Ball groups are killing Cyrodiil PvP

Four_Fingers · December 2023

Could be because that is what the zone was designed for.
And dueling and BGs were designed for everything else.
There is something in game for everyone, you just can't do it everywhere.

TechMaybeHic · December 2023

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Could be because that is what the zone was designed for.
And dueling and BGs were designed for everything else.
There is something in game for everyone, you just can't do it everywhere.

You used to have a lot more mid size groups that didn't ball up and actually fought rather than run around. Everything went into extremes one way or another the past couple years

OBJnoob · December 2023

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Could be because that is what the zone was designed for.
And dueling and BGs were designed for everything else.
There is something in game for everyone, you just can't do it everywhere.

You used to have a lot more mid size groups that didn't ball up and actually fought rather than run around. Everything went into extremes one way or another the past couple years

I agree everything has kinda gone to extremes. You have ballgroups spending an hour upstairs in trikeeps with no intention of taking it. Small scale in resource towers doing exactly the same thing. Solos hopping around trees begging for 3 people to engage them so they can do the exact same thing.

Resolving Vigor is too strong (apparently.) Polar Wind. Healthy Offering. Coag. Cross healing, apparently.

Damage is free, apparently. But we're in a tank meta, apparently.

Some people complain that break free doesn't work and CC is everywhere. Some people run around like The Flash and can never be CCd.

Some people swear NB sucks and cloak doesn't work.

Maybe ballgroups aren't responsible for the poor performance, diversity, or population. Maybe they are just another symptom. Maybe new/casual/lighthearted players are still coming, and the hardcore vets are still here, but what we're missing is the middle. The middle who used to group more loosely, have fun, but still care about things like taking objectives and campaign score.

Freilauftomate · December 2023

"Ballgroups" are not killing Cyrodiil. Neither are gankers, snipers, heavy attackers, tanks, tower humpers, healers, small scalers, zerglings, nightcappers, siege weapons, the hammer etc.

Blaming each other for playing the game wrong is not helping anyone.

Tommy_The_Gun · December 2023

I mean, well... can one kill something that is already dead ?
(At least for me that is. PvP in this game is dead for a long time)

Jsmalls · January 2

The answer to ball groups / zergs needs to be siege weapons.

Significantly buff cold fire and/or add enhanced siege for HIGH AP costs to siege vendors (risk / reward).

Make siege more reactive / faster to aim / launch.

Siege should be FEARED and it should threaten large groups. Siege shield probably needs to be reworked so that it can be broken / countered.

This will force people to spread out (makes siege less effective).

Oil pots and meatbags are very strong area denial tools but they are slow and clunky to use reactively (at least in NO-CP where I play).

The power creep in CP with purging and healing sets has rendered siege virtually useless (except against other siege, as in siege breaks siege fast still).

TechMaybeHic · January 2

Jsmalls wrote: »

The answer to ball groups / zergs needs to be siege weapons.

Significantly buff cold fire and/or add enhanced siege for HIGH AP costs to siege vendors (risk / reward).

Make siege more reactive / faster to aim / launch.

Siege should be FEARED and it should threaten large groups. Siege shield probably needs to be reworked so that it can be broken / countered.

This will force people to spread out (makes siege less effective).

Oil pots and meatbags are very strong area denial tools but they are slow and clunky to use reactively (at least in NO-CP where I play).

The power creep in CP with purging and healing sets has rendered siege virtually useless (except against other siege, as in siege breaks siege fast still).

The problem is, the zerg uses siege themselves while zerging. This would be a very bad idea

Gizit · January 3

I would very much like to see Guilds start to form up and create these "high-level" playstyles in PvP. I play all around the board I still enjoy solo, small group and Ball grouping.
Play the way you want and the way that brings you some Joy.

Ball groups are tough to counter, as they should be.
And the best counter would be another high level performing group of players. There are plenty of you in here I take it, that Solo or Small scale? Yet, your just complaining that you can't solo or small scale a group of people down. I wish instead that you would put the energy into creating (ball group) instead of trying to tear down some else's game play. If ball groups went away, you would then target healers, tanky players? Who then would you set your targets on?

Its a great time being the focal point of popular streamers anger and the brigading they bring upon, myself and my groups I'm in.. (this is said with all sarcasm).

The counter is easy, Make a group! Play together and get better together! This is a much better place for your energy to be rather than being in the echo chamber of others.
If not, the advice is simple. Your Solo self, or your group of three will not in fact "beat" a ball group - go find your fight elsewhere.

JanTanhide · January 3

This has been discussed ad nauseum for years. ZOS has done things to address this and the play style still exists. It's the playstyle of many people who aren't going to run (normally) solo or in small groups. They hop in Voice Chat and run around Cyrodil having fun in 12 person groups. Destroying this play style will remove quite a few people from PVP in Cyrodil.

The only way I can see to stop this play style is to remove grouping completely in Cyrodil. Or, limit group size to 2 to 4 players. You may get what you ask for and not like the results.

Four_Fingers · January 3

Or just come out and realize while you can play solo in Cyro just as you can solo dungeons it is not the main playstyle Cyro was designed for. Cyro was meant for grouping and large battles, it what makes it so good.

Jsmalls · January 3

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

The answer to ball groups / zergs needs to be siege weapons.

Significantly buff cold fire and/or add enhanced siege for HIGH AP costs to siege vendors (risk / reward).

Make siege more reactive / faster to aim / launch.

Siege should be FEARED and it should threaten large groups. Siege shield probably needs to be reworked so that it can be broken / countered.

This will force people to spread out (makes siege less effective).

Oil pots and meatbags are very strong area denial tools but they are slow and clunky to use reactively (at least in NO-CP where I play).

The power creep in CP with purging and healing sets has rendered siege virtually useless (except against other siege, as in siege breaks siege fast still).

The problem is, the zerg uses siege themselves while zerging. This would be a very bad idea

@TechMaybeHic

There is both a space limitations and a capacity limitation for siege (25 per keep) So even if it's 100 versus 20 this will balance itself out. To effectively run siege you only need 4-5 people. And if it's power is increased the larger group will end up trying to res a larger amount of people.

My biggest worry would be removing the ability for a small group (4-5 people) to take a keep against even a single person.

acastanza_ESO · January 4

I think there's an obvious adjustment that would improve the ability to play against ballgroups - Make
Your Victims Explode" sets (Vicious Death, Plaguebreak, Occult Overload) scale down with the number of people you are grouped with just like Rallying Cry, or even more severely.

Grouped with a full raid? Yeah, getting one kill gives you basically nothing for an explosion.

These sets are already bad game design (I shouldn't be able to be killed by one of my "allies" falling victim to abusive server-lag generation groups to begin with), but if they insist on having these sets in the game at all they should be basically unusable by groups who are relying on ~3 people wearing them getting kills on pugs with no health for all their damage.

If you're going to bomb, there should be some risk - needing to run alone instead of backed by 9 healers.

Luede · January 4

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I think there's an obvious adjustment that would improve the ability to play against ballgroups - Make
Your Victims Explode" sets (Vicious Death, Plaguebreak, Occult Overload) scale down with the number of people you are grouped with just like Rallying Cry, or even more severely.

Grouped with a full raid? Yeah, getting one kill gives you basically nothing for an explosion.

These sets are already bad game design (I shouldn't be able to be killed by one of my "allies" falling victim to abusive server-lag generation groups to begin with), but if they insist on having these sets in the game at all they should be basically unusable by groups who are relying on ~3 people wearing them getting kills on pugs with no health for all their damage.

If you're going to bomb, there should be some risk - needing to run alone instead of backed by 9 healers.

i'm not really a ballgroup fan, but i think it would be wrong to penalize playing in a group by making the sets not work. that would just be wrong by design

TechMaybeHic · January 4

Luede wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I think there's an obvious adjustment that would improve the ability to play against ballgroups - Make
Your Victims Explode" sets (Vicious Death, Plaguebreak, Occult Overload) scale down with the number of people you are grouped with just like Rallying Cry, or even more severely.

Grouped with a full raid? Yeah, getting one kill gives you basically nothing for an explosion.

These sets are already bad game design (I shouldn't be able to be killed by one of my "allies" falling victim to abusive server-lag generation groups to begin with), but if they insist on having these sets in the game at all they should be basically unusable by groups who are relying on ~3 people wearing them getting kills on pugs with no health for all their damage.

If you're going to bomb, there should be some risk - needing to run alone instead of backed by 9 healers.

i'm not really a ballgroup fan, but i think it would be wrong to penalize playing in a group by making the sets not work. that would just be wrong by design

One might say one person blowing up masses of other players is wrong by design. Somehow they said as much for Necros self synergy and harmony trait but left 90% of what does it, stay

Luede · January 4

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Luede wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I think there's an obvious adjustment that would improve the ability to play against ballgroups - Make
Your Victims Explode" sets (Vicious Death, Plaguebreak, Occult Overload) scale down with the number of people you are grouped with just like Rallying Cry, or even more severely.

Grouped with a full raid? Yeah, getting one kill gives you basically nothing for an explosion.

These sets are already bad game design (I shouldn't be able to be killed by one of my "allies" falling victim to abusive server-lag generation groups to begin with), but if they insist on having these sets in the game at all they should be basically unusable by groups who are relying on ~3 people wearing them getting kills on pugs with no health for all their damage.

If you're going to bomb, there should be some risk - needing to run alone instead of backed by 9 healers.

i'm not really a ballgroup fan, but i think it would be wrong to penalize playing in a group by making the sets not work. that would just be wrong by design

One might say one person blowing up masses of other players is wrong by design. Somehow they said as much for Necros self synergy and harmony trait but left 90% of what does it, stay

who do you think such a rule hurts more, the ballgroups, who then simply adapt their equipment, or all the random groups, who then all stand there without functioning sets and are even more easily knocked down by everyone?

acastanza_ESO · January 4

Luede wrote: »

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Luede wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I think there's an obvious adjustment that would improve the ability to play against ballgroups - Make
Your Victims Explode" sets (Vicious Death, Plaguebreak, Occult Overload) scale down with the number of people you are grouped with just like Rallying Cry, or even more severely.

Grouped with a full raid? Yeah, getting one kill gives you basically nothing for an explosion.

These sets are already bad game design (I shouldn't be able to be killed by one of my "allies" falling victim to abusive server-lag generation groups to begin with), but if they insist on having these sets in the game at all they should be basically unusable by groups who are relying on ~3 people wearing them getting kills on pugs with no health for all their damage.

If you're going to bomb, there should be some risk - needing to run alone instead of backed by 9 healers.

i'm not really a ballgroup fan, but i think it would be wrong to penalize playing in a group by making the sets not work. that would just be wrong by design

One might say one person blowing up masses of other players is wrong by design. Somehow they said as much for Necros self synergy and harmony trait but left 90% of what does it, stay

who do you think such a rule hurts more, the ballgroups, who then simply adapt their equipment, or all the random groups, who then all stand there without functioning sets and are even more easily knocked down by everyone?

Ballgroups, by a mile. Pug groups aren't getting anything out of vicious death and like like anyway.

These sets rely on very specific bombing playstyles - traditional bombing, or mechanics-abusive ballgroups to get kills. I also didn't say "disable them entirely" I simply said scale them down - a mechanic that already exists in the game for Rallying Cry, and Ring of the Pale order.

Eliminating the ability of coordinated groups to get all their damage from three people in VD (backed by 9 healers) ensuring a 20k+ VD proc from executing one 20k health pug to kill everyone around them would only be a net positive for the game. Sure they'd probably adapt and start wearing other sets, BUT, they'd no longer be able to get massive bomb kills through this cheesy at best, downright abusive at worst, mechanic.

It would also help address the gross tank meta since you wouldn't need to build 35k+ health just to avoid getting killed by VD through no fault of your own

reazea · January 5

Cross healing needs a massive nerf. Ball groups put a restro staff on the back bar of every player and run rapid regen. So the entire ball has 12 instances of rapid regen on them at all times. There should be a limit of only 1 instance of rapid regen on any toon at any time. That's the solution. Easy. We've been pointing this out for years though. They're not going to take the time to make the change no matter how many times we ask.

RetPing · January 5

reazea wrote: »

Cross healing needs a massive nerf. Ball groups put a restro staff on the back bar of every player and run rapid regen. So the entire ball has 12 instances of rapid regen on them at all times. There should be a limit of only 1 instance of rapid regen on any toon at any time. That's the solution. Easy. We've been pointing this out for years though. They're not going to take the time to make the change no matter how many times we ask.

This one.
Developers please listen, we only need this, no new sets that will make things even worse, you already tried that road.

Put a limit on healing stacking in PvP.

No one want to destroy ball groups, we only want to put a limit on a totally broken mechanic that make that gameplay so boring because it's totally overtuned.

Freilauftomate · January 5

reazea wrote: »

Cross healing needs a massive nerf. Ball groups put a restro staff on the back bar of every player and run rapid regen. So the entire ball has 12 instances of rapid regen on them at all times. There should be a limit of only 1 instance of rapid regen on any toon at any time. That's the solution. Easy. We've been pointing this out for years though. They're not going to take the time to make the change no matter how many times we ask.

I have never seen a ballgroup playing with rapid regen. Single target with 5 seconds duration, and nobody knows how targeting really works with this skill. Good luck getting 12 rapid regen on all the group members all the time. I would very much like to see that happening, because i am pretty sure it's impossible.

It's hard enough to get radiating regeneration on enough group members. Even echoing vigor can be tricky. You don't believe me? Port to a wayshrine with a lot of players and try giving them all vigor and regeneration.

Freilauftomate · January 5

RetPing wrote: »

Put a limit on healing stacking in PvP.

We already have plenty of limits on heals.

The biggest limit is the health bar. If it's empty, then you are dead. Enough damage in a fraction of a second will always kill you, no matter how much healing you receive. You can support the health bar with shields, but their size is limited too.

Most healing skills only affect up to 6 players at a time.

Most heals cost magicka and don't work in an enemy negate.

We pretty much only have two useful "heal over time" abilities (hots) that stick and stack on groupmembers. Radiating Regeneration and Echoing Vigor. Both of them only heal for a small amount every 2 seconds. Now you might think "but 12 vigor and 12 regen at the same time are op", but in reality that's not happening. You might get a few stacks in a ballgroup, sometimes more sometimes less, and they are very helpful, but far from 24 stacks, and not as strong as some people might think.

The mysterious targeting system is not always hitting the right players. "Smart heals" are not as smart as the name suggests.

Debuffs that reduce health, healing... Poisons with heal absorption...

...

People like to blame the poor little hots and heals when they can't kill a group. They always seem to forget about damage mitigation (block, dodge roll, resistances, moving out of dangerous situations, purge etc.), group buffs, debuffs and all the other reasons that make a good group more successful (at least in some situations) than a bunch of random solo players.

If you want to put more limits on heals, then maybe there should be more limits on damage too. Because as far as i know there is no reason why you can't get hit for over 1 million damage in one second. And i am pretty sure nobody can outheal that.

Kartalin · January 5

reazea wrote: »

Cross healing needs a massive nerf. Ball groups put a restro staff on the back bar of every player and run rapid regen. So the entire ball has 12 instances of rapid regen on them at all times. There should be a limit of only 1 instance of rapid regen on any toon at any time. That's the solution. Easy. We've been pointing this out for years though. They're not going to take the time to make the change no matter how many times we ask.

Actually most groups I've run with only have 4 people on radiating regen. Vigor is a different story, but when roughly half your roster is magicka focused (5-6) that presents its own challenges.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · January 9

Kartalin wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Cross healing needs a massive nerf. Ball groups put a restro staff on the back bar of every player and run rapid regen. So the entire ball has 12 instances of rapid regen on them at all times. There should be a limit of only 1 instance of rapid regen on any toon at any time. That's the solution. Easy. We've been pointing this out for years though. They're not going to take the time to make the change no matter how many times we ask.

Actually most groups I've run with only have 4 people on radiating regen. Vigor is a different story, but when roughly half your roster is magicka focused (5-6) that presents its own challenges.

I don't really think anyone in the game struggles to slot and use echoing in group play, maybe just rotation based but sustain is generally enough with sets or glyphs etc.

Kartalin · January 10

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Cross healing needs a massive nerf. Ball groups put a restro staff on the back bar of every player and run rapid regen. So the entire ball has 12 instances of rapid regen on them at all times. There should be a limit of only 1 instance of rapid regen on any toon at any time. That's the solution. Easy. We've been pointing this out for years though. They're not going to take the time to make the change no matter how many times we ask.

Actually most groups I've run with only have 4 people on radiating regen. Vigor is a different story, but when roughly half your roster is magicka focused (5-6) that presents its own challenges.

I don't really think anyone in the game struggles to slot and use echoing in group play, maybe just rotation based but sustain is generally enough with sets or glyphs etc.

yes but the average player doesn't know that

RetPing · January 10

Freilauftomate wrote: »

We already have plenty of limits on heals.
.......
.

And then you see screenshots of people with 12 HOTs on them lol

Please guys, if you enjoy playing in ball groups do it, no need to come up with excuses for the most broken mechanic I have ever seen in pvp in any game

Four_Fingers · January 10

Please post a screenshot with proof of someone having 12 HOTs on them.
One would think someone would have posted one by now.

RetPing · January 10

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Please post a screenshot with proof of someone having 12 HOTs on them.
One would think someone would have posted one by now.

Sorry, I dont have a screenshot with 12 hots on someone.

But here you can see one with 13
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/637120/you-have-to-do-something-about-pvp-balance-zos

GooGa592 · January 10

reazea wrote: »

Cross healing needs a massive nerf. Ball groups put a restro staff on the back bar of every player and run rapid regen. So the entire ball has 12 instances of rapid regen on them at all times. There should be a limit of only 1 instance of rapid regen on any toon at any time. That's the solution. Easy. We've been pointing this out for years though. They're not going to take the time to make the change no matter how many times we ask.

Yep, it's multiple instances of cross healing, primarily radiating regen, that is making ball groups such a pain and causing so much lag. We've been pointing this out for years, and they've made no attempt to make the needed change.

Tommy_The_Gun · January 10

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Please post a screenshot with proof of someone having 12 HOTs on them.
One would think someone would have posted one by now.

React · January 10

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Please post a screenshot with proof of someone having 12 HOTs on them.
One would think someone would have posted one by now.

Hey, that's my screenshot! Thanks for sharing it here. Here's another one from the other day.

It is absolutely laughable that anybody defends this. I wrote some pretty good explanations as to why this needs to be addressed at that thread linked several comments above.

I don't have an issue with ball groups existing. They're entitled to play PVP like the rest of us. But I do have an issue with them being entirely invincible by exploiting the ability to stack the same HOT 10+ times. It's absurd.

All hots should be limited to 2 of a specific morph. You should be able to have 2 echoings + 2 radiatings + 2 of whatever else on you at once, but not more than 2 of any specific morph.

Freilauftomate · January 11

Cyrodiil was designed for big battles, hundreds of players and countless different playstyles. Unfortunately they keep downsizing everything, and keep taking things out of the game, to make up for performance issues. "Ballgroups" wouldn't be so controversial if they still had massive zergs to fight.

Maybe one day someone will finally fix performance and all the bugs. Then increase max pop and convince players to come back.

Otherwise we might end up alone in our underwear, throwing torchbugs at empty keeps, because everything else would cost too many server resources.