Battlegrounds Bugs and Lack of Features - Still no response from ZOS [Updated 6/11]

Uncle_Sweetshare

EDIT 6/6: Added another section, changed wording on multiple sections, fixed syntax errors.

MCBIZZLE300

Agree with all of this, well done sir.

Uncle_Sweetshare

mcb123 wrote: »

Agree with all of this, well done sir.

Thank you very much!

Hopefully ZOS takes notice and we can get some of these changes implemented!

lelink88

ZoS need to ready that post

Karivaa

This is not COD. I love PVP in cyrodiil. If I wanted to play capture the flag I would play COD.

Uncle_Sweetshare

Karivaa wrote: »

This is not COD. I love PVP in cyrodiil. If I wanted to play capture the flag I would play COD.

Who said anything about Call of Duty? PvP arenas have been around in MMOs for 20+ years, and if ZOS wanted to implement them into their game (which obviously they do, as Battlegrounds is already released), the least they can do is ensure they're a functioning product that has the features that have been tried and tested in those other PvP arenas for the past two decades.

mihaiisraging

Karivaa wrote: »

This is not COD. I love PVP in cyrodiil. If I wanted to play capture the flag I would play COD.

Let's hope BGs' community will never be like CoD's community

Mossimo

I'm not sure if this represents a change or bugfix by ZOS but I have not received unbalanced teams in terms of numbers in a while. Not always 4v4v4 but sometimes 2v2v2 and 3v3v3. Still, the problem of unbalanced teams level wise still stands. Please, a CP 160+ queue Zenimax.

Uncle_Sweetshare

mihaiisraging wrote: »

Karivaa wrote: »

This is not COD. I love PVP in cyrodiil. If I wanted to play capture the flag I would play COD.

Let's hope BGs' community will never be like CoD's community

Battlegrounds won't have a community at all if ZOS continues to refuse to acknowledge the fact that Battlegrounds is an incomplete product that hasn't left the Beta stage yet. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

They don't finish Battlegrounds or implement standardized features because they think the community doesn't enjoy PvP --> Community doesn't PvP because of how broken Battlegrounds is --> ZOS pats themselves on the back, and says "Good job everyone, it's clear by these numbers that Battlegrounds isn't popular, so we're not going to waste time fixing it" --> Battlegrounds eventually dies off, just like IC, and ZOS once again pats themselves on the back for a job well done and saving the company money, despite the fact that they ended up costing the company hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars due to the PvP community migrating to a game with competent developers.

You could take a handful of entry level devs and interns that are actually compassionate for the game and put together a better product

[edited to remove flaming]

mihaiisraging

Mossimo wrote: »

I'm not sure if this represents a change or bugfix by ZOS but I have not received unbalanced teams in terms of numbers in a while. Not always 4v4v4 but sometimes 2v2v2 and 3v3v3. Still, the problem of unbalanced teams level wise still stands. Please, a CP 160+ queue Zenimax.

Well sometimes the team just isn't full because zos knows why. When this happens in prime time,by the end of the match players are added in teams. Today for example I was in a 2v2v3. By the end of the game it was a 4v4v4. But I never have seen this happening in non prime time tbh.
Also even between a 300cp player and a 700 it is a big difference. Yesterday for example I had a 200cp with me in a 2v2v2 (it was nice to be a 2v2v2, I really enjoyed it). That guy was pissed that he can't do nothing versus the other 600 guys. I told asked him if he can take some healling skills. He did so and we won. I had 31kills and deaths.
The bad side of the 2v2v2 deathmatches it is that they last very long and mostly the losing teams start leaving so I end in a loading screen. Also if you are a good player with sigil of power, you can easy kill low cp ppl because they are unexperienced.
From my personal exp the levels of exp are like this:
Under 160cp -new players with no ideea/builds or with only some information
160-400cp -average players wich have a build and knoe the theory but still do not have reflexes and do not know what to do depending on the situation
400-630cp -experienced players wich got the hang of the game if they didn't grind only
700+cp -players that are experienced and do some very good fights

I am a stamnb and when I see a low cp guy he is dead in seconds. I kill low cp tanks in seconds,but I leave the high cp ones to fight with last. There are players wich die in seconds and there are players wich last minutes...or untill one just runs out of th fight.

TLDR: They should do a rating system based on more than 160+cp or under 160cp

mihaiisraging

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

mihaiisraging wrote: »

Karivaa wrote: »

This is not COD. I love PVP in cyrodiil. If I wanted to play capture the flag I would play COD.

Let's hope BGs' community will never be like CoD's community

Battlegrounds won't have a community at all if ZOS continues to refuse to acknowledge the fact that Battlegrounds is an incomplete product that hasn't left the Beta stage yet. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.

They don't finish Battlegrounds or implement standardized features because they think the community doesn't enjoy PvP --> Community doesn't PvP because of how broken Battlegrounds is --> ZOS pats themselves on the back, and says "Good job everyone, it's clear by these numbers that Battlegrounds isn't popular, so we're not going to waste time fixing it" --> Battlegrounds eventually dies off, just like IC, and ZOS once again pats themselves on the back for a job well done and saving the company money, despite the fact that they ended up costing the company hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars due to the PvP community migrating to a game with competent developers.

You could take a handful of entry level devs and interns that are actually compassionate for the game.

Tbh I think they should really expand the coding team...

Uncle_Sweetshare

mihaiisraging wrote: »

Tbh I think they should really expand the coding team...

As of 2012 they were quoted as having 250+ employees, and while we don't have any recent numbers, I guarantee they did exactly what every other developer does and laid off "non-essential" personnel, leaving the game to be ran by a skeleton crew that doesn't have the faintest clue how to fix anything that was done by previous employees (hint hint group finder).

While Vvardenfell might look impressive to some, it honestly would take a 5 man team less than a month to put it together once the assets were created. I made mods for Morrowind and Oblivion for 5+ years, from minor racial changes to full blown new areas with their own quest lines. Beyond asset development, it isn't very difficult, so what exactly was the rest of the development team doing while these 5 worked on the PvE aspects of the Morrowind expansion? The company needs to be completely gutted from the top down.

Uncle_Sweetshare

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert

Uncle_Sweetshare

EDIT 6/7: Updated title, introduction paragraph, and contemplated adding section regarding dedicated servers, although I'm assuming Battlegrounds matches are already being ran on dedicated servers and said servers are just under massive load which is causing the latency issues, but who knows with ZOS.

Waffennacht

My recent Battleground experience

Uncle_Sweetshare

Waffennacht wrote: »

My recent Battleground experience

Wait... Were you the only one in the match?

Waffennacht

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

My recent Battleground experience

Wait... Were you the only one in the match?

Yeap... It was fun...

Uncle_Sweetshare

Waffennacht wrote: »

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

My recent Battleground experience

Wait... Were you the only one in the match?

Yeap... It was fun...

The best part is, if you left you'd have to wait 20 minutes before you could queue up again!

MakoFore

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

Battlegrounds in its current state leaves much to be desired. PvP arenas have been around in MMOs since Ultima Online, which was launched back in 1997. Since then, many MMOs used a relatively similar formula for their PvP arenas, featuring things such as rankings, team balancing, level brackets, choice of game modes, and more. For whatever reason, despite 20 years of tried and tested features being widely available on every other MMO on the market with a PvP arena, ZOS decided to forego all of this and launch Battlegrounds with no structure whatsoever. I've been updating this thread daily in hopes that ZOS will see this and respond in one form or another. If ZOS does plan to implement these features they should inform us so we can stop making threads like these, and if they don't plan on implementing any of these features, they should still inform us so we can stop making these threads.
Hopefully, with everyone's effort we can get some of these changes implemented so Battlegrounds can live up to its full potential as a source for competitive PvP within ESO.

1. Functioning Group Queue [High Priority]
Despite the recent patch 'fixing' this issue, it still persists, and players are getting stuck in 'you or a player in your group has declined' loop for hours on end.

2. Level Brackets [High Priority]
Currently there are no level brackets, despite the fact that on the ESO website it states Battlegrounds has two brackets (levels 10-49 and levels 10-50).

3. Competitive Queue/ MMR [High Priority]
In addition to level/ gear brackets, we need a separate competitive queue for players Level 50 CP160 and above with a visible MMR/ ranking system.

4. Team Balancing [High Priority]
Matches are consistenly starting with 2v2v4, matching 2 pairs of randoms with a 4 man premade (see #7). Games should not start until there are 4 players on each team.

5. Proc Set Changes [High Priority]
Unavoidable burst procs (Viper/ Red Mountain type) need their damage lowered and/or cooldown raised and/or damage changed to DoT, avoidable burst damage procs (Selene/ Widowmaker/ Velidreth type) need their damage slightly lowered and cooldowns equalized, DoT procs (Illambris/ Grothdarr type) are fine, and support procs (Pirate Skeleton/ Lord Warden type) are fine (excluding Troll King which needs its regen lowered).
Proc sets should also be changed to scale based on Weapon Damage and Stamina, or Spell Power and Magicka instead of flat damage/ heals/ etc. This would slightly lower their effectiveness in non-CP PvP and slightly raise their effectiveness in CP PvP and in PvE.
Quoting myself from another thread (it's a doozey):

The issue with proc sets comes from multiple players on same teams running multiple unavoidable burst damage procs (Such as Viper, Red Mountain, etc.), and the fact that these sets deal damage outside of your rotation. By that, I mean they can go off during other animations, and don't require an additional key to be pressed or skill to be slotted. Because they're all unavoidable damage that happens outside of your normal rotation, nothing has to be sacrificed in order for them to work. For those reasons I believe that the damage for these sets need to be lowered, the cooldown extended, or the damage changed from DD to DoT.

Next in line would be burst procs that are avoidable, such as Velidreth, Selene, or Widowmaker (which surprisingly hasn't been brought up often here). These sets aren't always avoidable due to CC, no Stamina to dodge, etc., but they are avoidable. Now, let's take Velidreth and compare it to Selene. Velidreth is easily avoidable (the center ball not so much, but for sake of argument) and has a long cooldown, so there's not too much hate on it in here. Selene is also avoidable, but because it hits hard and is on a short cooldown, it gets lots of hate here. Personally, I think the damage on these sets should be slightly lowered, and the cooldowns semi-equalized (so there isn't a clear BiS).

Then we have the DoT procs, and to no one's surprise, there's not a lot of hate on these. Grothdarr procs? Walk away, but if you don't it's okay because you can pop Vigor to out heal the damage. Illambris procs? Get out of the circle, or stand in it and pop Vigor to out heal the damage. Scourge Harvester procs? Stand there in bewilderment that someone is running Scourge Harvester, and pop Vigor to out heal the damage. These sets just aren't very effective in PvP, and I think that they fine in terms of numbers, but would be more viable if the burst set numbers were lowered.

Lastly, we have support proc sets. These also don't get a lot of hate because they all complement builds instead of being the build. You can't exactly make a build that revolves entirely around Pirate Skeleton or Lord Warden (Troll King is the rare exception here), but they're great additional effects to have. On the other hand, there are plenty of builds that revolve around Selene/ Viper/ Widowmaker, where the rest of the build doesn't matter as long as you have a gap closer and CC. Personally I think the support sets are fine where they are, numbers wise.

Long story short, the issue with proc sets isn't proc sets as a whole, but the burst damage procs and the fact that they do massive amounts of damage outside your rotation. I think any time there are clear, across-the-board BiS items for anything (tanking, DPS, healing, etc.), those items need to be reevaluated and tweaked so there isn't a clear BiS.

6. Option to Reconnect if DC'd/ Crashed [High Priority]
Players should have up to 3 minutes to get back into the game if they DC or crash while in Battlegrounds before the game removes them and gives them the 20 minute leaver's penalty. Players that choose to leave manually via the UI should still be able to do so and incur the leaver's penalty.

7. Solo/Duo/Trio and 4 Man Team Queues [High Priority]
Those that are queuing with less than 4 players should only play with/ against eachother, and those queuing with 4 players should only play against other 4 player groups. "Team" MMR can be an average of the 4 players within the group.

8. Choice of Game Mode [Medium Priority]
A lot of players have their preferred game mode and shouldn't be forced to play 'random' all the time.

9. Improved End-of-Match Rewards [Medium Priority]
XP and AP rewards need to be greatly increased as you can currently gain more AP by capping a few resources in Cyrodiil than in a Battlegrounds match, and in a quarter of the time.

10. Add Battlegrounds Vendors [Medium Priority]
Initially I came up with a token system to exchange for goods at a Battlegrounds Vendor, however I soon realized there was a much simpler solution; use AP. If we were earning more appropriate amounts of AP per match (see #9), we could have a separate Battlegrounds AP vendor (at the numerous Battlegrounds 'camps' in Vvardenfell), which could include poisons, potions, gear boxes, and more.

11. Remove Power Sigils [Medium Priority]
There's no need for additional RNG in ESO's combat, especially in an enclosed arena.

12. Leaderboards [Medium Priority]
The leaderboards should be based on performance, not time played. With an MMR system in place, leaderboards could be based on said MMR for the sake of simplicity.

13. Players Start Match with 0 Ultimate [Low Priority]
Ultimates can be used to gain a massive advantage over opponents in the first few seconds of a game (ie. massive burst damage to grab sigil at the start of a match), and to improve match fluidity each player should start with 0 Ultimate.

14. Non-CP and CP Competitive Queue [Low Priority]
Casual (non-Competitive) Queue can remain non-CP, however the competitive players should be given the choice between non-CP and CP matches, with separate MMRs.

15. Role Based Queues [Low Priority]
There is currently no role selection for Battlegrounds groups, leading group composition to be entirely RNG.

16. Custom Games [Low Priority]
Custom games/ lobbies where you can queue as 12 players and be placed into a match with all 12 players (teams being separated by their small groups).

If anyone has anything they wish to have added to the list feel free to comment and I will add it when I can. Thank you for reading!

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler @Wrobel

this is actually a very very good and helpful post- bumping . dammit it should be stickied [snip]

[edited to remove flaming]

Morgul667

Waffennacht wrote: »

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

My recent Battleground experience

Wait... Were you the only one in the match?

Yeap... It was fun...

Did you win ? :-D

DisgracefulMind

PLEASE PLEASE lower the effectiveness of "stamina" based proc sets in battlegrounds. It's just insane in the current state they're in. People warned this would be the case, and now it's just cancerous. /:

FearlessOne_2014

I also mostly brought Morrowind for the BGs.

After playing a few on live. I now want nothing to do with them. Much rather play battlegrounds in a game that actually fully supports it. As of now ESO will continue to drag the MMO stei

Mossimo wrote: »

I'm not sure if this represents a change or bugfix by ZOS but I have not received unbalanced teams in terms of numbers in a while. Not always 4v4v4 but sometimes 2v2v2 and 3v3v3. Still, the problem of unbalanced teams level wise still stands. Please, a CP 160+ queue Zenimax.

Matches shouldn't even be allowed to start without 4 players on each team!

wildbear247

OP excellent summary of the issues undermining the Battlegrounds​ fun & kudos for providing some potential solutions to the problems. Items I wholeheartedly agree with follow:

1-7 (not #5)-- I currently have no desire to play BattleGrounds because of these key issues. This Friday, instead of waiting around for a BattleGrounds match, my buddy & I will join the fray in Cyrodiil, then head over to LoL, then Overwatch for some quick arena battles (although I'd rather have play a fully functioning Battlegrounds​). As for #5, I personally don't have an issue with proc sets after they took the crit nerf. I don't run them (except Kragh), but have killed many dudes that have ran them. I think they're situational & provide a nice counter to shield stackers, so if they're nerfed again I think shield stacking should be addressed too.

8-14 (especially 9 & 10) -- I really like all of these suggestions, but if I had to pick just 2 for now I would say 9 & 10. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE ZOS...make it so we can play the content we enjoy the most & be able to reap good rewards from it. Such a big issue that has long plagued those of us that really like PvP...we're coerced into content we don't really enjoy (e.g. dungeon grinding) to equip ourselves for battle in PvP. Stop starving us ZOS...make it rain dat sweet AP & XP in PvP so we can easily level there (instead of Skyreach) & gain some good loot we can use or sell to make some gold (those tempering alloys for our weapons ain't cheap ya know...it takes like 40 Reward of the Worthy emails to get enough gold for one tempering alloy on PC NA).

Uncle_Sweetshare

FearlessOne_2014 wrote: »

I also mostly brought Morrowind for the BGs.

Matches shouldn't even be allowed to start without 4 players on each team!

The worst part is the "Fire Drakes" were likely a 4 man premade, and are just farming easy wins due to the lack of team balancing. Despite group queue being broken for 90% of the playerbase, some players are still getting through and reaping the benefits (of which there are few).

Eshelmen

If BG is really this bad, I'll wait to upgrade to MW. I forgot to preordered Lol. But now that I see this thread, and since BG is the only thing I liked, I'll pass for now. Thanks for the heads up all.

Mojomonkeyman

I think many of the suggestions in here are biased or not thought to the end. The only fight-focused BG mode is heavily favoring bursty classes over teamplay (magSorc fury spam/anything stam) score-wise since its mostly killing blow based. If I want to have top scores I just hop on stam sorc. Its so easy compared to running a teamoriented build.

Before scoring isn't adjusted to not favor certain setups I see no indication that "highscore" leaderboards indeed reward the most skillful play.

Uncle_Sweetshare

wildbear247 wrote: »

OP excellent summary of the issues undermining the Battlegrounds​ fun & kudos for providing some potential solutions to the problems. Items I wholeheartedly agree with follow:

1-7 (not #5)-- I currently have no desire to play BattleGrounds because of these key issues. This Friday, instead of waiting around for a BattleGrounds match, my buddy & I will join the fray in Cyrodiil, then head over to LoL, then Overwatch for some quick arena battles (although I'd rather have play a fully functioning Battlegrounds​). As for #5, I personally don't have an issue with proc sets after they took the crit nerf. I don't run them (except Kragh), but have killed many dudes that have ran them. I think they're situational & provide a nice counter to shield stackers, so if they're nerfed again I think shield stacking should be addressed too.

8-14 (especially 9 & 10) -- I really like all of these suggestions, but if I had to pick just 2 for now I would say 9 & 10. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE ZOS...make it so we can play the content we enjoy the most & be able to reap good rewards from it. Such a big issue that has long plagued those of us that really like PvP...we're coerced into content we don't really enjoy (e.g. dungeon grinding) to equip ourselves for battle in PvP. Stop starving us ZOS...make it rain dat sweet AP & XP in PvP so we can easily level there (instead of Skyreach) & gain some good loot we can use or sell to make some gold (those tempering alloys for our weapons ain't cheap ya know...it takes like 40 Reward of the Worthy emails to get enough gold for one tempering alloy on PC NA).

For real, I spent the past month doing nothing but grinding for different gear sets and coming up with new builds for Battlegrounds, and then we're given this... I've barely touched ESO since I realized bad of a state Battlegrounds is in.

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

I think many of the suggestions in here are biased or not thought to the end. The only fight-focused BG mode is heavily favoring bursty classes over teamplay (magSorc fury spam/anything stam) score-wise since its mostly killing blow based. If I want to have top scores I just hop on stam sorc. Its so easy compared to running a teamoriented build.

Before scoring isn't adjusted to not favor certain setups I see no indication that "highscore" leaderboards indeed reward the most skillful play.

Care elaborating on which of the sections you don't agree with? Your comment is about as vague as it gets.

DaveMoeDee

LMar wrote: »

AP rewards are low on purpose. Initially they weren't going to give AP I believe. AP is meant to be earned mostly in Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds is just extra top up.

Yeah, I'm not sure they make sense at all in BG. They are 'alliance' points.

Mojomonkeyman

I wasn't vague at all. As far as I could tell from reading this thread you added point 11 in reply to a person requesting vma (best run) scoring systems to reward "skillful" play.

As long as you can get 6k points a match by just being a magSorc spamming fury or a proctato due to a messed up scoring system, I see no indication that this would indeed give more insights in who is actually playing well.

Uncle_Sweetshare

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

I wasn't vague at all. As far as I could tell from reading this thread you added point 11 in reply to a person requesting vma (best run) scoring systems to reward "skillful" play.

As long as you can get 6k points a match by just being a magSorc spamming fury or a proctato due to a messed up scoring system, I see no indication that this would indeed give more insights in who is actually playing well.

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

12. Leaderboards [Medium Priority]
The leaderboards should be based on performance, not time played. With an MMR system in place, leaderboards could be based on said MMR for the sake of simplicity.

I suggested they be based on MMR, not a high score.

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

LMar wrote: »

AP rewards are low on purpose. Initially they weren't going to give AP I believe. AP is meant to be earned mostly in Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds is just extra top up.

Yeah, I'm not sure they make sense at all in BG. They are 'alliance' points.

Could call them "ESO PvP Happy Points" and it wouldn't change the fact that they're the currency earned via PvP.