The Current Destro Pain Train Meta Needs To Die

Kilandros

Sanct16 wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

The root of the problem is people asking for nerfs without even understanding the mechanics that empower groups. For example the fact that people still think that groups stack to get an advantage bc of aoe caps is hilarious.

If you don't understand how a car works, don't try to repair it. You will just break it.

Whether you like to admit it or not, larger groups do benefit from AoE caps more than smaller groups. And perhaps if those caps were removed, more larger groups would split into smaller groups and play other areas of the map.

But the fact remains that there is an advantage in stacking because anything over 6 players takes 50% less damage. And anything over 30 players takes 25% less damage. That's just a coding/mathematical fact of this game. But see, I can use numbers to actually make a point. Whereas you have to crutch on a crappy analogy to try and make yours.

Alright. What "point" exactly do you think you made? Just because you use some numbers (that are wrong btw) doesn't mean you suddenly have an argument.

Groups move stacked despite aoes. There are two main reasons why stacking is effective:
1) Avoiding single target damage: A group that is moving stacked is much less vulnerable to losing people to single target, as noone is easily targetable. Therefor all incoming single target damage is distributed equally to everyone in the group, meaning it is easy to outheal. Being more spread has a much higher risk of losing people to focussed single target damage.
2) More burst: When you are fighting outnumbered as a group, you generally want to let enemies stack up in a choke and then push them and kill as many as possible in a short time. Then you pull out again to avoid getting focussed by sieges, heal up and get resources back before you engage again. Being close together means that you have more aoes hitting the same targets and killing them.

When it comes to incoming aoe damage, it's only really a concern when you get pushed by another guild. Against pugs there generally isn't a lot of aoe damage hitting you, so it is no problem to outheal it. The only real source of high aoe damage comes from sieges, which already ignore the aoe cap (99% sure).

So, for fighting guilds it's generally better to spread out when they bomb your group. Especially mechanics like VD and Negate make stacking even less desireable. You mention how AoE caps reduce incoming damage by 50% (it's actually only 25% for target 7-30), however not being inside the area of the aoe means you take 100% less damage.

If you fight in a keep where you can't spread defensively, it's usually better to try and catch them and kill them.

If you hit a big group and can't kill them even tho you are hitting 30 people with your aoe, realistically you just don't have enough damage to kill them even without aoe caps. However if they would just run away from your damage so that you only hit 6 people with each aoe, you wouldn't kill them either.

That being said, I don't disagree about aoe caps being a bad mechanic. It simply doesn't have a big impact.

Let's actually get the numbers correct instead of spreading disinformation, shall we? If you're going to try to correct me, you need to actually be correct:

ZOS_Wrobel wrote: »

Healing abilities currently cap at 6 targets, where damage can hit up to 60 targets (100% to the first 6, 50% to the next 24, and 25% to the last 30).

There. Now that we've brushed up on game mechanics 101 for you, let's get to my point which you keep missing:

Yes, there are indeed many reasons why it is advantageous to work with a group. Like you said, it helps versus single-target damage. It also helps because more people means more healing, more ultimates, more damage, and more specific roles. These are all good things, and group play should be encouraged.

BUT there is an arbitrary threshold at 6+ people where larger groups (6+) gain an additional advantage over smaller groups (less than 6). This discourage smaller groups (still groups, still important for the health of the game) because in addition to facing a numerical advantage when fighting outnumbered, they also face diminishing returns on their damage.

My point, more specifically, is that groups like Drac, for example, who run 16+ already have a numbers advantage over groups like Mojican's, for example, who only run 6. You don't need the added benefit of damage reduction, nor should you get it simply because you have more people. If AoE caps were removed, I believe it would significant benefit group play by promoting smaller groups to form. If smaller groups weren't arbitrarily hamstrung by something arbitrary like AoE caps, I think you'd see more small-scale action in other areas of the map.

And, to be honest, maybe you don't think AoE caps have a big impact because you've been (wrongly) thinking it's only a 25% damage reduction for 7-30 when it's in fact a 50% damage reduction. The more you know, and all that.

Agrippa_Invisus

To be very honest, I think just a few basic game mechanic changes should be done to help 'liven up' the meta and get some diversity back into the way builds are constructed.

1) Remove the Negate component from Earthgore.
2) Remove AoE caps
3) Return Dynamic Ulti Generation
4) Retune Iceball Trebs so they do more damage to players and drain ulti instead of snare (we already have oil cats for snares and this provides counterplay for the ulti gen change AND gets players to actually use the things)
5) Retune the following ultis so that they either a) are more powerful or b) considerably cheaper -- DK Banner, Nova, Veil, Storm Atro.
6) Rework Meteor so it's not the lag yoyo it currently is. Remove the knockup component and replace with a simple knockdown.
7) Destro Ulti - Either reduce radius, or make it so that it's DPS is about on par with a Nova (and reduce the cost if you do that). One is mobile, the other has a synergy for additional damage. That's the difference between them.
8) Increase the synergy radius of abilities. It's near impossible to hit these in the heat of battle when they used to be a major DPS component in our skills. Whatever experiment this was to make the synergy radii tiny has utterly failed and the synergy radius should be the full radius of the ability. (anywhere in a banner, nova, near talons, bubbles, whatever). This, again, helps reward skilled play over mindless zerging.

Sanct16

Kilandros wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

The root of the problem is people asking for nerfs without even understanding the mechanics that empower groups. For example the fact that people still think that groups stack to get an advantage bc of aoe caps is hilarious.

If you don't understand how a car works, don't try to repair it. You will just break it.

Whether you like to admit it or not, larger groups do benefit from AoE caps more than smaller groups. And perhaps if those caps were removed, more larger groups would split into smaller groups and play other areas of the map.

But the fact remains that there is an advantage in stacking because anything over 6 players takes 50% less damage. And anything over 30 players takes 25% less damage. That's just a coding/mathematical fact of this game. But see, I can use numbers to actually make a point. Whereas you have to crutch on a crappy analogy to try and make yours.

Alright. What "point" exactly do you think you made? Just because you use some numbers (that are wrong btw) doesn't mean you suddenly have an argument.

Groups move stacked despite aoes. There are two main reasons why stacking is effective:
1) Avoiding single target damage: A group that is moving stacked is much less vulnerable to losing people to single target, as noone is easily targetable. Therefor all incoming single target damage is distributed equally to everyone in the group, meaning it is easy to outheal. Being more spread has a much higher risk of losing people to focussed single target damage.
2) More burst: When you are fighting outnumbered as a group, you generally want to let enemies stack up in a choke and then push them and kill as many as possible in a short time. Then you pull out again to avoid getting focussed by sieges, heal up and get resources back before you engage again. Being close together means that you have more aoes hitting the same targets and killing them.

When it comes to incoming aoe damage, it's only really a concern when you get pushed by another guild. Against pugs there generally isn't a lot of aoe damage hitting you, so it is no problem to outheal it. The only real source of high aoe damage comes from sieges, which already ignore the aoe cap (99% sure).

So, for fighting guilds it's generally better to spread out when they bomb your group. Especially mechanics like VD and Negate make stacking even less desireable. You mention how AoE caps reduce incoming damage by 50% (it's actually only 25% for target 7-30), however not being inside the area of the aoe means you take 100% less damage.

If you fight in a keep where you can't spread defensively, it's usually better to try and catch them and kill them.

If you hit a big group and can't kill them even tho you are hitting 30 people with your aoe, realistically you just don't have enough damage to kill them even without aoe caps. However if they would just run away from your damage so that you only hit 6 people with each aoe, you wouldn't kill them either.

That being said, I don't disagree about aoe caps being a bad mechanic. It simply doesn't have a big impact.

Let's actually get the numbers correct instead of spreading disinformation, shall we? If you're going to try to correct me, you need to actually be correct:

ZOS_Wrobel wrote: »

Healing abilities currently cap at 6 targets, where damage can hit up to 60 targets (100% to the first 6, 50% to the next 24, and 25% to the last 30).

There. Now that we've brushed up on game mechanics 101 for you, let's get to my point which you keep missing:

Yes, there are indeed many reasons why it is advantageous to work with a group. Like you said, it helps versus single-target damage. It also helps because more people means more healing, more ultimates, more damage, and more specific roles. These are all good things, and group play should be encouraged.

BUT there is an arbitrary threshold at 6+ people where larger groups (6+) gain an additional advantage over smaller groups (less than 6). This discourage smaller groups (still groups, still important for the health of the game) because in addition to facing a numerical advantage when fighting outnumbered, they also face diminishing returns on their damage.

My point, more specifically, is that groups like Drac, for example, who run 16+ already have a numbers advantage over groups like Mojican's, for example, who only run 6. You don't need the added benefit of damage reduction, nor should you get it simply because you have more people. If AoE caps were removed, I believe it would significant benefit group play by promoting smaller groups to form. If smaller groups weren't arbitrarily hamstrung by something arbitrary like AoE caps, I think you'd see more small-scale action in other areas of the map.

And, to be honest, maybe you don't think AoE caps have a big impact because you've been thinking it's only a 25% damage reduction for 7-30 when it's in fact a 50% damage reduction.

My information comes from this post:

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

AoE cap adjustments
First a bit of background - AoE caps are there to help keep single-target abilities effective in PvP. In addition, they allow players the chance to survive some of the larger-scale battles a bit longer. (especially newer players)
We are going to modify the damage caps so that players take more damage. This will have an adverse effect on the newer players in Cyrodiil - and will make AoE more effective, but will help combat the balled-up “stack on crown” groups and spread players out more. The changes will be:

• The first 6 players hit always take 100% damage
• The next 7 to 30 players take 75% damage (for reference on live this is currently 50%)
• The next 31 to 60 players take 50% damage (for reference on live this is currently 25%)
• Players past 60 take 0 damage (for reference on live this is also currently 0%)

We are starting fairly conservatively with this initial round of changes and once we have had a chance to see how they affect things in Cyrodiil on a large scale, we will evaluate further changes.

Also to get back to my original comment: I don't argue that aoe caps provide a benefit to larger groups, I simply said that aoe caps aren't the reason why groups stack. Removing aoe caps will have no impact on how groups play.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

@Kilandros
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3765305/#Comment_3765305

You may wish to read before you teach people about aoe caps
Also as you know Dracarys generally runs 8-16 so saying 16+ looks a little salty I have to say.

Let's Stay on target shall we

Kilandros

Sanct16 wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

The root of the problem is people asking for nerfs without even understanding the mechanics that empower groups. For example the fact that people still think that groups stack to get an advantage bc of aoe caps is hilarious.

If you don't understand how a car works, don't try to repair it. You will just break it.

Whether you like to admit it or not, larger groups do benefit from AoE caps more than smaller groups. And perhaps if those caps were removed, more larger groups would split into smaller groups and play other areas of the map.

But the fact remains that there is an advantage in stacking because anything over 6 players takes 50% less damage. And anything over 30 players takes 25% less damage. That's just a coding/mathematical fact of this game. But see, I can use numbers to actually make a point. Whereas you have to crutch on a crappy analogy to try and make yours.

Alright. What "point" exactly do you think you made? Just because you use some numbers (that are wrong btw) doesn't mean you suddenly have an argument.

Groups move stacked despite aoes. There are two main reasons why stacking is effective:
1) Avoiding single target damage: A group that is moving stacked is much less vulnerable to losing people to single target, as noone is easily targetable. Therefor all incoming single target damage is distributed equally to everyone in the group, meaning it is easy to outheal. Being more spread has a much higher risk of losing people to focussed single target damage.
2) More burst: When you are fighting outnumbered as a group, you generally want to let enemies stack up in a choke and then push them and kill as many as possible in a short time. Then you pull out again to avoid getting focussed by sieges, heal up and get resources back before you engage again. Being close together means that you have more aoes hitting the same targets and killing them.

When it comes to incoming aoe damage, it's only really a concern when you get pushed by another guild. Against pugs there generally isn't a lot of aoe damage hitting you, so it is no problem to outheal it. The only real source of high aoe damage comes from sieges, which already ignore the aoe cap (99% sure).

So, for fighting guilds it's generally better to spread out when they bomb your group. Especially mechanics like VD and Negate make stacking even less desireable. You mention how AoE caps reduce incoming damage by 50% (it's actually only 25% for target 7-30), however not being inside the area of the aoe means you take 100% less damage.

If you fight in a keep where you can't spread defensively, it's usually better to try and catch them and kill them.

If you hit a big group and can't kill them even tho you are hitting 30 people with your aoe, realistically you just don't have enough damage to kill them even without aoe caps. However if they would just run away from your damage so that you only hit 6 people with each aoe, you wouldn't kill them either.

That being said, I don't disagree about aoe caps being a bad mechanic. It simply doesn't have a big impact.

Let's actually get the numbers correct instead of spreading disinformation, shall we? If you're going to try to correct me, you need to actually be correct:

ZOS_Wrobel wrote: »

Healing abilities currently cap at 6 targets, where damage can hit up to 60 targets (100% to the first 6, 50% to the next 24, and 25% to the last 30).

There. Now that we've brushed up on game mechanics 101 for you, let's get to my point which you keep missing:

Yes, there are indeed many reasons why it is advantageous to work with a group. Like you said, it helps versus single-target damage. It also helps because more people means more healing, more ultimates, more damage, and more specific roles. These are all good things, and group play should be encouraged.

BUT there is an arbitrary threshold at 6+ people where larger groups (6+) gain an additional advantage over smaller groups (less than 6). This discourage smaller groups (still groups, still important for the health of the game) because in addition to facing a numerical advantage when fighting outnumbered, they also face diminishing returns on their damage.

My point, more specifically, is that groups like Drac, for example, who run 16+ already have a numbers advantage over groups like Mojican's, for example, who only run 6. You don't need the added benefit of damage reduction, nor should you get it simply because you have more people. If AoE caps were removed, I believe it would significant benefit group play by promoting smaller groups to form. If smaller groups weren't arbitrarily hamstrung by something arbitrary like AoE caps, I think you'd see more small-scale action in other areas of the map.

And, to be honest, maybe you don't think AoE caps have a big impact because you've been thinking it's only a 25% damage reduction for 7-30 when it's in fact a 50% damage reduction.

My information comes from this post:

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

AoE cap adjustments
First a bit of background - AoE caps are there to help keep single-target abilities effective in PvP. In addition, they allow players the chance to survive some of the larger-scale battles a bit longer. (especially newer players)
We are going to modify the damage caps so that players take more damage. This will have an adverse effect on the newer players in Cyrodiil - and will make AoE more effective, but will help combat the balled-up “stack on crown” groups and spread players out more. The changes will be:

• The first 6 players hit always take 100% damage
• The next 7 to 30 players take 75% damage (for reference on live this is currently 50%)
• The next 31 to 60 players take 50% damage (for reference on live this is currently 25%)
• Players past 60 take 0 damage (for reference on live this is also currently 0%)

We are starting fairly conservatively with this initial round of changes and once we have had a chance to see how they affect things in Cyrodiil on a large scale, we will evaluate further changes.

Also to get back to my original comment: I don't argue that aoe caps provide a benefit to larger groups, I simply said that aoe caps aren't the reason why groups stack. Removing aoe caps will have no impact on how groups play.

Dude, no one is saying that's the reason why groups stack. What I'm saying is that it is a mechanic that benefits groups that do stack. It's a benefit that only benefits larger and not smaller groups when larger groups already have a numerical advantage.

I'm not trying to take anything away from what Drac has accomplished and I'm not trying to suggest that one style of play is better than another, but can you honestly say that small-scale groups are alive and well in this meta? The answer is clearly no.

I think, and I've said this multiple times throughout this thread, that if AoE caps were changed/removed, you would likely see smaller groups revived which would in turn lead to more spread out action on the map.

Kilandros

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

@Kilandros
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3765305/#Comment_3765305

You may wish to read before you teach people about aoe caps
Also as you know Dracarys generally runs 8-16 so saying 16+ looks a little salty I have to say.

Let's Stay on target shall we

When you're right, you're right. My bad.

Not salty though, I thought Drac ran more than 16 occasionally. Again, my bad.

vortexman11

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

What would happen to large scale if, overnight, Earthgore and Negate no longer removed ground-places ults of any kind? The commonality in large scale all through this meta has been using Negate + un-negateable damage and healing effects.

One of the worst changes made to PvP in my opinion was negate being nerfed in 1.6. Before that a small group could turn the tides of an entire fight with a single well placed negate, yet it had it's counters and could be broken out of allowing the cast of non ground targeted skills. Many months ago I was all over the place asking negate to be buffed up again to allow its removal of ground based effects, because for a long time it didn't, I was hoping for it to serve as an equaliser. Instead it was turned into an ultimate with essentially no counter but to get out, or to cast another negate upon it.

I don't think nerfing negate to the point it was at will solve anything other than making the group with more people to cast more ground based ultimates 100x more powerful, and yet I think it lacks counters in its current state.

No comment on Earthgore other than it being the most idiotic addition of a set to this game, and I don't see it being removed, so I don't feel like defending that statement.

TheMystid

I gave up givig a *** about campaign's score right aftert Eye Of Noob was introduced. I have started soloing since then, and I've become a much better player. So thanks Eye of Idiot trains!

Autumnhart

Anazasi wrote: »

I like what you are saying @Joy_Division but I think what everyone is missing is the understanding of what organized group play is. If we go way back in history, something that ZOS did when they created this game was break, at the time, the current game meta of the traditional Tank, Heal, and DPS holy trinity comp. I could spend a few hours searching the web for all the early release articles that support this but I won't. Suffice it to say the generation of players today feel the should be able to do it all solo which is supported by the constant 1 V X hype videos and builds the game is plagued with. Not saying that that play style is wrong in anyway. Group play for organized groups is very intricate. The builds are extremely tuned to do 1 thing and do it very well. When you bring all the necessary parts together you have what i think you are calling a ball group. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this either. In fact the coordination of accomplishing this is amazing (it's the thrill of PVP in ESO). The casual player thinks that the ball group just gets together and pushes 1 or 2 buttons over and over and they are so wrong. The hours of grinding the gear, the hours of playing in a consistent group to create muscle memory, skill, and cohesion is in many instances harder than doing vet hard mode dungeons. Leading such groups is complicated at best. Moving 16 or 24 players across a field together in unison, constantly positioning and repositioning to cover yourself takes a huge level of skill not just from the leader who is constantly watching everything going on around the group including what other groups are coming into the fight. The planning ahead that leaders have to make, the calculations on if my group hits proxi now where will they be in 8 seconds and can we get there as a group is complex. Having specialized roles and builds makes this a little easier but it never changes the possibility that in 3 seconds it could all change (the addiction). In PVE we go in and know with certainty that this is the mechanic of a fight. We know we tank the boss here and hit this DPS threshold and the boss dies in x minutes. In PVP you build your comp to cover as many possibilities, you devise a plan of attack and exit just in case it goes wrong and everyone works in unison performing their roles to reach the objective that may or may not be the same in 2 minutes. I guess PVP is about uncertainty. Building and working together to achieve the unknown and win the fight. I guess for me at least that's the reason we PVP. Static situations that are rinse and repeat suck. PVP is a constant evolution of dynamics that often the group has no control over. So in short group play is about building specialized roles and pushing them to their limits.

Your POV and mine are mirror opposites, but this is something I can understand. Thanks for the insight.

Anazasi wrote: »

This entire thread permeates with the desire and need for change in regards to PVP. This is undeniable. The polarizing issue is not what the problem is or even how the problem is delivered, sustained, or even countered. The issue as I see it is not even a new meta. It's about new innovated ways to play. We can look at this in two ways, from the static map / objective point of view where we see population interacting with objectives or we can look at it from the players interacting with players. Perhaps we are not asking the right questions? Or perhaps the issue we are discussing is really a plea to ZOS to make changes to things we can not change? I really don't think any of us hold the secret answer by ourselves. So let me ask a question that I think is relative and has been discussed a little here: What would happen to PVP if organized group play ceased to exist? What would PVP be like? Is that something you would subscribe to? Is stopping organized PVP even possible?

It isn't possible. I don't think anybody is looking for that. People are frustrated with a specific style of play - currently manifesting as Eye of Flame trains - that requires them to warp their own to the point it's not fun. [This wasn't such an issue when there was more going on, low pop is a much bigger problem than EOTS.] That's where some of these calls for change come from. But frustration with a specific kind of group does not translate to "all groups are bad, all guilds are bad, kill them with fire."

It's human nature to band together.

Anazasi wrote: »

Prediction:
The meta will change to something new, the elite groups will continue to ball up using all the same support type roles, the more organized groups will still kill thousands of lessor organized groups. At some point down the road ZOS will make a few minor changes to abilities that the majority complain about the most. Old players will leave, new players will come along and the circle of life will continue regardless if they have destro ultis or a rapids spammer in their groups.

The stubborn will adapt and the rest will get our PVP fix elsewhere. ZOS will either step in to stop the downward spiral, or they'll write Cyrodiil off as they have IC and focus on Battlegrounds, balancing gameplay around them to nobody's satisfaction.

p00tx

Yeah, bombers are rough, and when they're running in packs they're even rougher. That being said, tight battle technique within a group>any spell at any strength. Always.

Rin_Senya

pzschrek wrote: »

Hear hear. I play ESO for this. When the day comes that I can't find a competent one that raids when I can play, I'll be done.

I'm sorry to say but your opinion and the things that you enjoy are not valued here. "Masses" hate bomb-groups so let's eliminate this style completely and nerf rapids or whatever other skill this scrubs are using. So players that love to play in raids finally quit and "masses" will be happy!
Oh and after we do that, we shouldn't really stop, because, obviously, if masses don't like something we should keep nerfing to please them.
So... I don't think I have any scientific evidence to support this but I can definitely tell you that majority of players hate gankers. Everyone would 100% agree that ganking playstyle isn't fair, obviously unskilled and simply makes people frustrated! On top of this there is no real counter play for gankers unless you use a detect pot and they are super expensive for the majority of the players (it also requires too much effort and time for casual player like me to craft them or to look for them in guild stores. I log into the game just to have some fun in PVP for a couple of hours and I don't want to be forced into getting such things as detect pots or remaking my op magicka bowman build just to deal with these "gankers").
Tbh when I'm alone, the absolute last thing I want to see on my way from BRK to SeJ is a ganker...I'd much rather come across a mindless group of 50 players because there's absolutely nothing I can do against this little scrub sneaking with a bow and one shotting me from stealth whereas against the mindless 50, I can actually kill a few of them and feel like I'm accomplishing something!
So, yes, even me as someone who used to gank with the best of them, I don't want to see them now.
The only time I ever wanted to fight or deal with a ganker was when I had my friends sitting in sneak with bows around me, but now I really hate it and tbh I don't think it's competitive or skilful anymore after I stopped doing it myself and so yeh this playstyle needs to go imo, there is too much hate around it and it would make masses more happy I'm sure.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

I wanted to try and explain as simply as possible as to why stacking isn't an advantage in terms of AOE Caps and damage reduction:

Lets take a scenario where you have 8 players (because upwards of 6 players is when mitigation comes in)

In the first example these 8 players are stacked within the AOE range. The player casting the AOE is not only fully damaging the first 6 players but also 75% damaging the next 2.

Where as in the example where these players are spread out the person is only damaging 3 of the 8.
Thus for a single cast of the AOE the player is doing more damage to a stacked raid then an unstacked raid.
(this is what sanct was saying about 100% mitigation because no damage is being taken by the people outside the raidius)

Now here's where it gets a little more tricky.
Back when the game was released damage was much more 'over time' rather than burst. Sure there were spikes in damage but in general it would be a long battle between the 2 sides with multiple barriers and other defensive ultis.
Because of this the 50% damage mitigation from extra players actually mattered as you couldn't easily damage the same 6 people in an effort to 'burst them' due to the fact that your AOE could be hitting more people from the raid and thus spreading the damage out over different people.

However now because the game is fundamentally different, defensive ultis are very different and burst is so much bigger.
Not to mention VD.
VD completely outstrips all other sets when it comes to damaging stacked groups and makes it far more dangerous to stack and does far more than the slight mitigation from being over 6.

This is why the AOE Cap in place really makes almost no difference to small groups bombing larger groups, provided you have the burst to kill them and proc VD.

IF you are a small tanky group hoping to just tank people and pick off single targets then sure maybe you struggle but I think that comes down more to your playstyle and the type of enemy you are trying to face not a weakness in terms of the game making it "impossible for you to compete"

NightbladeMechanics

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Back when the game was released damage was much more 'over time' rather than burst. Sure there were spikes in damage but in general it would be a long battle between the 2 sides with multiple barriers and other defensive ultis.
Because of this the 50% damage mitigation from extra players actually mattered as you couldn't easily damage the same 6 people in an effort to 'burst them' due to the fact that your AOE could be hitting more people from the raid and thus spreading the damage out over different people.

However now because the game is fundamentally different, defensive ultis are very different and burst is so much bigger.

I find this part ironic because the thread was created complaining about a giant aoe damage over time ability dominating the meta. Proxy and sap spam make for nice burst as they always have, but the power creep from destro ult and VD is very real compared to before they were added to the game.

I’m all for mechanics that punish stacking and encourage spreading, but what would change in large scale play if ZOS just deleted VD tonight? Would people change to Mechanical Acuity + Alch and just try to shred groups that way? Would groups just get run over by faction stacks? (Acuity is a stronger momentary buff than Alch by the way, just short and spaced out. Great set for smaller scale damage and bombing, but less controllable than Alch. Why exactly aren’t raids using that set?)

Ghostbane

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Great set for smaller scale damage and bombing, but less controllable than Alch. Why exactly aren’t raids using that set?)

Its a guarantee of potential vs potential when required.

usmcjdking

Ghostbane wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Great set for smaller scale damage and bombing, but less controllable than Alch. Why exactly aren’t raids using that set?)

Its a guarantee of potential vs potential when required.

It's an awful set and, like Mag DK, has no place in a raid.

<.<

>.>

Glory

usmcjdking wrote: »

Ghostbane wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Great set for smaller scale damage and bombing, but less controllable than Alch. Why exactly aren’t raids using that set?)

Its a guarantee of potential vs potential when required.

It's an awful set and, like Mag DK, has no place in a raid.

<.<

>.>

Heh

Glory

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I wanted to try and explain as simply as possible as to why stacking isn't an advantage in terms of AOE Caps and damage reduction:

Lets take a scenario where you have 8 players (because upwards of 6 players is when mitigation comes in)

In the first example these 8 players are stacked within the AOE range. The player casting the AOE is not only fully damaging the first 6 players but also 75% damaging the next 2.

Where as in the example where these players are spread out the person is only damaging 3 of the 8.
Thus for a single cast of the AOE the player is doing more damage to a stacked raid then an unstacked raid.
(this is what sanct was saying about 100% mitigation because no damage is being taken by the people outside the raidius)

Now here's where it gets a little more tricky.
Back when the game was released damage was much more 'over time' rather than burst. Sure there were spikes in damage but in general it would be a long battle between the 2 sides with multiple barriers and other defensive ultis.
Because of this the 50% damage mitigation from extra players actually mattered as you couldn't easily damage the same 6 people in an effort to 'burst them' due to the fact that your AOE could be hitting more people from the raid and thus spreading the damage out over different people.

However now because the game is fundamentally different, defensive ultis are very different and burst is so much bigger.
Not to mention VD.
VD completely outstrips all other sets when it comes to damaging stacked groups and makes it far more dangerous to stack and does far more than the slight mitigation from being over 6.

This is why the AOE Cap in place really makes almost no difference to small groups bombing larger groups, provided you have the burst to kill them and proc VD.

IF you are a small tanky group hoping to just tank people and pick off single targets then sure maybe you struggle but I think that comes down more to your playstyle and the type of enemy you are trying to face not a weakness in terms of the game making it "impossible for you to compete"

I think that it is important to note that while you are correct in your point that spreading out during a concentrated AoE attack, AoE caps are not better than spreading out, the argument that people generally are attempting to make when considering AoE caps is that the existence of them in the first place is nonsensical.

While yes, you are 100% correct that a good group would spread during an AoE attack (if we ignore the fact that there would likely be damage outside that radius, and that AoE healing is highly dependent upon stacking), the real point is that it is silly that there is any benefit at all to those players if they remain stacked (in your example, 2 players receiving 75% damage or a net of 93% damage taken overall by the group).

Sharee

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I wanted to try and explain as simply as possible as to why stacking isn't an advantage in terms of AOE Caps and damage reduction:

Lets take a scenario where you have 8 players (because upwards of 6 players is when mitigation comes in)

In the first example these 8 players are stacked within the AOE range. The player casting the AOE is not only fully damaging the first 6 players but also 75% damaging the next 2.

Where as in the example where these players are spread out the person is only damaging 3 of the 8.
Thus for a single cast of the AOE the player is doing more damage to a stacked raid then an unstacked raid.
(this is what sanct was saying about 100% mitigation because no damage is being taken by the people outside the raidius)

Up to this point i agree with you. After this, not so much.

If the damage in the circle in your picture was not a single hit, but four hits in rapid succession(as is often the case in PvP), the 3 targets in the circle would die(assuming high enough damage). If the group was stacked, they might not, because the damage would be spread out randomly over all targets in the circle, and, possibly, no target would get hit by all four full damage ticks, thus all would survive(or at least you might get less than 3 guaranteed deaths). The more players stacked in the circle, the less likely it is for any one of them taking all 4 full damage ticks.

The fact that the raid as a whole took more damage stacked is irrelevant, because as long as there are no deaths, it is as if no damage happened at all (it will all be healed in the next second)

You try to address this in the next paragraph, but i find your arguments unconvincing:

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Now here's where it gets a little more tricky.
Back when the game was released damage was much more 'over time' rather than burst. Sure there were spikes in damage but in general it would be a long battle between the 2 sides with multiple barriers and other defensive ultis.
Because of this the 50% damage mitigation from extra players actually mattered as you couldn't easily damage the same 6 people in an effort to 'burst them' due to the fact that your AOE could be hitting more people from the raid and thus spreading the damage out over different people.

And since now we have more burst, this means the above "stacking prevents guaranteed deaths" is no longer valid? What? If anything, it makes killing the 3 in the circle even easier, and it is even more important to take some pressure off them(by spreading the damage across all group) so they may survive.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

However now because the game is fundamentally different, defensive ultis are very different and burst is so much bigger.
Not to mention VD.
VD completely outstrips all other sets when it comes to damaging stacked groups and makes it far more dangerous to stack and does far more than the slight mitigation from being over 6.

VD is only useful when someone dies. Stacking spreads damage over the entire group, thus making it less likely any given individual will die. I don't see how the existence of VD helps your argument. (And the mitigation from being over 6 is only "slight" because of your chosen arbitrary number of 8. Make it 24, and it is far from slight.)

Sure, if a group's healing is not good enough to overcome incoming AOE even with the AOE cap mitigation, they are better of spreading and letting some members of their group die, instead of all wiping to VD. But that does not mean AOE caps don't help them, it just means they got badly outgunned.

Sharee

[nevermind]

NightbladeMechanics

Sharee wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I wanted to try and explain as simply as possible as to why stacking isn't an advantage in terms of AOE Caps and damage reduction:

Lets take a scenario where you have 8 players (because upwards of 6 players is when mitigation comes in)

In the first example these 8 players are stacked within the AOE range. The player casting the AOE is not only fully damaging the first 6 players but also 75% damaging the next 2.

Where as in the example where these players are spread out the person is only damaging 3 of the 8.
Thus for a single cast of the AOE the player is doing more damage to a stacked raid then an unstacked raid.
(this is what sanct was saying about 100% mitigation because no damage is being taken by the people outside the raidius)

Up to this point i agree with you. After this, not so much.

If the damage in the circle in your picture was not a single hit, but four hits in rapid succession(as is often the case in PvP), the 3 targets in the circle would die(assuming high enough damage). If the group was stacked, they might not, because the damage would be spread out randomly over all targets in the circle, and, possibly, no target would get hit by all four full damage ticks, thus all would survive(or at least you might get less than 3 guaranteed deaths). The more players stacked in the circle, the less likely it is for any one of them taking all 4 full damage ticks.

The fact that the raid as a whole took more damage stacked is irrelevant, because as long as there are no deaths, it is as if no damage happened at all (it will all be healed in the next second)

You try to address this in the next paragraph, but i find your arguments unconvincing:

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Now here's where it gets a little more tricky.
Back when the game was released damage was much more 'over time' rather than burst. Sure there were spikes in damage but in general it would be a long battle between the 2 sides with multiple barriers and other defensive ultis.
Because of this the 50% damage mitigation from extra players actually mattered as you couldn't easily damage the same 6 people in an effort to 'burst them' due to the fact that your AOE could be hitting more people from the raid and thus spreading the damage out over different people.

And since now we have more burst, this means the above "stacking prevents guaranteed deaths" is no longer valid? What? If anything, it makes killing the 3 in the circle even easier, and it is even more important to take some pressure off them(by spreading the damage across all group) so they may survive.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

However now because the game is fundamentally different, defensive ultis are very different and burst is so much bigger.
Not to mention VD.
VD completely outstrips all other sets when it comes to damaging stacked groups and makes it far more dangerous to stack and does far more than the slight mitigation from being over 6.

VD is only useful when someone dies. Stacking spreads damage over the entire group, thus making it less likely any given individual will die. I don't see how the existence of VD helps your argument. (And the mitigation from being over 6 is only "slight" because of your chosen arbitrary number of 8. Make it 24, and it is far from slight.)

Sure, if a group's healing is not good enough to overcome incoming AOE even with the AOE cap mitigation, they are better of spreading and letting some members of their group die, instead of all wiping to VD. But that does not mean AOE caps don't help them, it just means they got badly outgunned.

You forgot to mention that if they’re all stacked up, they’re all receiving a bunch of healing springs. That is one of the two reasons why raids stack: to stand in the springs and other aoe friendlies, and to layer their damage on enemies. Aoe cap mitigation is a happy byproduct.

Kilandros

When I think of stacking I guess I kind of associate the term with faction stacking. The stacking/spreading you see within individual groups is part of being a good group with good movement. That's just solid gameplay. I think when a lot of people use "stacking" as a pejorative term around here they mean stacking in the sense that you get multiple guilds + pugs all in the same place (i.e., faction stack). That's the kind of stacking I'm trying to eliminate when I speak negatively of stacking, not an individual guild using good movement to stack/spread. We use stack/spread tactics literally all the time as a guild--it's core to our gameplay.

How do you disincentivize faction stacking? This is where AoE cap removal could be effective. If you're going to throw 2 guilds plus zone pugs at Chalman/Aleswell/Alessia, there's currently greater safety in numbers thanks to damage reduction. So that's one way that I think should be explored further. The other way is meaningful objectives in the less frequented areas of the map; adding flags to the towns was a good first step and all, but I think we all expected more to be done.

Rin_Senya

I perfectly remember people on forums and in game saying exactly this: “oh yeh just wait until proxy will come to live then all zerglings will have to unstack”. They proxy deto came to live and literally nothing changed in the matter of stacking.
Then as soon as Vicious Death was introduced on Patch notes the same people were saying "oh yeh just wait till it comes to live, zerglings, you'll all get rekt, you won’t be able to stack anymore!”. It was almost 2 years ago lol.
Now apparently removing AOE cap is the core of the problem, will save the day and break the faction (or whatever others) zergs.
Just funny that some people still think that way after all this years.
There is nothing which will stop this behaviour of factions zerging from keep to keep other than organised groups (small, medium, big - doesnt matter) spreading fights around the map and encouraging players to join different pushes not just walk in one direction so trying to nerf organised groups and prevent them from doing this just adds to the problems.

Rohamad_Ali

Not a lot of options when everyone is running a tank . This is how it always go when Defence is not balanced . Nerfing damage will just encourage even bigger zergs to form in order to keep up . Big group playstyles develope out of necessity . The servers can't handle it and another reason not to be here for me . Nerfing damage won't help . It will make it worse .

Drummerx04

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Not a lot of options when everyone is running a tank . This is how it always go when Defence is not balanced . Nerfing damage will just encourage even bigger zergs to form in order to keep up . Big group playstyles develope out of necessity . The servers can't handle it and another reason not to be here for me . Nerfing damage won't help . It will make it worse .

The tank meta is a lot more of the problem in my opinion than the destro meta (which ironically may be the meta to counter the destro meta...)

Essentially we have large guild groups that run:

• everyone in 30k+ health
• a large portion of the group in earthgore
• a large portion of group with S&B
• and THEN they stack in some bomb blades or whatever

You have groups like drac who take this general meta and use it to devastating effects, wrecking 80+ pugs and guild groups in a single engagement... then you have lesser guilds who just end up being super tanky and not really accomplishing much besides staying alive and using a 16 man ult dump to kill 5 people at a time.

Either way, there's almost nothing a small group/solo player can do against that even while supported by a faction stack. If I take two bomber friends and perfectly negate/encase/destro bomb/AoE stun half the group IN THE NEGATE within a choke... Earthgore procs, removes the negate and out heals the bombers.

Before Earthgore and the high health meta, as a small group you could more reliably whittle down members of a ball group, or really nail them hard with a well timed negate+proxy soul tether bomb.

Have I mentioned I hate Earthgore?

Glory

Rin_Senya wrote: »

I perfectly remember people on forums and in game saying exactly this: “oh yeh just wait until proxy will come to live then all zerglings will have to unstack”. They proxy deto came to live and literally nothing changed in the matter of stacking.
Then as soon as Vicious Death was introduced on Patch notes the same people were saying "oh yeh just wait till it comes to live, zerglings, you'll all get rekt, you won’t be able to stack anymore!”. It was almost 2 years ago lol.
Now apparently removing AOE cap is the core of the problem, will save the day and break the faction (or whatever others) zergs.
Just funny that some people still think that way after all this years.
There is nothing which will stop this behaviour of factions zerging from keep to keep other than organised groups (small, medium, big - doesnt matter) spreading fights around the map and encouraging players to join different pushes not just walk in one direction so trying to nerf organised groups and prevent them from doing this just adds to the problems.

I think most reasonable people don't think modifying AoE caps it will change the way the game is played. As Kena said, AoE caps are just the cherry on top of the more important advantages of running in a larger (organized or not) group such as specialized builds and having a better ally:enemy ratio.

It just is a stupid mechanic that does not need to exist.

Side note: Proxy and Vicious Death are in fact instrumental in fighting large numbers of people, which is why most organized larger groups run it (and bombers). It does not solve the problem, and many consider niche skills and sets to be the wrong way to fix things, but while it does not stop faction zerging it definitely helps to punish it.

O_LYKOS

Just sounds like a nicely organised group putting in work.

Pretty much how you'd expect these battles to happen. Plan and execute. No?

Rohamad_Ali

Drummerx04 wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Not a lot of options when everyone is running a tank . This is how it always go when Defence is not balanced . Nerfing damage will just encourage even bigger zergs to form in order to keep up . Big group playstyles develope out of necessity . The servers can't handle it and another reason not to be here for me . Nerfing damage won't help . It will make it worse .

The tank meta is a lot more of the problem in my opinion than the destro meta (which ironically may be the meta to counter the destro meta...)

Essentially we have large guild groups that run:

• everyone in 30k+ health
• a large portion of the group in earthgore
• a large portion of group with S&B
• and THEN they stack in some bomb blades or whatever

You have groups like drac who take this general meta and use it to devastating effects, wrecking 80+ pugs and guild groups in a single engagement... then you have lesser guilds who just end up being super tanky and not really accomplishing much besides staying alive and using a 16 man ult dump to kill 5 people at a time.

Either way, there's almost nothing a small group/solo player can do against that even while supported by a faction stack. If I take two bomber friends and perfectly negate/encase/destro bomb/AoE stun half the group IN THE NEGATE within a choke... Earthgore procs, removes the negate and out heals the bombers.

Before Earthgore and the high health meta, as a small group you could more reliably whittle down members of a ball group, or really nail them hard with a well timed negate+proxy soul tether bomb.

Have I mentioned I hate Earthgore?

I agree . I saw this coming and attempted to warn Wrobel this would lead to bigger and more zerging which is bad for the server . Gina posted a November combat update saying they were working on the defensive system but no further news since then . It's a very disliked meta that leads to the most disliked play style , super zerging .

Vilestride

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

To be very honest, I think just a few basic game mechanic changes should be done to help 'liven up' the meta and get some diversity back into the way builds are constructed.

3) Return Dynamic Ulti Generation

I actually would be against the return of dynamic ult gen. I am all for the viability of small scale play and promoting outnumbered fighting but this falls under the ideology that many people in here are advocating, being: that no group should be advantaged or disadvantaged based on their size.

Now in saying that, I do agree and desire the removal of AoE caps for this same reason.

My issue with Dynamic ult gen is that whatever way you look at it, what it is undeniably doing is making a harder situation, easier. In my opinion that is the definition of dumbing down game play.

I would rather not see combat mechanics be a factor in outnumbered fights, only skill gap. to better fix the issues currently faced by small scale fighting I would rather see the objective roles of these groups re-established within cyrodil and it's core game play. So as to prevent or minimise how often small groups get zerged down in the first place.

Sanct16

@Sharee

First I would like to remind you that healing has a cap of 6 people.

Let's say you have 4 destro ults ticking on your group. Because you got negated you have no healing springs down going into the fight. Each attacking nb will do around 7k aoe dmg per second (wall of elements, eye of storm, sap).

Calculations for stacked fight

Lets say you stack with 24 people:
6 people will take 100% dmg (so 7k), the remaining 18 will take 75% dmg (so 5.25k). The average damage a person in the group takes from each bomber is 5.7k (81.5%).

At some point (say 3 seconds after the first storm tick) 4 timed detonations will go off. The base tooltip of detonation is lets say 7k, increasing the more people you hit. This damage gets increased by 250% since you will hit enough people. So the effective tooltip is 24.5, so lets say it will hit for 10k.

Those will hit for lets say 8.15k on average.

The additive average damage taken after x seconds then is the following:
1 second: 4 * 5.7k = 22.8k
2 seconds: 45.6k
3 seconds: 68.4k + 4 * 8.15k = 101k
4 seconds: 129.8k
7 seconds: 192.2k

For a start lets consider the 3 second mark: the average damage taken so far is 100k. How much heal do we need to outheal this?

Lets say you have 8 healers spamming springs and you dont get negated, you can have 24 layers of springs, each tick healing 6 people for 2k average. ( 24 * 6 * 2k ) / 24 = 12k average healing per person per second.

So on average after 3 seconds you receive 36k average heal, meaning you died.

Lets say all healers cast heal ult hitting for 10k on average. 8 * 10k * 6 / 24 = 20k average heal.

So after 3 seconds you received 60k average heal, but you still lost 40k health, so you still died.

If we start to consider the use of earthgore, sleetstorms, defenive negates, your own offensive ults to kill the other group it is possible to survive the damage if the detonations aren't timed well.

So to summarise the stacked fight:
- You can't outheal the damage without massive heal ults
- Well timed detonation burst will kill you regardless
- Likely only a top tier guild will survive 4 storms.


Calculations for spread fight

Now, let's look at a fight in which you are spread. Let's assume that the attacking group is moving mostly stacked thus all damaging the same people in your group.

Only 6 people will be taking damage, so the total incoming damage is 4 * 7k = 28k / second with a burst of 4 * 5k dmg from proxies (less dmg than in the stacked version bc less dmg increase).

The additive average damage taken on these 6 people after x seconds then is the following:
1 second: 4 * 7k = 28k
2 seconds: 56k
3 seconds: 84k + 4 * 5k = 104k
4 seconds: 132k

Again assuming we pop 8 healing ults each ticking for 10k means everyone receives 80k average heal per second, so after 3 seconds you received 240k of heals, which is way more than the damage you took.

Even 4 heal ults would outheal the damage.

So to summarise the spread fight:
- It's easy to survive 4 storms

CyrusArya

Vilestride wrote: »

I would rather not see combat mechanics be a factor in outnumbered fights, only skill gap. to better fix the issues currently faced by small scale fighting I would rather see the objective roles of these groups re-established within cyrodil and it's core game play. So as to prevent or minimise how often small groups get zerged down in the first place.

We need more points of interest. As it is, fights all revolve around a few key nexuses in cyroiil. As such, to find any action you gotta go to the general vicinites of these or lanes in between. And it’s a shame cus here is just so much space in cyrodiil with really cool terrain to. A few ideas I think are worth looking into are like resource node hot spots in cyrodiil, as well as traveling lootable caravans.

What I would like to see more than anything is an alternate PvP zone, bordering the current cyrodiil, where you que in as a group no larger than 6-8. Every single player in that zone not in your group is flagged for PvP. I don’t know how hard it would be to design and implement such a thing. What I do know is, it would make a lot of money and revitalize PvP.