BGs are back to being nCP

If you're level 42, you're in the pre-50 Battlegrounds and are going up against other people that are also below level 50, with no-CP being taken into account while in the battleground (even if other players have max CP on their account). Champion Points don't directly matter in the level 50 bracket anymore either, but you'll still probably want to get to at least 160 (for CP 160 gear) before expecting to be able to do much in the BGs.

Balance is not great in ESO's PvP, even at max level, but it'll probably be a little better than what you're experiencing in the pre-50 games, at least once you have enough experience, proper gear, etc...I've seen some people in the lower bracket that spend many thousands of gold on golding out their weapons, putting together the "right" sets, etc...which will give them a huge leg up on legitimately new players, or those that just craft a little training gear every 10-20 levels or so.

'Course, time-to-kill is still extremely short in most cases in the max level BGs, which is a big gripe of mine. I personally think it's bad for the game, but so was the prevalence of perma-blocking builds with highly stacked defense/healing back when CP did count for a while in BGs. Things need to be "smoothed out" a bit, without damage/healing spikes being as dramatic as they are right now, burst damage is one thing, insta-gibbing is another.