The Current Destro Pain Train Meta Needs To Die

usmcjdking

Rin_Senya wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

That's a bad analogy.
You do not have to throw rubbish on street to succeed at crossing it.
You do have to use a destro pain train if you want to succeed at beating other groups doing the same.

I disagree. If you hate something, call it "brainless" etc and think that it shouldn't even exist you don't go and contribute to that just because "oh I have to do it to be competitive". No one forces you to do it and there are actually tons of really good and competitive players that never liked or supported that play style and still they play the game how they want and are competitive without coming to forums constantly trash talking about it. And yes these players are also fighting other guilds and even doing GVG's.

Texas wrote: »

Someone may need thicker skin if they think someone saying the pain trains look like bots is an awful insult that demands this much QQ. I pray that this person is never actually in TS with me as I jokingly say far worse.

Idc much that some people don't like the style of play that I do. Personally I've never asked for a nerf to something just because I'm not participating in it "anymore". I actually respect people that never liked bomb groups and have never been participating in them. But what I find hilarious (and it's what I said in my first comment) is people like @Joy_Division that used to play in bomb groups now saying that this style "must go" as soon as their guild quit the game

Texas wrote: »

are you wanting him to dig up a post where he says he is in VE and that VE plays like bots?

I mean if you or him claims he did it a lot in the past it shouldn't be so difficult to do either, right? Also the point was about him posting in the same "insulting" manner about group play when he was in VE not the fact that he "post where he says he is in VE".

Texas wrote: »

At the end of the day.....LESS QQ MOAR PEW PEW.

Now you got it! So I hope your friends that constantly post things like "ooooh destro zerg balls are such laaaame, damn bots following the crown" in almost every single post follow this advice too.

usmcjdking wrote: »

Someone has no right to be critical of something because they have partaken in it?

Everyone has right to be critical of everything. That's why I said that in my opinion person that used to zerg in 24 man bomb group for 3 years is nothing more than a hypocrite if he comes on forum and constantly posting some QQ about this style of play. No one forces this person to do so, if he would really hate it as much as how he describes it and really think that this style shouldn't be allowed in game anymore he wouldn't participate in this style (I actually saw him doing it even now) and also contribute to it. I'll repeat: if you don't like rubbish on your street you don't go out and constantly empty your bag there than shout loudly about how bad it is to do so.

The term you are looking to use is not hypocritical. I have not seen anything that Joy suggests that he is superior by virtue of his opinion or playstyle - nor has he insinuated it. Contradictory? Sure, I suppose if you reach for selected text and ignore context. But even then there are quite a few contradictory practice-to-preach statements in here, enough so that it doesn't warrant relentless dogpiling on a specific individual.

I would venture to say that Joy's posts are carefully crafted enough to not even be contradictory, much less hypocritical. He spends a majority of his arguments on the effectiveness and efficiency of the "zergball lawnmowing bot train", decrying it as not worth of the effort put into it. He supports this with stating that he himself doesn't/didn't put much effort in zergball lawnmowing bot train. It would be contradictory if he had said "but I try harder when I zergball lawnmow with my fellow botfarmers so I deserved all my rewards", and it would be hypocritical if he had said "but when I zergball lawnmow it's for the betterment of PVP and the campaign", neither of which were in his argument or posts for that matter.

His posts are condescending in nature by virtue of his selected terminology, and that is a legitimate reason to not pay credence to his posts. In which your response should be more along the lines of "if you want to have a constructive discussion, you should perhaps hold your personal grievances with our playstyle to yourself".

But there is just absolutely no authenticity in attacking the merit of Joy's post. It's a strawman and a weak one that doesn't serve the purpose of this thread.

I prefer the term professional PVP conga line.

Drummerx04

Sanct16 wrote: »

Now the question is: Why do we consider kodi 1v4ing people fine but a raid 12v50ing as broken? There hardly is a difference.

I'd be happy to answer:

• Kodi can be stopped or seriously slowed down or threatened by any number of individual players who can be logged on at any time during the day.
• Any of those players will be a threat to Kodi every time they meet.
• In the case of all 4 players being bad, that's 4 people who probably don't feel great about themselves.
• Kodi can be affected by CC, resource drains, maybe snares for a short time (until forward momentum kicks back on), etc.
• Kodi cannot overwhelm most of a faction and hold a keep for 30+ minutes. At most he'll take a resource or two by himself.
• I can call out, "Kodi at chal farm" and the one or two people needed to actually kill him can go get him.
• If I call out, "Drac raid in Ash" there may not be a group that can realistically fight them with near even numbers, so eventually most of the faction has to respond which leaves every other keep open for PvDoor

We've gone over everything an optimized guild group is immune to... which to recap -- roots, snares, CC, negates, all dots and poisons, etc, so I won't go over that in detail again.

There seems to be a lot of fixation on former VE members taking a negative stance on group play as if that somehow invalidates the arguments, and I'll openly admit that my stance has changed somewhat since the disband. All this means is that I can again see and empathize a little better with the average PvP player's experience - that they aren't part of an elite guild capable of winning this fight and it's demoralizing.

I also previously listed the guilds that were running when I joined VE in January to show how limited the guild selection actually is... and that literally no additional guilds have formed during that time apart from maybe a few small man guilds.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Texas wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

.

Texas wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Wow.

You're doing it wrong it's not Wow...........it's WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. I mean Steve coined it so at least do it properly when addressing him with it.

Ill wait for a reply rather than a deflection thanks for trying though.

Oh I wasn't deflecting......I was informing you of your error!

Still waiting

Derra

pieratsos wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

For example, @Derra has never liked ball groups and ball group play, I disagree with his views but I respect him for the fact that he hasn't participated in it and held onto his views.

I did join ZS afternoon groups in the past weeks on a couple of occasions - i don´t think there were ever more than 12 people though.

Imo 12 people would be the perfect groupsize for cyro - it´s still enjoyable for me with that amount of people (though personally prefer ~8).

Then you are a hypocrite

If i couldn´t find the irony in this post i´d make an argument how anything i´ve said against zergballs was pre morrowind - a state of the game that still allowed for successful smallgroup, duo and solo play.
The game we play now supports much less of that and as a consequence has become even more zergy than it ever was.

I don´t blame anyone anymore for running groups of whatever size - because with the current state of the game it´s the only thing that lets you enjoy the game for the majority of the time you invest (the only thing i detest are grouped players chasing the few solos that are left).

asneakybanana

pieratsos wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

Now the question is: Why do we consider kodi 1v4ing people fine but a raid 12v50ing as broken? There hardly is a difference.

Actually there is a huge difference. Knowing that ur skill matters, doing the best u can but still losing to someone because he is simply better and u got outplayed is one thing. Thats totally acceptable. You can get better, put on better gear as well and take him on again. But feeling helpless and not being able to do absolutely anything not because u are not good enough but because of stupid mechanics unless u bring more numbers to use those same stupid mechanics is a very different story.

I mean what's the difference between getting better, wearing better gear and learning to not get outplayed again vs. one person or vs 12-16? You could get a 12-16 man group together and get coordinated and wear the proper gear setups and you can beat the organized groups and stop getting out played. Instead of just making yourself better it's making your group better though. It's your choice to play solo instead of with an organized group.

You are not getting outplayed by those groups. That is literally the point. Im sorry but spamming one button isnt exactly what i would call "outplay" people.

You are not making urself or ur group better. You are just making ur group bigger and abuse the same stupid mechanics they do to be able to face them.

If you just wanted to make yourself bigger why not just run like 50+ ND just light attack? Organized groups is about taking x number of people, usually 12 or 14 and designing the best possible group around that and then any 2 or 4 extras bringing it to 16 can be a flex role to help the group. If you ran a 12 man that ran a group comp and theory crafted the way these groups do you could make a group that could be competitive rather than being outplayed. As has been said many times, the problem with organized groups right now is the lack of them and therefore the lack of things to counter the remaining organized groups. If you want to counter a 1vx player you learn the skills to 1vx and play to a similar level as them, therefore if you want to counter an organized group you need to learn the skills to counter an organized group. There honestly needs to be more organized groups in cyro to make it a healthier place this way groups.like drac and Fantasia have a true counter.

Satiar

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

usmcjdking wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Rin_Senya wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Joy has been making posts on this stuff for years while running with VE. It's not his fault you never bothered to read them.

Joy might have been posting thousands of comments for years. But don't compare some random suggestions and comments that dedicated to actual bugs and issues of the game (some of them were actually good) to constant recent insults against organized group game play. Here are some examples from just this thread:

Joy_Division wrote: »

strict ball-group stack on crown group that looks and play like bots and a loose group of 24 players who don't run nearly as tight and don't look like ducklings following their mother.

Joy_Division wrote: »

The organized bot like pain trains

Joy_Division wrote: »

people such as yourself may appreciate stack-on-crown organized play and no matter how much skill it takes to play well, a lot of people who play this game can't stand that bot like style.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Perceptions matter; these ball-groups don't seem to have any intricate strategy other than just blobbing together and brute forcing things with AoE skills.

Joy_Division wrote: »

me as someone who used to ball-group with the best of them, I don't want to see them.

Joy_Division wrote: »

ball-group is just going to have 1 member mindless spamming rapids to make them immune to something that counters - effectively - the rest of us peons and puga? <...> to have one person whose sole function is just to spam one button that makes the entire group immune to a fundamental mechanics of roots and snares the rest of us have to suffer and make allowances in our builds. Purge-bot, rapids monkey, it just seems mindless. It's why people don't like it.

Joy_Division wrote: »

the basic mechanics that have always been and still are super effect: stack on crown and overwhelm with mass coordinated PBAoEs. The means and mechanics have changed in the delivery of those PBAoEs, yet it still resembles just a bunch of bots following the same path. It's that same old stack-on-crown pain train that I believe is the source of the many frustrations with "destro-bomb groups."

Joy_Division wrote: »

it still looks like a bunch bots running around spamming PBAoE death.

What I am typing is not hard to understand. If you don't like people constantly throwing rubbish on your street you don't go there throwing more rubbish just because "other people do it" and then stand in the middle of the road just after you emptied your bag shouting "OMG this is so baaaad, no one should do it!". You just simply don't do it yourself.

I am not breaking any littering laws or damaging the environment we live as in your misguided analogy.

This is a game. We are competitors. It's is ZoS's responsibility to establish the rules and the mechanics. I am not going to gimp myself simply because I find a style of play not very interesting. I am allowed to compete using legal and commonly practiced tactics while asking ZoS to make changes and reforms in order to make the game better. This does not make me a hypocrite. It makes me someone who plays and wants the game to improve.

Its an analogy not an analogue to your actions. The point, had you chosen to understand it (although I imagine you did and are just trying to deflect) was that you were happy (maybe you complained maybe you didn't havent seen any quotes of yours back then) with running in such "zerg bot balls" back when you had a group to do it with.

Since you no longer have one you have started a diatribe of complaints against them. That is what makes you a hypocrite, not the fact necessarily that you once played in them, although it is a factor, but now you no longer have the option you have stepped up your attacks on that style to try and get it removed.

For example, @Derra has never liked ball groups and ball group play, I disagree with his views but I respect him for the fact that he hasn't participated in it and held onto his views.

Perhaps an analogy which might better suit your views is someone who used to gank saying ganking should be removed and bashing on it right when they no longer have an effective gank build.

Feel free to quote some of your old posts back when VE was in its hayday of you calling their style "bots" and "mindless/skill less" and perhaps I'll change my views.

That's an incredibly myopic view.

Someone has no right to be critical of something because they have partaken in it? He has every right to be critical of whatever he wants and his opinion is no more or less valuable than yours in the context of this thread lol. I'm sorry but trying to dismiss a post because of something entirely unrelated to the argument at hand is not a good way to get your point across.

There is no analogy necessary for Joy's thesis posts because it's very clear what he's doing. No one is confused as to what he has said and the context supporting his current opinion.

You have completely failed to grasp the clear point which was made in the post:

I'll try and make it easy for you:

Since you no longer have one (Joy's old '24m' group) you have started a diatribe of complaints against them. That is what makes you a hypocrite, not the fact necessarily that you once played in them, although it is a factor, but now you no longer have the option you have stepped up your attacks on that style to try and get it removed.

The trouble is you’re ignoring literally years of posts from Joy on the subject. There’s years of NA history both in game and on the forums. You’ve come in at the tail end of it and talk like none of it happened.

Wow. I didnt think it was possible to still not understand the point being made.

Ok.

Joy has made many posts.
The content of joys post have changed from game suggestions and improvement posts to derogatory group comments since VE disbanded.

Are you still with me?

Quote any of these mirade of posts you are referencing refuting this please I'd love to be proven wrong.

Joys posts or opinions haven’t changed to my knowledge. I’ve played with him, talked with him and read his posts for 3 years, and he’s fairly consistent. He promoted and supported changes that forced VE to drastically change our set ups and play style, because the balance of the game is more important to him than easy wins.

On the other hand, our interactions with you were pretty much nil until you came over from EU. So it’s kinda rich that you’re asking me to go through Joy’s archive of posts and prove his consistency. If you and Rin want to be super agro about it that’s your prerogative. I will continue to marvel at how you joined a community of players 3 years in the making and talk as if you know everything when the content of your posts demonstrates otherwise.

If you feel Joy is being unfair, his post archive is right there. Feel free to go educate himself. Or if you don’t want to make the effort, you can listen to the people who know him and then debate his arguments on merit instead of trying to discredit him. If his arguments have no merit they should be easily discredited, no? Trying to discredit the person making said arguments hints that your own position is weak, and I doubt that’s what you intended. I believe the term is “ad hominem”, if I remember correctly?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Texas wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

.

Texas wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Wow.

You're doing it wrong it's not Wow...........it's WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. I mean Steve coined it so at least do it properly when addressing him with it.

Ill wait for a reply rather than a deflection thanks for trying though.

Oh I wasn't deflecting......I was informing you of your error!

Still waiting

This here? Why you gotta be like that. It's Christmas!

Satiar

asneakybanana wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

Now the question is: Why do we consider kodi 1v4ing people fine but a raid 12v50ing as broken? There hardly is a difference.

Actually there is a huge difference. Knowing that ur skill matters, doing the best u can but still losing to someone because he is simply better and u got outplayed is one thing. Thats totally acceptable. You can get better, put on better gear as well and take him on again. But feeling helpless and not being able to do absolutely anything not because u are not good enough but because of stupid mechanics unless u bring more numbers to use those same stupid mechanics is a very different story.

I mean what's the difference between getting better, wearing better gear and learning to not get outplayed again vs. one person or vs 12-16? You could get a 12-16 man group together and get coordinated and wear the proper gear setups and you can beat the organized groups and stop getting out played. Instead of just making yourself better it's making your group better though. It's your choice to play solo instead of with an organized group.

You are not getting outplayed by those groups. That is literally the point. Im sorry but spamming one button isnt exactly what i would call "outplay" people.

You are not making urself or ur group better. You are just making ur group bigger and abuse the same stupid mechanics they do to be able to face them.

If you just wanted to make yourself bigger why not just run like 50+ ND just light attack? Organized groups is about taking x number of people, usually 12 or 14 and designing the best possible group around that and then any 2 or 4 extras bringing it to 16 can be a flex role to help the group. If you ran a 12 man that ran a group comp and theory crafted the way these groups do you could make a group that could be competitive rather than being outplayed. As has been said many times, the problem with organized groups right now is the lack of them and therefore the lack of things to counter the remaining organized groups. If you want to counter a 1vx player you learn the skills to 1vx and play to a similar level as them, therefore if you want to counter an organized group you need to learn the skills to counter an organized group. There honestly needs to be more organized groups in cyro to make it a healthier place this way groups.like drac and Fantasia have a true counter.

This is what happens as the PvP population slowly dwindles. It takes a reasonable amount of effort to be competitive in ESO, a large time investment too. It's something I noted many times about the PvP community in ESO. In other MMOs I played, you get run over by an insanely good guild and the reaction is, "I want to be them." In ESO, people get run over and the thought is, "*** those guys and their playstyle."

I never understood that. I still, personally, blame each and every player who went on in game, on forums, on podcasts or twitch about the evils of guild play and how group sizes should be at X limit and you should only play in certain ways. They harmed the game and its pvp community in ways that will never heal. They helped to turn ESO PvP toxic: towards high level play and toward the guilds that hold a PvP community together. IVe never see this in a PvP game before and I hope i never do again.

Vilestride

Drummerx04 wrote: »

• If I call out, "Drac raid in Ash" there may not be a group that can realistically fight them with near even numbers, so eventually most of the faction has to respond which leaves every other keep open for PvDoor

I simply have no sympathy for this feeling of helplessness that seems to be infectious. There is not a lack of guilds with the potential to contest an ash farm such as in the example you have given (I can tell you right now if fantasia show up to that fight it's going to be anything but a casual faction farm for the day). There is however a lack of guilds willing to take the steps required to do so. There are plenty of equal or larger organised raids running when ours does on a daily basis, many of who show up at said farms. If those guilds choose not to play the meta or run optimised builds because they don't like it then fine, whatever, play any build you want, power to you, I am glad you are sticking it to the meta man and pursuing your dreams as a free citizen of Tamriel.

But if that's case, then sorry, those guilds just don't get to expect to be able to win. ZoS will change the meta re-actively based on forum QQ time after time but each time the same guilds are going to either accept the meta and be competitive, or not, and continue to loose these fights, it's that simple.

I don't expect even the best players in the game to beat kodi 1v1 if they are running some smugglers and Jailbreak stamblade build. If the guilds who ARE active want to prevent their respective factions from experiencing this helplessness then they have to be willing to adapt their gameplay, whether they like it or not.

Until then I hope everyone is having as much fun as us out there. I for one would like to see the changes I have previously mentioned but overall I am loving it.

Satiar

Vilestride wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

• If I call out, "Drac raid in Ash" there may not be a group that can realistically fight them with near even numbers, so eventually most of the faction has to respond which leaves every other keep open for PvDoor

I simply have no sympathy for this feeling of helplessness that seems to be infectious. There is not a lack of guilds with the potential to contest an ash farm such as in the example you have given (I can tell you right now if fantasia show up to that fight it's going to be anything but a casual faction farm for the day). There is however a lack of guilds willing to take the steps required to do so. There are plenty of equal or larger organised raids running when ours does on a daily basis, many of who show up at said farms. If those guilds choose not to play the meta or run optimised builds because they don't like it then fine, whatever, play any build you want, power to you, I am glad you are sticking it to the meta man and pursuing your dreams as a free citizen of Tamriel.

But if that's case, then sorry, those guilds just don't get to expect to be able to win. ZoS will change the meta re-actively based on forum QQ time after time but each time the same guilds are going to either accept the meta and be competitive, or not, and continue to loose these fights, it's that simple.

I don't expect even the best players in the game to beat kodi 1v1 if they are running some smugglers and Jailbreak snowflake stamblade build. If the guilds who ARE active want to prevent their respective factions from experiencing this helplessness then they have to be willing to adapt their gameplay, whether they like it or not.

Until then I hope everyone is having as much fun as us out there. I for one would like to see the changes I have previously mentioned but overall I am loving it.

Look at the game though. How many "new guild" have become competitive?

Your guild is a conglomeration of the remnants of top end EP, DC and AD guilds. Fantasia is a conglomeration of leftover high end DC and AD players. I don't know if Invictus still runs strong, but they're the same thing: a mix of old GoS players and players from other high end guilds.

When was the last time a group became competitive with the top ESO guilds without top ESO players on their roster? Hell, VE recruited heavily from zone but we still had a lengthy list of top end players on our roster.

zyk

usmcjdking wrote: »

I prefer the term professional PVP conga line.

The first ball group I encountered was Nexus. I thought they were a dance troupe. I got served.

It's pretty common in ESO PVP for players to do things they do not enjoy being on the other side of or preach against. Sometimes without realizing it.

I don't really think Joy is truly a hypocrite, but come on, surely people can appreciate the humor of such damning indictments of ball groups coming from a member of VE.

Satiar

zyk wrote: »

usmcjdking wrote: »

I prefer the term professional PVP conga line.

The first ball group I encountered was Nexus. I thought they were a dance troupe. I got served.

It's pretty common in ESO PVP for players to do things they do not enjoy being on the other side of or preach against. Sometimes without realizing it.

I don't really think Joy is truly a hypocrite, but come on, surely people can appreciate the humor of such damning indictments of ball groups coming from a member of VE.

From me, sure. I don't really have the history Joy does in this regard.

Sanct16

Drummerx04 wrote: »

Kodi can be stopped or seriously slowed down or threatened by any number of individual players who can be logged on at any time during the day.

An organised group can also be threatened by other organised groups. The problem with this argument imo is that it questions the general existence of groups of any type. If I make a 24 man pug group even without TS it will be hard for individual players to take it down. Should grouping be removed from the game?

Any of those players will be a threat to Kodi every time they meet.

Any organised group will always pose a threat.

In the case of all 4 players being bad, that's 4 people who probably don't feel great about themselves.

How is this different if a group defeats 4 other groups at the same time? They are obviously bad and won't feel great about themselve. Not sure what you try to get to with this argument tho, are you suggesting the game should prevent such a situation to happen to not make players feel bad?

Kodi can be affected by CC, resource drains, maybe snares for a short time (until forward momentum kicks back on), etc. [...] We've gone over everything an optimized guild group is immune to... which to recap -- roots, snares, CC, negates, all dots and poisons, etc, so I won't go over that in detail again.

To be quite honest, it's not really true that groups are immune to these things. Meteor rollback for example is a huge problem for groups, negates can be very dangerous, sieges are still a threat, massive snares can be a problem too if it's for an extended duration so your Maneuver build . Sure, a good group will not come to a keep and die to either of these things in 10 seconds every time. But kodi will also not start a fight and instantly die to a CC - at least not more often than a group will.

Kodi cannot overwhelm most of a faction and hold a keep for 30+ minutes. At most he'll take a resource or two by himself.

So if kodi would play during the night when there is only 5 other players that he can kill easily are playing, would you say that his build should get nerfed so that they can kill him? If not, at what amount of players do you think the breakpoint is?
Would you say that the current strength of groups would be a problem if instead of a popcap of ~100 the cap would be at 600? Then a guild couldn't take on the entire faction.

I can call out, "Kodi at chal farm" and the one or two people needed to actually kill him can go get him. [...] If I call out, "Drac raid in Ash" there may not be a group that can realistically fight them with near even numbers, so eventually most of the faction has to respond which leaves every other keep open for PvDoor

What if there is no such one or two people that can kill kodi? I mean your whole argumentation is based on the assumption that there is no other groups playing the game.

---

The questions asked are mostly actual questions. Personally I can understand the frustration of ungrouped pugs trying to fight an organised group however I think that grouping is an essential part of largescale fighting and if the only real issue is that there isn't enough groups I would rather see changes to encourage grouping rather than nerfing the ability of groups to fight large amount of unorganised pugs.

Xsorus

zyk wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

Snares that can't be removed would have the potential to ruin all kinds of fights, not just those involving large ball groups. No thank you. Though, it is very Wrobel-like, so now I'm scared.

zyk wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

Snares that can't be removed would have the potential to ruin all kinds of fights, not just those involving large ball groups. No thank you. Though, it is very Wrobel-like, so now I'm scared.

A negative effect that actually does something instead of being rendered irrelevant by instant removal. The horror.

Another combat function that can't be countered would be horrible, yes. We would see such siege deployed everywhere. I can envision them ruining a lot of good fights that don't involve ball groups.

Are you aware that's how Oil Catapult actually worked at one point?

It applied a 70% unmovable snare on the targets it hit.

Know what happened?

People stopped zerg balling

If I recall correctly, that was a bug and, IMO, ball groups were more relevant then than they are now. Regardless if that is true, it doesn't change the fact that a 70% snare that can't be countered would impact fights of all types, not just those involving blobs.

Most players I know want to be snared less often, not more often. To me, this is a solution that throws the baby out with the bathwater.

It wasn't a bug; and ball groups were more relevant in terms of stacking in areas and lagging out stuff. However when people noticed that Oil Catapults were applying that snare they were just peppering zerg balls and slowly causing them to die. Cause what would happen is the zerg ball was moving around a lot and half would get caught by it....So the other half would either have to stop and come back and thus get hammered by the siege over and over again or you had to spread and avoid it.

Also you generally don't see people dropping oil catapults in solo fights or small fights as it makes little sense. It'd make keep fights more dangerous and zergballs would certainly feel it now a days.

Texas wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

People stopped zerg balling

Sure they did. I mean everyday in Cyrodiil prior to the oil catapult change was solo's spread out across the field evenly 8m apart from the next because of the fear of the snare. Once that change happened Cyrodiil took possibly the hardest hit since the dark days of zero cost bats and launch DK's. But what about DAoC? I mean I'm unsure how I should feel since you haven't mentioned DAoC at all lately. @Ghost-Shot who is this even?

For a small amount of time at the start people didn't zerg ball, It was right after they announced AOE caps that it became common. Cause hell..why wouldn't you? Only a few times in the game life were zergballing disrupted. When VD/Prox Bombs were common and when Oil Catapults snared like crazy.

I honestly can't think of any other times where it was not a good idea to stack up.

Vilestride wrote: »

8 manning against PUGs in DAoC was easier than playing DK in 1.1. Don't know why DAoC is our gold standard right now.

Most groups didn't 8 man against pug? It was called 8v8 for a reason. You're talking about a game where the community would blacklist you and double team the hell out of you if you ran 9 vs 8. Fighting a bunch of pugs was not what 8 mans were looking for in that game.

Hell I can recall a running joke in our Vent back in the day where the group leader said "Guys there's nothing out lets log" after we just had 2 8v8 fights in the span of 10 minutes. If we couldn't find another 8 man most would want to log off and do something else....anyone saying "Lets go screw over the solos on a bridge" would be laughed at.

But you are right, Killing pugs in DAOC was super easy as an 8 man cause not all classes having heals....Now if you're talking about a Pug zerg that would be more based on your Group Comp and Realm. Some Group comps were designed for blowing up giant zergs while others were designed more for stomping other 8 mans.

Xsorus

Satiar wrote: »

Vilestride wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

• If I call out, "Drac raid in Ash" there may not be a group that can realistically fight them with near even numbers, so eventually most of the faction has to respond which leaves every other keep open for PvDoor

I simply have no sympathy for this feeling of helplessness that seems to be infectious. There is not a lack of guilds with the potential to contest an ash farm such as in the example you have given (I can tell you right now if fantasia show up to that fight it's going to be anything but a casual faction farm for the day). There is however a lack of guilds willing to take the steps required to do so. There are plenty of equal or larger organised raids running when ours does on a daily basis, many of who show up at said farms. If those guilds choose not to play the meta or run optimised builds because they don't like it then fine, whatever, play any build you want, power to you, I am glad you are sticking it to the meta man and pursuing your dreams as a free citizen of Tamriel.

But if that's case, then sorry, those guilds just don't get to expect to be able to win. ZoS will change the meta re-actively based on forum QQ time after time but each time the same guilds are going to either accept the meta and be competitive, or not, and continue to loose these fights, it's that simple.

I don't expect even the best players in the game to beat kodi 1v1 if they are running some smugglers and Jailbreak snowflake stamblade build. If the guilds who ARE active want to prevent their respective factions from experiencing this helplessness then they have to be willing to adapt their gameplay, whether they like it or not.

Until then I hope everyone is having as much fun as us out there. I for one would like to see the changes I have previously mentioned but overall I am loving it.

Look at the game though. How many "new guild" have become competitive?

Your guild is a conglomeration of the remnants of top end EP, DC and AD guilds. Fantasia is a conglomeration of leftover high end DC and AD players. I don't know if Invictus still runs strong, but they're the same thing: a mix of old GoS players and players from other high end guilds.

When was the last time a group became competitive with the top ESO guilds without top ESO players on their roster? Hell, VE recruited heavily from zone but we still had a lengthy list of top end players on our roster.

You're basically saying what i've been saying is a problem with the current grouping scheme for a while.

The barrier for entry is to high in terms of the amount of people required.

If you wanted to compete with a zerg guild like Drac, you'd have to actually recruit 16-24 players on a nightly basis.

Now imagine if the group cap was 8 people....It would be far easier for new Groups to form up and learn and compete against the current competition.

This is what me and Lowbie was telling you back in the day when you guys were running more and more numbers. Its a snowballing effect. Its also why they should of capped the groups far lower in PvP.

That doesn't mean zerging shouldn't exist....But if you want viable group vs group gameplay you don't want it to be Guild zerg vs guild zerg.

Vilestride

Satiar wrote: »

Vilestride wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

• If I call out, "Drac raid in Ash" there may not be a group that can realistically fight them with near even numbers, so eventually most of the faction has to respond which leaves every other keep open for PvDoor

I simply have no sympathy for this feeling of helplessness that seems to be infectious. There is not a lack of guilds with the potential to contest an ash farm such as in the example you have given (I can tell you right now if fantasia show up to that fight it's going to be anything but a casual faction farm for the day). There is however a lack of guilds willing to take the steps required to do so. There are plenty of equal or larger organised raids running when ours does on a daily basis, many of who show up at said farms. If those guilds choose not to play the meta or run optimised builds because they don't like it then fine, whatever, play any build you want, power to you, I am glad you are sticking it to the meta man and pursuing your dreams as a free citizen of Tamriel.

But if that's case, then sorry, those guilds just don't get to expect to be able to win. ZoS will change the meta re-actively based on forum QQ time after time but each time the same guilds are going to either accept the meta and be competitive, or not, and continue to loose these fights, it's that simple.

I don't expect even the best players in the game to beat kodi 1v1 if they are running some smugglers and Jailbreak snowflake stamblade build. If the guilds who ARE active want to prevent their respective factions from experiencing this helplessness then they have to be willing to adapt their gameplay, whether they like it or not.

Until then I hope everyone is having as much fun as us out there. I for one would like to see the changes I have previously mentioned but overall I am loving it.

Look at the game though. How many "new guild" have become competitive?

Your guild is a conglomeration of the remnants of top end EP, DC and AD guilds. Fantasia is a conglomeration of leftover high end DC and AD players. I don't know if Invictus still runs strong, but they're the same thing: a mix of old GoS players and players from other high end guilds.

When was the last time a group became competitive with the top ESO guilds without top ESO players on their roster? Hell, VE recruited heavily from zone but we still had a lengthy list of top end players on our roster.

Experience is obviously a massive factor, but are saying it shouldn't be? The only thing that can give experience is practice and game-time. Are you suggesting we make changes to balance and game mechanics to compensate for experience? if so I would argue that is a very dangerous proposition.

However, don't take that statement the wrong way, I have some ideas and absolutely do want to see changes made to offer a sense of competitive incentive that would create an environment where more experienced players were more exclusively contested by other experienced players and subsequently leaving lesser experienced ones to contest one another. But this is more akin to matchmaking than combat or game-play balance.

And all this being said I truly do see many guilds getting better on a daily basis, especially the ones I know to be actively self -analysing with the intent of self -improvement. The others not so much but again, I wouldn't expect it.

Satiar

Vilestride wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Vilestride wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

• If I call out, "Drac raid in Ash" there may not be a group that can realistically fight them with near even numbers, so eventually most of the faction has to respond which leaves every other keep open for PvDoor

I simply have no sympathy for this feeling of helplessness that seems to be infectious. There is not a lack of guilds with the potential to contest an ash farm such as in the example you have given (I can tell you right now if fantasia show up to that fight it's going to be anything but a casual faction farm for the day). There is however a lack of guilds willing to take the steps required to do so. There are plenty of equal or larger organised raids running when ours does on a daily basis, many of who show up at said farms. If those guilds choose not to play the meta or run optimised builds because they don't like it then fine, whatever, play any build you want, power to you, I am glad you are sticking it to the meta man and pursuing your dreams as a free citizen of Tamriel.

But if that's case, then sorry, those guilds just don't get to expect to be able to win. ZoS will change the meta re-actively based on forum QQ time after time but each time the same guilds are going to either accept the meta and be competitive, or not, and continue to loose these fights, it's that simple.

I don't expect even the best players in the game to beat kodi 1v1 if they are running some smugglers and Jailbreak snowflake stamblade build. If the guilds who ARE active want to prevent their respective factions from experiencing this helplessness then they have to be willing to adapt their gameplay, whether they like it or not.

Until then I hope everyone is having as much fun as us out there. I for one would like to see the changes I have previously mentioned but overall I am loving it.

Look at the game though. How many "new guild" have become competitive?

Your guild is a conglomeration of the remnants of top end EP, DC and AD guilds. Fantasia is a conglomeration of leftover high end DC and AD players. I don't know if Invictus still runs strong, but they're the same thing: a mix of old GoS players and players from other high end guilds.

When was the last time a group became competitive with the top ESO guilds without top ESO players on their roster? Hell, VE recruited heavily from zone but we still had a lengthy list of top end players on our roster.

Experience is obviously a massive factor, but are saying it shouldn't be? The only thing that can give experience is practice and game-time. Are you suggesting we make changes to balance and game mechanics to compensate for experience? if so I would argue that is a very dangerous proposition.

However, don't take that statement the wrong way, I have some ideas and absolutely do want to see changes made to offer a sense of competitive incentive that would create an environment where more experienced players were more exclusively contested by other experienced players and subsequently leaving lesser experienced ones to contest one another. But this is more akin to matchmaking than combat or game-play balance.

And all this being said I truly do see many guilds getting better on a daily basis, especially the ones I know to be actively self -analysing with the intent of self -improvement. The others not so much but again, I wouldn't expect it.

I’m arguing that realistically what you’re suggesting doesn’t happen. I don’t propose any solution, but i don’t think your POV is realistic. When you can’t point to even one single homegrown top end guild, something is wrong.

Why this is the case? I have a few pages to write on that! But it’s the reality, like it or not

Xsorus

The problem with this game is nothing is going to change with the current Developers in charge.

The fact that we're still discussing this after all this time says everything ya need to know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxXjYjgSIc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2BqTrX8zVk

I posted this three bloody years ago when I thought aoe caps were finally being removed.

Not much as changed..its still the same crap now a days except now lag doesn't prevent you from dying right away.

Now I wanna show something that everyone should..its an 8v8 fight in DAOC...and extremely old ass game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjpiCD5zYII

Its slower paced, but you see how everyone is avoiding standing next to one another...That's so AOE's don't hit you.

you know what else you notice? Actual players doing actual things.

Look at this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuFrcM9pH40

This is a small scale group vs group video in ESO

Here is Dracys running an actual 8v8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODkUV7RooYI

So its possible in ESO..just no one really wants to do it.

Sanct16

@Xsorus

You should really start to seperate game mechanics and player mentality. It's great if people in DAOC were looking 8v8 fights but that's a community thing and limiting group size in ESO would not lead to any real changes. Groups might even just run two 8 man groups next to each other if that's need to take on the zergs during primetime lag. I think limiting to 12 people would be a good change but it would still not solve anything.

Your suggestion to make Oil Catapult snare uncounterable raises the question how you imagine a group taking a keep after this change. It's easy to break "balling" up but I fail to see how this will improve the gameplay. Worst case scenario it will funnel fights even more to faction stacking if people want to take keeps, otherwise groups will farm on keep resources by flagging the keep from the tower forcing defenders to come outside. However it will certainly not help new groups to form as those groups would just fail all the time if they try to evolve from being faction-stacking zerglings.

zyk

Xsorus wrote: »

Most groups didn't 8 man against pug? It was called 8v8 for a reason. You're talking about a game where the community would blacklist you and double team the hell out of you if you ran 9 vs 8. Fighting a bunch of pugs was not what 8 mans were looking for in that game.

Hell I can recall a running joke in our Vent back in the day where the group leader said "Guys there's nothing out lets log" after we just had 2 8v8 fights in the span of 10 minutes. If we couldn't find another 8 man most would want to log off and do something else....anyone saying "Lets go screw over the solos on a bridge" would be laughed at.

But you are right, Killing pugs in DAOC was super easy as an 8 man cause not all classes having heals....Now if you're talking about a Pug zerg that would be more based on your Group Comp and Realm. Some Group comps were designed for blowing up giant zergs while others were designed more for stomping other 8 mans.

This touches on what I've ranted about quite often. Old school gaming ethics which, IMO, were inherited from rl organized competitive environments and are almost completely lacking in ESO PVP.

I think groups of all types need to be more restrained when it comes to fighting players they outclass. If group of any size is crushing everything in its path and impossible from the competition to remove from a location, it's time to find a better fight or change something -- like group size or builds -- to something that's more appropriate to your current competitors.

Why? Because good sportsmanship promotes growth while continuing to dominate your competition will encourage them to do something else.

Being outnumbered is overrated in ESO. It's pretty obvious organization and optimal builds are usually more important than outnumbering an opponent.

I do a bit of everything in ESO. I solo, I surf, I zerg, I blob. Though, I think I'm done blobbing for a while. I'm always amazed by the vitriol from some players when I happen to be one of the disorganized randoms their organized group sought to be outnumbered by. But to be fair, I am also amazed by my own vitriol at times.

Vilestride

zyk wrote: »

This touches on what I've ranted about quite often. Old school gaming ethics which, IMO, were inherited from rl organized competitive environments and are almost completely lacking in ESO PVP.

I think groups of all types need to be more restrained when it comes to fighting players they outclass. If group of any size is crushing everything in its path and impossible from the competition to remove from a location, it's time to find a better fight or change something -- like group size or builds -- to something that's more appropriate to your current competitors.

To align with these old school ethics, traditionally what would happen would be that there is some form of higher level play or format where players who did outclass others could go.

Does this game feature a system as such to help balance the level of competition? No, you are right, it doesn't. Should it? yes, I agree and would love for them to make game play changes supporting this ideology, but this is traditionally a 1 way system of progress and improvement, it should never be expected of players to devolve their game-play to achieve this parity. (please distinguish what I mean here before someone misinterprets and rants about how current meta has devolved compared to some other arbitrary point in the game, obviously that is not the meaning of this statement)

zyk wrote: »

Why? Because good sportsmanship promotes growth while continuing to dominate your competition will encourage them to do something else.

Maybe we come from different schools of thought but I have never interpreted good sportsmanship to be the gaming equivalent of "go easy on them", personally, I would find this far more disrespectful.

In the context of lesser experienced players good sportsmanship to me would mean treating them as equals, which inherently they are. So long as you respect their effort to challenge you and are willing to offer advice if they seek it after a loss then the figurative good sportsmanship box is ticked.

Reflecting on all of this what I do find funny is that most games that do support some sort of more competitive formatting rarely start out that way, and it is rarely initiated by the games developer. In most cases it begins community driven and then latter adopted by developers because it is so popular.

So let's ask ourselves some more questions, does this game have the potential to cater for some community driven competitive parity? YES, and it's actually been happening, it just needs to be followed through. Animosity are already doing a great job trying to initiate some formatted GvG's which are a much more competitive than open world. Kena and the legend guys are re-building a competitive duelling scene. Right now it's not flawless, and you can't expect it to be, but the potential is there. The obstacle is as I said before, Willingness.

I am going to drag you back in here @Satiar because this has sparked a train of thought relating to something you said some time back and is very relevant to both competitive parity and meta evolution, please note that this is a point of conversation not an attack. You once took the policy of not accepting GvG's with part of the basis for this being that in such a format, a guild can specifically build to counter another. You're right, they can, but this is entirely healthy, it is EXACTLY this that prevents meta's from becoming stale. Top teams develop a strategy, in reaction to that, other top teams develop counter strategies, so on so forth. Rock, Paper, Scissors. voilà, meta evolution that is more naturally guided than the current "hey, here's a new patch, have a new meta". This is how meta should be and is, in other successful PVP games.

So to put it simply if the goal is to avoid more experienced players spending all their game time dominating lesser ones, developer aside, what we can do and what we need to do, is have the willingness to set up a format that avoids such a scenario and for players to participate in it.
Animosity is doing it, PoD is doing it, LoM, Artem, Venatus are all doing it and Dracarys are doing it. (also many others, I am just summarising here). If what you are asking is for guilds to leave open world and seek out fights against other strong guilds because that's more competitive, well:

Xsorus wrote: »

its possible in ESO..just no one really wants to do it.

Now, where I imagine this conversation leads is to an area I know you love steve, numbers. Myself for example would primarily like to participate in 12v12 situations. Some of the guilds involved might argue that 4v4 is more competitive, I am sure Kena's duelling scene would argue 1v1 is the most competitive, what i think we can all agree on is that any of them are more competitive than guild vs factions at ash.

So the less guilds taking up a no GvG policy, the better no? IF, the goal truly is competitive parity of course. If not well let's just keep going down the same open world PVP road where unfortunately some people are subject to get dominated. I know I'd opt for the former.

Xsorus

Sanct16 wrote: »

@Xsorus

You should really start to seperate game mechanics and player mentality. It's great if people in DAOC were looking 8v8 fights but that's a community thing and limiting group size in ESO would not lead to any real changes. Groups might even just run two 8 man groups next to each other if that's need to take on the zergs during primetime lag. I think limiting to 12 people would be a good change but it would still not solve anything.

Your suggestion to make Oil Catapult snare uncounterable raises the question how you imagine a group taking a keep after this change. It's easy to break "balling" up but I fail to see how this will improve the gameplay. Worst case scenario it will funnel fights even more to faction stacking if people want to take keeps, otherwise groups will farm on keep resources by flagging the keep from the tower forcing defenders to come outside. However it will certainly not help new groups to form as those groups would just fail all the time if they try to evolve from being faction-stacking zerglings.

Its completely possible they would do that. Like i said there was people who tried that in DAOC as well.

However i think underestimate the power of EGO has on gaming communities. I mean go back to old threads where i've called Zerg Guilds fools for saying they were a single group when they ran 24 people. They were absolutely livid that i'd dare say they were zerging with 24 people. You start getting multiple for example 8 mans (And I don't think limiting it to 12 would be bad either..I prefer 8 as it creates more groups, but I can see 12 being chosen simply because its similar to other game modes) running and you have those groups fighting and you have one guild running two groups..and you will get push back..People will call that guild out. Like I said before, no one wants to be the guild that requires more people to compete as it makes you look like total noobs.

As for the Oil Catapult, people took the keeps before when it existed.....You only have a few spots you can place an Oil Catapult inside a keep, thus it limits the amount of times it can be fired..Thus it required timing your breeches instead of just charging in with zero threat because of ults and such.

Joy_Division

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Rin_Senya wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Joy has been making posts on this stuff for years while running with VE. It's not his fault you never bothered to read them.

Joy might have been posting thousands of comments for years. But don't compare some random suggestions and comments that dedicated to actual bugs and issues of the game (some of them were actually good) to constant recent insults against organized group game play. Here are some examples from just this thread:

Joy_Division wrote: »

strict ball-group stack on crown group that looks and play like bots and a loose group of 24 players who don't run nearly as tight and don't look like ducklings following their mother.

Joy_Division wrote: »

The organized bot like pain trains

Joy_Division wrote: »

people such as yourself may appreciate stack-on-crown organized play and no matter how much skill it takes to play well, a lot of people who play this game can't stand that bot like style.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Perceptions matter; these ball-groups don't seem to have any intricate strategy other than just blobbing together and brute forcing things with AoE skills.

Joy_Division wrote: »

me as someone who used to ball-group with the best of them, I don't want to see them.

Joy_Division wrote: »

ball-group is just going to have 1 member mindless spamming rapids to make them immune to something that counters - effectively - the rest of us peons and puga? <...> to have one person whose sole function is just to spam one button that makes the entire group immune to a fundamental mechanics of roots and snares the rest of us have to suffer and make allowances in our builds. Purge-bot, rapids monkey, it just seems mindless. It's why people don't like it.

Joy_Division wrote: »

the basic mechanics that have always been and still are super effect: stack on crown and overwhelm with mass coordinated PBAoEs. The means and mechanics have changed in the delivery of those PBAoEs, yet it still resembles just a bunch of bots following the same path. It's that same old stack-on-crown pain train that I believe is the source of the many frustrations with "destro-bomb groups."

Joy_Division wrote: »

it still looks like a bunch bots running around spamming PBAoE death.

What I am typing is not hard to understand. If you don't like people constantly throwing rubbish on your street you don't go there throwing more rubbish just because "other people do it" and then stand in the middle of the road just after you emptied your bag shouting "OMG this is so baaaad, no one should do it!". You just simply don't do it yourself.

I am not breaking any littering laws or damaging the environment we live as in your misguided analogy.

This is a game. We are competitors. It's is ZoS's responsibility to establish the rules and the mechanics. I am not going to gimp myself simply because I find a style of play not very interesting. I am allowed to compete using legal and commonly practiced tactics while asking ZoS to make changes and reforms in order to make the game better. This does not make me a hypocrite. It makes me someone who plays and wants the game to improve.

Its an analogy not an analogue to your actions. The point, had you chosen to understand it (although I imagine you did and are just trying to deflect) was that you were happy (maybe you complained maybe you didn't havent seen any quotes of yours back then) with running in such "zerg bot balls" back when you had a group to do it with.

Since you no longer have one you have started a diatribe of complaints against them. That is what makes you a hypocrite, not the fact necessarily that you once played in them, although it is a factor, but now you no longer have the option you have stepped up your attacks on that style to try and get it removed.

For example, @Derra has never liked ball groups and ball group play, I disagree with his views but I respect him for the fact that he hasn't participated in it and held onto his views.

Perhaps an analogy which might better suit your views is someone who used to gank saying ganking should be removed and bashing on it right when they no longer have an effective gank build.

Feel free to quote some of your old posts back when VE was in its hayday of you calling their style "bots" and "mindless/skill less" and perhaps I'll change my views.

How about stop trying to come up with incorrect, spurious, and misleading analogies and instead just accept what I am saying? You ought to trust me here, I know myself and my history with ESO better than you do.

I'm a hyprocrite huh? Check out the date of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9kq2I6mPE&amp;t=15s

That's my video. Mine. I made it. That's December 7, 2015. Because I couldn't stand AoE caps and the what passed for guild strategies. You what else about that date? I was in VE for six months! You and Rin's presumptions are wrong. I'm not against these stack-on-crown blob PBAoE "tactics" because I'm not longer run in VE, it's because I don't think those mechanics are interesting or compelling, and I absolutely think they could and should be reformed and improved.

I have been consistent in how I feel about the game, how I posted, and when I posted.

I respect @Derra too, because he doesn't come onto these forums are lecture me about how I feel about the game or calls me a hypocrite because I dare critique the game's mechanics.

Satiar

@Vilestride

Bulb and I came to that way of thinking because of our history in the duelling scene. He was an officer in legends and I just did a ton of 1v1s. It was precisely that one problem that burned us out on it. It made dueling frustrating and a chore. Oh you’re a Magblad? Let me equip X set. You’d beat someone in a duel and then they’d put on an anti-you set. Really hated it, never wanted to do that on a guild level. It felt fake and artificial. It’s what was so good about open world combat: your spec was your spec. The times I fought you guys with 10-16 people at the Bridge abd outside sej—no specialized set ups or comps—those were infinitely better than anything we could have set up.

TLDR making arena PvP work in an ESO style game is futile.

Regarding “going easy on people”, it depends on your goals. There was s time when we’d push hard every night, dethrone Haxus, take Arius and then.... nothing. Server just died for the day. Sometimes for a few days. Same with AD if we pushed too aggressively. We decided we valued the health of the campaign more than stomping on people and restricted ourselves. One of our first big falling out on DC with Daniel was when he wanted us to help him murder the server for the night and we refused. Demoralizing the PvP population gets you.... here. A dying population.

Where you draw the line is up to you. I find overarming is very much a thing. So is how you fight guilds that aren’t on your level yet. I never let a guild beat me to make them feel better but there’s a bit of space between letting them win and grinding their face into the concrete. I don’t know how you play or what goes on in there, but I agree with the idea that you can go too hard. We’ve seen it on NA a few times. AD outright killed servers. EP in 1.6 almost destroyed PvP. VE got accused of this during that time period where there weren’t guilds to challenge us. Id say the fewer guilds there are capable of dealing with you when you push it too far, the more careful you gotta be

Xsorus

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Agrippa is not wrong, though. The game was cast as a rebirth of DAOC, three faction war and all. PvP was heavily promoted.

Then, of course, the game launched.

The hints of DAoC that are still here are the only reason I keep sticking around.

Should Camelot Unchained ever actually launch, or maybe even Crowfall, my account is very likely to be set inactive.

But to elaborate on my 'fraction of a fraction'.

Even on a night where Vivec is 3 faction locked during prime time (which is a smaller and smaller window of time lately), then that's 360 total players PVPing. All the other servers are typically 1 bar aside from Kyne which is 2 bars for each faction on average. That's 180 players for Kyne and maybe 50 for the rest. Add another 50 in queue for Vivec and you have 640 concurrent players that are engaged in AvAvA pvp for Cyodiil in one form or another for the PC NA megaserver.

Double that number to include the Euro totals. 1280 players concurrent.

Steam shows 13,378 players concurrent as of this very moment I write this for ESO. Then there are going to be the non-steam users (I don't have my account set up through steam, I run it off the good ol' ESO launcher). I have no way to guesstimate that number, but let's give them another 5,000 concurrent for that.

So out of the 18-20K concurrent players they have, less than 10% are engaged in Cyrodiil or waiting to get into Cyrodiil at any time. And that number's being generous if there are lot more players that are logging in w/o being seen by Steam than I guesstimated.

We are a fraction of the community. And we're being treated like it.

rofl know whats sad about that?

On Merlin server, during prime time after WoW launched mind you....you could do /who NF in DAOC on Midgard (which was lowest population at the time) and it would show you the total number out in PVP, Not once was it below 600 people. 600 people in that one realm.....hibs generally had around 700-800 and albion often hit slightly above 1000 people....

That was in the PvP area....not on the server whole....that was just in PvP

and Merlin was one of like 10 servers....there was like 3 other servers with similar population at the time.

zyk

Vilestride wrote: »

Maybe we come from different schools of thought but I have never interpreted good sportsmanship to be the gaming equivalent of "go easy on them", personally, I would find this far more disrespectful.

In the context of lesser experienced players good sportsmanship to me would mean treating them as equals, which inherently they are. So long as you respect their effort to challenge you and are willing to offer advice if they seek it after a loss then the figurative good sportsmanship box is ticked.

This is only true to a degree. When you completely outclass an opponent and stomp them over and over again, that's not being a good sport. Most competitive mediums are heavily segmented to best avoid this scenario to better enable good competition --- aka good fights. Running up scores is near universally frowned upon.

Frankly, Drac is in a different league than most players in ESO. Drac might be the only guild in its league left on PC/NA. I know some guilds can still compete, but I'm not sure anyone that runs as big as Drac is as closed to as optimized. Most of the time you are a group of pros crashing a pickup game. There's usually nothing for the other teams to learn from you because they simply don't want to take the game as seriously [anymore].

I'm thrilled there are serious efforts to develop competitive communities in ESO, but so far they are extremely fringe.

Let's keep in mind that the ESO community is generally very casual. Most players do not have the time, inclination or, IMO, ability to compete with hardcore, organized players. I don't see how running players like this through a meat grinder can be fun for anyone. A point is reached where it turns into a bit of a circle ____.

I enjoy the challenge of fighting an organized group with randoms, but the meta doesn't support that against all groups right now. I can catch someone overextending or catch a group with a timely CC and it's Earthgore to the rescue every time. And those opportunities don't present themselves often against Drac. But even the worst ball groups benefit from this absurdity.

We've seen what happens in ESO. PC/NA/Thornblade was completely ruined by EP's 1.5 dominance and indulgence. It went from being the main campaign to a buff server. Players switched factions and campaigns to avoid it. Unfortunately, there are usually no other campaigns to go to. What usually happens after a low pop emping? The map gets rolled and opponents log out. Zzzz. The same happens when only one faction has one or more organized large groups running unless they show restraint.

In a vacuum, there's nothing wrong with a group of any size or play style as long as there's proper competition to support it.

pieratsos

asneakybanana wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

asneakybanana wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

Now the question is: Why do we consider kodi 1v4ing people fine but a raid 12v50ing as broken? There hardly is a difference.

Actually there is a huge difference. Knowing that ur skill matters, doing the best u can but still losing to someone because he is simply better and u got outplayed is one thing. Thats totally acceptable. You can get better, put on better gear as well and take him on again. But feeling helpless and not being able to do absolutely anything not because u are not good enough but because of stupid mechanics unless u bring more numbers to use those same stupid mechanics is a very different story.

I mean what's the difference between getting better, wearing better gear and learning to not get outplayed again vs. one person or vs 12-16? You could get a 12-16 man group together and get coordinated and wear the proper gear setups and you can beat the organized groups and stop getting out played. Instead of just making yourself better it's making your group better though. It's your choice to play solo instead of with an organized group.

You are not getting outplayed by those groups. That is literally the point. Im sorry but spamming one button isnt exactly what i would call "outplay" people.

You are not making urself or ur group better. You are just making ur group bigger and abuse the same stupid mechanics they do to be able to face them.

If you just wanted to make yourself bigger why not just run like 50+ ND just light attack? Organized groups is about taking x number of people, usually 12 or 14 and designing the best possible group around that and then any 2 or 4 extras bringing it to 16 can be a flex role to help the group. If you ran a 12 man that ran a group comp and theory crafted the way these groups do you could make a group that could be competitive rather than being outplayed. As has been said many times, the problem with organized groups right now is the lack of them and therefore the lack of things to counter the remaining organized groups. If you want to counter a 1vx player you learn the skills to 1vx and play to a similar level as them, therefore if you want to counter an organized group you need to learn the skills to counter an organized group. There honestly needs to be more organized groups in cyro to make it a healthier place this way groups.like drac and Fantasia have a true counter.

I dont want to group up and do the same stuff just to be able to fight them and i shouldnt have to do that. Especially when that thing is so braindead and boring. I dont want to kill them. I dont even expect to kill them. Im just looking for actual enjoyable fights no matter what playstyle i choose. And when i end up being outnumbered, at least i want to be able to have a good fight whether i win or die. It used to work that way, it doesnt work that way anymore. Now its either ball up or gtfo .

So no, the issue isnt that there are not enough of those groups. The issue is that they even exist in that form. And the fact that gameplay is such a joke, is the reason why there are not enough people in the first place and why the population is getting smaller every patch. And to make it a little more simple, ill just post this.

Xsorus wrote: »

Also having dedicated roles in a group isn’t bad... but when your zerg reaches a point where you have a dedicated person spamming rapids... you’ve gone full potato.

Vilestride

Satiar wrote: »

@Vilestride

Oh you’re a Magblad? Let me equip X set. You’d beat someone in a duel and then they’d put on an anti-you set. Really hated it, never wanted to do that on a guild level.

This is exactly why I prefer GvG to duelling, it is never going to be that simple in a group scenario where you require a variety of classes and builds. (yes I see the error in that logic relevant to the current meta, I have never insinuated the meta right now is balanced regarding combat, but I'd hope we can speak a little less contextually). It's going to boil down to strategies rather than something as definitive as class limits.

Satiar wrote: »

@Vilestride
TLDR making arena PvP work in an ESO style game is futile.

I disagree, and it's been some of the most fun I have had in this game since launch, throughout all metas and patches it has always interested me more than open world. But this is probably just where our gaming priorities fundamentally differ and I don't expect to change your mind.

Satiar wrote: »

@Vilestride

Regarding “going easy on people”, it depends on your goals. There was s time when we’d push hard every night, dethrone Haxus, take Arius and then.... nothing. Server just died for the day. Sometimes for a few days. Same with AD if we pushed too aggressively. We decided we valued the health of the campaign more than stomping on people and restricted ourselves. One of our first big falling out on DC with Daniel was when he wanted us to help him murder the server for the night and we refused. Demoralizing the PvP population gets you.... here. A dying population.

Where you draw the line is up to you. I find overarming is very much a thing. So is how you fight guilds that aren’t on your level yet. I never let a guild beat me to make them feel better but there’s a bit of space between letting them win and grinding their face into the concrete. I don’t know how you play or what goes on in there, but I agree with the idea that you can go too hard. We’ve seen it on NA a few times. AD outright killed servers. EP in 1.6 almost destroyed PvP. VE got accused of this during that time period where there weren’t guilds to challenge us. Id say the fewer guilds there are capable of dealing with you when you push it too far, the more careful you gotta be

Again, I suspect we will have differing core values on this. I to was on the receiving end during both of those periods you reference the difference is when AD was dominating the early days I didn't expect the DiE/Alacrity/Decibel combo to reign it in, I expected DC to step it up. When havoc was "killing PVP" during 1.6 I didn't expect them to log out and stop playing, I expected DC to step it up.

To get real nice and deep like now, from my recently broadened experience playing with people of many different backgrounds I am starting to think this kind of different thinking is a cultural thing. Not to be provocative or generalising but I feel like Americans just fundamentally see things differently. Environment is everything right.

Joy_Division

Rin_Senya wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

That's a bad analogy.
You do not have to throw rubbish on street to succeed at crossing it.
You do have to use a destro pain train if you want to succeed at beating other groups doing the same.

I disagree. If you hate something, call it "brainless" etc and think that it shouldn't even exist you don't go and contribute to that just because "oh I have to do it to be competitive". No one forces you to do it and there are actually tons of really good and competitive players that never liked or supported that play style and still they play the game how they want and are competitive without coming to forums constantly trash talking about it. And yes these players are also fighting other guilds and even doing GVG's.

Texas wrote: »

Someone may need thicker skin if they think someone saying the pain trains look like bots is an awful insult that demands this much QQ. I pray that this person is never actually in TS with me as I jokingly say far worse.

Idc much that some people don't like the style of play that I do. Personally I've never asked for a nerf to something just because I'm not participating in it "anymore". I actually respect people that never liked bomb groups and have never been participating in them. But what I find hilarious (and it's what I said in my first comment) is people like @Joy_Division that used to play in bomb groups now saying that this style "must go" as soon as their guild quit the game

Texas wrote: »

are you wanting him to dig up a post where he says he is in VE and that VE plays like bots?

I mean if you or him claims he did it a lot in the past it shouldn't be so difficult to do either, right? Also the point was about him posting in the same "insulting" manner about group play when he was in VE not the fact that he "post where he says he is in VE".

Texas wrote: »

At the end of the day.....LESS QQ MOAR PEW PEW.

Now you got it! So I hope your friends that constantly post things like "ooooh destro zerg balls are such laaaame, damn bots following the crown" in almost every single post follow this advice too.

usmcjdking wrote: »

Someone has no right to be critical of something because they have partaken in it?

Everyone has right to be critical of everything. That's why I said that in my opinion person that used to zerg in 24 man bomb group for 3 years is nothing more than a hypocrite if he comes on forum and constantly posting some QQ about this style of play. No one forces this person to do so, if he would really hate it as much as how he describes it and really think that this style shouldn't be allowed in game anymore he wouldn't participate in this style (I actually saw him doing it even now) and also contribute to it. I'll repeat: if you don't like rubbish on your street you don't go out and constantly empty your bag there than shout loudly about how bad it is to do so.

You may think I'm a hypocrite and you're entitled to your opinion, but you and Izzy are making an awful lot of incorrect assumptions about me.

Let's get something clear. You do not know me. You don't. You do not know how I feel about the game, what I like about the game, who I play the game with, why I play the game the way I do. You know next to nothing about my history with the game, who I ran with, why I ran with them, or how I felt about doing so.

No. I have not run with a 24 man bomb group or however else you want to label it - zerg, pain train, stack-on-crown, ball-group, blobbing, etc. - for 3 years. In fact, I have spent much more time PvPing *not* doing so than I have. As for the times I did ball up, there were many reasons that motivated me to do so in spite of mechanics and tactics that I thought weren't very interesting and the game would be better off reforming. I made friends, I enjoyed the socializing, I did enjoy the competition back in the day when there were a lot of quality guilds running, I felt I had a lot to learn with from my guildmates that would make me a better player, hell sometimes I just liked to hear Fruity and Tex argue which part of Texas has the best BBQ.

Because this game is full of load-screens, bugs, lag, and many other assorted unpleasantness, I'm sure a lot of people out there are super frustrated over the very basic aspects of simply playing ESO, yet they log in anyway. Imagine that.

I post of these forums because I think the game at its core is great, it's fun, and I want the developers to realize the fantastic basis of an MMO and make it better, make it more fun, make it more dynamic, and make it friendly to people just getting into PvP. I do this because not only do I like ESO, but it pains me when another person on my contact list never logs on again. A lot of them are leaving because ESO is not reaching its potential. So, because I'm generally an idealistic and optimistic person, I come here (like many other folks) and I try to communicate to ZoS what's holding the game back and how I think it can be improved. Even though it doesn't seem like it does any good, I'll still post regardless. Just because I am competitive and have opted to legally play what is considered the "meta" does not mean I can not criticize that meta or the mechanics favoring it without being a hypocrite.

In fact, I think doing the opposite is worse. I am not going to bite my tongue or give dishonest assessments simply because the "meta" favors how I play.

And I never said that style "should not be allowed." I said the mechanics should be reformed to encourage more effective and dynamic strategies.

Drummerx04

Satiar wrote: »

@Vilestride

Regarding “going easy on people”, it depends on your goals. There was s time when we’d push hard every night, dethrone Haxus, take Arius and then.... nothing. Server just died for the day. Sometimes for a few days. Same with AD if we pushed too aggressively. We decided we valued the health of the campaign more than stomping on people and restricted ourselves. One of our first big falling out on DC with Daniel was when he wanted us to help him murder the server for the night and we refused. Demoralizing the PvP population gets you.... here. A dying population.

Where you draw the line is up to you. I find overarming is very much a thing. So is how you fight guilds that aren’t on your level yet. I never let a guild beat me to make them feel better but there’s a bit of space between letting them win and grinding their face into the concrete. I don’t know how you play or what goes on in there, but I agree with the idea that you can go too hard. We’ve seen it on NA a few times. AD outright killed servers. EP in 1.6 almost destroyed PvP. VE got accused of this during that time period where there weren’t guilds to challenge us. Id say the fewer guilds there are capable of dealing with you when you push it too far, the more careful you gotta be

^ that

Sanct16 wrote: »

Drummerx04 wrote: »

Kodi can be stopped or seriously slowed down or threatened by any number of individual players who can be logged on at any time during the day.

An organised group can also be threatened by other organised groups. The problem with this argument imo is that it questions the general existence of groups of any type. If I make a 24 man pug group even without TS it will be hard for individual players to take it down. Should grouping be removed from the game?

Any of those players will be a threat to Kodi every time they meet.

Any organised group will always pose a threat.

In the case of all 4 players being bad, that's 4 people who probably don't feel great about themselves.

How is this different if a group defeats 4 other groups at the same time? They are obviously bad and won't feel great about themselve. Not sure what you try to get to with this argument tho, are you suggesting the game should prevent such a situation to happen to not make players feel bad?

Kodi can be affected by CC, resource drains, maybe snares for a short time (until forward momentum kicks back on), etc. [...] We've gone over everything an optimized guild group is immune to... which to recap -- roots, snares, CC, negates, all dots and poisons, etc, so I won't go over that in detail again.

To be quite honest, it's not really true that groups are immune to these things. Meteor rollback for example is a huge problem for groups, negates can be very dangerous, sieges are still a threat, massive snares can be a problem too if it's for an extended duration so your Maneuver build . Sure, a good group will not come to a keep and die to either of these things in 10 seconds every time. But kodi will also not start a fight and instantly die to a CC - at least not more often than a group will.

Kodi cannot overwhelm most of a faction and hold a keep for 30+ minutes. At most he'll take a resource or two by himself.

So if kodi would play during the night when there is only 5 other players that he can kill easily are playing, would you say that his build should get nerfed so that they can kill him? If not, at what amount of players do you think the breakpoint is?
Would you say that the current strength of groups would be a problem if instead of a popcap of ~100 the cap would be at 600? Then a guild couldn't take on the entire faction.

I can call out, "Kodi at chal farm" and the one or two people needed to actually kill him can go get him. [...] If I call out, "Drac raid in Ash" there may not be a group that can realistically fight them with near even numbers, so eventually most of the faction has to respond which leaves every other keep open for PvDoor

What if there is no such one or two people that can kill kodi? I mean your whole argumentation is based on the assumption that there is no other groups playing the game.

---

The questions asked are mostly actual questions. Personally I can understand the frustration of ungrouped pugs trying to fight an organised group however I think that grouping is an essential part of largescale fighting and if the only real issue is that there isn't enough groups I would rather see changes to encourage grouping rather than nerfing the ability of groups to fight large amount of unorganised pugs.

The whole point of the comparison between kodi and a strong guild group was that the probability of there being 2 people in the entire faction that are properly geared and skilled to run kodi off is a hell of a lot higher than the probability of there being a fully equipped guild raid available to deal with it.

guild v Xing an entire faction demoralizes more people faster.

You guys are very good at twisting my meanings. "A single player shouldn't be able to take out an organized raid..." Yeah no *** you think? The point was that a whole ****ing lot of single players can't do anything either.

I also can't help but notice drac members are currently using fantasia as the sole example of a guild that can get in their way while farming people out of Ash. I wonder, are they maybe not concerned about any guilds currently running on DC?

There was also a comment somewhere about single players having a harder time taking out pug groups as well... this is not what we are talking about. Those pug groups can often be ripped apart and scattered by 4 people and an oil or two. You can draw some away from the group and actually kill some of them as a solo player until their group falls apart.

Vilestride

Drummerx04 wrote: »

I also can't help but notice drac members are currently using fantasia as the sole example of a guild that can get in their way while farming people out of Ash. I wonder, are they maybe not concerned about any guilds currently running on DC?

Fantasia is simply the best example because they are the most consistent group who wipe us right now. Nothing more nothing less.