Sav72 wrote: »

ummm, maybe you should try Pac Man.

Still a 4 vs 1 scenario, them darn ghosts zerg all the time! ;-)

I do think ZOS is aware of the zerg problem that their system has created versus what a select vocal group of the community wants. Unfortunately the two metas don't really mesh at all. I think an arena option is one path to go, although I don't think things are balanced so there are some classes/builds that would feel excluded as they wouldn't do well. If you have played "pvp" on test it is generally a bunch of duels happening in a one on one situation, so we as players could technically do that by just designating an area or landmark as an "arena".
As to the open world I think there is a path where you can make each keep be a soft instance. By this I mean limit the number of people able to hold/attack a keep based on who has the farm. I would also like to see a forward camp method re-implemented that allows a certain number of uses based on the farm. Make it so there is a hefty cool down once one has been set down before another can be placed. Use the lumber mill to regulate how much siege equipment can be utilized and raise the damage by at least 25% if not the full 50% that was taken away. More skills along the lines of the detonation one with the added effect of blocking/reducing healing once it is removed or explodes. Lets hope they do something but not holding my breath.

Maybe you people looking to do smaller scale PVP should get together daily and designate areas away from keep siege action where you can 1v1-5v5 etc.,

Changing the entire landscape of PVP to accommodate a few probably wont happen, so you should just make your own areas.

Or try.

idk

Alagras wrote: »

Large battles are nice. Being almost doomed if you re not in a 20+ group is not.

The choice is not between "put an end to zergs" and "don't touch anything". Many of the tweaks proposed by "anti-zergs" posters, if implemented wisely, could give more chance to organized smaller groups without forbidding large ones.

Your comment is spot on! Thanks

Enjoy the slideshow, the pvp has become a joke.

Doesn't matter if you are solo, duo, small group, full raid, or zerg. You are doomed to lag.

Can't be bothered to read through all the replies now.

It makes no sense punishing people in a MMORPG to group up. The problem are benefits for stacking up.

ladyonthemoon wrote: »

What is a zerg?

Not sure what the word originally means or comes from, but related to ESO PvP, it means players running in very big groups (more than 10-12 and up to ... well technically no limit, but concretely 40-50) in order to win PvP fights by simply outnumbering the opponent. It also avoids the risk of being "ganked" (killed by surprise by an isolated enemy stealthing) , and the bigger the "zerg", the less risk to be outnumbered and wiped by an even bigger "zerg".

In french they say "train" or "bus".

"Zerging" (yes it's become a verb) is generally badly considered, especially by experienced PvP players who know how to fight 1v1 and pretend that people in zergs are noobs or weaklings and that fighting in zergs doesn't require playing skills but just brute force. Which, imho, is true to a certain extent, but everyone has to start somewhere and the design of PvP in ESO doesn't give newbies much chance unless they're in those "zergs".

"Zerging" is also considered badly because the servers suffer if there are too many players on the screen at once, especially when using effect-intensive abilities such as lightning effects, and some "zerging" groups use this supposedly on purpose to win fights due to server lag only.

Hope this helps :-)

Joy_Division wrote: »

Wait.

If we are going to say AoE caps are not fair because they give ball groups the benefit of artificial free damage mitigation, it would be hypocritical to just come back and give these groups an artificial disadvantage of automatic damage reduction.

Whatever happened to skill should win? Does that only apply when the game mechanics artificially support how people prefer to play?

I hear what you are saying, but I believe there should be a penalty for stacking that many people in a small area. I do not have a problem with 24 man groups, I want to hurt the groups that stack 24 people in a six meter radius of each other. You should get an artificial disadvantage for that imo.

BigTone wrote: »

I hear what you are saying, but I believe there should be a penalty for stacking that many people in a small area. I do not have a problem with 24 man groups, I want to hurt the groups that stack 24 people in a six meter radius of each other. You should get an artificial disadvantage for that imo.

Instead, there's no downside to the zerg blob. And if you're not in one you're at a severe disadvantage. Half the time I go to keeps to help defend you can see there's a zergblob inside just because of all the AOE. Zergs are going to happen in any game, but here they're more like locusts that sweep in and overwhelm without a proper counter.



When there's so much PVP AOE that the outside of the keep looks like a tomato ...

BigTone wrote: »

The concentration of circles just shows how "organized" the zerg is

That picture sums up PvP, but imagine if steel tornado had red circles...

This particular zerg is ridiculously organized, and they all throw down AOEs at the exact same time. I've seen them run into keeps, drop AOEs, and just DOT half the room to death. But there's little to no defense against it, really. Not unless you can counter-AOE first. Siege and oil can be near worthless now. It does half the damage it used to, and can just be purged or cloaked away.

Preyfar wrote: »

BigTone wrote: »

I hear what you are saying, but I believe there should be a penalty for stacking that many people in a small area. I do not have a problem with 24 man groups, I want to hurt the groups that stack 24 people in a six meter radius of each other. You should get an artificial disadvantage for that imo.

Instead, there's no downside to the zerg blob. And if you're not in one you're at a severe disadvantage. Half the time I go to keeps to help defend you can see there's a zergblob inside just because of all the AOE. Zergs are going to happen in any game, but here they're more like locusts that sweep in and overwhelm without a proper counter.



When there's so much PVP AOE that the outside of the keep looks like a tomato ...

@DeanTheCat When you see those proxy circles, you know it's time to turn around the way you came Hahaha

This game has had more nerfs than any of the other games combined I've ever played, so please no (god I'd love to see some of them reversed, because I feel they were an absolute *** up, bring back soft/hard caps if they felt damage was too high and *** off the CP system). A better solution is either an arena or make other players solid like the NPCs are (hence incapability to stack, period).
To be absolutely honest I'm thinking it's worth moving on very soon due to the most recent nerfs, the game just isn't fun with them in.

BigTone wrote: »

I don't think they should reduce the group size. People should be able to run in 24 man groups, I like the idea of large scale PvP.

What I don't like is the game mechanics that make running in large groups stronger. Large groups are already strong because of their numbers and they don't need game mechanics to contribute to that.

Here are a few things that I think would help solve this issue:

1)Invert the AoE cap If you can manage to hit more than 6 players with one skill, then every player after six takes additional damage. (Might have to reduce the range of steel tornado slightly)

2) Increase multipliers Increase the bonus damage cap of Proxy det to 15 players, and include one for inevitable det as well.

3) Reduce Number of targets for certain abilities Purge and rapids should not hit 24 people

4) Change Lightning Ballista Make it so that they do more damage based on number of targets hit, but do pitiful damage if hitting one player.

5) Reduce effectiveness of using the same move Want to spam the same AoE over and over again like the mindless zerg monkey you are? Pay the price. I think using one abilitiy in between should be good enough to reset the nerf.

Let me know what you think!

I agree, steel tornado/magicka bomb monkeys are quite depressing.

The problems with zergs aren't going to be solved simply by combat solutions. There will always be safety in numbers and groups will always grow when they don't have the skill to face the threat.

I have to say more calculations are the last thing the game needs to be doing.

My thoughts on lowering the importance of the zerg and making skill matter more than numbers:

Get rid of AoE caps. Less calculations for one and for two - no reason they would really be in there.

In addition to that, the battle spirit changes made weaker players stronger and stronger players weaker - meaning skill matters less. I do like the idea of leveling a field a bit, but think the change was too much. I'd probably start lowering it a bit and see where a sweet spot landed. Drop it to 45% then 40% and see how it effects things.

They need to balance stam/magicka portion of the game (though that's for more than just zerging).

Lower your stealth radius for every player stealthed in it. So no more ball groups in a 24 man stealth zerg sitting in a 2x2 area beside a tree waiting to bomb five guys. That would force groups of any size to spread out if they want to stealth and require a bit more strategy to stealth up on other forces.

Make siege scale up damage for the amount of players hit. So if you are a big force using a fire ballista against a couple people, it's not going to help as much as the reverse.

Same with prox det - it should be an actual zerg buster. Make it not scale up until you are hitting more than 5 people and then have it scale to 100% bonus damage. That's a good hit and won't insta-kill simply based on that one ability but will make people want to spread out a bit when they see it coming. I'd also not allow it to overlap. If you have two guys running it, only the first to go off would do damage in that area if they were overlapping their circles. I'd do the same with Caltrops, no overlap, force larger forces to use it as it was in days of old - spread it over the battle field, not just stack ten circles on a flag so anyone that steps there is taking thousands of damage a tick without any players even needing to be there.

When I was helping on FTC the amount of checks atropos said the game was doing for groups was astounding. There is too much going on there and in addition to wanting AoE caps gone - I'd cap group size at 12. You can run bigger and work together still, but it takes a bit more work to coordinate separate groups than just have the additional 12 'stack on crown'. That additional work/skill would be a good thing and make fights more interesting.

I would also cap barrier and purge, maybe dropping it down to six players. Or have it do something like lets say you have a barrier of 20K, you can either cast that and give two players a 10K shield or cast it on a bigger group and give 10 players a 2k shield.

Biggest thing is going to be risk v reward - I'd make an extreme change to getting any reward for zero risk. If you have a group of 12 and zerg down one guy, you get nothing. No XP, no AP, no TV Stones. Maybe you did it because he was on a flag and you were passing by, therefore saving that resource is your reward, your group itself was at very little risk, if any at all. So like now with TV Stones, you lose 80% - I'd drop that for the more players that tagged you (or healed the taggers). If you are going to waste resources calculating additional things, it should be for stuff like this (which the game already does a lot of), not AoE caps. Same for Cyro, if you were taking down players because they are just in the path as your group goes by, more power to you, but you shouldn't be racking up AP (and xp) as you roll over stuff with trample damage. Obviously this is a simplification of what would have to be done to make this really work, but a lot of the work to piggy back this on is already done by the game. But I think one of the biggest things that will break up zerging is not getting anything for it. If you are rolling 60 deep to take keeps and get no AP, no XP, etc because you are fighting half a dozen people at each fight, then you might think of breaking up a bit more for even fights.

I'd also add more NPC defenders to a keep depending on the pop balance and attacking force vs defending force. Not a ton, I wouldn't want to see the days of old where twenty bugged merc mages ran out of a breech when it fell, but enough to make pvdooring a little more work and maybe give a much smaller force a fighting chance. I also think it would be neat to have NPCs reposition in keeps after a breech. Maybe have a secondary placement where they moved from just standing in towers doing nothing as an enemy siege goes on twenty feet away to moving to designated spots like the postern doors and such. Even though a smart group would still move to wipe them out, it would be more necessary and if they didn't do that it would give reinforcements showing up some protection as they enter their own keep.

The way ultimate generates now isn't good. You can just light attack and stand there and do nothing and earn ultimate. The old way of earning it off of Crits and Ultimates wasn't good either. Probably somewhere in the middle, forcing you to be active more to earn it without making it as overpowered as before. Also, the Alliance War ulti buff is a bit strong IMO, especially if you look at new players coming into the game. Part of your opponents power isn't just builds or CP, but if your group hits ours and we get a handful of kills, suddenly several people in our group will have their ultimates back up and ready to cast next clash b/c we are maxed out AW rank. So suddenly, your group is not only smaller next time the bomb hits, but getting hit with more ultimates than what you can drop. I like that there is a ultimate bonus in AW, but something seems off about it balance wise.

This all said, I wouldn't roll all the changes out at once.

If I were going to do it, I'd probably roll out the group size cap, stealth change, AoE cap removal and AP/XP calculations first. Once I saw how that effected things I'd look at the battle spirit buff. Then start looking at the other issues like siege, prox det, caltrops, ulit, etc.