Absolutely. Group up. Have different roles. Healers. Bombers. Cc. Tank. Brawlers. Form up. It’s multiplayer pvp. Even the trailers and massive battles were shown it looked amazing. Storming a keep with 40 people and fighting 40 enemies is a lot of fun.

Does it suck for the solo player? Yeah it’s not designed for solo play. Like an actual battle.... yeah you can go alone but really how does the often work out.

The lag and server issues are what brings down large battles. Not “ball groups.”

12 players in precisely co-ordinated gear in a carefully planned and orchestrated PvE trial is considered elite, how is a ball group in PvP different ?

Ball groups are basically PVE in a PVP setting, All they are doing is timing procs and having a bunch of dedicated healers. if you break them up, it turns out they are basically all scrubs that cannot PVP and die rapid in a 1v1.

Respect them: no. Tolerate them? Yes.

I see them in the same light that I see people that cheese Vet Trials and sell runs for millions of gold so people with gold to spare can get skins they otherwise could not earn. I tolerate them but do not personally respect the playstyle. It is purely my personal opinion, which is what this poll is asking. I do not wish to remove their playstyle. I do not wish for nerfs to be made. I just sigh deeply and hate seeing people feed them AP. It's like watching people willingly replicate gym class....running lap after lap around the inner....the outer....it looks so boring.

I watch them play from their perspective sometimes - on Twitch or whatever. The ones I watch are looking mostly for groups of roughly the same size to get into good fights with. They ignore most groups smaller than them because steamrolling isn't a good fight, but people do occasionally get caught up in their dots and aoes.

What's the difference between a zerg and a ball group? Always thought they were the same thing.

Hapexamendios wrote: »

What's the difference between a zerg and a ball group? Always thought they were the same thing.

So a zerg is a large collection of misc players, typically above 24 players in total. Generally a zerg is just many people going to a common objective with no real coordination other than calling out something in zone chat. Zergs form organically in response to the map, if everyone sees that a certain keep needs to be taken or defended then its only natural that many people will go there.
Everything from solo players to small mans to pug groups and even entire ball groups may make up part of a zerg. There have been organized zergs in the past, but generally this is generally considered a s'wit move for anything other than grabbing scrolls or pushing/dethroning emp and even then its often overkill.


A ball group is generally 12 players (used to be between 12-20ish but the group changes killed anything over 12) who have a very specific group composition in order to maximize surviveablilty and damage. Kinda like a vet trial group, everyone has to pull their weight and do their role. Some ball groups are strict with what builds, sets, and abilities they want, others are more relaxed and allow for freedom so long as it can fill their assigned role.
Sometimes ball groups will roll with a zerg, but often prefer to pick fights away from the main press for various reasons. Some reasons may include: Squishier players outside their group may proc VD on them when they die, They are searching for another ballgroup to fight, They want to farm AP and get big ticks without other players 'leaching', they have other goals in mind like the faction might fixate on one keep while they want a scroll.

So a Zerg is not a ball group, but a ball group can be a part of a zerg.

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Strength is numbers only tells me they have no Strength when by themselves.

I don't understand this attitude. People work in teams and teams ARE a strength. Gretzky did not with the Cup by himself.

Dame_Scorpio wrote: »

It's a legit way to play and they should be allowed to play how they want. However, my opinion is that it's closer to griefing than skilled gameplay, which is why ball groups don't earn my respect. Just my .02

I hear people talking like this all the time and I vehemently disagree. "Griefing" is all about giving someone else a hard time just to make them feel bad. Beating other players is just what pvp is.

If you teabag somebody, that's griefing.

If you hate whisper them, that's griefing.

Attacking a keep with a superior and well coordinated group is just warfare.

It is not the ball groups that is the problem. It is when they stack up in one place. 12 vs 40+ is just not a good fight.

markulrich1966 wrote: »

sure.

They are highly organized, and don't reduce cyro to simply 1v1, but focus on strategy.

I have high respect especially comparing them with the unorganized players in my own faction, where everybody often just does what he wants. "Let's go ROE", 5 minutes later all 5 are dead, just like those 5 who went to Alessia instead...

Strategy until they just sit at a flagged keep farming AP from people who don't know any better. I hate trying to explain to pugs that attacking an enemy force that you physically cannot defeat will not gain you so much as 1 AP.