Give us gank-free Imperial City.

iliatha · December 2015

pandoraderomanus wrote: »

@iliatha I remember how you ganked packs of blues in sewers on Chillrend. That was fun even though I'm one of those blues killed by you a couple of times it was fun. I totally agree with your position. IC is a PVP DLC and if someone doesn't want to be ganked/killed - find a place to farm/grind somewhere else.

hey

For me its like people asking for cyrodill become a pve zone cause they want to grind in cwc or do quests there. I hope Zeni will add stuff to IC. Its just sad to see this great add-on that empty.

Eejit1331 · December 2015

Just do what 90% of what everyone else did and aka "get good" make a Nightblade and troll others. IC is a joke if you are not a NB. It takes no skill to draw agro, cloak and get the killing blow. L2P, get good and all the other one liners from the OP NB class..lol.. NP are just OP in IC.

newtinmpls · December 2015

Zlater wrote: »

Pts patch 1-3 had some AMAZING pvp in the memorial district. I freaking loved it. But that is dead and we never got that PvP on live, it's a shame really.

Oh, do tell more - what was it like?

What changed?

Zlater · December 2015

@newtinmpls

Just PvP'ing on the pts is far different than on live just because most players are using template characters. There is no real gear or champion point imbalance. What you also notice is that you don't usually face off with complete newbs, because most people on the pts are actually very experienced and players don't care about AP or telvar stones because it doesn't affect their progress, that gets reflected in their playstyle, so no real zerging or ganking occurs. It all boils down to player and class skill. The biggest group I could remember being in was about 5 people.

All of the class balances were out and cloak hadn't been fixed yet, so NB's were definately still the strongest pvp class, but it wasnt too much of a gap. It was just all 3 alliances skirmishing around the centre ring, we would just run around the middle in a small group until we bumped into another group to fight it out. We also had to watch out for the roaming boss and some of the mobs in the middle if someone pulled them. That guy was just nuking everyone! So sometimes we would, not preplanned either, team up with the group we are fighting to kill the boss, then just go back to fighting each other, when we were finished we would just respawn a few hundred meters away and go fight someone else. It was just a constant flow of high risk small scale skirmishes. Then if you felt like a bit of 1v1 you would just run out to the outer edges and you were almost certain to find what you were looking for. I got one of my templates to rank 10 lol

Edit: what changed, there was nothing in particular that changed, but it is just a cumulative effect of little holes that can cause sudden imbalances when another small change is made. See the Swiss cheese model of accident causation.
If I had to point my finger at any one thing it would be generally the shift in how defensive gameplay is handled in pvp. I know people have a hundred different things they like to blame, but when it comes to ganking I believe it's generally the changes to impen effectiveness in 1.6, the insane disincentivation of using damage shields and zos doing silly things like "fixing" cloak after they release the main balance patch in 1.7.
While yes gankers can be killed and many say just L2P, I disagree and say well actually you are at very big numerical disadvantage against a ganker considering that player skill is constant. There is a chance that I could win, but why would I bother if the chance is so low? I'll just wait until I can zerg or go do something else -.- IC isn't somewhere I have fun.

newtinmpls · December 2015

First @Zlater thanks for the summary; the things you point out are subtle but with HUGE impact. Very good points. But your final comment is my main point:

Zlater wrote: »

While yes gankers can be killed and many say just L2P, I disagree and say well actually you are at very big numerical disadvantage against a ganker considering that player skill is constant. There is a chance that I could win, but why would I bother if the chance is so low? I'll just wait until I can zerg or go do something else -.- IC isn't somewhere I have fun.

If IC isn't fun... then people won't play there.

Since the numbers have dropped so dramatically, I'm thinking that for many ... it just isn't fun.

KostasDragonborn · December 2015

Jennifur_Vultee wrote: »

Last night my questing partner and I went to use her trophies to open chests, afterwards we decided to enter the sewers and see where we ended up. We play Aldmeri Dominion but the sewer entrance we used put us deep into the Ebonheart Pact sewers. We hesitated, I looked at the map and said, "Larz we are waaaaay the frak deep into enemy territory." Larz being more of a risk taker looked at the map and said, "Lets try to get back to our base from here." I reluctantly agreed and we fought the NPCs through the EP sewers, into the tunnels leading to the Molag Bal chamber, back out toward the AD section.

At one point I stopped and said, "I almost guarantee you we'll get almost within sight of our base with around 1000 stones and get ganked. " We fought our way through the AD tunnels leading to Molag Bal and reentered our tunnels with around 650 stones. We spotted some DC entering our sewers and waited for them to disappear down a tunnel...we went the other direction and after a short time I was spotted by a clannfear and we had to fight. As soon as the clannfear died we were immediately jumped from behind by a group of 5-6 DC who killed us. Out of the roughly 650 telvar stones we each had collected in out long journey home I had 105 left after the ganking I knew would come in our own section of the sewers.

I'm not opposed to risking some stones on death but 80% simply too much encourages ganking and especially nightblade gankers because of their stealth. I hate going to the Imperial City frankly and only go if I must because there is little point when you're simply gank bait.

I like PVP and I love Orsinium...when Zenimax gets things right its a great game...but Imperial City is like the worst aspects of PVE and PVP mashed together to create a zone few people can really enjoy.

Imperial City has been the best update for PVP. Stop crying about getting ganked and losing measly 1000 stones, I've lost 5k stones before and I didn't blink. Do I think the cloaking NB is annoying AF? Yes! However, if you are with more than 1 player you should be able to easily deal with it. If you feel that 1000 stones are enough to return to base you can either die by a mob and lose 10%, /stuck and lose 10%, or use a sigil to teleport back to base and spend 10k AP. Your story is so irrelevant and makes you sound like a PVE only player with no situational awareness of the PVP realm i.e. IC.

Brrrofski · December 2015

Completely diasagree with op.

You basically want pve.

There's plenty of pve content. This game needs more pvp.

If anything, they need to reduce mobs down in IC.

Then they need to bring more people back like letting us buy more thing with TV stones. Currently there is nothing to buy.

It's sad that is has turned into a place to farm stones to buy 16 mats. People feel entitled to pve in a pvp zone and we end up with threads like this.

Zlater · December 2015

Brrrofski wrote: »

Completely diasagree with op.

You basically want pve.

There's plenty of pve content. This game needs more pvp.

If anything, they need to reduce mobs down in IC.

Then they need to bring more people back like letting us buy more thing with TV stones. Currently there is nothing to buy.

It's sad that is has turned into a place to farm stones to buy 16 mats. People feel entitled to pve in a pvp zone and we end up with threads like this.

Thanks newtinmpls

It's guys like this guy who have posted above that think they have sorted out what the issue is, but the problem isn't this, what is responsible is the plethora of all of these tiny changes that are left unchecked that have made IC how it is. I wanna have meaningful pvp too, but there are only 2 options zos incentivises: zerging or ganking. Both of which are committed by this 'pvp community' which is actually killing pvp and then he whines about the result which HE is responsible for. When a new player goes down to IC he says "I'm trying pvp" gets ganked or does zerging then says "Urgh I'm not doing that again." That new guy wasn't a PvE'r or PvP'r, but now he's definately not a PvP'r that's for sure.

"He has to learn how to X"
But then realistically he's getting wrecked by things like 100% crit out of stealth spam, unavoidable cc, stupidly expensive block costs, and some guy who is intentionally waiting until he is at low health so that way he won't be able to counter the incoming ganker, ever. Don't get me wrong I'm not opposed to these things, I just think there are compatability issues or "holes" from previous patches that must be sorted first before we can start messing around with systems that are mostly just fine as it is. There is a reason there are tonnes of threads on the forums about so many different issues people have, it's because that's just what it is.

Bogdan_Kobzar · December 2015

Zlater wrote: »

Yup, what he said.
Went down into sewer, got insta-ganked, asked for help, got told Learn-to-Play or leave, so I left with a sour taste in my mouth and will NOT spend Real Life Money on PvP content. Currently having a lot of fun in Orsinium, that i PAID RL money for.

Zlater · December 2015

@Bogdan_Kobzar let me shake your hand because you are saying exactly what is right to say. This game needs to make money and you are a representative of what is obviously a very large cohort of gamers in ESO, and a good representative of where the money is sitting at the moment. That is a very important and often overlooked point when we talk about these things.

While I do agree that you might need to L2P, this little acronym comes in two forms, though with the latter you would never really say it. There are those who say it mockingly and cant back up what they say, then there are others that say it lovingly and might insist on helping and guiding you. If somebody says it to you (not sarcastically), I encourage you to challenge them and see if they themselves actually know how to play and if they would teach you. Not everyone out there is a complete jerk

If they can't then you can be certain they only know as much, or less than you.

RAGUNAnoOne · December 2015

@Bogdan_Kobzar @Zlater my first time in the sewers I asked for help and got this "Why dont you level the *** up and get good you *** *** if we weren't in the same alliance I would kill you even if I knew you had zero stones ***" I guess this is the common mindset of those who love IC. I have to ask those people: if you got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from PKing in IC no TV stones no AP would you still love it? I bet some would say yes even if it was penalized because some people are so pathetic in real life that the only joy they ever get is ruining someone elses fun.

newtinmpls · December 2015

Zlater wrote: »

This game needs to make money and you are a representative of what is obviously a very large cohort of gamers in ESO, and a good representative of where the money is sitting at the moment. That is a very important and often overlooked point when we talk about these things.

That is the point I was alluding to - people will pay for what is enjoyable, and as @Zlater pointed out, unless you are already a die-hard, min-maxed, CP wielding PvPer it's ... less likely that you will want to pay for ganking and zerging.

Zlater wrote: »

While I do agree that you might need to L2P, this little acronym comes in two forms, though with the latter you would never really say it. There are those who say it mockingly and cant back up what they say, then there are others that say it lovingly and might insist on helping and guiding you.

This is what can (and does) make or break a community. When I was walking along with someone and encouraging them to try picking a lock, and found out they didn't have any lockpicks and weren't sure how to use them, the spaz who ignored my zone chat request for folks to stand back for this newbie to get some experience WASN'T helping.

Not everyone is like that.

Unfortunately many (not all, by no means all) of the folks in IC are not disturbed by ganking and zerging. I want us to insist on better than this, help more, and so on.

Optimist or crazy, but it's more fun if I go in hopeful.

Brrrofski · December 2015

Zlater wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

Completely diasagree with op.

You basically want pve.

There's plenty of pve content. This game needs more pvp.

If anything, they need to reduce mobs down in IC.

Then they need to bring more people back like letting us buy more thing with TV stones. Currently there is nothing to buy.

It's sad that is has turned into a place to farm stones to buy 16 mats. People feel entitled to pve in a pvp zone and we end up with threads like this.

Thanks newtinmpls

It's guys like this guy who have posted above that think they have sorted out what the issue is, but the problem isn't this, what is responsible is the plethora of all of these tiny changes that are left unchecked that have made IC how it is. I wanna have meaningful pvp too, but there are only 2 options zos incentivises: zerging or ganking. Both of which are committed by this 'pvp community' which is actually killing pvp and then he whines about the result which HE is responsible for. When a new player goes down to IC he says "I'm trying pvp" gets ganked or does zerging then says "Urgh I'm not doing that again." That new guy wasn't a PvE'r or PvP'r, but now he's definately not a PvP'r that's for sure.

"He has to learn how to X"
But then realistically he's getting wrecked by things like 100% crit out of stealth spam, unavoidable cc, stupidly expensive block costs, and some guy who is intentionally waiting until he is at low health so that way he won't be able to counter the incoming ganker, ever. Don't get me wrong I'm not opposed to these things, I just think there are compatability issues or "holes" from previous patches that must be sorted first before we can start messing around with systems that are mostly just fine as it is. There is a reason there are tonnes of threads on the forums about so many different issues people have, it's because that's just what it is.

Well I run in groups no larger than 3 in the sewers asthenia stones split sucks after that.

So there's goes your zerging theory.

What you want me to do if I see an enemy? Pull up a chair, wait till he'sdone fighting mobs, regenned his health and then we go for it?

Or course not. If I see someone i'mgoung to kill them. Called ganking ifyou want, I call it the point of the DLC. Watch your back at all times.

It's not my fault pve players go into pvp and expect not to get killed. But I'm not hiding ithe shadows waiting to pounce. I'm fighting mobs on my way past. If I see someone, I do. It's not like it doesn't happen to me either.

I HATE the zerg mentality this game has. Especially in IC. But that's a diffrrent issue altogether

josh.lackey_ESO · December 2015

Brrrofski wrote: »

Or course not. If I see someone i'mgoung to kill them. Called ganking ifyou want, I call it the point of the DLC. Watch your back at all times.

It's not my fault pve players go into pvp and expect not to get killed. But I'm not hiding ithe shadows waiting to pounce. I'm fighting mobs on my way past. If I see someone, I do. It's not like it doesn't happen to me either.

I'm not a PvE player. I spend almost all of my in-game time in Cyrodiil. Someone else said it best: IC is not about competitive PvP, it is a PvE farming zone that allows cheap-shot gank builds to not only wreck competent groups, but also take their loot with zero risk except a run back. It's catering grief/troll players in such an exorbitant way! (e.g. Cloak spam and find an enemy group, drop an ult and wreck some stragglers, cloak spam back to the bank, deposit TV stones, rinse, repeat.)

And to be clear, I am not asking for the current IC to go away. If you are enjoying IC in its current form, then you can keep playing there. I am asking for an additional instance of IC where I can experience the content without risk of losing your TV stones to a someone ganking with zero risk of any loss. ( I actually don't mind the getting ganked, like I said I basically live in Cyrodiil -- it's the TV stone loss that bugs me. It needs to be removed or dramatically reduced. Sometimes it seems like this game goes out of its way to encourage trolling/griefing.

If you want to counter that with saying that then no one would ever go to the gank-friendly IC zones: you have made my point for me.

Everyone I've personally talked to about it thinks a gank-free IC would be great. In fact, that was kindof the original design via gated access. The problem with that option is that Axe of Belharza is the only gated server, and each time I've went in there, the entire map is a single color. I guess since TV can be banked, I could get one toon on each faction grouped into the AoB campaign for the sole purpose of farming IC on whichever faction has made it their buff server. But it's downright silly to have to go through all that hassle just to able to enjoy a 2500 crown DLC.

Galalin · December 2015

Im drowning in PvE tears.... so this is how the dead sea was made.....help the salt is burning my eyes

DK SCRUB OUT

newtinmpls · December 2015

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

If you want to counter that with saying that then no one would ever go to the gank-friendly IC zones: you have made my point for me..

Delightfully concise summation!

Zlater · December 2015

@Brrrofski I can't imagine why you posted that. This thread is not about PvP in the IC, its about the effect of ganking on the DLC with special mention to the attitude to PvP that results from it.

I personally wouldn't call what you're doing ganking and from just what you've said it sounds like a lot of really great fun. I completely support PvP in the IC, but I think you are drawing lines in the wrong places and getting it mixed up, ganking and zerging are so similar because both are a form of PvP that actually kill PvP, and they are both mostly done to collect a TV profit, not to engage in meaningful and fun PvP. One is grinding, one is fun.

Brrrofski · December 2015

Zlater wrote: »

@Brrrofski I can't imagine why you posted that. This thread is not about PvP in the IC, its about the effect of ganking on the DLC with special mention to the attitude to PvP that results from it.

I personally wouldn't call what you're doing ganking and from just what you've said it sounds like a lot of really great fun. I completely support PvP in the IC, but I think you are drawing lines in the wrong places and getting it mixed up, ganking and zerging are so similar because both are a form of PvP that actually kill PvP, and they are both mostly done to collect a TV profit, not to engage in meaningful and fun PvP. One is grinding, one is fun.

Because people will think it's ganking.

Ifyou're fighting mobs and I hit you from behind and kill you, you'd probably think I was hiding in a corner waiting for you to fight mobs.

That's how most people think anyway.

altemriel · December 2015

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

ZOS, you have made some excellent content in Imperial City. Currently, I don't run it. Why? Because the whole DLC is designed to reward troll players who gank you. I would love to be able to enjoy the content there without some jerk getting a cheap shot and then stealing my stones.

Gated campaigns are absolutely the wrong direction. Why don't you give us a way to go to IC without any enemy faction players? I want to play IC, I really do. But it seems like the whole thing is designed for magicka nightblades who can perma-cloak. I want to pay you money to play this great content. I do not want to be trolled and ganked. I don't think I am alone in this -- most people I've talked to feel the same way. They'd enjoy running in IC, but not with the huge bias to specific builds of trolls and gankers.

Give us single-faction IC, gank-free. We want to pay you money for this.

Even if you just removed the Tel Var stone loss, I think I would do IC. The TV loss mechanic is just begging people to grief and troll. I mean, I don't lose AP when I die, but my killer gets AP for killing me. I am not sure why the TV stones aren't on the same kind of mechanic as AP -- the killer gets stones, but I don't lose any. It's not about risk vs. reward, it's about not wanting to pay for content that is designed exactly for you to be ganked by trolls. Orisinium is amazing, and everyone I've talked to agrees. But they don't like IC for one reason: it's designed for magicka nightblades to gank everyone else. IC could be awesome, too, if we could play it without the trolls. Please ZOS, take my money for a gank-free IC! I would really love this.

This might also alleviate the problem with "buff servers". For goodness sakes, if we want buff servers then instead of punishing us for trying to have them, why not go the other way with it and just cater to what players want? Doesn't that make more sense? Happy players = players who keep their plus membership!

You just have to find the campaign with lesser enemy players and then go there as guest.

Brrrofski · December 2015

altemriel wrote: »

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

ZOS, you have made some excellent content in Imperial City. Currently, I don't run it. Why? Because the whole DLC is designed to reward troll players who gank you. I would love to be able to enjoy the content there without some jerk getting a cheap shot and then stealing my stones.

Gated campaigns are absolutely the wrong direction. Why don't you give us a way to go to IC without any enemy faction players? I want to play IC, I really do. But it seems like the whole thing is designed for magicka nightblades who can perma-cloak. I want to pay you money to play this great content. I do not want to be trolled and ganked. I don't think I am alone in this -- most people I've talked to feel the same way. They'd enjoy running in IC, but not with the huge bias to specific builds of trolls and gankers.

Give us single-faction IC, gank-free. We want to pay you money for this.

Even if you just removed the Tel Var stone loss, I think I would do IC. The TV loss mechanic is just begging people to grief and troll. I mean, I don't lose AP when I die, but my killer gets AP for killing me. I am not sure why the TV stones aren't on the same kind of mechanic as AP -- the killer gets stones, but I don't lose any. It's not about risk vs. reward, it's about not wanting to pay for content that is designed exactly for you to be ganked by trolls. Orisinium is amazing, and everyone I've talked to agrees. But they don't like IC for one reason: it's designed for magicka nightblades to gank everyone else. IC could be awesome, too, if we could play it without the trolls. Please ZOS, take my money for a gank-free IC! I would really love this.

This might also alleviate the problem with "buff servers". For goodness sakes, if we want buff servers then instead of punishing us for trying to have them, why not go the other way with it and just cater to what players want? Doesn't that make more sense? Happy players = players who keep their plus membership!

You just have to find the campaign with lesser enemy players and then go there as guest.

I did that on the weekend. Ran from my spawn to AD. Nothing. Back to middle, up to EP. Nothing. Went back to azura's ans found barely anyone there either. IC is dead already.

Hope they fix it. I want small scale pvp. Battlegrounds are too far away