What's the most competitive NA campaign these days?

Blud · February 2015

Seems like TB is still locked into the same pattern as it's been for months:

1 EP
2 AD
3 DC

Are there are less zergy campaigns you like that don't have a predictable outcome every time?

WraithAzraiel · February 2015

Nope, not really. All the other campaigns are buff servers or empty.

Vizier · February 2015

TB is really the only one that matters. The rest are fluff IMO.

Guilds that can't compete on Thornblade end up bailing for Chill or Haderus. If you like a challenge and root for the underdog then TB - DC Cov is right for you.

Tandor · February 2015

So if a non-PvPer wants to visit Cyrodil for the skyshards and quests, avoid TB?

Is that also the case on the EU server?

Blud · February 2015

Tandor wrote: »

So if a non-PvPer wants to visit Cyrodil for the skyshards and quests, avoid TB?

Is that also the case on the EU server?

I don't know about EU, but on NA the skyshards are pretty much out of the way of pvp. I have never seen pvp around a skyshard since after the first month of release. They are in delves and other places. The pvp happens around keeps and towers and in the transit lines between them.

The rest of Cyro is irrelevant to most pvpers.

However, if you definitely don't want to see any pvp to pick up your skyshards, just go to your faction's buff server. Still there is no guarantee you won't get ganked, but it's very unlikely if you stay out of the transit lanes.

Tandor · February 2015

Thanks Blud.

McDoogs · February 2015

Chillrend is actually pretty competitive lately, and far less zergy. I believe there is ~4 days left in the current campaign and all three alliances are within a couple thousand points of each other. DC > EP > AD right now but until yesterday EP was ahead. It's definitely not a 'buff server' anymore.

TB is terrible for DC imo. Everytime I pop in there we are pushed back to the gates. Not even fun.

Blud · February 2015

Yeah, EP is doing what they do best with the red zerg. I am in TB right now (dead) because it was 5x1 EP v AD.

It's really frustrating. I feel sorry for DC. The only ones I ever see are a few of the same guys who snipe at us when we try to hit EP.

I guess it's fun enough for EP though, but I honestly can't understand why.

I'm talking about what NA calls the night shift. EP has three bars of pop, we have two and DC has one.

TheBull · February 2015

There are non. The majority of the population is waiting for 1.6.

kevlarto_ESO · February 2015

There really is none with the population imbalance like it is they will almost always have the same outcome

Blud · February 2015

nevermind

Fivefivesix · February 2015

I agree with TheBull. People are waiting for 1.6 to drop so expect to see less pop

LonePirate · February 2015

McDoogs wrote: »

TB is terrible for DC imo. Everytime I pop in there we are pushed back to the gates. Not even fun.

You obviously did not log in this morning as DC held everything from the gates to Chalman. I think they also held Ash and Brindle but I am not certain of that. Last night DC even held Roe for a while. In fact, DC has held their own scrolls and the Glademist/Rayles/Warden trio for several days now. I don't think you have visited Thorn recently.

Blud wrote: »

Yeah, EP is doing what they do best with the red zerg. I am in TB right now (dead) because it was 5x1 EP v AD.

Hmmm... I could have sworn AD held BRK around this time as I logged in for hireling mail right around then. What an awful disadvantage that must be for AD to play on a dead server against larger EP forces while owning an EP home keep. No wonder you hate it!

Soulshine · February 2015

Try checking here

LonePirate · February 2015

Soulshine wrote: »

Try checking here

That site is hardly reliable any more as all of the information on it right now for the NA campaigns is at least a week old.

Soulshine · February 2015

LonePirate wrote: »

Soulshine wrote: »

Try checking here

That site is hardly reliable any more as all of the information on it right now for the NA campaigns is at least a week old.

14 and 30 day campaigns are listed, aside from 7 day. People update there quite often, and it is often exactly what you find in game. Just posing it as an additional source for people to know about.

Blud · February 2015

LonePirate wrote: »

Blud wrote: »

Yeah, EP is doing what they do best with the red zerg. I am in TB right now (dead) because it was 5x1 EP v AD.

Hmmm... I could have sworn AD held BRK around this time as I logged in for hireling mail right around then. What an awful disadvantage that must be for AD to play on a dead server against larger EP forces while owning an EP home keep. No wonder you hate it!

Yeah, we did cap BRK and I left right after that.

I saw DC pushing a little bit earlier.

But still the point remains. This is the most competitive server we have and there won't be any surprises at the end of the campaign.

LMar · February 2015

Tandor wrote: »

So if a non-PvPer wants to visit Cyrodil for the skyshards and quests, avoid TB?

Is that also the case on the EU server?

Thornblade is very active on the EU server. AD was winning the last couple of months but this month it is last. So there are some changes.

Other campaigns are more sedate. We guested in Haderus for our Guild Cyrodiil PvE event with great success and little lag.

Ixtyr · February 2015

Chillrend is a bit zergish and unorganized for all three factions, and basically has turned into a straight-up Emp-flipping server. That said, score-wise it's probably the most balanced server right now.

Thornblade is just a mess.

Honestly, the developers need to change how server-swapping works. It shouldn't even be an option, or at the very least the cost needs to be astronomically higher. And you shouldn't be allowed to earn ANY Alliance Points in Guest campaigns (guesting still shouldn't even be a thing either). The ability to switch servers back and forth leads to entire guilds bouncing in and out of campaigns 24/7 to artificially flip Emperor and destroy whatever shred of population balance could ever exist. It ruins the entire experience.

I play Daggerfall Covenant exclusively, and I love it, I enjoy being the underdog, being outnumbered, and managing to get a small group together to still manage to beat zergs. It's an absolute blast. That's why I chose DC at launch. What I don't love, in fact what I hate, is when a campaign is balanced (say, 2 bars for each faction) and the fight is going well, fairly even, and then having one faction from Thornblade (or back near launch when it was Auriel's Bow or Wabbajack) get 2-3 guilds to take literally everyone out of that campaign, into the new one, to just troll people all night long and leave after 6 hours. That's not enjoyable, and frankly it generally results in me logging out for the night until they leave and we can get back to a good, balanced PvP experience. I swear, if guesting was removed and you couldn't easily switch your Home, and ZOS could finally figure out some way to just have 1-2 campaigns that will always be full, Cyrodiil would be infinitely better. Heck, I'd wait in an hour-long queue for a truly balanced server if I had to, it's better than the BS we've been dealing with for the past several months.

Blud · February 2015

Ixtyr wrote: »

Chillrend is a bit zergish and unorganized for all three factions, and basically has turned into a straight-up Emp-flipping server. That said, score-wise it's probably the most balanced server right now.

Thornblade is just a mess.

Honestly, the developers need to change how server-swapping works. It shouldn't even be an option, or at the very least the cost needs to be astronomically higher. And you shouldn't be allowed to earn ANY Alliance Points in Guest campaigns (guesting still shouldn't even be a thing either). The ability to switch servers back and forth leads to entire guilds bouncing in and out of campaigns 24/7 to artificially flip Emperor and destroy whatever shred of population balance could ever exist. It ruins the entire experience.

I play Daggerfall Covenant exclusively, and I love it, I enjoy being the underdog, being outnumbered, and managing to get a small group together to still manage to beat zergs. It's an absolute blast. That's why I chose DC at launch. What I don't love, in fact what I hate, is when a campaign is balanced (say, 2 bars for each faction) and the fight is going well, fairly even, and then having one faction from Thornblade (or back near launch when it was Auriel's Bow or Wabbajack) get 2-3 guilds to take literally everyone out of that campaign, into the new one, to just troll people all night long and leave after 6 hours. That's not enjoyable, and frankly it generally results in me logging out for the night until they leave and we can get back to a good, balanced PvP experience. I swear, if guesting was removed and you couldn't easily switch your Home, and ZOS could finally figure out some way to just have 1-2 campaigns that will always be full, Cyrodiil would be infinitely better. Heck, I'd wait in an hour-long queue for a truly balanced server if I had to, it's better than the BS we've been dealing with for the past several months.

I absolutely agree with you.

I don't like the way the campaigns are used/abused as buff servers or for emp farming. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I would like to hear something from ZOS that shows they are considering how campaigns work and what the intended or desired situation would be.

technohic · February 2015

Ixtyr wrote: »

Chillrend is a bit zergish and unorganized for all three factions, and basically has turned into a straight-up Emp-flipping server. That said, score-wise it's probably the most balanced server right now.

Thornblade is just a mess.

Honestly, the developers need to change how server-swapping works. It shouldn't even be an option, or at the very least the cost needs to be astronomically higher. And you shouldn't be allowed to earn ANY Alliance Points in Guest campaigns (guesting still shouldn't even be a thing either). The ability to switch servers back and forth leads to entire guilds bouncing in and out of campaigns 24/7 to artificially flip Emperor and destroy whatever shred of population balance could ever exist. It ruins the entire experience.

I play Daggerfall Covenant exclusively, and I love it, I enjoy being the underdog, being outnumbered, and managing to get a small group together to still manage to beat zergs. It's an absolute blast. That's why I chose DC at launch. What I don't love, in fact what I hate, is when a campaign is balanced (say, 2 bars for each faction) and the fight is going well, fairly even, and then having one faction from Thornblade (or back near launch when it was Auriel's Bow or Wabbajack) get 2-3 guilds to take literally everyone out of that campaign, into the new one, to just troll people all night long and leave after 6 hours. That's not enjoyable, and frankly it generally results in me logging out for the night until they leave and we can get back to a good, balanced PvP experience. I swear, if guesting was removed and you couldn't easily switch your Home, and ZOS could finally figure out some way to just have 1-2 campaigns that will always be full, Cyrodiil would be infinitely better. Heck, I'd wait in an hour-long queue for a truly balanced server if I had to, it's better than the BS we've been dealing with for the past several months.

I disagree with not giving AP on guest campaigns. Chillrend was my home campaign from like August or sometime before that. Not sure why I chose it then. I left the game for months then finally came back and leveled go top VR levels for the first time ever. While leveling (DC since launch), I saw the benefits of buffs most of the time and most of the time when I looked at it, seemed DC was always most populated. Maybe then it seemed like even fights? I don't know; I wasn't there. What I do know is the highest pop alliance always thinks the population balance is fine. Everyone else seemed to view Chillrend as a DC PvEer buff server when I checked around once dinging VR14, and thats why some guilds probably come to "just troll people."

So; I decided to go where I see the most people, with all factions at least being cap locked every now and then and since I am broke, I have had to guest which is what you don't want to happen. That would have been disappointing for me if I couldn't have done so. I've had the privilege to run with a couple of really good DC guilds that hold their own against the zergs. Sometimes it can be overwhelming but if people actually joined us more and kept DC as equally pop locked, that would be our best bet at having even sides. Not hiding in a 2 bar each campaign and expecting it somehow to stay even.

thelordoffelines · February 2015

If by competitive you mean the winner isnt predictable or you wont face frequent night caps? No.
If by competitive you mean you can get some good fights in then chillrend has some good fights, I hear haderus has some good fights. Chillrend was poplocked for ep and dc and three bars ad yesterday. So just make friends with the travel to player tool and explore campaigns.

Ixtyr · February 2015

technohic wrote: »

I disagree with not giving AP on guest campaigns. Chillrend was my home campaign from like August or sometime before that. Not sure why I chose it then. I left the game for months then finally came back and leveled go top VR levels for the first time ever. While leveling (DC since launch), I saw the benefits of buffs most of the time and most of the time when I looked at it, seemed DC was always most populated. Maybe then it seemed like even fights? I don't know; I wasn't there. What I do know is the highest pop alliance always thinks the population balance is fine. Everyone else seemed to view Chillrend as a DC PvEer buff server when I checked around once dinging VR14, and thats why some guilds probably come to "just troll people."

So; I decided to go where I see the most people, with all factions at least being cap locked every now and then and since I am broke, I have had to guest which is what you don't want to happen. That would have been disappointing for me if I couldn't have done so. I've had the privilege to run with a couple of really good DC guilds that hold their own against the zergs. Sometimes it can be overwhelming but if people actually joined us more and kept DC as equally pop locked, that would be our best bet at having even sides. Not hiding in a 2 bar each campaign and expecting it somehow to stay even.

So, for your first point, yes, it was a "buff" campaign. As was Haderus for AD and Azura's Star for EP (plus they tend to own Thorn). People came in to troll players - which is true, and I actually participated in going to other factions' buff campaigns just to break them up where possible. I think that was a good thing, because they shouldn't exist in the first place. It ruins PvP.

To the second point, again, I'm not disagreeing with you. Playing with friends and finding competitive PvP is what the goal of the PvP system should be. My argument is that the current iteration of Guesting and having multiple worthless campaigns that serve purely as buff servers is terrible, unenjoyable design and it needs to be changed. If I had it my way, Chillrend wouldn't exist. Nor would Haderus, or Azura's Star. I guess we could keep Blackwater for lower level characters, but honestly it could go away as well. I want everyone on one campaign. Unfortunately server stability and tech won't seem to let that happen, at least without awful queue times (apparently I'm told AD/EP get long queues for Thorn right now, something we never see in DC).

If anything, make the cost a LOT higher to move. ZOS has to start seriously discouraging campaign swapping and the whole Travel-to-Player BS. It makes for horrible gameplay experiences.

thelordoffelines wrote: »

If by competitive you mean the winner isnt predictable or you wont face frequent night caps? No.
If by competitive you mean you can get some good fights in then chillrend has some good fights, I hear haderus has some good fights. Chillrend was poplocked for ep and dc and three bars ad yesterday. So just make friends with the travel to player tool and explore campaigns.

By competitive I moreso meant the latter. Recently Chillrend has been more competitive than usual, as in there's more fights and despite the fact that DC still wins it, EP and AD scores are a lot closer now than they were a few months ago (when they literally did nothing whatsoever).

---

Honestly, having these multiple campaigns lessens the experience with PvP for me. As a DC player, I feel less and less like a Covenant fighter than I do a "Chillrend" Covenant fighter or a "Thornblade" Covenant fighter. It feels less epic and it seems awful to me that DC winning one campaign doesn't change the fact that we still lost in others. Perhaps if all campaigns counted towards an aggregate somehow? But then, that would probably lead to more farming and abuse as well. Ugh. You can never win with this.

Blud · February 2015

Ixtyr wrote: »

Honestly, having these multiple campaigns lessens the experience with PvP for me. As a DC player, I feel less and less like a Covenant fighter than I do a "Chillrend" Covenant fighter or a "Thornblade" Covenant fighter. It feels less epic and it seems awful to me that DC winning one campaign doesn't change the fact that we still lost in others. Perhaps if all campaigns counted towards an aggregate somehow? But then, that would probably lead to more farming and abuse as well. Ugh. You can never win with this.

I don't want to give up hope.

I know people will always "exploit" systems and there will always be a debate about whether something is working as intended and issues about what the tech can allow. I think there is some great potential with Cyro, but have no idea what ZOS is thinking about it or what they may have learned since release.

As AD, I'm literally in the middle. I wouldn't re-roll as EP because I can't see how that would be fun at all. And to roll DC would be like going from bad to worse, in some ways, due to lack of active pvp population at present. Plus, my guild is great and I will stay with them as long as they play. They are not inclined to cut and run.

Sheuib · February 2015

I like the system the way it is now. Yes we need the multiple campaigns simply because there is to many people for one campaign. I am in a good PVP guild and there is no way we could do a guild event in TB. We would never be able to get all the people in the guild in that campaign. Additionally, all the so called buff servers have all become pretty competitive. Simply because PVP guilds want to be able to run a guild event with everyone in it and not a lot of lag. I am in an AD PVP guild and we always have a good time when we go to the other servers because it does get competitive. It is always a matter of what the other factions want to do. Do they want to defend their "buff" server or let us take it. And, DC in chillrend has been the best at defending their buff server. If we did a guild event in chillrend within 30 minutes they would be there in force and organized.

For the most part guilds are not going to other servers to "troll" people. They are looking for a fight. We usually run 2 large groups and have had as many as 4 large groups. We would never be able to get those kind of numbers into TB. Yes it is more fun when you are winning but we have fought plenty of losing battles and stuck it out. We have gone to defend and just lost because we do not have the numbers.

If you want to get rid of the buff server situation then get rid of the buffs. Leave the servers because yes we need that many servers. At most get rid of one. Because you can't have organized PVP if you can't get your whole organization on the server.

You can tell when you are going up against an organized group or some pugs or worse even a bunch of people all solo. And, the fights are really fun when it starts to be an organized group against another organized group. Tactics and strategy really start to play a part when that happens. Not just zerging. So if you want to fight the zerg get organized, get on team speak, make leaders, follow the leaders, make battle plans, if the plans aren't working change them, etc..

Blud · February 2015

Sheuib wrote: »

You can tell when you are going up against an organized group or some pugs or worse even a bunch of people all solo. And, the fights are really fun when it starts to be an organized group against another organized group. Tactics and strategy really start to play a part when that happens. Not just zerging. So if you want to fight the zerg get organized, get on team speak, make leaders, follow the leaders, make battle plans, if the plans aren't working change them, etc..

Do you guys just play NA prime time?

Send your organized groups over to TB if you have any night owls, so we can roll back the big red zerg.

Roechacca · February 2015

In my opinion , Thornblade is the testing ground for consistent pvp groups . You can always find a fight and the dynamic of the map change appears the most noticeable there .

Sheuib · February 2015

Blud wrote: »

Sheuib wrote: »

You can tell when you are going up against an organized group or some pugs or worse even a bunch of people all solo. And, the fights are really fun when it starts to be an organized group against another organized group. Tactics and strategy really start to play a part when that happens. Not just zerging. So if you want to fight the zerg get organized, get on team speak, make leaders, follow the leaders, make battle plans, if the plans aren't working change them, etc..

Do you guys just play NA prime time?

Send your organized groups over to TB if you have any night owls, so we can roll back the big red zerg.

Yeah, we normally just play during prime time. We typically start around 6 or 7 pm eastern. That is why we can't play on TB because it will be locked then.