Lessons from the reunion raid

Crown

From what we learned in our 2 hours of reunion-raid last night (keeping in mind that most haven't played in somewhere between 6 months and a year) where we ranged from 10-16 in group..

AD in both Trueflame and Azuras are mostly disorganised with very few solid groups. Nobody wants to listen to reason, and they can't seem to organise well enough to take a keep without just swarming it. Props to Fantasia and DK for trying to coordinate in zone. We probably spent about 1/3 of our time wondering at the lack of strategy and organisation in our own faction.

DC Swarm. That's all it was. 50-80+ all together (removed 25% from combat log numbers for pets, minions, and repeat kills in the same fight). Except a fight vs VE (that we lost), they're easy enough to kill, but just run too many and will overwhelm everything. Even the few streamers who claim not to zerg seem to run along side so many of them that they become irrelevant in the big picture except for their loyal fanboi base who swear that their heros never do that. A lot of hate whispers from "solo" players who were in the middle of a swarm that we're supposed to know that they are solo and not attack them in the middle of 50+ of their fellow DC. Some people are delusional.

EP Seem to have a few well coordinated groups, and a lot of random players running along side. We won some fights, and lost some fights. In the end, a lot of our losses came down to us not being used to taking keeps where there is coordinated 20/20 defending siege from inside and out, and not having a great group composition (3 healers for 15 people is not enough if you don't have other people purging). Strategies have changed, and they put up some really nice defence. When we replicated their strategy while we defended Sej it worked just as well.

Most players seem to be running heavy armour, but that really only keeps them alive for an extra 2-3 seconds. In a well coordinated group with good synergy and composition, sacrificing the benefits of 5 light or 5 medium just doesn't seem necessary.

Most players are not running Impen and don't understand how it works. Most groups also don't seem to have anyone running radiant mage light. Even with sub-optimal gear for this patch, two of us got hate-whisper accusations of being hackers since our opponents weren't doing enough damage and we weren't stunned on their attempt to 1-shot from stealth. I'm still incredulous.

Siege is OP. We used to have one person (sometimes two) on meat-bag duty. Now it seems that whenever you stop moving long enough, the fire siege becomes overwhelming. I suppose it makes any player skill level relevant if they can just drop siege. It will be interesting next patch when the foot print is even smaller.

The game has changed a lot. Gone are the days when you could look forward to good group vs group fights all the time when attacking or defending. People don't understand simple strategies for keep attacks, and skill becomes irrelevant when fighting 5 times your numbers (next time maybe we'll try running a few VD NBs in bomb-builds and see what happens.

We had a lot more fun being social than we did playing the game. We'll probably do it again, but I doubt it'll be a regular thing.

caeliusstarbreaker

Pretty much .. Yea. But we could've/already told you this haha

Rohamad_Ali

I don't read into it that much . I just go out and fight . Most anywhere I go for some solo there is a few others around so it ends up more 3 vs 3 or more . Because so many people now run with large packs , it is difficult for solo play and most solo players haunt a outpost close by so defense ticks make up for some of the lost small scale fights .

When I get invited to a group I have no choice but to follow where they are going . I have fun grouping with friends even though most of them head towards the large battles . The friends in Rektless were very cool to hang with .

When I lead groups , I lead away from battles with enough people and concentrate on points and AP for the group . Taking resources and cutting off enemies . Going back only for defenses not going well . I have a busy home life so I don't run groups often .

In perspective AD does very well as a faction and I would not make much negative criticism of them . The only reason they are behind on True Flame is several guilds left in the campaign beginning for other servers , after winning true flame 2 times . I went off gear grinding and leveling until a week ago when it was posted they need some help . AD then quickly went from last place to second when we all came to give support . So I wouldn't make any criticism at all of them . They fight hard and are good people .

HoloYoitsu

Crown wrote: »

From what we learned in our 2 hours of reunion-raid last night (keeping in mind that most haven't played in somewhere between 6 months and a year) where we ranged from 10-16 in group..

AD in both Trueflame and Azuras are mostly disorganised with very few solid groups. Nobody wants to listen to reason, and they can't seem to organise well enough to take a keep without just swarming it. Props to Fantasia and DK for trying to coordinate in zone. We probably spent about 1/3 of our time wondering at the lack of strategy and organisation in our own faction.

DC Swarm. That's all it was. 50-80+ all together (removed 25% from combat log numbers for pets, minions, and repeat kills in the same fight). Except a fight vs VE (that we lost), they're easy enough to kill, but just run too many and will overwhelm everything. Even the few streamers who claim not to zerg seem to run along side so many of them that they become irrelevant in the big picture except for their loyal fanboi base who swear that their heros never do that. A lot of hate whispers from "solo" players who were in the middle of a swarm that we're supposed to know that they are solo and not attack them in the middle of 50+ of their fellow DC. Some people are delusional.

EP Seem to have a few well coordinated groups, and a lot of random players running along side. We won some fights, and lost some fights. In the end, a lot of our losses came down to us not being used to taking keeps where there is coordinated 20/20 defending siege from inside and out, and not having a great group composition (3 healers for 15 people is not enough if you don't have other people purging). Strategies have changed, and they put up some really nice defence. When we replicated their strategy while we defended Sej it worked just as well.

Most players seem to be running heavy armour, but that really only keeps them alive for an extra 2-3 seconds. In a well coordinated group with good synergy and composition, sacrificing the benefits of 5 light or 5 medium just doesn't seem necessary.

Most players are not running Impen and don't understand how it works. Most groups also don't seem to have anyone running radiant mage light. Even with sub-optimal gear for this patch, two of us got hate-whisper accusations of being hackers since our opponents weren't doing enough damage and we weren't stunned on their attempt to 1-shot from stealth. I'm still incredulous.

Siege is OP. We used to have one person (sometimes two) on meat-bag duty. Now it seems that whenever you stop moving long enough, the fire siege becomes overwhelming. I suppose it makes any player skill level relevant if they can just drop siege. It will be interesting next patch when the foot print is even smaller.

The game has changed a lot. Gone are the days when you could look forward to good group vs group fights all the time when attacking or defending. People don't understand simple strategies for keep attacks, and skill becomes irrelevant when fighting 5 times your numbers (next time maybe we'll try running a few VD NBs in bomb-builds and see what happens.

We had a lot more fun being social than we did playing the game. We'll probably do it again, but I doubt it'll be a regular thing.

Yeah, ash was full potato last night. Yellow had what 3 breaches at one point and still couldn't get in? As far as lack of coordination, it's been like that pretty much since overwatch dropped, coincided with DB. Most experienced raid leads have quit by now, a lot of what's left is a bunch of newer players/guilds raid leading; people who never experienced leading vs top guilds and learned those strats. And those 'complex' strats won't really develop in this meta cuz all it is anytime you try tackling the pug zombie hoard is siege everywhere with no front end mitigation.

It feels the same on blue, last week the whole blue faction was potatoing into nickel breach, just waking up the steps and standing under the oil till they died. My 4 man 'mag DK cheese comp' pushed straight through to back stairs over and over but our faction wouldn't even try to follow us. Pretty sad.

zyk

The PVP playerbase is reflective of the PVE side of the game which is 99.9% brain dead. It does not require one to learn mechanics, so few do. V10 Crag delves used to be more challenging than vet dungeons are now.

I don't think ESO PVP is appealing to the broader PC PVP community. Despite its ambitions before launch, ESO is now an ultra-casual "online RPG" for TES fans.

Satiar

I didn't know we fought last night, Crown, when was this!? GF anyways tho , hope it wasn't during the banana apocalypse at Ash.

Manoekin

zyk wrote: »

The PVP playerbase is reflective of the PVE side of the game which is 99.9% brain dead. It does not require one to learn mechanics, so few do. V10 Crag delves used to be more challenging than vet dungeons are now.

I don't think ESO PVP is appealing to the broader PC PVP community. Despite its ambitions before launch, ESO is now an ultra-casual "online RPG" for TES fans.

From my experiences playing other games talking to high caliber PvPers, those players were turned off of ESO because of the severely limited ability bar, no arena, little to no reward for PvP (in terms of ranking, or other ways of proof that winning a fight gained you something/lost your opponent something), and the general attitude of the community. One player in particular told me they would have gave the game a chance, but they read a thread during the beta where a player complained about animation cancelling. It wasn't the fact that this player hated animation cancelling at all. He decided not to play the game because even from outside the game he could see the argument did not hold up, and with how many people agreed with that poster he could see the community was not going to be anything but whining and complaints. Disregarding a lot of the other stuff, there's many players out there that won't give a game a shot when they see a good portion of the visible community being completely moronic.

Crown

Satiar wrote: »

I didn't know we fought last night, Crown, when was this!? GF anyways tho , hope it wasn't during the banana apocalypse at Ash.

@Satiar There were actually two fights (if you can even call them that)! The first was at Nikel after you wiped Fantasia - we were 14 people watching about seventeen bazillion DC and I called a YOLO charge. We were disappointed that you didn't even notice us we wiped so fast! I was on my Templar (Naitachal).

The second (almost-fight) was at Roe when we were down to 8, between mine and keep. We had a bit better group cohesion there, and I wanted to try to get everyone to meteor Vex, but we just couldn't deal with the numbers again. There were at least 2 full raids following you, and as we started moving towards you the gap closing spam from behind slowed us down. We ended up making about 12k in two minutes before wiping and nobody wanted to stay and fight the zerg anymore. We mostly just chatted for a half hour after that.

fastolfv_ESO

not sure where you were but in general i was running 8-24 and trying to avoid other dc grps. Though when home keeps were UA you gotta expect everyone to be there especially with ep and ad taking turns hitting ales ash up and back

Crown

@fastolfv_ESO We were on earlier than that... 8-10:30 ish eastern. We didn't even have Roe back when we disbanded!

We were in Azuras the first half, then TF the second.

Satiar

Crown wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

I didn't know we fought last night, Crown, when was this!? GF anyways tho , hope it wasn't during the banana apocalypse at Ash.

@Satiar There were actually two fights (if you can even call them that)! The first was at Nikel after you wiped Fantasia - we were 14 people watching about seventeen bazillion DC and I called a YOLO charge. We were disappointed that you didn't even notice us we wiped so fast! I was on my Templar (Naitachal).

The second (almost-fight) was at Roe when we were down to 8, between mine and keep. We had a bit better group cohesion there, and I wanted to try to get everyone to meteor Vex, but we just couldn't deal with the numbers again. There were at least 2 full raids following you, and as we started moving towards you the gap closing spam from behind slowed us down. We ended up making about 12k in two minutes before wiping and nobody wanted to stay and fight the zerg anymore. We mostly just chatted for a half hour after that.

Ya we kept ending up in the middle of huge DC groups. Sry bout that!

Crown

Satiar wrote: »

Ya we kept ending up in the middle of huge DC groups. Sry bout that!

That seems to be the norm these days, but we had fun and that's what's important!

Satiar

Crown wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Ya we kept ending up in the middle of huge DC groups. Sry bout that!

That seems to be the norm these days, but we had fun and that's what's important!

Yea I dunno how it happens. Early in the night I was sizing up a Haxus group, kinda figuring how I'd approach the fight... And then literally 50+ DC rode in lol

Joy_Division

Classic case of nostalgia.

Back in [insert whatever you deem ESO's Golden Era:

• "Nobody wants to listen to reason, and they can't seem to organise well enough to take a keep without just swarming it." Check (for the vast majority of the player base)
• "[Faction] DC Swarm. That's all it was. 50-80+ all together." Check.
• "A lot of hate whispers from "solo" players who were in the middle of a swarm that we're supposed to know that they are solo" Check.
• "Most players are not running Impen and don't understand how it works." Check.
• "hate-whisper accusations of being hackers since our opponents weren't doing enough damage and we weren't stunned on their attempt to 1-shot from stealth". Check. Double Check. If you run a build that is remotely survivable against what is is deemed a DPS rotation, whether by blocking, dodging, healing, shielding, or whatever, you will be deemed a "cancer."
• "Gone are the days when you could look forward to good group vs group fights all the time when attacking or defending." Check. There may have been more group fights back in the day since their were more groups, but put up a search from June 2014, Feb 2015, Feb 2016, or whenever and it would be hard to conclude the acrimony and dissatisfaction with the game's mechanics and lagfest were indicative of good fights.

The OP, like most people who left ESO, did so for reasons that are fundamental to the PvP experience and have constants in Cyrodiil. Those reasons are still there, even if they have a different face (e.g. imbalanced gear is stam proc sets not nirn, "cancer" builds are reactive templars not perma-blocking DKs, Negate spam instead of barrier spam), so I am not surprised he is not running back to ESO.

*****

None of this means I disagree with what the OP finds unsatisfying about Cyrodiil. And I cant help but agree that @zyk is 100% correct in that the brain-dead PvE experiences in ESO have made newer players woefully unprepared to fight opponents that are actually challenging. ZoS does have a history of catering to the lowest common denominator, but again, this has been the company's MO since April 2014 when it gave us AOE caps.

In short, let's not pretend ESO was once something it was not. I think if it was more tolerable or enjoyable back in the day, that was because you had more patience, hadn't lost hope, or just had more friends online that you looked forward to playing with

Darnathian

I cannot believe how big the EP and DC zerg were. Crazy. And they wouldnt even attack until we sieged a keep. then they would still wait inside the keep behind 10 siege waiting for us to push even though we were severely outnumbered.

Easily 50+ in eac of those blobs. I cant even inagine how mich AP a good old fashioned IR 24 man would pull today.

Crystal come back and lets find out!

HoloYoitsu

Darnathian wrote: »

I cannot believe how big the EP and DC zerg were. Crazy. And they wouldnt even attack until we sieged a keep. then they would still wait inside the keep behind 10 siege waiting for us to push even though we were severely outnumbered.

Easily 50+ in eac of those blobs. I cant even inagine how mich AP a good old fashioned IR 24 man would pull today.

Crystal come back and lets find out!

Are we talking like BRK cave scroll farm lvls of AP here or...?

maxjapank

Meanwhile...Oceanic is a different story.

Crown

Joy_Division wrote: »

In short, let's not pretend ESO was once something it was not. I think if it was more tolerable or enjoyable back in the day, that was because you had more patience, hadn't lost hope, or just had more friends online that you looked forward to playing with

@Joy_Division You know.. back then I had more patience, hadn't lost hope, and had a lot more friends online that I looked forward to playing with..

I've said a few times that I miss the social aspect of the game more than the game itself..

Satiar

Crown wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

In short, let's not pretend ESO was once something it was not. I think if it was more tolerable or enjoyable back in the day, that was because you had more patience, hadn't lost hope, or just had more friends online that you looked forward to playing with

@Joy_Division You know.. back then I had more patience, hadn't lost hope, and had a lot more friends online that I looked forward to playing with..

I've said a few times that I miss the social aspect of the game more than the game itself..

This is always the case with MMOs. The tragedy here is there really isn't anywhere to go, no new game to bring your team to.

Manoekin

Satiar wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

In short, let's not pretend ESO was once something it was not. I think if it was more tolerable or enjoyable back in the day, that was because you had more patience, hadn't lost hope, or just had more friends online that you looked forward to playing with

@Joy_Division You know.. back then I had more patience, hadn't lost hope, and had a lot more friends online that I looked forward to playing with..

I've said a few times that I miss the social aspect of the game more than the game itself..

This is always the case with MMOs. The tragedy here is there really isn't anywhere to go, no new game to bring your team to.

Give Ghost some company! And me.

MaximillianDiE

Darnathian wrote: »

I cannot believe how big the EP and DC zerg were. Crazy. And they wouldnt even attack until we sieged a keep. then they would still wait inside the keep behind 10 siege waiting for us to push even though we were severely outnumbered.

Easily 50+ in eac of those blobs. I cant even inagine how mich AP a good old fashioned IR 24 man would pull today.

Crystal come back and lets find out!

Yes - there was a huge DC and EP zerg on. We would take something with our relatively small group and a huge group of Blues would pretty much immediately roll in while we would scratch our heads and WTF in TS. Its funny though - its often difficult to see this with your own faction but there was also a massive AD zerg on too. We had one fight at Nikel where breaches were made in both walls before Fantasia/DD/DK and a gazillion yellows flooded in both sides. Every time we took a resource we would end up fighting huge numbers of relatively disorganised AD while fending off reds as well when we went away from the battle line with our relatively small group we ended up fighting stacked yellow guilds. No complaints though - it was fun until the lag got stupid and we ended up going to check out Had and then eventually logging as that server has the opposite problem with not enough players. Back to the days of not having abilities going off in a stuttering slide show again on TF which is a shame as it seemed to have got much better.

Satiar

Manoekin wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

In short, let's not pretend ESO was once something it was not. I think if it was more tolerable or enjoyable back in the day, that was because you had more patience, hadn't lost hope, or just had more friends online that you looked forward to playing with

@Joy_Division You know.. back then I had more patience, hadn't lost hope, and had a lot more friends online that I looked forward to playing with..

I've said a few times that I miss the social aspect of the game more than the game itself..

This is always the case with MMOs. The tragedy here is there really isn't anywhere to go, no new game to bring your team to.

Give Ghost some company! And me.

You better not be in WoW

Manoekin

Satiar wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

In short, let's not pretend ESO was once something it was not. I think if it was more tolerable or enjoyable back in the day, that was because you had more patience, hadn't lost hope, or just had more friends online that you looked forward to playing with

@Joy_Division You know.. back then I had more patience, hadn't lost hope, and had a lot more friends online that I looked forward to playing with..

I've said a few times that I miss the social aspect of the game more than the game itself..

This is always the case with MMOs. The tragedy here is there really isn't anywhere to go, no new game to bring your team to.

Give Ghost some company! And me.

You better not be in WoW

You should see my really cute demon hunter honestly. It has great hair and I heard you know a thing or two about that.

[Edited out reference to removed content]

NACtron

Bummed Pact Militia missed the chance to fight you guys! I wasn't on last night and we didn't get a raid up until around 11:00pm EST


In terms of the State of ESO PvP I agree with most of what has been said. I wish ultra competitive guilds like Crown's and VE were still around to challenge the current guilds to improve and refine. If you want to create a competitive environment you have to force the player base to have to play effectively or die. The less organized guilds the worse the player base will get.

The biggest reason PM is at all competitive is because I took our pugs and our squishies right into the fight against DC VE at the beginning of this year. We wiped hard over and over but eventually we started learning. It got our wheels turning we started thinking about how to improve and compete. Even if we never able to compete with them at the time we are far better today cause of it. It showed us the need to improve and get organized. I think each guild needs an opposing guild like that to force them to step up their game.

Crown

@NACtron Would have liked to fight you guys, though I'd put money on you winning! You wouldn't believe how often I head someone say, "crap I'm too used to my keybinds for Paragon/LoL/WoW/BDO/etc".

Long long ago I used to train up the AD pugs and randoms.. I actually ran training sessions with other guilds where I'd come in and lead them for an hour or two showing them strategies and how to synergize group comps. I don't have the drive to do that anymore.. If someone wants to take that on for AD I would be more than happy to spend a few hours teaching them what I can (and still remember) on how to lead, plan, strategize, and synergize..

NACtron

Crown wrote: »

@NACtron Would have liked to fight you guys, though I'd put money on you winning! You wouldn't believe how often I head someone say, "crap I'm too used to my keybinds for Paragon/LoL/WoW/BDO/etc".

Long long ago I used to train up the AD pugs and randoms.. I actually ran training sessions with other guilds where I'd come in and lead them for an hour or two showing them strategies and how to synergize group comps. I don't have the drive to do that anymore.. If someone wants to take that on for AD I would be more than happy to spend a few hours teaching them what I can (and still remember) on how to lead, plan, strategize, and synergize..

If I was on AD I would totally take you up on that offer!

Crystallized was somewhat active a few months back and he gave a me a ton of fantastic eye opening advice. Advice that saved me a couple months of trying to figure it out ourselves and that still gives guidance in our raid organization today. A lot of the vets of organized guilds are burnt out and inactive for the most part but when you can find one willing to give advice it's a real treasure indeed.

Darnathian

HoloYoitsu wrote: »

Darnathian wrote: »

I cannot believe how big the EP and DC zerg were. Crazy. And they wouldnt even attack until we sieged a keep. then they would still wait inside the keep behind 10 siege waiting for us to push even though we were severely outnumbered.

Easily 50+ in eac of those blobs. I cant even inagine how mich AP a good old fashioned IR 24 man would pull today.

Crystal come back and lets find out!

Are we talking like BRK cave scroll farm lvls of AP here or...?

Better. They are so squishy. The siege is just too much. But literally no strategy. Just numbers

nagarjunna

Crown wrote: »

@NACtron Would have liked to fight you guys, though I'd put money on you winning! You wouldn't believe how often I head someone say, "crap I'm too used to my keybinds for Paragon/LoL/WoW/BDO/etc".

Long long ago I used to train up the AD pugs and randoms.. I actually ran training sessions with other guilds where I'd come in and lead them for an hour or two showing them strategies and how to synergize group comps. I don't have the drive to do that anymore.. If someone wants to take that on for AD I would be more than happy to spend a few hours teaching them what I can (and still remember) on how to lead, plan, strategize, and synergize..

The old skills are not lost, and neither is the drive! You ran with DIG (Dominion Imperial Guard) in the old days and where a welcome presence on our TS and in our groups. Great to see you back!

Lucky28

Joy_Division wrote: »

Classic case of nostalgia.

In short, let's not pretend ESO was once something it was not. I think if it was more tolerable or enjoyable back in the day, that was because you had more patience, hadn't lost hope, or just had more friends online that you looked forward to playing with

maybe. but i did have a lot of fun in ESO at one point. the IC update was when it started going downhill and DB was the all time low.

I dunno. i know this has been said a thousand times, but ZoS really needs to do balance patches way more often then once every 4 months.

_Crow

Crown wrote: »

@NACtron Would have liked to fight you guys, though I'd put money on you winning! You wouldn't believe how often I head someone say, "crap I'm too used to my keybinds for Paragon/LoL/WoW/BDO/etc".

Long long ago I used to train up the AD pugs and randoms.. I actually ran training sessions with other guilds where I'd come in and lead them for an hour or two showing them strategies and how to synergize group comps. I don't have the drive to do that anymore.. If someone wants to take that on for AD I would be more than happy to spend a few hours teaching them what I can (and still remember) on how to lead, plan, strategize, and synergize..

Was actually really glad to see you back in the fight Crown! By the time I had gotten into PVP you were already gone I think, but I had heard from a lot of people that you did amazing things for AD! Our raid did fight you once that night at drak while you guys were sieging the inner. We had a brawl on the second floor of the tower I believe. Anyway, glad to see you back, and I hope you will stick around! Will be good to have some more solid competition!

Darnathian

_Crow wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

@NACtron Would have liked to fight you guys, though I'd put money on you winning! You wouldn't believe how often I head someone say, "crap I'm too used to my keybinds for Paragon/LoL/WoW/BDO/etc".

Long long ago I used to train up the AD pugs and randoms.. I actually ran training sessions with other guilds where I'd come in and lead them for an hour or two showing them strategies and how to synergize group comps. I don't have the drive to do that anymore.. If someone wants to take that on for AD I would be more than happy to spend a few hours teaching them what I can (and still remember) on how to lead, plan, strategize, and synergize..

Was actually really glad to see you back in the fight Crown! By the time I had gotten into PVP you were already gone I think, but I had heard from a lot of people that you did amazing things for AD! Our raid did fight you once that night at drak while you guys were sieging the inner. We had a brawl on the second floor of the tower I believe. Anyway, glad to see you back, and I hope you will stick around! Will be good to have some more solid competition!

No u wint. Cause half the old timers were disgusted by the sheer size of those zergs and the game play and quit after an hour. Grats