Aznox wrote: »

This is off topic, ranking will rate win-rate, that's it, players at the top will have both superior skill and superior gear (and superior "roles", and yes maybe superior "classes", but then again balance can continue happening).

Right...so ranking will have little to do with your actual skill, and more to do with how the balance swings that day? Super skillful, super competitive, much different than now...

Improve the balance, improve the performance, separate DM from Objectives, increase population, increase incentives, redesign the modes. That is how you will see change in the BG environment. If we already have players declaring themselves as top tier players, in top MMR then it's not rank that is the problem. It seems that people just need a greater pool of players to play against. If there was an actual large and diverse population, then I think a competitive ranking system would make a difference and have more meaning then it would now. The only difference you would be ensuring is maybe less weak players on and against your team, but much longer queue times atm.

divnyi wrote: »

How does this factor in that some people just spend more time on the game so they have gold everything vs people that are just part time and have epic gear.

It gives them different rating as an outcome of the fight.
Yes, this is the answer to gear question. Always was.
This is fantasy MMO after all.

Should just make a leaderboard of players with the highest peak WD/SP and that can be your leader board, a cookie for whoever spends the most time farming chromium grains. If skill is the defining factor in winning or losing why would anyone be worried about normalized stats in PvP? Other games have far superior systems where gear doesn't transfer into PvP and you don't have an obvious advantage. You'd find more balance implementing that than trying to make an MMR system.

Aznox wrote: »

Others will go back to their own set of made-up excuses (lag, performance, balance, bad luck)

This is my last answer (last one should have been) because we'll clearly disagree on everything, and this thread and others will never progress as long as we're "debating".

lol this is what you end up with when you've prioritized pounding new players into the dirt repeatedly

Who here is asking for a rework, to be matched with similarly performing opponents? Who is asking for a status quo?

I'm nowhere near the top "mechanically skilled" BG players, yet this happens every day because you are too afraid to vote for a fair matchmaking based on actual performance :

not worried about any sort of balance issues, not fix any of the performance issues

Everyone is (mostly) affected equally by these, nothing unfair here.

new players don't find it fun because they don't know what the meta is, they don't have the gear to compete

That's what I'm saying ! Proper ELO/MMR would have such "clueless" new (or old) players happily fight in tight 490-470-500 matches where any top team would currently go 500-0-0. (and that last part is natural, like any top F1 team with top budget and talent would crush any amateur team).

they don't understand why 4 of them combined can't even bring down 1 guy.

With proper ELO/MMR, this wouldn't happen, players who would start to "get it" would gradually be sent to higher tiers, and they would enjoy the recognition from such a progression, while players not able/willing to progress would be kept in their safe bubble of fairness.

There's a laundry list of issues to fix before thinking about any kind of actual ranking system.

Sorry but "YoureWrongImRight", an actual ranking system being the basis for the matchmaking logic would instantly invalidate most of your laundry list.

My PM are open for any further discussion as I don't want this thread locked.

You're missing the entire point that the foundation for "Proper ELO" doesn't exist.

As usual, you're wrong, and I'm right.

Aznox wrote: »

I'll go back to my own set of made-up rules (topping DMG stats every BG)

Others will go back to their own set of made-up rules (best personal K/D whatever the consequences for the team)

Others will go back to their own set of made-up excuses (lag, performance, balance, bad luck)

I give up.

Let's all go back to our happy little stone age.

From what I've seen you've shown no interest in actually progressing the community as a whole. Seems like you're perfectly fine with the stone age, with class and gear imbalances, performance, mode designs, widening skill gaps all being non-issues for you. Anyone suggesting anything else just needs to "git gud", therefore should be discredited, even though new/casual players are part of the community and should have some imput. Seems like the stone age is fine as long as you get recognition for feeding into it.

If you want to see a video that explains an MMR system that would actually work, please quote this post with the response "Yes please"

YoureWrongImRight wrote: »

Because it's not just gear sets we're talking about here, new characters don't have access to the same skills, the same passives.

You do realise that it's their decision whether to collect a few more Skyshards or go into the BG unprepared, right?

If I slap you in all trash overland drops with training traits and magicka glyphs on a stam character you will be decimated 100% of the time... period.

Gear does not maketh the man. As a B Tier player that tries lots of combinations of class and build, I can honestly say that when I'm on one that does not suit my playstyle or I'm struggling to get to work, I get owned, even in all Gold gear that other players use to great advantage.

[snip]

Thankfully, help is at hand. @TheRealGodzilla is working hard to make a PvP Academy, as we speak

[edited for baiting]

Building right is a skill.
/thread

divnyi wrote: »

Building right is a skill.
/thread

lol copying some guys build from Youtube is a skill now?

@Aldoss Whole point is that any other game that works like this doesn't have ranks because they wouldn't mean anything. They have a similar structure to what already exists, you just load in and smash people and that's it, because it's incapable of actually being more competitive than that in its current state.

I agree, you're choosing to play a game that incorporates all these things, and for that reason you're choosing to play a game that is non competitive.

We can even use your real life Olympic example, this is a combat sport is it not? Do we ask lightweights to fight heavyweights and middleweights? No we don't. We normalize the stats and have them be close in size and have weight classes. As it sits right now we're asking lightweights to fight heavyweights due to their stats advantage. It's nor fair from the beginning and therefore a non competitive activity.

What's the first thing you think when you walk up to someone and dumpster them in 2 hits. You say to yourself. WOW that guy is really squishy. You don't think, WOW that guy really sucks, because you know it has nothing to do with any kind of skill on whether or not somebody can kill you in 2 hits. They just can and that's just the reality. Guaranteed if some "god tier" player switches gear with that guy, their experience will be the same. People will walk up to them and kill them in 2 hits every single time. Does that mean he can right away automatically go compete with other people with good builds? No, because now skill actually becomes a factor being that those players have equally good stats. When stats are equal, or at least reasonably equal is when skill is the determining factor of victory.

The first thing you see anyone respond with when people are complaining about PvP is "what sets are you running?", "what food are you running?". Because they know perfectly well that stats are the leading factor in any confrontation.

Seems to me that people just want some ranking system so they screenshot an arbitrary leaderboard ranking to post it here like they love to do with their BG k/d/a. But any suggestion to actually make things an equal playing field, normalize stats, normalize skills, and actually make that rank matter is terrifying. As with all my suggestions, people who are truly skilled should not be concerned with them, as they'll just rise to the top like they always do. They are god tier after all.

@YoureWrongImRight I like the analogy to combat sports, but I'm shocked that you missed the obvious parallel even though you started down the track:

"As it sits right now we're asking lightweights to fight heavyweights due to their stats advantage. It's nor fair from the beginning and therefore a non competitive activity."

If sifting and ranking weren't effective, no sport would do it. At one point, boxing didn't have weight classes at all and pretty much only heavyweights were competitive. It was stale and boring and slowly new divisions and classes were created to spur competition. By your synopsis, boxing was a non competitive sport and people should have just accepted it and moved on and tried to find enjoyment in it. Lucky for.boxing, they had a genius idea to start ranking and matching opponents against those that were similarly weighted and similarly skilled. No one wants to watch a heavyweight one shot a lightweight in the first 5 seconds and call it a championship match.

That's what we're here talking about. This game could be competitive. It's apparent you don't think so, and while I appreciate you sharing your opinion, your argument isn't convincing me to stop asking ZOS for this.

Since I think this discussion is important, here's my perspective on your supposition of a pvper.

When I see someone with 16k hp, I do indeed say, "wow they're squishy" and I do not jump to "wow, they suck". I've been pleasantly surprised numerous times with teammates who join with 21k hp and I sigh, only to see these teammates dish out massive damage and decent survivability because they happen to know their play style so well. Those instances are few, and typically a teammate with 20k hp will prove to be useless.

Swapping gear alone does nothing for your argument. This game is huge and the combat is extremely complex. A "God tier" player is not always God tier on every class. However, give that player a short time frame to have them learn the class, learn the gear and the combat interactions with it, they will 100% outperform the inexperienced player who was originally wearing it.

Giving an inexperienced player golded gear doesn't level the playing field in the way you're suggesting. Armor can be penetrated and anyone of low experience can be exploited unto a burst combo and die without knowing what happened.

Just today I had a teammate who joined on a stamblade who didn't have a self heal slotted. They even had 27k hp, but when I asked why they were running around at 50% hp for way too long, they didn't know what vigor or rally were. They weren't using offering because "it was a magicka ability and they're stamina"..

There are clear classes/tiers at play here:
- Skill (low, medium, high)
- Build quality (poor, niche, solid)
- Class (under performing, mid tier, meta)

This game is not just about one of those. It's all of them. I can't agree to asking ZOS to standardize the BG experience by standardizing gear because they can barely push out content patches without massive and alarming bugs. There's no way we'll see any feature like the one you're suggesting within the needy 5 years.

Standardization in this game already exists. If you want to use rallying cry because it's part of many meta builds right now, go buy it or farm it. It's part of the game. If you want to run olorime on your build, but you don't have Summerset, whoops, guess you'll have to find an alternative, which absolutely exists.

Is a boxing match unfair because one opponent had the funds to train under the world's best boxing coach and the other was self taught? Should all boxing matches be suspended until all competitiors are able to secure the same amount of training hours with the world's too coach?

Even chess is unfair by these means. If being competitive is important to you, you will find a way to progress your ability to compete. ZOS gives all players this opportunity already.

ZOS just published and announced a seasonal ranked ladder... For a card game. It exists. They clearly think it's useful enough to try for the first time ever.

I want it for BGs. I want them to expand it. We deserve it, maybe more than a card game, but oh well. I'm not here to debate if we should have one at all. I, and numerous other are here, voicing our wishes to ZOS that we want it for BGs, now more than ever, because they published it... Just not for a system where we think it is better placed.

The two posts above are absolutely spot on

I've split your points up nice and easy for you to read:

1. (Wrong) Noone said ESO is the pinnacle of competitive pvp. Making suggestions in how it can be improved is part of the purpose of the forum.

2. (Mostly wrong) The steady decline of pvp population is generally considered to be due to decline is server performance. Although people may leave because of shifts in meta / not being able to build correctly, i'd guess the vast majority are performance related.

3. (Wrong) I have more examples, i've also been killing people in the stormhaven (the duel area on NA) on that build, there's also examples available online of people winning duels against good players while not having gear on (just weapons and jewellery). How can this be possible at such a stat disadvantage??????? When CPs got reset a patch or two ago, I didn't realise for a while and was also winning duels in alikr on EU without any slotted. How can this be possible at such a huge stat disadvantage???????

4. (Wrong) Noone on this thread ever said they want ZOS to drop everything and implement an elo system ignoring other ingame issues. It's just a suggestion for them to reconsider moving forward.

5. (Irrelevant + Bad) As of March 2021 @cyclonus11 informed us there are 481 item sets available in game. What you're saying is you want to remove the skill of theorycrafting builds in favour of standardised set ups. This is an awful suggestion as players have different playstyles on classes that can't be transferred around cookiecutter standardised builds. This also removes a huge part of what players love about this game, the variation and testing builds.

Ominer wrote: »

I'll say it again, people who can make valuable input into improving the game (e.g. people who discover the meta, who understand class balances) are sick of coming to this forum to have to constantly fight every discussion out with players who clearly have little to no idea what they're talking about.

You talk about widening skill gaps but I’d argue the skill gap from average to top tier players has only been getting narrower. With the removal of animation cancelling, top players leaving due to burnout with performance, shifts in the meta & balance etc. Also, skill gap wouldn't be an issue with a ranked system as you'd be fighting similarly skilled players so your statement is pointless. New / casual players would only benefit as they'd stop getting stomped everytime they tried to engage in pvp.

Yes I understand the importance in having the input of vet players, sure. But there needs to be more constructive dialogue than, "if you disagree with me, you clearly don't understand the game, you are dumb, git gud". I don't care how skilled you are. If there is to be the implementation of a competitive ranking system, players should be questioning how it would work, and reward players who are not simply DD designed. The skill gap isn't widening? Clearly that's not the case with the K/D/A scores being posted on these forums. The exiting of top tier players is only decreasing the pool that other vet players have of people to compete against, the disparity between players is still evidently there.

Yes, I agree that because of the learning curve, day 1 players should not be pitted against the sweaty vets, but there needs to be changes before it could be considered competitive. I actually think that the current MMR would be working if there was the population to support it. Because it does not, I agree, it needs to be updated. MMR should also be account based, not character based, with the games current state.

Aldoss wrote: »

There's every point in giving the PvP community a ranked ladder to spur competition, boost creativity, and boost the PvP ecosystem. Arguing against it by saying that this game isn't standardized is like saying there's no point in ranking the Olympics because not all humans have the same genetics.

All Olympic sports have rules, regulations, standardized equipment in order to prevent players from having some kind of advantage over their opponents? The rankings in the Olympic are purely based on your own raw skill, and nothing else? BGs is like competitive archery, only amongst the competitors you have people pulling up with rifles and scopes, saying they don't have much of an advantage.

Ominer wrote: »

I've been 1vXing players on NA greyhost with 260cp, blue gear and a level 48 caluurions legacy greatsword. For someone with that name you're wrong an incredible amount of the time. You've already been told building correctly is a skill / gear isn't the be all and end all of fights. Anything you've written as a counter argument since then is also wrong / adds nothing to what you've said previously.

1vXing who though? Probably inexperienced players, who are also wearing crap gear. Most vets won't even bother with you, and a min maxed ball group would've slaughtered you. Caluurions is pretty meta is it not? Could you have achieved the same performance in some gear you got from Fungal Grotto? Doubtful.

WordsOfPower wrote: »

It seems he thinks it's an unfair game. There is literally no set available that another player can't have. The most difficult to obtain sets are skill gated not paywalled (Perfected Vateshran, etc).

If you don't recognise that the variety of builds is the best thing about ESO PvP, then why are you even on a forum discussing it? (besides your crusade to have us all wearing Rubedite)

Gear isn't balanced for only BGs? So sets meant for large scale PvP are pretty game breaking in small scale PvP. It's because of the introduction of certain gear, that many players left the game, or did we forget the impact that Hrothgar, DC, Plaguebreak had on the community when they were first introduced? Sets meant for Cyro are fair in BGs?

Yes through skill and knowledge you can kill inexperienced/bad players, however, against anyone else who also has knowledge of the game, and actually PvPs regularly, you cannot compete without a sound build. You cannot in the same breath say that buildcrafting is skill, and then say it makes no impact. If build and gear meant little, then buildcrafting wouldn't be a skill to begin with. Players have left because the fundamentals of the game are flawed, and now you want to implement a ranking system on top of them saying that it's fair. A competitive ranking system only serves those who are already performing well, but does not help the issues that drove many players away to begin with.