Made adjustments to the match-making system...

MannKurt

for Battlegrounds, putting further emphasis on making pre-made groups face other pre-made groups.

jediodyn_ESO

Wtf ZOS?! Do you even read these forums? Listen to the overwhelming vote and feedback of your community and separate the queues! It’s been a year.

At the very least your BG community deserves a “developer comment” to show us you hear us.

brandonv516

Are you suggesting they do this or are there patch notes supporting they just did this?

ccmedaddy

At least they're doing *something*, which is more than I expected.

brandonv516 wrote: »

Are you suggesting they do this or are there patch notes supporting they just did this?

It's in the 4.3.5 patch notes.

NyassaV

Can we get an MMR reset every month? Or at least every update. I play BGs to escape the chuckleheads I run into in Cyrodiil only to find them in BGs too. But then I log into a different character I play less and it never matches me with them and I can actually enjoy myself. This we really need some type of MMR reset system. I don't even care about matching skill levels at all just match grouped players.

brandonv516

ccmedaddy wrote: »

At least they're doing *something*, which is more than I expected.

brandonv516 wrote: »

Are you suggesting they do this or are there patch notes supporting they just did this?

It's in the 4.3.5 patch notes.

Ahh good to hear. Missed it.

MurderMostFoul

jediodyn_ESO wrote: »

Wtf ZOS?! Do you even read these forums? Listen to the overwhelming vote and feedback of your community and separate the queues! It’s been a year.

At the very least your BG community deserves a “developer comment” to show us you hear us.

How do you suggest they implement the separation?

I think they aren't separating the queues to avoid fragmenting population, and the possibility that it becomes very difficult for pre-made groups to get match made.

MurderMostFoul

MannKurt wrote: »

for Battlegrounds, putting further emphasis on making pre-made groups face other pre-made groups.

I just caught that in the patch notes myself, it's good to hear

redspecter23

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

jediodyn_ESO wrote: »

Wtf ZOS?! Do you even read these forums? Listen to the overwhelming vote and feedback of your community and separate the queues! It’s been a year.

At the very least your BG community deserves a “developer comment” to show us you hear us.

How do you suggest they implement the separation?

I think they aren't separating the queues to avoid fragmenting population, and the possibility that it becomes very difficult for pre-made groups to get match made.

I'd like them to separate it into solo only queue and a premade group option. If you want to use the queue, you go in solo. If you want to play as a group, you form up a premade set of teams and just walk in like you would a dungeon. Prizes would be limited or removed with this second option to prevent abuse. This second option would be more for private events or just playing around. If you want the queue rewards, you'd have to be solo.

brandonv516

redspecter23 wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

jediodyn_ESO wrote: »

Wtf ZOS?! Do you even read these forums? Listen to the overwhelming vote and feedback of your community and separate the queues! It’s been a year.

At the very least your BG community deserves a “developer comment” to show us you hear us.

How do you suggest they implement the separation?

I think they aren't separating the queues to avoid fragmenting population, and the possibility that it becomes very difficult for pre-made groups to get match made.

I'd like them to separate it into solo only queue and a premade group option. If you want to use the queue, you go in solo. If you want to play as a group, you form up a premade set of teams and just walk in like you would a dungeon. Prizes would be limited or removed with this second option to prevent abuse. This second option would be more for private events or just playing around. If you want the queue rewards, you'd have to be solo.

Makes sense. With it being 4v4v4 it will never become close to the tournament level of play some expect.

jcm2606

WHAT *** GOOD IS MAKING ADJUSTMENTS TO GROUP MATCHING WHEN IT IS LAZILY TACKED ON TO MMR. RAISING THE *** MMR REQUIREMENT OF GROUPS DOES NOTHING TO STOP SOLO QUEUES MATCHING AGAINST PREMADES. SEPARATE GROUP MATCHING FROM MMR, AND SUDDENLY WATCH AS PREMADES STOP BEING SUCH A HUGE ISSUE.

Sometimes I swear to god Zenimax is intentionally not addressing ***. It's so god damn simple.

jcm2606

Okay,

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_BrianWheeler

I'm gonna give you guys some help. The reason why premades are such a big problem is because your solution is tacked onto MMR. My understanding of how premades are handled is the group uses the average MMR of its members, then some flat value is added on top to inflate the MMR depending on the size of the group. This is the problem, right here.

By having your group "weighting", shall we say, tied to MMR, you're just padding out the time/MMR needed for a solo queue to match against a premade. Think about it. A premade joins the queue with an insanely high MMR, since it has been inflated by the size of the group. Initially, only other premades could realistically match with them.

But the longer they wait, the more and more relaxed the queue becomes with its MMR requirements to successfully match, so eventually our premade will be able to match with solo queues, since the MMR requirements are so relaxed.

The "weight" indirectly causes the same problem it is trying to solve, because the queue becomes more and more relaxed, eventually allowing this premade to match against solo queues. This is assuming a high tier premade, too. A premade of poorer or newer players would be able to find a match much quicker, since the group's MMR would be lower. So this is the reality of the situation, in a best case scenario.

This fits all the symptoms. Premades have extraordinarily long queue times, however at a certain point they will generally get matches, which is about where the queue becomes relaxed enough to find them. On the flip side, high MMR players have the same symptom, to a lesser degree since their MMR isn't inflated. And who faces premades the most? High MMR players.

The solution to this is to remove MMR inflation, and move that "weighting" over to an entirely new variable within the matching algorithm. In doing so, groups will only be able to match against other groups, because solo queues would not have this variable, only groups do. This solution fixes the problem of solo queues matching against premades, or at least significantly reduces it, and it also allows you to more easily expand group matching.

MMR in itself is its own big issue that needs to be addressed, but this would be a monumental step forward that needs to happen before MMR is properly addressed.

jediodyn_ESO

Look it’s so simple. Separate the queues into “full team” and “solo” with separate COSMETIC rewards (like housing/skins/clothing items) for grouped categories.

ALSO two leader boards with more (not exclusive or better) bg rewards for the grouped leaderboards.

This would create incentives for grouped PvP competition without hosing down your solo PvP players, giving teams better matches against other teams and solo players the better play experience.

IN A 4 PERSON TEAM EVEN TWO GOOD PLAYERS JOINING AS GROUP IS A GAME BREAKING ADVANTAGE.

jcm2606

Separating the queues is not going to work here, because the plain truth is there just isn't enough players. Sure, us solo queues are going to love it, our experience is going to be excellent, but what about the premades? What about the duos who aren't nearly as big an issue, and who are generally just as laid back as us solo queues? The experience for them is going to be dog ***.

Moving the group matching away from MMR is the only realistic solution there is. It solves the problem we solo queues all have, while not making things totally dog *** for the premades and duos. Duos can be weighted to match more often against other duos, but still match against solo queues to retain short queue times. 3- and 4-man premades could be weighted to match more often against each other and duos, while leaving solo queues alone.

MurderMostFoul

redspecter23 wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

jediodyn_ESO wrote: »

Wtf ZOS?! Do you even read these forums? Listen to the overwhelming vote and feedback of your community and separate the queues! It’s been a year.

At the very least your BG community deserves a “developer comment” to show us you hear us.

How do you suggest they implement the separation?

I think they aren't separating the queues to avoid fragmenting population, and the possibility that it becomes very difficult for pre-made groups to get match made.

I'd like them to separate it into solo only queue and a premade group option. If you want to use the queue, you go in solo. If you want to play as a group, you form up a premade set of teams and just walk in like you would a dungeon. Prizes would be limited or removed with this second option to prevent abuse. This second option would be more for private events or just playing around. If you want the queue rewards, you'd have to be solo.

jediodyn_ESO wrote: »

Look it’s so simple. Separate the queues into “full team” and “solo” with separate COSMETIC rewards (like housing/skins/clothing items) for grouped categories.

ALSO two leader boards with more (not exclusive or better) bg rewards for the grouped leaderboards.

This would create incentives for grouped PvP competition without hosing down your solo PvP players, giving teams better matches against other teams and solo players the better play experience.

IN A 4 PERSON TEAM EVEN TWO GOOD PLAYERS JOINING AS GROUP IS A GAME BREAKING ADVANTAGE.

Under both of these options, would you not be able to queue as a pair or a trio?
I think this is one of the main reasons why zos doesn't implement it. Also, splitting the population would make it very difficult for pre-meds maids to find a match. I know that doesn't matter for most of us solo queuers, but zos doesn't want to adversely impact group queuers so severely.

MurderMostFoul

I still support this solution:

Maulkin wrote: »

This has been said countless of times. They don't even need 4 queues. Two will do fine:



2 Queues, a small and a large group queue, with solo players falling into both. Trio +1 random is strong enough to take on a Quartet (full premade). And solo players are fine mixing with duos.

This is both easier to implement than MMR and it will cause smaller fragmentation of the relatively small player base than proper MMR would cause.

Under this very simple system, you wouldn't even need separate queues. All folks joining would be auto sorted and all matches would be:

singles/duos v. singles/duos

or

single+trio/quartet v. single+trio/quartet

You could get rid of the MMR inflation for groups, then do something about MMR outliers so they don't wait forever.

Iskiab

jcm2606 wrote: »

Separating the queues is not going to work here, because the plain truth is there just isn't enough players. Sure, us solo queues are going to love it, our experience is going to be excellent, but what about the premades? What about the duos who aren't nearly as big an issue, and who are generally just as laid back as us solo queues? The experience for them is going to be dog

I think it’s a chicken and the egg thing. I’ve noticed not a lot of players do BGs too, but that’s because of new player’s experience after trying one. My first 5 times I was like wtf after someone killed me in a couple seconds.

Tbh the only reason I stuck with it is because I have a pvp background. If this was my first MMO I probably would have never queued again.

Pvp’s also going in the wrong direction. Players should be provided more base survivability. Experienced pvpers don’t like this idea because they won’t be able to kill anyone, no ***. If everyone’s in half tank spec no they shouldn’t. Force players to spec for damage to do damage.

Mojomonkeyman

And we are back to 30min queues with the recent change for high mmr premades - just to arrive in 4v2v3 matches after the long and frustrating wait. Stop those stupid MMR adjustments, all it does is excluding the most passionate players from their favorite content. Noone waits 30min for a possibly broken lobby match that lasts max 12min...

What's this whole back and forth MMR tinkering supposed to do? Rile up randoms vs premades and make one side a little more happy than the other for 6 months then change around? I can't believe we are going into another 3-6 months where high MMR premades are basically excluded from the game.

The solution can never be to apply artificial waiting times onto one part of the playerbase that excludes them from content. Try MMR resets, try ranked/unranked queues, try something meaningful - this half-a**ed MMR tinkering has proven by now to be not effective, quite the opposite, it is highly frustrating to parts of your playerbase.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_RobGarrett

ecru

I'm still getting queued against premades so I don't really know what it is that they think they changed. Maybe premades are waiting longer, but as a solo queuer they're still on the opposite team, and I still often only have three teammates vs their four. This is made even worse when they're pet zoo premades with twice the amount of pets as individual players, using the soft targeting system to their advantage so that they can't even be targeted half the time.

People are going to stop playing BGs entirely if this continues to happen. Between the premades, targeting issues due to pets, and near permanent snares/chain stuns/knock backs etc, maybe one out of every five games are actually enjoyable. The rest are exercises in frustration as you cannot control your character or target your opponents the majority of the time.

Fix your game. It's really, really bad right now.

jcm2606

Iskiab wrote: »

jcm2606 wrote: »

Separating the queues is not going to work here, because the plain truth is there just isn't enough players. Sure, us solo queues are going to love it, our experience is going to be excellent, but what about the premades? What about the duos who aren't nearly as big an issue, and who are generally just as laid back as us solo queues? The experience for them is going to be dog

I think it’s a chicken and the egg thing. I’ve noticed not a lot of players do BGs too, but that’s because of new player’s experience after trying one. My first 5 times I was like wtf after someone killed me in a couple seconds.

Tbh the only reason I stuck with it is because I have a pvp background. If this was my first MMO I probably would have never queued again.

Pvp’s also going in the wrong direction. Players should be provided more base survivability. Experienced pvpers don’t like this idea because they won’t be able to kill anyone, no ***. If everyone’s in half tank spec no they shouldn’t. Force players to spec for damage to do damage.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there's absolutely nobody doing BGs, but the population is not enough to support separate queues, especially with MMR.

Think about it. Think about how players would be distributed between the MMR brackets. It'd be a bit like a curve, right? The majority of players sit in the lower brackets, for numerous reasons (they aren't very good, they can't play much, new characters, etc), and as you look at the higher brackets, the population gradually thins out.

It wouldn't surprise me if there's only just over a dozen at the top brackets, which is probably true since those at the top brackets see the exact same players match after match. The match making system isn't failing here, it literally just cannot succeed. There's a difference.

This is why I'm constantly saying that MMR should just be removed. Sure, remove premades, great, but where does that leave the solo queues? Matching against the same dozen or so players who are still running the same cancerous builds, while the queue still takes eons to pop.

jcm2606

ecru wrote: »

I'm still getting queued against premades so I don't really know what it is that they think they changed. Maybe premades are waiting longer, but as a solo queuer they're still on the opposite team, and I still often only have three teammates vs their four. This is made even worse when they're pet zoo premades with twice the amount of pets as individual players, using the soft targeting system to their advantage so that they can't even be targeted half the time.

People are going to stop playing BGs entirely if this continues to happen. Between the premades, targeting issues due to pets, and near permanent snares/chain stuns/knock backs etc, maybe one out of every five games are actually enjoyable. The rest are exercises in frustration as you cannot control your character or target your opponents the majority of the time.

Fix your game. It's really, really bad right now.

One in five? You're giving the game too much credit...

wheem_ESO

Separating the queues might actually increase the pool of Battleground players. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if: 1) some people flat out refuse to queue because they're tired of facing premades with a team of 3 solo queues, and 2) small group players don't queue because they don't want to be bored to tears by stomping on groups of randoms all day.

I would certainly be more interested in premading if the queues were separated. Right now, I only want to group queue if there are other premade groups around. But even then you sometimes still get put up against randoms, while the other premade(s) either end up against a different group of randoms, or just sit in the queue until your game is over.

MannKurt

Separate ques and decrease end match rewards for groups (this will kill easypeasy aoe spamming *** premades) + increase weekly rewards for groups (this will encourage people who want to have some real challenge while grouping with friends/guildies). You can even make solo que without leaderboard- just pure fun. Make instanced pvp great again!

Iskiab

I think people are sort of missing the big picture when it comes to BGs. MMR may contribute to some of this stuff but seeing the same players is likely due to there being less people interested in pvp in ESO than other games.

Cyrodiil has been a success, BGs not so much. I’ve never seen such a small percentage of a game do BGs. I think the main reasons are new players just get destroyed and pvp requires different gear sets.

If you want more resources for BGs then figure out a way to make it more newer player friendly.

Only thing that I can think of is increase survivability. Experienced players will adapt and stop gearing half tank. Stop requiring weird transmutations on things like rings - new players can’t do that.

Bashev

In our BG guild we decided to play mainly in duos even lately solos because when we go full premade most of the time the games start 4vs3vs3 and guess what we are 4 and we are premade. Of course the games are not interesting and not challenging at all.

At the weekends we make full premade groups but we try to make at least 3. e queue at the same time but most of the time we just end up only 2 of the groups in the same BG and the third random team (lets say it, has a bad time) is kind of farmed by us because of the point system.

Another thing is that the games should start only when the teams are 4vs4vs4. I ve been in both groups with 3 and 4 and I can say that vs good players the difference is really noticeable.

Iskiab

Agreed, 3 players against groups of 4 are really rough. I’d rather get started then wait all day, if there was a ‘ranking’ I’d say wait until groups are full. As is I don’t mind, I think of it as an extra challenge.

Cinbri

Tried couple bgs after months break to see changes and there is no positive change at all, only negative.
1. With wrathstone changes Queue as premade in primetime became instead of 10min into 25+min, so back into half an hour waiting of match, that mean just wasting of time.
2. And everytime we got against half empty randoms with high mmr, that obviously not fun at all.
So, bg became only worse with latest changes.