Thank you for ruining pvp fun with proc sets, to the benefit of ball groups

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Tigor wrote: »

Greasytengu wrote: »

Tigor wrote: »

Just an Idea : 💡

If some groups/players are better in organisation and structure than others, would it then not be wise to have a possibility to sign up for casual, balanced or hardcore campaigns? In the guild finder these options already excist. The discussion about proc sets could then be more uplifting and opens doors to balanced fights. I can't forsee many cons.

but how would you keep skilled players from queuing into the casual campaign?

That is one of the concerns I thought about. If players are on the wrong campaign then at least there would be an option to move to the other. Everything still with a free choice, and no forcing. Could be interesting to have this running for a while, just to see how the game evolves, if casual vs hardcore campaigns would excist. On the otherhand it is just an idea from me putting to much effort.

I agree we could have a casual and hardcore campaign provided the hardcore campaign provided significantly better rewards for playing in it to encourage players to elevate their gameplay.

Tigor

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I agree we could have a casual and hardcore campaign provided the hardcore campaign provided significantly better rewards for playing in it to encourage players to elevate their gameplay.

@Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO if beter rewards would be provided to make you join that hardcore campaigns, what could those rewards be?

1. Gold?
2. Set items? And if you had the power to develop, what should those sets be capable of?
3. Achievements?
4. Rare item?
5. Mounts?
6. Something else?

⚖️🏆

DTStormfox

Also a point of order, we are deviating from the point of the whole discussion.

VaranisArano

Feaky wrote: »

How is using 3rd party automation to perfectly coordinate group attacks against foes, disrupt other player's game play by causing so much lag they cannot fight back while still attacking you, and repeatedly cause combat bug on opposing players for 20-30 min NOT considered a violation of TOS. I never get the combat bug and rarely lag except when fighting ball groups. I am so sick of seeing entered and exit combat messages spam across my screen after fighting these hacks.

This baffles me and largely why this game is so broken.

What 3rd party automation are you saying that raids are using? Genuinely curious here, because we used good old-fashioned voice chat to direct fire and call for ulti dumps. If our attacks looked perfectly coordinated, its because we practiced outside of raid.

An add-on? Those are permitted by ZOS, who can change the API anytime they don't like that functionality.


Side note story time: my guild normally played on Vivec, but there was one time our raid was asked to help out with an Emp push on Shor. Now, I don't know who normally played on Shor at the time, but when we formed up at EP's gate and headed out for raid night, you'dve thought that EP had never seen a "ball group" before.
"Are those bots?"
"They stick together so close they look like bots!"
"Follow the bot raid!"
Meanwhile, we were dying of laughter on our voice comms. Normally being called a bot isn't much of a compliment, but for us, it went to show that our practice was paying off and we were successfully moving in that close radius that guilds want in order to stay in range of our healers and our support sets. There's a reason my standing joke is "How do you tell if those farmers are a pack of bots? They are, if they've got a level of coordination my PVP raid leads would kill for!"

DrSlaughtr

Joy_Division wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

People love procs because they need the free damage to kill, the free sustain to survive, and/or the free resource recovery to stay in the fight.

It's bomber meta right now because your average bomber wasn't good enough to bomb during no proc so now everyone and their mother has to bomb. And now you get the arguments that if you want to defeat bomb and ball groups you have to bomb too.

So by that argument everyone should be a bomber.

Lazy argument is lazy.

People simply enjoy being able to use more than 19 sets in a game with literally hundreds.

You're implying that people are running vastly different builds which, of course, isn't true.

Another lazy argument that's also false.

If you took a snapshot and instant gear census of a pop-locked Cyrodiil you would find people running TONS of different sets.

Some of those people have no idea what they are doing (e.g. PvE tourists) but between solo, small-scale, and group play, people are wearing all sorts of sets. A single ball group is likely using 25-30+ different sets (inclusive of monster sets, arena weapons, and Mythics) by themselves and different ball groups run different combinations of sets. An there's usually 3-6+ ball groups active in a pop-locked campaign at any given time.

Then you have different set configurations for 1vX'ing, ganking, bombing, brawling, scroll-running, non-group-comp small-scale, group-comp small-scale, etc.

Sure, sets like Balorgh dominate for damage builds and 1vX'ers are gravitating toward sets like Pariah but whatever siloed PvP bubble you live in does not happen to represent PvP build diversity as a whole.

So let's all agree to put this tired meme about the lack of PvP build diversity to bed once and for all.

Large section of the population are wearing VD and MA.

Those who have access to blackwood are running Sithis with a pen set and damage set.

Stamblades are mostly wearing Pen + NMA because dot builds aren't killing anyone due to the above mentioned bombers who can heal through dots OR brawlers wearing Sithis and can easily shrug it off.

Sorcs and Wolves wearing Engine Guardian.

I can keep going.

Are there outliers? Yes. But most people min max. They find out what performs best and use that, no different than no proc. The real difference between the updates is the bomber groups rampaging across the map. Most people are bombers and bomber groups can own the map unless you give up and run your own bomber group.

Every play style in Cyro right now was viable in no proc. The difference is you had to learn to run it without free damage, armor, and resources.

Most people do *not* min max. If they did, there wouldn't be "casuals" and threads like this in the first place.

Majority of Cyro is not casual PVE players. And even the ones that are still do the same thing.
Everyone looks online or asks guild mates for build advice which leads to a consolidation of sets, no matter how many are available.

Every proc build can be done in no proc. A magblade doesn't need VD to bomb or Caruulians to gank. But people are wearing them now because it's the easy way to get kills or they feel pressure to in order to compete.

To say otherwise is just silly.

ZOS_GregoryV

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Tigor

As a raid leader I simply don't know what sets are good for pvp, anymore. The hugh amount of diferent sets nowadays and even more combinations to run with, makes it almost impossible for me to give help in what sets to use. Everyone in the group is using what he/she thinks is the best, but I don't have a clue what the best sets are.

What this game has different with other games is, the accessabilty of sets, easy to collect in pve, but after some tweaks good usable in pvp. To get the best usable build for pvp would take hours and hours of puzzling with a lot of different sets and combinations. Boring! I don't even know how to do it. The game is not providing me any tool.

Other players more skilled in puzzling the right build for whole groups will create the hard to kill ball groups. A clear outcome.

What could close the gap before only ball groups are succesful? I don't know, everything is changing quicker and quicker it seems. Focus has shifted from campaign tactics and lets fight, to hopefully the ball groups stay away and what will be the weather tomorrow.

More zergs? Less sets? In game set builder for everyone? AOE Timers? Ramping costs? Less or no procs? Something else?

Difficult nut to crack. For me Pvp has become a puzzle, with missing pieces.

Wraithseer_ESO

Well, I know a simple way of nerfing ball groups without much impact on other players:

chain reaction siege

a ballista/cata/lancer that does regular damage + creates an explosion of high damage around every player hit, in a very small radius, 3-4m

Normal pug groups, smallscalers and spread out zergs can safely ignore it, while ball groups will suffer, even if slightly.

DTStormfox

Wraithseer_ESO wrote: »

Well, I know a simple way of nerfing ball groups without much impact on other players:

chain reaction siege

a ballista/cata/lancer that does regular damage + creates an explosion of high damage around every player hit, in a very small radius, 3-4m

Normal pug groups, smallscalers and spread out zergs can safely ignore it, while ball groups will suffer, even if slightly.

I do understand the intention, however, have you consider its unintended consequences?
Such a mechanic has been introduced before. For example, proximity detonation works in a similar fashion. It was meant to be used against balls of players but instead (as an unintended consequence) it was primarily to the benefit of ball groups and they continue to use it as one of their main damaging abilities to this day.

Another example is the Vicious Death set, which is more in line with what you propose because of its chain reaction mechanic. It was intended to be used against ball groups. However, the unintended consequence was that it was perfect for ball groups to use against any other group. As stated before, ball groups do a lot of overhealing and thus almost never die. As a consequence, the vicious death set doesn't kill ball groups at all. Instead, it is now the prime and butter of ball groups to use against any other less organized group.

Narvuntien

Why haven't you just joined them? Cryo is a guild vs guild map. You want solo play battlegrounds.

No everyones lag in a ball group is also terrible. They can just use voice chat to communicate orders so they all move lagged together.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

DTStormfox wrote: »

Also a point of order, we are deviating from the point of the whole discussion.

What else would you like to accomplish from the discussion of the topic?

Tigor wrote: »

As a raid leader I simply don't know what sets are good for pvp, anymore. The hugh amount of diferent sets nowadays and even more combinations to run with, makes it almost impossible for me to give help in what sets to use. Everyone in the group is using what he/she thinks is the best, but I don't have a clue what the best sets are.

What this game has different with other games is, the accessabilty of sets, easy to collect in pve, but after some tweaks good usable in pvp. To get the best usable build for pvp would take hours and hours of puzzling with a lot of different sets and combinations. Boring! I don't even know how to do it. The game is not providing me any tool.

Other players more skilled in puzzling the right build for whole groups will create the hard to kill ball groups. A clear outcome.

What could close the gap before only ball groups are succesful? I don't know, everything is changing quicker and quicker it seems. Focus has shifted from campaign tactics and lets fight, to hopefully the ball groups stay away and what will be the weather tomorrow.

More zergs? Less sets? In game set builder for everyone? AOE Timers? Ramping costs? Less or no procs? Something else?

Difficult nut to crack. For me Pvp has become a puzzle, with missing pieces.

The game actually has many tools for testing and trying out various sets. There's PTS where you have access to every set for free, There's the character sheet and advanced stats, Addons for those playing on PC, Training dummies, Cross faction communication and no alliance locking on certain campaigns.

Then of course there are the outside of game tools, Videos, Discords, Twitch Streams. Community Sites, etc
The argument that because you personally don't understand or want to invest time into something there should be changes is a really poor one.
There should never be any changes to the game ever made on the assumption that players who put no effort in should achieve on-par results to those who do put the time and effort in.

You are free to play the way you wish to. Others who want to invest more time and thought into their gameplay are also free to do so.

Also as an aside, you asked me what rewards I would like to see - you can see the rough outline here (this is around 2-3y old at this point so scale them up to current content but you will get a rough idea): https://i.imgur.com/msLOrrA.png - From Dracast Episode 5.

Wraithseer_ESO

DTStormfox wrote: »

Wraithseer_ESO wrote: »

Well, I know a simple way of nerfing ball groups without much impact on other players:

chain reaction siege

a ballista/cata/lancer that does regular damage + creates an explosion of high damage around every player hit, in a very small radius, 3-4m

Normal pug groups, smallscalers and spread out zergs can safely ignore it, while ball groups will suffer, even if slightly.

I do understand the intention, however, have you consider its unintended consequences?
Such a mechanic has been introduced before. For example, proximity detonation works in a similar fashion. It was meant to be used against balls of players but instead (as an unintended consequence) it was primarily to the benefit of ball groups and they continue to use it as one of their main damaging abilities to this day.

Another example is the Vicious Death set, which is more in line with what you propose because of its chain reaction mechanic. It was intended to be used against ball groups. However, the unintended consequence was that it was perfect for ball groups to use against any other group. As stated before, ball groups do a lot of overhealing and thus almost never die. As a consequence, the vicious death set doesn't kill ball groups at all. Instead, it is now the prime and butter of ball groups to use against any other less organized group.

I do not see this as something ball groups would use as any other group does not rely on staying stacked. My idea was for every player that takes damage from this siege to be a center of another small explosion, so one good hit with the siege kills 8-12 closely stacked players right off, but does barely anything to 3-4 players standing a bit apart.

The only drawback of this siege would be that it will be used on chokepoints vs zergs, which is not really new as we already have meatbag stacking for this

Edit: draw a picture https://ibb.co/vzMqs0z

Tigor

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

The game actually has many tools for testing and trying out various sets. There's PTS where you have access to every set for free, There's the character sheet and advanced stats, Addons for those playing on PC, Training dummies, Cross faction communication and no alliance locking on certain campaigns.

Then of course there are the outside of game tools, Videos, Discords, Twitch Streams. Community Sites, etc
The argument that because you personally don't understand or want to invest time into something there should be changes is a really poor one.
There should never be any changes to the game ever made on the assumption that players who put no effort in should achieve on-par results to those who do put the time and effort in.

You are free to play the way you wish to. Others who want to invest more time and thought into their gameplay are also free to do so.

Also as an aside, you asked me what rewards I would like to see - you can see the rough outline here (this is around 2-3y old at this point so scale them up to current content but you will get a rough idea): https://i.imgur.com/msLOrrA.png - From Dracast Episode 5.

You are right. It is possible to put a lot of effort in the game, only not everyone has the same time to spend. At least I don't have. It would be like readinig all the books from the library for learning how to boil an egg. 🥚😄, not everyone would come with the same result. 🍳. I would eat eggs raw, the idea to have to read everything would already make me sick. 🤢.🤭

But if everyone would have one book, or lets call it a builder, the unexplainable (proc) advantages could be easier to find. Then fighting ball groups might even give the fun back, lets assume it will not lead to more unkillable groups.

And I will check your wished rewards. What is that site linked to?

DrSlaughtr

Wraithseer_ESO wrote: »

DTStormfox wrote: »

Wraithseer_ESO wrote: »

Well, I know a simple way of nerfing ball groups without much impact on other players:

chain reaction siege

a ballista/cata/lancer that does regular damage + creates an explosion of high damage around every player hit, in a very small radius, 3-4m

Normal pug groups, smallscalers and spread out zergs can safely ignore it, while ball groups will suffer, even if slightly.

I do understand the intention, however, have you consider its unintended consequences?
Such a mechanic has been introduced before. For example, proximity detonation works in a similar fashion. It was meant to be used against balls of players but instead (as an unintended consequence) it was primarily to the benefit of ball groups and they continue to use it as one of their main damaging abilities to this day.

Another example is the Vicious Death set, which is more in line with what you propose because of its chain reaction mechanic. It was intended to be used against ball groups. However, the unintended consequence was that it was perfect for ball groups to use against any other group. As stated before, ball groups do a lot of overhealing and thus almost never die. As a consequence, the vicious death set doesn't kill ball groups at all. Instead, it is now the prime and butter of ball groups to use against any other less organized group.

I do not see this as something ball groups would use as any other group does not rely on staying stacked. My idea was for every player that takes damage from this siege to be a center of another small explosion, so one good hit with the siege kills 8-12 closely stacked players right off, but does barely anything to 3-4 players standing a bit apart.

The only drawback of this siege would be that it will be used on chokepoints vs zergs, which is not really new as we already have meatbag stacking for this

Edit: draw a picture https://ibb.co/vzMqs0z

I've pitched this same idea myself. It would be great against ball groups as well as mindless zergs, both of which could use some kind of other competition.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Tigor wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

The game actually has many tools for testing and trying out various sets. There's PTS where you have access to every set for free, There's the character sheet and advanced stats, Addons for those playing on PC, Training dummies, Cross faction communication and no alliance locking on certain campaigns.

Then of course there are the outside of game tools, Videos, Discords, Twitch Streams. Community Sites, etc
The argument that because you personally don't understand or want to invest time into something there should be changes is a really poor one.
There should never be any changes to the game ever made on the assumption that players who put no effort in should achieve on-par results to those who do put the time and effort in.

You are free to play the way you wish to. Others who want to invest more time and thought into their gameplay are also free to do so.

Also as an aside, you asked me what rewards I would like to see - you can see the rough outline here (this is around 2-3y old at this point so scale them up to current content but you will get a rough idea): https://i.imgur.com/msLOrrA.png - From Dracast Episode 5.

You are right. It is possible to put a lot of effort in the game, only not everyone has the same time to spend. At least I don't have. It would be like readinig all the books from the library for learning how to boil an egg. 🥚😄, not everyone would come with the same result. 🍳. I would eat eggs raw, the idea to have to read everything would already make me sick. 🤢.🤭

But if everyone would have one book, or lets call it a builder, the unexplainable (proc) advantages could be easier to find. Then fighting ball groups might even give the fun back, lets assume it will not lead to more unkillable groups.

And I will check your wished rewards. What is that site linked to?

To further your analogy, I would simply read a book on basic cooking or ask an expert if I really wasn't able to find a solution and as a last resource I would try different methods myself to see which worked best.

Also its imgur (image hosting site) you can also just checkout the Youtube playlist in my signature.

Thraben

Tigor wrote: »

You are right. It is possible to put a lot of effort in the game, only not everyone has the same time to spend. At least I don't have. It would be like readinig all the books from the library for learning how to boil an egg. 🥚😄, not everyone would come with the same result. 🍳. I would eat eggs raw, the idea to have to read everything would already make me sick. 🤢.🤭

But if everyone would have one book, or lets call it a builder, the unexplainable (proc) advantages could be easier to find. Then fighting ball groups might even give the fun back, lets assume it will not lead to more unkillable groups.

Here a shorter solution:


1) Introduce the rule that everyone in the group equips a group healing skill and the most powerful ranged skill available (which is Inevitable Detonation when magicka, and Heavy-Attack-Silver Shards when Stamina).

2) Introduce the rule that everyone wears Harmony as jewelry trait if possible.

3) Personally lead with a Necromancer. You can basically carry the whole group without any real group composition (when they wear Harmony) by making sure that Wall of Frost, Purge (or use the Curse- Eater set), Speed Buff, Grave Yard, Caltrops, and Mystic Orbs are used by yourself. Doesn't matter if Magicka or Stamina, and you don't need reg either, because you can use the skill Balance.


-> Now you are able to face anything except Roleplay Circle if you pick the right combat strategy for the situation, which is typically skirmishing when facing a ballgroup until they start making mistakes.

Tigor

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

To further your analogy, I would simply read a book on basic cooking or ask an expert if I really wasn't able to find a solution and as a last resource I would try different methods myself to see which worked best.

Also its imgur (image hosting site) you can also just checkout the Youtube playlist in my signature.

I watched the episode 5 by clicking directly "Videos" in your footer. Back to 2018 you guys gave an impression of how a complete improvement of campaign fighting would look like. It is good to keep as a reference to see at what stage the game now is. If I can remember, the only thing that came true was receiving ticks from defended keeps while not in the area. The rest was about a more competitive game play, that was very interesting to see. What I missed was how to build up a perfect group. Any reason not to present?

At that stage you talked already about better performance. In the meantime the game introduced a lot of new proc-sets and there was something done to reduce the size of the game by GB's, to get it better. Reducing the size of phone books to send up and down the server should do it, something like that. Necromancer, juwelry crafting has been introduced, revamped CP system was set up, excavation and some more chapters/DLC's were added. So a lot of extra material to do. Resulting in a bigger phonebook, and everything starting from the beginning again.

Ballgroups have been around from the start of ESO. I remember the time the first healing trains showed up. I was just a volunteer and I joined D.Elite in 2014, started leading groups. In the beginning there were not so many ball groups, only Banana squad and Exile I remember, very organised and strong, as if belonging to an other league already. In the end we gathered more players and more leaders, and we succeeded to pacify our keeps. Summarised we were playing in 24 sized groups but not as organised, just tactical. The reason comes from the larger pool of players in the guild. You on the otherhand belong to a small community of more AP driven players. In that video it looked as if you care about the campaign and want to give handles to improve it, but in reality the ball group play style is experienced as malignant. So I am not convinced of the true meaning of that video yet.

The reason of this thread was that the activation of the proc sets have more advantages to ball groups then solo players or less organised groups. The lag and other performance issue's like skills not working, staying in combat for minutes, slow walking, and revolving doors are now recognisable to every casual player. Especially the newest batch of players with a less thick skin are not amused at MYM. The ball groups take server priority and we casuals are not capable it do anything against it. Something has to change.

Thraben wrote: »

Here a shorter solution:


1) Introduce the rule that everyone in the group equips a group healing skill and the most powerful ranged skill available (which is Inevitable Detonation when magicka, and Heavy-Attack-Silver Shards when Stamina).

2) Introduce the rule that everyone wears Harmony as jewelry trait if possible.

3) Personally lead with a Necromancer. You can basically carry the whole group without any real group composition (when they wear Harmony) by making sure that Wall of Frost, Purge (or use the Curse- Eater set), Speed Buff, Grave Yard, Caltrops, and Mystic Orbs are used by yourself. Doesn't matter if Magicka or Stamina, and you don't need reg either, because you can use the skill Balance.


-> Now you are able to face anything except Roleplay Circle if you pick the right combat strategy for the situation, which is typically skirmishing when facing a ballgroup until they start making mistakes.

@Thraben. You are providing help. Interesting solutions, worth to give a try and implementable to players. No game changes needed. Hopefully lag is not a disturbance. One note: Why not usable against Roleplay Circle?

rbfrgsp

Regardless of the gameplay outcomes, the no-proc test absolutely gutted the Cyrodiil population, and it was still barely recovering before MYM started. And while overperforming sets can be irritating, it is a whole lot worse trying to play an empty zone.

Personally, I would prefer stat sets only, but have come to realise that most of the player base is here to cheese their procs so you have to learn to live with it.

Thraben

Tigor wrote: »

@Thraben. You are providing help. Interesting solutions, worth to give a try and implementable to players. No game changes needed. Hopefully lag is not a disturbance. One note: Why not usable against Roleplay Circle?

You cannot do everything without going "progress". You will always have this one bad player who thinks he is great in melee but who does nothing but to steal heals that you would need for more important group members. You will always have that one guy who kills you all by triggering VD. That's nothing you can change in a casual group. But you can succeed far more often than people realise. There is no unbridgable skill gap on Ravenwatch between most semi-casual and progress groups.

Tigor

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Regardless of the gameplay outcomes, the no-proc test absolutely gutted the Cyrodiil population, and it was still barely recovering before MYM started. And while overperforming sets can be irritating, it is a whole lot worse trying to play an empty zone.

Personally, I would prefer stat sets only, but have come to realise that most of the player base is here to cheese their procs so you have to learn to live with it.

I don't know were you play? But on the European server where I am playing was a lot of activity with proc sets disabled, good playable. And now there is to much activity and unplayable.

In short it is depending on the population size and when you play to profit from proc sets. At least skills and spells should work when you go in combat and that is often not the case in Ravenwatch at prime time.

rbfrgsp

Tigor wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Regardless of the gameplay outcomes, the no-proc test absolutely gutted the Cyrodiil population, and it was still barely recovering before MYM started. And while overperforming sets can be irritating, it is a whole lot worse trying to play an empty zone.

Personally, I would prefer stat sets only, but have come to realise that most of the player base is here to cheese their procs so you have to learn to live with it.

I don't know were you play? But on the European server where I am playing was a lot of activity with proc sets disabled, good playable. And now there is to much activity and unplayable.

In short it is depending on the population size and when you play to profit from proc sets. At least skills and spells should work when you go in combat and that is often not the case in Ravenwatch at prime time.

I was on PC EU throughout the no proc test and performance was as bad or worse than ever, even with 1/10th the player population.

Only one siege at any time per faction. Biggest battles were 20v20. Skills still not firing. The whole two months was an exercise in futility and I can understand why so many regular players voted with their feet, regardless of whether 'Skills-Based Playing'™ had been brought back or not.

neferpitou73

Wraithseer_ESO wrote: »

DTStormfox wrote: »

Wraithseer_ESO wrote: »

Well, I know a simple way of nerfing ball groups without much impact on other players:

chain reaction siege

a ballista/cata/lancer that does regular damage + creates an explosion of high damage around every player hit, in a very small radius, 3-4m

Normal pug groups, smallscalers and spread out zergs can safely ignore it, while ball groups will suffer, even if slightly.

I do understand the intention, however, have you consider its unintended consequences?
Such a mechanic has been introduced before. For example, proximity detonation works in a similar fashion. It was meant to be used against balls of players but instead (as an unintended consequence) it was primarily to the benefit of ball groups and they continue to use it as one of their main damaging abilities to this day.

Another example is the Vicious Death set, which is more in line with what you propose because of its chain reaction mechanic. It was intended to be used against ball groups. However, the unintended consequence was that it was perfect for ball groups to use against any other group. As stated before, ball groups do a lot of overhealing and thus almost never die. As a consequence, the vicious death set doesn't kill ball groups at all. Instead, it is now the prime and butter of ball groups to use against any other less organized group.

I do not see this as something ball groups would use as any other group does not rely on staying stacked. My idea was for every player that takes damage from this siege to be a center of another small explosion, so one good hit with the siege kills 8-12 closely stacked players right off, but does barely anything to 3-4 players standing a bit apart.

The only drawback of this siege would be that it will be used on chokepoints vs zergs, which is not really new as we already have meatbag stacking for this

Edit: draw a picture https://ibb.co/vzMqs0z

This is would make a keep uncaptureable by anything not a ball group (if even by them). There's two ways to siege a keep:

1.) Stack on ram
2.) Ranged Siege

If we consider each separately:

1.)Sure this "super-siege" would make it impossible for a ball group to stack on ram. But it also makes it impossible for a zerg of casuals to stack on ram. With a ball group (or countersiege group like mine) running these it would make it impossible for any group to siege via ram.

2.) For the spread out siege you're correct, this wouldn't have too much of an effect. However guess what kind of groups have an advantage attacking uncoordinated counter-siege lines: ball groups.

What would happen if you implemented something like this is that the ball group (or one of their offshoots) would have 1-2 people using this to keep people off ram. Then run out and wipe the siege line, which can't retaliate because it's disorganized. Besides the ball group doesn't even need to kill the siegers just wipe the siege or distract long enough for their faction to repair.

Although I do admit I like the idea of adding new types of siege to the game for flavor.

Minnesinger

DTStormfox wrote: »

Wraithseer_ESO wrote: »

Well, I know a simple way of nerfing ball groups without much impact on other players:

chain reaction siege

a ballista/cata/lancer that does regular damage + creates an explosion of high damage around every player hit, in a very small radius, 3-4m

Normal pug groups, smallscalers and spread out zergs can safely ignore it, while ball groups will suffer, even if slightly.

I do understand the intention, however, have you consider its unintended consequences?
Such a mechanic has been introduced before. For example, proximity detonation works in a similar fashion. It was meant to be used against balls of players but instead (as an unintended consequence) it was primarily to the benefit of ball groups and they continue to use it as one of their main damaging abilities to this day.

Another example is the Vicious Death set, which is more in line with what you propose because of its chain reaction mechanic. It was intended to be used against ball groups. However, the unintended consequence was that it was perfect for ball groups to use against any other group. As stated before, ball groups do a lot of overhealing and thus almost never die. As a consequence, the vicious death set doesn't kill ball groups at all. Instead, it is now the prime and butter of ball groups to use against any other less organized group.

What was the popular belief is that both proxy det and VD was needed to stop the rampant stacking of players. I do not recall the ball groups being primarily targeted when they were introduced. There were some extremely shady big zergs that would lag the server by spamming healing springs. Remember the raid size was 24. Some guilds could manouver 3 raids. Think the frustration that was boiling over such big groups taking keeps.

Tigor

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Tigor wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Regardless of the gameplay outcomes, the no-proc test absolutely gutted the Cyrodiil population, and it was still barely recovering before MYM started. And while overperforming sets can be irritating, it is a whole lot worse trying to play an empty zone.

Personally, I would prefer stat sets only, but have come to realise that most of the player base is here to cheese their procs so you have to learn to live with it.

I don't know were you play? But on the European server where I am playing was a lot of activity with proc sets disabled, good playable. And now there is to much activity and unplayable.

In short it is depending on the population size and when you play to profit from proc sets. At least skills and spells should work when you go in combat and that is often not the case in Ravenwatch at prime time.

I was on PC EU throughout the no proc test and performance was as bad or worse than ever, even with 1/10th the player population.

Only one siege at any time per faction. Biggest battles were 20v20. Skills still not firing. The whole two months was an exercise in futility and I can understand why so many regular players voted with their feet, regardless of whether 'Skills-Based Playing'™ had been brought back or not.

Then you are a ball group member or a bomber, those are the only types of players that could have experienced benefits from activating proc sets in the same environment.