I do not dislike this event. All aspects of the game should get an event, it's just right. If PvE has events, so should PvP.

My issue is this: To get event tickets you must do PvP content, whether you like PvP content or not.

Considering the general state of PvP......this is not good. On a normal day when there is no ongoing event, it feels like the servers are barely holding on. Now when way more players go into PvP to get their daily tickets or event rewards, I don't imagine the serves are very happy.

And the fact you have to wait maybe an hour in queue jus to enter any campaign, does not bode well for anyone.

Even though I hate this event, I did participate quite a bit. Despite my previous post. Because why not? And the townquests in Cyrodiil are fun.

During this event I have gotten hate whispers, praise whispers, died a lot, killed some other players, got killed from stealth a few times, was in massive battles, captured towns, lost towns, captured keeps, defended keeps, and most of all did many many many townquests. Gained around ~2.2M AP total, which as a PvE player feels like a lot. And I am still terrible at PvP!

This year was... bad. Like really bad.

I was in Cyro every day, but I felt like I just could not find anyone in there. It felt like every campaign EP was gated, and evidently all of the EP was just sitting in the Grey Host queue instead of doing PvP in other campaigns.

Normally I can zerg surf for a bit, but this year it was just unimaginably frustrating to try to do anything. I felt like the only way I could earn any AP was to solo resources, and it was annoying when I'd get jumped by a group of high-level PvPers while soloing a resource deep in EP territory with no other alliance territory in sight.

I do think something needs to be done to equalize the alliances though. PC-NA EP has been basically gone from all non-GH campaigns for the past few months, as can be seen from the fact that the EP score is always less than half of the other two. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling problem - EP doesn't go into Blackreach since you get so little AP, and you get so little AP since there's no other EP there to take territory so you can get to fights.

What I'd like to see would be for the score bonuses, even outside the event, to be rebalanced. If one alliance is significantly lower score than the others, then that alliance should get a 2x (or whatever) AP bonus to entice people to join that alliance and even things out a bit. I think there is a score bonus that's supposed to be applied, but I've never seen it show on the Campaigns menu.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

@tomofhyrule, I can only assume it had something to do with time of day, because when I was on PC NA (usually sometime between midnight and 6 AM Eastern Time) there were usually a lot of EP players on, and there were a lot of battles where EP basically zerged over DC. In fact, last night/this morning EP had all 6 scrolls and were giving both AD and DC a really hard time. If EP was gated by either AD or DC-- or both-- whenever you were on, it must have been at a time of day when most of EP had logged out for the day or night.

I feel like that's as anecdotal as me saying "there's no EP" though. Unless you're talking about Grey Host.

But here's the deal: This is the current score standing from Blackreach:

and since it's only the 6th, these are scores from the event.

Once alliance has literally half the score of the other two. Objectively, there's no way that the scores will be this unbalanced without one alliance just not having a decent presence in there.

Isn't there supposed to be a "low score" AP bonus in campaigns? Isn't that supposed to try to entice people to come in on that alliance to get them in? Isn't that supposed to recalculate every 30 minutes? So what's the threshold, if an alliance that's losing by that much isn't eligible for it?

I feel like the bonus system is broken. I remember when we used to see those bonus icons before, and now it looks like if you're EP, there's no point in going into any campaign that isn't Grey Host since you'll be gated and unable to do anything.

Cyrodiil population cap needs to be raised and server issues associated with this fixed.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

@tomofhyrule, I can only assume it had something to do with time of day, because when I was on PC NA (usually sometime between midnight and 6 AM Eastern Time) there were usually a lot of EP players on, and there were a lot of battles where EP basically zerged over DC. In fact, last night/this morning EP had all 6 scrolls and were giving both AD and DC a really hard time. If EP was gated by either AD or DC-- or both-- whenever you were on, it must have been at a time of day when most of EP had logged out for the day or night.

I feel like that's as anecdotal as me saying "there's no EP" though. Unless you're talking about Grey Host.

But here's the deal: This is the current score standing from Blackreach:

and since it's only the 6th, these are scores from the event.

Once alliance has literally half the score of the other two. Objectively, there's no way that the scores will be this unbalanced without one alliance just not having a decent presence in there.

Isn't there supposed to be a "low score" AP bonus in campaigns? Isn't that supposed to try to entice people to come in on that alliance to get them in? Isn't that supposed to recalculate every 30 minutes? So what's the threshold, if an alliance that's losing by that much isn't eligible for it?

I feel like the bonus system is broken. I remember when we used to see those bonus icons before, and now it looks like if you're EP, there's no point in going into any campaign that isn't Grey Host since you'll be gated and unable to do anything.

Okay, I saw you mention Grey Host in your post and thought you were talking about EP in the PC NA Grey Host campaign, but I've just reread what you wrote and now realize you were saying "just sitting in the Grey Host queue instead of doing PvP in other campaigns." I was indeed talking about Grey Host, which is my home campaign. Most EP players must prefer to play in Grey Host, because from what I've seen they usually have a strong presence there, and I'll have to take your word about their weak presence in the other campaigns since I don't play in those.

EdjeSwift wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Once alliance has literally half the score of the other two. Objectively, there's no way that the scores will be this unbalanced without one alliance just not having a decent presence in there.

Isn't there supposed to be a "low score" AP bonus in campaigns? Isn't that supposed to try to entice people to come in on that alliance to get them in? Isn't that supposed to recalculate every 30 minutes? So what's the threshold, if an alliance that's losing by that much isn't eligible for it?

I feel like the bonus system is broken. I remember when we used to see those bonus icons before, and now it looks like if you're EP, there's no point in going into any campaign that isn't Grey Host since you'll be gated and unable to do anything.

First, there is no LOW SCORE bonus, it's Low Population bonus. And EP is rarely low pop, as I've stated before in other threads all 1 bars are not equal and 1 bar does NOT equal low pop.

On to the main point, the score is not reflective of EP's presence, it's a reflection of EP's tactics and priorities.

EP is often highly populated on Blackreach, they just choose NOT to go for score. EP is the faction in Blackreach which focuses on holding a specific keep like the Alamo and win the most phyrric victory. I've seen on at least 5 occasions in the past three weeks as Blackreach EP the players choose to hold Blue Road or Chalman at the expense of Arrius, Farragut AND Kingscrest. EP has some very strong players but they're not focused on map control or score they do their own thing and find fights, like attacking Black Boot for 3 hours despite only having their Trikeeps or less(I saw this as an AD defender who couldn't leave BB for a while cause I was eyes and defending.)

There used to be a 'Low Score' bonus. The icon that showed on the score sheet was as opposed to the 'Low Pop' bonus with the icon .
...but come to think of it, I haven't even seen the 'Low Pop' icon on any of the campaign sheets in ages either. Are those bonuses even working in the first place?

As to your second point, that's feeding into one of PvP's biggest problems. And yes, that's not exactly something ZOS could fix since it's a player mindset thing. It's also related to the idea of doing all BGs as DM versus playing the objective, or even the PvE-land version of speedrunning random normals and leaving the new players in the dirt.
My point - as someone who is very much not a PvP player - is that these 'nonstandard' goals are extremely off-putting to someone who is not a PvP player, and the fact that people are essentially 'ignoring' the stated goals means that I feel a bit lost, or unwanted, or something else along those lines. Essentially, this is an excellent way for PvPers to further increase the barrier-to-entry for PvP, and thus ensure that no new players want to join and that the PvP population only declines over time.
And again, a loss of population is inherently more detrimental for PvP than for PvE. While overland content and even many PvE dungeons can be done if literally nobody else is around, the same cannot be said for PvP. Because who are you going to be PvPing against if nobody's there?

Specific to this idea of the "remember the Alamo" version of holding keeps for ages while losing the trikeeps, that's great if you have the entire alliance in one place. But what is expected to happen when people get picked off and they're on camp cooldown? They have to ride to Black Boot all the way from the south Morrowind gate? And what about those incoming players who want to get in on the action? Again, a huge ride to even get to the fight, and you get picked off by the other alliances before you get there. That's sure to get people invested into PvP...

tomofhyrule wrote: »

EdjeSwift wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Once alliance has literally half the score of the other two. Objectively, there's no way that the scores will be this unbalanced without one alliance just not having a decent presence in there.

Isn't there supposed to be a "low score" AP bonus in campaigns? Isn't that supposed to try to entice people to come in on that alliance to get them in? Isn't that supposed to recalculate every 30 minutes? So what's the threshold, if an alliance that's losing by that much isn't eligible for it?

I feel like the bonus system is broken. I remember when we used to see those bonus icons before, and now it looks like if you're EP, there's no point in going into any campaign that isn't Grey Host since you'll be gated and unable to do anything.

First, there is no LOW SCORE bonus, it's Low Population bonus. And EP is rarely low pop, as I've stated before in other threads all 1 bars are not equal and 1 bar does NOT equal low pop.

On to the main point, the score is not reflective of EP's presence, it's a reflection of EP's tactics and priorities.

EP is often highly populated on Blackreach, they just choose NOT to go for score. EP is the faction in Blackreach which focuses on holding a specific keep like the Alamo and win the most phyrric victory. I've seen on at least 5 occasions in the past three weeks as Blackreach EP the players choose to hold Blue Road or Chalman at the expense of Arrius, Farragut AND Kingscrest. EP has some very strong players but they're not focused on map control or score they do their own thing and find fights, like attacking Black Boot for 3 hours despite only having their Trikeeps or less(I saw this as an AD defender who couldn't leave BB for a while cause I was eyes and defending.)

There used to be a 'Low Score' bonus. The icon that showed on the score sheet was as opposed to the 'Low Pop' bonus with the icon .
...but come to think of it, I haven't even seen the 'Low Pop' icon on any of the campaign sheets in ages either. Are those bonuses even working in the first place?

As to your second point, that's feeding into one of PvP's biggest problems. And yes, that's not exactly something ZOS could fix since it's a player mindset thing. It's also related to the idea of doing all BGs as DM versus playing the objective, or even the PvE-land version of speedrunning random normals and leaving the new players in the dirt.
My point - as someone who is very much not a PvP player - is that these 'nonstandard' goals are extremely off-putting to someone who is not a PvP player, and the fact that people are essentially 'ignoring' the stated goals means that I feel a bit lost, or unwanted, or something else along those lines. Essentially, this is an excellent way for PvPers to further increase the barrier-to-entry for PvP, and thus ensure that no new players want to join and that the PvP population only declines over time.
And again, a loss of population is inherently more detrimental for PvP than for PvE. While overland content and even many PvE dungeons can be done if literally nobody else is around, the same cannot be said for PvP. Because who are you going to be PvPing against if nobody's there?

Specific to this idea of the "remember the Alamo" version of holding keeps for ages while losing the trikeeps, that's great if you have the entire alliance in one place. But what is expected to happen when people get picked off and they're on camp cooldown? They have to ride to Black Boot all the way from the south Morrowind gate? And what about those incoming players who want to get in on the action? Again, a huge ride to even get to the fight, and you get picked off by the other alliances before you get there. That's sure to get people invested into PvP...

low pop is more common to see than low score

i dont know exactly what the trigger is for low pop, but sometimes it seems to trigger nonsensically, like ive seen a faction with 2 bars have low pop lol

the low score is very rare, the only time i think that triggers is if the 2nd and 3rd place factions are below 50% of the score of the leading faction

my understanding of low pop is that its based on some previous hour(s) of population, i dont know if it checks every 30 min (might be every 60 min when it does an score eval tick)

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

@tomofhyrule, I can only assume it had something to do with time of day, because when I was on PC NA (usually sometime between midnight and 6 AM Eastern Time) there were usually a lot of EP players on, and there were a lot of battles where EP basically zerged over DC. In fact, last night/this morning EP had all 6 scrolls and were giving both AD and DC a really hard time. If EP was gated by either AD or DC-- or both-- whenever you were on, it must have been at a time of day when most of EP had logged out for the day or night.

Much to Team Green’s consternation, the event brought some GH EP guilds over to BR for guild runs due to the insanely long GH queues. You were likely playing during said guild runs. These EP guilds are all returning to GH now that the event is over. AD and DC can breathe a sigh of relief on BR and return to the status quo.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I doubt it locks us from playing everything with our alts, but does it mean that I can only bring EP characters into any Cyrodiil at all? Or is it just that if I ever wanted to go grab skyshards on an alt, I'd have to do it in a campaign other than Grey Host.

Granted, it's not like I bring my alts into PvP in the first place, but I'd hate to try out Grey Host and then end up not being able to play my alts in dungeons or whatever.

Pretty self-explanatory, "you can enter it on ONLY [insert alliance] characters for the duration. Doesn't prevent you from other campaigns.

hated it, hate, hate, hate it.

xclassgaming wrote: »

hated it, hate, hate, hate it.

MasterSpatula wrote: »

I PVPed a lot, got a couple mil AP, but I'm super glad it's over. Time to take a break from PVP. I don't think my blood pressure could handle even one more instance of getting Rush of Agony-ed from the far end of the porch to the back flag and then blown up before I even have an opportunity to break free.

Time to spend my spare time doing something a little more balanced, like maybe chicken fighting against a bulldozer.

Here's the bottom line: I refuse to do anything in a game that I absolutely HATE. I pvp'd in other games (in WoW, on a pvp server no less, with a friend's guild; in RIFT when I wound up having to do so because of my own stupidity).... And I'm done. I'm just not ever going there again. I don't need tickets or anything else bad enough to put myself through that ever again.