Volatile population on NA GH main server: one guild causes the entire map to flip

xylena_lazarow

Yesterday morning: blue ball group running, blue map, DC holds 6 scrolls, opponents log out and/or stop trying

Yesterday afternoon: red ball group running, red map, EP holds 6 scrolls, opponents log out and/or stop trying

Yesterday evening: gold ball group running, gold map, AD holds 6 scrolls, opponents log out and/or stop trying

Right now: red zerg guild running unopposed, EP holds all 6 scrolls, not a single AD player trying to do anything

So basically all it takes is one guild to destroy the entire server. Doesn't even need to be a ball group, but make no mistake, it only takes 12 people trying hard to completely ruin PvP, send dozens of casuals and randoms logging out, and render the scoreboard meaningless. This isn't a problem us players are going to solve, the devs need to rein in the damage that can be done to the game by just a single group, and understand that the majority of players in this PvP (and pretty much every game) are casual randoms and will stay casual randoms, it's an extremely tiny minority of what's already a minority of players that actually engage in ESO organized group PvP. Don't make the same mistake DaoC did.

Joy_Division

Didn;t you read the PTS patch notes? Just equip your Plaguebreak set and watch the ball group go boom.

Major_Mangle

Things like faction locks and lowered population caps doesn't help against these kind of issues either. If you're unlucky to be in the same alliance on GH as these guilds/groups you're not gonna find any proper fights either and the entire campaign turns into a semi pvdoor experience. I stopped playing on GH the last 3-4 weeks because you can't find any proper fights anymore. The entire EP population doesn't wanna PvP and instead PvDoor vs NPCs in Blackreach. Instead of playing on GH and adding a more fun dynamic experience.

It's just unfortunate that the average PvPer in ESO doesn't actually wanna PvP.

TechMaybeHic

It's been quite a while that most of the nights have been either facing massive stacks pushing your tri keeps causing a focus to where you need to PvDoor an enemy back keep to pull some off, or; your faction is pushing the map and the only thing you find is a small man attacking your back keeps and winds up with you chasing them around a tower.

It's a symptom of where the game made proc sets that made easy damage and healing along with other ways to raise the floor and lower the ceiling. It made it a numbers game more than ever before. Enter ball groups as the last thing that makes numbers less rellevant. Problem is, that's not engaging to fight against, and for most, it's not all that great to play as, either.

Really, the games balance decisions Tanked with the last major changes they did years ago now, and that wound up being the point in time ZOS also decided to to stop and the die hard Cyrodiil players are finally starting to die off

LPapirius

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Yesterday morning: blue ball group running, blue map, DC holds 6 scrolls, opponents log out and/or stop trying

Yesterday afternoon: red ball group running, red map, EP holds 6 scrolls, opponents log out and/or stop trying

Yesterday evening: gold ball group running, gold map, AD holds 6 scrolls, opponents log out and/or stop trying

Right now: red zerg guild running unopposed, EP holds all 6 scrolls, not a single AD player trying to do anything

So basically all it takes is one guild to destroy the entire server. Doesn't even need to be a ball group, but make no mistake, it only takes 12 people trying hard to completely ruin PvP, send dozens of casuals and randoms logging out, and render the scoreboard meaningless. This isn't a problem us players are going to solve, the devs need to rein in the damage that can be done to the game by just a single group, and understand that the majority of players in this PvP (and pretty much every game) are casual randoms and will stay casual randoms, it's an extremely tiny minority of what's already a minority of players that actually engage in ESO organized group PvP. Don't make the same mistake DaoC did.

Welcome to Cyrodiil with population cap of 60-80/faction. This is the cyrodiil ZOS wants. (why, I don't know. You'll have to ask them....if you can)

RomanRex

what’s new in this post that hasn’t been brought up in countless other posts?

groups come in (whether called “ball groups” or not) and the map changes dramatically.

this game will never be popular enough to keep 3 solid groups battling for the map simultaneously. especially with pop caps, server disconnects and waiting for cues.

silky_soft

coming to a 8v8 battleground near you

xylena_lazarow

RomanRex wrote: »

groups come in (whether called “ball groups” or not) and the map changes dramatically

Not groups plural. One single group. The power delta between organized and random is too damn high.

silky_soft wrote: »

coming to a 8v8 battleground near you

Some ball group players I've talked to say they wouldn't even bother with Cyro if this game had comp GvG. But the behavioral issue isn't competitive group players, it's tryhard pug stompers.

darvaria

We've made multiple requests for them to do something. The ONLY solution would be a even population que. I only see the map flip when one faction heavily outnumbers the other faction. I skipped to base after a few oil kills on this map. Came back in 10 minutes and now you see hammer on the stomping team as well. Sorry but I'm not going to PV Door the back keeps while the stomping faction takes the other scrolls and back keeps. This creates PV Door for all sides. And lately, I've noticed ALL THREE factions wait for a numbers advantage and roll the map one color. You don't even see many fights until it's pop locked v 1 or 2 bars. Note: In this situation, Yellow faction took both DC scrolls. I was at base watching netflix and checking map. I'm just not waiting and PV Dooring back keeps. I barely go to Cyrodiil now.

darvaria

I just hope the new 8v8's are group and solo gue. Runescape has an arena called guild wars, where one guild can fight another guild. I don't see how this would be that hard to implement and give the guilds something to do.

Desiato

lost cause.

Theignson

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

groups come in (whether called “ball groups” or not) and the map changes dramatically

Not groups plural. One single group. The power delta between organized and random is too damn high.
Some ball group players I've talked to say they wouldn't even bother with Cyro if this game had comp GvG. But the behavioral issue isn't competitive group players, it's tryhard pug stompers.

Of course you are right. But we have posted a thousand+ times , from super experienced PvPers like you, React, Joy, and even may I say myself, that ball groups are way too strong. They broke the game. Ball groups are immortal, and with Ruse of Agony they can vacuum up hoardes of pugs endlessly. They have too much healing, too many HP, are way too fast, can't be cc;ed, but on top of all that have unsurvivable power/damage.

Its Blah, blah, blah. ZOS has ignored us. They show no signs of understanding the Frankenstein-ian monster they made.

I cancelled my account and have stopped playing. Once in a while i may pop in. I am sad that I gave up the game. I have 10k+ hours. It was a great game.

RomanRex

Theignson wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

groups come in (whether called “ball groups” or not) and the map changes dramatically

Not groups plural. One single group. The power delta between organized and random is too damn high.
Some ball group players I've talked to say they wouldn't even bother with Cyro if this game had comp GvG. But the behavioral issue isn't competitive group players, it's tryhard pug stompers.

Of course you are right. But we have posted a thousand+ times , from super experienced PvPers like you, React, Joy, and even may I say myself, that ball groups are way too strong. They broke the game. Ball groups are immortal, and with Ruse of Agony they can vacuum up hoardes of pugs endlessly. They have too much healing, too many HP, are way too fast, can't be cc;ed, but on top of all that have unsurvivable power/damage.

Its Blah, blah, blah. ZOS has ignored us. They show no signs of understanding the Frankenstein-ian monster they made.

I cancelled my account and have stopped playing. Once in a while i may pop in. I am sad that I gave up the game. I have 10k+ hours. It was a great game.

most people who enjoy real PvP games and are good at them have similarly moved on a while ago.

the game isn’t dead, but cyro definitely feels like back-burner, maintenance mode.

JustLovely

Theignson wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

groups come in (whether called “ball groups” or not) and the map changes dramatically

Not groups plural. One single group. The power delta between organized and random is too damn high.
Some ball group players I've talked to say they wouldn't even bother with Cyro if this game had comp GvG. But the behavioral issue isn't competitive group players, it's tryhard pug stompers.

Of course you are right. But we have posted a thousand+ times , from super experienced PvPers like you, React, Joy, and even may I say myself, that ball groups are way too strong. They broke the game. Ball groups are immortal, and with Ruse of Agony they can vacuum up hoardes of pugs endlessly. They have too much healing, too many HP, are way too fast, can't be cc;ed, but on top of all that have unsurvivable power/damage.

Its Blah, blah, blah. ZOS has ignored us. They show no signs of understanding the Frankenstein-ian monster they made.

I cancelled my account and have stopped playing. Once in a while i may pop in. I am sad that I gave up the game. I have 10k+ hours. It was a great game.

I didn't stop playing with U35 but I did stop paying. ZOS doesn't want my money apparently. If they did Cyrodiil would get some love.

Stridig

Theignson wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

groups come in (whether called “ball groups” or not) and the map changes dramatically

Not groups plural. One single group. The power delta between organized and random is too damn high.
Some ball group players I've talked to say they wouldn't even bother with Cyro if this game had comp GvG. But the behavioral issue isn't competitive group players, it's tryhard pug stompers.

Of course you are right. But we have posted a thousand+ times , from super experienced PvPers like you, React, Joy, and even may I say myself, that ball groups are way too strong. They broke the game. Ball groups are immortal, and with Ruse of Agony they can vacuum up hoardes of pugs endlessly. They have too much healing, too many HP, are way too fast, can't be cc;ed, but on top of all that have unsurvivable power/damage.

Its Blah, blah, blah. ZOS has ignored us. They show no signs of understanding the Frankenstein-ian monster they made.

I cancelled my account and have stopped playing. Once in a while i may pop in. I am sad that I gave up the game. I have 10k+ hours. It was a great game.

They claim they hear our feedback though. All of the threads about ball groups, heal stacking, shield stacking, and everything else Cyrodiil related has been heard. What they heard was Azureblight needs a hammer nerf, and we want.... Battlegrounds. Not sure which bugged out translation app they are using to hear our feedback, but according to them, they hear it.

Joy_Division

Hearing and listening are two different things.

ZOS does hear us. Unfortunately. For numerous reasons they don't quite comprehend how best to interpret the feedback they do get.

Coo_PnT

This is due to the lower population limit of each alliance. Is it now cap at about 60-70 people in each alliance? This means we are no longer at all competitive with 12 person ballgroups with some skill. Even with half of the 6 people, there is a lot of heal stacking, shield stacking. I think the good thing about Cyrodiil is that you can play casually solo to some extent. If new people don't come in, everything dies. I guess you can say that about everything.

ZoS, please raise the population limit. We are really running out of people already.

Tommy_The_Gun

Too little, to late... it is a lost cause.

Mind you that since the game launched, Ball Group playstyle has not received a single nerf. No joke. Since 2014, game seen plenty of changes. Many play styles got wrecked a couple of times & even a couple of times more. But Ball Groups ? Nope. Zero. Nada. None. Let it sink for a moment as it gives a perfect insight on what ZOS wants to PvP to look like. If it was not the case, then they would be balancing the game differently... but it is what it is.

xylena_lazarow

Pop caps have nothing to do with it. The server is fine when all 3 factions are high pop.

For years around launch, there was no reason you couldn't take out 10 organized with 20 random. You could mess up their movement with Oil Catapults and Caltrops. They had to rely on standing inside stationary Healing Springs to stack HoTs. They didn't have braindead garbage like Earthgore or Rushing Agony that automate difficult tactics.

They've shifted all the power away from piloting your individual group build, and onto the comp (group setup), meaning fights are decided by the stat sheet and not gameplay, and organized groups' gear plays the game for them to an extent far beyond any solo Tarnished ganker. These are the players who need zero help because they're already organized.

Yet players continue making excuses for why it's fine for the rich to keep getting richer, so nothing changes, sorta like the real world. Someday, science will learn so much from studying gamers.

xylena_lazarow

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Too little, to late... it is a lost cause.

No need for a defeatist attitude, the devs are indeed trying as evidence by the nerfs to Tarnished, Hardened Ward, and Cloak that we've all been asking for forever. This is about getting players to take off the kid gloves when it comes to comp groups, and go after the real culprit, which is gear playing the game for you, but at the group level not just Tarnished or whatever, which is what is screwing the power delta between organized and random. There are a million gear related factors that go into this but it's all gear giving already rich comp groups an exponential advantage.

Delete Snow Treaders and make Rushing Agony apply CC immunity. Half the ball toxicity is already gone.

TechMaybeHic

Could just make snow traders lock you in to 100% speed. No movement speed buffs whatsoever in exchange for no decrease. Sounds fair to me

Tommy_The_Gun

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Too little, to late... it is a lost cause.

No need for a defeatist attitude, the devs are indeed trying as evidence by the nerfs to Tarnished, Hardened Ward, and Cloak that we've all been asking for forever. This is about getting players to take off the kid gloves when it comes to comp groups, and go after the real culprit, which is gear playing the game for you, but at the group level not just Tarnished or whatever, which is what is screwing the power delta between organized and random. There are a million gear related factors that go into this but it's all gear giving already rich comp groups an exponential advantage.

Delete Snow Treaders and make Rushing Agony apply CC immunity. Half the ball toxicity is already gone.

I agree with you that gear sets are issue. Cloak was imho not a problem since people started to complain about it more or less when Tarnished appeared in the game and it was this set that enabled broken stuff to happen. As for the main PvP related issue, I would add ball groups & stuff that they tend to abuse / exploit as a main culprit on to why people are leaving PvP.

Imho it is even more serious issue that proc sets. Like I have mentioned, it was not addressed since... I mean it was never addressed. BGs have not recieved a single neref since this game launched. With population cap getting ninja-nerfed it has gotten to the point in which a single group of 12 players (not even good ones) can effectively destroy the experience for the entire server (every one who is in Cyro). Hence why I have said it is too late, since it seems like ZOS for whatever reason gives Ball Group play-style a preferential treatment and it does not seem like they will ever address the problem.

Coo_PnT

I know. The problem is that there are too few people. Without people, there is no PvP. That's been the case for 6 months now. So in your opinion, what are you going to do about it? Are you just complaining?

I don't know what you are trying to say. Do you have a specific suggestion, complain to ZoS.

AngryPenguin

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Pop caps have nothing to do with it. The server is fine when all 3 factions are high pop.

For years around launch, there was no reason you couldn't take out 10 organized with 20 random. You could mess up their movement with Oil Catapults and Caltrops. They had to rely on standing inside stationary Healing Springs to stack HoTs. They didn't have braindead garbage like Earthgore or Rushing Agony that automate difficult tactics.

They've shifted all the power away from piloting your individual group build, and onto the comp (group setup), meaning fights are decided by the stat sheet and not gameplay, and organized groups' gear plays the game for them to an extent far beyond any solo Tarnished ganker. These are the players who need zero help because they're already organized.

Yet players continue making excuses for why it's fine for the rich to keep getting richer, so nothing changes, sorta like the real world. Someday, science will learn so much from studying gamers.

Pop caps as low as they are in Cyrodiil now days absolutely has a lot to do with imbalance in the zone. As it is now, with pop caps this low, it's impossible to field enough randoms to deal with a ball group. You can hit a ball group dead center with a cold fire ballista and do less than 1k damage total on the group due to the heal and shield stacking...an issue people have been pointing out is a problem since I'd say circa 2016 and maybe earlier.

Minimum population cap for a viable and competitive cyrodiil are at least double what the cap is today. The people playing on the dominant faction always seem to think everything is just fine, even if they've stated in the past they crave competition and faction lock should be abolished because they want to move to a faction that isn't running the map, they still tend to stay on the strongest faction.

Coo_PnT

I wish there were no stuck heels and damage shield.I think that would be enough to deal with Ball Group.

Coo_PnT

Can you also tell me what was wrong with DAoC? Certainly with each expansion pack the raid thinking got stronger and we got a community backlash with TOA. daoc old frontier to new fontier changed and we moved to 8vs8. Solo thinkers went to stealth classes.
Was hard core thinking a mistake?

xylena_lazarow

AngryPenguin wrote: »

As it is now, with pop caps this low, it's impossible to field enough randoms to deal with a ball group.

Yeah if only the zerg could 90v12 instead of 60v12 everything would be fine. No, the problem is that you shouldn't need 60 randoms in the first place, just to stall out 12 tryhards until they get bored enough to leave and do the same exact thing somewhere else. Boredom isn't a wincon and nobody is entitled to be unkillable.

On the less tryhard end, you have structured zergs of 20-30 that just blob the flags with heals, making no attempt to actually kill the enemy, because they can rez each other faster than outnumbered randoms can keep killing them, so they can flip objectives effectively without having to PvP in these situations.

Coo_PnT

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Yesterday morning: blue ball group running, blue map, DC holds 6 scrolls, opponents log out and/or stop trying

Yesterday afternoon: red ball group running, red map, EP holds 6 scrolls, opponents log out and/or stop trying

Yesterday evening: gold ball group running, gold map, AD holds 6 scrolls, opponents log out and/or stop trying

Right now: red zerg guild running unopposed, EP holds all 6 scrolls, not a single AD player trying to do anything

So basically all it takes is one guild to destroy the entire server. Doesn't even need to be a ball group, but make no mistake, it only takes 12 people trying hard to completely ruin PvP, send dozens of casuals and randoms logging out, and render the scoreboard meaningless. This isn't a problem us players are going to solve, the devs need to rein in the damage that can be done to the game by just a single group, and understand that the majority of players in this PvP (and pretty much every game) are casual randoms and will stay casual randoms, it's an extremely tiny minority of what's already a minority of players that actually engage in ESO organized group PvP. Don't make the same mistake DaoC did.

I am not sure what you are trying to argue in this thread. Are you trying to improve something? Are you just complaining? There are so few people that if one guild banded together, they could take it all.

darvaria

What we have suggested is to do away with those "bars" Give us numbers.

12 v 12 v 12 .. or something like 14 v 12 v 11.

NUMBERS. If players log on enough and have a 50 minute wait que, they will reroll to less populated factions during they p[ay time.

This would still allow cap pops during prime time. Just equalize the playing numbers. I won't play a one color map, even if it's my faction running the map. There is NO PVP in these unbalanced ques.

TRANSPARENCY and EQUAL (close to) populations .

karthrag_inak

Khajiit thinks a quick and easy solution could be that they spawn in 3-star "faction hero" npcs to fill all the population slots. If a player gets in queue, a faction hero poofs to make room for them, otherwise faction heroes go where the action for their faction is (they'll be 'action faction heroes'). They'll do what they want, will not interact with any same faction players, and just focus on killing enemy players (or enemy faction heroes). They could have maybe a 30 second respawn timer when they die.

It's hardly ideal, but it would at least help even the scales a bit.

Desiato

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

They've shifted all the power away from piloting your individual group build, and onto the comp (group setup), meaning fights are decided by the stat sheet and not gameplay, and organized groups' gear plays the game for them to an extent far beyond any solo Tarnished ganker. These are the players who need zero help because they're already organized.

Though it's been a granular process, I felt we crossed this line back in 2017 with the introduction of Earthgore. Up until that point, I had a lot of success CCing and ganking the tails of quality ball groups if they got just a little spread out. Basically, if they had a much smaller margin of error and in order to dominate had to play with skill.

And it's progressively gotten worse every year since. Ball groups of today don't require the same level of coordination or focus as before. Their healbots are usually gankproof by a solo player even if they get separated from the herd. There is so much room for error.

Yet players continue making excuses for why it's fine for the rich to keep getting richer, so nothing changes, sorta like the real world. Someday, science will learn so much from studying gamers.

I don't mean to sound dismissive at all. I actually appreciate your post, despite my first response. But I truly believe it's hopeless. Cyrodiil isn't the product of cogent design, it a byproduct of PVE changes and upper management agendas such as raising the floor and lowering the ceiling.

A lot of people the the solution is for Cyrodiil to be more "noob friendly". That's the problem. Most ball groups are extremely low skill by PVP standards. They are the noobs and ZOS has changed the game to allow them to play like they do.

The actual solution is to design Cyrodiil like a real pvp game with high skill caps and MUCH lower ttks. Make it so that in order for a ball group to dominate, they need the skill of a Haxus or Rage, in addition to strong builds. Real PVP players like these things.

Builds should need to be competently designed according to the rules, but shouldn't absolutely carry players like they do now.