Ball Groups: A National Concern

Kwoung

LostToTheSea wrote: »

The point of the conversation is for the betterment of the game.

Well, the conversation has been going on for years and the exact opposite of "betterment" has happened with each new patch. Maybe not talking about it and beating the dead horse any longer... may have the desired effect?

To be quite frank, as long as the players are pitted against each other and not united against ZOS to fix the dang game... ZOS can ignore the issues.

LostToTheSea

Kwoung wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

The point of the conversation is for the betterment of the game.

Well, the conversation has been going on for years and the exact opposite of "betterment" has happened with each new patch. Maybe not talking about it and beating the dead horse any longer... may have the desired effect?

To be quite frank, as long as the players are pitted against each other and not united against ZOS to fix the dang game... ZOS can ignore the issues.

I don't see it that way. As far as I've seen, outside a few documents submitted by GMs years ago under old devs.. The players have largely never put forth any clear motion for the devs to action on. Everything is so wildly defended that the end result of most of these conversations would provide a dev with only opinionated nonsense. This has nothing to do about pitting the players against one another. That will happen regardless in PVP. The community itself though can provide much better overall feedback than it has in the past imo. Whether its actioned on or not. I think the community-side simply throwing their hands up and saying 'We should just give up and hope zos fixes it." will not exactly achieve the desired result there... ESO is coming under new ownership. It's worth a shot for the community to gets its stuff together for once. Even if it amounts to nothing.

It's not all on the community and it's not all on the devs. Look at nearly any game that is successful long-term. Whether PVP is left to rot might have weight on whether the community provides solid input. If not, then we might get another performance year. I know most of this community, especially here on the forums have become apathetic towards any hope of change. I'm no stranger to that boat. This changing of the guard, in my eyes, is the last chance the community or the devs will have to do ANYTHING significant at all about PVP or the functionality (lack thereof) of the game currently. The community has more sway than it thinks it does, but PVP will flounder if the community makes no attempt at all.. unless a dev has a magic bullet..

Small to large measures have to be combed through. Maybe if the community had been more direct, then the AOE tests wouldn't have been such a disaster and we would've had much more clear parameters to act on. Who knows. The only way to find out is to give it another shot.

Amottica

Satiar wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

You probably wouldn't like how that would play out. Coordinated groups would change and adapt almost immediately, normal players would chug along business as usual and be wiped quicker than ever due to not having the protection of 50 random players around them taking care of their buffs, heals and purges for them.

I go out solo or in non-coordinated groups all the time and when taking keeps "in the zerg", many times I have more heals running on me than I get in my regular group just due to the shear number of folks around me casting them. The difference is not the heals stacking, it is the difference in how the average player takes advantage of them, versus how a group working together does. The average player would melt in 2 seconds without all that protection and have a worst time in Cyro than anything they have experienced to date.

If I didn't play in a ballgroup, that might be a scary "oh no, what if it makes things worse" comment. But you can't BS a BSer...I know exactly what heal stacking and group purge means to the group.

Except that the scenarios in which you are mentioning heal stacking should be removed will be a new one. i.e. it is removed for everyone not just groups. Due to this groups will actually be stronger because of the ability to bring multiple varieties of heal to stack instead whereas pugs will still mostly be limited to what the 'most common' ones are. (most people use for example radiating when pug surfing but now only 1 form of it will stack).

This will also affect peoples surfing AP too. Thats why I'm saying (as someone who's been playing in all forms of group since essentially launch) What you are requesting as a 'nerf' to group play which you consider as overpowered in favour of groups right now actually will be more so after it is removed. (Because right now everyone has access to it regardless of how organised their groups/zergs are). Hence the 'be careful what you wish for' type posts.

In an organized group, these two mechanics are too strong and they are constant. In the hands of disorganized numbers these two mechanics are also strong, but inconstant. What changes to these mechanics would once again empower is siege. Siege is already strong against the disorganized because the mechanics in question are inconstant.

I have no doubt that groups will adapt, but there is no combination of current mechanics that gives the defensive strength currently in place with heal stacking and group purging. I have no doubt that organized will still beat disorganized. But that doesn't change my opinion about these two mechanics creating too great a defensive imbalance between organized groups and disorganized numbers.

We’ve been at this forever. Heals/purge/defensive options have been nerfed, buffed and changed a dozen times. The reason ball groups continue to dominate is because 12 people working with a unified comp will always > 12 randoms.

You could always remove purge, but at that point you’d have to take a serious look at stacking negative effects, siege, etc.

There has been very little changed in the past few years. Sure Springs was replaced by Radiating, purge cost changed...rapids changed, but nothing about heal stacking and group purging has been touched, just the names of the skills have changed.

I know organized will beat disorganized. It should and will continue to do so. That has nothing to do what what I consider an advantage due to an imbalance. I've mentioned this several times.
I just don't like what I see as imbalances even when I benefit from them.

Also, I don't know if that "serious look" needs to happen. I don't know ZOS's plans for the strength of siege, but right now their current strength is zero against the usage of these mechanics in organized group play.

Siege is not zero against organized groups, what game are you playing? It is the primary cause of death even with shields abs dedicated purgers.

If heal stacking and purging is changed, then incoming effects should also be adjusted. When 59 people are chasing you, you have two options:

1. Purge
2. Die

If ZoS removes the ability to remove negative effects or stack hots against it, they need to adjust incoming negative effects. Otherwise it will simply turn into a numbers win situation. That IS the one thing groups won’t be able to play around. An inability to remove negative effects would be crushing. To everyone, yes. But also ball groups.

If 59 people are attacking a solo player, and the player dies, how is there a problem with the game? I would ask why was that player alone.

Kwoung

Amottica wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

You probably wouldn't like how that would play out. Coordinated groups would change and adapt almost immediately, normal players would chug along business as usual and be wiped quicker than ever due to not having the protection of 50 random players around them taking care of their buffs, heals and purges for them.

I go out solo or in non-coordinated groups all the time and when taking keeps "in the zerg", many times I have more heals running on me than I get in my regular group just due to the shear number of folks around me casting them. The difference is not the heals stacking, it is the difference in how the average player takes advantage of them, versus how a group working together does. The average player would melt in 2 seconds without all that protection and have a worst time in Cyro than anything they have experienced to date.

If I didn't play in a ballgroup, that might be a scary "oh no, what if it makes things worse" comment. But you can't BS a BSer...I know exactly what heal stacking and group purge means to the group.

Except that the scenarios in which you are mentioning heal stacking should be removed will be a new one. i.e. it is removed for everyone not just groups. Due to this groups will actually be stronger because of the ability to bring multiple varieties of heal to stack instead whereas pugs will still mostly be limited to what the 'most common' ones are. (most people use for example radiating when pug surfing but now only 1 form of it will stack).

This will also affect peoples surfing AP too. Thats why I'm saying (as someone who's been playing in all forms of group since essentially launch) What you are requesting as a 'nerf' to group play which you consider as overpowered in favour of groups right now actually will be more so after it is removed. (Because right now everyone has access to it regardless of how organised their groups/zergs are). Hence the 'be careful what you wish for' type posts.

In an organized group, these two mechanics are too strong and they are constant. In the hands of disorganized numbers these two mechanics are also strong, but inconstant. What changes to these mechanics would once again empower is siege. Siege is already strong against the disorganized because the mechanics in question are inconstant.

I have no doubt that groups will adapt, but there is no combination of current mechanics that gives the defensive strength currently in place with heal stacking and group purging. I have no doubt that organized will still beat disorganized. But that doesn't change my opinion about these two mechanics creating too great a defensive imbalance between organized groups and disorganized numbers.

We’ve been at this forever. Heals/purge/defensive options have been nerfed, buffed and changed a dozen times. The reason ball groups continue to dominate is because 12 people working with a unified comp will always > 12 randoms.

You could always remove purge, but at that point you’d have to take a serious look at stacking negative effects, siege, etc.

There has been very little changed in the past few years. Sure Springs was replaced by Radiating, purge cost changed...rapids changed, but nothing about heal stacking and group purging has been touched, just the names of the skills have changed.

I know organized will beat disorganized. It should and will continue to do so. That has nothing to do what what I consider an advantage due to an imbalance. I've mentioned this several times.
I just don't like what I see as imbalances even when I benefit from them.

Also, I don't know if that "serious look" needs to happen. I don't know ZOS's plans for the strength of siege, but right now their current strength is zero against the usage of these mechanics in organized group play.

Siege is not zero against organized groups, what game are you playing? It is the primary cause of death even with shields abs dedicated purgers.

If heal stacking and purging is changed, then incoming effects should also be adjusted. When 59 people are chasing you, you have two options:

1. Purge
2. Die

If ZoS removes the ability to remove negative effects or stack hots against it, they need to adjust incoming negative effects. Otherwise it will simply turn into a numbers win situation. That IS the one thing groups won’t be able to play around. An inability to remove negative effects would be crushing. To everyone, yes. But also ball groups.

If 59 people are attacking a solo player, and the player dies, how is there a problem with the game? I would ask why was that player alone.

I would tend to ask why would 59 people feel the need to chase down a solo player, did they consider him a threat? That is the more confusing question to me, yet I see it happen all the time. And no, not just during cleanups, entire zerg's veer to run down one poor guy passing by.... Really?

Amottica

Kwoung wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

You probably wouldn't like how that would play out. Coordinated groups would change and adapt almost immediately, normal players would chug along business as usual and be wiped quicker than ever due to not having the protection of 50 random players around them taking care of their buffs, heals and purges for them.

I go out solo or in non-coordinated groups all the time and when taking keeps "in the zerg", many times I have more heals running on me than I get in my regular group just due to the shear number of folks around me casting them. The difference is not the heals stacking, it is the difference in how the average player takes advantage of them, versus how a group working together does. The average player would melt in 2 seconds without all that protection and have a worst time in Cyro than anything they have experienced to date.

If I didn't play in a ballgroup, that might be a scary "oh no, what if it makes things worse" comment. But you can't BS a BSer...I know exactly what heal stacking and group purge means to the group.

Except that the scenarios in which you are mentioning heal stacking should be removed will be a new one. i.e. it is removed for everyone not just groups. Due to this groups will actually be stronger because of the ability to bring multiple varieties of heal to stack instead whereas pugs will still mostly be limited to what the 'most common' ones are. (most people use for example radiating when pug surfing but now only 1 form of it will stack).

This will also affect peoples surfing AP too. Thats why I'm saying (as someone who's been playing in all forms of group since essentially launch) What you are requesting as a 'nerf' to group play which you consider as overpowered in favour of groups right now actually will be more so after it is removed. (Because right now everyone has access to it regardless of how organised their groups/zergs are). Hence the 'be careful what you wish for' type posts.

In an organized group, these two mechanics are too strong and they are constant. In the hands of disorganized numbers these two mechanics are also strong, but inconstant. What changes to these mechanics would once again empower is siege. Siege is already strong against the disorganized because the mechanics in question are inconstant.

I have no doubt that groups will adapt, but there is no combination of current mechanics that gives the defensive strength currently in place with heal stacking and group purging. I have no doubt that organized will still beat disorganized. But that doesn't change my opinion about these two mechanics creating too great a defensive imbalance between organized groups and disorganized numbers.

We’ve been at this forever. Heals/purge/defensive options have been nerfed, buffed and changed a dozen times. The reason ball groups continue to dominate is because 12 people working with a unified comp will always > 12 randoms.

You could always remove purge, but at that point you’d have to take a serious look at stacking negative effects, siege, etc.

There has been very little changed in the past few years. Sure Springs was replaced by Radiating, purge cost changed...rapids changed, but nothing about heal stacking and group purging has been touched, just the names of the skills have changed.

I know organized will beat disorganized. It should and will continue to do so. That has nothing to do what what I consider an advantage due to an imbalance. I've mentioned this several times.
I just don't like what I see as imbalances even when I benefit from them.

Also, I don't know if that "serious look" needs to happen. I don't know ZOS's plans for the strength of siege, but right now their current strength is zero against the usage of these mechanics in organized group play.

Siege is not zero against organized groups, what game are you playing? It is the primary cause of death even with shields abs dedicated purgers.

If heal stacking and purging is changed, then incoming effects should also be adjusted. When 59 people are chasing you, you have two options:

1. Purge
2. Die

If ZoS removes the ability to remove negative effects or stack hots against it, they need to adjust incoming negative effects. Otherwise it will simply turn into a numbers win situation. That IS the one thing groups won’t be able to play around. An inability to remove negative effects would be crushing. To everyone, yes. But also ball groups.

If 59 people are attacking a solo player, and the player dies, how is there a problem with the game? I would ask why was that player alone.

I would tend to ask why would 59 people feel the need to chase down a solo player, did they consider him a threat? That is the more confusing question to me, yet I see it happen all the time. And no, not just during cleanups, entire zerg's veer to run down one poor guy passing by.... Really?

It would seem they are requesting a nerf because of some aspect to the situation.

Also, I have seen one person take and possess a location. It was one of those lumber mills or farms. Not sure how significant that is. Maybe that one person is about to rez their 58 members of their group that was killed by those chasing them.

Isn't PvP about death to the enemy players?

TequilaFire

Kwoung wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Satiar wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

You probably wouldn't like how that would play out. Coordinated groups would change and adapt almost immediately, normal players would chug along business as usual and be wiped quicker than ever due to not having the protection of 50 random players around them taking care of their buffs, heals and purges for them.

I go out solo or in non-coordinated groups all the time and when taking keeps "in the zerg", many times I have more heals running on me than I get in my regular group just due to the shear number of folks around me casting them. The difference is not the heals stacking, it is the difference in how the average player takes advantage of them, versus how a group working together does. The average player would melt in 2 seconds without all that protection and have a worst time in Cyro than anything they have experienced to date.

If I didn't play in a ballgroup, that might be a scary "oh no, what if it makes things worse" comment. But you can't BS a BSer...I know exactly what heal stacking and group purge means to the group.

Except that the scenarios in which you are mentioning heal stacking should be removed will be a new one. i.e. it is removed for everyone not just groups. Due to this groups will actually be stronger because of the ability to bring multiple varieties of heal to stack instead whereas pugs will still mostly be limited to what the 'most common' ones are. (most people use for example radiating when pug surfing but now only 1 form of it will stack).

This will also affect peoples surfing AP too. Thats why I'm saying (as someone who's been playing in all forms of group since essentially launch) What you are requesting as a 'nerf' to group play which you consider as overpowered in favour of groups right now actually will be more so after it is removed. (Because right now everyone has access to it regardless of how organised their groups/zergs are). Hence the 'be careful what you wish for' type posts.

In an organized group, these two mechanics are too strong and they are constant. In the hands of disorganized numbers these two mechanics are also strong, but inconstant. What changes to these mechanics would once again empower is siege. Siege is already strong against the disorganized because the mechanics in question are inconstant.

I have no doubt that groups will adapt, but there is no combination of current mechanics that gives the defensive strength currently in place with heal stacking and group purging. I have no doubt that organized will still beat disorganized. But that doesn't change my opinion about these two mechanics creating too great a defensive imbalance between organized groups and disorganized numbers.

We’ve been at this forever. Heals/purge/defensive options have been nerfed, buffed and changed a dozen times. The reason ball groups continue to dominate is because 12 people working with a unified comp will always > 12 randoms.

You could always remove purge, but at that point you’d have to take a serious look at stacking negative effects, siege, etc.

There has been very little changed in the past few years. Sure Springs was replaced by Radiating, purge cost changed...rapids changed, but nothing about heal stacking and group purging has been touched, just the names of the skills have changed.

I know organized will beat disorganized. It should and will continue to do so. That has nothing to do what what I consider an advantage due to an imbalance. I've mentioned this several times.
I just don't like what I see as imbalances even when I benefit from them.

Also, I don't know if that "serious look" needs to happen. I don't know ZOS's plans for the strength of siege, but right now their current strength is zero against the usage of these mechanics in organized group play.

Siege is not zero against organized groups, what game are you playing? It is the primary cause of death even with shields abs dedicated purgers.

If heal stacking and purging is changed, then incoming effects should also be adjusted. When 59 people are chasing you, you have two options:

1. Purge
2. Die

If ZoS removes the ability to remove negative effects or stack hots against it, they need to adjust incoming negative effects. Otherwise it will simply turn into a numbers win situation. That IS the one thing groups won’t be able to play around. An inability to remove negative effects would be crushing. To everyone, yes. But also ball groups.

If 59 people are attacking a solo player, and the player dies, how is there a problem with the game? I would ask why was that player alone.

I would tend to ask why would 59 people feel the need to chase down a solo player, did they consider him a threat? That is the more confusing question to me, yet I see it happen all the time. And no, not just during cleanups, entire zerg's veer to run down one poor guy passing by.... Really?

Because most of the time that solo player taunted the zerg by picking off their friends.

Joy_Division

Soul_Demon wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Lets say I'm duoing with another magblade. We're likely to both have Rapid Regen on because it's one of the best solo heals for mag chars. Yet you're telling me when we are outnumbered I shouldn't be able to apply my heal to him because he has his own on. So you basically want to stop people working as a team together?

Depends on what we're talking about, but as for RR? No, I don't think it's wise to leave a smart-heal based/layerable/overspammed/abused skill as a main core of 'optimized group play' or whatever you call knowingly formatting to intentionally/unintentionally induce lag on a server vs zergs. (vs doing what a real pvp guild should do and do anything possible to retain skill in their game. AKA not knowingly inducing lag via formatting.) It's been long established the issue with smart heals, aoe scan radius checks, layering said heals in a guild vs zerg or other such scenarios.

In your example, the magNB would have RR slotted as their self-heal (like a stam user has individual vigor) and the duo magNB would have their own "best solo heals in the game". If they wanted to build to heal one another as a duo, then they would use one of the many less abusable smart or non-smart heal options. ****(this is only one of the options that is considerable here btw.)****

There is a point of such a conversation and it's to provide the devs with long-time veteran insight on key pain point issues. You can't just point at streak rollback or other various U25 desync issues and say, "that's it!". There's a lot that needs to be broken down and dissected with an open-mind from the devs/community. Or PVP performance will likely never improve if the community is too stubborn to entertain such a discussion in proper and present it clearly to the devs.

I don't want people to stop playing as a team together. I want people to openly acknowledge certain skills/mechanics in particular are being so abused that it removes the purpose of splitting up zergs in the name of 'good fights' or 'better performance'. There is a point to where this becomes a hard net loss for the entire server and RR/Purge are clear pain points in this regard. As for other skills, people should and could talk through them generally or individually.

We've been at this for 7 years and never got anywhere.

Probably because to have an "open-minded" conversation requires all parties to engage in such an effort? If we were to take this post as a starting point, people who run in organized groups are already dealing with accusations of abuse, intentionally causing lag, and using euphemisms to cover up sinister motives. Hard pass.

Intentional is not the same as knowingly formatting in a way that makes inducing such lag inevitable. There is a point where intent no longer matters if you are aware. There are some guilds who will play top meta or nothing, even at the cost of performance and their own joy in their victories.

As for the all parties issue, couldn't agree more. That said, I hold on to a sliver of hope this conversation will be taken a shred serious (even with largely or entirely the same devs) under Microsoft. LIkely delusional, but one could hope that one of the executive board sees the easy ROI to be gained by near effortless fixes to PVP. That said, I don't expect this game will ever live up nearly to what its potential is.

PS: I'll note that while it may sound like I'm attacking other GMs and long-time players. There's no better people to give open input about what is actively being used by 'max optimized' comps that chokes servers heavily vs zergs (not to say the server wasn't choking already btw). If that's what max optimization for a group is, then it needs to be scaled back or reworked entirely. I don't see why knowingly/unknowingly doing these things matters when the conversation is at hand. People can argue back and forth in such a fashion on their own time. What matters is a conversation being made without such defensiveness. We just have to present what we know and go from there, as we have been. The devs can entertain a conversation when the guard changes or not, but if the veterans can't present a proper face as a collective on key issues.. then these conversation will continue to flounder as they have.

You are not alone in the hope this can be spoken about without the too common reflexive 'swarm' to protect something players view as a right to use rather than a bad mechanic likely responsible for deterioration in enjoyment for others. After all its pretty easy to dismiss as it always has been with simple stalling tactic or baiting or otherwise getting thread closed to silence those who would discuss openly these things.....just a few well placed "what is the topic", "you accuse xxxxx" or "what was the definition" has consistently worked in the past to keep from getting to the heart of the issues in PvP where play-styles are threatened.

It takes a pretty comfortable individual to talk about something they are using as consistently as this and be confident enough in their skill level to not resort to either falsely claiming others are vilifying them or pretending to not follow thread closely enough to know what the point of it all is. The point is to improve the game and experience for the majority of the players, not to upset and draw the ire of those who have used this heal stacking, cc flooding during lag as mainstay in play. There will always be posters who throw up the smokescreen when topics they are uncomfortable with come up---but this one seems to draw the most persistent ones to defend it to the death in the forum over the years and one that seems to threaten many more than others evidenced by the dismissive and combative posting rather than let the subject be examined in detailed way.

Is that what you think?

That I and other players are so afraid of having this discussion that we go out of our way to derail and close down threads?

I have made numerous threads in the past years pleading with ZOS to make improvements and reforms to make Cyrdoiil more enjoyable for everyone. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here is a thread helping new players not get farmed by ball groups. Each of them unequivocally advocated for changes to reduce the effectiveness of "ball groups".

I have said repeatedly and consistently that Radiating Regen is too easy and too strong. That the Harmony Trait way disproportionally aids in the effectiveness of "ball groups." My posting history has been consistent in reducing the dominance of organized groups such that there were two well known organized group players who were convinced I did not partake in that play style and publicly berated me on these forums accusing me of bias.

I have zero fear of such a discussion. None. I was loud and clear from the beginning of the game that AoE Caps was a broken mechanic that organized groups such that I played in benefitted way too much and every patch I loudly advocating for their removal. I also loudly argued that only allowing group heals, a game mechanic mechanic that made the rules advantageous for organized groups at the expense of everyone else, should have immediately been reverted. If I felt a mechanic is not fair, not fun, I have been 100% consistent in telling ZOS to remove it, even though it often was determinantal to the play style that I engaged in.

You want CC immunity to function correctly for the full duration? You're preaching to the choir! If there are more frustrating ESO experiences that having a full stamina bar or popping an immov pot and still getting CCed or being unable to break CC, it's a very very short list.

You want to try something with heal stacking? OK, fine! I would much rather play in a meta where my opponents didn;t have 4 Radiating Regens stacked on them. I'm all for not allowing the same named heal to stack. Fine by me. It was also fine by another organized group leader in this thread, in fact they felt it would ultimately be advantageous to organized groups. I look forward to the time when I don;t feel obligated as a DPS to use a stupid restoration staff because Radiating Regen is such a strong skill.

You want to re-examine Purge? Fine. I think it's inconsistent that it is only restricted to groups. Let's open up that skill to everyone. Is it too strong? Yeah. I think we can live with more active sort of purging options that active placement of skills or interaction with players as opposed to the "smart" version in the game.

But these skills and mechanics were designed because of how much and how easy it is to put and stack damage and debuffs on players. Bombard is another noxiously frustrating skill that, like Radiating Regen, is too easy and does way too much. If heals and purge are going to get toned down, then the siege damage, which has been buffed numerous times because purge and heal stacking exist in the first place, also needs re-examining.

So, there's the discussion. There is nothing here that I haven't said numerous time years ago. You do realize that ZOS does not have a full time PvP developer? How much consideration do you think they're going to give to this between the introduction of companions, the further development of the new CP system, the ongoing controversy with proc sets, etc.?

Soul_Demon

Joy_Division wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Lets say I'm duoing with another magblade. We're likely to both have Rapid Regen on because it's one of the best solo heals for mag chars. Yet you're telling me when we are outnumbered I shouldn't be able to apply my heal to him because he has his own on. So you basically want to stop people working as a team together?

Depends on what we're talking about, but as for RR? No, I don't think it's wise to leave a smart-heal based/layerable/overspammed/abused skill as a main core of 'optimized group play' or whatever you call knowingly formatting to intentionally/unintentionally induce lag on a server vs zergs. (vs doing what a real pvp guild should do and do anything possible to retain skill in their game. AKA not knowingly inducing lag via formatting.) It's been long established the issue with smart heals, aoe scan radius checks, layering said heals in a guild vs zerg or other such scenarios.

In your example, the magNB would have RR slotted as their self-heal (like a stam user has individual vigor) and the duo magNB would have their own "best solo heals in the game". If they wanted to build to heal one another as a duo, then they would use one of the many less abusable smart or non-smart heal options. ****(this is only one of the options that is considerable here btw.)****

There is a point of such a conversation and it's to provide the devs with long-time veteran insight on key pain point issues. You can't just point at streak rollback or other various U25 desync issues and say, "that's it!". There's a lot that needs to be broken down and dissected with an open-mind from the devs/community. Or PVP performance will likely never improve if the community is too stubborn to entertain such a discussion in proper and present it clearly to the devs.

I don't want people to stop playing as a team together. I want people to openly acknowledge certain skills/mechanics in particular are being so abused that it removes the purpose of splitting up zergs in the name of 'good fights' or 'better performance'. There is a point to where this becomes a hard net loss for the entire server and RR/Purge are clear pain points in this regard. As for other skills, people should and could talk through them generally or individually.

We've been at this for 7 years and never got anywhere.

Probably because to have an "open-minded" conversation requires all parties to engage in such an effort? If we were to take this post as a starting point, people who run in organized groups are already dealing with accusations of abuse, intentionally causing lag, and using euphemisms to cover up sinister motives. Hard pass.

Intentional is not the same as knowingly formatting in a way that makes inducing such lag inevitable. There is a point where intent no longer matters if you are aware. There are some guilds who will play top meta or nothing, even at the cost of performance and their own joy in their victories.

As for the all parties issue, couldn't agree more. That said, I hold on to a sliver of hope this conversation will be taken a shred serious (even with largely or entirely the same devs) under Microsoft. LIkely delusional, but one could hope that one of the executive board sees the easy ROI to be gained by near effortless fixes to PVP. That said, I don't expect this game will ever live up nearly to what its potential is.

PS: I'll note that while it may sound like I'm attacking other GMs and long-time players. There's no better people to give open input about what is actively being used by 'max optimized' comps that chokes servers heavily vs zergs (not to say the server wasn't choking already btw). If that's what max optimization for a group is, then it needs to be scaled back or reworked entirely. I don't see why knowingly/unknowingly doing these things matters when the conversation is at hand. People can argue back and forth in such a fashion on their own time. What matters is a conversation being made without such defensiveness. We just have to present what we know and go from there, as we have been. The devs can entertain a conversation when the guard changes or not, but if the veterans can't present a proper face as a collective on key issues.. then these conversation will continue to flounder as they have.

You are not alone in the hope this can be spoken about without the too common reflexive 'swarm' to protect something players view as a right to use rather than a bad mechanic likely responsible for deterioration in enjoyment for others. After all its pretty easy to dismiss as it always has been with simple stalling tactic or baiting or otherwise getting thread closed to silence those who would discuss openly these things.....just a few well placed "what is the topic", "you accuse xxxxx" or "what was the definition" has consistently worked in the past to keep from getting to the heart of the issues in PvP where play-styles are threatened.

It takes a pretty comfortable individual to talk about something they are using as consistently as this and be confident enough in their skill level to not resort to either falsely claiming others are vilifying them or pretending to not follow thread closely enough to know what the point of it all is. The point is to improve the game and experience for the majority of the players, not to upset and draw the ire of those who have used this heal stacking, cc flooding during lag as mainstay in play. There will always be posters who throw up the smokescreen when topics they are uncomfortable with come up---but this one seems to draw the most persistent ones to defend it to the death in the forum over the years and one that seems to threaten many more than others evidenced by the dismissive and combative posting rather than let the subject be examined in detailed way.

Is that what you think?

That I and other players are so afraid of having this discussion that we go out of our way to derail and close down threads?

I have made numerous threads in the past years pleading with ZOS to make improvements and reforms to make Cyrdoiil more enjoyable for everyone. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here is a thread helping new players not get farmed by ball groups. Each of them unequivocally advocated for changes to reduce the effectiveness of "ball groups".

I have said repeatedly and consistently that Radiating Regen is too easy and too strong. That the Harmony Trait way disproportionally aids in the effectiveness of "ball groups." My posting history has been consistent in reducing the dominance of organized groups such that there were two well known organized group players who were convinced I did not partake in that play style and publicly berated me on these forums accusing me of bias.

I have zero fear of such a discussion. None. I was loud and clear from the beginning of the game that AoE Caps was a broken mechanic that organized groups such that I played in benefitted way too much and every patch I loudly advocating for their removal. I also loudly argued that only allowing group heals, a game mechanic mechanic that made the rules advantageous for organized groups at the expense of everyone else, should have immediately been reverted. If I felt a mechanic is not fair, not fun, I have been 100% consistent in telling ZOS to remove it, even though it often was determinantal to the play style that I engaged in.

You want CC immunity to function correctly for the full duration? You're preaching to the choir! If there are more frustrating ESO experiences that having a full stamina bar or popping an immov pot and still getting CCed or being unable to break CC, it's a very very short list.

You want to try something with heal stacking? OK, fine! I would much rather play in a meta where my opponents didn;t have 4 Radiating Regens stacked on them. I'm all for not allowing the same named heal to stack. Fine by me. It was also fine by another organized group leader in this thread, in fact they felt it would ultimately be advantageous to organized groups. I look forward to the time when I don;t feel obligated as a DPS to use a stupid restoration staff because Radiating Regen is such a strong skill.

You want to re-examine Purge? Fine. I think it's inconsistent that it is only restricted to groups. Let's open up that skill to everyone. Is it too strong? Yeah. I think we can live with more active sort of purging options that active placement of skills or interaction with players as opposed to the "smart" version in the game.

But these skills and mechanics were designed because of how much and how easy it is to put and stack damage and debuffs on players. Bombard is another noxiously frustrating skill that, like Radiating Regen, is too easy and does way too much. If heals and purge are going to get toned down, then the siege damage, which has been buffed numerous times because purge and heal stacking exist in the first place, also needs re-examining.

So, there's the discussion. There is nothing here that I haven't said numerous time years ago. You do realize that ZOS does not have a full time PvP developer? How much consideration do you think they're going to give to this between the introduction of companions, the further development of the new CP system, the ongoing controversy with proc sets, etc.?

It is what I think.....and I believe a quick read through of the thread can provide ample number of examples of each one of the things I mentioned if not several- Lets be perfectly honest here, there is a discussion within a discussion here as often is with many who decide to discuss complicated issues.....and there are those who are invested in play-styles that would rather NOT engage in meaningful debate on the subject matter out of either not wanting to adapt to changes or outright fear of having to change at all.

And then there are those who at this point believe the misguided attempts of the past to improve game-play were largely done with over reliance of either twitch streaming third parties that had financial ties to streaming the game or simply the largest number of players in forums posting on specific issues- both being problematic. Neither of those were representative of the community at large nor were they without significant bias depending on the motivations of the person. As far as what I think about you and your motivations, it seems quite clear at this point that you do wish to discuss some of the more ......troublesome issues we all face on a daily basis in cyro, and for that I commend you---expect pushback regardless of the validity of what you bring up. I think what you said is dead on with what some of our biggest problems are right now as a community.

However a a bit confused as to bringing it up with seeming to also relegate the points to being useless since they have been spoken about before to have nothing at all done. The points were made by another poster we may only have one last chance as Microsoft comes in to make some appeals to those still at ESO working on the game regarding what the relevant issues really are in the game that would impact most of the players and not simply be what one particular play-style wishes to push to the forefront......its a good point, it appears to me to be accurate as well.

Could be you were only frustrated (as many are) that we are at a point now that a PTS server is defunct due to the habitual ignoring of the hard work players over the years put into writing up documentation on bugs, problems with skills, over performing items ect to see now we are actually paying to be tested on live servers due to mistakes in the past......if this is the case, I get it. I do.....some of the work done and countless hours were such tremendous wastes of time for the players who cared enough about the game to put in serious work to improve it....but were treated with less than appropriate levels of attention in comparison to the work done for the game and community.

For the rest of the post I find your points on target and important to us as a community, but selected the CC flooding during lag and heal stacking as two I personally thought would impact the most players without ruining play-styles outright. Seems to me changing heals to do absolutely nothing to someone (no stacking at all) if players are at 100% health would impact a number of issues but not kill the play-styles it supports outright--- Same goes for the CC flooding during lag, sure they are skills, they are important and for some class' they are critical for the functions.....but we dont need to have the malfunctioning of the CC immunity discussed as though anyone doesn't know or is unaware its broken during lag and not functioning at all. In my opinion those two things if looked at and resolved and/or implemented would allow for no one to be forced to change their play-style and enhance the experiences a large portion of the community seems to have issues with at the same time. Win/win in my opinion.

Lord_Bashu

Its not a National Concern.

The term Ball Group is idiomatic.

The subject of this post is click bait. i.e. should be removed.

Sandman929

Soul_Demon wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Lets say I'm duoing with another magblade. We're likely to both have Rapid Regen on because it's one of the best solo heals for mag chars. Yet you're telling me when we are outnumbered I shouldn't be able to apply my heal to him because he has his own on. So you basically want to stop people working as a team together?

Depends on what we're talking about, but as for RR? No, I don't think it's wise to leave a smart-heal based/layerable/overspammed/abused skill as a main core of 'optimized group play' or whatever you call knowingly formatting to intentionally/unintentionally induce lag on a server vs zergs. (vs doing what a real pvp guild should do and do anything possible to retain skill in their game. AKA not knowingly inducing lag via formatting.) It's been long established the issue with smart heals, aoe scan radius checks, layering said heals in a guild vs zerg or other such scenarios.

In your example, the magNB would have RR slotted as their self-heal (like a stam user has individual vigor) and the duo magNB would have their own "best solo heals in the game". If they wanted to build to heal one another as a duo, then they would use one of the many less abusable smart or non-smart heal options. ****(this is only one of the options that is considerable here btw.)****

There is a point of such a conversation and it's to provide the devs with long-time veteran insight on key pain point issues. You can't just point at streak rollback or other various U25 desync issues and say, "that's it!". There's a lot that needs to be broken down and dissected with an open-mind from the devs/community. Or PVP performance will likely never improve if the community is too stubborn to entertain such a discussion in proper and present it clearly to the devs.

I don't want people to stop playing as a team together. I want people to openly acknowledge certain skills/mechanics in particular are being so abused that it removes the purpose of splitting up zergs in the name of 'good fights' or 'better performance'. There is a point to where this becomes a hard net loss for the entire server and RR/Purge are clear pain points in this regard. As for other skills, people should and could talk through them generally or individually.

We've been at this for 7 years and never got anywhere.

Probably because to have an "open-minded" conversation requires all parties to engage in such an effort? If we were to take this post as a starting point, people who run in organized groups are already dealing with accusations of abuse, intentionally causing lag, and using euphemisms to cover up sinister motives. Hard pass.

Intentional is not the same as knowingly formatting in a way that makes inducing such lag inevitable. There is a point where intent no longer matters if you are aware. There are some guilds who will play top meta or nothing, even at the cost of performance and their own joy in their victories.

As for the all parties issue, couldn't agree more. That said, I hold on to a sliver of hope this conversation will be taken a shred serious (even with largely or entirely the same devs) under Microsoft. LIkely delusional, but one could hope that one of the executive board sees the easy ROI to be gained by near effortless fixes to PVP. That said, I don't expect this game will ever live up nearly to what its potential is.

PS: I'll note that while it may sound like I'm attacking other GMs and long-time players. There's no better people to give open input about what is actively being used by 'max optimized' comps that chokes servers heavily vs zergs (not to say the server wasn't choking already btw). If that's what max optimization for a group is, then it needs to be scaled back or reworked entirely. I don't see why knowingly/unknowingly doing these things matters when the conversation is at hand. People can argue back and forth in such a fashion on their own time. What matters is a conversation being made without such defensiveness. We just have to present what we know and go from there, as we have been. The devs can entertain a conversation when the guard changes or not, but if the veterans can't present a proper face as a collective on key issues.. then these conversation will continue to flounder as they have.

You are not alone in the hope this can be spoken about without the too common reflexive 'swarm' to protect something players view as a right to use rather than a bad mechanic likely responsible for deterioration in enjoyment for others. After all its pretty easy to dismiss as it always has been with simple stalling tactic or baiting or otherwise getting thread closed to silence those who would discuss openly these things.....just a few well placed "what is the topic", "you accuse xxxxx" or "what was the definition" has consistently worked in the past to keep from getting to the heart of the issues in PvP where play-styles are threatened.

It takes a pretty comfortable individual to talk about something they are using as consistently as this and be confident enough in their skill level to not resort to either falsely claiming others are vilifying them or pretending to not follow thread closely enough to know what the point of it all is. The point is to improve the game and experience for the majority of the players, not to upset and draw the ire of those who have used this heal stacking, cc flooding during lag as mainstay in play. There will always be posters who throw up the smokescreen when topics they are uncomfortable with come up---but this one seems to draw the most persistent ones to defend it to the death in the forum over the years and one that seems to threaten many more than others evidenced by the dismissive and combative posting rather than let the subject be examined in detailed way.

I play in an organized group and, though I don't harp on it constantly, when the discussion turns to ball groups I do try to point out what I think the main imbalances are.
There will always be those who seek to preserve imbalance for their own benefit, but there are some who would rather the imbalances be corrected, even if they use what's available now.

Amottica

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Lets say I'm duoing with another magblade. We're likely to both have Rapid Regen on because it's one of the best solo heals for mag chars. Yet you're telling me when we are outnumbered I shouldn't be able to apply my heal to him because he has his own on. So you basically want to stop people working as a team together?

Depends on what we're talking about, but as for RR? No, I don't think it's wise to leave a smart-heal based/layerable/overspammed/abused skill as a main core of 'optimized group play' or whatever you call knowingly formatting to intentionally/unintentionally induce lag on a server vs zergs. (vs doing what a real pvp guild should do and do anything possible to retain skill in their game. AKA not knowingly inducing lag via formatting.) It's been long established the issue with smart heals, aoe scan radius checks, layering said heals in a guild vs zerg or other such scenarios.

In your example, the magNB would have RR slotted as their self-heal (like a stam user has individual vigor) and the duo magNB would have their own "best solo heals in the game". If they wanted to build to heal one another as a duo, then they would use one of the many less abusable smart or non-smart heal options. ****(this is only one of the options that is considerable here btw.)****

There is a point of such a conversation and it's to provide the devs with long-time veteran insight on key pain point issues. You can't just point at streak rollback or other various U25 desync issues and say, "that's it!". There's a lot that needs to be broken down and dissected with an open-mind from the devs/community. Or PVP performance will likely never improve if the community is too stubborn to entertain such a discussion in proper and present it clearly to the devs.

I don't want people to stop playing as a team together. I want people to openly acknowledge certain skills/mechanics in particular are being so abused that it removes the purpose of splitting up zergs in the name of 'good fights' or 'better performance'. There is a point to where this becomes a hard net loss for the entire server and RR/Purge are clear pain points in this regard. As for other skills, people should and could talk through them generally or individually.

We've been at this for 7 years and never got anywhere.

Probably because to have an "open-minded" conversation requires all parties to engage in such an effort? If we were to take this post as a starting point, people who run in organized groups are already dealing with accusations of abuse, intentionally causing lag, and using euphemisms to cover up sinister motives. Hard pass.

Intentional is not the same as knowingly formatting in a way that makes inducing such lag inevitable. There is a point where intent no longer matters if you are aware. There are some guilds who will play top meta or nothing, even at the cost of performance and their own joy in their victories.

As for the all parties issue, couldn't agree more. That said, I hold on to a sliver of hope this conversation will be taken a shred serious (even with largely or entirely the same devs) under Microsoft. LIkely delusional, but one could hope that one of the executive board sees the easy ROI to be gained by near effortless fixes to PVP. That said, I don't expect this game will ever live up nearly to what its potential is.

PS: I'll note that while it may sound like I'm attacking other GMs and long-time players. There's no better people to give open input about what is actively being used by 'max optimized' comps that chokes servers heavily vs zergs (not to say the server wasn't choking already btw). If that's what max optimization for a group is, then it needs to be scaled back or reworked entirely. I don't see why knowingly/unknowingly doing these things matters when the conversation is at hand. People can argue back and forth in such a fashion on their own time. What matters is a conversation being made without such defensiveness. We just have to present what we know and go from there, as we have been. The devs can entertain a conversation when the guard changes or not, but if the veterans can't present a proper face as a collective on key issues.. then these conversation will continue to flounder as they have.

You are not alone in the hope this can be spoken about without the too common reflexive 'swarm' to protect something players view as a right to use rather than a bad mechanic likely responsible for deterioration in enjoyment for others. After all its pretty easy to dismiss as it always has been with simple stalling tactic or baiting or otherwise getting thread closed to silence those who would discuss openly these things.....just a few well placed "what is the topic", "you accuse xxxxx" or "what was the definition" has consistently worked in the past to keep from getting to the heart of the issues in PvP where play-styles are threatened.

It takes a pretty comfortable individual to talk about something they are using as consistently as this and be confident enough in their skill level to not resort to either falsely claiming others are vilifying them or pretending to not follow thread closely enough to know what the point of it all is. The point is to improve the game and experience for the majority of the players, not to upset and draw the ire of those who have used this heal stacking, cc flooding during lag as mainstay in play. There will always be posters who throw up the smokescreen when topics they are uncomfortable with come up---but this one seems to draw the most persistent ones to defend it to the death in the forum over the years and one that seems to threaten many more than others evidenced by the dismissive and combative posting rather than let the subject be examined in detailed way.

Is that what you think?

That I and other players are so afraid of having this discussion that we go out of our way to derail and close down threads?

I have made numerous threads in the past years pleading with ZOS to make improvements and reforms to make Cyrdoiil more enjoyable for everyone. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here is a thread helping new players not get farmed by ball groups. Each of them unequivocally advocated for changes to reduce the effectiveness of "ball groups".

I have said repeatedly and consistently that Radiating Regen is too easy and too strong. That the Harmony Trait way disproportionally aids in the effectiveness of "ball groups." My posting history has been consistent in reducing the dominance of organized groups such that there were two well known organized group players who were convinced I did not partake in that play style and publicly berated me on these forums accusing me of bias.

I have zero fear of such a discussion. None. I was loud and clear from the beginning of the game that AoE Caps was a broken mechanic that organized groups such that I played in benefitted way too much and every patch I loudly advocating for their removal. I also loudly argued that only allowing group heals, a game mechanic mechanic that made the rules advantageous for organized groups at the expense of everyone else, should have immediately been reverted. If I felt a mechanic is not fair, not fun, I have been 100% consistent in telling ZOS to remove it, even though it often was determinantal to the play style that I engaged in.

You want CC immunity to function correctly for the full duration? You're preaching to the choir! If there are more frustrating ESO experiences that having a full stamina bar or popping an immov pot and still getting CCed or being unable to break CC, it's a very very short list.

You want to try something with heal stacking? OK, fine! I would much rather play in a meta where my opponents didn;t have 4 Radiating Regens stacked on them. I'm all for not allowing the same named heal to stack. Fine by me. It was also fine by another organized group leader in this thread, in fact they felt it would ultimately be advantageous to organized groups. I look forward to the time when I don;t feel obligated as a DPS to use a stupid restoration staff because Radiating Regen is such a strong skill.

You want to re-examine Purge? Fine. I think it's inconsistent that it is only restricted to groups. Let's open up that skill to everyone. Is it too strong? Yeah. I think we can live with more active sort of purging options that active placement of skills or interaction with players as opposed to the "smart" version in the game.

But these skills and mechanics were designed because of how much and how easy it is to put and stack damage and debuffs on players. Bombard is another noxiously frustrating skill that, like Radiating Regen, is too easy and does way too much. If heals and purge are going to get toned down, then the siege damage, which has been buffed numerous times because purge and heal stacking exist in the first place, also needs re-examining.

So, there's the discussion. There is nothing here that I haven't said numerous time years ago. You do realize that ZOS does not have a full time PvP developer? How much consideration do you think they're going to give to this between the introduction of companions, the further development of the new CP system, the ongoing controversy with proc sets, etc.?

It is what I think.....and I believe a quick read through of the thread can provide ample number of examples of each one of the things I mentioned if not several- Lets be perfectly honest here, there is a discussion within a discussion here as often is with many who decide to discuss complicated issues.....and there are those who are invested in play-styles that would rather NOT engage in meaningful debate on the subject matter out of either not wanting to adapt to changes or outright fear of having to change at all.

And then there are those who at this point believe the misguided attempts of the past to improve game-play were largely done with over reliance of either twitch streaming third parties that had financial ties to streaming the game or simply the largest number of players in forums posting on specific issues- both being problematic. Neither of those were representative of the community at large nor were they without significant bias depending on the motivations of the person. As far as what I think about you and your motivations, it seems quite clear at this point that you do wish to discuss some of the more ......troublesome issues we all face on a daily basis in cyro, and for that I commend you---expect pushback regardless of the validity of what you bring up. I think what you said is dead on with what some of our biggest problems are right now as a community.

However a a bit confused as to bringing it up with seeming to also relegate the points to being useless since they have been spoken about before to have nothing at all done. The points were made by another poster we may only have one last chance as Microsoft comes in to make some appeals to those still at ESO working on the game regarding what the relevant issues really are in the game that would impact most of the players and not simply be what one particular play-style wishes to push to the forefront......its a good point, it appears to me to be accurate as well.

Could be you were only frustrated (as many are) that we are at a point now that a PTS server is defunct due to the habitual ignoring of the hard work players over the years put into writing up documentation on bugs, problems with skills, over performing items ect to see now we are actually paying to be tested on live servers due to mistakes in the past......if this is the case, I get it. I do.....some of the work done and countless hours were such tremendous wastes of time for the players who cared enough about the game to put in serious work to improve it....but were treated with less than appropriate levels of attention in comparison to the work done for the game and community.

For the rest of the post I find your points on target and important to us as a community, but selected the CC flooding during lag and heal stacking as two I personally thought would impact the most players without ruining play-styles outright. Seems to me changing heals to do absolutely nothing to someone (no stacking at all) if players are at 100% health would impact a number of issues but not kill the play-styles it supports outright--- Same goes for the CC flooding during lag, sure they are skills, they are important and for some class' they are critical for the functions.....but we dont need to have the malfunctioning of the CC immunity discussed as though anyone doesn't know or is unaware its broken during lag and not functioning at all. In my opinion those two things if looked at and resolved and/or implemented would allow for no one to be forced to change their play-style and enhance the experiences a large portion of the community seems to have issues with at the same time. Win/win in my opinion.

I agree with the principle that each of us is entitled to our opinions and thoughts on the matter begin discussed. After reading through @Joy_Division post above I think they have hit some very solid points

I really created this post concerning the paragraph I did not hide. I would suggest not getting one hopes up that Microsoft is going to march into Zenimax and start telling them to make changes based on what we post in the forums. I expect if they see something in the forums they are more likely to ask Zenimax to bring them up to speed if they consider it important enough to even consider. They did not buy Zenimax to make changes to the company. They bought Zenimax to beef up their portfolio with very popular IPs and successful games and that includes this game.

Sorry to poop on the party but I doubt MS is going to raise this issue. Maybe I am wrong.

Kwoung

Amottica wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Lets say I'm duoing with another magblade. We're likely to both have Rapid Regen on because it's one of the best solo heals for mag chars. Yet you're telling me when we are outnumbered I shouldn't be able to apply my heal to him because he has his own on. So you basically want to stop people working as a team together?

Depends on what we're talking about, but as for RR? No, I don't think it's wise to leave a smart-heal based/layerable/overspammed/abused skill as a main core of 'optimized group play' or whatever you call knowingly formatting to intentionally/unintentionally induce lag on a server vs zergs. (vs doing what a real pvp guild should do and do anything possible to retain skill in their game. AKA not knowingly inducing lag via formatting.) It's been long established the issue with smart heals, aoe scan radius checks, layering said heals in a guild vs zerg or other such scenarios.

In your example, the magNB would have RR slotted as their self-heal (like a stam user has individual vigor) and the duo magNB would have their own "best solo heals in the game". If they wanted to build to heal one another as a duo, then they would use one of the many less abusable smart or non-smart heal options. ****(this is only one of the options that is considerable here btw.)****

There is a point of such a conversation and it's to provide the devs with long-time veteran insight on key pain point issues. You can't just point at streak rollback or other various U25 desync issues and say, "that's it!". There's a lot that needs to be broken down and dissected with an open-mind from the devs/community. Or PVP performance will likely never improve if the community is too stubborn to entertain such a discussion in proper and present it clearly to the devs.

I don't want people to stop playing as a team together. I want people to openly acknowledge certain skills/mechanics in particular are being so abused that it removes the purpose of splitting up zergs in the name of 'good fights' or 'better performance'. There is a point to where this becomes a hard net loss for the entire server and RR/Purge are clear pain points in this regard. As for other skills, people should and could talk through them generally or individually.

We've been at this for 7 years and never got anywhere.

Probably because to have an "open-minded" conversation requires all parties to engage in such an effort? If we were to take this post as a starting point, people who run in organized groups are already dealing with accusations of abuse, intentionally causing lag, and using euphemisms to cover up sinister motives. Hard pass.

Intentional is not the same as knowingly formatting in a way that makes inducing such lag inevitable. There is a point where intent no longer matters if you are aware. There are some guilds who will play top meta or nothing, even at the cost of performance and their own joy in their victories.

As for the all parties issue, couldn't agree more. That said, I hold on to a sliver of hope this conversation will be taken a shred serious (even with largely or entirely the same devs) under Microsoft. LIkely delusional, but one could hope that one of the executive board sees the easy ROI to be gained by near effortless fixes to PVP. That said, I don't expect this game will ever live up nearly to what its potential is.

PS: I'll note that while it may sound like I'm attacking other GMs and long-time players. There's no better people to give open input about what is actively being used by 'max optimized' comps that chokes servers heavily vs zergs (not to say the server wasn't choking already btw). If that's what max optimization for a group is, then it needs to be scaled back or reworked entirely. I don't see why knowingly/unknowingly doing these things matters when the conversation is at hand. People can argue back and forth in such a fashion on their own time. What matters is a conversation being made without such defensiveness. We just have to present what we know and go from there, as we have been. The devs can entertain a conversation when the guard changes or not, but if the veterans can't present a proper face as a collective on key issues.. then these conversation will continue to flounder as they have.

You are not alone in the hope this can be spoken about without the too common reflexive 'swarm' to protect something players view as a right to use rather than a bad mechanic likely responsible for deterioration in enjoyment for others. After all its pretty easy to dismiss as it always has been with simple stalling tactic or baiting or otherwise getting thread closed to silence those who would discuss openly these things.....just a few well placed "what is the topic", "you accuse xxxxx" or "what was the definition" has consistently worked in the past to keep from getting to the heart of the issues in PvP where play-styles are threatened.

It takes a pretty comfortable individual to talk about something they are using as consistently as this and be confident enough in their skill level to not resort to either falsely claiming others are vilifying them or pretending to not follow thread closely enough to know what the point of it all is. The point is to improve the game and experience for the majority of the players, not to upset and draw the ire of those who have used this heal stacking, cc flooding during lag as mainstay in play. There will always be posters who throw up the smokescreen when topics they are uncomfortable with come up---but this one seems to draw the most persistent ones to defend it to the death in the forum over the years and one that seems to threaten many more than others evidenced by the dismissive and combative posting rather than let the subject be examined in detailed way.

Is that what you think?

That I and other players are so afraid of having this discussion that we go out of our way to derail and close down threads?

I have made numerous threads in the past years pleading with ZOS to make improvements and reforms to make Cyrdoiil more enjoyable for everyone. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here is a thread helping new players not get farmed by ball groups. Each of them unequivocally advocated for changes to reduce the effectiveness of "ball groups".

I have said repeatedly and consistently that Radiating Regen is too easy and too strong. That the Harmony Trait way disproportionally aids in the effectiveness of "ball groups." My posting history has been consistent in reducing the dominance of organized groups such that there were two well known organized group players who were convinced I did not partake in that play style and publicly berated me on these forums accusing me of bias.

I have zero fear of such a discussion. None. I was loud and clear from the beginning of the game that AoE Caps was a broken mechanic that organized groups such that I played in benefitted way too much and every patch I loudly advocating for their removal. I also loudly argued that only allowing group heals, a game mechanic mechanic that made the rules advantageous for organized groups at the expense of everyone else, should have immediately been reverted. If I felt a mechanic is not fair, not fun, I have been 100% consistent in telling ZOS to remove it, even though it often was determinantal to the play style that I engaged in.

You want CC immunity to function correctly for the full duration? You're preaching to the choir! If there are more frustrating ESO experiences that having a full stamina bar or popping an immov pot and still getting CCed or being unable to break CC, it's a very very short list.

You want to try something with heal stacking? OK, fine! I would much rather play in a meta where my opponents didn;t have 4 Radiating Regens stacked on them. I'm all for not allowing the same named heal to stack. Fine by me. It was also fine by another organized group leader in this thread, in fact they felt it would ultimately be advantageous to organized groups. I look forward to the time when I don;t feel obligated as a DPS to use a stupid restoration staff because Radiating Regen is such a strong skill.

You want to re-examine Purge? Fine. I think it's inconsistent that it is only restricted to groups. Let's open up that skill to everyone. Is it too strong? Yeah. I think we can live with more active sort of purging options that active placement of skills or interaction with players as opposed to the "smart" version in the game.

But these skills and mechanics were designed because of how much and how easy it is to put and stack damage and debuffs on players. Bombard is another noxiously frustrating skill that, like Radiating Regen, is too easy and does way too much. If heals and purge are going to get toned down, then the siege damage, which has been buffed numerous times because purge and heal stacking exist in the first place, also needs re-examining.

So, there's the discussion. There is nothing here that I haven't said numerous time years ago. You do realize that ZOS does not have a full time PvP developer? How much consideration do you think they're going to give to this between the introduction of companions, the further development of the new CP system, the ongoing controversy with proc sets, etc.?

It is what I think.....and I believe a quick read through of the thread can provide ample number of examples of each one of the things I mentioned if not several- Lets be perfectly honest here, there is a discussion within a discussion here as often is with many who decide to discuss complicated issues.....and there are those who are invested in play-styles that would rather NOT engage in meaningful debate on the subject matter out of either not wanting to adapt to changes or outright fear of having to change at all.

And then there are those who at this point believe the misguided attempts of the past to improve game-play were largely done with over reliance of either twitch streaming third parties that had financial ties to streaming the game or simply the largest number of players in forums posting on specific issues- both being problematic. Neither of those were representative of the community at large nor were they without significant bias depending on the motivations of the person. As far as what I think about you and your motivations, it seems quite clear at this point that you do wish to discuss some of the more ......troublesome issues we all face on a daily basis in cyro, and for that I commend you---expect pushback regardless of the validity of what you bring up. I think what you said is dead on with what some of our biggest problems are right now as a community.

However a a bit confused as to bringing it up with seeming to also relegate the points to being useless since they have been spoken about before to have nothing at all done. The points were made by another poster we may only have one last chance as Microsoft comes in to make some appeals to those still at ESO working on the game regarding what the relevant issues really are in the game that would impact most of the players and not simply be what one particular play-style wishes to push to the forefront......its a good point, it appears to me to be accurate as well.

Could be you were only frustrated (as many are) that we are at a point now that a PTS server is defunct due to the habitual ignoring of the hard work players over the years put into writing up documentation on bugs, problems with skills, over performing items ect to see now we are actually paying to be tested on live servers due to mistakes in the past......if this is the case, I get it. I do.....some of the work done and countless hours were such tremendous wastes of time for the players who cared enough about the game to put in serious work to improve it....but were treated with less than appropriate levels of attention in comparison to the work done for the game and community.

For the rest of the post I find your points on target and important to us as a community, but selected the CC flooding during lag and heal stacking as two I personally thought would impact the most players without ruining play-styles outright. Seems to me changing heals to do absolutely nothing to someone (no stacking at all) if players are at 100% health would impact a number of issues but not kill the play-styles it supports outright--- Same goes for the CC flooding during lag, sure they are skills, they are important and for some class' they are critical for the functions.....but we dont need to have the malfunctioning of the CC immunity discussed as though anyone doesn't know or is unaware its broken during lag and not functioning at all. In my opinion those two things if looked at and resolved and/or implemented would allow for no one to be forced to change their play-style and enhance the experiences a large portion of the community seems to have issues with at the same time. Win/win in my opinion.

I agree with the principle that each of us is entitled to our opinions and thoughts on the matter begin discussed. After reading through @Joy_Division post above I think they have hit some very solid points

I really created this post concerning the paragraph I did not hide. I would suggest not getting one hopes up that Microsoft is going to march into Zenimax and start telling them to make changes based on what we post in the forums. I expect if they see something in the forums they are more likely to ask Zenimax to bring them up to speed if they consider it important enough to even consider. They did not buy Zenimax to make changes to the company. They bought Zenimax to beef up their portfolio with very popular IPs and successful games and that includes this game.

Sorry to poop on the party but I doubt MS is going to raise this issue. Maybe I am wrong.

You are most likely correct. Does MS even run forums for their games or is reddit/whatever where it takes place? I ask because I have seen games sold in the past and the forums just go poof, as the new publisher could care less about reading all the conflicting player opinions and hearing advice from backseat coders.

LostToTheSea

Some of this conversation is beyond me, as I'm unsure of @ZOS_BrianWheeler 's overall control and focus of these types of issues. But to me, if ZOS was ever serious about 'Cyro Performance Issues' being looked at, then these particular mechanics and skills (along with the proc sets) would have been the first to have been observed and reworked. Along with reverting U25 server-side coding (heavy increase in desync/hitbox/targeting issues since that change, even in open world). They are clearly major issues and have been talked about in length by GMs, long-time players, etc for YEARS. So, I have to ask why there's no real open discussion by this point in regards to this? There are players with knowledge of how the game works that can pad some of the unfamiliar team's perspective.

This deserves at least one real solid shot with the devs/community both being as direct about these issues as possible and the potential roads.. It needs to be conversation taken by both sides of the table, as recent tests and gestures at fixes have in some part been misguided (not all, but a good amount.)

Honestly, I have always thought @Joy_Division should be a PVP dev and years back... I thought he was upon reading initial posts. The community needs a real rep that sees the issue from all sides with assisted input from those in the technical know. This game is aged to the point to where I don't think you can bring a new dev in that is unfamiliar with the engine/mechanics/past updates/etc., They would be unable to make solid consistent changes on PVP-side, unless they were a natural genius (maybe overstated). Point is, ZOS has more means to make adequate gradual changes than I believe even the board itself has come to the conclusion of. A real open dev/community conversation needs to be had.

Earthewen

There has been a few negative comments about my statement regarding the weapon swapping. Let me clarify: One of the problems ZOS has pointed out with all the lag and disconnects has been about calculations made by the server. All the things they have tested and everything they've said about the tests has indicated that the calculations might be a cause.

So in looking at the logs, I found that there was a LOT of weapon swapping during a single (and any other single) encounter. This got me to thinking ... every time you swap weapons, your stats change. That is a LOT of calculation and re-calculation that the server has to do to determine the outcome of the encounter. Seeing up to 200 weapon swaps in a short period of time per person, per fight, per group, per buffs and debuffs ... well, I'm not an expert, but that seems like a ton of calculating.

Now let's say just for *** and giggles, that someone is weapon swapping so fast that the skill they just hit hasn't had a chance to land yet (like if you're using weapon swap to animation cancel). Does the hit register the stats from the original bar that the skill was on, or does it register the actual bar that you're on when the skill hits? That would require a re-calculation on the part of the server to determine which set of stats it draws upon when the enemy player is hit.

I'm not suggesting that we get nerfed or go down to one bar. What I am suggesting is what if you just got the higher of the two stats of the two bars? That way, the amount of calculating the server seems to have to do might be reduced.

Again, I'm not an expert on the subject, but the idea seems plausible.

neferpitou73

LostToTheSea wrote: »

Some of this conversation is beyond me, as I'm unsure of @ZOS_BrianWheeler 's overall control and focus of these types of issues. But to me, if ZOS was ever serious about 'Cyro Performance Issues' being looked at, then these particular mechanics and skills (along with the proc sets) would have been the first to have been observed and reworked. Along with reverting U25 server-side coding (heavy increase in desync/hitbox/targeting issues since that change, even in open world). They are clearly major issues and have been talked about in length by GMs, long-time players, etc for YEARS. So, I have to ask why there's no real open discussion by this point in regards to this? There are players with knowledge of how the game works that can pad some of the unfamiliar team's perspective.

I'll admit that I'm jumping into this discussion half-read but I do want to comment on this particular paragraph. I'm not going to comment on ball group imbalance issues because I've said my piece on that earlier in the thread. But in terms of performance and lag and it's relation to ball group mechanics, it's honestly still a mystery to me how ball groups can cause more lag than zergs. I've experienced it and am not denying it happens.

In the fall we did tests where they put cooldowns on AOE skills like regen and pulsar and honestly it didn't seem to have any effect on the combat lag and in fact I felt made it worse. Of course, right now we have no-proc and the lag is about the same or worse. So it honestly doesn't seem to me that normal ball group mechanics (i.e. not spamming bar swaps and useless skills intentionally to overload the server, which some groups do indeed do) have any effect on the lag.

I'm leaning towards the conclusion that there is something wrong with the grouping mechanism itself in pvp, simply out of process of elimination. It's not entirely outside the realm of possibility given the insane bugs that the group finder had in 2019 and ZOS' less than successful series of attempts to fix it (although it seems to work ok now).

Lapin_Logic

TheEndBringer wrote: »

The other thread was closed because of mean people. Let's have a constructive thread.

Ball groups aren't going anywhere. Change whatever you want, the players will adapt.

The issue for me is that they tend to exploit inherent weakness in the combat system while also overloading the server with aoe spasm that further make it hard to kill them.

Strategically, they can avoid most attacks by going into towers which also prevents the most effective counter attacks.

Most siege is useless at best because either you can't directly hit them or they simply shrug off the damage.

We need a better counter. For example what if there was a new siege weapon that exploded on impact, dealing increased damage for each additional player hit?

What if resource towers were destructible?

If groups want to ball up, I'm all for it. But there needs to be a better counter than sending 30 people to kill 12. I think ball groups might actually enjoy a better challenge but hey, easy ap is hard to turn down.

Any other (non trollish) ideas?

Cyrodiil is the 3 banners war, Alliance Vs Alliance Vs Alliance.

It is meant to have "Ball Groups" or Armies/Regiments/Battalions, the counter to an Army is an equal Army, ZOS needs to implement mechanics to encourage and help players form these armies instead of everyone spread over the map like headless chickens because the map is blank.

Jaraal

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

ZOS needs to implement mechanics to encourage and help players form these armies instead of everyone spread over the map like headless chickens because the map is blank.

But that's exactly what ZOS wants.

That's why they keep introducing all these player unfriendly mechanics, like lowering group size, reducing aoe buff/heal target maximums, making some of such skills group only, etc. Instead of fixing their infrastructure to handle all the calculations of large numbers of players in one area, they want you to spread out to minimize the load on the server.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Jaraal wrote: »

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

ZOS needs to implement mechanics to encourage and help players form these armies instead of everyone spread over the map like headless chickens because the map is blank.

But that's exactly what ZOS wants.

That's why they keep introducing all these player unfriendly mechanics, like lowering group size, reducing aoe buff/heal target maximums, making some of such skills group only, etc. Instead of fixing their infrastructure to handle all the calculations of large numbers of players in one area, they want you to spread out to minimize the load on the server.

The issue I believe the above poster was mentioning is that by nerfing groups you also nerf their ability to spread away from the faction to create these fights around the map.

maxjapank

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

Earthewen

maxjapank wrote: »

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

I agree with you that these are good skills, but they are not all powerful, even in groups. I think the more compelling issue for groups would be the over heals. When a ball group has hots stacking from every person in the group, they can draw on that over heal to gain more resources, thereby not only never running out of resources, but their health never dropping because of stacked hot. I would think that removing the ability to over heal would be more advantageous to the health of the game than removing purge and rapids. Rapids is almost pointless with the champion point change, and purge only removes one negative affect at a time.

Again, I refer to the logs of combat that ZOS has supplied us with and most healers over heal with their percentage being up in the 80% and over range. Now, they are not designated healers per se, but the fact that you can stack 5 plus hots of the same skill is why groups have the advantage over solo players.

I suggest removing the over heals. You can get up to100% health and no more. Once you are at 100%, it should be impossible to gain any more healing beyond that point. You should not even get hit with more heal stacking.

neferpitou73

Earthewen wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

I agree with you that these are good skills, but they are not all powerful, even in groups. I think the more compelling issue for groups would be the over heals. When a ball group has hots stacking from every person in the group, they can draw on that over heal to gain more resources, thereby not only never running out of resources, but their health never dropping because of stacked hot. I would think that removing the ability to over heal would be more advantageous to the health of the game than removing purge and rapids. Rapids is almost pointless with the champion point change, and purge only removes one negative affect at a time.

Again, I refer to the logs of combat that ZOS has supplied us with and most healers over heal with their percentage being up in the 80% and over range. Now, they are not designated healers per se, but the fact that you can stack 5 plus hots of the same skill is why groups have the advantage over solo players.

I suggest removing the over heals. You can get up to100% health and no more. Once you are at 100%, it should be impossible to gain any more healing beyond that point. You should not even get hit with more heal stacking.

9/10 Removing heals is going to benefit ball groups because they can simply output more heals, while this decreases the survivability of solo builds.

Anything you do to make ball groups weaker is going to affect solo players more. Unless you start adding in punishments for grouping, which is stupid in an MMO (Note to ZOS: this was not a suggestion!)

Earthewen

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

I agree with you that these are good skills, but they are not all powerful, even in groups. I think the more compelling issue for groups would be the over heals. When a ball group has hots stacking from every person in the group, they can draw on that over heal to gain more resources, thereby not only never running out of resources, but their health never dropping because of stacked hot. I would think that removing the ability to over heal would be more advantageous to the health of the game than removing purge and rapids. Rapids is almost pointless with the champion point change, and purge only removes one negative affect at a time.

Again, I refer to the logs of combat that ZOS has supplied us with and most healers over heal with their percentage being up in the 80% and over range. Now, they are not designated healers per se, but the fact that you can stack 5 plus hots of the same skill is why groups have the advantage over solo players.

I suggest removing the over heals. You can get up to100% health and no more. Once you are at 100%, it should be impossible to gain any more healing beyond that point. You should not even get hit with more heal stacking.

9/10 Removing heals is going to benefit ball groups because they can simply output more heals, while this decreases the survivability of solo builds.

Anything you do to make ball groups weaker is going to affect solo players more. Unless you start adding in punishments for grouping, which is stupid in an MMO (Note to ZOS: this was not a suggestion!)

Yeah, that has been the case historically, but I don't think solo players get many heals out there, so heal stacking doesn't help them much. If you remove the over heal/heal stack on everyone, the ball groups that rely on heal stacking over heals would be on the same level as the rest of us. I think it might even help with the lag a a bit. Spamming the heals wouldn't happen as much because it would just be a waste of resources. These groups also couldn't spam Balance their advantage. They'd end up killing themselves if they did. ;-)

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

@Earthewen

Do you think lag would improve if 'ball groups' stopped making fights away from their faction and instead just played amongst their factions front line entirely?


As for some general replies to topics here:

1 - You don't 'Spam balance' in a group like mine, especially not in situations where you would be under heavy damage pressure. (you might use it once or twice around line of sight or when not taking other dmg to keep yourself topped or apply buffs to yourself).

2 - Solo players don't reliably need so much healing because they are the ones who are outnumbering the other players in these fight situations we are discussing. They can sit back and stay on siege or just apply constant pressure. Groups like mine don't move around keeps etc because we like to run in circles. It's done because of pressure of stacking damage in outnumbered situations. This doesn't mean to say that solo players should be excluded from stacked heals (like ZOS applied a few months ago) but I do feel like one of the incentives to get motivated and join a group / guild should be 'group gameplay mechanics' of which heal stacking is most definitely one of the core ESO combat staples. (along with a symbol to follow to coordinate the group - crown, group stat buffs and originally synergies were intended to be a benefit too)

3 - I would ask all those advocating for healing removal - Do you think that taking a flag as a solo zerg player would be easier if that player didn't get the healing from all the other solo zerg players/groups also trying to take that flag? IMO the answer is that player will just get bombed / oiled to death even faster because they can only ever have 1 hot on them because of the range of skills which are 'commonly' used in zergs is very low when compared to a group like mine who can optimize our skill selection.

4 - If Stats were fixed across both bars what would happen is that one bar would be used almost entirely for stat boosts and then the other bar for gameplay. It wouldn't really be a good situation imo. Now if you want to talk about stat changes. I'd be completely up for bringing back soft caps and some form of dynamic ulti gen (you know like when the game was actually fun).

5 - I feel like I'd rather see mechanics added to punish bad gameplay and reward good gamplay than simply nerfing things. I remember the wonderful time of the WoE Purge bug, (for those that don't it was when wall of element's ticks would occur instantly if the player standing in it had been purged leading to group wipes in seconds). This was an actually interesting although at times frustrating mechanic which rewarded strategic gameplay and skill usage selection. Albeit a bug.
I don't really feel inev det has the same type of gameplay currently in comparison despite being modelled on it. (WoE you could negate & you could move out of it also back then there weren't nearly as many effects occurring on players to require so much purging).

neferpitou73

Earthewen wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

I agree with you that these are good skills, but they are not all powerful, even in groups. I think the more compelling issue for groups would be the over heals. When a ball group has hots stacking from every person in the group, they can draw on that over heal to gain more resources, thereby not only never running out of resources, but their health never dropping because of stacked hot. I would think that removing the ability to over heal would be more advantageous to the health of the game than removing purge and rapids. Rapids is almost pointless with the champion point change, and purge only removes one negative affect at a time.

Again, I refer to the logs of combat that ZOS has supplied us with and most healers over heal with their percentage being up in the 80% and over range. Now, they are not designated healers per se, but the fact that you can stack 5 plus hots of the same skill is why groups have the advantage over solo players.

I suggest removing the over heals. You can get up to100% health and no more. Once you are at 100%, it should be impossible to gain any more healing beyond that point. You should not even get hit with more heal stacking.

9/10 Removing heals is going to benefit ball groups because they can simply output more heals, while this decreases the survivability of solo builds.

Anything you do to make ball groups weaker is going to affect solo players more. Unless you start adding in punishments for grouping, which is stupid in an MMO (Note to ZOS: this was not a suggestion!)

Yeah, that has been the case historically, but I don't think solo players get many heals out there, so heal stacking doesn't help them much. If you remove the over heal/heal stack on everyone, the ball groups that rely on heal stacking over heals would be on the same level as the rest of us. I think it might even help with the lag a a bit. Spamming the heals wouldn't happen as much because it would just be a waste of resources. These groups also couldn't spam Balance their advantage. They'd end up killing themselves if they did. ;-)

But heal stacking does affect solo builds. If I'm reading your suggestion right this means that you wouldn't be able to pre-buff with heals. So you couldn't apply regen, vigor/ etc to yourself before you go into combat, which from what I understand is an important part of solo play.

Again, I don't buy the idea that regen affects lag. The AOE tests showed that.

Most of the suggestions I see on the forums seem to lack a fundamental understanding of what makes ball groups powerful, which is not skills, sets, etc. It's raid composition and coordination. If you reduce our healing we'll just add another healer. If you take away our purges you're only hurting solo players because we can apply more dots in a second than you can put on us in 5. The answer to beating ball groups is not nerfs or buffs it's more coordination among players in zergs and an understanding of how to counter ball group tactics.

Soul_Demon

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

I agree with you that these are good skills, but they are not all powerful, even in groups. I think the more compelling issue for groups would be the over heals. When a ball group has hots stacking from every person in the group, they can draw on that over heal to gain more resources, thereby not only never running out of resources, but their health never dropping because of stacked hot. I would think that removing the ability to over heal would be more advantageous to the health of the game than removing purge and rapids. Rapids is almost pointless with the champion point change, and purge only removes one negative affect at a time.

Again, I refer to the logs of combat that ZOS has supplied us with and most healers over heal with their percentage being up in the 80% and over range. Now, they are not designated healers per se, but the fact that you can stack 5 plus hots of the same skill is why groups have the advantage over solo players.

I suggest removing the over heals. You can get up to100% health and no more. Once you are at 100%, it should be impossible to gain any more healing beyond that point. You should not even get hit with more heal stacking.

9/10 Removing heals is going to benefit ball groups because they can simply output more heals, while this decreases the survivability of solo builds.

Anything you do to make ball groups weaker is going to affect solo players more. Unless you start adding in punishments for grouping, which is stupid in an MMO (Note to ZOS: this was not a suggestion!)

Yeah, that has been the case historically, but I don't think solo players get many heals out there, so heal stacking doesn't help them much. If you remove the over heal/heal stack on everyone, the ball groups that rely on heal stacking over heals would be on the same level as the rest of us. I think it might even help with the lag a a bit. Spamming the heals wouldn't happen as much because it would just be a waste of resources. These groups also couldn't spam Balance their advantage. They'd end up killing themselves if they did. ;-)

But heal stacking does affect solo builds. If I'm reading your suggestion right this means that you wouldn't be able to pre-buff with heals. So you couldn't apply regen, vigor/ etc to yourself before you go into combat, which from what I understand is an important part of solo play.

Again, I don't buy the idea that regen affects lag. The AOE tests showed that.

Most of the suggestions I see on the forums seem to lack a fundamental understanding of what makes ball groups powerful, which is not skills, sets, etc. It's raid composition and coordination. If you reduce our healing we'll just add another healer. If you take away our purges you're only hurting solo players because we can apply more dots in a second than you can put on us in 5. The answer to beating ball groups is not nerfs or buffs it's more coordination among players in zergs and an understanding of how to counter ball group tactics.

Bolded the portion I believe is needing a bit more of background. If no one can stack a series of heals on themselves as means to draw from for additional resources and be impervious to damage until it breaks through the threshold of stacked heals waiting- before you take ANY damage......it requires all players react to what is happening right then, how exactly would the solo players need to do it if no one else is able to either?

The point of not allowing heals to stack is to make it so what you do matters more----pre heals and cc flooding into a group with ulti drops is---over done at present and leaves little to react to. Especially with things malfunctioning during lag scenarios.....I am not sure I see how the need to do it right now (as many are pre stacking heals) translates to 'dont consider it...because we need to do it to combat what others are doing now' the idea is none would be able to pre load heals.

If anything a solo trying to pick off a player in a group would get more success due to the lack of pre stacked heals on the member of the group who was peeled off.

neferpitou73

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

I agree with you that these are good skills, but they are not all powerful, even in groups. I think the more compelling issue for groups would be the over heals. When a ball group has hots stacking from every person in the group, they can draw on that over heal to gain more resources, thereby not only never running out of resources, but their health never dropping because of stacked hot. I would think that removing the ability to over heal would be more advantageous to the health of the game than removing purge and rapids. Rapids is almost pointless with the champion point change, and purge only removes one negative affect at a time.

Again, I refer to the logs of combat that ZOS has supplied us with and most healers over heal with their percentage being up in the 80% and over range. Now, they are not designated healers per se, but the fact that you can stack 5 plus hots of the same skill is why groups have the advantage over solo players.

I suggest removing the over heals. You can get up to100% health and no more. Once you are at 100%, it should be impossible to gain any more healing beyond that point. You should not even get hit with more heal stacking.

9/10 Removing heals is going to benefit ball groups because they can simply output more heals, while this decreases the survivability of solo builds.

Anything you do to make ball groups weaker is going to affect solo players more. Unless you start adding in punishments for grouping, which is stupid in an MMO (Note to ZOS: this was not a suggestion!)

Yeah, that has been the case historically, but I don't think solo players get many heals out there, so heal stacking doesn't help them much. If you remove the over heal/heal stack on everyone, the ball groups that rely on heal stacking over heals would be on the same level as the rest of us. I think it might even help with the lag a a bit. Spamming the heals wouldn't happen as much because it would just be a waste of resources. These groups also couldn't spam Balance their advantage. They'd end up killing themselves if they did. ;-)

But heal stacking does affect solo builds. If I'm reading your suggestion right this means that you wouldn't be able to pre-buff with heals. So you couldn't apply regen, vigor/ etc to yourself before you go into combat, which from what I understand is an important part of solo play.

Again, I don't buy the idea that regen affects lag. The AOE tests showed that.

Most of the suggestions I see on the forums seem to lack a fundamental understanding of what makes ball groups powerful, which is not skills, sets, etc. It's raid composition and coordination. If you reduce our healing we'll just add another healer. If you take away our purges you're only hurting solo players because we can apply more dots in a second than you can put on us in 5. The answer to beating ball groups is not nerfs or buffs it's more coordination among players in zergs and an understanding of how to counter ball group tactics.

Bolded the portion I believe is needing a bit more of background. If no one can stack a series of heals on themselves as means to draw from for additional resources and be impervious to damage until it breaks through the threshold of stacked heals waiting- before you take ANY damage......it requires all players react to what is happening right then, how exactly would the solo players need to do it if no one else is able to either?

The point of not allowing heals to stack is to make it so what you do matters more----pre heals and cc flooding into a group with ulti drops is---over done at present and leaves little to react to. Especially with things malfunctioning during lag scenarios.....I am not sure I see how the need to do it right now (as many are pre stacking heals) translates to 'dont consider it...because we need to do it to combat what others are doing now' the idea is none would be able to pre load heals.

If anything a solo trying to pick off a player in a group would get more success due to the lack of pre stacked heals on the member of the group who was peeled off.

I think you are severely underestimating the sheer amount of heals a ball group can put out, even without over healing. And I'm not talking just about regen, but your other AOE hots like grand healing, ritual, warden and necro skills, etc. That's not even getting into all of the burst healing. It's not as easy as it sounds to out-damage that amount of healing.

Besides, what you're suggesting is going to switch Cyrodiil to even more of a burst damage meta, which is explicitly what ball groups are designed for. Without that "shield" of over-healing people are easier to burst down.

Soul_Demon

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

I agree with you that these are good skills, but they are not all powerful, even in groups. I think the more compelling issue for groups would be the over heals. When a ball group has hots stacking from every person in the group, they can draw on that over heal to gain more resources, thereby not only never running out of resources, but their health never dropping because of stacked hot. I would think that removing the ability to over heal would be more advantageous to the health of the game than removing purge and rapids. Rapids is almost pointless with the champion point change, and purge only removes one negative affect at a time.

Again, I refer to the logs of combat that ZOS has supplied us with and most healers over heal with their percentage being up in the 80% and over range. Now, they are not designated healers per se, but the fact that you can stack 5 plus hots of the same skill is why groups have the advantage over solo players.

I suggest removing the over heals. You can get up to100% health and no more. Once you are at 100%, it should be impossible to gain any more healing beyond that point. You should not even get hit with more heal stacking.

9/10 Removing heals is going to benefit ball groups because they can simply output more heals, while this decreases the survivability of solo builds.

Anything you do to make ball groups weaker is going to affect solo players more. Unless you start adding in punishments for grouping, which is stupid in an MMO (Note to ZOS: this was not a suggestion!)

Yeah, that has been the case historically, but I don't think solo players get many heals out there, so heal stacking doesn't help them much. If you remove the over heal/heal stack on everyone, the ball groups that rely on heal stacking over heals would be on the same level as the rest of us. I think it might even help with the lag a a bit. Spamming the heals wouldn't happen as much because it would just be a waste of resources. These groups also couldn't spam Balance their advantage. They'd end up killing themselves if they did. ;-)

But heal stacking does affect solo builds. If I'm reading your suggestion right this means that you wouldn't be able to pre-buff with heals. So you couldn't apply regen, vigor/ etc to yourself before you go into combat, which from what I understand is an important part of solo play.

Again, I don't buy the idea that regen affects lag. The AOE tests showed that.

Most of the suggestions I see on the forums seem to lack a fundamental understanding of what makes ball groups powerful, which is not skills, sets, etc. It's raid composition and coordination. If you reduce our healing we'll just add another healer. If you take away our purges you're only hurting solo players because we can apply more dots in a second than you can put on us in 5. The answer to beating ball groups is not nerfs or buffs it's more coordination among players in zergs and an understanding of how to counter ball group tactics.

Bolded the portion I believe is needing a bit more of background. If no one can stack a series of heals on themselves as means to draw from for additional resources and be impervious to damage until it breaks through the threshold of stacked heals waiting- before you take ANY damage......it requires all players react to what is happening right then, how exactly would the solo players need to do it if no one else is able to either?

The point of not allowing heals to stack is to make it so what you do matters more----pre heals and cc flooding into a group with ulti drops is---over done at present and leaves little to react to. Especially with things malfunctioning during lag scenarios.....I am not sure I see how the need to do it right now (as many are pre stacking heals) translates to 'dont consider it...because we need to do it to combat what others are doing now' the idea is none would be able to pre load heals.

If anything a solo trying to pick off a player in a group would get more success due to the lack of pre stacked heals on the member of the group who was peeled off.

I think you are severely underestimating the sheer amount of heals a ball group can put out, even without over healing. And I'm not talking just about regen, but your other AOE hots like grand healing, ritual, warden and necro skills, etc. That's not even getting into all of the burst healing. It's not as easy as it sounds to out-damage that amount of healing.

Besides, what you're suggesting is going to switch Cyrodiil to even more of a burst damage meta, which is explicitly what ball groups are designed for. Without that "shield" of over-healing people are easier to burst down.

Not at all......matter of fact I have mentioned this before, my goal is not to overly impact any particular playstyle but to improve the playability for the largest number of players. I would not want to simply attack ball groups playstyle, as its in my opinion needed and quite valid....I am attempting to address changes I think would result in much better play without destroying a playstyle.

If you cast a heal on player who is at 100% health, nothing at all should happen to them- skill should not even register unless they have damage on them when you cast it. The companion fix would be to have CC immunity hyperfocused on by ZOS to actually be functional even if game is lagging---global 5 sec immunity after any cc break would be optimal.

This way no particular playstyle is attacked and players can continue playing how they want to play---but without heal stacking and cc flooding, the play itself would be much more enjoyable to those who experienced the 'stun locks' during lag that seem to be with many ball groups pushes. To me, this seems the logical approach as ZOS has not been able to deal with the lag, so simply fix the things that renders people unable to respond (and why they die most often) and the behavior of the stacked heals.....if you cant stack heals, you have to respond when damage is done, not pre loading so you cant be damaged until those heals 'expire' that were stacked. Doesn't kill ball group play, doesn't kill any play but forces changes to what in my mind is causing the biggest problems.

neferpitou73

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

I agree with you that these are good skills, but they are not all powerful, even in groups. I think the more compelling issue for groups would be the over heals. When a ball group has hots stacking from every person in the group, they can draw on that over heal to gain more resources, thereby not only never running out of resources, but their health never dropping because of stacked hot. I would think that removing the ability to over heal would be more advantageous to the health of the game than removing purge and rapids. Rapids is almost pointless with the champion point change, and purge only removes one negative affect at a time.

Again, I refer to the logs of combat that ZOS has supplied us with and most healers over heal with their percentage being up in the 80% and over range. Now, they are not designated healers per se, but the fact that you can stack 5 plus hots of the same skill is why groups have the advantage over solo players.

I suggest removing the over heals. You can get up to100% health and no more. Once you are at 100%, it should be impossible to gain any more healing beyond that point. You should not even get hit with more heal stacking.

9/10 Removing heals is going to benefit ball groups because they can simply output more heals, while this decreases the survivability of solo builds.

Anything you do to make ball groups weaker is going to affect solo players more. Unless you start adding in punishments for grouping, which is stupid in an MMO (Note to ZOS: this was not a suggestion!)

Yeah, that has been the case historically, but I don't think solo players get many heals out there, so heal stacking doesn't help them much. If you remove the over heal/heal stack on everyone, the ball groups that rely on heal stacking over heals would be on the same level as the rest of us. I think it might even help with the lag a a bit. Spamming the heals wouldn't happen as much because it would just be a waste of resources. These groups also couldn't spam Balance their advantage. They'd end up killing themselves if they did. ;-)

But heal stacking does affect solo builds. If I'm reading your suggestion right this means that you wouldn't be able to pre-buff with heals. So you couldn't apply regen, vigor/ etc to yourself before you go into combat, which from what I understand is an important part of solo play.

Again, I don't buy the idea that regen affects lag. The AOE tests showed that.

Most of the suggestions I see on the forums seem to lack a fundamental understanding of what makes ball groups powerful, which is not skills, sets, etc. It's raid composition and coordination. If you reduce our healing we'll just add another healer. If you take away our purges you're only hurting solo players because we can apply more dots in a second than you can put on us in 5. The answer to beating ball groups is not nerfs or buffs it's more coordination among players in zergs and an understanding of how to counter ball group tactics.

Bolded the portion I believe is needing a bit more of background. If no one can stack a series of heals on themselves as means to draw from for additional resources and be impervious to damage until it breaks through the threshold of stacked heals waiting- before you take ANY damage......it requires all players react to what is happening right then, how exactly would the solo players need to do it if no one else is able to either?

The point of not allowing heals to stack is to make it so what you do matters more----pre heals and cc flooding into a group with ulti drops is---over done at present and leaves little to react to. Especially with things malfunctioning during lag scenarios.....I am not sure I see how the need to do it right now (as many are pre stacking heals) translates to 'dont consider it...because we need to do it to combat what others are doing now' the idea is none would be able to pre load heals.

If anything a solo trying to pick off a player in a group would get more success due to the lack of pre stacked heals on the member of the group who was peeled off.

I think you are severely underestimating the sheer amount of heals a ball group can put out, even without over healing. And I'm not talking just about regen, but your other AOE hots like grand healing, ritual, warden and necro skills, etc. That's not even getting into all of the burst healing. It's not as easy as it sounds to out-damage that amount of healing.

Besides, what you're suggesting is going to switch Cyrodiil to even more of a burst damage meta, which is explicitly what ball groups are designed for. Without that "shield" of over-healing people are easier to burst down.

Not at all......matter of fact I have mentioned this before, my goal is not to overly impact any particular playstyle but to improve the playability for the largest number of players. I would not want to simply attack ball groups playstyle, as its in my opinion needed and quite valid....I am attempting to address changes I think would result in much better play without destroying a playstyle.

If you cast a heal on player who is at 100% health, nothing at all should happen to them- skill should not even register unless they have damage on them when you cast it. The companion fix would be to have CC immunity hyperfocused on by ZOS to actually be functional even if game is lagging---global 5 sec immunity after any cc break would be optimal.

This way no particular playstyle is attacked and players can continue playing how they want to play---but without heal stacking and cc flooding, the play itself would be much more enjoyable to those who experienced the 'stun locks' during lag that seem to be with many ball groups pushes. To me, this seems the logical approach as ZOS has not been able to deal with the lag, so simply fix the things that renders people unable to respond (and why they die most often) and the behavior of the stacked heals.....if you cant stack heals, you have to respond when damage is done, not pre loading so you cant be damaged until those heals 'expire' that were stacked. Doesn't kill ball group play, doesn't kill any play but forces changes to what in my mind is causing the biggest problems.

I'll agree with you on the CC immunity. However,

No particular playstyle is attacked? Dude that radically changes the way heals are used in the game and turns healing into an unintuitive mess. It will make hots completely obsolete. If you think that's going to make it easier on pug healers, you're mistaken. Because, as I feel I reiterate every time one of these threads come up ball groups can can compensate to these wild meta changes but solo players cannot

Soul_Demon

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

It is ironic that skills from the Alliance War trees, such as Rapid Maneuver and Purge, are limited to group only. Make these effect anyone around the player again. Or make them effect only self. I know...only self would be a death sentence to many groups as they are now. But these two skills are one reason that some ball groups are so powerful.

I agree with you that these are good skills, but they are not all powerful, even in groups. I think the more compelling issue for groups would be the over heals. When a ball group has hots stacking from every person in the group, they can draw on that over heal to gain more resources, thereby not only never running out of resources, but their health never dropping because of stacked hot. I would think that removing the ability to over heal would be more advantageous to the health of the game than removing purge and rapids. Rapids is almost pointless with the champion point change, and purge only removes one negative affect at a time.

Again, I refer to the logs of combat that ZOS has supplied us with and most healers over heal with their percentage being up in the 80% and over range. Now, they are not designated healers per se, but the fact that you can stack 5 plus hots of the same skill is why groups have the advantage over solo players.

I suggest removing the over heals. You can get up to100% health and no more. Once you are at 100%, it should be impossible to gain any more healing beyond that point. You should not even get hit with more heal stacking.

9/10 Removing heals is going to benefit ball groups because they can simply output more heals, while this decreases the survivability of solo builds.

Anything you do to make ball groups weaker is going to affect solo players more. Unless you start adding in punishments for grouping, which is stupid in an MMO (Note to ZOS: this was not a suggestion!)

Yeah, that has been the case historically, but I don't think solo players get many heals out there, so heal stacking doesn't help them much. If you remove the over heal/heal stack on everyone, the ball groups that rely on heal stacking over heals would be on the same level as the rest of us. I think it might even help with the lag a a bit. Spamming the heals wouldn't happen as much because it would just be a waste of resources. These groups also couldn't spam Balance their advantage. They'd end up killing themselves if they did. ;-)

But heal stacking does affect solo builds. If I'm reading your suggestion right this means that you wouldn't be able to pre-buff with heals. So you couldn't apply regen, vigor/ etc to yourself before you go into combat, which from what I understand is an important part of solo play.

Again, I don't buy the idea that regen affects lag. The AOE tests showed that.

Most of the suggestions I see on the forums seem to lack a fundamental understanding of what makes ball groups powerful, which is not skills, sets, etc. It's raid composition and coordination. If you reduce our healing we'll just add another healer. If you take away our purges you're only hurting solo players because we can apply more dots in a second than you can put on us in 5. The answer to beating ball groups is not nerfs or buffs it's more coordination among players in zergs and an understanding of how to counter ball group tactics.

Bolded the portion I believe is needing a bit more of background. If no one can stack a series of heals on themselves as means to draw from for additional resources and be impervious to damage until it breaks through the threshold of stacked heals waiting- before you take ANY damage......it requires all players react to what is happening right then, how exactly would the solo players need to do it if no one else is able to either?

The point of not allowing heals to stack is to make it so what you do matters more----pre heals and cc flooding into a group with ulti drops is---over done at present and leaves little to react to. Especially with things malfunctioning during lag scenarios.....I am not sure I see how the need to do it right now (as many are pre stacking heals) translates to 'dont consider it...because we need to do it to combat what others are doing now' the idea is none would be able to pre load heals.

If anything a solo trying to pick off a player in a group would get more success due to the lack of pre stacked heals on the member of the group who was peeled off.

I think you are severely underestimating the sheer amount of heals a ball group can put out, even without over healing. And I'm not talking just about regen, but your other AOE hots like grand healing, ritual, warden and necro skills, etc. That's not even getting into all of the burst healing. It's not as easy as it sounds to out-damage that amount of healing.

Besides, what you're suggesting is going to switch Cyrodiil to even more of a burst damage meta, which is explicitly what ball groups are designed for. Without that "shield" of over-healing people are easier to burst down.

Not at all......matter of fact I have mentioned this before, my goal is not to overly impact any particular playstyle but to improve the playability for the largest number of players. I would not want to simply attack ball groups playstyle, as its in my opinion needed and quite valid....I am attempting to address changes I think would result in much better play without destroying a playstyle.

If you cast a heal on player who is at 100% health, nothing at all should happen to them- skill should not even register unless they have damage on them when you cast it. The companion fix would be to have CC immunity hyperfocused on by ZOS to actually be functional even if game is lagging---global 5 sec immunity after any cc break would be optimal.

This way no particular playstyle is attacked and players can continue playing how they want to play---but without heal stacking and cc flooding, the play itself would be much more enjoyable to those who experienced the 'stun locks' during lag that seem to be with many ball groups pushes. To me, this seems the logical approach as ZOS has not been able to deal with the lag, so simply fix the things that renders people unable to respond (and why they die most often) and the behavior of the stacked heals.....if you cant stack heals, you have to respond when damage is done, not pre loading so you cant be damaged until those heals 'expire' that were stacked. Doesn't kill ball group play, doesn't kill any play but forces changes to what in my mind is causing the biggest problems.

I'll agree with you on the CC immunity. However,

No particular playstyle is attacked? Dude that radically changes the way heals are used in the game and turns healing into an unintuitive mess. It will make hots completely obsolete. If you think that's going to make it easier on pug healers, you're mistaken. Because, as I feel I reiterate every time one of these threads come up ball groups can can compensate to these wild meta changes but solo players cannot

Nah, we disagree there. Healers outside of a group will still be healing as they always have and HOTS will be just as functional. Just because they don't hit someone at 100% full health means not that much, if you are not coordinating hard pushes with immovable pots- un grouped players don't do that nor do they coordinate damage beyond what they actually see happening on screen. No, the biggest impact will be simply that ball groups wont have over-heal pre cast HOTS to pull resources from or use like a separate and near free barrier as they call for 'immovable and push'

If anything, it will make the ball groups devote two or three full time healers rather than 3/4 of the group back bar restro and simply all double tapping RR when about to push to layer them several stacked on each player, they will have to heal when someone is damaged and wont have some magical over-heals to shield up behind on long timers. Not sure what you are seeing in ball groups, but I rarely see them with any less than 4 RR's at any given time.....one or two devoted healers are NOT doing that- are they. Responding to damage when it happens changes the dynamic and shifts some, but not too much of the benefits of layered HOTS from the group without killing the playstyle.

Sanctum74

Not being able to prebuff heals would destroy solo and small groups making ball groups even stronger. I still think removing heal stacking and purge cool downs would be the way to go and would only affect organized groups.