Nerf Ball Groups

zyk

It's really idiotic fighting large ball groups with anything else other than another ball group again. I'd say it's worse than 2.2 -- especially because ZOS nerfed mobility for everyone except large groups.

Sanct16

VaranisArano

Good luck. Large scale organized combat is exactly what Cyrodiil was originally designed for.

Its also hard to actually nerf them, because organized groups will adapt better than any less organized groups. For example, the AOE cap removal was supposed to benefit small groups vs large groups, but in practice the winners were (as usual) large organized groups vs everyone else.

Nemesismimz

sounds like you need to get yourself a ball group.

Trinity_Is_My_Name

Nerf! Nerf! Nerf! Are we tired of seeing Nerf threads yet?

edges_endgame

Buff zergs, nerf small scale. Voila

pzschrek

I hear BGs are still hiring

VaranisArano

edges_endgame wrote: »

Buff zergs, nerf small scale. Voila

I'm actually all for buffing organized small scale.

The problem is that if you buff small scale vs large disorganized zergs, you also buff the large organized groups vs everyone else including small scale groups...

fullheartcontainer

please explain to me how you expect ZOS to nerf something for a ball group without effecting anyone else? Ball groups are able to combine different things that work and coordinate that together to win. Anything you nerf they'll just find something else, or use that nerf to take advantage of the fact that they can kill other people easier now because THOSE people were effected by that same nerf.

Do you know how you fight a ballgroup? You get yourself a ballgroup because you aren't going to be able to solo it or kill it with an uncoordinated mess. Asking for nerfs because you're fighting a group that outclasses you without knowing what you want nerfed is crazy. You don't even know WHAT you want nerfed. You want... grouping... nerfed? You could literally remove the ability for people to group in Cyrodiil and ball groups would be just fine, because they use voice comms.

If you really want to fight ball groups, quit salting and go make a ball group to fight them with.

thankyourat

VaranisArano wrote: »

Good luck. Large scale organized combat is exactly what Cyrodiil was originally designed for.

Its also hard to actually nerf them, because organized groups will adapt better than any less organized groups. For example, the AOE cap removal was supposed to benefit small groups vs large groups, but in practice the winners were (as usual) large organized groups vs everyone else.

You can Nerf the things that make them ridiculous though by getting rid of things like earthgore and AOE healing in general. You should have to target your heals just like you do for single target abilities. This would force healers to stand behind ball groups and will force ball groups to spread out a bit so the healers can target them.

frozywozy

Here we go again. I think I should prolly make a section in my signature for ball group counters.

- Negate
- Frozen Gate
- Unrelenting Grip
- Storm with a bomber setup
- Combination of synergies with harmony

Before people say it, you don't need to be zerg surfing to counter a ballgroup. Only if you don't wanna participate in another ballgroup and that's all on you and how it should be imo.

rabidmyers

now where does the term ball come from and what does it mean exactly? im assuming it has significance to "ball rooms" or nah

Prince_of_all_Pugs

frozywozy wrote: »

Here we go again. I think I should prolly make a section in my signature for ball group counters.

- Negate
- Frozen Gate
- Unrelenting Grip
- Storm with a bomber setup
- Combination of synergies with harmony

Before people say it, you don't need to be zerg surfing to counter a ballgroup. Only if you don't wanna participate in another ballgroup and that's all on you and how it should be imo.

Hey Frozn can you please upload a Video or record a clip of you killing a ball group with these skills with 4-5 players? pleeeease.

Qbiken

edges_endgame wrote: »

Buff zergs, nerf small scale. Voila

Implying small-scale is weak.....

edges_endgame

Qbiken wrote: »

edges_endgame wrote: »

Buff zergs, nerf small scale. Voila

Implying small-scale is weak.....

I was being sarcastic.

usmguy1234

fullheartcontainer wrote: »

please explain to me how you expect ZOS to nerf something for a ball group without effecting anyone else? Ball groups are able to combine different things that work and coordinate that together to win. Anything you nerf they'll just find something else, or use that nerf to take advantage of the fact that they can kill other people easier now because THOSE people were effected by that same nerf.

Do you know how you fight a ballgroup? You get yourself a ballgroup because you aren't going to be able to solo it or kill it with an uncoordinated mess. Asking for nerfs because you're fighting a group that outclasses you without knowing what you want nerfed is crazy. You don't even know WHAT you want nerfed. You want... grouping... nerfed? You could literally remove the ability for people to group in Cyrodiil and ball groups would be just fine, because they use voice comms.

If you really want to fight ball groups, quit salting and go make a ball group to fight them with.

It's easy. Make skills less effective with more allies around and more effective with more enemies around. Kind of the same/ opposite of proxy det.

Tommy_The_Gun

ZOS tried to nerf ball groups tactics many times - but every attempt they make only makes those groups stronger. I think they are looking at this from a wrong angle. They should start by making some sort of "Trade-off". Right now well... there is like.. no disadvantage of a group. But in my opinion well - there should be (at least in PvP).

Simple example:
"Rapid Maneuver" affects whole group and cost about 8K stamina. When you have full ride (24 people) this means it brings more benefit vs casting this skill solo (ungrouped). So the real cost per person in a group is something like 333 stamina.
Same goes for every other skill that affects whole group.

Groups also tend to have people that are specialised in something. Dedicated healer (or heal-bot), dedicated Rapid Maneuver /speed buff spammer, dedicated dps etc. - the point is those people would never survived on their own because of their narrow builds. Every time "ball groups" are fighting even larger numbers of solo / ungrouped players - those players cant do much because they have builds that are not specialised but rather more versatile - thus they cannot do much against ball groups.

I would really want ZOS to do something different than introducing new skills / sets that are "supposed" to be a good counter against ball groups. In reality those are only another tools for those groups. They should do something different. Change base game mechanics / rules slightly to make people think twice before they join a mindless ball group (trade-off).
There are plenty of ways. Increase skill cost, reduced dmg dealt, less stam / mag recovery etc. while in group - and this would of course scale with number of people that are in the group. This would make people to rather have 2 or 3 smaller "ball groups" rather than 1 big to have less "debuff" - and of course it would be more difficult to coordinate and in the end - tu run.

btw. It would be cool if ZOS would make (just for testing purposes) a PvP Campaign & Battlegrounds mode with grouping disabled.

BrokenGameMechanics

Good luck with that!! ESO went exactly the other way and is now highly encouraging run around in a Tower Ball Group. Have you noticed many of new Cyrodiil Sets are designed for Ulti Spamming. In a way I kind of get it. They are throwing a bone to the casual 1-Button Player. Get in a Ball Group. Have 1/4 of them Spam 'X' and heal, the other 3/4 Spam 'X' and then Ulti. Why encourage more 1-Button Player Ulit Spammers I don't get ...

On the other hand I really don't understand the players that go out their way to run, run, run, around a circle in a tower or a rock while overdosing on cheese pots ... oh well to eatch their own.

But to seei many of the new Cyrodiil Sets focusing on Ulti spammers ... sigh. But I guess it allows the full spectrum of players to be effective.

leeux

IMO, is not that difficult to ask for some tweaks, then see where that leaves us:

1st. things such as Earthgore have to be removed or redesigned, or made PvE only.
2nd Rapids Maneuvers needs to cost increase with repeated usage (like Streak) and break for everyone in the group when anyone in the group uses an ability that affects other players.
3rd there HAS be to a new ability that serves as a Stamina negate, either the same Negate morph everyone uses now, the other less used morph, or a new ability altogether... doesn't matter. And I would prefer if it was rolled back as it was in the past.
4th Vigor healing over time to allies around you (not the self part) has to be toned down.

I think those tweaks would be interesting to see, for an initial approach at least... not saying that only these will solve all the problems, but at least is a means to attack the symptoms a bit and see what's left afterwards.

Mr_Wolfe

The last time ZOS tried to nerf ball groups they removed the target cap on AoEs. I'd rather they not try again.

VaranisArano

thankyourat wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Good luck. Large scale organized combat is exactly what Cyrodiil was originally designed for.

Its also hard to actually nerf them, because organized groups will adapt better than any less organized groups. For example, the AOE cap removal was supposed to benefit small groups vs large groups, but in practice the winners were (as usual) large organized groups vs everyone else.

You can Nerf the things that make them ridiculous though by getting rid of things like earthgore and AOE healing in general. You should have to target your heals just like you do for single target abilities. This would force healers to stand behind ball groups and will force ball groups to spread out a bit so the healers can target them.

Lets get rid of AOE healing? ESO pretty much only has AOE healing, right? Some heals are more directional than others and some target low heal players, but its not like I can pick one or two people to heal when I want to in PVE or PVP with any class. Healing Springs, Vigor, Combat Prayer, all AOE heals. ZOS would have to re-design core healing skills. I doubt they'll do that.

If you lower the effectiveness of AOE heals, organized ball groups will adapt better than anyone else in PVP. Unlike zergs, they can run dedicated healers. Unlike small groups, they can run plenty of dedicated healers.

As for things like Earthgore, well, nerf it and it wont change the dynamic. Organized groups were dominant before it. So if you want to lessen their dominance, sure nerf it. But nerfing it wont kill dominant organized groups, especially since zergs and small groups will also have a less effective Earthgore.

Joy_Division

I'll bite.

We're going to have a meeting with the devs.

OP, tell me, specifically without pouring a carton of Morton's on me, exactly what feedback you would like me to communicate to the devs that might attain your objective that does not involve tearing apart existing game mechanics and redesigning them in 6 weeks to suit your particular play-style at the exclusion of all others. Or nerfing the crap out of something you don't like, which will adversely affect the game when ball groups aren't around.

I would also think it would be helpful not to just throw around the term "ball-group" as if everyone group out there in cyrodiil with voice coms are all the same. The majority of "ball groups" out there quite frankly aren't super strong to warrant major changes and can fail to take defended keeps Vs. an similar amount of Pugs who know what they are doing.

Good players, whether alone, in small-group, or in a larger group are going to be hard to kill. At some point, people should stop asking ZOS to nerf good players.

qbit

Vapirko

fullheartcontainer wrote: »

please explain to me how you expect ZOS to nerf something for a ball group without effecting anyone else? Ball groups are able to combine different things that work and coordinate that together to win. Anything you nerf they'll just find something else, or use that nerf to take advantage of the fact that they can kill other people easier now because THOSE people were effected by that same nerf.

Do you know how you fight a ballgroup? You get yourself a ballgroup because you aren't going to be able to solo it or kill it with an uncoordinated mess. Asking for nerfs because you're fighting a group that outclasses you without knowing what you want nerfed is crazy. You don't even know WHAT you want nerfed. You want... grouping... nerfed? You could literally remove the ability for people to group in Cyrodiil and ball groups would be just fine, because they use voice comms.

If you really want to fight ball groups, quit salting and go make a ball group to fight them with.

Not true. Most ball groups are made up of incredibly bad players. It’s entirely possible to take on a smaller balll group of 10 with just two or three people and easily with half their number. You know how you nerf a ball group? Take out the Zerg sets and skills, particularly earthgore and bubbles which is far too powerful with a giant AOE to be a spammable. Teams should not be able to constantly have this up. (I’ve not forgotten the actual name of this psijic skill). You then reverse some of the mobility nerfs, give magicka players speed pots, give FM a couple more seconds of snare immunity back, give shuffle more snare immunity. Make one morph of rapids usable only when riding a mount and bring the other morph (with snare removal) in line with other forms of major expedition. There’s a few ideas to get started.

@JoyDivsion

VaranisArano

Vapirko wrote: »

fullheartcontainer wrote: »

please explain to me how you expect ZOS to nerf something for a ball group without effecting anyone else? Ball groups are able to combine different things that work and coordinate that together to win. Anything you nerf they'll just find something else, or use that nerf to take advantage of the fact that they can kill other people easier now because THOSE people were effected by that same nerf.

Do you know how you fight a ballgroup? You get yourself a ballgroup because you aren't going to be able to solo it or kill it with an uncoordinated mess. Asking for nerfs because you're fighting a group that outclasses you without knowing what you want nerfed is crazy. You don't even know WHAT you want nerfed. You want... grouping... nerfed? You could literally remove the ability for people to group in Cyrodiil and ball groups would be just fine, because they use voice comms.

If you really want to fight ball groups, quit salting and go make a ball group to fight them with.

Not true. Most ball groups are made up of incredibly bad players. It’s entirely possible to take on a smaller balll group of 10 with just two or three people and easily with half their number. You know how you nerf a ball group? Take out the Zerg sets and skills, particularly earthgore and bubbles which is far too powerful with a giant AOE to be a spammable. Teams should not be able to constantly have this up. (I’ve not forgotten the actual name of this psijic skill). You then reverse some of the mobility nerfs, give magicka players speed pots, give FM a couple more seconds of snare immunity back, give shuffle more snare immunity. Make one morph of rapids usable only when riding a mount and bring the other morph (with snare removal) in line with other forms of major expedition. There’s a few ideas to get started.

JoyDivsion

You know why organized groups can spam Time Stop and stack Earthgore?

Its because they are organized.

They can tell their players "Hey, X number of you run Time Stop and X number of you run Earthgore."

If its not Earthgore and Time Stop, its Permafrost, Sub Assault, Spin To Win, Destro ultimate...heck, anything that's even remotely strong an organized group will use better than anyone else. Because they are more organized than the disorganized PUG groups and larger than the organized small scale groups.

Nerf Rapid Maneuvers?

Organized Raid: "Alright. Guys, we need another "rapids slave" or X number of people start using rapids."

Nerf the stuff they use and they'll move on to the next thing. Its surprisingly hard to nerf organization when Cyrodiil was originally designed for large organized groups. I've been PUGing and playing in a large organized raid since before Morrowind, and at no point did any of the combat changes ever seriously threaten the dominance of the large organized raids (my factions or the enemies) on the battlefield. The one thing that actually caused problems for the raids, believe it or not, was the change to catapults doing increased damage, which made it much harder to capture well-defended keeps.

Tommy_The_Gun

Joy_Division wrote: »

I'll bite.

We're going to have a meeting with the devs.

OP, tell me, specifically without pouring a carton of Morton's on me, exactly what feedback you would like me to communicate to the devs

I can tell you:
Something that will make people think twice when they join a mindless ball group. Some trade - off perhaps. So there will be an actual disadvantage of a group. Right now there is simply no drawback if you decide to play in 24 people group in PvP.
Something like Increase skill cost, reduced dmg dealt, less stam / mag recovery etc. while in group - basically a de-buff of some sort. This would result in people playing in smaller groups (perhaps forming 2 - 3 groups instead of 1 big) that will be more difficult to coordinate and run. In my previous post in this thread I have written what the problem is.

The thing is - every time ZOS tries to tone down ball groups either by introducing new skills or sets it only makes those groups stronger and stronger. Instead of having a tool to counter ball groups - those groups themselves have more tools to be even more effective. Looking at this from a perspective I think ZOS should take different approach.

zyk

VaranisArano wrote: »

Good luck. Large scale organized combat is exactly what Cyrodiil was originally designed for.

Incorrect. If you read interviews from when ESO was in development -- when AvA had a high profile and the devs loved to talk about it -- you'll learn that it was made to facilitate a variety of play styles from solo to large groups.

Just like there needs to be balance between classes and roles, there needs to be balance between play styles because we all fight in the same very large arena. Like with classes, balance between play styles fluctuates patch to patch. Over the past year, ball groups have become disproportionately strong IMO.

A ball group is a group that primarily uses AEs and therefore clump together like a ball or blob. Though a group of any size can play like this, it's usually only effective in medium to large groups.

Large ball groups have been addressed in the past. In 2.3, for example, changes to purge, barrier and rapids were meant to address ball groups.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Good players, whether alone, in small-group, or in a larger group are going to be hard to kill. At some point, people should stop asking ZOS to nerf good players.

That's not what's happening here. At all. Actually, it's the opposite. The current strength of ball groups has everything to do with raising the floor and lowering the ceiling.

I know it's easy to imagine only the best groups when a discussion like this comes up, but it's actually the mediocre ball groups that stand out as the main beneficiaries of the changes that have helped ball groups. There are so many *bad* ball groups out there who can barely get kills, but take large numbers to wipe because it's easy for them to spam heals, CCs and stay mobile.

My POV is that of someone who has played all styles over the years. I've been on the extremes of both sides of the coin, fighting in some OP ball groups and also fighting against groups of all types as a random.

I think that play style balance is essential. Ungrouped randoms and small groups need a fighting chance against large groups. As recently as 3.0, I felt we had that. Good groups had to constantly be aware of even solo bombers and over-extending as a member of a large group would get you killed.

Though I think the path to where we are now was much more nuanced, there are two changes that stand out to me: The blanket nerf to mobility and Earthgore.

The 4.2 mobility nerfs are huge here. Basically, everyone except ball groups had their mobility significantly limited. This gives large organized groups the ability to easily reset and reposition at will. It is unlikely that a significant portion of their opponents will have the means to efficiently keep up with them which quickly reduces pressure and helps with kiting. We all know how important mobility is after the nerfs, so we should all recognize this is a huge advantage.

On the other side of the coin, everyone else had their legs chopped off. A random fighting these groups without speed potions and other mobility tools that were nerfed has to maintain a much greater distance between them and the ball group. When they do get caught, escape is much more difficult.

The changes to mobility also make it trivially easy for a ball group to disconnect from a fight and drop a camp. The synergy between Forward Camps and ball groups needs to be addressed. A 20 player AE rez with a massive radius shouldn't be so easy to execute.

Earthgore is quite a dead horse, but continues to be a major factor in bailing out ball groups -- especially the very bad ones -- when they make mistakes. This is key because away from an outright coordinated bomb, whittling down large groups one by one was an effective tactic.

But like I said, I think it's more nuanced than this. Beyond game changes, strong builds and tactics have become more widespread and I know most solo and small group players would say their play styles have been significantly nerfed over the same period.

frozywozy

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Here we go again. I think I should prolly make a section in my signature for ball group counters.

- Negate
- Frozen Gate
- Unrelenting Grip
- Storm with a bomber setup
- Combination of synergies with harmony

Before people say it, you don't need to be zerg surfing to counter a ballgroup. Only if you don't wanna participate in another ballgroup and that's all on you and how it should be imo.

Hey Frozn can you please upload a Video or record a clip of you killing a ball group with these skills with 4-5 players? pleeeease.

Yeah I will once you have understood the post I made. I do it pretty much everyday. Got 21 kbs few days ago. Me and a friend with no other EP against a guild + pugs with my prox, a storm and a gravity crush. Daily routine. No they weren't waiting for a flag to flip or repairing a keep. At this point I don't believe that people don't understand how to play the game. They are just too stubborn to admit that if you want to kill a large amount of organized enemies (much more than you), you gotta build accordingly and use the best aoes in the game. Otherwise, just make your own group and bring the same kind of challenge.

Lieblingsjunge

@Joy_Division When you give feedback to the devs, be careful. A lot of people enjoy playing in ball-groups(myself included) and nobody in the raid I play in, are bad players. There's a reason ZS is still known as one of the best and most experienced ball-group on EU/PC, in general. Been through everything from the old purge change, the old maneuver change to using Earthgore - to completely ignoring Earthgore(and still doing fairly well). Because we've always found tools to deal with any change.

There are a lot of "bad"(i dont like to use that word) or less experiecned ball-groups on the server, on EU there's quite a few semi-ball-group-semi-random-semi-pug group. There are more and more people running in those kind of groups, and in an effort to increase the ceiling for the more experienced/better ball-groups... Any change that is made, will affect the semi-ball-group-semi-random-semi-pug groups more than they'll affect the experienced/good ones.

So trying to target the better ballgroups, you might just risk gutting the semi-ball-groups, and the better ball-groups will still adapt and prevail somehow. You risk gutting the "mid-tier" players in Cyro, to get rid of, or nerf the high-tier players.(Talking as if Cyro is built up of tiers, high-tier being players who 1vXs, smallscalers, raids that wants to improve and get better. And working towards that at any given moment. The mid-tiers being the semi-organised-semi-pug groups that have some that's focused on improving, some that just don't care but enjoy playng in a group. Lower-tier being the randoms that still have no idea that magicka/stamina is a thing and that they have 2 bars and more than 1 skill or LA).

And as much as people hate it - the typical raid-like/ball-group is an equal playstyle to smallscale/LFG-group. They're just made up of different individuals and who enjoy different kind of play.

In general, I feel like facepalming when I see a group of 5-7 organised people cry like babies, cus they can't kill a 12-man organised *good* raid. Why some people feel entitled, to be able to kill anyone, no matter who they are, outnumbered, never cease to amaze me.

On EU, the general level of players increased, making it harder to 1vX. (Whehter thats due to gear, or whatnot is beside the point). Running into an equally skilled/geared player in Cyrodiil, especially outnumbered.. Usually means a stalemate. So expecting to win any 5v10 or 1v3s is a stretch, imo.

Edit: Also, if anyone thinks that playing in a decent ball-group is easy, you only spam one button brainlessly... send me a PM on the forums and we can arrange a voice-chat conversation, and I'll be open, honest and answer any kind of questions, concerns or whatever you may have. I'm open for explaining myself, what I do and why I enjoy it to whoever.

Iki

Remove cast-time from inevitable detonation.

Make catapults ammo travel faster, so it would be easier to hit moving targets, rate of fire should remain as it is tho.

Purge and rapid maneuvers should have self-only and group morphs. For example: efficient purge should only purge caster for a low-cost while other morph would also purge allies but for significantly higher cost, same with rapids.

MLRPZ

Iki wrote: »

Remove cast-time from inevitable detonation.

Make catapults ammo travel faster, so it would be easier to hit moving targets, rate of fire should remain as it is tho.

Purge and rapid maneuvers should have self-only and group morphs. For example: efficient purge should only purge caster for a low-cost while other morph would also purge allies but for significantly higher cost, same with rapids.

Fight the "one button spammers" by spamming either one button or left clic ?

ah no, forgive me, if you're ungrouped you're 1vXing