"Deathball"/Ganking Meta Feedback

[UbiJurassic]

Per our latest Warrior's Den stream, our team has requested to hear the community's feedback regarding the concerns some players have shared regarding the deathball/ganking meta in 4v4 modes. We'd love to hear if you believe it is or isn't a major concern and any constructive suggestions you may have that would help address the problem.

[Nekra]

My biggest problem with Gankball meta. Is just how screwed you can be. Where you can be punished even though you played the situation to the best of your ability. IE parrying someone only to get shugoki hugged or bashed into an EnV. Or getting guard broken and top heavied while you CGB. Or getting hit with an unblockable while you’re in a blocking animation. Or getting guardbroken off a gladiator toe stab.

High level feats propose a problem too just because of how easy it is to throw a bomb, catapult, or firebomb or spear storm into a horde. There’s no way to tell who’s it is, and it destroys one side and scratches the other.

There are also still some inconsistencies where revenge activation won’t stop crowd control from happening. Highlander and shugoki cause a lot of them.

Overall, because of how animation lock heavy the game can be sometimes, I’d recommend some kind of protection while locked into parrying. Blocking, cgb, etc. perhaps reduced damage, increased mass, etc. Because there are so many circumstances where you just are not allowed to defend yourself. Like dodging a LAWBRINGER shoulder flip as a non dash attack character to get untechable guard broken

Friendly fire on feats would be good too, as well as higher friendly fire on regular attacks so wide sweeping characters cannot just spam without risk. This plagues team fights where nobushi can just spam dash heavy and use a different lock on target to hit everyone.

[76561198359476007]

Make Revenge Stronger, at least defensively as a damage soak and time waster, based on how many enemies are near, similar to how you get more revenge gain based on how many are near. Change revenge so that you can use it at any time, including on the ground or in the air. Make it so you can't just be GB spammed to death during it.

[Saint Landwalker]

My personal opinion is that this is not a big issue by itself. Deathballing is not viable in any sort of competitive match, because it concentrates all of a team's firepower in a small area to the detriment of the rest of the map. In Dominion, that means at least two zones that are vulnerable to capture. In Tribute, it means ignoring offerings and allowing the other team to potentially acquire additional bonuses. Defending against a deathball doesn't mean defeating them, it means stalling (to better allow teammates to capitalize on vulnerable areas) or avoiding (and capitalizing on those vulnerable areas).

However, in public matches of solo-queuing players, it can be problematic. The reason is that there is almost no communication with teammates when solo-queuing. Voice chat no longer works at all, and most players have chat turned off because Ubisoft decided this should be the default setting. There's no Quick Chat option for "stop running into the whole enemy team by yourself like a buffoon, use the buddy system, and go focus on other parts of the map." And let's be honest, if there were, it would just be ignored.

The solution to the non-existent "deathball" meta is twofold, methinks:

• Ubisoft needs to do more to foster intra-team communication in public / solo-queuing matches.
  
  
• Players need to stop trying to yolo everything and expecting to win against overwhelming odds. Start playing intelligently and stop playing selfishly. You'd be amazed at what literally the bare minimum level of cooperation and coordination can accomplish.

Edit: A few other issues off the top of my head, though:

• Revenge is too weak against CC/GB spam. It's still too easy to get staggered, and once you're staggered in a gank, you're dead.
  
  
• The feat system creates a situation where victory breeds more victory, and defeat breeds more defeat. As a consequence, once a match starts to become unbalanced, it slides out of control very quickly as the winners get stronger and the losers have nothing with which to turn the tables. A different way to incorporate / access feats is pretty much necessary in order to solve this and promote more of a "comeback / underdog" dynamic instead of the current avalanche system.

[Nekra]

Originally posted by Landwalker:

My personal opinion is that this is not a big issue by itself. Deathballing is not viable in any sort of competitive match, because it concentrates all of a team's firepower in a small area to the detriment of the rest of the map. In Dominion, that means at least two zones that are vulnerable to capture. In Tribute, it means ignoring offerings and allowing the other team to potentially acquire additional bonuses. Defending against a deathball doesn't mean defeating them, it means stalling (to better allow teammates to capitalize on vulnerable areas) or avoiding (and capitalizing on those vulnerable areas).

However, in public matches of solo-queuing players, it can be problematic. The reason is that there is almost no communication with teammates when solo-queuing. Voice chat no longer works at all, and most players have chat turned off because Ubisoft decided this should be the default setting. There's no Quick Chat option for "stop running into the whole enemy team by yourself like a buffoon, use the buddy system, and go focus on other parts of the map." And let's be honest, if there were, it would just be ignored.

The solution to the non-existent "deathball" meta is twofold, methinks:

• Ubisoft needs to do more to foster intra-team communication in public / solo-queuing matches.
  
  
• Players need to stop trying to yolo everything and expecting to win against overwhelming odds. Start playing intelligently and stop playing selfishly. You'd be amazed at what literally the bare minimum level of cooperation and coordination can accomplish.

I do agree with this for the most part. I think what we perceive as “deathball” is really just lack of communication.

I think what bothers me the most is some characters just can’t fight more then one opponent because they can be forced into too many situations in which they can’t react unless the opponents just go full potato.

[Trippy Drug]

I think that even if Damien is correct to assume that the deathball meta is not a thing in higher levels of play, it is still something that has to be adressed.

To begin with,the reason it's not a thing in high levels of play is because in these levels, people are usually entering games with pre-made teams, and know what they are doing, so the chances of ending up ganked aren't as likely.

However players like me for instance, who will usually play solo, can't co-ordinate with their random teammates well, allowing the opponents - especially in cases in which the opposing team, unlike yours, is premade - to easily gank you and many times dispose you in a matter of seconds, due to the many easily accessible unblockables heroes have at the current state of the game.And because it's quite likely that a player won't necessarily be matched with teammates with skill equal of his in solo queue this makes the problem even more serious.

Back when revenge was nerfed we didn't have as many characters with so many unblockables that could be so easily be spammed. Especially after the recent reworks and buffs to the highlander the situation is worse than ever. Not that the reworks were a bad thing of course, but they did make ganks even harder to survive.

The arguably easiest way to fix this is to buff revenge again. Maybe give a generous percentage of damage reduction depending on the amount of people you are against? I don't think buffing the offensive capabilities during revenge would be the right way to go about things, that's for certain. But defense needs a serious buff. Another way to weaken the deathball meta would be to give permanent hyper armor to it at all times, but this could end up being a bit overpowered, maybe.

What could also be done to battle the deathball meta would be to make chat be on by default, because if you are going to encourage people to not have nearly any sort of communication with their team, then avoiding ganks will be even harder, obviously.

[RhodosGuard]

I decide to check the forums when I see an update and Ubi is requesting feedback.
Is this a fever dream?

[UbiJurassic]

Originally posted by RhodosGuard:

I decide to check the forums when I see an update and Ubi is requesting feedback.
Is this a fever dream?

I mean, we're always in the business of collecting feedback from players and sharing it with the team.

[Blacklion]

Originally posted by CybermΩnk:

I think that even if Damien is correct to assume that the deathball meta is not a thing in higher levels of play, it is still something that has to be adressed.

To begin with,the reason it's not a thing in high levels of play is because in these levels, people are usually entering games with pre-made teams, and know what they are doing, so the chances of ending up ganked aren't as likely.

However players like me for instance, who will usually play solo, can't co-ordinate with their random teammates well, allowing the opponents - especially in cases in which the opposing team, unlike yours, is premade - to easily gank you and many times dispose you in a matter of seconds, due to the many easily accessible unblockables heroes have at the current state of the game.And because it's quite likely that a player won't necessarily be matched with teammates with skill equal of his in solo queue this makes the problem even more serious.

Back when revenge was nerfed we didn't have as many characters with so many unblockables that could be so easily be spammed. Especially after the recent reworks and buffs to the highlander the situation is worse than ever. Not that the reworks were a bad thing of course, but they did make ganks even harder to survive.

The arguably easiest way to fix this is to buff revenge again. Maybe give a generous percentage of damage reduction depending on the amount of people you are against? I don't think buffing the offensive capabilities during revenge would be the right way to go about things, that's for certain. But defense needs a serious buff. Another way to weaken the deathball meta would be to give permanent hyper armor to it at all times, but this could end up being a bit overpowered, maybe.

Another way to battle the deathball meta would be to make chat be on by default, because if you are going to encourage people to not have nearly any sort of communication with their team, then avoiding ganks will be even harder, obviously.

Revenge needs to work in tiers...such as you gain little to none in a 1v1 but a higher percentage in a 1v2 and so on. That way your offensive and defensive capabilities increase in more dire circumstances.

Also revenge needs to actually defend the user during activation. I've been hit by countless CC moves even through the immunity window that cause stagger and get me killed.

Also fighting as a team on the objectives needs to be an incentive. That way they can safely lower points for ganking and place it into "teamwork" points.

Explosive feats need to reworked for friendly fire and startup so things like Bombringer and Dartboard Pugio Catapult can be toned down. Personally I think passive feats would be great for breaking opponents as well.

[Ziggylata]

Originally posted by UbiJurassic:

Originally posted by RhodosGuard:

I decide to check the forums when I see an update and Ubi is requesting feedback.
Is this a fever dream?

I mean, we're always in the business of collecting feedback form players and sharing it with the team.

I think what hes implying is that this wasnt the case for a long time with this game, things being added and problematic characters never being touched.

I agree with a lot of what landwalker says.

[Lupo89]

"Deathball" is an issues that has to be fixed by the community itself, if the devs intervene with buffs in to revenge and stuff like that, it will break the balance.

Even when you play solo in random public matches the team always works together for the first minutes of the game.
And there you see who is better at 3vs3 or sometimes even 4vs4 ganking, most people don't re group after that because the enemy already build an considerable advantage in points and so they try to split them up by taking different zones.

I think devs did good to nerf the attack and defense on gear stats, now is up to people to put some effort in to stats that are meant for team work and not selfism.
Like investing on that revive.

[Skygaze]

Originally posted by Landwalker:

My personal opinion is that this is not a big issue by itself.

However, in public matches of solo-queuing players, it can be problematic

Yeah it's only an issue if the team lacks communication or doesn't know how to play, so I don't see it as an issue tbh as it's the team's fault for letting it happen.

Sure, it can be annoying as a solo queue because you're basically playing the lottery each game but that's solo queue.

Originally posted by Landwalker:

The solution to the non-existent "deathball" meta is twofold, methinks:

• Ubisoft needs to do more to foster intra-team communication in public / solo-queuing matches.
  
  
• Players need to stop trying to yolo everything and expecting to win against overwhelming odds. Start playing intelligently and stop playing selfishly. You'd be amazed at what literally the bare minimum level of cooperation and coordination can accomplish.

They seem to be butchering communication outside of a group instead of encouraging it, which is somewhat understandable but for someone like me that doesn't get offended by anything I don't see the whole "Ew toxicity" argument. People obviously have an issue with it though.

I've noticed people complaining about ganking in general are usually the yolo types. Sure, sometimes it's un-avoidable but with communication (Rip) it's easy to deal with.

[ONISAIBOT]

It is quite refreshing to see the difference in playstyles between a lobby of rep 10s - 80s vs. a lobby of 100s+. People tend to play alot more coordinated, do not ignore pings and tend not to try to defend entirely useless and unstrategic positions on the map. In addition, you barely see people try to search and destroy on their own, as they know that's when they become easy prey themselves.

Ergo, the ganking meta 'problem' has less to do with a faulty game mechanic than people just not realizing what's best for the team and how to act competently in one.

[Csx39]

Personally i think there should be a system that the more you get hit in a stunlock the less damage the attacks do and randomly spamming attacks in a gank should be punished and coordinated fanning should be rewarded

[Dorito Man]

There is a difference between a Deathball and ganking meta.

Deathball is fine, since it is relatively easy to counter, so long as your team is not idiotic.

The large issue is the gank-focused gameplay. Team modes are much less about personal skill and tactical thinking, and more about just sticking with your teammates and memorizing a set of rules of what to do during a teamfight or gank.

This I contribute to three factors:

Turtling: Being able to turtle almost indefinitely in a 1v1 allows you to stall for time until a teammate shows up, and then win the 2v1. Due to this, people largely refuse to fight 1v1s in Dominion and will solely fight once their teammate has arrived. However, this problem should be largely resolved once the hero reworks come around.


Poor Gank-Fighting Mechanics: This is a major one. The large amount of ways to leave an opponent with no chance of retaliation is absurd and makes gank-fighting more about just surviving and not about actually trying to fight back. Skill is completely sucked out of these fights, as no amount of skill can keep you out of many of these situations. Just to name a few:

Vulnerability while CGBing, vulnerability after dodging an unblockable, unblockable attacks being masked by other attacks, attacks that are not on your screen, vulnerability while performing punishes, etc.

All of these things make it impossible to win against teamfights if your opponents know what they are doing. I can tell a teammate who barely understands what they are doing to just play Shugoki and use his Demon Embrace whenever the opponent does anything such as dodge, parry, attack, etc. while they are focused on me.


Weakness of Revenge: In Revenge’s current state, it can be a tide-turner in 1v1s, but is largely useless in ganks. The auto-parry into max punish allows you to easily swing a 1v1 around, however, the short duration and overall little effect makes it just a time-waster in ganks. Revenge needs a serious buff in order to become useful in ganks, HOWEVER, Revenge gain needs to be adjusted to only become relevant in actual gank scenarios such as 2v1s, 3v2s, etc. Its gain should scale up based on the amount of enemies ganking, but should not be gained at all in fair fights. It also must become strong enough once activated to be able to actually give the Revenge user a chance to fight back and possibly overcome the gank.


If these three things were to be fixed, I would probably enjoy the 4v4 modes much more, as it would start taking personal skill into account and force players to make more tacticsl decisions besides just stick together as much as possible and run away/turtle if you are caught in a fair fight or multiple opponents.

PS: If you’re one of the people that consistently runs away from 1v1s, you are an actual coward, and you make my life miserable.

[roylegent]

Originally posted by CybermΩnk:

I think that even if Damien is correct to assume that the deathball meta is not a thing in higher levels of play, it is still something that has to be adressed.

To begin with,the reason it's not a thing in high levels of play is because in these levels, people are usually entering games with pre-made teams, and know what they are doing, so the chances of ending up ganked aren't as likely.

However players like me for instance, who will usually play solo, can't co-ordinate with their random teammates well, allowing the opponents - especially in cases in which the opposing team, unlike yours, is premade - to easily gank you and many times dispose you in a matter of seconds, due to the many easily accessible unblockables heroes have at the current state of the game.And because it's quite likely that a player won't necessarily be matched with teammates with skill equal of his in solo queue this makes the problem even more serious.

Back when revenge was nerfed we didn't have as many characters with so many unblockables that could be so easily be spammed. Especially after the recent reworks and buffs to the highlander the situation is worse than ever. Not that the reworks were a bad thing of course, but they did make ganks even harder to survive.

The arguably easiest way to fix this is to buff revenge again. Maybe give a generous percentage of damage reduction depending on the amount of people you are against? I don't think buffing the offensive capabilities during revenge would be the right way to go about things, that's for certain. But defense needs a serious buff. Another way to weaken the deathball meta would be to give permanent hyper armor to it at all times, but this could end up being a bit overpowered, maybe.

What could also be done to battle the deathball meta would be to make chat be on by default, because if you are going to encourage people to not have nearly any sort of communication with their team, then avoiding ganks will be even harder, obviously.

If you cannot co-ordinate with random guys, it probably mostly is because you hope they think the same way you do to win a fight, get a zone back etc. You then need to adapt to them, not the other way around.

Since you are better or are able to analyse the whole situation in a different way than your mates, I guess you need to play your teammates's way, even if that means to forget a kill you would have gotten with other people, a zone back etc.

People like to go yolo even if that means they are about to die in 10 seconds, get frustrated and do not listen to any help/order. I think Ubi cannot do anything there besides acitcating chat again or creating some new quick messages, it is the player's fault for dying again and again. They cannot objectively determine their own skill level and spend time fighting a foe who is mostly toying with them to win time.

People need to practise more. They need to be able to analyse whats going on on the battlefield: helping a teammate who is going to get executed, even if it means to swallow a heavy hit from someone else, at least their mate won't need to wait 20 sec and another might revive the downed one.

Folks are unfortunately so eager to get a kill ; they simply do not lock to the next enemy to help: they simply lack the ability to observe what is going on.

That is, in my opinion, the big problem.