Alliance War future plans and update!

ZOS_BrianWheeler · August 2014

Hey gang!

We wanted to give you all a heads up regarding what the Alliance War (PVP) team is looking into for the future, as well as what we’re currently working on for Cyrodiil. As a general reminder, the Alliance War team is responsible for all things Cyrodiil, the Imperial City, and the Campaign system as a whole, so this post will be centered on those topics.

Campaign Durations – We are closely watching the populations of the new campaigns that we introduced in Update 3, and are tracking the in-game numbers daily. Future campaigns and plans thereof will rely greatly on the live in-game information we’re currently gathering from both the US and the EU servers.

Client Hitches/Crashes – As mentioned in the Quakecon presentation, we’re working on many game client optimizations that will address client hitching and crashes by allowing you to fine-tune your FX settings. These changes, along with continued server optimization, will help address the quality of combat and encounters in Cyrodiil.

Home Campaign Buffs – Originally, home campaign buffs were intended as a means to attach ownership to your Campaign, however it’s been observed (at great length) that Alliances have chosen various home campaigns and guest into other campaigns to earn as many buffs as possible. In the future, we plan on having home buffs travel with you into PVE, but while in Cyrodiil, you only get buffs from your local campaign (the campaign you’re physically located in at that time).

Emperor Trading – We are still monitoring this after the 1.3 patch with the changes made to the leaderboard requirements, limited campaign choices, and siege decay changes. For future updates, we may change the method of leveling up Emperorship and Ex-Emperor buffs.

Guest Pass/Jump-to-Player – Being that ESO is an MMO, adding limits to when/where I can play with friends is a key issue we’re aware. That’s why the Jump-to-Player option is currently allowed to enter Cyrodiil. It’s our belief that allowing players to group up and play together is one of the most important aspects of an MMO, and removing the capability to jump to your friends or use a guest pass would be detrimental. That being said, with the Campaign Home Buffs being adjusted to Local Campaigns only in the future as well as introducing more campaigns options, this will hopefully cut down on the Jump-to-Player/Guest Pass abuse.

Imperial City – The final piece of the Alliance War “Meta-game” is coming, and will definitely change the landscape and goals of players in Cyrodiil. We are aware of the population waves that this will introduce on a Campaign-by-Campaign basis, and will be closely monitoring this when the Imperial City launches.

Alliance War Future – After Imperial City launches, we are looking to add more content into Cyrodiil in some of the emptier locations. We will, of course, continue adding to the Keep system, too. We’re also looking to add more Alliance-specific gear to give more options for individual identity to the Aldmeri, Ebonheart and Daggerfall communities.

That’s all for now gang, but we also wanted to mention we’re opening a new forum section for Combat! You can find the listing here (http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/categories/EN-combat-skills). Please feel free to post all questions and comments about classes, abilities, skill lines, and all things combat in that section as this gives the Combat team a unified forum to look into for combat and classes!

Thanks again and we’ll see you on the battlefield!

-Wheeler

Erock25 · August 2014

Can I call you Wheels?

Magister_Aena · August 2014

Will there be any changes to the nonveteran campaign, like hopefully making the NPCs NOT veteran and stopping the workaround of vet players in Blackwater Blade?

ZOS_BrianWheeler · August 2014

@Magister_Aena‌ The battle level stats will be increased to compensate for the Veteran guards very soon which will apply to all campaigns. This brings player level power much more in line with the power curve of Cyrodiil and allows smaller groups of players to take resources instead of large groups of players to take out resources.

Lord_Draevan · August 2014

"Home Campaign Buffs: In the future, we plan on having home buffs travel with you into PVE, but while in Cyrodiil, you only get buffs from your local campaign (the campaign you’re physically located in at that time)."

Finally.

Samadhi · August 2014

Some good information in here, thank you for this.

I look forward to things to come.

Pixysticks · August 2014

Thanks for these updates, I appreciate it. But in order of priority, the things that should [also] be on this list are:

1.) Fixing random crashes in Cyrodiil every 30m-1hr.
2.) Fix bow attacks not displaying health loss, so people appear to just die at random.
3.) Unbreakable CC, and the overall slow response of Break Stun, overall.
4.) Fix Spell and Armor penetration ignoring ALL of a targets resistances.
5.) Uncap AOE abilities when inside Cyrodiil.
6.) Fix Passive Skill-lines that are bugged or don't work at all.
7.) Put a cap on the amount of people that influence ownership when standing on keep flags.
8.) Make a player's name and guild appear on forward camps.

Lord_Draevan · August 2014

Pixysticks wrote: »

5.) Uncap AOE abilities when inside Cyrodiil.

I have a dream... a dream of Cyrodiil without hundreds of people in tightly packed blobs running around spamming AoE with Immovable... a Cyrodiil where some slight measure of skill is more profitable than clicking a single button.
I hope this dream comes to pass...

In all seriousness, the main problem is that healing AoE always goes to the lowest-health person while damage AoE hits people at random. Plus, their Immovable prevents them from being stopped, ergo Negate Magic Ultimate is useless as they'll run out in about 2 seconds. The only way to beat them is to use their tactic. Or oilpots occasionally work, but people never set up enough.

Cyrodiil isn't very fun at the moment on regular and high population campaigns.

Pixysticks · August 2014

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

Pixysticks wrote: »

5.) Uncap AOE abilities when inside Cyrodiil.

In all seriousness, the main problem is that healing AoE always goes to the lowest-health person while damage AoE hits people at random. Plus, their Immovable prevents them from being stopped, ergo Negate Magic Ultimate is useless as they'll run out in about 2 seconds. The only way to beat them is to use their tactic.

Cyrodiil isn't very fun at the moment on regular and high population campaigns.

Immovable shouldn't be in the game, period. Or if it is, it needs a 1-2 minute cooldown. An ability that makes you immune to every possible CC in the game, including silence, and can be permanently kept on, is ridiculous.

Lord_Draevan · August 2014

Pixysticks wrote: »

Immovable shouldn't be in the game, period. Or if it is, it needs a 1-2 minute cooldown. An ability that makes you immune to every possible CC in the game, including silence, and can be permanently kept on, is ridiculous.

Or it should be only available if you're wearing 7/7 pieces of Heavy Armor. That would stop the blobbers, they'd have to sacrifice all their Light Armor magicka bonuses.

TheBull · August 2014

Thanks man. Good to see you coming around here. You've done a hell of a job.

Pixysticks · August 2014

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

Pixysticks wrote: »

Immovable shouldn't be in the game, period. Or if it is, it needs a 1-2 minute cooldown. An ability that makes you immune to every possible CC in the game, including silence, and can be permanently kept on, is ridiculous.

Or it should be only available if you're wearing 7/7 pieces of Heavy Armor. That would stop the blobbers, they'd have to sacrifice all their Light Armor magicka bonuses.

Yeah, or make it an ultimate for heavy armor or something.

Cody · August 2014

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Magister_Aena‌ The battle level stats will be increased to compensate for the Veteran guards very soon which will apply to all campaigns. This brings player level power much more in line with the power curve of Cyrodiil and allows smaller groups of players to take resources instead of large groups of players to take out resources.

whatever fixes it. I myself will not play the non-veteran campaign again until that issue is at least.... reduced.... as ill say. its not fun getting killed in one hit(yes, I am serious, ONE HIT) by keep guards.

Enkil · August 2014

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌ On siege decay.... Can you make it so that it doesn't kick in for a few minutes or until the operator has left a certain radius? At least make it have more of an exponential decay rate that gives a sort of grace period? As is, if someone attacks you while operating a siege, you drop the siege to fight them and by the time you get back to your siege engine the health has dropped quite a bit or it has already collapsed.

Nermy · August 2014

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Thanks for the update, it's nice to be kept in the loop.

But I'd like to know if you can you tell us if anything is going to be done to combat the queues for PvP at the minute?

You talk about players being able to play together and I quote "It’s our belief that allowing players to group up and play together is one of the most important aspects of an MMO."

The last two nights I am my PvP guild mates have had to spend over an hour queueing to get into Cyrodiil. Some have given up before even getting in. How is this letting us play together?

Are the NA servers having the same problem and what is being done to ease the situation?

Dleatherus · August 2014

Enkil wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌ On siege decay.... Can you make it so that it doesn't kick in for a few minutes or until the operator has left a certain radius? At least make it have more of an exponential decay rate that gives a sort of grace period? As is, if someone attacks you while operating a siege, you drop the siege to fight them and by the time you get back to your siege engine the health has dropped quite a bit or it has already collapsed.

this timer/decay mechanic has been put in place as a direct result of the siege weapon limit exploit that was being employed by the emperor farmers on the Celarus campaign - it could be employed to sabotage one's own alliance in any campaign

at issue is that when trying to defend a keep members of your own 'alliance' can put up enough oil pots/siege weapons at the far side/outside of the keep away from the action so that you cannot set up a single siege weapon to help defend

the current decay rate makes it expensive to try and operate 2 or more siege weapons at the same time, defend yourself whilst operating a siege weapon etc, but it is far preferable to the exploiting that was going on

another case of the lazy greedy selfish few ruining it for the rest of the player base - ah how i wish i could post the video of those that were doing this, but they are protected by the naming and shaming policy

am very glad that ZOS, and in this particular case Brian Wheeler, listened to us about it - realized it needed fixing, and fixed it - TY!

D.

Brizz · August 2014

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

Pixysticks wrote: »

Immovable shouldn't be in the game, period. Or if it is, it needs a 1-2 minute cooldown. An ability that makes you immune to every possible CC in the game, including silence, and can be permanently kept on, is ridiculous.

Or it should be only available if you're wearing 7/7 pieces of Heavy Armor. That would stop the blobbers, they'd have to sacrifice all their Light Armor magicka bonuses.

Agreed. When theorycrafting before ESO was released, I thought for sure that you had to be wearing the gear in order to use the ability. Easy fix - Implement!

Also worth mention:

"You may only resurrect at a forward camp if you died within it's radius"

This change would give more meaning to supply lines and cut down on suicide or "Blood Porting".

k1llorbek1lled · August 2014

Pixysticks wrote: »

Thanks for these updates, I appreciate it. But in order of priority, the things that should [also] be on this list are:

1.) Fixing random crashes in Cyrodiil every 30m-1hr.
2.) Fix bow attacks not displaying health loss, so people appear to just die at random.
3.) Unbreakable CC, and the overall slow response of Break Stun, overall.
4.) Fix Spell and Armor penetration ignoring ALL of a targets resistances.
5.) Uncap AOE abilities when inside Cyrodiil.
6.) Fix Passive Skill-lines that are bugged or don't work at all.
7.) Put a cap on the amount of people that influence ownership when standing on keep flags.
8.) Make a player's name and guild appear on forward camps.

You nailed everything I hate about PvP in this game atm. #5 the most.

I still love it though! Also, I wish you could only use camps if you die in it's radius.

Nermy · August 2014

dcman830_ESO wrote: »

You nailed everything I hate about PvP in this game atm. #5 the most.

I still love it though! Also, I wish you could only use camps if you die in it's radius.

I have a massive love/hate relationship with Cyrodiil atm...

I hate the massive, MASSIVE zeurgs... no fun.

I hate the queuing for over an hour each night.

I love riding to the rescue with my guild.

I love sieging and defending our keeps.

I love the sound of hot oil as it swills around my enemies feet!

...sorry... off topic...

Xsorus · August 2014

Going to post my issues thread points in here since it'll be stickied

1. AOE caps still resulting in Mindless Zerg Balling in the game completely dumbing down any skill involved in PvP.

2. Forward Camps being more for teleporting people then an actual Rez spot. This is a huge problem with the game currently as it completely kills any need to hold Supply Lines or kill people moving between the Fights. It also makes Death completely penalty free in the game.

3. Bows basically instant killing people, Not sure if its just the Damage not updating or It just doesn't calculate till all at once?

4. Soul Tether/Magma Armor doing a crap ton of damage, with Soul Tether being really over the top right now. This was reported on PTS multiple times.....

5. Keep Walls basically being nothing more then wet paper tissue in this game. This goes hand in hand with the Forward Camp Issue, If you fix one without the other you make the game unplayable on a massive scale. If you fix Forward Camps for example there is no way you'll be able to make it to a keep in time before the walls are down, They get brought down in under a minute.... That is completely unacceptable. Doors should be the primary way to get into a Keep, and the Walls themselves should be a secondary option if the Door is to heavily defended. There is basically zero need for something like a Ram right now because of this issue. This also means taking any of the Supply Camps around the keep completely pointless as you'll risk warning the people you're able to have the walls down by doing that.

6. Unbreakable Stuns, This is still an issue...I've not seen it with Invasion (Shield Charge) and Root after the patch, but i'm still noticing it with Ambush and Concealed Blade combo if they do it from stealth. I've had multiple times were i'm at full stamina spamming the break free key and nothing happens. I'm not sure if other abilities are doing it but if Ambush and Concealed blade still are i imagine other abilities are as well.

7. Just thought of one, The lack of a Rez penalty in this game. This was a problem with Guild Wars 2 as well, but its also a Problem in this game. Currently Rezzing is doing nothing more then giving me all my Mana/Stamina Back. That's not much of a Penalty.

8. Being in combat for hellish long periods. I get if i'm in combat near someone if i'm fighting them, But if i've not hit them for say 15 seconds..I shouldn't be in combat with them..I shouldn't be in combat for bloody 3-4 minutes at a time either.

9. Crashing, Currently everyone I know is crashing at least once an Hour, not sure whats causing it..But i've had guildies basically come out and say that right after I crash, they will... and sure enough they do within a minute of it happening to me.

10. Weapon Swapping getting weird animations where i have the wrong weapon equipped on the wrong skill load out.

11. Guesting in general, The way its currently setup is pretty cruddy, It leads to the crap you see right now where you have servers just dominated by 1 faction so they can get their keep bonuses and such, then they Guest over to the other server they really play on. If you guest to a server, You shouldn't get the bonuses from your server on that server. That completely defeats the point of being loyal to a server.

ZOS_BrianWheeler · August 2014

A lot of these points should also be mentioned in the new combat threads

We are aware of the crashing issues and the team of engineers are working on fixes for them as fast as they can. Also note we have a cap of the amount of players that can influence a flag at 6 players since launch but that could always be adjusted if the rate of capture is seemingly too fast/slow.

We're still collecting data about the populations in each of the campaigns (for the US and EU)and will make the decision to introduce a 6th Campaign or convert a current campaign in the future. This will hopefully go in conjunction with the campaign buffs conversion of only getting the buffs of the Campaign you're physically in while playing in Cyrodiil.

There have been discussions about Forward camps as well and currently we're leaning towards having "guild forward camps" where only guildmates can resurrect at a guild forward camp. This would be a new item entirely to go along with the forward camps already in the game. We're still working on getting this nailed down along with other forward camp issues that have lingered.

Xupacabra · August 2014

Iam currently paying to stay in a queue of 70+, to go pvp, yes i want to play in the biggest campaign thats what mmo means, please ivest the money in more resources to increase campaigns capacity.

ps: not more campaigns.

Morvul · August 2014

Pixysticks wrote: »

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

Pixysticks wrote: »

Immovable shouldn't be in the game, period. Or if it is, it needs a 1-2 minute cooldown. An ability that makes you immune to every possible CC in the game, including silence, and can be permanently kept on, is ridiculous.

Or it should be only available if you're wearing 7/7 pieces of Heavy Armor. That would stop the blobbers, they'd have to sacrifice all their Light Armor magicka bonuses.

Yeah, or make it an ultimate for heavy armor or something.

or make the length scale with the number of heavy armor pieces you wear...
like 1.5 second duration of immovable per piece of heavy armor...

bruceb14_ESO5 · August 2014

@ZOS_BrianWheeler the acknowledgement and communication of progress on the PVP issues is appreciated! Thank you. It is unfortunate regarding only 1 30 day campaign, which was obviously an issue long before 1.3 came out. The ideas and direction toward buffs in only local campaign are awesome and will mitigate some of the jump to player abuses. AP collaboration farming and trading emp problems are probably going to still exist, but again it is appreciated that ideas are being brainstormed to have a sense of fairness and balance in the game.

The direction looks good, thank you. ZOS does at times seem like feet are dragging, but at the same time the trend says, we listen.

Syndy · August 2014

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

There have been discussions about Forward camps as well and currently we're leaning towards having "guild forward camps" where only guildmates can resurrect at a guild forward camp. This would be a new item entirely to go along with the forward camps already in the game. We're still working on getting this nailed down along with other forward camp issues that have lingered.

Guild Foward Camps are great and something I have asked for in the past.

@xsorusb14_ESO hit the nail on the head with the problems tied to forward camps.

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

2. Forward Camps being more for teleporting people then an actual Rez spot. This is a huge problem with the game currently as it completely kills any need to hold Supply Lines or kill people moving between the Fights. It also makes Death completely penalty free in the game.

Right now they are used mainly as fast travel across the map. Granted when a keep is under siege people die and respawn in them, that is fine, if they died in the keep or inside the FC radius..But say you are down around Alessia, and all of the sudden Glademist is under siege. Right now players just suicide and then teleport the the FC inside Glademist.

I don't have an issue with someone suiciding, that is fine. Once you suicide you should have to spawn at say Rayles and ride to Glademist to defend it. Not suicide and instantly be able to spawn and defend Glademist.

The way it is now, there are hardly any players riding between keeps, there are no spots to gank, there is always just a blob of players at the objectives. Not roaming between the objectives.

Lunachick · August 2014

Xupacabra wrote: »

Iam currently paying to stay in a queue of 70+, to go pvp, yes i want to play in the biggest campaign thats what mmo means, please ivest the money in more resources to increase campaigns capacity.

ps: not more campaigns.

This! We need higher server capacity, definitely. More campaigns doesn't seem to work.

Samadhi · August 2014

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Going to post my issues thread points in here since it'll be stickied

1. AOE caps still resulting in Mindless Zerg Balling in the game completely dumbing down any skill involved in PvP.

...

AoE caps gotta go.

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

...

6. Unbreakable Stuns, This is still an issue...I've not seen it with Invasion (Shield Charge) and Root after the patch, but i'm still noticing it with Ambush and Concealed Blade combo if they do it from stealth. I've had multiple times were i'm at full stamina spamming the break free key and nothing happens. I'm not sure if other abilities are doing it but if Ambush and Concealed blade still are i imagine other abilities are as well.

...

Are you referring to Dual Wield Hidden Blade or to Nightblade Concealed Weapon here?
I'm presuming Hidden Blade, since it snares, but I'd just like to verify for clarification.

Krinaman · August 2014

Xupacabra wrote: »

Iam currently paying to stay in a queue of 70+, to go pvp, yes i want to play in the biggest campaign thats what mmo means, please ivest the money in more resources to increase campaigns capacity.

ps: not more campaigns.

I'm all for more players so long as it stays balanced. Under the current system the most popular faction gets the advantage. I've often times seen one faction locked while one or both of the others were at 1 or 2 bars. Raising the caps will just increase the advantage in these cases.

Sasky · August 2014

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

5. Keep Walls basically being nothing more then wet paper tissue in this game.

The buffs from resources are supposed to make this a calculated gamble, but more and more that's not the case. Even if you double wall HP, it's not much. Short of having spotters, the first warning you have it's too late to teleport in. If a keep has the resources, a warning should go out before it's 50% wall strength and/or teleports and respawns should be able to get in later.

Example (large swings to illustrate - obviously could be tuned down a bit):
3 resources - keep under attack at 90%, teleport/respawn stops at 30%
2 resources - keep under attack at 90%, teleport/respawn stops at 50%
1 resource - keep under attack at 70%, teleport/respawn stops at 50%
0 resources - keep under attack at 50%, respawn stops at 50%

You can still do a blitz tactic bypassing the resources, as it's still only a couple minutes to take a wall down with full siege, but you pay more of a penalty for not stopping supply lines.

Xsorus · August 2014

Samadhi wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Going to post my issues thread points in here since it'll be stickied

1. AOE caps still resulting in Mindless Zerg Balling in the game completely dumbing down any skill involved in PvP.

...

AoE caps gotta go.

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

...

6. Unbreakable Stuns, This is still an issue...I've not seen it with Invasion (Shield Charge) and Root after the patch, but i'm still noticing it with Ambush and Concealed Blade combo if they do it from stealth. I've had multiple times were i'm at full stamina spamming the break free key and nothing happens. I'm not sure if other abilities are doing it but if Ambush and Concealed blade still are i imagine other abilities are as well.

...

Are you referring to Dual Wield Hidden Blade or to Nightblade Concealed Weapon here?
I'm presuming Hidden Blade, since it snares, but I'd just like to verify for clarification.

Concealed Weapon on nightblade.

They usually do Ambush followed by that from stealth it seems, But i'm usually stunned and can't break it no matter what I do.

IcyDeadPeople · August 2014

Glad to hear about these changes, thanks for this update!

I feel the Alliance War experience could be enhanced if you can take a bit more into account the perspective of players who are exclusively interested in PVP. There are quite a lot of us who would like to avoid PVE and spend as much time in Cyrodiil as possible.

I've had an opportunity to level two different characters on live to vet rank exclusively through PVP, before and after patch 1.2.2 (this increased the XP gain in Cyrodiil a bit).

1. Leveling through PVP is far too slow.
It takes in the range of 400-500 hours playing time to level all the way to VR12 from PVP. For most of us, who only have a few hours to play each evening, it would take about 6 months to level this way. In contrast, you can level to VR12 through PVE in less than a week.

Very glad to hear about the increase in XP gain from player kills with Patch 1.3; however, from the little testing I've done since the patch, leveling through PVP still feels much slower than leveling through PVE.

2. There is not enough incentive to visit Cyrodiil questing areas
In most campaigns around launch time the quest areas in Cyrodiil were hotspots where lots of players would gather, and there were many opportunities for fun small scale battles between players of different factions.

At some point I believe the XP for these daily quests was reduced, and these days, the only time I encounter other players here is if someone brings a scroll into the village.

3. Cadwell's Silver quests require PVP focused players to spend too much time in PVE.
If you are primarily interested in PVP, you can skip all the PVE quests in your Alliance territory and reach vet rank by grinding or through player kills in Cyrodiil.

To unlock the skyshards in the next alliance territory, you must complete a quest line in Coldharbour and defeat Molag Bal. At this point the second alliance territory is unlocked along with Craglorn.

However, in order to unlock the the third alliance territory, you must do all the Cadwell's Silver story quests in every zone in the second alliance territory. Many players would prefer to skip these quests, and in my view the user experience for PVP-focused players would be improved here if it were possible to access the third alliance territory simply by traveling to friends or guildies, just as we can already do with Craglorn.

4.Some additional incentive to level together with friends in Cyrodiil would be very welcome
The Blackwater Blade lowbie campaign is a great idea, and if the XP gain from player kills were boosted to be in line with the rate of advancement from PVE, this could be a fun way for experienced PVP-ers to level new characters.

I wonder if it would be possible to offer an item similar to the Pledge of Mara, but tied to your guild, so you receive increased XP when participating in Cyrodiil PVP, grouped together with your guildmates. This could not only improve the user experience leveling through PVP, but also help guilds retain members and develop more friendships among guildies.

Perhaps it could be tied to wearing your guild's tabards, or reaching a certain level of progress in the guild (e.g., number of active members, keeps claimed by guild, total player kills by guild members, kill death ratio, or trials completion, etc.). If it were possible to do this, I'd suggest that it apply the bonus to veteran points as well. (My understanding is that the pledge of Mara does not boost vet points gain.)