Anti-Ball-Group

MurkyWetWolf198 · January 2023

Look, I know some players enjoy it, but a group of enemy players sitting in the middle of a fully repaired enemy keep farming people and just doing nothing productive ruins the game for a lot of cyrodiil people.
I propose this as a counter; While a keep's walls (all of them) are above 50%, the guards ON THE INSIDE (not outside) turn into the overland guards that are impossible to kill and eventually one-shot players. They should be stationed plentifully throughout the keep so that enemy players camping inside a keep that IS NOT under siege cannot sit and farm traveler's going by. The guards will start one-shotting them to the point of unsustainability, and this would be completely fair because that ball group is not sieging the keep and thus actively ignoring the premise of Cyrodiil.
Thoughts?

CGPsaint · January 2023

To me there is a difference between actively flipping resources 24-7 in enemy territory, and sitting in enemy keeps with troll-tank builds just to mess with people, so I'm all for guards that clean up the trash after the fight is over.

Zama666 · January 2023

I think it is for players to knock the trolls off.

I can't stand them, but I don't want the game to ban a style of game play some choose to do.

I would to be good enough at PvP to go in there and knock the troll off myself...and maybe that day will come.

jecks33 · January 2023

Stop being farmed in a non-under attack keep is the best strategy against ball groups

AndreNoir · January 2023

Zama666 wrote: »

I can't stand them, but I don't want the game to ban a style of game play some choose to do.

In any other game such playstyle is called "griefing"

chessalavakia_ESO · January 2023

You ram into a few potential issues with that:

First, the players engaging in that style of behavior enjoy it and will likely complain.

Second, the players engaging in that style of behavior will likely adjust to engage in slightly different tactics.

Third, I'm unsure if you intend this or not but, this would also potentially prevent players that are inside a keep from capping it if the walls are intact.

Fourth, players may deliberately draw the guards outside the fort to insta kill players.

The_Titan_Tim · January 2023

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

Look, I know some players enjoy it, but a group of enemy players sitting in the middle of a fully repaired enemy keep farming people and just doing nothing productive ruins the game for a lot of cyrodiil people.
I propose this as a counter; While a keep's walls (all of them) are above 50%, the guards ON THE INSIDE (not outside) turn into the overland guards that are impossible to kill and eventually one-shot players. They should be stationed plentifully throughout the keep so that enemy players camping inside a keep that IS NOT under siege cannot sit and farm traveler's going by. The guards will start one-shotting them to the point of unsustainability, and this would be completely fair because that ball group is not sieging the keep and thus actively ignoring the premise of Cyrodiil.
Thoughts?

This would solve the problem of invincible Mist Form tanks trolling inside keeps too.

Treeshka · January 2023

As far as i know if you stay inside the Scrolls Base when the gate is closed you get killed by the scroll itself after some time. Maybe similar approach can be implement to castles. Basically if all walls are above certain percentage and the castle is not attacked for a while every enemy inside dies.

Thecompton73 · January 2023

I proposed a very similar idea before. It's obvious Zos can't solve this through sets or skills without either giving the ball groups themselves new tools or nerfing everyone else too so they still wind up OP in comparison.
However rather than making the interior guards become invincible at unflagging I'd prefer a ramping mechanic inside unflagged keeps. So if you're inside to legitimately stealth retake it's possible. But every time you kill a guard they'd respawn 2-3 minutes later with twice the health, mitigation, and damage. Have every interior guards aggo range increase each time one is killed and add a few to the upper ring. So after about 10-15 minutes of farming the adds would have respawned so many times they'd be tough enough and aggressive enough to help drive out a ballgroup. It wouldn't kill the playstyle but it would limit how long they could engage in the behavior, keeping it from getting to the point it becomes "griefing". The guards could reset to regular strength when they're all alive and none are in combat or the keep flags.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · January 2023

jecks33 wrote: »

Stop being farmed in a non-under attack keep is the best strategy against ball groups

Seriously, if people ignore them, they will move on. Ball groups are just looking for chum in the waters, dont be the chum.

That said, I would not be terribly opposed to guards being a little more powerful inside a fully repaired keep to help deter ball groups and gankers (coming from a ganker that loves nothing more than slipping inside an enemy keep before the walls go up). One shots might be extreme, but some unblockable chains to pull players away from their group would certainly be entertaining. Perhaps some guards that have a large detect radius like in heist quests wouldnt hurt either.

TechMaybeHic · January 2023

Generally the ball groups go to a tri keep so if you ignore them, they try to light and take the keep to force you not to ignore them.

Maybe just make it so you can't damage walls and doors from inside and need the keep to have an opening both outer and inner to capture. Then you could just repair, ignore, and move on. Maybe even limit that to trikeeps. IDK

Amottica · January 2023

The best means to handle a "ball group" is a decent group of players with a decent leader. Otherwise, ignore them as Tech notes.

CGPsaint · January 2023

AndreNoir wrote: »

Zama666 wrote: »

I can't stand them, but I don't want the game to ban a style of game play some choose to do.

In any other game such playstyle is called "griefing"

Griefing was a pretty big issue back in Ultima Online, but they actually had Game Masters that could be summoned that dealt with the shenanigans.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · January 2023

Amottica wrote: »

The best means to handle a "ball group" is a decent group of players with a decent leader. Otherwise, ignore them as Tech notes.

AKA, the best way to handle i.e. kill a "ball group" is with a better "ball group".

Necrotech_Master · January 2023

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

jecks33 wrote: »

Stop being farmed in a non-under attack keep is the best strategy against ball groups

Seriously, if people ignore them, they will move on. Ball groups are just looking for chum in the waters, dont be the chum.

That said, I would not be terribly opposed to guards being a little more powerful inside a fully repaired keep to help deter ball groups and gankers (coming from a ganker that loves nothing more than slipping inside an enemy keep before the walls go up). One shots might be extreme, but some unblockable chains to pull players away from their group would certainly be entertaining. Perhaps some guards that have a large detect radius like in heist quests wouldnt hurt either.

cyrodiil guards technically already see through stealth up to around 28-30 meters

they DONT see through invisibility (such as cloak) or have full anti-stealth circles like in heists (which comparably are pretty small compared to the normal guards ability to see through invisibility only being like 6-8 meters)

now if guards could see through all forms of invisibility too or also have the anti-stealth circles like the ones in heists, it would make it much harder to hide inside of a keep

the guards also already have 2 states, normal and buffed (if the keep still has its farm), but even the buffed guards stand 0 chance against even a small group of players (i can even solo resources with buffed guards, its a harder fight, but certainly not impossible)

either the buffs for the guards need to be increased, or the guards straight up need more skills that they can use since most of them have like only a few attacks, and even fewer of those are even dangerous/annoying enough that the guard needs to be focused down

Flangdoodle · January 2023

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

Look, I know some players enjoy it, but a group of enemy players sitting in the middle of a fully repaired enemy keep farming people and just doing nothing productive ruins the game for a lot of cyrodiil people.
I propose this as a counter; While a keep's walls (all of them) are above 50%, the guards ON THE INSIDE (not outside) turn into the overland guards that are impossible to kill and eventually one-shot players. They should be stationed plentifully throughout the keep so that enemy players camping inside a keep that IS NOT under siege cannot sit and farm traveler's going by. The guards will start one-shotting them to the point of unsustainability, and this would be completely fair because that ball group is not sieging the keep and thus actively ignoring the premise of Cyrodiil.
Thoughts?

Problem is - if it's based on w/r the walls are repaired or not, why wouldn't the ball groups just continually bomb anyone who tries to repair?

Quackery · January 2023

Flangdoodle wrote: »

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

Look, I know some players enjoy it, but a group of enemy players sitting in the middle of a fully repaired enemy keep farming people and just doing nothing productive ruins the game for a lot of cyrodiil people.
I propose this as a counter; While a keep's walls (all of them) are above 50%, the guards ON THE INSIDE (not outside) turn into the overland guards that are impossible to kill and eventually one-shot players. They should be stationed plentifully throughout the keep so that enemy players camping inside a keep that IS NOT under siege cannot sit and farm traveler's going by. The guards will start one-shotting them to the point of unsustainability, and this would be completely fair because that ball group is not sieging the keep and thus actively ignoring the premise of Cyrodiil.
Thoughts?

Problem is - if it's based on w/r the walls are repaired or not, why wouldn't the ball groups just continually bomb anyone who tries to repair?

You can repair the wall from the outside too.

And I think that guards being able to take down ball groups in a fully repaired keep is the easiest way to "solve" the issue of ball groups. Any other solution like new sets or adjustment of skills will mean nothing because ball groups will adapt to them. The only thing they can't adapt to is unkillable guards that WILL wipe you out after 2-3 minutes of running around.

Jaimeh · January 2023

Some people stealth inside to retake the keep, or are just afk, or 1vx in the towers, so there's other reasons why they might stay behind other than to troll with a ball group. Though I agree it's very annoying when it happens, I call these groups the 'time-wasters' because they are not playing for the map, and they are keeping others from playing for the map since you can't leave them inside the keep, and have to either wipe them or drive them out which takes time from doing other useful attaching/defending.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · January 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

jecks33 wrote: »

Stop being farmed in a non-under attack keep is the best strategy against ball groups

Seriously, if people ignore them, they will move on. Ball groups are just looking for chum in the waters, dont be the chum.

That said, I would not be terribly opposed to guards being a little more powerful inside a fully repaired keep to help deter ball groups and gankers (coming from a ganker that loves nothing more than slipping inside an enemy keep before the walls go up). One shots might be extreme, but some unblockable chains to pull players away from their group would certainly be entertaining. Perhaps some guards that have a large detect radius like in heist quests wouldnt hurt either.

cyrodiil guards technically already see through stealth up to around 28-30 meters

they DONT see through invisibility (such as cloak) or have full anti-stealth circles like in heists (which comparably are pretty small compared to the normal guards ability to see through invisibility only being like 6-8 meters)

now if guards could see through all forms of invisibility too or also have the anti-stealth circles like the ones in heists, it would make it much harder to hide inside of a keep

the guards also already have 2 states, normal and buffed (if the keep still has its farm), but even the buffed guards stand 0 chance against even a small group of players (i can even solo resources with buffed guards, its a harder fight, but certainly not impossible)

either the buffs for the guards need to be increased, or the guards straight up need more skills that they can use since most of them have like only a few attacks, and even fewer of those are even dangerous/annoying enough that the guard needs to be focused down

@Necrotech_Master

I actually didn't know that about Cyro Guards. That seems like a big radius, but I trust you. Ultimately, I am not sure it matters, because most gankers that sneak into a keep once the walls go up are NBs that just spam cloak. You can certainly just spam cloak right next to a guard. I have ganked people literally standing between two guards. They will agro, but you can just cloak and disappear and the guards go about their business.

I still think the best thing that would at least be somewhat balanced from a ball group standpoint is to have the guards be very aggressive with some sort of chain/pull mechanic. As much as I dislike ball groups, I just dont like the idea of an automatic one shots or being completely unkillable. But you chain moist individual players 20 meters away from their ball group, they can be killed quickly.

Necrotech_Master · January 2023

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

jecks33 wrote: »

Stop being farmed in a non-under attack keep is the best strategy against ball groups

Seriously, if people ignore them, they will move on. Ball groups are just looking for chum in the waters, dont be the chum.

That said, I would not be terribly opposed to guards being a little more powerful inside a fully repaired keep to help deter ball groups and gankers (coming from a ganker that loves nothing more than slipping inside an enemy keep before the walls go up). One shots might be extreme, but some unblockable chains to pull players away from their group would certainly be entertaining. Perhaps some guards that have a large detect radius like in heist quests wouldnt hurt either.

cyrodiil guards technically already see through stealth up to around 28-30 meters

they DONT see through invisibility (such as cloak) or have full anti-stealth circles like in heists (which comparably are pretty small compared to the normal guards ability to see through invisibility only being like 6-8 meters)

now if guards could see through all forms of invisibility too or also have the anti-stealth circles like the ones in heists, it would make it much harder to hide inside of a keep

the guards also already have 2 states, normal and buffed (if the keep still has its farm), but even the buffed guards stand 0 chance against even a small group of players (i can even solo resources with buffed guards, its a harder fight, but certainly not impossible)

either the buffs for the guards need to be increased, or the guards straight up need more skills that they can use since most of them have like only a few attacks, and even fewer of those are even dangerous/annoying enough that the guard needs to be focused down

@Necrotech_Master

I actually didn't know that about Cyro Guards. That seems like a big radius, but I trust you. Ultimately, I am not sure it matters, because most gankers that sneak into a keep once the walls go up are NBs that just spam cloak. You can certainly just spam cloak right next to a guard. I have ganked people literally standing between two guards. They will agro, but you can just cloak and disappear and the guards go about their business.

I still think the best thing that would at least be somewhat balanced from a ball group standpoint is to have the guards be very aggressive with some sort of chain/pull mechanic. As much as I dislike ball groups, I just dont like the idea of an automatic one shots or being completely unkillable. But you chain moist individual players 20 meters away from their ball group, they can be killed quickly.

i also dont really agree with 1 shots or being unkillable, but the guards inside of a keep certainly could use some buffs, or at the minimum the anti-stealth circles (really guards in general, since they are such a fairly low threat even when buffed lol)

normal seeing through stealth only really is a detriment if you dont have invis pots or are not a NB, i havent pinpointed the exact range on this, but its far larger detect radius than normal NPCs (using an addon like ssrendar and showing target buffs, they actually have a buff called "see stealth" which is probably some massive detect radius buff)