Does Anyone Know how the Mega-Server will work with PvP?

Qallidexz

Edit: It seems that campaigns will in fact be permanent and you can only switch at a meaningful cost of Alliance Points, which we believe to be similiar to DAoC's "Realm Points".

 

For the record, I'm unbelivably excited about thsi game, have been since they announced it, a few months ago... But that being said, as a former DAoC junkie, the concept of this mega-server really has me worried.

 

Back in DAoC, you had one server, one frontiers (the PvP area; Cyrodiil if you will), and when you took a keep or castle, that was it, it was taken for your server, it was taken, no ifs ands or buts...

But now with this Megaserver....? Apparently there's going to be different "Campaigns", or instances, I guess you could call them, where all the PvP takes place... So does taking a keep really hold any meaning? I mean, can you just switch from one campaign to another, or once you join a campaign, you're there for good?

If people are constantly swapping about campagns, I think that taking a keep would lose ALL its meaning, because I mean who cares if you take XYZ Keep in one campagn, as the Ebonheart Pact, when the Aldmeri Dominion has that keep in a few other campaigns, and the Daggerfall Covenant has it in a few others? Why would it freken matter?? You'd just be taking one keep in one campaign... Is this how it's going to work? I would like more clarification on this system, if anyone knows anything, and if this is how it works, will it destroy the meaning of PvP in ESO?

muffins89

• PvP comprises a major portion of endgame content in TES:O, with a mix of open-world RvR and instanced arenas. No one will be forced to PvP if they do not wish to do so, PvP participation is purely voluntary either by entering a battleground or Cyrodiil. ^(GI1),(GI11)
• The focal point of PvP in TES:O is the war between the three player factions in the central province of Cyrodiil. This entire province is the stage for endgame PvP, and its geographic map is inspired directly from that used in TES4: Oblivion. The full size of the playable area of Cyrodiil is even (slightly) larger than the landmass portrayed in Oblivion, all Cyrodiil’s major geographic landmarks and points of interest are present and will be immediately recognizable to fans of Oblivion. ^(GI1),(TF1)
• The three faction system is designed to naturally balance and lend political intrigue to the persistent PvP endgame. If any one faction becomes too powerful, the other two factions naturally tend to work together to turn the tide of battle. ^(GI1),(GI3)
• Players may begin participating in Cyrodiil from level 10 onwards. Players who are below level 50 recieve “battle-leveling” which enhances their attributes so they may participate and contribute to the alliance war. Battle-leveled players do not recieve the full complement of abilities, perks, or gear that a naturally leveled player would have, therefore a strong incentive to level and optimize your character remains present. ^(TF1)
• Because of the megaserver technology, Cyrodiil needs to be separated into multiple instances. However, instead of random assignment of players, ZeniMax recognizes the importance of having static PvP communities for the sake of rivalry and investment in the state of the realm war. Therefore, players are assigned (or may select) a “campaign”, which is a permanent parallel version of Cyrodiil’s realm war to which they belong. Campaigns will be named after the major cities in the region. ^(TF1)
• Guilds can collectively select a Cyrodiil campaign, and players will be able to switch campaigns, however this will impose some meaningful alliance point cost. However, you are prohibited from having characters from different factions in the same campaign. ^(TF1)
• In order to maintain the PvP focus on the massive realm war in Cyrodiil, ZeniMax has elected to not include any form of structured or instanced PvP at launch. They want players’ focus to be on the alliance war, which is the crowning facet of TESO’s gameplay. ^(TF1)

 

 

Qallidexz

Originally posted by muffins89

• Because of the megaserver technology, Cyrodiil needs to be separated into multiple instances. However, instead of random assignment of players, ZeniMax recognizes the importance of having static PvP communities for the sake of rivalry and investment in the state of the realm war. Therefore, players are assigned (or may select) a “campaign”, which is a permanent parallel version of Cyrodiil’s realm war to which they belong. Campaigns will be named after the major cities in the region. ^(TF1)
• Guilds can collectively select a Cyrodiil campaign, and players will be able to switch campaigns, however this will impose some meaningful alliance point cost. However, you are prohibited from having characters from

Kind of a mixed message here, one bullet-point says the campaigns are permanant, and the other one states that entire guilds can switch campaigns, at some sort of cost? I appreciate the info, but could you elaborate on this a little bit?

muffins89

Originally posted by Qallidexz

Originally posted by muffins89

• Because of the megaserver technology, Cyrodiil needs to be separated into multiple instances. However, instead of random assignment of players, ZeniMax recognizes the importance of having static PvP communities for the sake of rivalry and investment in the state of the realm war. Therefore, players are assigned (or may select) a “campaign”, which is a permanent parallel version of Cyrodiil’s realm war to which they belong. Campaigns will be named after the major cities in the region. ^(TF1)
• Guilds can collectively select a Cyrodiil campaign, and players will be able to switch campaigns, however this will impose some meaningful alliance point cost. However, you are prohibited from having characters from

Kind of a mixed message here, one bullet-point says the campaigns are permanant, and the other one states that entire guilds can switch campaigns, at some sort of cost? I appreciate the info, but could you elaborate on this a little bit?

they havent said much.  but you gain 'Alliance Points' for pvp kills,  capturing objectives,  etc.  they dont want to restrict people from ever switching.  so they give the option at the cost of Alliance Points.  which i think are a ranking system.  for example you can switch out of a campaign if you want but i will cost you 5 pvp ranks.  (just throwing numbers out there).  the permanence is just that.  Cyrodiil never resets.  you will always be in the same cyrodiil, fighting with and against the same people.  (save those that choose to xfer to a different one).  if your faction takes a keep it will always be yours,  forever.  until another faction takes it back.

lotaparty

i will keep an eye on the game but my hopes are not that much high for it . 

Qallidexz

Originally posted by muffins89

Originally posted by Qallidexz

Originally posted by muffins89

• Because of the megaserver technology, Cyrodiil needs to be separated into multiple instances. However, instead of random assignment of players, ZeniMax recognizes the importance of having static PvP communities for the sake of rivalry and investment in the state of the realm war. Therefore, players are assigned (or may select) a “campaign”, which is a permanent parallel version of Cyrodiil’s realm war to which they belong. Campaigns will be named after the major cities in the region. ^(TF1)
• Guilds can collectively select a Cyrodiil campaign, and players will be able to switch campaigns, however this will impose some meaningful alliance point cost. However, you are prohibited from having characters from

Kind of a mixed message here, one bullet-point says the campaigns are permanant, and the other one states that entire guilds can switch campaigns, at some sort of cost? I appreciate the info, but could you elaborate on this a little bit?

they havent said much.  but you gain 'Alliance Points' for pvp kills,  capturing objectives,  etc.  they dont want to restrict people from ever switching.  so they give the option at the cost of Alliance Points.  which i think are a ranking system.  for example you can switch out of a campaign if you want but i will cost you 5 pvp ranks.  (just throwing numbers out there).  the permanence is just that.  Cyrodiil never resets.  you will always be in the same cyrodiil, fighting with and against the same people.  (save those that choose to xfer to a different one).  if your faction takes a keep it will always be yours,  forever.  until another faction takes it back.

Ohhh I see. So Alliance Points are like Realm Points, so you could switch campaigns, but if you did so, it might cost you  a few Realm Ranks, that would certainly be a meaningful loss, to keep people staying permanently on one Campaign, and thinking REAL carefully before they switch, lol

Fearum

From what I understand so far you are awarded alliance points, I assume a form of money or tokens for rewards probably to spend on gear, potions, siege equipment, upgrade who knows what else... not really sure so just using those as an example.

Edit, not sure what the alliance points are for, I just read up a few posts about using them to switch between campaigns so that might be true.

You can switch to another campaign to help your faction out from your home campaign, but you will take a loss in alliance points if its not your home campaign. I hope you get none if you go to another campaign, should not be able to gain anything by jumping around and will force each faction to balance its self around. 

Its all about keeping  balance so people dont jump around in a huge zerg capping all the maps farming easy points.

muffins89

@ Qall - yep.  they've said they're planning on 23 ranks at launch.

Qallidexz

Originally posted by Fearum

From what I understand so far you are awarded alliance points, I assume a form of money or tokens for rewards probably to spend on gear, potions, siege equipment, upgrade who knows what else... not really sure so just using those as an example.

Edit, not sure what the alliance points are for, I just read up a few posts about using them to switch between campaigns so that might be true.

You can switch to another campaign to help your faction out from your home campaign, but you will take a loss in alliance points if its not your home campaign. I hope you get none if you go to another campaign, should not be able to gain anything by jumping around and will force each faction to balance its self around. 

Its all about keeping  balance so people dont jump around in a huge zerg capping all the maps farming easy points.

Well, if alliance points are anything like Realm points (as I take it that they are), they unlock sick abilities thru Realm Ranks... Realm Ranks were basically like "PvP levels" that unlocked special PvP-centric abilities, so RP's were more akin to XP, than a form of currency.

Apraxis

Another hot question i really would like to ask one of the TESO Devs is, how the Mega-Server and/or Campaigns will work with regional differences? Do they really mean players from EU, US and Asia will play together on one server/campaign?

At the pve mega-server they may be divided anyways(the system behind the scene will do it, and friends over the ocean are not that regulary anyways), but you can choose the campaign? So, will there play EU, US and Asia player together? In a Action combat system? This will be a latency nightmare. Not to talk about the language barrier.

Or will they have different Mega-Servers for different regions/languages anyway? Maybe even different publishers/server hoster? Or will ZeniMax host and publish the game by itself? Or at least in US/EU? 

GreenishBlue

in before the lock... (since threads have been locked left and right lately) lol

 

I wanna see how this megaserver will play out for the PvP; I was wondering if the faction takes the throne of Tamriel will be announced gloriously, must be an argonian emperor or it didn't happen

ShakyMo

What's to stop players switching campaigns to one where their side is the zerg faction, and you end up with just a series of one sided campaigns. Yes this could happen with servers too but is harder as players would have to dump their old characters

Qallidexz

Originally posted by Apraxis

Another hot question i really would like to ask one of the TESO Devs is, how the Mega-Server and/or Campaigns will work with regional differences? Do they really mean players from EU, US and Asia will play together on one server/campaign?

At the pve mega-server they may be divided anyways(the system behind the scene will do it, and friends over the ocean are not that regulary anyways), but you can choose the campaign? So, will there play EU, US and Asia player together? In a Action combat system? This will be a latency nightmare. Not to talk about the language barrier.

Or will they have different Mega-Servers for different regions/languages anyway? Maybe even different publishers/server hoster? Or will ZeniMax host and publish the game by itself? Or at least in US/EU? 

From what I understand, they'll be 2 mega-servers, one in EU, and one for NA, and the campaigns will take place within each mega-server, but each server will be serperate from one another completely...

Qallidexz

Originally posted by ShakyMo
What's to stop players switching campaigns to one where their side is the zerg faction, and you end up with just a series of one sided campaigns. Yes this could happen with servers too but is harder as players would have to dump their old characters

No, people won't be able to just switch around at a whim, Sage said that there would be a meaninful Alliance Points loss if you want to switch, which hurts how powerful your character is in PvP (because you would get PvP levels called "Realm Ranks" in DAOC, and in ESO, there may be something like "Alliance Rank"...

So, if you spent a LOT of time PvPing, you could maybe switch campaigns a few times, but each time would cost you dearly, and would essentially be a whole bunch of PvP kills down the drain... though were not clear on the exact penalty yet, it will definitely be enough to discourage players from hopping around campaigns at a whim.

SigmaEX

just think of the campaigns as individual servers, cause well.......thats what it is lol.

 

the being able to switch campaigns is equivilant to server transfers but with at a cost to pvp points or what not.

 

itll be pretty awsome

TsaboHavoc

Originally posted by Qallidexz

Originally posted by ShakyMo
What's to stop players switching campaigns to one where their side is the zerg faction, and you end up with just a series of one sided campaigns. Yes this could happen with servers too but is harder as players would have to dump their old characters

No, people won't be able to just switch around at a whim, Sage said that there would be a meaninful Alliance Points loss if you want to switch, which hurts how powerful your character is in PvP (because you would get PvP levels called "Realm Ranks" in DAOC, and in ESO, there may be something like "Alliance Rank"...

So, if you spent a LOT of time PvPing, you could maybe switch campaigns a few times, but each time would cost you dearly, and would essentially be a whole bunch of PvP kills down the drain... though were not clear on the exact penalty yet, it will definitely be enough to discourage players from hopping around campaigns at a whim.

read shaky post again, carefully this time...

ShakyMo

They need something where you can't ever ever transfer to a campaign where your side is dominant. Otherwise most campaigns will be a massive clusterf*ck of 1 massive side rveing all the keeps occasionally killing the odd solo masochist from the other 2 sides.

Sadly modern gamers just go with the path of least resistance, as witnessed by swtor and tsw. This isn't 2002 you can't rely IB responsible players to balance the factions or go with underdogs for the kudos of it like with daoc and planetside.

deakon

Originally posted by ShakyMo
They need something where you can't ever ever transfer to a campaign where your side is dominant. Otherwise most campaigns will be a massive clusterf*ck of 1 massive side rveing all the keeps occasionally killing the odd solo masochist from the other 2 sides.

Sadly modern gamers just go with the path of least resistance, as witnessed by swtor and tsw. This isn't 2002 you can't rely IB responsible players to balance the factions or go with underdogs for the kudos of it like with daoc and planetside.

What they could do (and this is pure speculation) is make it so the highest population on any given campaign can never go above double the lowest population in the same campaign, that way the 2 lower populations can work together and be as strong or stronger than the highest population.

 

Thats the good thing about 3 faction gameplay, it allows for imbalances as the other 2 sides can work together. I dont think they need to hard lock the campaigns, infact I think that will cause more problems than it solves. As long as the cost of changing campaigns is prohibitive, it shouldnt be an issue

muffins89

Originally posted by ShakyMo
They need something where you can't ever ever transfer to a campaign where your side is dominant. Otherwise most campaigns will be a massive clusterf*ck of 1 massive side rveing all the keeps occasionally killing the odd solo masochist from the other 2 sides.

Sadly modern gamers just go with the path of least resistance, as witnessed by swtor and tsw. This isn't 2002 you can't rely IB responsible players to balance the factions or go with underdogs for the kudos of it like with daoc and planetside.

that's not going to happen in an mmo.  people would bitch because they couldnt play with their friends.  theyve already said they are going to have a penalty associated with xfer's.  also it's 3 sided persistent pvp.  if one faction is dominating long enough the other 2 are gonna figure out that they will have to work together.   

Qallidexz

Originally posted by TsaboHavoc

Originally posted by Qallidexz

Originally posted by ShakyMo
What's to stop players switching campaigns to one where their side is the zerg faction, and you end up with just a series of one sided campaigns. Yes this could happen with servers too but is harder as players would have to dump their old characters

No, people won't be able to just switch around at a whim, Sage said that there would be a meaninful Alliance Points loss if you want to switch, which hurts how powerful your character is in PvP (because you would get PvP levels called "Realm Ranks" in DAOC, and in ESO, there may be something like "Alliance Rank"...

So, if you spent a LOT of time PvPing, you could maybe switch campaigns a few times, but each time would cost you dearly, and would essentially be a whole bunch of PvP kills down the drain... though were not clear on the exact penalty yet, it will definitely be enough to discourage players from hopping around campaigns at a whim.

read shaky post again, carefully this time...

You mean read "Shaky's" post again? I don't need to because I read it carefully the first time, which is why I correctly answered his question... If you don't see it, I suggest rereading my post, carefully this time.

Qallidexz

Originally posted by ShakyMo
They need something where you can't ever ever transfer to a campaign where your side is dominant. Otherwise most campaigns will be a massive clusterf*ck of 1 massive side rveing all the keeps occasionally killing the odd solo masochist from the other 2 sides.

Sadly modern gamers just go with the path of least resistance, as witnessed by swtor and tsw. This isn't 2002 you can't rely IB responsible players to balance the factions or go with underdogs for the kudos of it like with daoc and planetside.

The penalty involved will be "meaningful" enough that players aren't just going to want to switch to the FOTM campaign where their Faction is ahead, because it won't be worth it. At the same time, players can switch to campaigns where their faction is the underdog, and there's more PvP available, (people do this all the time). Therefore, one faction will never stay on top permanently, and someone would have to keep switching around to join the campaign where their faction is winning, more often than they'd be capable of doing... Just for clarification

ShakyMo

No muffins you misunderstand

The other 2 factions won't band together

They will just take the ap hit and switch to a campaign where they are winning

Qallidexz

Originally posted by ShakyMo
No muffins you misunderstand

The other 2 factions won't band together

They will just take the ap hit and switch to a campaign where they are winning

No offesnse, but if you haven't played DAoC, it's hard to comprehend what "taking the AP hit" will involve, because I know in DAoC, if you lose a few RR's (Realm Ranks), that's a BIG DEAL. And Paul Sage said that Campaign switching penalties will be "meaningful", so for all intents and purposes, we have to look at campaign switches as a sort of server transfer, as previously stated by someone in this thread.

ShakyMo

i played daoc for years

Modern players aren't daoc era players.  Kids nowadays take ti way more personally when they die in game.

if they dont have things in place to stop players switching to a campaign where they dominate, it will be a huge mess. 

muffins89

Originally posted by ShakyMo

i played daoc for years

Modern players aren't daoc era players.  Kids nowadays take ti way more personally when they die in game.

if they dont have things in place to stop players switching to a campaign where they dominate, it will be a huge mess. 

they've already acknowledged your concern.  we just dont know how it will work yet. 

Unknown

Originally posted by muffins89

• PvP comprises a major portion of endgame content in TES:O, with a mix of open-world RvR and instanced arenas. No one will be forced to PvP if they do not wish to do so, PvP participation is purely voluntary either by entering a battleground or Cyrodiil. ^(GI1),(GI11)
• The focal point of PvP in TES:O is the war between the three player factions in the central province of Cyrodiil. This entire province is the stage for endgame PvP, and its geographic map is inspired directly from that used in TES4: Oblivion. The full size of the playable area of Cyrodiil is even (slightly) larger than the landmass portrayed in Oblivion, all Cyrodiil’s major geographic landmarks and points of interest are present and will be immediately recognizable to fans of Oblivion. ^(GI1),(TF1)
• The three faction system is designed to naturally balance and lend political intrigue to the persistent PvP endgame. If any one faction becomes too powerful, the other two factions naturally tend to work together to turn the tide of battle. ^(GI1),(GI3)
• Players may begin participating in Cyrodiil from level 10 onwards. Players who are below level 50 recieve “battle-leveling” which enhances their attributes so they may participate and contribute to the alliance war. Battle-leveled players do not recieve the full complement of abilities, perks, or gear that a naturally leveled player would have, therefore a strong incentive to level and optimize your character remains present. ^(TF1)
• Because of the megaserver technology, Cyrodiil needs to be separated into multiple instances. However, instead of random assignment of players, ZeniMax recognizes the importance of having static PvP communities for the sake of rivalry and investment in the state of the realm war. Therefore, players are assigned (or may select) a “campaign”, which is a permanent parallel version of Cyrodiil’s realm war to which they belong. Campaigns will be named after the major cities in the region. ^(TF1)
• Guilds can collectively select a Cyrodiil campaign, and players will be able to switch campaigns, however this will impose some meaningful alliance point cost. However, you are prohibited from having characters from different factions in the same campaign. ^(TF1)
• In order to maintain the PvP focus on the massive realm war in Cyrodiil, ZeniMax has elected to not include any form of structured or instanced PvP at launch. They want players’ focus to be on the alliance war, which is the crowning facet of TESO’s gameplay. ^(TF1)

 

 

OK this actually sounds pretty good.