Cyrodiil keep defense AP nerfed or broken?

InvitationNotFound · August 2018

@ZOS_BrianWheeler
Good and bad change. The last patch introduced ridiculous AP ticks. Like defending 10 minutes resulted once in 110k+ tick. Defending level 5 resources could give easy 10-20k in no time. The worth of AP became a joke and everyone who goes for AP will simply go for defending a level 5 keep, generating whole faction stacking at one single point. I actually thought we should split in Cyrodiil and not stack at one point to increase server performance, right?

Anyway, this patch now might reduce the ticks as well as whole factions stacking at one keep, which would be a good thing.
Yet, the implementation is suboptimal. I like the approach with the resources and it might even be an interesting part forcing the defenders to end the siege in time to get more AP. Yet, I'm still bothered with the keeps giving the same AP as before. This should be seriously addressed as I still consider this an issue.

Don't get me wrong here, I also like AP. But if you are honest to yourself, the system implemented with the last update is just ridiculous.

geonsocal · August 2018

Feanor wrote: »

I don’t see why valuable coding time has gone into a feature nobody asked for instead of investing it into fixing already existing issues (hello invisible wall bug).

so much this...

Carbonised · August 2018

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

Don't get me wrong here, I also like AP. But if you are honest to yourself, the system implemented with the last update is just ridiculous.

I disagree. I PvP'ed almost all day around during the Midyear event, and went to defend lots of keeps in that time. In many of the scenarios the defense was wiped, sometimes after a long time of defense, plus the riding back and forth, and you got 0 AP in defense ticks. Defending is already a risky business, and with largely diminished AP gains, why even bother riding all the way back to defend a keep, with a significant risk of getting 0 AP, or a chance to get a small D-tick.

I led a lot of groups under the event, and noticed that people generally don't really care about defending keeps, it takes a coordinated group to call for a defense of a keep, and with this change, the incentive to do so is heavily diminished.

InvitationNotFound · August 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

Don't get me wrong here, I also like AP. But if you are honest to yourself, the system implemented with the last update is just ridiculous.

I disagree. I PvP'ed almost all day around during the Midyear event, and went to defend lots of keeps in that time. In many of the scenarios the defense was wiped, sometimes after a long time of defense, plus the riding back and forth, and you got 0 AP in defense ticks. Defending is already a risky business, and with largely diminished AP gains, why even bother riding all the way back to defend a keep, with a significant risk of getting 0 AP, or a chance to get a small D-tick.

I led a lot of groups under the event, and noticed that people generally don't really care about defending keeps, it takes a coordinated group to call for a defense of a keep, and with this change, the incentive to do so is heavily diminished.

Had plenty of defense ticks during the event. Randomly popping up ticks for 30-50k for a few minutes of fighting or just wiping a handful of players. Sorry, but this is ridiculous...

Even if you reduce the ticks to 15-25k for just two or three minutes, it is still ridiculous.

Carbonised · August 2018

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

Don't get me wrong here, I also like AP. But if you are honest to yourself, the system implemented with the last update is just ridiculous.

I disagree. I PvP'ed almost all day around during the Midyear event, and went to defend lots of keeps in that time. In many of the scenarios the defense was wiped, sometimes after a long time of defense, plus the riding back and forth, and you got 0 AP in defense ticks. Defending is already a risky business, and with largely diminished AP gains, why even bother riding all the way back to defend a keep, with a significant risk of getting 0 AP, or a chance to get a small D-tick.

I led a lot of groups under the event, and noticed that people generally don't really care about defending keeps, it takes a coordinated group to call for a defense of a keep, and with this change, the incentive to do so is heavily diminished.

Had plenty of defense ticks during the event. Randomly popping up ticks for 30-50k for a few minutes of fighting or just wiping a handful of players. Sorry, but this is ridiculous...

Even if you reduce the ticks to 15-25k for just two or three minutes, it is still ridiculous.

No you didn't get 50k just for wiping a handful of players, that's either exaggeration or lies. What could have happened was that someone else defended the keep for a long while against more people, before you arrived, and then you got lucky and shared that AP pool when the tick came.

Or like me, you can be unlucky and defend a keep for 20-30 minutes, then freeze out of the game, spend 10 minutes trying to get back, and when you finally do, the fight is over and the tick is long gone. Happened to me and others much more times than I care for.

The best way to get AP during the event was to flip flags in IC, secondarily to flip resources with no defense. That should tell you something about where the AP is found. Bombblades and elite people farming resources for scrubs is also a good AP generator, as well as coordinated zerg trains.
D-ticks for keep defense is very poor time vs. gains when it comes to AP generation.

LiberatorSam · August 2018

AP per hour is the main incentive for many players, last patch the d tick encourages people to actually defend a keep. Now it’s back to what it was, sitting outside a keep waiting for the enemy to flip then move in to reflip back to your own color.

InvitationNotFound · August 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

Don't get me wrong here, I also like AP. But if you are honest to yourself, the system implemented with the last update is just ridiculous.

I disagree. I PvP'ed almost all day around during the Midyear event, and went to defend lots of keeps in that time. In many of the scenarios the defense was wiped, sometimes after a long time of defense, plus the riding back and forth, and you got 0 AP in defense ticks. Defending is already a risky business, and with largely diminished AP gains, why even bother riding all the way back to defend a keep, with a significant risk of getting 0 AP, or a chance to get a small D-tick.

I led a lot of groups under the event, and noticed that people generally don't really care about defending keeps, it takes a coordinated group to call for a defense of a keep, and with this change, the incentive to do so is heavily diminished.

Had plenty of defense ticks during the event. Randomly popping up ticks for 30-50k for a few minutes of fighting or just wiping a handful of players. Sorry, but this is ridiculous...

Even if you reduce the ticks to 15-25k for just two or three minutes, it is still ridiculous.

No you didn't get 50k just for wiping a handful of players, that's either exaggeration or lies. What could have happened was that someone else defended the keep for a long while against more people, before you arrived, and then you got lucky and shared that AP pool when the tick came.

Or like me, you can be unlucky and defend a keep for 20-30 minutes, then freeze out of the game, spend 10 minutes trying to get back, and when you finally do, the fight is over and the tick is long gone. Happened to me and others much more times than I care for.

The best way to get AP during the event was to flip flags in IC, secondarily to flip resources with no defense. That should tell you something about where the AP is found. Bombblades and elite people farming resources for scrubs is also a good AP generator, as well as coordinated zerg trains.
D-ticks for keep defense is very poor time vs. gains when it comes to AP generation.

Not really. I actually do not really know what the actual multiplicator is. Someone said in another thread it goes up to x7 for a level 5 resource / keep. and this might be pretty accurate. even if it is only x5, it is ridiculous.

Just a simple calculation for you:
You kill someone alone at a resource that has level 5, a single player -> kill approximately ~2k. defense tick around 10-14k. Again, it is ridiculous. And you'll get such high ticks in no time, especially during the event.

LiberatorSam wrote: »

AP per hour is the main incentive for many players, last patch the d tick encourages people to actually defend a keep. Now it’s back to what it was, sitting outside a keep waiting for the enemy to flip then move in to reflip back to your own color.

Not sure about the first part. But i disagree with the second part.:)

Jameliel · August 2018

The ongoing idiocy and incompetence of z0$ devs on full display as usual. Nothing new to see here. Perhaps Trump is secretly in charge of hiring at z0$....Only the best and brightest:-D

InvitationNotFound · August 2018

Jameliel wrote: »

The ongoing idiocy and incompetence of z0$ devs on full display as usual. Nothing new to see here. Perhaps Trump is secretly in charge of hiring at z0$....Only the best and brightest:-D

The funny thing here is, that his younger brother actually is in the board of directors at Zenimax Media:
https://zenimax.com/about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Donald_Trump#Robert_Trump

Yet, I doubt the guy has anything to do with our ridiculous def ticks.

Beardimus · August 2018

Its a tough one. I DO think keep levels, resource etc need to mean more. Personally i've ignored them pretty much for a few years now. The mechanism is there by L1,2,5 didnt seem to make a difference.

I'm ALL for Lumber making doors way stronger, mine walls, farm NPC's - and if a change was needed I would have said to buff this.

The new L1-2 status and impact to AP I really dont get. And I too am unsure in the heat of a siege a defence force are going to have much luck getting out and retaking resources. but i'm Xbox so am yet to see.

Lastly I DO vote for big D Ticks. They very healthy.

BigBragg · August 2018

This sounds good in theory, kinda like communism. In practice I am not sure how it's going to pan out.

BRogueNZ · August 2018

poor attempt at giving Cyrodiil-pvp some depth, I appreciate the effort..

ku5h · August 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

Don't get me wrong here, I also like AP. But if you are honest to yourself, the system implemented with the last update is just ridiculous.

I disagree. I PvP'ed almost all day around during the Midyear event, and went to defend lots of keeps in that time. In many of the scenarios the defense was wiped, sometimes after a long time of defense, plus the riding back and forth, and you got 0 AP in defense ticks. Defending is already a risky business, and with largely diminished AP gains, why even bother riding all the way back to defend a keep, with a significant risk of getting 0 AP, or a chance to get a small D-tick.

I led a lot of groups under the event, and noticed that people generally don't really care about defending keeps, it takes a coordinated group to call for a defense of a keep, and with this change, the incentive to do so is heavily diminished.

I disagree. Since they implemented improved def ticks my AP/H went from around 60-70k to 100k+, by mostly prioritising defending keeps and res. Up to this point def ticks was way to go for AP gains and i was ok with that, since it should be most important activity a player can do for his Alliance.

Maryal · August 2018

This is just going to further encourage 'resource merry-go-round' ... the most frustrating and annoying type of catch-me-if-you-can 'gameplay' ... if that can even be classified as 'gameplay.' If annoyance could kill a player, this would be the #1 way to go about it. I want to earn AP fighting the good fight, NOT by constantly having to repair keep walls/doors. Heck, even bridge fights are epically more fun than engaging in resource merry-go-round' with people who have no real interested in taking a keep, let alone any real interest in pvp.

Given the choice between: a.) fighting the good fight at a keep WITH lag, or b.) chasing after resource-merry-go-rounders lag free, I'd pick the one with the lag every time!

technohic · August 2018

I really get tired of the incentive to fight on resources to begin with. Its the opposite of fun chasing each other around a resource tower.

Then to add to that; if it is going to count toward the D tick, most of the time when you go to defend is when you see a huge zerg incoming and at that point, you turtle up to hold out until reinforcements come. The few people near the keep that usually are the ones sounding the alarm are more times than not, not enough to put up a fight with what is coming in.

The incentive for smaller groups to feel like they are having an influence on the battle is not really there as they usually want to have a fight with other smaller groups and generally go deeper in enemy territory away from the actual keep flipping as to not draw full raids and ball groups. Seems like this is more of a thing for larger groups anyway to set up an AP farm

DocFrost72 · August 2018

To the point that sending a small man out during a siege is suicide, I think the angle ZOS was going for was to rush the resource as a first line of defense.

Lose at the resource? Spawn back at the keep. Lose at the outer? Fall back to the inner.

It has kind of become standard fare to see a resource under attack and think "whatever". That isn't good. I don't have an opinion on the change (need to play more) but it is aimed at a real issue.

Sheezabeast · August 2018

The whole point of bursting a keep is to not alert your enemy you are there by not tagging resources, and setting up siege. This changes the dynamic.....

technohic · August 2018

DocFrost72 wrote: »

To the point that sending a small man out during a siege is suicide, I think the angle ZOS was going for was to rush the resource as a first line of defense.

Lose at the resource? Spawn back at the keep. Lose at the outer? Fall back to the inner.

It has kind of become standard fare to see a resource under attack and think "whatever". That isn't good. I don't have an opinion on the change (need to play more) but it is aimed at a real issue.

The reason its standard fare to see the resource under attack and thing "whatever" is because it usually is a small man group, the very people they said they wanted to be able to have an effect on the war, as its great bait for outnumbered videos. What this will do will not help the small man group. In stead of drawing out a few; the faction zergs are going to respond.

Anrose · August 2018

Remember when the most profitable AP was from killing players? Crazy!

DocFrost72 · August 2018

technohic wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

To the point that sending a small man out during a siege is suicide, I think the angle ZOS was going for was to rush the resource as a first line of defense.

Lose at the resource? Spawn back at the keep. Lose at the outer? Fall back to the inner.

It has kind of become standard fare to see a resource under attack and think "whatever". That isn't good. I don't have an opinion on the change (need to play more) but it is aimed at a real issue.

The reason its standard fare to see the resource under attack and thing "whatever" is because it usually is a small man group, the very people they said they wanted to be able to have an effect on the war, as its great bait for outnumbered videos. What this will do will not help the small man group. In stead of drawing out a few; the faction zergs are going to respond.

If there is already a zerg waiting at the keep, sure. Otherwise a small man can harass and weaken keeps just by rapidly taking a resource. 2 soldiers can functionally decrease keep take times or guard effectiveness.

Again, I'll need to see how it affects my day to day, but at least I care about resources now.

maboleth · August 2018

Personally I like the change. At least in theory it's great - farm to weaken NPCs, wood for doors and mine for walls. Anyhow, this needs to be experienced for a while and then draw any conclusions, good or bad.

The biggest dislike for me is not the game, but frustrated and utterly rude forum warriors with zero manners trying to "communicate" with the devs. It's disgusting.

Theignson · August 2018

This is a very disappointing change. Since they changed D ticks players have had incentive to come across Cyrodil to defend keeps , and factions would rally to defend, and some fantastic, epic battles have resulted-- ie fun. Instead of just letting a keep flip and then flip it back.

Yesterday, a very large defense of BRK (PC NA) generated 1.9k tick. A large defense of Chal...1.1K. Then another pretty substantial defense of BRK...907 AP!! Much smaller than even a resource flip. I wondered what was going on.

As others have said, the idea that the defenders could go out and flip the resources during a huge battle is absurd. It is hard enough to push out from a defended keep. There may be 40-60 opposing players out there. If you send small parties out they will get destroyed and then the keep lost.

I predict many players, if this continues, will hear the call to come to Chal and think...why bother. I can flip RSS and get much more AP, why should I ride across the zone (since the Keep may be lost anyway) for a 2k tick.

Was this even tested on test server?

GizmoX64 · August 2018

Here's a perspective from an outsider, I don't PvP, and never plan to. I enjoy PvE and wish the oblivion map had an option, like a white flag, or red cross, so one could just do the dailies there, but anyway.

The first thing I think of when sieging is the historical meaning of surrounding and causing the enemy to live off their supplies inside a fortified position, ie a castle.
So Siege =
A military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.
"Verdun had withstood a siege of ten weeks" / synonyms: blockade, encirclement
"the siege of the fort lasted into the morning"

So why would you (Zos) change how its done by having a group of people rush out to defend a farm?
I can not think of any situation where, when a castle was under attack, the king / general orders the defenders to leave the safety of the walls to go save a few farms.

Now if the farms, mills, etc, the resources had a Motte-and-Bailey setup, then a small garrison could be assigned to defend the farm or resource inside. That even sounds a bit fun, in a game world.

It makes no sense, & I'm glad I do not PvP, as I'm not invested in it at all.

Salvas_Aren · August 2018

Let me sum this up:

You grant Def tick APs because players shall be encouraged to def keeps.

You take away Def tick AP and players will be discouraged to def keeps.

Why does this not make any sense?

Shadowmaster · August 2018

https://giphy.com/stickers/jWexOOlYe241y

Sky_WK · August 2018

More proof they don't play their own game. You cant retake resources with a faction stack on your keep lol.

SunRaider · August 2018

Beford this patch it was worth to defende and to attacka keep.

You knew if you could hold a defense , and the more time the better , you'll get good ap reward in the end , it was an incentive.

But it was an incentive for attackers also because they could steal those ap for them if they won.

Was good for both sides, was good for fun.

Now?...not so much , its just irrelevant. Better leave defense and just go grab a new keep.

There goes the fun...

Thrain · August 2018

Yeah sure, when 20+ enemys are in our keep i will go outside to get our resources back...NOT

Shouldnt the def tick scale with the duration and size of the siege?
I mean who would go outside when 20+ enemies are siegeing a wall or maingate just to get the resources back?

i guess now ppl dont even want to def anymore...leave it behind and retake it would bring more ap then i guess

Btw wouldnt the wall bug be more important to fix than than the def tick?

Salvas_Aren · August 2018

I guess these things have to happen if you are owned by Apple or have a Trump in your management board.

Guess which is true.

Revokus · August 2018

I enjoy the tears get off your PVE sieges and come and catch us at a ressource with a real pvp build and take off your divines pyjamas/earthgore

I predict many bowtards deaths