Maintenance for the week of January 20:
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – January 20
• NA megaservers for maintenance – January 22, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EST (14:00 UTC)
• EU megaservers for maintenance – January 22, 9:00 UTC (4:00AM EST) - 14:00 UTC (9:00AM EST)
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – January 20
• NA megaservers for maintenance – January 22, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EST (14:00 UTC)
• EU megaservers for maintenance – January 22, 9:00 UTC (4:00AM EST) - 14:00 UTC (9:00AM EST)
What about anti-zerg techniques ?
trimsic_ESO
✭✭✭✭✭
People who play very close to each other in a raid have many advantages: they can have support, heal, buff, and they can deal a huge amount of damage all around them.
This is due to the fact that this game proposes a large palette of PBAOE spells. These PBAOE spells are very powerful, both for a defensive or offensive stance, and as long as you keep moving as a pack there is no reason for a raid not to use or even abuse of these spells. The resulting meta-game is very poor, and quite boring in the long run.
I would have expected a panel of techniques meant to force a stacking raid to split. But unfortunately none of them is currently efficient or even viable.
Let's take an example: the negate magic ultimate. In theory, this is a great anti-zerg ability, that can be used to counter a raid of people stacking pulsar within a short zone. But in practice, if you action immovable while being in a negate zone, then you can cast your spells again.
Does it work as intended? I don't know. But negate magic, dark talons, etc... can be too easily countered, resulting in a situation where there is nothing to counter a mass of people stacking together.
And as a zerg of 100+ people can easily TP from anywhere on the map to any forward camp (just go to the closest enemy camp and get killed by the guards), it can easily defend the most important keeps without having to spread all over the map.
Hence my suggestions:
This is due to the fact that this game proposes a large palette of PBAOE spells. These PBAOE spells are very powerful, both for a defensive or offensive stance, and as long as you keep moving as a pack there is no reason for a raid not to use or even abuse of these spells. The resulting meta-game is very poor, and quite boring in the long run.
I would have expected a panel of techniques meant to force a stacking raid to split. But unfortunately none of them is currently efficient or even viable.
Let's take an example: the negate magic ultimate. In theory, this is a great anti-zerg ability, that can be used to counter a raid of people stacking pulsar within a short zone. But in practice, if you action immovable while being in a negate zone, then you can cast your spells again.
Does it work as intended? I don't know. But negate magic, dark talons, etc... can be too easily countered, resulting in a situation where there is nothing to counter a mass of people stacking together.
And as a zerg of 100+ people can easily TP from anywhere on the map to any forward camp (just go to the closest enemy camp and get killed by the guards), it can easily defend the most important keeps without having to spread all over the map.
Hence my suggestions:
- Limit the range of respawn for the forward camps to their zone of action
- Add a 5 pieces of heavy armor requirement for immovable
- Immovable shall not be able to counter the negate magic zone
- Add some anti-zerg techniques to the game, mainly CC techniques. People shall be strong when they stack together, but when stacking they should take huge risks.
- Add friend / foe collision.
4
-
timidobserver✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭I could go for this but it would be hard trying to balance a technique that is only meant to be effective against zergs.V16 Uriel Stormblessed EP Magicka Templar(main)
V16 Derelict Vagabond EP Stamina DK
V16 Redacted Ep Stam Sorc
V16 Insolent EP Magicka Sorc(retired)
V16 Jed I Nyte EP Stamina NB(retired)0 -
Cyberdown✭✭✭My honest opinion is that they need a system to take into account how many heals are hitting you, how many CC's are hitting you, and how much damage is hitting you...and kind of soft cap how much you can be healed for, how effective CC is, and how much incoming damage you can take when you are being effected by X amount of skills.
I think that capping the total number of players effected by an aoe...doesn't solve the problem, because the solution is just more spam to ensure everyone in the large enemy pack is getting hit...it also leaves RNG of sorts as the deciding factor on exactly who is getting hit when people are packed together...and it will make it more useful to be tightly packed in a blob as to remove any possible "closest targets" get hit vs far away targets.
The only advantage I think to capping aoes is server strain.
I think the perfect solution is to maintain sort of a constant time to kill, taking into account how much heals are hitting you, and how much damage is coming in, resulting in a DK going down with roughly the same effort when a group of 4 with one healer fights a mirror image group as a DK would go down in a massive zerg with possibly 10 healers hitting him and 30 enemies wailing on him.
Right now the problem I see is that a few skills seem to break through heal spam quite well, however outside of healspam, these skills just one shot you...making for encounters where you have zero chance if you don't attack first....however simply nerfing them would mean healers could heal through anything so long as they have enough healers on you..
Same with CC...there are situations where you are just CC locked to infinity...however CC is needed, and for some classes the only form of defense. Nerfing CC makes classes that don't rely on self healing or armor in a bad spot.
Also, I don't care if I used effect correctly or should have used affect. Its late, im tired, and im not getting graded on this.0 -
trimsic_ESO✭✭✭✭✭@timidobserver
One or two efficient anti-zerg techniques would be enough; no need to have plenty of them. The idea is rather simple: if one can have a huge advantage, one shall also have to face huge risks. This is all about balance
This being said, many persons of my guild have stopped playing ESO because of the poor game play. People stacking as hell with pulsar, bats, etc..., have made them sick.
0 -
Lord_Draevan✭✭✭✭✭
✭Turn on friendly fire and remove AoE caps, and those AoE blobs will melt away faster than you can blink. Or they'll kill each other trying to find some way around it, which will be funny to watch.Edited by Lord_Draevan on August 14, 2014 9:36PMI'm a man of few words. Any questions?NA/PC server4 -
Akinos✭✭✭✭✭
✭The best anti zerg techniques are several well placed ultimates and coordination of ultimate synergies.Edited by Akinos on August 14, 2014 11:27PMPC NA | @AkinosPvP 1vX/Small Scaler, Raid Leader, Youtuber and Twitch.tv Streamer.MAGICKA MELEE IS LIFE!Magplar, MagDK, Magden, Magblade, Magsorc & Magcro PvP/Build videos & moretwitch.tv/akinospvp1 -
CapuchinSeven✭✭✭✭✭
✭Frankly I think they should just us fast to deploy arrow cart siege weapons.
The more people you hit with a single AOE shot, the more damage every single person takes (one shot kill if you hit 30 people in one), but does tiny damage to single people, so if you hit only 1 player then they would take tiny damage from it.
That'll stop the chickens bunching up and spamming.0 -
Simplest answer: 3-4 minimum friendly set up siege (fire ballista) watch pugs run in and die to zerg blob. You mark your counts and release at the same time. Still this far into game and so many people dont have any I idia how efficient siege equipment can be. NO PLAYER CAP.Edited by Zanderscotxub17_ESO on August 15, 2014 2:43PM0
-
ghengis_dhan✭✭✭I think the solution for Zergs is to look at real life. Historically, large armies move much slower than smaller armies (logistics and all). Translate that to Cyrodiil.
The more friendly players you have in close proximity, the slower your movement speed. People can still bunch up for safety, but they do so at the expense of speed. This would make coordinated small groups more effective than a large group."It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
Teddy Roosevelt, Paris, 19100 -
Nox_Aeterna✭✭✭✭✭
✭I always wonder really , why people mention the word balance together with the idea that a few should kill many.
There is no balance in that at all.
50x10 should not be a fair fight , the 50 should almost always just crush the 10 , that is the edge of having 50 players in one location working together over just 10.
The logic where small groups should have a fair shot at killing much larger ones in a direct fight makes no sense to me at all."Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
-Hanlon's razor1 -
ghengis_dhan✭✭✭I think it was Sun Tzu who said "Numbers alone do not confer any advantage."
All things being equal, superior numbers will likely win the fight, but we all know that we have players of all skill levels with various kinds of builds...some optimal, some not.
I don't think 10 players will be able to beat 50 players in a straight up fair fight, but I would like to think that in some cases, 10 exceptional players would beat 50 novices running around in a dim-witted zerg ball.Edited by ghengis_dhan on August 16, 2014 6:22AM"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
Teddy Roosevelt, Paris, 19100 -
Nox_Aeterna✭✭✭✭✭
✭ghengis_dhan wrote: »I think it was Sun Tzu who said "Numbers alone do not confer any advantage."
All things being equal, superior numbers will likely win the fight, but we all know that we have players of all skill levels with various kinds of builds...some optimal, some not.
I don't think 10 players will be able to beat 50 players in a straight up fair fight, but I would like to think that in some cases, 10 exceptional players would beat 50 novices running around in a *** zerg ball.
I agree with both things you said , the point here is , that already happens just not often.
Even today i was playing in cyro , the enemy had a zerg ,we kept dying while fighting on the open field and they kept advancing, then our group by the bridge mounted up siege and got an better position , we held them off and they kept dying even if they clearly outnumbered us by a lot.
Was quite neat , but it happened because we used the tools we had on a certain situation.
And i even also believe that 10 fully equipped and good PvP player that work as a team have quite the chance of beating 50 player that just move together and spam skills or atleast make it a good fight.
But some of the ideas people mention have nothing to do with this , they clearly just want 10 to be actually as strong as 50 because playing together in large numbers would actually become a disadvantage."Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
-Hanlon's razor0 -
It was mentionned earlier, but it is worth repeating.
The issues you describe are caused by the aoe target cap.
Remove it and there would be no need for additional anti zerg tools.
People that stack would die instead of having the passive dodge chance they have now. Keep in mind that's 50% for a group of 12, and it inceases with more players. This here is the reason why people should stack. Everything else is cherry on the top.0 -
zazamalek✭✭✭Lord_Draevan wrote: »remove AoE caps
Removing AOE caps increases the effectiveness of zergs: the outcome will become based on who has more numbers. A 6-man team will be able to deal more overall damage but will still explode in seconds - long before they can cause any real harm. They will be significantly out-DPS'd and out-healed. Blaming AOE caps is merely finding a scapegoat, removing them will achieve nothing (if it doesn't make the situation worse).
Removing AOE caps was something that someone, who wanted to sound smart, said back in GW2 without actually really thinking about it. Play a battle out in your head and see how it goes. If you want to see this issue resolved we need to seriously criticize what we have read or we will just be back in the same situation.
Having, or not having, AOE caps has never been a solution to anything. Both make absolutely no difference on how a small group can deal with a zerg, unless AOE long-term CCs (mez) are in play. ZOS said mez wouldn't be in the game so a different solution is needed. You need to invert AOE caps.
Limit the number of AOEs a single player can be affected by: this means that only, say, 6 players out of a 60 man zerg will affect the small group that they come across: everyone else in the zerg will simply be wasting resources. The small groups' AOEs would have no problems with finding targets with "free AOE slots" in the zerg. You are basically turning it from a 60v6 into a 6v6: the only advantage the zerg has is resource abundance. In theory the 6-man team will have a chance at netting some actual kills: unless they are very skilled they probably still die, though (at they should - it is 60v6).
You could do this by having it so that when you receive AOE damage the source is allocated a AOE slot for a few seconds. If AOE can't open a slot on a player it finds another target (it is not outright negated). The player who owns the slot can damage that target as much as they want with AOEs, just not anyone else. This is obviously mutually exclusive to AOE caps, so you would need to remove the cap and add the limit.
The other option is an incoming-AOE cooldown. You can only be affected by AOEs (especially PBAOEs), say, once every 1 second.Edited by zazamalek on August 17, 2014 1:48AM4100 -
murtugo✭✭✭How about implementing Land Mines that would explode and deal increasing damage proportionate to the number of persons affected.
And yes remove AOE caps. This way the PVE players will not be affected.
Just my thought.
Edited by murtugo on August 17, 2014 2:32AM0 -
@zazamalek , you are plain wrong.
What you say removing the cap would do is exactly what having a cap does.
It's just simple math, really.
6 person no matter the system get one shotted against a larger group.
However, with 12 members stacking and a cap of 6, the probability of being hit is of 50%.
Increase to a full raid of 24, and it decreases to 25%.
Increase to a large guild group of 48 and that's 12.5%.
By now you should see the pattern, this is a passive dodge chance that increases proportionaly to group size.
This favors zergs and create a situation where fights are just about numbers.
Remove the caps and 6 people don't have to win the lotery to one shot 6 members of a larger force. Their surprise focus fire will kill whatever is in the targeted zone.
You could be worried that it would make small groups too powerful, but without caps, stacking is not viable, so all fights will be spread out as they are today when fighting uncoordinated forces.
In these situations, there are rarely more than 4-5 individuals in a single area.
As for the other suggestions you've made, they share the same defects than target caps:
- removes penalty for stacking due to aoe invulnerability
- introduces random luck in a competitive setting
- breaks immersion/ is unintuitive
You may think it would help smaller groups, but it would just deprive them of their best tool against larger numbers.
The larger number would suffer less from it as with number difference, they have more unlimited single target firepower. Even without coordination, they have better chances if killing people by luck. With coordination, it will be ons shot after one shot.
Perhaps you should review your mental simulation of battles and try to see how to exploit mechanics.
It feels like you don't take into account that people are greedy.1 -
@zazamalek , haha ,well, you're more optimistic than I am.
Sure they are discussing it, but it has been weeks since they mentioned it, in a single tiny comment.
I'm not holding my breath until we get some sort of first page official response.
Until then, I think it is worth discussing, try to be as constructive as possible, and possibly help them reach a decision.
And if by then, more people understand the issue, then the more will chear on the change.0 -
Nox_Aeterna wrote: »I always wonder really , why people mention the word balance together with the idea that a few should kill many.
There is no balance in that at all.
50x10 should not be a fair fight , the 50 should almost always just crush the 10 , that is the edge of having 50 players in one location working together over just 10.
The logic where small groups should have a fair shot at killing much larger ones in a direct fight makes no sense to me at all.
actually it makes perfect sense. learn some history. there are many great generals who defeated much larger armies using Tactics. ever heard of napoleon bonaparte. there should be ways for 10 to defend against 50 in a small choke point such as a gate. Good thing the devs know a thing or two and designed the game with that in mind, giving us tools and strategic lays of the land.
not to mention that a small organized group with ults up can wipe a zerg that insists on stacking if they have meatbags and fire ballistas supporting them. happens all the time.
0 -
Morphed arrow spray spam them so they cant move, you are ranged and they cant hit you cos they all stuck or snared, so aoe snare would work atleast i think?0
-
trimsic_ESO✭✭✭✭✭Nox_Aeterna wrote: »I always wonder really , why people mention the word balance together with the idea that a few should kill many.
There is no balance in that at all.
50x10 should not be a fair fight , the 50 should almost always just crush the 10 , that is the edge of having 50 players in one location working together over just 10.
The logic where small groups should have a fair shot at killing much larger ones in a direct fight makes no sense to me at all.
If a group of 10 players could defeat a group of 30-40 players using well coordinated abilities to first control the mass and then deal damage at the right time, then the game could provide a great fun. This would also be an enabler for a different play style in Cyrodiil, where groups of 8-12 players could roam all over the map instead of huge zergs of 50-80 players spamming pulsar and bat swarm in a brainless way.
It's all about gameplay actually: skill shall matter, not only the numbers.
0 -
+1 for removing aoe caps. Come on Matt Firor, time to incorporate more of what made DAoC great!
@Nox_Aeterna So a group of 10 should automatically lose to a group of 50 afk players simply because they are greater numbers? There's relevance to this comparison because 10 greatly skilled players against 50 greatly unskilled players is almost the equivalent. Also, history is full of battles where an outnumbered few have defeated an unorganized many.Edited by aclarkob14_ESO on August 19, 2014 3:23PM1 -
CapuchinSeven✭✭✭✭✭
✭ghengis_dhan wrote: »I think the solution for Zergs is to look at real life. Historically, large armies move much slower than smaller armies (logistics and all). Translate that to Cyrodiil.
The more friendly players you have in close proximity, the slower your movement speed. People can still bunch up for safety, but they do so at the expense of speed. This would make coordinated small groups more effective than a large group.
I love this, it's too late though people won't accept it now, but I love it.0 -
CapuchinSeven wrote: »ghengis_dhan wrote: »I think the solution for Zergs is to look at real life. Historically, large armies move much slower than smaller armies (logistics and all). Translate that to Cyrodiil.
The more friendly players you have in close proximity, the slower your movement speed. People can still bunch up for safety, but they do so at the expense of speed. This would make coordinated small groups more effective than a large group.
I love this, it's too late though people won't accept it now, but I love it.
It would be interesting and realistic.
Similar to the Mount and blade campaign map speed.
But in a multiplayer game, it may be a source of negative interaction between players.
Movement speed is something we don't like losing, it's quite frustrating, and players could come to resent each other over this.
One thing I'd like to see though, is have stealth detection radius be increased when many players are stealthing together.
This way ,a large force cannot stealth as easily than a small spec ops group.1 -
zazamalek✭✭✭frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »Movement speed is something we don't like losing, it's quite frustrating, and players could come to resent each other over this.
That's some pretty good insight. It would wind up being GW2 with accusations of "rallybotting" being thrown around all over again. Even just last night we were kicking ass and taking names: of course a few PUGs noticed and tagged along - we were obviously happy to have them along, but things would have been very different if they were handicapping us.
A possible middle-ground would have it so that only your group/party members would apply this decrease in speed to you? An obvious workaround for this would be to split into smaller groups, but that's trickier to coordinate and hence still has a cost.4100 -
frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »Movement speed is something we don't like losing, it's quite frustrating, and players could come to resent each other over this.
That's some pretty good insight. It would wind up being GW2 with accusations of "rallybotting" being thrown around all over again. Even just last night we were kicking ass and taking names: of course a few PUGs noticed and tagged along - we were obviously happy to have them along, but things would have been very different if they were handicapping us.
A possible middle-ground would have it so that only your group/party members would apply this decrease in speed to you? An obvious workaround for this would be to split into smaller groups, but that's trickier to coordinate and hence still has a cost.
It would be an interesting mechanic, for sure, but I do think we already have a form of it that arise organically already.
The larger the group, the more disparity of horses / movement speed, so if you want to be at full strength you need to stop and regroup at some point.
Or you can trickle down or spread out on the way and stragglers can be picked off by ambushes.
I don't think it is necessary to add mechanics to nerf larger groups specifically because they are large. it would be an artificial limitation, akin to the target cap, and wouldn't play out well in a game.
If a large guild can manage to hold discipline and have everyone move at the same speed and regroup quickly, then they deserve that edge.
0