Taking the Elder Scrolls...here is what RvR combat might be like

I posted this in another topic yesterday but I thought it might be important enough to have its own thread so that those who never got the chance to play Dark Age of Camelot can see what we might see in Elder Scrolls Online PvP.

Just to give you all an idea what Faction vs Faction warfare might be like I will tell you what it was like back when I used to play Dark Age of Camelot many years ago…

The call would go out across your realm….Relic Raid starting! Anyone who is level capped please make your way to the staging keep now! The raid will be starting as soon as possible!!

Then all level 50 players would beeline to the Staging keep, I forget what that keep was actually called now..At that keep there was a huge gating platform that would gate large groups of players at the same time to another keep which was located near the enemies border on the Frontier, from there your army would form up and get ready for the long march to the enemy relic keep. The gating platform would activate at a timed interval, this was to prevent your side from getting more and more players there to bolster the siege…

Once you all arrived at the keep near the enemy border on the frontier you would form up and buff up and wait for the order from the raid leader to begin the long march to the enemy relic keep.

The army would then begin the long march through enemy territory…this army would be preceeded by stealthed players who would periodically report to the raid leader that the way was clear or if they would encounter enemy at certain points. The raid leader would pause the army every so often which would allow the stealthed players to stay ahead of the main army…

Once you finally got to the enemy relic keep you then settled in for the siege. This siege could take a while depending on how many Rogues you had with your raid. Rogues could scale the enemy keeps walls and kill healers, and even open the the gates to let your side in. You could also have your side beating on the keep doors until they were destroyed. It was all a lot of fun and very interesting to say the least.

Once you had the doors down you would rush in killing any enemy players and NPC’s in the keep and finally taking the relic.

You then had a 2 hour time limit to get that relic back to your relic keep. If the relic was dropped along the way someone else had to pick it up and carry on…the relic would be dropped when the player carrying it was killed or they lagged out of the game. Again this was a very fun part of the relic raid because your army had to protect the player carrying the relic.

Once you got the relic back to your relic keep and placed it in its holding spot, then your realm then got the bonus from that relic for both PvP and PvE.
It was all a very long and intracate procedure and a ton of fun…

I hope this gives those who are not familar with realm vs realm relic raids a feel for what this might be like, and anyone who has anything to add to this to post your thoughts on what I might have missed in my post

The whole thing had a very open world feel to it because the frontier was a very large and it took a determined effort to able to steal a relic and get it back to your relic keep.

Just remember in ESO the Relics will be called Elder Scrolls….

Great post, Elember!

One thing that will be different in TESO is that in Cyrodiil there will be a targets for very different group sizes. So you can go take a smaller target with a small group of friends, or a bigger force can be divided to attack multiple targets at once or one part of it might do a diversionary attack while others surprise the main target etc.

I just want to point out that DaoC has a 14 day free trial and WAR has an endless free trial for lower levels, so... try out people, if you like to yourself a firsthand experience!

Another important thing to remember about PvP in DAoC and probably ESO is that when you die you will not be able to get back to the fight in a few seconds of even a few minutes like it was in WoW PvP. When you were killed in a relic raid and if no one res'ed you, you would then respawn at either your entry keep, the one I mentioned as the staging keep where your realm enters the Frontier. Or if you were killed in enemy territory you would then respawn at your nearest border keep in relation to where you died.

Also there were no mounts allowed on the Frontier in DAoC and I suspect that will be the case in ESO as well. So if you died and respawned at one of those respawn points you would have to hoof it all the way back. Keep in mind that the enemy knows this and will have Rogues along the path from the respawn points that will pick you off on your way back to the battle.

This makes Resurection in battle a very important part of the RvR battle tactics.

Nice name, @Elember - and profile picture.

(January 5th 2013, 08:48 AM)Elember Wrote: Also there were no mounts allowed on the Frontier in DAoC and I suspect that will be the case in ESO as well. So if you died and respawned at one of those respawn points you would have to hoof it all the way back. Keep in mind that the enemy knows this and will have Rogues along the path from the respawn points that will pick you off on your way back to the battle.

I'll have to, respectively, disagree considering the size of Cyrodiil.

We do know that it is possible to disconnect the opponents' quick travel routes in Cyrodiil.

(January 5th 2013, 10:16 AM)Hentmereb Wrote: I'll have to, respectively, disagree considering the size of Cyrodiil.

We do know that it is possible to disconnect the opponents' quick travel routes in Cyrodiil.

The only reason I posted that was because that is how it was in Dark Age of Camelot. And with Matt Firor's stance on changing anything that worked for him in DAoC, like faction racial locks and no cross faction speech, it is a good possibility that there will be no fast travel and no mounts in Cyrodiil. Due to the vast size of Cyrodiil there may be more numerous respawn points to get you a big closer however I think there is a good chance there will be no mounts in Cyrodiil.

I can pretty much garantee it will not be like WoW where you are back to the battle in 5 minutes or less.

Ok this post will be about defending your own relics….again this is how it was in Dark Age of Camelot, and it might be similar in The Elder Scrolls Online because the lead designer is the same person who designed the realm vs realm PvP in DAoC, Matt Firor.

I will try to do this by telling you about the very first time I ever went to the frontier with my Cleric who had just made it to level cap a day before that.

So it was all new to me…The call came through our guild chat that the warriors from Hybernia were seen in the area of our Castle Excalibur where Albion’s strength relic was situated. The whole guild was excited for me because this was going to be my first foray into the Frontier, and I was the guild leader at that time. So I teamed up with my best buddy in the game a Paladin named Grilmath.

Grilmath and I had played Ultima Online together for years and years, and then we migrated our guild from UO to DAoC. Grilmath actually went on to meet his wife in the game of Dark Age of Camelot and if it had not been for me talking her into rejoining our guild at one point, well they may have never met in the first place. So as you can see we were extremely close friends, and still are to this day.

Anyway he promised to stay by my side and protect me from any Rogues so I figured I was all set to have a good day on the Frontier, because Gril was one of the top PvP players on the server.

We got to Castle Excalibur before the main part of the Hybernian army arrived and we made it inside without incident. There were already a ton of other players and guilds from our realm assembled there.

Then the Hybernia army came over the crest of the horizon. I will never forget the sheer size of the army that approached our keep, it gave me a sense of …how the hell are we going to stop them from getting in?!?! Grilmath told me to settle down and concentrate on keeping my buffs active, especiallly the one that would reveal any enemy Rogues who had scaled our walls and would be looking for me.

Soon the attack on our keep began, at first it seemed like total bedlam to me I was healing and healing and running out of mana, but after a while I got into a kind of rhythm and was able to balance it all out using all the skills I had, even some I had rarely ever used in the PvE side of the game.

The seige went on and on, Grilmath had already killed 2 Rogues who had tried to backstab me while I was healing, and I was really amazed how quickly he was able to cut them down. Plus if they did manage to kill me Gril was there and he could res me as well, thats why the Paladin was a good Cleric protector because he could sort of take over your role while you were recovering from being res’ed.

It was about 3 maybe 4 hours into the siege at this point and so far myself and Grilmath had not died once. We stayed in our castle and we kept the enemy out. Eventually they were able to get close enough to start to beat on our castle doors, and Gril told me to be on alert because now was the time the enemy Rogues were going to be wanting to make sure both of us were dead.

Sure enough a few minutes later there were three enemy Rogues on us, and I could see it was going to be dicey as to if we were going to survive this time. I managed to keep Gril on his feet though, and he killed them one by one with the help of the others that were there from our guild, I think Truth was there as well now that I think of it and he was also a Paladin.

We managed to fend off that first attempt on our doors and the enemy pulled back a bit to regroup, resurecting those on their side that had fallen in the battle so they could try to come at us again.

That same senario was played out at least 4 or 5 times and now we were into this siege to the tune of at least 5 hours probably more. How they did not have our doors broken down by this time I could not understand …

Then we noticed another huge group of Hybernians coming to join the siege, “we are done for!” I said in the raid chat. They all told me to hold the line and stay ready.

They eventually made it through the doors of our castle and the battle was complete bedlam inside the castle walls. On and on the battle went I died once maybe twice and was res’ed by Grilmath I res’ed him a few times as well.

In the end we actually defeated the Hybernian army before they made it to our strength relic and to this day I can not remember a PvP battle in any game that I had that much fun in, ever. I was hooked, I never ever missed any foray into the Frontier after that it was just way too much fun!

Really good info, thanks for that.

both your story's sounds really fun!!!
as for myself i have a hard time with PvP due to my spotty internet conection,and crappy computer, I'm always fighting invisable people...
BUt hopfully i get this stone age peice of junk running better by the time the game comes out; or buy something shiny

if TESO is anything like this im gonna ejaculate XD

(January 5th 2013, 04:46 PM)Valandil Wrote: if TESO is anything like this im gonna ejaculate XD

Hey settle down there bud this is a family site, I think? heh

Sounds like the relic and fort fighting in Lord Of The Rings Online though "creep" side wargs are the burglars (stealth class) and plenty of orcs, Uruks and spiders to deal with the pesky pointy ears, shorties and human flesh!

Wow really if TESO is like this I might have to agree with Valandil... LOL

No, but seriously, I hope to have such epic battles like yours Elember.. Wow.
hopefully I'll be killing you in the process... you nord :P

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@Elember thank you for sharing this. never played DAoC so this news made me... happy.

(January 5th 2013, 07:54 PM)Ceydro Wrote: Wow really if TESO is like this I might have to agree with Valandil... LOL

No, but seriously, I hope to have such epic battles like yours Elember.. Wow.
hopefully I'll be killing you in the process... you nord :P

Bring it!

(January 5th 2013, 09:31 AM)Beor of Skyrim Wrote: Nice name, @Elember - and profile picture.

Thank you, the avatar Picture comes from Bioware's NeverWinter Nights.