And like that, Grey Host and Imperial City are Ghost Towns Again [PS-NA]

El_Borracho · February 5

When an event is required to populate both of these PVP areas to the point a wait time to enter is required, and then the populations crater after the event ends, that means there are problems with both zones. Looking at the threads, that could be lag, the current Warden Charm consternation, ball groups, tank metas, map designs, keep runners, some other complaint du jour, or something else, the issue should be investigated by the devs instead of masked by events or Vengeance campaigns.

The population might bounce back in a week or so, but it will not go back to full queues for all factions until the next event. These events never translate into gaining regular PVPers. If anything they make a lot of the regular PVP players take a break while driving away potential PVPers from the PVE population. This gap feels like it has grown over the last few years.

I don't know what the solution is. I think Mythics are bad for PVP and Subclassing is even worse. I enjoyed PVP a lot more around the Morrowind-Summerset eras, then the slow decline began. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than this. I know others disagree, and that's fine. But I also feel that those players agree that something is wrong with PVP and its only getting worse.

freespirit · February 5

Ball groups killed my enjoyment of PVP.

I used to paricipate quite often but it got so you could set your watch by their daily appearance and then all the fun close fights suddenly got steamrollered.

They might be having fun but many others just logged out!

albertberku · February 5

To find out what the solution is you can take a look at Guild Wars 2. To summarize it: Structured, balanced and fair combat design with classes (and not just updating whole PvP with random underthought ideas like Subclassing all of a sudden) and a sane combat gameplay where it is not about hiding your animations and who can press more buttons in perfect 1s cooldowns, and how fast you can turn in circles.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · February 6

I feel for you El Borracho and a lot of what's been said here so far at least is a good take on it. Ive said things like this before in other forums, but subclass took all the problems you've all mentioned and exponentially multiplied them.
Aside from that, I dont see how anyone is going to convince the people who already quit PvP to start again with what's going on there. I have no doubt some self proclaimed PvP "expert" will follow up my post with some kind of trolling (and I dont care either) because it's THAT kind of attitude that's chasing away tired veteran and brand new players.

The fact that PvP affects PvE is a problem. Or that PvE affects PvP is a problem. 6 one way, half a dozen the other.
New players feel like its just a 1 shot stop. They go there, get 1 shoted 20 times by the same people, get some vitriol whispered to them and leave. You will never hear from them or see them in PvP again either. A lot of those people liked Vengeance too. Ive even taken them in there for it, at least they felt like they had what resembled a fight.
Maybe it just needs redone from the ground up. Look at Final Fantasy, the classes have the same abilities for their respective classes. If you're that good, you're that good.
But the PvP overlords here won't have it. Just hearing anyone say that upsets them. All while they keep demanding and receiving the nerfs and other things that have been going on for far far too long. They should be worried about their population numbers.

Gabriel_H · February 6

El_Borracho wrote: »

the issue should be investigated by the devs instead of masked by events or Vengeance campaigns.

El_Borracho wrote: »

I don't know what the solution is.

ZOS' solution is Vengeance, at least for Cyrodiil. Whether that is the right answer remains to be seen as we haven't had a sustained and finalised version yet, but one should be coming this year.

I'm not a fan of the current design of Vengeance. It lacks flavour. Weapon skills in particular are meh and seem out of place and pointless, but I am a fan of the intent. Reduce the server calcs, improve the performace, alter skills in PvP so that there is better overall balance. There is no 20 v 1 and the 20 struggling to kill the 1 in Vengeance.

I would have taken a different route, but with the same intent in mind. In my (biased) opinion my route would have left a lot of flavour, been less of a jarring transition from the rest of the game and into Cyro, and been more fun. But that is just my (biased) opinion.

I stopped PvPing in earnest when sub-classing came out. I have no desire to spec the flavour of the day, and no desire to be engage in fights I cannot win because of the imbalance. When Vengeance returns later this year, I shall return to Cyro for two reasons - 1) To see how it is. 2) To give feedback.

PvP guilds seem intent on boycotting Vengeance, while railing against the problems that exist in Cyro, which seems counter-productive. Vengeance addresses a lot of the problems, just not necessarily in a way some like, but by boycotting Vengeance they lose the opportunity to give feedback and push for changes.

Vengeance is coming. Vengeance is ZOS' solution. Players can either accept that and work to improve it, or continue to ignore it and still complain about the problems.

Gabriel_H · February 6

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

The fact that PvP affects PvE is a problem. Or that PvE affects PvP is a problem.

For me, that is one thing I cannot wrap my head around. Most MMOs have this problem. Most MMOs in their design, in their descriptions, in their gameplay don't actively distinguish between PvE and PvP - it's viewed as immersion breaking.

ESO/ZOS already broke that immersion (without any real consequence or loss). They have things that state "only affects monsters" or "only affects players" or "does not work in a PvP zone".

So, why don't ZOS simply take that to it's logical conclusion and balance the skills in PvP without affecting them in PvE. Venegance seeks to do that, but it's poorly done imo, and it's a jarring change porting into Vengeance Cyro. It's like playing two different games.

They could easily achieve the same outcome, but without the need to re-build from the ground up. It's an odd choice given they already break the 4th wall.

BioBitter100 · February 6

El_Borracho wrote: »

The population might bounce back in a week or so, but it will not go back to full queues for all factions until the next event.

freespirit wrote: »

Ball groups killed my enjoyment of PVP.
[...]
They might be having fun but many others just logged out!

Well, while all alliances on EU yesterday were actually poplocked and I had a 40 queue for Gray Host, this problem exists. There is not much casual PvP left. Yesterday I went to 5 different fights, to meet 5 different organized groups, 4 of which were fullsized ballgroups and 1 was a smallscale. Then outside of those groups AD and DC on EU both have their megazergs with Yoven´s, AD minions and TDA. Who, despite there being a 12 person cap for a group, regularly run around with more than 25 people. And each of these groups has what feels like 30k healing per second+shields on each member.
Of course it´s a mmo and grouping should be rewarded, but nowadays if you don´t have an organized group you might as well just log off. The people I usually play with were busy or offline so I simply did just that, log off. There´s no point. Especially with the contrast to whitestrake´s it shows just how broken PvP is. While it´s not perfect I would take Vengeance over current Gray Host PvP any day.

ShutUpitsRed · February 6

All zones are comparatively dead after their respective events. Do DLC zones need reworked because so few people are farming dragons or harrowstorms or daily quests outside of events?

aetherix8 · February 7

El_Borracho wrote: »

When an event is required to populate both of these PVP areas to the point a wait time to enter is required, and then the populations crater after the event ends, that means there are problems with both zones. Looking at the threads, that could be lag, the current Warden Charm consternation, ball groups, tank metas, map designs, keep runners, some other complaint du jour, or something else, the issue should be investigated by the devs instead of masked by events or Vengeance campaigns.

The population might bounce back in a week or so, but it will not go back to full queues for all factions until the next event. These events never translate into gaining regular PVPers. If anything they make a lot of the regular PVP players take a break while driving away potential PVPers from the PVE population. This gap feels like it has grown over the last few years.

I don't know what the solution is. I think Mythics are bad for PVP and Subclassing is even worse. I enjoyed PVP a lot more around the Morrowind-Summerset eras, then the slow decline began. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than this. I know others disagree, and that's fine. But I also feel that those players agree that something is wrong with PVP and its only getting worse.

I disagree with the highlighted statement. It’s MYM that made me try PvP, circa 2020, and it became my favorite mode until no-proc removal. These events would work great for bringing new/casual players to PvP if it weren’t for the lag and imbalance that are plaguing Cyrodiil. These few years ago, a total noob would have at least an illusion of standing a chance, but that’s no longer the case. Nobody enjoys being exclusively a cannon fodder, and there’s no place to learn anymore.

Also, I don’t think that WSM makes vets take a break, rather the contrary, since there is so much more action during the event as opposed to the quite dead Cyro most of the time. PCEU only GH is poplocked during primetime, and I expect it to remain like that because it’s the only way to prevent it from being replaced by Vengeance.

GH enjoyers need to keep demanding changes to their mode: limiting HoT/shield stacking, adjusting scribing so it doesn’t overpower certain classes and abilities, adjusting certain item sets. This gap between vets and newbies needs to be reduced if GH is to renew its populations. I wouldn’t hold my breath though, it cannot be balanced fast while class reworks aren’t complete.

Silaf · February 7

My problems with the current PvP are:

1 Necro bombers
2 Too many tanks
3 Permahealing groups

Is normal for the population to increase while an event is active and decline in the next week after all people get tired.
On one ting i really agree... i wish for pvp combat to revert to what it was 10 years ago and subclassing to disappear.
Whoever is managing combat in ZOS should be replaced.

dcrush · February 7

ShutUpitsRed wrote: »

All zones are comparatively dead after their respective events. Do DLC zones need reworked because so few people are farming dragons or harrowstorms or daily quests outside of events?

^ this.

Additionally, on PC NA (which is apparently the most populated server) any group activities outside of prime time are pretty dead. Queues for dungeons outside prime time can be up to an hour, queues for Battlegrounds as well. Does that mean that group activities need to be reworked as well?

Don’t get me wrong, Cyrodiil needs improvements. But the population dropping after an event is not a good metric for that.

Gabriel_H · February 7

dcrush wrote: »

ShutUpitsRed wrote: »

All zones are comparatively dead after their respective events. Do DLC zones need reworked because so few people are farming dragons or harrowstorms or daily quests outside of events?

^ this.

Additionally, on PC NA (which is apparently the most populated server) any group activities outside of prime time are pretty dead. Queues for dungeons outside prime time can be up to an hour, queues for Battlegrounds as well. Does that mean that group activities need to be reworked as well?

Don’t get me wrong, Cyrodiil needs improvements. But the population dropping after an event is not a good metric for that.

It's partly a self-defeating mindset among the players. That is not to say that there weren't/aren't problems in those areas, but it becomes a death spiral. Players don't like something, the participate less, that means less players, which means longer queue times, which means less inclination to queue, which means less players, which means longer queue times ...

BardokRedSnow · February 7

Gabriel_H wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

the issue should be investigated by the devs instead of masked by events or Vengeance campaigns.

El_Borracho wrote: »

I don't know what the solution is.

ZOS' solution is Vengeance, at least for Cyrodiil.

Vengeance is coming. Vengeance is ZOS' solution. Players can either accept that and work to improve it, or continue to ignore it and still complain about the problems.

Lol vengeancee got mogged by greyhost when both were available.

Vengeance isnt a solution its avoiding fixing the problem.

They're working on it with the class refreshes and healing nerfs. That said, Greyhost NA is still very active.

BardokRedSnow · February 7

As for being a part of it or complaining, complaining is getting fixes to the actual gameplay finally so Im definitely ok with sticking around for normal pvp with the pvpers while we see the game we've been playing since beta be improved. This is the most responsive pts Zos has had to date.

Orbital78 · February 7

This is nothing new, AD just PVD's the whole map during non-North American hours in GH. IC has always been a ghost town unless a guild organizes something.

olsborg · February 7

Ballgroups, rush of agony and a stale and onesided meta is what kills pvp, the population is melted. If you dont run stormcalling, assassination or gravelord / animal control with rallying cry and null arca, monomyth and balorgh(and slight variations of said build), youre just not gonna be competetive.

Northwold · February 7

I don't really do PvP but on ballgroups specifically maybe they should add some sort of wildcard artifact that you can pick up somewhere that, when used in a location, causes ever increasing damage to players of the same alliance depending on how close they are to each other.

Maybe this is what the hammer does (I've literally no idea what the hammer does), but just a thought.

Lekjih · February 7

I stopped pvping as much when having using your wits got punished. People sitting up top and heavy attacking people to death in IC is annoying, and I can no longer use my warden gate to pull them down. Pvp has had a death by a thousand cuts.
People don't like getting ganked. They complain about being ganked so it gets nerfed.
People don't like being bombed. They complain about being bombed so it gets nerfed.
People don't like burst builds, fast builds, roll builds, pulls, ports, streak, so they complain, then it gets nerfed.
Tank and ball groups are all that's left and no one likes that either. They want to dps each other down like 30k overland mobs.
Simply put, pvp is full of things people don't like, they complain until it's tasteless, then complain that it's tasteless
Yes, sometimes skills and builds are overperforming, but sometimes, people just need to get better at pvp. You can't expect to load into Cyro as a rank amateur and be pvping on the same level with people who have been no-lifing it for 10 years. I wouldn't expect that in any other area of life and I certainly don't expect game devs to be able to code around a skill gap issue. No shade to the devs, I don't think this is a dev issue. This then leaves a need for a training method. People think Vengeance will be this, but somehow I think that if skilled pvpers are made to be in Vengeance with the less skilled, the less skilled will still be steamrollered.
Whitestrake's doubling the rewards seems to be enough to entice people in to die regardless. Maybe pvp rewards need rebalancing?

rockDokRock · February 8

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

The fact that PvP affects PvE is a problem. Or that PvE affects PvP is a problem. 6 one way, half a dozen the other.
New players feel like its just a 1 shot stop. They go there, get 1 shoted 20 times by the same people, get some vitriol whispered to them and leave. You will never hear from them or see them in PvP again either.

This pretty much for me.

I tried the battlegrounds when they had the event for that; there doesn't seem to be any match making and it was 3 noob PvE'ers trying it out vs people who live and breathe this stuff. I literally had several matches in a row where our team had zero points; it was literally *THAT* unbalanced. Venturing into Cyrodill to do a few quests as well generally results in just getting wiped by the first people you encounter (ok, it's a PvP zone and I'm fair game, but it was pretty clear I was just doing quests and wiped me anyway, fun I guess).

Not sure what the solution is. I don't know how to "ease" someone into this. I really don't want to go through the grind of getting new gear and dealing with a new learning curve. And with some of the messages I got from people not sure they are worth my time TbH. Tough one.

Gabriel_H · February 8

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

the issue should be investigated by the devs instead of masked by events or Vengeance campaigns.

El_Borracho wrote: »

I don't know what the solution is.

ZOS' solution is Vengeance, at least for Cyrodiil.

Vengeance is coming. Vengeance is ZOS' solution. Players can either accept that and work to improve it, or continue to ignore it and still complain about the problems.

Lol vengeancee got mogged by greyhost when both were available.

Vengeance isnt a solution its avoiding fixing the problem.

They're working on it with the class refreshes and healing nerfs. That said, Greyhost NA is still very active.

No, it didn't. Do we have to go over the player cap being 3x bigger in Vengeance than GH again?

The problem is performance. Vengeance fixes that.

Oblivion_Protocol · February 8

Gabriel_H wrote: »

No, it didn't. Do we have to go over the player cap being 3x bigger in Vengeance than GH again?

The problem is performance. Vengeance fixes that.

Except it doesn’t. Performance during the last round of Vengeance got laggy for a lot of folks toward the end. And honestly? Bardok is right. The people voted with their feet, and GH out-populated Vengeance when both were offered simultaneously. You can say that Vengeance is the future all you want, that doesn’t change the fact that the players whose opinions hold the most weight in these matters (PvP players) opted to not engage with it when they had a choice.

And if Vengeance were implemented as the only option? PvP would die. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight into a coffin. Oh sure, it would do great for the first couple of months while people play with the shiny new thing. But once everyone gets used to it and sees it for the stale, uninspired zergfest that it is, it’s game over.

Lucasl402 · February 8

Gabriel_H wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

the issue should be investigated by the devs instead of masked by events or Vengeance campaigns.

El_Borracho wrote: »

I don't know what the solution is.

ZOS' solution is Vengeance, at least for Cyrodiil.

Vengeance is coming. Vengeance is ZOS' solution. Players can either accept that and work to improve it, or continue to ignore it and still complain about the problems.

Lol vengeancee got mogged by greyhost when both were available.

Vengeance isnt a solution its avoiding fixing the problem.

They're working on it with the class refreshes and healing nerfs. That said, Greyhost NA is still very active.

No, it didn't. Do we have to go over the player cap being 3x bigger in Vengeance than GH again?

The problem is performance. Vengeance fixes that.

The last iteration of vengeance didn't fix performance in any way. I think performance during MYM was better on average than the last vengeance camp. Not to mention when given a choice, nobody plays vengeance. If ZOS is still putting time and money into vengeance they're throwing it away.

BardokRedSnow · February 8

Gabriel_H wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

the issue should be investigated by the devs instead of masked by events or Vengeance campaigns.

El_Borracho wrote: »

I don't know what the solution is.

ZOS' solution is Vengeance, at least for Cyrodiil.

Vengeance is coming. Vengeance is ZOS' solution. Players can either accept that and work to improve it, or continue to ignore it and still complain about the problems.

Lol vengeancee got mogged by greyhost when both were available.

Vengeance isnt a solution its avoiding fixing the problem.

They're working on it with the class refreshes and healing nerfs. That said, Greyhost NA is still very active.

No, it didn't. Do we have to go over the player cap being 3x bigger in Vengeance than GH again?

The problem is performance. Vengeance fixes that.

Sure why not, lets go over the numbers, using photos:

Vengeance cap is 900, 300 per faction, GH is 360, 120 per faction.

Greyhost is full, plus an absurd queue of people waiting in line to play

Vengeance as seen here, not full. Not even close, and when they did get numbers it was just ep at one bar taking an empty map. So high balled at best maybe they had something close to GH at some parts of the day, but everyone went to GH when it was obvious thats where people were going for pvp

Vengeance at its peak next to GH:

Vengeance is coming and it looks a whole lot like Ravenwatch.

xylena · February 8

If you don't like Vengeance then ask for more build options or whatever. The current iteration isn't the final prodcut. It supported 600+ with perfect performance the first test, they obviously need to tune the changes they've made since then.

GH is cooked. The devs even said the build system calculations cause most of the lag, which means they can't raise the pop caps, which means the server pop will always be artificially suppressed. Maybe they keep it open for the ball groups, maybe not, but Vengeance is the future.

BardokRedSnow · February 8

Eh we had a hell of a lot of fun in Greyhost last night, factions feel more balanced this time in number since a lot of DC players switched to EP and it got pretty crazy.

It is far from cooked, I finally have more than 10 people on my friends list logging in, over 20 regularly. As you said, the class refresh has people coming back and interested in the future updates.

xylena · February 8

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

It is far from cooked, I finally have more than 10 people on my friends list logging in, over 20 regularly. As you said, the class refresh has people coming back and interested in the future updates.

The GH population can't regrow due to lag and low pop caps. The high barrier of entry automatically funnels new players to the accessible Vengeance.

Any given dead game out there still had a small but rabid fanbase when it shut down. Maybe they'll keep GH open just for you and the ball groups, but Vengeance is still the future.

olsborg · February 8

xylena wrote: »

, but Vengeance is the future.

I agree, perfect performance, no trolltanks or ballgroups or asenine meta to deal with. Just fun and fast pvp with tons of players.
If you play GH while its poplocked, theres still only gonna be action in 2 or 3 places at any given time and more often then not its going to be a ballgroup there with the ever present lagg.

mrreow · 12:10AM

PvP in this game is like an echo of an old, brilliant idea that, despite all the terribleness of today, still cannot lose the charm of the past.

BardokRedSnow · 5:39AM

Another very fun night of pvp, GH is poppin, dunno what yall talkin about but clearly most commenting here aren't active pvpers and havent been in a while. The mym and class refresh bump to player activity is very evident. Hopefully Zos can maintain it.

playsforfun · 10:19AM

Coming from a returning pvp player of a top EU PvP guild, this isn't the same game as when it was launched, ball groups are way worse than they use to be due to gear sets that weren't available at launch so the balance is all over the place, it use to be really good avava but what it is now is no actual skill & is mostly all gear based, I remember the good old days when PvP always full to the brim all day everyday with 100's in the queue over multiple campaigns.

These days it's ball groups, bombers, environment bunny hopping runners, it's just isn't as fun as it was before & there's nobody but the community to blame for destroying it, there is a reason why people don't like vengeance as a PvP player because it puts most people on an equal footing just like it was at launch as the game was supposed to be e.g this huge war between factions, I know people will complain about this but this is the reality of where we are within PvP.

The maps are too big for the pop caps that are currently laid out so all the fighting is pretty much in the same place were as back in the day there were fights happening everywhere, there use to be 24 man groups which was better, now cap at 12 man groups which I think does go against the more casual player to beat those ball groups cause ball groups these days are pretty much unkillable compared to launch where PvP was packed full of players, it makes me so sad to think about how low the populations are compared to how it was at the beginning & y'all happy cause there is a 40 queue on a single campaign where pops have been strip to the bare minimum as is, y'all want PvP to survive then imo it needs to be killed & started a fresh with limitations but if you want to carry on as the same fighting the same 30-40 people over & over again then carry on as is but don't be going out there complaining about it.

You say you want PvP but complain when you are given the chance for a reset, I don't think you actually want change & people to come in & play, you the small minority that do play PvP are happy as it is now & you don't want change to PvP to bring in more players because your currently on top of your game why would you want to change that to get more people interested in PvP, so a constant downward trend will continue bar when events are on for PvP, they've already said there is no way of fixing PvP as it is in its current form so they know it's broken & you know it's broken yet you all complain when they try to fix things I really don't get you all at all, do you not want to fix PvP & bring in more players, I think the pool of people is getting smaller & smaller as the years go by because of how broken sadly it has gotten where only the true diehards remain which is a real shame because thinking of the good old days of how it use to be when PvP was actually fun.

xylena · 1:47PM

playsforfun wrote: »

what it is now is no actual skill & is mostly all gear based

Yeah this, the GH meta revolves around busted gear sets + busted subclass combos, that's where most of the power is, not classes or weapons or even one's individual combat prowess.

So when you remove the busted gear and subclassing, the void is filled by either skill or numbers, the balance on Vengeance in this regard is less zergy than the first test, still needs work but it's going the right direction. Evenly numbered fights on Vengeance are skill intensive.