Hello,
Dean the Cat here. I would like to discuss about the balance of population between the Imperial City and overland Cyrodiil, as well as various gating mechanisms and the reasoning behind why gating is needed.
There is no TL;DR version of this thread. This will be a long read. Please keep discussion within this thread civil, as I feel that the topic I'm discussing is of a "Touchy" nature and I don't want the thread derailed.
The Imperial City shares its population total with the campaign, thereby creating an innate balance of power in Cyrodiil, by ensuring that the current dominating faction that currently has access to the Imperial City will lose fighters to the Imperial City, thereby allowing the other two factions to have a chance at overthrowing the dominating faction, due to the reduced number of fighters in overland Cyrodiil. This in theory should work out well, but in practice, the current implementation of the Imperial City has failed to achieve the goal, due to free ungated access as well as a lack of a mechanism to force out players back to overland Cyrodiil once access has flipped on gated campaigns.
Let's first take a look at why gating is needed:
ESO is centred around the Three-Banners war, and the Imperial City is the goal in which all alliances are vying for.
Anyone still remember this bit of artwork? This is what ESO PvP was envisioned to look like.
The Imperial City is an area of high experience mobs and end-game quality loot, rendering a very desirable prize in which to fight for. By allowing Free-For-All access to the Imperial City, this innately devalues the overland Cyrodiil. Overland Cyrodiil has been rendered obsolete on the non-gated campaigns, as there is simply no justification for fighting over keeps and objectives. Why bother fighting for keeps when you can just simply ride towards the Imperial City and start grinding for your gear?
Adding in gated access will give a reason to the battles on the plains of Cyrodiil once again. In addition, winning over access to the Imperial City will ensure a safe haven for your alliance, allowing your alliance to farm the Imperial City unhindered from the interference of enemy alliance fighters. This allows the more... mechanically-challenged fighters to have a chance to obtain their gear in relative safety, so long as the Imperial City remains under their alliance's banner.
Having discussed why gating is needed, now let's take a look at various methods at gating the Imperial City, as well as their pros and cons:
Keep Access - 6 Home Keeps
The current version of access gating, this method of gating potentially allows all 3 alliances to be in the Imperial City at the same time
Pros:
- Places emphasis on home territory defense
- Relatively easy to fulfil requirements
Cons:
- Two alliances can "Bully" a single faction into permanent Imperial City lockout, since they will have no reason to fight each other
Keep Access - 6 Home Keeps + 1 Enemy Keep from each opposing alliance
Similar to the current version of gating, this version of access control gives a reason for opposing alliances to fight against each other, as there can only be a single faction having access to the Imperial City at any one time.
Pros:
- Encourages fighting on the battlefields of Cyrodiil, as capturing opposing faction keeps are a requirement to enter the Imperial City
Cons:
- Moderately difficult to obtain access rights to the Imperial City, and even harder to hold access once gained.
Keep Access - Emperor
This version of access control places emphasis on throning/dethroning an Emperor. This allows for large scale last stands and pushes as the last emperor keep needed to throne/dethrone an Emperor, reminiscent of pre-Imperial City days.
Pros:
- Most stable form of Access Control, crowning a good Emperor means that your alliance will have access to the Imperial City for a long time.
Cons:
- Promotes the "Buff Server" mentality, due to how hard it is to deny opposing alliances access to the Imperial City once it has been gained.
- Hard to obtain access rights to the Imperial City on a crowded campaign.
Scroll Access - 1 Enemy Scroll captured
This version of access control places emphasis on capturing and defending the Elder Scrolls, artefacts of power and prophecy.
Pros:
- Requires the co-ordinated effort of an entire alliance to open access to the Imperial City, promoting faction pride and teamwork.
Cons:
- Hard to hold access once obtained, as scroll ninjas are a thing.
- Two alliances can "Bully" a single faction into permanent Imperial City lockout, since they will have no reason to fight each other
After discussing gating, this brings the question. What to do with opposing faction fighters once their access has been lost? My suggestion would be to
disable respawns via release in the Imperial City once access is lost (They can still rez allies with Soul Gems). This will slowly but surely force enemy fighters out of the Imperial City one by one, thereby increasing the population of their alliance in overland Cyrodiil, thus allowing them to co-ordinate and regroup to retake access back in overland Cyrodiil. This will partially solve the population imbalances, as the full force of an alliance will be pitted against the partial force of the dominating alliance.
Another issue that we currently have is that we have too many campaigns. This is spreading the population way too thinly, and as a result, "Buff Servers" are forming again, to the detriment of the health of PvP. My suggestion would be to cut the number of campaigns back to the original 4 Vet + 1 Non-Vet. This will compress the population into actually fighting each other, instead of hiding in their respective buff campaigns with a 300+ queue for the buff campaign. People who are sick of the long queue times will naturally (albeit slowly) move to another campaign, thus balancing the population issues.
Suggested Distribution for Campaigns:
- 2 Gated Access Campaign, Veteran (30 days)
- 1 Gated Access Campaign, Veteran (14 days)
- 1 Free-For-All Access Campaign, Veteran Resources Only (7 days)
- 1 Gated Access Campaign, Non-Veteran (7 days)
What are your thoughts on this?
Dean the Cat
Somewhat Insane Puddicat
EU-PC Megaserver; Ebonheart Pact,
Alliance Rank 34This one hails from far Singapore, excuse this one for his high pings. He also apologizes for any formatting/spelling errors, as he tends to answer using a mobile device.
Insanity is the price of Knowledge. Herma-Mora and Sheogorath, this one bows before thee.
This one does not advocate for any class to be nerfed. There are far deeper underlying issues then a simple "Class Imbalance". The Champion System is the problem. Not classes.Please read this before creating yet another nerf thread.
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