What is the intended counterplay to "ball groups" in PVP?

React

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_BrianWheeler

With today's PTS notes, the Azureblight Reaper set was made to no longer affect players. While this set has been somewhat overperforming recently, it is the ONLY thing in the entire game capable of effectively combating the "ball groups" which have running rampant and out of control for several years now. There have been hundreds of posts here on the forums regarding the issue of "ball group" effectiveness/behaviors, and yet it seems that they've only been repetitively buffed over the past few years with no significant nerfs to speak of.

These groups are currently running around with every player possessing above-emperor level stats; 40k+ HP with 20k worth of shields on them at any given moment, 10k+ healing per second in HOTS alone on them at any given moment, nearly every single buff and buff set in the game active at all times, etc. There no longer exists things, outside of azureblight reaper and DRASTICALLY higher numbers of players + siege, that are capable of overcoming the absurd stats and defensive capabilities these groups possess.

Years ago during the cross healing tests, zenimax appropriately acknowledged "ball grouping behaviors" as problematic for server performance, especially in regards to the repetitive spamming of HOTS/AOE heals. More recently they even added the "snake in the stars" set after a slew of posts regarding the egregious HOT stacking gained traction, but they gave the set a global cooldown rather than a per target cooldown, effectively making it completely worthless against the targets it was actually intended to counter. It seems odd that they're aware of how problematic these behaviors are, but are unwilling to provide adequate counterplay to them or to address them directly with balance changes.

The changes to the scaling of azureblight for PVE today would have been fine in PVP, allowing it to do less damage to fewer players but more damage to 8+ people. That would have actually been a good and well informed change. Removing it from PVP entirely without providing any other counterplay to "ball groups" is a huge mistake.

I'd really like some clarity regarding what zenimax thinks of "ball grouping". Are they happy with the power level achievable by these groups? Do they think there is adequate counterplay to this playstyle currently?

Tommy_The_Gun

React wrote: »

yet it seems that they've only been repetitively buffed over the past few years with no significant nerfs to speak of.

Actually, Ball Groups have never ever received a single direct nerf since the game exists (over 10 years). They were only getting indirect or even direct buffs for over 10 years. While other play-styles got nerfed a couple of times & even a couple of time more, Ball Group play-style was never addressed at all. Never.

The only thing that came close to a nerf was group size standardization, but it had more to do with Cyrodill population cap reduction... I mean it would be silly if we still had 24 man groups, as one group would be 1/3 of the population cap.

Also, I am thinking more and more that ZOS changing cloak, quite literally out of nowhere with no good reason after over 10 years, is doing it solely because they want us to talk about this rather about the real issues - Ball Groups (cloak is a scapegoat & cloak changes are basically a distraction).

Theist_VII

Really destroys the experience in Cyrodiil every time one of the ball groups get on.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the way these groups act. They can’t compete with other ball groups so it creates this weird situation where they never clash.

Perhaps capping off-heals and shielding might help with this problem, but then it destroys ungrouped supports trying to help their faction.

Maybe only one or two stacks of a heal-over-time/shield at any given time?

Either way, nerfing Azureblight was not the answer, especially when the problem it was an answer to still exists.

BetweenMidgets

My personal opinion is that organized play should not be penalized in an MMO. And from my own experience, the thing that keeps me REALLY sticking around in a game ends up being the people and friends I make in the game and play with. I hope ZoS doesn't decide to take that away from them.

There are many ways to approach PVP, and others may find problematic. Just off the top of my head from what I often hear on the forums, some folks hate the ballgroupers, some hate the megazergs, or the point and click siegers, others hate bowblade gankers, most people seem to hate tarnished gankers, some hate 1vXers and towerhumpers. Doesn't mean they should be done away with.

Personally, I enjoy filling for some friends who run a ballgroup, and I'd encourage others to give it a shot. It is DEFINITELY a lot different from how I normally experience Cyro, but it has it's own charm.

I also don't think ballgroups are the sole reason for performance issues in Cyrodiil. Particularly so since we've seen a lot of server degradation in PVE content like trials and dungeons.

A pretty big and unfortunate side effect of the PVP player base dwindling during the years long tank meta is there is generally only ever *ONE* thing/fight happening on the map.

There have been many instances where the forums have cried for something and gotten their wish, only for ballgroups to adapt. Often times the changes hurt the us in the general PVP population more than the ballgroups. I don't find it surprising at all that a group sacrificing their individual stats/kills to act as a cohesive group would be able to adapt more easily.

LonePirate

If ZOS truly listened to players who have almost unanimously voiced complaints about ball groups and how to go about addressing them (such as preventing heal stacking or capping shield strength), they would do something to reduce their impact on Cyrodiil. The lack of any action by ZOS tells me they support the ball group meta.

My personal suspicion is that ZOS is afraid to touch this problem because it could have unforeseen consequences on dungeon and trial groups. As we all know, Dungeon/Trial PVE is more important than Cyrodiil PVP so it withers on the vine.

I certainly welcome anyone such as @ZOS_BrianWheeler to chime in here as to why player complaints about Cyrodiil ball groups have fallen on deaf ears.

umagon

My theory has always been that of the devs who do play the game; they are actually a part of a number of these groups. Because anytime there is even a single counter to them it is quickly removed. And more so because the easiest solution has always been to limit the number of healing/barrier effects a player can have on them at any given time while in pvp areas to two. Yet it has never been done.

Vaqual

From a strategic standpoint: Wide formations and guerilla tactics.
For Zerglings: Focus fire oblivion damage. Sticks and stones ... blabla nobody survives 5-10 Zerglings with ranged infused decrease health glyph Knightslayer anchorite weave spams. Sprinkle one serpent and some defile on top as garnish. Luckily they will never figure this out.
For 1vXers: There is no reason that you should win this. JK, frozen gate.
For ball groups: glhf

From my personal standpoint (solo rp noob): Dodging them. If they don't get me they have no fun and I don't feel frustration.

MincMincMinc

React wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_BrianWheeler

These groups are currently running around with every player possessing above-emperor level stats; 40k+ HP with 20k worth of shields on them at any given moment, 10k+ healing per second in HOTS alone on them at any given moment, nearly every single buff and buff set in the game active at all times, etc. There no longer exists things, outside of azureblight reaper and DRASTICALLY higher numbers of players + siege, that are capable of overcoming the absurd stats and defensive capabilities these groups possess.

Years ago during the cross healing tests, zenimax appropriately acknowledged "ball grouping behaviors" as problematic for server performance, especially in regards to the repetitive spamming of HOTS/AOE heals. More recently they even added the "snake in the stars" set after a slew of posts regarding the egregious HOT stacking gained traction, but they gave the set a global cooldown rather than a per target cooldown, effectively making it completely worthless against the targets it was actually intended to counter. It seems odd that they're aware of how problematic these behaviors are, but are unwilling to provide adequate counterplay to them or to address them directly with balance changes. [/b]

Well in the past there used to be limits on groups entirely. Funny on the forums anytime these are brought up players whine "oH yOu WaNt 1vX tO bE sTrOnGeR?" You have to bring back those limits on groups to prevent abuse. At the same time you can gear changes towards performance as well. I still remember when groups could crash peoples games and the server by spamming springs.

• Hots and dots used to not stack. Not only did this create skill and morph diversity, but it prevented the abuse of singular meta builds (Think soul and sloads meta) This is why alot of skills had very very similar morphs with little tweaks. Instead of 12 people running all hots stacking on all 12 for 144 ticks/sec, you could bring this down to 12-24 ticks/sec. These calcs go crazy when you start combining aoe hots.
• Address aspects of the game that are cumbersome for single players, but not groups. Such as the movement issues I described in my other thread. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/666066/movement-and-speed-must-be-addressed/p1
• Sets that were specifically designed to counter outnumbering and dogpiling could be brought back. Sets like these boasted alot of damage, but with a specific use as a defensive outnumbered counter. Old fury was designed in such a way where it was trash in 1v1s and small man battles, but engaged when you were being run down. Old seventh legion did the same where you got insane heals when dogpiled with no cooldown.
• Each class had dogpiling counters back in the day. Sunshield, Sap essence+siphon attacks(no cooldown), draw essence, Crit surge(no cooldown). Hopefully zos picks up on this with the sunshield complaints we saw.

At some point it feels like a zos board meeting decided that everything in the game must have a cooldown (ESO IS A NO COOLDOWN GAME, or so I have heard) This is a poor decision, it is ok for certain aspects to have no cooldowns. You just need to pick and choose what has a cooldown and what its use will be.

vgastel

Limit cross healing to max 3 stacks of the same hot. Easier on the servers and makes cross healing in Ball groups still worth it but less rewarding.

Twohothardware

There's not meant to be any counters to organized ball groups. ZOS has numerous options to address what makes ball groups so unbalanced in PvP and they continue to nerf what few sets ever show as competitive against them.

deadpool3431

The nerf is just more proof that the developers do not care about pvpers at all. Not a large enough revenue apparently. This is just more cement in my decision to leave this fomo pay to win theme park mmo after U44. It's hilarious to me that the pvp update will the one that a bunch of us will leave on. 😂😂😂

acastanza_ESO

Yeah it's pretty clear at this point that if you're not ballgrouping you're "playing cyrodiil wrong" from the Dev's perspective. What even is the point when the second anything actually forces Ballgrpups to go on the defensive for once it gets actually deleted from PVP. Actual clown nonsense.

Sallymen

Why not use battle spirit passive to limit healing by per unique source, aka no more vigor spamming?

Lapin_Logic

BetweenMidgets wrote: »

My personal opinion is that organized play should not be penalized in an MMO.

An MMO doesn't mean grouping and coordinating builds as a force multiplier, an MMO means play with other players as a force multiplier, When an ungrouped faction at pop cap cant dislodge a ball group that play round and round the mulberry bush then on comms all ulti dumping and wiping the pop cap faction, then that isn't good gameplay, it's just cheese.

Every soldier should be able to have an impact on the battle, It is faction warfare, not "Pimp my group", ZOS should move toward this philosophy to create an even playing field instead of fostering this toxic PVP environment that drives players away because "it's hopeless/ not many on our faction/ their ball groups on" and then they port out.

Group sets are fine for trial meta building but offer too many amplifiers in Cyrodiil.

Lapin_Logic

Theist_VII wrote: »

Maybe only one or two stacks of a heal-over-time/shield at any given time?


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Maybe add Heals to the Major and Minor system

TheAwesomeChimpanzee

Why not instead of having a dedicated set to deal with groups stacking why don't they do something about that purple skill sitting in the Assault skill line that was created to deal with these groups and stacks of people. Once upon a time bombing a ball group was something that was possible but required good timing and skill expression, with the change it is now impossible to do so because the ability does no damage and doesn't scale nearly as well as they said it should on the day they nerfed it.

Having a set like Azure still up is in a way getting rid of the play style with a fairly easy way to kill groups but bringing back proxy should make the skill usable again and add again a skill expressive way of dealing with them. Leave Azure as is but give us a way of dealing with them in any other form, scaling AOE burst is the only way to kill these groups.

Hugie

Balancing PvP is obviously a complicated challenge requiring deep knowledge of class kits, sets, and buffs. BUT, I'm still firmly convinced that the simple "fix" to the status quo of overpowered ballgroups is to limit cross-heals to 2 per instance of a skill.

This still allows coordinated ballgroups -- who admittedly spend a lot of time optimizing their assigned sets and skills -- to benefit from the effort they invest in their setups. It's no different from a PvE raid comp in this regard; group finder pugs from Craglorn will have a much harder time clearing content cleanly than a coordinated premade group of experienced raiders, optimized sets and buffs/debuffs, and an experienced raidlead. Effort, knowledge, and skill deserve to be rewarded no matter what.

What limiting cross-healing to 2 instances per skill *does* do away with is the 10 instances of echoing vigor ticking at all times. With so much healing (not to mention scribing shields/mitigation and barrier spam), anything short of a well-timed negate + coordinated series of ults and procs is going to get healed through instantly. If that's by design, then I guess non ballgroup enjoyers can just get rekt. But I'd like to believe it isn't.

And good news! 98% of endgame PvE group content only calls for two healers, with the only exceptions I can think of being Ansuul HM (3rd healer common) and the occasional sweaty dungeon comp that puts 3-4 members in echoing vigor to avoid needing a dedicated healer.

It's really not complicated. Limit cross-healing to something sane, and what you're left with is an environment where coordinated groups can still dominate, but where they'll need *actual good healers* -- not just barrier bots -- to do so.

Syrusthevirus187

Please make seige scale up with numbers. It's so annoying to see people siege and then watch it do zero damage to ball zergs but massive damage to a lone wolf tryna fight outside an unflagged keep

OtarTheMad

There was a time when Ball groups had to be careful, they were dangerous but had real counters but players, yes us, got those things nerfed. We can blame ZOS, and they do take a huge portion of it, but we also have to admit that some players, not saying anyone here, but some came to these forums and just claimed "X is OP, nerf now." Then after it was nerfed, surprise surprise Ball groups were massively annoying again. I am talking about when Hrothgar's Chill set dropped and that update.

The way this cycle has been going is... it's hard to nerf Ball groups without other players, who aren't, also taking a hit which will lead to negative feedback and nerfs... which then buffs ball groups again. Eliminating heal stacking would be a good move, make it part of Battle Spirit so PvE doesn't get hit. Idk if that's hard to do, coding wise, but something needs to change.

Cyrodiil is the most fun part of the game, at least for me and ball groups have a right to have fun too but without some real counters to them... I am just bored to death of dealing with them. It's not even a "oh my god they kill me and I suck" thing... no... I am just bored of them and always leave a keep they are at unless nothing else is going on.

Joy_Division

As someone who has played in organized groups in the past, I can shed some light on this part of ZOS's explanation.

as the set's unique functionality between multiple wearers can create some incredibly overwhelming experiences with no clear counter play. Rather than try and find a balance between PvE and PvP for this set, and ultimately compromise so it doesn't feel particularly strong in either, we're removing the damage scaling effects against players – as Plaguebreak already fits the bill of the PvP big boom set.

While the Azureblight set does prompt organized groups to immediately note the use and potential dangers of this set, there absolutely is counterplay - most notably, spreading out or breaking off from the current course of action and taking Line of Sight (like literally every other player in Cyrodiil has to do when confronted with a dangerous situation and high damage). I felt in the better organized groups I played in, this set was more of a nuisance than an "overwhelming experience." If we did die to Blight Seed, it was only because the 30+ other players were spamming the crap out of siege, ranged interrupts, chains, etc. When I've played with less experienced/organized groups, I did feel this set was more potent and more of a threat. But still nothing I would say is beyond what the organized group could handle if they just got better or played more intelligently.

In short, I think the threat this set poses in Cyrodiil is mostly a learn-to-play issue.

I could be persuaded this set was in need of an adjustment in Battlegrounds because that format naturally lend themselves to basically the entire team of 4 often stacking on each other. In the few 8v8 clips I saw, I can see how Azure spam would be an issue there. I felt the lowered base damage was enough to at least see if those concerns were addressed. The exlusion of proc on players was not necessary.

I can tell you Plaguebreak does *not* fit the role described in this developer comment. It is true every organized group does have one person running Plaguebreak. Yes, that's it: one. It is not for the big "booms" - those rarely happen - but to shut down Purge spam. That is is function (and it's quite good at it). If it provided big booms, more than one DD would wear it. Nope, put on Vicious Death if that is needed. It's much better at the booms.

If we are going to talk about "overwhelming experiences" when it comes to Cyrodiil, these are the three that top my list:

1. A Huge Map with a tiny population Cap. It is overwhelming enough for me to get bored pretty quickly and log out. That is, if I even have the patience to sit through an hour long que because so few people are allowed to play in cyrodiil.
2. The Rush of Agony set is far more abused, annoying, and overwhelming than Azureblight. If I am logged in by myself, Azureblight is of zero concern to me at all. It is nothing. I forget the set exists. To say this set is an overwhelming experience is misleading. Much of the Cyrodiil population is not overwhelmed by Azureblight. But Rush of Agony is overwhelming to everybody: get sucked in from way greater than the 12 meters listed because of the most recent changes, and breaks the ESO standard of respecting CC immunity to players who have been forcibly moved, which existed for very good reasons. You want to talk about "incredibly overwhelming experiences with no clear counter play"? That's what happens after Rush of Agony sucks you in: get feared because no CC immunity and insta-die to PBAOE spam. I'd much rather deal with Azureblight and it's not even close.
3. The dozen shields and HoTs covering every player in Organized Groups (a big reason why the better ones can shrug off Azureblight). It's just a bad mechanic. There's a reason it's very rare that fantasy games allow the same named buff to stack: it's too easy to abuse and makes the game not fun. I play in groups and I can say it is very boring to fight another group because we're all been doing the same thing for so long. 3-2-1 Proxy, you must play a Warden because it has the only delayed burst damage skill in the game that can break through the dozen shields the other group has, and just charge in a straight line at the one target the lead called. Sure, the better group almost always wins. But it's so boring. I'd be thrilled with anything that prompted us (i.e,, organized groups) to actually use our brains and do something different.

It is true this set has come up in feedback. But other issues have come up more often and I would have liked to see efforts directed in those higher priority issues.

MincMincMinc

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

Maybe only one or two stacks of a heal-over-time/shield at any given time?


.

Maybe add Heals to the Major and Minor system

They were originally designed like this if you read my post above.

MincMincMinc

Joy_Division wrote: »

The dozen shields and HoTs covering every player in Organized Groups (a big reason why the better ones can shrug off Azureblight). It's just a bad mechanic. There's a reason it's very rare that fantasy games allow the same named buff to stack: it's too easy to abuse and makes the game not fun. I play in groups and I can say it is very boring to fight another group because we're all been doing the same thing for so long. 3-2-1 Proxy, you must play a Warden because it has the only delayed burst damage skill in the game that can break through the dozen shields the other group has, and just charge in a straight line at the one target the lead called. Sure, the better group almost always wins. But it's so boring. I'd be thrilled with anything that prompted us (i.e,, organized groups) to actually use our brains and do something different.

IMO it is a mistake to allow players to remain at peak efficiency when grouped. Groups should have to coordinate buffs, morphs, classes, sets, and all around playstyles to be efficient.

"But, but, but, if this happens my 12 people may overlap a few skills"...... bruh you have 12 people against pugs, you are fine.

Reverting back to hots and dots not stacking would be a move in the right direction. No reason one player should have 12 stacks of rapid regen on them at any given moment.

---

A softer version would be to make aoe hots like rapid regen have a self applying unique hot and the rest that go on allies would be the named non stacking hot. Maybe we could then get a group vigor again..... be nice to help my allies on stamsorc with at least something.

Ostonoha

Joy_Division wrote: »

I play in groups and I can say it is very boring to fight another group because we're all been doing the same thing for so long. 3-2-1 Proxy, you must play a Warden because it has the only delayed burst damage skill in the game that can break through the dozen shields the other group has, and just charge in a straight line at the one target the lead called.
[/list]

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Hybridization update and summerset chapter destroyed pvp. How I miss the days when 30k health was a tank and you could run into different and unique groups.

OtarTheMad

Ostonoha wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

I play in groups and I can say it is very boring to fight another group because we're all been doing the same thing for so long. 3-2-1 Proxy, you must play a Warden because it has the only delayed burst damage skill in the game that can break through the dozen shields the other group has, and just charge in a straight line at the one target the lead called.
[/list]

.

Hybridization update and summerset chapter destroyed pvp. How I miss the days when 30k health was a tank and you could run into different and unique groups.

Yeah, I miss the days where you had a lot of different groups running around. Today's Cyrodiil you just see ball groups or faction stacks or solos... that's really it.

LittlePinkDot

React wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_BrianWheeler

With today's PTS notes, the Azureblight Reaper set was made to no longer affect players. While this set has been somewhat overperforming recently, it is the ONLY thing in the entire game capable of effectively combating the "ball groups" which have running rampant and out of control for several years now. There have been hundreds of posts here on the forums regarding the issue of "ball group" effectiveness/behaviors, and yet it seems that they've only been repetitively buffed over the past few years with no significant nerfs to speak of.

These groups are currently running around with every player possessing above-emperor level stats; 40k+ HP with 20k worth of shields on them at any given moment, 10k+ healing per second in HOTS alone on them at any given moment, nearly every single buff and buff set in the game active at all times, etc. There no longer exists things, outside of azureblight reaper and DRASTICALLY higher numbers of players + siege, that are capable of overcoming the absurd stats and defensive capabilities these groups possess.

Years ago during the cross healing tests, zenimax appropriately acknowledged "ball grouping behaviors" as problematic for server performance, especially in regards to the repetitive spamming of HOTS/AOE heals. More recently they even added the "snake in the stars" set after a slew of posts regarding the egregious HOT stacking gained traction, but they gave the set a global cooldown rather than a per target cooldown, effectively making it completely worthless against the targets it was actually intended to counter. It seems odd that they're aware of how problematic these behaviors are, but are unwilling to provide adequate counterplay to them or to address them directly with balance changes.

The changes to the scaling of azureblight for PVE today would have been fine in PVP, allowing it to do less damage to fewer players but more damage to 8+ people. That would have actually been a good and well informed change. Removing it from PVP entirely without providing any other counterplay to "ball groups" is a huge mistake.

I'd really like some clarity regarding what zenimax thinks of "ball grouping". Are they happy with the power level achievable by these groups? Do they think there is adequate counterplay to this playstyle currently?

I think the only counter to a ball group is another ball group.

In a war, whoever has the most troops has an advantage.

I think considering Cyrodiil is supposed to be a war zone, it's supposed to be for large groups.

Battlegrounds are meant for non ball groups.

ForumSavant

There should not be a direct counter to ballgroups. It just doesn't make sense. I don't understand why people think they should be able to kill groups of 12 people who run coordinating sets, comms, and move together. Yes, they are annoying to fight against, even when I'm in a group of 4 they will sometimes waste everything on smaller groups, but I don't expect to be able to have something that just makes them die because they are a bigger group.

As I've said a thousand times, everything that "counters" ballgroups ends up just being used by the ballgroup themselves and hurting smaller groups. Plaguebreak was by far the biggest nerf to ballgroups, and people still don't understand how much weight it pulls. It doesn't kill ballgroups, unless one of the players dies and blows everyone else up, but it prevents the use of purge in ballgroups which is huge. If the set didn't exist and balgroups were still running around spamming purge every 3 seconds, the huge debuff from oils, as well as other siege, would do nothing. They would just walk through everything with 0 problem. I watch a group that hides their bars for whatever reason and runs purge and I've seen them kill multiple people by accident while purging plague, the only instance in which purge is good is when they are sitting on a ram under oils and nobody is applying plague, but the second it's applied they stop using it or just blow themselves up.

the1andonlyskwex

It seems to me that the best counter to a ball group should be a better ball group. I know it's annoying to more solo-oriented players (like myself), but playing in a large, well coordinated, group is exactly the type of thing that an MMORPG should be encouraging/rewarding.

OtarTheMad

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

It seems to me that the best counter to a ball group should be a better ball group. I know it's annoying to more solo-oriented players (like myself), but playing in a large, well coordinated, group is exactly the type of thing that an MMORPG should be encouraging/rewarding.

I do agree but also keep in mind that sometimes ball groups avoid each other so they don't mess up the others AP farm.

Maybe it'd be easier on some of us, me included, if some other group options were kind of resurrected. I don't like faction stacks or ball groups and sometimes running solo or small group like 2-4 makes you just want to pull your hair out.

Theist_VII

Anyone saying that the counter to a ball group should be another ball group has a severe lack of understanding to why ball groups exist.

Players don’t ball up to take a map, they do it to farm AP off of others as a tried and true gold farming method.

They don’t do it for the challenge, and they aren’t looking to fight other ball groups, oftentimes, the leaders of said groups will communicate with enemy groups just to be SURE that they don’t run into one another.

Players that are getting grieved by ball groups should have a means of building to protect others, and that’s what Azureblight was.

All players had to do were spread out, I’m sure a coordinated group could manage that? Right?

darvaria

You never see ball groups fight other ball groups. They don't want to fight another group, but want to scoop up solo players, mostly ones that are under geared with low health. I don't really see them getting the AP they used to, or you would see them higher on the leader boards. I actually see them chase down ONE player lately. Especially on AD. There aren't enough targets for a lot of AP. I've seen some brag they get like 2M AP a night, but where are they on the leader boards? You can't even find them.

You just have to avoid ball groups. Stand back, watch their movements and don't get within their reach. The other counter is to just leave the area or fight only with siege.

Sedare38

Congratulations ZOS, if much of this PTS patch goes live as it is, your player base will continue to shrink. You might get some spikes during events--holidays or free play--but the overall pop will continue to dwindle b/c of your ineptitude, heavy-handedness when it comes to overnerfing, and refusal to listen to anyone but ball group players. Thanks for all the fish.