ZOS plans concerning BALL GROUPS?

OBJnoob

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

I'm talking about adding geared up and able people to your ballgroups. You're talking about rando VD procs wandering around.

If more people doesn't make a ballgroup stronger then why are ballgroups 12 people instead of 6? Why are these conversations full of smaller groups seeking a counter to bigger groups? And why, when yours is missing players, do you seek to fill the roles?

The answer of course is because less isn't more. More is obviously more. It should go without saying that adding a crappy player in lesser gear who doesn't know what to do or where to be could be a liability. That's the 5%, not the 95%, of why ballgroups want 12 people and what it does for them.

Edited cuz my quoting was messed up.

Stamicka

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

ReggaeRanger wrote: »

I don't really like or promote BG's but I respect what it takes to stay together like that and be at the top of their game. I see BG's as an elite group of a faction able to turn the tide of a fight. BGs are the result of no new content or features in Cyr and players being bored.

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

Not sure why you don't just smallscale at this point? It's much more challenge. There's not enough people in Cyrodiil to justify having a full on ballgroup these days.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

I'm talking about adding geared up and able people to your ballgroups. You're talking about rando VD procs wandering around.

If more people doesn't make a ballgroup stronger then why are ballgroups 12 people instead of 6? Why are these conversations full of smaller groups seeking a counter to bigger groups? And why, when yours is missing players, do you seek to fill the roles?

The answer of course is because less isn't more. More is obviously more. It should go without saying that adding a crappy player in lesser gear who doesn't know what to do or where to be could be a liability. That's the 5%, not the 95%, of why ballgroups want 12 people and what it does for them.

Edited cuz my quoting was messed up.

The answer is not to limit group sizes further. Heal stacking is 100% to blame. Having more people in your group means more healing when everyone has echoing vigor and a restoration staff, however this did not used to be the case. 24 man groups were completely fine before heal stacking got out of control. This sort of a thing wasn't an issue from 2015-2017. There were certainly organized large groups, but they didn't all have 33k+ health and they didn't have a crazy amount of healing. Even at 24 people these groups were killable.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Stamicka wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

ReggaeRanger wrote: »

I don't really like or promote BG's but I respect what it takes to stay together like that and be at the top of their game. I see BG's as an elite group of a faction able to turn the tide of a fight. BGs are the result of no new content or features in Cyr and players being bored.

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

Not sure why you don't just smallscale at this point? It's much more challenge. There's not enough people in Cyrodiil to justify having a full on ballgroup these days.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

I'm talking about adding geared up and able people to your ballgroups. You're talking about rando VD procs wandering around.

If more people doesn't make a ballgroup stronger then why are ballgroups 12 people instead of 6? Why are these conversations full of smaller groups seeking a counter to bigger groups? And why, when yours is missing players, do you seek to fill the roles?

The answer of course is because less isn't more. More is obviously more. It should go without saying that adding a crappy player in lesser gear who doesn't know what to do or where to be could be a liability. That's the 5%, not the 95%, of why ballgroups want 12 people and what it does for them.

Edited cuz my quoting was messed up.

The answer is not to limit group sizes further. Heal stacking is 100% to blame. Having more people in your group means more healing when everyone has echoing vigor and a restoration staff, however this did not used to be the case. 24 man groups were completely fine before heal stacking got out of control. This sort of a thing wasn't an issue from 2015-2017. There were certainly organized large groups, but they didn't all have 33k+ health and they didn't have a crazy amount of healing. Even at 24 people these groups were killable.

This isn't accurate, the reason 24m's were killable is because their players were not as skilled as the smaller groups killing them and because healing was ground based not sticky HoT based and could be removed via negate.

ZOS has since changed the amount of damage that group members can provide eachother with sets (increased drastically) and the amount delayed burst damage. both of these changes encourage groups to stack higher hp because there is no downside (the attributes lost are more than made up for by group sets and the hp is required to survive the potential burst).

OBJnoob

Stamicka wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

ReggaeRanger wrote: »

I don't really like or promote BG's but I respect what it takes to stay together like that and be at the top of their game. I see BG's as an elite group of a faction able to turn the tide of a fight. BGs are the result of no new content or features in Cyr and players being bored.

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

Not sure why you don't just smallscale at this point? It's much more challenge. There's not enough people in Cyrodiil to justify having a full on ballgroup these days.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

I'm talking about adding geared up and able people to your ballgroups. You're talking about rando VD procs wandering around.

If more people doesn't make a ballgroup stronger then why are ballgroups 12 people instead of 6? Why are these conversations full of smaller groups seeking a counter to bigger groups? And why, when yours is missing players, do you seek to fill the roles?

The answer of course is because less isn't more. More is obviously more. It should go without saying that adding a crappy player in lesser gear who doesn't know what to do or where to be could be a liability. That's the 5%, not the 95%, of why ballgroups want 12 people and what it does for them.

Edited cuz my quoting was messed up.

The answer is not to limit group sizes further. Heal stacking is 100% to blame. Having more people in your group means more healing when everyone has echoing vigor and a restoration staff, however this did not used to be the case. 24 man groups were completely fine before heal stacking got out of control. This sort of a thing wasn't an issue from 2015-2017. There were certainly organized large groups, but they didn't all have 33k+ health and they didn't have a crazy amount of healing. Even at 24 people these groups were killable.

Was there a limit on HoT stacks back then? Because if not, I'm not sure what your point is. The meta has apparently shifted to a heal stacking one, but that doesn't mean it wasn't possible before. The change probably has to do with hybridization because now everybody can use Regen and Vigor with equal effectiveness.

And you talk about ballgroups running around with 33k HP as though small-scale and solo players don't. I think you're confusing what the problem is with the game and what the problem is with ballgroups. A lot of people here want to fix ballgroups without fixing the game. I'm trying to explain how that wouldn't really be fair and would leave everything else screwed up.

I think the poster above me probably had better things to say than I did.

But I'll leave you with this thought... Reducing max group size, by and large, would also limit HoT stacks. Not literally, on paper, but very effectively in practice. And that's what we want. Not to steal possibilities. But to present different choices and needs.

FantasticFreddie

Limiting the number of hots you can get of the same morph to 6 would be a reasonable compromise, but I would not like to be in charge of making that change. I can easily see the number of bug reports piling up.......
Most heals hit 6 people per cast, so it fits the theme of 6 well enough, it would cut down on some of the cross healing without eliminating it, and since less organized players are unlikely to have more than 6 heals of the same thing at the same time it shouldn't impact them at all.

Also Rally should grant minir courage to allies I SAID WHAT I SAID

Stamicka

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

ReggaeRanger wrote: »

I don't really like or promote BG's but I respect what it takes to stay together like that and be at the top of their game. I see BG's as an elite group of a faction able to turn the tide of a fight. BGs are the result of no new content or features in Cyr and players being bored.

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

Not sure why you don't just smallscale at this point? It's much more challenge. There's not enough people in Cyrodiil to justify having a full on ballgroup these days.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

I'm talking about adding geared up and able people to your ballgroups. You're talking about rando VD procs wandering around.

If more people doesn't make a ballgroup stronger then why are ballgroups 12 people instead of 6? Why are these conversations full of smaller groups seeking a counter to bigger groups? And why, when yours is missing players, do you seek to fill the roles?

The answer of course is because less isn't more. More is obviously more. It should go without saying that adding a crappy player in lesser gear who doesn't know what to do or where to be could be a liability. That's the 5%, not the 95%, of why ballgroups want 12 people and what it does for them.

Edited cuz my quoting was messed up.

The answer is not to limit group sizes further. Heal stacking is 100% to blame. Having more people in your group means more healing when everyone has echoing vigor and a restoration staff, however this did not used to be the case. 24 man groups were completely fine before heal stacking got out of control. This sort of a thing wasn't an issue from 2015-2017. There were certainly organized large groups, but they didn't all have 33k+ health and they didn't have a crazy amount of healing. Even at 24 people these groups were killable.

This isn't accurate, the reason 24m's were killable is because their players were not as skilled as the smaller groups killing them and because healing was ground based not sticky HoT based and could be removed via negate.

ZOS has since changed the amount of damage that group members can provide eachother with sets (increased drastically) and the amount delayed burst damage. both of these changes encourage groups to stack higher hp because there is no downside (the attributes lost are more than made up for by group sets and the hp is required to survive the potential burst).

This is exactly what I am saying though... sticky heal stacking is the problem. I remember old healing springs, they were weak. Rapid regen and it's other morph were also very weak. Now resolving vigor did used to stack, however, since this was long before hybridization, it was not an issue, most group members did not have access to it because they were usually mag based. So once again, it is heal stacking that is the problem. Old 24 mans were killable because they did not have access to the amount of sticky heals or heals in general that are around today. ZOS could nerf heal stacking and bring back 24 man groups, the game would be completely fine outside of performance issues.

Stamicka

OBJnoob wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

ReggaeRanger wrote: »

I don't really like or promote BG's but I respect what it takes to stay together like that and be at the top of their game. I see BG's as an elite group of a faction able to turn the tide of a fight. BGs are the result of no new content or features in Cyr and players being bored.

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

Not sure why you don't just smallscale at this point? It's much more challenge. There's not enough people in Cyrodiil to justify having a full on ballgroup these days.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

I'm talking about adding geared up and able people to your ballgroups. You're talking about rando VD procs wandering around.

If more people doesn't make a ballgroup stronger then why are ballgroups 12 people instead of 6? Why are these conversations full of smaller groups seeking a counter to bigger groups? And why, when yours is missing players, do you seek to fill the roles?

The answer of course is because less isn't more. More is obviously more. It should go without saying that adding a crappy player in lesser gear who doesn't know what to do or where to be could be a liability. That's the 5%, not the 95%, of why ballgroups want 12 people and what it does for them.

Edited cuz my quoting was messed up.

The answer is not to limit group sizes further. Heal stacking is 100% to blame. Having more people in your group means more healing when everyone has echoing vigor and a restoration staff, however this did not used to be the case. 24 man groups were completely fine before heal stacking got out of control. This sort of a thing wasn't an issue from 2015-2017. There were certainly organized large groups, but they didn't all have 33k+ health and they didn't have a crazy amount of healing. Even at 24 people these groups were killable.

Was there a limit on HoT stacks back then? Because if not, I'm not sure what your point is. The meta has apparently shifted to a heal stacking one, but that doesn't mean it wasn't possible before. The change probably has to do with hybridization because now everybody can use Regen and Vigor with equal effectiveness.

And you talk about ballgroups running around with 33k HP as though small-scale and solo players don't. I think you're confusing what the problem is with the game and what the problem is with ballgroups. A lot of people here want to fix ballgroups without fixing the game. I'm trying to explain how that wouldn't really be fair and would leave everything else screwed up.

I think the poster above me probably had better things to say than I did.

But I'll leave you with this thought... Reducing max group size, by and large, would also limit HoT stacks. Not literally, on paper, but very effectively in practice. And that's what we want. Not to steal possibilities. But to present different choices and needs.

There was no limit on heal stacking that I remember, but there were very few heals to stack in general. You also have a point with hybridization, most of the time people in organized groups back then would use proxy det and destro ult (post One Tamriel). This meant that most group members couldn't use vigor effectively since they were mag specs. Rapid regeneration and it's morphs from the resto staff skill line were also so much weaker back in the day, I think what is now radiating regen used to be called mutagen and it used to behave more as a purify than an AOE heal. At some point ZOS changed both healing springs and radiating regen which is part of the heal stacking issue of today. Now of course as you said, hybridization is the other issue, everyone now has access to vigor.

It is ridiculous to lower group size limits instead of just addressing the heal stacking issue directly. Remember that cross healing still exists since ZOS reenabled it as well. So you can heal members OUTSIDE of your group with heals that stack. Instead of being a 12 man, you would just run 2 different 6 man groups. Heals would still stack. Nothing gets solved here unless ZOS also turned cross healing back off. I realize everyone has high health these days, but it is especially problematic when you heal back up to full health instantly due to having multiple instances of the same heal on you.

Look I never play in groups larger than 5, but I know a lot of pvpers love large scale fights and big groups. There are actually a lot of people that want 24 man groups back. It was fine in the early years of the game and it would be fine now if healing was properly balanced. Nerfing group size again is just a bad idea. It doesn't solve anything with the current state of cross healing and it punishes the players for an issue that can be fixed without tweaking group size at all. It is such a roundabout way to addressing heal stacking. What do you have against the removal of heal stacking. Why jump through additional useless hoops to address it rather than fixing the core issue?

reazea

Limiting heal stacking is the first and best way ZOS should nerf ball groups. No question.

OBJnoob

Stamicka wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

ReggaeRanger wrote: »

I don't really like or promote BG's but I respect what it takes to stay together like that and be at the top of their game. I see BG's as an elite group of a faction able to turn the tide of a fight. BGs are the result of no new content or features in Cyr and players being bored.

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

Not sure why you don't just smallscale at this point? It's much more challenge. There's not enough people in Cyrodiil to justify having a full on ballgroup these days.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

I'm talking about adding geared up and able people to your ballgroups. You're talking about rando VD procs wandering around.

If more people doesn't make a ballgroup stronger then why are ballgroups 12 people instead of 6? Why are these conversations full of smaller groups seeking a counter to bigger groups? And why, when yours is missing players, do you seek to fill the roles?

The answer of course is because less isn't more. More is obviously more. It should go without saying that adding a crappy player in lesser gear who doesn't know what to do or where to be could be a liability. That's the 5%, not the 95%, of why ballgroups want 12 people and what it does for them.

Edited cuz my quoting was messed up.

The answer is not to limit group sizes further. Heal stacking is 100% to blame. Having more people in your group means more healing when everyone has echoing vigor and a restoration staff, however this did not used to be the case. 24 man groups were completely fine before heal stacking got out of control. This sort of a thing wasn't an issue from 2015-2017. There were certainly organized large groups, but they didn't all have 33k+ health and they didn't have a crazy amount of healing. Even at 24 people these groups were killable.

Was there a limit on HoT stacks back then? Because if not, I'm not sure what your point is. The meta has apparently shifted to a heal stacking one, but that doesn't mean it wasn't possible before. The change probably has to do with hybridization because now everybody can use Regen and Vigor with equal effectiveness.

And you talk about ballgroups running around with 33k HP as though small-scale and solo players don't. I think you're confusing what the problem is with the game and what the problem is with ballgroups. A lot of people here want to fix ballgroups without fixing the game. I'm trying to explain how that wouldn't really be fair and would leave everything else screwed up.

I think the poster above me probably had better things to say than I did.

But I'll leave you with this thought... Reducing max group size, by and large, would also limit HoT stacks. Not literally, on paper, but very effectively in practice. And that's what we want. Not to steal possibilities. But to present different choices and needs.

There was no limit on heal stacking that I remember, but there were very few heals to stack in general. You also have a point with hybridization, most of the time people in organized groups back then would use proxy det and destro ult (post One Tamriel). This meant that most group members couldn't use vigor effectively since they were mag specs. Rapid regeneration and it's morphs from the resto staff skill line were also so much weaker back in the day, I think what is now radiating regen used to be called mutagen and it used to behave more as a purify than an AOE heal. At some point ZOS changed both healing springs and radiating regen which is part of the heal stacking issue of today. Now of course as you said, hybridization is the other issue, everyone now has access to vigor.

It is ridiculous to lower group size limits instead of just addressing the heal stacking issue directly. Remember that cross healing still exists since ZOS reenabled it as well. So you can heal members OUTSIDE of your group with heals that stack. Instead of being a 12 man, you would just run 2 different 6 man groups. Heals would still stack. Nothing gets solved here unless ZOS also turned cross healing back off. I realize everyone has high health these days, but it is especially problematic when you heal back up to full health instantly due to having multiple instances of the same heal on you.

Look I never play in groups larger than 5, but I know a lot of pvpers love large scale fights and big groups. There are actually a lot of people that want 24 man groups back. It was fine in the early years of the game and it would be fine now if healing was properly balanced. Nerfing group size again is just a bad idea. It doesn't solve anything with the current state of cross healing and it punishes the players for an issue that can be fixed without tweaking group size at all. It is such a roundabout way to addressing heal stacking. What do you have against the removal of heal stacking. Why jump through additional useless hoops to address it rather than fixing the core issue?

I understand what you, and the other person, are saying about ground HoTs -vs- what we have now in sticky HoTs. It's a fair point. I'll get back to you on that I need to mull it over and don't yet know how I feel.

Also, out of context, I can see why trying to address this issue by shrinking max group size seems out of place and round-about to you. Let me provide you with the context, since it occurred in a different thread (but about the same subject.)

My contention has always been that a numbers advantage isn't something you can or should seek to balance. It's the most natural and logical advantage you can have and the easiest to match. Why should an 8 player soccer team compete with an 11 player soccer team? The very idea is imbalanced. Introducing imbalance to create artificial balance isn't the way to go... We're going to end up playing a bandaged and glued together illogical piecemeal of a game if that is the sort of kneejerk reactions we take.

Until just now, a post or two above what I'm writing where someone says 6 HoT stacks is a good number (and I could also agree on 6,) everybody is talking about 1 so that there is 0 cross-healing in PvP or 4 so that PvE can PvE.

Maybe that last bit isn't real important. Moving on. If small-scalers can HoT stack then ballgroups should HoT stack. If my group of 4 has 4 stacks of HoTs running then it is only fair for a group of 12 to have 12 HoTs running. It boils down to nothing more than a numbers advantage. 1 more person equals 1 more heal. Makes sense. Nothing broken, exploitative, or OP about it.

And so when I had said that, in previous discussions, suddenly the narrative of my opposition would shift. Now the real problem became the lag ballgroups produce, and all the calculations the server has to make to account for HoT stacking. And also, not as important to what we're discussing now, but the trolly nature of ballgroups and how they won't just take an OBJ and move on.

So my reply became... But don't solo Xers jump up and down cliffs and run around trees trying to live, while killing people outnumbered, and with no intention of actually taking an objective? And isn't it also complained about? Don't small-scalers inhabit towers for ages, kiting and healing eachother, immune to CC for long periods of time, with no intention of ever taking an objective? And isn't it also complained about?

So in the end what's actually different? Just the lag, right? So decreasing max group size became my suggestion.

Returning to the subject now that you understand my context.

The reason small-scalers don't crutch on HoT stacking to stay alive is because Resolving Vigor is basically 5x as strong as Echoing Vigor anyway. So with any group of 5 or less Echoing is borderline useless anyway unless you just need to proc some effect. Echoing has no real use, unless it can stack up to and ideally even beyond 5.

Is Polar Wind not problematic? Is Resolving Vigor not problematic? Is Coag not problematic? Is Healthy Offering not problematic? Is Undeath not problematic? Is block-healing not problematic? Why are we only trying to stop HoT stacking when the problem is obviously so much bigger. If HoT stacking is so OP then why doesn't your group do it? The answer is because your group isn't big enough for it to be worthwhile. Your group has the same (or more,) amount of healing as a same sized group that is stacking HoTs. And a HoT-stacking group of 6 has 1 more than that. And a HoT stacking group of 12 has 6 more than 6. I just don't see what the problem is.

If we want to nerf healing then, by all means, let's nerf healing.

If we want to help with lag then let's decrease the group size.

If we want our group of 4 to have a fighting chance against a ballgroup (that doesn't suck,) then let's just realize this is an unfair request.

Joy_Division

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

ReggaeRanger wrote: »

I don't really like or promote BG's but I respect what it takes to stay together like that and be at the top of their game. I see BG's as an elite group of a faction able to turn the tide of a fight. BGs are the result of no new content or features in Cyr and players being bored.

I would argue that ballgroups are pretty content with the game. People complaining about ballgroups are a result of no new content and players being bored. Ballgroups are a result of having friends + being allowed to form groups + theorycrafting to min/max the group the same way solo players craft their own builds.

Only a fool would spend more than half a second wondering what makes them strong. More people is what makes them strong.

The only thing that can be done about this is to make the max group size smaller.

As someone who runs in an organized group, I can assure you I and many others are not content with the game. It's stale. It's boring. We all run the same damage specs. Lead is same class, same skill bars. The tactics are the same: pull synchronized delayed damage, disengage after 3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. There aren't very many other groups to fight. So few players are left we outsource to fill out our rosters (which is easy since we all run the same basic setup).

If you think that moar people make the ball groups strong, then you haven't been paying attention. Because anyone under 30K health or plays like a PUG is walking VD fodder as bombing is now open ro numerous specs, the sayings "less is more" and "addition by subtraction" are very real considerations. A good group will actively avoid allies and even goes as far as intentionally not rezzing randoms. A disorganized mass of mediocrity is only effective at one thing in 2023 Cyrodiil: being a target.

You are bored by it but you still run that way? I think this highlights why they should not empower the "ball group" way of running as being the way you have to run to be an organized group. There are other forms of organizing that can be done as far as coordinating attacks and position without it having to be stay stacked tight and everyone layer heals; but the scale is tipped very heavily in that favor and whenever someone mentions it, there's this "Organized play will always win" comment I hate as that is not what people are complaining about.

And yes; randoms are a liability. And so is bringing on less experienced PvPers to a group in comms to teach them up. That's a problem with all these bomb mechanics they keep adding. The group I run with still brings any guildy that wants to learn and I know I at least, certainly feel it. But that's part of being a community and I think the incentive to avoid weak players on your side is extremely bad for the health of the game

I run this way for reasons that are independent of game balance. I've known some of these people since 2014 and it is the social aspect that motivates me to play far more than what the ESO devs do. I am also competitive and do not like losing to the other 12 person guilds on PC NA so I am not going to intentionally run a poor spec or use suboptimal tactics.

A group of 12 will not burst through good players with 40K health builds with high resistance + barriers + ten HoTs + Niboney without synchronizing delayed damage (Warden Shalks) + Prox dets + Dawnbreakers on targets who are debuffed and feared. We have tried not to do it because ZZZZZZZZZ boring and I'd rather play a Templar, but Zos balancing is Zos balancing and we have to use the tools that are given. Sure, there are other ways organize players, but that entails asking other players to be less efficient, less potent, and less optimized to conform to how others feel the game should be played and just accepting losing and getting wiped.

Oh, we bring in less experienced players because the game hemorrhages players and we have to find replacements (as they had to do when I left for two years). But contrary to popular perception, it actually does take a fair amount of competence and dedication to running a specific build (as opposed to what you'd rather run), so not everyone sticks around.

OBJnoob wrote: »

I'm talking about adding geared up and able people to your ballgroups. You're talking about rando VD procs wandering around.

If more people doesn't make a ballgroup stronger then why are ballgroups 12 people instead of 6? Why are these conversations full of smaller groups seeking a counter to bigger groups? And why, when yours is missing players, do you seek to fill the roles?

The answer of course is because less isn't more. More is obviously more. It should go without saying that adding a crappy player in lesser gear who doesn't know what to do or where to be could be a liability. That's the 5%, not the 95%, of why ballgroups want 12 people and what it does for them.

Edited cuz my quoting was messed up.

Because a group of 6 would not even be able to break down the front door of a keep that is defended by counter siege and troll tanks who run around burning an attackers ballista; to say nothing about breaking down the inner and capturing both flags covered in oils and meatbags.

We seek to fill these roles with missing players because of above and when we do run into another rival group that has 12, we want to win and do the best that we can. It's not that dissimilar from playing basketball and choosing to actually have 5 people on the floor to face the other team's 5 if they are about the same level of competence.

Cyrodiil is castle oriented; the games scoring system revolves totally around them and by far most of the game's action occurs either in them or the transits to them. so group play is operating in the environment and is going to build themselves for it, and that means the very real possibility - probability - that 40+ players with access to siege weapons and another 12 person group will try to prevent the capture of a keep. Yeah, not going to happen with a group of 4. Do I really need to spell out the super obvious? If this format and 12 person groups are so undesirable, then the Battlegrounds format is tailor made. No castles, no pesky ball groups, max size of four.

Stamicka wrote: »

Not sure why you don't just smallscale at this point? It's much more challenge. There's not enough people in Cyrodiil to justify having a full on ballgroup these days.

I spend far more time in Cyrodiil either by myself or in a smaller group than I do with an organized group.

We run once a week. For 2 hours. Once. Occasionally, we'll run a more casual second night with less players, newer players, or in builds that we find more enjoyable as opposed to optimal. I will also usually run on a weekend with friends with more casual builds. We might have 12, but would not be what people consider a ball group.

So, to answer your question, I am usually playing the way you would prefer me to. As far as justifying, as long as there are Castles defended by 40+ players potentially coupled with another group running 12, I disagree with your assessment.


******


With regard to HoT stacking, yes, I totally see this as an issue and would prefer ZOS to reign it in.. For reasons that are numerous and compelling.

• I don;t like it anymore than non ball group players that in order to secure a kill, a ridiculous amount of synchronized damage has to hit a player in a single global cooldown. We might be able to run something other than a Warden DPS and have tactics other than 3 second burst, retreat, 3 second burst. Though probably not because even without HoTs that still would be the most efficient way to deliver damage. But at least the player down to 1K health would either actually have to do something or one of their teammates would actively have to hit a button to get back to full health.
• It would put more importance on theory-crafting and skilled gameplay instead of being carried by a dozen unthinking HoTs.
  Thus the better groups and players would win more often.
• It would require players (and especially) damage dealers to consider doing other and more interesting things than just spamming radiating regen.
• By totally changing the meta, it would require all organized groups to start from scratch and rethink, retest, retry their comps. I find MMOs most enjoyable when there isn;t a consensus as to what is BiS.
• It might just prompt ZOS to actually create more interesting defensive/support/survival support skills. As I Templar, I am still waiting for a compelling reason to use Radiant Aura and Sun Shield. Or the Restoration skills Force Siphon and Steadfast Ward
• It's breaking what has been a staple and consistent fantasy guideline since the 1970s: incoming healing generally should not be greater than incoming damage. Those times it is ought to be uncommon and done through dedicated choices (for example, the old "Heal" spell in Dungeons and Dragons, obtainable only by a cleric of high level). Emergency (and active global cooldown consuming) actions to prevent death are fine. Passive replenishment to full health is not.
• It's just stilly to have a dozen active heals from the same skill on one player
• It will be amusing to see what's the next reason the people on these forums come up with why ball groups are so strong. Group size cut in half, effective removal of purge, inclusion of gear that allows anyone to bomb, persistent meatbag effects that magically don;t harm a specific alliance, etc., 10 years of complaints and would be solutions and still the pesky issue of skilled players running theory-crafted builds remains. I look forward to overcoming the challenge the crutch of HoT stacking because I am genuinely curious to see the forum's reaction and next would be solution
• Not that I buy the calculation argument for lag, but it wouldn;t hurt to remove the hundred HoTs ticking on a single group of 12.

So I am all for it. This would require ZOS to implement it only through Battlespirit as top level PvE trial Heal checks are a thing and have been designed with heal stacking in mind. This is probably why they have been silent on this issue going on years now (I recall these discussions before I took a long break from the game). Update 41 I say do it.

Iriidius

OBJnoob wrote: »

Tantric wrote: »

One thing that seems pretty consistent - even across different games that offer large scale pvp - is that often equivalent options are missing.

In ESO, this is HoTs - I won't claim this is the main issue or anything, but it's a good example. It's relatively easy to cover the group in layers of HoT (and absorb) effects to the point where the win condition is just 'is your burst high enough to chew through the health bar and absorb shields before the next HoT tick, heal, or absorb prevents it', or something to that effect.

Which, to some extent - fair! Coordinated groups should benefit from coordination and running specialized builds together. On the other hand, though, there isn't really any option for players fighting the blob. Take a look at HoTs vs DoTs, for example. If I wanted to run a supreme super duper DoT build, my build choice would be...To run something else because that isn't possible. The skills don't exist - it's orders of orders of magnitude easier to blanket a group in HoTs and absorbs than it is to try and deal with that through DoT application. The skills just don't exist in the game, or if they did they were nerfed (warden bug swarm DoT).

I'm not sure what you mean by "alternatives" but you can either HoT, burst heal, relocate, block, shield, or dodge damage. Also you can just straight up mitigate the damage with major protection.There are lots of alternatives to HoTs, if this was your meaning.

Or if your meaning was that solo players don't have anything similar then I'd like to point out that Resolving Vigor (the single target morph,) heals for like 5 times the amount of Echoing Vigor. And while this isn't going to put your solo healing on par with a full ballgroup it is nevertheless a handicap given to solo players to possibly fight and win outnumbered. Also, there is the fact that healing power and damage power scale off the same stat (weapon damage,) and this too benefits solo players.

As far as your hypothetical super DoT build... It isn't hypothetical. It's Dragonstar DW (with rending slashes,) Vateshran Destro (with weakness to elements,) and Maarselok monster set.... And it's what every solo player is running. It isn't particularly tailored to fighting against groups but it is nevertheless insanely strong. Part of the problem, it just now occurs to me, may be that SO many people (not in ballgroups,) are running this build that not enough good players are left to drop the well-timed burst damage that is actually the counter to HoTs.

Which isn't to say that the tools don't exist. Plaguebreak is still a thing... So is Vicious Death, Rush of Agony, Dark Convergence, Azureblight, blah blah all those sets we love to hate. Or just, god forbid, 12 people that got tired of being farmed separately, consolidated their groups, and hit the ballgroup with 4 deep fissures 4 dawnbreakers 4 dragonleaps 4 FoOs 4 Soul Tethers and 4 Whirlwinds all in less than 2 seconds. Throw a Negate in there and some of the sets I just mentioned and guess what? You just learned how to fight ballgroups.

So the next question on everyone's mind that probably needs addressing is "well why should I have to BE a ballgroup to fight a ballgroup? Aren't I supposed to play how I want? And doesn't this indicate that ballgroups are indeed overpowered if only other ballgroups can kill them?"

First off: you can absolutely play how you want. That doesn't mean that you'll win. You can no more be the best at PvP by playing how you want than you can be the best at PvE by playing how you want. Nor poker, nor soccer, nor chess, nor anything else. Accept it. CHOOSE what you want. To play uniquely, or to win? And then play that way.

Secondly: Lots of people play exactly how they want and have great success in PvP. Whether that is the very common DoT build I mentioned earlier or even myriad other ways-- lots of people, solo, are capable of killing 2, 6, 12, or maybe even 30 players all by themselves. They do this with skill. They also sometimes fail... And not always because they messed up or because the other players were better, but sometimes only because they were outnumbered. And this also requires accepting.

Because, and Lastly: A numbers advantage is not an advantage that can be eliminated. 2 players will always be capable of twice the actions per minute that 1 player can do. Twice the damage, twice the healing, and maybe even some synergistic support sets/abilities. So I don't have to tell you what 12 people can do. The thought that 1, or 4, or even 10 players SHOULD be on equal footing with 12 players is an unbalanced idea. The only thing that should allow less to beat more is a skill gap. And with the case of good ballgroups the skill gap just isn't there. People who routinely fight and win, by themselves, against 5 or more players find it hard to believe that anyone who "needs" the help of a group can be as good as they are. So they look at it as a carry... As a broken mechanic... As an exploit. But it's no such thing. It is 1 guy in a meta Xing set-up failing against 12 people in meta group set-ups. If the 1 guy can kill 5 then surely 12 should be able to kill 60. The fact is just that the two playstyles are very different. They are, however, capable of similar (proportionately,) things.

Your „alternatives“ can also be used by ballgroups in addition to heal stacking. Your alternatives also don’t mitigate nearly all dmg, so without enaugh healing for the dmg that goes threw you still die.

Resolving Vigor heals 3.2x as much as echoing vigor for 5/16 the time, so the selfhealing per cast is the same. You practically get 3 stacks for 3x the casts and cost. Echoing vigor gives you the full healing for 6 players, so 6 times the healing at all just for having at least 6 players.

Master dw+Vateshran destro+Maarselok are all single target and definitely not the superdot build this player wanted, Maarselok and Vate Destro cant even be applied to more than 1 player because of cooldown. It is a single target dmg build used to 1/Xv1 single players. You said yourself that this build is less effektive against ballgroups, but so many players using it is definitely not a major part of the problem, because they are also not much easier to kill without and most users probably know it is not the best anti ballgroup build and dont use it against them. If it would be as easy as not to use single target build, people wouldnt complain as much about ballgroups but nothing is effektive against them.

Sure double the players can always do double the actions and you need to kill double the players to kill them all and this advantage can‘t be eliminated,
but this should be the only advantage having double the players should give you. But having double the players in a ballgroup gives every player double the healing and higher stats.
Beeing in a ballgroup is probably the biggest stat buffs you can have, stronger even than emperor and ballgroup supporters just pretent it doesn’t even exist.
Twice the healing should be twice the healing altogether divided between twice the players and not for twice the healing on every player.

Iriidius

Tiphis wrote: »

With all do respect they have buffed them continuously for most of the game's life. To expect anything else is foolish. Do as they want: play in a ball group or leave.

Don‘t know if this is sarcasm or you really want players to leave but seems like you really have to leave if you are not playing in ballgroup and don‘t want get farmed.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Tiphis wrote: »

With all do respect they have buffed them continuously for most of the game's life. To expect anything else is foolish. Do as they want: play in a ball group or leave.

ZOS just cannot do anything about people playing in groups being stronger. Even if they were to make groupsize max of 1, people will still find a way to work together. There's literally nothing realistic they can do. Buff solo? Then all those individual members of a group get buffed as well. And 3+ people vs 1, you are fighting against far larger stats.

They actually can do quite a lot of things to adjust group play without harming solo play however unfortunately the only players they tend to listen to don't really understand group play and what makes it effective and so the changes they end up making actually harm solo and buff groups 90% of the time.

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Well considering Cyrodiil's primary purpose is for group play with the ability to still play solo, what do you expect?
Maybe they should make Cyro mandatory grouping and give solo players something like BGs.

Why should they do that? So solo players stop complaining about ballgroup because now they complain about not beeing able to enter Cyrodiil?
Just to reverse the request to remove ballgroups?
Solo players dont have advantages over groups, but groups have advantage over solo players; A fight of one or multiple solos vs a group is unfair for the solo players, not for the group. The stronger dominant playstile doesnt have to be protected from the weaker.
If a solo player 1vXes a group it is because he is more skilled and/or uses LoS and maybe because he uses his potential for a build better, but not because he somehow has higher potential for beeing a 1vXer and the X beeing limited in their potential for beeing a group.

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Nerfing healing would nerf healing for all so you are back to square one.
We would just self heal within the group, no biggie.

If you can just selfheal within the group, than why don‘t you already do it? Probably because it will make your group much weaker. Not having self healing makes the character useless for solo play and you have to go to shrine/armory to change vigor/regen morph, before they added armory to Cyrodiil you had to leave Cyrodiil therefore and maybe there is long queue, so wouldn‘t do that if it doesn‘t give a really big advantage.
But of course every nerf that doesn‘t eradicate ballgroups is completely useless for ballgroup enemys that would still get farmed but totally unfair for ballgroups and incredible bad for the game at all, while every effektive nerf to ballgroups is even more unfair, because it just completely destroys a playstile and makes playing with in a group or with friends impossible at all.

CrazyKitty wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Nerfing healing would nerf healing for all so you are back to square one.
We would just self heal within the group, no biggie.

Don't most MMO's just put a cap on heal stacking? So players can only have one instance of a certain healing ability on them at any given time.

Reverb wrote: »

If you nerf cross healing that just means that fewer group members will need to slot heals and it will be an all out damage and mobility ball. No matter what the changes, groups invested in highly coordinated group play will adapt.

If Ballgroups can adept so easily and just do an „all out dmg and mobility ballgroup“, why don‘t they already do? Probably because it is weaker than a normal ballgroup.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Negate shuts down healers and learning to recognize the healers in a group and targeting them is how it supposed to be done. But most want to run around in mindless 40K health tanky zergs and complain about organized groups.

That's not true, The majority of healing comes from sticky HoT's which aren't removed via negate (Healing Springs meta negate was actually impactful because it removed the stacks and so healing was dramatically lower until stacks could be rebuilt outside of the negate)

Additionally every build can burst heal and the majority of DD's being stam wardens that burst healing is via a stam skill so negate doesn't affect it.

This is why changing healing and damage to not scale on the same stats would make those 'dd' specs less effective at burst healing.

unfortunately the Hybridization is to blame for most of these issues along with poor 'counter' tools due to the move away from ground HoT healing.

Essentially if ZOS wanted to reduce a groups power they would need to

1) Make sets affect less players within the group (ideally make a group management tool so that we can create sub groups of sets similar to games such as WoW where you want for example a Shaman in the melee group because they benefit from that buff vs other classes in other groups etc)
2) After doing 1 increase group size to 24 to encourage 'zerg' pug groups again
3) Scale healing and damage from different stats (ideally max resource scaling for heals and spell/weapon dmg scaling for dmg).
4) Revert the 'Sticky HoT' meta for healing and return to stacked ground based heals or add in an ulti which can remove sticky heals from players.
5) Add CC immunity and a short stun to Rush of Agony (this is just for balance reasons lol)

3) This would actually hurt solo players more than ballgroups, because they would have to stack both, while ballgroups have dedicated healers, who would need to stack only max offensive attribute (some already do because healing sets already scale with it) and dds who already stack wpn dmg and have low stamina/magicka pools and only echoing vigor as heal anyway, so it would be easy to adapt for them if they even had to adapt at all, while solo play would be completely destroyed.
If instances of echoing vigor were limited like other players suggested or Sticky HoTs nerfed like in 4), then only healers would use echoing and ballgroup dds would have no heal at all and wouldn’t need max stamina/magicka except for pool.
It also wouldn‘t decrease the skill gap as players who have higher (wpn)dmg, tankiness and sustain than others will also find a way to build for more healing (max stamina/magicka) than others without sacrificing the former 3.
Players complain about wpn/spell dmg+stam/mag scaling heals and hp scaling heals and they also complained about magicka scaling shields when they were good before race passive and cp rework (lost 10% mag/stam from race and 20% from cp and got flat stat bonuses as compensation, that not only don’t increase investment into this stat but make it obsolet because you have enaugh stats without any investment now) and complain again now that Sorc is getting a heal on top of it before it is even released despite stacking max mag/stam beeing very ineffektive.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Iriidius wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Negate shuts down healers and learning to recognize the healers in a group and targeting them is how it supposed to be done. But most want to run around in mindless 40K health tanky zergs and complain about organized groups.

That's not true, The majority of healing comes from sticky HoT's which aren't removed via negate (Healing Springs meta negate was actually impactful because it removed the stacks and so healing was dramatically lower until stacks could be rebuilt outside of the negate)

Additionally every build can burst heal and the majority of DD's being stam wardens that burst healing is via a stam skill so negate doesn't affect it.

This is why changing healing and damage to not scale on the same stats would make those 'dd' specs less effective at burst healing.

unfortunately the Hybridization is to blame for most of these issues along with poor 'counter' tools due to the move away from ground HoT healing.

Essentially if ZOS wanted to reduce a groups power they would need to

1) Make sets affect less players within the group (ideally make a group management tool so that we can create sub groups of sets similar to games such as WoW where you want for example a Shaman in the melee group because they benefit from that buff vs other classes in other groups etc)
2) After doing 1 increase group size to 24 to encourage 'zerg' pug groups again
3) Scale healing and damage from different stats (ideally max resource scaling for heals and spell/weapon dmg scaling for dmg).
4) Revert the 'Sticky HoT' meta for healing and return to stacked ground based heals or add in an ulti which can remove sticky heals from players.
5) Add CC immunity and a short stun to Rush of Agony (this is just for balance reasons lol)

3) This would actually hurt solo players more than ballgroups, because they would have to stack both, while ballgroups have dedicated healers, who would need to stack only max offensive attribute (some already do because healing sets already scale with it) and dds who already stack wpn dmg and have low stamina/magicka pools and only echoing vigor as heal anyway, so it would be easy to adapt for them if they even had to adapt at all, while solo play would be completely destroyed.
If instances of echoing vigor were limited like other players suggested or 4), then only healers would use echoing and ballgroup dds would have no heal at all and wouldn’t need max stamina/magicka except for pool.
It also wouldn‘t decrease the skill gap as players who have higher (wpn)dmg, tankiness and sustain than others will also find a way to build for more healing (max stamina/magicka) than others without sacrificing the former 3.
Players complain about wpn/spell dmg+stam/mag scaling heals and hp scaling heals and they also complained about magicka scaling shields when they were good before race passive and cp rework (lost 10% mag/stam from race and 20% from cp and got flat stat bonuses as compensation, that not only don’t increase investment into this stat but make it obsolet because you have enaugh stats without any investment now) and complain again now that Sorc is getting a heal on top of it before it is even released despite stacking max mag/stam beeing very ineffektive.

Its kind of hard to follow your logic from this reply so I'll try and respond to what I understand you're saying and you can clarify if I mistook one of your points if you want to.

the response to 3) is that it would require players who want to be a 'jack of all trades' to actually have balanced stats to do so rather than just rewarding damage stacking and turning it into tankability due to the extra healing it provides. Yes I think that's a good thing. Sure groups could still run dedicated healers and damage as they have always done but this would at least nerf the 'overpowered' side that even the DD's are great healers right now in groups.

4) The point here is a return to ground based hot healing and burst healing as the main most effective heals. These can be removed via negate and area denial such as siege. This makes healing much more skill based because you have to predict where you will be moving to 'prepare' the ground for healing. In Combination with the above change I think this would allow players to 'counter' healing for short windows of time. Right now you can just have 12 HoT's running on you and there is no counter.

Your final point about players have complained about such resource stacking in the past - Yes that's because stacking resources in the past gave you damage also. The point of this change would be to require stacking resources if you wanted to boost ONLY healing and stacking Damage if you wanted to boost ONLY damage.

Remember that forcing players to 'stack resources' Directly lowers their max hp pools to a certain extent.

Iriidius

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Negate shuts down healers and learning to recognize the healers in a group and targeting them is how it supposed to be done. But most want to run around in mindless 40K health tanky zergs and complain about organized groups.

That's not true, The majority of healing comes from sticky HoT's which aren't removed via negate (Healing Springs meta negate was actually impactful because it removed the stacks and so healing was dramatically lower until stacks could be rebuilt outside of the negate)

Additionally every build can burst heal and the majority of DD's being stam wardens that burst healing is via a stam skill so negate doesn't affect it.

This is why changing healing and damage to not scale on the same stats would make those 'dd' specs less effective at burst healing.

unfortunately the Hybridization is to blame for most of these issues along with poor 'counter' tools due to the move away from ground HoT healing.

Essentially if ZOS wanted to reduce a groups power they would need to

1) Make sets affect less players within the group (ideally make a group management tool so that we can create sub groups of sets similar to games such as WoW where you want for example a Shaman in the melee group because they benefit from that buff vs other classes in other groups etc)
2) After doing 1 increase group size to 24 to encourage 'zerg' pug groups again
3) Scale healing and damage from different stats (ideally max resource scaling for heals and spell/weapon dmg scaling for dmg).
4) Revert the 'Sticky HoT' meta for healing and return to stacked ground based heals or add in an ulti which can remove sticky heals from players.
5) Add CC immunity and a short stun to Rush of Agony (this is just for balance reasons lol)

3) This would actually hurt solo players more than ballgroups, because they would have to stack both, while ballgroups have dedicated healers, who would need to stack only max offensive attribute (some already do because healing sets already scale with it) and dds who already stack wpn dmg and have low stamina/magicka pools and only echoing vigor as heal anyway, so it would be easy to adapt for them if they even had to adapt at all, while solo play would be completely destroyed.
If instances of echoing vigor were limited like other players suggested or 4), then only healers would use echoing and ballgroup dds would have no heal at all and wouldn’t need max stamina/magicka except for pool.
It also wouldn‘t decrease the skill gap as players who have higher (wpn)dmg, tankiness and sustain than others will also find a way to build for more healing (max stamina/magicka) than others without sacrificing the former 3.
Players complain about wpn/spell dmg+stam/mag scaling heals and hp scaling heals and they also complained about magicka scaling shields when they were good before race passive and cp rework (lost 10% mag/stam from race and 20% from cp and got flat stat bonuses as compensation, that not only don’t increase investment into this stat but make it obsolet because you have enaugh stats without any investment now) and complain again now that Sorc is getting a heal on top of it before it is even released despite stacking max mag/stam beeing very ineffektive.

Its kind of hard to follow your logic from this reply so I'll try and respond to what I understand you're saying and you can clarify if I mistook one of your points if you want to.

the response to 3) is that it would require players who want to be a 'jack of all trades' to actually have balanced stats to do so rather than just rewarding damage stacking and turning it into tankability due to the extra healing it provides. Yes I think that's a good thing. Sure groups could still run dedicated healers and damage as they have always done but this would at least nerf the 'overpowered' side that even the DD's are great healers right now in groups.

4) The point here is a return to ground based hot healing and burst healing as the main most effective heals. These can be removed via negate and area denial such as siege. This makes healing much more skill based because you have to predict where you will be moving to 'prepare' the ground for healing. In Combination with the above change I think this would allow players to 'counter' healing for short windows of time. Right now you can just have 12 HoT's running on you and there is no counter.

Your final point about players have complained about such resource stacking in the past - Yes that's because stacking resources in the past gave you damage also. The point of this change would be to require stacking resources if you wanted to boost ONLY healing and stacking Damage if you wanted to boost ONLY damage.

Remember that forcing players to 'stack resources' Directly lowers their max hp pools to a certain extent.

You present scaling dmg and healing from different stats as a way to reduce group power when it hurts only solo players and makes groups even stronger.
A player can‘t stack both weapon/spell dmg and magicka as high as if he stacks only one of them, so it invites players to stack either weapon dmg and be a dd or stack max magicka/stamina and be a healer, while another player stacks the other one and performs the other role for them, which only a ballgroup can do because a solo player is solo.
Solo players need to be ‚jack of all trades‘, because if they specialize into one, nobody is doing the other ones for them, while a ballgroup can just let different players perform the roles and if you lack only one of them, you can‘t survive and deal dmg at the same time.
If you lack dmg, you can‘t kill anyone on your own and can only play as a troll tank.
If you lack healing, you can‘t outheal pressured and get parsed down like a dummy and can only play as a „ganker“/assassin.
If you lack tankiness, you can‘t survive burst because you don‘t have enaugh time to react and can only play as a „ganker“/assassin.
Good successful gankers and troll tanks are much more annying than good ‚jack of al trades‘ and unsuccessful gankers and trolltanks stop playing.
But a minmaxer can still have more wpn dmg and more stamina (and more tankiness and more sustain) than a player not minmaxing.
Even when max stat doesn‘t buff dmg anymore, what it already barely does, players will probably still soon complain about 50k magicka/stamina trollhealertanks and ask for a cap or something like this.
You sell us a nerf to solo players as a nerf to ballgroups.
I only referenced point 4) as it will make dds unslot their last remaining heal echoing vigor.

Four_Fingers

We already do use self heals within the group as well as use healers and 1VXer use meta cheese broken builds as well.
And I stand by my claim that Cyrodill is for group play with the ability to play solo with consequences.
You don't hear these complaints out of solo players that are actually good and know how to pick their fights.

Sylosi

Four_Fingers wrote: »

And I stand by my claim that Cyrodill is for group play...

The funny thing is, Cyrodiil (or rather the ESO combat system) has never been very good for the large group play that you would expect in this sort of mode. Which is why when this game launched and many of the GvG/fight guilds from other MMOs with RvR type PvP came to try out Cyrodiil, most of us did not stay long.

Which is essentially why Cyrodiil has always been less successful than the "Cyrodiil" in the other big MMO with a similar PvP mode. And why Cyrodiil has ended up with pugs adverse to organization and "ball groups" that for the most part would be mocked as bad PvE guilds in other games.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Iriidius wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Negate shuts down healers and learning to recognize the healers in a group and targeting them is how it supposed to be done. But most want to run around in mindless 40K health tanky zergs and complain about organized groups.

That's not true, The majority of healing comes from sticky HoT's which aren't removed via negate (Healing Springs meta negate was actually impactful because it removed the stacks and so healing was dramatically lower until stacks could be rebuilt outside of the negate)

Additionally every build can burst heal and the majority of DD's being stam wardens that burst healing is via a stam skill so negate doesn't affect it.

This is why changing healing and damage to not scale on the same stats would make those 'dd' specs less effective at burst healing.

unfortunately the Hybridization is to blame for most of these issues along with poor 'counter' tools due to the move away from ground HoT healing.

Essentially if ZOS wanted to reduce a groups power they would need to

1) Make sets affect less players within the group (ideally make a group management tool so that we can create sub groups of sets similar to games such as WoW where you want for example a Shaman in the melee group because they benefit from that buff vs other classes in other groups etc)
2) After doing 1 increase group size to 24 to encourage 'zerg' pug groups again
3) Scale healing and damage from different stats (ideally max resource scaling for heals and spell/weapon dmg scaling for dmg).
4) Revert the 'Sticky HoT' meta for healing and return to stacked ground based heals or add in an ulti which can remove sticky heals from players.
5) Add CC immunity and a short stun to Rush of Agony (this is just for balance reasons lol)

3) This would actually hurt solo players more than ballgroups, because they would have to stack both, while ballgroups have dedicated healers, who would need to stack only max offensive attribute (some already do because healing sets already scale with it) and dds who already stack wpn dmg and have low stamina/magicka pools and only echoing vigor as heal anyway, so it would be easy to adapt for them if they even had to adapt at all, while solo play would be completely destroyed.
If instances of echoing vigor were limited like other players suggested or 4), then only healers would use echoing and ballgroup dds would have no heal at all and wouldn’t need max stamina/magicka except for pool.
It also wouldn‘t decrease the skill gap as players who have higher (wpn)dmg, tankiness and sustain than others will also find a way to build for more healing (max stamina/magicka) than others without sacrificing the former 3.
Players complain about wpn/spell dmg+stam/mag scaling heals and hp scaling heals and they also complained about magicka scaling shields when they were good before race passive and cp rework (lost 10% mag/stam from race and 20% from cp and got flat stat bonuses as compensation, that not only don’t increase investment into this stat but make it obsolet because you have enaugh stats without any investment now) and complain again now that Sorc is getting a heal on top of it before it is even released despite stacking max mag/stam beeing very ineffektive.

Its kind of hard to follow your logic from this reply so I'll try and respond to what I understand you're saying and you can clarify if I mistook one of your points if you want to.

the response to 3) is that it would require players who want to be a 'jack of all trades' to actually have balanced stats to do so rather than just rewarding damage stacking and turning it into tankability due to the extra healing it provides. Yes I think that's a good thing. Sure groups could still run dedicated healers and damage as they have always done but this would at least nerf the 'overpowered' side that even the DD's are great healers right now in groups.

4) The point here is a return to ground based hot healing and burst healing as the main most effective heals. These can be removed via negate and area denial such as siege. This makes healing much more skill based because you have to predict where you will be moving to 'prepare' the ground for healing. In Combination with the above change I think this would allow players to 'counter' healing for short windows of time. Right now you can just have 12 HoT's running on you and there is no counter.

Your final point about players have complained about such resource stacking in the past - Yes that's because stacking resources in the past gave you damage also. The point of this change would be to require stacking resources if you wanted to boost ONLY healing and stacking Damage if you wanted to boost ONLY damage.

Remember that forcing players to 'stack resources' Directly lowers their max hp pools to a certain extent.

You present scaling dmg and healing from different stats as a way to reduce group power when it hurts only solo players and makes groups even stronger.
A player can‘t stack both weapon/spell dmg and magicka as high as if he stacks only one of them, so it invites players to stack either weapon dmg and be a dd or stack max magicka/stamina and be a healer, while another player stacks the other one and performs the other role for them, which only a ballgroup can do because a solo player is solo.
Solo players need to be ‚jack of all trades‘, because if they specialize into one, nobody is doing the other ones for them, while a ballgroup can just let different players perform the roles and if you lack only one of them, you can‘t survive and deal dmg at the same time.
If you lack dmg, you can‘t kill anyone on your own and can only play as a troll tank.
If you lack healing, you can‘t outheal pressured and get parsed down like a dummy and can only play as a „ganker“/assassin.
If you lack tankiness, you can‘t survive burst because you don‘t have enaugh time to react and can only play as a „ganker“/assassin.
Good successful gankers and troll tanks are much more annying than good ‚jack of al trades‘ and unsuccessful gankers and trolltanks stop playing.
But a minmaxer can still have more wpn dmg and more stamina (and more tankiness and more sustain) than a player not minmaxing.
Even when max stat doesn‘t buff dmg anymore, what it already barely does, players will probably still soon complain about 50k magicka/stamina trollhealertanks and ask for a cap or something like this.
You sell us a nerf to solo players as a nerf to ballgroups.
I only referenced point 4) as it will make dds unslot their last remaining heal echoing vigor.

There are some things you perhaps do not understand of 'ballgroup' dynamics. Firstly every member of a competent ball group currently has some form of burst healing in addition to at least echoing vigor as a hot. This is because every player has actually good stats for burst healing and burst healing is a way of mitigating damage outside of armor and dmg reduction.

You say that 4) will make dds unslot their 'last remaining heal'. Isn't everyone complaining about the fact vigor stacks so much? Wouldn't that be a good thing in most poster's here's eyes?


Secondly the reference about players needing to be 'jack of all trades' when playing solo/smallscale is very true. This SHOULD be the advantage of playing as a group because it also comes with a huge weakness. Caught out solo? its very hard to survive if you stacked everything into damage and have no healing. Same with healing - specing fully into magicka will boost your heals but not necessarily your tankiness because your HP will generally be lower to compensate (HP level is tied directly into main stat level in groups). Right now everyone just sticks all 64 points into HP because mainstat doesn't matter at all.

Ganking and Tanks, These types of players have always existed. The thing players complain more about from what I see is tanks who can deal crazy high damage still.

Its annoying but I don't care if I see someone specialize in a role in PVP because that is their choice of playstyle. Players shouldn't be 'good' at every aspect unless they play a balanced build - in which case they should have drawbacks. Group play is a way to mitigate the drawback based on how good your teamwork is - which is a good trade off imo.

Additionally these changes were intended as a 'package' not individual one off changes. Sure not changing group sets or healing and then making just the stat based changes would potentially imbalance things (I would argue not as much as it is right now) but I can take your point considering each change in a vacuum potentially.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Sylosi wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

And I stand by my claim that Cyrodill is for group play...

The funny thing is, Cyrodiil (or rather the ESO combat system) has never been very good for the large group play that you would expect in this sort of mode. Which is why when this game launched and many of the GvG/fight guilds from other MMOs with RvR type PvP came to try out Cyrodiil, most of us did not stay long.

This isn't true at all. ESO's largescale group combat has been very good and has had many great stages during its development. I've organised & taken part in multiple GVG events in the past and we've had over 100 players and 6+ guilds at most of them. That being said I'm not aware of those types of things still occurring (I quit playing mainly around NW release and just play casually now).


The main issues have been

1) Performance - Almost every single group that has quit the game has quit because of this.

2) Stale meta's (Years of Destro VD meta, Removal of Ground healing favour of HoT, Years of Harmony Meta, Years of Pull, Stun, Burst) & Terrible gearing additions & changes (Earthgore, Dark Con, Rushing Agony, Plaguebreak, Multiple OP Group buff sets)

3) Radio Silence from ZOS & More Content removed than added.

CrazyKitty

ZOS has no plans to deal with any issues PvP related, at least not concerning Cyrodiil, according to the statements made during the global reveal for 2024.

Sylosi

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

And I stand by my claim that Cyrodill is for group play...

The funny thing is, Cyrodiil (or rather the ESO combat system) has never been very good for the large group play that you would expect in this sort of mode. Which is why when this game launched and many of the GvG/fight guilds from other MMOs with RvR type PvP came to try out Cyrodiil, most of us did not stay long.

This isn't true at all. ESO's largescale group combat has been very good and has had many great stages during its development. I've organised multiple GVG events in the past and we've had over 100 players and 6+ guilds at most of them. That being said I'm not aware of those types of things still occurring (I quit playing mainly around NW release and just play casually now).

It's entirely true, most of us (the GvG/ fight guilds) tried this game when it launched and most left pretty quickly. A fair few went to GW2 as that was the only other option given Warhammer closed down, DAoC was very old, etc. And I hate to break it to you but 6 guilds isn't very much in a tournament. For example in GW2 the 2021 champions of the mist GvG tournament had 22 teams on EU with team size of 15 (ESO often has smaller guild sizes in GvG's and back in the day GW2 GvG used to be 20 man), that ran over 2 weeks. Obviously 2021 was long past GvG's peak, by 2021 most GvG / tryhard players had quit, yet compared to ESO in 2021 (which is also two years younger) it looked healthy.

And the big reason why my guild left (and many others we previously knew from other games), was the combat in ESO is bad for large group play, specifically:

- Too much healing, it is not an accident that PvP games generally have minimal healing, lots of healing too easily makes for obnoxious, unfun gameplay & metas. (which is even worse in large group PvP where healing / buffs very easily get out of control)

- ESO large scale combat is very one dimensional, because ESO combat lacks mechanics and classes lack variety.

- No cooldowns. The problem with no cooldowns in a game is they are extremely reliant on having good balance to keep them in check. So no cooldowns can work great in 1v1 fighting games where the entire game is designed and focused around that. In an MMORPG on the other hand balance will inevitably be terrible (and even worse for large scale PvP). So in a game like ESO where in theory stamina/magicka is supposed to keep the no cooldown skills in check, the reality is "balance" will often result in you having so much sustain that it is no check at all (especially in large organised groups), which once again generally makes for obnoxious, unfun gameplay / metas that is very "PvE", very spammy / braindead.

- The gear sets, which granted back at launch were much more reasonable, much more stat based, but since then...

And that is essentially the reason why GW2's "Cyrodiil" (which also was neglected and had performance issues, that is not unique to ESO) has always been far more popular, had way, way more guilds and more organized pugs (which was good for the guilds) than ESO's Cyrodiil.

The most telling difference is how some pug groups in GW2 go to an overflow map which was added to give players something to do for when queues were too long and they do 30vs30, 50vs50, etc. And this is a map that does not have the main reward you get on the proper campaign maps, yet some pug groups will leave the campaign go there losing their rewards, just to have good fights. That there are pugs more 'PvP' than most of the ball groups in ESO speaks volumes.

And that all stems from the how bad the combat is in ESO for large group PvP.

Four_Fingers

I agree about sets, they should only allow sets dropped in Cyrodiil like the original ones balanced for PvP.
Too many mythics and monster helms spoil the balance.
There are a few later PvP sets they need to tone down though as they seemed to be added to counter the PvE sets.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

@Sylosi
I don't want to derail the thread we can just leave it that we disagree with each other regarding the historic gvg potential of ESO. I'm not saying that now the environment is good but it also wasn't bad in the past. The main issue was lag. A lot of the large scale guilds had already started to disappear from ESO before GW2 raids even became a thing in 2015.

Also I don't think 6x24 players is particularly small but also if you want examples of old events, I can't find much from later events as most of those were streamed and vods weren't saved:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edz1Dgq-1hQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pmTVOR9t2o

Sylosi

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

The main issue was lag.

Most people / guilds I knew in ESO came from GW2 (some from Warhammer), most of them left because they found the combat / gameplay for 15-30 (ish) man guilds fighting other guilds to be subpar.

Performance issues are not unique to Cyrodiil, GW2's WvW had issues, the skill lag would get to the point that the only skills that would work were dodge and first weapon skill, you had broken queue systems at various times, bugs that would kick people out of the game, the culling problem making zergs appear out of thin air was also "fun"...

Lag in Cyrodiil may have been the big factor for you or people you know leaving, but for most guilds / players I knew who tried ESO it wasn't, we would not have stayed even if the performance was wonderful.

So we will also have to agree to disagree on this.

heng14rwb17_ESO

Go join a pro pvp guild.
They will teach u how even a solo player can deploy an effective anti-ball measures.

Tsuriel

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Go join a pro pvp guild.
They will teach u how even a solo player can deploy an effective anti-ball measures.

That doesn't help much when ballgroups literally cause numerous issues such as skill lag on top of that heal stacking. Atm I just avoid interacting with any kind of ballgroups but as many have stated above: Ballgroups are more or less one of the main reasons PvP's declining in Cyro.

Iriidius

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Iriidius wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Negate shuts down healers and learning to recognize the healers in a group and targeting them is how it supposed to be done. But most want to run around in mindless 40K health tanky zergs and complain about organized groups.

That's not true, The majority of healing comes from sticky HoT's which aren't removed via negate (Healing Springs meta negate was actually impactful because it removed the stacks and so healing was dramatically lower until stacks could be rebuilt outside of the negate)

Additionally every build can burst heal and the majority of DD's being stam wardens that burst healing is via a stam skill so negate doesn't affect it.

This is why changing healing and damage to not scale on the same stats would make those 'dd' specs less effective at burst healing.

unfortunately the Hybridization is to blame for most of these issues along with poor 'counter' tools due to the move away from ground HoT healing.

Essentially if ZOS wanted to reduce a groups power they would need to

1) Make sets affect less players within the group (ideally make a group management tool so that we can create sub groups of sets similar to games such as WoW where you want for example a Shaman in the melee group because they benefit from that buff vs other classes in other groups etc)
2) After doing 1 increase group size to 24 to encourage 'zerg' pug groups again
3) Scale healing and damage from different stats (ideally max resource scaling for heals and spell/weapon dmg scaling for dmg).
4) Revert the 'Sticky HoT' meta for healing and return to stacked ground based heals or add in an ulti which can remove sticky heals from players.
5) Add CC immunity and a short stun to Rush of Agony (this is just for balance reasons lol)

3) This would actually hurt solo players more than ballgroups, because they would have to stack both, while ballgroups have dedicated healers, who would need to stack only max offensive attribute (some already do because healing sets already scale with it) and dds who already stack wpn dmg and have low stamina/magicka pools and only echoing vigor as heal anyway, so it would be easy to adapt for them if they even had to adapt at all, while solo play would be completely destroyed.
If instances of echoing vigor were limited like other players suggested or 4), then only healers would use echoing and ballgroup dds would have no heal at all and wouldn’t need max stamina/magicka except for pool.
It also wouldn‘t decrease the skill gap as players who have higher (wpn)dmg, tankiness and sustain than others will also find a way to build for more healing (max stamina/magicka) than others without sacrificing the former 3.
Players complain about wpn/spell dmg+stam/mag scaling heals and hp scaling heals and they also complained about magicka scaling shields when they were good before race passive and cp rework (lost 10% mag/stam from race and 20% from cp and got flat stat bonuses as compensation, that not only don’t increase investment into this stat but make it obsolet because you have enaugh stats without any investment now) and complain again now that Sorc is getting a heal on top of it before it is even released despite stacking max mag/stam beeing very ineffektive.

Its kind of hard to follow your logic from this reply so I'll try and respond to what I understand you're saying and you can clarify if I mistook one of your points if you want to.

the response to 3) is that it would require players who want to be a 'jack of all trades' to actually have balanced stats to do so rather than just rewarding damage stacking and turning it into tankability due to the extra healing it provides. Yes I think that's a good thing. Sure groups could still run dedicated healers and damage as they have always done but this would at least nerf the 'overpowered' side that even the DD's are great healers right now in groups.

4) The point here is a return to ground based hot healing and burst healing as the main most effective heals. These can be removed via negate and area denial such as siege. This makes healing much more skill based because you have to predict where you will be moving to 'prepare' the ground for healing. In Combination with the above change I think this would allow players to 'counter' healing for short windows of time. Right now you can just have 12 HoT's running on you and there is no counter.

Your final point about players have complained about such resource stacking in the past - Yes that's because stacking resources in the past gave you damage also. The point of this change would be to require stacking resources if you wanted to boost ONLY healing and stacking Damage if you wanted to boost ONLY damage.

Remember that forcing players to 'stack resources' Directly lowers their max hp pools to a certain extent.

You present scaling dmg and healing from different stats as a way to reduce group power when it hurts only solo players and makes groups even stronger.
A player can‘t stack both weapon/spell dmg and magicka as high as if he stacks only one of them, so it invites players to stack either weapon dmg and be a dd or stack max magicka/stamina and be a healer, while another player stacks the other one and performs the other role for them, which only a ballgroup can do because a solo player is solo.
Solo players need to be ‚jack of all trades‘, because if they specialize into one, nobody is doing the other ones for them, while a ballgroup can just let different players perform the roles and if you lack only one of them, you can‘t survive and deal dmg at the same time.
If you lack dmg, you can‘t kill anyone on your own and can only play as a troll tank.
If you lack healing, you can‘t outheal pressured and get parsed down like a dummy and can only play as a „ganker“/assassin.
If you lack tankiness, you can‘t survive burst because you don‘t have enaugh time to react and can only play as a „ganker“/assassin.
Good successful gankers and troll tanks are much more annying than good ‚jack of al trades‘ and unsuccessful gankers and trolltanks stop playing.
But a minmaxer can still have more wpn dmg and more stamina (and more tankiness and more sustain) than a player not minmaxing.
Even when max stat doesn‘t buff dmg anymore, what it already barely does, players will probably still soon complain about 50k magicka/stamina trollhealertanks and ask for a cap or something like this.
You sell us a nerf to solo players as a nerf to ballgroups.
I only referenced point 4) as it will make dds unslot their last remaining heal echoing vigor.

There are some things you perhaps do not understand of 'ballgroup' dynamics. Firstly every member of a competent ball group currently has some form of burst healing in addition to at least echoing vigor as a hot. This is because every player has actually good stats for burst healing and burst healing is a way of mitigating damage outside of armor and dmg reduction.

You say that 4) will make dds unslot their 'last remaining heal'. Isn't everyone complaining about the fact vigor stacks so much? Wouldn't that be a good thing in most poster's here's eyes?


Secondly the reference about players needing to be 'jack of all trades' when playing solo/smallscale is very true. This SHOULD be the advantage of playing as a group because it also comes with a huge weakness. Caught out solo? its very hard to survive if you stacked everything into damage and have no healing. Same with healing - specing fully into magicka will boost your heals but not necessarily your tankiness because your HP will generally be lower to compensate (HP level is tied directly into main stat level in groups). Right now everyone just sticks all 64 points into HP because mainstat doesn't matter at all.

Ganking and Tanks, These types of players have always existed. The thing players complain more about from what I see is tanks who can deal crazy high damage still.

Its annoying but I don't care if I see someone specialize in a role in PVP because that is their choice of playstyle. Players shouldn't be 'good' at every aspect unless they play a balanced build - in which case they should have drawbacks. Group play is a way to mitigate the drawback based on how good your teamwork is - which is a good trade off imo.

Additionally these changes were intended as a 'package' not individual one off changes. Sure not changing group sets or healing and then making just the stat based changes would potentially imbalance things (I would argue not as much as it is right now) but I can take your point considering each change in a vacuum potentially.

Seems more like you don‘t understand s few things. Burst heals are not mitigation, because mitigation is to reduce dmg and not to outheal it.
I was playing with 2 ballgroups for a few month and guild/discord member in a 3rd one for a few days seeing the builds but not participating in the raids and none of them used polar wind on their stamden dd althought the 3rd one was considered to be second best ballgroup on PC EU. I looked in a few ballgroup videos on youtube and often the dds here also didn‘t have burst heals. If many ballgroup dds already don‘t slot a burstheal, it doesn’t seem to be a must have and won‘t hurt them much to unslot it when heals scale of max stamina/magicka.

Sure vigor stacking 12 times is what everyone complains about and they would like if ballgroup dds unslot vigor, but without a healing skill ballgroups would also not have a single skill scaling from max stamina/magicka if you make healing scale from max resourse only and dmg from wpn/spell dmg only like you suggested in 3), which means this change won‘t hurt ballgroup dds at all, while it hurts solo players very hard.

Beeing unable to survive solo is not a big weakness if you never play solo, at least it is not a big advantage for the players fighting the ballgroup and in fights ballgroups usually do a solo player is also unable to survive solo. When not raiding with a ballgroup the members will either change to solo builds or not play at all. To make „mainstat“ matter again and prevent players to invest 64 attribute points in health, magicka and stamina should get buffed and get back the 20%increase they got from cp and the 0-12% increase they got from race boni (althought maybe tied to something else). This would make maximum stamina/magicka a viable dmg/healing stat again that can compete with wpn dmg and crit(used to be worse than mag/stam).

You say you don‘t care if someone specializes into a role in PvP, but your suggestion to seperate the stats damage and healing scale with encourages to also seperate damage and healing on different players and build either tanks or ganker. Sure tanks and gankers already exist, but they will become much more common and they are not more fun to fight than balanced builds. Probably players complain more about „jack of all trades“ because they are more common, but what they want see is these high dmg/healing tanky high sustain players that are unburstable and unpressureable and still kill you now dealing no dmg or drop dead from your burst combo or die from your pressure while otherwise beeing the same and playing like before. They probably don‘t want to fight permablock tanks that need 20 players to get killed and gankers that are practically non existent when not oneshotting you from stealth. If you specialize into one role and build only for this role you will still perform this role much better than with a balanced build.

I would prefer to see this package without 3) and don‘t see a reason why it shouldn‘t work without it.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

@Iriidius I don't believe you are correct about healing, in ESO it always used to but the case that healing is actually mitigation due to the way burst dmg and burst healing is calculated. It could have changed but it's kinda of academic and comes down to more theory of dmg than anything else. (It doesn't strictly lower the dmg you take more so boosts your health so the dmg is effectively mitigated)

It would be interesting which guild you play with, I'm very surprised that your DDs don't use soothing spores or any form of burst healing. The majority of decent guilds that I saw playing were using such skills. I haven't played on EU for 3 months or so but this was certainly the case when I was playing there. I know a lot of guilds quit though so maybe if you are only fighting pugs it doesn't really matter but Vs guilds I don't think you would perform well without any heals (perhaps you have some videos?)

About the point with specialist builds. Your thoughts that it could make tanks and gankers more powerful is for sure a concern but basically would all come down to game balancing. This is why softcaps were a much better system. Players could invest more into certain stats but at some point it wasn't as beneficial as spreading points.

jjjozo

Ball groups just spam skills and overwhelm poor Cyro server resources.
Break free or roll-dodge during balls running over your head don't even get processed for solo players in most of the cases.
Movement is choppy with random -50% slowdowns, skills don't work etc.

Only way to kill a ball group is to have lucky latency moment, lucky server processing queue moment and catch them lacking for a millisecond when they get bored after 2 hours of spam farming solos.

That said, Cyro is meant for every play style, but the server performance and delay in processing queue caused by concentrated spam of a group breaks the system.
No surprise players get instant -30fps, +50ms latency and choppy movement speed near a spamming ball group, while not even interfering with them.

The game is not designed and have no resources to handle this kind of play style.
Poor servers, poor network design.

Smooth performance would make balls have -70% kills, because players would be actually allowed to react.
Till then, balls are just an abuse of poor game performance. That's silly and destroys experience for anybody in their way.

Four_Fingers

Same old mis information passed till it snowballs and everybody believes it.

wazzz56

Man, if they did away with ball groups how

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Same old mis information passed till it snowballs and everybody believes it.

yup...and here is the best advice I can give as a solo/2-3 man group type of guy and how I deal with ball groups......if you do not want to fight the, just don't. I watch my own faction get farmed in towers, watch the same names in the kill feed, watch them run right back, do the same thing they did when they died 10 seconds ago and repeat over and over....if you do not change or improve your tactics you will keep getting farmed....so if you do not want to deal with them, if you do not want to adapt..just don't...just go elsewhere....