Why your PvP is dying

Jeremy

I hope the developers will take this post seriously. Because I literally see the same few people over and over and over again when I do Battlegrounds. That's not a good sign and shows just how little of your player population is interested in your player vs player. And the reason for this is because the damage is so over-the-top it is comical.

If you want more players to get involved in your Battlegrounds, especially newer ones, you need to tone down the damage on this game. Because it really is just absurd. Anyone who isn't dressed in full heavy armor and stacking the ____ out of health with max resistance dies in less than a second when they are jumped. And no, that is not an exaggeration. You should worry less about "balance" or making sure players cannot 1vX others and more about making your PvP experience enjoyable. Because in the end, I don't care how "balanced" something is. If it's not fun, people aren't going to do it. You could give everyone a move that one shots the other player and just have them run around killing trying to get the first shot in (which is close to what this game's PvP is becoming anyway). It would be perfectly balanced, sure. But would it be fun? Nah. It's becoming a cesspool of "griefers" who are doing PvP for no other purpose than the joy they get out of killing other human players. There is no interesting combat to speak of, just a slaughter that is only going to appeal to a very tiny minority of your player population.

So if you want to make Battlegrounds more popular, I would tone it down. Because you aren't going to appeal to a broader audience with combat like this.

MurderMostFoul

Jeremy wrote: »

Anyone who isn't dressed in full heavy armor and stacking the ____ out of health with max resistance dies in less than a second when they are jumped.

Dwindling player base aside, just making everyone do less damage would make PvP, especially battlegrounds, a lot less fun.

The above quoted statement you made is just not true. I only play in medium armor or light armor, and survive just fine. The key to survivability battlegrounds is situational awareness and positioning. If you find yourself dying quickly, it mostly because you're getting outnumbered, or getting bursted with zero defenses ready. Both of those problems can be solved by just being more aware of your surroundings, and using mobility and positioning to your advantage. Sure, you can stack armor and health, but if you're getting outnumbered or caught unaware, all they will do is delay the inevitable and your damage output.

It's already possible to build tanky to the point of being very difficult to kill. Reducing everyone's damage would throw the current semblance of balance entirely out the window.

olsborg

Lagg is the killer of pvp...

VaranisArano

olsborg wrote: »

Lagg is the killer of pvp...

Is it that bad in Battlegrounds?

Waffennacht

VaranisArano wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

Lagg is the killer of pvp...

Is it that bad in Battlegrounds?

No, not really. It can be noticeable during prime time occasionally but nothing like OW.

The OP is off base on a few things.

Damage did increase; so did heals
Building defensively is more diverse than just resistance and/or health (sets, vampire, abilities, evasion, etc)
Players do actually prefer more damage. And quite frankly they would prefer blowing each other up with one shots over long engagements (I do not, i prefer long brawls, but definitely in the minority)
The reason he sees the same players over and over is because of the MMR; its more tied into matches played than actual skill so if you and someone else play about the same amount you'll always see them.

divnyi

Waffennacht wrote: »

Players do actually prefer more damage. And quite frankly they would prefer blowing each other up with one shots over long engagements

Any proof on that?

I do agree with you and totally disagree with OP. We had less damage before, it only lead to even worse bruiser meta, when bruiser can kill low HP players and low-HP DD cannot kill bruiser. The fights were RIDICULOUS. 4vs4 could go for 2 minutes without a single death. Still can btw.

Thing is, healing is way overpowered in this game. And especially cross-healing. So if we don't have high damage, nothing will ever die. We can try to talk about reducing the damage if we reduced the healing by a good margin. Not before.

SkaraMinoc

I agree 100% with OP. I've been PvPing for almost 25 years since Ultima Online '97 and ESO has by far the most over-the-top damage I've seen in an MMO ever.

Some players are impossible to 1v1 due to their damage output, even on 50k armor anti pen builds + Major/Minor Protection and lots of self healing/sustain. The only way to compete is to also do insane damage yourself and put the enemy on the defensive and hope they die first. It's not an enjoyable meta.

VaranisArano

divnyi wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Players do actually prefer more damage. And quite frankly they would prefer blowing each other up with one shots over long engagements

Any proof on that?

I do agree with you and totally disagree with OP. We had less damage before, it only lead to even worse bruiser meta, when bruiser can kill low HP players and low-HP DD cannot kill bruiser. The fights were RIDICULOUS. 4vs4 could go for 2 minutes without a single death. Still can btw.

Thing is, healing is way overpowered in this game. And especially cross-healing. So if we don't have high damage, nothing will ever die. We can try to talk about reducing the damage if we reduced the healing by a good margin. Not before.

I don't know about more damage, but ZOS does prefer having a faster time-to-kill in Battlegrounds, as evidenced by their decision to not continue with CP Battlegrounds. There were a lot of complaints about how overly tanky players really made the matches drag on and were unbalanced in a 4v4v4 environment, and ZOS appears to agree with players there.

Canned_Apples

There usually isn't much lag in BGs, but the recent metas have drastically reduced the player base to the point where you have to wait 15-20 minutes for a match and then get paired up against the same people all the time. Even if you take a break.

First the homogenization, then the dot, then the procs, then p2w procs, and soon to be even more procs.
People get tried of the constant changes, especially when they're in the bad direction.

Once people lose faith and leave, it's hard to bring them back.

Pve will get a bump, for about a month, once the expansion drops, but that's about it.

exeeter702

I've been saying this for a very long time and I will repeat it here...

BGs should have never been 3 team 4v4v4 affairs. They should have made well designed 8v8 maps with proper objective to heavily incentivise not stacking like every other mmo with successful BGs has done it. Maps should have been made specifically for certain game types instead of these one size fits all hodgepodge maps.

Then they should have limited premades to 4 man groups when queuing and made their matchmaking algorithm intelligent enough to sort players into teams. A 4 man premade does not carry a 8v8 objective based BG nearly as oppressively as they do in 4v4v4 nonsense. So essentially they would have had...

4+4 v 4+4 < highest possible premade BG
4+2+2 v 4+4
3+1 v 4+2+2
Etc
Etc
Etc

You would have had healthy queues, an environment where less experienced players are still able to contribute, experienced players that can actually meaningfully impact the win condition of a match in the face of premade groups. Add to this a reputation vendor that would have allowed you to purchase various motif styles and mount features etc etc for your faction based on the time and commitment put into doing BGs...

That was the formula, that is what would have kept BGs healthy and appealing. Instead we got this 3 team crap that is quite literally anti competitive, and I dont mean that in the pvp esports way, wheeler very obviously wanted to push 4 man 3 team bgs so that they were random enough to be anti competitive and casual because no one likes to lose and know fully that the onus was on them.

divnyi

exeeter702 wrote: »

A 4 man premade does not carry a 8v8 objective based BG nearly as oppressively as they do in 4v4v4 nonsense.

Good premades can repeatedly wipe both team clean if they aren't premades. What makes you think people won't be able to 4vs8, especially if people split to do objectives?

I agree that 2-side BGs would be good thing, but I'd like 2man or 3man.

Goregrinder

exeeter702 wrote: »

I've been saying this for a very long time and I will repeat it here...

BGs should have never been 3 team 4v4v4 affairs. They should have made well designed 8v8 maps with proper objective to heavily incentivise not stacking like every other mmo with successful BGs has done it. Maps should have been made specifically for certain game types instead of these one size fits all hodgepodge maps.

Then they should have limited premades to 4 man groups when queuing and made their matchmaking algorithm intelligent enough to sort players into teams. A 4 man premade does not carry a 8v8 objective based BG nearly as oppressively as they do in 4v4v4 nonsense. So essentially they would have had...

4+4 v 4+4 < highest possible premade BG
4+2+2 v 4+4
3+1 v 4+2+2
Etc
Etc
Etc

You would have had healthy queues, an environment where less experienced players are still able to contribute, experienced players that can actually meaningfully impact the win condition of a match in the face of premade groups. Add to this a reputation vendor that would have allowed you to purchase various motif styles and mount features etc etc for your faction based on the time and commitment put into doing BGs...

That was the formula, that is what would have kept BGs healthy and appealing. Instead we got this 3 team crap that is quite literally anti competitive, and I dont mean that in the pvp esports way, wheeler very obviously wanted to push 4 man 3 team bgs so that they were random enough to be anti competitive and casual because no one likes to lose and know fully that the onus was on them.

Shouldn't people be rewarded for coordinating together by winning? Isn't that the concept behind any competitive team game...the most coordinated team wins?

exeeter702

divnyi wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

A 4 man premade does not carry a 8v8 objective based BG nearly as oppressively as they do in 4v4v4 nonsense.

Good premades can repeatedly wipe both team clean if they aren't premades. What makes you think people won't be able to 4vs8, especially if people split to do objectives?

I agree that 2-side BGs would be good thing, but I'd like 2man or 3man.

I think that because of years of experience demonstrating the contrary in multiple titles. There are key components you are not considering.

exeeter702

Goregrinder wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

I've been saying this for a very long time and I will repeat it here...

BGs should have never been 3 team 4v4v4 affairs. They should have made well designed 8v8 maps with proper objective to heavily incentivise not stacking like every other mmo with successful BGs has done it. Maps should have been made specifically for certain game types instead of these one size fits all hodgepodge maps.

Then they should have limited premades to 4 man groups when queuing and made their matchmaking algorithm intelligent enough to sort players into teams. A 4 man premade does not carry a 8v8 objective based BG nearly as oppressively as they do in 4v4v4 nonsense. So essentially they would have had...

4+4 v 4+4 < highest possible premade BG
4+2+2 v 4+4
3+1 v 4+2+2
Etc
Etc
Etc

You would have had healthy queues, an environment where less experienced players are still able to contribute, experienced players that can actually meaningfully impact the win condition of a match in the face of premade groups. Add to this a reputation vendor that would have allowed you to purchase various motif styles and mount features etc etc for your faction based on the time and commitment put into doing BGs...

That was the formula, that is what would have kept BGs healthy and appealing. Instead we got this 3 team crap that is quite literally anti competitive, and I dont mean that in the pvp esports way, wheeler very obviously wanted to push 4 man 3 team bgs so that they were random enough to be anti competitive and casual because no one likes to lose and know fully that the onus was on them.

Shouldn't people be rewarded for coordinating together by winning? Isn't that the concept behind any competitive team game...the most coordinated team wins?

Yes?

luen79rwb17_ESO

I've been playing BGs since Morrowind closed beta test and yes, this patch (well technically "last patch" as of today) is the most absurd in terms of survivability.

I've tried from glass cannon to defensive sets, I just die too quickly no matter what and I see many of these players, mostly wardens and DKs, that manage to get from 10% to 100% health in a matter of seconds, while at the same time they're building ultimate and cheese you with a deadly burst combo that it's almost impossible to react to since they all seem to have black hole-level time dilation and make 3 / 4 actions while you're still breaking free of the damn CC... Stamina builds reign supreme and proc sets where the cherry on top.

I'm not confident the proc set nerf will sort things out but we'll have to wait and see.

xDeusEJRx

Jeremy wrote: »

I hope the developers will take this post seriously. Because I literally see the same few people over and over and over again when I do Battlegrounds. That's not a good sign and shows just how little of your player population is interested in your player vs player. And the reason for this is because the damage is so over-the-top it is comical.

If you want more players to get involved in your Battlegrounds, especially newer ones, you need to tone down the damage on this game. Because it really is just absurd. Anyone who isn't dressed in full heavy armor and stacking the ____ out of health with max resistance dies in less than a second when they are jumped. And no, that is not an exaggeration. You should worry less about "balance" or making sure players cannot 1vX others and more about making your PvP experience enjoyable. Because in the end, I don't care how "balanced" something is. If it's not fun, people aren't going to do it. You could give everyone a move that one shots the other player and just have them run around killing trying to get the first shot in (which is close to what this game's PvP is becoming anyway). It would be perfectly balanced, sure. But would it be fun? Nah. It's becoming a cesspool of "griefers" who are doing PvP for no other purpose than the joy they get out of killing other human players. There is no interesting combat to speak of, just a slaughter that is only going to appeal to a very tiny minority of your player population.

So if you want to make Battlegrounds more popular, I would tone it down. Because you aren't going to appeal to a broader audience with combat like this.

Toning damage down won't make it easier for newer people to survive though. It'll honestly probably make it HARDER. The reason being weapon and spell damage both boost healing power as well as actual damage. Gimping damage will result in weaker heals, making one source of survivability less reliable. The other sources of survivability is potions, blocking, ultimates and resistances. Potions are limited by a cooldown and ultimates are limited by a cost. Blocking isn't that reliable because you run through your stamina too easily and will die because you don't have stamina to escape situations where you can be oneshotted. All that leads to is building resistance, while this is more reliable to survivability, it's not healthy for PVP because people will just become wannabe tanks. The only real fix would be to create a new way of scaling healing without relying on damage. I'm not against that, but original post did not suggest a fix, they only suggest gimping damage, which they don't realize will make survivability harder in the process(because healing will be less reliable)

Draevik

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Anyone who isn't dressed in full heavy armor and stacking the ____ out of health with max resistance dies in less than a second when they are jumped.

Dwindling player base aside, just making everyone do less damage would make PvP, especially battlegrounds, a lot less fun.

The above quoted statement you made is just not true. I only play in medium armor or light armor, and survive just fine. The key to survivability battlegrounds is situational awareness and positioning. If you find yourself dying quickly, it mostly because you're getting outnumbered, or getting bursted with zero defenses ready. Both of those problems can be solved by just being more aware of your surroundings, and using mobility and positioning to your advantage. Sure, you can stack armor and health, but if you're getting outnumbered or caught unaware, all they will do is delay the inevitable and your damage output.

It's already possible to build tanky to the point of being very difficult to kill. Reducing everyone's damage would throw the current semblance of balance entirely out the window.

I do not agree at all, I should have recorded my test in BGs, I ran all heavy 35k armor (slightly overcap for pen) and 30k HP. Most people melted through my guy even with buffs up and even tried blocking to mitigate some more damage.

Damage in this game is insanely high, it might as well be a FPS in most scenarios. I remember a few years back fights were way more balanced and strategic, about resource management etc.

MurderMostFoul

Draevik wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Anyone who isn't dressed in full heavy armor and stacking the ____ out of health with max resistance dies in less than a second when they are jumped.

Dwindling player base aside, just making everyone do less damage would make PvP, especially battlegrounds, a lot less fun.

The above quoted statement you made is just not true. I only play in medium armor or light armor, and survive just fine. The key to survivability battlegrounds is situational awareness and positioning. If you find yourself dying quickly, it mostly because you're getting outnumbered, or getting bursted with zero defenses ready. Both of those problems can be solved by just being more aware of your surroundings, and using mobility and positioning to your advantage. Sure, you can stack armor and health, but if you're getting outnumbered or caught unaware, all they will do is delay the inevitable and your damage output.

It's already possible to build tanky to the point of being very difficult to kill. Reducing everyone's damage would throw the current semblance of balance entirely out the window.

I do not agree at all, I should have recorded my test in BGs, I ran all heavy 35k armor (slightly overcap for pen) and 30k HP. Most people melted through my guy even with buffs up and even tried blocking to mitigate some more damage.

Damage in this game is insanely high, it might as well be a FPS in most scenarios. I remember a few years back fights were way more balanced and strategic, about resource management etc.

Again, you can't rely on HP and armor to control incoming damage. Positioning and situational awareness are far more important.

Another way to reduce incoming damage is by doing more damage then your opponent. Forcing them to go on the defensive will prevent them from doing damage to you. And once again, you can't depend on HP and armor to achieve this.

Viewsfrom6ix

It also doesn't help that the PvP population is divided into 3 groups, BG, IC, and Cyro.

Xargas13

Well, PvP in this game is enjoyable, but broken, they don't do balance, in my opinion they making OP sets and abilities on purpose. Sometimes it is possible to fully mitigate damage without shields, which should not be possible I think, I don't want to slam my fists against the wall in hope it will break, I want to do damage, and some players are too tanky, plus with high damage, I would prefer they balance sets and such, then we can talk about making changes to damage etc. But then again won't happen, I am still on a break from PvP, going two or so months already, because I am tired of guessing if I meet OP builds or not...

MurderMostFoul

Xargas13 wrote: »

Well, PvP in this game is enjoyable, but broken, they don't do balance, in my opinion they making OP sets and abilities on purpose. Sometimes it is possible to fully mitigate damage without shields, which should not be possible I think, I don't want to slam my fists against the wall in hope it will break, I want to do damage, and some players are too tanky, plus with high damage, I would prefer they balance sets and such, then we can talk about making changes to damage etc. But then again won't happen, I am still on a break from PvP, going two or so months already, because I am tired of guessing if I meet OP builds or not...

This might not be a very popular opinion, I honestly don't find balance to be that bad in PvP.

Is every skill as good as every other skill? No.
Is every gear set as good as every other gear set? No.
Is every class as good as every other class? No.

But,
Is there a wide variety of skill combinations you can select and still do well? Yes.
Is there a lot of different sets that you can equip and be competitive? Yes?
Can every class, if built and played right, hold its own in PVP? Yes?

And do the above permit a significant variety of different play styles, classes, builds, and gear choices to be present and effective across a variety of PVP experiences? Yes.

In a game like ESO, where there are so many different skills and items in the mix, it's unreasonable to hope that everything is going to be balanced across the board. I think the best you can hope for is just enough balance to permit a fairly large variety of effective options, and we certainly have that.

Jameson18

Jeremy wrote: »

Anyone who isn't dressed in full heavy armor and stacking the ____ out of health with max resistance dies in less than a second when they are jumped.

My 6 med/1hvy bow/bow stamsorc, 5 medium/2hvy stam dk, 4 light, 2 heavy, 1 medium mag dk, etc. etc. all with merciless title and all the other bg achievements would seemingly say otherwise.


It took a bit. There's a learning curve. I had the same outlook at one point as well.

KingKayanto

The real reason why lots of players give up on Battlegrounds PvP is because it's legit difficult.... The difference in skill between an experienced player and a new one is like night and day. It's just not a very fun experience for those who just do the dailies...

MurderMostFoul

KingKayanto wrote: »

The real reason why lots of players give up on Battlegrounds PvP is because it's legit difficult.... The difference in skill between an experienced player and a new one is like night and day. It's just not a very fun experience for those who just do the dailies...

Sadly, I think you might be right. There is definitely a significant stratification of skill levels in BG between those who can dominate an entre match, and the majority of players who often just get run over by the former. It's really just a matter of practice, but it certainly takes time.

The best thing ZOS can do to alleviate this issue is create real incentives to play BGs more regularly. Better rewards/recognition for players consistently doing well in BGs would motivate more to put in the work needed to improve.

Vermintide

Well, frankly I prefer faster combat and I'm glad they don't listen to opinions like OP. Fast, intuitive, action based combat is the reason I'm here, and the reason I haven't really enjoyed the PVP in any other MMO.

The combat in this game flows more like a true fighter, you have to know when to block, dodge, stun, there are windows of opportunity where you can counter and punish, etc... It's great. What lets it down is the lag and some poor attention to class balance/toolkits, but the pace and intensity is the best part about it.

I would agree with the idea there need to be more incentives for BGs and Cyro. Sadly, the problem is that no matter how rewarding they make PVP, some players will only ever see it as rewards they are "locked out" of, instead of seeing a shiny reward for PVP participation and giving it an honest try. They will turn something positive into a negative, because it's "unfair" that they don't get the same thing for running their little raids over and over again.

This is why we cannot have nice things.

BASIClyGOD

Vermintide wrote: »

Well, frankly I prefer faster combat and I'm glad they don't listen to opinions like OP. Fast, intuitive, action based combat is the reason I'm here, and the reason I haven't really enjoyed the PVP in any other MMO.

The combat in this game flows more like a true fighter, you have to know when to block, dodge, stun, there are windows of opportunity where you can counter and punish, etc... It's great. What lets it down is the lag and some poor attention to class balance/toolkits, but the pace and intensity is the best part about it.

I would agree with the idea there need to be more incentives for BGs and Cyro. Sadly, the problem is that no matter how rewarding they make PVP, some players will only ever see it as rewards they are "locked out" of, instead of seeing a shiny reward for PVP participation and giving it an honest try. They will turn something positive into a negative, because it's "unfair" that they don't get the same thing for running their little raids over and over again.

This is why we cannot have nice things.

This. People would rather they continue to lower the skill ceiling so that they can feel good about themselves instead of practicing the mechanics of the game. What did you expect going into pvp? That it would be as easy as fighting an npc in a dungeon or a trial lmao.


TFW when your opponents actually react to what you are doing and fight back rather than standing in your aoe's and taking it like trial bosses.

Goregrinder

exeeter702 wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

I've been saying this for a very long time and I will repeat it here...

BGs should have never been 3 team 4v4v4 affairs. They should have made well designed 8v8 maps with proper objective to heavily incentivise not stacking like every other mmo with successful BGs has done it. Maps should have been made specifically for certain game types instead of these one size fits all hodgepodge maps.

Then they should have limited premades to 4 man groups when queuing and made their matchmaking algorithm intelligent enough to sort players into teams. A 4 man premade does not carry a 8v8 objective based BG nearly as oppressively as they do in 4v4v4 nonsense. So essentially they would have had...

4+4 v 4+4 < highest possible premade BG
4+2+2 v 4+4
3+1 v 4+2+2
Etc
Etc
Etc

You would have had healthy queues, an environment where less experienced players are still able to contribute, experienced players that can actually meaningfully impact the win condition of a match in the face of premade groups. Add to this a reputation vendor that would have allowed you to purchase various motif styles and mount features etc etc for your faction based on the time and commitment put into doing BGs...

That was the formula, that is what would have kept BGs healthy and appealing. Instead we got this 3 team crap that is quite literally anti competitive, and I dont mean that in the pvp esports way, wheeler very obviously wanted to push 4 man 3 team bgs so that they were random enough to be anti competitive and casual because no one likes to lose and know fully that the onus was on them.

Shouldn't people be rewarded for coordinating together by winning? Isn't that the concept behind any competitive team game...the most coordinated team wins?

Yes?

Then I don't know what the issue is here.

MurderMostFoul

I'm sad to say that PVP is feeling a little stale for me. I'm a dedicated battleground player, but it's going to be hard for ESO to keep me from playing other games when I'm forced to play game modes in battlegrounds that I don't even like.

exeeter702

Goregrinder wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

I've been saying this for a very long time and I will repeat it here...

BGs should have never been 3 team 4v4v4 affairs. They should have made well designed 8v8 maps with proper objective to heavily incentivise not stacking like every other mmo with successful BGs has done it. Maps should have been made specifically for certain game types instead of these one size fits all hodgepodge maps.

Then they should have limited premades to 4 man groups when queuing and made their matchmaking algorithm intelligent enough to sort players into teams. A 4 man premade does not carry a 8v8 objective based BG nearly as oppressively as they do in 4v4v4 nonsense. So essentially they would have had...

4+4 v 4+4 < highest possible premade BG
4+2+2 v 4+4
3+1 v 4+2+2
Etc
Etc
Etc

You would have had healthy queues, an environment where less experienced players are still able to contribute, experienced players that can actually meaningfully impact the win condition of a match in the face of premade groups. Add to this a reputation vendor that would have allowed you to purchase various motif styles and mount features etc etc for your faction based on the time and commitment put into doing BGs...

That was the formula, that is what would have kept BGs healthy and appealing. Instead we got this 3 team crap that is quite literally anti competitive, and I dont mean that in the pvp esports way, wheeler very obviously wanted to push 4 man 3 team bgs so that they were random enough to be anti competitive and casual because no one likes to lose and know fully that the onus was on them.

Shouldn't people be rewarded for coordinating together by winning? Isn't that the concept behind any competitive team game...the most coordinated team wins?

Yes?

Then I don't know what the issue is here.

Then you didnt understand the point being made.

Raeyleigh

The absurd damage is just the extension of a fundamental problem with the game and how it is handled.

This game doesnt teach you anything by itself. And because the overland, questing and normal content are so absurdly easy the players also never have to try become better or learn about the game mechanics.
And then when they want to get into veteran pve or pvp? BOOM. A brickwall of skill and setup requirements in their face, and nothing ever prepared them for it.
The actual solution was never to give new players everything for free but to present them with a modicum of challenge, progression and learning curves to prepare them for advanced content.
Unfortunatly Zo$ actually listened to the whining instead of adressing the underlying issue and is trying (mostly in vain) to lower the skill gap since many years now. Raise the floor, lower the ceiling blah blah, we all heard it.

For pvp that meant: less counterplay on many skills/mechanics, gear becoming more important to success relative to individual skill and absurdly increased damage over the years, just so that anyone playing with their feet can have an impact without learning how to actually play the game.
But it doesnt work. Nobody likes to get killed with no feasible counterplay. All they achieved was to start an arms race among the veteran/good players. Many builds you come across barely have the damage to potentially kill each other by themselves nowadays because players are forced to tank up to keep up with the ever increasing damage. But for mashing potatoes that is no problem at all.
That or they dish out absurd oneshots that no new player could hope to deal with.

If a new player entered pvp back in Imperial City patch times the gap to play with the big boys was infinitly smaller than it is today. Today as a new player that walks into pvp you come up against juiced up players that are at the same time both way tankier than you but also deal way more damage than you, and that is aside from the still existing skill and experience gap.

For PvP the actual solution to achieve a satisfactory ttk without endless stalemates or absurd oneshots is to lower the healing instead of inceasing the damage time and time again.
Instead Zo$ should lay more emphasis on mechanical gameplay and counterplay options. Otherwise known as skill.


For BG specificly a combination of getting back deathmatch queue, an actually skill based ranking system and better/more unique and relevant rewards should work well.
When 95% of all sets, titles, skins, scores for bragging rights and other shenanigans you might want come from pve it is no wonder why so much fewer people even attempt to pvp.

Raeyleigh

exeeter702 wrote: »

I've been saying this for a very long time and I will repeat it here...

BGs should have never been 3 team 4v4v4 affairs...

Also this.

High mmr bgs are unfortunatly all about third partying fights when things get competitive.

That is sad.