I'm just curious about all the complaints about PvP and I agree to some extent, but.

Barovia87 · February 25

moo_2021 wrote: »

Do you think casual PVPers should be able to enjoy vet dungeons without any preparation?

No. But there are exactly zero ticketed Events that will REQUIRE me to go do Veteran Dungeons in order to participate, so that's sort of a moot point for anyone just trying to get through Whitestrake's Mayhem.

fred4 · February 25

tomofhyrule wrote: »

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

Would you invite a PvP player on a vet trial team with their pvp gear and strategies?

People are not entitled to be able to do any content without learning it.

Beautifully said. I would add one change and say access to victory/success should not be an entitlement and earned instead.

"Would you invite a PvP player on a vet trial team with their pvp gear and strategies?"

I split my time evenly between endgame PvE and PvP these days. The answer to the above quote is an emphatic "No". I was in vAS+2. I recognised the name of a prominent PC EU PvPer, who probably wanted to get a perfected Asylum weapon. I watched as he was removed from the group. It was a PUG. I assume he didn't link the achievement.

I love the implication here that ESO PvE is “endgame trials and nothing else.”

Yes, if you’re doing endgame vet trials, you need to work for it. And how does one get started, may I ask? Oh right. There’s a normal mode. Where you can get your feet wet. And then, once you decide you like it, you research some builds and joint groups and go for vet.

In PvP… you get thrown into vet with just a “lol noob, git gud.” So… where do you go to decide if you even care about PvP enough to git gud?

Duels (against friends / slightly better people)
BGs (which have MMR)
Cyrodiil
Imperial City

In ... that ... order. Case closed.

The idea is that BGs and MMR should make that starter area. But that requires enough players to allow for a decent sorting of MMR (and people to play the objective instead of DM-only). It also doesn’t help that all three PvP modes require different builds depending on your goal and strategy - trying to do an IC sewer gankblade won’t exactly be effective in a Crazy King BG.

As an almost pure open world player, I've always had a low MMR. I agree that MMR is inconsistent, but I have definitely felt it's effect in the past, on PC EU. I don't do them often enough to speak for nowadays.

There really isn’t an easy answer here.

Yeah, but there isn't an easy answer for DLC vet trials either. It's a difficulty spike. I only got into them, once I started playing with trial guilds, on Discord, where the leader explained the mechanics. It's honestly the same for PvP. I played in big Cyrodiil groups on Discord, back in the day. We had a PvP learning guild. It wasn't a ball group, it was a learning guild group + half a PUG on any given day. The leader told people where to go and when to push. Learning to stay within battle lines alone was very helpful.

Dax_Draconis · February 25

Barovia87 wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

Do you think casual PVPers should be able to enjoy vet dungeons without any preparation?

No. But there are exactly zero ticketed Events that will REQUIRE me to go do Veteran Dungeons in order to participate, so that's sort of a moot point for anyone just trying to get through Whitestrake's Mayhem.

Yep. Event tickets shouldn't require any preparation other than one's own personal schedule.

VoxAdActa · February 25

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

This is fantastic advice. Thank you so much! You've given me a lot to work with, and I super appreciate it!

For damage you want wanna look at ulfsilds with warrior opportunity and riposte and exploiter node in blue tree. This three might make any of skills hit like nighblade merciless when stacked.
For defences you want to have Ironclad and Duelist blue cp nodes, on classes that are naturally have decent damage (sorcs, nb) you might get ulfsilds with gladiator tenacity and minor protection/minor enervation, as well as revealing flare from support skilltree provides permanent major protection. Theese bad boys would sum up to 6%+6% from cp, 8%+5(10 from crits)% from ulfilds and 10% revealing flare = 35% total additional mitigation that cant be peneterated, only by appling debuffs such as major+minor vuln. If add vampire(15%) and major evasion(20% from AoE) on top you will feel much more tankier.

Also wana share some off meta builds that I play when I get bored, they are cheap and quite specific, but they are quite fun to play.
1. Oblivion knight
Class: works best with warden and templar, but you can setup it on any class.
Item sets: Jerall Mouniatop chieftain, Sload Slembrance, Snake in the Stars, frontbar weapon - infused with oblivion damage enchant.
You want to get
Armor:
Helm - Jerall (heavy reinforced) -health enchant
Shoulder - Jerall (medium impen) - stamina/magica enchant
Chest - Trainee or Druids(heavy reinforced) - health enchant
Legs - Sload(heavy reinforced) - health enchant
Boots - Sload(medium impen) - stamina/magica
Bracers - Sload (medium impen) - stamina/magica
Sash - Star venom(light impen) - stamina/magica
Jewelry:
Neck - star venom (infused) - Mag/stam cost reduction
Ring 1 - star venom (infused) - Mag/stam cost reduction
Ring 2 - pale order(if you are playing solo), malcath(to boost your non oblivion damage, since we dont stack weapon and spell damage on this build), death dealer fete, markyn - might also work as just stat pieces. also infused with cost reduction. (or you can add another trainee/druid piece if you dont have a mythic yet)
Weapons:
Front bar - Sloads lightning staff(infused) - oblivion enchant
Backbar -Star Venom frost staff(powered) - weapon damage enchant
Mundus - Atronach/Serpent, food - jewels of misrule.

Important CP nodes- Focused mending to counterweight Jerall self proc. For the rest - if you have acsees to off-balance on your class use Exploiter, otherwise thaugmaturgy, Riposte to have a damage boost, and Iroclad for mitigation.
Red tree - as usual, Celerity+Sutained by suffering+Survival instincts+Fortified/Boundless Vitality/Bastion.

Important skills - leashing burst(immobilise, anchorite cruelty,minor courage), pestilent soul(desease damage, anchorite cruelty, major defile).
Playestyle - you stack up your dots on the target, dealing ~9-12% of their max health as dot(that cannot be mitigated) on top of reducing theirs healing for 51% (major+minor defile from pestilent soul = 16% healing reduction + jerall fully stacked = 35% reduction).
You are mainly focusing on keeping your anchorites up + procing star venom off cooldown from back bar with elemental suseptability, as well as hitting with your class dot to keep jerall stacks up. And for the rest you can do your base class combos on top.
Works really good on plar since you can do yours meteor-spear-beam combo on target that is already struggles to recover.
So yeah its not quite a faceshredder but its really toxic to deal against, anyone who trice to jump on you soon will realise what mess they are got themself in.

2. Sorc Bomber
Really fun to defend keeps and farm AP.
Sets are Order's wrath, Vicious death, Balorg.

Im using all medium divines pieces, jewelry - bloodthirsty, all armor stacked in mana, jewelry - weapon and spell damage.
Body pieces - Balorg, Orders wrath all medium divines, mag mana enchants
jewelry+fronbar weapon - vicious death lightniong staff, back bar any restro staff you have.
You want to be a stage 4 vamp for this.
Mundus - Shadow.

Skills
fronbar: Evil hunter, elemental exploison, impulse(ranged one), banner, ulfilds(heal, warriors opportunity, minor intellect/endurance), ult-atronach
backbar:Channeled acceleration, power surge, simmering frenzy, regenration, banner. ult - whatever you like

Playstyle:
1. wait for zerg to siege your keeps.
2. enter stealth.
3. go to your back bar, pop - channeled acceleration, simmering frenzy, cast regenration from restrostaff to not die from frenzy, cast banner (Direct damage, chavaliers charge, minor courage).
4. go to your frontbar - precast ulfilds, cast elemental explosion (fire damage/assasins misery/minor brittle), once you se your character let go a fireball of his hand cast charged atro ulti, follow up with ranged morf of impulse
5. watch vicious death do its work.

This builds also require some amount off skill, but they easier to learn and just plays itself to a certain degree. A fun change of pace for me, its like playing your own minigame inside of general PvP that is different from what everyone else plays.

Amazing! I'm going to have to try out that first one.

I've had some moderate success as an nb gank build running Order's Wrath and Kvatch Gladiator (6 med, 1 lgt). DW (for the execute passive) with two daggers (which I might swap out for maces since I suspect pen is more important than crit in PvP). All jewelry is Bloodthirsty. I'm using a 2pc health set to round it out, but since I only have 22k health anyway, I may change that for something like Selene or Skoria. Or a 1pc pen and a 1pc health. No mythics yet (the only one I've dug up so far is Thrassian, but I'm hesitant to bring that into PvP). Double-DOT poisons on both bars. I have 8000+pen (before Mark) and almost 60% crit chance, with +48% crit damage.

I look for targets that have strayed too far away from the main group, or that have stayed too far behind (for example, placing a trebuchet well behind the ballistae), or a target that's gotten close to/below 50% health. Reaper's Mark, Cloak, Ambush in, Incap if it's ready, Surprise Attack x2-3, Assassin's Blade (LA weaving with all), then Vigor, Cloak, and run away. I also keep Hircine's Rage slotted for the free major brutality, so I can use health+stam potions all the time instead of having to switch between health or weapon damage (since you can't get health+stam+weapon power on one potion). There are worse ways I could waste a skill slot.

I've gotten good enough with target selection and rotation to have a decent amount of kills, but the "Vigor, Cloak, and run away" part needs work; I rarely survive after the target's friends realize I'm there. I also have a bad habit of hanging around too long to confirm a kill if the first rotation gets so close but doesn't finish the job.

I've tried Shade, but I can't get it to work right; I either get too far away to port back, or casting the shade alerts the target to my presence, or I go to port back and it just doesn't fire at all for no reason.

I'm considering swapping Incap for one of the Dawnbreaker morphs, but I don't know if the always-up extra 3% weapon damage on the front bar is better than the stun+20% more damage for 12 seconds.

When going zerg vs zerg, I stay back and apply pressure on the group with Lethal Arrow and Poison Injection, and if I see someone at low health in the mix, I tag them with the Grim Focus proc. Except for Grim Focus, I don't get a lot of direct kills that way, but it helps the bralwers out, and I'm fine with that. I still haven't settled on a backbar ult; I was using Toxic Barrage, but it feels like most players just kinda laugh at it.

fred4 · February 26

VoxAdActa wrote: »

I've had some moderate success as an nb gank build running Order's Wrath and Kvatch Gladiator (6 med, 1 lgt). DW (for the execute passive) with two daggers (which I might swap out for maces since I suspect pen is more important than crit in PvP).

All jewelry is Bloodthirsty.

Makes sense for a ganker, but to get away you might try Swift.

I'm using a 2pc health set to round it out, but since I only have 22k health anyway, I may change that for something like Selene or Skoria.

Honestly ... Balorgh. Accept no substitutes. Selene might work, though.

Or a 1pc pen and a 1pc health. No mythics yet (the only one I've dug up so far is Thrassian, but I'm hesitant to bring that into PvP).

Certainly not, if you die a lot

.

Double-DOT poisons on both bars.

Your back bar should probably have the weapon / spell damage enchant on the weapon, and no poison. The same poisons on both bars probably share a cooldown, if not all poisons.

and almost 60% crit chance, with +48% crit damage.

Those stats should probably be reversed. Having a high crit chance is a PvE thing. In PvP, ~40% is enough. Many builds have less. You're aiming for a lucky succession of a few crits when you burst someone, not a sustained high crit rate. On a crit build, you want as much crit damage as you can possibly get. You can go over the PvE crit damage cap, because a player's crit resistance gets subtracted before the damage is capped. Players have 20% crit resistance by default, but most will have at least 30%. Some will have substantially more, such as via Rallying Cry.

Crit damage cap in PvE = +125%
Crit damage cap against a PvPer = +145% or more, to account for the fact they have at least 20% crit resistance

I loofor targets that have strayed too far away from the main group, or that have stayed too far behind (for example, placing a trebuchet well behind the ballistae), or a target that's gotten close to/below 50% health.

Yep, pretty normal NB behavior

.

Reaper's Mark

Never ever open with this skill, unless you're visible. You give your gank away. Find penetration elsewhere. If you do use a Major Breach skill, use Elemental Susceptibility for the nasty status effects. Or a scribed skill. Even Crushing Weapon, Razor Caltrops, or the Nightmother's Gaze set would be better. Mark Target is a nerfed relic. It's just bad.

Ambush

Unless you're wearing Rush of Agony and Vicious Death, e.g. you are a bomber, I probably wouldn't do this either. For the same reason. It doesn't hit hard and it gives the game away. The next skill you are about to cast, your ultimate, has a 400ms delay. That gives the target ample time to react, e.g. to block or dodge roll, most certainly on PC and/or with Miat's PvP Alerts addon. Consider Race Against Time instead. Speed on approach, speed and snare removal to get away, Minor Force for your crit build.

Incap

This is a valid opener that makes the most of the guaranteed crit from cloak. Esp. at 120 ult with the stun. As this has a 400ms delay, like all ultimates, your next skill (except for Grim Focus, which shares the same delay) will hit 600ms later. Your next skill will, therefore, be a guaranteed hit, because it takes the target 1s to break free.

Surprise Attack x2-3, Assassin's Blade (LA weaving with all), then Vigor, Cloak, and run away. I also keep Hircine's Rage slotted for the free major brutality, so I can use health+stam potions all the time instead of having to switch between health or weapon damage (since you can't get health+stam+weapon power on one potion). There are worse ways I could waste a skill slot.

Are you sure that works passively while you are not in werewolf form? Interesting.

I've tried Shade, but I can't get it to work right; I either get too far away to port back, or casting the shade alerts the target to my presence, or I go to port back and it just doesn't fire at all for no reason.

Use Shadow Image Range addon. That said, there is more speed in the game nowadays than years ago. Your own speed, via Celerity CP, green CP, Swift jewelry, Concealed Weapon (if you were magicka), Race Against Time, and so on. Consider the Wild Hunt ring. Other people's speed too. The upshot is that everyone moves faster. Shadow Image works better, if your gameplay is anchored around a position. The more you lean into speed, the less useful Shadow Image becomes. Cloak + speed (and snare removal) is a good defense. Cloak + Shadow Image is a good defense, but a different (older) playstyle. However note Shadow Image can port you through walls and has verticality. Jump down a keep wall and port back up. Drop Shadow Image, unseen, in an IC building and port back. Drop it randomly, sprint forward then port back to behind your pursuers to escape. Drop it below an IC flag bridge, then enter the fight. Jump off Alessia bridge only to port back up mid-jump (hope this still works). The possibilities are endless, only hampered by the high speed in today's game.

I'm considering swapping Incap for one of the Dawnbreaker morphs, but I don't know if the always-up extra 3% weapon damage on the front bar is better than the stun+20% more damage for 12 seconds.

Depends on what you're going for. Only Dawnbreaker of Smiting for PvP, by the way.

VoxAdActa · February 26

Are you sure that works passively while you are not in werewolf form? Interesting.

Yes, it still works passively. It's easy to test; I put it on, the buffs appear in my perm buffs list. I take it off, they go away. I'm sure there's probably something technically better I could use in that slot, but I have enough trouble remembering to push all my buttons, and the skills that grant temp M. Brutality don't seem to have a lot of additional utility anyway, relative to taking up a GCD.

I'll try switching Ambush for Race Against Time. I did notice that Ambush doesn't hit very hard, and it also seems more prone to the "skill doesn't fire" bug than most of the others. Crushing Weapon is another good idea I'll bet I can work in there (instead of Mark). I do like the heal on Mark, but that assumes my target dies.

It is kinda fun, when I can see from a distance that I'm clearly outgunned, to sneak up to the edge of Mark range and put it on someone just to watch them activate all their buffs and spin in a circle a few times. But "because it makes me giggle" probably isn't a good reason to keep a skill on my bar. XD

necro_the_crafter · February 26

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Amazing! I'm going to have to try out that first one.

I've had some moderate success as an nb gank build running Order's Wrath and Kvatch Gladiator (6 med, 1 lgt). DW (for the execute passive) with two daggers (which I might swap out for maces since I suspect pen is more important than crit in PvP). All jewelry is Bloodthirsty. I'm using a 2pc health set to round it out, but since I only have 22k health anyway, I may change that for something like Selene or Skoria. Or a 1pc pen and a 1pc health. No mythics yet (the only one I've dug up so far is Thrassian, but I'm hesitant to bring that into PvP). Double-DOT poisons on both bars. I have 8000+pen (before Mark) and almost 60% crit chance, with +48% crit damage.

I look for targets that have strayed too far away from the main group, or that have stayed too far behind (for example, placing a trebuchet well behind the ballistae), or a target that's gotten close to/below 50% health. Reaper's Mark, Cloak, Ambush in, Incap if it's ready, Surprise Attack x2-3, Assassin's Blade (LA weaving with all), then Vigor, Cloak, and run away. I also keep Hircine's Rage slotted for the free major brutality, so I can use health+stam potions all the time instead of having to switch between health or weapon damage (since you can't get health+stam+weapon power on one potion). There are worse ways I could waste a skill slot.

I've gotten good enough with target selection and rotation to have a decent amount of kills, but the "Vigor, Cloak, and run away" part needs work; I rarely survive after the target's friends realize I'm there. I also have a bad habit of hanging around too long to confirm a kill if the first rotation gets so close but doesn't finish the job.

I've tried Shade, but I can't get it to work right; I either get too far away to port back, or casting the shade alerts the target to my presence, or I go to port back and it just doesn't fire at all for no reason.

I'm considering swapping Incap for one of the Dawnbreaker morphs, but I don't know if the always-up extra 3% weapon damage on the front bar is better than the stun+20% more damage for 12 seconds.

When going zerg vs zerg, I stay back and apply pressure on the group with Lethal Arrow and Poison Injection, and if I see someone at low health in the mix, I tag them with the Grim Focus proc. Except for Grim Focus, I don't get a lot of direct kills that way, but it helps the bralwers out, and I'm fine with that. I still haven't settled on a backbar ult; I was using Toxic Barrage, but it feels like most players just kinda laugh at it.

Spesifics of the build may vary a little depending on a class you are on, if you have any questions regarding this build I can help you figuring it out for the class you choose to run it.

Also have to think of a new name for the build, since this build breaks peoples will before claiming their life. Maybe something about cruelty or torture...

katanagirl1 · February 26

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

Barovia87 wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

Do you think casual PVPers should be able to enjoy vet dungeons without any preparation?

No. But there are exactly zero ticketed Events that will REQUIRE me to go do Veteran Dungeons in order to participate, so that's sort of a moot point for anyone just trying to get through Whitestrake's Mayhem.

Yep. Event tickets shouldn't require any preparation other than one's own personal schedule.

I did two Midyear Mayhems and got the Star-Made Knight title on a PvE stamblade many years ago before I made a PvP toon. You can do it, you’ll die a little more often and won’t be as effective as a dedicated PvP player, but generally your teammates won’t care as long as you make the effort.

kind_hero · February 26

I am not new to PvP, since I play ESO from late 2014. However, I am more PvE focused player, so after all these years I have reached only the level of Major.

My input in this post is regarding to the points made by the OP.

I really don't like the feel of these PvP carrot on the stick events, because pve players like me have to go through all sorts of pvp challenges to obtain an outfit or a cosmetic that has no pvp value. It's just something the devs wants us to do.

The experience for me is horrible because the imbalance between "professional" pvpers and casual players is so high. Many times I got one shot-ed, and looked at the recap panel for minutes to understand how someone can cast those abilities in less than a second. I wish I could do that in PvE. Anyway, the idea is that as a player, you don't understand what has just happened, and there is also a feeling of hopelessness, like okay, there is nothing I can do about it, finish the objectives and get the hell out asap.

These days I really don't mind getting ganked or griefed around quest givers in Cyrodiil towns or around quest objectives in the IC. It is part of getting the tickets or golden objectives. But it is not fun at all, it makes me hate what ESO has become. An endless carrot on the stick to artificially force activity in some zones or game systems. From all the "carrots", including the fishing one, the pvp is the most hard to bear if you are not a PvP-er, or in a pvp guild.

I have some moderate hope regarding the new Cyrodiil mode the devs want to test. Maybe it will change Cyrodiil in something better. One last thing... I also believe many PvP sets have some difficult to understand 5 pc bonuses. A small wall of text to explain a very situational bonus. I won't even bother. I'll just go to a web site with builds, and pick a build that seems interesting to me. Gone are the days when bonuses were simple, like x% chance to get in a mode when you always crit for 6 seconds, or on event A have buff B and debuff C, and so on.

necro_the_crafter · February 26

kind_hero wrote: »

I am not new to PvP, since I play ESO from late 2014. However, I am more PvE focused player, so after all these years I have reached only the level of Major.

My input in this post is regarding to the points made by the OP.

I really don't like the feel of these PvP carrot on the stick events, because pve players like me have to go through all sorts of pvp challenges to obtain an outfit or a cosmetic that has no pvp value. It's just something the devs wants us to do.

The experience for me is horrible because the imbalance between "professional" pvpers and casual players is so high. Many times I got one shot-ed, and looked at the recap panel for minutes to understand how someone can cast those abilities in less than a second. I wish I could do that in PvE. Anyway, the idea is that as a player, you don't understand what has just happened, and there is also a feeling of hopelessness, like okay, there is nothing I can do about it, finish the objectives and get the hell out asap.

These days I really don't mind getting ganked or griefed around quest givers in Cyrodiil towns or around quest objectives in the IC. It is part of getting the tickets or golden objectives. But it is not fun at all, it makes me hate what ESO has become. An endless carrot on the stick to artificially force activity in some zones or game systems. From all the "carrots", including the fishing one, the pvp is the most hard to bear if you are not a PvP-er, or in a pvp guild.

I have some moderate hope regarding the new Cyrodiil mode the devs want to test. Maybe it will change Cyrodiil in something better. One last thing... I also believe many PvP sets have some difficult to understand 5 pc bonuses. A small wall of text to explain a very situational bonus. I won't even bother. I'll just go to a web site with builds, and pick a build that seems interesting to me. Gone are the days when bonuses were simple, like x% chance to get in a mode when you always crit for 6 seconds, or on event A have buff B and debuff C, and so on.

Sets are only a fraction fo the biggest issue. Right now ESO is so overwhelmingly inflated with proc based effects, you cant simply keep track of all of them. Not with base game UI. Much more important setup is tuning your addons to keep track of all your important effects (set procs/sustained by suffering/pains refugee/survival instincts/riposte/pots cooldown/enchants cooldown/scribing buffs/strike from the shadow/undeath) and its not even a half of effects that you have to either memorize and develop muscle memory to refresh or use an addon to keep track of them for you.

On the topic of gear, maybe eso was much more imbalanced back in the day, but for me prior to u35 making a build was just figuring a class/spec sustain, and after that core is built I could run anything else on top of that to a same result.

As the example I use to pioneer a melee magblade before summerset, as magblades were usually worst spec due to not having acsess to snare removal, so I used it with two-hander front bar before hybridization, and it was super effective and fun to play. Core of the build was lich garments set that gives a big chunk of mag recovery on 33% uptime, basicly once you low on mana you proc lich and get like 4.5k mag recovery, and can spam you cloack util your last brain cell dies. And then on top of that I used wizards ripost when I was solo, Julianos If I was in group and War-Maidens for ganks. But once summerset came out this build become redundant as suddenly everyone had an acsses to RaT i.e. snare removal without a need to run 5pc medium armor or two-hander.
Same thing was about mag DK, used to slap magicka furnace + bloodspawn, and the rest of sets I juggle between was just a flavour at this point.

Back in a day just strong major minor buffs (15%/30% before the nerf) + CP bonuses + baseline skill passives provided enough offencive and defensive capabilities, so figuring out how to sustain your class spec was the only thing you need to have at least half decent PvP build. But on the high end it allowed for the skilled players to run some crazy all-round builds that can kite full 24 man zerg around resourse tower only to turn back and oneshot half of them with theirs dawnbreaker+burst combo. You dont see that amount of power in that kind of players nowadays, as sometimes even the best of them can die to zerg surfers using nicely timed negates, pull before they reach LoS, jerall+star venom, etc.
And today, good builds have to stack a lot different buffs/debuffs to have at least small window in which they are capable to kill someone/ survive retaliation.
And on the other hand less expirienced players wouldnt think their builds so thoroughly, and will have much less power compared to what they would have with prenerf CP/Major+Minor buff.

Right now every piece you run has to optimised to give as much bonuses as you can have, or you will fall behind quite drasticly. Also most popular setup of front-bar 5pc + back bar 5pc + monster helm 2pc + 1 trainee + 1 mythic is a wierd setup for me. That 1 free-slot piece of trainee feels out of place rn as there is only two options - druids(worse one) or trainee.
Maybe ZoS would release some more sets with different one piece-ers to fit in that place but I doubt it.

Aliniel · February 26

One of the issues in ESO is that there's no ELO or any similar system that would put players against players of similar skills. And honestly, I have zero trust in ZOS to implement anything of the sort correctly at this point. Just look at the Group Finder and the state it's been in even after several reworks...

The very concept of the PvP in this game is flawed. They wanted big wars of 1000 vs 1000 vs 1000... But their game can't handle it. And so, they have been slowly cutting off pieces of PvP away (mercenaries, lower population cap, etc.). The distrust in PvP in ESO is so great, that a substantial number of players either quit the game or completely ignore the PvP aspect of it. The issues have been brought up repeatedly on the forums and all we got were empty generic corporate promises about addressing it.

And with such a minor player base engaging in PvP, there's really no motivation for ZOS to invest in it. It's a cursed loop.

WaywardArgonian · February 26

The learning curve of PVP is indeed steep, but comparing it to an FPS is not really fair. I'm glad that ESO is not a game based on reflexes and map knowledge. Learning theorycrafting, team work, balancing defense and offense and familiarizing yourself with your rotation can be seen as obstacles that make PVP less accessible, but they also add a layer of depth to PVP that is difficult to find anywhere else. I've known so many PVP mains who were thoroughly sick of ESO and uninstalled, but nearly all of them come back at some point because there is just nothing quite like the PVP experience in this game.

One aspect which, in my opinion, not enough people talk about when it comes to the inaccessibility of PVP in ESO is the lack of reliable in-game information. The tutorial is paper-thin in general when it comes to teaching you about the mechanics of ESO, and the in-game build guides are woefully outdated and have never been good to begin with.

This lack of in-game communication also affects PVP: remember no-proc Ravenwatch? That would've been the perfect starting point for many new PVP'ers because it adhered to much simpler rules. The only problem is that those rules were never properly communicated to the player. Even the working set list for Ravenwatch that ZOS published themselves was not accurate. Many sets that should have worked, didn't, and many sets that had a proc condition did work in the no-proc environment. I played in Ravenwatch a lot because the performance there was better, and the gameplay was more straightforward. Nearly every day, there was someone in chat asking 'does this set work here' or 'why does my Earthgore not proc'. That shouldn't happen in a game. Predictably, Ravenwatch died out.

Then there is the Under 50 campaign. Surely that's a good way to start, right? Well it was, until it was killed by the stickerbook allowing players to run golded-out end-game setups there. Now it is just a playground for players who like to dominate the map with no meaningful resistance, or people going for ez emp achievement.

What I'm trying to say here is that there are a lot of ways in which you can make the PVP in this game more accessible before you start tinkering with the core aspects that have come to define it. There are a lot of mistakes in the core game design that can be weeded out with relatively little effort. The question is whether PVP has enough priority for that to happen.

Kersa · March 25

From a casual player perspective, I realized that I was just fodder after several times going 0 and 20 being beat down by say 400-70 in what the game eludes to being casual mode because it states "non-champion". There are some other options for capturing nodes but I got camped at the spawn and apparently wasn't hiding enough for someone to see me. I then received a flurry of Snipes before I could assess the situation. I understand I can go around asking the internet to tell me how to play and help me get around those pesky anti-automation rules but what is the point in playing the game if I have mechanical and logical automations?