BG design. 3 teams - how do you like it:

roarr

Ok we had some time to play BG with 3 teams and we're ready to tell what do we think about it. I will start - it blows, there's no place for competetive play (not mentioning matchamaking that is lol^2)

CatchMeTrolling

Bgs would be a cluster f with 2 teams. And even more team stomping.

It’s games that go the full length with 3 teams . So what do you think is going to happen with just 2 ?

vamp_emily

If BGs were only 2 teams, then the losing team would never leave the base and let winners sit there till the time ran out.

alexj4596b14_ESO

yes please, i like being backstabbed by greens while i'm fighting red scum

I think we should have an area style BG where it's 1v1 and has a scoreboard.

TimeDazzler

There is a battlegrounds section in the forums and this post has been created multiple times, ZOS doesn't care/want competitive PvP in this game.

roarr

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Cries wrote: »

There is a battlegrounds section in the forums and this post has been created multiple times, ZOS doesn't care/want competitive PvP in this game.

;(

Sypherioth

They should add both options. But i like 3 teams because it makes the game alot more interesting. And like someone else put down earlier is that one team will camp enemy base and thats it. Now one team camps enemy base and the other backstabs the campers XD

And the BG are pretty dynamic now. That will be gone if X vs X. But X vs X would be a good option for premades who wanna vs other premades.

roarr

meh, gimmie 2 teams

I beg to differ - in other mmos, bgs are 2 teams based and it works good. Games are dynamic.
But everyone can have an opinion and im curious of yours

Rikumaru

Imagine premade teams if there was only two teams each match. Imo having 3 teams makes more unexpected events to occur than if there was only two teams. But I do think there should be a queue for a two teams gamemode.

Urvoth

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Cries wrote: »

There is a battlegrounds section in the forums and this post has been created multiple times, ZOS doesn't care/want competitive PvP in this game.

Prettty silly to just ignore something simple like that which a large portion of the BG community wants.

Jules

meh, gimmie 2 teams

CatchMeTrolling wrote: »

Bgs would be a cluster f with 2 teams. And even more team stomping.

It’s games that go the full length with 3 teams . So what do you think is going to happen with just 2 ?

Balanced competitive fights?

vamp_emily wrote: »

If BGs were only 2 teams, then the losing team would never leave the base and let winners sit there till the time ran out.

So just make it automatic forfeit if you stay at base and/or a cooldown that says you can't requeue after pulling some bs like that.

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

I think we should have an area style BG where it's 1v1 and has a scoreboard.

This + just an entire system that allows craftable BG's where we can choose the style/teams/queue together for planned GvG's ect.

Beardimus

No thank you, 3 teams is mega

Drdeath20

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Why cant they just add 1 more version of battle ground and still keep everything else?

Vapirko

yes please, i like being backstabbed by greens while i'm fighting red scum

Gotta have three.

ecru

meh, gimmie 2 teams

There is a reason no other game has three teams. I wish zos would give up on their failed experiment and just implement two team matches like every other game, but they're doubling down on it and releasing maps which encourage even more chaotic play, like the newest BG map. Teleporters that place teams on top of each other isn't interesting, it just creates even more chaotic gameplay than we had before.

It isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it isn't fair, it isn't balanced, and the only people who like it are people who have never pvp'd in any other MMO.

vamp_emily wrote: »

If BGs were only 2 teams, then the losing team would never leave the base and let winners sit there till the time ran out.

I'm not sure if you realize, but every other game in existence has only two teams, and this does not happen.

Rikumaru wrote: »

Imagine premade teams if there was only two teams each match. Imo having 3 teams makes more unexpected events to occur than if there was only two teams. But I do think there should be a queue for a two teams gamemode.

In an 8v8 scenario premades would not be allowed to make up an entire team. A premade of four would queue in with pugs, so it would be more balanced than it is now, not less. RIght now we have ice blockade spamming permafrost rotating spin to win premades who just clean up over and over again after or during the fight between the pug teams. Giving one team the ability to queue as a full premade in a system where a more organized team has the chance to use a third team to create a numbers advantage for themselves is one of the most short-sighted balance decisions I've ever encountered.

Gameplay where you're constantly outnumbered, constantly outnumbering your opponents, or getting attacked from behind half the time just isn't interesting no matter how you try to spin it.

Iskiab

yes please, i like being backstabbed by greens while i'm fighting red scum

Cries wrote: »

There is a battlegrounds section in the forums and this post has been created multiple times, ZOS doesn't care/want competitive PvP in this game.

Or maybe devs are devs because of experience from multiple MMOs. Sometimes people think things are a good idea from lack of experience.

When I was a kid I tried orange juice in my cereal when we ran out of milk. I like cereal and I like orange juice, what can go wrong? It was a disaster. Sometimes combining two things that are good doesn’t make something better, and trying to fix one problem creates 10 more.

Bashev

Most of the time you need a third team to balance the match.
With 2 teams only the PUG complain will be even stronger.

Iskiab

yes please, i like being backstabbed by greens while i'm fighting red scum

IF - and a big IF - they create a separate ranked BG queue where people compete for the highest winning percentage 2 teams would be good.

Right now in death matches some specs are weak but score okay purely from kill stealing - magblades and bowtards. Making it two teams would get rid of the kill stealing play style and be a competition between strongest players.

roarr

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Well, lets make a petition: Ask the devs to implement 2 queues:
- 3 teams
- 2 teams
-
- for limited time like a month or 2 and see which are more popular.
- when we have the result we could end This once for all

CatchMeTrolling

Jules wrote: »

CatchMeTrolling wrote: »

Bgs would be a cluster f with 2 teams. And even more team stomping.

It’s games that go the full length with 3 teams . So what do you think is going to happen with just 2 ?

Balanced competitive fights?

vamp_emily wrote: »

If BGs were only 2 teams, then the losing team would never leave the base and let winners sit there till the time ran out.

So just make it automatic forfeit if you stay at base and/or a cooldown that says you can't requeue after pulling some bs like that.

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

I think we should have an area style BG where it's 1v1 and has a scoreboard.

This + just an entire system that allows craftable BG's where we can choose the style/teams/queue together for planned GvG's ect.

Stalemated fights is competitive to you ? Completely dominating a team is competitive to you ?

Sure add the option but let’s not ignore the fact the only time you die at times in matches filled with good players is because of the 3rd team coming in.

montiferus

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Two teams would be ideal. It would be nice to offer a premade vs premade deathmatch. I think it would be a welcome addition to have an environment where small scale players could test themselves against like minded groups.

That said ZOS doesn't seem to want competition in this game. None of their actions have reflected this mindset.

ecru

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Iskiab wrote: »

Cries wrote: »

There is a battlegrounds section in the forums and this post has been created multiple times, ZOS doesn't care/want competitive PvP in this game.

Or maybe devs are devs because of experience from multiple MMOs. Sometimes people think things are a good idea from lack of experience.

When I was a kid I tried orange juice in my cereal when we ran out of milk. I like cereal and I like orange juice, what can go wrong? It was a disaster. Sometimes combining two things that are good doesn’t make something better, and trying to fix one problem creates 10 more.

I can assure you that the developers on the ESO team do not have some profound knowledge or experience of instanced MMO pvp that allowed them to transcend a traditional two team matchup and implement a third one for the sake of fun or balance. It's chaotic, mostly unfun, and almost always feels very unfair due to the fact that the vast, vast majority of encounters in battlegrounds are either you outnumbering your opponents, or your opponents outnumbering you, often with the ratio being at least 2:1.

Who enjoys this? Who actually likes every fight being unfair in one way or another, every potential fair fight being interrupted by a third team? And if you do actually seek out a fair fight, which might be 4v4 against one team, your team is punished for it. You're punished by losing points on objectives, or if it's deathmatch you're punished for being the first to engage the other team, leaving your back open to get jumped by the third team. That kind of chaos belongs in Cyrodiil, not casual instanced matches. The best way to win a BG is to play as cowardly as possible, constantly taking advantage of the potential numbers advantage you might have by doing objectives while the other teams are fighting, which is boring as hell, or engaging only when the other two teams are fighting, stealing kills and cleaning up, which isn't enjoyable at all.

Matchmaking is the solution to people suggesting a traditional two team system would be "unfair" and lead to stalemates. What you suggest will happen (one team camping the other's spawn) does not happen in other games because they match players up properly, so there is no reason to believe it would happen in ESO. There are other ways around this besides matchmaking too, with solutions as simple as multiple exit points from a spawn location, allowing you to circumvent a team camping your spawn.

People need to realize that ESO is not special. There is nothing unique about pvp in ESO that lends itself to three teams being "better" for balance. The three team system is a total failure if the goal was to provide an enjoyable instanced pvp experience. I can't think of a time where anyone has asked for a third team in instanced pvp, but we have had a lot of threads since BGs have been released asking for two teams. Hopefully ZOS will realize their mistake soon and implement a more traditional two team system that works well in every other game.

Iskiab

yes please, i like being backstabbed by greens while i'm fighting red scum

Actually there’s been lots of requests for 3 faction/team pvp. One of people biggest complaints about Warhammer was it was only two factions vs 3 factions like DaoC.

There’s a reason every pvp mmo game since warhammer has been 3 factions, it’s better. 2 factions doesn’t work.

Translating that to BGs it’s the same concept. If you think no one will die without a third team in pvp you’re mistaken. If one team is weaker so both of the other teams double team the weakest team that’s on the players. It’s not an effective strategy anyways, it’s just the second place team knows they aren’t as good as the first place team so doesn’t want to fight them.

Being too defensive in pvp is also poor strategy. The more aggressive team typically wins. I’m not getting that part of your argument.

MaxJrFTW

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Iskiab wrote: »

Actually there’s been lots of requests for 3 faction/team pvp. One of people biggest complaints about Warhammer was it was only two factions vs 3 factions like DaoC.

There’s a reason every pvp mmo game since warhammer has been 3 factions, it’s better. 2 factions doesn’t work.

Translating that to BGs it’s the same concept. If you think no one will die without a third team in pvp you’re mistaken. If one team is weaker so both of the other teams double team the weakest team that’s on the players. It’s not an effective strategy anyways, it’s just the second place team knows they aren’t as good as the first place team so doesn’t want to fight them.

Being too defensive in pvp is also poor strategy. The more aggressive team typically wins. I’m not getting that part of your argument.

You've never played a high mmr bg in your life, have you?

ecru

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Iskiab wrote: »

Actually there’s been lots of requests for 3 faction/team pvp. One of people biggest complaints about Warhammer was it was only two factions vs 3 factions like DaoC.

There’s a reason every pvp mmo game since warhammer has been 3 factions, it’s better. 2 factions doesn’t work.

Translating that to BGs it’s the same concept. If you think no one will die without a third team in pvp you’re mistaken. If one team is weaker so both of the other teams double team the weakest team that’s on the players. It’s not an effective strategy anyways, it’s just the second place team knows they aren’t as good as the first place team so doesn’t want to fight them.

Being too defensive in pvp is also poor strategy. The more aggressive team typically wins. I’m not getting that part of your argument.

You're talking about open world, non-instanced pvp with a variable amount of players. We're talking about instanced pvp, with a fixed amount of players. These are two completely different things. I played DAoC. I had a RR11 Berserker. Three factions worked fine there, Cyrodiil works fine with three factions, but in instanced matches it does not for reasons I already listed above. I have never, ever seen anyone, anywhere, ask for a third team in games with instanced small-scale matches. I played Rift for years and there was never a suggestion or mention of a possible third team. ESO is not special and there is nothing unique about ESO that lends itself to three teams. Just like literally every other game in existence with instanced matches, ESO would be better with two teams.

wheem_ESO

meh, gimmie 2 teams

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Actually there’s been lots of requests for 3 faction/team pvp. One of people biggest complaints about Warhammer was it was only two factions vs 3 factions like DaoC.

There’s a reason every pvp mmo game since warhammer has been 3 factions, it’s better. 2 factions doesn’t work.

Translating that to BGs it’s the same concept. If you think no one will die without a third team in pvp you’re mistaken. If one team is weaker so both of the other teams double team the weakest team that’s on the players. It’s not an effective strategy anyways, it’s just the second place team knows they aren’t as good as the first place team so doesn’t want to fight them.

Being too defensive in pvp is also poor strategy. The more aggressive team typically wins. I’m not getting that part of your argument.

You've never played a high mmr bg in your life, have you?

Preach.

As I suggested in a thread over on the BG Forum, people need to watch the match that starts around 5:36:00 in this video on Thogard's Twitch channel. That's what happens when there are 3 teams that know how to play 4v4v4 Deathmatch "properly" - and it's really boring. You don't aggressively charge in and engage in combat unless someone makes a mistake, because doing so just gives Team #3 the best chance at racking up points. It mostly becomes a game of Ring Around the Roses, where you try to get kills through Silver Leashing, environmental damage (at least 4 of the total 16 deaths during that game were caused directly or indirectly by lava), or capitalizing on someone making a mistake.

The first time or two that I played some 4v4v4 organized games with 3x premade teams it was pretty fun, but now - barring some kind of house rules, or keeping everyone in one discord channel and being casual and chaotic - it's really not an enjoyable way to play the game. Once everyone settled into the "proper" way to win those games, it sucked all the fun out of it. That style of gameplay would not exist with 2 teams, since there's no one else to swarm in and ult dump everyone to steal most/all the kills.

Iskiab

yes please, i like being backstabbed by greens while i'm fighting red scum

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

You've never played a high mmr bg in your life, have you?

Yup, I’m pretty sure I have. It’s impossible to tell because your MMR rank isn’t public, but I’m fairly certain it’s high.

Being aggressive and knowing when to be aggressive is what separates good pvpers from the best. That’s how some pvp guilds dominate and some never reach that level.

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

I have never, ever seen anyone, anywhere, ask for a third team in games with instanced small-scale matches. I played Rift for years and there was never a suggestion or mention of a possible third team

I played DaoC and Rift too. The pvp guilds left Rift within a year and a bit after release. The BGs were okay there but they also had larger maps and more players.

I remember lots of spawn camping, with the goal of BGs to see if you could shut out the other team. At least that doesn’t happen in ESO.

ecru

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Iskiab wrote: »

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

You've never played a high mmr bg in your life, have you?

Yup, I’m pretty sure I have. It’s impossible to tell because your MMR rank isn’t public, but I’m fairly certain it’s high.

Being aggressive and knowing when to be aggressive is what separates good pvpers from the best. That’s how some pvp guilds dominate and some never reach that level.

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

I have never, ever seen anyone, anywhere, ask for a third team in games with instanced small-scale matches. I played Rift for years and there was never a suggestion or mention of a possible third team

I played DaoC and Rift too. The pvp guilds left Rift within a year and a bit after release. The BGs were okay there but they also had larger maps and more players.

I remember lots of spawn camping, with the goal of BGs to see if you could shut out the other team. At least that doesn’t happen in ESO.

It does happen sometimes in ESO, and the matchmaking in Rift was good enough to make sure it didn't happen very often. I'm not entirely sure you played Rift very much if you didn't mention their ELO system, which worked well enough to keep the vast majority of players around a 50% win rate. You can suggest people got camped at their spawn all you want, but the success of their matchmaking system at keeping people at a mostly even win/loss rate speaks for itself. I'm not sure what you mean about the "Goal of BGs to see if you could shut out the other team". All maps had multiple exit points from the spawn, and all maps were objective based with no deathmatch mode at all.

Instanced PVP in Rift was worlds ahead of what we have in ESO right now. It was good enough that a large portion of the playerbase stuck around only for that part of the game, even if there were only ever a handful of maps. Guess how many teams they had? Believe it or not, only two, just like instanced pvp in every other game.

I'm still kind of confused as to why people are insisting that three teams is better. It obviously isn't working well in ESO, and clearly has never been implemented in other games for reasons that should be obvious by now, so what's the real draw for people who like it? Do you enjoy most fights you win or lose being unfair? Do you like every fair fight being interrupted by a third team? What's interesting about that? It should be pretty obvious why most players don't like it--most players prefer fair fights, or fights that feel fair. Winning a fair fight feels like an accomplishment, and losing one often means you just got outplayed, not just outnumbered. 4v4v4 BGs never seem fair, and winning never feels like an accomplishment, because to win you have to fight as unfair as you possibly can. Is that what people like about it?

frostz417

meh, gimmie 2 teams

Here’s an idea. How about custom Bg lobbies. You can just get a bunch of buds together or enemies if you’re into that and just have a 4v4 or 4v4v4 or 8v8 etc

montiferus

meh, gimmie 2 teams

ecru wrote: »

It should be pretty obvious why most players don't like it--most players prefer fair fights, or fights that feel fair. Winning a fair fight feels like an accomplishment, and losing one often means you just got outplayed, not just outnumbered. 4v4v4 BGs never seem fair, and winning never feels like an accomplishment, because to win you have to fight as unfair as you possibly can. Is that what people like about it?

Agree 100%. It is baffling to me. I think perhaps maybe they like the option of having an excuse after a loss?

I've tried BGs lately with a the group I used to run open world with and it felt completely unsatisfying. We won every match and frankly it wasn't particularly hard.

If there was at least an option to go up against another premade in a 4v4 deathmatch then I could see that as a more exciting alternative.

It will never happen tough. ZOS consistently misses the mark on their PVP content.

For now its open world small scale or bust for me.

ecru

meh, gimmie 2 teams

montiferus wrote: »

ecru wrote: »

It should be pretty obvious why most players don't like it--most players prefer fair fights, or fights that feel fair. Winning a fair fight feels like an accomplishment, and losing one often means you just got outplayed, not just outnumbered. 4v4v4 BGs never seem fair, and winning never feels like an accomplishment, because to win you have to fight as unfair as you possibly can. Is that what people like about it?

Agree 100%. It is baffling to me. I think perhaps maybe they like the option of having an excuse after a loss?

I've tried BGs lately with a the group I used to run open world with and it felt completely unsatisfying. We won every match and frankly it wasn't particularly hard.

If there was at least an option to go up against another premade in a 4v4 deathmatch then I could see that as a more exciting alternative.

It will never happen tough. ZOS consistently misses the mark on their PVP content.

For now its open world small scale or bust for me.

Yeah, I'd personally like to see a 4v4 premade only queue for more competitive matches, and an 8v8 queue for everyone else that still allows a 4 person premade, but would weight the combined MMR of the premade slightly higher than their total combined MMR, meaning they would get worse teammates. This worked really well in Rift--if you queued with a high ELO premade, you would get potatoes on your team, and good players on the other team, or another premade. Either way, there was never a premade consisting of a full team that was allowed to pug stomp, and the matches were pretty well balanced. ESO could benefit from both of these systems IMO.