P.S. On a side note: When you do have 2 x 12 man/woman groups it's easy to lose one another and then you are running around like chickens saying where did x go. Not fun. If you do keep it as 12 man raids then make it where you can MARK someone from the same guild as a LEADER for both groups or some kind of Mark Target key so we don't lose them.

i'm freezing everywhere now...

as far as the changes, it sure feels like we're at the mercy of some ZOS non-pvp type person's whim...

due to attrition of the cyrodiil player base over the years - it was hard to find good group leaders before the change - now - it's twice as hard...

Earthewen wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

I doubt that they are going to change that in the near future as they did it to help with current performance issues.

That's just it though. It didn't change a thing. People are experiencing disconnects for no apparent reason. They are still experiencing lag even when small crowds are there and no zergs are seen anywhere. If anything, now zergs are bigger and faction stacks more prevalent because there is strength in numbers. I'm not really sure what behavior ZOS was trying to encourage unless it is the massive log offs that pvp players are now doing because PvP just doesn't have the same fun as it used to.

I never said that change worked xD
but i also doubt that ZOS is going to admit that their changes do basically nothing.

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

I doubt that they are going to change that in the near future as they did it to help with current performance issues.

No, they literally said there weren't any noticeable performance gains and they were only implementing it because they liked the "behavior."

I suppose that change in behavior was supposed to help with performance though.

But as i already said i never said that those plans worked out.

*Re-post of earlier comment on the matter*

"Well, when you look at it objectively you see that forcing small groups of 12 players creates an environment where if a new player tries to get into one of those groups they are nothing more than a liability until they are performing at top level. 12 mans can only carry maybe two players at anytime who are not fully trained- larger groups of 24 can carry much more new and learning players at a time......so the result of shifting to 12 mans is casual/new players will really not have many opportunities to learn how to play or improve outside of solo play.

If you play solo you stand no chance to take on these ball groups at all..No chance and even more so with healers not able to heal the random groups or others sharing buffs. Most of the new and learning players will not stay in cyro long or bother to try and learn- the result is the new players will stop coming to cyro and being able to improve without being farmed or pushed out - the game experience for them will be horrible. Ganked or run over and farmed by ball groups until they leave and no 12 mans can tolerate to pick them up in meaningful numbers- its just not fun to be farmed or ganked non stop till you finally quit because no one is picking up players and teaching them how to play out in that environment, and make no mistake no one will.

By reducing group size and also taking away heals/buffs outside those groups what they have done is really removed most opportunities for new players to be learn how to play, as casual players....most players start as casual and become more involved as they learn......this removes that chance almost entirely as 12 mans can only tolerate so much and the new players are nothing more than bombs- Its quite inevitable that the zone will die eventually and become ball groups and gankers- nothing more. There is no other play this change can possibly cause beyond that end result.

But if you are a ballgroup this is godsend. Its the perfect storm for them for sure- ungrouped players who dont know much are not a threat at all to them, most will perish in first wave of sub assault, fear, fear, fear- dead. Stunlock and no one will be able to pick up newer players to explain what to try to avoid that due to them being liabilities with VD bombs they rely on after the stun locks so no one will pick them up in groups."

Outside these issues you have already noted the internal issues in a guild this causes---Any guild will be forced to select players and exclude others for the sake of meeting an arbitrary cap ZOS placed on existing guilds. This is not only changes carried out without showing the community any tangible benefit but clearly penalizing those wishing to group beyond 12 players. Players tend to enjoy raids where they fit in with the group running, but now ZOS by virtue of locking us at 12 demands guilds conform to their idea of 'behavior' they want----but to my knowledge not only do none of them run PvP guilds, I have not seen a "Z" symbol on the cyro map in PvP since 2015---so it would seem to me they are not playing but making decisions about behaviors without playing at all in PvP. That is not a very solid base to work from and refusing to explain exactly what you mean with "behaviors" you leave the players in the dark on why this had to be done.

What kind of reasoning could one be using without even potential benefit downstream mentioned to effect such changes?

IamDemi makes numerous great comments! I recently joined a PvP Guild and have learned so much from running with a great team. However, once PvP changed from 24-person to 12-person it has noticeably become extremely detrimental to run a coordinated, cohesive raid. If you need to have us in 12-person groups for performance issues, then please put something in the game so that groups from the same guild can somehow follow each other. Verbal communication and visually trying to follow a small character on a screen can only go so far. However, with all the testing, I have seen hardly any improvements to PvP performance, in fact I find it to be much worse; there are many more people crashing to desktop or DCing when opposing teams run into each other on the battlefield. Which when it was a 24-person group and people DCed you may have lost 1/4 to 1/2 of your team, now in 12-person groups and you loose that many players you are basically dead. Please make improvements to PvP so that it can be an enjoyable experience for veterans, newbies, and casual PvPers.

This 12 person group for "behavior" is the worst excuse and not enough reason given by Zos team ☹ . 12 man and non healing outside of group killing major pvp guilds and toxicity and rage at all time high

idk wrote: »

It would make less sense to return to 24 man groups than it did to eliminate them. Zos made the change for behavioral reasons, not server performance, even though the goal of all the testing was to improve performance. We do not know what that behavioral justification was.

The reason it would make less sense to return to the 24 man raids is it would mean Zos is admitting they made a very poor decision to start with. I doubt they will eat crow.

This is depressingly likely. My only hope is that ZOS didn't actually intend to make PUGs quite that disadvantaged vs 12 man ball groups and comes around to the idea that, hey, maybe PUGs really do need strength in numbers to take on coordinated groups!

But when ZOS does decide to address that, I think we'll see the cross-group healing reinstated first before ZOS considers reverting the group size nerf.

VaranisArano wrote: »

idk wrote: »

It would make less sense to return to 24 man groups than it did to eliminate them. Zos made the change for behavioral reasons, not server performance, even though the goal of all the testing was to improve performance. We do not know what that behavioral justification was.

The reason it would make less sense to return to the 24 man raids is it would mean Zos is admitting they made a very poor decision to start with. I doubt they will eat crow.

This is depressingly likely. My only hope is that ZOS didn't actually intend to make PUGs quite that disadvantaged vs 12 man ball groups and comes around to the idea that, hey, maybe PUGs really do need strength in numbers to take on coordinated groups!

But when ZOS does decide to address that, I think we'll see the cross-group healing reinstated first before ZOS considers reverting the group size nerf.

I don't think ZOS intended to make PUGs play / fight at a disadvantage. That would be at odds with their admitted goal of "raising the floor" that they have articulated several times and what is probably the reason for a lot of the balance changes they do make.

That being said, I also don't think it took a Nostradamus to see that it would be the "floor" that would struggle most with these changes, whereas the "ceiling" would be the beneficiaries. So I doubt they gave this change much thought and perhaps implemented it because their test results were disappointing and thus felt pressure to do something.