It would be easier if forming a large group had more visual tools in the core of the game.

I agree with much of what Swamp said. Especially group leaders. It takes a special kind of ability to both play well, and command a group at the same time. I think more might do it if they had better tools for the job. Not a stupid amount of add-on's required by everyone. Bogging down their own systems, making them crash, having UI error messages pop up mid-battle across the entire middle of your screen. Having to update them every time ZoS has a major patch etc.

This game should have come with better icon support built into the core game to help delegate and have a better cleaner way to navigate in large battles. Some don't have an issue with this. GET ON CROWN isn't a problem for them with 24383823458 effects from players going off. For many others it is. So rather than try to train their eyes and reactions, or DL mutiple add-on's they say forget it. I don't need/want that. I'm better off on my own.

Having been in a major PvP guild that was very tight and restricted to make for more dominating gameplay. I can tell you many people just don't want this, or they can't commit to it, or they are AFK more than playing to begin with lol. (Wife agro, Kids, pets etc) On top of that it's hard to find good players that don't need to be constantly told where to be and what they should be doing. I could go on, but I'm hungry and it's lunchtime at work lol.....

VaranisArano wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

@Joy_Division So Kush is constantly announcing in zone “Heading to Bloodmayne resources again.” ?

In addition to that:

- "farming group forming on alessia bridge"
- "farming group forming east alessia bridge"
- "farming group forming west alessia bridge"
- "farming group forming under alessia bridge"

Those elite EP comms.

Don't even need comms on the north side. Does DC have Bleakers? Expect fights to range from Chalman Mine to Bleakers Hill. Does EP have Bleakers? Expect fights from Bleakers FD to Aleswell Farm.

The DC vs EP fights in the Chalman to Aleswell corridor are predictable.

IE: Neverending.

It's why AD feels so pressued when the Bleakers corridor closes (Aleswell red, or Chalman blue).

It's due to the sheer percentage of the two factions that are usually dedicated to the Bleakers corridor. It's not uncommon for 40-60 players from both sides to be busy farming the crap out of each other for a few hours. Suddenly unleashing that on Roe or Alessia (or both) at the same time due to the corridor closing has to hurt.

TBH, if I was AD, I'd do whatever it took to keep that corridor open and busy most days. (Chalman blue? Flag Aleswell / take Bleakers -- reverse if Aleswell red) That'd keep a lot of pressure off Roe and Alessia. Aleswell or Chalman flipping should be a red flag to go help restart that stalemate.

Vilestride wrote: »

Looks like the best way to win is legit going to be to not play.

Omg Wargames flashback.

As far as I'm concerned, PC NA DC Vivec has two problems:

1) Rampant toxicity that's largely hostile to both new and old players.
2) Lack of any groups that can realistically take on IVS, Dracarys or Omni 1:1.

The former is a cultural issue. Honestly, I don't know how you address it other than ignore the toxic players and everyone else makes a conscious effort to a) be friendly and welcoming and b) call out people for being jerks publicly when it happens. Otherwise, nothing is going to change. At a certain point, you just all have to ignore the problem people/guilds and hope eventually they just quit and make the game a better place by their absence.

The latter is a guilds issue. Two of DC's guilds seem to be making a legitimate effort to improve and fill the gap, but as Agrippa eluded to earlier, that's going to be insanely difficult. Most guilds encounter a wall and it's difficult to overcome. You want 20 consistent, high-caliber players on every night working in unison. You may have 10 that are there already, and 10 you're trying to work with to get there. Some will never get there for a variety of reasons. Others will take a long time or may leave because of a disagreement. And then while you're trying to bridge that gap with your B-team folks, your A-team guys get impatient, or burnt out, and either quit the game altogether, leave and do PvE or something else, or jump ship to greener pastures and join another better guild. And then you're back to square one, trying to train and nurture more people into what you need them to be for your guild and everyone else in it to succeed.

In a way, DC's current state works in GoD/IL's favor, in that basically, if your members wanna jump ship, they'd have to reroll to find a better large-scale guild. That may force people to be more patient and cooperative out of necessity because they don't want to swap characters or alliances. But it's still a difficult issue to navigate.

I've encountered it myself multiple times. Omni is the fifth PvP guild I've started. It's also the only one that's lasted over 3-4 months without collapsing due to this very problem. I don't envy anyone trying to build a "competitive" group PvP guild, particularly one that lacks the presence of someone who has done it, or at least played a significant part in doing it, before. Leading every night, group theorycrafting, wrestling with egos and drama, getting everyone to buy in, demanding and earning respect, these are all things GMs and senior officers need to do, and I literally don't know any way to make it work other than to just be absolutely obsessive about it. I honestly don't think there's been a single night in the past month that at least 1-2 of our officers in Omni weren't on the PTS for hours, testing builds, mapping out trait combinations, detailing the math behind what will be the best possible idea for our group to succeed, etc. There's hardly been a single day where we aren't sitting in Discord arguing for hours over tiny details, or debating between what's ideal and what's practical to find the truly optimal setup for specific roles, and then piecing it all together in a way that our Crowns understand so we can make the right calls or adjust how we choose to engage in certain scenarios given the new strengths and weaknesses of our group. And that's just the officers - that's not even addressing the members, who put the time in to grind up the new skills or traits we need them to have access to, who are able and willing to completely change builds or even characters to fit the new role we want them to play, and who constantly actively give us feedback, constructive feedback, about what feels good, what isn't working, what is difficult or impractical that we didn't foresee, and what they may need help with. I made a comment to our guys and gals the other week about how they spoil us to an extent - because compared to the trainwrecks I've had to deal with in the past, they do. They listen. They respect the vision. They trust and believe in what we're doing, and are willing to try it, even if it doesn't work in the end. We don't have to deal with 8/20 people in group refusing to change their builds when a new patch dictates a need for change. We don't have to appease a half dozen stamblades who won't reroll or race change to Magicka so they can be at least marginally useful. We don't have to deal with players who won't swap from a Damage to a Support role when we need it, who offer lip service and say they'll slot Purge or Rapids to appease us but don't actually do it.

It's HARD to get GOOD players with the RIGHT mentality together who can put their egos aside, make some sacrifices for the sake of the group's success, and buy in. GoD and IL are both getting there. They both have work to do, but we've witnessed the progress over the past few months while fighting them. If either of them can get enough of their core players up to speed, in the right spec for their group, and their Crowns learn and truly understand how to execute calls for their composition, they both have a great shot at bridging the gap and giving us a hell of a good fight. I genuinely hope that happens. It'll be great for the health of AvAvA in this game if it does.

I don't think more ball groups farming AP in a tower or keep is what AvAvA needs to be healthy.

barshemm wrote: »

I don't think more ball groups farming AP in a tower or keep is what AvAvA needs to be healthy.

Yeah, because Omni, Dracarys and Invictus have never helped the map by fighting for keeps, retaking lost objectives, rushing to the defense of something that's under siege, or cleared out each other from home keeps to free up the rest of the faction to do things other than get farmed or whine in zone chat.

/s

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

barshemm wrote: »

I don't think more ball groups farming AP in a tower or keep is what AvAvA needs to be healthy.

Yeah, because Omni, Dracarys and Invictus have never helped the map by fighting for keeps, retaking lost objectives, rushing to the defense of something that's under siege, or cleared out each other from home keeps to free up the rest of the faction to do things other than get farmed or whine in zone chat.

/s

That's right. Because when we're all on at the same time, we get into the same Teamspeak and sing kumbayah and hold hands.

There couldn't possibly be any desire to one up or improve upon another one of these top guilds.

inb4 Invictus vs Omni vs Dracarys Barbershop Quartet sing-off competition

SwampRaider wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

barshemm wrote: »

I don't think more ball groups farming AP in a tower or keep is what AvAvA needs to be healthy.

Yeah, because Omni, Dracarys and Invictus have never helped the map by fighting for keeps, retaking lost objectives, rushing to the defense of something that's under siege, or cleared out each other from home keeps to free up the rest of the faction to do things other than get farmed or whine in zone chat.

/s

That's right. Because when we're all on at the same time, we get into the same Teamspeak and sing kumbayah and hold hands.

There couldn't possibly be any desire to one up or improve upon another one of these top guilds.

inb4 Invictus vs Omni vs Dracarys Barbershop Quartet sing-off competition

I'm sure you're well aware of this, but us in GoD like to be in skeleton polymorph all the time. So we have naturally evolved into a quartet group called SkeleTONEZ. Prepare to be decimated by our voice boxes!

But... skeletons don't have voice boxes.

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

SwampRaider wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

barshemm wrote: »

I don't think more ball groups farming AP in a tower or keep is what AvAvA needs to be healthy.

Yeah, because Omni, Dracarys and Invictus have never helped the map by fighting for keeps, retaking lost objectives, rushing to the defense of something that's under siege, or cleared out each other from home keeps to free up the rest of the faction to do things other than get farmed or whine in zone chat.

/s

That's right. Because when we're all on at the same time, we get into the same Teamspeak and sing kumbayah and hold hands.

There couldn't possibly be any desire to one up or improve upon another one of these top guilds.

inb4 Invictus vs Omni vs Dracarys Barbershop Quartet sing-off competition

I'm sure you're well aware of this, but us in GoD like to be in skeleton polymorph all the time. So we have naturally evolved into a quartet group called SkeleTONEZ. Prepare to be decimated by our voice boxes!

But... skeletons don't have voice boxes.

Clearly the skeleton polymorph is just a skin. But I thought this was a legit competition that we just hold over Discord!

Ixtyr wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

barshemm wrote: »

I don't think more ball groups farming AP in a tower or keep is what AvAvA needs to be healthy.

Yeah, because Omni, Dracarys and Invictus have never helped the map by fighting for keeps, retaking lost objectives, rushing to the defense of something that's under siege, or cleared out each other from home keeps to free up the rest of the faction to do things other than get farmed or whine in zone chat.

/s

That's right. Because when we're all on at the same time, we get into the same Teamspeak and sing kumbayah and hold hands.

There couldn't possibly be any desire to one up or improve upon another one of these top guilds.

inb4 Invictus vs Omni vs Dracarys Barbershop Quartet sing-off competition

I'm a half decent baritone.... Ahem... memememe

SwampRaider wrote: »

Hi folks!

hardcore DC PvPer here. I have bled blue since launch and have been in many organized PvP guilds

DC is in a sad state. We have 5 organized guilds( 2 of which only follow the bombing/Stamden meta) to top that off, all of those players are newish to organized pvp and can't hold their own against dracarys or omni UNLESS we have perfect composition and no one screws up ANY movement(no room for error)

We have IA(IN?) in the mornings helping us out, but they make weird tactical decisions that hurt us prime time players(putting scrolls in the wrong keeps. etc) for once I would like to see AD scrolls in Dragonclaw and warden(longer treks for AD)

During prime time, we have BoD,IL, GoD and sometimes SG. most of those guilds don't follow the current pvp meta for zerg busting or counterplay against omni or Dracarys.

My current guild, GoD is trying its best to emulate Dracarys and VE/omni. we have a few former VE in the group(with our own little spin) but its hard when most of the players are new to ball group tactics. we have days of great success and days of utter failure.(Our attendence has been horrible, but when its great with our core group we succeed.)

The DC pug zerg needs pushing and baiting to get it to hit the right places. sometimes I find myself solo sieging an important keep to reroute the zerg to my location.

DC is just lazy, we used to be something. It is a daily struggle. We wouldn't be in second place if we didnt have an oceanic crew( we would be dead last). DC is borderline almost dead with competitive guilds. No one likes to lead, and those that try usually get knocked down by LOUD zone chat trolls and LOUD armchair generals. most of DC would rather complain about ball groups like dracarys rather than build their own to counter them


Tl;DR: DC is lazy

I've noticed that DC players are distinctly not competitive to fight against, actually. I see a lot more work coming out of EP and AD these days. I'm going to be gearing up my DC stamplar for PVP in the near future, and possibly my magicka NB as well (though I don't like playing magicka).

I personally prefer to be on the underdog side of things, and playing EP right now certainly isn't that xD

SwampRaider wrote: »

Due to the laziness of DC I predict that the current PVP changes in cyrodiil are only going to hurt us more. I doubt I will be proved wrong.

It will be up to us organize guilds to take resources well our keeps are being Sieged. When we should be focusing on eliminating the enemy.

The issue is that DC doesn't have a spark. There really isn't any new innovation or drive on that faction. us old players who recognized that DC needs to transform itself are tasked with trying to "jerry rig" an old chest freezer and turn it into a eco-friendly chest fridge that runs on less electricity.

Another issue, is that I see more people;more new people importantly, going to The ebonheart Pact. And less players going to the Daggerfall Covenant. I don't know why, but it must have to do with any race any Alliance being the crown store...ir something else.

When we should be refining our tactics and movement as a faction, we end up doing drills and training and gearing new PVPers. With little turn on investment due to attendance.

The other issue is AP. Most DC don't care about the map, only going to where the zerg gets the most AP.

So the <Sooz Scouting Network> is in overdrive going from keep to keep to scout.

THE most annoying issue: 50 DC pugs slamming their bodies against an Omni or Dracarys AP farming at a keep. When they should ignore them and do more important things.

I think every faction has learned the hard way how not to get farmed. But DC (if memory serves me) has had some of the best and most consistent AP farmers in the past. This is probably why they aren't so good at combatting it - they haven't been on the receiving end for quite as long. Now that they are, they'll have to endure the frustration of that learning curve like the other factions have.

But I will say that DC seems to have quite a few unfamiliar, neophyte warriors these days. Once I finish Summerset on my EP stam sorc I may just hop over to DC on my stamplar. I've been itching to PVP with it for a while. Maybe I'll even get back to my glory days of pug-zerg-wrangling

Ixtyr wrote: »

...There's hardly been a single day where we aren't sitting in Discord arguing for hours over tiny details, or debating between what's ideal and what's practical to find the truly optimal setup for specific roles, and then piecing it all together in a way that our Crowns understand so we can make the right calls or adjust how we choose to engage in certain scenarios given the new strengths and weaknesses of our group. ...

Omni runs multiple groups confirmed.

Also there is no way that Drac / IVS / Omni could ever run small-man quartet, cause they are all mindless choral singers.