Another problem seems to be that whever someone raises any kind of complaint about IC, they instantly get shut down.
No, you are wrong, you are bad etc, this is pvp, nothing wrong here. And let's be honest - this is a bit toxic.
But setting that aside, let me explain something to all the sewer veterans from the perspective of a casual sewer delver.
We don't object to losing tel vars in general - that's fine*. And losing tel vars from the occasional fair fight** - that's ok as well, that's when this risk-reward system does actually work. You do a bit of pve here, maybe a bit of pvp there, it's all good.

What is the problem are the various campers and exploiters. You know the people i mean. The sort of players who never intend to do any pve content themselves at all - no, instead they go straight for the people who have done it and set about ambushing them. You know, basically thugs. And the reality is that the history of the IC dlc is the history of these kind of scumming techniques. My personal hated example is base camping - three to four (usually red for some reason) players just rob players running back to their base to deposit their tel vars. And due to a lack of any kind of matchmaking in IC, these are often very good pvp players, far too good for regular players to repell, even if they had the same group numbers.
Just today i saw a group of three grand overlords camping the coventant base(top pvp rank, in case you didn't know). Now come on, even if you like IC you've got to admit that some of this just isn't fair, three grand overlords?! How is anyone supposed to deal with that?

*mostly fine, some attacks are still laughably op when in conjunction with the tel var system - i.e. clearly nobody was thinking how they would affect a currency-steal variable when they were designed
**we've all seen how unfair they can get and remember there's no matchmaking in IC

I want monster sets to drop even if I can't clear the final boss. Participation awards for errrrbody!

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Just get good and walk away with the other guy's tel vars. That's what many of us did, and nothing is as nice as the tears of people like you who want to go into a pvp zone and grind mobs like a braindead squid :')

I had an interesting, and fun night, with an enemy NB last night (this is while I was on my NB as well).

We ended up in a 1v1 in a house in one of the districts. I killed him. A bit later, ran into him again with a smaller group of about six players. I killed him again. About 20 minutes later, he ganked the crap out of me in one zone while we were in a small fight. A half hour after that, we were in a zerg and taking a flag from about 20 AD players and I saw him in the group and mercilessly focused on him in the group until he was dead. Further after that, our zerg ran into the AD zerg. I didn't see him in all the effects going down, but he saw me and focused on taking me out. Somehow, we ended up fighting one on one at the edge of the zerg and he killed me just as my dots finished him off.

That was a lot of fun.

Kuningatar wrote: »

Hear this one out.

Tel Var stones are an incredibly annoying and arbitrary currency to have to earn, not necessarily because this one am against working to earn the currency, but because of how they work.

You go into Imperial City, you grind for a few hours, and inevitably within that first hour or maybe less you run into 15 players from the opposing faction who all proceed to dogpile you, beat you down without a shred of hope of resistance, and steal the majority of your Tel Var stones, inducing incredible frustration and a desire just to close the dang game.

WHY? Who thought this was a good idea? Lets essentially create what amounts to a PvE currency that you get primarily through PvE fights against monsters, make it slow to gain, and then make it so that when you inevitably get curb stomped by a team of people, that you lose most of the work you just spent so much time to achieve. And again, WHY? When this one fights in Cyrodil, she does not lose Alliance Points when she inevitably gets her tail blown off and this one is fine with getting zerged there because there is not a ridiculous risk of gain versus loss, but in Imperial City with Tel Var stones it is absolutely absurd.

This ones suggestion would be to make Tel Var stones work like Alliance Points do. Make it so that if you do inevitably get zerged, you do not lose any of yours, but the opposing faction gets some for killing you just awarded the same way that Alliance Points are. Why does this one have to lose the hard work she spent so much time to gain for nothing? Just because some jerks wanted to attack her? This one minds her own business in Imperial City and fights the monsters!

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

But I have sworn alliageance to Molag Bal. And I have a debt to pay in TVS for all his blessings.

Jeremy wrote: »

Phex wrote: »

Another problem seems to be that whever someone raises any kind of complaint about IC, they instantly get shut down.
No, you are wrong, you are bad etc, this is pvp, nothing wrong here. And let's be honest - this is a bit toxic.
But setting that aside, let me explain something to all the sewer veterans from the perspective of a casual sewer delver.
We don't object to losing tel vars in general - that's fine*. And losing tel vars from the occasional fair fight** - that's ok as well, that's when this risk-reward system does actually work. You do a bit of pve here, maybe a bit of pvp there, it's all good.

What is the problem are the various campers and exploiters. You know the people i mean. The sort of players who never intend to do any pve content themselves at all - no, instead they go straight for the people who have done it and set about ambushing them. You know, basically thugs. And the reality is that the history of the IC dlc is the history of these kind of scumming techniques. My personal hated example is base camping - three to four (usually red for some reason) players just rob players running back to their base to deposit their tel vars. And due to a lack of any kind of matchmaking in IC, these are often very good pvp players, far too good for regular players to repell, even if they had the same group numbers.
Just today i saw a group of three grand overlords camping the coventant base(top pvp rank, in case you didn't know). Now come on, even if you like IC you've got to admit that some of this just isn't fair, three grand overlords?! How is anyone supposed to deal with that?

*mostly fine, some attacks are still laughably op when in conjunction with the tel var system - i.e. clearly nobody was thinking how they would affect a currency-steal variable when they were designed
**we've all seen how unfair they can get and remember there's no matchmaking in IC

Yeah, I agree with you.

Most of the deaths people complain about in PvP are stupid deaths like when zergs roll them over or some ganker slaughters them while they are in a vulnerable position. There is no "L2P" element in that. It's simply cheese and anyone in their position would have died the same. Not even Jesus could have saved them. So I wish we could all just dispense with this false notion that PvP is somehow so much more "skill-based" than PvE is. Because it's really not.

And that's why people tend to dislike PvP generally. It has nothing to do with a lack of skill on their part or the fact they are "care bears" or "PvErs". It has everything to do with the fact they don't enjoy being slaughtered by zergs with no chance to defend themselves. And frankly, who could blame them. It is incredibly stupid and lame - and sadly that is usually what PvP on this game amounts too. In other words: most of the time PvP is probably the least skilled-based combat system on this game.

Just had a magblade try to gank me. I took half their Tel Var, and carried on with my day. Knowing how to build to stop it, and what to do when it happens is a skill set.

When players get zerged down, that is the price we pay when we are solo or in a small group and aren't smart or cautious with our positioning.

Every death is a chance to learn and think about what you could do differently. Sometimes that differently turns out to be something better. If people just constantly chalk it up to well this happened and there was nothing I could do, then there is nothing they will ever do. However, if you try to learn from it every time, then you may just find way to get out of rough spots once in a while.

Round two.
Ran into a PVP'er in the sewers near the AD base: had 1 TV, died, still had 1 TV. I laughed.
Ran back out, died again, and lost my 1 TV. Curses abound.
Ran back, whoever had been there was either gone or dead, killed the clanfear guy with other randoms, and got my tickets. Ran around a bit killing the other mobs, ended up with about 500 TV, banked it and left. Spent less than an hour. So, about 4496 TV to go for my hakeijo.
Also killed a trove scamp and got an achievement. Disappointingly, it had no hakeijo. I thought they had those.

Round three.
Ran into a gang of blues just outside the sewer entrance. Got some hits on a couple since it was a brawl, but I am pretty clueless when I'm PVP'ing. Ended up dying. Had started with 0 TV, but when I rezzed in the camp I had several hundred. I didn't bank it, it's house money. Joined the fray again, ended up driving the blues back with a bunch of people. Found a chest, picked it, got 24TV from that. Killed the clanfear trainer boss guy again with what I guess was mostly the same group. Got 2 tix, ran back and banked the TV and left. Less than a 1/2 hour, 1417 TV added to the bank. 3079 to go.

I don't know what the expectation is. I die. A lot. But I still have more TV than when I start. So, whatever. I don't see a problem.

One thing that they should change is to make the amount of tel vars you get very heavily dependant on the amount of tel vars you have. Because with the system as it you can have a pair or more gankers keep themselves permanently camped (usually on the blue base and it's usually reds) (why is it always reds?) and if they win, which they often do just by the element of surprise they get free tel vars. And if they don't they just need a third buddy to keep in stealth and then revive and then they can go up and keep ambushing the next person with no peanalty to tel var gain. Meanwhile the next person will still lose the full tel var amount.
On that note, I'd frankly like to see revives completely disallowed in the "faction" bit of of the sewers - you know the squares near the base that ambushers and zergs like to prowl. That way at least if someone does kill the campers they can't immediatelly get revived by their stealth buddy thirty seconds later again and again as if they got infinite lives.

Neoauspex wrote: »

This is the only feature in the entire game that carries with it any threat whatsoever of a penalty for dying. And it's really specific, you have to be in a specific place and not a nightblade and you still only lose half. If it were up to me, you'd risk losing gold and gear and experience for dying in Imperial City... even the tel var system seems like participation medal style stakes.

But than you would be playing with yourself. If the penalty is too big not enough players go there. Don't believe me? Check out IC.

@Mr_Walker Sorry, I don't know what XNA means

@Kosbert Did you really have to be that rude about it? I mean I even see that you'd edited your post. Didn't it occur to you while you were editing to maybe tone it down a bit? Or was it that you decided you weren't needlessly abrasive in the first paragraph and decided to add a second?

@Taleof2Cities If we're talking skilled pvp, group of good players against another group of skilled players, then yeah it does require skills. But if we're talking IC sewers then that's camps, stealths, stuns, heals and revives, and that's just cheap tricks.
Anyone can be an IC thug. In pvp in pve it's not that easy to cheese your way to a complete victory.

@Mazbt The Imperial Retreat stones are faily rare drops in my experience. Buying them is expensive. If you don't have ready APs that you want to dump on them then you'd need to do three battlegrounds (i never checked, I'm guessing on this) beforehand. 20 minutes a piece that;s a full hour spend doing BG to get the recall stone. Now I'm going to guess that the average amount of tel vars that players who get victimised by organised ganking groups is around 5k (minus 1k initial stones)
And if you have to spend an hour doing BGs for every 4k tel vars you earn, then that's just too expensive. And the organised criminal organisations know this, that;s why they keep camping the bases. I would say that the Sigil is only effective for people who consistently have 10k or more tel vars, and that puts it outside the reach of non-hardcore IC players.

Let me re-state one thing. I don't hate IC, I don't hate tel var mechanics. But it needs to be said that there's always been a significant part of the IC playerbase who have focused purely on exploting every possible flaw in those mechanics, victimising other players and in short being a noxious growth on the IC experience.
Maybe I'm being naive here, but I'm believe that if some of these most toxic behaviours were cut short by some changes to IC then the overall gameplay there would be much less nasty and you're see more players taking part in it, which has got to be good for the game.

disintegr8 wrote: »

OP has pinpointed the whole reason I very rarely go into the Imperial City or the sewers. It's usually full of gankers and kill happy losers who insist on killing anything and anyone they see using the 'it's a PVP zone' as an excuse.

I even made a point of getting the 3 IC crafting sets as soon as I could for my house so I don't have to go there for master writs. As for tel var stones, I've never used any and do not even know what they can buy.

"Kill happy losers"? Really?...

Dude it's a PvP zone, if I see you, I will kill you. I don't know if you spend 3 hours there farming, and surely I don't care anyway... If I see people from other factions, I just attack them instinctively before they attack me. You have to think that anyone who isn't in your faction, it's your enemy.

Round four, easiest day yet.
Entered the sewers, saw a mob of EP running to the AD base. Died. I had 16TV, lost 8, still had 8. Respawned and ran back out. Saw only a few EP left, they were running away. But they pulled the wandering boss on us somehow. One dead wandering boss, 2 tix, 332 TV and I was done in 10 minutes. 2747 TV to go for my hakeijo. Dunno what I'll do with it once I get it. Maybe I'll keep it, put it in a frame and hang it up on the wall of my Snugpod.

I have several complaints about ESO, but how Tel Var work ain't one.

max_only wrote: »

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

Round four, easiest day yet.
Entered the sewers, saw a mob of EP running to the AD base. Died. I had 16TV, lost 8, still had 8. Respawned and ran back out. Saw only a few EP left, they were running away. But they pulled the wandering boss on us somehow. One dead wandering boss, 2 tix, 332 TV and I was done in 10 minutes. 2747 TV to go for my hakeijo. Dunno what I'll do with it once I get it. Maybe I'll keep it, put it in a frame and hang it up on the wall of my Snugpod.

I have several complaints about ESO, but how Tel Var work ain't one.

How are you not detecting those stealthed TelVar?

I refuse to waste points on that horrid passive. I prefer leaving them with the other unspent skill points that I have built up.