Confused about claims that "zerg" and stacked groups hurt PvP

Derra · June 2016

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

I hear a lot of complaints about zerg in PvP. I also hear complaints about organized stacked groups. People talk like these people are ruining PvP and how that will kill the game.

I am confused because if those people are filling Cyrodiil, it sounds like they represent a large percentage of PvP oriented players. Apart from lag, why should developers prioritize reducing zerg and ball groups if that is how a large percentage of people want to play and if people will almost always find a way to optimize any rebalance through a stacked group?

Zerg is actually good for the game. I like it and it should always be a part of largescale ava.

What´s bad for the game IMO is the ability to organize large groups of players in eso. Zergs and large grps should not be as easily organized as they are in eso by having 24ppl all marked in the UI, the map and having a giant crown on the grplead.
Also the ability to have that many players in a grp lead to support abilities being spammed on specific templates designed to do that one job instead just using them situationally.

Secondly groupsize always have an implication on how the game is played. You see the majority of people running around in really big grps because the people not enjoying running around with 20+ players but rater 4 to 10 left the game.
Why is that - because grpsizes determines how one competes for objectives. If you enable players to put 20+ people in their grp they will do it and everyone not doing it is hardly competetive anymore. It´s hard to enjoy something where you´re either forced to play in a way you don´t enjoy to compete or be unable to compete but play in a way you like.

I don´t think large grps is how people want to play in general. It´s simply the path of least resistance which is a logical choice to make.
If people want to run really large grps it should require more of the players and leaders to organize that than it currently does in eso.

Hektik_V · June 2016

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

Fruitdog wrote: »

Etaniel wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the devs can tell where the server stress is coming from, that doesn't mean that they can easily find a solution to it. I mean the obvious solution would be to remove all passives and skills that have aoe components, but that would completely alter our game, and no one wants that.

I do believe though that if the devs had it in them to fix it, it would already have been done. I'm just not sure if it's because they are incompetent, or that it's just way over anyone's head with today's technology. I just wish that if it was the latter, they would tell us so and bring more gameplay changes to encourage people to spread out (not just destacking, but spreading out on the map)

No, the obvious solution is to remove AOE caps and yet they don't do it. I think that speaks more to their lack of competency than their coding ability.

Removing Aoe caps will not reduce lag. Technically speaking it doesn't lessen the server strain. It might have effects on how players play in Cyro, but no guarantee that it will lower lag.
It would be a smart decision to remove them though, I'm all for it.

Ppl should stop being obsessed with aoe cap removal and instead go for a raise in the damage loss. How regularly do you hit more than 15 ppl with an AOE which isn't siege?

I hit mad targets with that 6m impulse or talons.

Rune_Relic · June 2016

I draw a distinction myself.
Zerg = many players ....zergball = many players standing in each others body stacked.

This is AvAvA and large battles with 100s of players was envisioned, designed and worked at the beginning.
So the zerg in this sense has always existed and was the main designed in playstyle.
There was little lag early on because zergballs paintrains and such did not exist or were rarely seen.
So most combat was 1v1 single target or pots/siege for aoe (noob/casual vast majority).
Exception: That was the era of stick and skirt DK just standing their luring victims to their aoe spam/root/rapid ultimate spam player deaths, with the OP vampires as backup (min/maxed hardcore minority).
Here lag existed and skills never fired because AoE was being spammed.
But these players were such a small minority that they only had a minor impact on the overall game.

But of course the era of stick and skirt solo 1vX DK vampire gods came to an end.
How could these people continue the playstyle they had become accustomed to ?

Enter the zergball/paintrain:
Now you needed to be a team to pull off what the stick/skirt gods managed to pull off.
Division of labour and specialist builds for group mitigation, healing, purging and damage.
Clustered together to capitalise on the limited radius of aoe skills divided amongst the group.
Focused fire power to syncronise bombing of anything that stood in the way.
Rapids thrown in to ensure the group couldnt be disrupted and speed was maxed.
Warhorn up and resource jumping to maximise time limited stats.
It was the ultimate in maxed out team efficiency exemplified by abraxus in the beginning.
And how I hated the fact they wiped my campaign everytime they arrived.

Nothing could stand against this except another zergball or paintrain.
Most people who complained were told to L2P...ie run away when you see it coming.
So what did we get ?
More and more and more zergballs/paintrains. Adapt or die!
Before we new it everyone was balled up and spamming ultimates/aoes that nothing but another group doing the same could counter.
...and....so.....the server had a meltdown.

Hardcore players are min maxers.
They need to win and are hyper competitive looking for every single advantage they can muster.
Each change making their gameplay more and more efficient until that one optimimum combination is discovered.
Everyone adopts that combo or is a victim of it.
No one want to be a victim.
Only a few refuse to succumb to the required cheese wagon mechanics that destroy the game performace.

ONLY ZOS can ensure that there is no such thing as optimum combos.
Until they do cyrodiil will always be a trainwreck

Anazasi · June 2016

Every perspective that has been presented in this thread is valid to a certain point. The reality that is unquestionable in world pvp is based solely on attrition. When the game mechanics allow immediate return when dead via camps, attrition has no counter. Killing your enemy to have them simply reappear a minute later does not resolve the issue. Camps are bad in fact worse than ever before simply because they allow the zerg to continue.

You can ask yourself how many times have you with a small group of 8 or 12 taken out a group of say 16 only to have them return with 24. This example plays out every time in world pvp because of attrition. If your group isnt large enough to kill the enemy you simply need more players. Not to say this is wrong but you can see how actions that equal in failure increases the need to employ attrition. Camps are a crutch, a gap closer, for attrition. What ZOS never thoroughly explored was the "needs" aspect of world pvp in relation to attrition.

Defending a keep has always been the niche of this particular game. In fact the need for a gap closer to attrition is so acute when defending a keep that camps should only be place-able inside a keep by the defending players and no where else on the map. This would essentially remove the offensive use of camps, a "gap closer" that inherently feeds attrition, that in turn feeds zerging, that in turn creates lag, which inevitably creates a never ending cycle of complaints on the forums.

Simply put when you are the offensive player attacking a keep you need to employ sound strategies and tactics that will allow you to succeed. However if you should die than you are no long part of the equation unless you are rezzed by another player. The advantage shifts to the defender where it should always be located.

Just my thoughts.

Dyride · June 2016

I would rather see camps limited to defenders inside keeps, and then they can also be placed open world and at outposts by either side.

Having a defensive buffer zone around keeps preventing offensive forward camps would limit the ability to smash more and more numbers against the forces inside, driving up the lag.

SneaK · June 2016

Can't exclude lag, that's the main reason "zergs" hurt pvp. If Cyro was lag free, big battles would actually be a lot of fun.

On PvE'ing maps, this is on ZOS, there should be more incentive to owning home keeps and winning campaigns. Competition is gone, people home servers they can farm enough AP on to be top 2% and that's it. AP gains should be related to the map, not an abandoned house above Chalman.

bitaken · June 2016

Anazasi wrote: »

If your group isnt large enough to kill the enemy you simply need more players.

And right there - is the basic tenant by which zergs form and zergers are made.

#norespectforzergers

It's not group size. Yes, if the enemy is running 40+ it's a challenge and certainly not something that you WANT to see. However, I will NEVER buy into the thought that the reason you lose is because you don't have enough people.

Typically, the people running 40+ suck at the game - and are not that hard to kill - you just have to be smarter than them.

Satiar · June 2016

Derra wrote: »

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

I hear a lot of complaints about zerg in PvP. I also hear complaints about organized stacked groups. People talk like these people are ruining PvP and how that will kill the game.

I am confused because if those people are filling Cyrodiil, it sounds like they represent a large percentage of PvP oriented players. Apart from lag, why should developers prioritize reducing zerg and ball groups if that is how a large percentage of people want to play and if people will almost always find a way to optimize any rebalance through a stacked group?

Zerg is actually good for the game. I like it and it should always be a part of largescale ava.

What´s bad for the game IMO is the ability to organize large groups of players in eso. Zergs and large grps should not be as easily organized as they are in eso by having 24ppl all marked in the UI, the map and having a giant crown on the grplead.
Also the ability to have that many players in a grp lead to support abilities being spammed on specific templates designed to do that one job instead just using them situationally.

Secondly groupsize always have an implication on how the game is played. You see the majority of people running around in really big grps because the people not enjoying running around with 20+ players but rater 4 to 10 left the game.
Why is that - because grpsizes determines how one competes for objectives. If you enable players to put 20+ people in their grp they will do it and everyone not doing it is hardly competetive anymore. It´s hard to enjoy something where you´re either forced to play in a way you don´t enjoy to compete or be unable to compete but play in a way you like.

I don´t think large grps is how people want to play in general. It´s simply the path of least resistance which is a logical choice to make.
If people want to run really large grps it should require more of the players and leaders to organize that than it currently does in eso.

I really don't understand that part about people not wanting big groups. I literally bought this game for large group fights and battles. Why would anyone buy the only RvR on the market if they didn't like big groups?

Satiar · June 2016

bitaken wrote: »

Anazasi wrote: »

If your group isnt large enough to kill the enemy you simply need more players.

And right there - is the basic tenant by which zergs form and zergers are made.

#norespectforzergers

It's not group size. Yes, if the enemy is running 40+ it's a challenge and certainly not something that you WANT to see. However, I will NEVER buy into the thought that the reason you lose is because you don't have enough people.

Typically, the people running 40+ suck at the game - and are not that hard to kill - you just have to be smarter than them.

Zergs are harder to kill than they used to be.

If you watch old videos you just see zergs THROWING their bodies into a group of 12-16 or so, getting eaten alive by ultimate and running straight back in. These days you need a good choke, because eventually you will simply be surrounded and sieged down.

thesesneaksaredopeb14a_ESO · June 2016

i think ppl who complain about large groups are confused about the game theyre playing. if they would just like you know look at the trailers made for the game that described massive group battles. i think they would remember

manny254 · June 2016

First off this is directed at everyone, and not specifically large groups. We are all guilty of this. To especially include those [snip] who stack with their entire faction, and see nothing wrong with it.

At the end of the day it comes down to lag. We can argue about what the game is supposed to be all day, but large scale pvp does not function properly. This can not be argued against. The game can not handle it anymore, and everyone knows it. The ultimate blame is on ZoS, but players can not pretend to be innocent. After a certain point players need to avoid participating in battles that form a black hole of lag. I can not understand complaining about lag, but running straight into the battles that are causing it. The "as Advertised" argument has worn thin, and players should know what to expect by now. By all means run into the stacked faction battle, but understand what the result is going to be.

Edited to remove a specific player's name

Nirnrotten · June 2016

WillhelmBlack · June 2016

Riggsy wrote: »

Remind me again why Zeni decided to give away "a million dollars" in some lame promotion, won by a guy who probably doesn't play anymore instead of spending that $50,000 a year on leasing better severs or hiring someone who can code needed solutions?

Instead of paying it in tax

Bone_Demon · June 2016

The main thing that hurts PvP in this game is the definition of PvP that some people have. So you have to ask yourselves what is PvP for you and i don't mean the abbreviation because everybody knows it's player versus player. For me PvP is me doing an action against a/ player(s) and getting a reaction. Based on their reaction i do a different action/reaction. Having 20+ people instantly kill somebody just because they spam AoE is not my definition of PvP. If somebody is telling me what ability to spam and when this is not PvP it simply is PvE in which the environment are players. May sound a bit silly to some but try to understand.

cdobratz · June 2016

I didn't read all the posts but I'm just gonna go ahead and @FENGRUSH

Rylana · June 2016

The majority of the whining about zergs come from 1vX "pros" that bit off more than they could chew, got rekt, and are all indignant about their idiotic attempt to 1vX an organized objectives group.

So sorry, 1vX heroes, I set up to fight large groups, run 16-20, thats your warning, stay away.

Also the term zerg is so arbitrary by this point, ive heard people legitimately refer to 10 people as a zerg before, its dumb. Its not even actually a huge massive unskilled blob of zerglings in a rush to home base until it hits nearly 100. Even for ESO purposes, 40-50 would still just be two groups.

visionality · June 2016

If you've just started PVP and you're constantly getting killed by a ganking group of enemies, you would be stupid if you wouldn't look for shelter in a group. So ppl tend to group and according to "bigger is better", they try to group up BIG.

Problem is that the game is not giving any incentive to play in smaller groups or solo if you're good enough for it. If you solo-take a ressource, you get 26 AP. If you take the same ressource with a full group, you still get 26 AP, although you have to do little to nothing to take it. If you solo-kill an enemy, you get his APs for the kill. If you kill him in a group, you still get the APs for his kill AND you get additional APs from all the other group member's kills and heals. If 6 gankers kill 1 single player, they still gain his full AP although they really shouldn't. (Cause hey! what exactly did they do to earn it?)

I think that's something that should be balanced.

If you would gain high rewards when you're playing at high stakes, even rewards on even odds and little to nothing when you're an overwhelming force (in numbers!) just mowing down small groups, the zerging discussion would cool down a lot.

Reevster · June 2016

Zergs are the only way to kill "some" of these cheaters, so until ZOS can say 100 percent that the CE users have been and will be "Zapped" we need zergs...

Zerg = Cheater killer.

visionality · June 2016

Reevster wrote: »

Zergs are the only way to kill "some" of these cheaters, so until ZOS can say 100 percent that the CE users have been and will be "Zapped" we need zergs...

Zerg = Cheater killer.

No. Cheaters are players with limited skill and easy prey when their enemy doesn't drop dead quickly enough. Had a very nice (although rather short) fight with a cheater yesterday and he looked very lovely decorating the ground

RinaldoGandolphi · June 2016

@visionality

Good points, but i think it goes further then that. I am all about large scale pvp, in the early days of this game both styles co-existed and it was fine.

The problems are two fold.

#1 ZOS keeps nerfing everything small group players relied on for survivabilty.
#2 ZOS keeps buffing large groups.

Since 1.6 all ZOS has done is #1 and #2.

They need to remove the incentives for the ball groups and you do that by:

Removing all PBAOE abilities from the game and replacing them with Ground Targeted abilities and give all of them a cast time.
Removing all Ground Targeted Healing Spells like Healing Springs and replacing them with targeted healing spells that will heal X amount of players within 5M of the original target.
Ultimate are far too cheap...pretty much every Ultimate like Negate, Barrier, Standard, etc should cost 1,000 or more Ultimate...it should take about 20 minutes to build up enough Ultimate to use it, it should "Really Really Really" matter when you choose to use it, and in return for such a high cost they should be significantly more powerful then they are right now...as it is now..Ultimates are just another ability to be spammed. When in reality they should be an ability thats very powerful that you get to use about once every 20 minutes or so.....anyone rembemer once a day racial powers? Extremely powerful game changers...but you couldn't use them every 30 sec....

Right now, the game is far too friendly to cheap PBAOE and Ultimate spam....this has been a problem since launch...1st it was Impulse, then it was Steel Tornado, now Proxy Det....infact its Steel Tornado + Proxy Det + Impulse....all these PBAOE do far too much damage for resource cost which makes it a no brainer to use them.

why would you use anything else...Steel Tornado gets:

25% Damage Bonus against targets under 25% health with Slaughter Passive
15% damage bonus when attacking stunned, disoriented, silenced, or immobilized targets
100% damage bonus against wounded targets based on Health remaining.

lets see here, the average group has Bombard, Encase, and Talon Spammers, Blazing Spear and Negate spam....Everyone around you is nearly always rooted, snared, stunned, immobilized, off balanced, or
silenced...so we will just give a mega cheap PBAOE a huge damage bonus while attacking targets effected by these status, and just to add more gravy to the mashed potatoes, we will give Steel Tornado a 100% damage bonus too.....

Pulsar and Proxy Det synergize with Steel Tornado and the stunned, disoriented, silenced, or immobilized even more with Pulsar reducing the enemies max health by another 10% making Nado do even more damage, and proxy going off for the big boom.

Its these kind of gameplay design decisions that have given us this lag zergball game play.

ESO group pvp comes down to who has the best set up for cheap player based AOE skills, and who can time their ultimates and proxy's the best...I have been observing this for a long time, its always the same song and dance....yes Healers are important...but at the end of the day, game play design decisions encourage a group stack meta too much to do anything else.....All the skills and passives on PBAOE just synergize too well to play any other way....

Its not a secret a lot of PVE content is completed this way too....it needs to change...you won't get rid of these zerg balls as long as cheap PBAOE and Ultimates exist with no cast times allowing them to just be spammed in a stack on crown group....you can have large scale fun pvp and not have to play this way, we had it in the early days of the game, and it was far more fun then what we have now....

Folks can disagree and thats fine, the world has all flavors. ESO PVP however will never evolve form the stack on crown Healing Springs, Purge, and Proxy Det, Pulsar, Bombard Steel Tornado PBAOE spam nonsense as long as these skills are ridicliously cheap with no cast times...Steel Tornado and Impulse do comparable damage to most single target spells and often times cheaper to boot, and this is a huge problem....

Of course i know the usual large guild suspects will come in to defend this game play. Thats fine, i expect them to, I don't have a horse in the race anymore because i'd rather poke my eyes out with chopstick then to play in that slideshow garbage. So have at it

joshhh_nb · June 2016

To be fair although zergers are extremely annoying with both their play style and the lag they bring, you cannot really stop people from playing the way they want to play. If 20 players wants to waste their time chasing 20ap that is their problem. Their existence, which many small scale pvpers cannot deny, brings some form of joy when your group manage to wipe them. I despise zergs but thats they way they are. The only possible fix to zergs in terms of small scale and solo pvpers is bringing back dynamic ultimate generation, taking away aoe caps, fixing the lag, a rebalance in both movement speed and snares.

Solo players however shouldn't moan, whilst i am both a solo and a small scale group player (2- 8man groups) I understand your frustrations when a zerg comes down to wipe you, just be smart and know when you're outmatched taking on a 24 man group is impossible unless they all don't have thumbs.

Zergs are hurting the game in some way due to the lag they bring and the frustrations of numerous pvpers but they also bring some content into the game, chasing and pulling a few zerglings to the side and killing them one by one, tower farming, and even bombing them highlights the variety of play styles that have come about due to these zergs.

Jules · June 2016

The blame of course falls on ZOS as they intended to make a large scale combat game and the servers just can't handle it.

However, players know this, don't care, and zerg around anyway, knowing that it contributes to lag.

Ishammael · June 2016

manny254 wrote: »

First off this is directed at everyone, and not specifically large groups. We are all guilty of this. To especially include those such as frozn who stack with their entire faction, and see nothing wrong with it.

At the end of the day it comes down to lag. We can argue about what the game is supposed to be all day, but large scale pvp does not function properly. This can not be argued against. The game can not handle it anymore, and everyone knows it. The ultimate blame is on ZoS, but players can not pretend to be innocent. After a certain point players need to avoid participating in battles that form a black hole of lag. I can not understand complaining about lag, but running straight into the battles that are causing it. The "as Advertised" argument has worn thin, and players should know what to expect by now. By all means run into the stacked faction battle, but understand what the result is going to be.

Agree here.

RinaldoGandolphi · June 2016

I just want to make it clear, I don't want anyone to think im against large group pvp because im not, I am only against the styles that cause the server to have a red ping which is the current stack and PBAOE damage and healing spam that ZOS has allowed to exist in the game for far too long....it really needs to change...their server software and hardware simply can't handle it...no sense in continuing to allow such gameplay style to exist when their servers can't handle it.

I honestly wouldn't care, and a lot other people would can't about the stack and spam PBAOE and healing meta if it didn;t cause red pings no one would care. My ire is not directed at you, its directed at ZOS for allowing a playstyle that causes denial of service conditions(i can't use the service with a +999 ping) to exist.

Most other software companies would consider that an exploit and would patch it for security reasons as denials of service of any kind are a big no no, but here we are a year and a half later and the same conditions that cause massive ping issues still exist, when simply changing a few skills and pushing the meta slightly in a different direction would solve the issue entirely....

Yes pushing the meta more towards a single target game and moving away from a stack on crown style by removing the PBAOE skills, replacing them with ground or player target skills with a small radius and putting a cast time on them. This in turn would reduce the amount of server overhead considerably and would give us the large scale fun battles we had in the early months of the game.

I thought the TG patch was bad, but DB is tied for the worst patch in this game history for PVP(tied only with the Lighting Patch) but for different reasons....class balance issues are worse then they were in beta. OP poisons, in conjunction with OP siege and camps have made large keep pvp completely intolerable....and the flags in IC are mostly 3-4 people vs 20...those districts are not large enough for 24 man raids yet they are full of them....

Siege as it is now would be fine if Forward Camps were gone, once you kill the defenders or the attackers and with siege as it is now it would be over quick and the fight is over. Now though guys die fast and just respawn ad infinteum making the last Emp keep bring the server to its knees....for what?....The losing side just drags out the fight forever with Forward Camps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DV9TwsosyI

Fact is large scale PVP worked just fine in this game before the invention of the "Pain Train Style" also called the zergball....get rid of the abilities and skills that allow these zergballs to function and force the game in a more single target direction and these pain trains cease to exists and then the large 300 vs 300 battles we had back in the day without lag with mostly like work....as long as the pain train zergball style is allowed to exist, ESO PVP will never realize nor get back its true potential.

RinaldoGandolphi · June 2016

manny254 wrote: »

First off this is directed at everyone, and not specifically large groups. We are all guilty of this. To especially include those such as frozn who stack with their entire faction, and see nothing wrong with it.

At the end of the day it comes down to lag. We can argue about what the game is supposed to be all day, but large scale pvp does not function properly. This can not be argued against. The game can not handle it anymore, and everyone knows it. The ultimate blame is on ZoS, but players can not pretend to be innocent. After a certain point players need to avoid participating in battles that form a black hole of lag. I can not understand complaining about lag, but running straight into the battles that are causing it. The "as Advertised" argument has worn thin, and players should know what to expect by now. By all means run into the stacked faction battle, but understand what the result is going to be.

Agreed 1000%

Zenetrax · June 2016

Game is made that way that's why Cyrodiil is large and nobody captures a keep solo. I do solo also and find that people tend to find fights where there is fighting in the map (well, obviously lol) as I do so as well because you can't find a 1v1 or 2v1 small-scale fight just around the corner. People's initiative leads them to where small-scale fights are and that's how it goes bigger and bigger if the fight doesn't end and so I believe that that makes what you call "lag".

DaveMoeDee · June 2016

Zerg or not zerg, large scale battles at emperor keeps with forward camps are the best part of Cyrodiil. 30 minute battles are a lot of fun, with or without lag. I haven't PvPed since they got rid of VR and I started collecting skill points on promoted vet alts, but post-TG I didn't experience lag as bad as pre-TG.

Rust_in_Peace · June 2016

"Organised stacked group" is just a nice way of referring to your zerg.

PvP in ESO as it stands is a joke because everyone just stands on top of each other and spams AOE. There's zero skill involved and it's just a zergfest. You don't have to think about when to use your skills, positioning or anything like that you just follow the leader and spam 1 button while you wait for your ultimate to fill up.

That along with the lag; caused by this playstyle, is what drove away all the competitive players. The people who stuck around are kidding themselves when they talk about winning because they are "organised" or have better skill or strats. You're just a bigger zerg - don't get it twisted.

DaveMoeDee · June 2016

Rust_in_Peace wrote: »

"Organised stacked group" is just a nice way of referring to your zerg.

PvP in ESO as it stands is a joke because everyone just stands on top of each other and spams AOE. There's zero skill involved and it's just a zergfest. You don't have to think about when to use your skills, positioning or anything like that you just follow the leader and spam 1 button while you wait for your ultimate to fill up.

That along with the lag; caused by this playstyle, is what drove away all the competitive players. The people who stuck around are kidding themselves when they talk about winning because they are "organised" or have better skill or strats. You're just a bigger zerg - don't get it twisted.

"Drove away all the competitive players"? Good. Not needed. Why should anyone care about their amazing skill?

You are also wrong that "bigger zerg" always wins. Apart from that, it doesn't matter if you lose battles if you win the war. Many times I have been in groups that were mostly trying to distract the opposing troops from other battles. So long as we used up a lot of their time and killed them a few times before they wiped us out, we did our part.

Imagine that. Following a leader in an army. Such an absurd concept.

Sandman929 · June 2016

Bringing back forward camps was a horrible idea. Zergs were tolerable before, if you could wipe them, congrats and you get a little reprieve while they regroup and ride back. Now it's perpetual zerg.