Gilliam destroying newbs in BGs, MMR needs improvement

mojomood · July 2018

Full disclosure: I am not good at PvP. I'm usually even on my K/D, but I enjoy the fast pace and unpredictable nature. Of course no one likes playing BGs in a PUG against a premade group, but boy did get one tonight. Gilliam the Rogue, the new ZOS hire, and what seemed like a premade steamrolled everyone. They moved as a group, focused one player at a time and never missed. Every death recap had something from at least 3 of them. Recount addon confirmed it. My only kill was a green player. Not mad at @Gilliamtherogue, but obviously that MMR thing is quite fixed yet.

TL;DR The MMR needs to be improved for the long term growth of PvP. @Gilliamtherogue replied that it was not a premade.

Final Score
https://imgur.com/a/AFdFlQk

Vapirko · July 2018

MMR only goes so far and then after that it matches you with any available players. Also it really doesn’t seem to have anything to do with skill and simply goes off of how many matches you play on a given toon. It’s definitely not ideal and may never be.

VaranisArano · July 2018

MMR does not guarantee that you will never face premades or groups of skilled players.

It just makes it less likely that you will face the same premades over and over and over again.

Manage you expectations accordingly.

mojomood · July 2018

Vapirko wrote: »

MMR only goes so far and then after that it matches you with any available players. Also it really doesn’t seem to have anything to do with skill and simply goes off of how many matches you play on a given toon. It’s definitely not ideal and may never be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not salty on this. Maybe I would be if I was really good and got trampled, but I think this highlights how "not ideal" the MMR is. If it only goes on rounds played, then the 5-10 rounds on this toon shouldn't put me near the top. I agree that it doesn't seem to have good logic running it. I really like BGs because it helps get people into PvP who would not try Cyrodiil. So the matchmaking being fixed would add a lot to the experience.

mojomood · July 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

MMR does not guarantee that you will never face premades or groups of skilled players.

It just makes it less likely that you will face the same premades over and over and over again.

Manage you expectations accordingly.

You must have misread my post. As I said, "I got one tonight". Not over and over and over again. Read closer and you'll get the intent.

An MMR needs a great endgame. ESO has that in a lot of ways. There is no secret that PvP saw a considerable drop 12-18 months ago. BGs is a great way to add back to that. People will try it, love the challenge and the fast-paced, unscripted nature of it and go on to make that their primary end game. The MMR is better than nothing, but still needs more work. BGs can be a great thing for ESO, ZOS, and the community if this can be improved.

Maryal · July 2018

Well, you also need to consider that the devs test, gather first-hand information, and evaluate things out on live. I think his presence in BGs means Gilliam is on the team taking on the MMR issue ... and I can't think of anyone better suited for this job than him. This also means you may be seeing him in BGs a bit more often.

idk · July 2018

If queue is slow then you will get who is available. It will not prevent matching you with a strong player if they are all that is available.

VaranisArano · July 2018

mojomood wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

MMR does not guarantee that you will never face premades or groups of skilled players.

It just makes it less likely that you will face the same premades over and over and over again.

Manage you expectations accordingly.

You must have misread my post. As I said, "I got one tonight". Not over and over and over again. Read closer and you'll get the intent.

An MMR needs a great endgame. ESO has that in a lot of ways. There is no secret that PvP saw a considerable drop 12-18 months ago. BGs is a great way to add back to that. People will try it, love the challenge and the fast-paced, unscripted nature of it and go on to make that their primary end game. The MMR is better than nothing, but still needs more work. BGs can be a great thing for ESO, ZOS, and the community if this can be improved.

My point was that meeting with the occasional group of premades is exactly what I'd expect under the current MMR.

It doesnt guarantee that you won't ever meet premades. You will, and you did.

The MMR was designed to prevent players from seeing the same premades over and over again. Its working as intended.

If you want it to prevent you from ever seeing premades, that's a fine thing to advocate for, but that's not what the MMR is currently designed to do. That's asking for more of a separate queue.

mojomood · July 2018

Maryal wrote: »

Well, you also need to consider that the devs test, gather first-hand information, and evaluate things out on live. I think his presence in BGs means Gilliam is on the team taking on the MMR issue ... and I can't think of anyone better suited for this job than him. This also means you may be seeing him in BGs a bit more often.

As I stated, "Not mad at @Gilliamtherogue, but obviously that MMR thing is quite fixed yet." Glad to hear he may be taking it on. Hoping this post will further highlight how the MMR needs fixed.

If I was top player and got steam rolled like that, I might be salty. I'm neither top nor salty. Just using this as an example of how the MMR needs improvement. The fact that @Gilliamtherogue was in the match just helps give this issue (the MMR logic) a little more visibility.

mojomood · July 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

mojomood wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

MMR does not guarantee that you will never face premades or groups of skilled players.

It just makes it less likely that you will face the same premades over and over and over again.

Manage you expectations accordingly.

You must have misread my post. As I said, "I got one tonight". Not over and over and over again. Read closer and you'll get the intent.

An MMR needs a great endgame. ESO has that in a lot of ways. There is no secret that PvP saw a considerable drop 12-18 months ago. BGs is a great way to add back to that. People will try it, love the challenge and the fast-paced, unscripted nature of it and go on to make that their primary end game. The MMR is better than nothing, but still needs more work. BGs can be a great thing for ESO, ZOS, and the community if this can be improved.

My point was that meeting with the occasional group of premades is exactly what I'd expect under the current MMR.

It doesnt guarantee that you won't ever meet premades. You will, and you did.

The MMR was designed to prevent players from seeing the same premades over and over again. Its working as intended.

If you want it to prevent you from ever seeing premades, that's a fine thing to advocate for, but that's not what the MMR is currently designed to do. That's asking for more of a separate queue.

I'm not sure of what the right answer is here. Splitting the queue *may* be possible if the BG population continues to grow. Not sure that is the answer though. But when I say this is not a good experience, I don't mean just the other 8 players...I also include the premade in that. If they are good players who took the time to get online together to run some BGs, do you think they want that? Cause that's gonna get boring very quickly.

I think you are right that the MMR was designed to just stop the premade repeat cycle, which was a good first step. Putting BGs in the base game with great rewards is another good step. Now let's get a better experience, the logical next step. Ultimately, ZOS wants a lot of endgamers. People who replay (and sub) and a significant portion of those can be PvPers. Having a robust PvP community helps everyone.

Maryal · July 2018

mojomood wrote: »

Maryal wrote: »

Well, you also need to consider that the devs test, gather first-hand information, and evaluate things out on live. I think his presence in BGs means Gilliam is on the team taking on the MMR issue ... and I can't think of anyone better suited for this job than him. This also means you may be seeing him in BGs a bit more often.

As I stated, "Not mad at @Gilliamtherogue, but obviously that MMR thing is quite fixed yet." Glad to hear he may be taking it on. Hoping this post will further highlight how the MMR needs fixed.

If I was top player and got steam rolled like that, I might be salty. I'm neither top nor salty. Just using this as an example of how the MMR needs improvement. The fact that @Gilliamtherogue was in the match just helps give this issue (the MMR logic) a little more visibility.

If the MMR didn't need improvement, you probably wouldn't have seen Gilliam in your BGs. He was always very passionate about that system working properly. The fact that you DID see him should be taken as a good sign ... meaning that he is probably on the team assigned to improve the system. There are statistics that are fed into the system ... statistics that the system uses (programed to use) in making battleground matches or assigning players to battleground matches. He was in a premade that slaughtered your team. That was a match that probably shouldn't have occurred (per the system). After that match info was automatically fed into the system. To make improvements, you have to first identify the 'root issue' causing the problem. Being 'behind the scenes, the devs track and identify how the program uses information ... something that is easier to do when you can identify the exact time it occurred. What better way to do this than participate in BGs as a dev.

Gilliamtherogue · July 2018

I've been solo queued all night

mojomood · July 2018

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

I've been solo queued all night

@Gilliamtherogue, thanks for responding!

Fair enough. Excellent coordination with your teammates then.

I'm glad there are a lot of passionate PvPers that want this community to continue to improve. I never heard what your role is, but whatever you can do to help on the MMR is appreciated. Doing matchmaking well is complex, but very rewarding for the long term of PvP in ESO.

ecru · July 2018

4v4 is very easily imbalanced due to small group sizes and obviously so is 8v4. Premades can pretty much make all fights 4v4 or 8v4 if they want, and this is what happens.

The three team system has been broken from the start and no amount of perfect matchmaking is going to lead to good outcomes as long as you allow an entire team to be made up of a premade.

Zeromaz · July 2018

It would greatly change for the better if the maps were much bigger, spreading teams out to take objectives, adding 3 additional relics (1 of each color), buuuuut... i’m not quite sure what to do about deathmatch. Seems like there isn’t really too much they can do about that mode

Beardimus · July 2018

Good players, who run BG alot often look like a pre made.

They know the map, they know the game type tactics, they roll as a group and shut people down.

Pugs run about as solo players, dont know the map, dont focus the same objective or player.

In short, experience kills inexperience comms or not.

Aliyavana · July 2018

Mmr should just be removed. I don't like 20 minute solo ques

CatchMeTrolling · July 2018

Sounds like another case of people thinking a team is a premade but really they’re all randoms. Like I said before on here, I wonder how often pug groups happen to look like a premade to the teams getting destroyed.

Carbonised · July 2018

The mass grief and discontent for the majority of people should be weighed up against the very few who enjoy queueing up in a group together. Why does the system continue to cater to the premades vs all the rest of the rabble?

Solution is simple: GET RID OF THE STUPID PREMADE GROUPS ALTOGETHER. Only possible to queue solo, sometimes you get a great group, sometimes you get a bad one. This isn't the group dungeon finding tool, you're not fighting with your group against AI and the machine, you're fighting against other human beings. Stop trying to act as if the BG queue should function like the dungeon finding queue.

If you want to stick with your teammates for PvP there's a whole friggin place called Cyrodiil for that.

VaranisArano · July 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

The mass grief and discontent for the majority of people should be weighed up against the very few who enjoy queueing up in a group together. Why does the system continue to cater to the premades vs all the rest of the rabble?

Solution is simple: GET RID OF THE STUPID PREMADE GROUPS ALTOGETHER. Only possible to queue solo, sometimes you get a great group, sometimes you get a bad one. This isn't the group dungeon finding tool, you're not fighting with your group against AI and the machine, you're fighting against other human beings. Stop trying to act as if the BG queue should function like the dungeon finding queue.

If you want to stick with your teammates for PvP there's a whole friggin place called Cyrodiil for that.

The whole premise of Battlegrounds was guaranteed small group PVP with your friends, no Cyrodiil zergs. Its pretty much made for premades who wanted small group PVP away from Cyrodiil.

So while I understand your frustration with facing premades in BGs, those are the very groups BGs was designed for and it shows. PVP in this game always favors organized groups of experienced players.

Carbonised · July 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

The mass grief and discontent for the majority of people should be weighed up against the very few who enjoy queueing up in a group together. Why does the system continue to cater to the premades vs all the rest of the rabble?

Solution is simple: GET RID OF THE STUPID PREMADE GROUPS ALTOGETHER. Only possible to queue solo, sometimes you get a great group, sometimes you get a bad one. This isn't the group dungeon finding tool, you're not fighting with your group against AI and the machine, you're fighting against other human beings. Stop trying to act as if the BG queue should function like the dungeon finding queue.

If you want to stick with your teammates for PvP there's a whole friggin place called Cyrodiil for that.

The whole premise of Battlegrounds was guaranteed small group PVP with your friends, no Cyrodiil zergs. Its pretty much made for premades who wanted small group PVP away from Cyrodiil.

So while I understand your frustration with facing premades in BGs, those are the very groups BGs was designed for and it shows. PVP in this game always favors organized groups of experienced players.

I have not seen a single place where it states that BG's were made specifically for premade groups.

On the contrary, they keep adding that they are catering to small scale groups in Cyrodiil with the continuing importance of taking resources at keeps etc, they mentioned specifically that this was for groups who enjoyed smaller scale, both in the Summerset notes and in the Wolfhunter PTS patch notes.

BG's aren't for premades, they're for everyone. And since they keep putting outfits there, it's safe to say that they're trying to get more and more PvE'ers to try out BG's too.

If it comes to that, they can even make TWO separate queues. One for premades only, and one for solo only. No solo queue'er enjoys being steamrolled and farmed for rewards and AP from premade groups, and from what I hear from several hardcore pvp groups too, they don't particularly enjoy steamrolling solo people either, since they give no challenge.

Getting rid of premade groups would be fair for everyone, and if there is too much QQ from premade groups, then they can at least make TWO separate queues, one for premades, and one for the rest.

jaschacasadiob16_ESO · July 2018

It doesn´t take a premade to get those numbers. It takes facing noobs that do not understand:

The context (chaos ball is not a deathmatch, ...).
If you are in a group of four, and not alone, there is a reason.

I always solo queue as NB. Yesterday I ended up with a good stamsorc. I had numbers way higher than those. in the picture.

Merlin13KAGL · July 2018

There should totally be a tier system. It could be as simple as win/loss ratio coupled with number of bouts.

It would then pair up new groups with other new groups, and pros with pros.

Dead by Daylight implements such a system, and allows for you to get paired within +/- 1 of your current 'rank.'

This ensures fairly equal level of ability and still provides method to advance tiers. It also ensures that someone brand new isn't going to get paired against a walking train wreck of carnage like the big name live-and-breathe PvP streamers.

It's fun for neither side & is analogous to a Vegas Heavyweight fighter showing up to 4th grade playground fight.

Carbonised · July 2018

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

There should totally be a tier system. It could be as simple as win/loss ratio coupled with number of bouts.

It would then pair up new groups with other new groups, and pros with pros.
Dead by Daylight implements such a system, and allows for you to get paired within +/- 1 of your current 'rank.'
This ensures fairly equal level of ability and still provides method to advance tiers. It also ensures that someone brand new isn't going to get paired against a walking train wreck of carnage like the big name live-and-breathe PvP streamers.

It's fun for neither side & is analogous to a Vegas Heavyweight fighter showing up to 4th grade playground fight.

A tier system with intelligent and dynamic group composition would be preferable. But this is ZOS we're talking about, they can't even get the damn goup finder to work. Separating solos from premades is more feasible I think, though a real matchmaking system would be more preferable.

Fake Remedy · July 2018

Make @Gilliamtherogue Battleground ambassador?

Thogard · July 2018

Fake Remedy wrote: »

Make @Gilliamtherogue Battleground ambassador?

He works for ZOS now.

mojomood · July 2018

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

It doesn´t take a premade to get those numbers. It takes facing noobs that do not understand:
The context (chaos ball is not a deathmatch, ...).

If you are in a group of four, and not alone, there is a reason.

I always solo queue as NB. Yesterday I ended up with a good stamsorc. I had numbers way higher than those. in the picture.

This was a deathmatch. You can tell by the K/D/A to scores. I'm not sure how much "way higher" you can get past the other two teams combining for 4 kills. Including when they faced each other.

del9 · July 2018

Thogard wrote: »

Fake Remedy wrote: »

Make @Gilliamtherogue Battleground ambassador?

He works for ZOS now.

What @Thogard is saying, is make @Thogard battleground ambassador.

Strider__Roshin · July 2018

Why are you picking on Gilliam when someone else within his own team got 18 kills, 1 death. Whereas he only got 8 kills, and 0 deaths.

Lieblingsjunge · July 2018

There's no secret that BG-queues are a real mess.

I usually queue up as duo. Sometimes we get 3v4v4, other times we're 4v3v3, sometimes we get our duo group + another duo group into our team. Sometimes we're facing 4-man premades as duo and end up as a 3-man team with one random.

Sometimes the Battlegrounds are really even and entertaining. Sometimes they're 510 score to 75. Sometimes it's a draw on ~300-350 points. I don't know how the queue is chosen.
But I need to wait ~15-18 minutes in a duo-queue, and ~25 if I'm queueing up as 3, which I rarely do.. Can't imagine the waiting time for a full premade-group.

To me it feels like that once you've done quite a few BGs, you get placed in a "Higher Tier Category" and get placed against equal "Higher tier Category" - players(As BGs isn't necessarily about skill, I'm not sure how it's calculated) but once you've waited a while, it seems that they remove the restrictions and smash everyone into one pot, kinda.

Idk. I'm usually having fun in BGs. Sometimes they're boring af, sometimes it's being gunned down by a 4-man premade group, since you can't rly fight 2v4 against people that somewhat knows what they're doing(usually).