How Emperor is awarded in Cyrodiil is flawed and impacts the core of PvP

Twohothardware · January 2018

We've been having a lot of discussions for a while as to what can be done to improve many things in Cyrodiil including imbalanced Campaigns due to lopsided Alliance numbers, faction hopping when one side starts losing, zerg mentality with the large 24 player groups and other such things but another issue in Cyrodiil that seems to not get the attention it deserves is the way Emperor is awarded and the flaws it has.

On PS4 NA in Vivec with at least 2 out of the 3 Alliances Emperor status is typically held by the same individual for 30 days every Campaign cycle for sometimes months at a time as there is very little competition at the top. There is never except on very rare occassion a cycle between even 2 or 3 different Emps on the same Alliance. Why is this a problem? Well in my opinion this is leading or at least exacerbating several issues important to the health of PvP in Cyrodiil.

Including but not limited to:

Encouraging a gameplay style toward heavy AP farming in order to get and stay in first place that may not help the Alliance much or at all to actually win the Campaign. Defending an important heavily challenged keep for 30 minutes or an hour for example gives considerably less AP than just PvDooring empty keeps at the edge of the map and flipping them in about 5 minutes so you can guess which one those that get Emp tend to choose. Then once that person gets Emp you may be stuck with him doing the same practices using all those huge buffs to farm people at Alessa bridge rather than take and defend important keeps.
It heavily discourages the majority of players from even trying to get Emperor status at least in the main 30 day Campaign because for most even if you play for several hours every day and are a very good player you're still not playing the nearly 24/7 that others may be or spend all your time in Cyrodiil running in a large group with the specific purpose of generating that person AP. And once that person gets Emp they usually build up an even bigger lead over the person in 2nd place for the remainder of the Campaign. On PS4 NA the one in 1st typically has several Million more AP than the guy in 2nd, I've seen a few times during AP events where the difference was almost double.
It drives Alliance disunity. I don't know how much this differs between platforms but it goes to the core of how Emp impacts the ESO PvP community. At least on PS4 NA over the last couple of years it tends to generate a lot of hate, arguments, and general unwillingness to even try to help your Alliance get Emp solely because of the person that is in first place. Because it tends to be the same person the majority of the time and because unless you leave that Alliance you're essentially stuck with that person as your Emp a lot of players on that Alliance tend to develop a hatred for that player. They don't want to help their Alliance crown that player, other players don't want to play on that Alliance because of that player, and it creates a lot of unnecessary fighting in zone chat.

So there's a lot of things that need improved on in Cryodiil but as I see a few others bringing it up as well in discussions I think Emperor is one that's been overlooked and that has some effective ways of being fixes or at least greatly improved.

One such fix is to simply make it so that you get Emperor status once a Campaign and you have to be online at the time to get it otherwise it's passed to the next in line. That assures more players get at least a chance at Emp in a 30 day Campaign, it makes it so that when you crown an Emp he's actually online, and it encourages him to stay online and help his Alliance hold the map since he can't just Emp again later in the day if he's dethroned. And toward my last point about the division in the PvP community I think players would fight among themselves a lot less if more of them were simply as I stated given a shot to be Emp so they can share the benefits and the drawbacks.

For some of the naysayers that argue Emp is suppose to be something that's very difficult to achieve let me just say that I agree but it should be based more on individual skill of the player and their willingness to help their Alliance win the Campaign and not just go every time to that one guy running in a big group of friends PvDooring empty keeps all day. It doesn't mean Little Billy the lvl 10 Khajiit is going to walk into Vivec and ever get Emp, it just means Emp will rotate between the top 10-20 players on that Alliance so more have a fair chance and so more of the higher skilled players that can actually help their Alliance win are able to get it instead of just the guy playing 24/7.

We have a discussion going on about this and other Cyrodiil issues here:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/291600/ps4-na-cyro-ic-vivec-this-must-be-the-place/p82

I'd be interested to hear more thoughts from the PC crowd as well so everyone post your feelings one way or another regarding this so maybe ZoS can take a look at it during the Combat update this PTS.

NyassaV · January 2018

I just want emp to get 1% more max stats everywhere and thats it. The amount of stuff they can do in Cyro is stupid

Tommy_The_Gun · January 2018

Hollery wrote: »

I just want emp to get 1% more max stats everywhere and thats it. The amount of stuff they can do in Cyro is stupid

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Emperor+Skills
Assuming it is not outdated Emperors get:

- Increases health, magicka and stamina regeneration while in combat by 100%
- Increases ultimate gains by 100%
- Increases health, magicka, and stamina by 75% while in your campaign
- Increases the magnitude of healing effects on Emperors by 50%
- Increases siege weapon damage by 100%

I don't know about you but if someone would just post this list out of context - it would look like some sort of cheat code..
Press A + B + A + UP + DOWN + START + SELECT....

How is that fair ? Rewarding a good player for being good that way by adding such bonuses making the "skill" gap even grater ?
What am I saying... for being good... lol rather for night / morning cap PvDoor....

In my campaign (I wont tell EU or NA or with campaign to avoid name & shame) - We have this one player who stays up early in the morning like 4 - 5 AM when Cyrodiil is empty and PvDoor to get emp. Then stays in Cyro to fight like 1 - 3 bars of other alliances until all sides are full on population. The moment the player is de-throned - he / she goes offline.
And even though - most of prime time that player is offline - due to those bonuses - he / she still gets like 25 MILLION AP per campaign while other player (2nd in overall score) get like 9 - 10 million...

Something needs to be done i guess... those bonuses are way to strong...

Kessra · January 2018

Well, getting emperor is flawed somehow or other. Just on sunday we witnessed how a train of roughly 40 yellow, and even more red players fought their way to rayles just to get killed by a single blue player and if you tried to engage on him or onto other players, you just got focused by the zerg of blue players (and the other ones of the other faction). They basically just attacked the castle till a certain amount and backed off and thus feed the blue ones with a nice defensive tick over and over again. ZOS can investigate on this if they want, campaign shore, EU servers, time: arround 8-12 pm UTC (maybe also before and afterwards)

This is how you farm AP and emperor nowadays, you don't need to be online 24/7 ...

Twohothardware · January 2018

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Hollery wrote: »

I just want emp to get 1% more max stats everywhere and thats it. The amount of stuff they can do in Cyro is stupid

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Emperor+Skills
Assuming it is not outdated Emperors get:

- Increases health, magicka and stamina regeneration while in combat by 100%
- Increases ultimate gains by 100%
- Increases health, magicka, and stamina by 75% while in your campaign
- Increases the magnitude of healing effects on Emperors by 50%
- Increases siege weapon damage by 100%

I don't know about you but if someone would just post this list out of context - it would look like some sort of cheat code..
Press A + B + A + UP + DOWN + START + SELECT....

How is that fair ? Rewarding a good player for being good that way by adding such bonuses making the "skill" gap even grater ?
What am I saying... for being good... lol rather for night / morning cap PvDoor....
In my campaign (I wont tell EU or NA or with campaign to avoid name & shame) - We have this one player who stays up early in the morning like 4 - 5 AM when Cyrodiil is empty and PvDoor to get emp. Then stays in Cyro to fight like 1 - 3 bars of other alliances until all sides are full on population. The moment the player is de-throned - he / she goes offline.
And even though - most of prime time that player is offline - due to those bonuses - he / she still gets like 25 MILLION AP per campaign while other player (2nd in overall score get like 9 - 10 million...

Something needs to be done i guess... those bonuses are way to strong...

Yeah those bonuses are way out of whack for the same player to get to always benefit from just because they're running Destro pain trains zerging empty keeps at 7 AM in the morning. The Emp bonuses either need to be nerfed/changed or the way Emp is awarded needs to be reevaluated and should provide opportunity to more players in a 30 day Campaign cycle.

geonsocal · January 2018

holy crap - it must've been a while since I've looked at those bonuses...

yeah, that's a bit of an excessive buff...wouldn't hurt to cut all that stuff in half...

the truth is, at least on our platform/server (ps4/na) there are thousands of players participating in pvp...having one person lock down emp isn't exactly a mechanism to please the masses...

as mister spock so eloquently put it:

1080755a85fb87c7cbafb86645b62bee--star-trek-into-darkness-star-trek-original.jpg

Morgul667 · January 2018

emperor is one of the thing that breaks habits in cyrodill and gives purpose, im happy there are emperors on campaigns

But i would be fine if the way to achieve was modified to avoid the pvpdoor mentioned

I just dont have a better idea yet

GoodFella146 · January 2018

Yes, really needed change

llElLoboll · January 2018

Honestly I think the bonuses are fine tbh. However, I do agree that the same couple of players being able to hold emp for months should be adjusted. One potential fix I've thought of would be that once you get emp you can't get it again until the camp resets. That way the top 10 players would have a chance of cycling through instead of the same three players rotating emp all month.

Epicasballs · January 2018

I always thought each faction should have their own Emp. I'm not sure how to rework rewarding Emp but why can't each faction have their own king to rally behind?

I agree with a one and done reward of Emp per campaign and rewarding Emp to an online player.

IxSTALKERxI · January 2018

Someone repeatedly getting emp sounds like a lack of competition.

rustic_potato · January 2018

Lol. I just want the days when having Emperor meant that your alliance also gets a PVE bonus.

Fischblut · January 2018

Pinja · January 2018

We could imagine it switched back to the old AP system but then you'd learn your terrible at Pvp.
Only the week fear the emperor, the strong become come them.
Want a faster reset go to a seven day. Otherwise let the Pvp'rs lead the army. They know what they're doing.
Those stats don't even make take twice the character! But as emperor, they're expected to kill thousands...

Destyran · January 2018

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

Someone repeatedly getting emp sounds like a lack of competition.

There are people who get 24 million in campaigns on Xbox like go for it dude catch up and do it because I’m not gonna put a Zerg together that farms me AP to do it.

Draxys · January 2018

I wouldn’t really mind changing the way you get emp or changing some of the dynamics of cyrodiil. God knows it’s been stale for a while now, which is exacerbated by the fact that the meta hasn’t shifted in forever.

Fully disagree with the people saying nerf emp buffs. They’re really not that hard to deal with unless you’re alone against them or have no debuffs.

Twohothardware · January 2018

Destyran wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

Someone repeatedly getting emp sounds like a lack of competition.

There are people who get 24 million in campaigns on Xbox like go for it dude catch up and do it because I’m not gonna put a Zerg together that farms me AP to do it.

The problem is you cannot get Emp without a group driving AP to you and without focusing all the time on AP farming methods like PvDooring empty keeps. We have two guys with 14.5M AP right now on DC for PS4 NA with 14 days to go in the Campaign and you scroll down to the people in 5th or 6th place on their own Alliance and they have half that AP.

Getting Emp needs to be more skill based such as much greater bonuses for defending key keeps instead of just how fast you can generate easy AP from playing all day taking empty keeps off the side of the map and zerging randoms at a resource.

Preferably Emperor needs to be limited to one Emp per player per Campaign cycle so that it's something actually attainable for more players in the game besides just the same 1 or 2 on each Alliance every Campaign cycle.

rustic_potato · January 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

Destyran wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

Someone repeatedly getting emp sounds like a lack of competition.

There are people who get 24 million in campaigns on Xbox like go for it dude catch up and do it because I’m not gonna put a Zerg together that farms me AP to do it.

The problem is you cannot get Emp without a group driving AP to you and without focusing all the time on AP farming methods like PvDooring empty keeps. We have two guys with 14.5M AP right now on DC for PS4 NA with 14 days to go in the Campaign and you scroll down to the people in 5th or 6th place on their own Alliance and they have half that AP.

Getting Emp needs to be more skill based such as much greater bonuses for defending key keeps instead of just how fast you can generate easy AP from playing all day taking empty keeps off the side of the map and zerging randoms at a resource.

Preferably Emperor needs to be limited to one Emp per player per Campaign cycle so that it's something actually attainable for more players in the game besides just the same 1 or 2 on each Alliance every Campaign cycle.

I have found that bridge farming to be the easiest way to farm AP and also a reliable way to make guildies Emperor. Just dont join the fight till the one who you want to make Emp has more AP, then push for Emp.

Twohothardware · January 2018

rustic_potato wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

Destyran wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

Someone repeatedly getting emp sounds like a lack of competition.

There are people who get 24 million in campaigns on Xbox like go for it dude catch up and do it because I’m not gonna put a Zerg together that farms me AP to do it.

The problem is you cannot get Emp without a group driving AP to you and without focusing all the time on AP farming methods like PvDooring empty keeps. We have two guys with 14.5M AP right now on DC for PS4 NA with 14 days to go in the Campaign and you scroll down to the people in 5th or 6th place on their own Alliance and they have half that AP.

Getting Emp needs to be more skill based such as much greater bonuses for defending key keeps instead of just how fast you can generate easy AP from playing all day taking empty keeps off the side of the map and zerging randoms at a resource.

Preferably Emperor needs to be limited to one Emp per player per Campaign cycle so that it's something actually attainable for more players in the game besides just the same 1 or 2 on each Alliance every Campaign cycle.

I have found that bridge farming to be the easiest way to farm AP and also a reliable way to make guildies Emperor. Just dont join the fight till the one who you want to make Emp has more AP, then push for Emp.

Which is again something else that doesn't benefit your Alliance actually doing better, just you and your group getting AP. The way Emp is awarded needs to be tied to something else so it forces you into helping defend or take heavily challenged keeps because as long as the easiest path with least resistance is zerging empty keeps on the edges of the map and bridge farming for AP you have a poor system for determining the guy that should get the huge bonuses to help your Alliance.

geonsocal · January 2018

some scoring balance needs to take place to put a different emphasis on emp keeps/outposts, home keeps, and the brindle/drakelowe/dragonclaw keeps...

I know a lot of people want nothing to do with zerg fighting, but, there should be a higher premium on ash than arrius...

emp keeps should generate greater AP for both capture and defense...

it's a tough situation - whatever system zos chooses to go with it just seems like players will push it to the extreme...

we've gone from everyone holding up in keeps/outposts to a whole bunch of pvdooring around the map...

to be honest - i haven't really seen any good arguments against making emp a once per campaign cycle thing...

rustic_potato · January 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

rustic_potato wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

Destyran wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

Someone repeatedly getting emp sounds like a lack of competition.

There are people who get 24 million in campaigns on Xbox like go for it dude catch up and do it because I’m not gonna put a Zerg together that farms me AP to do it.

The problem is you cannot get Emp without a group driving AP to you and without focusing all the time on AP farming methods like PvDooring empty keeps. We have two guys with 14.5M AP right now on DC for PS4 NA with 14 days to go in the Campaign and you scroll down to the people in 5th or 6th place on their own Alliance and they have half that AP.

Getting Emp needs to be more skill based such as much greater bonuses for defending key keeps instead of just how fast you can generate easy AP from playing all day taking empty keeps off the side of the map and zerging randoms at a resource.

Preferably Emperor needs to be limited to one Emp per player per Campaign cycle so that it's something actually attainable for more players in the game besides just the same 1 or 2 on each Alliance every Campaign cycle.

I have found that bridge farming to be the easiest way to farm AP and also a reliable way to make guildies Emperor. Just dont join the fight till the one who you want to make Emp has more AP, then push for Emp.

Which is again something else that doesn't benefit your Alliance actually doing better, just you and your group getting AP. The way Emp is awarded needs to be tied to something else so it forces you into helping defend or take heavily challenged keeps because as long as the easiest path with least resistance is zerging empty keeps on the edges of the map and bridge farming for AP you have a poor system for determining the guy that should get the huge bonuses to help your Alliance.

Well i disagree. Alliance focused play is not feasible, people are too selfish to do it. Why should I care if someone in my alliance wants emp when I can give it to a fellow guildie. Guild focused play should be the priority and that is how you see specific groups dominating cyrodiil. Solo play and alliance play is great but if you want to get to the top you need to be part of a guild. That is how MMOs work.

Taking outlier keeps and bridge farming are coordinated group effort with the sole aim of farming AP for Emp pushes. The group still needs to claim all the Emp keeps to crown someone in their group. Just because that style of play is selfish doesnt mean it is bad. If you have several contesting guilds withing the same alliance thats when the real fun starts.

VaranisArano · January 2018

So what I'm hearing is that if you hand a bunch of already competitive PVPers a there-can-be-only-one achievement like Emperor that offers powerful bonuses for holding it, some of those competitive PVPers are going to decide that they must have that achievement and that power at any costs regardless of the consequences for their faction?

Sounds to me like the problem is with that type of PVPer, not the achievement.

rustic_potato · January 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

So what I'm hearing is that if you hand a bunch of already competitive PVPers a there-can-be-only-one achievement like Emperor that offers powerful bonuses for holding it, some of those competitive PVPers are going to decide that they must have that achievement and that power at any costs regardless of the consequences for their faction?

Sounds to me like the problem is with that type of PVPer, not the achievement.

You nailed it. Even if the emp bonuses dont exist just the fact that an achievement like Emperor exists is reason enough for competitive PVPers to not care about anything other than getting the achievement for person satisfaction.

Also there is no incentive to care about the faction. Even is there was an incentive any strategy it will be executed among the top PVP guilds of that faction. Anyone playing casually or solo will not be able to compete with organized group play. MMOs are meant to promote that kind of play and ESO does a really good job of doing that.

The reality is very simple either you are good enough to play with top tier players on your server or join a good PVP guild if you want those achievements.

kaithuzar · January 2018

It would be cool if they did something like whoever controls 66% automatically gets an emperor & then an emperor is automatically chosen based on some prerequisites like:
Chosen emp has to be ONLINE
Has had to be online for at least 1 hour
Has the best kill/death ratio during that 1 hour of their faction
Can not be emperor if they have already been emperor that day
Can only be emperor for a maximum of 1 hour before it jumps to the next suitable candidate

geonsocal · January 2018

kaithuzar wrote: »

It would be cool if they did something like whoever controls 66% automatically gets an emperor & then an emperor is automatically chosen based on some prerequisites like:
Chosen emp has to be ONLINE
Has had to be online for at least 1 hour
Has the best kill/death ratio during that 1 hour of their faction
Can not be emperor if they have already been emperor that day
Can only be emperor for a maximum of 1 hour before it jumps to the next suitable candidate

i have a much simpler solution - let's just say in all circumstances - the emperor - should be me:

v1.bjsyMTI2Njk7ajsxNzU5NzsxMjAwOzQxMDA7MjcwMA

i'd even go as far as grow the facial hair for it...yeah, that seems fair...

Edziu · January 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

Getting Emp needs to be more skill based such as much greater bonuses for defending key keeps instead of just how fast you can generate easy AP from playing all day taking empty keeps off the side of the map and zerging randoms at a resource

yeah so I have idea as emperoro have those bonuses:

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

- Increases health, magicka and stamina regeneration while in combat by 100%
- Increases ultimate gains by 100%
- Increases health, magicka, and stamina by 75% while in your campaign
- Increases the magnitude of healing effects on Emperors by 50%
- Increases siege weapon damage by 100%

make them work only on emp alliance keeps to help with defend them while at enemy keeps it will be only half on this bonus and ofc bonus wont work away from keeps, this would make emperor be more for alliance to help instead of selfish AP farm

GreenSoup2HoT · January 2018

Good thread.

I would start with 1 Emperor crown per campaign. Gives more people the opportunity to get Emperor. Also disable leaderboard Emperor AP gain (not actual general ap gain). That way anyone in top 10 can pass the Emperors maximum AP and its easier to crown a new Emperor once their dethroned. Nobody with all those buffs should be aloud to sky rocket their leader-board AP gains to essentially have Emperor status for a full campaign.

Sandman929 · January 2018

Lots of ideas have been tossed around about changing Emp, and in general, changing Cyrodiil. I think step one has to be making sure ZOS knows that Cyrodiil actually still exists, and step two would have to be them caring about that fact.

NobleX35 · January 2018

I’m not opposed to changing the way emp is earned, but I am completely opposed to the idea of “participation” emps that only get it because “x” number of people in front of them have already received it once during the campaign. I think locking emp to one time per campaign is a horrible idea, especially when emp flipping is a thing. Someone gets Emp and then a 40 man Zerg comes through and flips the map, thus preventing that player from even having the chance to enjoy the experience and/or obtain it again.

Maybe instead of awarding emp to the player who has the highest total AP count for the campaign, instead award it to the player who has the highest total AP gain for that specific day? This will prevent people who are offline or not even participating in the campaign from continuously obtaining emp, and subsequently provide better and more opportunities for players to get emp who are engaged in the campaign.

Rohamad_Ali · January 2018

rustic_potato wrote: »

Lol. I just want the days when having Emperor meant that your alliance also gets a PVE bonus.

So much this ^ . This was a nice way to encourage players to help and participate . Taking it away did not accomplish any more faction balance then before . It put PVP in the spotlight for all players . Having this back would be nice .

Twohothardware · January 2018

GothicPython wrote: »

I’m not opposed to changing the way emp is earned, but I am completely opposed to the idea of “participation” emps that only get it because “x” number of people in front of them have already received it once during the campaign. I think locking emp to one time per campaign is a horrible idea, especially when emp flipping is a thing. Someone gets Emp and then a 40 man Zerg comes through and flips the map, thus preventing that player from even having the chance to enjoy the experience and/or obtain it again.

Maybe instead of awarding emp to the player who has the highest total AP count for the campaign, instead award it to the player who has the highest total AP gain for that specific day? This will prevent people who are offline or not even participating in the campaign from continuously obtaining emp, and subsequently provide better and more opportunities for players to get emp who are engaged in the campaign.

That was something I was thinking about as well. They could create a separate ranking system for choosing Emperor that goes off of performance for that day or resets each time an Emperor is dethroned so that getting Emporer isn't decided by who plays 24/7 30 days a month but rather who played the best in the last 24 hours.

That would at least give other skilled players on the Alliance who only have time to play a few days out of the week or on the weekends a chance at Emp as well it would give them a chance to get Emp away from these same 1-2 guys that have it every month if you play on a day they aren't as active. Because as it is now if you aren't grinding AP from the very first day of the Campaign you're never going to catch up to guys earning 25-30 million AP per Campaign.

But they still need to also reevaluate sources of AP and give much heavier weighting to defending your own home keeps and Emp keeps vs taking empty keeps at the edges of the map. And AP inside and near a keep for player kills needs to be much higher than AP earned away from the keep like at Alessia bridge. Alessia bridge should be just a place for those that want to duel or fight small scale for fun but it should be the opposite of an effective way to earn a lot of AP.