[PvP balancing] Recommendation for balancing PvP -- just stop it and introduce leagues instead

Dusk_Coven · July 2019

(EDITED FOR MORE CLARITY)

Surely it is obvious that balancing PvE and PvP are completely different animals.

- The balance target for PvE is more or less static -- Dungeons and Trials are "preset" and against this static objective, player systems can be tweaked to attain the developer's objectives of the experience they are trying to convey. Moreover, they have the option of instead adjusting the encounter and leaving the player variables alone.

- The balance target for PvP is completely unpredictable given the broad array of possibilities in gear and loadouts and personal play objectives that players can present. In the worst case, they can use one of their 7 additional character slots to make another character to try something else to adapt to whatever they perceive are their own strengths and shortcomings.

So, instead of balancing PvP, introduce Ranking to sort players into Leagues, like Minor Leagues and Major Leagues. And let players only PvP with other players in their League. In this way, characters used by players will over time naturally sort themselves out into appropriately challenging matchups no matter what their character build, play ability, or game experience.

- In Battlegrounds, it means you will only be matched against players in your League. In the worst case, if there is an extremely limited population available in the queue, you will be in a 1v1

- In Cyrodiil, there is one campaign for each League and that's the only campaign you qualify for. If you are completely unranked, you enter Cyrodiil as PvE.

As for the influence of changes in PvE -- completely ignore PvP. Let the players sort themselves out and move up and down the ranks and be sorted into various Leagues. Whatever is a "problem", trust the player base to come up with a solution. Because they will.

Davadin · July 2019

no.

1. we already have ranks.
2. BG already have matchup logic based on ur performance/rank.
3. CP already have campaigns where its no-CP like BG, or CP where it's free for all.
4. the changes to PvP that impacts PvE is not because players sort themselves into challenging matchups, but because of the skills/abilities/passives themselves. segregating them into "comparable player" won't solve the base issues if skills/abilities that simply won't fly against human player.
5. Aside from BG and CP PVP, PvP is already pretty barren. Regardless of the lag complaints, 90% of PvP players will find the battle with most people. having them partitioned into "rank tiers" will not be accepted by the player base.

And to re-iterate #4 and also ur last paragraph, whenever there's a problem, no matter who, why, or what, I guarantee you the player base will complain to ZOS first before/while coming up with a solution/adapting.

your suggestion will not stop game-changes due to PvP that will impact PvE.

the only thing that can really separate the 2 so PvP won't impact PvE and vice versa, is to completely split off the game servers. Like LIVE vs PTS. Or NA vs EU.

Have one for PvE, and PvP. Each with their own build and tweaks.

And that'll never happen because ZOS won't spend the resource to maintain 2 game.

Taleof2Cities · July 2019

This is not a great idea, @Dusk_Coven.

Some PvP campaigns struggle to keep a population ... and you’re proposing split tiers of players.

Dusk_Coven · July 2019

Davadin wrote: »

1. we already have ranks.
2. BG already have matchup logic based on ur performance/rank.

Your proof?
And more importantly, proof that it works?

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

This is not a great idea, @Dusk_Coven.

Some PvP campaigns struggle to keep a population ... and you’re proposing split tiers of players.

Yes. But WHY are they struggling to keep a population? Maybe because newcomers don't have an entry level rank to go to? Have you not heard of people saying they'd actually give it a try if there were the possibility of a learning curve instead of getting flattened immediately?

In SWTOR, everyone participating in unranked, from level 10 and up, can do something useful.
In ESO it's really hard to have the same environment. The polarity in skill and resources between newcomers and established players -- about to possibly get worse if the forum predictions about immediate skill line unlocking -- make it very hard to achieve here.

Having entry level ranks for newcomers, and forcing players to move to a different rank or league because of whatever combination of resources or competence makes them overpowered for a rank, might help to start the process of actually building a base.

In the real world, this is how it works. There's Minor Leagues and Major Leagues. You don't get fights with Mike Tyson on your very first matchup. Very likely the reason is that if there weren't any leagues, a lot fewer people would actually want to try because they'd just get repeatedly flattened by established teams with experience, training, gear, etcetera.

Wandering_Immigrant · July 2019

I don't know too much about BG I've only done a couple, from my understanding though isn't this what MMR does?

Far as Cyrodil goes though, I've been spending more and more time there, enough that I've recently made a character who's leveling solely through Cyrodil/IC (as solely as possible, has to leave whenever he outlevels his available skillpoints to collect skyshards, and he works on his guilds while he out) and it seems to me the under 50 -> noCP -> yesCP system basically accomplishes this. I am a bit worried about the purchasing of skill lines screwing with that flow, but we'll have to wait and see how that turns out I guess, my hope is it can only be purchased at level 50.

Far as learning curve goes, I don't normally touch PVP at all in MMOs, the ones I've played do a hard seperation of PVP & PVE and that turns me off. My first time in Cyrodil was during the PVP week of the anniversary event, so, about 3 months? I don't remember exactly when that was. I struggled at first, I'd win some 1vs1s but I lost more than I won, and VS anything else I'd go down like butter under a hot knife. I did better in a group, but I was pretty terrible at following the action on the map. Today while I was on I didn't feel like LfG because I knew I'd be off and on and didn't want to be an absentee party member. So I ran around solo, mostly taking resources around where the action was going on. Saw the last remaing bridge being attacked, since we seemed to be pushing for scroll I went down to thwart that, didn't kill them but managed to chase them off (of course that was all for nothing cause I didn't have any bridge repair kits, still learning). Did get some kills though, won my first ever 1vsX(3) even. Not bad for 3 months of experience I think.

The problem isn't the learning curve, people just psyche themselves out thinking they're gonna get flattened, I did too, took me a long time and a PVP event to finally give it a shot. I don't think seperatly ranked campaigns would change that enough to make up for the population lose per instance it would create.

NBrookus · July 2019

The problem is that what do you rank on?

Time spent? I've known people that pvp for 2 months and kick buttock and ones that have played for years and can barely function. Alliance Rank? This is more of a function of time spent than skill. You can earn a whole lot of AP without actually fighting. Achievements? Most of the Cyro achievements are for fun. Carrying a scroll is a matter of being there. Kill a GO only requires you get the killing blow. Emperor is a no-life contest for earning AP and not a reflection of skill.

BG MMR is Zenimax secret sauce, but if you play BGs eventually you end up with a painfully long queue and only get matched with <insert current cancer meta> premades.

Dusk_Coven · July 2019

NBrookus wrote: »

The problem is that what do you rank on?

One problem at a time.
(1) The issue of balancing skills -- Stop trying to fight a war on two fronts and just balance for PvE?
We sort of don't need this for Leagues strictly, but it would save development time and stabilize skills and the gaming environment in general for both PvE and PvP.

(2) Is there agreement on the *concept* of Leagues, which is to put people into groups that can give any particular toon they field a reasonable chance of BOTH winning and losing.
Without this, there is no point in proceeding.
But if we do, then we can start talking about how to sort people and how to reward people.

Off the top of my head,

(a) I'd say part of the ranking might be based on Win:Lose ratio after a minimum number of matches based on which League they are currently in. If your ratio is too high you get bumped up. If your ratio sinks drastically you get nudged down again. And you can voluntarily move up but not down.

(b) A "higher" League cannot necessarily give excessively excellent rewards compared to a "lower" league as some people might voluntarily reduce their assets to play in a different category.

Neither can a "lower" League allow farming rewards simply for showing up an excessive number of times. This encourages botting and throwing matches.

Finally, having a very skewed Win:Lose Ratio should not give a significantly better reward than a more balanced one as it encourages botting, throwing matches, or various ways of exploiting your way into a League in which you are overpowered.

hakan · July 2019

No no no. Problem is you think that pvp is problem. No.

ZOS decided people kill bosses and overland 2fast2ez so they began with morrowind sustain nerfs.

Dusk_Coven · July 2019

hakan wrote: »

No no no. Problem is you think that pvp is problem. No.

No no no. Problem is you think I even said that and nothing else. No.

Saril_Durzam · July 2019

Its a good idea that would need some implemention.

burglar · July 2019

PvP areas provide deeper insight into how the game is functioning when you consider how dynamic the interactions are, which I imagine would be crucial for adequate testing when there are so many different ways one can play this game. To make PvP areas less populated by dividing those populations you reduce the amount of data that can acquire from these encounters, which in turn limits that knowledge. I can't say that it would happen, but the result of this kind of restriction could be a worse PvE experience, like repetitive and redundant game play in end game PvE content.

Also, I don't think the game's PvE and PvP will ever be balanced separately, considering that the game was originally marketed as a PvP game; not to mention that the President of ZOS is a co-founder of the company that developed one of the greatest PvP MMORPGs, DAoC. If you look throughout that game's history, the closest thing you will find to this concept of balancing is by making a server that is PvE only, which isn't possible as far as I know with megaservers.

Dusk_Coven · July 2019

ProbablePaul wrote: »

To make PvP areas less populated by dividing those populations you reduce the amount of data that can acquire from these encounters, which in turn limits that knowledge.

I think this is a fallacy. The PvP population had to start literally from a zero population at some point. This is a given -- it was zero until the game launched and players populated it. So any arguments about reducing the population are really not valid because players will (re)populate whatever system is in place.
And IF what is proposed is to reboot PvP into a better system -- one that is more inviting of PvP participants and one that is more robust against perceived imbalances -- then we will end up with a larger population after the reboot. We just need to make sure we're headed into a better system.

ProbablePaul wrote: »

considering that the game was originally marketed as a PvP game; not to mention that the President of ZOS is a co-founder of the company that developed one of the greatest PvP MMORPGs, DAoC

Maybe, but if a company is smart they will look at each game demographic separately and adapt their strategy (for profit).
I would venture to say that there is a very sizable demographic that is completely uninterested in PvP. Very likely in a clear majority.
No matter what the original marketing, it would be foolish to ignore who is actually playing the game, especially in a dynamic one like an MMO where the content evolves.

ProbablePaul wrote: »

like repetitive and redundant game play in end game PvE content

This is a different issue, I feel. Repetitive and redundant gameplay come from a lack of content. You are:
(1) using the same skills over and over -- but this cannot be addressed without introducing new variables to balance. ESO sort of does it by trying to introduce new sets. SWTOR is trying it with skill modifiers to refresh the play experience. It'll be interesting to see how that goes as they are just starting the PTS cycle.

(2) doing the same thing over and over -- such as the same dungeon or trial. Games try to alleviate this by either introducing new content or difficulty modes.

But neither of these situations change the fact that balancing skills against mostly static PvE targets is easier than trying to balance them against PvP targets.
I am proposing they fight only on one front instead of juggling two, and use a different strategy altogether for the complications of PvP. A strategy that potentially lets ZOS not have to intervene with balance changes at all.