Moved back to ESO from GW2 after few years break

Nebbles

Just some feedback for Zen from a returning player (and soon to be leaving) , though I assume it'll make not a bit of difference. I'll keep it short and to the point.

Ballgroups. Why.

I left GW2 due to the awful handling of their version of Cyrodil, basically it's become a boon ball arena, their version of ball groups. Any feeling of warfare or siege or defending is gone. It's just ball group gameplay that leaves no room for soloers or defenders.

I came back to ESO to get away from that, only to find that ball groups are even more common now than the last time I played. Just left Cyro this evening (along with some others) as a group of 4 ball groups were just zerging everything. I've been trying to get my GW2 friends to join me here. They did some research, heard about ball groups and that's keeping them away (they left GW2 due to this too).

It's an awful design in GW2 and it's an awful design here. Total anti fun gameplay for anyone not in those sweat groups. I want to play proper siege and warfare, not look on hopelessly as people stack and run around like the keystone cops.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Tsuriel

It's been years since thread after thread have tried to address ballgroups in Cyrodiil, the skill/server lag they bring with them but more importantly the inability to counter them without adapting a similar, narrowed down gameplay. Unfortunately ESO is not the only game suffering from ballgroups gradually ruining PvP and a gameplay which ESO was first advertised as prior to it's BETA phase. Like you said, Guild Wars 2 has unfortunately been infected with a similar form of gameplay where ballgroups are gradually chasing people away from PvP as well.


ESO was first of all advertised as a PvP game, centralized around Cyrodiil and the Alliance War which has found itself progressively abandoned with little to no explanation while resources have been concentrated in the PvE aspect of the game, one can feel with time and with each chapter released that people are following suit in quitting or abandoning Cyrodiil as ballgroups take over, desolating the place as time goes by.


HoT stacking, HoT stacking, HoT stacking

Ballgroups currently run around with up to 8 - 11 Vigors & Radiating Regeneration all stacked into one ultra heal over time. Why this hasn't been addressed or fixed since beta is as much of a mystery as the word itself, allowing ballgroups to have up to 30k+ recovery healing over time. Where does this put the average player who wishes to engage in PvP activites from finding any form of fair fight?? Let alone the courage or will to be part of this form of gameplay in the first place?

I know it's a form of gameplay in PVE and is highly encouraged during trials and endgame fights where everyone stacks on crowns while stacking up HoT, but this is PvP and the title itself currently doesn't live up to it's name. And again, as addressed in other threads - I can't imagine anyone want to prevent guilds and groups from PvPing together but some form of fair gameplay needs to be established when ballgroups in their current form can't be countered unless a similar form of narrowed down gameplay is established.

It's time for ZOS to properly address this or witness how yet another PvP game is gradually abandoned and left to collect dust.

Tommy_The_Gun

ZOS is either ignoring the issue, or (more likely) they think of "Ball Groups" as their target PvP audience. I mean, there has to be a reson why Ball Group is the only play style that has not received a direct "target nerf" since like um... never. This play style never actually got balanced with some PvP Group Environment specific change. A lot of play-styles got adjusted over the years (like PvP Bow sniper builds), but if you think about it, this Group PvP Mata Play-style (aka Ball Group) for as long as the game exists (10+ years) was never actually adjusted and never received a reduction in effectiveness (if something, it was buffed nomerous time).

That is why I do believe that ZOS is most likely considering "Ball Groups" to be their target PvP audience. If it was not the case, ball groups would have been properly adjusted long time ago.

Tsuriel

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

ZOS is either ignoring the issue, or (more likely) they think of "Ball Groups" as their target PvP audience. I mean, there has to be a reson why Ball Group is the only play style that has not received a direct "target nerf" since like um... never. This play style never actually got balanced with some PvP Group Environment specific change. A lot of play-styles got adjusted over the years (like PvP Bow sniper builds), but if you think about it, this Group PvP Mata Play-style (aka Ball Group) for as long as the game exists (10+ years) was never actually adjusted and never received a reduction in effectiveness (if something, it was buffed nomerous time).

That is why I do believe that ZOS is most likely considering "Ball Groups" to be their target PvP audience. If it was not the case, ball groups would have been properly adjusted long time ago.

The ballgroup gameplay is used in endgame PvE spheres such as trials where the same form of (HoT) stacking is encouraged, but the question remains, why proper adjustments to discourage that form of gameplay in PvP hasn't been taken care of since forever is a mystery as the word itself

Necrotech_Master

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

ZOS is either ignoring the issue, or (more likely) they think of "Ball Groups" as their target PvP audience. I mean, there has to be a reson why Ball Group is the only play style that has not received a direct "target nerf" since like um... never. This play style never actually got balanced with some PvP Group Environment specific change. A lot of play-styles got adjusted over the years (like PvP Bow sniper builds), but if you think about it, this Group PvP Mata Play-style (aka Ball Group) for as long as the game exists (10+ years) was never actually adjusted and never received a reduction in effectiveness (if something, it was buffed nomerous time).

That is why I do believe that ZOS is most likely considering "Ball Groups" to be their target PvP audience. If it was not the case, ball groups would have been properly adjusted long time ago.

i dont think that zos hasnt tried to stop ballgroups

in fact sets such as plaguebreak were introduced with the intention to blow up purge-spamming ballgroups

but the problem is that the ballgroup players will adapt to whatever change happens (example: plaguebreak was added, ballgroups just stopped using purge at all and compensated with stacking more hots/shields) to remain at their effectiveness, and a lot of anti-ballgroup mechanics (plaguebreak) ended up empowering them in some ways (ballgroups use plague in combination with pull sets to time their ulti dumps to nuke large groups of players quickly)

the current theory is that limiting hot stacking might help weaken ballgroups, but there could be unforseen consequences for doing so, and 90% chance that ballgroups will still find some way around that (such as stacking more shields, which i feel is another problem different from heal stacking)

Nebbles

Tsuriel wrote: »

It's time for ZOS to properly address this or witness how yet another PvP game is gradually abandoned and left to collect dust.

This is what troubles me. I've played GW2 and ESO on and off since they were released, mostly for the mass PvP parts (although I do enjoy ESO story and lore also). GW2 version of alliance war, has been destroyed by the devs catering to the boon ball meta which they're know to personally prefer and are very biased to those players (basically an old boys club).

Myself and my casual guild of loose knit players who for years have played as scouts, havocs etc. have all left as the devs have decimated defence and other playstyles for their vision of a glorified arena where everyone just stacks on the leader and follows like sheep and keeps/defence/war is meaningless.

This is the exact feeling I've had in ESO the past week and it makes me sad. ESO has a much better....setting/foundation for alliance war, so seeing it seemingly go deeper and deeper down the ball group awful playstyle just makes me want to leave after just getting back. I might do so and see if the upcoming pvp thing addressing anything and if it does come back then.

GW2 has been ruined by this path, I hope ESO takes a different one.

Major_Toughness

Imagine playing with other players being strong in a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG.

I was to play Solo Online RPG.

There are counters but no one wants to dedicate their build to counter ball groups. They want to use their solo build Vs 12 organised player groups.

Nebbles

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Imagine playing with other players being strong in a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG.

I was to play Solo Online RPG.

Ah the usual old 'but maw it's an MMO!' retort that totally misses the point.

Tsuriel

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Imagine playing with other players being strong in a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG.

Imagine not having anyone to fight, it's gradually happening.

Desiato

It's because PVP is an afterthought.

For years, their combat design goals have been focused on making PVE content more accessible to all players. They want the skyrim casuals to get into content like trials an infinite archive by raising the floor and lowering the ceiling. This usually has a negative impact on PVP which they don't seem to mind at all. Probably because PVP offers so little value to most of their customers.

Ball groups are just one of many problems in the game.

It's also not just about ball groups being OP. They've always been OP when played by skilled group players. The problem now is the OP floor is so high anyone can do it and the meta isn't fun for former ball group players.

The old meta had more of a risk/reward element to it. There was the potential to get a lot of kills, but mistakes could easily wipe a group. Current ball groups are often composed of very low skil players that don't kill very much but are difficult to kill because the meta is so fault tolerant.

SeaGtGruff

I don't think it's a developer issue so much as a playerbase issue. There are players who enjoy playing in ball groups as much as other players strongly dislike playing against ball groups.

I'm not much good at PvP, but that usually doesn't stop me from jumping in and having fun with it from time to time. And as a less-than-semiregular visitor to Cyrodiil, it seems to me that which sides are winning and which sides are losing is mostly a matter of time of day, because it seems like each alliance tends to have players who are most active at certain hours of the day. Or maybe it isn't the number of players active at any one time so much as which players are active at that time-- that is, the ones who are really focused on the Alliance War and know what they're doing, versus the ones who (like me) enjoy going to Cyrodiil on occasion for a bit of fun but who don't necessarily know what the best PvP sets and skills and tactics are.

Volendrung can also very quickly make a huge difference in the board, especially if someone who knows what they're doing gets hold of it and uses it to best effect. Last night I was doing a resource-capturing mission for the endeavor and ended up joining a group that was running around with the hammer. We very quickly took back our two scrolls, and rather easily took over several keeps in enemy territory, knocking off another alliance's emperor and establishing our own. It was a lot of fun, but most of the time when I'm in Cyrodiil it's one of the other alliances taking over the board with Volendrung.

Anyway, if you think ZOS can and should do something to counteract ball groups, perhaps you could make some workable suggestions about how they should go about doing that?

Nebbles

'Anyway, if you think ZOS can and should do something to counteract ball groups, perhaps you could make some workable suggestions about how they should go about doing that?'

I'm not a games designer, just a consumer so can only share how I experience 'the product'. What I know is that I want to experience fun. It's not just about winning or losing, you can have fun doing both. What I also know is that expericing ballgroups is not fun. Its not fun fighting them, it's not fun what they do to the macro gameplay.

Couple nights ago, went into cyro, looked at the map, 3 resources tagged on the map with crosshairs. All of them ballgroups. Then I got excited as saw one of our keep flagged that was holding an opposite factions scroll. Great, maybe I'll get a proper seige experience with good old fasioned epic fights, so started making my way over. Message that scroll was picked up, damn am I too late. Nope, just another ballgroup that spent the next 30 minutes running around inside the keep with no intention of reclaming the scroll.

So the exciting options I had for fun was ballgroup a, b, or c. So I logged out.

Cyro is simply not fun anymore, its a shadow of what it used to be. Gone are the epic fights with many different things happening, multiple mini battles going on in the middle of epic fun seiges. Now its just an overpowered ball that brainlessly follows a voice that thinks they're Admiral Nelson as they spam their buttons. So sadly I'm out once my sub finisheds this week.