ZOS please consider dissolving ball groups

Ranger209

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanctum74 wrote: »

There’s been some great suggestions in regards to eliminating heal stacking and cool downs on purge and I’d even be for disabling proxy det and vd for groups, but even if they did that an organized group will always have an advantage. No amount of nerfing is ever going to change that.

Even if they do remove heal stacking and purge cool downs gotta remember that it will also apply to everyone else so you could end up hurting yourself even more.

The biggest problem I see with ball groups isn’t really with them it’s the people they kill. They always chase them wasting all their resources and not keeping their buffs and heals up. Then the ball group turns around and kills them. They follow the same pattern back and forth. Instead of moving 5 feet to the side and keeping their buffs up, they try to run away and get trampled over and over. I don’t think the game should be adjusted for people not willing to learn the basics. Just my opinion as a solo.

What you're pointing out is an example of their offensive power and coordination, and changing heal stacking and group purging won't impact that at all, agreed. Where I see a problem with balance has to do with their defensive power and those are absolutely tied to stacked healing and group purging.
Changing those defensive mechanics won't change the players who are eager to dive into choke points and get hit by 4-5 ultimates at once, but that's not a problem from my perspective, that's just getting outplayed. Where I see a problem is that the defensive mechanics used by organized groups are so far out of balance versus unorganized groups that even with siege damage, bomb attempts, and disruptive tactics (chaining, fear traps, etc) it still takes almost a perfect storm of lag and bad luck to overcome the defensive power.
That's not healthy and it's not balanced.

First off if you want to look at the tank meta it starts right here with ball groups. Used to be 27k hp was required, then it went to 30k, next it went to 32k, and some ball groups these days I target players within them and can't find anyone with less then 35k hp. How is anyone supposed to try to compete against that other than by following along, and trying to build more tanky, and stay out of VD range as well. If you are solo or pug and not doing this, you are already behind the 8 ball. So there is that.

Compound it with all the defensive benefits you gain by grouping with layered hots and purging basically every second whether through gear procs or manual purges, and it's just nuts. Will be interested to see if curse lasts longer than 1 second without procs running to see if it is proc set purges or manually pressed purges wiping curse every second by these groups.

Top it off with perma CC spamming, ulti dumping, AOE bombing skills by 8 or so members of these groups all landing simultaneously. People want to see bomber builds removed, well a ball group literally has 8 bombers in their group, built for immortality so their bombs are only half as strong, but when 8 do it at once they are suddenly 4 times stronger than a single bomber.

It's a mess from every angle. Should they be stronger, yes, but it's just crazy how much stronger they can be. I don't necessarily want the play style to go away, but if you want to talk about power creep their is no bigger power creep in the game than what you see between optimizing a PvP group compared to a non optimized pug group. This power creep needs to be reeled in, between optimized groups and pugs.

Berenhir

Ranger209 wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanctum74 wrote: »

There’s been some great suggestions in regards to eliminating heal stacking and cool downs on purge and I’d even be for disabling proxy det and vd for groups, but even if they did that an organized group will always have an advantage. No amount of nerfing is ever going to change that.

Even if they do remove heal stacking and purge cool downs gotta remember that it will also apply to everyone else so you could end up hurting yourself even more.

The biggest problem I see with ball groups isn’t really with them it’s the people they kill. They always chase them wasting all their resources and not keeping their buffs and heals up. Then the ball group turns around and kills them. They follow the same pattern back and forth. Instead of moving 5 feet to the side and keeping their buffs up, they try to run away and get trampled over and over. I don’t think the game should be adjusted for people not willing to learn the basics. Just my opinion as a solo.

What you're pointing out is an example of their offensive power and coordination, and changing heal stacking and group purging won't impact that at all, agreed. Where I see a problem with balance has to do with their defensive power and those are absolutely tied to stacked healing and group purging.
Changing those defensive mechanics won't change the players who are eager to dive into choke points and get hit by 4-5 ultimates at once, but that's not a problem from my perspective, that's just getting outplayed. Where I see a problem is that the defensive mechanics used by organized groups are so far out of balance versus unorganized groups that even with siege damage, bomb attempts, and disruptive tactics (chaining, fear traps, etc) it still takes almost a perfect storm of lag and bad luck to overcome the defensive power.
That's not healthy and it's not balanced.

First off if you want to look at the tank meta it starts right here with ball groups. Used to be 27k hp was required, then it went to 30k, next it went to 32k, and some ball groups these days I target players within them and can't find anyone with less then 35k hp. How is anyone supposed to try to compete against that other than by following along, and trying to build more tanky, and stay out of VD range as well. If you are solo or pug and not doing this, you are already behind the 8 ball. So there is that.

Compound it with all the defensive benefits you gain by grouping with layered hots and purging basically every second whether through gear procs or manual purges, and it's just nuts. Will be interested to see if curse lasts longer than 1 second without procs running to see if it is proc set purges or manually pressed purges wiping curse every second by these groups.

Top it off with perma CC spamming, ulti dumping, AOE bombing skills by 8 or so members of these groups all landing simultaneously. People want to see bomber builds removed, well a ball group literally has 8 bombers in their group, built for immortality so their bombs are only half as strong, but when 8 do it at once they are suddenly 4 times stronger than a single bomber.

It's a mess from every angle. Should they be stronger, yes, but it's just crazy how much stronger they can be. I don't necessarily want the play style to go away, but if you want to talk about power creep their is no bigger power creep in the game than what you see between optimizing a PvP group compared to a non optimized pug group. This power creep needs to be reeled in, between optimized groups and pugs.

Your post just shows that you have no idea how ball groups are built or operate.

First, that you cannot find anyone below 35k HP in the ball group mainly is down to having someone with Ebon in group and having minor toughness up at all times which ZOS gave as THE main group buff to wardens. Having other health boosts from ayleid wells or getting emp further exacerbates these issues. ZOS - in all their wisdom - also keep introducing high health food and more and more ways to stack health without downsides.
The next step on that path is by the way the huge stamina management boosts light armour gets next patch which now makes any form of stam sustain on ball group magicka builds irrelevant (as it is mostly already now, even in nCP because of Snow Treaders).

The health cap of ball groups did not change, yet the game just allowed for having more health for free. The function of high health pools in ball groups is by the way preventing to be bursted and buying the healers time to react due to lag. This strategy was first introduced after one tamriel with plague doctor raids in 5 heavy with up to 42k HP damage nightblades. Back then, you had to drop damage to get these high health values. ZOS made that a base game feature of groups by introducing wardens and absurdly stat dense food like sugar skulls.

A distributed purge system has been the staple of better ball groups for years now. It usually is barely enough to combat the ridiculous amount of damage siege dots deal. I would advocate for purge to be nerfed hard when siege can no longer be used against players. As it stands now, stupid gameplay (sieging players) has a stupid counter (purging like mad). When you try to dot up a ball group player with curse even though you know they purge all the time, you are just delusional.

There are btw two usable purge sets for ballgroups, one is curse eater which is very strong and has an 8 second global cooldown per target and the other one is stendarr which is also very strong but has a low frequency. Most purging happens by using purge/efficient cleanse or necros spamming renewing undeath on the offense. Also, ZOS introduced passive afk purging by giving wardens a free one debuff purge on a spammable 0 cost ability that also ticks every 5 second without spamming it.

Ball groups have no "perma CC spam" they just CC whenever they are able to burst you down, which is always. Any noob player will CC you on cooldown, this is a basic game mechanic. Ult dumping is also an intended game mechanic.
A ball group will not have 8 players ult dumping you btw, even the very damage oriented 12 player groups barely have more than 5 or 6 dedicated damage dealers, some even have less.

These builds are not built for immortality, in fact, the only thing they invest into anything else but damage is health which they get on a discount from prismatics and ZOS funny health buffs.

At the moment, these builds with all buffs running will have stats like these inside an ult drop for a stam toon



Dawnbreaker tooltip around 75k total, spin2win 17k damage.

This already factors in that orbs are broken at the moment, so you would have to add another ~600 WD on top when they are functional next patch again as you have to build regen on stam nowadays. Oh yes and another 1k base weapon damage next patch. And 3k pen from maces, whose 20% current pen are not shown on the screen here.

Also note that all damage is amplified by malcath.

You see a pattern? It is not ball groups that are the issue unbalancing the game. It is the developer's game design that rewards every group with a healer and a stamDD with around 1k additional weapon damage just for being there because ZOS spread sheet balanced some sets and wanted to incentivize grouping up.

Organized groups with literate designers are handed all the help they could dream of by the game developers. Patch after patch after patch these boosts to ball group gameplay become more and more ridiculous.

It is also just not about "ball groups" as a certain form of group. ZOS just wants people to group up and the better build groups to have a huge advantage. This is blatantly obvious.

On your last point: It is impossible to alleviate the skill gap in action combat PvP. As there are people barely able to press the right button or process more than one information every 20 seconds going up against players who are basically trained virtual martial artists.

Crash427

^so much this.

I can hit close to 9k spell damage on my bomber in group with all possible buffs. Now its rare that everything lines up perfect so I'm usually well under that but I still do significantly more damage in group than on a solo bomb build. I'm also easily over 30k health in group and have plenty of regen. Makes it feel like why bother doing anything else when I'm so much stronger in an optimized group.

This is the reason ballgroups are so strong though. They(we)play the game as it is, not as it's supposed to be. The game's too laggy for healers to be effective? We add more health to give healers time. Losing people to disconnects and rollbacks? We add redundancy in each role.

When I was a solo player I wouldn't have bothered, I just went and found something better to play.

Katahdin

I'm starting to see recently, that the solution seems to be to actively tell the map to leave the ball group alone.
The zone generals literally say to the faction "Leave the ball group in the keep alone, dont feed them AP"

Ball groups don't want to fight each other, actively avoid each other or all transfer to the same faction so they don't have to fight each other.
We don't want to fight them either.

Let them take the keep, take the scrolls, whatever, we don't care.

Sometimes the pugs play ring around the keep with them for a bit, but many are done getting farmed by them.

Let them get bored, leave and then we do what we have to do.

Many even just log off rather than deal with them

.

Joy_Division

Berenhir wrote: »

I have some nice footage here to sum up this whole discussion.

It basically shows all aspects of this discussion. We encounter:

- the unresponsive and repetitive behaviour of unorganized groups stacking up again and again
- around 6:00 minutes into the video we see how a small group of "zerglings" suddenly is able to pressure an organized ball group by pulling out single players and disrupting movement
- we see how the leader starts to make mistakes trying to save the tick(which he loses) as well as his players (which he eventually saves)
- we see how this happens due to absolutely *** game additions like rezz ult and earthgore, which - while being a staple of unorganized zerg gameplay - are also used by organized groups

The example group has only three proximity detonations and two players with VD while around two third of their damage is stamina based and doesn't stem from the sources that are deemed as so problematic here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__3Fk3WXrw4

Gonna be honest here. I run in an organized group so I know the drill of how and why they function. But after 30 seconds of watching the video, the only thing I could keep my eyes on was the buff tracker, which often had at least 4 rapid regenerations going on at one time. Seeing 37K health is also something I have difficulty unseeing, but you are quite right in your later post that says this is a consequence of ZOS's changes that did not take into account long term implications.

Years ago, I remember our group used to run the three different versions of Hots (including the unmorphed version) for the specific reason so they would stack. I stopped caring how exactly ZOS's unwritten mechanics worked years ago so I can't say for certain whether or not back in the day we were wrong that the same named heals stacked. But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

I tell myself I run a minimal UI because I don't like clutter, but maybe it's really because I just don't want to see these numbers and mechanics in detail.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

It's plus sides are that HoT heals where you don't need to be standing on the healing spot are obviously better for situations where you need to spread out (think the current synergy, proxy scaling, vd meta).
Ironically groups were weaker before because they were forced to stack in the damage due to the healing method (after the AOE cap change) but people cheered that springs was being removed so that "groups couldn't stack up", for me it just tells me that people in general don't understand group combat mechanics whenever I see similar style posts these days.

Now you have those who are upset because healing can only go onto allies within groups, and cheering that ZOS has rescinded this restriction. Yet at the same time calling for heal stacking to be removed. This will mean that you have less healing from ungrouped allies, because when you are low and 4 people cast single target mutagen at you you will only get one of them as an ungrouped player. People when solo tend to only use a certain range of specific heals. Meaning Groups will have even more healing if both went ahead. (from the pugs + their own group).

Berenhir

Joy_Division wrote: »

Berenhir wrote: »

I have some nice footage here to sum up this whole discussion.

It basically shows all aspects of this discussion. We encounter:

- the unresponsive and repetitive behaviour of unorganized groups stacking up again and again
- around 6:00 minutes into the video we see how a small group of "zerglings" suddenly is able to pressure an organized ball group by pulling out single players and disrupting movement
- we see how the leader starts to make mistakes trying to save the tick(which he loses) as well as his players (which he eventually saves)
- we see how this happens due to absolutely *** game additions like rezz ult and earthgore, which - while being a staple of unorganized zerg gameplay - are also used by organized groups

The example group has only three proximity detonations and two players with VD while around two third of their damage is stamina based and doesn't stem from the sources that are deemed as so problematic here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__3Fk3WXrw4

Gonna be honest here. I run in an organized group so I know the drill of how and why they function. But after 30 seconds of watching the video, the only thing I could keep my eyes on was the buff tracker, which often had at least 4 rapid regenerations going on at one time. Seeing 37K health is also something I have difficulty unseeing, but you are quite right in your later post that says this is a consequence of ZOS's changes that did not take into account long term implications.

Years ago, I remember our group used to run the three different versions of Hots (including the unmorphed version) for the specific reason so they would stack. I stopped caring how exactly ZOS's unwritten mechanics worked years ago so I can't say for certain whether or not back in the day we were wrong that the same named heals stacked. But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

I tell myself I run a minimal UI because I don't like clutter, but maybe it's really because I just don't want to see these numbers and mechanics in detail.

Well, now imagine that we run a rather odd group composition as of this meta:

We don't have a magicka exclusive group with 10-12 out of 12 people spamming radiating regeneration from their back bar with a maelstrom restoration staff for 500 magicka restored per second. Yet our raw healing output looks like this:



ZOS explicitly wanted the HoTs to stack (which they didn't before) and thus to enable organized groups to not be pidgeon holed into running in a ball (which they did primarily to get everybody into their healing springs) - as this had actual mechanical counters with a stacked groups and ground being hots being more vulnerable to negates and bomb attempts - but now enabled them to just merrily slaughter people even when they attack in a wide spread formation or are pulled out of group.

I probably don't have to mention the lucky development decision of harmony boosting (mostly magicka based) synergies with proxy deto being magicka based and adding a ridiculous cheap spammable back bar hot that also restores 500 magicka per second while enabling you to use spell symmetry and therefore ignore any form of magicka sustain while also having vicious death as a magicka based set (which was also buffed btw). Also, earthgore down to a 20 second cooldown, purging negates off the ground in case you get trapped in an unfavourable spot.

There is no indication whatsoever that ZOS DOESN'T want to boost organized magicka ball groups through the roof patch after patch.

Oh yes, next patch they get 40% less break free cost because - why not?

Berenhir

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

I didn't check it as of late but the targeting issue with Regeneration should have been resolved for years, as 2.7.1 patched regeneration to be a smart heal:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3671748/#Comment_3671748

Also, I am fairly sure mutagen did not stack back in the day when healing springs were a thing (also it only healed for half of its current tooltip and over 20 seconds and only 2 targets)

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Berenhir wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

I didn't check it as of late but the targeting issue with Regeneration should have been resolved for years, as 2.7.1 patched regeneration to be a smart heal:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3671748/#Comment_3671748

Also, I am fairly sure mutagen did not stack back in the day when healing springs were a thing (also it only healed for half of its current tooltip and over 20 seconds and only 2 targets)

It did stack and in a way longer hots are somewhat more valuable for some purposes. But I was referring mainly to the prebuffing \ casting in combat it won't evenly spread over your raid so it's unlikely people ever have 12 stacks of mutagen even if everyone is using it. The more common amount of stacks are between 2 and 5.

Earthewen

I'm a little concerned about some videos I've watched of ball groups. I actually saw players swapping gear in the middle of combat, evidenced by the live feed they were putting on twitch. How is this even possible? How could they swap gear when that is supposed to be locked?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Earthewen wrote: »

I'm a little concerned about some videos I've watched of ball groups. I actually saw players swapping gear in the middle of combat, evidenced by the live feed they were putting on twitch. How is this even possible? How could they swap gear when that is supposed to be locked?

Its not possible to swap gear in combat, however when you kill your opponents especially as a DD you can often get out of combat fairly quickly. It's generally only people who tag someone but don't kill them who stay in combat.

Also depending on the situation if someone in your group is in combat it doesnt always mean you will be instantly too.

Joy_Division

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

It's plus sides are that HoT heals where you don't need to be standing on the healing spot are obviously better for situations where you need to spread out (think the current synergy, proxy scaling, vd meta).
Ironically groups were weaker before because they were forced to stack in the damage due to the healing method (after the AOE cap change) but people cheered that springs was being removed so that "groups couldn't stack up", for me it just tells me that people in general don't understand group combat mechanics whenever I see similar style posts these days.

Now you have those who are upset because healing can only go onto allies within groups, and cheering that ZOS has rescinded this restriction. Yet at the same time calling for heal stacking to be removed. This will mean that you have less healing from ungrouped allies, because when you are low and 4 people cast single target mutagen at you you will only get one of them as an ungrouped player. People when solo tend to only use a certain range of specific heals. Meaning Groups will have even more healing if both went ahead. (from the pugs + their own group).

To be clear, I am not one of those people who are against the principle of stacking HoTs. Mostly because damage stacks and if all people were allowed to have was one HoT, outnumbered groups would just melt and healers would basically be screwed because a lot of the times they'd press a button, nothing would happen. I do think the ease in which people who are not even healers can nevertheless put a large number of potent sticky overlapping HoTs is poor design that deserves the criticism in which many people have level against it.

I cannot agree with your insinuation that smart heal is somehow disadvantageous or that hitting 3 targets with a sticky HoT that has the same potency as a stationary one is not a "luxury." Especially since ESO has burst and targeted heals that always available when players are low and need them. You claim randomness and thus suggest some sort of difficulty in ensuring that the people who need the heals might not get it, but as the video above clearly shows, which is composed of at least half stamina players, somehow manage to consistently have 3 and 4 of these HoTs ticking at the same time. That is pretty much the definition of luxury: in addition to having the heals needed at the critical moment, the group has multiple powerful HoTs running at all times from people who aren't even healers.

Somewhere there is a happy medium for people who run in organized groups and those who do not. Downplaying the (fair) concerns of people who do not play in organized groups, of which more than a few have been mentioned in this thread (understanding there are also numerous overblown complaints), isn't going to help get to that happy medium.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Joy_Division wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

It's plus sides are that HoT heals where you don't need to be standing on the healing spot are obviously better for situations where you need to spread out (think the current synergy, proxy scaling, vd meta).
Ironically groups were weaker before because they were forced to stack in the damage due to the healing method (after the AOE cap change) but people cheered that springs was being removed so that "groups couldn't stack up", for me it just tells me that people in general don't understand group combat mechanics whenever I see similar style posts these days.

Now you have those who are upset because healing can only go onto allies within groups, and cheering that ZOS has rescinded this restriction. Yet at the same time calling for heal stacking to be removed. This will mean that you have less healing from ungrouped allies, because when you are low and 4 people cast single target mutagen at you you will only get one of them as an ungrouped player. People when solo tend to only use a certain range of specific heals. Meaning Groups will have even more healing if both went ahead. (from the pugs + their own group).

but as the video above clearly shows, which is composed of at least half stamina players, somehow manage to consistently have 3 and 4 of these HoTs ticking at the same time.

Which part of the video do they consistently have 3 or 4 mutagens (im not talking about some situation where they are not really in combat and everyone is focused on healing - I think if everyone focuses on it then why shouldn't there be multiple heals going out, but in actual combat situations in the video they have barely 1-2 mutagens up, and im sure they have more than 2 healers).

What people don't seem to understand is that if healing is nerfed then groups get more tanky, have more hp.
When healing is higher and damage is lower groups build more squishy in order to deal more damage.

Sahidom

I have a feeling ball groups will counter themselves with excessive CCs moving into the -% damage reduction CC immunity benefits; a ball group vs. small groups will still be overwhelmed, meanwhile, on a larger scale fight the spread of CC would buff their opponents and vice versa.

All this means that PVP will be heavy armor and high health meta strong for quite awhile. Sort of when the game launched where health was the priority attribute when you could soft cap your other stats with sets.

ShadowProc

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

It's plus sides are that HoT heals where you don't need to be standing on the healing spot are obviously better for situations where you need to spread out (think the current synergy, proxy scaling, vd meta).
Ironically groups were weaker before because they were forced to stack in the damage due to the healing method (after the AOE cap change) but people cheered that springs was being removed so that "groups couldn't stack up", for me it just tells me that people in general don't understand group combat mechanics whenever I see similar style posts these days.

Now you have those who are upset because healing can only go onto allies within groups, and cheering that ZOS has rescinded this restriction. Yet at the same time calling for heal stacking to be removed. This will mean that you have less healing from ungrouped allies, because when you are low and 4 people cast single target mutagen at you you will only get one of them as an ungrouped player. People when solo tend to only use a certain range of specific heals. Meaning Groups will have even more healing if both went ahead. (from the pugs + their own group).

but as the video above clearly shows, which is composed of at least half stamina players, somehow manage to consistently have 3 and 4 of these HoTs ticking at the same time.

Which part of the video do they consistently have 3 or 4 mutagens (im not talking about some situation where they are not really in combat and everyone is focused on healing - I think if everyone focuses on it then why shouldn't there be multiple heals going out, but in actual combat situations in the video they have barely 1-2 mutagens up, and im sure they have more than 2 healers).

What people don't seem to understand is that if healing is nerfed then groups get more tanky, have more hp.
When healing is higher and damage is lower groups build more squishy in order to deal more damage.

What do you mean more tanky ? Lol. They literally run 35k plus health. The real good groups have more than 1 to 2 hots up at all times. That’s the difference between the real good groups and the rest. They keep their hots up and spam purge.

That’s why you can literally see performance tank around certain groups imo.

These broken Mechanics will continue to drive players away. Why play that when I can hop on call of duty and have the same chance of killing the other players when you have zero chance in this game. Dying is not fun when the outcome is predicted every time.

I am amazed that some players are so self centered on playing in ball groups and ruining the game for so many. There are a handful of groups that make the game unfun/unplayable for hundreds of others.

Enjoy pug stomping and give yourselves a pat on the back for a battle well fought.

LonePirate

ShadowProc wrote: »

I am amazed that some players are so self centered on playing in ball groups and ruining the game for so many. There are a handful of groups that make the game unfun/unplayable for hundreds of others.

Well said. There was still an hour left to go in East Coast prime time tonight (Sunday) and AD dropped down to two bars of population briefly due to the multiple DC ball groups running around on PC NA Grey Host. Those ball groups are destroying the fun in the game and ZOS is turning a blind eye to it all.

I think we may be approaching a point in the game where ZOS needs to start handicapping groups over four people by reducing their damage and healing by 5% per player over four in the group. Of course that might lead to multiple four player groups running alongside each other so other restrictions such as limiting heals and purges to group members may need to be reinstated.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

ShadowProc wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

It's plus sides are that HoT heals where you don't need to be standing on the healing spot are obviously better for situations where you need to spread out (think the current synergy, proxy scaling, vd meta).
Ironically groups were weaker before because they were forced to stack in the damage due to the healing method (after the AOE cap change) but people cheered that springs was being removed so that "groups couldn't stack up", for me it just tells me that people in general don't understand group combat mechanics whenever I see similar style posts these days.

Now you have those who are upset because healing can only go onto allies within groups, and cheering that ZOS has rescinded this restriction. Yet at the same time calling for heal stacking to be removed. This will mean that you have less healing from ungrouped allies, because when you are low and 4 people cast single target mutagen at you you will only get one of them as an ungrouped player. People when solo tend to only use a certain range of specific heals. Meaning Groups will have even more healing if both went ahead. (from the pugs + their own group).

but as the video above clearly shows, which is composed of at least half stamina players, somehow manage to consistently have 3 and 4 of these HoTs ticking at the same time.

Which part of the video do they consistently have 3 or 4 mutagens (im not talking about some situation where they are not really in combat and everyone is focused on healing - I think if everyone focuses on it then why shouldn't there be multiple heals going out, but in actual combat situations in the video they have barely 1-2 mutagens up, and im sure they have more than 2 healers).

What people don't seem to understand is that if healing is nerfed then groups get more tanky, have more hp.
When healing is higher and damage is lower groups build more squishy in order to deal more damage.

What do you mean more tanky ? Lol. They literally run 35k plus health. The real good groups have more than 1 to 2 hots up at all times. That’s the difference between the real good groups and the rest. They keep their hots up and spam purge.

Health goal in groups used to be around 25k prior to destro ulti, when destro ulti came in dmg increased so much that in response groups needed to get tankier (because they still did fine dmg). Since then its just got higher (necro class, synergies etc) whereas healing has got lower (more accessible and less reactive but still lower overall) which is why now everyone heals in groups. Thats why im saying if dmg was drastically lowered in Cyro players in groups would likely have to build way more squishy to deal enough dmg to kill stuff still.

You would ofc still have the tanky groups but they would also kill very little.

What do you think causes more lag? a) A group at a back keep killing 20-30 players, b) GvG away in a field somewhere or c) Faction zerg vs Faction Zerg on the front lines?

biminirwb17_ESO

I don't think I have ever seen a video of a ball group sieging a defended keep. Just watch and wait for the predictable.

Taking an outpost between the other 2 factions.
Backdooring a siege when the door is open or wall down.

And of course the good ol' pvdoor a tri-keep with a top floor to run around.

Ackwalan

Does ZOS even have a PvP dev? If yes, does that dev actively play?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Ackwalan wrote: »

Does ZOS even have a PvP dev? If yes, does that dev actively play?

Yes and yes but mainly noCP BGs iirc

maboleth

Omg what have you done to my thread. It's like I released the dragon(s)... in my homeland.

ShadowProc

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

ShadowProc wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

It's plus sides are that HoT heals where you don't need to be standing on the healing spot are obviously better for situations where you need to spread out (think the current synergy, proxy scaling, vd meta).
Ironically groups were weaker before because they were forced to stack in the damage due to the healing method (after the AOE cap change) but people cheered that springs was being removed so that "groups couldn't stack up", for me it just tells me that people in general don't understand group combat mechanics whenever I see similar style posts these days.

Now you have those who are upset because healing can only go onto allies within groups, and cheering that ZOS has rescinded this restriction. Yet at the same time calling for heal stacking to be removed. This will mean that you have less healing from ungrouped allies, because when you are low and 4 people cast single target mutagen at you you will only get one of them as an ungrouped player. People when solo tend to only use a certain range of specific heals. Meaning Groups will have even more healing if both went ahead. (from the pugs + their own group).

but as the video above clearly shows, which is composed of at least half stamina players, somehow manage to consistently have 3 and 4 of these HoTs ticking at the same time.

Which part of the video do they consistently have 3 or 4 mutagens (im not talking about some situation where they are not really in combat and everyone is focused on healing - I think if everyone focuses on it then why shouldn't there be multiple heals going out, but in actual combat situations in the video they have barely 1-2 mutagens up, and im sure they have more than 2 healers).

What people don't seem to understand is that if healing is nerfed then groups get more tanky, have more hp.
When healing is higher and damage is lower groups build more squishy in order to deal more damage.

What do you mean more tanky ? Lol. They literally run 35k plus health. The real good groups have more than 1 to 2 hots up at all times. That’s the difference between the real good groups and the rest. They keep their hots up and spam purge.

Health goal in groups used to be around 25k prior to destro ulti, when destro ulti came in dmg increased so much that in response groups needed to get tankier (because they still did fine dmg). Since then its just got higher (necro class, synergies etc) whereas healing has got lower (more accessible and less reactive but still lower overall) which is why now everyone heals in groups. Thats why im saying if dmg was drastically lowered in Cyro players in groups would likely have to build way more squishy to deal enough dmg to kill stuff still.

You would ofc still have the tanky groups but they would also kill very little.

What do you think causes more lag? a) A group at a back keep killing 20-30 players, b) GvG away in a field somewhere or c) Faction zerg vs Faction Zerg on the front lines?

Clearly the last. That’s the problem. FARMING. back lines? That is not the normal for the groups I am referring to. They want as many players as possible to pug stomp them and then giggle like little children about what a job well done. Best spots is a keep or outpost between the opposing two factions. You know what I am referring to.

I mean there is nothing to be done in this format with low pop. When the game was healthy in early days there was enough groups to deal with each other. The majority got bored and either went small scale (as skill floor is MUCH higher), or left.

The few more experienced players that like to ball have consolidated now and against all reason still have fun doing the same skilless farming years later uncontested. For a perfect example of everything wrong with pvp now watch the Tyr lead streaming. How that can be fun 3 times a week for years is beyond me.

And I didn’t say lower damage Izzy. The culprits are cross healing and PURGE. Purge is the most broken skill in the game and has been forever. The advantage has to be numbers or skill.

It cannot be broken mechanics like PURGE and cross healing

ShadowProc

biminirwb17_ESO wrote: »

I don't think I have ever seen a video of a ball group sieging a defended keep. Just watch and wait for the predictable.

Taking an outpost between the other 2 factions.
Backdooring a siege when the door is open or wall down.

And of course the good ol' pvdoor a tri-keep with a top floor to run around.

This guy gets it. The strange thing is the biggest culprits have been doing this same skill less BS for YEARS. lmao. I can’t even....

Kwoung

Seems like this test is a solution to at least the less skillful ball groups. A GH group is over on BR again, as they did with the MYM, for the "easy" 2x AP I suspect, but they are getting stomped right and left by rando's who aren't even grouped.

Xsorus

I see not much has changed in terms of ball groups since I left over a year ago.

Did they ever actually put a 12 person cap on groups in PvP?

ShadowProc

Xsorus wrote: »

I see not much has changed in terms of ball groups since I left over a year ago.

Did they ever actually put a 12 person cap on groups in PvP?

Not much and it’s the same players doing it. Lol. Oh and they build much higher health now so that when they do get one or two picked off they have enough buffer to use another broken ability, necro Rez.

Just thought of a fix actually. If you are small group or solo, you get a free purge every 2 seconds, constant rapid regen, and 5k health buff. Also a free self Rez with 5 minute cool down.

There we go. Balanced. Lol

Katahdin

Xsorus wrote: »

Did they ever actually put a 12 person cap on groups in PvP?

There has been a 12 man cap to groups for a few months now.

NotTaylorSwift

ShadowProc wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

It's plus sides are that HoT heals where you don't need to be standing on the healing spot are obviously better for situations where you need to spread out (think the current synergy, proxy scaling, vd meta).
Ironically groups were weaker before because they were forced to stack in the damage due to the healing method (after the AOE cap change) but people cheered that springs was being removed so that "groups couldn't stack up", for me it just tells me that people in general don't understand group combat mechanics whenever I see similar style posts these days.

Now you have those who are upset because healing can only go onto allies within groups, and cheering that ZOS has rescinded this restriction. Yet at the same time calling for heal stacking to be removed. This will mean that you have less healing from ungrouped allies, because when you are low and 4 people cast single target mutagen at you you will only get one of them as an ungrouped player. People when solo tend to only use a certain range of specific heals. Meaning Groups will have even more healing if both went ahead. (from the pugs + their own group).

but as the video above clearly shows, which is composed of at least half stamina players, somehow manage to consistently have 3 and 4 of these HoTs ticking at the same time.

Which part of the video do they consistently have 3 or 4 mutagens (im not talking about some situation where they are not really in combat and everyone is focused on healing - I think if everyone focuses on it then why shouldn't there be multiple heals going out, but in actual combat situations in the video they have barely 1-2 mutagens up, and im sure they have more than 2 healers).

What people don't seem to understand is that if healing is nerfed then groups get more tanky, have more hp.
When healing is higher and damage is lower groups build more squishy in order to deal more damage.

These broken Mechanics will continue to drive players away. Why play that when I can hop on call of duty and have the same chance of killing the other players when you have zero chance in this game. Dying is not fun when the outcome is predicted every time.

I am amazed that some players are so self centered on playing in ball groups and ruining the game for so many. There are a handful of groups that make the game unfun/unplayable for hundreds of others.

But you explained part of your own issue. Cyrodiil isn’t a death match and isn’t just about getting kills. I’m sure there are many individual players or even small groups you wouldn’t be able to kill on equal terms. So are they an issue as well? You shouldn’t have an even chance of killing absolutely anyone you come across because that doesn’t reward players for learning the game... if you don’t want to use the available skills/sets/items etc in the game that counter ballgroups or learn how to disrupt them, then why should you be rewarded by killing them?

Throwing your solo build skills at them isn’t gonna do anything. Setting up a single oil on top of keep isn’t gonna do anything. There is /zone /yell and /say where you can communicate with other players to work towards disrupting and maybe even killing them. If the other players don’t respond to communication well.... then they are the issue. But you can’t nerf ballgroups just because pugs either don’t know what to do in that situation or just choose to be ineffective. Players need to learn what is in the game outside of zerg surf and solo build skills.

Kwoung

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

ShadowProc wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

It's plus sides are that HoT heals where you don't need to be standing on the healing spot are obviously better for situations where you need to spread out (think the current synergy, proxy scaling, vd meta).
Ironically groups were weaker before because they were forced to stack in the damage due to the healing method (after the AOE cap change) but people cheered that springs was being removed so that "groups couldn't stack up", for me it just tells me that people in general don't understand group combat mechanics whenever I see similar style posts these days.

Now you have those who are upset because healing can only go onto allies within groups, and cheering that ZOS has rescinded this restriction. Yet at the same time calling for heal stacking to be removed. This will mean that you have less healing from ungrouped allies, because when you are low and 4 people cast single target mutagen at you you will only get one of them as an ungrouped player. People when solo tend to only use a certain range of specific heals. Meaning Groups will have even more healing if both went ahead. (from the pugs + their own group).

but as the video above clearly shows, which is composed of at least half stamina players, somehow manage to consistently have 3 and 4 of these HoTs ticking at the same time.

Which part of the video do they consistently have 3 or 4 mutagens (im not talking about some situation where they are not really in combat and everyone is focused on healing - I think if everyone focuses on it then why shouldn't there be multiple heals going out, but in actual combat situations in the video they have barely 1-2 mutagens up, and im sure they have more than 2 healers).

What people don't seem to understand is that if healing is nerfed then groups get more tanky, have more hp.
When healing is higher and damage is lower groups build more squishy in order to deal more damage.

These broken Mechanics will continue to drive players away. Why play that when I can hop on call of duty and have the same chance of killing the other players when you have zero chance in this game. Dying is not fun when the outcome is predicted every time.

I am amazed that some players are so self centered on playing in ball groups and ruining the game for so many. There are a handful of groups that make the game unfun/unplayable for hundreds of others.

But you explained part of your own issue. Cyrodiil isn’t a death match and isn’t just about getting kills. I’m sure there are many individual players or even small groups you wouldn’t be able to kill on equal terms. So are they an issue as well? You shouldn’t have an even chance of killing absolutely anyone you come across because that doesn’t reward players for learning the game... if you don’t want to use the available skills/sets/items etc in the game that counter ballgroups or learn how to disrupt them, then why should you be rewarded by killing them?

Throwing your solo build skills at them isn’t gonna do anything. Setting up a single oil on top of keep isn’t gonna do anything. There is /zone /yell and /say where you can communicate with other players to work towards disrupting and maybe even killing them. If the other players don’t respond to communication well.... then they are the issue. But you can’t nerf ballgroups just because pugs either don’t know what to do in that situation or just choose to be ineffective. Players need to learn what is in the game outside of zerg surf and solo build skills.

Well said. I play in a coordinated group a few hours a week and it is actually quite fun, but it takes a ton of practice, theory crafting, farming sets, trial & error, and tight communications to make it work. Not to mention getting enough people who can commit to showing up. It is overall a ton of effort, much more so than slapping on a bow and hitting L. We have farmed dungeons, trials, etc... many times over just to get a set piece for a member, we practice strategies, movement, etc.. in our houses and empty keeps, and are still doing so, just to make those few hours a week we play together as a group count. I am sure 1vXers and small scale do the same to hone their skills and create the "perfect" build, cause they sure wreck me when I am out by myself.

But I also zerg surf or play in small groups most of the time, which both are also very fun to do. I just think that the zerg surfers feel their sheer overwhelming numbers should destroy everything in their path... regardless of what is generally a complete lack of coordination on their part and they just don't get it won't work. Honestly, a pitchfork carrying mob isn't going to fair well against a trained combat team in any situation, and even if they do overwhelm the team, a lot or even most of them, are going down in the process.

ShadowProc

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

ShadowProc wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

But even if they did, Mutagen used to be quite meh (and sometimes not even used) so instead it was Healing Springs, which at least required the group to remain stationary or lose their HoTs, and thus times these groups were vulnerable.

However things used to be, there's no way a powerful HoT that requires no aiming, hits multiple people, and sticks to them should have ever been introduced into the game, let alone have remained for as long as it has. I started this game as a healer so I sympathize with them and it's hard to heal the insane damage that is incoming. But that sort of mitigation/healing power that you always have in that video should be only reserved for limited times or at specific place using an ultimate (which was the entire purpose of something like Veil of Blades).

Since we are discussing old patches, HoT's have always stacked, the reason players didn't use mutagen etc in the past is because of the number of targets hit vs its healing amount. Springs was simply more effective and efficient (due to its magicka return and stacking healing meaning that you could have 4 ticks proc'd at once). The only reason for using mutagen was early pre-buffing and for the built in purge effect if dropping low (was really useful during the Wall of Elements purge bug days).

The thing you are maybe remembering was the old barrier ulti stacking (which required different morphs / levels) so Barrier I and Barrier II would stack, or Barrier + Morph 1 + Morph 2 etc..

Heals in ESO have always been stacking in nature. That is just the design of the game since launch. They have always been active mitigation and it is built into the core foundation of the combat. Even now, Springs from multiple players still stack, you can be hit by the same single target heal from multiple players at once. The only thing which was changed was the ability for individual players to self-stack multiple versions of the same ground effects.

Here's were the important side is. Almost all heals in ESO are smart target, this means that you have no control over who gets the healing. One of the reasons why springs was so strong is that you could control where you were healing (by means of placing the ground effect) and thus you had more control over who you healed. (Its much better to heal where the damage will be than everyone). Radiating regeneration doesn't have this luxury, its heals are very random, if you cast it 3 times there's as much chance that 1 player has his buff refreshed 3 times and 1 player doesn't get any (depending on the incoming dmg at the time). Additionally it only hits a maximum of 3 players. This is half the current healing cap per skill.

It's plus sides are that HoT heals where you don't need to be standing on the healing spot are obviously better for situations where you need to spread out (think the current synergy, proxy scaling, vd meta).
Ironically groups were weaker before because they were forced to stack in the damage due to the healing method (after the AOE cap change) but people cheered that springs was being removed so that "groups couldn't stack up", for me it just tells me that people in general don't understand group combat mechanics whenever I see similar style posts these days.

Now you have those who are upset because healing can only go onto allies within groups, and cheering that ZOS has rescinded this restriction. Yet at the same time calling for heal stacking to be removed. This will mean that you have less healing from ungrouped allies, because when you are low and 4 people cast single target mutagen at you you will only get one of them as an ungrouped player. People when solo tend to only use a certain range of specific heals. Meaning Groups will have even more healing if both went ahead. (from the pugs + their own group).

but as the video above clearly shows, which is composed of at least half stamina players, somehow manage to consistently have 3 and 4 of these HoTs ticking at the same time.

Which part of the video do they consistently have 3 or 4 mutagens (im not talking about some situation where they are not really in combat and everyone is focused on healing - I think if everyone focuses on it then why shouldn't there be multiple heals going out, but in actual combat situations in the video they have barely 1-2 mutagens up, and im sure they have more than 2 healers).

What people don't seem to understand is that if healing is nerfed then groups get more tanky, have more hp.
When healing is higher and damage is lower groups build more squishy in order to deal more damage.

These broken Mechanics will continue to drive players away. Why play that when I can hop on call of duty and have the same chance of killing the other players when you have zero chance in this game. Dying is not fun when the outcome is predicted every time.

I am amazed that some players are so self centered on playing in ball groups and ruining the game for so many. There are a handful of groups that make the game unfun/unplayable for hundreds of others.

But you explained part of your own issue. Cyrodiil isn’t a death match and isn’t just about getting kills. I’m sure there are many individual players or even small groups you wouldn’t be able to kill on equal terms. So are they an issue as well? You shouldn’t have an even chance of killing absolutely anyone you come across because that doesn’t reward players for learning the game... if you don’t want to use the available skills/sets/items etc in the game that counter ballgroups or learn how to disrupt them, then why should you be rewarded by killing them?

Throwing your solo build skills at them isn’t gonna do anything. Setting up a single oil on top of keep isn’t gonna do anything. There is /zone /yell and /say where you can communicate with other players to work towards disrupting and maybe even killing them. If the other players don’t respond to communication well.... then they are the issue. But you can’t nerf ballgroups just because pugs either don’t know what to do in that situation or just choose to be ineffective. Players need to learn what is in the game outside of zerg surf and solo build skills.

[snip] The skills I called out are artificial free buffs that make them way OP.

And you just summed up the ball group goal. In fact it is a death match and yes they do want as many cheesy kills as possible at the expense of performance at the expense of other players experience.

My point is to remove iMessage buffs to them and allow them to be killed and picked off by strategy.

[Edited to remove Baiting]