Do you really need proc effects and PvE skills in PvP?

SaffronCitrusflower

spartaxoxo wrote: »

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

ImmortalCX wrote: »

The_Meathead wrote: »

ImmortalCX, please forgive my use of you to illustrate a point. It has absolutely nothing to do with you personally, but your sentiment is one I've seen time and again in various games regarding PvP and specifically sweeping changes to existing gearing, customization, and the use of Templates in them.

Whenever someone says, "Gosh, that might actually get me to play some PvP" it often means, "I hate PvP and have always hated PvP, and if you catered to my level of play and preference for an easier/simplified system, I would cheer it on, maybe try it once or twice, and never play again." It's panned out that way in every MMO I've played.

I am just estimating, but I probably had 500+ hours of PvP in WOW. I loved WOW Battlegrounds. You didn't need special gear, you could PUG in and play. There were better geared people, but you could still have an impact, and you didn't get one shotted.

I also have probably 3000+ hours into various first person shooters. And I am an avid Chess player.

ESO PvP is broken every time I have tried it. I mean, I get a kick out of it, but its *really* a bottom barrel PvP game. Cyrodil and IC are interesting for the scale and the fact that you can run PvE objectives there, that is about all that I find interesting. I have to go there on occasion for PVE objectives and events, but the gulf between a normal PVE build with yellow DLC gear and whatever the PVP players are running is immense.

If they could create an environment, where you farm some blue/purple drops in dungoen or at a vender, with a big flashing sign that says ***Wear this in PVP and you wont get stomped*** and if the game delivered on that promise, then I would add BGs into my daily rotation. PVP rewards in terms of transmute crystals are far superior so there is incentive to play it, but it is just plain bottom barrel PVP experience, from someone who has 25 years into PVP games.

You just have to trust that there are intelligent, experienced gamers who try ESO PVP and decide not to play because its bad. Not because skill issue or something else. The population is on life support because its a bad pvp game. Vengeance fixes lag and at least sorta levels the playing field. It gives a glimpse of what could be if they invested some brainpower into a complete redesign.

Template only PvP will be the downfall of ESO PvP if they make it the only option. The original Cyrodiil PvP was and could be again the best PvP in the history of MMO's.

I don't think this game has ever had truly popular PvP. They had to make Battlegrounds available for everyone decently quickly after release and this game was not doing well when PvP was a greater focus in the early years. I get that the people who like it, really like it. And I won't say it's a bad PvP game. But the way it works seems to cater to a fairly niche audience. I can't experience the Vengeance campaign because I'm on console, so no idea if that is any better of an experience. I just know that I enjoy PvP in other games but not as much here.

You're speaking for yourself, not anyone else.

The_Meathead

Yeah, ESO's entire endgame at Launch WAS PvP.

I personally feel it was only after people hacking made the computations move from User side to Server side, the lag and performance decrease pushed the focus away from Cyrodiil and that focus shifted more towards PvE.

It was probably inevitable, as casual PvE typically dominates, but for a brief period at the beginning ESO's entire focus was on funneling people to Cyrodiil.

spartaxoxo

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

You're speaking for yourself, not anyone else.

I am speaking to the population it had during it's hey day was fairly low compared to other big MMOs (with that highlighted line). As I said, the people who like it, really liked it. But this game's PvP has always had a niche audience.

WaywardArgonian

Did people forget about the no-proc testing? They did that in early 2021 and it did not improve performance in any significant way.

Vengeance is a lot more rigorous than just removing procs: there are no sets, no passives, no CPs, no regular skills, no buff foods, no potions (apart from the standard ones); you are not able to put up more than one of each standard siege engine they gave to you, you cannot farm nodes, you cannot even use the outfit station, swap your mount or access your inventory, and you cannot do basic things such as levelling your alliance rank or player level until after you leave the campaign. The handful of class skills they designed for this campaign are very limited in how many players they apply to, and there is no smart-healing.

So in short, the number of calculations has been drastically reduced by removing all functionality from Cyrodiil apart from the bare minimum you need to still have a functional PVP environment. This is in order to set an actual baseline of where the game's performance is at without any of its secondary systems at work. To say they removed lag by just removing procs is incredibly far from the truth.

Major_Mangle

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Did people forget about the no-proc testing? They did that in early 2021 and it did not improve performance in any significant way.

Vengeance is a lot more rigorous than just removing procs: there are no sets, no passives, no CPs, no regular skills, no buff foods, no potions (apart from the standard ones); you are not able to put up more than one of each standard siege engine they gave to you, you cannot farm nodes, you cannot even use the outfit station, swap your mount or access your inventory, and you cannot do basic things such as levelling your alliance rank or player level until after you leave the campaign. The handful of class skills they designed for this campaign are very limited in how many players they apply to, and there is no smart-healing.

So in short, the number of calculations has been drastically reduced by removing all functionality from Cyrodiil apart from the bare minimum you need to still have a functional PVP environment. This is in order to set an actual baseline of where the game's performance is at without any of its secondary systems at work. To say they removed lag by just removing procs is incredibly far from the truth.

The feedback/comments around these tests gives me the same vibes to when they did the early no proc tests. A very vocal group praised how good it was, how there was no lag (because they thought it had to do with no procs being present), and that it should be implemented as a campaign (mainly people who didn´t PvP that much ironically). We all know what happened further down the line with dead/empty campaigns. It´s like people conveniently forget just to push an agenda. Not saying I´m without bias/preference but the selective memory of some people is astonishing.

WaywardArgonian

Major_Mangle wrote: »

The feedback/comments around these tests gives me the same vibes to when they did the early no proc tests. A very vocal group praised how good it was, how there was no lag (because they thought it had to do with no procs being present), and that it should be implemented as a campaign (mainly people who didn´t PvP that much ironically). We all know what happened further down the line with dead/empty campaigns. It´s like people conveniently forget just to push an agenda. Not saying I´m without bias/preference but the selective memory of some people is astonishing.

And then the cherry on top is when people pretend Ravenwatch dying had nothing to do with no-proc but just the PVP population shrinking. As if uprooting an entire campaign for an experimental ruleset played no part in people losing interest in the game as a whole. I played no-proc Ravenwatch for a lot longer than most people (including those who advocated for it in 2021) and saw it die first-hand. So to now see it be presented as a novel idea that would be wildly popular is quite surreal.

Pixiepumpkin

Agreed OP.

I like proc sets, what I do not like is 1 shot cheese builds. That does not showcase skill whatsoever.
I also like seeing 200 people on the enemy team and making a battlefield actually look like a battlefield.
I also like that this game mode is balanced. Infinitely easier on the dev team to tweak numbers to create a balanced and fair playfield.
I also like the fact that reporting cheaters (yes they do exist) will be much more reliable as no one should be hitting you for 30k in this mode (I have already seen 25 and 27k...oddly I was not able to reproduce this effect even by half when I tested the same class.
I also like that classes play like classes. Which helps you counter the enemy player if you know the class they play. This allows for much better engagements.

People who are against this, based on my observations, prefer to keep proc sets for the inherent advantage they get. Some people do not want a balanced playfield, they want to steamroll. Bombers/1 shot builds are not designed to "show skill/boost ego" they are designed to literally grief "I only care about 1 shoting the same guy over and over to ruin his day". These are the literal mindsets behind these types of builds, again based on my observations and encounters.

This game engine can not handle proc sets and massive battles. Even in this mode massive battles are lagging, where abilities fire a second or two behind.

This mode reminds me more of WOW (which imo have much better balanced PVP than ESO). This mode makes me feel like I am fighitng for a faction, and that my class has meaning. I would like to see racials have some meaning and frankly I have no isues with gear making your character stronger, but I think those gear sets should be limited like wow. Its the only way to balance the game.

And for me, that is what matters the most. A fair and balanced playfield. Obviously larger numbers are going to win (WOW solved this witih their 100v100 BG, 40v40 BG, etc).

The Vengence mode also limits/reduced targeted griefing because the other player who may not have the skill, who is normally targeted over and over (griefed) can put out the same or close to the same pressure. They actually have a fighting chance.

In boxing, people are matched by their weight. Vengence mode does the same thing. And for the health of PVP and brining new players to the format, this is the way forward.