NONSENSE: ally-targeted abilities will only apply to those in your group - THEN ESO NO LONGER AN MMO

LostToTheSea

KuroyukiESO wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

If you guys aren't willing to kite and string your targets out to distance yourself from the healbots keeping your X alive, then all you want is an easier X. As I said, the majority of those who put themselves through a true challenge in their 1vXs and see 1vX for what it should be are long gone. Don't come at me with that. 1vX is 1vX.

You basically just said that 1vX is only 1vX if done a certain way, but then said that 1vX is 1vX. Make up your mind. I've been doing this for years regardless, I don't need your blessing to determine whether my fights are valid or not. I was just trying to say that real 1vXers are tired of the carry mechanics in this game, and ZOS is putting forward the steps to fix them. God job ZOS.

Hello? Who's not tired of the carry mechanics in the game? That's a balancing issue. There's 2 levels to 1vX: Carried 1vX and non-carried 1vX. That's it. I never said anywhere that 1vX is done a certain way. 1vX is dynamic. You adapt to the fight at hand and the targets in front of you. The odds are against you, the 1, as you well know. The fight and game design is not supposed to be catered to you, the 1. It's overcoming the X, no matter what it is, in whatever way necessary. That's what 1vX is and you know this already. You are just happy your X's will be much simpler now or what? If those players are grouped, then all those carry mechanics you're speaking of are still present. Why are you two so defensive of your egos?

KuroyukiESO

LostToTheSea wrote: »

KuroyukiESO wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

If you guys aren't willing to kite and string your targets out to distance yourself from the healbots keeping your X alive, then all you want is an easier X. As I said, the majority of those who put themselves through a true challenge in their 1vXs and see 1vX for what it should be are long gone. Don't come at me with that. 1vX is 1vX.

You basically just said that 1vX is only 1vX if done a certain way, but then said that 1vX is 1vX. Make up your mind. I've been doing this for years regardless, I don't need your blessing to determine whether my fights are valid or not. I was just trying to say that real 1vXers are tired of the carry mechanics in this game, and ZOS is putting forward the steps to fix them. God job ZOS.

Hello? Who's not tired of the carry mechanics in the game? That's a balancing issue. There's 2 levels to 1vX: Carried 1vX and non-carried 1vX. That's it. I never said anywhere that 1vX is done a certain way. 1vX is dynamic. You adapt to the fight at hand and the targets in front of you. The odds are against you, the 1, as you well know. The fight and game design is not supposed to be catered to you, the 1. It's overcoming the X, no matter what it is, in whatever way necessary. That's what 1vX is and you know this already. You are just happy your X's will be much simpler now or what? If those players are grouped, then all those carry mechanics you're speaking of are still present. Why are you two so defensive of your egos?

I am not defensive of any kind of ego. I just know that over the years, 1vX has become more and more difficult due to lag, power creep, meta shifts, and the introduction of new /over performing sets and mechanics. 1vX in current patches is much more difficult than it used to be, and not because it takes "more skill". It's because the things being thrown at you in modern ESO are just outrageous, and the abysmal performance doesn't help at all. I don't want 1vX to be easy, no, quite the opposite. I still want it to be hard, but I want it to be hard in the way it used to be. "How many are there", "Is there good los around me?", "What classes am I dealing with?" as opposed to "How laggy is the server right now?", "How many different procs are there?", "How many of them have 60k HP and health based healing?"

LostToTheSea

KuroyukiESO wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

KuroyukiESO wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

If you guys aren't willing to kite and string your targets out to distance yourself from the healbots keeping your X alive, then all you want is an easier X. As I said, the majority of those who put themselves through a true challenge in their 1vXs and see 1vX for what it should be are long gone. Don't come at me with that. 1vX is 1vX.

You basically just said that 1vX is only 1vX if done a certain way, but then said that 1vX is 1vX. Make up your mind. I've been doing this for years regardless, I don't need your blessing to determine whether my fights are valid or not. I was just trying to say that real 1vXers are tired of the carry mechanics in this game, and ZOS is putting forward the steps to fix them. God job ZOS.

Hello? Who's not tired of the carry mechanics in the game? That's a balancing issue. There's 2 levels to 1vX: Carried 1vX and non-carried 1vX. That's it. I never said anywhere that 1vX is done a certain way. 1vX is dynamic. You adapt to the fight at hand and the targets in front of you. The odds are against you, the 1, as you well know. The fight and game design is not supposed to be catered to you, the 1. It's overcoming the X, no matter what it is, in whatever way necessary. That's what 1vX is and you know this already. You are just happy your X's will be much simpler now or what? If those players are grouped, then all those carry mechanics you're speaking of are still present. Why are you two so defensive of your egos?

I am not defensive of any kind of ego. I just know that over the years, 1vX has become more and more difficult due to lag, power creep, meta shifts, and the introduction of new /over performing sets and mechanics. 1vX in current patches is much more difficult than it used to be, and not because it takes "more skill". It's because the things being thrown at you in modern ESO are just outrageous, and the abysmal performance doesn't help at all. I don't want 1vX to be easy, no, quite the opposite. I still want it to be hard, but I want it to be hard in the way it used to be. "How many are there", "Is there good los around me?", "What classes am I dealing with?" as opposed to "How laggy is the server right now?", "How many different procs are there?", "How many of them have 60k HP and health based healing?"

I don't disagree with this at all. It's often infuriating to 1vX in the current meta and state of performance. That said, all of this falls back towards the combat team and balancing not being anywhere close to where it should be. If these carry mechanics were adjusted properly and performance was improved, then with *this change* 1vX would still not be what "it used to be". What it used to be was fighting against your X with their full capabilities available to them. That will no longer be the case after this change. I'm fairly sure we're both on the same page, but I will maintain this all comes down to balancing/performance issues and not anything to do with faction members playing as faction members (grouped or ungrouped should not change that dynamic).

Dunning_Kruger

Anyways fake solo player complaints aside. The reality is the test being implemented was the one test I played (I played through all the tests) that actually had an improvement on performance without making the game feel like hot *** (Templar main so many of the tests were bad). Also there were bugs in the cooldown system that could create global locks if you tried to spam queue the ability before it was off cooldown so I highly doubt that is a solution. Also the “best tests were the first tests” is honestly hot trash. Anyone who played the game thought it was strange to put the one of the worst tests during the IC event. Because then the sewers and IC were flooded with people getting double telvar and avoiding AoE cooldowns.

Joy_Division

nvm

badmojo

-Decreased group size to 4
-Removed the ability to lose a projectile by breaking line of sight.

Curious how you ballgroup and 1vX players would feel about changes that invalidate your preferred "behavior". And those are just a couple examples of possible changes. Feel free to imagine zos making any number of changes to your playstyle. Would you be happy about it happening? Would you appriciate players who would benefit from them coming along and telling you that you have been playing improperly for years? Telling you to man up and stop hiding behind your group or rocks?

Because that is how you are being towards anyone effected by these new changes that ZOS is dictating be implenented. And the CHERRY on top of it all, is the changes are being implemented for what ZOS admits is no notable performance gain.

red_emu

I love how everyone is talking about zerglings, zerg surfers, zergs... When an alliance attacks a keep and it's quickly defended by an entire pop locked server of the enemy faction, what do you expect? Attackers will call for help when outnumbered and people will come? Is it some sort of "bro code" that you can only take a keep in a ball group regardless of the number of defenders?

Same goes for the other way round. If you attack a keep with your "mega kewl" small scale group and 50 enemy players arrive to defend, is that zerg surfing? No. People see their keep is under attack and will head there to defend. There is nothing on the map stating how many attackers/defenders there are.

If you think that "zerg surfing" is easy, think again. If you get focused as a "surfer" by a coordinated group, you're dead. You can't call out for help on comms, you don't have 12 instances of rapid regen ticking on you, you don't have a purge applied every 0.5 seconds.

Many people like to hop in and out of the game or change characters often, so playing in group is just not their thing. Some players really enjoy being the support during sieges, healing people on ram etc.

Reducing group numbers and have abilities apply only to group members isn't gonna fix the lag. As soon as you see a ball group approaching, pulsating with a million lights of heal/purge/rapids/SAP essence the game pretty much goes into standstill for everyone apart from thay group. Those groups also experience lag, that is true but it doesn't matter. If 3 out of 6 instances of an ability fire off compared to three solo "zerg surfers" being completely locked out of their skills, who's got the advantage there?

Lag kills "zerg surfing" and it gives advantage to mindless spamming of abilities.

Cireous

Can someone tell me the source where this change has been decided?

Last I heard, all of this was just being "tested", and nothing was finalized yet, but this discussion seems to indicate otherwise.

ExistingRug61

Cireous wrote: »

Can someone tell me the source where this change has been decided?

Last I heard, all of this was just being "tested", and nothing was finalized yet, but this discussion seems to indicate otherwise.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7011951/#Comment_7011951
by Gina:

That said, there were a few elements from the various tests that we’ve decided to enable for both PC and console for the foreseeable future, as we liked the behavioral changes they brought. Starting on Monday, November 9 for consoles and November 16 for PC, we will be limiting group sizes in Cyrodiil to 12 players, and all ally-targeted abilities will only apply to those in your group.

NotTaylorSwift

badmojo wrote: »

-Decreased group size to 4
-Removed the ability to lose a projectile by breaking line of sight.

Curious how you ballgroup and 1vX players would feel about changes that invalidate your preferred "behavior". And those are just a couple examples of possible changes. Feel free to imagine zos making any number of changes to your playstyle. Would you be happy about it happening? Would you appriciate players who would benefit from them coming along and telling you that you have been playing improperly for years? Telling you to man up and stop hiding behind your group or rocks?

Because that is how you are being towards anyone effected by these new changes that ZOS is dictating be implenented. And the CHERRY on top of it all, is the changes are being implemented for what ZOS admits is no notable performance gain.

But generally ballgroups and small scale/solo players are much better at adapting than people who primarily zerg/zerg surf. Any change to nerf then, like what you said, would probably be adapted to. The ball group I run with played during the first gcd and also during the individual cooldown tests and we changed our builds a little to try and make it work. If the change became permanent we would have looked into more things we could change. The reason everyone was so against cooldowns was because it was unfun and just an all around bad idea that the game wasn’t designed for. But a smaller group size for example was something we talked about, trying to run as 2 smaller groups instead of 1 group (this was during the test which applied cooldowns and costs in groups of 6+, we didn’t actually do this but we talked about it)

Same goes for solo and small scale players, they just adapt to changes that nerf them. Small scale players have been getting nerfed for ages now while zergs get buffed, and they haven’t complained on the forums half as much as Zerg players have since the group limitation announcement. Just change your builds or join a group.

People keep saying, some only play for a short time, they swap chars etc etc. Why does that matter to join a pug group? It’s a pug group, you don’t have to stay for a set amount of time. You have no dedications there. You can join and leave whenever and how many times you want. Now that people have to group, there will be plenty of pug groups to join. I feel like people who play healers are just worried they won’t be able to find groups, but they will.

Cireous

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

Cireous wrote: »

Can someone tell me the source where this change has been decided?

Last I heard, all of this was just being "tested", and nothing was finalized yet, but this discussion seems to indicate otherwise.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7011951/#Comment_7011951
by Gina:

That said, there were a few elements from the various tests that we’ve decided to enable for both PC and console for the foreseeable future, as we liked the behavioral changes they brought. Starting on Monday, November 9 for consoles and November 16 for PC, we will be limiting group sizes in Cyrodiil to 12 players, and all ally-targeted abilities will only apply to those in your group.

Thank you

badmojo

Okay Taylor, heres an example for you.

-Added Cyrodiil group finder.
-Removed pre-made group in Cyrodiil.

Basically they force you to join a group finder group in order to enter Cyrodiil. If you leave that group you are removed from Cyrodiil.

It seems like you are more invested in the social aspects than the gameplay mechanics. So how would your guild adapt to a new system that actively prevented you from playing as a group?

Lets also assume that said changes would include a mechanic that forces you to stay with crown or you will be replaced and given a lengthy cooldown for joining a new group. Otherwise you could just run back to your guildmates. Pretend they covered all their bases to avoid exploitation.

Would you still support such changes and simply learn to adapt to them?

NotTaylorSwift

badmojo wrote: »

Okay Taylor, heres an example for you.

-Added Cyrodiil group finder.
-Removed pre-made group in Cyrodiil.

Basically they force you to join a group finder group in order to enter Cyrodiil. If you leave that group you are removed from Cyrodiil.

It seems like you are more invested in the social aspects than the gameplay mechanics. So how would your guild adapt to a new system that actively prevented you from playing as a group?

Lets also assume that said changes would include a mechanic that forces you to stay with crown or you will be replaced and given a lengthy cooldown for joining a new group. Otherwise you could just run back to your guildmates. Pretend they covered all their bases to avoid exploitation.

Would you still support such changes and simply learn to adapt to them?

Be realistic and stop reaching, thanks. There is no content in the game (now that they brought back group bgs) that you can’t do with a premade group unless it’s solo content. You can’t just throw unrealistic scenarios and ask if it changes my pov...
You literally just put forward something I obviously have no chance of being able to agree with just to try and invalidate what I said. These changes don’t stop healers from being able to play pvp or from being able to play the role they wanna play. They just have to join a group, it’s really not a big deal.

It’s not even an opinion, it’s a fact that small scalers, solo players and ballgroupers are more adaptable than MOST zerglings. Most of them aren’t as casual and builds + optimisation matters a lot more when you don’t have 30/40 other people to hide behind.

Zerglings just mad they are being nerfed for the first time since.... I can’t remember when.

Edit: also your scenario completely removes absolutely all social aspects of cyrodiil and does not make sense in an mmo. The actual group change doesn’t stop people from playing with friends or guilds and still allows random grouping.

badmojo

The only pvp guild I have been a part of is named 'Mostly Outnumbered'. We were formed from players who mostly played solo but always communicated and cooperated in zone chat. Eventually we came together and ran regular groups defending DCs buff campaign from massive zergs coming in from the big campaigns.

I mention this to show that solo players are not always anti social or against teamwork or forming guilds. I also mention this to emphasize that while I might be in zergs healing them a lot, I certainly do not use them to hide behind. Do I use numbers to my advantage? Of course, its basic strategy to kite enemies into range of the zerg. But I am also there throwing myself at zergs when we are outnumbered 2 to 1. A small number of us held AD and EP off at Fort Warden for a long time yesterday when AD was poplocked and EP and DC only had 2 bars. Then we fell back and kept our last scroll from being taken after warden finally did fall.

You can call me a zergling all you want. I really dont feel insulted by being called that. But just know that you are incorrect about my dislike for these changes. I simply want to heal, purge and buff every DC, weather they are a zerg, 1vXer, ball group or solo player... to me as long as you have that blue marker above your head I am willing to die fighting along side you. With this change that goes out the window and am left with a total of 11 players I can ever help.

You might see your guild group as THE weapon you are all working to wield. For me that weapon I am trying to help wield is the entire DC faction. I am a team player to the core, and my team has suddenly been reduced by a factor of 10.

Thraben

We should really start gathering ideas how large battles still can take place WHEN those changes arrive.

So what is required to make PuG raid leading more attractive, or at least bearable?

Tommy_The_Gun

Tbh. If we are going to "segregate" players like that (grouped or solo) I think at this point we should have some kind of global "player over-head" symbol. So every one would know who is in a group or not - because otherwise it will be a guessing game.

Imagine if you are a support / healer and all of the sudden you can not heal some one on a world boss or harrow-storm or PvP, because you have no clue (because there literately is no way for you to know that) that some one you are trying to heal is in a group, and therefore you heals do not work and you are only wasting magicka. Kinda unfair, right ?

I just wish every "play as you want" (solo, group, dps, tank, healer and what have you) would be treated fair, on an equal bases.

We can not heal our allies ? Fine. But at least show me clearly which allies are the ones that my heals wont work on.

x48rph

Thraben wrote: »

We should really start gathering ideas how large battles still can take place WHEN those changes arrive.

So what is required to make PuG raid leading more attractive, or at least bearable?

Not sure what would make it more attractive other than to tell people not to be scared and don't take it too serious. Most of leading a pug is just picking a target on the map and being like "yeah, lets go take/defend this" Sometimes it works, sometimes not, can't let it bother you or be worried you can't lead cause you might pick wrong. Everyone gets wiped at one point or another, it's no big deal.

(Also don't be ***. I join pugs for the laid back experience, if I wanted to be told everything I can and can't do like a mindless infantry soldier, I'd go join one of the guilds that operate like that)

Sephyr

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Tbh. If we are going to "segregate" players like that (grouped or solo) I think at this point we should have some kind of global "player over-head" symbol. So every one would know who is in a group or not - because otherwise it will be a guessing game.

Imagine if you are a support / healer and all of the sudden you can not heal some one on a world boss or harrow-storm or PvP, because you have no clue (because there literately is no way for you to know that) that some one you are trying to heal is in a group, and therefore you heals do not work and you are only wasting magicka. Kinda unfair, right ?

I just wish every "play as you want" (solo, group, dps, tank, healer and what have you) would be treated fair, on an equal bases.

We can not heal our allies ? Fine. But at least show me clearly which allies are the ones that my heals wont work on.

What's funny is that this was happening to me, though I was the one getting the heal spammed at me at a harrowstorm and my health wasn't moving. Meanwhile my Blood for Blood ability was dishing out that sweet, sweet DPS that it did before because the ring fixes it for soloing. God I missed it. It was beautiful. Some of us don't want to be healed because we deal more DPS that way, but that's ZoS's fault - not mine.

That being said, I can also see your point in "it'd be nice to know". I don't know how long they were spamming Healing Springs for, it must've been at least five minutes because there was only a handful of us and I was the only one dishing out ~40k on the pike.

nukk3r

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Tbh. If we are going to "segregate" players like that (grouped or solo) I think at this point we should have some kind of global "player over-head" symbol. So every one would know who is in a group or not - because otherwise it will be a guessing game.

Imagine if you are a support / healer and all of the sudden you can not heal some one on a world boss or harrow-storm or PvP, because you have no clue (because there literately is no way for you to know that) that some one you are trying to heal is in a group, and therefore you heals do not work and you are only wasting magicka. Kinda unfair, right ?

I just wish every "play as you want" (solo, group, dps, tank, healer and what have you) would be treated fair, on an equal bases.

We can not heal our allies ? Fine. But at least show me clearly which allies are the ones that my heals wont work on.

When you're in a group the health bars of your groupmates are blue, the rest are teal.

Joy_Division

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

-Decreased group size to 4
-Removed the ability to lose a projectile by breaking line of sight.

Curious how you ballgroup and 1vX players would feel about changes that invalidate your preferred "behavior". And those are just a couple examples of possible changes. Feel free to imagine zos making any number of changes to your playstyle. Would you be happy about it happening? Would you appriciate players who would benefit from them coming along and telling you that you have been playing improperly for years? Telling you to man up and stop hiding behind your group or rocks?

Because that is how you are being towards anyone effected by these new changes that ZOS is dictating be implenented. And the CHERRY on top of it all, is the changes are being implemented for what ZOS admits is no notable performance gain.

But generally ballgroups and small scale/solo players are much better at adapting than people who primarily zerg/zerg surf. Any change to nerf then, like what you said, would probably be adapted to. The ball group I run with played during the first gcd and also during the individual cooldown tests and we changed our builds a little to try and make it work. If the change became permanent we would have looked into more things we could change. The reason everyone was so against cooldowns was because it was unfun and just an all around bad idea that the game wasn’t designed for. But a smaller group size for example was something we talked about, trying to run as 2 smaller groups instead of 1 group (this was during the test which applied cooldowns and costs in groups of 6+, we didn’t actually do this but we talked about it)

Same goes for solo and small scale players, they just adapt to changes that nerf them. Small scale players have been getting nerfed for ages now while zergs get buffed, and they haven’t complained on the forums half as much as Zerg players have since the group limitation announcement. Just change your builds or join a group.

People keep saying, some only play for a short time, they swap chars etc etc. Why does that matter to join a pug group? It’s a pug group, you don’t have to stay for a set amount of time. You have no dedications there. You can join and leave whenever and how many times you want. Now that people have to group, there will be plenty of pug groups to join. I feel like people who play healers are just worried they won’t be able to find groups, but they will.

You have been told this numerous times by numerous people and yet you still claim to want to know why. Stop thinking of yourself and how you think the game should be played.

Let's just go with I don;t want to, among the other reasons that have already been given to you in this thread. I've subbed for 6 years, spent over $1100 on this game, doing my own thing, which I remind you is exactly what ZOS has been saying since even before launch: play as you want.

I don;t want to because I just feel like doing my own thing, going where I want to, not have to follow somebody else's instructions all the time, and not feel the pressure / stress that comes with grouping. It's not that hard of a concept. Sometimes on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I just want play and not be told what to do.

The DPS applauding this change would not for a second accept that their skills would not work unless they were tied to the hip of others every freaking time they wanted to play. I'm in a PvP guild and have friends on every faction, but sometimes I just want to do my own thing. It's not about not be able to find a group. It's that sometimes I don;t want to. Regardless of the stereotypical role people play, they should not feel pressured or coerced or forced to join these soon to be useless 12-man pugs that wont be able to do anything but PvDoor an undefended keep because "if you don;t play how we think you should play, we won't make your skills work at all." That's crap and anyone who is halfway objective will see that.

mikebald

I really enjoy how most of the responses here are based solely on empirical data and not on actual data provided by ZoS. You guys can go back and fourth about the validity of these changes, but in reality none of us know the actual performance hit of groups, smart healing, light attack weaving, or any other game-related tactics. We're relying on data from a company that has consistently provided it like they're doling out a non-renewable resource.

So, please stop talking like you know what's going on; none of us have the actual data to make any rational decisions about the validity of ZoS's claims.

Kartalin

Theignson wrote: »

"elite ball groups" (12 man or less) can also be carries.

It's way easier to get carried in 24 though, you can just get lost in the crowd and the group will be successful. People in 12 person groups have their own weight to pull, and at least in no-cp you can usually tell when someone isn't carrying their weight. On the rare occasion we've gotten 16 people in our groups (usually we're 8-12), we notice that our members for whatever reason do not play as sharp but the group can still be successful.

In addition to solo players not being able to heal/buff others, another issue is we cannot help keep the pugs that like to gather around us alive other than rezzing them. This includes the 15k health casual players/gankers who like to stand on our rams and proc vicious death on us.

NotTaylorSwift

Joy_Division wrote: »

[
You have been told this numerous times by numerous people and yet you still claim to want to know why. Stop thinking of yourself and how you think the game should be played.

Let's just go with I don;t want to, among the other reasons that have already been given to you in this thread. I've subbed for 6 years, spent over $1100 on this game, doing my own thing, which I remind you is exactly what ZOS has been saying since even before launch: play as you want.

I don;t want to because I just feel like doing my own thing, going where I want to, not have to follow somebody else's instructions all the time, and not feel the pressure / stress that comes with grouping. It's not that hard of a concept. Sometimes on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I just want play and not be told what to do.

The DPS applauding this change would not for a second accept that their skills would not work unless they were tied to the hip of others every freaking time they wanted to play. I'm in a PvP guild and have friends on every faction, but sometimes I just want to do my own thing. It's not about not be able to find a group. It's that sometimes I don;t want to. Regardless of the stereotypical role people play, they should not feel pressured or coerced or forced to join these soon to be useless 12-man pugs that wont be able to do anything but PvDoor an undefended keep because "if you don;t play how we think you should play, we won't make your skills work at all." That's crap and anyone who is halfway objective will see that.

You’re answering a question I didn’t even ask, assuming I’m asking the same thing over and over which I’m clearly not. All of the excuses people are giving to say that healing in group rather than solo is against their play style are pretty poor. You say u wanna do your own thing? You are STILL following other people as healer whether you are grouped or not. Soloing as a healer is nowhere near the same as soloing as a dd. You literally HAVE to follow the Zerg as a healer anyway...

Yeah I get you may wanna go somewhere that the crown is not going but at the end of the day most pug groups are following action on the map, which is what you are doing as a solo healer. What’s the difference between healing a Zerg at Chal or healing a Zerg at BRK?? You just don’t wanna follow a crown? Saying “bla bla bla I wanna do my own thing” is such a poor answer. You literally can’t do your own thing as a healer because you HAVE to go where the alliance is. Which is exactly what pug groups do... And like I said, if you end up in a group you don’t like then join another one. If you like no groups that you join then the problem more than likely lies with you...

Dame_Scorpio

"NotTaylorSwift wrote:

...All of the excuses people are giving to say that healing in group rather than solo is against their play style are pretty poor. You say u wanna do your own thing? You are STILL following other people as healer whether you are grouped or not. Soloing as a healer is nowhere near the same as soloing as a dd. You literally HAVE to follow the Zerg as a healer anyway...

Well, that's your opinion. My reasons for not wanting forced grouping are pretty valid, and no, not all solo healers "follow the Zerg". I gave my perspective on this and highlighted my reasons for loving this playstyle in the sticky thread.

So yeah, I'm absolutely bummed my favourite playstyle is irrelevant, but I'm more disappointed that the whole feeling of Cyrodiil has changed. It used to feel awesome to be able to help anyone and everyone I came across, truly like the whole alliance was part of something greater. Now healers are only relevant to 11 people, which feels selfish..yeah that's the word for how I feel about it.

Anyway, I know lots of people are happy, so I'm happy for them. I just wish they could be a little more gracious in allowing those of us who hate this change to be unhappy. For me, I won't be PvPing anymore because I hate the changes that much, but others will adapt and life goes on. It'll be interesting to see what Cyrodiil is like in a few months, but I suspect there will be far fewer solo and casual types like me.

NotTaylorSwift

Dame_Scorpio wrote: »

Well, that's your opinion. My reasons for not wanting forced grouping are pretty valid, and no, not all solo healers "follow the Zerg". I gave my perspective on this and highlighted my reasons for loving this playstyle in the sticky thread.

So yeah, I'm absolutely bummed my favourite playstyle is irrelevant, but I'm more disappointed that the whole feeling of Cyrodiil has changed. It used to feel awesome to be able to help anyone and everyone I came across, truly like the whole alliance was part of something greater. Now healers are only relevant to 11 people, which feels selfish..yeah that's the word for how I feel about it.

Anyway, I know lots of people are happy, so I'm happy for them. I just wish they could be a little more gracious in allowing those of us who hate this change to be unhappy. For me, I won't be PvPing anymore because I hate the changes that much, but others will adapt and life goes on. It'll be interesting to see what Cyrodiil is like in a few months, but I suspect there will be far fewer solo and casual types like me.

I’m not trying to invalidate peoples play styles even though it may seem like it. I just really think this reaction of people is just an overreaction. I don’t know your situation but if you aren’t in a pvp guild I’d highly recommend joining one. There are plenty of casual guilds that run multiple groups every day which you can join for as long or as little as you like. This change isn’t the end for healers in pvp and you don’t need to quit over it. A few years ago I was in a casual guild that ran pug groups in zone and guild chat which I always played healer with. Even when they weren’t running a group there were always people online to group with. I’ve always group healed in cyro and never really solo healed. Ye I guess it sucks if healing randoms is what you liked but imo this change is nothing for pvp healers to be so mad about.

Dame_Scorpio

"NotTaylorSwift wrote:

I’m not trying to invalidate peoples play styles even though it may seem like it. I just really think this reaction of people is just an overreaction. I don’t know your situation but if you aren’t in a pvp guild I’d highly recommend joining one. There are plenty of casual guilds that run multiple groups every day which you can join for as long or as little as you like. This change isn’t the end for healers in pvp and you don’t need to quit over it. A few years ago I was in a casual guild that ran pug groups in zone and guild chat which I always played healer with. Even when they weren’t running a group there were always people online to group with. I’ve always group healed in cyro and never really solo healed. Ye I guess it sucks if healing randoms is what you liked but imo this change is nothing for pvp healers to be so mad about.

That's fair, and yes, healing randoms was my favourite thing to do because I learned early on that there are many solo players who don't like grouping that I could help out. It seems that several people are assuming that solo healers just zerg surf, but that's just not true. Sure sometimes there's only one objective the whole faction zerg rallies to, but more often there are multiple keeps and resources that need taking/defending and as a solo I could respond to call outs to those that needed the most help. I could assess the map, decide which I thought would be the most important "win", and just go. With the new rules, I'm stuck where my group is and would have to ungroup and find a new group to move across the map. It's much less fluid and limits my freedom to choose.

So, while I get that there are issues with spam healing, I disagree this is the best way to go forward. ZOS is essentially removing an entire style of gameplay, and that's why it's so disapointing to those of us that loved that playstyle. There are many ways to group up, always has been and always will be, but that doesn't help those of us who want the freedom of not grouping. And, I'm not quitting because I'm mad about the changes, I'm quitting because it's just not fun for me anymore.

That said, given how divisive the opinions are on this, it's something that needs to happen now to see how people react and adapt (or not). Like with faction lock, I expect they'll end up opening a new campaign without forced grouping, which would be the best option IMO.

alterfenixeb17_ESO

mikebald wrote: »

I really enjoy how most of the responses here are based solely on empirical data and not on actual data provided by ZoS. You guys can go back and fourth about the validity of these changes, but in reality none of us know the actual performance hit of groups, smart healing, light attack weaving, or any other game-related tactics. We're relying on data from a company that has consistently provided it like they're doling out a non-renewable resource.

So, please stop talking like you know what's going on; none of us have the actual data to make any rational decisions about the validity of ZoS's claims.

From green post:

While these improvements look good on a spreadsheet, they do not have a significant enough impact on improving the overall player experience

Sadly it does not say explicitly that only those so called major changes are not affected whatever those changes may be given what was tested really. In fact it is safe to assume it applies to any change that was tested, including reduced groups size as well as limiting skills of any sort. Also another thing:

That said, there were a few elements from the various tests that we’ve decided to enable for both PC and console for the foreseeable future, as we liked the behavioral changes they brought

Now here is a problem as from many players pov overall testing period was flawed by lots of people actually dropping from Cyrodiil - not just solo players or some ball groups that people here seem to be fixated on but regular players that are 100% dedicated to grouping and working together with the rest of alliance also dropped or at least reduced their activity. That includes week when changes to be introduced were tested - which happens to be time when some players (and some guilds even) "officially" dropped from Cyrodiil at least for the time being claiming to never come back. Now here is the question: were those changes successful because they worked well or because some people just got fed up with testing (and therefore test subjects left experiment)? From that pov it is good to have some discussion over validity and actual reasoning behind it.

Joy_Division

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

[
You have been told this numerous times by numerous people and yet you still claim to want to know why. Stop thinking of yourself and how you think the game should be played.

Let's just go with I don;t want to, among the other reasons that have already been given to you in this thread. I've subbed for 6 years, spent over $1100 on this game, doing my own thing, which I remind you is exactly what ZOS has been saying since even before launch: play as you want.

I don;t want to because I just feel like doing my own thing, going where I want to, not have to follow somebody else's instructions all the time, and not feel the pressure / stress that comes with grouping. It's not that hard of a concept. Sometimes on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I just want play and not be told what to do.

The DPS applauding this change would not for a second accept that their skills would not work unless they were tied to the hip of others every freaking time they wanted to play. I'm in a PvP guild and have friends on every faction, but sometimes I just want to do my own thing. It's not about not be able to find a group. It's that sometimes I don;t want to. Regardless of the stereotypical role people play, they should not feel pressured or coerced or forced to join these soon to be useless 12-man pugs that wont be able to do anything but PvDoor an undefended keep because "if you don;t play how we think you should play, we won't make your skills work at all." That's crap and anyone who is halfway objective will see that.

You’re answering a question I didn’t even ask, assuming I’m asking the same thing over and over which I’m clearly not. All of the excuses people are giving to say that healing in group rather than solo is against their play style are pretty poor. You say u wanna do your own thing? You are STILL following other people as healer whether you are grouped or not. Soloing as a healer is nowhere near the same as soloing as a dd. You literally HAVE to follow the Zerg as a healer anyway...

Yeah I get you may wanna go somewhere that the crown is not going but at the end of the day most pug groups are following action on the map, which is what you are doing as a solo healer. What’s the difference between healing a Zerg at Chal or healing a Zerg at BRK?? You just don’t wanna follow a crown? Saying “bla bla bla I wanna do my own thing” is such a poor answer. You literally can’t do your own thing as a healer because you HAVE to go where the alliance is. Which is exactly what pug groups do... And like I said, if you end up in a group you don’t like then join another one. If you like no groups that you join then the problem more than likely lies with you...

They aren't excuses. Why must they give what you deem is the proper rationale? Their $15 a month is the same as everyone else's. It's a preference of playing how they want, one that ZOS has not only enabled, but encouraged and insisted was their modus operandi since launch.

If you are so big on group objective play and healers performing their stereotypical duty and being in a properly sanctioned group, then knock yourself in battlegrounds. ZOS already caters to people who want that. Why is it necessary to change and disrupt the open world alliance play that has some free form elements to it without crippling restrictions that obviously a lot of people have expressed they enjoy?

If you can;t grasp the difference between being tied to the hip and having to entreat somebody else that you'd like to go fight that 2 man who just took BRK lumbermill as opposed to just go doing it, then I don't know what to tell you. It's pretty self-evident. It is night and day to go and choose the fight that they would like to participate in without needing the sanction of someone else, to say nothing of being overruled and obligated to instead go PvDoor useless Drake. That's the point. You don;t have to do a damn thing.

But there are very real mechanical consequences to ZOS's decision that make a mockery of the AvAvA format. We're all supposed to be on the same team. Group size is limited to 12, so there will be situations you wont be able to be able to heal your so-called "teammates" who you are depending on to do something useful to win an objective, but somehow it's perfectly fine for an ungrouped DPS to damage them. That's something a DPS would think that's fine, logical, fair, and consistent. Let's say I do my good duty as a healer and sign up for one of these PuG groups, and we're defending Chalman. I'm a competitive person and I want to win this keep defense. So I go upstairs and set some oils. Do you even partake in keep defense? Or are you just looking forward to mercilessly farming randoms that can;t heal each other while your small scale group can, because that's totally fair and logical right? I ask because if you did and paid attention, you'd know that even right now when any allies can heal each other, the top floor is a death zone of meatbag heal debuffs, scattershot damage amps, and 9K coldfire ticks that already decimate players up there who try to countersiege. I rez people up there All. The. Time. Hell, I am templar with a cleanse and a burst heal and sometimes even I have to just give up on oiling because the damage is insane. And you think it's a good idea not to let them heal each other? That somehow makes sense in an alliance format? You're going to have to explain that. It is an alliance war, those are my teammates, I am counting on them, these very people who clog my que and make me wait, who I am reliant on for this defense, to survive and do something productive to win this fight, and we’re purportedly on the same alliance and supposed to be in this together and yet my heals wont function on them whereas every single enemy player action can kill them. That is absurd. So even if I follow your supposed solution, which I don;t want to and nobody should be forced to do, it still presents rule inconsistencies where opponent's skills potentially work better simply because they are in the same group, aside from negating the concept of an alliance war with objectives that people are supposed to use their class abilities to work together for.

tinythinker

Dame_Scorpio wrote: »

So yeah, I'm absolutely bummed my favourite playstyle is irrelevant, but I'm more disappointed that the whole feeling of Cyrodiil has changed. It used to feel awesome to be able to help anyone and everyone I came across, truly like the whole alliance was part of something greater. Now healers are only relevant to 11 people

Yup.

The problem with talking about anything in ESO, especially PvP, is that some people who post and reply about certain topics want to pigeon-hole and stereotype and blame those "types" of players for things. It's easy to cast blame that way and agitate that "those kinds of players" are the root of every issue.

• Have great gear and lots of practiced skill? You're an elitist %$#^.
• Have poorer gear, less time to practice, or just like jumping in to try something? You're a dumb scrub.
• Like to heal? You're an AP leech.
• Run in a well-organized group? You're a ball-%^$*&^.
• Want to just jump into a PUG? You're a zergling.
• Prefer to do your own thing and follow the action? You're a zerg surfer.

Well, my gear is so-so, my skill is so-so in Cyrodiil, and when I visit there I like to 1) heal and 2) run siege. I particularly like defense. I don't get loads of AP for healing, btw. They've nerfed that in the past and that's fine with me. My alliance rank moves slower than a snail.

Worried about nasty wasty people who get AP from healing other players? Then limit AP gains to healing your group (and buff those gains back up again if that's the case) if you want to promote grouping. Too much healing spam impacting performance? I'd personally prefer some kind of "streak treatment" (increasing cost if cast too frequently) for healing abilities if it means I can heal any and all of my allies. With the streak approach or even a cool-down limit I can learn, adapt, and improve by rotating spells, noting how long each HoT lasts, making on the fly choices for when to pop a burst heal, etc.

I like running across one or two allies who have been ambushed and healing them. I like helping defenders hold out against superior numbers by offering cleanses, shields, and healing spells. I like to make a difference to my alliance. Anywhere. Everywhere. At any time.

Regardless of what ZOS does now or in the future, that's what I like and it doesn't make me a leech or a scrub or a zerg surfer. It makes me a healer in war zone. You can cheer or boo the current plans for healing in Cyrodiil yet still acknowledge there are people who are going to have something they enjoy taken away. You can love the change and still appreciate how much the change will suck for some of us, it doesn't have to be antagonistic. Otherwise it's no longer about the health of the game or performance, it's just about you.

loosely_human

badmojo wrote: »

The only pvp guild I have been a part of is named 'Mostly Outnumbered'. We were formed from players who mostly played solo but always communicated and cooperated in zone chat. Eventually we came together and ran regular groups defending DCs buff campaign from massive zergs coming in from the big campaigns.

I mention this to show that solo players are not always anti social or against teamwork or forming guilds. I also mention this to emphasize that while I might be in zergs healing them a lot, I certainly do not use them to hide behind. Do I use numbers to my advantage? Of course, its basic strategy to kite enemies into range of the zerg. But I am also there throwing myself at zergs when we are outnumbered 2 to 1. A small number of us held AD and EP off at Fort Warden for a long time yesterday when AD was poplocked and EP and DC only had 2 bars. Then we fell back and kept our last scroll from being taken after warden finally did fall.

You can call me a zergling all you want. I really dont feel insulted by being called that. But just know that you are incorrect about my dislike for these changes. I simply want to heal, purge and buff every DC, weather they are a zerg, 1vXer, ball group or solo player... to me as long as you have that blue marker above your head I am willing to die fighting along side you. With this change that goes out the window and am left with a total of 11 players I can ever help.

You might see your guild group as THE weapon you are all working to wield. For me that weapon I am trying to help wield is the entire DC faction. I am a team player to the core, and my team has suddenly been reduced by a factor of 10.

So this. I am a zerg surfer type but consider the whole faction my team. I go wherever I want, then dive in to defend outnumbered players, disrupt the enemy, rez everyone in sight, etc, then move on. That is fun and fulfilling. I'm not social, am too ADHD to follow a crown, but still love being part of a team.

Oh well. I've been meaning to rewatch all 7 seasons of Buffy for awhile..