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

Uncle_Sweetshare

Knootewoot wrote: »

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.

These are all things that should have been in development from day 1, that's the issue. ESO is not the first MMO to come out with a PvP arena; they had 20 years of past MMOs with PvP arenas to look at when they were designing theirs, and for whatever reason they chose to ignore all industry standards and push this heap of garbage. ZOS is a joke of a company, the lead designs have no clue what they're doing, and Firor is so out of touch counting his own bankroll that he couldn't give two sh*ts less about what the rest of the company did, as long as he's turning profits.

altemriel

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

Battlegrounds in its current state leaves much to be desired. To save everyone some time I'll make this list as short as I can with what I believe needs to be done in order for Battlegrounds to live up to its potential and thrive as a competitive alternative to Cyrodiil PvP.

1. Level/ Gear Brackets [High Priority]
Currently there is no level/ gear brackets, despite the fact that on the Battlegrounds page on ESO's website states there are two brackets (levels 10-49 and levels 10-50).

2. 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 an MMR system (I know CP is disabled, but for the sake of players having CP160 gear).

3. Team Balancing [High Priority]
Related to number 4, there are a lot of matches starting with 2 players on two of the teams, and 4 on the third. Games should not start until there are 4 players on each team.

4. Proc Set Changes [High Priority]
As users have suggested in other threads, I think proc set damage needs to scale off of Weapon Damage/ Spell Damage and the relevant attribute (so tanks aren't stacking proc sets and still doing massive amounts of damage), and in addition to that burst proc sets need to be tweaked. Quoting myself from another post (it's a doozey):

I think 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.

5. 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 before the game removes them from Battlegrounds 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.

6. Solo/Duo/Trio and 4 Man Team Queues [Medium Priority]
Separate matches so those that are queuing with less than 4 players only play with/ against others that queued with less than 4 players, and those queuing with 4 players only play against other 4 player groups.

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

8. Improved Rewards [Medium Priority]
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. End of match XP and AP rewards need to be greatly increased.

9. Token System [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 #8), we could have a separate Battlegrounds AP vendor (at the numerous Battlegrounds 'camps' in Vvardenfell), which could include poisons, potions, gear boxes, and more.

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

11. Leaderboards [Medium Priority]
Currently the leaderboards reflect those who play the most, and end-of-season rewards should not be based off time played, but rather performance. With an MMR system in place, leaderboards could be based on said MMR to reflect individual skill over time played.

12. 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 fluidity each player should start match with 0 Ultimate.

13. 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 (this is a debatable change, I'm just listing it for solidarity).

14. Role Based Queues [Low Priority]
There's no role selection for Battlegrounds groups; one group could have 4 healers, then next 4 tanks, etc.

15. 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 @Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler

yes please!!!


and also pls add at least 5Vs5VS5 with PVE monsters, such as 5 trolls or at least so, similar to blessed crucible pledge (pve arena)

Jurand80

Koensol

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.

@Nordjitsu Completely agreed. One of my guildies wrecked 4 guys with one Flawless Dawnbreaker, having picked up a power sigil on top of clever alchemist and kena proc. It was insane. The power sigil is not needed and completely over the top. Just like proc sets, it inflates the skill of the user which is not what we need in a competitive environment.

anitajoneb17_ESO

Skjoldur wrote: »

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.

You shouldn't over-generalize. Customer satisfaction might be the ultimate goal and source of profit of any business, from a moral point of view, in reality customer satisfaction is only one parameter among many other in any given business model. In the case of ESO, it looks like customer satisfaction has a relatively small impact on customer behaviour. In other words, we will go on playing/buying/subbing even if we are highly annoyed by lack of quality in many areas, because we "love this game" (probably a paraphrase for "addicted").
Also, the video game industry is an investment-heavy industry, where cash management plays a huge role in the end profit. It is likely to be more profitable to release products early (so that cash comes in early) rather than wait for the product to be polished to top quality level.

Just a few aspects from the top of my head - and fairly theoretical too. I don't have any concrete figures about ZOS business model and customer base. But my point is : product quality, consumer behaviour and customer satisfaction are not necessarily the main goal of any company, they're just a few aspects of the equations when it comes to return on investment and bottom-line profit.

Olupajmibanan

cksupreme wrote: »

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).

Don't forget DK Flame Lash.

But I fear that they did it as a bare inevitable minimum. I get your point, but my point is that they sometimes balance the two separately because they must not because they want. And I think they will continue to do so.

Skinzz

Gotta love being stuck in an infinite load screen after respawning. This is the 3rd time it happened to me. What a joke.

Muttsmutt

this is good stuff
if half of these were implemented i'd maybe care for BGs more

leepalmer95

I'd like some sort of 1 class per team limit as well.

Nothing worse than coming across a premade with 2+ magplars or 4 mag sorcs, it's impossible.

Cross healing or cross shielding gets to a point where its impossible to kill them.

cksupreme

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Just a few aspects from the top of my head - and fairly theoretical too. I don't have any concrete figures about ZOS business model and customer base. But my point is : product quality, consumer behaviour and customer satisfaction are not necessarily the main goal of any company, they're just a few aspects of the equations when it comes to return on investment and bottom-line profit.

@anitajoneb17_ESO

Ah, I see by your part in bold that you're a Zenimax employee.

Okay, just teasing. But your theory aside...just consider for a moment how much higher the customer satisfaction with Battlegrounds would have been had Zenimax early on tried to get input from as many PvP'rs as possible to get a solid idea of what they were looking for, and provided open Alpha and Beta access to the Battlegrounds to test it throughout its early stages. Even if their resources wouldn't have allowed them to do everything the players asked for (which is likely), Zenimax just making the effort to be connected to their players and saying "Hey, we hear you, this is what you're telling us...this is how much we plan to do now and in the year ahead".

I mean...just some simple friggin communication man...and an earnest desire to connect with the players...it's not friggin rocket science. But they didn't do that...and now we have this buggy Battlegrounds...and still no genuine effort that I see from Zenimax to reach out to the players about it. SMH

anitajoneb17_ESO

cksupreme wrote: »

just consider for a moment how much higher the customer satisfaction with Battlegrounds would have been had Zenimax early on tried to get input from as many PvP'rs as possible to get a solid idea of what they were looking for, and provided open Alpha and Beta access to the Battlegrounds to test it throughout its early stages. Even if their resources wouldn't have allowed them to do everything the players asked for (which is likely), Zenimax just making the effort to be connected to their players and saying "Hey, we hear you, this is what you're telling us...this is how much we plan to do now and in the year ahead".

I mean...just some simple friggin communication man...and an earnest desire to connect with the players...it's not friggin rocket science. But they didn't do that...and now we have this buggy Battlegrounds...and still no genuine effort that I see from Zenimax to reach out to the players about it. SMH

Oh, I agree on that ! I was merely explaining why customer satisfaction was not necessarily their number 1 priority. But there's no doubt that there's a lot of space for improvement when it comes to dealing with player feedback, community management and communication in general.

We must keep in mind, however, that "player feedback" is never "one-voice". Also, what we read here on forums and reddits and other places are not representative of "the playerbase". It's only representative of a (small) percentage of players who are committed enough to get involved in those platforms. So in the end it's not as easy as it looks.

And last but not least, PR and communication for ESO are largely managed (and probably financed) by Bethesda, not ZOS. We can feel that the two entities don't always share the same views on how things should be done. I'm pretty sure that Jessica, Gina and Kai have their hands bound very tight by Bethesda. And as far as I know, Bethesda has little to no experience as to how to manage an MMO community. They were great at encouraging a huge modding community, but an MMO community is a different thing altogether.

I'm not trying to find excuses for ZOS, I'm just curious and always try to find out why apparently easy things are not being done.

BigES

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Where are you?

Like 99% of the community still want like 90% of the changes in this guy's post.

Just fixing the group queueing system is not adequate. BG's need a lot of work, and this guy's thread basically gives you everything the community wants on a platter.

Please response whether the game developers intend to ignore or incorporate any of the ideas in this thread.

SHADOW2KK

Unbelievble, 9 pages to this thread and ZoS still will not even glibly promise anything.

Way to go ZoS, do you guys take advanced training in annoying some of your playerbase?

BTW ZoS in other games, like the match making system of some of the CoD games, it does not matter if people rage quit cos they get rekt, everyone else gets their points at the end and do not get kicked out of the map.

Not to mention most of OP`s original points, to which I agree.

Congrats also in starting a game with one person by themselves and 3 maxed out teams also, which happens a lot.

Pre made groups in my experience take forever to get into a game still.

And you guys tested this debacle and pushed it to live, ignoring all feedback.

Do your damned job for once

Dragonnord

BigES wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Where are you?

Get a chair and a big cup of coffee, in fact, get 1.000 cups of coffee and a bed. Or have you ever seen a Community Manager address a critical issue other than saying "We don't have an ETA yet"?
 

BigES

CarbonX wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Where are you?

Get a chair and a big cup of coffee, in fact, get 1.000 cups of coffee and a bed. Or have you ever seen a Community Manager address a critical issue other than saying "We don't have an ETA yet"?
 

Literally, all they need to do, is say, hey - we like this idea, this idea, and that idea - and we're going to get to work on it right away. Or, better - we're already working on it.

That's it.

The fact no ZoS employee has responded in this thread can only lead us to believe that they don't consider ANY of the content of this post to be of any type of priority. They are in "leave us alone - we're busy building DLC" mode.

Instead, they'll just ignore the problem until either it goes away, or they're finally are worn down into submission. Just like the last minute PTS changes that always occur.

Uncle_Sweetshare

BigES wrote: »

CarbonX wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Where are you?

Get a chair and a big cup of coffee, in fact, get 1.000 cups of coffee and a bed. Or have you ever seen a Community Manager address a critical issue other than saying "We don't have an ETA yet"?
 

Literally, all they need to do, is say, hey - we like this idea, this idea, and that idea - and we're going to get to work on it right away. Or, better - we're already working on it.

That's it.

The fact no ZoS employee has responded in this thread can only lead us to believe that they don't consider ANY of the content of this post to be of any type of priority. They are in "leave us alone - we're busy building DLC" mode.

Instead, they'll just ignore the problem until either it goes away, or they're finally are worn down into submission. Just like the last minute PTS changes that always occur.

Yup. I highly doubt that any of the issues in this thread are being addressed, and just like vet trials for consoles, Battlegrounds will be put on the backburner until people quit or stop requesting it be fixed.

I HIGHLY suggest that anyone not satisfied with the state of Battlegrounds refund Morrowind; money is the only language ZOS is capable of comprehending.

ArgoCye

Man, this is a shame. I think BGs had great potential but there has already been a population drop on the PS4 and it hasn't been going for two weeks yet. As some have already noted, the poor grouping system meant new players were being smashed by ready-made groups of experienced players. Not a great way to get a solid population for it. I think ZoS have defn. screwed this up. Hopefully it isn't terminal.

BigES

Refreshing this post to reemphasize the fact that fixing the queuing tool alone is not nearly enough.

BG is still not in a release-ready / content-ready state.

ESO should be all hands on deck in fixing this major part of the expansion.

leepalmer95

Kills should matter in every game mode as well, it's pvp ffs not flag collecting simulator.

Kills should add secondary to score in both capture the flag in domination, they should add around 5~ points per kill. Currently inf you actually pvp people in those game modes your at a disadvantage. Pvping makes your lose because there is no benefit from doing it all you do is waste time.

You can go 25-0 and lose because 25 kills offer no advantage while someone can go 0-8 and win because they ran from flag to flag the entire game and avoided the actual pvping aspect. Its a bad design.

If a team keeps wiping other teams they should be rewarded for their effort and time.

wildbear247

So I went ahead and got a refund on Morrowind. The most exciting element of Morrowind for me was Battlegrounds, and it is something a lot of players have wanted and provided feedback on since this game's inception...and to see such key content delivered in such a state is truly disappointing.

Perhaps most disappointing is ZOS failed again to fully engage as many of their players as possible (in this case the PvP crowd) during Battlegrounds development. If they had done so, I think we'd have a much better Battlegrounds experience now and in the future.

Until ZOS has addressed many of the issues noted by the OP, I won't be rebuying Morrowind. ESO PvE content alone isn't compelling enough to keep me buying the Chapters (especially if ESO PvE is compared to the PvE in games like Witcher 3, Dying Light, etc.)

ecru

Balanced matchmaking in a 4v4v4 match up means that you lose two thirds of your games.

BG's were destined to fail from the start. It's a bad system that will leave players frustrated as they will almost always lose more than they win.

Just about every other game doesn't have this sort of system in instanced pvp for a very good reason--it can lead to you facing twice your numbers a good portion of the time as two teams attack your team, leading to a very frustrating gameplay experience for the team who is fighting 4v8.

I don't expect anything beyond a lot of negative feedback until it's red vs blue instead of red vs blue vs yellow.

Durham

I have made several post on the lack of communication from this company its appalling actually ...

Durham

Uncle_Sweetshare wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Your suggestion that procsets should scale of weapon/spell damage isn´t bad, but it has one flaw. Most players in PvP using Heavy armor still put all attributes into stamina or magicka (which increase your weapon and spelldamage) so that might not help. Some people suggest global CD on procsets but that would hurt defensive procsets as well. Best would be to just lower the dmg on some of the procsets.

I elaborate as to which sets I believe need to be modified in the spoiler, but it's quite a long read. TL;DR: 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 slightly lowered).

As you mentioned, I wouldn't consider someone running HA necessarily a tank, nor someone wearing MA necessarily not a tank, and so on. I know most tanks still put all attributes into their primary resource, I was more or less referring to the 70k HP tanks running Tremorscale.

The overall idea would be to have scaling effects on proc sets, not just flat damage/ healing/ etc. This would slightly lower their effectiveness in non-CP PvP and slightly raise their effectiveness in CP PvP and in PvE.

@Wrobel

What good is anything you just said if they do not fix performance .... They do not care ... or they would communicate ..... I do agree with you by the way

cksupreme

Over 100 insightful/agree/awesome on the original post, 9 pages of feedback...and I have yet to see ZOS really talk to players about the future of Battlegrounds, especially on the OP's points. Instead we get Battleground updates on the PTS per the link below. Sooo...yep, I got a refund on Morrowind too. Communication ZOS...business 101...talk to your players before and during a PTS patch cycle.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/358595/pts-update-15-feedback-thread-for-chaosball-arcane-university

Uncle_Sweetshare

Just checking to see if any of these issues have been addressed; could someone give me an update?

Uncle_Sweetshare

The fact that they're moving feedback to bug reports tells me all I need to know. Good luck with that, ZOS.