horrid ball groups ruining pvp

Heals_With_Orbs

Ok, so now we have the new servers, thanks for that zos!

However although the lag has been improved it's not 100% perfect. One thing that still is a problem however are these dreadful ball groups that we all hate.

Why is it that they always seems to be AD / DC alliance that use them?

I won't mention any names as I don't think its allowed and not my style, but however this certain AD ball group usually appears at 10pm and basically grabs a scroll from EP and then proceeds to troll around the keeps for about 30 mins farming people for alliance points.

I'm not sure if that counts as harassment or not, or breaking tos etc, but they don't take the scroll and return it to their own keep, they just continue to mow people down while everyone is completely powerless, running around the fort walls, up and down the tower stairs.

Before people say "negate, negate" etc, I can tell you that none of that worked. These guys seem to have immunity to stuns, streak, negates. You throw some mines and they get tossed up-in the air and quickly run back to their groups.

Also that snake in the stars set (which was nerfed) is totally useless

Why is this kind of gameplay allowed in the first place? 12 people should not be immortal in a mmo pvp game

many people have complained about it, and well known streamers have posted youtube videos on how "cringe" they are, but we still are experiencing this despite a bundle of sets that were supposedly meant to counter them, (plaguebreak, dark convergence, snake in the stars), and ironically are being used by said groups to their advantage,

Surely this can't be good for ZOS as a whole as its pretty demotivating for some people to play pvp, failed sets that don't do the job as "promised" and the fact the game design allows people to be invincible is STILL a problem even though its been an issue for a few years.

I've got no problem with organised groups, that play well and have an advantage due to skill, experience etc, that is fine.

[snip]

These ball groups are still causing lag, and still ruining peoples enjoyment, causing skills not to work, and this is totally unacceptable

Maybe next time I will link a video

[edited for discussing disciplinary actions]

RevJJ

Heals_With_Orbs wrote: »

Why is it that they always seems to be AD / DC alliance that use them?

Assuming you’re EP, then the answer is that you only see ballgroups of other alliances because the ones in your own alliance are much harder to spot because you’re not trying to kill them. They’ll just appear as a group of other players to you and if they’re running around a keep farming AP… you’re probably already fighting somewhere else.

All alliances have ball groups. And they make the game very boring for others.

Gadamlub14_ESO

this is an issue in every massive PVP type game mode with hundreds of players on each team.

The Zerg. the Zerg always wins.

Aerenthir

I don't really see what the problem is with ball groups now that the lag is gone ( at least for me it is, even with several ball groups at one place my ping doesn't go over 120 ).

Ballgroups don't bother me and don't kill me. I don't chase them and if I move to the side even standing next to them they don't even engage. Their damage lies in an organised ultimate stacking burst, which they will never waste on a solo random person.

Farming with a scroll has been a thing for years and it's of course not against the rules, because the campaign score doesn't really matter in the sense that players don't win the campaigns, but night capping wins it. The faction that caps everything during the night/early day is usually the one that wins.

"Negate, negate, negate" doesn't work, because it needs to be followed by an actual damaging burst. I don't understand the zerg mentality which assumes that they should be able to kill them. Why? Why do you think that a group of non organized people that throw random skill every now without any voice syncronization or timing, should be able to kill a group of 40k hp running, that are in a call?

I'm playing as an EP and I see those ball groups every evening and I'm still having a blast of fun. However I don't chase the ball groups and I don't care what they are doing. If they go to one keep I go to another. I go take a resource by myself and fight whoever comes there.

Snake in the Stars is really bad though. I've watched how ball groups outheal it easily. Not cleanse mind you, just outheal a set that is supposed to counter healing.

P.S Best way to deal with them is not Negate actually but to break their sieges before they get inside a keep. Seen few people of EP doing it and the ball groups left eventually from the keep they were trying to enter.

FakeZavos

These type of posts always grind my gears. Why do you think that your type of playstyle is the only one allowed? Lets say I dont like gankers, does that mean that they shoudnt be allowed to play it because they keep ganking me outside of Nikkel?

Ballgroups are fairly even split between the 3 factions. Most groups even switching factions regulary.

Ballgroups can hardly be nerfed or the zergs buffed. Thats the thing about organised groups, they will find a way to adapt. Thats part of the fun for those groups. Dont like it? Make your own group and fight them. Dont want to? Then just go to a different place, the scroll will reset in an hour anyway

Blood_again

Aerenthir wrote: »

Ballgroups don't bother me and don't kill me. I don't chase them and if I move to the side even standing next to them they don't even engage. Their damage lies in an organised ultimate stacking burst, which they will never waste on a solo random person.

Try to tab their healer, chain him from group and run around his dead body interrupting their ressurect attempts. That ball group probably run for you personally. Well, if they don't have another necro to res, they will make at least 2 rounds for you around mine tower as I tested.

Four_Fingers

Please only speak for your self not everyone hates ball groups.
Doesn't this belong in the PvP section anyway?

ArchMikem

On Xbox NA we have infamous Blue and Yellow ball groups that love to farm our home keeps. Funnily enough they always seem to focus their attention on Red, never each other. We do in fact have our own sort of "Anti Ball Group" group, but they're VERY slow to react to call outs. Basically they'll come and deal with them if they feel like it.

And Negates do actually work, but you have to time it just right. If you drop one while they're in the middle of kiting you around they'll just ignore and keep running. Wait for when they turn heel and charge. The ball will pick a spot to start throwing down all their AoEs. That's what you target. Their Necros use the skill that sucks all your friendlies into one spot. Throw your negate there and suddenly they're doing nothing but flailing their arms around, no AoE damage, no self healing. Gives your Allies the chance to hit back.

If said ball group also has their own Sorc throwing down negates, make sure theirs doesn't cancel out yours. It's all about timing.

Oh and once they do start wiping, if you see one running away, hunt them down without mercy. They'll try to get a camp up and start the madness all over again.

Kavar162

I don't think ball groups shouldn't exist, but I do think healing needs a nerf again in pvp. Way too many defensive procs in this game...and then you combine with cross and stacked healing? Ugh

ArchMikem

Kavar162 wrote: »

I don't think ball groups shouldn't exist, but I do think healing needs a nerf again in pvp. Way too many defensive procs in this game...and then you combine with cross and stacked healing? Ugh

That would hurt solo players who already have a hard time self healing though. Yknow, the ones that aren't Dragonknights at least.

finehair

They have ball groups in every faction. You don't get to see the red one because they are far away from the main action, doing their own thing similar to other faction ball groups.
I agree that they are a nuisance to be honest. The best way to wipe them or make a big dent in their group are;
- negate + meatbag sièges while they are staying still in a corner/ram/tower top
- spamming streak+immobilize morph of the bow skill I forgot the name. This won't wipe them but very annoying and if you are lucky some zerg will corner one of the members and drop them dead
- DK chain/warden portalling their members away from them. If you are good with the chain skill you can chain their healer and jump from the roof/bridge with that person. That would most likely to kill you, but their healer will be seperared from the main party, which means you get to kill at least one of them
- crap tons of sieges, like literally 20 sieges if they are running inside the keep. Literally wherever they run it must be raining firebolts and rotten meat I mean that much. This won't kill them alone, you need to keep pressure on with groups on them also
- burning their sieges, shooting their sieges with sieges. So they can't take the keep, they will get bored and sad and run away. Literally don't let them siege, their main target is to get inside the keep. If you can pretend that you don't need to kill them
- the zerg. Just get every rando on them. The zerg never loses. It may lose some zerglings, but the zerg never loses. Throw every guy with a stick at them, at some point they will pop eventually. I'm not talking about going in 1 by 1. Get the whole faction snowballing and you'll see the slaughter house the small randos are capable of.

NordSwordnBoard

Somebody cue up the picture with like 25 buffs across the bottom lol. One really has to wonder if reducing heals across the board, or how many can stack up, is the catalyst we need to make it EASIER to dispatch ball groups like described by OP. A lot of fights big and small end in stalemate due to stacking heals and/or crutch sets, and that is amplified by ball groups. They are optimized, and you must match that to beat them. Just like if Devs increase dps in PvE, the people with mediocre parses will not feel it as much as the people at the top who min/max.

Neoauspex

@ArchMikem is right (about negates anyway, no way you're talking about Gray Host Xbox NA not having red ball groups), negate is what works it just has to be timed right and coordinated with other ults. If you want to play in Cyro prepare for group combat, otherwise go with BGs/duels.

wsmith97ub17_ESO

It's been that way since launch. It's why so few do pvp anymore. Sit and watch the chat in cyrodil. All these little sweat lords know each other and each other's history. It's just the same few dozen nerds who will be there when the servers shut down. They know it sucks, especially the ball npcs, but they have nothing else to do in the game.

Gadamlub14_ESO

much like years ago when the balance team tried dealing with the top 0.001% of player performance causing drastic changes like a 60% nerf to all DoT abilities in one patch...

Any attempts to adjust ball groups by the balance team will negatively effect everyone. Especially because its the ESO balance team.

Get another ball or get out of its way.

rpa

I don't PvP but it's pretty obvious that organised group has a massive advantage over disorganised enemy. I do not believe its possible to design a group game worth playing where that is not true. If farming easy prey gives better rewards for the trouble than beating other organised groups, it's likely such groups avoid each other to not waste time and effort. If it's possible to encourage groups of same power level to fight each other and still have a rewarding game for all play styles beats me how to do it in practice. I let game designers worry about that kind of thing.

ProudMary

ZOS needs to nerf or limit cross healing significantly.

This is the solution that has been pointed out for years now, yet ZOS has yet to listen and give it a try to see if it works or not. Radiating regen is the the primary offender. Just nerf it or make it so it only effects one other player and ball groups will immediately be much easier to deal with.

mocap

It mostly all about LOS, not heal stacking. Heal stacking is for ball vs ball.

Sylosi

Cyrodil is boring whatever you do, which is why even compared to similar things (WvW in GW2 for example) it is so unsuccessful.

For example the last time I meaningfully attempted to play Cyrodil (probably 2 years ago) I joined an organised group on Discord, I quit after 20 minutes because rather than fighting one of the three other organised groups on the map all they wanted to do was "fight" pugs in the same keep. It was boring, low skilled, trash for roleplayers.

The pugs aren't any better, I've never played a game where pugs are more adverse to organisation than this game or who have so many that think sitting on siege constitutes "gameplay".

Which leaves running round a rock hoping a couple of guys who have no idea what they are doing follow you, so you can "1vX", more roleplay...

I don't think I've ever encountered a "PvP" playerbase that is less PvP and less interested in skilled, competitive, fun PvP gameplay than that of Cyrodil.

DaveMoeDee

Sylosi wrote: »

...
I don't think I've ever encountered a "PvP" playerbase that is less PvP and less interested in skilled, competitive, fun PvP gameplay than that of Cyrodil.

This might be why this is the only PvP game I have spend meaningful time in. Not really interested in it being skilled. More interested in the social aspect.

jecks33

being farmed for 30 mins doesn't looks like a good strategy

DMuehlhausen

I mean are people just suppose to walk ingo to a hold or something alone?

FakeZavos

ProudMary wrote: »

ZOS needs to nerf or limit cross healing significantly.

This is the solution that has been pointed out for years now, yet ZOS has yet to listen and give it a try to see if it works or not. Radiating regen is the the primary offender. Just nerf it or make it so it only effects one other player and ball groups will immediately be much easier to deal with.

Cross healing has been nerfed more times then u can count my dude. Healing springs is way worse then it used to be (used to be able to spam it). Radiating regeneration isnt wven close to what it was (heal used to be waaaay higher). Vigor has been nerfed multiple times (both versions used to be aoe, now only the yellow one) and so on.

Ball groups always adapt, u can try to nerf them one way and they will be more broken another way.

Four_Fingers

"Ball" groups will always prevail even if you reduce them to training swords because they work together and pass knowledge to each other rather than expecting to just jump into PvP alone and expect to mow everybody down and not die.

DaveMoeDee

FakeZavos wrote: »

ProudMary wrote: »

ZOS needs to nerf or limit cross healing significantly.

This is the solution that has been pointed out for years now, yet ZOS has yet to listen and give it a try to see if it works or not. Radiating regen is the the primary offender. Just nerf it or make it so it only effects one other player and ball groups will immediately be much easier to deal with.

Cross healing has been nerfed more times then u can count my dude. Healing springs is way worse then it used to be (used to be able to spam it). Radiating regeneration isnt wven close to what it was (heal used to be waaaay higher). Vigor has been nerfed multiple times (both versions used to be aoe, now only the yellow one) and so on.

Ball groups always adapt, u can try to nerf them one way and they will be more broken another way.

Coordination is a good thing to promote in the game. That happens to be an effective means of coordinating.

VaranisArano

OP, if you or your faction mates continue to throw yourselves at the enemy and they kill you over and over again, that doesn't constitute harassment or breaking the TOS by the enemy.

It means you're allowing yourselves to be farmed. You can try something different or walk away.

Also ZOS has never said that players are under any obligation to return Scrolls to their home keeps. I personally don't enjoy scroll farming, but it's consistently allowed and has been a staple of the campaigns for years.


I don't mean this to be snide, but since I see you've decided to try PVP relatively recently and are complaining about stuff like LOS and nightblade gankers, I thought it might be worth saying this in general:

Just because you don't enjoy fighting against a playstyle doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed.

I applaud your choice to start trying PvP, so I say this gently: some of this is a skill issue. The more experienced you get, the more you will learn to deal with LOS, with gankers, and yes with ball groups too. However, if you continue to run with random players or zerg or even in a small group, you will always be at a disadvantage compared to a ball group.

Ball Groups are the PVP equivalent of PVE score pushing trial groups. And with your PVE experience, I want you to think about how impossible it's been for ZOS to nerf those top PVE trials groups. Everything ZOS nerfs, they adapt to. Everything ZOS buffs, those trials groups use better than everyone else. It's not a question of why are PVE trials groups allowed to push the limits; its simply that 12 coordinated players in voice comms has a synergistic effect that ZOS finds near impossible to balance and who far outstrip the best efforts of the average Craglorn PUG.

That's what's going on with Cyrodiil Ball Groups.

They only seem immortal. Trust me - I've been a ball group healer - we're not immortal. The tactics like negates, and bombs, and pulling us apart one by one work, even though they are quite hard to pull off because, you know, we also know what works against us.

They seem immortal because they've used all the classes, skills, and sets that ZOS gives players in a practiced, coordinated group of 12 players to synergistic effect.

They also seem immortal because you're new and you're going up against them either solo or with the equivalent of an average Craglorn PUG at your back.

Genuine advice from a ball group healer: if you want to fight us properly, either join a ball group on your own faction or start honing your small scale skills or your bomber skills. Ball group players like me build to be a part of the group. CC or pull us out of the group and we're shockingly vulnerable to 1v1 combat. I mean, what am I gonna do, heal you to death? Nah, I'm gonna try to run back to my group, which is where you use your skills at small scale combat to kill me, and now my group is down a healer. Or I escape, because actually I'm reasonably good at staying alive while I escape back to my group, you know? It depends on how good you are, and yeah, that skill takes time and practice to acquire.

So that's my suggestion: by all means, practice the anti-ball tactics like negates and picking out individual players! I actually love it. Keeps things interesting on our end. Just expect that there'll be a lot of learning from failure along the way, just like it would take a ton of practice, effort, and failures if you wanted to progress in PVE trial scorepushing.

Four_Fingers

Well said @VaranisArano.

ArchMikem

Those Healers Varanis mentioned really are priority targets. If you have any CC abilities, focus down the Healers, do what you can to drain their Stamina. When your friendlies see you've stunned or immobilized the Healer it's like blood in the water.

ProudMary

FakeZavos wrote: »

ProudMary wrote: »

ZOS needs to nerf or limit cross healing significantly.

This is the solution that has been pointed out for years now, yet ZOS has yet to listen and give it a try to see if it works or not. Radiating regen is the the primary offender. Just nerf it or make it so it only effects one other player and ball groups will immediately be much easier to deal with.

Cross healing has been nerfed more times then u can count my dude. Healing springs is way worse then it used to be (used to be able to spam it). Radiating regeneration isnt wven close to what it was (heal used to be waaaay higher). Vigor has been nerfed multiple times (both versions used to be aoe, now only the yellow one) and so on.

Ball groups always adapt, u can try to nerf them one way and they will be more broken another way.

They haven't nerfed radiating regen, which is what people have been calling for and what I outlined in my post.

kargen27

Kavar162 wrote: »

I don't think ball groups shouldn't exist, but I do think healing needs a nerf again in pvp. Way too many defensive procs in this game...and then you combine with cross and stacked healing? Ugh

if there are to many defensive procs why not nerf those instead of healing?

FantasticFreddie

ProudMary wrote: »

FakeZavos wrote: »

ProudMary wrote: »

ZOS needs to nerf or limit cross healing significantly.

This is the solution that has been pointed out for years now, yet ZOS has yet to listen and give it a try to see if it works or not. Radiating regen is the the primary offender. Just nerf it or make it so it only effects one other player and ball groups will immediately be much easier to deal with.

Cross healing has been nerfed more times then u can count my dude. Healing springs is way worse then it used to be (used to be able to spam it). Radiating regeneration isnt wven close to what it was (heal used to be waaaay higher). Vigor has been nerfed multiple times (both versions used to be aoe, now only the yellow one) and so on.

Ball groups always adapt, u can try to nerf them one way and they will be more broken another way.

They haven't nerfed radiating regen, which is what people have been calling for and what I outlined in my post.

Are you kidding? When I started the game, if you dropped below a certain threshold it would not only transform into a burst heal, it would ALSO CLEANSE.

It would heal for 10k+ on a sufficiently strong build. It's been nerfed to hell and back if you consider how OP it used to be.