The Zerg Drama Thread (formerly "how to fight ball groups")

frozywozy

Ghostbane wrote: »

Can we pin this thread? Can't believe I missed this wee gem.

Stop slacking.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

Vilestride wrote: »

CyrusArya wrote: »

AnonUnk wrote: »

I've never seen Drac begging zone chat for guild members, but I've seen VE do it.

Being inclusive and open to fostering community engagement hardly constitutes ‘begging’. VE hasn’t had a need to ‘beg’ for guild members ever I don’t think. You’ll find that it’s just a difference in philosophy.

Minnesinger wrote: »

I have never played in VE but these attempts to tarnish their effort in this game looks sillier by every attempt. My respect for them grows the more I read the Forums.

Yup. I have never been affiliated with VE either, but have played with and am pretty close with some of their core members. Really cool people who are also great players. Their ranks do have more players who are carried, but at the same time I don’t think they want or feel the need to carry themselves as God’s gift to cyrodiil for being able to stack 30 k health and spam destro ultis. Elitism among zerg players just seems like such an oxymoron to me.

Amusing thread.

There's a difference between isolating your guild from the community and not putting anything back into it, and elitism.

Elitism is fantastic for the health of a game, and is required as much as mentors and teachers are. There is nothing wrong with expecting your members to be at the level of play you need them to be. Some teaching is always required, but this is why guilds trial members.

A standard of elitism generates a motive for improvement, all other competitive games have this and it fosters a community that strives to get better rather than become complacent with their current abilities. if you think this is bad for the game we have hugely varying ideals on what gaming, or generally speaking, life is about.

Sure for some they just want to come online and take it easy, relax a bit, and that's great, that hasn't gone away. What has disappeared, to the detriment of the games health, is elitism.

I have had discussions with many group leaders currently active in cyrodil and all of them have the same issue regarding recruitment. It is nearly impossible to find players willing to accept that they can do better and want to do whatever it takes to do so. Players won't try new builds, they expect that guilds will recruit them on the basis of need rather than making themselves needed.

Anyone who was actually in No Mercy can correct me here if I am wrong, but this guild had a separate waiting list guild for trials. It had some 60 members in it, all of whom waiting in here for MONTHS while trialling to join this guild because they wanted to prove themselves and play with the best. Not only did this improve the guild itself, but it improved the way of thinking for an entire faction who all admired this guild. The trial guild had a ranking system on it that if I recall had ranks from 'initiate', 'keep an eye on', 'needs to improve', 'ready for trial' and a few others. The point is, and maybe I'm just too being nostalgic here, the general disposition of players (obviously with exceptions) back then was dramatically different to how it is now.

Then, players didn't blame metas, their first reaction to a loss was not that the opponent was using cheese and some exploit or hack. They looked up to the players and guilds who were beating them on a day to day basis and sought their advice or made every effort to improve themselves to join another top tier rival guild to compete against them.

Why? because there was a standard of elitism, there was a prestige that people were attracted by. The health of the game depends on the balance of casual to hardcore players. right now, it's tilted far too heavily towards the latter.

So maybe let's rethink the negative connotation behind the word elitism.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

I think dracarys is a strong PVP guild , but the one thing that erks me is they made videos with 16-20 people in their grp and they call it "small man", this is not small man. i dont even know how you can call yourselves a small man grp when you fight an entire faction in a keep or when you have so many people in your raid. Just man up, your not a small man grp, your a big man grp, face the facts.

AddictionX

Vilestride wrote: »

CyrusArya wrote: »

AnonUnk wrote: »

I've never seen Drac begging zone chat for guild members, but I've seen VE do it.

Being inclusive and open to fostering community engagement hardly constitutes ‘begging’. VE hasn’t had a need to ‘beg’ for guild members ever I don’t think. You’ll find that it’s just a difference in philosophy.

Minnesinger wrote: »

I have never played in VE but these attempts to tarnish their effort in this game looks sillier by every attempt. My respect for them grows the more I read the Forums.

Yup. I have never been affiliated with VE either, but have played with and am pretty close with some of their core members. Really cool people who are also great players. Their ranks do have more players who are carried, but at the same time I don’t think they want or feel the need to carry themselves as God’s gift to cyrodiil for being able to stack 30 k health and spam destro ultis. Elitism among zerg players just seems like such an oxymoron to me.

Amusing thread.

There's a difference between isolating your guild from the community and not putting anything back into it, and elitism.

Elitism is fantastic for the health of a game, and is required as much as mentors and teachers are. There is nothing wrong with expecting your members to be at the level of play you need them to be. Some teaching is always required, but this is why guilds trial members.

A standard of elitism generates a motive for improvement, all other competitive games have this and it fosters a community that strives to get better rather than become complacent with their current abilities. if you think this is bad for the game we have hugely varying ideals on what gaming, or generally speaking, life is about.

Sure for some they just want to come online and take it easy, relax a bit, and that's great, that hasn't gone away. What has disappeared, to the detriment of the games health, is elitism.

I have had discussions with many group leaders currently active in cyrodil and all of them have the same issue regarding recruitment. It is nearly impossible to find players willing to accept that they can do better and want to do whatever it takes to do so. Players won't try new builds, they expect that guilds will recruit them on the basis of need rather than making themselves needed.

Anyone who was actually in No Mercy can correct me here if I am wrong, but this guild had a separate waiting list guild for trials. It had some 60 members in it, all of whom waiting in here for MONTHS while trialling to join this guild because they wanted to prove themselves and play with the best. Not only did this improve the guild itself, but it improved the way of thinking for an entire faction who all admired this guild. The trial guild had a ranking system on it that if I recall had ranks from 'initiate', 'keep an eye on', 'needs to improve', 'ready for trial' and a few others. The point is, and maybe I'm just too being nostalgic here, the general disposition of players (obviously with exceptions) back then was dramatically different to how it is now.

Then, players didn't blame metas, their first reaction to a loss was not that the opponent was using cheese and some exploit or hack. They looked up to the players and guilds who were beating them on a day to day basis and sought their advice or made every effort to improve themselves to join another top tier rival guild to compete against them.

Why? because there was a standard of elitism, there was a prestige that people were attracted by. The health of the game depends on the balance of casual to hardcore players. right now, it's tilted far too heavily towards the latter.

So maybe let's rethink the negative connotation behind the word elitism.

No. We (the MMO community) had all of what you speak of without resorting to toxic competition a decade and a half ago. To be competitive is not to be an elitist. Two separate things entirely. There are countless reasons throughout the years as to why its negative. You might have some research to do cause I lived it and saw the changes in the crowd mentality over time.

It is not good for the health of the game cause it encourages a mentality "if you're not good enough, you don't deserve to play with us or at all" or "I'm up here, you are down here."

What happens when you have actual horrible players doing this? You get toxic communities.

These discussions is with players not wanting to accept they can do better is because they think they are better. Why should they listen to anyone, this is not like a esport... this pvp is not balanced, this game does not cater to that crowd. Its impossible cause- it is likely the wrong game. So do not deny it.

People who usually been playing a while have a set playstyle sedimented with them. They do not want to change and they do not want to be part of whatever.

The attitude to improve comes from being humble enough to let yourself learn and improve. Elitism has the complete opposite effect, especially in the long run.

If you do not know why elitism has horrible connotations with it because you have not played MMO's before WOW vanilla please do not speak that it is a good thing. It has never been a good thing but it has always been there. Often times the best players back then were so humble, that in turn allowed others to try and be them. There was no youtube or anything like that, you just knew because everyone liked those people, to be one of the best but still show humility towards your opponent(and the rest of the community) was something of a sight to see, often if you asked they would help you improve... because on top of being the best they often would not degrade anyone or anything as being "inferior" to them. They would not offer unsolicited advice if you did not ask for it. To them no matter if you used the same armor, potions, food, weapon you name it.... it did not matter a player generally could not compete with their experience/talent.

That crowd left long ago.... they stood for what they stood for, those people actually created this code of honor between gamers and it was generally accepted throughout a community for both player vs the world and pk. The entire community would team up to enforce whatever rules we all believed was right and showed that any toxicity was not tolerated. It was great... then it slowly changed to what we have now. It's like we did a 180, the difference then to now is like night and day.

In short, elitism is not the same as being competitive. It's necessary to adapt and overcome and not hold on to old views as I was forced to due to the MMO community, in general, becoming more and more about "me, myself, and I."

frozywozy

I think the best approach is not to dictate someone how to play by following a specific required build to be able to join the group but to let the person release its own build (with a spreadsheet is even better) and then bring advices, recommendations and adjustments where needed. As long as the person understands which role he's covering in the group (dps,healer,support), it's all that matters.

@Prince_of_all_Pugs I don't think I ever heard Dracarys claiming to be running small man during their raid nights. They run medium groups capping at 16 and there is no shame or denial.

Lexxypwns

frozywozy wrote: »

I think the best approach is not to dictate someone how to play by following a specific required build to be able to join the group but to let the person release its own build (with a spreadsheet is even better) and then bring advices, recommendations and adjustments where needed. As long as the person understands which role he's covering in the group (dps,healer,support), it's all that matters.

@Prince_of_all_Pugs I don't think I ever heard Dracarys claiming to be running small man during their raid nights. They run medium groups capping at 16 and there is no shame or denial.

16 is medium now?

That's full on large scale, period.

frozywozy

Lexxypwns wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

I think the best approach is not to dictate someone how to play by following a specific required build to be able to join the group but to let the person release its own build (with a spreadsheet is even better) and then bring advices, recommendations and adjustments where needed. As long as the person understands which role he's covering in the group (dps,healer,support), it's all that matters.

@Prince_of_all_Pugs I don't think I ever heard Dracarys claiming to be running small man during their raid nights. They run medium groups capping at 16 and there is no shame or denial.

16 is medium now?

That's full on large scale, period.

Everyone has their own definition of what a small man, medium man and large scale is. In my book, a small man is 1-8, medium is 9-16 and large is anything more that that.

Lexxypwns

frozywozy wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

I think the best approach is not to dictate someone how to play by following a specific required build to be able to join the group but to let the person release its own build (with a spreadsheet is even better) and then bring advices, recommendations and adjustments where needed. As long as the person understands which role he's covering in the group (dps,healer,support), it's all that matters.

@Prince_of_all_Pugs I don't think I ever heard Dracarys claiming to be running small man during their raid nights. They run medium groups capping at 16 and there is no shame or denial.

16 is medium now?

That's full on large scale, period.

Everyone has their own definition of what a small man, medium man and large scale is. In my book, a small man is 1-8, medium is 9-16 and large is anything more that that.

ok, so let's break this down.

Server pop is less than 100/faction and according to you stops functioning when 40 organized players are on the same field.

Now, you're saying 16 is medium scale and that these guilds always seek outnumbered fights and prefer to fight other organized guilds.

That means, minimum 33 players in an engagement, which is awfully close to the arbitrary number you assigned for when fights are too laggy. So again, there's no way you can call that medium scale when you're approaching the numbers that YOU claim cause server load issues.

I'm just using your logic, nevermind how laughable an 8 man being small scale is

Agrippa_Invisus

Lexxypwns wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

I think the best approach is not to dictate someone how to play by following a specific required build to be able to join the group but to let the person release its own build (with a spreadsheet is even better) and then bring advices, recommendations and adjustments where needed. As long as the person understands which role he's covering in the group (dps,healer,support), it's all that matters.

@Prince_of_all_Pugs I don't think I ever heard Dracarys claiming to be running small man during their raid nights. They run medium groups capping at 16 and there is no shame or denial.

16 is medium now?

That's full on large scale, period.

Server pop is less than 100/faction and according to you stops functioning when 40 organized players are on the same field.

It's about 120 / faction last I heard.

montiferus

Lexxypwns wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

I think the best approach is not to dictate someone how to play by following a specific required build to be able to join the group but to let the person release its own build (with a spreadsheet is even better) and then bring advices, recommendations and adjustments where needed. As long as the person understands which role he's covering in the group (dps,healer,support), it's all that matters.

@Prince_of_all_Pugs I don't think I ever heard Dracarys claiming to be running small man during their raid nights. They run medium groups capping at 16 and there is no shame or denial.

16 is medium now?

That's full on large scale, period.

Agreed. It is funy how different console is from PC.

Beardimus

Zerg advice also needed for CP enabled BG now too haha

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

I think dracarys is a strong PVP guild , but the one thing that erks me is they made videos with 16-20 people in their grp and they call it "small man", this is not small man. i dont even know how you can call yourselves a small man grp when you fight an entire faction in a keep or when you have so many people in your raid. Just man up, your not a small man grp, your a big man grp, face the facts.

Link me the video where we claim we are small man on one of our raid nights.
Whilst your at it link me any video where we are 20 ppl.

Perhaps you can actually "face the facts" yourself when you make such sweeping statements.

P.s. In my eyes (as you can hear on our podcast) small /medium /large whatever depends on what you fight not on what group size you are.

frozywozy

Lexxypwns wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

I think the best approach is not to dictate someone how to play by following a specific required build to be able to join the group but to let the person release its own build (with a spreadsheet is even better) and then bring advices, recommendations and adjustments where needed. As long as the person understands which role he's covering in the group (dps,healer,support), it's all that matters.

@Prince_of_all_Pugs I don't think I ever heard Dracarys claiming to be running small man during their raid nights. They run medium groups capping at 16 and there is no shame or denial.

16 is medium now?

That's full on large scale, period.

Everyone has their own definition of what a small man, medium man and large scale is. In my book, a small man is 1-8, medium is 9-16 and large is anything more that that.

ok, so let's break this down.

Server pop is less than 100/faction and according to you stops functioning when 40 organized players are on the same field.

Now, you're saying 16 is medium scale and that these guilds always seek outnumbered fights and prefer to fight other organized guilds.

That means, minimum 33 players in an engagement, which is awfully close to the arbitrary number you assigned for when fights are too laggy. So again, there's no way you can call that medium scale when you're approaching the numbers that YOU claim cause server load issues.

I'm just using your logic, nevermind how laughable an 8 man being small scale is

You seem pretty upset and salty. Do we know each other? In any case, let me describe what my words are and what your representation of my words are, just to make sure we understand what the thruth is and what your imagination and your twisted words are in an attempt to make me look bad and make you sleep better at night.

I have never said that there was a magic number that make something good or bad. I have never said that 40 players on the screen is too much. There is also no arbitrary number I assigned for laggy fights. All of those twisted words, I don't know where you got them from but if you could please quote me, I would much appreciate it.

Here is what my reality is : During prime time with populations al maxed, If two 24men ballgroups face each other on the field during a keep battle or any fight where other pugs or a whole faction risk to also be present, the server performances are absolutely horrible and everyone on the map of the same server get punished. Now, if you put the same scenario but with 2 16men ballgroups, it will still lag and good chances the server performances will still be relatively bad, or unplayable.

But from my own knowledges and my own experience with the game, running a 16men raid is the perfect balance between being able to complete objectives, be efficient as a group and also not causing that many issues on the server. This being said, it does not mean that someone running a 16men group is right and someone running a 17men group is wrong. It it just going to cause more issues, going up to 24men, or more.

How to fix this in 5 easy steps :

• Reduce the population cap per faction by 20%
• Delete all empty campaigns
• Add campaigns dynamically as players Q up
• Make a global leaderboard/scoreboard for all campaigns united
• Make scrolls worth 5points, keeps worth 3points and outposts worth 2points on the main campaign

Irylia

What addon do you guys use for group size?
Every time we add anything over 4 it says “you are now a large group”

Publius_Scipio

Prolouge


Patrick Stewart (voice narrator): A long time ago somewhere in northeastern Cyrodiil there was a young prince. The young prince was thoughtful and kind and loved taking in injured animals and nursing them back to health and setting them free. His name was Frederic Rozenberg. On his 22nd birthday, as the people of the region celebrated their prince, a young woman came to town. Upon first sight she caught the prince's eye. He said she was as beautiful as the most beautiful jewel he had ever seen. What a coincidence for our prince that her name was in fact Jules.

As the sun set and rose many times over and the hands of the clock turned, Frederic fell in love with Jules. Unfortunately things were not meant to go as planned for our dear prince.... The night he was going to propose to her and ask for her hand in marriage he discovered that she only dated him to attain his knowledge, gain status, and to become more "op" at PvP. In fact, she revealed to him that she loved another, a 17 year old wannabe Brooklyn rapper/MC named Velukodi, who streamed from his bedroom in Rawl'kha.

As he watched her ride away from the castle on her guar a rage began to build in him. Frederic did not believe that such a good man like himself deserved such a betrayal. He lashed out and yelled at the sky. Cursing the gods and everything they stood for. He renounced the gods, love, and all that is good and exclaimed that he would have his vengeance. If he was not to have love, then no one, not man nor beast, would have it.

The first snowflakes began to fall. The petals of ruby red roses turned black and brittle and fell to the ground. The wildlife fled.... Where little Perfectly Perched Pelican once perched himself on tree branches in the Spring, giant ominus icicles now hung. The once green and lush kingdom was now a barren desert of snow and ice. Prince Frederic Rozenberg's heart ceased to beat. His heart turned to ice and his blood stopped flowing. The once bright eyed and loving Prince Frederic Rozenberg ceased to exist. In his place stood the demon and king of popsicles Frozn! And soon all of Tamriel would feel his pain....

Frozn action figure

IxSTALKERxI

In my opinion it's based off playstyle. Small scale has more self-sufficient builds, medium scale has more group oriented builds but can be more spread, and don't simply stack in a ball, large scale is anything where the most efficient way to play is stacking in a ball and moving together.

1-5: Small scale
6-11: Medium scale
12+ Large scale

Vilestride

Dracays is primarily a large scale guild who raid currently 4 times a week participating in large scale game play.. I don't think I've ever seen any of our members state other wise.

Please explain to me why this thread has become so centered around dracarys? Again, none of our members have done anything more than reply to comments directly referencing us.

Publius_Scipio

Vilestride wrote: »

Dracays is primarily a large scale guild who raid currently 4 times a week participating in large scale game play.. I don't think I've ever seen any of our members state other wise.

Please explain to me why this thread has become so centered around dracarys? Again, none of our members have done anything more than reply to comments directly referencing us.

Because Dracrys is inherently evil. But so are Tertiary Meat, Kush, Dominion Knights, and so on and so on.

Blood of Daggerfall are also back stabbing Benedict Arnolds! Naked Saramis and his muse Harlocke Midnight betrayed me. Me of all the DC soldiers! Ask Ma’lok! But I should have known Harlocke.... I should have known that one of disgraced Covenant general Brandon South Ga’s top lieutenants would have the capacity for such brazen and heinous actions. I pity the soldiers ensorcelled by BoD leaders. Phooey I say! Shame on you and your acolytes.

Feanor

It’s always small scale regardless of group size. PUGs and surfers are invisible and never contribute.

Takes-No-Prisoner

Irylia wrote: »

What addon do you guys use for group size?
Every time we add anything over 4 it says “you are now a large group”

I guess the game knows more about grouping sizes then we do!

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

In my opinion it's based off playstyle. Small scale has more self-sufficient builds, medium scale has more group oriented builds but can be more spread, and don't simply stack in a ball, large scale is anything where the most efficient way to play is stacking in a ball and moving together.

1-5: Small scale
6-11: Medium scale
12+ Large scale

The reason why you build and play to a certain style is because of the enemies you are intending to fight and also the situations you find yourselves in. Numbers make no difference to that. We can play "large scale" style being 6 ppl for example. It won't be as successful because you have to hold back and avoid some situations. The advantage of a bigger group is you can play aggressively and engage in any fight with a reasonable margin for success.

Nermy

Irylia wrote: »

What addon do you guys use for group size?
Every time we add anything over 4 it says “you are now a large group”

I think the argument is now closed. lol!

IxSTALKERxI

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

In my opinion it's based off playstyle. Small scale has more self-sufficient builds, medium scale has more group oriented builds but can be more spread, and don't simply stack in a ball, large scale is anything where the most efficient way to play is stacking in a ball and moving together.

1-5: Small scale
6-11: Medium scale
12+ Large scale

The reason why you build and play to a certain style is because of the enemies you are intending to fight and also the situations you find yourselves in. Numbers make no difference to that. We can play "large scale" style being 6 ppl for example. It won't be as successful because you have to hold back and avoid some situations. The advantage of a bigger group is you can play aggressively and engage in any fight with a reasonable margin for success.

Yeah this is true. It does depend on what you are fighting actually as to what your play style is to begin with.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

I dont understand why just like there are good 1vXers and small man grps, why cant there be good zergs? the stigma of playing in a grp of 8 or more (zerg) is always held in a bad light. According to the ESO community if you play in a group larger than 8 in pvp your a zergling trash bag no matter how powerful or organized your "zerg" is. Your Zerg can kill hundreds of people, crown emperors and win a campaign for your entire faction but STILL your always a zergling trashbag, its so unfair. i think thats why good strong organized groups like dracarys cant admit they are a "zerg" group.

Stratforge

Prince_of_all_Pugs wrote: »

I dont understand why just like there are good 1vXers and small man grps, why cant there be good zergs?

I've got some bad news..