Is ESO PvP Any Good in 2018?

JackDaniell

I have allot to say so I hope you guys enjoy the commentary/footage!

https://youtu.be/NEozudAMCyg

I would love to hear what you guys think about PvP in 2018! What do you guys like/dislike and what would you guys like to see in the future?

FloppyTouch

I'd like to play and not have to hit long load screens every port or random load screens in the middle of a fight

Vapirko

I’ll have a watch, but I gotta say I’ve had one BGs match since Summerset where no one was using Sloads, Zaan or both. ONE. ZOS has pushed the ceiling way down and brought the floor way up, and the people who actually try to get good at PvP are just getting smashed in the middle. You’ve got the really good players who can still lay waste to anyone in their 4-8 man groups and that’s awesome, but for those of us without that many good players or who aren’t at that level yet it’s really tough. We wanna 2vX or whatever and it does happen fairly regularly, but the odds are against us and I don’t mean the numbers. The power of abilities right now is insane and zergs or pug groups can just slot a couple and spam them because they don’t need to think about survival, it’s overwhelm or nothing for them. I went back into Cyro the other day for the first time since Summerset and it’s just PvBubbles. Whole groups seemed to permablock and spam bubbles until their ults came up, usually a destro ult. My buddy and I were able to deal with maybe 10 of them and guards by really trying and being strategic, but it’s just to the point where we have to really work our asses off while people just stand their protected by passive shields and damage reduction, and can push out massive healing + healing reductions and all kinds of other effects by barely doing anything, not to mention half the people wearing Sloads.

Gnozo

I like the pvp in this game. But it could be muuuuuuuuuch better without horrifying lag and this proc set meta. Removal of proc sets from pvp and really working on the Performance of the game and server would push the game to the number one pvp MMORPG

Feanor

It depends on what you are looking for. If you accept there’s going to be a lot of lag and that your character doesn’t always do what you want it to do at the time you need it, and are oblivious (pun intended) of PvP being less and less skill based and more and more gear driven, you can have a lot of fun still, especially in a group of friends.

If you run solo or look for the competitive side it’s probably going to disappoint you. A lot. Personally I still like it, but that’s mostly because I have shifted my approach. I have decided to not bother any longer about the shortcomings and just try to have fun as much as possible.

Voxicity

Lag and ball groups ruin PvP

TheValar85

Nope PVP is a mess in this game

Jameliel

Lots of lag, load screens, random disconnects, abilities not firing, getting stuck in flat terrain for no reason with inability to cast or do anything. Long list of bugs and performance issues. When not being overwhelmed with these ongoing issues, yeah pvp can be fun in this game.

Rohamad_Ali

I've been watching your videos since release and it has been a long strange journey with PvP in ESO . You Jack have been a candle in the dark through out all of it , spreading knowledge and helpfulness to the community . Thank you Jack Daniels for sticking with the game !

Everything you stated in the video was exactly my thoughts of late . There is but one true enemy to ESO Cyrodiil .... LAG . I think we've tried everything to alleviate it with little success . Graphic patches , player cap reductions , NPC removals , Frimdly player visual suppression , LoS Checks , AOE cap removals , Proc set removals and changes .... All the way down to insect fumigation and the extinction of the Cyrodiil torch bug lol . NO SOLUTIONS YET ?!? Yes it's true . If it was my baby I just throw out all the servers and buy new ones because why not ?! Everything else has been tried over an over to nauseam .

Anyways who ever solves that will get a Nobel prize .

Everything thing else brought up , balance , 1vX Xv1 , diversity and enjoyability , I share your POV Jack .

Bhaal5

I miss the....
Structured server based competition
Lag free fights (small to large groups)
Weekly tier'd match ups

Oh wait, wrong game its been dead and stale for years.

NinchiTV

I went into cyrodiil for the first time in a long time yesterday and went to Chal for the good old cluster *** it is and it was literally freezing my screen and had worse lag now before summerset. So i just laughed and went back to pve. BGs are way more fun and actually playable. Pvp needs some thing new, cause after i got my GO i stopped caring about pvp, ive done it for 3 years, we need something to really refresh it. Like adding another part of cyrodiil and making it it's own thing.

kerthas

If ZOS start a competitive bgs, or another mode which with they make an elo rank, league rank, same system like moba. I think that would be one of the best possibly pvp ever seen in the video game history.

Right now the best pvp i ever found is bgs. And yes as solo queuing (no i'm not using sload or zaan), and specially as premade. When you have a team with each specific role and build, and you face team with the same lvl, its fun AF. Srsly this is where the bgs pvp hl start.
But there is not enough people playing (30 min of queue as premade), thats why they need to make a competitve mod.

And for cyrodiil, its just good for farming ap. Nothing more, its just such a mess, laggy as hell. You can have fun with a smallscale group or a warband, but solo its almost impossible. Not anymore. At least on Vivec.
On shor its more playable, but damn, where are the opponant player? every time i go in there, i hardly meet some1.

HeathenDeacon

GHOST OP.



can't wait to watch! thanks jack!

Vapirko

Well, after watching, while I obviously agree with most of your points I do have to disagree with your views on oblivion damage. You discuss shield stacking sorcs, well sure they were a big problem in the past but for the most part these days shield stacking isn’t really that effective IF you want to be effective player against anyone with a decent amount of skill. Most of the shield stacking sorcs I see really just prolong their death. Having recently leveled and come to enjoy mag sorc play over the past few weeks (after playing every stamina class), oblivion damage is fine but Sloads is another matter and while it might be good to have against those select few cheese builds that exist it primarily is jsut OP against a normal, open world mag sorc build. I’ve played with slotting a heal from the resto staff which works ok but ultimately you end up giving up important skills, and it’s not a trade off so much as it is altering your build to deal with one set and imo that’s not balanced. And it’s the same sort of argument in terms of defile and in some cases bleeds. Although imo none of those hurts as much as Sloads on a mag sorc. Even Magblades have hot damage skills that make it easier to deal with that set. There’s no counterplay against it for a mag sorc. To say that shields have no counterplay isn’t really true either, since technically all damage and CC contribute to bringing down shields and their is CP specifically designed to deal extra damage to shields. And the ease and accessibility of procing sloads is too great. But otherwise all good points.

Vaoh

Feanor wrote: »

It depends on what you are looking for. If you accept there’s going to be a lot of lag and that your character doesn’t always do what you want it to do at the time you need it, and are oblivious (pun intended) of PvP being less and less skill based and more and more gear driven, you can have a lot of fun still, especially in a group of friends.

If you run solo or look for the competitive side it’s probably going to disappoint you. A lot. Personally I still like it, but that’s mostly because I have shifted my approach. I have decided to not bother any longer about the shortcomings and just try to have fun as much as possible.

100% agree

DoTHurts

I am loving BGs! I am in Aus and my ping, at best, is 370 which makes things very interesting. I die a lot, but as a mag sorc (without a decent setup yet) I can burst a few people down if I catch them sleeping which is great fun. I also have limited time to play, so I love the short and sweet nature of it. It can be a bit boring if you come up against an organised group that just pound you from everywhere, but the rounds are short so it's over soon enough.

Much more fun than grinding...

Cuthceol

I'd like the game to actually play the way it's supposed to,
I'd like to know what know that what's happening is what's supposed to be happening and not find out that aspect of the game everyone's been using for years was in fact a bug that the devs somehow didn't know about,
I'd like support to actually know what they're talking about instead of sending me to forums or wiki in the hopes I'll find the answer they haven't got,



ps. I'm aware all games have bugs(fact everyone accepts this is even more worrying lol) but not ones that last YEARS!

TheInfernalRage

I think, setting aside network stability issues...

For PVP to be skill driven, I think ZOS should disable all gear sets and champion points while in all PVP zones. That way it doesn't matter what you wear, it doesn't matter what CP you have, you must learn how to fight and survive. Let gear and CP grinding be a thing for PVE players and let the PVP players enjoy a Dark Souls environment where one mistake can mean death. If you're not skilled enough, then die.

Also, while in a PVP zone, players should have standardized health, magicka and stamina. All these in order to amplify the difference between the classes and how much can your set of selected skills matter on what role you are supposed to be playing.

These should also apply in 1v1 duels.

And of course: Resource objectives and fortresses/barracks should not be solo-able. Those who are guarding towers should be strong enough to repel anyone who will attempt to enter. Resources should only be doable under strict team tactics.

Koensol

To be honest, I am VERY close to quitting this game. Summerset has completely ruined any fun that was left in the game for me. And it was already quite rare to really have fun anymore with ridiculous proc sets, to befoul, to snare spam, cost poisons, dumb unavoidable damage and god knows what. After the patch that nerfed viper and the other proc sets I had faith that ZOS finally saw their own error and that they were pushing in the right direction.

Then came Dragon Bones and Summerset and they made a complete 180. Summerset especially has completely unhinged the game in my opinion. Damage has been increased overall to a ridiculous level. Pre SS I actually had fun in BG's, right now it isn't rare to get destroyed within 2 seconds when attacked by 2 players when you have +24k resists and minor maim. Damage is just so high across the boat, in no CP you are just *** when outnumbered right now, especially with all the sloads and zaan cancer going around.

From what I see in BG's is that the possibilities of defensive play has been drastically decreased. It is either nuke the other guy with an ult before he does or before his friends come, or you run. That is what the game has become. TTK is at an all time low since one tamriel and it is ruining the game. So many deaths right now are inevitable and no amount of skillful play will save you.

Datthaw

The state of the game in general is *** poor. And it boils down to performance, everyone nows this, even pve is feeling this now. Zos need to do something before there is a mass exodus.

Strider__Roshin

I think as far as whiskeys go Jameson > Jack Daniel.

As far as PvP goes, the game is very anti-medium armor. This is something that continuously gets under my skin that I don't see ever changing in the future. I still enjoy the PvP overall though. A good change would be to make it so damaging proc sets do not affect players, and snakes blood reduces the affects of poisons applied to you. That would alleviate a lot of the issues about ESO's PvP.

DoonerSeraph

I think ZOS goofed in the start when they let clients handle calculations and (obviously) people started cheating.(Meteor shower fiasco anyone?)

Then they hastily moved that load to the "megaserver" who cant handle it properly, and then we are stuck in this situation.

JumpmanLane

Vapirko wrote: »

I’ll have a watch, but I gotta say I’ve had one BGs match since Summerset where no one was using Sloads, Zaan or both. ONE. ZOS has pushed the ceiling way down and brought the floor way up, and the people who actually try to get good at PvP are just getting smashed in the middle. You’ve got the really good players who can still lay waste to anyone in their 4-8 man groups and that’s awesome, but for those of us without that many good players or who aren’t at that level yet it’s really tough. We wanna 2vX or whatever and it does happen fairly regularly, but the odds are against us and I don’t mean the numbers. The power of abilities right now is insane and zergs or pug groups can just slot a couple and spam them because they don’t need to think about survival, it’s overwhelm or nothing for them. I went back into Cyro the other day for the first time since Summerset and it’s just PvBubbles. Whole groups seemed to permablock and spam bubbles until their ults came up, usually a destro ult. My buddy and I were able to deal with maybe 10 of them and guards by really trying and being strategic, but it’s just to the point where we have to really work our asses off while people just stand their protected by passive shields and damage reduction, and can push out massive healing + healing reductions and all kinds of other effects by barely doing anything, not to mention half the people wearing Sloads.

I’m lucky. I fell in with some really good beta players who duel a lot and 1vX and small group. They farm still resource farm all these sload wearing Zerglings, business as usual.

I was 2vxing with a beta gal and we camped the entrance of a keep and killed a half dozen or so who came out, seemingly thinking they were safe since the keep wasnt flagged. Lured a few to the resource and wiped them too. Flagged the keep from the resource and snuck around ganging some. Loads of fun.

Feanor

Daus wrote: »

I think as far as whiskeys go Jameson > Jack Daniel.

As far as PvP goes, the game is very anti-medium armor. This is something that continuously gets under my skin that I don't see ever changing in the future. I still enjoy the PvP overall though. A good change would be to make it so damaging proc sets do not affect players, and snakes blood reduces the affects of poisons applied to you. That would alleviate a lot of the issues about ESO's PvP.

I actually agree with you here.

Etaniel

TheInfernalRage wrote: »

I think, setting aside network stability issues...

For PVP to be skill driven, I think ZOS should disable all gear sets and champion points while in all PVP zones. That way it doesn't matter what you wear, it doesn't matter what CP you have, you must learn how to fight and survive. Let gear and CP grinding be a thing for PVE players and let the PVP players enjoy a Dark Souls environment where one mistake can mean death. If you're not skilled enough, then die.

Also, while in a PVP zone, players should have standardized health, magicka and stamina. All these in order to amplify the difference between the classes and how much can your set of selected skills matter on what role you are supposed to be playing.

These should also apply in 1v1 duels.

And of course: Resource objectives and fortresses/barracks should not be solo-able. Those who are guarding towers should be strong enough to repel anyone who will attempt to enter. Resources should only be doable under strict team tactics.

Streamlining the hp/mana/stam by removing gear etc completelmy removes the rock paper scissors aspect of the game. Also I feel like it's far from the idea that most people expect from an mmo. Because pvp isn't only about fighting, it's about strategizing beforehand by theorycrafting your build, and for my part, farming the right gear is part of the fun of building your character for pvp.

What you could have is implement some BGS with thoses rules, that would be fine because you also control the amount of players. It's pointless to streamline open world gear because you can't control the numbers in each engagement anyways.

JackDaniell wrote: »

I have allot to say so I hope you guys enjoy the commentary/footage!

https://youtu.be/NEozudAMCyg

I would love to hear what you guys think about PvP in 2018! What do you guys like/dislike and what would you guys like to see in the future?

I agree with most of what you say here, especially the lag part of course, and the fact that it affects smaller groups and solo players a lot more than large groups and zergs. In a situation of heavy lag, if the solo player can't weave properly and cast each spell effectively, he's dead. While in a ball group, if one healer fails to cast that healing spring, it's not a big deal because one of the other 3 healers can get one out.

When you talk about being zerged by 20 players, and brush it off as being somewhat a success since you've pulled 20 people from a siege... That kinda triggers me.
First of all, I think it's irrelevant because most people don't give a crap about winning the campaign, so failing a siege to chase down one player really isn't a big deal for them.
Second of all , even if they give a crap, we still have a nightcap problem which renders fighing for the campaign completely useless, as however well you fight, someone is gonna paint the map one colour when every one else sleeps or works. And that happens because in off hours, people would rather go to a second campaign and pvdoor there rather than face the other faction in the first campaign, resulting in multiple campaigns being painted different colours. So in the end, that 20 player group chases down solo players just to be a nuisance. (or because they're frustrated of being farmed all the time by ball groups and efficient small scalers and they take it out on solos?) So it just adds more frustration to an already frustrating game experience in lag, and I'm having a harder time smiling after getting stomped by 10 times our numbers.

Swifty trait won't help you vs 20 people when these people can mount and chase you while you can only run.

Ultimately, the lag issue will never be fixed by a technical patch. Zos engineers either have no solution, or no funds to look into it, as the pvp playerbase is too small to create a profit. So they should look at the cheaper alternative, which is encouraging a change in player behaviours. And I really really believe that smaller group sizes would do wonders for the game.

Large stacks of people are the main cause of server load, and efficient ball groups are the main reason why pugs stack in huge faction zergs. How many times have I seen my ping drop from 300 back to normal as soon as a ball group that was farming in a keep wipes.
Smaller groups would also limit the number of times you get chases by 20 players, because if they're not all grouped, they don't have that little crutch on the map that tells them where all the zerg is running to, which is what happens most of the time when you get chased like that. You've got 3 people who actually saw you, and the rest following everyone else without knowing what they're chasing or how many.

King_Thelon

C U beta in 26 days boys

Own

Vapirko wrote: »

I’ll have a watch, but I gotta say I’ve had one BGs match since Summerset where no one was using Sloads, Zaan or both. ONE. ZOS has pushed the ceiling way down and brought the floor way up, and the people who actually try to get good at PvP are just getting smashed in the middle. You’ve got the really good players who can still lay waste to anyone in their 4-8 man groups and that’s awesome, but for those of us without that many good players or who aren’t at that level yet it’s really tough. We wanna 2vX or whatever and it does happen fairly regularly, but the odds are against us and I don’t mean the numbers. The power of abilities right now is insane and zergs or pug groups can just slot a couple and spam them because they don’t need to think about survival, it’s overwhelm or nothing for them. I went back into Cyro the other day for the first time since Summerset and it’s just PvBubbles. Whole groups seemed to permablock and spam bubbles until their ults came up, usually a destro ult. My buddy and I were able to deal with maybe 10 of them and guards by really trying and being strategic, but it’s just to the point where we have to really work our asses off while people just stand their protected by passive shields and damage reduction, and can push out massive healing + healing reductions and all kinds of other effects by barely doing anything, not to mention half the people wearing Sloads.

I'm glad I read this. You're right, the people in the middle are screwed. I have a hard enough time solo now in cyro, it's gotta be impossible now for the middleground/players trying to get better. The skill floor came up soooooo much. Magsorcs are doing insane damage with thier unchanged 5k penetration light armor passives. It's crazy how much damage they do. Oops, nerf sorc thread

@ZOS_GinaBruno

PvP isn't fun with when you need 1 defensive set to barely be able to survive, 1 proc set to do damage for you. ZoS raised the skill floor too much.

Sylosi

Vapirko wrote: »

I’ve played with slotting a heal from the resto staff which works ok but ultimately you end up giving up important skills, and it’s not a trade off so much as it is altering your build to deal with one set and imo that’s not balanced. And it’s the same sort of argument in terms of defile and in some cases bleeds. Although imo none of those hurts as much as Sloads on a mag sorc. Even Magblades have hot damage skills that make it easier to deal with that set. There’s no counterplay against it for a mag sorc. To say that shields have no counterplay isn’t really true either, since technically all damage and CC contribute to bringing down shields and their is CP specifically designed to deal extra damage to shields. And the ease and accessibility of procing sloads is too great. But otherwise all good points.

Not really, Sload's is just a band-aid response to completely imbalanced things like shield stacking, permablocking, etc, the idea that non-critable shields that scale off the same resource you also want for damage (one of which returns that resource) that you can stack, allowing you to go the bare minimum into things like resistances, is 'balanced" with plenty of counterplay is absolutely laughable, it speaks volumes about the type of player that is typical of the ESO playerbase that people would even suggest that is balanced.

As for people using the CP, I see we have the typical hypocrisy, you won't replace one skill to deal with a soft counter to your build, yet you expect other people to alter their build in CP to deal with your imbalanced shield stacking, absolutely laughable...

Serjustin19

PvP would be so awesome, if we could buy all those empty Cyrodiil Homes. I wonder if PvPer would camp, like they did with Imperial City Launch. I love PvP nothing else to change.

VexingArcanist

TL;DR(W)

'Defend Sloads cause I made a Sloads build on PTS and I find it balanced.'

Aebaradath

My biggest turn-off about PvP is the unabated lag-fest and loading screen galore.

I'm about to blow a gasket over here.