I want nothing more in this game currently than for imperial city to become more active with anything besides huge groups.
That said, this isn't the way to do it. If IC had a specific campaign, it would just be zerg v zerg all day, and most who go there do it for the solo, duo, and small scale play that you can't accomplish as well in cyrodill.

I would love for them to add incentives to get more people in and around IC. Many great ideas have been tossed around the forums from time to time, but my favorites are:

Seperate IC leaderboards - I really like this idea. Having a scoring leaderboard (just alliance points gained) for inside of IC that is seperate from the campaign could be interesting. This leaderboard could track just the AP gained in IC to rank players, and still allow AP gained in the city to contribute to the overall emperor leaderboard (as to not discourage anyone from spending time in IC when they could be in CYRO). This wouldn't affect campaign scoring, etc. It would simply provide a different set of incentives for players looking to be competitive or earn new rewards. We already have a perfect rewards system that could be easily implemented. Simply revamp rewards for the worthy for the IC leaderboard so that each campaign cycle, at the same time players get their campaign rewards for open world (purple items for participation, gold items for top 100 scorers), they also receive their IC leaderboard rewards. These would simply be purple tel var items for participation (minimum of 20k AP earned should be placed) and gold items for top performers (probably should test how many top slots to allow on leaderboards; 100 might be too many). I really feel that this idea could breathe new life into imperial city (and get people to buy the DLC if they haven't already!).

Campaign objectives in the city - Allow for certain things to grant points towards an alliance's campaign scoring, in order to generate interest. These points would have to be much fewer than the potential points your alliance can earn in open world CYRO. It could be things like holding x amount of flags when a scoring tick happens that your alliance gains a point, or having the alliance that kills the most district bosses earn a point, alliance with the most molag bal kills earns a point, alliance with highest in-city AP gain gains a point, etc.

AP from world bosses - Adding a small ap value (<1k) to killing world & flag bosses could help draw players out and create more action.

wait a minute now - didn't I just answer this question...just to consolidate my input/feedback:

hoping this will cause larger, consistent, balanced (maybe, maybe not) populations in IC...

I know zos is out there hanging on my every word, so - make it so, please...

I sincerely doubt they'd bother revamping the IC now that battlegrounds are coming out. But I like the ideas presented, particularly something that relates to the ongoing war itself. As it stands, having all the keeps flipped up top and a totally different faction dominating the city makes very little sense.

A dedicated server just seems like the simplest and most realistic solution though. For those that want the rewards already present, they are funneled into the same server or couple of servers. It'd make Tel Var farming a bit harder, but it would play more in line with the intent of the DLCs design where killing other players is actually a good source of Tel Var because there would be more players present.

zyk wrote: »

I support this 100%. While the potential exists for IC to enhance Alliance War gameplay, it does not currently do so in any way and there's no evidence ZOS has the inclination to put forth the resources to do this right.

As it is now, Cyrodiil and IC offer completely different gameplay experiences.

- It does not make sense for them to share a queue or a population; no value is added.
- It does not make sense for players looking for IC gameplay to travel within Cyrodiil access IC; no value is added.
- If Cyrodiil and IC were decoupled, both Cyrodiil and IC would have a greater opportunity for balanced populations.
- A decoupled IC could be accessed instantly, providing a quick and easy PVP experience; a more accessible IC would likely be more active.

I'd rather see IC reworked to contribute to the campaigns and enhance Alliance War gameplay than sever it from the campaigns and effectively discard it...

Seems Iike the poll's mostly split atm, but it is clear from the responses that people want a change to make IC more relevant and populated, whatever that change may be.

I agree with NightbladeMechanics.
Make IC matter to the overall campaign

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Just give it objectives that influence the campaign and more substantial reasons to fight there, and it'd be an attractive destination and valuable asset to the Alliance War of which it's supposed to be the center.

"But people who don't own the DLC can't play there. That will imbalance the campaign scores!"

Wrong. Unless one or two factions have substantially more DLC players than another, IC's population will be no more imbalanced than overland Cyrodiil's. Looking at how active IC has been on all factions in the past (90% of Cyrodiil action was in IC after its release), the growing popularity of the game and ESO+ memberships, and the always increasing multifaction playerbase, I believe it's a safe assumption that this will not be the case.

Non-DLC players can have upper Cyrodiil in which to participate in the campaign, like usual, and DLC players can have the option to participate from there or from IC. Easy and simple.

Also, separating IC into its own campaign will cause some players who currently play in both Cyrodiil and IC to home over to the IC campaign and play in Cyrodiil much less, reducing its activity.

Aaaaand giving IC more substantial objectives and campaign relevance will draw competitive guilds to fight there (or try to), which will in turn draw predatory small groups to come fight there, which will increase the overall activity in IC and overland Cyrodiil, as groups will constantly be going back and forth vying over objectives.

I orginally said yes, but this guy changed my mind.

zyk wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

I support this 100%. While the potential exists for IC to enhance Alliance War gameplay, it does not currently do so in any way and there's no evidence ZOS has the inclination to put forth the resources to do this right.

As it is now, Cyrodiil and IC offer completely different gameplay experiences.

- It does not make sense for them to share a queue or a population; no value is added.
- It does not make sense for players looking for IC gameplay to travel within Cyrodiil access IC; no value is added.
- If Cyrodiil and IC were decoupled, both Cyrodiil and IC would have a greater opportunity for balanced populations.
- A decoupled IC could be accessed instantly, providing a quick and easy PVP experience; a more accessible IC would likely be more active.

I'd rather see IC reworked to contribute to the campaigns and enhance Alliance War gameplay than sever it from the campaigns and effectively discard it...

Do you think this is a reasonable expectation? It took ZOS 1.5 years to adjust the respawn radius of Forward Camps.

Consider how poorly capture points were implemented in IC and Cyrodiil towns. The IC respawn mechanics are from the 90s.

I believe most ZOS devs are incredibly talented -- but over-worked -- so I know this must only be true because ZOS management did allocate enough resources or priority to these tasks. The same goes for all problems in Cyrodiil.

So even if ZOS was to tie together the scoring and gameplay of Cyrodiil and IC, there is good reason to believe it may be implemented poorly -- unless ZOS allocates significantly more resources to AvA development. If implemented poorly, that might make a bad situation worse.

I would rather ZOS invest in more open world content to better enable IC-style fights in Cyrodiil -- among many other things.

IMO the best thing that could happen to Cyrodiil -- but won't -- would be if ZOS spun AvA off as its own title with a dedicated team and the budget necessary to compete with other mainstream multiplayer games. I love Cyrodiil, but the direction the rest of the game is against its grain and that is ruining it.

They have been focused mainly on other DLCs and PvE content for the last year. Getting anything out of them for IC was a blessing.

They said this next year is about PvP performance. I believe they'll also consider updates to campaign scoring mechanics and IC in the process, and I intend to keep this topic in discussion just in case.

Don't give up...

geonsocal wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

I agree with NightbladeMechanics.
Make IC matter to the overall campaign

howdy @Katahdin ...thst sounds good, but, how would you account for IC not being accessible to all players...

I'm sure it's more than likely that IC is likely available to an equal proportion of players from each faction...but, until it becomes a part of the base game (2 more years maybe???), it doesn't quite seem fair to give it too much importance to the overall campaign...

also, nightblade mechanics had made a really good point sometime earlier about separating IC splintering PvP populations in causing a subset of players to primarily engage in only IC gameplay...

I think more options (dueling, cyrodiil, battlegrounds, IC) for PvP would be a good thing - what do you think?

But PvP already has those options with IC connected to the campaign. Why is splitting IC away from Cyrodiil necessary? Why is that the right choice instead of updating IC objectives and making them relevant to the campaign?

When you distill the logic down to its very very very core, the only valid argument for severing IC and Cyrodiil is because IC is a DLC.

So, should IC be outside of Cyrodiil campaigns simply because it is behind a DLC pay wall? I argue that "fairness" isn't in the equation. Purchasing the DLC is a choice, so players choose with which objectives they contribute to the campaign. I argue that ZOS can implement as many DLC campaign score contributions as they want as long as (1) each faction has approximately the same number of active players with access to the DLC, ensuring that DLC populations are no more imbalanced than Cyrodiil, and (2) DLC objectives play a secondary role in campaign scoring to Cyrodiil objectives. Cyrodiil must remain the focus, but seriously what's the harm in having upper Cyrodiil doing its thing around an active IC, full of players running around skirmishing, with objectives to compete over which actually count toward the campaign? And keep in mind that this Alliance War is based around a conflict to conquer IC anyway.

That's where I'm coming from. I know a lot of people on every faction are able and willing to fight over IC objectives if they're made to be meaningful. I don't see the harm in DLC players getting to do that while non-DLC players stay in Cyrodiil, contributing to the campaign just as they do right now.

Yes and No.

If we leave it in it's current format, then yes make a separate server.

But I'd rather have it play a part in the alliance war by making the districts open to all players, even those who do not own the dlc / eso+.

Also remove the loading screens to reach it, repair the bridges and let the players go to the districts without going to the sewers. Keep the sewers limited to dlc owners.

Albino_Dunmer wrote: »

Seems Iike the poll's mostly split atm, but it is clear from the responses that people want a change to make IC more relevant and populated, whatever that change may be.

I'll be honest, if IC had its own campaign with lots of fast action, quick spawning and jumping right into fights around the clock, I'd likely just stay there most of the time until whenever BG lands on PTS.

Cyrodiil is this big sandbox environment that can be a lot of fun, but even though it's so huge, sometimes it feels like I keep fighting in the same places over and over and there is often nothing going on in the rest of the map. Kinda miss how it was at launch when you would constantly run into people all over the place, even almost any cave or little random town like Cheydinhal.

Ideally, the existing campaigns would remain as they are with Imperial City available for anyone who wants to go there in Trueflame or whatever, but a new campaign could be added for those who want to spawn directly in the sewers with no keeps, no emperor etc.

Some mentioned above they are worried this would siphon away the players from the regular Cyrodiil campaigns. Yes, I agree that is the likely outcome, but consider why. People would want to go there because it sounds fun as hell.

At any rate, seems pointless to worry about it since there is almost zero chance we will see any significant change to IC or Cyrodiil before Morrowind release. And then many of us will no longer care as we will be playing Battlegrounds most of the time.

Rickter wrote: »

personally id like to push in the OTHER direction: make IC seamlessly open. meaning, instead of instanced access through sewer entry locations, you should be able to ride across a bridge and no load screen get inside the city.

Oh man, we tried so hard to get there during the beta! They never told us it was locked off.

We thought maybe if we could just find the right spot to swim across, or kill that sorcerer on the bridge

They should do the following

(1) Gate IC based on home keep control on all servers

(2) Have all PvP servers connect to ONE IC server

That way of your faction has no access, you have to fight in cyro somewhere, but the populations of cyro and ic remain separate, and there is a gate mechanic.

This would promote the protection of home keeps, and allow cyro pop caps to be unskewed by IC users, and turn IC into a concentrated populated arena.

You could even have an emp scoreboard for the imperial city so that the IC could be an alternative path to emp.