Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

Xanttious wrote: »

IMO zos is never going to be able to balance the servers. In any tri-faction game this is never possible, there will always be one faction that is weaker then the other two. This goes back as far as DaoC where on my server it was Midgard that was the weakest.

As far as the nerfing emp, that is the wrong move and won't help balance anything (At least on gray host, the only place where getting emp means something imo) People put their lives into it to get it. Trust me i know. It isn't handed to you, It is earned. When you finally get it the best feeling in the world. Now your taking that away from it. Now all emp will be in a achievement worth 50 points.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

This change is completely inverted to what is actually needed in Cyrodiil.

Scroll and Emperor buffs should get STRONGER the fewer map assets and overall population that you have, not weaker.

I too would have to agree with this. There is a reason a lot of times at least on DC in Grayhost. We don't emp people because if you are playing the map "correctly" emp is a horrible move. It makes both factions focus you and you risk the chance of losing your scrolls because half the server wants to hold emp and half the server wants to protect scrolls. Dethroning a emp isn't that hard if you have good leaders in zone that know what they are doing.

First off, I think you read the patch note wrong.

The Health bonus for having an Emperor crowned for your Alliance will now scale depending on how many “home” or “natively owned” Keeps you have controlled by your alliance. For example, if you own all 6 of your home Keeps you’ll get the full bonus as Emperor, but for each of those you don’t own, the health bonus is reduced.

The Emperor Passives also now scale in a similar way to the Alliance wide health bonus. For each of the 6 home Keeps your Alliance owns, the bonus will be up to its full value. For each one that is not owned by your Alliance, the passive benefits are reduced.

It says nothing about the Emperor's personal buff. This is specifically about the free health bonus everyone else on the alliance gets for having emperor. This is the bonus that allows the controlling faction to mostly ignore the inner circle until they're down to one or two keeps, then faction stack inside and wait out the opposition. AKA, what happens most of the time when the other factions don't have overwhelming numbers to force the dethrone.

The Emperor themself will have the normal Emp buffs to the end, unless someone can confirm otherwise.

If you want to argue to keep business as usual, that's a fair criticism of this change, but the idea that Emp faction that already has every advantage as is needs to be coddled more is a very narrow view, I believe. Certainly if you're the emp faction, you want that health buff till the bitter end, but we have ALL been on the other side, where we spend hours beating down every emp keep, only to never finish because when the enemy has only one keep left, every player on that faction stacks inside. They line the walls with cold fire and send waves of DDs and tanks out to kill and burn siege, having unlimited lives so long as its not flagged, and even then they can put camps up. The goal isn't even to win the conflict. It's simply to frustrate the other side into giving up, and losing most of the faction-wide health buff will make it just a little harder for them to do that.

I support this message.

in your quote of the patch notes, the scaling affects BOTH the emps personal bonus and the alliance wide health scaling (bolded the line in your quote that notes this)

The Health bonus for having an Emperor crowned for your Alliance will now scale depending on how many “home” or “natively owned” Keeps you have controlled by your alliance. For example, if you own all 6 of your home Keeps you’ll get the full bonus as Emperor, but for each of those you don’t own, the health bonus is reduced.

The Emperor Passives also now scale in a similar way to the Alliance wide health bonus. For each of the 6 home Keeps your Alliance owns, the bonus will be up to its full value. For each one that is not owned by your Alliance, the passive benefits are reduced.

Crap! My bad. I have dyslexia so I speed read and occasionally I miss a sentence here or there. Thanks for the correction. Having thought about it, my original point still stands. Most emps these days are DKs with near 60k health, and MOST emps are not taking a vacation to pull a week of allnighters in a row to get emp for the first time. It's mostly the sweatiest of sweats who have insane amounts of free time, so they earn the most AP, which means they get to be EMP. The real travesty of Emperor is that it has zero to do with skill and everything to do with who is on the most and knows how to squeeze the most AP out of every situation (or boosts).

You put forward this image of someone who saved up all their vacation time to finally get emp. Well, you then have all the time to enjoy the silly benefits of being emp, but you better be prepared to defend your status if you want to keep it. Right now you don't have to do that. You can fly all around the map, zerging down resources at Dlowe or gating whatever faction has made you mad lately, never really caring about what happens on the circle until you're getting close to dethrone, then you can faction stack with your over-buffed buddies in the last keep and use all the advantages the game gives you to outlast every assault until the enemies run out of time.

Forcing emp and the vast majority of forces to choose between emp buff and scrolls or AP boosts is a good thing.

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

This is a good step in the right direction but not enough. Campaigns get absolutely OWNED by faction stacking except for very few times of the day where there is actual numbers on all sides. BUT it's not enough. There needs to be more done to promote parity in Cyrodiil, especially in BR and RW, but also in GH during non-peak hours. Some people just can't play in GH due to the lag, so either you deal with getting run over by griefers or you join their team and twiddle your thumbs waiting for OH LOOK THAT FARM IS ON FIRE! LEGGGOOOOOOOO!

This change would encourage more faction stack zerging though, if you think about it.
Why would your average zergling stop pushing after getting emperor and potentially lose out on their power they get from emp?
It encourages them to be offensive 24/7 in order to stay as powerful as possible, and to that end the logical conclusion is to then server zerg the enemy factions to the point where they can't challenge your emperor stance(by forcing them out of the campaign). I can't see how this isn't going to be the case.
At least right now, people have no real reason to server zerg every keep(other than to get points), but this just encourages people to want to do this MORE in order to keep their faction on top.

The correct decision, was to not change this system at all.

You say this like that's not what happens anyway.

Take emp. Gate the faction you have a dumb little hatred for. Maybe you gate the other faction or you just say where you were to grief. This is the goto for ANY faction that totally controls the map.

What you have now is there is no incentive to leave home keeps. If you are EP and you've decided DC just shouldn't be allowed to play today, you squat their home keeps while AD does whatever down south. Who cares if they flag Alessia, right? You have no reason to care because you can still travel all around the map, and you get to keep killing blues as they bounce out to try and flag a resource. HOW DARE THEY?!

What this will do is force EMP faction to stay on the circle. This could mean more counterplay on the outer rim of the map. And if they decide to just sit at Glades all day? Go behind them and start flagging stuff around the circle. They will be forced to pull back and commit to defense, allowing others on your faction to take your home keeps.

This game has made the map pointless. Whoever has the advantage takes emp and squats for not just a few hours, but days. Faction loyalty has done nothing but promote a level of weird nationalism that I find particularly disgusting, but alas, you have to pick a side and you get xenophobic about everyone else. Then the next step is you decide that every play session must be committed to ruining the game for everyone else to the point you don't even care anymore that you have people to fight. The thrill of seeing a resource flag at BB or Glades is what you live for.

No, it's time they take a step toward ending this madness. If you take emp, you should be forced to defend it. You have every advantage, even down to the last keep, because it's significantly easier to defend Chalamo than take it. The amount of numbers and communication it takes to dethrone even an average emp group is absurd.

It happens anyways, but what this means is every zergling is going to want to stop any sort of resistance on the map.

This is already how the game works. When you flag a resource in the afternoon and 12+ show up to mow you down, it isn't because they wanted to say hi and swap recipes. We are in a particularly toxic meta period in this game. The amount of pure hatred some players have for others for simply wearing a different color flag over their head is disgusting. The average player doesn't want fair fights. They want to mow over smaller numbers while cackling like children in voice chat.

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

If you care about campaign score at all the smart thing to do is not allow them to push at all because once you start losing then you will start to lose power and those who care about campaign aren't going to give any ground whatsoever. Which means every zergling's game plan is going to be faction stack everything and then map paint everything 24/7 and not let the other factions push.

This is already what happens, as I said above. My PC friends and my PS friends all have the same experience. The leaderboard on every faction will IMMEDIATELY turn to grief mode the moment any of them get a 1 to 2 bar advantage. This change will have zero effect on that, because it's already happening this way.

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

It does nothing good for the game, if the underdog factions are already struggling to compete with the top one, this is just going to encourage them to be more oppressive in order to be the most successful. Because like I said before, zerglings don't want to give ground and this just means that they'll want to prevent any sort of resistance in order to not lose power

This argument is funny. You're saying that the faction that is already in control of everything is taking it easy on the other factions. No, this isn't true. If red gets a numbers advantage over blue, they will zerg them to the gates every chance they get. If they have emp, they will sit at Glades waiting for warden or rayles to flag, or a resource to turn. They will ignore AD as they take Fare back or even start flagging resources at Roe or Allessia. They do this because they know their buff isn't going to change, and even if AD takes two emp keeps, they can still transport all around the map and they have plenty of time and numbers to take any lost territory back.

This goes for any faction with greater numbers.

In that same scenario, what this proposed change will do, is prevent EP from ignoring those incursions on the circle. They will be forced to leave home keeps and defend their buff. This means the gated faction can push out and take back their home, or undertake a dozen other strategies to take advantage of the fact that the Emperor and the faction HAS to defend their inner keeps against all attacks, rather than griefing people at the gates and sitting around smugly like they accomplished something by running down 5 people with a 20-man for the audacity of trying to flip a farm.

I haven't had much good to say the last few updates, but Emp Scaling is a great move by ZOS. Taking/Keeping home Keeps to weaken/strengthen Emp and the whole turtling nonsense that comes with every dethrone is something that was sorely needed. Finally a little strategy! I love it.

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

So you're telling me that the emperor bonus, the thing you need to defend your keeps, will now get weaker the more you actually need it to defend those last keeps?
[snip]
[edited for bashing]

I'm glad they are touching the emperor bonus.
That means they acknowledged that the current campaign bonuses are not ok as they currently are.

The new mechanics seems a bit odd but I think ZOS' goal is to make the loosing factions disrupt the Emperor's home keeps instead of fighting at the frontline thus spreading the fights a little bit.

It actually might be an interesting change. Because right now players are just logging off when they see the emperor train.

emperor scaling is an unneeded and bad change. If you have only 1 emperor keep left you need emperor the most. If other factions already took 5 emperor keeps, they are probably stronger than emp faction and emperor is now fighting with a weaker faction against a stronger faction. And even if they defend only the last emperor keep, its not a problem because they have only emperor and 1 emp keep and maybe their trikeeps, a few edge keeps(dragon/drake/brindell), outposts and towns, but not the whole map. And fights for last emp keep can be epic battles.
If you have all 6 emp keeps than and maybe enemy trikeeps than your faction probably outnumbers enemy factions who are probably almost extinct and emperor buff is unneeded and an overkill that makes strongest faction even stronger.
I agree that the strongest faction with the most players shouldnt also get stat buffs but emperor scaling is the worst and most stupid way to reduce stat buffs for dominant faction. The smaller the hegemony of the strongest faction is, the more emperor scaling hurts you. They should rather remove stat buff from holding keeps and scrolls if they want reduce stat buffs.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

This change is completely inverted to what is actually needed in Cyrodiil.

Scroll and Emperor buffs should get STRONGER the fewer map assets and overall population that you have, not weaker.

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

1000% Agree. It's clear that whoever thought up this change has never been in Cyrodiil.

Unfortunately, there's no explanation given for this change. It certainly seems counterintuitive.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Luede wrote: »

to become emp, your faction already needs a big advantage over the other two factions. so it's completely absurd that the emp is strongest when the faction is already superior to the other two anyway. the advantage should exist when the emp faction is overrun by the other two, which is why the buff should get stronger as the keeps decrease.

Becoming emp and keeping emp are two different things. Stating that the alliance who currently has emp needs any other advantage is wrong. They already have an advantage, and it is right for people to be dethroned eventually, not build in mechanics to help the advantaged.

Granted, there is a time when the emps friends have to sleep and the emp gets zerged down and removed from power, but this is fine because you aren't supposed to have emp that long.

Honestly I don't think this change needed to happen, but it IS better than the opposite proposition.

with the new emp buffs it's not about when the emp gets more, but in which situation he should have less than at the moment, and that's when he already owns the whole map.

Well, it looks like ZOS is intent in pushing forward with this change in spite of the overwhelmingly negative feedback. @ZOS_GinaBruno, what do we have to do to get listened to here?!

The less emp keeps you have, the easier it often becomes to hold them because your entire faction funnels to the defend the remaining keeps. Once it's down to the last keep, emp faction stacks inside and goes into "outlast mode." All they need to do is repel the enemies a few times and people will start to get bored. Numbers dwindle. Emp faction then pushes out to the next place on the circle, reasserting their claim. This is EMP 101.

I like this change. The reason is that often what you see is the emp running all around the map, defending outposts and AP buffs, not really being if a circle keep gets flagged because they can just go get it back. This should force emperor and their faction to be more mindful of the circle, which should them open up opportunities to cap home keeps and targets on the outer rim of the map.

We shall see. But the last thing emperor needs is to get STRONGER as they lose keeps because it already takes an overwhelming force to dethrone. Emp faction has every advantage.

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

The less emp keeps you have, the easier it often becomes to hold them because your entire faction funnels to the defend the remaining keeps. Once it's down to the last keep, emp faction stacks inside and goes into "outlast mode." All they need to do is repel the enemies a few times and people will start to get bored. Numbers dwindle. Emp faction then pushes out to the next place on the circle, reasserting their claim. This is EMP 101.

I like this change. The reason is that often what you see is the emp running all around the map, defending outposts and AP buffs, not really being if a circle keep gets flagged because they can just go get it back. This should force emperor and their faction to be more mindful of the circle, which should them open up opportunities to cap home keeps and targets on the outer rim of the map.

We shall see. But the last thing emperor needs is to get STRONGER as they lose keeps because it already takes an overwhelming force to dethrone. Emp faction has every advantage.

No one is asking to make the emp stronger, we want the emp/faction emp bonus the current strength, and to make it WEAKER when they hold everything, instead of weaker when they hold almost nothing (the current proposal).

Also, no, it won't "force the emperor and their faction to be more mindful of the circle" because this is about home keeps. All this will do is force the entire emp faction to put down with overwhelming force any attempt to take typically unimportant keeps like Drakelow/Dragonclaw/Brindle that until now, an outnumbered outgunned non-emp faction might normally be able to get away with peeling off for some AP.

I will tell you what I told the last person who made that argument. Everything you said after "all this will do" already happens every time one faction has more numbers. The emp and the rest of the faction respond to every fire on the map with everything they got. They will completely ignore as one or two keeps get flagged, because they aren't threatened by it at all. It's easy to take them back with emp. So in the mean time, zerg down every town, outpost and everything else that isn't on the circle. Again, this is Emp 101.

What you can do now is, if Emp is being insufferable at your gate or holding something like Dclaw, the moment anything on the circle lights up they will be forced to defend, leaving behind opportunity to take things. Consider all the options for false flagging circle keeps just to force them to respond.

Jaraal wrote: »

Except the bonus scaling is tied to home keeps, not ring keeps. You get full Emp powers and the faction gets max HP bonus only if you own all six home keeps. In other words, if you Emp while only holding your two native ring keeps, you only get 1/3 of max power.

I want to make sure I don't misread the notes, but I believe it is saying your 6 native alliance home keeps, meaning the 6 keeps that are yours at the start of a fresh campaign. So for red that would be Arrius, KC, Farr, BRK, Chal, and Dlowe. Correct? Someone let me know if I am misunderstanding the notes.

So this, like I said, will force emp to defend those keeps rather than trolling gates or squatting other faction home keeps while either ignoring fires at home or just relying on the rest of the faction to take care of business for them.

KingExecration wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

The less emp keeps you have, the easier it often becomes to hold them because your entire faction funnels to the defend the remaining keeps. Once it's down to the last keep, emp faction stacks inside and goes into "outlast mode." All they need to do is repel the enemies a few times and people will start to get bored. Numbers dwindle. Emp faction then pushes out to the next place on the circle, reasserting their claim. This is EMP 101.

I like this change. The reason is that often what you see is the emp running all around the map, defending outposts and AP buffs, not really being if a circle keep gets flagged because they can just go get it back. This should force emperor and their faction to be more mindful of the circle, which should them open up opportunities to cap home keeps and targets on the outer rim of the map.

We shall see. But the last thing emperor needs is to get STRONGER as they lose keeps because it already takes an overwhelming force to dethrone. Emp faction has every advantage.

This change is in bad direction. Many have said why and how. Supporting this change shows to me either lack of experience or being okay with just dumpstering game mechanics that have been in play for 7 years.

Defending final emp keeps and taking final emp keeps have been some of the wildest pvp I’ve ever had (if the game works) I’m all for removing the health entirely emp gets. Double their weapon and spell damage and ult gen and that’s it. If you’re first on the boards and flipped all these rp keeps you should be a menace until you’re inevitably night capped.

It’s supposed to be an overpowered upgrade you get like the hammer. Makes it an actual objective unlike scrolls being borderline worthless. Couldn’t give a hoot for points anyway. I get 50 transmutes win or lose

It's funny to me how quickly people jump toward passive aggressive comments because someone has a different outlook.

I understand you points but I don't think you understand that it's your alliances 3 home keeps and 3 native keeps, not every circle keep. This means to protect your bonus, you really only have to worry about those, the 6 easiest keeps for your faction to defend.

I don't have any sympathy for emperors who would prefer to gate and mow down every resource on the other side of the map because they aren't threatened by losing one or two keeps.

If you are emperor and you want to keep it, defend it. You have every advantage already, and if the opposition starts taking bites at your home keeps, then that's on emperor to do something about it.

Again I want to point out that is what I've been told and that's how the note reads, but I've not gotten into this pts cycle to confirm myself. If anyone knows otherwise let me know.

Maybe if the Emp bonus for the alliance was better than just 2k HP, more people would get behind supporting the Emp candidate. I can't tell you how many times the faction has refused to take the last ring keep simply because they don't like their current points leader. Make it a better perk for everybody else, and we'd most likely see a lot more effort put into gaining the status.

at least 2/3rds of the game like this change.

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Dr_Con wrote: »

at least 2/3rds of the game like this change.

Citation needed.

I don't have a percentage in mind, but I find it hard to reconcile hating lag but loving last Emp keep (only keep) battles.
This probably won't change that much, but I'll take whatever little attempt at creating strategies I can get because right now Emp rarely gives a crap about home Keeps or scrolls, and a lot of players don't care about campaign score either. This stuff needs to matter more or why have it?