Upcoming New and Imbalanced Cyrodiil Map Changes (Update 20/Murkmire)

Darkmage1337

As seen on https://www.twitch.tv/videos/304316055## (ZOS's stream revealing the 2018 Q4 Murkmire DLC and Update 20 details)
(Skip to the 21-25 minute-mark into the video for the relevancy of this post and the Cyrodiil map alterations)

Cyrodiil is getting some pretty interesting changes in Murkmire/Update 20:
-The 3 capturable towns are now attached/connected to the Transidus Fast-Travel Network, fair.
-3 destructible Bridges, 6 destructible Mile-Gates. (All 9 breeches are now destructible, fair.)
-3 new Outposts, attached to the outer 3 Keeps. (Drakelowe, Dragonclaw, and Brindle.)

But -- the placement of 1 of these 3 new Outposts is questionable/poorly-designed, compared to the other 2, which are even/fair.

EP sort-of gets screwed over, because DC now gets 2 Outposts at EP's 3 mile-gates and AD now gets 2 Outposts near DC's 3 mile-gates; but, EP gets only one Outpost, and one Town, near AD's 3 mile-gates (of which EP already had in the first place.)
Outposts are far superior than Towns, especially when it comes to defending. Towns are easily flipped by zergs and over-taken, whereas Outposts require sieging and are actually defendable, unlike their Town counterparts.

Examine and analyze this picture:


Cheydinhal, a current non-capturable town (slightly above the new EP Outpost in the picture) should have been EP's capturable Town, and the current area of Cropsford should have been EP's new Outpost. Then the Cyrodiil PvP map would have been completely symmetrical/even, all 3-ways.
EP's new Outpost is largely useless, strategically, compared to AD & DC's new Outposts.
Chorrol (DC) and Cheydinhal (EP) Towns are not-capturable, which make them useless.
And Vlastrus is completely in AD territory, whereas Bruma and Cropsford are both at half-way points, arguably.

TL;DR? Put it this way:
At DC's 3 mile-gates, AD gets 2 Outposts (Nikel Outpost + new Outpost), and DC gets their Fort Ash.
At EP's 3 mile-gates, DC gets 2 Outposts (Bleaker's Outpost + new Outpost), and EP gets their Chalman Keep.
At AD's 3 mile-gates, EP gets 1 Outpost (Sejanus Outpost + nothing), and AD gets their Castle Alessia.

On the picture above, Cheydinhal (noncapturable town) is slighty above where the new EP Outpost is.
If Cheydinhal were a capturable town, and area by Cropsford was the 'new EP Outpost,' then the Cyrodiil map would be more fair/even/symmetrical, all 3 ways.
Not to mention, players can swim across narrow parts of the AD-EP river and survive the slaughterfish to get to the other side. This makes the 3 bridges/choke-points less useful. On the other hand, there is absolutely no mountain-climbing paths or cave-system to by-pass the 3 DC-EP and 3 AD-DC Mile-Gate choke-points, but you can swim to by-pass the AD-EP choke-points.

Is there any chance of re-examination and/or design-reversal? @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom
Make Cheydinhal into a capturable-town and an area near Cropsford into an Outpost (make Cropsford into a noncapturable town again, like Chorrol). EP would then have 2 Outposts at the 3 breeches, just like AD and DC both respectively do.

Enkil

Darkmage1337 wrote: »

Cheydinhal, a current non-capturable town (slightly above the new EP Outpost in the picture) should have been EP's capturable Town, and the current area of Cropsford should have been EP's new Outpost. Then the Cyrodiil PvP map would have been completely symmetrical/even, all 3-ways.

This is extremely obvious and I truly hope ZOS makes this switch before pushing it out.

NirnStorm

ZOS actually mentioned in the stream you so kindly linked that the only true reason these outposts are being created is Cropsford itself. Since EP had such an easier access to the distant bridges, they needed to create new objectives for the other alliances to be able to access the distant milegates as easily, and that is why the outposts were created.

Judging by the transit lines on the map, I'd assume you should be able to port from towns back to keeps starting with the murkmire update, and so despite the fact this change puts EP in a slight tactical disadvantage (town < outpost) I do believe it was a good change that ZOS did.

dtsharples

They should just swap the Cropsford and new Outpost position - Cropsford was always in a dumb place.

Morgul667

I think we will survive ^^

gepe87

dtsharples wrote: »

They should just swap the Cropsford and new Outpost position - Cropsford was always in a dumb place.

Seems fair. But ZOS don't want to spend time to redefining Crops.

NBrookus

I think the additions are good because it will definately bring more action to Drake/Dragon, which are already pretty good places to fight, and Bruma tends to not get enough action so maybe now it will.

DC has a strategic advantage on this map with Warden being so remote from enemy respawn, but AD/EP looks balanced. Sure, AD can snake Crops fast and head to Drake, but EP can now port from that outpost instead of the long long ride from Sej.

Dreyloch

I'll add that even though DC gets a new outpost near those EP gates in the north, it's still not the easiest area to traverse. I'm sure many players will still get screwed up trying to get thru all that mountainous terrain. I guess we'll see when it hits PTS how "takeable" these outposts are. Forget which it was, but they said one of them is on a hill. That will probabaly be the next "crying point" =/

lygerseye

They showed a “goat bridge” over the river and mentioned tunnels up north that allow you passage even if the bridges & milegates are destroyed.

IxSTALKERxI

I think DC benefit the most from the changes as they have milegates on both fronts, and no river. With proper organisation they could hold back team orange with only 30 people. (12 per goat path, 1 per gate to keep it tagged with siege.)

ErMurazor

DC comes out on top with this map. It Will be so much easier to defend DCside

Enkil

By definition an outpost is on the outlying frontier border region. That planned new outpost sitting way deep in EP territory is not serving its purpose. No military engineer in their right mind would build one there. Nor would the rulers approve and fund such an ill-devised construction there while leaving a border town open to attack on on multiple fronts.

The fact that the border between EP-AD is a river crossed by bridges and the other two are mountainous with gates provides plenty of geographic diversity that matches the Cyrodiil topography that existed before ESO was a game.

This is not even on PTS yet, so I would think they can copy and paste an outpost, just as all of the current keeps, outposts and tri-keeps are just copy and paste versions of the same base structures. It is a glaring and obvious imbalance and the time to point it out is now, before it has a chance to make it to live.

I get what you are saying about the zerging, excuses, and what-not but those are irrelevant player behavior issues that have nothing to do with game design and balance.

Wing

I like how they finally admitted EP had an advantage over AD and that's why the outpost is interior instead of exterior, something smarter AD have pointed out forever.

cannot wait to finally destroy Alessia bridge.

Dyride

Enkil wrote: »

By definition an outpost is on the outlying frontier border region. That planned new outpost sitting way deep in EP territory is not serving its purpose. No military engineer in their right mind would build one there. Nor would the rulers approve and fund such an ill-devised construction there while leaving a border town open to attack on on multiple fronts.

None of the keep placements make sense based on the topography if you want to go that far.

Dyride

The reason the outpost is going there is to prevent a huge dead spot in EPs southern territory. I get what you mean about Cheydinhal as being a better location but it had more buildings and the destroyed keep which I guess they didn't want to mess with.

Wing

that being said, I do hope they keep adding things to fight over. and the fact that they are supporting cyrodill at all is a god send.

Chaos2088

Yeah can see your point of where the outposts on EP side are not matching with the other two, but they cannot move the location of the town due to lore I suppose as that would open the flood gates of them getting abuse from the community of changes things about the lore/layout of the world to suit games changes...

It is a catch 22 moment.

But they are adding new pathways to get to other alliances zones, and by the look of it from the video the one between AD and EP is the only one that is going to be "open" as in not a cave.

It comes out on PTS soon so we will all have a look.

Darkmage1337

NBrookus wrote: »

I think the additions are good because it will definately bring more action to Drake/Dragon, which are already pretty good places to fight, and Bruma tends to not get enough action so maybe now it will.

DC has a strategic advantage on this map with Warden being so remote from enemy respawn, but AD/EP looks balanced. Sure, AD can snake Crops fast and head to Drake, but EP can now port from that outpost instead of the long long ride from Sej.

The new EP Outpost is attached to Drakelowe Keep, so if AD 'snakes Cropsford' and then immediately flags Drakelowe there-afterwards (which we know they will), then the new EP Outpost would be useless because EP players would not be able to port to the new Outpost to go defend Drakelowe since the Transit runs through Drakelowe itself. Again, a disadvantage. EP would still have to transit to Sejanus Outpost to get to Drakelowe (unless you blood-port to the new EP Outpost and go from there, but that would be more inconvenient and unrealistic to do every single time Drakelowe ever gets flagged, which would be more frequent, given how easy it is to take a Town [Cropsford] versus an Outpost [Sejanus]). Also, the new EP Outpost seems to be the same distance to Drakelowe as Sejanus already is.

Dyride wrote: »

The reason the outpost is going there is to prevent a huge dead spot in EPs southern territory. I get what you mean about Cheydinhal as being a better location but it had more buildings and the destroyed keep which I guess they didn't want to mess with.

What about the HUGE dead-spot on DC's side, between Fort Warden and Fort Dragonclaw? DC's new Outpost could have easily been inward-facing like EP's, and could have been placed between Fort Warden and Fort Dragonclaw on the left/west-side, instead -- because there is literally no objective and therefore no action in that huge gap there on DC's side.

--

Again, I am simply just thoroughly analyzing the map and making counter-points. No faction/campaign/server politics involved here. I am excited for all the new Cyrodiil re-vamp changes (bridges/mile-gates destructibility, 'goat-paths,' etc.)
BUT my ideal, perfect vision for Cyrodiil, with all of the new changes, would have simply been the addition to make Cheydinhal into EP's capturable-Town to match AD's Vlastrus and DC's Bruma (Cheydinhal, Vlastrus, and Bruma -- these 3 Towns point-to-point-to-point on the Cyrodiil map make a pretty equilateral-triangle -- just like any of the triangles mirrored and created between any given 3 Keeps/Forts/Castles.

Cropsford has plenty of flat-land around it for ZOS to have easily 'pasted' an Outpost placement over there somewhere nearby. Cropsford also should have never been a capturable-Town to begin with due to it being so close to the 3 Bridges. Cropsford is literally 3 buildings and vast, open farm-land. Cheydinhal has several more buildings, like Bruma, and a giant wall, also like Bruma, and it made for better small-scale fights due to the 'street-fighting-like nature of its layout, again, like Bruma. Cropsford did not and does not. It has zero strategic and defensible value.

Cropsford should be discarded and turned into a non-capturable Town (like DC's Chorrol and AD's Hackdirt non-captureable Towns -- both of which have more buildings and a better layout for PvP game-play than Cropsford does), not to mention that it simply makes more sense balance-wise, design-wise, and gameplay-wise, according to the overall layout of the map. I just don't see how the ZOS PvP Devs could have missed this.

Cropsford is not at all defendable as a Town and will easily and constantly be taken by AD that travel the new 'goat-path' by the Skyshard in the river there. If it were an Outpost, or had an Outpost nearby it, like the other two alliances both get, then it would be fair, formidable, and defendable; otherwise, Cropsford is just a free objective to be taken/given away. Unless those farmers, you know, decided to build a wall.

Xsorus

So if you destroy the mile gates you can’t actually pass through them?

WaltherCarraway

Map seems fine for me also I believe lots of us are ready for challenge

Darkmage1337

WaltherCarraway wrote: »

Map seems fine for me also I believe lots of us are ready for challenge

AD's new Outpost faces DC. DC's new Outpost faces EP.
EP's new Outpost faces EP.

Do you see the discrepancy now?

Sacredx

From my experience, towns are less popular than outposts and I don't know about others but if I had a zerg the last thing I'd be doing is capping a town with it. It's a drain on manpower and doesn't make sense, a keep is far more appropriate.

From my experience town battles usually consist of a small number of players as you do not need to siege, so any 1, 2 man or small group can do it. Outposts, even with walls, can be taken very quickly and very easily. One layer with low hp is very easy to siege, even 1 ram is usually enough to sneak an outpost before the other faction can react.

The argument of gates vs bridges in terms of access is a valid one. Right now players and groups can choose to skip the bridge just by swimming across next to it. Going through gates has only 1 point of access. So this may need to be looked at. I don't know how destroyed gates/bridges will work, but if they block access completely then the bridge bypass is certainly going to come into affect and this is something the devs need to assess.

Overall, I think the changes will bring a bit of fresh air to the map, which is always good to see.

Darkmage1337

Sacredx wrote: »

From my experience, towns are less popular than outposts and I don't know about others but if I had a zerg the last thing I'd be doing is capping a town with it. It's a drain on manpower and doesn't make sense, a keep is far more appropriate.

From my experience town battles usually consist of a small number of players as you do not need to siege, so any 1, 2 man or small group can do it. Outposts, even with walls, can be taken very quickly and very easily. One layer with low hp is very easy to siege, even 1 ram is usually enough to sneak an outpost before the other faction can react.

The argument of gates vs bridges in terms of access is a valid one. Right now players and groups can choose to skip the bridge just by swimming across next to it. Going through gates has only 1 point of access. So this may need to be looked at. I don't know how destroyed gates/bridges will work, but if they block access completely then the bridge bypass is certainly going to come into affect and this is something the devs need to assess.

Overall, I think the changes will bring a bit of fresh air to the map, which is always good to see.

On https://www.twitch.tv/videos/304316055## at 22:30, PvP Lead @ZOS_BrianWheeler states that the Bridges/Mile-Gates do take friendly-fire siege damage, and that there will new repair kits specifically for repairing the bridge/mile-gate destructibility.

Sacredx

Darkmage1337 wrote: »

Sacredx wrote: »

From my experience, towns are less popular than outposts and I don't know about others but if I had a zerg the last thing I'd be doing is capping a town with it. It's a drain on manpower and doesn't make sense, a keep is far more appropriate.

From my experience town battles usually consist of a small number of players as you do not need to siege, so any 1, 2 man or small group can do it. Outposts, even with walls, can be taken very quickly and very easily. One layer with low hp is very easy to siege, even 1 ram is usually enough to sneak an outpost before the other faction can react.

The argument of gates vs bridges in terms of access is a valid one. Right now players and groups can choose to skip the bridge just by swimming across next to it. Going through gates has only 1 point of access. So this may need to be looked at. I don't know how destroyed gates/bridges will work, but if they block access completely then the bridge bypass is certainly going to come into affect and this is something the devs need to assess.

Overall, I think the changes will bring a bit of fresh air to the map, which is always good to see.

On https://www.twitch.tv/videos/304316055## at 22:30, PvP Lead @ZOS_BrianWheeler states that the Bridges/Mile-Gates do take friendly-fire siege damage, and that there will new repair kits specifically for repairing the bridge/mile-gate destructibility.

Yea, we will have to see the mechanics of how it all works. Can you repair while there is siege hitting it? If not, whats the timer before repair? How fast can they be destroyed / rebuilt. Friendly siege damage leads to no more farming by an organised group? We will have to see all these details to make an informed judgement.

Darkmage1337

Sacredx wrote: »

Darkmage1337 wrote: »

Sacredx wrote: »

From my experience, towns are less popular than outposts and I don't know about others but if I had a zerg the last thing I'd be doing is capping a town with it. It's a drain on manpower and doesn't make sense, a keep is far more appropriate.

From my experience town battles usually consist of a small number of players as you do not need to siege, so any 1, 2 man or small group can do it. Outposts, even with walls, can be taken very quickly and very easily. One layer with low hp is very easy to siege, even 1 ram is usually enough to sneak an outpost before the other faction can react.

The argument of gates vs bridges in terms of access is a valid one. Right now players and groups can choose to skip the bridge just by swimming across next to it. Going through gates has only 1 point of access. So this may need to be looked at. I don't know how destroyed gates/bridges will work, but if they block access completely then the bridge bypass is certainly going to come into affect and this is something the devs need to assess.

Overall, I think the changes will bring a bit of fresh air to the map, which is always good to see.

On https://www.twitch.tv/videos/304316055## at 22:30, PvP Lead @ZOS_BrianWheeler states that the Bridges/Mile-Gates do take friendly-fire siege damage, and that there will new repair kits specifically for repairing the bridge/mile-gate destructibility.

Yea, we will have to see the mechanics of how it all works. Can you repair while there is siege hitting it? If not, whats the timer before repair? How fast can they be destroyed / rebuilt. Friendly siege damage leads to no more farming by an organised group? We will have to see all these details to make an informed judgement.

Yeah, I know. I don't know how much health the 3 Bridges/6 Mile-Gates will have. I'm sure it'll be the same value for all 9 of them. My concern isn't the Bridges/Mile-Gates at all, even despite players being able to avoid the Bridges entirely and swim across the Niben River at numerous narrow points.

Aside from that, here is the "New Alessian Bridge," as @ZOS_BrianWheeler puts it. At the Lunar Fang docks, southwest of Cropsford. Lmao.

WaltherCarraway

Darkmage1337 wrote: »

WaltherCarraway wrote: »

Map seems fine for me also I believe lots of us are ready for challenge

AD's new Outpost faces DC. DC's new Outpost faces EP.
EP's new Outpost faces EP.

Do you see the discrepancy now?

Just chill we haven't seen this placement on PTS at this moment btw I'm not blind.

gabriebe

I mean DC has had the disadvantage of Aleswell being in a damn pit where EP could sweep in at any time, same with Bleakers where you can just get siege from up top a massive ledge with an obvious chokepoint, so I do not mind them getting this big eff you outpost near their trikeeps lol

TequilaFire

So all AD has to do now is destroy the bridges to protect their area from EP now.
Same for EP, never ending bridge fights. lol
Argonians will have advantage.

CatchMeTrolling

All of this sounds nice and I’m sure it’ll have its fun moments but there’s still one underlining issue with cyrodiil. EMPERORSHIP. You can add as many objectives and destructible areas , but as long as the emperor system remains the same cyrodiil will remain the same.

NBrookus

I just realized something -- are the X and ! icons to show "destroyed" and "under attack"?

Gilvoth

i LOVE this!
man i hope this stays Exactly the same as that map is showing.
it's PERFECT!
made this man very happy