eso pvp is dying and 1.7 will put the nail in the coffin

Chesimac · August 2015

There are probably about a billion threads about this, but I wanted to give some insight to zenimax about how to handle their pvp.
There are so many problems, so many bugs ontop of bugs that haven't been fixed since beta, new ones, and worst of all, zenimax's intense zerg fetish. Literally every patch since 1.4 (is it a coincidence that the pvp playerbase was substantially bigger in this update?) has given more and more incentive for gigantic zerg trains to destroy all the action on the map by being practically unkillable with purge barrier aoe stack, and that practically will turn into literally with 1.7.

Lets look at what we have had at our disposal to counter zergs in previous patches
1.4
- dynamic ulti system (reward for attacking large amount of targets, allowed small groups to gain quicker access to ultimates which allowed for larger but less organized groups to be wiped handily by a coordinated group)
- ground oil (yes this was used for tower farming for larger groups but it also gave smaller groups another weapon that could wipe disorganized groups when they had a defensive position and enough time to set it up)
- less sustain (hard to believe now, back in the day you had to manage your resources, so groups who knew what they were doing could eventually deplete a less skilled/organized group of their resources and subsequently kill them)
- a non csgo ttk( nuff said, no cheap sh*t could instantly one/two shot you when you were offguard or focusing another target, which is what happens all the time in the 1.6 meta
- 1.5 (ground oil no longer allowed)
- dynamic ult
- less sustain
- high ttk
- 1.6 (All 3 previous counters were done away with, not coincidentally causing probably the biggest exodus of players from the game. ult was changed to light attacks and blocking, sustain became infinite even for a bad player with proper cp and gear combos, and the ttk became significantly lower)
- low ttk (as much as this is still an issue in a ton of situations, it is our only incentive left against large groups. At the moment, as much as it is cheesy, ridiculous damage dealing abilities such as dawnbreaker, proxy, and meteor are the only counters to zergs, and even that is when proxies and ults are timed perfectly
im not saying siege bc a decent group with purge barrier and who doesn't stand under the breach can easily outheal the damage, making it basically useless against blobs.

1.7 we have what? Burst isn't high enough to burn zergs even if everything is coordinated properly unless you have a zerg of your own, theres no dynamic ult, ground oil or anything to be able to kill a zerg. hell, the new sets added give even more shielding and heals to zergs on top of what they already have. The ic you have taken so long to make will be reduced to zergs farming tel var stones. is that srsly what you want? @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_EricWrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno Your entire pvp base (whats left of us) could attest that all you have done for the game since 1.4 has been for the worse. CP imbalances, the countless bugs, and worst of all, your desire to make pvp into a game of 3 giant blobs (which will in reality be 3 small blobs bc no one will play ur game as it will suck so bad)

If u make a server where there is no cp, ground oil, dynamic ult and a high time to kill, you would probably see easily 75% of your playerbase come to it, and (gasp) maybe even attract some former players who are too far behind in cp atm to be competitive, come back.

P.S. (my sig is true, atm I am running with a dk main, but I mained a nightblade until 1.6 and my dk was level 49 when 1.6 dropped.I just stopped that character because stamblade is op, and I don't like doing zero damage to players worse than me because they pack nirn as a magicka nightblade, plus I like small scale with my ad friends better than if I roam with my ep nightblade. Also, I inferred in the post that 1.4 was better than 1.5 but the balance was better in 1.5 for every1 so id prefer overall the 1.5 version of the game with ground oil.)

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Bashing comments]

TBois · August 2015

I agree with all of this but I will still be playing eso after 1.7 because I am not familiar with any better alternatives. I have been considering spending my $15 a month on DAOC until something else, Camelot unchained or some better pvp, comes along.

Juraigr · August 2015

just waiting for something else tbh

Ishammael · August 2015

Agree with everything. I've also written a few posts with suggestions to fix pvp.

Let's see what happens when IC drops in two weeks. I'll probably give it a month, give or take, after that. The champion system buffs (which will still be increasing) will interplay with the cyrodiil debuff. My gut reaction is that zerg trains will be all powerful. That remains to be seen when the patch goes live.

Dynamic ult needs to make a return. The playerbase needs a reward for high risk actions like engaging zergs. Not rewards for the relative safety of group play.

Cody · August 2015

I quit 3 months ago. Now all I do is post a comment every few weeks:/

this game has devolved into a meta which takes no skill or strategy to compete in. Infinite resource builds, zerg blobs ruling the game, cheap and ridiculous insta kill builds, CP imbalance, cheating and exploiting being left unchecked, bugs and exploits that have been in since beta,, and other things I want to say that the forum rules prevent me from saying.

perhaps in the future it will get better.

alright, i've said my piece. have a good night

ThyIronFist · August 2015

Agreed with everything.

And it's not only ground oil that got removed, ZOS also decided to make the snare from the oil catapult purgeable. Many may think; "wut, an oil catapult? it's useless!"

Well, yes. Now it is. It used to be one of the best counters against large groups.

RIP GROUND OIL AND OIL CATAPULTS NEVER FORGET

1.7 will be the last chance but I think we all know what awaits us in the imperial city. Lag, <20 fps and 24+ man zergblobs.

Soris · August 2015

In before it was 1.5 will be the last chance, and then 1.6, and now 1.7.. This goes on forever. I guess we are fooling ourselves. This will not go any better. This is the way of this game headed. And it makes sad.

Xiphyla · August 2015

Hope this imperial city patch will make it worthwhile if not it's time to find other alternative like dota2 or counterstrike till camelot come out

.

aco5712 · August 2015

BRING BACK SOFTCAPS AND 1.5 PvP. Reduce your CP system to 5-10% max for each thing and then things wouldnt be so lopsided. The amount of pvp thats gonna happen once camelot comes out is about 5 pugs questing together lol.

Zavus · August 2015

aco5712 wrote: »

BRING BACK SOFTCAPS AND 1.5 PvP. Reduce your CP system to 5-10% max for each thing and then things wouldnt be so lopsided. The amount of pvp thats gonna happen once camelot comes out is about 5 pugs questing together lol.

you realize youre asking ZOS to do something with numbers right?

-Met

Leandor · August 2015

Chesimac wrote: »

- 1.6 (All 3 previous counters were done away with, not coincidentally causing probably the biggest exodus of players from the game. ult was changed to light attacks and blocking, sustain became infinite even for a bad player with proper cp and gear combos, and the ttk became significantly lower)

Sorry to burst your bubble, mate, but on EU, population soared after 1.6 hit. The all time low was 1.5 over here.

Soulac · August 2015

CU.

aco5712 · August 2015

Zavus wrote: »

aco5712 wrote: »

BRING BACK SOFTCAPS AND 1.5 PvP. Reduce your CP system to 5-10% max for each thing and then things wouldnt be so lopsided. The amount of pvp thats gonna happen once camelot comes out is about 5 pugs questing together lol.

you realize youre asking ZOS to do something with numbers right?

-Met

Oh Yeh. .. let's just reduce everything by another 50%. Yay

LegendaryChef · August 2015

I joined the game just at the end of the ground oiling. I was about level 30 odd and I think I had more fun back then than I have had since 1.6 came out. I got v14 during 1.5 and I can safely say it was the best pvp I've experienced in a game, yeah everyone will complain that dk was OP but only the ones that knew what they were doing. I have played a sorc since the day I started (not too sure why) and I would still give up everything to go back to 1.5. I will continue playing this game until something better comes out unless zos do something about it. Oh and as for IC, I think I'll give it a miss, spending all day collecting stones to get ran over by a zerg doesn't sound too appealing to me.

eliisra · August 2015

Leandor wrote: »

Chesimac wrote: »

- 1.6 (All 3 previous counters were done away with, not coincidentally causing probably the biggest exodus of players from the game. ult was changed to light attacks and blocking, sustain became infinite even for a bad player with proper cp and gear combos, and the ttk became significantly lower)

Sorry to burst your bubble, mate, but on EU, population soared after 1.6 hit. The all time low was 1.5 over here.

Yeah, but would be strange if not. All games that drops subscription, will have a big increase in player population.

ESO 1.5 had no content in sight after the release of VR City of Ash. Loads of performance issues in PvP, bugs and broken mechanic. People stopped paying. Think 90% of my main guild quit in 1.5, because "I dont want to pay for this ***".

In 1.6 the game became Tamriel Unlimited. Even worse performance, more zergy and new game breaking bugs. But all you need is a copy of the game. All the people that stopped paying, could play it anyway.

I also think the OP is wrong about that specific detail. NA most certainly had more players in 1.6 compared to 1.5.

As much as I preferred 1.5 balance- and gameplay wise, It wasn't worth anyone's €12,99 a month.

Leandor · August 2015

I stopped playing very soon after 1.5 hit the shelves and came back (including sub) once 1.6 went live. I like 1.6 more than 1.5 - both have their problems, though. Worst change 1.6 was the removal of softcaps on resource regeneration - they should have kept those alone. I mean, resource management is the fundamental basis for a non-cooldown based combat system. Infini-res builds are bad always, but on a game that revolves around restricting skills by resource availability, this is especially stupid.

TL/DR: I personally like 1.6 more than 1.5.

Sharmony · August 2015

Chesimac wrote: »

There are probably about a billion threads about this, but I wanted to give some insight to zenimax about how to handle their pvp.
There are so many problems, so many bugs ontop of bugs that haven't been fixed since beta, new ones, and worst of all, zenimax's intense zerg fetish. Literally every patch since 1.4 (is it a coincidence that the pvp playerbase was substantially bigger in this update?) has given more and more incentive for gigantic zerg trains to destroy all the action on the map by being practically unkillable with purge barrier aoe stack, and that practically will turn into literally with 1.7.

Lets look at what we have had at our disposal to counter zergs in previous patches
1.4
- dynamic ulti system (reward for attacking large amount of targets, allowed small groups to gain quicker access to ultimates which allowed for larger but less organized groups to be wiped handily by a coordinated group)
- ground oil (yes this was used for tower farming for larger groups but it also gave smaller groups another weapon that could wipe disorganized groups when they had a defensive position and enough time to set it up)
- less sustain (hard to believe now, back in the day you had to manage your resources, so groups who knew what they were doing could eventually deplete a less skilled/organized group of their resources and subsequently kill them)
- a non csgo ttk( nuff said, no cheap sh*t could instantly one/two shot you when you were offguard or focusing another target, which is what happens all the time in the 1.6 meta
- 1.5 (ground oil no longer allowed)
- dynamic ult
- less sustain
- high ttk
- 1.6 (All 3 previous counters were done away with, not coincidentally causing probably the biggest exodus of players from the game. ult was changed to light attacks and blocking, sustain became infinite even for a bad player with proper cp and gear combos, and the ttk became significantly lower)
- low ttk (as much as this is still an issue in a ton of situations, it is our only incentive left against large groups. At the moment, as much as it is cheesy, ridiculous damage dealing abilities such as dawnbreaker, proxy, and meteor are the only counters to zergs, and even that is when proxies and ults are timed perfectly
im not saying siege bc a decent group with purge barrier and who doesn't stand under the breach can easily outheal the damage, making it basically useless against blobs.

1.7 we have what? Burst isn't high enough to burn zergs even if everything is coordinated properly unless you have a zerg of your own, theres no dynamic ult, ground oil or anything to be able to kill a zerg. hell, the new sets added give even more shielding and heals to zergs on top of what they already have. The ic you have taken so long to make will be reduced to zergs farming tel var stones. is that srsly what you want? @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_EricWrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno Your entire pvp base (whats left of us) could attest that all you have done for the game since 1.4 has been for the worse. CP imbalances, the countless bugs, and worst of all, your desire to make pvp into a game of 3 giant blobs (which will in reality be 3 small blobs bc no one will play ur game as it will suck so bad)

If u make a server where there is no cp, ground oil, dynamic ult and a high time to kill, you would probably see easily 75% of your playerbase come to it, and (gasp) maybe even attract some former players who are too far behind in cp atm to be competitive, come back.

P.S. (my sig is true, atm I am running with a dk main, but I mained a nightblade until 1.6 and my dk was level 49 when 1.6 dropped.I just stopped that character because stamblade is op, and I don't like doing zero damage to players worse than me because they pack nirn as a magicka nightblade, plus I like small scale with my ad friends better than if I roam with my ep nightblade. Also, I inferred in the post that 1.4 was better than 1.5 but the balance was better in 1.5 for every1 so id prefer overall the 1.5 version of the game with ground oil.)

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Bashing comments]

Often the best way, despite your frustrations, is to be polite in criticism... "ur game as it will suck so bad" instantly turns anyone off from seeing a meaningful point to this, to be honest, very poignant message of which I agree with a large number of the points raised.

Defilted · August 2015

The sky is falling!!!

Mojmir · August 2015

Defilted wrote: »

The sky is falling!!!

Relax they're nerfing that.but fall dmg is OP

GuyNamedSean · August 2015

As painful as they are, Zerg trains aren't inherently bad. They're really easy to combat even now. No matter what, if a group of more than 24 can be defeated by any group of half the size on anything other than a offence against a strongly defended position, then they must be horrible at the game. I frequent PvP on console, so I don't remember a "how it was", but zergs can be destroyed easily by going around them and fighting somewhere else against the AIs. Just last night I had a group of twelve that caused distraction conflicts at keeps out in the boonies and it was able to pull enough threat to scatter the zerging forces that were assaulting the Morrowind gates. There's a limit to how many people can be in one lobby. All it takes is two groups fighting away from the Zerg forces and you guarantee gains. Rest assured, strategies are still viable. Now, Champion Point imbalance I can't comment much on. I can understand how PC has a huge problem with that. Thankfully console is too new for it to be an issue.

krim · August 2015

Game died when it couldn't keep their original player base. When people quit because of bugs and fps issues with nothing being fixed that was the beginning of the end. It wasn't worth it anymore and the only way they could salvage it was making it free with a one time purchase of the game.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/162851/pure-evil/p1

technohic · August 2015

I agree with you OP. Haven't logged in much in the past few months. Bugs and performance issues frustrate me to no end in PvP and I stopped for a while and now, I still see all those bugs still around, performance seems no better and I have accumulated a CP deficit for taking a break. Just the bugs, performance issues and CP deficit alone makes it hard to want to log in and play again even though I love the AvAvA, but then they keep doing these blanket nerfs with battle spirit which does nothing for balance. Maybe increase time to kill on non-healing fights, but the strongest attacks are still going to be the strongest and the weakest will be the weakest along with more emphasis on CC which will be unaffected and some abilities get nerfed twice when they have dual effects.

I just do not trust the developers to do something well. The awareness seems to be there but they fail in implementation at every turn.

Isbilen · August 2015

The game is already dead. There's not even a triple-locked campaign during prime time anymore. I was on Halo 3 on my 360 yesterday, and even that 8 year old game with 2 sequels and a new console has more players than this year old game.

Daveheart · August 2015

To be fair, ESO "dies" before every major patch. The bottom drops out of the economy and people stop playing as much because they're:

Waiting for the new gear
Waiting for the new content
Farming materials or good they feel will be valuable post-update (know people doing 6-8 gold and silver pledges each day and 8 sets of write each day).
Just plain burnt out and want to be fresh when they come back with the update
Spending their time on the PTS finding the new exploits (and *hopefully* reporting them)
Or they're just plain actually quitting

While there's a significant chunk of people who actually fall into the last category, there are plenty of others just occupied doing something else. There's also a decent amount of people who will return to the game when the patch drops. It won't be permanent population, but We'll probably get a big spike for the first couple weeks of IC and will probably have a healthier pop for the first month then a gradual trickle down to "ESO PvP is dying and 1.8/Orsinium" will be the nail in the coffin.

Do I think the state of the game is healthy right now? No, but there were threads just like this before update 6 released.

Chesimac · August 2015

Sharmony wrote: »

Chesimac wrote: »

There are probably about a billion threads about this, but I wanted to give some insight to zenimax about how to handle their pvp.
There are so many problems, so many bugs ontop of bugs that haven't been fixed since beta, new ones, and worst of all, zenimax's intense zerg fetish. Literally every patch since 1.4 (is it a coincidence that the pvp playerbase was substantially bigger in this update?) has given more and more incentive for gigantic zerg trains to destroy all the action on the map by being practically unkillable with purge barrier aoe stack, and that practically will turn into literally with 1.7.

Lets look at what we have had at our disposal to counter zergs in previous patches
1.4
- dynamic ulti system (reward for attacking large amount of targets, allowed small groups to gain quicker access to ultimates which allowed for larger but less organized groups to be wiped handily by a coordinated group)
- ground oil (yes this was used for tower farming for larger groups but it also gave smaller groups another weapon that could wipe disorganized groups when they had a defensive position and enough time to set it up)
- less sustain (hard to believe now, back in the day you had to manage your resources, so groups who knew what they were doing could eventually deplete a less skilled/organized group of their resources and subsequently kill them)
- a non csgo ttk( nuff said, no cheap sh*t could instantly one/two shot you when you were offguard or focusing another target, which is what happens all the time in the 1.6 meta
- 1.5 (ground oil no longer allowed)
- dynamic ult
- less sustain
- high ttk
- 1.6 (All 3 previous counters were done away with, not coincidentally causing probably the biggest exodus of players from the game. ult was changed to light attacks and blocking, sustain became infinite even for a bad player with proper cp and gear combos, and the ttk became significantly lower)
- low ttk (as much as this is still an issue in a ton of situations, it is our only incentive left against large groups. At the moment, as much as it is cheesy, ridiculous damage dealing abilities such as dawnbreaker, proxy, and meteor are the only counters to zergs, and even that is when proxies and ults are timed perfectly
im not saying siege bc a decent group with purge barrier and who doesn't stand under the breach can easily outheal the damage, making it basically useless against blobs.

1.7 we have what? Burst isn't high enough to burn zergs even if everything is coordinated properly unless you have a zerg of your own, theres no dynamic ult, ground oil or anything to be able to kill a zerg. hell, the new sets added give even more shielding and heals to zergs on top of what they already have. The ic you have taken so long to make will be reduced to zergs farming tel var stones. is that srsly what you want? @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_EricWrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno Your entire pvp base (whats left of us) could attest that all you have done for the game since 1.4 has been for the worse. CP imbalances, the countless bugs, and worst of all, your desire to make pvp into a game of 3 giant blobs (which will in reality be 3 small blobs bc no one will play ur game as it will suck so bad)

If u make a server where there is no cp, ground oil, dynamic ult and a high time to kill, you would probably see easily 75% of your playerbase come to it, and (gasp) maybe even attract some former players who are too far behind in cp atm to be competitive, come back.

P.S. (my sig is true, atm I am running with a dk main, but I mained a nightblade until 1.6 and my dk was level 49 when 1.6 dropped.I just stopped that character because stamblade is op, and I don't like doing zero damage to players worse than me because they pack nirn as a magicka nightblade, plus I like small scale with my ad friends better than if I roam with my ep nightblade. Also, I inferred in the post that 1.4 was better than 1.5 but the balance was better in 1.5 for every1 so id prefer overall the 1.5 version of the game with ground oil.)

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Bashing comments]

Often the best way, despite your frustrations, is to be polite in criticism... "ur game as it will suck so bad" instantly turns anyone off from seeing a meaningful point to this, to be honest, very poignant message of which I agree with a large number of the points raised.

Haha you cant blame me, this was such a great game not too long ago and against the will of the playerbase the mechanics that made it great are getting removed

Chesimac · August 2015

Defilted wrote: »

The sky is falling!!!

go back to carebearland pls

Chesimac · August 2015

Leandor wrote: »

Chesimac wrote: »

- 1.6 (All 3 previous counters were done away with, not coincidentally causing probably the biggest exodus of players from the game. ult was changed to light attacks and blocking, sustain became infinite even for a bad player with proper cp and gear combos, and the ttk became significantly lower)

Sorry to burst your bubble, mate, but on EU, population soared after 1.6 hit. The all time low was 1.5 over here.

That happened on na for the first week with b2p, but having every campaign locked at primetime basically has turned into one campaign being locked at primetime.. I wonder why. At the end of 1.5 we had more pop than we have now

Chesimac · August 2015

Daveheart wrote: »

To be fair, ESO "dies" before every major patch. The bottom drops out of the economy and people stop playing as much because they're:
Waiting for the new gear

Waiting for the new content

Farming materials or good they feel will be valuable post-update (know people doing 6-8 gold and silver pledges each day and 8 sets of write each day).

Just plain burnt out and want to be fresh when they come back with the update

Spending their time on the PTS finding the new exploits (and *hopefully* reporting them)

Or they're just plain actually quitting

While there's a significant chunk of people who actually fall into the last category, there are plenty of others just occupied doing something else. There's also a decent amount of people who will return to the game when the patch drops. It won't be permanent population, but We'll probably get a big spike for the first couple weeks of IC and will probably have a healthier pop for the first month then a gradual trickle down to "ESO PvP is dying and 1.8/Orsinium" will be the nail in the coffin.

Do I think the state of the game is healthy right now? No, but there were threads just like this before update 6 released.

You're right, for example pvers are saying pve is going to die but it wont actually, just there in 1.6 there was a counter to large groups and zergs in pvp and now that is gone too... so pvp has a very good chance of actually dying unless zos does something

Sanct16 · August 2015

Chesimac wrote: »

Daveheart wrote: »

To be fair, ESO "dies" before every major patch. The bottom drops out of the economy and people stop playing as much because they're:
Waiting for the new gear

Waiting for the new content

Farming materials or good they feel will be valuable post-update (know people doing 6-8 gold and silver pledges each day and 8 sets of write each day).

Just plain burnt out and want to be fresh when they come back with the update

Spending their time on the PTS finding the new exploits (and *hopefully* reporting them)

Or they're just plain actually quitting

While there's a significant chunk of people who actually fall into the last category, there are plenty of others just occupied doing something else. There's also a decent amount of people who will return to the game when the patch drops. It won't be permanent population, but We'll probably get a big spike for the first couple weeks of IC and will probably have a healthier pop for the first month then a gradual trickle down to "ESO PvP is dying and 1.8/Orsinium" will be the nail in the coffin.

Do I think the state of the game is healthy right now? No, but there were threads just like this before update 6 released.

You're right, for example pvers are saying pve is going to die but it wont actually, just there in 1.6 there was a counter to large groups and zergs in pvp and now that is gone too... so pvp has a very good chance of actually dying unless zos does something

ZOS doesnt want small groups to counter large groups. The way this game is supposed to work is everyone running in 24+ blobs spamming AoE. As you pointed out in the OP everything that could counter this gets nerfed/removed... Thats definetly not because ZOS wants to discourage trains.

Dreyloch · August 2015

I think it will all get fixed. Wait...I KNOW it will all get fixed. You know when that is?

Right about the one month mark of CU being launched and this games' population is decimated. I want to come back, I really do, but by then it will be too late. ZoS just doesn't comprehend that they needed to fix things 3 months ago to secure ANY kind of playerbase future. Beautiful game. Terrible devs.

P.S. so what ever happened to that spellcrafting thing they touted over a year ago?

technohic · August 2015

Dreyloch wrote: »

I think it will all get fixed. Wait...I KNOW it will all get fixed. You know when that is?

Right about the one month mark of CU being launched and this games' population is decimated. I want to come back, I really do, but by then it will be too late. ZoS just doesn't comprehend that they needed to fix things 3 months ago to secure ANY kind of playerbase future. Beautiful game. Terrible devs.

P.S. so what ever happened to that spellcrafting thing they touted over a year ago?

Honestly could do without adding another fold into the abilities like spell crafting. I would rather they release the content they have planned in IC and Orsinium and polish, polish, polish. As it is, they should have never fundamentally changed the stat soft caps and combat as much as they did nor add the champion system when there were already bugs galore that they piled on. I do like where they are going in the armor balance, but that's about it.