ElfFromSpace wrote: »

I propose a sliding scale.... the fewer stones you have the lower percentage is lost. IE under 1000 stones you only lose 20%, 1000-3000 you lose 50% and over 3000 when you get the best multiplier you lose the 80%. That would mean that you'd still have increased risk for the increased reward, but the players who struggle to scrape up a few hundred wouldn't be constantly knocked down to double and single digits. It would also make the PVP more fun. Our group got very restless by the discipline needed to minimize the risks. We could have collected a LOT more stones if we'd simply moved faster, taken a few more risks, but the risks weren't worth it because the losses were too high. I WANT to go to a PVP area to get in combat, but if I did so I not only usually lost all my stones, but often caused the others in my group to lose theirs. People will work just as hard to avoid losing 50% of their stones after they get their first multiplier. The enemy players will still seek that kill just as much, but it would greatly reduce the potential frustration and to level the playing field.

I actually like that Idea...

olemanwinter wrote: »

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

I played tonight with a group of 8-20 and played for over 3 hours and came out of it with less than 50 Telvar Stones.

That's absurd! Leave your group....go kill 1 single group of mobs and you'd have more than that. I mean, that's so pathetically low....and with 20 people no less, you can't possibly blame that level of production on the system or other players.

Seriously, Why are you grouping with 8-20 people if your goal is to get stones? That's the entire problem with your results.

I also played about 3 hours with 1 other person and got 2000 stones. Then played another 2 hours with 2 other players and got 1500 more.

This is a 100% L2P issue, but I'll be happy to actually help you L2P. Here goes:

In the imperial city where most stones come from other players, and it's more intense PvP, I bank every time I get 200 stones. I carry virtually none.

In the imperial sewers I always start by carrying 100 stones for the modifier and return to bank when I get several hundred more, never exceeding 1000.

However, if you want to make some quick stones, start with 1000 and just make very tight rounds next to your base killing mobs. You can make 1000 stones an hour without much effort at all, SOLO.

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

The real problem is the 80% loss to PVPers.

Nonsense. If I can gain thousands of stones solo and with 1 or 2 players, while having to content with the same players and elements, then you should certainly be able to survive with 8-20. lol

The problem is you're taking Zerg-bad tactics that have carried you through existing PvP and applying them to an entirely different PvP experience.

In traditional PvP you and your 20 friends who frankly aren't very good, ball up, run over 4 enemies, feel good about yourself, and repeat until you finally come across 20 enemies...then you wipe....look at the AP you gained and feel pleased.

But in Imperial City, your group of 20 friends gets to divide very few stones from rolling over those 4 enemies, getting very few per person...and then when your zerg eventually wipes....you give it all back....end up with 50 stones and start QQing on the forums.

STEPS TO ACQUIRING STONES:

1) Run in small groups or solo

2) Understand the modifiers and embrace the "risk vs reward" to know how much to carry and when.

3) Kill mobs

4) AVOID large enemy groups.

5) Bank stones

6) Stop QQing.


EDIT: If you are DC alliance, hit me up in game and I'll run with you for 1 hour and blow your mind as far as Tel Var stone production. I don't say this mean at all, but it's so absurdly easy to amass thousands of stones that this can be nothing other than a L2P issue.

I've always wondered this i found it far better to pvp in a small group of solo and i gained ap a lot faster then i hardly got ap whenever i joined a zerg. How exactly do you get lots of ap in a zerg?

I kind of like how - for once - it appears to favor top solo PVPers
I do think it's healthy to have different areas for different playstyles (Group and solo PVE, Group and solo PVP, average zerg PVPers and Top solo PVPers, 1vXers etc.). I guess IC is kind of my new playground.

My concerns however :

• loosing to lag or bug (statistically, it will happen)
• loosing to imbalanced design (TESO is not exactly very serious on PVP Balance)
• tagging (dealing damage to someone in PVE/PVP trouble from afar without "deserving" it)
• suicide tactics (that also exist in Cyrodiil for faster travel purposes - I do not like it)
• Sorcerers and NBs slotting their escape abilities have so much (too much) of an advantage at that game...
• Alchemists with invisibility potions too (and the ones that have access to them easily and for cheap)

However, patch is still downloading since 7AM this morning (5 1/2 hours)...

You could also do dailies and get boxes of stones that can not be looted off you.

In addition, running a 20 man group will not get you stones. That's not how it works.

lol this is a gankers dream game now fun to sit back and watch all the QQ

i still think the percent taken from an enemy should depend on the stones one carries. all the trash runnign from spawn to die without break, hoping to eventually get some stones and bank them, is just annoying. hight risk -> high reward. no risk, gtf pve a handful of mobs at least so kills are finally worth something

Kas wrote: »

i still think the percent taken from an enemy should depend on the stones one carries. all the trash runnign from spawn to die without break, hoping to eventually get some stones and bank them, is just annoying. hight risk -> high reward. no risk, gtf pve a handful of mobs at least so kills are finally worth something

I think you're saying what I said. I'm sorry but I have no respect for the players who go out of their way to repeat farm the same people. Why reward them for bullying? Make them put in some real effort and actually fight the players who are confident enough to carry the larger pot if they want more than a small reward. Or are you saying that you can only take stones from another player if you have stones? That would cause an even bigger disparity between the players with a lot of stones and those with none.

Docmandu wrote: »

The trick to gaining Tel Var stones is AVOIDING PvP.

Nice concept for a PvP-oriented patch, isn't it. It also teaches people that were already afraid of PvP to be terrified of PvP now.

But that's the problem. If you change the risk/reward scale you can make encourage players to risk a bit more PVP. If only the elite are initiating PVP and everyone else is hiding from it, that's not a very fun scenario. Let groups of less experienced players TRY it. If they can take out an elite player they'll get a reward worthwhile.

The change might cause more players to bank their stones more often, but that's why the multipliers are there to temp you to take that risk

Without limits to group size in IC, Tel Var stones will go to the groups with the most players which tend to be the zergs. There are both advantages and disadvantages with these. When you have over 12 players in a group in IC, over half of them get no loot almost all the time. The others get such a short coming of loot that it's really nothing more than PVP fighting. And then it's only interesting if you meet a group of equal size which hasn't occurred yet.

IMO the best thing they could have done for IC was to setup 8-12man groups that went into "instanced" versions of the city. With this, they could have limited 16-24 players total from each faction for each area of IC. The tunnels are small and with the diminished returns, any more than 12 wouldn't be worth it. This would have given an even ground for all factions. No zergs would have occurred with this. You can't zerg with 12 people that are usually all spread out. Then when you came across another group, it would be an even player battle.

Granted this would have been really difficult to pull off, but it would have been well worth it IMO.

Beedles wrote: »

lol this is a gankers dream game now fun to sit back and watch all the QQ

It's going to further divide the PvP and PVE community even more. PvP is alright, but people cling to unbalanced crutch setups and zerg too much for me to be enjoyable.

The more I read on this, it's a DLC for gankers and griefing. Suitable for the 360 no scopez MLG kids.

You know it was 100% loss when PTS comes out, right?

And when you say "players we killed didn't have many stones" their total is divided by the players in your group, and you said you were running with a large group.

Hi Elf:

It's unfortunate some poster's response was "git good," which is absolutely in no way helpful to the fundamental problem you described. If there are good players, then by logic, there are going to be players who are not great at PvP. If everyone is good, then they are not, rather merely average. Good players will acquire most of their TV stones by killing inexperienced players. When a good player meets another good player, they are either getting zero stones or 50% of the time losing 80% of their bankroll.

Do we want inexperienced, new, PvE, players or folks who have 40+ hours of real time commitments a week playing in the IC? Yes. We don't just want "good" players.

Here is my experience regarding collecting Tel Var stones. If you are in the Imperial City districts, you are probably going to die a lot so I would not count on that as a very reliable source. Enemies insta-spawn after you kill them and a random NPC nightblade stunning you make it a very unpredictable environment, where even "git good" players die frequently, as much as they might deny it.. One of the "git good" responders recommended banking after getting 200 stones. That is actually good advice. You are either going to need the insta-teleporter that you can buy that costs AP or head down to the sewers only in the district that will bring you down to your alliance's section of the sewer, (for AD I think the temple district but dont quote me). Or, for right now, I think certain "suicide" exploits work but I expect these loopholes to be closed. I was in a group of about 10 and I did get a slow but steady supply of stones. I only lost these when indecision in he group led half the players to drop into enemy sewers while the other half stayed up top and got rolled by an enemy zerg.

I got most of my TV stones is from the sewers. Your alliance zone, to be specific. I was alone bumped into 2 friendlies and we pretty much rolled everything except the super-boss. I had something like 500 stones and was heading back to base when I ran into a zerg of 8 blues who killed me. So, possible, even solo, but even experienced players who are not NBs/sorcs with mobility will need to learn exploits to die to non players and retain 90% of their stones.

What worked best for me was to do what the blue zergers did: clear your entire alliance side of the sewers (bosses, enemy players, all will fall.) Doing this netted me 1200 stones and we didn't even reach the enemy zone yet (which was our plan). We got to the center of the sewers (the big round room) and decided to head back because people had to log for dinner.

During the PTS and from my experience last night, I am pretty sure "zerging" is the safest, albeit not the fastest way to acquire zones. Get your zerg into the enemy alliance sewer area, clear out all the NPCs (which is not a bad stream) and the TV solo / small group farmers who think they are safe or good enough that they don't need the protection of the zerg. They will also be a nice stream. Don't get greedy once you hit 1000 or so, head back, bank, rinse, repeat.

I do think the fastest and most efficient way is to get in a small group of 3/4 experienced players that is not greedy and is very good at avoiding zergs. They basically can handle any danger except an enemy zerg and they do not have to split their winnings many ways. But, that doesn't exactly help the demographic you are writing on behalf for.

AlnilamE wrote: »

You know it was 100% loss when PTS comes out, right?

And when you say "players we killed didn't have many stones" their total is divided by the players in your group, and you said you were running with a large group.

If we gained less than 10 stones each then the players we killed could not have had more than 100-200

I was very surprised when they changed it by only 20%

Joy_Division wrote: »

Hi Elf:
Do we want inexperienced, new, PvE, players or folks who have 40+ hours of real time commitments a week playing in the IC? Yes. We don't just want "good" players.

Yes, as usual you have a few people who post that any discussion on the topic is simply whining. But that's not my purpose. I had fun and I fully knew that I was NOT farming TelVar stones in the most efficient way. I wanted the quests! However the purpose of my post was to suggest that the system is very unbalanced as is, and that it could be balanced much better with proper adjustment.