Upcoming siege changes in next major update

Xsorus

Zheg wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Thinking further on the changes, the lightning and oil changes are heavily going to favor stam builds. Stam builds aren't hit too hard if they lose 5k magicka, and their stam pools and regen can shrug off 5k stam from oil. Magic builds, healers in particular, should have enough to likewise shrug off lightnings 5k magicka loss, but certainly not 5k stam loss. As it is you'd get maybe 2 cc breaks and a block or dodge roll if you have a racial or tri food and have just enough extra to manage that. One oil catapult, one cc like fear, and most magicka builds won't have any stam left. It's like you think 5k magicka = 5k stam Brian, and it doesn't. If you're looking to target peoples stat pools, you're going to need to actually think about numbers that make sense.

Wroebel linked active defense like cc break, dodge roll, and block to the same pool as physical damage abities. If the pools were separate and you had siege that targeted everyones ability to actively defend equally, that'd be one thing, but that's not the reality. I see even more people going to tornado spam builds as an unintended consequence of this particular change, and I see healers needed to pump more into stamina to survive, making heals even weaker than they're going to be with your meatbag fiasco.

There are good intents and ideas in these changes, so I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater (old man expression), but there are also really poorly thought out changes.

You might be able to shrug off one oil catapult...But stamina builds are not going to be able to shrug off 3 or more of them...

You're also forgetting that Stamina is Stamina Builds DPS as well...they're generally spamming things like Steel Tornado for example in zerg balls..or popping Retreating Manuevers...You will not be able to shrug off an instant 15k stamina gone on any setup....

I'm talking a single oil catapult being an issue for non stam builds, of course 3 is going to be silly for everyone. Couldn't see wanting to run anything less than 15k stam on my healer with these changes. Forget the heal debuff and all other siege buffs, all you need to do is put up tons of oil catapults and wipe out 5k stam each hit from people so they can be perma stunned. It didn't sound like a debuff like pulsar, it sounded like you lose 5k each time you're hit. We'll be looking at an oil cata meta and who can cast a few fears the quickest. Fun.

a single catapult shouldn't kill a magicka builds stamina long as you don't get hit twice...

Manoekin

Xsorus wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler
Why do you hate small groups so much? This will make it even harder for groups that arent 24 man raids. You should promote smaller groups, not destroy them.

This. RIP pvp if this makes it live. I actually like all but one of the changes (though the damage may be a little overboard).

There's a reason side effects from siege were changed to be purgable in the first place, @ZOS_BrianWheeler unless we've forgotten.

1. Having 0 control over your own character is not fun or engaging gameplay. That's why the break free system exists, and why Purge and other spells like it even exist in the game at all. You're trying to fix @Wrobel's problem for him in some roundabout way that makes no sense.
2. I am a healer and if my heals are rendered ineffective with no chance to recover their effectiveness I might as well quit the game or just roll a different class/spec because I am completely useless. This is the reason why heal debuff stacking is no longer a thing. Because it is *** and negates an entire aspect of the game.
3. You're only promoting zerg gameplay. The pvp will once again revolve around whoever can get the most siege up instead of who can actually play their characters better. The group that will get more siege up you ask? The larger one.

Why are you going against the actual good things that have been done previously in this game? Making siege useful for the average player is fine, but making siege the only important thing in pvp is the wrong way to go. We've been down this road before and those specific reasons plus more I'm probably forgetting are why they do not and should not exist in this game.

Funny enough; we have been down this road before..and when they changed it..it made the game instantly worse by removing one of the few things that worked against Zergballs

I mean..I've seen quite a few posts here of people who are talking about how this will kill PvP; and virtually everyone of them is in large zergball groups

When the change was made the first time everyone was running group of 12-16 in size and they all hated it. Your argument is invalid. It did not affect anything other than making the gameplay more enjoyable. You were still able to smash zerg groups because ultimates weren't affected by AOE caps and soft caps kept stats in check. the people who abused the siege back then were the ones doing the zerging and it will be the same way this time around if they go through with this.

Umm; Ultimates were most certainly affected by AOE caps as that was changed in 1.1.....There were virtually no zergballs before the caps were even announced so i'm not sure where you get that they weren't affected by caps..

The groups running 16 at the time were getting stopped by pugs with siege...soon as they went and made the snare purgable from Oil Catapults those groups became damn near unstoppable...and then they swelled in size to what we have today.

The people who are going to benefit from this the most are going to be zergs yes..but it'll be pug zergs..which need the help to deal with Zergballs of 24 man guild groups who decided they'd rather zerg around instead of ya know..actually being good.

I was probably meaning ultimate synergies, though I'm sure there were some other things not included. Gravity Crush x20 showed up on my screen wayyyyyyy after 1.1.

I find the bolded part quite funny. You're insinuating that the people playing in a group/raid or whatever you want to call it will need to get good because if these changes go through they'll be killed by players just pressing left click. How is that any different from your argument that players spamming steel tornado or one button in groups are unskilled players? My steel tornado doesn't one shot people... maybe we should buff it and give it unpurgeable effects also? In my opinion, it's the pug players that need to get good because all I see out of most of them is free combat frenzies for my enemies or myself. Pug zergs are still zergs.

Removing AOE caps to allow these players the chance to fight the larger groups you hate so much is the way to improve gameplay. Right now those players can't "get good" because of game mechanics and that's ***. Changing Purge and Barrier is how you fix those abilities. We can't fix one part of the game by adding new things on the other side... that's like saying Shieldbreaker fixed shield stacking. Adding this kind of unnecessary change (unpurgeable effects) is only going to muddy everything up.

frozywozy

Turelus wrote: »

Cryhavoc wrote: »

Sotha_Sil wrote: »

@Turelus I think the issue stated by smaller groups here is that with these changes (unpurgeable stuff), enemy randoms will be able to put some sieges and the players won't be able to counter it by their skills meaning that in any case, skills won't matter anymore but instead you will simply need numbers to win. (when attacking a keep)

This is why "unpurgeable" is no good. Keep defense remains the same, still a numbers game. Walls, siege, etc are no benefit to the defense.

If anything, they should buff defense siege even higher.

What happens if the numbers are the defenders? You buff them once again.

TBH I think they can solve the meatbag at a skill or AoE cap level rather than making it unpurgeable. There have been some good arguments as to why that's not a good idea.

Have the meatbag function as it does now but raise (or remove) the cap of how many people are effected by it and make changes to purge so one or more people spamming it isn't the solution to beating it.

In a groups number way then I feel the AoE cap removal fixes the issue all on it's own, you stack 24 guys on one spot and get pelted with Lightning Ballista and Meatbag then you won't be able to permanently purge any more due to resources and additionally you need to cast more times because you have more people who need to be cleansed.

If you are sieging a keep with plenty of enemies inside, plus on top of that, you pick a wall that has already alot of counter-sieges up against you, you are doing it extremely wrong. Use strategies and hit where the enemy doesn't expect it. If you hit a keep already well defended, you should die or be forced to open multiple walls on different sides to find a weak spot.

Or send vampires nightblades mist forming between each siege volleys and cloaking their way to counter-siegers to neutralize the zone. Remember when it was a thing 8months ago? This is the reality. Getting inside a breach of a defended keep should NOT be a walk in the park.

frozywozy

Dalglish wrote: »

bowmanz607 wrote: »

LazyLewis wrote: »

In my two years of playing this game this has to be one of the worst proposed updates I have ever seen. ARE YOU ACTUALLY KIDDING ME ZOS? THIS IS YOUR ANSWER.

Firstly this promotes more zerging because people are gonna wanna be in a bigger safer group with more healers than ever.

YOU ARE GONNA GIVE PEOPLE THE POWER TO DRAIN MULTIPLE PEOPLES STAMINA AND MAGIKA POOLS SIMULTANEOUSLY. WHO THE HELL COMES UP WITH THESE IDEAS?

IS THIS EVEN GONNA BE TESTED ON A LARGE SCALE FIRSTLY?

IM UTTERLY AND PROFOUNDLY SHOCKED AT THESE CHANGES.

*breathe*

LESS SKILL AND MORE ZERG
LESS SKILL AND MORE ZERG
LESS SKILL AND MORE ZERG
LESS SKILL AND MORE ZERG
LESS SKILL AND MORE ZERG
LESS SKILL AND MORE ZERG

that makes no sense. the bigger the group the more you will get hit with siege. the smaller the group the less likely ppl will use siege against you. Also, the champ tree made it so any person who even half-way knows what they are doing have no issues with resource managment. this make resource management a real thing again. Also, you dont like getting hit with it, then guess waht...DONT STAND IN IT!!!! People keep talking about how people will run in bigger groups because they will need more heals. Ya maybe IF YOUR STANDING IN THE DAMN RED CIRCLE! Sure if people continue to stand in siege ike they curntly do know then ya you might want more healers and what not around you. Dont stand in the crap! dodgeroll! Again this change still needs to be tested and will be coupled with other changes in the game so dont get your panties in a wad just yet.

Take a deep breathe, step back, wait for the other changes to be announced, and then jump on the PTS to test it out.

We all know the second anything gets to PTS its almost 99% always going to be going live and will be there for the next 6 months before any talk of changes. Some of the changes being discussed don't make sense for the game.

I am all for reducing the effectiveness of any kind of Purge, but totally nullifying it when it relates to heal-reduction or any kind of long-term debuff is absurd.

Something for which there is zero counter does not balance anything.

Wrobel just made a forum account and has been opening discussions regarding major aspects of PvP for the past week or two. It may be a sign that they intend to listen more to our feedbacks in the future. We just need to make sure to bring ideas and our point of view if we disagree and not only complain about it.

OdinForge

I'm actually quite interested in some of these changes, would have to test it first to see how it works.

I use siege a lot, but it feels a lot more lackluster right now than it did before IC. I think it's too early to see how these changes will effect small and large groups.

Manoekin

frozywozy wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Cryhavoc wrote: »

Sotha_Sil wrote: »

@Turelus I think the issue stated by smaller groups here is that with these changes (unpurgeable stuff), enemy randoms will be able to put some sieges and the players won't be able to counter it by their skills meaning that in any case, skills won't matter anymore but instead you will simply need numbers to win. (when attacking a keep)

This is why "unpurgeable" is no good. Keep defense remains the same, still a numbers game. Walls, siege, etc are no benefit to the defense.

If anything, they should buff defense siege even higher.

What happens if the numbers are the defenders? You buff them once again.

TBH I think they can solve the meatbag at a skill or AoE cap level rather than making it unpurgeable. There have been some good arguments as to why that's not a good idea.

Have the meatbag function as it does now but raise (or remove) the cap of how many people are effected by it and make changes to purge so one or more people spamming it isn't the solution to beating it.

In a groups number way then I feel the AoE cap removal fixes the issue all on it's own, you stack 24 guys on one spot and get pelted with Lightning Ballista and Meatbag then you won't be able to permanently purge any more due to resources and additionally you need to cast more times because you have more people who need to be cleansed.

If you are sieging a keep with plenty of enemies inside, plus on top of that, you pick a wall that has already alot of counter-sieges up against you, you are doing it extremely wrong. Use strategies and hit where the enemy doesn't expect it. If you hit a keep already well defended, you should die or be forced to open multiple walls on different sides to find a weak spot.

Or send vampires nightblades mist forming between each siege volleys and cloaking to counter-siegers to neutralize the zone. Remember when it was a thing 8months ago? This is the reality. Getting inside a breach of a defended keep should NOT be a walk in the park.

If you hit a keep that's already well defended you can't just move to the other side... the people inside the keep can just follow you dude. You probably can't even siege because you've got a full raid+ jumping out to attack you while you're being sieged to ***. It's like you never try to do anything without the zerg behind you, Frozn.

Xsorus wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Thinking further on the changes, the lightning and oil changes are heavily going to favor stam builds. Stam builds aren't hit too hard if they lose 5k magicka, and their stam pools and regen can shrug off 5k stam from oil. Magic builds, healers in particular, should have enough to likewise shrug off lightnings 5k magicka loss, but certainly not 5k stam loss. As it is you'd get maybe 2 cc breaks and a block or dodge roll if you have a racial or tri food and have just enough extra to manage that. One oil catapult, one cc like fear, and most magicka builds won't have any stam left. It's like you think 5k magicka = 5k stam Brian, and it doesn't. If you're looking to target peoples stat pools, you're going to need to actually think about numbers that make sense.

Wroebel linked active defense like cc break, dodge roll, and block to the same pool as physical damage abities. If the pools were separate and you had siege that targeted everyones ability to actively defend equally, that'd be one thing, but that's not the reality. I see even more people going to tornado spam builds as an unintended consequence of this particular change, and I see healers needed to pump more into stamina to survive, making heals even weaker than they're going to be with your meatbag fiasco.

There are good intents and ideas in these changes, so I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater (old man expression), but there are also really poorly thought out changes.

You might be able to shrug off one oil catapult...But stamina builds are not going to be able to shrug off 3 or more of them...

You're also forgetting that Stamina is Stamina Builds DPS as well...they're generally spamming things like Steel Tornado for example in zerg balls..or popping Retreating Manuevers...You will not be able to shrug off an instant 15k stamina gone on any setup....

I'm talking a single oil catapult being an issue for non stam builds, of course 3 is going to be silly for everyone. Couldn't see wanting to run anything less than 15k stam on my healer with these changes. Forget the heal debuff and all other siege buffs, all you need to do is put up tons of oil catapults and wipe out 5k stam each hit from people so they can be perma stunned. It didn't sound like a debuff like pulsar, it sounded like you lose 5k each time you're hit. We'll be looking at an oil cata meta and who can cast a few fears the quickest. Fun.

a single catapult shouldn't kill a magicka builds stamina long as you don't get hit twice...

In order to not get hit by the second shot you will be forced to roll dodge, so that catapult shot is 5k stam + a roll dodge. You might have room for a second roll doge if you use food or after some regen if you use drink, but only if you aren't having to block the dozens of projectiles being thrown at you or break free from a stun. That's not to mention the situation only includes one oil catapult. With multiples around it doesn't matter if you roll dodge the first one, you're being hit by the 2nd or third.

Also, I see people saying, "well that has nothing to do with siege, ZOS needs to do this, this and that to fix such and such problem". One of the reasons we're at the point we are at today is because we don't get incremental patches for PvP changes. Everything happens all at once with very little play testing. You can see the result today. Keep clamoring for more of that if you will, but you can have fun in that kind of Cyrodiil by yourself if that time comes again.

ZOS_BrianWheeler

For the sake of discussion, and bearing in mind possible changes to Purge (the ability itself as noted by Wrobel in his thread), how would a 50% healing reduction instead of 75% from the meatbag sound as well as being purge-able?

Xsorus

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For the sake of discussion, and bearing in mind possible changes to Purge (the ability itself as noted by Wrobel in his thread), how would a 50% healing reduction instead of 75% from the meatbag sound as well as being purge-able?

Is meatbag a 75% reduction right now? I was under the impression it just applied Major Defile.

Ixtyr

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For the sake of discussion, and bearing in mind possible changes to Purge (the ability itself as noted by Wrobel in his thread), how would a 50% healing reduction instead of 75% from the meatbag sound as well as being purge-able?

I find this remarkably more reasonable.

Sharee

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For the sake of discussion, and bearing in mind possible changes to Purge (the ability itself as noted by Wrobel in his thread), how would a 50% healing reduction instead of 75% from the meatbag sound as well as being purge-able?

If healing reduction is purgeable then there is no healing reduction as far as a zergball is concerned. Reduction in number of targets will simply be compensated by running more purgers. Stick to the original plan. Make them move.

myrrrorb14_ESO

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For the sake of discussion, and bearing in mind possible changes to Purge (the ability itself as noted by Wrobel in his thread), how would a 50% healing reduction instead of 75% from the meatbag sound as well as being purge-able?

Sounds better. If all effects are going unpurgible, I wouldn't mind all of the effects changed from major to minor effects. To use terms already in game.

It's still hard to say without actually playing though. For all my concerns about your original proposal, it may be great!

ZOS_BrianWheeler

It's currently a 75% reduction to healing taken.

frozywozy

Zheg wrote: »

Thinking further on the changes, the lightning and oil changes are heavily going to favor stam builds. Stam builds aren't hit too hard if they lose 5k magicka, and their stam pools and regen can shrug off 5k stam from oil. Magic builds, healers in particular, should have enough to likewise shrug off lightnings 5k magicka loss, but certainly not 5k stam loss. As it is you'd get maybe 2 cc breaks and a block or dodge roll if you have a racial or tri food and have just enough extra to manage that. One oil catapult, one cc like fear, and most magicka builds won't have any stam left. It's like you think 5k magicka = 5k stam Brian, and it doesn't. If you're looking to target peoples stat pools, you're going to need to actually think about numbers that make sense.

Wroebel linked active defense like cc break, dodge roll, and block to the same pool as physical damage abities. If the pools were separate and you had siege that targeted everyones ability to actively defend equally, that'd be one thing, but that's not the reality. I see even more people going to tornado spam builds as an unintended consequence of this particular change, and I see healers needed to pump more into stamina to survive, making heals even weaker than they're going to be with your meatbag fiasco.

There are good intents and ideas in these changes, so I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater (old man expression), but there are also really poorly thought out changes.

This is a problem related to game mechanics involving bashing, sneaking, sprinting, cc breaking, dodge rolling and blocking that use stamina which is another big problem itself giving huge advantage to stamina classes against magicka classes without an escape move in any scenario. It has nothing related to sieging in particular.

Bashing, sneaking, sprinting, cc breaking, dodge rolling and blocking should be on a 4th ressource bar that can be improved with champoint points, gear bonuses and enchants but that 4th ressource bar should be relatively the same for everyone.

Manoekin

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For the sake of discussion, and bearing in mind possible changes to Purge (the ability itself as noted by Wrobel in his thread), how would a 50% healing reduction instead of 75% from the meatbag sound as well as being purge-able?

That would be a great step. I don't see why the snare gets special treatment though. I don't care if the healing reduction is 75% or 100% as long as I can purge it, otherwise I don't know what that ability is for. I think you should see what @Wrobel has in store for Purge as an ability, and make the call that balances it. If Purge only affects 6 players going forward, isn't that enough to make the siege viable against larger groups?

@Wrobel if you're worried about large group running more people with purge, why don't you scrap Efficient Purge and create another high cost morph? Does anyone really have a problem with that? It might be bad for a stam build, but it's not like I get some low cost version of retreating for my magicka build.

ZOS_BrianWheeler

@Sharee "If healing reduction is purgeable then there is no healing reduction as far as a zergball is concerned."

But if the amount of players that can be Purged is reduced, is that still a valid statement?

Xsorus

Manoekin wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler
Why do you hate small groups so much? This will make it even harder for groups that arent 24 man raids. You should promote smaller groups, not destroy them.

This. RIP pvp if this makes it live. I actually like all but one of the changes (though the damage may be a little overboard).

There's a reason side effects from siege were changed to be purgable in the first place, @ZOS_BrianWheeler unless we've forgotten.

1. Having 0 control over your own character is not fun or engaging gameplay. That's why the break free system exists, and why Purge and other spells like it even exist in the game at all. You're trying to fix @Wrobel's problem for him in some roundabout way that makes no sense.
2. I am a healer and if my heals are rendered ineffective with no chance to recover their effectiveness I might as well quit the game or just roll a different class/spec because I am completely useless. This is the reason why heal debuff stacking is no longer a thing. Because it is *** and negates an entire aspect of the game.
3. You're only promoting zerg gameplay. The pvp will once again revolve around whoever can get the most siege up instead of who can actually play their characters better. The group that will get more siege up you ask? The larger one.

Why are you going against the actual good things that have been done previously in this game? Making siege useful for the average player is fine, but making siege the only important thing in pvp is the wrong way to go. We've been down this road before and those specific reasons plus more I'm probably forgetting are why they do not and should not exist in this game.

Funny enough; we have been down this road before..and when they changed it..it made the game instantly worse by removing one of the few things that worked against Zergballs

I mean..I've seen quite a few posts here of people who are talking about how this will kill PvP; and virtually everyone of them is in large zergball groups

When the change was made the first time everyone was running group of 12-16 in size and they all hated it. Your argument is invalid. It did not affect anything other than making the gameplay more enjoyable. You were still able to smash zerg groups because ultimates weren't affected by AOE caps and soft caps kept stats in check. the people who abused the siege back then were the ones doing the zerging and it will be the same way this time around if they go through with this.

Umm; Ultimates were most certainly affected by AOE caps as that was changed in 1.1.....There were virtually no zergballs before the caps were even announced so i'm not sure where you get that they weren't affected by caps..

The groups running 16 at the time were getting stopped by pugs with siege...soon as they went and made the snare purgable from Oil Catapults those groups became damn near unstoppable...and then they swelled in size to what we have today.

The people who are going to benefit from this the most are going to be zergs yes..but it'll be pug zergs..which need the help to deal with Zergballs of 24 man guild groups who decided they'd rather zerg around instead of ya know..actually being good.

I was probably meaning ultimate synergies, though I'm sure there were some other things not included. Gravity Crush x20 showed up on my screen wayyyyyyy after 1.1.

I find the bolded part quite funny. You're insinuating that the people playing in a group/raid or whatever you want to call it will need to get good because if these changes go through they'll be killed by players just pressing left click. How is that any different from your argument that players spamming steel tornado or one button in groups are unskilled players? My steel tornado doesn't one shot people... maybe we should buff it and give it unpurgeable effects also? In my opinion, it's the pug players that need to get good because all I see out of most of them is free combat frenzies for my enemies or myself. Pug zergs are still zergs.

Removing AOE caps to allow these players the chance to fight the larger groups you hate so much is the way to improve gameplay. Right now those players can't "get good" because of game mechanics and that's ***. Changing Purge and Barrier is how you fix those abilities. We can't fix one part of the game by adding new things on the other side... that's like saying Shieldbreaker fixed shield stacking. Adding this kind of unnecessary change (unpurgeable effects) is only going to muddy everything up.

You might be right on synergies..I honestly cannot remember if they were capped in 1.1 or not.

As for the rest; are you asking me what the difference between an Organized Guild Group with 24 people, and 24 random people roaming around in a zerg? and why one might be viewed as more skillless then the other?

Cause the answer is simple; one has the backing of a dedicated group with heals/voice chat/and playing together...Yet still wants to zerg with 24 people instead of relying on being good.

The other is a bunch of pugs.

Manoekin wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Cryhavoc wrote: »

Sotha_Sil wrote: »

@Turelus I think the issue stated by smaller groups here is that with these changes (unpurgeable stuff), enemy randoms will be able to put some sieges and the players won't be able to counter it by their skills meaning that in any case, skills won't matter anymore but instead you will simply need numbers to win. (when attacking a keep)

This is why "unpurgeable" is no good. Keep defense remains the same, still a numbers game. Walls, siege, etc are no benefit to the defense.

If anything, they should buff defense siege even higher.

What happens if the numbers are the defenders? You buff them once again.

TBH I think they can solve the meatbag at a skill or AoE cap level rather than making it unpurgeable. There have been some good arguments as to why that's not a good idea.

Have the meatbag function as it does now but raise (or remove) the cap of how many people are effected by it and make changes to purge so one or more people spamming it isn't the solution to beating it.

In a groups number way then I feel the AoE cap removal fixes the issue all on it's own, you stack 24 guys on one spot and get pelted with Lightning Ballista and Meatbag then you won't be able to permanently purge any more due to resources and additionally you need to cast more times because you have more people who need to be cleansed.

If you are sieging a keep with plenty of enemies inside, plus on top of that, you pick a wall that has already alot of counter-sieges up against you, you are doing it extremely wrong. Use strategies and hit where the enemy doesn't expect it. If you hit a keep already well defended, you should die or be forced to open multiple walls on different sides to find a weak spot.

Or send vampires nightblades mist forming between each siege volleys and cloaking to counter-siegers to neutralize the zone. Remember when it was a thing 8months ago? This is the reality. Getting inside a breach of a defended keep should NOT be a walk in the park.

If you hit a keep that's already well defended you can't just move to the other side... the people inside the keep can just follow you dude. You probably can't even siege because you've got a full raid+ jumping out to attack you while you're being sieged to ***. It's like you never try to do anything without the zerg behind you, Frozn.

Xsorus wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Zheg wrote: »

Thinking further on the changes, the lightning and oil changes are heavily going to favor stam builds. Stam builds aren't hit too hard if they lose 5k magicka, and their stam pools and regen can shrug off 5k stam from oil. Magic builds, healers in particular, should have enough to likewise shrug off lightnings 5k magicka loss, but certainly not 5k stam loss. As it is you'd get maybe 2 cc breaks and a block or dodge roll if you have a racial or tri food and have just enough extra to manage that. One oil catapult, one cc like fear, and most magicka builds won't have any stam left. It's like you think 5k magicka = 5k stam Brian, and it doesn't. If you're looking to target peoples stat pools, you're going to need to actually think about numbers that make sense.

Wroebel linked active defense like cc break, dodge roll, and block to the same pool as physical damage abities. If the pools were separate and you had siege that targeted everyones ability to actively defend equally, that'd be one thing, but that's not the reality. I see even more people going to tornado spam builds as an unintended consequence of this particular change, and I see healers needed to pump more into stamina to survive, making heals even weaker than they're going to be with your meatbag fiasco.

There are good intents and ideas in these changes, so I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater (old man expression), but there are also really poorly thought out changes.

You might be able to shrug off one oil catapult...But stamina builds are not going to be able to shrug off 3 or more of them...

You're also forgetting that Stamina is Stamina Builds DPS as well...they're generally spamming things like Steel Tornado for example in zerg balls..or popping Retreating Manuevers...You will not be able to shrug off an instant 15k stamina gone on any setup....

I'm talking a single oil catapult being an issue for non stam builds, of course 3 is going to be silly for everyone. Couldn't see wanting to run anything less than 15k stam on my healer with these changes. Forget the heal debuff and all other siege buffs, all you need to do is put up tons of oil catapults and wipe out 5k stam each hit from people so they can be perma stunned. It didn't sound like a debuff like pulsar, it sounded like you lose 5k each time you're hit. We'll be looking at an oil cata meta and who can cast a few fears the quickest. Fun.

a single catapult shouldn't kill a magicka builds stamina long as you don't get hit twice...

In order to not get hit by the second shot you will be forced to roll dodge, so that catapult shot is 5k stam + a roll dodge. You might have room for a second roll doge if you use food or after some regen if you use drink, but only if you aren't having to block the dozens of projectiles being thrown at you or break free from a stun. That's not to mention the situation only includes one oil catapult. With multiples around it doesn't matter if you roll dodge the first one, you're being hit by the 2nd or third.

Also, I see people saying, "well that has nothing to do with siege, ZOS needs to do this, this and that to fix such and such problem". One of the reasons we're at the point we are at today is because we don't get incremental patches for PvP changes. Everything happens all at once with very little play testing. You can see the result today. Keep clamoring for more of that if you will, but you can have fun in that kind of Cyrodiil by yourself if that time comes again.

I mean you could spread out..and not follow in a line....What i mean is your zergball gets hit by an oil catapult..Do you keep following your commander or do you spread out and limit who is getting hit by that oil catapult?

myrrrorb14_ESO

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

It's currently a 75% reduction to healing taken.

So it stacks with defile! Sweet!

Kwivur

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Sharee "If healing reduction is purgeable then there is no healing reduction as far as a zergball is concerned."

But if the amount of players that can be Purged is reduced, is that still a valid statement?

Just make purge castable on self only.

Xsorus

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Sharee "If healing reduction is purgeable then there is no healing reduction as far as a zergball is concerned."

But if the amount of players that can be Purged is reduced, is that still a valid statement?

Depends on what ya reduce it to.....If its reduced to 12 people it probably won't be noticed...

If its 6 people..It'll probably be noticed

if its 4 people it most certainly will be noticed.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

It's currently a 75% reduction to healing taken.

That should tell ya how currently ineffective it is...its a 75% reduction that virtually no one notices right now with Purge.

myrrrorb14_ESO

If siege weapons had no AOE cap, but all purges (heals and buffs) did would that be enough. How about if cap was reduced to 4?

Isbilen

Sounds like great changes in my opinion. Don't want to get hit by the siege? Spread out and stop stacking on crown like drones!

I think that a better change would be to make the effects from the siege purgable but change the Alliance War Purge ability to be a single self-purge though.

Sharee

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Sharee "If healing reduction is purgeable then there is no healing reduction as far as a zergball is concerned."

But if the amount of players that can be Purged is reduced, is that still a valid statement?

The zergball will increase the number of players on purge duty to cover more targets, to the point where any given group member never stays heal-debuffed long enough to die because of it(AOE damage picks targets at random). Then the zergball will be able to tank meatbag fire same as today, only with somewhat less DPS output due to moving players away from DPS role(but their overall DPS is overkill anyway.)

frozywozy

Manoekin wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Cryhavoc wrote: »

Sotha_Sil wrote: »

@Turelus I think the issue stated by smaller groups here is that with these changes (unpurgeable stuff), enemy randoms will be able to put some sieges and the players won't be able to counter it by their skills meaning that in any case, skills won't matter anymore but instead you will simply need numbers to win. (when attacking a keep)

This is why "unpurgeable" is no good. Keep defense remains the same, still a numbers game. Walls, siege, etc are no benefit to the defense.

If anything, they should buff defense siege even higher.

What happens if the numbers are the defenders? You buff them once again.

TBH I think they can solve the meatbag at a skill or AoE cap level rather than making it unpurgeable. There have been some good arguments as to why that's not a good idea.

Have the meatbag function as it does now but raise (or remove) the cap of how many people are effected by it and make changes to purge so one or more people spamming it isn't the solution to beating it.

In a groups number way then I feel the AoE cap removal fixes the issue all on it's own, you stack 24 guys on one spot and get pelted with Lightning Ballista and Meatbag then you won't be able to permanently purge any more due to resources and additionally you need to cast more times because you have more people who need to be cleansed.

If you are sieging a keep with plenty of enemies inside, plus on top of that, you pick a wall that has already alot of counter-sieges up against you, you are doing it extremely wrong. Use strategies and hit where the enemy doesn't expect it. If you hit a keep already well defended, you should die or be forced to open multiple walls on different sides to find a weak spot.

Or send vampires nightblades mist forming between each siege volleys and cloaking to counter-siegers to neutralize the zone. Remember when it was a thing 8months ago? This is the reality. Getting inside a breach of a defended keep should NOT be a walk in the park.

If you hit a keep that's already well defended you can't just move to the other side... the people inside the keep can just follow you dude. You probably can't even siege because you've got a full raid+ jumping out to attack you while you're being sieged to ***. It's like you never try to do anything without the zerg behind you, Frozn.

Manoe, I have done that dozens of times. Deploying on a keep and then realize that there are scouts on the wall. Or deploying on a keep and then take too much counter-siege damage. I never thought I actually had to explain to someone with your experience how to proceed but I'll do it.

1) You ask your people to pack up their sieges
2) You give a rally point OUT of the line of sight of people on the wall
3) You mount up and go wide around the keep without being seen
4) You redeploy on another side and ask people to not start firing until there is at least 15 stone trebs up (2-3 per player)
5) Resume sieging all together

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For the sake of discussion, and bearing in mind possible changes to Purge (the ability itself as noted by Wrobel in his thread), how would a 50% healing reduction instead of 75% from the meatbag sound as well as being purge-able?

My own suggestions :

1) Meatbags should be purgable, but not with Efficient Purge and Cleanse. Those should be used to remove player debuffs and player snares only. Cleansing Ritual (which require player interaction by using the synergy) should remove every debuff and snare (including siege debuffs).
2) Lightning balistas and Oil Catapults should deal 2k magicka/stamina damage.
3) Overall siege damage should not be increased.
4) Retreating Maneuvers should NOT remove siege snares
5) Charging Maneuvers should remove all kind of snares but NOT give immunity

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Sharee "If healing reduction is purgeable then there is no healing reduction as far as a zergball is concerned."

But if the amount of players that can be Purged is reduced, is that still a valid statement?

That would only promote more people slotting purge and spamming it, increasing calculation and decreasing server performances in the meantime.

Kwivur wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Sharee "If healing reduction is purgeable then there is no healing reduction as far as a zergball is concerned."

But if the amount of players that can be Purged is reduced, is that still a valid statement?

Just make purge castable on self only.

I like this idea alot!

CP5

I just want to break this thread for a sec and say thanks to Brian for not only posting this thread but also, you know, replying to it. And not just once, but at a good pace. Thank you for that, carry on.

bowmanz607

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

For the sake of discussion, and bearing in mind possible changes to Purge (the ability itself as noted by Wrobel in his thread), how would a 50% healing reduction instead of 75% from the meatbag sound as well as being purge-able?

I honestly think that it will come down to testing it. The issue is the lack of involvment on PTS to test these things at a large scale. Maybe we can test out a couple different ways to see what works well and what does not. However, you would need to give incentives for groups going to PTS to test these things. Getting a decent group of devs on the PTS to draw people to fight them might promote a solid testing atmosphere on the PTS for various implementations of this issue.

SturgeHammer

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

@Sharee "If healing reduction is purgeable then there is no healing reduction as far as a zergball is concerned."

But if the amount of players that can be Purged is reduced, is that still a valid statement?

Unless the new number of targets is 1 (self targeted), then I'd say that statement is true.


I think the best compromise would be to keep the siege debuffs non purge-able as stated in the initial post, but still removable by the purify synergy.

Sublime

SturgeHammer wrote: »

Unless the new number of targets is 1 (self targeted), then I'd say that statement is true.

Out of curiosity: What do you think of a 3-6man cap but an additional penaltiy similar to the one bolt escape currently has?

Ixtyr

Also, just as a side note, @ZOS_BrianWheeler, have you considered limiting the group sizes in Cyrodiil from 24 down to 12? I know it'd probably be fairly controversial amongst the playerbase, but I really think that forcing a group to run two 12-man squads instead of one 24-person team would, coupled with siege changes, performance improvements, and AP-gain tweaks, actively encourage groups to split up a bit more, while also making it somewhat more challenging to continually follow around in a massive ball.

The reason I bring this up here is because while this discussion about these siege changes, along with @Wrobel's thread about AoE Cap Removal, have me feeling optimistic, I'm still somewhat worried that the PvP "meta" won't really move away from big AoE-spamming ball-groups slamming themselves against one another.

Plus, just from personal experience, while running in ball-groups is enjoyable at times, it's really quite mindless gameplay once you learn to follow directions. It's only really difficult on the leader(s) calling the shots. 24 or 36 or 48+ person "zergs" really do diminish the skill of individual players. Sure, ultimate-rotation and timely CCs require some skill, and some groups do it better than others, but that's still generally something that falls more to the leader to call out rather than the player to execute themselves. I've always found that running a 12-person team of skilled, geared players is a lot more fun and rewarding than larger groups, and it's also doable with newer players and a great way to help them get better individually when you're not just telling someone "Slot your Steel Tornado and follow the Crown". That style of gameplay will always exist to a degree, but 10-15 people vs. 10-15 people fights are among the best I've experienced (and I've been playing since the 2013 beta), and they're also the best kind of experience a new player can have to become a better group-PvP player.

Mind you, with a 12-member cap, guilds or factions could still very much run 3-4 groups and maintain a 50-player group if they wanted to. It'd just be more work and require more skill and better leadership to do so as seamlessly as is currently possible. That said, if I'm commanding 48 people, I'd honestly much prefer being able to more easily take 4 12-mans and say "Group A go to Bleakers, Group C go to Arrius, and Groups B & D go to Chalman". As it currently stands, doing that with 2 24-mans feels like more work than most would care to deal with, and everyone's just like "screw it, everyone go to Chalman" - which leads to the massive lag-fest ball-group Steel Tornado-spamming Barrier-rotating ridiculousness we currently see every night on Azura's Star.

Also, changing AP-gain rates to scale a bit more punishingly for massive groups would probably be worth, at the very least, testing for a Patch or two (and tie AP-gain to people who participate in the fight, not to whoever sticks around in a point-of-interest for the defensive tick, a problem that groups have been abusing to cheaply and artificially farm up ridiculous levels of AP for one person in their group by forcing everyone to leave a resource so one person can reap the entire AP tick for themselves, effectively removing the possibility of anyone besides the "chosen one" of the top 2-3 groups on a server from having an even remote chance at being crowned Emperor). That, along with removing/changing those AoE Caps and empowering siege would be, together, really big changes, and I think they would work for the better. For everyone - not just experienced groups, or skilled-solo players, or new PvPers.

Not sure how anyone else would feel about 12-man groups, but at the very least, I hope it's a topic of discussion for you. Besides, since @ZOS_RichLambert confirmed a while back that y'all have scrapped the concept of adding 24-man Trials, that means you really don't have any piece of content that requires more than 12 people. . .so, why not let the maximum group size reflect the maximum number of people required for Trials?

Just my thoughts.

ZOS_BrianWheeler

Changing AP gain rates are in the books to get more AP for smaller groups than larger groups. Not dramatically punishing for super large groups mind you, but really giving a boost to the smaller groups out there.

Xsorus

Ixtyr wrote: »

Also, just as a side note, @ZOS_BrianWheeler, have you considered limiting the group sizes in Cyrodiil from 24 down to 12? I know it'd probably be fairly controversial amongst the playerbase, but I really think that forcing a group to run two 12-man squads instead of one 24-person team would, coupled with siege changes, performance improvements, and AP-gain tweaks, actively encourage groups to split up a bit more, while also making it somewhat more challenging to continually follow around in a massive ball.

The reason I bring this up here is because while this discussion about these siege changes, along with @Wrobel's thread about AoE Cap Removal, have me feeling optimistic, I'm still somewhat worried that the PvP "meta" won't really move away from big AoE-spamming ball-groups slamming themselves against one another.

Plus, just from personal experience, while running in ball-groups is enjoyable at times, it's really quite mindless gameplay once you learn to follow directions. It's only really difficult on the leader(s) calling the shots. 24 or 36 or 48+ person "zergs" really do diminish the skill of individual players. Sure, ultimate-rotation and timely CCs require some skill, and some groups do it better than others, but that's still generally something that falls more to the leader to call out rather than the player to execute themselves. I've always found that running a 12-person team of skilled, geared players is a lot more fun and rewarding than larger groups, and it's also doable with newer players and a great way to help them get better individually when you're not just telling someone "Slot your Steel Tornado and follow the Crown". That style of gameplay will always exist to a degree, but 10-15 people vs. 10-15 people fights are among the best I've experienced (and I've been playing since the 2013 beta), and they're also the best kind of experience a new player can have to become a better group-PvP player.

Mind you, with a 12-member cap, guilds or factions could still very much run 3-4 groups and maintain a 50-player group if they wanted to. It'd just be more work and require more skill and better leadership to do so as seamlessly as is currently possible. That said, if I'm commanding 48 people, I'd honestly much prefer being able to more easily take 4 12-mans and say "Group A go to Bleakers, Group C go to Arrius, and Groups B & D go to Chalman". As it currently stands, doing that with 2 24-mans feels like more work than most would care to deal with, and everyone's just like "screw it, everyone go to Chalman" - which leads to the massive lag-fest ball-group Steel Tornado-spamming Barrier-rotating ridiculousness we currently see every night on Azura's Star.

Also, changing AP-gain rates to scale a bit more punishingly for massive groups would probably be worth, at the very least, testing for a Patch or two (and tie AP-gain to people who participate in the fight, not to whoever sticks around in a point-of-interest for the defensive tick, a problem that groups have been abusing to cheaply and artificially farm up ridiculous levels of AP for one person in their group by forcing everyone to leave a resource so one person can reap the entire AP tick for themselves, effectively removing the possibility of anyone besides the "chosen one" of the top 2-3 groups on a server from having an even remote chance at being crowned Emperor). That, along with removing/changing those AoE Caps and empowering siege would be, together, really big changes, and I think they would work for the better. For everyone - not just experienced groups, or skilled-solo players, or new PvPers.

Not sure how anyone else would feel about 12-man groups, but at the very least, I hope it's a topic of discussion for you. Besides, since @ZOS_RichLambert confirmed a while back that y'all have scrapped the concept of adding 24-man Trials, that means you really don't have any piece of content that requires more than 12 people. . .so, why not let the maximum group size reflect the maximum number of people required for Trials?

Just my thoughts.

It would go a long way to making the game better that's for sure.

You only had 8 people groups in DAOC; but you could still zerg up to take objectives just fine.