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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
This type of stuff. Constant baiting, kiting, etc. And if instead of just one group the MCs of the video had another group on the other side of the zerg - it'd be a slaughter.
agreed. they think they are skilled because they are killing 10 babies / chickens instead of 1 swat guy and deserve the extra help
Why are you watching PvP on some youtubes that do not accurately convey PvP instead of going to do the PVP across multiple IPs yourself? I've already told you I'm not going take my time to dig through YouTube videos for you.
Go play the games, find out about AoE scaling.
Most people function well enough that they can learn basic maneuvers if they bothered bud. AoE scaling doesn't exist in most IPs. It exists in a few and it works. That's all I've said.
Play ESO or go play Albion. You can experience a proper group in both. I'm not sifting through hours of content to satisfy your request.
When there's no CD, people are going to run around in clumps. This is one of the components to stopping ballgroups, you've already made a correct point in a well designed map being another contributor to ending ball groups, then AoE scaling is also another component of destroying ball groups.
If the average player runs around in a ballgroup, then they're destined to be destroyed and that's okay, that's apart of learning not to clump up. So they can either adapt or they'll return to their previous title. Most people are intelligent enough to adapt.
Since you want to stay on topic, the OP has been talking about Ballgroups at length and how he doesn't like them. AoE scaling is a key component to destroying ballgroups.
Also, I'm not trying to change anyones opinion, I posted mechanics that work in support of the OP. The only arguments against this are people who have not experienced them.
This thread isn't about what "others want", this thread is about the ballzerg meta and how to deter/destroy it.
People are going to blanket AoE, there will be people getting stuck in overlapping AoEs, it's still going to work
I don't think you understand the mechanic of AoE scaling if you think it's an advantage. All it does it makes it so it hits less than single target abilities against single targets and then the damage increased per number of people standing in it, till it's at its full strength.
No one should be rewarded for effort alone, it's called effectiveness. If your skills are ineffectual you're not going to perform well as 5 people who may be more effectual than you.
But on the other hand if you can't kill 5 dudes because you decided to stand in the fire then that speaks of your ability of a player to do basic things and not the 5 guys.
If your group is ineffectual and not as good as the other, you're going to die. You shouldn't be rewarded because you slapped a zerg of people together.
You fight for a castle, you must be good enough to take it. Then, you must be good enough to keep it. Otherwise, you don't get a castle.
That's easy enough.
I really do not understand how you would manage to get shit on by 5 people if they are lesser than your 250 man zerg, but I suppose that's the nature of a zerg right? Zergs are naturally unskilled, unorganized, sloppy players who resort to running around in a big disorganized mass and using numbers to brute force PvP.
And none of the mass pvp video from Albion show any real organized movement. Well, one did. The one I posted. It showed a group of players literally running in a ball instead of lines or a spread out formation. I don't need to spend several months on an mmo to see that what you're saying doesn't work as well as you seem to think it does.
I have played a mass pvp mmo where small groups could kill zergs even w/o aoe scaling. And aoes there were still considered OP in mass pvp, because they'd do a ton of dmg to a ton of people due to no body collision. Ashes will have body collision and will, at the very least, have castle structure similar to L2's, which tells me that it doesn't need aoe scaling for small skillful groups to win against zerg.
You do realize that the second part of this post goes directly against the first part, right? You and the OP WANT to destroy ballzerg meta. So this thread is exactly about someone wanting something.
Which is why the other side of this discussion is about wanting to not have the mechanics that the OP suggested.
So have I, since beta even, or else I wouldn't have suggested it, it works effectively for organized groups. It would have been even more effective, if they applied the AoE scaling from prox det to AoEs in general.
The point of Albion being brought up was only the way they managed to implement their AoEs.
The thing about AoE scaling is it makes AoEs fair. They shouldn't be at max strength vs a single target, but they should be at max strength when theres the max amount of people per highest increment of damage in them.
That's why they're effective.
I got twenty years plus in PvP and you have played in mass PvP, so you know you wont get caught being noob and getting blown up by AoEs, great to know. Someone who runs in a clump, getting blown up, as they should.
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He attempting to figure out ways to cultivate a healthy meta and something higher tier than the ball zerg meta, in order to do that you must first consider how to get rid of it.
Ballzerg is minimal effort PvP, its a bunch of average joes running in a clump spamming the same two buttons and requiring minimum strategical and tactical acumen. That's not necessarily on them, that's on the designers for allowing such a design to exist in the first place. It's across several IPs, even.
It's a matter of "here are the tools to do it with", they work. They work well, I know they work well because I've used them. If others haven't figured out to use them, that is a reflection on them. I'm not trying to teach anyone how to press A or D, if they can type they know where the A and D button is.
but i can say the same about kiting. if you cant kill me because you stood up spamming your spells instead of kitting, that speaks of your ability of a player to do basic things. this is an actual skill, not getting an advantage because the game devs gave u scaling xDD can u see the difference?
one is about running back and forth, engaging and disengaging and not overextanding. the other one is about pressing a button when people run towards you and they die because of scaling and calling yourself good. they arent even standing on the fire, they just didnt even have time to move away because stupid scaling killed them.
also not all aoes are DoT aoe. a burst aoe will kill you on first hit with scaling.
you are right, thats why good guilds beat worse guilds in a castle siege
not true, in l2 you would organize urself in cp or statics. so a zerg of 90 people were 10 parties organized in cp and a 180 zerg people was 20 parties organized in cp, each one doing their thing instead of running like headless chicken lol. i guess u guys are too used to solo pvp games where zergs are just a bunch of solo players in the same guild.
This kinda seems like bad examples.
AoEs are meant to be unfair in big fights. That's, like, their entire point. An aoe that does half the dmg of a single target skill will do a shitton of dmg to a group of people, simply because it hits several targets.
An AoE that hits all those targets as if it was single target skills hitting them would be OP and is OP in Albion and seemingly in ESO. But even while being OP, neither of games seem to have solved the presumed ballgroup issue.
AoEs are already that tool and that meta. AoEs already punish people clumping together. That's why they exist - to hit several targets at the same time.
Making AoEs even more OP will only make this meta paramount and required. L2's aoes are roughly 2/3 the power of single target abilities, but you know who were the meta classes in all sieges? Mages with said aoes. Then when a certain melee class with an aoe skill got boosted - he became meta immediately (though mainly when his gear was OEd to all hell). Then later on archers got a huge dmg boost on their aoes. You know what happened? They became meta.
All of that w/o having scaling. In other words, aoes are already super OP in mass pvp. That's their job. Making them even more OP is too much.
Okay so the best sample you can get is to go play those games.
Aye that's pretty much AoE scaling accomplishes, a shit ton of damage to a lot of people in a big fight, without being absolutely busted in smaller skirmishes.
Yes it would, this is exactly why AoE scaling is good, people aren't getting shit on by broken levels of AoE in smaller skirmishes but are being punishes for clumping up like twits.
So your only PvP experience is L2? That's it? Go experience AoE scaling, then go experience other games. You lack it to be shitting on AoE scaling.
You want aoes to hit for a 100 (if not more), if they hit more than 2 people. So it'll always be more beneficial to use aoes instead of singles. Which leads to the very same meta that I experienced in L2, where all sieges and all mass pvp came down to aoe casters.
This meta then leads to healers needing a boost, because party heals usually cost more than singles, and if everyone is dying all the time (because the game is about bigger fights than fucking 3v3) - you need more heals.
With stronger/cheaper heals now the pve must be retuned, because it's become way easier. And classes that don't have as many aoes now have to be retuned as well, because they're completely out of meta and are deemed useless. And all of this shit stems from aoes being too powerful.
As for playing other games - not interested. I didn't play other mmos exactly because they look like shit to me. I'm not interested in tiny skirmishes of ESO, near 1v1 duels of BDO or insanely short ttk of Albion. I wanted a new L2 and I found it in Ashes. Massive battles with hundreds of people on either side with a long ttk. AoEs that hit for 1/2-2/3 of a single target ability fit this design just fine. And with body collision those aoes will be even weaker than L2's, which is exactly what I want.
Party skill will be shown through gameplay and not through pushing a single damn button.
Also, both you and OP keep saying "these aoes will spread out the clumps", but what the hell does that even mean? Like, what does that accomplish? You say that better players will just not clump up and will avoid those aoes, right? So what the fuck is the difference then? What if the same damn zerg is just running around with slightly more space in-between its players? How does that in any way change the smaller group's situation? The small group is still fucked and they will still die every time, because there's simply way more HP pool on the other side.
Neither of your examples have shown that your scaled aoes work against big groups, so why do you cling to them so much?
The aim of the thread is to invent a way to allow small parties defeat large ones only in skill combat.
First people should agree if that is indeed desired.
Second, there should be an agreement about what zerg means. Could be that a small group can become a zerg when facing an even smaller group.
We could have spells like chain lightning which deal increased damage at each jump from a target to the next.
The number of jumps and the increase in damage could depend on the caster and opponent party size.
Then a party of 300 facing one of 40 would send a team of 8 to force the 40 to split in 5 teams of 8 too and let only one fight.
Eventually we can create a gameplay where even if there are AoEs, nobody will use them and we could even remove them from the game.
Or we could make AoE useful in desperate situations where the larger team will loose many players just to kill the last elite opponent group. Would be like AoEs and every action combat spell or arrow would hit own party members too. AoE heal would heal enemies too. Maybe if I search historical battles I will find cases where long bow archers killed their own melee or cavalry but won the bigger battle.
ESO's approach requires a bit of skill, because it's a delayed effect directly around your character, so you gotta plan ahead and position yourself very correctly w/o your opponents noticing. But as a balance to those requirement the damage on the bomb is fucking huge. AND EVEN WITH ALL THAT, the game still has literal ballgroups as an op method of playing and one of the commenters here said that ESO's countermeasures don't work all that well against zerg.
We have aoes that are meant to hit more than one person in their radius. That is already a tool that works. We'll have body collision, which is an organic tool that prevents clumping. If we have good territorial design that organically splits the huge crowds even further - we'll be just fine in dealing with ballzergs, because there won't even be a proper ballzerg, cause it's physically impossible to have one when half your map is littered with stuff that you gotta run around, all while you can only fit 3 characters between that stuff.
Albion seems to have that precise design. It's just that on top of that good design they decided to have insanely op aoes that can deal ~50%HP in dmg.
Solvryn and I agreed to try both of our side's games. He'll try out L2, while I'll see how Albion works. I'm not sure either of us will be able to make a proper judgement on these games in any short amount of time, but there'll at least be an attempt.
but the bigger group can just send 1 player to flank the smaller group and aoe them into the void, since the smaller group will now become the bigger group xDDDD
Two players should never zerg one!
Just a small extension to "a player with a Lv40 sword should never lose against a player with a Lv35 sword" concept.
I hope you will have a nice Christmas
I am not quite sure how to read this.
If it's "one button combat", that's actually not the case - that's not how AoE scaling actually functions as a mechanic.
If you are saying the idea is to get a higher skill ceiling out of the game, that is absolutely the point of me supporting the OP on this thread.
Ballzergs are just average players trying to brute force numbers, so them getting blown up for being stupid is the proper response.
AoE scaling allows an AoE skill to be the proper strength for the amount of people in it and at max, it does a shit ton of damage and will force people to spread.
The thing is that there isn't just going to be one button, there will be tanks with aegis to counteract this, there will be many buttons on the battle field which will prevent people from getting obliterated, but I am absolutely a fan of people who stand in the big red fire, should die - and deserve it too.
Ah, so you want AoE but with skill.
I thought AoE is seen always as a bad mechanic in zergs, by OP.
OK then, looking forward to see the sieges in Alpha 2.
but how they gonna do all that if they are headless chicken? thats the point, its a win button for no reason
Making AoE abilities do this seems to me to be a developers reaction to such behavior in their game at a point where it is too late to implement any better solution. It definately isnt what a game still in development should be considering.
I'm curious to read more thoughts and ideas about how zergs or death-balls could be fought, perhaps besides with AoE!
If you fundamentally took the time to realize how AoE scaling works, you would understand it doesn't turn AoEs into a win button.
I introduced the mechanic in already knowing that CD, Map Design, and Objectives will already be a part of Ashes. AoE scaling helps in mass PvP without being overpowering and outshining single target abilities.
Ideally it would also not push you off of cliffs, but that comes down to coding and design choices.
Scatter Shot AoEs with stagger.
l.o.l.
Movement, atk speed, cast speed, defs - all scaling depending on the victim's proximity to victims linked to them by the aoe. If those victims stay within a certain range from each other for, say, 3 clicks of the debuff timer - they get a full new debuff on all of them (respectively: root, inability to attack, silence, a small aoe blast that puts their def debuff onto everyone within that aoe).
Spice it up with different application methods of the aoe debuff and you got yourself some skill-based comparisons of coordination of groups.
Add push/pull abilities on top of that and you got yourself an even deeper skill-based system.
None of that "one button fucking kills 10 people on the spot" bullshit, but a ton of complex interactions that require coordinated movements and reactions from both sides of the encounter. Now this kind of scaling is exactly what I can get behind.
Oh lord, I don't know how many times I'm going to have to tell you how AoE scaling works before you fully understand it.
It's not "one button nukes people." There are many AoEs in the game and AoE scaling as a mechanic can apply to all AoEs.
AoE scaling apply to all AoEs in the game, so they're not too over powered vs 1 or 2 people and they become the most powerful with max people standing in the AoE.
That doesn't include.
The shape of the AoE, the base damage of the AoE, the tertiary affects of those abilities, the counters to those abilities, healing, etc.