Why PVP Failed?

Parasaurolophus

Prime time weekend. EU campaigns are almost empty. The same players meet at BG`s matches, and the queues are huge. Looking at this situation, I can safely say for myself that the PVP in this game is not just going through a difficult time. It completely failed in the end and there is no hope that it will get better. It hurts me a lot to watch this. Yes, I'm not much of a pvp player. But I like the PvP in this game, like the combat system and the gameplay. When there is nothing to do in pve, pvp always greeted you with almost round-the-clock activity.
8 years have passed and I would like to discuss in this thread what went wrong and when? After all, PVP was definitely a success in the early years for ESO. There were twice as many campaigns and they were always full. And the players were constantly discussing PVP, the balance of classes, sets, looking for pvp guilds, and so on...
Below I have given some options for poll. I understand that all circumstances are most likely to blame to varying degrees, but I will ask you to choose what annoys you the most and repels you from pvp.
For me, it's a balance. I haven't played much in Cyrodiil, mostly preferring BG`s. I love my main nb. I loved playing it and I liked the way this class plays. But then, the meta moved further and further towards heavy armor and burst combos. At first, I tried to play in a way that would remain competitive. I didn't like it. But then, in the Murkmire patch, NB was hit hard with a nerfhammer. Since then, balance in pvp has become too toxic for me. I saw that if you are not a manasorc or a stamvarden, then in pvp it is even better not to try. About Cyrodiil... Really dancing around resources or running and spamming AoE in ballgroups is this high-end pvp content? I would also like to remember the absolutely terrible Zaan + Malacath + Veteshran meta, which the ZoS did not want to fix for a whole year. In general, a series of bad decisions, a lack of desire to fix obvious problems and distortions in the meta, made me just forget about pvp a year and a half ago.

Jpk0012

Broken meta and bad balance

Gankers chase everyone off. Its not hard to understand.

They cry every time they see a tank or healer, and ZOS has made those builds worthless in pvp.

DagenHawk

Inevitably PVPers always run out of Victims.

The community does an amazing job of misdirect showing how PVP is never about Pawning N00bs/Scrubs I mean Oscar winning performances

But in the end that is really what it's all about...and I have had a lot of PVPers admit that when they thought no one was looking.

If a game is like Planetside it "may" work...

But never with a Elder Scrolls MMO.

Sorry.

tsaescishoeshiner

It's a huge leap to say that PvP "failed" as opposed to just saying it has problems, like it always has.

I think a better question would be like "What's your biggest gripe with PvP?" or "What do you think mainly keeps PvP from being better?"

ResidentContrarian

Broken meta and bad balance

When gear is playing the game, there is little reason to play.

Most outcomes are decided exclusively through gear, and the tank meta thanks to numerous CP stars, ZOS ignoring feedback, etc. is a joke.

And it's clear what sets are the issue since everyone is using them: rallying cry, vate 2h, pariah, malacath, that mythic on the PTS that gives every buff you can ever want (soon to be an issue and kill PvP for sure), etc.

These items are not balanced in any way, shape, or form, when they:

1. Have no replacement
2. Are literally BETTER copies of the same 5-piece effect of other sets (lol don't get me started on that mythic)
3. Ultimately all increase damage, survivability, etc. with little trade-off
4. When combined, all the unbalanced gear cannot be competed with on any build besides ones running the same exact gear

And we're just talking about gear that everyone knows and ignoring bugs that aren't talked about like iron blood and pain refuge, and all the other interactions that are buggy and/or OP in ways they shouldn't be.

We don't even need to talk about classes yet, because the gear is such an issue!

Also, siege is a meme!

Stamicka

It’s hard to point to one singular thing. There’s a long list of reasons why the PvP population has steadily declined. PvP hasn’t gotten new content in years, its been plagued by performance issues for a long time, many bad balance/combat decisions were made, PvP is not very rewarding, and ESO in general has become very casual. Those are just a few general reasons off the top of my head. ZOS has mishandled PvP in basically every way possible. I could go on and on cause so much has gone wrong.

Mr_Stach

Broken meta and bad balance

I'm a Warden main and Zos does everything in their power to make Magden Worse each balance patch.

Dojohoda

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Bad gaming experience from performance that worsened over the years. Players could get the OP gear and put it on the strongest class, but if skills don't fire and if you can't move, what's the point.

tonyblack

No new content

All of the problems you have listed are valid, but my main gripe is the fact that the last update was a few years back. There is simply nothing exiting about pvp for me whether they fix the lag or not. I did all the achievements i cared about bearing with whatever performance and meta i had to deal with. Nothing new was added to Cyrodiil or battlegrounds since i joined ESO barring some style pages. No new zones, no new modes, no new mechanics, no new ranks, no new bound account rewards, etc. It’s just as fun as running same base game dungeons over and over tbh.

rpa

Broken meta and bad balance

If I wanted to play PvP I'd launch some classic more or less balanced PvP game from my dusty and cobwebby Steam libeary.

Xinihp

Broken meta and bad balance

Constantly taking things away from PVE in oder to "balance" PVP puts me off PVP altogether.

That coupled with cheese metas, gank builds, ball zergs, etc. But I don't think you can fix that without giving PVP players a personality transplant. In any competitive "sport" if people CAN cheat or cheese to gain advantage, then 9 times out of 10 they will. I blame players for that just as much as ZOS.

But looking at things like Vampire mist form being straight DELETED from PVE, or cool sets like Thunderbug and other DPS tank builds being removed because people were cheesing in PVP, makes me just disappointed that game companies STILL refuse to balance these separately.

Or if they do, it seems only with a "hit it with a sledgehammer and forget it" level of investment.

Daraklus

Blame the casual direction of the ESO

A multiple number of issues, ranging from bad performance and lack of support.

What I think is the worst part is the lack of communication in regards to PvP. You see a lot of it for the PvE side of things and then you see didly squat for PvP. Kind of disappointing though as I still got some jollies out of the activity.

I keep thinking PvP should revolve around people being equipped with arena rainments and customize their abiloties, rather than go in with whatever they have on and let their gear dominate the playing field.

HonestLoverr

Broken meta and bad balance

Bad performance is what everyone feels. On PC NA old performance issues slowly make it through again. Skills not firing, bar swap not working, hammer crashes so many players at once that it even wipes out prime time queues (anything around 70-100+ people who get kicked out of the game).

But when performance was at least playable, you could clearly see the balance issues crystal clear: Bombs everywhere. Bombs, bombs, bombs. So many dark convergence/Plague Break/Vicious Death procs, its insane. This is a game about swords and magic, but you got more bombs in this medieval fantasy game than in a modern warfare shooter like Call of Duty! Yes, it really is that bad. 9 out of 10 deaths are caused by bomb. Blocking can still get you killed. Dodge Roll can fail registering and get you killed. You can even stand outside of the AOE's and still get killed.

On top of this when you think is bad enough, we are not done yet. Bombers are the bread and butter of ball groups. Without them, they wouldn't be even near as effective when playing their fullspeed buffed and healstacked LoS player farm game all day long. Small scalers are all sonic the unkillable LoS healstack hedgehog as well, playing ring around the rosie around literally every rock, tree, stairs and walls they can find. Tower humping 24/7. Fun is hard to achieve when all you can do is suck up getting bombed over and over, having to chase full speed godmode LoS treehuggers, and getting a hard time landing a kill or even survive outside of groups.

Last but not least cp powercreep makes so much of difference, new players get told to run healer because they will never outdps/outsustain/tank the damage of 1500 cp vets running around and also never ever be on par with them, as long as they don't catch up on at least literal hundreds and thousands of cp's (which are essentially just another ridiculously broken level system put on everyone) with a mind blowing slow xp pace to get them, making it hard to get the needed motivation to even grind these cp's in the first place, to at least not be at a constant disadvantage because of that, since everyone under 1k cp just gets focused all the time. Its nothing but big "I'm a squishy, weak damage free kill" sign above the head.
Let alone the gear requirements that need several months of casual playtime to be somewhat at even ground farming of that stuff. Close to no PvP guilds helps with farming it. Mythic lead drops can result in absolutely bad rng as well. Even if you FINALLY reached your aimed cp mark and got all of the precious gear you farmed for so hard, you will still get bombed, killfarmed, LoS'd, outdps'd, etc. etc. anyways once you step a food in cyrodiil or until you reach a certain MMR in bg's.

All of the above coming together is just off-putting to veterans and new comers alike. MMO's are made to be time consuming. BUT they should at least be rewarding relative to the time/money/effort you invested once reaching a certain point. Broken mechanics + gear + cp > skill. These three things are the main carry.


And don't let me even start about the age old campaign system that we got. The system itself needs a complete overhaul as well as the map design and its mechanics. Especially battlespirit, hammer, siege, emp and how the scoreboard works...

Pepegrillos

Was going to write something, but the whole story of why Pvp has the place it has in this game would take too long.

TLDR:

Pvp popularity was associated with the launch of the game (flop).
Nearly inexistent new content since BGs.
Bad performance.
A small community with an overrepresentation of toxic players (doxxers, hate raiders, etc) that drive new and old players away.

Given the overall state of the game and how well casual PvE content does comparatively, there is nearly no incentive for Zos (monetarily or of any sort) to do anything about it.

Shagreth

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Lag and gankers.

Knockmaker

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Dojohoda wrote: »

Bad gaming experience from performance that worsened over the years. Players could get the OP gear and put it on the strongest class, but if skills don't fire and if you can't move, what's the point.

This. I stopped playing months ago simply because of this. I still login from time to time for login rewards if I have time, and I see zero improvement. It was and it still is that bad.

Cuddlypuff

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Ridiculously high time-to-kill. Sure this can be solved by going all in on bombing/ganking or some 1 trick balorgh burst, but then you are at the mercy of lag and poor server performance to get the combo off.

Marto

Blame the casual direction of the ESO

My vote is more accurately towards "Archaic gameplay and social design"

Cyrodiil PVP is really not that much worse, less balanced, or less popular than other big, open, guild-based PVP zones in MMOs. They all fail. And they all fail for the same reasons.

As the average age of gamers becomes higher, they have less time and energy to dedicate to videogames. People start gravitating towards games that allow you to have an entertaining 1-2 hour session of play. Sometimes even shorter.
This is part of the reason why MOBAs and Battle Royales took over, while 'endless' multiplayer games and MMOs lost popularity.

Nowadays, people are less eager to join guilds and communities. They're wary of guild politics, infighting, and toxicity, and want to stay away from it.

ESO was originally intended to be the spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot. ZOS wanted the three-faction PVP war to permeate every aspect of gameplay, every quest, and every social interaction. But this was unwelcomed and unsustainable. People wanted to explore varied regions, create characters of varied races, and the PVP focus discouraged that.

ESO becoming more "casual" was a good thing, and it's what saved the game. ESO's strengths have always laid in its world, exploration, questing, and variety (with things like housing, crafting, and customization). ZOS had to swallow their pride, abandon the foolish dreams they had of a PVP-centric MMO, and switch directions.

In 2015 and 2016, ESO released the Imperial City, Orsinium, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood DLCs. Of those four, one was an underwhelming mess, and are 3 were beloved even to this day. That was the final nail in the coffin for ESO PVP.

TwinLamps

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

We saw if at least for a week or so what non obsolete hardware can do to PvP. Also, during MyM performance is usually noticably better. So blame it on whoever cuts the costs by keeping PvP on very limited hardware resources ON PURPOSE.
Also, all the balance issues come from same fact, someone is CUTTING COSTS.
I pity the devs, I really do. Who knows what they would be capable of providing to gaming world if they were not constantly on short leash by people behind all bs decisions.

KalevaLaine

Blame the casual direction of the ESO

Probably for me it is all of the options.

Lame, full of gankers, no content. I'm tired to fight the same things for several years.

Tommy_The_Gun

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Balance is also in a terrible & busted state with its core mechanics being exploited left & right (some one did not asked some obvious "what if" questions when stuff was designed).

But imho Balance is irrelevant if we can not play the game normally & use skills, swap bars, drink potions etc reliably.

ZeroDPS

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Shagreth wrote: »

Lag and gankers.

cant understand you and all other players who feels bad and sad when being ganked, I really having fun and respect when somebody ideally timed ganks me, yes I need to respawn and run again but this is a part of the game, it is fun, about lag agree 1000%

Hurbster

Let's see then.

Well, performance has been consistently terrible for years, the last update was battlegrounds in what, Morrowind?

It's stagnant, most of the map is redundant and Battle Spirit is completely ignored by the devs as a method by which they can balance skills specifically for PVP and not PVP/PVE, which only leads to anger and shouting from one camp to another.

Wyrd88

Blame the casual direction of the ESO

What went wrong and when?

Basically, everything, during the past couple of years, which includes constantly degrading performance, questionable (at best) balance decisions, completely broken sets/items every major patch, exhausting tests and experiments with queues, (wanted to say lack of new content, but) complete ignorance from the devs.

Speaking of poll options, it's all of them to some degree, including the last one.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Why is PvP 'stuck':

- Forced live 'performance tests' (few years back)
- High latency (since a long time, but now with lower values yet still unplayable (?)
- Time outs back to login
- Crashing/freezing (This is new for me since U33)
- Population limits and size of the map (We need horse refuelling ships midway)
- Lack of innovation (minor adjustments and additions only)
- The 'set' shuffle (only innovation the game provides)
- Limelight metas (hence no balance, but they seem to like these as we've never really seen a balanced patch outside of the 'performance testing' period where no one could play a dot class)

Edited to add:
- P2W aspects in the form of DLC based sets and mythical items that not everyone has access to (unbalanced again)

Yep.

DagenHawk

Marto wrote: »

ESO was originally intended to be the spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot. ZOS wanted the three-faction PVP war to permeate every aspect of gameplay, every quest, and every social interaction. But this was unwelcomed and unsustainable.

.

Yes and the fact that was not laughed out of the first pitch meeting is beyond me...I mean hardly anyone plays Vet Trials and yet there are much more players in that demographic than in PVP

The forums literally lit up when the PVP focus was announced; we tried to tell them it was a "Silly" ( ""Forum speak translate that however you wish) idea, but apparently they were either too far in or thought they knew better than thousands of players who have been playing TES games since 1994.

But the Genie's already left the building...or bottle ...or something.

To be fair Zenimax did a lot to right the ship (wow I'm full of metaphors today aren't I?) and today it's a solid game where you don't have to raid, or PVP to advance in the game, and they are making Scrooge McDuck amounts of money because of it.

Ragnarok0130

Broken meta and bad balance

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

When gear is playing the game, there is little reason to play.

Most outcomes are decided exclusively through gear, and the tank meta thanks to numerous CP stars, ZOS ignoring feedback, etc. is a joke.

I think this is part of the issue. In ESO PVP it's not just skill at play, it's heavily influenced by one's gear and build so "getting good" is only a small part of the equation - the other is getting the proper gear and build unlike in more traditional PVP games like Battlefield/Halo/COD/Gears that I normally PVP in where it's spawn with your preferred weapon and engage.

We already have no CP PVP campaigns so I wonder if a skills only PVP where gear doesn't factor in would be possible and if possible how it would fare reception wise with the larger PVP community. I'm speaking here as a casual support PVPer here so I'm interested in what the hard core PVP guys think about this, I suspect they wouldn't be very interested and the mode would be DOA.

The performance during the past couple of years cannot be discounted either because there were times when I really wanted to PVP but it was impossible to play due to the lag, rubber banding, abilities not firing, and constant disconnects so I think the real answer is a combination of several factors listed.

ZeroDPS wrote: »

Shagreth wrote: »

Lag and gankers.

cant understand you and all other players who feels bad and sad when being ganked, I really having fun and respect when somebody ideally timed ganks me, yes I need to respawn and run again but this is a part of the game, it is fun, about lag agree 1000%

@ZeroDPS most people that I've met in any MMOs' PVP who aren't gankers don't like to be ganked because there's no counter play, you're basically being sucker killed without the ability to fight back and people find that frustrating. It's the same reason people rage in FPSs at corner campers, there was no skill involved; it was all lie in wait and surprise the guy with no opportunity to fight back. It turns out that when people play "player vs player" they want to be able to engage the other player and not just die in a way that feels cheap.

KaGaOri

Broken meta and bad balance

It's lethal combo of two things in my opinion:

"Broken meta and bad balance" for casuals and elder scolls RPG fans
There is no casual / beginner friendly PvP, everyone goes directly into the deep end. You get one-shot over and over by experienced players with meta build and meta gear. Have to be strong as a player, have high level character of the right class and farmed all the right gear before PvP becomes fun and not source of frustration. People won't want to do it all first if the whole concept of PvP wasn't that apealing to them in the first place.

"Terrible performance in Cyrodiil" for those who actually like and want to PvP
Loosing to the lag and bugs instead of other players is no fun and game turning into slideshow of still images is even less fun. ZOS refusing to acknowledge the "elefant in the room" and devise realistic plan how to remedy it makes thing worse.

Will only PvP when there's event going. Performance is usually good and both IC and Cyrodiil is full of average schmoes, like me. Still will lose fights, but by an inch, not a mile and even win now and then.

Tommy_The_Gun

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

most people that I've met in any MMOs' PVP who aren't gankers don't like to be ganked because there's no counter play, you're basically being sucker killed without the ability to fight back and people find that frustrating. It's the same reason people rage in FPSs at corner campers, there was no skill involved; it was all lie in wait and surprise the guy with no opportunity to fight back. It turns out that when people play "player vs player" they want to be able to engage the other player and not just die in a way that feels cheap.

Tbh. It feels more frustrating when I die to a ball group. I can not recall when was the last time I died to a single ganker with a "one-shot". For the most part even vs ganker there is a counter-play. If you die with a one-shot to a single player, then you are doing something wrong or maybe you need to change something in your build.

When it comes to ball group - it feels like they have the power to turn off your mouse & keyboard for a couple of seconds. Even breaking free doesn't work. You just helplessly sit in the AOE with a triple CC with de-synced health bar & full stamina bar, being hit by things that game did not even rendered yet lol.

Pretty fair /S lol

OsUfi

Two years of covid, now everything's opening up in the UK. I'm not spending my sunny weekends, especially one as fab as this weekend, sat indoors playing a computer game.

I'll see you in the Autumn. Pew, pew.

DigiAngel

Broken meta and bad balance

At the core, for me, ESO pvp isn't very enjoyable. There ARE glimmers of having fun...running around with a group is pretty cool...engaging in large battles as well. The problem is either those groups aren't around, or the battles are just too far away, even with a fast horse, at least in Cyro. Solo PvP is just not fun.