Can we actually address the issue with ball group instead?

StaticWave · September 24

Yes, sets like Azure Blight or Plaguebreak are a bandaid fix to counter ball groups, but can we address the actual issue making ball groups nigh unkillable - HoT stacking?

Seriously, there have been multiple threads about this topic. The best suggestion I’ve seen was limiting HoTs to 2 instances of the same skill. For example, you can only stack 2 Echoing Vigor, 2 Radiating Regen, 2 Sage’s Remedy, etc.

We don’t need more bandaid fixes. We need the core issue fixed for long term PvP health.

Jsmalls · September 24

This is the 8th thread of the 10 most recent posted on threads with the exact same message.

This isn't too say this thread isn't necessary because it is (we've been asking for the issue to be addressed for a long time).

@ZOS_Kevin

You said you guys look at reoccurring posts regarding the same issue.

Can we get an official response on this reoccurring issue. Please.

RaidingTraiding · September 24

Honestly I think a bigger issue is rush of agony. A lot of groups wouldnt know how to kill anything without crutching off of this set. There's hardly any counterplay to being pulled from the next continent to instant death from a set that has an 8 second cool down, does good damage, has a poor telegraph, and doesn't obey cc rules. Why it was buffed is beyond me. Then you have the same groups running around with 40khp and 40k shields on at all times. IMO those issues need to be looked at first before anything else. Can nerf cross healing all you want, you won't kill groups with that many shields who can just burst heal anyways.

SoloPlayerZP · September 24

Suggested solution: nerf cross healing only by a value (one third would be my suggestion) under battle spirit.

Tommy_The_Gun · September 24

Cross healing is not an issue. Stacking same heals is. On top of that we now have billions of shields from scribing that are stacked too. A group of 12 players should be strong & should be a force to be reckon with, but currently Ball Group's abusive gameplay & ZOS not doing anything about it for over 10 years has lead to Ball Groups playing almost as if it was some kind of cheat code. It is one thing to have a pre-made group that coordinates things and completely other to have a play-style that has no counter at all & converts noobs into immortal gods. Even other Ball Group can not counter other Ball Group.

necro_the_crafter · September 24

Also hadnt seen anyone mention how heal/shields stacking kills role and gear diversity for said groups comps.
Why run quadrilion sets with unique hot effects, purges, etc, when you can stack echoing vigor, radiant regen, all new scribing staff too. Why split roles, when you can have 1-2 people run agony and have 1 dedicated healer for a group of 12? Also what about play the way you want mantra? I want to have a complete group with dedicated range dps squad, healers, cc tanks, melee skirmishers only to end up wiped to 12 peoople with 12 inctances of every hot in the game that spinning steel tornados.

Also RoA has to apply cc imunnity or all the others pulls shouldnt apply any either.

Sedare38 · September 24

Suggestions to help curb ball groups, possibly smallish groups as well and those solos who take apparently 20 people to kill that are also still able to output damage make participants in said ball groups actually have to work for their ap instead of just running over hapless clusters of non-grouped players trying to help:

Limit stacks of the same hot to 2, i.e. you can only have two stacks of echoing vigor on you regardless of the source. This won't impact raids in PVE since at most 2 healers are present.
If you don't limit HOT stacks, reduce the efficacy of HOT healing when Battle Spirit is present for every group member present.
Impose cooldowns on sets that provide damage shields that don't already have them.
Remove the stacking of shields from the same source or reduce the efficacy of consecutive same shields
Reduce the efficacy of shield stacking. Your first shield operates at 100%, any additional goes down by 25%, 50%, 75%. Meaning if you have hardened ward and cast that first it goes at 100%. Barrier is at 75%, Contingency cast is by 50% effective, gear proc 25%, and a 5th shield source is 0% if you have 4 other shields active.
Reduce the amount of shield bonuses Major/minor vitality provides AND reduce the healing Hardened wards provides b/c it's a full get out of jail free card against burst damage.
Improve pull range checks. People still get pulled by agony or DC when they're clearly outside the circles/range. Additional: reduce Agony to 8m from 12. You're gap closing, meaning you're going melee range. Most melee is 7m.
Figure out what is going on with saint and seducer and nerf it b/c a lot of ball groups are using it to stack debuffs. There's a lot more of those users than tarnished . . . Honestly, it should read, you can only be affected by one Saint and Seducer debuff at a time, giving the S&S debuffs their own special classification. Reduce the radius to 8m to be more in line with melee.
CLOSE EXPLOITS ALREADY
REMOVE ANY KIND OF MIAT'S (public or private) OR SIMILAR PRECOGNITION, TRACKING, ETC. I'm tired of seeing people pre-block before I even fire as I queue up a heavy bow or destro attack and they have 0 knowledge I'm running around as I'm the only one in the field. I have 0 detect going on so it's not their eye pulsing if they're hidden, etc. Cheats are still present. Fix them, close them, focus on them. In fact you should have implemented an add-on verification program preventing add-ons from working without approval/review from the get go. You know there are private add-ons doing who knows what.

These are suggestions, and draft ones at that. Augment as necessary, but something needs to be done.

And most important, regain sight of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The give and take of 90% of the builds out there is missing. I see builds running around with high health, high mitigation, amazing rss sustain, AND great damage and not against just my squishy toon, but against other more tanky players. It's ridiculous. You should have NEVER introduced Major/Minor protection into the game, either as part of a gear bonus, simply by slotting a skill, a class passive, or b/c a class/weapon skill was activated. Free mitigation without building into it via class abilities/passives + gear is easy mode and lazy. You need to go back to the give and take of builds. Want survivability? Give up damage. Want damage? Die from a strong breeze. Want to heal, speed, etc, give up something in return. You've fundamentally removed risk and reward from most builds, and I'll bloody say it! Gankers are the only builds who pour everything into damage, are paper thin on defense, and have a lower survivability than most other builds because of it . . . HIGH RISK, HIGH REWARD.

i11ionward · September 24

Since we are talking about ball groups, let me remind you about Snow Treaders. It's pretty cheating to have free permanent ≥55% running speed with no counter play.

xylena_lazarow · September 24

Hard agree about Snow Treaders, deleting counterplay like Oil Catapults and Caltrops is bad for PvP.

huskandhunger · September 24

RaidingTraiding wrote: »

Honestly I think a bigger issue is rush of agony. A lot of groups wouldnt know how to kill anything without crutching off of this set. There's hardly any counterplay to being pulled from the next continent to instant death from a set that has an 8 second cool down, does good damage, has a poor telegraph, and doesn't obey cc rules. Why it was buffed is beyond me. Then you have the same groups running around with 40khp and 40k shields on at all times. IMO those issues need to be looked at first before anything else. Can nerf cross healing all you want, you won't kill groups with that many shields who can just burst heal anyways.

Brilliant, I totally agree that nerfing cross healing alone won't address this issue due to the burst healing so we should look into decreasing healing and shielding to from the current 55% battle spirit values to maybe 60 or 70% or even more if needed. We do need players to die more plain and simple instead of crutching on heals and shields.

Twohothardware · September 24

They need to go hard after group healing inside Cyrodiil. Not a small nerf but a massive nerf because we’ve reached a point where players have such high health and high resistances and so much cross healing that ball grouped players are just not dying and time to kill in the game is like an hour.

virtus753 · September 24

Limit stacks of the same hot to 2, i.e. you can only have two stacks of echoing vigor on you regardless of the source. This won't impact raids in PVE since at most 2 healers are present.

This isn't correct on either count.

It's not true that you only ever see 2 healers at most in one fight in PvE. You can also have situations where you temporarily have none but still need significant heals.

On Chimera in vSE (especially HM), you can end up with dps needing to survive a portal like Lion without a tank and/or healer. Not being able to stack Echoing more than twice means a much higher risk than being able to stack it three or four times. Currently you can have all the dps slot Echoing to give such a group the best chance at surviving. If each HoT can only stack twice, you're looking at dps slotting two group heals to ensure you can get decent output - and that means speccing even further out of damage, creating a greater challenge than already exists. (ETA: You also have the question of communicating on the fly who will run Echoing and who will have to run the other HoT(s), in a situation where communication is already at a premium due to needing to tank the boss and do the crystals.)

On Ansuul HM some groups run a hybrid healer in addition to the 2 full healers to try to survive the massive incoming damage. None of those healers does portals, where you typically want 3 dps and a tank (who can offer some healing but also needs to be able to tank some very hard-hitting attacks). It's not like vSS HM, where the dps can self-heal to mitigate the environmental ramping DoT and should be avoiding damage from the Servant. Stacking Conduit in vSE HM portals means stacking group heals to survive - the alternative to stacking is splitting and getting fried by the flank cleave.

As long as ZOS keeps creating situations in PvE where you need dps to be able to heal others like this, stacking Echoing has a place.

sarahthes · September 24

Fortunately something called Battle Spirit exists that could be used to limit the number of stacking heals in cyrodiil.

Their reluctance to modify battle spirit does sort of make me wonder if it's the cause of cyrodiil lag though. Otherwise surely they'd use it.

Stridig · September 24

Somehow the feedback they are seeing indicates we just want battlegrounds.

Sedare38 · September 25

This isn't correct on either count.

It's not true that you only ever see 2 healers at most in one fight in PvE. You can also have situations where you temporarily have none but still need significant heals.

On Chimera in vSE (especially HM), you can end up with dps needing to survive a portal like Lion without a tank and/or healer. Not being able to stack Echoing more than twice means a much higher risk than being able to stack it three or four times. Currently you can have all the dps slot Echoing to give such a group the best chance at surviving. If each HoT can only stack twice, you're looking at dps slotting two group heals to ensure you can get decent output - and that means speccing even further out of damage, creating a greater challenge than already exists. (ETA: You also have the question of communicating on the fly who will run Echoing and who will have to run the other HoT(s), in a situation where communication is already at a premium due to needing to tank the boss and do the crystals.)

On Ansuul HM some groups run a hybrid healer in addition to the 2 full healers to try to survive the massive incoming damage. None of those healers does portals, where you typically want 3 dps and a tank (who can offer some healing but also needs to be able to tank some very hard-hitting attacks). It's not like vSS HM, where the dps can self-heal to mitigate the environmental ramping DoT and should be avoiding damage from the Servant. Stacking Conduit in vSE HM portals means stacking group heals to survive - the alternative to stacking is splitting and getting fried by the flank cleave.

As long as ZOS keeps creating situations in PvE where you need dps to be able to heal others like this, stacking Echoing has a place.

HoT stacking then could be rectified through Battlespirit. Easy fix and won't destroy PVE raids.

Aldoss · September 25

i11ionward wrote: »

Since we are talking about ball groups, let me remind you about Snow Treaders. It's pretty cheating to have free permanent ≥55% running speed with no counter play.

This. So hard.

A mythic that removes one of the strongest counters to ball group mechanics that is perfectly counterable by jewelry, CP, and a person running ONE skill that gives the entire group Maj + Min Expedition.

No one but ball groups run this mythic and there's a reason why. Ball groups MUST be allowed to be immobilized, at the very least.

Theignson · September 25

Fix Rush of Agony, also

That one set makes me hate the game I've spent (wasted?1) so much time on

Lapin_Logic · September 25

SoloPlayerZP wrote: »

Suggested solution: nerf cross healing only by a value (one third would be my suggestion) under battle spirit.

Just make heals follow the Major Minor system, everyone has an equal playing field.

gronoxvx · September 25

Stridig wrote: »

Somehow the feedback they are seeing indicates we just want battlegrounds.

This. Its the only way you can stop groups like this is to disable grouping and kill cyro. Kill ball groups, zergs will take their place.

Taking away heal stacking would be great, but then people will be crying they die too fast when theyre in a faction stacked fight like hammer. Theyve already addressed "time to kill" issues before which has resulted in the permanent tank meta we have now.

gronoxvx · September 25

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Hard agree about Snow Treaders, deleting counterplay like Oil Catapults and Caltrops is bad for PvP.

The funny thing is a lot of ball groups on console only have support in snow treaders. So its not as much of a clutch as you think.

Siege is already the top counter to ballgroups. Especially with how broken oils and lancers are.

JustLovely · September 25

StaticWave wrote: »

Yes, sets like Azure Blight or Plaguebreak are a bandaid fix to counter ball groups, but can we address the actual issue making ball groups nigh unkillable - HoT stacking?

Seriously, there have been multiple threads about this topic. The best suggestion I’ve seen was limiting HoTs to 2 instances of the same skill. For example, you can only stack 2 Echoing Vigor, 2 Radiating Regen, 2 Sage’s Remedy, etc.

We don’t need more bandaid fixes. We need the core issue fixed for long term PvP health.

I think players should be limited to only one instance of any given heal at any time, with that heal being refreshed whenever anyone else in the group refreshes it, but still only one instance of any HoT active at any given time. That will still leave, at minimum, 3 HoT's on every player in the group at essentially all times. One instance of each HoT is plenty, especially now with scribing heals being added to the game.

JustLovely · September 25

gronoxvx wrote: »

Stridig wrote: »

Somehow the feedback they are seeing indicates we just want battlegrounds.

This. Its the only way you can stop groups like this is to disable grouping and kill cyro. Kill ball groups, zergs will take their place.

Taking away heal stacking would be great, but then people will be crying they die too fast when theyre in a faction stacked fight like hammer. Theyve already addressed "time to kill" issues before which has resulted in the permanent tank meta we have now.

ZOS has never even tried to limit heal stacking, so we don't know how it will play exactly. But we do know people have been asking for this change for close to 10 years to no avail. ZOS isn't listening. ZOS didn't even try limiting heal stacking during those painful months of "performance tests" a few years back.

So until the limitation is implemented we don't know how it will play out, but we do know ZOS has never even tried to implement this limitation despite nearly a decade of people requesting it.

Sedare38 · September 25

gronoxvx wrote: »

Siege is already the top counter to ballgroups. Especially with how broken oils and lancers are.

You're kidding right? Lancers spray, so unless the group is right near where you fire 2 of the 5 shots will more then likely miss, and the camera is hot garbage when at height.

Secondly, while Oils, lancers, and cold fire siege (trebs or ballistas) do do a good a mount of damage, ball groups have so much heals stacked and shields continuously going off they can shrug off the damage. Meatbags are about the only counter as it reduces heals and shields some that if a full group gets hit while being chased by another horde, there might, key word MIGHT, be a window of opportunity to start killing the players.

I've seen siege damage reduced to 2 digits and people dodge the initial hit -- how when it's aoe???? 2,3, or even 5 siege is no longer a solution, deterrent, or does enough damage to stave off ball groups and their stacked heals and shields.

Also, I agree that the snow treader buffs not work if hit with a siege that slows you or with caltrops.

i11ionward · September 26

This is still very similar to the current version, but will require active actions for ball groups to maintain permanent immunity.

EDIT: It is possible to make the duration of immunity dependent on the number of players in the group. For example, 8 seconds if you are alone, and -0.5 seconds for each player in the group (with 12 players the duration will be 2.5 seconds)

EDIT: Of course, to avoid abuse, a small cooldown is needed to obtain immunity, for example:
Immunity to snares and immobilizations can occur once every 5 seconds.

gariondavey · September 26

i11ionward wrote: »

This is still very similar to the current version, but will require active actions for ball groups to maintain permanent immunity.

EDIT: It is possible to make the duration of immunity dependent on the number of players in the group. For example, 8 seconds if you are alone, and -0.5 seconds for each player in the group (with 12 players the duration will be 2.5 seconds)

EDIT: Of course, to avoid abuse, a small cooldown is needed to obtain immunity, for example:
Immunity to snares and immobilizations can occur once every 5 seconds.

Better to just reduce +speed boosts while wearing boots by 50 percent or something like that

Aldoss · September 26

gariondavey wrote: »

i11ionward wrote: »

This is still very similar to the current version, but will require active actions for ball groups to maintain permanent immunity.

EDIT: It is possible to make the duration of immunity dependent on the number of players in the group. For example, 8 seconds if you are alone, and -0.5 seconds for each player in the group (with 12 players the duration will be 2.5 seconds)

EDIT: Of course, to avoid abuse, a small cooldown is needed to obtain immunity, for example:
Immunity to snares and immobilizations can occur once every 5 seconds.

Better to just reduce +speed boosts while wearing boots by 50 percent or something like that

Great suggestion.

Snowtreaders is an example of a mythic that doesn't quite follow the usual "give something up to get something great" concession. Not being able to sprint isn't a problem with how easily sourced movement speed bonuses are in this game.

If you want to be immune from snares (and we all know that 99% of the players using this set are ballgroupers), you shouldn't be allowed to bypass the downside by having 1 person in your group spamming Charging Maneuver.

Faulgor · September 26

Funnily, I think Snowtreaders would be more balanced if it allowed for sprinting, but no other movement speed buffs. At least then you'd have to spend stamina.

MincMincMinc · September 26

Snowtreaders would be fine, if it was back in the day where you could only get a 10% or 30% speed buff..... but now it is easily achievable to stack up to 90+ movement speed which basically makes you at sprint speed at all times. I cover this issue more on my movement speed thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/666066/movement-and-speed-must-be-addressed#latest

Otherwise the one major change against ball groups and groups in general is hot stacking. I would argue to go back to no dots or hots stacking, but dot stacking is practically needed now in pve or else people would have to actually coordinate builds.... what ever would they do?

Casual players may cry since they dont understand it. They will say, oh but this just helps the 1vX players and hurts zergs. (again what ever will they do when one of their 40 players can spam a dot). In reality it helps the casuals since they can be safer branching out from the zerg. We might be able to see the casual player be able to play solo for once. Currently they are just stuck in two zerg groups eternally running to each other's front door.

Also not to mention the server calc reduction. 12 players casting a hot comes out to 144 ticks per second checking the server and other clients......that's insane that they are allowed to be equivalent to 144 solo players with no limitations. Multiply that 144 times the number of hots they run...... it only gets worse.

Kartalin · September 26

Hot stacking is a problem, but don't forget shield stacking:

Our group is kind of middle of the road compared to other ball groups, for context.