Why PVP Failed?

ResidentContrarian

Broken meta and bad balance

KiltMaster wrote: »

I don't think pvp has failed so much as there's more of a learning curve and it requires more practice than pve and overland content.

I mean, you're not fighting npcs ... you're fighting people who, often, spend a lot of time working on builds and practicing and dueling.

It's not for everyone, but I think it's a stretch to say it "failed"

"Learning curve"

When a guy stands still and takes no damage, vs the other player utilizing roll, block, interrupt, and the guy standing still wins because his gear is superior?

Yeah, not really a learning curve.

agelonestar

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Hard to pinpoint a single thing and in my opinion they are linked. However it all comes back to server performance in the end, hence my choice.

JanTanhide

Every time I visit Cyrodil it's either locked or has a high population. If that's a sign of failure it's a good one.

Armanie

The problem I see with pvp is there is no stake at all. You capture a fort only for it to be recaptured by the other team an hour later, then you come back and recapture, and it's the same cycle over and over. Everything you've accomplished is wiped out the next time you log in.

It's literally pointless.

Tommy_The_Gun

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

JanTanhide wrote: »

Every time I visit Cyrodil it's either locked or has a high population. If that's a sign of failure it's a good one.

Full population now is not the same as full population was 1 or 2 years ago. Full population used to mean that there were fights pretty much everywhere on the map. Now it is more or less one or two spots on the map.

ZOS "ninja nerfed" (reduced) population cap a couple of times. Recently I have read an information that some guilds were trying to figure out what the population cap is. So they all logged in to an empty campaign & counted that there was around 70 of them & pop was locked. So, thinking optimistically, I would not be surprised if population was around 100.

Also, something I have noticed. After playing Cyro for more or less more than 3 years, I noticed that it is all the same players playing PvP. Same accounts. There aren't pretty much any new players playing in Cyrodiil. And even if they do, they aren't staying there. PvP in ESO has almost no player retention. It does not make them to keep playing more.

Karivaa

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

If they ever completely fixed Cyrodiil, Zos would be shocked at how many players come back. Shocked.

Ratzkifal

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Armanie wrote: »

The problem I see with pvp is there is no stake at all. You capture a fort only for it to be recaptured by the other team an hour later, then you come back and recapture, and it's the same cycle over and over. Everything you've accomplished is wiped out the next time you log in.

It's literally pointless.

It's not pointless if you enjoy the process. Why play a card game if you have to put the cards back afterwards, wiping out everything you've accomplished? Why play any game for that matter?

Ragnarok0130

Broken meta and bad balance

drsalvation wrote: »

Fallout 76 had a PvP mode, and I think ESO should follow the same idea, where the only thing that transfers from PvE to PvP is your avatar and cosmetics. No weapons nor armor.

Unlike ESO’s PVP FO76’s PVP actually did fail and is mostly unpopulated and the BR mode where you brought no gear was outright removed. Normal 76 PVP takes your gear into consideration where you have actual legendary stars to reduce damage from other players which is more broken than anything in ESO’s PVP so I’m not sure where you’re getting that gear doesn’t transfer to PVP in 76.

Casul

You can tell who PvPs and who doesn't in this thread.

Amottica

The performance is the key issue, hands down. Meta and balance are very much secondary and new content is irrelevant if what we have works fine.

Armanie

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

The problem I see with pvp is there is no stake at all. You capture a fort only for it to be recaptured by the other team an hour later, then you come back and recapture, and it's the same cycle over and over. Everything you've accomplished is wiped out the next time you log in.

It's literally pointless.

It's not pointless if you enjoy the process. Why play a card game if you have to put the cards back afterwards, wiping out everything you've accomplished? Why play any game for that matter?

Card games can have strong consequences. In poker you can lose all your money for good. In ESO it doesn't matter what you do, your actions have no real impact on the game. Pvp being meaningless makes it less appealing for some players. You often see the same small population of players in cyro, they're the minority who enjoy the "process" as you call it. Meanwhile others don't care about pvp, and the lack of stakes may be one of the reasons why.

Mr_Stach

Broken meta and bad balance

Armanie wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

The problem I see with pvp is there is no stake at all. You capture a fort only for it to be recaptured by the other team an hour later, then you come back and recapture, and it's the same cycle over and over. Everything you've accomplished is wiped out the next time you log in.

It's literally pointless.

It's not pointless if you enjoy the process. Why play a card game if you have to put the cards back afterwards, wiping out everything you've accomplished? Why play any game for that matter?

Card games can have strong consequences. In poker you can lose all your money for good. In ESO it doesn't matter what you do, your actions have no real impact on the game. Pvp being meaningless makes it less appealing for some players. You often see the same small population of players in cyro, they're the minority who enjoy the "process" as you call it. Meanwhile others don't care about pvp, and the lack of stakes may be one of the reasons why.

I dunno, for some some people, they feel some consequences.

Ratzkifal

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Armanie wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

The problem I see with pvp is there is no stake at all. You capture a fort only for it to be recaptured by the other team an hour later, then you come back and recapture, and it's the same cycle over and over. Everything you've accomplished is wiped out the next time you log in.

It's literally pointless.

It's not pointless if you enjoy the process. Why play a card game if you have to put the cards back afterwards, wiping out everything you've accomplished? Why play any game for that matter?

Card games can have strong consequences. In poker you can lose all your money for good. In ESO it doesn't matter what you do, your actions have no real impact on the game. Pvp being meaningless makes it less appealing for some players. You often see the same small population of players in cyro, they're the minority who enjoy the "process" as you call it. Meanwhile others don't care about pvp, and the lack of stakes may be one of the reasons why.

Can. But people play card games without those strong consequences too, don't they?
While I can see that some players would like there to be consequences (whatever those would be) to PvP, they are by no means necessary to enjoy PvP as we can see from PC NA having huge Cyrodiil queues and being constantly full (from what I've been told) now that performance is better over there.
Clearly performance is the main issue PvP is facing right now and why wouldn't it be? The game stopped being fun when simply pressing a button wouldn't let your character use their skill anymore.
The lack of stakes and everything being reset is not why PvP "failed".

Armanie

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

The problem I see with pvp is there is no stake at all. You capture a fort only for it to be recaptured by the other team an hour later, then you come back and recapture, and it's the same cycle over and over. Everything you've accomplished is wiped out the next time you log in.

It's literally pointless.

It's not pointless if you enjoy the process. Why play a card game if you have to put the cards back afterwards, wiping out everything you've accomplished? Why play any game for that matter?

Card games can have strong consequences. In poker you can lose all your money for good. In ESO it doesn't matter what you do, your actions have no real impact on the game. Pvp being meaningless makes it less appealing for some players. You often see the same small population of players in cyro, they're the minority who enjoy the "process" as you call it. Meanwhile others don't care about pvp, and the lack of stakes may be one of the reasons why.

Can. But people play card games without those strong consequences too, don't they?
While I can see that some players would like there to be consequences (whatever those would be) to PvP, they are by no means necessary to enjoy PvP as we can see from PC NA having huge Cyrodiil queues and being constantly full (from what I've been told) now that performance is better over there.
Clearly performance is the main issue PvP is facing right now and why wouldn't it be? The game stopped being fun when simply pressing a button wouldn't let your character use their skill anymore.
The lack of stakes and everything being reset is not why PvP "failed".

"full" now is not what "full" was years ago. Pvp population has declined. Meaningless pvp in a persistant world fails to retain pvp players in the long term.

driosketch

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.

A number of people have mentioned gear, CP, ect. But last night on PC NA the limited gear/no CP campaign was at single bars, with yellow gating the other two, while the other campaigns were pop locked.

Which is a shame because I prefer the limited gear format, but I'm also casual about PvP. I'm not going to do it all the time. I guess there just isn't enough players who want a ceiling on builds to sustain that format.

So it seems to me, the dedicated PVP'ers want to use the gear and CP they earned. And even with lag, they are still filling two campaigns during prime time on a week day. Is this not enough? I can understand why casual players don't find a place in PvP, do the rest of you think PvP is dying?

axi

This poll lacks the option "all of the above". it's just too many issues plaguing PvP for too long.

Ratzkifal

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Armanie wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

The problem I see with pvp is there is no stake at all. You capture a fort only for it to be recaptured by the other team an hour later, then you come back and recapture, and it's the same cycle over and over. Everything you've accomplished is wiped out the next time you log in.

It's literally pointless.

It's not pointless if you enjoy the process. Why play a card game if you have to put the cards back afterwards, wiping out everything you've accomplished? Why play any game for that matter?

Card games can have strong consequences. In poker you can lose all your money for good. In ESO it doesn't matter what you do, your actions have no real impact on the game. Pvp being meaningless makes it less appealing for some players. You often see the same small population of players in cyro, they're the minority who enjoy the "process" as you call it. Meanwhile others don't care about pvp, and the lack of stakes may be one of the reasons why.

Can. But people play card games without those strong consequences too, don't they?
While I can see that some players would like there to be consequences (whatever those would be) to PvP, they are by no means necessary to enjoy PvP as we can see from PC NA having huge Cyrodiil queues and being constantly full (from what I've been told) now that performance is better over there.
Clearly performance is the main issue PvP is facing right now and why wouldn't it be? The game stopped being fun when simply pressing a button wouldn't let your character use their skill anymore.
The lack of stakes and everything being reset is not why PvP "failed".

"full" now is not what "full" was years ago. Pvp population has declined. Meaningless pvp in a persistant world fails to retain pvp players in the long term.

Yes, but the queues are also full. It takes several hours to get in. That means that PvP population hasn't declined at all, just gone dormant. You can say it's a lack of "meaning" all you want, but just because that's true for you doesn't mean everyone else sees it that way.

Armanie

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

The problem I see with pvp is there is no stake at all. You capture a fort only for it to be recaptured by the other team an hour later, then you come back and recapture, and it's the same cycle over and over. Everything you've accomplished is wiped out the next time you log in.

It's literally pointless.

It's not pointless if you enjoy the process. Why play a card game if you have to put the cards back afterwards, wiping out everything you've accomplished? Why play any game for that matter?

Card games can have strong consequences. In poker you can lose all your money for good. In ESO it doesn't matter what you do, your actions have no real impact on the game. Pvp being meaningless makes it less appealing for some players. You often see the same small population of players in cyro, they're the minority who enjoy the "process" as you call it. Meanwhile others don't care about pvp, and the lack of stakes may be one of the reasons why.

Can. But people play card games without those strong consequences too, don't they?
While I can see that some players would like there to be consequences (whatever those would be) to PvP, they are by no means necessary to enjoy PvP as we can see from PC NA having huge Cyrodiil queues and being constantly full (from what I've been told) now that performance is better over there.
Clearly performance is the main issue PvP is facing right now and why wouldn't it be? The game stopped being fun when simply pressing a button wouldn't let your character use their skill anymore.
The lack of stakes and everything being reset is not why PvP "failed".

"full" now is not what "full" was years ago. Pvp population has declined. Meaningless pvp in a persistant world fails to retain pvp players in the long term.

Yes, but the queues are also full. It takes several hours to get in. That means that PvP population hasn't declined at all, just gone dormant. You can say it's a lack of "meaning" all you want, but just because that's true for you doesn't mean everyone else sees it that way.

Queues were also full back then but the ceiling was higher. There's less pvp players whether they're playing or waiting. I didn't say everyone else see it my way, I'm stating one reason as a response to "why pvp failed?", and I know I'm not the only one not caring about static alliances engaged in an endless cycle of useless gains and losses.

_adhyffbjjjf12

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Armanie wrote: »

The problem I see with pvp is there is no stake at all. You capture a fort only for it to be recaptured by the other team an hour later, then you come back and recapture, and it's the same cycle over and over. Everything you've accomplished is wiped out the next time you log in.

It's literally pointless.

It's not pointless if you enjoy the process. Why play a card game if you have to put the cards back afterwards, wiping out everything you've accomplished? Why play any game for that matter?

Card games can have strong consequences. In poker you can lose all your money for good. In ESO it doesn't matter what you do, your actions have no real impact on the game. Pvp being meaningless makes it less appealing for some players. You often see the same small population of players in cyro, they're the minority who enjoy the "process" as you call it. Meanwhile others don't care about pvp, and the lack of stakes may be one of the reasons why.

Can. But people play card games without those strong consequences too, don't they?
While I can see that some players would like there to be consequences (whatever those would be) to PvP, they are by no means necessary to enjoy PvP as we can see from PC NA having huge Cyrodiil queues and being constantly full (from what I've been told) now that performance is better over there.
Clearly performance is the main issue PvP is facing right now and why wouldn't it be? The game stopped being fun when simply pressing a button wouldn't let your character use their skill anymore.
The lack of stakes and everything being reset is not why PvP "failed".

"full" now is not what "full" was years ago. Pvp population has declined. Meaningless pvp in a persistant world fails to retain pvp players in the long term.

Yes, but the queues are also full. It takes several hours to get in. That means that PvP population hasn't declined at all, just gone dormant. You can say it's a lack of "meaning" all you want, but just because that's true for you doesn't mean everyone else sees it that way.

ZOS also lowered the player count allowed in at any one time.

HonestLoverr

Broken meta and bad balance

PvP player population has indeed declined heavily. They downgraded group size to 12. It was 24 before. They downgraded the player cap for campaigns from thousands to a few hundred player max. No cp campaigns are nearly dead. They were more populated when proc sets were still working there. IC is nearly dead. Only get more populated during PvP events. At certain timezones cyro map flips to one faction. GH too. PC NA population got a bit higher after the hardware upgrade, but other than that the daily queues on GH get lower by a few players each day (not counting hammer crashes, which literally wipes the queue down to 0 wait time for all the players who crash. Can be anything from a few up to 100+ people crashing at once).

If queues going up in cyro campaigns (while there is only a queue on GH though) and BG queues going down = PvP population grows.

If queues going down in cyro campaigns and BG queues going up = PvP population fades.

The latter is the case. This is not a sign of the PvP aspect being a success. PvP is not dead yet, no. But its sloooowly dying for sure. Even though when all PvP environments dry out one day, GH (+ IC for its lead dropds etc.) will most probably be the last campaign to remain.

The PvP playerbase here got so many good ideas regarding EVERY detail of PvP! So many absolutely great visions to not only safe the current state of PvP combat, but also in terms of CP, cyrodiil system, scoreboard, hammer, guilds, etc. A lot of these ideas would lure in vets and newbies alike. I mean the forums here are literally full of this stuff.

ZOS just needs to put a combat designer or anyone to read through what the community has to say and go implement/adjust/overhaul like there is no tomorrow. Top it off with ingame and forum polls to show interest and proof communication with us. I know its not as easy as one may think. But lets be real here, its not too hard going for anything like that either.

McTaterskins

Karivaa wrote: »

If they ever completely fixed Cyrodiil, Zos would be shocked at how many players come back. Shocked.

1,000,000% truth.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

What we need is for someone to tell us the actual size of the Cyrodiil map in comparison with other PvP realmed titles out there. It would give a clear and precise format to show why the map doesn't correlate with today's player base.

I think current population caps are about 80 per faction (guesstimate because we never really have any proper information from the producer regarding these questions nor is it shown in game like most titles at the loading screen.

Low/Medium/Lock Icon doesn't really tell us much.

Browiseth

Blame the casual direction of the ESO

to begin with, a player vs player community is just going to be smaller than the "casual" (hate that term but it gets the idea across) playerbase. it's due to a number of reasons: pvp demands more attention of the player, it's easier to get frustrated since dying to another human player can feel "personal", it's easy for a player to get stressed out by pvp gameplay and so on

this isn't to say pvp is inherently bad, so before anyone takes this as a personal attack against their favourite part of eso, just don't. it's meant to illustrate that from the get go, pvp is a pretty niche community.

now what else? well, eso is the elder scrolls online, which means a lot of people are drawn in to this game by the brand name (i most certainly was all the way back in 2014) and the elder scrolls games are not known for their player vs player content (by which i mean there is none)

essentially, pvp in this game was an uphill battle from the start. once the spectacle of massive armies of players ramming against eachother in cyrodiil wore off, the majority of players really don't have much reason to engage in this side of the game

Karivaa

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Youyouz06 wrote: »

What we need is for someone to tell us the actual size of the Cyrodiil map in comparison with other PvP realmed titles out there. It would give a clear and precise format to show why the map doesn't correlate with today's player base.

I think current population caps are about 80 per faction (guesstimate because we never really have any proper information from the producer regarding these questions nor is it shown in game like most titles at the loading screen.

Low/Medium/Lock Icon doesn't really tell us much.

Yes! We know they’ve been lowering the player cap in Cyrodiil. Now we are full with a Q every single night on Xbox NA and our PvP is still broken.

Necrotech_Master

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

JanTanhide wrote: »

Every time I visit Cyrodil it's either locked or has a high population. If that's a sign of failure it's a good one.

Full population now is not the same as full population was 1 or 2 years ago. Full population used to mean that there were fights pretty much everywhere on the map. Now it is more or less one or two spots on the map.

ZOS "ninja nerfed" (reduced) population cap a couple of times. Recently I have read an information that some guilds were trying to figure out what the population cap is. So they all logged in to an empty campaign & counted that there was around 70 of them & pop was locked. So, thinking optimistically, I would not be surprised if population was around 100.

Also, something I have noticed. After playing Cyro for more or less more than 3 years, I noticed that it is all the same players playing PvP. Same accounts. There aren't pretty much any new players playing in Cyrodiil. And even if they do, they aren't staying there. PvP in ESO has almost no player retention. It does not make them to keep playing more.

started using kill tracker addon about 4 months ago and it says ive participated in killing almost 2000 unique players (i do not know if the addon is counting that as individual characters, or global handles) (this is also across BG/IC/cyro, but i can guarantee you that 98% of those kills/assists were in cyrodiil)

DreamyLu

For me, the question is biased from the first: I wouldn't say that PvP failed. Also, I don't think one unique choice can be made out of the proposed options.

In a PvE game, no matter what one, PvP has a lower population than PvE. Logically, PvP content is less "progressed" over time compared to PvE content. Over years, it results in an "erosion" of PvP as PvPers get bored due to lack of changes and renewing of population is less active than in PvE. It's a normal process. From there, hardcore PvPers keep going plus a bit of new blood that maintains a sufficient enough population, but of course, it's no more as it was during the first years.

I know that pretty well. Am a hardcore WvWer in GW2 and I had to go through the same declining phase. Now we can keep WvW but it's no more the same. I don't know the PvP side of GW2, but based on what my friends tell me about, it's nearly the same. I believe it's generic in all PvE game for all content that isn't PvE.

Anyron

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Actually, everything is true but performance is the worst of them
You should also include lack of communication

RedTalon

After release it became clear pvp was always going to be secondary and throw in the game going pay to play more so, pvp focus tends to burn people out more ten the other things you can do with a theme park game, plus all the points listed are valid though more causal players are general what keeps games like this afloat imho


And when they backed off of player guards and so on, think the options for pvp content died right then and there outside of fun card games

Just some of my insights, have more though don't want to write a book, keep it 100 and be well.

Brrrofski

Khenarthi wrote: »

I have no special interest in PvP because I play ESO for the Elder Scrolls stories and exploration, maybe that is the same reason for many other players too.

I mean, I PvP occasionally, but it's mostly during midyear mayhem when AP is double. Otherwise, I find my time better applied elsewhere.

But that isn't a reason why PvP 'failed' or is 'failing'.

PvP was popping off at one point. But year after year, numbers decline.

And it isn't just due to a decline in players in general.

My guild is a PvP guild, or was. Everyone who no longer plays either went to trials, or, stopped playing ESO, because PvP is what they enjoyed, but feel that it's going in the wrong direction and it no longer enjoyable.

Dem_kitkats1

I definitely feel that it's a combination of all of the options OP listed. There is not enough new content or incentives to keep vets/long term players invested in playing.

Performance is a given. Unresponsive and buggy performance is detrimental to the PvP experience. Performance should never be the determining factor in how fights play out. It's not fair nor fun for anyone. And for years these issues have never been resolved.

As for game direction, there's really no direction other than what players, themselves, want to achieve. IMO this isn't a huge issue as playing against others is the reward itself. However, I do understand that, again, there are very few incentives, and very few competitive outlets for vets. And if the game is to attract a more casual player, the game shoots itself in the foot by making the entry to PvP very steep because of the importance of builds mixed with constant swings in balance and metas.

The constant swings in balance and metas is tiring for experienced players, but it also makes it nearly impossible for new players to get even get started. The skill gap is so large because players can't stand on equal footing to begin with.

drsalvation wrote: »

This game's PvP isn't one where you can git gud by trial and error, by learning from your mistakes, it's one where you need to spend countless hours researching what's the correct gear you need to grind for in order to be able to somewhat challenge another player.

This is the biggest problem for both experienced and inexperienced players. Experienced players spend countless hours researching, grinding, adjusting their classes to better suit the current balance, only to throw it out 3-6 months later. New players can't even learn the combat and skill needed for PvP, because without the semblance of a decent build they're obliterated. So they spend hours grinding, instead of learning PvP combat, only to find out that the build they got from a streamer doesn't work for them or is ineffective in the new meta/balance.
And even after all of the changes to gear and classes, there are still imbalances, which is frustrating for all.