Volendrung Theorycrafting

Ruckly · January 2019

Should we be more worried about a daedric artifact very difficult to implement very easy to get wrong, ball groups running a necromancer that can revive someone you just spent 10 minutes trying to kill(I assume this will be an ult), a screen full of summons forcing you to set your reticle at the maximum vertical value to target over them and hit player with skills.

Ruckly · January 2019

An idea would be to use the teleporters like the ones in bgs to teleport up to an arena above cyrodill when artifact goes active(but locked(the artifact) for 10 mins, the teleporter goes active), and people fight in an arena for an artifact until it unlocks and someone can pick it up. Because it's daedric and a daedric artifact shouldn't spawn in some shed in the backwoods of cyrodill. The arena could be a mile above or below cyrodill so the lag in the arena doesn't impact cyrodill proper. Like ES1 or something.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · January 2019

Joy_Division wrote: »

I get many of your are jaded, but before we tell Wheeler he's wasting his time and making Cyrodiil any worse, can we at least see the mechanic in play for more than a few days before consigning it to the dustbin of stupid ideas in ESO's history?

In multiple previous discussions there have been the points raised that focusing player attention in one area of the map is bound to cause performance concerns.
The idea to spawn multiple things to split the playerbase was widely agreed to be a better strategy.

Additionally the point of early discussion is precisely so that we don't end up with 'bad mechanics in play'.
Topics shouldn't only be made after whatever ZOS decides to implement is added.
In software testing and development there is a concept that the earlier you resolve potential problems the less costly in both money and dev time it is (which as PVP players we have very little of to begin with).

Finally the only other change announced for the whole year (so far*) to cyro PVP is some possible performance changes in 6-8 months time, not even necessarily with the patch this weapon content is slated to be implemented with.

I think its perfectly valid as players to question that and also the possible state that PVP will be in based on the previous 4y+ experience without needing to be seen as 'jaded', jokes are generally used to lighten the mood and tone of the conversation amongst players.

(*aside from again removing yet another thing from Cyrodiil - which don't get me wrong I suggested and agree with as I think it will give a good opportunity for IC to be interesting again depending on how it is done.)

IxSTALKERxI · January 2019

It should spawn murder thumbs as an ability.

Feanor · January 2019

Joy_Division wrote: »

I get many of your are jaded, but before we tell Wheeler he's wasting his time and making Cyrodiil any worse, can we at least see the mechanic in play for more than a few days before consigning it to the dustbin of stupid ideas in ESO's history?

I agree with the general sentiment of your statement, but you can't fault players for being wary - the dustbin you mention isn't really filled as most of the ideas stay in game once they have been put in. ZOS isn't very well known for reverting their ideas, although exceptions exist.

Delsskia · January 2019

Since the artifact "has to be fed" by attacking other players or it has adverse effects, does that mean that healers have to suddenly become dps if they pick it up?

Sanctuary_Reaper · January 2019

Imagine this.

Someone gets volendrung, with it you die a slow death unless your killing players, all enemy players retreat into keeps, you cant kill anything your dead.

Pretty useless then i would imagine.

Prince_of_all_Pugs · January 2019

1 enjoy watching all the 1VX Orc players all Orcgasm for volendrung.

Ghostbane · January 2019

Delsskia wrote: »

Since the artifact "has to be fed" by attacking other players or it has adverse effects, does that mean that healers have to suddenly become dps if they pick it up?

It has a hud mechanic, which will pre-set your stats ( either straight replacement or some dynamic modifier, to be determined ) and give you related unchangeable abilities for the weapon.

ScruffyWhiskers · January 2019

Calling it now. It will spawn at least one time in slaughterfish waters.

Sheezabeast · January 2019

Will it matter if the person who picked it up had leveled 2handed or not? Like will having 2Hander passives make it stronger?

Ruckly · January 2019

Elsweyr isn't until June we still have a good 5 months of cyrodill before anything radical happens. And if cyrodill tanks we can take up a new hobby. Fishing or power knitting. Backgammon. Shuffleboard. 18 holes. Bowling. Cyrodill.

heng14rwb17_ESO · January 2019

THE END IS NEAR !

sage2000 · January 2019

Sanctuary_Reaper wrote: »

Imagine this.

Someone gets volendrung, with it you die a slow death unless your killing players, all enemy players retreat into keeps, you cant kill anything your dead.

Pretty useless then i would imagine.

The weapon can break into keeps, so no, it cannot be simply be ignored.

Spearpoint · March 2019

WeyounTM wrote: »

I agree with Zyk....before we get another mechanic that gives more power, more pressing issues needs to be adressed. Like the complete imbalance regarding population. The Daedric Artifact mechanic looks nice on paper when the server is full and balanced. But just look at this Screenshot taken now at 7 AM on Vivec PC EU, arguably the most unbalanced campaign around:

So imagine playing on EP or DC right then and there. You are not only massively outnumbered and have everything stacked against you. No, the dominating faction will most likely get the artifact too. GG i guess?
Adding more imbalance to favor the faction that PvDoor against few opponents is NOT the solution. And while AD will have the map painted yellow for the next couple of hours....everyone even trying to oppose them will get slaughtered by the supposedly "best" PvPers around. Yeah, so not feeling too hyped atm to be honest...

Though I solely play AD, it's not hard to see how the implementation of such an artifact could limit the joy for EP and DC to play and oppose AD when outnumbered as your screenshot clearly shows.

Unless being campaign-wide outnumbered at the time actually gave an advantage regarding artifacts.

What would you think about the possibility for the power of the artifact to be depending on the amount of online players in the current campaign, increasing its power relatively to the lack of online players? For example:

- If the online player count of an alliance is X% towards the cap, the power of the artifact would be 200-X% in the hands of players within this alliance. And when alliances have different amount of online players, the power of the artifact would also differ when a player from another alliance got the weapon.

Examples:
- If the online player count of an alliance is 70% or 100% or 20% towards the cap, the power of the artifact would be 130% or 100% or 180% in the hands of players within this alliance.

Also, the power of the artifact might not only affect one player either; it could passively boost nearby allies with an overall power increase of X/10%, with a distinct indicator when your are within the reach of the power.

Examples:
- If the online player count of an alliance is 40% or 50% or 90% towards the cap, the power of the artifact would be 160% or 150% or 110% in the hands of players within this alliance, with a 6% or 5% or 1% overall increase in total strength/stats to surrounding allies within the same fighting area, with a clear indicator showing when you are close enough to gain this boost.

Spearpoint · March 2019

I anticipate the artifact would also be less hungry for AP/player kills in the hands of a player with few fellow online allies, and rather hungry at peak times

Tonnopesce · March 2019

Kadoin wrote: »

WeyounTM wrote: »

I agree with Zyk....before we get another mechanic that gives more power, more pressing issues needs to be adressed. Like the complete imbalance regarding population. The Daedric Artifact mechanic looks nice on paper when the server is full and balanced. But just look at this Screenshot taken now at 7 AM on Vivec PC EU, arguably the most unbalanced campaign around:

So imagine playing on EP or DC right then and there. You are not only massively outnumbered and have everything stacked against you. No, the dominating faction will most likely get the artifact too. GG i guess?
Adding more imbalance to favor the faction that PvDoor against few opponents is NOT the solution. And while AD will have the map painted yellow for the next couple of hours....everyone even trying to oppose them will get slaughtered by the supposedly "best" PvPers around. Yeah, so not feeling too hyped atm to be honest...

I saw that pic and knew immediately it was PC EU

Apparently they want to win this month, in 5 years that i'm in this game i can count the times DC won a campaign with my hands...
Is about time to stop this mess zenimini.

Just logged in...
Another month in the top 300 of the DC leaderboard, 10k gold 10 wall repair and a geode... Sorry but why i'm doing this?

ScruffyWhiskers · March 2019

Personally I would like to see them ditch the weapon idea and spawn multiple Daedric shrines around the map and make them king of the hill objectives for some type of scoring, ap, temp stat bonuses. You could even have the weapons only be usable within a small radius of the shrine. Spawn multiples so you don't get an emp keep last stand lagfest.

Also do another pass on the keep geography and add more outposts.

Xvorg · March 2019

I don't think it is a good idea in Cyro... On the other hand if it is implemented in IC it would be amazing.

Ahtu · March 2019

If done right it sounds like it could reduce current lag and disconnects at emp and scroll keeps by shortening the fight due to sheer, overwhelming power.

InvictusApollo · March 2019

I imagine a ball group just rolling through anyone who takes that artifact first and then using it to farm ap like bots. At least that ball group will be marked on map so that everyone can ignore it and enjoy less lag on the other side of map.

Gan Xing · April 2019

Opening this back up... since Volendrung is in PTS now

Gan Xing · April 2019

https://alcasthq.com/eso-volendrung-artifact/

MrSinister213 · April 2019

Everybody talking about faction lock and nobody even discussing this which in its current state is nothing but an off hours Pvdoor weapon, which has the chance of having a bigger negative impact on campaign score than a few dozen faction swappers. What was supposed to be a fun "zerg buster" weapon lacks damage and no self heal.

Fortnite, a free game that made over $1 billion USD in 2018 had their own version of Volendrung, the Thanos artifact. Very strong PvP weapon, 2 or 3 shot enemy players, but also lacked mobility and only could self heal with kills.

https://youtu.be/ZaopNifUDno
not my video

Increase Volendrung damage, give it a self heal or restore health with killing blows. Currently it has no gap closer, which is good to give enemies a counter. This could turn out to be something very fun for the community that gives everybody a chance to get emperor like abilities w/out the no life grind. It only appears 4-5 times in a 24 hour period, so even if it slightly is overpowered would not end the world.

Dunning_Kruger · April 2019

Here’s a theory. I should have it all the time. Why? Because I stand for justice and [snip] core values.

[Edit to remove politics.]

Gilvoth · April 2019

man i busted out laughing really hard when i saw that dude BLAST the front door of that keep open in like 3 hits lol

JamilaRaj · April 2019

MrSinister213 wrote: »

a free game that made over $1 billion USD

Gee, these free games are getting expensive.

Soul_Demon · April 2019

Jules wrote: »

After hearing Rich discuss the daedric artifacts (Volendrung) in Cyrodiil, I think this is a phenomenal concept and will be a ton of fun seeing how its implemented. So happy to see some new content coming our way after a few drought years. Thought I'd share some of my key questions and ideas surrounding this new mechanic and see if anyone else can help theorize how it would ideally play out. Perhaps if ZOS is not concrete on their implementation of this, we could give them some ideas as to what we want.

Some things worth pondering:

1) What will the frequency of Volendrung drops will be?
- Hourly? Daily? Weekly? Once a campaign? This could be the difference between an occasionally fun mechanic like scroll fights vs something that will have a real impact on all of our gameplay constantly.

2) Where will they drop primarily?
- Ideally outskirts of the ring so that we can get pvp in interesting and new places, but with a timer bomb ticking down and player kills being needed, too far out would mean a hasslesome journey back in to more prevalent fights. Perhaps half way between inner ring and outer keeps would be ideal to optimize access to fights.

3) What will the time frame look like in terms of killing players to prevent it killing you?
- Does 1 player add x amount of time to a never-ending countdown or would some other concept be in place? Going 10m without a kill, ect?

4) Will emp be able to simultaneously be Volendrung or will they be the solitary person incapable of doing so?
- Hopefully not as this is intended to be an emp counter, but never know.

5) Is there any disadvantage to dying while being Volendrung? (Other than just not being able to kill other players if you're dead)
- I wonder if they will implement any loss of power or loss of time mechanic within the actual Volendrung from deaths. It seems to make sense that a power this great should be wielded by a worthy possessor, so if you aren't playing well would it penalize you?

Thanks for reading, interested to see what you all think.

3) What will the time frame look like in terms of killing players to prevent it killing you?
- Does 1 player add x amount of time to a never-ending countdown or would some other concept be in place? Going 10m without a kill, ect?

Personally I see this as being a huge problem....unable to mount or transit means you are running from point to point. If combat bug isn't fixed (being held in combat for excessive times past when fighting ends) then you will simply pick it up to be consumed by it the minute you have to 'move to fight' to feed it.