Ball groups/Monkeys/Pats on the back

Forestd16b14_ESO · November 2015

So by ball groups you mean zergs right ? Cause this isn't any new news zergs been running pvp since day 1 and again not new news that most zergs are mindlessly eating anything in there path way spamming what ever skill is broken and exploitable at the moment.

elc8745ub17_ESO · November 2015

"was responding to your OP where your condescending tone clearly paints this picture you think of zergs as mindless lemmings. And if you read my compilation of about 6 sentences I was just mentioning that there is a level of skill involved in successful zergs." - Makkir

How are you doing this? How are you still not following what I'm saying when I say that I'm not talking about zergs. I'm talking about ball groups. How is this even possible. What do I need to do to make you understand what I'm talking about?

I HAVE to write long responses because the issue is somewhat complex. To the point where some people, including you, still dont understand what I'm talking about even after I write 5 paragraphs about it. It's seems like I could write a book on it and you still wouldn't understand. But I know its clearly laid out because plenty of people here do understand what I'm saying. I haven't said one thing about zergs but you just keep bringing up zergs. Its like wtf lol. The thread is NOT ABOUT ZERGS.

Now you're throwing insults at me. Your ex sounds like a mess, I'm sorry you went through that. But I am calm and very clearly, articulately, and in length describing and explaining a problem mechanic in the game. That's it. I dont care about zergs. Theyre the bread and butter of most games.

elc8745ub17_ESO · November 2015

No forest I'm not talking about zergs. If theres one thing in the entire world I'm not talking about in this thread it would be zergs. I feel sorry for the guy that ever does talk about zergs.

Nirnrot wrote: »

I used to be a Behavior Therapist and one of the principals of Applied Behavior Analysis is knowing you cannot change a person's behavior, or in this case a population, but you CAN change the environment, which in turn alters what behaviors are available to them. So, Cyrodil is a huge open expanse with the only close quarter areas being inside keeps. I do not see any way to stop "Ball groups" or type-writing monkeys from zerging in this kind of environment. Now look at the PvP in the sewers of the Imperial City. Small tight corridors and much less open space. Sure you can still have tons of players running together, but for the most part the PvP was scaled down and the zergs lost power.

What I think ZOS can do to allow more small-scale PvP is create another, more compact PvP area. Something along the lines of IC but purely PvP. A place for those seeking smaller group PvP to get it. Maybe even limiting the amount of players that can be in this area too. Boom. Different environment. Different behaviors. No more monkeys jumping on the bed.

In this situation Nirnrot you can change peoples behavior. If ZOS removed aoe caps, or toned them down, people would not stack on each other. With the crutch no longer there to lean on, the behavior would change immediately.

jrkhan · November 2015

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

So by ball groups you mean zergs right ? Cause this isn't any new news zergs been running pvp since day 1 and again not new news that most zergs are mindlessly eating anything in there path way spamming what ever skill is broken and exploitable at the moment.

Two other posters asked identical questions. So... you're either trolling, or haven't read the thread.. in which case I have no reason to believe you'll read this either

Makkir wrote: »

This game was packaged and sold as Alliance Vs Alliance PvP (Zerg), not solo or small scale pvp. I think you need to realize that before complaining. I am playing devil's advocate here because I do like small scale PvP as much as the next guy.
But, as I have said many times in the past, I am not going to walk into Taco Bell and throw a fit that they don't serve cheeseburgers.

OP's response:

elc8745ub17_ESO wrote: »

There will always be zergs. I have no problem with zergs. There always was zergs and there still is in ESO. Every mmo I've ever played theres been zergs. Even if its not a game "packaged and sold as Alliance Vs Alliance Pvp," there were still zergs. Matter of fact thats why I BOUGHT the game, for alliance vs alliance pvp. A zerg is NOT a ball group. Although ball groups can be zergy. Quite specifically, a ball group is a group of players that stack on top of each other TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF TAKING REDUCED DAMAGE. Reduced damage for what? For no reason, just here you go heres 50% damage reduction for your group, now run over everyone.

And here's a second poster asking an identical question:

Morozov wrote: »

I'll say this abut the "ball group" or "Zerg" cause they are pretty much the same thing just different names:

To which the OP responded:

elc8745ub17_ESO wrote: »

Anyway, you obviously didn't read much of previous posts in the thread because your reply doesn't even factually line up with anything. A ball group is not the same as a zerg, this has been pointed out numerous times in this thread alone. I think you people are just trolling me so I have to keep writing these book length responses. Like jrkhan just said, there is a distinct difference between a ball group and a zerg. Ball groups exploit the aoe cap by stacking literally on top of each other, zergs in a general sense do not.

The AOE caps that augment this game play have not been here since the beginning. When I first started ESO pvp nearly two years ago, the flow of battle between large groups looked significantly different

Morozov · November 2015

well....I wasnt asking the same question. I was stating a fact based on my experiences.

So is that to say that a "ball group" uses the tools available, uses them well and a zerg does not? So I guess then the only difference between the two is the lack or abundance of coordination between players. Sounds like what I was expecting being sold ESO as an end user....massive PVP on a grand scale.

If you really want to see less "groups" of players in balls like that then bring in friendly fire to the game. That will sure as hell end that! But then the game will turn into Elder Staff/Bow Online cause NO ONE will want to get close to anyone in fear of the situation where "Johnny might forget to toss the grenade after pulling the pin".

I dunno, it might just be me, but I don't think people should hate on players that use the tools given to them by the developers as a repair of an old mechanic that people QQed about SOOOOO much that they had to implement something to get folks to cry less about the bad AOE that touched them inappropriately. If it was one repair that I would like to see is whatever it would take to end the lag (especially in keeps). I think that would give solo, small group and large group players a better feel for how the massive large scale pvp used to be and it would give players the ability to get away at least. No more QQ bout the bad ball-zerg boogyman.

jrkhan · November 2015

There are many possible ways to be coordinated that don't involve stacking.
There are things called formations

The formation that a coordinated group chooses to use is a different attribute than the number present in the group.

I still don't think you are quite understanding the complaint.

If you have 12+ players, your ideal group formation is (in ESO), standing directly on top of each other.
Other formations for coordinated groups are possible if the game has mechanics that support them.

For example if flanking your opponent were rewarded, groups might be encouraged to split up/surround an opposing group
If target of target existed and reliable targeting existed, focus firing/assist trains would be possible
However, what we have are AOE mechanics that reward this particular formation and tactic (ball group aoe spam)

At present, there is a SINGLE OPTIMAL formation.
Obviously players will use it - no one is blaming them.
The OP was poking fun at how dumbed down this style of game play is - it's an indictment on the game, not an attack on the players involved.

He said, ZOS fix this broken system
Not
Ball groupies, stop ball grouping (though, I should make a thread with that title)

- - -

Imagine a game of kickball, played with a bowling ball.
You wouldn't have outfielders, you'd just have a bunch of people standing a few feet from home plate, because no one could kick the ball anywhere.

The game wouldn't be very interesting anymore, it wouldn't be a conducive environment for skillful play.

It's an example of how player formations change when game mechanics change.

I wouldn't blame the teams for modifying the way they distributed their players, I'd blame whoever decided to swap out the kickball for a bowling ball.

To many of us, it feels like we're playing ESO with a bowling ball.
And that's on ZOS, they removed dynamic ult gen, and instituted the current AOE cap.

Does the complaint make more sense @Morozov ?

elc8745ub17_ESO · November 2015

jrkhan just summed up pretty much everything I'd say. The coordination of groups would take on whole new forms if ball grouping wasn't the sole best thing to do. There would be variety. Different things you do for different situations. The group leader would sometimes call group up, split up, split group flanking maneuvers etc. Instead it's just stack on crown.

Friendly fire isn't needed. Would be interesting though. Whats needed is FAIR fire. This game has got to somehow find a way where everyone takes equal percentages of damage. If this doesn't make sense to you, I dont know what will.

When I hate on it, I'm hating 80% on the game mechanic and 20% on the players that do it. I reserve some "hate" for the players because they aren't standing up and asking for this ridiculous form of pvp to be fixed. They're fully embracing the unfair advantages it gives them and trying(lol) to defend it.

It's like you ball groupers are addicted to a drug thats wrecking you and you dont even know it. It's wrecking the game too. Trying to open your eyes to it. But it seems hopeless. You, Morozov, are still sitting here acting like your group is having to put forward more skill, more coordination. That cant be more wrong. You're staying stacked on crown which is giving you artificial advantages which shelter you from having to do the things that really take skill and coordination as a group and as an individual.

There could be so much more to this game than just staying stacked on crown and spamming aoes.

k2blader · November 2015

elc8745ub17_ESO wrote: »

k2blader wrote: »

OP, thanks for your definition. I don't like the blobby aspects of ESO PvP either. But how would removing the AoE cap help the "casuals" (word used very loosely) that you are saying are hurt most by blobs?

I think "casuals" would be hurt by removing/increasing the AoE cap. Mowed down even faster than they are now.

Thanks for the question. This is what I've been trying to explain. How do casuals play? They find their friendly zerg and they hover around it. This zerg of casuals is always spread out enough, and this is key, this is the critical point you need to take from this, spread out enough to where they are NOT receiving the benefit of aoe caps. The only way you benefit from aoe caps is if you are balled up with a large group of players, I'm talking about damn near standing on top of each other, like a ball group. Let me reiterate, most casuals, in most of the time that they spend in pvp zones, are NOT reaping the benefit of aoe caps. Most casuals dont even KNOW there are aoe caps, much less that the best thing to do is stand in the same spot with 24 other players so you can benefit from it.

So what happens? Well through primate research earlier I watched a video of 18 players killing 121. As you can see, the ball group, that already is reaping all the benefits of being coordinated, being on TS together, usually a guild group with a ton of practice together, ON TOP OF ALLLLLLLL OF THOSE BENEFITS, they also spend the entirety of every single fight they get into, reaping the benefit of the aoe cap because they are stacked so tightly together. This equals out to roughly a 50% damage reduction. For no reason. Just here you go heres 50% damage reduction so you can run over casuals even more than you already would have.

To put it bluntly, when a ball group runs into a group of spread out casuals, the ball group is benefiting from aoe caps, the casuals are not. The casuals die within 1-2 seconds of contact. I watch this happen every single day I play this game. I dont know if it can even get faster than that? To answer your question about getting mowed down faster.

So with the aoe caps removed there will be a counter to these ball groups. They wont be able to just ball up and mow down casuals. They wont risk that because at any point in time people can come in and aoe bomb them and they will take FULL damage. There will be battle lines, there will be standoffs, casuals will actually get to play the game, pvp, hone their skills. But at least they wont just be mowed down by a steamroller of 24 players that cant even be touched due to broken game mechanics.

Thanks for the explanation as I think I see a little better where you're coming from. I honestly remain skeptical about that last paragraph being the actual result, but it sounds good in theory. At this point it wouldn't hurt to try as I'm for most anything reasonable that would help casual players. I'd only hope if such a change were found to be doing the opposite (making things worse for casuals) the more hardcore PvP community would be forthright enough to want it promptly adjusted..

DHale · November 2015

It takes no skill for ppl to press ambush ambush ambush or surprise attack three times in a row or fliying blade flying blade flying blade or steel tornado five times by five different ppl. Get over the fact that I could train a monkey to press buttons one through five. I run in an ad ball group of 13 to 20 pretty consistently and we get rekt by both red and blue groups of 30 or more quite a lot and except for a couple guilds they are bad and we have our own ball group but luckily there is only one and we know to be on the opposite side of said AD guild that said its one army vs another army if you want to duel join legend otherwise press those buttons and see if you can get college credit out of all your guy and gals skill you have obtained.... At least Sypher is making money pressing his buttons ..... He might be the only non monkey in our game. I am sure we will all be old and grey one day and someone will say "boy I was so good at ESO but those dam ball groups stopped me... or not".

elc8745ub17_ESO · November 2015

DHale wrote: »

It takes no skill for ppl to press ambush ambush ambush or surprise attack three times in a row or fliying blade flying blade flying blade or steel tornado five times by five different ppl. Get over the fact that I could train a monkey to press buttons one through five. I run in an ad ball group of 13 to 20 pretty consistently and we get rekt by both red and blue groups of 30 or more quite a lot and except for a couple guilds they are bad and we have our own ball group but luckily there is only one and we know to be on the opposite side of said AD guild that said its one army vs another army if you want to duel join legend otherwise press those buttons and see if you can get college credit out of all your guy and gals skill you have obtained.... At least Sypher is making money pressing his buttons ..... He might be the only non monkey in our game. I am sure we will all be old and grey one day and someone will say "boy I was so good at ESO but those dam ball groups stopped me... or not".

? No ones talking about ambush, or Sypher, or you getting rekt, or dueling, or being old and grey, or twitch, or making money while twitching. I'm not even going to talk about your hatred of the period. But those are some skillful attempted deflections of the point of the thread.

What's being discussed is the fact that certain groups of players don't take the same amount of damage as everyone else. And it's because of an unfair game mechanic. If you can't see this, there is literally nothing I can do to even begin talking sense into you.

You cannot win this argument.

elc8745ub17_ESO · November 2015

Let me help you out man. In order to debate your side of the argument in this thread, it should look something like this:

"I think that it's a good thing that certain groups of players are artificially allowed to take 50% less damage than everyone else because:"

1.

2.

3.

And if your reasons are valid, or make some kind of sense, or are indicative that it improves the game in some kind of way, then we have a debate. Until then you're just flailing your arms man.

I understand you're faced with having to argue for something that is point blank, the text book definition of unfair. But that's the side you choose. So debate it, intelligently.

elc8745ub17_ESO · November 2015

k2blader wrote: »

elc8745ub17_ESO wrote: »

k2blader wrote: »

OP, thanks for your definition. I don't like the blobby aspects of ESO PvP either. But how would removing the AoE cap help the "casuals" (word used very loosely) that you are saying are hurt most by blobs?

I think "casuals" would be hurt by removing/increasing the AoE cap. Mowed down even faster than they are now.

Thanks for the question. This is what I've been trying to explain. How do casuals play? They find their friendly zerg and they hover around it. This zerg of casuals is always spread out enough, and this is key, this is the critical point you need to take from this, spread out enough to where they are NOT receiving the benefit of aoe caps. The only way you benefit from aoe caps is if you are balled up with a large group of players, I'm talking about damn near standing on top of each other, like a ball group. Let me reiterate, most casuals, in most of the time that they spend in pvp zones, are NOT reaping the benefit of aoe caps. Most casuals dont even KNOW there are aoe caps, much less that the best thing to do is stand in the same spot with 24 other players so you can benefit from it.

So what happens? Well through primate research earlier I watched a video of 18 players killing 121. As you can see, the ball group, that already is reaping all the benefits of being coordinated, being on TS together, usually a guild group with a ton of practice together, ON TOP OF ALLLLLLLL OF THOSE BENEFITS, they also spend the entirety of every single fight they get into, reaping the benefit of the aoe cap because they are stacked so tightly together. This equals out to roughly a 50% damage reduction. For no reason. Just here you go heres 50% damage reduction so you can run over casuals even more than you already would have.

To put it bluntly, when a ball group runs into a group of spread out casuals, the ball group is benefiting from aoe caps, the casuals are not. The casuals die within 1-2 seconds of contact. I watch this happen every single day I play this game. I dont know if it can even get faster than that? To answer your question about getting mowed down faster.

So with the aoe caps removed there will be a counter to these ball groups. They wont be able to just ball up and mow down casuals. They wont risk that because at any point in time people can come in and aoe bomb them and they will take FULL damage. There will be battle lines, there will be standoffs, casuals will actually get to play the game, pvp, hone their skills. But at least they wont just be mowed down by a steamroller of 24 players that cant even be touched due to broken game mechanics.

Thanks for the explanation as I think I see a little better where you're coming from. I honestly remain skeptical about that last paragraph being the actual result, but it sounds good in theory. At this point it wouldn't hurt to try as I'm for most anything reasonable that would help casual players. I'd only hope if such a change were found to be doing the opposite (making things worse for casuals) the more hardcore PvP community would be forthright enough to want it promptly adjusted..

Understandable that you're skeptical. But that's how it would be. It's been like that before, for the most part. I dont know how long youve played this game. I've played it since beta.

Back in those days, part of the reason why aoe caps were put in was because of extremely op skills, and aoe skills in particular. You had dk vampires locking everyone in place with talons that you couldn't get out of. The talons themselves did a ton of damage. You were just stuck in place and aoe'd to death while the dk was unkillable. Back then even non vamp dks were damn near unkillable. Add vamp, with the health regen bats, it was ridiculous. Impulse spam used to be MUCH stronger. A few other skills as well. Ult regen was different. You gained ult every time you hit someone with anything, not just light and heavy attacks. So you'd have these unkillable dks run into groups, talons, spam impulse, bats, impulse impulse impulse talons, got an ult again, you could get an ult every 20 seconds, bats again, rinse and repeat. Other classes were capable of similar things, but dk was king. It was aoe central. The strength of your group was determined by how many dks you had because of the ridiculous aoe damage they could FORCE you to sit in. Oh yeah lets not forget the dk ult standard of might. Standard used to just insta melt people. The protocol before diving in to aoe a group was to make sure the dks in your group had a standard ready.

But EVERYONE was a newbie. You had a few guys that "got it". They understood and used the best builds. And they knew all the stupidly op/broken aoe skills to use. Everyone else was just fodder to them. And that's where the problem came in, "omg 1 guy just killed 20 like nothing. wtf 3 guys just killed 50 people." You had a very small percentage, less than 1% really, of the player base that just went around wrecking everyone with broken aoe skills. That would not happen again.

And even when it was like that? And you had to deal with the 1% coming in every now and then and wrecking everyone? The quality of pvp was STILL better than it is now with unskilled aoe spamming blob ball groups and lag.

Aoe skills arent nearly as broken/op like they used to be. They've been nerfed. Talons nerfed. Bats nerfed. Impulse nerfed. Standard of Might nerfed. The player base is generally smarter and more seasoned, not as prone (or forced) to just sit there and take aoe damage. There are still newbies of course. But removal of aoe caps would not be anywhere close to as op as it was back in the beginning.

What it would do is diminish the new stupidly op mechanic, ball groups.

Morozov · November 2015

ok, well.....lets try it out

"I think that it's a good thing that certain coordinated groups of players are artificially allowed to take 50% less damage than everyone else because:"

1. ZOS implemented changes due to player QQ (easiest way to sum up the countless threads in between any changes which illustrate player unease at things they got used to but now are forced to change). As a result new mechanics were introduced which the player base used to find creative ways to play their characters and the game overall. It fostered creativity in the player base and as a result helped highlight mechanics which work or don't work for balancing purposes.

2. TESO has both group and solo characteristics which allow for different types of play style. Some of it fosters being cooperative and rewards it as such. The better you are at it the more successful you become and then the more fun you can have. In Cyrodill, the reward comes in the form of AP and/or leaderboard status. Group style play is much more successful at obtaining objectives, taking keeps for example. The strategy of taking those keeps will vary depending on the group, but the most effective strategy will usually be the more successful. In this case, the ball-group. Looking back to #1; If ZOS puts out new mechanics to change their game be they solo or group, those players will find ways to use the tools given to them to become more successful.

3. The AOE cap: A group stacks and gets this "buff" (if you even want to call it that). I think, intended by ZOS or not, that this is a good compromise for a smaller group to take on larger numbers. You do not just "get" this "buff" by being in the group. You have to stay coordinated as a team and stay together. As soon as you get spread out you loose out on the mitigation it provides and thus you become just another solo player. It works in a way to force better teamwork to achieve the goals in PVP.

Now....I will concede to you that the AOE cap in concept, is dumb. If I stand in a room of 100 people and cast and AOE, its ridiculous to say I can only possibly hit a handful of them (6?) who fall into the radius of the ability. Perhaps a fix might be to not allow this mechanic to affect seige AOE? On the flipside, with the issue of population imbalances, its a nice way for smaller populations to fight against overwhelming odds. Even still you have to be a coordinated group to maximize the use of a mechanic (broken or not) like this.

In summary: True, you don't need to be a coordinated group, you don't have to slot skill points, you don't have to be a specific race to break the game to your advantage. A zerg of solo players if stacked properly will get a reduction to AOE damage. But then again, how often do you see a bunch of solo players actually do that? With everyone (sometimes 50+ in an area) hitting a group with siege, impulse, steelnado, etc... does the few seconds of "immunity" really amount to that much? And the reason I ask this is because even though I play in a group that does this, we still get wiped by large forces. So its not really an "I GET ALL THE WINS" broken mechanic. I just don't feel that a coordinated group of 12-24 people should be wiped by 2-3. It makes sense to me that a large group should be wiped by a large group.

I can understand the frustration at a mechanic that is clearly not being used as intended. But then again, I don't program this game, I just play it.

CN_Daniel · November 2015

Give me dynamic ult regen and I will bring back the bat - streak - impulse - streak - bat - impulse - bat - bat - bat thing again.

I was a solo player in the beginning who refused to use Ts :-)

On a serious note, I'd welcome these changes back, I can think of all kinds of creative ways to use my forces better if we don't have to stack for mitigation. Although I promise it'll just be the same results, we'd just be achieving it in different ways.

elc8745ub17_ESO · November 2015

My responses in bold.

ok, well.....lets try it out

"I think that it's a good thing that certain coordinated groups of players are artificially allowed to take 50% less damage than everyone else because:"

You scratch out certain to highlight coordinated. I concede it takes coordination to keep 12-24 players staying on crown. It takes far more coordination to not be on crown already and someone calls out "popping barrier in 5, 4, 3...get on me." It takes more coordination to make an offensive foray into an enemy grouping and then have to fall back to your healers because you need heals. It takes more coordination to do that than already being stacked, and ALWAYS be on top of all 6 of your healers who are already precasting heals before you even took any damage. I can go on and on with examples. Point is, it takes minimal coordination to stay stacked on crown compared to what it takes it for virtually anything else.

1. ZOS implemented changes due to player QQ (easiest way to sum up the countless threads in between any changes which illustrate player unease at things they got used to but now are forced to change). As a result new mechanics were introduced which the player base used to find creative ways to play their characters and the game overall. It fostered creativity in the player base and as a result helped highlight mechanics which work or don't work for balancing purposes.

ZOS implemented the aoe cap changes because of some of the broken and op aoe mechanics at the time. Those don't exist anymore. And I'd hardly call stacking on top of each creative. Smart, given the current meta, yes. But not creative. Quite the opposite.

3. TESO has both group and solo characteristics which allow for different types of play style. Some of it fosters being cooperative and rewards it as such. The better you are at it the more successful you become and then the more fun you can have. In Cyrodill, the reward comes in the form of AP and/or leaderboard status. Group style play is much more successful at obtaining objectives, taking keeps for example. The strategy of taking those keeps will vary depending on the group, but the most effective strategy will usually be the more successful. In this case, the ball-group. Looking back to #1; If ZOS puts out new mechanics to change their game be they solo or group, those players will find ways to use the tools given to them to become more successful.

Agree with pretty much everything you say here. The thing is, all of this would still be true with aoe caps or without. With ball groups or without. Your group, even not in ball group form because there are no more advantages to it, would STILL have to be coordinated, cooperative, play smart, and utilize best strategies.

4. The AOE cap: A group stacks and gets this "buff" (if you even want to call it that). I think, intended by ZOS or not, that this is a good compromise for a smaller group to take on larger numbers. You do not just "get" this "buff" by being in the group. You have to stay coordinated as a team and stay together. As soon as you get spread out you loose out on the mitigation it provides and thus you become just another solo player. It works in a way to force better teamwork to achieve the goals in PVP.

I'll grant you that ball groupers are the best at using teamwork to stay stacked on top of each other. So good to the point where I pretty much never see them NOT benefiting from the aoe cap. It virtually never happens. My point, and others point in this thread is that no one should be allowed artificial mitigation just from stacking on top of each other. It's unfair. And all it promotes is stacking on top of each other, and the horrible form of pvp that results. And by the way, smaller groups CAN take on larger numbers without ball grouping. Ball grouping just makes it way easier than it should be.

Now....I will concede to you that the AOE cap in concept, is dumb. If I stand in a room of 100 people and cast and AOE, its ridiculous to say I can only possibly hit a handful of them (6?) who fall into the radius of the ability. Perhaps a fix might be to not allow this mechanic to affect seige AOE? On the flipside, with the issue of population imbalances, its a nice way for smaller populations to fight against overwhelming odds. Even still you have to be a coordinated group to maximize the use of a mechanic (broken or not) like this.

You can hit more than 6. I think you can hit all of them. It's just only the first 6 are going to take 100% damage. I think I read the next 30 or so take 50%, and after that it falls off to 25% damage. Which of course is just healed through. Heals are so OP in this game that even the guys that get hit for 100% damage are hard to kill, especially when you have multiple healers already in place spamming heals. They dont have to think, they dont have to worry about positioning, dont have to worry about being individually targeted in a blob. They just spam heals and it hits everyone.

In summary: True, you don't need to be a coordinated group, you don't have to slot skill points, you don't have to be a specific race to break the game to your advantage. A zerg of solo players if stacked properly will get a reduction to AOE damage. But then again, how often do you see a bunch of solo players actually do that? With everyone (sometimes 50+ in an area) hitting a group with siege, impulse, steelnado, etc... does the few seconds of "immunity" really amount to that much? And the reason I ask this is because even though I play in a group that does this, we still get wiped by large forces. So its not really an "I GET ALL THE WINS" broken mechanic. I just don't feel that a coordinated group of 12-24 people should be wiped by 2-3. It makes sense to me that a large group should be wiped by a large group.

Here's the main thing that I'll concede you. And it's one of your main points. Ball grouping does allow smaller (16 can be small in relation to zergs of 50) groups to take on much larger numbers. That in theory is good. I'm all for that. And the smaller group has to have some coordination to stay stacked on crown. But the advantage of stacking on crown is way too strong. Smaller groups can and do take on much larger numbers now, without ball grouping. They have to use more substantial forms of tactics. Tactics that require more skill in pvp. Not some kind of god like form of pvp skill. Just substantially more skill than it takes to stay stacked on crown and spam aoes.

A coordinated group of 12-24 would virtually never be wiped by 2-3 people, with aoe caps or not. Key word, coordinated. You're in a war zone, always alert. You're not going to let 2-3 people come and aoe you down. If for some reason you did allow it, you deserved it.

I can understand the frustration at a mechanic that is clearly not being used as intended. But then again, I don't program this game, I just play it.

The main point I'm making in all of this is that everything you've talked about - it can all be done without people having to stack on each other for artificial and unfair damage mitigation. It would just take creativity and dynamic gameplay to counter the age old zerg. And of course you always have your own zerg. A lot of times back in the day in smaller groups thats what you'd do - skirt the edges of your own zerg and look for opportunities to crash the enemy zergs party. And it was often the small group that would be the difference maker in those battles. But right now, its just ball group and run over everyone due to a stupid artificial advantage.

elc8745ub17_ESO · November 2015

NPK Daniel wrote: »

Give me dynamic ult regen and I will bring back the bat - streak - impulse - streak - bat - impulse - bat - bat - bat thing again.

I was a solo player in the beginning who refused to use Ts :-)

On a serious note, I'd welcome these changes back, I can think of all kinds of creative ways to use my forces better if we don't have to stack for mitigation. Although I promise it'll just be the same results, we'd just be achieving it in different ways.

I actually don't think dynamic ult regen would be a good idea. It'd be fun to have it back, but that is one thing that I think would put too much power back into the hands of the "skill" players. But I was guilty, I did the same thing back in the day heh.

And there you go. "all kinds of creative ways to use my forces better"
This is precisely it. This is precisely what it would bring back to the game. I mean just imagine taking an inner keep. You send in some tanks first, soften up the mob, distract, maybe get them to blow their ults. DPS picks off stragglers. Hell maybe if they're all mobbed up in a ball, maybe you still come in in ball group form with the initiative and aoe it down. Maybe that backfires. Maybe you have to pull out and rethink it. Maybe you need to knock down the other postern and come from different directions. You might end up having to fight for every square inch of that keep. So many more possibilities than ball group up, barrier, spam heals and tornado.

You will have to be just as coordinated as you are now, and even more so. And when its over, you're going to feel so much better about the accomplishment because you weren't taking 50% less damage than everyone else. There will be no excuses, no crutches, no you only won because "blah"