why the format change from 3 teams to 2?

Aggrovious · October 29

No one asked for an 8v8, but 1 team vs the other is better balance wise.

If healing is op, make a thread about nerfing it with a video. Thats how azureblight got on the chopping block so quickly.

Navaac223 · October 29

I can't understand how people defend this. Every game I played so far was incredibly one-sided : either my whole team gets destroyed during 5 minutes or we destroy the ennemy team in 10 sec and then just wait for them to come back. Just look at the scores : I just did a crazy king match in 4v4 where the other team didn't even have 100 points by the end.

Sure, the old bgs could have problems but the new version is terrible : there's no challenge at all.

While I'm here, is there any way to heal yourself while you have the ww or vamp ball ?
If not, it's just stupid : you shouldn't need a healer in a solo queue. Don't groups with healers already have enough of an advantage ?

buzzclops · October 29

It’s because eso doesn’t have a rock paper scissors type of balance also with cooldowns making it that every fight has different outcomes depending on different factors. Eso is more fast paced and “play how you want”. Which I prefer and the reason I play this game.

You need a 3rd team to create chaos and momentum shifts… it’s just how it is built.

99% of games will always be like that and we had foreseen it on the pts. It was ignored

It’s the ppl that barely pvped in the first place that asked for wow type of PvP and in two weeks they’ll go back to pve and we will be stuck with this.

Navaac223 · October 29

Btw look at any old battlegrounds video ever and show me one where a team is clearly dominating while the other 2 get spawnkilled. I'm betting 200 tri stat pots that you can't find one

Decimus · October 29

Navaac223 wrote: »

Btw look at any old battlegrounds video ever and show me one where a team is clearly dominating while the other 2 get spawnkilled. I'm betting 200 tri stat pots that you can't find one

One team farming two teams at once? I'm sure there's some examples (got a few old uploads on my youtube for instance - you can send the tri-stats to @ DECMVS can always use them on either EU or NA), but there's countless examples of two stronger teams just farming the "easy kills" in the weakest team within the old 3 teams system, and there's countless of BGs where you wind up basically solo and miserable as your team is running to empty flags while two other teams fight.

Issues with matchmaking and (lack of) a proper MMR system are a completely separate issue from the format.

Parasaurolophus · October 30

Despite the fact that I am very negative towards a two-team BG, I will give it a chance - perhaps the problem of a strong advantage of one team will even out with the increase in MMR.

SaffronCitrusflower · October 30

I play in Cyrodiil for minimum 2 hours every day and have since 2015. I don't know anyone who played BG's more than a few times. I didn't hear or see any PvP players that were ever interested in BG's, and they're even less interested now.

When everyone I know heard that the big PvP suprise was a BG change everyone just said "what? Nobody asked for that. We asked for improvements in the premier PvP portion of ESO, and that's Cyrodiil". ZOS keeps doing whatever they want and not doing what the players want. Granted, a lot of what the players want is ridiculous, but restoring Cyrodiil to a fraction of it's former glory is not a ridiculous or unreasonable expectation. (particularly since ZOS said that's what they were working on for at least 5 years) So that's where ZOS' focus should have been.

Navaac223 · October 30

Now everyone is aware that the games are won or lost in the first 30 seconds. Literally every match I play, at least one person disconnects. I don't really remember players massively disconnecting in the old bgs : at most, one player had to dc because of irl stuff. Now you get deathmatch games where you're waiting for the 2 or 3 remaining ennemies to come down from their spawn and fight you so you can end their misery. Literally keeping bgs the same would have been better for the game

Anyways see you in 7 years for the next pvp update and hopefully meaningfull buffs to pvp necro

Chilly-McFreeze · October 30

Navaac223 wrote: »

Now everyone is aware that the games are won or lost in the first 30 seconds. Literally every match I play, at least one person disconnects. I don't really remember players massively disconnecting in the old bgs : at most, one player had to dc because of irl stuff. Now you get deathmatch games where you're waiting for the 2 or 3 remaining ennemies to come down from their spawn and fight you so you can end their misery. Literally keeping bgs the same would have been better for the game

Anyways see you in 7 years for the next pvp update and hopefully meaningfull buffs to pvp necro

TBF I dc / crashed a lot lately and read a lot of others crashing too. Yes, even in BGs where I'm on the winning side. BTW crashes still cause deserter penalty.

colossalvoids · October 30

People do crash indeed, got dc'ed and outright crashed multiple times when in a match so would expect to not be the only one in that scenario.

Joy_Division · October 30

Navaac223 wrote: »

I can't understand how people defend this. Every game I played so far was incredibly one-sided : either my whole team gets destroyed during 5 minutes or we destroy the ennemy team in 10 sec and then just wait for them to come back. Just look at the scores : I just did a crazy king match in 4v4 where the other team didn't even have 100 points by the end.

Sure, the old bgs could have problems but the new version is terrible : there's no challenge at all.

While I'm here, is there any way to heal yourself while you have the ww or vamp ball ?
If not, it's just stupid : you shouldn't need a healer in a solo queue. Don't groups with healers already have enough of an advantage ?

It's not that hard.

I stopped playing BGs yeas ago for numerous reasons, one was I disliked the 3 team format. I and others told them. They have gotten this feedback for years. There is nothing competitive about dueling someone and then having some random sorcerer hit you with a curse and mage's wrath. All that is is opportunism, proving nothing more than the sorcerer can finish off a compromised opponent who isn't even fighting them. It's why when we play basketball, or chess, or even silly children's game like cops and r0bbers, there are only two teams. So many other PvP oriented games somehow manage two teams and it works perfectly fine and is fun.

How popular was the 3 team format? It had such a small niche community that ZOS had stopped BG updates for 6 years. Now all of a sudden it was this wonderful system that was so great that it was inexplicable that ZOS moved off of it?

BGs are one sided for numerous reasons. ZOS reset everyone's MMR, which they absolutely should not have done. It's not like the really good PvPers in U43 forgot how to PvP, or bad players all of a sudden got good. The maps are too small, which does not give a team that wiped a chance to reorganize themselves. Domination maps have 2 flags, when there should be a third in the middle. Predictable spawn locations is basically asking for spawn camping. Most of this should have been anticipated as numerous other PvP games have long learned these lessons. But ZOS doesn;t even take feedback from it's own player-base and are always convinced they know best, so that wasn't going to happen.

So it turns out that in a PvP update, there are things that should have been done differently and some of the changes ZOS made haven;t worked out. Welcome to ESO! That's basically the past 8 years of updates. Just look at Cyrodiil. Organized groups running amok, ceaseless night capping, destructible bridges/gates have done nothing to spread people out, bad class balance (with the usual culprits being top and bottom tier), tiny pop caps that make it stale and boring, etc., etc. It's almost like the developers aren't serious/dedicated/ PvPers and have difficulty understanding how ESO PvP actually plays out.

Vaqual · October 30

No manner of BG format changes will be able to compensate for poor balancing. If the fighting is garbage on a 1v1 scale it will be equally bad or worse in any type of larger format. Outlier build options (through excessive value or synergy potential) dictate a narrow meta with large power discrepancies. Everyone who isn't willing or able to engage with this meta is not going to be competitive. The team with the most PvP optimized players will win. Some enjoy this special status and the ability to "x" others, some feel smart for slapping together the most soulless numbers based build, but the overall RPG experience just suffers from it. PvE balancing is really just the same, but of course a bit less punishing. They can shuffle around the game mode rules as much as you want, players can throw around as many "git guds" as they like, if thematically coherent builds and the RPG experience remains a non-competitive afterthought these game modes will remain unattractive to many players. Players will not make an effort to improve their performance in any gamemode, if it just isn't fun or immersive.
You can try to teach "bad PvPers" all day to slot rallying cry, 2 hots, a burst heal, RAT and a front bar burstcombo (or any fotm) and they will still be a liability in any type of BG mode - because playing these builds is just boring as hell to many. When excessive minmaxing feels like abusing game mechanics the gameplay becomes inorganic and arcadey.

If you are trying to sell PvP in an RPG you have to follow a very easy concept:
Make sure the RPG is good --> Balance around a narrow average power level with emphasis on individual performance and penalize group wide support so that player action remains inpactful --> entice playing (aka spending your limited time) with meaningful, immersive rewards (not random skins).

What we have mostly:
Roleplaying is a liability --> power gaps between fully geared players can be on the order of several 100 % in multiple build aspects (ability damage, mitigation, sustain, healing) --> individual performance can be almost fully negated by excessive group support.

Of course no one likes losing power, but at the same time complaining about opponents is fair game.
I think scribing is really a glimmer of hope, as it made it a lot easier to replace strong sets and abilities that hurt a builds general power fantasy and feel. But there are still too many obvious balancing problems for PvP to be enjoyable at the moment.

In that sense I think the format change is absolutely inconsequential. Most assessments in this threads regarding the pros and cons of the 3-team vs the 2-team solution are good and correct. The bottom line is that this just mixes up the impact of individual balancing flaws, but it doesn't solve any. I doubt that this will be a significant pull factor for newbies.

Thumbless_Bot · October 30

These two sided battlegrounds are literally the single worst update zos has EVER made to the game. They are absolutely horrendous.

Literally every single 4v4 is absolutely one-sided. As soon as you realize which side is winning the other team leaves or gives up or has to suffer through ten minutes of getting their rear ends handed to them.

This is not competitive even in high mmr.

THIS ISNT FUN FOR ANYONE.

The only way this makes sense is if the goal is to encourage people to NOT play bgs.

Zos please revert to three way bgs.

bladenick · October 31

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

These two sided battlegrounds are literally the single worst update zos has EVER made to the game. They are absolutely horrendous.

Literally every single 4v4 is absolutely one-sided. As soon as you realize which side is winning the other team leaves or gives up or has to suffer through ten minutes of getting their rear ends handed to them.

This is not competitive even in high mmr.

THIS ISNT FUN FOR ANYONE.

The only way this makes sense is if the goal is to encourage people to NOT play bgs.

Zos please revert to three way bgs.

Yes, winner side also boring as loser team left early

The 2 side shall only for premade teams, make non sense for solo, solo player shall keep 3 side BG

Velvelya · October 31

Having had an experience where one team (my side) completely nuked the other and was farming them at spawn (it was so one-sided I felt dirty

), I have to say I'm not sold on the two-team format. Maybe it's that the spawn point is clear for everyone to see. It gives them no chance to recover; the best they can do is try to sneak out.

At least with 3 teams, one might come up behind the dominating one and pinch them between them and the underdog. Some will wipe, go back to spawn, and give some time for the others to trickle out.

Thumbless_Bot · October 31

Velvelya wrote: »

Having had an experience where one team (my side) completely nuked the other and was farming them at spawn (it was so one-sided I felt dirty ), I have to say I'm not sold on the two-team format. Maybe it's that the spawn point is clear for everyone to see. It gives them no chance to recover; the best they can do is try to sneak out.

At least with 3 teams, one might come up behind the dominating one and pinch them between them and the underdog. Some will wipe, go back to spawn, and give some time for the others to trickle out.

Battlegrounds are no longer fun, engaging, dynamic, exciting, and packed with drama where the outcome of any type of bg can turn on a dime.

They are boring because they have, in a very real and tangible way, gone from 3 dimensions to 2.

This isn't fun for anyone.

THIS

IS

NOT

FUN

Cooperharley · October 31

karthrag_inak wrote: »

The issue was never team format. The issue was always player engagement. There was just never sufficient reason for the average player to really get into BGs except during Whitestrake-type events. With 3 teams, noobiness was more easily absorbed, since every team had 2x as many enemies, the unintended impact of well-meaning but somewhat lost noobs on both the winners and the losers was of minimal impact. Sure there have been 0-score matches this one has experienced, but he's also won with 2 teamates before.

But with this change, prepare to watch BGs completely evaporate. All it is going to take is for folks to experience one or two blowout defeats at the hands of the l33tz for them to never go back again. There just is no place the other team can hide, no strategy possible, to make up for an under-crewed team or a bunch of folks that are new and don't know what to do.

-sigh-.

All of the issues are present regardless of team format - I for one love the idea of 2 teams. The implementation given ESO's builds and situations is the problem. Heal stacking, overflowing tankiness, lack of reward structure & massive gap between skill ceiling/floor are the problems.

There's a lot of focus on the change because all the 2 team format did is draw more attention to the real problems that ZOS has never fixed and probably never will because they can't do anything serious or reliable without harming PvE as well, which a vast majority of the playerbase engages with.

- We still don't have any real tangible rewards for the entire game, let alone PvP
- They still have not separated combat balancing for PvP and PvE via utilizing battle spirit which has been mentioned thousands of times
- Players don't have to really learn their class or how to engage with the combat of ESO because overland is so braindead easy. A difficult overland enables people to try to learn their class better to overcome challenges, which is why a lot of people have been wanting an OPTIONAL difficulty slider

Whether a piece of garbage is painted red or blue isn't the issue. The fundamental core of the problem has never been fixed and this is just a new coat of paint over it.

Cast_El · November 1

@ZOS_Kevin problem is balance, if you have 3 nightblade on your team and you are not a nightblade you will be focused by the whole team and instant die.

Same in 8v8 we got 4 NB on our team and the 4 of us got hard focus, players leave after 30seconds.

Problem is if you are in the wrong team (with noobs) , you can be good, but if you have 2 good players on the other team. Game over. And be hardly focus without able to do anything is not fun.

If you are in the good team, crush and zerg one player is not fun. Players leave game or wait at spawn spot.

To resume:

Be in good team: not fun (boring)
Be in bad team: not fun (just dying)

New Battle spirit is good 👍, maps are good but the team vs team no.

Cast_El · November 1

I am glad ZOS try to do something for pvp, BG was already working.
Not sure it was the change pvp needs.

Thumbless_Bot · November 1

Cast_El wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin problem is balance, if you have 3 nightblade on your team and you are not a nightblade you will be focused by the whole team and instant die.

Same in 8v8 we got 4 NB on our team and the 4 of us got hard focus, players leave after 30seconds.

Problem is if you are in the wrong team (with noobs) , you can be good, but if you have 2 good players on the other team. Game over. And be hardly focus without able to do anything is not fun.

If you are in the good team, crush and zerg one player is not fun. Players leave game or wait at spawn spot.

To resume:

Be in good team: not fun (boring)
Be in bad team: not fun (just dying)

New Battle spirit is good 👍, maps are good but the team vs team no.

What is the new battle spirit?

Cast_El · November 1

You have health bonus and weapon and spell damage bonus on BG

Velvelya · November 1

Weren't they supposed to fix the Que issues in their patch this morning? Still seems messed up.

BahometZ · November 1

Wait, so there are no longer ANY battleground modes with 3 teams? It's all 2 teams? I haven't done a BG in ages because of the way they are but damn, that sounds awful and totally incompatible with how eso is balanced. Surely you would keep both options, and implement new maps/objectives for the 2 team modes?? I mean, wow.

Aldoss · November 1

Cast_El wrote: »

You have health bonus and weapon and spell damage bonus on BG

Where are you seeing this? That is not listed at all.

Thumbless_Bot · November 1

Velvelya wrote: »

Weren't they supposed to fix the Que issues in their patch this morning? Still seems messed up.

I joined one bg and it seemed to be working. It was an 8v8 and people kept joining until we had 8 on both sides. I didn't track if any leavers were being backfilled though.

Aldoss · November 1

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I'm throwing my support for this new Team vs Team format.

It's so much more engaging than 4v4v4 ever was. The amount of time spent in combat is easily twice that over the last format and sometimes way more.

There's plenty of issues and I think there's a lot to be said about how terribly ZOS has handled the delivery of this update. It's far from perfect and isn't even "good" in my opinion. However, even broken as it is now, it's way better than 4v4v4's were for me.

IndigoDreams · November 2

i appreciate everyone speaking up.

Reading all the replies, i am hearing nothing that is unique to to the 2 team format that could not be implemented in the games spirit of 3 teams...

someone wrote on domination, thats already garbage to put 2 flags on a 2 team game....
begging for them to sit their and tie for the sake of points.....

reducing the teams only made it easier for them to code/map/whatever, i see nothing that made it better..

deleting the spirit of the game is still a huge problem for me

IndigoDreams · November 2

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

IndigoDreams wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Because most of the game modes with 3 teams are utter garbage.

All of the objective gamemodes besides Chaosball and the first half of Crazy King actively discourage engaging in combat. Afterall, why bother fighting Team A if it's just gonna give Team B time to cap the objectives? You frequently run into matches where everyone is just running around the map to the next unguarded objective.

2 teams fixes that. The teams are now forced to engage before going for the objective, or forced to engage on the objective, and you won't run into scenarios where the optimal play is to just run away.

The only game mode i see your argument being valid for is domination.
Crazy king forces you to make a decision as to fight the other teams for a flag or hope for an open flag.

Current domination format is terrible, we seem to agree there.
easy fix? 1 flag, center map....all teams WILL engage....
relic, DM, and chaosball all demand your teams engage.

throwing out the format of 3 teams is trashing the spirit of the game, and i suspect only really makes DM streamers happy overall..

capture the relic right now usually boils down to team C capturing relics while team A and B are fighting, ending the match pretty quick

chaosball on the current maps, usually boils down to which team can get the ball into the most difficult to access location (some ledge which has a very small area to stand on, somewhere you can only get to through jumping a specific way)

from what ive heard the new maps resolve a lot of these problems and make things more engaging

your issue with capture the relic is NOT the game format, its the players....
crazy king, easy fix...one flag, spawn random spots on maps...done....
why is a dum dum like me able to see this easy fix?

Aldoss · November 2

IndigoDreams wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

IndigoDreams wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Because most of the game modes with 3 teams are utter garbage.

All of the objective gamemodes besides Chaosball and the first half of Crazy King actively discourage engaging in combat. Afterall, why bother fighting Team A if it's just gonna give Team B time to cap the objectives? You frequently run into matches where everyone is just running around the map to the next unguarded objective.

2 teams fixes that. The teams are now forced to engage before going for the objective, or forced to engage on the objective, and you won't run into scenarios where the optimal play is to just run away.

The only game mode i see your argument being valid for is domination.
Crazy king forces you to make a decision as to fight the other teams for a flag or hope for an open flag.

Current domination format is terrible, we seem to agree there.
easy fix? 1 flag, center map....all teams WILL engage....
relic, DM, and chaosball all demand your teams engage.

throwing out the format of 3 teams is trashing the spirit of the game, and i suspect only really makes DM streamers happy overall..

capture the relic right now usually boils down to team C capturing relics while team A and B are fighting, ending the match pretty quick

chaosball on the current maps, usually boils down to which team can get the ball into the most difficult to access location (some ledge which has a very small area to stand on, somewhere you can only get to through jumping a specific way)

from what ive heard the new maps resolve a lot of these problems and make things more engaging

your issue with capture the relic is NOT the game format, its the players....
crazy king, easy fix...one flag, spawn random spots on maps...done....
why is a dum dum like me able to see this easy fix?

The maps were poorly designed and had too much running and open spaces. The format/structure is what made the players. DM-only was a behavior created by ZOS when they removed the most popular queue option to cater to the non-PvPers who just wanted to get the achievements. Objective modes were popping way less.

I disagree with relic.

Domination had too many flags and could be won without ever engaging in combat.

Crazy King should have had only one flag, I agree.

Chaosball was okay.

Team vs Team is extremely engaging so far. I love that combat is finally the center of focus with the objectives layered in to make each game more engaging and variable.

Domination in the 4v4 is awful. Worse than 4v4v4 Domination.

I just really hope they use this beta test patch to make some meaningful changes for U45.

Navaac223 · November 2

Aldoss wrote: »

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I'm throwing my support for this new Team vs Team format.

It's so much more engaging than 4v4v4 ever was. The amount of time spent in combat is easily twice that over the last format and sometimes way more.

There's plenty of issues and I think there's a lot to be said about how terribly ZOS has handled the delivery of this update. It's far from perfect and isn't even "good" in my opinion. However, even broken as it is now, it's way better than 4v4v4's were for me.

That's weird because the entire reason I don't like the new bgs is because I'm very often waiting for the ennemy team to come down from their spawn while I can't remember waiting in the old bgs : there was always something to do. You wiped the ennemy team ? The other one is coming for you. You managed to get every flag ? Someone will probably steal one or two since there are 8 ennemy players