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Make AOEs Work Like Proxy Det to Loosen Up Ball Groups?

GrumpyDuckling
GrumpyDuckling
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Is it intended gameplay when 25+ players can ball-up together, all within 8 to 15 meter range of one another, and run around on top of each other while healing through everything and destro-ultimate training through anyone they want?

If it is intended gameplay, then why is it intended?

If it's not intended gameplay, then has any thought been given to making most AOE skills work like Proxy Det, with more damage done for each player hit? That would surely help loosen up ball groups and encourage smarter team play, right?

Edit: I had originally suggested less damage done and less healing done for people who are stacked up on one another, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that would devalue melee builds and overly-encourage ranged builds -- so I removed that idea.
Edited by GrumpyDuckling on April 23, 2018 1:32AM
  • DoctorESO
    DoctorESO
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    They used to have caps on the number of targets AOEs can affect.
  • Talcyndl
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    DoctorESO wrote: »
    They used to have caps on the number of targets AOEs can affect.

    I've said all along adopting AoE caps was doing it backward. The AoE caps applied to limit a players damage regardless of how many friendlies were around. So a single player was capped just the same as someone in a 24 man ball group.

    The healing and buff caps were somewhat more reasonable, but the effect was limited because (1) "smart healing" still focused that healing on the players in greatest need and (2) ball groups simply added another healer as needed.

    The better approach, seems to me to be some type of 'pseudo-friendly fire' AoE damage limit. If x number of friendlies are within your AoE range, your damage is reduced by y. The number and amount of reduction could scale.
    Tal'gro Bol
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  • Ranger209
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    From my own experience as a zerg surfer I would say that the cap removal has made killing ball groups a bit easier. While they are strong offensively when the drop their ulties their real strength is in healing. You can literally drop ulties on them without moving their health bars. I will wait and see what the new earthgore nerf does, and go from there. Baby steps, one at a time. Healing springs may need a look.
  • VaranisArano
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    Given that Cyrodiil was originally designed for large scale battles and groups of 8 to 24 players, I'm gonna hazard a guess and say that its more or less intended gameplay.
  • Vilestride
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    It's intended and teamwork should always be a strong strategy.
  • GrumpyDuckling
    GrumpyDuckling
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    Vilestride wrote: »
    It's intended and teamwork should always be a strong strategy.

    I like the idea of teamwork, but not much strategy is involved in just stacking up on crown and spamming heals and ultimates.
  • Ishammael
    Ishammael
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    It's time to bring back dynamic ultimate, I agree!!!
  • Talcyndl
    Talcyndl
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    Vilestride wrote: »
    It's intended and teamwork should always be a strong strategy.

    I like the idea of teamwork, but not much strategy is involved in just stacking up on crown and spamming heals and ultimates.

    Pretty much this.
    Tal'gro Bol
    PvP Vice Officer [Retired] and Huscarl of Vokundein
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  • Vilestride
    Vilestride
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    Vilestride wrote: »
    It's intended and teamwork should always be a strong strategy.

    I like the idea of teamwork, but not much strategy is involved in just stacking up on crown and spamming heals and ultimates.

    If you think that's all it takes then you're doing it wrong.
    Edited by Vilestride on April 23, 2018 2:07AM
  • Xsorus
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    Vilestride wrote: »
    Vilestride wrote: »
    It's intended and teamwork should always be a strong strategy.

    I like the idea of teamwork, but not much strategy is involved in just stacking up on crown and spamming heals and ultimates.

    If you think that's all it takes then you're doing it wrong.

    That's all the strategy it takes....Not only is that all the strategy it takes they went out of their way to add multiple things to the game to make that strategy fool proof so even the dumbest person can achieve it.

    I've yet to see a Ball group not rely on a crutch in this game given to them by ZoS....

  • IxSTALKERxI
    IxSTALKERxI
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    It's not needed? If you can't kill a large group of players with the changes already made, then you will never be able to kill them.

    After recent AoE cap removal, in theory a 24 man is no stronger than a 6 man survivability wise, with the exception of retreating maneuvers and having access to a higher amount of negates. Other than that the only advantage they have is more damage / higher sustain. It's never been easier in ESO history to wipe a raid than it is now.
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  • Goshua
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    It's not needed? If you can't kill a large group of players with the changes already made, then you will never be able to kill them.

    After recent AoE cap removal, in theory a 24 man is no stronger than a 6 man survivability wise, with the exception of retreating maneuvers and having access to a higher amount of negates. Other than that the only advantage they have is more damage / higher sustain. It's never been easier in ESO history to wipe a raid than it is now.

    ya what? You proceed to list every advantage they have, even excluding healing and support tools which matter, yet suggest they are no stronger than a six man? I'm confused.
  • IxSTALKERxI
    IxSTALKERxI
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    Goshua wrote: »
    It's not needed? If you can't kill a large group of players with the changes already made, then you will never be able to kill them.

    After recent AoE cap removal, in theory a 24 man is no stronger than a 6 man survivability wise, with the exception of retreating maneuvers and having access to a higher amount of negates. Other than that the only advantage they have is more damage / higher sustain. It's never been easier in ESO history to wipe a raid than it is now.

    ya what? You proceed to list every advantage they have, even excluding healing and support tools which matter, yet suggest they are no stronger than a six man? I'm confused.

    I said they are no stronger than a 6 man from a survivability perspective. As in, the amount of damage required to kill 6 players is the same to kill 24 players. And this thread was talking about increasing the damage.
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  • Joy_Division
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    Removal of AoE caps have been a good change for this.

    It's not perfect and more needs to be done, but it's absolutely clear to me certain "ball groups" who still stack in a single spot are getting rekt this patch, whereas the better ones have adapted and are more cognizant.

    Please no artificial mechanics that have players fighting with different rules depending on the composition of their group. It's took us 4 years to get rid of that crummy system with the old AoE caps and have zero desire to go back to it.

    Groups that still mindlessly stack on crown are definitely vulnerable and if ZoS ever gets around to adjusting Earthgore such that it's not so strong a DPS spec would wear it, we'll see further progress in this direction.
  • usmcjdking
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    All the tools to feasibly combat ball groups are there; us pugstars don't really need anything else in our toolkit.

    The issue for us pugstars is that we can't reliably deliver or set up the application of our tools. There are some outliers which do too much (i.e. retreating spam, earthgore). Retreating really just needs to get utterly gutted for the sake of PVP and earthgore needs to activate off direct heals only with potentially a cooldown redux to compensate.

    Retreating is really the bane of my existence. Having to dedicate my consumable and a skill specifically to just keeping up with a great group is a bit too much of investment with too little payoff.
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  • Sharee
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    The biggest nerf to ball groups will be silver leash, once people learn to use it effectively :)
  • Thraben
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    Maybe you should share your Video again Sharee ;) ?
    Actually Silver Leash AND the current Inevitable Deto might even be too much.

    Neither Grumpy nor 90% of the PvP players seem to know how vulnerable ball groups are even now. Every half decent 6 -men group can farm mediocre ball groups thrice their size.

    More cries for weakening them are totally misplaced.
    Edited by Thraben on April 23, 2018 6:38AM
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  • Recremen
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    Gonna need a better definition of "ball group" here. I haven't seen an actual ball group since like a few months after launch. All the competitive or semi-competitive guilds like Drac, Fantasia, Iron Legion, and whoever don't actually stack close enough where you're going to hit more than like six of them with a single AoE. It may seem like you're going to hit 20 people with one big attack, but that's not actually a thing that is happening in the wild outside of a nightblade stealth-bombing the transitus shrine or people at a siege merchant/chilling on resource flags.

    Watch some videos, look at how these groups move. Pause the video and try to estimate how many of them you'd hit at that specific moment if some particular AoE skill went off. Shalk, Proxy Det, Bombard, whatever. It hits far fewer than you might have initially thought, doesn't it? There are a few exceptions, like how you can get Destro to hit a bunch of people in a keep tower because it reaches vertically, or when they're running up some keep stairs and have little choice but to get stacked, but overall they're fighting far more spread out than people realize.
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  • Nermy
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    Vilestride wrote: »
    It's intended and teamwork should always be a strong strategy.

    I like the idea of teamwork, but not much strategy is involved in just stacking up on crown and spamming heals and ultimates.

    I beg to differ. People need to drop ultis at the right time, the group needs to move tightly on the crown, you need certain skills to operate (Rapids, purge, etc...) and everyone needs to be wearing decent gear.

    I know this because as a leader of a large PvP guild it is constant work to make sure members are wearing decent gear, following the crown and doing what they are supposed to. It may look like chaos but it is highly organised.
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  • Dedimos
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    I dont see any possible change that would force usual faction zergs (or lets use your definition: 25+ man ball) to spread out. Nothing changed after AOE caps removal, that only proves it. Also be careful with your suggestions: "Make AOEs Work Like Proxy Det to Loosen Up Ball Groups?" - this would cause new wave of "Nerf bomblade" threads :trollface:

    Usually all these groups/guilds plaing "for the faction" dont mind stacking up with other groups and creating even 50+ formation. This can be seen often on EP side (EU Sotha Sil) - but of course every faction does that. And its not gonna change. They of course feel safer with big numbers around them. I think I saw many threads in the past how to "balance" it, and by far the best change suggested was making healing less effective when you are near X number of allies.

    Still, its only balance suggestion - it wont change players behaviours - they still gonna stack up and run as 30-50 man groups.
  • Sacredx
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    Is it intended gameplay when 25+ players can ball-up together, all within 8 to 15 meter range of one another, and run around on top of each other while healing through everything and destro-ultimate training through anyone they want?

    If it is intended gameplay, then why is it intended?

    Yes, it is intended to use your intelligence to create an effective build or an effective raid composition to enhance the performance of your play style. That is pvp 101. Why? That's pretty straight forward. To increase your odds against the opposition. Evolution has created effective solo, small scale and large raid group builds/comps over time. It is natural for this type of behaviour to occur.

    As to your assumption that these groups are invincible, this is false. There are plenty of counters to group play. One person with an effective counter build to organised groups can tear the group apart. I have tested this a number of times and can say that even the top teams can be broken with a good build.
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  • frozywozy
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    Make me laugh that in 2018, people still come up in forums with sentences such as "I like the idea of teamwork, but not much strategy is involved in just stacking up on crown and spamming heals and ultimates."

    Not even worth justification. lol
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  • Sanct16
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    Xsorus wrote: »
    Vilestride wrote: »
    Vilestride wrote: »
    It's intended and teamwork should always be a strong strategy.

    I like the idea of teamwork, but not much strategy is involved in just stacking up on crown and spamming heals and ultimates.

    If you think that's all it takes then you're doing it wrong.

    That's all the strategy it takes....Not only is that all the strategy it takes they went out of their way to add multiple things to the game to make that strategy fool proof so even the dumbest person can achieve it.

    I've yet to see a Ball group not rely on a crutch in this game given to them by ZoS....
    Ok, I must be doing something wrong while raid leading. :)
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  • usmguy1234
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    Would be fun if Zos implemented some new aoe defense measures. I know in pve some enemies utilize exploding traps. Imagine if you could load a breach or choke point with exploding proximity traps. You could even have different types. Ones that snare and ones that explode.
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  • usmguy1234
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    Sharee wrote: »
    The biggest nerf to ball groups will be silver leash, once people learn to use it effectively :)

    Meh. I do this with chains on my dk. All they do is mist form back to their group.
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  • Minno
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    After earthgore nerf , the next logical step is to promote speed/mobilty for all. Always found out weird that smaller mobile forces can't outrun larger clumsy ones.

    Once you can outrun the zerg, you won't need to complain about the Zerg.
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  • Ulfgarde
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    Vilestride wrote: »
    It's intended and teamwork should always be a strong strategy.

    I like the idea of teamwork, but not much strategy is involved in just stacking up on crown and spamming heals and ultimates.
    If you want to oversimplify how bomb groups work, then sure. You're absolutely right.

    You seem to know what you're talking about.
    Very athletic eso player
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  • Anrose
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    I wonder if all the people claiming “All you have to do is...” to run in a ball group have ever actually done it with any success. I’m guessing no.

    My suggestion to them is to ask one of these groups if you can play with them sometime to see what it’s all about. If you keep an open mind about it, I’m sure you’ll see there’s a lot more going on than just spamming skills.

    And then maybe, just maybe, you’ll come away with some knowledge of how your enemy operates to be able to defeat them instead of complaining about ball groups on the forums.
    Edited by Anrose on April 23, 2018 3:00PM
  • WuffyCerulei
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    I feel one of the morphs of the new skill, Time Stop, will be very interesting with ball groups. The morph, Borrowed Time, negates 5000 points of healing received if the target is stunned. This should screw up ball groups a bit.
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  • TheValar85
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    I feel one of the morphs of the new skill, Time Stop, will be very interesting with ball groups. The morph, Borrowed Time, negates 5000 points of healing received if the target is stunned. This should screw up ball groups a bit.

    yeah and also you zerg bomb them so the are all dead in notime, considering whiel you are in teh bouble you cant move at all, cant doge roll, wich is cool :P
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