My two cents – I think PVP Cyrodiil is just old

Ingel_Riday · December 13

TLDR: It’s an old area and mode based on an old design ethos that isn’t very appealing anymore to most people. I don’t think there’s much of a way to salvage it at this point, though I appreciate ZOS trying. It’s never going to be popular again.
_______________________________

I thought I’d chime in with my two cents about PVP Cyrodiil for the fun of it.

Vengeance is a clear effort to turn PVP Cyrodiil around and I appreciate it, but I think… I think the core problem is that PVP Cyrodiil is just really an antiquated mode, on a fundamental level. A goodly number of the original developers came over from Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot, which had three factions with their own exclusive PVE zones. Said factions would eventually feud in a common PVP zone, taking bases and doing stuff against each other for points and giggles. Okey dok.

Sound familiar? That was this game. Instead of Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard… we got Daggerfall Covenant, Aldmeri Dominion, and Ebonheart Pact. Instead of fighting over the New Frontiers, players fought over the Imperial Heartland. ESO began its life as a logical follow-up to Dark Age of Camelot, and that was fine in 2014. Made sense.

But things have moved on. Even this game has moved on. The artificial faction divides between players were dropped in 2016 (which was 100% the right decision). Most new zones post-Craglorn are faction-agnostic, with the Three Banners War increasingly treated like some weird fluke happening far off in a distant land. Outside of the original base game zones, I don’t ever see the factions murdering each other, enslaving each other, and land-grabbing each other. Because it doesn’t matter anymore. Core zone content has moved on.

The lore has changed, too. For the better, mind you. The goofy, clearly shoehorned factions have been changed to political marriages of convenience, which most of Tamriel avoided joining.

Ex: Only The Rift and Eastmarch bothered enlisting in the Ebonheart Pact, mainly to boost the clout of the Skald King. The other Nords want NOTHING to do with his Imperial ambitions and despise his encroachments on their lands and authority. The only Argonians to join up were the ones in Shadowfen, for whom it was the only way to get out from under Dunmer occupation and enslavement. The Argonians in the rest of Black Marsh either joined up with someone else (Blackwood), are too far away to be effectively roped into anything by Mournhold (Murkmire), or are staunch isolationists in backwaters so remote that none of it matters. Meanwhile, both House Telvanni and House Dres of the Dunmer opted out on the Dunmer-side. House Redoran has offered some support, but probably because their core heartlands are surrounded by the Pact on all sides and they don’t want to be crushed. They’re not happy.

AWESOME. The faction has gone from an incomprehensibly gooberish joke to a lucid political machination. House Hlaalu and House Indoril making power plays alongside the Skald King. If they can make him emperor (and they NEED an easily-manipulated human emperor figurehead, because none of the human races would accept a mer as their sovereign after the Ayleid fiasco), he will be their ticket to awesome trade deals, greater influence, and military support against the other houses. Works out for him, too. He’ll be able to assert greater authority over the rest of Skyrim and stoke his ego on a Ruby Throne. Great. The freed Argonian slaves are really just along for the ride as extra meat for the grinder. They know how things are probably gonna go for them after the war (poorly), but they don’t have an out yet and have to play along while looking for an off-ramp (Keshu’s “off-ramp” was Gideon).

Much better! This is great, nuanced writing. I love it. But if there isn't any new lore or story propping up PVP Cyrodiil and most zones either ignore it or treat it like a silly squabble (that can be easily set aside for Fellowships and mutually beneficial anti-Daedra initiatives), then why bother engaging in it? Because the gameplay is fun and the battle-zone is interesting?

Okay, except neither is really the case. The battle-zone is a predominantly empty, sparsely detailed, bland map that makes you run 5+ minutes from copy-and-pasted fort to copy-and-pasted fort while listening to the sleepiest music that I’ve heard for a PVP zone. It has long stretches of NOTHING happening and, when something does happen, God help you if you die without a player camp nearby. If you do, you’ve gotta run five minutes to get back to the fight.

It's clearly a known problem, because Major Gallop is SUPER easy to get in the PVP line to help with the tedium. But that’s a band-aid on an overly large, empty map… which has to be empty to avoid a slide-show performance. Oh, and you WILL be dying a lot, because PVP Cyrodiil is brutally obtuse and has a steep learning curve. Good luck figuring out a viable build on your own, and most guides are so old that they aren’t going to help you.

Vengeance REALLY helps mitigate the learning curve, sure, and that’s a big step in the right direction. But the map is still empty copy-and-paste misery with sleepy music. It’s not fun. It’s not visually interesting or compelling. It wasn’t really any of those things in 2014, either, and there are a lot of better options for pvp out there. Also, the few people still engaged in PVP Cyrodiil are Stockholm-syndromed into the current set-up and LIKE IT. They don’t want it to change. It’s a relic that they’ve grown very fond of and they’d probably leave if you gutted it. Then what? Will enough people flood in to play Vengeance to make up for the population loss? Maybe, but I kind of doubt it. People that like large-scale battles are playing Chivalry 2 or Battlefield 6 or Fortnite. They’re not going to come here, especially for sleepy Cyrodiil.

Truth be told, I think PVP Cyrodiil is just FUBARed. I think there are too many things going against it. If it were me, I’d dump it. Sunk cost it. I’d keep the Vengeance system with its fixed loadouts and classes for PVP, because it works. It’s industry-standard stuff that is easier to balance and fine-tune. Also, it distinctly separates PVE balancing from PVP balancing, which is a god-send. Then I’d build new battle-zones that were less dull. Make pockets of conflict for the throne that were more like Battlefield / Chivalry maps. Shamelessly copy what works from elsewhere.

PVP Cyrodiil is a relic in many, many ways… and I don’t think you can retrofit it into a success at this point.

MorallyBipolar · December 13

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

TLDR: It’s an old area and mode based on an old design ethos that isn’t very appealing anymore to most people. I don’t think there’s much of a way to salvage it at this point, though I appreciate ZOS trying. It’s never going to be popular again.
_______________________________

I thought I’d chime in with my two cents about PVP Cyrodiil for the fun of it.

Vengeance is a clear effort to turn PVP Cyrodiil around and I appreciate it, but I think… I think the core problem is that PVP Cyrodiil is just really an antiquated mode, on a fundamental level. A goodly number of the original developers came over from Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot, which had three factions with their own exclusive PVE zones. Said factions would eventually feud in a common PVP zone, taking bases and doing stuff against each other for points and giggles. Okey dok.

Sound familiar? That was this game. Instead of Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard… we got Daggerfall Covenant, Aldmeri Dominion, and Ebonheart Pact. Instead of fighting over the New Frontiers, players fought over the Imperial Heartland. ESO began its life as a logical follow-up to Dark Age of Camelot, and that was fine in 2014. Made sense.

But things have moved on. Even this game has moved on. The artificial faction divides between players were dropped in 2016 (which was 100% the right decision). Most new zones post-Craglorn are faction-agnostic, with the Three Banners War increasingly treated like some weird fluke happening far off in a distant land. Outside of the original base game zones, I don’t ever see the factions murdering each other, enslaving each other, and land-grabbing each other. Because it doesn’t matter anymore. Core zone content has moved on.

The lore has changed, too. For the better, mind you. The goofy, clearly shoehorned factions have been changed to political marriages of convenience, which most of Tamriel avoided joining.

Ex: Only The Rift and Eastmarch bothered enlisting in the Ebonheart Pact, mainly to boost the clout of the Skald King. The other Nords want NOTHING to do with his Imperial ambitions and despise his encroachments on their lands and authority. The only Argonians to join up were the ones in Shadowfen, for whom it was the only way to get out from under Dunmer occupation and enslavement. The Argonians in the rest of Black Marsh either joined up with someone else (Blackwood), are too far away to be effectively roped into anything by Mournhold (Murkmire), or are staunch isolationists in backwaters so remote that none of it matters. Meanwhile, both House Telvanni and House Dres of the Dunmer opted out on the Dunmer-side. House Redoran has offered some support, but probably because their core heartlands are surrounded by the Pact on all sides and they don’t want to be crushed. They’re not happy.

AWESOME. The faction has gone from an incomprehensibly gooberish joke to a lucid political machination. House Hlaalu and House Indoril making power plays alongside the Skald King. If they can make him emperor (and they NEED an easily-manipulated human emperor figurehead, because none of the human races would accept a mer as their sovereign after the Ayleid fiasco), he will be their ticket to awesome trade deals, greater influence, and military support against the other houses. Works out for him, too. He’ll be able to assert greater authority over the rest of Skyrim and stoke his ego on a Ruby Throne. Great. The freed Argonian slaves are really just along for the ride as extra meat for the grinder. They know how things are probably gonna go for them after the war (poorly), but they don’t have an out yet and have to play along while looking for an off-ramp (Keshu’s “off-ramp” was Gideon).

Much better! This is great, nuanced writing. I love it. But if there isn't any new lore or story propping up PVP Cyrodiil and most zones either ignore it or treat it like a silly squabble (that can be easily set aside for Fellowships and mutually beneficial anti-Daedra initiatives), then why bother engaging in it? Because the gameplay is fun and the battle-zone is interesting?

Okay, except neither is really the case. The battle-zone is a predominantly empty, sparsely detailed, bland map that makes you run 5+ minutes from copy-and-pasted fort to copy-and-pasted fort while listening to the sleepiest music that I’ve heard for a PVP zone. It has long stretches of NOTHING happening and, when something does happen, God help you if you die without a player camp nearby. If you do, you’ve gotta run five minutes to get back to the fight.

It's clearly a known problem, because Major Gallop is SUPER easy to get in the PVP line to help with the tedium. But that’s a band-aid on an overly large, empty map… which has to be empty to avoid a slide-show performance. Oh, and you WILL be dying a lot, because PVP Cyrodiil is brutally obtuse and has a steep learning curve. Good luck figuring out a viable build on your own, and most guides are so old that they aren’t going to help you.

Vengeance REALLY helps mitigate the learning curve, sure, and that’s a big step in the right direction. But the map is still empty copy-and-paste misery with sleepy music. It’s not fun. It’s not visually interesting or compelling. It wasn’t really any of those things in 2014, either, and there are a lot of better options for pvp out there. Also, the few people still engaged in PVP Cyrodiil are Stockholm-syndromed into the current set-up and LIKE IT. They don’t want it to change. It’s a relic that they’ve grown very fond of and they’d probably leave if you gutted it. Then what? Will enough people flood in to play Vengeance to make up for the population loss? Maybe, but I kind of doubt it. People that like large-scale battles are playing Chivalry 2 or Battlefield 6 or Fortnite. They’re not going to come here, especially for sleepy Cyrodiil.

Truth be told, I think PVP Cyrodiil is just FUBARed. I think there are too many things going against it. If it were me, I’d dump it. Sunk cost it. I’d keep the Vengeance system with its fixed loadouts and classes for PVP, because it works. It’s industry-standard stuff that is easier to balance and fine-tune. Also, it distinctly separates PVE balancing from PVP balancing, which is a god-send. Then I’d build new battle-zones that were less dull. Make pockets of conflict for the throne that were more like Battlefield / Chivalry maps. Shamelessly copy what works from elsewhere.

PVP Cyrodiil is a relic in many, many ways… and I don’t think you can retrofit it into a success at this point.

We get it. The learning curve for Cyrodiil Grey Host is steep.

But vengeance in no way what ever prepares a player for actual live PvP. The only way to get good at PvP is to put in the time and effort. And It's worth the effort too by the way.

ShutUpitsRed · December 13

Game came out in 2014. Gray Host gets population locked almost every night. Dunno what to tell you lol, you even admit that people enjoy it as it is. Kinda rude to advocate for getting rid of a game mode people enjoy just because you don't think it's good?

Edit: I added the "almost" modifier to protect against the certainty that someone would get on my butt about absolutes and YET.

BardokRedSnow · December 13

I really dont understand why people think that because the majority of players who are not endgame and do not participate in endgame content, thus disliking greyhost, it means that greyhost isnt popular. It is, last night it had a crazy queue.

This just isnt covid where we have everyone unemployed and can play all day during work hours. And the game as a whole has less players in general.

It can be better and can be improved. The problem is Zos doesn't want to continue trying apparently, judging from their statement about it and performance.

All vengeance shows is they are wrong about the direction that pvp should go and they need to course correct. Clearly pvpers prefer greyhost going by this recent test, and going against the customer has never gone well for them, or anyone. It isnt stockholm syndrome lol all of us who enjoy greyhost recognize it can and should be improved on.

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater aint solving anything.

imPDA · December 13

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

TLDR: It’s an old area and mode based on an old design ethos that isn’t very appealing anymore to most people. It’s never going to be popular again.

Talk for yourself please, and no, it is not very old or something. I will join Cyrodiil the next moment it becomes more performant. At least without lagspikes, because I used to poor performance in general, but constant lags are crazy sometimes, so I stopped playing in Cyro at the start of the year or at the end of previous to be more precise.

I will join BG again after 4x4x4 returned, I dislike 8x8 or 4x4, so I stopped playing BGs even earlier than Cyro.

I can say the same at least about my 4 friends, and I saw even more acquaintances asking about how ESO changed in new updates, ready to return but stopped by the same problems made them left.

Ingel_Riday · December 13

ShutUpitsRed wrote: »

Game came out in 2014. Gray Host gets population locked almost every night. Dunno what to tell you lol, you even admit that people enjoy it as it is. Kinda rude to advocate for getting rid of a game mode people enjoy just because you don't think it's good?

I mean, fair enough. I love the base zones. I adore their writing, quests, and off-kilter senses of humor that pre-date committee-based writing and consulting groups. Lot of people consider them relics, though, and wouldn't be sad to see them re-worked. I'd be heartbroken. Your counterpoint isn't without merit, sentimentality-wise.

However, I will say that Gray Host hitting population caps during primetime hours of most nights (not all, by your own admission) is exceedingly faint praise. The population caps are 300 per faction. You're capping out at 900 people total on servers hosting all North American players. That's... that's NOT great, and Gray Host is the only one of its kind now. There used to be other instances of faction-locked Cyrodiil. It's the last man standing of a dying game mode. Also, to belabor the point, by your own admission the mode doesn't even hit 900 people every night. It's not popular enough for that. Not popular enough to consistently hit 900 people in all of NORTH AMERICA.

Which brings me back to my point. I think it speaks highly of ZOS that they haven't given up on trying to make PVP Cyrodiil work, and Vengeance is a step in the right direction (in my opinion), but honestly... I don't think they can make it work. I think the very core design of it is antiquated. It's a variant of a PVP mode of a 2001 MMO that needs modernization of its map, base layout, and so on. It'd be easier to start fresh than try to retrofit this thing.

Also, I don't know how you balance 700 armor sets (with hundreds of unique procs), 7 classes, innumerable subclasses, the function of skills in PVE and PVP, AND the function of said skills in the Vengeance variant? That's so many moving parts. I have never seen balance be achieved in PVP Cyrodiil, and that was BEFORE subclassing. It's never going to happen now, and every effort to get things in line is just going to disrupt something else. It's a Byzantine nightmare of entwined systems.

I don't see it working. Again, if it was me, I'd start fresh. Well, assuming that I had the funding and assuming that my statistics didn't indicate that said 900 people buy hundreds of dollars of cosmetics each month. That changes cost-benefit calculations.

imPDA · December 13

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

The population caps are 300 per faction. You're capping out at 900 people total on servers hosting all North American players. That's... that's NOT great, and Gray Host is the only one of its kind now. There used to be other instances of faction-locked Cyrodiil. It's the last man standing of a dying game mode. Also, to belabor the point, by your own admission the mode doesn't even hit 900 people every night. It's not popular enough for that. Not popular enough to consistently hit 900 people in all of NORTH AMERICA.

Cap is just a technical limitation, there are much more players who want to play, they rotate over the prime time - some leave, new comes from the queue. If you make cap to be x2 from the current cap, it will probably be filled too, idk, we don't have stats about number of active PvP players to talk about it. And take into consideration another fact - different days different players join Cyro (and different guilds have raids different time), so one day it can be 60 usuals playing every day and 300 player who play mostly on Monday, another day - 300 people playing mostly on Tuesday, etc etc, and add some amount of night, morning, day players from different region or different daily routine. You are trying to speak for others again, without any adequate argumentation or stats (nobody has stats tho, but now at least we know correct numbers, and they are not 300 nor 900 tho

).

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Also, I don't know how you balance 700 armor sets

They should not be balanced. I don't know why everyone sure that everything should be balanced, while it should not. It is core of any MMO, some gear is easily available, but worse, some is better, but you have to spend some time getting it. And now, it is really easy to get any gear in ESO unlike in other MMOs ("pay-to-win in ESO" is another topic, not discussing it) - so basically, everyone can get the same gear, why you are still complaining? There always were (and there will always be) 2-3-4 "meta builds" and 5-10 "better than other" sets, and it is OK. And there are a lot of creative people with creative builds tho. TLDR; Balance is actually bad.

Lord_Hev · December 13

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

TLDR: It’s an old area and mode based on an old design ethos that isn’t very appealing anymore to most people. I don’t think there’s much of a way to salvage it at this point, though I appreciate ZOS trying. It’s never going to be popular again.
_______________________________

I thought I’d chime in with my two cents about PVP Cyrodiil for the fun of it.

Vengeance is a clear effort to turn PVP Cyrodiil around and I appreciate it, but I think… I think the core problem is that PVP Cyrodiil is just really an antiquated mode, on a fundamental level. A goodly number of the original developers came over from Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot, which had three factions with their own exclusive PVE zones. Said factions would eventually feud in a common PVP zone, taking bases and doing stuff against each other for points and giggles. Okey dok.

Sound familiar? That was this game. Instead of Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard… we got Daggerfall Covenant, Aldmeri Dominion, and Ebonheart Pact. Instead of fighting over the New Frontiers, players fought over the Imperial Heartland. ESO began its life as a logical follow-up to Dark Age of Camelot, and that was fine in 2014. Made sense.

But things have moved on. Even this game has moved on. The artificial faction divides between players were dropped in 2016 (which was 100% the right decision).

It was the wrong decision. ESO truly stopped being a proper MMORPG the second one Tamriel released. Faction exclusive PvE zoning and instancing meant that we had to PvP in order to -meet- "everyone else." That is one of the unsung core aspects that made the PvP population vibrant. I made so many frenemies during that time, and it further motivated me to create characters on other factions, so that I could pvp, and also pve with my new made frenemies. Faction exclusive zones cultivated faction loyalty better then Greyhost does with it's fake arbitrary faction lock. And faction exclusive zones also made faction hopping equally as prevalent for those-minded individuals that met new faces that they wanted to experience content with.

Radiate77 · December 13

Vengeance needs to cook some more before it resembles anything I’d want in the game

Necrotech_Master · December 13

i think long term vengeance will be fine, would almost rather deal with vengeance rules than unkillable players and ball groups that choke the server (and also are mostly unkillable and run around doing nothing)

i like cyrodiil, but it needs lots of players to really operate well

with the 120/faction pop caps its borderline too low, which is why it feels like theres so little action sometimes

it also doesnt help when single players try to do anything like take resource on stacked maps and then get dogpiled by an entire faction because nothing is going on

cyrodiil is good when its populated, but the current pop caps are too low to support map the size of cyrodiil, but obviously zos wont raise the pop caps in current cyro due to the performance issues (though during that one test a couple years ago where they put the 300/faction pop caps in normal cyro, that was honestly the closest it felt to 2014 cyro in terms of overall map activity)

Poss · December 13

Why do people who don't play Cyrodiil feel the need to make these posts and offer their wisdom as to why they don’t think it works?

I don't prog trifectas anymore, cant stand that element of the game anymore but I’m not going to write a 500 word essay explaining this

blktauna · December 14

what leads you to belive the folks commenting don't play in Cyro?

kind_hero · December 14

Good analysis.. In my case, I could enjoy Cyrodiil mostly as it is, with one change. I would add some fast travel game mechanic that will replace the boring riding simulator.

Teleport to a fresh battle pin point, siege etc, or add some anchor spell which would allow the player to restart from a previous location saved by the anchor spell. This is just a rough idea, there are lots of details to take in account, but you get my point.

I don't have much free time for gaming, let's say I have two hours for a session. So if I spend 60% of my time riding in Cyrodiil from one point to the other, maybe getting ganked on the way too, I would rather do PvE, housing or something else where progress is more visible. There are BGs too, but I do like the sense of larger battles, sieges, defending keeps etc better than the small packed intense BG fights.

LE: Many years ago, I played WoW, and back then, it had an amazing battleground scenario called Alterac Valley. I played that original version where you had two teams of 40 players fighting over a rather large map (far smaller than Cyro), and the PvP in old AV could take hours, with lots of epic battles and sudden twists. There was very little wasted time in old Alterac, like riding. I have never been a fan of PvP and am not good at it even now, but that was the most exciting PvP experience I had. Cyrodiil gave me some of those vibes back in the first years, when the game play was simpler and the population in Cyro was higher. Now, it's just riding simulator.

robwolf666 · December 14

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

I really dont understand why people think that because the majority of players who are not endgame and do not participate in endgame content, thus disliking greyhost, it means that greyhost isnt popular. It is, last night it had a crazy queue.

I don't know what server you're on, but in the UK there were no full bars in Greyhost last night, or any day/night recently (XB).

BardokRedSnow · December 14

robwolf666 wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

I really dont understand why people think that because the majority of players who are not endgame and do not participate in endgame content, thus disliking greyhost, it means that greyhost isnt popular. It is, last night it had a crazy queue.

I don't know what server you're on, but in the UK there were no full bars in Greyhost last night, or any day/night recently (XB).

PCNA