New player, which faction EU PC

jjawhiteb16_ESO · August 2021

Hello ^^ Am a relatively new player interested in pvp, just wondering what faction population and playtimes are like on PC EU?
Any info is appreciated

WaywardArgonian · August 2021

This is just based on my experience. On Gray Host, I only play as AD, and on Ravenwatch, I main AD but have played campaigns as DC/EP.

In general, most of the action in the afternoon is smallscale, and the huge fights tend to happen in the evenings/weekends.

Gray Host:
AD - Biggest faction. Active mostly from the early morning to somewhere in the afternoon. Usually has Emperor for most of that time. Relatively easy to find pick-up groups or zergs.
EP - Smaller than AD but still a sizeable faction with multiple groups. Mostly active from the late afternoon until after midnight. Often has Emperor during that timeframe.
DC - Smallest faction by far, relies on low-pop bonus for the scoreboard. Mostly smallscalers and streamers. Sometimes they manage to get a zerg together in the evening. Not recommended unless you enjoy fighting while outnumbered.

Ravenwatch:
AD - Smallest faction. Often has low pop bonus but will still control an okay portion of the map during various points of the day. Sometimes pushes back other factions even when on lower bars (population). Can sometimes be difficult to find a random group.
EP - Similar to Gray Host. Second-biggest faction and most active during the evenings. Has several organized groups. No idea how easy it is to find a pick-up group there as I tried like once (and found one).
DC - Biggest faction. They will most often have Emperor, and they can show up at multiple keeps at the same time with huge groups. Active throughout the day and evening, often pop-locked. Easy to find pick-up groups with decent lead, but you can expect heavy resistance from organized groups and solo players alike if you run into them.

Note that the balance in Ravenwatch might shift a bit as the server will be converted into a non-proc server, and I know that several AD and EP guilds are moving to Gray Host.

Larcomar · August 2021

Well, it's worth noting that there about to be big changes on the 23rd, but for now.... NB All times UK / European.

All the servers are pretty quiet during the day. The liven up gradually from about 4-5pm onwards (UK time), and then enter prime time Id guess 7pm -

- Icereach (Below level 50). Pretty dead most of the time from what I've seen, but haven't done it in a while.

- Ravenwatch (no CP) - Good population on red and blue. Queues during the evening can take a while. Yellow is much quieter, at European times but I believe there's alot of Oceanic players who playing during our night time - they sure as hell cap most of the map.

- Blackreach (CP, no faction lock) - Pretty quiet most of the time from what I've seen. Maybe two bars on each faction. Gets a bit livelier at prime but definitely the least populated server.

Grayhost (CP, faction locked) - Yellow is dominant and often pop lock early. Red has a decent population though, and will pop lock maybe 6pm and start to push after that. Queues ok though. Blue much lower pop, but they seem to do ok on the map.

With the next update, Zos are turning Ravenwatch into a newbie server. It's not only be no CP but no proc i.e. you'll only be able to use a very limited number of sets. That might be quite a good place for you to start but we don't know what that will do to populations. My guess is that a lot of Ravenwatch players will leave for Grayhost / Blackreach - my guild is moving over - but if they market it a bit, it might draw some new players in to PVP which could be good.

Whatever you do, I'd recommend you try and find a guild to run with, or at least do some sessions in a pick up group to start. There are a few on Ravenwatch EP side, but now the group limit is 12, they don't have many spots. If you can't just look where the action is on the map, and follow the "zerg." You should see some fun fights and take some stuff.

I don't know what hours you run, but you might find going in on the shoulder - later afternoon, early evening - better to start, as performance can be dire at prime time. It can be a bit disheartening to spend an hour in the queue only to crash out if the server lags to hell. The rest of the day though is really too quiet to play now though - it'll be some small scaling that's about it.

jusyt my two cents but hopefully helpful

Larcomar · August 2021

Ha. Three days and two of us replay at the same time. As Wayward said - weekends are also a good time to go in. Sat, Sunday afternoons you get quite a good bit of action and the performance is actually not bad.