How to restore PvP to its former glory

ChaosWotan · November 2016

1) new maps that are well integrated with the main map of Cyrodiil.

2) make keep guards illoyal and bribable when campaigns got low populations, so that a small group can easily take and lose a keep. The idea is that if a faction doesn't have enough players in Cyrodiil, the guards will feel unsupported and more easily change side. Things will return to normal when populations are high. A small group of players can get enough money to bribe guards by fighting new world bosses in Cyrodiil. And then sneak inside a secret door and ninja attack a keep, supported by the guards.

3) make it possible to port from Imperial City directly inside keeps, after fighting a powerful boss in the sewers. Porting between IC and Cyrodiil should be as easy and quick as porting between keeps, with IC shown on the same map as Cyrodiil, like Coldharbour on the PvE map.

4) introduce Purple Hearts given to newbie players who are repeatably beaten by the same opponent(s). If a powerful player or a group of high CP gamers often beat the same weak characters, the latter can get cool motifs for instance. To avoid deliberate suicides, ESO needs an algorithm which punish those who abuse this system if they have a history of winning fights. Or make it like this: after a person has won 10 duels or 20 zerg battles, he or she can't get Purple Hearts, unless being in a group of poor players.

5) give a buff to the leader of a group, and extra reward to those who stack at crown. Reward good fights, good strategies. If there is no new server which can handle 24 man zergs, let this apply to 12 man groups.

6) make it possible to get the best PvP gear inside Cyrodiil.

7) restore the former emperor buff, and restore buffs within PvE when a faction is making progress in PvP.

8) a leaderboard, with rewards, for the best leaders and groups. And a leaderboard for best duelists.

9) rewards for joining a training ground where pros can teach newbies how to play, as duelists and in zergs. A new skill line for master trainers.

Wild_Monk · November 2016

It is necessary that those who doing murders in the cities (killing sitizens in cities), if they are detected, must to become a "outside the law", so that they could be killed at once, and without causing a duel.

ChaosWotan · November 2016

That comment was off topic

lardvader · November 2016

10. Make gear and skills act different from PvE to PvP to able to balance stuff better without messing with each community every time we cry for change.

Doctordarkspawn · November 2016

What former glory?

ChaosWotan · November 2016

Before the summer of 2015 one could easily play in large groups on Thornblade 24/7, literally. One had to wait up to an half hour in queu to join the best Pact groups, like WAR, wabba, Red Diamond and Necrotic Lag. Best experience since BF1942 revolutionized online gaming. All that is gone now. Now I just downloaded BF1 to get good PvP action (I hope).

cairo_x · November 2016

5) give a buff to the leader of a group, and extra reward to those who stack at crown. Reward good fights, good strategies. If there is no new server which can handle 24 man zergs, let this apply to 12 man groups.

I agree that the squad leader could allow some sort of buff to stimulate people to actually be in groups. What we often see is that people getting together however just for farming AP to the highest profit. You don't have to change that but some buffs if you're around the squad leader would be good investimento of time to also lead a group.

Shad0wfire99 · November 2016

The PvP only crowd is a very vocal minority. There is no "glory" to be restored.

WhitePawPrints · November 2016

ChaosWotan wrote: »

1) new maps that are well integrated with the main map of Cyrodiil.

2) make keep guards illoyal and bribable when campaigns got low populations, so that a small group can easily take and lose a keep. The idea is that if a faction doesn't have enough players in Cyrodiil, the guards will feel unsupported and more easily change side. Things will return to normal when populations are high. A small group of players can get enough money to bribe guards by fighting new world bosses in Cyrodiil. And then sneak inside a secret door and ninja attack a keep, supported by the guards.

3) make it possible to port from Imperial City directly inside keeps, after fighting a powerful boss in the sewers. Porting between IC and Cyrodiil should be as easy and quick as porting between keeps, with IC shown on the same map as Cyrodiil, like Coldharbour on the PvE map.

4) introduce Purple Hearts given to newbie players who are repeatably beaten by the same opponent(s). If a powerful player or a group of high CP gamers often beat the same weak characters, the latter can get cool motifs for instance. To avoid deliberate suicides, ESO needs an algorithm which punish those who abuse this system if they have a history of winning fights. Or make it like this: after a person has won 10 duels or 20 zerg battles, he or she can't get Purple Hearts, unless being in a group of poor players.

5) give a buff to the leader of a group, and extra reward to those who stack at crown. Reward good fights, good strategies. If there is no new server which can handle 24 man zergs, let this apply to 12 man groups.

6) make it possible to get the best PvP gear inside Cyrodiil.

7) restore the former emperor buff, and restore buffs within PvE when a faction is making progress in PvP.

8) a leaderboard, with rewards, for the best leaders and groups. And a leaderboard for best duelists.

9) rewards for joining a training ground where pros can teach newbies how to play, as duelists and in zergs. A new skill line for master trainers.

2. This would exasperate the snowballing issue already in the game that kills campaigns. Keeps flip way too easily as is.

4. I play to not die. I've had a streak of 196 kills to 0 deaths (and I play solo). This system would be rewarding all that I have killed, and leaving me with nothing.

5. Coordination and the right builds are already rediculously powerful in PVP. There is absolutely no need to make it any stronger by giving buffs. This would alienate anyone that wants to play casually, and/or alone and/or with just a few friends.

6. Proc sets need to simply not be active in PVP.

8. Already exists.

9. Does not sound like a place noobies would want to go, or people to spend time training strangers. A skill line? How would the skill line gain experience and differentiate a trainer/trainee? And what would the abilities be in that skill line?

ChaosWotan · November 2016

@Shadowfire99:

Then you were not part of the PvP fights before IC. People were playing 24-36 hours straight to become emperors. Hunting in a good 24 man raid was excellent teamwork, and many were getting up six in the morning to win the campaign. It was an insane time. Some were probably taking speed to keep up.

Grabmoore · November 2016

ChaosWotan wrote: »

@Shadowfire99:

Then you were not part of the PvP fights before IC. People were playing 24-36 hours straight to become emperors. Hunting in a good 24 man raid was excellent teamwork, and many were getting up six in the morning to win the campaign. It was an insane time. Some were probably taking speed to keep up.

I remember this to an extend. What an aweful time, with only nolife jerks smashing the servers.
Taking drugs to reach a number in an online game... you know, I'm happy those times are gone!

Shad0wfire99 · November 2016

ChaosWotan wrote: »

@Shadowfire99:

Then you were not part of the PvP fights before IC. People were playing 24-36 hours straight to become emperors. Hunting in a good 24 man raid was excellent teamwork, and many were getting up six in the morning to win the campaign. It was an insane time. Some were probably taking speed to keep up.

Boy, you sure do make that sound fantastic. /sarcasm

ChaosWotan · November 2016

Keeps don't flip easily when populations are low. Demoralizing to lead a group of 8-12 amateurs who spend five minutes on entering a keep, only to be wiped by a small group of good enemies who arrive just before the flags are flipped. After trying this 3-4 times, the group either disbands or focus on resources. It's boring. I rather do PvE than play during low population campaigns.

Winners get AP, losers get something that movitates them to keep fighting.

Give rewards and buffs to good duelists. The whole point is just to motivate people, with different play styles and skill levels, to play PvP, and not be a small vocal minority as it is today.

Noobs and pros will be motivated to join a training ground if the rewards are good enough. I'm sure the devs are smart enough to create a good skill line for this, just to motivate people to learn how to play. We had such training when WAR was active. But leaders got demoralized when just a few minutes of introductory training didn't really solve the problem of "herding cats". Better training, linked to rewards, might work though.

One can easily argue that the old days were too crazy, but the good part of it was that there was always a good raid. You could log on at any time and join an active and effective siege of some keep. And experience occasional epic battles. It was the crazy dudes that kept the machine going. Now PvP is dead in comparison. A middle ground between now and the old times would be good.

MaxwellC · November 2016

@ChaosWotan

1. I agree with the same old cyrodiil is a tad boring but to keep it lore related it'll be difficult honestly.
2. Nope never should be a thing especially seeing how it's easy for a 5 man group to take a keep depending on how it's guarded.
3. This is fine imo.
4. Nope sorry but PvP is a learning experience and you shouldn't be rewarded for dying consistently. I feel there should be a reward for killing sprees.
5. Nope not at all, groups are the main go to in PvP and they're already strong enough. No need for a leader or anyone else to get a buff that undermines solo play.
6. This should be a thing.
7. As a former emperor I say nope. The power creep is already too strong and if I get an advantage because someone else wasn't able to get emperor by dedicating their time then that's not fair imo.
8. Leaderboards already reward the best player (at-least by AP terms), Dueling doesn't make you good at PvP only 1 on 1 instances sorry.
9. Nope, teaching is fine but no new skill line should be added for that sole reason.

WhitePawPrints · November 2016

ChaosWotan wrote: »

Keeps don't flip easily when populations are low. Demoralizing to lead a group of 8-12 amateurs who spend five minutes on entering a keep, only to be wiped by a small group of good enemies who arrive just before the flags are flipped. After trying this 3-4 times, the group either disbands or focus on resources. It's boring. I rather do PvE than play during low population campaigns.

Winners get AP, losers get something that movitates them to keep fighting.

Give rewards and buffs to good duelists. The whole point is just to motivate people, with different play styles and skill levels, to play PvP, and not be a small vocal minority as it is today.

Noobs and pros will be motivated to join a training ground if the rewards are good enough. I'm sure the devs are smart enough to create a good skill line for this, just to motivate people to learn how to play. We had such training when WAR was active. But leaders got demoralized when just a few minutes of introductory training didn't really solve the problem of "herding cats". Better training, linked to rewards, might work though.

One can easily argue that the old days were too crazy, but the good part of it was that there was always a good raid. You could log on at any time and join an active and effective siege of some keep. And experience occasional epic battles. It was the crazy dudes that kept the machine going. Now PvP is dead in comparison. A middle ground between now and the old times would be good.

Poor coordination results in a keep not taken. I don't see a problem with that. I know how frustrating it is because I've nearly taken several keeps, only to have everyone around me die to the guards while I'm killing players, then suddenly I'm tanking all guards and players. But I did not earn that keep; the defenders did well, and they deserve to keep it.

I have 3.9 Million AP on 1 character. Ap for winning is no incentive for me. Motifs on the other hand would be something I'm interested in.

Duelists and other min/max proc set players are discouraging PVP play, not motivating it. So rewarding them further would further kill PVP.

Rewards are irrelevant when the method is to have a hardcore player there simply for the purpose of killing noobs and proving his manhood is bigger than theirs. Me, as a new player, learn things at my own pace so I'd never be encouraged to do anything like that, unless I had to grind for it to get rewards.

ChaosWotan · November 2016

Maxwell, please see the reply I just posted before you did.

And the point is not to get any significant game changing rewards for always dying. Give rewards that are inconsequential, like motifs, or some nice furniture, or a pretty nurse

when housing is introduced. If one has a limit on how many fights one can lose, in relation to time spent in groups, Purple Heart rewards might motivate noobs to learn PvP.

I'm not an emp, but I rather have an active campaign with people trying to get the emp buffs than playing in the boring and relatively empty campaigns nowadays.

MaxwellC · November 2016

@ChaosWotan
I understand what you're saying but no you shouldn't be rewarded for dying that kind of mind set isn't good at all. Why should I be rewarded for losing consistently, if I want to win then I need to try harder to get that reward.

Not sure what platform you play but on Xbox NA Haderus is always full during the afternoon times, and scourge is usually in the night. Emperor buffs should only be for the emperor as I stated before the power creep is too big.

It's our job as a community to teach if we feel like it. I for one solo PvP all day, anyone who plays PvP NA XB1 and regularly sees me can testify to that. Would I go out of my way to teach someone PvP, most definitely not. I will tell them hey try this if they're asking questions.

AuldWolf · November 2016

I can guarantee that if they ever implemented the system where PvE criminals could become targets for people with a sadistic inclination toward ruining others fun? It'd be a Champions Online zero day patch scenario all over again. The population would drop by 50~ per cent at least. It'd be catastrophic. Thankfully, despite some poor choices that already keep the population lower than it would otherwise be, I don't think they'd be that foolish.

The thing is is that most of the people who play ESO aren't into PvP and forced grouping as much as some people at ZOS seem to think we are. As I keep pointing out, Champions Online had the same issue. And CO is now as good as dead.

ChaosWotan · November 2016

I use a PC. Returned to Pact after a year pause, only to find our faction has imploded. That's depressing.

The mind set created in noobs after being wiped several times is not good for an active PvP campaign. Our newbie troops need motivation.

Some people enjoy fishing, trading and farming motifs. Pretty sure some leaders will enjoy training recruits if the rewards are good and it helps their PvP guild.

The solution for the power creep is to make new players stronger more quickly, and then give wannabe emps some goal they want to chase. Just keep people chasing rewards in PvP. That will fill up campaigns.

For example, a good solo player can get a god mode buff after killing 10 or twenty opponents, and that will make him or her capable of fighting zergs, but have no effect during duels.

Just keep people shiny and happy in PvP.

WhitePawPrints · November 2016

ChaosWotan wrote: »

The mind set created in noobs after being wiped several times is not good for an active PvP campaign. Our newbie troops need motivation.

ChaosWotan wrote: »

For example, a good solo player can get a god mode buff after killing 10 or twenty opponents, and that will make him or her capable of fighting zergs, but have no effect during duels.

Okay, now I'm convinced this is a troll thread.

MaxwellC · November 2016

Yup you've lost me now. I also like how you're pretty much stating power creep is solved by making lower leveled players or noobs more powerful faster when all they have to do is grind out their skills and learn their rotations.
Again there's no easy street in a MMO, go through the same process all players went through in order to learn how to be a better player, mentality like this will not benefit you in anything.

Saint_Bud · November 2016

1.5 game mechanics and only craftet ore pvp gear allowed to use. Make emp buff more for the population and not for the emp self (dont mean the hp emp buff). The classes should feel differant in playstyle and have pros and contras like they were developed for a long time.

ChaosWotan · November 2016

It's not a troll thread. My main is a NB colonel, so I know PvP pretty good. I'm not a good duelist. Used to being the underdog against DK and Templars. I'm used to being the victim of the power creep, but I don't whine about it. Only whine when campaigns are half-dead and boring.

My best KD is 148:0 in a zerg, with Subhuman as a leader, and only because the group was good.

I thought you solo duelists would like the idea of beating the zergs many of you love to hate

And by zergs I only mean organized groups, not the randoms following a group. The threshold for triggering god mode doesn't have to be 10 or twenty killed solo opponents. It can trigger after 50 or 100 such kills, depending on the track record of a good duelist. Then the losers can get consolation prizes, while the skilled gamer get a god mode buff triggered if he or she is alone when fighting an organized group.

I don't care how PvP is revived, as long as ESO does it.

FloppyTouch · November 2016

Just no to everything like I'm happy you want to make pvp great again but these thoughts are horrible

NewBlacksmurf · November 2016

I really don't PvP much at all cause a lot of the suggestions you're making would actually keep me out of it.

Here's what will make PvP meaningful.

Ready....

Have a PvP server where the whole One Tamriel is PvP enabled and where you can jump into battlegrounds instead of Cyrodil but otherwise your faction means something in the zone Tamriel format.

Skills and abilities need a PvP mode as well as CP assignments.

Ppl should be able to use their existing characters on the PvP server or regular NA or EU server by platform.

That's what and how you actually fix PvP.

Regular servers....make Cyrodil just like the rest of One Tamriel and place us against NPCs of opposing factions

That's how you fix it and reduce server issues all at once.

Dredlord · November 2016

Op reminds me of when my 5 year old comes up with ideas to fix the economy.

Lots of really bad ideas there.

The good ideas are just totally impractical.

ChaosWotan · November 2016

Everything can be solved if ESO creates new maps for PvP and get a server that can carry one large mega-campaign, but until that happens, we need a fix that can make the campaign dynamic when populations are low.

Remember that several of my suggestions are only meant to apply when populations are low. At prime time, when populations are high, things can return to normal again. During high pops, the most important change we need now is a nerf of ultimates and procs, and faster loading screens.

But the game must become more dynamic when populations are low. It should be easier for small amateur groups to take keeps, but retaking keeps should also be easy. Have seen too often that a small group of noobs use time and energy on fighting guards inside a keep, only to be insta-killed when enemy players appear.

This is a real issue. The Pact used to have very good leaders, but almost all have left, because they got tired of players not following orders. And the result is that Pact sucks today.

We need a game mechanic which rewards both the elite players and the noobs. The above suggestions do that. For example, give former emps a buff, but also make it easy for noobs to get stronger. Then both will chase rewards that will trigger the dopamine which is the reason we play these inconsequential games.

Give an elite solo duelist the chance to become a "world boss", but only when he or she is alone against a 24 man group. Then give zerg members a reward when defeating this "world boss", like we get after Dolmen fights. Both elite solo players and pro zerglings will then be happy.

Just make the game dynamic again when populations are low and filled mainly with amateurs. Tired of sieging a main gate only to get wiped a minute later, and then ride all the way from a keep, only to experience the same one more time. I rather play PvE or BF1 than waste time on that.

s_jscorpiorwb17_ESO · November 2016

1. I would remodel the keeps/castles/forts to have different layouts/designs so they have different strat/tactics needed, there are some good castles but they are in the pve zones the cyrodil ones are all so similar its boring. They could all be done in imperial etc just have some use natural landscapes/mountains, the closer they are to the scrolls the harder they are & the more upgrade options they have. The reason they probably made them all the same is because of balance I assume.

2. They could have branch off maps for each faction so when you reach the scroll temple you could invade another zone belonging to each faction.

3. All I know its damn boring fighting the same keep battle everytime, this is one thing guild wars 2 does well. People running around with pink backpacks not so much lol.

xeNNNNN · November 2016

lardvader wrote: »

10. Make gear and skills act different from PvE to PvP to able to balance stuff better without messing with each community every time we cry for change.

this ^

Just basically balance them differently based on the region you're in.

if you're in A pvp zone: it does <insert here>

If you're in a pve zone: it does <insert here>

Something like that. Maintaining the balance for both but without destroying one to ALWAYS cater to another >.>

ChaosWotan · November 2016

Let me just add that the idea of turning an elite solo duelist into a world boss does not necessarily mean that he or she should have this buff for a long time. The buff can be charged up when the elite player beats the same weak opponents many times, when populations are low, and then the buff can be used 1-3 times against 24 man groups during prime time gaming.

Noobs who lose often should get the best rewards when winning fights, but also a nice consolation prize after their group has lost fights several times. That will create the right mind set for learning how to play.

NewBlacksmurf · November 2016

xeNNNNN wrote: »

lardvader wrote: »

10. Make gear and skills act different from PvE to PvP to able to balance stuff better without messing with each community every time we cry for change.

this ^

Just basically balance them differently based on the region you're in.

if you're in A pvp zone: it does <insert here>

If you're in a pve zone: it does <insert here>

Something like that. Maintaining the balance for both but without destroying one to ALWAYS cater to another >.>

Yep this
Another said a PvP server (not seperate from the na or eu but an option within
An lastly if they keep the Cyrodil stuff, it needs to randomly spawn differ map layouts with over 10,000 keep and map variations so it stays fun

This also should be daily Cyrodil or respawn after 2 hours like a battle ground vs a week or month long.