Way to discourage ball groups

Waylander07

This is only my opinion but what about raising the rewards for capturing a keep, scroll, town or resource so that its more beneficial than just running around in a ball group farming AP. This would encourage players to actually play the campaign as it would be more rewarding. Getting 1.6k ap for taking a resource/town or something like 7k ap for taking a keep is not much reward for a lot of hard work. The ball group playstyle as far as I am concerned sucks the life out of the game so why not make the only decent way to earn ap is to play the campaign as intended.

NoodleESO

For groups like that its not about the ap. The only thing that is gonna do is make pvdoor more popular. These groups are placing themselves where they can find pvp not ap so it doesn't matter where the players go, these groups will follow.

The only real way to deal with "ball groups" is to beat them so many times they don't want to come back, not run to the next keep sorry.

xylena_lazarow

NoodleESO wrote: »

placing themselves where they can find pvp not ap

Make kills inside unflagged keeps worth 0 AP and I bet they stop running laps around the roof for hours.

NoodleESO

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

NoodleESO wrote: »

placing themselves where they can find pvp not ap

Make kills inside unflagged keeps worth 0 AP and I bet they stop running laps around the roof for hours.

its not a bad idea but having been a player that used to run in "ballgroups" I can tell you its really about the kill and not about the ap. Theres just something so fun about not having to worry about healing and tearing through a Zerg like a can opener.

The only reason why my group would ever pull off is if a stronger group beat us and pushed us out. So long as theres a large group of pugs or solo players theres a reason to keep coming back. AP be darned

AJones43865

How about less than 100% AP rewards when grouped? The larger the group, the higher percentage of AP reduction. For instance, a 12 man group would get only 50% AP awards, a 6 man group 75% AP etc.? Scaled reward based upon group size. The bigger the group, the lower the AP.

NoodleESO

AJones43865 wrote: »

How about less than 100% AP rewards when grouped? The larger the group, the higher percentage of AP reduction. For instance, a 12 man group would get only 50% AP awards, a 6 man group 75% AP etc.? Scaled reward based upon group size. The bigger the group, the lower the AP.

lmao go for it, I really see the disconnect here. Unless you've been in one of those groups you probably don't understand. Its not about the AP.

Magio_

NoodleESO wrote: »

lmao go for it, I really see the disconnect here. Unless you've been in one of those groups you probably don't understand. Its not about the AP.

[snip]

People who really like combat oriented PvP would PAY to fight people lol.

[edited for rude/insulting comment]

xylena_lazarow

NoodleESO wrote: »

lmao go for it, I really see the disconnect here. Unless you've been in one of those groups you probably don't understand. Its not about the AP.

Maybe not you or even your group, but plenty of them over the years have been all about "farming AP."

xDeusEJRx

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

NoodleESO wrote: »

lmao go for it, I really see the disconnect here. Unless you've been in one of those groups you probably don't understand. Its not about the AP.

Maybe not you or even your group, but plenty of them over the years have been all about "farming AP."

You're right, but there's people in cyrodiil who play purely for pvp aspects and care not for ap or the map. Which is why these farming groups exist in the first place. While sure cyrodiil is not entirely about pvp, it's where most of the pvp community is, which means you gotta go cyrodiil to fight people. There's no pure PVP game mode in this game(duels dont count cause even though you can duel everywhere, not everyone in towns are trying to duel, most people in towns are there to do PVE not pvp) and BG's dont count either cause it's not a combat oriented game mode(i'm not counting the deathmatch only BG test cause it's only a test and not permanent)

xylena_lazarow

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

You're right, but there's people in cyrodiil who play purely for pvp aspects and care not for ap or the map.

A highly skilled organized group repeatedly killing the same weaker disorganized players... where does this fit in?

xDeusEJRx

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

You're right, but there's people in cyrodiil who play purely for pvp aspects and care not for ap or the map.

A highly skilled organized group repeatedly killing the same weaker disorganized players... where does this fit in?

Can't say, but it just reminds me of early battlegrounds from 2017 before all the constant changes to it.
But I do feel if there was a proper combat game mode in the game ball groups would prefer that to cyrodiil.
It'd be a lie to say that would eliminate ball groups entirely, but player's would at least have a game mode to be as bloodthirsty as they want in and I think that would lessen the problem a lot.
Though that's implying ZoS would be willing to go as far as to make a new mode, which I don't see happening

DucLIX

Waylander07 wrote: »

This is only my opinion but what about raising the rewards for capturing a keep, scroll, town or resource so that its more beneficial than just running around in a ball group farming AP. This would encourage players to actually play the campaign as it would be more rewarding. Getting 1.6k ap for taking a resource/town or something like 7k ap for taking a keep is not much reward for a lot of hard work. The ball group playstyle as far as I am concerned sucks the life out of the game so why not make the only decent way to earn ap is to play the campaign as intended.

Would just kill the pvp more.
Actually, most of "weak disorganized players" as said above, just avoid ANY type of fight by just taking empty keeps, if they encounter any kind of opposition they just try, die, and go as far as they can from fight just to take empty keeps.

It would encourage even more this type of "gameplay", resulting in a map where mst of the players are just avoiding enemies to go kill some rocks or wood on doors & walls. That's not pvp, that's PVE. It's boring, and creating maps without interest, if you pvp, that's not for taking keeps where no one is.

And last point about ballgroups, it will not discourage any of us. If we fight in keeps, or anywhere else, it's not for AP, just challenge and great fights, the more you kill the same "weak disorganized" groups, the less AP they give you. So, not a problem.

Ballgroups that are playing for AP are the ones that are zergsurfing (Draco, Imperial Legion, and some other that will not admit it etc.. PC/EU).

Actually the system is: longer the fight is, the more people are dying, the higher AP gains is when you defend/capture a point.
That's a good system imo.

The only thing that is not right about it is that yo uearn that much AP by taking keeps and outposts with no defence, it encourages them to avoid fight and creating an empty map, with just 1/2 places where people are actually fighting while it should be way much more fightpoints than that.

Now be kind, and try to stop finding ways to discourage people to play the way they intend to, putting effort in a gameplay that most people hate because they're just not willing to improve their own gameplay cannot be judged, nobody can judge an effort. Well I guess.
When we get zerged by 50+ people and die, we don't complain because we weren't able to do anything to counter it in final, we just try to find best way to face that, but in the end we die most of the time and we do not try to find ways to discourage players to play in zergs.

Reverb

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

NoodleESO wrote: »

lmao go for it, I really see the disconnect here. Unless you've been in one of those groups you probably don't understand. Its not about the AP.

Maybe not you or even your group, but plenty of them over the years have been all about "farming AP."

AP farming groups and organized ball groups are different classes of players. For actual ball groups AP is a metric that shows how effective a fight was, alongside other metrics like kills, healing and damage stats, and buff and debuff uptimes. The AP itself isn’t a goal, just like gold isn’t the goal for score-chasing trial groups.

NerfSeige

I don’t really see the problem with organized groups in comms with optimized rosters and gear wrecking havoc on disorganized groups and farming them.

That being said, I hope there’s like a battle royale style BG for people who like fights and not riding a frick-ton after getting zerged.

xylena_lazarow

Reverb wrote: »

AP farming groups and organized ball groups are different classes of players.

There is no competitive value in repeatedly killing weaker disorganized players who are basically NPC trash mobs compared to the skilled organized group. If it was really about the PvP, they'd find a venue where they can fight others on their level. I can agree that it's a shame there's no 12v12 arena in this game, or any proper XvX arena.

TequilaFire

Our group takes keeps and scrolls and farms ap and crowns emps for the fight.
Now what? lol

maxjapank

NoodleESO wrote: »

The only reason why my group would ever pull off is if a stronger group beat us and pushed us out. So long as theres a large group of pugs or solo players theres a reason to keep coming back. AP be darned

This. As much as some ball groups claim, they are about farming pugs and/or solo players.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Top floor farm is good for groups because it generally yields a decent fight which has progressive levels of challenge available.

If groups purely want AP they would generally do far better either steamrolling the map by pugsurfing or tick farming than top floor farms.

Einstein_

in a good average raid we make arround 800+ kills and 200-250k AP in 2h. Thats not to bad, but also not super high.

If i just want to farm AP, i would go for some zergsurfing bomber or range build thats the same AP/h or even more.

And if ppl would be tryharding AP even more you could just AP trade with your friends, which is sadly still not bannable (up to 1 mio AP/h).

xxslam48xxb14_ESO

What do they actually get out of playing like that? Ap is probably garbage because of how many players are attacking and getting kills while in a zerg is not hard or rewarding. There was certainly a point in time where ball groups were smaller then the zergs they were farming, but now a days they are about the same size.

I am thinking its about power and prestige in truth. They can claim whatever they want, but the reality is they want to be feared and renowned. If we stop calling them "ball groups" as if there is some distinction between them and a common zerg they won't feel special anymore. Just call them zergs, because they are now. The pop cap is low enough that they are just as big as any other zerg. Don't give them respect, call the zerglings, mock their skill level, shame them out of playing in a zerg. Catch any of them outside their groups and they play like pvers. They aren't skilled, they are just pvers doing rotations in a pvp environment. Its only possible because of how unbelievably bad zos is at fixing their game and you all know this to be true. Is zos would finally fix the mechanics they are exploiting they would probably quit because they can't play at all without their zerg.

NoodleESO

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

What do they actually get out of playing like that? Ap is probably garbage because of how many players are attacking and getting kills while in a zerg is not hard or rewarding. There was certainly a point in time where ball groups were smaller then the zergs they were farming, but now a days they are about the same size.

I am thinking its about power and prestige in truth. They can claim whatever they want, but the reality is they want to be feared and renowned. If we stop calling them "ball groups" as if there is some distinction between them and a common zerg they won't feel special anymore. Just call them zergs, because they are now. The pop cap is low enough that they are just as big as any other zerg. Don't give them respect, call the zerglings, mock their skill level, shame them out of playing in a zerg. Catch any of them outside their groups and they play like pvers. They aren't skilled, they are just pvers doing rotations in a pvp environment. Its only possible because of how unbelievably bad zos is at fixing their game and you all know this to be true. Is zos would finally fix the mechanics they are exploiting they would probably quit because they can't play at all without their zerg.

I agree that it is about prestige and groups used to be smaller, but discouraging guilds to reach a competitive level is not the right direction to go. There used to be some sense of glory in banding together to defeat a larger enemy, and personally I think if everyone experienced it pvp would be larger than what it currently is.

xylena_lazarow

NoodleESO wrote: »

There used to be some sense of glory in banding together to defeat a larger enemy, and personally I think if everyone experienced it pvp would be larger than what it currently is.

Except that it's the larger enemy who doesn't stand a chance. They're unarmed untrained peasants trying to fight elite soldiers rolling around in a tank with machine guns. I can understand the power fantasy appeal, but I wouldn't call it glory.

Amottica

NoodleESO wrote: »

For groups like that its not about the ap. The only thing that is gonna do is make pvdoor more popular. These groups are placing themselves where they can find pvp not ap so it doesn't matter where the players go, these groups will follow.

The only real way to deal with "ball groups" is to beat them so many times they don't want to come back, not run to the next keep sorry.

I agree with this comment. Heck, no matter where they go players seem to flock to them like bugs to a light. As such they get AP by the masses of players that keep feeding their machine time after time without any plan to defeat the group.

Since I started ESO earlier this year I have said and seen, that a well-organized group can and do defeat the ball groups.

xylena_lazarow

Amottica wrote: »

a well-organized group can and do defeat the ball groups

Yes we've established that the way to beat a ballgroup is another ballgroup.

Would a new organized group meta really be such a bad thing?

wazzz56

the initial raising of AP for taking a keep from a hundred or so to 6 thousand (w/out any ap buffs) is the point where pvp in ESO slowly started to decline imho..it encouraged pvdoor...it encouraged needless gating and it encouraged tank groups who need to do nothing but spam aoes and heals while they flip flags..none of that is or ever has been good for eso....doubling the ap gains would only make this worse

neferpitou73

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

What do they actually get out of playing like that? Ap is probably garbage because of how many players are attacking and getting kills while in a zerg is not hard or rewarding. There was certainly a point in time where ball groups were smaller then the zergs they were farming, but now a days they are about the same size.

I am thinking its about power and prestige in truth. They can claim whatever they want, but the reality is they want to be feared and renowned. If we stop calling them "ball groups" as if there is some distinction between them and a common zerg they won't feel special anymore. Just call them zergs, because they are now. The pop cap is low enough that they are just as big as any other zerg. Don't give them respect, call the zerglings, mock their skill level, shame them out of playing in a zerg. Catch any of them outside their groups and they play like pvers. They aren't skilled, they are just pvers doing rotations in a pvp environment. Its only possible because of how unbelievably bad zos is at fixing their game and you all know this to be true. Is zos would finally fix the mechanics they are exploiting they would probably quit because they can't play at all without their zerg.

LOL

The simple truth about these fights is that ball groups seek them out because they are challenging and fun. While from the outside it does look effortless; on the inside it is one hell of an adrenaline rush. Everyone has to be on point or it fails. DDs have to be doing their bursts and ults properly. Healers have to be healing and purging until their fingers fall off. One mistake could end it. I remember one fight we lost in part because our negator streaked off the top of a keep. This isn't about pride or "sticking it to the zerglings" or whatever. It's just fun

Sandman929

Ball groups shouldn't be discouraged, but mechanics/sets that become overly strong when used by multiple players should be looked at.
Look at dark convergenc; fine from one player, but a nightmarish hellscape when used by many.

Amottica

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

a well-organized group can and do defeat the ball groups

Yes we've established that the way to beat a ballgroup is another ballgroup.

Would a new organized group meta really be such a bad thing?

I thought I had just said that a well-organized group can and does defeat ball groups. Unless somehow any organized group that can exist in the game today is a ball group but somehow a new type of well-organized group is not a ball group then I fail to see the difference between what you said and what I said.

After all, a group will either be well organized or it will not. Any group that is well organized is greater than the sum of its parts. A group that is not well organized will never be able to accomplish as much. The group I run with has some good leaders and sets us up well ot make sure we have the skills, ults, and buffs to benefit the group. Better yet is we listen to what we are asked to do and in the end, we defeat groups two and three times our size. If we are a ball then it seems ball groups are a good thing.

NotTaylorSwift

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

a well-organized group can and do defeat the ball groups

Yes we've established that the way to beat a ballgroup is another ballgroup.

Would a new organized group meta really be such a bad thing?

Doesnt even need to be a ballgroup, could be literally just 3 or 4 players with ulti's, synergies and good builds. Just requires coordination and communication... something pugs normally dont have. It's not a bad thing. Just how it is.

NotTaylorSwift

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

a well-organized group can and do defeat the ball groups

Yes we've established that the way to beat a ballgroup is another ballgroup.

Would a new organized group meta really be such a bad thing?

Doesnt even need to be a ballgroup, could be literally just 3 or 4 players with ulti's, synergies and good builds. Just requires coordination and communication... something pugs normally dont have. It's not a bad thing. Just how it is. Not saying that it's your opinion but it's always confusing how in an MMO people are continuously shocked by organised groups rolling through them lol.

OtarTheMad

Ball groups have a place in Cyrodiil for sure and I wouldn't want them to go away. However, with that being said I am usually one to bail when they show up at a keep... I love PvP and love jumping into fights to learn and get better even after playing as long as I have but dealing with ball groups for someone like me who is typically solo or 2 man group... it's just a pain and not fun.

On the other side, I was part of an organized guild back in the day and it was pretty fun. The difference between even a year or two ago and today is it seems Cyrodiil is filled with more new-ish type players who are just jumping in blind than ever before. Usually, a group or guild takes these people and teaches them, just like groups do in PvE but that seems to be happening less and less.