ZOS plans concerning BALL GROUPS?

Freilauftomate

@Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

@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)

This sounds interesting. But i am not sure what you mean. Could you please try to explain this in other words, and tell us where you got this info? Because it would be a very big deal if this means what i think it means.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Freilauftomate wrote: »

@Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

@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)

This sounds interesting. But i am not sure what you mean. Could you please try to explain this in other words, and tell us where you got this info? Because it would be a very big deal if this means what i think it means.

@Freilauftomate

Player A has 5k HP.
in the same game tick player A receives 6k Damage (which would normally kill them) but is also healed for 3k health player A will survive with 2K health (5+3) - 6. This effectively means that healing burst 'raises' the HP / mitigates the damage taken rather than simply 'restoring missing health'.

I'm fairly sure this is how ESO has worked since launch (or at least its how it used to work, mainly for PVE trial fight reasons) its very hard to reliably test but it certainly feels like this when you are playing. It's one of the reasons HoT's are so strong.

Joy_Division

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Freilauftomate wrote: »

@Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

@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)

This sounds interesting. But i am not sure what you mean. Could you please try to explain this in other words, and tell us where you got this info? Because it would be a very big deal if this means what i think it means.

@Freilauftomate

Player A has 5k HP.
in the same game tick player A receives 6k Damage (which would normally kill them) but is also healed for 3k health player A will survive with 2K health (5+3) - 6. This effectively means that healing burst 'raises' the HP / mitigates the damage taken rather than simply 'restoring missing health'.

I'm fairly sure this is how ESO has worked since launch (or at least its how it used to work, mainly for PVE trial fight reasons) its very hard to reliably test but it certainly feels like this when you are playing. It's one of the reasons HoT's are so strong.

This is correct and how the game calculated incoming damage and heals for years. I stopped paying attention to ZOS's patch notes for quite some time now and don't know if things changed.

****

As someone who used-to and would like to play in an organized group again (if ESO ever gets interesting enough to have more than a handful of group players per faction stick around), I can assure the people who hate "ball groups" that I and fair number of us also think it's a bad mechanic that people can have 12 HoTs ticking on them. By removing the excessive HoTs, it would widen the gap between a good guild and a mediocre one, and open up new theory-crafting to a stale meta.

I am actually surprised ZOS has not done something about this yet because years ago this issue was identified and ZOS tacitly acknowledged it by providing us with a set to try and deal with the issue (Snake in the Stars). I suspect they don't want to mess with healing because it probably would affect PvE and ZOS is allergic to implementing things just on Battlespirit.

It would be nice if ZOS could communicate to us and articulate their thoughts on the issue and their hesitation to do something about it, or *gasp* put something on the PTS just to see how things might play out. But that sort of thing only happens in games in which PvP has developmental resources devoted to it. You think enough threads have been made about this issue, but there has not been. ZOS has been slow to implement highly vocalized changes in PvP, but they have done so many times in the past (AOE caps, lowering group size, virtual elimination of purge spam, etc.) My suggestion is to make even more of these threads until they communicate to us their stance on PvP heal stacking and their plans going forward.

SaffronCitrusflower

Joy_Division wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Freilauftomate wrote: »

@Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

@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)

This sounds interesting. But i am not sure what you mean. Could you please try to explain this in other words, and tell us where you got this info? Because it would be a very big deal if this means what i think it means.

@Freilauftomate

Player A has 5k HP.
in the same game tick player A receives 6k Damage (which would normally kill them) but is also healed for 3k health player A will survive with 2K health (5+3) - 6. This effectively means that healing burst 'raises' the HP / mitigates the damage taken rather than simply 'restoring missing health'.

I'm fairly sure this is how ESO has worked since launch (or at least its how it used to work, mainly for PVE trial fight reasons) its very hard to reliably test but it certainly feels like this when you are playing. It's one of the reasons HoT's are so strong.

This is correct and how the game calculated incoming damage and heals for years. I stopped paying attention to ZOS's patch notes for quite some time now and don't know if things changed.

****

As someone who used-to and would like to play in an organized group again (if ESO ever gets interesting enough to have more than a handful of group players per faction stick around), I can assure the people who hate "ball groups" that I and fair number of us also think it's a bad mechanic that people can have 12 HoTs ticking on them. By removing the excessive HoTs, it would widen the gap between a good guild and a mediocre one, and open up new theory-crafting to a stale meta.

I am actually surprised ZOS has not done something about this yet because years ago this issue was identified and ZOS tacitly acknowledged it by providing us with a set to try and deal with the issue (Snake in the Stars). I suspect they don't want to mess with healing because it probably would affect PvE and ZOS is allergic to implementing things just on Battlespirit.

It would be nice if ZOS could communicate to us and articulate their thoughts on the issue and their hesitation to do something about it, or *gasp* put something on the PTS just to see how things might play out. But that sort of thing only happens in games in which PvP has developmental resources devoted to it. You think enough threads have been made about this issue, but there has not been. ZOS has been slow to implement highly vocalized changes in PvP, but they have done so many times in the past (AOE caps, lowering group size, virtual elimination of purge spam, etc.) My suggestion is to make even more of these threads until they communicate to us their stance on PvP heal stacking and their plans going forward.

I quit reading the patch notes years ago myself. Too many changes not mentioned in them on a regular basis, and some changes mentioned never happened.

But, in case you missed the 2024 global reveal event, ZOS specifically stated there would be no changes to Cyrodiil PvP in 2024. They tried to tease something PvP related in Q4, but we'll see. Again, too many years of getting my hopes up only to find out they're teasing something along the lines of ToT.

I decided to speak with my wallet and quit subbing after U35 and it's taken the sting out of it a bit. It still hurts to see how ZOS keeps lowering the population caps and disregarding Cyrodiil, but at least I'm not paying for the mistreatment anymore.

acastanza_ESO

Apparently the answer to this thread title was "provide them disgusting, egregious buffs to their already over performing damage shields". Truly absurd.

doesurmindglow

Joy_Division wrote: »

As someone who used-to and would like to play in an organized group again (if ESO ever gets interesting enough to have more than a handful of group players per faction stick around), I can assure the people who hate "ball groups" that I and fair number of us also think it's a bad mechanic that people can have 12 HoTs ticking on them. By removing the excessive HoTs, it would widen the gap between a good guild and a mediocre one, and open up new theory-crafting to a stale meta.

I am actually surprised ZOS has not done something about this yet because years ago this issue was identified and ZOS tacitly acknowledged it by providing us with a set to try and deal with the issue (Snake in the Stars). I suspect they don't want to mess with healing because it probably would affect PvE and ZOS is allergic to implementing things just on Battlespirit.

It would be nice if ZOS could communicate to us and articulate their thoughts on the issue and their hesitation to do something about it, or *gasp* put something on the PTS just to see how things might play out. But that sort of thing only happens in games in which PvP has developmental resources devoted to it. You think enough threads have been made about this issue, but there has not been. ZOS has been slow to implement highly vocalized changes in PvP, but they have done so many times in the past (AOE caps, lowering group size, virtual elimination of purge spam, etc.) My suggestion is to make even more of these threads until they communicate to us their stance on PvP heal stacking and their plans going forward.

The problem with the "just nerf heal stacking" take everyone thinks will work is that it tends to ignore two huge, very obvious realities:

1. First, that heal stacking emerged as an adaptation to a previous "silver bullet" nerf that was promised to be equally effective, which was the introduction of Plaguebreak to punish ball groups using purge. It's absurd to imagine that they won't similarly adapt and we'll be right back where we started;
2. Second, perhaps more importantly, that heal stacking actually has been nerfed already, and most groups simply adapted by leaning more into ultimate generation and stacking damage shields, which already people are asking to nerf.

I agree both damage shields and heal stacking should be more limited than they are, but seriously: when will we learn?

Targeting one ability or even a whole genre of abilities doesn't actually work. Introducing one set or even a whole genre of sets will not work either. Look no further than the disastrous implementation of Plaguebreak, and how player adaptation has made it the weapon of choice for ball groups, with nothing but positive impact on their survivability generally speaking.

We not only need to stop asking for more of these bad changes, we should actively unwind the past attempts: Most all of the changes that "will kill ball groups" have only strengthened them and probably need to be rolled all the way back to probably like 2018 to strip out the many layers of these very badly implemented "anti-ball group" bomber/counterbomber mechanics that have created such a vast distance between ball groups and less organized players.

From there, this problem then needs to be addressed at a higher level, which is something more like MMR, different approaches to PVP instancing, and/or different incentive structures in PVP.

Kordai

So the same few ball group RLs defend them constantly while everybody else disagrees. You guys could could at least get some of your guildies to agree with you to make it a bit less obvious.

Kartalin

Kordai wrote: »

So the same few ball group RLs defend them constantly while everybody else disagrees. You guys could could at least get some of your guildies to agree with you to make it a bit less obvious.

@Joy_Division just agreed with the removal of hot stacking, and I agree with that opinion. So it’s not a unanimous opinion on the side of ball groupers.

Freilauftomate

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

in the same game tick player A receives 6k Damage (which would normally kill them) but is also healed for 3k health player A will survive with 2K health (5+3) - 6. This effectively means that healing burst 'raises' the HP / mitigates the damage taken rather than simply 'restoring missing health'.

Sorry but i don't understand. "The same game tick"? You mean milliseconds?

AndreNoir

Freilauftomate wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

in the same game tick player A receives 6k Damage (which would normally kill them) but is also healed for 3k health player A will survive with 2K health (5+3) - 6. This effectively means that healing burst 'raises' the HP / mitigates the damage taken rather than simply 'restoring missing health'.

Sorry but i don't understand. "The same game tick"? You mean milliseconds?

I think in every calculation heals goes first at least it works this way on sets with healing on certain % of hp

Crown

For everyone who has been enjoying the HoT stacking discussions, here's a screen shot from yesterday's FtQ raid before pushing into a keep (where we died to an EP ball group). HoT stacking doesn't make you invulnerable, just mostly so in some contexts!

Crown

AndreNoir wrote: »

I think in every calculation heals goes first at least it works this way on sets with healing on certain % of hp

My understanding is that in every half second tick of game time, there is the potential for incoming healing and damage. In those half second ticks, your health bar will only move down if there is more damage than healing.

Example: If in one tick you have incoming 40k damage, and incoming 40k heals, even with only 35k health on your character you won't die and won't even see your health bar move.

Kordai

Crown wrote: »

For everyone who has been enjoying the HoT stacking discussions, here's a screen shot from yesterday's FtQ raid before pushing into a keep (where we died to an EP ball group). HoT stacking doesn't make you invulnerable, just mostly so in some contexts!

So a better ball group beat another ball group... that has nothing to do with balance.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Crown wrote: »

For everyone who has been enjoying the HoT stacking discussions, here's a screen shot from yesterday's FtQ raid before pushing into a keep (where we died to an EP ball group). HoT stacking doesn't make you invulnerable, just mostly so in some contexts!

You only died because you had less than 40k HP!

Crown

Kordai wrote: »

So a better ball group beat another ball group... that has nothing to do with balance.

Correct! We were beat by a better group, and we were both taking advantage of every mechanism working as intended in game as we were able to. Their players were better than our players, and the daedra weren’t going to help, so we lost a fair fight. It was fun, we had a good time, and I hope our opponents did too.

Major_Toughness

Everyone get an Azureblight setup.

https://streamable.com/716w3w

Amottica

Tonturri 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).

That isn't to say one player should be able to 'rot' an entire enemy group all on their own, of course, or that groups shouldn't have the benefit that comes with, y'know, having more people and being coordinated. But the benefits of having more players and being coordinated should be just that - there are more players and there's coordination, not that the game design and availability or lack of certain options for players also heavily favors them. The only other option I can think of off the top of my head is the Psijic Order CC that can be morphed to absorb healing, making it into an AoE CC + Healing absorb

Maybe sets like VD, etc, should be given the pale order ring treatment too - decreased effectiveness per person in your group. Enough that it's still useful, but open up other options. On the fence about that though, but worth a bit of a think.

TLDR:
- Despite intentions and marketing, ESO's build options are severely limited. Particularly in Cyrodiil, equivalent options to what the opponent does often just don't exist, or are shoe-horned into a specific armor set. Devs should expand skill options.
- Aforementioned armor sets could be changed to have decreased effectiveness for groups. Unsure if this would work, or if people would just make the dude/tte wearing VD not join the group but run with em anyway.

From my experience in WvW types of PvP a good group composition with good builds, skilled players, and sound leadership seize the day. They are in comms and have the buffs, heals, damage, and anything else the group needs for success. Without that, and especially with pug groups, it is more like they are wearing paper armor and hitting with wet noodles.

That is what group-style PvP comes down to in almost any MMORPG and ESO is no different.

Asmelia

Ball group need to be banned, they over abuse healing skills and kill the pvp. There is no point a random group can be invulnerable for almost everything for a long period of time its like cheating without using cheat engine because you over abuse skills that is in game and the need a fix. So for me it's cheating and they must be banned for that over abuse. @ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_Kevin, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, @ZOS_BrianWheeler

Minnesinger

Asmelia wrote: »

Ball group need to be banned, they over abuse healing skills and kill the pvp. There is no point a random group can be invulnerable for almost everything for a long period of time its like cheating without using cheat engine because you over abuse skills that is in game and the need a fix. So for me it's cheating and they must be banned for that over abuse. @ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_Kevin, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, @ZOS_BrianWheeler

I am sorry but how could the game ever distinguish a ball group from the other groups? That would create a huge problem what is even a ball group. Where to draw the line that get some banned? I am thinking this type of action will never take place.

Amottica

Minnesinger wrote: »

Asmelia wrote: »

Ball group need to be banned, they over abuse healing skills and kill the pvp. There is no point a random group can be invulnerable for almost everything for a long period of time its like cheating without using cheat engine because you over abuse skills that is in game and the need a fix. So for me it's cheating and they must be banned for that over abuse. @ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_Kevin, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, @ZOS_BrianWheeler

I am sorry but how could the game ever distinguish a ball group from the other groups? That would create a huge problem what is even a ball group. Where to draw the line that get some banned? I am thinking this type of action will never take place.

True and nothing they are doing is against the rules Zenimax has for us. If Zenimax considered anything they did exploiting something would have been done long ago.

They can and are defeated by organized groups as outlined in my previous post.

CrazyKitty

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

xFocused wrote: »

I'm still waiting to see how a 12 man organized group is the problem and not the 30-40 man zergs that plow into a keep, lol. Cross heals, ulti dumps, etc...these things aren't limited to ball groups, you know?

12 man organised group in itself is not a problem. Every playstyle has its place in Cyro eco-system. But the issue is more or less... this:

This screenshot has been floating around here on ESO forums and basically it shows what the problem is. Previously, only some Ball Groups were using this, but now it seems that more & more people are using this "tricK", even "bad ones" when it comes to skill level.

What this effectively does is it makes a 12 man group close to immortal (even if players are quite new to PvP group play), or if played well - literally immortal. I mean take a look yourself at this screenshot. Every group memeber has more or less like 20 - 30K effective Health recovery. That is why people complain about Balll Groups. Because 12 man group is the only environment where realistically you can take advantage of the lack of cap on max healing per second in PvP or lack of cap for the amount of "same" heals.

Now, is there any way, like literally any way, where you can dish out 40 - 50K damage in one blow to a very tanky target ? Nothing I can think off. Even sieges would need to hit in a precise same millisecond and you would need like 4 of them hitting at once so that the target can not have a chance to passively recover to full. But even if it would work - then there is siege shield.

ZOS allowed for healing to be insanely high in a group environment, but there is no way to realistically deal as much damage. That is aslo the reason why you don't see (for the most part) ball groups fighting each other. Because they ALSO lack the power to counter other Ball Group. The most powerful way of playing in PvP is unable to counter itself.

And I know what you are thinking. Just increase max damage. But what about every ones else ? Non-grouped players would die before the even see who is attacking them. Not to mention ganks. The only way to make it fair it to put a cap on max number of healing effects coming from same effects/skills.

Like I have said before - every play style has its place in ESO. Every play-style has it strong points & weak points and risk vs reward. Bu the issue is, 12 man group in PvP simply has too many strong points with no real reasonable drawbacks, literally, only because the game allows to stack HOTs infinity. Hard to imagine how it would look like if ZOS would not reduce max group size from 24 to 12 when they were reducing Cyro population limit.

Snipe ganking used to be like this. Insane damage, and like 40 meters distance. Low risk, low skill cap, but huge reward. And ZOS wrecked this play-style (rightfully so if you ask me).

People been telling ZOS that the instances of cross healing needs to be limited to only one instance of each heal skill for years. The solution is obvious and has been pointed out many times over the years. I think it would also reduce server load and lag to implement this change. It's a mystery why ZOS doesn't at least give it a try.

Desiato

CrazyKitty wrote: »

People been telling ZOS that the instances of cross healing needs to be limited to only one instance of each heal skill for years. The solution is obvious and has been pointed out many times over the years. I think it would also reduce server load and lag to implement this change. It's a mystery why ZOS doesn't at least give it a try.

There's no mystery. It's clear AvA is an afterthought to them. Their internal corporate position is most likely that they already allocate more resources to Cyrodiil than is worth it for them.

I'm not intending to insult them. I'm sure the actual ZOS employees who (occasionally) work on AvA don't personally feel that way.

Were you around for the postern wall hole bug? That truly demonstrated how low priority Cyrodiil is.

As someone who quit the game for 5+ years, my pov is a little different because when I returned I had to accept the game as it is, knowing it's probably never going to be any better. If I don't like it, I can easily just walk away again and ZOS would be just fine with that. I'm not their target customer anymore. It is what it is.

This is why the true solution for all that ails AvA is finding a better business model for it as its own product. I like to think there are those at ZOS who are still attached with the Cyrodiil they originally envisioned. I wish they'd pitch it to Microsoft Gaming because Microsoft will take risks. A F2P AvA game with micro-transactions that shared assets with ESO would be a relatively low investment bet with home run potential.

loosej

CrazyKitty wrote: »

People been telling ZOS that the instances of cross healing needs to be limited to only one instance of each heal skill for years. The solution is obvious and has been pointed out many times over the years. I think it would also reduce server load and lag to implement this change. It's a mystery why ZOS doesn't at least give it a try.

I've been playing this game for a couple of years now, but not since release. Over time I've come to realize that if I want to understand how the game works today, it's not sufficient to read the most recent patch notes. You need the full history, all 10 years of it, if you really want to understand how this game works today and why it works the way it does.

So once in a while I'll be going through 5+ year old threads to get a better perspective, and a couple of days ago I ran into a thread (think it was on reddit, but might have been here) talking about the cadence of releasing 4 content updates a year. The person who wrote that post was explaining why that was an unrealistic goal, and that it would probably be better to have 3 content updates and 1 bugfix/qol update.

That change was introduced last year. The post I'm referring to was from 7 years ago. So it looks like they are in fact listening to customer feedback, they just have a 6 year backlog.

danwtayl

This will be unpopular but if you want to kill off 80% of the ball groups, get rid of the pull sets and VD. These sets are HARD carries for most of these groups.

SaffronCitrusflower

danwtayl wrote: »

This will be unpopular but if you want to kill off 80% of the ball groups, get rid of the pull sets and VD. These sets are HARD carries for most of these groups.

They never should have created sets that give a free pull/stack of enemies. Any moving of another player in game should take up a skill slot on your bar and cost resources. Free pulls/stacks is just bad game design.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

danwtayl wrote: »

This will be unpopular but if you want to kill off 80% of the ball groups, get rid of the pull sets and VD. These sets are HARD carries for most of these groups.

I'm sorry to tell you but groups still function without these sets as evidenced on Ravenwatch. I agree with you though it might be healthier for the game with the population remaining at this point.

Dem_kitkats1

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I'm sorry to tell you but groups still function without these sets as evidenced on Ravenwatch. I agree with you though it might be healthier for the game with the population remaining at this point.

Ravenwatch has such a low pop that it's not a fair comparison. Typically, there aren't enough players to really challenge an organized 12 man. No matter what, organized groups will always be strong, but pull sets, and radiating damage only makes organized group play less skillful and shouldn't have a place in PvP.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Dem_kitkats1 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I'm sorry to tell you but groups still function without these sets as evidenced on Ravenwatch. I agree with you though it might be healthier for the game with the population remaining at this point.

Ravenwatch has such a low pop that it's not a fair comparison. Typically, there aren't enough players to really challenge an organized 12 man. No matter what, organized groups will always be strong, but pull sets, and radiating damage only makes organized group play less skillful and shouldn't have a place in PvP.

I was referring to EU when there was reasonable population on Ravenwatch (at least as much as there is now with the reduced caps). But I agree with you about the sets.

TechMaybeHic

It's kind of comical that they put things out there to scale bigger on stacks of players that are tight on top of each other. You could infer that to have been ball groups that had to be tight for the ground AOE heals to hit as many players as possible. But then they moved the heals to sticky HOTs and gave organized group a way to pull randoms into a tight stack from really a pretty wide radius.

Comical might not be the word.

WaywardArgonian

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

danwtayl wrote: »

This will be unpopular but if you want to kill off 80% of the ball groups, get rid of the pull sets and VD. These sets are HARD carries for most of these groups.

I'm sorry to tell you but groups still function without these sets as evidenced on Ravenwatch. I agree with you though it might be healthier for the game with the population remaining at this point.

Ballgrouping is possible on Ravenwatch but it is generally much more difficult since the absence of sets like VD, Plaguebreak, Snow-Treaders, RoA etc. makes it a lot more challenging to tank large groups of players. I disagree with OP that said sets should be removed, but they are right in saying that those sets can carry groups and many ballgroups would fall off a cliff without them.