Ball Groups: A National Concern

Crash427

Funny thing about CCs in lag, when the lag isn't there you can break free the first time but a good ballgroup can land all it's damage much tighter. So yea, you can break free in one GCD but you get nuked in one GCD so it kinda ends up being a wash.

Yes CCs are buggy. Yes ballgroups use them. So does everyone. If ZoS would fix Cyro it wouldn't matter as much.

And while fear is annoying, it's the streak bug that really has been the source of more rage than anything else, other than maybe rollbacks.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Earthewen wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

There have been a few responses made regarding my request for global immunity on all CC's whether hard, soft, or from different individuals. I think there might be a misunderstanding about what I mean. I understand what devices are currently available to us in game, ie pots, race against time, etc. Those would all be great if they worked reliably.

Back in 2014, @Brian_Wheeler made a post that perfectly described what I'm talking about. http://tamrieljournal.com/eso-pvp-qa-with-brian-wheeler/ is the link for you to check out. But take a look at this section in particular:




This was the intended functioning of CC's and the planned result of finally breaking free or the timer running out. We all know from playing that fear is completely broken and has been for years. These broken and bugged skills seem to be the ones most frequently used by some players in order to gain an advantage. This is most strongly demonstrated by larger groups that do this repeatedly, which I think was the point to the discussion a page or two back.

To be frank, the CC fest has been going on for some time, but appears to be most often used by some of the ball groups and precipitates most of the kills they get. If as players, we had a global immunity of say 5 seconds, regardless of the source, then it would give the players the experience that Brian talks about here. Basically, we would not have the CC fest here that we currently have, and I suspect a great deal of the problems that a lot of players are experiencing would be alleviated as well. If immunity worked as it was supposed to, we would not be having this conversation. However, we all know that they are not working as they are supposed to work .... I'm pretty sure that most PvP players are aware of that and have experienced it themselves.

you have currently a global immunity of more than 5 seconds. What causes the feeling that you don't are bugs such as the ones I mentioned in my post.
As well as that 90% of the time when players 'can't break free' its because they haven't managed their stam correctly and actually don't have enough.

Feel free to provide some examples of what you consider to be broken CC (in video form) to illustrate your point.

Feel free…..well, sure- I would attempt such a thing if I thought for one second I could provide a video showing what one player cast and how many times- who it hit and exactly what they did with their hands to get out of it. But, I think there would be no way to show all that simultaneously in a sufficient a way that someone could not simply say “they used dodge and should have used break free” ”they used break free and should have dodged” or “they were just out of stam”. Pretty sure that could be said ANYTIME and no real way available beyond the player saying otherwise to show it.

However, I formulated a hypothesis a long time ago to give me some additional insight into if ball groups, specifically ones who seem to get the most complaints about ‘fear bugging’ ‘perma lock’ ‘perma stun’ ‘in combat’ ‘pema slow’ or ‘1800000 days status effects’ type of things, were were using certain skills. I would not mind sharing what I found if you were interested.

I postulated that I needed someone who knew the skills and durations of immunity and was in a group that had many players complaining of seeing the things happen that I had seen. In short, someone who would know that overusing a particular skill would or could produce extraordinary effects and use that to their advantage.

So, I just happen to have fought one of those groups on Sunday. After fighting them twice inside Chal and clearing them out I went to Aleswell to siege but had to turn around at door due to bleaks flag. Part way back the aforementioned group was on wall of Aleswell and piled off it immediately giving me a great log of just our 12 and their 12 for almost 2 min- unfortunately another DC raid came off the wall behind us as we fought them on the stairs up to farm on Aleswell and between both groups with the only choke point taken already by the ball group---we did not prevail. But I did get a good log of almost two mins of fighting with them alone. This is a GM and Raid Lead of well known ball group on DC who seems to gather a large volume of player complaints. I feel confident this player would know what skills do, how cooldowns work and how long there are immunities for. Sorry about taking a while to respond but I wanted to be 100% certain I took all names and revealing info out of the picture here so it would not get my post pulled down.



Interestingly, what I see is mystifying. Maybe you know, but I don’t, why someone in such a short duration would bar swap to such a degree (132) the number of skills used doesn’t even correlate to that number- it seems (this Raid Lead is NB) there really are only two skills this player used in that fight. Fear (80), and radiating regen (29). I do believe I found the player running harmonized as it seems the only other thing they did was synergize. But oddly, bar swap, fear, and radiating regen out of all the skills a NB could use are the only ones this person used to almost exclusivity.

To me, a no ball group player I am amazed by this- and it seems to me the unusual number of fears this player used (since they probably understand cooldowns and immunities) being the number one skill beyond bar swap…….suggests to me that they are over using this skill often complained about in zone and in forums for causing issues. So much so that I would think its hard to NOT call it overused and maybe even crutched on. What does all that mean to me? It means someone who knows all the immunities and skills available to them selected specifically one that does 0 damage and often malfunctions. To me, this was all I needed to see (and you see it over and over with ball groups) what I think is selecting something known to have issues and using precisely that because the immunities are not working properly in game. Before you ask….. yes, the other players in this raid all seem to use at MOST 3 skills repeatedly and of course have an extraordinary amount of bar swaps for no apparent reason. I would say about 60% of the group used a cc of some type in a similar way as the lead. Again, to me this suggests they well know this stuff isn’t working as its supposed to, otherwise why use them to such a massive degree KNOWING there is supposed to be immunity unless……immunity is not working properly.
Now I am not an expert, but maybe you could explain this as you seem to be very comfortable with how things work. Feel free to link any supportive video you might have showing why/how/purpose to further illustrate the points.

To further your studies into this, NB fear has a target cap of 6 players, some other forms of stun have no cap, thus when fighting a number of players, lets assume it actually was 12v12 as you describe it is quite valid to cast fear more than once. The number of casts would be equal to the amount of changing player numbers in the area the fear was cast. This still wouldn't exceed the stun limit on players hit by the fear and only serves the purpose of catching more players who enter the radius of the stun.

As someone who plays a NB raid lead I have buffs and skills which I use on both bars, Whilst a lot of players joke about ball groups spamming one button, I can assure you (at least in my groups) that isn't the case. For example lets say I wanted to push into a fight, I might start on my front bar, cast certain buffs (for example race against time for movement), bar swap, Cast Proxy and Radiating at a minimum (likely 2 times at least) (possibly balance if my magicka was low), swap to front bar, cast race again, fear once or twice, sap. If during that time someone got low I might swap back to back bar throw in an extra heal for them (when I lead i'm not purely damage focused), swap back and so on.
lets not forget barswap cancels certain skill animations too so its not a loss of time to swap to cast skills.

What I would find more interesting is the amount of bashes there as most players don't bash so often within 2m when being magicka in pvp (except in certain bash bash bash groups). I would assume there is likely some error in the logs due to this.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'Harmonized skills' but I'll assume you are referring to the synergy damage. Remember that Synergies are also off the global skill cooldown (they have their own independent cooldown system), this means that a player can essentially cast light attack, skill, synergy, bash in any global cooldown window (i'm not going to get into too much detail, there is a small delay but it is negligible).

As for video's showing NB leading - you can look at basically any on the Drac YT channel (link in my sig) and see what I cast and when in line with my callouts. I'm not sure how that helps to illustrate whether you are double cc'd, simply rooted and trying to bash instead of roll, or out of stam in your experiences.

Waseem

Ball group?

Medicine:


u need to combine 2-3 siege weapons to destroy a ball group so bring your friends!
Cold Stone trebuchet
Meatbag catapult
Coldfire ballista

if it's a keep and the ball group on the backflag mostly then u need to get up the postern and drop some oils

however, ball groups are quite organized, so they will destroy you as they see you using these sieges to counter them

* i miss the times where you could drop meteors on them to proc fall damage *

dont forget that each player in the ball group is permanently purged. like permanently, some groups have a "healer" with near infinite magickapool to use no skill at all beside purge, the rest of skills are crap *** to sustain magicka pool
LITERALLY JUST RUNNING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GROUP PRESSING PURGE/CLEANSE

dont bother with ball groups outside keeps, only a better ballgroup can kill them

Crash427

One and a half break frees with an interrupted dodge roll. This lil combo with DB has been around for a while now. To try and say CCs aren't buggy [snip].


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRxuXFjJcE

[edited for baiting]

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Crash427 wrote: »

One and a half break frees with an interrupted dodge roll. This lil combo with DB has been around for a while now. To try and say CCs aren't buggy [snip].


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRxuXFjJcE

Looks to me like your character was desynced by the first stun (likely due to the purge you received at the same time as breaking free) that's why your roll dodge stutters on the first attempt. I'd love them to fix bugs like this but my point is proved there that there is a global cc immunity (otherwise you would have been stunned by the fear I cast there right afterwards).

Satiar

Earthewen wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

There have been a few responses made regarding my request for global immunity on all CC's whether hard, soft, or from different individuals. I think there might be a misunderstanding about what I mean. I understand what devices are currently available to us in game, ie pots, race against time, etc. Those would all be great if they worked reliably.

Back in 2014, @Brian_Wheeler made a post that perfectly described what I'm talking about. http://tamrieljournal.com/eso-pvp-qa-with-brian-wheeler/ is the link for you to check out. But take a look at this section in particular:




This was the intended functioning of CC's and the planned result of finally breaking free or the timer running out. We all know from playing that fear is completely broken and has been for years. These broken and bugged skills seem to be the ones most frequently used by some players in order to gain an advantage. This is most strongly demonstrated by larger groups that do this repeatedly, which I think was the point to the discussion a page or two back.

To be frank, the CC fest has been going on for some time, but appears to be most often used by some of the ball groups and precipitates most of the kills they get. If as players, we had a global immunity of say 5 seconds, regardless of the source, then it would give the players the experience that Brian talks about here. Basically, we would not have the CC fest here that we currently have, and I suspect a great deal of the problems that a lot of players are experiencing would be alleviated as well. If immunity worked as it was supposed to, we would not be having this conversation. However, we all know that they are not working as they are supposed to work .... I'm pretty sure that most PvP players are aware of that and have experienced it themselves.

you have currently a global immunity of more than 5 seconds. What causes the feeling that you don't are bugs such as the ones I mentioned in my post.
As well as that 90% of the time when players 'can't break free' its because they haven't managed their stam correctly and actually don't have enough.

Feel free to provide some examples of what you consider to be broken CC (in video form) to illustrate your point.

Feel free…..well, sure- I would attempt such a thing if I thought for one second I could provide a video showing what one player cast and how many times- who it hit and exactly what they did with their hands to get out of it. But, I think there would be no way to show all that simultaneously in a sufficient a way that someone could not simply say “they used dodge and should have used break free” ”they used break free and should have dodged” or “they were just out of stam”. Pretty sure that could be said ANYTIME and no real way available beyond the player saying otherwise to show it.

However, I formulated a hypothesis a long time ago to give me some additional insight into if ball groups, specifically ones who seem to get the most complaints about ‘fear bugging’ ‘perma lock’ ‘perma stun’ ‘in combat’ ‘pema slow’ or ‘1800000 days status effects’ type of things, were were using certain skills. I would not mind sharing what I found if you were interested.

I postulated that I needed someone who knew the skills and durations of immunity and was in a group that had many players complaining of seeing the things happen that I had seen. In short, someone who would know that overusing a particular skill would or could produce extraordinary effects and use that to their advantage.

So, I just happen to have fought one of those groups on Sunday. After fighting them twice inside Chal and clearing them out I went to Aleswell to siege but had to turn around at door due to bleaks flag. Part way back the aforementioned group was on wall of Aleswell and piled off it immediately giving me a great log of just our 12 and their 12 for almost 2 min- unfortunately another DC raid came off the wall behind us as we fought them on the stairs up to farm on Aleswell and between both groups with the only choke point taken already by the ball group---we did not prevail. But I did get a good log of almost two mins of fighting with them alone. This is a GM and Raid Lead of well known ball group on DC who seems to gather a large volume of player complaints. I feel confident this player would know what skills do, how cooldowns work and how long there are immunities for. Sorry about taking a while to respond but I wanted to be 100% certain I took all names and revealing info out of the picture here so it would not get my post pulled down.



Interestingly, what I see is mystifying. Maybe you know, but I don’t, why someone in such a short duration would bar swap to such a degree (132) the number of skills used doesn’t even correlate to that number- it seems (this Raid Lead is NB) there really are only two skills this player used in that fight. Fear (80), and radiating regen (29). I do believe I found the player running harmonized as it seems the only other thing they did was synergize. But oddly, bar swap, fear, and radiating regen out of all the skills a NB could use are the only ones this person used to almost exclusivity.

To me, a no ball group player I am amazed by this- and it seems to me the unusual number of fears this player used (since they probably understand cooldowns and immunities) being the number one skill beyond bar swap…….suggests to me that they are over using this skill often complained about in zone and in forums for causing issues. So much so that I would think its hard to NOT call it overused and maybe even crutched on. What does all that mean to me? It means someone who knows all the immunities and skills available to them selected specifically one that does 0 damage and often malfunctions. To me, this was all I needed to see (and you see it over and over with ball groups) what I think is selecting something known to have issues and using precisely that because the immunities are not working properly in game. Before you ask….. yes, the other players in this raid all seem to use at MOST 3 skills repeatedly and of course have an extraordinary amount of bar swaps for no apparent reason. I would say about 60% of the group used a cc of some type in a similar way as the lead. Again, to me this suggests they well know this stuff isn’t working as its supposed to, otherwise why use them to such a massive degree KNOWING there is supposed to be immunity unless……immunity is not working properly.
Now I am not an expert, but maybe you could explain this as you seem to be very comfortable with how things work. Feel free to link any supportive video you might have showing why/how/purpose to further illustrate the points.

As a NB main in organized raids since forever, perhaps I can explain.

Your role as a NB in a raid group is to do three things:

1. CC (mass hysteria)
2. Cross heal (radiating Regen)
3. Damage (prox det and harmony with a little sap too. Sometimes mystic orb.)

Fear will be front bar so you can CC right before your prox det goes off. Prox det will be back bar as it is backloaded Damage and bar space is at a premium. Radiating will be back bar as it is a HoT and you need your damage skills front bar on your destro/DW bar.

Basic strike looks like:

Prox det (1x), RR (1-2x), swap, Rats or Mirage for root immunity, sprint, fear (1-2x), hit synergies over the damage point and either hit Sap or Mystic orbs to provide another synergy.

After that it’s an immediate bar swap, radiating refresh and (if stuff is rough) spam a direct cross-heal or purge.

That’s roughly it. Most of your casts will be radiating Regen for constant hot uptime on your back bar. Most of your front bar casts will be fear because without CC you simply will not kill things. Although you are a DPS in this meta a magica specced NB does the majority of its damage by creating a CC clump and harmonizing on top of it as the Prox det goes off.

There’s nothing nefarious at work. Simply put, if a player can actively dodge and block and heal they are hard to kill. Harmony is bursty but only on stationary targets. Thus, the best way to kill is for the lead setting the strike to spend most of their time creating CC instead of spamming damage.

I will say, there is something funky in the game code regarding CCs that knock you up. But I know of no top end group that uses these because they are not as reliable CCs as streak or mass hysteria

Edit:
Regarding immunity, game *** up sometimes. In low lag situations I rarely see it happen, but I guarantee you group v group I have MANY times been caught in an enemy’s CC and nearly broken my keyboard trying to break it. I do not know what causes this beyond latency. I have seen my character attempt to break streaks abs fears 4x in a row before dying. It mega sucks. If there is a secret to making that happen it is beyond me and my vet core that’s been playing since beta. I think it’s just latency

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Satiar wrote: »

Edit:
Regarding immunity, game *** up sometimes. In low lag situations I rarely see it happen, but I guarantee you group v group I have MANY times been caught in an enemy’s CC and nearly broken my keyboard trying to break it. I do not know what causes this beyond latency. I have seen my character attempt to break streaks abs fears 4x in a row before dying. It mega sucks. If there is a secret to making that happen it is beyond me and my vet core that’s been playing since beta. I think it’s just latency

9/10 it's due to the infinite streak bug + multiple other 49000 day debuffs on your char causing poor performance.

Earthewen

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

There have been a few responses made regarding my request for global immunity on all CC's whether hard, soft, or from different individuals. I think there might be a misunderstanding about what I mean. I understand what devices are currently available to us in game, ie pots, race against time, etc. Those would all be great if they worked reliably.

Back in 2014, @Brian_Wheeler made a post that perfectly described what I'm talking about. http://tamrieljournal.com/eso-pvp-qa-with-brian-wheeler/ is the link for you to check out. But take a look at this section in particular:




This was the intended functioning of CC's and the planned result of finally breaking free or the timer running out. We all know from playing that fear is completely broken and has been for years. These broken and bugged skills seem to be the ones most frequently used by some players in order to gain an advantage. This is most strongly demonstrated by larger groups that do this repeatedly, which I think was the point to the discussion a page or two back.

To be frank, the CC fest has been going on for some time, but appears to be most often used by some of the ball groups and precipitates most of the kills they get. If as players, we had a global immunity of say 5 seconds, regardless of the source, then it would give the players the experience that Brian talks about here. Basically, we would not have the CC fest here that we currently have, and I suspect a great deal of the problems that a lot of players are experiencing would be alleviated as well. If immunity worked as it was supposed to, we would not be having this conversation. However, we all know that they are not working as they are supposed to work .... I'm pretty sure that most PvP players are aware of that and have experienced it themselves.

you have currently a global immunity of more than 5 seconds. What causes the feeling that you don't are bugs such as the ones I mentioned in my post.
As well as that 90% of the time when players 'can't break free' its because they haven't managed their stam correctly and actually don't have enough.

Feel free to provide some examples of what you consider to be broken CC (in video form) to illustrate your point.

Feel free…..well, sure- I would attempt such a thing if I thought for one second I could provide a video showing what one player cast and how many times- who it hit and exactly what they did with their hands to get out of it. But, I think there would be no way to show all that simultaneously in a sufficient a way that someone could not simply say “they used dodge and should have used break free” ”they used break free and should have dodged” or “they were just out of stam”. Pretty sure that could be said ANYTIME and no real way available beyond the player saying otherwise to show it.

However, I formulated a hypothesis a long time ago to give me some additional insight into if ball groups, specifically ones who seem to get the most complaints about ‘fear bugging’ ‘perma lock’ ‘perma stun’ ‘in combat’ ‘pema slow’ or ‘1800000 days status effects’ type of things, were were using certain skills. I would not mind sharing what I found if you were interested.

I postulated that I needed someone who knew the skills and durations of immunity and was in a group that had many players complaining of seeing the things happen that I had seen. In short, someone who would know that overusing a particular skill would or could produce extraordinary effects and use that to their advantage.

So, I just happen to have fought one of those groups on Sunday. After fighting them twice inside Chal and clearing them out I went to Aleswell to siege but had to turn around at door due to bleaks flag. Part way back the aforementioned group was on wall of Aleswell and piled off it immediately giving me a great log of just our 12 and their 12 for almost 2 min- unfortunately another DC raid came off the wall behind us as we fought them on the stairs up to farm on Aleswell and between both groups with the only choke point taken already by the ball group---we did not prevail. But I did get a good log of almost two mins of fighting with them alone. This is a GM and Raid Lead of well known ball group on DC who seems to gather a large volume of player complaints. I feel confident this player would know what skills do, how cooldowns work and how long there are immunities for. Sorry about taking a while to respond but I wanted to be 100% certain I took all names and revealing info out of the picture here so it would not get my post pulled down.



Interestingly, what I see is mystifying. Maybe you know, but I don’t, why someone in such a short duration would bar swap to such a degree (132) the number of skills used doesn’t even correlate to that number- it seems (this Raid Lead is NB) there really are only two skills this player used in that fight. Fear (80), and radiating regen (29). I do believe I found the player running harmonized as it seems the only other thing they did was synergize. But oddly, bar swap, fear, and radiating regen out of all the skills a NB could use are the only ones this person used to almost exclusivity.

To me, a no ball group player I am amazed by this- and it seems to me the unusual number of fears this player used (since they probably understand cooldowns and immunities) being the number one skill beyond bar swap…….suggests to me that they are over using this skill often complained about in zone and in forums for causing issues. So much so that I would think its hard to NOT call it overused and maybe even crutched on. What does all that mean to me? It means someone who knows all the immunities and skills available to them selected specifically one that does 0 damage and often malfunctions. To me, this was all I needed to see (and you see it over and over with ball groups) what I think is selecting something known to have issues and using precisely that because the immunities are not working properly in game. Before you ask….. yes, the other players in this raid all seem to use at MOST 3 skills repeatedly and of course have an extraordinary amount of bar swaps for no apparent reason. I would say about 60% of the group used a cc of some type in a similar way as the lead. Again, to me this suggests they well know this stuff isn’t working as its supposed to, otherwise why use them to such a massive degree KNOWING there is supposed to be immunity unless……immunity is not working properly.
Now I am not an expert, but maybe you could explain this as you seem to be very comfortable with how things work. Feel free to link any supportive video you might have showing why/how/purpose to further illustrate the points.

To further your studies into this, NB fear has a target cap of 6 players, some other forms of stun have no cap, thus when fighting a number of players, lets assume it actually was 12v12 as you describe it is quite valid to cast fear more than once. The number of casts would be equal to the amount of changing player numbers in the area the fear was cast. This still wouldn't exceed the stun limit on players hit by the fear and only serves the purpose of catching more players who enter the radius of the stun.

As someone who plays a NB raid lead I have buffs and skills which I use on both bars, Whilst a lot of players joke about ball groups spamming one button, I can assure you (at least in my groups) that isn't the case. For example lets say I wanted to push into a fight, I might start on my front bar, cast certain buffs (for example race against time for movement), bar swap, Cast Proxy and Radiating at a minimum (likely 2 times at least) (possibly balance if my magicka was low), swap to front bar, cast race again, fear once or twice, sap. If during that time someone got low I might swap back to back bar throw in an extra heal for them (when I lead i'm not purely damage focused), swap back and so on.
lets not forget barswap cancels certain skill animations too so its not a loss of time to swap to cast skills.

What I would find more interesting is the amount of bashes there as most players don't bash so often within 2m when being magicka in pvp (except in certain bash bash bash groups). I would assume there is likely some error in the logs due to this.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'Harmonized skills' but I'll assume you are referring to the synergy damage. Remember that Synergies are also off the global skill cooldown (they have their own independent cooldown system), this means that a player can essentially cast light attack, skill, synergy, bash in any global cooldown window (i'm not going to get into too much detail, there is a small delay but it is negligible).

As for video's showing NB leading - you can look at basically any on the Drac YT channel (link in my sig) and see what I cast and when in line with my callouts. I'm not sure how that helps to illustrate whether you are double cc'd, simply rooted and trying to bash instead of roll, or out of stam in your experiences.

Oh, so the logs for ESO are broken. Ok.

Crash427

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Crash427 wrote: »

One and a half break frees with an interrupted dodge roll. This lil combo with DB has been around for a while now. To try and say CCs aren't buggy and it's a l2p issue is disingenuous at best.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRxuXFjJcE

Looks to me like your character was desynced by the first stun (likely due to the purge you received at the same time as breaking free) that's why your roll dodge stutters on the first attempt. I'd love them to fix bugs like this but my point is proved there that there is a global cc immunity (otherwise you would have been stunned by the fear I cast there right afterwards).

This is a bug with the stun from DB combined with bombard. It's not 100% reliable, but it's reliable enough when the game is laggy. While it's not a proper double CC I can see why people who don't realize what's going on would think it is.

spacefracking

Inevitable detonation spamming. Prevents purging, makes them leave formation, otherwise they wipe if a few are marked up.

If zos changed the cast time from 2 seconds to 0.5, say goodbye to ball groups.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

[snip]

The point is that whilst certain members of the community (and subsequently the larger groups they play with) focus on the wrong issues it doesn't give ZOS a clear message as to what is actually wrong. (Streak bug, Desyncs) Then you get them investing time in a 'no proc campaign' rather than actually fixing the problems causing guilds and players to quit en-mass.

Crash427 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Crash427 wrote: »

One and a half break frees with an interrupted dodge roll. This lil combo with DB has been around for a while now. To try and say CCs aren't buggy [snip].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRxuXFjJcE

Looks to me like your character was desynced by the first stun (likely due to the purge you received at the same time as breaking free) that's why your roll dodge stutters on the first attempt. I'd love them to fix bugs like this but my point is proved there that there is a global cc immunity (otherwise you would have been stunned by the fear I cast there right afterwards).

While it's not a proper double CC I can see why people who don't realize what's going on would think it is.

I agree that it's hard to tell what the problem is if you don't see what happened again from a recording.


For me the most frustrating issue is the slow bug because there's nothing I can do as a player to try and mitigate the problem (streak bug I can relog, desync I can try and adjust how I break free and my positioning) slow bug you can't do anything other than just not fight large numbers of enemies.
https://youtu.be/MP5ElYtw90g

[edited to remove quote]

Sanct16

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

Mr_Gallows

Repost from my own thread on AoE.

AoE is very easy to use and it's powerful. However a zerg don't care much.

What if all AoE was changed so you do damage to one person, which isn't great damage... so AoE is nerfed against the single target. The upside then, is that AoE will work so you do damage to one enemy and an extra effect is that everyone around that enemy takes damage. This stacks, so a huge ball of enemies would take a lot of damage.

ZOS_Lunar

Greetings!

After some review, we would like to remind everyone that all posts should be kept civil, constructive, and within the guidelines of the community rules we have in place. As such, we have removed some posts that violated our rules on baiting.

Thank you for your understanding, and please keep the Community Rules in mind when posting on the forums.

Sandman929

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

There's also a good amount of willful ignorance when you're in a ball group and refuse to acknowledge that what you're essentially doing is creating lag spikes most of the time. We all admit to CC being buggy (no one's fault), and next to impossible to break quickly in lag (no one's fault), but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

Having been on both sides of the equation, I just wish others were more willing to take ownership of what they're really doing without just claiming their greatness is the reason they're doing well.

Joy_Division

Satiar wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

There have been a few responses made regarding my request for global immunity on all CC's whether hard, soft, or from different individuals. I think there might be a misunderstanding about what I mean. I understand what devices are currently available to us in game, ie pots, race against time, etc. Those would all be great if they worked reliably.

Back in 2014, @Brian_Wheeler made a post that perfectly described what I'm talking about. http://tamrieljournal.com/eso-pvp-qa-with-brian-wheeler/ is the link for you to check out. But take a look at this section in particular:




This was the intended functioning of CC's and the planned result of finally breaking free or the timer running out. We all know from playing that fear is completely broken and has been for years. These broken and bugged skills seem to be the ones most frequently used by some players in order to gain an advantage. This is most strongly demonstrated by larger groups that do this repeatedly, which I think was the point to the discussion a page or two back.

To be frank, the CC fest has been going on for some time, but appears to be most often used by some of the ball groups and precipitates most of the kills they get. If as players, we had a global immunity of say 5 seconds, regardless of the source, then it would give the players the experience that Brian talks about here. Basically, we would not have the CC fest here that we currently have, and I suspect a great deal of the problems that a lot of players are experiencing would be alleviated as well. If immunity worked as it was supposed to, we would not be having this conversation. However, we all know that they are not working as they are supposed to work .... I'm pretty sure that most PvP players are aware of that and have experienced it themselves.

you have currently a global immunity of more than 5 seconds. What causes the feeling that you don't are bugs such as the ones I mentioned in my post.
As well as that 90% of the time when players 'can't break free' its because they haven't managed their stam correctly and actually don't have enough.

Feel free to provide some examples of what you consider to be broken CC (in video form) to illustrate your point.

Feel free…..well, sure- I would attempt such a thing if I thought for one second I could provide a video showing what one player cast and how many times- who it hit and exactly what they did with their hands to get out of it. But, I think there would be no way to show all that simultaneously in a sufficient a way that someone could not simply say “they used dodge and should have used break free” ”they used break free and should have dodged” or “they were just out of stam”. Pretty sure that could be said ANYTIME and no real way available beyond the player saying otherwise to show it.

However, I formulated a hypothesis a long time ago to give me some additional insight into if ball groups, specifically ones who seem to get the most complaints about ‘fear bugging’ ‘perma lock’ ‘perma stun’ ‘in combat’ ‘pema slow’ or ‘1800000 days status effects’ type of things, were were using certain skills. I would not mind sharing what I found if you were interested.

I postulated that I needed someone who knew the skills and durations of immunity and was in a group that had many players complaining of seeing the things happen that I had seen. In short, someone who would know that overusing a particular skill would or could produce extraordinary effects and use that to their advantage.

So, I just happen to have fought one of those groups on Sunday. After fighting them twice inside Chal and clearing them out I went to Aleswell to siege but had to turn around at door due to bleaks flag. Part way back the aforementioned group was on wall of Aleswell and piled off it immediately giving me a great log of just our 12 and their 12 for almost 2 min- unfortunately another DC raid came off the wall behind us as we fought them on the stairs up to farm on Aleswell and between both groups with the only choke point taken already by the ball group---we did not prevail. But I did get a good log of almost two mins of fighting with them alone. This is a GM and Raid Lead of well known ball group on DC who seems to gather a large volume of player complaints. I feel confident this player would know what skills do, how cooldowns work and how long there are immunities for. Sorry about taking a while to respond but I wanted to be 100% certain I took all names and revealing info out of the picture here so it would not get my post pulled down.



Interestingly, what I see is mystifying. Maybe you know, but I don’t, why someone in such a short duration would bar swap to such a degree (132) the number of skills used doesn’t even correlate to that number- it seems (this Raid Lead is NB) there really are only two skills this player used in that fight. Fear (80), and radiating regen (29). I do believe I found the player running harmonized as it seems the only other thing they did was synergize. But oddly, bar swap, fear, and radiating regen out of all the skills a NB could use are the only ones this person used to almost exclusivity.

To me, a no ball group player I am amazed by this- and it seems to me the unusual number of fears this player used (since they probably understand cooldowns and immunities) being the number one skill beyond bar swap…….suggests to me that they are over using this skill often complained about in zone and in forums for causing issues. So much so that I would think its hard to NOT call it overused and maybe even crutched on. What does all that mean to me? It means someone who knows all the immunities and skills available to them selected specifically one that does 0 damage and often malfunctions. To me, this was all I needed to see (and you see it over and over with ball groups) what I think is selecting something known to have issues and using precisely that because the immunities are not working properly in game. Before you ask….. yes, the other players in this raid all seem to use at MOST 3 skills repeatedly and of course have an extraordinary amount of bar swaps for no apparent reason. I would say about 60% of the group used a cc of some type in a similar way as the lead. Again, to me this suggests they well know this stuff isn’t working as its supposed to, otherwise why use them to such a massive degree KNOWING there is supposed to be immunity unless……immunity is not working properly.
Now I am not an expert, but maybe you could explain this as you seem to be very comfortable with how things work. Feel free to link any supportive video you might have showing why/how/purpose to further illustrate the points.

As a NB main in organized raids since forever, perhaps I can explain.

Your role as a NB in a raid group is to do three things:

1. CC (mass hysteria)
2. Cross heal (radiating Regen)
3. Damage (prox det and harmony with a little sap too. Sometimes mystic orb.)

Fear will be front bar so you can CC right before your prox det goes off. Prox det will be back bar as it is backloaded Damage and bar space is at a premium. Radiating will be back bar as it is a HoT and you need your damage skills front bar on your destro/DW bar.

Basic strike looks like:

Prox det (1x), RR (1-2x), swap, Rats or Mirage for root immunity, sprint, fear (1-2x), hit synergies over the damage point and either hit Sap or Mystic orbs to provide another synergy.

After that it’s an immediate bar swap, radiating refresh and (if stuff is rough) spam a direct cross-heal or purge.

That’s roughly it. Most of your casts will be radiating Regen for constant hot uptime on your back bar. Most of your front bar casts will be fear because without CC you simply will not kill things. Although you are a DPS in this meta a magica specced NB does the majority of its damage by creating a CC clump and harmonizing on top of it as the Prox det goes off.

There’s nothing nefarious at work. Simply put, if a player can actively dodge and block and heal they are hard to kill. Harmony is bursty but only on stationary targets. Thus, the best way to kill is for the lead setting the strike to spend most of their time creating CC instead of spamming damage.

I will say, there is something funky in the game code regarding CCs that knock you up. But I know of no top end group that uses these because they are not as reliable CCs as streak or mass hysteria

Edit:
Regarding immunity, game *** up sometimes. In low lag situations I rarely see it happen, but I guarantee you group v group I have MANY times been caught in an enemy’s CC and nearly broken my keyboard trying to break it. I do not know what causes this beyond latency. I have seen my character attempt to break streaks abs fears 4x in a row before dying. It mega sucks. If there is a secret to making that happen it is beyond me and my vet core that’s been playing since beta. I think it’s just latency

Lies

We have proof your rotation is: Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush -> Ambush

Satiar

Old meta!

Where’s the Abrams video?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

Sandman929

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

I blame both. I've been in both, but my blinders don't go up when my preferred playstyle is under scrutiny, which is more than I can say for others.
I think it's the responsibility of the community, if they're interested in a healthy game, to point out things that are made possible by the game mechanics but probably shouldn't be possible or aren't in the interest of healthy gameplay.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Satiar wrote: »

Old meta!

Where’s the Abrams video?

https://youtu.be/TkUEepRgkd8

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

I blame both. I've been in both, but my blinders don't go up when my preferred playstyle is under scrutiny, which is more than I can say for others.
I think it's the responsibility of the community, if they're interested in a healthy game, to point out things that are made possible by the game mechanics but probably shouldn't be possible or aren't in the interest of healthy gameplay.

I would focus first on fixing the issues behind the problems rather than layering fixes on top of a poor foundation. For example no amount of changing heal stacking will help 'level the playing field' when the system is already inherently buggy with desync issues.

Sandman929

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

I blame both. I've been in both, but my blinders don't go up when my preferred playstyle is under scrutiny, which is more than I can say for others.
I think it's the responsibility of the community, if they're interested in a healthy game, to point out things that are made possible by the game mechanics but probably shouldn't be possible or aren't in the interest of healthy gameplay.

I would focus first on fixing the issues behind the problems rather than layering fixes on top of a poor foundation. For example no amount of changing heal stacking will help 'level the playing field' when the system is already inherently buggy with desync issues.

Fine, we disagree there. But I'm not about to start hailing myself as "the solution" when I'm in a ball group. Zergs and ballgroups are both exploiting the weaknesses of the game and the servers.
I've seen clips from the other side of fights that I thought were good fights, from my perspective, and I'm sure you have as well. I, however, can't look at those clips without seeing how the ballgroup playstyle makes poor server performance worse. I don't see those fights anymore as "wins" but as moments of making the game unplayable for many.
I see the CC breaks fail, I see the broken immunity, I see the screen locking up for players when ultis are dumped, and most importantly I see the broken defensive strength made possible by stacking hots and purging.

I think anyone who can't admit to seeing those things simply doesn't want to acknowledge them because it might change the game in such a way that they can't be "awesome" anymore.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

I blame both. I've been in both, but my blinders don't go up when my preferred playstyle is under scrutiny, which is more than I can say for others.
I think it's the responsibility of the community, if they're interested in a healthy game, to point out things that are made possible by the game mechanics but probably shouldn't be possible or aren't in the interest of healthy gameplay.

I would focus first on fixing the issues behind the problems rather than layering fixes on top of a poor foundation. For example no amount of changing heal stacking will help 'level the playing field' when the system is already inherently buggy with desync issues.

Fine, we disagree there. But I'm not about to start hailing myself as "the solution" when I'm in a ball group. Zergs and ballgroups are both exploiting the weaknesses of the game and the servers.
I've seen clips from the other side of fights that I thought were good fights, from my perspective, and I'm sure you have as well. I, however, can't look at those clips without seeing how the ballgroup playstyle makes poor server performance worse. I don't see those fights anymore as "wins" but as moments of making the game unplayable for many.
I see the CC breaks fail, I see the broken immunity, I see the screen locking up for players when ultis are dumped, and most importantly I see the broken defensive strength made possible by stacking hots and purging.

I think anyone who can't admit to seeing those things simply doesn't want to acknowledge them because it might change the game in such a way that they can't be "awesome" anymore.

I'm not sure which point you are arguing for here, everyone playing on the server deals with the same issues, ball groups lag just as much as the zerg groups they are generally fighting do.

The point i'm making is that it would be better to fix this rather than to make gameplay adjustments on top of a broken system because once the game performs well you might find that it is then easier or more difficult to kill groups and can make adjustments from that place rather than the current broken place.

Sandman929

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

I blame both. I've been in both, but my blinders don't go up when my preferred playstyle is under scrutiny, which is more than I can say for others.
I think it's the responsibility of the community, if they're interested in a healthy game, to point out things that are made possible by the game mechanics but probably shouldn't be possible or aren't in the interest of healthy gameplay.

I would focus first on fixing the issues behind the problems rather than layering fixes on top of a poor foundation. For example no amount of changing heal stacking will help 'level the playing field' when the system is already inherently buggy with desync issues.

Fine, we disagree there. But I'm not about to start hailing myself as "the solution" when I'm in a ball group. Zergs and ballgroups are both exploiting the weaknesses of the game and the servers.
I've seen clips from the other side of fights that I thought were good fights, from my perspective, and I'm sure you have as well. I, however, can't look at those clips without seeing how the ballgroup playstyle makes poor server performance worse. I don't see those fights anymore as "wins" but as moments of making the game unplayable for many.
I see the CC breaks fail, I see the broken immunity, I see the screen locking up for players when ultis are dumped, and most importantly I see the broken defensive strength made possible by stacking hots and purging.

I think anyone who can't admit to seeing those things simply doesn't want to acknowledge them because it might change the game in such a way that they can't be "awesome" anymore.

I'm not sure which point you are arguing for here, everyone playing on the server deals with the same issues, ball groups lag just as much as the zerg groups they are generally fighting do.

The point i'm making is that it would be better to fix this rather than to make gameplay adjustments on top of a broken system because once the game performs well you might find that it is then easier or more difficult to kill groups and can make adjustments from that place rather than the current broken place.

A zerg, by it's nature, hasn't made a decision to capitalize on broken mechanics or poor server performance. By their nature, they aren't coordinating to take advantage of the lag to which they contribute. The same can't be said for a ballgroup.
What you're suggesting, put another way, is that ZOS needs to fix the game and until they do exploiting what isn't fixed is fine.

EDIT: And, by the way, I'm not saying it isn't fine too. I'm just not willing to pretend that it's not taking advantage of broken mechanics and poor performance.

Sandman929

I've accepted that the only fixes we can expect are band-aids on top of a poor foundation, and I'm sure you have as well. Are you honestly still under the impression that we will ever get anything else?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

I blame both. I've been in both, but my blinders don't go up when my preferred playstyle is under scrutiny, which is more than I can say for others.
I think it's the responsibility of the community, if they're interested in a healthy game, to point out things that are made possible by the game mechanics but probably shouldn't be possible or aren't in the interest of healthy gameplay.

I would focus first on fixing the issues behind the problems rather than layering fixes on top of a poor foundation. For example no amount of changing heal stacking will help 'level the playing field' when the system is already inherently buggy with desync issues.

Fine, we disagree there. But I'm not about to start hailing myself as "the solution" when I'm in a ball group. Zergs and ballgroups are both exploiting the weaknesses of the game and the servers.
I've seen clips from the other side of fights that I thought were good fights, from my perspective, and I'm sure you have as well. I, however, can't look at those clips without seeing how the ballgroup playstyle makes poor server performance worse. I don't see those fights anymore as "wins" but as moments of making the game unplayable for many.
I see the CC breaks fail, I see the broken immunity, I see the screen locking up for players when ultis are dumped, and most importantly I see the broken defensive strength made possible by stacking hots and purging.

I think anyone who can't admit to seeing those things simply doesn't want to acknowledge them because it might change the game in such a way that they can't be "awesome" anymore.

I'm not sure which point you are arguing for here, everyone playing on the server deals with the same issues, ball groups lag just as much as the zerg groups they are generally fighting do.

The point i'm making is that it would be better to fix this rather than to make gameplay adjustments on top of a broken system because once the game performs well you might find that it is then easier or more difficult to kill groups and can make adjustments from that place rather than the current broken place.

A zerg, by it's nature, hasn't made a decision to capitalize on broken mechanics or poor server performance. By their nature, they aren't coordinating to take advantage of the lag to which they contribute. The same can't be said for a ballgroup.
What you're suggesting, put another way, is that ZOS needs to fix the game and until they do exploiting what isn't fixed is fine.

EDIT: And, by the way, I'm not saying it isn't fine too. I'm just not willing to pretend that it's not taking advantage of broken mechanics and poor performance.

So your saying that a group trying to make efforts to adjust their gameplay to minimise lag is a problem because zerg groups don't make any efforts to do so?

edit: didn't see the second post

Sandman929 wrote: »

I've accepted that the only fixes we can expect are band-aids on top of a poor foundation, and I'm sure you have as well. Are you honestly still under the impression that we will ever get anything else?

I think if players can communicate effectively to ZOS the problems then its a possibility yes, the current oh its X fault, no its Y, CC's need a global immunity (when they have one) etc doesn't really help them see the wood for the trees.

That's why whilst certain complains might be valid depending on opinions and viewpoints (e.g. are groups too strong vs should groups be promoted as being generally stronger a way of building community) is a fine discussion to have. It shouldn't be at the expense of simply agreeing on the first problems to solve being desync's and debuff bugs.

Soul_Demon

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

I blame both. I've been in both, but my blinders don't go up when my preferred playstyle is under scrutiny, which is more than I can say for others.
I think it's the responsibility of the community, if they're interested in a healthy game, to point out things that are made possible by the game mechanics but probably shouldn't be possible or aren't in the interest of healthy gameplay.

I would focus first on fixing the issues behind the problems rather than layering fixes on top of a poor foundation. For example no amount of changing heal stacking will help 'level the playing field' when the system is already inherently buggy with desync issues.

Fine, we disagree there. But I'm not about to start hailing myself as "the solution" when I'm in a ball group. Zergs and ballgroups are both exploiting the weaknesses of the game and the servers.
I've seen clips from the other side of fights that I thought were good fights, from my perspective, and I'm sure you have as well. I, however, can't look at those clips without seeing how the ballgroup playstyle makes poor server performance worse. I don't see those fights anymore as "wins" but as moments of making the game unplayable for many.
I see the CC breaks fail, I see the broken immunity, I see the screen locking up for players when ultis are dumped, and most importantly I see the broken defensive strength made possible by stacking hots and purging.

I think anyone who can't admit to seeing those things simply doesn't want to acknowledge them because it might change the game in such a way that they can't be "awesome" anymore.

I'm not sure which point you are arguing for here, everyone playing on the server deals with the same issues, ball groups lag just as much as the zerg groups they are generally fighting do.

The point i'm making is that it would be better to fix this rather than to make gameplay adjustments on top of a broken system because once the game performs well you might find that it is then easier or more difficult to kill groups and can make adjustments from that place rather than the current broken place.

The entire points being discussed the last few days here in this thread have to do with systems that are supposed to be working (immunity) not functioning properly and submitted for 'fix' to help with gameplay experience. There are a number of posters who acknowledge this is the case and they are aware of it----but continue to explain its just "an evolution" in gameplay to use skills that worsen poor playability precisely when its at its worst---not for advantage or to cause others problems, but because they "noticed" they work for winning more often. A 5 second global immunity to ALL sources of cc that WORKED would be a good fix to put into practice for ZOS. Why it doesn't work is unimportant---that fact it does not is the issue. There are other issues to be sure, but this one thing would impact so very many its hard to keep ignoring.

Sandman929

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

I blame both. I've been in both, but my blinders don't go up when my preferred playstyle is under scrutiny, which is more than I can say for others.
I think it's the responsibility of the community, if they're interested in a healthy game, to point out things that are made possible by the game mechanics but probably shouldn't be possible or aren't in the interest of healthy gameplay.

I would focus first on fixing the issues behind the problems rather than layering fixes on top of a poor foundation. For example no amount of changing heal stacking will help 'level the playing field' when the system is already inherently buggy with desync issues.

Fine, we disagree there. But I'm not about to start hailing myself as "the solution" when I'm in a ball group. Zergs and ballgroups are both exploiting the weaknesses of the game and the servers.
I've seen clips from the other side of fights that I thought were good fights, from my perspective, and I'm sure you have as well. I, however, can't look at those clips without seeing how the ballgroup playstyle makes poor server performance worse. I don't see those fights anymore as "wins" but as moments of making the game unplayable for many.
I see the CC breaks fail, I see the broken immunity, I see the screen locking up for players when ultis are dumped, and most importantly I see the broken defensive strength made possible by stacking hots and purging.

I think anyone who can't admit to seeing those things simply doesn't want to acknowledge them because it might change the game in such a way that they can't be "awesome" anymore.

I'm not sure which point you are arguing for here, everyone playing on the server deals with the same issues, ball groups lag just as much as the zerg groups they are generally fighting do.

The point i'm making is that it would be better to fix this rather than to make gameplay adjustments on top of a broken system because once the game performs well you might find that it is then easier or more difficult to kill groups and can make adjustments from that place rather than the current broken place.

A zerg, by it's nature, hasn't made a decision to capitalize on broken mechanics or poor server performance. By their nature, they aren't coordinating to take advantage of the lag to which they contribute. The same can't be said for a ballgroup.
What you're suggesting, put another way, is that ZOS needs to fix the game and until they do exploiting what isn't fixed is fine.

EDIT: And, by the way, I'm not saying it isn't fine too. I'm just not willing to pretend that it's not taking advantage of broken mechanics and poor performance.

So your saying that a group trying to make efforts to adjust their gameplay to minimise lag is a problem because zerg groups don't make any efforts to do so?

Which adjustments are made to minimize lag, exactly? I know there are adjustments to minimize the impact for the group itself, but I don't know of any that reduce lag. Zergs can't make an effort, they aren't planning. They are the result of people trying to play the game and the result of the way Cyrodiil has been created (constantly creating faction stacks to defend last keeps, rewarding empty keep takes, etc).
You say all players have to deal with lag, and that's true, but you say it as though all players are experiencing lag at the same time in the same way, which is disingenuous to me. As I've said, I've had fights that I thought were very good fights with low lag and successful kills against greater numbers, but when I see those fights from the POV of solo players or small groups within the zerg I see a completely different experience as they get killed by the lag that I didn't experience during the fight.

I do think ZOS needs to address the underlying problems of Cyrodiil that incentivize and promote zerging, but zerging isn't planned, it's the result of the system, the layout of the map, the scoring system and many other problems that do nothing to incentivize spreading out in Cyrodiil...however I don't expect that those problems ever will be addressed.
IMO zergs and ballgroups are two sides of the same coin and I won't call one a problem without recognizing the problems associated with the other.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

It's not a secret that it takes longer to CC break when it's laggy - just like it takes longer to do anything else.

From a ball group perspective, when it's not laggy all enemies just die instantly. It's a huge misconception that some people on the forums have that the lag makes it easier for ball groups to kill, it's very much the opposite:
When it's laggy, damage often doesn't register instantly so it gives enemies more time to get out of reach before they die (especially if gap closers don't work).

The only thing that helps with catching enemies in lag are stuns, cause it also takes more time to break free. As Streak also has a huge delay and is somewhat unusable in lag, you generally have to spam Fear on NB to pin down enemies for long enough until the group catches up.

However noone is using any skills to intentionally bug enemies out or anything, realistically it's just a sort of "evolution". Behaviour that works gets repeated. At some point someone just noticed that it helps killing stuff in lag to spam stuns (and then aoe down the guys who got stunned).

but what ball grouping does is to exacerbate these problems willingly.
From the perspective of the group, they are killing large numbers, but from the perspective of the large numbers they are dying to lag and the game being unresponsive.

The game would lag regardless of if the group was there or not. When there are no groups online and the factions stack at one or 2 keeps the game is still unplayable. Groups playing the way they were originally designed actually reduces the loads on the server from these faction stacks.

If you want to blame some groups instead of the servers themselves I think your focus should be on those running in faction stacks rather than just generic 'ball groups'

I blame both. I've been in both, but my blinders don't go up when my preferred playstyle is under scrutiny, which is more than I can say for others.
I think it's the responsibility of the community, if they're interested in a healthy game, to point out things that are made possible by the game mechanics but probably shouldn't be possible or aren't in the interest of healthy gameplay.

I would focus first on fixing the issues behind the problems rather than layering fixes on top of a poor foundation. For example no amount of changing heal stacking will help 'level the playing field' when the system is already inherently buggy with desync issues.

Fine, we disagree there. But I'm not about to start hailing myself as "the solution" when I'm in a ball group. Zergs and ballgroups are both exploiting the weaknesses of the game and the servers.
I've seen clips from the other side of fights that I thought were good fights, from my perspective, and I'm sure you have as well. I, however, can't look at those clips without seeing how the ballgroup playstyle makes poor server performance worse. I don't see those fights anymore as "wins" but as moments of making the game unplayable for many.
I see the CC breaks fail, I see the broken immunity, I see the screen locking up for players when ultis are dumped, and most importantly I see the broken defensive strength made possible by stacking hots and purging.

I think anyone who can't admit to seeing those things simply doesn't want to acknowledge them because it might change the game in such a way that they can't be "awesome" anymore.

I'm not sure which point you are arguing for here, everyone playing on the server deals with the same issues, ball groups lag just as much as the zerg groups they are generally fighting do.

The point i'm making is that it would be better to fix this rather than to make gameplay adjustments on top of a broken system because once the game performs well you might find that it is then easier or more difficult to kill groups and can make adjustments from that place rather than the current broken place.

A zerg, by it's nature, hasn't made a decision to capitalize on broken mechanics or poor server performance. By their nature, they aren't coordinating to take advantage of the lag to which they contribute. The same can't be said for a ballgroup.
What you're suggesting, put another way, is that ZOS needs to fix the game and until they do exploiting what isn't fixed is fine.

EDIT: And, by the way, I'm not saying it isn't fine too. I'm just not willing to pretend that it's not taking advantage of broken mechanics and poor performance.

So your saying that a group trying to make efforts to adjust their gameplay to minimise lag is a problem because zerg groups don't make any efforts to do so?

Which adjustments are made to minimize lag, exactly? I know there are adjustments to minimize the impact for the group itself, but I don't know of any that reduce lag.

I can give you an example,

Lets say that we see Aleswell is UA by the entirety of the EP faction (there's no fight anywhere between AD and EP) We might choose to hit Chal or Arrius to draw EP faction players away from that battle to lessen the lag on the server.

An example of potentially exacerbating the lag would be for us to go to Aleswell. Note that in some instances it would be eventually better for the lag for us to go and clear the EP out of there so that they actually are forced to spread out because they can't take the keep in general we try and mitigate the lag for us and for the players at aleswell by choosing a different approach.

A lot of other zerg groups would just sit at aleswell instead and just prolong the siege until the server is at a crawl and eventually only ends due to crashes and bugs.


your second point regarding

Sandman929 wrote: »

You say all players have to deal with lag, and that's true, but you say it as though all players are experiencing lag at the same time in the same way, which is disingenuous to me. As I've said, I've had fights that I thought were very good fights with low lag and successful kills against greater numbers, but when I see those fights from the POV of solo players or small groups within the zerg I see a completely different experience as they get killed by the lag that I didn't experience during the fight.

You can go back to my post history where I've explained why players not in groups generally experience more lag than those in groups.. player loading and skill animations.. (i'm fairly sure its been on posts we have both commented on). I'm not denying this. I also don't think that's a problem that should be blamed on the groups involved as the only fix to it is to disband.


Edit: on your last point,

Sandman929 wrote: »

I do think ZOS needs to address the underlying problems of Cyrodiil that incentivize and promote zerging, but zerging isn't planned, it's the result of the system, the layout of the map, the scoring system and many other problems that do nothing to incentivize spreading out in Cyrodiil

The main reason in my opinion for this is the continual nerfing of group gameplay in cyro. Groups used to be the mainstays of campaigns. Look at any old videos of campaigns. There used to be 5-6 24m's roaming the maps, sure they would converge at points such as last emp keeps but it was better for them to fight in different locations because they could actually handle the fights back then, now most groups struggle to play outside of their own faction due to the continual nerfs to the gameplay.

Mr_Gallows

In a fight it's hard to play in a way so you do not lag the server.... it's a technical issue that the devs will have to fix. It may or may not be abused right now, but really it should be solved by the developers.