AbraXuSeXile wrote: »Put proxy back to how it was for a start, its hard get the jump when youve got 8 seconds? With a red ring around you and it stops the bigger groups using it because it slows them and keeps them in that animation.
I want tactical pvp fights with skills and sets that allow me to counter some builds and be weak to other builds, with fights that last long enough for all players to react and put up a fight.
Call me crazy, but I want pvp to be about actually fighting other players, not blowing them up in 2 seconds so they can ride back on their mount, or being blown up myself in 2 seconds so I can ride back.
Anyway, aoe caps don't make sense as an artificial limiter, but their removal would require (imo) mechanic changes to make sure aoes don't just melt everybody now.
Call me crazy, but I want pvp to be about actually fighting other players, not blowing them up in 2 seconds so they can ride back on their mount, or being blown up myself in 2 seconds so I can ride back.
With that being said, there are a few situations where healing is able to out scale damage. The first step we are taking is to look at some of the abilities that heal far more than we would like in large group fights. We’re specifically looking at Purge and Barrier initially, and will be reducing the max targets these abilities can hit. While we are looking at specific abilities, we are also looking into Magicka Detonation. This ability was always intended to be more effective versus groups and less effective against individual targets, and it is not meeting those design goals currently.
You should also reduce the target for maneuver too.
Maneuver should just break on casted heals too (not hot ticks) - that would solve all of it´s issues.
MisterBigglesworth wrote: »@Wrobel @FENGRUSH
Since Barrier seems to be a major part of this problem, why not make a new Ultimate that instantly removes damage shields within a target area? That's what we want right? Counters to powerful abilities instead of just nerfs to those abilities, in order to reward smart play? Tweek the Ultimate cost of the "Anti-Barrier" ability if it's deemed too effective.
I have to question if anyone on Zos team understands how or why aoe abilities are used?
I'll use an example; you are worried that if you remove aoe caps aoes will be the only thing that is used.
However you have a perfect in an example of daoc where that is not the case. People used aoes when they were supposed to be used.... When you had multiple targets. If people are spread out it makes more sense to use single target higher damage abilities then it is to spam aoe abilities. Like when I use to run into dks who'd spam nothing but elemental ring back in the day. This worked great if there multiple enemies.. However in a one vs one I usually stomped the crap out of these dks with little effort.
In short removing aoe caps will do one thing; force people to spread out this causing more single target abilities to be used.
Also that 5 man group in your op already has the distinct disadvantage of fighting 15 more people then them. Why add a passive damage reduction for the 20 man? Is the 15 person advantage alone not enough?
The problem is AoE does to much damage... look at prox det its been worked into so many single target builds its just stupid.
DK Scrub Out
Last week, we had a really successful discussion on player abilities. It was super constructive and we got a ton of really great feedback. This week, we’d like to have that same constructive discussion with AoE caps and falloff. AoE caps are something that have been talked about on the forums for a while now and discussion has picked up recently, especially with regards to PvP. We’d like to discuss them in a bit more detail and provide some design goals for the system, as well as the overall vision for larger scale PvP in ESO.
We want AoE abilities to be useful in PvP. That being said, we don’t want them to be the end all be all - single target abilities should also be useful. The intention of the caps and falloff is that AoE damage will be able to outpace healing in large group battles, but not dominate it. Healing abilities currently cap at 6 targets, where damage can hit up to 60 targets (100% to the first 6, 50% to the next 24, and 25% to the last 30).
With that being said, there are a few situations where healing is able to out scale damage. The first step we are taking is to look at some of the abilities that heal far more than we would like in large group fights. We’re specifically looking at Purge and Barrier initially, and will be reducing the max targets these abilities can hit. While we are looking at specific abilities, we are also looking into Magicka Detonation. This ability was always intended to be more effective versus groups and less effective against individual targets, and it is not meeting those design goals currently.
Remember that a group of 5 players is not going to be able to kill a group of 20 players in most situations. It is possible if you catch the group completely off guard or funnel them into a tight space, but in a straight up 5 on 20, the larger numbers are going to win most times.
For feedback this week, we’d love to hear about situations in which you feel like you are having problems against large groups of players. Include the number of players you’re fighting against, abilities you believe they are using, and abilities you feel need tweaks to make them more effective against larger numbers.
avid_mdb16_ESO wrote: »The purpose of AOE skills is simple: it is to give one player an utility to fight against a group of players.
The problem with AOE in ESO is that there is no friendly fire and large groups are using AOE with no negative consequences.
In a real world environment an AOE skill is inflicting damage not only to enemies but to allies as well if not placed properly.
Of course you cannot implement friendly fire in ESO. But you can add a debuff to an AOE ability for each friendly unit hit. It has to be calculated that a bigger group will always hit harder with their combined AOE abilities but not by much. So the group of 5 people will not get evaporated instantly by a group of 20.
Add a debuff to healing as well instead of capping when healing big groups.
This way the AOE heals and AOE damage of large groups will always be stronger if compared to small groups but not by much.
With the current AOE cap you punish drastically those small groups.
Cheers!
We want AoE abilities to be useful in PvP. That being said, we don’t want them to be the end all be all - single target abilities should also be useful.
The biggest concern I would want to see addressed if the aoe cap is removed are added measures to prevent group v group fights from being over even quicker than they already are. Lag permitting, most group v group fights come down to who gets their own bomb off successfully and can wipe the entire (or a large percentage of the) opposing group in one shot. If those fights are already over in literally <4 seconds, and the aoe caps are already in place to mitigate damage, their removal will make those fights even shorter because the bombs will be bigger. I know a few small-group minded players salivate at that thought, but I've always preferred long drawn out battles where sides clash and have chances to regroup, maneuver, and strategize DURING a fight. Most of our meta is already bomb and done, and I'd very much prefer to not see pvp go even further down that path.
This should always depend on tactics and skills, not only on counts!!
I know nothing about the game's coding, but based on what exists currently, I think technically that would be doable. Battle Spirit can already affect HP, resistance, shields, and range, so it would be reasonable to assume that something to affect AoE abilities would also be possible. For example: Abilities with range greater than 5m deal p% damage to the first x targets, q% damage to the next y targets, and r% damage to the last z targets. This passive would apply to everyone in Cyrodiil with PvP rank less than 7.Dagoth_Rac wrote: »This would probably be difficult to implement, but what if AoE caps applied to new PvP players but not experienced PvP players? Like once you reach a certain Alliance War Rank, AoE will always hit you for 100% damage. This would hurt the "pro zergs" where everyone has millions and millions of AP and all the top skills and passives unlocked. But it would still allow new and casual players to go for a "safety in numbers" approach so that they don't get wrecked nonstop by experienced pro players. By the time they reach the rank cutoff where AoE hits them 100% all the time, hopefully they have played enough in Cyrodiil to spread out and still be good.
I don't think it would be possible for a single campaign to have different AoE rules. Abilities are at worst global (meaning any change would have to apply everywhere), and at best restricted by passives like Battle Spirit, which are dependent on certain flags which exist in the game like IsPlayerInAvAWorld().I'm curious how difficult it would be to remove the AoE caps on the coding side.
Why not make a 7-day campaign to test PvP changes like this?
If you don't make the skills account-wide, what is the benefit of making rank account-wide? I thought that request was based primarily on the skills. Related; since the skill lines are currently based on the rank, would you detach them so that the number of AP gained by that character for a particular rank was still the requirement for the skill line unlock at that rank?
@Wrobel , I hope you timed this thread creation with the intention of having mass amounts of pumpkin pie to gorge on and get through the angry posts (that are mostly warranted, to be fair...).
I truly don't think removing the aoe cap is going to have as pronounced an effect as has been sold to the general playerbase by a few well known names, but on that same vein of thought, I don't see too much harm in removing the aoe cap. The biggest concern I would want to see addressed if the aoe cap is removed are added measures to prevent group v group fights from being over even quicker than they already are. Lag permitting, most group v group fights come down to who gets their own bomb off successfully and can wipe the entire (or a large percentage of the) opposing group in one shot. If those fights are already over in literally <4 seconds, and the aoe caps are already in place to mitigate damage, their removal will make those fights even shorter because the bombs will be bigger. I know a few small-group minded players salivate at that thought, but I've always preferred long drawn out battles where sides clash and have chances to regroup, maneuver, and strategize DURING a fight. Most of our meta is already bomb and done, and I'd very much prefer to not see pvp go even further down that path. I know some of the small groupers want to be able to run into a juicy stack of players with <=4 of their own and blow everyone up in a second with ulti and aoe, but at that point it comes down to ego and wanting to be able to brag about kill counts rather than promoting a pvp environment focused on actual fighting with counters, strategy, LOS, terrain, etc. If I wanted to oneshot people, I'd play an FPS. I want tactical pvp fights with skills and sets that allow me to counter some builds and be weak to other builds, with fights that last long enough for all players to react and put up a fight. As fun as it is to stealth one-shot a vampire using the ridiculous mechanics of camo hunter, if all of pvp was like that it'd be boring as hell and people would spend more time on their horses (or in fact, running, because of the stuck in combat bug -_-) than actually fighting. Being blown up by prox det, ults, and aoe even quicker than the current meta does not sound like healthy or fun pvp.
Call me crazy, but I want pvp to be about actually fighting other players, not blowing them up in 2 seconds so they can ride back on their mount, or being blown up myself in 2 seconds so I can ride back.
Anyway, aoe caps don't make sense as an artificial limiter, but their removal would require (imo) mechanic changes to make sure aoes don't just melt everybody now. A strong prox det + ult combined with someone else's ult and a steel tornado can obliterate most players' health bar, and I'd don't see it as a healthy thing for the meta to shift even more towards a buff and bomb mentality. PLEASE be wary of that, as I don't think you're going to be able to placate the playerbase unless you remove the aoe caps - they've been whipped into such a frenzy over this you really don't have an alternative. Just make sure the aoe caps are removed responsibly so that TTK is not even shorter that it currently is for group v group fights.
Wrobel wrote:For feedback this week, we’d love to hear about situations in which you feel like you are having problems against large groups of players. Include the number of players you’re fighting against, abilities you believe they are using, and abilities you feel need tweaks to make them more effective against larger numbers.
For feedback this week, we’d love to hear about situations in which you feel like you are having problems against large groups of players. Include the number of players you’re fighting against, abilities you believe they are using, and abilities you feel need tweaks to make them more effective against larger numbers.
Removing AoE caps, as many call for, allows AoE abilities to form zones of control as well. By uncapping the targets and damage, the area of effect of AoE abilities becomes a place players want to avoid, forcing scattering similar to siege. Because these are abilities players can cast on demand, zones of control can be made quickly and tactically, something the sluggish siege engines struggle to do. However AoEs are inherently less debilitating than siege, making siege the winner in any straight fight between the two tools. This is as @FENGRUSH has argued. Removing AoE caps will incentivise players to spread out, leaving the range of healers and becoming susceptible to the (generally) stronger single target attacks.
But there is a downside to removing AoE caps shown to us by pre-1.6 behavior: impulse trains. While impulse itself has been tweaked, any AoE ability can be used in its stead. A group can ball up tightly and spam a single AoE, the collective damage enough to destroy any who fall within range. Other groups will scatter to avoid such high damage but the AoE train, being mobile, will lock onto a pocket of scattered players and eliminate them, then turn to another pocket of scattered players and repeat. The scattered group can no longer muster the collective damage to stop the train, especially since getting close means death.
The counter pre-1.6 players found was siege. Siege will always deal more damage than AoE abilities, thus one of the players in the scattered group could place a siege and force the AoE train to scatter. Previously oil pots were the best option because it was easy to lure impulse trains into them and dump. With the 6m minimum height limitation, players will have to use ballistae and catapults to counter AoE trains. It takes skill to hit a moving target with siege, so PvP will not be threatened with returning to a numbers game.
So, AoE caps. If removed ESO will become a more skill based game on the small to medium scale PvP conflicts. On the large scale conflicts, the group that can ball up tightest and spam AoE most efficiently will win, unless siege is made so significantly stronger that even these large groups will scatter when under siege fire.
Like removing AoE caps, it allows instant-cast AoE to control areas of the battlefield by encouraging people to scatter to avoid taking damage, thus as you say going out of the range of healing. If abilities like Purge and Barrier had cool-downs with player immunity (i.e. can't receive the ability again for X seconds after it ends), spreading out would be encouraged even more.Currently, the more enemies there, the less damage is effectively done. Why not increase the damage done based on the number of players hit? So 25% to the first 6, 50% to the next 24, and 100% to the last 30. That way, the AoE abilities are good against large groups, but single-target spells remain useful in 1-on-1 situations. Zergs spamming the AoEs wouldn't be very effective, as they will be up against a smaller number, and healers wouldn't be able to heal the zerg as effectively because more people will have taken more damage.
I think it will be better if they bring back ground oils than the skill that you proposed because you cannot stack oils on the same location. Can you imagine 5-6 people using this skill stacked and 3-4 people just spamming heals. Everything what gets inside will melt down (As you said not like wall of elements melt down).Joy_Division wrote: »As far as Magicka Detonation, well, this was our promised replacement for our beloved Ground Oils and the votes are in: it's a stinker. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, how about you make it so magicka detonation follows the already proven zerg-busting function of Ground Oils? If you made it so the caster was immobile, had a cast time, a produced a large AOE fast ticking Dot, many of us would be happy Cyrodiil campers as it would solve several problems.
I think it will be better if they bring back ground oils than the skill that you proposed because you cannot stack oils on the same location. Can you imagine 5-6 people using this skill stacked and 3-4 people just spamming heals. Everything what gets inside will melt down (As you said not like wall of elements melt down).Joy_Division wrote: »As far as Magicka Detonation, well, this was our promised replacement for our beloved Ground Oils and the votes are in: it's a stinker. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, how about you make it so magicka detonation follows the already proven zerg-busting function of Ground Oils? If you made it so the caster was immobile, had a cast time, a produced a large AOE fast ticking Dot, many of us would be happy Cyrodiil campers as it would solve several problems.
Can anyone remind me why ZoS removed ground oils? Was it because people can use it next to keeps and use the siege limit? If that was the reason they just can remove the oils from the siege limit counter.
I have to question if anyone on Zos team understands how or why aoe abilities are used?
I'll use an example; you are worried that if you remove aoe caps aoes will be the only thing that is used.
However you have a perfect in an example of daoc where that is not the case. People used aoes when they were supposed to be used.... When you had multiple targets. If people are spread out it makes more sense to use single target higher damage abilities then it is to spam aoe abilities. Like when I use to run into dks who'd spam nothing but elemental ring back in the day. This worked great if there multiple enemies.. However in a one vs one I usually stomped the crap out of these dks with little effort.
In short removing aoe caps will do one thing; force people to spread out this causing more single target abilities to be used.
Also that 5 man group in your op already has the distinct disadvantage of fighting 15 more people then them. Why add a passive damage reduction for the 20 man? Is the 15 person advantage alone not enough?
The problem is AoE does to much damage... look at prox det its been worked into so many single target builds its just stupid.
DK Scrub Out
Thanks for providing some validation to my suggestion I agree that the numbers could do with some balancing, and I like your suggestion of 6+18 for the lower values, as that directly equals one full group. To make it up to 60 (does anyone know what the relevance is of 60?), you would need the last grouping to be 36 rather than 34.tinythinker wrote: »Like removing AoE caps, it allows instant-cast AoE to control areas of the battlefield by encouraging people to scatter to avoid taking damage, thus as you say going out of the range of healing. If abilities like Purge and Barrier had cool-downs with player immunity (i.e. can't receive the ability again for X seconds after it ends), spreading out would be encouraged even more.Currently, the more enemies there, the less damage is effectively done. Why not increase the damage done based on the number of players hit? So 25% to the first 6, 50% to the next 24, and 100% to the last 30. That way, the AoE abilities are good against large groups, but single-target spells remain useful in 1-on-1 situations. Zergs spamming the AoEs wouldn't be very effective, as they will be up against a smaller number, and healers wouldn't be able to heal the zerg as effectively because more people will have taken more damage.
You could keep playing with these numbers to find a good balance:
1. First 6=25%, next 24=50%, last 30=100%
2. First 6=25%, next 24=75%, last 30=125%
3. First 6=25%, next 18=50%, last 34=100%
4. First 6=25%, next 18=50%, last 34=125% (<-- my favorite)
Scenarios (using my favorite set of numbers for an inverted AoE cap):
A. A 24-player or fewer group meets a 24-player or fewer group. They try spamming AoE, but, at best those abilities are doing half damage. If one group is 6 players or smaller, they are only taking 25% damage. If the smaller group is going against a group larger than 6, they can actually hit harder with their own AoE. Yes, numbers still favor the over-6 group but not because they can just AoE-spam the smaller group to death. If the 6 players are very skilled versus a bunch of neophytes, they can still win.
B. A10-24 player group meats a 35-45 person group. The larger group tries to spam AoE but is only doing half damage whereas the smaller group is doing 125% damage with its AoE. A much fairer fight that encourages the larger group to split up or stay in a blob and switch to single target while getting hammered by the opposing group's amped up AoE.
C. A 35+ group versus a 35+ group go head to head. They can mostly annihilate each other with 125% damage on their AoE spam after hitting the Purge/Barrier cool-down or they can split up.
The only reason I can see for preferring removing AoE caps to using some version of an inverted cap is to make it easier for people to 1vX and show off, as an inverted cap otherwise does what cap removal does but does it in a way that doesn't put less skilled/poorer geared/lower ranked players at as much of a disadvantage (yet at more of a disadvantage than the current system) and forces 1vx or small group v large group to use actual skill to pull off impressive stands.
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