Urzigurumash wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

It still plagues BGs as well, causing play patterns where the RoA user will keep blindly charging into the opposing team (and dying) until they get a lucky chain reaction off some poor exploding noob. All gambling, no skill.

Thankfully this set doesn't appear in 4v4s on Xbox NA. Why do you suppose that is?

RoA is best used in environments with more players. It's not a single person using Rush of Agony that kills me. It is their 11 buddies spamming PBAoEs and my allies with 16K health who are walking vicious death procs that kill me. Basically Cyrodiil.

Yeah exactly. Not enough fuel for VD so ROA is useless.

But VD is totally innocent?

VD is fine without sets that break the game like RoA. It is frustrating to be in fear of doing a simple thing like repairing a door, but at least solo bombers have a lot of skill to pull off a bomb.

The RoA user literally just presses Ambush and has their 11 buddies nuke everyone that gets yanked. It's the equivalent of the jerk Game-Master who likes nothing better but fill their dungeons and adventurers with super powerful monsters and traps that one shot players and think it's all rather amusing.

RealLoveBVB wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

It still plagues BGs as well, causing play patterns where the RoA user will keep blindly charging into the opposing team (and dying) until they get a lucky chain reaction off some poor exploding noob. All gambling, no skill.

Thankfully this set doesn't appear in 4v4s on Xbox NA. Why do you suppose that is?

RoA is best used in environments with more players. It's not a single person using Rush of Agony that kills me. It is their 11 buddies spamming PBAoEs and my allies with 16K health who are walking vicious death procs that kill me. Basically Cyrodiil.

Yeah exactly. Not enough fuel for VD so ROA is useless.

But VD is totally innocent?

VD is fine without sets that break the game like RoA. It is frustrating to be in fear of doing a simple thing like repairing a door, but at least solo bombers have a lot of skill to pull off a bomb.

The RoA user literally just presses Ambush and has their 11 buddies nuke everyone that gets yanked. It's the equivalent of the jerk Game-Master who likes nothing better but fill their dungeons and adventurers with super powerful monsters and traps that one shot players and think it's all rather amusing.

And once again the ballgroup is the issue, not the set.

No, the set allowing me to be crowd controlled again so the ball group can nuke me is the issue.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

It still plagues BGs as well, causing play patterns where the RoA user will keep blindly charging into the opposing team (and dying) until they get a lucky chain reaction off some poor exploding noob. All gambling, no skill.

Thankfully this set doesn't appear in 4v4s on Xbox NA. Why do you suppose that is?

RoA is best used in environments with more players. It's not a single person using Rush of Agony that kills me. It is their 11 buddies spamming PBAoEs and my allies with 16K health who are walking vicious death procs that kill me. Basically Cyrodiil.

Yeah exactly. Not enough fuel for VD so ROA is useless.

But VD is totally innocent?

VD is fine without sets that break the game like RoA. It is frustrating to be in fear of doing a simple thing like repairing a door, but at least solo bombers have a lot of skill to pull off a bomb.

The RoA user literally just presses Ambush and has their 11 buddies nuke everyone that gets yanked. It's the equivalent of the jerk Game-Master who likes nothing better but fill their dungeons and adventurers with super powerful monsters and traps that one shot players and think it's all rather amusing.

All I'm saying is VD hits too hard these days. Did it get a reduction when Procs could crit again? On Xbox NA it's almost certainly the most popular set, like in 2021 when Proxy Det was nerfed. In fact I'd say it's a VD ROA meta. We also only have Pop Lock primetime Friday and Saturday.

When I get bombed because of where I'm standing, it feels like my fault. When I get pulled into one by a set its just frustrating.

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

It still plagues BGs as well, causing play patterns where the RoA user will keep blindly charging into the opposing team (and dying) until they get a lucky chain reaction off some poor exploding noob. All gambling, no skill.

Thankfully this set doesn't appear in 4v4s on Xbox NA. Why do you suppose that is?

RoA is best used in environments with more players. It's not a single person using Rush of Agony that kills me. It is their 11 buddies spamming PBAoEs and my allies with 16K health who are walking vicious death procs that kill me. Basically Cyrodiil.

Yeah exactly. Not enough fuel for VD so ROA is useless.

But VD is totally innocent?

VD is fine without sets that break the game like RoA. It is frustrating to be in fear of doing a simple thing like repairing a door, but at least solo bombers have a lot of skill to pull off a bomb.

The RoA user literally just presses Ambush and has their 11 buddies nuke everyone that gets yanked. It's the equivalent of the jerk Game-Master who likes nothing better but fill their dungeons and adventurers with super powerful monsters and traps that one shot players and think it's all rather amusing.

All I'm saying is VD hits too hard these days. Did it get a reduction when Procs could crit again? On Xbox NA it's almost certainly the most popular set, like in 2021 when Proxy Det was nerfed. In fact I'd say it's a VD ROA meta. We also only have Pop Lock primetime Friday and Saturday.

Well, when we're talking the decline in PvP population, we're talking about a lot of poor decisions and overall neglect on the part of ZOS. Tiny pop caps, a dead map, unkillable builds, power of organized groups being way too strong, poor overall class balance, inconsistent latency, abusive sets like Rush of Agony, lack of new content, stale meta, no meaningful rewards for winning the AvAvA mechanic, players healing to full health instantly, etc., are all contributing factors why few people choose to log into Cyrodiil (me included. I have spent more time unsubbed/away from game since 2021 than I have played).

I would agree VD isn;t a great mechanic as it discourages people from doing necessary things like repairing doors or flipping flags. AoE pull sets make it much worse, now anyone within a 450 square meter area is now Vicious death fodder. I don;t blame people for not logging in as I more often than not have chosen to play something else.

RealLoveBVB wrote: »

And once again the ballgroup is the issue, not the set.

You can close your eyes, throw yourself into the enemy team, die, and try again until you get lucky with your automated build and get the chain reaction off some random noob. No it isn't a winning strategy, but players still do it, especially in 8v8 BGs, and it's still unfun to deal with every 8 seconds. I can go 14-1 on the winning team but if my 1 death was to some garbage luck automated proc, I leave the match feeling like I wasted my time. No ball groups required.

We've probably all had that one Set, Mythic, or Ability we crutched on hard in a build and myopically felt didn't need a nerf/change/removal, right? It's easy to get caught up in a singular view of something you build around, when it still feels like you're putting in work and playing well to execute.

There's no great shame in that and most or all of us are guilty at times, but that definitely feels like the case with the handful who defend RoA in current format.

RoA is literally broken according to the "rules" of CC in this game, grants already problematic Ballgroups absurd capability with very little effort, and is one of those rare outliers of misery where if you ask 10 players in PVP what set they hate most, you'll hear this one from 9 or so. Only the first one of those statements means a definitive nerf/removal is needed, but the rest are important if you want to keep players actively participating.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

It still plagues BGs as well, causing play patterns where the RoA user will keep blindly charging into the opposing team (and dying) until they get a lucky chain reaction off some poor exploding noob. All gambling, no skill.

Thankfully this set doesn't appear in 4v4s on Xbox NA. Why do you suppose that is?

RoA is best used in environments with more players. It's not a single person using Rush of Agony that kills me. It is their 11 buddies spamming PBAoEs and my allies with 16K health who are walking vicious death procs that kill me. Basically Cyrodiil.

Yeah exactly. Not enough fuel for VD so ROA is useless.

But VD is totally innocent?

VD is fine without sets that break the game like RoA. It is frustrating to be in fear of doing a simple thing like repairing a door, but at least solo bombers have a lot of skill to pull off a bomb.

The RoA user literally just presses Ambush and has their 11 buddies nuke everyone that gets yanked. It's the equivalent of the jerk Game-Master who likes nothing better but fill their dungeons and adventurers with super powerful monsters and traps that one shot players and think it's all rather amusing.

All I'm saying is VD hits too hard these days. Did it get a reduction when Procs could crit again? On Xbox NA it's almost certainly the most popular set, like in 2021 when Proxy Det was nerfed. In fact I'd say it's a VD ROA meta. We also only have Pop Lock primetime Friday and Saturday.

Well, when we're talking the decline in PvP population, we're talking about a lot of poor decisions and overall neglect on the part of ZOS. Tiny pop caps, a dead map, unkillable builds, power of organized groups being way too strong, poor overall class balance, inconsistent latency, abusive sets like Rush of Agony, lack of new content, stale meta, no meaningful rewards for winning the AvAvA mechanic, players healing to full health instantly, etc., are all contributing factors why few people choose to log into Cyrodiil (me included. I have spent more time unsubbed/away from game since 2021 than I have played).

I would agree VD isn;t a great mechanic as it discourages people from doing necessary things like repairing doors or flipping flags. AoE pull sets make it much worse, now anyone within a 450 square meter area is now Vicious death fodder. I don;t blame people for not logging in as I more often than not have chosen to play something else.

For me, the turning point was dark convergence. Introducing aoe pulls into pvp turned cyro into a shell of what it once was literally overnight. This was the single most destructive design decision zos has ever made imho and then they doubled down with this by putting roa in the game and making it even worse than DC.

I effectively quit cyro shortly after. Battles of any kind, small scale, epic ava and even solo was never the same.

It is incredibly discouraging and the opposite of enjoyable when you log in, approach a battle of any kind, and just hope no one is wearing a set because of how ridiculously strong it is. I don't think most people want this gaming experience in an mmo.

Urzigurumash wrote: »

All great points JoyDivision. The only one there I disagree with is latency, performance in Main Camp has never been better for us than these past few years. We also had a new console and an update of the game for that new console that might make things different for us in that regard.

A major complication here, when we tie everything you said together, and which might justify some hesitancy to disable RoA in PvP: are VD and RoA somewhat designed to improve server performance? Do they work well to that end? If so, is it just from demotivating stacking, or from helping to keep the pop low due to frustrating players?

Since you genuinely want to have a conversation about this set, I will do my best to answer your questions.

VD was definitely designed to punish stacking, ZOS told us that upfront and players stacking was a much complained topic back in 2015-2016, so much so that ZOS literally asked us on these forums to spread out. You are 100% correct in this.

We can only speculate as to the reason for RoA. The complaints of PvP changed quite a bit since 2015, to say nothing of the very reduced pop caps, which did much to make performance better and make it such that there weren't many people to stack in the first place. If I had to guess, it is a combination of two factors, The first would be the general powercreep we get with every Chapter because ZOS incentives us to buy ESO additions with powerful gear sets. Second would be the unceasing complaints directed at ZOS because of "ball groups." ZOS probably felt an AoE pull would give people a counter against organized group play by designing a set that would forcibly move them to a single spot where they could be nuked down.

That's not wrong in theory. "Ball groups" use this set on each other (as well as when 12v1ing solo players), as it's usually quite effective in pulling in 3 or 4 people who fail to block and secure potential kills.

ZOS gave us Two AoE pulls sets for the Waking Flame DLC in Summer 2021: Rush of Agony and Dark Convergence.

Super, super significant: Rush of Agony was a PvE dropped set. According to ZOS's own admission, where a set drops is its intended audience. As much as I hate RoA, there is a hint of logic to double CCing PvE mobs. I still remember how frustrated our Dragonstar Arena tank was when after pulling in archers and using talons, they would just walk away.

Dark Convergence was released during the same update and was specifically a PvP set, so it was intended to be the PvP pull set. Dark Convergence respected CC immunity. At least in August 2021, ZOS did seem to recognize that certain mechanics should work differently in PvE and PvP.

As was argued by numerous people during that PTS, Dark Convergence was a busted set (it was stronger than RoA). ZOS didn;t really listen, the set went live, and the forums were flooded with complaints about this set because everyone was using it, people were getting pulled through walls and dying en masse. This just goes to show just how strong AoE pulls are even when they respect CC immunity. So ZOS nerfed the set a couple times to its current state where it is merely really good.

Every organized group in the game wanted something better, and RoA, which escaped any nerf because all the fuss was about Dark Convergence, was there waiting for them. So all of them adopted it and haven't looked back since because it's doing everything that the old broken Dark Convergence set did: pull people through walls and killing them en masse.

As to why ZOS remains committed to RoA, we can only speculate. Maybe they just don't want to admit it made it mistake. Maybe they have no clue what's going on night after night in Cyrodiil. Maybe some of them are biased in favor of ball groups because they run in them. Maybe it's because they are so out of touch with PvP, they think RoA is really helping us out against those pesky "ball groups," similarly to how they thought putting a burst heal on a magicka stacking sorcerer shield was a good thing or that running around with a dozen HOTs is a good thing.

I don't think its about server performance because as you point out the latency in the main campaign is much better now than it was say in 2016 (mostly because pop caps are so small). If they really were concerned about latency, then they would reign in the server exploding calculations caused by ball groups spamming HoTs, rapids, AoE shields, etc., rather than empowering these very same ball groups by letting them destroy what few pugs are left, who don;t put nearly as much strain on the servers. Such thinking would be counter-productive.

The Battleground Livestream hosted by ZOS (since taken down) was a real eye opener to me just how unaware ZOS's devs are about what we'll say is the PvP meta or even how PvP is played in 2024-2025. I dont think they realize these organized groups have gotten so powerful they regularly get 70:1 kill ratios or just how reliant "ball groups" are on RoA to get those 70:1 ratios.

If nothing else comes from this ptr I just want to see RoA nuked

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

If DK Leap is going to break the rules, then Rush of Agony can too. It's fine the way it is as long as Leap is fine the way it is.

DK Leap doesn’t, or at least isn’t supposed to, violate CC Immunity. It also spreads people out away from each other, meaning it is significantly less useful to combo with VD

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

If DK Leap is going to break the rules, then Rush of Agony can too. It's fine the way it is as long as Leap is fine the way it is.

If we're going to have rule breakers I vote that DKs can leap into keeps again.

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

If DK Leap is going to break the rules, then Rush of Agony can too. It's fine the way it is as long as Leap is fine the way it is.

DK Leap doesn’t, or at least isn’t supposed to, violate CC Immunity. It also spreads people out away from each other, meaning it is significantly less useful to combo with VD

It does violate though. One DK can do 3 CC effects in a row. Stun, immobilize, immobilize again with leap. It holds you in place for a guaranteed hit. As long Leap breaks the rules, there is no argument against Rush of Agony.

Sure there is. Fix both. Person A robs a bank. That doesn't mean Person B can too. Absolutely flawed logic.

Just have it apply CC immunity as per the rules of the game. The rest, I can deal with.

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

While both A and B are currently allowed to rob a bank, the thought process that has been going on in these threads is that.

Rushing Agony pulls the entire bank vault directly into your personal account, and somehow it's legal.