why the format change from 3 teams to 2?

IndigoDreams

Aldoss wrote: »

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.

ZoS did a test run of DM only battlegrounds some years ago, did the que stay DM only or have a DM only que?

no and no.
Once again, the players choice.
Just like HOW the maps are played, the PLAYERS

Aldoss

When the queue switched away from being able to queue for the mode you wanted to only random, the BG community died.

The BG community that replaced it, as the vets left, was still much smaller than its predecessor and was also left fractured, with two warring ideologies: deathmatchers and objectivers.

Removing the deathmatch queue destroyed the community and manifested the DM-only behavior that would aggravate and frustrate those that wanted to play objectives or were otherwise only there to get the daily, level their support skill line for PvE purposes, or complete the achievements.

Not every action ZOS makes is the correct one. However, if we want to play based on your proposed logic, combat is now #1 priority in BGs whereas it wasn't before, so...

IndigoDreams

Aldoss wrote: »

When the queue switched away from being able to queue for the mode you wanted to only random, the BG community died.

The BG community that replaced it, as the vets left, was still much smaller than its predecessor and was also left fractured, with two warring ideologies: deathmatchers and objectivers.

Removing the deathmatch queue destroyed the community and manifested the DM-only behavior that would aggravate and frustrate those that wanted to play objectives or were otherwise only there to get the daily, level their support skill line for PvE purposes, or complete the achievements.

Not every action ZOS makes is the correct one. However, if we want to play based on your proposed logic, combat is now #1 priority in BGs whereas it wasn't before, so...

i guess i didnt make myself clear, i see easy solutions to these issues.
HOWEVER, i cannot force any player to play the game as designed....

The Deathmatch only community is tiny, just very vocal (i.e. the amazingly high amount of videos of people crying abou t"3rd party")

This comes down to people complaining about something to make themselves feel better.
1v1 teams has been a thing since forever and the complaints have NEVER changed....

No one on this post has said something as a UNIQUE problem to having 3 teams, in other words, what is an issue that is ONLY caused by having 3 teams. Not someones whining, an actual problem.

none have presented one yet, and i doubt its any different anywhere else on the forum.
ZoS did the easy solution.
Just because a small population of VERY VOCAL (read, Streamers) got their way, doesnt mean it was good.

IndigoDreams

Thanks everyone for you input, it seems this discussion has come to an end...at least for now.

till next time

gariondavey

3 years ago I was in a bg guild with 400+ members, the majority of which preferred deathmatch to objective modes. After zos made several awful decisions with how you can queue, and releasing broken sets (ex hrothgar chill and dark convergence), as well as updates like u35, the playerbase has been bleeding out like no tomorrow.

Historically, deathmatch leaderboard was 3x the size and medal score of the objective modes, back when you could queue for game modes (2019 and earlier)

IndigoDreams

gariondavey wrote: »

3 years ago I was in a bg guild with 400+ members, the majority of which preferred deathmatch to objective modes. After zos made several awful decisions with how you can queue, and releasing broken sets (ex hrothgar chill and dark convergence), as well as updates like u35, the playerbase has been bleeding out like no tomorrow.

Historically, deathmatch leaderboard was 3x the size and medal score of the objective modes, back when you could queue for game modes (2019 and earlier)

good points.

I also remember when sets like that were introduced and how poorly that went.
My hopes were low at that era and now they are crushed...

The only viable response for me is to "not play"

xylena_lazarow

Haven't been interested in BGs in years because being third-partied while trying to win the objective or close a kill wasn't fun. Seeing "enemy stole the kill" was not fun. Matches that degenerated into 8v4 were not fun. Objective modes were unplayable due to terrain exploits with balls, or half the lobby deciding to play deathmatch instead. If you're lucky enough to get a "high mmr deathmatch" it's parsing on healtanks for the full 15 minutes so you can go 2-0-5 on a 135-60-15 win.

The old BGs were unpopular so ZOS reworked them. The 8v8 solo has renewed my interest in this game.

Thumbless_Bot

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Haven't been interested in BGs in years because being third-partied while trying to win the objective or close a kill wasn't fun. Seeing "enemy stole the kill" was not fun. Matches that degenerated into 8v4 were not fun. Objective modes were unplayable due to terrain exploits with balls, or half the lobby deciding to play deathmatch instead. If you're lucky enough to get a "high mmr deathmatch" it's parsing on healtanks for the full 15 minutes so you can go 2-0-5 on a 135-60-15 win.

The old BGs were unpopular so ZOS reworked them. The 8v8 solo has renewed my interest in this game.

The only thing in your post that has anything to do with 3 teams is getting your kills stolen, which can still happen in this format, and any format except 1v1 duels.

They should have fixed terrain exploits a long time ago. instead, they just added new ones like spawn farming.

Half the teams will still engage in DM.

Tanking and healing is even worse now. when two teams can burn down tanks and heal bots it's good for the game. we can no longer do that in this format, which only makes the item you called out worse.

High mmr DM will still be stalemates because of a variety of reasons but mostly due to broken cross healing.

Literally nothing is better with this format.

IndigoDreams

another complaint about player behavior, not game format.....
this is all i see.

no matter the format, players will do what they want and this can ruin others experience.
removing the 3rd team GUTS the spirit of the game.

its a 3 alliance game.....
what a sad state of affairs

karthrag_inak

This really needs to be reverted. Khajiit had never experienced such 1-sided boring, lame blowouts in all the years of 3 Team BGs like he did with most of the 2 Team bgs he has tried.

To those folks who somehow think that the much-spoken-about ranking system is going to magically solve this horror-show, khajiit has one question. How will this help, when there's -never- been a consistently working ranking system in place as far as Khajiit is aware.

karthrag_inak

Khajiit has an idea. Keep the new stuff in place. Return the 3 team bgs as they were. See what happens.

IndigoDreams

karthrag_inak wrote: »

Khajiit has an idea. Keep the new stuff in place. Return the 3 team bgs as they were. See what happens.

new maps with improved match types has always been welcome to me.

domination - 1 flag, in center
Crazy King - 1 flag, random placement
Chaosball - maybe just fix the exploitable spots
Relic - Players just have to choose to play the objective...

Of course they could add traps, pitfalls, and snares that naturally occur on the map , like most already have, to keep things lively....

I'm one person, not a mega corporation trying to increase profits

Joy_Division

IndigoDreams wrote: »

another complaint about player behavior, not game format.....
this is all i see.

no matter the format, players will do what they want and this can ruin others experience.
removing the 3rd team GUTS the spirit of the game.

its a 3 alliance game.....
what a sad state of affairs

No, it's a complaint about the format. Getting third partied and the match becoming a 8v4 means two teams of 4 are fighting what is an ostensible even battle, until the third team comes in the middle an dogpiles another, making it non-competitive.

Yeah, it is a 3 alliance game. And we constantly hear complaints in cyrodiil about a "purple alliance" and "team green" because in three team formats, it is very common for two sides to double team another. It happens every night in Cyrodiil and people complain about it every night. The format lends itself to getting doubled teamed. It's why basketball isn't played with the teams or three players don;t play the in a chess match.

The idea that it's only a fringe audience of streamers that wanted two teams whereas the mass majority of players preferred 3 teams is an unscientific guess, and a biased on at that. There is no possible way to measure that at all. However, we can certainly infer the 3 team BG format ZOS had was not popular because ZOS did not invest in it for 5 years and when they finally did, changed it to a two team format. If it was a rousing success, they would have kept it. Other - most - PvP games do two team formats and it works fine and the players have fun. It is totally workable.

Zos just failed at making it work. So I don't blame people for wanting the 3 teams back. That's understandable. But let's not pretend as if the three team format does not present problems of its own or that the three team format was such a popular game system that it is incomprehensible that ZOS would have ever moved away from it.

xylena_lazarow

IndigoDreams wrote: »

no matter the format, players will do what they want and this can ruin others experience

The smaller maps and 2-sided format mean players who are deathmatching in objective modes are at least still helping their team. In 3-sided those players tend to (unintentionally) help 1st place side widen its lead.

Thumbless_Bot

Joy_Division wrote: »

IndigoDreams wrote: »

another complaint about player behavior, not game format.....
this is all i see.

no matter the format, players will do what they want and this can ruin others experience.
removing the 3rd team GUTS the spirit of the game.

its a 3 alliance game.....
what a sad state of affairs

The idea that it's only a fringe audience of streamers that wanted two teams whereas the mass majority of players preferred 3 teams is an unscientific guess, and a biased on at that. There is no possible way to measure that at all. However, we can certainly infer the 3 team BG format ZOS had was not popular because ZOS did not invest in it for 5 years and when they finally did, changed it to a two team format. If it was a rousing success, they would have kept it. Other - most - PvP games do two team formats and it works fine and the players have fun. It is totally workable.

Zos just failed at making it work. So I don't blame people for wanting the 3 teams back. That's understandable. But let's not pretend as if the three team format does not present problems of its own or that the three team format was such a popular game system that it is incomprehensible that ZOS would have ever moved away from it.

I don't know anyone who wanted team vs team. I never heard that once on any streamer that I watch and I watch a lot of them. I am sure they exist though.

This game is different exactly because its 3 team format. that's what makes the pvp here so much different and better than other pvp. It's what makes the games dynamic and exciting. removing that aspect of the game was an epic mistake.

I agree with the cat people. Put both formats back and let the people decide which one they want to play. No one has given one even remotely plausible reason for not doing this outside of, 'there isn't enough people playing and the queues won't fill up'. Well, guess what? This format is only going to drive player population down further. It's terrible. It is absolutely, 100% horrible and that proof is in the comments on this forum. So pretty soon there won't even be 16 people to fill one 8v8 queue because there probably aren't even that many people on PC NA, in its entirety, who actually like this format.

epic mistake. It's only a video game to you and me and those of us on this forum, but it's a business to zos and losing players, paying players, matters. At least it should.

IndigoDreams

Joy_Division wrote: »

IndigoDreams wrote: »

another complaint about player behavior, not game format.....
this is all i see.

no matter the format, players will do what they want and this can ruin others experience.
removing the 3rd team GUTS the spirit of the game.

its a 3 alliance game.....
what a sad state of affairs

No, it's a complaint about the format. Getting third partied and the match becoming a 8v4 means two teams of 4 are fighting what is an ostensible even battle, until the third team comes in the middle an dogpiles another, making it non-competitive.

Yeah, it is a 3 alliance game. And we constantly hear complaints in cyrodiil about a "purple alliance" and "team green" because in three team formats, it is very common for two sides to double team another. It happens every night in Cyrodiil and people complain about it every night. The format lends itself to getting doubled teamed. It's why basketball isn't played with the teams or three players don;t play the in a chess match.

The idea that it's only a fringe audience of streamers that wanted two teams whereas the mass majority of players preferred 3 teams is an unscientific guess, and a biased on at that. There is no possible way to measure that at all. However, we can certainly infer the 3 team BG format ZOS had was not popular because ZOS did not invest in it for 5 years and when they finally did, changed it to a two team format. If it was a rousing success, they would have kept it. Other - most - PvP games do two team formats and it works fine and the players have fun. It is totally workable.

Zos just failed at making it work. So I don't blame people for wanting the 3 teams back. That's understandable. But let's not pretend as if the three team format does not present problems of its own or that the three team format was such a popular game system that it is incomprehensible that ZOS would have ever moved away from it.

THere are plenty of games with 2 alliances ONLY
why come ruin the game with decidely 3?
this sounds like "sour grapes"
you got the format you want but still arent happy....
it only proves my point

the format cant force player behavior.
go look up in WoW, the 2 alliances still suffer from "spies" and "turn coats"
this "3rd party" claim is NOT unique to a literal 3rd party but it always come sback to
"anyone i am not currently accepting as an opponent this moment"

i really hope i dont get dinged again but THIS is a major problem.

go watch videos of 1 v 1 team games and you WILL hear this "3rd party" rhetoric.

With a huge selection of games, why cant we have ours that actually DID have 3 alliances?

IndigoDreams

@Thumbless_Bot

The complaints only serve to reinforce the complaints of PLAYER behavior....
no one can pin it on "format" because the years of content available on video await to show them wrong....

I am just tired of getting one of the few games i was so happy to see a 3 team alliance actually implemented pretty well suffer the same fate as any other (like WoW, or the laughable 3 alliances in *new world*)

Thumbless_Bot

IndigoDreams wrote: »

@Thumbless_Bot

The complaints only serve to reinforce the complaints of PLAYER behavior....
no one can pin it on "format" because the years of content available on video await to show them wrong....

I am just tired of getting one of the few games i was so happy to see a 3 team alliance actually implemented pretty well suffer the same fate as any other (like WoW, or the laughable 3 alliances in *new world*)

100% agree. If only zos would agree...hmm

xylena_lazarow

IndigoDreams wrote: »

The complaints only serve to reinforce the complaints of PLAYER behavior....
no one can pin it on "format" because the years of content available on video await to show them wrong

If the format can't keep players interested in the objective, then yeah there's a problem with the format.

IndigoDreams

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

IndigoDreams wrote: »

The complaints only serve to reinforce the complaints of PLAYER behavior....
no one can pin it on "format" because the years of content available on video await to show them wrong

If the format can't keep players interested in the objective, then yeah there's a problem with the format.

right, player behavior.
thanks for agreeing

Aldoss

IndigoDreams wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

IndigoDreams wrote: »

The complaints only serve to reinforce the complaints of PLAYER behavior....
no one can pin it on "format" because the years of content available on video await to show them wrong

If the format can't keep players interested in the objective, then yeah there's a problem with the format.

right, player behavior.
thanks for agreeing

Imagine blaming drivers on a 4-way highway for not driving straight if the government chose to not spend money painting any lines...

brtomkin

I think it's ironic that just as they are introducing a nonbinary companion, they abandon the nonbinary nature of battlegrounds.

IndigoDreams

@Aldoss

even when the lines are there, it still happens!
lmao

Aldoss

IndigoDreams wrote: »

@Aldoss

even when the lines are there, it still happens!
lmao

Correct. There's always going to be outliers, no matter what you do. But the existence of an extreme does not equate to categorizing everyone who does it a behavioral problem.

The problem was always the lack of a system that empowered the people to do what was right.

4v4v4 objectives were completely illogical. Nothing was more demoralizing than watching someone sit and hold block on a flag and not fight, but win. Nothing was more demoralizing than getting caught in a fight and having a 3rd team win Relic without ever having to engage in combat. Nothing was more demoralizing than losing a DM because there was a sorc on the other team spamming mages wrath and stealing all your kills.

The format was bad. It made me not want to participate in objectives because whenever I did, I ended up not participating in combat at all, which was my whole reason to queue up for a BG in the first place.

I love playing the objective now. Team vs Team has definitely helped in that regard. Now we just need to get ZOS to work out the obvious pot holes that they refused to acknowledge prior to dumping this on us.

Amottica

IndigoDreams wrote: »

Sleepsin wrote: »

ZOS is trying to add new feature's to PvP. making more BG maps was done and would not be impressive. Changing Cryodiil would be a lot of work and if done wrong would be the end of PvP. So making a 2 vs 2 team PvP was the way to go.

So they have chosen the Iphone method.....splendid...

@IndigoDreams

iPhone method? What is the iPhone method?

Instance PvP is more often XvX. The Tripple team format was, well, unique. That does not mean it was better or worse. Regardless, Zenimax needed to do something to get more interest in BGs. I still think the design and objectives need some work, but that is a personal opinion based on what I have experienced in instanced PvP elsewhere.