Why I Feel ZOS Should Promote Skilful Play

Sunburnt_Penguin · October 2017

I’ve been solely a PvPer since I picked up ESO and I know a lot of other players have also. However, recently a lot of the experienced PvPers are leaving, simply because it’s not as enjoyable as it has previously been. These experienced players have been PvPing on daily (or near daily) basis since they picked up the game, without any significant investment or attention in to Cyrodiil. They’re not burnt out with the game (if they were then they would’ve left long ago), they’re burnt out with what Cyrodiil has become.

I, and those who I speak to, see the cause as solo/small-scale becoming increasingly difficult with each patch. Large groups are becoming larger because of the influx of new inexperienced players relying on others for support as well as them immediately becoming more powerful than new players of old were through various buffs and additions to the game which simplifies combat.

As a result, a lot of solo players resorted to small groups and those already in small groups had to increase their numbers. However, the issue with this is that people are not playing how they want to and what they enjoy, so they’re leaving to find more rewarding experiences in other games.

What has kept me playing ESO was the desire and need to improve so I can get to the point of what I’ve been on the receiving end of many times before, that is, where I can win outnumbered. That was my PvP end-game.

However, with the way Cyrodiil has slowly devolved, this brings two distinct differences for newer players:
1. The reliance on larger groups removes the inherent need to improve to have success because each individuals’ performance has less of an impact.
2. They likely won’t have the same desire that I had to improve and fight outnumbered because it occurres a lot less than it did when I was new.

All this does is remove Cyrodiil’s end-game from players who would have previously had one. When that gets removed from Cyrodiil, all that happens is that people treat this like any other PvP game without progression: log on, fight and log off. There’s no personal desire to improve nor is there a reason to play other than the simple instant gratification of the fights, if they get this more from another game then they’ll simply go and play that’s instead. There’s no longevity attached to PvP and without new solely PvP players having the desire to improve, I doubt that these will be continually playing ESO for as long as we all previously have.

The result: experienced players getting disillusioned and leaving the game whereas newer players won’t be as attached to the game as we were and end up leaving earlier than their older counterparts. Ultimately, PvPers need to be subbed or buy DLCs to obtain the best gear: whether that was vMA weapons, Black Rose, Amberplasm etc or the upcoming Asylum weapons - we’ve consistently kept paying and supporting all with arguably very limited investment required to keep playing.

gammelscroll · October 2017

we all should stop support zenimax with money until they actually do something real good to the game , like : cyrodil lag, optimize graphic, give pvpers own pvp rewards with weapons gear etc so we dont have to pve. pve gear not usable in pvp. More money to pvp players. and so much more

Dk_needs_a_buff · October 2017

Ive never been amazing at pvp but i do ok. Back before one tamriel i could 1v x very often. Before heavy armour become a thing. Id use light or medium and so would most others and its fast paced. When people die quick it all comes down to skill and experiance. Now that heavy gear is the FOTM people die alot slower so its harder to survive and kill multiple opponents regardless of theyr skill level. This is why pvp is not fun.

In my opinion changes should be. All defencive ultimates should cost alot more. Light gear shield should not stack with sorca shield. Heavy gear should not give wepon or spell dmg. Impreg set shouldnt exist.

For more fast paced battles maeby they should introduce a negative affect for wearing heavy gear. Do less damage for example

Zvorgin · October 2017

Dk_needs_a_buff wrote: »

Ive never been amazing at pvp but i do ok. Back before one tamriel i could 1v x very often. Before heavy armour become a thing. Id use light or medium and so would most others and its fast paced. When people die quick it all comes down to skill and experiance. Now that heavy gear is the FOTM people die alot slower so its harder to survive and kill multiple opponents regardless of theyr skill level. This is why pvp is not fun.

In my opinion changes should be. All defencive ultimates should cost alot more. Light gear shield should not stack with sorca shield. Heavy gear should not give wepon or spell dmg. Impreg set shouldnt exist.

For more fast paced battles maeby they should introduce a negative affect for wearing heavy gear. Do less damage for example

You already do less damage wearing heavy armor than wearing medium or light.

I agree on the defensive ultimates costing more, with regards to shields there is no easy solution but maybe not letting them stack is the best option.

Rohamad_Ali · October 2017

Not to derail your thread as I like that it keeps the conversation going but I made an entire thread about this too and it just got ignored and the players that haven't left yet support it . With none of the old players even logging into the forums anymore it just landed in a rut .

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/373169/vid-why-the-tanking-meta-in-pvp-has-become-detrimental-to-pvp-health#latest

But we can see from graphs for PC and ps4 , population in PVP continues to decline . I feel like we've reached an impasse with ZoS and PVP . Any action to correct course needed to be done quickly i believe to retain and possibly get some people back in the game . The mark to do this wouldn't of been around the witches festival when some people return just to play the event to see if it's good but there's nothing in those patch notes for them to even look into the festival .

All I know is that the population is so low now in PVP on PC NA , the largest campaign can't retain full pop anymore and the other servers are dead with just some emp farmers or PVE questing players . It's more then concerning as I think we might see PVP totally tank for the first time since launch .

When a games PVP tanks , it's highly irregular to ever bounce back . Age of Conan , Swtor , secret world Lotro and Blade of Souls all had a similar instance occur just a few years in . Those games became ghost towns and some had to go through a painful relaunch because to the pve population surprise , some of those games profits dipped too far to even maintain PVE updates . The ones that didn't attempt a relaunch are cash store heavy , low population fossils on life support .

Eso has a big label and corporation behind it so it probably won't completely tank like the others but I could be wrong , look at Star Wars . How the heck do you mess up a franchise name that big right ? Well ,they did . Whatever can be done best be done fast to limit the most damage to the game we love ... Because love doesn't cover payroll checks .

Biro123 · October 2017

I think there are some mighty assumptions in the op.

The assumption that there is a constant stream of new players, and that the game doesn't take skill.

I disagree. It does take skill. And it is VERY hard for new players to get into a PvP game when all their opponents have been at it for 3 years. The result is that often, new players very quickly decide they dont like pvp, and dont come back. Losing the influx if new players, means declining populations.
All open-world PvP games suffer from this. And everyone I've played have had a limited lifespan because of that.

Now skill. Do the new players struggle because they are out-skilled? Absolutely. So, Doe's the game involve skill? Absolutely.!

Now in terms of gaining skill, everyone learns at a different rate, and everyone plateau's. Some plateaus are higher than others, but most are fairly close.
Now for the sake of simplicity, let's just classify anyone who hasn't yet plateaued yet a noob.

Now the point I'm getting at is that many of the old-school 1vXers were more successful in the past because they were surrounded by noobs.
Now, the majority of the PvP player base have reached their plateau and so are no longer noobs.

Basically, those 'noobs' you are trying to 1vX with now are not actually noobs anymore. I'd suspect that if you put one of them into the game as it was 3 Years ago, with the skill-level they have now vs the average skill then, they would be doing the 1vXing.

Basically the skill-gap is now much, much narrower. But this does not mean it is not a skill-based game.

I mean, yes, mechanisms have also been added which favour the zerger, I don't dispute that. But it hasn't removed skill.

Zer0oo · October 2017

"If you are outnumbered you should not win." That is the statement devs gave in one of the eso live episodes and they doing a great job to empower numbers with every patch.

Turelus · October 2017

Zer0oo wrote: »

"If you are outnumbered you should not win." That is the statement devs gave in one of the eso live episodes and they doing a great job to empower numbers with every patch.

Which is correct at a point. If you're facing 1v20 and they're all focusing you then you should die. One can't argue that tank build ruin PvP and also argue they can't beat mass numbers without dying.

I agree that PvP needs some work, Cyrodiil really need some parts reworked, balance needs more work (which is always happening) but players at some point also need to stand back and realise they Cyrodiil wasn't designed for one person to beat an entire army, it was designed to have massive armies fighting.

They gave us battlegrounds so that small group players had a fair and balanced environment in which to PvP. Cyrodiil should be treated as a sandbox and small groups need to learn when they should disengage due to numbers against them.

Zer0oo · October 2017

Turelus wrote: »

Zer0oo wrote: »

"If you are outnumbered you should not win." That is the statement devs gave in one of the eso live episodes and they doing a great job to empower numbers with every patch.

Which is correct at a point. If you're facing 1v20 and they're all focusing you then you should die. One can't argue that tank build ruin PvP and also argue they can't beat mass numbers without dying.

I agree that PvP needs some work, Cyrodiil really need some parts reworked, balance needs more work (which is always happening) but players at some point also need to stand back and realise they Cyrodiil wasn't designed for one person to beat an entire army, it was designed to have massive armies fighting.

They gave us battlegrounds so that small group players had a fair and balanced environment in which to PvP. Cyrodiil should be treated as a sandbox and small groups need to learn when they should disengage due to numbers against them.

If is see 20 ppl running to me i do not expect to win. I just want to run away but zos nerfed that also to a point that it is basically impossible in most cases to get away from unwinable fights. But why should numbers matter more than skills? It just encourages people to stack more instead of improving.

It more or less created this meta where ppl just stack because it is way easier to fight if you hugely outnumber your opponent and if build for tankyness the chance of being killed is quite low.

You do not see any small/medium grp of none organized player(e.g zone lfg grps) going around to do objectives because it is much easier not do die with more ppl.
You see people with 35+k hp spamming snipes(never have i seen snipes hit for so little),35+k hp heal bots , you see gankers with 40k hp (yes they really think they can kill you), 40+k tanks who think they do damage (i have the time to write them to *** o** on a glass canon build while they drop their ulti on me) and the sad thing is the chance of them killing you is quite big if they just bring enough tanks and in stealth waiting nb that only attacks you when you are quite low on hp and are highly outnumber. But the chance to kill any of them is quite low and even lower when they outnumber you.

Also i know when i can win a fight and when it is pointless but it is pretty much impossible to find a winnable fight if you are solo since either no one will chase you or almost the whole zerg(15+) will go after you and at that point you just want to run and hope you can get away(see the beginning).

Cyrodill was not only designed for large AvA but also for smaller gps and solo players.

As for bg they were fun but they have very big faults. Most of the game modes are less about pvp and more about running. Terrible team balance,... (just look at the subforum). None of the devs did address any of the concern in the forum and at this point i just think they do not care about bg at all.

Sunburnt_Penguin · October 2017

Biro123 wrote: »

I think there are some mighty assumptions in the op.

The assumption that there is a constant stream of new players, and that the game doesn't take skill.

I disagree. It does take skill. And it is VERY hard for new players to get into a PvP game when all their opponents have been at it for 3 years. The result is that often, new players very quickly decide they dont like pvp, and dont come back. Losing the influx if new players, means declining populations.
All open-world PvP games suffer from this. And everyone I've played have had a limited lifespan because of that.

Now skill. Do the new players struggle because they are out-skilled? Absolutely. So, Doe's the game involve skill? Absolutely.!

Now in terms of gaining skill, everyone learns at a different rate, and everyone plateau's. Some plateaus are higher than others, but most are fairly close.
Now for the sake of simplicity, let's just classify anyone who hasn't yet plateaued yet a noob.

Now the point I'm getting at is that many of the old-school 1vXers were more successful in the past because they were surrounded by noobs.
Now, the majority of the PvP player base have reached their plateau and so are no longer noobs.

Basically, those 'noobs' you are trying to 1vX with now are not actually noobs anymore. I'd suspect that if you put one of them into the game as it was 3 Years ago, with the skill-level they have now vs the average skill then, they would be doing the 1vXing.

Basically the skill-gap is now much, much narrower. But this does not mean it is not a skill-based game.

I mean, yes, mechanisms have also been added which favour the zerger, I don't dispute that. But it hasn't removed skill.

I never stated that the game doesn’t require skill, only that it doesn’t promote skilful play. I think those are two very different things and it’s important to distinguish between them.

Skill is obviously required because that’s the reason why I’ve won every duel against a friend, regardless of what class I’m on, but also why we’re now having closer fights than we used to.

To me, skilful play is broadly: keeping your buffs up, knowing when to go offensive and be defensive, knowing how to efficiently deal and mitigate damage, and recognising your opponents rotations and when to change up your own. The reason I say that they’re not promoting this is because there’s greater emphasis on this in solo/small-scale compared to larger-scale however, they’re making changes which benefit large-scale more than small-scale.

I don’t believe that the average player has drastically improved over time, on my platform at least. Judging by the amount of low CPs in the main campaign compared tobefore Morrowind, it brought a lot of new players in. Then there’s a lot of very experienced large group players who I’ve fought solo or when they were in small numbers and they’re not anywhere near what I’d consider skilful by my previous definition.

However, I do agree that the skill-gap is much lower now but I don’t think this is anything to do with players’ skill improving, I think it’s solely down to the changes that ZOS introduced. Take heavy armour just for example:
- Additional resistance
- Free resources and w/s damage
- Additional healing received
- Additional health.
So for those who can’t keep their buffs up or efficiently mitigate damage, heavy armour brings them more room for error and is less punishing when they don’t. That’s not promoting skilful play to me.

Merlin13KAGL · October 2017

Maybe side objectives actually need a purpose, or at least a better bonus, one that requires small scale groups to break off to capture or defend?

The 50-people-stand-on-this-flag method needs some revision, just as the Emp-ring being able to essentially disregard the rest of the map needs revision.

In short there could be objectives or bonuses that would require no more than 12/8/4/2 man groups to break off. This would then guarantee conflict limits, instead of the zerg.

I still think there should be buffs/debuffs in certain circumstances based on how much one side is outnumbered, both campaign wide and in the current conflict.

amir412 · October 2017

Zer0oo wrote: »

"If you are outnumbered you should not win." That is the statement devs gave in one of the eso live episodes and they doing a great job to empower numbers with every patch.

Sad.

Valencer · October 2017

Biro123 wrote: »

Now the point I'm getting at is that many of the old-school 1vXers were more successful in the past because they were surrounded by noobs.
Now, the majority of the PvP player base have reached their plateau and so are no longer noobs.

Basically, those 'noobs' you are trying to 1vX with now are not actually noobs anymore. I'd suspect that if you put one of them into the game as it was 3 Years ago, with the skill-level they have now vs the average skill then, they would be doing the 1vXing.

Basically the skill-gap is now much, much narrower. But this does not mean it is not a skill-based game.

I mean, yes, mechanisms have also been added which favour the zerger, I don't dispute that. But it hasn't removed skill.

Nah, this isnt true. The guys that were getting wrecked before still dont keep their buffs up, still havent learned to properly manage their resources, still often dont CC break in time.

The only difference is most of them are now wearing heavy armour and spamming 1h+s/resto/tree ultis whenever theyre scared while running in even bigger zergs. Killing people takes too much time because every fight against someone who has the right ultimates/abilities slotted and is wearing the right gear is about as fast paced as watching paint dry.

Waffennacht · October 2017

I try to look at it from the inexperienced player's view point.

I just joined and have just enough gear etc to participate

I join my new ish guild, get a few other inexperienced players with me

Let's say I'm in a group of six, we're moderate players with sub optimal gear

We come across a lone experienced player

I am aware I'm not the best, but it is 6 against 1

We all die.

I come to forums to complain that the abilities I could visually identify as OP because it is logical to think that 6 players should be able to kill 1 player no matter the skill difference.

Get slapped by forum crew and quit game.

That's what happens when you allow skill gap to be too wide. Sure experienced players have a ton of fun, but the majority of the money leaves

Thogard · October 2017

Waffennacht wrote: »

I try to look at it from the inexperienced player's view point.

I just joined and have just enough gear etc to participate

I join my new ish guild, get a few other inexperienced players with me

Let's say I'm in a group of six, we're moderate players with sub optimal gear

We come across a lone experienced player

I am aware I'm not the best, but it is 6 against 1

We all die.

I come to forums to complain that the abilities I could visually identify as OP because it is logical to think that 6 players should be able to kill 1 player no matter the skill difference.

Get slapped by forum crew and quit game.

That's what happens when you allow skill gap to be too wide. Sure experienced players have a ton of fun, but the majority of the money leaves

I respectfully disagree. The fact that a player can kill six other players is a huge draw for myself. In our minds, we each view ourselves as the heroes... that’s why we play fantasy games like this. And what heroic fantasy story doesn’t have the hero (you) defeating multiple opponents and winning against the odds?

The fact is, if a player won solely because of what class they were playing, that wouldn’t be inspiring.. there’s nothing heroic about that. But at the moment you can still 1vX effectively on almost any class. Which means that any of us can be the hero we want to be.

Back in 2014 and 2015 I was getting wrecked left and right. I was running a Zerg surf bow DK build and sniping people. I knew I wasn’t good, but I was too busy building my practice at work to dedicate the time to be a top player. Whenever I was in a small group that got 1vX’d, it didn’t make me rage... it made me want to play the game more. It showed me that it was actually possible to be a “hero.”

I didn’t start pvping outside of the IC sewers until mid 2016. And I had to practice a ton - I’m not as young as I was when I was playing MMOs competitively in the mid 2000s, and I don’t learn things as quickly.

But seeing those 1vX players (or my personal fav, the 8vZerg groups since that was my PVP background a decade ago) gave me a goal to shoot for.

I’m not there yet, but I’m a lot closer than I was, and now I can hang with the best of them ... not beat, but hang with

. And Zenimax made a lot of money off of me as I continued and continued to shoot for that goal

And I don’t think I’m the only one.

Waffennacht · October 2017

@Thogard do you think more players are like you or do you feel the majority isn't?

I know for a fact the majority isn't (coming from xbox viewpoint)

The majority does not look up information to do better
The majority does not view forums
The majority does not know subtle mechanic differences
The majority doesn't AC well or at all
The majority spends only a few hours to play
The majority expects to win when out numbering their opponent

I am not putting my personal opinion out there, just saying the majority of players are casual and do not want to invest the time or effort to reach your level of play.

To them, the game is broken when 6 players, no matter how subpar their playing maybe, cannot kill one player.

They do not understand why they lost, they don't care, they believe 6 bow wizard should be able to take you out.

They also feel like it's a fruitless venture to play a game where their bow wizard cannot win, even when the odds are in their favor.

Most players prefer a low skill gap. Look at the forums, you'll see plenty of threads that encourage the leveling (evening?) of the skill gap.

The majority of the player base wants to feel like the hero without any work. Or at least they most certainly do not want to feel like a supporting role to you the main actor.

Newer players, those especially that will take their money with them, want to win and want to win now,. (Look at the popularity of all these video games that pre determine all of your characters - overwatch, they don't like having to think)

ak_pvp · October 2017

How 2 skills.

Semi dynamic abilities. I.e. Abilities that aren't weakened against multiple opponents. This means if I db 5, or 50. They should all take full damage and stun if within the range. Or an ability like wings/absorb should be per person, so the strength scales the same against different opponent numbers.

Cap healing from outside sources in PvP. No more pocket healers, have to look out for yourself whilst in a zergtato.

Dynamic ultimate. Fix it. Return it.

Active abilities like whip or assassins will. CP tree no longer grants pure stats, instead something usable semi skills like riposte or the like to increase skill cap. Many people still time expensive abilities with break free.

All in all smart play.