Three teams (4v4v4) will almost never lead to an enjoyable gameplay experience

ecru

Balanced matchmaking in a 4v4v4 match up means that you lose two thirds of your games instead of half of your games like a proper ELO matchmaking system would lead to.

BG's were destined to fail from the start. It's a bad system that will leave players frustrated as they will almost always lose more than they win.

Just about every other game doesn't have this sort of system in instanced pvp for a very good reason--it can lead to you facing up to twice your numbers a good portion of the time as two teams attack your team, leading to a very frustrating gameplay experience for the team who is fighting 4v8.

I don't expect anything beyond a lot of negative feedback until it's red vs blue instead of red vs blue vs yellow even if class balance is (mostly) achieved as no one likes to lose a lot more than they win.

bubbygink

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

ecru

bubbygink wrote: »

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

You only have to look at just about every other game, sport, or even games like Chess and Go to realize that all of these things have only two sides for a good reason, and the same goes for maps, arenas, or boards that are mirrored. Different doesn't necessarily mean better or more enjoyable and it's never really going to be possible to have consistent balanced matches with three teams.

BNOC

bubbygink wrote: »

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

There's nothing interesting about two teams fighting 4v4 over an objective whilst the third team runs around and caps everything else.

There's almost no incentive to engage in combat in CTF or DOM and that's sad.

Trashkan

ecru wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

You only have to look at just about every other game, sport, or even games like Chess and Go to realize that all of these things have only two sides for a good reason, and the same goes for maps, arenas, or boards that are mirrored. Different doesn't necessarily mean better or more enjoyable and it's never really going to be possible to have consistent balanced matches with three teams.

This is what you call tunnel vision. Why can't there be three sides? It actually takes a lot of really lame tactics those other games promote. Like let's hide in this corner and make it impossible for anyone to kill us. In a 3 way team dm you can't just hide because the other teams will just duke it out.

DeadlyRecluse

As long as you look at battlegrounds as casual fun, they are great.

But yeah, there is no real competitive potential there at the moment.

MurderMostFoul

Given that there is no skill-based matchmaking, the 4v4v4 format actually seems to increase the competitive fairness of matches. If it were 4v4, given the lack of skill-based matchmaking, the stronger team would pretty much always dominate. At least in 4v4v4 there are more opportunities for weaker teams to have success.

Skill-based matchmaking would make 4v4 better, but given the problems with the current system and a somewhat small matchmaking pool, I'm not holding my breath for skill-based matchmaking.

Karm1cOne

Fun =/= win. You can have fun, have a good match and lose.

IxskullzxI

I think there does need to be some incentive to actually fight players in objective modes, but I still prefer 4v4v4. I like having more people in the game. That being said, you dont need to win to have fun. If I was guaranteed to lose 100% of my BGs, I would still play them because I love small scale pvp. I dont have to play horse simulator for hours just to constantly get zerged, and hope I find a small scale fight.

MurderMostFoul

IxskullzxI wrote: »

I think there does need to be some incentive to actually fight players in objective modes, but I still prefer 4v4v4. I like having more people in the game. That being said, you dont need to win to have fun. If I was guaranteed to lose 100% of my BGs, I would still play them because I love small scale pvp. I dont have to play horse simulator for hours just to constantly get zerged, and hope I find a small scale fight.

I gave you an agree, and I literally couldn't agree more.

ecru

Trashkan wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

You only have to look at just about every other game, sport, or even games like Chess and Go to realize that all of these things have only two sides for a good reason, and the same goes for maps, arenas, or boards that are mirrored. Different doesn't necessarily mean better or more enjoyable and it's never really going to be possible to have consistent balanced matches with three teams.

This is what you call tunnel vision. Why can't there be three sides? It actually takes a lot of really lame tactics those other games promote. Like let's hide in this corner and make it impossible for anyone to kill us. In a 3 way team dm you can't just hide because the other teams will just duke it out.

This also means that with three teams, defense is never a valid strategy because one of the other teams will rack up points.

When the only way to win is to go full offense to get kills, cap points, or ignore pvp and run a flag constantly, your game mode is broken IMO. With two teams just about every type of strategy will be viable in some way, depending on the situation, but with three you're forced into a race for points.

It's chaotic and just not very interesting IMO.

In my opinion, larger maps with more players on each side of two teams would be much more enjoyable.

Yakidafi

Planetside 2. End thread.

IxskullzxI

ecru wrote: »

Trashkan wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

You only have to look at just about every other game, sport, or even games like Chess and Go to realize that all of these things have only two sides for a good reason, and the same goes for maps, arenas, or boards that are mirrored. Different doesn't necessarily mean better or more enjoyable and it's never really going to be possible to have consistent balanced matches with three teams.

This is what you call tunnel vision. Why can't there be three sides? It actually takes a lot of really lame tactics those other games promote. Like let's hide in this corner and make it impossible for anyone to kill us. In a 3 way team dm you can't just hide because the other teams will just duke it out.

This also means that with three teams, defense is never a valid strategy because one of the other teams will rack up points.

When the only way to win is to go full offense to get kills, cap points, or ignore pvp and run a flag constantly, your game mode is broken IMO. With two teams just about every type of strategy will be viable in some way, depending on the situation, but with three you're forced into a race for points.

It's chaotic and just not very interesting IMO.

In my opinion, larger maps with more players on each side of two teams would be much more enjoyable.

If you did that then it would take away from the small scale experience BGs is supposed to be. If I wanted to play pvp with larger groups I would go to cyrodiil.

eso_nya

Some prophet saw that coming in 2007 O.O


source

ecru

IxskullzxI wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

Trashkan wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

You only have to look at just about every other game, sport, or even games like Chess and Go to realize that all of these things have only two sides for a good reason, and the same goes for maps, arenas, or boards that are mirrored. Different doesn't necessarily mean better or more enjoyable and it's never really going to be possible to have consistent balanced matches with three teams.

This is what you call tunnel vision. Why can't there be three sides? It actually takes a lot of really lame tactics those other games promote. Like let's hide in this corner and make it impossible for anyone to kill us. In a 3 way team dm you can't just hide because the other teams will just duke it out.

This also means that with three teams, defense is never a valid strategy because one of the other teams will rack up points.

When the only way to win is to go full offense to get kills, cap points, or ignore pvp and run a flag constantly, your game mode is broken IMO. With two teams just about every type of strategy will be viable in some way, depending on the situation, but with three you're forced into a race for points.

It's chaotic and just not very interesting IMO.

In my opinion, larger maps with more players on each side of two teams would be much more enjoyable.

If you did that then it would take away from the small scale experience BGs is supposed to be. If I wanted to play pvp with larger groups I would go to cyrodiil.

More than 4 people does not mean it's anything like Cyrodil, not really sure how you're making this connection, it would still be instanced pvp on a small-ish map, just with one less team and possibly a few more people on either side.

My point about defensive play never being a solid win strategy still stands and is one of the more obvious problems with having three teams instead of two.

Putinof

There should be an option to play same maps, better yet different, larger maps with 2 teams against eachother only.
It works well in so many games i see no reason to make it any different.

I bought morrowind for bgs only, and im dissapointed big time. Id rather play Warsong Gulch on a private server, just cos i like to play real ctf. Overall bg's felt much better even in Warhammer Online, that is long gone, and shut.

With few decent titles coming out soon, zos may need to provide more for pvp oriented players, or not so many will stay.

Rickter

ecru wrote: »

BG's were destined to fail from the start.

YOU DONT SAY

Jawasa

@ecru How would one play a defensiv strategy?

ecru

Jawasa wrote: »

@ecru How would one play a defensiv strategy?

One example in a game with two teams is simply defending your objective. In CTF, it's defending your own flag. In a deathmatch type game mode where kills decide the outcome, it's winning through attrition, or simply general defensive (+back) type gameplay/strategy. So you aren't managing to grab and cap the other team's flag, no big deal, at least they haven't gotten yours because you're defending is so well. The game may end up in a stalemate (and there are ways to prevent this), but at least you don't outright lose because your team was stacked for defense or wanted to play defensively.

Another example is in 4v4v4 deathmatch where your team is geared towards defense, possibly tank builds and solid heals, but not a ton of dps. Either opposing team might realize that they aren't getting anywhere trying to kill you ("this person isn't dying, let me to find someone else who is easier to kill"), just kill each other, and you'll end up losing because you didn't stack offense like they did. With two teams in this same scenario, your team may have won those fights through a combination of strong defense/heals and focused (assisting on targets) offense on individual targets.

With three teams, these types of strategies aren't viable because if you play defense, the other two teams will rack up points. The other two teams will grab the other team's flag as you're defending yours, or the other two teams will kill each other, getting closer to the winning point total. f

Every single game turns into a race between three teams to win before the other two opposing teams reaches the point total. You absolutely must play offensively the entire game to score points if you want to win.

Personally I like seeing different types of strategies people come up with to win, like turtling an objective, rather than being forced into one specific play style for every match. I should also note that I don't actually like playing like this. I've pretty much always played DPS in mmo pvp and I'm the type of player to play offensively and go for objectives rather than sit on a control point or flag, but that doesn't mean that I don't like seeing others play differently.

Waffennacht

I hate cap and Dom.


Much prefer death match

ChunkyCat

It really depends on who you end up matched with and against.

I played a CTF earlier tonight and the purple team was just treating it as a Deathmatch. They literally just didn't care about relics and just wanted to fight.

So while we fought them off, the other team won.

Nature of the beast.

Re-queue and play again.

Rahotu

4v4v4 will result in 4 people being satisfied I imagine

Vapirko

Just please for the love of everything, set pre made groups vs other pre made groups. You will have no chance against your typical pre made running a warden with healing ulti, a mag sorc and a couple of nbs or temps running every proc set possible.

leepalmer95

I dont like the fact if two of the game modes the team that wins is the team that doesn't pvp.

ak_pvp

BNOC wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

There's nothing interesting about two teams fighting 4v4 over an objective whilst the third team runs around and caps everything else.

There's almost no incentive to engage in combat in CTF or DOM and that's sad.

I see that in domination, but CTF requires some combat to gain your own flags.

Derra

IxskullzxI wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

Trashkan wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

You only have to look at just about every other game, sport, or even games like Chess and Go to realize that all of these things have only two sides for a good reason, and the same goes for maps, arenas, or boards that are mirrored. Different doesn't necessarily mean better or more enjoyable and it's never really going to be possible to have consistent balanced matches with three teams.

This is what you call tunnel vision. Why can't there be three sides? It actually takes a lot of really lame tactics those other games promote. Like let's hide in this corner and make it impossible for anyone to kill us. In a 3 way team dm you can't just hide because the other teams will just duke it out.

This also means that with three teams, defense is never a valid strategy because one of the other teams will rack up points.

When the only way to win is to go full offense to get kills, cap points, or ignore pvp and run a flag constantly, your game mode is broken IMO. With two teams just about every type of strategy will be viable in some way, depending on the situation, but with three you're forced into a race for points.

It's chaotic and just not very interesting IMO.

In my opinion, larger maps with more players on each side of two teams would be much more enjoyable.

If you did that then it would take away from the small scale experience BGs is supposed to be. If I wanted to play pvp with larger groups I would go to cyrodiil.

You just have to set it up in a way that for example 6 players per side can´t all focus around the same objective without loosing the game.

HeathenDeacon

Yakidafi wrote: »

Planetside 2. End thread.

same with MAG.
IF the developers want to see how a push pull Domination mode s hould be designed for 3 teams, simply check out what Zipper did with the Escalation DLC from that game.

I have to admit thought that both CTF and DOM from ESO BGs don't seem like they were play tested properly.
DOm has about a 50/50 shot of being either a good match or just a match where 2 teams brawl while the other caps points and wins.
-CTF on the other hand is just horribly designed and i'm not sure if it will ever be good as a 3 team mode.
Out of 50 games of CTF ive played i say about 2 of them were actually competitive... and th messaging of when i can pick up the relic, score, etc is SOOO confusing that i just say screw it and kill people til the match ends most times.

Bottom line, is that 3 team comp modes in games are defintiely viable, just not easy to perfect.

Rohaus

They simply do not want a competitive scene... think about how much more people would complain about balance in a competitive scene...

Let the 3 way war stay where it belongs... Cyrodiil

H4RDFOX

Maybe ZoS wants more chaos, hence the three teams going at it both small/big scale pvp. To be quite honest, the three team model can go south really quick when you have a premade team just farming, or smashing the other teams. When you have two teams of equal strength going at it the third team capitalizes the situation and win the match. There isn't enough sense between the lesser two teams to gang up on the third. The experience sucks when you're at the receiving end of that, so something should be done. I don't think they can reverse the model because of the maps already released, and the next ones coming up. There is also some validity in questioning ZoS' late boarding of the common sense train; have a ranked system in place to separate skill, and premade/solo que.

Magdalina

BNOC wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

I quite enjoy the 4v4v4. Creates some interesting games. To each his own, I guess.

There's nothing interesting about two teams fighting 4v4 over an objective whilst the third team runs around and caps everything else.

There's almost no incentive to engage in combat in CTF or DOM and that's sad.

There is actually plenty of incentive to PvP in CTF. I agree it's super confusing at first, they really need to put in a better explanation of the mode, but basically you cannot cash in a captured relic(but you can capture it) if your own relic is missing. So if team Red has Purple's relic but team Purple has Red's relic neither Reds nor Purples can turn their trophies in. If Red has Purple's relic, Purple has Green's relic and Green has Red's relic, it's perfect - NO ONE can turn relics in and THEN PvP ensues It can actually be a very fun and strategic mode if everyone understands the rules(it is pretty sad when people just don't get it - like I admittedly didn't at first and waste time fighting elsewhere as their relic gets stolen and turned in 5 times and 500-100-0 victory follows).

I...don't actually have a definitive opinion on 3-way combat right now. I thought it'd be all chaotic and bad but after giving it some chance it doesn't seem so bad at all. In fact I'm not sure that 2-way combat would work better right now, it'd likely serve to underline the disbalance between teams/build which now matters slightly less due to chaotic nature of 3-way combat. Imagine having the full pressure of a 4 man stambuilds premade on you full time x_x

Perhaps OP shouldn't be so quick to dismiss opinion that's different from his/her own.

BraidasNM

you cant really take any game with 3 teams seriously. whoever loses, there's always a third team to point to as skewing the results. i dont think zos thought any further than "well, we have 3 factions and the whole ouroboros thing, lets just make it 3 teams and copy/paste the cyro leaderboards"