Capture the Relic doesn't work 8v8 and the scoring system discourages teamplay

Depperoniak

As it is now, Battlegrounds: Capture the Relic is no fun at all in 8v8.
The off-balance problem is extra strong because of linear nature of the game. The losing party quickly gets stuck in the spawning area with no possible reprieve.
Moreover the only way to get a significant score is by capturing the relic. There is only one and you can only get it 5 times, so you are competing with your team mates over that honour.
You can get a tiny bit of points by healing a relic carrier or hurting an enemy relic carrier. So as a healer, hopefully your team relic runner won't run back too fast and worst of all, as a goal keeper it's best to screw over your team by letting the opposing team get the relic, so you can hopefully kill them.
The score boards say it all, most people get out of CtR with zero points, maybe fifty or a hundred. So for BG quests, getting 1000 points is unlikely, winning the game is a coin toss what team you're in and participating 5 times is a dumb quest anyway.
So you have team game that punishes team play and will likely get you nowhere.

First off, the scoring should be revised to give everyone a stake in a team victory. Perhaps if a relic score gets everyone 50 points, that would already make a difference.
And maybe if there is some side way mechanic to break the usual off-balance situation... I can't really think of something... but that would be nice too.

xylena_lazarow

CTR can be a lot of fun but needs a lot of polish. Here's another thread from General. At the very least, they need to look at the level geometry again, there are way too many places you can grab a relic through solid geometry.

darvaria

I wait to see if my team gets the first 1 or 2 relics. If so, I hang back and guard. If you don't get the first score, it's mostly a defense. If other team has 100-200 points and are defending, I basically stand back doing nothing. If I don't need the game for a quest or endeavor, I leave. For some reason the other team will not keep returning on offense and want to drag out farming. So I make sure to avoid going near the other base.

This could be improved if the relic was instant grab like Chaos Ball. Remove the capture time. Then a lot more players could grab the relics. I could easily move over the ball, "grab it instantly", shield up and move away. This would actually make the game more playable.

Thumbless_Bot

darvaria wrote: »

I wait to see if my team gets the first 1 or 2 relics. If so, I hang back and guard. If you don't get the first score, it's mostly a defense. If other team has 100-200 points and are defending, I basically stand back doing nothing. If I don't need the game for a quest or endeavor, I leave. For some reason the other team will not keep returning on offense and want to drag out farming. So I make sure to avoid going near the other base.

This could be improved if the relic was instant grab like Chaos Ball. Remove the capture time. Then a lot more players could grab the relics. I could easily move over the ball, "grab it instantly", shield up and move away. This would actually make the game more playable.

It isn't hopeless. You need 8 people to go attack the other relic and not sit on a relic your team has already shown it can't effectively guard. That's one way to turn this situation around. If it can be turned around. Done this more than once.

However doing the same thing, namely trying to defend, and expecting a different result... not ideal... the real problem is people give up when they get down. That needs to stop.

Then again, going 25-0 defending my relic and getting zero points but winning the match is sorta bittersweet. At least it's not the competitive and doesn't factor into mmr... unless it does... then that needs to stop as well.

xylena_lazarow

It's a valid strat to score first then turtle for 14min for the 100-0 win. This shouldn't be a valid strat.

Navaac223

Hmm I think I have a fix for this as well as for every other mode. We could add a 3rd team : it would be 4v4v4

-It would make less players per team so it would be actually possible to kill the enemy team to take the relic , as opposed to today's matches where you have to kill 8 players within 10 seconds or one of them will have the time to respawn and interrupt you.
-A 3rd team would create more chaos, making it impossible to hold off every assault unless you're a team of 4 tank bots (but in this case, good luck capturing relics faster than the other teams) or of 4 players that are way better than the other teams (but then you'd deserve to win).
-It would involve some ammount of strategy, as you can hijack relics that one of the other teams is trying to steal from the 3rd and take it for yourself. It could create situations where every team is fighting for one relic that has fallen on the ground, 1 of them to make sure it comes back to their base and the others to capture it.

Of course, it would really suck if this was then completely deleted to replace it with a worse version while calling it a pvp update

xylena_lazarow

Navaac223 wrote: »

A 3rd team would create more chaos

You mean like 30 seconds of chaos, then 14 minutes of ugly 8v4 once it's obvious who is finishing in last.

I like the suggestion for one single Relic to fight over, but solutions are on ZOS, not us players.

Navaac223

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

show previous quotes

Navaac223 wrote: »

A 3rd team would create more chaos

You mean like 30 seconds of chaos, then 14 minutes of ugly 8v4 once it's obvious who is finishing in last.

I like the suggestion for one single Relic to fight over, but solutions are on ZOS, not us players.

I think you're overestimating bg players. I've never seen a team getting targeted like that, mostly because each team still has to defend their own relic so it's, at worst, 6v4.

I was about to explain a scenario where one team gets steamrolled but to make it clearer I will give them names instead of "the weaker team":
-A : worst team, the ones who don't stand a chance
-B : 2nd best team, very close to team C
-C : best team

Next, out of the 2 teams going for A's relic, a clear winner is almost always going to appear (C) and take the relic everytime, leading to B targetting the relic of C while their best players are out hunting A's relic because they have no hope of getting A's relic while C is there. Well well well, what do we have here ? Balance
Even if B and C are perfectly matched, their battles at A's base will be stalemates : no one will grab the relic because they will bash each other until the very last player in one team dies. The conclusion for the teams is to attack on multiple fronts to have a chance at getting a relic in less than 1h. Anyways, what I mean is that C and B essentially act as defenders for A, and they for sure aren't going to team up on A, meaning it won't be 8v4 but rather 4v4v4..
You have to admit old capture the relic games were usually somewhat balacnced, each team having at least 100 points by the end. Sure, once in a while you'd have a team so incredibly bad that they wouldn't get anything but in the current bgs, it's almost always the case.

End of my rant about 4v4v4 being better

Yeah, I guess zos will decide in the end but, then again, why else would this forum be here other than to shout ideas for improvement in the hope that it will land on their ears ?

Techwolf_Lupindo

I've only played BG a few times. The rewards I got was an common set item and one soul gem. Last BG match I only got 50 medal points, I need 1000 to complete the quest. That going to take 50 matches....it way I stop playing BG, not rewarding for the time invested.