Arawn said:
I too have played many a MMO. For the most part the PvP systems have some similarities; you fight, you win, you lose, you get a reward. The reward might just be a score to put you on the leaderboard, perhaps special credits to spend towards exclusive PvP items, or some other minute prize. I wouldn't call it broken. Using a loophole, glitch, or illegal action would make it broken. Can't really say I've done alot of PvP to notice such short comings firsthand. And yes it is being negative as they are against the idea of the PvP Emperor. Although since I am in accepting of the concept it is disagreeing with me as well. To pretty much dismiss it without seeing it in action? Yes others have done something similar, but we have yet to see if it will work or not.
Sorry I guess I was a little harsh, I am definitely all for a PvP Emperor, 100%, The person that contributes the most to their faction holding Cyrodil that week/month/whatever should most definitely be recognized for that effort and work they put in. My problem is with giving that person anything other than a vanity title or item in the game. Lets look at your suggestions:
Score to put on leader board - Perfectly fine, assuming they do leader boards. One of the best parts of RvR in WAR (Warhammer Age of Reckoning) was seeing your name break the top ten for a week in top kills, or renown gained. But not what they said they're doing.
Credits to spend on PvP items - Is the only way to get these credits by being Emperor? Or do you just get slightly more? Are there items that only Emperors can purchase? This one is a slippery slope and while it can work it is easy to screw up the balance in the game with it as well.
Minute Prizes - Vanity items sure. But not what they said they're doing.
Umm... I was referring to people using loopholes, glitches, or illegal actions to break it. Because the second you put something that makes people better than others in a game play mechanic way, you WILL have people do whatever it takes to get that skill tree. Its not an if... unfortunately there ARE people out there who would rather cheat a system to get something than try and earn it legitimately.
As for dismissing it without seeing it in action... I've never put my hand on a hot stove element, but I know not to because I'll burn myself. Learning from other's experiences is an extremely helpful factor in planing/designing game mechanics, and life in general.
Arawn said:
Still I do believe/think the intent is to empower the Emperor, but not cement their position. We don't know what skills they might get, but why would they make it so potent that no one else would be able to contend with him/her? Should they lose their title said skills are lessened. Seems like they expect the title to change hands. Who doesn't want to dethrone the king? It's a competition and everyone wants to be #1. Making that impossible is counter productive for such a system.
I believe you are correct that the point is to empower the emperor, and as you mentioned earlier we don't KNOW what the skills are yet so it is very hard for anyone including myself to say they will be broken, all we can do is take past examples, and apply some logic to it and make best guesses at this moment.
To answer your question about making it so potent that no one else would be able to contend with the Emperor. They have to make the skill strong enough to justify the Emperor putting it on one of their limited action spots since as I mentioned we only get like 5-6 I believe. If you have a weapon skill that lets you cast a spell that does 25 damage (I'm totally just making numbers at this point) and as the Emperor you get a spell that lets you do 20 damage. Would you replace your spell? Of course not. So the Emperor skill has to be better than your spell... so lets make the Emperor spell do 35 damage, and the weaker version of it do 30 (for past Emperor's) now, it isn't a HUGE bonus to your combat, but it still is slightly better. However, you've also now made the Emperor role stronger than anyone could possibly be, so all other things being equal the Emperor would never die in 1v1 combat. And maybe that is okay... maybe you should have to attack a Past Emperor with 2-3 people or an Emperor 4-5 people to kill them...However, what happens when you start getting groups of past emperors traveling together? Now all of a sudden you have a group of 5 past emperors who can take on 10-15 people guarding that tower, or keep, or whatever. Do you see how it snowballs quickly? And this is just small little groups, weren't they talking about having PvP in ESO be like 100s or 1000s of people in a zone fighting?
Arawn said:
Zero skill required? Join a guild, spend some time, and presto you win. Not a bit of work involved. A guild will do all of that for you. They'll keep anyone from possibly winning said title. No way anyone could come up with their own group and try the same. No way someone else can invest time and effort. It's all so simple and easy anyone can do it. And yet you say not everyone can. You won't win by doing nothing. Even with the best of support you're not unbeatable and there's no certainty that your group won't be trounced by the next. I dare say I find that insulting both yourself and anyone to say that there's no skill involved. Someone doesn't always win by luck.It's not a coincidence everytime. I'm sure you've done amazing things in games, was no part of that due to your ability? Grinding for hours, looting, even building a guild takes skill.
You doubt the zero skill required, but it has been done in the past in other MMOs. Is it super common, no; but it is possible. Although I didn't say no work would be involved... You join a guild, pay them 10,000 gold (lets say) and then they go around and slaughter things in PvP with you, keep you alive, let you capture towers, keeps, etc boosting your Alliance Points. A serious guild about doing it would even have guild members in other factions to come around and be cannon fodder for you to kill, retake keeps from you (so you could reclaim them).
As for denying the title to others... they can boost your Alliance Points so high that unless the other people are doing the same thing you are they would never get enough Alliance Points to catch up with you in 'normal' PvP play. (Which just means now EVERYONE has to exploit the system to stand a chance, which is what a bunch of us were saying). Depending on the size of the guild they can deny you alliance points as well... if you are in your group of 5 people capturing keeps and such, and they are a guild of 200, they simply go out and capture everything before you can get there, thus denying you alliance points that way.
Time and effort only get you so far in PvP. Teamwork is what will get people Emperor status, and if you aren't part of the 200 (random number) member PvP group on the server and they don't want you to be the emperor, then you won't be the emperor no matter how much time and effort you put in, unless you cheat somehow.
I'm not sure where I said its simple and easy and anyone can do it, and yet not everyone can. I'm not sure if you just missed quoting that piece or not or if that is in reference to someone else.
Again, I didn't say you could win by doing nothing... I said you could win without having any skill whatsoever. There is a BIG difference between the two.
Since you mentioned earlier that you haven't PvP'd all that much to notice the shortcomings, maybe you should heed this argument to those who have. With the best support you can definitely becoming unbeatable in other games, so why would ESO be any different. You can have a group that is untrounceable by anyone other than another faction pulling the same loophole/abuse you are only doing it better (which again is what ruins PvP and is what many of us have been saying).
You can find it insulting if you like... but you seem to be under the impression that I think you don't need skill to PvP, which isn't the case. However with the system the ESO is implying there is absolutely no skill involved with BECOMING EMPEROR. It will be all about Teamwork (which it SHOULD be). As a result any team can compensate for one deadweight member in their team. And if you want that deadweight person to be emperor, than as a TEAM you can make that happen with no one being able to stop you, unless they have a bigger/more dedicated team.
Arawn said:
Perks as in the skills to be given or perks as in benefit of being Emperor. Conditional damage isn't that impressive if you take said condition into account. Say it's like a thief's sneak attack that it only works from behind and with low damage weapons. Being restricted to a certain weapon. It could even be a slight change in multiplier on critical hits. What if it increased damage but lowers attack speed by half? A tradeoff ability or trait is possible. But as I said I don't think it will be something that keeps the player from losing their title. Just doesn't make sense like that. It should be rewarding to obtain those skills, and even more so to try keep them.
"Players who become Emperor will get a full skill line that they keep throughout the rest of their lives in The Elder Scrolls Online," Paul Sage observed.
Skills, not perks. That is what their game director said. So lets look at your suggestions...
a positional requirement skill (attack from behind or whatever) I'm a ranged caster and I have to attack from behind? well that skill is useless to me then.
okay so how about multiple skills with different conditionals. Okay... However, one of the benefits of ESO is that you can change your play style based off your weapon... Now you have a skill tree that you are either:
a) wasting points it to get the back-stab skill and the ranged skill (for example) or
b) a tree that is locking you into a play style. (oh you took back-stab? I guess you'll be doing MDPS in pvp from now on)
Your Trade off suggestion, again going back to my point above... you need to make the skills attractive enough for people to justify replacing one of their normal skills with it, or what is the point?