Project Nova ballgroup video guide, yes or no?

NotTaylorSwift

Hi all, we've noticed that there certainly is interest in coordinated group pvp within the community. However, it's clear to us that the majority of people don't know much about it... at all We'd hope that any video guide we make would help interested players into the playstyle and perhaps we'd even see some new and aspiring groups pop up, which would be great! We'd love to see some new groups to interact with in Cyrodiil.

In the past we have tried to help other groups but they have then realised that the level of dedication is not for them and they prefer a more 'casual' approach, which is fine! However, casual ballgroups are often not the most succesful as contrary to popular belief... it requires dedication and practise, and there will be MANY failures for new groups when starting out. It's not something you get into and instantly smash an entire alliance.

A lot of time and effort goes into the optimisation of our group's builds and composition, therefor we would not outright share this but would hope that any aspiring groups or players would be able to make use of the information provided to get a better understanding of just how all of it works

MipMip

Lord Nippler and I recently created this guide https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/599624/guide-composition-and-builds-for-organized-pvp-groups

But it's 'only' text - we would be happy to make a video if there is interest!

EdmondDontes

No thanks. You guys already post too many videos on here. Maybe keep it to discord or twitch please.

Tommy_The_Gun

If those would be more like a full build showcase, with sets, skills & strategy for each of 12 players, then maybe we could better figure out how to hard counter such groups. Even if we are just a bunch of solo players.

MipMip

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

If those would be more like a full build showcase, with sets, skills & strategy for each of 12 players, then maybe we could better figure out how to hard counter such groups. Even if we are just a bunch of solo players.

I believe that explaining the thought process of how to make such a group setup is much more helpful - this is what we have attempted in the post that I linked above. Our setup constantly evolves as we try out new things, or adapt to changes of the game.

vesselwiththepestle

There are so many video guides around, I am always wondering why there are so few pvp guides around. Most guides you can find are centered around smallscale/duel and ganking. A bigscale guide would be a interesting watch.

If anyone's in search for a good written guide on pvp raids, I can highly recommend https://darkelves.com/. It helped me a lot.

frozywozy

I abandonned this project a long time ago due to lack of interest in the game (lag and toxicity) but I really encourage you to move forward with this idea. There is SO MUCH information to share, most people don't realize it.

I've personally spent between 50 to 100 hours building guides around large group PVP and it's not even half of the content. I am looking forward to read and watch what you have in mind and hopefully you will find the way to bring my interest back to the game now that the server performances have drastically increased on the NA megaserver.

Cuddlypuff

I did notice a real lack of small scale PVP guides, and to clarify I'm talking about 2-4 man groups. Anything larger is a Xv1 zerg and doesn't take much imagination to figure out.

frozywozy

Cuddlypuff wrote: »

I did notice a real lack of small scale PVP guides, and to clarify I'm talking about 2-4 man groups. Anything larger is a Xv1 zerg and doesn't take much imagination to figure out.

That makes sense. That is why people with the most amount of max alliance ranks characters were part of large groups. Everyone know that killing one player at a time with 12-16 is the most efficient way to gain APs.

NotTaylorSwift

Cuddlypuff wrote: »

I did notice a real lack of small scale PVP guides, and to clarify I'm talking about 2-4 man groups. Anything larger is a Xv1 zerg and doesn't take much imagination to figure out.

What?

MipMip

frozywozy wrote: »

Cuddlypuff wrote: »

I did notice a real lack of small scale PVP guides, and to clarify I'm talking about 2-4 man groups. Anything larger is a Xv1 zerg and doesn't take much imagination to figure out.

That makes sense. That is why people with the most amount of max alliance ranks characters were part of large groups. Everyone know that killing one player at a time with 12-16 is the most efficient way to gain APs.

Stamicka

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Hi all, we've noticed that there certainly is interest in coordinated group pvp within the community. However, it's clear to us that the majority of people don't know much about it... at all We'd hope that any video guide we make would help interested players into the playstyle and perhaps we'd even see some new and aspiring groups pop up, which would be great! We'd love to see some new groups to interact with in Cyrodiil.

In the past we have tried to help other groups but they have then realised that the level of dedication is not for them and they prefer a more 'casual' approach, which is fine! However, casual ballgroups are often not the most succesful as contrary to popular belief... it requires dedication and practise, and there will be MANY failures for new groups when starting out. It's not something you get into and instantly smash an entire alliance.

A lot of time and effort goes into the optimisation of our group's builds and composition, therefor we would not outright share this but would hope that any aspiring groups or players would be able to make use of the information provided to get a better understanding of just how all of it works

Practice? Dedication? I'm all for people PvPing however they want to, but let's not act like ballgrouping requires skill and significant practice. I play mostly solo and smallscale and I've seen a member of a ballgroup over extend themselves away from the rest of their group. I stunned the person who overextended and ulted them. This ballgroup member didn't even break free, but any damage I inflicted was immediately healed through by stacked radiating regenerations. You can mess up as badly as you want to in a ballgroup, it doesn't matter, you will get healed through anything. It is also not uncommon that each ballgroup member has 35k+ health, combine this with the heal stacking and it will be extremely difficult to die while in one of these groups. Nothing is impressive about killing groups of people as a group of 12 with layers and layers of heals.

ZOS_GregoryV

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We would like to take a moment and remind everyone that Baiting is a violation of the Community Rules, and is stated as follows:

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EdmondDontes

Ball groups abuse broken sets like Dark Convergence and the OP nature of cross healing. We don't need any more videos showing people how to make cyrodiil less enjoyable for everyone not in a ball group.

vgastel

Besides dedication, being casual, it is also a matter where one wants to position the guild. Dedicated guilds with adjusted group builds tend to perform better on the field. However, even when members can take on multiple roles within the group setup, these guilds also tend to be less open for newer, less experienced pvp players and they may have a more difficult time recruiting new members in case a core group member leaves than guilds with less demands. In our guild we have 1 demand, come with at least 30k health, and besides that we want our guild to be such that experienced players as well as pvp newbies find satisfaction playing together. Because of the guild positioning, some guilds (like ours) may not achieve the same level of success on the battlefield, but tend to be more easily able to deal with larger changes in group composition and with recruitment of new members.

NotTaylorSwift

Stamicka wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Hi all, we've noticed that there certainly is interest in coordinated group pvp within the community. However, it's clear to us that the majority of people don't know much about it... at all We'd hope that any video guide we make would help interested players into the playstyle and perhaps we'd even see some new and aspiring groups pop up, which would be great! We'd love to see some new groups to interact with in Cyrodiil.

In the past we have tried to help other groups but they have then realised that the level of dedication is not for them and they prefer a more 'casual' approach, which is fine! However, casual ballgroups are often not the most succesful as contrary to popular belief... it requires dedication and practise, and there will be MANY failures for new groups when starting out. It's not something you get into and instantly smash an entire alliance.

A lot of time and effort goes into the optimisation of our group's builds and composition, therefor we would not outright share this but would hope that any aspiring groups or players would be able to make use of the information provided to get a better understanding of just how all of it works

Practice? Dedication? I'm all for people PvPing however they want to, but let's not act like ballgrouping requires skill and significant practice. I play mostly solo and smallscale and I've seen a member of a ballgroup over extend themselves away from the rest of their group. I stunned the person who overextended and ulted them. This ballgroup member didn't even break free, but any damage I inflicted was immediately healed through by stacked radiating regenerations. You can mess up as badly as you want to in a ballgroup, it doesn't matter, you will get healed through anything. It is also not uncommon that each ballgroup member has 35k+ health, combine this with the heal stacking and it will be extremely difficult to die while in one of these groups. Nothing is impressive about killing groups of people as a group of 12 with layers and layers of heals.

this is not entirely correct

Cuddlypuff

Stamicka wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Hi all, we've noticed that there certainly is interest in coordinated group pvp within the community. However, it's clear to us that the majority of people don't know much about it... at all We'd hope that any video guide we make would help interested players into the playstyle and perhaps we'd even see some new and aspiring groups pop up, which would be great! We'd love to see some new groups to interact with in Cyrodiil.

In the past we have tried to help other groups but they have then realised that the level of dedication is not for them and they prefer a more 'casual' approach, which is fine! However, casual ballgroups are often not the most succesful as contrary to popular belief... it requires dedication and practise, and there will be MANY failures for new groups when starting out. It's not something you get into and instantly smash an entire alliance.

A lot of time and effort goes into the optimisation of our group's builds and composition, therefor we would not outright share this but would hope that any aspiring groups or players would be able to make use of the information provided to get a better understanding of just how all of it works

Practice? Dedication? I'm all for people PvPing however they want to, but let's not act like ballgrouping requires skill and significant practice. I play mostly solo and smallscale and I've seen a member of a ballgroup over extend themselves away from the rest of their group. I stunned the person who overextended and ulted them. This ballgroup member didn't even break free, but any damage I inflicted was immediately healed through by stacked radiating regenerations. You can mess up as badly as you want to in a ballgroup, it doesn't matter, you will get healed through anything. It is also not uncommon that each ballgroup member has 35k+ health, combine this with the heal stacking and it will be extremely difficult to die while in one of these groups. Nothing is impressive about killing groups of people as a group of 12 with layers and layers of heals.

Played a 2 man ball group for less than a week and we're already wrecking 12 man balls all the time. Just can't beat pure talent

MipMip

Stamicka wrote: »

Practice? Dedication? I'm all for people PvPing however they want to, but let's not act like ballgrouping requires skill and significant practice. I play mostly solo and smallscale and I've seen a member of a ballgroup over extend themselves away from the rest of their group. I stunned the person who overextended and ulted them. This ballgroup member didn't even break free, but any damage I inflicted was immediately healed through by stacked radiating regenerations.

So what you saw was a ball group that does not require a very high skill level from its members. Such a group may perform well against moderate amounts of ungrouped players but will wipe as soon as the situation becomes more challenging, and will wipe quickly against ball groups with stricter requirements, and against experienced small scale groups.

What you saw doesn't say anything general about ball groups.

Cuddlypuff

MipMip wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Practice? Dedication? I'm all for people PvPing however they want to, but let's not act like ballgrouping requires skill and significant practice. I play mostly solo and smallscale and I've seen a member of a ballgroup over extend themselves away from the rest of their group. I stunned the person who overextended and ulted them. This ballgroup member didn't even break free, but any damage I inflicted was immediately healed through by stacked radiating regenerations.

So what you saw was a ball group that does not require a very high skill level from its members. Such a group may perform well against moderate amounts of ungrouped players but will wipe as soon as the situation becomes more challenging, and will wipe quickly against ball groups with stricter requirements, and against experienced small scale groups.

What you saw doesn't say anything general about ball groups.

That's a roundabout way of saying that good players will do better than bad players. 12 cracked PVPers in literally any configuration will slap, let alone fully optimized as a ball group.

Stamicka

MipMip wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Practice? Dedication? I'm all for people PvPing however they want to, but let's not act like ballgrouping requires skill and significant practice. I play mostly solo and smallscale and I've seen a member of a ballgroup over extend themselves away from the rest of their group. I stunned the person who overextended and ulted them. This ballgroup member didn't even break free, but any damage I inflicted was immediately healed through by stacked radiating regenerations.

So what you saw was a ball group that does not require a very high skill level from its members. Such a group may perform well against moderate amounts of ungrouped players but will wipe as soon as the situation becomes more challenging, and will wipe quickly against ball groups with stricter requirements, and against experienced small scale groups.

What you saw doesn't say anything general about ball groups.

The majority of ballgroups I’ve seen have very low skilled individual players. Good players don’t need 12 people to get stuff done at this point. Also Cyrodiil’s population is very low, running as a 12 man is complete overkill and every skilled player knows it. I’m sure telling yourself that ballgrouping requires some skill makes you feel better about doing it, but be honest with yourself. You just have to keep heals up, follow a leader, and hit proxy when you’re told.

The fact that this person didn’t break free, but still took no damage from the amount of healing on them is just to show how forgiving being in one of those groups is, no matter how experienced the ballgroup is. 35k+ health and layered heal over times is absolutely the biggest crutch in the game.

Waylander07

The way I see it is that ball groups are frustrating to play against unless you are in an organized group. With the pvp numbers alarmingly low we should be encouraging new players to enjoy Cyro not be frustrated by play styles that are more about earning AP than winning the campaign. Chasing after unkillable players for ages or getting farmed by these ball groups over and over is not fun. It is bad enough having to play with lag and broken builds without adding frustrating gameplay to the mix.

Just to be clear I am not criticizing anyone who runs in a ball group or has an unkillable build because I blame zos for allowing these playstyles to be effective. I think that zos is killing pvp with their short term view trying to make a profit by releasing broken op gear so you buy the new chapter rather than looking at the long term health of the game.
I guess what I am saying is that no I don't want to see more ball groups in cyro.

MipMip

Waylander07 wrote: »

The way I see it is that ball groups are frustrating to play against unless you are in an organized group. With the pvp numbers alarmingly low we should be encouraging new players to enjoy Cyro not be frustrated by play styles that are more about earning AP than winning the campaign.

1. Ball groups can also be a motivating factor for new players: when I was a new player and I saw ball groups and what some of them could do, I did not find this frustrating but rather motivating, in the sense that I wanted to participate in the fun - and I joined a ball group, and years later I am still playing!

2. For me and most of my friends in ball groups AP is a side effect - the reason why we play as an organized group is to experience exciting fights and to win fights for our guild / group

TheGeordieKitten

These "ball groups" are what ruins the fun for everyone else in cyrodiil not to mention the lag they cause. It dosent require any skill just stacking heals and synergies so no video required.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Hi there,

I understand the interest, yet most people within the community don't enjoy playing this game style nor playing against it as you can see with your grouped outtings in PvP on PC EU. There was an interest and groups like you mention, but that time has kind of already passed in ESO many years ago because it was heavily repetitive, laggy and a little unrewarding for some players within the group who just get bored.

Personally and although I have nothing against players who wish to optimize together, I wouldn't want to see more organized groups within the current state of ESO (new uberman sets/performance/population), as I'm afraid it would just kill off what is left and there isn't much, hey...

Durham

"Hi all, we've noticed that there certainly is interest in coordinated group pvp within the community."

1. 1 guy is telling 12 people what to do.
2. Completely mindless playstyle. Endless spamming
3. Allows for bad players to be carried all the way to GW.
4. 90% of the group look down on everyone else outside the group... When some of those players would destroy them in PVE and PVP. Like I said it allows you to carry someone.
5. Exploits the extremally easy skill healing system, stacking heals
6. Most people that see Ball groups do not look at you with respect for ability or skills they look like you need a carry.

Tarys

MipMip wrote: »

1. Ball groups can also be a motivating factor for new players: when I was a new player and I saw ball groups and what some of them could do, I did not find this frustrating but rather motivating, in the sense that I wanted to participate in the fun - and I joined a ball group, and years later I am still playing!

2. For me and most of my friends in ball groups AP is a side effect - the reason why we play as an organized group is to experience exciting fights and to win fights for our guild / group

May i ask some questions?

1. What exactly should motivate a new player when fighting against a ballgroup? The sheer amount of HOT-stacking which reduces most dmg-output to a little scratch? The lag surrounding every ballgroup which results in not being able to use skills, break free, swap bars, getting out of combat for minutes or the fact that you sometimes just end up dead without even being near the enemy (at least on your screen)?

2. If you are searching for exciting fights why is the most common usage of a ballgroup to take a keep/tower/ressource and run for minutes (or even hours) around it and farming all those ungrouped random players who will never have a real chance unless they manage to get the needed classes to negate you for a long time and to deal lots of dmg during that time?

3. What is so "exciting" to take a scroil and run through the keep with it without the intend of taking it to your base? Why are you (the group) often so "abusive" and take a scroll from faction A and move with it to faction B to farm them?

4. Where is the often mentioned skill when playing in a ballgroup and some of your teammates need to tbag the enemy when they try to fight someone of you and can´t win because after a short timeframe either the rest of the group attacks or the much needed heal comes in?

5, Why can we never ever see some good defense actions against your group on your YT-vids? It would show a minimum of respect towards other players if they manage to bring you down before your normal farming routine starts ...

And yes, i am on EP sight on PC EU GH so i can see the playstyle of your group rather often and overall we just hate the way you play. While there are other groups running around (mostly on DC) none of them show this overall toxic behaviour.

MipMip

Tarys wrote: »

MipMip wrote: »

1. Ball groups can also be a motivating factor for new players: when I was a new player and I saw ball groups and what some of them could do, I did not find this frustrating but rather motivating, in the sense that I wanted to participate in the fun - and I joined a ball group, and years later I am still playing!

2. For me and most of my friends in ball groups AP is a side effect - the reason why we play as an organized group is to experience exciting fights and to win fights for our guild / group

May i ask some questions?

1. What exactly should motivate a new player when fighting against a ballgroup? The sheer amount of HOT-stacking which reduces most dmg-output to a little scratch? The lag surrounding every ballgroup which results in not being able to use skills, break free, swap bars, getting out of combat for minutes or the fact that you sometimes just end up dead without even being near the enemy (at least on your screen)?

2. If you are searching for exciting fights why is the most common usage of a ballgroup to take a keep/tower/ressource and run for minutes (or even hours) around it and farming all those ungrouped random players who will never have a real chance unless they manage to get the needed classes to negate you for a long time and to deal lots of dmg during that time?

3. What is so "exciting" to take a scroil and run through the keep with it without the intend of taking it to your base? Why are you (the group) often so "abusive" and take a scroll from faction A and move with it to faction B to farm them?

4. Where is the often mentioned skill when playing in a ballgroup and some of your teammates need to tbag the enemy when they try to fight someone of you and can´t win because after a short timeframe either the rest of the group attacks or the much needed heal comes in?

5, Why can we never ever see some good defense actions against your group on your YT-vids? It would show a minimum of respect towards other players if they manage to bring you down before your normal farming routine starts ...

And yes, i am on EP sight on PC EU GH so i can see the playstyle of your group rather often and overall we just hate the way you play. While there are other groups running around (mostly on DC) none of them show this overall toxic behaviour.

1. As I said, I loved the playstyle at first sight, before I was in a ball group: the teamplay, the effectiveness - I immediately wanted to be part of that!

2. GvGs against other optimized groups are the most interesting fights in my opinion, but heavily outnumbered fights against large numbers of not organized, or less organized players also provide good fights and challenge

3. See point 2. And I don't find it interesting to bring a scroll 'home' as I don't care about the campaign score and don't play for a faction: I play for my guild (people whom I know, not some anonymous mass of players)

4. We usually don't attack single players, except when they harass us for example by not letting us mount when we are leaving a place and wanting to ride to another place

5. It's normal to show victories, not defeats: if you would like to see the defeats of a ball group you need to watch the videos of another ball group that has fought the first ball group

xylena_lazarow

MipMip wrote: »

And I don't find it interesting to bring a scroll 'home' as I don't care about the campaign score and don't play for a faction: I play for my guild (people whom I know, not some anonymous mass of players)

This behavior actively screws over players who do care about the campaign and play for their faction. They are not wrong for playing the game this way and do not deserve this disrespect. Faction play still brings a lot of casual players to the table, and if those players stop coming back, there will be nobody left to feed your power fantasy. There is no competitive value in trolling disorganized casuals like this. It makes for toxic zone chats, mass logouts, and a worse game.

Tommy_The_Gun

MipMip wrote: »

3. See point 2. And I don't find it interesting to bring a scroll 'home' as I don't care about the campaign score and don't play for a faction: I play for my guild (people whom I know, not some anonymous mass of players)

By picking up your faction's scroll - you automatically play for (or against) your faction (depending what you will do with it), whatever you like it or not. Same for objectives. If you will capture enemy objective (or defend your faction objective) - you are contributing to the campaign scoreboard in some way.

Even if you totally ignore this - it will affect every of 3 factions. Sure, you can say that you play for your guild or just to farm AP, and there is nothing wrong with that, but in the end - you are playing in an environment where there are 3 big factions and your actions affect those faction.

If you are truly playing "for your guild" only that is factionless - then you should avoid interacting with PvP objectives (scroll, keeps, resources etc). Because otherwise - you are actually playing for a faction (your own, or the enemy, depending on who will take more benefit as a consequences of your actions). There are ways to play PvP & get AP without affecting the map - scouting quests, killing players quests, or maybe even leaching capture scroll quests.

Also, a side note:
I am pretty sure it was mentioned before, but the "scroll farming", (using scroll as a "McGuffin", or attention grabber), if you are using our own faction's scroll - it is extremely toxic & disrespectful towards your faction & fellow players (every one that is in the zone) that in the end - are not your enemies. It is imho even worse than scroll trolling (grabbing scroll and throwing it into water / lava / pit etc). Because at least when it comes to scroll trolling - scroll will respawn faster.
The only "redemption" here is if you drop the scroll when you are done with it in a friendly keep, when there is still time for it to be carried home. Many ball groups tend to do that.

vgastel

Sigh, scroll farming with your own faction scroll ... only care about own guild ... no interest or respect for others from own alliance ... Well, you reap what you sow.

If we ever get new PvP content, may it be an environment where farming ballgroups can fight each other in GvG style. Like battlegrounds, but then groups of 12vs12vs12 or 24vs 24vs24. Win-win for everyone.

Tevalicious

I have seen a few of the same ideas in this thread and others along the lines of "ball grouping takes no skill", "they are bad players outside of their group", "11 people only follow one person saying when to proxy", "ball groupers press one button and move one direction", "they only farm pugs and avoid other ball groups", etc.

While some people might have an experience like this with beginner ball groups, that is not what it is like for S-tier groups. Ball groups are made up of 12 standalone players that work together; the basic requirement to be good at ball grouping is to be a good player that understand the game. Sure you might kill one that got caught without stam because they have 15k resistances, but a handful of ball groupers still duel in stormhaven and do BGs. Not a ton of them do that anymore because its nowhere near as fun as ball grouping (for example, why spend hours doing solo arenas and dungeons when you can score push trials with your guild).
As for the leading and calls of a ball group, it takes a ton of communication from almost every person in the group to do well. lead has to make calls but healers and supports have to keep the lead updated on surroundings and the status of resources and ults. Everyone has to communicate when their in trouble and DDs often help the lead make quick decisions on damage and stacks of players. Damage also takes very intricate timing of normal skills, ults, and synergies.
If you think casting in a ball group is just mashing 1 skill, I invite you to try out for the best ball group on your faction and see how well you do mashing that 1 skill against vet players.
When it comes to farms and GvGs, I can only speak for the guilds that I am apart of. We try our best to fine other ball groups/guilds to fight in cyro. If that does not work we go to farm stacks of 40+ players.

I am happy to clear up any other misconceptions about what a ball group is and how they actually work.