Keeping zergs away from IC

Bromburak · July 2015

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Just make sure your alliance holds at least 1 home keeps of both enemies factions.
No enemies will enter Imperial City and you can PVE in peace.

Nope, we gonna park our alts in IC.

->

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote:

Once you're inside IC or the Sewers, you can log out and log back in there to your hearts content, even if you lose Access in rule-sets where it's gated by Keep ownership.

If guilds play smart they log all alts in IC and log in together and have some fun with spreaded PvE guys.
That was pretty awesome in DAOC , you never knew how many opponents still left in Darkness Falls and when they might log in.

Takllin · July 2015

Bromburak wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Just make sure your alliance holds at least 1 home keeps of both enemies factions.
No enemies will enter Imperial City and you can PVE in peace.

Nope, we gonna park our alts in IC.

->

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote:

Once you're inside IC or the Sewers, you can log out and log back in there to your hearts content, even if you lose Access in rule-sets where it's gated by Keep ownership.

If guilds play smart they log all alts in IC and log in together and have some fun with spreaded PvE guys.
That was pretty awesome in DAOC , you never knew how many opponents still left in Darkness Falls and when they might log in.

Only works if you are in a campaign that isn't at population cap, otherwise you will be removed and ported back to where you were before you came into Cyro.

CN_Daniel · July 2015

I'm taking a week off work and buying a case of Redbull. ALALALALAL

Bromburak · July 2015

Takllin wrote: »

Bromburak wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Just make sure your alliance holds at least 1 home keeps of both enemies factions.
No enemies will enter Imperial City and you can PVE in peace.

Nope, we gonna park our alts in IC.

->

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote:

Once you're inside IC or the Sewers, you can log out and log back in there to your hearts content, even if you lose Access in rule-sets where it's gated by Keep ownership.

If guilds play smart they log all alts in IC and log in together and have some fun with spreaded PvE guys.
That was pretty awesome in DAOC , you never knew how many opponents still left in Darkness Falls and when they might log in.

Only works if you are in a campaign that isn't at population cap, otherwise you will be removed and ported back to where you were before you came into Cyro.

Where does this come from? My last information is that we have overflows for non regular logouts (disconnects) so that you can come back. Thats why you should never log out and hit Alt + F4 instead.

Takllin · July 2015

Bromburak wrote: »

Takllin wrote: »

Bromburak wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Just make sure your alliance holds at least 1 home keeps of both enemies factions.
No enemies will enter Imperial City and you can PVE in peace.

Nope, we gonna park our alts in IC.

->

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote:

Once you're inside IC or the Sewers, you can log out and log back in there to your hearts content, even if you lose Access in rule-sets where it's gated by Keep ownership.

If guilds play smart they log all alts in IC and log in together and have some fun with spreaded PvE guys.
That was pretty awesome in DAOC , you never knew how many opponents still left in Darkness Falls and when they might log in.

Only works if you are in a campaign that isn't at population cap, otherwise you will be removed and ported back to where you were before you came into Cyro.

Where does this come from? My last information is that we have overflows for non regular logouts (disconnects) so that you can come back. Thats why you should never log out and hit Alt + F4 instead.

Well if you wanted to cheat the system that way then yeah I suppose it would work, but not everyone knows about it.

They could just add some code in to fix it eventually as that defeats the whole purpose of the need to hold X amount of keeps to enter IC.

MrGhosty · July 2015

When looking at the way TV stones drop, it would actually be more advantageous for zergs to break themselves up into four man squads and then coordinate via voice coms. When a killing blow is struck, the stones granted are split evenly or provide a jackpot randomly if the number is uneven.

The dis-incentive for Zergs is already in place, if you kill the boss that drops four hundred stones with a 24 man raid each player would get roughly 16 stones. If you have split into small individual squads, only the killing blow will grant stones to one group and that would require players to either spread out or swallow getting fewer stones by being grouped in one large group.

Of course, the truly dedicated guilds/groups that communicate well over voice chat could easily claim control of an entire district just by calling out spawn locations and having some squads running crowd control or overwatch to defend from gankers. So even if a four man limit were put in place, this would really only stop pug zergs from being formed. I don't know about any of you but I'm far more concerned with coordinated zergs than random pug groups.

Honestly, this should have been a free update and without the restrictions of "well I paid for this so my demands are much more legit than yours" ZOS would have been in a better position (from a PR standpoint) to adjust the IC as needs demanded once it got out into the wild.

Now if one was to apply a critical eye to how the IC is designed, it would be common sense for them to then say that IC was not designed to be zerg friendly. That critical eye would be wrong because Zergs can potentially have the highest stone yield rate AND protection from camping gankers despite the way the city was designed. At the end of the day most players will always do what provides the best cost vs profit rate. This is all just wild speculation at this point until we see how it all really plays out but I'm not sure it will be the results ZOS expects.

Bromburak · July 2015

Honestly, this should have been a free update and without the restrictions of "well I paid for this so my demands are much more legit than yours" ZOS would have been in a better position (from a PR standpoint) to adjust the IC as needs demanded once it got out into the wild.

A better position? You are funny, most ESO plus would leave the game right away.
Imo IC is the appreciation for game supporters. How it should be in every game.

Jules · July 2015

Ahzek wrote: »

@Jules I can see what you are saying an i find myself agreeing with you to a certain extent. Those attributes you mention are definetly a part of being a contributing member of a group and are a determining factor to the raids success.

However i feel like all these attributes are needed more when trying to successfully play solo/small scale, since you cant rely on other players to make up for your mistakes as it definetly is the case in larger groups.

Also while that is still the case sadly those huge unorganized zergs, which I fear we will also see in IC, are equally dangerous to the solo/small scale player as the organized guild groups, since they leave him no room to retaliate and these zergs require about as much skill as cooking water and provide the perfect refuge for those players that are not willing to learn or improve but instead keep playing their perfectly safe minigame where the only thing that threatens them are other zergs and organized groups. This of course annoys me, when i die to them, since I always have the feeling that i could have taken them apart one by one, but in cyro that is usually no an issue to me and quickly forgotten.

And thats all fine for me in the long run, people prefer different playstyles and they definetly all take a certain extent of skill to pull off. Some just simply demand more of the player than others.
Nonetheless i dont want these large groups in the Imperial City. In open PvP I can avoid them (if not the lag they sometimes bring), I circle around them, pick of the randoms on the edge, etc.. In IC that simply wont be possible. The place is too small and filled with Daedra that there is not enough room to efficiently manouver around a huge group of players sticking together and chasing down all in sight.

In the end it comes down how IC at the moment seems to favor those large groups even more than it is the case usually.
If nothing is done against them the safest and thus most reliable way to gain stones will be clumping up in a tight ball. Unless you truly get wiped by a more skilled/bigger group you run into virtually no risk, and such encounters between big groups leave the small scale players in the dirt, fighting about scratches and getting casually blown apart by the bigger mob steamrolling through.
Thats not something i want to spend my time with. I wish ( and I think thats what ZOS envisioned to a certain extent, though noone can be sure ), that I can go to IC to find small and engaging fights with the constant risk of being attacked by enemy forces throught the tight layout of the city. And i believe that that will not be possible with 24 man zergs rolling through the capital.
In fact even a 8 man group limit would still be fine by me, allowing somewhat larger groups to work for a common goal, but still excluding the zerglings from mindlessly farming their stones without any risk involved.

I agree. Pvp should never be without risk as this is the essence of the game. I do not want to play with no risk present to myself or my group. This is boring. However, I still don't agree with 8 mans because I don't think it solves the problem. The solo/small man needs something to combat large groups. Something other than siege.

Why? Because it just isn't fair. And you're right, in IC if you are standing against my group or any organized guild, if you can't hide, or escape, you're gonna die. It's just that simple. There likely isn't one solo player in the game (short of maybe Emperor Meth) who could really make any difference to my group if he stood alone.

I think that if they work prox det in the right way, you will feel yourself having some legitimacy against these groups. Now I don't think solo players should be able to wipe groups of 24, because it's just impractical. But if you can pick off some players in a large group, you can cause some slight disarray, maybe drop an oil or fire ballista. It would take coordination but it could happen.

I'm in favor of this because I don't want to pvdoor and roll over plebs. I want engaging and challenging fights. I think prox det scaling off of how many people it's hitting might give you some bang for your buck, and allow people who want to play in raid-style PVP still do what they love.

k2blader · July 2015

A guild of people all in the same TS can run multiple 4-man groups and still communicate ya know...

Muizer · July 2015

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Bromburak · July 2015

Jules wrote: »

The solo/small man needs something to combat large groups.

Skill.

IxSTALKERxI · July 2015

Capping the group size at four is just another 'band-aid' fix. You need to get rid of the incentive to zerg, not just make it more difficult to organise through grouping. Atm I still think there is potential for zergs to earn a high rate of Telvar Stones, if there was some sort of diminishing returns for large numbers on top of having to share the Telvar Stones with everyone, then people would have no reason to zerg IC. The other factor is the fact that stacking large numbers adds enormous survivability in terms of heals and barriers but that isn't really something that can be fixed since it's caused by a lot of the core game abilities and design.

I have no problem with organised group play, I've been doing that myself since wabbajack. I just think that type of playstyle should be more prevalent in the current AVA content such as open field, keep fights / objectives and not run around ruining peoples experience in imperial city. Imperial city is a great opportunity for 8-12 mans and solo players to shine.

ewhite106b16_ESO · July 2015

k2blader wrote: »

A guild of people all in the same TS can run multiple 4-man groups and still communicate ya know...

Multiple four man groups are vastly more difficult to co-ordinate then a 24 man group with a big compass pointer showing where crown (group leader) is. These smaller groups would also need to spread out more within the same IC district or over multiple districts because they couldn't share TV stones on a kill. Running a "PVP train" or massive blob of 24 players wouldn't work due to both lack of a single "crown" to follow and TV stones not being shared with the whole group.

Running 2-3 4 man groups in running distance of one another is realistic but that size makes for much better pvp and again even those players couldn't minimize the risk and steamroll by being in one big lump.

Kronosphere · July 2015

I think if more than 4 people assisted in your death no tel var stones are dropped or alot less are dropped would hugely discourage zerging. whether the attackers are grouped or otherwise. thoughts?

eg if u get killed by 4 people you drop 100% stones. if you are killed by more you only drop 50-25% of your total and pocket the rest. (Scaling based as number arose perhaps somekind of sweetspot for the attackers?)

number are just placeholders but something like this.

alternatively and i dont think this would discourage nearly as much as the 1st. spread telvar stones based on damage. you did 92% of the damage? you get 92% of the drops. Also, there should be a delay on receiving tel var stones on a kill. so if i manage to take out a few guys 1v10 then die. sure i lose all my stones, but when i respawn i will receive the stones dropped from the 2 guys i managed to take out. possibly a net profit. stick it to the zergs!

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

xaraan · July 2015

ZoS has not been able to do anything about zergs in a year, they aren't suddenly going to start listening now. But if they don't see the "risk/reward" part of T. Stones will be broken by zergs that have virtually no risk for whatever reward they get, they never will. We see the same thing with AP, it doesn't stop them from zerging up because they know that they will win most every fight by doing so and even if they reward is smaller per kill, it adds up and they have little to no risk of losing their gains. There have been several great ideas for eliminating zerging and they've done little with those ideas. Even the "good" guilds in pvp run 24+ deep (even to fight five people) so you know it will continue in IC.

Lava_Croft · July 2015

Zergs are a part of ESO PvP, the game advertises with 'hundreds of players on screen', the group size is designed for it and the Imperial City should cater to it just as it should cater to small group play.

Basically like Cyrodiil now.

ewhite106b16_ESO · July 2015

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Zergs are a part of ESO PvP, the game advertises with 'hundreds of players on screen', the group size is designed for it and the Imperial City should cater to it just as it should cater to small group play.

Basically like Cyrodiil now.

Zergs can stay in the rest of Cyrodil, the game needs variation in the types of PVP offered. Incidentally, having hundreds of players in the same-ish area (eg 1 keep + environs) doesn't necessarilyl lead to stale PVP based around blobs of players and PVP trains. The problem is current game meta + the way objectives like keeps are configured encourage players to gather in huge blobs rather then splitting forces to take multiple objectives - Planetside 1 and to some extent 2 were excellent examples of games where large forces had to split up to conquer multiple sub-objectives within an overall large one. Having a large number of players spread out in smaller groups within a base/keep opens up alot of opportunities for small, skilled squads to make a big impact on the battle.

Lava_Croft · July 2015

ewhite106b16_ESO wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Zergs are a part of ESO PvP, the game advertises with 'hundreds of players on screen', the group size is designed for it and the Imperial City should cater to it just as it should cater to small group play.

Basically like Cyrodiil now.

Zergs can stay in the rest of Cyrodil, the game needs variation in the types of PVP offered.

There's more than enough variation in PvP all over Cyrodiil, just like there should be in the Imperial City.

Ahzek · July 2015

@IxSTALKERxI Actually reducing maximum group size DOES attack the incentive to zerg. Players want TV stones. Being part of a 24man train gets you TV stones, while at a relatively slow rate with almost no risk present. We cant take away the no risk aspect from large groups atm, unless they do something good with deto, but reducing groups size to 4 will make it so only 1/6 players of a zerg ever will be rewarded for steamrolling someone, directly affecting the TV stone gains of the indivivual players to a point where they might rather slipt up,to farm their stones.

Septimus_Magna · July 2015

Jules wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Just make sure your alliance holds at least 1 home keeps of both enemies factions.
No enemies will enter Imperial City and you can PVE in peace.

imo its a nightmare waiting to happen for them to mix pve & pvp.

Im still curious how much of a mix it will actually be, especially in the beginning.

Most players will simply joint the campaign which is dominated by their alliance, this will make it hard for enemies alliances to get all the home keeps and enter Imperial City. Even if enemy factions enter, they would be greatly outnumbered.

This could be interesting for organized pvp groups^^
Not so much for unorganized pve groups though..

IxSTALKERxI · July 2015

Ahzek wrote: »

@IxSTALKERxI Actually reducing maximum group size DOES attack the incentive to zerg. Players want TV stones. Being part of a 24man train gets you TV stones, while at a relatively slow rate with almost no risk present. We cant take away the no risk aspect from large groups atm, unless they do something good with deto, but reducing groups size to 4 will make it so only 1/6 players of a zerg ever will be rewarded for steamrolling someone, directly affecting the TV stone gains of the indivivual players to a point where they might rather slipt up,to farm their stones.

Yeah you have a point there. There are still a couple of problems with the idea though. We are yet to see how hard the big bosses are, they could require more than four people to kill so limiting group size to four in particular may not really suit the content. Also as a guild, if you were the person getting all the TV stones, you could buy the rewards and share with the other guild members that were healing you etc but weren't in your particular group. I can't speak for other guilds, but the members of the guild I am in are trustworthy and all work together as a team so if we wanted to we could easily share the purchased rewards with each other circumventing any group restrictions.

strikeback1247 · July 2015

Someone actually had an interesting idea: If you are killed by a large group of players, you lose less stones. So if there are more players that assisted with the kill, you lose less stones and they get less stones. This decreases the incentive to zerg because of less stones and it isn't as bad to die to a large group of players.

IxSTALKERxI · July 2015

strikeback1247 wrote: »

Someone actually had an interesting idea: If you are killed by a large group of players, you lose less stones. So if there are more players that assisted with the kill, you lose less stones and they get less stones. This decreases the incentive to zerg because of less stones and it isn't as bad to die to a large group of players.

Yep, I like this idea.

technohic · July 2015

ThePonzzz wrote: »

Add friendly fire to Cyrodiil. Boom, zergs gone.

That will be great in IC. Might as well just get rid of factions and make it a free for all because at least then, we will know where we all stand.

HobnailedBoots · July 2015

The problem with threads like these is that the posters within seem to get this idea in their head that their complaint is a real problem and that others who share their opinion make up some kind of majority when in reality the vast majority like the current setup just fine and the whiners are a tiny minority.

They will never reduce PvP group sizes to four, nor should they. Stop whining.

WoodyM8te · July 2015

I don't think this is definitely necessary depending on what zenimax do with the group finder tool and how they control the populations from each faction. If the populations stay somewhat equal and if they brought in a zone chat in order to quickly post lfg IC and whatever your objective is or if they figured something out with the gf tool to help get in groups suitable for in IC making it easier for anyone to get in those bigger groups without having to try and start it yourself and wait at a wayshrine spamming invite to group it would be good

Flynch · July 2015

Just have a huge killable but tough as nails raid-boss style NPC, that uses AoE, spawn in from a random anchor when the local comb-engaged player population gets over a certain threshold. It'll spice things up and make people reconsider charging their zerg into combat!

I'm sure it has plenty of flaws, but I quite like the idea :P

TheMavShow · July 2015

Putting Cyrodiil in a more confined area with monsters and then thats with the chance of MAYBE you getting to even get into IMP because of the unbalanced map.... *breathes* It will be great!!!

Seriously though. This is rediculous.

AssaultLemming · July 2015

markgd88nrb18_ESO wrote: »

There's already an incentive not to have larger groups: diminishing returns.

The stones are shared amongst the group, the more players the smaller your slice of the pie. You may very well be safe in a 10, 15, 20, 9001+ group, but you'll have jack shite to show for it.

No need to limit group sizes, the devs have done the work already.

That's not diminishing returns. Diminishing returns would be if 1 person kills one person they get 100 stones and if ten people kill 1 person they each get 5 stones. That would be diminishing returns.

DisgracefulMind · July 2015

All the players in this thread who play in large groups are crying that it isn't fair to limit group numbers in IC because this game shouldn't limit choices. While I understand that, you are all being entirely hypocritical. If I choose to play solo or small group play, then why should I be entirely cut off from having that option? Currently, open world PvP leaves me as a solo player at a higher disadvantage than group players. Do I complain? Of course not. I enjoy what I do, and my option is there. But it saddens me that 24-man group supporters are so against giving smaller scale combat a chance to be a thing. I'm sorry, it's unrealistic to the entire design of IC, including the TV stone drops, for a group of 24 people (that's TWO RAIDS) to be running down hallways spamming AoEs. That will kill incentive for almost everyone to be in there. Sure, this game's OPEN WORLD, aka the Cyrodiil map, is designed for large scale PvP. That's fine, all of the solo and small group players know that, we bite our tongues and watch you to run around and do what you do. Often times we roam, we search for the combat we desire, and let you all do your thing. But this game's PvP needs a new flavor. You honestly cannot argue that. So why is it so bad that IC would have a more smaller scale approach? While 4 man groups is pretty small, I would say that even 8 man groups would be excellent. You honestly don't need a full raid or a full two raids to get things done.
And if you're worried about small group players dominating IC...then looks like you need some practice with your build not being a zerg build, right?