Has ZOS Abandoned PVP?

Koolio

Someone started new thread regarding Pvp. Curious of any changes to cyrodiil

tinythinker

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

At this point I think we seriously need to consider whether ZOS has just stopped giving a care when it comes to PVP in general.

Chronic issues that would be simple to address (empty temporary campaigns that badly need to be closed) have not even been commented on. Numerous feedback threads with long, thoughtful writeups that were posted in extremely constructive manners have been ignored. The PVP population dwindles more and more every day with Sotha Sil now essentially dead and all NA PC players not even able to keep the one remaining active campaign pop locked through the entirety of prime time.

At what point is the dream dead? Is this the equivalent of maintenance mode, just for one section of the game?

When do we give up? At what point does ZOS even reply to us?

Sorry if others in the thread have already made the same points, but short on time.

ZOS initially planned for AvAvA to be huge, as you and I others recall from the promotional hype prior to release, the large number of campaigns at launch, and the 90 day length of campaigns.

Yet AvAvA has shrunk quite a bit since launch, with changes to balance, combat, class focus, etc, etc, plus never-ending performance issues. Campaigns closed, populations caps lowered, etc. Cyrodiil was designed for mass combat, players try mass combat, then ZOS attempts to undo that with incentives and penalties to get players to spread out really thin. Plus, the first year I felt I was getting better/had room to grow, but variety in play has gone down and disparity in relative player power has gone up, so those not at the top quit or zerg, feeding back into other issues.

ZOS miscalculated with Imperial City, walking back how integrated it would be with the rest of Cyrodiil and trying to make it a ganker's paradise. Average to below average PvPers don't like being ganked, so they group up, but there's not much to fight for with rewards that aren't that great anymore and no effect on Cyrodiil at large as that would be pay-to-win. And PvEers lured to try the zone don't like being attacked by other players. If they bundle it with the base game it could be made more interesting and strategic, but the DLC includes the dungeons and they won't want to give those away.

But ZOS made a good move with capturable towns, as it gave a new objective, but more is needed. Special areas for unique rewards/challenges, being able to attack and capture npc transports or other objectives, reskinning outposts/keeps by faction, more achievements, just more things that tie into the theme of the zone and make it more interactive.

Now ZOS has moved on to Battegrounds, which are the new focus on PvP and which could, at least in theory, be a move towards esports for ESO. The devs can be really creative with BGs as opposed to the pain it would be to redesign or remodel sections of Cyrodiil or the effort it would take to create a new PvP zone.

So they don't seem to have abandoned PvP, but they do seem to have left Cyrodiil behind in terms of new content.

Biro123

tinythinker wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

At this point I think we seriously need to consider whether ZOS has just stopped giving a care when it comes to PVP in general.

Chronic issues that would be simple to address (empty temporary campaigns that badly need to be closed) have not even been commented on. Numerous feedback threads with long, thoughtful writeups that were posted in extremely constructive manners have been ignored. The PVP population dwindles more and more every day with Sotha Sil now essentially dead and all NA PC players not even able to keep the one remaining active campaign pop locked through the entirety of prime time.

At what point is the dream dead? Is this the equivalent of maintenance mode, just for one section of the game?

When do we give up? At what point does ZOS even reply to us?

Sorry if others in the thread have already made the same points, but short on time.

ZOS initially planned for AvAvA to be huge, as you and I others recall from the promotional hype prior to release, the large number of campaigns at launch, and the 90 day length of campaigns.

Yet AvAvA has shrunk quite a bit since launch, with changes to balance, combat, class focus, etc, etc, plus never-ending performance issues. Campaigns closed, populations caps lowered, etc. Cyrodiil was designed for mass combat, players try mass combat, then ZOS attempts to undo that with incentives and penalties to get players to spread out really thin. Plus, the first year I felt I was getting better/had room to grow, but variety in play has gone down and disparity in relative player power has gone up, so those not at the top quit or zerg, feeding back into other issues.

ZOS miscalculated with Imperial City, walking back how integrated it would be with the rest of Cyrodiil and trying to make it a ganker's paradise. Average to below average PvPers don't like being ganked, so they group up, but there's not much to fight for with rewards that aren't that great anymore and no effect on Cyrodiil at large as that would be pay-to-win. And PvEers lured to try the zone don't like being attacked by other players. If they bundle it with the base game it could be made more interesting and strategic, but the DLC includes the dungeons and they won't want to give those away.

But ZOS made a good move with capturable towns, as it gave a new objective, but more is needed. Special areas for unique rewards/challenges, being able to attack and capture npc transports or other objectives, reskinning outposts/keeps by faction, more achievements, just more things that tie into the theme of the zone and make it more interactive.

Now ZOS has moved on to Battegrounds, which are the new focus on PvP and which could, at least in theory, be a move towards esports for ESO. The devs can be really creative with BGs as opposed to the pain it would be to redesign or remodel sections of Cyrodiil or the effort it would take to create a new PvP zone.

So they don't seem to have abandoned PvP, but they do seem to have left Cyrodiil behind in terms of new content.

I think you're right - but I honestly thing the decision to do that is beyond stupid. I mean there are plenty of other games out there who do battlegrounds very well - have a good track record with them and already have many of the BG features that Zos are lacking. I honestly cannot see ESO's BG's eating into that market.

But ESO does open-world better than any other game I know. THIS is where they should be focussing their attentions - to keep it the best and to make it better and better. Play to your game's strengths rather than trying to play to your competitor's strengths. Not to mention that many of the PVPers already playing ESO were attracted by the large-scale that is Cyro.
If they give up on that in favour of BG's, they risk losing those players - and also risk not attracting new BG-centric players because of the competition.

If they truly are giving up on Cyro in favour of BG's (which it certainly looks like so far) - I think it's a horrendous decision.

Not to mention that I've already decided not to buy the new chapter - because I really do see that this seems to be the direction they are taking (and therefore don't really see myself playing ESO for too much longer) - If I'm proving wrong - then I'll buy it. I'll happily pay for DLC's/Chapters that I hardly use/play if it funds the core PVP experience that I love.
But I'm definitely NOT paying for stuff that I'm not gonna really play if I don't think any of the money will be invested in the gameplay i like doing.

antihero727

Let’s just look at the numbers as of 3/22/2018 in population. Most people think the campaign cap is around 120 per faction. On a pop locked prime time Friday we have 360 in Vivec with a 60 q each faction is 540. Shore is usually 3 bar each which is around 300. The other campaign are around 300 between them. That is roughly 1140 players in an AAA mmo playing pvp in primetime. That’s why zos doesn’t care about pvp anymore. Imo 1140 is being generous.

BrockofPercival

Yes, for many reasons.

They'll do minimal stuff for sure but anything else, no.

I see ESO going same way as Rift. It will last but will become mainly PvE.

A shame really but it is what it is.

Iskras

Answer: sure!

merevie

DC PVP is in trouble.

We are having large numbers of people move to AD.

The cause is one player who is delib helping keeps get taken so that person can then turn around and re take them all for AP to stay emperor.

This person did the same thing on their previous campaign to the point Sotha is almost totally deserted. This isn't supposition - that person had constant communication with leaders of other factions who were online. "We will let you take... if..." arrangements.

No other player could emp there, and now also on NA.

What we need from Zos is a immediate change to the Emperor system.

Agrippa_Invisus

merevie wrote: »

DC PVP is in trouble.

We are having large numbers of people move to AD.

The cause is one player who is delib helping keeps get taken so that person can then turn around and re take them all for AP to stay emperor.

This person did the same thing on their previous campaign to the point Sotha is almost totally deserted.

No other player could emp there, and now also on NA.

What we need from Zos is a immediate change to the Emperor system.

Too bad there's no way to "chuck" that person to the curb.

merevie

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

DC PVP is in trouble.

We are having large numbers of people move to AD.

The cause is one player who is delib helping keeps get taken so that person can then turn around and re take them all for AP to stay emperor.

This person did the same thing on their previous campaign to the point Sotha is almost totally deserted.

No other player could emp there, and now also on NA.

What we need from Zos is a immediate change to the Emperor system.

Too bad there's no way to "chuck" that person to the curb.

There is - flood the market with stuff from the Vaarden pvp trader at 1 coin -it's what they're doing with all the AP - Price fixing the Battlegrounds gear market.

Agrippa_Invisus

merevie wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

DC PVP is in trouble.

We are having large numbers of people move to AD.

The cause is one player who is delib helping keeps get taken so that person can then turn around and re take them all for AP to stay emperor.

This person did the same thing on their previous campaign to the point Sotha is almost totally deserted.

No other player could emp there, and now also on NA.

What we need from Zos is a immediate change to the Emperor system.

Too bad there's no way to "chuck" that person to the curb.

There is - flood the market with stuff from the Vaarden pvp trader at 1 coin -it's what they're doing with all the AP - Price fixing the Battlegrounds gear market.

Reason #9385935845 why I loathe said person.

pcar944

should have never let 1 account have characters on multiple factions

maybe even shouldn't have left different races play on different factions (maybe shuffle them around a little, but then "omg the lore")

Vizier

PvP NEVER recovered from the lighting and FX package upgrade around 1.2, 1.3. It ran smooth as silk for most people before that, even during large battles. Now...not so much.

ThyIronFist

Vizier wrote: »

PvP NEVER recovered from the lighting and FX package upgrade around 1.2, 1.3. It ran smooth as silk for most people before that, even during large battles. Now...not so much.

This. Look at YouTube videos pre-2015, easily 200 players on screen, big sieges, literally NO lag and no massive frame drops. I've lost count how many times the server crashed when more than 40 players were at the same keep using abilities.

I no-lifed the game since beta but after 1.6 and the Imperial City I left for a long time and been a super-casual ever since. PvP took a big hit in patch 1.2.4 and I still believe the game suffers from whatever they did in that dreadful patch. Tamriel One and Imperial City was the final nail in the coffin for PvP and I don't think it will ever recover. The only thing left is pug zergs and because they are 99% of the playerbase in Cyrodiil Zenimax will listen to anything they say and cry about.

Agrippa_Invisus

ThyIronFist wrote: »

Vizier wrote: »

PvP NEVER recovered from the lighting and FX package upgrade around 1.2, 1.3. It ran smooth as silk for most people before that, even during large battles. Now...not so much.

This. Look at YouTube videos pre-2015, easily 200 players on screen, big sieges, literally NO lag and no massive frame drops. I've lost count how many times the server crashed when more than 40 players were at the same keep using abilities.

I no-lifed the game since beta but after 1.6 and the Imperial City I left for a long time and been a super-casual ever since. PvP took a big hit in patch 1.2.4 and I still believe the game suffers from whatever they did in that dreadful patch. Tamriel One and Imperial City was the final nail in the coffin for PvP and I don't think it will ever recover. The only thing left is pug zergs and because they are 99% of the playerbase in Cyrodiil Zenimax will listen to anything they say and cry about.

I would pay good money to play a version of this game that did not have whatever the heck it was that ZOS put into the Lighting Patch that destroyed game performance so thoroughly.

.5 FPS battles for days on end, with MAYBE 16-18 FPS after their dirty, 2AM fix that they finally implemented... what?... two weeks later?

And it only ever marginally improved in fits and starts. Any other coder, game dev, or anyone with pride in their product would have rolled that patch back within 24 hours and said 'whoa, our bad, we need to test and QA this more' and then either FIXED IT or TOSSED IT.

That they didn't is one of the greatest failures of ZOS's administration of this game because that patch destroyed the PVP community of this game in ways that can never be rectified.

Stovahkiin

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

ThyIronFist wrote: »

Vizier wrote: »

PvP NEVER recovered from the lighting and FX package upgrade around 1.2, 1.3. It ran smooth as silk for most people before that, even during large battles. Now...not so much.

This. Look at YouTube videos pre-2015, easily 200 players on screen, big sieges, literally NO lag and no massive frame drops. I've lost count how many times the server crashed when more than 40 players were at the same keep using abilities.

I no-lifed the game since beta but after 1.6 and the Imperial City I left for a long time and been a super-casual ever since. PvP took a big hit in patch 1.2.4 and I still believe the game suffers from whatever they did in that dreadful patch. Tamriel One and Imperial City was the final nail in the coffin for PvP and I don't think it will ever recover. The only thing left is pug zergs and because they are 99% of the playerbase in Cyrodiil Zenimax will listen to anything they say and cry about.

I would pay good money to play a version of this game that did not have whatever the heck it was that ZOS put into the Lighting Patch that destroyed game performance so thoroughly.

.5 FPS battles for days on end, with MAYBE 16-18 FPS after their dirty, 2AM fix that they finally implemented... what?... two weeks later?

And it only ever marginally improved in fits and starts. Any other coder, game dev, or anyone with pride in their product would have rolled that patch back within 24 hours and said 'whoa, our bad, we need to test and QA this more' and then either FIXED IT or TOSSED IT.

That they didn't is one of the greatest failures of ZOS's administration of this game because that patch destroyed the PVP community of this game in ways that can never be rectified.

Zeni + Sensible Decisions = Error, Does Not Compute.

If it doesn’t put cash in their pocket, they’re not gonna do anything about it. If they could find a way to monetize Cyrodiil, believe me it’s performance would be significantly better.

Agrippa_Invisus

Stovahkiin wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

ThyIronFist wrote: »

Vizier wrote: »

PvP NEVER recovered from the lighting and FX package upgrade around 1.2, 1.3. It ran smooth as silk for most people before that, even during large battles. Now...not so much.

This. Look at YouTube videos pre-2015, easily 200 players on screen, big sieges, literally NO lag and no massive frame drops. I've lost count how many times the server crashed when more than 40 players were at the same keep using abilities.

I no-lifed the game since beta but after 1.6 and the Imperial City I left for a long time and been a super-casual ever since. PvP took a big hit in patch 1.2.4 and I still believe the game suffers from whatever they did in that dreadful patch. Tamriel One and Imperial City was the final nail in the coffin for PvP and I don't think it will ever recover. The only thing left is pug zergs and because they are 99% of the playerbase in Cyrodiil Zenimax will listen to anything they say and cry about.

I would pay good money to play a version of this game that did not have whatever the heck it was that ZOS put into the Lighting Patch that destroyed game performance so thoroughly.

.5 FPS battles for days on end, with MAYBE 16-18 FPS after their dirty, 2AM fix that they finally implemented... what?... two weeks later?

And it only ever marginally improved in fits and starts. Any other coder, game dev, or anyone with pride in their product would have rolled that patch back within 24 hours and said 'whoa, our bad, we need to test and QA this more' and then either FIXED IT or TOSSED IT.

That they didn't is one of the greatest failures of ZOS's administration of this game because that patch destroyed the PVP community of this game in ways that can never be rectified.

Zeni + Sensible Decisions = Error, Does Not Compute.

If it doesn’t put cash in their pocket, they’re not gonna do anything about it. If they could find a way to monetize Cyrodiil, believe me it’s performance would be significantly better.

I'm pretty sure the Lighting Patch was the first patch wholly written by the 'Live' admin team, and not the original game creation / dev team. The game creation devs were moved over to creating the twin console ports (to much fan fare from ZOS) and the group that wrote the Lighting Patch were just learning the client and code base. That they tried to implement something as big as a graphics engine tweak / change in their first update they were solely responsible for reeks of project management overreach and incompetence.

That they couldn't swallow their pride and pull it back out shows that either a) they didn't know what they were doing well enough to reverse anything, or b) their egos were too invested to allow them to.

Either is bad management. That falls on ZOS and the team and project leads.

daniel.13b16_ESO

Gederic wrote: »

It died a long time ago. Zos isn't that stupid, they know where the money's at. New dlc centered on pve. The PvE player base is significantly larger and maybe the PvP community could thrive if they worked with pvp but frankly at this point it would need a major overhaul. That's an investment and time consuming risk I doubt they're willing to take.

Maybe people just stopped playign because ZOS ignores it? It was a huge part of the marketing and apart from the IP the only feature they constantly pushed. Although, after years of no changes or fixes (lag, loading screen), Cyrodiil is simply boring.

There would be so many cheap things to do to add to the PVP experience.

REiiGN15

For some it's boring, for others there is history and bad blood bringing us to PvP. Guild betrayal, knowing the other faction top players and wanting to best them. Super hardcore PvPers literally have nothing going on in their lives and this is it to help them escape whatever RL stuff they got. It's not a knock but honest truth, they're the ones who make anything happen in Vivec. There are no RL friends for them, they're all virtual, in-game only friends and they're okay with that.

To get to the top of any PvP leaderboard you are sacrificing something in RL. Most of those guys aren't streamers either. Streaming would actually slow them down.

ReverseVenom

I've cancelled my Eso+ subscription because of how *** ridiculous this is. I've done 90% of PVE content so there is no reason to keep it and frankly the most engaging thing in PVE is walking around farming and reading dialogue/written pieces. Dungeons are so ridiculously easy and I've farmed all my gear so there is zero incentive to PVE which left me with PVP.

I've always enjoyed PvP. In fact literally all my characters made start out with a PvP role in mind (the projects that failed were turned into a PVE healer, tank, and DPS. Noticeably less failures in that regard) PvP has always been big for me in gaming and elder scrolls themed PVP is what got me hooked. Now I'm utterly disgusted with the constant infinite load screens, communication failings, rediculous lag/crashes, and sheer neglect at obvious faults in the AvA system. Now to learn that most of the problems stemmed from a *** lighting patch. God dammit Zenimax.

You guys do not release enough PVE incentives to keep someone hooked on the game solely for that and I swear to god this is not a sentence for you to twist into "so we need more PVE" this is a plea for you to look at your original plan for the game (90 day campaigns, multiple campaigns, FACTION LOCK, IC, pre one tamriel) and return cyrodiil to what you orginially marketed eso for.


Remember this

FireCowCommando

For those who laughed at BDO and never looked back, their dev team is currently taking on the tasks of:

1. Redesigning class abilities in regards to utility and damage
2. Changing the Nodewar/siege rules (their first attempt was rebuked by the community so they are in the redesign phase again)
3. Have ALREADY transferred their servers to a more reliable hosting company (uniquely affects PvPer's)
4. Trying to improve the base code to improve both server and client performance

I can't find where ESO developers are on the improvements exactly?

This is not meant to be a pure flame post, honestly. I dont understand how ESO can expect to survive if not just their current competition continues to dwarf them in performance AND gameplay gains, but additional games come into the market?

MaximillianDiE

FireCowCommando wrote: »

For those who laughed at BDO and never looked back, their dev team is currently taking on the tasks of:

1. Redesigning class abilities in regards to utility and damage
2. Changing the Nodewar/siege rules (their first attempt was rebuked by the community so they are in the redesign phase again)
3. Have ALREADY transferred their servers to a more reliable hosting company (uniquely affects PvPer's)
4. Trying to improve the base code to improve both server and client performance

I can't find where ESO developers are on the improvements exactly?

This is not meant to be a pure flame post, honestly. I dont understand how ESO can expect to survive if not just their current competition continues to dwarf them in performance AND gameplay gains, but additional games come into the market?

I played BDO and quite and retried it a few times now - its an AZN gear focused grind game. I already have a job IRL - I don't want another one in my spare time which forces me to grind at something I don't want to do to compete. I'm not going back to it again as none of those changes you list remotely change the fact its a tedious grindfest.

A lot of the people I came into this game with came via DAOC, WAR and immediately before this GW2. I've played since closed beta (Feb 2014). ESO seemed to be the next in line in this pvp focussed tradition and to some extent it is. The sad thing is that probably 90% of the pvpers I came into this game left as a result of the poor performance/lag that arose directly as a result of the lighting patch with the rest leaving gradually over the next few years as a result of a combination of burnout due to frustration about those same issues and the lack of ESO prioritizing that and fixing it. So far, despite a few tweaks and the continual breaking of the meta before it by ZOS the game really isn't any more playable than it was 4 years ago and from a performance perspective its arguably worse.

We brought 50 odd players into this game at launch as an organised guild from GW2 and WAR before that and there's two of us left that I'm aware of. A number of them came back a couple of patches ago but could not get through or abide by having to grind pve levels in the form of CP as although they were really high Alliance Ranks in their time. Moon Die was a legate within 2014 which would have been the equivalent of GO now given how hard it was to get AP compared to now and we had others in guild of similar ranks so it was just too frustrating for them having to spend weeks grinding CP. They had to start in the low hundreds of CP when the thing bringing them back to the game was to try out the pvp again so they said "f this" and stopped playing and I doubt they will ever look at this game again sadly.

The pvp side of this game is dying due to the usual attrition and burn out you get from any mmo with a ridiculously high barrier for those who played it initially getting back to it. ESO has only survived this long because there hasn't been a decent pvp focused game launched since its launch. You can't compare games like BDO, Archeage (or what Blessed Online looks to be like) which are AZN gear focused pve grind fests with a little pvp on the side where you can realistically only pvp if you've grinded sufficiently to compete with the pve'rs equipment wise. While pvper's dabble with those games, they're not playing to spend hours at spawns grinding mobs so all the ones I know have ended up leaving those games too relatively quickly and are floating around fps and battle royals waiting for the next pvp focused mmos.

Sadly, my prediction is that the next truly pvp focused game will kill the pvp side of this game as those of us vets who are left will leave in droves to play again with the people we came into this game with or who we lost to attrition over the past four years as there is a large pvp community out there looking for the next pvp (or largely pvp with a side of pve) focused game. Sadly there really is no way to get them back unless the performance of the client in pvp changes drastically and they make it more accessible to the pvp community who tried this game out at launch in huge numbers and then subsequently gave it away to get back into it. I still get real enjoyment out of the game but I think that's probably too big an ask of ZOS at this stage in the life cycle of this game.

TheValar85

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Feels like a Cold War or a boycott maybe . I don't know . No ones talking about it .

if tehy are boycotting, they are right to do so. there is way toomuch mess around the pvp system, so i wont be surprised at all.

Considering teh poor service from zos about performance issues, latency issues, cheaters, closegap exploiters, speed hax, emp sellers, ap sellers, levelling boost sellers. (yes the pvp ranking) telvar farmer sellers, and teh list of incompetent shady stuffs just going on and on and on and on. and not to mention the fraction swappers, and ofc when 2 fraction is uniting against one. khm EP and DC khm khm...

exiars10

If ZOS abandoned PvP then why I read every day that PvE players constantly accuse ZOS to balance game according to PvP both sets and skills wise? Why so many PvE players want total separation of PvE and PvP as PvP balancing ruins PvE constantly (according to them)?

Don't get me wrong, I play both (PvE and Cyrodiil PvP).

antihero727

MaximillianDiE wrote: »

FireCowCommando wrote: »

For those who laughed at BDO and never looked back, their dev team is currently taking on the tasks of:

1. Redesigning class abilities in regards to utility and damage
2. Changing the Nodewar/siege rules (their first attempt was rebuked by the community so they are in the redesign phase again)
3. Have ALREADY transferred their servers to a more reliable hosting company (uniquely affects PvPer's)
4. Trying to improve the base code to improve both server and client performance

I can't find where ESO developers are on the improvements exactly?

This is not meant to be a pure flame post, honestly. I dont understand how ESO can expect to survive if not just their current competition continues to dwarf them in performance AND gameplay gains, but additional games come into the market?

I played BDO and quite and retried it a few times now - its an AZN gear focused grind game. I already have a job IRL - I don't want another one in my spare time which forces me to grind at something I don't want to do to compete. I'm not going back to it again as none of those changes you list remotely change the fact its a tedious grindfest.

A lot of the people I came into this game with came via DAOC, WAR and immediately before this GW2. I've played since closed beta (Feb 2014). ESO seemed to be the next in line in this pvp focussed tradition and to some extent it is. The sad thing is that probably 90% of the pvpers I came into this game left as a result of the poor performance/lag that arose directly as a result of the lighting patch with the rest leaving gradually over the next few years as a result of a combination of burnout due to frustration about those same issues and the lack of ESO prioritizing that and fixing it. So far, despite a few tweaks and the continual breaking of the meta before it by ZOS the game really isn't any more playable than it was 4 years ago and from a performance perspective its arguably worse.

We brought 50 odd players into this game at launch as an organised guild from GW2 and WAR before that and there's two of us left that I'm aware of. A number of them came back a couple of patches ago but could not get through or abide by having to grind pve levels in the form of CP as although they were really high Alliance Ranks in their time. Moon Die was a legate within 2014 which would have been the equivalent of GO now given how hard it was to get AP compared to now and we had others in guild of similar ranks so it was just too frustrating for them having to spend weeks grinding CP. They had to start in the low hundreds of CP when the thing bringing them back to the game was to try out the pvp again so they said "f this" and stopped playing and I doubt they will ever look at this game again sadly.

The pvp side of this game is dying due to the usual attrition and burn out you get from any mmo with a ridiculously high barrier for those who played it initially getting back to it. ESO has only survived this long because there hasn't been a decent pvp focused game launched since its launch. You can't compare games like BDO, Archeage (or what Blessed Online looks to be like) which are AZN gear focused pve grind fests with a little pvp on the side where you can realistically only pvp if you've grinded sufficiently to compete with the pve'rs equipment wise. While pvper's dabble with those games, they're not playing to spend hours at spawns grinding mobs so all the ones I know have ended up leaving those games too relatively quickly and are floating around fps and battle royals waiting for the next pvp focused mmos.

Sadly, my prediction is that the next truly pvp focused game will kill the pvp side of this game as those of us vets who are left will leave in droves to play again with the people we came into this game with or who we lost to attrition over the past four years as there is a large pvp community out there looking for the next pvp (or largely pvp with a side of pve) focused game. Sadly there really is no way to get them back unless the performance of the client in pvp changes drastically and they make it more accessible to the pvp community who tried this game out at launch in huge numbers and then subsequently gave it away to get back into it. I still get real enjoyment out of the game but I think that's probably too big an ask of ZOS at this stage in the life cycle of this game.

I miss the old days of wabberjack and Hadrus fighting khole. IMO the general spirit of the game was in an accepting place even when we had lag and other buggy factors involved back then. You are right a lot of my old officers now are in FPS or battle royal games atm including myself. Hope to see some of old crews from both sides meet in Camalot again. I just come to the forums to dump salt for my low sodium diet. It’s been 2 months since I logged in with no plans for it in the future. Good luck, the lag and general management of this game finally broke my spirit with a few more people I know quitting every month.

Alomar

ReverseVenom wrote: »

I've cancelled my Eso+ subscription because of how *** ridiculous this is. I've done 90% of PVE content so there is no reason to keep it and frankly the most engaging thing in PVE is walking around farming and reading dialogue/written pieces. Dungeons are so ridiculously easy and I've farmed all my gear so there is zero incentive to PVE which left me with PVP.

I've always enjoyed PvP. In fact literally all my characters made start out with a PvP role in mind (the projects that failed were turned into a PVE healer, tank, and DPS. Noticeably less failures in that regard) PvP has always been big for me in gaming and elder scrolls themed PVP is what got me hooked. Now I'm utterly disgusted with the constant infinite load screens, communication failings, rediculous lag/crashes, and sheer neglect at obvious faults in the AvA system. Now to learn that most of the problems stemmed from a *** lighting patch. God dammit Zenimax.

You guys do not release enough PVE incentives to keep someone hooked on the game solely for that and I swear to god this is not a sentence for you to twist into "so we need more PVE" this is a plea for you to look at your original plan for the game (90 day campaigns, multiple campaigns, FACTION LOCK, IC, pre one tamriel) and return cyrodiil to what you orginially marketed eso for.


Remember this

There's a reason this game's pvp community is 1/100 of the size and 1/10,000 as competitive as it used to be. It is quite sad and disheartening to relive what could have been with this game, the entire pre-launch hype/launch direction was centered around rvr based events, both within Cyrodiil and outside. It was the focus of every cinematic trailer this game had up to the Imperial City.

From unplayable periods of extreme lag, long periods of bugs left unchecked, slow and ineffective class balancing, minimal to no post-launch pvp content additions, several months of no pc support while a year late console ports were finished, etc. led to a constantly decreasing pvp population. Somewhere down the line ZOS caught onto this and gave up on pvp/Cyrodiil and instead focused on being the go-to-Elder Scrolls game in place of Elder Scrolls 6. One Tamriel and allowing people to play on multiple factions within the same campaign were the last straws finally breaking to make room for ESO's new casual pve/rp friendly direction.

FireCowCommando wrote: »

For those who laughed at BDO and never looked back, their dev team is currently taking on the tasks of:

1. Redesigning class abilities in regards to utility and damage
2. Changing the Nodewar/siege rules (their first attempt was rebuked by the community so they are in the redesign phase again)
3. Have ALREADY transferred their servers to a more reliable hosting company (uniquely affects PvPer's)
4. Trying to improve the base code to improve both server and client performance

I can't find where ESO developers are on the improvements exactly?

This is not meant to be a pure flame post, honestly. I dont understand how ESO can expect to survive if not just their current competition continues to dwarf them in performance AND gameplay gains, but additional games come into the market?

BDO's launch was pretty fun where I partook in fights of 400-500 all of which barely lagged compared to ESO, and encountered many guilds that once played in ESO and have since left. BDO is a great mmo with several major flaws, holding it back from being the go-to mmo for open world mmo pvpers. The combat is great, animations are spot on, and the graphics are amazeballs. What holds it back is the rng, which has increased two-fold since launch, and the non-stop mindless xp mob grinding necessary to stay at the top to compete.

antihero727 wrote: »

MaximillianDiE wrote: »

FireCowCommando wrote: »

For those who laughed at BDO and never looked back, their dev team is currently taking on the tasks of:

1. Redesigning class abilities in regards to utility and damage
2. Changing the Nodewar/siege rules (their first attempt was rebuked by the community so they are in the redesign phase again)
3. Have ALREADY transferred their servers to a more reliable hosting company (uniquely affects PvPer's)
4. Trying to improve the base code to improve both server and client performance

I can't find where ESO developers are on the improvements exactly?

This is not meant to be a pure flame post, honestly. I dont understand how ESO can expect to survive if not just their current competition continues to dwarf them in performance AND gameplay gains, but additional games come into the market?

I played BDO and quite and retried it a few times now - its an AZN gear focused grind game. I already have a job IRL - I don't want another one in my spare time which forces me to grind at something I don't want to do to compete. I'm not going back to it again as none of those changes you list remotely change the fact its a tedious grindfest.

A lot of the people I came into this game with came via DAOC, WAR and immediately before this GW2. I've played since closed beta (Feb 2014). ESO seemed to be the next in line in this pvp focussed tradition and to some extent it is. The sad thing is that probably 90% of the pvpers I came into this game left as a result of the poor performance/lag that arose directly as a result of the lighting patch with the rest leaving gradually over the next few years as a result of a combination of burnout due to frustration about those same issues and the lack of ESO prioritizing that and fixing it. So far, despite a few tweaks and the continual breaking of the meta before it by ZOS the game really isn't any more playable than it was 4 years ago and from a performance perspective its arguably worse.

We brought 50 odd players into this game at launch as an organised guild from GW2 and WAR before that and there's two of us left that I'm aware of. A number of them came back a couple of patches ago but could not get through or abide by having to grind pve levels in the form of CP as although they were really high Alliance Ranks in their time. Moon Die was a legate within 2014 which would have been the equivalent of GO now given how hard it was to get AP compared to now and we had others in guild of similar ranks so it was just too frustrating for them having to spend weeks grinding CP. They had to start in the low hundreds of CP when the thing bringing them back to the game was to try out the pvp again so they said "f this" and stopped playing and I doubt they will ever look at this game again sadly.

The pvp side of this game is dying due to the usual attrition and burn out you get from any mmo with a ridiculously high barrier for those who played it initially getting back to it. ESO has only survived this long because there hasn't been a decent pvp focused game launched since its launch. You can't compare games like BDO, Archeage (or what Blessed Online looks to be like) which are AZN gear focused pve grind fests with a little pvp on the side where you can realistically only pvp if you've grinded sufficiently to compete with the pve'rs equipment wise. While pvper's dabble with those games, they're not playing to spend hours at spawns grinding mobs so all the ones I know have ended up leaving those games too relatively quickly and are floating around fps and battle royals waiting for the next pvp focused mmos.

Sadly, my prediction is that the next truly pvp focused game will kill the pvp side of this game as those of us vets who are left will leave in droves to play again with the people we came into this game with or who we lost to attrition over the past four years as there is a large pvp community out there looking for the next pvp (or largely pvp with a side of pve) focused game. Sadly there really is no way to get them back unless the performance of the client in pvp changes drastically and they make it more accessible to the pvp community who tried this game out at launch in huge numbers and then subsequently gave it away to get back into it. I still get real enjoyment out of the game but I think that's probably too big an ask of ZOS at this stage in the life cycle of this game.

I miss the old days of wabberjack and Hadrus fighting khole. IMO the general spirit of the game was in an accepting place even when we had lag and other buggy factors involved back then. You are right a lot of my old officers now are in FPS or battle royal games atm including myself. Hope to see some of old crews from both sides meet in Camalot again. I just come to the forums to dump salt for my low sodium diet. It’s been 2 months since I logged in with no plans for it in the future. Good luck, the lag and general management of this game finally broke my spirit with a few more people I know quitting every month.

We all miss that, but I don't see it ever returning as the addition of a new class and battlegrounds within Morrowind was the most positive change this game's pvp will ever likely have. People don't want to return to fight over the same meaningless keeps/outposts they did while having much more fun 4 years ago. At this point we'll all see each other, and the many who left long ago, within Crowfall and/or Camelot Unchained in the years to come. I myself will be leaving ESO for good this month heading into Conan Exiles, Bless Online, and then either CU or Crowfall whichever has a playable beta first.

ThyIronFist

Alomar wrote: »

ReverseVenom wrote: »

I've cancelled my Eso+ subscription because of how *** ridiculous this is. I've done 90% of PVE content so there is no reason to keep it and frankly the most engaging thing in PVE is walking around farming and reading dialogue/written pieces. Dungeons are so ridiculously easy and I've farmed all my gear so there is zero incentive to PVE which left me with PVP.

I've always enjoyed PvP. In fact literally all my characters made start out with a PvP role in mind (the projects that failed were turned into a PVE healer, tank, and DPS. Noticeably less failures in that regard) PvP has always been big for me in gaming and elder scrolls themed PVP is what got me hooked. Now I'm utterly disgusted with the constant infinite load screens, communication failings, rediculous lag/crashes, and sheer neglect at obvious faults in the AvA system. Now to learn that most of the problems stemmed from a *** lighting patch. God dammit Zenimax.

You guys do not release enough PVE incentives to keep someone hooked on the game solely for that and I swear to god this is not a sentence for you to twist into "so we need more PVE" this is a plea for you to look at your original plan for the game (90 day campaigns, multiple campaigns, FACTION LOCK, IC, pre one tamriel) and return cyrodiil to what you orginially marketed eso for.


Remember this

There's a reason this game's pvp community is 1/100 of the size and 1/10,000 as competitive as it used to be. It is quite sad and disheartening to relive what could have been with this game, the entire pre-launch hype/launch direction was centered around rvr based events, both within Cyrodiil and outside. It was the focus of every cinematic trailer this game had up to the Imperial City.

From unplayable periods of extreme lag, long periods of bugs left unchecked, slow and ineffective class balancing, minimal to no post-launch pvp content additions, several months of no pc support while a year late console ports were finished, etc. led to a constantly decreasing pvp population. Somewhere down the line ZOS caught onto this and gave up on pvp/Cyrodiil and instead focused on being the go-to-Elder Scrolls game in place of Elder Scrolls 6. One Tamriel and allowing people to play on multiple factions within the same campaign were the last straws finally breaking to make room for ESO's new casual pve/rp friendly direction.

FireCowCommando wrote: »

For those who laughed at BDO and never looked back, their dev team is currently taking on the tasks of:

1. Redesigning class abilities in regards to utility and damage
2. Changing the Nodewar/siege rules (their first attempt was rebuked by the community so they are in the redesign phase again)
3. Have ALREADY transferred their servers to a more reliable hosting company (uniquely affects PvPer's)
4. Trying to improve the base code to improve both server and client performance

I can't find where ESO developers are on the improvements exactly?

This is not meant to be a pure flame post, honestly. I dont understand how ESO can expect to survive if not just their current competition continues to dwarf them in performance AND gameplay gains, but additional games come into the market?

BDO's launch was pretty fun where I partook in fights of 400-500 all of which barely lagged compared to ESO, and encountered many guilds that once played in ESO and have since left. BDO is a great mmo with several major flaws, holding it back from being the go-to mmo for open world mmo pvpers. The combat is great, animations are spot on, and the graphics are amazeballs. What holds it back is the rng, which has increased two-fold since launch, and the non-stop mindless xp mob grinding necessary to stay at the top to compete.

antihero727 wrote: »

MaximillianDiE wrote: »

FireCowCommando wrote: »

For those who laughed at BDO and never looked back, their dev team is currently taking on the tasks of:

1. Redesigning class abilities in regards to utility and damage
2. Changing the Nodewar/siege rules (their first attempt was rebuked by the community so they are in the redesign phase again)
3. Have ALREADY transferred their servers to a more reliable hosting company (uniquely affects PvPer's)
4. Trying to improve the base code to improve both server and client performance

I can't find where ESO developers are on the improvements exactly?

This is not meant to be a pure flame post, honestly. I dont understand how ESO can expect to survive if not just their current competition continues to dwarf them in performance AND gameplay gains, but additional games come into the market?

I played BDO and quite and retried it a few times now - its an AZN gear focused grind game. I already have a job IRL - I don't want another one in my spare time which forces me to grind at something I don't want to do to compete. I'm not going back to it again as none of those changes you list remotely change the fact its a tedious grindfest.

A lot of the people I came into this game with came via DAOC, WAR and immediately before this GW2. I've played since closed beta (Feb 2014). ESO seemed to be the next in line in this pvp focussed tradition and to some extent it is. The sad thing is that probably 90% of the pvpers I came into this game left as a result of the poor performance/lag that arose directly as a result of the lighting patch with the rest leaving gradually over the next few years as a result of a combination of burnout due to frustration about those same issues and the lack of ESO prioritizing that and fixing it. So far, despite a few tweaks and the continual breaking of the meta before it by ZOS the game really isn't any more playable than it was 4 years ago and from a performance perspective its arguably worse.

We brought 50 odd players into this game at launch as an organised guild from GW2 and WAR before that and there's two of us left that I'm aware of. A number of them came back a couple of patches ago but could not get through or abide by having to grind pve levels in the form of CP as although they were really high Alliance Ranks in their time. Moon Die was a legate within 2014 which would have been the equivalent of GO now given how hard it was to get AP compared to now and we had others in guild of similar ranks so it was just too frustrating for them having to spend weeks grinding CP. They had to start in the low hundreds of CP when the thing bringing them back to the game was to try out the pvp again so they said "f this" and stopped playing and I doubt they will ever look at this game again sadly.

The pvp side of this game is dying due to the usual attrition and burn out you get from any mmo with a ridiculously high barrier for those who played it initially getting back to it. ESO has only survived this long because there hasn't been a decent pvp focused game launched since its launch. You can't compare games like BDO, Archeage (or what Blessed Online looks to be like) which are AZN gear focused pve grind fests with a little pvp on the side where you can realistically only pvp if you've grinded sufficiently to compete with the pve'rs equipment wise. While pvper's dabble with those games, they're not playing to spend hours at spawns grinding mobs so all the ones I know have ended up leaving those games too relatively quickly and are floating around fps and battle royals waiting for the next pvp focused mmos.

Sadly, my prediction is that the next truly pvp focused game will kill the pvp side of this game as those of us vets who are left will leave in droves to play again with the people we came into this game with or who we lost to attrition over the past four years as there is a large pvp community out there looking for the next pvp (or largely pvp with a side of pve) focused game. Sadly there really is no way to get them back unless the performance of the client in pvp changes drastically and they make it more accessible to the pvp community who tried this game out at launch in huge numbers and then subsequently gave it away to get back into it. I still get real enjoyment out of the game but I think that's probably too big an ask of ZOS at this stage in the life cycle of this game.

I miss the old days of wabberjack and Hadrus fighting khole. IMO the general spirit of the game was in an accepting place even when we had lag and other buggy factors involved back then. You are right a lot of my old officers now are in FPS or battle royal games atm including myself. Hope to see some of old crews from both sides meet in Camalot again. I just come to the forums to dump salt for my low sodium diet. It’s been 2 months since I logged in with no plans for it in the future. Good luck, the lag and general management of this game finally broke my spirit with a few more people I know quitting every month.

We all miss that, but I don't see it ever returning as the addition of a new class and battlegrounds within Morrowind was the most positive change this game's pvp will ever likely have. People don't want to return to fight over the same meaningless keeps/outposts they did while having much more fun 4 years ago. At this point we'll all see each other, and the many who left long ago, within Crowfall and/or Camelot Unchained in the years to come. I myself will be leaving ESO for good this month heading into Conan Exiles, Bless Online, and then either CU or Crowfall whichever has a playable beta first.

True.

My guild back in the days always had an active group of 12-24 players on during the day and every single evening, it was good fun and it used to be way bigger at launch but only the die-hards stayed and now even they have been gone for well over a year, now there's only a handful left. I can count the active players on my guild and friends list on a single hand. I'm not really bothered with the new MMOs. The new WoW expansion will grab my attention and Mount and Blade: Bannerlord (if it will ever be released).

I decided to give ESO a go again a couple of weeks back after being gone for short year, spent the past couple of evenings in Cyrodiil with 2 guildies/friends of mine and we just ran around with the zergs, not much else to do. It's completely dead aside from the usual zergs between Chalman, Bleakers and Aleswell, BRK, Sejanus and Alessia. Small scale? What's that?

After 4 years there is still constant lag during the evenings, massive delays and skills not working, Sorcerer pets bugging out constantly, low fps (been like that since patch 1.2.4 four years ago) but oh well.

edit: About BDO, most of my guildies and friends that left ESO many years back tried out BDO like most of us, it was honestly a great game with great potential but the never ending grind and rediculous RNG *** it. Would be an amazing game I'd still be playing if it wasn't for that.