Cast / stream for more group oriented players to answer questions / discussions

Crown · January 2016

There are a lot of people with good questions about group play that don't get answered, and players who have made assumptions or been given sub-optimal information that is impacting their performance / game play.

I've been thinking about doing an hour (ish) long stream to answer questions, discuss builds, gear, skills, strategies, and play styles for group oriented play. If there are any particular topics or questions that you believe should be prepared for - or things that you would particularly like to see discussed, please let me know!

We'll probably try to get 2-3 more group leaders for discussions and different perspectives. Chat will most definitely be heavily moderated.

Cinnamon_Spider · January 2016

Can you please explain what "the meta" means?

Crown · January 2016

Cinnamon_Spider wrote: »

Can you please explain what "the meta" means?

I'll be sure to start out with that!

Opux · January 2016

What skills do you recommend for group PvP? Why is that skill steel tornado? Does it really need to be in all 5 ability slots? I don't have proximity detonation yet, what skill would you recommend I fill my back bar with?

Ok, I joke, but only a little bit.

Ignoring the issue of aoe caps, what changes do you think would improve group play? Do you think ball groups are a good thing for the game to support?

hammayolettuce · January 2016

Sounds fun

BigTone · January 2016

That would be really interesting, but you would have to make sure that it does not turn into players blaming lag and fall damage deaths on other guilds.

Crown · January 2016

@BigTone As much as many people dislike it, using skills as presented / available in the game and the resulting mechanics is not exploiting. It may be a cheap way to win, but that's subjective as I've often said, "dead is dead and points are points". I'm not advocating for or against, just making a statement on how it is at present.

Casting a meteor while people are on stairs is just as valid as casting one when people are on level ground. The game has a fall damage bug, though the player is not responsible for it. When players use skills that cause fall damage in that context, they may be looked down on by their peers, though most don't care as, "dead is dead and points are points".

Using camo hunter with certain skills will double proc at 20k damage to vampires. That's obviously a bug, though it's not reasonable to tell everyone to stop using camo hunter - so a lot of people have dropped vamp while waiting for it to be fixed. Those who use it are going to be called names, and it's hard for many to get past the "everyone uses it so why shouldn't I" attitude. We can not police our fellow players, and complaining to ZOS (shout out to @ZOS_GinaBruno ) brings it to their attention though the time-to-fix is obviously not going to be instant.

After the third time in ten minutes that an 8 person group gets wiped by a 40 person double-group, the 8 person will often try doubling in size to see if they have more success. We all know the game is about numbers, and some can be successful, but if 40 people ball up tightly there's little to no chance of 8 taking them out. There will then be name calling and zerg-title-slinging towards the people who would prefer to run 8, but are forced by game mechanics and design to run more if they want to succeed. It sucks for the next group of 8 who runs into the now-group of 16 and loses due to numbers what would have otherwise been a good fight.

I expect that these and similar topics will be brought up, and to me they're pretty cut and dry. A minute long explanation and there's not much use going on and on about the same thing.

BigTone · January 2016

@Crown I agree with you. It is not the responsibility of the players to not use broken skills, it's the responsibility of ZoS to fix them. It's not the responsibility of the players to not ball up into forty man groups when game mechanics promote this type of game play. It's up to ZoS to disincentavise multiple groups stacking in one place.