Dear ZoS team: From Cyro healers.

jdamuso

Why do absolutely NONE OF MY SKILLS HEAL ALLIES!?!!?! I mean really, I can see some balancing to this end, but.... NONE OF MY SKILLS HEAL ALLIES... and I realize that you want me to join a group but... I DON"T WANT TO JOIN A DAMNED GROUP, and I want my skills to have functionality. By removing my access to the use of these skill you have render COUNTLESS ARMOR SET OBSOLETE, while i understand you think that is okay, but I FARMED THIS GEAR FOR YEARS!!!!! You wan't me to keep paying for this sub, I expect you should attend and reconsider your decision to render years of collection useless.

Also fix your skills to read correctly, if its allies, it better heal allies, allies are not necessarily group member. follow the rule convention of your own game, [snip].For all you about to flame me and kiss dev arse, I pay alot of money into this game, and I expect that it will receive my well warranted displeasure and criticism.

Thank is all, Have a wonderful day!

[edited to remove bashing]

Joy_Division

I feel your frustration

To answer your question:

zos wrote:

In reviewing the data for all the different tests, [the testing did] not have a significant enough impact on improving the overall player experience.

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

jdamuso

Well that's nice and all but I put on a set of undertaker and it does not yield any outgoing heals unless im in a group.

I don't care why they have chosen to make all my sets not work unless I play nice with others... I DO NOT play well with others.. that is why I PVP... obviously. I find no excuse adequate to make ruining all my gear and skills useless.

I'll throw you a bone ZoS why don't you put the heals back the way they were or at least single target and choose ally or group for skills.

here's your bone. add more stam and magicka damaging attacks to gear and skills. like lightning balista damages magicka yeah? And let the zerg drain each other and hence reduce the amount of spamming.


I mean really. is it that hard to come up with a solution without castrating all my damned gear? I just gave you one without thinking real hard.

Thanks for the response and info. Alas i still find this to be unacceptable.. All my gear is now trash and I wanna know what ZOS has to say about that. IDC if the ToS says they can do what they want. I can go play planeside or gw2, or any number of games that will make me forget i stopped subbing to a game where my gear dont work.

ThePedge

If you "don't play nice with others" why are you a healer?
Surely you'd be better off being something more selfish as you clearly don't want to help your alliance, but just tag along for some easy participation points.

Join a group and help them.

Zer0_CooL

The worst about this change is that it made ballgroups even stronger. Nowadays you either play parcour in a resource tower or spam AOEs in a ballgroup.

ethenya

Joy_Division wrote: »

I feel your frustration

To answer your question:

zos wrote:

In reviewing the data for all the different tests, [the testing did] not have a significant enough impact on improving the overall player experience.

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

TLDR: Whine about the changes in Cyro.

I have to say that the use of the words "behavioural changes" irritated me. I admit that I may have misinterpreted what they meant by that but as long as I am playing their game and sticking to their TOS i.e. not being abusive to other players, etc a bunch of game devs have no right to try and manipulate my behaviour to their liking.

On the healing front I absolutely loathe the changes. This is my first experience of MMO's & PVP. I went into Cyro trying to do damage but found that my warden was better for healing and that suits my overall nature better. I absolutely loved running around trying to heal members of my alliance and trying to help them push forward. I am not sure that I was successful but it was a great learning experience and for the first time ever had the enthusiasm to research gear, builds, practicing rotations etc instead of just throwing any old build together and hoping for the best. Before anyone says join a group while I am still learning the healing role being a member of a team feels like too much responsibility and I don't have the confidence to try and join an experienced group. The odd time I have been in groups I have encountered the problems of member being all over the map or I didn't feel the objectives were the best thing for the alliance at that point in time and there is no way I am ready to even try and lead a group.

I'm not a huge fan of the PVE side of the game. My passion for the game grew when I discovered the PVP side of ESO and even more so when I was running trying to heal in Cyro, that's when I started logging on almost every day. Now I just feel like I am playing more out of habit than anything else and my loyalty to the game is fading. I feel forced to try and farm terrible proc sets just so I stand a chance of surviving in Cyro. If I happen to kill one of the opposing alliance members I have no idea whether it was because I have "gotten good" or whether I was lucky enough to have better gear than that player.

I could probably say a whole lot more but I have ran out of steam.

Tommy_The_Gun

I feel you OP. I remember when I was starting this game, long time ago, I remember running a healer build in Cyro PvP. Back then it was probably one of the fastest and best way to level up AW skill lines. Especially for player new to Cyro (just like I was back then). I used to run around and keep players using siege engines alive, healing them and providing siege shield. I may have been noob back then, but at least I was usefull. Also it helped me a lot to learn and understand what Cyro is all about and how to PvP. So later on I switched (gradually) to full solo pvp (no "zerg surfing"). I was a bomber. I was even a ganker at some point.

Later on I took a looong break from pvp. But when zos announced aoe cooldowns test I got back to see how it goes. And pretty much the only round of tests that were playable, with noticable performance improvement, were the ones that had no ball groups (idk if it was unplayable for them, but there were significantly less of them).

But you know how the story goes. Later on ZOS limited group cap to 12 and removed cross healing. And that only made ball groups stronger and increased their numbers.

Right now it feels like solo & grouped players are playing same game, but with a different rule set. No group / solo interactions limits make no sense and are VERY inconsistent. If you limit cross healing, there should also be no cross damage, right ?

Although, I was not affected that much with those changes, for me (almost exclusively solo pvp-er) it was, well like kinda a message. A message to get out of cyro. That maybe, perhaps the devs don't want solo players in Cyro.

Right now, if I have to go to Cyro, I run very um "odd" build. Vesture of Darloc Brae + Night's Silence + Ring of the Wild Hunt.
Yep. A build that ignores PvP aspect of Cyro PvP. I am pretty sure that this is not what Devs wanted, but hey, they made me do it...

Jaimeh

As a solo healer in Cyro, with my highest AR on that character, that change obliterated any fun I had in PvP. I don't play on prime time, and even finding zone PUGs (those that never stack on crown and are scattered in four corners, thus hard to heal regardless) is difficult. Basically, unless you run in an organized group, you might as well retire that character, or change playstyle, which is baffling to think it results because they can't fix their game's issues. Besides letting them know of your displeasure through the in-game feedback method, or here in the forums, there's not much else you can do except unsubscribe. Also, it didn't only render solo healers useless and unplayable, and forced them in an isolation bubble since their skills and procs can't help others unless grouped, but solo playing in general got disadvantaged, because in skirmishes and sieges, any and all allies benefitted from each others' heals, so even if you were ungrouped, you could still be supported, albeit less reliably.

Tammany

Zer0_CooL wrote: »

The worst about this change is that it made ballgroups even stronger. Nowadays you either play parcour in a resource tower or spam AOEs in a ballgroup.

Thats ESO in general.
Parcour 1vs10 build or ballblob mindless aoe spam.
This game does not have competitive interesting pvp aspect.

DreadDaedroth

It's odd that support roles like healers can enjoy AvAvA only in small 12 players groups and they cannot support and play with their alliance.

VaranisArano

ThePedge wrote: »

If you "don't play nice with others" why are you a healer?
Surely you'd be better off being something more selfish as you clearly don't want to help your alliance, but just tag along for some easy participation points.

Join a group and help them.

Why should I be forced to attach myself to a group crown and go where they go and fight what they fight in order to help my alliance by healing people?

Used to be I could throw a heal to an alliance member I saw get ambushed.

Used to be I could go retake a resource and heal anyone who tagged along.

Used to be I could answer the call for a keep defense and heal all my fellow defenders.

Used to be I could heal and defend the players singing the walls and flagging the keep, not the PUG groups skirmishing while they wait for others to break down the walls.

Used to be if I saw an enemy ball group slaughtering PUGs, I could at least throw a heal to the PUGs.

Now? If you aren't in group with me, I have to stand by and watch you die. The only thing I can do to help is kill our mutual enemies.


I mean, let's say I queue up on my EP healer and see that zone chat says Drakelowe has an AD raid heading for it. Oh no! I must help my alliance defend a home keep! I'll transit there and heal the defenders!

Haha, that's what I used to be able to do.

Now I have to go there and home someone will group up with me. Or, more likely, I LFG until someone picks up a healer and then go do whatever my new Crown wants to do, which probably isn't rush off to defend the now flagged Drakelowe.

Shockingly, this change made it harder for me to help my alliance.


The "selfish" part was, hmm, wanting to determine when and where I healed and not following around some PUG leader who probably isn't going where I wanted to, and healing only my 11 group mates, many of whom have slow horses, don't bring siege, and scatter in a real fight.

I've healed PUGs. I've even led PUGs. (Too long; didn't write: It was stressful, not fun.)

So, you want to talk "helping my alliance," I was more effective doing that as a "solo" healer healing my faction members at important objectives than I ever have been as a PUGing healer stuck going wherever my Crown wants, with teammates who just want to skirmish, and healing only the 11 people in ny group.

Pfft. Don't talk to me about not wanting to help my alliance. This change made it harder.

jdamuso

ThePedge wrote: »

If you "don't play nice with others" why are you a healer?
Surely you'd be better off being something more selfish as you clearly don't want to help your alliance, but just tag along for some easy participation points.

Join a group and help them.

I do not want to join and follow a group. I want to heal whoever is next to me because if they die I die when 25 dudes are trying to kill us.

Them groups are constatly running around doing dums ***, and Im not going to follow a 11 noobs that dont know wtf they are doing. just so i can heal them.

Ridiculous that you think that i should be made to have to group as a solo player.

And it is absolutely ridiculous that i should accept the fact that my skills and gear no longer function unless i group with a bunch a noobs. Really? Like go right to hell. I'm not groupoind and I want my gear and skills to work What *** magick causes my skills to work different in cyro?

This game deserves better than amateur workaround crap what did they do hire the noob Atlas game devs after they were fired??? Its the same kind of crap amateur development you guys hired an atlas dev didnt you?

ragnarok6644b14_ESO

I guess I am thankful I mostly do battlegrounds for PVP.

When I did go to Cyrodiil, it was always as a healer, and I almost never grouped. Not because I have something fundamental against groups, mind, but typically because there WERE no groups.

I'd ask nicely in Zone chat for my alliance, get nothing. After a couple times doing this, I'd look at the map, head to the front lines (can tell by crossed swords, flags, or just knowing likely avenues of approach) and help out. I'd drop heals on players in combat, or engage foes to try to draw them into other allies, etc. None of this required grouping.

I was happy to group if I would find one, but the ability to leave was always refreshing; some groups would repeatedly attack the same objective (which obviously failed repeatedly), other groups deliberately avoided large battles in pursuit of smaller engagements, some groups ran off to do edge-of-map stuff that helped the Alliance score but was really just Siege v Door rather than PvP, etc.

This change will just ensure I return to cyrodiil even less, and continue in Imperial City with 3-4 friends, or battlegrounds for solo pvp.

jdamuso

Understand there are many skills I rely on healing of others around me for doing other things like producing magicka, healing springs, and curse eater sets. And if I do not have targets to heal I do not get my sustain.

After the gear sets being presented as functional and I then go spent countless hours obtaining these gears. This dev team has no warrant to cease functionality of gear already presented to the community.

Put on your big boy pats devs, go through the skills and balance them correctly. and add other skills to combat the issue thats urking you of to much heals. add magicka damage and stamina damage skills that dimininsh other stam and magicka pools ultimately resulting in less spam because less ammo.

This is a hack two bit amatuer workaround and I am pissed off to the point where Im ready to pull my subscription, and go play planetside...

And yes I can heal whoever the hell I want in planetside. So... I expect this dev team to make a more professional response to this issues they are trying to address.

put on your thinking caps, and return th functionality of my gear that i collected.

I have already deconstructed my fully golded set of reactive armor. which was utter garbo since cyrodiil light does the same damned thing. Now you expect me to deconstruct 30 more armor sets because the dev are garbage amatuer workaround slinging hacks?

Is this a result of the microsoft merger? What exactly possessed the developers to put their customers in a position where-as they have to consider leaving the game because of overwhelming loss

What is it exactly you developers think i should do about the overwhelming loss you have cause with your recklessness?

why should i continue to PAY REAL MONEY for this game, when you have disabled 30% of my gear.

It's alot of gear, I have 6 characters that are just full of gear. and I EXPECT MY GEAR TO WORK> AND IT BETTER IF THEY WANT TO KEEP GETTING THEIR MONEY!

jdamuso

If healing was a problem why did they nerf defile?

Like hellllllllo!

VaranisArano

jdamuso wrote: »

If healing was a problem why did they nerf defile?

Like hellllllllo!

Because everyone thinks about "Oh, I'll use defile to kill that tank guy" and forgets to consider the ball group who has several players creating defile effects making it even easier for them to murder massed PUGs (who get less healing than the ball group to begin with.)

There used to be several sets that had powerful defile effects. Then there was a patch when the organized groups started using them to cut through PUGs like a hot knife through cheesecake and ZOS promptly nerfed them all.

Araneae6537

DreadDaedroth wrote: »

It's odd that support roles like healers can enjoy AvAvA only in small 12 players groups and they cannot support and play with their alliance.

Agreed! Between this, health-based self-heals, Ring of the Pale Order and other things, I feel like ZOS has never really liked dedicated healers.

I enjoy playing a DPS / healer hybrid in Cyrodill either solo or in a group and regardless, want to be able to join my allies when we join a fight or if I see them getting overwhelmed. How come I can heal any random player in Tamriel but in Cyrodill I cannot even heal all my allies???

jdamuso

VaranisArano wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

If healing was a problem why did they nerf defile?

Like hellllllllo!

Because everyone thinks about "Oh, I'll use defile to kill that tank guy" and forgets to consider the ball group who has several players creating defile effects making it even easier for them to murder massed PUGs (who get less healing than the ball group to begin with.)

There used to be several sets that had powerful defile effects. Then there was a patch when the organized groups started using them to cut through PUGs like a hot knife through cheesecake and ZOS promptly nerfed them all.

Sounds contradictory doesn't it? So ball groups kill pugs to hard, and they ultimately make it so pugs cant heal each other...

Thanks for the insight, but it's just compounding my point made, isn't it?

This is why I'm calling this hack work around. the developers failure to balance the monstrosity they have created should not result in my (being a paying customer) having years of collection rendered obsolete because they are incompetent in the ability to balance their own game mechanics and conventions. If there's too much heals then address it at the skill. and these skills have to do the same thing in cyro as in pve, because i build my ride in pve... now i build my ride and get to cyro AND NOTHING WORKS! and it is not okay.

vamp_emily

I agree

jaws343

jdamuso wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

If healing was a problem why did they nerf defile?

Like hellllllllo!

Because everyone thinks about "Oh, I'll use defile to kill that tank guy" and forgets to consider the ball group who has several players creating defile effects making it even easier for them to murder massed PUGs (who get less healing than the ball group to begin with.)

There used to be several sets that had powerful defile effects. Then there was a patch when the organized groups started using them to cut through PUGs like a hot knife through cheesecake and ZOS promptly nerfed them all.

Sounds contradictory doesn't it? So ball groups kill pugs to hard, and they ultimately make it so pugs cant heal each other...

Thanks for the insight, but it's just compounding my point made, isn't it?

This is why I'm calling this hack work around. the developers failure to balance the monstrosity they have created should not result in my (being a paying customer) having years of collection rendered obsolete because they are incompetent in the ability to balance their own game mechanics and conventions. If there's too much heals then address it at the skill. and these skills have to do the same thing in cyro as in pve, because i build my ride in pve... now i build my ride and get to cyro AND NOTHING WORKS! and it is not okay.

I think it is the other way:

Ball groups kill unorganized players easily. So to counter that, forcing players to group for healing means that more groups will be coordinated together to take on ball groups.

I personally like these changes. As both someone who mostly plays ungrouped and who runs a healer in Cyrodil on occasion.

As a mostly ungrouped player, my conditional mag heals, like healing ward and rapid regen, are now guaranteed to hit me, no matter what. That is awesome. Prior to this, casting either of those skills was a coin flip on if they would actually land on yourself when you needed them.

As far as queuing as a healer, running around to random keeps hoping there are people there to help is far less helpful than joining a group and helping that group survive. I've healed many a random siege prior to this change, and all it amounted to was following the mindless zerg in defense and captures. There really is no "choice" about where to go or who to help. If you are a healer helping two random people on a resource, you are less useful than a healer helping people in the zerg. And if you are joining the zerg to heal, you aren't really given a choice where to go.

And if you really don't want to follow crown, start your own group and be crown. Then you can lead your group to any fight on the map you want at any time you want.

VaranisArano

jdamuso wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

If healing was a problem why did they nerf defile?

Like hellllllllo!

Because everyone thinks about "Oh, I'll use defile to kill that tank guy" and forgets to consider the ball group who has several players creating defile effects making it even easier for them to murder massed PUGs (who get less healing than the ball group to begin with.)

There used to be several sets that had powerful defile effects. Then there was a patch when the organized groups started using them to cut through PUGs like a hot knife through cheesecake and ZOS promptly nerfed them all.

Sounds contradictory doesn't it? So ball groups kill pugs to hard, and they ultimately make it so pugs cant heal each other...

Thanks for the insight, but it's just compounding my point made, isn't it?

This is why I'm calling this hack work around. the developers failure to balance the monstrosity they have created should not result in my (being a paying customer) having years of collection rendered obsolete because they are incompetent in the ability to balance their own game mechanics and conventions. If there's too much heals then address it at the skill. and these skills have to do the same thing in cyro as in pve, because i build my ride in pve... now i build my ride and get to cyro AND NOTHING WORKS! and it is not okay.

Kinda. I play a PVP healer, so I definitely dislike the changes.

But since I heal in a PVP guild as well, ZOS trying to nerf healing is not as simple as "buff defile instead!" Cyrodiil balance is hard because you can have one group of 12 players who're in voice comms, have dedicated healers, wear specific sets, and stick together...and on the other side you have 12 players who LFGed in zone chat. How do you balance that?

The answer I've seen again and again is that ZOS can't do it. Either they inadvertently strengthen ball groups or they leave ball groups as the people with the best access to certain things. This healing change reminds me of when ZOS nerfed all speed sources except for Rapids, thus leaving ball groups as the speediest people in Cyrodiil because they were the only people who could afford to spam Rapids in combat.

jdamuso

jaws343 wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

If healing was a problem why did they nerf defile?

Like hellllllllo!

Because everyone thinks about "Oh, I'll use defile to kill that tank guy" and forgets to consider the ball group who has several players creating defile effects making it even easier for them to murder massed PUGs (who get less healing than the ball group to begin with.)

There used to be several sets that had powerful defile effects. Then there was a patch when the organized groups started using them to cut through PUGs like a hot knife through cheesecake and ZOS promptly nerfed them all.

Sounds contradictory doesn't it? So ball groups kill pugs to hard, and they ultimately make it so pugs cant heal each other...

Thanks for the insight, but it's just compounding my point made, isn't it?

This is why I'm calling this hack work around. the developers failure to balance the monstrosity they have created should not result in my (being a paying customer) having years of collection rendered obsolete because they are incompetent in the ability to balance their own game mechanics and conventions. If there's too much heals then address it at the skill. and these skills have to do the same thing in cyro as in pve, because i build my ride in pve... now i build my ride and get to cyro AND NOTHING WORKS! and it is not okay.

I think it is the other way:

Ball groups kill unorganized players easily. So to counter that, forcing players to group for healing means that more groups will be coordinated together to take on ball groups.

I personally like these changes. As both someone who mostly plays ungrouped and who runs a healer in Cyrodil on occasion.

As a mostly ungrouped player, my conditional mag heals, like healing ward and rapid regen, are now guaranteed to hit me, no matter what. That is awesome. Prior to this, casting either of those skills was a coin flip on if they would actually land on yourself when you needed them.

As far as queuing as a healer, running around to random keeps hoping there are people there to help is far less helpful than joining a group and helping that group survive. I've healed many a random siege prior to this change, and all it amounted to was following the mindless zerg in defense and captures. There really is no "choice" about where to go or who to help. If you are a healer helping two random people on a resource, you are less useful than a healer helping people in the zerg. And if you are joining the zerg to heal, you aren't really given a choice where to go.

And if you really don't want to follow crown, start your own group and be crown. Then you can lead your group to any fight on the map you want at any time you want.

I walk around in the m,iddle of enemy ball groups all the time, it's my specialty. ANd how am I to get 11 noobs to follow me into the enemy zerg.

I want my gear to work just like it reads. My gear says heal allies. I SHOULD BE ABLE to heal allies. MY RESTORATION STAFF DOES NOTHING BUT HEAL ALLIES< AND YET I CANNOT HEAL ALLIES


and NONE of you especially the devs have any right or warrant to FORCE my to play with others.

I simply will no longer pay money for this game if my gears functionality is not returned to me, That is final, There will be no more purchases from the crown store or eso+ membership untill my gear works again.

That's it. Ifthey don;t give my gear back, I don't play eso and they can deal with all the bad publicity ill leave in comments on every place on the internet i search for online games when I post exactly this event where they take away all my things.

How many NEW players are gunna play knowing they are gunna be stripped of there time and effort.

[snip]

[Edit for Bashing.]

Araneae6537

VaranisArano wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

If healing was a problem why did they nerf defile?

Like hellllllllo!

Because everyone thinks about "Oh, I'll use defile to kill that tank guy" and forgets to consider the ball group who has several players creating defile effects making it even easier for them to murder massed PUGs (who get less healing than the ball group to begin with.)

There used to be several sets that had powerful defile effects. Then there was a patch when the organized groups started using them to cut through PUGs like a hot knife through cheesecake and ZOS promptly nerfed them all.

Sounds contradictory doesn't it? So ball groups kill pugs to hard, and they ultimately make it so pugs cant heal each other...

Thanks for the insight, but it's just compounding my point made, isn't it?

This is why I'm calling this hack work around. the developers failure to balance the monstrosity they have created should not result in my (being a paying customer) having years of collection rendered obsolete because they are incompetent in the ability to balance their own game mechanics and conventions. If there's too much heals then address it at the skill. and these skills have to do the same thing in cyro as in pve, because i build my ride in pve... now i build my ride and get to cyro AND NOTHING WORKS! and it is not okay.

Kinda. I play a PVP healer, so I definitely dislike the changes.

But since I heal in a PVP guild as well, ZOS trying to nerf healing is not as simple as "buff defile instead!" Cyrodiil balance is hard because you can have one group of 12 players who're in voice comms, have dedicated healers, wear specific sets, and stick together...and on the other side you have 12 players who LFGed in zone chat. How do you balance that?

The answer I've seen again and again is that ZOS can't do it. Either they inadvertently strengthen ball groups or they leave ball groups as the people with the best access to certain things. This healing change reminds me of when ZOS nerfed all speed sources except for Rapids, thus leaving ball groups as the speediest people in Cyrodiil because they were the only people who could afford to spam Rapids in combat.

I don’t think that anyone should expect ZOS to balance them. Working together and coordinating should be most effective, no? IMHO, you should not expect to be able to defeat any and every enemy or group of enemies. You should have the option of playing more casual and taking what victories you can or min-maxing and playing in a coordinated group and well expect greater victories that way. What should not happen, in my opinion, is taking away player options, nerfing small groups or ungrouped players, as by making heals group only. If healing unintended targets was a problem, then perhaps priorities needed to be adjusted (low-health group members before nearby allies) or give players that as an option or simply leave it as it was — there were already plenty of morphs and abilities that heal only the caster.

VaranisArano

Araneae6537 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

If healing was a problem why did they nerf defile?

Like hellllllllo!

Because everyone thinks about "Oh, I'll use defile to kill that tank guy" and forgets to consider the ball group who has several players creating defile effects making it even easier for them to murder massed PUGs (who get less healing than the ball group to begin with.)

There used to be several sets that had powerful defile effects. Then there was a patch when the organized groups started using them to cut through PUGs like a hot knife through cheesecake and ZOS promptly nerfed them all.

Sounds contradictory doesn't it? So ball groups kill pugs to hard, and they ultimately make it so pugs cant heal each other...

Thanks for the insight, but it's just compounding my point made, isn't it?

This is why I'm calling this hack work around. the developers failure to balance the monstrosity they have created should not result in my (being a paying customer) having years of collection rendered obsolete because they are incompetent in the ability to balance their own game mechanics and conventions. If there's too much heals then address it at the skill. and these skills have to do the same thing in cyro as in pve, because i build my ride in pve... now i build my ride and get to cyro AND NOTHING WORKS! and it is not okay.

Kinda. I play a PVP healer, so I definitely dislike the changes.

But since I heal in a PVP guild as well, ZOS trying to nerf healing is not as simple as "buff defile instead!" Cyrodiil balance is hard because you can have one group of 12 players who're in voice comms, have dedicated healers, wear specific sets, and stick together...and on the other side you have 12 players who LFGed in zone chat. How do you balance that?

The answer I've seen again and again is that ZOS can't do it. Either they inadvertently strengthen ball groups or they leave ball groups as the people with the best access to certain things. This healing change reminds me of when ZOS nerfed all speed sources except for Rapids, thus leaving ball groups as the speediest people in Cyrodiil because they were the only people who could afford to spam Rapids in combat.

I don’t think that anyone should expect them to balance them. Working together and coordinating should be most effective, no? You should not expect to be able to defeat any and every enemy or group of enemies. You should have thee option of playing more casual and taking what victories you can or min-maxing and playing in a coordinated group and well expect greater victories that way. What should not happen, in my opinion, is taking away player options, nerfing small groups or ungrouped players, as by making heals group only. If healing unintended targets was a problem, then perhaps priorities needed to be adjusted (low-health group members before nearby allies) or give players that as an option or simply leave it as it was — there were already plenty of morphs and abilities that heal only the caster.

I quite agree. I suppose I should have been clearer: what I've seen again and again is that ZOS can't balance teamwork. Coordinated groups are always going to be better than disorganized groups by their very nature.

Its just that sometimes ZOS' balancing decisions hand those organized groups even more advantages than they already had. "Buff defile" is one of those balancing decisions that I've seen ball groups wield to devastating effect, so I can't blame ZOS for not going with it now as the supposedly obvious option. The healing disparity between ball groups and PUGs is especially noticeable with the end to cross-healing - well, "buff defile" is another route to the same end, from the other direction.

So while "buff defile" might be an attractive alternative for healers like me looking our playstyle getting hosed in Cyrodiil, ZOS has to consider balancing Cyrodiil for all players. They've already done the "buff defile" thing and it was a direct buff to ball groups (who really don't need the help right now.) Why would they try the same thing a second time, expecting a different result?

As you say, I think ZOS needed to look at different options if cross-healing was the behavior they wanted to target. They managed to hit all sorts of informal grouping and alliance loyalty with the nerfhammer with this change.

jdamuso

@VaranisArano I simply said why was it nerfed, not buff it, but i see your point.



I think they should add magicka and stamina pool damage, ie: some skills and morphs and sets that simply reduce your resource pools.

It would let players combat the spam themselves, without castrating my gear.

The biggest issue here is that my gear no longer does what it says it should do. And I collected it with the understanding that it SHOULD do as it says.

I do not expect my extensive vault of collected gear to be rendered obsolete, frankly I do not care how they balance it or fix it.

Also any of you that don;t know how to stop the ball groups and are not using lightning balistas. You dont know how to stop the ball group BECAUSE you are not using lightning balistas. Ball group do what they do because of purge, not because of the heals.

They are essentially immune to all DoT and CC's because 4 out of 12 guys do nothing but spam purge. the only way to stop that is by somehow stopping them from casting purge.

jaws343

jdamuso wrote: »

@VaranisArano I simply said why was it nerfed, not buff it, but i see your point.



I think they should add magicka and stamina pool damage, ie: some skills and morphs and sets that simply reduce your resource pools.

It would let players combat the spam themselves, without castrating my gear.

The biggest issue here is that my gear no longer does what it says it should do. And I collected it with the understanding that it SHOULD do as it says.

I do not expect my extensive vault of collected gear to be rendered obsolete, frankly I do not care how they balance it or fix it.

Also any of you that don;t know how to stop the ball groups and are not using lightning balistas. You dont know how to stop the ball group BECAUSE you are not using lightning balistas. Ball group do what they do because of purge, not because of the heals.

They are essentially immune to all DoT and CC's because 4 out of 12 guys do nothing but spam purge. the only way to stop that is by somehow stopping them from casting purge.

As this is a living game, expecting your gear to stay the same always is wishful thinking. Plenty of gear sets have been radically changed over the years. There are sets that don't even look like what they once did. Gear changes, the game changes, it's just something you are going to have to adapt to.

The good thing is, with the set collection now, you won't ever have to regrind the gear if you find it becomes usable for you again.

VaranisArano

jaws343 wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

If healing was a problem why did they nerf defile?

Like hellllllllo!

Because everyone thinks about "Oh, I'll use defile to kill that tank guy" and forgets to consider the ball group who has several players creating defile effects making it even easier for them to murder massed PUGs (who get less healing than the ball group to begin with.)

There used to be several sets that had powerful defile effects. Then there was a patch when the organized groups started using them to cut through PUGs like a hot knife through cheesecake and ZOS promptly nerfed them all.

Sounds contradictory doesn't it? So ball groups kill pugs to hard, and they ultimately make it so pugs cant heal each other...

Thanks for the insight, but it's just compounding my point made, isn't it?

This is why I'm calling this hack work around. the developers failure to balance the monstrosity they have created should not result in my (being a paying customer) having years of collection rendered obsolete because they are incompetent in the ability to balance their own game mechanics and conventions. If there's too much heals then address it at the skill. and these skills have to do the same thing in cyro as in pve, because i build my ride in pve... now i build my ride and get to cyro AND NOTHING WORKS! and it is not okay.

I think it is the other way:

Ball groups kill unorganized players easily. So to counter that, forcing players to group for healing means that more groups will be coordinated together to take on ball groups.

I personally like these changes. As both someone who mostly plays ungrouped and who runs a healer in Cyrodil on occasion.

As a mostly ungrouped player, my conditional mag heals, like healing ward and rapid regen, are now guaranteed to hit me, no matter what. That is awesome. Prior to this, casting either of those skills was a coin flip on if they would actually land on yourself when you needed them.

As far as queuing as a healer, running around to random keeps hoping there are people there to help is far less helpful than joining a group and helping that group survive. I've healed many a random siege prior to this change, and all it amounted to was following the mindless zerg in defense and captures. There really is no "choice" about where to go or who to help. If you are a healer helping two random people on a resource, you are less useful than a healer helping people in the zerg. And if you are joining the zerg to heal, you aren't really given a choice where to go.

And if you really don't want to follow crown, start your own group and be crown. Then you can lead your group to any fight on the map you want at any time you want.

Personally, I had a lot more choice as a "solo" healer than you suggest. Including stuff as simple as "You know, I want to solo a resource because its fun and if no one gets that resource, our keep might be cut off." If healers cared about being 100% effective all the time, we'd all be in ball groups.

Heaven forbid that healers have fun going to the fights they want to and healing the people they think need it, instead of grouping up, going where Crown wants, and healing only those 11 people no matter who needs it. (And if that's the advice we're stuck with, I don't wanna here any complaints about healers in ball groups. Because ball groups are absolutely the most effective version of that playstyle.)

As for the rest, whelp...

You've led PUGs, right?
I have.

Maybe you find it easy, but I find it to be pretty stressful. There's the responsibility of figuring out where to go next while keeping track of my group members, coordinating the group via group chat and recruiting LFG players, plus, you know, actually sieging, fighting, and healing. And that's when my PUG raid is winning! If I'm trying to also teach my PUG raid the basics of playing as a group (bring siege, stick together in a fight because strength in numbers, etc), its just that much harder.

There's a reason I stopped leading PUGs. Maybe you've had better experiences with leading PUGs yourself, in which case I welcome any tips!

Also, "just lead your own group" is not a good solution for players who are new or don't feel experienced enough to be confident leading in battle. I'd been playing with a PVP guild for about a year before I felt comfortable enough to even consider leading a PUG raid. Maybe others are braver than I and would try sooner, but adding inexperienced PUG leaders to the population isn't really going to improve my experience if I join one of those PUGs.

Finally, is any other build being told "just lead your own group if you don't want to follow someone else" in order to play effectively in Cyrodiil? No, healers are the only builds that now require grouping in order to fulfill their entire purpose of healing their allies.

"Just make your own group" is the sort of solution that sounds good, but isn't actually helpful.

jdamuso

jaws343 wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

@VaranisArano I simply said why was it nerfed, not buff it, but i see your point.



I think they should add magicka and stamina pool damage, ie: some skills and morphs and sets that simply reduce your resource pools.

It would let players combat the spam themselves, without castrating my gear.

The biggest issue here is that my gear no longer does what it says it should do. And I collected it with the understanding that it SHOULD do as it says.

I do not expect my extensive vault of collected gear to be rendered obsolete, frankly I do not care how they balance it or fix it.

Also any of you that don;t know how to stop the ball groups and are not using lightning balistas. You dont know how to stop the ball group BECAUSE you are not using lightning balistas. Ball group do what they do because of purge, not because of the heals.

They are essentially immune to all DoT and CC's because 4 out of 12 guys do nothing but spam purge. the only way to stop that is by somehow stopping them from casting purge.

As this is a living game, expecting your gear to stay the same always is wishful thinking. Plenty of gear sets have been radically changed over the years. There are sets that don't even look like what they once did. Gear changes, the game changes, it's just something you are going to have to adapt to.

The good thing is, with the set collection now, you won't ever have to regrind the gear if you find it becomes usable for you again.

So I have to go grind transmutes? 30% of dozens of collected gear sets being rendered useless is a large difference from balance and tuning and sets changing. Okay my restoration staff passive doesn't even heal other targets. This is a completely unacceptable level of tolerance to be asked of me.


And no, I will absolutely not give up the value of my gear vault just because I can transmute gear, that is ridiculous.. it would cost me 2 million transmutes to replace my gear vault. And I do not except 30% of that gear being rendered unusable.

I will not pay for this game if they are gunna mess with my vault like that.

And I will not hear any argument that says I should be accepting of the fact that 30% of such an impressive vault of gears should be damaged in a way this heavy handed.

Its not okay, what you are saying is not okay. Taking away this much of my stuff in one blow is not okay, and there's nothing you can say that will make it okay.

jaws343

jdamuso wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

@VaranisArano I simply said why was it nerfed, not buff it, but i see your point.



I think they should add magicka and stamina pool damage, ie: some skills and morphs and sets that simply reduce your resource pools.

It would let players combat the spam themselves, without castrating my gear.

The biggest issue here is that my gear no longer does what it says it should do. And I collected it with the understanding that it SHOULD do as it says.

I do not expect my extensive vault of collected gear to be rendered obsolete, frankly I do not care how they balance it or fix it.

Also any of you that don;t know how to stop the ball groups and are not using lightning balistas. You dont know how to stop the ball group BECAUSE you are not using lightning balistas. Ball group do what they do because of purge, not because of the heals.

They are essentially immune to all DoT and CC's because 4 out of 12 guys do nothing but spam purge. the only way to stop that is by somehow stopping them from casting purge.

As this is a living game, expecting your gear to stay the same always is wishful thinking. Plenty of gear sets have been radically changed over the years. There are sets that don't even look like what they once did. Gear changes, the game changes, it's just something you are going to have to adapt to.

The good thing is, with the set collection now, you won't ever have to regrind the gear if you find it becomes usable for you again.

So I have to go grind transmutes? 30% of dozens of collected gear sets being rendered useless is a large difference from balance and tuning and sets changing. Okay my restoration staff passive doesn't even heal other targets. This is a completely unacceptable level of tolerance to be asked of me.


And no, I will absolutely not give up the value of my gear vault just because I can transmute gear, that is ridiculous.. it would cost me 2 million transmutes to replace my gear vault. And I do not except 30% of that gear being rendered unusable.

I will not pay for this game if they are gunna mess with my vault like that.

And I will not hear any argument that says I should be accepting of the fact that 30% of such an impressive vault of gears should be damaged in a way this heavy handed.

Its not okay, what you are saying is not okay. Taking away this much of my stuff in one blow is not okay, and there's nothing you can say that will make it okay.

It's the truth though. Tons of gear year to year is rendered useless or less than useful due to balance changing, and players who invested in that gear eat the costs involved, every patch. It's the nature of this type of game and it always will be. The fact is, the gear still works perfectly fine, you just need to be in PVE or in a group to use it. Your gear did not change.

jdamuso

jaws343 wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

@VaranisArano I simply said why was it nerfed, not buff it, but i see your point.



I think they should add magicka and stamina pool damage, ie: some skills and morphs and sets that simply reduce your resource pools.

It would let players combat the spam themselves, without castrating my gear.

The biggest issue here is that my gear no longer does what it says it should do. And I collected it with the understanding that it SHOULD do as it says.

I do not expect my extensive vault of collected gear to be rendered obsolete, frankly I do not care how they balance it or fix it.

Also any of you that don;t know how to stop the ball groups and are not using lightning balistas. You dont know how to stop the ball group BECAUSE you are not using lightning balistas. Ball group do what they do because of purge, not because of the heals.

They are essentially immune to all DoT and CC's because 4 out of 12 guys do nothing but spam purge. the only way to stop that is by somehow stopping them from casting purge.

As this is a living game, expecting your gear to stay the same always is wishful thinking. Plenty of gear sets have been radically changed over the years. There are sets that don't even look like what they once did. Gear changes, the game changes, it's just something you are going to have to adapt to.

The good thing is, with the set collection now, you won't ever have to regrind the gear if you find it becomes usable for you again.

So I have to go grind transmutes? 30% of dozens of collected gear sets being rendered useless is a large difference from balance and tuning and sets changing. Okay my restoration staff passive doesn't even heal other targets. This is a completely unacceptable level of tolerance to be asked of me.


And no, I will absolutely not give up the value of my gear vault just because I can transmute gear, that is ridiculous.. it would cost me 2 million transmutes to replace my gear vault. And I do not except 30% of that gear being rendered unusable.

I will not pay for this game if they are gunna mess with my vault like that.

And I will not hear any argument that says I should be accepting of the fact that 30% of such an impressive vault of gears should be damaged in a way this heavy handed.

Its not okay, what you are saying is not okay. Taking away this much of my stuff in one blow is not okay, and there's nothing you can say that will make it okay.

It's the truth though. Tons of gear year to year is rendered useless or less than useful due to balance changing, and players who invested in that gear eat the costs involved, every patch. It's the nature of this type of game and it always will be. The fact is, the gear still works perfectly fine, you just need to be in PVE or in a group to use it. Your gear did not change.

Okay. well I don't like it and I'll go play planetside2 or GW2 or where-ever my few hundred dollars a year I spend on this will take me.

And I do believe I will not find it hard to find gear and skill that heals other players in the other best large scale pvp mmo out there.

Guild wars will be very pleased with my return to their platform.

And you can play in broken gear game.

Araneae6537

jaws343 wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

@VaranisArano I simply said why was it nerfed, not buff it, but i see your point.



I think they should add magicka and stamina pool damage, ie: some skills and morphs and sets that simply reduce your resource pools.

It would let players combat the spam themselves, without castrating my gear.

The biggest issue here is that my gear no longer does what it says it should do. And I collected it with the understanding that it SHOULD do as it says.

I do not expect my extensive vault of collected gear to be rendered obsolete, frankly I do not care how they balance it or fix it.

Also any of you that don;t know how to stop the ball groups and are not using lightning balistas. You dont know how to stop the ball group BECAUSE you are not using lightning balistas. Ball group do what they do because of purge, not because of the heals.

They are essentially immune to all DoT and CC's because 4 out of 12 guys do nothing but spam purge. the only way to stop that is by somehow stopping them from casting purge.

As this is a living game, expecting your gear to stay the same always is wishful thinking. Plenty of gear sets have been radically changed over the years. There are sets that don't even look like what they once did. Gear changes, the game changes, it's just something you are going to have to adapt to.

The good thing is, with the set collection now, you won't ever have to regrind the gear if you find it becomes usable for you again.

So I have to go grind transmutes? 30% of dozens of collected gear sets being rendered useless is a large difference from balance and tuning and sets changing. Okay my restoration staff passive doesn't even heal other targets. This is a completely unacceptable level of tolerance to be asked of me.


And no, I will absolutely not give up the value of my gear vault just because I can transmute gear, that is ridiculous.. it would cost me 2 million transmutes to replace my gear vault. And I do not except 30% of that gear being rendered unusable.

I will not pay for this game if they are gunna mess with my vault like that.

And I will not hear any argument that says I should be accepting of the fact that 30% of such an impressive vault of gears should be damaged in a way this heavy handed.

Its not okay, what you are saying is not okay. Taking away this much of my stuff in one blow is not okay, and there's nothing you can say that will make it okay.

It's the truth though. Tons of gear year to year is rendered useless or less than useful due to balance changing, and players who invested in that gear eat the costs involved, every patch. It's the nature of this type of game and it always will be. The fact is, the gear still works perfectly fine, you just need to be in PVE or in a group to use it. Your gear did not change.

I would disagree, actually. More effective gear may be released or stats may be adjusted, but I don’t believe that any other change has rendered myriad sets useless for a whole playstyle — or really rendered impossible a whole playstyle, honestly.

I think everyone accepts that the BiS / meta will change, but this change, preventing healers from, well, healing their allies, is like if DPS gear and abilities suddenly worked only against NPCs when it was all opponents before. It’s not a perfect analogy, but hopefully you see the point. Hopefully ZOS will see the point.