The real reason that Cyrodiil campaigns are unbalanced

Stanko · August 2015

For the serious PVPer, it's all about AP, AP, and more AP. Currently on NA/PC, AD dominates both Thornblade and Chillrend. I see the same AD players swarm to either campaign depending upon the current tactical situation. And why shouldn't they? These AD players receive buffs giving them a greater chance at getting kills, they can defend in keeps instead of going on the offensive and receive dramatically more AP (d-ticks instead of o-ticks), and they get a 15% AP buff for holding virtually all of the keeps on a server. Hence, an AD player in Thornblade and Chillrend receives dramatically more AP by playing defensively and maintaining a "buff" (unbalanced) campaign.

Clearly, there isn't a problem here with former emp buffs or PVE buffs. Instead, it's the IMMEDIATE AP gratification that serious PVPers get by maintaining a buff campaign. AD doesn't need 2 buff campaigns for PVEers. They need 2 buff campaigns to maximize their AP.

Adjusting campaign scoring and end-of-campaign incentives will not change anything, since it will not change the dramatic amount of extra AP that an AD player gets for maintaining a buff server in Thornblade and Chillrend.

In contrast, an EP or DC player fighting in Thornblade or Chillrend gets dramatically less AP for the inverse of the reasons cited above. And everyone is still scratching their heads and wondering why we have buff campaigns....

In light of the above, I propose the following:

1) Imperial Overreach Penalty: Supplies get lost and graft sets in. Players fighting in a campaign that their faction "currently" dominates receive 15% LESS AP.

2) Backs to the Wall Bonus: Resoluteness and grim determination become characteristics of the few hardy soldiers remaining to defend a "currently" losing faction and eventually push the offensive. Players fighting in a campaign where the "current" tactical situation is bad receive 15% MORE AP.

Until immediate (not end-of-campaign) AP incentives change, PVP will be plagued by unbalanced "buff" campaigns. You can't blame AD players for simply taking advantage of the rules as they exist, nor can you blame EP and DC players for avoiding Thornblade and Chillrend.

Kartalin · August 2015

Didn't the devs mention that at some point? That lower population factions would get increased AP gains from kills?

Edit: Found it, here it is.

Stanko · August 2015

[•Low Population Campaigns/Underscoring Alliances: Players participating in a low-population campaign or as part of an underscoring alliance will now gain 20% more AP within the campaign they're earning that bonus for, instead of 10%. Population polling has also been sped up to apply the underdog/low-population bonuses more often; however, this also means they have the opportunity to expire faster.]

That's a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done. AD currently gets huge AP bonuses for fighting in Thornblade and Chillrend, as stated in the OP. They swarm onto the server as soon as we (Ebonheart Pact) arrive.

Nebthet78 · August 2015

Learn to play better.

Get bold, take a resource then a keep. Watch what the AD players do. Which gate are the camping, change it up. Take risks and stop playing it safe.

Work with other players in your faction and come up with plans. Encourage other players to come into Thornblade/Chillrend to pvp, even the ones who want to just do the dungeons there and get the skyshards. Teach them how to pvp and get them in a group with you and have them help out when you are under attack or want to take a keep.

You say these campaigns allow the players on the buff servers can gain lots of AP. Well, it's kinda hard to gain AP when there is no one willing to take the risk to fight and win back keeps.

It's not as fun killing the same players over and over again, as it is having to defend or take back your keep.

SirAndy · August 2015

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Get bold, take a resource then a keep. Watch what the AD players do. Which gate are the camping, change it up.

I play on Haderus NA and the map changes from yellow to red to blue on a daily basis depending on the time of day.

You can get plenty of defense ticks even if the map is dominated by another faction. You can easily flip a resource and then stick around defending it. You can cut off their travel by taking outposts, then defending them.

All you need is a small group of 3-5 players, and you can get a constant stream of decent AP that way ...

rfennell_ESO · August 2015

It's certainly not "just AD" that does this.

All the EP zergers do it and all the "we used to be EP zergers that are now DC zergers" do it as well.

Here is the thing.... if you attempt to do small scale and set up a farm on some lower pop server for smaller scale fights... eventually a zerger guild will move over and come at you with 24.

eliisra · August 2015

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Learn to play better.

Get bold, take a resource then a keep. Watch what the AD players do. Which gate are the camping, change it up. Take risks and stop playing it safe.

You know what usually happens when you try to "be bold" and take a keep back on a sided campaign. The enemy faction, that obviously also night caps cuz reasons, runs you over with 60-80+ players. That's kind of what they do all day(after zerging map to ***), sit and wait for a single sword on a map, that's otherwise dead.

So you get run over by those 60-80+ players on flag and wipe. Back to gate again and try again? Most just change campaign at that point.

Learn to play here only means one thing. To stand a chance you need a highly organized 24-man AoE blob. That's the sad truth. But if you choose to play that way, you end up creating a lag fest. Having your 24-man bomblagtrain trying to take on 80+ pugs, emp and another raid, usually ends in the server melting. I know that by experience.

Nebthet78 · August 2015

eliisra wrote: »

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Learn to play better.

Get bold, take a resource then a keep. Watch what the AD players do. Which gate are the camping, change it up. Take risks and stop playing it safe.

You know what usually happens when you try to "be bold" and take a keep back on a sided campaign. The enemy faction, that obviously also night caps cuz reasons, runs you over with 60-80+ players. That's kind of what they do all day(after zerging map to ***), sit and wait for a single sword on a map, that's otherwise dead.

So you get run over by those 60-80+ players on flag and wipe. Back to gate again and try again? Most just change campaign at that point.

Learn to play here only means one thing. To stand a chance you need a highly organized 24-man AoE blob. That's the sad truth. But if you choose to play that way, you end up creating a lag fest. Having your 24-man bomblagtrain trying to take on 80+ pugs, emp and another raid, usually ends in the server melting. I know that by experience.

That's no different than what IC is right now with the PTS. It isn't small scale pvp. Look what happened to the Devs once players caught wind of them being on the PTS. Live is not going to be any different, but it will shift focus from Cyrodiil to IC allowing for more small scale pvp in Cyrodiil since most of the good players are bored with it.

Also players need to actually take the opportunity to actually get into some of these campaigns and see how things are for themselves rather than listening to how it WAS like for someone else a few months or even weeks ago.

It's not nearly as bad as some players are making it out to be.

I find a lot of players change the campaign because they don't want to work for something. They always want to be on the winning team, and the winning team doesn't have to really work for anything. So what, you get killed a dozen times! It's not like you have to repair your armor or use soul gems to resurrect yourself. There's no cost. Keep at it and you might get a couple enemy kills, your AP will add up slowly, but you will learn and improve.

I have also found that half the players in a buff campaign at any time, are only there for the PVE portion of Cyrodiil. They won't even bother helping with any portion of the PvP going on. It's really sad, but it is a trend that will carry over into Imperial City.

Wing · August 2015

they fixed this, AP is becoming worthless in the update. . .wait.

Stanko · August 2015

Most serious players want the AP to get to Grand Overlord, they don't care about the current AP conversion rate to gold.

Also, I appreciate that someone took the time to read my post and then encouraged me to "learn to play".... Do you really think that a former emperor doesn't know how to PVP?

I also agree that some people can't handle repeated defeats and will only PVP on defensive "buff" servers where they have substantial combat advantages. Not everyone is wired to be an underdog.

With that said, the premise of my original post still holds. The current immediate AP incentives for players to fight in their faction's "buff" campaigns are substantial. Hence, we have a perverse situation in all "buff" campaigns where the dominant faction has strong incentives to maintain the status quo and the other factions have strong incentives to play elsewhere. Eliminating PVE buffs and former emperor buffs will not change the situation. Until ESO creates an immediate AP PENALTY to play on a defensive "buff" server, things won't change.

PlagueMonk · August 2015

You are correct and it is not just a matter of "LTP". As someone mentioned above, if you attempt to take a keep in a buff campaign, your merry band of maybe 20....maybe, will get zerged in short order by the dominators and then have both gates camped, meaning there is virtually no way to RE-enter the campaign to take anything. I've seen it done and had it done to me which was no fun......I promptly left that campaign never to return.

While I agree with you in spirit, I don't feel you are going NEARLY far enough to balance things out. An increased AP incentive is not going to help win against the zerg (nor is the decreased AP for the overlords)

What needs to happen (and I posted about this at length in the PvP forum many moons ago) is, as you lose keeps, both your remaining keeps defenses AND your personal defense go up in proportion to the population disparity (in a balanced campaign with little pop disparity, this does mean LTP, no bonus for you!). At the same time, the opposing dominating players AP worth goes UP, meaning they are worth much more to the significantly losing side (and you are much more difficult to kill)

I had the numbers worked out at one time but suffice it to say, a group of 20 trying to hold their last keep should be able to put up a good fight against 50-60 (because castle defenses and your own defenses would be high enough)

I also suggested increasing the players strength but many frowned on that idea so we will leave it out here.

THAT will give the underdogs both the incentive and the fighting chance needed to participate in a buff campaign.

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · August 2015

it's nice that AD will defend everything so readily, while in contrast I've seen EP practically spoonfeed home keeps to the enemy because reasons. The current system just facilitates greed, and instead of Grand Overlord being a long term goal it's "NAOW NAOW NAOW!" everyone must have it even if it means screwing over your own faction. I'd like to see AP calculated based on individual performance and awarded on the fly, rather than having to sit around with ones thumbs up their ass waiting for ticks to go out for people who ran out of the keep or didn't even participate in the battle itself. Something similar to DIII's XP awards for various feats such as kill streaks. I'm currently on hiatus from pvp, and I don't feel like pvping until I can do so relatively care free without being told to 'stow my siege' so that 'we can get the defense tick faster'.

Zavus · August 2015

Wait you're trying to tell me that AD gets more AP on their own buff servers? LOL

Kyoma · August 2015

Can we haz some of the NA ppl come to EU then? Over here AD is basically losing everywhere.....

Tors · August 2015

Its not only the AP gains.

The dominant factions receive a massive exp bonus

The 15% experience gain means that I have had to roll a blue character in order to get the benefit of the buff and have him do my grinding in the pve world for CP.

THis means that fully buffed I am able to maintain 5-600k an hour exp gain in one of Caldwell's Golds grind spots, prime time with multiple people grinding.

Pact in the EU are not only outnumbered, but will be seriously behind the curve in CP as well as AP ranks.

Which can only get worse in the future

MaxwellC · August 2015

I honestly believe it's mainly the fact their is no time frame for the campaign to be unplayable. The servers don't work based on location, it's based on preference. That means you can be from any part of the world playing and if you get a bunch of guild members to get on while the real NA players sleep, you'd wipe the entire campaign with no contest.

If they were to make campaigns play from 6am to 11:59pm EDT or PST, then this would balance the campaign a bit more. A prime example would be, when I was attempting to go for emperor and got on really early I saw that 2/3 of AD population was filled in the campaign.
Now let's be honest here you'd have to had multiple guilds who all somehow organized themselves to get up that early or they're from another part of the world that is not NA.

That is the conclusion I came up with, that they just need to add certain time regulations to minimize other regions impacts on the campaign.

Zorgon_The_Revenged · August 2015

Tors wrote: »

Its not only the AP gains.

The dominant factions receive a massive exp bonus

The 15% experience gain means that I have had to roll a blue character in order to get the benefit of the buff and have him do my grinding in the pve world for CP.

THis means that fully buffed I am able to maintain 5-600k an hour exp gain in one of Caldwell's Golds grind spots, prime time with multiple people grinding.

Pact in the EU are not only outnumbered, but will be seriously behind the curve in CP as well as AP ranks.

Which can only get worse in the future

Well when people hit vr15+, Cadwell's gold grind spots will be giving you less xp per mob (30% of normal xp from 75% of normal xp) and they will have to move on to somewhere else.......not sure how much better Craglorn will be.......maybe becoming a walking TVstone piñata in the IC is the only option or simply grinding vDSA, trials and vet dungeons might be better.

Also, is the Emp +%xp buff staying or is it being removed from PvE? Another reason to become a TVstone piñata.

I don't grind so these are just thoughts.

Nebthet78 · August 2015

Zorgon_The_Revenged wrote: »

Tors wrote: »

Its not only the AP gains.

The dominant factions receive a massive exp bonus

The 15% experience gain means that I have had to roll a blue character in order to get the benefit of the buff and have him do my grinding in the pve world for CP.

THis means that fully buffed I am able to maintain 5-600k an hour exp gain in one of Caldwell's Golds grind spots, prime time with multiple people grinding.

Pact in the EU are not only outnumbered, but will be seriously behind the curve in CP as well as AP ranks.

Which can only get worse in the future

Well when people hit vr15+, Cadwell's gold grind spots will be giving you less xp per mob (30% of normal xp from 75% of normal xp) and they will have to move on to somewhere else.......not sure how much better Craglorn will be.......maybe becoming a walking TVstone piñata in the IC is the only option or simply grinding vDSA, trials and vet dungeons might be better.

Also, is the Emp +%xp buff staying or is it being removed from PvE? Another reason to become a TVstone piñata.

I don't grind so these are just thoughts.

ALL PvP buffs are being removed from the PVE game.

So you will either have to go to Cyrodiil, Craglorn or IC to grind out your last levels