Dear ZoS team: From Cyro healers.

Madhatten512

If you want to heal join a group period. Its not a hard concept. The server can't handle faction stacking with 100 people spamming cross heals. This is coming from a guy that only plays in a duo. Since they lowered groups size, and made the healing changes pvp performance has improved. So im sorry u cant stack on top of 70 pugs and spam heal them all, but u can't anymore. Deal with it. Find a group to play with and become an actual healer.

Madhatten512

jdamuso wrote: »

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.

Bye

Araneae6537

Edit: OT, please delete

Araneae6537

Madhatten512 wrote: »

If you want to heal join a group period. Its not a hard concept. The server can't handle faction stacking with 100 people spamming cross heals. This is coming from a guy that only plays in a duo. Since they lowered groups size, and made the healing changes pvp performance has improved. So im sorry u cant stack on top of 70 pugs and spam heal them all, but u can't anymore. Deal with it. Find a group to play with and become an actual healer.

Point, missing it.

You don’t have to be in a group to deal damage or any number of other things — why should you have to be in order to heal those who are ostensibly your allies??? If my group is joined by another in a fight, I want to be able to heal them too — even as both groups are putting their DPS together. You assume too much and read too few posts of the reasons people actually dislike this change.

Jaimeh

Madhatten512 wrote: »

If you want to heal join a group period. Its not a hard concept. The server can't handle faction stacking with 100 people spamming cross heals. This is coming from a guy that only plays in a duo. Since they lowered groups size, and made the healing changes pvp performance has improved. So im sorry u cant stack on top of 70 pugs and spam heal them all, but u can't anymore. Deal with it. Find a group to play with and become an actual healer.

Joining a group to heal effectively is not as straightforward as you make it for the many reasons that have been outlined in this thread. Before these changes, healers were useful in every scenario, now they are pigeon-hole'd to one scenario, without any other options. ZOS can't figure out another way to fix performance, so a tonne of people lost the freedom to play their preferred role how they liked. But cool for you, I guess

jdamuso

I just watched a 12 man ball group kill get about 500 kills moving at max speed, with perma purge, and no one could heal each other, while the ball group carried the scroll away. literally hundreds and hundreds of kills.


The patch is garbage.

Fix it. It's horrible.

dvonpm

jdamuso wrote: »

I just watched a 12 man ball group kill get about 500 kills moving at max speed, with perma purge, and no one could heal each other, while the ball group carried the scroll away. literally hundreds and hundreds of kills.


The patch is garbage.

Fix it. It's horrible.

It's almost like that's where and how devs play? Weird.

Mr_Nobody

jdamuso wrote: »

I just watched a 12 man ball group kill get about 500 kills moving at max speed, with perma purge, and no one could heal each other, while the ball group carried the scroll away. literally hundreds and hundreds of kills.


The patch is garbage.

Fix it. It's horrible.

Arent you the one running with that below average CBB ball group?

Edit: One of their 7 different 12man grps

ThePedge

jdamuso wrote: »

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.

If you are not next to your group you are failing your role as a healer.

You should embrace the challenge to better your awareness and positioning as to what your group is doing.

I know I'm fighting a losing battle talking to "solo" healers, but you had it way too easy for way too long.

For example, your alliance is sieging a keep, the gate is down and your alliance wants to push. Do you push in? No, you sit outside spamming heals at the gate for some easy AP. While once your alliance gets inside, no healers are there and they die. But you're OK with that, you "did your job" by healing them when they pushed. You'll stroll in when it's safe.

Screw that, get in a group, when that group pushes, follow them and keep them alive.

If that's too painful because they're all idiots, make friends and teach them, or join a group you can learn from.

It is large scale mass MULTIPLAYER teams. Play with your team.

Thoragaal

...

Tommy_The_Gun

ThePedge wrote: »

It is large scale mass MULTIPLAYER teams. Play with your team.

My "team" is my allaiance. They are the soldiers.

Dorkener

This change is awful. All it does is hurt the truly solo ungrouped "pug".
Ballgroups are unaffected and the "solo" tryhards run as 2-4 ppl the vast majority of the time.
/golfclap

VaranisArano

ThePedge wrote: »

jdamuso wrote: »

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.

If you are not next to your group you are failing your role as a healer.

You should embrace the challenge to better your awareness and positioning as to what your group is doing.

I know I'm fighting a losing battle talking to "solo" healers, but you had it way too easy for way too long.

For example, your alliance is sieging a keep, the gate is down and your alliance wants to push. Do you push in? No, you sit outside spamming heals at the gate for some easy AP. While once your alliance gets inside, no healers are there and they die. But you're OK with that, you "did your job" by healing them when they pushed. You'll stroll in when it's safe.

Screw that, get in a group, when that group pushes, follow them and keep them alive.

If that's too painful because they're all idiots, make friends and teach them, or join a group you can learn from.

It is large scale mass MULTIPLAYER teams. Play with your team.

First off, every other build in Cyrodiil has it that easy. They can hang back, peppering the keep defenders with their light attacks while the organized groups push into the keep and die. But not healers, no, they need to be forced into groups. (So they can only heal those 11 other people, natch, instead of everyone like they used to.)

Its almost like our team is our Alliance and everyone on our faction. Its a large scale mass MULTIPLAYER team.

No, excuse me, that's no longer true. My team is now the 11 other players in my group. The rest of you are just wearing the same color and happen to be fighting the same enemies. Thanks, ZOS.


Second, "Make friends, teach them!" Look, I already said this, but I've led PUGs. Teaching them, on top of communicating where to go and what to do, on top of actually fighting, sieging, and healing, is very stressful for me. "Solo" healing was a lot more fun. I'm glad that you enjoy leading PUGs since you suggest it. Do you have any tips to share?

"Then find a group you like to run with!" I run with my PVP guild when they are on. But when they aren't...well, that used to be when I was a "solo" healer. Now, its when I'd have to LFG, assuming someone is picking up from zone, assuming they are competent, or I'd have to stress myself by leading my own group. And you know, I'm not sure its worth playing my healer, so I'm going to grab my Stam Warden instead who can have fun and be effective without grouping up with or leading PUGs. So much less stress.

Oh, and when I play with my PVP guild, my heals and Purges now only benefit my guildmates, thus making our raid stronger and more resilient than PUGs who have less healing (and don't stay in my heals anyway). And the forum posters wonder "Why did ZOS buff ball groups so they are stronger than anyone else?"

Well, I don't know! Who could have possibly foreseen that forcing healers into groups would push them towards competent, effective ball groups? Who could have foreseen that limiting healing to 11 other people means less healing for everyone except the ball group?

Its a real mystery.

Ranger209

Madhatten512 wrote: »

If you want to heal join a group period. Its not a hard concept. The server can't handle faction stacking with 100 people spamming cross heals. This is coming from a guy that only plays in a duo. Since they lowered groups size, and made the healing changes pvp performance has improved. So im sorry u cant stack on top of 70 pugs and spam heal them all, but u can't anymore. Deal with it. Find a group to play with and become an actual healer.

I think you will find that the server also can't handle faction stacking with 100 people not spamming cross heals. Problem is now with ball groups even stronger faction stacks will have to grow even more to counter them. Anyone who can not see the relationship between the strength of ball groups and the faction stack requirements to defeat them isn't looking. Reduce ball group strength and the faction stack size will shrink in accordance, and the fights will not last as long.

Tommy_The_Gun

Well, I am kinda empathetic and always try to understand what side A & B has to say and then put my thoughts into it.

So I know that people who play in a group (small scale or ball) and are kinda happy with this cros-healing removal.
On the other side we have a lot of solo players, who, understandably are unhappy with it. Especially healers that were a "thing" before this change and now it seems like it is kinda pointless role.

Also I understand why it was introduced. Both group size limit and cross - healing removal was done to somehow reduce lag and increase server performance.

But the question is: Did it worked ? Did it served its purpose ? Do we have a noticeable server performance increase ?
From my experience - we do not. Not at least in a very noticeable way. And it begs the question: Was it worth it ?

1. Well, imho no "cross-healing" created a huge imbalance Cyro PvP "eco-system".

12 ppl grouped can heal each other, but 12 ungrouped can not, meaning that solo players, no matter how good they are will always be in a permanent disadvantage / handicapped vs grouped players. And that goes on top of we already had before, like skills affecting whole group, but costing the same when you cast them solo and affecting only you etc.

As a side effect we have more groups running around and significantly less solo players..

2. This change feels... incredibly inconsistent, to say the least.

I mean I can not heal other player right ? Only myself. But why then I can resurrect them with soul gems ? I can not heal them when they are still alive, but once they die I can res them... Or I can place a camp and res them that way... Or they can not heal me, but can res me or place a camp...
Same thing for damage. If we have no cross-healing interaction between solo players & grouped ones... why then we have cross-dmg then ?

Is it just me, or those changes make no sense ?! I had to point those things out, so you would see what would happen if we applied same standards to all player interactions. I hope that now you see vividly how weird it feels.

3. Final one - this change have divided the player base to a level I have never seen in ESO.

I mean, we literally have solo or grouped players playing the same game, but with different rule set. On top of that we have this strong "selection" (yes, selection), or at least narration, that grouped players are the good guys, and the ones who are solo are the "bad ones". That it is an MMO, play with group etc.
Ok, but what happened to ESO's motto ? the famous "Play as you want ?" I mean it always worked. You know, you can play as you want and you almost always end up with something viable (not to confuse with optimal, or bis). With something that will work. Right now, we get a strong message that solo players in cyro (Healers in particular) are well... not viable at all.

Overall, even if this change, somehow improved performance by 2 - 5 % or something, I think it was not worth it. The damage it has done to ESO community & player base was not worth it. Besides, am I the only one thinking that this whole year of performance improvement did not worked as it should ? I mean they were changing skills, sets, everything to have less impact on server. So it would have better performance. And ZOS even admitted (in some post on forum or during live stream) that they hoped for more. They thought that the "server lag" (technical term they used) will be way smaller and their fixes will bring it to desirable value. But they overestimated. It did not worked.

Since obviously, they either dont know, or dont have the resources to fix it and make the game work as it did back in 2014 - 2015, at this point I think that what they should do is to re-work entire Cyrodiil and scale it down 2x times. Yes. Seriously. I would rather have smaller map with smaller player limit cap (like 50 per side or even less like 33 per side) that works vs what we have now and a cheap, rubber band attempts to fix something that barely works.

Joy_Division

Madhatten512 wrote: »

If you want to heal join a group period. Its not a hard concept. The server can't handle faction stacking with 100 people spamming cross heals. This is coming from a guy that only plays in a duo. Since they lowered groups size, and made the healing changes pvp performance has improved. So im sorry u cant stack on top of 70 pugs and spam heal them all, but u can't anymore. Deal with it. Find a group to play with and become an actual healer.

The server can't handle organized groups that look like a Christmas Tree with their constant buff / heal spam. If ZOS was so concerned about performance and calculations, then that is where they should have implemented restrictions. That Pug who hits radiating is going to put that stress on the server whether or not you force them to join a group.

PvP performance still sucks and is still unplayable when organized groups are doing their spam. The only difference is it's more restricted and less fun for those people - unlike yourself - who have not benefited from now playing with an advantageous rule-set because they don;t feel like being grouped with 11 other randoms led by a know it all who insists on PvDooring Brindle every half hour..

Dr_Ganknstein

This was a horrible change imo. Imagine if they made it so the only way you could do damage was if you were in a group.

Starshadw

Madhatten512 wrote: »

If you want to heal join a group period. Its not a hard concept. The server can't handle faction stacking with 100 people spamming cross heals. This is coming from a guy that only plays in a duo. Since they lowered groups size, and made the healing changes pvp performance has improved. So im sorry u cant stack on top of 70 pugs and spam heal them all, but u can't anymore. Deal with it. Find a group to play with and become an actual healer.

What folks like you fail to take into account when you make statements like this is that every other class can still be effective solo in Cyrodiil. Healer mains are the ONLY class who can no longer be effective and contribute solo in Cyrodiil (aside from running siege). It's garbage that one class is being punished - particularly since ZOS flat-out admitted that the change did NOTHING to help performance.

So in terms of "behavioral change" that ZOS mentioned, the change was a lot of us PvP a lot less overall. I play with my guild on our guild nights, and other than that, I don't go in Cyrodiil whereas before, I would often go in solo and help with keep defenses and such.

geonsocal

I'm with you all...there's been a few changes over the years to gameplay in cyrodiil that I hated seeing changed - this is by far the worst change yet...

other crappy changes:
- introduction of the hammer
- making the ayleid wells worthless
- not being able to knock people through the grates of the second floor in keeps/outposts (used to be one of my very favorite things to do)
- no longer allowing VD to be procced from siege equipment

this useless healing change is most definitely the worse...feels like a big FU to a large part of the playerbase...

jdamuso

I would like to say Cyrodiil sucks and isn;t worth playing, not even as NOT a healer. because no on can kill the ball group. because no one has heals.


the ball group got thousands of kills without a player being downed.

Unless i run in a ball meta i cant open world pvp in eso anymore?!?!?!?


Yall game is now garbo, i suggest you change it, or we're all gone soon, not just me.

Gardarik

There are numerous issues with the prohibition of the cross-healing and ZOS' decisions overall. To name a few:

1. It imposes certain game style. People who play in groups regularly might find it even good. But the majority of casual playerbase are zerg-surfers. You log on for an hour or two after work not to type LFG for a few minutes and then to mindlessly follow some dude to PvDoor for the rest of your playtime for the day. Previous mechanic allowed to jump "straight into action". Regardless if that action was actually beneficial to your alliance or not - it is a game wherein fun outweighs efficiency. Not everyone of us is a streamer or munchkin min-maxer. By imposing the group-gamestyle ZOS are removing the freedom of deciding what to do in Cyro.
2. Even if you go for the group play, ESO has no effective mechanism for ad hoc group forming. It is not as convenient and easy as in, say, WOW where you can click mouse on the player and invite. Automatic group-finder for Cyro has been implemented before and was a complete failure. It was stupid to implement imposed grouping without proper tools to do so for the majority of previously solo players.
3. For those happy healing themselves instead of someone random among the zergs, just another simple comparison to WoW and many other games. Why can't ESO simply have self-lock button (like Alt+ability button) to target yourself? Such a simple solution.
4. it nerfs certain classes/roles more than others. Bombers, snipers, sorcs with the ring of pale order, etc feel very good - they were less teamplaying roles even before. Templars got a good chunk of their abilities useless outside of groups and the class was overall nerfed much more by these "purely behavioural" changes than other classes.
5. Server performance did not really improve. The devs themselves admitted it, hence the "behavioural changes" meme. My ping as was garbage, so it is. The real issue is the lack of the desire (or competence) of the devs to improve their hardware and software. The game was advertised as a massive AvAvA. As a customer, I do not care about their excuses with "many players" - their profits are increasing, even Microsoft bought them. Why they do not re-invest to accommodate more clientele to reap even more profit is beyond my understanding. And while I get that they mainly generate revenue from PvE and lootboxes, the PvP aspect of the game is the most visible with streamers and youtube content. By killing off its PvP with poor performance and now these "behavioural changes" they are shooting themselves in the knee.
6. to support the point above, the Akamai ping hop issue (once your game packages reach Akamai anti-DDOS system your ping increases by like 50-70 - do the tracert yourself to check it out, mostly for NA). There is a bottleneck in Akamai network and ZOS apparently are unwilling to do anything with it since at least 2018 (look up the threads). They look for easier less capital-requiring solutions like prohibiting cross-healing.
7. lack of cross-healing is extremely newbie-unfriendly. Imagine a new player thinking of going to Cyro as a healer bcs he enjoyed healing in PvE. Imagine he is a simple casual, who does not check out forums and youtube guides. He looks for some simple sets, grinds them, goes into Cyro to find himself not only being obliterated by ball-groups, but also not being able to help his fellow pugs in any way. What would be his reaction? Maybe, some would harden up, do the homework research, find a PvP guild, etc. Those would be the minority with more spare time to give for the game. The majority would feel frustrated and bounce back to PvE or away from the game if the PvP was their endgame.
8. This is actually bad for all casuals in general - as point 1 describes - lack of cross-healing renders solo-surfing gameplay for healers and players with support abilities very limited. This gameplay was available before and now is limited. Those who enjoyed this gameplay (which was not op in anyway) and do not want to adapt to new enforced group gameplay would bounce. Actually, the PvP playerbase has decreased significantly since the change. Rarely would you see in primetime now "locked" pops in all alliances while it was a regular sight just before the change. Less and less content is created by youtubers on the PvP like builds etc bcs there is less incentives bcs there is decreasing viewers' interest. With no casuals Cyro would turn into a big battleground with some bitter vets will be fighting in ball groups and check out whose PvP skill is better. However, it won't be the advertised large-scale AvAvA as before.
9. Some experienced players have pointed out before that to improve the server-side calculations and to ease the burden on the server ZOS needed to remove stacking of buffs and abilities. It is actually a much larger issue when a group full of stamina-toons with vigor can stack 12 (before was unlimited) on EVERYONE in the group to be unkillable. No healers were even needed. Why wasn't this addressed but instead imposed restriction on targeted healing that cannot stack in principle? This just shows the lack of understanding of the devs of the mechanics of their own game.

I bounced from the game after the change in question and sporadically visit the forums to check if it has been reverted. My two friends bounced as well. Neither of us were healers, actually. Still, I find it counter-immersive and outright stupid that seeing some other dude fighting 1v2 on a resource I cannot use my magcro healing to keep him alive until I join the fight into a fair 2v2 while the other 2 dudes are in a group and easily support each other with buffs and healing. It was especially silly if I were in a group with 2 of my aforementioned friends and, not being the leader, I had no means to invite that fighting dude to the group to assist him while asking to give me the crown and inviting the guy would take too much time in fast-paced ESO PvP. I would suggest hopping off the game for now until they come up with new solutions to the problem of performance, preferable the hardware improvement. Until then the game is simply less enjoyable and pales if compared with its rivals.

TheMightyRevan

VaranisArano wrote: »

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.

buffing defile makes no difference to ball groups whatsoever, they dont need defile. For a Ball Group its all about maximum burst damage, not debuffs. I'm Sorry but so many ppl talk about raid groups when they actually have no clue.

TheMightyRevan

jdamuso wrote: »

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.]

If you hate everyone else in this game so much, why are you so desperately trying to heal them then xd. just play a hp tank, its easier than ever

VaranisArano

TheMightyRevan wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

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.

buffing defile makes no difference to ball groups whatsoever, they dont need defile. For a Ball Group its all about maximum burst damage, not debuffs. I'm Sorry but so many ppl talk about raid groups when they actually have no clue.

I played in a PVP raid when defile was buffed many updates ago and we used it to devastating effect. Weakening your enemy makes it easier to mow them down? Who'dve thought? Not gonna lie - we slaughtered PUGs in droves because they couldn't effectively heal when we stacked up defile effects with other debuffs plus our damage. Then it was nerfed, and we switched to something else that we used to devastating effect.

Ball groups don't needdefile to slaughter PUGs. But if its good, they'll use it. We see it again and again: they will use whatever is currently the most effective method of killing players and use it better than any less organized group. Right now, that's sheer burst damage, but it hasn't always been. If buffing defile makes it effective, they'll use that too. Which means handing the only groups with dedicated healers of their own the means to deny healing to their opponents, especially when their opponents are getting less cross heals now. I've been there, done that, and its something I can't see ZOS trying again.

Or to put it the other way: ZOS already nerfed defile once because ball groups used it to devastating effect. Why should they buff it now, expecting a different result?

Araneae6537

This no heal outside groups just feels sooo wrong! So I’ve been venturing into Cyrodill with DPS but of course I have some heals primarily for myself yet, perhaps because the support role is intrinsic to me, sometimes I still try to heal allies fighting beside me and it pains me that I cannot. Yes, yes, I join a group, that’s not the point and shouldn’t be.

Pinesy

As a healer who would occasionally go into Cyro to heal and help out my alliance, this change destroyed the chance of my playstyle being effective in Cyro. I do not like to group up, because I find that groups are slow and cumbersome, and I want to be healing where the actual action is.

I'm trying to re-gear and re-orient myself for solo battlegrounds.

TheMightyRevan

VaranisArano wrote: »

TheMightyRevan wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

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.

buffing defile makes no difference to ball groups whatsoever, they dont need defile. For a Ball Group its all about maximum burst damage, not debuffs. I'm Sorry but so many ppl talk about raid groups when they actually have no clue.

I played in a PVP raid when defile was buffed many updates ago and we used it to devastating effect. Weakening your enemy makes it easier to mow them down? Who'dve thought? Not gonna lie - we slaughtered PUGs in droves because they couldn't effectively heal when we stacked up defile effects with other debuffs plus our damage. Then it was nerfed, and we switched to something else that we used to devastating effect.

Ball groups don't needdefile to slaughter PUGs. But if its good, they'll use it. We see it again and again: they will use whatever is currently the most effective method of killing players and use it better than any less organized group. Right now, that's sheer burst damage, but it hasn't always been. If buffing defile makes it effective, they'll use that too. Which means handing the only groups with dedicated healers of their own the means to deny healing to their opponents, especially when their opponents are getting less cross heals now. I've been there, done that, and its something I can't see ZOS trying again.

Or to put it the other way: ZOS already nerfed defile once because ball groups used it to devastating effect. Why should they buff it now, expecting a different result?

if you see that, defile makes a big difference in your dmg output you are probably doing sth wrong as a ballgroup. defile only has any effect if it takes you longer than 5 secs to kill them, and that shouldnt be the case if youre fighting pugs (not talking about GvGs here). Its the same thing about the change that you can only heal your group members in cyrodiil. So many ppl say and have been saying that it will crazily buff ballgroups. But it didnt. We have the same dmg output as before the change. Because the pugs die, before their healing even takes place. If you take so long to kill pugs, that they can actually heal themselves or others, you should change sth about your dd's, positioning, CC etc... Dont get me wrong, i agree that you only go for whats effective in ballgroups, so if defile would get buffed alot we would slot it anyway, because why not. but burst dmg has always been the major goal for ballgroups

Soul_Demon

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.

I had to quote this....just because its so true and accurate. The changes implemented seem to be coming from people who dont actually play the game in cyro on a regular basis and have no idea how much they buffed the ballgroups with these choices. Worst part is they seem to be doing a 'hit and run' where they implement changes and dont bother to come back and see what the impact is later on

---

unless someone is seeing some "Z" icons out in cyro that is, but I am not.

Reaper_00

Madhatten512 wrote: »

If you want to heal join a group period. Its not a hard concept. The server can't handle faction stacking with 100 people spamming cross heals.
<snip>
Find a group to play with and become an actual healer.

But it can handle faction stacking with 100 people spamming non targeted aoe damage abilities just fine? That's pretty convenient. If it was true.

Maybe they should change it so you can only use aoe damage abilities if you're in a twelve man group and they only affect other twelve man groups. You know, for those who want to become an actual dps!

geonsocal

Soul_Demon wrote: »

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.

The changes implemented seem to be coming from people who dont actually play the game in cyro on a regular basis and have no idea how much they buffed the ballgroups with these choices. Worst part is they seem to be doing a 'hit and run' where they implement changes and dont bother to come back and see what the impact is later on

---

unless someone is seeing some "Z" icons out in cyro that is, but I am not.

it's that second part which is so frustrating...very few of us endorse the hammer - yet it stays...

and, what in oblivion was the purpose of nerfing the damn ayleid wells...

quest givers still aren't protected, not that i do many quests outside of mid-year mayhem, but still, for other folks it would be nice...

it's tough watching those green health bars vanishing around me...i know once my random potato friends die - it'll be my turn to die then too...used to be nice being able to help keep up them meat shields around me...