The PvP of the fantasy online role-playing game The Elder Scrolls Online takes place in Cyrodiil. However, it is not just once, but twenty times. While some campaigns are well attended, with the three factions delivering balanced battles, in others, the issues are significant. One campaign has even been closed.
There are only two mega-servers, one for North America and one for Europe. Mega-servers have significant advantages for players: There is always something going on in every zone. If there are fewer players online, the others don’t notice. And when a game goes through a crisis or a boom, it leads neither to ghost servers nor to endlessly long queues.
Are there ultimately twenty servers and not just two?
However, TESO’s mega-server system cannot be reconciled with mass PvP in an open-world variant. And it is precisely for this that the designers at Zenimax have chosen. After all, the leading minds from Dark Age of Camelot are involved. There, such an open-world PvP was once established. But no matter how vast the PvP zone Cyrodiil is, it could never accommodate all the players of a mega-server.
So they had to split the mega-servers at least for PvP purposes: Into different campaigns. For 90 days, it was determined that each player should participate in a home campaign of their choice. Anyone who wants to switch afterward must pay a high price and loses the points they have accumulated until then, which were supposed to enrich them after the campaign ends.
The system shows some fissures and problems after two months. Two of the twenty campaigns have been closed and replaced by new ones with shorter durations.
We take a look at the problems of the campaign system and how Zenimax wants to solve them.
Problem No. 1: There are no battles in a campaign, only massacres
This is the fundamental problem of the campaign system. When in a campaign, especially in a smaller one, one empire dominates and drives the other two factions before it, frustration quickly mounts and the fun is gone. Especially since the dominant empire becomes stronger through various bonuses.
No one enjoys losing. The defeated players stop participating in PvP or flee to another campaign. This exacerbates the problem even further. Because it leads to problems 2 and 3 on our list.
Problem No. 2: The Winning-Team Joiners
The term Winning-Team Joiners (or WTJers) refers to players in MMO slang who join the winners. In other MMOs, it was necessary to change servers for a fee or create a new character. In TESO, the WTJer just needs to determine in which campaign their realm is particularly dominant – to then go there. This further skews the balance in that campaign.
Zenimax wanted to prevent this by making a switch during the ongoing campaign expensive. 15,000 alliance points cost the campaign switch. But such “punitive” behavior leads to frustration for many players. With the knife between their teeth, they farm their points together to change and fight on the sunny side.
Problem No. 3: The Ghost Campaigns
If a realm dominates, eventually the opponents stay away: The campaign dies off gradually. Even the winners eventually find it boring. Especially since campaigns last 90 days, such a display before empty scenes can drag on quite a bit. Even for the victors, it is no fun. The elite PvPer Pryda, whom we interviewed for PvP in early May, already suggested back then to close the least populated campaigns.
With the campaign ‘Scourge’, that is exactly what happened. However, players there were “forced” and lost their claim to the 90-day reward they were actually entitled to. Also, on the leaderboards of the new campaign, they start from scratch again. The path to becoming Emperor is long.
Problem No. 4: 90 days is a damn long time
90 days is an eternity in MMO times. It takes three subscription months until a campaign is declared finished. As long as those who are ahead are indeed ahead – and their lead is tremendous.
The Emperor status, the ultimate goal for PvPers, is far out of reach for most players. Especially if they missed out at the beginning, the lead over the top players is simply too large. They wish for shorter rotations, a more frequent reset of the campaign.
Especially since TESO had some issues with bugs or exploits, such as with the ultimate-spamming vampires or the crow feet that protect against siege weapons, many are wishing for a reset. Also, as the balance often changes, many PvPers are annoyed that the leaderboards remain for so long. Those at the top are accused of having used exploits, as is frequently heard.
Problem No. 5: The campaigns differ greatly in quality
In World of Warcraft, there exists the nasty term “village servers” for low-population realms that are not as far along in raids as servers with strong populations. The same is true for the campaign system in TESO. The level in a densely populated campaign is significantly higher than elsewhere. While one can stumble to the Emperor status in a small campaign, one must fight through against other alpha wolves in the top campaigns.
This could lead to problems if guilds from a top campaign have fun overrunning a very sparsely populated parallel world. Even if it’s only for an evening with the guest system. Professional PvPers can use it to tilt the entire balance of a campaign.
What does Zenimax plan to do about it?
Zenimax is certainly aware of the problems and is already working on solving them.
Currently, there is talk of introducing an underdog bonus that is intended to favor players from losing realms. However, it will not make them stronger but will only grant them more points when they succeed against an overpowering foe.
Additionally, the PvP campaign Celarus, which only lasts 2 weeks, is currently being tested. Perhaps in a month, when the original campaigns end for the first time and the rewards are distributed, one or the other campaign will remain. Zenimax could indeed manage that. Only 5 campaigns that each run for 2 weeks would solve some issues with the current campaign system, even if the victory might not feel as “epic” afterward as it does now.
The fundamental problem of winning-team joiners will be hard to solve. It is frustrating for Zenimax that they must align the number of campaigns according to the exact player base. Otherwise, they have avoided this problem with the mega-server.
If they now cut campaigns without replacement, it might create the impression that not as many players are playing TESO as they had planned. That is a problem known to every other MMO that operates with classic server models.
It is certainly to be expected that Zenimax will further refine the campaigns, seeking a better functioning model. The task will not be easy. When moving away from battlefields and arenas into the open world, the most challenging question for any MMO is how to ensure numerical balance. Zenimax will need to find an answer to this question.
Update: Complete change of the PvP campaign system is imminent
Since the article was written, much has changed that we could not update in the article so quickly. Last night, a post appeared in the official forums in which Brian Wheeler, the PvP chief of The Elder Scrolls Online, addressed the community.
They plan extensive changes to the PvP campaign system. The current 10 campaigns are planned to be closed. However, they want to compensate players “fully”, so it doesn’t happen as with the players of the Scourge. Instead of the 10 campaigns lasting 90 days, they are currently considering 5 campaigns with 4 different rule sets.
- Bow of Shadows – a 5-day campaign exclusively for players with veteran rank
- Blackwater Blade – a 5-day campaign for players who have not yet achieved veteran rank
- Haderus and Childred – 7-day standard campaigns open to all
- Thornblade – a 30-day standard campaign
To prevent rapid switching between campaigns, the guest pass will have a 72-hour lockout and the cost of changing home campaigns will increase from 15,000 alliance points to 100,000.
At the moment, nothing is set in stone, and Zenimax is asking fans for feedback.
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[intense_testimony_text]We have been overtaken by the current events in our article. The article was finished (up to the part with the update) by Tuesday evening. We decided to keep the front part and add the latest developments.
This way, you as a reader can see how close we were with our predictions and how Zenimax ultimately assesses the problems. As you can see, we initially believed that Zenimax would not address the problem until at least a month later, with the ending of the original campaigns, but they are planning to bring the solution forward. We also thought that reducing from 10 to 5 campaigns would be a sensible step, even without their knowledge, on Tuesday. The significantly shorter duration is also a point we noted. However, we did not anticipate the division between veterans and non-veterans.
