The Zerg Cure?

PhatGrimReaper

There has been a lot of talk about the removal of soft caps being the solution for the issue that is ridiculously large groups in Cyro....
What if they go a step further and reverse the caps...

First 6 players effected take 100% damage from AoE abilities
Next 7-24 players take 150% damage
and (god forbid it ever happens) 25+ take 250% damage.

Running in a huge group would become really dangerous when faced with small well co-ordinated groups, but not so dangerous that numbers mean nothing at all. Having a numerical advantage should equal an advantage on the battlefield, but there has to be some kind of balancing factor. Everything needs an equal & opposite, this is the core of balance.

Thoughts?

a1x23

I like the idea but the problem is that a 4 man group could drop caltrops and a few ice comets and kill like 20 people. That wouldnt be really fair to the bigger group. But it sure would make you think twice about balling up tho.

PhatGrimReaper

a1x23 wrote: »

I like the idea but the problem is that a 4 man group could drop caltrops and a few ice comets and kill like 20 people. That wouldnt be really fair to the bigger group. But it sure would make you think twice about balling up tho.

It's the thinking twice part that I like. I have no issue with a guild running a full raid.... in fact I am a member of two guilds that run groups that range from 8-24 members in size, but stacking huge numbers inside a space as small as the radius of Healing Springs needs to have a downside other than huge lag.

mr_wazzabi

I like the idea of inceeased aoe vulnerability for zergs.

jrkhan

a1x23 wrote: »

I like the idea but the problem is that a 4 man group could drop caltrops and a few ice comets and kill like 20 people. That wouldnt be really fair to the bigger group. But it sure would make you think twice about balling up tho.

It would be perfectly fair to the bigger group. Nothing forcces members of a big group to stand within 10m of their group mates.

Group size, and group formation are different things.
Groups can stand in formations other than 'everyone on crown'

In fact - I think this would really encourage more interesting strategies when doing things like capping flags and going through breaches.

Tanks stand on flag/enter breach first to draw fire (and wow, tanks might even have more use in pvp)
Dps spreads out and neutralizes defenders while tanks flip flags.

Not very complicated - larger group still has an advantage - but significantly more interesting game play ensues than what we have today.

Angarato

100% agree. spread out! healers in the bank tanks on front dps from the sides. zerg still viable, ball group not viable. hopefully less proxy derping and maybe alil less lag?

when AD and EP fight on the bridge we ussually have huge groups fighting eachothr all the way from allesia to sejanus and i never notice much lag cause people are spread out between that area. but during a siege its a *** slideshow.

elc8745ub17_ESO

Angarato wrote: »

100% agree. spread out! healers in the bank tanks on front dps from the sides. zerg still viable, ball group not viable. hopefully less proxy derping and maybe alil less lag?

when AD and EP fight on the bridge we ussually have huge groups fighting eachothr all the way from allesia to sejanus and i never notice much lag cause people are spread out between that area. but during a siege its a *** slideshow.

Yep. Bring back positioning. Where tanks stand near the front, healers a bit back. Healer's get hit, tanks have to reposition to cover their healers. Dps does what dps does, whatever the situation calls for. Bring all of that back. Get rid of this ridiculous ball group meta ZOS.

usmcjdking

Too complicated and unnecessary coding. Not only that, but one of the worst suggestions I've seen.

PhatGrimReaper

usmcjdking wrote: »

Too complicated and unnecessary coding. Not only that, but one of the worst suggestions I've seen.

Complicated? It's the same as the current calculations, but inverted.

You don't happen to run in the lag train by chance?

Artheiron

Arenas.

cschwingeb14_ESO

I think removal of AE damage caps would be enough of a start. No need to get crazy

pilb0xer

ok so lets take it a back a bit.... back before we were all bitter and jaded.

we watched this amazing trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9utl3m08Vu0

and said damn i want to do that, an MMO with massive keep battles and tons of players!!! that sounds SICK!

yet over the time the game has been out lots of people started blaming the players for grouping up, creating negative words for people in large groups claiming "zerging" is destroying this game.

orly?


an MMO is a a video game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously in the same instance!

so why on earth do people think a group of 24 players is bad?!!?


"zerging" does not "need to be fixed" for it is not broken, in fact its what the game was made for.

how ever what IS VERY BROKEN is the performance of the "mega" server when large groups fight one and other.

some how along the way the general consensus of the players turned to large groups are bad because they cause lag.



i ask you all to reconsider your thoughts on this matter.

is grouping up in an MMO bad? does it make you a zergbad? is it really ruining the game?

or are under-preforming servers and game breaking lag at fault here?


by no means am i saying that the state of PVP is ok, or that there is an acceptable balance when it comes to small group vs big group.

jakobandersen84prb18_ESO

main issue is the zergballs not zerging.
There is a difference.

zergs (largescale pvp):
i have no issue with big group vs big group fights. They can be just as fun as small scale pvp for me.
the devs said their where working on stuff to divert zergs. (more objectives) other then run from keep A > B > C.

Had hopes for IC to be that smallscale pvp diversion that cyrodiil needed, but got pretty disapointed by that. Also the fact it runs its own instance. Guess server would explode in same instance ^^.

The Big Problem: Zergballing
24 stacked on crown running in circles and spamming abilities is what is destroying pvp atm.
They do this by being unkillable because of AOEcaps mechanic.
AOE is a complete waste of time on them since only 6 ppl will get hit by 1 aoe. Left wondering why healing isnt aoecapped as well. PVE i guess

The ONLY way to stop them is to do Negate magic ulty with coordinated followup dmg.
But do i rly have to reroll sorc to have a slight chance of wiping them?

I have played this game since beta on/off pvp and it used to be great and fun pvp. Now its just horrible. Still i go to cyrodiil in hope of finding some smallscale or randomness bigscale fights but when the balltrain hits it just turns into a *** of a *** experience where everyone gets rekt by lag or a random death.

Have zero respect for ppl doing this. They ruin the fun for everyone in pvp currently.

STATE OF PVP: worst ever.

Understand many pvpers have left the game because of the issues happening and i totally get that. Back in the day i never saw zergblobs because it didnt work and all was allowed to have a fun experience in cyrodiil.

I know this AOEcap issue is a beaten horse and was implemented for a reason but it is directly working against pvp in the current meta.

#DisableAOEcap to save the game/world/cheerleader.

Banroc

I would go all the way. Remove AOE from PVP problem fixed
There is no way to sort out the AOE mess we have.
Cap or no cap players will still stack the crown and run around in a ball.They do it because they can so simply remove what they can do

Aunatar

Just remove aoe caps and we are all fine, issue removed. Simple.

Akinos

If they aren't gonna remove aoe caps, something else needs to be done.

Like, make one of the morphs of the two taunt skills WORK ON PLAYERS, and make them aoe also. an AoE player taunt would make zergs easier to deal with and it would make tank builds extremely useful. Of course taunting players should give them immunity to being taunted again for a certain amount of time, like CC immunity does. Said taunts should also have a cast time too so they cannot be spammed.


Player aggro skills/taunts have been done successfully in other games....just an idea that might work in ESO.

_adhyffbjjjf12

It's simple, it's been said by many. Remove aoe. If you think having aoe skills in a pvp environment with siege is more important that an environment with no lag then you will continue to see eso pvp shrink and collapse. Games like gw2 prove you can have both but clearly eso's coding cannot, so be realistic.

For those that propose different calculations that somehow avoid the problem there is a common saying in software engineering - keep it simple stupid. If the problem is the engine then hacking in aoe rule changes here and there is not the answer. Remove all aoe then gradually and carefully add them back in one at a time and monitor closely.

BigTone

pilb0xer wrote: »

ok so lets take it a back a bit.... back before we were all bitter and jaded.

we watched this amazing trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9utl3m08Vu0

and said damn i want to do that, an MMO with massive keep battles and tons of players!!! that sounds SICK!

yet over the time the game has been out lots of people started blaming the players for grouping up, creating negative words for people in large groups claiming "zerging" is destroying this game.

orly?


an MMO is a a video game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously in the same instance!

so why on earth do people think a group of 24 players is bad?!!?


"zerging" does not "need to be fixed" for it is not broken, in fact its what the game was made for.

how ever what IS VERY BROKEN is the performance of the "mega" server when large groups fight one and other.

some how along the way the general consensus of the players turned to large groups are bad because they cause lag.



i ask you all to reconsider your thoughts on this matter.

is grouping up in an MMO bad? does it make you a zergbad? is it really ruining the game?

or are under-preforming servers and game breaking lag at fault here?


by no means am i saying that the state of PVP is ok, or that there is an acceptable balance when it comes to small group vs big group.

I don't think that a 24 man group is bad. I do not want them to change the group size. What I want is players punished for stacking in a tight ball, not rewarded with additional damage mitigation from sheer numbers. Encouraging players to spread out, not reduce group size, would add more skill to group play as opposed to the current meta of "OK proxy now, rapids, barrier 11, GO! spam steel tornado, MOAR NADO!!!, purge purge purge Barrier 12! ignore the siege just purge through it!"

altemriel

pilb0xer wrote: »

ok so lets take it a back a bit.... back before we were all bitter and jaded.

we watched this amazing trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9utl3m08Vu0

and said damn i want to do that, an MMO with massive keep battles and tons of players!!! that sounds SICK!

yet over the time the game has been out lots of people started blaming the players for grouping up, creating negative words for people in large groups claiming "zerging" is destroying this game.

orly?


an MMO is a a video game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously in the same instance!

so why on earth do people think a group of 24 players is bad?!!?


"zerging" does not "need to be fixed" for it is not broken, in fact its what the game was made for.

how ever what IS VERY BROKEN is the performance of the "mega" server when large groups fight one and other.

some how along the way the general consensus of the players turned to large groups are bad because they cause lag.



i ask you all to reconsider your thoughts on this matter.

is grouping up in an MMO bad? does it make you a zergbad? is it really ruining the game?

or are under-preforming servers and game breaking lag at fault here?


by no means am i saying that the state of PVP is ok, or that there is an acceptable balance when it comes to small group vs big group.

exactly! THE PROBLEM OF PVP IS NOT ZERGING, NOR ZERGBALLS, IT IS THE SERVER CAPACITY (MAYBE CODE STRUCTURE TOO)!!!!

THIS IS A CIVIL WAR, WITH TONS OF PEOPLE FIGHTING ON BOTH SIDES. SO THE SOLUTION IS NOT AOE CAPS, NOT NERFING BIGGER GROUPS! THE ONLY LONG TERM SOLUTION IS INCREASING THE SERVER CAPACITY AND SPEED, SO IT CAN HANDLE LARGE SCALE BATTLES, WITH AOE UNLIMITED!!

jakobandersen84prb18_ESO wrote: »

main issue is the zergballs not zerging.
There is a difference.

zergs (largescale pvp):
i have no issue with big group vs big group fights. They can be just as fun as small scale pvp for me.
the devs said their where working on stuff to divert zergs. (more objectives) other then run from keep A > B > C.

Had hopes for IC to be that smallscale pvp diversion that cyrodiil needed, but got pretty disapointed by that. Also the fact it runs its own instance. Guess server would explode in same instance ^^.

The Big Problem: Zergballing
24 stacked on crown running in circles and spamming abilities is what is destroying pvp atm.
They do this by being unkillable because of AOEcaps mechanic.
AOE is a complete waste of time on them since only 6 ppl will get hit by 1 aoe. Left wondering why healing isnt aoecapped as well. PVE i guess

The ONLY way to stop them is to do Negate magic ulty with coordinated followup dmg.
But do i rly have to reroll sorc to have a slight chance of wiping them?

I have played this game since beta on/off pvp and it used to be great and fun pvp. Now its just horrible. Still i go to cyrodiil in hope of finding some smallscale or randomness bigscale fights but when the balltrain hits it just turns into a *** of a *** experience where everyone gets rekt by lag or a random death.

Have zero respect for ppl doing this. They ruin the fun for everyone in pvp currently.

STATE OF PVP: worst ever.

Understand many pvpers have left the game because of the issues happening and i totally get that. Back in the day i never saw zergblobs because it didnt work and all was allowed to have a fun experience in cyrodiil.

I know this AOEcap issue is a beaten horse and was implemented for a reason but it is directly working against pvp in the current meta.

#DisableAOEcap to save the game/world/cheerleader.

EXACTLY!!! AOE CAP IS A NON-SENSE ""SOLUTION"" FOR UNSUFFICIENT SERVER CAPACITY OR SPEED AND/OR WRONG CODE STRUCTURE!

REMOVE AOE CAPS AND INCREASE THE SERVERS!!!!


@ZOS_GinaBruno

_adhyffbjjjf12

The problem is both crappy server code and Zerg balling. Zerg balling is poor gameplay. Remove aoe, the fact is, the engine cant cope with it - improved gameplay and improved performance, job done. Increasing aoe caps is not going to fix server code.

Adding new servers is not an answer as that implies splitting the player base even further - smaller battles is not going to make eso an attractive game.

Septimus_Magna

PhatGrimReaper wrote: »

There has been a lot of talk about the removal of soft caps being the solution for the issue that is ridiculously large groups in Cyro....
What if they go a step further and reverse the caps...

First 6 players effected take 100% damage from AoE abilities
Next 7-24 players take 150% damage
and (god forbid it ever happens) 25+ take 250% damage.

Running in a huge group would become really dangerous when faced with small well co-ordinated groups, but not so dangerous that numbers mean nothing at all. Having a numerical advantage should equal an advantage on the battlefield, but there has to be some kind of balancing factor. Everything needs an equal & opposite, this is the core of balance.

Thoughts?

This^

And for healing the opposite:
First 6 players effected take 100% healing from AoE abilities.
Next 7-24 players take 50% healing
and (god forbid it ever happens) 25+ take 25% healing.

Barrier capped at 12 players.

Kas

altemriel wrote: »

pilb0xer wrote: »

ok so lets take it a back a bit.... back before we were all bitter and jaded.

we watched this amazing trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9utl3m08Vu0

and said damn i want to do that, an MMO with massive keep battles and tons of players!!! that sounds SICK!

yet over the time the game has been out lots of people started blaming the players for grouping up, creating negative words for people in large groups claiming "zerging" is destroying this game.

orly?


an MMO is a a video game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously in the same instance!

so why on earth do people think a group of 24 players is bad?!!?


"zerging" does not "need to be fixed" for it is not broken, in fact its what the game was made for.

how ever what IS VERY BROKEN is the performance of the "mega" server when large groups fight one and other.

some how along the way the general consensus of the players turned to large groups are bad because they cause lag.



i ask you all to reconsider your thoughts on this matter.

is grouping up in an MMO bad? does it make you a zergbad? is it really ruining the game?

or are under-preforming servers and game breaking lag at fault here?


by no means am i saying that the state of PVP is ok, or that there is an acceptable balance when it comes to small group vs big group.

exactly! THE PROBLEM OF PVP IS NOT ZERGING, NOR ZERGBALLS, IT IS THE SERVER CAPACITY (MAYBE CODE STRUCTURE TOO)!!!!

THIS IS A CIVIL WAR, WITH TONS OF PEOPLE FIGHTING ON BOTH SIDES. SO THE SOLUTION IS NOT AOE CAPS, NOT NERFING BIGGER GROUPS! THE ONLY LONG TERM SOLUTION IS INCREASING THE SERVER CAPACITY AND SPEED, SO IT CAN HANDLE LARGE SCALE BATTLES, WITH AOE UNLIMITED!!

jakobandersen84prb18_ESO wrote: »

main issue is the zergballs not zerging.
There is a difference.

zergs (largescale pvp):
i have no issue with big group vs big group fights. They can be just as fun as small scale pvp for me.
the devs said their where working on stuff to divert zergs. (more objectives) other then run from keep A > B > C.

Had hopes for IC to be that smallscale pvp diversion that cyrodiil needed, but got pretty disapointed by that. Also the fact it runs its own instance. Guess server would explode in same instance ^^.

The Big Problem: Zergballing
24 stacked on crown running in circles and spamming abilities is what is destroying pvp atm.
They do this by being unkillable because of AOEcaps mechanic.
AOE is a complete waste of time on them since only 6 ppl will get hit by 1 aoe. Left wondering why healing isnt aoecapped as well. PVE i guess

The ONLY way to stop them is to do Negate magic ulty with coordinated followup dmg.
But do i rly have to reroll sorc to have a slight chance of wiping them?

I have played this game since beta on/off pvp and it used to be great and fun pvp. Now its just horrible. Still i go to cyrodiil in hope of finding some smallscale or randomness bigscale fights but when the balltrain hits it just turns into a *** of a *** experience where everyone gets rekt by lag or a random death.

Have zero respect for ppl doing this. They ruin the fun for everyone in pvp currently.

STATE OF PVP: worst ever.

Understand many pvpers have left the game because of the issues happening and i totally get that. Back in the day i never saw zergblobs because it didnt work and all was allowed to have a fun experience in cyrodiil.

I know this AOEcap issue is a beaten horse and was implemented for a reason but it is directly working against pvp in the current meta.

#DisableAOEcap to save the game/world/cheerleader.

EXACTLY!!! AOE CAP IS A NON-SENSE ""SOLUTION"" FOR UNSUFFICIENT SERVER CAPACITY OR SPEED AND/OR WRONG CODE STRUCTURE!

REMOVE AOE CAPS AND INCREASE THE SERVERS!!!!


@ZOS_GinaBruno

even under this "civil war" assumption, there is no reason why forming balls should protect you extremely well. there are enough games that really force you to keep your distance to allies (whereas soemtimes you'd liek to be close together to hit the same target).

From DAoC's mezzes to the way teamfights work in dota-like games today. Powerful AoE abilities and the fear of them is what makes players spread out somehow.

Even if you want to brign realism into that, clumping up isn't the best idea in a real war either, I guess

Cathexis

Friendly fire...? Justice system...?
I mean think about it: you get hit by oils. Why aren't these oils hurting me? Oh its because I'm on the blue team and that's blue team oil.

><.

AoE Zergball of Death does no good when you kill your teammates at the same time.


While aoe cap removal and dynamic ulti regen seem like fundamental steps in the right direction, the implications are horrible for server capacity.

AoEs have to calculate for each target hit. Uncapped AoE effectively maxes out poor server performance with ball groups.

People need to think smaller, not bigger. Its great to think "oh well they'll just get better servers" but that doesn't justify putting the latency chicken before the hardware egg, when we clearly know there will be no egg.

PhatGrimReaper

<

---

Not a computer Expert, but I was given to understand that there were more server side calculations with AoE Caps than without?

Cathexis

PhatGrimReaper wrote: »

<

---

Not a computer Expert, but I was given to understand that there were more server side calculations with AoE Caps than without?

Whether or not their are my understanding is tha AoEs make up a significant number of client/server interactions in cyrodiil.

PhatGrimReaper

But removing the cap will improve performance without gimping an entire playstyle....
#playhowyouwanttoplay
#epicbattles
#100sofplayersonscreen

Stx

Wait, you are playing in a massive open world pvp zone, and are complaining that zergs are powerful? You think it would be balanced for a small group to have intentional advantages vs. larger groups?

If you don't want to fight zergs, then this is simply not the game for you. Many players have been asking for structured battleground type pvp instances for a long time. One of the main reasons is, the teams have equal numbers, and there really aren't zergs. This game desperately needs BGs and arena pvp combat. Some of the best pvp in this game is small group vs small group, or dueling.

As far as smaller groups being able to wipe zergs, you can already do that. This game allows you to do that much more effectively than other MMOs, so topics like this asking for larger groups to have ridiculous passive weaknesses are asinine.

If you want to wipe a zerg with a small group, all I have to say is take a look at your ultimate abilities, detonate proxy or whatever its called, and steel tornado. Hell, I just watched a video of 4 DKs all dragon leaping onto a zerg at the same time and wiping half of them. This game does NOT need more tools to wipe larger groups.

MisterBigglesworth

Make all AOEs Ultimates, that way they can't be spammed. If a small group wants to take out a large zergball, they have to coordinate and all use their AOE Ults at once.
Remove the caps too, of course.

PhatGrimReaper

Stx wrote: »

Wait, you are playing in a massive open world pvp zone, and are complaining that zergs are powerful? You think it would be balanced for a small group to have intentional advantages vs. larger groups?

If you don't want to fight zergs, then this is simply not the game for you. Many players have been asking for structured battleground type pvp instances for a long time. One of the main reasons is, the teams have equal numbers, and there really aren't zergs. This game desperately needs BGs and arena pvp combat. Some of the best pvp in this game is small group vs small group, or dueling.

As far as smaller groups being able to wipe zergs, you can already do that. This game allows you to do that much more effectively than other MMOs, so topics like this asking for larger groups to have ridiculous passive weaknesses are asinine.

If you want to wipe a zerg with a small group, all I have to say is take a look at your ultimate abilities, detonate proxy or whatever its called, and steel tornado. Hell, I just watched a video of 4 DKs all dragon leaping onto a zerg at the same time and wiping half of them. This game does NOT need more tools to wipe larger groups.

Just to be clear, I PVP in most formats from Solo - 24 man raids.... I'm not trying to discourage large scale in any way, nor am I asking for large groups to be gimped. I am simply making a suggestion to encourage discussion. At the present success in Cyrodiil is "if at first you don't succeed, grab a 60 man and zerg them down.

Yes, an organised 12 man raid can wipe 2-4 times their number. I'm fortunate enough to run with/be a member of guild groups capable of it, but the numbers almost always prevail. Numbers should matter, but simply piling more people on the flag shouldn't be the only way to succeed in a game that is already experiencing an exodus.

Solo has advantages & disadvantages.
Small group has advantages & disadvantages.
80 man zerging down the map has advantages & ........ dope, sorry can't think of a disadvantage atm....

PhatGrimReaper

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

Make all AOEs Ultimates, that way they can't be spammed. If a small group wants to take out a large zergball, they have to coordinate and all use their AOE Ults at once.

You gonna make the PVE community real mad with that one bro!!

MisterBigglesworth

PhatGrimReaper wrote: »

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

Make all AOEs Ultimates, that way they can't be spammed. If a small group wants to take out a large zergball, they have to coordinate and all use their AOE Ults at once.

You gonna make the PVE community real mad with that one bro!!

...and while we're at it, make it so you can't just AOE down big packs of mobs, you actually have to kite and use CC on them.