Maintenance for the week of March 25:
• [COMPLETE] ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – March 28, 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)

Alliance points and Faction points

frozywozy
frozywozy
✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭
I would like to bring some discussions regarding the incentives alliance and faction points create on players with the actual game mechanics. I used to think like that having players fight on the other side of the map to get their own fights was wrong. Today I understand that as long as we have our home keeps, isolating your group into fights where your faction won't interact is the challenge that some people seek and it's very understandable. They create a great distraction and keep alot of potential players who could be pushing our keeps busy. This play style works for people who have interests in both faction points and alliance points.

On the other end, since the PvP team decided to increase drastically the amount of AP you get for capturing objectives, it created dramatic impacts such as people not having an incentive to ride to defend our back keeps anymore (Dragon, Drake, Brindle) except for very hardcore and score focus players. People would rather just ride there a bit later and capture it back for the large and juicy O Tick (6k) instead of risking to do horse simulator for 2-5mins and die or defend successfully and get a D Tick of 1.5k~.

On top of that, since capturing ressources now earn so many alliance points, some groups have theorycrafted and understood that even if they are not very organized and experienced in PvP, they can simply recruit casual players from zone and capture ressources over and over to compete on the top end of the leaderboard with people who actually spend just as much time in Cyrodiil but actually engaging in real pvp combat while defending, capturing keeps and such.

A great example is something I witnessed 2 campaign cycles ago. I saw a 24 men group who is known to pvdoor objectives capture Bloodmayne. As soon as AD started sieging the keep on the mine side, the full 24men EP group bailed on the opposite side on purpose and repeated the same stratagem on Faregyl. To address this issue, I believe that offensive ticks should be tuned down a bit to create the old incentive that players had to defend keeps. Especially when it's time to ride to Dragon, Drake or Brindle.

On top of that, I believe that having a system that give score points over time for holding objectives instead of every hour would go a long way.

Finally, changing the value of outposts from 1 to 2points, keeps from 1 to 3points and scrolls from 1 to 5points would make more sense in my book.
Frozn - Stamdk - AR50
Frosted - Magplar - AR50
Frodn - Magden - AR50
Warmed - Magblade - AR50
Mmfrozy - Magsorc - AR44
Necrozn - Magcro - AR32
Twitch.TV/FrozyTV
PvP Group Builds

“Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
  • Fix Volendrung (spawn location - weapon white on the map causing the wielder to keep it forever - usable with emperorship)
  • Remove / Change CPs System, remove current CP/noCP campaigns and introduce one 30days with lock, one with no locks
  • Fix crashes when approaching a keep under attack because of bad / wrong rendering prioritization system
  • Change emperorship to value faction score points and not alliance points - see this and this
  • Fix long loading screens (mostly caused by players joining group out of rendering range)
  • Add 2 more quickslots to the wheel or add a different wheel for sieges weaponry only
  • Fix Balista Bolts not dealing damage on walls or doors if deployed at a certain place
  • Release bigger battlegrounds with 8 to 16 players per team and only two teams
  • Fix the permanent block animation - see examples : link1 link2 link3 link4 link5
  • Gives players 10 minutes to get back into Cyrodiil after relogging / crashing
  • Add a function to ignore the Claiming system of useless rewards
  • Improve the Mailing System / Rewards of the Worthy stacking
  • Assign specific group sizes to specific campaigns (24-16-8)
  • Make forward camps impossible to place near objectives
  • Make snares only available from ground effects abilities
  • Change emperorship to last minimum 24hours
  • Fix body sliding after cc breaking too quickly
  • Remove Block Casting through Battle Spirit
  • Fix the speed drop while jumping - see video
  • Fix loading screens when keeps upgrade
  • Fix Rams going crazy (spinning around)
  • Bring back dynamic ulti regeneration
  • Fix speed bug (abilities locked)
  • Introduce dynamic population
  • Lower population cap by 20%
  • Add Snare Immunity potions
  • Bring resurrection sickness
  • Fix character desync
  • Fix cc breaking bug
  • Fix gap closer bug
  • Fix health desync
  • Fix combat bug
  • Fix streak bug
  • Fix server lag
  • Mazbt
    Mazbt
    ✭✭✭✭
    frozywozy wrote: »

    A great example is something I witnessed 2 campaign cycles ago. I saw a 24 men group who is known to pvdoor objectives capture Bloodmayne. As soon as AD started sieging the keep on the mine side, the full 24men EP group bailed on the opposite side on purpose and repeated the same stratagem on Faregyl. To address this issue, I believe that offensive ticks should be tuned down a bit to create the old incentive that players had to defend keeps. Especially when it's time to ride to Dragon, Drake or Brindle.

    I agree 100% with this point. Gets annoying see a full group take a keep with just a few defenders and then all of a sudden here come a huge ad zerg to take it back but the ep group is no where to be found...like they "vanished".
    Mazari the Resurrected (AD)- PVP stamplar main
    Maz the Druid - PVP group stam warden
    - many others
    ____________
    Fantasia
  • ToRelax
    ToRelax
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    Yes, off ticks are way too big without enemies to fight against.
    DAGON - ALTADOON - CHIM - GHARTOK
    The Covenant is broken. The Enemy has won...

    Elo'dryel - Sorc - AR 50 - Hopesfire - EP EU
  • Alphaa
    Alphaa
    ✭✭✭
    All offensive ticks should scale off current population.

    All campaign faction score should scale off current population.
  • SoulScream
    SoulScream
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Keep defense is my most fun thing to do so anything to help bring it back would be great!
  • Ranger209
    Ranger209
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    frozywozy wrote: »

    On top of that, I believe that having a system that give score points over time for holding objectives instead of every hour would go a long way.

    Finally, changing the value of outposts from 1 to 2points, keeps from 1 to 3points and scrolls from 1 to 5points would make more sense in my book.

    I agree that discussions should take place on Team Scoring and AP. There are a lot of great things with PvP in Cyrodiil, but there are things that need improving on as well.

    As to the first point above, that would work very nicely if the server were full 24/7. With the way things are now, and how the map can get bled one color for hours on end when population is low, I think this would further skew an already skewed scoring system that favors what happens when very few people are on, rather than when the population is capped. I didn't say it. It's very disadvantageous as is to population cappers.

    I do agree that outposts should be worth more than resources, and keeps worth more still as you have stated. The time and effort required to acquire those is substantially more and should be weighed in heavier.

    The scrolls I would like to see worth an obscene amount maybe 50 or more points. I would also like to see them have a physical debuff for the alliance that holds them as well as an AP buff. If each alliance has 2 scrolls there is no debuff/buff, but if 1 alliance has 3, and another alliance has 1, then the alliance with 3 would get a debuff but more AP and the 50 point scoring at the tick, while the alliance with 1 would get a physical buff but less AP. I mean these things make people who study them go blind, and this is the Elder Scrolls. They should be the focal point of the campaign. So on the one hand holding them should be detrimental in a way that makes them more difficult to hold, but beneficial in a way that makes that detriment worth having. Unfortunately this again is something that would probably be overly influenced by people on at low population times so take it with a grain of salt, though I think it is a neat idea.

    I think also that defending keeps should be worth much more AP than attacking and acquiring them. Defending them requires sitting around waiting to be attacked which is boring compared to riding out and attacking things and killing opponents on the way. The more boring thing needs more incentive than that which is inherently more fun. At the same time you have to guard against doing something that makes no one want to leave their home keeps and engage the opponent. Right now though it seems people are more interested in attacking than defending.

  • Ghostbane
    Ghostbane
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭
    Suggested this a while back for spreading people out on the map in terms of map points,

    Resource - 1
    Outpost - 3
    Town - 4
    Keep - 5
    Own Scroll - 5
    Enemy Scroll - 10
    Bonus Points Keep - additional 10 (AD - Dragonclaw, EP - Brindle, DC - Drakelowe)

    AP gains, keeps could be 3k, outposts 2k, resources 750.
    {★★★★★ · ★★★★★ · ★★ · ★★★★★}
    350m+ AP PC - EU
    AD :: Imported Waffles [37]EP :: Wee ee ee ee ee [16]DC :: Ghostbane's DK [16], Impending Loadscreen [12]PC - NA
    AD :: Ghostbane [50], yer ma [43], Sir Humphrey Winterbottom 2.0 [18], robotic baby legs [18]EP :: Wee Mad Arthur [50], avast ye buttcrackz [49], Sir Horace Foghorn [27], Brother Ballbag [24], Scatman John [16]DC :: W T B Waffles [36], Morale Boost [30], W T F Waffles [17], Ghostbanë [15]RIPAD :: Sir Humphrey Winterbottom 1.0 [20]
    Addons
  • Asmael
    Asmael
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    The points per capturable objective need to be changed (good example by @Ghostbane ), since the actual way to earn a campaign is to spread people on the map to mass-flip resources. There is no point in taking risks to capture enemy scrolls, since they are worth as much as a resource, something that takes 30 seconds to flip...

    As for the ticks (I already said it in other threads, but 3rd time is the charm): I'd rather see base capture ticks (excluding players kills) removed completely, and instead have keeps give you a bonus to the AP you get from enemy players killed in the area of said keep.

    Last point: it has been several months since we had any news about what significant changes they plan to bring to Cyrodiil, outside adding a few flags and fixing bugs or performance (with the results we know).
    PC EU - Zahraji of the Void, aka "Kitty", the fluffiest salmon genocider in town.
    Poke @AsmaeI (last letter is uppercase "i") on PC EU or Asmael#9325 on Discord and receive a meow today.
  • VaranisArano
    VaranisArano
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    I'm going to address your point that players would rather let the home keeps fall without a defense so they can capture them later for that juicy o-tick.

    On PC/NA Vivec, that's not how that happens at all. You've mistaken the effect for the cause.

    When a home keep flags, the opposing faction didn't just stumble onto the back keep and go "Well, we're here, might as well siege." They went there in force, often with 15-20 siege going up. For faction players with CyroHUD, the window between seeing 15-20 siege go up on the front door and the keep flagging is very small. An organized raid that wants to respond has seconds to transit to the keep to defend. In other words, if you weren't right on the transitus or inside the home keep already, you won't make it before the keep flags. Its very rare that groups just sit back in the home keeps waiting for them to get hit and if you don't had CyroHUD, your first warning was the keep flagging.

    So, the keep is flagged quickly and now would-be-defenders have a choice. (1) They can ride in to the defense, often requiring them to turn around from their objective, port to another keep and ride to the defense. OR (2) they can keep going to their current objective, hope to take that, them turn around and recapture the home keep.

    If they choose option 1, remember that the enemy didn't roll up to a home keep by accident. Those players dropping 15-20 siege and going to PvDoor that keep pretty fast. If the defenders have to ride in, and they almost certainly do, their chance of successfully reaching and defending the keep against a prepared enemy force before the enemy flips and closes the keep is pretty small. Those defenders can turn around and start sieging, but then you'll call that them trying to get the o-tick. Rushing to the defense when you have to ride in and getting there is time is not easy.

    That's why most groups choose option 2. Sure, the group could turn around and rush to a probably fruitless defense. Or they could continue to their objective that they were already enroute to and hopefully capture it. There's no downside to this, because if the group captures the objective, they can then turn around and go deal with the home keep situation and get both objectives! If the group wipes on their objective, oh well, because they can now turn around to go after the home keep faster.


    Its simply a matter of what's the best strategic option. A bird in the hand being worth more than two in the bush, its often much better to push on to your group's original objective and deal with the home keep later than it is to turn around for the defense and probably wind up with neither if the enemy is prepared.

    If you want to change this, you MUST call out incoming attacks as quickly as possible. Successful defenses rely on players being able to port into the keep or being nearby. The more time players have to gather at a keep, the better the defense. The reason the home keep defenses are always weak is because those are surprise attacks with a prepared enemy force bringing a lot of siege, with few defenders camping out to provide a warning in time for defenders to port in.

    Its not about the O-Tick. Its about speed. In a surprise attack on a home keep, the prepared enemy moves faster than would-be-defenders. Without early callouts, defenders have little chance to respond before the keep falls. Late arriving defenders have to siege the keep anyway, so we're back to o-tick territory again.

    Again, if you want to change that, early callouts to get defenders to the keep are crucial.





  • zyk
    zyk
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    It's absurd that an unlimited number of players are rewarded with a large tick for taking an empty keep. It promotes PVE in Cyrodiil when the scoring system should promote and reward successful PVP.

    ZOS needs to stop trying to make Cyrodiil attractive to people who don't really enjoy PVP and instead focus on making Cyrodiil the best PVP experience possible for those who enjoy Player versus Player combat.
  • VaranisArano
    VaranisArano
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    zyk wrote: »
    It's absurd that an unlimited number of players are rewarded with a large tick for taking an empty keep. It promotes PVE in Cyrodiil when the scoring system should promote and reward successful PVP.

    ZOS needs to stop trying to make Cyrodiil attractive to people who don't really enjoy PVP and instead focus on making Cyrodiil the best PVP experience possible for those who enjoy Player versus Player combat.

    It promotes objective-based play in Cyrodiil. People who go and PvDoor home keeps are doing it for the faction as well as the AP. Just watch the map when it happens. Scorewise, by taking a home keep you get points for your faction and deny the enemy points for their home keeps. Playing the map, you force the enemy to send forces to deal with you making it easier for your faction to capture things elsewhere. Oh, and you get some spectacular PVP when the enemy finally catches up to you.

    Sure, PvDooring keeps isn't for people who just like the battles, dueling, or open field combat. But for objective based play, taking the right keep at the right moment and seeing what results from that is one of the best parts of the strategy of Cyrodiil.
  • zyk
    zyk
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    BS. Most players PVdooring empty keeps only care about the otick. We can presume this because we know how they behaved when taking empty keeps provided almost no AP or individual benefit.

    Furthermore, because these objectives are almost never held, they offer no benefit to their faction at all unless the capture happens to occur close to a scoring evaluation.

    The point is that PVP should be at the center of all activities in Cyrodiil. It should be about PVP in the context of the Alliance War. Anyone can see that is not the case now and the reason is the otick paradigm.

    Edited by zyk on November 23, 2017 5:42PM
  • VaranisArano
    VaranisArano
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    PVP in the context of the Aliiance War is both about players fighting players wherever they want and objective-based play. The current system rewards speedy captures of keeps which makes it difficult to defend if players aren't nearby.

    I'll defend a home keep if I think I have a chance to get there in time and make a difference, but if I'm not nearby, can't transit quickly, or don't think I have a chance of making it in time because I have to ride, I'm going to my original objective and dealing with the home keep later.
  • zyk
    zyk
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    The only inducement to a fast keep take at the moment is a higher AP/hr from PvDoor. Even slow, unorganized keep takes are usually successful because sufficient defenders are the exception and not the rule.

    It was the old system that promoted fast keep takes because players were hungry for dticks and would race to defend. The attackers wanted to take the keep with the goal of holding it for as long as possible to earn defensive ticks through actual PVP.

    Every activity in Cyrodiil should be based around fun PVP. There should be as little PVE as possible. The reason for this is obvious.
    Edited by zyk on November 23, 2017 6:42PM
  • VaranisArano
    VaranisArano
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    zyk wrote: »
    Every activity in Cyrodiil should be based around fun PVP. There should be as little PVE as possible. The reason for this is obvious.

    Remove the town questing, the dolmens, delves, fishing, and skyshards then. PVP is possible there, but those are PVE activities. Oh, and no one should be allowed to solo a resource or town, because that's PVE.


    What you think is fun PVP for you is not necessarily the case for everyone. Cyrodiil is a PVP zone that supports solo players, small groups, organized raids, zergs, faction stacks, gankers, bombers, questers, fishermen, skyshard hunters, keep captures, keep defenses, objective based play, AP farming, PvDoor, Alessia bridge farms, remember the Chalamo, emp pushes, and so much more. With the freedom to do all that, its a wonder it works as well as it does.

    Cyrodiil lets everyone find something that is fun for them. That's a good thing, even if you don't like what they find fun yourself.
  • zyk
    zyk
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ugh. Just ugh.
  • Goshua
    Goshua
    ✭✭✭✭
    Agree its out of wack a little, when you're losing a keep 5-10 minutes after taking it and relying on solo/other grps to defend, t i t for tat, you lose one you gain one.. and around it all goes trying to not actually pvp that much but just to be faster than the opposition is to respond or predict. Its not a bad tactic, but..

    Edited by Goshua on November 23, 2017 6:15PM
  • NBrookus
    NBrookus
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭
    If you want to change this, you MUST call out incoming attacks as quickly as possible. Successful defenses rely on players being able to port into the keep or being nearby. The more time players have to gather at a keep, the better the defense. The reason the home keep defenses are always weak is because those are surprise attacks with a prepared enemy force bringing a lot of siege, with few defenders camping out to provide a warning in time for defenders to port in.

    Again, if you want to change that, early callouts to get defenders to the keep are crucial.

    Yeah, no.

    You can be waiting at a keep you know is going to get hit (*cough* Kingscrest *cough*) and call it before the first siege goes down and get ZERO response. Not from a group. Not from pugs. Nada. Inner goes down and you are still the only person at the keep. You can even call it when the force is passing the nearest gate chokepoint and get crickets.

    Of course sometimes you do get a response... via people in zone saying "eh, we'll just take it back."

    It's three problems.
    • One, the O-tick is too damned high. It makes defending significantly less rewarding.
    • Two, the siege goes too fast. Even people who want to defend for RP/stubborness/whatever reasons can't arrive in time.
    • Three, aside from kill AP, there is no reward for a failed defense. No one wants to defend unless there is a high chance the defense will succeed. And even if you do defend, the AP reward is lower than pvdooring 3 resources during that time.

    This behavior, plus lag, is the reason I rarely play in Vivec anymore. You can brawl at the Sej corridor or the Bleakers corridor, or you can zerg pvdoor. Every other kind of play is disincentivized.
  • Mickydanz
    Mickydanz
    ✭✭✭
    Knowing this is a big problem for competitive PVP, do you guys even expect a reply from ZOS ? This horn has been tooting for a long time... and very little has been spoken about from ZOS countless posts, thousand of good ideas unheard
    Cropsford Mayor
  • zyk
    zyk
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Large oticks make Cyrodiil better for the kind of player who actually enjoys zerging dolmens and world bosses for hours in PVE. That's pretty much what the Cyrodiil experience seems to be for most players now.
    Edited by zyk on November 23, 2017 6:28PM
  • fastolfv_ESO
    fastolfv_ESO
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    completely agree about this post, been saying the same myself, Im aware of only 2 grps on dc side that even defend out of the entire alliance. The offensive ap has gotten out of hand, especially with minimum keep flips of 6k and resources at 1.5. The average spud can faction stack and still make more ap than they could ever earn fighting npcs and a door. At this point i wish ap wasnt rewarded for keep and resource captures, only the ap from the fight would be distributed
  • VaranisArano
    VaranisArano
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    NBrookus wrote: »
    It's three problems.
    • One, the O-tick is too damned high. It makes defending significantly less rewarding.
    • Two, the siege goes too fast. Even people who want to defend for RP/stubborness/whatever reasons can't arrive in time.
    • Three, aside from kill AP, there is no reward for a failed defense. No one wants to defend unless there is a high chance the defense will succeed. And even if you do defend, the AP reward is lower than pvdooring 3 resources during that time.

    This behavior, plus lag, is the reason I rarely play in Vivec anymore. You can brawl at the Sej corridor or the Bleakers corridor, or you can zerg pvdoor. Every other kind of play is disincentivized.

    Two, the siege goes too fast. Even people who want to defend for RP/stubborness/whatever reasons can't arrive in time.
    Three, aside from kill AP, there is no reward for a failed defense. No one wants to defend unless there is a high chance the defense will succeed. And even if you do defend, the AP reward is lower than pvdooring 3 resources during that time.

    Those two reasons are the reasons I don't respond to most surprise sieges.
    Siege goes too quickly, making it difficult for me to get there and near guaranteeing that if I do, I will be one of the few. I don't run a 1vX build, so if I'm the only defender, I'm SOL. Its easier for me not to try.
    No reward for a failed defense, and again, I'm no 1vXer. I get better rewards for carrying on to my original objective, hopefully taking that, and then coming back to respond to the home keep. If I fail at my objective, I can still deal with the home keep. If I fail at the defense, I died and get neither.

    Now, if I'm at that keep when the keep flags or I get there before it falls? You've got a defender. There's very little else that will get me to spend siege like water than a probably doomed keep defense. The problem is getting me (and players like me) there, and that's not going to happen without me being nearby or getting an early enough call out that I can port there.

    Edit for failing at formatting.
    Edited by VaranisArano on November 23, 2017 6:49PM
  • frozywozy
    frozywozy
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    Ranger209 wrote: »
    As to the first point above, that would work very nicely if the server were full 24/7. With the way things are now, and how the map can get bled one color for hours on end when population is low, I think this would further skew an already skewed scoring system that favors what happens when very few people are on, rather than when the population is capped. I didn't say it. It's very disadvantageous as is to population cappers.

    If we balance the amount of points overtime being given to match the amount of points that a score evaluation tick would provide, I believe that having a map rolled by a specific faction for an extended period would not change anything to the outcome.

    On the other end, on the competitive campaign where all factions are active 24/7, it would motivate players to maintain and defend objectives as long as possible, instead of what we've seen in the past, having specific squads of players pvdooring ressources or objectives a few seconds before the evaluation score tick during the last days of a campaign cycle.

    Edited by frozywozy on November 23, 2017 11:15PM
    Frozn - Stamdk - AR50
    Frosted - Magplar - AR50
    Frodn - Magden - AR50
    Warmed - Magblade - AR50
    Mmfrozy - Magsorc - AR44
    Necrozn - Magcro - AR32
    Twitch.TV/FrozyTV
    PvP Group Builds

    “Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
    • Fix Volendrung (spawn location - weapon white on the map causing the wielder to keep it forever - usable with emperorship)
    • Remove / Change CPs System, remove current CP/noCP campaigns and introduce one 30days with lock, one with no locks
    • Fix crashes when approaching a keep under attack because of bad / wrong rendering prioritization system
    • Change emperorship to value faction score points and not alliance points - see this and this
    • Fix long loading screens (mostly caused by players joining group out of rendering range)
    • Add 2 more quickslots to the wheel or add a different wheel for sieges weaponry only
    • Fix Balista Bolts not dealing damage on walls or doors if deployed at a certain place
    • Release bigger battlegrounds with 8 to 16 players per team and only two teams
    • Fix the permanent block animation - see examples : link1 link2 link3 link4 link5
    • Gives players 10 minutes to get back into Cyrodiil after relogging / crashing
    • Add a function to ignore the Claiming system of useless rewards
    • Improve the Mailing System / Rewards of the Worthy stacking
    • Assign specific group sizes to specific campaigns (24-16-8)
    • Make forward camps impossible to place near objectives
    • Make snares only available from ground effects abilities
    • Change emperorship to last minimum 24hours
    • Fix body sliding after cc breaking too quickly
    • Remove Block Casting through Battle Spirit
    • Fix the speed drop while jumping - see video
    • Fix loading screens when keeps upgrade
    • Fix Rams going crazy (spinning around)
    • Bring back dynamic ulti regeneration
    • Fix speed bug (abilities locked)
    • Introduce dynamic population
    • Lower population cap by 20%
    • Add Snare Immunity potions
    • Bring resurrection sickness
    • Fix character desync
    • Fix cc breaking bug
    • Fix gap closer bug
    • Fix health desync
    • Fix combat bug
    • Fix streak bug
    • Fix server lag
  • frozywozy
    frozywozy
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    I'm going to address your point that players would rather let the home keeps fall without a defense so they can capture them later for that juicy o-tick.

    On PC/NA Vivec, that's not how that happens at all. You've mistaken the effect for the cause.

    When a home keep flags, the opposing faction didn't just stumble onto the back keep and go "Well, we're here, might as well siege." They went there in force, often with 15-20 siege going up. For faction players with CyroHUD, the window between seeing 15-20 siege go up on the front door and the keep flagging is very small. An organized raid that wants to respond has seconds to transit to the keep to defend. In other words, if you weren't right on the transitus or inside the home keep already, you won't make it before the keep flags. Its very rare that groups just sit back in the home keeps waiting for them to get hit and if you don't had CyroHUD, your first warning was the keep flagging.

    So, the keep is flagged quickly and now would-be-defenders have a choice. (1) They can ride in to the defense, often requiring them to turn around from their objective, port to another keep and ride to the defense. OR (2) they can keep going to their current objective, hope to take that, them turn around and recapture the home keep.

    If they choose option 1, remember that the enemy didn't roll up to a home keep by accident. Those players dropping 15-20 siege and going to PvDoor that keep pretty fast. If the defenders have to ride in, and they almost certainly do, their chance of successfully reaching and defending the keep against a prepared enemy force before the enemy flips and closes the keep is pretty small. Those defenders can turn around and start sieging, but then you'll call that them trying to get the o-tick. Rushing to the defense when you have to ride in and getting there is time is not easy.

    That's why most groups choose option 2. Sure, the group could turn around and rush to a probably fruitless defense. Or they could continue to their objective that they were already enroute to and hopefully capture it. There's no downside to this, because if the group captures the objective, they can then turn around and go deal with the home keep situation and get both objectives! If the group wipes on their objective, oh well, because they can now turn around to go after the home keep faster.


    Its simply a matter of what's the best strategic option. A bird in the hand being worth more than two in the bush, its often much better to push on to your group's original objective and deal with the home keep later than it is to turn around for the defense and probably wind up with neither if the enemy is prepared.

    If you want to change this, you MUST call out incoming attacks as quickly as possible. Successful defenses rely on players being able to port into the keep or being nearby. The more time players have to gather at a keep, the better the defense. The reason the home keep defenses are always weak is because those are surprise attacks with a prepared enemy force bringing a lot of siege, with few defenders camping out to provide a warning in time for defenders to port in.

    Its not about the O-Tick. Its about speed. In a surprise attack on a home keep, the prepared enemy moves faster than would-be-defenders. Without early callouts, defenders have little chance to respond before the keep falls. Late arriving defenders have to siege the keep anyway, so we're back to o-tick territory again.

    Again, if you want to change that, early callouts to get defenders to the keep are crucial.

    After reading your reply, all I understood from it is that you are trying to explain why people don't ride back to defend keep with the actual game mechanics and why they would rather keep doing what they are doing.

    The thing is, I am well aware of that and this is one of the main reason why I have made this thread, so we can make adjustments to create more incentives to ride back and defend.

    I will be honest with you, I have had some of the best fights ever trying to defend Dragon or Drake outnumbered with a well timed fire balista volley combined with an ultimate on a flag. I never regret to ride back and defend those keeps because there is always a chance to make some bigplays like that. Sadly, most people aren't going to risk it and would rather have a better motivation, and in most cases, this motivation is linked to alliance points.

    I believe that it would not hurt anybody if the offensive ticks were slightly reduced to match the alliance points earned for defending a keep. Let say that the average amount of players who siege a keep is 16 and you multiply that by 2k aps each and then divide it by the amount of players who would ride to defend (let say 12 players). That gives around 2.7k AP per player for defending a keep. There is definitely a just middle between 6k and 2.7k that we can manage to encourage more people to ride and defend instead of waiting to pvedoor 30mins after.

    Last thing, I know that most people don't take the campaign score that seriously but if you use addons such as Sieges Keeps, Killcounter and such, you will know much faster when your objectives are flagged. If you stop what you are doing right away, suicide and deathport, you will most likely have time to ride back in time and have a chance to defend.

    Frozn - Stamdk - AR50
    Frosted - Magplar - AR50
    Frodn - Magden - AR50
    Warmed - Magblade - AR50
    Mmfrozy - Magsorc - AR44
    Necrozn - Magcro - AR32
    Twitch.TV/FrozyTV
    PvP Group Builds

    “Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
    • Fix Volendrung (spawn location - weapon white on the map causing the wielder to keep it forever - usable with emperorship)
    • Remove / Change CPs System, remove current CP/noCP campaigns and introduce one 30days with lock, one with no locks
    • Fix crashes when approaching a keep under attack because of bad / wrong rendering prioritization system
    • Change emperorship to value faction score points and not alliance points - see this and this
    • Fix long loading screens (mostly caused by players joining group out of rendering range)
    • Add 2 more quickslots to the wheel or add a different wheel for sieges weaponry only
    • Fix Balista Bolts not dealing damage on walls or doors if deployed at a certain place
    • Release bigger battlegrounds with 8 to 16 players per team and only two teams
    • Fix the permanent block animation - see examples : link1 link2 link3 link4 link5
    • Gives players 10 minutes to get back into Cyrodiil after relogging / crashing
    • Add a function to ignore the Claiming system of useless rewards
    • Improve the Mailing System / Rewards of the Worthy stacking
    • Assign specific group sizes to specific campaigns (24-16-8)
    • Make forward camps impossible to place near objectives
    • Make snares only available from ground effects abilities
    • Change emperorship to last minimum 24hours
    • Fix body sliding after cc breaking too quickly
    • Remove Block Casting through Battle Spirit
    • Fix the speed drop while jumping - see video
    • Fix loading screens when keeps upgrade
    • Fix Rams going crazy (spinning around)
    • Bring back dynamic ulti regeneration
    • Fix speed bug (abilities locked)
    • Introduce dynamic population
    • Lower population cap by 20%
    • Add Snare Immunity potions
    • Bring resurrection sickness
    • Fix character desync
    • Fix cc breaking bug
    • Fix gap closer bug
    • Fix health desync
    • Fix combat bug
    • Fix streak bug
    • Fix server lag
  • frozywozy
    frozywozy
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    NBrookus wrote: »
    Yeah, no.

    You can be waiting at a keep you know is going to get hit (*cough* Kingscrest *cough*) and call it before the first siege goes down and get ZERO response. Not from a group. Not from pugs. Nada. Inner goes down and you are still the only person at the keep. You can even call it when the force is passing the nearest gate chokepoint and get crickets.

    Yes. Since they increased the AP gain for capturing objectives, this has been a major issue. Sometimes I would scout an enemy group riding to a keep 2minutes before they actually start sieging, I would give another insight when they are finally starting to siege, another one when the keep is flagged, another one everytime a wall goes down, and after trying to defend the keep for a good 10-15mins and losing it, still no reinforcements.

    Frozn - Stamdk - AR50
    Frosted - Magplar - AR50
    Frodn - Magden - AR50
    Warmed - Magblade - AR50
    Mmfrozy - Magsorc - AR44
    Necrozn - Magcro - AR32
    Twitch.TV/FrozyTV
    PvP Group Builds

    “Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
    • Fix Volendrung (spawn location - weapon white on the map causing the wielder to keep it forever - usable with emperorship)
    • Remove / Change CPs System, remove current CP/noCP campaigns and introduce one 30days with lock, one with no locks
    • Fix crashes when approaching a keep under attack because of bad / wrong rendering prioritization system
    • Change emperorship to value faction score points and not alliance points - see this and this
    • Fix long loading screens (mostly caused by players joining group out of rendering range)
    • Add 2 more quickslots to the wheel or add a different wheel for sieges weaponry only
    • Fix Balista Bolts not dealing damage on walls or doors if deployed at a certain place
    • Release bigger battlegrounds with 8 to 16 players per team and only two teams
    • Fix the permanent block animation - see examples : link1 link2 link3 link4 link5
    • Gives players 10 minutes to get back into Cyrodiil after relogging / crashing
    • Add a function to ignore the Claiming system of useless rewards
    • Improve the Mailing System / Rewards of the Worthy stacking
    • Assign specific group sizes to specific campaigns (24-16-8)
    • Make forward camps impossible to place near objectives
    • Make snares only available from ground effects abilities
    • Change emperorship to last minimum 24hours
    • Fix body sliding after cc breaking too quickly
    • Remove Block Casting through Battle Spirit
    • Fix the speed drop while jumping - see video
    • Fix loading screens when keeps upgrade
    • Fix Rams going crazy (spinning around)
    • Bring back dynamic ulti regeneration
    • Fix speed bug (abilities locked)
    • Introduce dynamic population
    • Lower population cap by 20%
    • Add Snare Immunity potions
    • Bring resurrection sickness
    • Fix character desync
    • Fix cc breaking bug
    • Fix gap closer bug
    • Fix health desync
    • Fix combat bug
    • Fix streak bug
    • Fix server lag
  • Venom4You
    Venom4You
    ✭✭✭
    The problem with defense ticks is the very way they work. Even with the old system it was way more viable to simply take keeps back and earn an attack tick. Simply because you would always get it for sure as soon as the flags flipped.
    The main issue with defense ticks is that they are unreliable. A faction can successfully hold a keep for several hours and beat back the attacking faction several times. But one defending *** who jumps out of the keep after the main enemy force is beaten to just die to some remaining enemy ganker in keep vacinity is always to be found ^^
    Defense ticks should be rewarded in a continous way. As long as the keep is marked as under siege, defenders should get a tick every minute (still measured in worth of ap by fallen players on keep grounds divided by number of defend
    ers). This way defending players would earn a continous but small amount of ap. In case the keep is successfully defended they should be granted an additional flat amount of ap in the end (6K). IMO that would solve the problem.
    Edited by Venom4You on January 23, 2018 3:53PM
    Aka Crowley

    Member of Zerg Squad (EP/AD - EU)
    Role: Raid Healer
    Main Characters: Majestic Crowley (Warden Healer - EP) / Father Crowley (Templar Healer - AD) / Brother Crowley (Templar Healer - DC)
  • VaranisArano
    VaranisArano
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    frozywozy wrote: »
    After reading your reply, all I understood from it is that you are trying to explain why people don't ride back to defend keep with the actual game mechanics and why they would rather keep doing what they are doing.

    The thing is, I am well aware of that and this is one of the main reason why I have made this thread, so we can make adjustments to create more incentives to ride back and defend.

    Yeah, that's pretty much what I was trying to explain: the practical reasons why people don't ride back to defend as opposed to the idea that "they just want the o-tick, the jerks".

    Practically speaking, in both effort expended and rewards gained, it makes more sense to continue on to the original objective and pick up the home keeps later, unless players are nearby or can port/ride to a defense quickly.

    I'd rather increase the reward for a d-tick or have continuous defense ticks to get more players to come to defend keeps.
  • Malic
    Malic
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    You want to spread people out give proximity to home keep bonus's

    The further away from your home keeps you capture something, the greater the reward.

    Make it absolutely gluttonous and silly reward too, Really high. You'll have people fighting all over the map.

    "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH but malic then you'll just have people bursting things all over the place in small groups"

    yep, and youre going to have to go fight em.
  • Anazasi
    Anazasi
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Everyone seems to forget all the heartache that was created by the current play and ZOS's effort to increase transit and spread out the population. Any changes that are proposed must not impact negatively the current population spread theory that has now settled down and is working reasonably well minus the stupid load screens of course.

    Is the balance perfect yet? No, is there room for change, yes. The only question is what changes are to be made. ZOS has access to heat maps that I am sure they are using to determine changes for the future. We do not have access to this data and anyone that says they "think" they have a better solution is only guessing on what might work. Is this an issue that ZOS is watching and working on? Yes, somewhere in some back office, sitting in the dark, there is a little ZOS troll that is counting the dots and is trying to come up with a better solution. I think he's called a wroeble or a weeble but we all know those weebles fall down sometimes. So give it time, discuss idea's and eventually something will happen when the weeble gets back up.
    Edited by Anazasi on November 27, 2017 3:51PM
Sign In or Register to comment.