Are 'Ball-Groups' even logical ?

Nemesismimz

Sandman929 wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Aoe should be really powerful, but flipside they should damage everyone including yourself.

This is a strange idea, I think AoE should be exactly as it is, less powerful than single target (for the most part), but powerful when used by groups against groups. Friendly fire would be terrible and would make Cyrodiil completely unplayable.

agreed

Biro123

Sandman929 wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Aoe should be really powerful, but flipside they should damage everyone including yourself.

This is a strange idea, I think AoE should be exactly as it is, less powerful than single target (for the most part), but powerful when used by groups against groups. Friendly fire would be terrible and would make Cyrodiil completely unplayable.

AOE has always jarred with me in MMO's.. Seems a common theme now for everyone to have an AOE whether it makes sense or not.

I mean, how can a melee character have an AOE attack with swords or daggers - its impossible, right? Doesn't make sense.. but people are used to it so just accept it. But it also fits in with this idea of having really weak PVE mobs but a number of them in each combat (which I also don't like - especially since the amount and effectiveness of AOE makes the numbers almost pointless).

Kind of agree that there is no place for friendly fire in an MMO - unless it took the approach of all AOE being maybe like long range artillery fire and CC/debuffs.. But it only makes sense with magic though(and siege)! I mean how can one guy blanket an area with a hail of arrows while still attacking others directly??

Joy_Division

Minno wrote: »

Crispen_Longbow wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Aoe should be really powerful, but flipside they should damage everyone including yourself.

LOL, could you imagine how much you could troll your own faciton? I would be tether bombing everyone.

Yea true, but then again what's stopping everyone from reporting you for trolling and then getting yourself banned?

Same thing for FPS games with friendly fire; it was really easy to see who was being a jerk and who was being a noob that wasn't being careful, with the jerks being auto banned almost instantly on the good servers.

Friendly fire is the only way to make large scale combat more tactical or just embrace the fact 4v4v4 BGs are the future of ESO PvP.

I normally agree with pretty much everything you say, but both of these are, well would just kill the game.

Minno, you're a templar (though you've gone Vader rolling stam), exactly how would I use my Reflective Light morph in your 4v4v4 scenario if 2 of my 3 projectiles would hit friendlies? Or as a support build, couldn't use Blazing Spear? Exactly how am I suppose to use my Puncturing Sweeps? Templar skills are clunky enough as it is, putting in such a change would make them unplayable.

And as much as some people may enjoy Battlegrounds, that's fine and I'm glad they get some enjoyment from ESO. But I will uninstall the game when that becomes the PvP norm. They are monotonous, most of the objectives favor avoiding PvPing, I can't stand playing overnerfed classes when the justification for those nerfs are not there with no CP, there is no avoiding the Sload-Zaan-proc-resource poison spam, and the questionable balance in ESO is magnified in such a setting, to say nothing of the PuG vs. pre-mades (which still happens).

If ESO changes so much that it is no longer the game I fell in love with, I won't play it anymore. People may have the best intention of "fixing" ESO, but a lot of times their cures are worse than the disease.

dodgehopper_ESO

Minno wrote: »

Crispen_Longbow wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Aoe should be really powerful, but flipside they should damage everyone including yourself.

LOL, could you imagine how much you could troll your own faciton? I would be tether bombing everyone.

Yea true, but then again what's stopping everyone from reporting you for trolling and then getting yourself banned?

Same thing for FPS games with friendly fire; it was really easy to see who was being a jerk and who was being a noob that wasn't being careful, with the jerks being auto banned almost instantly on the good servers.

Friendly fire is the only way to make large scale combat more tactical or just embrace the fact 4v4v4 BGs are the future of ESO PvP.

I actually agree with @Minno and my opinion comes from other MMO experience as well. I understand why a lot of pvp games will refuse to go down this road and there are good reasons for them making the choice to avoid friendly fire. There is always griefing, spying, etc in the current state of the game though. I have always felt there is a bit of nonsense involved in popping a grenade on yourself. It is understandable though and would at this point require such a complete redesign of the game I do not feel it is feasible. The positives of friendly fire of course is that AOE could be very powerful and simultaneously dangerous. You would not score kills versus your own faction in this design and ultimately it would create a very negative response. The core issue that most are afraid of is a top .01% gamer getting his hands on this option and running an impish rampage on his fellow faction.

My nuanced thought on this is that it would require a very sweeping overhaul of the game systems that would make the original year 1 attribute changes look like a minor speedbump. I like the idea of friendly fire a lot but without going into a 5 page explanation of this thought I'll just say that its very nuanced and a very sweeping change would be required (or a whole other game).

zyk

Friendly fire is the way to go in a controlled environment like private matches or on servers with admins present, but it would never work in ESO PVP as it is currently administered.

Minno

zyk wrote: »

Friendly fire is the way to go in a controlled environment like private matches or on servers with admins present, but it would never work in ESO PVP as it is currently administered.

It can work but you all are thinking of instant cast AOE.

This change would have to be locked behind an expensive channel similar to inevitable Det. This way you can interrupt as counter play.

But would be sexy to charge up an AOE channel to then accidently hit your own team because you failed to share or time it correctly in large scale fights. Then we can do away with stupid player versus player seiges.

And in BGs running these abilities would be harder because no one is zerging or in a ball and coordinated single target pressure can only be alleviated by repositioning+healing. Plus the high cost would make it stupid to run, unless you can safely use it.

dodgehopper_ESO

Joy_Division wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Crispen_Longbow wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Aoe should be really powerful, but flipside they should damage everyone including yourself.

LOL, could you imagine how much you could troll your own faciton? I would be tether bombing everyone.

Yea true, but then again what's stopping everyone from reporting you for trolling and then getting yourself banned?

Same thing for FPS games with friendly fire; it was really easy to see who was being a jerk and who was being a noob that wasn't being careful, with the jerks being auto banned almost instantly on the good servers.

Friendly fire is the only way to make large scale combat more tactical or just embrace the fact 4v4v4 BGs are the future of ESO PvP.

I normally agree with pretty much everything you say, but both of these are, well would just kill the game.

Minno, you're a templar (though you've gone Vader rolling stam), exactly how would I use my Reflective Light morph in your 4v4v4 scenario if 2 of my 3 projectiles would hit friendlies? Or as a support build, couldn't use Blazing Spear? Exactly how am I suppose to use my Puncturing Sweeps? Templar skills are clunky enough as it is, putting in such a change would make them unplayable.

And as much as some people may enjoy Battlegrounds, that's fine and I'm glad they get some enjoyment from ESO. But I will uninstall the game when that becomes the PvP norm. They are monotonous, most of the objectives favor avoiding PvPing, I can't stand playing overnerfed classes when the justification for those nerfs are not there with no CP, there is no avoiding the Sload-Zaan-proc-resource poison spam, and the questionable balance in ESO is magnified in such a setting, to say nothing of the PuG vs. pre-mades (which still happens).

If ESO changes so much that it is no longer the game I fell in love with, I won't play it anymore. People may have the best intention of "fixing" ESO, but a lot of times their cures are worse than the disease.

Your point is precisely why friendly fire makes me uneasy. You also rightly recognize that it would fundamentally require a complete change of almost every ability in the game. Friendly fire is a good feature in PvP in my opinion though and this might be from coming from the fact that I really enjoyed shooters a lot at one point. The point is that AoE is hard to balance as either good or bad. Its often either horrible or awesome.

Minno

Joy_Division wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Crispen_Longbow wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Aoe should be really powerful, but flipside they should damage everyone including yourself.

LOL, could you imagine how much you could troll your own faciton? I would be tether bombing everyone.

Yea true, but then again what's stopping everyone from reporting you for trolling and then getting yourself banned?

Same thing for FPS games with friendly fire; it was really easy to see who was being a jerk and who was being a noob that wasn't being careful, with the jerks being auto banned almost instantly on the good servers.

Friendly fire is the only way to make large scale combat more tactical or just embrace the fact 4v4v4 BGs are the future of ESO PvP.

I normally agree with pretty much everything you say, but both of these are, well would just kill the game.

Minno, you're a templar (though you've gone Vader rolling stam), exactly how would I use my Reflective Light morph in your 4v4v4 scenario if 2 of my 3 projectiles would hit friendlies? Or as a support build, couldn't use Blazing Spear? Exactly how am I suppose to use my Puncturing Sweeps? Templar skills are clunky enough as it is, putting in such a change would make them unplayable.

And as much as some people may enjoy Battlegrounds, that's fine and I'm glad they get some enjoyment from ESO. But I will uninstall the game when that becomes the PvP norm. They are monotonous, most of the objectives favor avoiding PvPing, I can't stand playing overnerfed classes when the justification for those nerfs are not there with no CP, there is no avoiding the Sload-Zaan-proc-resource poison spam, and the questionable balance in ESO is magnified in such a setting, to say nothing of the PuG vs. pre-mades (which still happens).

If ESO changes so much that it is no longer the game I fell in love with, I won't play it anymore. People may have the best intention of "fixing" ESO, but a lot of times their cures are worse than the disease.

Yea the time for friendly fire was before IC dropped, sadly.

The game in some forms fails unless you just give in and play it casually. They could remove AOE entirely and then make it friendly fire, but with the casual targeting system this game has, it would be a nightmare anyway.

Or some days I wish they only made the game first person view. Forcing you to look around in order to gauge your battlefield but also a nightmare for console players.

zyk

Minno wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

Friendly fire is the way to go in a controlled environment like private matches or on servers with admins present, but it would never work in ESO PVP as it is currently administered.

It can work but you all are thinking of instant cast AOE.

This change would have to be locked behind an expensive channel similar to inevitable Det. This way you can interrupt as counter play.

But would be sexy to charge up an AOE channel to then accidently hit your own team because you failed to share or time it correctly in large scale fights. Then we can do away with stupid player versus player seiges.

And in BGs running these abilities would be harder because no one is zerging or in a ball and coordinated single target pressure can only be alleviated by repositioning+healing. Plus the high cost would make it stupid to run, unless you can safely use it.

I don't see what the difference changing how AEs work would make. I am all for friendly fire, but it would make griefing far too easy in a game with no active administration at all. Plus this game is full of MMO/PVP noobs that would make friendly fire unbearable, even outside of griefing.

In GvG, without a doubt, it would be a huge improvement.

barshemm

As a Stam sorc I'd like to say I'm not for friendly fire. We kind of are an aoe.

SouthernSoldjer

Ball groups are the key

MLRPZ

it's not gonna happen anyway, why bother

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

MLRPZ wrote: »

it's not gonna happen anyway, why bother

Stop being so illogical!

MLRPZ

ball group reflex, my bad, i'll go back to one button spam

Etaniel

Friendly fire makes no sense in an mmo.
Just give all the aoes the proxy det treatment, and scale it faster and higher.

Minno

zyk wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

Friendly fire is the way to go in a controlled environment like private matches or on servers with admins present, but it would never work in ESO PVP as it is currently administered.

It can work but you all are thinking of instant cast AOE.

This change would have to be locked behind an expensive channel similar to inevitable Det. This way you can interrupt as counter play.

But would be sexy to charge up an AOE channel to then accidently hit your own team because you failed to share or time it correctly in large scale fights. Then we can do away with stupid player versus player seiges.

And in BGs running these abilities would be harder because no one is zerging or in a ball and coordinated single target pressure can only be alleviated by repositioning+healing. Plus the high cost would make it stupid to run, unless you can safely use it.

I don't see what the difference changing how AEs work would make. I am all for friendly fire, but it would make griefing far too easy in a game with no active administration at all. Plus this game is full of MMO/PVP noobs that would make friendly fire unbearable, even outside of griefing.

In GvG, without a doubt, it would be a huge improvement.

I just like to see the world burn sometimes lol.

Also here's a counter thought, of DMG can't be friendly fire, then why can aoe healing heal your allies

Etaniel

Minno wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

Friendly fire is the way to go in a controlled environment like private matches or on servers with admins present, but it would never work in ESO PVP as it is currently administered.

It can work but you all are thinking of instant cast AOE.

This change would have to be locked behind an expensive channel similar to inevitable Det. This way you can interrupt as counter play.

But would be sexy to charge up an AOE channel to then accidently hit your own team because you failed to share or time it correctly in large scale fights. Then we can do away with stupid player versus player seiges.

And in BGs running these abilities would be harder because no one is zerging or in a ball and coordinated single target pressure can only be alleviated by repositioning+healing. Plus the high cost would make it stupid to run, unless you can safely use it.

I don't see what the difference changing how AEs work would make. I am all for friendly fire, but it would make griefing far too easy in a game with no active administration at all. Plus this game is full of MMO/PVP noobs that would make friendly fire unbearable, even outside of griefing.

In GvG, without a doubt, it would be a huge improvement.

I just like to see the world burn sometimes lol.

Also here's a counter thought, of DMG can't be friendly fire, then why can aoe healing heal your allies

No, the actual question would be why doesn't aoe healing heal your enemies

BohnT

If you don't want to see any organized bigger group again just get rid of Rapids and one of their biggest advantage, their organized mobility and pressure, is lost and they are done

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

BohnT wrote: »

If you don't want to see any organized bigger group again just get rid of Rapids and one of their biggest advantage, their organized mobility and pressure, is lost and they are done

All you will see then is the 40-80m faction zerg. But tbh removing rapids would make no difference to organised groups XD

BohnT

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

If you don't want to see any organized bigger group again just get rid of Rapids and one of their biggest advantage, their organized mobility and pressure, is lost and they are done

All you will see then is the 40-80m faction zerg. But tbh removing rapids would make no difference to organised groups XD

Without rapids it's much easier for the unorganised blob to separate single players from the group when they can't catch up again and depending who dies then it's the end for the group.

Delsskia

@Crispen_Longbow

Crispen_Longbow wrote: »

Just like all ESO play styles, you have varying degrees of “Ball” groups...

You have the top tier guilds that are very rare, a la “300 Spartans” that requires the entire faction to stack on top of them to stop them.


You have the PVDoor kings that look intimating, with so many numbers, but are more into dance fighting than actual pvp.


You have the "Pug Herders", that are just happy they can get people in the same general area at the same time.


Then you have the majority of "Social Guilds", that aren't really worried about being competitive, but they sure have fun.

Awesome Crispy, you always have the best bedtime stories.

Etaniel

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

If you don't want to see any organized bigger group again just get rid of Rapids and one of their biggest advantage, their organized mobility and pressure, is lost and they are done

All you will see then is the 40-80m faction zerg. But tbh removing rapids would make no difference to organised groups XD

Those aren't even a problem anymore though.
But you're right, just like reducing group size, removing rapids wouldn't make a difference.
Removing destro ults, purge, proxys, healing springs, nothing can ever diminish them, because organised groups only rely on their skill and bare fists of course

FakeZavos

Removing rapids will for sure make things harden for a bit. But as ballgroups have always done the last couple years is adapt without. For example, the repentance nerf (no longer giving stam back to friendlies) was a big thing to get used to for quite a while, for DD's but especially for maneuver spammers. But as you can see by the stage of "triggerness" of this post, ballgroups adapted perfectly fine now and will in the future.

Sandman929

The only way to beat cooperation and coordination in this game is to punish those things. Removing a skill or making little nerfs here and there won't change anything. As always, I remain confused by people who see effective groups and get upset rather than impressed.

Anrose

FakeZavos wrote: »

Removing rapids will for sure make things harden for a bit. But as ballgroups have always done the last couple years is adapt without. For example, the repentance nerf (no longer giving stam back to friendlies) was a big thing to get used to for quite a while, for DD's but especially for maneuver spammers. But as you can see by the stage of "triggerness" of this post, ballgroups adapted perfectly fine now and will in the future.

That’s not just true of ball groups. That’s true of anyone who is good at something and still wants to be good at that thing. Adapt and overcome.

Irylia

When I first started playing I remember being in sheer awe of the intense size of not only the map but the battles. Seeing 40 players of your own faction rush across the fields towards another keep was exhilarating. Siege/large keep battles/the variety of terrain during scroll runs.
most of that glamor has faded away and after playing the game for two years now it’s bland and actually saddening that 80% of cyro terrain is wasted.

Instead of having dozens of fights all over the map and potentially battles at every keep, people stack into 3 chokes around the emp ring. From there it hardly ever changes unless a faction gate pushes during pvdooring hours and greatly outnumbers the opposing factions.

I’d really like to see group sizes capped at 12 and for debuffs to be in place if you clump with masses outside of said group.
We should feel like we are contributing to the war and campaign all around the map. Resources provide larger scoring bonuses around Home keeps, towns have more sway on a keep battles outcome by bolstering or hindering depending on which faction has it. (Weakens nearby enemy keeps and strengthens your own)
Dolmens can be capped twice an hour and last hit on the boss will provide 5 scoring points to your campaign. There are dozens of these around the map in areas off the beaten path that could generate combat.

Maybe mills/factories or more towns for capturing with unique purposes that directly affect nearby allied keeps and debuff enemy ones.
1. such as improving siege efficiency/speed or lowering cost for owning it while making enemy siege cost more at the merchant, deal reduced damage and be more vulnerable.
2. more guards spawn in nearby keeps for taking a nearby neutral farm around the map or the inverse less guards in enemy keeps.

Info: Key capture points that can generate combat to aid in the ultimate goal of the keep take but requires more coordinated game play from the faction or a larger guild to split up and hold beneficial territories/objectives to make the push more aggressive.

To prevent faction stacking and pvdooring the map you could cap population for a faction until the the other alliances can match your 2, 3 and then cap bar. So never will there be a POp locked ep zerg vs 2/2 ad and dc.

Additionally debuffs such as reduced damage dealt and increased damage taken for being around more than the cap of 12. This ties in with initiating separate raid groups to combat over mills/farms/factories for the keep bonus/debuffs, dolmen scoring, towns, and potentially incentivizing groups to siege different sides of a keep which would generate the feel of a spread fight while also preventing your group from stacking and being debuffed..

Cities like cheydinhal in place of outposts so the rez and immediate return to a keep fight is more punishing while also allowing for interesting and unique fights between keeps for an open abandoned town with flags. (Temple district esque, lava town below rayles, cheydinhal and the beautiful terrain on the outer portions of cyro.)

If players felt like they were able to contribute to a campaign and factions efforts even as a new or unskilled player, then maybe and hopefully they wouldnt feel like the only place they could actually be of any use was in a faction stack.

Ultimately straining the server even less with these changes.

I’d also like to see a resurgence of stationary ults not only as a stronger synergy but one of the few ways to provide major defile. Frost ult and destro are too powerful when stacked not only due to duration but mobility with a high power ult when laced with other abilities and ally aoe. Either male warden and destro ult two different stationary morphs or provide different purposes. Destro being a mag classes equivalent of db with the diff staves changing the outcome of the ult.
-Lightning conal db that concusses and stuns enemies.
-ice similar to ice atro ic boss. Ripple ice shards in an aoe of 8m that roots targets and deals 100/75/50/25% dmg for each successive hit to the same target.
-inferno lobs a fireball single target that is only blockable. Deals x damage and burns the target. The caster gets minor beserk for the duration of the burn 8 sec.

Wardens Frost ult:
Creates an “Anivia wall” 10m in length 3m in thickness that deals cold damage to those within a 5m radius.
Costs the same but is used as area denial and lasts 10 seconds. The other morph could be a stationary swirl of ice that applies cold stacks to enemies for every second they stay in it and deals increasing damage over the duration for each cold stack on the target.

Proc sets should also be toned down or removed from the game and we should return to an era of stat game play where we had to build on our strengths or mitigate our weaknesses but not do both while also having our sets do the work for us.
Earthgore/sload/viper/zaan/calurion

Selenes velidreth and skoria all have specific requirements and don’t deal upwards of 15k tooltips like Zaan

Defile options:
-Major Defile should Be removed from snipe/darkflare/incap/reverb. And only on a nova/shackle morph.
(Snipe can stack minor fracture up to 5x on a target and persist for 3)
-duroks should be the defensive version of cyro crest and proc once every 5 seconds and last 4 seconds.
Or
Major is dropped to 25 and minor is 10% defile capping total defile to roughly under 50 not over.
Or
Remove befoul and healing cp if healing proves to be too potent. WHich it isn’t atm.

Passive stealth is aids to combat. There is nothing wrong with a nb using cloak to get in range to gank or utilizing los to hide behind but being able to passively stealth almost entirely next to a player is flawed.

If your raid wants to ambush another then los before a group appears and then invis pot into them.

Perhaps make “passive stealth” unique to vampire passives on stage 4 as it has the risk of increased flame and fighters guild damage


The game can be extremely enticing even for new players but they can’t just light attack and proc set players to death while outnumbering. We need a skill level of some sort and the ceiling can’t be lowered consistently to benefit mindless gameplay.

I have hundreds of ideas from skill/passive balance to combat and cyrodiil with reasoning and examples.
As I’m sure many other devoted players do as well.

Etaniel

Sandman929 wrote: »

The only way to beat cooperation and coordination in this game is to punish those things. Removing a skill or making little nerfs here and there won't change anything. As always, I remain confused by people who see effective groups and get upset rather than impressed.

To be honest, I don't think people are mad at their efficiency.
I'd even dare say that their group format is not the most efficient in a lot of occasions. But then, efficiency scales on what you're aiming to do.

What pisses me off about ball groups is when they act irresponsibly.
Like 2 days ago, their was a tri faction fight at roebeck on vivec EU to try and dethrone AD during prime time. That single fight made the entire server lag, our group knew it was going to be painful so we went to faregyl to try and trigger some ADs so that the roe siege might be over faster.
That roebeck fight lasted over an hour because one red group was farming pugs inside the keep, and was unable to finish the fight and capture. I say unable, but it's most likely unwilling as they were probably having fun farming and they had the perfect situation, last emp keep so yellows would commit 100% to the defense, and the dc zerg was too stupid to capture the rest of the undefended map. So essentially that red group made the whole server unplayable for an hour. Our group logged off because we don't have dedicated healing spring spammers so it's actually game breaking when you need to break free 4 times before you can heal yourself.

Now some will say that's its the DC zerg's fault for stacking up when they could have left the EP capture, to which I respond that the organized groups are the ones with the brains, they should be the ones to act accordingly, and not the light attack spamming cp 140 who has no clue what's going on.
They could have either gone for a fast dethrone and leave to farm AD at their remaining keeps, or let DC capture and farm them afterwards, but no, they had to farm the keep for 1 hour because the AP/hour ratio was more important than having a playable server. And that's when and why ball groups trigger me the most.

Biro123

Etaniel wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

The only way to beat cooperation and coordination in this game is to punish those things. Removing a skill or making little nerfs here and there won't change anything. As always, I remain confused by people who see effective groups and get upset rather than impressed.

To be honest, I don't think people are mad at their efficiency.
I'd even dare say that their group format is not the most efficient in a lot of occasions. But then, efficiency scales on what you're aiming to do.

What pisses me off about ball groups is when they act irresponsibly.
Like 2 days ago, their was a tri faction fight at roebeck on vivec EU to try and dethrone AD during prime time. That single fight made the entire server lag, our group knew it was going to be painful so we went to faregyl to try and trigger some ADs so that the roe siege might be over faster.
That roebeck fight lasted over an hour because one red group was farming pugs inside the keep, and was unable to finish the fight and capture. I say unable, but it's most likely unwilling as they were probably having fun farming and they had the perfect situation, last emp keep so yellows would commit 100% to the defense, and the dc zerg was too stupid to capture the rest of the undefended map. So essentially that red group made the whole server unplayable for an hour. Our group logged off because we don't have dedicated healing spring spammers so it's actually game breaking when you need to break free 4 times before you can heal yourself.

Now some will say that's its the DC zerg's fault for stacking up when they could have left the EP capture, to which I respond that the organized groups are the ones with the brains, they should be the ones to act accordingly, and not the light attack spamming cp 140 who has no clue what's going on.
They could have either gone for a fast dethrone and leave to farm AD at their remaining keeps, or let DC capture and farm them afterwards, but no, they had to farm the keep for 1 hour because the AP/hour ratio was more important than having a playable server. And that's when and why ball groups trigger me the most.

I think I know the time you're talking about.. I logged off too - just unplayable.

FakeZavos

Etaniel wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

The only way to beat cooperation and coordination in this game is to punish those things. Removing a skill or making little nerfs here and there won't change anything. As always, I remain confused by people who see effective groups and get upset rather than impressed.

To be honest, I don't think people are mad at their efficiency.
I'd even dare say that their group format is not the most efficient in a lot of occasions. But then, efficiency scales on what you're aiming to do.

What pisses me off about ball groups is when they act irresponsibly.
Like 2 days ago, their was a tri faction fight at roebeck on vivec EU to try and dethrone AD during prime time. That single fight made the entire server lag, our group knew it was going to be painful so we went to faregyl to try and trigger some ADs so that the roe siege might be over faster.
That roebeck fight lasted over an hour because one red group was farming pugs inside the keep, and was unable to finish the fight and capture. I say unable, but it's most likely unwilling as they were probably having fun farming and they had the perfect situation, last emp keep so yellows would commit 100% to the defense, and the dc zerg was too stupid to capture the rest of the undefended map. So essentially that red group made the whole server unplayable for an hour. Our group logged off because we don't have dedicated healing spring spammers so it's actually game breaking when you need to break free 4 times before you can heal yourself.

Now some will say that's its the DC zerg's fault for stacking up when they could have left the EP capture, to which I respond that the organized groups are the ones with the brains, they should be the ones to act accordingly, and not the light attack spamming cp 140 who has no clue what's going on.
They could have either gone for a fast dethrone and leave to farm AD at their remaining keeps, or let DC capture and farm them afterwards, but no, they had to farm the keep for 1 hour because the AP/hour ratio was more important than having a playable server. And that's when and why ball groups trigger me the most.

Sounds like a connection issue. Did you try restarting your router?

Feanor

Why feeling sorry for ball groups? They obviously enjoy what they do, or they wouldn’t do it 24/7. If I see one, I just try to avoid them or just go elsewhere. If I engage, I know that the odds of killing someone are slim. It’s just the way it is when you are a coordinated group with strong support builds.

I also think it’s a little silly to take the moral high road on play styles. While I detest stomping everything with 50+, running without a group isn’t „worse“ than going somewhere on your own to find fights. In both cases you know that you can only really rely on yourself. The discussion about group size and if something is really solo or not is one of pride in player skill where an objective measure never will exist. A debate about it is quite futile.

That said, I like watching groups which try to fight twice or thrice their numbers, even it’s just proxy Det Destro Ult permafrost cheese. It’s amazing that PuGs never learn.