Imperial City - How to get players in there again?

MindOfTheSwarm

Let’s face it, Imp City is almost a dead zone for large scale PvP. Especially the sewers. I don’t think adding new sets or items paid with tel var stones is enough. They way I see it, the only way to make it truly worth going there is if it had direct influences on what happened in upper Cyrodiil.
Problem is that they have been separated out from each other so that won’t work. So the question remains, how do we make Imperial City alluring for PvP l. I remember a time it was booming and lots of fun.

tonyblack

I think it’s in a nice place for small scale pvp and not as dead as some imply. I wouldn’t want it to become zerg vs zerg kind of zone, there is Cyrodiil for that.

If you want to incentivize such play style though most obvious option is to remove tel var split from grouping, so killing mobs and bosses while in 12 man groups gives as much as doing it solo. It would encourage grouping and bring more players but there would be some negative effects as well.

drsalvation

Imperial city has potential for so many things.
It was first advertised as a hybrid PvEvP.
I think the patrolling horrors need a massive buff in terms of size and healthpool alone, something that would really tell players to stop fighting for a sec and get rid of this massive hunk of meat and bones and after that, keep killing each other.
Especially by allowing siege weapons to be used in IC. Siege weapons are another wasted aspect in this game, if you're not in Cyrodiil, you'll never use them.

As for PvP itself, tel vars are a high risk high reward, but it also makes players not want to take the risk and will avoid conflict at all costs and only make griefers abuse this.
I like the fact that players can get punished for dying, it's something this game should take WAY more seriously (why the hell do we see Bastian and Mirri as "Dead" but as soon as the fight ends, they just walk it off and come back to life? How hard was it to write "unconscious"?) HOWEVER, this game isn't really fair when it comes to PvP, the fact that tanks still get one-shot by nightblades is a good indicator that maybe punishing them for not sneaking all the time isn't really the way to go.

The problem is that if a game is going to be punishing for losing, it also has to be fair, it has to make the player realize that dying was the player's fault, it has to allow the player to learn from their mistakes and get better. But PvP in ESO isn't that much about player skills, but rather player builds. You can do all the right things, but you can immediately tell when a fight is predetermined to have you lose when your resources are depleted and you barely managed to get the other player's health below 90% and one of their attacks is already getting your health down to 50%. Spamming skills, chugging potions, and trying to run won't save you, your numbers are no match against your opponent, and your only mistake was to engage with him in the first place. That's in no way fair pvp gameplay, so why are we getting punished for things we have little to no control over?
And as a game developer myself, as much as I like punishing players for their mistakes, players don't respond kindly to being punished, they do respond better by being rewarded.
So until PvP actually becomes fair, the concept of high-risk, high-reward is null (I mean, it's valid, but as I mentioned, the unfairness of PvP doesn't inspire players to go out with a 4x multiplier to kill other players, it inspires them to avoid conflict and sneak away).
In my personal experience, I know that once I get over 2k tel vars, I just go to Cyrodiil, and then safely store my stones in the bank, and then go back to IC (back in the old days, you had to sneak out of IC to get back to Cyrodiil, now they're both accessible through the campaigns menu, so even the PvE risk-reward has become deprecated).
So maybe just keep tel var gains and losses for PvE monsters, and PvP should reward with key fragments + AP.
Make players less scared to lose valuables in PvP encounters to push for more open conflicts amongst them.
The flags will increase your tel var gains from PvE monsters, so the best way to get them is to battle other players for control of the district to get better gains.
And to keep the momentum going, get rid of alliance lock spawn points. Captured flags should give you a boost in your earned tel-vars, nothing more. So when a fight breaks loose in a district, you can still spawn there even if the flag belongs to another alliance.

Artim_X

Make it so that you can pick up all the dailies from the board in the ladder room, allow players to respawn immediately at any district regardless of ownership, improve tel var gain from sewer regular bosses/banner bosses, when you respawn at a district your alliance banker will appear near the above ground ladder hatch to ask if you want to deposit your remaining tel var, improve the tel var reward for doing dailies by a bit (500 tel var per daily), and introduce new fashion rewards every two quarters.

VaranisArano

Bribe them with Event Tickets three times a year?


Okay, seriously, if you want to make it attractive for PVPers, the District flag mechanics really messed up the brawler atmosphere. Used to be you died, respawned in the same district, and jumped back into the fight. Can't do that anymore, so there's less incentive to go there to get fights as opposed to Cyrodiil or BG deathmatch.

You aren't going to make it attractive to PVEers without removing PVP.

You could try to make it more attractive to Tel Var farmers by removing Tel Var loss on death, even though that makes Tel Var pretty much identical to gold/AP. If you want to keep the unique mechanic of Tel Var loss, it would help if gankers were incentivized to risk their own Tel Var in order to get the rewards of ganking a TV farmer. That way the farmers aren't bearing all the risk and getting next to no reward if they beat a ganker.


But I suspect that ZOS won't be making changes to a DLC so old and unpopular that they give it away for free when they've got new content to focus on. In its current state, players still go there three times a year for event tickets.

Iron_Warrior

I said this in another thread but i repeat it again here:

Make the tel var loss high risk high reward for both sides, right now ic is risk free for gankers. Example: i have 20k stones in my pocket, if someone wants to steal 10k of it, he should also have 20k in his pocket. If he has 14k stones he should get 7k of my telvars and if he has no telvars he shouldn't be able to steal anything. So basically when a fight happens, the winner will get telvar stones equall to half the amount of the person that has lower stones. This way the ganker should also put something on the line.

wolfie1.0.

Zos already found the solution... make a TCG

Drdeath20

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

I said this in another thread but i repeat it again here:

Make the tel var loss high risk high reward for both sides, right now ic is risk free for gankers. Example: i have 20k stones in my pocket, if someone wants to steal 10k of it, he should also have 20k in his pocket. If he has 14k stones he should get 7k of my telvars and if he has no telvars he shouldn't be able to steal anything. So basically when a fight happens, the winner will get telvar stones equall to half the amount of the person that has lower stones. This way the ganker should also put something on the line.

This is a decent idea. People still don’t like losing their telvar though.

I think another good idea is with each death, in X time frame, your telvar loss should be reduced.

For every 5k you lose you add 10 mins to the timer. If you die in that time frame again you only lose 25% of telvar. Make it max out for 30mins and can happen once an hour the minute your 1st timer starts.

It encourages you to keep going out there once you die for at least half an hour more.

coop500

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

I said this in another thread but i repeat it again here:

Make the tel var loss high risk high reward for both sides, right now ic is risk free for gankers. Example: i have 20k stones in my pocket, if someone wants to steal 10k of it, he should also have 20k in his pocket. If he has 14k stones he should get 7k of my telvars and if he has no telvars he shouldn't be able to steal anything. So basically when a fight happens, the winner will get telvar stones equall to half the amount of the person that has lower stones. This way the ganker should also put something on the line.

THIS, I wish I could give 100 awesomes, agrees and insightfuls.
This would solve the #1 issue and actually make it high risk high reward.

SkaraMinoc

Easy.

1. Increase boss difficulty
2. Give players sets worth farming
3. Players go to IC

worrallj

Cyrodiil is better for *large scale* pvp imo. Imperial city is much more about skirmishing mauraders and lurkers.

I hate bumping into a Zerg in the IC because I can go to cyrodiil for that. I love IC the way it is - mysterious and cut throat.

axi

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Easy.

1. Increase boss difficulty
2. Give players sets worth farming
3. Players go to IC

1. Less incentive to go and farm tel vars for many farmers resulting with less people going to farm the farmers.
2. Limited time effect. When people get what they need they leave.

axi

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

I said this in another thread but i repeat it again here:

Make the tel var loss high risk high reward for both sides, right now ic is risk free for gankers. Example: i have 20k stones in my pocket, if someone wants to steal 10k of it, he should also have 20k in his pocket. If he has 14k stones he should get 7k of my telvars and if he has no telvars he shouldn't be able to steal anything. So basically when a fight happens, the winner will get telvar stones equall to half the amount of the person that has lower stones. This way the ganker should also put something on the line.

There is one issue with idea like that. Group vs group scenario.

redspecter23

Imperial City is a place for farmers and gankers.

Getting ganked makes the ganker happy, but the one getting ganked feels like an absolute pile of... stuff.

If time to kill, specifically against newer or non pvp specced players was increased above 1 second, you could see people more interested.

You can say git gud or L2P all you want, but that doesn't bring in the masses. If you want lots of players, appeal to a large amount of players.

Iron_Warrior

axi wrote: »

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

I said this in another thread but i repeat it again here:

Make the tel var loss high risk high reward for both sides, right now ic is risk free for gankers. Example: i have 20k stones in my pocket, if someone wants to steal 10k of it, he should also have 20k in his pocket. If he has 14k stones he should get 7k of my telvars and if he has no telvars he shouldn't be able to steal anything. So basically when a fight happens, the winner will get telvar stones equall to half the amount of the person that has lower stones. This way the ganker should also put something on the line.

There is one issue with idea like that. Group vs group scenario.

I think it can still workout there, but it gets more complex. Let me explain with an example:

Two teams are fighting, team A is a solo player and team B has 2 players

Team A: this person has 20k

Team B: one person has 10k and other one 15k

The teams start the fight and team B manages to kill team A. Two people attacked the team A person, they have 25k stones and their oppnonent has 20k. the winner will get telvar stones equall to half the amount of the person that has lower stones. So the prize is 10k. Team B won the 2v1 and won the 10k, but how should we split it? We say the 100% of their telvars is 25k, one of them has 10k so it means 40% of the total telvar. The other one has 15k so 60% of the total. We split the telvars based on their percent. One get 6k and another one gets 4k.

If it was the other way around and the solo player managed to 1v2 them it would be simple because we can treat as 2 1v1s

So basically we turn the groups into 2 teams and at first treat it like a 1v1. Then we split the prize between the winning team based on the percentage of the tel vars compared to the total amount.

Pinja

One thing they could do to add a continuous new player bace is add the rare dlc alchemy mats to the General Tel-Var merchant, +Perfect Roe or other gold-mats.
They could also add leads to item fragments that unlock new housing.

I know the current Tel-Var system is both a draw and discouraging. Someone I play with, who is unaccustomed to pvp, is so sensitive about 'getting robbed' they'll bank at like 200 Tel-var. Really slows down the grind. Where as I like to scrape up and clean out all the red and yellow gunk that gets backed up in the city and sewer, and usually get a pretty good pay day for my civil service.
However, these clean outs do not always go smoothly. I've had run ins with a well saturated, behemoth clog that ought to have made a good a pay day. But it got smart and flushed itself into a broken pipe. Further down line I find this cesspool laying on the city streets, so I wipe the floor with it. Thing is now I'm going from plumber to janitor, and don't get paid anywhere near as much as I should have.
My typical procedure for dealing with a spill or clog is wipe away the excess, deposit into my own solution until it stops being profitable, then continue to attack the residue with an acid bath until it goes away.
The problem with this is while everyone is dealing with the acid bath, no one is profiting off the Daedra. So overall gains get stifled. This, however, keeps Tel-var as the highest valued in-game currency due to the need for control and domination that Molag-Bal so enjoys.

Dem_kitkats1

I'm happy to see that ZOS is implementing player's suggestions about incentivizing PvP more. However, as other have mentioned, the rewards have to as enticing as crown rewards for players to actually make the effort in achieving them. The Dragon Guard Armor motif is a little lackluster, in my opinion, in comparison to the designs for crown crate styles, or even event style pages. It would have been cool if it was designed with the IC zone in mind, and something you wouldn't find in other zones. It looks too much like other old style pages from other areas, with nothing unique about it. I think they should also change and update the motifs in the Trophy Vaults to further incentivize new and experienced player to come back to farm for them. New sets are a good addition, as long as they are balanced...And it seems like having more events tied to IC really helps to boost the population during that time. So incentivization is a good step forward, but there needs to be more.

I agree with others that players should be able to respawn where they want regardless of what faction owns that territory. The layout of IC can be tricky for new and inexperienced players to begin with and then to have them respawn in an area across from where they started is very frustrating, especially if you were in the midst of fighting a boss.

At the moment I also think that there is too high of risk for too little reward. The 50% loss of tel var upon death is too high. With the population so low, it's only too easy for enemy players to wait and watch players kill npcs, and then get the killing combo on a player with already low resources. So after all of that work, players lose half of their tel var to one player who put in very little effort. This creates a very frustrating and toxic environment of players farming farmers that many players (even experienced PvP players) do not want to engage in.

Another issue that IC has is that it needs to be more viable for all classes. It's a ganker's paradise for reason. There are far too many objects that are cluttering the district's map and that break LoS for nightblades to abuse constantly without any ability for other classes to counter it. There are already so many buildings and walls in IC for nightblades to exploit, but to add rocks and trees, and other debris on top of it is overkill. I think where bosses are roaming there should be no LoS breaking.

drsalvation wrote: »

Imperial city has potential for so many things.
It was first advertised as a hybrid PvEvP.

Exactly. This is a hybrid PvEvP zone so truly make it one. Bosses should be more difficult as they would be in PvE zones, with higher health pools, more engaging and tactiful mechanics to counter, etc. Make it more incentivizing for PvE players to go there with their friends and guilds and allow them to employ their knowledge and skills as PvE players, but with the added challenge of encountering PvP. And, like others have suggested, allow the use of siege equipment making PvP tactics viable as well, therefore unifying both the PvE and PvP aspects of the zone. I think this would help to increase and diversify the population that would engage in IC.

Xebov

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

So the question remains, how do we make Imperial City alluring for PvP l. I remember a time it was booming and lots of fun.

You could start by removing the Tel Var drop on death. Many players dont visit it because they know that its essentially a stealth game where everyone tries to farm Tel Var by gankingl each other to grab them. Given the amount of Tel Var needed and the risks its simply not worth it to be there in the first place.

Leftover_Pizza

I, and probably lots of players with me, am totally not into PvP and avoid the zone like the plague. I have no PvP skills, nor have I any motivation to gain them. Also, there is no appeal to grind a currency and turn into a farming node myself and see all my hard grind go to waste.

If Cyrodiil and Imperial City weren't mandatory PvP, I might have a look at how the place looks like. A PvP toggle would be great. Until that day, no Cyrodiil and Imperial City for me and many others.

Getting people to go there would be helped if PvP could be toggled.

Nightlord

Get rid of alliance teams inside the Imperial City.
Allow PvP in the Imperial City to be a vicious free for all, no alliances, no groups.

Pinja

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Easy.

1. Increase boss difficulty
2. Give players sets worth farming
3. Players go to IC

I am fairly against raising boss difficulty. Doing so would undermine an already greatly stifled player reward pay out, and the banner bosses downstairs already have great deal of notoriety. Those bosses are rarely challenged in part due to their lack of reward. Making the reward go from a pvp player reward to some sort of end-game PVE raid reward would be detrimental. End-game PvE, in some ways, has grown more toxic then end-game Pvp, in that some groups wont run with players who don't have 100k Dps. Even though someone running with 70k dps may only add like 1-min more to the fight, these elitist groups exclude a majority of the player base. Whereas the point of additions and improvements to IC would be to include more players, and offer greater rewards. Requiring more players does not attract more players, it mainly makes it harder to get rewards and offers fewer opportunities to do the content.

dRudE

Leftover_Pizza wrote: »

I, and probably lots of players with me, am totally not into PvP and avoid the zone like the plague. I have no PvP skills, nor have I any motivation to gain them. Also, there is no appeal to grind a currency and turn into a farming node myself and see all my hard grind go to waste.

If Cyrodiil and Imperial City weren't mandatory PvP, I might have a look at how the place looks like. A PvP toggle would be great. Until that day, no Cyrodiil and Imperial City for me and many others.

Getting people to go there would be helped if PvP could be toggled.

Non-killable players in IC would defeat the purpose though. The game has 99% overland questing non-pvp zones, making one of the two only pvp zones non-pvp seems a little counter productive in my opinion.

I understand how you feel though, i was in a similar situation with PVE content, but i dipped my toes in and now i'm confident to complete all vet dlc PVE content on all roles. I guess it's just twice the fun enjoying both PVE and PVP!

endgamesmug

Last time i was there was 2016, they destroyed it all by not allowing you to respawn quickly. I really cant be bothered going through all that trouble to get back to the fight. That place is dead to me

Pinja

A couple things that I find discouraging me from hoping in with my sewers guild sometimes is the no-cp Ic banlist, and the split drops.
It's a nice guild with friendly people, but when they start to zerg it's like I'm playing with a bunch of leeching landmines when it comes to Tel-var and Vicious Death. Play with a couple of the officers, get strong back-up and thousands of tel-var per drop. Play with their zerg, get paid a few hundred to sit back and watch player death. I don't mind carrying people. I even have a no-cp Ic build swap. But to not be at my strongest and loose out on rewards kinda has me continuing my own business when they ask me to group up.

Dagoth_Rac

This is really getting out there but...

1). Get rid of Tel Var loss on death.
2). You still get Tel Var from killing players, but it acts more like killing PvE enemies. It just appears out of thin air.
3). To control inflation, put an upper limit on Tel Var gain per day. Doesn't matter if you get it via killing PvE mobs or killing other players. Once you reach daily cap, you get no more Tel Var that day. Maybe have separate caps for PvE gain and PvP gain, so those willing to engage in PvP will have opportunity to gain more Tel Var than those who try to avoid PvP. But still a cap so you don't have the same handful of players sitting around ganking all night long.
4). Provide good stuff to buy with Tel Var.

This sounds weird, but getting rid of Tel Var loss on death, and creating a reasonable daily limit that feels "achievable" has a good chance to bring players in. It could become something like the XP from random normal dungeon. Just something people slot in as a daily activity. Not really something they do all day long, but something many players do every day. This would provide an appealing, reachable daily goal in IC with minimized punishment. It will make IC more appealing to PvE players while still providing the opportunity to gain Tel Var from PvP engagement.

Of course, deciding how fast players earn Tel Var, what the daily cap is, etc., would have to be worked out.

ZiggyTStardust

Remove Tel Var loss on death, to both players and enemies. This would completely nnegate the entire point of Tel Vars and would turn it into just another version of ap, but clearly the current system isn't working for a majority of people.

This would require a change to how much Tel Var you get from killing players, maybe that could be based on how much Tel Var they gained in the last x amount of time (the killed player still wouldn't loose any Tel Var).

VaranisArano

redspecter23 wrote: »

Imperial City is a place for farmers and gankers.

Getting ganked makes the ganker happy, but the one getting ganked feels like an absolute pile of... stuff.

If time to kill, specifically against newer or non pvp specced players was increased above 1 second, you could see people more interested.

You can say git gud or L2P all you want, but that doesn't bring in the masses. If you want lots of players, appeal to a large amount of players.

I'd rather not appeal to the masses at the expense of Imperial City's PvPvE gameplay. Yes, I realize that's going to limit its appeal, but that's okay by me.

While I understand your point, trying to appeal to players who refuse to spec for PVP when they enter a PVP-enabled zone is aiming for the lowest common denominator.

Even Cyrodiil doesn't support that. Battlegrounds definitely doesn't. It's not that different from PVE group content in that regard: if you don't bother to spec for the minimum of your role requirements, you probably aren't going to have a good time, yet few people suggest that we nerf trials until they appeal to the masses. It's also not that different from doing good DPS in PVE - the players with good DPS will tell you that it takes practice, not just slapping on the right gear.

There's a segment of players who get really bitter when they bring their PVE build to Imperial City during events and predictably have a terrible experience. There's another segment of players who slap on a PVP build and then are shocked and appalled to discover that PVPers are used to fighting other PVPers. Like, yeah...it takes preparation and practice.


For New Players: ZOS needs to offer a Below 50 option for Imperial City. It's unfair to force Below 50 players into the same campaign as the players in CP 160 gear, especially during events. While Below 50 Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds have their own issues with experienced players who like to play at those levels, it tends to be a more welcoming experience for new players who are interested in PVP. It's more forgiving in terms of gear options too.

ZOS already gave everyone some base impenetrable trait. Short of inventing some sort of "battle leveling" as newer players earn their Alliance skill war lines for the first time, I'm not sure how to handhold these players through the learning process. Usually ZOS relies on PVP guilds to do that, which is a problem when the guilds usually avoid Imperial City because the district flag design doesn't allow for brawling fights like Cyrodiil and BGs do. I'd like to see more guilds in Imperial City because groups give newbies the chance to learn from others, win battles, and learn from their mistakes.

Maybe ZOS could offer a PVP Skills Advisor for new players, with the caveat that just like any Skill Advisor build, it takes practice to use effectively. Be a bit hard to keep up with how fast they change the meta, LOL.


Of course, none of that is going to help the players who don't want to prepare for PVP very much, but I don't see much use in trying to make the horse drink after it's been led to water.

I suppose the best advice I have for those players is to see if their guilds will put together a group of likeminded players to run around Imperial City with during events. Might as well have fun with your friends and maybe enjoy some strength in numbers!

DagenHawk

I think the Best way to get people there is end the terrible PVP that has maybe Twenty people still playing and create a PVE area with quest Dungeons and Trials. The prime player base will be happy especially considering the Three Banners war will be ending soon..heck Cyrodil can be the next expansion right there, which will take the game to 2024. The new PVP will be arena's which fits into what TES has been historically.

At least ZoS isn't abandoning PVP all togethere despit having such a miniscule player base....you have to give them credit for that. Any other dev would have taken PVP out back and Blade of woe'd it.

Drdeath20

People don’t care about dying to other players as evidence by cyrodil. People hate losing stuff especially 50% every time you die especially when the stuff you can buy is not interesting.

Thecompton73

endgamesmug wrote: »

Last time i was there was 2016, they destroyed it all by not allowing you to respawn quickly. I really cant be bothered going through all that trouble to get back to the fight. That place is dead to me

The Arena district always had a nice size brawl going and was very very fun before they added the flags and changed the spawn rules so you couldn't instantly respawn in the same district anymore. Those changes absolutely destroyed the IC pvp scene.
Even then it's real heyday that saw players packing the sewers and districts was when you could only get the highest level mats by farming the gear and Telvar there. People would probably riot if they made something extremely important only available in IC nowadays.

Leftover_Pizza

dRudE wrote: »

Leftover_Pizza wrote: »

I, and probably lots of players with me, am totally not into PvP and avoid the zone like the plague. I have no PvP skills, nor have I any motivation to gain them. Also, there is no appeal to grind a currency and turn into a farming node myself and see all my hard grind go to waste.

If Cyrodiil and Imperial City weren't mandatory PvP, I might have a look at how the place looks like. A PvP toggle would be great. Until that day, no Cyrodiil and Imperial City for me and many others.

Getting people to go there would be helped if PvP could be toggled.

Non-killable players in IC would defeat the purpose though. The game has 99% overland questing non-pvp zones, making one of the two only pvp zones non-pvp seems a little counter productive in my opinion.

I understand how you feel though, i was in a similar situation with PVE content, but i dipped my toes in and now i'm confident to complete all vet dlc PVE content on all roles. I guess it's just twice the fun enjoying both PVE and PVP!

I get that point, which is why a toggle would work. Maybe even go as far as players who have PvP toggled off don't get the currency PvP grinders do?
Then again, after thinking about it a bit more, PvE players would just do the zone quests and never come there again.