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

BigES

Good post OP. I agree with most of your points, but for me the top priorities are (in order):

1. Fix the queue
2. Full games (no 2v1v4 crap)
3. Choose game mode
4. Fix direct damage proc sets
5. Competitive bracket (by game mode)

The rest are nice tweaks, but 100% needs to be devoted to the above in my opinion. The only one I don't agree with are group roles. Just no way to control that. Things like fixing latency is time consuming and they've proven their inability to fix technical networking issues like that. I'd rather they work on the above which seems more within their realm of competency (I hope).

Saturn wrote: »

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Not learning from other MMOs' failures and successes seems to be a core philosophy for ZOS, to be honest. I get that they want to do everything their way and learn as they go, but it's pretty bad for the players that have to suffer through it.

The worst part of this is that they eventually come around, but it's always too little, too late.

As for the 2 teams versus 3, I agree wholeheartedly, and will be adding that along with your concept of CTF to the OP. I think a centralized flag with 3 bases would definitely work, because as of right now CTF consists of NB grabbing the flag then hiding around their base waiting for their flag to be returned (at least from what I've seen). 1 flag would mean everyone is constantly fighting over ownership, and therefore PvPing instead hiding in the corner with the enemy flag.

There was another thing I forgot to mention, which is the 100% damage bonus in deathmatch. It's supposed to act as an equalizer for teams that are behind, but always ends up in the hands of the leading team, making their victory unchallengeable. It could be an interesting idea to make it so the damage buff can only be picked up by teams that aren't currently leading. Though the biggest thing with the damage buff that I've noticed is that like 80% of players have no clue it exists.

Why can't the team that's leading, just continue leading? Lol. I mean honestly, why do people that are losing have to be rewarded for getting annihilated.

We have enough of this mentality in Cyrodiil. Leave this stupid damage sigil out of Battlegrounds.

If another group is better than you, then just take your loss, learn from it, get better, and move on to the next match.

mihaiisraging

VincentBlanquin wrote: »

TheeDopestDope wrote: »

Im certain we will see changes in the weeks to come. Lets just remember that this is ZOS. Simply adding a BG gamemode selection could potentially break Homestead and further destroy LFG tool.

Okay, okay, I will say Morrowind launch has been smooth as far as I have seen.

So I guess lets hope for the best and prepare for the worst once BG updates come.

they say every fix they will make will go immediatelly to live, but it dont mean they are working on something, either they know what they want to do regarding the battlegrounds

they are more likely waiting till majority of players finish their Morrowind quests (max month) and then chapter will be considered forgotten history, which may have fixes but maybe not

If they add the fixes immediatelly to live, they are posting them in hotfixes,right? So we will know when they change something.

roigseguib16_ESO

Great post!

Insandros

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

VincentBlanquin wrote: »

No. players were masivelly asking for small scale pvp since alpha, but it was always low priority for zenimax, until they figured out that they cant improve cyrodiil much in terms of performance. Sadly, its always a lot of work around small scale pvp to be good, beyond zenimax skills and plans according to me. cyrodiil remain as primary, because its easier to handle it playable of sort

What boggles my mind is they're not shorthanded by any means, but the people they do have working for them are blatantly incompetent. If this was any other industry these people would have been replaced and been likely unable to find another job in the industry, and the company would have to correct the issues at hand immediately.

Unfortunately, in the gaming industry none of these common business practices are common or practiced; these people could get away with murder.

@Uncle_Sweetshare

May i ask you in whichgaming company you been working in and what well known game you been working on? Since you seem to be a well experienced person in the industry to come up with that mr. know it all comment?

DrSweetazz

The feature I was most excited about is a hot dumpster fire.

You guys had so much potential to make this great, but botched it. Seems like it was slapped together. The Gameplay modes are fine, your bugs and non skill based prioritizing makes it painful to play.

Sucks going 2v4v3 with the 4 being a pre-made, then just getting crit charged and viper procced to death

Uncle_Sweetshare

Insandros wrote: »

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

VincentBlanquin wrote: »

No. players were masivelly asking for small scale pvp since alpha, but it was always low priority for zenimax, until they figured out that they cant improve cyrodiil much in terms of performance. Sadly, its always a lot of work around small scale pvp to be good, beyond zenimax skills and plans according to me. cyrodiil remain as primary, because its easier to handle it playable of sort

What boggles my mind is they're not shorthanded by any means, but the people they do have working for them are blatantly incompetent. If this was any other industry these people would have been replaced and been likely unable to find another job in the industry, and the company would have to correct the issues at hand immediately.

Unfortunately, in the gaming industry none of these common business practices are common or practiced; these people could get away with murder.

@Uncle_Sweetshare

May i ask you in whichgaming company you been working in and what well known game you been working on? Since you seem to be a well experienced person in the industry to come up with that mr. know it all comment?

What? I never claimed to work in the gaming industry nor did anything I say allude to that. If you thought it was somehow implied by my statement then you're not worth the time it would take to elaborate any further.

mihaiisraging

Tomorrow we have maintenance. Let's hope something will get better.

Feanor

@Insandros

I'm not in the gaming industry either. But I can discern broken stuff when I see it.

@Uncle_Sweetshare

Keep it up.

ParaNostram

I agree with OP on all EXCEPT FOR the removal of power sigils. A little randomness can go a long way in turning the tides of games and it keeps everyone on their toes.

Skjoldur

Insandros wrote: »

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

VincentBlanquin wrote: »

No. players were masivelly asking for small scale pvp since alpha, but it was always low priority for zenimax, until they figured out that they cant improve cyrodiil much in terms of performance. Sadly, its always a lot of work around small scale pvp to be good, beyond zenimax skills and plans according to me. cyrodiil remain as primary, because its easier to handle it playable of sort

What boggles my mind is they're not shorthanded by any means, but the people they do have working for them are blatantly incompetent. If this was any other industry these people would have been replaced and been likely unable to find another job in the industry, and the company would have to correct the issues at hand immediately.

Unfortunately, in the gaming industry none of these common business practices are common or practiced; these people could get away with murder.

@Uncle_Sweetshare

May i ask you in whichgaming company you been working in and what well known game you been working on? Since you seem to be a well experienced person in the industry to come up with that mr. know it all comment?

One does not need to work in the gaming industry to come to the same conclusion as he did. Having worked as a software developer and consultant for bigger companies than ZOS, I can tell you that - just talking about their software developers here - they are doing a *** job. Anyone claiming otherwise is likely not that good at his job either.

Product quality and customer expectations have been lowering each other in turns for the last 10-20 years to a ridiculously low level now.

The goal should be to create the best product and best experience possible, but instead bread and circuses seem to be enough for the majority of people again. Not that much change in the human psyche in the last 2000+ years.

I would expect the developers responsible for all these messes, i.e. the queueing, to feel emberrased and ashamed, at least I would, but honestly, I have doubts they are.

Feanor

On the bright side they said they'll continue to work on it. That's good.

wildbear247

This is a repost into this thread because I think this is the most important Battlegrounds thread for ZOS to track.

After dragging my feet to try Battlegrounds due to the bugs and queue issues, I went ahead and bought Morrowind anyway to try it out this weekend. I did nearly all solo queue and typically my wait time was about 5 minutes or less between matches. I continually received the "someone in your group declined the invite" message, which would restart the match search, but even with that error I was getting in matches typically in less than 5 minutes in solo queue. Some key things I'd like to see them address in Battlegrounds follows:

1) Ideally solo players should be going against other solo players, and pre-made groups against other pre-made groups. This has a huge impact on the fun of Battlegrounds. When a pre-made group is on voice chat, plays together often, and complement each other's race/equipment/skill selection…it usually means total domination of the solo dudes they go against. At first it might be funny for both sides when these lopsided match-ups occur, because it showcases what a well-coordinated team can do in ESO…but then it quickly becomes tiresome if solo dudes keep running into these pre-made groups (and I'm sure the pre-made groups want a challenge too).

2) Fix the bug in which some teams start with less players (i.e. 4v2v2). I ran into this problem too many times over the weekend, and like item 1 it really makes Battlegrounds less enjoyable.

3) Increase the AP, XP, and gold gain. This is self-explanatory…let players reap good rewards playing the content they enjoy. Battlegrounds could become the primary source of enjoyment for many PvP'rs, especially once all the bugs are worked out and some basic enhancements made. So increase the rewards so they don't feel obligated to jump into content they don't really like just so they can make some gold, gain XP, etc. One quick idea…similar to how there are special vendors in IC that you can use IC currency (telvar) to buy stuff from…do something similar in the Battlegrounds (e.g. special currency that can be used to by gear, alchemy satchels, crafting mats, etc.). But ZOS, hear me on this please…don't be stingy about it. If a person PvP's an entire Saturday then allow them to walk away feeling like they actually got some good stuff from it…which means you should engage the PvP'rs and get feedback on what they think would be good rewards for a day of PvP'ing. Unless I missed something, I have yet to see you (ZOS) engage the PvP crowd in this way (I mean trying to survey the entire PvP crowd, not just steamers or forum users). Regarding the feedback, heck you could always throw up an in-game splash screen when they login prompting them to provide feedback via an external survey, and give 'em a couple of XP scrolls to nudge them in that direction if initial feedback is limited.

Overall Battlegrounds was decent and fun as a first-time experience…but it needs to be enhanced so it's consistently enjoyable and rewarding. The OP has done a great job summarizing the key issues and I really hope ZOS is tracking this thread. I'm surprised ZOS haven't responded to it yet, given that it has the most views of any Battlegrounds thread that I see.

NordJitsu

ParaNostram wrote: »

I agree with OP on all EXCEPT FOR the removal of power sigils. A little randomness can go a long way in turning the tides of games and it keeps everyone on their toes.

Yes, because when I think "competitive PvP" the first word that pops into my head is "random".

/s

The outcome of a competitive match should be entirely based on the actions of the players. Randomness is unfair. Reminds me of when Super Smash Bros added "trips." You're winning a match, then you randomly fall over and get launched.

Sigils are a terrible feature.

exeeter702

NordJitsu wrote: »

ParaNostram wrote: »

I agree with OP on all EXCEPT FOR the removal of power sigils. A little randomness can go a long way in turning the tides of games and it keeps everyone on their toes.

Yes, because when I think "competitive PvP" the first word that pops into my head is "random".

/s

The outcome of a competitive match should be entirely based on the actions of the players. Randomness is unfair. Reminds me of when Super Smash Bros added "trips." You're winning a match, then you randomly fall over and get launched.

Sigils are a terrible feature.

Taking bgs serious on a competitive level was thrown out the window the second they announced that bgs were going to be 4v4v4.

Robby94

if only it would work

Rickter

One of my fears is this:

So look at Ubisoft's "For Honor" - in this video, its detailed why quite literally, 95% of its playerbase isnt playing the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtJtNKcqAk0

And my fear is that the same thing will happen with ESO's BGs. The poor queuing, matchmaking, and balance will slowly turn people away from the mode leaving only the most diehard left in the queues. This small diehard community will spawn a subculture that will not be friendly towards newcomers. They will be optimized for BGs experience and its one of my concerns detailed in my thread called: BGs: Dead on Arrival?

This concern stemmed from the fact that BGs were being pushed even with the glaring balance issues and you can see the blindness of the proponents for BGs in that thread. You can see the ones turning a bling eye and telling me to shut up. But the writing was on the wall!! Every single thing i listed ended up being very true. Let me reiterate:

• POISONS - yep, you see people complain about it hitting too hard in noCP, its still an issue and I predicted it.
• LAUNCH WARDEN OVER POWERED - This one i will admit, is not so true but I have already encountered some pretty unkillable warden specs that deal significant damage. I wouldnt call it "OP" but its definitely operating quite strongly this patch.
• PROC SETS - I dont need to say more
• STACKED TEAMS - this is happening. its the who's who of ESO pvp. top end players are partied with top end players and they create an incredibly one sided experience.
• STREAMLINED FORCE FED META - there's a thread talking about how Viper's is a MUST for stam classes - sounds force fed to me.

So the issue is that all of these things will drive the majority playerbase away until there is nothing left.

wildbear247

exeeter702 wrote: »

Taking bgs serious on a competitive level was thrown out the window the second they announced that bgs were going to be 4v4v4.

Good point. I'm mainly interested in the fun aspect of Battlegrounds, but that would also probably be enhanced if it was a simpler matchup of one team vs. another. Perhaps it could be 5v5...which might also be nice because less players would be needed to start a match.

Down the road they should offer a 5v5 mode, or at least ask PvP'rs about it to assess interest in the idea.

Sylosi

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

14. 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.

This is probably unrealistic due to low population, splitting what is in likelyhood a relatively small population of players who want to play BG between multiple modes is going to put much more pressure on the issue of good matchmaking vs queue times.

cksupreme

THANK YOU OP...you hit all the nails on the head about why I so little enjoyed my brief time in Battlegrounds this weekend. It was the main feature I was looking forward to in the Morrowind update and I'm really disappointed at what I saw during my ~2 hours there...2 hours of that buggy mess was all I could take.

There are two things that really chap my hide about Battlegrounds.
1) As you stated in your OP, why didn't Zenimax look at how all those other MMO's did their arenas/Battlegrounds, take the good and drop the bad, and then go from there? It really makes no friggin sense to do otherwise.
2) Why didn't Zenimax talk to the PvP crowd more to find out what type of features we really wanted? Like this 4v4v4 format for example--did Zenimax ever at any point just ask the PvPers "Hey listen, we're thinking about doing a 4v4v4 format for Battlegrounds, but we know that a more traditional format of one team vs. another (like 6v6) might be more appealing to PvPers too..so we wanted to ask you players." How friggin hard would it have been for Zenimax to ask questions like that from as many PvPers as possible? I mean, this is like basic customer satisfaction stuff that successful businesses do.

I'm really annoyed with Zenimax right now. I hate giving money to a company to get a half-baked product in return, especially since they've had since 2014 to figure out how to create good arena PvP action. And most of the Battlegrounds negativity (and overall Morrowind negativity about sustain and class changes) could've been avoided if Zenimax had just asked the right questions of as many players as possible prior to dropping Morrowind.

wildbear247

Sylosi wrote: »

There is nothing inherently bad about 4v4, after all it is pretty close to 5v5 which is the setup the most popular PvP games on the planet use (CS:GO, Overwatch, LoL, DOTA 2, etc), frankly the weird thing about ESO BG is that there are three teams, that is never going to be balanced.

Yeah having a 4v4v4 setup, instead of a 5v5, was a puzzling move by ZOS. ~5v5 is the most popular PvP format, going by games like LoL, DOTA 2, Overwatch, CSGO, T 2, etc.

Hopefully they offer the 5v5 mode down the road as an option

Rickter

wildbear247 wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

There is nothing inherently bad about 4v4, after all it is pretty close to 5v5 which is the setup the most popular PvP games on the planet use (CS:GO, Overwatch, LoL, DOTA 2, etc), frankly the weird thing about ESO BG is that there are three teams, that is never going to be balanced.

Yeah having a 4v4v4 setup, instead of a 5v5, was a puzzling move by ZOS. ~5v5 is the most popular PvP format, going by games like LoL, DOTA 2, Overwatch, CSGO, T 2, etc.

Hopefully they offer the 5v5 mode down the road as an option

but you understand why they did it right? there are three factions and im assuming the same mentality behind cyro three factions applies here as well

NordJitsu

There's no reason that having 3 4 player teams means it can't be competitive. That's silly.

Just because other games do 5v5 doesn't mean ESO has to.

Paraflex

Yea it's kinda sad to see such a fun concept just be nullified by a broken Queue system. I waste more time sitting in a queue than I do in the actual BG.

Trashkan

Good reasoning behind 3 teams one being a team can't hide in an area where it impossible to get to when losing. You can just go kill the other team.

wildbear247

Rickter wrote: »

wildbear247 wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

There is nothing inherently bad about 4v4, after all it is pretty close to 5v5 which is the setup the most popular PvP games on the planet use (CS:GO, Overwatch, LoL, DOTA 2, etc), frankly the weird thing about ESO BG is that there are three teams, that is never going to be balanced.

Yeah having a 4v4v4 setup, instead of a 5v5, was a puzzling move by ZOS. ~5v5 is the most popular PvP format, going by games like LoL, DOTA 2, Overwatch, CSGO, T 2, etc.

Hopefully they offer the 5v5 mode down the road as an option

but you understand why they did it right? there are three factions and im assuming the same mentality behind cyro three factions applies here as well

I hear you @Rickter , I figured ZOS took the 3-faction war approach with the 4v4v4 setup. In Cyrodiil I think it's a fun dynamic...but not so sure about BGs yet...plus BGs teams are mixed faction so staying strict to the 3-faction setup isn't necessary. During the PTS it would've​ been nice of ZOS had let all players test out the BGs and included a 4v4v4 and 6v6 mode just to see what players preferred.

BigES

wildbear247 wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

There is nothing inherently bad about 4v4, after all it is pretty close to 5v5 which is the setup the most popular PvP games on the planet use (CS:GO, Overwatch, LoL, DOTA 2, etc), frankly the weird thing about ESO BG is that there are three teams, that is never going to be balanced.

Yeah having a 4v4v4 setup, instead of a 5v5, was a puzzling move by ZOS. ~5v5 is the most popular PvP format, going by games like LoL, DOTA 2, Overwatch, CSGO, T 2, etc.

Hopefully they offer the 5v5 mode down the road as an option

NordJitsu wrote: »

There's no reason that having 3 4 player teams means it can't be competitive. That's silly.

Just because other games do 5v5 doesn't mean ESO has to.

QFT

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler

Still waiting on a response regarding status of BGs. The longer you wait, the more irritated we become.

cksupreme

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

ZOS directly stated that they won't balance the two separately as they consider them one and the same - one world, no diferencies.

@Olupajmibanan

Just like many (most?) players on these forums, I also think PvE and PvP should be balanced separately. Thankfully Zenimax does too...they might tell you they dont...but don't listen to what they say, see what they've done to separate the two environments.
1 -- Battle Spirit buff that affects max health, reduced damage done, reduced healing, increased range on many ranged abilities, etc. This is a massive difference between PvE and PvP.
2 -- Sorcerers Negate (stuns in PvE, silences in PvP)
3 -- Stamblade Ambush (stuns in PvE, silences in PvP)

There might be others I can't think of at the moment. But you get my point...Zenimax has already made efforts to balance the two environments separately (which is good).

Uncle_Sweetshare

Just an update: I submitted a ticket for a refund of Morrowind 3 days ago, and it was just approved. If you were as disappointed with Morrowind for whatever reason, (Battlegrounds especially), I'd highly suggest applying for a refund, as apparently money is the only language ZOS is capable of understanding.

Knootewoot

The expansion just came out and has just rolled out to the consoles. I doubt that requested features and bugs will be added/fixed at your demand. I am sure they are working on it, but it won't be released at your command. Give them some time please, because rushed fixes/implementations are even worse.

eso_lags

This is such a good post. I mean really its all so true and makes this game and especially BGs so trash.. the only solace is to laugh at the trash players that arent confident enough to not run the meta/proc sets every update..