what changes would you make to kill the zerg?

  • OBJnoob
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    Game performance is a separate issue. Yes, zerging probably does stress the server, but frankly you should just play on a different campaign if you don't have that special high quality god internet or whatever some people have. I know that sounds dumb and you shouldn't have to or whatever but people shouldn't have to stop zerging either. Do what makes YOU happy. Don't expect other people to make that sacrifice.

    Zerg... ball group... whatever. If they got 3 dedicated healers and they're spamming purge and whatever else then yea, sure, you might just be screwed (and why is that such a bad thing again? because we want games to provide us with opportunities to win no matter the odds???) or you might need to organize your own little 5 man group into mini-ball-group format where you can ulti dump and chunk them 3 dead bodies at a time.

    And if their zerg necro comes along and gives them an insta rez? Who cares. You didn't think you were going to kill ALL of them, did you? You should already be up the stairs and on the outer wall heading for a tower.

    You'll either kill them all, 3 at a time, because they are indeed a trickle-in zerg. Or you'll kill the 3 idiots in their group over and over but the rest will never let you get close to them. DON'T DIE TRYING TO GET CLOSE TO THEM AND THEM COMPLAIN ABOUT IT.

    If you can perform some hit n runs and make people think twice about following you around that wood wall because they know that you have some TEETH you'll stop getting zerged down so much because they won't all go 'hey look at this enemy... get zerged down Rando."
  • Gilvoth
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    bugmom wrote: »
    So, the stated objective of Cyrodiil is Faction v Faction v Faction - it's a war. It was advertised and designed for large scale battles of many players v many players. That's why ZOS made groups of 24 possible. The question posed with this thread assumes that it is somehow a desirable goal to "kill the zerg." Why would you want to do that? Its the intent of the game! If you don't like large group battles, go to battle grounds or dueling. Why is it necessary to destroy the one game that lets us have that type of play?

    We were in a 90 minute 3 faction battle at chal yesterday and it was AMAZING. There isn't any other game out there where you get that! Yes the lag sucked and it sure would be nice to be able to sprint and mount and have your skills go off reliably and ZOS needs to fix those things. But please, not by totally destroying the intent of the game!

    oh i agree 100%
    the problem is the lagg and mass high ping that comes because of those zergs and mass people gathering.
    it has destroyed pvp completely.
    cant do anything, game is ruined.
    zenimax refuses to fix this problem and they even said recently:

    quote

    "It took us a while to find the root cause and fix this one, but by Wednesday afternoon (after another maintenance that morning), it was fixed."

    end quote

    source:
    https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/531219/greymoor-update-26-launch-game-director-update/p1

    the problem still exists, the only fix that makes sense is = remove the zerg
    its the only option left to save pvp and make it so its playable.

    Edited by Gilvoth on June 15, 2020 7:40PM
  • OBJnoob
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    Sacrificing what makes the game 'the game' isn't making it playable. Honestly I can't step foot in Grayhost on Xbox NA because I know what it's like and it's unplayable. I assume the people playing there have a slightly better experience. Those of you in a similarly laggy campaign, wherever that may be, should seriously consider switching to a lesser populated campaign. It will ease some of your problems and also ease the problems of people saying things like 'the map is too big.' They have the opposite problem.
  • Dat
    Dat
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    See it hasnt really destroyed pvp completely imo. While the lag sucks yes and skills not going off have definetly led to my untimely death on multiple occasions, it the times that it does work it created the most memorable moments in pvp. For instance the 40 minute long fight as nickle yesterday at like 730 eastern between my group and ruin gaming, IL, homicide, and a multiple of opposing pugs was some of the best fighting ive enjoyed in a long while. THANK YOU for those fights guys if you're in here that was insanely fun.
  • ItsJustHashtag
    ItsJustHashtag
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    Yet when you’re not with your group you die fast. Same can be said for every member of your guild.
  • Dat
    Dat
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    #salty but it's ok I get it :smile:
    Edited by Dat on June 16, 2020 1:05PM
  • Fawn4287
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    yodased wrote: »
    Revert to siege changes of like 8 patches ago.

    Give ground oils back or replace with analogous new item.

    Give V.D. type set that puts major vuln and major defile on all group members when a member dies within x meters.

    Put long time cast skills (30sec) that can be bashed but do ~30k aoe damage

    If anything I notice sieging is loved by zerglings and when your in a group 3vXing near a keep, theres always one little 5 star pugling that loves to get on the meatbag or cold fire balista and fire down on his 14 man groups health bars. more siege should be like meatbags though, giving horrible Debuff AOEs rather than doing actual damage, major venrability, horrid snares, silence and stat draining siege should be added to help wipe out groups, imagine how quickly the res spam zerg tanks would change builds with siege like that around.
  • ItsJustHashtag
    ItsJustHashtag
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    Fawn4287 wrote: »
    yodased wrote: »
    Revert to siege changes of like 8 patches ago.

    Give ground oils back or replace with analogous new item.

    Give V.D. type set that puts major vuln and major defile on all group members when a member dies within x meters.

    Put long time cast skills (30sec) that can be bashed but do ~30k aoe damage

    If anything I notice sieging is loved by zerglings and when your in a group 3vXing near a keep, theres always one little 5 star pugling that loves to get on the meatbag or cold fire balista and fire down on his 14 man groups health bars. more siege should be like meatbags though, giving horrible Debuff AOEs rather than doing actual damage, major venrability, horrid snares, silence and stat draining siege should be added to help wipe out groups, imagine how quickly the res spam zerg tanks would change builds with siege like that around.
    More siege like meatbags would just lead to longer fights and more stacking of zergs. Meat bags shouldn’t constantly defile. If you get hit by initial damage then yes apply the defile but it shouldn’t be a ground based define that also damages over time.
  • Fawn4287
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    Dat wrote: »

    The game performs better when there are no ball groups so, that might be the fix.

    I'd make purge require a synergy and neuter cross healing as a start.[/quote]

    Neuter cross healing? You realize we have a 60% nerf to healing right now on live right. So since you're asking for more healing nerfs should we even have healing? If we throw even more healing nerfs into the mix the classes with horrid self healing would have even harder times. And if we keep nerfing the healing then you're basically making any healers worthless in pvp. You cant take away one playstyle for the sake of another. That isnt right.

    *edited for HEAVY bait
    [/quote]


    Dedicated healers and tanks shouldn’t exist in PvP, if you want to spam heals or hold block or glue your block button down every other mode on the game is built for that, PvP should be DPS centric, its because of healers that people need to make harmony bombing groups to actually kill anyone.
  • technohic
    technohic
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    Fawn4287 wrote: »
    yodased wrote: »
    Revert to siege changes of like 8 patches ago.

    Give ground oils back or replace with analogous new item.

    Give V.D. type set that puts major vuln and major defile on all group members when a member dies within x meters.

    Put long time cast skills (30sec) that can be bashed but do ~30k aoe damage

    If anything I notice sieging is loved by zerglings and when your in a group 3vXing near a keep, theres always one little 5 star pugling that loves to get on the meatbag or cold fire balista and fire down on his 14 man groups health bars. more siege should be like meatbags though, giving horrible Debuff AOEs rather than doing actual damage, major venrability, horrid snares, silence and stat draining siege should be added to help wipe out groups, imagine how quickly the res spam zerg tanks would change builds with siege like that around.

    Just purged away.
  • Dat
    Dat
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    Fawn4287 wrote: »
    Dat wrote: »

    The game performs better when there are no ball groups so, that might be the fix.

    I'd make purge require a synergy and neuter cross healing as a start.

    Neuter cross healing? You realize we have a 60% nerf to healing right now on live right. So since you're asking for more healing nerfs should we even have healing? If we throw even more healing nerfs into the mix the classes with horrid self healing would have even harder times. And if we keep nerfing the healing then you're basically making any healers worthless in pvp. You cant take away one playstyle for the sake of another. That isnt right.

    *edited for HEAVY bait
    [/quote]


    Dedicated healers and tanks shouldn’t exist in PvP, if you want to spam heals or hold block or glue your block button down every other mode on the game is built for that, PvP should be DPS centric, its because of healers that people need to make harmony bombing groups to actually kill anyone.
    [/quote]

    I'll have to respectfully disagree with you on that. This is a war in a fantasy game with magic. Healers have their place as well as anyone. I think were just gonna have to agree to disagree.
  • OBJnoob
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    Fawn4287 wrote: »
    Dat wrote: »
    Dedicated healers and tanks shouldn’t exist in PvP, if you want to spam heals or hold block or glue your block button down every other mode on the game is built for that, PvP should be DPS centric, its because of healers that people need to make harmony bombing groups to actually kill anyone.

    Every other mode? You must pretty much exclusively mean high-end end-game veteran level difficulty DLC content. Cuz except for that, at CP 810, nobody needs a dedicated healer or tank for anything. I used to play EverQuest and World of Warcraft... in those games you needed a talented tank and/or healer. In ESO? It's all DPS all the time. You just straight up ignore dungeon mechanics if you have good DPS.

    And even in the high-end veteran level trials and stuff... is tanking really important? is healing really important? Or are they the ones that get to wear 'support' sets to help the DPS? Now please don't get offended if you're a PvE tank-- I'm not saying it doesn't take skill.

    I'm saying that if ever there was a reason to have a dedicated healer it is certainly PVP.

    Healers and tanks shouldn't exist in PVP. LOL. Just buy Call of Duty and get it over with. It's clear you think the only type of skill is the aiming skill. Pushing buttons that make you live longer is cheating. Grouping is unsportsmanlike. Fights last too long.
  • Rahar
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    Prune needless AoE effects (specifically ones that do low damage or healing and have no secondary effects, such as a stun. example: DK's volatile armor, Sorc's boundless storm) and/or force all AoEs to have an upper target limit of 5-10. Change "smart healing" code to be selfish first (meaning that if you cast rapids and currently don't have the buff and are below full health, you would get the HoT as priority).

    Unsurprisingly I think this would also fix most lag issues.
    Edited by Rahar on June 16, 2020 3:23PM
    NeRf MaGsOrC
  • ItsJustHashtag
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    Rahar wrote: »
    Prune needless AoE effects (specifically ones that do low damage or healing and have no secondary effects, such as a stun. example: DK's volatile armor, Sorc's boundless storm) and/or force all AoEs to have an upper target limit of 5-10. Change "smart healing" code to be selfish first (meaning that if you cast rapids and currently don't have the buff and are below full health, you would get the HoT as priority).

    Unsurprisingly I think this would also fix most lag issues.

    Most ball groups don’t run volatile or boundless as they rely on a warden player running expansive frost cloak to give the group their armor buff or they run the mages guild skill that gives armor/magicka because they don’t have to worry about losing health to gain resources due to healing from the group.
  • Rahar
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    Rahar wrote: »
    Prune needless AoE effects (specifically ones that do low damage or healing and have no secondary effects, such as a stun. example: DK's volatile armor, Sorc's boundless storm) and/or force all AoEs to have an upper target limit of 5-10. Change "smart healing" code to be selfish first (meaning that if you cast rapids and currently don't have the buff and are below full health, you would get the HoT as priority).

    Unsurprisingly I think this would also fix most lag issues.

    Most ball groups don’t run volatile or boundless as they rely on a warden player running expansive frost cloak to give the group their armor buff or they run the mages guild skill that gives armor/magicka because they don’t have to worry about losing health to gain resources due to healing from the group.

    Sure. I was just giving an example or two to give my idea of needless AoE some clarity.
    NeRf MaGsOrC
  • DTAmoral
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    The only way you are going to get players to spread out is by giving the players a decent debuff when around X many friendly players.

    I dont know what the debuff needs to be, but it needs to be harsh. That is the ONLY way you will get zergs to spread out. (Either that or they will just die to a smaller group of enemy players not affected by the debuff((or at least not as severely))

    As for ball groups? They will just work around the debuff. Ball groups are hard to kill for a reason. They are a very coordinated group of players with specific builds for their group, and play style. These are the players that took what ZOS gave them, and made the best possible scenario with them.
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  • OBJnoob
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    "Either that or they will just die to a smaller group not affected by the debuff" <--- Aaaand this is why it's a terrible idea.

    10 people should beat 5 people. Every time. If they don't, it'd better be because the 5 people were WAY better than the 10. Not because the game introduced a penalty. I mean are we trying to make things fair, fix performance, or just literally punish people for being in large groups?

    "These are the players that took what ZOS gave them, and made the best possible scenario with them." <--- AKA good players.

    I wish there weren't so many people that feel the only true art or talent to this game is trying to be a 1vX Youtuber. And are in total denial about their own inability to handle the odds. And complain about perfectly normal things like Purge... Stuns... or the very existence of Healers.

    There's always a new patch. Or a new meta. Or a new OP ability. But the people that were amazing players before turn out to be amazing players after. Because they "took what ZOS gave them," and made the best possible scenario with it.

    If you tell a grand master chess player that "hey the Knight doesn't move like an L anymore it moves in a straight line," do you think that you're going to checkmate him finally? Or do you think, as before, he will adjust to the change slightly faster than you did?
  • Rahar
    Rahar
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    DTAmoral wrote: »
    The only way you are going to get players to spread out is by giving the players a decent debuff when around X many friendly players.

    I dont know what the debuff needs to be, but it needs to be harsh. That is the ONLY way you will get zergs to spread out. (Either that or they will just die to a smaller group of enemy players not affected by the debuff((or at least not as severely))

    As for ball groups? They will just work around the debuff. Ball groups are hard to kill for a reason. They are a very coordinated group of players with specific builds for their group, and play style. These are the players that took what ZOS gave them, and made the best possible scenario with them.

    You just made an argument and blew it out of the water in the same post. The problem groups are the ball groups, so what are you solving here?

    Anyway, limiting AoE effects to an arbitrary number (like 5 or 10) would fix huge coordinated clumps. A highly coordinated but smaller team would be able to stay on the outliers of a larger group (who would definitely make more mistakes) and whittle away stragglers while avoiding the lazy solution of slapping the large group with an arbitrary blanket debuff, which would be annoying and wouldn't make any sense gameplay wise.

    At the same time, the power of having more players would be preserved because you have more damage going out to the smaller group.
    Edited by Rahar on June 16, 2020 7:36PM
    NeRf MaGsOrC
  • OBJnoob
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    You also just made an argument and blew it out of the water in the same post.

    How about... if you want to use the word "arbitrary," you just realize it's a bad or thoughtless idea.

    And again... where is the assumption that the larger group would DEFINITELY make more mistakes coming from? From the last 2 years when they win and you lose? Yeah... limit AoE effects to 10. That way their whole group can still hit all of you but you can only hit half their group.

    You people don't even know what you're taaaaalking aboooout.
  • Rahar
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    OBJnoob wrote: »
    You also just made an argument and blew it out of the water in the same post.

    How about... if you want to use the word "arbitrary," you just realize it's a bad or thoughtless idea.

    And again... where is the assumption that the larger group would DEFINITELY make more mistakes coming from? From the last 2 years when they win and you lose? Yeah... limit AoE effects to 10. That way their whole group can still hit all of you but you can only hit half their group.

    You people don't even know what you're taaaaalking aboooout.

    You ever tried to lead a 40 man raid back in the day? There's a reason why that format was dropped. Leading more people leaves room for more mistakes. It's not really that hard to understand.

    Even if you could only hit half of theirs, they can only heal half of theirs. It works both ways.
    NeRf MaGsOrC
  • DTAmoral
    DTAmoral
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    OBJnoob wrote: »
    "Either that or they will just die to a smaller group not affected by the debuff" <--- Aaaand this is why it's a terrible idea.

    10 people should beat 5 people. Every time. If they don't, it'd better be because the 5 people were WAY better than the 10. Not because the game introduced a penalty. I mean are we trying to make things fair, fix performance, or just literally punish people for being in large groups?

    "These are the players that took what ZOS gave them, and made the best possible scenario with them." <--- AKA good players.

    I wish there weren't so many people that feel the only true art or talent to this game is trying to be a 1vX Youtuber. And are in total denial about their own inability to handle the odds. And complain about perfectly normal things like Purge... Stuns... or the very existence of Healers.

    There's always a new patch. Or a new meta. Or a new OP ability. But the people that were amazing players before turn out to be amazing players after. Because they "took what ZOS gave them," and made the best possible scenario with it.

    If you tell a grand master chess player that "hey the Knight doesn't move like an L anymore it moves in a straight line," do you think that you're going to checkmate him finally? Or do you think, as before, he will adjust to the change slightly faster than you did?

    Why should the ball groups be punished? Your logic of 10 should always beat 5 doesn't make sense.

    If you are in a ball group, you should only ever die to other ball groups. The ball groups SHOULD kill everybody.

    If you want to go as far as saying what is causing a ball group to be so strong then you would look at the skills they are using and seeing whats over performing. Off the top of my head the only thing I (a ballgrouper) can say is over performing is that Radiating Regen stacks. We run around with 7+ stacks on each person. (make it to where each player can only have 2-3 stacks)

    Killing ball groups is different than killing zergs.

    A good group of 7-10 should always be able to wipe a zerg of 20-30. If you have 20-30 randoms running around inside a keep, and trying to take flags, and a group of 7-10 in a tight ball group show up, they should, have, and will wipe them.

    Thats is happening now, and that is NOT a problem. I am sorry there are casual pvp players that get farmed by these groups, and cry about it.
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  • OBJnoob
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    I like your opinions DTA that’s why I’m not quoting anybody directly when I’m throwing my aggressive opinion in the mix. Nobody in particular... and at the same time almost everybody on this forum... basically are bad at the game or refuse to play it the way it’s meant to be played.

    From your own rather insightful post we hopefully can now see how stupid this whole conversation has been. 1) a ball group is not a zerg. 1) a smaller more organized group can beat a Zerg and it’s happening now.

    I never said ball groups should be punished. You did (by implying a debuff for nearby allies was a good idea.) I simply repeated it... in a way and context that I thought would make the sarcasm rather clear.

    These people... some of these people... they’re taking their group of 10 and attacking a Zerg of 20 and getting destroyed. What they don’t realize is that Zerg does not equal any group bigger than your own. Not all talented players solo. That’s not a Zerg it’s a big ball group. They are better than you. If you had 30 they’d still win.

    Which, I would think, renders this entire conversation moot.

    The good players can already do it. If you can’t it’s cuz you aren’t good enough. Period.
  • DTAmoral
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    @OBJnoob LOL Sorry sarcasm is sooo hard read into in these forums because MOST people here like you said are really bad at the game, and are just looking for a an easy way to kill good players.. (the rest of this post is not targeted at you OBJ) lol

    The debuff I proposed would be for the real zergs 20-30 players show up at a keep they should get some kind of debuff just for being there in that big a number. lol Maybe start the debuff at 15? and let it scale as more players pull up to the keep? I feel like that would cause players to either separate, form their own ball groups, solo , or the randoms that refuse to 'get good' will just stay there and die, and come here and complain.

    I feel like any group from 1-14 would be a decent size. Once you start going over that its like mehh maybe you should relax a little. Obviously there are ball groups that run 24 mans, those players would be affected by this change.

    This entire thread is pretty pointless (moot) as OBJ said before me, but for the sake of talking about it.

    If you find yourself getting killed even when you out number the players killing you dont complain. Look at what happened, and learn from it. Just because you joined a random LFG zerg doesn't automatically make you invincible. If anything you just made your zerg easier to pop.

    All it takes is 1-3 players dying to VD to ruin a zerg. Imagine if a group of 7-10 all with ults, ult dumps your zerg on the flags. Chances are there is a negate,streaking sorc (my job) there to stop you from doing mag abilities, and then stunning you while multiple bombers destro ult on your stunned body.

    Ball groups are the end game for the players that want to be serious in this game. (and solo play, they are there own thing) If you are not doing either of those, and you die to those. Its not that they are cheating, or exploiting, they are just meant to be better.

    Of course this is all my opinion dont freak out and get your thread closed by yelling at me lol
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  • Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
    Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
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    technohic wrote: »
    some crappy ball group runs into a good ball group and their little farming becomes threatened. What do they do? Stack more players into the ball. Doesn't matter if they are good at it, so long as they can follow the build guidelines and learn to stay on crown. Next thing you know, we are not talking about Drac and their 12 man ball group; but now we have full raids of 24 tightly stacked or at least as good as they can do because the quality of player gets more relaxed, but still; more strain on the server. Hell; I have seen some of them run 2 raids all together in a ball.

    I agree with this and the server performance shows it. I think perhaps the reason we disagree on some topics is because of the wording used. for example I don't consider people running in these 16-24+ frontline zerg groups to be a ball group, no matter how they play or what tactics they use.

    If you aren't fighting away from your faction, outnumbered and taking on enemy zerg groups you aren't playing as a ball group should play imo.

    Thats not to say that I don't occasionally frontline zerg or my guild, every guild and player has at some point but whats different is what your main aim is and the fights you usually take part in.

    So when you or others are saying that we need to remove ball groups to me it means that you want to encourage people to join these zerg groups who just outnumber and frontline down people because ball groups are meant to be a counter to these groups.
    Edited by Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO on June 16, 2020 8:44PM
    @Solar_Breeze
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  • OBJnoob
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    I really don’t like the idea of debuffing for allies around. Especially the way you sorta said it, DTA, where even people not in your group can show up and debuff you. I small scale and ball group with a guild called Swag (out of curiosity do you know swag DTA? You’re on Xbox na right?) and our allies frequently try to follow along and get some ticks.

    Which annoys us. But is understandable, because we play in ravenwatch and there’s not a ton of people and sometimes if you aren’t part of the main group you’re just not having much fun. But I don’t want to be debuffed because of them. And I don’t really want to have my glory taken from me when we beat a bigger group than us. I don’t want it to be because they were debuffed.

    Somebody mentioned limiting group sizes earlier. I think that’s just... a much better idea, and pretty much solves the same problem, and does it without introducing something mathematically and sportsmanshiply incorrect— like 5 characters of equal talent are better than 6 players of equal talent.

    To be honest this thread reads like my voice comms sound when I’m running with anyone other than my guild.

    “Oh my god I just got steamrolled in the back by 5 blues of course they Zerg me down when I’m trying to have a fair fight.”

    And then... the next night but the very same people... “blue to the left! Pull him out of invis! Look he’s trying to get in the door I’m bashing him I’m bashing him! Aaaaahahahaha get rekt you stupid pug.”

  • technohic
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    technohic wrote: »
    some crappy ball group runs into a good ball group and their little farming becomes threatened. What do they do? Stack more players into the ball. Doesn't matter if they are good at it, so long as they can follow the build guidelines and learn to stay on crown. Next thing you know, we are not talking about Drac and their 12 man ball group; but now we have full raids of 24 tightly stacked or at least as good as they can do because the quality of player gets more relaxed, but still; more strain on the server. Hell; I have seen some of them run 2 raids all together in a ball.

    I agree with this and the server performance shows it. I think perhaps the reason we disagree on some topics is because of the wording used. for example I don't consider people running in these 16-24+ frontline zerg groups to be a ball group, no matter how they play or what tactics they use.

    If you aren't fighting away from your faction, outnumbered and taking on enemy zerg groups you aren't playing as a ball group should play imo.

    Thats not to say that I don't occasionally frontline zerg or my guild, every guild and player has at some point but whats different is what your main aim is and the fights you usually take part in.

    So when you or others are saying that we need to remove ball groups to me it means that you want to encourage people to join these zerg groups who just outnumber and frontline down people because ball groups are meant to be a counter to these groups.

    The lines are blurry because the average zerg of PUGs can be overcome. My concern is there is starting to be more of a hybrid. The faction stack zerg try to do what you guys do, with stacking purges and regeneration and have enough people to spam bombard and talons and still have 10 bombers.

    That's why I was suggesting synergy requirements for the purge. Overlapping heal stacks is more difficult to address. Need to make it no so easy to do that just wranglingPUGs in zone is good enough for it to work.
  • Ranger209
    Ranger209
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    technohic wrote: »
    some crappy ball group runs into a good ball group and their little farming becomes threatened. What do they do? Stack more players into the ball. Doesn't matter if they are good at it, so long as they can follow the build guidelines and learn to stay on crown. Next thing you know, we are not talking about Drac and their 12 man ball group; but now we have full raids of 24 tightly stacked or at least as good as they can do because the quality of player gets more relaxed, but still; more strain on the server. Hell; I have seen some of them run 2 raids all together in a ball.

    I agree with this and the server performance shows it. I think perhaps the reason we disagree on some topics is because of the wording used. for example I don't consider people running in these 16-24+ frontline zerg groups to be a ball group, no matter how they play or what tactics they use.

    If you aren't fighting away from your faction, outnumbered and taking on enemy zerg groups you aren't playing as a ball group should play imo.

    Thats not to say that I don't occasionally frontline zerg or my guild, every guild and player has at some point but whats different is what your main aim is and the fights you usually take part in.

    So when you or others are saying that we need to remove ball groups to me it means that you want to encourage people to join these zerg groups who just outnumber and frontline down people because ball groups are meant to be a counter to these groups.


    I don't know, I kind of feel like ball groups dictate the existence of zerg groups. It's really the only way to take on a good ball group. If ball groups went away, the zerg groups may as well. They would at least no longer be necessary and lessen the need to run in them. Again, I don't know, it's a chicken/egg kind of thing.
  • OBJnoob
    OBJnoob
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    [quote="Rahar;c-6821867"
    You ever tried to lead a 40 man raid back in the day? There's a reason why that format was dropped. Leading more people leaves room for more mistakes. It's not really that hard to understand.

    Even if you could only hit half of theirs, they can only heal half of theirs. It works both ways.[/quote]

    No it doesn’t work both ways cuz the person healing your target isn’t the person that is your target. But when you get hit you’re the one healing yourself. Getting stuck on the wrong bar. Not able to do two things at once.

    Like the recent nerf to healing. You think that hurt the Zerg or the ballgroup? A dedicated ballgroup healer is gonna recover that lost 20% a lot easier than anyone running around solo hurting for bar space and multifunctional gear sets.

    Never mind the fact that I simply don’t agree. Some of these ideas are just wrong.

    And no I’ve never lead a 40 man raid. But you want to use the same breath to say that 1)40 men groups are inherently disorganized, and 2) there is a reason why that went away, and 3) you want to bring that up while supporting a stance that something should be done about numbers advantage?

    Uuh. Which is it? Are they too strong or are they too weak? Or is it entirely dependent on the skill levels of the participants?

  • Crash427
    Crash427
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    Ranger209 wrote: »
    technohic wrote: »
    some crappy ball group runs into a good ball group and their little farming becomes threatened. What do they do? Stack more players into the ball. Doesn't matter if they are good at it, so long as they can follow the build guidelines and learn to stay on crown. Next thing you know, we are not talking about Drac and their 12 man ball group; but now we have full raids of 24 tightly stacked or at least as good as they can do because the quality of player gets more relaxed, but still; more strain on the server. Hell; I have seen some of them run 2 raids all together in a ball.

    I agree with this and the server performance shows it. I think perhaps the reason we disagree on some topics is because of the wording used. for example I don't consider people running in these 16-24+ frontline zerg groups to be a ball group, no matter how they play or what tactics they use.

    If you aren't fighting away from your faction, outnumbered and taking on enemy zerg groups you aren't playing as a ball group should play imo.

    Thats not to say that I don't occasionally frontline zerg or my guild, every guild and player has at some point but whats different is what your main aim is and the fights you usually take part in.

    So when you or others are saying that we need to remove ball groups to me it means that you want to encourage people to join these zerg groups who just outnumber and frontline down people because ball groups are meant to be a counter to these groups.


    I don't know, I kind of feel like ball groups dictate the existence of zerg groups. It's really the only way to take on a good ball group. If ball groups went away, the zerg groups may as well. They would at least no longer be necessary and lessen the need to run in them. Again, I don't know, it's a chicken/egg kind of thing.

    Going off of Iz's definition there are only a handful of ball groups left on PC/NA and they only run at specific times, yet the zergs are still there almost round the clock.

    Fix the performance so people can actually cast proxy det/soul tether and i'd bet you'd see a lot less people stacked up. Too bad they can't or won't fix the game, so this is what we're left with.
  • Rahar
    Rahar
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    OBJnoob wrote: »
    Or is it entirely dependent on the skill levels of the participants?

    Yes. That's the single biggest factor in how well a group is going to do. Note that following a leader in a group is a skill that's mutually exclusive and more often than not at odds with how acclimated (for lack of a better term) a player is to playing solo or outnumbered. A good 1vX player won't carry all of that skill over to group play, and vice versa.
    OBJnoob wrote: »
    1)40 men groups are inherently disorganized

    They are; hands down. This extends to any "bigger" group. There are plenty of real world examples of this and a few examples you can derive from video games. The more people, the more effort it takes to respond quickly and effectively, the more chance that someone will do something wrong, and on and on. This is simple laws of probability in motion.

    This does not mean that if you have 40 skilled players and 20 idiots that the idiots will suddenly win. Nor does even it mean that if you have 40 skilled players and 20 skilled players that the 20 will always win. It just means that disorganization is more likely to occur in the larger group because more heads have to move in the same way at the same time.
    OBJnoob wrote: »
    2) there is a reason why that went away, and 3) you want to bring that up while supporting a stance that something should be done about numbers advantage?

    It went away because it's extremely hard to account for in game design.

    As for #3, I should have made my stance clear. I don't think that a numbers advantage is inherently wrong, or that something as major as actively disincentivizing players to work together in bigger groups should even be on the table. However, there should be times where numbers don't win, such as against two groups (one smaller, one larger) with a large skill disparity between them and a well-executed strategy in one's favor. This simply does not exist now thanks to effects like rapid regen and the sorc elite. The more, the better. It makes it even better that as you get more and more people in one place with more and more area effects, server response grinds to a halt (to the point that some guilds have specifically BUILT for making the other lag so the playing field could be leveled, so to speak; player skill doesn't matter when you have no control over response times).

    This is the crux of the current issue, in my eyes. The answer to your question of whether they're too strong or too weak is that they're too strong, but not against what you're expecting. There is obviously nothing inherently wrong with large groups of players coming together, and I loathe having to even make that clear. This is an MMO. However, something desperately needs to be done about the consequences of large amount of people playing together: i.e., the damage it causes to server latency. Limiting the amount of ticks that an AoE can fire off on an upper limit would give a good benchmark for measuring high stress levels, reduce the mean of those high stress levels (less effects ticking = less functions firing = less memory required to process), and improve the quality of play for everyone. So would limiting AoE effects on skills, like removing the ticks from volatile armor and boundless storm.

    I know all of that seems like a strange circle of logic, but if we can't gauge how effective a large group of players actually are, then what grounds do we have to start balancing them against a smaller group?
    NeRf MaGsOrC
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