I failed to get a queue to pop today. I queued for around 20 minutes for one then queued for around 20 minutes for the other back and forth for a bit over two hours.

Tcholl wrote: »

I don't see any reason why someone grouped must play on the 8 x 8.

I hear you about optimized duos.

I wrote about this earlier, but I'll reiterate the importance that ZOS create systems that promote a healthy population over the long term and not create systems for short term enjoyment.

The goal of this update is obviously to improve the BG experience and grow the playerbase. Fast pops, more engaging modes, and more fun modes are the way to do that. In a healthy playerbase, duos in the 8v8 pool won't impact the health of the games because optimized duos are so infrequent.

What we have now is not healthy. Group queue is 50/50 for my wife and I because we play this game together, so we are forced into that queue, even though we are casual pvpers. On nights where there is only 1x 4-stack, we go and play Valheim. We get 60-90 minutes a night to play this game and more than half of that is spent in queue. 1 premade completely destroys the joy of the game for everyone else.

Here's what I mean about volume solving the problem:

CURRENTLY - in order to play with your friends in this social game, you have to join the group queue. Let's remove MMR entirely since the MMR currently, and the one being proposed, are stupid anyway.

If there are only 4 other duos (10 players) that want to play BGs, nothing pops, and we all twiddle our thumbs for 20 minutes before finally deciding to do something else. It doesn't matter if you're an optimized team or not. No one plays.

If there are only 6 duos, a game is generated and we all play, unless one team skips the queue, in which it becomes a 4v4v2,
which happens way more than you'd think. My wife and I had 3 BGs in a row earlier this week where we never got a completed team.

If there are 20 duos, with 1 team being super sweaty, the likelihood that you will play against them is 26%. This happens frequently and we still play under those conditions because a sweaty duo simply doesn't have the same force as a 4-stack.

U44 - You are allowed to play with your friends and join the larger queue pool of solos and groups. Let's say ZOS gets smart and only allows duos into the 8v8.

If there are 30 solo players in the queue (not unreasonable given the current solo queue pop), and 5 total duos of any skill level, the probability that your team has no duos is only 17%.

In that same scenario, but 1 duo is super sweaty, it would be the same probability that you have fight against them in your next bg.

If the game gets fun and attracts more players (which is what we all should be hoping for), if the solo queue player base doubles to 60 solos, 10 total duos, with 2 of them being super sweaty, that chance that your next bg will have both sweaty duos in the bg AND on the same team is 1.1%.


We shouldn't advocate for systems that don't scale. Get the queue population up and the casuals will outnumber the sweaties and make it more and more statistically impossible for a super team to be created.

Change the scenario to have 1x 4-man super sweaty premade in it and you have a 1.6% chance that your next bg will even have the 4-stack, and a 0.8% chance that they'd be against you. However, I think it's important that the general consensus here is that 1x 4-man premade can, and will, absolutely destroy the integrity of the entire game for the other 12 people in a way that a super sweaty duo just can not.

Duos should be a reasonable cut off for 8v8.

I am a diehard PVP player who also loves solo queue, both for the convenience and for the randomness factor, e.g. seeing rotating teams.

I have done premades in other games (e.g. 2k rating in 2v2/3v3 WoW Arena, 1.8k rating in WildStar 2v2, etc), and I don't want to be forced to queue with other players - it requires work to do organized groups (scheduling, voice comms, build compositions, etc).

As it is, in 4v4, solo and duo queue teams are going to get farmed by 4-man premades.

I also think 4-man premades in 8v8 will be a slaughter, even moreso because less-skilled players are going to get matched up against sweaty players.

---

The reality is that the vast majority of PVP diehards want DM only. They don't care about objectives, because they want the challenge of fighting other players, not clicking on or standing on flags.

I can think of a relative easy solution with 3 queues:
- 4v4 solo queue, DM only, MMR matched
- 4v4 premade queue, DM only, MMR matched
- 8v8 solo or duo queue, non-DM only, no MMR

The diehards can have their fun in DM in 4v4 (solo or premade). All the people who despise DM (and there are a lot of more casual players and a few rare diehards who fall in this camp) can have their fun in 8v8 and play objectives to their hearts' content.

taugrim wrote: »

I am a diehard PVP player who also loves solo queue, both for the convenience and for the randomness factor, e.g. seeing rotating teams.

I have done premades in other games (e.g. 2k rating in 2v2/3v3 WoW Arena, 1.8k rating in WildStar 2v2, etc), and I don't want to be forced to queue with other players - it requires work to do organized groups (scheduling, voice comms, build compositions, etc).

As it is, in 4v4, solo and duo queue teams are going to get farmed by 4-man premades.

I also think 4-man premades in 8v8 will be a slaughter, even moreso because less-skilled players are going to get matched up against sweaty players.

---

The reality is that the vast majority of PVP diehards want DM only. They don't care about objectives, because they want the challenge of fighting other players, not clicking on or standing on flags.

I can think of a relative easy solution with 3 queues:
- 4v4 solo queue, DM only, MMR matched
- 4v4 premade queue, DM only, MMR matched
- 8v8 solo or duo queue, non-DM only, no MMR

The diehards can have their fun in DM in 4v4 (solo or premade). All the people who despise DM (and there are a lot of more casual players and a few rare diehards who fall in this camp) can have their fun in 8v8 and play objectives to their hearts' content.

This is a great suggestion imo.

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

taugrim wrote: »

I am a diehard PVP player who also loves solo queue, both for the convenience and for the randomness factor, e.g. seeing rotating teams.

I have done premades in other games (e.g. 2k rating in 2v2/3v3 WoW Arena, 1.8k rating in WildStar 2v2, etc), and I don't want to be forced to queue with other players - it requires work to do organized groups (scheduling, voice comms, build compositions, etc).

As it is, in 4v4, solo and duo queue teams are going to get farmed by 4-man premades.

I also think 4-man premades in 8v8 will be a slaughter, even moreso because less-skilled players are going to get matched up against sweaty players.

---

The reality is that the vast majority of PVP diehards want DM only. They don't care about objectives, because they want the challenge of fighting other players, not clicking on or standing on flags.

I can think of a relative easy solution with 3 queues:
- 4v4 solo queue, DM only, MMR matched
- 4v4 premade queue, DM only, MMR matched
- 8v8 solo or duo queue, non-DM only, no MMR

The diehards can have their fun in DM in 4v4 (solo or premade). All the people who despise DM (and there are a lot of more casual players and a few rare diehards who fall in this camp) can have their fun in 8v8 and play objectives to their hearts' content.

I think Taugrim makes an incredibly important point here that the devs/product owner who made this decision to combine queues may have not recognized.

There are a lot of us solo queue folks who do not have the time to prepare/organize a group to enter a bg. Currently we can solo queue and get a pretty competitive match quickly woth other solos. After a long day of work, this is a lot of fun and easy to do. If we are required to competenin bgs with premade groups we are going to be at a significant disadvantage because we are ongoing in solo. This will make bgs less fun and make, at least me, a lot less likely to queue. I will spend my pvp time elsewhere and that bothers me because I think solo bgs are the purest, most competitive and most fair pvp in this game. It would be a big loss.

There are also players like myself, that already spend a lot of time and effort on Cyro ballgroup and organized comp and sometimes just want to play solo on some casual matches. Truth is no one queuing solo wants to face premade groups.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, thanks for the feedback regarding MMR and medals. After chatting with the team, we have a few points just to clarify as you continue testing.

1. MMR is used in matchmaking to pair players with similar experience and skill levels for ESO PvP battlegrounds. So when possible, the game logic will try to avoid putting premades with solo players.
2. Leaderboards have historically been populated based on your medal score, which are earned by completing objectives in Battlegrounds. However we are reviewing your feedback regarding this topic. For now, we will continue to monitor and evaluate your feedback noted here, in addition to watching player behavior as the PTS cycle continues.
3. We have seen some of your feedback regarding MMR Degrade and looking at potential next steps here. Nothing to announce now, but we see the feedback.

Thanks for the continued feedback!

Thanks for jumping in here Kevin and for doing it before PTS week 1 is even over.

Can you possibly define what the game logic sees as "premade". Is any group a premade? Are 3 person groups premades? 4-mans only?

I have extensive experience in the group only queue of this game because 99% of the time when I'm playing, I'm grouped with my wife. The duo scene is mostly casual with the inevitable smattering of a few well known duos that are on highly optimized builds and know how to use them well. Those duos rarely ruin the queue and games typically continue to pop on nights when there's only 1 or two of them.

3's are rare because they never get pops, so I can't speak to them.

4's 100% ruin the queue unless there's at least 2. 1 4-man will completely destroy the will of the casuals to queue.

Lastly, if ZOS decides to not change anything (which I strongly advise against here), will there be any adjustment to BG scoring to finally incorporate pet dmg and healing into the mix? Necro's dmg scores can easily miss out on 1M+ damage from BB alone.

i would agree with others that the medal score is the worst possible metric to use for the MMR

in your first point about MMR being used to match up player skill for better matches, however medal score in no way shape or form shows the player is skilled

like others have pointed out, you could do nothing but spam heals and get a great medal score, and lose every match by being spawn camped, but your still going to get matched against higher skill players because your medal score is high

Can someone confirm that we will no longer be allowed to sign up for 3-team battlegrounds?

WolfCombatPet wrote: »

Can someone confirm that we will no longer be allowed to sign up for 3-team battlegrounds?

they explicitly said that 3 team BGs will only return for limited events, so i wouldnt expect to be able to queue for them for quite awhile

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, thanks for the feedback regarding MMR and medals. After chatting with the team, we have a few points just to clarify as you continue testing.

1. MMR is used in matchmaking to pair players with similar experience and skill levels for ESO PvP battlegrounds. So when possible, the game logic will try to avoid putting premades with solo players.
2. Leaderboards have historically been populated based on your medal score, which are earned by completing objectives in Battlegrounds. However we are reviewing your feedback regarding this topic. For now, we will continue to monitor and evaluate your feedback noted here, in addition to watching player behavior as the PTS cycle continues.
3. We have seen some of your feedback regarding MMR Degrade and looking at potential next steps here. Nothing to announce now, but we see the feedback.

Thanks for the continued feedback!

The problem with 1 is that even if all players are solo, when one of the groups is better the other start accusing it that they are premade. We had that back in the days, I ve received so many whispers that i am in a premade and try hard, although i was queuing alone and all the rest was also solo as we were non stop in different teams each game.

Critical to work out what "try to avoid" actually means statistically....avoided for 80% of the BGs or 20% of the BGs??