Mechanics to encourage faster recovery of demoralized factions

jrkhan · November 2014

I very much enjoy tri-realm pvp in this game, but I believe certain game mechanics and human nature contribute towards an unfortunate tenancy for factions to abandon servers when they are behind.

My experience is mostly confined to Blackwater Blade, but I believe the existence of buff servers is evidence of this as well.

I'd like to outline why I believe this occurs, see if others believe it is a problem, and perhaps discuss some possible game mechanics to help combat it.

Once a realm has lost their scrolls and keeps, morale (the motivation players of a realm have to continue playing on that faction/server) will be low. Chances are, the faction that finds itself in that situation has either a lower population, a less coordinated (inferior tactics/strategy) population, or both.

Defending guarded objectives are one of the only ways for an outnumbered and "out gunned" realm to compete.

Once those objectives are gone, pvp tends to stagnate.

In BWB the primary mechanic by which this corrects itself is boredom, the winning faction eventually gets bored of having no meaningful objectives, and eventually actively encourages the other factions to regain their home keeps for morale.

On other servers, the dominating faction has incentive to keep all scrolls and emp in order to maximize their PvE buff, so boredom doesn't quite kick in.

I believe that this is not ideal, having been on both ends of this. It's not fun having "no one to fight", nor is it fun to convince people to join a server with almost no one on it, with limited transit, and with better coordinated, buffed, and more numerous foes on the other side.

Does anyone else see this as a drawback to the status quo? Is there some mechanic I'm overlooking? Does this seem "fun" to others?

There were a few suggestions I'd seen in other threads/brainstorming a few things that might help make things more fun for realms with nothing left to lose.

Your home, non-emp keeps, when occupied by an enemy, could spawn fewer/no defending guards.

Add offensive npcs as an event/quest when retaking home keeps. (Effectively neutralizing the defensive guards)

Enhance player stats for realms with no scroll/emp. Call it the "nothing left to lose" buff.

Anyway, just my two cents.

KhajiitiLizard · November 2014

It's simple really, just have all the keeps and scrolls, etc reset after the campaign ends.

Pathfinder · November 2014

KhajiitiLizard wrote: »

It's simple really, just have all the keeps and scrolls, etc reset after the campaign ends.

Sorry, they can't do that. It will negatively affect PvE buffs.

Juraigr · November 2014

Pathfinder wrote: »

KhajiitiLizard wrote: »

It's simple really, just have all the keeps and scrolls, etc reset after the campaign ends.

Sorry, they can't do that. It will negatively affect PvE buffs.

So *** what

Keron · November 2014

Juraigr wrote: »

Pathfinder wrote: »

KhajiitiLizard wrote: »

It's simple really, just have all the keeps and scrolls, etc reset after the campaign ends.

Sorry, they can't do that. It will negatively affect PvE buffs.

So *** what

Well, that sadly seems to be the reasoning of the developers. Almost every PvP player in these forums has to some degree said or agreed to the idea that PvE buffs from PvP need to go. The argument put up against it has always been "we want an incentive for PvE players to go into Cyrodiil".

Now they even have done the opposite by implementing the Undaunted Sets, which give a bonus for 1 part worn and have a 2 piece bonus that is of same or nearly same quality as other sets 5 piece to encourage PvP players to take part in PvE.

The intent is laudable: mixing both sides of the coin to experience every part of the game. In my very personal opinion, this intent just overlooks the fact that we, the players, don't want this kind of incentive. We don't want to be "forced" to do something that we don't enjoy as much as the alternative.

So, we find short cuts. A buff campaign is one of these shortcuts. Get every one (or at least a major part) of one factions PvE populace into one campaign, have them steamroll the other factions, et voila, permanent PvE buffs. It does not encourage intermixing. The intent has failed.

Maybe because they are busy with other things, maybe more important things, to fix before, but so far developers have not shown that they agree to this assessment and look into the problem. So, as provoking as it sounds: "sorry but that would influence PvE" seems like the spot on explanation.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · November 2014

@jrkhan‌
You are entirely correct.
The rules of the game tells us we have to win, not that we have to fight to win.
So once players aren't winning, they give up.

A way of fixing this issue is to encourage players to fight for a losing faction for more Xp/Ap/Gold gains. Keep the buffs for the victors, so that they can leave and use it in PvE while the losers get guests that come and help out to counter the situations.

Add in some more factors, like global campaign score, population and territory control so that it is more profitable to attack the though guy rather than ganging on the weakest faction.

if you are interested, I invite you to read on and comment on the complete suggestions. it's been around for a while now, and the more people are aware about it, the more chances we have to see something be done about the issue.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/1320089

In my opinion, aside from lag, the population imbalance issue is the most important thing to fix, followed closely by the aoe target cap removal.
With those both gone, the game will finaly be at the state it should have been at launch.

Cody · November 2014

Pathfinder wrote: »

KhajiitiLizard wrote: »

It's simple really, just have all the keeps and scrolls, etc reset after the campaign ends.

Sorry, they can't do that. It will negatively affect PvE buffs.

to heck with your precious PvE buffs.

the REAL reason they can't reset at the end of a campaign, is some of these campaigns are 5-7-14 day campaigns.

if Blackwater blade reset every 5 or 7(however many days it is) then the incentive to push into enemy territory would be VERY low, as your faction would simply lose all its progress in a week. thornblade is not the only PvP server. its the most populated, but not the only one

mmoactionjacksonb16_ESO · November 2014

Three things I would like to see.

1)Reduce the number of npc guards the larger your territory is.
So a small group or even solo player can start flipping things without struggle and feel like they achieve something.

2)Close the scroll wall if the scroll is placed in an enemy castle and put a porting line directly to the wall for the scroll"less" faction. Shorter walk time to start fighting back.

3)Remove faction score points. "We cant win this matchup lets wait till reset".
Fight for the fighting. Scrolls, Emporer, personal AP and soon the imperial city are good reasons for AvA too.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO · November 2014

All they need to do is make 3 campaigns only. Plus pre vet I guess, but that died when the players kept hopping factions as far as I'm concerned.
But with one busy server like thorn that will never be buff, and only two left for the three factions to compete for buff, it can work. Obviously giving pve players a bunch of dead campaigns to dominate will not encourage PvP. Give them only 2 and they only way to get the damn buff is actual pvp; they will have to compete because only 2 factions would be able to hold it at a time. Problem solved, aside from the entitled whiners who will QQ its their god given right to have a pve buff campaign, which will inevitably occure.

driosketch · November 2014

Juraigr wrote: »

Pathfinder wrote: »

KhajiitiLizard wrote: »

It's simple really, just have all the keeps and scrolls, etc reset after the campaign ends.

Sorry, they can't do that. It will negatively affect PvE buffs.

So *** what

How bout it also wouldn't change anything. Had is seeing intermittent activity, in some cases taking the entire map from yellow, but AD still washes away any progress once the other faction players are gone. I assume it's the same with Chill.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

All they need to do is make 3 campaigns only. Plus pre vet I guess, but that died when the players kept hopping factions as far as I'm concerned.

Sadly, even I have to admit those shenanigans seem to have killed interest in that campaign.

JaJaLuka · November 2014

Keron wrote: »

Juraigr wrote: »

Pathfinder wrote: »

KhajiitiLizard wrote: »

It's simple really, just have all the keeps and scrolls, etc reset after the campaign ends.

Sorry, they can't do that. It will negatively affect PvE buffs.

So *** what

Well, that sadly seems to be the reasoning of the developers. Almost every PvP player in these forums has to some degree said or agreed to the idea that PvE buffs from PvP need to go. The argument put up against it has always been "we want an incentive for PvE players to go into Cyrodiil".

Now they even have done the opposite by implementing the Undaunted Sets, which give a bonus for 1 part worn and have a 2 piece bonus that is of same or nearly same quality as other sets 5 piece to encourage PvP players to take part in PvE.

The intent is laudable: mixing both sides of the coin to experience every part of the game. In my very personal opinion, this intent just overlooks the fact that we, the players, don't want this kind of incentive. We don't want to be "forced" to do something that we don't enjoy as much as the alternative.

So, we find short cuts. A buff campaign is one of these shortcuts. Get every one (or at least a major part) of one factions PvE populace into one campaign, have them steamroll the other factions, et voila, permanent PvE buffs. It does not encourage intermixing. The intent has failed.

Maybe because they are busy with other things, maybe more important things, to fix before, but so far developers have not shown that they agree to this assessment and look into the problem. So, as provoking as it sounds: "sorry but that would influence PvE" seems like the spot on explanation.

It was a big mistake on the developers part to attempt to get PvP players to play PvE and visa versa. All they have done is make people see the game as a grind to get to play the way they want and when people have to spend hours of time going through content they don't enjoy, they often quit. For those players what's the point? There are other games that provide PvP without the major drag of having to struggle to get to it.

On the other hand PvE players have come to rely on PvP buff servers to the point where some refuse to do timed trials without them and complain when they don't have them.

They have really messed this up unfortunately, people now rely on it and they will lose a major part of their player base if they change it. They are going to have to be creative here, I just can't see them finding a solution that the players are happy with any time soon.