I get that these changes might seem frustrating at first, but I don’t fully agree with your take on most of them.

Group size reduced to 12: This seems to encourage more balanced fights and less zerging. Smaller groups lead to more tactical gameplay, which can make battles more competitive.

Doors removed from resource towers: It forces people to fight more in the open rather than hiding inside towers, which can be a bit of a stale tactic. It keeps things dynamic.

Destructible Alessia Bridge: I actually agree with this one. Bridges shouldn't be destructible.

Overall, I think these changes might've improved PvP by pushing for more varied strategies. It's all about how we adapt!

I almost never go to Cyro & IC nowadays. Even during double AP events. Ball Groups & proc sets destroyed the experience for me. It used to be cool with large armies clashing, but now population is kinda too low for that. And even if there is a relatively large fight, Ball Groups usually shows up after a couple of minutes and starts to farm AP, ruining the fun for every one else, so that only 12 players can have fun.

Also:
1. Population got ninja-nerfed, so group size was also reduced from 24 to 12. It would be sill if one group was like 1/3 of entire population.
2. Doors removed from towers, but what is bad is that resource towers are no longer destructible. So people just sit inside & troll. And entrance with no door serve as a kill zone (like every narrow space).
3. Bridge can be destroyed, same as mile gates to kinda force some "global map crowd control". With population being this low there is simply not enough players to fight an all fronts at once.

Don't forget:

Players like to kill other players
>Give them immortality via shields and heal stacking

Players like to move around the map to find fights or show off their cool mounts
>Keep them in combat with aforementioned immortal warriors so they can't mount.

Oh, nice! Two birds with one stone there!

Players like to move around the map to find fights or show off their cool mounts
>Keep them in combat with aforementioned immortal warriors so they can't mount.

I often have combat bug so cant mount anyway.

Poss wrote: »

I never understood the point of changing the bridges and milegates so they can be destroyed. Destroying Ash milegate for example could delay AD pushing Ash but they could always just go around. Same as the bridges

This. And it only takes one player about 30 seconds to rep a bridge or gate. So what's the point?

Put the doors back on the towers and give the towers the same treatment as bridges. That way, no matter who owns the tower it can be destroy or repaired by anybody.

PVP has needed balance changes for a long time. They need a small dev team dedicated to this aspect of the game in order for it to become a proper endgame. BGs are more entertaining but not really endgame content. Cyrodiil was originally designed to be similar to DOAC and for many be the endgame content.

I think some bad decisions have been made lately, I think they are losing the population in PVP and PVE.

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As much as I want to see Cyro updated, sometimes we forget the number 1 content in any MMO is supposed to be the players. PVP content works best when the maps are detailed by overall allow for players to make that content themselves.

There are also successful ways to add interesting places in pvp without it feeling binary too. Right now I would say Cyro's main issue is that its TOO linear in it's goals and does not allow the freedom for groups to express how they want to paint with their pvp brush. Other mmos have good ideas too for this:
- New World's rep race + declare war mechanics are interesting. I like the fact you can grind a rep to force a keep into a fight. The ESO daily rewards are underused, this could be a good way to add this mechanic in. Example: Scout quest could break doors down, Kill dragonknights could remove those classes from the keeps NPC list for a few minutes, etc.
- New world also forces players to complete pvp quests in order to build the rep for a capture as well as adding PVE gather/building mechanics to forts to increase their strengths. ESO has this system, but its in the form of repair items. They can remove those items and instead force players to do quest turn ins at the respective resource. Want to rebuild walls? Better go to the mine and complete a few quests (they can also be pvp oriented, capture enemy mine, kill players to "steal" ore, etc.)
- WoW Classic's wpvp also has elements that make sense here. Alot of the world buffs used in raids are actually in the player world. What I found from 2019 onward in that game was that ALOT of spicy pvp content was made in the zones that had these buffs. ESO had this too but it was in the form of arena weapons for top 1% of the ladder. Capturing 3 resources of a keep should give you a pve buff (and each keep can be a different buff). They can also do the same for pve content, running your undaunted quests could give your keeps stronger npc abilities, health, etc. BGs too, running a few BGs could give a pvp buff. Just add a bunch and be creative with it, a vocal minority of players will complain, but overall it gives players more paint brushes.
- Classic wow also had a weird moments in time where world buffs were so rampant in their use, that it created a cool dispel-world buff meta. At some point servers became 1-faction dominated, and while wpvp fights were scarce, this counter world buff meta was started there. Rivial speed run guilds would make priest/shamen alts on the other faction for the sole purpose of dispelling those buffs off their rivial guilds to keep them from completing their raids at a faster than record time. Sure your pve experience was terrible if you didnt plan ahead, but it made for interesting social interactions which is the entire point for a MMO. Also gave pvp players a target in open world, ganking pvers might be bad for pve players, but its a MMO so the solution for gankers was always to make friends or ask for help.

In the end, I think they can add a few things to make cyro more dynamic. Can they actually do it is the other question.