What is the goal of the Imperial City?

Tornaad · February 2022

If I understand everything correctly, then in Cyrodiil your goal is to capture all the keeps around the Imperial City, then the player with the most points gets crowned Emperor.
For battle grounds, your goal is just like any sporting event, you want to get the most points so you can come in first.

What is the goal of the Imperial City? Is it simply the idea that you want to capture all of the districts? Do you get anything when you do that? Maybe I am missing something (with how little I know about PVP I could be) but it seems to me that the Imperial City is missing a definable goal.

What if for the Imperial City, (similar to Cyrodiil) they placed a reward for the person who has the most points when you capture all of the districts, like for example a key of some sorts that unlocks a special treasure. It seems easier to capture the Imperial City Districts than it does a keep, so the reward can certainly be less than what you get from Cyrodiil, but if there is no prize then it seems to me, there is no goal.

With Battle grounds, the prize is seeing your team in first, and while that is kind of shallow in my opinion, it is a prize and is enough to motivate countless athletes in their respective sports?

What are your thoughts?
Am I missing something?
If I am not missing something, then do you have any ideas for a goal they could implement for the Imperial City?

RisenEclipse · February 2022

Capturing districts increase your Tel Var gain for your alliance in that district. It also allows you to port into that district if you die. Personally the district flags were an unnecessary addition to IC imo. Tel Var collecting seems to be the only real goal in IC. There's more PvE goals in there then any actual PvP ones. Sure theres achievements and dyes for doing pvp in IC, but really to me it's a more, go in, grab what you need, and get out, sort of zone.

Brrrofski · February 2022

Honestly, there isn't one.

Owning a district grants you a multiplier for stones you gain in that district.

Owning other then boosts that further.

But there isn't one beyond that.

They never even had flags originally. ZOS brought them in to refresh the zone, but in my experience, it made them empty out even more.

jle30303 · February 2022

The prize in Imperial City is that the more districts you hold (in PVP), the greater your tel var gains from monsters (in PVE) - especially from the bosses who can drop hundreds at a time. It is a mixed zone, not a purely PVP zone.

There is a one-time PVE quest with a (fairly perfunctory) storyline, as well as the dailies.

There is a separate PVE event at the exact centre of the sewers, the Barathrum Centrata.

And tel var stones can be used to buy stuff that is useful, or at least tick off boxes in your sticker book.

With Battlegrounds, the prize isn't so much "seeing your team in first", as the APs you get from it, and what you choose to buy with them, out of many options. (And the advance in your Alliance War skill rank, which unlocks more skills in the Assault and Support lines until those are both maxed at 10 - which normally happens at around alliance war level 14.

Arunei · February 2022

There isn't much to IC really aside from getting TV to buy certain things, or farming the center to try and get the Stonefire Scamp Pet or the Soul-Shriven Skin. Like was said there are rewards, such as one of the dailies giving you medals towards a Gladiator outfit, but for the most part there's no real "goal". That combined with how much the zone overall rewards a ganker playstyle while punishing those who actually go around working to get TV are the big reasons IC is so dead most of the time.

xDeusEJRx · February 2022

IC doesn't have a clear goal, and I think that's because it's supposed to be a PvPvE zone. Mixed PVP and PVE so they can't' really err on the side of PVP since it's modeled as a mixed PVP and PVE zone. So there's no overall objective, no way to "win".

The main objective is just really getting telvar, which has turned IC into a material/style/gear farming zone, and why people mostly go there for farming reasons and not necessarily PVP reasons

Vevvev · February 2022

It's mostly about the story quests and earning Tel'Var to purchase housing storage crates, cosmetics, crafting materials, sets, etc. It's a zone where you grind and earn cool stuff instead of a full on PvP zone. This is why it was advertised as PvEvP.

VaranisArano · February 2022

If you want an idea of what ZOS originally saw as the goal, here's some of the launch details: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25357

And ZOS' Tel Var Guide:
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/guides/imperialcitytelvar

It's worth nothing that Imperial City started out inspired by Dark Age of Camelot's Darkness Falls, but has since evolved into its own thing.

colossalvoids · February 2022

Before it became queue'able it was it's own reward, you secure keeps in cyro and going to IC for telvars and unique items be it sets, hakeijos or polymorphs. It's kinda same still, you go there to get something you can't anywhere else in a sense.

Aardappelboom · February 2022

I love IC but I do agree, it wou'd benefit from a clear goal or a "total score" like Cyrodiil.

I would like a simple "stand your ground" kind of thing, where you gain points for your alliance when you hold districts, resulting in a monthly reward for participants.

Could be even more fun if the flags were a bit more protected, having some attack/defend scenario's.

Dojohoda · February 2022

It is, potentially, the most dangerous area in which to play. An added bonus, when one is in the mood, is that the sewers are spooky.

*drip drip creeeak*

Plus you can pick up some telvar.

Let us not forget the big guy in the middle of the sewers that needs to be killed.

Kwoung · February 2022

Zuboko wrote: »

What is the goal of the Imperial City?

Get in, do whatever it is I am there for, and get out. It is my least favorite zone in the game... and I enjoy PVP.

Tornaad · February 2022

VaranisArano wrote: »

If you want an idea of what ZOS originally saw as the goal, here's some of the launch details: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25357

And ZOS' Tel Var Guide:
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/guides/imperialcitytelvar

It's worth nothing that Imperial City started out inspired by Dark Age of Camelot's Darkness Falls, but has since evolved into its own thing.

Thank you @VaranisArano .
With those insights in mind, if I were to suggest a few changes to the Imperial City, then I think the city should be more of a 4-way war, and I think if they put super dolmens in the city, then it might help with the feel of the city.

Right now, it seems that the Deadra are just passive occupying forces and that they really don't do much else but the fact that the different alliances can "control" a district while the three alliances fight over the districts seems contradictory.

Some of the various quotes Molag Baal says when you clear dark ankers from a PVE zone seem to suggest that he thinks you are helping him to win by clearing the Dark Ankers. Well, what if in the Imperial City, you get to see that happen?

Instead, what could be done, is to put a super dolmen in each of the districts and instead of just needing energy from killing deadra you also need energy from killing other players to close the dolmen. Put in each of the districts a ritual site that will let the other alliances resummon a dark anchor and undo your work.

When one alliance gets all of the Dark Anchors unsummoned, it opens up a special version of the White Gold Tower that your alliance can access and that lets you get special gear and motifs. These drops are rather rare and hard to get, but the more Telvar stones you have on you, the better chance of these drops you have.

Possible addition, is that if you lose control of the dark anchors, then the special dungeon closes and you are forced back out.

To me, that would make the Imperial City feel compelling and feel like it is honoring the story that they were trying to tell at the same time.

Tornaad · February 2022

Second idea,
This would need to wait until after they finish fixing the servers.

Reconnect Cyridiil and the Imperial City, then add a bonus to having control of the different districts of the Imperial City to the war as a whole.
This could come in a few ways.
1. Give a powerful artifact to the side that has control of the city.
2. Give a bonus of some sorts to the side that has control of the city.
3. Give a bonus for each district they control. For example, one district gives a bonus to health, another gives a bonus to damage etc.

This would add a purpose and goal to the city without the need to change anything about how it is set up.

Wyrd88 · February 2022

Zuboko wrote: »

What is the goal of the Imperial City?

To make PVEers cry on the events.

drsalvation · February 2022

To be fair, imperial city was designed as PvPvE (It's surprising how many people keep denying that imperial city is also PvE even tho the PvPvE was the MAIN point of advertising when it first came out).
There's a story quest which will take you through the six districts and foil one last ditch effort to take over Nirn and put an end to Molag Bal's schemes once and for all.
There's 2 dungeons you access through imperial city (but they're their own thing).
There's a large delve that will take you under the sewers as you defeat bosses, and in the center point that connects all sewers you'll find a huge public event about defeating an awful lot of mobs and a specter of Molag Bal. It's a hard event considering how battle spirit nerfs you down by an awful lot.

As much as it pains most PvP'ers, Imperial City is a PvE story expansion with a new zone that just happens to have PvP enabled.

The flags aren't necessary, they grant buffs and quick fast travel stuff, but they don't really do anything significant like keeps in cyrodiil. They were added to "spice up" PvP a bit more to have something to compete for, but it only ended up making things worse by preventing you from respawning right in the battle's heart.

So yeah, no PvP objective, it's PvE with PvP enabled.

RisenEclipse · February 2022

I think the Tel Var system was more of a hindrance to IC pop, then an encouragement. They should have just stuck with AP to buy things in IC. Or prevented Tel Var from being lost on death. People want to gain Tel Var stones. But what they don't want, is to lose them. Getting ganked AND losing Tel Var is just a double frustrating moment, that seriously effects the possible enjoyment of IC. If they removed the Tel Var loss on death, it removes that disdain for possibly losing them, stops rewarding gankers, lessens stress in IC, as well as encouraging risk taking. Adding a scoreboard with unique rewards for each alliance at the top, and other ways to facilitate competition between alliances in IC, may allow IC to actually become more populated outside of events. The Tel Var system was a terrible choice to try encourage PvP in there.

tonyblack · February 2022

In short, capture all districts, kill bosses in as small group as possible while avoiding any danger of pvp doing it in the middle of the night. Bad design if you ask me.

drsalvation · February 2022

RisenEclipse wrote: »

I think the Tel Var system was more of a hindrance to IC pop, then an encouragement. They should have just stuck with AP to buy things in IC. Or prevented Tel Var from being lost on death. People want to gain Tel Var stones. But what they don't want, is to lose them. Getting ganked AND losing Tel Var is just a double frustrating moment, that seriously effects the possible enjoyment of IC. If they removed the Tel Var loss on death, it removes that disdain for possibly losing them, stops rewarding gankers, lessens stress in IC, as well as encouraging risk taking. Adding a scoreboard with unique rewards for each alliance at the top, and other ways to facilitate competition between alliances in IC, may allow IC to actually become more populated outside of events. The Tel Var system was a terrible choice to try encourage PvP in there.

Yeah, I agree, high-risk/high-reward is a system that benefits game with complicated but FAIR combat.
ESO's combat (especially PvP) is NOT fair.

// incoming PvP rant.
Ironically the game designers know how unfair the game is that they don't punish you for dying at all (broken gear? you get free repair kits for daily logins anyway), but still went with a tel-var risk/reward system which would've been nice if the game was fair.
I mean, in For Honor (I know it's a completely different game), every time I lose to other players, it ALWAYS feels like it was my own fault and I was able to learn, simply because I was able to PARTICIPATE in the fight.
In ESO, even as tank, I could still get one-shot by some stealthy nightblade (by one-shot I mean in terms of what I can do, which is only break free and die while the nightblade stuns me and then spams another massive combo before I regain control of my character who is in the middle of breaking free).
The fact is, your build is everything, you can't switch skills or builds in the middle of battle, and if you're caught unprepared, you're pretty much done for.
Or even if you start combat with another player, you can EASILY tell it's a lost cause when you barely managed to knock down 10% of the other player's health and you're out of resources after making your highest damage burst combo. You simply won't have the numbers on your side because your build is bad, your gear is wrong, and your class probably sucks and no matter what you do as a person holding a gamepad playing a video game, the outcome of your fight is predetermined based on numbers.

That said, I'm not saying the combat philosophy is inherently bad.
Games like red dead online or GTA are also highly unfair. People enjoy it (I hate it...)
Games like For Honor and even Fallout 76's dead battle royale mode were fair (in F76's case it's because everyone starts with nothing so everyone starts with a fair chance)
Even hard games like Dark Souls, as complicated as the combat is, it's still fair, and that game does benefit so much from high-risk/high-rewards.

The "git-gud" version of this game isn't honing your player skills, it's reading through a painfully large list of skills and perks and passives and gear sets that would "make you better" (I can confirm, I didn't improve as a player, I just got better gear and I was rocking at PvP, even more, when I started killing other players, it never felt satisfying to me, because just as it never felt it was my fault I lost, it also doesn't feel like it was my skills that made me win)

ESO's combat simply does not benefit from HR/HR

// back to the main point
Tel-vars are the proof that high-risk/high-reward in unfair combat games is a terrible combination that motivates players to completely avoid combat at all costs instead of trying to get more rewards by engaging against other players. If they die as easily without having a chance to "learn" from their mistakes, the only thing they'll learn is that they need to be sneaking all the time and that they'll instantly die against other players. It's hard to think that it was our fault we lost a PvP fight because of our bad skills when all we did was just walk the IC streets and then just die almost instantly.

So if this game insists on keeping the tel-var mechanics, then it should either overhaul the entire combat mechanics to make it hard but fair (aka, no more one-shots), which I'm sure will bother and annoy the vast majority of PvP'ers, Or the easier and best alternative, simply get rid of tel var loss (at least against other players, it should still be there against NPC's)

To me, the biggest motivation to keep the risk was the fact that there's nothing useful to buy with tel-vars.
Maybe storage containers which can also be bought with crafting writs.
The Xyvkyn polymorphs look pretty meh to me, and none of the IC gear suits my playstyle, so I stopped caring for tel-vars since I have no use for them anymore, so tel-vars at this point have become worthless clutter that only serves to frustrate players. In the end, key fragments are the most important bit of IC, especially if you're going to try to get the new outfit.

VaranisArano · February 2022

drsalvation wrote: »

To be fair, imperial city was designed as PvPvE (It's surprising how many people keep denying that imperial city is also PvE even tho the PvPvE was the MAIN point of advertising when it first came out).
There's a story quest which will take you through the six districts and foil one last ditch effort to take over Nirn and put an end to Molag Bal's schemes once and for all.
There's 2 dungeons you access through imperial city (but they're their own thing).
There's a large delve that will take you under the sewers as you defeat bosses, and in the center point that connects all sewers you'll find a huge public event about defeating an awful lot of mobs and a specter of Molag Bal. It's a hard event considering how battle spirit nerfs you down by an awful lot.

As much as it pains most PvP'ers, Imperial City is a PvE story expansion with a new zone that just happens to have PvP enabled.

The flags aren't necessary, they grant buffs and quick fast travel stuff, but they don't really do anything significant like keeps in cyrodiil. They were added to "spice up" PvP a bit more to have something to compete for, but it only ended up making things worse by preventing you from respawning right in the battle's heart.

So yeah, no PvP objective, it's PvE with PvP enabled.

There's totally a PVP objective: Kill other players for their Tel Var. That's in all the same advertising you point to (and I linked above).

Quests?

Yeah, let's talk about those "PVE" quests.

Specifically, the Arena District quest, which is necessary for that zone story. The highlight of that quest is a pretty difficult, multi-stage boss fight against some pretty tough bosses. Way harder than anything I've seen in any Chapter content.

Oh, and there's also an achievement for killing 100 players inside the Arena.

Hmm.

You say you see a lot of players denying the PVE part of Imperial City.

I have to admit I see more of the reverse. There's an awful lot of players who keep denying that Imperial City was purpose built to mix PVP with the PVE storyline. Probably because they don't like PvPvE and would rather have a PVE-only version.

Tommy_The_Gun · February 2022

Tbh. I think that IC was not really well thought out.

I mean the original concept was that IC was only accessible through Cyrodill. Originally, you had to be in one of Cyrodiil Campaigns and you had to go through one of the sewer entrance, located in Cyrodill, near IC Lake. If I remember correctly, in the "old" days, you actually had to even use your alliance "sewer" entrance only. Possibility to use other alliances entrances was added later.

So IC was not a separate campaign. So what ended up happening is that Players would try to get EMP bonus, and then Emperor group would usually go to IC (yep, as far as I remember, they still kept EMP bonus & passives, as it was a part of Cyrodiil Campaign). Also, as far as I know, originally, if a player killed you in IC - you would lose all your Tel-Vars, not just a half. It was harsh lol.

IC back then was way different as players could not simply "port" to IC, so in general it was way more "empty". Also, it was a regular DLC, not a "free" one, so again - less people were there.

Other important factor is that ESO back then did not had Battle Grounds PvP game mode. So IC was acting "kinda" like a huge & endless BG match.

Time have passed, many thing had changed. Right now, we have BGs, so players don't go to IC to fight in huge PvP arenas (Because, this is how IC is designed - confined space that acts as an Arenas).

Imho, after all this time and with the addition of separate IC campaigns, all of the flaws of IC design have bulged greatly.

What is the general point IC right now ? Probably Tel-Var currency farming.
What is the point on PvE in IC ? Probably Tel-Var & maybe questing. Yes, IC has a story quests & PvE daily quests. Originally, as far as I remember, you had to complete the "Main IC Story Quest line" in order to unlock daily quests. ZOS removed that restriction when they added IC to Whitestrake's/Midyear Mayhem.

The biggest question is: What is the point of PvP in IC ? Capturing districts is PvE (You fight NPC guards). Tel-var farming ? Well, you can get way more from PvE, rather than hunting for enemy players.

At this point, PvP in IC pretty much feels kinda um... unnecessary. I mean, what is PvP in IC rewarding ? IDK tbh. Ganking ? Griefing ? Sure, you get AP for kills, but it is too little for the effort vs how easy it is to get AP in Cyro. Huge arena style fighting is also kinda pointless, as we have BGs.

What I am trying to point out is (TLDR): IC is PvE & PvP zone, with a primary focus on PvE (look at rewards, pretty much all of the stuff comes from doing PvE in IC). PvP is just enabled there. But, as a result of IC being a PvPvE zone, both PvE & PvP suffers. One is reducing quality of the other. I am willing to bet that if ZOS would somehow separate PvE & PvP into separate zones and add different rewards for each - they could once again make IC a paid DLC because people would start buying it again, as it would be very good experience.

francesinhalover · February 2022

The goal of imperial city is to be a bad person, kill pve players and make them hate the game so they never try pvp one day and the pvp playerbase slowly dies.

Joke.

etchedpixels · February 2022

Essentially its the 40 man raid everyone complains was missing, but not very good 8)

You wait until it's quiet then group up with everyone in your guild into a giant mob and walk through all the daily quests and farm each boss and everyone does the storyline while the gankers keep away, then you never go back except for events, ever.

The storyline isn't even very good.

zaria · February 2022

drsalvation wrote: »

To be fair, imperial city was designed as PvPvE (It's surprising how many people keep denying that imperial city is also PvE even tho the PvPvE was the MAIN point of advertising when it first came out).
There's a story quest which will take you through the six districts and foil one last ditch effort to take over Nirn and put an end to Molag Bal's schemes once and for all.
There's 2 dungeons you access through imperial city (but they're their own thing).
There's a large delve that will take you under the sewers as you defeat bosses, and in the center point that connects all sewers you'll find a huge public event about defeating an awful lot of mobs and a specter of Molag Bal. It's a hard event considering how battle spirit nerfs you down by an awful lot.

As much as it pains most PvP'ers, Imperial City is a PvE story expansion with a new zone that just happens to have PvP enabled.

The flags aren't necessary, they grant buffs and quick fast travel stuff, but they don't really do anything significant like keeps in cyrodiil. They were added to "spice up" PvP a bit more to have something to compete for, but it only ended up making things worse by preventing you from respawning right in the battle's heart.

So yeah, no PvP objective, it's PvE with PvP enabled.

Agree, IC is PvPvE, the objective is to farm tel var and do the dailies. Capturing the flags boost tel var gain and give more respawn points who make it kind of an PvP objective.
In practice its much faster and intense PvP than Cyrodil as its city fighting. But I done all the dailies solo getting killed once during the event, but I also got 10K tel var from some fool trying to gank me on my pve NB in stealth gear and failing miserable.

Cyrodil is more relaxed.

The3sFinest · February 2022

You have to capture all districts, when that happens, the person with the most ganks becomes Imperor.

Iriidius · February 2022

For me the goal of Imperial City is to farm Tel Var, either by killing NPCs or other Players. I see it more as a PvE Zone with enabled PvP than a Death
atch with a few NPCs(but as an experienced Player only enemy Players are a threat, not the NPCs)
For other players the goal of IC is to gank players(ganking means killing another player in a way that he has no chance to win the fight (https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganker_(Computerspiel)). In Eso everyone calls Nightblade assassins gankers, but they are not always gankers and not all gankers are nightblade assassins.) no matter how much tel var they have. If you 6v1 a farmer or quester the Tel Var you dont get much tel var but many players are still doing this all the time. The flags themselfes arent that bad, only that they are connected to tel var gain and spawn points. Killing NPCs without most flags in your colour feels wasted. And why can i only respawn in red districts if every alliance has an own spawn point in every district? And if my alliance doesnt have any district i have to respawn in severs, else i cant even respawn there. It only enforces 1/2 extra loadscreens

Hapexamendios · February 2022

Didn't know about the Tel Var bonus for controlling districts. I always leave the flags alone.

Gylzyn · February 2022

I frankly find IC much more fun to play if I don't worry about the Tel Var - though I will bank them regularly. I don't have that much use for them - I am much more interested in the APs. I do think that some sort of ultimate goal might be interesting. Something like whoever has most "points" (whatever they may be) in IC, because it is a PvPvE area, gives a 2% increase to stats for players of that faction in PvE.

Faulgor · February 2022

There hasn't been a goal to Cyrodiil for a long time, either. It's all meaningless keep-flipping.

At least IC has better rewards.

redlink1979 · February 2022

Brrrofski wrote: »

(...)
Owning a district grants you a multiplier for stones you gain in that district. (...)

If your alliance controls an Imperial District, you will receive a 33% bonus to Tel Var Stone drops within all six districts. This bonus is cumulative and can be stacked to 198% if your alliance controls every district.

Vildebill · February 2022

Having fun?