reazea wrote: »

I only see two PvP main players posting in favor of Vengeance.

Everyone I know who's still here PvP'ing, including my entire PvP guild, will stop playing ESO all together if vengeance mode is mandated.

Since I assume this references me, I want people to actually know my position.

Yes, I am in favor of Vengeance. That does not mean if Vengeance went online as it is now, I would be happy. I'd have reservations. Vengeance has too many flaws at the moment. I am in favor of Vengeance because the tests have succeeded in doing some of the things that Live has completely failed at (namely, large battles, attracting new players, bringing "ball groups" down to size, eliminating do-everything power creep builds). There is thus the potential and basis to make Cyrodill better and more fun. But it's just that: potential. It's not there yet. So, I support more testing so that ZOS can learn something and improve Live Cyrodiil.

If this position makes me a "PvEer" or a "casual" or not a "real PvPer" as I have heard constantly in both this test and the previous one, then go ahead an call me those things. Because I do not want to be associated with the the elitist attitudes that have been on full display denigrating both the people who are partaking in test and their feedback. They are making the classical logical fallacy of an appeal of authority, while conveniently anointing themselves as said authority. I will admit quite a few of these players are indeed probably better than I am at ESO - especially as I spend so much time away from Cyrodiil - but just because someone might be a better player than me or the other "PvEers" being derided, does not make opinions somehow inherently right or necessarily better for the overall health of the game. There are numerous scholarly studies that have shown that experts, especially people convinced of their ability, are literally just as bad as a chimpanzee throwing darts against a wall when it comes to predicting future developments in their supposed field of expertise. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock is a good recent study. On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman E. Dixon is a perceptive look how experts are consistently wrong in a specific field. Or you can just Google the post playing career of Michael Jordan, arguably the great basketball player of all time, as a general manager and minority owner. These experts are too often blinded to alternatives because they trust their own expertise so much. Besides, if I wanted the opinion of a "real" PvPer, the ones I would consult are the legion who have left the game precisely because of how poor the very mode the critics are trying to tell us is where the "real" PvP happens. How can that be the "real" PvP when the number of those who left are much higher than those who opted to stay?

There are quite a few things that make Vengeance appealing to me that I will never have on Live, no matter how blue in the face critics get.

• Big battles / epic sieges. If I want to duel, I'll go to Stormhaven. If I want an exclusive small-scale environment where I don;t have to worry about what is derisively called "zerging," I will sign up for a Battleground. I log into cyrodiil because it is AvAvA, has castles, and strategic objectives that are supposed to be contested over by factions. I still remember epic siege battles I took part in 2014. These memories are still fresh in my mind over a decade later because they were amazingly fun and unique gaming experiences I never had in any other game I have ever played (and I'm pretty old). These experiences are impossible to ever get again on Live. Too much powercreep, too many calculations have forced ZOS to cut Cyrodiil's population to tiny numbers, too much indifference to PvP by ESO's customers. I want that back. Not another Saturday night of tower-humping and watching a mere group of 12 hold an entire server hostage with that whole third floor nonsense.
• Players with limitations. I do not find it an enjoyable PvP environment that meta builds run around with everything without any weakness. They have 35K health, 30K+ resistances, do not run out of resources, do incredible burst damage, possess powerful healing, and on demand speed, all with hardly any drawbacks. It was bad enough before sub-classing. Now I have to deal with DKs with Merciless procs, Templars with Deep Fissure, and Wardens with Streak. The core RPG and MMO essence is that builds do not have everything. That what makes them "builds," players have to make real choices to be strong in one area at the cost of being weak in another. "Wizards" are powerful "nova" type damage dealers but are frail and wimpy. The whole point in having a trinity of tank-dps-heal is that nobody can do all of these things. When a player can do everything and have no weaknesses, they basically become immune to anything the vast majority of players could do to them. The barrier to entry becomes so high, only a small cadre of highly experienced and dedicated players are going to find they can ever do anything meaningful in that environment, let alone have fun in it. This doesn't mean I like templates. It means I preferred the PvP we had in 2015 when players did not have everything which Vengeance does better at recreating than the PvP we have on Live.
• Participation/genuine enthusiasm from the ESO community in PvP. I don't just think it's wrong to deride and disrespect the non regulars who are trying Vengeance, I think it is counterproductive. Someone has to run siege. Someone has to rez the "real" PvPers who still somehow die. Someone has to make sure the camps are replenished. Someone has to repair the walls. Someone has to make call outs in zone. Somehow has to show initiative and be the first to go through a contested breech. Someone has to heal players from the large amount of incoming siege damage. These are all the thankless tasks that need to happen for AvAvA to function that I hardly ever see the people who style themselves as the "real" PvPers do. I get it. I do. You'd rather be out there actually fighting. I am guilty too. I'll just stand on a ram and pretend that I am helping. (Although I will say I am a very aggressive rezzer. I will take the time to rez everyone, even if they are a recruit or even if they sent me not so friendly tells in the past). But I respect, acknowledge, value, and look forward to the contribution of the very people and opinions of those who are being dismissed as transient and unserious Vengeance participants. AvAvA simply would not function without them. I also think the enthusiasm part is important. I play on DC and I cannot overstate the value that one player, who is very good and everyone respects, has in encouraging people to go to such and such keep and do things that are not fun (fighting ball groups). When zone chat is just full of negativity and cynicism, it's contagious. If people are not positive and engaged with what they are doing, I don't want to be a part of that. I really like that quite a few people in Vengeance are at least trying to fire people up. It's is a breath of fresh air from Live. This is coming from someone who hates faction locks. I like that that are invested enough to say things "for the Pact!" and are encouraging players. It is quite enjoyable to play in an environment where many players feel they can at least accomplish something.
• Reprieve from awful mechanics. I cannot emphasize how much I hate Rush of Agony. I'll leave it at that. I've had my fill of other high damage proc sets with trivial conditions that have a long, long history from Vipers to Tarnished. The whole unkillable block tank is emblematic of how powercreep is out of control. Certainly not a fan of going from 100-0 health. Think the constant healing to full health makes for boring, repetitive gameplay. And, of course, there are what are typically derisively called "ball groups." Now, I have been in one since 2014. Even I have a hearty dislike for how they function and how oppressively strong they are. It's totally driven by numerous busted mechanics, of which HoT stacking is just the tip of the iceberg. The whole run around on the third floor nonsense is about as unfun gaming experience I've ever had. That our guild Vs. guild fights have degenerated to both sides doing the exact same thing: circling each other every 12-15 seconds for a RoA proc to be combined by Deep Fissure coordinated AoE is all that needs to be said about comps, strategy, and build diversity. The idea that is "real" PvP is absurd. It isn't. That's why so many players have left

When I voice my support for Vengeance, it is less about me liking templates and certainly not endorsing the bigger zerg wins reality that I will fully admit is what happens in Vengeance (something I think can be reformed by removing the AoE damage cap of 3). It is my appreciation that after over ten years, since the 1.2 patch, that ZOS is finally serious about doing something about the debilitating latency realities that plagues Cyrodiil that have made it impossible to have the sort of functional epic siege battles that attracted me to the game in the first place. My latency has been the same as what I get on Live, i.e., workable and most of the time not a problem. I log into Vengeance because this isn't just theoretical. I have seen it with my own eyes. The reality is I have had more of these sorts of battles in just ten days of playing Vengeance than I had since 2018. I've also been in my share of smaller fights, and in my assessment those smaller fights are won by the people who played better (even those in which I lost). I don't think the abilities are well balanced (for ex, there is too much healing in Vengeance II), but it does show me that experience and skillful gameplay matter much more than some critics have let on. In short, there is concrete data that ZOS can take and least try and do something with Live.

It would be better if they added some meatbags and 70K health is a little much.
Yeah, Joy has been around since Crown, Manny and Tyrell used to play.

Took a different stance today. Defender and repairer of keeps & resurrector of my factioneers. After a couple of hours I got comfortably into the flow. Sniping and pouring boiling oil on intruders was invigorating.

Later in the day I did the same with even larger battles.

I'm on PC-NA and all through these two sessions the map was reasonably divided between the three factions with plenty of movement and changes in resource ownership. Great fun!

Hope this is the beginning of a great new era in PVP. I loved Vengeance.

Your PvP campaign, Vengeance, is terrible. There's nothing to do there except for going in a group, but if you want to play solo, you should take the NB because you've made it the strongest and most unbalanced class. You've given it advantages that make it easier to play solo. It has its own speed buff, the ability to go into stealth, and good damage multipliers, while other classes don't have anything like that. I've been playing PvP since 2016, and I can definitely tell you that there are too many problems with PvP, and you don't want to deal with any of them. Instead, you're just running more tests. You have a lot of cheaters, players who use macros and game bugs, and they've adapted to the realities of ESO so well that they've been breaking your game for years, while all you can do is run tests. You don't have a proper anti-cheat system, and the one you do have doesn't work properly against dishonest players. To be honest, you don't even want to balance the game properly. Before the introduction of subclasses, the Sorcerer was the strongest class in PvP, and almost every second player played as a Sorcerer, but the Necromancer was the weakest class, so weak that almost no one played as a Necromancer. And so you decided to introduce subclasses, but you didn't fix the previous problems with the classes, and as a result, we now see that almost everyone still plays the same combinations: Sorcerer, Nightblade, and Warden. The other options are rarely used. So where is the diversity? There isn't any, and there never will be. You've somehow eliminated the uniqueness of the classes and made one class the strongest and the other the weakest, but with the introduction of subclasses, the situation has become even worse. I don't know what's on your mind or what your tests will lead to, but I sincerely hope that you will finally see the game's problems and start addressing them.

Without passive abilities, many classes have lost their individuality, and in a campaign where there are no subclasses, individuality and class diversity are important. You've taken away the DK's ability to quickly accumulate and use points for their ultimate ability, the Arcane's durable shield that scales with HP, the Templar's ability to be a great healer, and the Necromancer's ability to be dead. I hope that in the future, you will restore the individuality of the classes.

Vengeance = no ball groups, no outrageous armor and weapon advantage, No Stuck in Combat!

And best of all, hearing the whining from the usual suspects used to dominating.

Their tears are sweet.