This is a good description of an hardcore ballgroup, it takes lots of time and experience to get to that point. It also implies that procsets, is an important part in the equation. Still an optimized group will be good in any environment.

Theignson wrote: »

This sounds pretty much like the best ball groups on the PC NA server (eg Dracarys). It takes a lot of work and effort and it isn't easy to run in those groups. The leader has to be incredibly knowledgeable and make quick judgements.

I agree that such a group should easily be able to beat 3x as many pugs. On my faction, several of (the only ) groups that run are just composed of random pugs. There is no designation of role, no build requirements, no instructions , no training. Even worse, most players dont group and are solo.

My question is, doesn't it get old? You are expected to beat pugs. I see ball groups running around inside keeps for 30 minutes, they farm the pugs one by one, focusing their huge 12 man power on 2-4 pugs at a time and wiping them out, then running around some more.

I don't see the point. Why don't ball groups fight other ball groups? Is it really that fun to slaughter random solo pugs who, by your admission, have 10x less stats, healing, etc?

It is not at all like 1v3-- the solo player has only his own buffs and abilities. The ball groups have 10 radiating regens on them, etc etc.

Ballgroups do fight other Ballgroups but will often do it away from everyone else to avoid interference.

1. we do GvGs vs other groups on a similar lvl.
2. there is no other Cyro with only "pros"
3. so if a group reaches a certaint lvl they need to leave cyro because its unfair to play against others ?

its mean ofc some weekend chill players will loose vs ppl who have detication and put ours of training in the game. thats the case for everything and everywhere even rl.

Not everybody needs to play the map only for points, in a war where at the end nobody cares. and yes we are farming with scrolls BUT after some time we also try to bring them back. Otherwise the enemy faction will loose interest in us since they would know that the scroll will come back anyway.

also ballgroups can be used by the faction as bait, since they attract a lot enemys so the map is free te be conquered.

idk what i am doing here, i said to myself that i will not argue with haters and just answer questions.

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

And now you want applause for your hard work? Hard work in breaking game balance even more and frustrating casuals who don't want or have possibility to professionaly organise? Frustrating people who want just relax after work and not be trashed for 30 minutes in one keep with some 20 pet sorcs group or other broken options?

But the same could be said for PvP specific builds. Even BG for instance has become very frustrating for some players, despite with fast respawn and clear direction, and most of time there aren't pro premade groups.

What could possibly serve as equalizer? Limit group heals and disable voice communication...?

I greatly enjoy cooperative gameplay with a large guild group because it's playing with my friends. I found it far more cohesive and effective to play with and train with a team than it ever was PUGing it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed PUGing with randoms too. But when I want to capture keeps and fight for EP, there's nothing quite like rolling with my guild raid.

When we fought PUGs and zergs over keeps, we had the advantage in leadership, voice comms, and dedicated roles. I like playing healer in guild and as a PUG and I can't overstate the effectiveness of simply knowing when your group is going to push or retreat. Being in voice comms makes a world of difference in a fight, and most PUGs aren't even that coordinated. Most of my healer sets are useless in a PUG because my groupmates are scattered across the whole front of a keep when we siege. Compare that to the discipline of a guild raid! When we fight other guilds in big keep battles, the difference is night and day.

Don't make it sound like "discipline" is a bad thing. If you want to play casual with half the group splitting off to take the lumber mill while the other half starts sieging the door until you alert the enemy and get wiped in detail, go for it. But that's not how we wanted to play. Basic discipline like "stay on Crown" and "bring siege" and "push now" make our PVP experience much more fun than playing loosy-goosy.

That's not to say you can't have fun playing loosy-goosy. You can! But it's not how we wanted to play. It was far more fun putting in the effort to work together properly than it was to play loose and see where we lost battles because of it.

We fight for EP. We're a loyalist guild who plays for the faction score and capturing important keeps, not farming PUGs in back keeps unless it was a necessary distraction. And we take heat for it in zone chat. We took heat for PvDoor - nevermind that by PvDooring a keep we opened a window for our alliance to better attack or defend a more important location. We took heat for fighting at big battles versus other Guilds and enemy zergs because now we were "zerging". We took heat for scroll pushes when other people on the alliance wanted to do something else.

To this day, it absolutely befuddles me how many Zone Generals feel entitled to tell guilds what to do. And that goes for Forum Generals too, who want to tell guilds that 8 to 24 players in voice comms, dedicated roles, and working together is somehow not within the intended gameplay for Cyrodiil. It is, and even though ZOS tried to blame organized guild raids with their dedicated roles and ability to "spam" skills for the performance issues, weeks of Live testing showed that not to be the case. I would absolutely argue that dropping the raid size to 12 in pursuit of reducing server communication between group members did more to harm PUGs, PUG guilds, and less organized guilds than it did to harm the ball groups who were already running with close to 12 people.


You may not like the gameplay of organized guild raids - I don't expect to convince anyone to like it if they don't. But for all this talk of "morality" and "taking unhealthy advantage of ESO's freedom", claiming that Cyrodiil isn't balanced for it (like ZOS didn't just release sets intended to balance certain aspects of group play), or painting guilds as try-hards ruining the neighborhood pick-up game as though Cyrodiil is exclusively for casuals and PUGs...

Those criticisms might well be made of scorepushing Vet Trials groups. Nobody doubts that those guilds work together, communicate, theorycraft their builds to a "T", and train together to perform at the best of their ability. Nobody doubts that they push the ceiling higher, leading ZOS to make gameplay changes in response.

And no one doubts that they have fun doing it. I love running with my guildmates, fighting for EP, because win or lose we are having fun.

Blood for the Pact!

No one wants to hear this, but this is the worst thing that can happen to PvP in this game - but you guys will never see it. And that is the reason why you play with the same 100 people day in and day out. You complain all day about how PvP is dying or dead because ZoS doesn't support it. Nope that's not why. It's you and your elite groups, and the over-the-top damage in this game.

Most people who play games cannot commit to this level of dedication, and they're being tossed into battle with people who live and breath this game. They just wanna come in and have some fun. Similar to what they'd do in Counter-Strike or something. Get a few kills. Accept that they suck, but those few successes inspire them to try harder, improve their gear, etc.

I love pvp and have played pvp-centric MMOs for over 20 years (started with Ultima Online). I try so hard to get my friends in this game to pvp more (or at all) and they try it for a few days and never come back. Why? Because they go out there, maybe THINK about casting a spell or something. Get in range, instantly stunned and dead before they come unstunned. Over and over and over. "Charlie this is stupid! Who would want to play this garbage" And they go back to doing easy mode vet Trials so they can actually maybe use a couple skills before they are vaporized.

This is the first MMO I've ever played where a normal casual player will, as a rule, be stunned for 3-4 full seconds at the start of an encounter and die before he ever used a single ability. Magicka toons in heavy armor and sword/board. Every melee class with a gap closer they can spam. Kiting impossible unless you are a sorc. It's all so ridiculous to people from other MMOs. (not sure about WoW. Never played it.)

The pvp in this game will ONLY ever appeal to hardcore pvpers. Think about the millions of subs this game boasts, and how few of those people PvP. It's an awful experience for all but the most hardcore.

Personally I have learned to adapt. I play mostly solo/duo and do my own thing - as do many of you reading this, but in 20 years of MMOs I have never seen anything like this... and it's extremely off-turning to casual players.

It's never fun to be absolutely steamrolled over and over for 100% of your game time. But this is what cheese-ball groups offer for the casual player in Cyro.

CharlieFreak wrote: »

No one wants to hear this, but this is the worst thing that can happen to PvP in this game - but you guys will never see it. And that is the reason why you play with the same 100 people day in and day out. You complain all day about how PvP is dying or dead because ZoS doesn't support it. Nope that's not why. It's you and your elite groups, and the over-the-top damage in this game.

Most people who play games cannot commit to this level of dedication, and they're being tossed into battle with people who live and breath this game. They just wanna come in and have some fun. Similar to what they'd do in Counter-Strike or something. Get a few kills. Accept that they suck, but those few successes inspire them to try harder, improve their gear, etc.

I love pvp and have played pvp-centric MMOs for over 20 years (started with Ultima Online). I try so hard to get my friends in this game to pvp more (or at all) and they try it for a few days and never come back. Why? Because they go out there, maybe THINK about casting a spell or something. Get in range, instantly stunned and dead before they come unstunned. Over and over and over. "Charlie this is stupid! Who would want to play this garbage" And they go back to doing easy mode vet Trials so they can actually maybe use a couple skills before they are vaporized.

This is the first MMO I've ever played where a normal casual player will, as a rule, be stunned for 3-4 full seconds at the start of an encounter and die before he ever used a single ability. Magicka toons in heavy armor and sword/board. Every melee class with a gap closer they can spam. Kiting impossible unless you are a sorc. It's all so ridiculous to people from other MMOs. (not sure about WoW. Never played it.)

The pvp in this game will ONLY ever appeal to hardcore pvpers. Think about the millions of subs this game boasts, and how few of those people PvP. It's an awful experience for all but the most hardcore.

Personally I have learned to adapt. I play mostly solo/duo and do my own thing - as do many of you reading this, but in 20 years of MMOs I have never seen anything like this... and it's extremely off-turning to casual players.

It's never fun to be absolutely steamrolled over and over for 100% of your game time. But this is what cheese-ball groups offer for the casual player in Cyro.

I agree with much of what you have said. This is coming from someone that absolutely loves the PVP aspect of this game and plays solo or small group every single day but your reasons for the PVP in this game being inaccessible are spot on. I have many friends that won't step foot into PVP for the same problems which you listed. It feels almost impossible for them to learn the game. I can duel and teach them the mechanics but fighting and trying to kite these uber sweat groups is almost impossible for the average player. I can tell them they need triple swift, major expedition, snare removal and good positioning but there are certain things that just require possibly hundreds of hours of practice to do. Now I am not saying to dumb this game down or make it easier. But nerfing some of the mechanics that makes ball groups so strong (like regen stacking) would be VERY healthy for this game. Damage is also insanely over the top compared to other MMO's and by the time you can break free because of the lag, you're most likely already dead against these ball groups. The new sets they added were supposed to level the playing field against these groups but in fact, they're just being abused by the ball groups for even easier kills (who would've saw that one coming xD).

ESO PVP is for better or worse catered to the hardcore, admittedly I am one of those people but I do my best to try and help and ease other players that are interested get into it. I am not sure what exactly the solution is to pull more casual players into it because like I said, I'm not about dumbing the game down, but nerfing some of the borderline toxic and broken mechanics that ball groups can harness to become virtually unkillable. Ball groups get a bad rep and some with good reason. Running around a keep for 30 minutes wiping PUG's with a scroll and dumping it in the water is insanely toxic and the antithesis of what Cyrodiil is about. I don't want organized group play dismantled. An organized group SHOULD be able to wipe PUG's all day. But somehow, someway, something needs to change for the longevity and health of this games PVP scene. What we lack is the ability to get players to stick with PVP.

Arbiter7070 wrote: »

But nerfing some of the mechanics that makes ball groups so strong (like regen stacking) would be VERY healthy for this game.

Nerfing hot stacking would be the death of pugs. Same kind of thing as when healing was group only.

Gl sieging vs a big defense with 1 or 2 hots on you. It’s easy to overlook or not even notice zerg healers in a siege but the hots are the reason most pugs do not die in about 3 seconds.

It’s statements like this that bring bad changes into the game because zos actually listens to them sometimes…

Think of the bigger picture and not just how to kill ballgroups before writing stuff on a forum that the devs, for whatever reason, use to make changes to the game.

Reverb wrote: »

There are a lot of comments about the selfishness of ball group play, which isn’t entirely undeserved. It’s also ignoring that they are creating opportunity for their faction, and sadly most of the time their alliance doesn’t take advantage of it.

I do wish there were even the tiniest measure of communication with the other guild leaders on the server, or that they could be directed to where map strategists would get the most benefit (“hey this would be a great time for you guys to go farm Farra or Arruis and get red off our arse”), when they are active they are neutralizing a big chunk of your enemy population, creating opportunity for you to push. They are creating strife and infighting in enemy zone chat, as puglets argue, ask for help, ignore advice to ignore the ball, and blame their guilds and groups for not helping.

These situations could be a huge benefit to map and scoreboard players, and it’s seldom acted on effectively.

To OP and other ball group leaders, I suggest that goodwill may be gained with a simple line in chat once or twice a night “we’re holed up at ____ location for while, if you guys want to take advantage of that”.

Some guilds communicate in zone. Some guilds communicate with other guilds. It depends. Not everyone has the talent or inclination to be a Zone General, and sometimes telling Zone what you are doing is detrimental to the guild's tactics. It's all very situational.

And as you say, sometimes your faction doesn't pay attention. There were times my guild would start out cooperating, but if the faction wasn't following through, we'd do our own thing.


One of the big things ZOS did that I feel hurt Cyrodiil was to kill off the big PUG guilds. However much enemy players complained about the guilds who'd pick up two to three raids of PUGS and then "zerg" the map, at least they were battling at objectives and were largely welcoming places for new players to get their feet wet in PVP.

The big PUG raids also had players who were willing to Zone General. They were willing to say in zone chat "We're going to Chalman" knowing that the enemy might find out, but counting on the fact that random players and zergsurfers would follow them to Chalman and give them the edge in numbers. Meanwhile, a PVP guild might see it and decide "Hmm, we can ambush a different objective so if they win Chalman, we're in a better position!"

Sure, as a PVP guild who fought for objectives, we fought those PUG raid guilds a lot. We won a lot. But they weren't helpless and completely disorganized because they did have leadership and it made for really fun fights - not least because when the enemy's PUG raids and their ball groups teamed up to push for emperorship or defend a keep, things got really challenging!


The Live Testing and then permanently dropping to 12 man groups did a lot of damage to that playstyle. It's harder for 12-man groups to coordinate and survive with newer or less experienced players, which made up the bulk of PUGs before. It's harder for a good Zone General or PUG leader to collect players for a fight - and while that may delight small scalers, it's actually a bad thing if you want to beat ball groups who've infested your keep.

When you've got a PVP guild or a ball group, it's a lot easier to mow through 4 piecemeal 12-man PUGgroups who aren't following a leader than it is to fight two 24-man raids of PUGS following a guild leader in voice comms.

But ZOS thinks that 4 piecemeal groups of 12 is better for server communication, and then wonders why ball groups are stronger than ever...

If the flags of a keep are flipped, and all breaches are closed, start a 2-minute timer. After 2-minute timer ends, a keep-wide pulse of damage kills all enemy players inside.

Ball groups can still roll into opened keeps and capture quickly. They can roll into their own open keeps under attack and wipe attackers quickly. Ball groups can still run in circles around rocks on the paths between keeps, drawing in noobs and pugs. Or they can steamroll people at choke points like mile gates. Or they can see an enemy group with siege setup and roll in to kill all the enemies and burn their siege. Lots of opportunities for balls group to do ball group things.

All of the items I listed above feel like playing the game objective. Average players expect that enemy groups, some of them quite good, will try to stop you from capturing keeps. Or will try to take keeps. Or will engage at choke points to block you from getting into their territory. It stinks to lose, but it makes sense in the larger context of game.

But no more running in circles for 30 minutes inside closed enemy keeps. This above all else seems to be what infuriates average PvP players. It doesn't feel like expected gameplay. It feels like trolling.