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🛡️ Cyrodiil Alliance War is broken: Cross-teaming, win-trading, and bullying are ruining PvP

  • VidmaVirtual
    VidmaVirtual
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    Stamicka wrote: »
    Stamicka wrote: »
    Your complaints are a symptom of bigger issues tbh.. mainly low Cyrodiil population caps and terrible balance.

    ...

    What you want isn’t easily enforceable, but these problems would be mitigated a lot by fixing underlying issues.

    They have been fixed. The PvP community, particularly the more hardcore elements, rejected it outright.

    I think you’re referring to Vengeance, but that campaign has a very serious time to kill issue that ZOS hasn’t addressed. Healing is so much stronger than damage and everyone has similar stats which results in effortless survival.

    So two more experienced players would almost definitely avoid each other in that campaign, because no one would die.

    I think this is one of the biggest reasons the PvP community rejects it. I’m not totally anti-Vengeance, in fact I’ll defend the existence of the campaign. However, I won’t go there myself unless they make the needed balance tweaks.

    Anyway long story short, OP’s grievances would still happen in Vengeance, maybe even more so.

    By time to kill issue, you mean it taking 10 - 15s instead of a 1-shot?! Sounds balanced to me. Allows for strategy and counterplay.

    What are you even talking about? Its not 10-15s, its infinite. You cant kill a good player 1v1 in vengeance by anything but boring him so hard that he falls asleep. Theres a huge inbalance between damage and max hp in vengeance. Skill does hardly matter there, it's mainly about numbers. Cant imagine a more boring pvp environment.
    Burtan wrote: »
    There are no secret agreements to hand over keeps, no words are exchanged and no agreements are made. "high tier" players will typically choose not to attack each other without any real thought, only the reading of nameplates or guild tags.

    AvA players will typically chase you down 10 vs 1, "high tier" players typically do not. Then consider that a fight between "high tier" players could potentially ensue for 20 minutes just so 10-20 players can arrive and run over one or both of you. At this point, teaming becomes survival and continues as a simple status quo.

    A secondary and major component is that there is absolutely no incentive for faction loyalty or playing the actual objective, you only need to make AP. Campaign scoring means nothing when 10 people can capture the map during off-hours and more more of an impact than a full population during peak hours.

    This realistically is not going to change and is not unfolding the way people claim it is.

    Thank you for your input, but you actually just made the perfect case for why hiding enemy nameplates is necessary.

    When you say that high-tier players choose not to attack each other based purely on "reading nameplates or guild tags," you are confirming that they are using meta-information to bypass the faction war. 🥹 In a three-faction war, an enemy should be an enemy, regardless of what guild tag they wear or how famous their name is.
    If ZOS implements the anonymous nameplate system I suggested, that automatic "status quo" completely shatters. If you can't read the nameplate or the guild tag, you won't know if the player running at you is a top-tier duelist or a casual player. You will actually have to fight for your alliance, rather than using names to decide who gets a free pass and who gets farmed.

    You also mentioned that there is no incentive for faction loyalty because off-hours capture groups ruin the score. While that is a valid system issue, it shouldn't be used to justify or excuse the toxic behavior and griefing that casual players experience during peak hours. We should aim to fix both, not accept it as the unchangeable norm.

    This won't work the way you intend because it's the playstyle that causes the way of playing. I will NEVER outnumber anyone thats not using some really annoying playstyle. So this change would cause me to engage even less in those fights as I wont know if its someone that for example ganked me before.


    I understand that from a solo or ganker perspective, knowing exactly who you are fighting helps you choose your battles or get revenge on someone who ganked you earlier.

    However, sacrificing the entire competitive integrity of a three-faction war just so a few players can settle personal rivalries or avoid specific builds isn't healthy for the game. Currently, allowing high-tier groups to read nameplates is exactly what enables them to systematically ignore each other and focus entirely on farming casual and solo players.

    Besides, even with anonymous nameplates, ZOS could easily keep the "Death Recap" screen showing the anonymous tag or class that defeated you, or a temporary session ID (like "Enemy 12"). If that same "Enemy 12" ganks you again, you would know it's the same person during that session.

    We have to weigh what hurts Cyrodiil more: you not knowing the exact name of your previous attacker, or thousands of casual and new players quitting PvP entirely because toxic groups are using nameplates to rig campaigns and exploit the system.

    My point was that what you are criticizing isn't solved by anonymization. For most players its a general way of playing rather than being a pact with certain players. I could live with this change tho if it meant more people would come into cyro. But I both doubt this change will happen and doubt more people would come in. Because in the end the main problem for casual players is that they dont stand a chance against the best players. Which is completely normal in a game this old and as we see with vengeance, people have very little interest in a pvp format, where neither game knowledge nor skill really matter.

    Saying that casual players leave just because "they don't stand a chance against the best players" completely ignores the reality of gaming conditions that I mentioned in my original post.

    There is a massive difference between losing a fair fight to a highly skilled player, and being systematically gatekept and farmed by high-tier groups because you are playing on an older PC with terrible Cyrodiil lag, a high-ping internet connection, or dealing with real-life health issues that affect your reaction time.

    When high-tier groups use meta-information (like nameplates) to choose to only fight the most vulnerable players while leaving each other alone, it isn't a demonstration of "skill" or "game knowledge"—it's just picking on easy targets. 🙂

    Anonymization might not solve every single issue, but it levels the playing field by forcing players to actually fight for their alliance instead of choosing their targets based on guild tags and player names. If we want Cyrodiil's population to survive, we need to protect the entry-level experience from this kind of systematic gatekeeping.

  • Stamicka
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    Stamicka wrote: »
    I think you’re referring to Vengeance, but that campaign has a very serious time to kill issue that ZOS hasn’t addressed. Healing is so much stronger than damage and everyone has similar stats which results in effortless survival.

    So two more experienced players would almost definitely avoid each other in that campaign, because no one would die.
    What are you even talking about? Its not 10-15s, its infinite. You cant kill a good player 1v1 in vengeance by anything but boring him so hard that he falls asleep.

    Clearly you guys have not played current Vengeance enough to face good players. Or maybe you play the Vanguard DK tank, in which case, yeah, a Scout should not be able to kill you 1v1, and they can't kill you either.

    No I played a Nightblade with very offensive perks last Vengeance test and death was entirely optional for almost anyone I ran into. It’s such a slog, not fun at all.

    I can assure you it’s not a learn to play issue.

    Also, what is this that you said?
    When youre a top tier player, you dont want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time. Not because youre scared but because those fights often take a long time...

    Top-tier players don't want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time because it takes too long? Huh? So dueling is "infinite" in normal PvP too?

    Yes normal PvP can definitely have eternal stalemates.That’s why I brought up the dueling tournament thing in my earlier post. You don’t see many tournaments these days for a reason.

    PC NA and Xbox NA
  • VidmaVirtual
    VidmaVirtual
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    Stamicka wrote: »
    I think you’re referring to Vengeance, but that campaign has a very serious time to kill issue that ZOS hasn’t addressed. Healing is so much stronger than damage and everyone has similar stats which results in effortless survival.

    So two more experienced players would almost definitely avoid each other in that campaign, because no one would die.
    What are you even talking about? Its not 10-15s, its infinite. You cant kill a good player 1v1 in vengeance by anything but boring him so hard that he falls asleep.

    Clearly you guys have not played current Vengeance enough to face good players. Or maybe you play the Vanguard DK tank, in which case, yeah, a Scout should not be able to kill you 1v1, and they can't kill you either.

    Also, what is this that you said?
    When youre a top tier player, you dont want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time. Not because youre scared but because those fights often take a long time...

    Top-tier players don't want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time because it takes too long? Huh? So dueling is "infinite" in normal PvP too?
    We have to weigh what hurts Cyrodiil more: you not knowing the exact name of your previous attacker, or thousands of casual and new players quitting PvP entirely because toxic groups are using nameplates to rig campaigns and exploit the system.

    Even if you hide nameplates, people will probably be able to recognize you based on your costume, movement and playstyle. I'm not opposed to disabling cross-faction whispers during the campaign, but players will choose easier targets based on how the character looks and moves.


    You make a completely fair point. In a tight-knit PvP community, top-tier players will always eventually recognize each other simply by their signature playstyles, specific movements, and distinct cosmetics. Completely erasing all identity in an MMO is impossible and honestly shouldn't be the goal.
    However, the core issue with nameplate rigging and cross-teaming isn't just about organic memory. The real problem is how easily coordinated toxic groups use nameplates combined with third-party tools or cross-faction coordination to actively stream-snipe, track specific targets across the map, and systematically exploit campaign scoring. It goes way beyond just "recognizing a costume" during a spontaneous 1v1 fight
  • JustLovely
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    Vengeance is for new players. They don't know what faction they want to play yet. Faction lock on vengeance would just make it less accessible.
  • kargen27
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    "To make this even more effective, ZOS should disable the ability to send private messages (whispers) to enemy alliance players while inside Cyrodiil. This would instantly stop both toxic hate-whispers after fights and real-time win-trading coordination between factions"
    I don't like this idea. It takes away from players that are not abusing chat. I've had some interesting conversations with enemies after a good battle. Could also make it a bit tougher to coordinate guild on guild fights. No idea if those still happen because I left my PvP guild that did those quite a while back but they used to be a lot of fun.
    and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."
  • aetherix8
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    Vengeance is for new players. They don't know what faction they want to play yet. Faction lock on vengeance would just make it less accessible.

    Good point. But wrong thread...
    PC EU - V4hn1
  • aetherix8
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    The more I consider this anonymization feature, the more I disagree with it. It would be so incredibly easy to circumvent while making the game extremely dull.

    As I said earlier, it is easy to identify other players by their toons' appearances. Players would go to great lengths to make them look even more distinctive in order to be easily recognizable by others. Solution: remove fashion entirely from PvP realms. Consequence: PvP realms populated by generic clones with perhaps a questionable sense of fashion. Not to mention ZOS' lost income from crates and the Crown Store.

    Removing the ability to whisper enemies doesn't solve anything either. Players would flock to Discord channels and publish their xFaction number the moment they are assigned one on any given day. ESO chat would just die eventually, but communication between enemy factions would continue as if nothing had changed. And it would be taking away the opportunity to build relations based on mutual respect, or to ask for advice on one's quest to git gud.

    And what about the kill feed? "AD Soldier 97 defeated EP Soldier 46". At this point, the entire feature can just be removed, as it would be boring beyond imagination. Also, what about the "revenge/avenge" feature? "You took your revenge against DC Soldier 71". Yeah great, but was it the one player whose ego is so overblown that it would take them thousands of years to recover from my "revenge" success, or just a random player very skilled at stealing others' killing blows? This knowledge matters and sometimes it would be clear, but oftentimes not so clear at all.

    There is a myriad of reasons why "enemy" players don't fight one another, and I believe most of the time it has nothing to do with score rigging or harassing casuals or newer players. I also don't fight certain players when I cross them, and they don't attack me even if they could defeat me in no time. I might attack them in the heat of a bigger battle because I don't read nameplates most of the time, but I drop the fight and go after other players once I realize who is in front of me. And again, this has nothing to do with handing easy victories to other factions or farming newbies.
    PC EU - V4hn1
  • SneaK
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    I wouldn’t be opposed to only seeing enemy ranks without a name, as long as the kill recap lists the names.

    The point being brought up is probably one of the biggest issues Cyro faces if I’m being honest. Cyro has been one big social experiment for a decade, but more recent it’s become less and less objective because of multi alliance players and said “pacts”. I don’t think there’s handshake deals between guilds trading keeps in GH (on Xbox NA at least) anymore. When that was a thing, it really only happened in dead campaigns. A bunch of people got in trouble for it iirc. X’ers not fighting each other on the other hand happens all the time. I’m not a fan of it, but guilty of it at the same time. I can see why some new players who don’t know who from who get frustrated when the get killed while an ally is riding their mount right on by. It’s crappy.

    Here’s an idea:
    Add an actual bounty system, when X player stacks 10-20-30 killstreak they are worth more AP, or even a real bounty for XXXX gold.
    "IMO"
    Aldmeri Dominion
    1 Nightblade - 1 Templar - 7 Hybrid Mutt Abominations
  • BardokRedSnow
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    SneaK wrote: »
    Here’s an idea:
    Add an actual bounty system, when X player stacks 10-20-30 killstreak they are worth more AP, or even a real bounty for XXXX gold.

    I wish zos was based enough to do this lol but i know it will never happen

    I support it though, would be funny.
    Zos then: Vengeance is just a test bro

    Zos now: Do you want Vengeance permanent or permanent...
  • SneaK
    SneaK
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    SneaK wrote: »
    Here’s an idea:
    Add an actual bounty system, when X player stacks 10-20-30 killstreak they are worth more AP, or even a real bounty for XXXX gold.

    I wish zos was based enough to do this lol but i know it will never happen

    I support it though, would be funny.

    It really would be healthy for the game though. It would be cool for both the player worth 10k AP/gold and the horde trying to capture the bounty.

    I’d imagine they could implement it without truly highlighting people, like maybe you don’t know they’ve acquired such a bounty until you engage in combat with them, could just be a debuff you see on them. Obviously, certain people would always have a bounty on their head, but that is kind of the intent around 1vX to begin with..
    Edited by SneaK on June 22, 2026 8:20PM
    "IMO"
    Aldmeri Dominion
    1 Nightblade - 1 Templar - 7 Hybrid Mutt Abominations
  • BardokRedSnow
    BardokRedSnow
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    SneaK wrote: »
    SneaK wrote: »
    Here’s an idea:
    Add an actual bounty system, when X player stacks 10-20-30 killstreak they are worth more AP, or even a real bounty for XXXX gold.

    I wish zos was based enough to do this lol but i know it will never happen

    I support it though, would be funny.

    It really would be healthy for the game though. It would be cool for both the player worth 10k AP/gold and the horde trying to capture the bounty.

    I’d imagine they could implement it without truly highlighting people, like maybe you don’t know they’ve acquired such a bounty until you engage in combat with them, could just be a debuff you see on them. Obviously, certain people would always have a bounty on their head, but that is kind of the intent around 1vX to begin with..

    Agreed, and I'd be okay with it just being like a debuff you see on them rather than a big arrow on your head. But Im definitely for it.
    Zos then: Vengeance is just a test bro

    Zos now: Do you want Vengeance permanent or permanent...
  • SneaK
    SneaK
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    SneaK wrote: »
    SneaK wrote: »
    Here’s an idea:
    Add an actual bounty system, when X player stacks 10-20-30 killstreak they are worth more AP, or even a real bounty for XXXX gold.

    I wish zos was based enough to do this lol but i know it will never happen

    I support it though, would be funny.

    It really would be healthy for the game though. It would be cool for both the player worth 10k AP/gold and the horde trying to capture the bounty.

    I’d imagine they could implement it without truly highlighting people, like maybe you don’t know they’ve acquired such a bounty until you engage in combat with them, could just be a debuff you see on them. Obviously, certain people would always have a bounty on their head, but that is kind of the intent around 1vX to begin with..

    Agreed, and I'd be okay with it just being like a debuff you see on them rather than a big arrow on your head. But Im definitely for it.

    Put a little debuff icon of a gold coin. That would breathe a lot of new life into Cyro honestly.

    Seems like it could perhaps be a simple
    thing too but I’m a goon so what do I know.
    "IMO"
    Aldmeri Dominion
    1 Nightblade - 1 Templar - 7 Hybrid Mutt Abominations
  • Rohamad_Ali
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    Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah it was me right after 1.6

    ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tenor.com%2FfOUdSGg6GmkAAAAM%2Fwelcome.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=06909ef016d47d7d31967a2d183584b49efa4a42056f3999b3757d71038692d1
  • SeaGtGruff
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    Vengeance is for new players. They don't know what faction they want to play yet. Faction lock on vengeance would just make it less accessible.

    Vengeance is not "for new players." A lot of Vengeance-haters (not saying you're in that camp, because I honestly don't know) enjoy offhandedly dismissing Vengeance as "the kiddie pool," "PvP for beginners," "skill-less PvP," etc., but in my opinion that is just players trying to characterize it in as disparaging a light as they can think of so that any "self-respecting player" who enjoys PvP would never think twice about trying out Vengeance because they're afraid of being laughed at by "the big boys."

    Personally, I've always preferred Grey Host over any of the other campaigns (including Vengeance), in large part because it's much easier for me to do pretty basic stuff in Grey Host such as solo-capturing resources. I die a lot in Grey Host, but that's okay with me, because I don't have all of the BIS/META gear that most players do, and I often struggle to fight smoothly with a mouse and keyboard (basic coordination issues) when many players prefer to use a game controller or a gaming mouse that has lots of buttons that can be programmed with macros. And I realize that a lot of players in enemy factions probably target me with the "kill on sight" add-on or whatever it's called, either because they hate my opinions or they're aware of how easy it is to kill me, which is fine by me. But in any case, Grey Host is easier for me because CP works, proc sets work, food buffs work, crafted potions work, etc.

    In contrast, Vengeance is not nearly as easy-- it's quite hard. I chose to make Vengeance my home campaign for this month so I'd feel more incentivized to give it a fair tryout instead of just saying "Nope, not for me" after dying to fall damage and being killed by the NPC guards trying to solo a resource. And after trying out different loadouts and making adjustments to basic things such as how I jump off of ledges with my mount while racing to attack or defend a keep, I'm starting to have an easier time of things. To be sure, I still die a lot in PvP fights-- but that's going to happen no matter which campaign I'm in. PvP is not my main thing in this game (or any other game), and I know I'll never be competitive against the majority of other players, especially the ones who PvP almost exclusively.

    But Vengeance is definitely not a "kiddie pool" designed for "beginners" or "new pkayers." It's pretty darn tough not being able to crutch on CP perks, proc sets, food buffs, and a smorgasbord of player-crafted potions. And I think that's the real reason most PvP players hate Vengeance so much and seem to do everything they can to dismissively and derisively pan it-- because they love crutching on their CP perks, proc sets, food buffs, player-crafted potions, and all of their Top Secret Highly Classified META builds that let them dominate the battlefield without breaking a sweat. And I totally get that, because I also love my CP perks, proc sets, food buffs, and player-crafted potions.
    I've fought mudcrabs more fearsome than me!
  • jle30303
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    Stamicka wrote: »
    Your complaints are a symptom of bigger issues tbh.. mainly low Cyrodiil population caps and terrible balance.

    ...

    What you want isn’t easily enforceable, but these problems would be mitigated a lot by fixing underlying issues.

    They have been fixed. The PvP community, particularly the more hardcore elements, rejected it outright.

    Not at all.

    I'm not even a hardcore pvp player, in fact I die most of the time... but I just don't find Vengeance fun.

    Like, what is the point of having fancy gear if you can't use it? What is the point of even having morphs to your skills if you're not allowed to use them?

    And throughout most of the Vengeance testing, literally everything else that was possible in Cyrodiil was literally broken. Including delves, dolmens, mini-quests, reading documents and lorebooks, even fishing and farming nodes. I had given up on Vengeance before discovering that some (still not all) of these things had been re-enabled for the current release.

    I don't want stuff removed, I want it *fixed*. From a starting position of "people keep their stuff and their capabilities and we tweak parameters one or two things at a time", not a starting position of "we junk everything and rebuild from zero".

    This also means wanting overly flashy animations to be reduced, or fixed, as a general thing, because frankly they're now causing lag even in *trials* with just 12 players on the same team, let alone in PVP where the moment you run into an area with more than 20 or so players, the game slows to a crawl.
  • Vraedlich
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    Lock factions, stop people swapping to another alliance with a timer. It's basic common sense.
  • Nordstern
    Nordstern
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    Stamicka wrote: »
    I think you’re referring to Vengeance, but that campaign has a very serious time to kill issue that ZOS hasn’t addressed. Healing is so much stronger than damage and everyone has similar stats which results in effortless survival.

    So two more experienced players would almost definitely avoid each other in that campaign, because no one would die.
    What are you even talking about? Its not 10-15s, its infinite. You cant kill a good player 1v1 in vengeance by anything but boring him so hard that he falls asleep.

    Clearly you guys have not played current Vengeance enough to face good players. Or maybe you play the Vanguard DK tank, in which case, yeah, a Scout should not be able to kill you 1v1, and they can't kill you either.

    Also, what is this that you said?
    When youre a top tier player, you dont want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time. Not because youre scared but because those fights often take a long time...

    Top-tier players don't want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time because it takes too long? Huh? So dueling is "infinite" in normal PvP too?
    We have to weigh what hurts Cyrodiil more: you not knowing the exact name of your previous attacker, or thousands of casual and new players quitting PvP entirely because toxic groups are using nameplates to rig campaigns and exploit the system.

    Even if you hide nameplates, people will probably be able to recognize you based on your costume, movement and playstyle. I'm not opposed to disabling cross-faction whispers during the campaign, but players will choose easier targets based on how the character looks and moves.


    Yes, a lot of times 1v1s take a long time between top tier players in a normal pvp environment. Thats what I said. In vengeance everyone that is somewhat good will normally not die in a 1v1 without desync, lag or falling asleep. Yes, of course even in vengeance theres a lot of players that can be killed easily 1v1 but thats not what i'm talking about. I gotta admit tho that I haven't played it since the last test but I browsed through the skills and perks and didn't see any relevant changes so i'm pretty sure nothing changed dramatically. It's just a very casual friendly, mistake forgiving environment that isn't fun at all.
  • BardokRedSnow
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    jle30303 wrote: »
    Stamicka wrote: »
    Your complaints are a symptom of bigger issues tbh.. mainly low Cyrodiil population caps and terrible balance.

    ...

    What you want isn’t easily enforceable, but these problems would be mitigated a lot by fixing underlying issues.

    They have been fixed. The PvP community, particularly the more hardcore elements, rejected it outright.

    Not at all.

    I'm not even a hardcore pvp player, in fact I die most of the time... but I just don't find Vengeance fun.

    Like, what is the point of having fancy gear if you can't use it? What is the point of even having morphs to your skills if you're not allowed to use them?

    And throughout most of the Vengeance testing, literally everything else that was possible in Cyrodiil was literally broken. Including delves, dolmens, mini-quests, reading documents and lorebooks, even fishing and farming nodes. I had given up on Vengeance before discovering that some (still not all) of these things had been re-enabled for the current release.

    I don't want stuff removed, I want it *fixed*. From a starting position of "people keep their stuff and their capabilities and we tweak parameters one or two things at a time", not a starting position of "we junk everything and rebuild from zero".

    This also means wanting overly flashy animations to be reduced, or fixed, as a general thing, because frankly they're now causing lag even in *trials* with just 12 players on the same team, let alone in PVP where the moment you run into an area with more than 20 or so players, the game slows to a crawl.

    They won’t properly address anything you said because it doesn’t go along with the narrative of “only hardcore sweats dislike vengeance”

    In reality though not a lot of people want bare minimum.
    Zos then: Vengeance is just a test bro

    Zos now: Do you want Vengeance permanent or permanent...
  • BXR_Lonestar
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    Lock factions, stop people swapping to another alliance with a timer. It's basic common sense.

    Faction locking would help, but the game also needs mechanics other than double AP to keep people playing when they're outnumbered. On my server, Red has enough population to poplock GH, have 1-2 bars in BR, and have a bar more or less in Vengeance (and this is totally overlooking the sewers), whereas Yellow and Blue are pretty much just poplocked in GH and have no other residual population to have a big presence in Vengeance or BR. So wherever you go, you are going to always be outnumbered by Red by a large margin, except for in Greyhost.

    BTW, before BR was killed off and then brought back, if Yellow or Blue ever got a sizable presence in BR, Red would call in a bar or two of players from GH to zerg BR. So this has been a problem for a long time.

    There's only a couple of solutions that make sense here:

    1) faction lock all campaigns and make it so you can't switch back to BR from GH once you've entered GH, unless you incur a 24 hour penalty to re-enter GH. Make it so that popping into BR to zerg down players in there is less palatable and come at a real cost, and players won't do it.

    or

    2) Add dynamic buffs/debuffs to the factions based on population numbers. Give an incentive to spread out the population to other factions by penalizing the faction that completely and totally outnumbers the other factions, or conversely, give combat bonuses to the outnumbered populations so they actually have a fighting chance.

    But its a little late to have this conversation since GH is now the only campaign of any import now.
  • ceruulean
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    When youre a top tier player, you dont want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time. Not because youre scared but because those fights often take a long time
    Stamicka wrote: »
    I think you’re referring to Vengeance, but that campaign has a very serious time to kill issue that ZOS hasn’t addressed. Healing is so much stronger than damage and everyone has similar stats which results in effortless survival.

    So two more experienced players would almost definitely avoid each other in that campaign, because no one would die.
    What are you even talking about? Its not 10-15s, its infinite. You cant kill a good player 1v1 in vengeance by anything but boring him so hard that he falls asleep.

    Clearly you guys have not played current Vengeance enough to face good players. Or maybe you play the Vanguard DK tank, in which case, yeah, a Scout should not be able to kill you 1v1, and they can't kill you either.

    Also, what is this that you said?
    When youre a top tier player, you dont want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time. Not because youre scared but because those fights often take a long time...

    Top-tier players don't want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time because it takes too long? Huh? So dueling is "infinite" in normal PvP too?
    We have to weigh what hurts Cyrodiil more: you not knowing the exact name of your previous attacker, or thousands of casual and new players quitting PvP entirely because toxic groups are using nameplates to rig campaigns and exploit the system.

    Even if you hide nameplates, people will probably be able to recognize you based on your costume, movement and playstyle. I'm not opposed to disabling cross-faction whispers during the campaign, but players will choose easier targets based on how the character looks and moves.


    Yes, a lot of times 1v1s take a long time between top tier players in a normal pvp environment. Thats what I said. In vengeance everyone that is somewhat good will normally not die in a 1v1 without desync, lag or falling asleep. Yes, of course even in vengeance theres a lot of players that can be killed easily 1v1 but thats not what i'm talking about. I gotta admit tho that I haven't played it since the last test but I browsed through the skills and perks and didn't see any relevant changes so i'm pretty sure nothing changed dramatically. It's just a very casual friendly, mistake forgiving environment that isn't fun at all.

    Why does the "eternal duel" skill level have to be limited to top tier? If two average skilled players are pitted against each other, they also won't be killing each other because they don't attack frequently enough to pressure sustain. If you end up in a stalemate with the majority of players, it means you're on the same skill level because ESO doesn't have a definite way to track attrition. Normally the HP bar represents how close you are to dying/killing your opponent, but it doesn't in ESO because DPS are allowed to self heal. Or if you pick a build that's soldier (all rounder stats, not particularly good at defense or offense) then fighting other soldiers is going to be a stalemate.
    Edited by ceruulean on June 23, 2026 6:56PM
  • Avran_Sylt
    Avran_Sylt
    âś­âś­âś­âś­âś­
    âś­âś­
    We care about balance yes, in relation to combat, as well as population. Ironically Greyhost is more balanced in both cases.

    Going to stop you right there with the bad faith argument.

    It’s not bad faith, it is truth. People with a chip on their shoulder who haven’t played gh in years come here to make sweeping generalized statements about it not knowing what Cyrodiil is actually like but GH is easily the most competitive campaign by a mile at least on PCNA, and that’s why it’s pop locked every evening.

    You may have a hard time playing there but claiming vengeance is more balanced because they stripped everything of meaning and value there to the bare bones so that only numbers matter and then have no way to make sure the numbers are somewhat equal is like me saying a mustang ecoboost and dark horse premium are the same because they’re both mustangs

    Or better yet a bike because they’re both vehicles.

    Both are competitive, GH has more gear complexity.
  • Nordstern
    Nordstern
    âś­âś­âś­
    When youre a top tier player, you dont want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time. Not because youre scared but because those fights often take a long time
    Stamicka wrote: »
    I think you’re referring to Vengeance, but that campaign has a very serious time to kill issue that ZOS hasn’t addressed. Healing is so much stronger than damage and everyone has similar stats which results in effortless survival.

    So two more experienced players would almost definitely avoid each other in that campaign, because no one would die.
    What are you even talking about? Its not 10-15s, its infinite. You cant kill a good player 1v1 in vengeance by anything but boring him so hard that he falls asleep.

    Clearly you guys have not played current Vengeance enough to face good players. Or maybe you play the Vanguard DK tank, in which case, yeah, a Scout should not be able to kill you 1v1, and they can't kill you either.

    Also, what is this that you said?
    When youre a top tier player, you dont want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time. Not because youre scared but because those fights often take a long time...

    Top-tier players don't want to fight people on an equal skill level all the time because it takes too long? Huh? So dueling is "infinite" in normal PvP too?
    We have to weigh what hurts Cyrodiil more: you not knowing the exact name of your previous attacker, or thousands of casual and new players quitting PvP entirely because toxic groups are using nameplates to rig campaigns and exploit the system.

    Even if you hide nameplates, people will probably be able to recognize you based on your costume, movement and playstyle. I'm not opposed to disabling cross-faction whispers during the campaign, but players will choose easier targets based on how the character looks and moves.


    Yes, a lot of times 1v1s take a long time between top tier players in a normal pvp environment. Thats what I said. In vengeance everyone that is somewhat good will normally not die in a 1v1 without desync, lag or falling asleep. Yes, of course even in vengeance theres a lot of players that can be killed easily 1v1 but thats not what i'm talking about. I gotta admit tho that I haven't played it since the last test but I browsed through the skills and perks and didn't see any relevant changes so i'm pretty sure nothing changed dramatically. It's just a very casual friendly, mistake forgiving environment that isn't fun at all.

    Why does the "eternal duel" skill level have to be limited to top tier? If two average skilled players are pitted against each other, they also won't be killing each other because they don't attack frequently enough to pressure sustain. If you end up in a stalemate with the majority of players, it means you're on the same skill level because ESO doesn't have a definite way to track attrition. Normally the HP bar represents how close you are to dying/killing your opponent, but it doesn't in ESO because DPS are allowed to self heal. Or if you pick a build that's soldier (all rounder stats, not particularly good at defense or offense) then fighting other soldiers is going to be a stalemate.

    What am I even going to respond to that? If a duel ends up in a stalemate, you are on the same skill level? Why not increase the HP even more? How about 100k? And how about doubling the healing done? Then everyone would be on the same "skill level", fantastic!
  • noblecron
    noblecron
    âś­âś­âś­âś­âś­
    That's been a thing forever. Even if you impleme
    kargen27 wrote: »
    "To make this even more effective, ZOS should disable the ability to send private messages (whispers) to enemy alliance players while inside Cyrodiil. This would instantly stop both toxic hate-whispers after fights and real-time win-trading coordination between factions"
    I don't like this idea. It takes away from players that are not abusing chat. I've had some interesting conversations with enemies after a good battle. Could also make it a bit tougher to coordinate guild on guild fights. No idea if those still happen because I left my PvP guild that did those quite a while back but they used to be a lot of fun.

    I agree with this. I got tons of build advice and fashion advice from other players. I've made friends with folk just from getting whispers and whispering enemy players. It'd also make cooperation in some events like IC event impossible to do. That's not accounting for if something important needes to be whispered to someone specific due to guild or irl thing
  • BardokRedSnow
    BardokRedSnow
    âś­âś­âś­âś­âś­
    âś­
    We care about balance yes, in relation to combat, as well as population. Ironically Greyhost is more balanced in both cases.

    Going to stop you right there with the bad faith argument.

    It’s not bad faith, it is truth. People with a chip on their shoulder who haven’t played gh in years come here to make sweeping generalized statements about it not knowing what Cyrodiil is actually like but GH is easily the most competitive campaign by a mile at least on PCNA, and that’s why it’s pop locked every evening.

    You may have a hard time playing there but claiming vengeance is more balanced because they stripped everything of meaning and value there to the bare bones so that only numbers matter and then have no way to make sure the numbers are somewhat equal is like me saying a mustang ecoboost and dark horse premium are the same because they’re both mustangs

    Or better yet a bike because they’re both vehicles.

    Both are competitive, GH has more gear complexity.

    Vengeance is not, not until they lock it.
    Zos then: Vengeance is just a test bro

    Zos now: Do you want Vengeance permanent or permanent...
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