Thornblade EU

Helm49 · August 2014

If some form of in-game diplomacy existed then perhaps the two outnumbered factions would be able to form a truce for a set period.
Perhaps both smaller factions be seen by the game as one and able to siege jointly, use each others forward camps etc. Home keeps reverting to there owners and enemy keeps to the highest numbers of the smaller faction.
This, in my opinion, would give much needed balance to a dire situation.
People are leaving in droves due to this problem, me included.

rackman · August 2014

Bushrat wrote: »

Keron wrote: »

@Iradicus
Yes, as stated I do play on Thornblade EU. Yes, I have seen them, in this current campaign. Yes, it does not happen as much as before (especially on former campaign, AB), at least on the upper end of that spectrum.

The last time I have seen a 50+ train of yellows was yesterday evening, at around 8.30pm, attacking BRK while blue was with a similar group on Chalman. And yes, we lost both keeps and the scroll due to that.

Keron,

so, let me get this straight, you guys held ALL the scrolls, and the say how 'how did you manage to get so many players online'? Basically looks like we wanted our scroll back and most ppl went there to get it nearly the same time... very few pvp guild are left playing Thornblade atm. Stop pretending that your sheer numbers are not accounting for a major part of your victory. I was on this morning when EP had med, and AD had low as well as DC low..there was soooo many Ep players we could not take a keep back... as you guys took ALL keeps scrolls and resources last night...

We are not asking for anything except FAIR PLAY.. which means numbers are basically equal.

Yeah Right!!

When EP and AD have an Alliance the zerg mentaliy lives

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Insults]

AbraXuSeXile · August 2014

The sad thing is, When Chillrend opened the map was entirely red, EP population was thriving, Then when we turned it around made it blue with emp buffs and pretty much controlled it, That's when EP left and DC turned up.

It's sad, Now we have had to leave and are looking for a new campaign where we are outnumbered.

Morticielle · August 2014

Iradicus wrote: »

Ok, for a week now EP has well over double the numbers of both AD and DC combined. How can you call this balanced! There is no point going there anymore, and when i go to chillrend the whole map is blue!

There needs to be a way to balance this, queue people if one side has way much more members then the others!
Late in the evening EP can keep 3 keeps defended, capture 2 scrolls and take any keep they want with nothing stopping them.
Most of the good PvP guilds have left Thornblade for just this reason.

Balance it out somehow, plz...or PvP (which is awesome in this game) will die a slow death by faction controlling their own map and no real PvP being played on any of them.

The problem is that many players are 'winning team joiners'. This became very apparent when EP had a good lead to DF and AD for the first time in this campaign and in the days following the numbers of players of DF and AD decreased and of EP increased. I'm sure that up to 50% of DF and AD players changed fronts and play now for EP.

I agree that Zenimax has to implement some restrictions to prevent extreme imbalances through 'winning team joiners'. A good way would be to force players to choose an allianz for the whole time (7/14/30 days) when they enter this particular campaign the first time. And 'underdog bonusses' have to be higher.

Volla · August 2014

I just gonna make people to be aware that there is a US guild playing on Thornblade atm. They were on Dawnbreaker before and we had same problem.
They call em self " Elite " guild. in what way i can't see when they apparently need to play when all is sleeping to be " Elite "...

Well there you have it.

I think maybe Zenimax can offer them a transfer to the US Server so we can have the balance back. And maybe don't allow US to play on EU or something like that, or force move em back where they belong

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs · August 2014

Yes at prime times these are all locked you have to point u just mad ur side sucks lol

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs · August 2014

Also realistically dint people attack at night for a surprise attack?

ps i love burning your sieges nomnom

synnerman · August 2014

The server has been locked from 1 in the afternoon up until 11 at night on most factions when the scores were more even and now that EP have kicked the backsides of the other 2 they have bottled it ...simple as that.
The only time when EP get pushed back is when both locked factions push together and oh yeah I forgot to mention we haven't even had our emperor and scroll buff for a week as we even had a GM in cyrodiil and he cant fix it and you still cant close the gap.

Im sorry your fellow battle buddies cant hack it when they lose but that's not our problem its yours. Maybe theyre running around in their little impulse spam grps on servers they can dominate ....lets face it that's why they all run around thrusting their staffs in the air together and when they get wiped they move on.

Cogo · August 2014

Iradicus wrote: »

Ok, for a week now EP has well over double the numbers of both AD and DC combined. How can you call this balanced! There is no point going there anymore, and when i go to chillrend the whole map is blue!

There needs to be a way to balance this, queue people if one side has way much more members then the others!
Late in the evening EP can keep 3 keeps defended, capture 2 scrolls and take any keep they want with nothing stopping them.
Most of the good PvP guilds have left Thornblade for just this reason.

Balance it out somehow, plz...or PvP (which is awesome in this game) will die a slow death by faction controlling their own map and no real PvP being played on any of them.

You blaming the game for us kicking your butts? You even know what Ebonheart do in Cyro? Big public groups. Not very difficult to take a keep, when there is a commander and most in the 40 man group does what the leader says.

And btw, did you miss in the patch notes that alliance that's an underdog will get buffs?

Ebon controlled the previous 3 month campaign as well. Mostly with players lower then Vet 1. I was there!

I'll be nice and give you a tip. Get organized. Talk to several pvp guilds and do events together.

You are facing the deadly enemy of public groups, without Teamspeak/vent.

And another tip. I suck at pvp, and about a month ago I started using bow in PvE dungeons to pull mobs. Only had 1H and shield since launch. Never had a second weapon (I was not good enough to switch bars in combat.)

I am still not lvl 50 with Bow, but with snipe, my weapon buff and mark, there are a surprising numbers of players in both factions who very nicely just stands there when I snipe them. Sometimes one shot, sometimes most of their HP. Not many rolls, blocks or just moves away.....and they are not afk btw...... heh.

Give your people a tip...if you are marked, then protect yourself and move......

Oh, another free tip. When I catapult you from a keep, you get a warning.....move and you don't take damage! Even though its fun to see all the smurfs just stand there and take my incoming catapults, over and over again.

Zadian · August 2014

Garion wrote: »

…

The biggest question (for me, at least) is do you EP who partake in this play style actually enjoy it? To me, it seems incredibly boring:
…

I play EP on Thornblade EU and I enjoy playing there. I usually play at EU prime-time and in that time period the AD and DC is giving us a good fight. There is always something going on, the zone chat is full of info where enemy groups show up, who is going there to defend and where a single player can go to help (currently testing my setup so I don't join one of the organized groups).
I find all this challenging and fun. I surely don't think it's easy to keep the keeps at "prime time". At prime time it's certainly not boring to me - as long as AD and DC still manages to give us a good fight.

The core of the problem for the other fractions is, in my opinion, the possibility to change campaigns so easily. There is no need to really try very hard to recapture or push the dominating fraction to their limits. Just change campaign to a campaign where your fraction is dominating. The result is guilds who want the PvP boni, who want to farm Emperor or are otherwise success oriented just change campaign.
The PvP boni shouldn't apply to the PvE world. There should be something rewarding to stay in the campaign. And the whole Emperor system should be changed or restricted to the campaign where the Emperor is Emperor.

The night capping is an other issue and I agree that it takes away a bit of the fun - getting pushed into a defensive position and the next day everything is red again is not ideal. But I have no clue how to prevent this - other than wondering why nobody from AD or DC manages to get a organized group to play at nighttime (or prime time in other time zones).

Zadian · August 2014

Bushrat wrote: »

…. Again.. fair play is all we are asking for. Being steamrolled by EP mobs because you have low numbers is not very fun.

Also; I am playing a NB and specialize in ganking- stealth killing. …

So you want EP players to spread out more so you can gank them while they roam around the map without a clue where to go and how the prevent getting ganked? And you think that would be fair play? OK

One thing that impresses me on this campaign is the organization of the unorganized players (those not in a group). Waiting until a few others ride to the same destination, getting clear orders where help is needed and at what time so getting a small group up to ride to that place is easier. Players with faster horses waiting for players with slower horses - to prevent them getting ganked. Players helping others who get ganked instead of running to safety.

Those AD gankers are really helpful - they offer a very important service to EP, fast travel to a forward camp where help is really needed.

Sharee · August 2014

Zadian wrote: »

Garion wrote: »

…

The biggest question (for me, at least) is do you EP who partake in this play style actually enjoy it? To me, it seems incredibly boring:
…

I play EP on Thornblade EU and I enjoy playing there. I usually play at EU prime-time and in that time period the AD and DC is giving us a good fight

Thornblade EU, saturday afternoon:

http://imgur.com/cDKXQR3

Bushrat · August 2014

I am new to MMO's and so please excuse me for for not really being used to all the rudeness I see in the forums. Some ppl can get down right nasty. I am glad people are paying attention to this and while it may appear to many players on EP that their superior tactics are winning, the simple fact still remains that appart form prime time--- usually only about 6 hours-- not 10 as some ppl have said---- EP has a huge population lead over the other factions. This makes for a imbalanced game IMO.

Zadian wrote: »

Bushrat wrote: »

…. Again.. fair play is all we are asking for. Being steamrolled by EP mobs because you have low numbers is not very fun.

Also; I am playing a NB and specialize in ganking- stealth killing. …

So you want EP players to spread out more so you can gank them while they roam around the map without a clue where to go and how the prevent getting ganked? And you think that would be fair play? OK

One thing that impresses me on this campaign is the organization of the unorganized players (those not in a group). Waiting until a few others ride to the same destination, getting clear orders where help is needed and at what time so getting a small group up to ride to that place is easier. Players with faster horses waiting for players with slower horses - to prevent them getting ganked. Players helping others who get ganked instead of running to safety.

Those AD gankers are really helpful - they offer a very important service to EP, fast travel to a forward camp where help is really needed.

Me telling ppl that I am stealth hunter was not intended to tell EP players to spread out, it was to help ppl understand what my observations were about the way EP plays and there are just so many EP players on that its difficult to find small groups of them.

Morticielle wrote: »

Iradicus wrote: »

Ok, for a week now EP has well over double the numbers of both AD and DC combined. How can you call this balanced! There is no point going there anymore, and when i go to chillrend the whole map is blue!

There needs to be a way to balance this, queue people if one side has way much more members then the others!
Late in the evening EP can keep 3 keeps defended, capture 2 scrolls and take any keep they want with nothing stopping them.
Most of the good PvP guilds have left Thornblade for just this reason.

Balance it out somehow, plz...or PvP (which is awesome in this game) will die a slow death by faction controlling their own map and no real PvP being played on any of them.

The problem is that many players are 'winning team joiners'. This became very apparent when EP had a good lead to DF and AD for the first time in this campaign and in the days following the numbers of players of DF and AD decreased and of EP increased. I'm sure that up to 50% of DF and AD players changed fronts and play now for EP.

I agree that Zenimax has to implement some restrictions to prevent extreme imbalances through 'winning team joiners'. A good way would be to force players to choose an allianz for the whole time (7/14/30 days) when they enter this particular campaign the first time. And 'underdog bonusses' have to be higher.

I think you may have touched on a issue that is playing a big part of the problem here. Many players have left not just campaigns but Alliances in order to win. I am not sure how to deal with this, but I suspect its part of the problem.

Again I will state that fairly equal numbers online will make a more fair game for ALL of us. The tactics will be the only way to win.

Lettigall · August 2014

I like this tactic: cut's off transport links but ganks to help transport

I don't mind giving 200 AP for fast travel, especially when help is needed at some keep

As for night caps, check how many time zones are there, if it night for you doesn't mean that it's same for everybody.

hamon · August 2014

and i,ll say this much. grief who is ep emperor on thornblade. is always in thornblade, doesnt abdicate to pass emperor around like a packet of ready rubbed, and makes the effort to try to co-ordinate defence. Even when idiots decide to flame and whine (probably out of some jealous resentment)

i dont see any guilds on thornblade who just want to maximise AP gain in a lol train while not giving a monkeys about strategy. Every guild group ive joined for a nights play, play as an asset to the faction. moving to defend our stuff rather than just look for the biggest farm spots.

I think this has as much to do with why EP is efficient in TB.

hamon · August 2014

Lettigall wrote: »

I like this tactic: cut's off transport links but ganks to help transport I don't mind giving 200 AP for fast travel, especially when help is needed at some keep

As for night caps, check how many time zones are there, if it night for you doesn't mean that it's same for everybody.

yes i find it very funny and ironic that these gankers who get their kicks gibbing folk off horses are actually very often hurting their own faction.
All they do is enable the folk they kill to re-deploy where they are needed even faster.

they get easy AP but often cost their own side a keep or scroll

Turelus · August 2014

So from one of the active EP players who also takes part often in the night-caps I'll give some insight to our faction.

Firstly the is the EP Warcouncil alliance, this is made of three major guilds in Thornblade who share a single TeamSpeak server and on most nights can have two or three full raids up and running with their commanders all in contact to organise operations.

For the most part the leaders of all the EP raids actually communicate as well, we have had some hard times at the start of the campaign when the leaders of all the other campaigns came into conflict, but we sorted those out and now most (not all) of the groups operating at one time will be in contact. If a keep goes under siege a group will say "We'll take it care of it" leaving the other raids free to continue pushing forward or defend other targets.

The night capping is a shame, there are a lot of EP members who don't need to sleep too early and can stay up to work over night if needed. This first started to be a priority because there were AD and DC groups doing the same, however it seems those groups have either moved on or stopped so when our night shift is online, there is very little to stop them taking control of everything.

I would rather we have a strong fight, however if the attitude of the other factions is "well now they have an advantage this is too much work so we quit" there really wont be any way to stop us.
There was only a week ago a time when we were pushed all the way back, losing our scrolls because AD and DC pushed hard, then because of the night-cap everyone gave up, quitters will never be winners, sorry.

Zadian · August 2014

Sharee wrote: »

Thornblade EU, saturday afternoon:

http://imgur.com/cDKXQR3

That looked differently yesterday and Wednesday. SO the real problem now is, that AD and DC stopped playing on that campaign. That's boring.

Morticielle · August 2014

Sharee wrote: »

Zadian wrote: »

Garion wrote: »

…

The biggest question (for me, at least) is do you EP who partake in this play style actually enjoy it? To me, it seems incredibly boring:
…

I play EP on Thornblade EU and I enjoy playing there. I usually play at EU prime-time and in that time period the AD and DC is giving us a good fight

Thornblade EU, saturday afternoon:

http://imgur.com/cDKXQR3

Yup, that is the EP skill, EP players speak off.

Turelus · August 2014

As a second post, going back and reading this it's really coming off as.

"Someone else started winning, so now we CBA to put the effort in to fight back or try to organise an alliance or large push. ZOS needs to change mechanics so I don't have to do any work and can still win vs organised factions."

Now I know that's not everyone's complaint, and EP does have a strong night team, but maybe all the players who moved to other campaigns at the first sign of trouble are your problem? If your entire factions jumped ship the moment things looked bad it's hardly the EP players fault for sticking with it and pushing the advantage.

Zadian · August 2014

Bushrat wrote: »

…

Me telling ppl that I am stealth hunter was not intended to tell EP players to spread out, it was to help ppl understand what my observations were about the way EP plays and there are just so many EP players on that its difficult to find small groups of them. …

You will probably have to adapt to the situation. People learned that riding alone is a sure way to get ambushed by a small group of enemy players. So they start to wait for other players to ride along with them even if they aren't in a group.
On thornblade finding small groups of EP is probably even more difficult because EP is playing very coordinated in moving people to places where they are needed.
And remember EP is defending. A lot of players port to keeps instead of riding from keep to keep. It would be differently if EP was the attacking fraction.
Start to go where the action is - and this will constantly change - and you will find small groups at the edges of the combat zone.

I agree with you that it would be more fun if all three fraction would have an equal population number and all play more or less equally coordinated. But even then I don't think you would see a lot of small parties running around.

synnerman · August 2014

Morticielle wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Zadian wrote: »

Garion wrote: »

…

The biggest question (for me, at least) is do you EP who partake in this play style actually enjoy it? To me, it seems incredibly boring:
…

I play EP on Thornblade EU and I enjoy playing there. I usually play at EU prime-time and in that time period the AD and DC is giving us a good fight

Thornblade EU, saturday afternoon:

http://imgur.com/cDKXQR3

Yup, that is the EP skill, EP players speak off.

Not always been like that though has it??? its the skill that's made AD and DC run off and cry on other campaigns.... They have been completely battered in to submission just like the blue faced , yellow backed cowards we knew they were

Obus · August 2014

synnerman wrote: »

Morticielle wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Zadian wrote: »

Garion wrote: »

…

The biggest question (for me, at least) is do you EP who partake in this play style actually enjoy it? To me, it seems incredibly boring:
…

I play EP on Thornblade EU and I enjoy playing there. I usually play at EU prime-time and in that time period the AD and DC is giving us a good fight

Thornblade EU, saturday afternoon:

http://imgur.com/cDKXQR3

Yup, that is the EP skill, EP players speak off.

Not always been like that though has it??? its the skill that's made AD and DC run off and cry on other campaigns.... They have been completely battered in to submission just like the blue faced , yellow backed cowards we knew they were

So yeah, lets call AD and DC come back, and fight on prime time. And after get all the home keeps, scrolls back, and dethrone emp, go to sleep and lose all AGAIN.

Thanks but isn't fun that some ppl like to do PVE on nights

synnerman · August 2014

AD and DC have their night cappers but they got their butts kicked and ran off to dominate little campaigns to make themselves feel good again. Shame...thanks for the gold when the campaign ends and hope you get your bottle back.

themdogesbite · August 2014

Turelus wrote: »

I would rather we have a strong fight, however if the attitude of the other factions is "well now they have an advantage this is too much work so we quit" there really wont be any way to stop us.
There was only a week ago a time when we were pushed all the way back, losing our scrolls because AD and DC pushed hard, then because of the night-cap everyone gave up, quitters will never be winners, sorry.

Move to chillrend for a week. I think you will understand why people move to other campaigns eventually.

Obus · August 2014

synnerman wrote: »

AD and DC have their night cappers but they got their butts kicked and ran off to dominate little campaigns to make themselves feel good again. Shame...thanks for the gold when the campaign ends and hope you get your bottle back.

Sorry i don't call it dominate. I call it PVE. You know very well what happens on prime time on locked. EP can barely keep the home keeps. snip. As you said, the only way EP can be first and get the gold, is night capping. That the sad part.

But fyi, be happy with your gold and your empty campaign

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Rude and Insulting comments]

Sharee · August 2014

synnerman wrote: »

Morticielle wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Zadian wrote: »

Garion wrote: »

…

The biggest question (for me, at least) is do you EP who partake in this play style actually enjoy it? To me, it seems incredibly boring:
…

I play EP on Thornblade EU and I enjoy playing there. I usually play at EU prime-time and in that time period the AD and DC is giving us a good fight

Thornblade EU, saturday afternoon:

http://imgur.com/cDKXQR3

Yup, that is the EP skill, EP players speak off.

its the skill that's made AD and DC run off and cry on other campaigns....

Actually, no. It was not skill, it was cheating. There was a whole thread about it earlier in the month:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/126713/thornblade-eu-due-to-exploiters-and-cheaters-ep-gained-a-massive-lead/p1

(ZOS patched the extreme damage some abilities were doing in a later patch, but the damage to the campaign was already done)

kelly.medleyb14_ESO · August 2014

Iradicus wrote: »

Ok, for a week now EP has well over double the numbers of both AD and DC combined. How can you call this balanced! There is no point going there anymore, and when i go to chillrend the whole map is blue!

There needs to be a way to balance this, queue people if one side has way much more members then the others!
Late in the evening EP can keep 3 keeps defended, capture 2 scrolls and take any keep they want with nothing stopping them.
Most of the good PvP guilds have left Thornblade for just this reason.

Balance it out somehow, plz...or PvP (which is awesome in this game) will die a slow death by faction controlling their own map and no real PvP being played on any of them.

This will continue to happen as long as:

1 People are allowed to switch their campaigns freely (the current "cost" is a joke)
2 No significant bonuses are given to those with 1/10th and more disparity of the population of other factions.
3 People have no faction pride. As each faction is all jumbled up by allowing any race to role any alliance.

#3 you can't fix, wow did a great job of having faction pride by making one distinctly good faction and one distinctly evil one, with ESO its all grey which isn't realistic and kinda middle of the road fencewalkish.

#1 and #2 have been dealt with differently in other mmos but at least dealt with, ESO seems to be relearning mistakes of various other mmos almost as if they didn't study those mistakes before making decisions. That said these 2 can be fixed.

Until 1 is dealt with the casual/disloyal/fence riders will continue to jump campaigns like rats from a sinking ship even if their lead only slips slightly.

Possible solutions:

1 Increase the cost or eliminate the ability to switch campaigns, 500k is a reasonable number if you choose the later, my alts have that much just doing quests.
AND
2 Lock out according to the lowest population. if there are only 100EP lock the other 2 to 100 ppl. People that don't want to wait in the Q can go to their guest campaign and play there until their Q pops.
OR
3 Give a huge single player bonus to factions that have less players than the other two factions. I mean a real bonus not another cheesy token that does nothing. This is how WoW dealt with campaign style pvp and it worked ok I'd rather see 2.
OR
4 Give overpopulated factions MUCH less potential points per hour.

Bushrat · August 2014

I am glad a few of the ppl actually addressed the issue of the population imbalance instead of a few who ppl to talked about all the superior tactics and co-ordination that EP uses. Each faction has some sort of system like that I am sure. we have a similar system in AD and nobody that I have ever seen trades Emp title around like its worthless. It goes to the player who has the most AP and my experience is that the last few we had were very good at coordinating tactics and strategy.

The issue of this thread is the campaign population imbalance going on currently.

Also, as a ganker I gank all over the place not just transit lines. As I said before I used my observations about the EP travel patterns to show how many there are and how they travel in groups.. its always been that way. So.... while occasionally I gank on transit lines to battle sites, the players we gank were usually not smart enough to use the forward camp so killing them will not ensure they will go where you need them most. There are sooooo many places to gank players and me and my group goes to all of them.

synnerman · August 2014

Obus, rofl at your whiny post , you lost get over it.....We don't need to night cap sunshine cos you cant take anything back without yellows help. Enjoy beating less organised grps on empty servers... Can you really cry anymore you little child.