DM weekend concerns

gariondavey

1st of all, thank you for finally having the deathmatch weekend for bg weekends.

Unfortunately, 75+ percent of the hardcore bg players I know have already quit the game due to game direction, lack of pvp (especially bg) content and support.

Most everyone I know who plays bgs prefers DM (I've been in bg guilds of hundreds of players before we lost 75+ percent of them) but the inability to choose that as a mode (or have objective mods reworked so they don't end in 2 minutes by people who avoid conflict), as well as the multiple game breaking bugs that have happened over the last year, has been enough to drive so many skilled, passionate, experienced, and knowledgeable players away. It is truly heartbreaking.

Putting all that aside, I can't help but notice each of the previous "battleground weekends" were 5 days long. This one, that virtually everyone I know who plays bgs at a high level, which was the only bg event looked forward to, however, is 4 days long.

Why is this?

Additionally, this is happening during a game breaking block bug. In high mmr dm matches, not being able to block meteors, rush of agony and dark convergence pulls is pretty much a death sentence.

Why is this event being done during this block bug?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_MattFiror

P.s. this is not "looking the gift horse in the mouth. I am just trying to make sense of these events. Thank you.

Icyfire369

Nice post Garion.

The one thing I'm afraid of is when they do the analytics for the Battlegrounds weekend over the past 5 months, that they'll come to the conclusion that Deathmatch Weekend was the LEAST popular. That seems extremely unfair given the block bug situation. I love PvP and have been looking forward to Deathmatch Weekend...but I don't plan on playing this weekend because of that bug.

robpr

Well, whoever you ask about the BG mode they will answer "Deathmatch" but when we had DM only queue the bgs were absolutely deserted after a week, so clearly not everybody like DM. It's better than cap the relic, those are going stalemate and boring af very fast. DM experience usually ends with steamrolling one team to the point they dont go out of spawn without any chance of retaliation.
From all gamemodes Crazy King is imo the best.

inb4 "flag games are not pvp"

gariondavey

robpr wrote: »

Well, whoever you ask about the BG mode they will answer "Deathmatch" but when we had DM only queue the bgs were absolutely deserted after a week, so clearly not everybody like DM. It's better than cap the relic, those are going stalemate and boring af very fast. DM experience usually ends with steamrolling one team to the point they dont go out of spawn without any chance of retaliation.
From all gamemodes Crazy King is imo the best.

inb4 "flag games are not pvp"

Please don't de-rail this thread. The dm only queue occurred during the broken dc hrothgar chill era, and when new world was released. This has been discussed to death already.

This thread is to discuss the length of the dm weekend (why it is shorter than the others) as well as the block bugs effects on the weekend. If you can't abide by that, please go to another thread or create your own.

CameraBeardThePirate

Vet PvPer here. I was looking forward to the DM weekend a lot - but the current state of balance post U35 and U36, combined with the game breaking block bug that's still present means I won't be coming back for the DM weekend.

Until it's demonstrated that PvP can take a turn for the better (in any number of ways - combat balance, BG mode balance, performance, or new content), I'll get my PvP fix elsewhere.

ZOS_Kevin

Thanks for the post, @gariondavey. So we will address what we can. We have provided feedback on the bugs. While we know it's frustrating, we are working to get these fixed. Unfortunately, these fixes are not something we can just push same day, so they do take time. Again, this was not intended and we understand the frustration around it. However, we will pass on your feedback on what you are hearing from your BG community. It's helpful context to have.

As for the battleground time length. The change is not intended and we are working to change it back to the 5 days. That change should be made later today. As for the event, we have it in our pipeline and can't really rearrange it. A lot of this stuff is scheduled in advance and cannot be changed past a certain point. That being said, we will keep the content around the Deathmatch weekend in mind. And we will be rotating through modes, so deathmatch will have a chance to shine again in another rotation. However, we will pass the concern around the deathmatch weekend going live at the same time as the block bug issue.

Hope this helps to answer your questions.

gariondavey

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Thanks for the post, @gariondavey. So we will address what we can. We have provided feedback on the bugs. While we know it's frustrating, we are working to get these fixed. Unfortunately, these fixes are not something we can just push same day, so they do take time. Again, this was not intended and we understand the frustration around it. However, we will pass on your feedback on what you are hearing from your BG community. It's helpful context to have.

As for the battleground time length. The change is not intended and we are working to change it back to the 5 days. That change should be made later today. As for the event, we have it in our pipeline and can't really rearrange it. A lot of this stuff is scheduled in advance and cannot be changed past a certain point. That being said, we will keep the content around the Deathmatch weekend in mind. And we will be rotating through modes, so deathmatch will have a chance to shine again in another rotation. However, we will pass the concern around the deathmatch weekend going live at the same time as the block bug issue.

Hope this helps to answer your questions.

Thank you @ZOS_Kevin for the response!
Happy to hear it will be 5 days again.

Unfortunate timing with the bug. Many players I know, likecamerabeardthepirate, won't be coming back until significant changes are made to the game or performance improves.

I know you have taken this information back to the team at zos, as you've mentioned in other threads to me. I just really hope change happens more over the next little bit. I really miss playing with so many of my friends who have left.

One thing I was interested in while you are here is if it would be possible for bg events to give double ap instead of 1.25. Midyear mayhem gives double, so it doesn't seem outrageous to me (and would increase bg participation, garunteed)!

Thanks again!

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Thanks for the post, @gariondavey. So we will address what we can. We have provided feedback on the bugs. While we know it's frustrating, we are working to get these fixed. Unfortunately, these fixes are not something we can just push same day, so they do take time. Again, this was not intended and we understand the frustration around it. However, we will pass on your feedback on what you are hearing from your BG community. It's helpful context to have.

As for the battleground time length. The change is not intended and we are working to change it back to the 5 days. That change should be made later today. As for the event, we have it in our pipeline and can't really rearrange it. A lot of this stuff is scheduled in advance and cannot be changed past a certain point. That being said, we will keep the content around the Deathmatch weekend in mind. And we will be rotating through modes, so deathmatch will have a chance to shine again in another rotation. However, we will pass the concern around the deathmatch weekend going live at the same time as the block bug issue.

Hope this helps to answer your questions.

Thanks for the detailed response, appreciate what you do here.

OBJnoob

Just my couple of thoughts... 1) I guess since all the others were 5 days then this one should be as well. But honestly I'd like it better if there was a bg weekend every week (has there been? I feel like it's only been like half the time,) and the weekends were only 2 (or 3 depending on when it starts on Friday night and ends on Monday morning,) days. For all modes. Because playing the same mode for 5 days in a row is boring no matter what it is. If we split the 7 day week into "week" and "weekend" which is 5 days long? I rest my case.

2) can't very well expect them to stop doing stuff because of a block bug. All aspects of the game are effected by this not just pvp. The show must go on,

3) I think 2x AP would be too much. Can't compare something that happens twice a month to something that happens twice a year. Anyway if the goal is actually to compare and see which modes got the most activity then the AP gain probably shouldn't have been touched at all. Just let the modes attract players, not the AP. Messing with results if players are incentivized to play regardless of mode.

Necrotech_Master

OBJnoob wrote: »

Just my couple of thoughts... 1) I guess since all the others were 5 days then this one should be as well. But honestly I'd like it better if there was a bg weekend every week (has there been? I feel like it's only been like half the time,) and the weekends were only 2 (or 3 depending on when it starts on Friday night and ends on Monday morning,) days. For all modes. Because playing the same mode for 5 days in a row is boring no matter what it is. If we split the 7 day week into "week" and "weekend" which is 5 days long? I rest my case.

2) can't very well expect them to stop doing stuff because of a block bug. All aspects of the game are effected by this not just pvp. The show must go on,

3) I think 2x AP would be too much. Can't compare something that happens twice a month to something that happens twice a year. Anyway if the goal is actually to compare and see which modes got the most activity then the AP gain probably shouldn't have been touched at all. Just let the modes attract players, not the AP. Messing with results if players are incentivized to play regardless of mode.

i think the avg for these has been about 1 BG weekend per month

i feel like 25% increased AP is too little to bother with, especially for the fact you only get AP at the end of a match and not for every kill during the match (its one of the reasons i dont like BGs, your AP is entirely determined based on your game position (first/second/third) and feels like its not enough, especially compared to the time waiting on the queue if you are not solo but have less than 4 people)

ive tried to do some of the BG weekends in a group of 2 or 3, and we sometimes wait up to an hour in the queue (15-30 min then restart, then wait another 15-30 min before just giving up)

OBJnoob

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

I feel like 25% increased AP is too little to bother with

But the people who play bgs every weekend don't do it for AP they do it because they think bgs are fun. So the size of the increase is really meaningless. If this is a way of bringing people in to bgs then sure pay whatever rewards you want... Not really my point. My point is that if they are doing an experiment to see which modes are liked and which aren't then they shouldn't be artificially inflating the player base with people who are here for the increased AP rather than because they like the mode. Their results are going to be hard to make heads or tails of. When you set up an experiment you're supposed to only change one variable at a time so you're sure the variable is what accounted for any changes in expected results.

Necrotech_Master

OBJnoob wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

I feel like 25% increased AP is too little to bother with

But the people who play bgs every weekend don't do it for AP they do it because they think bgs are fun. So the size of the increase is really meaningless. If this is a way of bringing people in to bgs then sure pay whatever rewards you want... Not really my point. My point is that if they are doing an experiment to see which modes are liked and which aren't then they shouldn't be artificially inflating the player base with people who are here for the increased AP rather than because they like the mode. Their results are going to be hard to make heads or tails of. When you set up an experiment you're supposed to only change one variable at a time so you're sure the variable is what accounted for any changes in expected results.

thats why i dont see that they will do anything to the rewards until they get to the 2nd cycle of BG weekends (rotated through all of the modes at least once)

but if they wanted to increase participation (in general), they need to increase the rewards on these events

OBJnoob

Well it's not a question that people want big rewards instead of small ones. The question is how can you gauge how much people participate in a new activity (based on the merits of the activity alone,) while offering higher than normal rewards.

If it's just a matter of literally paying people to play let's triple AP at all times and dispense with this foolishness.

If it's just an event like any other okay cool boost AP gain let's have fun. If they hope to ascertain anything from the level of participation they have artificially inflated their numbers and given players more than one reason to be there.

Personally I feel like the weekends are wasted if the only goal is to get more people on during the weekend. They should be testing to see if people like the events enough that they serve as advertisement for bgs overall. Or at least to see which mode(s) are preferred to others. Offering such a reward that people will do what they wouldn't normally do just for the reward is flying in the face of figuring any of that out.

gariondavey

I think you are missing the point.
Bgs are very low AP per hour compared to cyrodiil.
Even with 1.25 multiplier it doesn't compare.
1.5 in the least or 2.0 in these events would go a long way in making it appealing enough to get people joining who wouldn't normally.

Even with 2x multiplier you won't make that much AP when you get to high mmr. Thay is because you wait a long time for games. In group queue in high mmr you won't even get into a game for an hour or more.

React

@OBJnoob @Necrotech_Master

The point of these events was never to measure interest in different modes, or to incentivise people to try BGS.

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

So, in order to give everyone a good play experience in high-intensity situations like PvP and Trials, we need to essentially rewrite some of the foundational server code to account for it. This should dramatically increase server performance, but obviously we will need to test and evaluate as we go along.

In the meantime, we’ll consider additional ways to keep Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds interesting and exciting (for example, potentially special rulesets or weekend events) and will continue to work on bug fixes affecting combat, but we won’t be adding any new features to PvP until the work mentioned above is complete.

With this in mind it is absolutely laughable that they came up with the idea of these events in order to tide us over for what is likely now going to be 2-3 years, despite having told us it would only take "most of a year" initially. They legitimately needed to code the ability to enable these events into the game per their own statement, because it didn't exist previously. The decision to do this over weekend double telvar events or double AP events, which already exist within the game and are favorable to a much larger portion of the PVP community, is mind boggling.

Even more laughable is the AP modifier they chose. 25% more AP is going to add up to maybe an additional 10k AP earned in an hour of BGs. Completely negligible as a bonus, and you're forced to play one game mode over and over.

All and all, these events are just another example of how out of touch the developers are with what the community wants. I wish I could say that these events were something I looked forward to, but with the reasoning behind them in mind, they feel like more of a slap in the face than anything.

Starpulsechic

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Vet PvPer here. I was looking forward to the DM weekend a lot - but the current state of balance post U35 and U36, combined with the game breaking block bug that's still present means I won't be coming back for the DM weekend.

Until it's demonstrated that PvP can take a turn for the better (in any number of ways - combat balance, BG mode balance, performance, or new content), I'll get my PvP fix elsewhere.

@gariondavey brought this thread to my attention via discord (thx). Its nice to see that @ZOS_Kevin was able to provide a response and some feedback here. Communication is greatly appreciated.

However I am at the same point as @CameraBeardThePirate in that I unsubbed at update 35 and haven't logged in since beginning of October. I wont be coming back for DM weekend.

The reason being is I wasn't in support of the changes made from update 35 and seeing the rollout of update 36 was just extremely concerning. As a player and consumer in order to come back to the game, I'd like to see changes to rectify update 35/36 concerns voiced by the community, a better rewards system for content both pve/pvp and a formalised feedback and communication system implemented that advocates a mechanism for players to have a two way conversation with ZOS. I'm just waiting to see what ZOS do before I decide to come back to actively playing.

Hope those playing enjoy their DM weekend.

cuddles_with_wroble

I mean I think every pvp (and most pve players) can agree that update 35 was awful, and update 36 has been equally bad. The game has been just going in the wrong direction for years and it doesn’t really seem like the what the devs are doing and what people want in the game line up.

I agree that we need more communication from the dev team. We don’t really get any info or insight into massive changes being made and that feels really bad as a vet player.

I’ll also ask that you you please, and I cannot stress this enough please stop buffing and nerfing things with a sledgehammer. Most things only need very MINOR changes to be viable or nerfed, you don’t need to give almost anything 10% buffs or nerfs it’s really really powerful or completely destroyed and unusable (like Templar or azureblight) when you do that. I’d like to see more changes done with a fine tooth comb and some testing so we don’t get these wild meta swings where only 2 sets in the game are viable like it had been for the last year or so

jtm1018

Block is needed in pve and pvp.
Is it not fixed yet?
I mean, I know its my fault that I block while activating a skill thats why my block dont work.
But come on, blocking is essential to the game, cant they fix this asap? Or revert to a previous version of the game? Because not being able to block really really sucks.

MashmalloMan

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Vet PvPer here. I was looking forward to the DM weekend a lot - but the current state of balance post U35 and U36, combined with the game breaking block bug that's still present means I won't be coming back for the DM weekend.

Until it's demonstrated that PvP can take a turn for the better (in any number of ways - combat balance, BG mode balance, performance, or new content), I'll get my PvP fix elsewhere.

Same boat. Haven't played since U34, even then I didn't play very much because of how broken Savage WW and Oakensoul were.

U35 told me to take a much needed break because the combat was completely overhauled.. again.. after not completing U33s hybridization overhaul.. which is still not complete and has no guarantee to be complete by the time U37 rolls around. An entire year later.

U36 told me they didn't care to change anything in a timely manner based on the endless feedback given.. and despite being one of the smallest patches I've seen the game launch with content wise, it was touted as a bug fix focussed patch that brought about some of the worst bugs to the game.

At this point.. I and many others are waiting for ZOS to give us a good reason to come back. The yearly January chapter preview better come out guns blazing or I'm just going to skip U37 and possibly the whole year altogether.

I miss ESO, but I can't support the game in the current state it's in. I hope it does better in 2023.

Nice to see DM BG weekends though, step in the right direction, but you couldn't of chosen a worse time to do it

gariondavey

I played a dm last night. My break free wouldn't work even if I'd press it 3-4 times.
Resto ult wouldn't go off as well. Latency at over 1000 at times (normally it is around 110).
This resulted in me dying way more than I normally would in a bg. Not fun at all.
Blackreach was super laggy too, with the inability to break free.
I also got the block bug a few times, which made things even worse.
Ic was ok. Thank heavens for that.
All in all, really really bad performance. Pretty depressing.

Necrotech_Master

React wrote: »

@OBJnoob @Necrotech_Master

The point of these events was never to measure interest in different modes, or to incentivise people to try BGS.

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

So, in order to give everyone a good play experience in high-intensity situations like PvP and Trials, we need to essentially rewrite some of the foundational server code to account for it. This should dramatically increase server performance, but obviously we will need to test and evaluate as we go along.

In the meantime, we’ll consider additional ways to keep Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds interesting and exciting (for example, potentially special rulesets or weekend events) and will continue to work on bug fixes affecting combat, but we won’t be adding any new features to PvP until the work mentioned above is complete.

With this in mind it is absolutely laughable that they came up with the idea of these events in order to tide us over for what is likely now going to be 2-3 years, despite having told us it would only take "most of a year" initially. They legitimately needed to code the ability to enable these events into the game per their own statement, because it didn't exist previously. The decision to do this over weekend double telvar events or double AP events, which already exist within the game and are favorable to a much larger portion of the PVP community, is mind boggling.

Even more laughable is the AP modifier they chose. 25% more AP is going to add up to maybe an additional 10k AP earned in an hour of BGs. Completely negligible as a bonus, and you're forced to play one game mode over and over.

All and all, these events are just another example of how out of touch the developers are with what the community wants. I wish I could say that these events were something I looked forward to, but with the reasoning behind them in mind, they feel like more of a slap in the face than anything.

i mean i understand that, but if all they were going for was the "throw a bone" at the pvp community they probably wouldnt have even bothered with the AP bonus at all

having it there is trying to incentivize more people to participate as well, but as you noted too, the bonus is borderline negligible in its current form

i do need some more achievements from BGs, but deathmatch mode is my least favorite and cant really get any achievements from it, so on a personal note, definitely skipping trying to bother with this BG weekend

cuddles_with_wroble

Just give us deathmatch queue, honestly I wait 30 -40 minutes per match anyway. I don’t see the harm in waiting 10 more minutes, obj games normally last 5 minutes anyway so no harm done.