Please get rid of the Battlegrounds deserter penalty

RaikaNA · June 2023

Or at least give everyone their daily XP bonus regardless if you're on the winning team or losing. It's ridiculous that the losing team also loses out on their XP bonus.

ZOS_Kraken · June 2023

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to Battlegrounds & Dueling as we think it is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding.

bongtokin420insd16 · June 2023

I firmly believe placing 1st or second isn't hard in a handful of matches. Its PvP, not everyone gets a participation medal. And trust me, I'm no Pvper so its not like I'm out there steamrolling peeps.

OBJnoob · June 2023

Why is the title of the thread about desertion but the contents are about losing?

Could it be that you like to leave when your team is losing?

IF this is the case... You don't deserve a reward. In fact you do deserve a penalty.

Maybe they should make the penalty longer so people no longer find it preferable to taking their L.

RaikaNA · June 2023

bongtokin420insd16 wrote: »

I firmly believe placing 1st or second isn't hard in a handful of matches. Its PvP, not everyone gets a participation medal. And trust me, I'm no Pvper so its not like I'm out there steamrolling peeps.

I agree that it isn't hard as long as you have voice coms activated. Unfortunately due to the game not having ingame voice coms.. it can be a tad bit difficult to coordinate with the people that the game puts you with. Yes, it's PvP but it has a Pve element to it... adding in objectives like capturing the relic... some people probably don't know what to do, and so they run around like a chicken without its head. This is what makes battlegrounds so frustrating.

What makes it even more frustrating is when you instruct people via text to stick together... some people simply don't listen and start doing their own thing.. this is what the game punishes YOU for... for leaving the game thus giving you the deserter penalty.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2023

RaikaNA wrote: »

bongtokin420insd16 wrote: »

I firmly believe placing 1st or second isn't hard in a handful of matches. Its PvP, not everyone gets a participation medal. And trust me, I'm no Pvper so its not like I'm out there steamrolling peeps.

I agree that it isn't hard as long as you have voice coms activated. Unfortunately due to the game not having ingame voice coms.. it can be a tad bit difficult to coordinate with the people that the game puts you with. Yes, it's PvP but it has a Pve element to it... adding in objectives like capturing the relic... some people probably don't know what to do, and so they run around like a chicken without its head. This is what makes battlegrounds so frustrating.

What makes it even more frustrating is when you instruct people via text to stick together... some people simply don't listen and start doing their own thing.. this is what the game punishes YOU for... for leaving the game thus giving you the deserter penalty.

If you're in solo queue, you absolutely DO NOT need voice comms to place second in a BG. Most people won't even be going for the objectives in BGs since they find them unfun, and are just there for quick and easy PvP. All of the gamemodes (save for Deathmatch and maybe Chaosball) can be cheesed pretty easily with a sufficiently tanky build. You might not win every game, but getting second in no way requires you to be in voice comms.

Removing the deserter penalty would just lead to people dodging games where they're outmatched. If I'm already waiting 20 minutes for a game, and you leave in the middle of the game, you deserve to wait in time-out for wasting my time.

Braffin · June 2023

RaikaNA wrote: »

Yes, it's PvP but it has a Pve element to it... adding in objectives like capturing the relic...

Sorry, but that's not entirely correct. PvE is short for "Player versus Environment", but there is no environment in BGs you could fight.

What you describe is called "Capture the Flag" in general and is a core PvP gamemode since mid nineties.

I get your frustration, but this argumentation isn't well thought through.

Reverb · June 2023

Stop abandoning matches where you don’t get carried to a win and you won’t have that problem. Figure out how to work together with randoms (voicecomm not needed) or create your own groups, but stop leaving matches that don’t go your way. That’s selfish and disregards the impact it has on your team, which earns you the penalty.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2023

Braffin wrote: »

RaikaNA wrote: »

Yes, it's PvP but it has a Pve element to it... adding in objectives like capturing the relic...

Sorry, but that's not entirely correct. PvE is short for "Player versus Environment", but there is no environment in BGs you could fight.

What you describe is called "Capture the Flag" in general and is a core PvP gamemode since mid nineties.

I get your frustration, but this argumentation isn't well thought through.

Capture the Flag has been going on since ancient times my dude. Humans like to take things from other humans, 'swhat we do.

Braffin · June 2023

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

RaikaNA wrote: »

Yes, it's PvP but it has a Pve element to it... adding in objectives like capturing the relic...

Sorry, but that's not entirely correct. PvE is short for "Player versus Environment", but there is no environment in BGs you could fight.

What you describe is called "Capture the Flag" in general and is a core PvP gamemode since mid nineties.

I get your frustration, but this argumentation isn't well thought through.

Capture the Flag has been going on since ancient times my dude. Humans like to take things from other humans, 'swhat we do.

You're right of course. It's only I try to avoid the more martial forms of Capture the X due to lack of skill

That's why I only think of video games in this context.

bongtokin420insd16 · June 2023

I member playing capture the flag at camp with water balloons and squirt guns.....

wilykcat · June 2023

bongtokin420insd16 wrote: »

I member playing capture the flag at camp with water balloons and squirt guns.....

Elderscrolls should make a battleground and new weapon skill lines like this. That would make the game have some comedy action.

bongtokin420insd16 · June 2023

Could we ride our wooden horsies too?

chessalavakia_ESO · June 2023

RaikaNA wrote: »

Or at least give everyone their daily XP bonus regardless if you're on the winning team or losing. It's ridiculous that the losing team also loses out on their XP bonus.

If you just give all of the teams the XP bonus with no requirements, you'll hit the issue that people will just go afk in the Battleground and collect the reward.

Personally, I think it might be worth considering shifting towards a stat requirement/comparative stat requirement rather than 1st or 2nd as I find many of my matches the battle for 2nd is more contested than the battle for first.

El_Borracho · June 2023

The only time I desert is when I get stuck on a team in a non-Deathmatch where 2 of my teammates are clearly off doing their own thing, independent of each other, and continue to do their own thing regardless of the team asking them to stick together. At that point, I'll take the 5 minutes over the 7 minutes of getting jackhammered trying to score points in an objective with the false hope of coming in second

OBJnoob · June 2023

El_Borracho wrote: »

The only time I desert is when I get stuck on a team in a non-Deathmatch where 2 of my teammates are clearly off doing their own thing, independent of each other, and continue to do their own thing regardless of the team asking them to stick together. At that point, I'll take the 5 minutes over the 7 minutes of getting jackhammered trying to score points in an objective with the false hope of coming in second

This confuses me a little, mostly because you said non-DM. Other than DM and Chaosball I really think the best way to win is by splitting up.

Granted, when you're halfway through the match and check their stats only to see they've got no points and a bunch of deaths, you kinda wish they would just tag along with you.

But this ultimately arrives back at the original dilemma which is should you leave the game if your teammates aren't very good and/or you're losing. And I think the answer is no. For one thing you wasted your own time. For another thing it's bad sportsmanship to not finish a game. I mean how would you feel if every game you were winning lost a player or two on the other teams? And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, there's the three people on your own team. Who may not be listening to you... And may not be any good... But they're probably as frustrated as you are, and now you've just made their situation that much more helpless and unfun.

These are the reasons why there is a deserter penalty. And it should stay.

Whether or not the losing team deserves a prize is, in my mind, worth discussing. The deserter penalty really is not.

If the 3rd place team gets a prize that'd be fine with me. The prizes suck anyway I'm surprised anyone looks forward to them. I would like the 2nd place prize to be a little better though, and the prize for winning to be best of all. Just to keep it competitive and goal oriented.

El_Borracho · June 2023

@OBJnoob I should have elaborated. I was thinking more along the lines of Capture the Relic or Domination/Crazy King, where 2 players go off trying to capture either objective alone, not as a 2 man team, run into the predictable defense, die, rinse, repeat. All while another player and myself stick to the program and end up in a futile cycle as we are constantly undermanned while watching the score slowly get out of hand.

Obviously, its wise to split up for Capture the Relic as someone should guard your own relic as you need it to score. And its better to have 2 players try to steal the relic instead of one, but yes, it can be done. But I disagree that its a good strategy to split up for Domination/Crazy King. I've had much more success running those as a team than 4 solos. But we can agree to disagree.

I don't care about coming in 3rd when the team simply gets beat. Its PVP, it happens. But that's different than someone off playing hero-ball and not coming through. If they were a 1vX superstar, that's different. But they never are. I don't see that as any different than bailing on a random dungeon pug when you have a fake tank or a sightseer.

OBJnoob · June 2023

I agree with all of that.

Sometimes moving as a 4 man will win you domination modes. Sometimes not. Really just depends on which team is best and sometimes even on how the other teams are playing it.

I also agree that some people play so strangely (or badly,) that having them on your team partially ruins your experience. But still, having a deserter penalty is important to ensuring that people approach it with a bit of respect. Because leaving mid-game partially ruins experiences as well.

Some people apparently are already leaving games even with there being a penalty. I won't pretend I've never done it. It would surely happen more often if there were no penalty. There'd be no reason to even try to be patient. Anything less than ideal circumstances and people would leave. It wouldn't be (nor is it currently probably,) isolated to situations like you've described it would just be whenever.

Which honestly that's okay too. You're not having fun then leave. The penalty shouldn't be a problem. You're off to go do something else now, right, cuz BGs weren't fun anymore?

RaikaNA · June 2023

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

RaikaNA wrote: »

bongtokin420insd16 wrote: »

I firmly believe placing 1st or second isn't hard in a handful of matches. Its PvP, not everyone gets a participation medal. And trust me, I'm no Pvper so its not like I'm out there steamrolling peeps.

I agree that it isn't hard as long as you have voice coms activated. Unfortunately due to the game not having ingame voice coms.. it can be a tad bit difficult to coordinate with the people that the game puts you with. Yes, it's PvP but it has a Pve element to it... adding in objectives like capturing the relic... some people probably don't know what to do, and so they run around like a chicken without its head. This is what makes battlegrounds so frustrating.

What makes it even more frustrating is when you instruct people via text to stick together... some people simply don't listen and start doing their own thing.. this is what the game punishes YOU for... for leaving the game thus giving you the deserter penalty.

If you're in solo queue, you absolutely DO NOT need voice comms to place second in a BG. Most people won't even be going for the objectives in BGs since they find them unfun, and are just there for quick and easy PvP. All of the gamemodes (save for Deathmatch and maybe Chaosball) can be cheesed pretty easily with a sufficiently tanky build. You might not win every game, but getting second in no way requires you to be in voice comms.

Removing the deserter penalty would just lead to people dodging games where they're outmatched. If I'm already waiting 20 minutes for a game, and you leave in the middle of the game, you deserve to wait in time-out for wasting my time.

I respectfully disagree.. Communication is key to success.. even if you want to get in second place. When you're teamed up with random people who are not familiar with the mechanics of the battleground (non-deathmatch) things can get complicated. It's hard to type out full instructions on how to win the match while in combat...which is why being in voice is the key... it's a lot faster to speak rather than to type... unless you type like a cheetah.

I don't like having to bail out during an ongoing match.. my time is also valuable... just like yours. If my teammates aren't pulling their weight, and refuse to "stick together" yeah I'm gonna bail. I feel that I should not be penalized for being put in a bad team.

OBJnoob · June 2023

@RaikaNA Communication IS important to success. The thing you may not be realizing though is that the other teams don't have communication either. Because of all the reasons you described earlier. If they just randomly have better players than your team then it may look like they're more organized but that's just really the difference between people that know what to do and people that don't.

Sometimes when I load in I recognize one of the players on my team and I'll say hi. Sometimes if the game was a lot of fun I'll sneak a gg in there towards the end. And occasionally, if things are real bad, I'll squeeze a "please stay together," or "play obj please," in there. But that is literally it. And this is what I see from others as well. No more... And mostly less. Mostly nothing.

Honestly I played a BG just yesterday.... I've been working on a Noproc stamsorc shield build lately, and he's pretty handicapped for BGs... But I can do well when I'm on a decent team. Unfortunately this was a mixed mmr lobby it seemed, with some bad players, some medium players like myself maybe not playing their best toons, and this one guy/girl who I recognize as being one of the better players on my platform.

I'm wearing Gaze of Sithis and mixing shields with roll dodges for defense. This elite player is playing a tanky NB, using a lot of AoE skills like Soul Tether and Power Extraction, and has a butt buddy following him spamming acid spray. I was getting chewed up and spit out. Like my team would just get proper bombed and then I'd be basically alone and the enemies were kill-chasers so I couldn't run away.

I ended the game with like 2 kills and 7 deaths. It was mildly embarrassing. And oh yes we came in last place. But ultimately that's okay I guess because the rewards suck I'm really only playing BGs to play BGs, and you just can't win them all. I didn't have a lot of fun. But I halfway owed them (the winners,) to stand there and take my beating. Because when I'm winning and having fun I really want them (the losers,) to stick around for my glory, right?

wilykcat · June 2023

It's not fair to the rest of the team when a player leaves mid match, which is why there is a deserter penalty.

When I'm doing battlegrounds.. win or lose I play through the whole match because it's fun.

I mostly follow my other teammates to help them capture objectives. Other times I wait until I can gank an enemy player or find a objective that not one team has claimed or steal an objective.

Otherwise I have no clue what's going on and watch the two enemy teams fight each other while eating popcorn.

"You can't play a team game without a team -- don't be a leaver!"- league of legends.

RaikaNA · June 2023

OBJnoob wrote: »

@RaikaNA Communication IS important to success. The thing you may not be realizing though is that the other teams don't have communication either. Because of all the reasons you described earlier. If they just randomly have better players than your team then it may look like they're more organized but that's just really the difference between people that know what to do and people that don't.

That's why ZOS should implement an in-game voice chat for us to have better communication with other players. Amazon did it for New World... and believe me playing some of the expeditions on voice is so much better than having to rely on text only.

Not everyone who joins battlegrounds is a veteran... some are new people who don't know what to do.

Say_My_Name · September 2023

What I'd like is to not have a deserter penalty for leaving a game that I was forced to join late, I might be able to win a game from start but joining a losing game is in no way worth my time or effort

Brakkish · October 2023

El_Borracho wrote: »

The only time I desert is when I get stuck on a team in a non-Deathmatch where 2 of my teammates are clearly off doing their own thing, independent of each other, and continue to do their own thing regardless of the team asking them to stick together. At that point, I'll take the 5 minutes over the 7 minutes of getting jackhammered trying to score points in an objective with the false hope of coming in second

This 100%

I try to get 9 toons through the daily reward; it's a simple way to level my overall CP. If my team is in lala land with no hope of winning, I'm out taking the five, and logging in the next toon never missing a beat.

Interesting side note; there have been times when pop is so low; I've logged out / left on one toon, only to join the same match with another toon.

boi_anachronism_ · October 2023

My only issue with bgs is that while i get that not everyone likes all the modes it is really annoying to be out for your exp daily and people refuse to play the objective and turn everything into death match. I dont really want to play 4 death match rounds of capture the relic just to get my daily exp.