Please confirm scroll bonuses will be removed now

rbfrgsp · March 2021

As per the sticky thread, no proc will be drawn out for another 6 months of boring, low population ganking.

The short, three-week novelty will now become the norm.

But there is a massive game design flaw at the heart of Cyrodiil now.

With no access to percentage boosts in damage or defence by way of armour sets, scrolls are not just overpowered, but game-breaking.

A faction that holds six scrolls essentially has bonus proc-armour equipped on every single one of its members. +5% bonuses to both attack and defence which now cannot be sourced or counteracted by any other means.

This is a case of strong gets stronger which breaks the foundation of the game and removes any element of competition.

Without versatile builds, the fundamentals of Cyrodiil must now be altered to compensate for the limited builds available to players.

heng14rwb17_ESO · March 2021

TAKE ALL LEAVE NONE !

Leslik · March 2021

With the night/morning cap nature of the reduced pop cyrodiil this is a very valid point. Scrolls need to be nerfed hard to compensate for the factions being very imbalanced in non primetime hours.

Again zos you need to meet the players in the middle. If you are going to "surprise attack" us with extending a test for 6 months you need to address the side effects of that decision. 3 weeks isn't a complete 30 day campaign. 6 months is

rbfrgsp · March 2021

Leslik wrote: »

With the night/morning cap nature of the reduced pop cyrodiil this is a very valid point. Scrolls need to be nerfed hard to compensate for the factions being very imbalanced in non primetime hours.

^^ Please read. I am not sure some people understand the difference this makes to a so-called "skill-based meta". When the campaign leaders are also the only players whose entire army has (free) access to percentage increases in stats, there is no catch-up mechanism.

For the no-proc period, scrolls should confer more campaign victory points while held, but also a negative 5% reduction of defence and attack.

Call it "the price of knowledge debuff" or something. There's your catch-up mechanism.

Removing all access to percentage stay increases, and then giving percentage stay increases to everyone on the winning team free and automatically is just... well, pick an adjective.

Katheriah · March 2021

Don't say anything about nerfing, over here 'nerfing' means 'burning the use to the ground'. Didn't you learn that by now?

rbfrgsp · March 2021

Katheriah wrote: »

Don't say anything about nerfing, over here 'nerfing' means 'burning the use to the ground'. Didn't you learn that by now?

This thread is about the effect of the six scrolls on game mechanisms and competitiveness in Cyrodiil while percentage stat increases are unavailable from all other sources. This impact is largely invisible and largely overlooked by a lot of the players who think the current setup is "more skill-based".

Removing the boosts they afford would affect every single player equally.

Removing them completely would make for the "skills-based playing" that some people currently believe they are receiving.

rbfrgsp · March 2021

Leslik wrote: »

With the night/morning cap nature of the reduced pop cyrodiil this is a very valid point. Scrolls need to be nerfed hard to compensate for the factions being very imbalanced in non primetime hours.

This is a bigger imbalance than I think many are aware of. During dead hours, a small-scale group can easily lift all six scrolls. With the incredibly narrow range of build options now in the game, that faction has an almost unassailable combat advantage. +5% Def compounded by +5% damage bonus means that every second you are effectively out-damaging a 1v1 opponent by 10% of free proc damage. Every second.

Then, multiply that by the fact that every person on your alliance gets this free proc automatically just by turning up while you possess 6 scrolls.

Then you will see why the players without the scrolls are simply logging out, meaning those who remain are not just underpowered, but hugely outnumbered.

Then you will see why, even in the main campaigns on the busiest servers, the current most common map pattern is a single colour map with two gated faction's for over 16 hours every day.

Jayserix · March 2021

rbfrgsp wrote: »

[...]
Then you will see why, even in the main campaigns on the busiest servers, the current most common map pattern is a single colour map with two gated faction's for over 16 hours every day.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. This is TERRIBLE map design. ZOS didn't change anything to core Cyrodiil even though the game isn't in the same spot it was in 2014

Deep_01 · March 2021

You are assuming everyone is of equal numbers in pop and equal numbers in skill experience and so on, for that 5% bonus to matter.

rbfrgsp · March 2021

Deep_01 wrote: »

You are assuming everyone is of equal numbers in pop and equal numbers in skill experience and so on, for that 5% bonus to matter.

I'm not, and addressed the impact of scrolls on combat in my most recent post.

And in fact what you are saying is that imbalances are fine for these damage procs because they can be absorbed by skill imbalances.

That seems odd, because these are procs which are far more exclusive than any armour set (any player can get any armour set if they really want it, but only the strongest faction can ever hold 6 scrolls for very long).

Why is this type of imbalance ok and manageable by skill whereas other, more balanced combat bonuses are not okay?

Goregrinder · March 2021

What should the incentive or reward for a faction winning a campaign be instead? A button and a cookie? A participation Trophy?

rbfrgsp · March 2021

Goregrinder wrote: »

What should the incentive or reward for a faction winning a campaign be instead? A button and a cookie? A participation Trophy?

I don't understand your point. It sounds like you think the reward for winning should be making it exponentially more easy to win the next time. This isn't an esport; players play for fun not a salary. So that type of incentive doesn't workh here. If that's not what you mean, please explain.

VaranisArano · March 2021

The scroll bonuses and the emperor bonuses make sense in the context of a AvAvA system for PVP.

Ideally, if, say EP, has all the scrolls, then they are going to face both enemy alliances who really want their scrolls back. The Pact is going to need those bonuses, because AD and DC should both be focusing on beating EP. They need the bonuses to counter the Av A+A of that situation.

In the same way, having Emperorship gives certain bonuses because ideally, an AD emperor should be constantly defending against both DC and EP. They need the bonuses to conter the Av A+A of trying to dethrone an emperor.

Where this game design falls apart is when the population gets so unbalanced that it's uncompetitive. If DC sweeps the map and neither EP nor AD can match their forces even combined, then the bonuses give the already numerous DC a clear advantage over the few remaining AD and EP players. It just doesn't work in an Av a+a situation.

What's the solution?
Well, assuming that the bonuses are still balanced at competitive populations, the answer is to help make the populations competitive.

How to do that?
Well, the easiest way is to just get more players in PVP.

But that would require fixing Cyrodiil's broken performance, wouldn't it?
Yep! And that's why we have the problems at low pop that we do.