Merge Imperial city into 1

Alfie2072 · November 2017

I love the IC fighting but it always seems to be dead of pvp, maybe if the two normal campaigns both shared the same instance for IC it would be more populated? leave thoughts on how we can improve IC and hopefully get more players down there

VaranisArano · November 2017

I'd prefer that Imperial City be made its own instance separate from the Cyrodiil queues, and with a CP, No CP, and Below Level 50 instance of the City to allow for all the types of PVP that Cyrodiil provides.

Removing it from the queues enables players to bypass the queues when they don't intend to add anything to the Alliance War anyway and to get to the Imperial City quickly, removing the inconvenience factor to riding in from your nearest faction-owned keep. This change allows players who want to play in Imperial City to get to the Imperial City when they want to.

Providing a single CP, No CP, and Below Level 50 instance of Imperial City allows for all three types of currently supported PVP to take place with concentrated populations.

Aelakhaii_De_Mythos · November 2017

We've been telling them to do this for two years. They dont care.

Fel · November 2017

Aelakhaii_De_Mythos wrote: »

We've been telling them to do this for two years. They dont care.

well the fact that they didnt see how IC would fail just says everything

TheBonesXXX · November 2017

I think they just need to build those bridges and make it apart of the entire map. Make it apart of the Emperor requirement.

VaranisArano · November 2017

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

I think they just need to build those bridges and make it apart of the entire map. Make it apart of the Emperor requirement.

Not the first time someone's suggested that...

A. Yes, let's attach the Cyrodiil Emperorship (base game achievement) to a DLC with limited ownership, limiting the ability of all players in Cyrodiil to contribute to a crowing/dethrone.
B. Yes, let's add six more flags to the requirements for Emperorship which already requires that your faction owns all six keeps around Lake Rumare in the emperor ring. Because crowing/dethroning an Emperor isn't already complicated enough.
C. Yes, let's introduce a zerging component to Imperial City. Because every prospective Emperor would form up a zerg, hold the Imperial City long enough to crown/dethrone and then leave.
D. Yes, let's make Emperorship a pay-to-win achievement (because the emperor or faction allies must own the Imperial City DLC).

How about...NO?

KrishakPanettier · November 2017

Imperial City (IC) should be a separate instance separate from the Cyrodiil servers. In fact having only 1 or two IC instances would be nice. We need a way to get to IC without having to travel through Cyrodiil. Maybe, a quest in PVE to open up the Imperial City, encourage more PVE players to experience the unique IC PVE/PVE play.

I am for PVP, but like the original post said, it is usually dead in there, or a farm server. #ThinkOutsideTheBox.

Prince_of_all_Pugs · November 2017

i dont understand why IC is always so empty, its still the best place to get crafting mats and potions. it would be pretty cool if it was one instance. sadly it still wont be the IC at launch, ah those were the days!

O_LYKOS · November 2017

And also make them completely separate to the actual campaign too.

theyoungerbrother · November 2017

That'd be awesome to have less campaign instances of the imperial city and have single imperial city all players use

Pwnyridah · November 2017

No.

AbraXuSeXile · November 2017

We told them a long time ago. They do what they want.

kwisatz · November 2017

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

I think they just need to build those bridges and make it apart of the entire map. Make it apart of the Emperor requirement.

This.

And to counter the "p2win" argument (legitimate in this case), make access to Imperial City available for free. It's the oldest DLC and half of the player base would never buy it anyway.
Give it as a gift for reaching a certain pvp rank, for example; it would work as a good incentive to play.

Create new incentives other simple farming buffs for the control of the districts, something to open the way to new strategies on the map, including Cyrodiil and districts, and use sewers as a way to help it.
Make the emperor requirement something more interesting and complicated than the current simple ap farming race.

Alfie2072 · November 2017

kwisatz wrote: »

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

I think they just need to build those bridges and make it apart of the entire map. Make it apart of the Emperor requirement.

This.

And to counter the "p2win" argument (legitimate in this case), make access to Imperial City available for free. It's the oldest DLC and half of the player base would never buy it anyway.
Give it as a gift for reaching a certain pvp rank, for example; it would work as a good incentive to play.

Create new incentives other simple farming buffs for the control of the districts, something to open the way to new strategies on the map, including Cyrodiil and districts, and use sewers as a way to help it.
Make the emperor requirement something more interesting and complicated than the current simple ap farming race.

they couldnt do that without having to refund everyone who already bought IC

Aelakhaii_De_Mythos · November 2017

kwisatz wrote: »

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

I think they just need to build those bridges and make it apart of the entire map. Make it apart of the Emperor requirement.

This.

And to counter the "p2win" argument (legitimate in this case), make access to Imperial City available for free. It's the oldest DLC and half of the player base would never buy it anyway.
Give it as a gift for reaching a certain pvp rank, for example; it would work as a good incentive to play.

Create new incentives other simple farming buffs for the control of the districts, something to open the way to new strategies on the map, including Cyrodiil and districts, and use sewers as a way to help it.
Make the emperor requirement something more interesting and complicated than the current simple ap farming race.

The ambience of IC would be completely destroyed by this idea.

They should limit group size in IC TO 4players or something etc etc, not allow rest of cyrodiil in there...

But every imaginable idea have already been brought forth by the players and still NOTHING done...

And emperor isn't easily achievable, been playing 3 years without getting it.

Qbiken · November 2017

Make gold-tempers buyable for tel-var = problem solved

VaranisArano · November 2017

kwisatz wrote: »

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

I think they just need to build those bridges and make it apart of the entire map. Make it apart of the Emperor requirement.

This.

And to counter the "p2win" argument (legitimate in this case), make access to Imperial City available for free. It's the oldest DLC and half of the player base would never buy it anyway.
Give it as a gift for reaching a certain pvp rank, for example; it would work as a good incentive to play.

Create new incentives other simple farming buffs for the control of the districts, something to open the way to new strategies on the map, including Cyrodiil and districts, and use sewers as a way to help it.
Make the emperor requirement something more interesting and complicated than the current simple ap farming race.

The emperor requirements are a simple AP farming race where you don't sleep, you don't stop farming AP for anything but getting the buff from delves, you barely take breaks, and basically work your butt off for AP and hope no one is working harder or gets luckier than you so you can get into and stay in the top spot...

All culminating in a mad dash around the emp ring, hoping your faction brings down the final keeps while defending the ones you already held while the enemy marshals all their forces to prevent the crowning/dethrone at their last keeps and trying to retake the ones you hold. A whole bunch of dominoes have to fall in the right order for an Emperorship to happen, and then you've got the work of defending your emperorship.

A simple AP grind might be the bulk of the work to get you into position to become Emperor, but the actual crowning of an emperor is anything but simple in a contested campaign.

NightbladeMechanics · November 2017

Merging ICs together won’t solve IC’s core problem, which is lack of long term incentives to play there. It would also sever IC from its overland campaigns, missing a wonderful opportunity for dynamic pvp between Cyrodiil and IC.

IC needs campaign objectives and rewards that bring campaign players down there. Then everyone else will follow. That’s how Cyrodiil works.

Imo zos should announce that in 6 months, IC will become a part of the base game, and that everyone who has bought IC to own by that point will get some sick IC themed skin or polymorph or mount or whatever. Announcing ahead of time and giving some cosmetic reward eliminates any complaints of “what about my crowns,” and making it part of the base game would eliminate any p2w campaign arguments (even though those are false anyways).

Then just add objectives everywhere, and make them all linked to the campaigns. Congratulations, IC is now thriving again.

Here’s a link to an old post I made about the ic objectives themselves. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/265284/kenas-take-on-imperial-city-pvp-objectives-a-guide-for-zos-with-pitchurs-3/p1

There’s just no cash incentive for zos to do this, and so they won’t.

OdinForge · November 2017

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Merging ICs together won’t solve IC’s core problem, which is lack of long term incentives to play there. It would also sever IC from its overland campaigns, missing a wonderful opportunity for dynamic pvp between Cyrodiil and IC.

IC needs campaign objectives and rewards that bring campaign players down there. Then everyone else will follow. That’s how Cyrodiil works.

Imo zos should announce that in 6 months, IC will become a part of the base game, and that everyone who has bought IC to own by that point will get some sick IC themed skin or polymorph or mount or whatever. Announcing ahead of time and giving some cosmetic reward eliminates any complaints of “what about my crowns,” and making it part of the base game would eliminate any p2w campaign arguments (even though those are false anyways).

Then just add objectives everywhere, and make them all linked to the campaigns. Congratulations, IC is now thriving again.

Here’s a link to an old post I made about the ic objectives themselves. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/265284/kenas-take-on-imperial-city-pvp-objectives-a-guide-for-zos-with-pitchurs-3/p1

There’s just no cash incentive for zos to do this, and so they won’t.

This was my biggest fear about Imperial City when they announced it would be a paid DLC. I remember when they initially announced IC before 1.6 when DLC were given to us as part of the base game (but the game had a mandatory subscription). I wish IC would have came out then so it could have been part of the base game, and given more freedom to work with.

The only time there is PvP is when people are farming stones. And 9/10 times those people aren't even interested in PvP, they'll fight you if they have to and just switch campaigns to bank their stones after running away.

Anrose · November 2017

OdinForge wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Merging ICs together won’t solve IC’s core problem, which is lack of long term incentives to play there. It would also sever IC from its overland campaigns, missing a wonderful opportunity for dynamic pvp between Cyrodiil and IC.

IC needs campaign objectives and rewards that bring campaign players down there. Then everyone else will follow. That’s how Cyrodiil works.

Imo zos should announce that in 6 months, IC will become a part of the base game, and that everyone who has bought IC to own by that point will get some sick IC themed skin or polymorph or mount or whatever. Announcing ahead of time and giving some cosmetic reward eliminates any complaints of “what about my crowns,” and making it part of the base game would eliminate any p2w campaign arguments (even though those are false anyways).

Then just add objectives everywhere, and make them all linked to the campaigns. Congratulations, IC is now thriving again.

Here’s a link to an old post I made about the ic objectives themselves. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/265284/kenas-take-on-imperial-city-pvp-objectives-a-guide-for-zos-with-pitchurs-3/p1

There’s just no cash incentive for zos to do this, and so they won’t.

This was my biggest fear about Imperial City when they announced it would be a paid DLC. I remember when they initially announced IC before 1.6 when DLC were given to us as part of the base game (but the game had a mandatory subscription). I wish IC would have came out then so it could have been part of the base game, and given more freedom to work with.

The only time there is PvP is when people are farming stones. And 9/10 times those people aren't even interested in PvP, they'll fight you if they have to and just switch campaigns to bank their stones after running away.

Pretty much this. My ultimate wish for IC is for it to cease being just a place to farm Tel Var stones and for it again become an interesting theater for small scale PvP.

By creating one instance, it would populate IC more than it currently is on any given campaign, and it would possibly make Tel Var farming less of a “sure thing”. Therefore incentivizing the PvP aspect.

....either that or you’ll have 12 man ball groups running the districts.

NightbladeMechanics · November 2017

Anrose wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Merging ICs together won’t solve IC’s core problem, which is lack of long term incentives to play there. It would also sever IC from its overland campaigns, missing a wonderful opportunity for dynamic pvp between Cyrodiil and IC.

IC needs campaign objectives and rewards that bring campaign players down there. Then everyone else will follow. That’s how Cyrodiil works.

Imo zos should announce that in 6 months, IC will become a part of the base game, and that everyone who has bought IC to own by that point will get some sick IC themed skin or polymorph or mount or whatever. Announcing ahead of time and giving some cosmetic reward eliminates any complaints of “what about my crowns,” and making it part of the base game would eliminate any p2w campaign arguments (even though those are false anyways).

Then just add objectives everywhere, and make them all linked to the campaigns. Congratulations, IC is now thriving again.

Here’s a link to an old post I made about the ic objectives themselves. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/265284/kenas-take-on-imperial-city-pvp-objectives-a-guide-for-zos-with-pitchurs-3/p1

There’s just no cash incentive for zos to do this, and so they won’t.

This was my biggest fear about Imperial City when they announced it would be a paid DLC. I remember when they initially announced IC before 1.6 when DLC were given to us as part of the base game (but the game had a mandatory subscription). I wish IC would have came out then so it could have been part of the base game, and given more freedom to work with.

The only time there is PvP is when people are farming stones. And 9/10 times those people aren't even interested in PvP, they'll fight you if they have to and just switch campaigns to bank their stones after running away.

Pretty much this. My ultimate wish for IC is for it to cease being just a place to farm Tel Var stones and for it again become an interesting theater for small scale PvP.

By creating one instance, it would populate IC more than it currently is on any given campaign, and it would possibly make Tel Var farming less of a “sure thing”. Therefore incentivizing the PvP aspect.

....either that or you’ll have 12 man ball groups running the districts.

It’s empty, though. The only people in ic are antisocial tv farmers raging that you tagged their boss and maybe a couple people trying to kill them. The farmers quickly leave if there’s any competition, and without farmers, the PvPers lose interest and leave too.

It’s like if no one played in Cyrodiil except to farm dolmens. Well sure, you could close a bunch of campaigns to force people closer together, but they still won’t want to pvp, and eventually each dolmen gives loot to only 12 people, the rest get pissed off, and leave Cyrodiil altogether.

IC needs robust, recurring, long term incentives to fight there. Tv farming is an incentive to run from fights, IC objectives are pointless besides tv farming, and the sewers might as well not exist currently.

Every “make all ICs into one campagin” pitch misses that core element. The only people who will go there are farmers, still, except fewer of them. You’ll just end up making PvEers angry that their hakeijos got more expensive.

zyk · November 2017

Separating IC and Cyrodiil should be very easy and would instantly improve both Cyrodiil and IC. It should be done as soon as possible regardless of the long term goal.

Integrating IC into AvA scoring properly in a way that improves both experiences would take more gameplay design than ZOS has put into Cyrodiil since launch. While it has potential to be interesting, it also has the potential to make both experiences worse. As we can see with the state of oticks and the ZOS response to other AvA issues over the years, it would take ZOS a very long time to correct any new issues introduced; if ever.

I would prefer ZOS to separate IC and Cyrodiil, and focus on improving the core open world AvA and IC experiences with the limited resources that appear to be available for them.

Domander · November 2017

VaranisArano wrote: »

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

I think they just need to build those bridges and make it apart of the entire map. Make it apart of the Emperor requirement.

Not the first time someone's suggested that...

A. Yes, let's attach the Cyrodiil Emperorship (base game achievement) to a DLC with limited ownership, limiting the ability of all players in Cyrodiil to contribute to a crowing/dethrone.
B. Yes, let's add six more flags to the requirements for Emperorship which already requires that your faction owns all six keeps around Lake Rumare in the emperor ring. Because crowing/dethroning an Emperor isn't already complicated enough.
C. Yes, let's introduce a zerging component to Imperial City. Because every prospective Emperor would form up a zerg, hold the Imperial City long enough to crown/dethrone and then leave.
D. Yes, let's make Emperorship a pay-to-win achievement (because the emperor or faction allies must own the Imperial City DLC).

How about...NO?

Make IC free and require the districts to gain Emp. Why should you have Emp if you don't have the city? I kinda like it.

Make it so you lose Emp if you lose all keeps. (Like it is now)

VaranisArano · November 2017

My problem with requiring the districts is that it adds very little to crowning an emperor.

The district flags have three guards covering the flag. Three! A resource has more and is harder to solo. Three guards is an effective deterrent to solo players, maybe (I've soloed multiple district flags with little to no difficulty because I know how the guards work), which is more or less the way Imperial City works right now for small groups and solo players. Three guards are going to get zerged down in an instant, which is why zerging is going to be the optimal strategy if the districts get added to the emperorship requirement. Essentially, if you add a requirement to the districts and give the opposition a reason to show up, any dedicated emp push is going to bring a zerg to the Imperial City to lock down the districts. In that situation there's no reason not too and very good reasons to bring a zerg.

Compare the difficulty of zerging down three flag guards in a district even against opposition to taking a keep with opposition. With keep captures with opposition, you'll have fights in the open field, fighting around the siege on the outer and inner walls, and often sustained fighting on the flags with plenty of opportunities for defenders or attackers riding in, forward camps, and last minute saves or wipes. Zerging in the districts is simply large group fighting in an urban environment. The choke points and wandering bosses add a little bit of interest, but its not difficult or is there any counterplay other than an opposing zerg.

Now compare the difficult of zerging down an unopposed district flag to the difficulty of zerging down a PvDoor keep on the emp ring. That's where this gets ludicrous, because 3 NPC guards will die quickly. Even PvDooring a keep requires players to spend AP to buy siege weapons and fight more NPC guards. There are more guards on the front door of a keep than there are on a district flag.

Adding the IC Districts to the emperorship requirements adds nothing in terms of difficulty except by requiring a raid/zerg to form that will sweep the districts and play ring-around-the-rosy until the emperor is crowned. Any counterplay to that will require a zerg/raid of the enemy factions. We'll go from complaining that Imperial City is empty to complaining about the zergs. This suggestion merely perpetuates the all-or-nothing problem of the Imperial City.

(Now, if Imperial City were to be brought into the main Cyrodiil campaigns, with the districts set up as they are, they should award no more points than a resource, and given the amount of NPC guards on them, probably no more than half the points of a resource. If you want to make the Districts worth it for a main campaign, you need to up the difficulty of the District Flags quite a bit. Seriously, its harder to capture a town in Cyrodiil than it is to capture a District.)

My preferred solution is to split Imperial City from Cyrodiil entirely. Questline-wise, Molag Bal's daedra are clearly kicking the butts of all three alliances within the city. Player-wise, splitting Imperial City into instances for CP, No-CP, and Below 50 allows players to go directly to IC without riding or waiting in queue, encouraging players who want to play in Imperial City's mix of PVP and PVE to go there when they want to without jumping through hoops. Ultimately for a sustainable PVP/PVE zone, you want players to come to Imperial City because they want to, not because they feel forced to come there. That means removing the barriers to players coming to the Imperial CIty.

VaranisArano · November 2017

Something else to consider might be that at one point ZOS did attach Imperial City to the emperorship. It went like this:

When you look at the sewer gates to the Imperial City, you'll notice that the gates are unlocked for all factions. That's because at one point, ZOS designed those gates to the Imperial City to be unlocked by owning the keeps nearest to them. Factions that dominated the map could get into the Imperial City while faction players without access to those keeps were locked out. If your faction crowned an emperor, congrats, you got unfettered access to the Imperial City while locking everyone else out! Frabjous day!

Unsurprisingly, this was utterly panned by players who didn't appreciate depending on their faction mates to secure access to the content they'd paid for. So ZOS changed it and now every faction can access Imperial City at any time.

I could go on and explain the numerous ways that attaching the Imeprial City Districts to the emperorship will make it harder for players to access the Imperial City (sewer gate camping/ganking would be worse than it is), but I think I've made my views clear enough. Its unnecessary for Cyrodiil and bad for PVP in the Imperial City.