Cyrodiil Strategy, Part 2: The Things You Never Bothered To Learn

If you read my first blog on Cyrodiil Strategy last week, then I hope those of you new to ESO PvP have begun to curb yourself of the dreaded "zerg mentality" and are ready to move on to something more challenging. Today, I will discuss the things you missed in the tutorial (it's okay, we all know you skipped it and we've forgiven you for it). I was going to discuss a few more things, but I decided to put them off to another day since this post is fairly substantial.

When you first step into Cyrodiil you are faced with a huge map much large than any other zone you've seen before, with lots of symbols, colors and lines. And you probably can't make head or tail of it at first, except to say that you are probably pretty sure the little blue arrow represents your character's location in this vast land. You are then greeted by the war masters of your alliance and directed to participate in some exercises (tutorial quests) to familiarize you with things like siege equipment, the purpose of the elder scrolls, and so on. But you probably would not be reading this if you had taken those tutorials, so I will briefly explain a few key points.

Siege weapons deserve an entire article of their own. But suffice it to say that they all have the same basic function: to launch an Area of Effect (AoE) attack at a particular target, whether that target is a keep, another siege weapon, or even a group of hostile player characters. (There is also a ram and burning oil, but I shall leave that for another discussion to keep it simple.) A siege weapon can be purchased at any starter gate, friendly keep, friendly outpost, or friendly resource area from the siege vendor for either Alliance Points or gold, but some can only be purchased with Alliance Points. Once purchased, a siege weapon can be set up by assigning it to one of your eight quick bar slots. Upon being activated, the siege weapon will require several moments for a construction animation to complete. It is important to be patient as almost any other action besides using mouse look will interrupt the animation and require you to begin again. You will know the animation is complete when you see the green arc point outward. The green arc indicates the weapon is loaded and ready to fire.

This siege weapon is ready to fire!

After firing, the arc will turn red and the weapon will reload.

This siege weapon is reloading.

When the arc returns to green, it is ready to fire again. By moving the mouse you can direct, precisely, where the projectile will go. Siege weapons eventually wear out (either by damage or slowly by use) and will require repair or replacement. To pack up a siege weapon, press the Ctrl key. To abandon a siege weapon (to defend yourself against nearby hostiles or perhaps allow an ally to use it), press the Alt key. To take control of an unoccupied siege weapon, press E. These can be rebound in the Controls menu if you like. I feel it also fair to warn you that it is quite easy to abandon a siege weapon by accident. Typing in chat, opening your map, and similar actions are likely to abandon the siege weapon. This is actually fine, as the siege weapon will continue to reload itself without a user, and certain fast-fingered individuals can take advantage of this, manning two, or even three siege weapons simultaneously, firing them in sequence. However, it can be an inconvenience if you are only trying to fire one at a time, especially if another player character unknown to you happens to grab a hold of your siege weapon after you accidentally abandoned it and start using it with impunity.

There are five basic types of alliance quests you can undertake. The first is a simple scouting mission of enemy territory. While it might sound dangerous, as long as you stay off the main roads and sneak around NPCs, these are generally the safest. However they do not reward as much as the other quests. Nevertheless they are easy to do, especially if you have a swift horse. And I highly recommend doing one or two just to get a lay of the land. The next quest is a daily quest (i.e. it can only be completed once per day) which is simply a directive to kill 20 players. This might sound laborious for a new player until I tell you that as long as the kills are made by you OR someone in your group, they count towards fulfilling this quota. Thus, in a large raid party you can easily complete this quest quite quickly and if you PvP regularly you may want to make sure to pick this one up every day, at least at the beginning. The next three types of quests all involve capture, either of a specific resource, keep or elder scroll. It's handy to keep these around, because you never know what could happen after a couple of hours in Cyrodiil. Suddenly you might find that keep that was rather far away when you first joined is now the target of a heavy assault by your alliance. The capture of an Elder Scroll is very difficult to accomplish. I shall save the details of what is necessary for a later post. Suffice it to say the risk is commensurate with the reward.

There are a few things they really don't tell you in the tutorials which I feel they should, so if you come armed with the following knowledge you will have a slight edge over the other newbie level 10s entering Cyrodiil for the first time. In order to capture a keep, resource, or outpost, you must essentially capture one (for a resource) or two flags (for a keep or outpost). Resource flags are located at the center of the resource area protected by some heavily armed NPCs with healers. Outpost and keep flags as you might expect are even more heavily protected, not only with a large number of NPCs, but also walls which you must batter down with siege weapons. In order to "capture" a flag, all hostile forces around the flag must be eliminated. Typically a group of four NPCs guards each flag, though other nearby NPCs might rush to their aid. But you also must content with enemy players if they are nearby as well.

Something else not covered is the way that other players observe sneaking (or crouching). When your character is crouching and "Hidden," that means no NPC or other hostile player character can see you! This feature is often underutilized in PvE content because it is simply not necessary. In PvE, monsters often stand in the way of tight passages which no amount of stealth can help you avoid, or your objective is to simply the kill the monster anyway. However, because Cyrodiil is so large, and each alliance is limited to the same number of players, this is often an effective way to approach hostile enemy territory undetected, as it is practically impossible to keep eyes on all areas of the map. Even skills which enhance perception of hidden enemies, such as Mage Light, are generally limited to close range. As in PvE, sneaking around does not guarantee you can not be seen. Even characters without special skills will see you if you pass close enough so exercise caution.

That's it for the things you missed (or things that weren't covered) in the tutorial. Next week I will focus on the importance and means of communication, both within groups, and with other groups in your alliance.

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