Imperial City updates?

McTaterskins · February 2022

Is there a reason why Imperial City instances aren't tied directly to a specific Cyrodiil campaign?

I mean.... Emperor of what? Chalman Keep? Cool, let me grind for a bit then hop on at 3am with some friends.

Shouldn't you have to also control all of or a majority of IC districts in order to get Emp? Why not?
What if: Controlling enemy scrolls, or having more than 2 scrolls in your possession in the corresponding Cyro campaign, gave a + telvar bonus?
What if: Instead of whatever mechanic exists currently, taking all of the IC districts is what spawns the artifacts such as the hammer? With a cooldown/timer of course.
What if: Controlling districts at the time of point rollover contributed to the corresponding Cyro campaign?
or ... What if: The IC campaigns that exist have their own running campaign? Bags with 25 crystals instead of 50?

I'm sure at some point this all was connected and made some semblance of sense. I'm also sure, that at some point, a bunch of complaints caused it to not be.

Why? What sense is being made here?

Who knows the history?
What was it like when it was released?
Did it change? When?
Why? For what reason would such changes need to be made? Why should/would they not be linked?

How many of the folks that say "Oh IC sucks" would pull a 180 flip if it had meaning and rewards?

I've only been around for about 2 years. Please enlighten me and others that jumped in during what I've dubbed as, "The Covid Baby Boom".

Thanks!

Maitsukas · February 2022

There is a discussion about it here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598589/what-is-the-goal-of-the-imperial-city/p1

And the original DLC announcement article from 2015:
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25357

McTaterskins · February 2022

Maitsukas wrote: »

There is a discussion about it here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598589/what-is-the-goal-of-the-imperial-city/p1

And the original DLC announcement article from 2015:
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25357

I see that thread now. However, reading through the comments, there are maybe 1 or 2 comments that would contribute to this discussion point. The rest of it is convoluted arguments about what the point of it is and how there is or isn't too much PvE.

In looking at that announcement from 2015, tbh, the whole thing was likely weak from the start then? Did it ever have a direct link to a campaign? The video link doesn't work as it's probably long since removed.

jaws343 · February 2022

You used to have to queue into Cyrodil in order to get to the city.

The problem with that was that Imp City had no real impact on the Cyrodil campaign, other than hurting the population. If 50 players from one alliance were in the City, then that was 50 less players you had in the overland capturing keeps. So the City was mostly empty outside of events.

It is much better as a standalone zone. Gives players far more opportunity to hop in at any time without impacting Cyrodil populations and without having to wait in the Cyrodil queue during primetime.

McTaterskins · February 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

You used to have to queue into Cyrodil in order to get to the city.

The problem with that was that Imp City had no real impact on the Cyrodil campaign, other than hurting the population. If 50 players from one alliance were in the City, then that was 50 less players you had in the overland capturing keeps. So the City was mostly empty outside of events.

It is much better as a standalone zone. Gives players far more opportunity to hop in at any time without impacting Cyrodil populations and without having to wait in the Cyrodil queue during primetime.

I can definitely see where having to "go through Cyrodiil" would have been a nuisance. A decent QoL change there then, I guess.

With lower pop caps and performance issues, do you think players going to the other zone has the same impact as it did back then?

kringled_1 · February 2022

This probably isn't the best forum for this, but yes, in the past IC was directly linked to campaigns. You got into IC by a sewer entrance in Cyrodiil near the lake shore. It was changed to the current system in maybe 2019?
I can't give you all the reasons but some things I know about that may have triggered the decoupling. One was complaints about IC emps, people who just flipped IC flags in an endless circle and got high on the leaderboards with minimal time in Cyrodiil. I think primarily it was to make IC more accessible though, previously people could encounter issues even getting in if gankers were camping the nearest keep, or it could just be quite a long ride.
The speed with which districts flip probably means that requiring district ownership for emperor isnt viable, and it makes some of your other proposals seem unbalanced. A flag is just 3 guards with no doors or walls, far less work than even a resource in Cyrodiil.
Tel var bonus for scrolls should be fine but would probably be ignored by IC people.

Vrienda · February 2022

IC was separated from Cyrodiil quite a while back. The code is still attached though, I sometimes get updates in IC campaigns from unrelated Cyrodiil ones... The flags weren't there at launch either, not sure when or why they were added.

IMO IC was at it's best back at launch when the NPC's were dangerous and you kinda had to weave in and out of the streets. The pathing and design of the city is all built towards that. IC at it's worst is... well. Anything PvP related in all honestly.

jaws343 · February 2022

McTaterskins wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

You used to have to queue into Cyrodil in order to get to the city.

The problem with that was that Imp City had no real impact on the Cyrodil campaign, other than hurting the population. If 50 players from one alliance were in the City, then that was 50 less players you had in the overland capturing keeps. So the City was mostly empty outside of events.

It is much better as a standalone zone. Gives players far more opportunity to hop in at any time without impacting Cyrodil populations and without having to wait in the Cyrodil queue during primetime.

I can definitely see where having to "go through Cyrodiil" would have been a nuisance. A decent QoL change there then, I guess.

With lower pop caps and performance issues, do you think players going to the other zone has the same impact as it did back then?

If they tied it back into Cyrodil, it would crater whatever is left of the population and performance.

Think of it this way:

Say previously, Cyrodil had a cap of 100 players per faction. But 10 of those players from one faction went into Imp City. That faction is losing 10% of their players in Cyrodil to Imp City. As the server is at capacity and no new players can join it while it is full.

Now, say population cap is lowered to 80 per faction, but the same 10 people went into Imp City, well, that missing 10 players is far more impactful against a lower population than the higher one.

With it's current implementation, those 10 players can join Imperial City without impacting the population of Cyrodil, so Cyrodil can be at cap and not lose players to Imperial City.

Plus, it means that as a whole, the population limit in Imp City is much larger. Where before, let's say the combined population of both zones was 100 players per faction, and you would only see a fraction of that combined cap in Imp City, now, the population cap for both zones can be 100, so in an event like the one we currently have, you can have 100 players per faction in both Imp City and Cyrodil, with no adverse effect on either zone.

McTaterskins · February 2022

kringled_1 wrote: »

This probably isn't the best forum for this, but yes, in the past IC was directly linked to campaigns. You got into IC by a sewer entrance in Cyrodiil near the lake shore. It was changed to the current system in maybe 2019?
I can't give you all the reasons but some things I know about that may have triggered the decoupling. One was complaints about IC emps, people who just flipped IC flags in an endless circle and got high on the leaderboards with minimal time in Cyrodiil. I think primarily it was to make IC more accessible though, previously people could encounter issues even getting in if gankers were camping the nearest keep, or it could just be quite a long ride.
The speed with which districts flip probably means that requiring district ownership for emperor isnt viable, and it makes some of your other proposals seem unbalanced. A flag is just 3 guards with no doors or walls, far less work than even a resource in Cyrodiil.
Tel var bonus for scrolls should be fine but would probably be ignored by IC people.

Honestly, as evident through the perfectly on point content of your comment, I find that discussions are typically far more constructive on this particular forum section than many others. There's always exceptions though I guess. However, I find most people never even look at the PTS forum. I'm not sure as to why, but the other forums see far more traffic on the regular. More folks that post on this section seem to genuinely care more on average.

Also; Thanks for the information!

Anyone have any further elaboration?

Thanks!

jaws343 · February 2022

McTaterskins wrote: »

kringled_1 wrote: »

This probably isn't the best forum for this, but yes, in the past IC was directly linked to campaigns. You got into IC by a sewer entrance in Cyrodiil near the lake shore. It was changed to the current system in maybe 2019?
I can't give you all the reasons but some things I know about that may have triggered the decoupling. One was complaints about IC emps, people who just flipped IC flags in an endless circle and got high on the leaderboards with minimal time in Cyrodiil. I think primarily it was to make IC more accessible though, previously people could encounter issues even getting in if gankers were camping the nearest keep, or it could just be quite a long ride.
The speed with which districts flip probably means that requiring district ownership for emperor isnt viable, and it makes some of your other proposals seem unbalanced. A flag is just 3 guards with no doors or walls, far less work than even a resource in Cyrodiil.
Tel var bonus for scrolls should be fine but would probably be ignored by IC people.

Honestly, as evident through the perfectly on point content of your comment, I find that discussions are typically far more constructive on this particular forum section than many others. There's always exceptions though I guess. However, I find most people never even look at the PTS forum. I'm not sure as to why, but the other forums see far more traffic on the regular. More folks that post on this section seem to genuinely care more on average.

Also; Thanks for the information!

Anyone have any further elaboration?

Thanks!

I'd be curious to see how many people actually look at individual forum sections here. I personally just use the Recent page and go from there. Keeps everything relevant from all sections of the forum front and center.

divnyi · February 2022

IC definitely need some changes, but not tying IC to Cyro.
First of all, there are more cyro campaigns than IC.
Secondly, nobody needs that.

Nobody need those stupid flags either.
The idea of zone control in daedra-infested city is just horribly bad lore-wise.
Gameplay-wise it only favors strongest faction, making all others get less telvar for no good reason. Discouraging smaller factions is the last thing IC needs. When one faction dominates, it's the most boring zone ever. You wanted to steal bosses? You get more telvars by doing it in the winning faction.

Major thing players dislike about IC is *losing* telvars on death.
Players who gank often bank everything and you don't get anything back.
Players who flip flags don't run with telvars too.
So only players who do lose telvars are those who actually interact with daedras.

Solution? Stash telvars upon entering severs or city, stash on death too. Every player killed is constant amount of telvars, multiplied by his and your multiplier. No telvar loss on death, but you lose multiplier and can't regain it by taking some telvars from bank. You need to actually kill some daedras to get more rewards from your kills, and be more desired prey too.

VaranisArano · February 2022

Imperial City was swapped to separate campaigns from Cyrodiil with the Elsweyr update in 2019.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/474422/pc-mac-patch-notes-v5-0-5-elsweyr-update-22

Originally, you were intended to control access to IC via owning the Ring Keeps. That quickly fell by the wayside. Then you could enter IC at any of the three entrances near Lake Rumare whenever you wanted, but first you had to queue into Cyrodiil and ride there.

One of the big reasons for the change is it let ZOS split the population caps so that players in Imperial City no longer counted towards the population in Cyrodiil. Since population caps have dropped over time to reduce the performance strain, this was a pretty significant improvement for PVPers at the time.

In addition, it had been requested on a fairly regular basis by players who didn't want to have to queue into Cyrodiil and ride to the sewers whenever they just wanted to play in Imperial City.

As for the rest of the questions:

1. Control of the Districts has never been a part of Emperor. Originally, the district didn't even have flags, and couldn't be captured. Now, the flags have 3 guards which is less than half of the guards/NPCs defending a single resource in Cyrodiil. In short, adding District control to Emperorship would be pointless. If your Alliance owns all 6 ring keeps, it would be a trivial extra requirement to send a small group to cap the districts. It's not needed.

2. You already get a Tel Var bonus per how many districts you own inside Imperial City.

3. What would you do with the hammer inside Imperial City? There are no destructible structures there. I can't see the point of capturing the Districts only to spawn an artifact you have to leave Imperial City to use.

4. See my point about District captures being far easier than capturing a single resource in Cyrodiil. The Districts just aren't worth the same PVP effort as a keep or a scroll that does count towards the score.

5. That's been requested by some PVPers in Imperial City before. Hasn't happened yet, though.

In short, Imperial City used to be a part of Cyrodiil. Now that it's not, there's really not a good reason to go back to the way it used to be.

Certainly now that ZOS has decided to make the Imperial City campaigns a ticket area for three events out of the year, it's probably best that it stay its own area.

Excelsus · February 2022

IC is a tragedy really. I think it has a striking visual design, it had at one time the hardest enemies in the game and the horrors and flags still are a genuine threat. The issue is the gameplay sucks. Claustrophic high adrenaline telvar farming with the constant fear of nightblades or sweepers robbing you blind is interesting for the first 15 minutes then quickly gets old, as does getting one shot trying to do Drake quests or dailies. Rather than improve the gameplay of IC ZoS has overloaded it with rewards to make it more enticing - exclusive polymorphs, motifs, styles, monster sets, instead of IC being more fun theres now more pressure to do it anyway so you have bunch of people in an area they dont like trying to get what they want and not get ganked and have their progress reset. Its a bad roguelike loop that eso doesnt need. Telvar should only be loss when killed by daedra. Multiplier lost at death and more diverse gameplay in the cities. Make the horrors have a broader aggro range so they dont just stomp right past you.