Incoming ball group buffs.

doesurmindglow

I write from the perspective of an officer in a guild that designs and runs "ball group" compositions on a fairly regular basis in open-world PVP. Against my better judgement, I've decided to contribute the warning based on patch notes in their current iteration that several sets are being added to the game that will buff ball groups at the expense of more casual players, solo PVPers, and less organized groups.

We already have precedent for this in-game: Vicious Death. While initially designed as an "anti-big group set," its impact is, unsurprisingly to those of us who actually organize ball groups, the opposite. The incoming sets will have the same exact effect: they will be utilized by organized, optimized compositions ("ball groups") at greater efficiency than the negative impacts on those groups can be realized, allowing them to become yet more effective against opponents who are less organized and less optimized to deal with them.

What can be done to counter optimized group play? I'm not entirely sure this should be a goal, but as it is stated as the intended purpose of the ball group buff sets, I think it would be worth exploring changes that would ACTUALLY accomplish this intention. Instead, I'd consider something along the lines of the following:

1. Increase the time to ressurrect other players in Cyrodiil, or implement a cap on rezzes from a given source (ie. camps?) in PVP. One of the biggest aspects of "ball group" invincibility is not in their ability to avoid being killed, but rather in their ability to creatively recover. If you were only able to use a camp once before respawning at a keep, and if rezzes took longer to execute, ball groups would be fail to maintain their composition and be "wiped" more easily. This is not an original idea on my part, as other "ball group" organizers have suggested it, but I agree with them it would actually work. The biggest challenge might be addressing the "necro rez" thematically, as I don't know if it's advisable to eliminate powerful ultimates from a given class. But I think that in PVP it might be possible potentially to address this the same way as camps -- allow a single "necro rez" between keep respawns, but not an endless string of them to recover a healer each and every time they go down.
   
2. Implement diminishing returns on AP at a given objective. As it is right now, occupying a given keep, resource, or outpost for an extended period of time provides exactly the same rewards as (and sometimes, more rewards than) occupying it for a shorter period of time. This discourages "ball groups" from moving, or rather it provides no opportunity cost to attempting to actually take the objective and move onto another, and instead encourages group leaders to stay and "farm" kills at the same objective with their opponents increasingly frustrated it cannot either be retaken or abandoned. If the AP rewarded from kills and from defensive and offensive objective ticks were reduced over time, there would be considerable pressure on group leaders to move their focus on to another objective.
   
3. Provide an AP buff to group leaders and members of 1% per group member (for the leader, so maxing at 12%) and 0.5% (for the group follower, maxing at 6%), or some other similar numbers that make sense. This seems counterintuitive, but the problem of “unkillable ball groups" in PVP can actually be understood more correctly as a "lack of organized groups that are competitive against unkillable ball groups." Outside of a modest ego boost that comes from running a good group, I guess, there are very few obvious incentives to creating your own group and leading it. Unless you can find players ready to go "all the way" in coordinating their builds and synchronizing actions, it usually comes at more cost than benefit to lead a group, follow instructions, and work together. But many people DO want to join groups in open world PVP, but few feel confident or motivated to lead them. We can overcome this issue somewhat by rewarding group leaders slightly for organizing groups. This wouldn't have to be a huge benefit to make a difference, but it would make a huge impact on the ability of "ball groups" to remain dramatically more viable than less organized players by encouraging more organized group leaders.
   
4. Increase the incentives to AP (and perhaps to campaign score) of offensive objectives further from your faction's base, and of defensive objectives closer to your faction's base. I think the way it currently works, "home keeps" have greater incentive than "away keeps." But this system is a blunt instrument, and does little to spread groups across the map, as the difference is very small, poorly understood within game, and does not act effectively on players. At the same time, there is little value to ball groups in "going home," that is, defending an objective closer to their gate instead of "farming" wherever they are. If groups and their leaders realized a bigger missed opportunity from failing to "fall back" to a home keep under attack, or in failing to push to a further objective, they would have less incentive to "farm" a "zerg" of less organized or less optimized players. Similarly, and perhaps more importantly, the "zerg" would realize clear gains from diverting their attentions elsewhere, and thus would spend less of their time in the frustrating experience of "being farmed."

I know the leaders of older and better ball groups than ours have offered similar feedback in the past. I would hope we think less about the "silver bullet set bonus" and more about the incentive structure generally, which is the force actually pushing toward a particular playstyle that invites complaints. These incentives are strong, act on many different groups and players, and cannot, will not, be overcome by the introduction of a single set bonus alone. Only adjusting the larger game mechanics to provide direct, tangible, and obvious rewards to avoid "farming" behaviors will actually make any difference.

YandereGirlfriend

There are some very good ideas in here.

My favorite is definitely the AP boosts for being inside of a group and the even larger bonus for leading said group. That is an inspired idea. Appealing to players' self-interest is usually the best and most effective way to motivate them to amend their behavior rather than hammering them with nerfs and other brute-force changes.

ajkb78

What if PvP areas were changed so that your abilities damaged and healed enemies as well as allies?

I know, radical thought. But (a) it would be vaguely realistic. Why on earth would you not suffer from standing in a field of caltrops that your mate just threw at your feet? Why would you not take damage from that boiling oil just because it says AD on the tin? And (b) at a stroke it would eliminate ball groups because they would just wipe themselves with stacked damage. It would reward loosely arranged formations where you could support each other without causing friendly fire and would reward single target attacks and heals that take more skill to use effectively.

Then make it so you get a stacking AP gain debuff for killing players on your own alliance, so you actually had to be careful as causing friendly fire would hurt your chances of becoming Emperor.

It's radically different from the current situation, or from how pve works. I think it would simply be too difficult to change pve, there are too many mechanics based around the ability to stack or requiring different stacking patterns. But changing it in PvP would surely be trivial code-wise as there must already be a rule to say whether or not your abilities affect other players based on alliance. It would arguably drive more engaging and skill-rewarding pvp and by discouraging indiscriminate aoe spam it would actually achieve zos's long held aim of reducing server load.

It might be worth a try when PTS isn't being used for anything else, like was done with the light attack / heavy attack change proposal.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

MrGhosty

ajkb78 wrote: »

What if PvP areas were changed so that your abilities damaged and healed enemies as well as allies?

I know, radical thought. But (a) it would be vaguely realistic. Why on earth would you not suffer from standing in a field of caltrops that your mate just threw at your feet? Why would you not take damage from that boiling oil just because it says AD on the tin? And (b) at a stroke it would eliminate ball groups because they would just wipe themselves with stacked damage. It would reward loosely arranged formations where you could support each other without causing friendly fire and would reward single target attacks and heals that take more skill to use effectively.

Then make it so you get a stacking AP gain debuff for killing players on your own alliance, so you actually had to be careful as causing friendly fire would hurt your chances of becoming Emperor.

It's radically different from the current situation, or from how pve works. I think it would simply be too difficult to change pve, there are too many mechanics based around the ability to stack or requiring different stacking patterns. But changing it in PvP would surely be trivial code-wise as there must already be a rule to say whether or not your abilities affect other players based on alliance. It would arguably drive more engaging and skill-rewarding pvp and by discouraging indiscriminate aoe spam it would actually achieve zos's long held aim of reducing server load.

It might be worth a try when PTS isn't being used for anything else, like was done with the light attack / heavy attack change proposal.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

This would last at best a day, the many trolls would unite under one banner of chaos and drive everyone out in short order. I've played other large scale warfare pvp games and there is nothing more frustrating than taking your shot only to have a new player wander in front of it and be killed giving you a penalty. The new player scenario would happen a ton, but even more would be all of the players taking great joy in punishing those in their own faction just to watch people have meltdowns.

OlumoGarbag

Non of your solutions really hit the spot and only nerf bad ballgroups. In a good ballgroup people dont die that often if at all. And alot of ballgroups dont care for ap that much anyways.

Here are some real solutions:

• snow treaders shouldnt work in a group bigger then 5 this mythic is hands down the strongest set for ballgroups ever
• purge needs to have a cooldown of 3 seconds or more (my suggestion would be to make it a synergie applied to all group members in range with a 10 second cooldown this way people have to actively chose when to use the purge not a braindead cleanse spam to make them untouchable)
• inevitable detonation should deal increased damage the faster its triggered

These 3 changes would be a HUGE buff to antiballgroup counterplay. There arent really any alternatives. The new sets wont do anything.

Alendrin

These are all excellent ideas. The reward systems in this game favor almost all of the behavior that players complain about in cyrodil (or BGs)

Tommy_The_Gun

One idea I have heard that would reduce effectiveness of ball groups is to do something similar that ZOS did with Pale Order ring. It is less effective the more people are in a group. So if other sets in PvP would have something similar, then it would be harder for ball groups to optimize, while smaller groups and solo players would remain mostly unaffected.

The other idea I have heard is to "copy-paste" negate into Mages Guild or AW skill line (just like ZOS did with NB fear, they made almost identical skill in Fighters Guild skill line).

This would result in way more people having access to this ability. Right now, when ball group shows up you have to count on some random sorc to be nearby and you have to hope that he / she has negate slotted. The more the better. It is super effective against ball groups as it pretty much shuts down all the purges & healing they have.

Thraben

Literally every point you make would be in the interest of ball groups. That does not mean they are wrong. There are a lot of good ideas here, and I support them.

If you want to give the Pugs a chance, a stamina version of Inevitable Detonation would be needed.

VaranisArano

This are good structural ideas that could help incentivize some behavioral changes.

I think it's important for ZOS to understand that they can't stop organized groups from seeking out large fights. That's where so much of the challenge and fun lies for those groups, going up against masses of PUGs to see how long they can last before they are overwhelmed. Some groups fight for objectives for their faction, while others just want good fights, but every large organized PVP guild I've known loved having those big fights.

No amount of begging or bribing players to spread out is going to change that.

Moreover, just giving players the tools to fight ball groups doesn't mean they'll use them effectively. I mean, everyone has Inevitable Detonation now, but do PUGs throw it en masse at ball groups? No. Most PVPers don't go out of their way to build like they want to kill ball groups. These sets will be used by a few players who already wanted to fight ballgroups...and by the ballgroups who want to kill loads of players.


I think the most important one of your suggestions is for ZOS to support and incentivize grouping for PUGs. They really hurt casual players when they dropped the group size to 12, because groups of 24 PUGs had a much better chance of working together vs the usually smaller ball groups. Dropping to 12 means that the PUG raid has no advantage at all. Even something as simple as being able to see and assist your groupmates makes for better tactics vs ball groups than being completely disorganized or zerg-surfing.

Incentives to group up have other benefits. For new and casual PVPers, grouping is a great way to learn the basics of Cyrodiil. Groups are also more likely to attract support-minded players like healers, who can help mitigate some of the healing disparity that exists between most PUGs and a ball group.

Joy_Division

These changes do not get into the heart or the mechanics as to what makes organized groups strong.

I could get behind the rez idea, because that just should be part of the game. But let's be real, the better organized groups are the ones at a disadvantage here: it's the bad groups and unorganized pugs that need and do a lot more rezzing.

The group bonus to AP gain just reverses a different idea to discourage "ball groups": reward AP for solo players. I took a 9 month break a while ago so this might have changed, but for years in cyrodiil, you got more AP by running solo. The was implemented using the same logic that you are using here: let's incentivize people to play in a different way, but not actually address the mechanics or gameplay.

I'm not sure what the whole AP manipulation will play out as you think it will and even if it does, it's not getting at people's frustrations with what they derisively call "ball groups". An organized group isn;t going to hang around a frontline keep that already has lots of PuGs hanging around waiting for action. It's passive, boring, and makes little AP. That's why they go beyond the frontlines and take back keep or outposts on the other side of the map, often for the specific purpose of trying to bait large numbers of players. When they do this or start running around the third floor, they often know they are going to get overwhelmed and never get that D-Tick and not care; because the entire point of the venture was to bait a fight.

You're incentivzing them to instead ride on their horses to PvDoor something else, rather than blow up a stream of incoming enemy players with Prox Det and VD while defying their limited ability to fight back as they spam away purge and rapid regen.
Why would they do that? Let's even grant they do, how is this addressing the fundamental problem they have of feeling helpless actually fighting these groups? I mean if you're one of these random PuGs who get frustrated at actually fighting these organized groups, are you supposed to feel better about your chances that that organized group, who is just as lethal and robust as before these changes, might leave a keep they just took just to simply capture a different keep in your alliance? Eventually, that organized group will have to eventually fight and defend one of the objectives, no?

Xeniph

Put some sort of restriction on purge and for the love of the divines cap hot stacks. These would go a long way in curbing the power of these ball groups.

VaranisArano

Thraben wrote: »

Literally every point you make would be in the interest of ball groups. That does not mean they are wrong. There are a lot of good ideas here, and I support them.

If you want to give the Pugs a chance, a stamina version of Inevitable Detonation would be needed.

That's basically what the new Plague Break set does, right?

The only problem I see is that few people slot Inevitable Det, and that only takes up a skill slot. How many people are going to give up a 5-piece set in order to kill a ball group?

Maybe the small scale players who've been asking for sets that'll let them kill large groups will wear it, and maybe there'll be enough of them to make a difference. I'm not so sure the average PUG is going to pack an extra set for when the enemy ball group sets up shop farming players in a their home tri-keep.

Konstant_Tel_Necris

Why not enable collision for players from the same alliance?

NoxiousBlight

Point one I can see as valid. Not sure what the timer should be as to not aggravate the normal player, but it is a problem that in ball groups people don't stay dead for more than a few seconds.

I think, *in general* ball groups don't care about AP as much as they do demolishing people. So no changes to AP calculations will discourage ball groups in the slightest. Even adding AP to solo players won't stop the ball groups. They are way better at killing so any additional AP to NOT being in a ball group is pretty moot. By adding AP to grouping you are only giving the ball groups more AP. Perhaps it will encourage grouping, but maybe it won't. I do pugs in Cyro all the time - 12 pugs vs a ball group and the pugs get wiped every time. So I don't think AP incentives are the way to go, although I would always welcome more AP.

A universal purge cooldown may work. Limiting HoT stacking may work. I like the idea of the new sets, but you still would need a quasi-organized group or a few individuals to swap to them on the fly when they can't break through a ball group. I know I will be keeping the new plague set on standby when in Cyro to swap into if I need it. But I fear in order to not make the sets OP you will need 3-4 people doing the same. Hopefully others will have it available too.

Thraben

VaranisArano wrote: »

The only problem I see is that few people slot Inevitable Det, and that only takes up a skill slot. How many people are going to give up a 5-piece set in order to kill a ball group?

Maybe the small scale players who've been asking for sets that'll let them kill large groups will wear it, and maybe there'll be enough of them to make a difference. I'm not so sure the average PUG is going to pack an extra set for when the enemy ball group sets up shop farming players in a their home tri-keep.

That's true, but it's about giving them a chance, not about guaranteeing their success. If people have the tools they need but refuse to use them, it is their decision.

vesselwiththepestle

OlumoGarbag wrote: »

Non of your solutions really hit the spot and only nerf bad ballgroups. In a good ballgroup people dont die that often if at all. And alot of ballgroups dont care for ap that much anyways.

Here are some real solutions:

• snow treaders shouldnt work in a group bigger then 5 this mythic is hands down the strongest set for ballgroups ever
• purge needs to have a cooldown of 3 seconds or more
• inevitable detonation should deal increased damage the faster its triggered

These 3 changes would be a HUGE buff to antiballgroup counterplay. There arent really any alternatives. The new sets wont do anything.

Those are excellent ideas! Especially the nerf to snow treaders and a buff to inevitable detonation.

OlumoGarbag

vesselwiththepestle wrote: »

OlumoGarbag wrote: »

Non of your solutions really hit the spot and only nerf bad ballgroups. In a good ballgroup people dont die that often if at all. And alot of ballgroups dont care for ap that much anyways.

Here are some real solutions:

• snow treaders shouldnt work in a group bigger then 5 this mythic is hands down the strongest set for ballgroups ever
• purge needs to have a cooldown of 3 seconds or more
• inevitable detonation should deal increased damage the faster its triggered

These 3 changes would be a HUGE buff to antiballgroup counterplay. There arent really any alternatives. The new sets wont do anything.

Those are excellent ideas! Especially the nerf to snow treaders and a buff to inevitable detonation.

These are not only excellent ideas they are literally the only things that separate a ballgroup from a regular pvp group.

This is known for years or at least since greymoor. Now zenimax wants to do something "against ballgroups" but im pretty sure they dont, since all they did was buff them over and over.

Mayrael

Add to battle spirit:

Purge: now can be used only via synergy.
Rapids: as above.

Negate now works vs stamina skills to.

Bam. Ball groups are dead. Without being able to move fast, remove all the debuffs and dots and not being able to use any skills in negates this kind of playstyle would be impossible.

3 changes to skills are all you need to balance out ball groups.

Adernath

No. These ideas only favour organized group play further.

This is my idea as a solution against ball groups: Instead of letting negate shut down abilities in a small area where everyone can just walk out, it should give a debuff on every person caught in the area, shutting down abilities for perhaps 4 seconds and which can not be cleansed.

Adernath

And an additional suggestion: Reduce cleansing cost, but make it cost significantly more if it is cast within short periods of times.

Mayrael

Adernath wrote: »

And an additional suggestion: Reduce cleansing cost, but make it cost significantly more if it is cast within short periods of times.

This wont work because ball group can have multiple cleanse/purge casters, they can easliy set them up in order so each one of them could cast it on cool down. It's better to change purge/cleanse into skill similar to templars ritual where you have to activate synergy to get cleanse effect. Synergy has it's internal cool down so you can't use it anyway no matter how many people would cast this skill. The same goes to Rapids. Ball groups use LoS all the time, they are in movement 100% of a time, we need an efficient way of slowing them down.

Your idea about negate is quite interesting, but Im afriad it would make it to strong also in 1v1 situations. Shutting down someones all skillis for 4s is a death sentence, negate should work on stamina skills to, that's all. With changes to how ball groups can shake off roots, snares, dots and debuffs negate would be really dangerous to them again because they would lose their precious stamina to roll from it (also not being able to heal inside of it), then again they would have to deal with snares, roots and because of not being able to LoS so efficiently with increased amount of damage, dots and debuffs (which couldn't be purged right away because of synergy cool down).

Adernath

Mayrael wrote: »

Adernath wrote: »

And an additional suggestion: Reduce cleansing cost, but make it cost significantly more if it is cast within short periods of times.

This wont work because ball group can have multiple cleanse/purge casters, they can easliy set them up in order so each one of them could cast it on cool down. It's better to change purge/cleanse into skill similar to templars ritual where you have to activate synergy to get cleanse effect. Synergy has it's internal cool down so you can't use it anyway no matter how many people would cast this skill. The same goes to Rapids. Ball groups use LoS all the time, they are in movement 100% of a time, we need an efficient way of slowing them down.

Your idea about negate is quite interesting, but Im afriad it would make it to strong also in 1v1 situations. Shutting down someones all skillis for 4s is a death sentence, negate should work on stamina skills to, that's all. With changes to how ball groups can shake off roots, snares, dots and debuffs negate would be really dangerous to them again because they would lose their precious stamina to roll from it (also not being able to heal inside of it), then again they would have to deal with snares, roots and because of not being able to LoS so efficiently with increased amount of damage, dots and debuffs (which couldn't be purged right away because of synergy cool down).

Well, the 4s are not set in stone. One can make it like 2.5 seconds and purgable. Together with my other suggestion that should require a little more effort to counter from ball groups.

Adernath

In any case, I believe there are plenty of easy-to-implement solutions mentioned in this thread which could be tested. But I am against the OPs ideas.

Sandman929

Joy_Division wrote: »

These changes do not get into the heart or the mechanics as to what makes organized groups strong.

I could get behind the rez idea, because that just should be part of the game. But let's be real, the better organized groups are the ones at a disadvantage here: it's the bad groups and unorganized pugs that need and do a lot more rezzing.

The group bonus to AP gain just reverses a different idea to discourage "ball groups": reward AP for solo players. I took a 9 month break a while ago so this might have changed, but for years in cyrodiil, you got more AP by running solo. The was implemented using the same logic that you are using here: let's incentivize people to play in a different way, but not actually address the mechanics or gameplay.

I'm not sure what the whole AP manipulation will play out as you think it will and even if it does, it's not getting at people's frustrations with what they derisively call "ball groups". An organized group isn;t going to hang around a frontline keep that already has lots of PuGs hanging around waiting for action. It's passive, boring, and makes little AP. That's why they go beyond the frontlines and take back keep or outposts on the other side of the map, often for the specific purpose of trying to bait large numbers of players. When they do this or start running around the third floor, they often know they are going to get overwhelmed and never get that D-Tick and not care; because the entire point of the venture was to bait a fight.

You're incentivzing them to instead ride on their horses to PvDoor something else, rather than blow up a stream of incoming enemy players with Prox Det and VD while defying their limited ability to fight back as they spam away purge and rapid regen.
Why would they do that? Let's even grant they do, how is this addressing the fundamental problem they have of feeling helpless actually fighting these groups? I mean if you're one of these random PuGs who get frustrated at actually fighting these organized groups, are you supposed to feel better about your chances that that organized group, who is just as lethal and robust as before these changes, might leave a keep they just took just to simply capture a different keep in your alliance? Eventually, that organized group will have to eventually fight and defend one of the objectives, no?

Pretty much in this camp. I don't see AP incentive/disincentive as an effective because it doesn't address the mechanical issues used by organized groups to gain such a lopsided advantage against disorganized numbers.

There's nothing wrong with organized offensive power being strong, the problem is imbalance where organized defensive power is concerned. HoT stacking and purge need to be looked at.
The new sets are interesting, and I'm curious to see how they work out. I'm expecting absolute chaos and non-stop being pulled in every direction...worse for the disorganized masses than the organized groups.

itscompton

VaranisArano wrote: »

This are good structural ideas that could help incentivize some behavioral changes.

I think it's important for ZOS to understand that they can't stop organized groups from seeking out large fights. That's where so much of the challenge and fun lies for those groups, going up against masses of PUGs to see how long they can last before they are overwhelmed. Some groups fight for objectives for their faction, while others just want good fights, but every large organized PVP guild I've known loved having those big fights.

No amount of begging or bribing players to spread out is going to change that.

Moreover, just giving players the tools to fight ball groups doesn't mean they'll use them effectively. I mean, everyone has Inevitable Detonation now, but do PUGs throw it en masse at ball groups? No. Most PVPers don't go out of their way to build like they want to kill ball groups. These sets will be used by a few players who already wanted to fight ballgroups...and by the ballgroups who want to kill loads of players.


I think the most important one of your suggestions is for ZOS to support and incentivize grouping for PUGs. They really hurt casual players when they dropped the group size to 12, because groups of 24 PUGs had a much better chance of working together vs the usually smaller ball groups. Dropping to 12 means that the PUG raid has no advantage at all. Even something as simple as being able to see and assist your groupmates makes for better tactics vs ball groups than being completely disorganized or zerg-surfing.

Incentives to group up have other benefits. For new and casual PVPers, grouping is a great way to learn the basics of Cyrodiil. Groups are also more likely to attract support-minded players like healers, who can help mitigate some of the healing disparity that exists between most PUGs and a ball group.

I've been advocating for this in my PvP guild for a long time but they just won't listen. If you could get 10 people to cast Inevitable Det on a ball group at the same exact time it would be the best counter possible.
The first purge thrown sets all of them off at once and even if the group is tanky and only take 5K per (which is a low number really, my Sorc sees crits of 15-20K when I put in on large groups) that's still 50K in one GCD.
Or they don't purge but they still all go off together 4 seconds later.
Or they all have to run away from each other and they're not a ball group anymore.

I completely agree with you about the change to group sizes. In addition to the points you've made I'd also add that changing the group size affected the ebb and flow of keep takes by slowing the pace to a crawl, which makes Cyro much less fun.

TequilaFire

Just get your sorcs to use negate and coordinate with your DDs.
Oh wait that might get labeled a "ball group". lol

Qrähe

Suggestions boiling down to 2 give us more AP for the playstyle and the other make camps and rezzing less effective..... So out of the above the only decent one was diminishing AP returns and thats meh. I'm with AoE purges need to be synergies and don't stack hots.

This will strike a nice balance of at a point ball groups running the super mobile run away until we can ult playstyle can be overrun at a point, but also letting them retain some level of strength.

vgabor

OlumoGarbag wrote: »

• purge needs to have a cooldown of 3 seconds or more (my suggestion would be to make it a synergie applied to all group members in range with a 10 second cooldown this way people have to actively chose when to use the purge not a braindead cleanse spam to make them untouchable)

Carefull about purge, being able to spam it is vital in PvE for clearing some vet trials...

doesurmindglow

I mean, I think people are misunderstanding my concept of diminishing AP returns at a single objective: I'm not suggesting that o-ticks and d-ticks should diminish over time. I'm suggesting ALL INCOMING AP GOES TO ZERO over time. I'm sure plenty of ball groups will be just fine with continuing to camp and "farm" kills at a given objective even if their AP/hour drops to actual zero. But much more importantly, perhaps, is the fact that no one will be getting any AP for BEING farmed, either. It's basically a disincentive to all parties involved, and a reward to creating their own groups that move on to other objectives.

Again, I wouldn't expect that alone to solve "the problem." But coupled with a dramatic reduction in the ability of the ball group to rez its members and endlessly reset their fights, you'd have more decision points to act on this different set of incentives.

The challenges with screwing around with HOTs and Purge aside from the fact it's already been done before is the impact they have on game balance in PVE. ZOS is reluctant to make balance changes in PVP alone through Battle Spirit, and making it so HOTs cannot stack or purges are on cooldown will require rebalancing of an awful lot of endgame PVE content. This is also the issue with the "just nerf procs" solution, which doesn't "get rid of" ball groups either, even if it does make them slightly more killable. But I'm not opposed to a solution like that either, I just don't think it's going to get us very far on its own.

I think too many people are convinced that just one or two abilities or just one or two sets empower ball groups. I think the problem is bigger than that, and nerfing two abilities and three sets is not going to do literally anything. I mean, they reduced all of Cyrodiil to just 19 sets from hundreds, as well as implemented cooldowns on both HOTs and purges. This all was tried and had no impact on ball group viability, not really. To be fair, limiting rezzes and encouraging more groups to organize and play the map might not do anything either, but at least those are solutions at the strategic level instead of the tactical, which is where the "problem" really lies.

Mayrael

I was here when the ball groups were born. You can tell right away when a ball group is new and learning and when it is experienced.

The most important rule of any such group is discipline. You follow the leader and follow orders without murmuring and in a certain order, everyone must know his place and "number" in such a group.

What makes these groups so strong?

1. The same thing that makes some players so good at 1vX. Effective use of LoS. This is where purge needs to be nerfed (by battle spirit as I mentioned before, so that synergy needs to be used to get the negative effects removed). I forgot about Snow Treaders earlier, this set also, like RotPO should work weaker in a group. The key thing here is that in a ball group there is no way to burn the stamina of its members because all snares and roots are removed almost automatically. Another issue is Rapids. Group speed buff should also be on synergy. Because of unrestricted mobility of the group, it dictates where and on what conditions it will fight and at the moment, there is no chance to even create a short window in which such group could be stopped or slowed down.

2. Debuffs and DoTs. No ball group would survive multiple siege weapons and enemy fire so easily if it wasn't for the fact that all debuffs, DoTs etc. are instantly removed from the group which makes all preasure disappear within 1-2s. Again, purge/cleanse is the culprit here.

3. Stamina heals and shields. When negate is cast there are several factors that make it pointless and not working.
(a) all group members, due to pt. 1 have full stamina and are able to roll out of it immediately.
(b) inside negate, stamina heals and defensive skils are still working (negate should work against stamina skills to).
(c) due to pt. 2 it is not possible to create proper preasure, because group members are 99% of the time at full health and without any debuffs or DoTs.

I have nothing against playing with a coordinated group, but ball groups just abuse certain mechanics that make there no effective way to counter their way of playing. Theoretically playing in such close proximity should make them more susceptible to AoE, but in practice the lack of ability to debuff, DoT, and break the group or stop such a group makes them unstoppable. The problem is that the skils and sets they use give them 100% immunity to all negative effects of hard and soft CCs, debuffs and DoTs at all times.

red_emu

Actually, the solution might be even more simple. Add diminishing returns to "ball group extermination sets" and make it way more punishing (yet still allowing for duo bombers)

1-2 people - 100% damage
3-6 people - 50% damage
6-12 people - 1% damage

This way, the bomb sets would be "as designed" for solo/duo use only 👍