ZOS please consider dissolving ball groups

Soul_Demon

Theignson wrote: »

Earthe is right-- not all groups cause "lag stun", which is when a ball group gets within 40 m of you and you freeze, then they stun/fear/lightning/snare you all at once, you can't move, you can't break free, you can't dodge roll, and you can't use abilities. Then they kill you with their ultis while you are completely helpless due to server unresponsiveness.

Anyone who PvPs as a solo or outside a ball group has experienced this effect from certain ball groups.

Only the "best" ball groups do this. In contrast, I've played against aka baka many times where they have 24-36 players, ep has 24 or so, we are able to fight pretty well, abilities work, I can break free and fight them.

But when Tyr or Drac show up, and a couple other of the best groups, you cannot use abilities, they lag stun you and just farm pugs.

I think maybe these ball groups do not realize that they are doing this to other players. In their mind, they have devised exceptionally tuned groups that can just destroy pugs with out taking any harm. They spend a lot of time working out effective group combos, gear setups, and skill sequences.

It just so happens that the most effective ball group strategy causes "lag stun" which gives the ball groups an unfair advantage. You wouldn't know this unless you were, eg a solo facing a ball group (my usual situation). The ball groups don't run solo against themselves. They don't know what is happening on the receiving end. (This is just my theory. Its possible they know exactly what effect they are having. After all, these are some of the people who understand the game the best).

The reason for "lag stun" was stated by ZOS:
"we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.”

It will never happen, because people love to run in the security of groups supporting them, but i would like to see ZOS abolish ALL group skills, but allow grouping of any size for coordination purposes. Then you would see a very different game, and solos or pugs would have a much more even chance against any group.

Good observation, but I am more inclined to think many of them knowingly use the skills they see on the push that results in the most kills for them regardless of suspecting they cause stun locks in others. I find it hard to believe none of them suspect what they are doing is causing these things and if you doubt that listen to one of their raids when they post them next time. You can actually hear them stating "don't stun them now" in order to effectively 'stun lock' later only when ultis are up and so the players don't have immunity early.

To me this more than suggests the raid leads for them at least are aware of the malfunctioning skills and the potential they have to cause the stun lock and wish to use it to its maximum effectiveness----Not all of them to be sure, but I think its a bit naive to think players who invest so much practice into what they do and time would 'miss' what they are using and what it does to the others----how many times can you hit players who are not moving or defending themselves before you start to wonder what is happening or if you might be causing it?

Satiar

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

Earthe is right-- not all groups cause "lag stun", which is when a ball group gets within 40 m of you and you freeze, then they stun/fear/lightning/snare you all at once, you can't move, you can't break free, you can't dodge roll, and you can't use abilities. Then they kill you with their ultis while you are completely helpless due to server unresponsiveness.

Anyone who PvPs as a solo or outside a ball group has experienced this effect from certain ball groups.

Only the "best" ball groups do this. In contrast, I've played against aka baka many times where they have 24-36 players, ep has 24 or so, we are able to fight pretty well, abilities work, I can break free and fight them.

But when Tyr or Drac show up, and a couple other of the best groups, you cannot use abilities, they lag stun you and just farm pugs.

I think maybe these ball groups do not realize that they are doing this to other players. In their mind, they have devised exceptionally tuned groups that can just destroy pugs with out taking any harm. They spend a lot of time working out effective group combos, gear setups, and skill sequences.

It just so happens that the most effective ball group strategy causes "lag stun" which gives the ball groups an unfair advantage. You wouldn't know this unless you were, eg a solo facing a ball group (my usual situation). The ball groups don't run solo against themselves. They don't know what is happening on the receiving end. (This is just my theory. Its possible they know exactly what effect they are having. After all, these are some of the people who understand the game the best).

The reason for "lag stun" was stated by ZOS:
"we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.”

It will never happen, because people love to run in the security of groups supporting them, but i would like to see ZOS abolish ALL group skills, but allow grouping of any size for coordination purposes. Then you would see a very different game, and solos or pugs would have a much more even chance against any group.

Good observation, but I am more inclined to think many of them knowingly use the skills they see on the push that results in the most kills for them regardless of suspecting they cause stun locks in others. I find it hard to believe none of them suspect what they are doing is causing these things and if you doubt that listen to one of their raids when they post them next time. You can actually hear them stating "don't stun them now" in order to effectively 'stun lock' later only when ultis are up and so the players don't have immunity early.

To me this more than suggests the raid leads for them at least are aware of the malfunctioning skills and the potential they have to cause the stun lock and wish to use it to its maximum effectiveness----Not all of them to be sure, but I think its a bit naive to think players who invest so much practice into what they do and time would 'miss' what they are using and what it does to the others----how many times can you hit players who are not moving or defending themselves before you start to wonder what is happening or if you might be causing it?

It’s just fear, really. Mass Hysteria causes a weird cc effect where manually breaking free causes you to sometimes be rooted and unable to block or dodge roll afterwards.

Trouble is fear is also an amazing cc, a PBAoE cc that is more responsive abd usable than any other cc of its type. Even if you know the effect it causes there’s no way around using it.

Groups aren’t trying to lagstunlock you, though. They’re timing CC’s to coincide with burst so they land burst before the cc expires. That sometimes it bugs out is just a lag side effect but that’s on ZoS to fix

Soul_Demon

Satiar wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

Earthe is right-- not all groups cause "lag stun", which is when a ball group gets within 40 m of you and you freeze, then they stun/fear/lightning/snare you all at once, you can't move, you can't break free, you can't dodge roll, and you can't use abilities. Then they kill you with their ultis while you are completely helpless due to server unresponsiveness.

Anyone who PvPs as a solo or outside a ball group has experienced this effect from certain ball groups.

Only the "best" ball groups do this. In contrast, I've played against aka baka many times where they have 24-36 players, ep has 24 or so, we are able to fight pretty well, abilities work, I can break free and fight them.

But when Tyr or Drac show up, and a couple other of the best groups, you cannot use abilities, they lag stun you and just farm pugs.

I think maybe these ball groups do not realize that they are doing this to other players. In their mind, they have devised exceptionally tuned groups that can just destroy pugs with out taking any harm. They spend a lot of time working out effective group combos, gear setups, and skill sequences.

It just so happens that the most effective ball group strategy causes "lag stun" which gives the ball groups an unfair advantage. You wouldn't know this unless you were, eg a solo facing a ball group (my usual situation). The ball groups don't run solo against themselves. They don't know what is happening on the receiving end. (This is just my theory. Its possible they know exactly what effect they are having. After all, these are some of the people who understand the game the best).

The reason for "lag stun" was stated by ZOS:
"we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.”

It will never happen, because people love to run in the security of groups supporting them, but i would like to see ZOS abolish ALL group skills, but allow grouping of any size for coordination purposes. Then you would see a very different game, and solos or pugs would have a much more even chance against any group.

Good observation, but I am more inclined to think many of them knowingly use the skills they see on the push that results in the most kills for them regardless of suspecting they cause stun locks in others. I find it hard to believe none of them suspect what they are doing is causing these things and if you doubt that listen to one of their raids when they post them next time. You can actually hear them stating "don't stun them now" in order to effectively 'stun lock' later only when ultis are up and so the players don't have immunity early.

To me this more than suggests the raid leads for them at least are aware of the malfunctioning skills and the potential they have to cause the stun lock and wish to use it to its maximum effectiveness----Not all of them to be sure, but I think its a bit naive to think players who invest so much practice into what they do and time would 'miss' what they are using and what it does to the others----how many times can you hit players who are not moving or defending themselves before you start to wonder what is happening or if you might be causing it?

It’s just fear, really. Mass Hysteria causes a weird cc effect where manually breaking free causes you to sometimes be rooted and unable to block or dodge roll afterwards.

Trouble is fear is also an amazing cc, a PBAoE cc that is more responsive abd usable than any other cc of its type. Even if you know the effect it causes there’s no way around using it.

Groups aren’t trying to lagstunlock you, though. They’re timing CC’s to coincide with burst so they land burst before the cc expires. That sometimes it bugs out is just a lag side effect but that’s on ZoS to fix

Well, that is 100% on point----but the fact remains if you know its doing these things you are not required to layer them down when you learn they cause this issue. Ultimately though I am of the mindset it rests only with ZOS for creating this situation. Long standing bugs are reported and were done so with routine and the failure on their part to respond to those reports with fixes- created a 'use or be behind' in the meta situation. You have 10 slots and you need to use skills that produce a result---I dont like the farming of others as result, but I am sure a ballgroup player would claim they have fun and therefore its fine....and I am obliged to agree with their personal choice. After all the only thing you have to do is walk away to stop the stunlocks.

That is not to remove oneness of the group making a choice to load them up and layer them down as the use is part of the game and they are most effective, but the real question is if immunity worked properly and the bugs did not lock you ......how effective would they be in first place. A serious question of would they be as devastating and would farming with 12 or 16 even be possible if those longstanding cc immunity issues were fixed? Personally, I think no at least not to the extent it is now- but we have never had an environment to without them to see how effective it would be or how play would be without them working improperly.

I dont think we ever had a time where fear was not bugged out- and forget changes made to cc's and the lack of proper immunities being given, adding stam versions, that just complicated matters. In fact I think one could say if they focused ALL the efforts on not doing a 'fix' of performance but fix of long standing immunity bugs they may see a better result with community feedback on the sate of the game. Course that is only one guys thoughts on it.

idk

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

idk wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

idk wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

idk wrote: »

maboleth wrote: »

I'm sorry, what? I'm not against groups, whatsoever, even though I play solo most of the time. And not against zergs either. But ball groups. The mechanics of it, endless heals and toxic trolling without doing anything for the game.

You know, it's funny how in the game itself people that actually play Cyrodiil (attacking keeps, defending, scrolls, strategy, battling etc.) HATE ball groups. And I wrote this post on behalf of those players in Cyrodiil, knowing it's futile, but at least to try.

But here, on forums, it's like - shoot the messenger. Alright. Shoot.

How does Zos determine when a group is not doing anything for the game? From what I see here it sounds like any group that an average group cannot kill regardless of their skill level and quality of leadership.

I have yet to find this plague of ball groups.

You obviously can’t see the forest from the trees.

Quote from Rich Lambert;
“ However, one foundational issue remains. At some point, we crossed a threshold where most players in PvP were able to cast endless AOE abilities, without ever running out of resources. This is done through player knowledge, builds and group mechanics – resulting in a constant stream of AOEs with many players never using any other type of ability.

This is not what we intended, but part of the fun of Elder Scrolls games is designing a build that has unexpected and powerful results, and we allowed it. However, as this behavior grew more prevalent, we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.”

But I know you are aware of this. Until there are solid fixes for the lag, the best solution in the short term should be to limit ballgroups as they are both broken OP, and also the largest cause of performance issues in Cyro.

Nothing in here defines a group that contributes nothing to the game which is what OP said defined a ball group.

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

idk wrote: »

maboleth wrote: »

I'm sorry, what? I'm not against groups, whatsoever, even though I play solo most of the time. And not against zergs either. But ball groups. The mechanics of it, endless heals and toxic trolling without doing anything for the game.

You know, it's funny how in the game itself people that actually play Cyrodiil (attacking keeps, defending, scrolls, strategy, battling etc.) HATE ball groups. And I wrote this post on behalf of those players in Cyrodiil, knowing it's futile, but at least to try.

But here, on forums, it's like - shoot the messenger. Alright. Shoot.

How does Zos determine when a group is not doing anything for the game? From what I see here it sounds like any group that an average group cannot kill regardless of their skill level and quality of leadership.

I have yet to find this plague of ball groups.

You obviously can’t see the forest from the trees.

Quote from Rich Lambert;
“ However, one foundational issue remains. At some point, we crossed a threshold where most players in PvP were able to cast endless AOE abilities, without ever running out of resources. This is done through player knowledge, builds and group mechanics – resulting in a constant stream of AOEs with many players never using any other type of ability.

This is not what we intended, but part of the fun of Elder Scrolls games is designing a build that has unexpected and powerful results, and we allowed it. However, as this behavior grew more prevalent, we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.”

But I know you are aware of this. Until there are solid fixes for the lag, the best solution in the short term should be to limit ballgroups as they are both broken OP, and also the largest cause of performance issues in Cyro.

ZOS said that before the Cyrodiil testing. During the testing, ZOS tried everything they could to nerf ball groups and found that nothing made a big difference in performance.

At this point, I don't know what you really do to ban ball groups. Tightly organized groups with set roles and gear are simply the most efficient tactic available for large group combat in Cyrodiil. Do you outlaw using voice comms?

You could further reduce group size to 6, if we agree that the alliance cross healing removal, and reduced group size from 24 to 12 helped get the game playable, at least outside prime time, we need to continue in this direction until we at least have basic functionality during peak hours. This helps balance the insane buffs that are so easy to maintain in 12 man ballstacks. Give a chance to somewhat compete against them in sub-optimized and solo players, help split combat to different areas of the map, and hopefully help performance. At least until we have more appropriate performance fixes. I’m not saying anything needs to be a permanent change.

Until we have a functional and balanced environment in Cyro, it’s popularity is destined to continue in decline.

Zos specifically stated that none of the testings offered a significant reduction to the server performance issue and that would include all the testing with the smaller group size. Zos also made clear they chose to reduce the group size and healing because they liked the behavior changes so this change was not to improve performance.

Perhaps not, but it does constitute an argument against a playstyle that degrades performance a great deal. And a lot of players first hand experiences show an agreement to that statement.

As for Gina’s statement;
"In reviewing the data for all the different tests, we did see some marked improvements in performance – on average, there was approximately a 25% reduction in the magnitude of server frame spikes and a slight reduction in the frequency of those spikes. While these improvements look good on a spreadsheet, they do not have a significant enough impact on improving the overall player experience. As a result, we will not be making any major changes at this time.

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."

She clearly states that the tests provided an average of a 25% reduction in the magnitude of server frame spikes, so to say otherwise is not true. She also states that “while these improvements look good on a spread sheet, they do not have a significant enough improvement on the overall player experience”, not to be confused with performance. Which I’m sure we can all agree with , as the overall player experience isn’t close to where it should be, for any of our play styles.

So your entire argument against any further limitations hinges on the argument of whether or not the limitations were made to influence “behavioural changes” and not “reduce server frame spikes”.

If you cannot define the playstyle any better than "they do nothing for the game" then there is nothing to target.

And thanks for pointing out that the specific reason Zos reduced the group size and limited healing to those in your group for behavioral reasons. If it was one of the better results from the testing they would have noted that. Considering they did not it is pure speculation and grasping at straws to suggest otherwise. As such an argument for further limitations is sketchy at best.

Edit: Considering Zos is suggesting that the use, or overuse, of some AoE skills, is a significant culprit to the server issues it would make more sense to figure out how to reduce the server load from those skills. We know for a fact those skills are more complicated to calculate today than they were six years ago. We know this because Zos has moved client-side checks to the server-side as well as added more calculations to effect each skill via CP and new buffs and debuffs.

So it would seem much more logical for Zos to figure out how to manage what they do with this game than to blame players for learning how to actually play the game.

This is what you claimed;
Zos specifically stated that none of the testings offered a significant reduction to the server performance issue and that would include all the testing with the smaller group size. Zos also made clear they chose to reduce the group size and healing because they liked the behavior changes so this change was not to improve performance.

Yet Gina clearly stated that there was a significant reduction in server ping spikes averaging about 25% less. You are being continually disingenuous with your arguments on this issue.

And I have previously stated that your argument on this hinges on a belief that the limitations were solely made for “behavioral” reasons and not a quick band-aid fix for the major performance issues we struggled with since U25. As such it’s pointless going around in circles on this topic with you.

As for AOE changes, yes, I can see them changing a lot of these skills, in fact, ALL of these skills may need changing. Because if they change only sap-essence spam, everyone will spam whirling blades, if they change only rapid regen, everyone will spam springs, you see where I am going with this (And where does this leave PVE). The players will always seek the easiest means of outputting the most damage to the most enemies, while maintaining the most possible heals. And because of player knowledge and understanding of the game, this could be a road with no end, that “fixes” very little, until we are playing a totally different game. Which is actually my argument all along when I have spoken about the starting point being a place of functionality and balance. It is then easier to introduce power back to the players, instead of starting down a path that ends up changing every AOE skill in the game.

You are blindly supporting a very one dimensional gameplay style, as I don’t think you realize what you are willing to sacrifice to maintain it.

This is what Gina said.

While these improvements look good on a spreadsheet, they do not have a significant enough impact on improving the overall player experience. As a result, we will not be making any major changes at this time.

She clearly noted there were not the numbers that looked good on paper but were not that significant on our end. To read more into that is nothing more than a guess and putting words into her mouth. It is clearly not me that is blindly supporting a very one-dimensional gameplay style and especially nor spinning anyone's words to make them fit my argument.

Satiar

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

Earthe is right-- not all groups cause "lag stun", which is when a ball group gets within 40 m of you and you freeze, then they stun/fear/lightning/snare you all at once, you can't move, you can't break free, you can't dodge roll, and you can't use abilities. Then they kill you with their ultis while you are completely helpless due to server unresponsiveness.

Anyone who PvPs as a solo or outside a ball group has experienced this effect from certain ball groups.

Only the "best" ball groups do this. In contrast, I've played against aka baka many times where they have 24-36 players, ep has 24 or so, we are able to fight pretty well, abilities work, I can break free and fight them.

But when Tyr or Drac show up, and a couple other of the best groups, you cannot use abilities, they lag stun you and just farm pugs.

I think maybe these ball groups do not realize that they are doing this to other players. In their mind, they have devised exceptionally tuned groups that can just destroy pugs with out taking any harm. They spend a lot of time working out effective group combos, gear setups, and skill sequences.

It just so happens that the most effective ball group strategy causes "lag stun" which gives the ball groups an unfair advantage. You wouldn't know this unless you were, eg a solo facing a ball group (my usual situation). The ball groups don't run solo against themselves. They don't know what is happening on the receiving end. (This is just my theory. Its possible they know exactly what effect they are having. After all, these are some of the people who understand the game the best).

The reason for "lag stun" was stated by ZOS:
"we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.”

It will never happen, because people love to run in the security of groups supporting them, but i would like to see ZOS abolish ALL group skills, but allow grouping of any size for coordination purposes. Then you would see a very different game, and solos or pugs would have a much more even chance against any group.

Good observation, but I am more inclined to think many of them knowingly use the skills they see on the push that results in the most kills for them regardless of suspecting they cause stun locks in others. I find it hard to believe none of them suspect what they are doing is causing these things and if you doubt that listen to one of their raids when they post them next time. You can actually hear them stating "don't stun them now" in order to effectively 'stun lock' later only when ultis are up and so the players don't have immunity early.

To me this more than suggests the raid leads for them at least are aware of the malfunctioning skills and the potential they have to cause the stun lock and wish to use it to its maximum effectiveness----Not all of them to be sure, but I think its a bit naive to think players who invest so much practice into what they do and time would 'miss' what they are using and what it does to the others----how many times can you hit players who are not moving or defending themselves before you start to wonder what is happening or if you might be causing it?

It’s just fear, really. Mass Hysteria causes a weird cc effect where manually breaking free causes you to sometimes be rooted and unable to block or dodge roll afterwards.

Trouble is fear is also an amazing cc, a PBAoE cc that is more responsive abd usable than any other cc of its type. Even if you know the effect it causes there’s no way around using it.

Groups aren’t trying to lagstunlock you, though. They’re timing CC’s to coincide with burst so they land burst before the cc expires. That sometimes it bugs out is just a lag side effect but that’s on ZoS to fix

Well, that is 100% on point----but the fact remains if you know its doing these things you are not required to layer them down when you learn they cause this issue. Ultimately though I am of the mindset it rests only with ZOS for creating this situation. Long standing bugs are reported and were done so with routine and the failure on their part to respond to those reports with fixes- created a 'use or be behind' in the meta situation. You have 10 slots and you need to use skills that produce a result---I dont like the farming of others as result, but I am sure a ballgroup player would claim they have fun and therefore its fine....and I am obliged to agree with their personal choice. After all the only thing you have to do is walk away to stop the stunlocks.

That is not to remove oneness of the group making a choice to load them up and layer them down as the use is part of the game and they are most effective, but the real question is if immunity worked properly and the bugs did not lock you ......how effective would they be in first place. A serious question of would they be as devastating and would farming with 12 or 16 even be possible if those longstanding cc immunity issues were fixed? Personally, I think no at least not to the extent it is now- but we have never had an environment to without them to see how effective it would be or how play would be without them working improperly.

I dont think we ever had a time where fear was not bugged out- and forget changes made to cc's and the lack of proper immunities being given, adding stam versions, that just complicated matters. In fact I think one could say if they focused ALL the efforts on not doing a 'fix' of performance but fix of long standing immunity bugs they may see a better result with community feedback on the sate of the game. Course that is only one guys thoughts on it.

There's a few things to go through here.

Mass Hysteria has been a mainstay of organized raids back before CP was even a thing in this game. There is no skill that replicated it. Fighter's Guild fear is far inferior, costs stamina and tends to cast behind a fast moving player, all things incompatible with a charging magica specced group. It is also worth knowing that groups do not layer nightblade fears. Most groups run only 1-2 nightblades Maximum, usually as DPS that also fear on contact with enemy clumps.

Could groups walk away and not farm/stun people anymore? Sure. But ultimately people will complain about anything a group does. If you're frontlining with your faction at a keep you're zerging. If you go backlines to find a fight you're farming. What are groups supposed to do to obtain good fights? Where are they supposed to go?

You ask

if immunity worked properly and the bugs did not lock you ......how effective would they be in first place.

. The answer is that they would still be very effective for the simple reason that in a "farm" type situation lag tends to work AGAINST the group doing the farming. For a group to effectively farm a faction a lot has to go right because they are constantly under pressure, under siege, under aoe and debuffs and cc. What ends up destabilizing and ending most farm situations is someone in the group getting CCd and unable to break, or desynced with the server due to lag. Things can fall apart very quickly from there. Believe me, the groups would prefer to fight in lag-free situations. They'll still time CC on you, they'll still get kills. Maybe you'll get away more, but the groups will arguably be a ALOT harder to kill. When there's no lag its incredibly difficult to take down a competent group without an equivalent group.

The current bug with fear is not something I remember being in earlier iterations of the game. I cannot tell you when it got added, but the current thing where you break the fear and then you're also rooted and cant quite dodge/block is strange and not something i recall being in previous iterations of ESO pvp. Bothers the hell out of me. The difficulty is, from a competitive perspective you can't NOT use it. Anything ZoS puts in the game will be used by someone, and groups that dont use it will be at a disadvantage to those who do. If ZoS gave me a non-bugged version of mass hysteria i'd use it. But they haven't, so I'm stuck with what I got.

Soul_Demon

Satiar wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

Earthe is right-- not all groups cause "lag stun", which is when a ball group gets within 40 m of you and you freeze, then they stun/fear/lightning/snare you all at once, you can't move, you can't break free, you can't dodge roll, and you can't use abilities. Then they kill you with their ultis while you are completely helpless due to server unresponsiveness.

Anyone who PvPs as a solo or outside a ball group has experienced this effect from certain ball groups.

Only the "best" ball groups do this. In contrast, I've played against aka baka many times where they have 24-36 players, ep has 24 or so, we are able to fight pretty well, abilities work, I can break free and fight them.

But when Tyr or Drac show up, and a couple other of the best groups, you cannot use abilities, they lag stun you and just farm pugs.

I think maybe these ball groups do not realize that they are doing this to other players. In their mind, they have devised exceptionally tuned groups that can just destroy pugs with out taking any harm. They spend a lot of time working out effective group combos, gear setups, and skill sequences.

It just so happens that the most effective ball group strategy causes "lag stun" which gives the ball groups an unfair advantage. You wouldn't know this unless you were, eg a solo facing a ball group (my usual situation). The ball groups don't run solo against themselves. They don't know what is happening on the receiving end. (This is just my theory. Its possible they know exactly what effect they are having. After all, these are some of the people who understand the game the best).

The reason for "lag stun" was stated by ZOS:
"we reached a point where casting so many continuous AOE abilities in such a small area started to overwhelm the server process for that area, leading to situations where the "lag meter" spikes and the server becomes unresponsive for a period of time.”

It will never happen, because people love to run in the security of groups supporting them, but i would like to see ZOS abolish ALL group skills, but allow grouping of any size for coordination purposes. Then you would see a very different game, and solos or pugs would have a much more even chance against any group.

Good observation, but I am more inclined to think many of them knowingly use the skills they see on the push that results in the most kills for them regardless of suspecting they cause stun locks in others. I find it hard to believe none of them suspect what they are doing is causing these things and if you doubt that listen to one of their raids when they post them next time. You can actually hear them stating "don't stun them now" in order to effectively 'stun lock' later only when ultis are up and so the players don't have immunity early.

To me this more than suggests the raid leads for them at least are aware of the malfunctioning skills and the potential they have to cause the stun lock and wish to use it to its maximum effectiveness----Not all of them to be sure, but I think its a bit naive to think players who invest so much practice into what they do and time would 'miss' what they are using and what it does to the others----how many times can you hit players who are not moving or defending themselves before you start to wonder what is happening or if you might be causing it?

It’s just fear, really. Mass Hysteria causes a weird cc effect where manually breaking free causes you to sometimes be rooted and unable to block or dodge roll afterwards.

Trouble is fear is also an amazing cc, a PBAoE cc that is more responsive abd usable than any other cc of its type. Even if you know the effect it causes there’s no way around using it.

Groups aren’t trying to lagstunlock you, though. They’re timing CC’s to coincide with burst so they land burst before the cc expires. That sometimes it bugs out is just a lag side effect but that’s on ZoS to fix

Well, that is 100% on point----but the fact remains if you know its doing these things you are not required to layer them down when you learn they cause this issue. Ultimately though I am of the mindset it rests only with ZOS for creating this situation. Long standing bugs are reported and were done so with routine and the failure on their part to respond to those reports with fixes- created a 'use or be behind' in the meta situation. You have 10 slots and you need to use skills that produce a result---I dont like the farming of others as result, but I am sure a ballgroup player would claim they have fun and therefore its fine....and I am obliged to agree with their personal choice. After all the only thing you have to do is walk away to stop the stunlocks.

That is not to remove oneness of the group making a choice to load them up and layer them down as the use is part of the game and they are most effective, but the real question is if immunity worked properly and the bugs did not lock you ......how effective would they be in first place. A serious question of would they be as devastating and would farming with 12 or 16 even be possible if those longstanding cc immunity issues were fixed? Personally, I think no at least not to the extent it is now- but we have never had an environment to without them to see how effective it would be or how play would be without them working improperly.

I dont think we ever had a time where fear was not bugged out- and forget changes made to cc's and the lack of proper immunities being given, adding stam versions, that just complicated matters. In fact I think one could say if they focused ALL the efforts on not doing a 'fix' of performance but fix of long standing immunity bugs they may see a better result with community feedback on the sate of the game. Course that is only one guys thoughts on it.

There's a few things to go through here.

Mass Hysteria has been a mainstay of organized raids back before CP was even a thing in this game. There is no skill that replicated it. Fighter's Guild fear is far inferior, costs stamina and tends to cast behind a fast moving player, all things incompatible with a charging magica specced group. It is also worth knowing that groups do not layer nightblade fears. Most groups run only 1-2 nightblades Maximum, usually as DPS that also fear on contact with enemy clumps.

Could groups walk away and not farm/stun people anymore? Sure. But ultimately people will complain about anything a group does. If you're frontlining with your faction at a keep you're zerging. If you go backlines to find a fight you're farming. What are groups supposed to do to obtain good fights? Where are they supposed to go?

You ask

if immunity worked properly and the bugs did not lock you ......how effective would they be in first place.

. The answer is that they would still be very effective for the simple reason that in a "farm" type situation lag tends to work AGAINST the group doing the farming. For a group to effectively farm a faction a lot has to go right because they are constantly under pressure, under siege, under aoe and debuffs and cc. What ends up destabilizing and ending most farm situations is someone in the group getting CCd and unable to break, or desynced with the server due to lag. Things can fall apart very quickly from there. Believe me, the groups would prefer to fight in lag-free situations. They'll still time CC on you, they'll still get kills. Maybe you'll get away more, but the groups will arguably be a ALOT harder to kill. When there's no lag its incredibly difficult to take down a competent group without an equivalent group.

The current bug with fear is not something I remember being in earlier iterations of the game. I cannot tell you when it got added, but the current thing where you break the fear and then you're also rooted and cant quite dodge/block is strange and not something i recall being in previous iterations of ESO pvp. Bothers the hell out of me. The difficulty is, from a competitive perspective you can't NOT use it. Anything ZoS puts in the game will be used by someone, and groups that dont use it will be at a disadvantage to those who do. If ZoS gave me a non-bugged version of mass hysteria i'd use it. But they haven't, so I'm stuck with what I got.

On board with 99.9% but "It is also worth knowing that groups do not layer nightblade fears. Most groups run only 1-2 nightblades Maximum, usually as DPS that also fear on contact with enemy clumps." this portion. I personally have viewed far too many videos of the ballgroups calling for multiple fears to be laid by the NB in them (in some cases the leads themselves spammed it) to agree with this, now of course its likely that is not the norm but its being done regularly now all the same. However when I spoke of layering them I was specifically calling the use of multiple fears overlapping with other CC's causing the lock condition as well.

The use of multiple forms seems to result often in similar situations where the first immunity is ignored outright as you clear one version to be standing in the other and have fear reapplied. Two that are popular are NB fears with Totems in the same location on same stack. Players can be locked or forced to take the entire fear of whatever one you were unable to clear- This isnt happening to players who dont know how to clear it so much, but rather the multiple layers of it and spamming causing the issues. Now update that to consider laying down multiple cc's in the same 'turn around' on a stack...and if that were not bad enough, add in a sorc streaking the bunch spamming rune prison at any point to set off the 40,0000 day slow bug. That is what I meant by 'layered' with those skills. Any one of them could cause issues at some point but by layering them the likelihood goes statistically up to near certain state.

As far as if the cc's and other bugs were cleared from ESO would they be able to farm, I dont agree with you that they would be able to. From what I see the relative DPS a ballgroup carries is nearly fully reliant on catching at least one or two ungrouped players in the stunlock to VD proc on them....without that massive burst added in, they carry enough damage to kill off players, but significant numbers of them would be torn apart from the back-end too fast for them to keep running up and down stairs or around the towers for long. Without the stunlock of a couple of players on the front end, the damage of the VD proc would not be enough to take out 8-10 or more in one shot as it is now with the chain reactions they are able to cause and they would not be able to move on sufficiently fast enough to prevent being torn apart from the back. So I guess we just see things working out differently if ZOS were to fix these long standing bugs in game or 'unexpected' results use of the skills can cause.

But at least we agree on that the lag causes issues for everyone, even ballgroups don't appreciate the lag, but I think its for nearly the same reasons others hate the lag. Aside from not being able to use skills, we all seem to get a 'super survival' laid on us when this happens because damage is just not registering. Been that way since Thornblade lag wars and not really sure why...but it happens every time lag gets bad....no one dies and sometimes its the ballgroup that benefits, sometimes the players they are trying to farm- but one or the other will get 'super survival' during bad lag.

Ranger209

I've advocated for this several times and will use this opportunity to do so once again. CC immunity is granted, or supposed to be, by Break Free. For what ever reason, lag, desync, bad code logic, it bugs out, and you cannot Break Free, and thus cannot obtain immunity when getting bombarded with many CC in a small window of time.

What should happen is that every hard CC in the game should itself grant immunity. This way CC cannot be layered on a person because they are in the immune state the first CC that lands on them. All subsequent CC they will be immune to, which would hopefully get rid of the bugginess that ensues stacked CC dumps. They would still be stunned until they Break Free. So get feared, you are immune to the next incoming stun, knock back, streak, what have you. If you have not broken free yet you are still stunned from the initial fear, but were immune to the following 3 CC's that followed. If at some point in the middle of that layered CC combo you broke free, you would no longer be stunned.

In other words Break Free should do just that, break you free. CC's though, should be the very thing that grants immunity at the precise moment that it locks a person down, thereby disallowing the follow up CC in that CC dump. CC immunity should be a part of the CC effect.

NeillMcAttack

I'm not gonna argue semantics on our interpretation of Gina's statement anymore. Is that fair?

Besides that, I mostly agree with you all, seriously, because I understand ZOS sold us out!!!!

But I think we all can come together, as we all just want the same thing. A game like this, that works! But our idea's of what "works" are different, unfortunately.
You think the game needs to be played at a certain capacity to have a lot of value. I think it is more important to have a game that actually works! When I press a skill to save my mate, it better WORK!
You seem content to play in an environment that will never function at the level you want it to, and honestly, I would love that too, but it ain't possible.

I just want us thinking about balance, in a game that actually works, and let's be honest, you can't really balance groups that are too big?! Think about the gameplay first.

I'd love to know the servers the people that disagree with me are on. My guess is PC/NA Greyhost?

idk

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

I'm not gonna argue semantics on our interpretation of Gina's statement anymore. Is that fair?

There is no need to argue the semantics of Gina's comments because they are very clear. Not only did she not try to equate the changes they did make with any of the better test results, but she also distanced these changes from the test results by stating they implemented them because they liked behavioral changes that would come with them.

There is not a fine line to tread there and any suggesting she is implying that the changes were made because they resulted in a good ammount of performance improvement would clearly be putting words into her mouth.

Edit: And this is not about balance. This seems more about making it easier for less organized groups to be able to defeat organized groups by making them smaller. A good leader that organizes their group well can defeat most groups much of the time. This is something that has not changed since April 2014.

It is also irrelevant what servers and platforms we play on as group design is the same on all servers, platforms, and campaigns.

VaranisArano

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

I'm not gonna argue semantics on our interpretation of Gina's statement anymore. Is that fair?

Besides that, I mostly agree with you all, seriously, because I understand ZOS sold us out!!!!

But I think we all can come together, as we all just want the same thing. A game like this, that works! But our idea's of what "works" are different, unfortunately.
You think the game needs to be played at a certain capacity to have a lot of value. I think it is more important to have a game that actually works! When I press a skill to save my mate, it better WORK!
You seem content to play in an environment that will never function at the level you want it to, and honestly, I would love that too, but it ain't possible.

I just want us thinking about balance, in a game that actually works, and let's be honest, you can't really balance groups that are too big?! Think about the gameplay first.

I'd love to know the servers the people that disagree with me are on. My guess is PC/NA Greyhost?

I'm on PC/NA Greyhost and when I think about game balance, I think about how dropping the group size down to 12 and making heals group-only wildly unbalanced Cyrodiil in favor of ball group tactics. The changes do nothing to 12 man ball groups who farm back keeps while seriously disadvantaging the PUGs, informal groups, and newer players who fight against them. Without, I note, ZOS claiming there's any significant performance improvement to the player experience because of those changes.

If we want to talk balance, it's less a matter of size than it is of organization. Even if we were to drop the group size down to 6, six players in voice comms coordinating their attacks are going to cut through disorganized players no matter what ZOs does to "raise the floor, lower the ceiling." We already see that in good small scale groups. Ball groups or even the old larger organized raids of 12 to 24 players were as dominant as they were against faction stacks and PUG zergs not because of their size, but because of their organization.

idk

VaranisArano wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

I'm not gonna argue semantics on our interpretation of Gina's statement anymore. Is that fair?

Besides that, I mostly agree with you all, seriously, because I understand ZOS sold us out!!!!

But I think we all can come together, as we all just want the same thing. A game like this, that works! But our idea's of what "works" are different, unfortunately.
You think the game needs to be played at a certain capacity to have a lot of value. I think it is more important to have a game that actually works! When I press a skill to save my mate, it better WORK!
You seem content to play in an environment that will never function at the level you want it to, and honestly, I would love that too, but it ain't possible.

I just want us thinking about balance, in a game that actually works, and let's be honest, you can't really balance groups that are too big?! Think about the gameplay first.

I'd love to know the servers the people that disagree with me are on. My guess is PC/NA Greyhost?

I'm on PC/NA Greyhost and when I think about game balance, I think about how dropping the group size down to 12 and making heals group-only wildly unbalanced Cyrodiil in favor of ball group tactics. The changes do nothing to 12 man ball groups who farm back keeps while seriously disadvantaging the PUGs, informal groups, and newer players who fight against them. Without, I note, ZOS claiming there's any significant performance improvement to the player experience because of those changes.

If we want to talk balance, it's less a matter of size than it is of organization. Even if we were to drop the group size down to 6, six players in voice comms coordinating their attacks are going to cut through disorganized players no matter what ZOs does to "raise the floor, lower the ceiling." We already see that in good small scale groups. Ball groups or even the old larger organized raids of 12 to 24 players were as dominant as they were against faction stacks and PUG zergs not because of their size, but because of their organization.

Spoken well. With my guild, I run with for small group we have found it much easier to wipe out groups as they are so much smaller now. The challenge is significantly less already which is sad. When I run solo it makes no difference as I was already built to take care of myself and tend to hunt gankers anyhow.

NeillMcAttack

VaranisArano wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

I'm not gonna argue semantics on our interpretation of Gina's statement anymore. Is that fair?

Besides that, I mostly agree with you all, seriously, because I understand ZOS sold us out!!!!

But I think we all can come together, as we all just want the same thing. A game like this, that works! But our idea's of what "works" are different, unfortunately.
You think the game needs to be played at a certain capacity to have a lot of value. I think it is more important to have a game that actually works! When I press a skill to save my mate, it better WORK!
You seem content to play in an environment that will never function at the level you want it to, and honestly, I would love that too, but it ain't possible.

I just want us thinking about balance, in a game that actually works, and let's be honest, you can't really balance groups that are too big?! Think about the gameplay first.

I'd love to know the servers the people that disagree with me are on. My guess is PC/NA Greyhost?

I'm on PC/NA Greyhost and when I think about game balance, I think about how dropping the group size down to 12 and making heals group-only wildly unbalanced Cyrodiil in favor of ball group tactics. The changes do nothing to 12 man ball groups who farm back keeps while seriously disadvantaging the PUGs, informal groups, and newer players who fight against them. Without, I note, ZOS claiming there's any significant performance improvement to the player experience because of those changes.

If we want to talk balance, it's less a matter of size than it is of organization. Even if we were to drop the group size down to 6, six players in voice comms coordinating their attacks are going to cut through disorganized players no matter what ZOs does to "raise the floor, lower the ceiling." We already see that in good small scale groups. Ball groups or even the old larger organized raids of 12 to 24 players were as dominant as they were against faction stacks and PUG zergs not because of their size, but because of their organization.

I'm not going to disagree with any of this, because it is all true. But it doesn't change the fact that the game doesn't work. Smaller groups sizes has a chance to improve performance IMO, debatable, sure. And ballgroups are wildly unbalanced against PUGS and and solo players, agreed.
Does it not then make sense to lower the size of groups further? Remember, functionality should be the top priority, regardless of playstyle. And balance makes the game more enjoyable for everyone. It just seems too obvious not to at least try and then get peoples opinions, as long as those opinions revolve around a desire for a playable Cyro, and a realistic expectation.

idk

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

I'm not gonna argue semantics on our interpretation of Gina's statement anymore. Is that fair?

Besides that, I mostly agree with you all, seriously, because I understand ZOS sold us out!!!!

But I think we all can come together, as we all just want the same thing. A game like this, that works! But our idea's of what "works" are different, unfortunately.
You think the game needs to be played at a certain capacity to have a lot of value. I think it is more important to have a game that actually works! When I press a skill to save my mate, it better WORK!
You seem content to play in an environment that will never function at the level you want it to, and honestly, I would love that too, but it ain't possible.

I just want us thinking about balance, in a game that actually works, and let's be honest, you can't really balance groups that are too big?! Think about the gameplay first.

I'd love to know the servers the people that disagree with me are on. My guess is PC/NA Greyhost?

I'm on PC/NA Greyhost and when I think about game balance, I think about how dropping the group size down to 12 and making heals group-only wildly unbalanced Cyrodiil in favor of ball group tactics. The changes do nothing to 12 man ball groups who farm back keeps while seriously disadvantaging the PUGs, informal groups, and newer players who fight against them. Without, I note, ZOS claiming there's any significant performance improvement to the player experience because of those changes.

If we want to talk balance, it's less a matter of size than it is of organization. Even if we were to drop the group size down to 6, six players in voice comms coordinating their attacks are going to cut through disorganized players no matter what ZOs does to "raise the floor, lower the ceiling." We already see that in good small scale groups. Ball groups or even the old larger organized raids of 12 to 24 players were as dominant as they were against faction stacks and PUG zergs not because of their size, but because of their organization.

I'm not going to disagree with any of this, because it is all true. But it doesn't change the fact that the game doesn't work. Smaller groups sizes has a chance to improve performance IMO, debatable, sure. And ballgroups are wildly unbalanced against PUGS and and solo players, agreed.
Does it not then make sense to lower the size of groups further? Remember, functionality should be the top priority, regardless of playstyle. And balance makes the game more enjoyable for everyone. It just seems too obvious not to at least try and then get peoples opinions, as long as those opinions revolve around a desire for a playable Cyro, and a realistic expectation.

It is a very accurate statement that organized groups are much stronger compared to pugs and solo players. An organized group with a good leader and players that know what they are doing should be able to overpower disorganized pugs and especially solo players. I have been playing with such knowledgeable leaders and skilled players off and on since the game launched and we have often been able to successfully take on groups larger than ours because we were well organized.

Even if a group that runs with 6-8 players had to run as two separate groups they would still clean the clocks of those disorganized groups and the solo players because they are a better group than the pugs and outnumber the solo players. a

Any argument that suggests it should otherwise seem to be an argument to bring the game (cyrdoiil) would seem to be supporting a one-dimensional gameplay viewpoint of bringing the game down to the level of the lowest common denominator, a single-player and pugs that lack organization by definition.

VaranisArano

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

I'm not gonna argue semantics on our interpretation of Gina's statement anymore. Is that fair?

Besides that, I mostly agree with you all, seriously, because I understand ZOS sold us out!!!!

But I think we all can come together, as we all just want the same thing. A game like this, that works! But our idea's of what "works" are different, unfortunately.
You think the game needs to be played at a certain capacity to have a lot of value. I think it is more important to have a game that actually works! When I press a skill to save my mate, it better WORK!
You seem content to play in an environment that will never function at the level you want it to, and honestly, I would love that too, but it ain't possible.

I just want us thinking about balance, in a game that actually works, and let's be honest, you can't really balance groups that are too big?! Think about the gameplay first.

I'd love to know the servers the people that disagree with me are on. My guess is PC/NA Greyhost?

I'm on PC/NA Greyhost and when I think about game balance, I think about how dropping the group size down to 12 and making heals group-only wildly unbalanced Cyrodiil in favor of ball group tactics. The changes do nothing to 12 man ball groups who farm back keeps while seriously disadvantaging the PUGs, informal groups, and newer players who fight against them. Without, I note, ZOS claiming there's any significant performance improvement to the player experience because of those changes.

If we want to talk balance, it's less a matter of size than it is of organization. Even if we were to drop the group size down to 6, six players in voice comms coordinating their attacks are going to cut through disorganized players no matter what ZOs does to "raise the floor, lower the ceiling." We already see that in good small scale groups. Ball groups or even the old larger organized raids of 12 to 24 players were as dominant as they were against faction stacks and PUG zergs not because of their size, but because of their organization.

I'm not going to disagree with any of this, because it is all true. But it doesn't change the fact that the game doesn't work. Smaller groups sizes has a chance to improve performance IMO, debatable, sure. And ballgroups are wildly unbalanced against PUGS and and solo players, agreed.
Does it not then make sense to lower the size of groups further? Remember, functionality should be the top priority, regardless of playstyle. And balance makes the game more enjoyable for everyone. It just seems too obvious not to at least try and then get peoples opinions, as long as those opinions revolve around a desire for a playable Cyro, and a realistic expectation.

I'm not sure I can go there. Since dropping the group size to 12 wasn't for performance reasons, it seems like 6-man PVP is your solution to killing ball groups, which you blame for the performance issues. I'm not sure why 6-man PVP is the preferred solution here, when that's going to cause a lot of problems and, IMO, sacrifice a lot of what makes Cyrodiil, well, Cyrodiil.

To be clear, I don't mind testing 6-man PVP but I think its going to have the same exact balance problems we have now, only worse. And while its possible it might be the silver bullet for functionality, its going to create a lot of issues for gameplay in Cyrodiil that we'd have to deal with going forward.

Organized 6 man squads would still cut through disorganized PUGs that outnumber them. Its not a ball group thing. Its an organized group thing. Being able to coordinate your targeting and movement does wonders. Balance still dramatically favors the organized groups. PUG players are generally worse at the self-sufficient small scale gameplay that current 6-man squads favor, so it hurts disorganized groups even more when limiting group size to 6 cuts down on the buffs/heals that PUGs receive from group members.

Other problems:
1. The smaller the group sizes, the harder it is for new, inexperienced and casual players to learn the ropes or join groups. Its also harder for groups who have new, inexperienced, or casual players to succeed, since there's not a lot of room for carrying anyone in a 6-man squad.
2. the smaller the group sizes, the more people are LFG in zone, and its not like the number of players who want to lead PUGs doubled. So we've got longer group wait times and proportionately less experienced PUG leaders.
3. The smaller the group sizes, more PVP guilds have to cut their raids, shedding core members and not accepting new ones. The bigger guilds have already dropped members to reach a 12-man raid, now everyone would have to drop to a 6 man. This results in experienced players playing less, while fewer new players get to play in organized groups who train their members.
4. The smaller the group sizes, the harder it is to be effective at objectives. Cyrodiil is still an objective based game where groups should be aiming to capture objectives like keeps. 6 man is a good size for skirmishing or farming, not really capturing keeps at primetime. I mean, I can only imagine trying to charge into a breach with my five friends, hoping the rest of the zerg behind us follows!
5. It encourages zerging, even among organized groups, because a 6 man who splits off from the main pack to take objectives is much more easily countered without a pack of allies along. This might reduce groups farming at back keeps, but at the cost of making players less likely to spread out. Spreading out is one of the things that ZOS has said helps performance.
6. The smaller the group size, there's much less diversity of builds. Whenever I played 6-man, I always felt like my healer was pretty useless, and I'd be better off playing a generic tanky/DD with a few cross heals. Its not that you can't do dedicated roles, but as in Battlegrounds, its mostly done by organized/pre-made groups. Yet another leg up for the organized groups.
7. The smaller the group, the harder it is to balance tanky builds. CP Battlegrounds turned into a dragged out slugging match between 4v4v4 teams. While Cyrodiil always has the option to call in more players, smaller group sizes makes the tankier builds more problematic in group vs group situations.


Maybe this would all solve itself if 6-man PVP really is the silver bullet to Cyrodiil's performance woes. Maybe players would say "Well, at least my skills work!" and happily adapt to playing 6-man small scale in a zone originally designed for groups of 8 to 24. Maybe Cyrodiil would experience a lasting resurgence in population (unlike the two other small-scale options in ESO: Battlegrounds and Imperial City.)

Personally, after I've sorted through which five of my friends from my PVP guild I'm playing with in raid, retooled my PVP healer playstyle into the generic tanky/damage dealing build with a few cross heals that seem more effective in small scale fights, and resigned myself to not being able to take objectives during primetime unless we've got a horde of PUGs on our coattails, I'm not sure it would feel much like Cyrodiil anymore.

It definitely wouldn't be anything like what attracted me to Cyrodiil in the first place.

pma_pacifier

Essentially I think ZOS should nerf 1vX.

If I have 5 allies, 5 of us should be able to kill the 1 player. It's not fair that when we gang up on them, they are able to survive AND kill us. It is unfair.

In similar extension, these "ball" groups of 12 should not be able to achieve ANY form of victory against lets say 40 other players. It is unfair.

Seems more fun this way and it supports the direction that ZOS is going, which is to balance any form of skilled gameplay.

It will definitely move the game towards a positive direction; Fun and enjoyment that lasts as long as a goldfish's memory.

oXI_Viper_IXo

pma_pacifier wrote: »

Essentially I think ZOS should nerf 1vX.

If I have 5 allies, 5 of us should be able to kill the 1 player. It's not fair that when we gang up on them, they are able to survive AND kill us. It is unfair.

In similar extension, these "ball" groups of 12 should not be able to achieve ANY form of victory against lets say 40 other players. It is unfair.

Seems more fun this way and it supports the direction that ZOS is going, which is to balance any form of skilled gameplay.

It will definitely move the game towards a positive direction; Fun and enjoyment that lasts as long as a goldfish's memory.

I'm sorry, but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is [snip]

[Edited to remove Baiting]

Joy_Division

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

pma_pacifier wrote: »

Essentially I think ZOS should nerf 1vX.

If I have 5 allies, 5 of us should be able to kill the 1 player. It's not fair that when we gang up on them, they are able to survive AND kill us. It is unfair.

In similar extension, these "ball" groups of 12 should not be able to achieve ANY form of victory against lets say 40 other players. It is unfair.

Seems more fun this way and it supports the direction that ZOS is going, which is to balance any form of skilled gameplay.

It will definitely move the game towards a positive direction; Fun and enjoyment that lasts as long as a goldfish's memory.

I'm sorry, but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is [snip]

[snip]

I find your sig amusing.

[Edited to remove Baiting]

Tammany

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

I'm sorry, but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is [snip]

I'am sorry but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is a massive balance issue.
Because in every competitive mmo your skill is irrelevant when you are outnumbered.

Thoragaal

pma_pacifier wrote: »

Essentially I think ZOS should nerf 1vX.

If I have 5 allies, 5 of us should be able to kill the 1 player. It's not fair that when we gang up on them, they are able to survive AND kill us. It is unfair.

That completely depends on what you are doing. If 6 people stand afk and one person kills you, is that unfair?
Likewise, if you have 6 of the top players in all of ESO history unable to kill 1 player that's AFK, is that unfair?
The specifics matter. They matter a lot!

pma_pacifier wrote: »

In similar extension, these "ball" groups of 12 should not be able to achieve ANY form of victory against lets say 40 other players. It is unfair.

Why is it unfair? That depends on what those players are doing. If 40 players are only spamming light attacks, it's not unfair that the ball group can survive. If the "ball group" is baiting 40 players into choke point with a coordinated attack, it's not unfair that the ball group wins. The ballgroup has coordination, communication, skills and gear to compliment eachother. What's unfair is if those people do Not have an advantage.

pma_pacifier wrote: »

Seems more fun this way and it supports the direction that ZOS is going, which is to balance any form of skilled gameplay.

It might seem fun, the first few minutes you play it. But completely removing the individual skill of players in order to force some equity standard gets really boring real fast because there is Nothing you can do yourself in order to progress and get better as a player.

pma_pacifier wrote: »

It will definitely move the game towards a positive direction; Fun and enjoyment that lasts as long as a goldfish's memory.

Damn baiting troll, you got me!!!

VaranisArano

I realize that comment was sarcastic, but it amuses me that it used to be a 12 v 40 ball group fight, where the 40 players could heal and buff each other. The 40 probably had at least one large PUG raid of 20 to 24 players which helped keep the majority of players mostly coordinated.

Now its a 12v 12+12+12+4, where only 12 opponents max can heal, buff, and coordinate with each other. Everyone else just happens to be fighting the same enemies.

Its no wonder that ball groups are stronger than ever...and ZOS apparently likes this behavioral change.

Soul_Demon

VaranisArano wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

I'm not gonna argue semantics on our interpretation of Gina's statement anymore. Is that fair?

Besides that, I mostly agree with you all, seriously, because I understand ZOS sold us out!!!!

But I think we all can come together, as we all just want the same thing. A game like this, that works! But our idea's of what "works" are different, unfortunately.
You think the game needs to be played at a certain capacity to have a lot of value. I think it is more important to have a game that actually works! When I press a skill to save my mate, it better WORK!
You seem content to play in an environment that will never function at the level you want it to, and honestly, I would love that too, but it ain't possible.

I just want us thinking about balance, in a game that actually works, and let's be honest, you can't really balance groups that are too big?! Think about the gameplay first.

I'd love to know the servers the people that disagree with me are on. My guess is PC/NA Greyhost?

I'm on PC/NA Greyhost and when I think about game balance, I think about how dropping the group size down to 12 and making heals group-only wildly unbalanced Cyrodiil in favor of ball group tactics. The changes do nothing to 12 man ball groups who farm back keeps while seriously disadvantaging the PUGs, informal groups, and newer players who fight against them. Without, I note, ZOS claiming there's any significant performance improvement to the player experience because of those changes.

If we want to talk balance, it's less a matter of size than it is of organization. Even if we were to drop the group size down to 6, six players in voice comms coordinating their attacks are going to cut through disorganized players no matter what ZOs does to "raise the floor, lower the ceiling." We already see that in good small scale groups. Ball groups or even the old larger organized raids of 12 to 24 players were as dominant as they were against faction stacks and PUG zergs not because of their size, but because of their organization.

I'm not going to disagree with any of this, because it is all true. But it doesn't change the fact that the game doesn't work. Smaller groups sizes has a chance to improve performance IMO, debatable, sure. And ballgroups are wildly unbalanced against PUGS and and solo players, agreed.
Does it not then make sense to lower the size of groups further? Remember, functionality should be the top priority, regardless of playstyle. And balance makes the game more enjoyable for everyone. It just seems too obvious not to at least try and then get peoples opinions, as long as those opinions revolve around a desire for a playable Cyro, and a realistic expectation.

I'm not sure I can go there. Since dropping the group size to 12 wasn't for performance reasons, it seems like 6-man PVP is your solution to killing ball groups, which you blame for the performance issues. I'm not sure why 6-man PVP is the preferred solution here, when that's going to cause a lot of problems and, IMO, sacrifice a lot of what makes Cyrodiil, well, Cyrodiil.

To be clear, I don't mind testing 6-man PVP but I think its going to have the same exact balance problems we have now, only worse. And while its possible it might be the silver bullet for functionality, its going to create a lot of issues for gameplay in Cyrodiil that we'd have to deal with going forward.

Organized 6 man squads would still cut through disorganized PUGs that outnumber them. Its not a ball group thing. Its an organized group thing. Being able to coordinate your targeting and movement does wonders. Balance still dramatically favors the organized groups. PUG players are generally worse at the self-sufficient small scale gameplay that current 6-man squads favor, so it hurts disorganized groups even more when limiting group size to 6 cuts down on the buffs/heals that PUGs receive from group members.

Other problems:
1. The smaller the group sizes, the harder it is for new, inexperienced and casual players to learn the ropes or join groups. Its also harder for groups who have new, inexperienced, or casual players to succeed, since there's not a lot of room for carrying anyone in a 6-man squad.
2. the smaller the group sizes, the more people are LFG in zone, and its not like the number of players who want to lead PUGs doubled. So we've got longer group wait times and proportionately less experienced PUG leaders.
3. The smaller the group sizes, more PVP guilds have to cut their raids, shedding core members and not accepting new ones. The bigger guilds have already dropped members to reach a 12-man raid, now everyone would have to drop to a 6 man. This results in experienced players playing less, while fewer new players get to play in organized groups who train their members.
4. The smaller the group sizes, the harder it is to be effective at objectives. Cyrodiil is still an objective based game where groups should be aiming to capture objectives like keeps. 6 man is a good size for skirmishing or farming, not really capturing keeps at primetime. I mean, I can only imagine trying to charge into a breach with my five friends, hoping the rest of the zerg behind us follows!
5. It encourages zerging, even among organized groups, because a 6 man who splits off from the main pack to take objectives is much more easily countered without a pack of allies along. This might reduce groups farming at back keeps, but at the cost of making players less likely to spread out. Spreading out is one of the things that ZOS has said helps performance.
6. The smaller the group size, there's much less diversity of builds. Whenever I played 6-man, I always felt like my healer was pretty useless, and I'd be better off playing a generic tanky/DD with a few cross heals. Its not that you can't do dedicated roles, but as in Battlegrounds, its mostly done by organized/pre-made groups. Yet another leg up for the organized groups.
7. The smaller the group, the harder it is to balance tanky builds. CP Battlegrounds turned into a dragged out slugging match between 4v4v4 teams. While Cyrodiil always has the option to call in more players, smaller group sizes makes the tankier builds more problematic in group vs group situations.


Maybe this would all solve itself if 6-man PVP really is the silver bullet to Cyrodiil's performance woes. Maybe players would say "Well, at least my skills work!" and happily adapt to playing 6-man small scale in a zone originally designed for groups of 8 to 24. Maybe Cyrodiil would experience a lasting resurgence in population (unlike the two other small-scale options in ESO: Battlegrounds and Imperial City.)

Personally, after I've sorted through which five of my friends from my PVP guild I'm playing with in raid, retooled my PVP healer playstyle into the generic tanky/damage dealing build with a few cross heals that seem more effective in small scale fights, and resigned myself to not being able to take objectives during primetime unless we've got a horde of PUGs on our coattails, I'm not sure it would feel much like Cyrodiil anymore.

It definitely wouldn't be anything like what attracted me to Cyrodiil in the first place.

Quoting this as its so very true- Ultimately the future depends on good decisions by ZOS for Cyro and after years of what I consider very bad ones, this most recent slew of 'performance improvements' that gave us two months of nearly unplayable Cyro map with the goal of improving our experience and conducting testing on live server to end in decisions that don't benefit the community as a whole is a serious slap in our faces. I feel that if a course correction is not made soon it will just be way too late to impact in a meaningful way---there just wont be any players interested any more and you will not get them back to the environment. They may not be able to improve performance with two months of testing on a live server, but they most certainly can destroy what remains of the game with poor decision making in the wake of it.

idk

Tammany wrote: »

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

I'm sorry, but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is [snip]

I'am sorry but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is a massive balance issue.
Because in every competitive mmo your skill is irrelevant when you are outnumbered.

The issue is in ESO there is a significant difference between truly skilled players (and groups) and even the average player. That's not even getting to the bottom of the pile or talking about rank builds that can do damage.

Just because a player can kill a group of five doesn't mean they are good. It speaks more to the other group not being very good.

So the balance issue is with the players skill level.

Faded

Satiar wrote: »

Anything ZoS puts in the game will be used by someone, and groups that dont use it will be at a disadvantage to those who do. If ZoS gave me a non-bugged version of mass hysteria i'd use it. But they haven't, so I'm stuck with what I got.

Tammany wrote: »

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

I'm sorry, but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is [snip]

I'am sorry but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is a massive balance issue.
Because in every competitive mmo your skill is irrelevant when you are outnumbered.

Nothing about ESO open world PVP is competitive, it's for fun only. Every kill you make is stolen from you by the probability your opponent(s) couldn't move, use abilities, heal, or that whatever they were seeing on their screen wasn't what was happening in that moment.

Every one, every time. You can't build competitive combat on that foundation, no matter how much we may want to pat ourselves on the back for a win.

How other people play and whatever *** proc set the devs introduce gets a lot less frustrating once you have this realization for yourself.

Theignson

Satiar said : "the current thing where you break the fear and then you're also rooted and cant quite dodge/block is strange and not something i recall being in previous iterations of ESO pvp. Bothers the hell out of me."

This has been going on for about a year and its the WORST bug in the game. The ball groups exploit the heck out of it, which is their right, they are students of the game, they know what works.

But time after time I have been lagstunned/feared and completely unable to do anything whatsoever-- that is a broken game. They would do better to completely remove fear than to render players completely unable to play.

I would like to be able to fight against ball groups but the broken game means I know its pointless, they will eventually lagstun/fear me so Im unable to do squat, then kill me. I'd much rather fight a zerg .

There are a lot of skilled players in the game who can beat me straight up, I accept that, but maximizing these exploits to win..is dirty

Gilvoth

Tammany wrote: »

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

I'm sorry, but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is [snip]

I'am sorry but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is a massive balance issue.
Because in every competitive mmo your skill is irrelevant when you are outnumbered.

this ^
very well said, all truth.

Earthewen

Soul_Demon wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

I'm not gonna argue semantics on our interpretation of Gina's statement anymore. Is that fair?

Besides that, I mostly agree with you all, seriously, because I understand ZOS sold us out!!!!

But I think we all can come together, as we all just want the same thing. A game like this, that works! But our idea's of what "works" are different, unfortunately.
You think the game needs to be played at a certain capacity to have a lot of value. I think it is more important to have a game that actually works! When I press a skill to save my mate, it better WORK!
You seem content to play in an environment that will never function at the level you want it to, and honestly, I would love that too, but it ain't possible.

I just want us thinking about balance, in a game that actually works, and let's be honest, you can't really balance groups that are too big?! Think about the gameplay first.

I'd love to know the servers the people that disagree with me are on. My guess is PC/NA Greyhost?

I'm on PC/NA Greyhost and when I think about game balance, I think about how dropping the group size down to 12 and making heals group-only wildly unbalanced Cyrodiil in favor of ball group tactics. The changes do nothing to 12 man ball groups who farm back keeps while seriously disadvantaging the PUGs, informal groups, and newer players who fight against them. Without, I note, ZOS claiming there's any significant performance improvement to the player experience because of those changes.

If we want to talk balance, it's less a matter of size than it is of organization. Even if we were to drop the group size down to 6, six players in voice comms coordinating their attacks are going to cut through disorganized players no matter what ZOs does to "raise the floor, lower the ceiling." We already see that in good small scale groups. Ball groups or even the old larger organized raids of 12 to 24 players were as dominant as they were against faction stacks and PUG zergs not because of their size, but because of their organization.

I'm not going to disagree with any of this, because it is all true. But it doesn't change the fact that the game doesn't work. Smaller groups sizes has a chance to improve performance IMO, debatable, sure. And ballgroups are wildly unbalanced against PUGS and and solo players, agreed.
Does it not then make sense to lower the size of groups further? Remember, functionality should be the top priority, regardless of playstyle. And balance makes the game more enjoyable for everyone. It just seems too obvious not to at least try and then get peoples opinions, as long as those opinions revolve around a desire for a playable Cyro, and a realistic expectation.

I'm not sure I can go there. Since dropping the group size to 12 wasn't for performance reasons, it seems like 6-man PVP is your solution to killing ball groups, which you blame for the performance issues. I'm not sure why 6-man PVP is the preferred solution here, when that's going to cause a lot of problems and, IMO, sacrifice a lot of what makes Cyrodiil, well, Cyrodiil.

To be clear, I don't mind testing 6-man PVP but I think its going to have the same exact balance problems we have now, only worse. And while its possible it might be the silver bullet for functionality, its going to create a lot of issues for gameplay in Cyrodiil that we'd have to deal with going forward.

Organized 6 man squads would still cut through disorganized PUGs that outnumber them. Its not a ball group thing. Its an organized group thing. Being able to coordinate your targeting and movement does wonders. Balance still dramatically favors the organized groups. PUG players are generally worse at the self-sufficient small scale gameplay that current 6-man squads favor, so it hurts disorganized groups even more when limiting group size to 6 cuts down on the buffs/heals that PUGs receive from group members.

Other problems:
1. The smaller the group sizes, the harder it is for new, inexperienced and casual players to learn the ropes or join groups. Its also harder for groups who have new, inexperienced, or casual players to succeed, since there's not a lot of room for carrying anyone in a 6-man squad.
2. the smaller the group sizes, the more people are LFG in zone, and its not like the number of players who want to lead PUGs doubled. So we've got longer group wait times and proportionately less experienced PUG leaders.
3. The smaller the group sizes, more PVP guilds have to cut their raids, shedding core members and not accepting new ones. The bigger guilds have already dropped members to reach a 12-man raid, now everyone would have to drop to a 6 man. This results in experienced players playing less, while fewer new players get to play in organized groups who train their members.
4. The smaller the group sizes, the harder it is to be effective at objectives. Cyrodiil is still an objective based game where groups should be aiming to capture objectives like keeps. 6 man is a good size for skirmishing or farming, not really capturing keeps at primetime. I mean, I can only imagine trying to charge into a breach with my five friends, hoping the rest of the zerg behind us follows!
5. It encourages zerging, even among organized groups, because a 6 man who splits off from the main pack to take objectives is much more easily countered without a pack of allies along. This might reduce groups farming at back keeps, but at the cost of making players less likely to spread out. Spreading out is one of the things that ZOS has said helps performance.
6. The smaller the group size, there's much less diversity of builds. Whenever I played 6-man, I always felt like my healer was pretty useless, and I'd be better off playing a generic tanky/DD with a few cross heals. Its not that you can't do dedicated roles, but as in Battlegrounds, its mostly done by organized/pre-made groups. Yet another leg up for the organized groups.
7. The smaller the group, the harder it is to balance tanky builds. CP Battlegrounds turned into a dragged out slugging match between 4v4v4 teams. While Cyrodiil always has the option to call in more players, smaller group sizes makes the tankier builds more problematic in group vs group situations.


Maybe this would all solve itself if 6-man PVP really is the silver bullet to Cyrodiil's performance woes. Maybe players would say "Well, at least my skills work!" and happily adapt to playing 6-man small scale in a zone originally designed for groups of 8 to 24. Maybe Cyrodiil would experience a lasting resurgence in population (unlike the two other small-scale options in ESO: Battlegrounds and Imperial City.)

Personally, after I've sorted through which five of my friends from my PVP guild I'm playing with in raid, retooled my PVP healer playstyle into the generic tanky/damage dealing build with a few cross heals that seem more effective in small scale fights, and resigned myself to not being able to take objectives during primetime unless we've got a horde of PUGs on our coattails, I'm not sure it would feel much like Cyrodiil anymore.

It definitely wouldn't be anything like what attracted me to Cyrodiil in the first place.

Quoting this as its so very true- Ultimately the future depends on good decisions by ZOS for Cyro and after years of what I consider very bad ones, this most recent slew of 'performance improvements' that gave us two months of nearly unplayable Cyro map with the goal of improving our experience and conducting testing on live server to end in decisions that don't benefit the community as a whole is a serious slap in our faces. I feel that if a course correction is not made soon it will just be way too late to impact in a meaningful way---there just wont be any players interested any more and you will not get them back to the environment. They may not be able to improve performance with two months of testing on a live server, but they most certainly can destroy what remains of the game with poor decision making in the wake of it.

It might already be too late. Lag and disconnects are worse than I've ever seen them, and that makes me sad. The game was all but unplayable tonight. Some folks have such a hard time staying in the game that the game has become very unfun. With covid and everything else going on in the world, we're supposed to be having fun here. Some people crash every time they get near a fight whether in group or not. I'm not sure it's fixable at this point.

Earthewen

idk wrote: »

Tammany wrote: »

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

I'm sorry, but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is [snip]

I'am sorry but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is a massive balance issue.
Because in every competitive mmo your skill is irrelevant when you are outnumbered.

The issue is in ESO there is a significant difference between truly skilled players (and groups) and even the average player. That's not even getting to the bottom of the pile or talking about rank builds that can do damage.

Just because a player can kill a group of five doesn't mean they are good. It speaks more to the other group not being very good.

So the balance issue is with the players skill level.

idk wrote: »

Tammany wrote: »

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

I'm sorry, but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is [snip]

I'am sorry but if 5 of you can't kill 1 player AND he kills you all, that is a massive balance issue.
Because in every competitive mmo your skill is irrelevant when you are outnumbered.

The issue is in ESO there is a significant difference between truly skilled players (and groups) and even the average player. That's not even getting to the bottom of the pile or talking about rank builds that can do damage.

Just because a player can kill a group of five doesn't mean they are good. It speaks more to the other group not being very good.

So the balance issue is with the players skill level.

If you are lagged out to death, it doesn't matter what build you have or your skill level. When you log back in, you're dead either way.

synnerman

Yeah lets face it ZoS bottled it on the results of the tests . I played in all the tests every single night and I know which one worked and was a vast improvement . Test one worked like a charm and as for those who keep saying that the IC event was on at the time I say that on the first night of test 1 cyro was full and DC had Emp and there was a massive 3 faction fight at the last Emp keep and on the second then the ball grps left for IC because they were dying.
There was not/very little lag and you could actually see more effects going off the server was perfoming so well. However what we had then was 6 weeks of whining and Zos bottled the decision. I challenge them to rerun test 1 with no event on just so the excuse makers cant keep whining.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Tammany wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Because approaching the fight like fighting a solo player or Xv1ing someone down isn't the way to kill a group of players. Groups like mine spend quite some time trying different strategies /gear/ compositions to make the most of our setups. Players who put in similar dedication to making a variety of builds would also do better against us than just "a group of solo players"

Able to demonstrate how you and your group members are killing decent ballblob not as another ballblob or mombers ?

I'am always reading all these "learn to play" written by ballkids, but in reality i have never seen any organised groups getting down ballblobs, its usually another ballblob, bomber or very huge zerg.

Second, it's tripple funny to read all that "we worked hard" because all that you did - found few cheesiest sets and party setups to have insane sustain and tons of overhealing/overshielding. Ballblobng is not about skill in any way, its about heal/purge spam - mechanic abuse that makes you nearly immortal and allows to crawl into a crowd and spam aoes there. 90% of your members are not capable to do crap when silver leashed of the wall - each time i do that, ballblob member acts like a true bot in attempts to run away/reach the lost group. Meanwhile in a REAL organised group every member is a fighting unit, not a buffing/aoespamming bot that follows WSAD addon and discord commands every parrot can executre.

You are constantly contradicting yourself. If as you say playing as a group is so easy due to purge/heal spam why do you differentiate whether a group is 'decent' or not?

You say a Real organised group everyone is fighting as a unit. That's precisely what a 'ball group' does. Everyone works on a different aspect in coordination together.

I guess your definition is that you can only be a 'real group' if you spam single target skills and don't buff yourself? Sounds like my definition of a zerger tbh.

VaranisArano

Tammany wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Because approaching the fight like fighting a solo player or Xv1ing someone down isn't the way to kill a group of players. Groups like mine spend quite some time trying different strategies /gear/ compositions to make the most of our setups. Players who put in similar dedication to making a variety of builds would also do better against us than just "a group of solo players"

Able to demonstrate how you and your group members are killing decent ballblob not as another ballblob or mombers ?

I'am always reading all these "learn to play" written by ballkids, but in reality i have never seen any organised groups getting down ballblobs, its usually another ballblob, bomber or very huge zerg.

Second, it's tripple funny to read all that "we worked hard" because all that you did - found few cheesiest sets and party setups to have insane sustain and tons of overhealing/overshielding. Ballblobng is not about skill in any way, its about heal/purge spam - mechanic abuse that makes you nearly immortal and allows to crawl into a crowd and spam aoes there. 90% of your members are not capable to do crap when silver leashed of the wall - each time i do that, ballblob member acts like a true bot in attempts to run away/reach the lost group. Meanwhile in a REAL organised group every member is a fighting unit, not a buffing/aoespamming bot that follows WSAD addon and discord commands every parrot can executre.

I always chuckle whenever someone drags out the old "your group members can't fight the moment we pull them out of their group, so they suck compared to us players who are individual fighting units."

Like, you know exactly why that is. Ball group players sacrificed their individual independence to theorycraft a synergistic set of builds, sets, skill, specialized roles and tactics that require working together as a tight unit within the radius of their support sets and heals. The strength of that team is dependent on its group members' ability to coordinate attacks and movement. Duh, of course they try to get back to their group if you yank them out!

Or for a more obvious example, I play a PVP healer in a guild raid. If you yank me out of group, am I really gonna stop and fight you on my healer build while the friends I'm supposed to be healing are moving away? Of course not! I'm going to get away and get back to my raid so I don't end up dead and explaining to my friends "Sorry, can't heal you cause I stopped to fight someone." They'd laugh at me and rightly so.

Is it worth it?

Well, remind me who's been dominating the campaigns for update after update.

Is it REAL organized groups where every member is a fighting unit?

Or is it the guild raids who theorycraft and coordinate their players to create that synergistic effect of builds, sets, skills, roles and tactics that we often call ball groups?

Oh, right. It turns out that while you can kill ballgroup members once you separate them from their group, when they are in their group, it sounds like you've never seen any REAL organized group take down a ballgroup. Hmm.

Who'dve ever thought that teamwork is more OP than individual fighting skill in a PVP zone originally designed for groups of 8 to 24 players?