Battlegrounds: Engagement, MMR, Mode modifications; Other Ideas? Real talk.

McTaterskins

Back to the DM'ing in objective modes bits:

@Magio_

As I mentioned a few hours ago, some friends and I queue'd only random on Xbox NA this weekend as an experiment. We started to see a string of objective modes pop. Obviously we still saw more DM, and at this point with how the queue system is set up, we know that you're only going to get an objective mode from all players involved being in the random queue.

Even queueing with a group of 3 or 4 at times, we rarely saw longer than a 6 minute wait time. This includes getting those objective mode games. So wouldn't you agree that at least on that platform/server there is some interest there?

However, as I also stated earlier, even though it was an objective mode, which requires everyone to have been in the random queue, as I just pointed out, in some of those games we saw people just DMing at a spawn anyway. Even though they quite literally queue'd with/for the possibility of an objective mode.

Thoughts?

trackdemon5512

McTaterskins wrote: »

I do see Track's points. However, I see the other points.

No one is debating the best way to win an objective mode. However, as Track points out, even though people are faux DM'ing in an objective mode, some do in fact get salty or complain at the loss or lack of medals.

This still leads in a circle pointing toward proper engagement for all players in an objective mode.

As @trackdemon5512 points out, the better strategy in many cases is to go to an undefended point. However, the problem seems to be, in regards to the debate, that as many others in favor of consistent combat (or "DM'ing" as some put it) point out, its is avoiding combat.

As Track seems to point out or, in my assumption, elude to in some manner, some folks aren't running BiS builds, higher skilled, etc., so the more productive approach is in fact to head toward that undefended spot.

While I, and I don't think anyone else is arguing otherwise, see that as an obvious good thing for those that aren't geared up and high skilled, it doesn't really land well received on the other side of the fence.

While we've seen much discussion on minor adjustments to game modes, I personally am coming to the conclusion that a better MMR or "Match Making" system would be more helpful than most things at this point.

Am I wrong here? Have I missed any context from anyone? Does anyone not agree with a definite change or refinement to the MMR system being needed?

At every which way this discussion churns, elements of the issue seem to creep in. Even without intending to.

Can I throw this in the thread update notes?

MMR won’t do you any good. The BG population is far too small right now for it to work. The number of currently active players queuing for BGs at any one instance is small enough that the same people, regardless of skill, are going to be grouped up.

You have to have a healthy population for MMR to even matter. The Deathmatchers here advocate for changes that just further shrink the BG population. But they don’t care because they argue it adds more skill and depth to the matches they get into.

Is that really the case or is it that they’ve just gotten all those that don’t absolutely love Deathmatch to quit and what’s left is a distilled purified population of the same old people? If it were the same 12 people always getting grouped together for matches they would be ecstatic because they see this as matches worthy of skill. They neglect the fact that at that point their competitive atmosphere has become one of a small pick up club than that of a proper environment.

McTaterskins

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

MMR won’t do you any good. The BG population is far too small right now for it to work. The number of currently active players queuing for BGs at any one instance is small enough that the same people, regardless of skill, are going to be grouped up.

You have to have a healthy population for MMR to even matter. The Deathmatchers here advocate for changes that just further shrink the BG population. But they don’t care because they argue it adds more skill and depth to the matches they get into.

Is that really the case or is it that they’ve just gotten all those that don’t absolutely love Deathmatch to quit and what’s left is a distilled purified population of the same old people? If it were the same 12 people always getting grouped together for matches they would be ecstatic because they see this as matches worthy of skill. They neglect the fact that at that point their competitive atmosphere has become one of a small pick up club than that of a proper environment.

While I can see the point, I would hesitate to completely agree one way or the other.

I think another possible disconnect here is; Platform.

On Xbox NA, regardless of DM only, Random only prior to that, or the current setup now, I've queue'd solo and with up to a group of 4 and never waited more than a 4-7 minute range on average for a match to pop. Again - this was regardless of modes selected or the queue tests.

During this, I do see some of the same people often. However, I also see different names each match as well.

Would this not be healthy population? Or not healthy enough?

This is just food for thought based on my own experience over these past months.

Edit: Side note - in regard to seeing some folks often, they are typically listed on the leaderboard. Which, not to discount skill at all, also means they play a lot.

Aldoss

McTaterskins wrote: »

This is a good point. - What do you think gets it there?

When people have an issue breaking into the PvE endgame, they go Google a build and are presented with dozens if not hundreds of build posts that meticulously discuss the class, the gear, the food, the cp, the skills, the exact rotation, etc.

They are then presented with guides for literally every PvE encounter with a breakdown of mechanics and strategies to perform the mechanics.

This works for PvE because those encounters are designed to be beaten.

This can never work for PvP.

Players don't intend on being beaten. They will do everything to not be beaten. Players searching for PvP builds will only be presented with a class, gear, food, and skills. None of which makes a bad player suddenly a good player, as much as people wish this were true.

There will never be a guide that walks you through the process of a 1v1 encounter with a magplar, for that specific build. Or a 1v2 encounter against a stamdk plus magplar, or any of the other 1000+ variations you'll be exposed to in any given moment.

There is no guide that any great PvPer can give to a newbie that will instantly solve all their problems.

Everyone wants to believe that PvPers who are must be exploiters, or are withholding on some secret knowledge so that they maintain the advantage, or are otherwise cheating...

That's not real.

What is real is the culmination of a player spending hours and hours dying tens of thousands of time until they started to notice certain things within the chaos of a fight that correspond to success or failure.

99% of the time a player loses a 1v1 because they screwed up by not roll dodging, or blocking, or dropping their buffs, or not predicting when their opponent was going to line up their burst.

New PvPers want to believe that there is some magic that will yield instant results. There isn't.

The answer is literally just practice. You lose nothing of value by engaging someone and dying. By contrast, you lose every opportunity to learn through practice by always avoiding it and never trying.

Sometimes you get tbagged. Sometimes you encounter a jerk. This is true of PvE too. I've been ridiculed more than a few times for dying to mechs that were "obvious" or otherwise "not knowing the fight". I've been booted from trials before for asking if someone could help me by explaining things. I get it. It's frustrating. You move on.

The number one thing I can say to someone wanting to be better at PvP is to literally just ask someone. Don't send hate mail to someone who killed you. Ask them, "what killed me there?"

You might get ignored. You might get the same reply I got once when I asked a dpser what I was failing on and he said, "lol git gud" and never replied again.

Or, you might get someone like me, my wife, or dozens of my other guildies who would actually entertain the conversation and help you identify what went wrong. Hell you might even get a guild invite and you can find yourself lost in the depths of knowledge that are found in our discord channels for build making, theory crafting, or other PvP topics.

The tl;dr will always be: you will never improve if you don't ever try (or in this specific case, only enter PvP modes that reward you for never trying).

auz

I agree a decent mmr would alleviate some of the complaints. And it is unfortunate that the population probably is not large enough to support it.
I disagree introducing a competitive aspect would necessarily decrease the population and i think a competitive mode could actually increase the number of people playing. People like track are only playing for daily rewards now, most people I know do not really care about them or the weekly rewards. If there was a meaningful ranking system it could encourage more people to play. Some people actually enjoy the competition. You only have to look at all the other pvp focused games out there to see that.

McTaterskins wrote: »

Back to the DM'ing in objective modes bits:

@Magio_

As I mentioned a few hours ago, some friends and I queue'd only random on Xbox NA this weekend as an experiment. We started to see a string of objective modes pop. Obviously we still saw more DM, and at this point with how the queue system is set up, we know that you're only going to get an objective mode from all players involved being in the random queue.

Even queueing with a group of 3 or 4 at times, we rarely saw longer than a 6 minute wait time. This includes getting those objective mode games. So wouldn't you agree that at least on that platform/server there is some interest there?

However, as I also stated earlier, even though it was an objective mode, which requires everyone to have been in the random queue, as I just pointed out, in some of those games we saw people just DMing at a spawn anyway. Even though they quite literally queue'd with/for the possibility of an objective mode.

I think there will always be the troll element. Some people will DM in objective modes just for the easy kills. Like the people deleting toons after hitting 50 to start again. Some just want the screen shot saying 50 kills and 0 deaths. And they won't get that in DM where people are fighting back.

trackdemon5512

McTaterskins wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

MMR won’t do you any good. The BG population is far too small right now for it to work. The number of currently active players queuing for BGs at any one instance is small enough that the same people, regardless of skill, are going to be grouped up.

You have to have a healthy population for MMR to even matter. The Deathmatchers here advocate for changes that just further shrink the BG population. But they don’t care because they argue it adds more skill and depth to the matches they get into.

Is that really the case or is it that they’ve just gotten all those that don’t absolutely love Deathmatch to quit and what’s left is a distilled purified population of the same old people? If it were the same 12 people always getting grouped together for matches they would be ecstatic because they see this as matches worthy of skill. They neglect the fact that at that point their competitive atmosphere has become one of a small pick up club than that of a proper environment.

While I can see the point, I would hesitate to completely agree one way or the other.

I think another possible disconnect here is; Platform.

On Xbox NA, regardless of DM only, Random only prior to that, or the current setup now, I've queue'd solo and with up to a group of 4 and never waited more than a 4-7 minute range on average for a match to pop. Again - this was regardless of modes selected or the queue tests.

During this, I do see some of the same people often. However, I also see different names each match as well.

Would this not be healthy population? Or not healthy enough?

This is just food for thought based on my own experience over these past months.

If you’re seeing the same names over and over and waiting that long between matches the population is definitely not healthy.

If the population were healthy you wouldn’t see the same names. If the population were healthy you would have an instant pop.

Dungeon queues have a healthy population. The number of players willing to tank at any one time is currently unhealthy. That’s why when you queue as a tank it’s almost instantly pops. And that’s why “fake tanks” will fill the role.

You’re telling me that the system takes between 4 and 7 minutes to pull together 9 people, and a number of those people are the same individuals you just played with. That means the system is likely pulling people who are queueing up in back to back matches and is waiting for one match to end just so that it can possibly get more to fill the next. MMR won’t do anything to balance things out if the number of active players in BGs at any one time is that low, likely around 24 to 36.

Heck for the 3 weeks now we’ve seen individuals get too leaderboard rewards for playing a single flag game. That’s definitely indicative of a poor population.

Magio_

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Heck for the 3 weeks now we’ve seen individuals get too leaderboard rewards for playing a single flag game. That’s definitely indicative of a poor population.

Indicative of a poor population using the Random Queue, according to Rich Lambert? Yes, exactly. Finally, welcome to the point where everyone has been since the beginning of this thread.

Now how to fix that? Maybe by making objective modes engaging to the average person that queues for PvP on a daily basis for hours on end? Or nah?

You can argue to keep them the way they are, I don't care lol. I'll just use the DM queue and play the mode that is fun for me.

Just don't expect me or the majority of people queueing for BGs to use the dead Random Queue.

trackdemon5512

Magio_ wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Heck for the 3 weeks now we’ve seen individuals get too leaderboard rewards for playing a single flag game. That’s definitely indicative of a poor population.

Indicative of a poor population using the Random Queue, according to Rich Lambert? Yes, exactly. Finally, welcome to the point where everyone has been since the beginning of this thread.

Now how to fix that? Maybe by making objective modes engaging to the average person that queues for PvP on a daily basis for hours on end? Or nah?

You can argue to keep them the way they are, I don't care lol. I'll just use the DM queue and play the mode that is fun for me.

Just don't expect me or the majority of people queueing for BGs to use the dead Random Queue.

Cept that didn’t happen before the queue for just Deathmatch and Deathmatch only test began. Before those tests you had to work for those leaderboards. So idk how anyone can argue more deathmatch oriented changes will improve this when it’s done exactly the opposite.

Magio_

You mean when ZOS was forcing the majority to play game modes they didn't want to play for 85%+ of the time and Every-Match-Is-DM was a problem?

It's ok, separate your queue man. It doesn't affect me, I won't touch it. Once it's dead and won't pop, now what?

McTaterskins

Based on several days now of seeing Objective modes pop in the random queue on Xbox NA, I think they should test separating the queues.

Played a couple hours last night and continued to queue random just to see if the little mix in persists and it did.

@trackdemon5512 - So based on your statement, just to clarify, you think waiting 5min or so +/- a min or two to be unhealthy? I see that you compared it to random dungeon queue. Do you think that is a good comparison being that dungeon queue is looking for 4 people and BG queue is looking for 12?

@Magio_ - based on the persisting pops here and there of objective modes, at least on my platform, I don't think the objective modes are exactly "unpopular". I would definitely say less popular. But they pop within 5 minutes or so as well it seems. Based on your other comments, and other folks comments and skirting around it whether intentionally or not - They should just separate the queues, yeah? This is seemingly also becoming a consensus?

Magio_

McTaterskins wrote: »

Based on several days now of seeing Objective modes pop in the random queue on Xbox NA, I think they should test separating the queues.

Played a couple hours last night and continued to queue random just to see if the little mix in persists and it did.

i always wondered, what if Obj modes were significantly more popular in Xbox, say 90%, but Deathmatch was 90% in PC. Would they give each platform a different queue system? I wonder if part of the problem is ZOS tryna give every platform the same one-size fits all queue.

McTaterskins wrote: »

trackdemon5512 - So based on your statement, just to clarify, you think waiting 5min or so +/- a min or two to be unhealthy? I see that you compared it to random dungeon queue. Do you think that is a good comparison being that dungeon queue is looking for 4 people and BG queue is looking for 12?

Let's assume Rich Lambert was talking in hyperbole when he said "Separate obj queue would never pop". If a 5 minute queue is unhealthy, how long do you believe the queue times for separate obj modes would have to be for him to say that? Would you consider 20 minute queues unhealthy? 30? 40? 50? At what point would you say, "ZOS is right, we can't afford our own queue."?

McTaterskins wrote: »

Magio_ - based on the persisting pops here and there of objective modes, at least on my platform, I don't think the objective modes are exactly "unpopular". I would definitely say less popular. But they pop within 5 minutes or so as well it seems. Based on your other comments, and other folks comments and skirting around it whether intentionally or not - They should just separate the queues, yeah? This is seemingly also becoming a consensus?

Doesn't affect me, idc lol. My opinion doesn't really matter either. I already said somewhere in one of these countless BG Queue threads that Rich Lambert said they would keep monitoring the Queues to see if enough people queue Random, my guess is to see if there's merit in giving Obj modes their own queue. So if what you're saying is true, they'll see it.
Just gonna repeat what has been said. Our preferred playstyle got completely removed for ~2 years and we kept queueing anyway.

trackdemon5512

McTaterskins wrote: »

Based on several days now of seeing Objective modes pop in the random queue on Xbox NA, I think they should test separating the queues.

Played a couple hours last night and continued to queue random just to see if the little mix in persists and it did.

@trackdemon5512 - So based on your statement, just to clarify, you think waiting 5min or so +/- a min or two to be unhealthy? I see that you compared it to random dungeon queue. Do you think that is a good comparison being that dungeon queue is looking for 4 people and BG queue is looking for 12?

@Magio_ - based on the persisting pops here and there of objective modes, at least on my platform, I don't think the objective modes are exactly "unpopular". I would definitely say less popular. But they pop within 5 minutes or so as well it seems. Based on your other comments, and other folks comments and skirting around it whether intentionally or not - They should just separate the queues, yeah? This is seemingly also becoming a consensus?

Yes. 5 mins to pull together just 9 ppl is long. Like I said, dungeons don’t have a problem with getting 4 ppl to fill a queue. This is evident by a tank essentially instant queuing each time they enter the activity finder. Dungeons just have a problem matching a single tank to 3 others.

BGs has no such requirement. You don’t need to be a specific role to get matched up. There are plenty of active players in this game. If BGs were healthy and as open to casual play as dungeons are then you should practically be able to instant pop a queue each time you put in for a random. That’s definitely not happening.

McTaterskins

@Magio_ @trackdemon5512 - fair points.

- Honestly, I think that if they separate the queues and remove DM from the random queue altogether, it would mean certain death. I've been trying to look through and/or follow the other threads when I have time and I get the vibe that people are asking to separate the queues entirely with the total removal of DM from the random queue. Which I think would be silly and totally not random.

If waiting 10+ minutes for a pop on anything then I would assume that's pretty much dead. At least in proportion with the theoretical concurrent player game population.

One thing I've noticed, and its always seemed this way on my platform;

Often times, once a queue hits 5m. Whether grouped or solo. We re-queue. Usually leads to near instant pop. - Again, Xbox NA.

This also seems to hold true for dungeon queues as well. Even when queueing as a tank. - Our best instant pop scenarios are when the GF and I run tank and healer. Pretty much the only time we see instant pops when we hit the queue to get some crystals. - Often times, we see an instant pop that doesn't actually exist. It sits there on the "ready" thing, waiting for the 2 other people to accept and never happens. Times out, then actually makes us wait a few minutes to queue again.

Whilst that seems unrelated - has anyone ever brought up the possibility of bugged queues on some platforms?

trackdemon5512

McTaterskins wrote: »

@Magio_ @trackdemon5512 - fair points.

- Honestly, I think that if they separate the queues and remove DM from the random queue altogether, it would mean certain death. I've been trying to look through and/or follow the other threads when I have time and I get the vibe that people are asking to separate the queues entirely with the total removal of DM from the random queue. Which I think would be silly and totally not random.

If waiting 10+ minutes for a pop on anything then I would assume that's pretty much dead. At least in proportion with the theoretical concurrent player game population.

One thing I've noticed, and its always seemed this way on my platform;

Often times, once a queue hits 5m. Whether grouped or solo. We re-queue. Usually leads to near instant pop. - Again, Xbox NA.

This also seems to hold true for dungeon queues as well. Even when queueing as a tank. - Our best instant pop scenarios are when the GF and I run tank and healer. Pretty much the only time we see instant pops when we hit the queue to get some crystals. - Often times, we see an instant pop that doesn't actually exist. It sits there on the "ready" thing, waiting for the 2 other people to accept and never happens. Times out, then actually makes us wait a few minutes to queue again.

Whilst that seems unrelated - has anyone ever brought up the possibility of bugged queues on some platforms?

Dungeon queues have a lot of funny perquisites to check off before one gets in.

- Is this player filling a certain role?
- Does this player have access to the DLC dungeons and if so which one?
- Does this player have the requisite level to be put into said dungeon (under 50s can be matched with CP but aren’t able to queue for every dungeon until they hit level points)?
- Is this a vet or normal dungeon queue?
- Has this player been kicked from a group and is unable to be matched up?
- Are two grouped players looking for similarly skilled individuals for a specific dungeon or random? (probably the trickiest scenario and why getting any two groupedindividuals into a dungeon takes so long. Hard to group from the beginning of a dungeon and much harder to insert both into a dungeon run midway that is missing BOTH roles)

Popping for a random dungeon is fairly simple and easy enough to do thanks to the population. You get into trouble when you want to queue for a specific dungeon. At that point unless the dungeon is the flavor of the day it’s likely to have few people queuing for it. This is where new content and the Undaunted tent comes in. Those funnel players to a balanced rotation of content so that everything gets done over a time period.

The only players exempted from all this are those that bypass the dungeon finder system altogether, group up, and then just walk into a dungeon without using the finder.

Regardless of all of those prerequisites the dungeon finder system works exceedingly well.


Like I said, BGs is much simpler. Queue up, are you going into NO CP BGs or Under 50 BGs? Can the system find enough players to balance engagements just on the number of participants?

We are seeing that the population of BGs is so low it can’t even do this properly. Adjustments had to be made before because players were left in the BG start areas with groups never filling. Gathering players was so slow that players left and diehards were left standing above a BG, waiting to get enough players for up to 30 mins in some cases. This was changed to the current system.

Now you don’t have that issue but it’s still hard to fill matches just to start. Whatever happened with the DM only test must have been really bad for ZOS to call the resultant population “unhealthy” because it definitely wasn’t in any kind of good shape prior.

This is why I could care less about what the current Deathmatch favoring population wants to make the game engaging for them. It’s not a slight against them, it’s just that anything that has led to the current population and the active members just doesn’t work and most clearly it’s the way that Deathmatch has been favored in the last 6 months that’s accelerated that downfall.

McTaterskins

I've updated the OP and title as the thread as taken shape into a good direction for the most part. Looking for more constructive input on the key points and seemingly apparent root causes for issues and/or disagreements on game modes, gameplay, and queue arrangements etc. Would be nice to see more participants.

@trackdemon5512 Still digesting that last one. I think there were some other outside variables rather than just DM only that had an impact on BG population health as well. We all have our opinions there. Regardless of those variables, I don't think it was/is wise for them to make such changes along with game updates. Especially not ones introducing new items sets and/or combat or stat changes across the board. - BG queue testing really should've taken place somewhere between updates. Just my opinion though. - Or even in fact have it be an update of its own. But that's just me wanting content or some new stuff/modes/changes

Magio_

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Now you don’t have that issue but it’s still hard to fill matches just to start. Whatever happened with the DM only test must have been really bad for ZOS to call the resultant population “unhealthy” because it definitely wasn’t in any kind of good shape prior.

You keep bring up that quote trying to support your stance on the matter and attributing the decline to the DM-only test. Every objective supporter has. It's basically the only thing you have.

Yet, actions speak louder than words. Makes more sense that ZOS noticed that real PvPers, people that queued BGs for hours everyday, left at New World launch. They separated the DM queue to try to bring us back.

If we view it as the false reality you want it to be:

• ZOS implements DM-only test
• BG Population declines because DM-only is bad for BGs
• ZOS makes BGs basically DM-Only after test ends

So your argument is "ZOS is incompetent", is that right? @trackdemon5512 ?

DM-only pops just fine, as we can experience. While Objective Only Queue would not pop according to Rich Lambert, which is something ZOS doesn't want to happen at all costs. So just saying "Implement a queue that will be dead on arrival, I don't care how long I have to wait" will lead nowhere. So, what do you want to do to change that?

ealdwin

Alternate Idea Regarding Queues:

I've seen before the suggestion of a rotational queue, where each day is a specific BG type, and the types rotate on a cycle.

It's a decent idea that would ensure everyone would have guaranteed access to their preferred BG modes at any time. It would work similar to daily pledges, so not too far a stretch of new implementation.

Picture the following implementation:
- Solo Daily BG Queue
- Team Deathmatch Queue

The Solo queue would be the source of daily rewards for participation, and operate on the rotational basis. It would be for the general population of PVP'ers, from the more casual ones to the always-BG'ers.

The Team Deathmatch Queue would be similar to the Team DM-Only Queue now. But, this time, rather than offering daily rewards, it would be be designed with more competition driving features, such as ranked leaderboards over 30-day "campaigns" and rewards for placement on those leaderboards.

TLDR: New Queue Idea, Solo Rotational for General Populace, Team DM-Only for High Stakes Competition and bragging rights.


(I still stand by the idea that ZOS should separate the queues in the meantime so the Random Queue no longer backfills the DM-Only queue.)

NagualV

Magio_ wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Now you don’t have that issue but it’s still hard to fill matches just to start. Whatever happened with the DM only test must have been really bad for ZOS to call the resultant population “unhealthy” because it definitely wasn’t in any kind of good shape prior.

Makes more sense that ZOS noticed that real PvPers, people that queued BGs for hours everyday, left at New World launch. They separated the DM queue to try to bring us back.

This right here. This is what I believe. The timing of the test was.....interesting....

NagualV

Magio_ wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Now you don’t have that issue but it’s still hard to fill matches just to start. Whatever happened with the DM only test must have been really bad for ZOS to call the resultant population “unhealthy” because it definitely wasn’t in any kind of good shape prior.

DM-only pops just fine, as we can experience. While Objective Only Queue would not pop according to Rich Lambert, which is something ZOS doesn't want to happen at all costs. So just saying "Implement a queue that will be dead on arrival, I don't care how long I have to wait" will lead nowhere. So, what do you want to do to change that?

This also. This is their(ZOS) predicament, in my opinion also. Many may say - "I dont mind waiting 5 minutes....I'd rather wait an hour for objective than instant DM...." but ZOS may feel that is a hard no, for business reasons/game health.

Not an easy situation.....

gariondavey

A little late to the thread, but I read it all.
At the end of the day, 3 team objectives just don't work. It encourages non-pvp.
With 2 teams or re-works of objective modes, more players would be interested in them.
No other game with objective modes has this issue, as there aren't 3 teams.

I also believe that increasing rewards for daily bgs - motifs, mounts, style pages, transmutes, etc., would go a long way in cultivating the population.

Source - I am in probably the largest bg guild on pc na, we discuss these issues daily in chat + discord. I am also in other bg discords where these issues are discussed.

trackdemon5512

gariondavey wrote: »

A little late to the thread, but I read it all.
At the end of the day, 3 team objectives just don't work. It encourages non-pvp.
With 2 teams or re-works of objective modes, more players would be interested in them.
No other game with objective modes has this issue, as there aren't 3 teams.

I also believe that increasing rewards for daily bgs - motifs, mounts, style pages, transmutes, etc., would go a long way in cultivating the population.

Source - I am in probably the largest bg guild on pc na, we discuss these issues daily in chat + discord. I am also in other bg discords where these issues are discussed.

With regards to rewards, ZOS added the style pages and such a few years ago. Interest in BGs noticeably increased for a time. But the implementation of forever going in to get pages that became incredibly rare became frustrating.

Players have long since stopped and haven’t come back since. That points more to the activity not being enjoyable for most. Not enough so that they will come around for rewards.

ZOS last added a few mementos, an antiquity, and the 150% Alliance Rank leveling recipe component to the mode. That was of no help.

Maybe one of this biggest issues with PVP in this game overall is that it’s just an excessive grind with no real substantial reward, in any mode. Sure you have the 1% who live in PVP all day but that in no way addresses the other 99%.

gariondavey

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

A little late to the thread, but I read it all.
At the end of the day, 3 team objectives just don't work. It encourages non-pvp.
With 2 teams or re-works of objective modes, more players would be interested in them.
No other game with objective modes has this issue, as there aren't 3 teams.

I also believe that increasing rewards for daily bgs - motifs, mounts, style pages, transmutes, etc., would go a long way in cultivating the population.

Source - I am in probably the largest bg guild on pc na, we discuss these issues daily in chat + discord. I am also in other bg discords where these issues are discussed.

With regards to rewards, ZOS added the style pages and such a few years ago. Interest in BGs noticeably increased for a time. But the implementation of forever going in to get pages that became incredibly rare became frustrating.

Players have long since stopped and haven’t come back since. That points more to the activity not being enjoyable for most. Not enough so that they will come around for rewards.

ZOS last added a few mementos, an antiquity, and the 150% Alliance Rank leveling recipe component to the mode. That was of no help.

Maybe one of this biggest issues with PVP in this game overall is that it’s just an excessive grind with no real substantial reward, in any mode. Sure you have the 1% who live in PVP all day but that in no way addresses the other 99%.

While I seldom agree with you, I do agree with the majority of this post.
10 transmute crystals for daily bg would go a long way imo in bolstering the population.

McTaterskins

@ealdwin

ealdwin wrote: »

Alternate Idea Regarding Queues:

TLDR: New Queue Idea, Solo Rotational for General Populace, Team DM-Only for High Stakes Competition and bragging rights.

I've seen this a lot in conversation. Whether forums or in game. - People would like to see more things driving competitive play.

Does anyone have any thoughts on evaluating true interest? Thoughts on implementation?

@gariondavey @trackdemon5512 - The rewards topic seems to come up quite a bit. I myself would like to see more as well. Sadly, for me, I would be happier seeing better crystal reward for the daily (10 like dungeon at least) and perhaps some higher gold values.

So here's some further thoughts so that maybe we can nail down more root consensus:

Rewards: Would better rewards cause more people to queue up? How would you do those rewards? How would/could reward updates effect the "random" queue. Do you think it would even have an impact for the devout "DM only" folks?

Driving Competitive Play: This seems to be a slight pickle. Many would like to see competition and rankings/rewards etc. etc. - How do you implement this in such a manor that would drive more participants instead of just the top percentile of hardcore pvpers? - Obviously, you need people to compete against. Yeah? - Or is this just a full circle into the MMR issue? I feel like it could be more than that. Thoughts?

gariondavey

@McTaterskins

Yes, better rewards would encourage people to queue up. 2nd and 1st in random and solo dm get the purple box. It contains an epic transmute crystal like undaunted box. A small chance for a random motif as well.
In dm games, kills should reward AP.

These changes would go over well in both queues.

(Obviously a reworking of objective modes to encourage pvp would be a huge benefit.)

trackdemon5512

McTaterskins wrote: »

@ealdwin

ealdwin wrote: »

Alternate Idea Regarding Queues:

TLDR: New Queue Idea, Solo Rotational for General Populace, Team DM-Only for High Stakes Competition and bragging rights.

I've seen this a lot in conversation. Whether forums or in game. - People would like to see more things driving competitive play.

Does anyone have any thoughts on evaluating true interest? Thoughts on implementation?

@gariondavey @trackdemon5512 - The rewards topic seems to come up quite a bit. I myself would like to see more as well. Sadly, for me, I would be happier seeing better crystal reward for the daily (10 like dungeon at least) and perhaps some higher gold values.

So here's some further thoughts so that maybe we can nail down more root consensus:

Rewards: Would better rewards cause more people to queue up? How would you do those rewards? How would/could reward updates effect the "random" queue. Do you think it would even have an impact for the devout "DM only" folks?

Driving Competitive Play: This seems to be a slight pickle. Many would like to see competition and rankings/rewards etc. etc. - How do you implement this in such a manor that would drive more participants instead of just the top percentile of hardcore pvpers? - Obviously, you need people to compete against. Yeah? - Or is this just a full circle into the MMR issue? I feel like it could be more than that. Thoughts?

Battlegrounds have the worst basic reward structure in the game currently.

- Queue up for random BG
- Due to the poor population you’re likely to wait several minutes or more before entering a match
- Enter a match, likely without a premade team
- If you enter a match already in progress, you’re very very likely to be placed onto a team where an individual rage quit or was disconnected. Regardless this results in a team that was likely disadvantaged and fell behind
- Match ends, you either get rewards or don’t
- If your team loses you just spent 15 minutes or so with nothing to show for it but frustration
- The game then asks you to repeat with no guarantee of a reward

For anyone that currently doesn’t live/breathe BGs this is a complete waste of time. I can queue up for a random normal dungeon, not be frustrated, be done in 5 minutes if we get FG1, and get my XP rewards as well as a transmute. All guaranteed.

BGs become literal wastes of time. Nothing new to gain. Old unique stuff that’s hard to gain. Rewards that can much easily be gained elsewhere.

Magio_

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Rewards that can much easily be gained elsewhere.

Buffing transmute rewards on Random Normal Dungeons was the biggest killer of low MMR population. Transmutes were basically a PvP currency at one point.

ealdwin

McTaterskins wrote: »

@ealdwin

ealdwin wrote: »

Alternate Idea Regarding Queues:

TLDR: New Queue Idea, Solo Rotational for General Populace, Team DM-Only for High Stakes Competition and bragging rights.

I've seen this a lot in conversation. Whether forums or in game. - People would like to see more things driving competitive play.

Does anyone have any thoughts on evaluating true interest? Thoughts on implementation?

@gariondavey @trackdemon5512 - The rewards topic seems to come up quite a bit. I myself would like to see more as well. Sadly, for me, I would be happier seeing better crystal reward for the daily (10 like dungeon at least) and perhaps some higher gold values.

So here's some further thoughts so that maybe we can nail down more root consensus:

Rewards: Would better rewards cause more people to queue up? How would you do those rewards? How would/could reward updates effect the "random" queue. Do you think it would even have an impact for the devout "DM only" folks?

Driving Competitive Play: This seems to be a slight pickle. Many would like to see competition and rankings/rewards etc. etc. - How do you implement this in such a manor that would drive more participants instead of just the top percentile of hardcore pvpers? - Obviously, you need people to compete against. Yeah? - Or is this just a full circle into the MMR issue? I feel like it could be more than that. Thoughts?

Rewards

PVP rewards need a look at across the board, not just in BGs. The ideas are there, just not fully realized to their potential.

Currency, such as AP and Tel-Var should be the primary ways of obtaining rewards, not once-a-day "keys" or "tokens". The former promotes as much play when possible while the latter promotes minimal participation over a period of time. It's the difference between perpetual progress and a daily chore. ESO has enough daily chores.

The rewards offered could also be better. PVP sourced sets could be improved (except for Dark Convergence, [snip]) so they are worth the AP spent on them. Unique cosmetics to PVP activities would also help. Imagine if the Timbercrow Wanderer costume was obtained through a Tel-Var purchase rather than daily quest tokens. Daily quests in IC would still offer smaller safer progress towards the goal, but getting there quicker would require more active in-zone participation. Similarly, new PVP cosmetics every content release would potentially help encourage more participation.

The Golden Vendor should be built off of as well. Offering PVP as an alternative means to obtaining certain PVE items means players may choose PVP if it seems more worthwhile. In this regard, I think that offering coffers for purple and gold upgrade materials would be ideal. People might be more inclined to participate in PVP if they new they could get jewelry plating mats by way of AP purchases. (Or via Rewards of the Worthy?) The Regional Zone Vendors could also be expanded on.

AP in BGs

AP should only be earnable through BGs via kills. I don't mind it being earn-able through repairing walls in Cyro, since AP is required for Wall Repair materials anyway, and repairing is helping the alliance. If needed, BG-AP could become its own currency. (But that's not the focus here).

Engaging in fights and securing kills earns you AP, this is the system that encourages participants to be better. A proper MMR/matchmaking system would help make sure that people don't end up outside of their proper weight-class and therefore not end up in systems where high participation could still result in low AP earnings. Following the game mode earns medals (as it does now), and medals determine the mail rewards.

With what I said above, this means that active participation in BGs overall would ideally mean earning-AP, and therefore progress towards purchases of some sort. Actively participating in the game mode would earn different rewards via the mail system. (The key would be making sure the rewards available via mail aren't entirely the same as those available via AP.). This way, maximum earnings would require engagement in fighting and participation in the game mode.

Competition

I don't have too many specifics here, but here's my general thoughts. In PVE, there are two "levels", if you will: Dungeons and Trials. There are a good number of players, who don't participate in Trials, but do participate in Dungeons. These are the general population. Some of them like Dungeons, some want the rewards, some are just there for the daily chore. Then, there are those who do Trials. Some just want the more advanced experience Trials offer, some want to push scores. They tend to be more "dedicated" PVE-ers, the kind who practice on target dummies to push their DPS as high as they can get it. Not all of them are pushing leaderboards, but they do engage in a different level of PVE than the general population. ESO's PVE caters to both, but makes sure that those who do engage in Trials are rewarded to try and encourage people to continue trying Trials.

Now, implement that mentality into PVP. One queue for the more general populace and one for the more dedicated competitive populace? Rewards for only first place, instead of first and second? Gold armor instead of purple? Bigger payouts? Perhaps unique cosmetics and titles for those who top a leaderboard at the end of a weekly or 30-day campaign?

It doesn't have to attract everyone, but as long as the rewards are enticing enough, players may be encouraged to go for it.

(Just my two cents)

[edited for profanity bypass]

McTaterskins

@ealdwin

ealdwin wrote: »

(Just my two cents)

Enjoyed reading your post.

Question in regard to the AP for kills in BG: Do you think this would further promote people just "DM'ing" in objective modes when in random queue?
I think a combination of AP for 1st place team + AP for kills would be more of a nice meeting in the middle point? Thoughts?

Also, if I'm being totally honest, and I'm sure many would admit to this as well: Its pretty common if I end up in an objective mode, I may start the game with intentions of winning but I definitely end up 'squirreling' and DM'ing for a good portion of matches. Even though I want the W. lol. Often times I'll catch myself and then go grab a relic or get on a flag. But I like combat, even though I like different game modes.

I like the rewards points. We're starting to see that as a definitely agreed upon issue. I'll likely update the OP with more conversation summary and root point discoveries over/after the holiday here.

Thanks to everyone contributing so far! I know these threads tend to get messy, but this one's been staying on point fairly well and we've definitely kept this conversation evolving.

ealdwin

McTaterskins wrote: »

@ealdwin

ealdwin wrote: »

(Just my two cents)

Enjoyed reading your post.

Question in regard to the AP for kills in BG: Do you think this would further promote people just "DM'ing" in objective modes when in random queue?
I think a combination of AP for 1st place team + AP for kills would be more of a nice meeting in the middle point? Thoughts?

Also, if I'm being totally honest, and I'm sure many would admit to this as well: Its pretty common if I end up in an objective mode, I may start the game with intentions of winning but I definitely end up 'squirreling' and DM'ing for a good portion of matches. Even though I want the W. lol. Often times I'll catch myself and then go grab a relic or get on a flag. But I like combat, even though I like different game modes.

I like the rewards points. We're starting to see that as a definitely agreed upon issue. I'll likely update the OP with more conversation summary and root point discoveries over/after the holiday here.

Thanks to everyone contributing so far! I know these threads tend to get messy, but this one's been staying on point fairly well and we've definitely kept this conversation evolving.

Thanks!

I know what you're talking about. Even if I intend to follow objectives 100%, I'll find myself getting "distracted" in combat. Sometimes its just following up on a defense/offense or just encountering a foe on my way to the next objective or to regroup.

I do see the point about AP potentially just promoting DM'ing in objective modes, and largely agree a combination of AP for kills combined with AP for winning would help. I was originally going to propose something like 3X AP gain for members of the team who wins (or currently holds first place) and 2X AP gain for members of the team who comes in second (or holds second), depending on whether the bonus is applied at the end of the match or dynamically throughout.

I think the main thing is a figuring out a way to reward certain behaviors without explicitly punishing undesirable behavior. There will always be people who will do what they want to in BGs, and it's kind of hard to mitigate. But, it is possible to make undesirable behavior less lucrative and rewarding than desirable behavior. That's where I was going for with the AP for kills but Rewards tier based on medals. It would make the most lucrative behavior in BGs a combination of engaging in combat and participating in the rules of the game mode.

Generally, ZOS needs to consider what behavior they want to reward and then improve the rewards for that behavior. Right now the issue is that the rewards aren't particularly good to encourage any certain behaviors.

DahliaNightshade

I read everything you guys wrote and I am enjoying this thread, good discussions, nice ideas.

I read it while at work, so forgive me if I missed this and it's already been written: wouldn't it be good if they removed the need for the third team?
I might be wrong on this, but downscaling BGs from 3 to 2 teams might help in having more BGs going on at once, almost like falsely increasing the population, even though the pool from which players are chosen remains the same.
8 players instead on 12 on every BGs going on should automatically make more BGs possible at once, reducing the time of a queue.
I suppose the idea of having 3 teams comes from the 3 Alliances War, but the teams aren't bound to alliances, so, what is the point of having the third team? Two teams could still have fun, use the maps and play the kind of "Arena gameplay" we have seen in a lot of other games.