The very concept of ball groups is outdated

NotTaylorSwift

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion but I've literally no idea who you are.

ye thats fine I didnt expect you to know me but we will post it, I can tag you if you'd like

Cuddlypuff

Some ball groups are great. Some are just good. Most are pretty ordinary. Kinda depends on the players and the quality of the callouts much like any other playstyle. I don't think most people are too fussed by them outside of the forum tbh. Don't be fooled by all the ball group montages lol. Even I can cherry pick a bunch of times we duo bombed entire ball zergs too.

NotTaylorSwift

Cuddlypuff wrote: »

Some ball groups are great. Some are just good. Most are pretty ordinary. Kinda depends on the players and the quality of the callouts much like any other playstyle. I don't think most people are too fussed by them outside of the forum tbh. Don't be fooled by all the ball group montages lol. Even I can cherry pick a bunch of times we duo bombed entire ball zergs too.

Agree with all of this, sums it up pretty nicely.

VaranisArano

rbfrgsp wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

PvP has been a complete write-off for over a year now and only worth playing during x2 events.

I get that ESO PvP was built on the lofty ambitions of organised play defeating mindless headlong charges but, let's face it, the experiment is a failed one for all the reasons in the thread here.

While they can no longer salvage that dream of balanced, merit-based gameplay, they could rescue the play4fun element which has been absent for, as I say, over a year.

It's a brutal step, but they should remove the option to premake groups. If you want to group, you have to use a base camp board, and it immediately allocates you to an open group. Then you're left to play with a random assortment of classes, experience levels and equipment.

It would be less tactical but then can you really say that ballgrouping an empty castle or tower farming is the level of tactical genius that they originally built the game for?

I have no words for this. Do you know you’re playing a social MMO?? If it bothers you that people play with friends then maybe it’s not the right game for you. This will be edited but that’s honestly one of the most non logical things I’ve heard. Ye let’s just stop people from playing with friends they’ve known for years! This game isn’t meant for that anyway!!

This is a social game. You could, you know, make new friends this way?

And how would u ‘make new friends this way’ by being in a different group with different people every time you decide to group up? And what about the people we know and want to play with? We’re just supposed to forget about everyone we’ve played with for years for the sake of pandering to people who don’t like dying in a pvp environment? Pls…

Use zone chat. Send them postcards in the mail. Do a group dungeon together. It's not hard to stay in touch if you want. And if your friendships suffer because you can't ballgroup in Cyrodiil anymore, maybe they were never that important to begin with.

I joined my PVP guild because I liked PVPing in Cyrodiil with that particular group of people. Saying "Go do a group dungeon" is not a substitute for getting to play in Cyrodiil with my friends

So I'm afraid I can't agree with you that ZOS should remove pre-made grouping just because you prefer disorganized zerging and feel that guilds have no place in Cyrodiil. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Frankly, I miss the big PUG guilds. Before ZOS dropped the group size to 12, PUG guilds like Army of the Pact used to gather up 40-60 players, give them some direction, and make them into a force that could actually challenge the more optimized guilds for control of the map. As much as people ragged on AotP, they and other PUG guilds made for a welcoming environment for new players to learn to play in Cyrodiil.

rbfrgsp

VaranisArano wrote: »

So I'm afraid I can't agree with you that ZOS should remove pre-made grouping just because you prefer disorganized zerging and feel that guilds have no place in Cyrodiil. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Read my post again: that's not what I said. I'm saying that populations are now so tiny compared to in the past that organised play has become a detriment to the overall Cyrodiil experience, rather than the improvement they were intended to be and once were.

Unfortunately we are long past the point of hoping for a healthy and strategic Cyrodiil. Now you just want to maintain the current small population that still cares to login and not see it shrink even further to the point where it becomes irretrievably deserted.

It is a shame, and regrettable that it's at that point. But organised groups do not offer the positive impact that they once did. Strategic play would be better than zerging. But zerging is better than an empty server. We are much closer to the second and third of those options today, and the first situation (strategic play) is an out of reach dream for the time being.

NotTaylorSwift

rbfrgsp wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

So I'm afraid I can't agree with you that ZOS should remove pre-made grouping just because you prefer disorganized zerging and feel that guilds have no place in Cyrodiil. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Read my post again: that's not what I said. I'm saying that populations are now so tiny compared to in the past that organised play has become a detriment to the overall Cyrodiil experience, rather than the improvement they were intended to be and once were.

Unfortunately we are long past the point of hoping for a healthy and strategic Cyrodiil. Now you just want to maintain the current small population that still cares to login and not see it shrink even further to the point where it becomes irretrievably deserted.

It is a shame, and regrettable that it's at that point. But organised groups do not offer the positive impact that they once did. Strategic play would be better than zerging. But zerging is better than an empty server. We are much closer to the second and third of those options today, and the first situation (strategic play) is an out of reach dream for the time being.

But your solution seems to be accepting a declining cyrodiil and make even worse decisions to enable that and go with it. That’s completely backwards.

Also, the server is not dead. You’re way over exaggerating. There are still login queues every day for gray host PC EU. I’m on DC and queue at prime time is usually about 20-30 (sometimes slightly less). The campaign is usually pop locked for us apart from AD who seem to be, at the moment, more fond of the blackreach campaign where they can farm ap from taking keeps. However after this most recent campaign reset they are also more active again. It’s not empty and isn’t going to be. In my opinion the best thing regarding campaigns would be to just have 1 no cp campaign and 1 cp campaign. Forget this no proc trash and also faction lock. Just have 2 standard campaigns. And then enable off campaigns at times when pvp population grows (like it does, and they do, during the double ap events etc). Blackreach just splits the cp population needlessly and faction lock was a forums opinion. Like most things on here, it doesn’t represent the sentiment of the wider community.

(Yes the population is ofc smaller than previous years but it’s not empty or dead. They need to add incentives to cyro to make it more dynamic. Rather than mindlessly moving across the keep lines being the main thing to do. Dynamic event spawns… something idk. Changes to cyro would make the map more exciting and also bring in new players and old players that left due to the staleness)

xylena_lazarow

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Changes to cyro would make the map more exciting and also bring in new players and old players that left due to the staleness

Yes, and we can start with the large scale metagame. The dominance of stack-heal-stall is driving players away.

VaranisArano

rbfrgsp wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

So I'm afraid I can't agree with you that ZOS should remove pre-made grouping just because you prefer disorganized zerging and feel that guilds have no place in Cyrodiil. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Read my post again: that's not what I said. I'm saying that populations are now so tiny compared to in the past that organised play has become a detriment to the overall Cyrodiil experience, rather than the improvement they were intended to be and once were.

Unfortunately we are long past the point of hoping for a healthy and strategic Cyrodiil. Now you just want to maintain the current small population that still cares to login and not see it shrink even further to the point where it becomes irretrievably deserted.

It is a shame, and regrettable that it's at that point. But organised groups do not offer the positive impact that they once did. Strategic play would be better than zerging. But zerging is better than an empty server. We are much closer to the second and third of those options today, and the first situation (strategic play) is an out of reach dream for the time being.

I read your post about removing the ability to premake groups. I'm afraid that your proposal is indeed saying that guilds have no place in Cyrodiil now. I mean, if you can't do something as basic as group with your own guildmates, what exactly is the point?

The fundamental problem causing the shrinking population is the longstanding performance issues. If those cannot be fixed, Cyrodiil is headed for irretrievably deserted no matter what gameplay suggestions you make. I suppose it's easy to suggest sacrificing organized gameplay when you think it's a detriment. For me, it's my preferred way to PVP, so I hope you'll understand why I want ZOS to focus on fixing performance so they don't have to take drastic actions like removing our ability to play with our friends and guildmates in premade groups...which won't even solve the problem.

NotTaylorSwift

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Changes to cyro would make the map more exciting and also bring in new players and old players that left due to the staleness

Yes, and we can start with the large scale metagame. The dominance of stack-heal-stall is driving players away.

I gave a genuine thought of adding something to cyro to add something different or new which would be engaging for the population and you responded with that? You're also wrong, if it's driving players away why are all gray host factions pop locked at prime with queue? Lots of the same names in Cyrodiil every day and many that I don't recognise. I'm starting to be convinced that half the people on here who complain about Cyrodiil, don't even play it.

Amottica

Kordai wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Lebkuchen wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Pop cap for each faction is 80, was 600 originally. They don't talk about it much as it doesn't paint their performance "fixes" well.

I have spent thousands of hours in Cyrodiil, and i have seen some situations where you could count almost all players. For example: One alliance with a very long queue has been gated by both enemy aliances, and there was only one scroll left at the temple. Nothing else was under attack, no big fights anywhere else. Everyone was either sitting somewhere in the 2 homebases, or waiting at the scroll. I do not think anyone would wait over an hour in queue to go for master angler achievement or delve bosses. So if you traveled to these 3 places (as a member of the bullied alliance) you could see how many players were actually online. And i feel like it has been way less than 80 for a long time, at least on Playstation EU. I would say maybe 40-60.

It would be really interesting to know the real numbers, and if they changed in some situations, like PvP events or weekends.

I hope they will fix Cyrodiil instead of letting it die, and i hope we can have massive fights again one day. ESO is one of my favourite games but i would have stopped playing it years ago if Cyrodiil did not exist.

I read the post but did not see the situation described where you could count the players, or almost all the players, in the campaign.

He said when your faction has lost everything and everyone is in one of the two bases for the most part. That is my experience as well, pretty easy to see everyone when you have no keeps and your faction is doing nothing on the map. Yeah, maybe 1 group or some rando's are out riding around, but the bulk of the faction is sitting in the bases trying to figure out what to do. Even moreso when you are literally gated and get killed simply riding off the ledge from your base. It isn't that hard to count the players, and when there is a queue to get in, well you know thats how many are allowed in.

Obviously not an exact number, but it gives you a pretty close approximation, as hiding an extra 40 players would be pretty hard to accomplish and something would show on the map.

They surmised.

Even then without an attempt to count what they could see.

A better guess would be counting players at a keep under attack instead of pondering how many people may have been sitting within the two bases.

Not in my experience. Once something is under attack, maybe half head there, the other half somewhere else and it becomes neigh impossible to know how many are around. Some small groups go light up another keep, some start taking resources, because they aren't being insta killed trying to ride out, and I know my group generally heads off towards an enemy back keep to draw heat off whatever of ours is being attacked.

Much easier to see how many folks are around, when the only place you have to hang out, is your faction bases. But like I said, it isn't exact, but leads me to believe the pop cap for each faction is much lower than 80. Been a very long time since I have seen 80 of the same faction anywhere in Cyro. Highly doubtful the game could even handle it if there were, as we are getting discoed by a mere 30 of the other faction showing up nowadays.

Oh yes. In general, there tend to be two major battles on the map, but not necessarily limited to that and we do not know if everyone is at one of the locations or another.

But in the example that was provided where a person said they could almost count all the players they did not count any nor indicate they were seeing any. They merely guessed that most were at one of the bases or another or sitting at the sole scroll the alliance had.

So yes. they did surmise. Yes, it would be nice to actually know what the population cap is but guessing does not bring any light to the actual numbers. That was my point.

The only population ever given by zos was 600 per faction for a total pop of 1800 as per this post from launch. As far as I'm aware there has never been any official word since. The number 80 per faction is mostly general consensus that I've heard. So yes total hearsay.

However there is no way that there are 1800 people playing in cyrodiil when it shows capped populations. I don't even want to know what performance would look like then, you'd have to leave the game running overnight in order to land a dswing. I have never seen anything over ~60 players of the same faction anywhere. So while there is the possibility the other 100+ are taking in the view of the countryside and erping behind gates, it is probably a slim one. So while I'd accept up to 100 per faction and maybe even 120, anything over that is just not plausible.

Agree. It is total hearsay or guessing.

The point I was making is their example where they "could count almost all players" in a pop-locked faction they could not see many players and suggested they were hiding in different places which meant they could not even attempt a player count. let alone almost count all of the players.

Gaeliannas

Amottica wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Lebkuchen wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Pop cap for each faction is 80, was 600 originally. They don't talk about it much as it doesn't paint their performance "fixes" well.

I have spent thousands of hours in Cyrodiil, and i have seen some situations where you could count almost all players. For example: One alliance with a very long queue has been gated by both enemy aliances, and there was only one scroll left at the temple. Nothing else was under attack, no big fights anywhere else. Everyone was either sitting somewhere in the 2 homebases, or waiting at the scroll. I do not think anyone would wait over an hour in queue to go for master angler achievement or delve bosses. So if you traveled to these 3 places (as a member of the bullied alliance) you could see how many players were actually online. And i feel like it has been way less than 80 for a long time, at least on Playstation EU. I would say maybe 40-60.

It would be really interesting to know the real numbers, and if they changed in some situations, like PvP events or weekends.

I hope they will fix Cyrodiil instead of letting it die, and i hope we can have massive fights again one day. ESO is one of my favourite games but i would have stopped playing it years ago if Cyrodiil did not exist.

I read the post but did not see the situation described where you could count the players, or almost all the players, in the campaign.

He said when your faction has lost everything and everyone is in one of the two bases for the most part. That is my experience as well, pretty easy to see everyone when you have no keeps and your faction is doing nothing on the map. Yeah, maybe 1 group or some rando's are out riding around, but the bulk of the faction is sitting in the bases trying to figure out what to do. Even moreso when you are literally gated and get killed simply riding off the ledge from your base. It isn't that hard to count the players, and when there is a queue to get in, well you know thats how many are allowed in.

Obviously not an exact number, but it gives you a pretty close approximation, as hiding an extra 40 players would be pretty hard to accomplish and something would show on the map.

They surmised.

Even then without an attempt to count what they could see.

A better guess would be counting players at a keep under attack instead of pondering how many people may have been sitting within the two bases.

Not in my experience. Once something is under attack, maybe half head there, the other half somewhere else and it becomes neigh impossible to know how many are around. Some small groups go light up another keep, some start taking resources, because they aren't being insta killed trying to ride out, and I know my group generally heads off towards an enemy back keep to draw heat off whatever of ours is being attacked.

Much easier to see how many folks are around, when the only place you have to hang out, is your faction bases. But like I said, it isn't exact, but leads me to believe the pop cap for each faction is much lower than 80. Been a very long time since I have seen 80 of the same faction anywhere in Cyro. Highly doubtful the game could even handle it if there were, as we are getting discoed by a mere 30 of the other faction showing up nowadays.

Oh yes. In general, there tend to be two major battles on the map, but not necessarily limited to that and we do not know if everyone is at one of the locations or another.

But in the example that was provided where a person said they could almost count all the players they did not count any nor indicate they were seeing any. They merely guessed that most were at one of the bases or another or sitting at the sole scroll the alliance had.

So yes. they did surmise. Yes, it would be nice to actually know what the population cap is but guessing does not bring any light to the actual numbers. That was my point.

The only population ever given by zos was 600 per faction for a total pop of 1800 as per this post from launch. As far as I'm aware there has never been any official word since. The number 80 per faction is mostly general consensus that I've heard. So yes total hearsay.

However there is no way that there are 1800 people playing in cyrodiil when it shows capped populations. I don't even want to know what performance would look like then, you'd have to leave the game running overnight in order to land a dswing. I have never seen anything over ~60 players of the same faction anywhere. So while there is the possibility the other 100+ are taking in the view of the countryside and erping behind gates, it is probably a slim one. So while I'd accept up to 100 per faction and maybe even 120, anything over that is just not plausible.

Agree. It is total hearsay or guessing.

The point I was making is their example where they "could count almost all players" in a pop-locked faction they could not see many players and suggested they were hiding in different places which meant they could not even attempt a player count. let alone almost count all of the players.

I have concluded the new number to be 72 as far as I can tell (since this thread prompted me to load two addons that count for you). 72 comes up a lot and never goes higher, unless you lag and the addons counting double it. There are many instances of late where an entire faction is there, and 72 is the most I have seen, on many occasions now. It would be highly improbable that "only" 72 show up and whatever is over that, are always hiding elsewhere.

Elendir2am

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Overall, the people who complain about ballgroups on this forum just don’t know, or don’t care to find out, how to stop them. And that’s not a problem that needs fixing by any gameplay changes. We don’t show you the parts of our raids where we’re left to abandon a siege/fight because the enemy faction sits inside the keep counter sieging us, and now left with no purge due to plaguebreak there is no way we can get inside and no way to force the enemy to come out meaning the fight is essentially ‘lost’ to us because we failed to get into the keep. And it happens more often than you would think.

Again and again people complain that there are no tools to stop ballgroups. But that is just blatantly wrong. Nothing else to say about it. It’s wrong.

You are right theoretically. You can build against anything in ESO. But it has two problems in practice.

1. Majority of players want to do damages and you need build, which goes against it.
2. Players who are willing build against ball-group has high probability end as ball-group player.

I am occasional visitor of PvP. So, when I go in PvP, I try to utilise way I play in PvE. In cause of my DK tank, it means heavy crowd controller builds.

I can effectively prevent gankers and tower runners from what they see as fun play and I can disrupt coordination of organized group.
It has one big problem. I am unable to do reasonable damage. It is toll for my builds, so I need some DDs to make my work fruitfull.
Therefore, I go in PvP only with high population. If I wanted go there regularly with this character, then I would need go there with some group.

What is probability, that such group would be anti-ball-group instead ball-group?

neferpitou73

VaranisArano wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

PvP has been a complete write-off for over a year now and only worth playing during x2 events.

I get that ESO PvP was built on the lofty ambitions of organised play defeating mindless headlong charges but, let's face it, the experiment is a failed one for all the reasons in the thread here.

While they can no longer salvage that dream of balanced, merit-based gameplay, they could rescue the play4fun element which has been absent for, as I say, over a year.

It's a brutal step, but they should remove the option to premake groups. If you want to group, you have to use a base camp board, and it immediately allocates you to an open group. Then you're left to play with a random assortment of classes, experience levels and equipment.

It would be less tactical but then can you really say that ballgrouping an empty castle or tower farming is the level of tactical genius that they originally built the game for?

I have no words for this. Do you know you’re playing a social MMO?? If it bothers you that people play with friends then maybe it’s not the right game for you. This will be edited but that’s honestly one of the most non logical things I’ve heard. Ye let’s just stop people from playing with friends they’ve known for years! This game isn’t meant for that anyway!!

This is a social game. You could, you know, make new friends this way?

And how would u ‘make new friends this way’ by being in a different group with different people every time you decide to group up? And what about the people we know and want to play with? We’re just supposed to forget about everyone we’ve played with for years for the sake of pandering to people who don’t like dying in a pvp environment? Pls…

Use zone chat. Send them postcards in the mail. Do a group dungeon together. It's not hard to stay in touch if you want. And if your friendships suffer because you can't ballgroup in Cyrodiil anymore, maybe they were never that important to begin with.

I joined my PVP guild because I liked PVPing in Cyrodiil with that particular group of people. Saying "Go do a group dungeon" is not a substitute for getting to play in Cyrodiil with my friends

So I'm afraid I can't agree with you that ZOS should remove pre-made grouping just because you prefer disorganized zerging and feel that guilds have no place in Cyrodiil. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Frankly, I miss the big PUG guilds. Before ZOS dropped the group size to 12, PUG guilds like Army of the Pact used to gather up 40-60 players, give them some direction, and make them into a force that could actually challenge the more optimized guilds for control of the map. As much as people ragged on AotP, they and other PUG guilds made for a welcoming environment for new players to learn to play in Cyrodiil.

This decision more than anything else began the decline of PvP in ESO. If I could advise them to do one thing it would be to reverse this decision.

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Changes to cyro would make the map more exciting and also bring in new players and old players that left due to the staleness

Yes, and we can start with the large scale metagame. The dominance of stack-heal-stall is driving players away.

I gave a genuine thought of adding something to cyro to add something different or new which would be engaging for the population and you responded with that? You're also wrong, if it's driving players away why are all gray host factions pop locked at prime with queue? Lots of the same names in Cyrodiil every day and many that I don't recognise. I'm starting to be convinced that half the people on here who complain about Cyrodiil, don't even play it.

People have been making the same posts complaining about ball groups for years. Before it was hot stacking it was proc sets, before it was proc sets it was AOE spam. And every time ZOS listened to these complaints the game got worse. I really don't take these threads seriously anymore to be honest. It's like being stuck in a time loop.

xylena_lazarow

neferpitou73 wrote: »

hot stacking

Stalled out fights are the problem. It's not just ballgroups. HoT stacking is significant, but not the only factor.

MidniteOwl1913

Organization is a skill. It makes ball groups successful (and that success they absolutely deserve), adding set buffs for that organization means that they get success for things that they don't deserve.

MipMip

rbfrgsp wrote: »

It's a brutal step, but they should remove the option to premake groups. If you want to group, you have to use a base camp board, and it immediately allocates you to an open group. Then you're left to play with a random assortment of classes, experience levels and equipment.

This is like suggesting that football or ice hockey be played exclusively in random composition 'teams' of people who have not met before, have not trained together, and have not discussed roles and tactics together etc.

And yes Cyrodiil is massively multiplayer and not one team vs another, but that doesn't remove the similarities with team sports: the fact that preparation, coordination, post-game analysis, improvement over time, identification with the team and friendships in the team are important elements of competitive team play.

If I hadn't read this with my own eyes I wouldn't believe anyone suggested something like this.

xylena_lazarow

"I don't see the problem, just git gud and play exactly like we do."

"No thanks, either the meta changes or I'm out."

MipMip wrote: »

If I hadn't read this with my own eyes I wouldn't believe anyone suggested something like this

If people are saying things like this, that should tell you how bad the meta is. I'm not sure why some group players are so attached to the stack-heal-stall strat. Wouldn't opening up some new optimized team strats be a good thing?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

VaranisArano wrote: »

Frankly, I miss the big PUG guilds. Before ZOS dropped the group size to 12, PUG guilds like Army of the Pact used to gather up 40-60 players, give them some direction, and make them into a force that could actually challenge the more optimized guilds for control of the map. As much as people ragged on AotP, they and other PUG guilds made for a welcoming environment for new players to learn to play in Cyrodiil.

+1
Fighting against the 2-3 AoTP groups was some of the most fun content in ESO. Had it been less laggy it would have been even more rewarding.

Unfortunately this could only realistically happen again if ZOS made group mechanics easier as for large groups to run as they used to would be super punishing due to plague / convergence etc. Previously a handful of players could essentially carry these sizes of groups without much detrimental effect because of specialist support roles.

kadar

The days of actual zergs are long gone. With max pop at 80.

We had 97 DC on our counter literally yesterday in GH. The pop cap is not 80

RPGOverlord

Different platforms have slightly different caps I think.
So for console it's 200 players max. We know this because it's on the actual game description on the xbox website.

What also happens is that factions are not split evenly and score plays a factor, so if you are in last place you get around 75 players. This is what can give the misconception on consoles that it's smaller or bigger than the 200. Not sure if PC is the same or has it increased?

NordSwordnBoard

RPGOverlord wrote: »

Different platforms have slightly different caps I think.
So for console it's 200 players max. We know this because it's on the actual game description on the xbox website.

What also happens is that factions are not split evenly and score plays a factor, so if you are in last place you get around 75 players. This is what can give the misconception on consoles that it's smaller or bigger than the 200. Not sure if PC is the same or has it increased?

Can you show a link about the max population please?

What is the source of your information about population splits on console?

neferpitou73

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

"I don't see the problem, just git gud and play exactly like we do."

"No thanks, either the meta changes or I'm out."

MipMip wrote: »

If I hadn't read this with my own eyes I wouldn't believe anyone suggested something like this

If people are saying things like this, that should tell you how bad the meta is. I'm not sure why some group players are so attached to the stack-heal-stall strat. Wouldn't opening up some new optimized team strats be a good thing?

Honestly I only really see these complaints on the forums from a handful of people.

It's not so much that groups are attached to a particular strategy, and moreso that people on the forums generally have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to group meta and so propose misguided suggestions that have unforeseen consequences or that just generally destroy the game (see, AOE test, no-proc, reduced group sizes, etc). Also, give the track record of ZOS changes groups are just in general opposed to making changes.

If ZOS wants to nerf ball groups in a fair way here's how they do it:

-Remove DC
-Remove PB (or at least make it so it doesn't proc off death)
-Remove/Nerf VD
-Reduce heal scaling with stats (as I've mentioned previously many groups now run medium armored healers to take advantage of the increased stats)
-Fix CC immunity so you can't be perma-CC'd
-Re-buff proxy

I could potentially see limiting regen stacks to 3 per person but I also think that'll affect zerg healing a bit more than intended.

Cuddlypuff

neferpitou73 wrote: »

If ZOS wants to nerf ball groups in a fair way here's how they do it:

-Remove DC
-Remove PB (or at least make it so it doesn't proc off death)
-Remove/Nerf VD
-Reduce heal scaling with stats (as I've mentioned previously many groups now run medium armored healers to take advantage of the increased stats)
-Fix CC immunity so you can't be perma-CC'd
-Re-buff proxy

I could potentially see limiting regen stacks to 3 per person but I also think that'll affect zerg healing a bit more than intended.

What is the point of nerfing offensive power when 2-3 bomber DDs are enough to wipe everything? Ball groups have at least 8 full supports and the DDs also contribute to cross-heals and buffs. The only nerf to offensive power I can see weakening ball groups will be something related to harmony and synergies. If your nerfs to zerg-stomping sets go through, it will hit small scale groups the hardest. These groups usually run the same 2-3 DDs as a full ball group but with at most 1 full support.

I personally don't think ball groups are particularly overpowered unless they have truly skilled DDs and callouts. I just think stacking so many supports and synergies into a group should have diminishing returns.

Gaeliannas

kadar wrote: »

The days of actual zergs are long gone. With max pop at 80.

We had 97 DC on our counter literally yesterday in GH. The pop cap is not 80

The counter is not 100% accurate and in cases of lag, tends to double count some players. Generally it will fix itself shortly afterwards and the count will suddenly drop is my experience. Mine showed 144 the other day, which was double the actual number present, as 72 seems to be the highest it goes for me, unless it is bugged out.

BlossomDead

I don't mind ball groups as long as I have the right tools to fight against them. Currently the most effective is when they lag themselves out.

On all other occasions they lag everyone out. And also outheal everything you throw at them, no matter the amount of damage or cc.

And unfortunately after they cause lag it's almost like they slow down the whole server to a degree, permanently, afterwards, up until next maintenance. They must be generating enormous amounts of logs.

Amottica

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Lebkuchen wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

Pop cap for each faction is 80, was 600 originally. They don't talk about it much as it doesn't paint their performance "fixes" well.

I have spent thousands of hours in Cyrodiil, and i have seen some situations where you could count almost all players. For example: One alliance with a very long queue has been gated by both enemy aliances, and there was only one scroll left at the temple. Nothing else was under attack, no big fights anywhere else. Everyone was either sitting somewhere in the 2 homebases, or waiting at the scroll. I do not think anyone would wait over an hour in queue to go for master angler achievement or delve bosses. So if you traveled to these 3 places (as a member of the bullied alliance) you could see how many players were actually online. And i feel like it has been way less than 80 for a long time, at least on Playstation EU. I would say maybe 40-60.

It would be really interesting to know the real numbers, and if they changed in some situations, like PvP events or weekends.

I hope they will fix Cyrodiil instead of letting it die, and i hope we can have massive fights again one day. ESO is one of my favourite games but i would have stopped playing it years ago if Cyrodiil did not exist.

I read the post but did not see the situation described where you could count the players, or almost all the players, in the campaign.

He said when your faction has lost everything and everyone is in one of the two bases for the most part. That is my experience as well, pretty easy to see everyone when you have no keeps and your faction is doing nothing on the map. Yeah, maybe 1 group or some rando's are out riding around, but the bulk of the faction is sitting in the bases trying to figure out what to do. Even moreso when you are literally gated and get killed simply riding off the ledge from your base. It isn't that hard to count the players, and when there is a queue to get in, well you know thats how many are allowed in.

Obviously not an exact number, but it gives you a pretty close approximation, as hiding an extra 40 players would be pretty hard to accomplish and something would show on the map.

They surmised.

Even then without an attempt to count what they could see.

A better guess would be counting players at a keep under attack instead of pondering how many people may have been sitting within the two bases.

Not in my experience. Once something is under attack, maybe half head there, the other half somewhere else and it becomes neigh impossible to know how many are around. Some small groups go light up another keep, some start taking resources, because they aren't being insta killed trying to ride out, and I know my group generally heads off towards an enemy back keep to draw heat off whatever of ours is being attacked.

Much easier to see how many folks are around, when the only place you have to hang out, is your faction bases. But like I said, it isn't exact, but leads me to believe the pop cap for each faction is much lower than 80. Been a very long time since I have seen 80 of the same faction anywhere in Cyro. Highly doubtful the game could even handle it if there were, as we are getting discoed by a mere 30 of the other faction showing up nowadays.

Oh yes. In general, there tend to be two major battles on the map, but not necessarily limited to that and we do not know if everyone is at one of the locations or another.

But in the example that was provided where a person said they could almost count all the players they did not count any nor indicate they were seeing any. They merely guessed that most were at one of the bases or another or sitting at the sole scroll the alliance had.

So yes. they did surmise. Yes, it would be nice to actually know what the population cap is but guessing does not bring any light to the actual numbers. That was my point.

The only population ever given by zos was 600 per faction for a total pop of 1800 as per this post from launch. As far as I'm aware there has never been any official word since. The number 80 per faction is mostly general consensus that I've heard. So yes total hearsay.

However there is no way that there are 1800 people playing in cyrodiil when it shows capped populations. I don't even want to know what performance would look like then, you'd have to leave the game running overnight in order to land a dswing. I have never seen anything over ~60 players of the same faction anywhere. So while there is the possibility the other 100+ are taking in the view of the countryside and erping behind gates, it is probably a slim one. So while I'd accept up to 100 per faction and maybe even 120, anything over that is just not plausible.

Agree. It is total hearsay or guessing.

The point I was making is their example where they "could count almost all players" in a pop-locked faction they could not see many players and suggested they were hiding in different places which meant they could not even attempt a player count. let alone almost count all of the players.

I have concluded the new number to be 72 as far as I can tell (since this thread prompted me to load two addons that count for you). 72 comes up a lot and never goes higher, unless you lag and the addons counting double it. There are many instances of late where an entire faction is there, and 72 is the most I have seen, on many occasions now. It would be highly improbable that "only" 72 show up and whatever is over that, are always hiding elsewhere.

The 72 could be a limitation of the API as Zenimax wishes to keep such information secret.

But seriously, what addons are you using for this? @Gaeliannas

Thecompton73

VaranisArano wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

The very concept of ball groups is outdated.
Or...
Ball groups are so dominant in low-pop PVP that it's actively unfun for everyone not in a ball group.

Come on, pick one.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but the original pop cap of 1800 isn't still a thing. Your options literally aren't exclusive so not quite sure what you're talking about. But if you consider max pop to be low pop I can see your confusion.

Again :My argument was that the concept that made them necessary early on when proxy was created is now outdated as happens when this thing called "time" passes and changes are made. When the actual population cap in cyrodiil was 1800, you had massive zergs. Ball groups were made to largely counter those big zergs. And when you have massive numbers ball groups were fine and still didn't have a crazy impact because of the total population size. As population dropped and dropped to the current max cap of 240 total, they power difference simply went up and up. Hypothetically if the pop cap was reduced even further to 40 people, would you still argue that they aren't OP?

The current population cap is absolutely "low pop" compared to what we had even a few years ago. The lower the population gets, the more dominant ball groups get because it's harder and harder to counter them with a faction stack. Drop that to 40, and you can kiss any plans of breaking a properly built, trained 12-player Ball group goodbye.

But you can't go claiming something is dominant and outdated in the same breath.

Organized groups don't purely exist to counter zergs. In fact, it's pretty obvious that current ball groups exist to farm objectives, zergs, hordes of unorganized players for AP. They do that really, really well right now. Ball groups are still dominating the campaigns because they are the opposite of outdated. They are more dominant now because there are less semi-organized players around to oppose them.

Are they outdated?
Or are they overpowered?
Pick one.

(I prefer to run in a "Ball group" style guild. We're overpowered. We're absolutely not "outdated" when you consider that our playstyle has only gotten more powerful as the population gets smaller. The concept of "play in an organized group in voice comms" doesn't become outdated just because our enemies have gotten less powerful/numerous.)

I see the confusion. What I meant was that the concept that made ball groups necessary, massive zergs of 100+ people is no longer valid and is "outdated". The concept that made them necessary not the actual ball group unto itself. They have continued to get more powerful comparatively with the overall pop reduction even if you discount buffs to sets/skills and because the premise of their necessity (and their necessary power) is obsolete they should be looked at. Basically what was once a large fish in a big ocean is now a large fish in a small pond, the fish didn't change size but comparatively it is now much more significant.

See, I have to disagree about the premise of their necessity and necessary power.

The premise is to win. To dominate larger groups of players, capture objectives, and make loads of AP.

Ball groups are still hands down the most effective method of doing so, which is why the zergs have died and ball groups haven't. The premise of a ball group is evergreen: play in a tightly coordinated, trained group to win over all the less coordinated groups.

They do get looked at by ZOS periodically, but it's kinda hard to nerf the power of teamwork in an AvAvA game originally designed for teams of 8 to 24 players. (It absolutely does not help that ZOS keeps developing sets that only a team of tightly coordinated players can benefit from.)

Zergs haven't died because of ball groups. They've died because population is lower than it's ever been. Faction stacks are a sad vestige of their former selves.

The current way to kill a ball group is to overwhelm them because they take advantage of poor balance. In the past, the only way to eject a troll ball group was with overwhelming forces. Because there are no longer enough players to do so oftentimes, that's another thing ball groups don't have to worry about.

From a ball group's perspective, spending 30 minutes running up and down the stairs at Sej is fun. For everyone else? It's boring at best and infuriating at worst. A ball group needs other players to fight so maybe driving them offline isn't the wisest strategy. It's also funny how ball groups usually end up fighting non ball groups all across the map rather than engage one another.

Yeah, I agree the zergs died largely due to low pop and bad performance.

I don't think it's strange that ball groups don't fight ball groups when there's a lot more AP to be made now fighting everyone else. Ball group vs ball group fights tend to be a long stalemate where there's really not a lot of AP to be made, especially in the open field.

There are guilds that fight other guilds, but those are typically the faction focused guilds who fight at objectives rather than running the top floors at back keeps or the Sej stairs.


And while I understand your point about "hey, ball groups, in the longterm, maybe don't drive players away with boring gameplay", but I don't expect it to appeal to anyone who's in or runs a ball group. In the short-term, this is what their guild mates like to do. This is why they play PVP. It's a choice between having fun now in their preferred way vs maybe having a healthier PVP population a few years down the line (when that guild or those players maybe moved on). Guild leaders are going to prioritize what's best for their guild now.

It's real easy to tell someone else to play differently for "the greater good." It should come as no surprise when ball group guilds don't listen to people who aren't in their guild.

Frankly, the only way we get healthier PVP gameplay and population is for ZOS to fix the performance issues so they can raise the population cap. If they can't do that, then Cyrodiil is going to die whether the ball groups listen to you or not.

I'm not telling anyone to play differently but the fact is most (not all) will follow the weakest groups around the map for, as you said, easy AP. There point is, if 99% of the population doesn't find that playstyle enjoyable but they're constantly having to spend ridiculous amounts of time chasing the 1% around and getting picked on by 12 players cheesing the system, then maybe the 99% needs and actual tool for fighting them.

Importantly not a tool the ball groups themselves will use.

24 good players shouldn't take 20 minutes to eject a 12 man group only surviving due to min maxing and indestructible obstacles.

Hey, if you figure out that tool, let ZOS know!

A set that does AOE healing absorption that scales up to a high number when it hits 12. Ball groups just ulti-dump and AOE spam to overwhelm healing anyway so shutting off pugs healing for 3-4 seconds wouldn't make much difference, but hit a ball group with 20K healing absorption and at least a couple will drop each time before the OP heals kick back in.

neferpitou73

Thecompton73 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

The very concept of ball groups is outdated.
Or...
Ball groups are so dominant in low-pop PVP that it's actively unfun for everyone not in a ball group.

Come on, pick one.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but the original pop cap of 1800 isn't still a thing. Your options literally aren't exclusive so not quite sure what you're talking about. But if you consider max pop to be low pop I can see your confusion.

Again :My argument was that the concept that made them necessary early on when proxy was created is now outdated as happens when this thing called "time" passes and changes are made. When the actual population cap in cyrodiil was 1800, you had massive zergs. Ball groups were made to largely counter those big zergs. And when you have massive numbers ball groups were fine and still didn't have a crazy impact because of the total population size. As population dropped and dropped to the current max cap of 240 total, they power difference simply went up and up. Hypothetically if the pop cap was reduced even further to 40 people, would you still argue that they aren't OP?

The current population cap is absolutely "low pop" compared to what we had even a few years ago. The lower the population gets, the more dominant ball groups get because it's harder and harder to counter them with a faction stack. Drop that to 40, and you can kiss any plans of breaking a properly built, trained 12-player Ball group goodbye.

But you can't go claiming something is dominant and outdated in the same breath.

Organized groups don't purely exist to counter zergs. In fact, it's pretty obvious that current ball groups exist to farm objectives, zergs, hordes of unorganized players for AP. They do that really, really well right now. Ball groups are still dominating the campaigns because they are the opposite of outdated. They are more dominant now because there are less semi-organized players around to oppose them.

Are they outdated?
Or are they overpowered?
Pick one.

(I prefer to run in a "Ball group" style guild. We're overpowered. We're absolutely not "outdated" when you consider that our playstyle has only gotten more powerful as the population gets smaller. The concept of "play in an organized group in voice comms" doesn't become outdated just because our enemies have gotten less powerful/numerous.)

I see the confusion. What I meant was that the concept that made ball groups necessary, massive zergs of 100+ people is no longer valid and is "outdated". The concept that made them necessary not the actual ball group unto itself. They have continued to get more powerful comparatively with the overall pop reduction even if you discount buffs to sets/skills and because the premise of their necessity (and their necessary power) is obsolete they should be looked at. Basically what was once a large fish in a big ocean is now a large fish in a small pond, the fish didn't change size but comparatively it is now much more significant.

See, I have to disagree about the premise of their necessity and necessary power.

The premise is to win. To dominate larger groups of players, capture objectives, and make loads of AP.

Ball groups are still hands down the most effective method of doing so, which is why the zergs have died and ball groups haven't. The premise of a ball group is evergreen: play in a tightly coordinated, trained group to win over all the less coordinated groups.

They do get looked at by ZOS periodically, but it's kinda hard to nerf the power of teamwork in an AvAvA game originally designed for teams of 8 to 24 players. (It absolutely does not help that ZOS keeps developing sets that only a team of tightly coordinated players can benefit from.)

Zergs haven't died because of ball groups. They've died because population is lower than it's ever been. Faction stacks are a sad vestige of their former selves.

The current way to kill a ball group is to overwhelm them because they take advantage of poor balance. In the past, the only way to eject a troll ball group was with overwhelming forces. Because there are no longer enough players to do so oftentimes, that's another thing ball groups don't have to worry about.

From a ball group's perspective, spending 30 minutes running up and down the stairs at Sej is fun. For everyone else? It's boring at best and infuriating at worst. A ball group needs other players to fight so maybe driving them offline isn't the wisest strategy. It's also funny how ball groups usually end up fighting non ball groups all across the map rather than engage one another.

Yeah, I agree the zergs died largely due to low pop and bad performance.

I don't think it's strange that ball groups don't fight ball groups when there's a lot more AP to be made now fighting everyone else. Ball group vs ball group fights tend to be a long stalemate where there's really not a lot of AP to be made, especially in the open field.

There are guilds that fight other guilds, but those are typically the faction focused guilds who fight at objectives rather than running the top floors at back keeps or the Sej stairs.


And while I understand your point about "hey, ball groups, in the longterm, maybe don't drive players away with boring gameplay", but I don't expect it to appeal to anyone who's in or runs a ball group. In the short-term, this is what their guild mates like to do. This is why they play PVP. It's a choice between having fun now in their preferred way vs maybe having a healthier PVP population a few years down the line (when that guild or those players maybe moved on). Guild leaders are going to prioritize what's best for their guild now.

It's real easy to tell someone else to play differently for "the greater good." It should come as no surprise when ball group guilds don't listen to people who aren't in their guild.

Frankly, the only way we get healthier PVP gameplay and population is for ZOS to fix the performance issues so they can raise the population cap. If they can't do that, then Cyrodiil is going to die whether the ball groups listen to you or not.

I'm not telling anyone to play differently but the fact is most (not all) will follow the weakest groups around the map for, as you said, easy AP. There point is, if 99% of the population doesn't find that playstyle enjoyable but they're constantly having to spend ridiculous amounts of time chasing the 1% around and getting picked on by 12 players cheesing the system, then maybe the 99% needs and actual tool for fighting them.

Importantly not a tool the ball groups themselves will use.

24 good players shouldn't take 20 minutes to eject a 12 man group only surviving due to min maxing and indestructible obstacles.

Hey, if you figure out that tool, let ZOS know!

A set that does AOE healing absorption that scales up to a high number when it hits 12. Ball groups just ulti-dump and AOE spam to overwhelm healing anyway so shutting off pugs healing for 3-4 seconds wouldn't make much difference, but hit a ball group with 20K healing absorption and at least a couple will drop each time before the OP heals kick back in.

Speaking of misguided suggestions...

I thought the last year would've taught people what happens when you try to fix gameplay issues with sets.

Yeah sure a couple of the ball group members will drop along with the entirety of the zerg they were attacking (and contrary to popular believe a sufficiently larger zerg or one with talented players can sustain through a burst, with this there is literally no way to resist a burst). No to mention if the effect is only a few seconds ball groups can just stack damage shields, something a zerg can't do.

And0ssus

I'm curious which AddOn People are using for the Counting.
If its the one from miats PvP alerts its nearly Impossible that it Double counts to that extend People are saying Here.
A short Look into to AddOn and how it works, should clear some things.

NotTaylorSwift

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Thecompton73 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Kordai wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

The very concept of ball groups is outdated.
Or...
Ball groups are so dominant in low-pop PVP that it's actively unfun for everyone not in a ball group.

Come on, pick one.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but the original pop cap of 1800 isn't still a thing. Your options literally aren't exclusive so not quite sure what you're talking about. But if you consider max pop to be low pop I can see your confusion.

Again :My argument was that the concept that made them necessary early on when proxy was created is now outdated as happens when this thing called "time" passes and changes are made. When the actual population cap in cyrodiil was 1800, you had massive zergs. Ball groups were made to largely counter those big zergs. And when you have massive numbers ball groups were fine and still didn't have a crazy impact because of the total population size. As population dropped and dropped to the current max cap of 240 total, they power difference simply went up and up. Hypothetically if the pop cap was reduced even further to 40 people, would you still argue that they aren't OP?

The current population cap is absolutely "low pop" compared to what we had even a few years ago. The lower the population gets, the more dominant ball groups get because it's harder and harder to counter them with a faction stack. Drop that to 40, and you can kiss any plans of breaking a properly built, trained 12-player Ball group goodbye.

But you can't go claiming something is dominant and outdated in the same breath.

Organized groups don't purely exist to counter zergs. In fact, it's pretty obvious that current ball groups exist to farm objectives, zergs, hordes of unorganized players for AP. They do that really, really well right now. Ball groups are still dominating the campaigns because they are the opposite of outdated. They are more dominant now because there are less semi-organized players around to oppose them.

Are they outdated?
Or are they overpowered?
Pick one.

(I prefer to run in a "Ball group" style guild. We're overpowered. We're absolutely not "outdated" when you consider that our playstyle has only gotten more powerful as the population gets smaller. The concept of "play in an organized group in voice comms" doesn't become outdated just because our enemies have gotten less powerful/numerous.)

I see the confusion. What I meant was that the concept that made ball groups necessary, massive zergs of 100+ people is no longer valid and is "outdated". The concept that made them necessary not the actual ball group unto itself. They have continued to get more powerful comparatively with the overall pop reduction even if you discount buffs to sets/skills and because the premise of their necessity (and their necessary power) is obsolete they should be looked at. Basically what was once a large fish in a big ocean is now a large fish in a small pond, the fish didn't change size but comparatively it is now much more significant.

See, I have to disagree about the premise of their necessity and necessary power.

The premise is to win. To dominate larger groups of players, capture objectives, and make loads of AP.

Ball groups are still hands down the most effective method of doing so, which is why the zergs have died and ball groups haven't. The premise of a ball group is evergreen: play in a tightly coordinated, trained group to win over all the less coordinated groups.

They do get looked at by ZOS periodically, but it's kinda hard to nerf the power of teamwork in an AvAvA game originally designed for teams of 8 to 24 players. (It absolutely does not help that ZOS keeps developing sets that only a team of tightly coordinated players can benefit from.)

Zergs haven't died because of ball groups. They've died because population is lower than it's ever been. Faction stacks are a sad vestige of their former selves.

The current way to kill a ball group is to overwhelm them because they take advantage of poor balance. In the past, the only way to eject a troll ball group was with overwhelming forces. Because there are no longer enough players to do so oftentimes, that's another thing ball groups don't have to worry about.

From a ball group's perspective, spending 30 minutes running up and down the stairs at Sej is fun. For everyone else? It's boring at best and infuriating at worst. A ball group needs other players to fight so maybe driving them offline isn't the wisest strategy. It's also funny how ball groups usually end up fighting non ball groups all across the map rather than engage one another.

Yeah, I agree the zergs died largely due to low pop and bad performance.

I don't think it's strange that ball groups don't fight ball groups when there's a lot more AP to be made now fighting everyone else. Ball group vs ball group fights tend to be a long stalemate where there's really not a lot of AP to be made, especially in the open field.

There are guilds that fight other guilds, but those are typically the faction focused guilds who fight at objectives rather than running the top floors at back keeps or the Sej stairs.


And while I understand your point about "hey, ball groups, in the longterm, maybe don't drive players away with boring gameplay", but I don't expect it to appeal to anyone who's in or runs a ball group. In the short-term, this is what their guild mates like to do. This is why they play PVP. It's a choice between having fun now in their preferred way vs maybe having a healthier PVP population a few years down the line (when that guild or those players maybe moved on). Guild leaders are going to prioritize what's best for their guild now.

It's real easy to tell someone else to play differently for "the greater good." It should come as no surprise when ball group guilds don't listen to people who aren't in their guild.

Frankly, the only way we get healthier PVP gameplay and population is for ZOS to fix the performance issues so they can raise the population cap. If they can't do that, then Cyrodiil is going to die whether the ball groups listen to you or not.

I'm not telling anyone to play differently but the fact is most (not all) will follow the weakest groups around the map for, as you said, easy AP. There point is, if 99% of the population doesn't find that playstyle enjoyable but they're constantly having to spend ridiculous amounts of time chasing the 1% around and getting picked on by 12 players cheesing the system, then maybe the 99% needs and actual tool for fighting them.

Importantly not a tool the ball groups themselves will use.

24 good players shouldn't take 20 minutes to eject a 12 man group only surviving due to min maxing and indestructible obstacles.

Hey, if you figure out that tool, let ZOS know!

A set that does AOE healing absorption that scales up to a high number when it hits 12. Ball groups just ulti-dump and AOE spam to overwhelm healing anyway so shutting off pugs healing for 3-4 seconds wouldn't make much difference, but hit a ball group with 20K healing absorption and at least a couple will drop each time before the OP heals kick back in.

Speaking of misguided suggestions...

I thought the last year would've taught people what happens when you try to fix gameplay issues with sets.

Yeah sure a couple of the ball group members will drop along with the entirety of the zerg they were attacking (and contrary to popular believe a sufficiently larger zerg or one with talented players can sustain through a burst, with this there is literally no way to resist a burst). No to mention if the effect is only a few seconds ball groups can just stack damage shields, something a zerg can't do.

also to this plaguebreak only made ballgroups NEED to build tankier or take even more heal power to heal through the negative effects. Sieging keeps is a pain but with the damage reduction cps and other forms of mitigation plus building more toward defense and heals. ballgroups are just tankier than before. Idk why people come on these forums to make suggestions when they just backfire. And they move on to complain about the thing they asked for...