David v. Goliath - Why ESO will always be a numbers game

Derra · October 2015

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

All these topics on zergs lately, were relaly big on irony around here.....

Not direct at you OP just saying in general, just observing has been very interesting.....

please carry on

This might be because nobody apart from the people playing in these grps enjoys them. With more campaigns open and people more spread out these grps are actually all thats left in cyrodiil to encounter on a regular basis.

People cry out because they don´t have fun anymore.

Actually I think a big part of that is due to ZOS changes to discourage any sort of solo playstyle. They just nerf everything that enables players to 1v1 and 1vX. Hell i think one of the main factors even is the nerf to stealth ganking. People can´t do that anymore without extreme investments buildwise.

There is no incentive for players to try to do anything alone or on smaller grps. Therefor they don´t do that anymore and everything that´s left is a playstyle not enjoyed by many.

I´m all for big zergs when everyone is spread out and the game can handle it. I hate 24man blobs stacking up on crown eating everyone in their path like the hungry caterpillar <(because in the end this won´t evolve into something nice).

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

Valindor Magnus wrote: »

I would just like to point out the current meta is just a natural evolution of combat in cyrodiil. The minute the first guild wiped an opposing guild with steel tornado spam in 1.6 the guild that was crushed by it changed their builds to match it. Same thing with proxy det, barrier, and other common "Zerg" tools. Quite frankly I think no matter what happens the meta will always evolve into something ugly because everyone pushes each other to further extremes in order to min max their efficiency in group/Zerg play. Not trying to defend this balled up aoe style of play I'm simply stating that this meta was only natural given the skills and mechanics that this game operates on. This meta exists not only because zos has, either knowingly or out of ignorance, given zergs tools to succeed but also because we as players push efficiency to the extreme out of competition. I see all three factions complain about zergging but all three factions still do it. We can't just expect zos to solve the issues of a meta that we took part in creating. We as players are going to have to make changes as well. Didn't some old wrinkly fella once say be the change you want to see in the world?

This just sounds a little too warm and fuzzy for a pvp thread. :P

In all seriousness though, asking players in a huge battlefield to all 'play nice' just seems futile. What are you going to cry to momma if the other side doesn't agree to play with whatever you feel is fair? That's the real issue here, and I'm not making a personal attack, I'm just saying that trying to 'do unto others' in a competitive sport with clearly defined rules is a bit much to expect. In reality, if a large team clashes into a small team with all things being equal the small team should lose. The issue is more in the mechanics of how you lose, and systems that make it more fun, which once again puts the onus on ZoS, not us as players.

On the matter of siege damage, I think siege hits pretty damn hard. The problem with siege isn't the damage but its survivability. Siege should be a lot more difficult to destroy than they are. Siege shouldn't have this timer that burns them down in 2 minutes of usage (or whatever it is). I understand why players setting fire to them is a thing (and it should get AP points for doing so) but I don't think they should wear out near as fast as they do. That one change would be of benefit.

I'd also personally like if there were player character collision as well, with a favoring in the struggle to the heavy armor wearing high health character. Why? Because strategically it makes sense, and it would give a Tank a viable function in a shield wall, or wall breaker. While it isn't perfect it'd be a little closer to the historicity of such a role in the battlefield, and it might just be fun while solving the issues of too many players being too tightly packed.

Yonkit · October 2015

@Jules

I'm sorry, my mind wanders to dirty places.

Valindor Magnus · October 2015

@dodgehopper_ESO

"In all seriousness though, asking players in a huge battlefield to all 'play nice' just seems futile. What are you going to cry to momma if the other side doesn't agree to play with whatever you feel is fair? "

I guess what I was trying to convey wasn't very clear, I'm saying that it is in fact because of this very attitude that there is little that can be done about the current state of "zergs." I'm not saying it's wrong for players to try and one up each other by min maxing more or stacking more people. I'm just saying that it's a natural thing to do. And I'm certainly not asking for all things to be equal. And in regards to your last statement in your first paragraph, it has absolutely everything to do with the players as well as how zos programs the game. Only blaming zos for the way "zergs" play is just being ignorant. Even if there are "op" or broken mechanics that favor stacking and spamming aoe it's the player that chooses to play that way.

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

Valindor Magnus wrote: »

@dodgehopper_ESO

"In all seriousness though, asking players in a huge battlefield to all 'play nice' just seems futile. What are you going to cry to momma if the other side doesn't agree to play with whatever you feel is fair? "

I guess what I was trying to convey wasn't very clear, I'm saying that it is in fact because of this very attitude that there is little that can be done about the current state of "zergs." I'm not saying it's wrong for players to try and one up each other by min maxing more or stacking more people. I'm just saying that it's a natural thing to do. And I'm certainly not asking for all things to be equal. And in regards to your last statement in your first paragraph, it has absolutely everything to do with the players as well as how zos programs the game. Only blaming zos for the way "zergs" play is just being ignorant. Even if there are "op" or broken mechanics that favor stacking and spamming aoe it's the player that chooses to play that way.

I'm not in disagreement, I'm just saying if you find yourself dead in the mud over and over, you're either going to stop playing or move to a winning strategy. In that respect I think the onus of balance is entirely upon ZoS shoulders. We don't get to define the height at which a regulation basketball hoop should be set, it is what it is. There are rules in place for fouling though. The point is that for the good of the game, changes should be made to make that game fun.

I'm actually not in disagreement about zergballs in theory, if it makes sense. This is why I offer some suggestions how to make the game more strategic and fun. This is why I also recommend player collision, because really its stupid that 90 people can all occupy exactly the same 2x1 hitbox. I love the idea of having shield walls, but I think the way they exist currently is a bit stupid.

Valindor Magnus · October 2015

Player collision would be sick, I can just see people running over other people with their horses. But I don't think the ups would outweigh the downs for something like that. While I do agree there should be a minimum sort of regulation like in your basketball analogy, I also don't want to see changes that just completely discourage full raid parties seizing keeps together. A lot of these changes I see people suggesting, I feel like, would almost force people to not run in groups due to too extreme penalties. It's easy to suggest a change that may or may not have the intended effect but it's important to look at what other effects it will have.

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

Valindor Magnus wrote: »

Player collision would be sick, I can just see people running over other people with their horses. But I don't think the ups would outweigh the downs for something like that. While I do agree there should be a minimum sort of regulation like in your basketball analogy, I also don't want to see changes that just completely discourage full raid parties seizing keeps together. A lot of these changes I see people suggesting, I feel like, would almost force people to not run in groups due to too extreme penalties. It's easy to suggest a change that may or may not have the intended effect but it's important to look at what other effects it will have.

Oh wow, I wasn't even thinking of horse combat in this example. Horses as a line breaker would be nice as well, and probably well outside of their capacity to design at this point.

Zheg · October 2015

Even guild groups need to realize that whether you run 12 or 24, when you reach the critical mass of having enough players that know what they're doing, other groups and random pugs will gravitate towards your objective and then you yourself become the zerg. All alliances are guilty of it, including your own guild Jules. Just because you may have 16 in group, when another group of 16 or 24 stealth bombs a group of 12 at the same time as your group, the 16 man group - even though medium-sized, has now been absorbed into the 'zerg'.

Frankly, everyone needs to stop throwing the word around. Populations will never be balanced across the three alliances, nor will they be balanced across the various timezones, or campaigns. Some nights your alliance will have more numbers and enough good players and dominate, other nights you won't. Groups should do what they can to avoid stacking obscene numbers, but other than that - what else should be expected? Players can demand and hope for their perfect pvp environment all they like, but it will never be perfect for everyone. Tonight's david is tomorrow's goliath, and then maybe he's back to david the following day.

To be honest, the only thing I can see being successful is for there to be one competitive campaign where pvp happens, but even then, one side will always have a stronger night-time presence, or a better density of good players, and things will never be perfectly balanced. This would also make queues a nightmare.

I mean, how long have discussions like this been going on? Maybe Cyrodiil just by design needs to BE large groups fighting large groups? Maybe the devs need to (scratch that 'maybe', they NEED to) rethink their opposition to an arena so small groups can fight small groups, and we don't have to keep bickering about an impossible to achieve balance that frankly is never going to happen. Not to sound defeatist, but given what's come out of ZOS since launch, who here ACTUALLY thinks they're going to implement mechanics that strikes the right balance between small, medium, large, and zerg pvp all in one place? I'm just wondering if maybe people need to cut their losses and focus all of their efforts on pushing the devs for a 'new' place where small vs small and medium vs medium pvp is the paradigm, rather than trying to make small pvp successful in a place that's designed to house large pvp.

Maybe I've just lost my faith in the devs and the rest of you haven't, but I just don't see the changes people keep asking for becoming a reality or having the effect they want them to.

Teargrants · October 2015

WTB player collision, pst offers.

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

Zheg wrote: »

Even guild groups need to realize that whether you run 12 or 24, when you reach the critical mass of having enough players that know what they're doing, other groups and random pugs will gravitate towards your objective and then you yourself become the zerg. All alliances are guilty of it, including your own guild Jules. Just because you may have 16 in group, when another group of 16 or 24 stealth bombs a group of 12 at the same time as your group, the 16 man group - even though medium-sized, has now been absorbed into the 'zerg'.

Frankly, everyone needs to stop throwing the word around. Populations will never be balanced across the three alliances, nor will they be balanced across the various timezones, or campaigns. Some nights your alliance will have more numbers and enough good players and dominate, other nights you won't. Groups should do what they can to avoid stacking obscene numbers, but other than that - what else should be expected? Players can demand and hope for their perfect pvp environment all they like, but it will never be perfect for everyone. Tonight's david is tomorrow's goliath, and then maybe he's back to david the following day.

To be honest, the only thing I can see being successful is for there to be one competitive campaign where pvp happens, but even then, one side will always have a stronger night-time presence, or a better density of good players, and things will never be perfectly balanced. This would also make queues a nightmare.

I mean, how long have discussions like this been going on? Maybe Cyrodiil just by design needs to BE large groups fighting large groups? Maybe the devs need to (scratch that 'maybe', they NEED to) rethink their opposition to an arena so small groups can fight small groups, and we don't have to keep bickering about an impossible to achieve balance that frankly is never going to happen. Not to sound defeatist, but given what's come out of ZOS since launch, who here ACTUALLY thinks they're going to implement mechanics that strikes the right balance between small, medium, large, and zerg pvp all in one place? I'm just wondering if maybe people need to cut their losses and focus all of their efforts on pushing the devs for a 'new' place where small vs small and medium vs medium pvp is the paradigm, rather than trying to make small pvp successful in a place that's designed to house large pvp.

Maybe I've just lost my faith in the devs and the rest of you haven't, but I just don't see the changes people keep asking for becoming a reality or having the effect they want them to.

I think there's a place for Open World PvP as well as Arena. I do add that I'd hate to see Cyrodiil die like Open world pvp died on SWTOR.

Jules · October 2015

Zheg wrote: »

Even guild groups need to realize that whether you run 12 or 24, when you reach the critical mass of having enough players that know what they're doing, other groups and random pugs will gravitate towards your objective and then you yourself become the zerg. All alliances are guilty of it, including your own guild Jules. Just because you may have 16 in group, when another group of 16 or 24 stealth bombs a group of 12 at the same time as your group, the 16 man group - even though medium-sized, has now been absorbed into the 'zerg'.

Frankly, everyone needs to stop throwing the word around. Populations will never be balanced across the three alliances, nor will they be balanced across the various timezones, or campaigns. Some nights your alliance will have more numbers and enough good players and dominate, other nights you won't. Groups should do what they can to avoid stacking obscene numbers, but other than that - what else should be expected? Players can demand and hope for their perfect pvp environment all they like, but it will never be perfect for everyone. Tonight's david is tomorrow's goliath, and then maybe he's back to david the following day.

To be honest, the only thing I can see being successful is for there to be one competitive campaign where pvp happens, but even then, one side will always have a stronger night-time presence, or a better density of good players, and things will never be perfectly balanced. This would also make queues a nightmare.

I mean, how long have discussions like this been going on? Maybe Cyrodiil just by design needs to BE large groups fighting large groups? Maybe the devs need to (scratch that 'maybe', they NEED to) rethink their opposition to an arena so small groups can fight small groups, and we don't have to keep bickering about an impossible to achieve balance that frankly is never going to happen. Not to sound defeatist, but given what's come out of ZOS since launch, who here ACTUALLY thinks they're going to implement mechanics that strikes the right balance between small, medium, large, and zerg pvp all in one place? I'm just wondering if maybe people need to cut their losses and focus all of their efforts on pushing the devs for a 'new' place where small vs small and medium vs medium pvp is the paradigm, rather than trying to make small pvp successful in a place that's designed to house large pvp.

Maybe I've just lost my faith in the devs and the rest of you haven't, but I just don't see the changes people keep asking for becoming a reality or having the effect they want them to.

Don't have a problem with large group combat at all.
Have a problem with zergball meta and how it's entirely infallible. The two are mutually exclusive; they are not to be confused as the same. I could care less and would actually prefer 24v24 in a solid fight, with each group spreading and recondensing per the context of the fight. That sounds challenging, that sounds engaging. That sounds like something that would be a lot more fun than ball up/stay balled up/run over everything in our path/win. However the zergball meta is effective, and that's why it's problematic. There's all of the incentives there, and none of the downsides.

Also, I'm not saying that all guilds, especially successful ones, don't get pug aggro, they do. It's true and all but inevitable. But it seems besides the point. If groups were to be encouraged to spread out, they would need to have individual survivability, and would need to exhibit true skill in order to dominate.

The mindset of zergballing leads to "well they have 30, so we need 30"
"Well they have 60, so we need 60"
ect ect ect

I think large, competitive pvp is entirely possible and would enjoy it immensely. I just think there are crucial flaws that stand in the way of that at this time.

Joy_Division · October 2015

The devs do not have to create an arena for small scale.

The just need to provide tools - apposed to taking them away - so that outnumbered people/groups have a chance at being "heroic" vs larger groups.

That's all many people are asking for.

Yonkit · October 2015

From the words of Jules, "We small man." 40 is smaller than 50 amiright?

Darnathian · October 2015

Valindor Magnus wrote: »

Would also like to address this suggestion of increasing siege damage. If siege damage is increased enough to be effective against zergs then what's gonna stop solo players from using it against other small man groups? I don't think the solution is as simple as just giving anyone and everyone a way of destroying a large group of enemies. Any change that makes killing enemies easier just means more horse simulator online. It's a tough balance act of keeping everyone happy and quite frankly is pretty much impossible at this point.

Great point. I remember when the siege was OP and dudes would solo resources against small groups by sitting in the tower and dropping bombs. Lol.

Darnathian · October 2015

Muizer wrote: »

I'd be happy with a major speed debuff for people who clump together. I think it's doable. I don't mind the zerg being strong defensively and offensively, but strong AND fast is too much.

"Swarm" would be a better term for zerg IMHO. At least pinpoint its main disruptive effect.

NO. No artificial mechanics. That is just as bad. Just remove caps and restore dynamic ultimate and lets see what happens. Then adjust.

Darnathian · October 2015

Derra wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

All these topics on zergs lately, were relaly big on irony around here.....

Not direct at you OP just saying in general, just observing has been very interesting.....

please carry on

This might be because nobody apart from the people playing in these grps enjoys them. With more campaigns open and people more spread out these grps are actually all thats left in cyrodiil to encounter on a regular basis.

People cry out because they don´t have fun anymore.

Actually I think a big part of that is due to ZOS changes to discourage any sort of solo playstyle. They just nerf everything that enables players to 1v1 and 1vX. Hell i think one of the main factors even is the nerf to stealth ganking. People can´t do that anymore without extreme investments buildwise.

There is no incentive for players to try to do anything alone or on smaller grps. Therefor they don´t do that anymore and everything that´s left is a playstyle not enjoyed by many.

I´m all for big zergs when everyone is spread out and the game can handle it. I hate 24man blobs stacking up on crown eating everyone in their path like the hungry caterpillar <(because in the end this won´t evolve into something nice).

Sorry. But ganking is way worse than zerging. At least zergs face those small man groups face to face.

Seriously. Who likes gankers?

Darnathian · October 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

WTB player collision, pst offers.

Ya me too. But add more calculations to the server? No thank you

Yonkit · October 2015

Haxus+SWP= 8 player small man raids ftw!

Shelgon · October 2015

Mn, I agree with this post, this is a nice post. I can't help but think though that it may be difficult to obtain a balance while not tipping the scales too much in one favor.

I do enjoy a game where skill is favored over numbers, and fighting 4v16 and winning against the odds shouldn't be an easy task, but not impossible either.

I'm just afraid of how small the target is to get a perfect balance, but with due time we'll get it right, I hope.

I don't want immortal zergs, but I'm not too fond of immortal small man groups either (if it would be relatively easy to do, that is.).

Yonkit · October 2015

#rektbydrunkpredator

Alcast · October 2015

The lag is what kills the game for me every day. At 6pm I log off bc you cannot play anymore due to lag.

I guess ZOS really wants us to play other games....fine with me lol

DovresMalven · October 2015

im david

Muizer · October 2015

Darnathian wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

I'd be happy with a major speed debuff for people who clump together. I think it's doable. I don't mind the zerg being strong defensively and offensively, but strong AND fast is too much.

"Swarm" would be a better term for zerg IMHO. At least pinpoint its main disruptive effect.

NO. No artificial mechanics. That is just as bad. Just remove caps and restore dynamic ultimate and lets see what happens. Then adjust.

It's a computationally cheap proxy for the effects collision would have on the manoeuvarability of blobs.

As for artificiality: that's not really an argument in itself in a game where you can conjure up your horse by whistling and carry 100 siege engines in your backpack. You have to look at the overal effect as much as mechanical operation when judging "realism" in games.

Imdrefan · October 2015

Darnathian wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

WTB player collision, pst offers.

Ya me too. But add more calculations to the server? No thank you

If there was friendly player collision the griefing would be REAL.

AhPook_Is_Here · October 2015

Why do people stack up? They stack up because of positive and negative circles of inclusion that have additive properties to health return and damage output. How do you fix that? Collision has always been my first choice, because 20 people doing a 3 stooges impersonation would be really funny and find it very difficult to move anywhere. You could also add friendly fire interception, players would not take damage from FF but could obstruct outgoing AOEs from reaching hostile targets if they blocked los to the target. It is likely these two ideas wouldn't be done for messaging reasons, though both collision and FF interception could be checked client-side without messaging.

Another solution is to break the value of the inclusive circles. Optimal healing happens at total inclusion with everyone inside every positive AOE field. Remove group healing or AOE healing, make everyone handle their own health bar and suddenly stacks are a bad idea because targeted aoe will still hit everyone but there is no healing aoe to counter it. This would force people to spread out. You could also remove high damage AOE abilities at that point (ST and so on), let siege fill that gap and buff it some so it does a better job, and suddenly you have a game that can support an arena, and interesting PVP.

Axyredo · October 2015

I agree with everything in this post. Do some thinking zos!

Alomar · October 2015

Yonkit wrote: »

Haxus+SWP= 8 player small man raids ftw!

VE + K-Hole + LoM = Small 12 man raids! See the irony there?

Zheg · October 2015

Alomar wrote: »

Yonkit wrote: »

Haxus+SWP= 8 player small man raids ftw!

VE + K-Hole + LoM = Small 12 man raids! See the irony there?

Except, out of those three guilds, no one makes BS claims about how many are actually in the group just because their fragile egos get hurt when the group wipes and it's easier to try and convince whoever you lost to that the other dead 16 reds that moved with the group and stealth bombed with the group didn't actually exist and it was a valiant effort for the 'small' man against the zerg. I mean, I know the 2-bar DC pop is a tough thing to fight against, but maybe the solution is to just take your "8" man group up to 9. You can just invite from the pool of dead reds that always seem to be right next to you guys after a wipe - it should be easy considering most of them are somehow in your guild roster.

Ghostbane · October 2015

Alomar wrote: »

Yonkit wrote: »

Haxus+SWP= 8 player small man raids ftw!

VE + K-Hole + LoM = Small 12 man raids! See the irony there?

Teargrants · October 2015

Imdrefan wrote: »

Darnathian wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

WTB player collision, pst offers.

Ya me too. But add more calculations to the server? No thank you

If there was friendly player collision the griefing would be REAL.

I'll take friendly player collision griefing over Cyrodiil lag any day.