I agree to every post this far.

I used the organised groups as example how the community hates on each other due to basic problems in this game.
I also could use the big fights: 2+ big zergs smashing on each other with a lot of sieges. Running through open maingates, while they get heavily shooted and so on.

Dont point of my example to hard. I dont try to hate here for people playing this game how it can be played.
I like to point on the game, which causes problems that might be changed and I sit here and still hope, instead of leaving this game, like comrades of us did.

IMO the main issue with ball groups (awesome name btw), is that they can instantly resurrect each other. There really is no downside since there aren´t really massive area aoe hits.

I like to try and snipe a ball grouper every once in a while, but I mean, it is just for fun, it has basically no effect on gameplay.

Maybe it would help if your damage inflicted was cut in half for like a minute after being resurrected.

Ball groups are, mechanically speaking, the most effective way to play, and there aren't all that many options for counterplay against them. Beyond running a tighter and more skilled ball group of your own. That is ultimately the reason why so many run in ball groups.

Ball groups do take some skill to pull of, so they are not an easy mode as such. There are plenty of bad ball groups who just constantly keep wiping. It's the skilled ball groups that cause all the aggravation and anger in the player base. A ball group of really skilled players is basically invulnerable to damage. I've seen ball groups of just 14 to weather attacks from 50 players and a dozen siege, zooming around as they please, harvesting endless AP with their indiscriminate AOEs, and the people facing then having no meaningful options to even slow them down. That is how much the game supports and encourages ball group tactics.

That is also the reason why so many people try to emulate that play style, and once they get decent at it, they've basically won the game. So from that point of view, I can understand why they do it, despite all the damage such tactics to do the community. And let's face it, the PVP community in this game is basically in it's death throes already.

So while ball groups are, mechanically speaking, stupidly OP, they are not an instant easy mode. That is the other common tactic this game has devolved into - faction stacks.

You know, when 80+ players are running around as a single amorphous blob. The game can't really handle that many players in the same location, and it goes into a total freeze mode. Frames dropping down to a slideshow, assets failing to load (I particularly enjoy it when the game decides to stop rendering enemy players to conserve resources... yeah, in PVP that is so very helpful indeed.) and your skills stop working. And forget about targeting altogether. Just rely on AOEs and hope the game registers a hit on something.

At that point, you just lag any opposition to death with numbers, as the side with more people spamming actions will get more actions through, and will inevitably win the fight. The problem with such tactics is, of course, that it isn't fun for anyone involved. Except maybe those who feel their "side" has to always win, no matter the cost.

Ball groups do 'cause lag as well, since the tactics they use are also something the game can't handle all that well, but usually the numbers involved in such an engagement are still within the scope of the engine, and the lag is more of a nuisance than the crippling fare you get with faction stacks.

However, ball group are also the reason why factions stacks are becoming more of a norm. Since you can't really do anything against a decent ball group, except have a decent ball group of your own, the only other real option is to faction stack and lag the ball groups to death along with everything else. And that isn't really helpful for the health of the state of PVP either.

But what can one do about it really? It is what it is, and ZOS has never managed to de-incentivize ball group style play, and thus the game suffers due to them. But at the same time, they do attract people who want to be the most effective at the game, and once they become good at it, they in turn encourage others to simulate them, which leads to abundance of ball groups. Everyone else will just end up in a faction stack which then breaks the game. And that is why ball groups are hated by those who do not participate in them.

The community has offered numerous solutions that would encourage people to do just what ZOS keeps telling us they want from us, to spread out. To discourage faction stacks and ball groups. Yet at the same time, everything ZOS does, everything they introduce to the game, just ends up encouraging people to run in ball groups, because that is the most efficient way to do PVP in this game.

I've seen a small ball group of just a dozen decent players storm a keep, overwhelm the 20 or so randoms that came to defend it along with the NPC speed bumps in a matter of minutes. They just rush to the main gate, batter it down in couple of minutes, then proceed to do the same with the inner gate, while the randoms defenders are still setting up counter siege. THe ball group then burns thtough the inner gate in a minute or two, while standing in oil baths and taking no meaningful damage, They then proceed to running from flag to flag using AOE to kill anyone who tries to stop them from flipping the flags.

After you've experienced that for a number of times, you come to the realization that here is nothing you can do to stop them. Even with the "advantage" of "defending" a keep, and having more players defending your keep then there are playrs "attacking" it. The way things work in this game means, that scoring even a single kill from the ball group is a huge achievement. (Which doesn't mean anything , since they will just rez the dead player instantly anyway.) When you realize that you cannot defend a keep, even with siege and larger force, you just opt out and leave the keep and go elsewhere. Like where ever your factions faction stack happens to be. At least you can lag the ball group to death should they try to attack you there.

Of course the better ball groups never face factions stacks. They know that they can't win against the lag. Instead they just run to some other poorly defended keep and cap it for *** and giggles. Leaving once no more randoms come to the slaughter (or a faction stacks appears to defend the keep) and rinse and repeat at a yet another poorly defended keep.

A lot of players find such tactics and playstyle to be utterly boring and unappealing, but ZOS seems to want to keep catering this game to ball group players, and thus non ball group players slowly bleed off to do something else, or play some other game, until all that is left are the ball groupers and faction stackers that the game is these days.

lag in pc eu pvp both sotha and vivec is insane right now, skills take 3 seconds to cast. Bgs not working. only form of pvp that works are duels I think. XD
servers are almost dead from a pvp perspective right now.

To me the reason they are hated, they will chase down 1 person, 24 on 1 is not sporting

P3x wrote: »

Hey everyone,

to start i like to say, that this post should not be a hateful one, its disappointed and maybe.. hopeful one.

I m in a great and big PvP guild. ~450 active member that play hardcore or very casual in PC-EU-Sotha Sil -campaigne.
In the last month (2-7) i realised a very huge disappointing in the state of everything we get given there by ZOS.
While the community hates each other for doing "Ball Groups" (organised groups with voice lead), which cause a huge amount of stress for the server and therefore huge lag and bad game-performance alltogether,
we really(!) wonder why this is how we have to play like this.
I mean, this tension and hate players have to those ball groups is so weird. They play the game together and get hated by others cus it causes so much lag.. For real, that should not be like this!

I saw sooo many great players quitting this game due to this. I read it in the guild-chat (and I know we are not the only one) every day once the servers are full. There is a HUGE upset with this state of gameplay.

I really hope we will see better times sooner or later.. How it is in the moment... not worth buying the game, if people are interessted into big-scale PvP.

I also hope, this post (or another with same topic) will get seen and will contribute in the prozess of a REAL solution.

Ball groups are not the real problem. And, in case you didnt realize it, the server stress is the natural enemy of ball groups. The lag "disarms" them and a couple of players are able to hold an inner keep at a rate of 5:1 as long as they are willing to deal with the lag.

However, what are your suggestions to prevent people to organize any way they want ? What is Zenimax supposed to do ? Yes, its all a schemed farce, because certain entities have no real life. Its the same s*** storm then on the forums. But thats not illegal and not against EULA.

GO BALL OR GO CRY !

I am in a very big XBOX EU PVP guild (1000 players not all active) every night we run 2 to three squads of 24 players each facing opposing PVP Guilds from other factions. Joined them in January and before was mostly playing small scale PVP in Cyrodiil. I was positively surprised about the level of coordinations and leadership i experienced. On this level Cyrodiil is more like a chess board. In terms of lag - even clashes of up to 150 players went relatively smoothly (on Xbox One X - the original Xbox one has far more disconnects). I am having the best time of playing ESO in since beta.

Stop complain and tell developer to creat for you group 24 ppl battleground 24 vs 24 like in WOW.

Cyrodill = open pvp so you will get ZERG, bloob or "ball group" becaus this is mass pvp. I play ESO when game come live almost 3 month, Cyrodill lag like hell so quit game... back 1,5 month ago and still lag. If they don't repair this for soooooo long time they will not repair this ever.

Trueblue wrote: »

Stop complain and tell developer to creat for you group 24 ppl battleground 24 vs 24 like in WOW.

Cyrodill = open pvp so you will get ZERG, bloob or "ball group" becaus this is mass pvp. I play ESO when game come live almost 3 month, Cyrodill lag like hell so quit game... back 1,5 month ago and still lag. If they don't repair this for soooooo long time they will not repair this ever.

I lead zergs.. I led 2 to 3 zergs in chat with the leaders of the zerg. I played and led ball grps. I played solo and in smallscales.
I just wanna start a discussion here, so it might get into the eye of a dev... i know, i know.. it wont. Let me hope though. :<

"If they don't repair this for soooooo long time they will not repair this ever"
This is a sad quote.

Burtan wrote: »

Lag is why I no longer play this game even though it has been my favourite game to date.

It has been 5 years and cyrodiil is still a complete mess and its clearly not gonna change any time soon. Do us all a favour and stop paying for ESO+ and stay away from the Clown Store until ZOS make an effort to put open world PvP in a playable state.

LEGIT: Lag is why I am considering going back to Archeage. I am trying to hang in there because I love this - but I feel more and more cranky over lag.

P3x wrote: »

PC/EU Sotha Sil EP
Guild: Firehearts Officer

EP Pexis

Don't need to add any words to this. Your own guild is part of the issue you talk about!