Ballgroups have no counter!

Aedrion · December 2020

Yea I know, this topic again.

If you're part of a ballgroup and you're afraid that all these topics about it are going end up getting your playstyle nerfed or your merry train of healspam harmony deleted, get out of here because I'll only end up insulting you and getting banned. Again.

Currently, after the group and heal changes, we're seeing - like literally everybody with a brain and thus nobody at Zo$ saw coming - a golden age of organised PvP guilds running around Cyro, unkillable by 99% of of methods and lagging us all to hell. The problem has gotten so hilarious that they now have no counter. There is no way to beat them asside from multiple organised bombers surprising them. And if you don't believe me, tell me a tactic that works on a good ballgroup that isn't multiple bombers jumping in and praying that they start a vicious death sequence.

You can't.

"Just negate them."
-> When they reach 50% HP earthgore procs and removes your negates. They also run counter negates.

"Just snare and immobilise them"
-> They run full snow threaders and are immune to snares. This means you also can't snare them in a negate.

"Siege them with oils and meatbags"
-> Purgebots remove all dots moments after having been applied

"Bomb them"
-> They have 28k HP or more, some run around with 32k+, one bomber cannot do this.

"Ulti dump them"
-> Radiating Regen and Echoing Vigour alone result in ~10k healing per 2 seconds, that's not counting active healing. By the time you follow up your ult, they're already back at 100% HP.

"Faction stack them"
-> Harmony spam will delete you in 2 seconds. 10K syngeries all over. God help us when healing orbs work again...

"Find the weak ones and hammer them with burst!"
-> Necro ult, at your service.

"Well they're slow due to threaders so catch them and then negate plus bomb."
-> Rapids spam means +45% move speed permanently AND they can cast skills while they're that fast. You cannot catch them.

"Proc them up because not only do we have ballgroups to deal with, we've also got yet another proc meta, thanks Zo$"
-> Purgebots, remember? Your proc will tick once, then it'll be gone.

"Bring... our own ballgroup?"
-> Yes... yes well done. More lag, and everybody that is trying to play the game with a well rounded, self sufficient build can go fudge themselves. If this is your argument, it's wishing for the death of any kind of meaningful PvP that isn't a dude spamming rapids, two dudes spamming, purge and everybody spamming radiating regen and echoing vigour."

I've been in a ballgroup before so don't assume I'm some salty bowtard in a zerg that got run over. This gameplay is the result of Zo$ slamming the hammer on faction stacking - must've been an intern's job coz that's an actual good decision - so now there's nothing to fight this. And no, bringing back faction stacking isn't a solution.

My suggestions?

When you get purged by any morph of Purge, you cannot be purged again for 10 seconds
-> Now you have to think about when you use it and not just spam it. Timed it badly? Too bad, now you have to heal through oils while defiled.

You can have only one instance of Radiating Regen and Echoing Vigour active
-> Encourage groups to run multiple types of heals and actually work for it. Sure, people will QQ like they did when orbs and Grand healing was changed. This is still required. And don't compare DoT's to HoT's please. You have to work to apply a DoT, HoT's automatically find a recipient. We also can't strip HoT's like we can purge DoTs. And HoT's are much stronger. They're not at all comparable

Earthgore doesn't proc in or remove Negates
-> Earthgore can go sit in a ditch for all I care. What a brainless set. 20 seconds cooldown on something that can delete a 192 ultimate? Get bent. It shouldn't work in a negate.

Nerf or change Harmony
"But it's already been nerfed!" Yea yea, Harmony was always a bad idea that encourages players to build for just harmony. Have this stuff at least have a cooldown or so. In fact, let us pick which synergies we want to see prior and have Harmony have a 6 second cooldown. Then you can set Grave Robber on 1 and kaboom. But not roll the mouse wheel like an Elder Scrolling and spam Conduits, Ignites, Grave Robbers and Gravity Crushes. Still wanna do harmony bombs? Have multiple people build this then.

Delete snow threaders
Mythics are cool but many are stupidly OP and added like Zo$ adds all things. Throwing fudge at the wall and see what sticks. Look, snare immunity while losing the ability to sprint. What can go wrong? Is what you get when you don't play your own game. Malacath is the same. Let's let it buff proc sets, everybody! Why not! Geezus.

There. Fixed. They can still function but would need to rethink and would be much more prone to death if they mess up or aren't good enough.

Also stop the damned proc meta already, can't you see people are tired of it? This is the SECOND time this happens. For fudge's sake!

Rin_Senya · December 2020

I wonder when will people learn that you can't nerf organized group gameplay and stop making QQ posts about it on forums...

Aedrion · December 2020

Rin_Senya wrote: »

I wonder when will people learn that you can't nerf organized group gameplay and stop making QQ posts about it on forums...

"...when people will learn..."
Speak English.

And there are many forms of organised play that are viable and employed daily. But this form, where each person brings a role that uses just a few skills and does 1 thing like Dark Deal and spam rapids, build for sustain and spam Purge or slam on 3 harmony and maximum damage is not only stale, it's entirely overperforming.

But I see Zerg Squad in your tag so whatever dimension you live in, my points must be QQ because you don't like the idea of getting your playstyle toned down. Move along.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · December 2020

Aedrion wrote: »

Rin_Senya wrote: »

I wonder when will people learn that you can't nerf organized group gameplay and stop making QQ posts about it on forums...

"...when people will learn..."
Speak English.

Learn English.

The above phrasing is both written (rather than spoken) and correct in English with the omission of a grammatical comma.
On a forum people write rather than speak.

The poster is posing a thoughtful question 'wondering' "when will people learn that you can't nerf organized group gameplay and stop making QQ posts about it on forums"

Now that that's out of the way.

As you clearly have no reply to their point you choose to try and insult rather poorly. Seems like you don't like the fact that your ideas are not shared amongst many players.

Your solution is basically 'Remove gear'. To which I will respond - 'Ball groups' as you see them have been in the game since the times where gear was almost all purely stat based. (1.1/1.2 - even before this). Regardless of the change you make here they will still be superior due to the coordination and group support style that should be prevalent in an MMO.

Faded · December 2020

Aedrion wrote: »

Earthgore can go sit in a ditch for all I care. What a brainless set. 20 seconds cooldown on something that can delete a 192 ultimate? Get bent. It shouldn't work in a negate.

applause

The devs have been pretty clear that they love* proc sets. They've been known to suddenly 180 on things, but I don't think this will be one of them. No idea what their endgame is on this - maybe hyper-simplification of combat. You may light and heavy attack and decide which procs will be your champions.

Tommy_The_Gun · December 2020

Rin_Senya wrote: »

I wonder when will people learn that you can't nerf organized group gameplay and stop making QQ posts about it on forums...

ZOS did that with battlegrounds. They removed group queue, removing pre-mades vs solo players. Sure, later they re-introduced 2nd queue, re-adding Pre-mades to battlegrounds, but as a separate queue, so we no longe have issue of pre-made stomping solo players.

I see Literally the same issue in Cyro & IC.
Pre-made group vs a bunch of Solo players. It does not matter how good or bad those solo players are. Group will always have an advantage.

ZOS resolved problem in Bgs, so something similar can be done in Cyro or IC, but it will be much harder to achieve (Removing grouping is not an option).
The only way imho this could be done is through battle spirit, so we would have some kind of buff/de-buff that gets stronger the more people are in a group. So for example, skills will get weaker / more expensive the more people are in a group etc.

Alternatively it could be done with some skills or sets, but it would require to make a condition that will check group size and scale accordingly.

Primary example imho, why groups are better:
Efficient Purge (Cost: 5400 Magicka): Cleanse yourself and your group, removing up to 3 negative effects immediately.

If I cast it in a group, all 12 people take the benefit. If I cast is solo, only I get the benefit - but it still costs me 5400 Magicka.

There are more examples of stuff like this that favours ball groups on top of numbers and coordination & combos those groups have.

Now look, it is not about noob vs pro.
It is more like your skill & experience does not matter as you get zerged by them. The only thing that most experienced solo players will do is to get out of the ball group's way so they can have their "fun". When they are done, you can back to normal and resume playing.

Aedrion · December 2020

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Aedrion wrote: »

Rin_Senya wrote: »

I wonder when will people learn that you can't nerf organized group gameplay and stop making QQ posts about it on forums...

"...when people will learn..."
Speak English.

Learn English.

The above phrasing is both written (rather than spoken) and correct in English with the omission of a grammatical comma.
On a forum people write rather than speak.

The poster is posing a thoughtful question 'wondering' "when will people learn that you can't nerf organized group gameplay and stop making QQ posts about it on forums"

Now that that's out of the way.

As you clearly have no reply to their point you choose to try and insult rather poorly. Seems like you don't like the fact that your ideas are not shared amongst many players.

Your solution is basically 'Remove gear'. To which I will respond - 'Ball groups' as you see them have been in the game since the times where gear was almost all purely stat based. (1.1/1.2 - even before this). Regardless of the change you make here they will still be superior due to the coordination and group support style that should be prevalent in an MMO.

Did you read his sentence? You either write "I wonder when people will..." or 'I wonder, when will..." or' I wonder... when will...' with some indication of a pause in between.
Don't try to lecture me when you're illiterate, please. You must be American or British, half of them can't form correct sentences in their own language.

And what exactly was their reply? One line that didn't include any details beyond 'You can't change anything.' Give me a break.

And yes, I know ballgroups used to run multiple wardens with shalks and Spin2Win and before that they ran Eyes of Flame and before that they bumped up stats as high as they would go and supported eachother with buffs. I was in those groups. I played a vicious death Magsorc with Eye of Flame and Fury back in the day.

But what ballgroups could accomplish then and what they can accomplish now, many years later, is beyond compare. Many sets, items, skills and traits have been added that kept making them more effective.

Will an unorganised zerg kill a ballgroup after my suggestions? No, because most of them are bad and it's uncoordinated play versus very well coordinated play. But right now, nobody can touch them. Not even a group of 7-8 players that work together to drop negates, time ultis and have some support from random zerglings can drop them.

They've become untouchable by anyone except another ballgroup. If you can't see that a gamestyle with no counters except the adoption of that playstyle by everybody else is bad for the game's PvP, I suggest you go waste your time in the Lore forum.

Aedrion · December 2020

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

...

I see Literally the same issue in Cyro & IC.
Pre-made group vs a bunch of Solo players. It does not matter how good or bad those solo players are. Group will always have an advantage.

...

There's a difference between "Zerglings that run unoptimized builds and aren't in voice chat can't beat them" and "Another group of people that is also in voice chat and is coordinating their attacks and movement can't beat them because they each have self more sufficient builds. Builds that haven't adopted the same hive-role system that banks off of mechanics like harmony, Proxy Det and vicious death to wipe people out."

When you catch one of these drones out of their group, they're free kills. Because they have adopted a playstyle geared entirely toward fighting in the most optimal way. And sure, that should be allowed but when that one way of play dominates the game in the way it currently does, you have a serious problem. No different from overperforming sets that are used by everybody because they're too strong.

Is it logical that people use these? Yes. I use Malacath because it's grossly OP but I will never say that it should not be nerfed. Half of what I use should be nerfed to be frank. But it's up to Zo$ to recognise the issue. People who defend broken things while using them are either too afraid to have their power taken away from them or too stupid to understand what a healthy PvP environment looks like.

VaranisArano · December 2020

The current situation is unbalanced in favor of ball groups, largely due to ZOS' decisions on "behavioral changes." They've always been dominant, but when ZOS seriously weakens their PUG opponents, the slaughter gets pretty brutal.

That beings said, actually nerfing them is hard.

Stacked HOTs and Purge changes would at least by something new ZOS could try.
As for Earthgore, Harmony, and Mythic Items, organized raids dominated their campaigns before those existed. Changing those tools would make a difference in the current meta, but at most, it'll trigger organized raids to look for a new meta.

We're in the situation we are for a couple of reasons.

1. ZoS can't nerf the actual strengths of ball groups. Organized groups have voice comms, dedicated players willing to coordinate their gear, skills, and movement, and experienced leaders vs PUGs who often have none of the above. You'd have to ban voice comms or cut the group size even further to really nerf this stuff (and lowering group size is a real mixed bag overall, since new, casual, and PUG players tend to do even worse in small scale than they do in 12-man groups.)

Update after update, we see ZOS change the meta of ball groups, but their players do exactly what we see good PVE trial groups do in the same situation. They theorycraft, figure out what's most effective, and switch over to the new meta.

So the best ZOS has managed is what you hope for: ball groups "can still function but would need to rethink [their builds] and would be much more prone to death if they mess up or aren't good enough."

As we've seen, they tend to rethink their builds, and come back as dominant as ever.

2. When ZOS tries to nerf organized groups, they usually nerf PUGs worse, which helps keep the ball groups in a dominant position.

We've got a perfect example right now: in removing the ability of organized raids to run more than 12 players or receive/give healing outside of their group, ZOS in their infinite wisdom, decided that PUGs also no longer get the advantage of numbers, and instead have to compete vs ball groups with only the heals and buffs provided by 12 disorganized players. Predictably, this is wildly unbalanced in favor of the 12-man ball group, who has voice comms and coordinated sets, buffs, healing, movement, and attacking vs a PUG 12-man who most likely has none of that and may not even have a single dedicated healer in their group.

Another example I remember: during Summerset, ZOS buffed siege weapons. Siege got pretty murderous and really tested our raid's healers. We died a lot in sieges that beforehand we'd have lived through thanks to that damage. The result was that only organized raids with their dedicated healers could stand up to the increased damage during heavy keep battles, while PUGs got slaughtered. ZOS reverted the siege buffs.

I think you've hit on another example when you suggest reducing heal stacking with the reason: "Encourage groups to run multiple types of heals and actually work for it."

Which groups are actually going to work at it?
Ball groups who can afford to run one or more dedicated healers to spam multiple types of healing, while being protected by the group's damage dealers.

Which groups probably can't do it?
Look, I've healed PUGs. As spread out as most of my PUGs were, there is no way I'm effectively healing them with more than a couple different heals. Heck, some of them are scattered so far I can't reach without Mutagen, so they sure aren't cross healing the rest of us. Frankly, most of them aren't that great at self-healing themselves, especially if they are new, casual, or inexperienced. I'm certainly not spamming my different heals the way I would in my guild raid because I've still got to defend myself.

And all that assumes that there is a dedicated healer in the PUG raid - with this recent change meaning a number of healers are LFGing less, that's not guaranteed to be the case. So we wind up with the case of a 12-man ball group with coordinated sets, buffs and dedicated healers who can spam many different heal skills to keep their group alive vs a 12-man PUG who's maybe got whatever healer they grabbed from zone chat and a few cross heals that now don't stack. I bet I know who's gonna win.

At a certain point, it doesn't matter how badly you nerfed the ball group if you nerfed their opposition into an even worse position.

But hey, at least your suggestion to nerf Purge and Stacked HOTs is something ZOS hasn't tried before!

Edited: new phone, autocorrect in training. No, phone, it's "Earthgore" not "Earthworm."

Psiion · December 2020

Greetings all,

As there is already a thread open on this subject, and this thread has derailed into Flaming, we have gone ahead and closed it down as a duplicate. If anyone would like to continue discussion on this topic, feel free to do so on the currently open thread here. However, we ask that everyone keep the Forum's Community Rules in mind when posting or replying.

Flaming: It’s okay to disagree and debate on the official ESO forums, but we do ask that you keep all disagreements civil, constructive, and on-topic. If a discussion gets heated and turns into a debate, remember that you should stick to debating the post and/or thread topic. It is never appropriate to resort to personal comments or jabs about those participating in the thread discussion.