Tell me PvP isn't dead in this game

Ziaohuamei

Sergykid

it's not. I mean it is but not in the way u show it. Dungeon finder queue is so broken i wonder how devs allow such a thing unrepaired.

meaning bg queue is also bugged, just not as bad. I also rarely get to wait for ready check players when i accept a bg join even tho teleport should be instant.

like with dungeon queue to rejoin, u should also have rejoined after 15 mins. Since a game can't take more than 15 mins to end, it means u can't not get a game. or was that at 5 am? just a picture with no context doesn't help with ur rhetoric point

Syiccal

I had a 58 min que when I check last weekend, gave up and turned it off

Ingenon

Is the queue broken? Or are there only a small number of people doing battlegrounds?

Only ZOS knows the real answer to the second question. But you can get a close answer by keeping track of who you see in battlegrounds. Is it pretty much the same people every time? Then the queue time will be long ...

gamma71

It's pretty dead from my experience. Every single person I considered a friend has left the game that I pvpd every day with. What does anybody expect when there's no added content to pvp. Pvp has become dull and stale and I've been active since 2014 I recently stopped all together, it's boring doing the exact same circle jerk every day adding a couple sets is not content.

Stamicka

Yea, PvP has been very quiet lately. BG queues take a long time and if you do get a game, you're against a few of the same 12 or so people. Gray Host still reaches full population, but I notice it is dead for more of the day than it used to be. Even when Gray Host has full population, the map still feels quiet. IC is dead at all times, even on the weekend, and Blackreach normally doesn't fill. I just feel the lack of enthusiasm around PvP when I log in. I'm in a few PvP guilds and only about 6 or so play the game every day. The rest haven't logged in for days or months. It's a shame, there was so much potential.

Thecompton73

Weird right? You'd think 90% of small scale players being damage sponges with 35K+ health while having a few immortal 12 player groups that run around mowing people down on top of a keep for an hour before they get bored and jump out to go somewhere else and do it again would be the recipe for super fun and interesting game play. Especially when added to the excitement that comes from of having 18 days left in a campaign and the winner already being determined.

DrSlaughtr

Solo queue always takes forever. Group queue as one person, near instant pop. This either means there are not enough solo queuers OR there are so many that you have to wait in line, as I imagine there is a limit to how many concurrent BGs can operate at once on the ol' rust bucket that is the server.

gamma71

Solo que takes a too long and group que definitely is not instant ,it's part of the reason my friends quit, they got sick of waiting. I mean seriously this company took time to make a stupid card game nobody plays lol I have never in the 5 guilds I'm in here one person talk about it ore anybody in any zone chat even mention it.

If they spent the time and effort on pvp instead of a stupid card game nobody plays we might not be loosing tons of players.

SkaraMinoc

DrSlaughtr wrote: »

Solo queue always takes forever. Group queue as one person, near instant pop.

On PC NA this is backwards for high MMR battlegrounds. Solo Queue always takes <= 15 minutes while Group Queue as a solo player takes 15-30 minutes. From 12am to 4am, only a single Solo Queue battleground is running and there are zero Group Queue battlegrounds running. You will literally wait hours for Group Queue from 12am to 4am.

mmtaniac

For me right now it's dead ,templar become bad so i don't care about pvp. Plague of vampire passives everywhere, but zos still not see this passive is toxic and too powerfull especially combined with other mitigation options.

Artiamus

Thecompton73 wrote: »

Weird right? You'd think 90% of small scale players being damage sponges with 35K+ health while having a few immortal 12 player groups that run around mowing people down on top of a keep for an hour before they get bored and jump out to go somewhere else and do it again would be the recipe for super fun and interesting game play. Especially when added to the excitement that comes from of having 18 days left in a campaign and the winner already being determined.

This. Exactly this. Even with a pvp build and moderately meta gear, trying to solo/duo into bgs is impossible to get anything close to wins. Either you run into folks who are built around being unkillable by conventional means(i.e. both the other teams focusing on them) or you've got players designed around doing 35k+ dps in one shot to drop anyone they come across.
Last time I solo queued for any amount of time I kept getting slotted in against a fully optimized team of four and had to consign myself to getting second place for the evening. Ended up having to slot in the bow cone skill that holds people in order to attempt to counter some of it.
And these problems get amplified when you go to Cryo/IC and have access to CP as well.
Having more then a dozen players be taking a point in either area only for a single other faction player to run in and proceed to solo stall things out since they are impossible to kill is enough to make many players wash their hands of the whole deal.
Unfortunately fixing this problem with pvp is a much bigger topic than can be addressed here. I do feel that taking a look at how games like LoL and HotS deal with balancing might help but even that just seems like a small patch weld when a reforming is needed.

TechMaybeHic

Thecompton73 wrote: »

Weird right? You'd think 90% of small scale players being damage sponges with 35K+ health while having a few immortal 12 player groups that run around mowing people down on top of a keep for an hour before they get bored and jump out to go somewhere else and do it again would be the recipe for super fun and interesting game play. Especially when added to the excitement that comes from of having 18 days left in a campaign and the winner already being determined.

Although the OP is really talking about Bags; you're not wrong. Still soft lock 3 factions at least but I rarely have a long queue if I get one in Cyrodiil as well

xylena_lazarow

Players long for the deathmatch queue, forgetting that once you got to high MMR, it would be a nonstop tank heal clown fest where premades stall each other for the full 15 minutes, winner has like 135 points. If the queue wasn't full though, you'd see 20-0 tryhard NBs repeatedly killing the same cp120 guy every match and stuff like that.

Meanwhile, Cyro is just unkillable ball groups and hapless casual zergers chasing them in circles. Incredibly dysfunctional like this for years and years. There should be no surprise that the vast majority of enfranchised players and guilds are long gone. It's not literally dead, but as a "minimum viable product" it is dead in spirit. What a waste.

Vizir

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Players long for the deathmatch queue, forgetting that once you got to high MMR, it would be a nonstop tank heal clown fest where premades stall each other for the full 15 minutes, winner has like 135 points. If the queue wasn't full though, you'd see 20-0 tryhard NBs repeatedly killing the same cp120 guy every match and stuff like that.

Meanwhile, Cyro is just unkillable ball groups and hapless casual zergers chasing them in circles. Incredibly dysfunctional like this for years and years. There should be no surprise that the vast majority of enfranchised players and guilds are long gone. It's not literally dead, but as a "minimum viable product" it is dead in spirit. What a waste.

Yeah, I'm kind of amazed that every time I leave and come back after months, it just keeps getting worse.

worrallj

There are still people playing. But the balance is so wildly off it's kind of hard to believe. I've never been a big balance whiner but wardens are just stupidly powerful. Massive health pools, and amazing aoe cc, amazing healing, decent damage all in 1 or 2 skills spammable skills that don't even need to be targeted. BGs are pretty much all wardens. But on the rare occassiom they're not, it's normal to see them go like 40-0. I don't mean to be a snob but I have no idea what zos was thinking with these skills.

In cyro I played with a couple ice warden friends and watched them wipe out a squad of like 12 enemy players on open field, no line of sighting no bombing nothing. Just waltzed into them and slaughtered them like they were trash mobs.

And this isn't even mentioning any of the new OP sets that they use to force pvpers to buy the expansions.

xylena_lazarow

worrallj wrote: »

And this isn't even mentioning any of the new OP sets that they use to force pvpers to buy the expansions.

Sets that they NERF a few months later, wasting our money and time. What a load of bull. Say what you want about Oakensoul and "skill" but that meta was the most fun I've had in this game in years. Looking back now, anything with a resto/snb/ice "defensive back bar" is infinitely more anti-skill than playing a full damage build with only one bar.

Imagine if a pro sport basically deleted offense, every game is now a defensive stalemate, with half of them ending in 0-0 ties. The league would be bleeding viewers and money and be forced to add some life back to the game immediately. Pro baseball exploded in popularity once the "dead ball era" ended and Babe Ruth started hitting 60 home runs.

BazOfWar

I can't comment on BG but cyrodiil is pretty much dead, Grayhost gets a half decent amount of players at peak times and Ravenswatch is a ghost town compared to how it used to be apart from the ball groups who show up for a couple of hours at 7pm and sap any kind of fun out of the game.

Zos has done an excellent job at butchering their own game.

Baconlad

I absolutely agree on oakensoul. But it was a bit too defensive as it was. It's great now.

I just wish more players would jump into straight damage bombing and lose sight of this defense meta. It's not fun, not fun to play, not fun to duel against, not fun to play against.

I have always wished since this game launched they would give us one or two more slots on frontbar and just delete backbar for the ENTIRE game. Doing so would solve so many issues. It would bring down the ceiling dramatically on damage in PvE, it would force players to either be a full spec healer, a full spec tank or a full spec damage dealer in Cyrodiil.

IMO if they did this they'd have to remove the most common major buffs as well. No more mitigation, spell/weapon damage, crit or crit damage buffs to juggle. Don't even compensate for it either, just remove it.

I say nuke the major/minor buff system altogether.

I've never had more fun on my dark flare magplar than since oakensoul launched. I've been running it since summerset, and through the nerfs and more nerfs...not having to manage buffs has been a godsend in enjoyment for the game. It's even gotten me to enjoy PvE again, not having to cast buffs allows me to focus on just dealing damage and having fun...anyway

OBJnoob

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Looking back now, anything with a resto/snb/ice "defensive back bar" is infinitely more anti-skill than playing a full damage build with only one bar.

Imagine if a pro sport basically deleted offense, every game is now a defensive stalemate, with half of them ending in 0-0 ties. The league would be bleeding viewers and money and be forced to add some life back to the game immediately. Pro baseball exploded in popularity once the "dead ball era" ended and Babe Ruth started hitting 60 home runs.

A very insightful baseball simile aside... I think you're viewing the original oakensoul a little too favorably. There's no way 1-bar builds took more skill than having a defensive backbar. I think you're forgetting how much defense oakensoul provided also in the form of major protection and insanely high weapon damage based heals.

xylena_lazarow

Baconlad wrote: »

I just wish more players would jump into straight damage bombing and lose sight of this defense meta. It's not fun, not fun to play, not fun to duel against, not fun to play against.

They won't because unless they're pug stomping random squishballs, most players basically have two choices:

Run a glass cannon spec, do no damage, die quickly

Run a stalemate tank spec, do no damage, die slowly

All the strongest sets and skills are either purely defensive, or have a defensive component like Rallying Cry. One single (indefinitely spammable) burst heal cast can undo an absurd number of optimized damage GCDs. There's no "just build opposite the meta" when it's this screwed up, and of course unbalanced metas hurt casual/mid players who want fun playstyles, far more than competitive players who just abuse whatever is overperforming at the moment.

xylena_lazarow

OBJnoob wrote: »

There's no way 1-bar builds took more skill than having a defensive backbar.

It's perfectly fair to disagree here since certain Oakensoul builds were pretty degenerate, especially the ones that spammed defensive ults. Defensive back bar is the sort of thing that does take skill to set up properly and learn to abuse, but once you do... it degenerates combat by just how many mistakes it will forgive with minimal user input, and how much survivability it stacks on builds that shouldn't have access to that much defense (where Oakensoul wouldn't have the space).

And it's the heal/support builds that are most egregiously getting access to too much defense, not solo damage builds which so many constantly cry about still, which is yet another reason why we're in this stagnant swamp of tankhealbotting. Normally, if a healer gets attacked, their DD allies need to kill the attacker, or the tank needs to taunt, and if they don't, the healer dies. When the healer is also a tank, you can ignore mechanics and enemies. The game degenerates, PvE or PvP.

Sorry for the rant. It's just wheels within wheels of metagame dysfunction. No idea how they would or could ever fix it.

Jsmalls

Thecompton73 wrote: »

Weird right? You'd think 90% of small scale players being damage sponges with 35K+ health while having a few immortal 12 player groups that run around mowing people down on top of a keep for an hour before they get bored and jump out to go somewhere else and do it again would be the recipe for super fun and interesting game play. Especially when added to the excitement that comes from of having 18 days left in a campaign and the winner already being determined.

This. Soooooo much this. And it isn't just in campaigns it's BGs too. There just isn't any trade off to running exactly as this post says. 35k health is the standard, and it allows so much forgiveness in gameplay. You've brought the floor so damn high that no one is dying in a 1 v 1 scenario. And it's just not fun. But HONESTLY I don't have an answer for you. I get that the floor is brought up so that you try to retain more players. Not everyone is a PvP sweat, and if you get bullied because the skill floor is too low then you just quit the game. But at the end of the day, it's your jobs (Devs) and you're population for a large part of this game is dwindling. The reason why is different for everyone, but stale combat is a major factor. And that's sad because this game has one of the better PVP combat systems I've played.

mmtaniac

Game have too many mitigation options. Armor + major minor prot should be only possible option because they can be countered. Other mitigations have no counter options there is no item that can increase damage dealing by 30% to counter vampire passive. Vampire passive should work identical like Pariah and have similiar or little higher stats, this way will be more balanced and force people to build less armor items to balance that extra armor from it. More armor options less % damage reduce option. Armor can be countered.

xylena_lazarow

Jsmalls wrote: »

Not everyone is a PvP sweat, and if you get bullied because the skill floor is too low then you just quit the game... The reason why is different for everyone, but stale combat is a major factor. And that's sad because this game has one of the better PVP combat systems I've played.

Meanwhile, the skill floor for playing offense is now underground, so you have players quitting because they can't kill anything on their own. And even when you do master your pressure rotation and burst combos, you're still getting brick walled over and over, watching enemy hp bars jump from execute to full over and over... yea stale and sad sums it up.

Jsmalls

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

Not everyone is a PvP sweat, and if you get bullied because the skill floor is too low then you just quit the game... The reason why is different for everyone, but stale combat is a major factor. And that's sad because this game has one of the better PVP combat systems I've played.

Meanwhile, the skill floor for playing offense is now underground, so you have players quitting because they can't kill anything on their own. And even when you do master your pressure rotation and burst combos, you're still getting brick walled over and over, watching enemy hp bars jump from execute to full over and over... yea stale and sad sums it up.

I'm going to argue that the offensive "skill" is currently clouded by defense over performing. I have buddies I've played with for 7 years and we run pure offensive setups and duels are still tons of fun. Generally if we make a mistake we die because we don't have a 35k health pool to compensate for lack of skill / reactive defense (rolling, blocking, healing, CC'ing, etc). What does that tell me? The "game" is fine, it's the abuse of brain dead gameplay options and over performing defensive setups that make it boring. This game offers soooo many ways to mitigate damage that doesn't include stacking 30k resistance and 35k health, but you'd actually have to pay attention to your screen which is asking too much I guess.

xylena_lazarow

Jsmalls wrote: »

Generally if we make a mistake we die because we don't have a 35k health pool to compensate for lack of skill / reactive defense (rolling, blocking, healing, CC'ing, etc). What does that tell me? The "game" is fine

It tells me the game is "fine" in situations like competitive duels where players all run mostly damage and make a good faith effort to end the fight or die, deliberately avoiding stalemate tactics and sets or skills that would enable stalling. I guess it's also sorta fine in Cyro when a large fight has roughly even numbers of randoms on each side, no premades, no heal stacking, and players are playing to kill enemies then take the objective, not passive-aggressively stall it out.

fizzylu

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

It tells me the game is "fine" in situations like competitive duels where players all run mostly damage and make a good faith effort to end the fight or die, deliberately avoiding stalemate tactics and sets or skills that would enable stalling.

Ah, I remember the days when people died.... good times.
Seriously though haha yeah, there's just way too much mitigation and self sustain.... and sadly, the majority of people are going to use it if it's given to them. Watching and/or participating in fights based around "who will run out of magicka/stamina first" is not a good time. I feel like there was a time period where the balance between defense, self sustain, and damage was just about right.... but Greymoor really just turned it into a mess (hated the "I'm tanky, but still hit like a truck while I stand here and my proc set does the damage for me" meta), then there was a short period where there was just too much burst/evasion, and now we have the "fight not until death, but until exhaustion" meta. Not a good time. I used to love pvp in this game; it's what got me into it after deciding to quit WoW when BFA released despite having a terrible experience with ESO when it first launched.... and while I participated less in pvp after Greymoor's release, I still at least did some bg's every day and ran around IC/Cyrodiil with my bestfriend.... but now? Now I won't even try getting into it haha also have a handful of friends that are sticking to pve, but most are just not playing ESO period at this point. And we were really into bg's more than anything so that queue time.... yikes.

Silversmith

PvP in this game is bad. The bad PvP makes it, so no one wants to queue up for PvP. I played 5 games and every game had the same 12 people rotating to different teams in solo queue. There are probably less than 50 active BG PvPers on PC NA.

Rhaegar75

Sadly the current state of pvp is uninspiring at best

1. The string of OP unkillable class of the month is very frustrating. First Necroos, then Plars, then DKs and now NoobWarden…..different patches but same issue: tanky classes that cannot be killed whilst dishing out damage. Simply too boring

2. Damage is too low: don’t get me wrong I’m no fan of one-shot builds but the current tank meta is simply dull.
When I tanked up my old warden char I could play it with 2 fingers and still I’d survive

3. The MMR for the BGs is awful. Average players like me are often pitched against streamers and other Uber players. They are lovely to chat to but awful to play against

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