Splitting the queue via Solo/Group queues will kill the Battlegrounds population

Jierdanit · September 30

Urvoth wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Urvoth wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

If having a group only queue will kill it, maybe people just aren't too thrilled with competing against players who treat BGs as raid groups.

At a certain point, maybe group queue BGs are the problem and not the other way around. If groups are relying on solo players to sacrifice themselves to the group queue in order to be effective, we should just do away with the group queues altogether.

Are you saying that you have 0 intention to ever group queue with anyone, ever, in the future of your playing this game, in a mode that you enjoy?

Because if that's true, then fine. I'm happy that you're happy.

However, if you ever see a future where you make a new friend, get a close friend to start playing this game that you love, or start playing this game with a significant other, then your quoted comment seems to actively work against future you.

We can have it all and now is/was the time to put pressure on ZOS to do it. It will be years before they devote this amount of resources to this system again.

The problem isn't the 2 or 3 people who occasionally group without any forthought for a BG.

The problem is the fully optimized 4 man groups who make the queue absolutely miserable for anyone who isn't equally optimized.

Y'all are happy with burning the entire game mode down if it means you getting to chat in group with some friends on occasion. You could also just go into cyrodil and do the same thing.

And again, if you need solo players to fill out your queue, maybe group queue isn't as popular as you want it to be.

And yeah, I have never queued into a BG with other people. Not once in the 6 years the game mode has existed. If I want to group up with friends for PVP, I go to cyrodil.

It's called competitive mode for a reason. The casuals should stick to 8v8 if they don't want a fight

Some competitive mode then. If it relies on throwing solo players into the meat grinder to be effective. Solo does not mean casual by the way.

No those solos you mentioned should not be there lol. They should find people to group up with and actually TRY to be competitive. There is the 8v8 for casual play.

Since when does competitive only mean premade groups?

That’s the nature of competitive pvp in general, but especially in eso and MMOs. So much of the PvP experience in the game is based around class and set interaction and group dynamics.

You can absolutely have a competitive experience in random groups too, it just relies more on the actual skill of the players than having organized broken builds.

No, it’s completely rng and down to what team doesn’t get the nb snipe bot or whichever team gets a healer, etc. Yes, better players can win sometimes but with even skill levels it comes down to matchmaking rng. This also isn’t a game where classes are competitively balanced to play solo. Some classes are significantly better at it than others, and other classes require actual team coordination to be effective.

Sure there is a random component to solo BGs, but that is part of what makes it fun. You dont have the exact same group composition in every BG and cant rely on your team to save you all the time.

Also the NB snipe bots are most likely not going to be in high MMR if that is actually working properly.
Healers are a problem in the game in general atm tho.

ketsparrowhawk · September 30

jaws343 wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

If groups are relying on solo players to sacrifice themselves to the group queue in order to be effective, we should just do away with the group queues altogether.

Some solo players are competitive and enjoy queueing into Group BG with the intention of filling in missing spots. I did this the other day and was the 4th player on a team against two other premades. The BG went the full 15 minutes and we won by a single killing blow. It was fun and rewarding to know that my team likely would've been last if I hadn't queue up.

Right, but a split queue still allows for that.

Long queue times

Major_Mangle · September 30

Urvoth wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Urvoth wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

If having a group only queue will kill it, maybe people just aren't too thrilled with competing against players who treat BGs as raid groups.

At a certain point, maybe group queue BGs are the problem and not the other way around. If groups are relying on solo players to sacrifice themselves to the group queue in order to be effective, we should just do away with the group queues altogether.

Are you saying that you have 0 intention to ever group queue with anyone, ever, in the future of your playing this game, in a mode that you enjoy?

Because if that's true, then fine. I'm happy that you're happy.

However, if you ever see a future where you make a new friend, get a close friend to start playing this game that you love, or start playing this game with a significant other, then your quoted comment seems to actively work against future you.

We can have it all and now is/was the time to put pressure on ZOS to do it. It will be years before they devote this amount of resources to this system again.

The problem isn't the 2 or 3 people who occasionally group without any forthought for a BG.

The problem is the fully optimized 4 man groups who make the queue absolutely miserable for anyone who isn't equally optimized.

Y'all are happy with burning the entire game mode down if it means you getting to chat in group with some friends on occasion. You could also just go into cyrodil and do the same thing.

And again, if you need solo players to fill out your queue, maybe group queue isn't as popular as you want it to be.

And yeah, I have never queued into a BG with other people. Not once in the 6 years the game mode has existed. If I want to group up with friends for PVP, I go to cyrodil.

It's called competitive mode for a reason. The casuals should stick to 8v8 if they don't want a fight

Some competitive mode then. If it relies on throwing solo players into the meat grinder to be effective. Solo does not mean casual by the way.

No those solos you mentioned should not be there lol. They should find people to group up with and actually TRY to be competitive. There is the 8v8 for casual play.

Since when does competitive only mean premade groups?

That’s the nature of competitive pvp in general, but especially in eso and MMOs. So much of the PvP experience in the game is based around class and set interaction and group dynamics.

You can absolutely have a competitive experience in random groups too, it just relies more on the actual skill of the players than having organized broken builds.

No, it’s completely rng and down to what team doesn’t get the nb snipe bot or whichever team gets a healer, etc. Yes, better players can win sometimes but with even skill levels it comes down to matchmaking rng. This also isn’t a game where classes are competitively balanced to play solo. Some classes are significantly better at it than others, and other classes require actual team coordination to be effective.

Add the fact that it's super common for players who are "friendly" with eachother to completely ignore one another in BG's (basically not attacking eachother) making solo queue on live an absolute joke. Go watch any of decimus streams and it's clear as day.

jaws343 · September 30

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Group queue isn't popular because of lack of support from ZOS. It's pretty ignorant to be suggesting that grouping isn't popular in a social MMO without acknowledging the circumstances that contributed to that reality.

I'll say again: We can have it all. We can all get what we want.

Cheers.

Group queues mixed with solo queues literally killed the game mode for a long while and it wasn't until they broke the queues apart that any life crept back into it. No one wants to waste time queuing and facing optimized 4 man groups just so a few friends can mess around in BGs together. If the queues are mixed, BGs will die. It isn't a maybe, this already happened once and it will happen again.

False. Splitting the queues has caused irreversible harm to the BG community. We've been picking up the pieces ever since.

The joined queue had already killed the mode. And the only reason it is still even remotely functional right now is because the queues are not mixed. Players abandoned the mode in droves because of having to face optimized groups. That is a fact.

You might be thinking the mode was killed because the group queue is dead. But that is really because no one actually wants to fight optimized groups. Just like people generally don't want to fight ball groups in cyrodil. It isn't fun. It isn't competitive.

Urvoth · September 30

jaws343 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Group queue isn't popular because of lack of support from ZOS. It's pretty ignorant to be suggesting that grouping isn't popular in a social MMO without acknowledging the circumstances that contributed to that reality.

I'll say again: We can have it all. We can all get what we want.

Cheers.

Group queues mixed with solo queues literally killed the game mode for a long while and it wasn't until they broke the queues apart that any life crept back into it. No one wants to waste time queuing and facing optimized 4 man groups just so a few friends can mess around in BGs together. If the queues are mixed, BGs will die. It isn't a maybe, this already happened once and it will happen again.

You either didn’t play back then or you’re trolling. The population was at least 3-4x the size back then and queues were always fast. Splitting the queues and having a solo queue only mode is what nuked BGs, then removing DM queue on top of that.

ketsparrowhawk · September 30

jaws343 wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Group queue isn't popular because of lack of support from ZOS. It's pretty ignorant to be suggesting that grouping isn't popular in a social MMO without acknowledging the circumstances that contributed to that reality.

I'll say again: We can have it all. We can all get what we want.

Cheers.

Group queues mixed with solo queues literally killed the game mode for a long while and it wasn't until they broke the queues apart that any life crept back into it. No one wants to waste time queuing and facing optimized 4 man groups just so a few friends can mess around in BGs together. If the queues are mixed, BGs will die. It isn't a maybe, this already happened once and it will happen again.

False. Splitting the queues has caused irreversible harm to the BG community. We've been picking up the pieces ever since.

The joined queue had already killed the mode. And the only reason it is still even remotely functional right now is because the queues are not mixed. Players abandoned the mode in droves because of having to face optimized groups. That is a fact.

You might be thinking the mode was killed because the group queue is dead. But that is really because no one actually wants to fight optimized groups. Just like people generally don't want to fight ball groups in cyrodil. It isn't fun. It isn't competitive.

Yeah you are just 100% incorrect on this sorry

jaws343 · September 30

Urvoth wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Group queue isn't popular because of lack of support from ZOS. It's pretty ignorant to be suggesting that grouping isn't popular in a social MMO without acknowledging the circumstances that contributed to that reality.

I'll say again: We can have it all. We can all get what we want.

Cheers.

Group queues mixed with solo queues literally killed the game mode for a long while and it wasn't until they broke the queues apart that any life crept back into it. No one wants to waste time queuing and facing optimized 4 man groups just so a few friends can mess around in BGs together. If the queues are mixed, BGs will die. It isn't a maybe, this already happened once and it will happen again.

You either didn’t play back then or you’re trolling. The population was at least 3-4x the size back then and queues were always fast. Splitting the queues and having a solo queue only mode is what nuked BGs, then removing DM queue on top of that.

It must have been different on Xbox, because the game mode there was dying before the split. You could spend weekends facing the same 4 man groups repeatedly because they were the only ones actually playing the mode. And people would just leave a match whenever they appeared. You'd be lucky not to have hours of facing the same teams in back to back matches because no one else was in the queue.

And yeah, killing the DM queue was also a problem.

But splitting the queue absolutely brought life back into the mode for xbox.

LinusMain · September 30

The queue for solo BG in PC/NA is really fast on live right now, even on sleepy hour weekdays (5-10 minutes). I don't remember the queue being much faster back then before split queue. Don't know anything about the current group BG queue though.

Aldoss · September 30

jaws343 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Group queue isn't popular because of lack of support from ZOS. It's pretty ignorant to be suggesting that grouping isn't popular in a social MMO without acknowledging the circumstances that contributed to that reality.

I'll say again: We can have it all. We can all get what we want.

Cheers.

Group queues mixed with solo queues literally killed the game mode for a long while and it wasn't until they broke the queues apart that any life crept back into it. No one wants to waste time queuing and facing optimized 4 man groups just so a few friends can mess around in BGs together. If the queues are mixed, BGs will die. It isn't a maybe, this already happened once and it will happen again.

You clearly understand what the actual root of the problem is, but are somehow still missing it.

"Group" queues weren't the problem. I know that you know this because you then said "facing optimized 4 man groups" in the next sentence.

Group =/= optimized or coordinated 4-man.

Groups of casual duos exist.

I agree with you. The BG community will die if optimized, coordinated 4-mans are allowed into the casual 8v8 mode. They already have the 4v4 option and ZOS should have thought to put in protective measures when creating the framework of this update to ensure that 4-mans couldn't again pollute the fun of the casual mode. They didn't.

So instead, they're doing what they did years ago that crept back life back into the game... for you. For us, it was a drastic loss of enjoyment.

The BG community will never grow past what it's already achieved if ZOS continues to fracture the already small population. This update will get a few more people to try the new hot thing, but after the honeymoon, it will just be the same people it is now with the only difference that there is now only two teams duking it out instead of 3.

Jierdanit · September 30

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Urvoth wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Urvoth wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

If having a group only queue will kill it, maybe people just aren't too thrilled with competing against players who treat BGs as raid groups.

At a certain point, maybe group queue BGs are the problem and not the other way around. If groups are relying on solo players to sacrifice themselves to the group queue in order to be effective, we should just do away with the group queues altogether.

Are you saying that you have 0 intention to ever group queue with anyone, ever, in the future of your playing this game, in a mode that you enjoy?

Because if that's true, then fine. I'm happy that you're happy.

However, if you ever see a future where you make a new friend, get a close friend to start playing this game that you love, or start playing this game with a significant other, then your quoted comment seems to actively work against future you.

We can have it all and now is/was the time to put pressure on ZOS to do it. It will be years before they devote this amount of resources to this system again.

The problem isn't the 2 or 3 people who occasionally group without any forthought for a BG.

The problem is the fully optimized 4 man groups who make the queue absolutely miserable for anyone who isn't equally optimized.

Y'all are happy with burning the entire game mode down if it means you getting to chat in group with some friends on occasion. You could also just go into cyrodil and do the same thing.

And again, if you need solo players to fill out your queue, maybe group queue isn't as popular as you want it to be.

And yeah, I have never queued into a BG with other people. Not once in the 6 years the game mode has existed. If I want to group up with friends for PVP, I go to cyrodil.

It's called competitive mode for a reason. The casuals should stick to 8v8 if they don't want a fight

Some competitive mode then. If it relies on throwing solo players into the meat grinder to be effective. Solo does not mean casual by the way.

No those solos you mentioned should not be there lol. They should find people to group up with and actually TRY to be competitive. There is the 8v8 for casual play.

Since when does competitive only mean premade groups?

That’s the nature of competitive pvp in general, but especially in eso and MMOs. So much of the PvP experience in the game is based around class and set interaction and group dynamics.

You can absolutely have a competitive experience in random groups too, it just relies more on the actual skill of the players than having organized broken builds.

No, it’s completely rng and down to what team doesn’t get the nb snipe bot or whichever team gets a healer, etc. Yes, better players can win sometimes but with even skill levels it comes down to matchmaking rng. This also isn’t a game where classes are competitively balanced to play solo. Some classes are significantly better at it than others, and other classes require actual team coordination to be effective.

Add the fact that it's super common for players who are "friendly" with eachother to completely ignore one another in BG's (basically not attacking eachother) making solo queue on live an absolute joke. Go watch any of decimus streams and it's clear as day.

That is the case in all the modes except for deathmatch (which is the only mode that is anywhere close to being competitive atm). In Deathmatch you will only see that very rarely and basically only when one team is clearly winning already.

So i really doubt that it would happen frequently in competitive queue BGs.

Aldoss · September 30

Jesus I just read that you're on xbox. Ok. That helps me understand your comments a lot.

If pcna BG population is small, I can't even begin to imagine how awful it is for you.

This is a great example of how ZOS should be managing their various platforms separately, rather than as one homogeneous whole. I still feel strongly though that having an integrated queue without the possibility of a 4-man will grow the community whereas the solo queue being the only reliable option will simply stagnate it. However, xbox's population is already so small in comparison, so I truthfully have no idea how to save it.

All my comments are directed around my personal experience with pcna.

The BG community was absolutely massive back when we started in 2019. It's only degraded since then. The removal of the DM only queue was a huge blow to the community and then the further fracturing with more queues only solidified the death of the community.

This is a mismanagement issue. It's ZOS' fault and they're making all the same incorrect decisions with this patch that got us here in the first place.

NuarBlack · September 30

Urvoth wrote: »

LinusMain wrote: »

If there is no solo queue or equivalent for 4v4, I probably won't touch it though. Feels like if you force soloers into a non-solo queue, they will just stop playing instead.

There were always plenty of solo queue players back when there was no solo queue. In fact, the population in general was significantly larger and queue times were much faster without a solo queue.

Eh this is where I'd be cautious of correlation vs causation. People were complaining about que times in high mmr clear back at the end of morrowind/beginning of Summerset. PvP population has been dwindling since the game launched. Solo que likely slowed the hemmoraging of players quite a bit more than it increased ques. Pre-made high MMR have been long ques since the start of Summerset so splitting the que into solo and group is an unlikely culprit. Granted you used to be able to que for different types of BGs or random so the que was split back then even so hard to say definitively but solo que has been nothing but healthy for the game I'd guarantee it.

verynicegirl · September 30

The 4-way split of queues will make BGs unplayable for CONTINENTS of people like those in Oceania and Asia, who play during US off-hours. As it is, we don't queue for group unless it's the weekend during US peak time, because queue simply will not pop; even during peak hours it can take an hour. The 4-way split will kill the game for us because of low population.

Keeping one queue for 4v4 (group queue only) and one queue for 8v8 (max group size of two) is the best solution for everyone.

IreWorks is right.

Also buff snipe.

Decimus · September 30

I don't see anyone complaining about there being separate Solo & Group queues in other games like WoW, GW2, LoL etc

Meanwhile I can see a lot of people complaining about being forced into a situation where you are at a tremendous disadvantage fighting an organized group with coordinated buff sets - we already saw this on PTS week 1... people going against full premade and getting zero kills.

If this was the experience on Live, Team vs Team BGs would be DOA.

Furthermore, from the POV of a group this is not ideal either since random solo queuers will just start leaving the moment a premade is on the opponent team, or they won't queue at all - which is exactly what happened when queues were mixed up last time (and back then there were less buff sets to worry about).

Having separate solo/group queues solves this issue, but is not the perfect solution: I would still like to see the ability to queue into multiple game modes at the same time on normal PC UI (this is doable on console UI already), as this'd reduce the queue times and allow people to solo queue against premades if they choose to do so (something tells me most people interested in playing BGs won't though).

Being able to queue for both 4v4/8v8 at the same time would also reduce queue times, if one doesn't care too much about which type of BG they're going into.

Furthermore... since queue times are brought up a lot you have to ask the question: why were the queues long in the first place? Is it because they were split... or is it because people didn't feel like queueing.

I personally know a lot of people who stopped queueing when they couldn't select Deathmatch anymore, and I've myself been group queueing into objective games and let me tell you: it's not fun to fight a team of random PvErs while the 3rd team runs back the Relics or sits on flags and the game ends in two minutes.

The Team vs Team format just works better... and furthermore, people have the "Deathmatch queue" back in 4v4.

Another big reason why people stopped queueing into BGs is the fact that they haven't been rewarding for years, nor has there been a competitive leaderboard to fight over.

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Add the fact that it's super common for players who are "friendly" with eachother to completely ignore one another in BG's (basically not attacking eachother) making solo queue on live an absolute joke. Go watch any of decimus streams and it's clear as day.

This is typically the case in objective modes and it's called having good sportsmanship - I don't just ignore friends, but also people I don't know if they're outnumbered (not to sound arrogant, but it wouldn't lead to a positive experience for anyone if I didn't).

Exceptions are made for people who I know don't have that kind of sportsmanship... and of course in deathmatch, where the objective is to farm kills faster than opponent teams so you go for anyone who is "over-extended" when it's the right call - often you still want to focus the squishier players and then move on to the tankier/more experienced ones.

verynicegirl · September 30

Decimus wrote: »

I don't see anyone complaining about there being separate Solo & Group queues in other games like WoW, GW2, LoL.

Actually everyone complains about it, especially in WoW. Solo Arenas killed arenas, then Solo RBGs killed the entire remaining PvP community. When games started implementing casual solo queues vs rated group queues, it was to pander to the slowly expanding number of anti-social or non-competitive players who wanted everything the social and competitive players had. Because at the end of the day, money is money, and those companies want to try and keep everyone happy so they can keep taking everyones money.

ESO is a MMORPG. It means Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplay Game. These games were designed solely for social interaction. Back in the day, you couldn't do ANY end-game content in any game without having to find a guild or group. There were no insta-queues, you had to use your social skills and join a guild that did the content you wanted.

Regardless of how many snowflakes we have stepping into PvP now thanks to the ease of solo queues, PvP is an aggressive and competitive game mode. Its regulars are aggressive and competitive people. MMO's should be forcing people to find PvP guilds/communities of like-minded people so they can enjoy this mode in its entirety. The only people who complain about PvP are solo players. It's because they're not playing it right.

gariondavey · September 30

ruskiii wrote: »

@React has the best option, but what they have put forward now is a happy medium. Most of the people on this post were pushing for solos to be put into groups last time i asked them, @gariondavey @ketsparrowhawk ... i guess you can't make everyone happy?

Sorry, what?

Most people have wanted max duo for 8s as the "solo" queue, with no mmr
And
Ranked group 4v4, with mmr

Not sure why you are tagging me or misrepresenting me

Decimus · September 30

verynicegirl wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

I don't see anyone complaining about there being separate Solo & Group queues in other games like WoW, GW2, LoL.

Actually everyone complains about it, especially in WoW. Solo Arenas killed arenas, then Solo RBGs killed the entire remaining PvP community. When games started implementing casual solo queues vs rated group queues, it was to pander to the slowly expanding number of anti-social or non-competitive players who wanted everything the social and competitive players had. Because at the end of the day, money is money, and those companies want to try and keep everyone happy so they can keep taking everyones money.

ESO is a MMORPG. It means Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplay Game. These games were designed solely for social interaction. Back in the day, you couldn't do ANY end-game content in any game without having to find a guild or group. There were no insta-queues, you had to use your social skills and join a guild that did the content you wanted.

Regardless of how many snowflakes we have stepping into PvP now thanks to the ease of solo queues, PvP is an aggressive and competitive game mode. Its regulars are aggressive and competitive people. MMO's should be forcing people to find PvP guilds/communities of like-minded people so they can enjoy this mode in its entirety. The only people who complain about PvP are solo players. It's because they're not playing it right.

I guess this is just a matter of perspective, and games like WoW have a lot of other issues concerning their PvP than solo queues existing. I watch multiple WoW streamers for example who seem to really enjoy queueing into solo arenas, but I can imagine a lot of group players would prefer the solo queue not to exist in order to have more for themselves.

In the end, players will do what players enjoy doing and letting players choose the most fun option is not a bad thing.

Group queues are still alive and well in many of these games, despite the existence of a solo queue... more so in games where group PvP is an enjoyable and skill based (i.e. competitive) activity, rather than slot X Y Z buff sets and 3 2 1 ultidump.

The game also still has a lot of activities where having an organized group gives you a big advantage, such as Cyrodiil/Imperial City/Trials/Dungeons... but in the end the best thing ESO can do to make group play popular is by making it more fun, and the fact is that most people in Battlegrounds currently on Live do not find it fun, or they would be queueing into group rather than Solo.

ruskiii · September 30

gariondavey wrote: »

ruskiii wrote: »

@React has the best option, but what they have put forward now is a happy medium. Most of the people on this post were pushing for solos to be put into groups last time i asked them, @gariondavey @ketsparrowhawk ... i guess you can't make everyone happy?

Sorry, what?

Most people have wanted max duo for 8s as the "solo" queue, with no mmr
And
Ranked group 4v4, with mmr

Not sure why you are tagging me or misrepresenting me

Making the only options be duos with solos in 8s, or a mixed 4 man q, is the definition of pushing solo players into group queue... I'm sure the three or four 4-man groups were happy to get solo players filling the queue, but a majority of people making bg queues pop at our level are solo players. Nothing against running a comp group, but it shouldnt be mandatory to get a 4v4 deathmatch mode.

gariondavey · September 30

I've never said solos or duos should be in the premade 4 man queue

ruskiii · October 1

I'm not saying you are mate, but solo players should have an option to queue for the 4v4 maps, and if the only option is a group queue then it is pushing solo players into that. Anyway, it's great that ZOS are listening to player feedback and making such big changes mid-PTS. Gives us an incentive to get on PTS this week knowing that our feedback is being taken onboard.

Aldoss · October 1

Decimus wrote: »

but in the end the best thing ESO can do to make group play popular is by making it more fun, and the fact is that most people in Battlegrounds currently on Live do not find it fun, or they would be queueing into group rather than Solo.

I'm confused by this.

It sounds like you're saying that ZOS should be focusing on making group queue more enjoyable, but at the same time appears that you're happy with them fracturing the queue, which won't solve that.

The argument I'm making is that there's a massive difference in this game between coordinated, optimized groups and plain groups. This is literally the Cyro debate reliving itself within the realm of BGs, except it would be as if we were arguing as to whether or not you had to queue into Cyro as a group of 12 friends, and if you did, you'd be ported into a special instance where you'd only be matched against other 12-mans, with a high probability that one would be a true ballgroup that would dominate you.

The dichotomy will always come down to casual vs competitive.

My opinion remains that a true MMR, with rewards worthy of competing in that ladder, will do an infinitely better job at keeping coordinated, optimized 4-mans out of the 8v8 queue because there would be nothing for them to gain by doing so, except to waste time clubbing baby seals. Ideally, both the MMR w/ worthwhile rewards AND a restriction on 4-mans in the group queue would exist.

Should ZOS also add a queue into the <50 BGs that sorts people out by gear score to keep the twinks out? They're solo, but one twink in a <50 BG absolutely, completely, 100% destroys the experience for literally everyone in that BG, just like coordinated, optimized 4-mans do in the >50 BGs. Why is it okay in one population, but not the other?

Decimus · October 1

Aldoss wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

but in the end the best thing ESO can do to make group play popular is by making it more fun, and the fact is that most people in Battlegrounds currently on Live do not find it fun, or they would be queueing into group rather than Solo.

I'm confused by this.

It sounds like you're saying that ZOS should be focusing on making group queue more enjoyable, but at the same time appears that you're happy with them fracturing the queue, which won't solve that.

Yes, that is precisely what I'm saying.

The solution to the enjoyability of group queue lies outside of making solo queuers also suffer, which is why I'm very happy they've decided to keep Solo/Group queues separate.

Aldoss wrote: »

The argument I'm making is that there's a massive difference in this game between coordinated, optimized groups and plain groups. This is literally the Cyro debate reliving itself within the realm of BGs, except it would be as if we were arguing as to whether or not you had to queue into Cyro as a group of 12 friends, and if you did, you'd be ported into a special instance where you'd only be matched against other 12-mans, with a high probability that one would be a true ballgroup that would dominate you.

The dichotomy will always come down to casual vs competitive.

Yes, there is - and frankly not having ball groups and organized Xv1 small scale squads in Cyrodiil might even make me enjoy it again... but that is not something anyone is asking for since the whole nature of Cyrodiil is it being chaotic and unfair.

The nature of BGs is about having more competitive, fair and balanced matches.

The way I see it, the truly competitive people are the ones who have to rely on their own skills to survive against other strong players, not people stacking every possible buff set in the universe and stomping outnumbered randoms.

So yes, in a way it is about having both a competitive and casual way of playing PvP... people wanting a fair and balanced environment for PvP, contrast to the chaos and lawlessness of Cyrodiil/Imperial City.

Aldoss wrote: »

My opinion remains that a true MMR, with rewards worthy of competing in that ladder, will do an infinitely better job at keeping coordinated, optimized 4-mans out of the 8v8 queue because there would be nothing for them to gain by doing so, except to waste time clubbing baby seals. Ideally, both the MMR w/ worthwhile rewards AND a restriction on 4-mans in the group queue would exist.

Should ZOS also add a queue into the <50 BGs that sorts people out by gear score to keep the twinks out? They're solo, but one twink in a <50 BG absolutely, completely, 100% destroys the experience for literally everyone in that BG, just like coordinated, optimized 4-mans do in the >50 BGs. Why is it okay in one population, but not the other?

This is exactly how it is on PTS, except that group 8v8 does still exist (I'll just assume most people will queue into the solo 8v8 since it'll be infinitely more fun - minus maybe some guild premade vs premade events etc).

The below 50 twink problem has always been a thing, not sure if a good solution exists to it (I know other MMOs have the same issue).

Anachronian · October 1

TBH, I'm not sure that the intended behavior of the ques even now is working properly, given that based upon the latest patch notes from ZOS, solo and group ques are meant to be separate, but the behavior and setups in some of the matches do not match up well with it truly being a solo que.

A. Please ensure that even if the intended behavior is solo que is solo que, group que is group que, that it is not backfilling from solo into group if there are not enough groups, or there is a bug with the que filling.
B. Ensure that people are not allowed to *quit* right before the end of the match in order to try to game the MMR, allowing them to continually face lower MMR players than they should be.

Twohothardware · October 1

There's barely a population for Battlegrounds as it is right now with a single queue.

Because real PvP is in Cyrodiil.

Aldoss · October 1

Decimus wrote: »

Yes, that is precisely what I'm saying.

The solution to the enjoyability of group queue lies outside of making solo queuers also suffer, which is why I'm very happy they've decided to keep Solo/Group queues separate.

I guess I'm still hung up on the celebration of mediocrity. There exists better solutions where everyone gets what they want, but instead you're just happy that ZOS invested over a year of time into keeping the status quo, which isn't even close to what anyone would consider a healthy BG population.

That's fine. I stated my case.

Group queue will die and won't become any better than what we have now, which is pitiful.

It seems really strange to me that in an mmorpg, if my wife and I want to play in a casual manner, we have to specifically not group up and gamble getting put on the same team. Who would have thought?

Decimus · October 1

Aldoss wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Yes, that is precisely what I'm saying.

The solution to the enjoyability of group queue lies outside of making solo queuers also suffer, which is why I'm very happy they've decided to keep Solo/Group queues separate.

I guess I'm still hung up on the celebration of mediocrity. There exists better solutions where everyone gets what they want, but instead you're just happy that ZOS invested over a year of time into keeping the status quo, which isn't even close to what anyone would consider a healthy BG population.

That's fine. I stated my case.

Group queue will die and won't become any better than what we have now, which is pitiful.

It seems really strange to me that in an mmorpg, if my wife and I want to play in a casual manner, we have to specifically not group up and gamble getting put on the same team. Who would have thought?

Based on what?

A lot (if not most) of the queue time issues are due to:

3-Way format - simply results in an unenjoyable 3rd party fiesta.
Groups just wanting competitive PvP having to play objective modes like capture the relic, usually resorting to two teams fighting and one team capturing empty relic 5 times, BG ending in 2 minutes with very little PvP to be had.
Lack of rewards - nothing new has been added to battlegrounds since 2017, and the AP/hour ratio has always been worse than in Cyrodiil (they're buffing that as well next patch with the BG quest rewards being a lot better).

With these issues solved, I'd expect to see a lot more group queues popping as well than on Live, especially as a full BG only requires 8 people (4v4) rather than 12 (4v4v4).

Estin · October 1

The dev note suggests that there's not much they can do for U44 with the feedback they're considering (Making 8v8 allow a max group size of 2). The 4 separate queues is much more preferable for the interim because going up against a 4man premade in 4v4 or 8v8 would absolutely kill all interest for any potential new players. I'm fine with this solution as long as the feedback they're considering doesn't take until this time next year to get implemented. I only got started to get into PvP a couple of months ago, but I still want ZOS to give this the attention that it needs and acts quickly on feedback.

MashmalloMan · October 1

Twohothardware wrote: »

There's barely a population for Battlegrounds as it is right now with a single queue.

Because real PvP is in Cyrodiil.

As someone else put it, I have no interest in joining a zerg, being zerged down, poor performance, or playing horse simulator. People have different interests, there's no such thing as "real PVP".

People keep talking about how increasing the queue options will kill BGs or reference the past changes to BG queues as proof of such, but don't look at the bigger picture.

If competitive is meant for premades apparently, why do you need a random solo to farm? That doesn't sound very competitive, although if that's really what you want, people who want to queue for that solo still can. Some people just want a match as soon a a possible and will queue for everything.
4v4 for 8 players, requires 4 less than Live's 12, 33% less. Assuming the population of premades remains the same, which it will probably increase, not decrease, this is at least 33% faster than before.
BGs have been revamped, better rewards, better leaderboard, better maps, no third partying.. just 2 teams, objective modes are designed in a way that forces teams to engage with each other vs running away. This undoubtedly will bring back players that have written BGs off, theoritically the population will rise.
Options are never a bad thing. Even if queue gets much worse, I would rather wait 5 extra minutes for a match I enjoy, vs an instant match that I hate.
I personally prefer solo queue, but I still prefer more competitive games with competent players. In the original version and many of the ideas floating around, I was told my preference didn't matter, go to 8v8 casual.. well I've seen what thats like and even if premades weren't allowed in there, it's a cluster****. At least in 4v4v4, one of those teams would focus on something else like the objective or couldn't stack 8 players worth of HOTs/Shields.
Equating past BG population size directly with the changing of the queues without also acknowledging major updates that may have pushed away players from the game is a false equivalancy. What I mostly remember is begrudgingly being forced to fight premades at first, then losing a DM only queue because of "population size", only for them to add it back later in a test that was conducted under poor conditions (I think New World launched). They came to the same same conclusion that they didn't want too many queues, forcing us again, to fight troll tanks and dedicated flag runners instead of actually fighting each other. Objective vs non objective players have been fighting about it ever since, breeding toxicity in game and on the forums, reducing the population even more, all because they took away our options... It seems they may have finally realized this lesson and less than 24h later we're trying to reverse it? I don't understand.

I think we should let this play out. This is a good starting point to see how things go, provide as many options as possible, reduce if necessary. I think solo 4v4 and group 4v4 are here to stay, 8v8 could be reduced from solo and group to duo, but that's just me. Even if 8v8 is dead most of the time, the option being there gives BG guilds the opportunity to queue 4x premades for some wacky matches.

Also, add random queues to help fill slots or at the very least allow us to queue all of them without forcing us to change our UI. If someone wants to queue that way, they can't complain when they get placed in a match that's less than ideal.

Aldoss · October 1

@Decimus Given that these are the patch notes for week 3, we'll see what happens because historically, nothing else will really change between now and U44.

I agree with your 1st point and 2nd point. I think the real reward and motivation behind your point 3 is never going to be something that the game can provide, but rather something that is only attainable by a select few. A visible, searchable MMR leaderboard that shows the entire ESO playerbase who the top solo's/groups are in BGs will be infinitely more valuable to people than AP. This single addition would do so much for the BG scene.

I'll agree that I hope that queue times will be resolved now that matches require 33% less players, as @MashmalloMan pointed out.

Estin wrote: »

The dev note suggests that there's not much they can do for U44 with the feedback they're considering (Making 8v8 allow a max group size of 2). The 4 separate queues is much more preferable for the interim because going up against a 4man premade in 4v4 or 8v8 would absolutely kill all interest for any potential new players. I'm fine with this solution as long as the feedback they're considering doesn't take until this time next year to get implemented. I only got started to get into PvP a couple of months ago, but I still want ZOS to give this the attention that it needs and acts quickly on feedback.

I'm so jaded about this. Their comment means absolutely nothing to me because they have no good track record to give me any faith that they won't just ignore BGs for the next 7 years. They said they weren't done with GLS and then ignored it for 3 patches, except to fix a bug. It's still called "Stalking Blastbones" in game for christ's sake.

With the current PTS there is an avenue for a positive, fulfilling experience from: a solo casual player, a solo competitive player, and a coordinated, optimized 4 man group. However, the population being left out are casual duos, trios, and quads, which 100% exist, but most people don't know because group queue is so dead compared to the solo queue.

I'm clearly the minority represented on the forum, but I disagree that that means that my enjoyment of the game matters less. I won't be a broken record. We'll see what happens.

bladenick · October 1

As simple as possible, The 4V4 shall only allowed premade 4 player team, 8v8
you get friend want group PVP, go for 4v4, casual player please go solo 8v8 solo