Imperial City PvP

Amerises · May 2022

So I hop in wanting to farm some stone for Powerful Assault Ice Staff. Entire city is owned by one alliance and nothing is happening on the map. Hop down, start turning a flag and about 3 min go by, and a group of two comes. I die, respawn, go kill them both. Start turning the flag again. Now a new group of 4 from the same alliance comes and runs over me.

Not trying to complain, but its just a bummer. I like IC over Cyrodiil because the size of the map. Sitting in Cyro saying "LFG" over and over or riding a horse across the map to just get run over by a 3 or 4 person group, doesn't sound like fun.

What do other people do? How do others get groups? Is IC just totally dead, period?

I dont mind battle grounds, but after 3 or 4, I'm ready to jump to something else. Or is that when I PvE? lol

dem0n1k · May 2022

If i am just farming for TV or keys... I don't flip the flags if I am alone. Sure, you get a TV bonus for having the flags flipped... but it also announces to everyone on the map that you are there & will be there until that flag flips. The IC flags flip really slowly, especially with just one player on it.

If there is a big enemy zerg just rolling through the districts killing all farmers... there isn't much you can do except maybe farm in the sewers & come back to the districts once they are gone.

Dojohoda · May 2022

Some groups are likely composed of people in the same guild.

ResidentContrarian · May 2022

There's a reason why it's dead: it's another PvP space where no PvP is actually going on.

jaws343 · May 2022

If all you are doing is farming tel var, you will have a much more successful time of it farming the actual sewers. Do a boss loop through a few sections on your alliance's side and kill the roaming guards as well. Easy 20-40k tell var an hour and often very few enemy players.

SeaGtGruff · May 2022

I love going to IC, although I go there for daily PvE questing in the districts and occasional PvE fighting in the sewers.

I usually see at least a few players from all three alliances there, and sometimes a lot of other players, presumably depending on things like the day of the week, the time of day, and whether or not there's a PvP event going on.

If I get atracked, my reaction varies between just ignoring the attack, running away, or fighting back, depending on the specific situation and my mood, but I don't go out of my way to initiate fights with other players when I see them.

Tommy_The_Gun · May 2022

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

There's a reason why it's dead: it's another PvP space where no PvP is actually going on.

Yep. it is a mixed PvP & PvE, in a tight confined area and the result is that both of those form of activities decrease the quality of the other.

In Cyro mixed PvE & PvP works, because "questing hubs" are larger & Cyro itself is larger, so ganking lone wonderers is less of an issue. In IC however it makes the experience really bad. In IC, there is no place for solo or non-group play. You just get overrun by ball group or multiple gankers. It does not matter if you are there for PvE or PvP. Both of those are imho really bad experience. It is probably the most toxic zone in the entire game as it actually promotes this type of behaviour (ganking & griefing) & gives you rewards for it. IC draws certain types of players who find joy in stuff like this.

FeedbackOnly · May 2022

I just wish we lost less stones at rank 4

ZOS_Hadeostry · May 2022

Greetings,

This thread has been moved to the Alliance War & Imperial City section, as it is better suited there.

Thanks

WordsOfPower · May 2022

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

There's a reason why it's dead: it's another PvP space where no PvP is actually going on.

Yep. it is a mixed PvP & PvE, in a tight confined area and the result is that both of those form of activities decrease the quality of the other.

In Cyro mixed PvE & PvP works, because "questing hubs" are larger & Cyro itself is larger, so ganking lone wonderers is less of an issue. In IC however it makes the experience really bad. In IC, there is no place for solo or non-group play. You just get overrun by ball group or multiple gankers. It does not matter if you are there for PvE or PvP. Both of those are imho really bad experience. It is probably the most toxic zone in the entire game as it actually promotes this type of behaviour (ganking & griefing) & gives you rewards for it. IC draws certain types of players who find joy in stuff like this.

I agree with your description of what tends to go on in IC but I think you are mistaking cause and effect.

It is, IMO, because the place is a ghost town that gankers reign supreme.

The counterplay to gankers is to have 35k health and run a flare.

The long term community-wide solution to IC is, as with Cyro, to make zerging impossible, so that for each district, what is promoted is small group battles.

Then, depending on skill level, the S Tier Chad 1vXers can get their kicks trying their luck against a group of A&B Tier try hards, the A&B Tier players can fight each other in small groups when the 1vXers are not around (which will be most of the time), and there is space for noobs and improving players to gradually dip their toes because they won't be the only gazelles in a zone with a zerg of lions

Necrotech_Master · May 2022

i really enjoy imperial city, my biggest problem with the surface though is that you can only respawn there if you control a district, and i feel this really eliminates any desire to be up there unless your faction is already zerging (if your faction controls nothing, and you die you have to sit through 2 load screens just to get back to the surface)

i spend most of my time farming tel var in the sewers with banner bosses and molag bal in the center

if they went back to allowing you to respawn in any district at any time, then this would improve returning to the fight faster and potentially make district control more competitive

fred4 · June 2022

Amerises wrote: »

So I hop in wanting to farm some stone for Powerful Assault Ice Staff. Entire city is owned by one alliance and nothing is happening on the map. Hop down, start turning a flag and about 3 min go by, and a group of two comes. I die, respawn, go kill them both. Start turning the flag again. Now a new group of 4 from the same alliance comes and runs over me.

Not trying to complain, but its just a bummer. I like IC over Cyrodiil because the size of the map. Sitting in Cyro saying "LFG" over and over or riding a horse across the map to just get run over by a 3 or 4 person group, doesn't sound like fun.

What do other people do? How do others get groups? Is IC just totally dead, period?

I dont mind battle grounds, but after 3 or 4, I'm ready to jump to something else. Or is that when I PvE? lol

A couple of options I can think of. If you have a character on the other alliance, join them. However, when IC is all one colour, that usually means people are already farming and you won't make that many Tel Var from bosses, because you share. It's probably still the way to go, because it's efficient, consistent and relatively safe to farm with multiple people. On the other hand I find the best time to farm is when IC is mostly your colour, but another alliance is turning one or two flags. This keeps your alliance mates busy, while you may snag a boss to solo by yourself. The absolute best boss for this is the arena one, as you can take it deep into the wings of the arena, out of sight. Combat music will still give you away from the outside, but this tends to be the most likely boss to solo undisturbed nonetheless.

I prefer being a magblade. Swallow Soul heals you. You can either kite, or you can slot Sap Essence for additional healing and to deal with adds. When you're finished, you cloak away. Gank protection comes in the form of Zoal, Radiant Magelight and/or the Juggernaut set. Nothing is perfect, but those options are pretty good. High health is another good option, I suppose.

If everything is a different colour, that would be the time to gank people of that colour with your nightblade and make Tel Var that way. Most people are either grouped, spamming detection in said group, or don't carry a lot of Tel Var. Nonetheless you get the occasional big score now and again. If you are a bomber you might have a go at taking out a whole group, while they're standing still on a flag.

If IC is in flux, flags are evenly spread and there is a lot of activity, it is relatively harder to make Tel Var. Off peak times are better than peak times. You may actually find bosses more easily while everyone else is busy with PvP at peak times, but due to no faction fully owning IC, the Tel Var yield is less as a whole, compared to one faction farming and the other two ganking.

If you want to be proactive, but selfish, you might help take flags for your alliance, but split off from the crowd when 4 or 5 flags have been taken, so as to solo a boss before others get around to it. At the end of the day you are competing with your own faction mates for Tel Var. It can be efficient to cooperate with your alliance, but if you need a big haul in a hurry, you should look to solo bosses. You're taking more of a risk, of course.

Miat's PvP Alerts helps keep track of the flags at all times, without opening the map, while the IC Next Boss addon times when a boss will reappear, after you've participated in a kill. Both of those addons are very helpful.

If your own faction is heavily dominating IC, it can be as productive, or more so, to farm mobs, say in the Arboretum, rather than chasing the bosses with others for your meagre share. You do leave yourself more open to gankers by playing alone in general, though.

I know some people who farm the sewers or Molag Bal solo or in a duo, when that's not busy. I personally find the district bosses most productive most of the time. However I will happily divert to PvP and go with the flow, so I could be wrong. I would find sewer farming too boring, that's the main reason I don't go.

fred4 · June 2022

You mentioned farming for Powerful Assault. Of course if your main goal is just PvP, the answer will vary. Nightblade allows you to do anything, any time. Sorc is the other solo class, especially when you know all the protected areas in IC you can potentially escape to, saving your Tel Var. If you are on a bruiser class and there is just no decent PvP, cause you get zerged down, then I would play away from the flags for a while. Farm, but look out for other solo or scattered players.

Miat's should be permanently on your screen, showing the status of the flags at all times. As soon as a flag turns to your own colour, head there. That's also how you got first attacked by two, then four players of the other faction. This always happens. People gravitate towards turning flags not just as a way to find action, but to find members of their own faction to follow or group up with. Intentionally or unintentionally, factions tend to end up stacking, at least when it's not busy.

Of course if you're really good, you can (try to) 1vX people, in which case the usual rules apply. Head for the nearest tree or corner against weak players. Jam yourself between a staircase and a wall against stronger players. I never had the patience to get real good at that myself, because on a bruiser class you tend to get stuck in one location and be tied up with that for a while. My go to move tends to be up and down between a flag and the underpass. This applies equally to nightblade and a bruiser class.

fred4 · June 2022

dem0n1k wrote: »

The IC flags flip really slowly, especially with just one player on it.

Unlike Cyro the time is constant. It does not depend on the number of players. On the other hand the flag flips at the 3/4 mark.

fred4 · June 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

Easy 20-40k tell var an hour and often very few enemy players.

Yep. That's the kind of figure I was afraid of. Carry 1K Tel Var with all flags your colour and solo a boss instead. 10K Tel Var in 90 seconds (on a PvE build) to 5 min (worst case slow PvP build). This is of course extremely situational these days, but I'd rather spend an hour in IC mixing and matching activities than grinding the sewers. Personal preference.

I've seen PvEers slaughtering bosses in record time, which is a safety mechanism in and of itself, as well as preventing competition from your own faction. If you are a nightblade, you may choose to only be visible while fighting a boss.

fred4 · June 2022

WordsOfPower wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

There's a reason why it's dead: it's another PvP space where no PvP is actually going on.

Yep. it is a mixed PvP & PvE, in a tight confined area and the result is that both of those form of activities decrease the quality of the other.

In Cyro mixed PvE & PvP works, because "questing hubs" are larger & Cyro itself is larger, so ganking lone wonderers is less of an issue. In IC however it makes the experience really bad. In IC, there is no place for solo or non-group play. You just get overrun by ball group or multiple gankers. It does not matter if you are there for PvE or PvP. Both of those are imho really bad experience. It is probably the most toxic zone in the entire game as it actually promotes this type of behaviour (ganking & griefing) & gives you rewards for it. IC draws certain types of players who find joy in stuff like this.

I agree with your description of what tends to go on in IC but I think you are mistaking cause and effect.

It is, IMO, because the place is a ghost town that gankers reign supreme.

The counterplay to gankers is to have 35k health and run a flare.

The long term community-wide solution to IC is, as with Cyro, to make zerging impossible, so that for each district, what is promoted is small group battles.

Then, depending on skill level, the S Tier Chad 1vXers can get their kicks trying their luck against a group of A&B Tier try hards, the A&B Tier players can fight each other in small groups when the 1vXers are not around (which will be most of the time), and there is space for noobs and improving players to gradually dip their toes because they won't be the only gazelles in a zone with a zerg of lions

I have to say I share neither of your nor Tommy's view. The gameplay in IC is unique. The small-scale suggestions for IC I've heard in the past from the likes of Fengrush would turn IC into another variant of BGs. I am against that. I love IC as it is.

Like Necrotech_Master, I enjoyed IC since the beginning, when there were no flags and there was instant respawn. The current flag system tends to cause faction stacking, because you respawn where your own faction have taken flags. You are likely to run into them and group up. This has positives and negatives.

Anyway. I like IC, because there is always something to do, PvE or PvP. The population cap is so low and performance so bad in Cyro these days, Cyro is also empty (Blackreach) or unplayable (Gray Host). IC is always playable. However I would frequently go there anyway. I'm happy there is a place where PvPers can earn decent currency. I like the shorter respawn times. Occasionally getting banished to the sewers is bad, but no worse than a long ride in Cyro. I like the types of fights in IC, which typically involve smaller groups. Full scale organised ball groups spamming Dark Convergence are quite rare.

Saying that IC is empty and an unsuccessful game mode is flat out false on PC EU. You might have argued this while IC was part of Cyro. No one rode there. As soon as IC became it's own campaign and once Tel Var could be converted into Hakeijo and Apothecary Parcels, this drastically changed. IC is busy. Sometimes too busy. Bosses are farmed 24/7 on PC EU.

sharquez · June 2022

IC needs long term Incentives to keep people coming back like leader boards, fresh loot rotations or reward incentives, A Telvar golden of some kind. It's my favorite place to PVP but it needs more to make people want to go there regularly.

geonsocal · June 2022

hi @fred4 , sorry if i missed it in one of your earlier posts, i'm curious to hear though your perspective for wanting to keep things as they are:

I love IC as it is.

are you saying you're in favor of keeping the district flags?

are you in favor of not being able to respawn at any district alliance platform after death?

i remember when i first started doing pvp, the arena district was like a cyro after-party kind of thing...everyone would gather between the EP and DC platforms and just go at it, for hours, people would go off to the side to duel...AD would jump in to bomb all the time...i remember fighting inside the cages by the DC platform, and then also hopping on top of the cages by the EP platform to fight...no real tel var gains, small consistent AP gain...

fred4 · June 2022

sharquez wrote: »

IC needs long term Incentives to keep people coming back like leader boards, fresh loot rotations or reward incentives, A Telvar golden of some kind. It's my favorite place to PVP but it needs more to make people want to go there regularly.

Does it? People said that about Rewards for the Worthy. We got a refresh. Now where are we? Sets like Spell Strategist are irrelevant. At any rate the market was saturated long ago. It happens so quickly.

Did you know that you can currently make 5 times as much gold from IC than for years? The Tel Var exchange rate was 10:1 when IC was released. It had fallen to 2:1. Now it's back up to 10:1. That's an incentive. A 5:1 value increase is high, even compared to things like Dreugh Wax and Chromium.

Look anywhere within the game. The things that incentivize people are mostly very specific. From IC we have Hakeijo and Apothecary Parcels, but I think it's the stickerbook system that has really upended the economy over the past 1 1/2 years. You know how expensive it is to collect all weapons from IC sets? Very expensive. I have that completed now, but paid 500K each for the last couple of ones and that was on the cheap side for those particular ones (or you have to get very lucky). This has had a knockon effect on Hakeijo prices. If you want to make gold from IC, buy IC set loot boxes and price them up from TTC. Well that and war torte stuff, perhaps.

I suppose there is no incentive to play in the sewers or to go to Molag Bal, although I know some people who do that. It's a shame the sewers are so empty, but the population of IC as a whole on PC EU is IMO good. When it gets busy, during events, IC becomes more Cyro-like with bigger groups and even a bit of lag creeping in sometimes.

I suppose the dungeon monster helm motif farms have been quite successful. I wouldn't say no to Molag dropping something new every 2 months, something people really want, rather than it being a crown store item.

sharquez · June 2022

Making in game money is an incentive that's true, But it's gotten to the point for me that crown selling is the best time Vs effort return on gold for me. I prefer to just play for fun not to grind anymore, The things that get my attention are Transmute rewards and upgrade mats because I'm always changing my stuff around. This is why my "PVP" of choice lately has been ToT rather than IC. I get exactly what I need just for doing something I enjoy with no risk to my earnings. If IC had longterm incentives like transmute stone and leaderboard rewards i would make sure to stop in more often and not just during active times to gank.

fred4 · June 2022

geonsocal wrote: »

hi @fred4 , sorry if i missed it in one of your earlier posts, i'm curious to hear though your perspective for wanting to keep things as they are:

I love IC as it is.

are you saying you're in favor of keeping the district flags?

No, I'm in favor of it being a mixed PvP / PvE zone, of the risk / reward Tel Var mechanic, and of it being open world rather than instanced to something like 8v8v8 as I once heard suggested by Fengrush. I would also be against any kind of MMR system, e.g. anything that reeks of BGs. I think ZOS track record of PvP achievements, in other words the BG scoring system, is exceptionally poor. This is something I find inscrutable to this day and that actively disincentivized me personally from playing BGs. Basically I killed a bunch of players in my first BG and died less than others, but ended up at the bottom of the leaderboard, even in a Deathmatch. I couldn't get over that, though that's perhaps an issue unique to myself. At any rate, I wouldn't trust ZOS to do a scoring system right.

I liked the anarchy and pure joy of the original IC and I liked the higher mob difficulty at the time. I remember a huge throng of players standing in front of the AD spawn platform in Arboretum in an all out assault. I liked throwing myself into the fight repeatedly in Temple, dying frequently, but learning. It was exciting, though I think these are partially honeymoon memories of a new ESO player experiencing a game mode that was also new to everyone.

are you in favor of not being able to respawn at any district alliance platform after death?

No. I liked the free and instant respawn. Mind you, this was at a time when we did not yet have duelling. Sometimes I would duel in the tavern in the arena district. I'm used to the way the respawn works now and sometimes, when IC is all red (I am red), I actively go out of my way to keep it that way, so the red faction can boss farm with maximum gain. That's about the only time - usually after midnight - when I like that people get banished to the sewers. On the whole I'd probably prefer a respawn anywhere. There is more to learning ESO PvP than duelling. You want another chance at the same fight sometimes and the non-committal AvA nature of IC without a fixed group nor scoring system makes that less pressure than a BG (though MMR perhaps makes BGs more enjoyable for new players). On the other hand I can understand that you want a mechanic whereby a group may defeat another group without immediate replenishment. Flags help with that. A solution that's going around in my head is to allow the underdog faction(s) that own no flag(s) to respawn anywhere, rather than being banished to the sewers, but once you have a flag you can only respawn there. Just a half-baked idea.

ZOS introduced the flags first, then they opened it up as it's own campaign many patches later. They never tried it the other way round. The population didn't increase with the flags. It increased, because IC became more easily accessible. Just saying.

Another feature of the original IC was the different mob types, key fragments and mob concentrations, both upstairs and in the sewers. This caused people to spread out when Agility and Willpower (less so Endurance) were the hot new items. Switching the economy purely to Tel Var and Hakeijo changed that. It's the reason the sewers are so empty these days. The Walking bosses there are also just too unrewarding. I would have no problem with upstairs remaining the most rewarding place to farm, but if rewards from the sewers were upped to divert more players there. Maybe that would upset some PvEers, I don't know, but I think caving to either the pure PvP or pure PvE people who want to make IC purely one or the other would be a mistake. Those people already have much, much larger zones to play in. I think the concept of IC as a PvPvE zone should be left untouched for those of us who like exactly that.

fred4 · June 2022

sharquez wrote: »

Making in game money is an incentive that's true, But it's gotten to the point for me that crown selling is the best time Vs effort return on gold for me. I prefer to just play for fun not to grind anymore, The things that get my attention are Transmute rewards and upgrade mats because I'm always changing my stuff around. This is why my "PVP" of choice lately has been ToT rather than IC. I get exactly what I need just for doing something I enjoy with no risk to my earnings. If IC had longterm incentives like transmute stone and leaderboard rewards i would make sure to stop in more often and not just during active times to gank.

Hmm. Due to the stickerbook allowing me to experiment with builds more, I find myself in constant need of (gold) materials and Hakeijo. Almsot all of my builds use that. I don't have enough storage space to keep my Hakeijo-enchanted stuff. That's reserved for purple and gold jewelry only. Everything else gets reconstructed on demand.

Necrotech_Master · June 2022

i dont mind having the flags, as it gives the surface something to compete over, although i dont like the fact that some of the quest locations are directly under those flags (closer to flags is more dangerous pvp wise for someone who is questing)

i really hate how we cannot respawn in any district regardless of who controls the flags, that totally kills any enjoyment for me playing on the surface unless im just camping the tower in the arena district or my faction is zerging

so most of the time i end up just farming tel var in the sewers, as there are both less players down there, and if i die im not sitting through a double load screen to get back to the surface

geonsocal · June 2022

thanks @fred4 ...i understand better now...i was worried for a minute there though...

you're like my eso pvp spirit guardian

Sometimes I would duel in the tavern in the arena district.

wait what, what tavern???

fred4 · June 2022

In the wall that separates Arena from Arboretum, behind the blue spawn platform, there is a door leading into an abandoned tavern.

geonsocal · June 2022

ah, yikes, maybe it's been a while since I've spent some time in the districts