AoE Cap - Lord Fengrush hits it on the head

Sureshawt · October 2015

Frawr wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

Frawr wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

While the AoE cap is not a perfect solution it is at least providing some protection from organized AoE bomb groups. Without them everyone regardless of group size,balling etc. is going to go down hard and fast to AoE.

I've been down this road before with other MMOs. In the beginning there are good large-scale open field fights and organized PvP using voice comms involves tactical movement, effective target calling and situational awareness. Then the AoE meta evolves and everyone rerolls for AoE. Organized ball groups spamming AoE becomes the only way to effectively fight and everyone either gets on board or left behind.

What I regret most is that I spent so much time on the AoE train before realizing it wasn't rewarding or remotely challenging and that a brain dead monkey could do all that was required. No need for tactical movement of subgroups, no need for individual skill with your class, no need for good target callers. Follow the leader and spam AoE over and over...rinse repeat

Lift AoE caps without restructuring how AoE currently works in ESO and watch the game devolve into nothing but organized AoE bomb groups roaming the campaign map.

The game is currently organised aoe bomb groups and unorganised zergs. The AoE bomb groups win. The reason for that is simple:

The aoe cap is providing protection to the bomb groups, not from them.

The tight packs benefit far more than do the zergs of randoms.

This is an ezmode mechanic that zos has put in to try to make life easier for casual players but actually makes it harder for them.

---

@Zheg of course there will be other repercussions of changing it, however, the key benefit (and a really major one) is that it will level the playing field for smaller groups.

Hell, even a few randoms could get together with detonations and take out one of these 'elite' raid guilds if they caught them off-guard. That cannot happen right now.

Players having to adapt is standard stuff and will happen regardless.

This is the first I've heard anyone try to claim that lifting AoE caps will make the unorganized zerg stronger and make organized bomb groups more vulnerable. Funny.

Anyway I'm done with this thread. ZoS will do what they do and we as players/customers will make our choices as well

@Sureshawt eh? I said precisely the opposite.

I do agree with your last sentence though.

This thread is a perfect example of reason clashing with hyperbole

I wasn't going to respond anymore but since you quoted me.

Do you still advocate for removing the AoE cap that you state pretty clearly is providing protection to bomb groups? or maybe its just a typing error?

You wrote:

The aoe cap is providing protection to the bomb groups, not from them

If the AoE cap is protecting the bomb group as you state then it is logical to presume that lifting the AoE cap would remove that protection? Removing protection would thus make bomb groups more vulnerable.

I wrote:

This is the first I've heard anyone try to claim that lifting AoE caps will make the unorganized zerg stronger and make organized bomb groups more vulnerable

Xsorus · October 2015

Zheg wrote: »

The argument that fights should be over in a second to preserve server performance is an awful one. If you make pvp last a second, what's the point? Seriously? How bored would you be in a week? At that point I could go drop a banner on zombies and grind champ points. Server performance is always on our minds given the lag we've had to put up with, but that doesn't mean pvp should be made pointless because ZOS struggles to deliver on what was promised as far a capabilities.

To hopefully change some of the tone that I myself am guilty of, this shouldn't be a bash fengrush thing, I just see little reality in terms of what most people are under the impression the cap currently does, what removing it will do, and what the ripple effects could be.

The tragedy should not be lost on people that this argument has focused on one of the least relevant of the improvements suggested in the video. Changing how healing works could be incredibly exciting and promote skill over numbers on all fronts, but that's been mentioned maybe 3 times in these 9 pages.

So...like am I going to have to link you a bunch of DAOC videos showing exactly what you're describing, and how none of us were bored of that in a week?

Xsorus · October 2015

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

It's funny to hear people say that unless something is done, the majority of players will leave. The majority is zerging....

While there are some zergs filled with good players, the majority are filled with players that get farmed, day in and day out, outside of a zerg. You can't have a significant number of players with 10:1 kill ratios without other players having 1:10 kill ratios.

Many people here are essentially arguing that they deserve to farm mediocre players because they are more "skilled." Setting aside the definition of "skilled" for this debate, this may be true, from a purely libertarian point of view. However, MMO history has shown that very few people will stick around to be AP cows.

Once the mediocre player is gone, the game begins to collapse. This is for two reasons. First, most "competitive small group" players are in it for pug stomping and not competitive play. Second, even among the groups seeking competition, 2-3 groups typically rise to the top and farm all the remaining competitive groups. The farmed groups also leave the game to avoid having to face the fact that they weren't nearly as good as they thought they were.

This thread reminds me of the movement to remove forward camps. To cut down on zerging and improve open field skirmishing. What a disaster. More and bigger zergs emerged. Can't move safely around the battlefield? Zerg! Or use Sejanus, Nickel, etc., as FCs...

So, what logical train of thought gets you to the point where you think that bombing 10x your numbers will improve the game? Destroy the zergs and what will the zergers do? Stay around and get repeatedly bombed, day in and day out, by 1/10th their numbers? Is their anything more humiliating we could add to the game? They can't FC, they can't zerg, is anything left for them to enjoy PvP? And once they are gone, then what?

I would love to hear any argument as to how removal of AoE caps will lead to a fun environment conducive to a large, sustainable PvP player base. When I think of AoE cap removal, I think of DAOC PBAE bombing, banshee cone AE or early Animist shroom stacking. Each of which contributed to the ultimate demise of that game...

Only what you stated didn't lead to the ultimate demise of that game.

Animist came out during SI, which is largely considered the best DAOC expansion released..and resulted in a rather large population bump... Banshee came out in Catacombs which was well after the population drop in DAOC....PBAEing was present from the beginning till the population drop...Only it wasn't what caused the population to drop in that game..

No that rests squarely on this game called World of Warcraft....Unless you think every other MMO released at that time had Animist/Banshees/Pbaeing..because they all experienced the same thing.

Zhoyzu · October 2015

i gave up awhile ago

rfennell_ESO · October 2015

So

Huckdabuck wrote: »

Just pretend the group raids are a phalanx. Historically it had the massive power of a nuclear bomb and the defense of Fort Knox. So it was a win/win versus other field combatants. Don't be trying to ruin peoples emmershuns!

The phalanx had serious weaknesses, like being able to flank it and susceptibility to ranged units. It was only powerful from the front and it was not very mobile.

Historically, the Romans defeated the phalanx and the roman legion didn't rely on the phalanx as part of it's main battle force. They did this merely by not attacking the phalanx's frontal strength and instead flanking it and surrounding it. Not to mention the roman legion had an entire battery of ranged and artillery.

The problem with eso and zerg balls is there is no counter to them past having as many or more. Furthermore they have all the advantages and no disadvantages while the zerg ball is cohesive and not losing numbers, it's a huge crutch.

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

While there are some zergs filled with good players, the majority are filled with players that get farmed, day in and day out, outside of a zerg. You can't have a significant number of players with 10:1 kill ratios without other players having 1:10 kill ratios.

Being that for the most part of cohesive zerg of 24 rolling and killing one player can easily yield 20 "kills" or more, I think your theory is not very good.

The zerg is not getting a good kill ratio at all, being that their primary targets are not near their numbers. Furthermore, past important keeps that need to be attacked or defended, people just don't go fight the zerg without their own zerg.

Most of the time the zergers will just get MORE if you wipe them. If you wipe EP zerg group of inflated egos 1, they will enlist zerg group of inflated ego 2 and so on until the zerger population is accounted for with a stunning victory of mouth breathers spamming 1 ability a piece.

The only thing entertaining about the zergs are their propensity to show up on forums to talk smack about how hard they spammed "1" for 4 hours, and how skillfully they spammed 1 and sometimes even pressed 2 all while following the papa crown big crown like lemming. The gist of the problem being that the lemming, in this case, don't drown.. they get AP.

It's time to take their crutches away and show them to be nothing but lame cripples (and that's lame cripples that claim they can beat usain bolt in footrace, jam on Lebron and take 100 mph fastballs and hit them out the park). Will it happen, probably not... ZOS listens to these people, and I use the term people in lieu of the derogatory.

Huckdabuck · October 2015

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

So

Huckdabuck wrote: »

Just pretend the group raids are a phalanx. Historically it had the massive power of a nuclear bomb and the defense of Fort Knox. So it was a win/win versus other field combatants. Don't be trying to ruin peoples emmershuns!

The phalanx had serious weaknesses, like being able to flank it and susceptibility to ranged units. It was only powerful from the front and it was not very mobile.

Historically, the Romans defeated the phalanx and the roman legion didn't rely on the phalanx as part of it's main battle force. They did this merely by not attacking the phalanx's frontal strength and instead flanking it and surrounding it. Not to mention the roman legion had an entire battery of ranged and artillery.

The problem with eso and zerg balls is there is no counter to them past having as many or more. Furthermore they have all the advantages and no disadvantages while the zerg ball is cohesive and not losing numbers, it's a huge crutch.

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

While there are some zergs filled with good players, the majority are filled with players that get farmed, day in and day out, outside of a zerg. You can't have a significant number of players with 10:1 kill ratios without other players having 1:10 kill ratios.

Being that for the most part of cohesive zerg of 24 rolling and killing one player can easily yield 20 "kills" or more, I think your theory is not very good.

The zerg is not getting a good kill ratio at all, being that their primary targets are not near their numbers. Furthermore, past important keeps that need to be attacked or defended, people just don't go fight the zerg without their own zerg.

Most of the time the zergers will just get MORE if you wipe them. If you wipe EP zerg group of inflated egos 1, they will enlist zerg group of inflated ego 2 and so on until the zerger population is accounted for with a stunning victory of mouth breathers spamming 1 ability a piece.

The only thing entertaining about the zergs are their propensity to show up on forums to talk smack about how hard they spammed "1" for 4 hours, and how skillfully they spammed 1 and sometimes even pressed 2 all while following the papa crown big crown like lemming. The gist of the problem being that the lemming, in this case, don't drown.. they get AP.

It's time to take their crutches away and show them to be nothing but lame cripples (and that's lame cripples that claim they can beat usain bolt in footrace, jam on Lebron and take 100 mph fastballs and hit them out the park). Will it happen, probably not... ZOS listens to these people, and I use the term people in lieu of the derogatory.

The bolded portion works quite well on guild raids as well. Stealth bombs into the middle of groups from the sides and siege while doing that seem to work pretty good to be honest. Just ask @Rylana about that.. Hmmmmm looks like people should be more mindful of history and the lessons it teaches!

QQing on forums is a far worse crutch.

ewhite106b16_ESO · October 2015

This entire podcast really hits the nail on the head, Zenimax needs to listen to these guys. The AOE cap didn't only wreck cyrodil PVP for really small groups, it destroyed the fun in PVP for 10-20 man groups as well. Standing in a blob mindlessly spamming 1-2 buttons assigned by your role (healing or DPS) shouldn't even be called PVP it's just a boring pointless mess that isn't even worth logging in for.

Trying not to go too far off track, but watching this podcast it really hit home hard how much worse the game has gotten since 1.5. ESO went from being a game with fun PVP and a really good combat system to a boring grindfest where zerging + grinding CP is vastly more valuable then player skill.

Frawr · October 2015

Sureshawt wrote: »

Frawr wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

Frawr wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

While the AoE cap is not a perfect solution it is at least providing some protection from organized AoE bomb groups. Without them everyone regardless of group size,balling etc. is going to go down hard and fast to AoE.

I've been down this road before with other MMOs. In the beginning there are good large-scale open field fights and organized PvP using voice comms involves tactical movement, effective target calling and situational awareness. Then the AoE meta evolves and everyone rerolls for AoE. Organized ball groups spamming AoE becomes the only way to effectively fight and everyone either gets on board or left behind.

What I regret most is that I spent so much time on the AoE train before realizing it wasn't rewarding or remotely challenging and that a brain dead monkey could do all that was required. No need for tactical movement of subgroups, no need for individual skill with your class, no need for good target callers. Follow the leader and spam AoE over and over...rinse repeat

Lift AoE caps without restructuring how AoE currently works in ESO and watch the game devolve into nothing but organized AoE bomb groups roaming the campaign map.

The game is currently organised aoe bomb groups and unorganised zergs. The AoE bomb groups win. The reason for that is simple:

The aoe cap is providing protection to the bomb groups, not from them.

The tight packs benefit far more than do the zergs of randoms.

This is an ezmode mechanic that zos has put in to try to make life easier for casual players but actually makes it harder for them.

---

@Zheg of course there will be other repercussions of changing it, however, the key benefit (and a really major one) is that it will level the playing field for smaller groups.

Hell, even a few randoms could get together with detonations and take out one of these 'elite' raid guilds if they caught them off-guard. That cannot happen right now.

Players having to adapt is standard stuff and will happen regardless.

This is the first I've heard anyone try to claim that lifting AoE caps will make the unorganized zerg stronger and make organized bomb groups more vulnerable. Funny.

Anyway I'm done with this thread. ZoS will do what they do and we as players/customers will make our choices as well

@Sureshawt eh? I said precisely the opposite.

I do agree with your last sentence though.

This thread is a perfect example of reason clashing with hyperbole

I wasn't going to respond anymore but since you quoted me.

Do you still advocate for removing the AoE cap that you state pretty clearly is providing protection to bomb groups? or maybe its just a typing error?

You wrote:

The aoe cap is providing protection to the bomb groups, not from them

If the AoE cap is protecting the bomb group as you state then it is logical to presume that lifting the AoE cap would remove that protection? Removing protection would thus make bomb groups more vulnerable.

I wrote:

This is the first I've heard anyone try to claim that lifting AoE caps will make the unorganized zerg stronger and make organized bomb groups more vulnerable

@Sureshawt with you now.

So my comment was to show that the bomb group has more vulnerability but not to say that unorganised zergs are stronger.

Disorganised will always be weak regardless.

Removing the cap hurts the bomb group more than the zerg due to the way in which bomb groups pack.

This means that a small but organised group could then kill the large train if catching them off guard, whereas currently this is far harder due to the cap.

I think that there would be little impact on disorganised zergs either way because they will already take more damage due to being spread out.

That is why I think that it is a good thing.

Little impact on zerg
Added vulnerability to organised bomb groups.

Artjuh90 · October 2015

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Big groups already have the advantage of many players, they dont need help from in-game mechanics.

AOE caps are a great idea but they work in the wrong direction.

Damage AOE caps: increase damage by 25% if you deal damage to more than 6 enemies.
Healing AOE caps: decrease healing by 25% if you heal more than 12 allies.

Problem solved.

make single target abilty's less usefull thats a good thing just spamming AOE!!!!! Then you can really show your skill buttonmashing

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Just a thought here, but shouldn't player single target attacks have greater primacy to aoe's? Single targets are more precise and require more effort. Most pvp type games (not just MMO's) that I've played we would call our targets individually and blast those people one by one. Maybe the big answer is that aoe shouldn't be as strong as it is. This is just something I'm musing as I read this debate. Look at caltrops. Its wonderful as a snare, but its not that good for damage, and the cost to fire it is high. I almost think that should be what the aoe's are more about, particularly in pvp. I'd rather that than the huge nerf to Tanks they just did. Personally, I like the notion of playing in skirmish groups, so I can respect what @fengrush and his crew do. The issue though is that I'm not sure people are attacking AoE from the right perspective. I think they'd be better as a debuff than a damage in pvp anyway, at least to make the battles more interesting. The well organized groups will still call targets, and Feng's skirmishes should still be able to cut off flanks and hit and run. Seems like win-win for everyone.

look this is so true. i would like to see this and just cap all aoe in pvp by 50% no matter how many people you hit. and same with the aoe healing and oae shielding. then you improve pvp cause people need to actually target and now just random spamming aoe all over the place.
And just make siege more effective vs players, cause balista vs players is just waste of AP and dps

Cryhavoc · October 2015

This is an important issue, and I created a forum account just to add my two gold...

The video was spot on, and I have much respect for the participants. I also love ESO for the siege combat, and I prefer PVP to PVE by a long shot. DAOC was my all time favorite game, and I think ESO has done an excellent job of emulating what I loved so much about PVP in that game.

I have done all forms of PVP in ESO, from soloing Cyrodiil and IC, to joining the zergball groups.

My suggestions/comment/questions:

1. I support removing AOE caps. DAOC didnt need them. Larger groups will kill smaller groups, though highly skilled smaller groups should be able to hold their own by using siege weapons, the environment, and just all around teamwork. I appreciate all the scenarios shared by folks in this thread, but this is just math.

2. Why no further discussion of variable Ultimate gain? A smaller group gains more/faster ultimate as they will hit/effect more people. This needs to be in effect, and would help greatly.

3. My big question: what size group is ESO balanced around? Is it a 4 person group, a 24 person group, what is the number? Why not pick a number that makes sense, say 12 (for 12 person trials) cap group size at that number? Or else keep the number at 24 and balance around that size group.

I will be in Cyrodiil whatever happens, but if player opinions can help, here is mine.

briandivisionb16_ESO · October 2015

Removing AoE caps

Our decision is based on two factors: balance and feedback.

We realised that not everyone wants to play in a big group. AoE mitigation mechanics force smallscale and solo players who want to compete to run with a zerg. The math? Well, battle-leveling and AoE caps combined gave players 75% damage reduction. If they run with more than 6 people.

This meant that you and your buddy hit a group with your Steel Tornados for 7k damage, like it says in the tooltip. However, the 7th and consecutive members take only 3500 damage due to AoE cap.
Wait, sorry. 1750 damage due to AoE cap and battle-level.

The zerg still hits you and your buddy for the full 7000.

So for balance you can enjoy the removed AoE caps. Why give an advantage to a group that already outnumbers you in the first place, you ask?
Allow us to explain.

We fired Jeremy yesterday. Back in 2014 in a board-meeting Jeremy wrote "4 guys wipe 40 man group because of AoE!1" He underlined 'because of AoE' three times!
Jeremy showed us a video of a 40 man group dying to 3 players! We didn't understand it. Multiple threads complaining. Hysteria. Can you blame us for insta-patching damage reduction? Yes? Oh well, we're sorry.

It was weird. It took a while. Our PvP playerbase dwindled so much even though we launched Imp City. Populations started emptying. Thread after thread.
Well. It was costing us too much to moderate the forum rage so by sheer luck we tried listening to our players!

In this update we took advice from Arena, a guild of PvPers since launch. We listed to cunning advice from Tamriel Foundry, the guys who basically theorycraft everything. We heeded @SypherPK @LeftyLucy @LordFengrush @LordRichard @Deltia. They all told us 75% mitigation was a bad idea. Jeremy was 'off his head' The real reasons these zergs wiped in 2014 was because batswarm was bugged! You could have it up 100% of the time and our AoE hotfix wasn't needed.

OK. I'm out of stamina. But thanks for reading :-) I hope you enjoyed the thread. Here is a less satirical version which goes into the mechanics a bit more, and solutions. Come contribute ^^
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/222733/constructive-criticism-pvp-is-lacking/p1

Trying to stay constructive. I honestly think the driving issue in PvP is ZOS removing AoE caps. The 50% reduced damage would stop wipes from small groups if the larger group uses even remotely similar levels of strategy.
I thought about it. 3 guys rush a group of 20. Well, if this group of 20 has at least 3 guys of similar skill or PvP awareness then the 20 will win every time. Ha.

Muizer · October 2015

ewhite106b16_ESO wrote: »

Standing in a blob mindlessly spamming 1-2 buttons assigned by your role (healing or DPS) shouldn't even be called PVP it's just a boring pointless mess that isn't even worth logging in for.

If you hate ability spamming, why promote measures that empower AoE, be it the removal of the cap or fast ult regen?

rfennell_ESO · October 2015

Huckdabuck wrote: »

The bolded portion works quite well on guild raids as well. Stealth bombs into the middle of groups from the sides and siege while doing that seem to work pretty good to be honest. Just ask @Rylana about that.. Hmmmmm looks like people should be more mindful of history and the lessons it teaches!

QQing on forums is a far worse crutch.

Sure I'll ask someone that openly run around with blxxxxney invulnerable in his raid and guild, I'm sure forthright and honest will be expected.

You CAN'T make things like that up, literally not possible.

Wreuntzylla · October 2015

FENGRUSH wrote: »

So we should keep AOE caps so players can zerg without effort and skill is essentially minimized in PvP? Except when they run into players that are doing the same thing and know what theyre doing - and get cleaned out. Until they bring more than double that, and drop frames to 5FPS? Sounds really interesting.

The thing is - I think youre not really off-target with how ZOS is approaching this issue. Their design is intentionally putting in handicaps that make it very casual friendly. Then you have players who arent casuals, playing in the same fashion balling up and will still clean these groups of casuals out. All in all, if nothing changes - ESO will remain a game where zergballing is the only real productive way to PvP/advance points in Cyro. If its all that remains, theres just plenty of people like myself that wont bother with mass PvP in ESO, especially when performance is horrid during it. If you players in guilds like GoS, decibel, VE, and haxus want to continue to fight for keeping AOE caps while every one of you makes use of balling and AOE caps in large groups, that is up to you. But thats the game youll get and keep. Thats the design that probably caused the largest exodus of skilled players in the game as well, along with largest exodus of PvP population. But keep taking shots at how Im fighting for my ego rather than improving Cyros mass PvP and, if nothing else, to actually make damage intake equal for all parties.

The reality is, there is better PvP that is more interesting than this. Its just that nobody is trying to make that a reality @ZOS at this time.

You have to look at it from a broader perspective.

The breakpoint for most players is the point where they think they no longer have a chance to win. If they think they have a chance, even if they never did, they will continue to play and even have fun. It's a fact I came to terms with in Warhammer. If we blew them apart in a few seconds, they stopped coming back or left the scenario as soon as we entered. We would literally go entire nights where the other side would bail before all of us had zoned in. However, if we took our time and let them pew pew at least a little bit, they apparently thought they just needed a little more oomph to beat us. They never could or did. But they thought they could. And that made the difference.

Similarly, the buffing of spawn point guards was a huge success for scenarios because pugs had a chance to wipe us by luring us into grabbing guard aggro.

So, the trick is to implement a system where skilled players can destroy zergs over a period of time and not in a few seconds. Perhaps small radius, ground targetted snare AoEs that can't be purged. Another possibility would be to give purge only a chance (e.g., ~30%) at removing certain effects, like caltrops, so that kite groups are viable. The point here is to be able to peel some off the back and kill them, or kill the ones that get ahead of the main pack, and rinse and repeat until the odds equalized. Because the fight takes time, the zergers feel like it was a close fight (even if it never was) and aren't horribly discouraged.

A corollary to my Pug Rule is that if pugs think they have a chance to win, being chain killed doesn't affect them. Forward Camps are a great example. We could send all of them back to the FC at a rate of about once every 5 minutes or so, and they would still keep streaming back. For hours and hours. They just did not seem to notice or care that they were being chain killed. Our only complaint was that after a few minutes they were no longer worth AP, and essentially never would be unless we pulled off for a period of time and came back later. However, once FCs were nerfed, and we would punk them in the open field, the 2-4 minute ride on the horse simulator was a constant punishment, or reminder that they did not in fact have a chance. The population plummeted as a result.

I'm not advocating any particular solution. Rather, I'm just pointing out that a slower pace of zerg destruction, and ways to impede the current zergball tactics, is the way to go. Not dropping AoE caps so that zergs are evaporated in seconds.

Wreuntzylla · October 2015

Xsorus wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

It's funny to hear people say that unless something is done, the majority of players will leave. The majority is zerging....

While there are some zergs filled with good players, the majority are filled with players that get farmed, day in and day out, outside of a zerg. You can't have a significant number of players with 10:1 kill ratios without other players having 1:10 kill ratios.

Many people here are essentially arguing that they deserve to farm mediocre players because they are more "skilled." Setting aside the definition of "skilled" for this debate, this may be true, from a purely libertarian point of view. However, MMO history has shown that very few people will stick around to be AP cows.

Once the mediocre player is gone, the game begins to collapse. This is for two reasons. First, most "competitive small group" players are in it for pug stomping and not competitive play. Second, even among the groups seeking competition, 2-3 groups typically rise to the top and farm all the remaining competitive groups. The farmed groups also leave the game to avoid having to face the fact that they weren't nearly as good as they thought they were.

This thread reminds me of the movement to remove forward camps. To cut down on zerging and improve open field skirmishing. What a disaster. More and bigger zergs emerged. Can't move safely around the battlefield? Zerg! Or use Sejanus, Nickel, etc., as FCs...

So, what logical train of thought gets you to the point where you think that bombing 10x your numbers will improve the game? Destroy the zergs and what will the zergers do? Stay around and get repeatedly bombed, day in and day out, by 1/10th their numbers? Is their anything more humiliating we could add to the game? They can't FC, they can't zerg, is anything left for them to enjoy PvP? And once they are gone, then what?

I would love to hear any argument as to how removal of AoE caps will lead to a fun environment conducive to a large, sustainable PvP player base. When I think of AoE cap removal, I think of DAOC PBAE bombing, banshee cone AE or early Animist shroom stacking. Each of which contributed to the ultimate demise of that game...

Only what you stated didn't lead to the ultimate demise of that game.

Animist came out during SI, which is largely considered the best DAOC expansion released..and resulted in a rather large population bump... Banshee came out in Catacombs which was well after the population drop in DAOC....PBAEing was present from the beginning till the population drop...Only it wasn't what caused the population to drop in that game..

No that rests squarely on this game called World of Warcraft....Unless you think every other MMO released at that time had Animist/Banshees/Pbaeing..because they all experienced the same thing.

DAoC was not every other MMO. It was, and imo still is, the best PvP game ever made. Even the PvE was was engaging.

WoW could not hold a candle to DAoC. People did not leave for that cartoon show (and it was a horrible cartoon show at release). They left in part because a single gank group could wipe a small zerg, and in part because of the horrible grind that was ToA.

The single biggest PvP complaint by casuals in DAoC was pretty much the same complaint that people made when FC camps were removed in ESO. Riding 10+ minutes towards the milegate only to get wiped by a gg in a few seconds. Today the players are part of the instant gratification generation and riding 20-60sec is apparently too much... But anyway, in response, casuals in DAoC did the same thing that casuals did here. They joined or made bigger zergs.

It's funny, but when I tell people that you had to wait on a pad for as long as15min before porting over to a different zone, and if you forgot to put on your necklace you were screwed for another 15min, they laugh in disbelief. But that was how it was back then.

Cathexis · October 2015

I have mixed feelings about removing the AOE cap because while mathematically it makes sense that you would have to run AoE to damage the most targets, AoE itself contributes to the larger systemic problems. AoE skills, especially stacked AoE with heavy animations contributes to serious network lag and the unfavourable AoE blob vs blob combat that many people detest. Now I know if you shift the focus away from AoE to single target you then just have blobs focus firing targets and the fundamental game remains a numbers game that just uses more focused coordination. Still to me that seems like a step in the right direction even if it isn't enough.

So what do we do then? I think that we need to stop living inside the group-vs-group one-vs-many some-vs-some box.

We need solutions that don't just tweak the meta, but instead add new dimension to it.

Juse a few examples:

(1) Strong AoE resistant DOTA style NPCS that move between enemy keeps and fight each other and players and act as cover for players or teams of players
(2) Seige that easily counters large groups of players
(3) Mounts dealing trample damage when running over players
(4) Constructable walls that can be bought with AP to create camps or blockades

My point is not that these are must have improvements.
My point is that these problems might be better solved with innovation, and that is something that the developers might need to consider.