the last time ive ever killed someone siegeing or with an oil siege defending. Its just ring around the Rosie flipping mostly empty keeps with hardly any threat of being killed. Siege damage is laughable right now. I wish we had those un-purge-able sieges.


@ZOS_BrianWheeler

davey1107

@GreenSoup2HoT

I agree that keep flips are TOO FAST. what the heck?

Also, if anyone has noticed the overland map is entirely malfunctional lately. Keeps don't update regularly. This weekend I'd died and was looking for places to rez. I was hovering over Drakelowe and it literally flipped from "nothing to see here" to flagged with 16 siege. It changed hands less than 2 minutes later. In another case my friend and I were watching for action and in five minutes four keeps flipped for varying teams with no warning.

However, because defense is so paltry, I make my best AP defending and taking advantage of the bad map function. I can gamble where the enemy is headed (Drakelowe and Brindle...it's always Drakelowe and Brindle) and wait. When a group of 8-12 shows up, well, I'm a stealth bow gank build and I am happy to earn 20k AP annoying them by killing them one by one, ha. (And this is strategic, to those who send salt to gankers. I have often slowed a keep capture down enough so that the enemy is on the flags when the cavalry rides in to kill them).

geonsocal

davey1107 wrote: »

I'm a stealth bow gank build

hmmmm, you don't say, now do ya

Kram8ion

My trebs and wall repair kits are gathering dust in my inventory since ram got buffed. Also no one stops midway to do a dolmen anymore because coldfire seiges aren't really needed

Drummerx04

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

Even if you change Defensive ticks whats the point when the keep flips 30-60 seconds after it becomes flagged? I don't even have time to ride over on a mount with rapid's before it's flipped. Whats the point Defending even Empty keeps when you can't even get there before it flips.

Point being, RAM's need a big fat nerf. The time to break down a front door needs to talk longer. Nobody even sieges walls anymore since front door is significantly faster.

I cant remember the last time ive ever killed someone siegeing or with an oil siege defending. Its just ring around the Rosie flipping mostly empty keeps with hardly any threat of being killed. Siege damage is laughable right now. I wish we had those un-purge-able sieges.


@ZOS_BrianWheeler

I don't know what you've been doing on siege, but I can kill people on the regular while using siege. Making siege unpurgeable would make siege utterly OP.

Siege is very powerful. It is actually very difficult to take a keep against well placed siege and a half decent group. It literally takes an organized group to reliably push past that insane about of damage with enough of the group alive to take the keep successfully. One player can sit with impunity at the top of a keep and blast high powered stackable AoE dots in a 10m radius at great range.

On its own, siege damage is rarely enough to kill a player outright, but if two groups are fighting, and one is supported by siege... the team with the siege helping has an incredible advantage.

It is also worth noting that siege should not be powerful enough to just mow down swaths of experienced players.

Beardimus

To be honest killing 10's of players I think a few K AP is fine.

Whats a shame to have lost is the huge AP for the big sprawling battles 40mins to 1 hr ones

zyk

I think ZOS needs to thoroughly reexamine its vision of map play. Increasing Oticks motivated players to take objectives, but now objectives feel like they have little value because they are so frequently undefended.

That is to say, losing a keep used to be stressful in a good way. Earning AP from defending keeps was waaaay more profitable than taking empty keeps, so when a strong opponent took a home keep, you knew it was going to take a lot of work to get rid of them. This gave keeps a greater value. Furthermore, it motivated players to take defense seriously to avoid losing the objective.

Now, you know if defense AP dries up just a little, they'll probably just go pvdoor something else.

I still race to defend -- because I enjoy defense and objective fights -- which creates the following sequence of bad gameplay:
- race to defend
- do my best to work with the few others there to slow down opponents
- get hopelessly zerged down
- retake nearly empty keep 10 minutes later against something like 5 defenders with the 60 other players from my faction who show up for the Otick

This sequence is common and terrible PVP. More AP isn't always better. It's about using rewards to motivate players towards fun scenarios.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Cyrodiil needs some serious game design work. Players are leaving because you've incentivized uninteresting scenarios.

davey1107

hmmmm, you don't say, now do ya

Why? Did I shoot you? I didn't used to get a lot of repeat kills, but lately I've been defending Drake and Brindle a lot because lately blues and reds are obsessed with taking Drake and Brindle a lot.

Also, I'm tired of everyone always going through the front doors (which I don't think is more efficient at all) so I'm trying to make it a thing that the first person to walk up to the front door always gets a ballista in the face. If I can get every NB to do this all the time, i figure it'll change pvp behavior. It's a work in progress.

Nermy

I seem to remember when D-ticks were fairly good that no-one would leave the keep for the next objective while they waited for the D-tick giving the enemy the chance to put another keep UA.

It's swings and roundabouts as far as I can see, one day 'this' is the bee's knees, next day 'that' is the dog's bollocks.

Learn to adapt is what I and my raid do. The battlefield and the tactics employed have changed so much in 3 years, it's the best way of winning.

davey1107 wrote: »

Also, I'm tired of everyone always going through the front doors (which I don't think is more efficient at all) so I'm trying to make it a thing that the first person to walk up to the front door always gets a ballista in the face. If I can get every NB to do this all the time, i figure it'll change pvp behavior. It's a work in progress.

And why do you think the MG and ram is inefficient? My guild raid can get inside a keep in under a minute, how is that not efficient? And if you are so good at defending, you'd realise you can create an awesome killing floor as the siegers come through the gate...

zyk

Nermy wrote: »

I seem to remember when D-ticks were fairly good that no-one would leave the keep for the next objective while they waited for the D-tick giving the enemy the chance to put another keep UA.

It's swings and roundabouts as far as I can see, one day 'this' is the bee's knees, next day 'that' is the dog's bollocks.

This is not the case. ZOS buffed offensive ticks so that they are far more rewarding than defensive ticks. A defensive tick of about 6k used to be pretty nice for most players. Now an unlimited number of players get more than that for showing up to take an undefended keep. There are groups that do little else than flip undefended objectives that they won't bother to defend.

It is a system that discourages PVP.

leepalmer95

A lot of people don't bother defending anymore.

Not since they gave keeps a flat 6k on take no matter how many people.

They basically just encourages big ball groups to go zerg keeps for ap.

dotme

I've been playing PvP pretty much since launch (PS4) and I like most of the changes that have happened over the years. It's still necessary to drop walls on a heavily defended keep (sometimes multiple breaches are needed) and the Ram damage is great for smaller 8-player groups who can still have an impact on the scoring. A dynamic map that changes a lot on a fully populated campaign keeps things hopping.

As for taking empty keeps, I don't know why people have a problem with it. It's a valid strategy to pull enemy players back from the front lines, and it works. As an EP player, I often roll my eyes when Kingscrest or Farragut flips to another color, but we have to go flip them back and it's okay... it's all part of the fight.

Could defensive ticks use a little boost? Maybe. But they're not terrible.

I was involved in an epic 2 hour fight at BRK 2 nights ago on PS4 NA Shor - EP's last "Emp Keep" and AD/DC took down 2 outer walls, the inner front door and both inner posterns - The place was swiss-cheesed! I lagged out 4 times in 30 mins, but still somehow managed to be present for the final defensive tick. All EP players who were there collected 21K, which was decent. But the defense itself was so much fun that I didn't care what the reward was.

The new offensive ticks are great IMHO - They have definitely curbed resource-farming a lot, and increased property turnover on the map.

davey1107

As an EP player, I often roll my eyes when Kingscrest or Farragut flips to another color,

EP territory is the most protected of the three factions, with rough terrain and mountains making travel slower. So they're less pestered by undefended home keep strategies.

But more pertinent, AD territory has two portable towns a stone's throw from all three back keeps...all the southern keeps, really. This has engendered a strategy amongst blues/reds of sending 2 man teams down, taking the town, then Zerg dead rez an invasion.

Honestly I don't really mind this...it means the AP is always flowing in our territory, and it creates an AD mindset that we have to hold everything from brin to Drake and south. That's about 45% of the points, and I think the imaginary brin-drake line is part of why AD wins a lot. But it makes me wish keeps didn't flip so fast. I see Bloodmayne show EP siege and run hard, and 90%'of the time they're in the inner keep by the time I get there.

geonsocal

davey1107 wrote: »

hmmmm, you don't say, now do ya

Why? Did I shoot you?

saul goodman

you and your buddy stuck me full of (5) focused aims while i was clearing a dolmen with a couple of other blue randoms at the dolmen close to Vlastarus...thankfully you guys finished the dolmen so i got credit for completing it....

it was funny - cuz of the dolmen combat noise - i didn't hear the arrow sound until the third hit - by then, too late

i definitely enjoy running in to folks from the forums out in cyrodiil (check my death recaps partly just to see whom might show up)...

i rarely group (we did though group briefly for a battleground match during midyear mayhem - you were unbelievably cool and tried to send me 40k just for helping out to win the match - you are too generous sir) with other players - so, most of the folks i know a bit, all come from the forums...

i forgot exactly what your name was - righteous something or another i think - yeah, while on EP or DC i'm definitely keeping an eye out for your ID so i can properly say hi to ya @davey1107

Kartalin

In our guild Tertiary Meat which has been around for more than 3 years now, since the early days, we've been noticing some disturbing trends lately similar to what has been said in this thread. Note that most of our recent experience comes from the non-cp campaign.

People would prefer to siege us rather than fight using abilities. Once we breach inner keeps we see more people sneaking out than used to or we see people not defending at all instead preferring to get the o-tick AP. The last couple of days we'll run all over the map looking for fights only to see them pop up between the other two factions at some other location between them. When we show up at that fight the other factions' 1vXers start bitching at us to go elsewhere for fights.

It's pretty nonsensical. I feel like we'd be better off on Vivec but the lag and the overly large zergs kind of scare us off from running our 12-16 there. We don't like to zerg surf or run in faction zergs in spite of what others may think we do, so we're kind of in a strange place at the moment.