Should AoE caps be removed?

HeroOfNone · April 2016

Yes

I say yes, but I do not feel it will be the silver bullet to zergs and bunched up players.

Getting rid of AOE caps is to simplify the rules of who is hit with positive and negative abilities. Currently if you use an ability it feels like it's up to the RNG gods on who you hit. This favors spamming abilities rather than using them skillfully.

If the concern is mob farming with aoe then give the a horde buff that reduces aoe over a certain number. Simple enough to understand not to pull in 10+.

As for breaking up zergs, you're not going to, people do it for protection and for pushing objectives. What should be discouraged are ball zergs that lag the server with multiple checks for abilities. The only way your going to really stop these groups I'd if they ALWAYS have a disadvantage for being this close to one another. The threat of a min/max proxy det NB with vicious death is already starting to be countered. Give the zerg a meaningful debuff for stacking 20 players in a 5month radius and maybe you'd see them spread out. Something like stealth suppression, taking 200% more damage, receiving 75% less heals, etc. to get them to spread out.

ToRelax · April 2016

Yes

HeroOfNone wrote: »

I say yes, but I do not feel it will be the silver bullet to zergs and bunched up players.

Getting rid of AOE caps is to simplify the rules of who is hit with positive and negative abilities. Currently if you use an ability it feels like it's up to the RNG gods on who you hit. This favors spamming abilities rather than using them skillfully.

If the concern is mob farming with aoe then give the a horde buff that reduces aoe over a certain number. Simple enough to understand not to pull in 10+.

As for breaking up zergs, you're not going to, people do it for protection and for pushing objectives. What should be discouraged are ball zergs that lag the server with multiple checks for abilities. The only way your going to really stop these groups I'd if they ALWAYS have a disadvantage for being this close to one another. The threat of a min/max proxy det NB with vicious death is already starting to be countered. Give the zerg a meaningful debuff for stacking 20 players in a 5month radius and maybe you'd see them spread out. Something like stealth suppression, taking 200% more damage, receiving 75% less heals, etc. to get them to spread out.

Debuffs for being close together? Nah, without caps and some decent ranged AoE damage and cc, there isn't much of an incentive to stack in the first place.

Nidwin wrote: »

ToRelax

So a selection of which skills have their AoE cap removed or kept?

In theory this should be possible but it's going to be a very long process with more miss than hit. Add to it that it's going to make certain players extremely unhappy if their skills haven't the AoE cap removed.

Keeping the caps on healing is only feasable as long as we, healers, can keep our folks, more or less, alive. Increasing the amount of total damage through AoE caps removal isn't going to help us, without rebalancing everything. We already feel it hard the BoL nerf from 3 targets to 2 through that "intelligent" BoL healing system.

Anyway,
As I also said I'm not against the AoE cap removal, I just don't think it's feasable in TESO at this point in time without creating more issues than resolving anything.

There were quite some skills uncapped at launch and damage and healing are capped differently now. And no, AoE healing does not need to be able to outheal AoE damage, what a joke. You can keep alive the players who actually manage to avoid enough damage just fine.

Poxheart · April 2016

Not sure why this post exists when there is already the same poll on the front page with over 4K combined votes & 45 pages of responses. If the OP wants entertainment from reading the justifications for 'no' votes, I imagine they could spend the next few months doing so by reading that thread.

The only reason for keeping this version of the same poll is to see compare the two to see how many people vote in each. I have a feeling this one won't get near the 4K votes because the PvP player base has dropped sharply compared to when the first poll was created (April 2014).

HoloYoitsu · April 2016

Yes

Poxheart wrote: »

Not sure why this post exists when there is already the same poll on the front page with over 4K combined votes & 45 pages of responses. If the OP wants entertainment from reading the justifications for 'no' votes, I imagine they could spend the next few months doing so by reading that thread.

The only reason for keeping this version of the same poll is to see compare the two to see how many people vote in each. I have a feeling this one won't get near the 4K votes because the PvP player base has dropped sharply compared to when the first poll was created (April 2014).

I have a dream....of an Alliance War section that is nothing but a page full of "aoe cap" threads.

Ajax_22 · April 2016

Yes

HoloYoitsu wrote: »

Poxheart wrote: »

Not sure why this post exists when there is already the same poll on the front page with over 4K combined votes & 45 pages of responses. If the OP wants entertainment from reading the justifications for 'no' votes, I imagine they could spend the next few months doing so by reading that thread.

The only reason for keeping this version of the same poll is to see compare the two to see how many people vote in each. I have a feeling this one won't get near the 4K votes because the PvP player base has dropped sharply compared to when the first poll was created (April 2014).

I have a dream....of an Alliance War section that is nothing but a page full of "aoe cap" threads.

As long as our AOE cap activists don't have to get assassinated for this dream to come true I'm down with that dream.

Wreuntzylla · April 2016

Vicious death is weak version of no AoE caps. Think it through.

Derra · April 2016

Yes

Sureshawt wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Dude you have to look at daoc bombing videos. People were so fast to spread out when an 8 man grp rushed the 40 ++ zerg bc if they wouldn't they died in seconds...

Yea that kinda tactic makes a great video until other players wise up and realize AoE bomb groups are the winning tactic. What do you think happens the next time that 8-man bomb group runs into a 40-man bomb group?

Believe man I was in that game. I ran with an organized group and that is what the game boiled down to at the end (end for me anyway). Just blobs of players running around popping off AoEs in any largescale encounter. Boring.....

Yeah. Except that it did not work that way bc of aoe stun/root + moc amnesia from supporter.

Large grps were dangerous the more tanks and light tanks were in them. Casterzergs were nothing but cannonfodder. Atleast up until our grp stopped playing in 2009.

Nafirian · April 2016

Yes, Why? Reasons.

Aquanova · April 2016

No

Joy_Division wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

I haven't seen even 1 compelling argument to support removing the caps.

Only reasons given in support of this are.1) So small groups can contend with larger groups.2) Helps to break up the zerg.

Both of which cater to elitist who want the game designed to fit their play style. Only way i would support aoe cap removal is if it were the thing causing all the lag and I don't think it's the culprit.

You have not been reading very much if that's what you think.

And since when are people who want game rules to be consistent and not want to see Zergplay "elitists"?

"Game rules that are consistent" huh?......let's see. AOE's have a cap. Heals have a cap. Alliance skills like "Purge" and "Rapids" have caps. Ultimates (such as Barrier) now have a cap. Class skills have a cap and help prevent 1 skilled player from wiping 20 players in a matter of seconds by spamming 1 skill. Seems pretty consistent to me.

I meant no offense to player's who want the AOE caps removed by labeling them "Elitist's"....it's just a word, so.....you know

As for "Zergplay"...the zerg exists for a reason. New, inexperienced or under skilled players need a way to be competitive. It's not very honorable, but it works and it's natural. A lone wolf ain't gonna take on a bear..... but a pack has a chance

I stand by what I said about there being no compelling argument for their removal! (And yes, I have read and understand what's been said so far).

Xsorus · April 2016

Yes

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

Vicious death is weak version of no AoE caps. Think it through.

Not really; vicious death allows smaller numbers to take out larger stacked numbers... But it is not like a weak version of no aoe caps... If vicious death didn't exist and no aoe caps did; if I bombed a group with my nightblade and kill just one.. I wouldn't wipe that group.. With vicious death you have that chance.

Nidwin · April 2016

No

And no, AoE healing does not need to be able to outheal AoE damage, what a joke

And with this, any kind of discussion simply ends.

But don't worry ToRelax.
Healers are becoming more and more a rare attraction in Cyrodill. A kind of strange anomaly that you sometimes run into in those large zergballs you hate so much. I'm of course talking about healers, not dpstards or shizztanks that thinks they keep folks alive with sprigs or resto staff crappy skills.

And if you wonder. I'm even getting nth shott in no time through my ULT. But I'm certain that's great news for you, that dedicated and stuffed templar healers get nth shot through their ULT nowedays. Actually, now that I think about it, our ULT should also be nerfed to the ground, let's say it only heals 2 persons (just like BoL) and half the amount of the healing it does while removing all other effects of it too. Also cleanse should be nerfed, or just break it so it doesn't work anymore, we templars are used to broken skills anyway.

Even better.
Healing Templars should not be allowed in Cyrodill anymore as they're game breaking and screw up the fun of all the other players.

Asmael · April 2016

Yes

Aquanova wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

I haven't seen even 1 compelling argument to support removing the caps.

Only reasons given in support of this are.1) So small groups can contend with larger groups.2) Helps to break up the zerg.

Both of which cater to elitist who want the game designed to fit their play style. Only way i would support aoe cap removal is if it were the thing causing all the lag and I don't think it's the culprit.

You have not been reading very much if that's what you think.

And since when are people who want game rules to be consistent and not want to see Zergplay "elitists"?

"Game rules that are consistent" huh?......let's see. AOE's have a cap. Heals have a cap. Alliance skills like "Purge" and "Rapids" have caps. Ultimates (such as Barrier) now have a cap. Class skills have a cap and help prevent 1 skilled player from wiping 20 players in a matter of seconds by spamming 1 skill. Seems pretty consistent to me.

I meant no offense to player's who want the AOE caps removed by labeling them "Elitist's"....it's just a word, so.....you know

As for "Zergplay"...the zerg exists for a reason. New, inexperienced or under skilled players need a way to be competitive. It's not very honorable, but it works and it's natural. A lone wolf ain't gonna take on a bear..... but a pack has a chance

I stand by what I said about there being no compelling argument for their removal! (And yes, I have read and understand what's been said so far).

A pack of wolves to deal with a single bear, yes.

But as far as I'm concerned, if the bear deals a massive blow meant to hit multiple wolves, said wolves won't stack up on each other and then be "fine" for no reason.

I ran with medium group (15 people), staying very close to each other. It was grossly overpowered, as in, we could wipe 60+ people in a matter of seconds, outhealing all the damage while burning through everything. Yes, they were bad. No, you shouldn't get CC immunity and free mitigation because you stack up.

This is a stupid mechanic I'm not interested in.

Nidwin · April 2016

No

Stacking, turtleling is one of the many issues with this kind of combat system, as was also seen in GW2, when they don't want or can't have collision detection for players once in combat mode.

I understand the philosophy behind, play as you wish, every build should be more or less viable and everyone should be able to do a bit of everything but the execution in both GW2 and here in TESO isn't working properly.

Tanks can't tank
Healing remains a joke
In mid to large scale fights it's all about AoE dump and hope for the best while being in turtle mode. (as explained by you Asmael)
and so on and so on

And all can't of patchwork isn't going to resolve the main issue as the combat system in place isn't fit for large scale RvR.
Back to the drawing board.

GRxKnight · April 2016

Yes

Did we have major lag before aoe caps existed when people stacked up? No? I rest my case.

MoeCoastie · April 2016

I may be the minority but I do not believe AOE caps are the reason for ball groups. For that to be even remotely true, a good portion of the raid would need to know how that mechanic even works. From my limited experience in large raids, a good portion has no clue that aoe caps even exist. I dunno about you but ive never run into anyone ingame or out who told me they zerg because aoe caps. The only people ive ever heard from or read about concerning the aoe cap = zerg theory are from those who have an obvious dislike or apathetic view of that playstyle or are just desperate for something That prejudice is very evident when you read these "proxi det not for zerg use" threads and the general disdain and constant and ignorant comments made toward any group of people who prefer that playstyle. For.those who dont know...zergs existed long before GW2 in games with no aoe cap.

Raid leaders ive run into are aware of the mechanics involved but it doesnt seem like it is the deciding factor in strategies used. They are more concernd with having all their aoe dps focused on one area and supporting healers (with all their auto/smart targetted healing) being centralized in that same area to ensure your dps gets healed. With limited number of directonal healing...healers are forced to to use aoe and in the pocket of their dps teammates. My temp is only v13 but ive already experienced the frustration of not healing the guy I wanna heal in the most critical of situations. I found it more effective to bash my head against the keyboard until I didnt hear fighting sounds anymore. Having experienced that in a much smaller scale, I understand how it may seem more reliable spamming aoes and healing a ball of players rather than trying to heal a specific person or portion of that group. Maybe thats why ball groups exist in eso. Or maybe people just find safety in numbers.

Honestly, my theory is probably just as far off as the AOE cap theory. May even expain some of the lag issues and why zos is streamlining some of the calculations related to auto select healing. Who knows?

Taonnor · April 2016

Yes

MoeCoastie wrote: »

I may be the minority but I do not believe AOE caps are the reason for ball groups. For that to be even remotely true, a good portion of the raid would need to know how that mechanic even works. From my limited experience in large raids, a good portion has no clue that aoe caps even exist. I dunno about you but ive never run into anyone ingame or out who told me they zerg because aoe caps. The only people ive ever heard from or read about concerning the aoe cap = zerg theory are from those who have an obvious dislike or apathetic view of that playstyle or are just desperate for something That prejudice is very evident when you read these "proxi det not for zerg use" threads and the general disdain and constant and ignorant comments made toward any group of people who prefer that playstyle. For.those who dont know...zergs existed long before GW2 in games with no aoe cap.

Raid leaders ive run into are aware of the mechanics involved but it doesnt seem like it is the deciding factor in strategies used. They are more concernd with having all their aoe dps focused on one area and supporting healers (with all their auto/smart targetted healing) being centralized in that same area to ensure your dps gets healed. With limited number of directonal healing...healers are forced to to use aoe and in the pocket of their dps teammates. My temp is only v13 but ive already experienced the frustration of not healing the guy I wanna heal in the most critical of situations. I found it more effective to bash my head against the keyboard until I didnt hear fighting sounds anymore. Having experienced that in a much smaller scale, I understand how it may seem more reliable spamming aoes and healing a ball of players rather than trying to heal a specific person or portion of that group. Maybe thats why ball groups exist in eso. Or maybe people just find safety in numbers.

Honestly, my theory is probably just as far off as the AOE cap theory. May even expain some of the lag issues and why zos is streamlining some of the calculations related to auto select healing. Who knows?

I think there you partly correct.

I lead often larger groups and it is the easiest way to say "stack on crown". All peoples understand that and you must not train special movement tactics. Especially if you lead a horde of 20+ peoples, it can be very chaotic if you not say: "Run with the crown and dont go outside.. Stack on the crown, all time!".

With the last patch smaller groups are a bit more competetive, so we changed a bit and now we run with around 8 peoples. With 8 peoples it is much much easier to learn complicate tactics like spreading out or using the area and sticking together at an impact.

So but i still say the core problem are the AoE Caps. With AoE Cap you have nothing to fear and can go the "easy way" with easy tactics to learn like "Stacking on Crown". Without the AoE Caps it is nearly impossible to run with easy tactics with 20+ poeples. There you have 2 options. Take a long long way to learn complicate tactics, wich need much effort. Or you group in smaller groups, which are nearly a bit more effective as larger groups.

So i say it other: AoE Caps implicate the "easy way" to lead large groups to have success.

Please read this @Wrobel

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO · April 2016

No

GRxKnight wrote: »

Did we have major lag before aoe caps existed when people stacked up? No? I rest my case.

Problem is tho that if they move the stuff the server now does back to the client then you have the exploits again. Speed hacking for example is not possible anymore. Remember the bots that would teleport from node to node harvesting all the mats? Moving the processing back to the client side would open it all up again. Thats why it isnt just as easy as changing it back. You have to remember why they changed it in the first place.

Nidwin · April 2016

No

I lead often larger groups and it is the easiest way to say "stack on crown". All peoples understand that and you must not train special movement tactics. Especially if you lead a horde of 20+ peoples, it can be very chaotic if you not say: "Run with the crown and dont go outside.. Stack on the crown, all time!".

No offense meant Taonnor but I find this extremely weird.

The only moment you would "stack" on the crown is when moving from A to objective B or regroup. The moment combat starts it's a natural habbit for RvRers to spread out and move asap to your natural combat spot. This is also a typical PUG attitude that I've always seen happening on NA EP PC/MAC up to six months after launch and since past week-end when I resubbed. There's of course a huge gap of nearly a Year and a half were it could have been different. Also, all PUG leaders that I've followed in Cyrodill have always said to spread out and avoid clustering at all cost.

Taonnor · April 2016

Yes

Nidwin wrote: »

I lead often larger groups and it is the easiest way to say "stack on crown". All peoples understand that and you must not train special movement tactics. Especially if you lead a horde of 20+ peoples, it can be very chaotic if you not say: "Run with the crown and dont go outside.. Stack on the crown, all time!".

No offense meant Taonnor but I find this extremely weird.

The only moment you would "stack" on the crown is when moving from A to objective B or regroup.

Your right, but we constantly moving. This is the best way to avoid siege or be surrounded by enemies. You constantly need to move, because the enemies rezz or sieging or doing other stuff that you not want. If we spread out in these moment we cannot win against larger zergs, because they can pick single peoples and targetting them down with FULL DMG, because the aoe cap does not hit.

EDIT:

I am not realy a friend of "Stick on Crown", but it works in this game. Better than other tactics. And you can moove with not so skilled peoples, because they not must learn to move correctly in PvP.

The next thing is the ASSIST. With 20 peoples against 60 you need a way to cc 60 peoples and assist them down or you bomb them down on choke points.

Did you ever tried to create multiple assittrains with a 20 man group? There is no ingame assist tool or something else, so the peoples must assist via sight and TS. No way... So with 20 man group is it the best "Stack on Crown" and bomb enemies down.

A good suggestion is in my eyes an ingame assist system via the UI. @ZOS_BrianWheeler please take this on your list, this would make the PvP group play much much easier.

Joy_Division · April 2016

Yes

Aquanova wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

I haven't seen even 1 compelling argument to support removing the caps.

Only reasons given in support of this are.1) So small groups can contend with larger groups.2) Helps to break up the zerg.

Both of which cater to elitist who want the game designed to fit their play style. Only way i would support aoe cap removal is if it were the thing causing all the lag and I don't think it's the culprit.

You have not been reading very much if that's what you think.

And since when are people who want game rules to be consistent and not want to see Zergplay "elitists"?

"Game rules that are consistent" huh?......let's see. AOE's have a cap. Heals have a cap. Alliance skills like "Purge" and "Rapids" have caps. Ultimates (such as Barrier) now have a cap. Class skills have a cap and help prevent 1 skilled player from wiping 20 players in a matter of seconds by spamming 1 skill. Seems pretty consistent to me.

Rapids is "capped" to include everyone is your group everywhere is Cyrodiil (seriously, group with someone at Bloodmayne and enjoy the speed boost at Warden!), but somehow doesn't effect non-grouped players right next to the caster. Right...consistent.

Heals cap at 6 players. Damage is capped at 60 players. Consistent?

I am in a Zerg. Your steel tornado hits me for 1000 damage. I am all by myself. Now your steel tornado hits me for 2000 damage. Thank you ZoS for this consistent game rules!

I meant no offense to player's who want the AOE caps removed by labeling them "Elitist's"....it's just a word, so.....you know

Yes you did. It is a word you specifically chose to use in a pejorative sense.

As for "Zergplay"...the zerg exists for a reason. New, inexperienced or under skilled players need a way to be competitive. It's not very honorable, but it works and it's natural. A lone wolf ain't gonna take on a bear..... but a pack has a chance

It's not the disorganized zergs I or most people (who by this point have left the game) have an issue with. It's the coordinated and skilled "pact" guilds that allow already highly skilled players to gain free 50% damage reduction and promotes gameplay that sends the servers down the toilet.

I stand by what I said about there being no compelling argument for their removal! (And yes, I have read and understand what's been said so far).

If you want to stand on the side of Eric Wrobel and bad server performance and boring gameplay, you certainly have the right to do so. No compelling reason? Try logging into NA Thornblade at prime time and when your ping is 999+ at High Rock, that's the first of many compelling reasons. If you have the patience to stick around, you'll find dozens more.

Nidwin · April 2016

No

20 vs 60 means being outnumbered 3 to 1 (300 AAO), even in Warhammer these kind of odds were impossible to overcome, except if those 60 were compeltely incompetent or 20 in full decked WF vs 60 in anihilator gear.

For a decent assist train to work tanks need to be able to guard mdps and healers need to be able to select who they want to single target heal and group heal and cleanse. All this isn't possible in this new generation of games with this random AoE stuff for everything, not linked to your group.

As I said before I'm not against the removal of AoE caps, but this isn't going to resolve anything because the tactics that folks think is going to work to be able to fight higher numbers is going to be used against them by those organised higher numbers.
As I also wrote just above, PUGs always spread up or become rapidly spread out. It's organised guild/alliance groups that can turtle and ballzerg, not PUGs.

Samadhi · April 2016

Yes

Taonnor wrote: »

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO wrote: »

In the video I posted eric wrobel explains in detail why AOE caps arent going anywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKu7GnANIO8

You mean the last ESO Live with Eric Wrobel. He did not said that it will kill the performance. He said (Not exact wording): "Simply removing AoE Caps will be a non intelligent fix, i want intelligent fixes. So i try to implement ways that players need to move intelligent like spreading out. In this patch we try it with prox deto adjustments and VD set."

And he said (Not exact wording): "Removing AoE Caps will also unbalance the PvE experience of this game."

so he says
"in general with the aoe caps, since we have made quite a few changes to all the abilities, we want to see how those play out. And we are committed to solving this problem of people just balling up and running through"
"we're not saying that we would never ever modify the AoE caps in anyway, but we want to investigate more of these ability-based solutions to create more tactical play, instead of just doing a blanket sort of easy fix of 'oh yeah, we'll just put everything at unlimited targets'"

instead of just doing a blanket sort of easy fix of 'oh yeah, we'll just put everything at unlimited targets'

So Eric Wrobel feels that removing AoE caps would be a blanket and easy fix to a problem that has persisted for ages now,
but the team would rather spend more time tweaking abilities.

Good allocation of resources, no one is complaining about performance in the meanwhile.

"We want to test which band-aid is most absorbent, rather than pulling the bullet out"

_Chaos · April 2016

Yes

Joy_Division wrote: »

Try logging into NA Thornblade at prime time and when your ping is 999+ at High Rock, that's the first of many compelling reasons.

Joy, your ESO age is showing again

Joy_Division · April 2016

Yes

_Chaos wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Try logging into NA Thornblade at prime time and when your ping is 999+ at High Rock, that's the first of many compelling reasons.

Joy, your ESO age is showing again

Haha! "Get off my lawn!"

HeroOfNone · April 2016

Yes

ToRelax wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

I say yes, but I do not feel it will be the silver bullet to zergs and bunched up players.

Getting rid of AOE caps is to simplify the rules of who is hit with positive and negative abilities. Currently if you use an ability it feels like it's up to the RNG gods on who you hit. This favors spamming abilities rather than using them skillfully.

If the concern is mob farming with aoe then give the a horde buff that reduces aoe over a certain number. Simple enough to understand not to pull in 10+.

As for breaking up zergs, you're not going to, people do it for protection and for pushing objectives. What should be discouraged are ball zergs that lag the server with multiple checks for abilities. The only way your going to really stop these groups I'd if they ALWAYS have a disadvantage for being this close to one another. The threat of a min/max proxy det NB with vicious death is already starting to be countered. Give the zerg a meaningful debuff for stacking 20 players in a 5month radius and maybe you'd see them spread out. Something like stealth suppression, taking 200% more damage, receiving 75% less heals, etc. to get them to spread out.

Debuffs for being close together? Nah, without caps and some decent ranged AoE damage and cc, there isn't much of an incentive to stack in the first place.

Only if caps applied to damage and even then we'll likely still see zerg balls. They have been in since game start, but now a days the move much more efficiently and use the lag they create to their advantage. Expecting you'll get more than 2 or 3 impulse, steel tornado, or even meteors in that mess to get through the 3 or 4 people that will be spring heals or shields is wishful thinking.even of its to remove damage caps and not healing caps your still likely to get steam rolled by 15+ AOEs that will roll through the area followed by the 5 or so heal/shielders.

Again, removing AOE caps make sense to get rid of this RNG logic to heals and damage, but stop fooling yourselves into thinking it will stop zergs.

ToRelax · April 2016

Yes

.

HeroOfNone wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

I say yes, but I do not feel it will be the silver bullet to zergs and bunched up players.

Getting rid of AOE caps is to simplify the rules of who is hit with positive and negative abilities. Currently if you use an ability it feels like it's up to the RNG gods on who you hit. This favors spamming abilities rather than using them skillfully.

If the concern is mob farming with aoe then give the a horde buff that reduces aoe over a certain number. Simple enough to understand not to pull in 10+.

As for breaking up zergs, you're not going to, people do it for protection and for pushing objectives. What should be discouraged are ball zergs that lag the server with multiple checks for abilities. The only way your going to really stop these groups I'd if they ALWAYS have a disadvantage for being this close to one another. The threat of a min/max proxy det NB with vicious death is already starting to be countered. Give the zerg a meaningful debuff for stacking 20 players in a 5month radius and maybe you'd see them spread out. Something like stealth suppression, taking 200% more damage, receiving 75% less heals, etc. to get them to spread out.

Debuffs for being close together? Nah, without caps and some decent ranged AoE damage and cc, there isn't much of an incentive to stack in the first place.

Only if caps applied to damage and even then we'll likely still see zerg balls. They have been in since game start, but now a days the move much more efficiently and use the lag they create to their advantage. Expecting you'll get more than 2 or 3 impulse, steel tornado, or even meteors in that mess to get through the 3 or 4 people that will be spring heals or shields is wishful thinking.even of its to remove damage caps and not healing caps your still likely to get steam rolled by 15+ AOEs that will roll through the area followed by the 5 or so heal/shielders.

Again, removing AOE caps make sense to get rid of this RNG logic to heals and damage, but stop fooling yourselves into thinking it will stop zergs.

I'm not saying it will stop everyone from running in zergballs... but along with other changes like the ones suggested, it definitely would render them very ineffective.

MoeCoastie · April 2016

I tend to agree with the previous poster who stated that he believes the removal of aoe caps is not going to.remove or.discourage.ball groups. Ive played a few games similar to this and they all have zergs (both organized and pugged but not all had aoe caps. So reading peoples statements.that aoe caps have a direct effect on the existance of zergs doesnt make sense when I take into consideration what ive experienced in other games. In fact, the only common thing I can think of that they all share in common is the have a relatively high player cap or none at all. Logically, it is probably more acurate to say that the only factor that needs to be present for a zerg to exist is enough people to outnumber the current default group slots. People need to stop vilifying zergs. People are starting to sound like a bunch of ignorant bullies.

"I love amerka. I yont this country to be great again and to do that we gon get rid of those people that dun belong here." "Things were roses round here til them people moved into my neighborhood. Now im fixin to get rid of them so we can go on with our simple lives."

My friends, who like to zerg, have every right to play this game, have access to the same abilities and operate under the same rule sets as anyone else. You are sorely mistaken if you think your way is the right way, shows more skill, or makes you a bigger fan of this game.

You guys think this is justified? I am witnissing and active campaign to eliminate a whole playstyle because, quite frankly, you dont like it. You fly the banner against lag and aoe caps but your agenda vs zergers has been well documented even prior to 1.6. Maybe that is why you cant take ZOS' official explaination on why the removal of aoe caps isnt feasable right now. I dont even keep up with zos current events like many of you do and im aware of their reasoning. Some of you who have anacknowledge their response respond like a bunch of rotten kids bitching at their parents.

"Nuh uh! Youre lying! Youre just being lazy and you dont care about me."

Culture around here is downright disfunctional and toxic. With all the problems that this game has it is still very fun (I only pvp). Whenever I have free time I play this game and genuinely enjoy my time. If you dont share the same opinion, and id hate to sound cliche, but maybe its time to move on. Not because youre a bad person or the game is bad...maybe your not good for eachother.

Ajax_22 · April 2016

Yes

MoeCoastie wrote: »

I tend to agree with the previous poster who stated that he believes the removal of aoe caps is not going to.remove or.discourage.ball groups. Ive played a few games similar to this and they all have zergs (both organized and pugged but not all had aoe caps. So reading peoples statements.that aoe caps have a direct effect on the existance of zergs doesnt make sense when I take into consideration what ive experienced in other games. In fact, the only common thing I can think of that they all share in common is the have a relatively high player cap or none at all. Logically, it is probably more acurate to say that the only factor that needs to be present for a zerg to exist is enough people to outnumber the current default group slots. People need to stop vilifying zergs. People are starting to sound like a bunch of ignorant bullies.

My friends, who like to zerg, have every right to play this game, have access to the same abilities and operate under the same rule sets as anyone else. You are sorely mistaken if you think your way is the right way, shows more skill, or makes you a bigger fan of this game.

That's exactly what we are trying to achieve. Right now groups of 6 and lower effectively operate under a completely different rule set than every other group they encounter.

MoeCoastie wrote: »

You guys think this is justified? I am witnissing and active campaign to eliminate a whole playstyle because, quite frankly, you dont like it. You fly the banner against lag and aoe caps but your agenda vs zergers has been well documented even prior to 1.6. Maybe that is why you cant take ZOS' official explaination on why the removal of aoe caps isnt feasable right now. I dont even keep up with zos current events like many of you do and im aware of their reasoning. Some of you who have anacknowledge their response respond like a bunch of rotten kids bitching at their parents.

"Nuh uh! Youre lying! Youre just being lazy and you dont care about me."

Culture around here is downright disfunctional and toxic. With all the problems that this game has it is still very fun (I only pvp). Whenever I have free time I play this game and genuinely enjoy my time. If you dont share the same opinion, and id hate to sound cliche, but maybe its time to move on. Not because youre a bad person or the game is bad...maybe your not good for eachother.

No one is trying to eliminate large group play. I play every PvP style in game from large group to solo, and tactical large group keep battles are some of the funnest experiences in Cyrodiil. Everyone, including ZOS, is trying to get rid of the "Ball Groups" that stack on the same pixels to abuse poor game mechanics and spam AOEs. You obviously don't know ZOS' official explanation for why they won't remove AOE caps. Why don't you take a look at the quote from @Samadhi below that contains ZOS' official explanation, from Wrobel, on why they won't remove them. We are just want to help ZOS solve the problem of ball groups, but they refuse to engage us or consider any feedback from the community.

Samadhi wrote: »

Taonnor wrote: »

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO wrote: »

In the video I posted eric wrobel explains in detail why AOE caps arent going anywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKu7GnANIO8

You mean the last ESO Live with Eric Wrobel. He did not said that it will kill the performance. He said (Not exact wording): "Simply removing AoE Caps will be a non intelligent fix, i want intelligent fixes. So i try to implement ways that players need to move intelligent like spreading out. In this patch we try it with prox deto adjustments and VD set."

And he said (Not exact wording): "Removing AoE Caps will also unbalance the PvE experience of this game."

so he says
"in general with the aoe caps, since we have made quite a few changes to all the abilities, we want to see how those play out. And we are committed to solving this problem of people just balling up and running through"
"we're not saying that we would never ever modify the AoE caps in anyway, but we want to investigate more of these ability-based solutions to create more tactical play, instead of just doing a blanket sort of easy fix of 'oh yeah, we'll just put everything at unlimited targets'"

instead of just doing a blanket sort of easy fix of 'oh yeah, we'll just put everything at unlimited targets'

So Eric Wrobel feels that removing AoE caps would be a blanket and easy fix to a problem that has persisted for ages now,
but the team would rather spend more time tweaking abilities.

Good allocation of resources, no one is complaining about performance in the meanwhile.

"We want to test which band-aid is most absorbent, rather than pulling the bullet out"

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO · April 2016

No

Wrobel clearly talks about performance concerns in the very first minute of that ESO live interview with him.

Ajax_22 · April 2016

Yes

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO wrote: »

Wrobel clearly talks about performance concerns in the very first minute of that ESO live interview with him.

The only performance concerns he mentioned was with abilities being able to proc secondary effects on an unlimited number of targets. As I said earlier in this thread the solution to that is simple. Change AOE proc coefficients to 0.