PvP Podcast (Episode 7 Uploaded)

Derra

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This whole idea that running in a 24-man group is somehow 'less skilled' than running in a 4-man group while ESO is designed and marketed as a large scale PvP game makes me wonder if these people are the same people that say I should play Quake using only my Axe, since Rocket Launchers are for people without skill.

Idiots.

Let's say someone designs a rocket launcher to kill a pack of squirrels.
Let's say that same person designs a pellet launcher to kill individual squirrels.

Killing a pack of squirrels using the pellet launcher takes undeniably more skill than to kill a single squirrel with the rocket launcher.

Ball is in your court Kris

So because you choose to run around with a much less effective weapon than available, that automagically makes you 'more skilled' and automagically gives you the position to constantly belittle people who do use the more effective weapon?

Guess it's time to run around Cyrodiil unarmored and fist fight my way to victory while constantly proclaiming that the rest are just lesser skilled players.

This is so wrong.

Everybody is running around with the same weapons. Yet if the smallgrp throws their handgranades against a biggrp half of them turn into foul eggs midair while the granades thrown by the biggrps stay the same.

ESO in it's current state means that the most effective way of playing PvP is to run around in a large group. While it's fine and part of the glorious Elder Scrolls Freedom that you can choose to run around in a group that is (by design) less effective than a 24-man group, this choice is yours and the reason it's sub-optimal is not the people running around in large groups that constantly get whined at for running around in large groups.

Instead of constantly telling people who run in large groups that they lack skill, cause lag and what not, try telling ZOS to fix their product.

Which is what everyone here is doing? I don´t get your point?
The core complaint is that the same skills get less effective if you´re outnumbered enabling everyone outnumbering you to make more mistakes than you by design. This leads to players making the wrong decisions still win fights due to bad/broken game mechanics.

Also the most efficient way of playing is causing lag. There is no denying that. People just don´t care because winning is more important on an individual level.

Edit: And i think if one way (the most efficient and currently best way by design) of playing the game is causing it to become unenjoyable for the whole server due to lag pointing fingers is only fair. Ofcourse ultimately it´s ZOS fault for not doing something about it in over a year. Still the players doing it are a minority for every campaign and deem their playstyle and personal fun more important than that of the majority of the campaign not doing so. Only the players running in blobs or zos can do something about it.

Etaniel

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This whole idea that running in a 24-man group is somehow 'less skilled' than running in a 4-man group while ESO is designed and marketed as a large scale PvP game makes me wonder if these people are the same people that say I should play Quake using only my Axe, since Rocket Launchers are for people without skill.

Idiots.

Let's say someone designs a rocket launcher to kill a pack of squirrels.
Let's say that same person designs a pellet launcher to kill individual squirrels.

Killing a pack of squirrels using the pellet launcher takes undeniably more skill than to kill a single squirrel with the rocket launcher.

Ball is in your court Kris

So because you choose to run around with a much less effective weapon than available, that automagically makes you 'more skilled' and automagically gives you the position to constantly belittle people who do use the more effective weapon?

Guess it's time to run around Cyrodiil unarmored and fist fight my way to victory while constantly proclaiming that the rest are just lesser skilled players.

This is so wrong.

Everybody is running around with the same weapons. Yet if the smallgrp throws their handgranades against a biggrp half of them turn into foul eggs midair while the granades thrown by the biggrps stay the same.

ESO in it's current state means that the most effective way of playing PvP is to run around in a large group (The Rocket Launcher). While it's fine and part of the glorious Elder Scrolls Freedom that you can choose to run around in a group that is (by design) less effective than a 24-man group (The Axe), this choice is yours and the reason it's sub-optimal is not the people running around in large groups that constantly get whined at for running around in large groups.

Instead of constantly telling people who run in large groups that they lack skill, cause lag and what not, try telling ZOS to fix their product.

[EDIT] Helpful hints added.

I'll create another analogy to help you understand Kris.

Say someone sells you a gun and advertises that it shoots straight.

Say that, it appears this particular gun is broken, and that every time you shoot it, it backfires and it blows your face apart.
Now, is the person who sold you the gun to blame, because he did false advertising and sold you a broken gun? Yes. Should he strive to fix it? yes

Are you utterly re tar ded for using said gun even though you know it's broken? WOW YES

[HINT] the analogy is to make you understand that large lag trains kill server performance, but oh no since it's ZOS's fault, we should definitely keep shooting ourselves in the face and ruin the experience for everyone mkay?

Lava_Croft

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This whole idea that running in a 24-man group is somehow 'less skilled' than running in a 4-man group while ESO is designed and marketed as a large scale PvP game makes me wonder if these people are the same people that say I should play Quake using only my Axe, since Rocket Launchers are for people without skill.

Idiots.

Let's say someone designs a rocket launcher to kill a pack of squirrels.
Let's say that same person designs a pellet launcher to kill individual squirrels.

Killing a pack of squirrels using the pellet launcher takes undeniably more skill than to kill a single squirrel with the rocket launcher.

Ball is in your court Kris

So because you choose to run around with a much less effective weapon than available, that automagically makes you 'more skilled' and automagically gives you the position to constantly belittle people who do use the more effective weapon?

Guess it's time to run around Cyrodiil unarmored and fist fight my way to victory while constantly proclaiming that the rest are just lesser skilled players.

This is so wrong.

Everybody is running around with the same weapons. Yet if the smallgrp throws their handgranades against a biggrp half of them turn into foul eggs midair while the granades thrown by the biggrps stay the same.

ESO in it's current state means that the most effective way of playing PvP is to run around in a large group. While it's fine and part of the glorious Elder Scrolls Freedom that you can choose to run around in a group that is (by design) less effective than a 24-man group, this choice is yours and the reason it's sub-optimal is not the people running around in large groups that constantly get whined at for running around in large groups.

Instead of constantly telling people who run in large groups that they lack skill, cause lag and what not, try telling ZOS to fix their product.

Which is what everyone here is doing? I don´t get your point?
The core complaint is that the same skills get less effective if you´re outnumbered enabling everyone outnumbering you to make more mistakes than you by design. This leads to players making the wrong decisions still win fights due to bad/broken game mechanics.

Also the most efficient way of playing is causing lag. There is no denying that. People just don´t care because winning is more important on an individual level.

Please pretend like there isn't constant and endless whining both here and everywhere else from people who prefer small scale to people playing in large groups. Please watch the stream related to this thread and tell me there is not belittling towards people playing in larger groups, expressed by people preferring to play in smaller groups.

I've been here since the beta, acting like a certain part of the population doesn't look down on people playing the game as advertised won't work.

Derra

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This whole idea that running in a 24-man group is somehow 'less skilled' than running in a 4-man group while ESO is designed and marketed as a large scale PvP game makes me wonder if these people are the same people that say I should play Quake using only my Axe, since Rocket Launchers are for people without skill.

Idiots.

Let's say someone designs a rocket launcher to kill a pack of squirrels.
Let's say that same person designs a pellet launcher to kill individual squirrels.

Killing a pack of squirrels using the pellet launcher takes undeniably more skill than to kill a single squirrel with the rocket launcher.

Ball is in your court Kris

So because you choose to run around with a much less effective weapon than available, that automagically makes you 'more skilled' and automagically gives you the position to constantly belittle people who do use the more effective weapon?

Guess it's time to run around Cyrodiil unarmored and fist fight my way to victory while constantly proclaiming that the rest are just lesser skilled players.

This is so wrong.

Everybody is running around with the same weapons. Yet if the smallgrp throws their handgranades against a biggrp half of them turn into foul eggs midair while the granades thrown by the biggrps stay the same.

ESO in it's current state means that the most effective way of playing PvP is to run around in a large group. While it's fine and part of the glorious Elder Scrolls Freedom that you can choose to run around in a group that is (by design) less effective than a 24-man group, this choice is yours and the reason it's sub-optimal is not the people running around in large groups that constantly get whined at for running around in large groups.

Instead of constantly telling people who run in large groups that they lack skill, cause lag and what not, try telling ZOS to fix their product.

Which is what everyone here is doing? I don´t get your point?
The core complaint is that the same skills get less effective if you´re outnumbered enabling everyone outnumbering you to make more mistakes than you by design. This leads to players making the wrong decisions still win fights due to bad/broken game mechanics.

Also the most efficient way of playing is causing lag. There is no denying that. People just don´t care because winning is more important on an individual level.

Please pretend like there isn't constant and endless whining both here and everywhere else from people who prefer small scale to people playing in large groups. Please watch the stream related to this thread and tell me there is not belittling towards people playing in larger groups, expressed by people preferring to play in smaller groups.

I've been here since the beta, acting like a certain part of the population doesn't look down on people playing the game as advertised won't work.

I don´t think it´s ultimately people looking down on one another. I don´t think the game was advertised as 24man stick on crown to be the most efficient playstyle either. Large scale pvp has nothing to do with grpsize.

What´s ultimately happening though is every 24 crown stack grp denies people running in small grps participation in large scale pvp as there is no effective way (even for multiple small grps) to attack one stacked up grp.
So blob players force smallgrp players away from largescale pvp (keeps, scrolls, outposts) because there is no way to compete apart from being a blob.

It´s a dictatorship of the strongest (by design) participant in large scale pvp.

FENGRUSH

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This whole idea that running in a 24-man group is somehow 'less skilled' than running in a 4-man group while ESO is designed and marketed as a large scale PvP game makes me wonder if these people are the same people that say I should play Quake using only my Axe, since Rocket Launchers are for people without skill.

Idiots.

Let's say someone designs a rocket launcher to kill a pack of squirrels.
Let's say that same person designs a pellet launcher to kill individual squirrels.

Killing a pack of squirrels using the pellet launcher takes undeniably more skill than to kill a single squirrel with the rocket launcher.

Ball is in your court Kris

So because you choose to run around with a much less effective weapon than available, that automagically makes you 'more skilled' and automagically gives you the position to constantly belittle people who do use the more effective weapon?

Guess it's time to run around Cyrodiil unarmored and fist fight my way to victory while constantly proclaiming that the rest are just lesser skilled players.

This is so wrong.

Everybody is running around with the same weapons. Yet if the smallgrp throws their handgranades against a biggrp half of them turn into foul eggs midair while the granades thrown by the biggrps stay the same.

ESO in it's current state means that the most effective way of playing PvP is to run around in a large group. While it's fine and part of the glorious Elder Scrolls Freedom that you can choose to run around in a group that is (by design) less effective than a 24-man group, this choice is yours and the reason it's sub-optimal is not the people running around in large groups that constantly get whined at for running around in large groups.

Instead of constantly telling people who run in large groups that they lack skill, cause lag and what not, try telling ZOS to fix their product.

Which is what everyone here is doing? I don´t get your point?
The core complaint is that the same skills get less effective if you´re outnumbered enabling everyone outnumbering you to make more mistakes than you by design. This leads to players making the wrong decisions still win fights due to bad/broken game mechanics.

Also the most efficient way of playing is causing lag. There is no denying that. People just don´t care because winning is more important on an individual level.

Please pretend like there isn't constant and endless whining both here and everywhere else from people who prefer small scale to people playing in large groups. Please watch the stream related to this thread and tell me there is not belittling towards people playing in larger groups, expressed by people preferring to play in smaller groups.

I've been here since the beta, acting like a certain part of the population doesn't look down on people playing the game as advertised won't work.

If you read my last 2 posts and are still coming way with the idea that Im just out here to personally attack people, I dont know what else I can do. Do I need to draw a picture or something? This isnt a personal attack on any player, persons, or group of persons. I dont even blame people for doing what they do, and I say this a lot on stream too. People want to win - this is how its done. This is what happens.

Zheg

FENGRUSH wrote: »

I agree with not doing the old ult gen formula - this would require more time and thought. I dont agree with lumping multiple big changes together either, but doing them one at a time. ZOS generally just makes huge changes every new DLC/patch and we end up relearning a new game but the meta of ball groups has always been core due to AOE caps.

I think a lot of people agree with what Im saying, even from ball groups, but take offense when I use the word 'ball group' since it lumps them into a category of what it really is. Its been said enough that its not personally diminishing any of these players personal talent levels in the group. But if people want to ignore that it makes no difference to me. I get that theyre offended and want to come here and lay into me and thats fine - but what Ive said isnt untrue.

Dont lump me in a zerg because I was engaging your group. I actually spent the first 5-10 minutes on the sideline watching it. After that we started picking people off, and frankly, Essa and I were alone in that respect to actually killing people. You were fighting 60 people or whatever, thats fine. You werent however fighting a 60man ball group, because you wouldnt be able to with AOE caps. You would lose pretty badly if 60 people grouped up in the same way. It isnt a matter of strategy, its simply a matter of coordination.

Moving from point A to point B and back to point A isnt something Id consider a strategy either. Everyone who knows whats going on in Cyro can tell what youre going to do long before you do it, but as a smaller group we really dont have an option to counter it. If strategy had any place here, wed have access to some techniques to counter it. The counter is bringing more people and forming a similar group.

Will it make your group stronger against 60 people? Yes it will, and that is a good thing. It will bring less stress to the server. Ball groups do stress the server with the purging and healing that goes on inside them though. This was apparent when ball groups first rolled out that servers started to eat it bad on lag. Before that, not nearly as bad. It really comes down to the overabundant healing/defensive posturing of these ball groups.

Do I expect to walk up with 4 people and knock your ball group down every time? No. In fact the chances of doing that to any decent group is highly unlikely post AOE cap removal. But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.


I love folks from K-hole and would love to fight with them on the battlefield. They run a medium sized raid most the time, and I like running a small group. If we fought today and they were 12 and I had a group of 4 vs an enemy of 24 synced in a ball, wed be stupid to fight separate. If AOE caps were removed, they could fight in one manner while the 4 could flank to much greater effect. This doesnt exist today. This did exist moreso in release. This actually has a level of strategy that doesnt revolve around numbers and AOE caps at its core. This is what I want back.

Fair and balanced gameplay - a place for more than ball groups. If they want to fix performance, they have to address ball groups, not 24 man raids. There is a clear difference. If you dont think balling up in 24man groups impacts performance vs 24 people fighting together, you are absolutely and 100% in denial. The reality is many have played like this for so long they dont even know the difference. They would wonder how or why a 24 man group would not fight in a ball. This is truly a sad thing.

RIP: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

babanovac

Let's say AoE skill does 100 damage. Now let's use that skill against groups.

If you use that skill against a group of 6 players, you will get the most benefit out of it, doing 100 damage per player.

If you use that same skill against a group of 60 players, it does 10 damage per player. How is that fair?

Derra

Zheg wrote: »

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

If we´re being honest here. If a well organised 24man grp would find 144people stacked up on one spot you would wreck those people with a good engage
It would cost you maybe 3 seconds to demolish all of them with synced detonations and steeltornados + ultimates.

The same thing with 4 people jumping into 24ppl stacked up? Not going to happen. You can have the perfect engage. You´re not going to win this.

FENGRUSH

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

I agree with not doing the old ult gen formula - this would require more time and thought. I dont agree with lumping multiple big changes together either, but doing them one at a time. ZOS generally just makes huge changes every new DLC/patch and we end up relearning a new game but the meta of ball groups has always been core due to AOE caps.

I think a lot of people agree with what Im saying, even from ball groups, but take offense when I use the word 'ball group' since it lumps them into a category of what it really is. Its been said enough that its not personally diminishing any of these players personal talent levels in the group. But if people want to ignore that it makes no difference to me. I get that theyre offended and want to come here and lay into me and thats fine - but what Ive said isnt untrue.

Dont lump me in a zerg because I was engaging your group. I actually spent the first 5-10 minutes on the sideline watching it. After that we started picking people off, and frankly, Essa and I were alone in that respect to actually killing people. You were fighting 60 people or whatever, thats fine. You werent however fighting a 60man ball group, because you wouldnt be able to with AOE caps. You would lose pretty badly if 60 people grouped up in the same way. It isnt a matter of strategy, its simply a matter of coordination.

Moving from point A to point B and back to point A isnt something Id consider a strategy either. Everyone who knows whats going on in Cyro can tell what youre going to do long before you do it, but as a smaller group we really dont have an option to counter it. If strategy had any place here, wed have access to some techniques to counter it. The counter is bringing more people and forming a similar group.

Will it make your group stronger against 60 people? Yes it will, and that is a good thing. It will bring less stress to the server. Ball groups do stress the server with the purging and healing that goes on inside them though. This was apparent when ball groups first rolled out that servers started to eat it bad on lag. Before that, not nearly as bad. It really comes down to the overabundant healing/defensive posturing of these ball groups.

Do I expect to walk up with 4 people and knock your ball group down every time? No. In fact the chances of doing that to any decent group is highly unlikely post AOE cap removal. But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.


I love folks from K-hole and would love to fight with them on the battlefield. They run a medium sized raid most the time, and I like running a small group. If we fought today and they were 12 and I had a group of 4 vs an enemy of 24 synced in a ball, wed be stupid to fight separate. If AOE caps were removed, they could fight in one manner while the 4 could flank to much greater effect. This doesnt exist today. This did exist moreso in release. This actually has a level of strategy that doesnt revolve around numbers and AOE caps at its core. This is what I want back.

Fair and balanced gameplay - a place for more than ball groups. If they want to fix performance, they have to address ball groups, not 24 man raids. There is a clear difference. If you dont think balling up in 24man groups impacts performance vs 24 people fighting together, you are absolutely and 100% in denial. The reality is many have played like this for so long they dont even know the difference. They would wonder how or why a 24 man group would not fight in a ball. This is truly a sad thing.

RIP: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

So if were a 4 man group we should focus on being siege specialists in Cyro? We shouldnt be concerned with the performance issues being caused by ball groups - STILL? We dont want to make a balanced approach to PvP where numbers create an artificial mitigation?

Again, this isnt about 4 people being heroes in a battle. Its about 4 people having a real limited and unenjoyable time in today's Cyro.

Takllin

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

I agree with not doing the old ult gen formula - this would require more time and thought. I dont agree with lumping multiple big changes together either, but doing them one at a time. ZOS generally just makes huge changes every new DLC/patch and we end up relearning a new game but the meta of ball groups has always been core due to AOE caps.

I think a lot of people agree with what Im saying, even from ball groups, but take offense when I use the word 'ball group' since it lumps them into a category of what it really is. Its been said enough that its not personally diminishing any of these players personal talent levels in the group. But if people want to ignore that it makes no difference to me. I get that theyre offended and want to come here and lay into me and thats fine - but what Ive said isnt untrue.

Dont lump me in a zerg because I was engaging your group. I actually spent the first 5-10 minutes on the sideline watching it. After that we started picking people off, and frankly, Essa and I were alone in that respect to actually killing people. You were fighting 60 people or whatever, thats fine. You werent however fighting a 60man ball group, because you wouldnt be able to with AOE caps. You would lose pretty badly if 60 people grouped up in the same way. It isnt a matter of strategy, its simply a matter of coordination.

Moving from point A to point B and back to point A isnt something Id consider a strategy either. Everyone who knows whats going on in Cyro can tell what youre going to do long before you do it, but as a smaller group we really dont have an option to counter it. If strategy had any place here, wed have access to some techniques to counter it. The counter is bringing more people and forming a similar group.

Will it make your group stronger against 60 people? Yes it will, and that is a good thing. It will bring less stress to the server. Ball groups do stress the server with the purging and healing that goes on inside them though. This was apparent when ball groups first rolled out that servers started to eat it bad on lag. Before that, not nearly as bad. It really comes down to the overabundant healing/defensive posturing of these ball groups.

Do I expect to walk up with 4 people and knock your ball group down every time? No. In fact the chances of doing that to any decent group is highly unlikely post AOE cap removal. But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.


I love folks from K-hole and would love to fight with them on the battlefield. They run a medium sized raid most the time, and I like running a small group. If we fought today and they were 12 and I had a group of 4 vs an enemy of 24 synced in a ball, wed be stupid to fight separate. If AOE caps were removed, they could fight in one manner while the 4 could flank to much greater effect. This doesnt exist today. This did exist moreso in release. This actually has a level of strategy that doesnt revolve around numbers and AOE caps at its core. This is what I want back.

Fair and balanced gameplay - a place for more than ball groups. If they want to fix performance, they have to address ball groups, not 24 man raids. There is a clear difference. If you dont think balling up in 24man groups impacts performance vs 24 people fighting together, you are absolutely and 100% in denial. The reality is many have played like this for so long they dont even know the difference. They would wonder how or why a 24 man group would not fight in a ball. This is truly a sad thing.

RIP: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Zheg, telling small man groups to piggy back on full groups is a terrible solution. That is not good design, and just reinforces how bad the mechanics are right now. People understand that there comes a point where you can't defeat X amount of enemies unless you have Y amount of allies, but the problem is that Y keeps going up while X stays the same...

Not to mention, how often have you ever seen two well timed and placed cold stone trebs hit another group? I know I've never seen it. They are incredibly slow and very easy to maneuver out of.

Zheg

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

I agree with not doing the old ult gen formula - this would require more time and thought. I dont agree with lumping multiple big changes together either, but doing them one at a time. ZOS generally just makes huge changes every new DLC/patch and we end up relearning a new game but the meta of ball groups has always been core due to AOE caps.

I think a lot of people agree with what Im saying, even from ball groups, but take offense when I use the word 'ball group' since it lumps them into a category of what it really is. Its been said enough that its not personally diminishing any of these players personal talent levels in the group. But if people want to ignore that it makes no difference to me. I get that theyre offended and want to come here and lay into me and thats fine - but what Ive said isnt untrue.

Dont lump me in a zerg because I was engaging your group. I actually spent the first 5-10 minutes on the sideline watching it. After that we started picking people off, and frankly, Essa and I were alone in that respect to actually killing people. You were fighting 60 people or whatever, thats fine. You werent however fighting a 60man ball group, because you wouldnt be able to with AOE caps. You would lose pretty badly if 60 people grouped up in the same way. It isnt a matter of strategy, its simply a matter of coordination.

Moving from point A to point B and back to point A isnt something Id consider a strategy either. Everyone who knows whats going on in Cyro can tell what youre going to do long before you do it, but as a smaller group we really dont have an option to counter it. If strategy had any place here, wed have access to some techniques to counter it. The counter is bringing more people and forming a similar group.

Will it make your group stronger against 60 people? Yes it will, and that is a good thing. It will bring less stress to the server. Ball groups do stress the server with the purging and healing that goes on inside them though. This was apparent when ball groups first rolled out that servers started to eat it bad on lag. Before that, not nearly as bad. It really comes down to the overabundant healing/defensive posturing of these ball groups.

Do I expect to walk up with 4 people and knock your ball group down every time? No. In fact the chances of doing that to any decent group is highly unlikely post AOE cap removal. But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.


I love folks from K-hole and would love to fight with them on the battlefield. They run a medium sized raid most the time, and I like running a small group. If we fought today and they were 12 and I had a group of 4 vs an enemy of 24 synced in a ball, wed be stupid to fight separate. If AOE caps were removed, they could fight in one manner while the 4 could flank to much greater effect. This doesnt exist today. This did exist moreso in release. This actually has a level of strategy that doesnt revolve around numbers and AOE caps at its core. This is what I want back.

Fair and balanced gameplay - a place for more than ball groups. If they want to fix performance, they have to address ball groups, not 24 man raids. There is a clear difference. If you dont think balling up in 24man groups impacts performance vs 24 people fighting together, you are absolutely and 100% in denial. The reality is many have played like this for so long they dont even know the difference. They would wonder how or why a 24 man group would not fight in a ball. This is truly a sad thing.

RIP: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

So if were a 4 man group we should focus on being siege specialists in Cyro? We shouldnt be concerned with the performance issues being caused by ball groups - STILL? We dont want to make a balanced approach to PvP where numbers create an artificial mitigation?

Again, this isnt about 4 people being heroes in a battle. Its about 4 people having a real limited and unenjoyable time in today's Cyro.

Part of the post I quoted:

But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.

Believe you me, I think sieging in fights is cheap, but sometimes it's a necessity. You said you can't do anything, and that there's no place for small groups in the battle, and I was just pointing out that's not true. It's not as fun, but if 3 of you timed your siege and the 4th jumped in with a prox det + standard/bats/whatever, chances are you'd wipe the majority or all of the group if they're balled up. Server performance is an entirely different beast, and I can get on board when the discussion veers in that direction.

Etaniel

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

I agree with not doing the old ult gen formula - this would require more time and thought. I dont agree with lumping multiple big changes together either, but doing them one at a time. ZOS generally just makes huge changes every new DLC/patch and we end up relearning a new game but the meta of ball groups has always been core due to AOE caps.

I think a lot of people agree with what Im saying, even from ball groups, but take offense when I use the word 'ball group' since it lumps them into a category of what it really is. Its been said enough that its not personally diminishing any of these players personal talent levels in the group. But if people want to ignore that it makes no difference to me. I get that theyre offended and want to come here and lay into me and thats fine - but what Ive said isnt untrue.

Dont lump me in a zerg because I was engaging your group. I actually spent the first 5-10 minutes on the sideline watching it. After that we started picking people off, and frankly, Essa and I were alone in that respect to actually killing people. You were fighting 60 people or whatever, thats fine. You werent however fighting a 60man ball group, because you wouldnt be able to with AOE caps. You would lose pretty badly if 60 people grouped up in the same way. It isnt a matter of strategy, its simply a matter of coordination.

Moving from point A to point B and back to point A isnt something Id consider a strategy either. Everyone who knows whats going on in Cyro can tell what youre going to do long before you do it, but as a smaller group we really dont have an option to counter it. If strategy had any place here, wed have access to some techniques to counter it. The counter is bringing more people and forming a similar group.

Will it make your group stronger against 60 people? Yes it will, and that is a good thing. It will bring less stress to the server. Ball groups do stress the server with the purging and healing that goes on inside them though. This was apparent when ball groups first rolled out that servers started to eat it bad on lag. Before that, not nearly as bad. It really comes down to the overabundant healing/defensive posturing of these ball groups.

Do I expect to walk up with 4 people and knock your ball group down every time? No. In fact the chances of doing that to any decent group is highly unlikely post AOE cap removal. But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.


I love folks from K-hole and would love to fight with them on the battlefield. They run a medium sized raid most the time, and I like running a small group. If we fought today and they were 12 and I had a group of 4 vs an enemy of 24 synced in a ball, wed be stupid to fight separate. If AOE caps were removed, they could fight in one manner while the 4 could flank to much greater effect. This doesnt exist today. This did exist moreso in release. This actually has a level of strategy that doesnt revolve around numbers and AOE caps at its core. This is what I want back.

Fair and balanced gameplay - a place for more than ball groups. If they want to fix performance, they have to address ball groups, not 24 man raids. There is a clear difference. If you dont think balling up in 24man groups impacts performance vs 24 people fighting together, you are absolutely and 100% in denial. The reality is many have played like this for so long they dont even know the difference. They would wonder how or why a 24 man group would not fight in a ball. This is truly a sad thing.

RIP: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

So if were a 4 man group we should focus on being siege specialists in Cyro? We shouldnt be concerned with the performance issues being caused by ball groups - STILL? We dont want to make a balanced approach to PvP where numbers create an artificial mitigation?

Again, this isnt about 4 people being heroes in a battle. Its about 4 people having a real limited and unenjoyable time in today's Cyro.

Part of the post I quoted:

But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.

Believe you me, I think sieging in fights is cheap, but sometimes it's a necessity. You said you can't do anything, and that there's no place for small groups in the battle, and I was just pointing out that's not true. It's not as fun, but if 3 of you timed your siege and the 4th jumped in with a prox det + standard/bats/whatever, chances are you'd wipe the majority or all of the group if they're balled up. Server performance is an entirely different beast, and I can get on board when the discussion veers in that direction.

Sieging is not an answer because it's not an efficient tactic. Sure, you can time two trebs to hit on a raid that is semi afk/ waiting for a flag to turn on a ressource maybe, but you will never hit them if they are on the move, in the open field. Unless it's a raid of moronic squirrels, they will move out of the red circles with ease and take care of that treb in half a second.

Starshadw

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Takllin

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

I agree with not doing the old ult gen formula - this would require more time and thought. I dont agree with lumping multiple big changes together either, but doing them one at a time. ZOS generally just makes huge changes every new DLC/patch and we end up relearning a new game but the meta of ball groups has always been core due to AOE caps.

I think a lot of people agree with what Im saying, even from ball groups, but take offense when I use the word 'ball group' since it lumps them into a category of what it really is. Its been said enough that its not personally diminishing any of these players personal talent levels in the group. But if people want to ignore that it makes no difference to me. I get that theyre offended and want to come here and lay into me and thats fine - but what Ive said isnt untrue.

Dont lump me in a zerg because I was engaging your group. I actually spent the first 5-10 minutes on the sideline watching it. After that we started picking people off, and frankly, Essa and I were alone in that respect to actually killing people. You were fighting 60 people or whatever, thats fine. You werent however fighting a 60man ball group, because you wouldnt be able to with AOE caps. You would lose pretty badly if 60 people grouped up in the same way. It isnt a matter of strategy, its simply a matter of coordination.

Moving from point A to point B and back to point A isnt something Id consider a strategy either. Everyone who knows whats going on in Cyro can tell what youre going to do long before you do it, but as a smaller group we really dont have an option to counter it. If strategy had any place here, wed have access to some techniques to counter it. The counter is bringing more people and forming a similar group.

Will it make your group stronger against 60 people? Yes it will, and that is a good thing. It will bring less stress to the server. Ball groups do stress the server with the purging and healing that goes on inside them though. This was apparent when ball groups first rolled out that servers started to eat it bad on lag. Before that, not nearly as bad. It really comes down to the overabundant healing/defensive posturing of these ball groups.

Do I expect to walk up with 4 people and knock your ball group down every time? No. In fact the chances of doing that to any decent group is highly unlikely post AOE cap removal. But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.


I love folks from K-hole and would love to fight with them on the battlefield. They run a medium sized raid most the time, and I like running a small group. If we fought today and they were 12 and I had a group of 4 vs an enemy of 24 synced in a ball, wed be stupid to fight separate. If AOE caps were removed, they could fight in one manner while the 4 could flank to much greater effect. This doesnt exist today. This did exist moreso in release. This actually has a level of strategy that doesnt revolve around numbers and AOE caps at its core. This is what I want back.

Fair and balanced gameplay - a place for more than ball groups. If they want to fix performance, they have to address ball groups, not 24 man raids. There is a clear difference. If you dont think balling up in 24man groups impacts performance vs 24 people fighting together, you are absolutely and 100% in denial. The reality is many have played like this for so long they dont even know the difference. They would wonder how or why a 24 man group would not fight in a ball. This is truly a sad thing.

RIP: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

So if were a 4 man group we should focus on being siege specialists in Cyro? We shouldnt be concerned with the performance issues being caused by ball groups - STILL? We dont want to make a balanced approach to PvP where numbers create an artificial mitigation?

Again, this isnt about 4 people being heroes in a battle. Its about 4 people having a real limited and unenjoyable time in today's Cyro.

Part of the post I quoted:

But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.

Believe you me, I think sieging in fights is cheap, but sometimes it's a necessity. You said you can't do anything, and that there's no place for small groups in the battle, and I was just pointing out that's not true. It's not as fun, but if 3 of you timed your siege and the 4th jumped in with a prox det + standard/bats/whatever, chances are you'd wipe the majority or all of the group if they're balled up. Server performance is an entirely different beast, and I can get on board when the discussion veers in that direction.

@Etaniel Amen.

Zheg, the discussion is in that direction. This is a two headed beast. How long have people been arguing for AoE caps to go away because of server performance? It's been a long time, I've been posting or read almost all of them. This latest upbringing is gaining more steam because it's now become an issue of game balance as well as server performance.

Zheg

Starshadw wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Regarding heals, that's why I said cold stone trebs, it's all burst damage, no dot. Regarding being able to hit moving targets - of course it's hard, but that's where the skill of the skillful group of 4 should come into effect. They should know when to put down siege, when and where to aim, how to lead a moving group of targets, the most favorable terrain and positioning to engage, etc.

It is as fun? No. Is siege bugged and clunky? Yes. Is it hard to pull off? Yes. But it IS a tool available to small groups to fight large clumped up groups, should they actually be able to pull it off. If the discussion is on MORE tools, that's one thing, but to say there are no means currently available is disingenuous.

Etaniel

Zheg wrote: »

Starshadw wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Regarding heals, that's why I said cold stone trebs, it's all burst damage, no dot. Regarding being able to hit moving targets - of course it's hard, but that's where the skill of the skillful group of 4 should come into effect. They should know when to put down siege, when and where to aim, how to lead a moving group of targets, the most favorable terrain and positioning to engage, etc.

It is as fun? No. Is siege bugged and clunky? Yes. Is it hard to pull off? Yes. But it IS a tool available to small groups to fight large clumped up groups, should they actually be able to pull it off. If the discussion is on MORE tools, that's one thing, but to say there are no means currently available is disingenuous.

Rephrased :
I say : I have a lighter and a potato, I don't have the means to cook the potato.
You say : Well fire + potato should work if you are skilled enough, it's doable.

really?

_Chaos

Etaniel wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Starshadw wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Regarding heals, that's why I said cold stone trebs, it's all burst damage, no dot. Regarding being able to hit moving targets - of course it's hard, but that's where the skill of the skillful group of 4 should come into effect. They should know when to put down siege, when and where to aim, how to lead a moving group of targets, the most favorable terrain and positioning to engage, etc.

It is as fun? No. Is siege bugged and clunky? Yes. Is it hard to pull off? Yes. But it IS a tool available to small groups to fight large clumped up groups, should they actually be able to pull it off. If the discussion is on MORE tools, that's one thing, but to say there are no means currently available is disingenuous.

Rephrased :
I say : I have a lighter and a potato, I don't have the means to cook the potato.
You say : Well fire + potato should work if you are skilled enough, it's doable.

really?

http://knowledgeweighsnothing.com/mud-spuds-clay-baked-potatoes/

Joy_Division

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This whole idea that running in a 24-man group is somehow 'less skilled' than running in a 4-man group while ESO is designed and marketed as a large scale PvP game makes me wonder if these people are the same people that say I should play Quake using only my Axe, since Rocket Launchers are for people without skill.

Idiots.

Let's say someone designs a rocket launcher to kill a pack of squirrels.
Let's say that same person designs a pellet launcher to kill individual squirrels.

Killing a pack of squirrels using the pellet launcher takes undeniably more skill than to kill a single squirrel with the rocket launcher.

Ball is in your court Kris

So because you choose to run around with a much less effective weapon than available, that automagically makes you 'more skilled' and automagically gives you the position to constantly belittle people who do use the more effective weapon?

Guess it's time to run around Cyrodiil unarmored and fist fight my way to victory while constantly proclaiming that the rest are just lesser skilled players.

This is so wrong.

Everybody is running around with the same weapons. Yet if the smallgrp throws their handgranades against a biggrp half of them turn into foul eggs midair while the granades thrown by the biggrps stay the same.

ESO in it's current state means that the most effective way of playing PvP is to run around in a large group. While it's fine and part of the glorious Elder Scrolls Freedom that you can choose to run around in a group that is (by design) less effective than a 24-man group, this choice is yours and the reason it's sub-optimal is not the people running around in large groups that constantly get whined at for running around in large groups.

Instead of constantly telling people who run in large groups that they lack skill, cause lag and what not, try telling ZOS to fix their product.

Which is what everyone here is doing? I don´t get your point?
The core complaint is that the same skills get less effective if you´re outnumbered enabling everyone outnumbering you to make more mistakes than you by design. This leads to players making the wrong decisions still win fights due to bad/broken game mechanics.

Also the most efficient way of playing is causing lag. There is no denying that. People just don´t care because winning is more important on an individual level.

Please pretend like there isn't constant and endless whining both here and everywhere else from people who prefer small scale to people playing in large groups. Please watch the stream related to this thread and tell me there is not belittling towards people playing in larger groups, expressed by people preferring to play in smaller groups.

I've been here since the beta, acting like a certain part of the population doesn't look down on people playing the game as advertised won't work.

If you read my last 2 posts and are still coming way with the idea that Im just out here to personally attack people, I dont know what else I can do. Do I need to draw a picture or something? This isnt a personal attack on any player, persons, or group of persons. I dont even blame people for doing what they do, and I say this a lot on stream too. People want to win - this is how its done. This is what happens.

It's not you. It's many people who agree with you who. Not just in this thread. Every day. Do people need to grow thicker skin? Yes. Are many people who run in raid groups equally insulting? Probably. Would this conversation be more productive without all the gratuitous cheap shots? Absolutely.

There is one aspect to this discussion that has not been explored, or if it has been, I missed it. I think the position as to how removing the AOE caps would be beneficial to the game performance-wise and leveling the playing field was been advanced well enough. What I have not seen is an analysis of why ZoS instituted an AOE cap in the first place and why those reasons are no longer valid.

I mean, I have played RPGs and fantasy games all my life - and I go back to Advanced D&D in the 1980s - and I never once played in a system that had AOE caps. The concept was totally alien to me. I get the impression this is fairly common in MMOs, but that does not mean the reasoning behind it is well known. The feeling I get from the minority of players who support them is that AoEs would be too powerful otherwise. Is that true, is that why ZoS put in the cap? Or did ZoS just put in a cap simply because that's what MMOs do and are just conforming to a common practice?

It's one thing to say "do something" and point to the possible advantages. You and other have done this, fairly compellingly. But there is another side to "doing something," there may be negative ramifications that accompany those advantages. The was a reason why ZoS felt putting in the AOE CAP was a good idea. Tell them why that reason(s), that they believed to be true in April 2014, is no longer the case or relevant in October 2015. If it was because the fear of AoE just being too strong, tell us why you don't think AoEs would be too dominant ... have there been other MMOs that managed this? I don't know, ESO is the only one I played. Something is obviously holding ZoS back because every single poll by this community and others like on Reddit have had a large majority of players disagreeing with the concept of AoE caps.

Edit: You'd be preaching to the choir here, because for 30 years I have managed not to get myself fried going up against dragons and their highly damaging AoE breath attack.

Etaniel

spenc_cathb16_ESO wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Starshadw wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Regarding heals, that's why I said cold stone trebs, it's all burst damage, no dot. Regarding being able to hit moving targets - of course it's hard, but that's where the skill of the skillful group of 4 should come into effect. They should know when to put down siege, when and where to aim, how to lead a moving group of targets, the most favorable terrain and positioning to engage, etc.

It is as fun? No. Is siege bugged and clunky? Yes. Is it hard to pull off? Yes. But it IS a tool available to small groups to fight large clumped up groups, should they actually be able to pull it off. If the discussion is on MORE tools, that's one thing, but to say there are no means currently available is disingenuous.

Rephrased :
I say : I have a lighter and a potato, I don't have the means to cook the potato.
You say : Well fire + potato should work if you are skilled enough, it's doable.

really?

http://knowledgeweighsnothing.com/mud-spuds-clay-baked-potatoes/

That requires clay though, I said lighter + potato only

LegendaryChef

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This whole idea that running in a 24-man group is somehow 'less skilled' than running in a 4-man group while ESO is designed and marketed as a large scale PvP game makes me wonder if these people are the same people that say I should play Quake using only my Axe, since Rocket Launchers are for people without skill.

Idiots.

Ahahahahaha, best thing I've read all day.

Minno

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

I agree with not doing the old ult gen formula - this would require more time and thought. I dont agree with lumping multiple big changes together either, but doing them one at a time. ZOS generally just makes huge changes every new DLC/patch and we end up relearning a new game but the meta of ball groups has always been core due to AOE caps.

I think a lot of people agree with what Im saying, even from ball groups, but take offense when I use the word 'ball group' since it lumps them into a category of what it really is. Its been said enough that its not personally diminishing any of these players personal talent levels in the group. But if people want to ignore that it makes no difference to me. I get that theyre offended and want to come here and lay into me and thats fine - but what Ive said isnt untrue.

Dont lump me in a zerg because I was engaging your group. I actually spent the first 5-10 minutes on the sideline watching it. After that we started picking people off, and frankly, Essa and I were alone in that respect to actually killing people. You were fighting 60 people or whatever, thats fine. You werent however fighting a 60man ball group, because you wouldnt be able to with AOE caps. You would lose pretty badly if 60 people grouped up in the same way. It isnt a matter of strategy, its simply a matter of coordination.

Moving from point A to point B and back to point A isnt something Id consider a strategy either. Everyone who knows whats going on in Cyro can tell what youre going to do long before you do it, but as a smaller group we really dont have an option to counter it. If strategy had any place here, wed have access to some techniques to counter it. The counter is bringing more people and forming a similar group.

Will it make your group stronger against 60 people? Yes it will, and that is a good thing. It will bring less stress to the server. Ball groups do stress the server with the purging and healing that goes on inside them though. This was apparent when ball groups first rolled out that servers started to eat it bad on lag. Before that, not nearly as bad. It really comes down to the overabundant healing/defensive posturing of these ball groups.

Do I expect to walk up with 4 people and knock your ball group down every time? No. In fact the chances of doing that to any decent group is highly unlikely post AOE cap removal. But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.


I love folks from K-hole and would love to fight with them on the battlefield. They run a medium sized raid most the time, and I like running a small group. If we fought today and they were 12 and I had a group of 4 vs an enemy of 24 synced in a ball, wed be stupid to fight separate. If AOE caps were removed, they could fight in one manner while the 4 could flank to much greater effect. This doesnt exist today. This did exist moreso in release. This actually has a level of strategy that doesnt revolve around numbers and AOE caps at its core. This is what I want back.

Fair and balanced gameplay - a place for more than ball groups. If they want to fix performance, they have to address ball groups, not 24 man raids. There is a clear difference. If you dont think balling up in 24man groups impacts performance vs 24 people fighting together, you are absolutely and 100% in denial. The reality is many have played like this for so long they dont even know the difference. They would wonder how or why a 24 man group would not fight in a ball. This is truly a sad thing.

RIP: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

So if were a 4 man group we should focus on being siege specialists in Cyro? We shouldnt be concerned with the performance issues being caused by ball groups - STILL? We dont want to make a balanced approach to PvP where numbers create an artificial mitigation?

Again, this isnt about 4 people being heroes in a battle. Its about 4 people having a real limited and unenjoyable time in today's Cyro.

Part of the post I quoted:

But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.

Believe you me, I think sieging in fights is cheap, but sometimes it's a necessity. You said you can't do anything, and that there's no place for small groups in the battle, and I was just pointing out that's not true. It's not as fun, but if 3 of you timed your siege and the 4th jumped in with a prox det + standard/bats/whatever, chances are you'd wipe the majority or all of the group if they're balled up. Server performance is an entirely different beast, and I can get on board when the discussion veers in that direction.

Can't seige anyway if purge spam is present. So a 4man seige squad can only work as a lag induced ball group.

Takllin

Joy_Division wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This whole idea that running in a 24-man group is somehow 'less skilled' than running in a 4-man group while ESO is designed and marketed as a large scale PvP game makes me wonder if these people are the same people that say I should play Quake using only my Axe, since Rocket Launchers are for people without skill.

Idiots.

Let's say someone designs a rocket launcher to kill a pack of squirrels.
Let's say that same person designs a pellet launcher to kill individual squirrels.

Killing a pack of squirrels using the pellet launcher takes undeniably more skill than to kill a single squirrel with the rocket launcher.

Ball is in your court Kris

So because you choose to run around with a much less effective weapon than available, that automagically makes you 'more skilled' and automagically gives you the position to constantly belittle people who do use the more effective weapon?

Guess it's time to run around Cyrodiil unarmored and fist fight my way to victory while constantly proclaiming that the rest are just lesser skilled players.

This is so wrong.

Everybody is running around with the same weapons. Yet if the smallgrp throws their handgranades against a biggrp half of them turn into foul eggs midair while the granades thrown by the biggrps stay the same.

ESO in it's current state means that the most effective way of playing PvP is to run around in a large group. While it's fine and part of the glorious Elder Scrolls Freedom that you can choose to run around in a group that is (by design) less effective than a 24-man group, this choice is yours and the reason it's sub-optimal is not the people running around in large groups that constantly get whined at for running around in large groups.

Instead of constantly telling people who run in large groups that they lack skill, cause lag and what not, try telling ZOS to fix their product.

Which is what everyone here is doing? I don´t get your point?
The core complaint is that the same skills get less effective if you´re outnumbered enabling everyone outnumbering you to make more mistakes than you by design. This leads to players making the wrong decisions still win fights due to bad/broken game mechanics.

Also the most efficient way of playing is causing lag. There is no denying that. People just don´t care because winning is more important on an individual level.

Please pretend like there isn't constant and endless whining both here and everywhere else from people who prefer small scale to people playing in large groups. Please watch the stream related to this thread and tell me there is not belittling towards people playing in larger groups, expressed by people preferring to play in smaller groups.

I've been here since the beta, acting like a certain part of the population doesn't look down on people playing the game as advertised won't work.

If you read my last 2 posts and are still coming way with the idea that Im just out here to personally attack people, I dont know what else I can do. Do I need to draw a picture or something? This isnt a personal attack on any player, persons, or group of persons. I dont even blame people for doing what they do, and I say this a lot on stream too. People want to win - this is how its done. This is what happens.

It's not you. It's many people who agree with you who. Not just in this thread. Every day. Do people need to grow thicker skin? Yes. Are many people who run in raid groups equally insulting? Probably. Would this conversation be more productive without all the gratuitous cheap shots? Absolutely.

There is one aspect to this discussion that has not been explored, or if it has been, I missed it. I think the position as to how removing the AOE caps would be beneficial to the game performance-wise and leveling the playing field was been advanced well enough. What I have not seen is an analysis of why ZoS instituted an AOE cap in the first place and why those reasons are no longer valid.

I mean, I have played RPGs and fantasy games all my life - and I go back to Advanced D&D in the 1980s - and I never once played in a system that had AOE caps. The concept was totally alien to me. I get the impression this is fairly common in MMOs, but that does not mean the reasoning behind it is well known. The feeling I get from the minority of players who support them is that AoEs would be too powerful otherwise. Is that true, is that why ZoS put in the cap? Or did ZoS just put in a cap simply because that's what MMOs do and are just conforming to a common practice?

It's one thing to say "do something" and point to the possible advantages. You and other have done this, fairly compellingly. But there is another side to "doing something," there may be negative ramifications that accompany those advantages. The was a reason why ZoS felt putting in the AOE CAP was a good idea. Tell them why that reason(s), that they believed to be true in April 2014, is no longer the case or relevant in October 2015. If it was because the fear of AoE just being too strong, tell us why you don't think AoEs would be too dominant ... have there been other MMOs that managed this? I don't know, ESO is the only one I played. Something is obviously holding ZoS back because every single poll by this community and others like on Reddit have had a large majority of players disagreeing with the concept of AoE caps.

Edit: You'd be preaching to the choir here, because for 30 years I have managed not to get myself fried going up against dragons and their highly damaging AoE breath attack.

You're asking ZOS for transparency...love to see it happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath or get my hopes up.

When is the last time we had a Road Ahead, or any message about the direction of the game? February of this year. http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/2015/02/12/the-road-ahead---february

@ZOS_MattFiror will we ever see another?

Yeah they did detail a bit during PAX or w/e the conference was, but outside of announcing the DLC packs, there was nothing really concrete.

_Chaos

Etaniel wrote: »

spenc_cathb16_ESO wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Starshadw wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Regarding heals, that's why I said cold stone trebs, it's all burst damage, no dot. Regarding being able to hit moving targets - of course it's hard, but that's where the skill of the skillful group of 4 should come into effect. They should know when to put down siege, when and where to aim, how to lead a moving group of targets, the most favorable terrain and positioning to engage, etc.

It is as fun? No. Is siege bugged and clunky? Yes. Is it hard to pull off? Yes. But it IS a tool available to small groups to fight large clumped up groups, should they actually be able to pull it off. If the discussion is on MORE tools, that's one thing, but to say there are no means currently available is disingenuous.

Rephrased :
I say : I have a lighter and a potato, I don't have the means to cook the potato.
You say : Well fire + potato should work if you are skilled enough, it's doable.

really?

http://knowledgeweighsnothing.com/mud-spuds-clay-baked-potatoes/

That requires clay though, I said lighter + potato only

And that's when the resourceful people will shine, and those that don't know how to adapt to their surroundings will fail. Much like soloing/small man grouping day in and day out while in Cyrodiil, only to complain that there's more organized people around them doing a bigger version of a their beloved 1vX. 1v3 or 24v72+, both equally as impressive.

Etaniel

spenc_cathb16_ESO wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

spenc_cathb16_ESO wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Starshadw wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Regarding heals, that's why I said cold stone trebs, it's all burst damage, no dot. Regarding being able to hit moving targets - of course it's hard, but that's where the skill of the skillful group of 4 should come into effect. They should know when to put down siege, when and where to aim, how to lead a moving group of targets, the most favorable terrain and positioning to engage, etc.

It is as fun? No. Is siege bugged and clunky? Yes. Is it hard to pull off? Yes. But it IS a tool available to small groups to fight large clumped up groups, should they actually be able to pull it off. If the discussion is on MORE tools, that's one thing, but to say there are no means currently available is disingenuous.

Rephrased :
I say : I have a lighter and a potato, I don't have the means to cook the potato.
You say : Well fire + potato should work if you are skilled enough, it's doable.

really?

http://knowledgeweighsnothing.com/mud-spuds-clay-baked-potatoes/

That requires clay though, I said lighter + potato only

And that's when the resourceful people will shine, and those that don't know how to adapt to their surroundings will fail. Much like soloing/small man grouping day in and day out while in Cyrodiil, only to complain that there's more organized people around them doing a bigger version of a their beloved 1vX. 1v3 or 24v72+, both equally as impressive.

I'm not complaining that I can't do anything vs larger groups. Simply pointing out the stupidity of the "small groups can use trebs to kill larger groups" comment.

24 v 72 + isn't impressive, what's impressive is that even though they destroy the game 72 people still thought it was a good idea to group together and make a lag ball.

Zheg

Etaniel wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Starshadw wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Regarding heals, that's why I said cold stone trebs, it's all burst damage, no dot. Regarding being able to hit moving targets - of course it's hard, but that's where the skill of the skillful group of 4 should come into effect. They should know when to put down siege, when and where to aim, how to lead a moving group of targets, the most favorable terrain and positioning to engage, etc.

It is as fun? No. Is siege bugged and clunky? Yes. Is it hard to pull off? Yes. But it IS a tool available to small groups to fight large clumped up groups, should they actually be able to pull it off. If the discussion is on MORE tools, that's one thing, but to say there are no means currently available is disingenuous.

Rephrased :
I say : I have a lighter and a potato, I don't have the means to cook the potato.
You say : Well fire + potato should work if you are skilled enough, it's doable.

really?

Thenuse the lighter to make a campfire and cook the potato, no need to BE a potato. I said use trebs, not scattershots. If 2 people from a skillful small man can't coordinate treb hits in any engagement they're ever in, ten we're not talking about skilled players are we? Siege won't work in every engagement, but it certainly works in a good number of them. Hasn't the whole driver been to gain tools that allow small groups to sometimes wipe larger groups? Sometimes being the key word here.

Lava_Croft

No amount of positive or negative talking about large or small groups is going to have any effect as long as the thing that ESO was designed for still does not work properly. (And no, it's not small scale combat)

A large number of people have large fights on a large map.

The fact that smaller groups/smaller scale combat is possible thanks to the way Cyrodiil is designed is somewhat I am very happy with because it supplied me with almost all of my ESO fun, but it's not the core design and therefore should not receive any kind of meaningful attention until the above is working correctly. I think the PvP community is more than aware of the effects of misplaced focus, as evidenced by the state of Cyrodiil.

Takllin

Zheg wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Starshadw wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Regarding heals, that's why I said cold stone trebs, it's all burst damage, no dot. Regarding being able to hit moving targets - of course it's hard, but that's where the skill of the skillful group of 4 should come into effect. They should know when to put down siege, when and where to aim, how to lead a moving group of targets, the most favorable terrain and positioning to engage, etc.

It is as fun? No. Is siege bugged and clunky? Yes. Is it hard to pull off? Yes. But it IS a tool available to small groups to fight large clumped up groups, should they actually be able to pull it off. If the discussion is on MORE tools, that's one thing, but to say there are no means currently available is disingenuous.

Rephrased :
I say : I have a lighter and a potato, I don't have the means to cook the potato.
You say : Well fire + potato should work if you are skilled enough, it's doable.

really?

Thenuse the lighter to make a campfire and cook the potato, no need to BE a potato. I said use trebs, not scattershots. If 2 people from a skillful small man can't coordinate treb hits in any engagement they're ever in, ten we're not talking about skilled players are we? Siege won't work in every engagement, but it certainly works in a good number of them. Hasn't the whole driver been to gain tools that allow small groups to sometimes wipe larger groups? Sometimes being the key word here.

Your talking about a niche case like it can be used regularly...it can't. People recognize that wiping big groups is possible, it's just that with each update that possibility decreases further and further.

FENGRUSH

spenc_cathb16_ESO wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

spenc_cathb16_ESO wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Starshadw wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

Siege can be good, but it's more than a little tricksy and twitchy at the moment - first, any of us who PvP know that the damn things are bugging out left and right. Second, they are slow - which means that it's very likely the spot your siege is hitting will be empty by the time it hits because out on the battlefield, things are constantly in motion and the siege doesn't move fast enough to keep up with that. Third, people are still running Purge and right now, a lot of the groups we're seeing are templar-heavy, which means tons of heals, lessening the value of siege damage.

Don't get me wrong, siege can be and is useful. But it's not the magic bullet against zergs.

Regarding heals, that's why I said cold stone trebs, it's all burst damage, no dot. Regarding being able to hit moving targets - of course it's hard, but that's where the skill of the skillful group of 4 should come into effect. They should know when to put down siege, when and where to aim, how to lead a moving group of targets, the most favorable terrain and positioning to engage, etc.

It is as fun? No. Is siege bugged and clunky? Yes. Is it hard to pull off? Yes. But it IS a tool available to small groups to fight large clumped up groups, should they actually be able to pull it off. If the discussion is on MORE tools, that's one thing, but to say there are no means currently available is disingenuous.

Rephrased :
I say : I have a lighter and a potato, I don't have the means to cook the potato.
You say : Well fire + potato should work if you are skilled enough, it's doable.

really?

http://knowledgeweighsnothing.com/mud-spuds-clay-baked-potatoes/

That requires clay though, I said lighter + potato only

And that's when the resourceful people will shine, and those that don't know how to adapt to their surroundings will fail. Much like soloing/small man grouping day in and day out while in Cyrodiil, only to complain that there's more organized people around them doing a bigger version of a their beloved 1vX. 1v3 or 24v72+, both equally as impressive.

Nobody groups up 72 people in an organized fashion as much as they do 24 man groups. They may congregate together raids and work together, but they dont function like a 24 man group. Also, they are more realistically 40-50 probably.

If I led a group of like minded 72 player raid groups, your 24 man group would never win. You wouldnt even compete. But there are not 72 man sized groups of top tier players ever - anywhere. To compare 24 man groups of good players cutting through disorganized zergs would be to compare my 4 man fighting a 24 man group of PVE players in the sewers. We win - a lot. I killed a 24 man group last night in sewers and only had 1 other person show up midway through the fight to help clean up. This is pretty much what Id compare the 24 v 72 example to, but honestly, the larger group scenario will be a lot easier and more frequently a win.

24 man ball groups are not doing a bigger version of 1vX or 4vX. Ball groups are where the gameplay fundamentally changes. Thats really the point. If youre all for ball group gameplay, then that is fine. That is what you long for and you can make it clear, but 24 man groups are not the same as ball groups, and Im more interested in changing the simplistic meta.

Joy_Division wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

This whole idea that running in a 24-man group is somehow 'less skilled' than running in a 4-man group while ESO is designed and marketed as a large scale PvP game makes me wonder if these people are the same people that say I should play Quake using only my Axe, since Rocket Launchers are for people without skill.

Idiots.

Let's say someone designs a rocket launcher to kill a pack of squirrels.
Let's say that same person designs a pellet launcher to kill individual squirrels.

Killing a pack of squirrels using the pellet launcher takes undeniably more skill than to kill a single squirrel with the rocket launcher.

Ball is in your court Kris

So because you choose to run around with a much less effective weapon than available, that automagically makes you 'more skilled' and automagically gives you the position to constantly belittle people who do use the more effective weapon?

Guess it's time to run around Cyrodiil unarmored and fist fight my way to victory while constantly proclaiming that the rest are just lesser skilled players.

This is so wrong.

Everybody is running around with the same weapons. Yet if the smallgrp throws their handgranades against a biggrp half of them turn into foul eggs midair while the granades thrown by the biggrps stay the same.

ESO in it's current state means that the most effective way of playing PvP is to run around in a large group. While it's fine and part of the glorious Elder Scrolls Freedom that you can choose to run around in a group that is (by design) less effective than a 24-man group, this choice is yours and the reason it's sub-optimal is not the people running around in large groups that constantly get whined at for running around in large groups.

Instead of constantly telling people who run in large groups that they lack skill, cause lag and what not, try telling ZOS to fix their product.

Which is what everyone here is doing? I don´t get your point?
The core complaint is that the same skills get less effective if you´re outnumbered enabling everyone outnumbering you to make more mistakes than you by design. This leads to players making the wrong decisions still win fights due to bad/broken game mechanics.

Also the most efficient way of playing is causing lag. There is no denying that. People just don´t care because winning is more important on an individual level.

Please pretend like there isn't constant and endless whining both here and everywhere else from people who prefer small scale to people playing in large groups. Please watch the stream related to this thread and tell me there is not belittling towards people playing in larger groups, expressed by people preferring to play in smaller groups.

I've been here since the beta, acting like a certain part of the population doesn't look down on people playing the game as advertised won't work.

If you read my last 2 posts and are still coming way with the idea that Im just out here to personally attack people, I dont know what else I can do. Do I need to draw a picture or something? This isnt a personal attack on any player, persons, or group of persons. I dont even blame people for doing what they do, and I say this a lot on stream too. People want to win - this is how its done. This is what happens.

It's not you. It's many people who agree with you who. Not just in this thread. Every day. Do people need to grow thicker skin? Yes. Are many people who run in raid groups equally insulting? Probably. Would this conversation be more productive without all the gratuitous cheap shots? Absolutely.

There is one aspect to this discussion that has not been explored, or if it has been, I missed it. I think the position as to how removing the AOE caps would be beneficial to the game performance-wise and leveling the playing field was been advanced well enough. What I have not seen is an analysis of why ZoS instituted an AOE cap in the first place and why those reasons are no longer valid.

I mean, I have played RPGs and fantasy games all my life - and I go back to Advanced D&D in the 1980s - and I never once played in a system that had AOE caps. The concept was totally alien to me. I get the impression this is fairly common in MMOs, but that does not mean the reasoning behind it is well known. The feeling I get from the minority of players who support them is that AoEs would be too powerful otherwise. Is that true, is that why ZoS put in the cap? Or did ZoS just put in a cap simply because that's what MMOs do and are just conforming to a common practice?

It's one thing to say "do something" and point to the possible advantages. You and other have done this, fairly compellingly. But there is another side to "doing something," there may be negative ramifications that accompany those advantages. The was a reason why ZoS felt putting in the AOE CAP was a good idea. Tell them why that reason(s), that they believed to be true in April 2014, is no longer the case or relevant in October 2015. If it was because the fear of AoE just being too strong, tell us why you don't think AoEs would be too dominant ... have there been other MMOs that managed this? I don't know, ESO is the only one I played. Something is obviously holding ZoS back because every single poll by this community and others like on Reddit have had a large majority of players disagreeing with the concept of AoE caps.

Edit: You'd be preaching to the choir here, because for 30 years I have managed not to get myself fried going up against dragons and their highly damaging AoE breath attack.

To touch on your point of AOE caps - they were trying to balance out problems at release. Specifically, people were generating ults continuously and churning through huge amounts of players that didnt know how to play the game and were quick to complain instead of learn what was going on. Their goal was to stop this.

First they put in a hard AOE cap of 6 players you could hit max. This was applied to stuff like ults and AOE damage abilities. Effects like talons never hit 20+ people, there was caps on some skills and that should remain to a degree still I agree.

AOE cap change didnt work, but ball groups started after this. Its important to note that at this point, performance started to suffer, because ball groups were clashing, not dying, and people were healing each other like mad and not closing kills. People still generated ults very quickly through dynamic ult gen via crits. So people made crit heavy builds and would crit 6 people at a time and the same thing was still happening to a much lesser degree. So they changed ult gen to be static. Eventually, they changed AOE caps so players 'could now hit everyone' but left beyond 6 targets at 50% damage. It didnt really change the meta though, because 50% mitigation is still huge, and people already learned to play as balls, and it still worked, so they still did it.

Thats pretty much where its at today. Theres other changes that happened along the way, that change dmultiple times related to this, such as siege damage, siege effects, what was able to be purged. In the end, they went in favor of ball groups.

Ultimately AOE caps need to go - but I dont think its a 'simple fix'. Theres more that needs to be done, but balance should be approached in steps, not multiple changes in one fell swoop. See where things are at after AOE caps being removed. I think dynamic ult gen needs to come back, but not the way it was. Theres no reason in a 1v4 you should be getting hit with ults 4x faster when you are fighting 1:4 odds already. If you are able to survive and play the fight, dynamic ult gen was what allowed you to have more of a fighting chance and some advantage on your side despite being outnumbered. It doesnt have to generate ult in the same fashion as before, but not even entertaining ideas in depth until ZOS starts with AOE caps and becomes engaged and interested in improving things.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

I agree with not doing the old ult gen formula - this would require more time and thought. I dont agree with lumping multiple big changes together either, but doing them one at a time. ZOS generally just makes huge changes every new DLC/patch and we end up relearning a new game but the meta of ball groups has always been core due to AOE caps.

I think a lot of people agree with what Im saying, even from ball groups, but take offense when I use the word 'ball group' since it lumps them into a category of what it really is. Its been said enough that its not personally diminishing any of these players personal talent levels in the group. But if people want to ignore that it makes no difference to me. I get that theyre offended and want to come here and lay into me and thats fine - but what Ive said isnt untrue.

Dont lump me in a zerg because I was engaging your group. I actually spent the first 5-10 minutes on the sideline watching it. After that we started picking people off, and frankly, Essa and I were alone in that respect to actually killing people. You were fighting 60 people or whatever, thats fine. You werent however fighting a 60man ball group, because you wouldnt be able to with AOE caps. You would lose pretty badly if 60 people grouped up in the same way. It isnt a matter of strategy, its simply a matter of coordination.

Moving from point A to point B and back to point A isnt something Id consider a strategy either. Everyone who knows whats going on in Cyro can tell what youre going to do long before you do it, but as a smaller group we really dont have an option to counter it. If strategy had any place here, wed have access to some techniques to counter it. The counter is bringing more people and forming a similar group.

Will it make your group stronger against 60 people? Yes it will, and that is a good thing. It will bring less stress to the server. Ball groups do stress the server with the purging and healing that goes on inside them though. This was apparent when ball groups first rolled out that servers started to eat it bad on lag. Before that, not nearly as bad. It really comes down to the overabundant healing/defensive posturing of these ball groups.

Do I expect to walk up with 4 people and knock your ball group down every time? No. In fact the chances of doing that to any decent group is highly unlikely post AOE cap removal. But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.


I love folks from K-hole and would love to fight with them on the battlefield. They run a medium sized raid most the time, and I like running a small group. If we fought today and they were 12 and I had a group of 4 vs an enemy of 24 synced in a ball, wed be stupid to fight separate. If AOE caps were removed, they could fight in one manner while the 4 could flank to much greater effect. This doesnt exist today. This did exist moreso in release. This actually has a level of strategy that doesnt revolve around numbers and AOE caps at its core. This is what I want back.

Fair and balanced gameplay - a place for more than ball groups. If they want to fix performance, they have to address ball groups, not 24 man raids. There is a clear difference. If you dont think balling up in 24man groups impacts performance vs 24 people fighting together, you are absolutely and 100% in denial. The reality is many have played like this for so long they dont even know the difference. They would wonder how or why a 24 man group would not fight in a ball. This is truly a sad thing.

RIP: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

So if were a 4 man group we should focus on being siege specialists in Cyro? We shouldnt be concerned with the performance issues being caused by ball groups - STILL? We dont want to make a balanced approach to PvP where numbers create an artificial mitigation?

Again, this isnt about 4 people being heroes in a battle. Its about 4 people having a real limited and unenjoyable time in today's Cyro.

1. You can organise 4v4 fights (or even 4v4+ depending on how good you think you are)
2. You can play on lower population campaigns and fight senseless boring pver's
3. You can take the pvp you are given and play it as it comes.

On EU there are less bomb groups (24m) playing now then ever before. Yet more people are crying about them.. (well about the same probs). The game is dieing for all players. The problem is that the groups that are there are having to fight in 1 of 2 places on the map. If forward camps were just brought back into the game instantly the 24m groups would split away from the masses and different fights would happen around the map again.

FENGRUSH

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

I agree with not doing the old ult gen formula - this would require more time and thought. I dont agree with lumping multiple big changes together either, but doing them one at a time. ZOS generally just makes huge changes every new DLC/patch and we end up relearning a new game but the meta of ball groups has always been core due to AOE caps.

I think a lot of people agree with what Im saying, even from ball groups, but take offense when I use the word 'ball group' since it lumps them into a category of what it really is. Its been said enough that its not personally diminishing any of these players personal talent levels in the group. But if people want to ignore that it makes no difference to me. I get that theyre offended and want to come here and lay into me and thats fine - but what Ive said isnt untrue.

Dont lump me in a zerg because I was engaging your group. I actually spent the first 5-10 minutes on the sideline watching it. After that we started picking people off, and frankly, Essa and I were alone in that respect to actually killing people. You were fighting 60 people or whatever, thats fine. You werent however fighting a 60man ball group, because you wouldnt be able to with AOE caps. You would lose pretty badly if 60 people grouped up in the same way. It isnt a matter of strategy, its simply a matter of coordination.

Moving from point A to point B and back to point A isnt something Id consider a strategy either. Everyone who knows whats going on in Cyro can tell what youre going to do long before you do it, but as a smaller group we really dont have an option to counter it. If strategy had any place here, wed have access to some techniques to counter it. The counter is bringing more people and forming a similar group.

Will it make your group stronger against 60 people? Yes it will, and that is a good thing. It will bring less stress to the server. Ball groups do stress the server with the purging and healing that goes on inside them though. This was apparent when ball groups first rolled out that servers started to eat it bad on lag. Before that, not nearly as bad. It really comes down to the overabundant healing/defensive posturing of these ball groups.

Do I expect to walk up with 4 people and knock your ball group down every time? No. In fact the chances of doing that to any decent group is highly unlikely post AOE cap removal. But you guys like to take my words and misconstrue them. The reality is we cant do anything. There isnt a place for the small man group in this battle. This is the problem.


I love folks from K-hole and would love to fight with them on the battlefield. They run a medium sized raid most the time, and I like running a small group. If we fought today and they were 12 and I had a group of 4 vs an enemy of 24 synced in a ball, wed be stupid to fight separate. If AOE caps were removed, they could fight in one manner while the 4 could flank to much greater effect. This doesnt exist today. This did exist moreso in release. This actually has a level of strategy that doesnt revolve around numbers and AOE caps at its core. This is what I want back.

Fair and balanced gameplay - a place for more than ball groups. If they want to fix performance, they have to address ball groups, not 24 man raids. There is a clear difference. If you dont think balling up in 24man groups impacts performance vs 24 people fighting together, you are absolutely and 100% in denial. The reality is many have played like this for so long they dont even know the difference. They would wonder how or why a 24 man group would not fight in a ball. This is truly a sad thing.

RIP: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

I hate myself for even being in these threads (any of the many, many ones) any more. Maybe an underlying issue is how you WANT to engage vs. how you SHOULD be engaging ball groups. You 'want' to rambo in and kill everyone because who doesn't, when you SHOULD be peppering them with siege until there are enough numbers of allies there where you have breathing room to engage the outer perimeter of the group. About two months ago when we fought GoS on TF, one of our biggest headaches came from all of the randoms that would set up siege on us while we engaged GoS or were trying to maneuver. I can guarantee you that two well-timed and well-positioned cold stone trebs on a ball group will make most of them dead, even if they get off a reactionary barrier. You keep talking about how you want skillful small groups to have a fighting chance, well - there you go. It DOES take skill to have two, three people coordinate their siege, especially if they're trying to hit a moving target. So, don't say you can't do ANYTHING, because if a group is balled up and you are able to get off 2-3 well-timed stone treb hits, it doesn't matter if they have barrier and heals, it's too much burst and people will drop. Now, you might not WANT to do this because you want to be able to attack them and pop bats and use aoes, but that doesn't mean you can't kill them in the current meta - you just have to do something that has less glory.

Sorry, but 2.1 is a numbers game, even for ball groups. At some point you just can't win when you're heavily outnumbered, and when we're talking 4 to 24, it's the same scenario as 24 vs 60+, but with easier overall ratios. Sorry, but I wouldn't try to have my group of 24 engage a group of 144 (same ratio), I'd be kiting and running and picking off anyone I could, while expecting the wipe soon.

So if were a 4 man group we should focus on being siege specialists in Cyro? We shouldnt be concerned with the performance issues being caused by ball groups - STILL? We dont want to make a balanced approach to PvP where numbers create an artificial mitigation?

Again, this isnt about 4 people being heroes in a battle. Its about 4 people having a real limited and unenjoyable time in today's Cyro.

1. You can organise 4v4 fights (or even 4v4+ depending on how good you think you are)
2. You can play on lower population campaigns and fight senseless boring pver's
3. You can take the pvp you are given and play it as it comes.

On EU there are less bomb groups (24m) playing now then ever before the game is dieing for all players. The problem is that the groups that are there are having to fight in 1 of 2 places on the map. If forward camps were just brought back into the game instantly the 24m groups would split away from the masses and different fights would happen around the map again.

So the game is dying and youre not interested in changing the meta because you dont see a correlation between the gameplay being in a bad place and players leaving the game? So I should organize 4v4s and seek out players to 4v4 all day? Great solution.

Ill continue to fight the battle on the forums and on stream, thats the medium I have. ZOS says they are listening - theyll have a window to prove it. If they are not, then they will continue to lose players and there wont be a game left to play anyway, so whats the point in setting up 4v4s as those people start to leave as well?

Forward camps would not split ball groups. Ball groups are what they are, and the players in them play because of the success it brings them. They will simply push the map faster with less resistance on the front line and force the fight to them. They will use camps and back end the trans keeps and funnel the mass to them. This is nothing new. This is how it works because of Cyros 1 dimensional objective based play.