Battlegrounds - a tragedy of bad decisions

ParaNostram

Since the launch and implementation of battlegrounds, nearly every major decision regarding this game mode has been a terrible decision. These decisions have had an effect on the battlegrounds subcommunity that effect being keeping it from growing//helping it shrink. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

I understand why they felt tied down to the three team idea but from the get go that is the wrong way to do it. Two teams, if matchmaking is functional and everything goes as planned, each team should win about half the time meaning players should get in a win every two or so games. The second you throw in three teams, even if everyone is winning as much as they should, players would then be expected to lose more than they win. Even if this was all for the bad decisions they made, they would have had an uphill battle creating a healthy sized community to engage in this new content. Well, sadly that wasn't all for their mistakes. A disastrous launch with performance issues (some of which that persist to this day) firmly established that this mountain climb they had would start at the bottom of a valley.

Then came the content updates for it, a new game mode and a new game map. Not bad, the game mode felt underpolished but it wasn't by itself a bad decision. However, the fact that you still had to queue for every mode and every map. The more things added, the more diluted the pool, the less likely you are to get the game mode that is most people's favorite across most games, deathmatch. Then after that we got another game mode, each game mode being less polished and more chaotic than the last making it feel like you're face rolling for fifteen minutes, just worsening the problem. All the while less players come back to do battlegrounds after increasingly bad experiences.

Then the disaster that was adding CP to battlegrounds. Well now if you aren't CP 690 you're at a disadvantage at this game mode. Well, again, lost players and had a smaller pool. This all brings us to where we are, a diluted pool of game modes that you have no choice what you're going to play (I loathe the two new game modes by now) with a player base so small because of all of the bad decisions that they can't allow you to selectively queue without leaving modes just completely unplayed potentially. The community is too small to be divided for what could have easily been the solutions for their issues of letting people queue for what they want.

Idk, these are just my observations on the bad idea train that has been battlegrounds. What do you think? For me it's especially heartbreaking as I wanted a mode I could just jump in for some quick high octane PvP but now it's the part of the game that makes me most want to break something that shatters when I get my fifth Crazy King match in a row.

Edit: A point I forgot to make in here was that if ZOS wanted to add content they should have added more maps than game modes, maps are easier to design and balance for and always fun to see. New modes? Not so much, and the new modes added to already existing problems.

Slick_007

TLDR: i want deathmatch only.

ParaNostram

Slick_007 wrote: »

TLDR: i want deathmatch only.

TLDR - bad decisions have left the community too small to function if we allow players to queue for what they want to play.

Edit: I just wanted to give a list of all of the mistakes as I've seen them as an explanation of why the battleground community is now so small and so toxic with seemingly no solution in sight.

Apache_Kid

Allowing CP in BGs has made Perma-blocking builds over-perform in any mode that Isn't deathmatch. In Cyrodiil we can just ignore the players who use these builds because they can't do anything to harm us. In BGs, when one of those players holds on to your relic for the entire match, it's enough to turn you off of the game mode for eternity.

They need to institute a CP queue and a Non-cp queue. IF there are not enough players to allow two different queues to be healthy with enough players then that means the content is not rewarding enough or fun enough for players to participate in which means that it needs to be looked at again.

I wish they would open up BGs to everyone that doesn't have Morrowind and just slash the price on the expansion. We need more players with two different queues and if they don't want to change the content to make it more appealing to get more Morrowind owners in there then they need to open up BGs to everyone.

Milvan

Slick_007 wrote: »

TLDR: i want deathmatch only.

But you have to give some credit to op, he/she did a fine job. The paragraphs are a little bit too long but is quite fine quality text.

I rate text 8/10.

The_Brosteen

As far as the addition of cp, that really just boils down to most players don't know how to deal without their cp damage mitigation and increased healing. Ironically it's the same people who complain about the unkillable tanky players. XD

Battlegrounds really should of had two modes, a team death match using the 3 team system without the stupid sigil and a free for all where It's just 6 people every man for themselves.

I mean alot of people already only play bgs like every game is deathmatch. I played a capture the relic game once where for the first 5 minutes no one even tried to take a relic, everyone was just fighting in the middle lol.

ParaNostram

Milvan wrote: »

Slick_007 wrote: »

TLDR: i want deathmatch only.

But you have to give some credit to op, he/she did a fine job. The paragraphs are a little bit too long but is quite fine quality text.

I rate text 8/10.

It's easier (and grammatically correct since the late 1800's) to just use the singular they if the gender of the individual isn't known. She//her works fine (coulda guessed it with my quote but thank you for not assuming masculinity). I know Slick there is just a troll, I mean look at their quote.

Spacemonkey

At this point just give PTS loadouts to whoever wants matchmaking and you'll actually have decent level-ground multiplayer matchmaking.

Anything else will cause grief for most of the times, 8 players out of 12.

But re-removing CP would already be pretty good.

jaws343

I think what makes it worse is as players get discouraged and leave, the player pool gets smaller for Battlegrounds. When the player pool gets smaller, you end up fighting the same players repeatedly in back to back matches. If some of those players are a pre-made team running a healer, tank, and DPS, you will lose every match you are pitted against them if you don't also do a pre-made. If there was a larger pool of players, this would happen less, but because no-one wants to do the other game modes, no-one queues, and matches are overwhelming noncompetitive.

A single queue for Deathmatch would solve this problem, bringing more players into the pool and watering down the effect of a pre-made group.

And I don't think pre-made groups should be eliminated from the CP level battlegrounds. You just shouldn't have to face them in 10 straight matches. (Which I had happen to me, and it was a ridiculous race to see how fast they could win the match and I could walk away with the 2.5K AP.)

ParaNostram

Ah in a perhaps ironic twist of fate, in a forums with too small a population to fill all of these dozens of threads, we have been moved to a dead sub forum.

VaranisArano

1. As long as Battlegrounds is behind the paywall of Morrowind, Battlegrounds is inherently limited. Now, if ZOS' marketing data says most active players have Morrowind, carry on. If not, well, there's the root of your population problem.

2. CP and No CP is a catch 22. Most players don't enjoy doing both because it takes completely different builds. I dislike having to swap gear to do both types of PVP, so I avoid No CP. So if you have one option or the other, you alienate a chunk of Battlegrounds players. If you have both, you divide the population further.

3. Most players don't enjoy ALL of the gamemodes. Some players are willing to put up with the gamemodes they don't like for the sake of the ones they do. Others aren't. So surely ZOS could allow people to opt in to the modes they want, right? Nope, ZOS is continuing to monetize Battlegrounds by introducing new modes which requires that players actually play those new modes. Its hard to get hyped for a new Battleground mode when you know that most players will stick with the same old deathmatch.


And finally, the point that no one really wants to discuss. Battlegrounds was designed as a sop to the small scale PVPers of Cyrodiil. You know, the solo gankers, the 2-4 man small groups that claim "small-scale is where the skill really is!" and the resource farm groups and 1vXer and solo duelists. That's what Battlegrounds was designed for - to provide all those small scale fights with no zergs to get in the way. And Battlegrounds has certain provided. Its 4v4v4 - no zergs.

And yet its still failing. Its been a failure of one form or another since it launched. It could be that its a combo of points 1-3 above. But I think its also because most of the Cyrodiil small-scalers really never wanted an equal fight on 4v4v4 terms. Those people that actually wanted to fight equally in Battlegrounds in a 4v4v4 - those are the premade groups in Battleground and there aren't enough of them to sustain the Battlegrounds population. There never were. So perhaps its time to consider whether or not the hype for small scale PVP that led ZOS to believe there was a large market for Battlegrounds was really just a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

NordSwordnBoard

Rewards - they are kind of meh now. Add a mechanic like RoTW where your first BG reward of the day gets you the same geode reward. The people after crystals will begin to participate.

Make a casual/ranked version. Ranked will have better AP (than current) and gear rewards. Casual will have better crystal geode and gold rewards. Some mixing will take place to sample the different rewards, and people will find their niche. It's not perfect, but the dungeon finder uses a similar method to keep a CP48 out of vWGT so they don't join just to get the boot from the group of 690's.

Let the casuals come to a place designed for them to encounter similar skill sets and have fun, out of the way of the serious leader board titans/groups looking for a competitive challenge.

Start selling BGs for crowns already - 1/3 the cost of Morrowind or something.

Waffennacht

I like the different game modes, this way I get 3 golden items per toon each week

VaranisArano

They can't split Battlegrounds from Morrowind. Not without admitting that their DLC+Battlegrounds+Warden = Chapter was a money grab from ESO+ owners who would have gotten a new DLC free.

So either most active players have Morrowind and the problem with Battlegrounds is that most players just aren't interested (for varying reasons)
Or
Most or at least a large part of active players don't have Morrowind and thus the Battlegrounds population is seriously limited by the Chapter's ownership.

But only ZOS has the data on that.

ParaNostram

VaranisArano wrote: »

They can't split Battlegrounds from Morrowind. Not without admitting that their DLC+Battlegrounds+Warden = Chapter was a money grab from ESO+ owners who would have gotten a new DLC free.

So either most active players have Morrowind and the problem with Battlegrounds is that most players just aren't interested (for varying reasons)
Or
Most or at least a large part of active players don't have Morrowind and thus the Battlegrounds population is seriously limited by the Chapter's ownership.

But only ZOS has the data on that.

I mean it's both? Both they cut out potential players with the bundling with Morrowind and screwed the pooch so badly with battlegrounds that even those with Morrowind are pushed away.

DosPanchos

VaranisArano wrote: »

1. As long as Battlegrounds is behind the paywall of Morrowind, Battlegrounds is inherently limited. Now, if ZOS' marketing data says most active players have Morrowind, carry on. If not, well, there's the root of your population problem.

2. CP and No CP is a catch 22. Most players don't enjoy doing both because it takes completely different builds. I dislike having to swap gear to do both types of PVP, so I avoid No CP. So if you have one option or the other, you alienate a chunk of Battlegrounds players. If you have both, you divide the population further.

3. Most players don't enjoy ALL of the gamemodes. Some players are willing to put up with the gamemodes they don't like for the sake of the ones they do. Others aren't. So surely ZOS could allow people to opt in to the modes they want, right? Nope, ZOS is continuing to monetize Battlegrounds by introducing new modes which requires that players actually play those new modes. Its hard to get hyped for a new Battleground mode when you know that most players will stick with the same old deathmatch.


And finally, the point that no one really wants to discuss. Battlegrounds was designed as a sop to the small scale PVPers of Cyrodiil. You know, the solo gankers, the 2-4 man small groups that claim "small-scale is where the skill really is!" and the resource farm groups and 1vXer and solo duelists. That's what Battlegrounds was designed for - to provide all those small scale fights with no zergs to get in the way. And Battlegrounds has certain provided. Its 4v4v4 - no zergs.

And yet its still failing. Its been a failure of one form or another since it launched. It could be that its a combo of points 1-3 above. But I think its also because most of the Cyrodiil small-scalers really never wanted an equal fight on 4v4v4 terms. Those people that actually wanted to fight equally in Battlegrounds in a 4v4v4 - those are the premade groups in Battleground and there aren't enough of them to sustain the Battlegrounds population. There never were. So perhaps its time to consider whether or not the hype for small scale PVP that led ZOS to believe there was a large market for Battlegrounds was really just a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Insightful! You might be right. At this point, I'm guessing their best bet is to still try to make this work.

What about this: All deathmatch with 2v2v2v2v2v2, 3v3v3v3, and 4v4v4 or something similar...

Drachenfier

They just need to remove the ability to queue with a premade against randoms. This would make battlegrounds 1000x better.

Waffennacht

Drachenfier wrote: »

They just need to remove the ability to queue with a premade against randoms. This would make battlegrounds 1000x better.

On Xbox, if you're premade, it usually bugs out and you can't get in. So... They kinda did?

Zer0oo

I still don't understand way so many (or at least so many ppl on the forum) are so against cp pvp. I personally like cp pvp more. But i also don't understand why not giving all low cp player also max cp just for pvp.

Battlegrounds were are great idea but so extremely poor executed:

The first 2 month they were bugged and joining them was almost impossible since the group tool is and was bugged. But they never admitted that is was bugged and said someone always declines the queue. They only admitted it after the dungeon event when you could see that it is still not working if many players are using it.

Furthermore the game modes had some obvious design faults and zero communication from the devs on that part on the forum. Most of the game modes just feel like running away without fighting or just staying alive is the best tactic to win. Also why should be the extrem damage buff at the beginning of a game on a spot close to one of the spawns?....

No real rewards you get from playing battlegrounds. Everyone already has all sets from there and are no real rare drops. Also the ap you can get there are not so much as if you would play pvp in cyro.

Extrem unbalanced teams killing the fun in most matches. Most matches you get in are extremely one-sided since it has no internal ranking system to balance teams. It is not fun for the team with the extrem easy win nor is it fun for the group who just go steamrolled. It is even more unbalanced if a premade group of all good pvp with templer healbot players get put against a random group.

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY SNARES IN PVP IN GERNERAL.

Autumnhart

Well-summarized. It would have been smarter for them not to lock BGs behind Morrowind purchase: there would have been a larger pool of people to alienate with the cascade of bad decisions, and there would be more people playing them even now.

All the game modes that favor defensive builds and/or avoidance of combat make me think the devs don't really understand PVP or PKs. Layer upon layer of strange choices in the BG saga.

VaranisArano

Zer0oo wrote: »

I still don't understand way so many (or at least so many ppl on the forum) are so against cp pvp. I personally like cp pvp more. But i also don't understand why not giving all low cp player also max cp just for pvp.

Battlegrounds were are great idea but so extremely poor executed:

The first 2 month they were bugged and joining them was almost impossible since the group tool is and was bugged. But they never admitted that is was bugged and said someone always declines the queue. They only admitted it after the dungeon event when you could see that it is still not working if many players are using it.

Furthermore the game modes had some obvious design faults and zero communication from the devs on that part on the forum. Most of the game modes just feel like running away without fighting or just staying alive is the best tactic to win. Also why should be the extrem damage buff at the beginning of a game on a spot close to one of the spawns?....

No real rewards you get from playing battlegrounds. Everyone already has all sets from there and are no real rare drops. Also the ap you can get there are not so much as if you would play pvp in cyro.

Extrem unbalanced teams killing the fun in most matches. Most matches you get in are extremely one-sided since it has no internal ranking system to balance teams. It is not fun for the team with the extrem easy win nor is it fun for the group who just go steamrolled. It is even more unbalanced if a premade group of all good pvp with templer healbot players get put against a random group.

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY SNARES IN PVP IN GERNERAL.

They don't give everyone max CP in PVP because they don't have an effective way to "save" a CP layout. Plus, its rare that players spend their CP the same when they have 300 CP and when they have 690 CP, so you can't really be like "here's how I want my 379 CP spent in any where that's not Vivec and Shor, but here's how I want my extra 311 CP to get to 690 CP spent in Shor and Vivec.

So it would make sense for ESO to "battle-level" people to CP 690 in CP PVP if they had a mechanism to "save" a CP layout and then remove the extra free of charge. But they don't really have that in game and don't seem terribly interested in implementing such a system. Instead, they just rework the CP point distribution to front-load the relative value of the CP trees so that you get most of your benefits from CP with the early points.

FearlessOne_2014

ParaNostram wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

They can't split Battlegrounds from Morrowind. Not without admitting that their DLC+Battlegrounds+Warden = Chapter was a money grab from ESO+ owners who would have gotten a new DLC free.

So either most active players have Morrowind and the problem with Battlegrounds is that most players just aren't interested (for varying reasons)
Or
Most or at least a large part of active players don't have Morrowind and thus the Battlegrounds population is seriously limited by the Chapter's ownership.

But only ZOS has the data on that.

I mean it's both? Both they cut out potential players with the bundling with Morrowind and screwed the pooch so badly with battlegrounds that even those with Morrowind are pushed away.

This right here I agree with. I mainly brought Morrowind for the BGs. However after BGs release it was so bad and still is. That I continuously find myself doing my Structured Small Scale PvP only in titles like Smite and Battlerite. It's really not worth it for me to spend my time on a gamemode........

1.) That I don't have a choice in the match type I want to play.
2.) Since I have no friends left playing this game. I am nothing but fodder for the Super META geared Pre-Mades egos.
3.) BGs seems to just be a lazily and unsupported gamemode that ZOS released just to try to get extra money from PvPers.
4.) Matches are sooooo unbalanced that they are just not fun or entertaining.
5.) Not only matches are very poor, but you get no rewards from the poor matches in the gamemode.

MurderMostFoul

BGs have problems, most of which have been stated above.

But I still find them to be the most entertaining form of PvP this game has to offer. And because I enjoy them as much as I do, I would really like to see ZOS make some changes to ensure there is a healthy population, so I can keep playing them.

Maulkin

@ParaNostram, you're talking about the disaster of adding CP to BGs. From what I'm seeing in PC EU the population in the BGs has increased since the introduction of CPs. Which is also in line with what we're seeing in Cyrodiil, basically the CP campaign has always higher pop than the no-CP campaign.

You might dislike the decision, that's up to you, but unless you have any statistics backing up the claim that players were lost and the player pool was diminished, then I'm sorry but it's nothing but hot air. Like I said, I'm observing the exact opposite.

Generally speaking the population doesn't seem high enough to have separate CP and no-CP queues. But if anything would improve the experience of BGs, I reckon a more intelligent match-making where 3-4 man premades are put up against eachother instead of against solo-duos, would be it. If their queues are too long or they keep meeting the same opponents all day/night then tough luck, they can split up into duos and get more games.

There's 0 point in putting a try-hard premade that has a healbot Templar, always runs together and is stacking fassala-durok debuffs, up against 4 randoms. That kind of group either needs other premades to go up against or needs splitting. Otherwise it's ruining the fun for everyone else (and I think should be of little fun to the premade itself)

Thogard

Yeah premades should fight other premades. All of the best BG matches I’ve been in have been when all three teams are premade and we treat it as a 15 min deathmatch.

Toc de Malsvi

With the addition of CP, I don't see BGs being locked behind Morrowind as that big of an issue anymore.

I don't find many players above CP600 that don't have Morrowind.

It is bad enough that I am more experienced and practiced at PVP. With CP fighting players below 300 CP is a joke.


I still enjoy BGs far more than Cyrodiil, although I would prefer no CP BGs. Elite premades are an issue, but I have seen less and less of those groups since CP was added. Perhaps because of bugs in queing or perhaps they are bored I don't know.

redspecter23

A few things I would do if I were in charge.

1. Open up Battlegrounds for all players instead of locking it behind a DLC. Yes, I get that it is a selling point of that DLC but it was a poor decision to lock it behind a paywall. It limits the number of players that have access to it and the queue is important.

2. Add more customization to Battlegrounds. This includes 2 teams instead of 3, choice of game mode and the possibility of private matches. Forcing players into something they don't like doesn't make them play it more. It pushes them away.

3. Give some advantages to teams that are losing or falling behind. Power ups like in VMA or other boosts so that if you are having issues with overly tanky players dominating, you have a chance to bust through their defenses with some assistance. This gives underpowered teams a catch up mechanic to keep things active.

RebornV3x

Yeah I brought up similar points and more months before BGs released it was like watching a train wreak happen or knew was going to happen

Didgerion

Here is one more observed bad decision:

Making battleground a chapter - Lots of subs un-subed - and lots of crown holders didn't buy the upgrade.
There are simply not enough PVP Morrowind copy holders out there.
If you make PVP content make sure to drop in as many players in it as possible - or it will die very fast.

Thogard

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

With the addition of CP, I don't see BGs being locked behind Morrowind as that big of an issue anymore.

I don't find many players above CP600 that don't have Morrowind.

It is bad enough that I am more experienced and practiced at PVP. With CP fighting players below 300 CP is a joke.


I still enjoy BGs far more than Cyrodiil, although I would prefer no CP BGs. Elite premades are an issue, but I have seen less and less of those groups since CP was added. Perhaps because of bugs in queing or perhaps they are bored I don't know.

A lot of us premade types on PC NA won’t queue together unless there’s another premade on for us to fight.

We usually start off the afternoon solo queueing, then once one of us notices a premade on that’s PUG stomping, they’ll message a few others. Usually goes like

“Hey BGs?”
“Are there any groups on to fight?”
“Yeah some aussies are staying up past their bedtime”
“Awesome”

And then we try to queue against the other premades, which sometimes is easy and sometimes is hard depending on how interested that group is in fighting us.

Vaoh

Given the current situation, ZOS can still significantly improve the experience and playerbase size. Need to follow simple three steps:
1. Balance builds again..... meaning remove CP. Also allows lower CP players to play BGs again which they no longer can. That’s an entire population of players no longer able to enjoy BGs, all while buffing premade groups to steamroll pugs and allowing permablock/OP builds to play
2. Add Battlegrounds to the base game. You increase the population by a lot this way alone. Much healthier overall for the game.
3. Allow players to pick from three game modes:
• Deathmatch
• Flag (Domination, Crazy King)
• Relic (Relic Hunter, Chaosball)
The ability to play what you want in these catagories (alongside the much larger population) allows you to also work toward earning the *titles* you want. Rn getting certain titles like the Chaos titles or Standard-Guardian takes FOREVER.

Done.