Ball groups are killing Cyrodiil PvP

reazea · January 13

Amottica wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

RetPing wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Just accept that you are never gonna not see any organized group in a MMO setting that features AvA.

Agree.

AvA/WvW type of PvP is designed for larger groups.

Smaller groups that are well organized with good leadership can take down the larger groups but a group of random pugs or a group that is not well organized is likely to get a free trip to a nearby keep. That is not due to a poor design.

I will says this thing one more time because people seems/want to not understand
No one asked to destroy group play, no one said the organized group should not be better then randoms, all that we want is to put a limit on broken mechancns. Healing stacking is a totally broken mechanic in pvp.

Organized groups shoudl relay on their organization and skill to tackle larger groups and not on a broken mechanic.

@RetPing

I agree that groups are not the issue; If there is a skill that is causing an issue with performance and such the prevent other groups from defeating them outside of the group being well organized and playing well then it should be adjusted.

However, there are two strong points to be made.

First is that every set and skill added to the game that seemed to be group busters have been great additions for these larger groups to use. Such changes backfire.

Second, the small group I run with when I enter Cyrodill has no issue with taking down large groups. Sure, we lose sometimes but we often prevail and defeat these so-called "ball groups". We are well organized and slot the skills we are asked to use. Our commanders have a great perception of the action around us and we follow their commands.

If groups are defeating them then what is the problem?

Sorry, but your claim that your small group regularly takes down organized ball groups is simply not believeable. It sounds more like you don't really PvP much in Cyrodiil at all.

And react has clearly shown in this thread how Four Fingers claims are not factually supported as well.

Those of us that play ESO solely for the PvP and spend virtually our entire play time in Cyrodiil know what's going on.

Several have posted here how strategy and such lead to success against the so-called ball groups. It is more than just two people who make such claims that a skilled group can overcome the so-called ball groups. Not worried about what others think as I am pleased I run with a group that can get the job done.

Below is a video of a small group taking down a ball group. It is solid proof of what myself, @Four_Fingers, and others here have said about how a skilled group, using strategy, can take down a ball group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCxiyj_MkJQ

Have a good day.

The video you posted does not prove your point. It proves mine and other posters' point. That is not a ball group the smaller group is fighting. That's not even in Cyrodiil. What you posted is a small group getting a VD or plague proc on 6-8 players in a group, a group that's clearly not a ball group, being dumb enough to stack on a choke point in IC and catch a VD or plague proc. There is no organized skills being displayed by either the small group or the larger group in this video.

I've gone ahead and put you on ignore so I don't risk another discussion with you that could draw the attention of moderation.

reazea · January 13

dcrush wrote: »

Right now on PC NA GH, multiple EP and DC ballgroups are running around together in circles inside AD keeps causing massive lag. My fps drops by 50% whenever they show up and my toon no longer moves normally, instead it jumps forward in bits. What a fun way to play the game. /s

AD runs strong ball groups too. I could name at least 2 of them, but won't due to being edited for naming and shaming.

Elendir2am · January 13

Freilauftomate wrote: »

Instead of asking to nerf everything that's problematic for your personal playstyle, you could try to learn how to fight them with another setup. Because it can be very satisfying to quickly log on another build and kill a group in 1 second, when your alliance got farmed by them for an hour.

I made 4th anti-ball build in time between september 2022 and march 2023. All of them get nerfed. It isn't rewarding as you think.
I stopped making another builds and I focus on debuting now, hoping ailled ball kill enemy ball. My hope meet good end most of time, but I depend on existence of ailled ball.

Amottica · January 14

React wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

reazea wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

RetPing wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Just accept that you are never gonna not see any organized group in a MMO setting that features AvA.

Agree.

AvA/WvW type of PvP is designed for larger groups.

Smaller groups that are well organized with good leadership can take down the larger groups but a group of random pugs or a group that is not well organized is likely to get a free trip to a nearby keep. That is not due to a poor design.

I will says this thing one more time because people seems/want to not understand
No one asked to destroy group play, no one said the organized group should not be better then randoms, all that we want is to put a limit on broken mechancns. Healing stacking is a totally broken mechanic in pvp.

Organized groups shoudl relay on their organization and skill to tackle larger groups and not on a broken mechanic.

@RetPing

I agree that groups are not the issue; If there is a skill that is causing an issue with performance and such the prevent other groups from defeating them outside of the group being well organized and playing well then it should be adjusted.

However, there are two strong points to be made.

First is that every set and skill added to the game that seemed to be group busters have been great additions for these larger groups to use. Such changes backfire.

Second, the small group I run with when I enter Cyrodill has no issue with taking down large groups. Sure, we lose sometimes but we often prevail and defeat these so-called "ball groups". We are well organized and slot the skills we are asked to use. Our commanders have a great perception of the action around us and we follow their commands.

If groups are defeating them then what is the problem?

Sorry, but your claim that your small group regularly takes down organized ball groups is simply not believeable. It sounds more like you don't really PvP much in Cyrodiil at all.

And react has clearly shown in this thread how Four Fingers claims are not factually supported as well.

Those of us that play ESO solely for the PvP and spend virtually our entire play time in Cyrodiil know what's going on.

Several have posted here how strategy and such lead to success against the so-called ball groups. It is more than just two people who make such claims that a skilled group can overcome the so-called ball groups. Not worried about what others think as I am pleased I run with a group that can get the job done.

Below is a video of a small group taking down a ball group. It is solid proof of what myself, @Four_Fingers, and others here have said about how a skilled group, using strategy, can take down a ball group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCxiyj_MkJQ

Have a good day.

This isn't a ball group, it's an uncoordinated zerg during midyear mayhem that was killed by one single low level popping and killing everybody around them with plague.

Thank you. A single player killing a larger group of any type says a lot of what can be done. No need to say anything more.

I am glad I am in a group that can take on these larger groups regardless of how organized they are. It is amazing what can be done with a coordinated group on comms with good leadership.

RetPing · January 14

Freilauftomate wrote: »

Then someone said "I do have an issue with them being entirely invincible by exploiting the ability to stack the same HOT", wich is obviously not true. Ballgroups are not invincible and stacking hots is not exploiting.

Please stop trying to mix and confuse things.
No one that knows PvP says that Ball Groups are EXPLOTING stacking hots.
We are sayng that stacking hots is a broken mechanic in PvP because it is too overpowered.

And please do not play victim, no one is accusing BGs to cheat.
We are just saying that ESO combat team is allowing a totally broken mechaninc to ruin PvP for a lot of people.

If they think that letting people crutch on a broken mechanic to allow them to easily and endlessy kills hundreds of randoms that know nothing about PvP is healthy for their game, well, they are the experts, not me.

Amottica · January 15

RetPing wrote: »

Freilauftomate wrote: »

Then someone said "I do have an issue with them being entirely invincible by exploiting the ability to stack the same HOT", wich is obviously not true. Ballgroups are not invincible and stacking hots is not exploiting.

Please stop trying to mix and confuse things.
No one that knows PvP says that Ball Groups are EXPLOTING stacking hots.

I cannot vouch for what anyone knows or how well they know PvP/Cyrodiil. However, it has been suggested that groups that stack the hots are exploiting the ability.

React wrote: »

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.

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.

So @Freilauftomate does make a fair point.

IZZEFlameLash · January 15

Nerf healstacking? Now you have a ballgroup running with self-heals and AoE burst heals while being able to sustain themselves far better than smaller group of people can and deal amazing damage.

Nerf damage? Ballgroup still wins. Nerf resistances? Ballgroup still wins. Unable to group? Ballgroup still wins. 12 1vx builds are still better than 1 1vx build. And keep in mind, people playing in groups are not static NPCs. They will adapt because they are human beings with almost equally knowledgeable people theorycrafting together.

Also, performance issue, this is something that needs to be fixed from ground up. You don't have to be in Cyrodiil to experience the general performance degradation. Solo, 4-men instances in PvE can have same performance degradation as well. Especially more noticeable when there had not been a maintenance. Doubt nerfing ballgroups will save the performance at all, because solo instances and 4 men instances are not ballgroup environment and can still have issues.

Having said that, imho, the most realistic solution is to push for better performance solution from the studio's end. After all, it was them that advertised the game based off of massive pvp combat as noted by the back of physical case.

React · January 15

Amottica wrote: »

RetPing wrote: »

Freilauftomate wrote: »

Then someone said "I do have an issue with them being entirely invincible by exploiting the ability to stack the same HOT", wich is obviously not true. Ballgroups are not invincible and stacking hots is not exploiting.

Please stop trying to mix and confuse things.
No one that knows PvP says that Ball Groups are EXPLOTING stacking hots.

I cannot vouch for what anyone knows or how well they know PvP/Cyrodiil. However, it has been suggested that groups that stack the hots are exploiting the ability.

React wrote: »

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.

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.

So @Freilauftomate does make a fair point.

Come on now, let's not pretend that you don't know exactly what I meant.

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Nerf healstacking? Now you have a ballgroup running with self-heals and AoE burst heals while being able to sustain themselves far better than smaller group of people can and deal amazing damage.

Nerf damage? Ballgroup still wins. Nerf resistances? Ballgroup still wins. Unable to group? Ballgroup still wins. 12 1vx builds are still better than 1 1vx build. And keep in mind, people playing in groups are not static NPCs. They will adapt because they are human beings with almost equally knowledgeable people theorycrafting together.

Also, performance issue, this is something that needs to be fixed from ground up. You don't have to be in Cyrodiil to experience the general performance degradation. Solo, 4-men instances in PvE can have same performance degradation as well. Especially more noticeable when there had not been a maintenance. Doubt nerfing ballgroups will save the performance at all, because solo instances and 4 men instances are not ballgroup environment and can still have issues.

Having said that, imho, the most realistic solution is to push for better performance solution from the studio's end. After all, it was them that advertised the game based off of massive pvp combat as noted by the back of physical case.

The studio has just spent two years "working" on performance. They just updated us a few months ago and said they've made no progress and have no ETA for improvements. It's quite obvious that we aren't going to ever see any improvement on that end.

Ball groups have been an issue this entire time. As soon as heal stacking became the meta, we saw a massive deterioration in performance, that has only gotten worse as more 12 mans have adopted this "pseudo-ballgroup" heal stacking behavior since they've realized it enables them to be far tankier than they have any right to be.

The impact this has on performance is extremely easy to observe. Playing while ball groups are present in the campaign and when they sign off is a night and day difference.

This needs to be addressed not only because it is simply broken overpowered, but because it is deteriorating the performance for everybody in cyrodiil.

Amottica · January 15

React wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

RetPing wrote: »

Freilauftomate wrote: »

Then someone said "I do have an issue with them being entirely invincible by exploiting the ability to stack the same HOT", wich is obviously not true. Ballgroups are not invincible and stacking hots is not exploiting.

Please stop trying to mix and confuse things.
No one that knows PvP says that Ball Groups are EXPLOTING stacking hots.

I cannot vouch for what anyone knows or how well they know PvP/Cyrodiil. However, it has been suggested that groups that stack the hots are exploiting the ability.

React wrote: »

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.

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.

So @Freilauftomate does make a fair point.

Come on now, let's not pretend that you don't know exactly what I meant.

I understood the message and pointed out, with the support of a quoted sentence from this thread, that their comment has some basis in this discussion.

The word has a very specific meaning, as presented in the image provided. It is such a specific word that I cannot see how the context in the sentence I quoted had a very different meaning.

GooGa592 · January 15

The frustrating aspect of all this is that for years now people have been pointing out how heal stacking is how ball groups have become such a problem, but not only would fixing heal stacking make ball groups more fair, IT WOULD ALSO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE. And yet ZOS continues to ignore the issue even though it is probably the number one thing they could do to improve performance in Cyrodiil. Capping how many HoT's a player can have on them at any given time is not a difficult change to make either. Just cap it so any player can only have only one instance of any given HoT on them at a time. Easy. Ball groups would still be able to easily keep 3 or 4 HoT's on their players at all times, but that's far fewer than 12.

@ZOS_Kevin
@ZOS_BrianWheeler
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_RichLambert
@ZOS_MattFiror

ClowdyAllDay · January 15

abakzn wrote: »

Ball groups actually runs as much as they like with discord communication. I crash / freeze when a ball group arrives.

Then the answer is to block the use of discord and such services. How do you suggest we implement that?

GooGa592 · January 15

ClowdyAllDay wrote: »

abakzn wrote: »

Ball groups actually runs as much as they like with discord communication. I crash / freeze when a ball group arrives.

Then the answer is to block the use of discord and such services. How do you suggest we implement that?

Nobody's suggesting that discord or teamspeak or anything like these softwares be banned. We're suggesting that heal stacking needs to be limited.

Freilauftomate · January 15

React wrote: »

Come on now, let's not pretend that you don't know exactly what I meant.

This is a perfect example of how this conversation is going...

ZOS_Hadeostry · January 15

Greetings,

After removing some unnecessary back and forth from this thread, we would like everyone to keep posts on the subject at hand, civil, and constructive.

If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here

Photosniper89 · January 16

xFocused wrote: »

abakzn wrote: »

Ball groups actually runs as much as they like with discord communication. I crash / freeze when a ball group arrives.

My ball group actually crashes more when we're running into zergs of 40+ players. When we fight other 12 man groups there's no problems. Sounds like it's another server performance issue instead of blaming groups, lol

This lol. Ball groups crash when we hit a zerg.

Kartalin · January 17

As a ball group we are looking for enemy ball groups to fight. We were able to find two different groups to fight on GH last night, one red and one blue, in each case finding a spot in an open field to just go at it for awhile. That is what we find the most entertaining and the most challenging. We've had several three way GvGvG fights in recent weeks which is really interesting and fun to participate in -- and these fights have been relatively lag free unless there's big zerg fights going on somewhere across the map. The hammer is just a lag magnet for instance. If there aren't any other ball groups to fight then we'll take on some of the zergs and run around keeps for a bit or whatever, but we have to change builds for this and it's kind of a hassle with the combat bug and overall it's just not our preference. I know not all other ball groups will do that but just wanted to put that out there.

RetPing · January 17

Kartalin wrote: »

As a ball group we are looking for enemy ball groups to fight. We were able to find two different .

Never seen that thing here in EU, here ball groups avoid each other and focus on randoms.
It's quite funny when there is a fight in a keep, one BG on the left, the other on right and randoms that try to figh both.
I could name names but not allowed.

Tsuriel · January 17

RetPing wrote: »

Kartalin wrote: »

As a ball group we are looking for enemy ball groups to fight. We were able to find two different .

Never seen that thing here in EU, here ball groups avoid each other and focus on randoms.
It's quite funny when there is a fight in a keep, one BG on the left, the other on right and randoms that try to figh both.
I could name names but not allowed.

Agreed, I continuously see ballgroups in EU working together and avoiding eachother, including when fighting in the same keep.

biminirwb17_ESO · January 18

As the Lemon Party video shows ball groups are fine, it's what the players of some ball groups chose to do that is the issue.

You can set your clock recently to a ball attacking a certain keep in NA GH at almost exactly the same time of day, day after day. This is after they hit an outpost between the two other factions which they do at the same time every day as well.

Taking a keep to take pressure off your faction is fine - doing it every day regardless of the map situation or who has your factions' scrolls is bordering on griefing.

(none of the groups Kartalin mentioned were involved in this)

RetPing · January 19

Fighting a group of ultra tanky 40k health players taking turn at casting bone surge and hots and then once in a while use that broken RoA to pull people and kill them with ulti dump and some AoE.

is that the amazing PvP that ZoS boss mentioned in the pre video during reveal?
Am I missing something?

SaffronCitrusflower · January 19

GooGa592 wrote: »

The frustrating aspect of all this is that for years now people have been pointing out how heal stacking is how ball groups have become such a problem, but not only would fixing heal stacking make ball groups more fair, IT WOULD ALSO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE. And yet ZOS continues to ignore the issue even though it is probably the number one thing they could do to improve performance in Cyrodiil. Capping how many HoT's a player can have on them at any given time is not a difficult change to make either. Just cap it so any player can only have only one instance of any given HoT on them at a time. Easy. Ball groups would still be able to easily keep 3 or 4 HoT's on their players at all times, but that's far fewer than 12.

@ZOS_Kevin
@ZOS_BrianWheeler
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_RichLambert
@ZOS_MattFiror

Any chance this simple change could be made that will increase performance and maybe, possibly, hopefully get ZOS to bring back some of the population to Cyrodiil? Pretty please with cream and sugar on top? Please?

@ZOS_Kevin
@ZOS_BrianWheeler
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_RichLambert
@ZOS_MattFiror

Kartalin · January 19

I know a lot of you want heal stacking to go away -- I'm a little ambivalent myself, like it feels strange to say someone could cast an ability, expend the resources, and it just doesn't get applied to anyone? It doesn't feel fair. But I also understand the consternation of seeing the massive vigor stacks as an opponent.

But my point is this: thanks to our amazing build gurus and their sometimes epic back and forths in our discord, we already have a plan for if heal stacking goes away. I imagine other groups have done some similar preparation. In fact our guild leader was kind of expecting something to get changed with Necrom. So don't think that changing this one thing is going to be some sort of magic bullet that makes ball groups go away. Coordination will always have an advantage versus uncoordinated opponents.

Four_Fingers · January 19

Could not have said it better, our group will adjust as well.

RetPing · January 19

Kartalin wrote: »

So don't think that changing this one thing is going to be some sort of magic bullet that makes ball groups go away. Coordination will always have an advantage versus uncoordinated opponents.

You seem again, like all Ballgroupers, to want to mix things to make confusion.
Again, we don't want BG to go away, we want them to relay on coordination and skills to be good, not on a totally broken mechanic.

olsborg · January 19

Whats completely bonkers is that only a ballgroup can deal with another ballgroup, (well or a huge zerg) so any ballgroups running around are just extremely annoying and feels like a disease for anyone not running in a ballgroup.

Four_Fingers · January 19

News flash, we already do not rely on heal stacking by itself.
Maybe some pug groups do, but most guild groups are players that have been together for years now and much more coordinated than that. We know what each other is going to do and how to position.
Not going to apologize for running a group in an area designed for group play.

Cloudrest · January 20

Kartalin wrote: »

So don't think that changing this one thing is going to be some sort of magic bullet that makes ball groups go away. Coordination will always have an advantage versus uncoordinated opponents.

I don't think anyone has been advocating for their removal, and no-one is saying that coordinated groups shouldn't have an advantage over pugs. Removal of a broken mechanic won't make ball groups vanish. It will, however, separate the wheat from the chaff, and expose those with sub-par players being carried by it-- which, frankly, there's a lot of those currently compared to years past.

Sure, you'll still be fairly tanky once builds and compositions are adapted, but there'll be opportunities for mistakes to be punished by the pugs without an absurd amount of healing per second for currently little effort.

React · January 20

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Could not have said it better, our group will adjust as well.

Kartalin wrote: »

I know a lot of you want heal stacking to go away -- I'm a little ambivalent myself, like it feels strange to say someone could cast an ability, expend the resources, and it just doesn't get applied to anyone? It doesn't feel fair. But I also understand the consternation of seeing the massive vigor stacks as an opponent.

But my point is this: thanks to our amazing build gurus and their sometimes epic back and forths in our discord, we already have a plan for if heal stacking goes away. I imagine other groups have done some similar preparation. In fact our guild leader was kind of expecting something to get changed with Necrom. So don't think that changing this one thing is going to be some sort of magic bullet that makes ball groups go away. Coordination will always have an advantage versus uncoordinated opponents.

I doubt people suggesting that heal stacking be adjusted think that it will "magically make ball groups disappear". The point is that the mechanic is far too strong in it's current form, far too easy to utilize, and requires no sacrifice or thought whatsoever to capitalize on. Putting echoing vigor on every single person is asking the bare minimum of them - press this massive AOE, long duration, 360 degree smart HOT once every 10 seconds, and we'll be sure that every single member of our group is getting 10k HPS constantly all the time from one ability.

Now let's imagine you can only use 2 stacks of any given hot. You suddenly need to utilize 2 echoings, 2 radiating regens (which require resto staves and only target 3 people), 2 healing springs (which you need to constantly move with the group), 2 buddings (which you need to constantly move with the group, and requires 2 wardens), 2 rituals (which you need to constantly move with the group, and requires 2 templars), 2 chakrams (which requires 2 arcanists)etc. You might not choose these exact skills - but you get the point. Compared to literally any other option, echoing vigor is not only going to do the most healing, but it is by far the easiest thing to use.

I understand that a massive portion of ball group survivability is currently coming from damage shields (barrier, gibbering, chakrams), max HP being 40k+ on everybody, and major + minor evasion on everybody. Some of those things are problematic in their own right, but the HOT stacking behavior is by far the lowest hanging fruit and the easiest to make an adjustment to without impacting other areas of the game.

It's long overdue and would be to the benefit of everybody outside of the ball groups that wouldn't be able to adapt - and if they can't adapt, they don't deserve the level of survivability HOT stacking currently provides.

Crispen_Longbow · January 25

olsborg wrote: »

Whats completely bonkers is that only a ballgroup can deal with another ballgroup, (well or a huge zerg) so any ballgroups running around are just extremely annoying and feels like a disease for anyone not running in a ballgroup.

That's not true at all. It only takes 1 warden to get rid of a ball group farming a keep. Here is 1 warden that pulls a ball group out of the inner then does the same thing on the outer. 1 player removing a ball group in 1 minute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDONA5AZaxk

RetPing · January 25

Crispen_Longbow wrote: »

That's not true at all. It only takes 1 warden to get rid of a ball group farming a keep. Here is 1 warden that pulls a ball group out of the inner then does the same thing on the outer. 1 player removing a ball group in 1 minute.

In other words, use a glitch to fight people crutching on broken mechanics.
Such great PvP. I wonder why Cyro is almost empty where there is this great PvP.