Update 44: The Death of Battlegrounds

Moonspawn

I'd like to understand the thought process of those who believe that forcing solos to play against premades will not kill battlegrounds instantly. Please help me get over this overwhelming feeling of impending doom.

tomofhyrule

There is a thread about this already: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/665468/suggestion-optimal-queue-system-for-upcoming-battlegrounds#latest

Also, am I the only person who remembers that BG queues were much healthier before ZOS disabled group queueing? It’s almost like all of the people who want to play games with their friends just left BGs when that was disallowed.

While I’m sure this will disadvantage those who only queue solo, do you think this might actually being those people back to BGs who stopped playing specifically because they couldn’t play with their friends?

Whenever someone complains about the dungeon queue not going their way, the typical forum answer is “then just make a premade group!” Is this not a case where the same conclusion could be made: if you don’t want to play BGs as a solo queuer against a premade group, then you can make a group and be a premade yourself.

The current BG population is very small; I’m sure most people who play BGs now will see the same names over and over. You have 6 weeks now to contact these people and start a discord so you can be the premades who prey on others, if you want.

flizomica

Personally, I am withholding all judgement on the new BG format until its on live. I don't think that BGs work very well currently, given all the complaints about them and the various ways ZOS has iterated on the current format without great success. I think a large shakeup/resetting of the format is warranted. I'm sure they've learned a lot over the years with respect to how players actually engage with the content, and that is informing new design choices.

Moonspawn

tomofhyrule wrote: »

There is a thread about this already: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/665468/suggestion-optimal-queue-system-for-upcoming-battlegrounds#latest

I would prefer that topic to be solely about finding the optimal queue system. Some people are already coming up with different ideas, but they split the queue even more.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Also, am I the only person who remembers that BG queues were much healthier before ZOS disabled group queueing? It’s almost like all of the people who want to play games with their friends just left BGs when that was disallowed.

While I’m sure this will disadvantage those who only queue solo, do you think this might actually being those people back to BGs who stopped playing specifically because they couldn’t play with their friends?

Whenever someone complains about the dungeon queue not going their way, the typical forum answer is “then just make a premade group!” Is this not a case where the same conclusion could be made: if you don’t want to play BGs as a solo queuer against a premade group, then you can make a group and be a premade yourself.

You have 6 weeks now to contact these people and start a discord so you can be the premades who prey on others, if you want.

I dont agree with anything that you wrote, especially the part about BGs being healthier before. But this is exactly what I want for this topic. The bending over backwards to justify forcing solos to play against premades at all costs is just as entertaining as I hoped it would be. It does alleviate the feeling of impending doom, thanks.

sarahthes

Solo queues were never truly solo before anyway. Once your MMR got high enough (or it got late enough at night) you'd find yourself facing 2 organized 4 mans while your team consisted of a duo and another solo like yourself.

PeacefulAnarchy

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Also, am I the only person who remembers that BG queues were much healthier before ZOS disabled group queueing? It’s almost like all of the people who want to play games with their friends just left BGs when that was disallowed.

While I’m sure this will disadvantage those who only queue solo, do you think this might actually being those people back to BGs who stopped playing specifically because they couldn’t play with their friends?

You know group queueing in BGs has been back for a long time, yeah? Why didn't those people come back many patches ago?

cyclonus11

I don't understand why they have to completely get rid of the current formats instead of just adding these new formats as additional options.

LadyGP

sarahthes wrote: »

Solo queues were never truly solo before anyway. Once your MMR got high enough (or it got late enough at night) you'd find yourself facing 2 organized 4 mans while your team consisted of a duo and another solo like yourself.

Every game is this way.. Halo, COD, if you're good enough (or get your rank high enough) you just don't have enough people to balance it out.

Side note.. you can't group queue in BGs? WTH?

Aurielle

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Whenever someone complains about the dungeon queue not going their way, the typical forum answer is “then just make a premade group!” Is this not a case where the same conclusion could be made: if you don’t want to play BGs as a solo queuer against a premade group, then you can make a group and be a premade yourself.

Not really. A premade PVE dungeon group formed via the group finder is going up against a predictable, unchanging opponent with a shared goal (e.g. speed running the dungeon, taking it slow and steady, etc). A premade BG group that’s not in comms, not in optimized builds that synergize well, could share the same goal (e.g. win the BG while having fun) and still get easily steamrolled over and over again by a tight, well-synergized group. “Just form your own pre-made” isn’t an answer to the problem, and it also detracts from the casual hop in and hop out nature of BGs (especially in the upcoming 8v8 mode). The minute you have to get four people to commit to farming and wearing particular builds to min-max and synergize with one another to have a better chance at success is the minute it stops being casual.

So in short, with mixed solo and group queues, there simply isn’t a casual option for people who want that. They can advertise for “casual BG runs” in the group finder all they want, and still get into matches against grouped up sweats who are anything but casual. There’s always a risk of encountering sweats in a solo queue, of course, but it’s much less likely than it is when you have solo queuers mixed in with premade groups.

tomofhyrule

Look, it really doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

Here's my perspective: I'm very casual and I dislike PvP. I got into BGs in the first place since I could play with my friends and we could have fun over discord or whatever, and I didn't really have to stress about being good since it was just a game that we could laugh about.

Problem is my friends are pretty hardcore in one of the alliances, and it's an alliance that I actually am vehemently against because the leader's backstory involves them doing something that hits too close to home for me, so I cannot support them without feeling miserable (I also think the leader is a horribly written character, but that's a different topic). That means my options to play PvP with them are either to be miserable the whole time and just wallow in what happened to me, or for them to all jump over to my side (which is also tough since my alliance exists in Grey Host and nowhere else). Essentially, none of us are playing our mains, which at least someone finds not fun.

And yet, even as someone who rarely plays BGs since they removed the group queue the first time, my MMR wasn't letting us ever pop a group queue once they brought it back. So my choices are to: a) be miserable playing a mode I don't like alone; b) be miserable playing a mode I don't like alone, but at least maybe I can find a zerg to surf; or c) don't play PvP.

Which of these choices is healthiest for continuing PvP? And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way - a lot of my casual friends swapped off of BGs once the queues were changed, and they never came back because the group queues don't move.

Aurielle wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Whenever someone complains about the dungeon queue not going their way, the typical forum answer is “then just make a premade group!” Is this not a case where the same conclusion could be made: if you don’t want to play BGs as a solo queuer against a premade group, then you can make a group and be a premade yourself.

Not really. A premade PVE dungeon group formed via the group finder is going up against a predictable, unchanging opponent with a shared goal (e.g. speed running the dungeon, taking it slow and steady, etc). A premade BG group that’s not in comms, not in optimized builds that synergize well, could share the same goal (e.g. win the BG while having fun) and still get easily steamrolled over and over again by a tight, well-synergized group. “Just form your own pre-made” isn’t an answer to the problem, and it also detracts from the casual hop in and hop out nature of BGs (especially in the upcoming 8v8 mode). The minute you have to get four people to commit to farming and wearing particular builds to min-max and synergize with one another to have a better chance at success is the minute it stops being casual.

So in short, with mixed solo and group queues, there simply isn’t a casual option for people who want that. They can advertise for “casual BG runs” in the group finder all they want, and still get into matches against grouped up sweats who are anything but casual. There’s always a risk of encountering sweats in a solo queue, of course, but it’s much less likely than it is when you have solo queuers mixed in with premade groups.

Of course you can't predict who you'll be up against - otherwise that'd be a lobby system (and if they did that, then 90% of the BG players would just stick to custom lobbies instead of random queues). But are you implying that things are not made more fun just by being with people you know?

There's something about being with a friend that makes it fun. Sure, we may not be able to one-shot all of our achievements, but at least we can joke around with our friends even as we fail on repeat. Whenever people complain about questing/dungeons/etc in game, people are always quick to point out "it's an MMO! Get with other people!" but it seems BGs are specifically 'THOU SHALT NOT PLAY WITH FRIENDS,' unlike the rest of the game.

That also makes it hard to entice people who like to chase rewards and achievements as well. Can you imagine if we just grabbed 12 people from the random queue and expected them - without comms, without coordinating sets, without making sure the tank was actually a tank - to get Gryphon Heart? That's obviously ridiculous. And yet, there are multiple "do XYZ with your team in BGs" that really need coordination: Capture both relics within 10 seconds, so you need to coordinate who gets both and who can guard yours. Heal an obscene amount of damage to someone on the chaosball, which means you need to be on a dedicated healer and the carrier needs to have a super tank build.

Even some of the other BG achievements almost require you to PvP against your team. I remember when we got the Schnappi pajamas, I needed the green BG dye for them. And then we got a CTR weekend, so I grinded BGs like no tomorrow to get all 100 relic captures. And I was ruthless - it only counted if I brought the relic in, so I was not playing with my team, I was actively playing against them to grab the relic before they could. It sucked. It was one of the most miserable experiences I've ever had in this game since I don't like to be hyper-competitive in the first place, and I couldn't even make it fun by having friends with me. I actually burned out on PvP so hard that I sat out the entirety of the next MYM because of it.
(Incidentally, I did try a few group queues with a friend that weekend, and they never popped. We did get lucky enough once or twice to both get the same team in a solo queue, but we also low rolled once or twice and were on opposite teams... which again, was not fun.

Point is: do you consider the current population of BGs healthy? Would keeping the status quo help to keep that healthiness, or is there a change needed to try to increase the population? Or will it reduce the population more than it would increase it?
I know a lot of PvPers have "get rid of every other PvP mode except Grey Host so you can increase GH pop cap" as a solution, but there are a lot of people who prefer other modes. And unlike PvE, the population in PvP is directly correlated to how fun it is (ask any EP who still have the misfortune of being homed in PCNA Blackreach)

Jsmalls

cyclonus11 wrote: »

I don't understand why they have to completely get rid of the current formats instead of just adding these new formats as additional options.

Participating Population size. Its already extremely small, if you added to many options the small population would be spread even thinner.

Aurielle

I think the best compromise would be to make 8v8 solo queue only, and 4v4 a mixed solo OR group queue. That way, 8v8 remains fun and casual (which is in keeping with the vision for that mode), and folks can still group up with friends if they want or take a chance as a solo player in the 4v4 mode without worrying about longer queue times. Two queues total, same number of queues as what’ll be launching on the PTS.

ArchMikem

Teams of 8 vs 8. The Cyrodiil Ball Groups moving to Battlegrounds is going to cause one helluva stir here.

Aurielle

ArchMikem wrote: »

Teams of 8 vs 8. The Cyrodiil Ball Groups moving to Battlegrounds is going to cause one helluva stir here.

Not really, max group size permitted for a pre-made group is four, even in 8v8 (yet another reason why it makes more sense for 8v8 to be a solo queue only and 4v4 to be a combined solo/group queue).

chessalavakia_ESO

Moonspawn wrote: »

I'd like to understand the thought process of those who believe that forcing solos to play against premades will not kill battlegrounds instantly. Please help me get over this overwhelming feeling of impending doom.

People designing content for games frequently design content in ways that they personally would enjoy.

For example, when I was younger I worked on a mod team for a server I played on. Most of the content I designed wasn't really all that popular because I was a bit more story focused and balance focused than most of the other players. Fortunately, as I was adding content rather than altering content I didn't really mess anything up for anyone I just didn't excite that many people with my additions. Amusingly (Okay, at the time it was kind of depressing) , my most popular creation was a ship where I accidentally copied the wrong line for maneuverability from my balance spreadsheet to the game.

Generally, game developers lean towards being people that enjoy teamwork.

So, you will frequently see games making more of a focus on teamwork even at the detriment of other areas.

Further, for many people their best moments in gaming are with other people they know. The problem is that modern games and the culture surrounding them create large gaps in effectiveness between players which produce lots of bad moments especially when the team sizes aren't that large.

CameraBeardThePirate

I really don't think allowing 4man groups to queue into 8s will be that big of a deal - 90% of the groups queueing will be queueing into 4s, especially if they're actually comped. Contrary to what some people have said on here, groups are not looking to steam roll players - they want good fights, and will be queueing for 4s to get those good fights.

That being said, they should probably reduce the max group size for 8s down to 2 players. This would allow people to still queue with friends, but a duo isn't really going to have a large effect in an 8 man team. Unfortunately, there isn't enough of a PvP population to construct 4 different queues (casual solo, casual group, comp solo, comp group).

For the competitive 4s queue, they can leave it as is. 95% of competitive matchmaking games only have one queue for competitive. If you're queueing for competitive, you should be aware that you might come up against a sweaty group. The matchmaking likely already prioritizes putting groups of the same size against each other (as evidenced by the live group queue, where if you're duo you're more likely to get matched against a duo, and if you're a 4 man the queue will wait for another 4 man to match you against).

DigiAngel

Good riddance...BG's are terribly un-enjoyable.

ForumSavant

sarahthes wrote: »

Solo queues were never truly solo before anyway. Once your MMR got high enough (or it got late enough at night) you'd find yourself facing 2 organized 4 mans while your team consisted of a duo and another solo like yourself.

I don't know if you understand the way BGs worked or not but no, in solo que you would not go against a premade 4 man. This would happen as a solo duo or a trio into GROUP que, but solo was solo.

Decimus

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

I really don't think allowing 4man groups to queue into 8s will be that big of a deal - 90% of the groups queueing will be queueing into 4s, especially if they're actually comped. Contrary to what some people have said on here, groups are not looking to steam roll players - they want good fights, and will be queueing for 4s to get those good fights.

This is not what I've seen, at all. Maybe once upon a time, but not in recent years.

What I see over on EU and on the NA streams I watch is ball groups and "smallscales" running after solo players and unorganized randoms, streamers getting streamsniped by groups of 4-5 gankers and then promptly tbagged etc...

Whenever I see two ball groups on EU at the same location, they just ignore each other and just attack the randoms around them.

Most of these players just want fights where they have an insurmountable advantage to feel good about "winning", that is the sad truth.

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

That being said, they should probably reduce the max group size for 8s down to 2 players. This would allow people to still queue with friends, but a duo isn't really going to have a large effect in an 8 man team. Unfortunately, there isn't enough of a PvP population to construct 4 different queues (casual solo, casual group, comp solo, comp group).

I disagree - I believe a lot of the things that discourage people from queueing into battlegrounds are being fixed in this patch. The 3-way format, lack of rewards, lack of competitive leaderboards etc, so population should not be a problem.

The Better Scoreboard addon has also demonstrated that there is a way to allow people to queue into both solo queue and group queue at the same time, which could help alleviate queue times if it was a base game function and if there were enough solo queuers who were fine queueing into a group BG where chances are they cannot even dent the health bar of their opponents, or have any chance of surviving the buff set enhanced 3 2 1 ulti dump.

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

For the competitive 4s queue, they can leave it as is. 95% of competitive matchmaking games only have one queue for competitive. If you're queueing for competitive, you should be aware that you might come up against a sweaty group. The matchmaking likely already prioritizes putting groups of the same size against each other (as evidenced by the live group queue, where if you're duo you're more likely to get matched against a duo, and if you're a 4 man the queue will wait for another 4 man to match you against).

You can still get queued against full premades if you're solo or duo queueing into group queue... but perhaps worse than that is the fact that as a solo player you cannot and will not be able to compete for top leaderboard score without a fully optimized buff set group. This is why having two separate queues is the only solution to that for people who just want to play their normal builds with Master DWs, Way of Fires, Plaguebreaks etc instead of being forced into very specific gameplay of slot X Y Z buff sets, acuity on front, chill on back bar with 50k health, SnB and cross heals and then 3 2 1 ulti dump... forcing competitive minded people into that is just going to drive most of them away from the game.

And the people who somehow enjoy the buff sets+cross heals & ulti dump style gameplay? They're a minority - otherwise you'd see 4-man group queue popping faster than solo.

Malprave

Stop me if I’m wrong, but in an mmo shouldn’t players be allowed to group with their friends? I mean, isn’t that the whole point?

notyuu

What's really gonna kill battlegrounds us the lives system, which will strip away the "wacky woohoo brawling fun where you're no more than 60 seconds at most away from combat, even if you die" identity that battlegrounds has and replace it with "procset megee and his 50k hp turtles about"

Decimus

Malprave wrote: »

Stop me if I’m wrong, but in an mmo shouldn’t players be allowed to group with their friends? I mean, isn’t that the whole point?

Yes, they are allowed to do that right now on Live: there are solo and group queue battlegrounds.

sarahthes

ForumSavant wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Solo queues were never truly solo before anyway. Once your MMR got high enough (or it got late enough at night) you'd find yourself facing 2 organized 4 mans while your team consisted of a duo and another solo like yourself.

I don't know if you understand the way BGs worked or not but no, in solo que you would not go against a premade 4 man. This would happen as a solo duo or a trio into GROUP que, but solo was solo.

Yes you could. Eventually if queues were too long and nothing else was available a solo could get backfilled into a group queue.

ForumSavant

sarahthes wrote: »

ForumSavant wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Solo queues were never truly solo before anyway. Once your MMR got high enough (or it got late enough at night) you'd find yourself facing 2 organized 4 mans while your team consisted of a duo and another solo like yourself.

I don't know if you understand the way BGs worked or not but no, in solo que you would not go against a premade 4 man. This would happen as a solo duo or a trio into GROUP que, but solo was solo.

Yes you could. Eventually if queues were too long and nothing else was available a solo could get backfilled into a group queue.

You have been spreading a lot of misinformation in multiple posts. The only way you get into GROUP que is if you que into group que. If you que solo into SOLO que, you cannot get into group que. If you que solo into group que that's a different story, but you are blatantly lying. Maybe you have this misconception that solos were being placed into group que because you or someone you know went up against a team that seemed more coordinated, but you do not get placed into group que as a solo unless you que for group.

You will get placed, as a group or a solo into people that are not in your MMR if the que is too long, but you will not get put into solo as a group and you will not get qued into group as someone queing for solo que. Your claims are just factually incorrect.

licenturion

A fair environment is putting solo players against solo players. If I am getting hard onesided stomps because of a discord stack of friends against solo me, I just leave the match and requeue later. And I don’t care about leaver penalties.

I do the same in other games like Overwatch. Such matchmaking is wasting my time and also those of the opponents. And if this continues I would just drop the mode and in the end they probably didn’t win as much players as they lost. The system of solo queue is fine. Only thing I would do is add real SBMM instead of this trophy count thing they have now.

Decimus

sarahthes wrote: »

ForumSavant wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Solo queues were never truly solo before anyway. Once your MMR got high enough (or it got late enough at night) you'd find yourself facing 2 organized 4 mans while your team consisted of a duo and another solo like yourself.

I don't know if you understand the way BGs worked or not but no, in solo que you would not go against a premade 4 man. This would happen as a solo duo or a trio into GROUP que, but solo was solo.

Yes you could. Eventually if queues were too long and nothing else was available a solo could get backfilled into a group queue.

I've been doing BGs almost daily since they were introduced in 2017, this has happened once or twice over the last 7 years.

In fact, this has happened less times than being placed into a below level 50 lobby on a max level character (also happened a few times - also had below level 50s in max level BGs a few times).


To be clear: it's a very, very, very rare occurrence.

ForumSavant

Decimus wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

ForumSavant wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Solo queues were never truly solo before anyway. Once your MMR got high enough (or it got late enough at night) you'd find yourself facing 2 organized 4 mans while your team consisted of a duo and another solo like yourself.

I don't know if you understand the way BGs worked or not but no, in solo que you would not go against a premade 4 man. This would happen as a solo duo or a trio into GROUP que, but solo was solo.

Yes you could. Eventually if queues were too long and nothing else was available a solo could get backfilled into a group queue.

I've been doing BGs almost daily since they were introduced in 2017, this has happened once or twice over the last 7 years.

In fact, this has happened less times than being placed into a below level 50 lobby on a max level character (also happened a few times - also had below level 50s in max level BGs a few times).


To be clear: it's a very, very, very rare occurrence.

Yes, as someone who has also played BGs since release with warden, you are more likely to get put in below 50 BGs. But getting into group que as someone queuing for solo has not happened in years. They aren't making the claim that it could happen rarely, they are saying it can happen when ques get slow at basically anytime, which is just a lie.

Necrotech_Master

how would the change be anything different than it is now?

you technically can queue into the non-solo queue as a solo, it is actually still the fastest way to get into a match than going in with a preformed team of any size

i think the 8v8 queue will be fine, if there are sweaty premades in there, it will likely because they are either A) trolling, or B ) because they couldnt win in an actual 4v4 competitive match and want to feel some sort of self gratification

Decimus

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

how would the change be anything different than it is now?

you technically can queue into the non-solo queue as a solo, it is actually still the fastest way to get into a match than going in with a preformed team of any size

i think the 8v8 queue will be fine, if there are sweaty premades in there, it will likely because they are either A) trolling, or B ) because they couldnt win in an actual 4v4 competitive match and want to feel some sort of self gratification

Fundamentally so. Right now solo queue battlegrounds are the only respite you have from having organized groups running after you... not having a solo queue as an option removes that.

Necrotech_Master

Decimus wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

how would the change be anything different than it is now?

you technically can queue into the non-solo queue as a solo, it is actually still the fastest way to get into a match than going in with a preformed team of any size

i think the 8v8 queue will be fine, if there are sweaty premades in there, it will likely because they are either A) trolling, or B ) because they couldnt win in an actual 4v4 competitive match and want to feel some sort of self gratification

Fundamentally so. Right now solo queue battlegrounds are the only respite you have from having organized groups running after you... not having a solo queue as an option removes that.

i dont really see it changing much, especially if the max premade team size is 4, that means its likely only half of the opposing team might be organized, but you might have an organized team on your side too

i actually had the most fun in BGs when i queued as a duo, because going in solo was just boring

Decimus

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

how would the change be anything different than it is now?

you technically can queue into the non-solo queue as a solo, it is actually still the fastest way to get into a match than going in with a preformed team of any size

i think the 8v8 queue will be fine, if there are sweaty premades in there, it will likely because they are either A) trolling, or B ) because they couldnt win in an actual 4v4 competitive match and want to feel some sort of self gratification

Fundamentally so. Right now solo queue battlegrounds are the only respite you have from having organized groups running after you... not having a solo queue as an option removes that.

i dont really see it changing much, especially if the max premade team size is 4, that means its likely only half of the opposing team might be organized, but you might have an organized team on your side too

i actually had the most fun in BGs when i queued as a duo, because going in solo was just boring

And you should absolutely be able to keep queueing solo into group BGs... but not all of us have had such good experiences.

The last few times I've queued into group BGs I've had 4-man premades with each person (whom I can dispatch with ease if I ever happen to see them in solo queue) in buff sets, 40k health and crossheals... and suddenly you cannot even move their health bars, nor survive the 3 2 1 ulti dump.

The last times I've streamed Cyrodiil or Imperial City these people also mysteriously appear with their group wherever I happen to be playing.


I would rather not be forced to fight people who have this kind of an advantage, and for that purpose the solo queue exists since people cannot queue in there as a group with coordinated buff sets and crossheals.