I'm curious to see what happens a month after launch when 1 faction is completely dominating the other 2. Faction pride no longer exists in my opinion so i expect rerolls to the winning teams before there's any chance of the 2 weaker ones teaming up.
The entire point of a 3 faction system is for balance but I've seen enough of today's player base to know better. They don't want competition. They want to win.
Congratulations for pointing out an issue that has existed in every mass pvp game ever made.
If everyone re-rolls to one side then they will have to wait in a long queue to get into pvp.
Its usually only the solo bandwagoners who will jump ship and end up clogging up the queue for the actually skilled players.
Also some people like playing as the underdogs and never having to worry about running out of targets.
I think the key, as a player, is to stick with a rock solid Guild that has a good leader. If you can manage that, it won't matter which server you're on, you'll still have fun and you'll still get things accomplished in RvR. Most of the whiners typically get stuck in PUGs all day.
PUGs suck. Well actually let me say this a different way. Don't follow the crowd if its just a crowd of randoms. They basically just want to brawl and have no idea what is happening or how to make anything real happen.
You can, and I have done this before, make things happen running "solo". Depending on your environment if you can get a few people to do a few useful things the "crowd of stupid" will actually start breaking up and they will follow the smarter guys trying to do something.
Sometimes the "crowd of stupid" is so self involved in some brawl at some spawn point that its just not possible to get something useful. But you only need a few people looking about for something decent to get some stuff done. You don't even need real full on leaders. Once the "crowd of stupid" starts seeing significant people going off and doing things they just kind of follow someone at random.
Of course this rarely happens unless there are a few people harranging them into it. Those people don't even need to be working together really, as long as what they are saying is fairly consistent with each other.
Its not really PUGs that are bad, although they will almost always be subpar just because you have never worked together before. Its the "crowd of stupid", the zerg that just brawls at spawn points that is utterly worthless. IMO what a lot of these games lack is an expectation of a sort of formal militia. A lot of people just want some fun and will take direction but won't find anything for themselves. If they had an in place organziation that they can informally join that will tell them where they can make a difference, you will see a vast change in the mob.
Sounded interesting until I read the bit about long running times as a death penalty (and that's bandied about as being positive O.o)
Obviously I'm not "hardcore enough" for this game. In my PvP I prefer to fight rather than run through repeating landscape... Call me shallow, but my time is at premium and this is crucial for me - I even found GW2's run times and lack of mounts excessive in downtime. At the moment the best way to deal with death/respawns etc that I found is in Planetside 2; very short respawn times but with a caveat that you might get respawned in a pisspot; if you want to resp somewhere nice be prepared to run; mobile but vulnerable spawning points; general availability of fast transport vehicles, all of them worth plenty of xp and therefore prime targets for opponents, in short you're never more than a minute away from a fight - if they implemented something like this in ESO I might consider giving it a whirl.
Also, I'd like to know more about strategic metagame of the thing. This is the most important factor that for some reason keeps being ignored in discussions; it determines whether there's going to be excessive zerging or not (and no silly nonsense like colision detection doesn't have anything to do with it.) What are the group rewards and goals, is the game more rewarding in defense or offense? Are rewards scaling with relative numbers of players? Again PS2 manages a very fine job with it, with defense being very rewarding, lattice system which funnels players without directing them, occasional rotating alerts which require a faction to simultaneously control various distant positions across the map etc... IMO a world PvP game lives and dies by its strategic framework. If the game is not interesting on its own as a rts strategy at it's highest level then the experience of the grunts on the ground will suffer as well.
I'm curious to see what happens a month after launch when 1 faction is completely dominating the other 2. Faction pride no longer exists in my opinion so i expect rerolls to the winning teams before there's any chance of the 2 weaker ones teaming up.
The entire point of a 3 faction system is for balance but I've seen enough of today's player base to know better. They don't want competition. They want to win.
Congratulations for pointing out an issue that has existed in every mass pvp game ever made.
If everyone re-rolls to one side then they will have to wait in a long queue to get into pvp.
Its usually only the solo bandwagoners who will jump ship and end up clogging up the queue for the actually skilled players.
Also some people like playing as the underdogs and never having to worry about running out of targets.
I think the key, as a player, is to stick with a rock solid Guild that has a good leader. If you can manage that, it won't matter which server you're on, you'll still have fun and you'll still get things accomplished in RvR. Most of the whiners typically get stuck in PUGs all day.
PUGs suck. Well actually let me say this a different way. Don't follow the crowd if its just a crowd of randoms. They basically just want to brawl and have no idea what is happening or how to make anything real happen.
You can, and I have done this before, make things happen running "solo". Depending on your environment if you can get a few people to do a few useful things the "crowd of stupid" will actually start breaking up and they will follow the smarter guys trying to do something.
Sometimes the "crowd of stupid" is so self involved in some brawl at some spawn point that its just not possible to get something useful. But you only need a few people looking about for something decent to get some stuff done. You don't even need real full on leaders. Once the "crowd of stupid" starts seeing significant people going off and doing things they just kind of follow someone at random.
Of course this rarely happens unless there are a few people harranging them into it. Those people don't even need to be working together really, as long as what they are saying is fairly consistent with each other.
Its not really PUGs that are bad, although they will almost always be subpar just because you have never worked together before. Its the "crowd of stupid", the zerg that just brawls at spawn points that is utterly worthless. IMO what a lot of these games lack is an expectation of a sort of formal militia. A lot of people just want some fun and will take direction but won't find anything for themselves. If they had an in place organziation that they can informally join that will tell them where they can make a difference, you will see a vast change in the mob.
In planetside 2, the gameplay is better, and overall just a lot more fun, if you stick with your Outfit platoons, joining random groups is often far too disorganised, far better to join an Outfit (Guild) that will be active in PVP so that you can work as a team, you get to know each other better and you become a 'part' of something, that imo, is what makes MMO's .. MMO's whether its PVP or PVE. Don't be a Billy no mates, join a guild and take part
I've watched a stream Q&A from a long-time streamer and I can safely tell you that zerging, at lesat on the long-time-testserver, was not an issue. I saw a group of a mere 16 lure a zerg into a chokepoint (a tower at one of the keeps) and mow them down as they came up the stairs. The streamer said that there are tons of spots on the map where you can do this and there are more strategies on how to defeat zergs as a small group, if you use terrain to your advantage.
Defending keeps is absolutely mandatory if you plan on getting anywhere on the map. It is extremely difficult and takes quite some time and effort from your entire alliance to claim all 6 keeps around cyrodiil. If youre not gonna defend your keeps, other factions will just roll right in and claim them back and you will respawn extremely far away.
Also remember that this is a 3-faction war. You defeat 1 faction and claim there keep, but dont repair and defend it? Chances are the 3rd faction will profit on that and just run into the already broken gate and claim the keep for themselves.
I've watched a stream Q&A from a long-time streamer and I cant safely tell you that zerging, at lesat on the long-time-testserver, was not an issue. I saw a group of a mere 16 lure a zerg into a chokepoint (a tower at one of the keeps) and mow them down as they came up the stairs. The streamer said that there are tons of spots on the map where you can do this and there are more strategies on how to defeat zergs as a small group, if you use terrain to your advantage.
Defending keeps is absolutely mandatory if you plan on getting anywhere on the map. It is extremely difficult and takes quite some time and effort from your entire alliance to claim all 6 keeps around cyrodiil. If youre not gonna defend your keeps, other factions will just roll right in and claim them back and you will respawn extremely far away.
Also remember that this is a 3-faction war. You defeat 1 faction and claim there keep, but dont repair and defend it? Chances are the 3rd faction will profit on that and just run into the already broken gate and claim the keep for themselves.
The way synergies and ultimates work also make a coordinated team exponentially more dangerous than what they otherwise would be. Between that and other mechanics, it's a pretty well designed system for mitigating the Zerg.
Granted it's a open world RvR game, so the zerg is always a part of things... but it's done a lot of smart things to keep it under control.
I've watched a stream Q&A from a long-time streamer and I cant safely tell you that zerging, at lesat on the long-time-testserver, was not an issue. I saw a group of a mere 16 lure a zerg into a chokepoint (a tower at one of the keeps) and mow them down as they came up the stairs. The streamer said that there are tons of spots on the map where you can do this and there are more strategies on how to defeat zergs as a small group, if you use terrain to your advantage.
Defending keeps is absolutely mandatory if you plan on getting anywhere on the map. It is extremely difficult and takes quite some time and effort from your entire alliance to claim all 6 keeps around cyrodiil. If youre not gonna defend your keeps, other factions will just roll right in and claim them back and you will respawn extremely far away.
Also remember that this is a 3-faction war. You defeat 1 faction and claim there keep, but dont repair and defend it? Chances are the 3rd faction will profit on that and just run into the already broken gate and claim the keep for themselves.
Everything you say here I deal with in GW2 everyday.
Noone seems to mention much the guild owned shops in Cyrodill keeps which is pretty much the only type of player shop. A large guild is not going to want to lose all that income coming in and will want to defend that keep a lot more than some generic tower.
Originally posted by Cougan Noone seems to mention much the guild owned shops in Cyrodill keeps which is pretty much the only type of player shop. A large guild is not going to want to lose all that income coming in and will want to defend that keep a lot more than some generic tower.
yes and 90% of the players will visit the keeps just to check the shops blocking the spot for the pvpers
Originally posted by Cougan Noone seems to mention much the guild owned shops in Cyrodill keeps which is pretty much the only type of player shop. A large guild is not going to want to lose all that income coming in and will want to defend that keep a lot more than some generic tower.
Yeah, great way to tell you that you're a nobody unless you're in a big guild, isn't it?
Same sort of thing in real life. You can sell things alone on here but you will have to do a lot of player interaction and advertising.
If you want to be a successful crafter or whatever then you would need a guild to get you these PVP resources anyway
Reasons to defend territory are always good in my mind.
I'm not a big fan of being spoonfed the global auction house where you can buy anything insatntly myself.
I'm calling it here, the Dominion will be the dominant faction because they will be the ones that survive the starting area!
I have a similar "fear".
I just hope to heavens that ZO will take heed of the reviews and fix the other 2 factions starts, otherwise it might cost them alot of players. I myself have no problem dealing with the 2 crappier starting experiences, because i know what lies beyond.
For those of you concerned about the length of "campaigns" and being on the losing team.
I'm on DC side and we had a PvP match time set to play for about 3 hours. AD controlled the entire map except maybe a tower owned by EP. DC pretty much had nothing but what you always had, so AD had wiped us out. We managed to group up over that time and take back 3 of our towers (not bad for 3 hours of play). AD, owning so many things, was actually at a disadvantage because EP was also attacking them at the same time. With so many players on the map, you can split up into focus groups. They were busy defending a keep from EP, so we were able to fight for the towers without too much hassle.
I've played GW2's WvW. It's fun for what it is. But it is no where the in-depth all out war feeling that ESO invokes.
I suppose it depends on your play-style. But i just wanted people to know that just because their side is on the losing end, it doesn't mean your faction can't come back and rally to take points and Elder Scrolls back from the dominating side.
That was always the worst thing about GW2. Who would win the matchup was determined the first day of play and after that it was just a painful loss for the other side. It doesn't work like that in ESO. The other Faction can completely dominate and you can come back and take things back if you organize for it.
Originally posted by Cougan Noone seems to mention much the guild owned shops in Cyrodill keeps which is pretty much the only type of player shop. A large guild is not going to want to lose all that income coming in and will want to defend that keep a lot more than some generic tower.
Yeah, great way to tell you that you're a nobody unless you're in a big guild, isn't it?
Same sort of thing in real life. You can sell things alone on here but you will have to do a lot of player interaction and advertising.
If you want to be a successful crafter or whatever then you would need a guild to get you these PVP resources anyway
Reasons to defend territory are always good in my mind.
I'm not a big fan of being spoonfed the global auction house where you can buy anything insatntly myself.
Cute, but this isn't real life where you are paid to do stuff... this is a video game you pay for to be entertained.
You have to play the game with what is available to yourself. If you want auction houses then leave the feedback, they might cave in with enough people wanting it.
If you dont want to be part of a guild or put the effort in to make it alone then dont play the game, stay with GW2. I was making the real life analogy of effort = reward
I can see the appeal of having your name on crafted equipment and selling it to hundreds or thousands of players across your server myself, and having well established stores that I know are well defended and valuable to the guilds involved.
I rather see the benefits of systems and what they CAN do to make pvp meaningful
From what I've seen so far, GW2's WvW and Cyrodiil seem very similar in concept, in many ways almost identical.
So as a PvP focused player who enjoyed a lot of what GW2's WvW had to offer, what is there about ESO's AvA system that would justify paying a sub for essentially the same PvP experience that I'm currently getting without a sub?
1) The game actually has significant healing / tanking abilities, meaning different strategies are required.
2) The layout is better, many keeps act as shields along impenetrable mountain passes, meaning if you want to get behind and steal the scroll, you'll need to take the keep.
3) A reward for being the best player, meaning that players will work hard to try and become the Emperor. Prevents the 'who cares' kind of mentality that you get in GW2.
4) Interesting build creation, more akin to GW1 than GW2.
There's a lot more that can be said, but do some research or give the game a try next beta weekend. Overall I thought it was better implemented in ESO, with more consideration about risks, rewards and map layout. Although being nearly 2 years after GW2, you should hope so.
Comments
PUGs suck. Well actually let me say this a different way. Don't follow the crowd if its just a crowd of randoms. They basically just want to brawl and have no idea what is happening or how to make anything real happen.
You can, and I have done this before, make things happen running "solo". Depending on your environment if you can get a few people to do a few useful things the "crowd of stupid" will actually start breaking up and they will follow the smarter guys trying to do something.
Sometimes the "crowd of stupid" is so self involved in some brawl at some spawn point that its just not possible to get something useful. But you only need a few people looking about for something decent to get some stuff done. You don't even need real full on leaders. Once the "crowd of stupid" starts seeing significant people going off and doing things they just kind of follow someone at random.
Of course this rarely happens unless there are a few people harranging them into it. Those people don't even need to be working together really, as long as what they are saying is fairly consistent with each other.
Its not really PUGs that are bad, although they will almost always be subpar just because you have never worked together before. Its the "crowd of stupid", the zerg that just brawls at spawn points that is utterly worthless. IMO what a lot of these games lack is an expectation of a sort of formal militia. A lot of people just want some fun and will take direction but won't find anything for themselves. If they had an in place organziation that they can informally join that will tell them where they can make a difference, you will see a vast change in the mob.
Sounded interesting until I read the bit about long running times as a death penalty (and that's bandied about as being positive O.o)
Obviously I'm not "hardcore enough" for this game. In my PvP I prefer to fight rather than run through repeating landscape... Call me shallow, but my time is at premium and this is crucial for me - I even found GW2's run times and lack of mounts excessive in downtime. At the moment the best way to deal with death/respawns etc that I found is in Planetside 2; very short respawn times but with a caveat that you might get respawned in a pisspot; if you want to resp somewhere nice be prepared to run; mobile but vulnerable spawning points; general availability of fast transport vehicles, all of them worth plenty of xp and therefore prime targets for opponents, in short you're never more than a minute away from a fight - if they implemented something like this in ESO I might consider giving it a whirl.
Also, I'd like to know more about strategic metagame of the thing. This is the most important factor that for some reason keeps being ignored in discussions; it determines whether there's going to be excessive zerging or not (and no silly nonsense like colision detection doesn't have anything to do with it.) What are the group rewards and goals, is the game more rewarding in defense or offense? Are rewards scaling with relative numbers of players? Again PS2 manages a very fine job with it, with defense being very rewarding, lattice system which funnels players without directing them, occasional rotating alerts which require a faction to simultaneously control various distant positions across the map etc... IMO a world PvP game lives and dies by its strategic framework. If the game is not interesting on its own as a rts strategy at it's highest level then the experience of the grunts on the ground will suffer as well.
In planetside 2, the gameplay is better, and overall just a lot more fun, if you stick with your Outfit platoons, joining random groups is often far too disorganised, far better to join an Outfit (Guild) that will be active in PVP so that you can work as a team, you get to know each other better and you become a 'part' of something, that imo, is what makes MMO's .. MMO's whether its PVP or PVE. Don't be a Billy no mates, join a guild and take part
I've watched a stream Q&A from a long-time streamer and I can safely tell you that zerging, at lesat on the long-time-testserver, was not an issue. I saw a group of a mere 16 lure a zerg into a chokepoint (a tower at one of the keeps) and mow them down as they came up the stairs. The streamer said that there are tons of spots on the map where you can do this and there are more strategies on how to defeat zergs as a small group, if you use terrain to your advantage.
Defending keeps is absolutely mandatory if you plan on getting anywhere on the map. It is extremely difficult and takes quite some time and effort from your entire alliance to claim all 6 keeps around cyrodiil. If youre not gonna defend your keeps, other factions will just roll right in and claim them back and you will respawn extremely far away.
Also remember that this is a 3-faction war. You defeat 1 faction and claim there keep, but dont repair and defend it? Chances are the 3rd faction will profit on that and just run into the already broken gate and claim the keep for themselves.
I'm calling it here, the Dominion will be the dominant faction because they will be the ones that survive the starting area!
The way synergies and ultimates work also make a coordinated team exponentially more dangerous than what they otherwise would be. Between that and other mechanics, it's a pretty well designed system for mitigating the Zerg.
Granted it's a open world RvR game, so the zerg is always a part of things... but it's done a lot of smart things to keep it under control.
You're realling out of touch with GW2 aren't you? Culling has been removed for ages.
Everything you say here I deal with in GW2 everyday.
Yes, but the performance is still bad.
yes and 90% of the players will visit the keeps just to check the shops blocking the spot for the pvpers
thats very smart
Same sort of thing in real life. You can sell things alone on here but you will have to do a lot of player interaction and advertising.
If you want to be a successful crafter or whatever then you would need a guild to get you these PVP resources anyway
Reasons to defend territory are always good in my mind.
I'm not a big fan of being spoonfed the global auction house where you can buy anything insatntly myself.
I have a similar "fear".
I just hope to heavens that ZO will take heed of the reviews and fix the other 2 factions starts, otherwise it might cost them alot of players. I myself have no problem dealing with the 2 crappier starting experiences, because i know what lies beyond.
For those of you concerned about the length of "campaigns" and being on the losing team.
I'm on DC side and we had a PvP match time set to play for about 3 hours. AD controlled the entire map except maybe a tower owned by EP. DC pretty much had nothing but what you always had, so AD had wiped us out. We managed to group up over that time and take back 3 of our towers (not bad for 3 hours of play). AD, owning so many things, was actually at a disadvantage because EP was also attacking them at the same time. With so many players on the map, you can split up into focus groups. They were busy defending a keep from EP, so we were able to fight for the towers without too much hassle.
I've played GW2's WvW. It's fun for what it is. But it is no where the in-depth all out war feeling that ESO invokes.
I suppose it depends on your play-style. But i just wanted people to know that just because their side is on the losing end, it doesn't mean your faction can't come back and rally to take points and Elder Scrolls back from the dominating side.
That was always the worst thing about GW2. Who would win the matchup was determined the first day of play and after that it was just a painful loss for the other side. It doesn't work like that in ESO. The other Faction can completely dominate and you can come back and take things back if you organize for it.
You have to play the game with what is available to yourself. If you want auction houses then leave the feedback, they might cave in with enough people wanting it.
If you dont want to be part of a guild or put the effort in to make it alone then dont play the game, stay with GW2. I was making the real life analogy of effort = reward
I can see the appeal of having your name on crafted equipment and selling it to hundreds or thousands of players across your server myself, and having well established stores that I know are well defended and valuable to the guilds involved.
I rather see the benefits of systems and what they CAN do to make pvp meaningful
1) The game actually has significant healing / tanking abilities, meaning different strategies are required.
2) The layout is better, many keeps act as shields along impenetrable mountain passes, meaning if you want to get behind and steal the scroll, you'll need to take the keep.
3) A reward for being the best player, meaning that players will work hard to try and become the Emperor. Prevents the 'who cares' kind of mentality that you get in GW2.
4) Interesting build creation, more akin to GW1 than GW2.
There's a lot more that can be said, but do some research or give the game a try next beta weekend. Overall I thought it was better implemented in ESO, with more consideration about risks, rewards and map layout. Although being nearly 2 years after GW2, you should hope so.