How to fix the PVP buffs

badmojo · January 2015

First of all, make the buffs inactive until the character achieves tier 1 rewards for the campaign they're homed in.

Secondly, factor in all the campaigns. Conquering their entire home campaign should only reward a player with 25% of their possible buffs. The other 75% would come from conquering the other 3 campaigns.

In essence, no player would ever get full buffs from Cyrodiil unless their alliance can somehow manage to conquer all four campaigns and they have at least tier 1 rewards in their home campaign.

Making these two changes would accomplish a few goals that I see players constantly complaining about.

1. Players would have to at least do a bit of PVP'ing in order to benefit from the buffs.

2. The equal distribution of the buff objectives would encourage people to not all play in one campaign.

3. Less people in one campaign would mean less lag.

4. No more buff servers.

Cody · January 2015

Or, just have no PVP buffs in PvE. they are unneeded.

badmojo · January 2015

Cody wrote: »

Or, just have no PVP buffs in PvE. they are unneeded.

With that logic, we might as well get rid of alliance points all together. Leaderboards, emperors, end of campaign rewards, who needs that stuff?

The point of buffs are to give incentive for players to care about the standing of PVP campaigns. Obviously they're unneeded, because rewards are essentially unneeded by design, but that doesn't mean they add nothing to the game.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

Roechacca · January 2015

Ya I'd go for that . I doubt the PvE players will . Which is unfortunate . Ah who knows maybe some will .

Cody · January 2015

badmojo wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

Or, just have no PVP buffs in PvE. they are unneeded.

With that logic, we might as well get rid of alliance points all together. Leaderboards, emperors, end of campaign rewards, who needs that stuff?

The point of buffs are to give incentive for players to care about the standing of PVP campaigns. Obviously they're unneeded, because rewards are essentially unneeded by design, but that doesn't mean they add nothing to the game.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

Most people only PvP because of the buffs. there is no logical reason for a faction on a "buff server" to summon whole raids to deal with the 6 person hit squad at Farragut mill. If you disagree, then you and I view PvP differently.

PvP buffs are not needed in PvE and need to stay in PvP. That is simply what I think.

Eglath · January 2015

I think buffs should be account based, after long day of pvping on my main, I want to have buffs on my alt too, assuming that change will be implemented.

Pancake-Tragedy · January 2015

badmojo wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

Or, just have no PVP buffs in PvE. they are unneeded.

With that logic, we might as well get rid of alliance points all together. Leaderboards, emperors, end of campaign rewards, who needs that stuff?

The point of buffs are to give incentive for players to care about the standing of PVP campaigns. Obviously they're unneeded, because rewards are essentially unneeded by design, but that doesn't mean they add nothing to the game.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

I agree, the buffs are good as an incentive to promote pvp, but with the ability to have each faction "own" a buff server it makes the point moot. PvE'rs don't really have an incentive to come out and earn their buffs currently.

Instead, I propose we remove 1 or 2 campaigns so that factions can't claim buff servers.

Rylana · January 2015

Its quite simple really, delete azuras star and either haderus or chillrend (pick one)

Then we have 1 30 day and a backup/overflow/competitive short term.

No one will have a buff server anymore.

FluffiestOne · January 2015

You need to have 4 campaigns though. So players that have more than 1 faction toon can home on a campaign. (Even if it isn't a buff server)

EDIT: Forth campaign is for the nonvet campaign.

Pancake-Tragedy · January 2015

I think ZoS should just remove the limitation to home multiple characers from different factions on the same campaign altogether since people just travel to players in their guild/group to bypass it.

FluffiestOne · January 2015

Pancake-Tragedy wrote: »

I think ZoS should just remove the limitation to home multiple characers from different factions on the same campaign altogether since people just travel to players in their guild/group to bypass it.

That would work.

Sacadon · January 2015

What I like about this approach is that there's still a reason for those that prefer to PvE to come to Cyrodiil. Who knows, they may like it. Worst case for us, more AP.

Maybe combo this with the FC removal-till-returns-differently approach. Specifically, remove PvE buffs now and bring them back with a better design.

badmojo · January 2015

Pancake-Tragedy wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

Or, just have no PVP buffs in PvE. they are unneeded.

With that logic, we might as well get rid of alliance points all together. Leaderboards, emperors, end of campaign rewards, who needs that stuff?

The point of buffs are to give incentive for players to care about the standing of PVP campaigns. Obviously they're unneeded, because rewards are essentially unneeded by design, but that doesn't mean they add nothing to the game.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

I agree, the buffs are good as an incentive to promote pvp, but with the ability to have each faction "own" a buff server it makes the point moot. PvE'rs don't really have an incentive to come out and earn their buffs currently.

Instead, I propose we remove 1 or 2 campaigns so that factions can't claim buff servers.

Which is why I suggested these changes, so players will at least have to spend an hour or two pvp'ing in order to get the buffs for that campaigns duration. Also, with splitting the buffs between all the servers, buff servers magically disappear. They're not buff servers anymore because you have all the players from the other two factions coming in and trying to push you out so their buffs improve.

The only reason the buff servers are buff servers currently is because the other two factions don't home there, and they don't benefit from gaining ground there, except of course, for the few players who decide to milk it for AP & campaign rewards. If there was a reason for the masses of AD & EP players in Thorn to guest into Chillrend and push us back, we wouldn't be able to claim it as our buff server anymore. The same goes for Azura's Star and Haderus.

Asgari · January 2015

Allow multiple chats to home on the same campaign but enable a lockout of 4-12 hours for the other chars so there is no cross faction issues.

Keep Thornblade and and one other campaign that's 7-14 days. More than adequate space for the current pvp player base in eso.

With it set like this you can allow buffs to transfer to PvE and no one will have a buff server. You just need to actually work hard to get your buffs and to keep them yours.

badmojo · January 2015

It's a team game, sorry, a faction game. Thornblade shouldn't be the focus of PVP. It's currently that way, and in my opinion it sucks.

Tell me why it's better to have Thornblade 95% full, than it is to have 4 campaigns at 30% capacity?

I outlined a way to keep the campaigns and get rid of buff servers, yet multiple people are still insisting that less campaigns are the best option. I don't get it, are you just selfish and want your server to be the only real option? Because that's how it feels to someone who doesn't strictly play on Thornblade all the time.

Pancake-Tragedy · January 2015

badmojo wrote: »

It's a team game, sorry, a faction game. Thornblade shouldn't be the focus of PVP. It's currently that way, and in my opinion it sucks.

Tell me why it's better to have Thornblade 95% full, than it is to have 4 campaigns at 30% capacity?

I outlined a way to keep the campaigns and get rid of buff servers, yet multiple people are still insisting that less campaigns are the best option. I don't get it, are you just selfish and want your server to be the only real option? Because that's how it feels to someone who doesn't strictly play on Thornblade all the time.

I honestly don't like your idea at all, and I'll tell you why:

1. Having the PvE buffs bound to a "time-gate of pvp" would result in an influx of PvE'rs when they need to "re-up" for their buffs and only stay for that duration to achieve "maximum buff status".
2. You are essentially asking for players to achieve "campaign domination" in order to get all of the buffs. Some players don't like campaign-hopping and would rather invest their time into one campaign and see it through.
3. You would still have buff servers in a sense under this idea. Each faction would have their "designated campaign" that they must defend in order to keep their buffs.

I did most of this already in Guild Wars 2 and it grew stale. It had a similar concept, check it out.

With the option to remove 2 campaigns you acheive:

1. More people condensed to these campaigns.
2. Buffs servers are gone. There is no doubt about it. If you want your buffs you have to get out in Cyrodiil and earn them.
3. That results in a higher PvP population. I don't know about you, but I like a target rich environment.

badmojo · January 2015

Pancake-Tragedy wrote: »

I honestly don't like your idea at all, and I'll tell you why:

1. Having the PvE buffs bound to a "time-gate of pvp" would result in an influx of PvE'rs when they need to "re-up" for their buffs and only stay for that duration to achieve "maximum buff status".
2. You are essentially asking for players to achieve "campaign domination" in order to get all of the buffs. Some players don't like campaign-hopping and would rather invest their time into one campaign and see it through.
3. You would still have buff servers in a sense under this idea. Each faction would have their "designated campaign" that they must defend in order to keep their buffs.

I did most of this already in Guild Wars 2 and it grew stale. It had a similar concept, check it out.

With the option to remove 2 campaigns you acheive:

1. More people condensed to these campaigns.
2. Buffs servers are gone. There is no doubt about it. If you want your buffs you have to get out in Cyrodiil and earn them.
3. That results in a higher PvP population. I don't know about you, but I like a target rich environment.

No, I'm not asking players to hop to every campaign. I'm suggesting a system where full buffs would basically be impossible for an Alliance to gain.

Imagine Thornblade was divided into 4 sections, each buff server turns into the home section for that alliance, the center ring being thornblade itself. Do you think any one alliance would be able to conquer the whole map?

Do you think any alliance could possibly hold all 4 campaigns?

You say the buff servers would still exist. But, wouldn't it be easier to hold 25% of keeps on 4 campaigns then holding 100% on one? I mean, those home keeps are way easier to hold onto than ones you have to ride to. Trying to hold one campaign entirely would leave the other 3 vulnerable. Because if an alliance focuses on just one campaign, the other two alliances could potentially have more buffs from spreading their forces between the other 3 campaigns. The point of my suggestion, is that where ever your alliances is slacking, that's where the other alliances will pick up extra buffs. You can't just focus on one campaign and gain anything of worth.

There are 72 keeps spread across 4 campaigns. Owning 18 of them on one campaign is hardly giving your alliance a buff server. If the other two alliances split the remaining 54, that would give them 9 more keeps than you. Even if the 3 remaining campaigns weren't owned completely by one alliance, they would still have more buffs than your 1 conquered campaign. In short, gaining ground should be what rewards us, instead of rewarding an entire conquest of Cyrodiil.

As far as condensing the campaigns to make Thornblade a "target rich environment", we already have that. I don't like it. Sure, if you just want to complete kill quests, and get lots of AP, it's great. But, I've had way more fun in smaller scaled battles on the so called buff servers. It's hard to feel like you're participating in meaningful pvp action, when there are so many players jammed into one laggy area.

About 50 on 50 would be the best battles I've been a part of. Anything more just exaggerates the problems that exist in ESO. Removing all but 2 campaigns would pretty much ruin PVP in ESO for me.

Cody · January 2015

badmojo wrote: »

It's a team game, sorry, a faction game. Thornblade shouldn't be the focus of PVP. It's currently that way, and in my opinion it sucks.

Tell me why it's better to have Thornblade 95% full, than it is to have 4 campaigns at 30% capacity?

I outlined a way to keep the campaigns and get rid of buff servers, yet multiple people are still insisting that less campaigns are the best option. I don't get it, are you just selfish and want your server to be the only real option? Because that's how it feels to someone who doesn't strictly play on Thornblade all the time.

I don't agree with you because I just want the buffs out of PvE. However, not including that, I would be open to your theory. I just want buffs servers out of ESO, as they are a plague on the game.

Rylana · January 2015

Pancake-Tragedy wrote: »

I think ZoS should just remove the limitation to home multiple characers from different factions on the same campaign altogether since people just travel to players in their guild/group to bypass it.

The only possible problem then would be guilds farming alts, since everyone is on a leaderboard then.

Not that it doesnt happen already, but it would stand to get much worse.

badmojo · January 2015

Or how about they actually put in measures to enforce the rule about joining campaigns you already have alts homed on. If they just take the code from the homing and guesting process and apply it to traveling to player, the rule might make more sense.