Opinion on the Hammer

Dreyloch

Somewhat positive

There are issues. I don't have time to explain. However, in a dead locked campaign, it can turn some keeps over and refresh some staleness. For all those saying it makes more lag? We all know Cyrodiil is eternally laggy. So what's the difference? Your still playing right? No one is making us. IMO it makes for some interesting large scale battles. It changes up the grind of over used paths A.K.A bleakers to chal, alessia to Sej, and Ash to Nikel. That's all I see it doing on CP enabled PC NA. It's rare to see a faction lose a scroll over it, unless it's not theirs to begin with, sitting at a largely unguarded Keep.

Most of the time, the hammer is used to take Emp keeps, or regain some.

fred4

Overwhelmly negative, the hammer should be sent back to Malacath asap, this is one of the worst decisions zos has made

Dreyloch wrote: »

For all those saying it makes more lag? We all know Cyrodiil is eternally laggy. So what's the difference?

You're on PC NA. You don't know lag. I'm serious. Come over to PC EU and watch things turn into a slide show or be booted off the server and unable to reconnect, because your character is located in an overpopulated area of the map. These are the extreme cases, sure, but on average PC EU is worse than NA. I play on both, by the way.

Your still playing right? No one is making us.

What keeps me playing in Cyro is my guild. You form friendships while you're still learning the game and you don't know any better. In the long run that's what keeps you hanging on, not the game.

I personally abscond to IC at prime time. Many people don't know any better or they partly compensate by developing dumbed-down, tanky AOE builds. Even so, there have been occasions where our whole RAID invaded IC, because Cyro became unplayable. I've also heard comments like: "The hammer appears (for blue) and red (our faction) abandons the map. Is this a thing, now?". It seems the red faction has literally gone on strike in some cases.

olsborg

Overall negative

In the very few occasions where it actually ends up helping the underdogs take back a few homekeeps, its nice. But mostly the hammer ends up in the already winning or overpopulated team anyway and they just get an even easier time taking the entire map.

fred4

Overwhelmly negative, the hammer should be sent back to Malacath asap, this is one of the worst decisions zos has made

olsborg wrote: »

In the very few occasions where it actually ends up helping the underdogs take back a few homekeeps, its nice. But mostly the hammer ends up in the already winning or overpopulated team anyway and they just get an even easier time taking the entire map.

Just to elaborate on that, the way to keep the hammer forever is (was?) for the person who holds it to log out / disconnect just before expiry, at which point the timer resets and the hammer can be picked up by another. You can imagine how that's easier for the overpopulated team, who can protect the location at that time.

Sacredx

Somewhat positive

I think that the hammer is a great start. We need to add more relics on the map to offer different bonuses that players can use to enhance the pvp experience. The current hammer can easily fall into the dominating faction resulting in a snowball effect. Maybe some defensive relics that are activated only for those factions that are say down to their 3 base keeps that gives aoe buffs to allies. Also, one relic feels like a huge magnet, if we had 3 at once (limited to one per faction to stop one faction having all of them) that would be much better.

Ahtu

Overwhelmly positive, the addition of the hammer is overall healthy to the game, this is one of the better things zos has done.

At first I didn't like the hammer but with all of the changes they made to the game the hammer is needed to crown emperor as it would be impossible otherwise. I also like how it makes certain guilds who would otherwise go off on their own stack with PUGs. I still wonder if it's too strong for nightcappers, though.

Shanehere

Neutral, I have no real opinion on the hammer

I like to think the idea behind the hammer's implementation was to serve as an equalizer for an alliance who might be down a few keeps and going against an alliance with Emperor, however if the alliance with Emperor gets the hammer, which from my experience seems to end up happening, it becomes pretty gnarly pretty fast for the other alliances.

For this I think they should have disallowed an alliance that currently held Emperor to pick up the Hammer.



The main problems with Cyrodiil that I hear a lot of people express are the amounts of zerging and the poor performance, which I agree wholeheartedly. These two issues go hand-in-hand in that when there are a lot of players in one specific location on the map, the servers get ***. When the hammer is on the map both of these things seem to happen, since the wielder has no healing abilities they rely on others to heal them, and because the hammer is so focused he needs a lot of support, so often big groups are around where the hammer is.

I also think it is important to note the differences in CP and No-CP. The hammer seems way more difficult to handle in CP Cyrodiil, it is harder to fight hordes of players with it and thus harder to survive with it. Hammer wielder vs Emperor in CP, the Emp gets the advantage every time. In No CP it seems a little more equal because players are squishier and have less resources.

Ultimately I think the Hammer was an honest attempt to spice things up in Cyrodiil which is why I'm neutral on it because I appreciate the effort, however I do think the implementation only further impacts the glaring problems in Cyrodiil.



What Cyrodiil needs is a revamp that does not promote mass groupings of multiple raids in single locations: reasons for fights to be all over the map, and not just at the emp keeps. The map is wide and vast and yet there are only 2-3 crossed-sword icons max at a given time in the same locations everyday.

Dojohoda

Overall positive

NVM--Just noticed that there is a conversation on this here -- https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/486276/hammer-timer

Last night on PC NA (Vivec) the guy with the hammer became emperor. I was watching him on twitch and they (the group) did not know if he could become emperor with/still keep the hammer. I didn't know what would happen either, but the hammer stayed on him after he became emperor.

They noted shortly after that being emperor did not increase damage against walls and doors. (the emperor siege mechanic did not apply)

The hammer was active for more than 2 hours and was still active when I logged off to go to sleep. Does anyone know how long the hammer was active last night on PC NA (Vivec)?

A question was brought up-- If a hammer is carried for the entire time (6 hours?), will another one spawn making 2 hammers on the map?

BRogueNZ

Overall negative

Way to easy to change the tide of a well fought battle with a cheap gimmick.

Heimpai

Overall negative

It usually ends up on the side which already has emp and 2x the players..which leads to you losing the tri keeps and being gate camped again

It wouldn’t be bad if the side with more pop/emp couldn’t pick it up

Sharee

Overall positive

Its a fun way to "step on the sandcastle" for a while. I'm fine with it, as long as it does not appear too often and stay too long(which sometimes happens).

Also, to fulfill its intended role (to counter an enemy emp) it should not be possible to pick it up for the emp faction.

KingExecration

I think the only change that needs to happen is fix the spawn. Also don’t just give it to the people with emp bonuses and not let that faction pick it up.

Hashtag_

Overall negative

Ahtu wrote: »

At first I didn't like the hammer but with all of the changes they made to the game the hammer is needed to crown emperor as it would be impossible otherwise. I also like how it makes certain guilds who would otherwise go off on their own stack with PUGs. I still wonder if it's too strong for nightcappers, though.

Stacking large groups of people together is bad for cyrodiil and performance

xylena_lazarow

Overwhelmly negative, the hammer should be sent back to Malacath asap, this is one of the worst decisions zos has made

The hammer is worthless to the outnumbered side and only serves to amplify the power of the largest zerg, enabling the high pop faction to wipe the map in 20 minutes instead of 2 hours.

usmguy1234

Overwhelmly negative, the hammer should be sent back to Malacath asap, this is one of the worst decisions zos has made

Worst zerging tool ever implemented in the game. Could have been fun if zos had bothered to code it to where the emp alliance couldn't get it or it having a greater chance of dropping for the low pop alliances so they could gain momentum.

fred4

Overwhelmly negative, the hammer should be sent back to Malacath asap, this is one of the worst decisions zos has made

The latest instruction from my guild leader, when it spawned for our own faction: Ignore it. No one pick it up. We were the underdogs. Our population was not capped. The leading faction's population was capped. Apparently what happened before was that the leading faction defeated our forces and gained control of the hammer.

A curious thing about it is that you can't heal well, while wielding it. You're relying on your faction to support you. I wonder how that's going to go with the healing changes, next patch.

Enkil

Overwhelmly negative, the hammer should be sent back to Malacath asap, this is one of the worst decisions zos has made

It exacerbates population imbalances and helps zergy and often emp faction because they take it from whoever gets it. It needs lots of controls and restrictions (no porting, emp faction can’t use, etc.) to make it a positive.

josh.lackey_ESO

Overwhelmly negative, the hammer should be sent back to Malacath asap, this is one of the worst decisions zos has made

Get rid of destructible gates and restore the old Alessia bridge while you're at it.

Nowhere to just PvP anymore. Everyone is just bunched up at choke point seigeing each other.

Derra

Overall negative

Every time i´ve seen it so far it was used by someone who procceeded to crown themselves as emp which then resulted in total nonsense.