Area-of-Effect Abilities - Maximum Target Cap Clarification

dragnier · June 2014

Corithna wrote: »

I think you also have to look at the fact that aoe caps are not just about PvP. Multiple mobs with abilities that rely on mob interactions are the primary source of PvE difficulty. No aoe cap means that even a pack of 500 mobs can be burned to the ground in no time. And while that might feel satisfying to a group of players who do so, it is hell to try and create ability balance between single target and aoe spells. In a game that incorporates both of these types of spells in an environment that is focused on large groups of mobs working together, aoe caps are essential.

Case in point, one of the trials was run by a group of players in about 11 minutes if the information I've read is correct. The way this was accomplished was the players ran straight to each boss pulling all the trash pull mobs with them into a single aoe fireball visible of space. They spammed healing during the run to the next encounter to build up ultimate points only to rinse and repeat through the entire encounter. Clearly these tactics were effective. However it is equally clear that such tactics were not within the intended game play experience.

It is a very important aspect of this game that both the PvP experience and the PvE experience ability wise/equipment wise, match. This is a huge departure from the normal tactics of other MMO's. Instead what we see are a subset of skills that are designed to work in the PvP space much more effectively. All this crying about aoe caps is amazing to me in that PvP players are sad that PvE abilities are being being made to work well in PvE.

The excellent player in any game doesn't spend his time on the boards complaining about changes. They are instead in the game figuring out exactly what those changes have done to their builds. They are thinking, planning, and executing changes to their tactics and perhaps even to their builds when warranted. These are the players who will excel regardless of changes that happen. And yes this applies to both the PvP and PvE crowd. Sure they may read and learn, listen and watch. But by and large they are just out there working the system.

You know the most important factor in any game is it's entertainment value. Is it fun to play. Go out and have fun with this and lighten up guys.

Did you know that the testers for Craglorn and Trials didn't have access to crafted gear sets without leveling up the crafts, pvp skills of any kind (no Siege Shield, no Barrier, no pvp buffs such as emperor or scrolls), or fully leveled guild skills? (I had to lvl magelight to rank four to morph it, though it did max rank after that)

How were they supposed to fully test those things if they weren't available?

Even now, there is no template on the PTS with maxed crafting, maxed guild skills, or pvp skills of any kind. (Even though they said they made the template have max guild skills, it didn't work and they haven't fixed it yet.)

If the testers don't have access to these kind of things to test them with the content, how are they supposed to give true feedback about how the content performs?

As for the PvE vs. PvP balance issue, perhaps it is time to split the skills? (i.e. skill A works one way in PvE but differently in PvP) That has been very helpful to balance in many games.

smassareub17_ESO · July 2014

Actually...there is a very natural AOE cap in place: the area of effect. You can only effect "mobs" that are in that area and not without. Why you need a CAP other than that makes no sense. There will only ever be a certain group in that area so why the artificial cap? I really wonder if all these DEVs EVER play the game for fun?? That is the purpose, yes? So have at it....no caps on the AOEs and let peeps just AOE each other until they are exhausted from all the fun.

briandivisionb16_ESO · July 2014

Hi guys. Might seem a bit self-important. However, I'd like to draw attention to my thread http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/122609/the-horrible-aoe-cap?new=1

RSram · July 2014

Maybe a solution to having 50 players huddled together spamming the AOE ability would be to enable player collision just in the PVP zone . In my experience, this shouldn't effect me doing PVE in Cyrodiil as there is really not many players I seem to come across. Although I don't know how this would affect the new Imperial City update.

With collision enabled, only the players in the outer ring would be effective in spamming their AOE abilities with an overlap of maybe 6 or 9 AOE abilities creating damage.

Just my 2 cents.

Rich

BossTuggles · July 2014

The basis of any AoE skill in any game is that the skill affects the "AREA" therefore "ANYTHING" in that area should be hit. These caps promote people from abusing this by having everyone tighten up in a ball and allowing an AoE to only hit what 6-12 RANDOM PEOPLE. IN THE MEANTIME SMART HEALING allows you to heal these people instantly and incredibly too easy. Just think about it. To Combat AoE in this game you group up? That is just ass backwards.

People saying that removing AoE cap will allow smaller numbers to kill larger numbers. Since when is this a bad thing? If there are 20 or so people standing next to eachother with no fuckign awareness to look around them to see a group of 6 or so coming at them. These idiots deserve to die and they need to LEARN THROUGH THE DIENG that they need more awareness and in turn get better. I know its tough to hear but NOT EVERYONE CAN BE THE BIGGEST BADDEST *** ON THE BLOCK, NOT EVERYONE GETS A FREAKING TROPHY. MAN THE *** UP AND LEARN TO PLAY LIKE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE KILLING YOU. LEARN. Everything all of the anti-aoe cap people have said from DAY 1 of this thread that would happen with this has.

Just look at all of the skills. Close to EVERY support or healing AoE ability has a higher cap than any CC/Damaging ability.

Rune_Relic · August 2014

The AOE cap is the only thing keeping spellcasters in check to some degree.

"Smart Damage" is the only way to combat "Smart Heal". This way damage also focuses on the weakest players that are being healed the most.
That puts everyone in a stalemate with magicka until resources run out or melee fighters take out the players.

Could a zerg of light armour healers destroy a heavy armour army with stick melee ?
lol

Anyway, this is why you use real world physics as a basis for combat mechanics or everything turns to crap. Grief or not.

Paladin_echo1 · August 2014

I could care less bout this keeping people in check. AT the moment when you see a true hardcore guild stack up and pop barrier, if you are not in stealth on the other side of the screen, you are getting your face mowed like a lawn. Case and point, they need to look at many of the moves and upgrade their aoe caps. I say to at least 10. A WALL of ELEMENTS should be a wall, and not a shallow speedbump that only effects 6 people.

This 6 person AOE cap has a bad exploit to where people know about this crap and purposely stack in zergball guild and are virtually untouchable when they charge because you cannot hit the exact same 6 people in that ball. Id rather have people have higher AOE cap than low piece of trash zergballs running around virtually invulnerable.