please revert heals being group only in pvp (WE DID IT! its being rolled back!)

robertthebard

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

renne wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

2. I'm not down with the toxicity aimed at healers in MMOs in general.

Oh, the irony.

Except there is no irony here. I get that these days disagreeing with someone about something is supposed to be toxic, but I don't subscribe to that belief system.

I sit here, and I wonder, "Why would a support role prefer to "do their job", (in quotes because their job is to support a group), from outside of a group"? I've listed one possible scenario for that, even provided a video of what I'm talking about. There are other possibilities, which range from:

1. They're not very good at it to;
2. They've got social anxiety.

Lots of wiggle room for other things in between, but pointing out some of the possible/probable scenarios doesn't equate to toxicity, except to someone that sincerely believes that disagreeing with them is the definition of toxic. I don't believe that encouraging group play in an MMO is a bad thing, and that, above all else, is what makes people think I'm being toxic? It says more about them than it will ever say about me.

Our job was to support our alliance as a whole, not just 12 people
Cyrodiil is alliance war not group war

...and you'd be supporting your alliance by supporting your group. Reading this thread, it's no wonder PvP is such a mess, and it's got less to do with actual game development, and more to do with lack of understanding team play.

Joy_Division

eso_lags wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

roberthebard, Cyrodiil isn't a PVE dungeon where you can easily slap on a groupfinder.

1. There's no "normal" mode you can pick when you want an easy run or figure you can carry your teammates.
2. There's no 15-minute timeout when you leave. There's a queue that's based on how many players are in Cyrodiil. Once the population locks, you can't join until others leave. At primetime, think half-hour to hour long waits to rejoin Cyrodiil.
3. You don't get ported into the same instanced dungeon with your team. In Cyrodiil, you have to transit to the nearest connected keep and then ride to join them. Better hope you don't get repeatedly ganked on the way.
4. There's no guidance on roles, so you might well not have a single healer on a 12-person team.
5. There's no vote kick feature. You stay in group at the sufferance of your Crown. If they drop you because you crashed, you were too slow, or you made too many mistakes, you get kicked instantly. (This is one reason there's no penalty for leaving group in Cyrodiil.)

Finally, how do we know that Cyrodiil groupfinder doesn't work?

We had one.
ZOS removed it when they did the Activity Finder rework because it was rarely used.


I suggest you take off the PVE lenses and look at Cyrodiil for what it is.

Here's the problem, I am. Hey, I could do a hell of a job solo PvPing in Aion, but I didn't show up for sieges solo. I joined the Alliance, or one of them, and did my job. What seems to be the real issue is that I'm not feeling sorry for a support class archetype complaining about not being able to solo. Maybe they're trying to keep them from breaking their arms trying to pat themselves on the back? Maybe they're trying to encourage group play in an MMO, as I said earlier, in regard to that, "the horror", right?

Make your own group? Join an existing group? Spam map chat looking for a group? Adjust your playstyle to continue solo PvP in a group setting? Just as I would recommend in a "PuGs suck thread" or a "dungeons should have a solo mode" thread. The irony of "group content should be group content, except where I don't want it to be", and that's what we're looking at now, since you have to be in a group to heal a group, isn't lost on me, and all the thrashing around looking for reasons that it shouldn't be that way doesn't convince me, it simply amuses me.

If ZOS was trying to encourage group play, they have a funny way of showing it in that they release sets like Crimson that allow solo players to tank entire raids, devised a game in which in which damage oriented character have by far the easiest time healing themselves of any fantasy game I have played, and failed to also implement mechanics to disable the functioning of solitary DPS skills, which happen to the largest category in the playerbase.

Not to mention, they would have flat out said it in their explanation for why these changes were implemented. Especially since, as you say, this is an MMO and grouping up would seem to be a logical part of the game. That they didn;t speaks volumes. Instead it's just the vague "behavioral changes," probably because being more specific would have easily enabled players to call them out on the holes and inconsistency of these changes.

What ZOS did do was specifically target just a part of the playerbase, who understandably feel like they are being scapegoated and just plain picked on not just by the developers, but also by other players who are still able to play as they want to and can only muster the insensitive response, "join a group."

If joining and making a group or spamming LFG in zone was the be all to end all and this wonderful, enlightening, and powerful game playing experience as you and the other "just join a group" advocates imply, then people would already be doing that and wouldn't be complaining at being all but forced to do so. As someone who has done all 3 (group joining, group making, and LFGing in zone) I know that people who are just saying join a group either know nothing of the frustrations of doing so or do know but are so insensitive that they just say it anyway.

A lot of players obviously prefer not to deal with those frustrations. Those frustrations are valid in that they detract from the customer's enjoyment of the game and unfair in that they are the result of the developers making a conscious change that only afflict a minuity of the customer base, which is why ZOS has been able to get away with it. If such "encouragement" was directed at and against the desires of their high profile streamers or the majority (i.e., DPS), then these changes would have never left the drawing table.

idk joy it really does seem like you have a disdain for solo players, like i said before. I get the feeling that you're the type that doesnt think twice about the stuff zos puts in the game that absolutely ravages solo play. Stuff like cost poisons, proc sets, earthgore, idk theres plenty of things i could list.

And you're completely wrong about zos "getting away" with this because healers are a minority. They make changes that are bad all the time. Bad for the majority and bad for the minority. They dont care, they do what they think is right even when its incredibly stupid and even when its not so bad.

If anything they get away with it because its pvp. Zos has never seemed to care about pvp. I can go into cyrodil every single day, here on xbox, and show you unplayable gameplay footage. Every single day, categorically, without fail, it will happen. And it will happen more than half of the time. If thats not detracting from the enjoyment of players then idk what will, and they have yet to do a thing about it, for years now. Every person I talk to experiences it, and zos admits it. Its not like 3 years ago where customer service would tell you to hard reset your xbox and check with your ISP. This change seems to be one of the first steps to solving performance, but regardless its been unsolved for an incredibly long time. Im sure there will be many casualties along the way, and im not so sure it will solve anything. Maybe in the end after a lot of changes, but my point is changes should have happened a long time ago and they didnt. Because its pvp.

[snip]

I mean ffs, i fight max cp players that dont even know how to heal. Its an absolute embarrassment. And do you know the worst part? Its when i fight a group of 5 random players getting carried by a magplar and i cant kill any of them, nor can they kill me. Why? Because they arent using any strategy or combos to kill me, and they are getting carried by some unkillable healer tank that just happend to be there

[snip]

If these changes were so awesome and made PvP a more fun activity for everyone or even the majority, then the people who support these changes could and would list the plethora of evidence, public reception, and gameplay examples to demonstrate that. Instead all we have is a "just join a group" or accusations that these players are so bad, they deserve to lose. Go ahead and tell us. We're all ears. Maybe there's something we've missed or intentionally glossing over the past 2 months. Instead of pointing the the apparent lack of skill, ability, or knowledge of your opponents, show us the evidence and examples of how much PvP has improved as a whole.

[Edited to remove Baiting]

Wing

Joy_Division wrote: »

If these changes were so awesome and made PvP are more fun activity for everyone or even the majority, then the people who support these changes could and would list the plethora of evidence, public reception, and gameplay examples to demonstrate that. Instead all we have is a "just join a group" or accusations that these players are so bad, they deserve to lose. Go ahead and tell us. We're all ears. Maybe there's something we've missed or intentionally glossing over the past 2 months. Instead of pointing the the apparent lack of skill, ability, or knowledge of your opponents, show us the evidence and examples of how much PvP has improved as a whole.

if you dont have good reasons you have to resort to character attackers to illegitimize the person and make them look dumb so people dont agree for fear of also feeling dumb.

"just group" would fall apart if everyone actually did that. if everyone in Cyro was only in 12 man groups the gameplay would be terrible and the same people saying "your bad just group" would be flooding the forums complaining about being unable to fight ball groups. . .

. . .more so then they already do.

VaranisArano

robertthebard wrote: »

renne wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

2. I'm not down with the toxicity aimed at healers in MMOs in general.

Oh, the irony.

Except there is no irony here. I get that these days disagreeing with someone about something is supposed to be toxic, but I don't subscribe to that belief system.

I sit here, and I wonder, "Why would a support role prefer to "do their job", (in quotes because their job is to support a group), from outside of a group"? I've listed one possible scenario for that, even provided a video of what I'm talking about. There are other possibilities, which range from:

1. They're not very good at it to;
2. They've got social anxiety.

Lots of wiggle room for other things in between, but pointing out some of the possible/probable scenarios doesn't equate to toxicity, except to someone that sincerely believes that disagreeing with them is the definition of toxic. I don't believe that encouraging group play in an MMO is a bad thing, and that, above all else, is what makes people think I'm being toxic? It says more about them than it will ever say about me.

At this point you've had ample opportunity to learn the answer to your question from many posts on this thread. Reread, or don't.

The rest of this is directed more for any Devs who might be reading this and thinking, "Hmm, yeah, "Why would a support role prefer to "do their job", (in quotes because their job is to support a group), from outside of a group"?"

WRONG. That's a fundamentally misunderstanding of the role of a PVP healer in Cyrodiil prior to this patch.

We are NOT PVE healers.
Our job was never to "support a group".
Our job was to heal players on our faction, whether grouped or ungrouped. I could fully support and heal any player on my faction whether I was in a group or not. I could be in a group and heal players outside of my group too!


With that in mind, why would we prefer to not be forced into groups to support players?
The "we" and "they" used is general, and examples taken from the various threads on this subject. Others may have more to add.
1. We're not very good - Did you know that new players were often advised to grab a resto staff and zergsurf to get their AP for Vigor/Caltrops/WarHorn/Barrier? Yeah, that doesn't happen now and yes, between that and the smaller group size, new players have less chances to get into good PUG raids so they can learn.
2. They've got social anxiety
3. They have limited playtime. Or their normal group isn't on at that hour. Lots of times, I would jump in for a quick battle and jump back out as time allowed.
4. They want to jump into healing the big fights instead of waiting for an LFG group to pick them up. I liked to answer calls for help in zone chat, now I'd have to LFG up to do anything.
5. We don't want to deal with toxic groupmates
6. We don't want to deal with slow groupmates who make us miss fights.
7. We don't want to deal with incompetent groupmates who scatter, or don't bring siege, or are off doing their own thing
8. We don't want to deal with a toxic, incompetent, slow, or scatter-brained Crown.
9.We DO want the freedom to heal whoever needs it instead of focusing purely on 12 players in our group.
10. We DO want to heal every player around us.
11. We DO want to heal that ungrouped guy next to us repairing the same wall, because if he get ambushed with Vicious Death, we'll take damage if he dies.
12.. We DO want to heal everyone on a ram even if they aren't in our group, because otherwise we might lose the fight.
13. We DO want to heal the random ungrouped guy we see get ganked.
14. We DO want to heal the other groups of PUGs tangling with the ball group farmers, because when they go down, we're next on the menu.
15. We DO want to heal the other ungrouped players tangling with a pair of tower farmers, because when they go down, we're next on the menu.
16. We DO want to pick which fights are most important to us. If my factions PUGs are taking Aleswell and a home keep flags, I want to have the freedom to go help defenders save the home keep
17. We DO want to support our whole faction, not one measly 12-player group.

After all, this is what we're playing. "I can only support my 12-player group" just doesn't compare to the support we used to provide to everyone on our faction.



And yes, I'm fully aware of the counterargument. "Sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. We need healing and group sizes nerfed because it helps small scale fights vs PUG, healing needed a nerf, healers needed to be more group-centric even though no one else is, we liked the behavioral changes."

Wing

im also going to state a preference and try to not sound egotistical.

im a pretty darn good player, and fairly exceptional at PvP in ESO, as i do enjoy it. i also do enjoy specifically helping and playing sherpa for noobs, i will target normal dungeons unlocked around level 10 (they have an unlock order as you level) so i get good chance at random noobs, and then just play a tank and have a relaxed run, very fun.

i liked doing the same thing in PvP as a healer. you push the front lines, throw heals where you see them needed, defend against enemy pushes, support friendly pushes, try and save randoms that have been singled out and are getting Xv1'd.

being tethered to a 12 man stack on crown group is not fun. i was in a very prominent pvp guild and left it because i did not enjoy the gameplay (good terms, we still friends) i dont like stack on crown. i dont like "det up and run spamming purge".


im not interested in running in a ball and just trying to stick with 12 people tactics.


im interested in being my own master and watching the 40+ vs 40+ fight play out and trying to manipulate that battle strategy.


I in no way shape or form need to be grouped with people to know how to use them effectively, and certainly dont find skill in 12 people ult dumping one person or consider that the peak of group gameplay some think it to be.

however ZOS has implemented terrible changes that have forbade me from interacting with anyone within my alliance in any positive or supportive way, and people call this a "positive social change"

dumb. period.

thats all forgetting the fact that this change was done to try and CULL ball group strength by cutting their size and not allowing them to be healed by outside sources. that fact that it destroyed non grouped general alliance play was merely a side effect that simply needs to be corrected.

until ZOS comes out and says "you cannot heal unless your in a group, this is done to encourage grouping" it will remain a dumb and shortsighted deign decision done by devs that do not play in open world pvp in an attempt to fix an issue in a roundabout way rather then a direct targeted way that did nothing to fix the issue and had the unintended side effect of destroying something unrelated from the core issue entirely

^^^
the above bolded actually sounds pretty accurate given our devs and their track record would you not agree?

CSose

If randoms can't heal other faction members that aren't in group, then they shouldn't be able to heal members in their own group either.

Either make healing a solo thing or revert it back so everyone can heal everyone again and fix the game so things work as advertised.

Jaraal

Wing wrote: »

until ZOS comes out and says "you cannot heal unless your in a group, this is done to encourage grouping" it will remain a dumb and shortsighted deign decision done by devs that do not play in open world pvp in an attempt to fix an issue in a roundabout way rather then a direct targeted way that did nothing to fix the issue and had the unintended side effect of destroying something unrelated from the core issue entirely

^^^
the above bolded actually sounds pretty accurate given our devs and their track record would you not agree?

In my experience of playing in Cyro for several hours a day (unlike those who would play devil's advocate from their armchair, or a different zone), the current changes do not encourage grouping. In fact, grouping has taken a big hit, and there are a lot more solo players in the field who used to get scooped up by the now defunct 24 person groups, or are not picked up by the PUG leaders who won't take chances on unknowns any more.

My take on the 'behavioral changes they like' is that they probably like that fact that people are now more spread out trying to find things to do, rather than traveling in 24 person packs. It's no secret that lag intensifies in relation to the number of people casting abilities and proccing sets in any given area. And since they haven't been able to control the lag and desynchs by software or hardware methods, why not try to control the symptoms, by forcing people to avoid situations where they are now in danger, where previously they could expect some random heals to help them stay alive.

The negative aspect of this behavior is that now you have people with different agendas overlapping and interfering with each other a lot more. Every day I hear the guild group leaders chastizing solo players in zone chat for trying to take the resources of a keep they were trying to capture by surprise. "Go far away and capture stuff," they say. Players respond with, "I'm not riding for 10 minutes just to get whacked at somebody's home keep." Another recently introduced issue is small PUGs who can't capture anything alone tagging along with coordinated strike groups and ruining their strategy or making them vulnerable to bombers and whatnot. The previous 24 person groups could effectively capture keeps with strength in numbers, even if some of the folks were new or still learning, didn't understand siege, etc. Not so with the forced smaller groups. PUG leaders can't risk having dead weight any more, so instead of trying to cap their own objectives, they are leeching off the efficiency of the ball/guild groups, which causes conflicts and resentment. Zone chat has never been as toxic as it is since these "behavioral changes," and it's easy to see why.

The other puzzling thing is why ZOS would choose to empower the elite players at the expense of newcomers, or "casuals." Most of their content is designed to support casuals, as they are the biggest source of revenue. But discouraging new people from thriving in the Alliance War with these changes seems counterproductive financially. But they don't want us to know the exact reasons, or they would have told us. And this whole fiasco is turning out to be just another roadblock to communication and generation of corporate goodwill.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

robertthebard wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

renne wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

2. I'm not down with the toxicity aimed at healers in MMOs in general.

Oh, the irony.

Except there is no irony here. I get that these days disagreeing with someone about something is supposed to be toxic, but I don't subscribe to that belief system.

I sit here, and I wonder, "Why would a support role prefer to "do their job", (in quotes because their job is to support a group), from outside of a group"? I've listed one possible scenario for that, even provided a video of what I'm talking about. There are other possibilities, which range from:

1. They're not very good at it to;
2. They've got social anxiety.

Lots of wiggle room for other things in between, but pointing out some of the possible/probable scenarios doesn't equate to toxicity, except to someone that sincerely believes that disagreeing with them is the definition of toxic. I don't believe that encouraging group play in an MMO is a bad thing, and that, above all else, is what makes people think I'm being toxic? It says more about them than it will ever say about me.

Our job was to support our alliance as a whole, not just 12 people
Cyrodiil is alliance war not group war

...and you'd be supporting your alliance by supporting your group. Reading this thread, it's no wonder PvP is such a mess, and it's got less to do with actual game development, and more to do with lack of understanding team play.

Why even bother
Playing with only 12 people is utterly borring
The onlyvreason i play pvp in this game is because i like those massive fight of an alliance of like 50+ player helping each other against another alliance of 50+ player
12 people vs 12 is not as fun not at all

VaranisArano

robertthebard wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

eso_lags wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

roberthebard, Cyrodiil isn't a PVE dungeon where you can easily slap on a groupfinder.

1. There's no "normal" mode you can pick when you want an easy run or figure you can carry your teammates.
2. There's no 15-minute timeout when you leave. There's a queue that's based on how many players are in Cyrodiil. Once the population locks, you can't join until others leave. At primetime, think half-hour to hour long waits to rejoin Cyrodiil.
3. You don't get ported into the same instanced dungeon with your team. In Cyrodiil, you have to transit to the nearest connected keep and then ride to join them. Better hope you don't get repeatedly ganked on the way.
4. There's no guidance on roles, so you might well not have a single healer on a 12-person team.
5. There's no vote kick feature. You stay in group at the sufferance of your Crown. If they drop you because you crashed, you were too slow, or you made too many mistakes, you get kicked instantly. (This is one reason there's no penalty for leaving group in Cyrodiil.)

Finally, how do we know that Cyrodiil groupfinder doesn't work?

We had one.
ZOS removed it when they did the Activity Finder rework because it was rarely used.


I suggest you take off the PVE lenses and look at Cyrodiil for what it is.

Here's the problem, I am. Hey, I could do a hell of a job solo PvPing in Aion, but I didn't show up for sieges solo. I joined the Alliance, or one of them, and did my job. What seems to be the real issue is that I'm not feeling sorry for a support class archetype complaining about not being able to solo. Maybe they're trying to keep them from breaking their arms trying to pat themselves on the back? Maybe they're trying to encourage group play in an MMO, as I said earlier, in regard to that, "the horror", right?

Make your own group? Join an existing group? Spam map chat looking for a group? Adjust your playstyle to continue solo PvP in a group setting? Just as I would recommend in a "PuGs suck thread" or a "dungeons should have a solo mode" thread. The irony of "group content should be group content, except where I don't want it to be", and that's what we're looking at now, since you have to be in a group to heal a group, isn't lost on me, and all the thrashing around looking for reasons that it shouldn't be that way doesn't convince me, it simply amuses me.

If ZOS was trying to encourage group play, they have a funny way of showing it in that they release sets like Crimson that allow solo players to tank entire raids, devised a game in which in which damage oriented character have by far the easiest time healing themselves of any fantasy game I have played, and failed to also implement mechanics to disable the functioning of solitary DPS skills, which happen to the largest category in the playerbase.

Not to mention, they would have flat out said it in their explanation for why these changes were implemented. Especially since, as you say, this is an MMO and grouping up would seem to be a logical part of the game. That they didn;t speaks volumes. Instead it's just the vague "behavioral changes," probably because being more specific would have easily enabled players to call them out on the holes and inconsistency of these changes.

What ZOS did do was specifically target just a part of the playerbase, who understandably feel like they are being scapegoated and just plain picked on not just by the developers, but also by other players who are still able to play as they want to and can only muster the insensitive response, "join a group."

If joining and making a group or spamming LFG in zone was the be all to end all and this wonderful, enlightening, and powerful game playing experience as you and the other "just join a group" advocates imply, then people would already be doing that and wouldn't be complaining at being all but forced to do so. As someone who has done all 3 (group joining, group making, and LFGing in zone) I know that people who are just saying join a group either know nothing of the frustrations of doing so or do know but are so insensitive that they just say it anyway.

A lot of players obviously prefer not to deal with those frustrations. Those frustrations are valid in that they detract from the customer's enjoyment of the game and unfair in that they are the result of the developers making a conscious change that only afflict a minuity of the customer base, which is why ZOS has been able to get away with it. If such "encouragement" was directed at and against the desires of their high profile streamers or the majority (i.e., DPS), then these changes would have never left the drawing table.

idk joy it really does seem like you have a disdain for solo players, like i said before. I get the feeling that you're the type that doesnt think twice about the stuff zos puts in the game that absolutely ravages solo play. Stuff like cost poisons, proc sets, earthgore, idk theres plenty of things i could list.

And you're completely wrong about zos "getting away" with this because healers are a minority. They make changes that are bad all the time. Bad for the majority and bad for the minority. They dont care, they do what they think is right even when its incredibly stupid and even when its not so bad.

If anything they get away with it because its pvp. Zos has never seemed to care about pvp. I can go into cyrodil every single day, here on xbox, and show you unplayable gameplay footage. Every single day, categorically, without fail, it will happen. And it will happen more than half of the time. If thats not detracting from the enjoyment of players then idk what will, and they have yet to do a thing about it, for years now. Every person I talk to experiences it, and zos admits it. Its not like 3 years ago where customer service would tell you to hard reset your xbox and check with your ISP. This change seems to be one of the first steps to solving performance, but regardless its been unsolved for an incredibly long time. Im sure there will be many casualties along the way, and im not so sure it will solve anything. Maybe in the end after a lot of changes, but my point is changes should have happened a long time ago and they didnt. Because its pvp.

Do you have anything to add to the conversation other than deriding other players who you think you can't kill because they aren't as good as you? We get it

I mean ffs, i fight max cp players that dont even know how to heal. Its an absolute embarrassment. And do you know the worst part? Its when i fight a group of 5 random players getting carried by a magplar and i cant kill any of them, nor can they kill me. Why? Because they arent using any strategy or combos to kill me, and they are getting carried by some unkillable healer tank that just happend to be there

They suck and you don't care, as long as it makes your 1v5 easier, you're all for it. And you think I'm the one with disdain? OK, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

If these changes were so awesome and made PvP are more fun activity for everyone or even the majority, then the people who support these changes could and would list the plethora of evidence, public reception, and gameplay examples to demonstrate that. Instead all we have is a "just join a group" or accusations that these players are so bad, they deserve to lose. Go ahead and tell us. We're all ears. Maybe there's something we've missed or intentionally glossing over the past 2 months. Instead of pointing the the apparent lack of skill, ability, or knowledge of your opponents, show us the evidence and examples of how much PvP has improved as a whole.

It's really simple, and I picked it up just reading this thread:

"But ball groups remain unaffected". I take that to mean that groups that actually understand team play are rolling all the solo stars running around in a party. I'm amazed at all these skilled players that don't understand how, and why, that works.

Well, no. That's not what that means. That's the sort of misunderstanding that happens when you are only reading the thread and not bringing in any experience of playing in Cyrodiil.


But its worth addressing, in the event that any Devs is reading and thinking, "Hmm, yeah, why are "solo" players complaining about ball groups remaining unaffected?"

Well, Devs, that's not an accurate complaint. "Ball groups remain unaffected" because they already ran in 12-player groups by themselves farming PUGs in a back keep. They didn't lose members or cross-healing because they didn't need it to dominate their main opponents: 24-player PUG raids and faction stacks.

PUGs were impacted by the changes far more.
You know what PUGs are, right?

They are Pick Up Groups, formerly 24-player not limited to 12 players, made up of those players who type LFG in zone chat. That's the majority of groups in Cyrodiil. Those are the very players who did precisely what's suggested. "Join a group!"

They did!

And guess what? They got get rolled by ball groups before this change. They still get rolled (worse) after this change. Why? Because they:
A) understand team play and practice it weekly together
B.) have voice comms
C) have dedicated healers
D.) Have stacked support sets
E) train to move and attack together

Actual solo stars and "solo" zergsurfers don't tangle directly with ball groups. See, they can do the math. "1 of me vs 12 organized players in voice comms? I'll go find a better fight!"

PUGs, those players who obeyed the injunction to "join a group" and who now want to support their faction by defending their home keep, do tangle directly with ball groups and get slaughtered by them.

I mean, even if someone has no experience in Cyrodiil, they ought to be able to tell the difference in balance between the 12-player ball group attributes listed above and a PUG raid of 12 players who:
A) joined a group of random players
B.) Don't have voice comms
C.) May not even have a single healer.
Its a 12 v 12 on paper, but it's not within shouting distance of a fair fight.

The healing/group size nerf left ball groups unaffected, AND it seriously nerfed their main opponents: players who did "join a group" in PUG raids.


But I suppose it's time to move the goalposts once more.
"Join a group!"
"No, no, join a group that understands team play!"
"No, no, join a pre-made group with voice comms that trains and builds together to dominate faction stacks, much less a 12-player Pick Up Group!"
"Yes, yes, you fool, join a ball group!"


You see, Devs, in the event that you are merely reading in this thread and not playing in Cyrodiil, not everyone likes running in a ball group. My SO admits that it is a stunningly effective method of play...but doesn't enjoy sticking on Crown's butt and having orders snapped out like Crown is a high school sports coach. I enjoy the training and teamwork, so I play in a guild raid and my SO does not.

Pick Up Groups make up the vast majority of groups in Cyrodiil. They take new players, inexperienced players, casual players, and player who, like my SO, don't want to play in a ball group. When you let the balance swing too far in favor of one style of group play, it hurts all other forms of group play. Right now, Cyrodiil heavily disadvantages all group play except for the ball group style.

robertthebard

VaranisArano wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

renne wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

2. I'm not down with the toxicity aimed at healers in MMOs in general.

Oh, the irony.

Except there is no irony here. I get that these days disagreeing with someone about something is supposed to be toxic, but I don't subscribe to that belief system.

I sit here, and I wonder, "Why would a support role prefer to "do their job", (in quotes because their job is to support a group), from outside of a group"? I've listed one possible scenario for that, even provided a video of what I'm talking about. There are other possibilities, which range from:

1. They're not very good at it to;
2. They've got social anxiety.

Lots of wiggle room for other things in between, but pointing out some of the possible/probable scenarios doesn't equate to toxicity, except to someone that sincerely believes that disagreeing with them is the definition of toxic. I don't believe that encouraging group play in an MMO is a bad thing, and that, above all else, is what makes people think I'm being toxic? It says more about them than it will ever say about me.

At this point you've had ample opportunity to learn the answer to your question from many posts on this thread. Reread, or don't.

The rest of this is directed more for any Devs who might be reading this and thinking, "Hmm, yeah, "Why would a support role prefer to "do their job", (in quotes because their job is to support a group), from outside of a group"?"

WRONG. That's a fundamentally misunderstanding of the role of a PVP healer in Cyrodiil prior to this patch.

We are NOT PVE healers.
Our job was never to "support a group".
Our job was to heal players on our faction, whether grouped or ungrouped. I could fully support and heal any player on my faction whether I was in a group or not. I could be in a group and heal players outside of my group too!


snip

The next time you want to tell someone they're wrong about something, maybe don't go proving them right about it? Your job is still to heal players in your faction, only now you're required to be grouped with them. This is hilarious.

robertthebard

VaranisArano wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

eso_lags wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

roberthebard, Cyrodiil isn't a PVE dungeon where you can easily slap on a groupfinder.

1. There's no "normal" mode you can pick when you want an easy run or figure you can carry your teammates.
2. There's no 15-minute timeout when you leave. There's a queue that's based on how many players are in Cyrodiil. Once the population locks, you can't join until others leave. At primetime, think half-hour to hour long waits to rejoin Cyrodiil.
3. You don't get ported into the same instanced dungeon with your team. In Cyrodiil, you have to transit to the nearest connected keep and then ride to join them. Better hope you don't get repeatedly ganked on the way.
4. There's no guidance on roles, so you might well not have a single healer on a 12-person team.
5. There's no vote kick feature. You stay in group at the sufferance of your Crown. If they drop you because you crashed, you were too slow, or you made too many mistakes, you get kicked instantly. (This is one reason there's no penalty for leaving group in Cyrodiil.)

Finally, how do we know that Cyrodiil groupfinder doesn't work?

We had one.
ZOS removed it when they did the Activity Finder rework because it was rarely used.


I suggest you take off the PVE lenses and look at Cyrodiil for what it is.

Here's the problem, I am. Hey, I could do a hell of a job solo PvPing in Aion, but I didn't show up for sieges solo. I joined the Alliance, or one of them, and did my job. What seems to be the real issue is that I'm not feeling sorry for a support class archetype complaining about not being able to solo. Maybe they're trying to keep them from breaking their arms trying to pat themselves on the back? Maybe they're trying to encourage group play in an MMO, as I said earlier, in regard to that, "the horror", right?

Make your own group? Join an existing group? Spam map chat looking for a group? Adjust your playstyle to continue solo PvP in a group setting? Just as I would recommend in a "PuGs suck thread" or a "dungeons should have a solo mode" thread. The irony of "group content should be group content, except where I don't want it to be", and that's what we're looking at now, since you have to be in a group to heal a group, isn't lost on me, and all the thrashing around looking for reasons that it shouldn't be that way doesn't convince me, it simply amuses me.

If ZOS was trying to encourage group play, they have a funny way of showing it in that they release sets like Crimson that allow solo players to tank entire raids, devised a game in which in which damage oriented character have by far the easiest time healing themselves of any fantasy game I have played, and failed to also implement mechanics to disable the functioning of solitary DPS skills, which happen to the largest category in the playerbase.

Not to mention, they would have flat out said it in their explanation for why these changes were implemented. Especially since, as you say, this is an MMO and grouping up would seem to be a logical part of the game. That they didn;t speaks volumes. Instead it's just the vague "behavioral changes," probably because being more specific would have easily enabled players to call them out on the holes and inconsistency of these changes.

What ZOS did do was specifically target just a part of the playerbase, who understandably feel like they are being scapegoated and just plain picked on not just by the developers, but also by other players who are still able to play as they want to and can only muster the insensitive response, "join a group."

If joining and making a group or spamming LFG in zone was the be all to end all and this wonderful, enlightening, and powerful game playing experience as you and the other "just join a group" advocates imply, then people would already be doing that and wouldn't be complaining at being all but forced to do so. As someone who has done all 3 (group joining, group making, and LFGing in zone) I know that people who are just saying join a group either know nothing of the frustrations of doing so or do know but are so insensitive that they just say it anyway.

A lot of players obviously prefer not to deal with those frustrations. Those frustrations are valid in that they detract from the customer's enjoyment of the game and unfair in that they are the result of the developers making a conscious change that only afflict a minuity of the customer base, which is why ZOS has been able to get away with it. If such "encouragement" was directed at and against the desires of their high profile streamers or the majority (i.e., DPS), then these changes would have never left the drawing table.

idk joy it really does seem like you have a disdain for solo players, like i said before. I get the feeling that you're the type that doesnt think twice about the stuff zos puts in the game that absolutely ravages solo play. Stuff like cost poisons, proc sets, earthgore, idk theres plenty of things i could list.

And you're completely wrong about zos "getting away" with this because healers are a minority. They make changes that are bad all the time. Bad for the majority and bad for the minority. They dont care, they do what they think is right even when its incredibly stupid and even when its not so bad.

If anything they get away with it because its pvp. Zos has never seemed to care about pvp. I can go into cyrodil every single day, here on xbox, and show you unplayable gameplay footage. Every single day, categorically, without fail, it will happen. And it will happen more than half of the time. If thats not detracting from the enjoyment of players then idk what will, and they have yet to do a thing about it, for years now. Every person I talk to experiences it, and zos admits it. Its not like 3 years ago where customer service would tell you to hard reset your xbox and check with your ISP. This change seems to be one of the first steps to solving performance, but regardless its been unsolved for an incredibly long time. Im sure there will be many casualties along the way, and im not so sure it will solve anything. Maybe in the end after a lot of changes, but my point is changes should have happened a long time ago and they didnt. Because its pvp.

Do you have anything to add to the conversation other than deriding other players who you think you can't kill because they aren't as good as you? We get it

I mean ffs, i fight max cp players that dont even know how to heal. Its an absolute embarrassment. And do you know the worst part? Its when i fight a group of 5 random players getting carried by a magplar and i cant kill any of them, nor can they kill me. Why? Because they arent using any strategy or combos to kill me, and they are getting carried by some unkillable healer tank that just happend to be there

They suck and you don't care, as long as it makes your 1v5 easier, you're all for it. And you think I'm the one with disdain? OK, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

If these changes were so awesome and made PvP are more fun activity for everyone or even the majority, then the people who support these changes could and would list the plethora of evidence, public reception, and gameplay examples to demonstrate that. Instead all we have is a "just join a group" or accusations that these players are so bad, they deserve to lose. Go ahead and tell us. We're all ears. Maybe there's something we've missed or intentionally glossing over the past 2 months. Instead of pointing the the apparent lack of skill, ability, or knowledge of your opponents, show us the evidence and examples of how much PvP has improved as a whole.

It's really simple, and I picked it up just reading this thread:

"But ball groups remain unaffected". I take that to mean that groups that actually understand team play are rolling all the solo stars running around in a party. I'm amazed at all these skilled players that don't understand how, and why, that works.

Well, no. That's not what that means. That's the sort of misunderstanding that happens when you are only reading the thread and not bringing in any experience of playing in Cyrodiil.


But its worth addressing, in the event that any Devs is reading and thinking, "Hmm, yeah, why are "solo" players complaining about ball groups remaining unaffected?"

Well, Devs, that's not an accurate complaint. "Ball groups remain unaffected" because they already ran in 12-player groups by themselves farming PUGs in a back keep. They didn't lose members or cross-healing because they didn't need it to dominate their main opponents: 24-player PUG raids and faction stacks.

PUGs were impacted by the changes far more.
You know what PUGs are, right?

They are Pick Up Groups, formerly 24-player not limited to 12 players, made up of those players who type LFG in zone chat. That's the majority of groups in Cyrodiil. Those are the very players who did precisely what you suggest. "Join a group!"

They did!

And guess what? They got get rolled by ball groups before this change. They still get rolled (worse) after this change. Why? Because they:
A) understand team play and practice it weekly together
B.) have voice comms
C) have dedicated healers
D.) Have stacked support sets
E) train to move and attack together

Actual solo stars and "solo" zergsurfers don't tangle directly with ball groups. See, they can do the math. "1 of me vs 12 organized players in voice comms? I'll go find a better fight!"

PUGs, those players who obeyed the injunction to "join a group" and who now want to support their faction by defending their home keep, do tangle directly with ball groups and get slaughtered by them.

I mean, even if someone has no experience in Cyrodiil, they ought to be able to tell the difference in balance between the 12-player ball group attributes listed above and a PUG raid of 12 players who:
A) joined a group of random players
B.) Don't have voice comms
C.) May not even have a single healer.
Its a 12 v 12 on paper, but it's not within shouting distance of a fair fight.

The healing/group size nerf left ball groups unaffected, AND it seriously nerfed their main opponents: players who did "join a group" in PUG raids.


But I suppose it's time to move the goalposts once more.
"Join a group!"
"No, no, join a group that understands team play!"
"No, no, join a pre-made group with voice comms that trains and builds together to dominate faction stacks, much less a 12-player Pick Up Group!"
"Yes, yes, you fool, join a ball group!"

Too much to snip this time, so: A coordinated group will always dominate a PuG. Yes, I know what it means. Reading the thread, and your posts in particular, I probably have a vastly superior understanding of group play than you ever will. Where does it come from? Actually partaking in large scale PvP. Actually having a group leader ghosted into a main discord or TS channel, relaying orders from a central commander to teams, which could run from anywhere between 4 players to an entire alliance of 48 players. Where that alliance was one of 4 or 5 in the entire siege.

It comes from leading dungeon raids in another MMO, where it was 24 vs 24 for control of a dungeon, using the same basic system. It comes from being able to give, and follow orders from a team leader. It comes from knowing the role my class is supposed to play, and doing everything I can to fulfill that role, even if it's boring as hell scouting for enemy positions. You know, team play, in a team play oriented activity.

That, vs a Pick up Group of random players that may or may not know what they're doing, and who do you expect is going to win? So no, you can't point at me and say "well, you just don't know what you're talking about". The fatal flaw to that argument is that, of course, group PvP is group PvP, and "but I want to be a solo star, they shouldn't force me into a group" falls flat, again, since the Meta has changed. Good, bad, or indifferent, I fall into the latter category, btw, that's the way the game is now, you either adapt, or you come to the forums, putting yourself in the exact same shoes as any player that wants to be able to solo a dungeon.

VaranisArano

robertthebard wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

eso_lags wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

roberthebard, Cyrodiil isn't a PVE dungeon where you can easily slap on a groupfinder.

1. There's no "normal" mode you can pick when you want an easy run or figure you can carry your teammates.
2. There's no 15-minute timeout when you leave. There's a queue that's based on how many players are in Cyrodiil. Once the population locks, you can't join until others leave. At primetime, think half-hour to hour long waits to rejoin Cyrodiil.
3. You don't get ported into the same instanced dungeon with your team. In Cyrodiil, you have to transit to the nearest connected keep and then ride to join them. Better hope you don't get repeatedly ganked on the way.
4. There's no guidance on roles, so you might well not have a single healer on a 12-person team.
5. There's no vote kick feature. You stay in group at the sufferance of your Crown. If they drop you because you crashed, you were too slow, or you made too many mistakes, you get kicked instantly. (This is one reason there's no penalty for leaving group in Cyrodiil.)

Finally, how do we know that Cyrodiil groupfinder doesn't work?

We had one.
ZOS removed it when they did the Activity Finder rework because it was rarely used.


I suggest you take off the PVE lenses and look at Cyrodiil for what it is.

Here's the problem, I am. Hey, I could do a hell of a job solo PvPing in Aion, but I didn't show up for sieges solo. I joined the Alliance, or one of them, and did my job. What seems to be the real issue is that I'm not feeling sorry for a support class archetype complaining about not being able to solo. Maybe they're trying to keep them from breaking their arms trying to pat themselves on the back? Maybe they're trying to encourage group play in an MMO, as I said earlier, in regard to that, "the horror", right?

Make your own group? Join an existing group? Spam map chat looking for a group? Adjust your playstyle to continue solo PvP in a group setting? Just as I would recommend in a "PuGs suck thread" or a "dungeons should have a solo mode" thread. The irony of "group content should be group content, except where I don't want it to be", and that's what we're looking at now, since you have to be in a group to heal a group, isn't lost on me, and all the thrashing around looking for reasons that it shouldn't be that way doesn't convince me, it simply amuses me.

If ZOS was trying to encourage group play, they have a funny way of showing it in that they release sets like Crimson that allow solo players to tank entire raids, devised a game in which in which damage oriented character have by far the easiest time healing themselves of any fantasy game I have played, and failed to also implement mechanics to disable the functioning of solitary DPS skills, which happen to the largest category in the playerbase.

Not to mention, they would have flat out said it in their explanation for why these changes were implemented. Especially since, as you say, this is an MMO and grouping up would seem to be a logical part of the game. That they didn;t speaks volumes. Instead it's just the vague "behavioral changes," probably because being more specific would have easily enabled players to call them out on the holes and inconsistency of these changes.

What ZOS did do was specifically target just a part of the playerbase, who understandably feel like they are being scapegoated and just plain picked on not just by the developers, but also by other players who are still able to play as they want to and can only muster the insensitive response, "join a group."

If joining and making a group or spamming LFG in zone was the be all to end all and this wonderful, enlightening, and powerful game playing experience as you and the other "just join a group" advocates imply, then people would already be doing that and wouldn't be complaining at being all but forced to do so. As someone who has done all 3 (group joining, group making, and LFGing in zone) I know that people who are just saying join a group either know nothing of the frustrations of doing so or do know but are so insensitive that they just say it anyway.

A lot of players obviously prefer not to deal with those frustrations. Those frustrations are valid in that they detract from the customer's enjoyment of the game and unfair in that they are the result of the developers making a conscious change that only afflict a minuity of the customer base, which is why ZOS has been able to get away with it. If such "encouragement" was directed at and against the desires of their high profile streamers or the majority (i.e., DPS), then these changes would have never left the drawing table.

idk joy it really does seem like you have a disdain for solo players, like i said before. I get the feeling that you're the type that doesnt think twice about the stuff zos puts in the game that absolutely ravages solo play. Stuff like cost poisons, proc sets, earthgore, idk theres plenty of things i could list.

And you're completely wrong about zos "getting away" with this because healers are a minority. They make changes that are bad all the time. Bad for the majority and bad for the minority. They dont care, they do what they think is right even when its incredibly stupid and even when its not so bad.

If anything they get away with it because its pvp. Zos has never seemed to care about pvp. I can go into cyrodil every single day, here on xbox, and show you unplayable gameplay footage. Every single day, categorically, without fail, it will happen. And it will happen more than half of the time. If thats not detracting from the enjoyment of players then idk what will, and they have yet to do a thing about it, for years now. Every person I talk to experiences it, and zos admits it. Its not like 3 years ago where customer service would tell you to hard reset your xbox and check with your ISP. This change seems to be one of the first steps to solving performance, but regardless its been unsolved for an incredibly long time. Im sure there will be many casualties along the way, and im not so sure it will solve anything. Maybe in the end after a lot of changes, but my point is changes should have happened a long time ago and they didnt. Because its pvp.

Do you have anything to add to the conversation other than deriding other players who you think you can't kill because they aren't as good as you? We get it

I mean ffs, i fight max cp players that dont even know how to heal. Its an absolute embarrassment. And do you know the worst part? Its when i fight a group of 5 random players getting carried by a magplar and i cant kill any of them, nor can they kill me. Why? Because they arent using any strategy or combos to kill me, and they are getting carried by some unkillable healer tank that just happend to be there

They suck and you don't care, as long as it makes your 1v5 easier, you're all for it. And you think I'm the one with disdain? OK, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

If these changes were so awesome and made PvP are more fun activity for everyone or even the majority, then the people who support these changes could and would list the plethora of evidence, public reception, and gameplay examples to demonstrate that. Instead all we have is a "just join a group" or accusations that these players are so bad, they deserve to lose. Go ahead and tell us. We're all ears. Maybe there's something we've missed or intentionally glossing over the past 2 months. Instead of pointing the the apparent lack of skill, ability, or knowledge of your opponents, show us the evidence and examples of how much PvP has improved as a whole.

It's really simple, and I picked it up just reading this thread:

"But ball groups remain unaffected". I take that to mean that groups that actually understand team play are rolling all the solo stars running around in a party. I'm amazed at all these skilled players that don't understand how, and why, that works.

Well, no. That's not what that means. That's the sort of misunderstanding that happens when you are only reading the thread and not bringing in any experience of playing in Cyrodiil.


But its worth addressing, in the event that any Devs is reading and thinking, "Hmm, yeah, why are "solo" players complaining about ball groups remaining unaffected?"

Well, Devs, that's not an accurate complaint. "Ball groups remain unaffected" because they already ran in 12-player groups by themselves farming PUGs in a back keep. They didn't lose members or cross-healing because they didn't need it to dominate their main opponents: 24-player PUG raids and faction stacks.

PUGs were impacted by the changes far more.
You know what PUGs are, right?

They are Pick Up Groups, formerly 24-player not limited to 12 players, made up of those players who type LFG in zone chat. That's the majority of groups in Cyrodiil. Those are the very players who did precisely what you suggest. "Join a group!"

They did!

And guess what? They got get rolled by ball groups before this change. They still get rolled (worse) after this change. Why? Because they:
A) understand team play and practice it weekly together
B.) have voice comms
C) have dedicated healers
D.) Have stacked support sets
E) train to move and attack together

Actual solo stars and "solo" zergsurfers don't tangle directly with ball groups. See, they can do the math. "1 of me vs 12 organized players in voice comms? I'll go find a better fight!"

PUGs, those players who obeyed the injunction to "join a group" and who now want to support their faction by defending their home keep, do tangle directly with ball groups and get slaughtered by them.

I mean, even if someone has no experience in Cyrodiil, they ought to be able to tell the difference in balance between the 12-player ball group attributes listed above and a PUG raid of 12 players who:
A) joined a group of random players
B.) Don't have voice comms
C.) May not even have a single healer.
Its a 12 v 12 on paper, but it's not within shouting distance of a fair fight.

The healing/group size nerf left ball groups unaffected, AND it seriously nerfed their main opponents: players who did "join a group" in PUG raids.


But I suppose it's time to move the goalposts once more.
"Join a group!"
"No, no, join a group that understands team play!"
"No, no, join a pre-made group with voice comms that trains and builds together to dominate faction stacks, much less a 12-player Pick Up Group!"
"Yes, yes, you fool, join a ball group!"

Too much to snip this time, so: A coordinated group will always dominate a PuG. Yes, I know what it means. Reading the thread, and your posts in particular, I probably have a vastly superior understanding of group play than you ever will. Where does it come from? Actually partaking in large scale PvP. Actually having a group leader ghosted into a main discord or TS channel, relaying orders from a central commander to teams, which could run from anywhere between 4 players to an entire alliance of 48 players. Where that alliance was one of 4 or 5 in the entire siege.

It comes from leading dungeon raids in another MMO, where it was 24 vs 24 for control of a dungeon, using the same basic system. It comes from being able to give, and follow orders from a team leader. It comes from knowing the role my class is supposed to play, and doing everything I can to fulfill that role, even if it's boring as hell scouting for enemy positions. You know, team play, in a team play oriented activity.

That, vs a Pick up Group of random players that may or may not know what they're doing, and who do you expect is going to win? So no, you can't point at me and say "well, you just don't know what you're talking about". The fatal flaw to that argument is that, of course, group PvP is group PvP, and "but I want to be a solo star, they shouldn't force me into a group" falls flat, again, since the Meta has changed. Good, bad, or indifferent, I fall into the latter category, btw, that's the way the game is now, you either adapt, or you come to the forums, putting yourself in the exact same shoes as any player that wants to be able to solo a dungeon.

I salute your experience in other PVP and MMO games, and I apologize for saying you didn't know what a PUG raid in Cyrodiil is. That was impolite of me.

As for my experience, I've been focusing on my experiences of healing in Cyrodiil as a "solo" healer, as a PUG healer, as a PUG leader, and as a healer in a PVP guild raid (effectively a ball group) for years. Each of those playstyles has their own quirks and has recently been impacted in different ways by the group size and healing changes. Mostly negatively, to be honest.

Why so focused? Because that's the thread topic. I appreciate hearing from people with different PVP playstyles explaining how ithe group size and healing changes are impacting their play in Cyrodiil. Even when I disagree with their conclusions, our common love and experience in Cyrodiil gives us a good starting point for discussing what pros and cons we see in Cyrodiil.

So while I salute your experiences in other games, I'm focusing on Cyrodiil, the game I'm actually playing.

robertthebard

VaranisArano wrote: »

I salute your experience in other PVP and MMO games, and I apologize for saying you didn't know what a PUG raid in Cyrodiil is. That was impolite of me.

As for my experience, I've been focusing on my experiences of healing in Cyrodiil as a "solo" healer, as a PUG healer, as a PUG leader, and as a healer in a PVP guild raid (effectively a ball group) for years. Each of those playstyles has their own quirks and has recently been impacted in different ways by the group size and healing changes. Mostly negatively, to be honest.

Why so focused? Because that's the thread topic. I appreciate hearing from people with different PVP playstyles explaining how ithe group size and healing changes are impacting their play in Cyrodiil. Even when I disagree with their conclusions, our common love and experience in Cyrodiil gives us a good starting point for discussing what pros and cons we see in Cyrodiil.

So while I salute your experiences in other games, I'm focusing on Cyrodiil, the game I'm actually playing.

Cut short before it made me, bleh.

Here's my point in a nutshell mate, it doesn't matter what game it is, the dynamic is the same, even closer now than before the update. It doesn't matter what game it is, it doesn't matter what happened last year, or last week. Organized groups are always going to have a good showing, and moving the game closer to that isn't a bad thing. It's going to be bad for some people, see the video I posted earlier, and they have one just like it for tanks and dps too, and better for others. Before you throw the baby out with the bath water though, maybe get some friends and/or guild mates together, and give it a solid go, instead of running in a PuG where you don't know what you're going to get, and declaring that it's the worst idea ever. Who knows, you might actually find out it's more fun.

Wing

robertthebard wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

I salute your experience in other PVP and MMO games, and I apologize for saying you didn't know what a PUG raid in Cyrodiil is. That was impolite of me.

As for my experience, I've been focusing on my experiences of healing in Cyrodiil as a "solo" healer, as a PUG healer, as a PUG leader, and as a healer in a PVP guild raid (effectively a ball group) for years. Each of those playstyles has their own quirks and has recently been impacted in different ways by the group size and healing changes. Mostly negatively, to be honest.

Why so focused? Because that's the thread topic. I appreciate hearing from people with different PVP playstyles explaining how ithe group size and healing changes are impacting their play in Cyrodiil. Even when I disagree with their conclusions, our common love and experience in Cyrodiil gives us a good starting point for discussing what pros and cons we see in Cyrodiil.

So while I salute your experiences in other games, I'm focusing on Cyrodiil, the game I'm actually playing.

Cut short before it made me, bleh.

Here's my point in a nutshell mate, it doesn't matter what game it is, the dynamic is the same, even closer now than before the update. It doesn't matter what game it is, it doesn't matter what happened last year, or last week. Organized groups are always going to have a good showing, and moving the game closer to that isn't a bad thing. It's going to be bad for some people, see the video I posted earlier, and they have one just like it for tanks and dps too, and better for others. Before you throw the baby out with the bath water though, maybe get some friends and/or guild mates together, and give it a solid go, instead of running in a PuG where you don't know what you're going to get, and declaring that it's the worst idea ever. Who knows, you might actually find out it's more fun.

you do realize a whole MMO was made with what your saying as the design principles right?

former WoW devs and everything, lots of money and a great launch, right around after ESO launched actually.

was a return to group focused endgame PvE and PvP and was going to be the "ESO killer"


it was called Wildstar.

its servers shutdown November 28, 2018 at 5:00 pm est.

its a fine thing to try and force your gaming ideals on people when your not reliant on their presence and income to keep the game going. you force grouping and people dont want to, they dont want to and then they simply leave and go to other games that do allow them to play the way they want. eso loses players, money, etc. servers shut down. game gone.

wont happen? it did to Wildstar.
wildstar forced teams of at least 2v2 in their smallest pvp modes, similar to our BG's and went up to 5v5.
medium teir pvp was forced 10v10 to 15v15
and high end pvp was 30v30

guess what, people left, group or get out mentality caused people to get out, servers shut down, game is dust.

Wing

another post but your view is incredibly narrow as to the ramifications so i wanted to point out a similar group.

the raiding guilds. very similar in structure to hardcore PvP guilds with the same long term problems.

if enough people dont log on, they dont raid, if enough move to a new game, they either disband OR pull the entire group with them to check out the new game.

im sure anyone who has been social in the MMO space long enough has witnessed or been a part of these moves.

same with PvP but worse considering the nature of PvP.

PvP guilds dont move to old games games to PvP, they stay playing whatever they are playing, or move to something new when it comes out.

this causes the PvP pond of whatever game, lets say ESO to get smaller, and only the hardcore meta humping PvP guilds remain. (even now we have like 2-3 well known raid guilds per alliance compared to launch)

this causes big fish in small pond scenario and simply destroys any chance of new players PvP'ing

take 5 noobs grouping to PvP and the have to contend with only a handful of groups playing like Drac or Lom.

they get stomped, leave, and move on.


you can SCREAM: "LTP, GET GUD, GROUP UP" all you want.

this happens to literally every pvp ever, and ESO is even worse because its literally one server with no skill bracket. you are GOING to run into the best whether you want to or not.


how many players does Fengrush chase of the server when his group starts rolling? how many times does he kill all competition in pvp merely by running his group?

thats not his goal, he just wants to PvP

but its what happens.

people leave, servers die, pvp dies, way to go.

robertthebard

Wing wrote: »

another post but your view is incredibly narrow as to the ramifications so i wanted to point out a similar group.

the raiding guilds. very similar in structure to hardcore PvP guilds with the same long term problems.

if enough people dont log on, they dont raid, if enough move to a new game, they either disband OR pull the entire group with them to check out the new game.

im sure anyone who has been social in the MMO space long enough has witnessed or been a part of these moves.

same with PvP but worse considering the nature of PvP.

PvP guilds dont move to old games games to PvP, they stay playing whatever they are playing, or move to something new when it comes out.

this causes the PvP pond of whatever game, lets say ESO to get smaller, and only the hardcore meta humping PvP guilds remain. (even now we have like 2-3 well known raid guilds per alliance compared to launch)

this causes big fish in small pond scenario and simply destroys any chance of new players PvP'ing

take 5 noobs grouping to PvP and the have to contend with only a handful of groups playing like Drac or Lom.

they get stomped, leave, and move on.


you can SCREAM: "LTP, GET GUD, GROUP UP" all you want.

this happens to literally every pvp ever, and ESO is even worse because its literally one server with no skill bracket. you are GOING to run into the best whether you want to or not.


how many players does Fengrush chase of the server when his group starts rolling? how many times does he kill all competition in pvp merely by running his group?

thats not his goal, he just wants to PvP

but its what happens.

people leave, servers die, pvp dies, way to go.

You are, of course, aware that there are guilds built entirely around that principle? They've been doing it for a good long while too. New dungeon/raid/(insert whatever else here), they come in, learn it, finish it, and move on to the next game. I was a progression raider for a decade, even belonged to one of those guilds, but had to go, since they had it more structured like another job, than actually just playing the game. You're citing it as a game killer, it's been happening since at least 2005.

I don't recall the specifics, but it seems to me that Wildstar had more issues than just "but it's group PvP, and group PvP is bad"... Mobas seem to be pretty successful, and they're group PvP... They'd certainly never be able to build up esports around them if they weren't, right?

Some people will rage quit, however, rage quit is a meme for a reason. I've seen people rage quit over not getting a specific drop after one dungeon run. I've seen them rage quit because they died in a quest. Here's a good one for you, a Legion with over 200 accounts rage quit Aion, and went to Runes of Magic. Why? OW PvP, in a game that was advertised as PvPvE... Yeah, rage quitting is a thing, and it's a thing that's been going on for years. I'd bet we could even find examples of people rage quitting SP games, care to take that bet?

So you can hold back the drama about how people will quit. People have been going to quit this game because of lag in Cyro since I left in May of last year, I wonder how many of them are still here, or have come back? People leave MMOs all the time, even if they don't have a reason to rage quit. I've left a few myself, for various reasons, including this one, just last May, or so. Sometimes it's down to nothing but boredom. Sometimes the "Next Big Thing" comes along, and people go look, including me. Sometimes it's even SP games that draw players away. So unless you've been in Cyro every day for a week, and nobody's there, I don't think this issue is as big as you're trying to paint it.

renne

robertthebard wrote: »

Except there is no irony here. I get that these days disagreeing with someone about something is supposed to be toxic, but I don't subscribe to that belief system.

I sit here, and I wonder, "Why would a support role prefer to "do their job", (in quotes because their job is to support a group), from outside of a group"? I've listed one possible scenario for that, even provided a video of what I'm talking about. There are other possibilities, which range from:

1. They're not very good at it to;
2. They've got social anxiety.

Lots of wiggle room for other things in between, but pointing out some of the possible/probable scenarios doesn't equate to toxicity, except to someone that sincerely believes that disagreeing with them is the definition of toxic. I don't believe that encouraging group play in an MMO is a bad thing, and that, above all else, is what makes people think I'm being toxic? It says more about them than it will ever say about me.

No, there absolutely is irony here, because you literally admit in this very thread that you're just here to laugh at solo healers being upset about forced grouping and that people being upset and not wanting to group is hilarious.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7087159/#Comment_7087159

Truth be told, I'm following this more for my personal amusement than anything else. "But I shouldn't have to be in a group to play a healer" is hilarious

renne

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

renne wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

2. I'm not down with the toxicity aimed at healers in MMOs in general.

Oh, the irony.

Except there is no irony here. I get that these days disagreeing with someone about something is supposed to be toxic, but I don't subscribe to that belief system.

I sit here, and I wonder, "Why would a support role prefer to "do their job", (in quotes because their job is to support a group), from outside of a group"? I've listed one possible scenario for that, even provided a video of what I'm talking about. There are other possibilities, which range from:

1. They're not very good at it to;
2. They've got social anxiety.

Lots of wiggle room for other things in between, but pointing out some of the possible/probable scenarios doesn't equate to toxicity, except to someone that sincerely believes that disagreeing with them is the definition of toxic. I don't believe that encouraging group play in an MMO is a bad thing, and that, above all else, is what makes people think I'm being toxic? It says more about them than it will ever say about me.

Our job was to support our alliance as a whole, not just 12 people
Cyrodiil is alliance war not group war

...and you'd be supporting your alliance by supporting your group. Reading this thread, it's no wonder PvP is such a mess, and it's got less to do with actual game development, and more to do with lack of understanding team play.

Why even bother
Playing with only 12 people is utterly borring
The onlyvreason i play pvp in this game is because i like those massive fight of an alliance of like 50+ player helping each other against another alliance of 50+ player
12 people vs 12 is not as fun not at all

Legit. If I wanted to get stuck in a group fighting another group I'd play Battlegrounds.

superbiquette

i just don't understand why they make this change, have they really said that it's to force people to group? cause you can enter without being in a group so it's not the goal , it don't change server perf so not this too...

VaranisArano

superbiquette wrote: »

i just don't understand why they make this change, have they really said that it's to force people to group? cause you can enter without being in a group so it's not the goal , it don't change server perf so not this too...

No, ZOS has not said that. ZOS' stated reason is here:
"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."
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/544305/details-for-aoe-testing-in-cyrodiil

Truth is, aside from that statement, we have no idea what "behavioral changes" ZOS liked (and thus we have no way to judge whether the group size and healing changes have had the effect ZOS desired.)

superbiquette

damned horrible change ( for me ) ! thanks varanis, seems their is no hope for a backup in the gameplay possibility.

Carthelion

I've not piped up yet, I'm 99% a pve player so take my opinion with a pinch of salt.

I've played LotRO, WoW, SWtoR and ESO multiple years. All mainly pve but I will play PvP very sparingly.
As I say, I am very much a PvEer but I do love the huge battle gameplay of an open PVP world. I steer very clear of small scale PvP as I know full well I'll get stomped. Even trying to earn warhorn on my healers nowadays is a massive chore. Joining a random team of 4 for a day to get stomped is no fun at all.

But the idea of a massive battle mixed with PvEers and PvEers, kind of emulating huge battles from our favourite movies, It's what brings me a PvEer to the PvP scene.

This change had pretty much made me never step foot in Cyrodil again. I did enjoy it. Even if I did want to maybe learn PvP. Battlegrounds are just massively steep learning curve compared to AvAvA.

Vanos444

It's been six months or more. Since, I left ESO.
So, whats happened to healing?!
Is it group only heals now?! If that it is, then it really is BAD!!

eso_lags

Joy_Division wrote: »

eso_lags wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

roberthebard, Cyrodiil isn't a PVE dungeon where you can easily slap on a groupfinder.

1. There's no "normal" mode you can pick when you want an easy run or figure you can carry your teammates.
2. There's no 15-minute timeout when you leave. There's a queue that's based on how many players are in Cyrodiil. Once the population locks, you can't join until others leave. At primetime, think half-hour to hour long waits to rejoin Cyrodiil.
3. You don't get ported into the same instanced dungeon with your team. In Cyrodiil, you have to transit to the nearest connected keep and then ride to join them. Better hope you don't get repeatedly ganked on the way.
4. There's no guidance on roles, so you might well not have a single healer on a 12-person team.
5. There's no vote kick feature. You stay in group at the sufferance of your Crown. If they drop you because you crashed, you were too slow, or you made too many mistakes, you get kicked instantly. (This is one reason there's no penalty for leaving group in Cyrodiil.)

Finally, how do we know that Cyrodiil groupfinder doesn't work?

We had one.
ZOS removed it when they did the Activity Finder rework because it was rarely used.


I suggest you take off the PVE lenses and look at Cyrodiil for what it is.

Here's the problem, I am. Hey, I could do a hell of a job solo PvPing in Aion, but I didn't show up for sieges solo. I joined the Alliance, or one of them, and did my job. What seems to be the real issue is that I'm not feeling sorry for a support class archetype complaining about not being able to solo. Maybe they're trying to keep them from breaking their arms trying to pat themselves on the back? Maybe they're trying to encourage group play in an MMO, as I said earlier, in regard to that, "the horror", right?

Make your own group? Join an existing group? Spam map chat looking for a group? Adjust your playstyle to continue solo PvP in a group setting? Just as I would recommend in a "PuGs suck thread" or a "dungeons should have a solo mode" thread. The irony of "group content should be group content, except where I don't want it to be", and that's what we're looking at now, since you have to be in a group to heal a group, isn't lost on me, and all the thrashing around looking for reasons that it shouldn't be that way doesn't convince me, it simply amuses me.

If ZOS was trying to encourage group play, they have a funny way of showing it in that they release sets like Crimson that allow solo players to tank entire raids, devised a game in which in which damage oriented character have by far the easiest time healing themselves of any fantasy game I have played, and failed to also implement mechanics to disable the functioning of solitary DPS skills, which happen to the largest category in the playerbase.

Not to mention, they would have flat out said it in their explanation for why these changes were implemented. Especially since, as you say, this is an MMO and grouping up would seem to be a logical part of the game. That they didn;t speaks volumes. Instead it's just the vague "behavioral changes," probably because being more specific would have easily enabled players to call them out on the holes and inconsistency of these changes.

What ZOS did do was specifically target just a part of the playerbase, who understandably feel like they are being scapegoated and just plain picked on not just by the developers, but also by other players who are still able to play as they want to and can only muster the insensitive response, "join a group."

If joining and making a group or spamming LFG in zone was the be all to end all and this wonderful, enlightening, and powerful game playing experience as you and the other "just join a group" advocates imply, then people would already be doing that and wouldn't be complaining at being all but forced to do so. As someone who has done all 3 (group joining, group making, and LFGing in zone) I know that people who are just saying join a group either know nothing of the frustrations of doing so or do know but are so insensitive that they just say it anyway.

A lot of players obviously prefer not to deal with those frustrations. Those frustrations are valid in that they detract from the customer's enjoyment of the game and unfair in that they are the result of the developers making a conscious change that only afflict a minuity of the customer base, which is why ZOS has been able to get away with it. If such "encouragement" was directed at and against the desires of their high profile streamers or the majority (i.e., DPS), then these changes would have never left the drawing table.

idk joy it really does seem like you have a disdain for solo players, like i said before. I get the feeling that you're the type that doesnt think twice about the stuff zos puts in the game that absolutely ravages solo play. Stuff like cost poisons, proc sets, earthgore, idk theres plenty of things i could list.

And you're completely wrong about zos "getting away" with this because healers are a minority. They make changes that are bad all the time. Bad for the majority and bad for the minority. They dont care, they do what they think is right even when its incredibly stupid and even when its not so bad.

If anything they get away with it because its pvp. Zos has never seemed to care about pvp. I can go into cyrodil every single day, here on xbox, and show you unplayable gameplay footage. Every single day, categorically, without fail, it will happen. And it will happen more than half of the time. If thats not detracting from the enjoyment of players then idk what will, and they have yet to do a thing about it, for years now. Every person I talk to experiences it, and zos admits it. Its not like 3 years ago where customer service would tell you to hard reset your xbox and check with your ISP. This change seems to be one of the first steps to solving performance, but regardless its been unsolved for an incredibly long time. Im sure there will be many casualties along the way, and im not so sure it will solve anything. Maybe in the end after a lot of changes, but my point is changes should have happened a long time ago and they didnt. Because its pvp.

[snip]

I mean ffs, i fight max cp players that dont even know how to heal. Its an absolute embarrassment. And do you know the worst part? Its when i fight a group of 5 random players getting carried by a magplar and i cant kill any of them, nor can they kill me. Why? Because they arent using any strategy or combos to kill me, and they are getting carried by some unkillable healer tank that just happend to be there

[snip]

If these changes were so awesome and made PvP a more fun activity for everyone or even the majority, then the people who support these changes could and would list the plethora of evidence, public reception, and gameplay examples to demonstrate that. Instead all we have is a "just join a group" or accusations that these players are so bad, they deserve to lose. Go ahead and tell us. We're all ears. Maybe there's something we've missed or intentionally glossing over the past 2 months. Instead of pointing the the apparent lack of skill, ability, or knowledge of your opponents, show us the evidence and examples of how much PvP has improved as a whole.

[snip]

Get better, everyone has the same opportunities, thats what makes mmos great, even casual mmos like this. But I said before, if people were grouped up they would have a way better chance of killing me, or whoever, so how does that seem like I want it to be easier for me? I want a challenge. I just dont want to fight a group of randoms who are clearly bad at the game, and have zero hope of killing me, but are carried enough to just survive by a ridiculous healer/tank/sustain machine. I would rather be killed by a group who can actually do it then have my time wasted by a group who cannot. You will never make me feel bad for low effort players.

And maybe people just dont give a *** enough to make a huge deal about this change and go find all this evidence you want. I already said before the changes might be a long list of things zos will do to try to fix performance. And that there will probably be many casualties along the way, some unnecessary. But if it helps then im all for it. But its not something that will happen over night, and probably wont happen at all. I have no faith they will fix performance but this is them trying.

I wonder if you would be this emotionally invested if this was a change that hurt solo play, or small scale, or stam dk, or some random *** you dont care about. Thats such a problem on the forums. Like I said before I feel for the people who feel like they're *** over by this. I also said Im sure theres a better way they could do this, like giving people some options to heal randoms. Maybe single target heals or something like that. With certain skills. I think that would be a good middle ground so that people can still heal randoms but they cant go up to 20 random people and start spamming aoe heals.

[Edited to remove Baiting]

Raevyness

robertthebard wrote: »

renne wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Except there is no irony here. I get that these days disagreeing with someone about something is supposed to be toxic, but I don't subscribe to that belief system.

I sit here, and I wonder, "Why would a support role prefer to "do their job", (in quotes because their job is to support a group), from outside of a group"? I've listed one possible scenario for that, even provided a video of what I'm talking about. There are other possibilities, which range from:

1. They're not very good at it to;
2. They've got social anxiety.

Lots of wiggle room for other things in between, but pointing out some of the possible/probable scenarios doesn't equate to toxicity, except to someone that sincerely believes that disagreeing with them is the definition of toxic. I don't believe that encouraging group play in an MMO is a bad thing, and that, above all else, is what makes people think I'm being toxic? It says more about them than it will ever say about me.

No, there absolutely is irony here, because you literally admit in this very thread that you're just here to laugh at solo healers being upset about forced grouping and that people being upset and not wanting to group is hilarious.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7087159/#Comment_7087159

Truth be told, I'm following this more for my personal amusement than anything else. "But I shouldn't have to be in a group to play a healer" is hilarious

[Quoted post was removed]

Ugh... No. I'm a mother to a 3y/o and work. When I jump on to PLAY ESO, I expect to be able to PLAY...
When I jump on, I have like 30 mins to an hour... HARDLY enough time to put in all the work to scrape together a cohesive group & build team cooperation...

When I don't have much time, I just want to jump on and help out where I can WHEN I can. If that's by healing struggling PUGs take a fort or defend our fort, then so be it. I shouldn't HAVE TO go through all these unnecessary motions to be able to PLAY a healer..

And I'll be totally honest with you since this change I haven't been playing ESO as much. When I do PVP I do BGS so I can actually help out...

TO play ESO now takes a LOT more time and frankly, I deal with people's BS all day, I hardly want to come on and then be FORCED to lead a group and BE social because ZOS SAYS SO.

ZOS_ConnorG

Greetings all,

After review we have had to edit or remove several posts for rule violations, mostly Baiting. Ensure when engaging in a discussion that you keep said discussion civil, constructive, and within the rules. If you see a post that is baiting in nature do not engage it with further hostility and instead report it for the moderators to review.

You are welcome to review the Community Rules here.

Sgrug

ZOS_ConnorG wrote: »

Greetings all,

After review we have had to edit or remove several posts for rule violations, mostly Baiting. Ensure when engaging in a discussion that you keep said discussion civil, constructive, and within the rules. If you see a post that is baiting in nature do not engage it with further hostility and instead report it for the moderators to review.

You are welcome to review the Community Rules here.

Best way to fix this for the thread is to bring back cross healing when not grouped. It was always meant to be that way. This change is wrong on both a mechanics gaming level and a personal relationship with your player level.

Skcarkden

Starlock wrote: »

Reaper_00 wrote: »

Narvuntien wrote: »

Cryodil is 12 man PVP content if you are a healer

Fixed

Everyone else still gets to play solo if they want to.

And women apparently don't get to play at all... oh well.

No one said anything about no women playing, go back to your bridge troll.

peacenote

To all the people saying that the "encouragement" to make groups is better suited to an MMO.... your definition for group is too limited.

ESO allows us to group together which gives some tools like a dedicated chat channel and applies some rules to the grouping mechanisms in some scenarios to avoid people abusing **structured** content. For example you can't bring 23 of your friends to steamroll a trial with you. You can't create a 12 v 4 v 4 BG. However ESO also has many open areas where people can dynamically interact, team up, and affect what's happening to each other. This has been true in Cyro, IC, public dungeons, overland (world bosses, anchors) etc. The definition of "playing together" in an MMO shouldn't be "in a fixed group structure" and that kind of thinking is limiting and flawed. The vastness and large scale battles are what made Cyro special.

Now the majority of abilities on healer bars and therefore healers themselves are uniquely excluded from interacting in the open world in Cyro like no other role. There is no other scenario where my heals can't help ALL FRIENDLY TARGETS within range. Heck, even in dungeons I can heal NPCs outside of my group (DoM).

This is not a simple solo vs. "group." This is support roles being excluded from interacting like everyone else, reducing their ability to "play together" with others. They must find a spot in a 12 person group while everyone else can be solo, be in small groups, work with multiple groups of size 12, etc. without a change in effectiveness or usefulness. This should be of concern to all of us. It's a scary direction and taking the stance that this change encourages people to play together more is false. It is the exact opposite. It is an illogical, unexplainable change to the game world that makes many healers feel unwelcome and ineffective.

It may be that this generated some mild performance improvements and fixed some "behavior issues"... but at what cost? We need a better solution!!

Agalloch

I hope they will revert the changes on 26 when they will patch the game.

Otherwise , the Midyear Mayhem event this year will be almost about scouting..