The ESO PvP system is failing.....

PlagueMonk · August 2014

......pure and simple. Class imbalances aside (because we all play the same classes) The gross population imbalances are causing huge problems, you are either hopelessly outnumbered or you are playing essentially a PvE version of Cyrodiil. Neither are what any faction wants (I would hope).

For instance last night for EP was a pretty demoralizing situation......at 1am mst, AD's pop was capped while EP and DC were at 1 bar each. Even if we had decided to become the purple menace, we were STILL outnumbered 2 to 1. So then AD easily sweeps through our keeps, taking our scrolls and the 1 bar of EP pop had no chance defending anything much less attempting to stop the huge yellow zerg(s) from steamrolling all in their path. I pretty much gave up for the night at that point since we didn't even have the pop to retake any of our keeps.

This is not the PvP I was promised and not the one I wish to continue playing.

The only resolution I can think of is to buff the underdogs or nerf the zerg. I will go with buff though since we ALL hate the "N" word.

To that end I would say that for every bar lost in comparison to the other factions, you would get boost to offensive and defensive abilities.

1 bar disparity (capped vs 3 bars) - Personal damage boosted by 20% and you gain a 15% mitigation to all forms of attack (which cannot be removed or otherwise marginalized).

2 bar disparity (capped vs 2 bars) - personal damage boosted by 45% and you gain a 30% mitigation to all forms of attack (which cannot be removed or otherwise marginalized)

3 bar disparity (capped vs 1 bar) - personal damage boosted by 75% and you gain a 50% mitigation to all forms of attack (which cannot be removed or otherwise marginalized)

Keeps and guards controlled by the faction in question would also gain these bonuses.

This would be applied and calculated separately when comparing each faction. So if AD was capped, DC was at 2 bars and EP at 1 bar, EP would get the 3 bar boost against AD but only 1 bar boost against DC.

These numbers are obviously arbitrary as I have done no real research but my hope in something like this would be that even severely outnumbered, a couple of people could take resources and maybe a group of 5-6 would have a shot at a keep (or defending it). It would also make the underdog solo player very dangerous.

This would also mean it would be much more challenging for the overpopulated faction to take keeps and defend (so no more steamrolling through keeps in 5 mins at 2am to have a scroll in 30 mins, you would actually have to WORK to get them)

darkdruidssb14_ESO · August 2014

We definitely need more topics on this. Also ZOS has said they were creating a "underdog" system, but they haven't talked about it in detail or even at all recently.

Cody · August 2014

I think increasing the number of guards in a factions keep when they only have a few keeps left would KINDA help.

booksmcread · August 2014

I've seen this implemented in other games and liked it. It was usually a high defensive buff and a small offensive one, but essentially a similar concept to what you have here. One game also had a 50% reduction to CC for the outnumbered faction.

DaisyK · August 2014

yeah i just said in another thread maybe a handicap system would help, if your population only has one bar and the other have 3 for instance, your faction would get a buff for each missing bar, if the population grows, the buff goes.
That guard idea could be part of it

This could guarantee a constant fair fight and make it more fun instead of frustrating.

that doesn't solve the problem of egos in pvp, and lack of communication/teamwork. i rarely meet a group that actually follows their leader and things are being said to eachother, instead of blindly following. it's an issue for sure. A voting system would be cool, you could vote up or down for the leader and it doesn't affect them directly but you'd know who the good leaders are if they have lots of thumbs up, and the bad ones can either follow or learn from the good ones.. but im just dreaming out loud

demonlkojipub19_ESO · August 2014

This should have been the underdog bonus they implemented in the first place, but they thought more points would do the trick.

darkdruidssb14_ESO · August 2014

While I think the OP is going the right direction the problem I see is that say you have a high pop faction and a med pop faction. What is going to stop the med pop faction from zergballing against the low pop faction?

Maybe a better solution is that the objectives themselves have buffs/debuffs based on number of allies/enemies in the area of the objective. Keeps already track if you are near them or not so that some buffs activate in the Assault skill line. Expand that tracking to all players within a radius of the objective and adjust the NPCs and possibly the players themselves scale with enemy population around them.

That would be more like tuning the encounter to be competitive for everyone instead of flat buffs/debuffs depending on faction pop.

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · August 2014

What server was this? As it is I'm almost certain AD never sleeps. Myself and like one other guy capped a node on Had and attempted to hold it, and we woulda succeeded, but then out of the blue the AD's emp comes and swoops in with OPulse spam and wipes out the guards with minimal effort. This was butt-crack of dawn no less. It's one thing to win some and lose some but it's absurd when the faction that likes to point fingers at 'you night-capping scum' themselves play ungodly hours of the day.

DaisyK · August 2014

zergballing should be outlawed anyway, they suck

Rune_Relic · August 2014

I like the idea of the handicap system
I also like the of replacing missing players with NPCs/Mercs to make up the numbers.
Ok the 2nd wont be as good as real characters...but would be a damn site better than 1 bar or less.

grimjim398 · August 2014

People will be declaring the PvP system to be a failure for as long as it exists, no matter what changes are made. This post makes little to no sense to me, particularly when you admit you have done no real research into the issue. I would certainly not recommend any changes based on your gut feelings. There will always be disparity in numbers.

smee_z · August 2014

Back in Auriel's Bow 1.0, I have thought that the best way to handicap a faction with the HUGE pop advantage is to temporarily disable their grouping functionality and their ability to fight in 3rd person point of view! Let's see if these do not even up the odds.

Avidus · August 2014

The disparity in numbers is due to the active times of the population.
For example I am in Australia, so when I log on to PvP, i get raged at for Night capping.

But if I wanted to PvP when its NA peak time, I would have to quit my job.

As a result, you will often find that each AD, DC and EP have their main guilds active times barely overlap.
You maybe get 2-3 hours max of top guilds battling it out.

They all work around each others play times.

Another issue is that often EP will be emp pushing. And half the AD team will be going after EP scrolls.
So essentially the main forces of alliances just avoid each other.

If they need to do anything to fix the population issue, it would be to gain more players.

FluffiestOne · August 2014

You're numbers are too dramatic. I agree there should be buffs put in the game, but players can already die in 2-3 seconds, 75% more damage is one shotted, even if you aren't one shotted, 50% damage mitigation makes you a tanking beast.

Lava_Croft · August 2014

I play on EU-Haderus and your post does not reflect the reality there.

PlagueMonk · August 2014

Since this is my thread I feel responsible to respond to everything......

darkdruidssb14_ESO wrote: »

We definitely need more topics on this. Also ZOS has said they were creating a "underdog" system, but they haven't talked about it in detail or even at all recently.

I believe you are being sarcastic and am well aware of the similar threads. Believe me I was weary about creating another topic but I felt if I had posted this as part of another thread it would have simply been lost.

My thread however tries to actually address the problem instead of yet another "I'm fed up" post.

And yes, Zeni has mentioned an underdog system but that is as far as it has gone with no sharing about any progress or testing. If the servers continue this way, PvP will be dead and so will this game by the time they are ready to roll it out in update

We need some sort or resolution in update 4 or people will start leaving because they are either bored of zerging and playing a PvE Cyrodill or tired of getting steamrolled which is not fun.

Cody wrote: »

I think increasing the number of guards in a factions keep when they only have a few keeps left would KINDA help.

I'm not opposed to adding this and could be part of buffing the keeps. I just wanted to start simple and straight forward.

darkdruidssb14_ESO wrote: »

While I think the OP is going the right direction the problem I see is that say you have a high pop faction and a med pop faction. What is going to stop the med pop faction from zergballing against the low pop faction?

I did address this........your buffs would be relative to each faction. So in your case the low pop faction (1 bar) would have a 1 bar bonus if attacking the med pop (2 bars) while the med pop would get no bonus when attacking the low pop. The low pop would then get the 3 bar bonus if attacking the capped pop faction. While the med pop would get a 2 bar bonus against the same, capped faction. These bonuses should be updated on the fly.

Maybe a better solution is that the objectives themselves have buffs/debuffs based on number of allies/enemies in the area of the objective. Keeps already track if you are near them or not so that some buffs activate in the Assault skill line. Expand that tracking to all players within a radius of the objective and adjust the NPCs and possibly the players themselves scale with enemy population around them.

That would be more like tuning the encounter to be competitive for everyone instead of flat buffs/debuffs depending on faction pop.

Your proposed system would be highly complex and time consuming to implement and still do nothing to help the skirmishers whos sole objective would be to kill individuals of the other faction. Solo players on low pop factions deserve a buff also.

WarrioroftheWind_ESO wrote: »

What server was this? As it is I'm almost certain AD never sleeps. Myself and like one other guy capped a node on Had and attempted to hold it, and we woulda succeeded, but then out of the blue the AD's emp comes and swoops in with OPulse spam and wipes out the guards with minimal effort. This was butt-crack of dawn no less. It's one thing to win some and lose some but it's absurd when the faction that likes to point fingers at 'you night-capping scum' themselves play ungodly hours of the day.

Ah my apologies, this was of course Thorn.

And AD do sleep but they have a rotating presence. When the NA players are heading off to sleep, the oceanic players are logging on to play the PvE game and make a new Emp/take all the scrolls.

grimjim398 wrote: »

People will be declaring the PvP system to be a failure for as long as it exists, no matter what changes are made. This post makes little to no sense to me, particularly when you admit you have done no real research into the issue. I would certainly not recommend any changes based on your gut feelings. There will always be disparity in numbers.

You are mistaken. My comment about "not doing the research" was in relation to the exact numbers that should be used, not that I don't have a firm grasp of the issue at hand. Believe me I have a deep empirical understanding of the problem as I have experienced it nightly for the last couple of months (plus having PvPed in many other games)

So when I say research it's to know if the 1 bar bonus to damage should really be 18% and damage mitigation should be 21%. Knowing were exactly to put those numbers would require datamining information I do not have access to. (like for instance what is 2 bars......is it 50% of the pop cap or maybe 60%?? We don't know and would be crucial to determine what those numbers should be)

FluffiestOne wrote: »

You're numbers are too dramatic. I agree there should be buffs put in the game, but players can already die in 2-3 seconds, 75% more damage is one shotted, even if you aren't one shotted, 50% damage mitigation makes you a tanking beast.

How so? you mean when I am outnumbered literally 4 to 1 (cap vs 1 bar or less) I don't deserve to be at 175% damage and half damage taken? Realistically I should be 4 times as powerful but I thought THAT would have been too dramatic, to have a 400% damage increase and 1/4 damage taken.

Bushrat · August 2014

I posted this in another thread, but thought it was relevant here:

Give more AP to killing/attacking the lead faction... the greater the lead the more AP you get from attacking them.. give less and less for attacking the underdog. This way ppl will be more inclined to attack the lead faction and not the underdog.. it will balance out over time.
Give major point reduction to over populated groups... like was mentioned in other threads (thanks for pointing that out Keron) the greater population you have over others the less AP you get.
Limit the amount of times you can switch campaigns. AND if you guest in another one you get 0 AP for it.
You only get buffs in your home campaign and PvE zones.. not in other campaigns.
Give drop in bonuses for arriving and staying and playing in the campaign when its under populated. So when you go to a low populated time and you are very out numbered you get some AP or loot as a bonus.
Give us some of the nice V12 loot drops that you get in trials for playing in Cyrodiil.. the best loot should be in trials AND Cyrodiil... not just trials... 2 hours of hard fighting in Cyrodiil is easily worth a couple of Trials runs.

Soris · August 2014

%75 bonus damage to snipe, impulse, blazing shield, flame lash, crystal shards and all heals and ultimates? And %50 damage reduction to all those tanks? Lol no way.

It's not even really big deal to hold 4 people on you and win or kill some before you die in current state.

Also yea, since last days I noticed there is always 1 winner in each campaign. Thornblade is EP, Chillrend is DC and Haderus is AD (EU) (haderus is a bit more balanced in prime times thanks to zergballers migration). So people like winning I guess. Nothing much to do about it except merging them all together or a little boost to base stats and maybe more npcs in keeps etc.

But I totally disagree with the flat dmg and mitigation bonus. This makes things like Coldharbour zombie farm or wolf farm in Crow's Wood, depends on you taste.

kentgreigrwb17_ESO · August 2014

When the Imperial City comes, people will care even less. Find a campaign your faction dominates and then go the IC.

Sound like fun? Er, no, but it already happens and IC will just exacerbate it.

The only solution is if IC access only comes from 1 campaign. Then you are motivated not to surf.

Insurrektion · August 2014

I like your suggestions OP, but I like mine more. I'd like to just see limits to the pop differentials through queue limitations.

Morticielle · August 2014

PlagueMonk wrote: »

To that end I would say that for every bar lost in comparison to the other factions, you would get boost to offensive and defensive abilities.

1 bar disparity (capped vs 3 bars) - Personal damage boosted by 20% and you gain a 15% mitigation to all forms of attack (which cannot be removed or otherwise marginalized).

2 bar disparity (capped vs 2 bars) - personal damage boosted by 45% and you gain a 30% mitigation to all forms of attack (which cannot be removed or otherwise marginalized)

3 bar disparity (capped vs 1 bar) - personal damage boosted by 75% and you gain a 50% mitigation to all forms of attack (which cannot be removed or otherwise marginalized)

Keeps and guards controlled by the faction in question would also gain these bonuses.

This would be applied and calculated separately when comparing each faction. So if AD was capped, DC was at 2 bars and EP at 1 bar, EP would get the 3 bar boost against AD but only 1 bar boost against DC.

I agree totally! Very good proposal. Combined with changes to the amount of AP earned (like someone suggested in another thread) this could actually help very much.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler PLEASE READ THIS!

Morticielle · August 2014

faernaa wrote: »

%75 bonus damage to snipe, impulse, blazing shield, flame lash, crystal shards and all heals and ultimates? And %50 damage reduction to all those tanks? Lol no way.

As the OP said, those numbers were ARBITRARY. Do you know what this means? This means that he just used any number coming to mind to illustrate his idea. So you don't need to start whining on a proposal of a player even before Zenimax has given it a look. This is childish.

Arkath · August 2014

I agree that the population imbalances are a severe problem.

I don't necessarily agree that buffing the lower pop factions is the way to go. I'd much rather see a sliding, relative population cap system implemented. Example:

EP has 100 players in Cyrodiil. DC has 50. AD has 70. EP is soft locked until at least one other faction reaches 80 people. Then EP's soft lock raises to 120. So on and so forth.

Numbers above are made up there for the sake of an example. I won't pretend to have some snazzy formula for determining what percentages would be best and all that.

I believe this would keep PvDooring down, and would give players incentive to spread out amongst the campaigns to avoid soft lock queues, rather than all pile into one or two campaigns to overpower the other factions.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it addresses the issues without overpowering or underpowering individual players, and avoids mechanics like adding/buffing guards. It also allows guesting to take place without upsetting the balance of campaigns, and even, just maybe, makes it useful (Your faction on your home campaign is soft locked? Take a few buddies, guest over to another campaign where your faction is underpopulated - lowers the queue on your home, helps out your faction on your guest campaign).

Also, of course, Cyrodiil buffs should be limited to affect players only when they are in that specific campaign.

Again, I'm not saying this system would be without fault. But I do believe it might be the best solution - and we certainly need a working solution sooner than later.

Keron · August 2014

PlagueMonk wrote: »

I did address this........your buffs would be relative to each faction. So in your case the low pop faction (1 bar) would have a 1 bar bonus if attacking the med pop (2 bars) while the med pop would get no bonus when attacking the low pop. The low pop would then get the 3 bar bonus if attacking the capped pop faction. While the med pop would get a 2 bar bonus against the same, capped faction. These bonuses should be updated on the fly.

@PlagueMonk
Imagine the complexity of calculations required for this to work if three zergballs fly into one another.

To word it in a humorous way: I was not yet aware that ZOS has the beefiest Quantum Computer in the world in their cellar

I can't see this working out, considering that their servers already give it up if an AE blob of some 50 players rushes a keep (as experienced on EU Thornblade quite frequently)

EDIT: This is the third thread that contains reasonable proposals and constructive discussion. We need to consolidate this somehow, I would say...

Baphomet · August 2014

The actual source of the PvP population imbalance is the broken game mechanics in Cyrodiil - plain and simple. Even with only a single 30 campaign, none of the campaigns ever fill up - people have had it.

During peak hours, I see two AD bars on Thornblade while all the other campaigns only have one bar filled 24/7.

When will you realize that there is a probem and address it @Zenimax?

pahajuju · August 2014

It's not failing. It failed. Hopefully they'll find a way to fix it, but it doesn't really look good.
This is a bit doomy, sorry about that.

Brizz · August 2014

Love the idea OP. +1! The numbers, in the hands of good players, are probably too high.(Think about bat swarm with 75% boost) I would sign off on these numbers:

1 bar disparity (capped vs 3 bars) - Personal damage boosted by 20% 10% and you gain a 15% mitigation to all forms of attack (which cannot be removed or otherwise marginalized).

2 bar disparity (capped vs 2 bars) - personal damage boosted by 45% 20% and you gain a 30% mitigation to all forms of attack (which cannot be removed or otherwise marginalized)

3 bar disparity (capped vs 1 bar) - personal damage boosted by 75% 30% and you gain a 50% 45% mitigation to all forms of attack (which cannot be removed or otherwise marginalized)

PharmaChief · August 2014

I would enjoy the option to form a temporary alliance with the other underdog faction (like that will ever happen)

Lava_Croft · August 2014

If you want to fix population problems, stop leaving the campaign because you cannot win.

Rune_Relic · August 2014

Can someone append this list with the current options.
1. Handicap boost for low population factions ? [formulas to be discussed]
2. Split faction AP from Personal AP and use faction AP for handicap system with personal AP for levelling so they dont interfere.
3. Faction population gap window of 50 players ? [what happens when people drop out ? do random players get kicked ?]

.. alot has been discussed in the various threads

Xsorus · August 2014

The last thing I want is a increased mitigation or increased damage based on population of the other side.

I don't want solo fights and such won for me just because the other side might have more people.

A better suggestion would simply be to remove the point system entirely, or if you don't wanna do that... scale how much points you get for objectives based on how much population you have over the other side...If you're sitting at 3 Bars or locked population, and the other 2 sides are at 1 bar...your side should receive far less per objective then the other two sides should. For example..if the max right now is 400 points for owning everything...If you had Locked population and the other side had 1 bar..You should only receive 75 points per tic instead.

This would mean night capping when no one was on would be less valuable if you outnumber everyone, while at the same time making sure on servers were people play at night and aren't outnumbering people the point system could remain.