Good PVP'ers vs. Bad PVP'ers

MalagenR · November 2018

I've noticed something that has been a plague on PVP games in the last 15 years that I've been playing them that I think is utterly hysterical, as follows:

Many of the players of today that believe they are great PVP'ers do not actually fight the best opponents in open world PVP. This is common in not just ESO, but in games like WoW, EVE Online, Aion, etc. Essentially, what occurs, is a similar form of what we used to use clans / guilds for back in the day. I'll use a comparison of my 1st experience in a PVP game, with Lineage2 vs. my current experience in MMO's through the lens of ESO.

Lineage 2 - 15 Years ago.

In this game, gear grinding was insane, to have a B grade weapon (weapons scaled to S) you basically had to have been playing for almost 2+ years, at level 55+ grinding out 10% XP in a day required about a 12 hour investment, when you got to level 65+ it was basically 12 hours to make around 5%.

The penalty of death was 2-3% XP, and if you died in PVP and it wasn't a clan war and you were near level cap you were basically losing the last 12 hours of your XP grinding every time you died. Also, if you ganked someone who didn't want to fight, you received Karma which needed to be worked off slaying monsters, your name was red and you had a significant risk of dropping your gear if someone killed you while you had karma. Dropping something like a weapon would set you back at least a year.

This is what guilds were built and predicated on. You wanted to maximize individual gain and minimize losses by surrounding yourself with quality players and working as a team to accomplish very difficult goals. This encouraged teamwork between the best players, setting aside of ego, and created a natural hierarchy in the game in which the best players formed an alliance, managed the castles they won, and made it possible for the people who were playing in the zones they owned the castles of an opportunity to make significant in game currency (very rare) if the alliance managed the seeding process properly.

The best players were also the best PVP'ers. You needed to defend your grinding area's (TOI - Tower of *** I forgot the name) grinding angels was a hotly contested spot, and many times when we were at war with another clan we would fight over the opportunity to grind experience in these area's for hours on end. The best players were constantly fighting the best players for the best grinding spots.

ESO - Current Day

In this game, gear grinding is very easy. Some of the best gear is easily crafted and the stat bonuses from gold jewelry / gear is very minimal, you can be a very competent player in epic purple attire. Grinding XP is so easy that we have over 810 champion point levels. You can play casually and still be very competitive.

The penalty for death is almost totally non-existent. You don't need to repair your gear, the only thing you suffer is a respawn and having to run back to the fight. You will never lose something you worked for.

Guilds are now built and predicated on their ability to do specific things well (Trials) or are primarily social gathering places, with no hierarchy of who the best players are, and very little reason to set aside ego or differences to accomplish a greater goal, because no greater goal actually exists. I should note, this isn't the case for trading guilds, the last bastion of what a real guild should be based on, which many players in the forums want to ruin because they don't like the idea of paying dues. Old players have no incentive to teach new players how to learn how to play, because overall difficulty isn't that hard, finding enough players to do the content is fairly easy, even if you have drama with 90% of your server. Only the highest level achievements in the game now require teamwork.

The best PVE'ers and best PVP'ers are separated for the most part, though more often than not you find that the best PVP'ers are also very good at PVE as they have a serious working knowledge of the class and its limitations/best skills/best stat / gear allocation, etc. But, these so called PVP'ers that we find in ESO, don't actually fight each other, more often than not. Many of them have multiple characters across multiple factions, and rather than put themselves into a guild where they would need to control their ego, they separate into dueling circles or small guilds that don't fight each other in open world, and most have no idea how to play as a team.

They talk on the forums like they want "serious PVP" - they groan for balance - they complain about lack of challenge - yet they purposely limit the challenges to themselves as players (other good players) by boosting their ego ganking scrubs while totally ignoring the players who give them a challenge in Cyro.

i.e.

Majority of people on the forums are fake. I think this reflects our society today as well. Most of the people talking to you are liars today, with no interest in challenging themselves, constantly seeking the easy way out, massaging their ego's, and running from or refusing to challenge themselves due to a fear of having their ego crushed. They have no idea how to take their "L"'s and instead will focus on how a class is op, it was a 1vX, a mob hit them once, etc.

I know this comes off as a "Back in my day" and it's true, games are way more accessible today than they used to be because of a lot of the things mentioned above, and that's a good thing, but I'll say this -

If you think you're good at PvP but all you do is run around Cyro 1vX'ing scrubs and fighting the occasional duel against good players, while your group avoids fighting those good players because they are your "friends" - you're not good. Gone are the days when guilds had purpose, men and women set aside ego's to accomplish complete server domination for their guild, and good players treated each other with respect on virtual battlefields.

Enjoy the rest of your day you tea bagging clowns

- Signed: That guy who makes sure the zerg kills your small group instead of allowing you to wipe them and drinks up your QQ zerg tears.

VaranisArano · November 2018

Cyrodiil in particular is designed for a huge variety of PVPers.

You've got gankers, bombers, 1vXers, solo players, duelists, organized small groups, PUG raids, organized raids, zerg-surfers, and zergs. You've got people who just want "good fights", people who want AP, people who play for objectives, and people who play with an eye towards the 30 day campaign win. For this reason, I look more at whether someone is "good" at their chosen role in Cyrodiil.

But aside from that, if you want to bring back the days of PVP Guild Domination, ZOS has to fix the lag and persistent performance issues in Cyrodiil.

Right now, when the guilds/organized raids play objectives to dominate the campaigns, the servers simply can't handle large scale combat and respond with lag that's crippling for many players.

MalagenR · November 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

Cyrodiil in particular is designed for a huge variety of PVPers.

You've got gankers, bombers, 1vXers, solo players, duelists, organized small groups, PUG raids, organized raids, zerg-surfers, and zergs. You've got people who just want "good fights", people who want AP, people who play for objectives, and people who play with an eye towards the 30 day campaign win. For this reason, I look more at whether someone is "good" at their chosen role in Cyrodiil.

But aside from that, if you want to bring back the days of PVP Guild Domination, ZOS has to fix the lag and persistent performance issues in Cyrodiil.

Right now, when the guilds/organized raids play objectives to dominate the campaigns, the servers simply can't handle large scale combat and respond with lag that's crippling for many players.

I understand where you're coming from with this, but after 15 years I have yet to meet a single MMO that can handle large scale PVP well.

EVE Online had ridiculous 30 second delay for 1000 vs 1000 fleet fights.

Lineage2 had constant game crashes to desktop and 5 minute crippling lag freezes in which you still needed to press your aim assist attack buttons because your computer was still sending packets, so even though you couldn't see yourself playing, you were, and needed to if you want to win. Same with EVE.

Aion we would have 400 v 400 fights and while the lag could be minimized it came at a serious drop in graphical performance, you played at the lowest setting possible and would still freeze / dead or end up with a crash to desktop.

Thus, you either haven't played lots of MMO PVP games, or you haven't yet recognized your ask is incredibly hard to fulfill. If you can't find a way to work around this, large scale PVP and organized PVP at scale is not your cup of tea.

I should add - you can choose to look at it like that - but at the end of the day if you give me any of my squads from Lineage2 (COV Archer Parties) or EVE Online (HAC snipers) we would decimate the field 24/7 with minimal effort. I'm only speaking from experience, so while it may sound cocky there isn't much I can say except that most of the PVP'ers who claim to be good in this game are actually trash.

Also, you have to take what I say with a grain of salt, most of the people I used to game with dropped it long ago, and while I'm complaining about the drop in skill level and lack of incentives driving player skill down, it's almost made the game casual enough so that I can pick it up and still be very competitive even though I barely play. It's a give and take. Mostly what bugs me are the crazy ego's I see teenagers developing in MMO communities these days. Like, when I was 15 yrs old playing Lineage2, it didn't matter to me that I could absolutely annihilate my 20 year old guild leader in a 1v1, I respected the fact that this guy was able to bring 100 people together under one alliance that could hold off 400 people. You just don't see that type of respect anymore for guild leaders, and you don't really see quality guilds anymore or guild leaders, because the incentives have been destroyed.

Jimmy_The_Fixer · November 2018

What is this meandering diatribe even trying to say?

“Everybody is a liar, everybody sucks at the game, nobody tests themselves against difficult opponents, nobody tries to improve.”

Except you, OP, you’re special, you’re the only good one left.

MalagenR · November 2018

Jimmy_The_Fixer wrote: »

What is the meandering diatribe even trying to say?

“Everybody is a liar, everybody sucks at the game, nobody tests themselves against difficult opponents, nobody tries to improve.”

Except you, OP, you’re special, you’re the only good one left.

I'm commenting on the general population through my own personal experience. I was very clear about that. In no way did I state the words that you just put in my mouth -

“Everybody is a liar, everybody sucks at the game, nobody tests themselves against difficult opponents, nobody tries to improve.”

everybody, nobody, nobody, everybody? Where do I say that?

Derra · November 2018

Most of the issues you´re describing simply issue from not having a proper frame that inclines people to compete against each other.

If i duo there´s hardly any point to fight solo players - even if they´re the best of the server.
If i run a 4man there is no point fighting duos of really competent player - nor is there fighting a competent 6-man group.
The way combat is setup in eso just makes the outcome of these fights predetermined if we´d assume equal skill of all participants.

This becomes problematic in they way it´s described in the initial post when you look at the group and guild cap.
From my experience the most long lasting and successful guilds are generally not groups of players forced to cooperate (contrary to what OP describes) - but rather a combination of social guild and goal oriented pvp or pve guild.
These groups have from my experience rarely exceeded 15 to 20 people if at all.These were from my experience the people and groups that created most player content around pvp and were the mostly the driving force in dynamic pvp developments in games.

Eso exceeds this number not even with it´s raids but with the normal "group"size for pvp.
As a result (imo) it eliminated a large part of the social pvp guild aspect as these groups of people mostly couldn´t reach or sustain competetive numbers and as a result left.
The remaining players mostly don´t fight each other because the frame to do so is missing - there is no thrill, no competition to engage in predetermined fights. So they compare their ability to slaughter pugs or duel depending on which type of player we´re dealing with.

Edit: Also from my personal experience DAoC and Warhammer could handle large scale fights quite well - not talking massive 200+ vs 200+ relic fights. But anything below 150 participants total would generally work pretty good compared to what eso is delivering.
Started with DAoC and pretty much played every major wester mmo release since then excluding wow. Only asian game would be aion.

Edit2: For me games that had a low number of competetive extremely large pvp guilds/groups/alliances whatever don´t constitute healthy pvp. Imo they represent the opposite. Way too easy to create sort of monopolies and dominate with only numbers and finite numbers of quality players would sooner or later all cooperate instead of compete.

CyrusArya · November 2018

You sound pretty triggered. What happened on the battle field to upset you?

Either way it’s a lack of perspective here. The players you refer to do fight each other, but in controlled environments such as duels and organized GvGs. Cus then the fights can actually be fair. The charm of ESO is open world PvP, and for small scalers specifically the aim is to pursue outnumbered PvP fights deep in enemy territory. There is a mutual respect and understanding among players at that level to not add on to each other’s fights when already outnumbered. When myself or my group run into other skilled players/groups on even terms we often will duel or GvG in a respectful manner. Happens all the time. But most often, when skilled players run into each other it’s not on even terms- one party is usually outnumbered. So out of respect for an adversary pursuing similar goals, we will not engage a group when we have a numeric advantage and expect the same in return.

If you think 1vX or outnumbered PvP is not challenging, please do show us your clips demonstrating how easy it is for you. Wether 1vX, small group, or organized raid- fighting superior numbers is quite an engaging and challenging ordeal. Takes a degree of class and mechanical mastery, as well as situational awareness. Fighting equally skilled players on even terms is also very challenging. They are just two different game modes with different objectives. And there are communities dedicated to both, with a ton of overlap in between.

You can refer to my post in the other thread as to why objective based game play and the “alliance war” is meaningless in ESO.

Biro123 · November 2018

Hope you have a good tinfoil hat, OP. Its gonna get toasty..

Btw, you are right, just not allowed to say it..

MalagenR · November 2018

Derra wrote: »

Most of the issues you´re describing simply issue from not having a proper frame that inclines people to compete against each other.

If i duo there´s hardly any point to fight solo players - even if they´re the best of the server.
If i run a 4man there is no point fighting duos of really competent player - nor is there fighting a competent 6-man group.
The way combat is setup in eso just makes the outcome of these fights predetermined if we´d assume equal skill of all participants.

This becomes problematic in they way it´s described in the initial post when you look at the group and guild cap.
From my experience the most long lasting and successful guilds are generally not groups of players forced to cooperate (contrary to what OP describes) - but rather a combination of social guild and goal oriented pvp or pve guild.
These groups have from my experience rarely exceeded 15 to 20 people if at all.These were from my experience the people and groups that created most player content around pvp and were the mostly the driving force in dynamic pvp developments in games.

Eso exceeds this number not even with it´s raids but with the normal "group"size for pvp.
As a result (imo) it eliminated a large part of the social pvp guild aspect as these groups of people mostly couldn´t reach or sustain competetive numbers and as a result left.
The remaining players mostly don´t fight each other because the frame to do so is missing - there is no thrill, no competition to engage in predetermined fights. So they compare their ability to slaughter pugs or duel depending on which type of player we´re dealing with.

I love what you're saying here and appreciate you joining the discussion about our community rather than just trashing me! I see your point, but I disagree on this line -

"If i duo there´s hardly any point to fight solo players - even if they´re the best of the server.
If i run a 4man there is no point fighting duos of really competent player - nor is there fighting a competent 6-man group.
The way combat is setup in eso just makes the outcome of these fights predetermined if we´d assume equal skill of all participants"

In the duo example, it's a great time to apply really strong pressure to the solo player and really find out what they are about. Can they escape your duo? If they can escape your duo or manage to kill one of you and escape, that's a damn good player, and the chase wll be fun.

In the 4v2 combination, I just wholeheartedly disagree. I think there is enough random factors involved in a 4v2, unless the 4 man group has 2 healers, that the 2 people should be able to potentially drop one of you or escape. Again, the escape and chase are part of the fun of open world PVP.

I don't think they are pre-determined, as really good ultimate timing can change the pace of a fight almost instantly. I mean combat in Aion was much more advanced than in ESO and I have libraries of 2v4 2v3 2v2 2v5 - etc.

My thought on the social / goal oriented PVP guild is that if it had real incentives to be organized, you'd see these smaller guilds get eaten up by one large guild.

Let's frame a hypothetical - say a DC guild gets their *** together on PS4 NA - They start sending out roaming gangs of 4-8 man groups that are back capping both factions, causing zerg hold ups at RSS towers, wiping large groups, and creating chaos all over the place leading to a DC victory.

They dominate like this for the next 3 campaign cycles. Meanwhile, while they are out dominating the map, the small 5-10 man dueling guilds are getting squashed in open world because of this change in tactics. They now have to run 15 minutes to pvp instead of 5 - they are getting zerged not only by DC randoms but by this new DC guild that is organized, so they are constantly dying.

Do you think they will:

A.) change factions to DC

or

B.) form a guild in their respective faction to try and counter this new tactic by DC?

I think the good players will do B and the bad players will do A, and that ESO has more of the type of player that will do A.

Irylia · November 2018

We attempt to fight all those other guilds as it’s far more enjoyable than day in and out of pug farming.

Although this game really lacks any ranked leaderboard which could potentially increase a competitive drive and give meaning to guilds (rivalry)

Crowfall or ashes maybe? Eventually

MalagenR · November 2018

Irylia wrote: »

We attempt to fight all those other guilds as it’s far more enjoyable than day in and out of pug farming.

Although this game really lacks any ranked leaderboard which could potentially increase a competitive drive and give meaning to guilds (rivalry)

Crowfall or ashes maybe? Eventually

Your guild has been around since Alpha? So you're probably one of the last of your kind yeah?

VaranisArano · November 2018

MalagenR wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Cyrodiil in particular is designed for a huge variety of PVPers.

You've got gankers, bombers, 1vXers, solo players, duelists, organized small groups, PUG raids, organized raids, zerg-surfers, and zergs. You've got people who just want "good fights", people who want AP, people who play for objectives, and people who play with an eye towards the 30 day campaign win. For this reason, I look more at whether someone is "good" at their chosen role in Cyrodiil.

But aside from that, if you want to bring back the days of PVP Guild Domination, ZOS has to fix the lag and persistent performance issues in Cyrodiil.

Right now, when the guilds/organized raids play objectives to dominate the campaigns, the servers simply can't handle large scale combat and respond with lag that's crippling for many players.

I understand where you're coming from with this, but after 15 years I have yet to meet a single MMO that can handle large scale PVP well.

EVE Online had ridiculous 30 second delay for 1000 vs 1000 fleet fights.

Lineage2 had constant game crashes to desktop and 5 minute crippling lag freezes in which you still needed to press your aim assist attack buttons because your computer was still sending packets, so even though you couldn't see yourself playing, you were, and needed to if you want to win. Same with EVE.

Aion we would have 400 v 400 fights and while the lag could be minimized it came at a serious drop in graphical performance, you played at the lowest setting possible and would still freeze / dead or end up with a crash to desktop.

Thus, you either haven't played lots of MMO PVP games, or you haven't yet recognized your ask is incredibly hard to fulfill. If you can't find a way to work around this, large scale PVP and organized PVP at scale is not your cup of tea.

I should add - you can choose to look at it like that - but at the end of the day if you give me any of my squads from Lineage2 (COV Archer Parties) or EVE Online (HAC snipers) we would decimate the field 24/7 with minimal effort. I'm only speaking from experience, so while it may sound cocky there isn't much I can say except that most of the PVP'ers who claim to be good in this game are actually trash.

Also, you have to take what I say with a grain of salt, most of the people I used to game with dropped it long ago, and while I'm complaining about the drop in skill level and lack of incentives driving player skill down, it's almost made the game casual enough so that I can pick it up and still be very competitive even though I barely play. It's a give and take. Mostly what bugs me are the crazy ego's I see teenagers developing in MMO communities these days. Like, when I was 15 yrs old playing Lineage2, it didn't matter to me that I could absolutely annihilate my 20 year old guild leader in a 1v1, I respected the fact that this guy was able to bring 100 people together under one alliance that could hold off 400 people. You just don't see that type of respect anymore for guild leaders, and you don't really see quality guilds anymore or guild leaders, because the incentives have been destroyed.

Perhaps I'm assuming here, but when I'm talking PVP Guild Domination, I'm talking the organized guild raids that dominate Cyrodiil's battlefields.

(I'm not interested in comparing other MMO games, just ESO, since that's the game we're both playing.)

Organized raids run by PVP guilds do dominate Cyrodiil, still. That organization and teamwork you seem to want to see, do pay off handsomely.

At least, when the game works. Lag and performance issues do a number on teamwork, you see? When half the team disconnects or can't use their skills, there's a problem.

Its not merely that the incentives are gone - the incentives are pretty much the same as they always were in ESO. Its that years of bad performance in Cyrodiil have sapped a lot of the PVP guilds, along with burn out for a number of guildmasters and raid leads.

Most of the PVP players and raid leads I know really, really enjoy Cyrodiil gameplay and love PVP - that's a pretty powerful incentive. What they dont enjoy are the things that increasingly get in the way - the bugs, the lag, the performance problems that seem to get worse every update and rarely improve.

So again, if you want Cyrodiil to return to the glory days (such as they were) of the organized PVP guild raids, ZOS has to fix the performance issues. Otherwise, it wont matter what incentives there are because the main incentive - playing and having fun in the game - is gone.

MalagenR · November 2018

Derra wrote: »

Most of the issues you´re describing simply issue from not having a proper frame that inclines people to compete against each other.

If i duo there´s hardly any point to fight solo players - even if they´re the best of the server.
If i run a 4man there is no point fighting duos of really competent player - nor is there fighting a competent 6-man group.
The way combat is setup in eso just makes the outcome of these fights predetermined if we´d assume equal skill of all participants.

This becomes problematic in they way it´s described in the initial post when you look at the group and guild cap.
From my experience the most long lasting and successful guilds are generally not groups of players forced to cooperate (contrary to what OP describes) - but rather a combination of social guild and goal oriented pvp or pve guild.
These groups have from my experience rarely exceeded 15 to 20 people if at all.These were from my experience the people and groups that created most player content around pvp and were the mostly the driving force in dynamic pvp developments in games.

Eso exceeds this number not even with it´s raids but with the normal "group"size for pvp.
As a result (imo) it eliminated a large part of the social pvp guild aspect as these groups of people mostly couldn´t reach or sustain competetive numbers and as a result left.
The remaining players mostly don´t fight each other because the frame to do so is missing - there is no thrill, no competition to engage in predetermined fights. So they compare their ability to slaughter pugs or duel depending on which type of player we´re dealing with.

Edit: Also from my personal experience DAoC and Warhammer could handle large scale fights quite well - not talking massive 200+ vs 200+ relic fights. But anything below 150 participants total would generally work pretty good compared to what eso is delivering.
Started with DAoC and pretty much played every major wester mmo release since then excluding wow. Only asian game would be aion.

Edit2: For me games that had a low number of competetive extremely large pvp guilds/groups/alliances whatever don´t constitute healthy pvp. Imo they represent the opposite. Way too easy to create sort of monopolies and dominate with only numbers and finite numbers of quality players would sooner or later all cooperate instead of compete.

The quality players never end up in just one guild because quality players have lots of ego. It becomes more like an oligopoly. I think it's perfectly fine because those fights are the absolute best fights.

Only the elitist log in to prove how great they are at the game. But, the average player logs in and wants to have fun, and they have the most fun when large guilds create huge fights that are entertaining for multiple hours. It was the same in Aion, my faction on Siel was utterly demoralized and it took me two years to build them up to the point where we were trashing Elyos on Siel in 200v400 fights.

Only 3 guilds were really in control at that time - <Bad Wolf> - <Bandulu> - <Focused> - yet many other guilds felt they were a part of it even though they weren't in the 3 "best" guilds. Which was what we strived for creating, a community where everyone on both faction was able to enjoy all of the content. It was why I chose to move to Aion - Siel and start leading raids there, because it was the most demoralized faction that was convinced it could never win, and I wanted to show them different. As soon as our league would start to dominate the server and exclude Elyos players from content I would step out until it became unbalanced against our faction again.

MalagenR · November 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

MalagenR wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Cyrodiil in particular is designed for a huge variety of PVPers.

You've got gankers, bombers, 1vXers, solo players, duelists, organized small groups, PUG raids, organized raids, zerg-surfers, and zergs. You've got people who just want "good fights", people who want AP, people who play for objectives, and people who play with an eye towards the 30 day campaign win. For this reason, I look more at whether someone is "good" at their chosen role in Cyrodiil.

But aside from that, if you want to bring back the days of PVP Guild Domination, ZOS has to fix the lag and persistent performance issues in Cyrodiil.

Right now, when the guilds/organized raids play objectives to dominate the campaigns, the servers simply can't handle large scale combat and respond with lag that's crippling for many players.

I understand where you're coming from with this, but after 15 years I have yet to meet a single MMO that can handle large scale PVP well.

EVE Online had ridiculous 30 second delay for 1000 vs 1000 fleet fights.

Lineage2 had constant game crashes to desktop and 5 minute crippling lag freezes in which you still needed to press your aim assist attack buttons because your computer was still sending packets, so even though you couldn't see yourself playing, you were, and needed to if you want to win. Same with EVE.

Aion we would have 400 v 400 fights and while the lag could be minimized it came at a serious drop in graphical performance, you played at the lowest setting possible and would still freeze / dead or end up with a crash to desktop.

Thus, you either haven't played lots of MMO PVP games, or you haven't yet recognized your ask is incredibly hard to fulfill. If you can't find a way to work around this, large scale PVP and organized PVP at scale is not your cup of tea.

I should add - you can choose to look at it like that - but at the end of the day if you give me any of my squads from Lineage2 (COV Archer Parties) or EVE Online (HAC snipers) we would decimate the field 24/7 with minimal effort. I'm only speaking from experience, so while it may sound cocky there isn't much I can say except that most of the PVP'ers who claim to be good in this game are actually trash.

Also, you have to take what I say with a grain of salt, most of the people I used to game with dropped it long ago, and while I'm complaining about the drop in skill level and lack of incentives driving player skill down, it's almost made the game casual enough so that I can pick it up and still be very competitive even though I barely play. It's a give and take. Mostly what bugs me are the crazy ego's I see teenagers developing in MMO communities these days. Like, when I was 15 yrs old playing Lineage2, it didn't matter to me that I could absolutely annihilate my 20 year old guild leader in a 1v1, I respected the fact that this guy was able to bring 100 people together under one alliance that could hold off 400 people. You just don't see that type of respect anymore for guild leaders, and you don't really see quality guilds anymore or guild leaders, because the incentives have been destroyed.

Perhaps I'm assuming here, but when I'm talking PVP Guild Domination, I'm talking the organized guild raids that dominate Cyrodiil's battlefields.

(I'm not interested in comparing other MMO games, just ESO, since that's the game we're both playing.)

Organized raids run by PVP guilds do dominate Cyrodiil, still. That organization and teamwork you seem to want to see, do pay off handsomely.

At least, when the game works. Lag and performance issues do a number on teamwork, you see? When half the team disconnects or can't use their skills, there's a problem.

Its not merely that the incentives are gone - the incentives are pretty much the same as they always were in ESO. Its that years of bad performance in Cyrodiil have sapped a lot of the PVP guilds, along with burn out for a number of guildmasters and raid leads.

Most of the PVP players and raid leads I know really, really enjoy Cyrodiil gameplay and love PVP - that's a pretty powerful incentive. What they dont enjoy are the things that increasingly get in the way - the bugs, the lag, the performance problems that seem to get worse every update and rarely improve.

So again, if you want Cyrodiil to return to the glory days (such as they were) of the organized PVP guild raids, ZOS has to fix the performance issues. Otherwise, it wont matter what incentives there are because the main incentive - playing and having fun in the game - is gone.

I love how you totally brushed off my point that your ask is incredibly difficult to achieve and no gaming company has ever achieved it, yet some of the PVP games I listed are still going much stronger than the ESO PVP community even though they are older than 5 years.

MalagenR · November 2018

Biro123 wrote: »

Hope you have a good tinfoil hat, OP. Its gonna get toasty..

Btw, you are right, just not allowed to say it..

I'm fully expecting to get flamed. Which just serves to prove my point how soft everyone is getting, even in the video game world.

VaranisArano · November 2018

MalagenR wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

MalagenR wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Cyrodiil in particular is designed for a huge variety of PVPers.

You've got gankers, bombers, 1vXers, solo players, duelists, organized small groups, PUG raids, organized raids, zerg-surfers, and zergs. You've got people who just want "good fights", people who want AP, people who play for objectives, and people who play with an eye towards the 30 day campaign win. For this reason, I look more at whether someone is "good" at their chosen role in Cyrodiil.

But aside from that, if you want to bring back the days of PVP Guild Domination, ZOS has to fix the lag and persistent performance issues in Cyrodiil.

Right now, when the guilds/organized raids play objectives to dominate the campaigns, the servers simply can't handle large scale combat and respond with lag that's crippling for many players.

I understand where you're coming from with this, but after 15 years I have yet to meet a single MMO that can handle large scale PVP well.

EVE Online had ridiculous 30 second delay for 1000 vs 1000 fleet fights.

Lineage2 had constant game crashes to desktop and 5 minute crippling lag freezes in which you still needed to press your aim assist attack buttons because your computer was still sending packets, so even though you couldn't see yourself playing, you were, and needed to if you want to win. Same with EVE.

Aion we would have 400 v 400 fights and while the lag could be minimized it came at a serious drop in graphical performance, you played at the lowest setting possible and would still freeze / dead or end up with a crash to desktop.

Thus, you either haven't played lots of MMO PVP games, or you haven't yet recognized your ask is incredibly hard to fulfill. If you can't find a way to work around this, large scale PVP and organized PVP at scale is not your cup of tea.

I should add - you can choose to look at it like that - but at the end of the day if you give me any of my squads from Lineage2 (COV Archer Parties) or EVE Online (HAC snipers) we would decimate the field 24/7 with minimal effort. I'm only speaking from experience, so while it may sound cocky there isn't much I can say except that most of the PVP'ers who claim to be good in this game are actually trash.

Also, you have to take what I say with a grain of salt, most of the people I used to game with dropped it long ago, and while I'm complaining about the drop in skill level and lack of incentives driving player skill down, it's almost made the game casual enough so that I can pick it up and still be very competitive even though I barely play. It's a give and take. Mostly what bugs me are the crazy ego's I see teenagers developing in MMO communities these days. Like, when I was 15 yrs old playing Lineage2, it didn't matter to me that I could absolutely annihilate my 20 year old guild leader in a 1v1, I respected the fact that this guy was able to bring 100 people together under one alliance that could hold off 400 people. You just don't see that type of respect anymore for guild leaders, and you don't really see quality guilds anymore or guild leaders, because the incentives have been destroyed.

Perhaps I'm assuming here, but when I'm talking PVP Guild Domination, I'm talking the organized guild raids that dominate Cyrodiil's battlefields.

(I'm not interested in comparing other MMO games, just ESO, since that's the game we're both playing.)

Organized raids run by PVP guilds do dominate Cyrodiil, still. That organization and teamwork you seem to want to see, do pay off handsomely.

At least, when the game works. Lag and performance issues do a number on teamwork, you see? When half the team disconnects or can't use their skills, there's a problem.

Its not merely that the incentives are gone - the incentives are pretty much the same as they always were in ESO. Its that years of bad performance in Cyrodiil have sapped a lot of the PVP guilds, along with burn out for a number of guildmasters and raid leads.

Most of the PVP players and raid leads I know really, really enjoy Cyrodiil gameplay and love PVP - that's a pretty powerful incentive. What they dont enjoy are the things that increasingly get in the way - the bugs, the lag, the performance problems that seem to get worse every update and rarely improve.

So again, if you want Cyrodiil to return to the glory days (such as they were) of the organized PVP guild raids, ZOS has to fix the performance issues. Otherwise, it wont matter what incentives there are because the main incentive - playing and having fun in the game - is gone.

I love how you totally brushed off my point that your ask is incredibly difficult to achieve and no gaming company has ever achieved it, yet some of the PVP games I listed are still going much stronger than the ESO PVP community even though they are older than 5 years.

Wasn't trying to brush off your point. Just pointing out that - inpossible or not - game performance is a requirement to draw and keep the type of players who thrive on organizing guilds, leading them, and playing in them.

I'm not sure what impossible thing you think I'm asking for, so I'll be specific.

Cyrodiil campaign score is based around objectives. So lets take one I fought for on PC/NA Vivec: Roebeck was AD's last Emperor keep and held one of EP's scrolls.

EP sent 3 raids to dethrone and recapture the scroll, AD sent 2 raids to defend the Emperorship and scroll, and DC had a group for the dethrone and scroll capture - and everyone probably had PUGs.

This is exactly how Cyrodiil is designed to be played. A really important objective drawing large numbers of players.

Could the game performance handle it?

LOL, no.

Disconnects left and right, incredible lag, players not being able to use skills, stuck on textures, the whole nine yards.

Cyrodiil wasnt always like this. We've had (fixed) bugs reoccurring and not getting fixes. We have new bugs that take forever to get fixed. Every new update, something gets screwed up with Cyrodiil performance. PC/NA Vivec and Trueflame before it were always laggy, but its getting worse in situations where the servers used to be able to handle it - like in situations like Roebeck.

I played in an organized raid who played to win the 30 day campaigns. The steadily worsening game performance - this judging from PC/NA Trueflame days - has played a big part in me becoming discouraged with PVP in ESO. There's other reasons why guilds and players have left ESO PVP behind - burn out, disagreements with balancing, game changes, etc. - but increasingly poor game performance over years now, is one of those major factors.

What's the point of playing for the important objectives as a guild if half your raid crashes to login as you approach the last Emperorship keep? And then spend the next half hour fighting with half your raid while the rest of your guildmates try (and fail) to join the fight?

Its darned discouraging to try to fight as an organized raid and not be able to because of game performance - and to know that it wasn't always this bad. And then to hear the other players complaining about the bad game performance and blaming the organized raids for it.

All I want is to be able to play Cyrodiil as intended - fighting for important objectives with my organized raid against other organized raids plus whatever PUGs show up. If ZOS' game performance cannot handle that anymore even within the current population limits and doesnt intend to fix Cyrodiil to handle it, well, there you have your answer for one of the reasons why ESO doesn't have the same type of guild dominance that you see in other games.

ATomiX96 · November 2018

to sum up this thread:

ChunkyCat · November 2018

montiferus · November 2018

Lol. OP sounds bitter and not particularly good.

zyk · November 2018

Welcome to Lord of the Flies Online. Kill the pig zergling! cut his throat! Kill the pig Xv1er! Bash him in!

Iskras · November 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

Cyrodiil in particular is designed for a huge variety of PVPers.

You've got gankers, bombers, 1vXers, solo players, duelists, organized small groups, PUG raids, organized raids, zerg-surfers, and zergs. You've got people who just want "good fights", people who want AP, people who play for objectives, and people who play with an eye towards the 30 day campaign win. For this reason, I look more at whether someone is "good" at their chosen role in Cyrodiil.

But aside from that, if you want to bring back the days of PVP Guild Domination, ZOS has to fix the lag and persistent performance issues in Cyrodiil.

Right now, when the guilds/organized raids play objectives to dominate the campaigns, the servers simply can't handle large scale combat and respond with lag that's crippling for many players.

"Cyrodiil in particular is designed for a huge variety of PVPers." - and lag.

Iskras · November 2018

zyk wrote: »

Welcome to Lord of the Flies Online. Kill the pig zergling! cut his throat! Kill the pig Xv1er! Bash him in!

nice

Soris · November 2018

OP, it's an unwritten moral code of pvp like chivalry; thou shalt not Xv1 soloers and thou shalt not stick your head into someone else's business who art behind the enemy lines.

Good players (and i dont mean skill) will always respect eachother and avoid fighting in an unfair situation as much as possible.
Most of the solo roamers and small scalers from different factions who played the game for an extended time, usually know eachother and they usually show friendly attitude towards eachother. Naturally they will team up to fight against the 3rd party.

As you said it is always same in every game and it was always like this in ESO too for years. And this is so normal imo.
You sounded a bit salty in your post about all that ego boosting nonsense so i wanted to give my take.

Stratforge · November 2018

MalagenR wrote: »

Majority of people on the forums are fake. I think this reflects our society today as well. Most of the people talking to you are liars today, with no interest in challenging themselves, constantly seeking the easy way out, massaging their ego's, and running from or refusing to challenge themselves due to a fear of having their ego crushed. They have no idea how to take their "L"'s and instead will focus on how a class is op, it was a 1vX, a mob hit them once, etc.

..

- Signed: That guy who makes sure the zerg kills your small group instead of allowing you to wipe them and drinks up your QQ zerg tears.

Haha you are a maniac my guy.

NBrookus · November 2018

The notion that experienced/vet/good/whatever players don't fight each other is false. The best pvp of all is running into a player you respect and having a quiet battle in open world builds, no dueling cheese or pre-prep. Or running into an evenly matched group open world, group v group no pugs or npcs.

Winning because you merely out outnumber your opponent is shallow and the thrill doesn't last long.

Vapirko · November 2018

First of all you just don’t see it happen, because it does. Good small scale groups often fight each other. However these fights whether it be a good 1v1 or 5v5 tend to be long and drawn out because each group is very competent. I’m far from the best, but I know if I meet someone of equal skill it’s likely going to last for a while, and sometimes you just don’t want that in open world. And on top of that there are gobs more players who have little to no idea how to PvP, than there are those who are even decently competent on their own, or as a capable player within a small group. And lastly as some have said it’s a respect thing. Good players won’t join a pug out numbering a group of players or a single player they respect, most of the time. An even match is one kind of fun, and zooming around 1vXing potatoes is a more immediate reward, fast paced fun.

However, I do understand your frustration. My buddy and I were playing as a duo in IC and got 5v2 by a group of good players (we held out own for a bit) but another “elite” DC just stood and watched because they were friends with that group. So yes in some senses there are very elitist players who would happily watch you get outnumbered even if you’re putting up a decent fight. But honestly this has happened all of one time in my years of Cyrodiil.

The Uninvited · November 2018

Tells others to control their ego, goes on to boost own ego.

Biro123 · November 2018

Vapirko wrote: »

.

However, I do understand your frustration. My buddy and I were playing as a duo in IC and got 5v2 by a group of good players (we held out own for a bit) but another “elite” DC just stood and watched because they were friends with that group. So yes in some senses there are very elitist players who would happily watch you get outnumbered even if you’re putting up a decent fight. But honestly this has happened all of one time in my years of Cyrodiil.

I see this ALL the time..

VERY often I see groups of 5 'good' players jumping soloers or chasing them to the ends of the earth just because said soloer is sometimes zerg surfing (as do these 'good' 5 players).

Sometimes I even see 2 groups of 5 'good' players on opposite factions actually teaming up to take on 3-4 randoms.

Now I sometimes ask myself, who are the better players.. the 5 who regularly fight greater numbers of noobs and get loads of kills with co-ordinated ultimate dumps, or the random 1's who regularly fight coordinated groups of good players and can hold their own against them for a reasonable amount of time..?

amir412 · November 2018

There is no point fighting good players out of few reason:
* You proably knows them from dueling scene, thus its a thing of "honor"
* Most good players run as solo/4 men group which is pointless to fight as you both seek the same "good" action
* We are fewer than pugs
* NO1 can 1 vs 2 good players, which proably what will happen if u try to start a fight
* 1 vs X is challenging, 1 mistake u make can cost u the whole battle, while the others can do mistakes and not pay anything for it.

The issue u raised is annoying, you do feel the lack of encouters with players that can actually put up a fight.
And none of it matters as the state of Cyrodill for the past years is unplayable, the lag became a joke - Good players has a brain, and a player with a brain wont step into Cyrodill while 90% of the time he can actually play, it lags.

Thogard · November 2018

The person that I’ve died to the most is also the person that I’ve killed the most is also the person I group with the most (on alts).

Derra · November 2018

MalagenR wrote: »

I love what you're saying here and appreciate you joining the discussion about our community rather than just trashing me! I see your point, but I disagree on this line -

"If i duo there´s hardly any point to fight solo players - even if they´re the best of the server.
If i run a 4man there is no point fighting duos of really competent player - nor is there fighting a competent 6-man group.
The way combat is setup in eso just makes the outcome of these fights predetermined if we´d assume equal skill of all participants"

In the duo example, it's a great time to apply really strong pressure to the solo player and really find out what they are about. Can they escape your duo? If they can escape your duo or manage to kill one of you and escape, that's a damn good player, and the chase wll be fun.

In the 4v2 combination, I just wholeheartedly disagree. I think there is enough random factors involved in a 4v2, unless the 4 man group has 2 healers, that the 2 people should be able to potentially drop one of you or escape. Again, the escape and chase are part of the fun of open world PVP.

I don't think they are pre-determined, as really good ultimate timing can change the pace of a fight almost instantly. I mean combat in Aion was much more advanced than in ESO and I have libraries of 2v4 2v3 2v2 2v5 - etc.

I can only speak for me and the history of my guild (that´s been inactive for about a year now).

Escaping is only an option if you have the classes to do so - so that´s only part of the battle for some classes (nb/sorc). So this isn´t really an option when arguing imo. A templar, warden or DK will not escape a coordinated group aside from running into a keep.

As for the actual fights: While i think what you state is true for lets say the upper 40% of the players. As soon as you´re approaching the top of these 40% it´s no longer true.
We´ve played with people who had 10+ years of experience in organised and structured group vs group mmo combat. I haven´t had a fight in eso where we´d be threatened when outnumbering the opposition. Literally never.

Once you approach a high enough level having one let alone two player advantage becomes more important if the numbers are small enough.
From my personal experience these fights are predetermined. They´re not if you´re fighting opponents that are not on your level of buttonpressing and group coordination - but that´s not what i was arguing around.