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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.