I was only missing the many coordination helpers GW2 has.
- Commander Tags you can see on the map: it makes it so easy to know "I can go there and follow this dude I know was a good leader".
- minimap: knowing your immediate surroundings and being able to coordinate
- name tags and chat bubbles: how do I know if "INCOMING" is in my vincinity or all over the map if I have neither name tags nor chat bubbles?
- free rez: Good riddance, being forced to walk 10+ minutes back to the battle or having people buy expensive soul gems is ridiculous. Offer a free rez for all as in GW2 or give some classes a rez skill line. The Soul Gem rez is the most absurd idea, especially in a giant PVP map.
The basic system of PVP is cool, but as in so many areas the detailled things a MMO usually has made PVP a chore for me.
Much like DAoC, you need to interact with other players in order to get the most out of this style of PvP... it is an MMO afterall. People can res you where you die - but you probably need to be communicating to other people that you need a res. If you like small scale arena / BG's, I wouldn't play this.
The argument is not for small scale arena. The argument is that extremely good and solid interconnect gameplay should be a significant force multiplier.
In other words 4 groups of 4 operating together extremely well with a smart strategy should be a match for a zerg that is 4 times that size (these are arbitrary numbers of course).
In DAOC this was possible because of things like CC dedicated speed buffers, healing and extremely coordinated spike damage etc.
In more modern games most of these tactics have hard capped limits so the force multiplication does not really work out and you basically have a herd mentality massive aoe spike zerg winning everything. Once someone start getting zapped everyone completely overkills it in a school of fish like behavior. Thus the zerg dominance. Will TESO turn out this way? I dunno but unless there is some sort of force multiplier the answer is almost certainly "Yes".
Thus the burden for people who admit zerging is an issue in general, yet think TESO will be different is to identify the force multiplers and show how they can solve this problem.
Siege weapons are cheap and can be bought and placed by anyone. They do a pretty good job at damaging large groups. the AJ PvP video shows the oil killing about 10 people in one shot. Zerging might be an issue, but when coordinated guilds get into the game, it will be different.
I don't think 16 people will be able to face roll 64 people unless they have a defensive position in the keep with siege weapons, but the map of Cyrodiil is large enough that even if a zerg rushes down a keep, that leaves another side vulnerable. There is a cap to how many people can be on the map afterall.
@jidakra - The point I was making was that, despite the imbalances, a small group of prepared and skilled players could "win" there, in rated arena. Even if it took extra skill, even if it took careful group composition, even if others had it easier, a small group that was skilled enough would be rewarded. That isn't the case in ESO, where for example, 3 players, no matter how good, can't have a determinate effect on the outcome in Cyrodil. To be sure they can help, they can contribute, they can swing the balance slightly in their team's favor, but that of course isn't at all the same. Some players undoubtedly like being a small part of a larger force and not having the outcome rest solely on their shoulders, and that's fine. But it would be nice to have an option for the other players who don't prefer that.
I see what you mean. As long as the game is still balanced around Mediumsized group-PvP, I guess it couldnt hurt.
Beta-Players are suggesting implementing the Arena in the Imperial City of Cyrodiil, as it was implemented in Oblivion. Maybe thats what Zenimax is planning on doing?
Though even in this big war small groups, even groups of 5, can contribute immensely to the outcome, because of the way the respawnsystem works. What I predict will happen, is that there will always be a certain amount of people defending captured outposts. These are really easy to take, even with a group of 5 and connect 2 keeps in enemy territory. Capture these with your group and cut off enemy respawns all the way to their outer keep, making it veeeery easy to recapture all keeps on your side of the map.
Your group of 5 people might not "win" the war, but I am sure that, if you were to form a guild of 50, you have realistic chances of doing so. The punishment for any kind of mistake is so severe in terms of tactical advantage in this game that organized, midsized groups will probably be dominating zergs any day of the week. At least on the defensive side of things. On offense, there will probably be some sort of zerg going for the enemy keeps, but without the support of smaller groups this zerg will bleed out because of lack of respawnpoints. At least thats what I'm thinking will happen. Could turn out completely differently in practice, who knows.
I disagree with rollie in AvA you can make a major difference as a small group and change the overall war and how works out. There is enough cc and healing to work in a coordinated zerg busting group. it will be much harder without a 30 sec cc or mass aoe but a good 4 man easily beats an 8 man assisting group, As a DAOC rr10 pre TOA vet and a former server leader in warhammer and a level 50 ESO not capped in veteran levels . The group mechanics and skill base is in place for a dedicated guild groups to bust larger groups(I have done it). At this point I do not know if a 12 man can bust a zerg but my gut tells me its possible. AVA is fun and as a team working together you will have a great success. Although I have not tested the boundaries of this game and would love a 30 second mezz or an aoe that could melt a zerg. The same old rules apply, call the targets, assist the leader, use tactics to surprise your enemy, apply any cc possible and don't break it, work as a team and your overall success in any pvp game is assured.
Level to 50 fast - apparently stats are locked in Cyrodil for 1-49 players, as soon as you hit 50 your stats will unlock to actual value that is much higher than 1-49 players.
Basically a lvl 50 in Cyrodil can mow down groups of non-50s with ease. so 4-5 level 50s could handle large groups of 1-49s
Seriously? That's beyond retarded.
That kind of idiocy together with no penalty for losing and, what is equally stupid, NO COLLISION fights will get old and uninteresting real fast.
Notice the word apparently in his post. He is wrong but apparently believes a lot of the misinformation that has been floating around.
The argument is not for small scale arena. The argument is that extremely good and solid interconnect gameplay should be a significant force multiplier.
In other words 4 groups of 4 operating together extremely well with a smart strategy should be a match for a zerg that is 4 times that size (these are arbitrary numbers of course).
In DAOC this was possible because of things like CC dedicated speed buffers, healing and extremely coordinated spike damage etc.
In more modern games most of these tactics have hard capped limits so the force multiplication does not really work out and you basically have a herd mentality massive aoe spike zerg winning everything. Once someone start getting zapped everyone completely overkills it in a school of fish like behavior. Thus the zerg dominance. Will TESO turn out this way? I dunno but unless there is some sort of force multiplier the answer is almost certainly "Yes".
Thus the burden for people who admit zerging is an issue in general, yet think TESO will be different is to identify the force multiplers and show how they can solve this problem.
I was never a big fan of the power CC had in early DaoC, to be honest. It essentially turned PvP into a wild west game of who was quicker on the draw with the CC gun. And while it made it possible to take out forces many times your size, it came at the expense of group tactics. The tactics basically boiled down to exactly ONE tactic: Everybody /follows on the driver (which was usually the CCer), the CCer fires off the MEZZ gun, everybody else simply /assists on killing one statue after another. That sort of gameplay gets old after awhile. There's no variety to it.
I am not claiming DAOC had it right, although many DAOC players who ran these groups will swear up and down.
But the concept of force multiplication is the basic problem. Its not an easy problem but it is the foundation from which people should try to think about this problem.
Look, I sympathize with those who think that zergs with 3-4 times your numbers have an unfair advantage. But expecting a small force of 6-12 people to take on a 200 man strong zerg is just expecting too much. Even good tactics won't save your ass.
When it's 6-12 vs 200, 'good tactics' are sublimated to the good strategy of 'don't get caught.'
I would like 50 better players to be able to take on 100 worse ones. I'm not as sure about 50 vs 200 - there's an ideal breakpoint ratio somewhere, where the Elite Squad can be confident but not arrogant, but I'm not quite sure where that lies. My gut says 2:1, but it could be wrong and 4:1 would be better.
Of course, that's a subjective call as well so tastes will vary.
Originally posted by RollieJoe
@Satarious - I'm not sure what post you were reading but it doesn't appear to be mine. Of course I'm not expecting a small group to have any real impact on the outcome of combat in ESO, as it is currently designed. What I would like, is another PvP option where skillful play in a small group CAN have a real impact, which is an option that ESO completely lacks atm, and the reason we won't be playing it.
Your sub money will be missed, but you won't be.
I mean no offense by that. What I mean, is that arena players are practically in another game altogether as it is. So whether you're doing it in ESO, LoL, GW2 or whatever else won't make much difference beyond whatever cash you're kicking (or not kicking) into the game. I'm assuming, of course, that you're asking for an arena-like concept as your 'other PvP option.' If not, toss out some details.
What they need is something similar to what World of Warcraft done with Tol Barad, where you have to split up your forces in order to win .. if one big zerg can just go around and take a keep and it doesn't matter if they keep it; so they move on to take the next one and let the other side retake that one .. then its just like GW2 and gets old fast ...
But if you have to take more than one thing and hold them together for a time in order to "win" something, then that will help make the zerg's smaller . IMHO
Also it might help that if they awarded groups & individuals based on how many it took to accomplish each task, less people giving a higher reward of some kind .. then that also would help make people want to complete activities in PVP with fewer people in the groups. (make it a cut off point where less than say 15 or so doesn't grant you any bigger reward so people don't want to keep people from joining them also .. don't want to swing it the other way and make it a solo PVP experience either), but there should be a happy medium, and then have things that reward for larger groups etc to do them in the same manner.
Then you would need bigger groups, but smaller groups could have their objectives as well. again IMHO .. i don't see why this wouldn't work; as long as the rewards were worth the effort. And, if they were different, like you get different rewards for the larger group content than say you did for the smaller group content, that would make people want to do them both so they can collect both rewards, as long as the rewards were worth doing the objective I don't see why it wouldn't work.
What they need is something similar to what World of Warcraft done with Tol Barad, where you have to split up your forces in order to win .. if one big zerg can just go around and take a keep and it doesn't matter if they keep it; so they move on to take the next one and let the other side retake that one .. then its just like GW2 and gets old fast ...
But if you have to take more than one thing and hold them together for a time in order to "win" something, then that will help make the zerg's smaller . IMHO
Also it might help that if they awarded groups & individuals based on how many it took to accomplish each task, less people giving a higher reward of some kind .. then that also would help make people want to complete activities in PVP with fewer people in the groups. (make it a cut off point where less than say 15 or so doesn't grant you any bigger reward so people don't want to keep people from joining them also .. don't want to swing it the other way and make it a solo PVP experience either), but there should be a happy medium, and then have things that reward for larger groups etc to do them in the same manner.
Then you would need bigger groups, but smaller groups could have their objectives as well. again IMHO .. i don't see why this wouldn't work; as long as the rewards were worth the effort. And, if they were different, like you get different rewards for the larger group content than say you did for the smaller group content, that would make people want to do them both so they can collect both rewards, as long as the rewards were worth doing the objective I don't see why it wouldn't work.
That's precisely the thing. There are 3 factions and limited # of players can be on the map at a time. It is a large map. Aside from the keeps, you have to protect your 3 resources for each keep. You HAVE to spread your forces around or the faction you are not zerging will take your flank. IIRC, guilds can own keeps, so they might have a reason to opt out of zerging around to ensure their keep is protected from flank attacks.
TBH, I'm not sure if GW2 ever updated their Av3 to have emperors, but getting that title in itself is a pretty awesome reward for doing well in ESO Av3. I played an old weird game called Rising Force Online which had Av3 and when your faction gained control of the middle 'mine' it was freaking awesome and rewarding.
What they need is something similar to what World of Warcraft done with Tol Barad, where you have to split up your forces in order to win .. if one big zerg can just go around and take a keep and it doesn't matter if they keep it; so they move on to take the next one and let the other side retake that one .. then its just like GW2 and gets old fast ...
But if you have to take more than one thing and hold them together for a time in order to "win" something, then that will help make the zerg's smaller . IMHO
Also it might help that if they awarded groups & individuals based on how many it took to accomplish each task, less people giving a higher reward of some kind .. then that also would help make people want to complete activities in PVP with fewer people in the groups. (make it a cut off point where less than say 15 or so doesn't grant you any bigger reward so people don't want to keep people from joining them also .. don't want to swing it the other way and make it a solo PVP experience either), but there should be a happy medium, and then have things that reward for larger groups etc to do them in the same manner.
Then you would need bigger groups, but smaller groups could have their objectives as well. again IMHO .. i don't see why this wouldn't work; as long as the rewards were worth the effort. And, if they were different, like you get different rewards for the larger group content than say you did for the smaller group content, that would make people want to do them both so they can collect both rewards, as long as the rewards were worth doing the objective I don't see why it wouldn't work.
In GW2 as soon as you captured a keep it was like brand new, shiny and strong.
In TESO the damage stays and you repair it over time.
Perhaps this is enough to split the zergs at least as far the zergs just running a relay between keeps? I mean you need to guard your gains or they just run through the old breach with no need for siege weapons. Your zerg should get smaller and smaller as your accumulate keeps and to a significant extent.
I always thought this was a huge mistake on GW2's part.
My only problem with the PVP is that its identical to GW2 in almost everyway. Resources? Check, Keeps? Check, Camps? Check. This game is all about pvp and IMO GW2 does it better. And It doesnt have a sub.
Playing: FFXIV, DnL, and World of Warships Waiting on: Ashes of Creation
Apparently this thread needs this post as well. There are fundamental differences between GW2 WvW and ESO AvA. ESO fixes a lot of issues that GW2 overlooks. I am not even talking about the added mechanics of stealth too much in this post, which might seem like a minor addition, but changes the way AvA plays immensely. The spawnsystem alone fixes a lot of issues that GW2 WvW has.
What GW2 does wrong:
1) The "feeling" of WvW. Its not epic. Its laggy, its way too much particle effects, its too cartoonish for something of these proportions. The whole points of RvR is to make it feel like armies fighting eachother, evoke this feeling of epicness. GW2 just fails with the design of the zone/the spells/with everything. You just cant take it seriously.
2) Waypoints. You can tp yourself to the defense of a keep instantly. You cant tp directly to a keep under attack, but you are there within a minute regardless, with swiftness. And that works for an ENTIRE ZERG. Theres no punishment for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. This makes punishment for death nonexistent. This makes the reason for defending a keep, apart from the fact that its way too easy because you can get the zerg there instantly, minimal. So what if you get another waypoint, it saves you what, 1 minute of walking time? Who cares.
3) Lack of viability for small groups. Why would you ever make a small group in GW2? You can tp the zerg to defense in a minute if needed, you clear all the content way faster, you can stack more buffs, small groups can get spotted just as easily as zergs (hello giant red nametags), theres no downside to it. A small group can achieve small victories like taking over a supplycamp or some nonsense like this. A small group in ESO can make huge dent in the enemy reinforcement capabilites in ESO, more on this later.
How ESO handles these things:
1) W o w. I've never played an MMO where PvP feels this epic. The zone, the artstyle, the performance of the engine, the LIGHTING, oh my god does Cyrodiil feel amazing. My jaw literally dropped when I first saw the nightsky being lit up by dozens of trebuchets firing at a keep with the 2 moons in the sky. No overdone spelleffects, no lag, no silly comic-bloom-huffypuffy atmosphere. Epicness done right.
2) Dear god do you have to walk for a LONG TIME if you die. ~7 minutes is the shortest distance you can hope for, and thats an outpost if you have the keep right next to it. Going into enemy territory - thats 10minutes+ of walking and potentially being ambushed if you arent careful. And mounts arent a whole lot faster people, 25% increase is the fastest that was available. This makes defending a keep much more difficult as well, since you cant just tp instantly, even to the keep that makes it an at least 7 minute run, no, you have to be INSIDE of an UNCONTESTED keep to tp somewhere on the map. You are attacking a keep? You wont be in time to defend your own that is being attacked. And defending keeps is EXTREMELY important - you need a connected line of keeps to respawn or teleport to one. You take 3 keeps in enemy territory, but dont defend the little outpost that is connecting 2 of them and can be taken by a rather small group? Boom, you spawn all the way in your territory and that can be T H I R T Y minutes of running if you were at the enemies scroll!! Talk about punishment for death... Furthermore, you need all keeps in enemy territory leading up to their scroll to capture it (it gives a BIG buff for you and takes away the buff for the enemy) and all 6 keeps around cyrodiil to have an emperor (and probably some other amazing stuff that we dont know about yet) which gives amazing buffs and abilities to your forces. Furthermore, if a group of 5 people takes the Mill + Mine + Farm around a keep, you cannot spawn there. A small group can literally take these 3 objectives from a keep that is in the middle of a connected line and you are FUCKED, because you cant spawn to the keeps that you conquered and end up losing all of them, because your "zerg" couldnt get there in time. People talk about fewer objectives to capture encourage zergs - these fewer obejectives have a MUCH higher impact than in GW2 though and ALL OF THEM NEED TO DEFENDED if you want to get ANYWHERE on the map. About to take enemy scroll? Oh look at that, 3 groups of 5 people took the outpost/resourcecamps in the middle of our spawnline. We can only spawn at out basekeep now and have to walk for 30 minutes to defend our keeps. Oh look at that, all of our keeps are gone. STRATEGY and DEFENSE is required, or you spend your time WALKING to the frontlines, and being KILLED by SMALL groups hiding in stealth.
3) No huge red glowing nametags here for you to see your enemies from 100 miles away. Stealth is name of the game for small groups. You can hide from zergs, scout out zergs (which is extremely important because of point 2, if you scout well you can actually defend and adapt to what your enemy is doing and outmaneuver them!!), take essential outposts that are needed for the respawn-link in small groups and you seem to get more alliancepoints that you can spend for siege-gear, equipment, you name it. I think the points get split among all players contributing to a kill/capture, since I got huge chunks of them when i killed someone solo. Furthermore, there is a limit to how many siegeweapons you can build for attack and defense of a keep. Its a measily 20 siege units. The rest of zerg then has the choice between standing around doing nothing, since most NPCs are inside the inner walls of the keep or unreachable ON top of them, or splitting up to capture the little mills/farm/mine around the keep, or defending their siegeweapons against enemies. People operating the weapons have literally no vision behind them and are sitting ducks to any enemies approaching. That in itself makes a big zerg HIGHLY ineffecient. Add this to the necessity of groups being spreadout everywhere on the map because of the spawnmechanic in point 2), zergs become almost useless. Plus you seem to get way less alliancepoints for killing and capturing things in a huge zerg. I got huge chunks of Alliancepoints for killing players solo, while I got very little when running around in a zerg. Maybe that was just my imagination though.
They dont make the mistakes of Warhammer either, there is no immediate gear-reward whatsoever for taking a keep. You get a buff and take away said buff from the enemy, you increase your chances of advancing further, you get another spawnpoint on the map and take away one from the enemy. All of these rewards are HUGE, but only for the purpose of achieving a GOAL - taking the enemy scrolls, pushing for Cyrodiil, establishing mapcontrol, etc. Nothing for the individual that couldnt be gained by simply killing other players. The reward is extremely helpful in terms of accomplishing the goal of you alliance. The reason why warhammer turned into zerg-rotation RvR, actually avoiding enemies, was because of the fact that you would get really good LOOT for capturing a keep! Both your forces and the enemies would just run around in a circle farming this loot, avoiding enemy contact.
Having played the awesomeness that was Vanilla WoW Alterac and Southshore pvp, moving on to WAR RvR and coming back to WoW to become a Gladiator and releasing an open-PvP movie in WotLK, i've had my fair share of MMORPG PvP.
I didnt play the first beta weekend of ESO despite being invited, because I thought this game was going to be awful, simply milking the popularity of the ES franchise, just as SWTOR did. I only installed the client for the 2nd beta-event because I had a free weekend after exams and what I found was an amazing PvP experience, the likes of which I've never experienced before. I cant say that this game will be a success in terms of PvP, a lot of it depends on endgame balance. The biggest problem I see is imbalance between the factions. If one faction is dominating, it will quickly become extremely frustrating for the losing ones. You can argue that, with more keeps, it becomes extremely hard to cover all these little outposts and camps to make sure you can actually spawn at your keeps, but if a faction is losing, do they really have the manpower or organization to pull off something that tactical? It is very hard to come up with a system that doesnt punish the winning faction for winning, but doesnt make it extemely and hopelessly frustrating if you are losing.
However, the foundation for great RvR as well as small scale PvP within this RvR is there, something that is a rare sight.
After looking at the cinematic and realizing that its essentially about PvP, as well as the fact that already some abilities differentiate between player and non-player effects and knowing that the old team of DaoC is working on ESO, I am hopeful that the PvP in this game will be as good as it can be.
I do not agree with OP's assessment of #2. Yes a small group will lose to a zerg head on. We learned this in the American Revolutionary war and the American Civil War. A smaller force defeats a larger force through maneuvers, guerilla tactics, stealth, and ingenuity. A group can easily capture and carry the elder scrolls in Cyrodiil for their side. This has impact in the PVP. Use tactics mate. It works. Small groups can also harass people returning to a siege, take the surrounding objectives to a fort to close off transportation. I'm sure there are more tactics but those are the few that I have been a part of in small groups.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
Originally posted by DSWBeef My only problem with the PVP is that its identical to GW2 in almost everyway. Resources? Check, Keeps? Check, Camps? Check. This game is all about pvp and IMO GW2 does it better. And It doesnt have a sub.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. If you honestly believe the PvP in ESO is identical to GW2, you obviously don't have a broader context of playing older MMOs (that GW2 copied from) like DaoC. If anything, ESO is more identical to DaoC than it is to GW2. To name a few: Death penalty (GW2 has none.. everybody can rezz), much less instanced than GW2, more persistent RvR world (ie ownership of keeps are persisted), more massive in terms of players in the RvR world (GW2's puny 100s versus ESO's thousands), etc. I could go on and on about the differences between the two. Keep in mind the creators of ESO are former daoc devs. So these guys are the originators. GW2 copied off of them (and poorly so, imho).
Originally posted by DSWBeef My only problem with the PVP is that its identical to GW2 in almost everyway. Resources? Check, Keeps? Check, Camps? Check. This game is all about pvp and IMO GW2 does it better. And It doesnt have a sub.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. If you honestly believe the PvP in ESO is identical to GW2, you obviously don't have a broader context of playing older MMOs (that GW2 copied from) like DaoC. If anything, ESO is more identical to DaoC than it is to GW2. To name a few: Death penalty (GW2 has none.. everybody can rezz), much less instanced than GW2, more persistent RvR world (ie ownership of keeps are persisted), more massive in terms of players in the RvR world (GW2's puny 100s versus ESO's thousands), etc. I could go on and on about the differences between the two. Keep in mind the creators of ESO are former daoc devs. So these guys are the originators. GW2 copied off of them (and poorly so, imho).
You're right I didnt play older mmos. And yes I do know the dev team is former DAOC devs. Its in MY opinion that GW2 does the siege warfare better than TESO. It also doesnt help that when I look at TESO I feel like its a game from 2007.
Playing: FFXIV, DnL, and World of Warships Waiting on: Ashes of Creation
I understand that is what some ppl want, but truth be told, DAoC wasn't such a roaring success. It too suffered form needless inconveniences, and people quickly left to newer MMOs (EQ2, WoW) and only the few hardcore gamers were left. Not such a good model to emulate as pink tinted glass memories make it.
Actually, DAoC was a huge success!
DAoC retained the majority of its subscribers for a total of 4 years. I wouldn't exactly call the quickly leaving. Its subscriber base also declined at a low rate rather then suddenly.
Costing only 2.5 million to develop, DAoC was the second most successful MMO of all time!
I do not agree with OP's assessment of #2. Yes a small group will lose to a zerg head on. We learned this in the American Revolutionary war and the American Civil War. A smaller force defeats a larger force through maneuvers, guerilla tactics, stealth, and ingenuity. A group can easily capture and carry the elder scrolls in Cyrodiil for their side. This has impact in the PVP. Use tactics mate. It works. Small groups can also harass people returning to a siege, take the surrounding objectives to a fort to close off transportation. I'm sure there are more tactics but those are the few that I have been a part of in small groups.
Cheers!
Guerilla tactics will only see real effects if attrition and resources are implemented in such a fashion that they would have their needed effects.
In guerilla actions you must take very few losses for their many. If loss is just some people running back then it may be a problem. You must use very few resources while destroying their ability to get resources. You must make it apparent that if it continues they will starve despite their superior force
Guerilla tactics are about pressure and if there is little reason to feel pressure from the zerg they won't split. Half of the effective of guerilla actions has nothing to do with a tactical victory and is more about strategic pressure.
This was a problem in GW2 as there was not much real strategic pressure that you could apply. At some point the enemy must come to this conclusion "If we don't do something about this we will starve to death with out ever making use of our tactical advantage of a larger force." Or some similar though that forces them into action, then you play out another phase of the guerilla action were must artfully split the forces usually multiple times.
But there is no cat and mouse without that threat of strategic pressure. One follows the other.
How can you win and not be tied to the main group ?
EASY. First don't run with the group attacking keeps.See where you can anticipate a keep attack... or set up a keep for a large group attack....and attack the mine...logging camp etc. A smaller group can take these....and you will be contributing to the war effort.
I understand that is what some ppl want, but truth be told, DAoC wasn't such a roaring success. It too suffered form needless inconveniences, and people quickly left to newer MMOs (EQ2, WoW) and only the few hardcore gamers were left. Not such a good model to emulate as pink tinted glass memories make it.
Actually, DAoC was a huge success!
DAoC retained the majority of its subscribers for a total of 4 years. I wouldn't exactly call the quickly leaving. Its subscriber base also declined at a low rate rather then suddenly.
Costing only 2.5 million to develop, DAoC was the second most successful MMO of all time!
12+ years after its launch.....the game is still going....and charging a subscription !
Comments
Siege weapons are cheap and can be bought and placed by anyone. They do a pretty good job at damaging large groups. the AJ PvP video shows the oil killing about 10 people in one shot. Zerging might be an issue, but when coordinated guilds get into the game, it will be different.
I don't think 16 people will be able to face roll 64 people unless they have a defensive position in the keep with siege weapons, but the map of Cyrodiil is large enough that even if a zerg rushes down a keep, that leaves another side vulnerable. There is a cap to how many people can be on the map afterall.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
I see what you mean. As long as the game is still balanced around Mediumsized group-PvP, I guess it couldnt hurt.
Beta-Players are suggesting implementing the Arena in the Imperial City of Cyrodiil, as it was implemented in Oblivion. Maybe thats what Zenimax is planning on doing?
Though even in this big war small groups, even groups of 5, can contribute immensely to the outcome, because of the way the respawnsystem works. What I predict will happen, is that there will always be a certain amount of people defending captured outposts. These are really easy to take, even with a group of 5 and connect 2 keeps in enemy territory. Capture these with your group and cut off enemy respawns all the way to their outer keep, making it veeeery easy to recapture all keeps on your side of the map.
Your group of 5 people might not "win" the war, but I am sure that, if you were to form a guild of 50, you have realistic chances of doing so. The punishment for any kind of mistake is so severe in terms of tactical advantage in this game that organized, midsized groups will probably be dominating zergs any day of the week. At least on the defensive side of things. On offense, there will probably be some sort of zerg going for the enemy keeps, but without the support of smaller groups this zerg will bleed out because of lack of respawnpoints. At least thats what I'm thinking will happen. Could turn out completely differently in practice, who knows.
I wish we can explore the imperial city, whoever become the emperor can actually stay in the imperial city throne and set up defense and what not.
I tried to swim to the imperial city, and that didn't end well lol.
Notice the word apparently in his post. He is wrong but apparently believes a lot of the misinformation that has been floating around.
I am not claiming DAOC had it right, although many DAOC players who ran these groups will swear up and down.
But the concept of force multiplication is the basic problem. Its not an easy problem but it is the foundation from which people should try to think about this problem.
When it's 6-12 vs 200, 'good tactics' are sublimated to the good strategy of 'don't get caught.'
I would like 50 better players to be able to take on 100 worse ones. I'm not as sure about 50 vs 200 - there's an ideal breakpoint ratio somewhere, where the Elite Squad can be confident but not arrogant, but I'm not quite sure where that lies. My gut says 2:1, but it could be wrong and 4:1 would be better.
Of course, that's a subjective call as well so tastes will vary.Your sub money will be missed, but you won't be.
I mean no offense by that. What I mean, is that arena players are practically in another game altogether as it is. So whether you're doing it in ESO, LoL, GW2 or whatever else won't make much difference beyond whatever cash you're kicking (or not kicking) into the game. I'm assuming, of course, that you're asking for an arena-like concept as your 'other PvP option.' If not, toss out some details.
What they need is something similar to what World of Warcraft done with Tol Barad, where you have to split up your forces in order to win .. if one big zerg can just go around and take a keep and it doesn't matter if they keep it; so they move on to take the next one and let the other side retake that one .. then its just like GW2 and gets old fast ...
But if you have to take more than one thing and hold them together for a time in order to "win" something, then that will help make the zerg's smaller . IMHO
Also it might help that if they awarded groups & individuals based on how many it took to accomplish each task, less people giving a higher reward of some kind .. then that also would help make people want to complete activities in PVP with fewer people in the groups. (make it a cut off point where less than say 15 or so doesn't grant you any bigger reward so people don't want to keep people from joining them also .. don't want to swing it the other way and make it a solo PVP experience either), but there should be a happy medium, and then have things that reward for larger groups etc to do them in the same manner.
Then you would need bigger groups, but smaller groups could have their objectives as well. again IMHO .. i don't see why this wouldn't work; as long as the rewards were worth the effort. And, if they were different, like you get different rewards for the larger group content than say you did for the smaller group content, that would make people want to do them both so they can collect both rewards, as long as the rewards were worth doing the objective I don't see why it wouldn't work.
That's precisely the thing. There are 3 factions and limited # of players can be on the map at a time. It is a large map. Aside from the keeps, you have to protect your 3 resources for each keep. You HAVE to spread your forces around or the faction you are not zerging will take your flank. IIRC, guilds can own keeps, so they might have a reason to opt out of zerging around to ensure their keep is protected from flank attacks.
TBH, I'm not sure if GW2 ever updated their Av3 to have emperors, but getting that title in itself is a pretty awesome reward for doing well in ESO Av3. I played an old weird game called Rising Force Online which had Av3 and when your faction gained control of the middle 'mine' it was freaking awesome and rewarding.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
In GW2 as soon as you captured a keep it was like brand new, shiny and strong.
In TESO the damage stays and you repair it over time.
Perhaps this is enough to split the zergs at least as far the zergs just running a relay between keeps? I mean you need to guard your gains or they just run through the old breach with no need for siege weapons. Your zerg should get smaller and smaller as your accumulate keeps and to a significant extent.
I always thought this was a huge mistake on GW2's part.
Playing: FFXIV, DnL, and World of Warships
Waiting on: Ashes of Creation
Apparently this thread needs this post as well. There are fundamental differences between GW2 WvW and ESO AvA. ESO fixes a lot of issues that GW2 overlooks. I am not even talking about the added mechanics of stealth too much in this post, which might seem like a minor addition, but changes the way AvA plays immensely. The spawnsystem alone fixes a lot of issues that GW2 WvW has.
What GW2 does wrong:
1) The "feeling" of WvW. Its not epic. Its laggy, its way too much particle effects, its too cartoonish for something of these proportions. The whole points of RvR is to make it feel like armies fighting eachother, evoke this feeling of epicness. GW2 just fails with the design of the zone/the spells/with everything. You just cant take it seriously.
2) Waypoints. You can tp yourself to the defense of a keep instantly. You cant tp directly to a keep under attack, but you are there within a minute regardless, with swiftness. And that works for an ENTIRE ZERG. Theres no punishment for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. This makes punishment for death nonexistent. This makes the reason for defending a keep, apart from the fact that its way too easy because you can get the zerg there instantly, minimal. So what if you get another waypoint, it saves you what, 1 minute of walking time? Who cares.
3) Lack of viability for small groups. Why would you ever make a small group in GW2? You can tp the zerg to defense in a minute if needed, you clear all the content way faster, you can stack more buffs, small groups can get spotted just as easily as zergs (hello giant red nametags), theres no downside to it. A small group can achieve small victories like taking over a supplycamp or some nonsense like this. A small group in ESO can make huge dent in the enemy reinforcement capabilites in ESO, more on this later.
How ESO handles these things:
1) W o w. I've never played an MMO where PvP feels this epic. The zone, the artstyle, the performance of the engine, the LIGHTING, oh my god does Cyrodiil feel amazing. My jaw literally dropped when I first saw the nightsky being lit up by dozens of trebuchets firing at a keep with the 2 moons in the sky. No overdone spelleffects, no lag, no silly comic-bloom-huffypuffy atmosphere. Epicness done right.
2) Dear god do you have to walk for a LONG TIME if you die. ~7 minutes is the shortest distance you can hope for, and thats an outpost if you have the keep right next to it. Going into enemy territory - thats 10minutes+ of walking and potentially being ambushed if you arent careful. And mounts arent a whole lot faster people, 25% increase is the fastest that was available. This makes defending a keep much more difficult as well, since you cant just tp instantly, even to the keep that makes it an at least 7 minute run, no, you have to be INSIDE of an UNCONTESTED keep to tp somewhere on the map. You are attacking a keep? You wont be in time to defend your own that is being attacked. And defending keeps is EXTREMELY important - you need a connected line of keeps to respawn or teleport to one. You take 3 keeps in enemy territory, but dont defend the little outpost that is connecting 2 of them and can be taken by a rather small group? Boom, you spawn all the way in your territory and that can be T H I R T Y minutes of running if you were at the enemies scroll!! Talk about punishment for death... Furthermore, you need all keeps in enemy territory leading up to their scroll to capture it (it gives a BIG buff for you and takes away the buff for the enemy) and all 6 keeps around cyrodiil to have an emperor (and probably some other amazing stuff that we dont know about yet) which gives amazing buffs and abilities to your forces. Furthermore, if a group of 5 people takes the Mill + Mine + Farm around a keep, you cannot spawn there. A small group can literally take these 3 objectives from a keep that is in the middle of a connected line and you are FUCKED, because you cant spawn to the keeps that you conquered and end up losing all of them, because your "zerg" couldnt get there in time. People talk about fewer objectives to capture encourage zergs - these fewer obejectives have a MUCH higher impact than in GW2 though and ALL OF THEM NEED TO DEFENDED if you want to get ANYWHERE on the map. About to take enemy scroll? Oh look at that, 3 groups of 5 people took the outpost/resourcecamps in the middle of our spawnline. We can only spawn at out basekeep now and have to walk for 30 minutes to defend our keeps. Oh look at that, all of our keeps are gone. STRATEGY and DEFENSE is required, or you spend your time WALKING to the frontlines, and being KILLED by SMALL groups hiding in stealth.
3) No huge red glowing nametags here for you to see your enemies from 100 miles away. Stealth is name of the game for small groups. You can hide from zergs, scout out zergs (which is extremely important because of point 2, if you scout well you can actually defend and adapt to what your enemy is doing and outmaneuver them!!), take essential outposts that are needed for the respawn-link in small groups and you seem to get more alliancepoints that you can spend for siege-gear, equipment, you name it. I think the points get split among all players contributing to a kill/capture, since I got huge chunks of them when i killed someone solo. Furthermore, there is a limit to how many siegeweapons you can build for attack and defense of a keep. Its a measily 20 siege units. The rest of zerg then has the choice between standing around doing nothing, since most NPCs are inside the inner walls of the keep or unreachable ON top of them, or splitting up to capture the little mills/farm/mine around the keep, or defending their siegeweapons against enemies. People operating the weapons have literally no vision behind them and are sitting ducks to any enemies approaching. That in itself makes a big zerg HIGHLY ineffecient. Add this to the necessity of groups being spreadout everywhere on the map because of the spawnmechanic in point 2), zergs become almost useless. Plus you seem to get way less alliancepoints for killing and capturing things in a huge zerg. I got huge chunks of Alliancepoints for killing players solo, while I got very little when running around in a zerg. Maybe that was just my imagination though.
They dont make the mistakes of Warhammer either, there is no immediate gear-reward whatsoever for taking a keep. You get a buff and take away said buff from the enemy, you increase your chances of advancing further, you get another spawnpoint on the map and take away one from the enemy. All of these rewards are HUGE, but only for the purpose of achieving a GOAL - taking the enemy scrolls, pushing for Cyrodiil, establishing mapcontrol, etc. Nothing for the individual that couldnt be gained by simply killing other players. The reward is extremely helpful in terms of accomplishing the goal of you alliance. The reason why warhammer turned into zerg-rotation RvR, actually avoiding enemies, was because of the fact that you would get really good LOOT for capturing a keep! Both your forces and the enemies would just run around in a circle farming this loot, avoiding enemy contact.
Having played the awesomeness that was Vanilla WoW Alterac and Southshore pvp, moving on to WAR RvR and coming back to WoW to become a Gladiator and releasing an open-PvP movie in WotLK, i've had my fair share of MMORPG PvP.
I didnt play the first beta weekend of ESO despite being invited, because I thought this game was going to be awful, simply milking the popularity of the ES franchise, just as SWTOR did. I only installed the client for the 2nd beta-event because I had a free weekend after exams and what I found was an amazing PvP experience, the likes of which I've never experienced before. I cant say that this game will be a success in terms of PvP, a lot of it depends on endgame balance. The biggest problem I see is imbalance between the factions. If one faction is dominating, it will quickly become extremely frustrating for the losing ones. You can argue that, with more keeps, it becomes extremely hard to cover all these little outposts and camps to make sure you can actually spawn at your keeps, but if a faction is losing, do they really have the manpower or organization to pull off something that tactical? It is very hard to come up with a system that doesnt punish the winning faction for winning, but doesnt make it extemely and hopelessly frustrating if you are losing.
However, the foundation for great RvR as well as small scale PvP within this RvR is there, something that is a rare sight.
After looking at the cinematic and realizing that its essentially about PvP, as well as the fact that already some abilities differentiate between player and non-player effects and knowing that the old team of DaoC is working on ESO, I am hopeful that the PvP in this game will be as good as it can be.
I do not agree with OP's assessment of #2. Yes a small group will lose to a zerg head on. We learned this in the American Revolutionary war and the American Civil War. A smaller force defeats a larger force through maneuvers, guerilla tactics, stealth, and ingenuity. A group can easily capture and carry the elder scrolls in Cyrodiil for their side. This has impact in the PVP. Use tactics mate. It works. Small groups can also harass people returning to a siege, take the surrounding objectives to a fort to close off transportation. I'm sure there are more tactics but those are the few that I have been a part of in small groups.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
"So you have no frame of reference here, Donny. You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know..."
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
If you honestly believe the PvP in ESO is identical to GW2, you obviously don't have a broader context of playing older MMOs (that GW2 copied from) like DaoC. If anything, ESO is more identical to DaoC than it is to GW2. To name a few: Death penalty (GW2 has none.. everybody can rezz), much less instanced than GW2, more persistent RvR world (ie ownership of keeps are persisted), more massive in terms of players in the RvR world (GW2's puny 100s versus ESO's thousands), etc. I could go on and on about the differences between the two. Keep in mind the creators of ESO are former daoc devs. So these guys are the originators. GW2 copied off of them (and poorly so, imho).
You're right I didnt play older mmos. And yes I do know the dev team is former DAOC devs. Its in MY opinion that GW2 does the siege warfare better than TESO. It also doesnt help that when I look at TESO I feel like its a game from 2007.
Playing: FFXIV, DnL, and World of Warships
Waiting on: Ashes of Creation
Actually, DAoC was a huge success!
DAoC retained the majority of its subscribers for a total of 4 years. I wouldn't exactly call the quickly leaving. Its subscriber base also declined at a low rate rather then suddenly.
Costing only 2.5 million to develop, DAoC was the second most successful MMO of all time!
Guerilla tactics will only see real effects if attrition and resources are implemented in such a fashion that they would have their needed effects.
In guerilla actions you must take very few losses for their many. If loss is just some people running back then it may be a problem. You must use very few resources while destroying their ability to get resources. You must make it apparent that if it continues they will starve despite their superior force
Guerilla tactics are about pressure and if there is little reason to feel pressure from the zerg they won't split. Half of the effective of guerilla actions has nothing to do with a tactical victory and is more about strategic pressure.
This was a problem in GW2 as there was not much real strategic pressure that you could apply. At some point the enemy must come to this conclusion "If we don't do something about this we will starve to death with out ever making use of our tactical advantage of a larger force." Or some similar though that forces them into action, then you play out another phase of the guerilla action were must artfully split the forces usually multiple times.
But there is no cat and mouse without that threat of strategic pressure. One follows the other.
OP
How can you win and not be tied to the main group ?
EASY. First don't run with the group attacking keeps.See where you can anticipate a keep attack... or set up a keep for a large group attack....and attack the mine...logging camp etc. A smaller group can take these....and you will be contributing to the war effort.
12+ years after its launch.....the game is still going....and charging a subscription !