Suggestion: Tiered Active PvP Times

shanersimms_ESO · September 2014

Hey guys, I have a bit of a radical idea I was wanting to get feedback/discussion going on. So, a major problem with the campaigns is night-capping and wide population swings at certain time-frames which all but ruin the PvP system. So here's the idea:

Imagine if PvP for a campaign was only active during a certain time-span. Outside this time-span players cannot attack/kill players of the opposing faction nor capture nodes/objectives in Cyrodiil. This could be justified via the factions' Generals calling a daily temporary ceasefire to resupply/rebuild or whatever creative theme people come up with. This would actually allow for daily progress to be made without all of it being erased by night capping crews or other off-time imbalances.

To account for all time zones, different campaigns could be tiered with different active PvP times. Examples:

Active PvP timespans (in CST)

Server 1: 6:00am - 6:00pm
Server 2: 12:00pm - 12:00am
Server 3: 6:00pm - 6:00am
Server 4: 12:00am - 12:00pm

A setup like this would allow for PvP at anytime so you can PvP as much as you like (you can hop onto your guest campaign when your campaign's ceasefire period begins for example) but also allow for tangible progress to be made and held much more effectively.

Thoughts? Keep in mind time-spans could be shifted, shortened/lengthened, more or fewer servers, etc.

Renuo · September 2014

I really don't think this is the way to go about it...

IcyDeadPeople · September 2014

I don't understand at all what the benefit of this would be.

Night-capping is not a problem for me. This is one of the best parts of the sandbox environment, that people play at different times of day. Each day when I log on there is something different going on. You don't want people to continue playing after you go to sleep?

The overwhelming problem in my view is not enough players filling the campaigns. I'd love to see more people from various time zones playing at all different hours on the NA server, more players from Oceania, EU, Asia as well as East Coast and West Coast.

Skwor · September 2014

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

I don't understand at all what the benefit of this would be.

Night-capping is not a problem for me. This is one of the best parts of the sandbox environment, that people play at different times of day. Each day when I log on there is something different going on. You don't want people to continue playing after you go to sleep?

The overwhelming problem in my view is not enough players filling the campaigns. I'd love to see more people from various time zones playing at all different hours on the NA server, more players from Oceania, EU, Asia as well as East Coast and West Coast.

Your post is competently unrealistic. You want more people to play during their natural sleep hours? Seriously you can not see how this is fantasy thinking? There is a reason people sleep and generally it occurs at the same time across local regions. That is the same reason you will not have people playing on severs in specific time zones UNLESS other players are in different time zones use that regions servers, oh like we have now.

Hence the problem. the majority of people do not want to start over every morning because all the work they did the evening before was voided not by hard fought PVP campaigns but PVDoor. Especially when there are rewards tied to that kind of play. Does not matter how minor it is. it is how people think, well at least the majority of people.

shanersimms_ESO · September 2014

skwornub18_ESO wrote: »

...Hence the problem. the majority of people do not want to start over every morning because all the work they did the evening before was voided not by hard fought PVP campaigns but PVDoor. Especially when there are rewards tied to that kind of play. Does not matter how minor it is. it is how people think, well at least the majority of people.

This statement hits the heart of the problem. Again I understand the idea is radical, but it is certainly feasible. Having only certain time-frames PvP is active actually lets you choose a home campaign that fits you and your guilds' primary playing hours and you can go to bed knowing the progress you fought for will relatively be preserved and you can pick up where you left off the next day.

The idea is to foster a sense of accomplishment, whereas with the current system (speaking for myself), promotes a defeatist attitude. I stopped caring where the battlefronts were long ago as I know due to sleep/work/school when I get back on the map will likely look radically different. Yet I would certainly like to care, but in order to do so there needs to be a sense of "this our territory that we have continually fought for. This territory we control represents the sum of our continued efforts."

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

This is one of the best parts of the sandbox environment...

Yet with night-capping problem the Alliance war has instead evolved into a theme park environment, where you simply go and fight at whatever node is currently contested. There is no lasting territorial control/reward. Currently, no keep is any different from the other, so it doesn't matter where you're fighting at. The game has the potential to be much deeper than that I feel.

dennis.schmelzleb16_ESO · September 2014

Imo the problem is every faction has nightcapping groups in another campaign.

They should all be in one campaign at night.

So suggestion: have only one campaign open between 2am and 7am CET.
This campaign counts as home for everyone.

Honfold · September 2014

I posted this in another discussion that fell into oblivion:

"I agree that the point system is not working right now, but I do not see them getting rid of it. I think that points an alliance earn at any given time should be determined by the balance of populations.

Example:

AD/DC/EP all have 1 bar of population, then they all earn 100% of the potential points per tick.

AD has 2 bars of pop to DC and EP's 1 bar, AD earns 75% of the potential points.

DC has 3 bars of pop to AD and EP's 1 bar, DC earns 50% of the potential points.

EP is locked pop to AD and DC's 1 bar, EP earns 25% of the potential points.

If an alliance has 1 bar of pop to another alliances pop lock then I am not sure if they should be given bonuses to points, like an additional 50-100 pt "underdog bonus", or something along those lines.

I think that this would help facilitate an even distribution of the player base across two or three campaigns since being pop locked could be detrimental. Also this would not specifically target players who only play during the graveyard shift."

I think this could work well enough. It isn't perfect, but I think it would help with population balance.

In addition, I think there should be another lower population indicator since one bar of pop can mean 1 person is on DC/EP/AD. maybe a transparent 1 bar would do.

So in practice, 1 pop locked alliance would only earn 1/8th the alliance points if it was facing two 1 transparent bar population alliances.