Is this the worst PVP meta ever?

f047ys3v3n

So, there have been some bad times in Cyridil and I think that this is one of them. Sure, it was fun for a week or so to wipe a full 24 man raid several times and eventually hold a keep with less than 10 unorganized pugs, but I knew the first day it would be poison. It is not hard to figure out that when you can do that nobody is going to attack anything pretty soon. It is really a combination of things:
-Scattershot mega buff
- ~30% overall siege buff
- Functional and reliable defense ticks
- and timestop.

When you got all these changes pretty much at once the meta flipped pretty hard to defense. In fact, since then, I have seen only one decently defended keep captured and that involved a mega cheat engine guy clipping though a wall mid siege to waltz around upstairs killing people while perma blocking totally disrupting the counter siege. Attacking a keep has just become a terrible idea notwithstanding the issue that keep walls are glitched and multiplying their HP to 800k and such making many of them neigh on invulnerable.

I should also mention that the everybody in one place problem has been significantly multiplied. DC on the NA server has really best adapted to the new meta. In peak hours they are essentially running one faction stacked zerg and simply moving it to defend whenever anybody shows up at any keep. They seem to be turteling up to hold less keeps to do this more easily as far as how many spies they need. It is very effective and clearly the best meta with the current design. Of course it means everybody in the faction in one place. Faction stacking has been the direction for a while now but it has clearly accelerated after the last patch since quick attacks with organized groups seem off the table.
Here are my ideas:

1) Shrink groups to 12 from 24 (actually Akimbro's idea). This will just make it a little harder to manage mega zergs.
2) Change the zone chat to only allow communication at the same keep. This will prevent call outs and faction stack zergs from being able to coordinate all players easily for faction stack activity.
3) Nerf the damn siege back to some point where you can survive or buff siege shield to at least 50% mitigation. Right now these ticks are 4.5k, an ultimate worth of damage a second. It is unmanageable. 10 unorganized pugs should not be able to hold of a 24man organized group. That is stupid.
4) Prevent porting into ring or captured enemy keeps that have more than x amount of frindlies already at the keep (perhaps still allow this for the 3x back court keeps). This will prevent the instant porting of all members of an alliance around the map for zerg defense. Some allowances will have to be made for players in the same group too keep groups from getting broken up but this must be done carefully as multi group zergs will seek to foothold in one member of each group so they can still act like a zerg and that must be prevented. Perhaps a waning that not all players may get in could play a part.


Anyhow, hopefully some of the upcoming changes ZOS is doing will help as Cyr is pretty crap right now.

Lexxypwns

Don’t complain about the Zerg, build to beat it.

Ragnarock41

No, little invulnerable ball zergs with impulse, magica det, and and rapids living off AOE caps was the worst thing ever. (Or the same thing with spin to win at another time.)

aoe ball groups are everything wrong with this game. Remember when everyone and their mums were using EOTS?

TheCaptainJosh

Worst meta for me personally was when destro ult had just come out, and it did a huge amount of damage while being difficult to see during a fight.

Proc sets being able to crit ranks up there as well.

Crixus8000

I love the siege atm, finally raids can't just run in unharmed from everything that is thrown at them and kill everyone easily. As for the meta ? No, I hate how the actual combat is atm with bleeds and procs everywhere but I like where the sieging is at right now.

DeadlyRecluse

It's far from the worst PvP meta ever.

It's probably one of the worst PvP meta for people leading true pug raids who focus on offensive keep takes, though. I can't imagine herding pugs through scattershot breaches.

WuffyCerulei

Wish there was an other. Inb4 Eye of the Storm was nerfed and all stam people were wearing pre-nerf Viper's, Red Mountain, and Selene's/Velidreth.

IxSTALKERxI

No, those OP mage merc hirelings was the worst thing ever.

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Here are my ideas:

1) Shrink groups to 12 from 24 (actually Akimbro's idea). This will just make it a little harder to manage mega zergs.

I can get behind this change. It won't make much of a difference in the siege meta though.

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

2) Change the zone chat to only allow communication at the same keep. This will prevent call outs and faction stack zergs from being able to coordinate all players easily for faction stack activity.

I don't like this idea, I think being able to talk to your whole faction is important.

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

3) Nerf the damn siege back to some point where you can survive or buff siege shield to at least 50% mitigation. Right now these ticks are 4.5k, an ultimate worth of damage a second. It is unmanageable. 10 unorganized pugs should not be able to hold of a 24man organized group. That is stupid.

Definitely nerf siege. Don't buff siege shield any more though. Buffing siege shield is a terrible solution as it creates more extreme's eg. you either die to siege or you don't with nothing in between. It's hard to use while moving, can be negated and not everyone can use it on their build.

I think ballista damage is and treb's are ok. I think flaming oils and all scattershots should have damage reduced by 15-20% on both cp and no cp campaigns.

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

4) Prevent porting into ring or captured enemy keeps that have more than x amount of frindlies already at the keep (perhaps still allow this for the 3x back court keeps). This will prevent the instant porting of all members of an alliance around the map for zerg defense. Some allowances will have to be made for players in the same group too keep groups from getting broken up but this must be done carefully as multi group zergs will seek to foothold in one member of each group so they can still act like a zerg and that must be prevented. Perhaps a waning that not all players may get in could play a part.

This is an interesting idea. Would make the game less fun if you over do it though. There shouldn't be any restrictions if a member of your group is there. Perhaps there could be a transit cooldown of 30 players per minute not including people who have a group member there already.

Lylith

nerf siege? i mean, it wrecks me (vamp), but there's still no lack of players and groups standing in siege, shrugging off damage as they happily knock down your walls or blast you to pieces on top, or on the stairs, of an inner keep.

no nerf needed.

Ruckly

If you are talking about the outer walls try using fire trebs. They counter scatter shot. You can fire them over the walls into the courtyard as well. If I die in an offensive siege it's usually to a defensive fire treb/fire ballista, a gank, or a zerg running out of the keep. Scatter shot on walls isn't a big deal if you keep them suppressed with trebs and dodge roll. Scatter shot at resource points behind the enemy group firing into yours might be a problem but Napoleon did that all the time.

There is also a set that increases your dodge roll time by 0.3 seconds? If you are playing on PC you can use the quick gear swap add-on to swap into that set and dodge into a keep.

WaltherCarraway

Evade the zerg and pick off those fell behind. You should also yield considerable amount of AP from doing so.

Jeezye

Proc Meta BY FAR was the worst thing the pvp community ever experienced, and it took such an aweful long of time to get addressed.

Remember hearing the lousy incap animation while fighting other people, yeah - look at your grey screen showing selene viper and redmountain oneshotting you.

technohic

I thought the meta was swift and bleed right now. Guess siege does hurt but yet, ball groups seem unphased.

DivineFirstYOLO

Yes, turteling up, setting up spies and porting in faction stacks for scattershot laden defense only is the most boring and frustrating thing ever.

I voted for yes, but not only cause of the reasons you mentioned. Zergs simply got bigger... last few weeks you either find no enemy or the whole faction. Disgusting that there are so many betas that have to stack up like that.

Recremen

I don't know about "The Worst" meta, but it's definitely not a very healthy one. Keeps taking too long to siege from health bug plus more siege damage versus players plus keep recall stones means you can no longer draw off part of a faction to come defend their back keep. You take so long sieging a wall down, even with 20/20, that you just end up pulling the whole faction. Like I want to not stack with my faction but I also want to not get zerged down after spending twice as long burning a hole in a wall only to get a ***-poor uneven fight. And you can't just coordinate with other guilds to hit different keeps at the same time because again, it takes so long that they can bring the whole faction to each fight individually before you actually take a single one of those keeps. It seems like a "stack or do nothing" meta.

IZZEFlameLash

Sonic meta is annoying really. Why are we playing Elder Sonic Online?

LeifErickson

No, little invulnerable ball zergs with impulse, magica det, and and rapids living off AOE caps was the worst thing ever. (Or the same thing with spin to win at another time.)

Malubeth meta was my personal least favorite.

SneaK

TheCaptainJosh wrote: »

Worst meta for me personally was when destro ult had just come out, and it did a huge amount of damage while being difficult to see during a fight.

Proc sets being able to crit ranks up there as well.

Destro Ultimate was the worst by far IMO. It went on and on for way too long too. You were basically a Tanky Healer, Destro Bomber, or a ganker in that meta. Cyro was so dumb.

Mrsinister2

No, little invulnerable ball zergs with impulse, magica det, and and rapids living off AOE caps was the worst thing ever. (Or the same thing with spin to win at another time.)

Ball groups are pretty annoying
Super fast bleed builds are kinda annoying

Other then that I can usually find some good fights without to much stuff really annoying me or seeming overly op.

NBrookus

Procopocalypse part 1 and Summerset was worse, IMO. But the siege/timestop/faction stack meta is pretty irritating.

Reverb

No, those OP mage merc hirelings was the worst thing ever.

My Warlock+Seducer Vampire DK from 2014 would like to assure you that the current meta is not the worst one. My Black Rose+Malubeth Templar agrees.

Kadoin

Eh, ball group damage is not even a big deal for me, though I might be biased because I heal so much that it takes a lot to kill me if my hand is on my keyboard and mouse and I care enough (and its not laggy)...

This patch seems heavily tilted towards stam players, no doubt about that. Speed builds are also annoying... But even that, though, cannot beat One Tamriel and what was possible then. I remember killing 6 NBs with no impen on my templar in light armor solo, and yes they had red mountain + viper + selene and attacked at nearly the same time. Healing and damage was insane back then. It was literally a battle of reflexes...

It seems like ZOS is inching closer towards "One Tamriel" yet again, though. Sets in the game exist that provide too much healing again, damage is out of control again, tanking and doing large amount of damage is possible yet again, proc sets being used as crutches again and doing too much damage, etc. I can definitely see why someone doesn't like PvP in this patch. I know for certain I don't.

f047ys3v3n

Jeezye wrote: »

Proc Meta BY FAR was the worst thing the pvp community ever experienced, and it took such an aweful long of time to get addressed.

Remember hearing the lousy incap animation while fighting other people, yeah - look at your grey screen showing selene viper and redmountain oneshotting you.

I forgot about the whole proc set debacle. I was doing a lot of PVE at that time. It was one of the best times for PVE. Lots of different classes and builds were relevant and it was before the big Morrowind cluster that simultaneously increased the highest dps players dps, took 30% off everybody elses, caused well over half of the trials guilds in the game to immediately fold (every one of mine did and I didn't get another for a full year), and moved combat from fluid fun to an exercise holding down the left mouse button. I still can't believe that you know who's job survived how bad that chapter bombed do to his idiotic balance changes. But yea, proc sets caused hella problems in PVP and making them stop criting was lazy way to fix it that caused balance problems for PVE that still remain.

Joy_Division

Lylith wrote: »

nerf siege? i mean, it wrecks me (vamp), but there's still no lack of players and groups standing in siege, shrugging off damage as they happily knock down your walls or blast you to pieces on top, or on the stairs, of an inner keep.

no nerf needed.

That is so not true.

As for the OP, there's been a lot of bad metas so whether or not it's the worst is hard to say.

The OP is right about the how siege and things like timestop have made defending a keep so strong, it basically means a factions tack is necessary to take even a decently defended keep.

Not sure how limited group size to 12 is going to work since it's pretty much impossible for all but the best 12 mans to take a defended keep

Ragnarock41

No, little invulnerable ball zergs with impulse, magica det, and and rapids living off AOE caps was the worst thing ever. (Or the same thing with spin to win at another time.)

technohic wrote: »

I thought the meta was swift and bleed right now. Guess siege does hurt but yet, ball groups seem unphased.

Oh yeah, that 24 man zerg with healers and shieldstackers will totally *** their pants at the sight of your axe lad. Your meta does not apply to those groups. They're simply on a different league cause of how large scale pvp works with purges , smart heals an shields galore, and everyone having pbaoes.

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Jeezye wrote: »

Proc Meta BY FAR was the worst thing the pvp community ever experienced, and it took such an aweful long of time to get addressed.

Remember hearing the lousy incap animation while fighting other people, yeah - look at your grey screen showing selene viper and redmountain oneshotting you.

I forgot about the whole proc set debacle. I was doing a lot of PVE at that time. It was one of the best times for PVE. Lots of different classes and builds were relevant and it was before the big Morrowind cluster that simultaneously increased the highest dps players dps, took 30% off everybody elses, caused well over half of the trials guilds in the game to immediately fold (every one of mine did and I didn't get another for a full year), and moved combat from fluid fun to an exercise holding down the left mouse button. I still can't believe that you know who's job survived how bad that chapter bombed do to his idiotic balance changes. But yea, proc sets caused hella problems in PVP and making them stop criting was lazy way to fix it that caused balance problems for PVE that still remain.

trust me, morrowind didn't help pvp much either. Proc sets needed careful nerfs one by one instead of removing the crits. To this day sets like viper still have crit bonuses which reminds me of the incompetence of our combat balance team.

Xsorus

Groups should of never been more then 12, and i personally think 8 would of been the best number.

SouthernSoldjer

I like this patch other than the spin to win dawny combo

Katahdin

Time stop is one of the stupidest things ever added to the game. Let's take this fluid, fast paced combat and pause it, freeze everyone in place for a few seconds......so damn annoying.

Oils damage on seige is so OP that has almost made rams a moot point. I've seen a ram get destroyed after what seemed like 4 pours of oil and the group had to go through 4 rams to get the door down.

I disagree with lowering group size.
Taking a defended keep requires a big group, usually multiple big groups.
Defending against a big group requires the same

Kartalin

Siege is still incredibly ridiculous in non cp, cp siege still doesn’t compare even with the latest update. We’ll be outnumbered by a factor of 2-3 fighting the AD on Sotha (pc-na) and they would much prefer to siege us than actually fight with their own abilities. I’m sure there’s a good Missile Command simulator online somewhere they can play instead. Seems like such a waste for them to level up all those skill lines and then not use them.

That said I think the siege meta on Sotha is something that can be overcome with good movement and coordination. I guess you could say the same about many of the previous metas as well.

Still, I see this as more of a problem related to the type of player ZOS seems more interested in attracting nowadays...casual and cash-flush.

Lylith

Joy_Division wrote: »

Lylith wrote: »

nerf siege? i mean, it wrecks me (vamp), but there's still no lack of players and groups standing in siege, shrugging off damage as they happily knock down your walls or blast you to pieces on top, or on the stairs, of an inner keep.

no nerf needed.

That is so not true.

As for the OP, there's been a lot of bad metas so whether or not it's the worst is hard to say.

The OP is right about the how siege and things like timestop have made defending a keep so strong, it basically means a factions tack is necessary to take even a decently defended keep.

Not sure how limited group size to 12 is going to work since it's pretty much impossible for all but the best 12 mans to take a defended keep

it's absolutely true.

your faction specializes in this tactic, fwiw, and i've seen it in action several times since the latest 'adjustments.'

Drakkdjinn

Yes, turteling up, setting up spies and porting in faction stacks for scattershot laden defense only is the most boring and frustrating thing ever.

I’ve seen worse but scattershot & paywalled jewelry traits are just staggeringly dumb additions.