AE cap issue ignored for 2 months now

Lowbei · July 2014

during beta, pvp was great

first month after beta, pvp was great

then zos made everyone aware that there were ae caps

players made a poll, 89% (out of thousands) voted against ae caps

seeing that zos didnt care about pvpers opinions, players formed up zergball impulse trains

2 months later, everywhere you go in cyrodiil, you run into zergballs

ZERO official response on the issue from zos shows that we can not expect a fix anytime soon as more and more zergs start using this strategy.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Rude and Insulting comments]

Honfold · July 2014

I am not sure how much good taking AOE caps away will do. I know that it could be a deterrent to the impulse spam groups, but wouldn't AOEs need a nerf as well if they could hit unlimited targets?

Taonnor · July 2014

With unlimited targets you can kill impulse spam groups.

Lowbei · July 2014

for them to know this is an issue, and refuse to address it, shows pvp players what they can expect from zos.

Morticielle · July 2014

Lowbei wrote: »

ZERO official response on the issue from zos shows that we can not expect a fix anytime soon as more and more zergs start using this strategy.

If you declare something an 'issue' doesn't mean that it is actually an issue. And why do you think that you are entitled to a justification by Zenimax?

Your disability to move out of the way of such a group might be an issue. How about you work on that. First lesson: Be aware of your surroundings. This means instead of only looking straight ahead you have to turn your view and look to the left, to the right and behind you. This gives you a good chance to see an incoming group before they can stunlock and bomb you to death. It works really good for me. And please, take your blinders off, they look good on horses but not on you. Next lesson tomorrow.

Taonnor wrote: »

With unlimited targets you can kill impulse spam groups.

With unlimited targets impulse spam groups can kill you even faster.

Honfold · July 2014

Ya it is not that encouraging to watch your allies form a zerg ball or to see one coming at you. I don't personally see it as that much of a problem because I generally run solo in the "supply lines" or around the mile gates. Zerging in an open world pvp zone is always going to be a problem. At a certain point numbers will always prevail, and they should. The players that are hell bent on making their name known on the leader boards will find a way with or without impulse spam. There is always going to be a flaw to exploit in an MMO pvp point based system, or just the fastest way to get points.

I do agree with OP that Zenimax should at least say "We understand the frustration/issue we will look into it." Or something along those lines. However I also believe that Zenimax's slow approach to balancing is the correct way to handle this type of situation.

In terms of solution, I will give my two cents. I think that adding player collision would do wonders for pvp, however it is my understanding that Zenimax said this was impossible early on. I am still hoping that they can make it work sometime though. If 40+ players could not fit into the same meter of space and actually had to separate I believe this would fix many of the spam zergs we are seeing in Cyrodiil.

Lowbei · July 2014

Morticielle wrote: »

Lowbei wrote: »

ZERO official response on the issue from zos shows that we can not expect a fix anytime soon as more and more zergs start using this strategy.

If you declare something an 'issue' doesn't mean that it is actually an issue. And why do you think that you are entitled to a justification by Zenimax?

Your disability to move out of the way of such a group might be an issue. How about you work on that. First lesson: Be aware of your surroundings. This means instead of only looking straight ahead you have to turn your view and look to the left, to the right and behind you. This gives you a good chance to see an incoming group before they can stunlock and bomb you to death. It works really good for me. And please, take your blinders off, they look good on horses but not on you. Next lesson tomorrow.

Taonnor wrote: »

With unlimited targets you can kill impulse spam groups.

With unlimited targets impulse spam groups can kill you even faster.

... nobody is debating specific situations, we are discussing concepts, and i have never died to a rainbow train.

next time, attempt to participate in the discussion lol

[self edited to avoid hurting someones feelings

]

Bramir · July 2014

While I don't like the aoe caps, wouldn't removing them actually make the zerg balls even stronger, since they primarily do damage through aoes?

Halrloprillalar · July 2014

Bramir wrote: »

While I don't like the aoe caps, wouldn't removing them actually make the zerg balls even stronger, since they primarily do damage through aoes?

No because you could have 4 people drop a few ults and wipe a whole raid if timed right. This is why the batswarm nonsense was so popular pre-nerf.

Mykah · July 2014

The solution is to increase the damage of cleave.

Lowbei · July 2014

hmm

Teargrants · July 2014

You're not gonna get much good discussion about the aoe cap anymore. Most of the players who came here because the game was marketed as "like DAoC (no aoe cap hint hint)", and understood what the aoe cap would do, have left long ago.

Now out of the pvp'rs who remain, it's a much smaller proportion of them who understand how aoe cap makes the blob stackers invincible. Instead more are of the mindset of "no aoe cap would make aoe too strong", and even "current aoe is too strong" - which has a lot to do with not understanding how we are forced to counter blob trains now vs w/o an aoe cap. And then there's always the people who came from GW2 and see blob stacking as "the way it should be / end all be all of good tactics" (the ones who came to get away from GW2 have mostly left, alas).

I'd like to see this thread prove me wrong, but from the direction aoe discussion's been going on the forums lately, this is what the trend appears to be.

Lowbei · July 2014

true, but even when there was a launch community and we voted 10:1 against the caps, we still were ignored.

$Infraction$ · July 2014

Grats on fighting the fight but I think they took one to the chin with the fps bug that went on for as long as it did.

At this point "losing faith" would be an understatement in terms of where they are with pvp. They have let this pretty much wilt away to a sham at this point.

Lava_Croft · July 2014

As explained over and over again, the poll about AoE caps was completely meaningless due to something they call 'selection bias'.

'We' as a community did not vote against AoE caps, since most people that bothered to participate in the poll are people who want the AoE caps gone, making the poll next to worthless.

Basically it's the same as this thread. The only people that really bother with threads like this are people who want the AoE caps gone.

Taonnor wrote: »

With unlimited targets you can kill impulse spam groups.

You can already kill Impulse spamming groups just fine. The problem isn't really the group spamming the AoE's, it's the people that time and time again get facerolled by these groups and instead of altering their tactics, they head to the forums and demand changes.

Cody · July 2014

I am one of those people that just stay back and try to pick off the people that split up from the group, so I don't really know what would "fix" this problem. I think further increasing impulse costs would at least reduce it, but I don't really have much experience with them.

FENGRUSH · July 2014

Lava_Croft wrote: »

As explained over and over again, the poll about AoE caps was completely meaningless due to something they call 'selection bias'.

'We' as a community did not vote against AoE caps, since most people that bothered to participate in the poll are people who want the AoE caps gone, making the poll next to worthless.

Basically it's the same as this thread. The only people that really bother with threads like this are people who want the AoE caps gone.

Taonnor wrote: »

With unlimited targets you can kill impulse spam groups.

You can already kill Impulse spamming groups just fine. The problem isn't really the group spamming the AoE's, it's the people that time and time again get facerolled by these groups and instead of altering their tactics, they head to the forums and demand changes.

Not really, unless those 50+ people are running into 4 oils of your 6 man group at the same time, youre not going to do anything to them. You literally need siege or to slowly widdle away at people behind overpowered gaurds.

AOE caps are awful, and I am part of a group that busts zerg balls all day. At some point, their size becomes too much and theres literally nothing you can do at the best of terrain placement. People want a fighting chance when you can 100% determine what your enemy is going to do at every step but theres nothing you can do about it.

Lava_Croft · July 2014

Where did the 50+ number come from? I exclusively play PvP and you rarely run into an actual organized AoE spamming paintrain that is made up of more than 50 people. When groups do reach this size, their organization falls apart and they are all the easier to wipe.

The problem is most likely that the people who come to the forums crying about AoE paintrains are themselves unsuccessful at this very same tactic and therefore demand changes.

Teargrants · July 2014

Lava_Croft wrote: »

The problem is most likely that the people who come to the forums crying about AoE paintrains are themselves unsuccessful at this very same tactic and therefore demand changes.

Where did you pull that one from?

Most opposition to blob stacking is because of how it (and the aoe cap that makes it viable) dumbs down tactical play. I would hope that there's something about how having everyone stack inside an aoe radius being the best way to avoid aoe dmg that you can recognize as inherently detrimental to large scale pvp.

If you look through the aoe threads, those of us opposed to the cap tend to be the smallman groups who want to bomb the blob stackers - not because we failed at stacking ourselves.

Believe it or not, this isn't an "I died to it, nerf it nao!" issue.

Lava_Croft · July 2014

I'm not a part of these paintrains either and exclusive play in small(er) groups or solo. While these AoE spamming paintrains are indeed quite annoying sometimes, they are far from impossible to deal with. We deal with them on a daily basis and we wipe them on a daily basis and we get wiped by them on a daily basis. Yes, it takes time and effort and yes it's not always successful, but such is the nature of AvA.

I just don't understand why people continue to talk about it on the forums instead of actively wiping these one trick pony groups.

FENGRUSH · July 2014

Its generally an organized group of 20 with 30+ pubs running along with them. Ultimately I have to split damage across a huge chunk of people.

Thats the issue really, is splitting damage randomly. I dont do pain trains. I never have groups above 6 people.

Im on an active server where this isnt uncommon. Its a *** arguement anyway. When they merge servers, it wont be uncommon, and the issue will be real.

SBR_QuorTek · July 2014

Would no AOE cap make the zerg trains even more unbeatable? I mean.. yes with 'blink'... you can hit this amount of people... but with no cap you hit all.. all in train hits all... zerg gets even more 'unbeatable' and also would create so that one person can ruin the entire train or group with a couple of simple moves.

I am not really sure how to understand this issue.. we want to remove options where 3-5 people can blatantly kill a group of 24 people with a few effective ultimates... removing AOE caps is not the way for this.. rather it would be pro a few people ruining everything for many instead...

Lava_Croft · July 2014

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Im on an active server where this isnt uncommon. Its a *** arguement anyway. When they merge servers, it wont be uncommon, and the issue will be real.

Bloodthorn EU is completely full every single night queues of 20 to 90 people in line. It's simply not true that the paintrains are unbeatable with anything else but the same type paintrain. It's exactly this narrow train of thought (pun intended) that makes the people against the AoE cap constantly cry about it.

runagate · July 2014

I was so mad when they nerfed my rainbowparies even though my gold rings were Legendary.

FENGRUSH · July 2014

Lava_Croft wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Im on an active server where this isnt uncommon. Its a *** arguement anyway. When they merge servers, it wont be uncommon, and the issue will be real.

Bloodthorn EU is completely full every single night queues of 20 to 90 people in line. It's simply not true that the paintrains are unbeatable with anything else but the same type paintrain. It's exactly this narrow train of thought (pun intended) that makes the people against the AoE cap constantly cry about it.

I never said theyre unbeatable. I did say I bust these kind of zergs, and its still ridiculous what it entails to do so.

If youre going to quote my posts please reference points Im actually talking about. Odds are Im probably a better player than you anyway.

If you have a good argument why AOE caps are good the way they are at 6 instead of 10 or unlimited, let me know. Otherwise continue rambling on about tactics and narrow minded thinking while barriers are hitting more than 6 people and were somehow happy with where the balance of offense/defense is.

bugulu · July 2014

Whilst a zergtrain can be beaten in open combat by just jumping your way out of their path and picking off the stragglers, this gets much harder in contained places like keep battles and flag rooms. Where are you supposed to go then?

Oil will not beat a zergtrain unless they are bad. Having two or three dedicated purgers and spamming Barriers will nullify any oil/meatbag tactic.

What astonish me about these zergtrains are how bad individually these people are participating in the train. When you manage to pick off the lone straggler and he is cut off from his group, that same person keeps spamming Impulse thinking that one single Impulse from a person can kill 4-5 people on him.
Doesn't surprise me though since the only effort you need to have in a zergtrain is to face the crown (which an addon can mark out for you with ease), hold down your forward button and buttonmash the key for Impulse.
This is pretty evident on Bloodthorn EU DC side.

Morvul · July 2014

I actually have 2 issues with AoEs:

a) I agree with the OP that the AoE caps need to be gone.
Cyrodiil was marketed with "containing many tight spots in order to allow smaller groups to fight the big ones". However, with AoE caps this tight spots is actually were the Zerg is SAFEST, not at all a place the zerg fears to enter.

b) I also actually believe that AoE skills are too strong. Currently, already against 2 targets using AoE skills is equal or sometimes even slightly ahead in efficiency to using single-target skills. That is just wrong.
I would propose nerfing AoE damage by 30-50%, thus making it only usefull against 3-4 targets and up.

Lava_Croft · July 2014

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Odds are Im probably a better player than you anyway.

That's the best argument in favor of the AoE cap that I've heard so far.

quakedawg_ESO · July 2014

Lava_Croft wrote: »

FENGRUSH wrote: »

Odds are Im probably a better player than you anyway.

That's the best argument in favor of the AoE cap that I've heard so far.

I'm preeeetty sure everyone believes they are better than the other guy. Just as I'm sure nobody has ever died in this game.

galiumb16_ESO · July 2014

Lava_Croft wrote: »

You can already kill Impulse spamming groups just fine. The problem isn't really the group spamming the AoE's, it's the people that time and time again get facerolled by these groups and instead of altering their tactics, they head to the forums and demand changes.

As GW2 has proven, this is really only valid early on. Zergballs are easy to lead because the required effort from any individual player is relatively simple and because they are so simple to lead size becomes a non-factor, leadership wise. If a zerg starts to get beat, they just get bigger. Some will adjust tactics, but generally speaking the zergballs will just get bigger in response.

A good group is still not going to die to them, but beating them becomes a very slow process, involving more kiting and setup and less actual fighting and less success moments where you wipe the whole zerg. Effectively they just become too much effort. Over time all you end up with is a bunch of these zergballs and soloers/stragglers, almost nothing else, which becomes really boring for small coordinated groups.

Granted this game is not as toddler friendly as GW2 was, but AoE caps dumb down game play and always have.

Poxheart · July 2014

Lava_Croft wrote: »

You can already kill Impulse spamming groups just fine. The problem isn't really the group spamming the AoE's, it's the people that time and time again get facerolled by these groups and instead of altering their tactics, they head to the forums and demand changes.

Still waiting for you to share your secret tactics for "[killing] impulse spamming groups just fine."