My thoughts on PvP

Hatoreehanzo

Imagine having a group chase you or peeling players off of a zerg to your favorite X spot. You know they're bad because 2 are spamming radiant while you're at full health, 1 is on a "hybrid" build, a nightblade is spamming ambush repeatedly and you know a great 1vX video is about to be clipped. You start working on the nightblade, but he cloaks and runs under pressure. You start on the hybrid whatever it is, but the heavy armor healbots spam him to full health. Finally you turn to one of the healers, LoS'ing his groups heals and killing him. The nightblade slips up and he goes down shortly after. You turn to the next healer. You can can taste the X. You almost have him dead only to hear your skills clicking. What?! You're dead. You're running around, but your dead. You got health desynced by a level 23 spamming snipe and the hybrid's meteor coming down 8 seconds after it was dropped. They're all bagging you and clapping their Cheetoh stained hands together while they toast a frosty glass of Code Red.

1) Bring back solo and small group play.

1v1 (players do 100% damage to each other)
1v2 (second player coming into the fight does say, 90% to the single player)
1v3 (third player coming into the fight does 80%)
1v4 (etc)

Not sure what the reduction cap would be, but that's an idea to counteract zerging. This could be a buff that is put on a player who is hit by multiple people within "X" amount of time, say 6 seconds or so. You could also reduce group healing with something like this that would discourage stacking healbots.

2) Fix snipe health desyncs, invisible/delayed meteors, double CCs, etc.

More often than not I am in the middle of fighting a group and starting to work my magic only to die to someone spamming snipe to desync my health, throwing delayed meteors, etc.

3) Stop promoting zerging.

I've played since launch on console and have seen a huge shift towards zerging. Console can barely handle this kind of game play without frame rate tanking, blue screening or hitting random load screens.

I see PvP dying in this game and in my opinion it's your longevity. IC is dead. BGs were cute for about 2 weeks. Cyro is zergtastic. The game is being spoon fed to casual players and it's killing it in the process.

Asmael

I can relate to the meteor that you block, dodge roll away from (get charged stamina for the dodge roll, because **** you that's why) then get pulled back on the meteor's location, thrown in the air wondering what the hell just happened.

That said...

I am against scalable (de)buffs - you should have exactly what you bring to the fight, and I'd rather see a way to spread out people around the map than introducing artificial mechanics that are no better than AoE caps.

It's not like Zos isn't looking for good reasons to do so anyway...

Spoiler

Check 00:30 till the end
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V8M5DQRnMs

For short: give an incentive for people to go away from the usual lanes instead of punishing people for seeking action in the only place where action is to be found. Give them regular escort missions around Cyrodiil with alchemy mats, purple / gold tempers, CHB sieges on a daily basis. Make some keep upgrades impossible if people do not complete a certain mission away from said keep (in the unexplored areas or some delves) while also rewarding with mats and gold - maybe even transmutation stones. Make keeps harder to capture to not make said missions irrelevant. You can even offer a sizeable AP buff to all your kills (like +30% for 1h) for completing one such mission. I'm pretty sure others can find interesting ideas in the same vein.

I insist: give people a reason to spread over the map instead of bandaid fixes. Extra mitigation or not, people will still zerg and lag you to death, because they will still have a much bigger chance of winning by doing so. Spread the people => reduced zerg size => less lag => more enjoyable for everyone.

parkham

From what I've seen in Cyrodiil an entire scrap and rethinking from the ground up is needed. Skill lines just for PVP that only work in PVP zones, for starters. Give players a reason to stay in Cyrodiil and a reason to not ever leave if PVP if their thing.

Currently, there's no good reason (for me) to want to stay there on a permanent basis.

SodanTok

Snipe desync was always the issue and is not just related to snipe, but I cant remember problems with meteors before Homestead. Since then it is like 80% of them. Getting pulled back great distance to the landing many seconds later. Usually never even seeing any animation (like the circle), just suddenly ported away...

Promoting zerging wont stop. Even if they shift to promote 1vX like with the scaling damage you are suggesting, it just promotes more zerging. If suddenly all 5-10 man groups cant deal with the tanky or mobile setups that are currently surviving (or greatly delaying their demise) 20-30 people then they will just get more people to do it.
Every change in this game that was to support small scale or fight against zergs just promoted more zerging.

Not to mention we have BG for small scale and the release officially marks 2 big changes: Cyrodiil is for large scale only and Cyrodiil is secondary PVP that makes no money and costs too much to keep alive.

jaysins

The double stun is an absolute killer when playing in Sotha where I usually am. That and cost increase poisons are brutal and something I'd love to see go. To 1vX time to kill is very important as you only have a small opportunity to burst people down in-between staying alive and all th mechanics that include. Cost increases skew this in such a way that make it all but impossible to do unless fighting absolutely atrocious players and they should be gone. Damage caps hurt small groups and promote zerging as the more of you there are the less damage your group as a whole takes from a large amount of attacks in the game. The other thing is group healing is out of control and God help you going against a group with a Templar or warden designed to heal. Incredibly tanky and they put out insane amounts of healing. It's definitely tough these days.

CyrusArya

Points 2&3 I can gladly agree with. Fixing bugs and performance issues is a given. And yeah, ZOS has been leaning in the direction of zerging while giving small scale the shaft consistently for a while now. Which is a shame cus the best use of their game systems is displayed in solo/small scale play.

This being said, I absolutely disagree with the idea of giving buffs/debuffs based on how outnumbered you are. Its on the same principle as to why I disagree with AoE caps. Numbers should have nothing to do with the damage dealt and advantages conferred in a fight, beyond the simple fact that you have X amount more/less players. Solo and small scale is supposed to be difficult- thats the whole point. Giving stacking bonuses based on how outnumbered you are cheapens the whole thing.

WreckfulAbandon

Hatoreehanzo wrote: »

Imagine having a group chase you or peeling players off of a zerg to your favorite X spot. You know they're bad because 2 are spamming radiant while you're at full health, 1 is on a "hybrid" build, a nightblade is spamming ambush repeatedly and you know a great 1vX video is about to be clipped. You start working on the nightblade, but he cloaks and runs under pressure. You start on the hybrid whatever it is, but the heavy armor healbots spam him to full health. Finally you turn to one of the healers, LoS'ing his groups heals and killing him. The nightblade slips up and he goes down shortly after. You turn to the next healer. You can can taste the X. You almost have him dead only to hear your skills clicking. What?! You're dead. You're running around, but your dead. You got health desynced by a level 23 spamming snipe and the hybrid's meteor coming down 8 seconds after it was dropped. They're all bagging you and clapping their Cheetoh stained hands together while they toast a frosty glass of Code Red.

1) Bring back solo and small group play.

1v1 (players do 100% damage to each other)
1v2 (second player coming into the fight does say, 90% to the single player)
1v3 (third player coming into the fight does 80%)
1v4 (etc)

Not sure what the reduction cap would be, but that's an idea to counteract zerging. This could be a buff that is put on a player who is hit by multiple people within "X" amount of time, say 6 seconds or so. You could also reduce group healing with something like this that would discourage stacking healbots.

2) Fix snipe health desyncs, invisible/delayed meteors, double CCs, etc.

More often than not I am in the middle of fighting a group and starting to work my magic only to die to someone spamming snipe to desync my health, throwing delayed meteors, etc.

3) Stop promoting zerging.

I've played since launch on console and have seen a huge shift towards zerging. Console can barely handle this kind of game play without frame rate tanking, blue screening or hitting random load screens.

I see PvP dying in this game and in my opinion it's your longevity. IC is dead. BGs were cute for about 2 weeks. Cyro is zergtastic. The game is being spoon fed to casual players and it's killing it in the process.

I bolded a section for emphasis. Your tank builds would never die if that was implemented

The only way they would get you is if they brought an even bigger zerg than usual to take you down.

I agree with the basis of your reasoning, but there should simply be no stat penalties/advantages conferred on players based on the numbers they run. imo. So that includes removing all AoE caps.

TheDoomsdayMonster

Hatoreehanzo wrote: »

Imagine having a group chase you or peeling players off of a zerg to your favorite X spot. You know they're bad because 2 are spamming radiant while you're at full health, 1 is on a "hybrid" build, a nightblade is spamming ambush repeatedly and you know a great 1vX video is about to be clipped. You start working on the nightblade, but he cloaks and runs under pressure. You start on the hybrid whatever it is, but the heavy armor healbots spam him to full health. Finally you turn to one of the healers, LoS'ing his groups heals and killing him. The nightblade slips up and he goes down shortly after. You turn to the next healer. You can can taste the X. You almost have him dead only to hear your skills clicking. What?! You're dead. You're running around, but your dead. You got health desynced by a level 23 spamming snipe and the hybrid's meteor coming down 8 seconds after it was dropped. They're all bagging you and clapping their Cheetoh stained hands together while they toast a frosty glass of Code Red.

1) Bring back solo and small group play.

1v1 (players do 100% damage to each other)
1v2 (second player coming into the fight does say, 90% to the single player)
1v3 (third player coming into the fight does 80%)
1v4 (etc)

Not sure what the reduction cap would be, but that's an idea to counteract zerging. This could be a buff that is put on a player who is hit by multiple people within "X" amount of time, say 6 seconds or so. You could also reduce group healing with something like this that would discourage stacking healbots.

2) Fix snipe health desyncs, invisible/delayed meteors, double CCs, etc.

More often than not I am in the middle of fighting a group and starting to work my magic only to die to someone spamming snipe to desync my health, throwing delayed meteors, etc.

3) Stop promoting zerging.

I've played since launch on console and have seen a huge shift towards zerging. Console can barely handle this kind of game play without frame rate tanking, blue screening or hitting random load screens.

I see PvP dying in this game and in my opinion it's your longevity. IC is dead. BGs were cute for about 2 weeks. Cyro is zergtastic. The game is being spoon fed to casual players and it's killing it in the process.

I've seen you many times in Cyrodiil; you are a really good player even though your faction is a sworn enemy of mines...

I love the story you tell at the start of the post, and I agree with you on the fixes, but disagree with the damage reductions when facing multiple players; getting hit really hard by people jumping in is a risk you assume when you 1vx...

It sucks when you get zerged down, but it comes with the turf; on the flip side, when you successfully defeat 3 players (or more) solo its a magnificent feeling...

Solo and small group play is alive and well; I do it all the time (so much that sometimes my guildies get a little mad with me for going solo so often and rejecting their group invites), you just gotta pick the right place at the right time...

Alphaa

Fixing the PvP servers will be a great start before anything else.

Vapirko

Having a damage reduction is ridiculous. I know the feels but that will never ever happen in a million years. There will never be a way to not have zergs.

kaithuzar

If real counter play is going to exist...
Get rid of all of this unblockable, undodgable, unmitigated damage.
Also, if you're going to allow dodge chance in game you MUST allow % chance to hit!!!
Why 5 years after beta this still isn't in the game???

Zbigb4life

Hatoreehanzo wrote: »

Imagine having a group chase you or peeling players off of a zerg to your favorite X spot. You know they're bad because 2 are spamming radiant while you're at full health, 1 is on a "hybrid" build, a nightblade is spamming ambush repeatedly and you know a great 1vX video is about to be clipped. You start working on the nightblade, but he cloaks and runs under pressure. You start on the hybrid whatever it is, but the heavy armor healbots spam him to full health. Finally you turn to one of the healers, LoS'ing his groups heals and killing him. The nightblade slips up and he goes down shortly after. You turn to the next healer. You can can taste the X. You almost have him dead only to hear your skills clicking. What?! You're dead. You're running around, but your dead. You got health desynced by a level 23 spamming snipe and the hybrid's meteor coming down 8 seconds after it was dropped. They're all bagging you and clapping their Cheetoh stained hands together while they toast a frosty glass of Code Red.

1) Bring back solo and small group play.

1v1 (players do 100% damage to each other)
1v2 (second player coming into the fight does say, 90% to the single player)
1v3 (third player coming into the fight does 80%)
1v4 (etc)

Not sure what the reduction cap would be, but that's an idea to counteract zerging. This could be a buff that is put on a player who is hit by multiple people within "X" amount of time, say 6 seconds or so. You could also reduce group healing with something like this that would discourage stacking healbots.

2) Fix snipe health desyncs, invisible/delayed meteors, double CCs, etc.

More often than not I am in the middle of fighting a group and starting to work my magic only to die to someone spamming snipe to desync my health, throwing delayed meteors, etc.

3) Stop promoting zerging.

I've played since launch on console and have seen a huge shift towards zerging. Console can barely handle this kind of game play without frame rate tanking, blue screening or hitting random load screens.

I see PvP dying in this game and in my opinion it's your longevity. IC is dead. BGs were cute for about 2 weeks. Cyro is zergtastic. The game is being spoon fed to casual players and it's killing it in the process.

It's an MMO, if you don't like zergs do BG's or go for some dueling. Why isn't it fun if 30+ from each alliance fight each other at the same time?

ChunkyCat

Git gud.

kek.

runningtings

Most issues would disappear if the lag was fixed, appearing to get hit by 5 skills at once or by a delayed meteor is not cool.

jaysins

Lag and silly bugs are a really big issue when soloing. I'm running very new computer, 6800k CPU that's even overclocked, fiber internet and get better fps in any modern AAA game than this. This is a guildmate of mine playing over a slightly longer than two week period. He would have had twice the content if he had been recording everytime. It's really getting unbearable and this is in the much less populated Sotha campaign. @everyone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdYnsVUEDhQ

Hatoreehanzo

I see a lot of traction on the first idea. I probably should have clarified, but this would be in response to reducing zergs. While it might seem logical to bring in more players, you'd penalize the damage to a null point. As for tanks and permablock builds, use battlespirit to affect heavy armor and block rather than a global change that affects pvp.

Another option would be to give a player in combat a buff that would increase output damage like they used to have with ult.

I don't know the fix, but I'm throwing ideas out there to salvage real gameplay. Currently ball zerging in horrible frame rate doesn't seem like a good rate at what they're promoting.

If you've anyone has seen me play I always promote someone having fun. If they want to run some weird, broken or cheap thing have at it. It keeps them coming back. What pvp has become though is making it increasingly to enjoy my, as well as many others, type of game play. Of which a lot will not come back.

I still have fun and love the game, I just get frustrated at certain outcomes when it comes to poor game mechanics and unavoidable instances.

Bhaal5

I agree with most the statment. But the "stop promoting zerging"
If there was no zerging there wiuld not be a war? I re brought this game for the masive scale fights for ps4. If i want small scale, ill just go play something else. Even battlegrounds or duel some where with mates.
But you are correct they do need to fix frame rate/random load screens/"this is the normal eso long load screen"

Koolio

Bhaal5 wrote: »

I agree with most the statment. But the "stop promoting zerging"
If there was no zerging there wiuld not be a war? I re brought this game for the masive scale fights for ps4. If i want small scale, ill just go play something else. Even battlegrounds or duel some where with mates.
But you are correct they do need to fix frame rate/random load screens/"this is the normal eso long load screen"

Some of us small scale players actually Love cyrodiil. There was no Battlegrounds or dueling when our love for this game was found.

By this statement your saying go play something you don't like if you want some of the experience you fell in love with.

Hatoreehanzo

Large groups and those huge battles you speak of make the the game unplayable with the frame rate issues. I have no problem work zergs other than that. Zergs contribute largely to my farming where I pull out group members who chase and pipe them down away from the ball. Unfortunately frame rate and glitchy mechanics makes this difficult at times.

Heavy and blocking also need a rethink. I put up a video for science of me on a heavy magplar and a friend on a stam do called "working as intended." Do you think the game is where it should be when two people are fighting two zergs, in the open, without LoS? Some might say just ignore them, but that's the broken builds running together in these kind of groups and it's not how it should be. Not to mention if we had a bomber at the ready we could have wiped more than what the stam DK's buffed up leap was doing.

Joy_Division

Hatoreehanzo wrote: »

I see a lot of traction on the first idea. I probably should have clarified, but this would be in response to reducing zergs. While it might seem logical to bring in more players, you'd penalize the damage to a null point. As for tanks and permablock builds, use battlespirit to affect heavy armor and block rather than a global change that affects pvp.

Another option would be to give a player in combat a buff that would increase output damage like they used to have with ult.

I don't know the fix, but I'm throwing ideas out there to salvage real gameplay. Currently ball zerging in horrible frame rate doesn't seem like a good rate at what they're promoting.

If you've anyone has seen me play I always promote someone having fun. If they want to run some weird, broken or cheap thing have at it. It keeps them coming back. What pvp has become though is making it increasingly to enjoy my, as well as many others, type of game play. Of which a lot will not come back.

I still have fun and love the game, I just get frustrated at certain outcomes when it comes to poor game mechanics and unavoidable instances.

Well, for starters the fix would be to have a development team that actually cares about the health of PvP and invests resources into it. ZoS's business model is now PvE content and Crown Store.

While I can sympathize with your desire to penalize excessive numbers, I don't think players should be under combat advantages or disadvantages and would prefer everyone fight by the same rules. Besides, having the server count player proximity every second for every player would probably kill the few hamsters left running ZoS's megaserver.

If ZoS where to make it so solo players had objectives to go to that weren't next to a keep with 40 enemy players staring at their map waiting for action, that would be a nice start to facilitating more small scale.

Dorrino

About zerging.

You can't 'solve' zerging by artificially making it frustrating and introducing vague and not really practical mechanics.

@Asmael is totally correct. Instead of discouraging zerging ZOS needs to encourage spreading out. And there's many ways of doing so.

About 1vx.

1vx becomes a thing when the player heavily outskills average 1v1 and 1v2 encounters.

People 1vx to get challenging fights that they can't get in quality (1v1 against good players).

The whole point of 1vx is to get a 'duel' You VS Many. That's the fun of it. Adding additional disadvantages to the 'Many' will result in looking for even higher numbers of players to solo. @CyrusArya is totally correct here. There's no need to reduce the fun of 1vx by handicapping the 'x'.

About Cyro state is general. Obviously ZOS doesn't work on it content-wise at all. I disagree with the explanation that you can't monetize pvp though.

Cosmetics are even more important in pvp that in pve and adding pvp specific ones (tied to ranks, for instance) seems awesome to me.

Basically we need ZOS to start working on Cyro again. Until that happens all these threads will mimic each other in futility.

DosPanchos

Like some others, I agree with points 2 and 3. The first point is a little much to chase around. Just grab a friend to play with instead.