5 Reasons Why Removal of Forward Camps Will Save PvP in ESO

Lfehova · November 2014

It seems the community is split on whether or not the removal of forward camps is a positive change for the health of pvp, and I'd like those that think it's detrimental to consider these 5 points.

1. It indirectly will fix the lag and server issues (if ZoS doesnt break something else with this patch).

The root cause of server lag and attacks not registering is the sheer number of players in one location spamming heals and attacks. The never ending balls of people piling in because of forward camps. The removal of camps will cause travel time, fights will be spread out to multiple keeps. Fights will start and end more definitively. And there will be less lagball fights where people keep spawning until numbers hit a critical mass and cause attacks to stop registering.

2. It adds meaning to death.

A big part of pvp in any game is the thrill of surviving and the risk of death. Whether it be a MOBA where your death feeds experience and gold to your enemy, or a FPS where your KDA goes down, or an mmorpg. The death penalty in ESO was close to none. I have legit, when out of stamina/magicka, jumped off a keep wall to commit suicide and respawn just to refill my resources because we had a forward camp safely located and guarded. Adding meaning to death, by way of travel time punishment, will make the game more exciting and rewarding, and more frustrating.

3. The return of travel time and small scale pvp.

While I lead a guild and primarily group pvp, I am sad that the small scale pvp died in this game due to the availability of forward camps. I believe the game was a lot more fun when nobody could afford forward camps and most people had to travel to a fight. Small skirmishes with a death penalty like travel time, can be exhilarating.

4. This will reward smart strategies and skilled players and make risks meaningful

Pre-patch. Defenders routinely threw themselves off walls and just mindlessly slammed their heads against siege engines and players. Death just meant easy travel back to the keep where you could collect your ap tick or mindlessly charge out again. Assaulters played the role of mind numbingly brainless dimwits slamming their heads into an open inner breach. Over and over, until one side has an organized group destroy an assault or defense forward camp to end the siege. But all it took was on person to escape and drop a camp, and instantly the keep was filled with mindless Zerging. Is it fun to fight knowing that the kills you achieve mean nothing because your enemy will respawn in .5 seconds? Is it fun to fight knowing your death means nothing because you can respawn to defend in .5 seconds. Now each decision made, to rush up the stairs of a keep, or stack on back flag, or whatever choice you make strategically, we have a paramount impact on whether or not your alliance takes or defends a keep. It makes strategy meaningful.

5. We needed this change in conjunction with the oil change and ZoS actually did good predicting a problem and solving it before it festered

A lot of people clamored for a need to change oil mechanics. Those who never used or understood oil, hated it, rightfully so. The oil change, while I may not agree, removed the only zergbuster mechanic in the game. So while they have a zerg busting skill being developed and close to implementation, they could not change oil the way they did and not make another offsetting change. Imagine the flood of players from forward camps WITHOUT oil. There would be no real way to stop a zerg flowing from camps and the lag and crashes would be even worse than it already is.

I think the removal of forward camps was done at a good time, to offset the repercussions of changing oil mechanics. I would not be surprised if they brought back forward camps in a modified fashion, when they implement the zerg buster mechanic that they're developing for a future patch.

Anyways, I hope that clarifies some of the reasons why I think the change is a godsend for ESO pvp and why I believe it will revive a slowly fading community.

If people have some strong reasons against the forward camp change, I'd love to hear some of your well thought out rebuttals.

Hova

Tintinabula · November 2014

It will reward the people with the most numbers not the random gankers or PUGs..not at all in the slightest.

Sallington · November 2014

Sallington · November 2014

Tintinabula wrote: »

It will reward the people with the most numbers not the random gankers or PUGs..not at all in the slightest.

This rewards gankers more than ever. Ganking is no longer a free ticket to the real fight, and can actually hurt an attack force instead of helping them.

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

Sallington wrote: »

Tintinabula wrote: »

It will reward the people with the most numbers not the random gankers or PUGs..not at all in the slightest.

This rewards gankers more than ever. Ganking is no longer a free ticket to the real fight, and can actually hurt an attack force instead of helping them.

Back on Bloodthorn, when camps didn't work right, when it came time to try to take Chalman, we'd use ganking as a tool to take the keep.

We'd own Arrius/BRK/Farra/KC after a few hours of PVP. We'd send a team to Dragonclaw or Warden and burst the keep. Usually didn't take it, but it got the defenders moving that way.

We'd get Chalman flagged and get gankers to the Chalman milegate. As we took the keep, any DC trying to get through the gate to reinforce it would get murdered as they were all having to come back from defending wherever we'd poked to draw them away.

Worked quite frequently.

Lfehova · November 2014

Tintinabula wrote: »

It will reward the people with the most numbers not the random gankers or PUGs..not at all in the slightest.

That's not true at all. Random pugs and gankers will actually have an effect on the overall Cyrodiil war now.

Before, when I got ganked off my horse while riding to the fight by a bunch of lowbie gankers, I'd just stand still and let them kill me because it was faster to spawn at the forward camp. Honestly, in my aoe support build, it would probably have been hard to kill them anyways.

But now, these PUGs have the power to take someone out of the fight.

Imagine the glory of taking down the enemy factions pvp shot caller. I'd be ecstatic if I caught Agrippa riding to a keep and killed him so he couldn't lead his guild. Or moon die or cloenikk or Brandon. We all know how disorganized our groups get when the pvp lead crashes to desktop.

Honestly, this change makes pugs and random players actually relevant, BUT does not force them to fight against zergballs inside a keep, or force them to use oil or an AOE build to be relevant.

Jitterbug · November 2014

Sallington wrote: »

that is gonna annoy the hell out of me... where is that from? ^^

Erock25 · November 2014

Jitterbug wrote: »

Sallington wrote: »

that is gonna annoy the hell out of me... where is that from? ^^

Frank the tank!

driosketch · November 2014

No more need to speculate. The change is live now. Let's see what happens.

Sallington · November 2014

Jitterbug wrote: »

Sallington wrote: »

that is gonna annoy the hell out of me... where is that from? ^^

Old School.

Hypertionb14_ESO · November 2014

here is another.

6. Zerg ball groups will become much more vulnerable to single target strikes and will no longer be able to instantly appear. when they fall apart they will fall apart, no longer will a massive zerg be able to storm a breach and if they fail just try again, such tactics will be suicide that could lose the battle.

Rylana · November 2014

and hova hits the nail on the head.

spoken more eloquently than everything i have been saying this morning, but exactly what I was trying to convey

Lfehova · November 2014

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

here is another.

6. Zerg ball groups will become much more vulnerable to single target strikes and will no longer be able to instantly appear. when they fall apart they will fall apart, no longer will a massive zerg be able to storm a breach and if they fail just try again, such tactics will be suicide that could lose the battle.

Not to discourage discussion but your point is summarized in number 4.

But this is easily my favorite aspect of the change since I lead a small guild that typically runs in groups of 4-10 people.

Erock25 · November 2014

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

here is another.

6. Zerg ball groups will become much more vulnerable to single target strikes and will no longer be able to instantly appear. when they fall apart they will fall apart, no longer will a massive zerg be able to storm a breach and if they fail just try again, such tactics will be suicide that could lose the battle.

Couldn't you just as easily say this will encourage more people to ball up? If death has such a large punishment now and the best way to not die is to stack on top of 20+ other people, I feel it will be zerg ball or gtfo.

Lfehova · November 2014

Rylana wrote: »

and hova hits the nail on the head.

spoken more eloquently than everything i have been saying this morning, but exactly what I was trying to convey

Thanks

I hope this can help people realize ZoS finally did something right for pvp. It's definitely going to change the dynamic of pvp, and people will be upset that they will have to change. But I hope people will give it time to settle in and realize this is a great change.

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

They just need to increase wall and door HP by a fairly substantial margin, and this will help a lot.

Give me triple current HPs and give us a damage warning at 75%, and this'll be great.

Subtomik · November 2014

I imagine people will be much, much more cautious. There will most likely be lots and lots of stand off siege/ranged slug fests for fear of dying out of Rez range.

Rylana · November 2014

Erock25 wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

here is another.

6. Zerg ball groups will become much more vulnerable to single target strikes and will no longer be able to instantly appear. when they fall apart they will fall apart, no longer will a massive zerg be able to storm a breach and if they fail just try again, such tactics will be suicide that could lose the battle.

Couldn't you just as easily say this will encourage more people to ball up? If death has such a large punishment now and the best way to not die is to stack on top of 20+ other people, I feel it will be zerg ball or gtfo.

I can already see a scenario where me and my guildie ayrene charge said ball, just the two of us, and kill literally half of them by ourselves before we go down, then our other three groupmates that were stealthed clean up behind us and rez us after.

Happened just the other day on Chillrend actually, unfortunately for us the half of the ball we killed just rezzed at the camp 20 meters away and pounced on our relief and ended up wiping us right after we wiped the rest of the original ball.

Its about attrition, a small tight organized group thats supporting each other actively and communicating exactly what they are going to do and how will always beat the big group thats essentially ability mashers with no real direction but stack on crown.

You take away that constant instant replenishment and many many fights my small group has lost vs much larger forces suddenly become decisive victories.

timidobserver · November 2014

Tintinabula wrote: »

It will reward the people with the most numbers not the random gankers or PUGs..not at all in the slightest.

Actually, gankers actually can contribute now. With forward camps gankers really just helped you get where you were trying to go. Get ganked and just spawn at the FC in the keep you were heading to. Now, if you gank somebody they don't pass Go collect 200 dollars.

Lfehova · November 2014

Erock25 wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

here is another.

6. Zerg ball groups will become much more vulnerable to single target strikes and will no longer be able to instantly appear. when they fall apart they will fall apart, no longer will a massive zerg be able to storm a breach and if they fail just try again, such tactics will be suicide that could lose the battle.

Couldn't you just as easily say this will encourage more people to ball up? If death has such a large punishment now and the best way to not die is to stack on top of 20+ other people, I feel it will be zerg ball or gtfo.

You could. But there is no respawning. It's a greater risk. If you zergball in and fail, you've completely wiped your group and lost the keep. And I'm sure new strategies will form to fight zergballs knowing they can't respawn. It gives an advantage to positioning.

In addition, you forget that zerg balling is only made possible via forward camps. The zergball sizes will be a lot smaller than before. And when people get picked off. They won't be back to the fight for another few minutes or even longer if they get ganked along the way.

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They just need to increase wall and door HP by a fairly substantial margin, and this will help a lot.

Give me triple current HPs and give us a damage warning at 75%, and this'll be great.

I'm against giving the walls more hp. We don't need to spend more time sieging walls. But I'd be totally down for like a 85% hp flagging of the keep to prevent the extremely fast 50/50 keep takes.

Flagging at 85% would prevent prepping of inners and give players time to travel to a defense.

This is definitely something they forgot would be impacted with the removal of forward camps.

DisgracefulMind · November 2014

Lfehova wrote: »

5. We needed this change in conjunction with the oil change and ZoS actually did good predicting a problem and solving it before it festered

A lot of people clamored for a need to change oil mechanics. Those who never used or understood oil, hated it, rightfully so. The oil change, while I may not agree, removed the only zergbuster mechanic in the game. So while they have a zerg busting skill being developed and close to implementation, they could not change oil the way they did and not make another offsetting change. Imagine the flood of players from forward camps WITHOUT oil. There would be no real way to stop a zerg flowing from camps and the lag and crashes would be even worse than it already is.

I think the removal of forward camps was done at a good time, to offset the repercussions of changing oil mechanics. I would not be surprised if they brought back forward camps in a modified fashion, when they implement the zerg buster mechanic that they're developing for a future patch.

Hova

After reading this part, I'm convinced that the FC removal is actually a really, really good thing, and the timing was good. At first I thought it to be a bit hasty, and not thought through, but this I had not completely thought of, and now I'm a bit excited over the FC removal. I think that bringing a form of modified forward camps back would be a really good thing, but it makes sense that they would just remove them completely for the time being until more is developed.

Thanks for your post, very insightful.

Aoe_Barbecue · November 2014

Erock25 wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

here is another.

6. Zerg ball groups will become much more vulnerable to single target strikes and will no longer be able to instantly appear. when they fall apart they will fall apart, no longer will a massive zerg be able to storm a breach and if they fail just try again, such tactics will be suicide that could lose the battle.

Couldn't you just as easily say this will encourage more people to ball up? If death has such a large punishment now and the best way to not die is to stack on top of 20+ other people, I feel it will be zerg ball or gtfo.

Zerg balls are filled with unoptimized players and playstyles which were mitigated by the size of the zerg and the ease of maintaining that size. Zergs have always hide high attrition. The FC fix some months back simply mitigated this to the point of making death irrelevant. Now, skilled teams can wear out zergs via attrition and then force them to fight them on more or less equal numerical terms. Hell, a ganker that knows how to burn down a guy, or two, or three at a time and promptly GTFO will now have a definite effect on AvA.

Subtomik · November 2014

I wonder how this will affect AP gain.

Going to see how different it is today from yesterday. Couldn't really care less after the rank 10 stuff just going to be interesting to see what this will do to AP farming and how that dynamic will change.

Rylana · November 2014

Lfehova wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

here is another.

6. Zerg ball groups will become much more vulnerable to single target strikes and will no longer be able to instantly appear. when they fall apart they will fall apart, no longer will a massive zerg be able to storm a breach and if they fail just try again, such tactics will be suicide that could lose the battle.

Couldn't you just as easily say this will encourage more people to ball up? If death has such a large punishment now and the best way to not die is to stack on top of 20+ other people, I feel it will be zerg ball or gtfo.

You could. But there is no respawning. It's a greater risk. If you zergball in and fail, you've completely wiped your group and lost the keep. And I'm sure new strategies will form to fight zergballs knowing they can't respawn. It gives an advantage to positioning.

In addition, you forget that zerg balling is only made possible via forward camps. The zergball sizes will be a lot smaller than before. And when people get picked off. They won't be back to the fight for another few minutes or even longer if they get ganked along the way.

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They just need to increase wall and door HP by a fairly substantial margin, and this will help a lot.

Give me triple current HPs and give us a damage warning at 75%, and this'll be great.

I'm against giving the walls more hp. We don't need to spend more time sieging walls. But I'd be totally down for like a 85% hp flagging of the keep to prevent the extremely fast 50/50 keep takes.

Flagging at 85% would prevent prepping of inners and give players time to travel to a defense.

This is definitely something they forgot would be impacted with the removal of forward camps.

No higher than that though, because of the hilarity of a keep flagging itself at 86% when its walls level up via resources.

eventide03b14a_ESO · November 2014

The entire mechanic of forward camps has shown to be the worst thing about PvP. I for one am glad to see them finally done away with, and maybe now death will have some meaning in PvP.

Subtomik · November 2014

Buying grand soul gems pst

Sypher · November 2014

We don't usually agree on things.

But I completely agree with all your points. Small scale / Solo PvP actually serves a purpose and will be more abundant.

DisgracefulMind · November 2014

Lfehova wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

here is another.

6. Zerg ball groups will become much more vulnerable to single target strikes and will no longer be able to instantly appear. when they fall apart they will fall apart, no longer will a massive zerg be able to storm a breach and if they fail just try again, such tactics will be suicide that could lose the battle.

Couldn't you just as easily say this will encourage more people to ball up? If death has such a large punishment now and the best way to not die is to stack on top of 20+ other people, I feel it will be zerg ball or gtfo.

You could. But there is no respawning. It's a greater risk. If you zergball in and fail, you've completely wiped your group and lost the keep. And I'm sure new strategies will form to fight zergballs knowing they can't respawn. It gives an advantage to positioning.

In addition, you forget that zerg balling is only made possible via forward camps. The zergball sizes will be a lot smaller than before. And when people get picked off. They won't be back to the fight for another few minutes or even longer if they get ganked along the way.

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

They just need to increase wall and door HP by a fairly substantial margin, and this will help a lot.

Give me triple current HPs and give us a damage warning at 75%, and this'll be great.

I'm against giving the walls more hp. We don't need to spend more time sieging walls. But I'd be totally down for like a 85% hp flagging of the keep to prevent the extremely fast 50/50 keep takes.

Flagging at 85% would prevent prepping of inners and give players time to travel to a defense.

This is definitely something they forgot would be impacted with the removal of forward camps.

So far this morning in PvP I have noticed this to be a bit of a problem. The keep takes are incredibly too fast, and once transit is cut off, forces aren't able to gather in time to the keep, and it is lost. Just saw it happen at Roe, only two of us were able to make it, but it flipped within 30 seconds. Of course, the pop is low at the moment, so perhaps this will work out differently once more people are on, but I do think they need to implement quicker keep flagging for this FC removal to work smoothly.

TheBull · November 2014

CYRODIIL IS HUGE, again.

c0rp · November 2014

Very good post. I really wish @zos_brianwheeler would have increased the keep wall HP by at least 200% along with the removal of the camps though.

Am so glad to see landscape, choke points, ganking and transit lines matter again in cyrodiil.

Horkerloaf · November 2014

Low levels will quit pvp. It is already difficult to travel without being ganked. Now it will be impossible.