Battlegrounds: The current state, and the future we need

WeWereNords

Hello Everyone,

Most of you know me as Nordz and all I do in this wonderful game is spam battlegrounds all day on PC NA server as a nord stam DK. Love or hate me I am fairly known and accepted as a decent player, and I spend a lot of time in BG's. Lately I've been getting very frustrated with the design and decided I would voice my frustrations on the forums.

ESO PVP: we currently have 3 forms of PvP content in our game; Cyrodiil, Imperial City, and Battlegrounds. I will not pretend to know exactly how the other two work as I admit I myself have absolutely NO clue how to be successful in either of the other two. However, the general point of Cyrodiil is to be large scale combat that is supposed to feel like true Elder Scrolls warfare, with big, coordinated armies clashing. Imperial city is supposed to be the same kind of warfare, scaled down to support small group play and feel more like a survival looter. Battlegrounds are the instanced combat that we've been asking for for a very long time, and we got them, and while to me and many others like me it is the best PvP content in the game, there are still many problems that NEED to be addressed before another game does address the issues.


DEAD: I'm not sure if this is true or not. its hard for me to find exact numbers or identify exact causes, however it seems like I am being matched against and with the SAME people literally EVERY battleground I play. I've been told it's because of the games MMR system, and when I look at the leaderboards, this claim is a little more believable, however, we still have no public definition of what the MMR system in this game is. To be fairly honest, among the PvP community that I speak with, MMR is universally hated. Good players do not want to have to fight on the edge of their seat EVERY game simply because they are the most competitive and have earned their stripes. Most people I have spoken with believe a natural queue would be best, fighting MANY different people every game with MANY different skillsets, and good players will win more often. It seems to me that the addition of an MMR system to this game was unwarranted, and even if battlegrounds are as active as ever, being placed against the same enemies every single game feels degrading and makes veteran players want to leave.


ZERGING: The first comment I get on this thread is going to be some kid trolling me "bRuH, yOU tHInk FoUr plaYeRS Iz a ZERg??". Well yes. I believe anything more than one player can be a zerg. My point is, it seems like the best strategy to win just about every battleground (or at least the vast majority) is to group your entire team together and run to objective spamming AoE's. Pardon me, but the whole reason I play BG's exclusively was to get away from that crap in Cyrodiil. I'm sorry, I just think that there needs to be more emphasis on BREAKING this habit in battlegrounds not promoting it, it does not make sense to have two entirely separate PvP types in a game with the same exact tactic prevailing in both. I offer SEVERAL solutions to this problem.
-Scoring: Deathmatch is by far the worst when it comes to this issue of all the PvP modes, and will likely be the hardest to fix, followed by crazy king, chaos ball, capture the flag and then domination. Chaos Ball, CTF, and domination really aren't to bad, in chaos ball the zerging team is always eventually swallowed up by the damage of the ball anyways, and in both CTF and domination a coordinated group of non zergers can counter a zerging team. The main problem is deathmatch and crazy king. My fix for crazy king is simple; make flags worth more points as the game goes on. Towards the end of crazy king, it basically turns into domination, but often it is to late and the zerging team has already acquired a huge lead. editing the first flags to be worth less points would STILL give them a lead, just not one that is an automatic win. Deathmatch will be the most tricky, I completely avoid deathmatch as it is and never queue for it, and will likely never queue for deathmatch just because I believe it objectively wrong for instanced PvP, however I did come up with a solution for this as well: Make kills worth less points if you have nearby teammates. For example, if you have 4 teammates within a x yd radius from you, your KB is only worth 5 points, however, if you are the ONLY person within that radius, your KB is worth 25 points. Side note, adding an automatically applying zerker buff (like what used to be in the game mode) to the lowest scoring team could help make the game mode a little more wild and unpredictable. Personally I don't think there is any saving deathmatch and will likely not touch it no matter what. If I wanted to play like that, I would just gather up my friends and farm more AP in cyro.
-Population: The second the battleground format for ESO was announced I knew this was going to be a problem... 4v4v4.... wait a minute... whats the max size for a group in ESO? 4? yeah, premades are a problem? ya don't freakin say. Look at all of the best battleground style games that have ever existed; Allowing players to queue with a FULL team is absolutely the biggest mistake ZoS made with the format for battlegrounds. The only way to fix the premading issue is to add players to teams. Truth be told, I like the 3 team idea however it never works out in the way you want it to. The idea is, if one team starts to dominate, the other 2 teams band together and fight off the stronger one. The reality is, the 2 strongest teams gang bang the *** out of the weakest team, and laugh the whole time and even the middle team is happy with their second place finish. Really, the only fix to this problem is to increase the amount of players per team in ALL battlegrounds. 6v6v6 could work, however 7v7v7 seems more fair, and still only adds up to 21 people whole. This would also give us MORE players that could be spread across the map to accomplish objectives, which could naturally help the zerging issue.

REWARDS: I feel like many people just don't touch battlegrounds because the rewards are simply not good enough. I'm not going to sit here and say that battlegrounds should be the most economically lucrative thing in the game, but I do think a rewards rework could bring more attention to them and improve their popularity. Currently, Every day, every character you have can accept and complete 3 battlegrounds daily quests (one at a time). The rewards for this are 2k AP, and a pat on the back, and some of the objectives are actually fairly time consuming. basically, nobody who plays in battlegrounds ever plays them just to get their daily rewards. Battlegrounds players are all there because they already enjoy battlegrounds and likely wouldn't be doing anything else anyways. However, with a reworked rewards system, more traffic could be brought in from players who may not normally participate in BG's. My solution to the problem: Combine all 3 current daily quests into ONE quest, and slightly improve the rewards. the current total for AP gain through quests is 6k. Lets bump that up to 10-15k and offer a daily reward box with a little bit of transmute in them! Of course, there are also mail rewards and random daily rewards, however, I do not like the idea of rewarding random battlegrounds if we are going to put in such controversial game modes as deathmatch. I really believe the quest rewards system are the way to go.

It is late where I am and I am tired, I hope I managed to give a little bit of a voice to the more rational and objective Elite BGers out there who really want to have a better experience in this game. I tried to be as objective as possible. I have been playing ESO since 2014 and have quit many times due to terrible PvP, however, since BG's have been introduced is the longest time I've played the game continuously without quitting. I believe the game is improving, however this PvP, my favorite PvP, needs some serious remodeling before it can be considered anything more than a place that the elitist players go to slug it out. its simply not fun to anyone in the way that it is currently formatted.

Please take this post seriously.

wildbear247

Yeah I think Battlegrounds could use some love too. Of the items you mention above, the two issues that I feel the most strongly about are pre-made groups and the 4x4x4 format.

Pre-made groups can quickly suck the fun out of BGs, because a well-coordinated group using voice comms can easily dominate the BG game modes. One potential fix is to allow two queues (solo and group) and match players according to those queues. Then during long wait times the system could ask solo players to join the group queue to find games faster.

4x4x4 is rough. Most PvP arena games have a Team vs. Team format for good reason. BGs needs other match-up types than 4x4x4. I think various types of Team vs. Team could be great (6v6, 10v10, etc.). Also a free-for-all deathmatch mode would be fun.

BGs have been out for 1.5 years now and the issues above haven't been addressed well, or not at all (4x4x4). During that time I've migrated to For Honor for my arena PvP, which frankly has one of the best fighting systems in any PvP game I've played. I still play Cyrodiil a lot because I love the large scale battles and the sandbox PvP that allows you to roam a huge realm in various roles supporting your faction.

I could be drawn back to ESO BGs, but ZOS needs to do a better job addressing players top BG concerns, and not just give us a new BG map.

ChunkyCat

Way too long. Definitely didn’t read.

wildbear247

ChunkyCat wrote: »

Way too long. Definitely didn’t read.

lol...responses like this. Are you school age and need pretty pictures and a narrator??? It's a forum dude, where folks write stuff to read. If you can't be bothered with this most basic form of human communication then go troll on another thread.

MaxJrFTW

Never seen you in a bg tbh. Not looking for drama, just thought it was funny after reading your 1st paragraph.

WeWereNords wrote: »

Good players do not want to have to fight on the edge of their seat EVERY game simply because they are the most competitive

Highly disagree with this. I'm not a great player by any means, but i play the game to face proper opposition. If i wanted to club seals i'd go to Vivec and farm potatoes. I don't enjoy going 30-0 and feeling absolutely no pressure from the opposite teams. There's nothing enjoyable about those games. I don't belong in those games. They are disservice to me, and to the players on the receiving end.

The reason why most of my PvP time is spent on bgs and not cyrodiil, is because bgs allow you to face somewhat evenly matched opposition. You take that away from me and i would not hesitate to find another game.

LordTareq

The main 3 problems imho are:

1: AOE is too potent compared to single target abilities. Often they do up to 80% of the damage of single target abilities. Often they come with potent secondary effects (as do single target abilities, but with AOE the secondary effect becomes more potent for obvious reasons). Not having to worry about targetting further enhances the potency of AOE

2. CC & snares are too prevalent. If I wanted it, I could slot an AOE fear + snare, and AOE snare + stun, a single target snare + immobilize, multiple options for a single target stun, a single target immobilize, a single target snare, an AOE snare and an AOE stun. That's 8 abilities that CC in some capacity on a single character.

3. Snares are too potent. Snares should have 2 or 3 categories (say 60% snare short duration, 40% medium duration, 20% long duration) and they shouldn't stack. To compensate speed buffs shouldn't stack either.

Amksed1991

I don't think premades are an issue because there is a counter to it, queue up with your own premade.

I think the only thing BGs really need is either a sudden death 4v4 ranked arenas and 6v6 ranked battlegrounds.

4 DPS, 2 DPS / 1 Heal / 1 Tank etc. The Meta for those type of games modes could really benefit the PVP in this game. As of right now, the only game mode that benefits for Tanks is Chaos Ball. In any CTF style game 3 people standing on the node fighting a tank will eventually capture that node due to 3 : 1 capture ratio.

There needs to be some type competitive ranking system. No offense OP but I don't know who you are either. If we had some kind of rank system and you were high rated then I prolly would know who you are.

mursie

you aren't being paired against the same people due to MMR. (it's part of the issue)

you're being paired against the same people because the population for BG's is about 20 people.

A sad fact -

New players are beaten mercilessly in BG's from premade groups and veterans who spend all day queing bg's. they leave as quickly as they enter.

the result is a very small pool of players left to pvp.

MMR is needed to hopefully give new players a chance to learn without being clubbed. unfortunately - premades are prevalent at all levels of MMR (maybe even more so at low MMR) and as a result the new players still get clubbed and abandon ship.

Urvoth

3 teams is a problem, and was a dumb idea for small scale arenas.

The same enemies, ridiculous high MMR queue times, etc would likely be reduced if zos gave BGs better rewards. Good rewards = more people play more = increased number of high MMR players.

The problem is BGs are fundamentally designed as a casual system, with no alternative for people that want to play more seriously. Something like allowing premades to group in vs each other like in a trial would help a ton imo.

Iskiab

3 teams is awesome. Every system has downsides, if you’ve played warhammer you’ll know there’s a lot more downside to just two teams.

Here are the problems with BGs, most have already been stated:

1. Aoe damage is too powerful. People even use aoe in single target rotations, it’s silly. Aoe healing is too powerful too. You’d think they’d cancel each other out but they only do if you cluster up - hence ball groups and BG zergs.
2. There’s lots of bad information on the forums. I’ve tried following lots of tips and got destroyed. I didn’t start doing well until I started experimenting on my own
3. PvP is also too unforgiving for new players. It’s really hard to learn when you get blown up in a couple seconds. How many BGs does it take to be more than just dead weight for your team? 20-30 maybe? TTK needs to be higher so people have time to figure out what they’re doing.

Sy1ph5

Iskiab wrote: »

3 teams is awesome. Every system has downsides, if you’ve played warhammer you’ll know there’s a lot more downside to just two teams.

Here are the problems with BGs, most have already been stated:

1. Aoe damage is too powerful. People even use aoe in single target rotations, it’s silly. Aoe healing is too powerful too. You’d think they’d cancel each other out but they only do if you cluster up - hence ball groups and BG zergs.
2. There’s lots of bad information on the forums. I’ve tried following lots of tips and got destroyed. I didn’t start doing well until I started experimenting on my own
3. PvP is also too unforgiving for new players. It’s really hard to learn when you get blown up in a couple seconds. How many BGs does it take to be more than just dead weight for your team? 20-30 maybe? TTK needs to be higher so people have time to figure out what they’re doing.

TTK is already insanely high vs players that can actually play the game. If we make it baseline longer fights with good players just won't end.

Aoe is always going to outperform single target skills when you are in a group v group scenario and people cant change skills in combat and have limited skill slots. So they just use the same skills vs just you as vs your whole team. And people stay closer than ever to the healers as it is more difficult than it was before to be by yourself.

ecru

we need a flat reduction on aoe damage in bgs asap

Iskiab

Nah, TTK isn’t too high between players who know what they’re doing. That’s just two players in half tank spec, and yea - two tanks shouldn’t be able to kill anyone, not even each other.

wheem_ESO

TTK is oftentimes on one extreme end of the spectrum or the other. There are times that even good players can get blown up almost instantly (especially if vs coordinated teams), and other times that people are virtually unkillable. I personally think that both damage and healing (and ability to dodge roll spam) need to come down a bit; nothing super duper extreme I don't think, but some adjustment to both would be beneficial, I think.

ecru

wheem_ESO wrote: »

TTK is oftentimes on one extreme end of the spectrum or the other. There are times that even good players can get blown up almost instantly (especially if vs coordinated teams), and other times that people are virtually unkillable. I personally think that both damage and healing (and ability to dodge roll spam) need to come down a bit; nothing super duper extreme I don't think, but some adjustment to both would be beneficial, I think.

a good reduction on both damage and healing along with a flat reduction in aoe damage in general would be a good step in the right direction. abilities that hit an unlimited amount of players doing the same damage as single target abilities to every single target is ridiculously imbalanced--there is a reason every other stam has spin to win on their bar, because it's extremely overtuned.

Noctus

im similar to u and i have to admit i cant complain about the things u say. premade heal/tank cuddle groups can be rly fcked up to deal with. if u meet such a setup in bg especially as someone who just starts out. u can be 100 % sure that the person will never go back to pvp again.

SshadowSscale

I really love playing bgs...... Up u until a premade shows up and Just starts rolling everyone with snares and aoes......... Really think premade shoulnt be placed again st solo players.....and yes I would happily take a longer que for this to happen

lynx3n

New player here, everything said about new players never wanting to play PVP again is entirely true. Even with a premade group of 3 players in sub-50 battlegrounds we get decimated by single players that flat-out ignore damage from 3 of us fighting him at once until his team comes in and kills us all. It's ridiculous.