Does ZoS want more players in PVP? Ideas to achieve this?

Veinblood1965

Not a ZoS bash btw. Just wondering if there is a goal of getting more PVE players into PVP as a serious goal? I know there are events which steer PVE'ers to PVP land but that is only a few times a year. As a former PVE'er who did such for many years and had zero interest in PVP here is what brought me to PVP and also WHY I hated PVP.

The only time I went to Cyrodill as PVE was to gather skyshards. I never got killed nor saw an enemy player. What turned me off was the zone was so HUGE and my mount was slow. It took forever to cross the zone. Then add to that I didn't know you could suicide and port back to the entrance so I had to run ALL the way back to do anything in PVE land. I'd go gather a few shards and leave over the years and hated it each time. (yes now I know you can increase mount speed with PVP skill lines etc suicide lol) but actually had no idea until just this year.

Going into IC was horrible during events. Not due to dying as you don't lose anything but time and telvar but the if I got killed I spawned in other IC sections and would run all the way back to my quest etc and get ganked many times. It was frustrating. Yes now I know the ways around that but it sucked.

HATED PVP land and now I totally enjoy it! What got me into it was this years event. I was going for a daily ticket and someone in zone chat told someone else about the mount speed skill points and I was like WHAT? I wonder if that speed also works in PVE land? So I started PVPing just to get the skill points lol! Before long I was hooked. Maybe some new skill points like that and War Horn that can be used in PVP.

Being a former PVE'er I can think of a few things that would entice others to venture in. Actually crafting nodes that gave something extra like a Hakeijo once in a while or Aetherial Dust perhaps. And MORE nodes! For crying out loud they are few and far between in Cyrodiil. Anyways just a few thoughts on what could bring more people into the zone and perhaps they would enjoy it after a time.

I'm sure I've left out a lot but it's just sad that PvP is so fun yet so few PVE'ers venture in. Anyone else have a similar experience? What brought you into PVP?

colossalvoids

Honestly speaking even if performance ever improves it's too late at this point. They had enough years to make people stay or give them a bone or two, they've failed and I see nothing that would actually bring pvp to the levels it was years ago.

wazzz56

@Veinblood1965 they could start by fixing performance.....removing no skill sets like DC....introduce mechanics that make pvdoor less rewarding (off topic, but I will die on this hill.....when they increased ap for keep takes they started the pvdoor zerg balls rolling..and it is bad for the game imho) ..improve the faction pop system in a way that prevents any campaign from being 3 bars to none, take away cross healing again....cap hp at 30k in cyro, remove the hammer, give a bigger ap bonus that kicks in the moment a faction is gated and remains until some requirement is met ( certain number of keeps etc)....this last one would make people more willing to jump in a campaign and stay despite a 3 bar faction having them gated and defending the gate keeps and resources with fever....this alone keeps a lot of people from staying in cyro... I know I went way off topic, but I can't help it lol...I just want cyro to be slightly closer to when it was great, instead of the proctato dc fest that it is now and will only further become when procs start to crit...

Elo106

They could do a lot to bring PvPers back, but more importantly get new PvPers to play. Every PvPer I know always says the same thing "If ESO PvP worked it would be the best (MMO) PvP game". IF they ever fix performance people would come back, if they cant atleast give us small scale alternates to cyro.

Group vs Group Duels
Seems like a small feature but this would allow us to host all sorts of events, 2vs2, 1vsX training, Guild vs Guild, Arena, Gladiator Battles, Game modes we come up with in Housing etc
The possibilities for event hosting would be endless

Ranked Arenas
Arenas with proper Rankings (Bronze, Silver, Gold etc) so you fight other players on your skill level and dont get rofl stomped. New players could fight their way through the ranks and learn pvp instead of facing full time PvPers in cyro and BGs and get bursted within seconds. Good rewards each season would guarantee enough players for a health q time.

Guild vs Guild Sieges
Housing 2.0 a Guild Castle could be build with preset Wall, Gate and Tower parts and Guilds could challenge other guilds to siege their Castle/Keep. Housing fanatics and PvPers working hand in hand to create something epic, while also being a huge gold sink.

Moba Style Lane Pushing
Would be a game mode where you help your Npcs push Keeps over several fronts, spreading your forces across the map, could be any group size really. Guard your Npcs and kill the enemies to push and conquer their keeps.

Sadly Zos doesnt seem to want to add anything until Cyro is fixed, so instead of new PvP content we get.. nothing.
After all the tests they put us through I would have hoped for a "road ahead" type of post for long term PvP features.

Veinblood1965

Elo106 wrote: »

They could do a lot to bring PvPers back, but more importantly get new PvPers to play. Every PvPer I know always says the same thing "If ESO PvP worked it would be the best (MMO) PvP game". IF they ever fix performance people would come back, if they cant atleast give us small scale alternates to cyro.

Group vs Group Duels
Seems like a small feature but this would allow us to host all sorts of events, 2vs2, 1vsX training, Guild vs Guild, Arena, Gladiator Battles, Game modes we come up with in Housing etc
The possibilities for event hosting would be endless

Ranked Arenas
Arenas with proper Rankings (Bronze, Silver, Gold etc) so you fight other players on your skill level and dont get rofl stomped. New players could fight their way through the ranks and learn pvp instead of facing full time PvPers in cyro and BGs and get bursted within seconds. Good rewards each season would guarantee enough players for a health q time.

Guild vs Guild Sieges
Housing 2.0 a Guild Castle could be build with preset Wall, Gate and Tower parts and Guilds could challenge other guilds to siege their Castle/Keep. Housing fanatics and PvPers working hand in hand to create something epic, while also being a huge gold sink.

Moba Style Lane Pushing
Would be a game mode where you help your Npcs push Keeps over several fronts, spreading your forces across the map, could be any group size really. Guard your Npcs and kill the enemies to push and conquer their keeps.

Sadly Zos doesnt seem to want to add anything until Cyro is fixed, so instead of new PvP content we get.. nothing.
After all the tests they put us through I would have hoped for a "road ahead" type of post for long term PvP features.

Those are really good ideas. I've played PVP in other games and ESO PVP is pretty good, you are correct if tweaked correctly it would be the best MMO game to date.

I forgot to add the bridges and milegates could be tweaked a bit. Right now they are small choke points but very insignificant as far as how much PVP actually occurs there.

And the hammer does ruin it. I mean I like it in some ways but it shouldn't be a tool to take a quarter of the map that easily.

casparian

ZOS doesn't want more players in PVP. ZOS wants regular engagement and incentivizes this with events and rewards. Some of those events and rewards are from Cyrodiil, IC, and BGs, which means ZOS wants people to engage in those activities when PVP is the current regular engagement mechanism. But total players in PVP at any given day is more or less meaningless to the main thing ZOS is trying to accomplish: getting as many people as possible to log in as often as possible.

"But Casp", you say, "if Cyrodiil actually worked and had new content lots of people would log in every day to play Cyrodiil!" Yes, and I would be one of them. But ZOS has concluded that they can get more daily logins more reliably over time by focusing their limited time and resources on the things that virtually every other game with tons of daily logins uses to attract players: limited-time events, dailies, and rewards.

Asking for more content in Cyrodiil is asking ZOS to do something that has nothing to do with their player engagement strategy. I hate to say it, because Cyrodiil was great for years. But ZOS is never going to invest in it again because they've fundamentally changed their mind about the kind of experience they want to provide.

Vizirith

It's really gotten away from them, and I'm not sure if they can come back from the hole they dug over years.

Performance goes without saying. It's speak highly to the pvp community that such a community still exists, where it wouldn't in nearly every other game. It's borderline unplayable; which means trying to encourage players to... well... play in it is laughable. I pvp a lot, if I was new and was coming from another game where I pvp'd, I'd be blown away at the state of it and probably leave immediately and not come back.

First impressions are everything and man does the pvp give one of the worst. I can think of no game I've played where this is acceptable. Some games suffer from making the game veneer look great with little substance... that certainly isn't eso's problem.

gariondavey

1. Fix performance
2. Listen to feedback with sets such as dark convergence, plaguebreak, hrothgar chill
3. Have more incentives for pvp - AP in bgs for kills, rework some of the game modes to increase pvp instead of promoting running away, and give mounts/motifs/other visual things as prizes that can be worked towards via participation in pvp

McTaterskins

Game had decent pvp balance prior to the latest patch.

They did some great work along those last few patches, even if the opinion is unpopular. All that needed to be done was some tweaks here and there to battle spirit on the damage and healing like they were doing. Aside from the obvious heal stacking issues anyway.

Then they introduce a couple sets that completely contradict everything they've done for the past year. Granted... they fixed one in a decently quick fashion. But refuse to do something about the other. Which is causing people to quit.

Amottica

I do not think Zenimax has a goal to get players to do PvP that do not want to outside of getting them to experience it for a short time. The stated goal for Cyrodiil was to give players interested in PvP a place to PvP because Zenimax did not want PvP in the PvE zones. Rich said this a couple of years ago.

As others have pointed out. fix cyrodiil performance and those interesting PvP will play. BGs can probably use a XvX format vs the current XvXvX.

I would not suggest BR since that does not really fit into ESO and BR games that are successful have a very different monetization scheme. Also, I would not suggest spending money and resources on building something new unless they can get a PvP community wiling to financially support it. Yes I know BR is a cheap and easy design but it still required time and money.

NerfSeige

-performance
-team/solo battle royale
-ranked season please.

There’s a reason why most of twitch top games are pvp/competition related, people wanna fight, people wanna see people fight, and IMO eso got a really good combat system for this, just need to bump up pvp content.

xylena_lazarow

A lot would come back if they just up and deleted Dark Convergence.

NoodleESO

literally anything. We've only been yeeting ideas at them for 8 years.

McTaterskins

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

A lot would come back if they just up and deleted Dark Convergence.

There is a lot of truth in this.

xxslam48xxb14_ESO

Idk about getting pvers to pvp. Honestly I think you would just have to balance the game properly and fix the lag/bugs. I wouldn't want to pvp if I was a pver. Have you seen how short their lives last? Have you seen how many of them it takes to kill 1 guy? See in any other game massively outnumbering someone is a pretty sure way to kill them, but eso is not that game. Eso simultaneously has invincible players and players with so much burst they can kill nearly anyone(minus the invincible guy) in 1-2 gcds. That is disgusting. Any other game would have fixed that a long time ago.

Pvers don't want that, they want to kill anyone and have a chance to fight back. If pvp isn't a fair playing field without massive POWER gaps they won't play. They want to be able to hop in and get some reasonably quick kills(but not too quick), feel good, die in a fair way. Eso is the opposite of that unless you have been grinding pvp and play the meta.

At the same time the horrible balance is why so many pvpers like eso. They won't admit it openly, but the no proc no cp campaign being empty is all the proof you need. A fairer playing field was presented and it got turned down in favor of massive power gaps due to CP and dark convergence spam. Imagine how few people would play a campaign with no cp and no set bonuses period(just default white armor). It would be totally fair, but people want to own noobs BECAUSE THEY EARNED THAT CP AND GOLDEN DARK CONVERGENCE. Any other game what I just described is the standard and what is considered to be a healthy competitive environment. Imagine if in a competitive tournament in any other game 1 guy just grinded all year and he had 10% more damage, 10% more crit, 10% more armor, mount goes 50% faster... Yeah that wouldn't fly in a real competitive setting. Deny it all you want, but unless you are playing on Ravenwatch you are full of it. I can admit I LOVE 1 shotting players and collecting salt, but pvers don't like it. I could still play if they fixed the imbalance, but it would lose a lot of its charm if I couldn't 1 shot people like I was playing Call of duty.

They could make pvp appeal to the masses, but it would come at the cost of the OG pvpers. Going to keep steadily declining until we only have 1 campaign. That one campaign will get dominated by 1 faction and the other 2 will mostly quit. Pvp will exist in name only, the only thing left will be a single faction pvdooring until even that one server gets shut down to make room for a new pve zone. [snip]

[edited for conspiracy theory]

techyeshic

I'm not sure they want PVPers. It's like they don't want to break up and just want them to just take a hint.

xylena_lazarow

techyeshic wrote: »

I'm not sure they want PVPers. It's like they don't want to break up and just want them to just take a hint.

They do, they release "content" like the hammer and Dark Convergence, they release "balance" patches chock full of PvP nerfs, but they sure seem pretty out of touch with the players and ignorant of the metagame. Nothing new there.

LeHarrt91

A No Proc, No Hammer, CP Campaign would be nice. Or a Classic Campaign, like the early days.

ixthUA

PVE players have no interest in PVP. ZOS should focus on players who are interested in PVP, but are turned away by some issues.

WreckfulAbandon

Instanced PvP maps and Group Duels in houses would be nice.

*And not BGs, I mean like XvX for the Instances and XvXvX (throw in some more X's if you like) for housing.

techyeshic

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

A No Proc, No Hammer, CP Campaign would be nice. Or a Classic Campaign, like the early days.

As much as if like this; the problem is there are far too many rulesets as is and the "main" campaign always stays the most populated.

xxslam48xxb14_ESO

techyeshic wrote: »

I'm not sure they want PVPers. It's like they don't want to break up and just want them to just take a hint.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

techyeshic wrote: »

I'm not sure they want PVPers. It's like they don't want to break up and just want them to just take a hint.

They do, they release "content" like the hammer and Dark Convergence, they release "balance" patches chock full of PvP nerfs, but they sure seem pretty out of touch with the players and ignorant of the metagame. Nothing new there.

[snip]

These posters seem to agree zos.

[snip]

Even a simple little thing like the stuck in combat bug has not been fixed since the game came out. HOW!?!?! Surely you got some employees that could fix this, its your game. Who else is going to fix it? What did you hire them for? [snip] This is ridiculous. [snip] We know you aren't this bad, thats the thing. So much of this game is high quality fun content, so it really boggles our minds trying to figure out why you let these bugs stay in after they get so much hate over the years.

Hey just saying, its not fun to have to walk half way across cyrodiil in stealth before the game decides we are out of combat. Maybe fix that? PLEASE? Its even worse in bgs. You can't even walk 10 miles to get away from the bug. Permanently reduced resource regen for the entire match, not good.

[edited for bashing & discussing moderator actions]

lexicondevil99

PvP in ESO is the best video game I have ever played (when it works) Please ZOS, make it work more often.

PS- Dark Convergence is not helping the game.

Larcomar

As others, I don't think it's a zos priority. Face it, pvp is a pretty niche activity in mmos, games that prioritise it tend to fail / convert and I suspect most pvp'rs don't contribute a lot of revenue - that comes from people buying new expansions to quest and from people buying cosmetics. Plus pvpr's are a very demanding, very vocal group who are constantly asking for performance improvements, balance adjustments etc and not afriad to shout the company down when they don't get it - the last sort of people you want to attract.

It would be nice though. As other's have said, the two key things to get existing pvp'rs back are performance and balance; sadly what they've done is introduce dark convergence, a set that seems to destroy both. There's been a long term decline in the pvp population ever since Zos tried to kill of pugs with the group size changes, but it feels like it's really gone down with the new sets. It's just not fun getting ping ponged around, pulled off siege, pulled off walls constantly. Personally I think they'll rue the day they introduced it.

As to getting pve'rs in.... I think we have to accept that there's some pve'rs who will just never pve. It's just not in their dna. There is though a group of people who might pvp, they just don't realise that they'd like it, or are interested but don't know where to start. I was certainly in that category; I couldn't conceive of pvping, thought it was for maladjusted teenagers, now I'm a regular. I think the key here is having some sort of learning curve; you jump into greyhost, you're not going to know what the hell is going on, are going to get obliterated when you do find a fight, and you're probably not going to come back.

We already have a baby pvp server in icereach and a newbie pvp server in Raven; I'd like to see Zos streamline and promote those. Some of that is structural - they need to sort out the mess of which sets do and do not work, maybe cut them down further and maybe look at some steps to raise the floor and lower the celing - a handicap in effect. Alot of it though is just presentational / advertising - they really ought to relabel those servers so it's clear their for baby / newbie pvp, set out a clear progression between them - does anyone know know how many cp you ned to compete equally in Greyhost? - and then have a couple of events to promote them with unique rewards for sub 50 pvp, newbie pvp etc.

I think a lot of this though is on us. The only reason I got into pvp was because I joined a guild that happened to do it and, as I don't tend to do trials, figured I should go along to one of their pvp events. They ran a baby pvp event every sunday afternoon with a fantastic raid leader who's talked you through how everything worked, what we were doing, why... all that stuff and would answer any (prob v dumb) questions you had - I think he's a teacher by profession. After that I started joing in the guild's casual pvp sessions in Ravenwatch. Nowadays, I often do the tactical sessions in greyhost and I cheerfully go in solo in the pm. At least when it's not DC central.

Tldr. If we want more people to pvp, I think pvper's - esp pvp guilds - need to actually go out, actively recruit new pvp'rs and teach them. That doesn't have to mean starting off in Icereach - it's pretty dead - but I think it does mean running sessions in raven to start. Not least because, witht the group size changes zos introduced, it's really hard to get a slot in a pug now. There arn't that many, they only have 12 slots and most of those are taken up with guildies / regulars. The number of people I see standing at northgate lfg'ing is ridiculous. You used to be able to go in after lunch, type + and get into a group immediately.

xxslam48xxb14_ESO

Alright not a very original idea at all, but I think they should make a "battle pass". I strongly believe the reason that pvp is slowing decaying into ruin is because zos doesn't want to put resources and money into something that gives 0 return. If we had a battle pass then zos would be generating money from pvp and would maybe feel(if we are lucky) that diverting resources into pvp is a worth while investment.

Should be free if you are a subscriber and X amount of crowns if you are not. Load that pass up with all the stuff that whales want like outfits, furniture, houses, etc. Whales will come pvp and Zos will start making a profit from cyrodiil. Yeah sure they will complain that they have to pvp in order to unlock that cool stuff, but this may also help push through balance changes that would have otherwise never happened. If the whales feel that they shouldn't be dying in one hit then zos will listen. If the whales think perma blocking is bs, then zos will listen. Us lowly peasants have zero chance of convincing zos that this game is broken beyond belief. We simply aren't worth the same amount of money.

All things work out then we can get our balancing, bug fixes, and performance improvements.

wazzz56

It kinda amazes me that people don't think pvpers spend money on this game....having access to the chapters/dlcs and things like scrying and jewelry crafting , psijic skill line, monster sets,vat weapons etc are all pretty essential to most people's pvp experience....just always weird to see people regularly making that argument...

xxslam48xxb14_ESO

wazzz56 wrote: »

It kinda amazes me that people don't think pvpers spend money on this game....having access to the chapters/dlcs and things like scrying and jewelry crafting , psijic skill line, monster sets,vat weapons etc are all pretty essential to most people's pvp experience....just always weird to see people regularly making that argument...

No that not what I am saying. We obviously spend money, but no where near as much as the real whales do. Neither of us have the real data to show the actual numbers, but if you look at what parts of the game get the most dev attention we can sus out who is spending the most money. They aren't going to waste money on pvp when their is no way to monetize it. Can't put p2w elements or we would quit. If they put in a battle pass though they can start milking pvp and get more people interested.

wazzz56

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

wazzz56 wrote: »

It kinda amazes me that people don't think pvpers spend money on this game....having access to the chapters/dlcs and things like scrying and jewelry crafting , psijic skill line, monster sets,vat weapons etc are all pretty essential to most people's pvp experience....just always weird to see people regularly making that argument...

No that not what I am saying. We obviously spend money, but no where near as much as the real whales do. Neither of us have the real data to show the actual numbers, but if you look at what parts of the game get the most dev attention we can sus out who is spending the most money. They aren't going to waste money on pvp when their is no way to monetize it. Can't put p2w elements or we would quit. If they put in a battle pass though they can start milking pvp and get more people interested.

@xxslam48xxb14_ESO I wasn't directing my statement towards you, I like the battle pass idea.....

Larcomar

May have been me then Either way, I don' t think anyone knows where zos make their money but I'd guess a large chunk of their revenue comes from cosmetics, crates etc and most of the rest from eso+ subscriptions. All you really need to be competitive in pvp is the chapters - Morrowind for warden, Elsweyr for necro, Summerset for jewelry and psyjic, and Greymoor for mythics. You can get them for like £18 on sale, then just farm any dlc dungeon sets or arena weapons like vate during the regular eso+ trials. It's what I've been doing. Mainly because I like quick RNDs.

Not saying that's what all pvp'rs do - I'm sure lots do spend money. Just that people who are into housing or outfits or pets or companions etc etc are going to have to spend money on crowns - that's their game; and people who are into high end pve are going to have to have a sub to access the dlc dungeons, trials etc they do. Maybe a pvp equivalent like a "battlepass" would create some parity, give pvp'rs more of an incentive to spend money, and zos more of an incentive to service them. All that said, though, I think we probably need to be careful when talking about "pvpr's" and "pve'rs" as if they're separate entities - there are probably lots who do both.

Thoragaal

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

Not a ZoS bash btw. Just wondering if there is a goal of getting more PVE players into PVP as a serious goal?

Made me think of this:

Emmagoldman

I want to have more significance for territory and smaller pvp zones across Tameriel. We would fight for global control with points with timers. Longer that you hold the space, longer the timer holds. Zones would have three keeps/forts and upgradable features and can be pvp, pvp/pve and even pve. Having gtc would provide small buffs for your faction

Small zones allow diverse environments. What I love about battle grounds is the faster pace action along with creative biomes. Lava, ice mountain keep with a snow storm, caves with illumicent shrooms. Its great! To pvp across wood elf forests, dwemer ruins, swamps of murmured, and the realm of nocturnal.

Then you have cyro. Massive but generally the same feel and horrible lag from its scale and generally copied castles. After years, its boring.

Cyro would have the most points and options for upgrading resources to have harvest nodes