[NA] PVP Population - Looming Crisis Point?

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

There's been a lot of discussions about this, but it feels like with this new cycle of Thornblade NA, the population has definitely suffered a fresh hit.

Are we reaching a crisis point where the population is starting to lessen, collectively, for the game that the Thornblade server (the only active NA campaign) is now starting to wither as well?

The biggest indicator is the Daggerfall Covenant lock for population. It used to be that even DC would lock the full duration of prime time, now they rarely are. Oft times they are stuck at 1-2 bars for 16+ hours throughout the day.

Daytime populations have shriveled as well, leaving only the winners of the previous campaign (presumably coasting on morale) active, while factions that used to have large Oceanic populations are barely present.

The lag that has been exacerbated dramatically since the last major update (v1.5) may be one of the driving forces, as well as the end of the six month sub period for those who bought the game on release.

Has the game reached a crisis point where the PVP community is starting to push the bounds of inviolability?

EDIT:

To add -- how many of you in PVP guilds have noticed a huge lack of participation? How many see multi-month inactive players now filling those pvp guild rosters? And how many have seen an increase in such types of members?

As a GM of a PVP primary guild, I know I have seen it, and those inactive members are piling up. It hurts to watch it happen, to watch something you've built fade as the game becomes less and less playable.

Zintair · December 2014

Same thing with Warhammer. People will still play the game with balance issues but the lag that will probably never be able to be addressed is going to kill it.

Performance sounds basic but truthfully is key to successful Open World PvP.

Look at SWTOR with Ilum. Warhammer with Fort Sieges and City Rushes.

Problem is worse here because now there is no where to downsize too. We are on the last server.

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

Zintair wrote: »

Same thing with Warhammer. People will still play the game with balance issues but the lag that will probably never be able to be addressed is going to kill it.

Performance sounds basic but truthfully is key to successful Open World PvP.

Look at SWTOR with Ilum. Warhammer with Fort Sieges and City Rushes.

Problem is worse here because now there is no where to downsize too. We are on the last server.

Ilum dying and patch 1.2 nearly killed SWTOR. I know that's when I left.

WHO being an unplayable mess sometimes due to the lag drove me from the game and it's the reason that they didn't renew the IP lease and let the game close. I loved it when it worked, but mindlessly grinding battlegrounds for tokens needed to buy the pvp gear was boring.

At least SWTOR had Huttball, which was hilariously fun.

Neizir · December 2014

It seems as if the majority of the ESO population plays on the EU server. People active everywhere 24/7, and 2 campaigns (Thornblade, Azura's Star) regularly hitting full at peak hours, and 2-3 bars at other times.
Is PvE active on the NA server?

Subtomik · December 2014

The only thing keeping me around is my guild mates. the lag is blurring the line between fun and a chore more and more every week.

Pixysticks · December 2014

Removing camps from the game completely at the same time as nerfing oils = giant zergs rolling around lagging everyone to death. Add in more than half the game spamming lethal arrow because it's bugged and 2 of them make you take no healing, as well as exploding if you try to purge yourself when people cast ele wall, and most of the PvP population has given up.

I played through the FPS bug without quitting, I played through the silver bolts 1 shot bug as a vampire, never cleansed it and kept PvPing. I couldn't keep doing it though, ZOS has known about the heal debuff stacking bug with lethal arrow since a few days after 1.5 launched, STILL NO HOTFIX.

I unsubbed because I finally was forced to accept that ZOS doesn't care about the PvP playerbase of this game. It's just sad because this game has so much potential, maybe it'll change sometime in the future so I'll keep an eye on the forums to see if it ever does.

Roechacca · December 2014

My whole guild left . I've been on my own since the Veteran system was released . Sure I've joined some new groups but mostly I feel like the PvP side of ESO has been dead for some time now . Wabbajack replaced by Thornblade and new servers had never brought anyone back that I'm aware of . I never see any posts about people coming back . I just assume imbalance and lag issues eventually destroy PvP in all mmos eventually . Except Warhammer . Which I still can't bring myself to play .

Psilent · December 2014

The guild I am a part of, EP side on Haderus, has suffered a decline as well. Before the change in Forward Camps we would have around 1.5 raids, that number has slowly gone downhill until we now have an active base of around 10. Weekends we see an increase to about 1 full raid.

Subtomik · December 2014

Pixys post was spot on. I'm currently playing month by month, letting the sub run out and only resubbing as long as NM is here.

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

Subtomik wrote: »

Pixys post was spot on. I'm currently playing month by month, letting the sub run out and only resubbing as long as NM is here.

I'm still a fan of the FC removal, but I'm agreeing with everything else Pixy stated.

The oil fix should not have happened at the same time the camps were removed. It should have waited until the FC re-introduction.

Debuff stacking fixes HAVE to be implemented in the next incremental patch. Not 'when it's ready'. When it's ready has to be immediately.

And worst of all, the Lag/Latency is ruining the entire experience. It's getting felt at 1 bar (across the board) of population. It's a nightmare at full locks.

Psilent · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Subtomik wrote: »

Pixys post was spot on. I'm currently playing month by month, letting the sub run out and only resubbing as long as NM is here.

I'm still a fan of the FC removal, but I'm agreeing with everything else Pixy stated.

The oil fix should not have happened at the same time the camps were removed. It should have waited until the FC re-introduction.

Debuff stacking HAS to be implemented in the next incremental patch. Not 'when it's ready'. When it's ready has to be immediately.

And worst of all, the Lag/Latency is ruining the entire experience. It's getting felt at 1 bar (across the board) of population. It's a nightmare at full locks.

We've felt the lag at times on Haderus.

Subtomik · December 2014

Having problems with quotes right now Agrippa. But my problem with the removal of fc's is more about how we can't do what we used to do, switch to a buff server with 8 people and hold for hours against the Zerg.

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

Psilent wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Subtomik wrote: »

Pixys post was spot on. I'm currently playing month by month, letting the sub run out and only resubbing as long as NM is here.

I'm still a fan of the FC removal, but I'm agreeing with everything else Pixy stated.

The oil fix should not have happened at the same time the camps were removed. It should have waited until the FC re-introduction.

Debuff stacking HAS to be implemented in the next incremental patch. Not 'when it's ready'. When it's ready has to be immediately.

And worst of all, the Lag/Latency is ruining the entire experience. It's getting felt at 1 bar (across the board) of population. It's a nightmare at full locks.

We've felt the lag at times on Haderus.

Then there's a deep, deep issue with either how the game client is passing information or in the ZOS data center.

Nothing that resetting a freaking router is going to fix.

Subtomik wrote: »

Having problems with quotes right now Agrippa. But my problem with the removal of fc's is more about how we can't do what we used to do, switch to a buff server with 8 people and hold for hours against the Zerg.

With good play, the limited FC ideas ZOS has shown they're working to implement are what would allow that to continue while still punishing bad play. No more YOLOing into the zerg. But smart play, with only a few deaths, will get rewarded if you can use your FC timers sparingly.

There needed to be drawbacks to dying.

Dazin93 · December 2014

I don't think it's reached a crisis point, it's just increasingly difficult to have any type of large scale battles due to the lag; skirmishes however are still alive and well. Zos definitely hasn't delivered and it's disappointing, but there is still pvp to enjoy imho and not many other mmo's to choose from right now.

I log in a few hours everyday, turn up the tunes, drink a beer, and enjoy killing people. I don't care if DC is underpopulated or losing, it just means more kills for me or less time riding my horse if the enemy is on my doorstep.

For those that thrive on being at top of the leaderboards , they probably enjoy or want a different kind of play style so they will have to be flexible to change or they can choose to leave. Either way, pvp will continue, just not in the manner that some expected (myself included) when buying this game.

Reverb · December 2014

Three of my guilds were almost exclusively pvp this spring and summer. I always had a choice of who to run with. Since October, one went to 2x weekly scheduled pvp nights due to declining interest, and has since scrapped those, but fills multiple raids for trials every night.

Another is still close to the 500 active member mark, but maybe fields a pvp group once per week. Our raid leader of the old guard is often lfg in /z after failing to get interest in guild chat.

The third is still active daily in cyro but has begun to wane. I can feel declining interest and rising frustration from the gm and officers.

Maybe it's the holidays, maybe its just a cyclical population, maybe I'm delusionally optimistic.

Reverb · December 2014

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Debuff stacking fixes HAVE to be implemented in the next incremental patch. Not 'when it's ready'. When it's ready has to be immediately.

This is belaboured elsewhere, but the timing of heal debuff stacking with the wall of elements / ground dot bug is simply horrible. Purge is absolutely necessary...and also an instant death sentence.

Now I've swapped for purify and have to hope that people see and synergize so I can heal them. More than once I've decided to let people die and res them instead of throwing mana at them if they've been seriously debuffed.

Agrippa_Invisus · December 2014

Reverb wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Debuff stacking fixes HAVE to be implemented in the next incremental patch. Not 'when it's ready'. When it's ready has to be immediately.

This is belaboured elsewhere, but the timing of heal debuff stacking with the wall of elements / ground dot bug is simply horrible. Purge is absolutely necessary...and also an instant death sentence.

Now I've swapped for purify and have to hope that people see and synergize so I can heal them. More than once I've decided to let people die and res them instead of throwing mana at them if they've been seriously debuffed.

People are just melting/exploding right now. We've gotten into the habit as a guild of negating breaches/choke points just to clean up the wall spam and get in safely.

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · December 2014

I feel I have to chime in on this but everyone brought this upon themselves. At the beginning of the new campaign setup there were 3 'competitive' servers and 2 'special' campaigns. You had 30 day Thorn, 14 day Chill, and 7 day Had, then you had 5 day Blackwater Blade for newbs and 5 day Bow of Shadows for vets only. ZOS intended the pvp population to distribute itself evenly. However off the bat only Thorn and Chill ever saw poplocks, with Had being monopolized by AD off the bat as their personal 'buff server'. Because mah buffs srsly.

People bawled and squalled because Thorn and Chill were too crowded. So they added Azura's Star, the new 30 day and removed Bow of Shadows because it seemed redundant. What did people do? All of a sudden EVERY faction gets a buff server! EP ousted AD from AS and claimed it, DC claimed the remnants of Chill, and AD maintained an iron grip on Had for months on end.

So instead of using the new servers as a safety valve as intended, people continued to exploit them for personal gain. Despite the change to PVP buffs to only work in your played campaign, the buffs still persist to PVE, and they remained highly coveted by guilds pursuing existing or new PVE content.

How many times did we beg, scream, and bellow that we wanted honest PVP to happen in Haderus only to be snobbishly talked down to that "durr it's a buff server no one gonna pvp there." The EP native core has struggled for MONTHS to introduce competitive PVP to that server, more out of challenge and principle than anything, only to continuously keep getting swatted down by the shortsighted native and PVE addict AD population.

Now even our core is losing steam. Maybe it's the back to back holiday season for most of us NA players. Maybe its burnout because no matter how well we play or how much we strive for we keep getting pushed back because AD has more people on at more hours than we could ever hope to. Maybe it's the plethora of new PVE content, who knows.

All I can say is ZOS can't hotfix ***. Players created this problem, and they refuse to fix it because 'plz lv our buff servers alone m'kay?" Is the overriding mentality of most people here. YOU the PLAYER created this problem. YOU are to blame for the crushing lag on Thornblade. YOU are to blame for the hideous faction imbalance across servers. If ZOS threw up their hands and said screw it to pvp, you know what I can't blame them. It reminds me of at work when we offer samples as a way to introduce new products or show off existing ones and you get the grazers that come making a full circuit of the store getting themselves a *** full course meal stuffing their faces with 'free food'.

Zenimax can't patch stupid. This is on players. You made the bed, you sleep in it.

Voodoo · December 2014

well its christmas so alot of people are busy travelling, working and spending I am sure more than a few subs. are on hold until after the holidays.

Roechacca · December 2014

WarrioroftheWind_ESO wrote: »

I feel I have to chime in on this but everyone brought this upon themselves. At the beginning of the new campaign setup there were 3 'competitive' servers and 2 'special' campaigns. You had 30 day Thorn, 14 day Chill, and 7 day Had, then you had 5 day Blackwater Blade for newbs and 5 day Bow of Shadows for vets only. ZOS intended the pvp population to distribute itself evenly. However off the bat only Thorn and Chill ever saw poplocks, with Had being monopolized by AD off the bat as their personal 'buff server'. Because mah buffs srsly.

People bawled and squalled because Thorn and Chill were too crowded. So they added Azura's Star, the new 30 day and removed Bow of Shadows because it seemed redundant. What did people do? All of a sudden EVERY faction gets a buff server! EP ousted AD from AS and claimed it, DC claimed the remnants of Chill, and AD maintained an iron grip on Had for months on end.

So instead of using the new servers as a safety valve as intended, people continued to exploit them for personal gain. Despite the change to PVP buffs to only work in your played campaign, the buffs still persist to PVE, and they remained highly coveted by guilds pursuing existing or new PVE content.

How many times did we beg, scream, and bellow that we wanted honest PVP to happen in Haderus only to be snobbishly talked down to that "durr it's a buff server no one gonna pvp there." The EP native core has struggled for MONTHS to introduce competitive PVP to that server, more out of challenge and principle than anything, only to continuously keep getting swatted down by the shortsighted native and PVE addict AD population.

Now even our core is losing steam. Maybe it's the back to back holiday season for most of us NA players. Maybe its burnout because no matter how well we play or how much we strive for we keep getting pushed back because AD has more people on at more hours than we could ever hope to. Maybe it's the plethora of new PVE content, who knows.

All I can say is ZOS can't hotfix ***. Players created this problem, and they refuse to fix it because 'plz lv our buff servers alone m'kay?" Is the overriding mentality of most people here. YOU the PLAYER created this problem. YOU are to blame for the crushing lag on Thornblade. YOU are to blame for the hideous faction imbalance across servers. If ZOS threw up their hands and said screw it to pvp, you know what I can't blame them. It reminds me of at work when we offer samples as a way to introduce new products or show off existing ones and you get the grazers that come making a full circuit of the store getting themselves a *** full course meal stuffing their faces with 'free food'.

Zenimax can't patch stupid. This is on players. You made the bed, you sleep in it.

DC has a buff server ?

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · December 2014

Chillrend I believe was claimed by DC. Unless that changed at some point.

Lava_Croft · December 2014

I can confirm that for EU-TB-EP, the long queues that used to part of entering PvP during prime time have almost completely vanished.

Pyatra · December 2014

Lower population cap of campaigns by 1/4, kill some of the 30 day campaigns, and fix the snipe debuff. BAM! Those are some good steps to resolving some of the issues.

Also EP and DC should come to Haderus (NA Server) and fight. It's a 7 day campaign. We have ebbs and flows, we just need more people to fight to fill in the gaps.

Pathfinder · December 2014

The lag has had a direct effect on the number of PvP hours GnG logs. We don't really mind being outnumbered or rolled as DC, but when DC is close to capturing a keep and *ing lag allows the defenders to repair, it just makes a lot of us want to give up. We can change our tactics against greater numbers, but we cant fight the lag.

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · December 2014

Pathfinder wrote: »

The lag has had a direct effect on the number of PvP hours GnG logs. We don't really mind being outnumbered or rolled as DC, but when DC is close to capturing a keep and *ing lag allows the defenders to repair, it just makes a lot of us want to give up. We can change our tactics against greater numbers, but we cant fight the lag.

Path, please take your guild and beat up AD on Haderus. Don't touch the inner ring or else Lace will 'abdicate' for the next boob, just snatch all their scrolls and get your home keeps. You'll probably run into little to no lag, and very few of the native AD are actually good. In fact most of them are readily farmable until Lace sets his foot down, but he himself is a tickle tank. He can take it but he can't dish it out it seems.

jnjdun_ESO · December 2014

It certainly feels like a crisis point to me.

We only have five people that actively play at the moment in the guild that my husband founded at launch with a bunch of our friends, and one of them doesn’t like ESO PvP, so basically that's only four of us left.

The cons are outweighing the pros and the breaking point is on the horizon.

I've even started to peruse the dark age boards again and as much as I don’t like to admit this....I'm probably going to find my lame a$$ on my scout again real soon for my lag free PvP fix. After almost 14 years of playing that game I swore I was done. I should have known better. This one had such high hopes for you, ESO.

And now reading that there is nothing coming for PvP in update 6...

Pixysticks · December 2014

The problem with camps being removed completely is that a lot of times everyone has to spawn in the exact same spot, and the majority of people run to fight in the exact same spot. It's created a lot less spreading out around cyrodiil and has inadvertently promoted clumping up and thus puts more stress on their already laggy server.

Rylana · December 2014

Regarding Aldmeri Vice: Only four of us are active now, and two of those four are unsubbed. At our peak we had about 15.

Regarding TKO: Remember the days on Dawnbreaker when TKO could field 2 (sometimes even three) full raids? Yeah, we are lucky to get 1 full raid on raid nights now, and half a raid on other nights. So many people have quit that I literally have become one of the "old guard". Only a few of us remember the BDG days, most everyone else is new. The list of names, known names, that are gone is so staggering I wouldnt even do it justice by listing them.

And globally, I seem to remember Thornblade having queues of over 200 at points just a couple months ago. I havent seen a queue higher than 10 since October.

The population has dropped, it has literally been cut in half (and thats being conservative), and anyone who doesnt see this is either blind or flat out lying.

morvegil · December 2014

Pixysticks wrote: »

The problem with camps being removed completely is that a lot of times everyone has to spawn in the exact same spot, and the majority of people run to fight in the exact same spot. It's created a lot less spreading out around cyrodiil and has inadvertently promoted clumping up and thus puts more stress on their already laggy server.

umm no

diskiukas · December 2014

WarrioroftheWind_ESO wrote: »

Pathfinder wrote: »

The lag has had a direct effect on the number of PvP hours GnG logs. We don't really mind being outnumbered or rolled as DC, but when DC is close to capturing a keep and *ing lag allows the defenders to repair, it just makes a lot of us want to give up. We can change our tactics against greater numbers, but we cant fight the lag.

Path, please take your guild and beat up AD on Haderus. Don't touch the inner ring or else Lace will 'abdicate' for the next boob, just snatch all their scrolls and get your home keeps. You'll probably run into little to no lag, and very few of the native AD are actually good. In fact most of them are readily farmable until Lace sets his foot down, but he himself is a tickle tank. He can take it but he can't dish it out it seems.

I don't think you are fair to local AD population and saying this out of frustration. You are rarely outnumbered that much and all you can take is resource or two, then you loose them fairly quickly. Local AD ( with some help)managed to defend two DiE attempts to take over and they are actually have better strategy and skill compared to your group -which is few tanking DK's and everyone else is doing pew pew with their bows. Don't be sour loser.

Asgari · December 2014

I know that many of the people I pvp with are activly looking for the next game but nothing is close to being out we would play. So we only play now to goof around and talk to each other. Unfortunately the lag is so atrocious that it's becoming more difficult for players to stick it out and have fun just hanging out.

It amazes me how much they advertised pvp and then took a massive dump on it and left it in the bowl to stink even more.