What's Wrong With Battlegrounds?

trackdemon5512

With the recent announcement that as of next week Battlegrounds will be ALL DEATHMATCHES because too many people in flag/objective games play as if they're in a deathmatch ( https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/586410/upcoming-changes-to-battleground-queues/p1 ) , it's worth looking at what has led up to this frankly ridiculous decision.

1) ZOS Catering To A Small But Vocal Crowd - ZOS admits that it sees a preference towards the Deathmatch mode, specifically that players now tend to treat all matches in all modes as Deathmatches. Now it wants to examine this by temporarily stopping the ability to queue into Flag Games.

The problem with this thinking is that it isn't like when you conducted tests for non-proc Cyrodiil. Players are clearly treating Flag Games as Deathmatches because it's effective. Killing a player takes them out for 10 to 30 seconds, the amount of time it takes for them to respawn and get back into a fight. Time to Kill is so low with proc sets and skill that many players spend far more time in respawn than actually accomplishing an objective. Kill an entire team, get the chaos ball and keep it. Kill an entire team, stay on the flags. You don't need a study to realize this.

But ZOS has heard the cries of the Deathmatch community and now wants to conduct a study that is clearly flawed as it in no way can identify why players treat Flag Games the way they do. In fact, by making Flag Games the ONLY option for a queue are you better able to gather and analyze information as to this specific player behavior. ZOS knows there are those out there that want Deathmatches, but catering to them only serves to put a bad taste in the mouths of everyone else because they don't want to play unbalanced, fast kill matches clearly.

2) ZOS Treats Large Scale and Small Scale PvP The Same - It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that sets designed for Cyrodiil are often overpowering for Battlegrounds. You cannot treat the two the same. A tank build designed to handle 18 to 20 players walloping on it is effectively an immortal build in Battlegrounds. A set designed to kill players as fast as possible is too effective in Battlegrounds where it shuts down an entire team. You need to establish specific, confining rules that limit chaos so as to present a balanced mode. That's why every other PVP game out there can effectively work.

3) ZOS Gives Too Much Player Freedom - THERE ARE NEARLY 500 SETS IN THIS GAME (not including monster masks and shoulders). Combined with 6 Classes, 10 Races, and 19 Skill Lines each with 1 to 6 slottable abilities.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to account for all of the combinations and balance them for closed small scale competitive environment. Overwatch, Battlefield, Mario Kart, Halo, Counter Strike. None of these games allow that much variation into closed matches without strict control. You want to make BGs fair and balanced? Remove all these choices and introduce either loadouts or dedicated sets/skill lines that can only be used in that mode.

4) 12 Players in 3 Teams is Too Much - PvP has been designed to move so quickly that so many opponents is a chaotic blur. Matches are 4 against 8 optimally but really you can't even fill out full teams most of the time. So we have 3 against 8. Or players quit and 2 against 8. The Activity Finder simply can't handle it and matches feel terrible. Redo BGs so it's one team vs another, that each team has equal numbers of players, and that if a team has fewer players there is a compensation like increased respawn times for advantaged teams.


Yes Battlegrounds needs a full rework but the current proposed way of exploring how to change it is terribly construed and will get you no data of any real consequence for the goal of making all current modes viable.

woe

Bg's are fun i don't think they need to change at all.

Do not remove the choices and add loadouts[snip]??? This is an MMO, not CoD.

[edited for profanity bypass]

Neoauspex

I'm ok with deathmatch only, but check me out: if you can't use streak/stealth/etc during all the other game modes, why is mages wrath ok in deathmatch?

auz

Are you complaining that people are killing other people in battle grounds and winning objective matches?
[snip]

[edited for baiting]

Stratti

This makes me greatly disappointed. I didn't pay all this money so that they can remove features I enjoy. To remove a game or list of games because some kiddies cannot understand objectives is a harbinger for further dumbing down of the game .

auz

I am actually very confused as to what people think battlegrounds are now. I always thought of it as a competition with 2 other teams where you fight each other and whoever gets to the required number of kills first, wins. Or it is a competition where you fight each other over objectives and whoever holds the objective long enough to reach the required score first wins. While fighting other teams the hole time. The idea that people (and not just a few) expect to do well in bgs without actually fighting has got me flabbergasted. Either I have made a huge mistake, or they have. Hopefully zos can clear this up.

Stratti

auz wrote: »

I am actually very confused as to what people think battlegrounds are now. I always thought of it as a competition with 2 other teams where you fight each other and whoever gets to the required number of kills first, wins. Or it is a competition where you fight each other over objectives and whoever holds the objective long enough to reach the required score first wins. While fighting other teams the hole time. The idea that people (and not just a few) expect to do well in bgs without actually fighting has got me flabbergasted. Either I have made a huge mistake, or they have. Hopefully zos can clear this up.

This isn't the issue. ZOS are addressing a problem with certain [snip] people who want to just do Deathmatch. They don't want to play any of the other games, Domination, Relic, Chaos Ball, Crazy King. They just want Deathmatch. They complain loudly. The answer that ZOS provides is that they are removing all other games except for Deathmatch as a trial. So people like me who really dislike Deathmatch and Relic but love the others are forced to either play a game I don't enjoy OR do not do battlegrounds anymore. The issue with this approach is it doesn't help those complaining, they will soon complain about meta builds that are dominating . The issue is they are removing parts of the game that some of us really enjoy. That is not fair, especially when they ask us to pay money in advance.

[edited for baiting]

ShawnLaRock

The thing that people don’t seem to get through their skulls is that MANY times - the teams playing every mode as Deathmatch actually LOSE… a lot!

Winning teams go for unprotected flags / spawns / points - easily! - while others ball up in a futile group of proc mess.

This is an unwelcome change IMHO - and I want some recoup for the achievements and style pages I am not able to get now that oft-unsophisticated key-mashers have complained enough to somehow force this change.

S.

auz

Stratti wrote: »

auz wrote: »

I am actually very confused as to what people think battlegrounds are now. I always thought of it as a competition with 2 other teams where you fight each other and whoever gets to the required number of kills first, wins. Or it is a competition where you fight each other over objectives and whoever holds the objective long enough to reach the required score first wins. While fighting other teams the hole time. The idea that people (and not just a few) expect to do well in bgs without actually fighting has got me flabbergasted. Either I have made a huge mistake, or they have. Hopefully zos can clear this up.

This isn't the issue. ZOS are addressing a problem with certain [snip] people who want to just do Deathmatch. They don't want to play any of the other games, Domination, Relic, Chaos Ball, Crazy King. They just want Deathmatch. They complain loudly. The answer that ZOS provides is that they are removing all other games except for Deathmatch as a trial. So people like me who really dislike Deathmatch and Relic but love the others are forced to either play a game I don't enjoy OR do not do battlegrounds anymore. The issue with this approach is it doesn't help those complaining, they will soon complain about meta builds that are dominating . The issue is they are removing parts of the game that some of us really enjoy. That is not fair, especially when they ask us to pay money in advance.

Op specifically mentions that people are using kills and respawn times as a tactic to win objective bgs. That is ridiculous. That is exactly the point of battlegrounds.
[edited to remove quote]

wolfie1.0.

Stratti wrote: »

auz wrote: »

I am actually very confused as to what people think battlegrounds are now. I always thought of it as a competition with 2 other teams where you fight each other and whoever gets to the required number of kills first, wins. Or it is a competition where you fight each other over objectives and whoever holds the objective long enough to reach the required score first wins. While fighting other teams the hole time. The idea that people (and not just a few) expect to do well in bgs without actually fighting has got me flabbergasted. Either I have made a huge mistake, or they have. Hopefully zos can clear this up.

This isn't the issue. ZOS are addressing a problem with certain [snip] people who want to just do Deathmatch. They don't want to play any of the other games, Domination, Relic, Chaos Ball, Crazy King. They just want Deathmatch. They complain loudly. The answer that ZOS provides is that they are removing all other games except for Deathmatch as a trial. So people like me who really dislike Deathmatch and Relic but love the others are forced to either play a game I don't enjoy OR do not do battlegrounds anymore. The issue with this approach is it doesn't help those complaining, they will soon complain about meta builds that are dominating . The issue is they are removing parts of the game that some of us really enjoy. That is not fair, especially when they ask us to pay money in advance.

Meanwhile there are several broken new sets that favor the DM playstyle. I was enjoying BGs and the various play modes. If I want a slug fest just go sacrifice myself to the zerg trolls. Done with pvp again.
[edited to remove quote]

katanagirl1

I’m not very vocal but I welcome this change.

I am not sure how any other mode cannot be Deathmatch when I am constantly being sniped by one particular player. If I don’t take him out I’m dead.

Maybe you are one of the lucky people to have a pre-formed team and your buddies can help you with that.

trackdemon5512

auz wrote: »

Stratti wrote: »

auz wrote: »

I am actually very confused as to what people think battlegrounds are now. I always thought of it as a competition with 2 other teams where you fight each other and whoever gets to the required number of kills first, wins. Or it is a competition where you fight each other over objectives and whoever holds the objective long enough to reach the required score first wins. While fighting other teams the hole time. The idea that people (and not just a few) expect to do well in bgs without actually fighting has got me flabbergasted. Either I have made a huge mistake, or they have. Hopefully zos can clear this up.

This isn't the issue. ZOS are addressing a problem with certain whiney people who want to just do Deathmatch. They don't want to play any of the other games, Domination, Relic, Chaos Ball, Crazy King. They just want Deathmatch. They complain loudly. The answer that ZOS provides is that they are removing all other games except for Deathmatch as a trial. So people like me who really dislike Deathmatch and Relic but love the others are forced to either play a game I don't enjoy OR do not do battlegrounds anymore. The issue with this approach is it doesn't help those complaining, they will soon complain about meta builds that are dominating . The issue is they are removing parts of the game that some of us really enjoy. That is not fair, especially when they ask us to pay money in advance.

Op specifically mentions that people are using kills and respawn times as a tactic to win objective bgs. That is ridiculous. That is exactly the point of battlegrounds.

No. The point of a Capture the Flag, Chaosball, Crazy King, Capture the Relic is precisely to play to the objective. Hence the variation in play. You are to be rewarded for said objective. But with players currently focusing on kills it ruins the play. Many players spend the majority of the time waiting to respawn than engaged in actual play. THAT'S BROKEN IN ANY GAME. If you played hockey and teams spent 90% of their time in a penalty box while the other team just scored you're not really playing hockey are you?

Additionally there are players who are on your team that only focus on killing. They go to other people and try to burn down tanks or fight them away from objectives. While you may be playing to win their Deathmatch focused play will cause your team to lose.

Intelligent game design funnels players towards the developer's intended goals. ZOS has failed so badly with that that it's now testing out Deathmatch only which frankly is a stupid decision. The ideas behind modes like Capture the Flag are sound and work extremely well. Battlefield for years has had colossal multiplayer matches that thrive on this. But Battlefield always designs their games to be balanced. Loadouts are limited, spawn points can be chosen, roles are balanced. But ESO takes its extreme and broken builds and just throws them into the same scenario.

ZOS Deathmatch "test" doesn't come off as so because there would seem to be no real data gathered other than "Will More People Play Battlegrounds If It's Just Deathmatch?". That's a flawed study. They've already alienated the BG population down to the point that the hardcore deathmatch players play as if every mode is a deathmatch. You appease them but alienate the others who stayed up to this point. And you learn nothing about what can get players to adhere to the rules of the other modes which is the real endgame goal here.

auz

If the point of objective battlegrounds is not to fight and claim objectives, why do the let you equip armour and weapons?
The reason battlefield and cod have successful objective modes is because they encourage confrontation between the teams. You can win an objective mode on battlefield with a poor kd, but you have to fight for it and defend the objective. They also count kills. And still have griefers. And TDM is still the most popular game mode.
I agree making every match Deathmatch is not my favourite decision. But I believe you could resolve a lot of the greifing issues with better designed objectives that encourage conflict and don't allow the prominent strategies to involve avoiding confrontation with opposition teams.
The people playing death match on every game mode did not ask for others to lose the option. They asked for a choice. And tbh the choice probably would still mean the griefers would remain in objective modes anyway. You can't go 40 and 0 in a dm. The crazy kill counts aren't allowed because the game stops at 34 kills for a team.
If you are angry at anyone, direct it at ZOS. People asking for a dm que, did not make this change.

Bjond

Stratti wrote: »

ZOS are addressing a problem with certain [snip] people who want to just do Deathmatch

DM heavily favors gear and ping. Non-DM heavily favors clever strategy. Both benefit from teamwork and communication. There are always players who want their gear to speak for them and that's understandable; MMOs feed on progression. There's little reason to continue playing an MMO if new gear doesn't give an advantage.

Personally, gear v gear isn't fun for me. I had that in Aion. The very best PvE gear in Aion would be spanked so hard by a PvP-geared, you'd need tweezers to find the giblets. I had chars on both sides of that. It's not fun and it drives people away. For "fun", DMs are outright loose-loose.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

The point of a Capture the Flag, Chaosball, Crazy King, Capture the Relic is precisely to play to the objective. Hence the variation in play. You are to be rewarded for said objective. But with players currently focusing on kills it ruins the play.

Ah, well, the first few times I did BGs I had zero idea of what or where the objectives were. So, heh, it's pvp, right? Guess I'll kill people. Honestly, BGs need a serious SOLO tutorial for each style if they want newbies for BGs. I still haven't played all the types and only vaguely know what each entails.

The other issue is that if people are winning when ignoring objectives, then there aren't any real objectives. True objectives have so much value that wasting time killing causes you to loose the match. Slaughter is king in a DM, but in objective it should only be in service of the objective.

The HUGE issue getting PVE people to even try BGs is that PVE gear and builds are BAD for PVP. The holy grain of PvEvP has one build/type is best for ALL of the game. It's a bit late for that to happen for ESO. FFXIV tried, but blew it and eventually made PVP 100% separate from PVE. The new PvP was lots of fun and very balanced, but after I leveled a bard on nothing but PvP all I had was a capped bard I didn't know how to PvE at all; I was like those people everyone makes fun of who buy a full-decked finished character with no clue how to PvE it.

Ignoring the balancing rules for PvEvP even a little bit has nasty consequences:

1. Absolutely no ability-altering procs
2. Balance player skills and gear ONLY for PvP
3. Balance monsters for PvE (after step 2)

Aion added just one tiny proc and it nearly ruined PvP for a long while. They added "procs" to weapons (like ESO glyphs). The scaled damage ones were fine, but they also added a 1s stun. The stun was a game-changer, giving enough CC to burst classes for them to easily slaughter anyone in a 1x1. And that was just ONE tiny proc. ESO has tons of them and their PvP devs are LOL-worthy. They know procs are bad for balance and yet they doubled-down on procs in the latest patch. If you're too drunk to walk, don't grab another drink and hop in a car.

Were I to balance ESO PvP, I'd probably go the route of GW2: remove all PvE gear from PvP. Let people pick any gear they want from a list of (no proc) PvP-only gear to use in PvP. Add some extra balance features like all skills & CP max'd in PvP (with distinct layouts from PvE's). Drop it into PTS and spend 3mos or so tuning it before springing it on the unsuspecting live population.

For motivators, I'd add methods for PvP'ers to easy fill in their stickerbooks with PvE gear, including ways to acquire vet trial and arena gear, which of course can't be used in PvP, but it's PvE'ers that need the motivation to PvP far more than vice versa.

[edited to remove quote]

Andyhunter21

Stratti wrote: »

This makes me greatly disappointed. I didn't pay all this money so that they can remove features I enjoy. To remove a game or list of games because some kiddies cannot understand objectives is a harbinger for further dumbing down of the game .

agreed

Saieden

I also think this is terrible, both from a customer-experience and data-gathering pov, for pretty much all reasons above. If you want to know how exactly popular DM vs non-DM modes are, make separate queues and log participation.

Honestly, I think the only real way to have a truly competitive, balanced and fun-for-all pvp arena mode (not open world, that is a different beast entirely), if that's what they want, is to enable a synced environment with all gear synced to gold 160, no procs or mythics, no CP, and all combat passives unlocked. Let the meta evolve for a few weeks, take feedback, and THEN look at how you want to adjust battle spirit and other global modifiers, or classes/skills that prove to be particularly strong.

There is a reason competitive Pokemon is played synced to level 50. There are also reasons that in the Diablo 2 PvP community, Teleport and potions, despite all classes having access to them, have also been soft-banned for many, many years.

Artim_X

IMO the primary issue is the lack of pop. No one wants to constantly play with the same people, but that's how it currently feels like.

After removing the buff you can get in a deathmatch it became a great mode for getting that small scale experience. However, when BGs pop started to drop and ZOS took away the choice to play a specific mode, players became more inclined to play any mode like a deathmatch.

ZOS need to improve BG rewards or something to get the pop back up to what it was in its prime so that it can once again be viable to give us back our choices.

Karm1cOne

Zos should remove the kill/death screen on non deathmatch modes and replace with metrics for that game. Reward the players for participating in the type of game at hand. Lower kill ap and increase ap for relic or chaosball holding. All this test says to me is that the vocal "every mode is deathmatch" players are now justified in that.

Hallothiel

But why do some players feel the need to focus on killing other players, even if that is not the point of the match & they lose?

Was in a guild when some members would post up their scores - always about the kills rather than actually winning the match.

Sad. And everso slightly pathetic.

(And understand about killing other players as a tactic; that’s not what this is about. It’s about those who ignore objectives & just kill other players. Really spoils doing bgs)

Taggund

I've been primarily playing BGs lately as I became bored with PVE. I like the variety and objective based nature of BGs. DM mode was fine, but not always DM mode. What I did not like about BGs is repeatedly getting the same game type or same map during a play session..

Eventually, I planned to work into doing Cyro as well. This was my original intent with playing ESO (as a RvR/WvW player) , but the issues there kept me avoiding it.

ThePlacidHatter

I hate this.

A non-PVP oriented tank will no longer be able to play BG and be effective in most game modes.

Chaosball was my favourite game mode, especially when playing on my healers designed for vet PVE which are super OP in Chaosball.
Speaking of Chaosball, this change will lock everyone out of the only difficult title/achievement for healers - Chaos Guardian.

Yes, healers are still very valuable in Deathmatch but I would rather play healer in other modes (except Relic, healer is not much fun in Relic).

ThePlacidHatter

Artim_X wrote: »

IMO the primary issue is the lack of pop. No one wants to constantly play with the same people, but that's how it currently feels like.

After removing the buff you can get in a deathmatch it became a great mode for getting that small scale experience. However, when BGs pop started to drop and ZOS took away the choice to play a specific mode, players became more inclined to play any mode like a deathmatch.

ZOS need to improve BG rewards or something to get the pop back up to what it was in its prime so that it can once again be viable to give us back our choices.

Maybe bring game mode selection back and give each game mode a daily reward.
If they bring back game mode selection, they should probably get rid of either Crazy King or Domination, though. They are too similar to have their own queues.

divnyi

Artim_X wrote: »

ZOS need to improve BG rewards or something to get the pop back up to what it was in its prime so that it can once again be viable to give us back our choices.

TBH new sets kinda was this thing - they cost a whole lot. Or, well, costed. Supply is insane and everyone who wanted them already got em.

I don't understand why transmute crystals were moved to PvE territory from BGs, with RND getting 10/run and first battleground per day doesn't get the same.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Killing a player takes them out for 10 to 30 seconds, the amount of time it takes for them to respawn and get back into a fight. Time to Kill is so low with proc sets and skill that many players spend far more time in respawn than actually accomplishing an objective. Kill an entire team, get the chaos ball and keep it. Kill an entire team, stay on the flags. You don't need a study to realize this.

You can't wipe any competent team in mere 10 seconds. It takes a minute or more for battle to resolve, while the least competent third team just res and capture everything in the meantime.

Thus, you either play ultra-defensive and avoid any combat where you don't outright slaughter in 3 seconds, or you lose. And it doesn't take a big brain to understand that. It just getting boring after 2k games. You are not queueing for 15 minutes into the game just to avoid fights, grab flags and end it in 2 minutes.

ShawnLaRock wrote: »

The thing that people don’t seem to get through their skulls is that MANY times - the teams playing every mode as Deathmatch actually LOSE… a lot!

Yeah, they smash you whenever they see you, you hide and run whole game and it's them who lost, lol.
I can assure you, we don't see it this way.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Intelligent game design funnels players towards the developer's intended goals. ZOS has failed so badly with that that it's now testing out Deathmatch only which frankly is a stupid decision. The ideas behind modes like Capture the Flag are sound and work extremely well. Battlefield for years has had colossal multiplayer matches that thrive on this. But Battlefield always designs their games to be balanced. Loadouts are limited, spawn points can be chosen, roles are balanced. But ESO takes its extreme and broken builds and just throws them into the same scenario.

Players die in 1s when you look on them in Battlefield, this is why it works. People hate getting bursted in 2s in ESO, it is balanced around the idea of counterplay. Which practically means you need at least 20s to kill a player - burn out his resources, line up your burst etc.

Have you ever seen a game with capture the flag where you can build a tank character and dumbly go to enemy base, take a flag and carry it back to base? Nope, because that's not what's happening in shooting games.

You propose to limit sets and homogenise the gameplay to make this gameplay possible. Now when this actually happened (first no-proc test) people were bashing ZOS in like 20-30 pages of hate replies.

ESO PvP balance is good, except few outstanding sets. Battleground game modes are stupid and need some rewriting to actually work properly.

MurderMostFoul

I understand why people who don't like Deathmatch would not be excited about this change, but it is ultimately fair for ZOS too allow the players who do prefer death match to actually play it with some regularity. For months, players who prefer death match have been forced to only play the mode they like 20% of the time at best. Now it's their turn to play the mode they like. Sure, ZOS could have addressed this issue more eloquently, but this is just a temporary change, and it will hopefully lead to a better system for everyone in the end.

trackdemon5512

divnyi wrote: »

You can't wipe any competent team in mere 10 seconds. It takes a minute or more for battle to resolve, while the least competent third team just res and capture everything in the meantime.

Thus, you either play ultra-defensive and avoid any combat where you don't outright slaughter in 3 seconds, or you lose. And it doesn't take a big brain to understand that. It just getting boring after 2k games. You are not queueing for 15 minutes into the game just to avoid fights, grab flags and end it in 2 minutes.

Forget the notion of fighting against a competent team. BG populations have dwindled so badly that if you have a group queueing they’re almost certainly going against inexperienced or ungrouped pre-made players.

Those teams get wiped every time except for the outstanding players who know what they’re doing combat wise. And for those that get wiped, they’re spending most of their time in a death recap screen not engaging, just watching.

Dedicated PvP is for Cyrodiil. You want drawn out battles to test mettle it’s done there over and over. But BGs is for objective play.

divnyi wrote: »

Players die in 1s when you look on them in Battlefield, this is why it works. People hate getting bursted in 2s in ESO, it is balanced around the idea of counterplay. Which practically means you need at least 20s to kill a player - burn out his resources, line up your burst etc.

Have you ever seen a game with capture the flag where you can build a tank character and dumbly go to enemy base, take a flag and carry it back to base? Nope, because that's not what's happening in shooting games.

You propose to limit sets and homogenise the gameplay to make this gameplay possible. Now when this actually happened (first no-proc test) people were bashing ZOS in like 20-30 pages of hate replies.

ESO PvP balance is good, except few outstanding sets. Battleground game modes are stupid and need some rewriting to actually work properly.

ESO PvP Balance is TERRIBLE for BGs. I can tell that when a pack of four pre-made werewolves can go around a BG match howling and outclassing 8 other players with no effort.

Balance in the tank situation you just mentioned means sure a tank can walk onto a flag and grab it. But it shouldn’t take 4 DPS hammering it to slow it down or kill it. Why? Because then what’s the point of being DPS? What’s the point of being healer? What’s the point of being anything but a tank?

Yes. You have to set limits and homogenize gameplay to an extent. All closed competitive PVP games do it. As @Saieden said Pokemon puts all combatants at LvL 50 rather than 100. Legendary Pokémon are outright banned. Powerful moves have drawbacks or single uses.

Battlefield and Call Of Duty let you change weapons but there is a balance to them. Battlefield keeps you within prescribed load outs. Healers can revive but aren’t privy to certain weapons. Tanky builds can use machine guns and provide ammo but they lack capabilities others have.

ESO BGs allow you to be everything when really they should slap you with a set of specified armor, moves only to be used in BGs, and tone you down so that you’re forced to play the objective. I mean if you gave everyone in a Capture the Flag match Gold Invincibility bars I guarantee they would all play the objectives at that point. But leave it as it is now and they revert to basic nonsense of just kill anyone and ignore what the team needs to do.

jaws343

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

You can't wipe any competent team in mere 10 seconds. It takes a minute or more for battle to resolve, while the least competent third team just res and capture everything in the meantime.

Thus, you either play ultra-defensive and avoid any combat where you don't outright slaughter in 3 seconds, or you lose. And it doesn't take a big brain to understand that. It just getting boring after 2k games. You are not queueing for 15 minutes into the game just to avoid fights, grab flags and end it in 2 minutes.

Forget the notion of fighting against a competent team. BG populations have dwindled so badly that if you have a group queueing they’re almost certainly going against inexperienced or ungrouped pre-made players.

Those teams get wiped every time except for the outstanding players who know what they’re doing combat wise. And for those that get wiped, they’re spending most of their time in a death recap screen not engaging, just watching.

Dedicated PvP is for Cyrodiil. You want drawn out battles to test mettle it’s done there over and over. But BGs is for objective play.

divnyi wrote: »

Players die in 1s when you look on them in Battlefield, this is why it works. People hate getting bursted in 2s in ESO, it is balanced around the idea of counterplay. Which practically means you need at least 20s to kill a player - burn out his resources, line up your burst etc.

Have you ever seen a game with capture the flag where you can build a tank character and dumbly go to enemy base, take a flag and carry it back to base? Nope, because that's not what's happening in shooting games.

You propose to limit sets and homogenise the gameplay to make this gameplay possible. Now when this actually happened (first no-proc test) people were bashing ZOS in like 20-30 pages of hate replies.

ESO PvP balance is good, except few outstanding sets. Battleground game modes are stupid and need some rewriting to actually work properly.

ESO PvP Balance is TERRIBLE for BGs. I can tell that when a pack of four pre-made werewolves can go around a BG match howling and outclassing 8 other players with no effort.

Balance in the tank situation you just mentioned means sure a tank can walk onto a flag and grab it. But it shouldn’t take 4 DPS hammering it to slow it down or kill it. Why? Because then what’s the point of being DPS? What’s the point of being healer? What’s the point of being anything but a tank?

Yes. You have to set limits and homogenize gameplay to an extent. All closed competitive PVP games do it. As @Saieden said Pokemon puts all combatants at LvL 50 rather than 100. Legendary Pokémon are outright banned. Powerful moves have drawbacks or single uses.

Battlefield and Call Of Duty let you change weapons but there is a balance to them. Battlefield keeps you within prescribed load outs. Healers can revive but aren’t privy to certain weapons. Tanky builds can use machine guns and provide ammo but they lack capabilities others have.

ESO BGs allow you to be everything when really they should slap you with a set of specified armor, moves only to be used in BGs, and tone you down so that you’re forced to play the objective. I mean if you gave everyone in a Capture the Flag match Gold Invincibility bars I guarantee they would all play the objectives at that point. But leave it as it is now and they revert to basic nonsense of just kill anyone and ignore what the team needs to do.

I agree, the open ended player build options is the biggest reason why the objective modes are just not good. And every game I have ever played that had these type of modes usually only allow weapon changes, which mostly amount to a pool of weapons to choose from. But your defense is mostly all the same. So TTK is a lot more in line with reaction and skill than just having better defensive measures.

In DM, this isn't really a problem. More defensive players can mostly be ignored and their inability to secure kills make them largely not relevant to the outcome of the match.

But in objective modes, a tank designed to withstand the beating from an entire 12 man group is showing up and parking themselves directly in front of a relic for 15 minutes and there is no way, even coordinated together, that the other two teams are going to kill that person. So essentially, one person shuts down the ability for the other teams to even take the relic from them.

Or in chaos ball, even on my full DPS sorc build, I can run the ball and hold it for a few minutes, mostly just outhealing the damage and dodgerolling/LOSing attacks, and letting my team kill everyone who comes for it. But I am killable if outplayed, by even just one person. But in the hands of that same tank mentioned above, they just get the relic and hold it for the entire match with no chance of anyone getting it from them.

That isn't healthy for the game mode at all. It needs to be more balance amongst the teams and tanky playstyles really need to be removed from the game mode in some way. Or made less effective in the mode. Like a damage taken penalty for being too close to your relic. Or the chaos ball always respawning randomly on the map when dropped and doing even more damage to the carrier, or even shutting down healing done to the carrier. Make it more of a fight and less a tank fest.

divnyi

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Forget the notion of fighting against a competent team. BG populations have dwindled so badly that if you have a group queueing they’re almost certainly going against inexperienced or ungrouped pre-made players.

Wrong. There is hidden MMR, which separates strong players from weak players. It only groups everyone together when population shrinks.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Dedicated PvP is for Cyrodiil. You want drawn out battles to test mettle it’s done there over and over. But BGs is for objective play.

Cyrodiil is literally objective-oriented game, with flags, sieges and everything.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

ESO PvP Balance is TERRIBLE for BGs. I can tell that when a pack of four pre-made werewolves can go around a BG match howling and outclassing 8 other players with no effort.

I didn't see any werewolf in a long time, yet alone, a pack. Why would anyone want to run something that limits you to a single bar, doesn't have burst setups, doesn't have ulti burst, and where all the skills cost a whole lot? 10k extra armor, in Hrothgar meta?

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Balance in the tank situation you just mentioned means sure a tank can walk onto a flag and grab it. But it shouldn’t take 4 DPS hammering it to slow it down or kill it. Why? Because then what’s the point of being DPS? What’s the point of being healer? What’s the point of being anything but a tank?

You probably never seen how groups with PvP healers do.

There is literally no point in being Damage Per Second in PvP, because DPS doesn't kill, burst kills.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

ESO BGs allow you to be everything

No, they are not. Each PvP build have limitations it is played around.

Franchise408

ThePlacidHatter wrote: »

Artim_X wrote: »

IMO the primary issue is the lack of pop. No one wants to constantly play with the same people, but that's how it currently feels like.

After removing the buff you can get in a deathmatch it became a great mode for getting that small scale experience. However, when BGs pop started to drop and ZOS took away the choice to play a specific mode, players became more inclined to play any mode like a deathmatch.

ZOS need to improve BG rewards or something to get the pop back up to what it was in its prime so that it can once again be viable to give us back our choices.

Maybe bring game mode selection back and give each game mode a daily reward.
If they bring back game mode selection, they should probably get rid of either Crazy King or Domination, though. They are too similar to have their own queues.

Just make the queue what it used to be:

-Deathmatch
-Flag games (Domination, Crazy King)
-Capture games (Chaos Ball, Capture The Relic)

Problem solved, literally everyone is happy.

trackdemon5512

divnyi wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Forget the notion of fighting against a competent team. BG populations have dwindled so badly that if you have a group queueing they’re almost certainly going against inexperienced or ungrouped pre-made players.

Wrong. There is hidden MMR, which separates strong players from weak players. It only groups everyone together when population shrinks.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Dedicated PvP is for Cyrodiil. You want drawn out battles to test mettle it’s done there over and over. But BGs is for objective play.

Cyrodiil is literally objective-oriented game, with flags, sieges and everything.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

ESO PvP Balance is TERRIBLE for BGs. I can tell that when a pack of four pre-made werewolves can go around a BG match howling and outclassing 8 other players with no effort.

I didn't see any werewolf in a long time, yet alone, a pack. Why would anyone want to run something that limits you to a single bar, doesn't have burst setups, doesn't have ulti burst, and where all the skills cost a whole lot? 10k extra armor, in Hrothgar meta?

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Balance in the tank situation you just mentioned means sure a tank can walk onto a flag and grab it. But it shouldn’t take 4 DPS hammering it to slow it down or kill it. Why? Because then what’s the point of being DPS? What’s the point of being healer? What’s the point of being anything but a tank?

You probably never seen how groups with PvP healers do.

There is literally no point in being Damage Per Second in PvP, because DPS doesn't kill, burst kills.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

ESO BGs allow you to be everything

No, they are not. Each PvP build have limitations it is played around.

1) MMR means nothing when the population is so low that high ranked players are forced into matches with low ranked. That’s exactly what is and has been happening for quite some time.

2) Cyrodiil itself may be objective based but the zone is explicitly designed so that an individual can entirely avoid the war to get skyshards, do delves, or kill players individually without constantly moving with the zergs from keep to keep, getting scrolls, etc. Many battles out there are small 2 or 4 player groups taking on opponents just for the hell of it. Cyrodiil is no super focused on the immediate objective as a Capture the Flag or Chaosball match is.

3) It’s an example that balance isn’t there and your comment about Hrothgar proves the point. We now move to another unbalanced set for BGs

4) DPS just stands for dedicated damage dealer in PvP. Maybe they’re glass cannons or what not. Whatever their focus is targeting enemies and killing them crazy fast. Burst kills fast but damage dealers do so all the same. The point being made is that players build to extremes and it basically breaks play. Unkillable tanks getting relics that an entire team can’t take down is inherently unbalanced. A small scale competitive game would seek to limit that so play remains consistent. Every other game but ESO does that with BGs.

5) You say each PVP build has limitations but with over 500 set combinations, many movesets, several classes and races, those limitations are not well defined or extremely broad ranged. A player can make a tank that kills AND heals easily covering a full spread. Werewolves were notorious for that for quite some time. A game like Overwatch limits a character to the moves in their role and that’s it. It’s much more balanced in terms of matching and ensuring the game goes according to the designed rules and developer intentions. ESOs push towards be whatever does not work when you need fairness to provide a proper match.

A BG match needs to be a contest of strategy. Instead it’s currently a contest of power and with no way to reign in that power along with the extremes that power provides you get matches that just become killing floors. It’s not really a Rugby game if all players are tackling each other and no one is actually doing anything with the ball.

Aldoss

Bjond wrote: »

DM heavily favors gear and ping. Non-DM heavily favors clever strategy.

This is false equivalency [snip]

There is a vast amount of data to draw knowledge from right now given how many people are running DC because "it's the new meta OP set". Most end the game with the least number of kills on their team because they thought "OP set" meant "insta kill/win" and do nothing else but try and proc it.

There's an extreme difference from an average player running an OP set and Magio, Shoddy, Timber, Pope, etc running those sets.

It's clear you've never witnessed a tournament put on by the BG community. I think you should. It will be enlightening, educational, and entertaining and help give you a better perspective on this matter.

The last one I saw was just before this update. There was a massive forum thread calling MA The most OP set and had numerous people calling for it be nerfed. The winning team of that tourney wasn't running it. There were entire teams designed around MA and performed terribly. Clever strategy won the day, as it always will, no matter the mode.

[edited for baiting]

divnyi

Aldoss wrote: »

The last one I saw was just before this update. There was a massive forum thread calling MA The most OP set and had numerous people calling for it be nerfed. The winning team of that tourney wasn't running it.

Because MA is ganker set, why would you run gankers in the teamplay contest?

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Forget the notion of fighting against a competent team. BG populations have dwindled so badly that if you have a group queueing they’re almost certainly going against inexperienced or ungrouped pre-made players.

Wrong. There is hidden MMR, which separates strong players from weak players. It only groups everyone together when population shrinks.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Dedicated PvP is for Cyrodiil. You want drawn out battles to test mettle it’s done there over and over. But BGs is for objective play.

Cyrodiil is literally objective-oriented game, with flags, sieges and everything.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

ESO PvP Balance is TERRIBLE for BGs. I can tell that when a pack of four pre-made werewolves can go around a BG match howling and outclassing 8 other players with no effort.

I didn't see any werewolf in a long time, yet alone, a pack. Why would anyone want to run something that limits you to a single bar, doesn't have burst setups, doesn't have ulti burst, and where all the skills cost a whole lot? 10k extra armor, in Hrothgar meta?

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Balance in the tank situation you just mentioned means sure a tank can walk onto a flag and grab it. But it shouldn’t take 4 DPS hammering it to slow it down or kill it. Why? Because then what’s the point of being DPS? What’s the point of being healer? What’s the point of being anything but a tank?

You probably never seen how groups with PvP healers do.

There is literally no point in being Damage Per Second in PvP, because DPS doesn't kill, burst kills.

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

ESO BGs allow you to be everything

No, they are not. Each PvP build have limitations it is played around.

1) MMR means nothing when the population is so low that high ranked players are forced into matches with low ranked. That’s exactly what is and has been happening for quite some time.

2) Cyrodiil itself may be objective based but the zone is explicitly designed so that an individual can entirely avoid the war to get skyshards, do delves, or kill players individually without constantly moving with the zergs from keep to keep, getting scrolls, etc. Many battles out there are small 2 or 4 player groups taking on opponents just for the hell of it. Cyrodiil is no super focused on the immediate objective as a Capture the Flag or Chaosball match is.

3) It’s an example that balance isn’t there and your comment about Hrothgar proves the point. We now move to another unbalanced set for BGs

4) DPS just stands for dedicated damage dealer in PvP. Maybe they’re glass cannons or what not. Whatever their focus is targeting enemies and killing them crazy fast. Burst kills fast but damage dealers do so all the same. The point being made is that players build to extremes and it basically breaks play. Unkillable tanks getting relics that an entire team can’t take down is inherently unbalanced. A small scale competitive game would seek to limit that so play remains consistent. Every other game but ESO does that with BGs.

5) You say each PVP build has limitations but with over 500 set combinations, many movesets, several classes and races, those limitations are not well defined or extremely broad ranged. A player can make a tank that kills AND heals easily covering a full spread. Werewolves were notorious for that for quite some time. A game like Overwatch limits a character to the moves in their role and that’s it. It’s much more balanced in terms of matching and ensuring the game goes according to the designed rules and developer intentions. ESOs push towards be whatever does not work when you need fairness to provide a proper match.

A BG match needs to be a contest of strategy. Instead it’s currently a contest of power and with no way to reign in that power along with the extremes that power provides you get matches that just become killing floors. It’s not really a Rugby game if all players are tackling each other and no one is actually doing anything with the ball.

1. There are enough players in the uptime to do MMR, at least PC/EU.

2. Cyro is a horse simulator, nothing you say will change that.

3. You wanted homogeneous gameplay, you got homogenous gameplay. Everyone runs Dank Convergence and Hrothgar Chill together. Isn't that what you dreamed of?

4. Most bursty characters are gankblades. You can visit the PvP forum branch to check out how 30k char was ganked in IC in 2 GCDs flat. Same burst on full-on tanks will leave them with approx 10-15k, in case of coordinated burst will straight out wipe.

5. There aren't 500 set combinations, because most sets aren't useful in PvP. What you are talking about is averaged min-maxed builds, that's not "tanks". That's bruisers at most. And they all have downside of being unable to kill without ulti & burst sets with big cooldown.

It’s not really a Rugby game alright.