Why PVP Failed?

Neelanna48

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

EdmondDontes wrote: »

PvP has not failed. ZOS has failed to support PvP.

These two sentences here completely 100% sum up the present state of PvP in ESO.

psychotrip

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.

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!

Gear determining wins is one of the main reasons I avoid pvp in MMORPGs. These are all good points.

But how do designers work around this? How do you create a sense of progression and reward without increasing player power? Genuinely curious what you all think about this. I love the IDEA of pvp
But I want to feel like I'm the one improving, not my gear.

Sarannah

psychotrip wrote: »

Gear determining wins is one of the main reasons I avoid pvp in MMORPGs. These are all good points.

But how do designers work around this? How do you create a sense of progression and reward without increasing player power? Genuinely curious what you all think about this. I love the IDEA of pvp
But I want to feel like I'm the one improving, not my gear.

Well, the only way to do this is by prolonging fights by quite a bit. So that there is no insane burst damage, or killing players within 0.4 seconds anymore. This would allow players to respond. (other MMO's do this already)

There are multiple ways ZOS could do this:
-Adding quite some protection to battle spirit. So even the worst PvPers can live somewhat.
-Increasing player health in PvP to 1 million, or something like that. So fights last much longer, and even bad players can learn how they can respond to attacks.
-Adding mythics that specifically hinder instant/near instant kills in PvP.

There are probably some other ways, but personally I'd be for increasing health in PvP by a lot. Atleast 1M health would be ideal, so even those that parse well over 100k take 6-8 seconds to kill anyone.

And if players die slow, they themselves can adjust how well they play by themselves. As the extra non-death time allows them to learn responses, what works better, tactics, etc.

PS: Ofcourse some other things would have to be adjusted to compensate for the higher survivability though.

FlopsyPrince

Very good points. Getting locked and effectively or really one-shotted doesn't allow much learning.

Not being able to learn with others who are about as good as the player is also not good. Yeah, some can go in for hours and hours of getting owned before learning, but many could spend those same hours and hours and still not be able to do it, ignoring the fact that such play is not very enjoyable.

Rewarding players (with Tel Var and kill credit) for stealth camping question spots and then vanishing after killing a quester does not leave killed players with a good experience.

Letting players attack a platform in IC but making it very difficult to attack down doesn't help players being cautious, but still dying. I was pulled down tonight. Is that fair, or is it only OK one direction? (Attacking upward)

Any specific item could be lived with, but add all this together and it dampens the play experience of all. Even those who gank during events don't love PvP otherwise. (I would guess most don't do much true PvP if they are so focused on catching those unaware.) Has ZOS really helped itself maintain and grow the game population with such activities being so common?

SCP343

Blame the casual direction of the ESO

When the things they do for new players are used by experienced players, it becomes both a ridiculous meta and new players hurt more. I don't have a solution for cyrodiil but the battlegrounds mmr system needs to be like tales of tribute. Personally, if I'm a beginner to pvp, I wouldn't want to see a sorcerer or dragonknight dealing 6k damage per second.

Zodiarkslayer

Blame the casual direction of the ESO

The majority of the playerbase are casuals (includingme,sadly🙈).
A PvP, that has such a long experience curve and no rewards to speak of along the way, is just not suitable to a player, that can play 60 to 120 minutes tops per day.
The rushed nature of PvP is also opposed to the need for relaxation, that a lot of players seek in Elder Scrolls Games.

So yeah, PvP didn't fail. It's just unappealing to the majority of players.

Tonturri

Broken meta and bad balance

Can't speak for everyone, but I'll say why I, an on-off player mostly stuck with PvE.

- Performance (obviously). Don't need to go into this one. Haven't been able t oget to Cyrodiil yet due to work but I still see people complaining about this. How? It's been years. How is this still a problem.
- The time-sink nature of Cyrodiil - I want to play the game, earn rewards and progress towards other goals, such as getting money for housing. Any part of the game not spent doing that feels wasteful. I shouldn't basically have to spend a bunch of time dueling just to figure out how PvP 'works'. Leveling a horse so travel doesn't feel sluggish is also godawful - it really kills my interest if I have to jog for several minutes to find a fight.
- Tutorial is unhelpful, there are no mechanics to ease new pvpers into things, to make them feel like they're contributing even if they do get wrecked.
- Everything is gear gear gear. ESO's class and combat system is not deep enough, so gear and proc sets have too much of a role. I am all for using gear, potions, weapons, ability selection etc as a means of customizing a setup to fill whatever class fantasy the player wants, and I can certainly appreciate ESO's crafting economy, which I really enjoy, but it's too much. I should be fighting my opponent, not their gear and its many procs.
- CP. I just came back after a few year break and this feels **horrendous** to try and deal with. What is the expectation for new players here? I had to spend at least an hour trying to get the gist of how this system is supposed to work - why was this changed from the previous incarnation? I assume there's a good reason for the major change the system saw, but it feels excessively complex at this point but gives no real benefit. It's just a grindy progression system because, supposedly, all games need a grindy progression system.

This all in mind - why would anyone ever play ESO PvP over an actual PvP oriented game? There has to be *some* benefit, something to make it worthwhile. And there really isn't. ESO PvP is worse in all ways than the competition, no upsides for playing it over the MOBAs out there, the pvp shooters, platform fighters, etc. All it needs is to just *Barely* be good enough that it's worth playing and doesn't feel *too* bad that it's mildly enjoyable while being useful for progressing whatever game goals the player has (making gold, whatever), and it just...isn't.

Honorable mention: ZOS changing everything every few months without any real long term, coherent plan.

MEBengalsFan2001

Broken meta and bad balance

I don't think PVP has failed. In fact compared to other MMO games that have a PVE focus, ESO PVP is way better than many MMO games.

The issue for me with PVP is how control effects work and how immunity from them work. Getting that fixed would improve PVP.

The other thing is that the role you have selected should have additional impact to stats in PVP.

For example...
Healers: 10% increase to healing out and 10% reduction in damage
Tanks: 10% increase to healing in and 10% reduction in damage
DPS: 10% increase in damage and resistance cappped at 24K and healing in reduced by 5%.

As for performance it is an issue but even with the best technology flawless performance won't last unless Microsoft continues to provided updated servers and continue to streamline the coding.

I believe that code that is almost 10 years old now needs to be streamed line, which it sounds like they are trying to do along with releasing new content regularly.

Raammzzaa

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Tonturri wrote: »

This all in mind - why would anyone ever play ESO PvP over an actual PvP oriented game? There has to be *some* benefit, something to make it worthwhile. And there really isn't. ESO PvP is worse in all ways than the competition, no upsides for playing it over the MOBAs out there, the pvp shooters, platform fighters, etc. All it needs is to just *Barely* be good enough that it's worth playing and doesn't feel *too* bad that it's mildly enjoyable while being useful for progressing whatever game goals the player has (making gold, whatever), and it just...isn't.

I think, and I’ve heard others say multiple times, that the reason a lot of us continue to play ESO pvp is that it doesn’t really have any competition - at least on console. I enjoy MOBAs and shooters too, like you mentioned, but being able to join a group with 11 other people and play together for hours in open world pvp is fun. We have Black Desert on console, but the nature of a lot of the elements of a non-Western mmo don’t really appeal to a lot of the NA/EU player base imho. Until one day when another ESO/DAoC-type Western mmo comes along and challenges ESO for players I think ESO pvp will carry on despite its frustrating flaws.

FlopsyPrince

Tonturri wrote: »

This all in mind - why would anyone ever play ESO PvP over an actual PvP oriented game?

I always wonder this when some people complain that we only have 2 PvP events while PvE events take up the rest. (Usually in defense of the regular ganking that makes things annoying for so many of us.

Why would you play this game if you don't like PvE?

Raammzzaa wrote: »

Tonturri wrote: »

This all in mind - why would anyone ever play ESO PvP over an actual PvP oriented game? There has to be *some* benefit, something to make it worthwhile. And there really isn't. ESO PvP is worse in all ways than the competition, no upsides for playing it over the MOBAs out there, the pvp shooters, platform fighters, etc. All it needs is to just *Barely* be good enough that it's worth playing and doesn't feel *too* bad that it's mildly enjoyable while being useful for progressing whatever game goals the player has (making gold, whatever), and it just...isn't.

I think, and I’ve heard others say multiple times, that the reason a lot of us continue to play ESO pvp is that it doesn’t really have any competition - at least on console. I enjoy MOBAs and shooters too, like you mentioned, but being able to join a group with 11 other people and play together for hours in open world pvp is fun. We have Black Desert on console, but the nature of a lot of the elements of a non-Western mmo don’t really appeal to a lot of the NA/EU player base imho. Until one day when another ESO/DAoC-type Western mmo comes along and challenges ESO for players I think ESO pvp will carry on despite its frustrating flaws.

I would assume you were not the one stealth camping the quest turnin spot. Those you hit may not always like it, but it sounds like you won't be repeatedly killing most of them.

Call_of_Red_Mountain

No new content

Bad performance for years. Especially on console. Unbalanced decisions. Broken op mythic items. Toxic trolls in zc. Nobody ban them. So new players running away from GH as soon as possible. 7 years old map.

Iriidius

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

I don't think PVP has failed. In fact compared to other MMO games that have a PVE focus, ESO PVP is way better than many MMO games.

The issue for me with PVP is how control effects work and how immunity from them work. Getting that fixed would improve PVP.

The other thing is that the role you have selected should have additional impact to stats in PVP.

For example...
Healers: 10% increase to healing out and 10% reduction in damage
Tanks: 10% increase to healing in and 10% reduction in damage
DPS: 10% increase in damage and resistance cappped at 24K and healing in reduced by 5%.

As for performance it is an issue but even with the best technology flawless performance won't last unless Microsoft continues to provided updated servers and continue to streamline the coding.

I believe that code that is almost 10 years old now needs to be streamed line, which it sounds like they are trying to do along with releasing new content regularly.

Atm you dont have to choose a role in pvp and I prefer if that doesnt change. Why do we want to enforce the trinity of dd, tank and healer in PvP if even in PvE many players dont play this way? In dungeon finder players are queuing as fake tanks and fake healers, many DDs are slotting self heals and doing 4 dd dungeon runs, some are also building tanky. There are more dds than healers and tanks. In Mahlstrom and Vateshraan arenas dds also have to be their own tank and healer, when they solo a dungeon too and in overland you dont need roles anyway.
If you want play DD or Tank in PvP you can still do that. There are many PvP healers in Cyrodiil, Battlegrounds and IC healing Zergs, PuGs, Smallscales or Ballgroups. In Battleground the team with 1 healer and 3 dds usually wins.
And they allow their team members to focuss
in less on selfhealung and play/build more offensively, turning them into dds.
You cant taunt enemy players but you can bodyblock/use guard on your teammembers, buff teammembers, debuff and stun/immobilize/pull enemys players.
Force players to choose roles hurts solo players
and groups of randoms and makes organized groups stronger than they already are. And althought players often complain about PvP all in one builds, fighting PvP tanks and healers is usually more annoying and dds(=glasskanone) are usually gankers and attacking when you dont expect them, are afk, already fight multiple players or they hide behind a zerg and snipe you.

Lebkuchen

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

Neelanna48 wrote: »

EdmondDontes wrote: »

PvP has not failed. ZOS has failed to support PvP.

These two sentences here completely 100% sum up the present state of PvP in ESO.

Exactly, and they killed some of their hamsters today, during maintenance. Someone should have to answer for this tragedy!

FlopsyPrince

Lebkuchen wrote: »

Neelanna48 wrote: »

EdmondDontes wrote: »

PvP has not failed. ZOS has failed to support PvP.

These two sentences here completely 100% sum up the present state of PvP in ESO.

Exactly, and they killed some of their hamsters today, during maintenance. Someone should have to answer for this tragedy!

Hey! They were hungry....

(The devs, not the hamsters)

That is a joke for the humor impaired!

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Terrible performance in Cyrodiil

I'm giving up on trying to play MYM.
At 4PM central European time, the alliance locked campaign is literally unplayable and yes more crashes.

I officially decline the combat, thank you *packs up his tent and leaves Cyrodiil*

It's really not enjoyable any more. It's over.

Iriidius

Sarannah wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

Gear determining wins is one of the main reasons I avoid pvp in MMORPGs. These are all good points.

But how do designers work around this? How do you create a sense of progression and reward without increasing player power? Genuinely curious what you all think about this. I love the IDEA of pvp
But I want to feel like I'm the one improving, not my gear.

Well, the only way to do this is by prolonging fights by quite a bit. So that there is no insane burst damage, or killing players within 0.4 seconds anymore. This would allow players to respond. (other MMO's do this already)

There are multiple ways ZOS could do this:
-Adding quite some protection to battle spirit. So even the worst PvPers can live somewhat.
-Increasing player health in PvP to 1 million, or something like that. So fights last much longer, and even bad players can learn how they can respond to attacks.
-Adding mythics that specifically hinder instant/near instant kills in PvP.

There are probably some other ways, but personally I'd be for increasing health in PvP by a lot. Atleast 1M health would be ideal, so even those that parse well over 100k take 6-8 seconds to kill anyone.

And if players die slow, they themselves can adjust how well they play by themselves. As the extra non-death time allows them to learn responses, what works better, tactics, etc.

PS: Ofcourse some other things would have to be adjusted to compensate for the higher survivability though.

Seems like you dont understand PvP. 100k dps is only possible against a trial dummy/not moving trial boss with group buffs. On a normal dummy you parse only 40k dps with PvE build after you get several dots, buffs and sets up against a stationary target. But good PvP players are always moving.
PvP players have 30-35k hp average and 26k+ resistance. The dmg you need to kill them is much higher than that because battle spirit reduces it by 50%(70k dmg), cp by another 30%(100k dmg), resistance by another 20-50%(125-200k dmg) and 10-20% by crit resistance. And most PvP Players arent build for dps. The actual dps of most players is below 10k dps except they are using a burst combo that deals 20-40k damage in 1-2 seconds.

Parasaurolophus

Broken meta and bad balance

Hey! I just wanted to say that I love this patch and I really enjoyed this MYM. We have damage, we have healing. I like to feel that there are consequences for my actions. Maybe it's because of oaken soul, since I used it a lot in this MYM. But I also saw a large number of players of different classes who were quite successful, and not just sorcs and wardens. Yes, probably dk`s healing still looks overperformed, but it's still better than before.

Parasaurolophus

Broken meta and bad balance

Pvp is empty again of the event...

dolphezious

My 2 cents to it:

- unable to use PVE stuff in PVP, cant get the items hiding behind PvE chore. From patch to patch, from DLC to DLC as such player you get inferior more and more. Cyrodiil golden vendor doesnt sell them, even 5 years after they were intoduced. This exact weekend we have magma incarnate shoulders; useless, beacuse you can get them quick and easy - wanna bet you will never ever see the head piece? So close, but yet so far haha. I will never ever had this monster set combined, to make me competitive. And I know you are also many who will never have it.

- nothing works in PvP. You cant combine decent sets to make them work. Or the set is missing the crucial stat, or its utterly useless with 6% bonuses to something like 6% more damage to blocking players. (lol). 99.9 % of sets, even after overhaul, are useless for PVP. Harmony between sets is non existable. No matter how good it sound in theorycrafting, you cant make a combination that will work. You never did, and you never will. Theorycrafting - you realize, the perfect idea for some mechanic should actually work, just to find out its utter garbage beacuse of how game is technically handling itself. When you realize this 3 times, beacuse you spend entire month to make a build, you simply find out its utter waste of time and resources, you only cater to meta build. The main power of ESO PvP, is gone instantly. Play generic builds. You should be able to test it on PTS, but there arent any people to test it with. So its blindly wasting your time in case it will not work. And it doesnt work. Ever.

-inability to have all the items, to test the combinations out of it. The insane chore to get the items you need. Impossible to get them. Just to realize you waste 1 month of your gameplay making a SINGLE build, and it doesnt work.

- useless item stats, especially 5/5 bonuses. Or intentional useless stats in 2, 3 and 4 bonuses, which kinda destroy your harmony with the set and what you actually need as a stat. They contribution is literally zero. On most of the sets. They do nothing. What does 300 damage added do to 5k+ base damage? Nothing. Its contribution is literally it has no effect to gameplay. You are exposed to so called "counter-cheese", while you cheesing the opponent, only to realize hes cheesing you back x2 by doing literally nothing, just heal - the patented mechanic only seen in ESO haha.

-gameplay mechanics. Ultimates dont work even pressed 6 or more times in a row. Potions dont work in same way. Buttons - skills dont work. Necromancer, you are special in this. Swap bar doesnt work. My PVP skill is determined if my bar will swap or not. If its not, im dead. Shooting blastbones doesnt work. Abilitys to use synergies, dont work.Game has a strange coefficient judging you are already dead, and it just shuts down your responsiveness, and you die. The crucial moment where you need to drink a potion, use ultimate, game doesnt let you, and mark you as dead already.

-constant shift in "meta", especially last few patches, where crazy new mechanics are introduced. But they will probably not work at all.

-insane "trigger" times on sets - what good is a bonus, if you cant use it regularly, and has 15 second time to reset? 30 sec? 45 sec? 1 min!?!?! On EU PC, in BGS you die in less than 2 seconds. What good is a bonus only used once and then useless? After 5/5 bonus triggers, nothing happens and you get counter cheesed, aka opponent is literally healed back and you realize, 5/5 set bonus is useless, beacuse it didnt do anything, and will not do anything while its triggered - beacuse it doesnt work, its literally useless, or has bad mechanical problems, expalined below:

-bugged sets. You would be surprised if you knew how much things dont even work. Example:

Storm-Cursed's Revenge

2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
(5 items) When you deal Shock Damage, you have a 15% chance to deal 433 Shock Damage to the enemy and up to two other enemies within 5 meters. This effect scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

Light or heavy attack with shock staff doesnt trigger it. Monster set (Ilambris) which does shock attack doesnt trigger it. Shock weapon glyph doesnt trigger it. Liquid lightning skill doesnt trigger it. And many other shock based skills. Other 5/5 set with shock bonus doesnt trigger it by having the set on both bars. Example sets: Overwhelming Surge, Auroran thunder.
Literallly 70% of the shock stuff doesnt trigger it, and the set becomes utterly useless. While having a potential while theorycrafting, testing it you realize its utter garbage, beacuse it doesnt work as it should.

Rush of agony

(2 items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
(5 items) When you deal direct damage with a Blink, Charge, Leap, Teleport, or Pull ability, pull enemies within 10 meters to you. After 2 seconds, deal 1705 Physical Damage to all enemies within 7 meters. This effect can occur once every 8 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage. The pull will not apply Crowd Control Immunity to a target.

Let me just say, the pull doesnt work as it should, sadly. Damage bonus is useless, its so weak in PvP.

Just 2 sets extensively tested of many I did, let it be enough for information.

Thats about it on my mind currently. Let it be enough.