The BG Community Deserves Better

gariondavey · April 2022

This thread had a lot of potential for good discussion before certain individuals derailed and ruined it. Please don't derail or ruin this thread.

"Reading this in the patch notes could not have brought me more disdain and contempt for the management team at ZOS:

As a dedicated player who plays virtually daily with my wife and our preferred outlet being BGs for at least the last year and half, this one sentence in the patch notes destroyed all faith that you will do anything of worth for this outlet.

Who would have imagined that a company could spend resources to design the best available reactionary combat system, and rather than bringing it to the spotlight for the masses, they give the first seasonal ranked offering to a pitiful knock off of Dominion.

Please for the love of god tell me that this is another test (we know how ZOS loves those on the live server) and that if it succeeds, then ZOS will be bringing it to their dueling and BG scenes. You know, the communities that have been around for years. Telling me that this is part of the road map towards BG ranked seasons is the only way to get me to play this as it is.

Watching this potential get wasted is so draining. Please give me any hope to keep playing this game @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin."

I'd like to 2nd this sentiment. It really feels like ZOS is leaving the BG community out to dry here.

DaggersKid · April 2022

[snip]

to the topic: i can‘t imagine implementing a basic ranking system would cost much development-time. it‘s surely about not wanting to do it… i don‘t get the argument about possible toxicity tho, if they implement a ranked system in the card game? i would really like to see that ranked system as a test for a ranked system in bgs… tho first we need dm back or better objective bgs… so in the end it holds, that they won‘t do anything about pvp this year.

[Edit for Bait.]

Aldoss · April 2022

Thanks @gariondavey for reviving this.

Please keep this thread on topic and please don't feed the trolls. We deserve to have our grievances aired in the open. We deserve some explanation as to why this card game is getting what we've been asking and hoping for for years.

All I want is some comment from ZOS helping us understand why this choice was made. Prove to us that you haven't forgotten us.

MentalxHammer · April 2022

ESO PvP is really something special that no game has been able to emulate or iterate on. I know many players that, despite the shortcomings of the game are very passionate about it and continue to add to their thousands of hours of game time, including myself. That alone should speak to the potential the PvP in ESO has.

Considering the proven potential this game has to offer it is a shame that there is a sweeping consensus among the PvP community that we are being neglected and the PvP aspects of this game are continually under serviced. There have been countless threads opened expressing the need for an update to PvP content, especially the need for a competitive outlet in PvP.

I think it would go a long way if ZOS would be willing to open up a dialogue with us about why we are not seeing any investment into this side of the game. It’s okay if we don’t get the answers we’re looking for, I think a lot of players just want to know that we’re being heard. Thanks for listening.

divnyi · April 2022

[snip]

Mechanically, ESO equal numbers / small scale PvP is one of the most interesting aspects of the game.
Practically, it is the most disregarded community in the game.

Sad state of queue types.
Sad state of objective game modes.
No 1v1 PvP in BG-like style, with random opponent.
No two side group PvP.
No rating system, no ELO system.
No new maps.

Obviously, some of that requires lot of effort, I can understand that if you are working on performance of your game engine, you might not want to start the work which which will be impacted by the changes.

But some of above isn't requiring any significant dev effort - like new maps. So why then?
Not enough players to justify the work? Have you ever thought, why?

These are the players that react to balance issues the most. Just, did you ever try to measure how many PvP players did you lose during Hrothgar / DC screw-up? How about, IDK, treat those issues as highest-priority live bugs, and apply fast hotfixes (faster than 1 month, yea)? Or have feature toggles set up in advance to disable broken sets without the need to make a release?

Number of players is directly proportional to the quality of the content, and carefully calculated incentives to play, instead of daily BG exp bonus only, and none of that for duels.

[edited for Discussing Disciplinary Actions]

IncultaWolf · April 2022

The daily BG reward needs to be updated to give more transmute crystals, "1" compared to dungeon finders "10" right now isn't a big incentive to win and pvp with my other characters everyday, and having a new battleground map once a year would be really nice too!

Ominer · April 2022

gariondavey wrote: »

This thread had a lot of potential for good discussion before certain individuals derailed and ruined it. Please don't derail or ruin this thread.

I'm glad you revived this thread; I was looking forward to reading some discussion on ideas around ranked systems in the game. It's not good practice to shut an entire thread down on the basis someone came and derailed the topic, just warn the individual to not do it.

I agree that the steady decline of performance and lack of investment and development in new features of PvP has caused a significant decline in the number of PvPers but I know a lot who say they'd be back the day the game became playable again.

IMO a ranked PvP system would go a long way to improve balancing in the game as it'd give ZOS a clear indication of overperforming classes and builds. If ZOS don't have good quality PvPers on the team, then they'd struggle to understand the experience of PvPers in terms of the actual ingame impact of balance changes.

Unfortunately, the majority of top tier pvpers who would be able to provide inciteful feedback have lost faith in the forums / are banned from it, so a lot of the suggestions now come from people who don't really have a grasp of gameplay mechanics (LA weaving lol). I'd like them to reassess class reps and get some good pvpers onboard ideally, but we'll see what (if anything) happens.

gariondavey · April 2022

Ominer wrote: »

gariondavey wrote: »

This thread had a lot of potential for good discussion before certain individuals derailed and ruined it. Please don't derail or ruin this thread.

I'm glad you revived this thread; I was looking forward to reading some discussion on ideas around ranked systems in the game. It's not good practice to shut an entire thread down on the basis someone came and derailed the topic, just warn the individual to not do it.

I agree that the steady decline of performance and lack of investment and development in new features of PvP has caused a significant decline in the number of PvPers but I know a lot who say they'd be back the day the game became playable again.

IMO a ranked PvP system would go a long way to improve balancing in the game as it'd give ZOS a clear indication of overperforming classes and builds. If ZOS don't have good quality PvPers on the team, then they'd struggle to understand the experience of PvPers in terms of the actual ingame impact of balance changes.

Unfortunately, the majority of top tier pvpers who would be able to provide inciteful feedback have lost faith in the forums / are banned from it, so a lot of the suggestions now come from people who don't really have a grasp of gameplay mechanics (LA weaving lol). I'd like them to reassess class reps and get some good pvpers onboard ideally, but we'll see what (if anything) happens.

Right on the money!

Ominer · April 2022

IncultaWolf wrote: »

The daily BG reward needs to be updated to give more transmute crystals, "1" compared to dungeon finders "10" right now isn't a big incentive to win and pvp with my other characters everyday, and having a new battleground map once a year would be really nice too!

Agree 100%, more rewards for daily BGs would increase the player base which has been impacting queue times. This would also encourage more people who've been reluctant to try BGs or PvP to try it out. This would hopefully lead to them sticking around and doing more PvP content and becoming better at the game. Reaching higher ELO if ZOS implement a new ranked BG / PvP system.

I also think having lower daily BG rewards looks like an example of ZOS neglecting PvP over PVE. Transmute crystal aren't a huge reward anyway so why not.

Vaoh · April 2022

They don’t care and are never going to care. Get yourself into a better game for PvP. Not saying this to be mean btw but if you value your time that is what you would do.

ESO PvP is only worth it for the sake of acquiring achievements or large amounts of transmute crystals.

Ominer · April 2022

Vaoh wrote: »

They don’t care and are never going to care. Get yourself into a better game for PvP. Not saying this to be mean btw but if you value your time that is what you would do.

ESO PvP is only worth it for the sake of acquiring achievements or large amounts of transmute crystals.

I've got 1000's of hours invested in this game, even if there was a game with better PvP (all personal opinion) I'm not going to invest the time to learn it to get to a stage I am now in ESO. I'd rather just touch grass and retire from MMOs altogether.

Aznox · April 2022

Vaoh wrote: »

They don’t care and are never going to care. Get yourself into a better game for PvP. Not saying this to be mean btw but if you value your time that is what you would do.

ESO PvP is only worth it for the sake of acquiring achievements or large amounts of transmute crystals.

I agree with @Ominer, can we leave the discussion about making ESO PvP better to people that care/believe in making ESO PvP better??

Vaoh · April 2022

Ominer wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

They don’t care and are never going to care. Get yourself into a better game for PvP. Not saying this to be mean btw but if you value your time that is what you would do.

ESO PvP is only worth it for the sake of acquiring achievements or large amounts of transmute crystals.

I've got 1000's of hours invested in this game, even if there was a game with better PvP (all personal opinion) I'm not going to invest the time to learn it to get to a stage I am now in ESO. I'd rather just touch grass and retire from MMOs altogether.

Aznox wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

They don’t care and are never going to care. Get yourself into a better game for PvP. Not saying this to be mean btw but if you value your time that is what you would do.

ESO PvP is only worth it for the sake of acquiring achievements or large amounts of transmute crystals.

I agree with @Ominer, can we leave the discussion about making ESO PvP better to people that care/believe in making ESO PvP better??

Who said I don’t care about PvP?
FYI I care a lot for PvP and love the PvP in this game when it works. ZOS is finally at work on updating foundational code so there might be hope that things actually improve.

Here’s how the OP opened this thread:
“Reading this in the patch notes could not have brought me more disdain and contempt for the management team at ZOS”

And I’m telling him, it is not worth playing PvP if you feel this upset over a game. Using the Tales of Tribute leaderboard as reason to be upset about broken PvP not having a seasonal leaderboard doesn’t make sense.

Aznox · April 2022

Vaoh wrote: »

Who said I don’t care about PvP?

Vaoh wrote: »

ESO PvP is only worth it for the sake of acquiring achievements or large amounts of transmute crystals.

ESO PvP is great, so much that many keep coming back after trying other games (hello New World) or going through an easily explainable burnout period (breaks are healthy).

ESO PvP is great but it could be so much better, why wouldn't we try to voice our opinion if we think there's a chance to drive progress?

Vaoh · April 2022

Aznox wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Who said I don’t care about PvP?

Vaoh wrote: »

ESO PvP is only worth it for the sake of acquiring achievements or large amounts of transmute crystals.

ESO PvP is great, so much that many keep coming back after trying other games (hello New World) or going through an easily explainable burnout period (breaks are healthy).

ESO PvP is great but it could be so much better, why wouldn't we try to voice our opinion if we think there's a chance to drive progress?

Definitely voice your opinion, we all want the PvP to be better than it is rn.

Many people return to ESO but I disagree that they return for PvP. If that were the case we could see 3-4x more players regularly in PvP (aka like we used to in Morrowind, or how we see in mid year mayhem events). Very few come back just for the PvP and the ones who do are often so attached they could almost never fully quit.

Aldoss · April 2022

Vaoh wrote: »

And I’m telling him, it is not worth playing PvP if you feel this upset over a game. Using the Tales of Tribute leaderboard as reason to be upset about broken PvP not having a seasonal leaderboard doesn’t make sense.

I wrote that sentence. I'm not upset at this game (most of the time). I'm disappointed by the game's managers which is a totally different thing altogether.

This game is a great outlet for me, but that doesn't mean that I don't have ideas for how it could be improved.

ZOS should want to know how their communication affects their clients, so I told them.

WordsOfPower · April 2022

In the spirit of 'if you build it, they will come', we can see that if the community innovate, then sometimes devs will take the ideas and weave it into the game.

Many addons have been created that did things that ZOS later added to base game.

For each feature that we see, we can probably help by doing the conceptualising for them.

If you want to see a video explaining how a true, effective MMR would work, please quote this message with the response 'Yes please'.