PvP Destroyed

martinhpb16_ESO · November 2014

Dazin93 wrote: »

The reason you see varied responses is due to hardcore players and casual gamers having different perspectives because they don't share the same game experience.

Hardcore players are mostly advocates of the removal of FC's as they almost always win battles of attrition due to usually being grouped, a better understanding of game mechanics and how to manipulate them, and the team synergies that come with organized pvp. They also don't have difficulties finding battles because they usually create them, ganking/bow spam is negligible as they are protected by their group, and now they can take keeps with almost no resistance. Organized groups are even more dominant and the hardcore player thrives on dominating.

The casual pvp player however, just wants to log and enjoy fighting an hour or two, feel that they are contributing, and gain some sense of satisfaction from player kills, ap gains, or character advancement. Unfortunately, very little in Cryodiil supports casual play or lends to any feelings of satisfaction.

When you also consider the lag and lack of viable builds/skills it's small wonder that the pvp population is decreasing. ESO promised RvR warfare with epic battles and it has been anything but due to the inadequacy of their servers and lack of commitment to the pvp player base.

Hardcore players may like pvp as it is, minus the lag, but it's the casual players that sustain a game long after the hardcore ones rush off to the next best thing.

^^ This

Jaerlach · November 2014

ensignedb16_ESO wrote: »

"Hardcore players", lol. I always wondered who they were. I think the demarcation is rather "more or less patient" or "more or less keen on some hot late night horse sim". Some are for and some are against. It seems to me, that a lot of the players wanting this change, are really talking about "immersion". They just don't want to say it out loud, cus we all know it gets you boo'ed. Like, you wouldn't be able to bloodport IRL, so this sort of is a gamebreaker for some. (As if the prospect of "negating magic" or suddenly vanishing into thin air for two full seconds had a shred of reality in their concepts, but I guess no one had an issue with that huh.)

Seems to me that most players struggle hard to find a middle ground, because many of us were actually, genuinely enjoying the game before 1.5, and we WANT to continue enjoying it. But it is now getting a bit tiresome. I dont know if this was part illusion or whatnot, but it suddenly dawned on me yesterday riding between alessia and sej - that OK, some things in this PvP have changed. But most things stayed exactly the same.

Players now stick close to each other in steady, uninterrupted streams between the biggest keeps, only to be sure they dont die yet again to some *** archer on the way. I mean come on. In a real war, would this be a feasible strategy? A chicken run like this would be begging for slaughter. But the sad truth is, the chicken run even wins. If they know how to stack up. And seriously, honestly, most people understand this now. The cap that makes this possible should also be removed for this change to make more sense.

So please, all you hardcore players who are talking about this great new PvP of yours. What exactly did change? The zergs are fewer, but bigger. The few battles that play out, at nearly all times, are zergs vs zergs. There are very, very, very few groups of +/- ten people running around now, if any at all. They will simply be squashed by the bigger numbers, not by lack of skill or "lack of eazy nub spawn point lel". An upside is that the map doesn't switch pressure points like some color wheel, yes things take longer time. But that also includes the 3-hour long stalemates that are created now, and was not there before, and guess who it includes. One thing that FCs obviously did, was to distribute the action all over the map, creating a lot more unpredictable moves. I just sit around and yawn now. How long has it been since somebody ninja took Blackboot or Bloodmayne out of purely strategic measures? Thats right it hasnt' happened since patch. Because its not a usable strategy anymore. All the possibilites of diverting attention, which should be a possibility, are gone with the FCs, there aren't any other. And what happens if you just stubbornly try to wander off once in a while alone, like you used to, just to test some stuff on a few random guys out there? 1 min on horseback, PEW PEW PEW - dead.

In my opinion they could just shrink the map to 1/5 of its size. This would probably, but just for a bit, solve some lag issues (not bad network code tho, unfortunately). There is simply no need for all this barren land where nothing happens anymore.

A lot of what you say isn't happening really is: I was in a group (a fairly large one actually) from DC that took Bloodmayne/BB and pushed Faregyl within the last week. All you really need for gank protection is a few others. You don't need a zerg of 30. People do that, but they'll always do that, because 100vs100 fights were one of the marketting tools of this game and people want them to happen. You can also take a group of 8-12 out and do some serious work.

The gankers are only dangerous if you're a straggler or running solo to a place that's at serious risk of being attacked. If you have even 1-2 others around you are usually safe, because the gank groups are small and as long as someone can heal you through the gank burst you will win the fight or at least force them to run away to gank again - they're not interested in a fair fight, just picking off kills.

LonePirate · November 2014

ensignedb16_ESO wrote: »

In my opinion they could just shrink the map to 1/5 of its size. This would probably, but just for a bit, solve some lag issues (not bad network code tho, unfortunately). There is simply no need for all this barren land where nothing happens anymore.

ZOS could reduce the PVP enabled area in Cyrodiil to a triangular slab of land with vertices at Aleswell, Arrius and Alessia and I don't think anyone would notice the change or miss the other areas.

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

LonePirate wrote: »

ensignedb16_ESO wrote: »

In my opinion they could just shrink the map to 1/5 of its size. This would probably, but just for a bit, solve some lag issues (not bad network code tho, unfortunately). There is simply no need for all this barren land where nothing happens anymore.

ZOS could reduce the PVP enabled area in Cyrodiil to a triangular slab of land with vertices at Aleswell, Arrius and Alessia and I don't think anyone would notice the change or miss the other areas.

Wait... there's areas outside of the Bleakers/Sejanus corridors?

Rylana · November 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

LonePirate wrote: »

ensignedb16_ESO wrote: »

In my opinion they could just shrink the map to 1/5 of its size. This would probably, but just for a bit, solve some lag issues (not bad network code tho, unfortunately). There is simply no need for all this barren land where nothing happens anymore.

ZOS could reduce the PVP enabled area in Cyrodiil to a triangular slab of land with vertices at Aleswell, Arrius and Alessia and I don't think anyone would notice the change or miss the other areas.

Wait... there's areas outside of the Bleakers/Sejanus corridors?

Dude you missed it, yellow was pushing blue all night long last night nikel/ash

it was like the twilight zone

right before i flipped to my red overnight, i was there for it too. from like dinnertime all the way through the night, the nikel/ash milegate became legend o.o

Then of course promptly after breakfast, our regularly scheduled programming of alessia bridge began when yellow lost brk/sej

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

Rylana wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

LonePirate wrote: »

ensignedb16_ESO wrote: »

In my opinion they could just shrink the map to 1/5 of its size. This would probably, but just for a bit, solve some lag issues (not bad network code tho, unfortunately). There is simply no need for all this barren land where nothing happens anymore.

ZOS could reduce the PVP enabled area in Cyrodiil to a triangular slab of land with vertices at Aleswell, Arrius and Alessia and I don't think anyone would notice the change or miss the other areas.

Wait... there's areas outside of the Bleakers/Sejanus corridors?

Dude you missed it, yellow was pushing blue all night long last night nikel/ash

it was like the twilight zone

right before i flipped to my red overnight, i was there for it too. from like dinnertime all the way through the night, the nikel/ash milegate became legend o.o

Then of course promptly after breakfast, our regularly scheduled programming of alessia bridge began when yellow lost brk/sej

I was teasing. My guild was pounding BM/BB/Fare all evening yesterday.

One day our dream of Brindle being the most important strategic keep on the map will be achieved. And of Roe/Ash receiving the same traffic that BRK/Alessia does.

Rylana · November 2014

Well for EP brindle may not mean much, but between AD/DC its one of the most important keeps on the map. Since yall like to hit fare so much and flag it, brindle is often our only transit-saver. That and blue pretty much never goes south of nikel until theyve got brindle, so it makes them really predictable (most of the time)

Nine times out of ten, if nikel/ash are blue, roe is yellow, and so on, 5 guys will go to roe to flag it, while 50 go to brindle to take it and them come to roe.

Brandonzerg has gotten a little... repetitive

heng14rwb17_ESO · November 2014

What is the main objective in this game?
Taking keeps?
Taking scrolls?
Ganking?
Open field pvp?

Hint:
How does the ESO scoring system for winning works?

Rylana · November 2014

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

What is the main objective in this game?
Taking keeps?
Taking scrolls?
Ganking?
Open field pvp?

Hint:
How does the ESO scoring system for winning works?

I win when a player is dead at my feet, your petty scoreboards mean nothing to me.

No seriously, I am not even homed on Thorn, im elsewhere (nope not Haderus either). The scoreboards have never really mattered to me. To use a term from other games, I view the score frenzy as "RP victory" with the real wins being how many people I killed before I died the last time I rezzed.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · November 2014

Rylana wrote: »

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

What is the main objective in this game?
Taking keeps?
Taking scrolls?
Ganking?
Open field pvp?

Hint:
How does the ESO scoring system for winning works?

I win when a player is dead at my feet, your petty scoreboards mean nothing to me.

No seriously, I am not even homed on Thorn, im elsewhere (nope not Haderus either). The scoreboards have never really mattered to me. To use a term from other games, I view the score frenzy as "RP victory" with the real wins being how many people I killed before I died the last time I rezzed.

I don't blame you for it.
The game encourages those kind of behavior too by not giving worthy rewards for the "Rp victory".
They tried to improve it, but perhaps not enough.

Would you care about the campaign victory if you were to win more out of it?
Or you fight just for the sake of fighting?

I personally would love to care, I love RvR and the notion of fighting for a faction, but it's quite meaningless currently.

Rylana · November 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Rylana wrote: »

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

What is the main objective in this game?
Taking keeps?
Taking scrolls?
Ganking?
Open field pvp?

Hint:
How does the ESO scoring system for winning works?

I win when a player is dead at my feet, your petty scoreboards mean nothing to me.

No seriously, I am not even homed on Thorn, im elsewhere (nope not Haderus either). The scoreboards have never really mattered to me. To use a term from other games, I view the score frenzy as "RP victory" with the real wins being how many people I killed before I died the last time I rezzed.

I don't blame you for it.
The game encourages those kind of behavior too by not giving worthy rewards for the "Rp victory".
They tried to improve it, but perhaps not enough.

Would you care about the campaign victory if you were to win more out of it?
Or you fight just for the sake of fighting?

I personally would love to care, I love RvR and the notion of fighting for a faction, but it's quite meaningless currently.

The rewards in this game are garbage. Literally every reward for the worthy I have ever gotten has been either sold to a vendor, another player that really needed it for whatever reason, or fed to the materials mule via decon.

The stuff at end of campaign is only really worth the amount of tempers you get deconning it, with the rare chance you might get one of the two good sets that come out of PvP.

That and how Celarus emp trading destroyed that reason to play objectives (seriously, who pushes for emp anymore? if they ever do, its a guy thats already been emp 10 times anyway because they just happen to have always been the AP generator type)

About the only useful thing I see in the objective play are the buffs, but on the competitive campaign, you never see them for long if at all, they dont transfer anymore from buff campaigns other than for PvE purposes, and at the end of the day are by no means game changing anyway.

There is a lot wrong with AvAvA and the reasons to do it outside of actually just being a PvP purist (like I am in that sense, I only care about objectives if they generate PvP itself)

I cant remember the last time i said to a guildie "hey man, we need 2 percent crit or a few dozen points for tomorrows score evals, lets go take keep/outpost XYZ". What I normally say is "hey man, lets go take keep ABC and see if faction 123 comes to try to take it back from us."

Oughash · November 2014

Rylana wrote: »

I cant remember the last time i said to a guildie "hey man, we need 2 percent crit or a few dozen points for tomorrows score evals, lets go take keep/outpost XYZ". What I normally say is "hey man, lets go take keep ABC and see if faction 123 comes to try to take it back from us."

Completely and utterly agree with this sentiment. I PvP for the sake of PvP. Which is why I'm pretty OK with the end-of-campaign rewards being garbage -- I don't want people in PvP land who are there to grind rewards (PvP buffs existing outside of PvP land are ridiculous). I want people there who are in it for the fights. Keeps, outposts, scrolls, etc should only included to generate PvP. Which is why I've been a proponent of adding more objectives in the "dead" zones between the keep triangles. How many times have you and your guildies said, "DEFEND THE WELL - THOU SHALL NOT PASS!" , solely to generate fights?

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · November 2014

Rylana wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Rylana wrote: »

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

What is the main objective in this game?
Taking keeps?
Taking scrolls?
Ganking?
Open field pvp?

Hint:
How does the ESO scoring system for winning works?

I win when a player is dead at my feet, your petty scoreboards mean nothing to me.

No seriously, I am not even homed on Thorn, im elsewhere (nope not Haderus either). The scoreboards have never really mattered to me. To use a term from other games, I view the score frenzy as "RP victory" with the real wins being how many people I killed before I died the last time I rezzed.

I don't blame you for it.
The game encourages those kind of behavior too by not giving worthy rewards for the "Rp victory".
They tried to improve it, but perhaps not enough.

Would you care about the campaign victory if you were to win more out of it?
Or you fight just for the sake of fighting?

I personally would love to care, I love RvR and the notion of fighting for a faction, but it's quite meaningless currently.

The rewards in this game are garbage. Literally every reward for the worthy I have ever gotten has been either sold to a vendor, another player that really needed it for whatever reason, or fed to the materials mule via decon.

The stuff at end of campaign is only really worth the amount of tempers you get deconning it, with the rare chance you might get one of the two good sets that come out of PvP.

That and how Celarus emp trading destroyed that reason to play objectives (seriously, who pushes for emp anymore? if they ever do, its a guy thats already been emp 10 times anyway because they just happen to have always been the AP generator type)

About the only useful thing I see in the objective play are the buffs, but on the competitive campaign, you never see them for long if at all, they dont transfer anymore from buff campaigns other than for PvE purposes, and at the end of the day are by no means game changing anyway.

There is a lot wrong with AvAvA and the reasons to do it outside of actually just being a PvP purist (like I am in that sense, I only care about objectives if they generate PvP itself)

I cant remember the last time i said to a guildie "hey man, we need 2 percent crit or a few dozen points for tomorrows score evals, lets go take keep/outpost XYZ". What I normally say is "hey man, lets go take keep ABC and see if faction 123 comes to try to take it back from us."

Yup, I totally agree with this.

Perhaps bypassing all the hassle could be great?

Make the rewards only gold, soulgems and some improving materials.
Add items when they are really valuable only and make everything else purchased by Ap.

Emperor is a bit of a silly title, I would have liked it to be called "Champion" instead. Something really related to battle, as it is.

There needs to be a direct relation from doing something useful for the faction and what you gain individually. And it needs to serve as some sort of tutorial for newer players so that over time they notice which actions they should do, and which they shouldn't.
I personally believe that kill rewards are too important compared to the capture/ defense rewards.

Rylana · November 2014

Ishammael wrote: »

Rylana wrote: »

I cant remember the last time i said to a guildie "hey man, we need 2 percent crit or a few dozen points for tomorrows score evals, lets go take keep/outpost XYZ". What I normally say is "hey man, lets go take keep ABC and see if faction 123 comes to try to take it back from us."

Completely and utterly agree with this sentiment. I PvP for the sake of PvP. Which is why I'm pretty OK with the end-of-campaign rewards being garbage -- I don't want people in PvP land who are there to grind rewards (PvP buffs existing outside of PvP land are ridiculous). I want people there who are in it for the fights. Keeps, outposts, scrolls, etc should only included to generate PvP. Which is why I've been a proponent of adding more objectives in the "dead" zones between the keep triangles. How many times have you and your guildies said, "DEFEND THE WELL - THOU SHALL NOT PASS!" , solely to generate fights?

We set up a hysterical scenario one time with an oilpot (back when they would stay up for like 20 minutes before decaying)

One of our guildies stood inside of the oilpot, with four of us standing around him doing emotes to make it look like we were cooking him.

We wanted people to try to gank us thinking we were some crazy roleplayers or something.

It actually worked. XD

One of my favorite strategies when solo ganking was to set a piece of siege out in the middle of a road and see if someone would come try to burn it. That used to work too.

Not just keeps/outposts... player can come up with all kinds of ways to cause PvP.

Ever seen a naked bosmer dancing outside of Chalman front door? Was probably me trying to bait some sucker into coming out to kill me while my guildies lie in wait.

Tintinabula · November 2014

well its good to see I'm not the only one "throwing an epic fit" since camps were removed. I wonder if these folks who jumped my back have the balls to jump yours.(not hoping for that but to hear them talk I'm the only one who didn't like the change lol.)

Rylana · November 2014

Tintinabula wrote: »

well its good to see I'm not the only one "throwing an epic fit" since camps were removed. I wonder if these folks who jumped my back have the balls to jump yours.(not hoping for that but to hear them talk I'm the only one who didn't like the change lol.)

If it gets on my radar, backs shall be jumped.

Thechemicals · November 2014

Return to Fc will be my unsub from this game. I have been able to play through all the bugs and exploits and 6 hour battles to gain a scroll just for a server crash that restores it back to its owner, losing hundreds of thousands of ap.

You can think of something else, youre intelligent people. Dont listen to the community for every moan and tear jerk. Its what has ruined every single mmo beginning with Ultima Online. You want a way to make both sides happy? Add something competitive instead of returning fc's. One thing that overrides the complaints is the attendance of a system that measures epeen. Youll figure it out.

Tintinabula · November 2014

the exact same thing can be said for why they were taken out." Leaving them out will be my unsub.You can think of something else,you're intelligent people. Don't listen to the community for every moan and tear jerk to take out FCs."

Dazin93 · November 2014

The lack of real rewards/progression within pvp is another significant issue that is contributing to a smaller pvp player base imho. Killing other players is fun, but it not rewarding enough in of itself to keep many players logging in every day.

Take the CoD franchise for example that has been wildly successful. From a pure shooter perspective, it's nothing special yet it's success has been driven by the wide array of weapon upgrades, perks, kill-streak "ultimates", and ways to make your character unique or build a reputation for yourself. Those are the incentives that keep players coming back for more; not mindless killing.

Even Warhammer, while having significant balance issues, had a great pvp leveling and advancement system that encouraged pvp in battlegrounds and large scale.

Cyrodiil has none of this; we don't even have nameplates for crying out loud. I would also argue that most people gain name recognition more through these forums rather than from anything they do in game which is rather sad. It's not their fault; just another byproduct of Zos' poor game design.

Thechemicals · November 2014

yes except i added an idea while you copy/pasted what i said and changed a few words. Noone is going to win from Fc's coming back. If they do return, youll lose a few hundred more subs, maybe a thousand. If it stays as is, the idea can be improved with speedy horses, more movement speed on roads, and other original ideas. Being "Original" is the key word here.

Removing camps, then returning them after people have been accustomed to this kind of play and having generally positive reviews from many players just means that many players will not enjoy the game with Fc's and trust me, you dont want "many" player not having fun.

Ultimately...the complaint against forward camps makes sense....it offers the worst kind of pvp playstyle and builds and tactics.....the weaksauce pvper style.

Roechacca · November 2014

I never liked the forward camps . The instant gratification of zerging was easily abused . I would be for a faster way to travel from point a to point b . Maybe a better road crew that didn't make paths so twisty . I don't really know I just make due .

LonePirate · November 2014

As someone else previously suggested, perhaps having one campaign that permits forward camps and one campaign that does not is how ZOS should restore them to the game. Both sides can then play in the version of Cyrodiil which they prefer.

Tintinabula · November 2014

Thechemicals wrote: »

yes except i added an idea while you copy/pasted what i said and changed a few words. Noone is going to win from Fc's coming back. If they do return, youll lose a few hundred more subs, maybe a thousand. If it stays as is, the idea can be improved with speedy horses, more movement speed on roads, and other original ideas. Being "Original" is the key word here.

Removing camps, then returning them after people have been accustomed to this kind of play and having generally positive reviews from many players just means that many players will not enjoy the game with Fc's and trust me, you dont want "many" player not having fun.

Ultimately...the complaint against forward camps makes sense....it offers the worst kind of pvp playstyle and builds and tactics.....the weaksauce pvper style.

TL;DR ( my ideas are right because they enhance play style..however yours do not. I am right you are wrong. I am original you are not.) There are positive reviews FOR FCs bud. Its been a few weeks now..can't use undaunted anymore as an excuse for pops being low. The last two weeks has been "many" player not having fun..it just so happens that number doesn't include you.

Durham · November 2014

Yes server lag is the main issue...

Thechemicals · November 2014

LonePirate wrote: »

As someone else previously suggested, perhaps having one campaign that permits forward camps and one campaign that does not is how ZOS should restore them to the game. Both sides can then play in the version of Cyrodiil which they prefer.

I like this idea. However, more incentive will be needed for the non-fc campaign. Mainly because, while no fc is better- we need some changes to improve the speed you return to battle.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · November 2014

FCs are like a badly designed quests that give you infinite gold in solo games.
It may be fun at first, but it cheapens the game in the end.

Bypassing travels and the opportunities they give for emergent gameplay is foolish at best. Open world PvP can only work when organic interactions occur between players.

The same way than just fighting for the sake of fighting is cheapening the game.
Combat should be fun in its own right, but for people to care about it on the long term, we need actual reasons to fight. They can be Epeen or loot pixels, or a combination of both, but we need a motivation.

Perhaps a portion of the playerbase can be contented with just constant fighting, and I understand that taste, but a larger portion would like constant fightning, but with a meaning and purpose too.

Both sides can be satisfied at the same time.
Keep the FCs removed, but give more tools to direct and motivate fighting.
A proper reward structure, some intermediary objectives between larger objectives.
Like "inns" to boost your horse speed, roads making you faster, destroyable bridges or tunnels to cut on the zig zaging of normal paths and so on.

Currently the game is plagued by bad performances, I personnaly haven't been able to play much, but once the new meta get accepted, and peopel learn how to use ambushes, flankign maneuvers and any kind of openfield tactics, the game will improve for everyone involved.

Thechemicals · November 2014

The game was most definately cheapened at the end of Fc's days. So many exploits and trolling and just very bad play from constant ressing. Impulse groups were undying so long as the 3-4 that were kiled kept returning to the group 10 seconds later. It was just bad bad bad.

JamilaRaj · November 2014

Tintinabula wrote: »

Whats funny to me are these testimonials to the great time we had "a few nights ago'..."the other night".."last week" etc.
I remember having great battles every hour on the hour. Where did they go?

You mean back in the days when forward camps vomited zombies wave after wave, all day long? No. No recollection of "great battles" whatsoever.

martinhpb16_ESO · November 2014

well I just played a few hours on Thorn EU. Smurfs and tomatoes back and forth Chal <>Arrius.

Blue zerg kills all the reds, runs to Arrius, reds zerg, kill all the blues, run to Chal, rinse and repeat again and again.......

I was mainly on the edges, had a few good 1v1 s, got zerged a few times, rezzed at Chal and either joined the blue zerg if the reds were there or went on to Arrius, again and again......

give me the FC that vomited zombies wave after wave, it made the fights near keeps interesting. Blues zerging reds with no way for reds to rez etc just kills the ation and makes for back and forth play.

No idea where this new strategic renaissance is, I wasn't seeing it so logged off.

Keron · November 2014

I'm still kind of convinced that this is due to being used to this kind of warfare. With tents you would continue to attack a target by regrouping even through some failed attempts. You were back there quick enough to prevent repairs etc. Now you aren't.

A somehow logical consequence would be to change target and try a different approach. Bypass Arrius and send half to Farragut, half to Kings and have Reds take a decision instead of running back into a lost battle. Or some other action.

It will clearly take some time to adjust the usual tactics, certainly more than just two weeks. I still see people asking in Zone where they can buy tents now that siege vendors don't have them anymore.

In the end, the discussion is moot - they will bring them back. Whether we would have found a way to adjust and all together enjoy the tent-less PvP that we were dumped into will never be found out.

My only concern is that there will be a huge problem if they wait too long with bringing them back and a major part has adjusted already.