Cyrodiil Pipe Dream

Credible_Joe

It is time.

Complaints of ball groups, complaints of performance. Every week another thread surfaces airing these grievances.

I have the answer. We must TEAR IT ALL DOWN AND BEGIN ANEW. THE ULTIMATE CYRODIIL SOLUTION.

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R E A L - T I M E - T A C T I C S
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tl;dr toward end

Brothers and Sisters, it is time to DO AWAY with campaign queues and hundred-player melees, for these are relics of a bygone vision. Oh the AMBITION. Hundreds of players in ranks, destroying and rebuilding castles and keeps, manning artillery both defensive and offensive, battering rams, flaming oil, catapults and trebuchets, the C A R N A G E.

But it was never to be. Doomed to fail from the beginning, this vision was always plagued with abuses of systemic oversight. Unstoppable ball groups, stacking heals to the point of choking performance for everyone in the campaign. Unkillable tanks who can contribute nothing except to kite frustrated players in and out of towers. No single player within reach of making a difference, feeling like an alliance hero, instead treated like canon fodder as guild leaders use them to climb the leaderboard, attaining the forever out of reach title of Emperor, standing on mountains of corpses, players who just wanted to fight another player, yet ninety-nine percent of the time, died to the numbers instead of the skill.

There were moments that made it worth it. Small scale engagements, fewer than thirty players skirmishing in the wilds between keeps and outposts. Beautiful defenses where ball groups have been thwarted at open keep doors, staved off by a never ending cascade of siege engine fire. Endless stalemates at the Alessia Bridge, Pact and Dominion pushing each other back over and over and over again. The forever ping-pong of Aleswell and the Chalamo. I'm sure something interesting happens between Covenant and the Dominion as well.

But those moments were few and far between. I yearn for them knowing that any time I queue for Cyrodiil, they likely won't be found. Small groups avoid engagement, instead capping an endless string of farms and lumber mills, but never cutting a keep lest they draw the attention of the zerg. Volendrung is thrown into the river, lest it threatens the ball. All the while, the servers struggle to keep up with the swirling vortex of overlapped input and buffs, stacked dozens of times on dozens of players.

We must disperse.

TL;DR
I suggest doing away with campaigns and replacing them with adding three real-time-tactics queues: Champion, non-champion, and sub-50. They fill up the way battleground queues do; any fight that needs fighters gets them first as people join and drop.

• 12 players max per alliance, 36 total per instance
• Each player commands a squad of NPC Alliance soldiers via an expanded Cyrodiil companion system
• Your soldiers can man siege, and you can direct their fire, enabling solo capture of any keep or resource
• Your soldiers are mortal and gain XP the longer they fight and survive. Veteran soldiers are significantly stronger than recruits
• You can train your soldiers on PvE elements in Cyrodiil, getting bonuses for clearing delves or dolmens
• You can only spawn soldiers at keeps, outposts, alliance controlled towns, or forward camps
• Each soldier slot has a respawn timer-- no infinite fodder to the meat grinder
• Global leaderboard & Alliance AP tracker

/tl;dr

With only 36 players on the map, the capture and control of territory becomes much more strategic. A single player can capture an undefended keep. A single player can defend a keep. Focusing strength at any point weakens every other point. Smart, coordinated play wins out to zerging in a line from one end of the map to the other. No more exponential stacks of vigor clogging up the servers' processors, just you, your squad, and your enemies.

And the scale remains intact. Each player is a high priority target, their forces bereft of direction upon your defeat. Each player is also a legendary powerhouse relative to the NPCs around them-- TRUE Alliance heroes, making a difference in the campaign. The soldiers man the walls, firing catapults and ballistae at your direction, dumping oil, manning battering rams, filling the scale of the original vision, while you, the player, make all the difference.

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This is my Cyrodiil Pipe Dream
WE ARE ALLIANCE HEROES
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PS, no hate on guild leaders coordinating group play. Y'all put in work to make PvP events lots of fun, and high-level direction and coordination is very impressive and takes a lot of invested time to get good. And everyone that's been crowned Emp has probably deserved it, don't wanna take that away either. Probably need to workshop how emperor would work with this. Either way, don't mind the jabs, all in good humor, just got a little carried away.

PPS, I went way too hard on the rhetoric and got carried away, def don't want to replace Cyrodiil gameplay at this point.

kargen27

Cyrodiil is where we go for large epic battles. Take that away and there is no need for Cyrodiil.

Instead designate one Imperial City district a month as a 12-12-12 campaign and let the fun begin.

ArchangelIsraphel

Ehhh...I respect what you're trying to do here, but this really holds no appeal to me. I'd rather fight against and along side tons of real people than command legions of NPC's. Half the fun of cyro was the friends I made along the way, and the crazy things we did on our individual journeys to get Emperor even though we were outmanned and outnumbered half the time. All those long sleepless nights, watching eachothers backs, and insane takeovers. We supported each other during times when we thought we were reaching for the impossible, and formed a strong sense of camaraderie. We're all still friends to this day.

I know Cyro isn't always like this for others, but it was for me and those I met. I just don't think an experience like the one I've had would be possible in the very mechanical, dungeon-mechanic like cyro you're describing. Winning via npc instead of with the help and respect of the great people who fought at your side just feels like a hollow victory I wouldn't want at all.

I like Cyro the way it is, with all its flaws. I've grown to love it and all of its quirks. I can't wait to get out there during MYM this year.

I wouldn't be against seeing this as some kind of optional game mode, but it's just not for me.

Jaraal

Nice to see people thinking outside the box.

Something like that would be fine as an addition to, but not as a replacement for classic Cyrodiil.

kargen27

Jaraal wrote: »

Nice to see people thinking outside the box.

Something like that would be fine as an addition to, but not as a replacement for classic Cyrodiil.

The problem with in addition to is spreading out an already thin PvP community even farther.

BenTSG

Oooh, that's quite a cool thought, not sure I've seen something like that being suggested before. I could certainly get behind this! I have heard that in the early days there was an item you could use to spawn NPCs but that was long before my time.

Still though, as cool as it is to imagine, that's most likely all it'll be. Pipe dream, just like you said

Jaraal

kargen27 wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Nice to see people thinking outside the box.

Something like that would be fine as an addition to, but not as a replacement for classic Cyrodiil.

The problem with in addition to is spreading out an already thin PvP community even farther.

The PvP community is thin because of the chronically unaddressed Cyrodiil problems, and is artificially limited by arbitrary population caps, rather than actual solutions to the problems. The community would get new blood and attract former PvP enthusiasts with new systems.

Amottica

Unstoppable ball group? We have yet to find such a thing. Sure, the guild I run with, which runs in small to medium size groups, has been defeated but it is by a group of skilled players who work well together and likely have a good leader. We have fun cleaning the clock of max-size groups.

Cyrodill is desigend and intended for group PvP. As such there are two major factors that play into how well a group will do. Size of the group and how skilled the group is. This is AvA/WvW 101. Prefer to not run against groups then a BG is the place to go.

Credible_Joe

Thanks for the feedback and engagement folks.

Amottica wrote: »

Unstoppable ball group? We have yet to find such a thing. Sure, the guild I run with, which runs in small to medium size groups, has been defeated but it is by a group of skilled players who work well together and likely have a good leader. We have fun cleaning the clock of max-size groups.

Cyrodill is desigend and intended for group PvP. As such there are two major factors that play into how well a group will do. Size of the group and how skilled the group is. This is AvA/WvW 101. Prefer to not run against groups then a BG is the place to go.

Just want to address that I used to agree with you a hundred percent. But on recent reflection, I can't come to that conclusion any more without ignoring performance as a factor.

Ball groups absolutely would be a viable tactic if they didn't eliminate higher-level play when they katamari too hard. Skill contributes to their effectiveness up to a certain size. Once there's enough vigor stacks on enough people, input delay and health desyncs afflict everyone nearby to the point where the options for dealing with these groups dwindle to by-the-numbers attrition: ball, vigor, light attack, vigor, light attack, contributing to the vicious cycle.

Maybe if you're lucky they get bottlenecked in a front door, no one has Negate slotted, and siege tears them apart. Other than that, large scale PvP breaks down past a tipping point and eliminates skill as a factor.

If they fix the performance issue, my post would absolutely be a moot point with Cyrodiil working and performing as intended. But they haven't so far, and it doesn't, so this is my alternative compromise. Shift the burden of attrition tactics to NPCs, keep the scale of conflict the same, and reign in the server-choking buff and debuff stacks on players.

Four_Fingers

No thank you, but sounds like a good idea for a new battleground mode.

Jamie_Aubrey

No, I don't want my PVP to turn into a RPG with me running around trying to direct npcs to seige a keep

KronikFlatulenz

Id just uninstall if it went down to a 36 man cyro. Its already boring af with a seemingly diminished cyro population and im pretty much just spending my evenings waiting for another game to release. Its great that skills work now but with so few people to be found in cyro im basically just fighting the same fight over and over again.

Jaraal

Jamie_Aubrey wrote: »

No, I don't want my PVP to turn into a RPG with me running around trying to direct npcs to seige a keep

Interestingly, directing NPCs in battle (mercenary contracts purchasable with AP) was originally a part of the Cyrodiil experience, but was removed because players figured out a way to exploit it.

colossalvoids

Not bad as a bg mode but personally would have no use for Cyro if something similar would be ever implemented.

kargen27

Jaraal wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Nice to see people thinking outside the box.

Something like that would be fine as an addition to, but not as a replacement for classic Cyrodiil.

The problem with in addition to is spreading out an already thin PvP community even farther.

The PvP community is thin because of the chronically unaddressed Cyrodiil problems, and is artificially limited by arbitrary population caps, rather than actual solutions to the problems. The community would get new blood and attract former PvP enthusiasts with new systems.

No they would get new blood with performance improvements. The population caps as of now mean next to nothing. Outside of events only one campaign regularly hits cap.

Necrotech_Master

given enough time you can capture a keep on your own in normal cyrodiil, ive certainly done in dead campaigns lol

if your solo the most effective way to break down the door is 2 stone trebs and you can alternate between them pretty steady

your idea is to basically kill cyrodiil, that would remove any incentive i have to pvp, i want those big 100 man melees with siege raining in lol

El_Borracho

So a bigger Battlegrounds?

Just fix the servers to handle the load. I don't care about ball groups.

Credible_Joe

Just wanna throw this out there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq1o2VG1ogY

Now, I was led to believe certain characters in that trailer were player stand-ins. Are we supposed to be the scrubs in that cinematic?

Also, I think some of us are underestimating the scale of the conflicts in the proposed changes. I know 12 v 12 v 12 doesn't sound like a lot, but with the inclusion of your squad, it'd only take three or four players to make any engagement feel crowded. Could you imagine a scroll run, with a dozen players and squads in one spot?

Or all twelve commanders holding out in the last keep of the ring, staving off a would-be emperor 300 style?

Just saying. I really believe this solution would preserve the feeling Cyrodiil has now while addressing the performance issues as well as making each participant feel badass and powerful. Don't dismiss this out of hand.

kargen27

Credible_Joe wrote: »

Just wanna throw this out there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq1o2VG1ogY

Now, I was led to believe certain characters in that trailer were player stand-ins. Are we supposed to be the scrubs in that cinematic?

Also, I think some of us are underestimating the scale of the conflicts in the proposed changes. I know 12 v 12 v 12 doesn't sound like a lot, but with the inclusion of your squad, it'd only take three or four players to make any engagement feel crowded. Could you imagine a scroll run, with a dozen players and squads in one spot?

Or all twelve commanders holding out in the last keep of the ring, staving off a would-be emperor 300 style?

Just saying. I really believe this solution would preserve the feeling Cyrodiil has now while addressing the performance issues as well as making each participant feel badass and powerful. Don't dismiss this out of hand.

It isn't really PvP though. It is just some players leading NPCs against some other players NPCs. It becomes a basic strategy based scenario. You can either direct your NPCs or you can fight but it would be hard to do both.

"Your soldiers are mortal and gain XP the longer they fight and survive. Veteran soldiers are significantly stronger than recruits"
If something like this did come to be this would be abused. Log in during off hours get your troops to vet status then wait for the plebes to show up.

Credible_Joe

kargen27 wrote: »

It isn't really PvP though. It is just some players leading NPCs against some other players NPCs. It becomes a basic strategy based scenario. You can either direct your NPCs or you can fight but it would be hard to do both.

Glossing over a lot of details. The soldiers inevitably die leading to commander vs commander. Also, posting soldiers at certain positions and leaving them is called for, like on flags. Not to mention that juggling soldiers and fighting leads to a very high skill ceiling that'd be fascinating to push the limits to. I think it's PvP at its core. There's more to competition than firing our skills at each other.

kargen27 wrote: »

"Your soldiers are mortal and gain XP the longer they fight and survive. Veteran soldiers are significantly stronger than recruits"
If something like this did come to be this would be abused. Log in during off hours get your troops to vet status then wait for the plebes to show up.

Except that with players constantly joining and dropping there would never be a permanently unbalanced instance where one or two commanders dominate with veteran soldiers. They'll eventually log out, and other players queue in with a fresh set of troops. Playing a long session or grinding PvE rewards you with strong troops, and you have to start over when they die. Veteran troops should easily be countered by superior numbers, or even commanders focusing them since they'll never win on their own against a player.

It's hard not to think in standard AvA terms when engaging with this. There's no telling what the meta would be, how people would engage, what's balanced, or even what's effective. Just like with any other game mode. I think that's what's most exciting.

So, replacing AvA with this was going too far. I was being a bit too theatrical. I still think that the problems with Cyrodiil as they stand now won't be solved with server tweaking or disabling procs, stacks, or champion points. Even at launch the experience barely held together, with precursors to today's problems popping up. And every content update made it worse.

But knowing no one will tolerate its removal, let's approach this as if it could be a game mode in addition to AvA, instead of replacing it. Hell, it could even shoulder the burden, reducing campaign queues during prime time, and easing overall performance.

Amottica

Credible_Joe wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback and engagement folks.

Amottica wrote: »

Unstoppable ball group? We have yet to find such a thing. Sure, the guild I run with, which runs in small to medium size groups, has been defeated but it is by a group of skilled players who work well together and likely have a good leader. We have fun cleaning the clock of max-size groups.

Cyrodill is desigend and intended for group PvP. As such there are two major factors that play into how well a group will do. Size of the group and how skilled the group is. This is AvA/WvW 101. Prefer to not run against groups then a BG is the place to go.

Just want to address that I used to agree with you a hundred percent. But on recent reflection, I can't come to that conclusion any more without ignoring performance as a factor.

Ball groups absolutely would be a viable tactic if they didn't eliminate higher-level play when they katamari too hard. Skill contributes to their effectiveness up to a certain size. Once there's enough vigor stacks on enough people, input delay and health desyncs afflict everyone nearby to the point where the options for dealing with these groups dwindle to by-the-numbers attrition: ball, vigor, light attack, vigor, light attack, contributing to the vicious cycle.

Maybe if you're lucky they get bottlenecked in a front door, no one has Negate slotted, and siege tears them apart. Other than that, large scale PvP breaks down past a tipping point and eliminates skill as a factor.

If they fix the performance issue, my post would absolutely be a moot point with Cyrodiil working and performing as intended. But they haven't so far, and it doesn't, so this is my alternative compromise. Shift the burden of attrition tactics to NPCs, keep the scale of conflict the same, and reign in the server-choking buff and debuff stacks on players.

So we are blaming players, or groups of players for performance issues which is an issue that rests squarely on the shoulders of Zenimax.

No.

kargen27

"It's hard not to think in standard AvA terms when engaging with this. There's no telling what the meta would be, how people would engage, what's balanced, or even what's effective. Just like with any other game mode. I think that's what's most exciting."

No it really isn't that hard to think outside the standard. There are games out there that offer this type of game play. I don't consider them PvP but strategy games. That you get to duel someone if your troops both die at the same time doesn't mean much. If the troops can't kill other players that would basically be player vs door until troops are dead. If troops can kill opposing players how often will it happen that two players both lose troops at the same time to facilitate their duel? Not often at all.
The high skill ceiling may be there but it would be a strategic skill not a player vs player skill.

I didn't say there would be a permanent balance issue. I said players would take advantage of an empty or near empty campaign to build vet troops then stick around to dominate others that eventually log in. We know this would happen the same way guilds take advantage of low pop campaigns now to farm emperor titles.

So long as it didn't impact the server I wouldn't care if this were added. I oppose adding new PvP content because it would spread out what is an already thin PvP population. This idea though would not be PvP so much as it would be just strategy placement of troops and a chance to die if you get out maneuvered.

"There's more to competition than firing our skills at each other."

Same can be said of what we have now. Cyrodiil isn't dueling. It is about control of the map and other fun stuff and is most fun when you have a worthy player adversary to face.

Credible_Joe

kargen27 wrote: »

"It's hard not to think in standard AvA terms when engaging with this. There's no telling what the meta would be, how people would engage, what's balanced, or even what's effective. Just like with any other game mode. I think that's what's most exciting."

No it really isn't that hard to think outside the standard. There are games out there that offer this type of game play. I don't consider them PvP but strategy games. That you get to duel someone if your troops both die at the same time doesn't mean much. If the troops can't kill other players that would basically be player vs door until troops are dead. If troops can kill opposing players how often will it happen that two players both lose troops at the same time to facilitate their duel? Not often at all.
The high skill ceiling may be there but it would be a strategic skill not a player vs player skill.

I feel like refusing to call this PvP is more than a little misleading. It really doesn't matter what genre the game mode is; it's still players competing against players. Not to mention you're making it sound like RTS or 4x strategy, when it's action strategy, incorporating all the elements of ESO gameplay with tactical decision making.

PvP and strategy aren't mutually exclusive.

kargen27 wrote: »

I didn't say there would be a permanent balance issue. I said players would take advantage of an empty or near empty campaign to build vet troops then stick around to dominate others that eventually log in. We know this would happen the same way guilds take advantage of low pop campaigns now to farm emperor titles.

You're a hundred percent thinking in standard AvA terms here. There wouldn't be campaigns at all and no one would be able to control whether they queued into an empty fight, the same way you can't control whether you queue into an in-progress battleground or dungeon. Also ignoring the fact that it's not mandatory to man-fight the veteran troops as soon as you spawn in; training your troops on PvE mobs and engaging strong opponents when you feel ready is part of the strategy. Or, even postponing recruitment, soloing up to a veteran squad, and ganking the troops, forcing the commander to start fresh. No one said you have to fight troops with troops.

There could be so many solutions to this; it's an entirely theoretical problem that's moot off the bat from the way the queue works, but would also have lots of checks and solutions even if it weren't. You might as well lobby against Cyrodiil now for the same reason; you said it yourself: People abuse the queues to dominate the map and farm emp.

kargen27 wrote: »

So long as it didn't impact the server I wouldn't care if this were added. I oppose adding new PvP content because it would spread out what is an already thin PvP population. This idea though would not be PvP so much as it would be just strategy placement of troops and a chance to die if you get out maneuvered.

The point of this is to impact the server. You're making it sound like PvP is dying, when the queues can reach over an hour long during prime time. There's a huge margin of people who just don't get to play when they're not at work or school, the only time they have to play; at least not the grandiose army v army gamepley that's advertised; settling on low-pop campaigns where your build is neutered by no-proc is hardly satisfying. Are you saying one additional alternative queue would make things worse?

New content would attract new blood. Both the people who don't have time for the insane queues but want the Cyrodiil experience, as well as people looking to break into PvP. And again, this definitely is PvP.

kargen27 wrote: »

"There's more to competition than firing our skills at each other."

Same can be said of what we have now. Cyrodiil isn't dueling. It is about control of the map and other fun stuff and is most fun when you have a worthy player adversary to face.

This... Yeah, I agree, a hundred percent. It's funny that you end on this conclusion when it's exactly what I've been trying to convey this whole time.

It's fine to love what we have now. And when you do, seeing something new feels like an attack; especially the way I presented it. We for sure shouldn't displace the original Cyrodiil experience. This could make the default campaigns healthier and more active while reducing queue times, making PvP more accessible to everyone.

Dr_Con

I'm gonna pass, what we have now is infinitely better than what you suggested and it will be a cold day in Oblivion before they replace the current system with your proposed one.

Credible_Joe

Dr_Con wrote: »

I'm gonna pass, what we have now is infinitely better than what you suggested and it will be a cold day in Oblivion before they replace the current system with your proposed one.

Believe me, I've walked back hard on the replacement rhetoric. No worries there my guy.