I love so much IC, I can do only PvP, only PvE or a mix of both, I like to have a Place like this with a sort of open PvP and can rely not only on May character skills but Also on the enciroment potenti al (boss and mob damage).
Also the scenario Is incredible, It gives You so much opportunities with LOS and Hide ti be able to sturdy a good tactic to fight tour target.
As a side note there are cheats all around, from a role play POV and Also with the addition of moster seta (and hopefully more things to come), opening a chest taking tel'vars and others valuable Is so fun to me, considerino you are in a PvP zone so Is Dangerous, this makes the PvE side way more fun; there are Also PvE events which are Cool and in a PvP zone Is more interesting.

I love IC way more the Cyrodill, and as I consoder muself a balanced player I love to PvP and I play a lot of PvP and IC Is the fight Place for me.

IC was great before they messed with the respawns. Memorial was a huge nonstop tri faction brawl.

It was awesome when there were loads of people in there. Every trip to the center was a grand adventure with plenty of memorable fights and when there was a lull in the action you could go kill a boss or something.

Im not a fan of the respawning changes, but I am glad they separated IC from Cyrodiil's population cap.


I think IC's biggest issue is staying power. After you get what you want from there, you have no real reason to go back. There is no long term goal for the factions and no reward for spending time there. I wonder if it would be more active if there was a scoring system in place.

It's not that I love IC, but I don't hate it. Out of all PvP in this game, it serves the least of a purpose while also needing the least work to its core loop. I like the PvPvE setting, the maze-like map, the "open season" ruthlessness of PvP there; If I had to get ganked or fight some shadow-hopping proc spazzer, I wouldn't be mad if it was in IC. But many of the IC rewards were implemented when the game first came out and are long outdated, or are situational based on how balance in a major patch turns out, or can be acquired without really playing IC with or against others (stacking district dailies, farming bosses during dead hours, etc). I wish there was more reason to frequent it. More people to contribute to chaos like during Midyear Mayhem.

I normally call myself a PvPer, but I know people who play Cyro or BGs, who you have to drag there to play with you in IC. I'm probably actually balanced. I like making Tel Var. There is also a nostalgia factor as my first character grew up in IC.

Greasytengu wrote: »

It was awesome when there were loads of people in there. Every trip to the center was a grand adventure with plenty of memorable fights and when there was a lull in the action you could go kill a boss or something.

Im not a fan of the respawning changes, but I am glad they separated IC from Cyrodiil's population cap.

I think IC's biggest issue is staying power. After you get what you want from there, you have no real reason to go back. There is no long term goal for the factions and no reward for spending time there.

Pretty much all of this. However in regards to rewards, I know that's how many people see it, although I don't think it's quite true. I make builds and have a fierce Hakeijo habit. I also stack up my potion ingredients in IC. I used to sell the excess, except nowadays Chromium and Dreugh Wax is so much more lucrative (if you have many chars doing writs). Certainly before IC became it's own campaign, the place was a tremendous source of income for the few people who actually went there. Soloing bosses was the norm after midnight. Nowadays there is almost always a farm group. The problem is that Tel Var are shared. Regardless of how many people go, there are only so many you can take out of IC. There are diminishing returns for the individual. I am actually kind of thankful for that, because it keeps IC largely lag-free. You may want more people there, but would you really?

I wrote the following previously, outside of these forums:

Ever since IC became it's own campaign, the place has been transformed. There are many more people there. I say this as a player who has spent half their playtime in IC, since it's inception. The problem is IMO that players are not incentivised to spread out. The sewers are abandoned, because there is hardly any reason to go there. Most of the action revolves around boss farming and the flags. Because bosses are usually all down, this typically causes players to coalesce into one zerg at the current boss. Most of the PvP is concentrated on the inner circle, where the flags are.

When IC first came out, what is now Key Fragments were 6 different artefacts that dropped from different mobs. Agility, Willpower and Endurance were the hot new items and were valuable. Districts and sewers have concentrations of different mobs in different places. This caused players to spread out, depending on what they were farming. The big walking bosses didn't drop such an insane amount. There were no flags to bump their bonus up. There were no flags to incentivise farming Tel Var upstairs as opposed to the sewers. You could not buy Hakeijo with Tel Var. Hakeijo dropped (rarely) from Molag Bal, if I recall correctly. Maybe a few other places, but it was rare as Nirncrux.

ZOS made a mistake. They changed IC, before opening it up. They introduced the flags and the additional Tel Var multiplier from the flags. At the same time they got rid of the original key fragments. Yes, the introduction of buying Hakeijo and Apothecary Parcels with Tel Var created new incentives, as did (to a lesser extent) buying IC dungeon sets with fragments. However population-wise, nothing much changed. I don't know anyone who was truly happy about the introduction of the flags.

It was only when IC was made into it's own campaign that the population increased noticeably. Never underestimate just how casual the game is. Everyone wants instant action, me included. No one wanted to ride to the center of Cyrodiil to go to IC. They would get side-tracked in Cyrodiil and severely obstructed when their faction didn't own a keep next to an IC entrance. I wonder what would have happened, had ZOS made IC into it's own campaign, before introducing the other changes.

Depending on the hot new item for this zone (Willpower, Agility, Endurance) was probably never sustainable, given how much the meta keeps changing. However ZOS have homogenised IC by only leaving Tel Var as the valuable commodity. There is only one best way to farm those, and that's what people go for. I know of no one who expressly comes to IC for the key fragments. They are merely a byproduct, however ZOS could, at the very least have retained 2 types of fragments, one for WGT and one for IC Prison. They could have probably retained 6 types, to be honest, since Agility / Willpower / Endurance are not completely useless.

I like the zone, I like the risk-reward and potential to profit.

I dislike how easy it is for faction stacks to pile up.

Once you start winning fights your faction naturally starts piling up on you due to boss spawn timers and flag control, there's nothing you can do to spread them out without calling in opposite faction bombers.

Would be nice if IC was no-faction, mercenary style with small group caps.

For what is it it's okay, but it tries too hard to blend PvE and PvP together. Once I got the things I wanted I didn't really see a reason to go back. If I wanted PVP I'd go to Cyrodiil, or if I wanted PVE I'd go to anywhere else.

What I do like about it is the story, the environment, and the random things you'll run into. I liked the concept of roaming world bosses a lot and wish we had more of them tbh.

Mainly PvE-er, but I do some PvP.

I would have loved IC if it wasn't so drabb trying to do what is essentially PvE-quests while being hunted by PvP griefers.

No, not all PvP-ers in IC are bad, I have met a few who, like me, go for the "live and let live"-philosophy. Some have even let me live when I was fishing near their flags.

But too many are the kind that sneak up on you while doing a boss-fight, or mid doing something with the quests. And that is just frustrating as all heck. :-/

I wonder if it wouldn't have been better with a PvE-version of IC for those who, like me, want to make a difference between questing and PvP-ing.

tinythinker wrote: »

Greasytengu wrote: »

It was awesome when there were loads of people in there. Every trip to the center was a grand adventure with plenty of memorable fights and when there was a lull in the action you could go kill a boss or something.

Im not a fan of the respawning changes, but I am glad they separated IC from Cyrodiil's population cap.


I think IC's biggest issue is staying power. After you get what you want from there, you have no real reason to go back. There is no long term goal for the factions and no reward for spending time there. I wonder if it would be more active if there was a scoring system in place.

I've had some fun there but I'm not a ganker or 1Vxer and 99% of the time it's empty except for some telvar farmers and gankers who know the place like the back of their hand, then 1% of the time it's one faction zerg at a time dominating throughout the day during Midyear Mayhem.

If it was sustainable between those extremes it might be worth it. It has a very cool design.

Some may recall that it was originally connected to what was happening in Cyro but didn't effect Cyro. Now it's totally cut off and independent, so having new objectives, new challenges, and some kind of scoring or tracking system with bonuses and rewards might help. But that's a sizeable investment of design and implementation required of ZOS for something they no longer charge money for.

IC needs to be more than a place to farm Telvar. The hard part is how to do that while appealing to both the PVP and PVE aspects of the zone.

Maybe the scoring could revolve around bosses killed, one boss could yield 1 point, with Molag Bal being worth 5, but you only get points for them if nobody dies during the fight.

The Emp analogue could involve taking all of the top districts. Perhaps having 'emp' would put a barrier around your alliance's first sewer zone that is impassable to other alliances, thus throwing the PVErs a bone and allowing for unimpeded point growth if left unchecked by the other alliances.


IC has a unique mix of open and enclosed spaces, its a shame to see the entire zone be nothing more than 'that place you go to get maguffin points'.

I consider myself neither a PvPer nor a PvEer... I'm a crafting/housing/solo story questing type who doesn't like to group. I don't do Trials and I don't play coordinated/grouped PvP... but I really like IC. It has all sorts of activities, and all feel really dangerous because players and NPCs alike are out to kill me.

no sir, don't like it at all...

probably my favorite IC play is not focusing on gaining tel-var, alliance points, or doing quests - just walking the streets with one of my tankier toons looking for folks who also want to fight...

favorite moments are getting enemies to aggro the NPCs close by us during a fight..

second favorite thing - sniping someone to death from a district platform, it's like pvp fishing...

I wouldn’t believe that there could be such place like IC in any game, if I haven’t visited it. What one need to do, to get one event ticket, hmmmm.
On bright side, PVPs in IC are so used to ganking or zerging, that they die pretty easy. I need more than proc Crystal Fragments and Haunting curse at Cyrodill to kill some PVPs, but it is easy to clear are in IC, when you get to control some flag.