We need incentives to bring regular players back into Cyrodiil, and to attract non-PvPers to try PvP

zyk · September 2017

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Organized large groups provide a check on massive, groupless faction stacks.

It's a chicken or egg kind of thing. Very good groups motivate players to stack and stacked players motivate groups to run larger.

There are a lot of other reasons players stack, of course. IMO the major motivator at the moment is large oticks.

I think that if all groups that run 16-24 instead ran 8-12, there would be more groups running and players of all types would spread out more often.

Stacking would still occur when motivated by other factors, but it would be different than it is now with more and smaller groups running.

I think changes to scoring could motivate players to spread out more. I would limit the number of players both offensive and defensive ticks are awarded to based on the type of objective. For example, perhaps a resource would only award ticks to 20 players with rapidly diminishing returns after the top 10. For keeps, perhaps the values would be 40 and 20.

I'd also like to see the campaign scoreboard made much more granular via an increase in the frequency of scoring evaluations. If, for example, there were scoring evaluations every 10 or 15 minutes, that would make holding objectives more meaningful for small groups at resources and large groups at keeps. As it is now, a guild like Dracarys might hold an objective for 30 minutes, but it has no impact to the score at all. Likewise, most resource activity is irrelevant unless it happens 15-20 minutes before an evaluation.

Zbigb4life · September 2017

Endyear mayhem maybe?

Derra · September 2017

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Organized large groups provide a check on massive, groupless faction stacks.

Those massive, groupless faction stacks already crowd at one or two fights on the emp ring as is.

You keep those in check by tying healing mechanics to the now smaller groups.

One way would be to reduce out of group heals by 50%.
Another would be to not allow aoe heals to affect non group members.

Biro123 · September 2017

Derra wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Organized large groups provide a check on massive, groupless faction stacks.

Those massive, groupless faction stacks already crowd at one or two fights on the emp ring as is.

You keep those in check by tying healing mechanics to the now smaller groups.

One way would be to reduce out of group heals by 50%.
Another would be to not allow aoe heals to affect non group members.

Ooh, I hope not. One of the reasons I really like ESO compared to other games is that heals/buffs etc. are not contained within the group. Its not so much of a thing now - but when my kids were a bit younger, it meant being unable to play in any kind of group due to having to instantly drop to respond to them, regularly and without notice - which obviously always let that group down. And with the common use of voice-comms the background noise wasn't too workable either..
ESO lets you play around others but solo and so without having anybody relying on you/waiting for you or anything. From having kids, I've got used to soloing. I like MMO's because of the depth/playstyle and simply being around other players and part of that community - even though I don't (and for a long time couldn't) group..

Its just really nice to find one game that doesn't punish those who can't dedicate the consistant, uninterrupted time needed for group-play.

Prince_of_all_Pugs · September 2017

there was once a time on NA when lots of PuGs and Pve'rs would come to PVP, but the toxic 1vX kids farmed them to extinction. now on NA most players are hardcore pvprs. it really kills the incentive of those wanting to get into pve when they are getting 1vXed instantly.

Agrippa_Invisus · September 2017

Vilestride wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

I think downsizing makes a lot of sense in the current state of the game. While there are faction stacks, 16-24 player groups haven't been nearly as common as they were, so I think 8-12 player groups can be highly effective in many scenarios. No, they won't take on 60 like a well-oiled uberblob can, but I think they can be difference makers and win a lot of fights.

The best argument I can make to not run 24 is the per-faction population cap. I believe it is generally estimated to be approximately 150 which makes a 24 player group approximately 16% of a faction's population. That's pretty significant and goes a long way towards concentrating fights in only a few locations -- especially when it might take 40 randoms to wipe an elite group.

IMO, the group size should never, ever have been allowed to be greater than what the PVE content allows - 12.

Universal group sizes also allows for easier transition between the two activities. A 20 man PVP raid can't convert easily into two 12 man raids for PVE content, but a 12 man can just step out without re-organization and switch between the two with ease.

I'm all for consistency, but I stick by my worry stated when discussing reducing group sizes earlier (I think it was in this thread):

Organized large groups provide a check on massive, groupless faction stacks.

Those massive, groupless faction stacks already crowd at one or two fights on the emp ring as is.

Therefore, reducing the max group size without introducing significant objectives or rewards for spreading out will simply incentivize faction stacking even further, as nothing will be able to stop the tides of bodies except larger tides of bodies.

This means a net decrease in variety of PvP experiences for everyone, which could lead to even more bleeding of the population than we are already seeing.

Imo it all goes back to positive incentives to make people want to move to other places on the map, the goal being to increase variety of experiences, which leads to excitement. People love the VASTNESS of Cyrodiil and the diversity of its landscapes. People WANT to fight all over the map, but there usually aren't fights anywhere out of the emp lanes. Getting people out there could mean a rework of emperorship to reduce the allure of emp keeps, a rework of transit or respawning to reduce travel times to outer keeps, some fun new shinies to chase in the outskirts of the map, a rework of AP ticks or campaign scoring, etc etc. I do not, however, believe simply saying, "ok, no more big groups" would miraculously spread people out and make more people want to play PvP.

would it be too drastic to reconsider the positioning the current keeps so that the lanes of transit were not so direct? So for example if BRK was positioned more to the east so the transit lines were more equal. So now it would be as quick a ride from BRK to drake or BRK to Farragut as it is from BRK to arrius. This would break own the conventionally popular travel routes and encourage fights on the roads between all 3 keeps rather than just 1.

This is just one example and I'm not saying its necessarily a good one, but just pointing out how even the intelligent re-positioning of even just the current keeps could result in more, and different fights than we see day to day as it is.

I would very much love it if Chalman was as close to Arrius as Alessia is to Faregyl.

This positioning issue comes from the weirdness of Arrius's location. It should be on about the same latitude as Glademist, but it's not. It's further south.

asneakybanana · September 2017

Satiar wrote: »

So today when we leave it feels about the same as when we came. There are no new elite DC squads. Many of the same groups are still running, some have improved some have regressed. But we didn't leave anyone behind capable of walking up to Drac/Inv/etc and engaging them without greatly outnumbering them.

During the last few months of playing the guilds I regularly saw play on a weekly basis was BoD, Shadowgrabber and Pug Guild. BoD rarely gets full raids and the other two are pick up groups....

But this is mostly "State of the Game". I look back to before VE rerolled. EP with Havoc, IR/Nexus, VE, GoS and a bunch of pick up groups/casual raids. I don't think we'll ever get back to that. And for that to even happen the board was so tilted in favor of EP it was nearly game killing.

So that's what I meant. There's always some pug raids or raid guilds but from a competitive standpoint you need a decent spread of high end guilds to fight other high end guilds. I'd hoped that having a top-tier raid guild would inspire others to get there just as Bulbasir was inspired to form the raiding arm of VE by playing with DIE. But for whatever reason, this did not happen. The last guild that managed to go from free AP to threat was PM, who found a niche during the Destro/rememberence age (very similar to CN finding their groove with Steel Tornado and Barrier). But it was on EP which already had a wealth of top end guilds and shortly thereafter seems to have lost many of its leads and much of its core.

Honestly even today there hasn't been any new "elite guild" formed on EP, sure there has been refining with organization such as going from Haxus to Drac and there has been some training up to replace the people we have lost over time but I would say you could still trace ~50% of the cores of Drac and IVS back to Havoc, IR and GoS. However, I would say that over time BoD has also really come into their own, sure they aren't Drac level but it's way better than the days when 3 of us would go up to Bruma and wipe them. I would say right before Morrowind is when they were the strongest, similar to when PM was hitting their prime, largely due to the same reasons of destro, negate, and rememberance.

Overall, I wouldn't say DC is in a bad situation, what they lack in skill and high performance raids they make up for in organization and numbers. It's often hard to get ep to whole heartedly push something but DC is more than willing to take 60+ to chal which still makes them a tough enemy. And then there's AD, bless their precious little hearts.

Mr_Gallows · January 2018

The problem with Cyrodill is not Cyrodill or anything present there, but the fundamentally flawed Flash Gordon on crack with heal/shield/whatever stacking combat system.

If they just gave us light/heavy attacks vs block/dodge and nothing else at all, I think PvP would be better. What they should have done with the attack skills was not make them seperate things, but instead modifiers for light/heavy attacks.

Lets say you want to use surprise attack - you activate surprise attack, then hit either light or heavy attack to use the attack. Some skills could require a heavy attack for any effect.

PvP of ESO is fast paced... but it's bad, which makes the fast pacing even worse than how lame it looks.