No campocalypse here, unfortunately.

Every officer in our guild went out and bought somewhere in the region of 100 to 200 camps. We filled up guild bank, personal banks and alt inventory space. We have a few officers (large guild you see) and between them we have amassed over 1k forwards camps.

We did also advise all our members to buy as many as they could though it's hard to measure how many a) found out in time and b) had AP to spend. I think a realistic estimate would be for around 2k camps for the guild.

Now here's my personal stance with this: I'm actually not happy this is happening. I wish, like in US that we had no warning. What instead will happen in EU is we'll have camps for months and months and months.

For those that will flame me and say "don't stockpile then!", it's not realistic. It's the dominant strategy. You know someone else will do it and you have to do it too, just to even the playing field. Otherwise your guild will wipe and lose keeps to constant invasions of enemies who did stockpile.

I would quite frankly not care for the 2m AP I splashed out yesterday on camps, if ZOS actually removed the items altogether from banks and inventories. I'd like to see with my own eyes how the game will be without FCs, but I won't for probably up to 6 months.

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

We filled up guild bank, personal banks and alt inventory space.

How's that worked with the Guild Bank considering camps are now bound? (Curiosity question since I won't get to play for another 6 hours or so) I created 2 additional alts to store my stockpile in case the ones in the GB were either lost or inaccessible.

I don't think stockpiling camps will have a lasting effect though. When PvPing as my evening's session, I use at least 10 camps per night, sometimes 20.... so my ill-considered spending spree last night still won't last me more than 2 weeks of regular PvP. How many people will have the space or spare AP to have bought enough to keep camps in the game for a prolonged period, at least in any meaningful way?

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

VagabondAngel wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

We filled up guild bank, personal banks and alt inventory space.

How's that worked with the Guild Bank considering camps are now bound? (Curiosity question since I won't get to play for another 6 hours or so) I created 2 additional alts to store my stockpile in case the ones in the GB were either lost or inaccessible.

I don't think stockpiling camps will have a lasting effect though. When PvPing as my evening's session, I use at least 10 camps per night, sometimes 20.... so my ill-considered spending spree last night still won't last me more than 2 weeks of regular PvP. How many people will have the space or spare AP to have bought enough to keep camps in the game for a prolonged period, at least in any meaningful way?

I'm at work at the moment as the patch is downloading. I have no idea yet about what happened to our guild FCs. Our guess was that they will become bound on pick-up, but what actually happens we'll find out this evening.

According to a ZOS post, the person who placed the FC in guild bank will be the only one able to retrieve it.

Sharee wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

VagabondAngel wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

We filled up guild bank, personal banks and alt inventory space.

How's that worked with the Guild Bank considering camps are now bound? (Curiosity question since I won't get to play for another 6 hours or so) I created 2 additional alts to store my stockpile in case the ones in the GB were either lost or inaccessible.

I don't think stockpiling camps will have a lasting effect though. When PvPing as my evening's session, I use at least 10 camps per night, sometimes 20.... so my ill-considered spending spree last night still won't last me more than 2 weeks of regular PvP. How many people will have the space or spare AP to have bought enough to keep camps in the game for a prolonged period, at least in any meaningful way?

I'm at work at the moment as the patch is downloading. I have no idea yet about what happened to our guild FCs. Our guess was that they will become bound on pick-up, but what actually happens we'll find out this evening.

According to a ZOS post, the person who placed the FC in guild bank will be the only one able to retrieve it.

Thanks for info. Basically so long as someone has access to them, the guild has camps.

VagabondAngel wrote: »

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

There will be a change, for sure.

That much is certain....

My thinking is based on the fast that of a night's PvP with the Pact, >95% of the population didn't buy or place camps anwyay, so those that have them are either going to have to change their useage pattern, as you suggest, or burn through them pretty fast.

The next few nights will be "interesting".

Hmmm I'm not sure if it's the next few days only that will be interesting. You're expecting a different pattern from me.

I expect prudent guilds to drop their FC rate to very very low levels at the beginning of campaigns, slightly increase it towards the last week and then skyrocket it in the last 48hrs of the campaign, which is usually the decider.

If a faction does not have 2-3 big guilds that have stockpiled and are prepared to follow this dominant strategy, that faction has next to 0 chance of winning the campaign. I don't think it's fair, but that's what we get in EU with this botched removal of FCs.

So basically I expect the meta to be shifting depending on the stage of the campaign. However we certainly won't be dropping camps for just random fights on Alessia bridge or for farming session at Chalman mine.

I expect AP farming and resource harassment as we knew it, to die out very very quickly over the next few weeks. But, time might prove me wrong.

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Hmmm I'm not sure if it's the next few days only that will be interesting. You're expecting a different pattern from me.

Actually I have no idea what to expect, I'm just musing. You're probably right though; this could be quite fascinating over the entire course of this next campaign.

That said, I also wish we'd had no warning about this change. It's a pretty sure bet that every organised guild has stockpiled.

Meh, AD (EU TB) will be fine. Up until patch, AD's pugs and randoms were absolutely crap in dropping camps in required places, so we're kind of used not having that many camps around when required anyway

I am so glad they removed it. At last, AP trains will stop wasting time killing themselves to get def ticks. And for those who spent their AP for these camps, well, I guess you are going to regret it when they put those Alliance War Amors in Update 6.

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

To be honest, I'm bored of them, I thought about stockpiling but then I thought screw it. It always seems like it's me and few others putting camps down while everyone else uses them and I'm done it it.

They were a luxury, not a requirement for PVP, I'll do without.

For some time in beta and opening live, no one used them and we did fine. Most didn't know about them, the rest couldn't afford them. The few of us that could used them wisely.

Many many many things are different now from Beta. People nostalgic of those days have to also acknowledge that it's a past that you can't return to.

People did not have fast horses back then. There were far fewer organised large guilds. Players were not aware of game mechanics as well as they are know (siege mechanics, defticks etc). There were not any players with max'ed builds and high end gear being able to kill you in 2 seconds if you put a foot wrong.

Basically this will change the game, but I don't expect it to be Beta all over, not at all.

I was all for changing forward camps, but I feel ZOS took the lazy approach by simply removing them. I think changes like:
a) Spawn only if you died inside the circle (no travelling, basically)
b) Only be able to place inside keeps or resources (no random locations, no troll camps, adds value to resources and resource capturing/defence)
c) Only be able to place 2 camps per siege/defence. Or add a time lock for placing a camp at the same node (no infinite sieges, no ap farming for hrs at resource)
....would have left the game at a much better state.

However these changes would require a LOT of coding, so ZOS thought it easier to pull them altogether instead. They didn't bother increasing wall HP either or adding a feature where you are warned when the keep started getting sieged, before the transport was cut. It just smacks of the slow, lazy, low-cost approach they've taken to fixing most PvP issues thus far, harsh as it sounds.

So I'm personally worried large guilds will do a lot of stealth sieging of keeps. I will however reserve full judgement of this till we've played for a couple of months.

Erlex wrote: »

Wait - I thought they made all current forward camps only have 1 rez charge? Was that misinformation?

That was for limited forward camps. Which I believe are the ones you get from the introductory cyrodiil quest?

I have not logged in since the patch hit EU this morning, some please correct me if I'm wrong.

daemonios wrote: »

I personally think this is a clear exploit. Hope ZOS will delete any camps bought after NA server went live with patch and will not reimburse any AP.

I also hope ZOS remove them. I said so in the post you quoted. However buying camps from the siege merchant is an exploit? How?

If you had camps in your inventory this morning were you exploiting too?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I'd say AD has over 3000 camps all together that's probs a low estimate.

I think that's a low estimate.

I can tell you K.O.C alone have well over 1k. I expect SWAT to have at least that, probably more. That's 3k between 2 big guilds alone. We'll be well stocked for a while.

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I'd say AD has over 3000 camps all together that's probs a low estimate.

I think that's a low estimate.

I can tell you K.O.C alone have well over 1k. I expect SWAT to have at least that, probably more. That's 3k between 2 big guilds alone. We'll be well stocked for a while.

And my 8

Yeah would be cool if all the camps bought this night on the EU server would be refunded , it would be a lame that if the lack of balance of some campaign would be due to the fact of major guild bought massive amount of FC or not.

suycyco wrote: »

Yeah would be cool if all the camps bought this night on the EU server would be refunded , it would be a lame that if the lack of balance of some campaign would be due to the fact of major guild bought massive amount of FC or not.

I got the feeling we are the guinea pigs of a different experiment. Basically what happens with very dear FCs, as opposed to no FCs at all. Like, what would happen if FCs cost 50k AP each or something.

And for those geniuses that are shouting exploit. If ZOS did not want us to use them at all, they wouldn't have put this in:

You are required to be at least Alliance Rank 6 or higher to deploy a Forward Camp.

..they would have put this in and be done with it:

You can no longer deploy a Forward Camp.