Ball groups/Monkeys/Pats on the back

rfennell_ESO

elc8745ub17_ESO wrote: »

Do any of you all realize that monkeys could be trained to run in ball groups? Like literally. Dead serious. A monkey could be trained to do the things required to run in a ball group. One more time for emphasis. Ball group pvp is so dumbed down that a MONKEY...could perform the functions required.

The monkey can't stop to whisper someone "u got rekt" so your whole arguments is wrong.

Waffennacht

Oh I see. I would like the AoE cap removed (why is it there anyway?)

Isn't it a problem of PvE vs PvP, in some dungeons I ran, I was instructed to do the ball so we could be healed from boss damage. Without the ball there would be no completion.

Maybe make it where such tactics are not required to do dungeons, that way you can change the PvP with no PvE interruption?

Or make heals have an AoE cap too?

CN_Daniel

My guild posted the 121 vs 18 video. As you can see in the video we kill something like 50 people within the first minute or so.

Honestly AOE caps are only going to hurt the more casual player, but i support the idea. Think about what we'd be doing if all 18 of our people are hitting those 50 for full damage? They'd have even less of a chance than they do now.

But it's the lesser of two evils imho. I run into groups of 50+ red & 75+ yellows frequently. They wouldn't dare stack that many without AOE caps (reducing the lag) but it would also turn the game more one sides for the "skilled" players or groups.

The only viable solution I see to solving the lag issues is segmenting pvp into separate zones, or significantly reducing population caps to force two main campaigns (rather than one -- Azura). Azura is perfect each weekday until 8pm EST to 1am EST.

And running a highly successful "blob" group takes waaaaaay more skill than you'd think. Your looking at months and months of practice. If it was so easy you'd see way more successful groups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l89jWnFiepQ

elc8745ub17_ESO

Ok for the purposes of primate research I watched the video. ha ha jk. But no, I did watch the video. Analysis forthcoming.

elc8745ub17_ESO

The video shows one of the more solid ball groups putting on a good performance. And you're right, some ball groups are better than others. Your group in DC, Haxus in EP, and Crown's group in AD are probably the best ball groups I've seen. The individual players in those ball groups are probably a bit more skilled in general than the players in your average ball group. Probably have better stats, gear and builds. Furthermore, those groups probably tend to have much closer to the exact right mix of damage dealers, healers, and utility skill spammers than the average ball group. It's a formula really, and those groups have nailed the ball group formula. They have perfected the system.

But lets break it down a little more. The bottom line is that your group was hiding in its aoe cap the entire fight. But the people you were fighting at any individual moment, many of them were either not taking advantage of the aoe cap at all, or not nearly as efficiently as your group was at any individual moment. Your group had pressure on you from the sheer amount of people you were fighting, but no one was able to put ACUTE pressure on you, because of the aoe cap your group was so skillfully hiding in by staying on crown. You lost a few people that you had to ress. People that were part of the unlucky 6 not protected by aoe caps. Without aoe caps, your group might have actually had to make some tough decisions because more people would have died. Instead you just held the line and stood true to the ball group philosophy, "unless someone or something puts overwhelming ACUTE pressure on us, our aoe caps will save us." The only thing that would have done that is another solid ball group. You did exit the keep and come from behind them, and that's good to see, that some kind of tactics had to be used.

And in a nutshell, thats what I see. You didn't fight 121 people all at the same time in a ball with your ball. You fought waves of them, all the while maintaining your artificial advantage of aoe caps, while the enemy players had it only intermittently.

So to say that if aoe caps were gone you would have wiped them easier and quicker - that's true in a way and not true in a way. Based on that video, I think aoe caps helped you more than it hurt.

Now this is all inside an inner keep so its skewed a bit. In reality, most fights dont happen in an inner keep. While inside an inner keep, random zergers are often somewhat protected by aoe caps just by happenstance, because its such close quarters. Out in the field, the ball group advantage is even STRONGER than what's shown in the video because random zergers are not all stacked on top of each other. They are spread out more. And the ball group crashes into them, taking full advantage of aoe cap and aoe heals, while random people just get mowed over. Its disgusting. Its a horrible form of pvp. These people gotta be like...so this is Cyrodiil pvp...was that even a fight? Did I just fight? Like I felt some lag, then I heard all kinds of spells going off, then I was insta dead by a ball of indistinguishable players who ran over me and kept on going to the next guy to do the same thing. And this is ESO pvp?

And how would removing aoe caps hurt the casual player more? As is, they get mowed over 18 vs 121! Your own video proves it my god. Right there's nothing hurting pvp in this game more than ball groups and the lag they create. Do you know how rare it is to actually hit 6+ people with aoe? Even casual zergers dont just stack up like that unless theyre going through a choke point. You know who its going to hurt? BALL GROUPS. The only people that DO, with regularity, stack up like that. And you know who thats going to help? CASUALS. THE PEOPLE WHO GET RUN OVER BY BALL GROUPS ALL DAY EVERY DAY. Sure there would be random instances of casuals who happen to be massed together getting mowed down by players who aoe bomb them. But then they'd learn to not bunch up. How do you LEARN against a ball group? There is no learn. You either make a ball group or just avoid them. You cant win. You cant learn to win against a ball group. Its fkn broken.

elc8745ub17_ESO

Have you looked at the leader boards lately? Filled mostly with ball groupers. Millions of ap from just running over casual players all day every day. Many casuals have probably already quit because they log in, go to Cyrodiil and just get run over by the same ball groups all day every day. Go try to take a keep. It's all fun for a minute, bunch of random people fighting, people dying here and there, theres a push on the right side, but then the opposing force rallies and pushes them back. THEN BOOM ALL OF A SUDDEN A BALL GROUP SHOWS UP AND RUNS EVERY ONE OVER LOL FIGHT OVER THANKS FOR COMING CHECK ME OUT ON THE LEADER BOARDS THANKS GUYS PRECIATE YA.

I would argue the only thing that keeps you ball groupers playing ESO IS the casuals. The people you unfairly run over every day 18 vs 121, but then can claim it as a great victory. If there were no casuals, if everyone was ball grouped up...you people would get bored so fast. ESO pvp would literally be just ball groups crashing into each other and whoever's aoe heals and aoe damage is greater, wins. How lame

elc8745ub17_ESO

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:

1. Remove aoe caps.

2. Don't remove, but increase the aoe cap. This would at least put more pressure on stacking ball groupers.

3. Put a cap on aoe heals and/or utility skills. There's a cap on the damage that stacked players take, why not a cap on the healing they receive? Make sense? Or have I lost my mind? Would that somehow "hurt the casual"? Lol the ball group motto -"WE DO IT FOR THE CASUAL" Give me a break.

Makkir

When you have zerg versus zerg it does often come down to skill and timing for which group to come out victorious.

I have been in zerg ball groups before that have failed miserably against smaller ball groups due to poor execution and leadership.

This game was packaged and sold as Alliance Vs Alliance PvP (Zerg), not solo or small scale pvp. I think you need to realize that before complaining. I am playing devil's advocate here because I do like small scale PvP as much as the next guy.
But, as I have said many times in the past, I am not going to walk into Taco Bell and throw a fit that they don't serve cheeseburgers.

jrkhan

NPK Daniel wrote: »

My guild posted the 121 vs 18 video. As you can see in the video we kill something like 50 people within the first minute or so.

Honestly AOE caps are only going to hurt the more casual player, but i support the idea. Think about what we'd be doing if all 18 of our people are hitting those 50 for full damage? They'd have even less of a chance than they do now.

But it's the lesser of two evils imho. I run into groups of 50+ red & 75+ yellows frequently. They wouldn't dare stack that many without AOE caps (reducing the lag) but it would also turn the game more one sides for the "skilled" players or groups.

The only viable solution I see to solving the lag issues is segmenting pvp into separate zones, or significantly reducing population caps to force two main campaigns (rather than one -- Azura). Azura is perfect each weekday until 8pm EST to 1am EST.

And running a highly successful "blob" group takes waaaaaay more skill than you'd think. Your looking at months and months of practice. If it was so easy you'd see way more successful groups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l89jWnFiepQ

:sigh:
At what point in this video did you go up against a 50 man blob?
You didn't - you went up against the formation that pugs usually take - scattered, playing not very cohesively. Unable to deal with a blob (in this case yours).

I've played in 8 man groups in 1.6
We upscaled to 24 in 1.7 because more aoe damage was required for equal effectiveness.
It was EASY to play in a blob with larger numbers.
Our FIRST night running a 24 man blob we made half a million AP.

The only 'skill' required to run a successful blob group - is convincing a group of reasonably intelligent people to stack on a pixel and use one or two skills on demand.
No one is saying the crown doesn't have to make decent calls - it's just not very demanding on the members involved (could easily be automated with a few exceptions)

elc8745ub17_ESO

Makkir wrote: »

When you have zerg versus zerg it does often come down to skill and timing for which group to come out victorious.

I have been in zerg ball groups before that have failed miserably against smaller ball groups due to poor execution and leadership.

This game was packaged and sold as Alliance Vs Alliance PvP (Zerg), not solo or small scale pvp. I think you need to realize that before complaining. I am playing devil's advocate here because I do like small scale PvP as much as the next guy.
But, as I have said many times in the past, I am not going to walk into Taco Bell and throw a fit that they don't serve cheeseburgers.

Did you even read anything I said? I know it's a lot of stuff to read. But had you read it, you would realize that what you just replied literally makes no sense in relation to what I said.

There will always be zergs. I have no problem with zergs. There always was zergs and there still is in ESO. Every mmo I've ever played theres been zergs. Even if its not a game "packaged and sold as Alliance Vs Alliance Pvp," there were still zergs. Matter of fact thats why I BOUGHT the game, for alliance vs alliance pvp. A zerg is NOT a ball group. Although ball groups can be zergy. Quite specifically, a ball group is a group of players that stack on top of each other TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TAKING REDUCED DAMAGE. Reduced damage for what? For no reason, just here you go heres 50% damage reduction for your group, now run over everyone.

Does anyone honestly think ZOS foresaw that by adding aoe caps they would create ball group pvp? Of course not. What video game developer in their right mind would think its a good idea to create an environment where ball group pvp is the thing. ZOS doesn't foresee much. But thats where we are.

And yeah you just nailed it jrkhan. Matter of fact, it's widely speculated that the very first ball group WAS automated. It was an EP group full of names I dont remember now, a long long time ago. When the ball group would begin to be overwhelmed and break, the individual players would kind of just casually run in a straight line in different directions, whatever direction they were already facing. They'd be chased down and killed without even putting up a fight. Its not that much different from when a ball group breaks up now because the players are so bad they have no idea what to do outside of the ball. But I'd put money on it that that first one was automated.

Cryhavoc

Question:

What size group is ESO balanced around?

We know it isnt 1v1, but is it 4v4 or 24v24? Is it even balanced around a group size?

I am curious...

Knootewoot

Have you tried resetting your router?


Sadly this can't be fixed. Everything Zos throws at them (zergbusters, like detonation) are used by the zerg. They aborb it and it becomes part of this living organism.

In 300.000 years these single individuals will evolve to become one organism where every individual will perform only one task. A million years from now they will evolve into apelike creatures which will build spaceships and leave Nirn and make a home in the world of a blackened desert.

Draxys

lol

k2blader

OP, thanks for your definition. I don't like the blobby aspects of ESO PvP either. But how would removing the AoE cap help the "casuals" (word used very loosely) that you are saying are hurt most by blobs?

I think "casuals" would be hurt by removing/increasing the AoE cap. Mowed down even faster than they are now.

elc8745ub17_ESO

Lol thats kinda true, and funny Knootewoot. But it CAN be fixed. What good is detonation doing 5% more damage per target hit up to FIVE targets, when at SIX targets everyone else takes 50% less damage? See how that works? Detonation does a total of 25% more damage to 5 targets, but targets 6-195,000,000 take 50% less damage due to aoe caps. How in the flying %##@ is that going to break up a ball group.

It's like the solution in this game if someone throws a grenade at you is for everyone to build a campfire around it and take it. Aren't you supposed to scatter, to dive away from aoe damage? Like for real if someone throws a hand grenade at you and your friends are you going to be like yo everybody come here come see this. If you all come see this hand grenade about to blow up in our face most of us take 50% less damage!

What is aoe damage even in games for if not to keep pvp kosher? What other reason is there for aoe damage? It keeps pvp from getting cheesy. It forces players to maintain some distance from each other. It creates dynamic pvp as a result. Two players engage each other on a battlefield surrounded by 100 other players all doing the same thing. Another guys jumps in to the fight between two people. Then another guy jumps in. This one guy is getting hit by 3 people. But one of his allies see this. Three people are hitting his ally. This is aoeable. He jumps in and aoes the 3 players forcing them to back out. DYNAMIC PVP. RISK VS REWARD. 3 people on 1 guy the reward is that 1 guy goes down faster, the risk is someone catches you grouped up like that and aoe's you. Totally engaging and dynamic pvp, and this is just a stupid little example.

Right now what we have dominating pvp is so STATIC. "Alright everybody grab your resto sticks, get on crown, slam some heals and press your steel tornado button nonstop." And they just STAY in that formation! ALWAYS. Its all they do. Everything they do, everywhere they go, every day, thats what they do. Because it dominates.

Here's a bigger example of how it SHOULD be. Group of 24 ex ball groupers shows up to a fight between their faction and an opposing faction. It's 40vs40ish. They stroll up, in loose formation, to avoid getting caught off guard by an aoe bomb (since theres no aoe caps anymore in this fake scenario). Spells and arrows are slung back and forth for awhile, some melee engagements but the two sides are kind of at a stand off. Through the use of tactics and focus fire, this group of 24 ex ball groupers takes down a few targets. Still at a standoff though. Someone in the group calls out "yo theyre massed up on the left side"....."group up group up, we have initiative, HIT IT GO GO GO" AOE boom. Dynamic pvp. Flowing pvp. Pvp you have to adapt to as a player, as a group based on the situation.

Same situation, but in the current pvp meta. Group of 24 ball groupers rolls up on a fight thats like 20 allies vs 40 enemies. Ball group comes in in ball group formation because thats the formation theyre always in because there are artificial advantages to it, and rolls over everyone. Fight over in 30 seconds.

Remove aoe caps. Problem solved. Guarantee you you wont see 24 players all hanging out in the same pixel anymore. Because the advantage of doing that will be gone.

elc8745ub17_ESO

k2blader wrote: »

OP, thanks for your definition. I don't like the blobby aspects of ESO PvP either. But how would removing the AoE cap help the "casuals" (word used very loosely) that you are saying are hurt most by blobs?

I think "casuals" would be hurt by removing/increasing the AoE cap. Mowed down even faster than they are now.

Thanks for the question. This is what I've been trying to explain. How do casuals play? They find their friendly zerg and they hover around it. This zerg of casuals is always spread out enough, and this is key, this is the critical point you need to take from this, spread out enough to where they are NOT receiving the benefit of aoe caps. The only way you benefit from aoe caps is if you are balled up with a large group of players, I'm talking about damn near standing on top of each other, like a ball group. Let me reiterate, most casuals, in most of the time that they spend in pvp zones, are NOT reaping the benefit of aoe caps. Most casuals dont even KNOW there are aoe caps, much less that the best thing to do is stand in the same spot with 24 other players so you can benefit from it.

So what happens? Well through primate research earlier I watched a video of 18 players killing 121. As you can see, the ball group, that already is reaping all the benefits of being coordinated, being on TS together, usually a guild group with a ton of practice together, ON TOP OF ALLLLLLLL OF THOSE BENEFITS, they also spend the entirety of every single fight they get into, reaping the benefit of the aoe cap because they are stacked so tightly together. This equals out to roughly a 50% damage reduction. For no reason. Just here you go heres 50% damage reduction so you can run over casuals even more than you already would have.

To put it bluntly, when a ball group runs into a group of spread out casuals, the ball group is benefiting from aoe caps, the casuals are not. The casuals die within 1-2 seconds of contact. I watch this happen every single day I play this game. I dont know if it can even get faster than that? To answer your question about getting mowed down faster.

So with the aoe caps removed there will be a counter to these ball groups. They wont be able to just ball up and mow down casuals. They wont risk that because at any point in time people can come in and aoe bomb them and they will take FULL damage. There will be battle lines, there will be standoffs, casuals will actually get to play the game, pvp, hone their skills. But at least they wont just be mowed down by a steamroller of 24 players that cant even be touched due to broken game mechanics.

elc8745ub17_ESO

As you can see guys, most of the notable ball groupers haven't even touched this thread. Wizard Daniel did, he tried. And I annihilated every single one of his "points". Although he did kind of agree with me in general. And they're not going to touch this thread. Because its indefensible. The ball group style of play is so grossly unfair to everyone who is not in a ball group. No one has ever vocalized the objections to ball groups the way they should have, like I am now.

This thread has been up for 2 days or so and the ball group overlords are avoiding it like the plague. Because they know as soon as they even try to let out a little peep about how ball groups are good for the game, or somehow evident of l33t pvp skills, I will make them look so ridiculous.

Open invitation to any of you ball groupers to come and somehow defend this style of play. I wont hold my breath. I dont hold it against you for doing it, its by far the strongest "tactic" in game. Many of you are kind of forced to do it because enemy groups do it. But really, you guys should be just as passionate as I am about getting this RIDICULOUS style of play FIXED by ZOS.

Rylana

Jahosefat wrote: »

Columba?

My question exactly

Morozov

I take it our group has run over many of you, thus the amount of QQ in this thread.

I'll say this abut the "ball group" or "Zerg" cause they are pretty much the same thing just different names:

1. If ZOS original intent was to have a large amount of players in these massive sieges all over Cyrodill, then why is everyone complaining that some groups do it more effectively than others? Don't hate the player, hate the game.
2. The goal of Cyrodill is to make AP and have fun, our group does both. Our guild in TS repeatedly has the motto, "We are a drinking guild with a PVP problem" We make AP, we have fun, we put members on the top of the leaderboard. What else can you ask for? Some of the team are great at 1v1/1vX and some are not. Who cares?
3. Does a bunch of players in one area create lag? Yes! ZOS's fault their servers cant handle it. Its caused by players on all factions so you can't single out one. But I have experienced keep fights where our 24 man group was the only ones there and had no lag yet the next fight where we and another raid group + pugs showed up then everything got choppy. What can you do?
4. Taking a keep against a large number of defenders takes coordination. What better way to do that than have a group who is coordinated to work on Map control? Better map control = more AP! The goal in Cyrodill is to make points by taking scrolls and keeps. Some folks are just good at doing that.

I get that the ball groups can be frustrating, but don't get mad when you stand in front of the train and get run over!

caperon

elc8745ub17_ESO wrote: »

The video shows one of the more solid ball groups putting on a good performance. And you're right, some ball groups are better than others. Your group in DC, Haxus in EP, and Crown's group in AD are probably the best ball groups I've seen. The individual players in those ball groups are probably a bit more skilled in general than the players in your average ball group. Probably have better stats, gear and builds. Furthermore, those groups probably tend to have much closer to the exact right mix of damage dealers, healers, and utility skill spammers than the average ball group. It's a formula really, and those groups have nailed the ball group formula. They have perfected the system.

But lets break it down a little more. The bottom line is that your group was hiding in its aoe cap the entire fight. But the people you were fighting at any individual moment, many of them were either not taking advantage of the aoe cap at all, or not nearly as efficiently as your group was at any individual moment. Your group had pressure on you from the sheer amount of people you were fighting, but no one was able to put ACUTE pressure on you, because of the aoe cap your group was so skillfully hiding in by staying on crown. You lost a few people that you had to ress. People that were part of the unlucky 6 not protected by aoe caps. Without aoe caps, your group might have actually had to make some tough decisions because more people would have died. Instead you just held the line and stood true to the ball group philosophy, "unless someone or something puts overwhelming ACUTE pressure on us, our aoe caps will save us." The only thing that would have done that is another solid ball group. You did exit the keep and come from behind them, and that's good to see, that some kind of tactics had to be used.

And in a nutshell, thats what I see. You didn't fight 121 people all at the same time in a ball with your ball. You fought waves of them, all the while maintaining your artificial advantage of aoe caps, while the enemy players had it only intermittently.

So to say that if aoe caps were gone you would have wiped them easier and quicker - that's true in a way and not true in a way. Based on that video, I think aoe caps helped you more than it hurt.

Now this is all inside an inner keep so its skewed a bit. In reality, most fights dont happen in an inner keep. While inside an inner keep, random zergers are often somewhat protected by aoe caps just by happenstance, because its such close quarters. Out in the field, the ball group advantage is even STRONGER than what's shown in the video because random zergers are not all stacked on top of each other. They are spread out more. And the ball group crashes into them, taking full advantage of aoe cap and aoe heals, while random people just get mowed over. Its disgusting. Its a horrible form of pvp. These people gotta be like...so this is Cyrodiil pvp...was that even a fight? Did I just fight? Like I felt some lag, then I heard all kinds of spells going off, then I was insta dead by a ball of indistinguishable players who ran over me and kept on going to the next guy to do the same thing. And this is ESO pvp?

And how would removing aoe caps hurt the casual player more? As is, they get mowed over 18 vs 121! Your own video proves it my god. Right there's nothing hurting pvp in this game more than ball groups and the lag they create. Do you know how rare it is to actually hit 6+ people with aoe? Even casual zergers dont just stack up like that unless theyre going through a choke point. You know who its going to hurt? BALL GROUPS. The only people that DO, with regularity, stack up like that. And you know who thats going to help? CASUALS. THE PEOPLE WHO GET RUN OVER BY BALL GROUPS ALL DAY EVERY DAY. Sure there would be random instances of casuals who happen to be massed together getting mowed down by players who aoe bomb them. But then they'd learn to not bunch up. How do you LEARN against a ball group? There is no learn. You either make a ball group or just avoid them. You cant win. You cant learn to win against a ball group. Its fkn broken.

Thread can be closed.

jrkhan

Morozov wrote: »

I take it our group has run over many of you, thus the amount of QQ in this thread.

I'll say this abut the "ball group" or "Zerg" cause they are pretty much the same thing just different names:

1. If ZOS original intent was to have a large amount of players in these massive sieges all over Cyrodill, then why is everyone complaining that some groups do it more effectively than others? Don't hate the player, hate the game.
2. The goal of Cyrodill is to make AP and have fun, our group does both. Our guild in TS repeatedly has the motto, "We are a drinking guild with a PVP problem" We make AP, we have fun, we put members on the top of the leaderboard. What else can you ask for? Some of the team are great at 1v1/1vX and some are not. Who cares?
3. Does a bunch of players in one area create lag? Yes! ZOS's fault their servers cant handle it. Its caused by players on all factions so you can't single out one. But I have experienced keep fights where our 24 man group was the only ones there and had no lag yet the next fight where we and another raid group + pugs showed up then everything got choppy. What can you do?
4. Taking a keep against a large number of defenders takes coordination. What better way to do that than have a group who is coordinated to work on Map control? Better map control = more AP! The goal in Cyrodill is to make points by taking scrolls and keeps. Some folks are just good at doing that.

I get that the ball groups can be frustrating, but don't get mad when you stand in front of the train and get run over!

No, there is a very clear distinction between a ball group and a zerg.

A ball group exploits the AOE cap by stacking DIRECTLY on top of each other to gain the benefit of group wide buffs, and free damage reduction.
A zerg is just a bunch of players in the same general area - with varying degrees of coordination.

I'm not sure why you'd choose to call a ball group a zerg.. They are more like Protoss. A monolithic structure that is hard to kill.

We are in fact, hating the 'game mechanic' that makes this boring play style so effective.

Ganj

VirtualElizabeth wrote: »

Touch My Monkey

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VSWtCrqB3E4

Welldone! Now i will remember this song whenever i got chase by zergs.

jrkhan wrote: »

Morozov wrote: »

I take it our group has run over many of you, thus the amount of QQ in this thread.

I'll say this abut the "ball group" or "Zerg" cause they are pretty much the same thing just different names:

1. If ZOS original intent was to have a large amount of players in these massive sieges all over Cyrodill, then why is everyone complaining that some groups do it more effectively than others? Don't hate the player, hate the game.
2. The goal of Cyrodill is to make AP and have fun, our group does both. Our guild in TS repeatedly has the motto, "We are a drinking guild with a PVP problem" We make AP, we have fun, we put members on the top of the leaderboard. What else can you ask for? Some of the team are great at 1v1/1vX and some are not. Who cares?
3. Does a bunch of players in one area create lag? Yes! ZOS's fault their servers cant handle it. Its caused by players on all factions so you can't single out one. But I have experienced keep fights where our 24 man group was the only ones there and had no lag yet the next fight where we and another raid group + pugs showed up then everything got choppy. What can you do?
4. Taking a keep against a large number of defenders takes coordination. What better way to do that than have a group who is coordinated to work on Map control? Better map control = more AP! The goal in Cyrodill is to make points by taking scrolls and keeps. Some folks are just good at doing that.

I get that the ball groups can be frustrating, but don't get mad when you stand in front of the train and get run over!

No, there is a very clear distinction between a ball group and a zerg.

A ball group exploits the AOE cap by stacking DIRECTLY on top of each other to gain the benefit of group wide buffs, and free damage reduction.
A zerg is just a bunch of players in the same general area - with varying degrees of coordination.

I'm not sure why you'd choose to call a ball group a zerg.. They are more like Protoss. A monolithic structure that is hard to kill.

We are in fact, hating the 'game mechanic' that makes this boring play style so effective.

Maybe because they both look like monkey flock. or sheep flock. meeh i dont know both look odd to me.

Morozov

jrkhan wrote: »

I'm not sure why you'd choose to call a ball group a zerg.. They are more like Protoss. A monolithic structure that is hard to kill.

im partial to the term "The gigantic galactic Amoeba-People-Eater-from Planet ZR-12"

elc8745ub17_ESO

Morozov wrote: »

I take it our group has run over many of you, thus the amount of QQ in this thread.

I'll say this abut the "ball group" or "Zerg" cause they are pretty much the same thing just different names:

1. If ZOS original intent was to have a large amount of players in these massive sieges all over Cyrodill, then why is everyone complaining that some groups do it more effectively than others? Don't hate the player, hate the game.
2. The goal of Cyrodill is to make AP and have fun, our group does both. Our guild in TS repeatedly has the motto, "We are a drinking guild with a PVP problem" We make AP, we have fun, we put members on the top of the leaderboard. What else can you ask for? Some of the team are great at 1v1/1vX and some are not. Who cares?
3. Does a bunch of players in one area create lag? Yes! ZOS's fault their servers cant handle it. Its caused by players on all factions so you can't single out one. But I have experienced keep fights where our 24 man group was the only ones there and had no lag yet the next fight where we and another raid group + pugs showed up then everything got choppy. What can you do?
4. Taking a keep against a large number of defenders takes coordination. What better way to do that than have a group who is coordinated to work on Map control? Better map control = more AP! The goal in Cyrodill is to make points by taking scrolls and keeps. Some folks are just good at doing that.

I get that the ball groups can be frustrating, but don't get mad when you stand in front of the train and get run over!

Mother of God. You mean to tell me that DRUNKEN monkeys can ball group also? I'll be damned.

Anyway, you obviously didn't read much of previous posts in the thread because your reply doesn't even factually line up with anything. A ball group is not the same as a zerg, this has been pointed out numerous times in this thread alone. I think you people are just trolling me so I have to keep writing these book length responses. Like jrkhan just said, there is a distinct difference between a ball group and a zerg. Ball groups exploit the aoe cap by stacking literally on top of each other, zergs in a general sense do not.

1. No one is complaining that you're doing things more effectively. The only thing you may or may not be doing more effectively is ball grouping. The only people who might be offended by that are people in other ball groups who aren't doing it as good as your group. No idea what you're even really trying to say here.

2. This literally has no bearing on the thread at all. Everyone wants to have fun and make AP. If your point is that you can't do it without being in a ball group, then believe me we all understand why you defend the ball group play style. Again, don't really understand your point here.

3. Lag is ZOS's fault, fully agree. Lag is worse as a direct result of aoe caps. That's kinda what were trying to do here...fix it ya know. No one in this thread has singled out one faction as the cause of the lag.

4. You're right. The better coordinated a guild/group/player is the more success they will have. Some folks are indeed better than others. There have been successful people/groups in every game. Those people have been in this game too, before and after aoe caps and ball grouping was thrown in the mix. The difference NOW is that people are being successful by using the biggest crutch in the game, exploiting the aoe mechanic by stacking on top of each other. That's what this thread is about man. Not you and your guild drinking and making AP. It's about the biggest, cheesy, lamest crutch that's ever been in this game. If you think you and your guild are so badass its YOU who should be petitioning ZOS every day to take the training wheels off your bike. Because that's what is. You're using a broken mechanic to dish out a ton more damage to people than what they're able to dish out to you in your ball group form that you're always in.

We're trying to fix it. To make pvp fair again, to make it fun again, for everyone. If something was put in to make ball group pvp fair today, are you saying you would no longer be able to have fun? Have you grown so dependent on your training wheels?

elc8745ub17_ESO

Just obliterated another ball grouper and his "points". Open invitation still ongoing if any ball grouper has any kind of points that actually make sense. I'm online now and ready to respond.

Would be nice if ZOS would read the thread and the well articulated points here that are incapable of being refuted. Would be nice if they acknowledged the inherent flaws and unfairness in ball group pvp.

No one is saying you can't ball group. You can play however you want. It just has to be fair. So others can play how they want too. Level the playing field ZOS. It's your game, fix it.

Cryhavoc

elc8745ub17_ESO wrote: »

Just obliterated another ball grouper and his "points". Open invitation still ongoing if any ball grouper has any kind of points that actually make sense. I'm online now and ready to respond.

Would be nice if ZOS would read the thread and the well articulated points here that are incapable of being refuted. Would be nice if they acknowledged the inherent flaws and unfairness in ball group pvp.

No one is saying you can't ball group. You can play however you want. It just has to be fair. So others can play how they want too. Level the playing field ZOS. It's your game, fix it.

Truth.

Is there any way, under the current state of the game, to combat a ball group outside of being a ball group yourself?

Xexpo

Jahosefat wrote: »

Columba?

the second coming!

elc8745ub17_ESO

In a general sense, no. You want to fight a ball group you have to fight it with another ball group.

A ball group can be overwhelmed by a large number of players. It has to be much larger than the ball group. But this can only happen if the ball group LETS it happen. At any point in time they are capable of peeling off, popping speed, stringing everyone out, then turning around and mowing everyone down. If they feel like turning around is not a good option they're capable of just running away. Another thing they do is just hole up in a room or closed off space, banking on that their aoe cap is going to benefit them in the confined space that they're in, whereas the attackers are going to come in piecemeal and not benefit from the aoe cap. And that's usually what happens. Some of these things I just listed are good decisions by the leaders of ball groups. There's nothing wrong with that. That should be encouraged. What's broken is that most of the ball group takes 50% damage while the people they're fighting take 100% damage.

Whatever the case, when a ball group is taken down by a much much larger group of players, it takes an INORDINNAAATE amount of time. It takes a ridiculous amount of time, WAY longer than it should take 50 players to kill 24 players for instance. Because you gotta think, these 24 players are hitting you with The Crutch of Almighty Pwningness. The steel tornados, impulses, prox dets they're hitting you with have NOTHING on this gigantic oversized crutch they're throwing at you, which is known as exploitation of aoe caps.

Makkir

elc8745ub17_ESO wrote: »

Makkir wrote: »

When you have zerg versus zerg it does often come down to skill and timing for which group to come out victorious.

I have been in zerg ball groups before that have failed miserably against smaller ball groups due to poor execution and leadership.

This game was packaged and sold as Alliance Vs Alliance PvP (Zerg), not solo or small scale pvp. I think you need to realize that before complaining. I am playing devil's advocate here because I do like small scale PvP as much as the next guy.
But, as I have said many times in the past, I am not going to walk into Taco Bell and throw a fit that they don't serve cheeseburgers.

Did you even read anything I said? I know it's a lot of stuff to read. But had you read it, you would realize that what you just replied literally makes no sense in relation to what I said.
.

was responding to your OP where your condescending tone clearly paints this picture you think of zergs as mindless lemmings. And if you read my compilation of about 6 sentences I was just mentioning that there is a level of skill involved in successful zergs. Here is a snip:

"How do you ball groupers even pat yourself on the back or give congrats after a long night of pvping? Like what the hell do you even say? "Good job everybody turning right when we called turn RIGHT. That was an amazing right turn and boy did we press our buttons, the same buttons we press every single time were about to crash into some people."

And you are correct, you did post a lot. Reminds me of a motormouth ex-girlfriend bombing my phone with text messages feeling the need to explain herself and a 10 page follow up analyzing our relationship....Learn to calm down a bit when you want to make a point.

It makes it so much better for the listener.

Nirnrot

I used to be a Behavior Therapist and one of the principals of Applied Behavior Analysis is knowing you cannot change a person's behavior, or in this case a population, but you CAN change the environment, which in turn alters what behaviors are available to them. So, Cyrodil is a huge open expanse with the only close quarter areas being inside keeps. I do not see any way to stop "Ball groups" or type-writing monkeys from zerging in this kind of environment. Now look at the PvP in the sewers of the Imperial City. Small tight corridors and much less open space. Sure you can still have tons of players running together, but for the most part the PvP was scaled down and the zergs lost power.

What I think ZOS can do to allow more small-scale PvP is create another, more compact PvP area. Something along the lines of IC but purely PvP. A place for those seeking smaller group PvP to get it. Maybe even limiting the amount of players that can be in this area too. Boom. Different environment. Different behaviors. No more monkeys jumping on the bed.