Solution to ballgroups, zerggroups and even lag caused by faction stacking.

InvictusApollo

Before you read any further I want you to know that my goal is to give everyone more entertaining and satisfying gameplay. Not to delete ballgroups or zergroups. The goal is to rather make the game more competitive to everyone, while eliminating some aggravating issues.

Do you remember the times we had the "Siege Bug"?
Ballgroups left Cyrodill for the whole week.
Zerg weren't light attacking people to death.
Everyone was spread out to avoid siege damage so the lag was much, much smaller.

For me it was great. I've been flanking large enemy groups who were preoccupied with my faction memebers and killing off siege operators.

But there were problems for many poeple. I won't mention these problems here because stronger siege equipment isn't what I propose.

My idea is to add scaling of aoe abilities based on how many targets are within the area of their effect. Just like the Master's two handed weapon. We would get the same positive effect as with powerfull siege engines but without all it's problems. You won't get one shotted unless you stack. Ballgroups will have to spread out and their members will be actually vulnerable. More skill will be required in organised groups because real group formations will be needed. No more abuse of targeting. For example tanks will be actually usefull to take the first line and cover damage dealers in the second line. While heaelrs will stand behind them while being protected from flankers by DDs who utilise crowd control.

Zergs won't be so powerfull either. Since they will have to spread out, you will be in range of less zerglings. And since these are zergling, they are easy to pick one by one.
Skilled players who can actually win a duel or stand their ground against a few opponents will be rewarded. They will become real heroes on the battlefield who go down only when they actually make a mistake and overextend rather than when a ballgroup or zerggroup simply decides to focus them. Since damage will depend on how many people are in aoe, zerglings won't be able to abuse it like they did with siege engines.

Keep sieges will be much more challenging and entertaing. Attackers will have to either make more than one breach or send some real good players one by one through the breach.

This will even alleviate the problem of premades in battlegrounds since they are basically small ballgroups. Not entirely but anything is better than what we have right now.

As an added bonus PvP will become more accessible to pvers who often use aoe abilities in their rotations. They won't be just "siege *** who points and clicks" like it was described during Siege Bug. They will be actually usefull. And if PvP becomes more accessible, more people will play it and maybe the developers will give it some more love that is so desperately needed.

At first many zerglings will be shocked or even enraged when a ballgroup uses this new mechanic to wipe an entire zerggroup. But that ballgroup will quickly get deleted by a single actually skilled player who can bomb a ballgroup.
As for ballgroup members they might welcome a need for more skill and the fact that no one will have a right to call them "unskilled one button smashers" who rely on their "healbots" to get total invincibility.


What do you think? Something has to be done to change the status quo. ZOS won't invest money to upgrade servers so any solution to lag has to come from changing mechanics. They tried with Volendrung. They thought that if they give people one more "emperor", then maybe they will make not one faction stacked group but two groups. They thought that Volendrungs aoe damage will be enough to let zerglings or anyone else get enough power to counter a ballgroup. Reality has proven that this attempt was a failure. People go where the hammer is. They stack in the same place even more. And if a ballgroup picks it up... yeah you know what that means.

Heavy hitting siege engines were so effective at making people spread out, because everyone could use them. The problem was the overpowered damage against a single target. Scaling based on the number of affected targets solves this issue while retaining the effect of making people spread out.

ZOS could either implement this idea just for all aoe abilities, or just for a few selected abilities or just for siege equipment or for both abilities and siege engines. Which one would be the best could be tested.

gepe87

Siege bug and/or summerset meatbag catapult were wonderful.I would like to see it back on live.

Sanct16

The problem is that the change you suggested won't lead to the effects you describe/hope for.

You seem to have a vision of how you would want the game to be but don't understand why the game currently is the way it is.

Mr_Walker

OP siege doesn't worry good group players. I think some of you view the OP siege through rose coloured drugs.

JumpmanLane

Mr_Walker wrote: »

OP siege doesn't worry good group players. I think some of you view the OP siege through rose coloured drugs.

Nah...Op is right. During the siege bug era all you saw was legit small mans. Siege tore INTO ball groups. I’m mean WIPES of KNOWN BALL ZERGLINGS. Over and over, QUICKLY too.

Kadoin

JumpmanLane wrote: »

Mr_Walker wrote: »

OP siege doesn't worry good group players. I think some of you view the OP siege through rose coloured drugs.

Nah...Op is right. During the siege bug era all you saw was legit small mans. Siege tore INTO ball groups. I’m mean WIPES of KNOWN BALL ZERGLINGS. Over and over, QUICKLY too.

Yes, but those guys are the many so ZOS had to cave to what they wanted. If you ask me, siege bug times were better too.

I still wish for an oblivion damage siege that stacks damage based on the # of enemies

or

Siege gaining strength when population is extremely different between factions for the faction with less people

But you know...if that happened some people won't feel "pro" enough, and those people happen to be a majority.

Tommy_The_Gun

InvictusApollo wrote: »

Do you remember the times we had the "Siege Bug"?

Yep. Probably the best "bug" that have ever happened in Cyro.

^ That moment when you are the only hybrid build left in cyro so you can run Purge and every other solo "random" melted in Oil.... ^

Sacredx

Kadoin wrote: »

JumpmanLane wrote: »

Mr_Walker wrote: »

OP siege doesn't worry good group players. I think some of you view the OP siege through rose coloured drugs.

Nah...Op is right. During the siege bug era all you saw was legit small mans. Siege tore INTO ball groups. I’m mean WIPES of KNOWN BALL ZERGLINGS. Over and over, QUICKLY too.

Yes, but those guys are the many so ZOS had to cave to what they wanted. If you ask me, siege bug times were better too.

I still wish for an oblivion damage siege that stacks damage based on the # of enemies

or

Siege gaining strength when population is extremely different between factions for the faction with less people

But you know...if that happened some people won't feel "pro" enough, and those people happen to be a majority.

I agree. Definitely need to buff siege. Feels far too easy right now.

TriangularChicken

buff to siege will hurt 1vX and small scalers as well...there have to be better ways to destroy zergs...reducing group size to 12 is step one.

InvictusApollo

Sanct16 wrote: »

The problem is that the change you suggested won't lead to the effects you describe/hope for.

You seem to have a vision of how you would want the game to be but don't understand why the game currently is the way it is.

Enlighten me then.

TriangularChicken wrote: »

buff to siege will hurt 1vX and small scalers as well...there have to be better ways to destroy zergs...reducing group size to 12 is step one.

Reducing group size won't have any effect on zergs. Instead of one zerg group there will be many zerg groups running together.
The only effect would be on ballgroups but only minimal and only on PC where addons are being utilised to stack on the crown. Every ballgroup would simply divide into two groups with two leaders. One would be responsible for commanding both groups while the other one would just be responsible for stacking on the first one.
As I said: buffin g siege weapons isn't my idea. My idea is to give everyone, even zerglings or pvers means to counter groups of stacked players. Siege Bug was accomplishing that but it did affect some small scalers and 1vXers. Scaling of aoe damage won't hurt us.

Thraben

InvictusApollo wrote: »

As I said: buffin g siege weapons isn't my idea. My idea is to give everyone, even zerglings or pvers means to counter groups of stacked players. Siege Bug was accomplishing that but it did affect some small scalers and 1vXers. Scaling of aoe damage won't hurt us.

This skill is known as Inevitable Deto.

ThePedge

InvictusApollo wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

The problem is that the change you suggested won't lead to the effects you describe/hope for.

You seem to have a vision of how you would want the game to be but don't understand why the game currently is the way it is.

Enlighten me then.

TriangularChicken wrote: »

buff to siege will hurt 1vX and small scalers as well...there have to be better ways to destroy zergs...reducing group size to 12 is step one.

Reducing group size won't have any effect on zergs. Instead of one zerg group there will be many zerg groups running together.
The only effect would be on ballgroups but only minimal and only on PC where addons are being utilised to stack on the crown. Every ballgroup would simply divide into two groups with two leaders. One would be responsible for commanding both groups while the other one would just be responsible for stacking on the first one.
As I said: buffin g siege weapons isn't my idea. My idea is to give everyone, even zerglings or pvers means to counter groups of stacked players. Siege Bug was accomplishing that but it did affect some small scalers and 1vXers. Scaling of aoe damage won't hurt us.

It will if they make AoE/Smart Healing group only.

Guilds would have to think about group composition and coordinate instead of having 8 people healing everyone you have 4. (If group size was halted, and kept same ratio)

Sanct16

Based on your suggested change you draw multiple conclusions. To enumerate some:

1. Ballgroups will have to spread out
2. "real group formations" will be needed
3. Zergs won't be so powerful either
4. Skilled duelists will be rewarded
5. Sieges will be more challenging/entertaining
6. Will help with premades in BGs
7. PvP will be more accessible to PvEers
8. Ballgroups will get deleted by a single actually skilled player

#1 "Ballgroups will have to spread out" #8 "Ballgroups will get deleted by a single actually skilled player" #2 "real group formations will be needed" #4 "Skilled duelists will be rewarded"
(#1) seems like an intuitive assumption that probably a lot of people would agree with. Now I don't want to disagree with the statement itself as there will be a lot of situations where it's true. In fact, there are already a lot of situations in which ballgroups have to spread out, although it's mostly exclusive to fights between ballgroups.
However people tend to ignore the reason why ballgroups stack in the first place. Primarily it has nothing to do with direcly mitigating damage, neither single target nor aoe. Instead it's about being able to move around the battlefield quickly. Any ballgroup that stands still will die, even against pugs.

Regardless if you fight inside a keep or openfield, it's never a good strategy to try and "hold your ground" while you are outnumbered. In order to be successful you need to constantly moving around, kill stacks of enemies quickly and instantly head for the next spot where you can use line of sight to prevent being attacked. This won't change if AoE damage increases so it's unlikely that (#2) will happen, as group formations are mostly useful when you fight in a stationary area. In the end buffing something will always lead to an increased use. Increasing AoE damage will lead to more AoE damage being used (just like more guns lead to more gun-violence) while group formations are generally speaking more something for single target fights.

Having said all of this, let's take a look at what impact increased AoE damage would have on this: It's not very hard to conclude that ballgroups will have an easier time to wipe zergs with it, as you already mentioned yourself. However you are assuming in (#8 and #4) that ballgroups being able to get bombed by skilled players will make up for this.
Without looking at the combat perspective as of now, I would like to mention that the type of player which I assume you refer to as "actually skilled" has a tendency to run "low-damage" (compared to a raid build), high-sustain single-target dueling spec (generally speaking). It's unlikely that they will build for AoE bombing even after such a change because it's more a question of mindset. Realistically a bomber (who is zergsurfing) can already kill a mediocre ballgroup, yet most duelists don't play a bomber.
But assuming they would: I'm not sure about a single guy but a small group will definetly be able to kill a ballgroup, and even now it's already possible. However this won't be a "permanently consistent" thing as ballgroups will adapt.
The good ones will still stack but will also be prepared for the bombers by keeping ground dots up, using reveal pots, etc.. Even with damage buffs it will mostly likely always require the element of surprise for a successful bomb.
The bad ballgroups will stack with enough pugs to the point where they will be able to resurrect everyone who died to the bomb and just roll over everything.

---

#6 "Will help with premades in BGs" #7 "PvP will be more accessible to PvE players"

I assume these points fall more in the category of "possible side effects" that you mentioned to increase acceptance of your suggestion (which is fine of course). However I hope you agree with me that these points are questionable.
((#6)A premade in BGs will probably benefit much more from such a change especially when they fight pugs and it really isn't hard for them to spread wide enough to avoid getting killed by AoE in a Xv1 scenario.
(#7)A PvE player will still need to significantly change playstyle, build, CP, barsetup etc. Just because he has some ground dots in his PvE rotation doesn't help him to stay alive or even start bombing groups as it's completly different to what you do in PvE basically.

---

#5 "Sieges will be more challenging / entertaining" #3 "Zergs won't be so powerful either"

Of course (#5) very subjective as to what is "entertaining" however I think one big problem is that the longer a keep fight / siege take, the laggier it tends to get as more and more people have time to arrive and due to Soul Gem resses the amount of kills required to end a fight grows "exponentially" (i.e. in a 70v70 fight often times the dead people get ressed faster than others can be killed). Of course (#3) is correct and the zerg would die quicker so maybe it will be possible to clean them out easier than it's currently the case.

InvictusApollo

Sanct16 wrote: »

However people tend to ignore the reason why ballgroups stack in the first place. Primarily it has nothing to do with direcly mitigating damage, neither single target nor aoe. Instead it's about being able to move around the battlefield quickly. Any ballgroup that stands still will die, even against pugs.

Actually it has everything to do with mitigating damage. A stacked ballgroup is much easier to heal which directly mitigates damage. When a ballgroup spreads out, aoe heals lose their efficiency. You are however right about the mobility factor. Stacked group has beter movement. However a ballgroup that is stacked and mobile makes their members almost impossible to target. They move covering each other so even if other players tab target a single person, not all of their ranged attacks will hit the target. The damage gets spread among other ballgroup members and quickly healed by healers.
Now imagine that there are dots on the ground: shards, liquid lightnning, caltrops etc. Right now they do insignificant damage to ballgroups. But if their damage would scale from the number of affected targets, then ballgroups would have it more challenging to manouver the battlefield. More mistakes would be made - mistakes that can be exploited.

Sanct16 wrote: »

Regardless if you fight inside a keep or openfield, it's never a good strategy to try and "hold your ground" while you are outnumbered. In order to be successful you need to constantly moving around

I still remember fighting a ballgroup that took stationary position on a wall to siege the inner keep. Me and five other players all targeted a single ballgroup member. I don't know about the others but I've been pumping into that guy damage combos that delete 90% of normal players in Cyrodill. His healthbar didn't even move. That is how much healing ballgroup healers were pumping into him. There were aoe hots all over the place.

Sanct16 wrote: »

Having said all of this, let's take a look at what impact increased AoE damage would have on this: It's not very hard to conclude that ballgroups will have an easier time to wipe zergs with it, as you already mentioned yourself.

Yes they will if they attack first. But not necessarilly if we get a prolonged fight. Assuming that a ballgroup will be stacked then before they kill off all zerglings (who are never stacked that much), some of those zerglings will put aoe dots on the ground or use aoe burst skills to hopefully overpower the ballgroup. At the very least the battle will be more even and thus more enjoyable and satisfying for both sides.
Furthermore the more experienced players will kite a ballgroup while doing ranged aoe damage.

Sanct16 wrote: »

However you are assuming in (#8 and #4) that ballgroups being able to get bombed by skilled players will make up for this.

No, no, no. Not bombed. And not necessarilly by a skilled player or by him alone. Almost all pvers in Cyrodill carry an aoe skill like for example Liquid Lightning. Most good stamina builds have at least Dawnbreaker. Many magicka builds carry a Comet. Those are all aoe abilities. I just checked and almost all of my BiS super optimized builds have at least one aoe damage ability. Even magsorc has a Curse. What I predict is that since so many players on the battlefield will have aoe damage abilities, it will be much much easier for them to kill a ballgroup if those abilities will have additional damage scaled from the number of targets hit.

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's unlikely that they will build for AoE bombing even after such a change because it's more a question of mindset.

That is the trick: they won't have to. If aoe dots or direct damage skills will scale with number of affected targets, then just one such skill placed on one bar of most players, will be enough to mitigate a significant part of a ballgroups healing. The idea is to let several people hit as hard as single siege weapon from the Siege Bug week but only stacked players like zerggroups and ballgroups.

Sanct16 wrote: »

Realistically a bomber (who is zergsurfing) can already kill a mediocre ballgroup, yet most duelists don't play a bomber.
But assuming they would: I'm not sure about a single guy but a small group will definetly be able to kill a ballgroup, and even now it's already possible.

It is possible. However there are allways very few such bombers at a time and they rarely pick fights with ballgroups. But it's not about our current bombers.

Sanct16 wrote: »

However this won't be a "permanently consistent" thing as ballgroups will adapt.
The good ones will still stack but will also be prepared for the bombers by keeping ground dots up, using reveal pots, etc.. Even with damage buffs it will mostly likely always require the element of surprise for a successful bomb.
The bad ballgroups will stack with enough pugs to the point where they will be able to resurrect everyone who died to the bomb and just roll over everything.

Once again: the idea isn't to buff only bomb builds but to significantly buff aoe damage only against stacked opponents. It might sound the same but it is not.
Ballgroups won't be able to adapt through detect pots, because it won't be even bombers who will counter them. It will be simple players with aoe damage abilities working together without voice communication. They will just keep placing aoe dots on the path of a ballgroup. Or throwing aoe ultimates at the ballgroup. WIth scaling all of this will be much more effective. Sure a stacked ballgroup might be able to heal through most ground aoe dots depending on how good the scaling will be. But if people start throwing aoe ultimates then a ballgroup will surely die. They already can die if lets say six or ten comets fall on the same guy who happens to be a healer. Scaling will simply decrease the number of needed aoe ultimates. Lets be honest here: it is a very rare occurence for a group without voice communication to coordinate ultimates.

Sanct16 wrote: »

((#6)A premade in BGs will probably benefit much more from such a change especially when they fight pugs and it really isn't hard for them to spread wide enough to avoid getting killed by AoE in a Xv1 scenario.

Ofcourse they will. And that is exactly what will make it easier to fight them. Not all premades are like that but there are some that literally form mini ballgroups, stack and use multiple aoes to kill ungrouped players. If my idea gets implemented then such a group will either have to spread out and thus minimize it's lethality or stack and risk getting killed by two Dawnbreakers, Comets or any other aoe ultimates that wouldn't kill them otherwise.

Sanct16 wrote: »

(#7)A PvE player will still need to significantly change playstyle, build, CP, barsetup etc. Just because he has some ground dots in his PvE rotation doesn't help him to stay alive or even start bombing groups as it's completly different to what you do in PvE basically.

Ofcourse. PvE builds aren't suited for PvP. They are extremely squishy. But during the Siege Bug week it was also those squishy people who were hitting very hard and prevented zergroups and ballgroups from stacking too much. My idea will make those squishy builds make much more damage to stacked groups. Right now they are effectively useless. But with scaling their aoe abilities will act like siege engines from the Siege Bug week if they happen to all put them in one place. Lets for simplicity say that 4 Liquid Lightnings will be hitting a 12 man group as much as Coldfire Ballista from Siege Bug week. That damage won't be purgable. A stacked group will get killed if it enters that area. But if only a single player enters it, then he will take normal (insignificant) damage. Even the possibility of being faced with a stack killing pvers or pvpers will be enough of a detterent to unstack. Right now we don't have it because bombers are very rare and proximity detonation is unused by most people.

Sanct16 wrote: »

I think one big problem is that the longer a keep fight / siege take, the laggier it tends to get as more and more people have time to arrive and due to Soul Gem resses the amount of kills required to end a fight grows "exponentially" (i.e. in a 70v70 fight often times the dead people get ressed faster than others can be killed). Of course (#3) is correct and the zerg would die quicker so maybe it will be possible to clean them out easier than it's currently the case

During Siege Bug week sieges were much longer and challenging. People were constantly dying and pouring in. And that is one of the reasons why we had much, much less lag. Instead of two opposing groups in one place. More people were in transit and thus less people were close to the keep. It was also much harder to ressurect anyone because of blanket fire from both sides.

Developers were constantly saying that the key to less lag is to make people spread out. That means both spreading out to different cells and spreading out at the same cell.

frozywozy

I wish people would spend as much time, energy and efforts into building a group and theory crafting how to fight outnumbered as much as they do to try to counter a group of 12-16 people with a faction zerg.

InvictusApollo

frozywozy wrote: »

I wish people would spend as much time, energy and efforts into building a group and theory crafting how to fight outnumbered as much as they do to try to counter a group of 12-16 people with a faction zerg.

Actually I have been theorycrafting builds that were meant to counter a ballgroup. Even with my theorycrafting skills it is still a roulette when all you have on your side is an unorganized group without voice communication.

Ballgroups simply have far too much damage mitigation. Even if we assume that a single ballgroup member has only 70% damage resistance, the healing per second they get is enough to keep him alive.

Lets do the quick math for a relatively squishy ball group member.
Data:
Damage Resistance of a ballgroup member: DR = 70%
External healing per second: eHPS = 20k
Self healing per second: sHPS = 2k
Maximum Health: mH = 22k

Damage mitigation formula:
DM = (eHPS + sHPS)/(1-DR)

For a squishy ballgroup member damage mitigation equals
DM = (20k+2k)/(1-70%) = 73333,(3)

It means that in order to do any damage to a squishy ballgroup member, you would need to be doing 73,3k damage every second. This is the number you would need to have on your spammable tooltip.

That is however just enough damage to mitigate the healing a ballgroup member is getting. And we wan't to kill him.
There are two ways: attrition or burst damage.

Lets analyse the burst damage option. We wan't to kill a person who is quite squishy but has lots of healing per second. The formula is as follows.

Instakill damage mitigation: iDM = (mH + eHPS + sHPS)/(1-DR)

For a squishy ballgroup member this will be:
iDM = (22k+20k+2k)/(1-70%) = 146666,(6)

Now look at your ultimate tooltip and ask yourself how many people like you it would take to coordinate their ultimates to hit at the same moment just to kill a single ballgroup member.



Above analysis is just for a "squishy" ballgroup member. What about tanky ballgroup members? Assuming that their builds are as durable as mine, they would look like this:
Damage Resistance of a ballgroup member: DR = 85%
External healing per second: eHPS = 20k
Self healing per second: sHPS = 4k
Maximum Health: mH = 25k

DM = (20k+4k)/(1-85%) = 160k
iDM = (25k+20k+4k)/(1-85%) = 326,(6)k


Even if we add major and minor defile, ballgroup members simply have much too high Damage Mitigation and Instakill Damage Mitigation to overcome by anything than a coordinated ult drop from multiple players.
Crowd control and snares do not work on them because they have CC immunity and lots of speed buffs so CCing a healer is out of the question. Even if you happen to knockback a ballgroup healer, the group can simply cover him with their own bodies to protect him.

The only viable counter to ballgroups right now is to use Negate, Major Defile and several ultimates all at once. And even this won't work in open field if the ballgroup evades the Negate.

frozywozy

How about an uncapped proximity detonation that hit a group of 16 for 120k damage each?
Would that be enough or should we lower the DR, eHPS, sHPS and mH a bit?

Zabania

/Coolstorybob

Qbiken

Actually I have been theorycrafting builds that were meant to counter a ballgroup. Even with my theorycrafting skills it is still a roulette when all you have on your side is an unorganized group without voice communication.

So do as the ballgroups, get people on voice and coordinate your skills. If the ballgroup can do so, what stops you from doing the same? I don´t understand the mentality of expecting to kill a group that´s organized, if you´re running with randoms....

Sandman929

InvictusApollo wrote: »

it is still a roulette when all you have on your side is an unorganized group without voice communication.

Shouldn't it be? Or is your position that the disorganized mob should always win?

Sandman929

Also, I agree with @InvictusApollo on one point, which is that I too would like to see more abilities that scale with the number of players hit the way proxy det does. Groups that attempt to fight larger numbers would make good use of those tools, whether it's 4 trying to fight 12, 12 trying to fight 24, or 16 trying to fight a faction.

InvictusApollo

frozywozy wrote: »

How about an uncapped proximity detonation that hit a group of 16 for 120k damage each?
Would that be enough or should we lower the DR, eHPS, sHPS and mH a bit?

Uncapping proximity detonation wouldn't completely solve the problem because only two kinds of people wopuld slot it: ballgroup members to kill zerg and ballgroup hunters. But I'd love to see effects of such buff.

As for DR, sHPS and mH - all changes to them would be global, as in for all players. Upcoming nerf to Healing Springs might slightly decrease eHPS of ballgroups. Although I predict that ballgroups will quickly adapt. Proximity detonation uncapping would be better and the best would be adding its effect to most aoe damage abilities in pvp (and pvp only) or to siege equipment.

Qbiken wrote: »

Actually I have been theorycrafting builds that were meant to counter a ballgroup. Even with my theorycrafting skills it is still a roulette when all you have on your side is an unorganized group without voice communication.

So do as the ballgroups, get people on voice and coordinate your skills. If the ballgroup can do so, what stops you from doing the same? I don´t understand the mentality of expecting to kill a group that´s organized, if you´re running with randoms....

Are you suggesting asking a bunch of randoms to join a Discord server to coordinate battle against a ballgroup? Most of them are in such an amok that they don't even read group chat. They prefer to charge and die just to respawn asap to charge again and die again.

Sandman929 wrote: »

InvictusApollo wrote: »

it is still a roulette when all you have on your side is an unorganized group without voice communication.

Shouldn't it be? Or is your position that the disorganized mob should always win?

No it is not my opinion. I also do not think that it should be a roulette. Everyone should have equal chance or some chance at all. And sadly right now ballgroups are OP AF.

Sandman929 wrote: »

Also, I agree with @InvictusApollo on one point, which is that I too would like to see more abilities that scale with the number of players hit the way proxy det does. Groups that attempt to fight larger numbers would make good use of those tools, whether it's 4 trying to fight 12, 12 trying to fight 24, or 16 trying to fight a faction.

It would be more about skill and less about numbers or abuse of mechanics. We are in agreement on that.

Vapirko

OP siege week was still the least laggy, most spread out fighting I’ve ever had. You could actually have a keep fight that was a series of 1v1s. Amazing.

InvictusApollo

Vapirko wrote: »

OP siege week was still the least laggy, most spread out fighting I’ve ever had. You could actually have a keep fight that was a series of 1v1s. Amazing.

My idea could bring all that awesomeness back and do it without it's flaws.

dtsharples

He's suggesting you make your own group and stop crying about how other groups that have played together for weeks / months are running over you like a steamengine.

Put in the effort and stop expecting the random guy next to you to have the capability to take out whole groups of people.
Honestly your argument is fully ridiculous. There are numerous counters in game already that (stupidly) nobody uses. If you want to change the face of Cyrodiil man up and create a guild to lead instead of trying to take it on as one small man.

InvictusApollo

dtsharples wrote: »

He's suggesting you make your own group and stop crying about how other groups that have played together for weeks / months are running over you like a steamengine.

Put in the effort and stop expecting the random guy next to you to have the capability to take out whole groups of people.
Honestly your argument is fully ridiculous. There are numerous counters in game already that (stupidly) nobody uses. If you want to change the face of Cyrodiil man up and create a guild to lead instead of trying to take it on as one small man.

First of all: no one is running over me like a steamengine. I can run through ballgroups while laughing at them.
Second of all: I will not go so low as to exploit broken game mechanics that allow ballgroups to be effectively invincible.
Third of all: I don't lead for free. I have enough of that IRL to do it also in game during my free time.
Fourth of all: I refuse to cause even more problems to others by making one more ballgroup, just to "fix" the problem for myself.
Fifth of all: even had I created a ballgroup hunters guild, that wouldn't be enough to counter all of them and actually fix the problems that they cause. They literally scare new players who are new to pvp.

frozywozy

InvictusApollo wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

How about an uncapped proximity detonation that hit a group of 16 for 120k damage each?
Would that be enough or should we lower the DR, eHPS, sHPS and mH a bit?

Uncapping proximity detonation wouldn't completely solve the problem because only two kinds of people wopuld slot it: ballgroup members to kill zerg and ballgroup hunters. But I'd love to see effects of such buff.

As for DR, sHPS and mH - all changes to them would be global, as in for all players. Upcoming nerf to Healing Springs might slightly decrease eHPS of ballgroups. Although I predict that ballgroups will quickly adapt. Proximity detonation uncapping would be better and the best would be adding its effect to most aoe damage abilities in pvp (and pvp only) or to siege equipment.

I was being sarcastic. Uncapped Proximity Detonation is coming next patch, just look at the patch notes.
Numbers have been tested on the PTS and you can hit 16players stacked together with average resists for 120k damage.

Thraben

InvictusApollo wrote: »

Actually I have been theorycrafting builds that were meant to counter a ballgroup. Even with my theorycrafting skills it is still a roulette when all you have on your side is an unorganized group without voice communication.

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There are at least 4 builds that work. I won´t correct your math (though there are some mistakes in the calculation), but in No CP there are following things that work (unless you stupidly bomb into a running permaforst) on normal ballgroups:

1) a Balorghblade will bring a group down to 50%.

2) A MagNecro synergy bomber with Master 2hander and Infernal Guardian can bring the group down to 40%. Combined with a Nova bomb it can be even sufficient in some cases.

3) A MagDK bomber with Master 2hander and Infernal Guardian will bring the group down to 60%, but can sustain it for quite a while.

4) A MagSorc bomber can bring them down to 50% with enough attempts.

Of course, if you run a typical stamina "duellist" build, or if you are a bowtard, the only thing that works is using 2 Coldstone Trebs at the same time. Should bring them down to 20%.

InvictusApollo wrote: »

A: I will not go so low as to exploit broken game mechanics that allow ballgroups to be effectively invincible.
B: I don't lead for free. I have enough of that IRL to do it also in game during my free time.
C: I refuse to cause even more problems to others by making one more ballgroup, just to "fix" the problem for myself.
even had I created a ballgroup hunters guild, that wouldn't be enough to counter all of them and actually fix the problems that they cause. They literally scare new players who are new to pvp.

A) Ballgroups are not exploiters. Their playstyle is based on the idea that cooperation and specialization will always beat a clueless mass. This is both true and totally okay.

B ) A hint: You don´t need to lead "for free". You just have to be a member of a "ballgroup hunter guild". Having 3 or 4 of those who use the PuGs as bait generally discourage any ballgroup activity in your sphere of influence even if they are not in any way coordinated. Sometimes it´s even enough to put on a guild tabard, and throw 2 Inevitable Detoes onto the ram to spread panic. Sometimes even a single StamSorc can force them to retreat if he bluffs good enough.

C) It is a common misconception that "only a ball group can destroy another ball group". In fact, in 9/10 cases it is always the same ballgroup that wins against another one. So the inferior ball group should not even try it unless with advantages of surprise, or numbers. The perception that ballgroups don´t fight each other comes from the fact that most of these fights are so one-sided that they hardly last for longer than 20 seconds.

That being said, an anti-ballgroup has a much higher chance of success even against the best ballgroups even if the player quality, discipline and coordination is worse than that of the ballgroup. That´s because a ballgroup is specialized to fight against masses of PuGs, whereas an anti-ballgroup is specialized against ballgroups, but is MUCH weaker against PuGs and typically unable to fight in enemy territory for a prolonged time.

So your argument is not really convincing: You don´t have to fight fire with fire - but the price of having a group that typically outperforms in GvG- situations is an inherent weakness against masses of pugs, and you must be willing to pay it.

D) It is. See B

SKYICE01

haha why talk about ball groups if you know nothing about them XDD
P U R G E B O T

frostz417

People who think increased siege damage are the same zerglings who are 40k health tanks who have their quick bar full of siege and only siege. Never fight.
See a player? Run and siege.
Siege should only be made to work like proximity detonation. Not a stupid “I win button” because it’s totally trash now. People just siege and don’t fight. Nobody cares to play elder Siege online with a bunch of thumbless zerglings just sieging at the sight of one singe player.
I eargerly await the siege bots to try and defend their purpose of being a total NPC in cyrodiil.

InvictusApollo

frostz417 wrote: »

People who think increased siege damage are the same zerglings who are 40k health tanks who have their quick bar full of siege and only siege. Never fight.
See a player? Run and siege.
Siege should only be made to work like proximity detonation. Not a stupid “I win button” because it’s totally trash now. People just siege and don’t fight. Nobody cares to play elder Siege online with a bunch of thumbless zerglings just sieging at the sight of one singe player.
I eargerly await the siege bots to try and defend their purpose of being a total NPC in cyrodiil.

Are you being one shotted by siege engines right now?