Way to discourage ball groups

DucLIX

Kwoung

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

a well-organized group can and do defeat the ball groups

Yes we've established that the way to beat a ballgroup is another ballgroup.

Would a new organized group meta really be such a bad thing?

Doesnt even need to be a ballgroup, could be literally just 3 or 4 players with ulti's, synergies and good builds. Just requires coordination and communication... something pugs normally dont have. It's not a bad thing. Just how it is. Not saying that it's your opinion but it's always confusing how in an MMO people are continuously shocked by organised groups rolling through them lol.

I was about to post the same response, then saw yours. I concur, 3-4 decent players working together can bring about the demise of most any ball group, maybe not without help, but they can disrupt them enough... that the pitchfork carrying mob will be able to kill them.

That said, it amazes me that this rarely happens. You just get folks setting up siege (and missing most of the time), folks thinking if they alone just time it right they will blow up the ball group, and who only knows what else these folks who just keep tossing their bodies in front of the truck are thinking. But whatever it is, it definitely isn't working with a few folks near them and making a well timed coordinated attack that would actually work.

neferpitou73

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Ball groups have a place in Cyrodiil for sure and I wouldn't want them to go away. However, with that being said I am usually one to bail when they show up at a keep... I love PvP and love jumping into fights to learn and get better even after playing as long as I have but dealing with ball groups for someone like me who is typically solo or 2 man group... it's just a pain and not fun.

On the other side, I was part of an organized guild back in the day and it was pretty fun. The difference between even a year or two ago and today is it seems Cyrodiil is filled with more new-ish type players who are just jumping in blind than ever before. Usually, a group or guild takes these people and teaches them, just like groups do in PvE but that seems to be happening less and less.

The reason is simple: Group size reduction. We don't have enough in our group anymore for our own guildmates. We don't have enough spots for new inexperienced players.

LarsS

We still accept and train players new to pvp, thus we often run with more than one group so its doable. Still I agree its harder, since one need enough raidleader to do that.

AuraNebula

Get rid of dark convergence. It is being used by ball groups and zergs. Buff solo bombing again. Not to what is what when it was OP, but to how it was in the patch before.

gariondavey

The solution is very very very very very simple.

Don't allow stacking of multiple healing over time spells of the same name.

Do this and the ball groups will die.

Amottica

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

a well-organized group can and do defeat the ball groups

Yes we've established that the way to beat a ballgroup is another ballgroup.

Would a new organized group meta really be such a bad thing?

Doesnt even need to be a ballgroup, could be literally just 3 or 4 players with ulti's, synergies and good builds. Just requires coordination and communication... something pugs normally dont have. It's not a bad thing. Just how it is.

This, exactly.

I still do not understand what people are calling ball groups since sometimes it seems to mean any group they cannot defeat. I have seen large pug groups (X in chat) that are easily defeated because they are not well organized. However, I expect that a slightly organized pug group would still steamroll over random players that happen to be in the same area.

I would suggest having well-organized groups in Cyrodiil is a good thing just as it is a good thing to have skilled solo players around. There should be some form of competitiveness after all.

Kwoung

Amottica wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

a well-organized group can and do defeat the ball groups

Yes we've established that the way to beat a ballgroup is another ballgroup.

Would a new organized group meta really be such a bad thing?

Doesnt even need to be a ballgroup, could be literally just 3 or 4 players with ulti's, synergies and good builds. Just requires coordination and communication... something pugs normally dont have. It's not a bad thing. Just how it is.

This, exactly.

I still do not understand what people are calling ball groups since sometimes it seems to mean any group they cannot defeat. I have seen large pug groups (X in chat) that are easily defeated because they are not well organized. However, I expect that a slightly organized pug group would still steamroll over random players that happen to be in the same area.

I would suggest having well-organized groups in Cyrodiil is a good thing just as it is a good thing to have skilled solo players around. There should be some form of competitiveness after all.

Yes, the term "Ball Group" seems to have morphed from what it actually means, to any group of 3+ players that roll you. People really need to get their terminology straight, especially if they expect ZOS to targeted a nerf at a particular group. Otherwise you end up with crap like Dark Convergence as a blanket "fix".

Troll92

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

What do they actually get out of playing like that? Ap is probably garbage because of how many players are attacking and getting kills while in a zerg is not hard or rewarding. There was certainly a point in time where ball groups were smaller then the zergs they were farming, but now a days they are about the same size.

I am thinking its about power and prestige in truth. They can claim whatever they want, but the reality is they want to be feared and renowned. If we stop calling them "ball groups" as if there is some distinction between them and a common zerg they won't feel special anymore. Just call them zergs, because they are now. The pop cap is low enough that they are just as big as any other zerg. Don't give them respect, call the zerglings, mock their skill level, shame them out of playing in a zerg. Catch any of them outside their groups and they play like pvers. They aren't skilled, they are just pvers doing rotations in a pvp environment. Its only possible because of how unbelievably bad zos is at fixing their game and you all know this to be true. Is zos would finally fix the mechanics they are exploiting they would probably quit because they can't play at all without their zerg.

Actually, even the mechanics abuse would be nil if they updated their servers and remove lag. The only thing they exploit to get ahead is lag. Of course you can't defeat ballgroups when your siege fires 30 seconds after they passed the intended area. Or when your abilities don't fly when you need them to. Or when stun/root imunity doesn't wear off when it should. If there was no lag they could spam ults and heals a much as they like. When i used to form dedicated ballgroup hunting parties we had great success when there was minimal or no lag. No amount of discord and addon synchronizing can withstand organised attacks.

Kwoung

Troll92 wrote: »

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

What do they actually get out of playing like that? Ap is probably garbage because of how many players are attacking and getting kills while in a zerg is not hard or rewarding. There was certainly a point in time where ball groups were smaller then the zergs they were farming, but now a days they are about the same size.

I am thinking its about power and prestige in truth. They can claim whatever they want, but the reality is they want to be feared and renowned. If we stop calling them "ball groups" as if there is some distinction between them and a common zerg they won't feel special anymore. Just call them zergs, because they are now. The pop cap is low enough that they are just as big as any other zerg. Don't give them respect, call the zerglings, mock their skill level, shame them out of playing in a zerg. Catch any of them outside their groups and they play like pvers. They aren't skilled, they are just pvers doing rotations in a pvp environment. Its only possible because of how unbelievably bad zos is at fixing their game and you all know this to be true. Is zos would finally fix the mechanics they are exploiting they would probably quit because they can't play at all without their zerg.

Actually, even the mechanics abuse would be nil if they updated their servers and remove lag. The only thing they exploit to get ahead is lag. Of course you can't defeat ballgroups when your siege fires 30 seconds after they passed the intended area. Or when your abilities don't fly when you need them to. Or when stun/root imunity doesn't wear off when it should. If there was no lag they could spam ults and heals a much as they like. When i used to form dedicated ballgroup hunting parties we had great success when there was minimal or no lag. No amount of discord and addon synchronizing can withstand organised attacks.

Everything you just wrote, are the exact same issues we experience fighting against zergs, without a ball group in sight.

xylena_lazarow

Kwoung wrote: »

Everything you just wrote, are the exact same issues we experience fighting against zergs, without a ball group in sight.

Aren't you the ballgroup here? You can blame the zergs all you want, 60v12 stalemates will still create lag and send angry randoms to the forums. It's time for a better large scale meta.

Ostonoha

Kwoung wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

a well-organized group can and do defeat the ball groups

Yes we've established that the way to beat a ballgroup is another ballgroup.

Would a new organized group meta really be such a bad thing?

Doesnt even need to be a ballgroup, could be literally just 3 or 4 players with ulti's, synergies and good builds. Just requires coordination and communication... something pugs normally dont have. It's not a bad thing. Just how it is.

This, exactly.

I still do not understand what people are calling ball groups since sometimes it seems to mean any group they cannot defeat. I have seen large pug groups (X in chat) that are easily defeated because they are not well organized. However, I expect that a slightly organized pug group would still steamroll over random players that happen to be in the same area.

I would suggest having well-organized groups in Cyrodiil is a good thing just as it is a good thing to have skilled solo players around. There should be some form of competitiveness after all.

Yes, the term "Ball Group" seems to have morphed from what it actually means, to any group of 3+ players that roll you. .

pretty much this. Its pretty much become a catch all phrase to describe any number of people even trying to work together to win fights in pvp.

Theignson

This is a never ending topic, pugs complain about ball groups, ball groups claim they are elite pvpers.

I joined 20 other people recently (I think they were all sniping since there was never any chat) on Twitch and watched a ball group.

They were all 36-38k health

The display showed they usually had ~36 buffs (running without a group these days, I might have 6-10)

Of those 36 buffs, there were often 6 or more radiating regens and 6 or more eternal vigors.

So if you do the math, given all the other buffs, that might be 12,000 HPS heals plus 38k HP. This is why the

"disorganized peasants with wooden sticks" never do any damage to these "elite" players.

I vote turn off stacking heals in Pvp. You can have one vigor and one radiating regen-- then I would happily fight these ball groups--

Of course, despite being "elite" if they "only" had one heal each they would probably die immediately and cease to exist or===

They could change their tactics and stop running around the keep walls for hours

Kwoung

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

Everything you just wrote, are the exact same issues we experience fighting against zergs, without a ball group in sight.

Aren't you the ballgroup here?

Ummm no?

neferpitou73

Theignson wrote: »

This is a never ending topic, pugs complain about ball groups, ball groups claim they are elite pvpers.

I joined 20 other people recently (I think they were all sniping since there was never any chat) on Twitch and watched a ball group.

They were all 36-38k health

The display showed they usually had ~36 buffs (running without a group these days, I might have 6-10)

Of those 36 buffs, there were often 6 or more radiating regens and 6 or more eternal vigors.

So if you do the math, given all the other buffs, that might be 12,000 HPS heals plus 38k HP. This is why the

"disorganized peasants with wooden sticks" never do any damage to these "elite" players.

I vote turn off stacking heals in Pvp. You can have one vigor and one radiating regen-- then I would happily fight these ball groups--

Of course, despite being "elite" if they "only" had one heal each they would probably die immediately and cease to exist or===

They could change their tactics and stop running around the keep walls for hours

Most ball groups run 3-4 healers. For some the regen stacks are there for Maelstrom resto staff magicka recovery

Or the zerg could leave them alone because they just do that to get a good fight/waste their opponents' time while their allies grab other keeps.

If you're fighting something that's designed to beat you in close range, don't fight in it close range

Stamicka

Ballgrouping doesn’t need to be discouraged. How you want to play Cyrodiil is a personal choice. You like to play the map and run in disorganized groups? Personal choice. Other players like to run in organized groups and kill players? Personal choice. Sure they need to take a look at how heal stacking works, specifically radiating regen, but if ZOS has it in the game then it’s fair game for people to heal stack.

After all, Cyrodiil is a PvP zone and a very very small population still likes to kill players rather than siege keeps. You’re going to have to deal with it or make your own organized group.

Troll92

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

This is a never ending topic, pugs complain about ball groups, ball groups claim they are elite pvpers.

I joined 20 other people recently (I think they were all sniping since there was never any chat) on Twitch and watched a ball group.

They were all 36-38k health

The display showed they usually had ~36 buffs (running without a group these days, I might have 6-10)

Of those 36 buffs, there were often 6 or more radiating regens and 6 or more eternal vigors.

So if you do the math, given all the other buffs, that might be 12,000 HPS heals plus 38k HP. This is why the

"disorganized peasants with wooden sticks" never do any damage to these "elite" players.

I vote turn off stacking heals in Pvp. You can have one vigor and one radiating regen-- then I would happily fight these ball groups--

Of course, despite being "elite" if they "only" had one heal each they would probably die immediately and cease to exist or===

They could change their tactics and stop running around the keep walls for hours

Most ball groups run 3-4 healers. For some the regen stacks are there for Maelstrom resto staff magicka recovery

Or the zerg could leave them alone because they just do that to get a good fight/waste their opponents' time while their allies grab other keeps.

If you're fighting something that's designed to beat you in close range, don't fight in it close range

The only ballgroups i've seen helping their faction are from pact. They execute tactical strikes when there's a push for enemy scrolls. They don't farm with their own scrolls until time expires and scroll is returned to where it was taken from. The other faction's ballgroups just run around annoying people. I've never once seen an AD or DC ballgroup return their scrolls home and not farm with them.
And on the other point, you can't just ignore a ballgroup and hope they magically go away. They'll just take your keeps and force you to come to them.
As a point i hate all forms of ballgroups and 1 vs Xing as being a toxic lag and broken mechanics abuser is just lame, but if you plan on being toxic at least do it to the other factions and not your own.

vgastel

Ball groups are hard to kill because of heal stacking

For example I have a tooltip of 14k hot in 10 seconds from echoing vigor. When we are running in a group of 10 and we all keep echoing vigor up, then everyone gets a 14k hot per second. This makes us nearly immortal, maybe except in heavy siege (our group plays for the map though, we fight for scrolls and keeps but we don't use them for farming).

To balance the power of near immortal pug farming ball groups, maybe hot stacking should be limited/nerfed to, I don't know, 3 instances of the same type of hot.

BlakMarket

Or simply avoid the ballgroups for the 2-4 hrs they run maybe 3 times a week, there are plenty of other fights you can win on the map when they are around.

They only thing I dislike about ballgroups is the server perfomance when they run, it used to be localized lag but now because the hamsters at ZOS server are getting old the whole server lags when they run laps.

Brrrofski

Give groups above 4 the pale order treatment.

Reduce healing per extra person in the group.

Waylander07

I have been playing in Ravenwatch recently and so far have not encountered any ball groups. Even when the population has been 2 bars for each faction there was very little lag compared to Gray host. I also noticed that there didn't seem to be any players who were hard to take down even with a zerg unlike gray host. The only downside here is lack of population but the fights were defiantly better even when 20 v20 which is about the most I have seen so far. The other thing that I noticed was that I rarely got the stuck in combat bug and when I was it didn't last as long. I haven't been playing long enough in Ravenwatch to be sure but I am starting to think that the answer is the no proc/cp points campaign.

Crown

There are a few good points above, though I suggest that we standardize nomenclature and distinguish between:

Ball Group = A group that runs tightly, with a target of a maximum distance from the leader. This allows for better overlap of localized healing and damage and results in a high likelihood of success when fighting greater numbers.

Min/Max Group = A group whose composition is carefully designed so that roles, responsibilities, buffs, procs, application of negative effects, and damage are maximized when the composition is filled. Min/Max groups will usually have a tendency to run as a ball, though will often have more effective formations, positioning, and only converge into a tight ball when there is a need (or relevant calls are made by the leader).

In the current state of the game, a Min/Max group should be able to take on about double their numbers of coordinated Ball Group players, or quadruple their numbers of randoms / small groups / Pick up Groups (PuGs).

Regarding stacking HoTs (Vigor and Radiating Regen from all, and additional skills from healers), a perfect Min/Max group can net 35k heals per second from just those, and that’s not counting active burst healing or shields (Combat Physician, Imperium, Prayer). To take such a group out, you need some or even all of the following: CC (Negates are still OP), pull them out of position (chains, leash, warden circle), siege (scattershot for increased damage application, meatbag for decreased healing, and cold fire / cold stone for damage), and to focus down critical roles (healers or the leader).

As a Min/Max group player, I can confirm that we don’t care about AP anymore. Most of us have at least a few AR50’s, and AP is just another currency for making gold and feeding our potion additions.

When we have to fight another Min/Max group, it’ll often go indefinitely with each side killing a couple from their opponents back and forth, and the group wipes end up being when someone makes a (significant) mistake first - or when one side gets bored and just calls it after 10-20 minutes of doing the “try to kill each other” dance. It can be fun for a few minutes, but it gets very boring very quickly. A Min/Max group composition for fighting 50+ opponents (what we enjoy) is different from a composition for fighting another Min/Max group of 12 (or GvG).

Some people disdain groups, Ball groups, and Min/Max groups, though as long as there are options on how to play, the ones who want to focus on increasing their likelihood of success will make use of all potential options within the game to win.

Einstein_

vgastel wrote: »

Ball groups are hard to kill because of heal stacking

For example I have a tooltip of 14k hot in 10 seconds from echoing vigor. When we are running in a group of 10 and we all keep echoing vigor up, then everyone gets a 14k hot per second. This makes us nearly immortal, maybe except in heavy siege (our group plays for the map though, we fight for scrolls and keeps but we don't use them for farming).

To balance the power of near immortal pug farming ball groups, maybe hot stacking should be limited/nerfed to, I don't know, 3 instances of the same type of hot.

and if 10 players spam a Ranged AOE with 5k DMG in the group, the ballgroup gets 50k dmg per second ?
why are they even here then ?, shouldnt they die instantly ?

biminirwb17_ESO

This is the reason Ball group have to keep moving, if they stay still they are susceptible to aoes so of course they do not.

Kwoung

Einstein_ wrote: »

vgastel wrote: »

Ball groups are hard to kill because of heal stacking

For example I have a tooltip of 14k hot in 10 seconds from echoing vigor. When we are running in a group of 10 and we all keep echoing vigor up, then everyone gets a 14k hot per second. This makes us nearly immortal, maybe except in heavy siege (our group plays for the map though, we fight for scrolls and keeps but we don't use them for farming).

To balance the power of near immortal pug farming ball groups, maybe hot stacking should be limited/nerfed to, I don't know, 3 instances of the same type of hot.

and if 10 players spam a Ranged AOE with 5k DMG in the group, the ballgroup gets 50k dmg per second ?
why are they even here then ?, shouldnt they die instantly ?

Because getting 10 PUGS in Cyro to coordinate anything is a near impossibility, which is why anti-ball group threads proliferate. While it does take coordination, they drop fairly quickly when hit with 50-100K incoming DPS. The trick is, it has to be damage per "second", not spread out over 10 seconds.

xDeusEJRx

vgastel wrote: »

Ball groups are hard to kill because of heal stacking

For example I have a tooltip of 14k hot in 10 seconds from echoing vigor. When we are running in a group of 10 and we all keep echoing vigor up, then everyone gets a 14k hot per second. This makes us nearly immortal, maybe except in heavy siege (our group plays for the map though, we fight for scrolls and keeps but we don't use them for farming).

To balance the power of near immortal pug farming ball groups, maybe hot stacking should be limited/nerfed to, I don't know, 3 instances of the same type of hot.

ZoS already started this somewhat by not allowing the strong vigors to stack anymore. The resolving vigor used to be able to stack back in the day but zos removed it because stam players were basically pseudo-healers stacking their resolving vigors on each other now only echoing vigor(the weak version) still has an AoE heal. But they continue allowing mag characters to stack rapid regen and radiating regen in PVP, continuing the trend of pseudo-healing. Which I find funny. I personally think it should be all or nothing, but don't be selective in nerfing.

DrSlaughtr

Fun little thing that happens on XB. There's a handful of ball groups that all switch back and forth to the same faction every few camps, rather than fight one another. They then run side by side to drive most players offline until most AP gain is exhausted. Then they sign off, leaving Cyro dead.

I don't think that's working as intended.

ResidentContrarian

Target purge spam in PvP
Buff Siege or lower effectiveness of siege shield

Problem solved overnight.

Fidget1302

I like ball groups. I like watching their streams and YouTube clips. I say leave them alone and let them do their thing. HOWEVER, that being said, the notion that ball groups don't do it for the AP is nonsense. They absolutely do it for the AP. How do I know? I watch their content. In every single one I've ever watched, the central theme and constant remarks made by the ball group leaders and their troops is all about AP. Now, this is PC NA I'm talking about, so the ball group culture might be different on non PC.

Heck, the other day I was watching a ball group's stream and they were inside an AD home keep for over an hour and a half just obliterating them. The ball group would take the front flag, use a ram on the inner FD from the inside to flag it, then they would head upstairs and the leader would instruct his troops to let AD take back the flags and rep the door so they (the ball group) can get ticks. They kept wondering how much AP they were gonna get, etc. Eventually an AD ball group came in and wiped them.

If ball groups wanted a challenge then there would be way more videos and word of mouth about how so and so ball group got wrecked by other so and so ball group, things like that, but those are scarce and the reason why is because ball groups generally don't like fighting other ball groups because it's usually an extremely hard challenge and less AP to be gained considering how small ball groups are compared to the huge zergs.

NotTaylorSwift

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

Target purge spam in PvP
Buff Siege or lower effectiveness of siege shield

Problem solved overnight.

they havent ran purge since plaguebreak, keep up