Upcoming Changes to Battleground Queues

Giraffon

Do the people making the decisions even play BGs? Do they have the slightest idea how people are playing these things?

There is no incentive for a skilled player to do anything but maximize their kill count. In a DM they are helping their team, but now if those players are in an objective match they are going to hurt their team. They won't care. There is no difference for them because they are not there for the 100K XP from that random battleground. Nope, they are there to get AP and XP from kills.

How can devs not understand this will be less fun for everyone?

ZiggyTStardust

So we are back to square one. How disappointing

SirAxen

Every type of PVP that exists is available in this game.

jaws343

Giraffon wrote: »

Do the people making the decisions even play BGs? Do they have the slightest idea how people are playing these things?

There is no incentive for a skilled player to do anything but maximize their kill count. In a DM they are helping their team, but now if those players are in an objective match they are going to hurt their team. They won't care. There is no difference for them because they are not there for the 100K XP from that random battleground. Nope, they are there to get AP and XP from kills.

How can devs not understand this will be less fun for everyone?

I'm not a fan of objective modes in the least, but you cannot get AP or XP from kills in BGs. You only get XP by finishing 1st or 2nd, and you only get 100K the first time you do that per character. And you only get AP awarded by a set amount depending on the rank you finish.

So even if a team were only farming kills (leaving teams to be able to avoid them and PVE towards a win, which in itself is ridiculous), they would barely be earning enough AP or XP for it to be a reward if all they are doing is getting third place.

Casul

As much as I want objective back you should have just given the options and split the community. But guess it doesn't really matter since I stopped playing anyways.

Rex-Umbra

Good choice. Lot's of players don't enjoy deathmatch.

DreadKnight

choice? play how we want to play? lol, this is not choice.

StarOfElyon

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

First off, thanks to everyone for participating in all the Battlegrounds queue tests over the past few months, including the most recent addition of Deathmatch-only queues over winter break. We were able to gather a lot of data from these tests regarding Battlegrounds participation and ultimately found it did not significantly affect the participation and population, and also took into account the feedback received about the majority of Battleground games being Deathmatch. We did see the suggestions for adding additional queue options and considered those as well, but doing so would splinter the Battlegrounds population too much and would lead to much longer queue times; we want to ensure the healthiest population and player experience. As such, we are making the call to remove the Deathmatch-only queue option.

Starting in Update 33, the default option for Battleground queues will be “Solo Random” and the dropdown selection will have “Group Random”. Remember, the group queue will take solo, duo, trio and full groups of players, but the solo queue will only include players that queued solo. All games modes will be in both of these queues.

This will be the last change we make to Battleground queues for the foreseeable future. Thanks again for partaking in these tests and aiding us in gathering very valuable feedback.

That's a big NOPE for me. I only want deathmatch. I will either not play or I will ignore every objective. I'm there to fight players, not chase flags and relics. Those games reward you for not PvPing.

CameraBeardThePirate

Seriously why cant they just remove DM from the Objective queue completely? Some communication would be nice, as this solution would make literally everyone happy. I honestly don't see why this is hard, so is there some reason Zos isn't telling us? Just give players the choice I really don't get how the queue system even became an issue in the first place.

Decimus

Giraffon wrote: »

Do the people making the decisions even play BGs? Do they have the slightest idea how people are playing these things?

There is no incentive for a skilled player to do anything but maximize their kill count. In a DM they are helping their team, but now if those players are in an objective match they are going to hurt their team. They won't care. There is no difference for them because they are not there for the 100K XP from that random battleground. Nope, they are there to get AP and XP from kills.

How can devs not understand this will be less fun for everyone?

I don't care about XP or AP, I just do BGs to play PvP.


This change is going to make things a lot worse once again, as bots people will start ignoring fights and just run from flag to flag and us PvPers have to hope for the deathmatch in order to have a good experience.


In order for ESO's BGs to be fun in objective modes as well, they'd have to be revamped entirely.

Get rid of the 3rd party concept and turn them into team vs team, almost everyone I've ever talked to has preferred this model in other MMOs. This encourages people to actually focus on tactics and PvP (defending flags, attacking them etc - not letting two teams do that and running to empty ones).

Respawn timers need a lot of tuning as well, I've seen people stop doing anything to die quick in flag games and then run to a nearby flag from respawn.


Overall we need more PvP content instead of having content taken away from us, as well as better rewards for PvP, visible performance based MMR structure/rankings to climb etc.

If ZOS is worried about queue times, try breaking the BGs into team vs team instead of 3-way - I'm sure most players would appreciate that format.

Bashev

Decimus wrote: »

Giraffon wrote: »

Do the people making the decisions even play BGs? Do they have the slightest idea how people are playing these things?

There is no incentive for a skilled player to do anything but maximize their kill count. In a DM they are helping their team, but now if those players are in an objective match they are going to hurt their team. They won't care. There is no difference for them because they are not there for the 100K XP from that random battleground. Nope, they are there to get AP and XP from kills.

How can devs not understand this will be less fun for everyone?

I don't care about XP or AP, I just do BGs to play PvP.


This change is going to make things a lot worse once again, as bots people will start ignoring fights and just run from flag to flag and us PvPers have to hope for the deathmatch in order to have a good experience.


In order for ESO's BGs to be fun in objective modes as well, they'd have to be revamped entirely.

Get rid of the 3rd party concept and turn them into team vs team, almost everyone I've ever talked to has preferred this model in other MMOs. This encourages people to actually focus on tactics and PvP (defending flags, attacking them etc - not letting two teams do that and running to empty ones).

Respawn timers need a lot of tuning as well, I've seen people stop doing anything to die quick in flag games and then run to a nearby flag from respawn.


Overall we need more PvP content instead of having content taken away from us, as well as better rewards for PvP, visible performance based MMR structure/rankings to climb etc.

If ZOS is worried about queue times, try breaking the BGs into team vs team instead of 3-way - I'm sure most players would appreciate that format.

Yep that is the issue with the 3 teams objectives mode. They are not fun for PvPer as they encourage you not to fight. What is the point of a PvP mode where tthe best tactic to win is to avoid PvP?

Parasaurolophus

To be honest, I no longer remember why these changes began. Yes, it was wrong when premade fought random players. But did that really require removing the mode selection?
Listen and understand me please, I do not want to offend anyone in any way, but DM is the same sick mode as other modes:
1) The strongest team stands out quickly enough and then the whole match turns into a hunt for the weakest players.
2) Balance. If you're not stamden or manasorc, don't even try to win.
However, I totally agree that object modes are overly encouraging to avoid combat. Therefore, I believe that there is absolutely no point in working with queues. All modes are too bad, it's true. Otherwise it would not have been such a problem. All modes need to be reworked. The best balance must be struck between combat and avoidance. I would suggest:
1) DM. Earning fewer points for killing players of the weakest team.
2) Relics. The relic appears in a random location near the center. The player must carry the relic from the center to the base.
3) Reduce the number of flags.
Chaosball is awesome! All players who love DM have nothing against this mode.
But these are all drastic measures. PVP is in bad shape right now and I don't believe there will be any rework in the future.

the1andonlyskwex

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Seriously why cant they just remove DM from the Objective queue completely? Some communication would be nice, as this solution would make literally everyone happy. I honestly don't see why this is hard, so is there some reason Zos isn't telling us? Just give players the choice I really don't get how the queue system even became an issue in the first place.

My guess is that the problem is the group queue. The number of premade groups queueing for objective modes is probably vanishingly small. I suspect the group queue is driving a lot of these weird changes, based on how casual (and solo-oriented) the ESO player base is overall.

Bashev wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Giraffon wrote: »

Do the people making the decisions even play BGs? Do they have the slightest idea how people are playing these things?

There is no incentive for a skilled player to do anything but maximize their kill count. In a DM they are helping their team, but now if those players are in an objective match they are going to hurt their team. They won't care. There is no difference for them because they are not there for the 100K XP from that random battleground. Nope, they are there to get AP and XP from kills.

How can devs not understand this will be less fun for everyone?

I don't care about XP or AP, I just do BGs to play PvP.


This change is going to make things a lot worse once again, as bots people will start ignoring fights and just run from flag to flag and us PvPers have to hope for the deathmatch in order to have a good experience.


In order for ESO's BGs to be fun in objective modes as well, they'd have to be revamped entirely.

Get rid of the 3rd party concept and turn them into team vs team, almost everyone I've ever talked to has preferred this model in other MMOs. This encourages people to actually focus on tactics and PvP (defending flags, attacking them etc - not letting two teams do that and running to empty ones).

Respawn timers need a lot of tuning as well, I've seen people stop doing anything to die quick in flag games and then run to a nearby flag from respawn.


Overall we need more PvP content instead of having content taken away from us, as well as better rewards for PvP, visible performance based MMR structure/rankings to climb etc.

If ZOS is worried about queue times, try breaking the BGs into team vs team instead of 3-way - I'm sure most players would appreciate that format.

Yep that is the issue with the 3 teams objectives mode. They are not fun for PvPer as they encourage you not to fight. What is the point of a PvP mode where tthe best tactic to win is to avoid PvP?

Avoiding combat only works when a bunch of people decide they'd rather PvP in the center of the map or spawn camp instead of playing objectives. If everyone is actually playing objectives, you have to fight other people to capture/hold enough to win.

mandricus

Why can't you listen to your playerbase at least once, at least for a simple test? It's all we are asking, a test! You ran every kind of test in the past 5 years and we were part of it, now the BG player base is asking for one simple thing: just pull Deathmatch off the random queue. As simple as that, everyone well be happy!

Solo Deathmatch Queue
Solo Random Queue (no Deathmatch)


Is that hard? Can we enjoy one or two months of longer queue times and see what happens? What you could lose, in the end?

But no, you guys always know what's better, because we, the people that play this game since beta, we don't know the game we are playing, even after so many years. You know what's best, so back to where we started, DMers will quit again BG or will start again playing objective games as Deathmatches ruining the experience for everyone else

Why? WHY?

Oakiyo

Well, this is a very good compromise since nobody will be happy with this :

• No fun for player that want to actually pvp
• No fun for people that want to play objective since the first category (which I'm part of) will play death match in it anyway.

As always, I'm fascinated by how good ZOS is to give the community the middle finger.

@ZOS_GinaBruno I'm sorry, you're only the speaker, but I'm sick of you guys ...

SkaraMinoc

The data-driven approach to game design failed here.

auz

Lol. Gg zos. Months of tests and data to go back to what it was before. Genius. Big brain devs got it sorted. Nothing to see here.

auz

I am trying to remain positive. Maybe this means there will be new instance based combat competition coming in the new chapter. 🤣🤣🤣

SkaraMinoc

auz wrote: »

Maybe this means there will be new instance based combat competition coming in the new chapter. 🤣🤣🤣

Lol funny guy.

Arunei

So...ZOS was willing to do a DM-only test, but aren't willing to try an Objective-only test? They aren't willing to try splitting the queue and see if it makes queue times as long as they fear? They'd said before that when BGs were DM-only the BG population dropped to unhealthily low numbers. Wouldn't that mean that perhaps most people doing BGs actually do prefer Objective? Wouldn't it be worth it to test?

This just feels like such a copout, and I don't even play BGs. It's like ZOS got tired of testing and decided "eff it we're done lel". Like...this is so half-arsed man. If you're going to do testing at least so the next two logical tests too and get an actual array of data.

Also, a question for people who just want to DM: why not just go into Cyrodiil if you want fights? Dragging down your teammates in Objection BGs seems incredibly selfish.

Decimus

Arunei wrote: »

So...ZOS was willing to do a DM-only test, but aren't willing to try an Objective-only test? They aren't willing to try splitting the queue and see if it makes queue times as long as they fear? They'd said before that when BGs were DM-only the BG population dropped to unhealthily low numbers. Wouldn't that mean that perhaps most people doing BGs actually do prefer Objective? Wouldn't it be worth it to test?

This just feels like such a copout, and I don't even play BGs. It's like ZOS got tired of testing and decided "eff it we're done lel". Like...this is so half-arsed man. If you're going to do testing at least so the next two logical tests too and get an actual array of data.

Also, a question for people who just want to DM: why not just go into Cyrodiil if you want fights? Dragging down your teammates in Objection BGs seems incredibly selfish.

I don't know if you've been to Cyrodiil in the past 7 years, but the word on the street is that it's pretty damn laggy 20/24 hours...

Also, some people prefer a balanced, fast-paced team vs team fight over getting 20v1'd by a ball group and/or riding 30 minutes to find some poor quester to fight.

MipMip

Very, very disappointed.

The game offers different modes, which is nice, but it should be possible to queue for either DM (solo or group) or objectives (solo or group), otherwise what's the point - if instead of players being able to enjoy the modes they like everyone is forced to (in part) play modes they do not find interesting?

Dagoth_Rac

Arunei wrote: »

Also, a question for people who just want to DM: why not just go into Cyrodiil if you want fights? Dragging down your teammates in Objection BGs seems incredibly selfish.

I actually prefer Objective modes, but I know a lot of people who treat every game as deathmatch no matter what because BG are generally the quickest way to get PvP fights and remain in PvP fights. Cyrodiil is huge, fights can take a while to reach, the fight is often over or extremely unbalanced by time you get there, if you die it can take a while to get back to fight, etc., etc.

A bit off-topic, but maybe not really: Imperial City respawn. You used to always be able to respawn in district where you died. Now you can only respawn in a district if your faction controls flag. The old way led to lots of non-stop action, where you would die, respawn, and jump right back down into fight. This bothered a lot of people because it made the fights feel kind of useless. Just fighting for the sake of fighting with no goal or finish line. But some people like fighting just for the sake of fighting.

So it would probably be nice if ZOS found some way to consistently satisfy the fighting-just-for-the-sake-of-fighting people. It is a style of play that really only works when everybody involved is on board with it. Trying to find a middle ground just makes all players come away annoyed or disappointed.

Tarkasion

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I know so many people that don't do Battlegrounds just because they hate deathmatchs or hate that other players treat each game as such. Why not try and propose separate queues for deathmatch and objectives ?

Example with 3 queues :

1 - Group random <-- (default queue and for those who want to play in group)
2 - Solo Deathmatch <-- (for those who want deathmatch over being able to play in group)
3 - Solo Objectives <-- (for those who want anything but deathmatch)

Why not give it a try ? What's a few more months of testing ?

Thanks for reading.

FangOfTheTwoMoons

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

First off, thanks to everyone for participating in all the Battlegrounds queue tests over the past few months, including the most recent addition of Deathmatch-only queues over winter break. We were able to gather a lot of data from these tests regarding Battlegrounds participation and ultimately found it did not significantly affect the participation and population, and also took into account the feedback received about the majority of Battleground games being Deathmatch. We did see the suggestions for adding additional queue options and considered those as well, but doing so would splinter the Battlegrounds population too much and would lead to much longer queue times; we want to ensure the healthiest population and player experience. As such, we are making the call to remove the Deathmatch-only queue option.

Starting in Update 33, the default option for Battleground queues will be “Solo Random” and the dropdown selection will have “Group Random”. Remember, the group queue will take solo, duo, trio and full groups of players, but the solo queue will only include players that queued solo. All games modes will be in both of these queues.

This will be the last change we make to Battleground queues for the foreseeable future. Thanks again for partaking in these tests and aiding us in gathering very valuable feedback.

Didn't even make a dedicated post for this. This shows how much they care about PVP.

Other MMO Devs: Oh you guys don't like this change? We're sorry lets try to work this out.
ZOS: Too bad, just deal with it.

This is 100% the WRONG move.

MAKE SEPERATE QUEUES! This isn't a new concept for you guys! Who cares if the population will be split, all you're doing is getting the player base upset with these changes, when in reality you can keep everyone happy with dedicated queues. Let the people who want their objective playlist sit in a long queue, who cares. The deathmatch queue will be populated like its always been. It boggles my mind how we have more players than ever, but separate queues won't work like they did almost FIVE YEARS AGO! Look at all the feedback we provide, and all we get is a slap in the face for it. You're trying to please everyone but in reality the exact opposite is happening.

Make your players happy. All you're doing with this is ruining an already lack luster experience. Objective based BG's have been discussed in length on many occasions, crazy king and chaos ball are the only ones that are even remotely close to being actually PvP, and even then they're just gonna be ignored and people will be playing deathmatch no matter what game type they get. I know I'll personally be treating every BG as deathmatch for the foreseeable future if this is implemented.

Pain In The Axe wrote: »

In order to Increase the population and participation of Battlegrounds we are going to need to overhaul it and add consistent New Content(Such as new maps/game modes) as well as incentivizing the new content with a whole new reward system that can be either purely cosmetic or offer a great potential for financial gain. A new skill line added as a reward that increases as you win battlegrounds would be another good method. Bottom line Battlegrounds need more content for it to be worth it for people start playing again.

This is a fantastic idea. It's a fact that when given an incentive, people will play PvP. Look at MYM for instance. Make me want to play objective BGs, and no the style pages aren't enough. Put something in in there for people to collect, hell, put material upgrades or a new AP vendor that's similar to the tel-var merchants. REWARD player's time! It's ridiculous that this is even a discussion. It should have been done ages ago.

Kusto

Tarkasion wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I know so many people that don't do Battlegrounds just because they hate deathmatchs or hate that other players treat each game as such. Why not try and propose separate queues for deathmatch and objectives ?

Example with 3 queues :

1 - Group random <-- (default queue and for those who want to play in group)
2 - Solo Deathmatch <-- (for those who want deathmatch over being able to play in group)
3 - Solo Objectives <-- (for those who want anything but deathmatch)

Why not give it a try ? What's a few more months of testing ?

Thanks for reading.

Group queue shouldn't be the default. We already had that and most people don't even know the drop down menu exists. They just hit queue button and got farmed by premades. Also having too many queues will only make them longer.
The planned change is good. Ty Zos.

caindele

I just hope that the BG Queue would default to Group Random Battleground. I think it would improve which BGs that you get because people probably don't even notice that it is Group DM Only by default. Then we would get more variety. It seems like such a simple change to the code to just see if it fixes the variety of the BGs we are getting.

Tarkasion

Kusto wrote: »

Tarkasion wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I know so many people that don't do Battlegrounds just because they hate deathmatchs or hate that other players treat each game as such. Why not try and propose separate queues for deathmatch and objectives ?

Example with 3 queues :

1 - Group random <-- (default queue and for those who want to play in group)
2 - Solo Deathmatch <-- (for those who want deathmatch over being able to play in group)
3 - Solo Objectives <-- (for those who want anything but deathmatch)

Why not give it a try ? What's a few more months of testing ?

Thanks for reading.

Group queue shouldn't be the default. We already had that and most people don't even know the drop down menu exists. They just hit queue button and got farmed by premades. Also having too many queues will only make them longer.
The planned change is good. Ty Zos.

If people don't know about the drop down menu, this is an interface problem, not a queuing problem.

It's important that we can have choices and I reckon that my proposition is reasonable in terms of population split.

nightstrike

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

And now you're essentially saying you'll permanently prevent players from choosing the battlegrounds mode they prefer.

This isn't entirely accurate. Every mode is available. You'll get the one you want some percentage of the time.

auz

nightstrike wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

And now you're essentially saying you'll permanently prevent players from choosing the battlegrounds mode they prefer.

This isn't entirely accurate. Every mode is available. You'll get the one you want some percentage of the time.

Yay! That sounds fun. Let's run bgs tonight to have a 1 in 5 chance of getting the mode we want each time.