Ball Groups: A National Concern

dvonpm

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?

I'm leaving aside the discussion on lag because there isn't much we can do about it and you didn't ask for lag solutions, but I have a couple of non-trolly, long-winded comments about things we can do in the situation as is....

First, they are not unbeatable. The first step in beating them is to abandon that idea. There are only good or bad situations for doing that. If you are in a bad situation, move on. What do we say to death? Not today, mfer! Or maybe later today at the next keep, but not right now!

Second - siege isn't terribly effective against ball groups, except situationally. They tend to move right through it and leave you stationary and vulnerable to being... uh...balled. But you can pressure them or encourage them to move in other directions. When they are on keep walls, get on the horseshoe and coordinate your strikes with other siegers to pin them between siege blasts, corral them so they have to eat it no matter which way they run, hopefully providing an assist for whoever is chasing them down.

So I don't think we need a new type of siege. They never stop moving so something that slow will never be super effective except as situational pressure. Your suggestion of a VD siege sounds fun, but I think they'd adapt. They'd just spread a bit, heal, and re-ball. That kind of just feels like a never ending arms race. But I think we can work together better with what we do have, whether grouped or not. Lag or not.

Honestly, the best counter is a coordinated, well-rounded, competently led group. Barring that, the next bestr thing you can do is stay alive. Do not go where they want you to go unless you are absolutely sure your group can take them, or stands a very good chance of doing so. When they are holed up in a tower? Who cares. They can stay in there all night if they want lol.

I know people don't like that because it feels like giving up on a fight, but forcing them out of an advantage *is* a win. Make them play your game instead of playing theirs. Also it ruins their streams Maybe just stealth up first so they have to sit there waiting before they realize they got ghosted for prom lol.

If you are alone or in a pug, you should maybe be looking to support a coordinated group who is there or asking for help in zone instead of trying to take them. Groups will have the negates, heals and burst to deal with them. You can add pressure without risking your life, but you need some restraint. You aren't probably gonna do much charging in solo, unless you want to do so for research purposes lol.
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Tl;dr - we have a lot of things we can and should be doing better already, but they all involve some measure of coordination with your allies, grouped or no. And some practice. And since things like new siege or whatever aren't going to happen soon, the best thing we can do is strategize with what we have and work together as best we can.

neferpitou73

Soul_Demon wrote: »

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.

Are we talking AOE hots only heal people when they take damage or I have to recast AOE hots every time someone takes damage? If the first it's fine but ball groups still have an advantage, if the second then there's absolutely no point in casting hots, since I might as well cast a burst heal that heals for more.

Most ball groups already run 2-3 dedicated healer/purger builds. It's quite easy to stack a lot of regens with 3 people spamming the heck out of it. The damage builds using it are the icing on the cake.

BardInSolitude

Soul_Demon wrote: »

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

One doesn't negate the other. I've yet to seen a ball group without at least two dedicated healers/purgers. And those in stamina groups that don't run RR can run Echoing Vigor instead. In fact I know ball groups that run 4-5 healers/purgers.

Soul_Demon wrote: »

one or two devoted healers are NOT doing that- are they.

The guild I ran with back in the 24-man era ran a total of 8 (!!!) dedicated healers, all of whom where equipped with RR. When we had to reduce down to 12-man groups we kept our 4 dedicated healers, still running RR on all of them. And, yes, mag bombers run RR too, in general, but so what? I'm not going to go into build details, but it's not for the heals (hint: it has to do with sustain). In fact, most mag DDs tend to run Balance, which of course cuts heals in half, thus proving my point.

neferpitou73

BardInSolitude wrote: »

[snip] If any of you are against organised groups or even merely ask for them to be "nerfed", you are against the very premise of Cyrodiil (and war, in general); have you considered playing BGs or duels?

I think the solution in general would be to make IC a better avenue for small-scalers/solo players to fight in. That way ball groups can have their epic keep fights and small scalers can have their open world pvp without massive groups.

BardInSolitude

neferpitou73 wrote: »

BardInSolitude wrote: »

[snip] If any of you are against organised groups or even merely ask for them to be "nerfed", you are against the very premise of Cyrodiil (and war, in general); have you considered playing BGs or duels?

I think the solution in general would be to make IC a better avenue for small-scalers/solo players to fight in. That way ball groups can have their epic keep fights and small scalers can have their open world pvp without massive groups.

Well, the truth is that most ball groups are just looking to farm PUGs or fight other ball groups. I'm lucky to be a part of one of very few guilds that ball up for the faction and not just for the sake of fighting, but if IC was more populated then a lot of ball groups would surely switch out of Cyrodiil.

neferpitou73

BardInSolitude wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

BardInSolitude wrote: »

[snip] If any of you are against organised groups or even merely ask for them to be "nerfed", you are against the very premise of Cyrodiil (and war, in general); have you considered playing BGs or duels?

I think the solution in general would be to make IC a better avenue for small-scalers/solo players to fight in. That way ball groups can have their epic keep fights and small scalers can have their open world pvp without massive groups.

Well, the truth is that most ball groups are just looking to farm PUGs or fight other ball groups. I'm lucky to be a part of one of very few guilds that ball up for the faction and not just for the sake of fighting, but if IC was more populated then a lot of ball groups would surely switch out of Cyrodiil.

Well by that I meant that they could limit group sizes there/prevent grouping altogether (though that doesn't really eliminate the problems, unless cross-healing is eliminated). To have at least one gamemode where that's not the case. It's not my cup of tea but I suppose some might like it. It's not like IC gets a lot of use right now anyways : p

maxjapank

neferpitou73 wrote: »

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.

Most solo players are at a disadvantage because purges only effect groups. Right now the only way to purge others that are not in your group is with Curse-eater. And I think most pugs near me underestimate how much this set is helping them and keeping them from dying.

Just as healing was reverted so that we can heal others outside our group, purges need to follow the same route. Many will still die to ball groups, but it does at least level the playing field a little.

Soul_Demon

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

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

One doesn't negate the other. I've yet to seen a ball group without at least two dedicated healers/purgers. And those in stamina groups that don't run RR can run Echoing Vigor instead. In fact I know ball groups that run 4-5 healers/purgers.

Soul_Demon wrote: »

one or two devoted healers are NOT doing that- are they.

The guild I ran with back in the 24-man era ran a total of 8 (!!!) dedicated healers, all of whom where equipped with RR. When we had to reduce down to 12-man groups we kept our 4 dedicated healers, still running RR on all of them. And, yes, mag bombers run RR too, in general, but so what? I'm not going to go into build details, but it's not for the heals (hint: it has to do with sustain). In fact, most mag DDs tend to run Balance, which of course cuts heals in half, thus proving my point.

[snip] If any of you are against organised groups or even merely ask for them to be "nerfed", you are against the very premise of Cyrodiil (and war, in general); have you considered playing BGs or duels?

[snip]

So, enlighten me as to your suggestion on what ZOS could take a look at to improve the experience for the most players, you seem to have left that off your post as well as 'forgot' to read the thread before you commented. So I take it you are claiming now that the ball groups really are running 4 dedicated healers now and that is why changing HOTS would make no impact on them. Do tell......Not only is that simply not correct, but I am interested in your comment [snip]----go on, give us the suggestions that come from your insights into ball groups by playing with an organized group. Since they are not the same thing, I am interested in the suggestion now.

[Edited to remove Rude Comments]

dsalter

one way to counter the balling is to remove their tools that make it effective then buffing other abilities to assist in it.

• any point blank AoE that follows the player is one like steel tornado, impulse, proxy det, the destro ulti that follows you (lol what were they thinking with this one, this is like a ball groups wet dream) needs to be reworked or removed to no longer follow the player or deal far less damage
• make heal stacking diminish or add more ways to block healing for lesser used skills like sorcerers encasing root thing or mag DK's fire burps, being able to block more healing is an effective tool in both PvP and PvE.
• buff detonation (after removing/reworking proxy det to no longer be point blank follow the player crap) to scale infinitely with how many players get hit so if a stack of over 30 players ball up they WILL die.

im no expert but i enjoy both PvE and PvP and these changes alone would cripple ball grouping, it'll still make swarming/zerging work but thats more enjoyable to fight/be apart of than the auto win lolcatchusifyoucanweruncirclesaroundawalloroutpostwhileyoudietoaoecrapthatfollowsusggez ball group crap that currently takes place, they arent fun to fight nor is it even worth it to kill them because balling take so long to kill and is stupidly easy to regroup.
i argue NPC guards should be much beefier in health and be able to cast detonation on enemies who ball up so even the keeps can defend themselves against this cheese.
after making those changes all thats left is lowering the amount of siege engines an attacker can use by half and keeps wont flip as fast while battles will rage on as they defend said siege engines making both shield and repair kits more useful in the process.

ZOS_ConnorG

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neferpitou73

Soul_Demon wrote: »

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

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

One doesn't negate the other. I've yet to seen a ball group without at least two dedicated healers/purgers. And those in stamina groups that don't run RR can run Echoing Vigor instead. In fact I know ball groups that run 4-5 healers/purgers.

Soul_Demon wrote: »

one or two devoted healers are NOT doing that- are they.

The guild I ran with back in the 24-man era ran a total of 8 (!!!) dedicated healers, all of whom where equipped with RR. When we had to reduce down to 12-man groups we kept our 4 dedicated healers, still running RR on all of them. And, yes, mag bombers run RR too, in general, but so what? I'm not going to go into build details, but it's not for the heals (hint: it has to do with sustain). In fact, most mag DDs tend to run Balance, which of course cuts heals in half, thus proving my point.

[snip] If any of you are against organised groups or even merely ask for them to be "nerfed", you are against the very premise of Cyrodiil (and war, in general); have you considered playing BGs or duels?

[snip]

So, enlighten me as to your suggestion on what ZOS could take a look at to improve the experience for the most players, you seem to have left that off your post as well as 'forgot' to read the thread before you commented. So I take it you are claiming now that the ball groups really are running 4 dedicated healers now and that is why changing HOTS would make no impact on them. Do tell......Not only is that simply not correct, but I am interested in your comment [snip]----go on, give us the suggestions that come from your insights into ball groups by playing with an organized group. Since they are not the same thing, I am interested in the suggestion now.

Dude, I design ball group comps, Bard designs ball group comps. I've talked to other designers of ball group comps and seen what they've made. Everyone runs at least two healers, the more pug friendly groups run 3-4. To say that's not the case is just factually incorrect. Which is why we get more than a little frustrated when we see people on the forums talking about our playstyle when they don't know how we run.

The simple truth is that Cyrodiil is designed for large group combat and organized groups are always going to have an advantage against disorganized pugs. There is no mechanic you can change, no set you can add that changes that. The only thing ZOS can do is invest in their servers so they're not freezing up every 5min.

maxjapank wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

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.

Most solo players are at a disadvantage because purges only effect groups. Right now the only way to purge others that are not in your group is with Curse-eater. And I think most pugs near me underestimate how much this set is helping them and keeping them from dying.

Just as healing was reverted so that we can heal others outside our group, purges need to follow the same route. Many will still die to ball groups, but it does at least level the playing field a little.

I have no issue with turning purge into an AOE skill.

BardInSolitude

Soul_Demon wrote: »

So, enlighten me as to your suggestion on what ZOS could take a look at to improve the experience for the most players, you seem to have left that off your post as well as 'forgot' to read the thread before you commented. So I take it you are claiming now that the ball groups really are running 4 dedicated healers now and that is why changing HOTS would make no impact on them. Do tell......Not only is that simply not correct, but I am interested in your comment [snip]----go on, give us the suggestions that come from your insights into ball groups by playing with an organized group. Since they are not the same thing, I am interested in the suggestion now.

I sincerely apologise if that it was taken as a personal attack. Yes, honestly, truthfully, unironically, I know one group that runs 3 healers, another one that runs 5, and my group that used to run 4 healers (we're talking 12-man here). In fact one of the reasons we run so many healers is because of the number of utility sets we're using to buff allies.

In any case, I don't know why you're asking me what changes would nerf ball groups, since I don't think they should be nerfed. The reason I came back here was to correct your false statements about the number of healers ball groups run, as well as why you often see so many Regen stacks.

Soul_Demon

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

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

One doesn't negate the other. I've yet to seen a ball group without at least two dedicated healers/purgers. And those in stamina groups that don't run RR can run Echoing Vigor instead. In fact I know ball groups that run 4-5 healers/purgers.

Soul_Demon wrote: »

one or two devoted healers are NOT doing that- are they.

The guild I ran with back in the 24-man era ran a total of 8 (!!!) dedicated healers, all of whom where equipped with RR. When we had to reduce down to 12-man groups we kept our 4 dedicated healers, still running RR on all of them. And, yes, mag bombers run RR too, in general, but so what? I'm not going to go into build details, but it's not for the heals (hint: it has to do with sustain). In fact, most mag DDs tend to run Balance, which of course cuts heals in half, thus proving my point.

[snip] If any of you are against organised groups or even merely ask for them to be "nerfed", you are against the very premise of Cyrodiil (and war, in general); have you considered playing BGs or duels?

[snip]

So, enlighten me as to your suggestion on what ZOS could take a look at to improve the experience for the most players, you seem to have left that off your post as well as 'forgot' to read the thread before you commented. So I take it you are claiming now that the ball groups really are running 4 dedicated healers now and that is why changing HOTS would make no impact on them. Do tell......Not only is that simply not correct, but I am interested in your comment as you have gone out of your way to speak in insulting manner----go on, give us the suggestions that come from your insights into ball groups by playing with an organized group. Since they are not the same thing, I am interested in the suggestion now.

Dude, I design ball group comps, Bard designs ball group comps. I've talked to other designers of ball group comps and seen what they've made. Everyone runs at least two healers, the more pug friendly groups run 3-4. To say that's not the case is just factually incorrect. Which is why we get more than a little frustrated when we see people on the forums talking about our playstyle when they don't know how we run.

The simple truth is that Cyrodiil is designed for large group combat and organized groups are always going to have an advantage against disorganized pugs. There is no mechanic you can change, no set you can add that changes that. The only thing ZOS can do is invest in their servers so they're not freezing up every 5min.

maxjapank wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

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.

Most solo players are at a disadvantage because purges only effect groups. Right now the only way to purge others that are not in your group is with Curse-eater. And I think most pugs near me underestimate how much this set is helping them and keeping them from dying.

Just as healing was reverted so that we can heal others outside our group, purges need to follow the same route. Many will still die to ball groups, but it does at least level the playing field a little.

I have no issue with turning purge into an AOE skill.

Ah....I see the problem now. We have already defined what ball groups we are speaking of and listed a log of what they use and do for clarity. I would point to those posts to help you understand organized groups are NOT ball groups nor do they build or play the same way. If you consider yourself a ball group, that is your prerogative, but the discussion is and has been focused on exclusively the groups who behave as below...

"I think a definition for most is ball groups tend to focus effort on play specifically designed to kill players where the group holds advantageous ground (choke points) or through excess in movement. If you want to break that into more easily stated goals they try to 'farm players' Organized groups on the other hand tend to focus on taking objectives on the map correlating to alliance score and faction advantage."

Soul_Demon

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

So, enlighten me as to your suggestion on what ZOS could take a look at to improve the experience for the most players, you seem to have left that off your post as well as 'forgot' to read the thread before you commented. So I take it you are claiming now that the ball groups really are running 4 dedicated healers now and that is why changing HOTS would make no impact on them. Do tell......Not only is that simply not correct, but I am interested in your comment as you have gone out of your way to speak in insulting manner----go on, give us the suggestions that come from your insights into ball groups by playing with an organized group. Since they are not the same thing, I am interested in the suggestion now.

The comment I made about you not being knowledgeable on raid theorycrafting? That's not an insult, it's just the truth evident from your statements, because they contradict reality; I sincerely apologise if it was taken as a personal attack. Yes, honestly, truthfully, unironically, I know one group that runs 3 healers, another one that runs 5, and my group that used to run 4 healers (we're talking 12-man here). In fact one of the reasons we run so many healers is because of the number of utility sets we're using to buff allies.

In any case, I don't know why you're asking me what changes would nerf ball groups, since I don't think they should be nerfed. The reason I came back here was to correct your false statements about the number of healers ball groups run, as well as why you often see so many Regen stacks.

No offense intended.....but you may want to read the thread to get the points. Not sure where you are playing but in main camp we are doing testing where no one is able to run utility sets that buff anything but raw stats---so its looking like you simply are assigning yourself as a ball group and are organized group and dipping into the conversation where much of what you say has already been discussed- not that I mind bringing posters up to speed, but with two of you insisting you are in fact ball groups and speaking from authority on the subject, it appears you are not a ball group at all.......could be wrong here, but none run 4 healers or used to run 24 and had 8 then.

Its just not what we are talking about- Not to mention we have been pretty clear we are not asking ZOS to nerf anyone or anything---but changes to improve the player experience when cc floods result in malfunctions in cc immunity and render players unable to respond and stacking of HOTS pre loaded are endless resource pull and free barrier that has to be punched though. The discussion was explicitly NOT asking for something that might kill any playstyle but make what we have NOW better for the majority of players.

BardInSolitude

Soul_Demon wrote: »

No offense intended.....but you may want to read the thread to get the points. Not sure where you are playing but in main camp we are doing testing where no one is able to run utility sets that buff anything but raw stats---so its looking like you simply are assigning yourself as a ball group and are organized group and dipping into the conversation where much of what you say has already been discussed- not that I mind bringing posters up to speed, but with two of you insisting you are in fact ball groups and speaking from authority on the subject, it appears you are not a ball group at all.......could be wrong here, but none run 4 healers or used to run 24 and had 8 then.

Its just not what we are talking about- Not to mention we have been pretty clear we are not asking ZOS to nerf anyone or anything---but changes to improve the player experience when cc floods result in malfunctions in cc immunity and render players unable to respond and stacking of HOTS pre loaded are endless resource pull and free barrier that has to be punched though. The discussion was explicitly NOT asking for something that might kill any playstyle but make what we have NOW better for the majority of players.

I've already had this discussion before. Yes, OP clearly demanded a way to "counter" ball groups without balling up. That's not going to happen and shouldn't happen.

As for trying to discredit me... I would say something about it but I'd be flagged. Regardless, there's that one group, I will not mention their name, but they are probably the best ball group in no-CP (that's my main server) and they do run at least 3-4 healers from what we can tell from logs and playing against them.

Ball groups, by definition, are groups that stick close to crown (hence "ball") and use group builds. I don't know what definition you're using, but if it isn't that one it's wrong. Yes, one of our practices is using choke points, both on offense and on defense. That's called "tactics" and armies deploy it all the time. Alexander the Great dismantled the entire Persian Empire by literally fighting on choke points so that the greater Persian army could not outnumber his force. That's exactly what we're doing when we're waiting on the back flag to bomb a zerg.

As for improving player experience, I've said it before and I'll say it again: blame ZOS, not us. They haven't managed to make a game that's stable and we all suffer from it. The original reason I commented here is to prevent this "divide and conquer". Ball groups and PUGs are not enemies, we're all on the same boat, playing a laggy and unresponsive game.

Soul_Demon

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

No offense intended.....but you may want to read the thread to get the points. Not sure where you are playing but in main camp we are doing testing where no one is able to run utility sets that buff anything but raw stats---so its looking like you simply are assigning yourself as a ball group and are organized group and dipping into the conversation where much of what you say has already been discussed- not that I mind bringing posters up to speed, but with two of you insisting you are in fact ball groups and speaking from authority on the subject, it appears you are not a ball group at all.......could be wrong here, but none run 4 healers or used to run 24 and had 8 then.

Its just not what we are talking about- Not to mention we have been pretty clear we are not asking ZOS to nerf anyone or anything---but changes to improve the player experience when cc floods result in malfunctions in cc immunity and render players unable to respond and stacking of HOTS pre loaded are endless resource pull and free barrier that has to be punched though. The discussion was explicitly NOT asking for something that might kill any playstyle but make what we have NOW better for the majority of players.

I've already had this discussion before. Yes, OP clearly demanded a way to "counter" ball groups without balling up. That's not going to happen and shouldn't happen.

As for trying to discredit me... I would say something about it but I'd be flagged. Regardless, there's that one group, I will not mention their name, but they are probably the best ball group in no-CP (that's my main server) and they do run at least 3-4 healers from what we can tell from logs and playing against them.

Ball groups, by definition, are groups that stick close to crown (hence "ball") and use group builds. I don't know what definition you're using, but if it isn't that one it's wrong. Yes, one of our practices is using choke points, both on offense and on defense. That's called "tactics" and armies deploy it all the time. Alexander the Great dismantled the entire Persian Empire by literally fighting on choke points so that the greater Persian army could not outnumber his force. That's exactly what we're doing when we're waiting on the back flag to bomb a zerg.

As for improving player experience, I've said it before and I'll say it again: blame ZOS, not us. They haven't managed to make a game that's stable and we all suffer from it. The original reason I commented here is to prevent this "divide and conquer". Ball groups and PUGs are not enemies, we're all on the same boat, playing a laggy and unresponsive game.

Look.....there is no attempt to discredit you - merely trying to show you we are not speaking of organized groups. Regardless, there is nothing to be gained with discussion when one player is talking about a very specific thing and another refuses to acknowledge this point and proceeds to tell them what in fact they are speaking of. Its a circular statement to simply tell someone what they are talking about even when they clarify it.

Sandman929

I'm not trying to nerf any particular playstyle, but if I see something I believe is unbalanced I'll certainly ask that it be addressed, even if it effects a playstyle I enjoy.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

@Soul_Demon
In Drac we run 3 healers and we used to run 4 if the group was more than 12.

Soul_Demon

Sandman929 wrote: »

I'm not trying to nerf any particular playstyle, but if I see something I believe is unbalanced I'll certainly ask that it be addressed, even if it effects a playstyle I enjoy.

As are the others here...seems we have some players who play on other servers and maybe the clarification is needing an adjustment to be even more specific---CP Greyhost camp, main 30 day camp. Could be that was not as clear as it could have been.

Regardless, ball groups are needed as much as organized groups are needed along with all the other play-styles, I don't think anything good could possibly come from trying to attack one particular way of playing the game when we don't really have that many players left in cyro at this point. Unless some want a ghost town out there. But we could improve the experience if as a community we do our best to give whatever sway the forums might have on ZOS's focus- our best guess as to what may make play more enjoyable for the most players still playing here.

neferpitou73

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

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

One doesn't negate the other. I've yet to seen a ball group without at least two dedicated healers/purgers. And those in stamina groups that don't run RR can run Echoing Vigor instead. In fact I know ball groups that run 4-5 healers/purgers.

Soul_Demon wrote: »

one or two devoted healers are NOT doing that- are they.

The guild I ran with back in the 24-man era ran a total of 8 (!!!) dedicated healers, all of whom where equipped with RR. When we had to reduce down to 12-man groups we kept our 4 dedicated healers, still running RR on all of them. And, yes, mag bombers run RR too, in general, but so what? I'm not going to go into build details, but it's not for the heals (hint: it has to do with sustain). In fact, most mag DDs tend to run Balance, which of course cuts heals in half, thus proving my point.

[snip] If any of you are against organised groups or even merely ask for them to be "nerfed", you are against the very premise of Cyrodiil (and war, in general); have you considered playing BGs or duels?

[snip]

So, enlighten me as to your suggestion on what ZOS could take a look at to improve the experience for the most players, you seem to have left that off your post as well as 'forgot' to read the thread before you commented. So I take it you are claiming now that the ball groups really are running 4 dedicated healers now and that is why changing HOTS would make no impact on them. Do tell......Not only is that simply not correct, but I am interested in your comment as you have gone out of your way to speak in insulting manner----go on, give us the suggestions that come from your insights into ball groups by playing with an organized group. Since they are not the same thing, I am interested in the suggestion now.

Dude, I design ball group comps, Bard designs ball group comps. I've talked to other designers of ball group comps and seen what they've made. Everyone runs at least two healers, the more pug friendly groups run 3-4. To say that's not the case is just factually incorrect. Which is why we get more than a little frustrated when we see people on the forums talking about our playstyle when they don't know how we run.

The simple truth is that Cyrodiil is designed for large group combat and organized groups are always going to have an advantage against disorganized pugs. There is no mechanic you can change, no set you can add that changes that. The only thing ZOS can do is invest in their servers so they're not freezing up every 5min.

maxjapank wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

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.

Most solo players are at a disadvantage because purges only effect groups. Right now the only way to purge others that are not in your group is with Curse-eater. And I think most pugs near me underestimate how much this set is helping them and keeping them from dying.

Just as healing was reverted so that we can heal others outside our group, purges need to follow the same route. Many will still die to ball groups, but it does at least level the playing field a little.

I have no issue with turning purge into an AOE skill.

Ah....I see the problem now. We have already defined what ball groups we are speaking of and listed a log of what they use and do for clarity. I would point to those posts to help you understand organized groups are NOT ball groups nor do they build or play the same way. If you consider yourself a ball group, that is your prerogative, but the discussion is and has been focused on exclusively the groups who behave as below...

"I think a definition for most is ball groups tend to focus effort on play specifically designed to kill players where the group holds advantageous ground (choke points) or through excess in movement. If you want to break that into more easily stated goals they try to 'farm players' Organized groups on the other hand tend to focus on taking objectives on the map correlating to alliance score and faction advantage."

While I appreciate the attempt to inform me that's a tenuous, artificial definition at best. Ball groups and "organized groups" use the same tactics. Utility sets are used by all organized groups, coordinated negates and ults are used by all groups, mass AOEs are used by all groups. All groups "move excessively" because staying in place is death. It's just asking for a bomber to come up and kill you or letting an enemy pile siege on top of you. All groups use advantageous ground, why wouldn't you.

Furthermore, seeking out fights and designing to kill people is just as valid a tactic as sieging keeps. Do you know how many times we've turned a night around by taking sej and picking fights until we have the entirety of AD on us? Drawing all the players to us that were only minutes ago sieging our own keeps.

Most groups also have more than one motive. My group mostly plays map but we love a good farm every once in a while.

Now, if you're talking about the groups that deliberately disrupt the servers by spamming skills/CCs in an attempt to overload it that's a different issue completely. But that's solved by ZOS upgrading their hardware resources and as you mentioned increasing the CC immunity.

If it's tower farming you're worried about just make the towers destroyable again. Or just leave, who cares if they sit in an empty tower all night.

What I would encourage ZOS to do is bring back 24man groups The advent of 12man groups was the death of pugs in Cyrodiil. With so few players it's impossible to run a competent pug group and pick up people to show them the ropes. The only "behavioral change" that resulted from this experiment was that guild groups can now coordinate much easier than pug groups because they're in voice comms and consequently flatten everyone they run across.

BardInSolitude

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Look.....there is no attempt to discredit you - merely trying to show you we are not speaking of organized groups. Regardless, there is nothing to be gained with discussion when one player is talking about a very specific thing and another refuses to acknowledge this point and proceeds to tell them what in fact they are speaking of. Its a circular statement to simply tell someone what they are talking about even when they clarify it.

Yes, you are speaking of "organised groups". Ball groups are not just an organised group, they are the best type of organised group; and certainly these two terms are not mutually exclusive. The only other type of organised group I know is groups of brawlers, and those are nowhere near as effective as ball groups because they don't use group builds.

I mean, the leader of Dracarys, one of the best guilds of all time in PC-NA (to my knowledge and opinion), comes out and tells you they run 3 dedicated healers; and they're a CP guild. I theorycrafted for and often lead RR (no-CP guild) during the last 6 months and we had 4 dedicated healers; would you like me to list all eight healer sets we used? Look, I understand it's hard to admit you've made a mistake in public, and I'm not infallible either, but you're simply wrong here.

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Unless some want a ghost town out there. But we could improve the experience if as a community we do our best to give whatever sway the forums might have on ZOS's focus- our best guess as to what may make play more enjoyable for the most players still playing here.

I would really prefer it if most of Cyrodiil players formed ball groups or at least brawler groups, rather than zerg around. Wiping zergs isn't fun for the zergs, since they die, and it's not fun for us because it's not challenging. To improve everyone's experience, step one is for ZOS to fix the servers. Step two is those that still complain about dying to groups is to either join one or form one. Coordinated combat is the essence of Cyrodiil, and ball groups are merely the champion of coordinated combat. I'm just repeating myself at this point, I've run out of ways to say the same thing.

But if you're not going to believe the leader of Drac why would you believe me?

Soul_Demon

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

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

One doesn't negate the other. I've yet to seen a ball group without at least two dedicated healers/purgers. And those in stamina groups that don't run RR can run Echoing Vigor instead. In fact I know ball groups that run 4-5 healers/purgers.

Soul_Demon wrote: »

one or two devoted healers are NOT doing that- are they.

The guild I ran with back in the 24-man era ran a total of 8 (!!!) dedicated healers, all of whom where equipped with RR. When we had to reduce down to 12-man groups we kept our 4 dedicated healers, still running RR on all of them. And, yes, mag bombers run RR too, in general, but so what? I'm not going to go into build details, but it's not for the heals (hint: it has to do with sustain). In fact, most mag DDs tend to run Balance, which of course cuts heals in half, thus proving my point.

[snip] If any of you are against organised groups or even merely ask for them to be "nerfed", you are against the very premise of Cyrodiil (and war, in general); have you considered playing BGs or duels?

[snip]

So, enlighten me as to your suggestion on what ZOS could take a look at to improve the experience for the most players, you seem to have left that off your post as well as 'forgot' to read the thread before you commented. So I take it you are claiming now that the ball groups really are running 4 dedicated healers now and that is why changing HOTS would make no impact on them. Do tell......Not only is that simply not correct, but I am interested in your comment as you have gone out of your way to speak in insulting manner----go on, give us the suggestions that come from your insights into ball groups by playing with an organized group. Since they are not the same thing, I am interested in the suggestion now.

Dude, I design ball group comps, Bard designs ball group comps. I've talked to other designers of ball group comps and seen what they've made. Everyone runs at least two healers, the more pug friendly groups run 3-4. To say that's not the case is just factually incorrect. Which is why we get more than a little frustrated when we see people on the forums talking about our playstyle when they don't know how we run.

The simple truth is that Cyrodiil is designed for large group combat and organized groups are always going to have an advantage against disorganized pugs. There is no mechanic you can change, no set you can add that changes that. The only thing ZOS can do is invest in their servers so they're not freezing up every 5min.

maxjapank wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

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.

Most solo players are at a disadvantage because purges only effect groups. Right now the only way to purge others that are not in your group is with Curse-eater. And I think most pugs near me underestimate how much this set is helping them and keeping them from dying.

Just as healing was reverted so that we can heal others outside our group, purges need to follow the same route. Many will still die to ball groups, but it does at least level the playing field a little.

I have no issue with turning purge into an AOE skill.

Ah....I see the problem now. We have already defined what ball groups we are speaking of and listed a log of what they use and do for clarity. I would point to those posts to help you understand organized groups are NOT ball groups nor do they build or play the same way. If you consider yourself a ball group, that is your prerogative, but the discussion is and has been focused on exclusively the groups who behave as below...

"I think a definition for most is ball groups tend to focus effort on play specifically designed to kill players where the group holds advantageous ground (choke points) or through excess in movement. If you want to break that into more easily stated goals they try to 'farm players' Organized groups on the other hand tend to focus on taking objectives on the map correlating to alliance score and faction advantage."

While I appreciate the attempt to inform me that's a tenuous, artificial definition at best. Ball groups and "organized groups" use the same tactics. Utility sets are used by all organized groups, coordinated negates and ults are used by all groups, mass AOEs are used by all groups. All groups "move excessively" because staying in place is death. It's just asking for a bomber to come up and kill you or letting an enemy pile siege on top of you. All groups use advantageous ground, why wouldn't you.

Furthermore, seeking out fights and designing to kill people is just as valid a tactic as sieging keeps. Do you know how many times we've turned a night around by taking sej and picking fights until we have the entirety of AD on us? Drawing all the players to us that were only minutes ago sieging our own keeps.

Most groups also have more than one motive. My group mostly plays map but we love a good farm every once in a while.

Now, if you're talking about the groups that deliberately disrupt the servers by spamming skills/CCs in an attempt to overload it that's a different issue completely. But that's solved by ZOS upgrading their hardware resources and as you mentioned increasing the CC immunity.

If it's tower farming you're worried about just make the towers destroyable again. Or just leave, who cares if they sit in an empty tower all night.

What I would encourage ZOS to do is bring back 24man groups The advent of 12man groups was the death of pugs in Cyrodiil. With so few players it's impossible to run a competent pug group and pick up people to show them the ropes. The only "behavioral change" that resulted from this experiment was that guild groups can now coordinate much easier than pug groups because they're in voice comms and consequently flatten everyone they run across.

[snip]

As for the rest of what I am talking about, its been written I think in digestible posts prior to this--and I truly dislike going back to restate things every couple of posters when they could just read them up to the point where they offer their own feedback. Don't misunderstand me here, feedback is important and especially so if its not in agreement with your own...but taking a few minutes to read previous posts would certainly make it a better conversation I think.

As far as bringing back the 24 man groups, we find common ground it seems. I also think the game was better with those groups and saw more players interacting in a better way when they were allowed. Not to mention the numbers of players to me seemed to be more of the new ones coming out to experience the game.....and that could never be a bad thing in my mind.

I remain convinced all HOTS should do nothing if they hit a player at 100% health, nothing at all unless they are ground based and moved into after you are damaged. This I think prevents pre loaded stacking of HOTS from being so powerful but doesn't make them useless to use. CC immunity malfunctions are responsible for more frustration than I think any other issue when a group pushes and believe focus on providing a working---all the time immunity to cc's globally for 5 seconds would help dramatically without removing all the benefits of using them in the first place. The combination of those two things in my opinion would change how most experience the game as a whole, regardless of the play style one favors.

[Edited to remove Baiting]

And Connor, either you can remove the original bait "While I appreciate the attempt to inform me that's a tenuous, artificial definition at best." or you can leave up the response.....but sniping one without doing the other is not really appropriate is it?

neferpitou73

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

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

One doesn't negate the other. I've yet to seen a ball group without at least two dedicated healers/purgers. And those in stamina groups that don't run RR can run Echoing Vigor instead. In fact I know ball groups that run 4-5 healers/purgers.

Soul_Demon wrote: »

one or two devoted healers are NOT doing that- are they.

The guild I ran with back in the 24-man era ran a total of 8 (!!!) dedicated healers, all of whom where equipped with RR. When we had to reduce down to 12-man groups we kept our 4 dedicated healers, still running RR on all of them. And, yes, mag bombers run RR too, in general, but so what? I'm not going to go into build details, but it's not for the heals (hint: it has to do with sustain). In fact, most mag DDs tend to run Balance, which of course cuts heals in half, thus proving my point.

[snip] If any of you are against organised groups or even merely ask for them to be "nerfed", you are against the very premise of Cyrodiil (and war, in general); have you considered playing BGs or duels?

[snip]

So, enlighten me as to your suggestion on what ZOS could take a look at to improve the experience for the most players, you seem to have left that off your post as well as 'forgot' to read the thread before you commented. So I take it you are claiming now that the ball groups really are running 4 dedicated healers now and that is why changing HOTS would make no impact on them. Do tell......Not only is that simply not correct, but I am interested in your comment as you have gone out of your way to speak in insulting manner----go on, give us the suggestions that come from your insights into ball groups by playing with an organized group. Since they are not the same thing, I am interested in the suggestion now.

Dude, I design ball group comps, Bard designs ball group comps. I've talked to other designers of ball group comps and seen what they've made. Everyone runs at least two healers, the more pug friendly groups run 3-4. To say that's not the case is just factually incorrect. Which is why we get more than a little frustrated when we see people on the forums talking about our playstyle when they don't know how we run.

The simple truth is that Cyrodiil is designed for large group combat and organized groups are always going to have an advantage against disorganized pugs. There is no mechanic you can change, no set you can add that changes that. The only thing ZOS can do is invest in their servers so they're not freezing up every 5min.

maxjapank wrote: »

neferpitou73 wrote: »

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.

Most solo players are at a disadvantage because purges only effect groups. Right now the only way to purge others that are not in your group is with Curse-eater. And I think most pugs near me underestimate how much this set is helping them and keeping them from dying.

Just as healing was reverted so that we can heal others outside our group, purges need to follow the same route. Many will still die to ball groups, but it does at least level the playing field a little.

I have no issue with turning purge into an AOE skill.

Ah....I see the problem now. We have already defined what ball groups we are speaking of and listed a log of what they use and do for clarity. I would point to those posts to help you understand organized groups are NOT ball groups nor do they build or play the same way. If you consider yourself a ball group, that is your prerogative, but the discussion is and has been focused on exclusively the groups who behave as below...

"I think a definition for most is ball groups tend to focus effort on play specifically designed to kill players where the group holds advantageous ground (choke points) or through excess in movement. If you want to break that into more easily stated goals they try to 'farm players' Organized groups on the other hand tend to focus on taking objectives on the map correlating to alliance score and faction advantage."

While I appreciate the attempt to inform me that's a tenuous, artificial definition at best. Ball groups and "organized groups" use the same tactics. Utility sets are used by all organized groups, coordinated negates and ults are used by all groups, mass AOEs are used by all groups. All groups "move excessively" because staying in place is death. It's just asking for a bomber to come up and kill you or letting an enemy pile siege on top of you. All groups use advantageous ground, why wouldn't you.

Furthermore, seeking out fights and designing to kill people is just as valid a tactic as sieging keeps. Do you know how many times we've turned a night around by taking sej and picking fights until we have the entirety of AD on us? Drawing all the players to us that were only minutes ago sieging our own keeps.

Most groups also have more than one motive. My group mostly plays map but we love a good farm every once in a while.

Now, if you're talking about the groups that deliberately disrupt the servers by spamming skills/CCs in an attempt to overload it that's a different issue completely. But that's solved by ZOS upgrading their hardware resources and as you mentioned increasing the CC immunity.

If it's tower farming you're worried about just make the towers destroyable again. Or just leave, who cares if they sit in an empty tower all night.

What I would encourage ZOS to do is bring back 24man groups The advent of 12man groups was the death of pugs in Cyrodiil. With so few players it's impossible to run a competent pug group and pick up people to show them the ropes. The only "behavioral change" that resulted from this experiment was that guild groups can now coordinate much easier than pug groups because they're in voice comms and consequently flatten everyone they run across.

[snip]

As for the rest of what I am talking about, its been written I think in digestible posts prior to this--and I truly dislike going back to restate things every couple of posters when they could just read them up to the point where they offer their own feedback. Don't misunderstand me here, feedback is important and especially so if its not in agreement with your own...but taking a few minutes to read previous posts would certainly make it a better conversation I think.

As far as bringing back the 24 man groups, we find common ground it seems. I also think the game was better with those groups and saw more players interacting in a better way when they were allowed. Not to mention the numbers of players to me seemed to be more of the new ones coming out to experience the game.....and that could never be a bad thing in my mind.

I remain convinced all HOTS should do nothing if they hit a player at 100% health, nothing at all unless they are ground based and moved into after you are damaged. This I think prevents pre loaded stacking of HOTS from being so powerful but doesn't make them useless to use. CC immunity malfunctions are responsible for more frustration than I think any other issue when a group pushes and believe focus on providing a working---all the time immunity to cc's globally for 5 seconds would help dramatically without removing all the benefits of using them in the first place. The combination of those two things in my opinion would change how most experience the game as a whole, regardless of the play style one favors.

[Edited to remove Baiting]

And Connor, either you can remove the original bait "While I appreciate the attempt to inform me that's a tenuous, artificial definition at best." or you can leave up the response.....but sniping one without doing the other is not really appropriate is it?

My response was not an attempt to bait you and I apologize if it came off that way. I appreciated you trying to get me up to speed with your definition but I don't agree with it.

I agree on the CCs and the 24man groups but we have a hard disagreement on the healing. That's only going to benefit ball groups.

BardInSolitude

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Ball groups, by definition, are groups that stick close to crown (hence "ball") and use group builds. I don't know what definition you're using, but if it isn't that one it's wrong. Yes, one of our practices is using choke points, both on offense and on defense. That's called "tactics" and armies deploy it all the time. Alexander the Great dismantled the entire Persian Empire by literally fighting on choke points so that the greater Persian army could not outnumber his force. That's exactly what we're doing when we're waiting on the back flag to bomb a zerg.

I've already offered a definition, so I'll merely quote myself. The first sentence of that quote is a clear and concise definition of "ball groups". The rest explains part of our mentality.

What makes us stronger than unorganised groups, or organised groups of brawlers, is that we divide different responsibilities among different players, so some players will mostly be buff/debuff monkeys, others will be purgers, other healers (yes, we have dedicated healers!), and others damage dealers; we could also mix responsibilities where applicable. We also use a lot of utility sets to buff each other and debuff our enemies. Figuring out all of this is the essence of group theorycrafting, a complex craft that some of us enjoy deeply.

The other aspect is that we always stick very close to crown, where all our buffs and heals are centered (brawler groups do that, too). Ball-v-ball combat is a game of chess, we often try to bait our enemies into chokes, or try to get them to waste their ults and immovable potions, etc. As for who prevails, it all boils down on individual player ability to stay on crown and play their role properly as well as the leader's ability to play that game of chess.

Now what exactly do you think is wrong with this playstyle? Why do you believe ZOS should try to find ways to hamper it, be it with your proposed change in healing or otherwise? As for your CC suggestion, I have not known a single person that would be against ZOS fixing their servers so that we can cast our abilities instantly (instead of spamming buttons till something goes off) and CC actually works (instead of getting stunned after having consumed an immovable potion). Don't confuse gameplay mechanics with technical issues that have plagued the game for years.

Soul_Demon

BardInSolitude wrote: »

BardInSolitude wrote: »

Ball groups, by definition, are groups that stick close to crown (hence "ball") and use group builds. I don't know what definition you're using, but if it isn't that one it's wrong. Yes, one of our practices is using choke points, both on offense and on defense. That's called "tactics" and armies deploy it all the time. Alexander the Great dismantled the entire Persian Empire by literally fighting on choke points so that the greater Persian army could not outnumber his force. That's exactly what we're doing when we're waiting on the back flag to bomb a zerg.

I've already offered a definition, so I'll merely quote myself. The first sentence of that quote is a clear and concise definition of "ball groups". The rest explains part of our mentality.

What makes us stronger than unorganised groups, or organised groups of brawlers, is that we divide different responsibilities among different players, so some players will mostly be buff/debuff monkeys, others will be purgers, other healers (yes, we have dedicated healers!), and others damage dealers; we could also mix responsibilities where applicable. We also use a lot of utility sets to buff each other and debuff our enemies. Figuring out all of this is the essence of group theorycrafting, a complex craft that some of us enjoy deeply.

The other aspect is that we always stick very close to crown, where all our buffs and heals are centered (brawler groups do that, too). Ball-v-ball combat is a game of chess, we often try to bait our enemies into chokes, or try to get them to waste their ults and immovable potions, etc. As for who prevails, it all boils down on individual player ability to stay on crown and play their role properly as well as the leader's ability to play that game of chess.

Now what exactly do you think is wrong with this playstyle? Why do you believe ZOS should try to find ways to hamper it, be it with your proposed change in healing or otherwise? As for your CC suggestion, I have not known a single person that would be against ZOS fixing their servers so that we can cast our abilities instantly (instead of spamming buttons till something goes off) and CC actually works (instead of getting stunned after having consumed an immovable potion). Don't confuse gameplay mechanics with technical issues that have plagued the game for years.

Fantastic.....so how about this...you will use the definition of "Ball groups, by definition, are groups that stick close to crown (hence "ball") and use group builds."

And I will use mine
"I think a definition for most is ball groups tend to focus effort on play specifically designed to kill players where the group holds advantageous ground (choke points) or through excess in movement. If you want to break that into more easily stated goals they try to 'farm players' Organized groups on the other hand tend to focus on taking objectives on the map correlating to alliance score and faction advantage.

Both tend to run tightly packed to maximize the damage/healing/buffs/debuffs available to them and are highly organized in the nature of how they move......the biggest difference is in the choice they make in where to fight and how they either move or stay based on the previously mentioned goals each has. Of course some may use other criteria, but that has been my understanding of the differences for a very long time now. If you come across either groups you will notice they tend to select very different terrain to fight in as well due to the nature of the choices in play-styles the groups make."

But keep in mind when I make recommendations on what might be done to improve the play experience, I will be speaking from the perspective of my definition and not just groups who follow crown and have group builds. That should make communication much easier rather than a back and forth of what the definition is---as we will both know what the other is referring to when they make those recommendations.

BardInSolitude

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Fantastic.....so how about this...you will use the definition of "Ball groups, by definition, are groups that stick close to crown (hence "ball") and use group builds."

I respect your right to have an opinion, but I also have every right not to want to continue conversing with a person that passes off misinformation as personal opinion.

Amottica

Kwoung wrote: »

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.

I would expect there are Xbox forums though I do not know for certain, my comments were not really about that. I expect MS purchased Zenimax to bolster its subscription service. MS is likely not interested in micromanaging the Zenimax games and fell that most of our issues are handled best by the capable hands of Zenimax. After all, they purchased Zenimax because they thought something right was happening over here.

Psiion

Greetings,

After removing quite a few posts, we would like to remind everyone that both Baiting and Flaming are non-constructive and against the Forum's Community Rules. Please remember that while it’s all right to disagree or even debate with each other, provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community.

While we completely understand everyone has their own opinions, thoughts, feelings and even frustrations, we want the forums to be a civil and constructive platform for the game and its community as a whole.

Sanct16

Losing is never fun. If you die to a group spamming AoEs on you or get singletargetted to death will both not be fun. Instead of considering the exact way ppl die, I suggest we focus on the situation.

1) Let's consider an highly organised 12 man group with no regard to their exact playstyle: How many enemies should they at most be able to beat in a keep defense with no allies around
- against completly unorganized enemies
- against enemies in a pug group with no voice channel
- against one or several casual voice group
- against another highly organised group

2) How many enemies are they currently able to beat?

3) In which scenario are they overperforming?

Of course those are subjective metrics, however I think it can help to pinpoint where exactly different ppl think the problem is.

Sanct16

Sanct16 wrote: »

Losing is never fun. If you die to a group spamming AoEs on you or get singletargetted to death will both not be fun. Instead of considering the exact way ppl die, I suggest we focus on the situation.

1) Let's consider an highly organised 12 man group with no regard to their exact playstyle: How many enemies should they at most be able to beat in a keep defense with no allies around
- against completly unorganized enemies
- against enemies in a pug group with no voice channel
- against one or several casual voice group
- against another highly organised group

2) How many enemies are they currently able to beat?

3) In which scenario are they overperforming?

Of course those are subjective metrics, however I think it can help to pinpoint where exactly different ppl think the problem is.

1) Honestly I don't really have an inherent opinion on this.
2) How many can a good grp take on:
unorganized: around 5 x group size, so 60
Pug: around 4 x group size, so 50
Casual: around 3 x group size, so 35
Organised: same group size
With an interpolation between casual and organised based on how good the enemy grp is.
3) I think organized groups are arguably overperforming against unorganized players.
However I would prefer to see more coordinated groups instead of one mindless faction stacks. Without ballgroups being so strong against unorganized masses, a serious concern is that the only counter to numbers will be bringing more numbers.