Volendrung and Emperor Faction

ShenaniganSquad

When the news of the artifact first came out, the panel said it was designed as a counter for the other factions to Emperor, that the emperor would not be able to pick it up, however, a faction having emp doesnt stop the emperor's group picking it up.. its completely soul destroying to have fought against an Emp for hours on end, claw back keeps, work hard, feel like you achieved something and then BAM emp group has hammer and in under ten mins you lose everything you worked hours to achieve, especially when there is a low pop on the map. This has to stop. The faction with emperor should not be able to have the hammer, it should only drop on the opposing two factions side. @ZOS_BrianWheeler you need to do something about this because its too much for a faction to have Emp AND the artifact

Enkil

The vast majority agree. Just retire it as some passing anomaly and send it back to Oblivion, only to possibly return in some trial or other PvE environment.

How fun is it to scratch together the few players that are to gain ground over a few hours against a more populate enemy only to have them get the hammer and Zerg thru 6-8 keeps in 15 mins? It’s got to go!

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/481668/should-emp-faction-be-able-to-pick-up-daedric-weapons-volendrung#latest

TBois

Yes, please delete the hammer, zos.

VaranisArano

If you don't want the Emp faction to have it, its not sufficient to make the Hammer drop only on the other two alliance's parts of the map. You have to disallow anyone on the Emp faction from picking it up as well, which risks imbalancing the game the other way unless the Emp faction getting it causes it to return to Sheo.

Mr_Walker

VaranisArano wrote: »

If you don't want the Emp faction to have it, its not sufficient to make the Hammer drop only on the other two alliance's parts of the map. You have to disallow anyone on the Emp faction from picking it up as well, which risks imbalancing the game the other way unless the Emp faction getting it causes it to return to Sheo.

Hard expiry timer of 30 minutes would ameliorate that problem.

KingExecration

They need to make it with some counters. Factions in hard first or with emp can’t get it. Kinda like how if you don’t have your scrolls you can’t get anyone else’s. Apply that same logic but more as an underdog weapon.

Vapirko

Just take the artifacts away ffs. At best it’s a few minutes of PvDoor. It literally adds nothing of value to the game.

Sandman929

If they try to fix anything about it, we'll no doubt have 6 hammers spawning behind the Emp faction gates and somehow everyone will lose all their gold.

Cernunnos55

It would be helpful, really, if the hammer had more reliable spawning habits. I rarely see it appear anywhere other than behind faction gates. I can see its usefulness in combating uneven odds in campaigns that are heavily imbalanced in terms of population, which occurs just by happenstance most of the time. Nonetheless, it happens, and yet the hammer seems to end up spawning next to the faction with the most potential points, lead, and people as much as it does anywhere else. A half our cap would help too.

I don't think the hammer should be removed from PvP. It adds some interesting depth and a supplementary situation that can be interacted with in a unique way. Of course, it does need to be reworked to add some reliability to its spawning and timer.

I do not, however, believe that the faction with emp should necessarily be unable to pick up the hammer. "Emp" has limited meaning. If one faction has emp it could mean they have the whole map and the emperor himself is defending. It could equally mean they have one keep on the centre ring and the emp logged off hours ago, or the emp is not a very good player and therefore does not contribute much. Far too limited to simply create a situation where emp faction can't get hammer.

Derra

Sheo should simply bludgeon anyone of the emp faction to death with a giant wheel of cheese when they want to pick up the hammer.

miteba

Remove the f***** hammer for once!
It is ridiculous playing hours and hours for your faction, winning castles & sometimes losing them, just for watching all the work go the drain in minutes…

For instance, today at EU Kaalgrontid, DC lost 1 Outpost and 4 castles in 20min... after a productive day (and we are in the third place). AD which already were in the fisrt place, gets the hammer and imbalances even more the campaign.

Because at late night (01:00) simply there are no people to counter that firepower. And the hammer creates a zerg for its own faction for the cheese AP's it provides.

I'm salty? Sure! xD
If it was my alliance that got the Hammer? It´s not the fisrt time we threw it to the water/lava... And that what we should all do, to slap ZoS for this Fortenite clone

usmguy1234

Working as intended. Not only do we have to deal with the hammer, but bashcro is still broken on xbox. So imagine if you will, a bashcro emp zerg and hammer. Amazingly, they still wiped at farragut to 5 ep players. Thankfully the ep calvary arrived before the DC rez bots could do their thing.

Gariele

usmguy1234 wrote: »

Working as intended.

Turn in your quest

usmguy1234

Gariele wrote: »

usmguy1234 wrote: »

Working as intended.

Turn in your quest

3+ years of pvp and I still haven't bothered. Yes I'm one of those people.

Minnesinger

usmguy1234 wrote: »

Gariele wrote: »

usmguy1234 wrote: »

Working as intended.

Turn in your quest

3+ years of pvp and I still haven't bothered. Yes I'm one of those people.

Legend! Every 5 star I know even worry about the quest.

ShenaniganSquad

AND AGAIN... GOD DAMN EMP GROUP HAS HAMMER, WE CANT DO *** AGAINST IT... @ZOS_BrianWheeler fix this broken crap.. yet again, another day spent 3 hours just getting tri keeps back, being zerged by the emp group, and then bam, emp group has hammer and we lose it all in 5 god damn mins, this hammer is stupid bs, half my guild wont play pvp anymore because of this stupid idea.. as soon as the hammer spawns, half of the people on log off... it has to be fixed

xylena_lazarow

Should have put this in Alliance War not General Discussion...

Voldenrung being used to crown Emperor by highest pop faction yet again

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/491349/

Cernunnos55

ShenaniganSquad wrote: »

AND AGAIN... GOD DAMN EMP GROUP HAS HAMMER, WE CANT DO *** AGAINST IT... @ZOS_BrianWheeler fix this broken crap.. yet again, another day spent 3 hours just getting tri keeps back, being zerged by the emp group, and then bam, emp group has hammer and we lose it all in 5 god damn mins, this hammer is stupid bs, half my guild wont play pvp anymore because of this stupid idea.. as soon as the hammer spawns, half of the people on log off... it has to be fixed

Did you try coldfire/timestop spam? What am I saying, of course you did

I'm just kidding with you. I still like the hammer being around, despite a few changes being needed. It creates a need for strategy, problem solving skills, and unity in a faction to deal with it, and whether or not it's in the emp's faction is irrelevant since the effectiveness of emp is subjective. If I can 1v1 emp, then is it unfair for the hammer to be in my faction if we don't have emp?

Idk, it helps out against nightcappers, it helps with the dynamic back-and-forth push nature of the map, and I think it's fun to fight with and against. I don't want to see it gone and I don't see much need for it to be banned from emp faction, I think it just requires a little skill development.

Galarthor

Derra wrote: »

Sheo should simply bludgeon anyone of the emp faction to death with a giant wheel of cheese when they want to pick up the hammer.

And while he is at it, those who came up with that stupid idea of the hammer in the first place too.

johnjetau

Personally, I think the hammer should only drop, when the population of all factions, have been even in numbers for at least 30 mins. That way, you can avoid situations, where one faction is locked and the others aren't.

or

Change the alert. Instead tell us, what territory it is going to drop in eg "Volendrung is in Cyrodiil. It will will spawn in EP territory in 10mins". That way, you can have all factions racing to the known drop sites, to get ready and fight for it when it drops.

And almost certainly, not behind a factions gates.

But, the best way to counter, would be to give each faction a Volendrung, that has a strict timer on it of say 30-40mins and can't be held by another faction, even when the wielder dies. That hammer will belong, strictly to that faction for the duration.

EmEm_Oh

We need more keeps. Not more hammers.

Starshadw

Vapirko wrote: »

Just take the artifacts away ffs. At best it’s a few minutes of PvDoor. It literally adds nothing of value to the game.

Agreed.

Mayrael

Rules that should be added.
1. Emp faction cannot pickup volendrung.
2. Most populated faction cannot pickup Volendrung (even if the hammer spawns at the low pop faction base right after they take it vs those more populated they will get zerged down and hammer will just increase the gap).
3. When each population have different population (3, 2 and 1 bar) only the faction with lowest population can pick it up. Other 2 factions have more numbers to defend the keep anyway.

Mayrael

Vapirko wrote: »

Just take the artifacts away ffs. At best it’s a few minutes of PvDoor. It literally adds nothing of value to the game.

Totally agree with that but it won't ever happen since they are planning to add more of this BS.

Lybal

Tbh, I really like a lot the first goal of the weapon, which is, as devs told themselves "cause mass chaos for a short while".

People here and from my experience in Cyro seems to dislike a lot the weapon, I'm not even sure if I even read more than 1 or 2 positive feedback about it.
But for once, even if that's still a negative feedback, I'll try to get a more optimistic way to see the artefact.

If the hammer in his current state is I think a total failure, I believe it could give something really good if some problems could be solved.
And if devs really wants to keep the weapon, some kind of rework / major changes are needed.

One main problem to me is, especially when there's a lot of people, that the weapon create huge large scale fights, even more than usual, that the game already can't handle, and increase the lag even more.
A solution would be to change how the weapon works so it doesn't create fights that big.
A way to deal with it could be to not show on the map where is the artefact, so all players won't stack on the icon they got on their map. (and to know which faction got hammer, they could had an announce everytime someone pick it to know which faction took it)
Ofc, the weapon needs nerfs if players can't react as properly as now, it could be a nerf on the ult (nerf damage, range or increase the cost in ult pts), gives a cost to gcd, rg you have all your stam to spam roll / block / bash, nerf the additionnal stats that it gives (less hp for example), or, just for Volen, replace his "signature" ability to destroy all walls / doors in less than 20 sec by something completely different, I don't think that's an healthy mechanic anyway.
Well, I don't believe that nerfs stats / numbers on the weapon would compensate for not being able to react properly to it, to me a rework about his push ability for something totally different is the best way to deal with it.

Another idea even if I'm not really sure myself that would give something positive : Adds an AOE debuff or a mechanic similar to Chaos Ball to all players near the weapon to make it less powerful in huge groups, and btw it could easily fit in the lore, the weapons feed itself from souls after all, why only souls from opponent factions ?

An other main problem to me is the fact that it gives even more power to the faction with the most people outside of primetime, people here already gave some ideas, mostly about faction not being able to take it when they got emp / more players, but I'll give mine, and if I'm not sure about my other ideas, I really believe this one is needed :
Make it so you have to get kills and assist to feed the weapon, and NOT AP, the way this mechanic works just allows people to PVDoor with it, PVDoor with a tool like Volen that can open keep in less than a minute is one of the fastest way to make AP and keep the weapon, and this would also be more lore friendly. I mean, how the hammer feed itself from getting a keep ? Keeps have souls now ?
Also PVDoor with Volen don't create any action or anything at all except frustation, this way it would force players to create actual fights to keep it, I don't think uncle Sheo really likes the way players use the hammer during off hours.

It looks like devs want to keep the weapon into the game, and even add more. If I believe it could give good results with major changes, atleast some changes could easily make it less worse than now.

And btw, just to criticize what devs told in U23 Q&A about Volen, aka "Yes. It does what it was designed to do, which is to cause mass chaos for a short while, then when its gone, things return back to normal."
If that's the way devs thinks about the weapon, well that's not really impressive that it gives that bad results.
It's not because it accomplish 1 positive thing that it becomes something positive, they just ignored all issues with it, you just can't resume Volendrung impact on PVP by "It causes mass chaos so it's cool", it also causes lag, PVDoor, frustrating situations, etc.
I hope they got a view a bit more clear than that, coz if that's the way they thinks about their game, it can only go worse and worse, and if there is, then it point out a problem about their communication.

EDIT : I just thought about the fact that makes the weapon feed from kills and assists instead of AP would just limit his use to the timer coz people can just instantly take it back when it drops, and PVDoor would still be possible, not for a long period but possible.
But that isn't a problem at all, they just need to also rework the way the weapon act if you die by not feeding it.
Imagine an AD player die with the hammer coz he didn't feed it, it could respawn EP or DC side
Lore side I can easily imagine Sheo being like "Meeh, I gave to these AD a wonderful toy to play with ! and they can just break walls and doors with it, let's see if EP or DC can use it with a bit more creativity !"

(Btw, I would also really like to see Sheo quotes instead of general announcement for messages about Volen, it could be a nice touch there)

Blinkin8r

I think the hammer is perfectly fine. At least on Xbox NA. Blues have had hammer with Emp and they've lost hammer. Blues have had hammer without emp and they've lost hammer or better yet ran from us even when we're outnumbered and vice versa. The hammer is a powerful siege weapon, but if your faction works together they can shut it down before a single keep is taken.

Lybal

Blinkin8r wrote: »

I think the hammer is perfectly fine. At least on Xbox NA. Blues have had hammer with Emp and they've lost hammer. Blues have had hammer without emp and they've lost hammer or better yet ran from us even when we're outnumbered and vice versa. The hammer is a powerful siege weapon, but if your faction works together they can shut it down before a single keep is taken.

Sometimes the hammer is working very well, I don't deny that and I think none can.
But, even if you see no problem or didn't got any frustrating experience with the hammer, does that mean that his current state is fine ?

For example, can you deny the problems I talked about in my post, like all the lag ? Idk if that's a thing on Xbox NA, maybe it isn't and you can't get this issue, but one thing is sure, on PC EU that's a real problem.
PVDoor also, maybe you don't care about it, or you can't see it coz you never play during off hours, or it's still not a thing on your server, but that is here.
I saw a lot of times on Bahlokdaan PC EU the hammer on one side in the morning on a faction with 2 bars while others got one, and the few people who tried to def had no way to do so, and I saw a lot of people logged off / rage about the weapon while the faction with hammer was painting the map.

Also, even if you still don't agree and think there's no problem with the hammer, search ideas to make it even better (or less worse depending of your pov) is still worth it imo and that's what I'm encouraging.