What Happened to Medium Scale PvP?

Joy_Division

It's best done by decent players who generally have known each other for a while and have the motivation to log in. Many of the players on my friends list that fit that description are toward the bottom of the list (I sort by last log in).

A lot of the potential pool of candidates have either moved on from ESO or are waiting .- patiently - for ZoS to offer a more interesting PvP experience.

HaroniNDeorum

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

Large scale is 12-24 as play style / builds are generally the same and are designed for large scale fights. Those that do large scale with only 12-16 people are still doing large scale, but are just doing it with less people.

My guild usually runs 10-13 and guildies believe i am crazy always moving them to fight larger enemy number possible. It`s painful hahah but really fun and huge challenge. I admire Dracarys for the strenght they always show in Cyrodiil wherever they go and i think all guilds organization is helping in small steps to keep up Cyro`s population

IxSTALKERxI

HaroniNDeorum wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

Large scale is 12-24 as play style / builds are generally the same and are designed for large scale fights. Those that do large scale with only 12-16 people are still doing large scale, but are just doing it with less people.

My guild usually runs 10-13 and guildies believe i am crazy always moving them to fight larger enemy number possible. It`s painful hahah but really fun and huge challenge. I admire Dracarys for the strenght they always show in Cyrodiil wherever they go and i think all guilds organization is helping in small steps to keep up Cyro`s population

I did the same thing for like 18 months. Every guild I played with ended up being OP because of it. Heck half the people I played with ended up as some of the strongest solo / 1vX'ers in the game because of the crazy *** we used to attempt to fight.

HaroniNDeorum

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

I did the same thing for like 18 months. Every guild I played with ended up being OP because of it. Heck half the people I played with ended up as some of the strongest solo / 1vX'ers in the game because of the crazy *** we used to attempt to fight.

You are welcome to join us anytime Stalker, if you want to remember old good times of 12 vs everything, or maybe a 2vX 3vX we are starting in that style too.

Defilted

You can still be organized and run 10ish man groups in Cyro. My guild does it all the time. XBOX NA. It requires a lot of very disciplined organized actions. It is fun, but can be tough to pull off. Requires lots of practice. We still get rolled when caught in the open against a large number if we do not react fast enough.

jaysins

Salt Mining does it all the time as well. We take on some of the larger groups and really enjoy the challenge of it.

Serjustin19

Ever since I came back, to AD in Vivec yesterday. For balance purpose. I got invited to a group, from my guild. My group I was in was 24 man. I was wondering as to why my group don't split. I know, the rule is to follow the crown; in group.

But why don't we make things interesting. Why couldn't we split, 10 in one and 10 in the other and 2 in 1 and 2 in the other?

Why couldn't one 10 man group, go to Brindle. Why couldn't the other, 10 man group go to Alessia. While the two, 2man group go separate ways and make 2 different decoys.

Or make one 4 man and defend or attack nickel. While the other 2, separate 10 man group attack 2 separate keeps?. If everyone done this. Lag would be very little and numbers be balanced.

Koolio

Serjustin19 wrote: »

Ever since I came back, to AD in Vivec yesterday. For balance purpose. I got invited to a group, from my guild. My group I was in was 24 man. I was wondering as to why my group don't split. I know, the rule is to follow the crown; in group.

But why don't we make things interesting. Why couldn't we split, 10 in one and 10 in the other and 2 in 1 and 2 in the other?

Why couldn't one 10 man group, go to Brindle. Why couldn't the other, 10 man group go to Alessia. While the two, 2man group go separate ways and make 2 different decoys.

Or make one 4 man and defend or attack nickel. While the other 2, separate 10 man group attack 2 separate keeps?. If everyone done this. Lag would be very little and numbers be balanced.

Why on earth would you go to nickel? The fight on the bridge. Lol.

Serjustin19

Koolio wrote: »

Serjustin19 wrote: »

Ever since I came back, to AD in Vivec yesterday. For balance purpose. I got invited to a group, from my guild. My group I was in was 24 man. I was wondering as to why my group don't split. I know, the rule is to follow the crown; in group.

But why don't we make things interesting. Why couldn't we split, 10 in one and 10 in the other and 2 in 1 and 2 in the other?

Why couldn't one 10 man group, go to Brindle. Why couldn't the other, 10 man group go to Alessia. While the two, 2man group go separate ways and make 2 different decoys.

Or make one 4 man and defend or attack nickel. While the other 2, separate 10 man group attack 2 separate keeps?. If everyone done this. Lag would be very little and numbers be balanced.

Why on earth would you go to nickel? The fight on the bridge. Lol.

Because Bridge fight I instant crash, sad to say.

Koolio

Serjustin19 wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

Serjustin19 wrote: »

Ever since I came back, to AD in Vivec yesterday. For balance purpose. I got invited to a group, from my guild. My group I was in was 24 man. I was wondering as to why my group don't split. I know, the rule is to follow the crown; in group.

But why don't we make things interesting. Why couldn't we split, 10 in one and 10 in the other and 2 in 1 and 2 in the other?

Why couldn't one 10 man group, go to Brindle. Why couldn't the other, 10 man group go to Alessia. While the two, 2man group go separate ways and make 2 different decoys.

Or make one 4 man and defend or attack nickel. While the other 2, separate 10 man group attack 2 separate keeps?. If everyone done this. Lag would be very little and numbers be balanced.

Why on earth would you go to nickel? The fight on the bridge. Lol.

Because Bridge fight I instant crash, sad to say.

Yea walked there yesterday 3-4 people in my group crash immediately. But bridge fight isn't over yet. Got at least another 1000 years or so.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

Anrose wrote: »

Are you playing on Vivec? There are a ton of groups out there playing 10-14 all the time. Most of them cap their groups at 16, but the pugs that follow make it look like a full raid.

EP has the most of them, from what I remember. DC has a few out there. And AD has maybe a handful spread out over the whole day.

I'd venture to say medium scale PvP is the most prominent of any sort you'll find. It's just hard to differentiate a medium scale group from the hoarse because of the tag along pugs.

Lol whats the point of capping a group at 16, if the 16 man grp surfs other zergs and joins in faction attacks on keeps?

Vilestride

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

Anrose wrote: »

Are you playing on Vivec? There are a ton of groups out there playing 10-14 all the time. Most of them cap their groups at 16, but the pugs that follow make it look like a full raid.

EP has the most of them, from what I remember. DC has a few out there. And AD has maybe a handful spread out over the whole day.

I'd venture to say medium scale PvP is the most prominent of any sort you'll find. It's just hard to differentiate a medium scale group from the hoarse because of the tag along pugs.

Lol whats the point of capping a group at 16, if the 16 man grp surfs other zergs and joins in faction attacks on keeps?

It is obviously something that happens but I imagine most guilds that want to participate in organized raid game play are positioning themselves around the map where they can seek their own fights and challenges. contrary to popular belief I see most the active Vicec guilds doing this day to day.

Most notably Artem and fantasia but also other AD guilds. Hell even the constantly mocked BoD push at Kings crest is at least them getting away from the rest of their faction who we can safely assume is smashing their faces into the west wall of Chalman

bardx86

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

While Wrobel's recent balance changes are at the root , it is a larger issue . Offence and sustaine was toned way down and this makes it more difficult for smaller groups to be effective against larger groups . Now healing and resistances are stronger then offence . The pendulum need to swing back a little in favor of damage I believe . Not too heavy but enough to address large groups of Templar healers and Wardens .

The second part of the puzzle is there are a lot of medium sized PVP guilds gone for what ever reasons . I imagine some are just tired of constant change and others realizing the new meta renders them less effective .

This!

Shaggygaming

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

Anrose wrote: »

Are you playing on Vivec? There are a ton of groups out there playing 10-14 all the time. Most of them cap their groups at 16, but the pugs that follow make it look like a full raid.

EP has the most of them, from what I remember. DC has a few out there. And AD has maybe a handful spread out over the whole day.

I'd venture to say medium scale PvP is the most prominent of any sort you'll find. It's just hard to differentiate a medium scale group from the hoarse because of the tag along pugs.

Lol whats the point of capping a group at 16, if the 16 man grp surfs other zergs and joins in faction attacks on keeps?

Exactly. EP cares the most about their group sizes and I can't tell you how many times I've been flanked by these competitive guilds who care about group sizes when we were already engaged with another group or the faction stack. So does it really matter how many you're running? Yes and no. It matters only to your internal communication and gameplay but for some reason it is constantly shared publicly like it matters. I forgot.. Less people mean you're better.

Rickter

lots of medium scale on Shor last night. 7-10pm is your sweet spot. 10pm-1am it gets a little zergy though

Crown

Anazasi wrote: »

To prove my point, last night I had my group hiding inside nikel waiting to jump on a group that was sieging. They got in, took the back flag and was on the front flag. I wanted to let it flip so we could get a double tick as the wall was being repaired. But they found us too early and we had to wipe them. The tell I got was from the DC player was "nice zerg 8v40". I had a group of 20 and no one else was at the outpost. Players exaggerate numbers because they simply can't count. I think it's a male trait honestly, everything seems larger than it actually is.

@Anazasi Like the people you're referring to, you also seem to twist numbers to suit you.

There are addons that count numbers, and you can see the number of unique names that you do damage to / who do damage to you.

I was there with my group of 8 (9 in group with one fighting at some other keep), and counted five DC other than my group just as we ran in. It was our first excursion of the night after a few duels, and after wiping some of your crew and a red group outside, we were the only ones who sieged. I had won 2 duels and lost 2 prior, so per my kill counter we had 26 kills fighting outside before siege was over.

When the few DC pugs/randoms went upstairs, my group cleared guards, then went front flag. My nova on the area that your group was in as you popped out of stealth hit 24 unique names (excluding three pets). The dude who stayed back flag didn't get hit from the bomb and ran upstairs confirmed that there were another dozen+ AD up there.

Here's the screen shot I took post-stealth bomb as we laughed. We deserved to wipe there, as we wouldn't have expected 24 players to stealth bomb 8 using 11 ultimates blown simultaneously:


I'm not sure who whispered you, but it was 8 vs 24, with another 5 vs 12+ upstairs.

TLDR: You had more than 20 and there were a lot more AD there too.

Crown

On the topic of group size, we tend to run 6-8 most of the time. It's rare that we'll hit 10.

I'd like to have a few more for fighting very large groups, or multiple groups who stack.

We tend to play DC most nights, EP in the sewers/IC once a week, and AD up top once a week.

It's also fun to zerg down Unru when we can, but that's secondary ;-)

Holler at me in game if you'd like a medium group more often!

Crown

Shaggygaming wrote: »

I forgot.. Less people mean you're better.

@Shaggygaming Unfortunately too many people think that way. I've had debates with old friends who firmly believe that running a large group means that you're not skilled and playing "easy mode".

My response to something like that was, I am indeed not skilled enough to take out a faction stack of 50+ with a group of 4. If you are able to do so, please put up a video. For that matter, I'd like to see your group of 4 wipe an opposing group of 20 when they're in "full tanks with destro" builds!

I agree that there are less skilled players who get carried, though in a situation where three or four AoE ults are needed at once, and you want to have the ability to pop off two sets of ults, and get a negate to go with each, and two or three mitigation ults (sleet) as you're moving, as long as a newer or less skilled player can follow directions, then it gives them an opportunity to learn as well.

Being able to strategize and make the right calls in a medium group (a dozen or so) to defeat double you numbers also takes a fair amount of skill. If I'm running a dozen, I want one support player to pretty much spam 2-3 skills. That player doesn't need a lot of skill, but does need to be able to take one for the team - do what needs to be done regardless of skill because that's what the group needs to succeed in whatever their goal may be.

Valen_Byte

Crown wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

To prove my point, last night I had my group hiding inside nikel waiting to jump on a group that was sieging. They got in, took the back flag and was on the front flag. I wanted to let it flip so we could get a double tick as the wall was being repaired. But they found us too early and we had to wipe them. The tell I got was from the DC player was "nice zerg 8v40". I had a group of 20 and no one else was at the outpost. Players exaggerate numbers because they simply can't count. I think it's a male trait honestly, everything seems larger than it actually is.

@Anazasi Like the people you're referring to, you also seem to twist numbers to suit you.

There are addons that count numbers, and you can see the number of unique names that you do damage to / who do damage to you.

I was there with my group of 8 (9 in group with one fighting at some other keep), and counted five DC other than my group just as we ran in. It was our first excursion of the night after a few duels, and after wiping some of your crew and a red group outside, we were the only ones who sieged. I had won 2 duels and lost 2 prior, so per my kill counter we had 26 kills fighting outside before siege was over.

When the few DC pugs/randoms went upstairs, my group cleared guards, then went front flag. My nova on the area that your group was in as you popped out of stealth hit 24 unique names (excluding three pets). The dude who stayed back flag didn't get hit from the bomb and ran upstairs confirmed that there were another dozen+ AD up there.

Here's the screen shot I took post-stealth bomb as we laughed. We deserved to wipe there, as we wouldn't have expected 24 players to stealth bomb 8 using 11 ultimates blown simultaneously:


I'm not sure who whispered you, but it was 8 vs 24, with another 5 vs 12+ upstairs.

TLDR: You had more than 20 and there were a lot more AD there too.

Omg, your UI is sooo messy. : ))

Crown

Valen_Byte wrote: »

Omg, your UI is sooo messy. : ))

@Valen_Byte I have an enormous amount of information available to me at any time.. I don't necessarily pay attention to it all, but it's there if I want it!

asneakybanana

Shaggygaming wrote: »

I forgot.. Less people mean you're better.

Playing smaller groups doesn't mean you're better but it does mean you're willing to push your players harder and need to perform at a higher level to win the same fights as a 24 man. Regardless of it being a 16 man vs 48 or a 24 vs 48 it's still going to be difficult and require skilled players but having 50% more players in your group to use ultimates and be targeted by ST attacks making it harder to focus one person down is always going to be more difficult sheerly just based on how much more often you need to have your ult up and how many Ults you can use at once.

However, group size pretty much goes out the window once you start fighting in those main channels with your faction, the chal to aleswell and brk to Alessia area for ep. Sure you might get a good fight once in a while when there's not many pugs around but 90% of the time you're going to end up with a friendly Zerg chasing up your tail or fighting with you and this makes the difficulty of a fight drop dramatically. And I understand some guilds like this because they want to play the map and help their faction and good for them, PvP would suck if there was 100% no plays towards objectives, but it doesn't necessarily make for the hardest fights.

Crown

asneakybanana wrote: »

PvP would suck if there was 100% no plays towards objectives, but it doesn't necessarily make for the hardest fights.

All those people complaining that groups should be limited to 4 people.. It would be funny to see how many keeps would be taken if everyone shared their attitude.

CyrusArya

Crown wrote: »

@Shaggygaming Unfortunately too many people think that way. I've had debates with old friends who firmly believe that running a large group means that you're not skilled and playing "easy mode".

My response to something like that was, I am indeed not skilled enough to take out a faction stack of 50+ with a group of 4. If you are able to do so, please put up a video. For that matter, I'd like to see your group of 4 wipe an opposing group of 20 when they're in "full tanks with destro" builds!

Is 6 close enough? Or is that too big a group to be impressive?

The notion that large-scale PvP doesn't demonstrate skillful play, or that anybody who plays in larger groups is unskilled, is fallacious and incorrect. Using your ratios, a group of 12 wiping 150 people (:4v50), or a group of 12 wiping 60 (:4v20) would surely be as impressive as their small scale parallels. To deny that would be foolish.

That said, I think when people insinuate that larger groups requires less skill, the real emphasis is the accessibility of the play style. The barrier to entry gets higher as the group size becomes smaller. The cross section of players who would find success in a group of <8 is far smaller than the section that would find equal success in groups of 12+.

Crown

CyrusArya wrote: »

Is 6 close enough? Or is that too big a group to be impressive?

Arbitrary / subjective numbers.. I've wiped a group of 20+ solo with a VD bomb as they've stacked on a door, as have many.. The intent is for consistent results in varied conditions. A minimum number of players with a certain amount of damage is required if you want a 90% (another arbitrary number) success rate in fighting other groups (organized or PuG) two to four times your size.

CyrusArya

Crown wrote: »

Arbitrary / subjective numbers.. I've wiped a group of 20+ solo with a VD bomb as they've stacked on a door, as have many.. The intent is for consistent results in varied conditions. A minimum number of players with a certain amount of damage is required if you want a 90% (another arbitrary number) success rate in fighting other groups (organized or PuG) two to four times your size.

Fair point, on the consistency in varied conditions. That minimum number is not close to 24 however, so would you disagree that a group that can achieve similar results consistently with 8-12 as opposed to 16+ demonstrates more cohesion and skillful play? Do you disagree that for a smaller group to achieve similar results as a larger group, wether that be proportionately or absolutely, it is incumbent on each individual member of the smaller group to be more skilled? Cus I think that's the entire point of the claim that larger groups require less skill.

Lexxypwns

CyrusArya wrote: »

Crown wrote: »

Arbitrary / subjective numbers.. I've wiped a group of 20+ solo with a VD bomb as they've stacked on a door, as have many.. The intent is for consistent results in varied conditions. A minimum number of players with a certain amount of damage is required if you want a 90% (another arbitrary number) success rate in fighting other groups (organized or PuG) two to four times your size.

Fair point, on the consistency in varied conditions. That minimum number is not close to 24 however, so would you disagree that a group that can achieve similar results consistently with 8-12 as opposed to 16+ demonstrates more cohesion and skillful play? Do you disagree that for a smaller group to achieve similar results as a larger group, wether that be proportionately or absolutely, it is incumbent on each individual member of the smaller group to be more skilled? Cus I think that's the entire point of the claim that larger groups require less skill.

There's a balance. I'm not anti-large group at all despite being small scale focused myself. However, there's a tipping point where your group size is large enough that the tipping point between vastly outnumbered and just kinda outnumbered by pugs becomes lower.

If I'm in a group of 12 and we see 40 pugs rushing into aleswell mine, we bomb the flag and wipe 10. Your group is on point and you manage to clean up most of the pugs, but on the back end of your last bomb(no destros up because as numbers dwindle you can't refill ult as fast). A 6 man from the third faction hits you with a clean bomb and you wipe and the 6 man gets a fat O tick.

In a 24 man, under the same circumstances, you're much more likely to have retained a destro or two and at least one negate. The 6 man bombs you and kills 14 before getting counter negated and wiped. You get your rezzes off while waiting on your tick.

Now, I think that paints a picture of why small scale players and Pugs alike don't like large guild groups. Capping group size was initially started as a way to deny opponents the opportunity to build as much ultimate as you could. In this way you actually became stronger by running 12 people who worked perfectly together versus 24 who were moderately skilled and coordinated. For some reason these old guild then tried to paint that as a source of pride "we only run 16, that means we only have 3 negates in group." The problem with their logic was that denying the extra ulti gen to other groups was just as valuable as your own ultimate generation. So while you maybe only had 3 negates versus their 5, your 3 will be up faster, this was only a devestating disadvantage when fighting for flags or getting lured into a choke or if you got baited into a bad ulti dump. Two of those require you to be outplayed anyway

Crown

CyrusArya wrote: »

Fair point, on the consistency in varied conditions. That minimum number is not close to 24 however, so would you disagree that a group that can achieve similar results consistently with 8-12 as opposed to 16+ demonstrates more cohesion and skillful play? Do you disagree that for a smaller group to achieve similar results as a larger group, wether that be proportionately or absolutely, it is incumbent on each individual member of the smaller group to be more skilled? Cus I think that's the entire point of the claim that larger groups require less skill.

@CyrusArya With the numbers these days, unless you're fighting a group who runs heartland+plaguedoctor type builds, 2-3 damage ult, 1 supporting (negate) ult, and 1 mitigation ult (sleet) is about right to kill most of whatever who take full (or most) of the damage output.

The challenge then becomes being that most small groups will tend to run more stam builds (no destro), so group-wiping capabilities are more limited to those who are within a dawnbreaker area and whether combat frenzy lets you chain dawnbreakers.

The more you want to kill, the more destros you need - or the more players you need who can get their dawnbreakers up more quickly. Depending on builds, and group composition, some groups of 5-6 might be able to win consistently vs opposing 30+, though with destro being nerfed and less pure damage magicka builds in small groups these days, I believe that an 8-12 (and probably closer to the 12 than the 8) will be the minimum to fight and win vs zergs.

asneakybanana

Crown wrote: »

CyrusArya wrote: »

Fair point, on the consistency in varied conditions. That minimum number is not close to 24 however, so would you disagree that a group that can achieve similar results consistently with 8-12 as opposed to 16+ demonstrates more cohesion and skillful play? Do you disagree that for a smaller group to achieve similar results as a larger group, wether that be proportionately or absolutely, it is incumbent on each individual member of the smaller group to be more skilled? Cus I think that's the entire point of the claim that larger groups require less skill.

@CyrusArya With the numbers these days, unless you're fighting a group who runs heartland+plaguedoctor type builds, 2-3 damage ult, 1 supporting (negate) ult, and 1 mitigation ult (sleet) is about right to kill most of whatever who take full (or most) of the damage output.

The challenge then becomes being that most small groups will tend to run more stam builds (no destro), so group-wiping capabilities are more limited to those who are within a dawnbreaker area and whether combat frenzy lets you chain dawnbreakers.

The more you want to kill, the more destros you need - or the more players you need who can get their dawnbreakers up more quickly. Depending on builds, and group composition, some groups of 5-6 might be able to win consistently vs opposing 30+, though with destro being nerfed and less pure damage magicka builds in small groups these days, I believe that an 8-12 (and probably closer to the 12 than the 8) will be the minimum to fight and win vs zergs.

IMO smaller group plays very very different than a bomb train/ whatever you want to call it in a 12 man. the way I see a 12 man playing is barging into an enemy keep, wiping 24 people and then taking the keep or running the walls of a keep vs 40 people where as a smaller group I imagine at the bridge or some open field area with lots of chokes kiting people and bursting down 1s and 2s or taking a tower and farming enemies in there with quick movement and picking players out rather than going for the entire stack. Also I imagine them running very high single target damage vs high aoe damage setups that a 12 man would run. I believe this isnt due to a lack of skill on either end its just what is most effective. There is a certain tipping point that destro and aoe builds will begin to outperform single target burst builds but this also requires a large change in playstyle. I would say the tipping point is between 8-10 but at 12-14 or so is when they are really the most efficient.

Crown

asneakybanana wrote: »

IMO smaller group plays very very different than a bomb train/ whatever you want to call it in a 12 man. the way I see a 12 man playing is barging into an enemy keep, wiping 24 people and then taking the keep or running the walls of a keep vs 40 people where as a smaller group I imagine at the bridge or some open field area with lots of chokes kiting people and bursting down 1s and 2s or taking a tower and farming enemies in there with quick movement and picking players out rather than going for the entire stack. Also I imagine them running very high single target damage vs high aoe damage setups that a 12 man would run. I believe this isnt due to a lack of skill on either end its just what is most effective. There is a certain tipping point that destro and aoe builds will begin to outperform single target burst builds but this also requires a large change in playstyle. I would say the tipping point is between 8-10 but at 12-14 or so is when they are really the most efficient.

Agree completely, though the smaller group with high single target is not going to be able to deal with an organized 20+ when they're respecting the leaders' calls, and all popping destros at the same time. The game just isn't built for that - and that's what most of the small groups find most upsetting.

Vilestride

Shaggygaming wrote: »

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

Anrose wrote: »

Are you playing on Vivec? There are a ton of groups out there playing 10-14 all the time. Most of them cap their groups at 16, but the pugs that follow make it look like a full raid.

EP has the most of them, from what I remember. DC has a few out there. And AD has maybe a handful spread out over the whole day.

I'd venture to say medium scale PvP is the most prominent of any sort you'll find. It's just hard to differentiate a medium scale group from the hoarse because of the tag along pugs.

Lol whats the point of capping a group at 16, if the 16 man grp surfs other zergs and joins in faction attacks on keeps?

Exactly. EP cares the most about their group sizes and I can't tell you how many times I've been flanked by these competitive guilds who care about group sizes when we were already engaged with another group or the faction stack. So does it really matter how many you're running? Yes and no. It matters only to your internal communication and gameplay but for some reason it is constantly shared publicly like it matters. I forgot.. Less people mean you're better.

The biggest issue groups who cap their numbers face is honestly dealing with the blowback from all the people who don't make the cut.

Capping numbers is simply about finding equalibrium between satisfying wins and being able to participate in the game play you want to participate in.