Imperial City is dead because there is no incentive

SkaraMinoc

DAoC Darkness Falls was always populated because the rewards were some of the best gear in the game. There was always a sense of danger around every corner. The bosses were much more difficult but would give great rewards. The bosses in IC give very little reward and the final boss in the sewers does not give much at all.

Does ZOS want it to be dead because they can't sell DLC for it? This is not a good business practice and brings down the overall quality of the game. ZOS Leadership should strive for best-in-class quality for every aspect of the game. They are laser-focused on revenue generating verticals because that's what their data shows. It's massively shortsighted on their part.

ToxicOutrage

Wrong. IC is so much more profitable than Cyro with the added bonus of not being laggy. The better you are, the more gold you will earn in IC. The only benefit of Cyro/BG in comparison is faster rank 50 grind

Septimus_Magna

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

Wrong. IC is so much more profitable than Cyro with the added bonus of not being laggy. The better you are, the more gold you will earn in IC. The only benefit of Cyro/BG in comparison is faster rank 50 grind

You mean due to Tel Var stones? Of which you lose 50% if you die (ie get ganked by a NB)?

I think Cyrodiil is more profitable because you can use AP to buy stuff and you dont lose it when you die.

SkaraMinoc

Both are terrible ways to make gold compared to other methods (writs, farming, etc).

alberichtano

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

Wrong. IC is so much more profitable than Cyro with the added bonus of not being laggy. The better you are, the more gold you will earn in IC. The only benefit of Cyro/BG in comparison is faster rank 50 grind

No it really isn't. Like at all. Especially with the tel var death penalties. It is just a drag to try to save what tel var you can before getting ganked or camped, and the gold gain is near nil.

chuckythexii

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

Wrong. IC is so much more profitable than Cyro with the added bonus of not being laggy. The better you are, the more gold you will earn in IC. The only benefit of Cyro/BG in comparison is faster rank 50 grind

You mean due to Tel Var stones? Of which you lose 50% if you die (ie get ganked by a NB)?

I think Cyrodiil is more profitable because you can use AP to buy stuff and you dont lose it when you die.

Hey the NB doesn't see any problems with that set-up.

ToxicOutrage

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

Wrong. IC is so much more profitable than Cyro with the added bonus of not being laggy. The better you are, the more gold you will earn in IC. The only benefit of Cyro/BG in comparison is faster rank 50 grind

yes, that why I said the better you are the more gold you will earn which is the insentive aka the point of the thread. Or at least wait till next patch if you are a bad pvp player, with the insane mitigation, where even nb ganks will feel like a sneeze

fullheartcontainer

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

Wrong. IC is so much more profitable than Cyro with the added bonus of not being laggy. The better you are, the more gold you will earn in IC. The only benefit of Cyro/BG in comparison is faster rank 50 grind

yes, that why I said the better you are the more gold you will earn which is the insentive aka the point of the thread. Or at least wait till next patch if you are a bad pvp player, with the insane mitigation, where even nb ganks will feel like a sneeze

this isnt an incentive then. Actually it's the opposite: it deincentivizes the area to all but the absolute best players as you create an ever smaller population, driving away anyone who isnt a really good gankblade. No one new is ever going to enter the area and go "yes it's hard but if I keep working it'll be worth it" because every bit of progress they make is removed after getting ganked.

alberichtano

fullheartcontainer wrote: »

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

Wrong. IC is so much more profitable than Cyro with the added bonus of not being laggy. The better you are, the more gold you will earn in IC. The only benefit of Cyro/BG in comparison is faster rank 50 grind

yes, that why I said the better you are the more gold you will earn which is the insentive aka the point of the thread. Or at least wait till next patch if you are a bad pvp player, with the insane mitigation, where even nb ganks will feel like a sneeze

this isnt an incentive then. Actually it's the opposite: it deincentivizes the area to all but the absolute best players as you create an ever smaller population, driving away anyone who isnt a really good gankblade. No one new is ever going to enter the area and go "yes it's hard but if I keep working it'll be worth it" because every bit of progress they make is removed after getting ganked.

Agreed. That's the reason I don't go there. The tel vars aren't really good for much, and the risk of getting ganked every five steps is just too great. If I want frustration, I go to work, not to play computer games. :-/

Syrusthevirus187

Yup. Get rid of losing stuff when you die. It's dumb.

geonsocal

it's a good location to fight in, it's just hard to find even fights...there are times i'll play there in the districts without focusing on tel var gain or completing district daily quests, but - most often, as a solo player you end up running in to groups of at least 3 or more...

i enjoy the 1 v 1's where you have to navigate and deal with npcs while you're fighting another player...i'm probably one of the few players who does enjoy that though...

it would be really nice though if they opened up the alliance platforms spawn points again without needing to control a district flag...

if you wanted, you could just duel someone over and over again...or, small groups could gather and fight each other endlessly - just for the fun of fighting...

redspecter23

Imperial City is dead to me due to a massive incentive provided toward ganking and bombing with zero risk. You have players farming Tel Var and other players farming the farmers, but without putting anything on the line themselves. Unless you're top tier elite, you will eventually just get run over by someone who is and since there is nobody else down there, they will just follow you around and kill you repeatedly until you leave.

Now if you like that sort of gameplay, this probably sounds fantastic. If you aren't interested in that, you're probably part of a large amount of players that stay away from IC unless there is an event.

Adding more incentive to IC doesn't make the gameplay any more interesting. It just adds a pile of players to the mix that don't actually want to be there for the content itself. They just want to get the rewards and get out asap.

If you want IC to be populated, the gameplay there needs to be compelling enough to keep people interested well after the promise of interesting rewards has drawn them in initially. For me, that's just not the case currently.

Dagoth_Rac

redspecter23 wrote: »

Imperial City is dead to me due to a massive incentive provided toward ganking and bombing with zero risk. You have players farming Tel Var and other players farming the farmers, but without putting anything on the line themselves.

Tel Var gain from killing other players should be capped at what you are currently holding.

geonsocal

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

Imperial City is dead to me due to a massive incentive provided toward ganking and bombing with zero risk. You have players farming Tel Var and other players farming the farmers, but without putting anything on the line themselves.

Tel Var gain from killing other players should be capped at what you are currently holding.

i actually like that idea, a lot...well done...

jarlragnar

I'm mostly in IC everyday, either I am farming bosses on timers and making tel var or I'm just going around looking for a fight. Majority of the time its either a group of AD or DC that come along and scare everyone out. You just need to plan more and stay one step ahead of them, IC is very lucrative if you know what to buy and sell on the market

SkaraMinoc

jarlragnar wrote: »

I'm mostly in IC everyday, either I am farming bosses on timers and making tel var or I'm just going around looking for a fight. Majority of the time its either a group of AD or DC that come along and scare everyone out. You just need to plan more and stay one step ahead of them, IC is very lucrative if you know what to buy and sell on the market

I mean 5000 tel var stones for 1 hakeijo isn't exactly lucrative. It's not enough to make lots of players go to Imperial City when there are better ways to farm.

MrMazurski

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

jarlragnar wrote: »

I'm mostly in IC everyday, either I am farming bosses on timers and making tel var or I'm just going around looking for a fight. Majority of the time its either a group of AD or DC that come along and scare everyone out. You just need to plan more and stay one step ahead of them, IC is very lucrative if you know what to buy and sell on the market

I mean 5000 tel var stones for 1 hakeijo isn't exactly lucrative. It's not enough to make lots of players go to Imperial City when there are better ways to farm.

Better way for hakeijo? isn't exactly lucrative? You really dont know what you talk

Leave IC alone, you don't fix some things by adding something there, if basic rights, the concept will be the same. IC is specific and it's okay. For me, the larger population in IC only interferes with farming.

Alucardo

It would be nice to revamp some of the older sets in there. The only one that I think is still good would be Powerful Assault. Every other set is just Powerful Ass.

Tommy_The_Gun

IC would be good zone if you would get rid of every PvE content it has, then it would only draw PvP players only and would not be considered the most toxic zone in the game. Currently it is a mixed PvE & PvP in one tiny confined space that is pretty much a gank fest.

But even as a PvP zone IC, suffers from the same problem as BGs used to have (before ZOS introduced player rating & separate queues for solo player & groups) - solo / randoms vs groups vs pre-mades & ball groups.

Chrlynsch

1 hour of farming bosses solo I can pull in roughly 72k telvar, which is 14 hakeijo, flip that for 720k gold. Now can I always do that, nope, most the time it is too many friendly players farming bosses.
That's some walking around money though and can pay for my armor weapon and jewelry upgrades. It is still my favorite way to gain gold in the game due to added danger.

Personally I would rather see the tel var system make it so you can only take from player enemy the current rank you are at.

Rank 1: 0 telvar
Rank 2: 100 telvar
Rank 3: 1,000 telvar
Rank 4: 10,000 telvar

The other day while farming a pair of nightblades kept trying to gank me, I would kill them, they would go build up ults and would come back to try and kill me during the next boss fight.

I finished my lap but ended up jumping to another IC instance to do my farming, because it was annoying. The pair of nightblades had no skin in the game, and shouldn't get rewarded for not risking anything.

chuckythexii

fullheartcontainer wrote: »

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

ToxicOutrage wrote: »

Wrong. IC is so much more profitable than Cyro with the added bonus of not being laggy. The better you are, the more gold you will earn in IC. The only benefit of Cyro/BG in comparison is faster rank 50 grind

yes, that why I said the better you are the more gold you will earn which is the insentive aka the point of the thread. Or at least wait till next patch if you are a bad pvp player, with the insane mitigation, where even nb ganks will feel like a sneeze

this isnt an incentive then. Actually it's the opposite: it deincentivizes the area to all but the absolute best players as you create an ever smaller population, driving away anyone who isnt a really good gankblade. No one new is ever going to enter the area and go "yes it's hard but if I keep working it'll be worth it" because every bit of progress they make is removed after getting ganked.

except its not, you only drop half the stones. And none of your other stuff is lost. If you want an example of PvP where you lose everything that would be EVE (even then you still keep your character though). Hell even Runescape only let you keep your three most valuable items.

SkaraMinoc

Chrlynsch wrote: »

1 hour of farming bosses solo I can pull in roughly 72k telvar, which is 14 hakeijo, flip that for 720k gold

How do you make so much tel var? Do you just run around with 10k tel var hoping nobody will kill you in a single global?

I killed someone and they dropped 5k tel var. Was that you? lmao

Chrlynsch

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

1 hour of farming bosses solo I can pull in roughly 72k telvar, which is 14 hakeijo, flip that for 720k gold

How do you make so much tel var? Do you just run around with 10k tel var hoping nobody will kill you in a single global?

I killed someone and they dropped 5k tel var. Was that you? lmao

When you have control of all the flags in the up top districts you get close to a modifier of telvar gains, and carrying over 10k in stones grants you a 4x modifier. After I get to 10k stones I put on IP set to get me boosted stats to survive most burst even when soloing the district bosses (12k+ stones per boss when soloed).

Depending on how active the area is I might dump stones after 30k or so. Otherwise I will just finish a lap of district bosses then deposit the lot, an hour of farming is usually all I do if conditions are perfect.

MipMip

I find it surprising how many people assess the attractiveness of an in-game activity based on the rewards! For me the attractiveness of an activity depends on how enjoyable it is, and rewards are a side effect.

Reverb

MipMip wrote: »

I find it surprising how many people assess the attractiveness of an in-game activity based on the rewards! For me the attractiveness of an activity depends on how enjoyable it is, and rewards are a side effect.

You’ve hit on the problem with IC for me. I will do an enjoyable activity because it’s enjoyable. No reward needed. Most people will, for example - I promise it’s not RotW and BG junk mails that keep people to ESO pvp, they’re there because it’s fun.

But when an activity is not fun, the rewards need to be a good enough reason to go there.

IC is neither of those for me. I don’t enjoy it as zone. I understand the draw of pvpve, but this misses the mark for me. The mob density is too high, and the terrain is a boon only to gankers and people with speed/los builds. Both are my least fave type of people to fight. There’s no excitement in those encounters for me, only annoyance.

I would do it anyway if the rewards were worth it. Daily writs are a good example of this, not enjoyable, but worthwhile. For IC, I do a guild run once a week to stock up on siegemaster coffers, throw my telvar in the bank, and am happy to leave when we’re done.

Mesite

I have loads of those tel var stones from daily rewards but I was never sure what to do with them. I don't like the dungeon that came with the DLC either.

TBois

I go there like once a week and love it! I grab all the daily quests and go work on those while killing the bosses I see. If I lose some tel var, no worries, I can't lose my 6 merits from the dailies, but usually I do pretty good tel var wise. It's good money for not much time, especially not much time doing pvp things.