Bring back classic Battlegrounds, will the devs listen?

Cooperharley · December 2024

I think the modes are totally fine. There’s a reason the most successful PvP games in the world are 1 team versus another.

The problem is not the mode that won’t fix anything and idk why people continue to say this.

Problems:
- there is no incentive to play PvP
- There is no incentive for new players to play PvP
- There is no competitive leaderboard, rewards, ladder, etc
- They have not implemented prevention of spawn camping in 4v4
- Skill gap is enormous due to lack of drive to understand and learn class due to lack of need to based on how easy the entire game is outside of PvP and high end pve

Freelancer_ESO · December 2024

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Also remember that the old 4v4v4 BGs are not gone forever. They've said that they'll pop back up from time to time in various BG weekends (like we have had before), so they'll still be back. That means they're not removed from the game files and can come back whenever they want them to.

Chrisilis wrote: »

If you want to drive PvP participation improve the incentives. Add more and better leads, try adding in Masks and furnishings so people will farm bg's for them, add collectible fragments for masks, furnishings and crafting stations so bg's become a daily activity for people interested in collecting those things. Make the drop rate fair but rare and you'll see participation skyrocket. Add new bg specific masks, leads, etc. periodically and the PvP community will flourish.

You realize that they did exactly this, right? There are three new outfit styles, a new weapon style, a new major adornment, and a new mount that all require BGs, and another new outfit style that specifically requires being on the leaderboard. There's a lot more for people to collect now, and it's also easier than ever to collect these things since the first win of the day per character gives a guaranteed style page, and also the first purple box of the day gives a guaranteed page as well, and then also the "win 3" quest will guarantee a page in the highest level reward. BGs have never been as rewarding as they are now, particularly for the people who don't PvP much.

So if you think the BG community as it is over the last month has not been healthy... well, they did do exactly what you said they should to to make it flourish, so why isn't it?

The marketing does have some flaws.

For example, if you read the patch notes it says that a Standard win does:

A chance at a battleground style page.

You get a style page for every standard win and two for your first win of the day.

Style pages awarded by battleground mailers are limited to one per day. This is separate from the daily quest and other sources that award style pages.

The style pages are unlimited as far as I can tell. Amusingly, if you've gotten multiple style pages already the quest for three wins doesn't actually give you a style page.

Rewards for the Worthy also no longer gives scripts.

If you pull up the Battleground the first thing listed is competitive which can be a turn off to players that just want some casual fun/ don't want to be a liability.

Personally, I'd say the cosmetic rewards did work at making me do more Battlegrounds but, they also have limits.

Tonight, I got done unlocking all of the BG cosmetics styles besides the leaderboard which I'm not going for on my second account.

My first account, has the leaderboard pages I wanted the most and was done with everything from BG besides the bear parts weeks ago since it had actually unlocked the old BG pages already.

I'm probably going to be done with the new Battlegrounds aside from if I need to double check something for a forum post or if I feel like getting the last 90k ap to max assault/support on my new char.

The issues outside of the marketing likely need a much longer post.

Djennku · December 2024

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Also remember that the old 4v4v4 BGs are not gone forever. They've said that they'll pop back up from time to time in various BG weekends (like we have had before), so they'll still be back. That means they're not removed from the game files and can come back whenever they want them to.

Chrisilis wrote: »

If you want to drive PvP participation improve the incentives. Add more and better leads, try adding in Masks and furnishings so people will farm bg's for them, add collectible fragments for masks, furnishings and crafting stations so bg's become a daily activity for people interested in collecting those things. Make the drop rate fair but rare and you'll see participation skyrocket. Add new bg specific masks, leads, etc. periodically and the PvP community will flourish.

You realize that they did exactly this, right? There are three new outfit styles, a new weapon style, a new major adornment, and a new mount that all require BGs, and another new outfit style that specifically requires being on the leaderboard. There's a lot more for people to collect now, and it's also easier than ever to collect these things since the first win of the day per character gives a guaranteed style page, and also the first purple box of the day gives a guaranteed page as well, and then also the "win 3" quest will guarantee a page in the highest level reward. BGs have never been as rewarding as they are now, particularly for the people who don't PvP much.

So if you think the BG community as it is over the last month has not been healthy... well, they did do exactly what you said they should to to make it flourish, so why isn't it?

So, fun fact, every win in 4v4 will award a BG style page. Can potentially get them all (excluding galeskirmish) in one day if you do nothing but win games.

Also, the 'win 3' daily does not award a page if you earned at least one this way, however, once a day per account you can also earn an extra page from the purple reward box for the daily queue bonus.

Renato90085 · December 2024

i miss old map, new map too small
but for me ,old bg is queue15-30 min and feel pain(like 12 40k health player no one die tmd)
so mode i like new

Aldoss · December 2024

BG player on PCNA. 99% of my playtime is in a BG queue and has been since 2022.

I love the 4v4 and 8v8 format way more than 4v4v4. I'm sad that that means that those who enjoyed the style of 4v4v4 don't get what they want, but I will throw my perspective into the forum abyss that I do like this format and most people that I interact with also like this format more.

There's very likely a huge amount of confirmation bias on both viewpoints here. If you think 4v4v4 is better and that you'd rather have those back, you're very likely going to find, interact, and remember people who share your view. The opposite is true for someone in my position.

Queue times are already returning to pre-U44 times, which I think has way more to do with the fact that ZOS has not actually addressed their complete failure to deliver this patch. The matchmaking logic is awful and is wasting everyone's time, hence, people stop queuing.

I hope that ZOS actually gets something done before the end of the year and does an emergency patch to fix this. My gut tells me they won't do anything until U45, which will be too late.

Soarora · December 2024

I really do miss 4v4v4. 8v8 feels too large and chaotic and bomb heaven while 4v4 felt like teams were unbalanced in skill. What I miss from 4v4v4 is the ability to strategically go solo to capture points and maybe end up in 1v1s, 1v2s, or 2v1s and win. If I wanted PvP with a strong emphasis on groups, I'd go to Cyrodiil.

Eliahnus · December 2024

The new BG's did not have to replace the old ones, but they could have simply added them.

licenturion · December 2024

As long as they keep the pure solo queue, both options are fine for me.

Icy_Waffles · December 2024

So I like the changes in format. Team vs team makes way more sense to me and keeps the chaotic nature of the battle more fun for me. It’s a DIFFERENT strategy. The way to have full coordination is to form a team or guild and go group lol.

The one thing that is odd, and very apparent to me in the solo queue is the imbalance of the two teams. It’s rarely even close.

Almakor · January 31

At this point I think the one thing all sides agree on that which version is better is a matter of personal preferance. It is also MY OPINION that both sides can aggrees is that there is absolutely no reason to have removed the old Battlegrounds as I can not think of a way they would negavely impact the new Battlegrounds. In fact, WHY didn't the developers give a reason if not as a means of harassment?

PS
There aren't enough people participating in polls for this issue

James-Wayne · February 1

I hope Cryodiil moves to 2 sides next, it's a much fairer system.

New BGs has issues but the 2 sides are not it, I don't ever want to go back to 3 sides.

DaniimalsSF · February 1

The differences in perception about the state of BGs is quite amazing. It’s very difficult to quantify because so many of us are approaching BGs with vastly different goals. Everything is further distorted because ZoS gives us no concrete quantifiable metrics. We have no idea the actual numbers of how many people played old BGs or the new ones. We can only explain our unique perspectives. So here is mine.

1. I’ve been playing BGs a couple hours a day since Morrowind.
2. My preferred type of PvP is chaotic, unpredictable, dynamic, and fast.
3. I enjoyed 4v4v4 because teams 2 teams could focus the third, you could get jumped in the middle of a fight, and you had to keep aware of 2 teams of enemies. You might fight outnumbered, be zerged down, and engage in a 3 minute 1v1 all in the same match.
4. I only enjoy objectives if they successfully spread the fights out. Otherwise I don’t care about winning the objective because the rewards are worthless.
5. I never experienced enough of one sided matches to be too bothered by it.
6. I enjoy 8v8 simply because it’s 16 instead of 12 people and this could potentially make fights more chaotic.
7. I dislike 2 teams because they are so much more boring and predictable. About 1/3 of the time my team steamrolls the other. Another 1/3 I get steamrolled. The last 1/3 both teams ball up and stand there spamming heals, shields, and AoE while no one dies. This is the absolute worst case scenario.

I wish ZoS would implement all old and new options and just let us choose what we want to play. After about 6 months they could delete the least played 50% of options. Just let us vote with our actions.

ketsparrowhawk · February 1

While I understand many prefer the new format, for me the magic has gone from BG's. Doesn't mean I don't still manage to have fun but 3 teams was way more fun and less prone to matchmaking issues.

xylena_lazarow · February 1

Make 8v8 solo casual the default mode atop the list. I don't like 3-sided but considering the 4v4 solo is way too volatile and nonsensical to be "competitive" maybe replace that one with the 4v4v4 solo casual, so we would have:

8v8 solo casual
8v8 group casual
4v4v4 solo casual
4v4 group competitive

Chrisilis · February 1

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Make 8v8 solo casual the default mode atop the list. I don't like 3-sided but considering the 4v4 solo is way too volatile and nonsensical to be "competitive" maybe replace that one with the 4v4v4 solo casual, so we would have:

8v8 solo casual
8v8 group casual
4v4v4 solo casual
4v4 group competitive

Been saying this very thing with one difference:

8v8 solo casual
4v4v4 solo casual
4v4 solo casual
4v4 group competitive

This lineup would make the most sense to me and would be a great way for everybody to get what they want.

The reason Id remove the 8v8 group queue is I cant imagine that queue has seen a lot of action.. its hard enough getting four people together but eight? Or I guess technically 16. If anyone has played or is playing in the 8v8 group queue I'd like to hear from them. Is the queue populated? How long does it take for a match to start? How's the balance? I haven't seen a single person reference 8v8 group in these discussions and and tend to think that's a dead queue. If anyone has any insight into it I'd like to hear from them.

reazea · February 1

I do not like the two team 8 man BG's at all. They are super buggy and unbalanced. The teams are very rarely evenly matched. The 3 team 4x4x4 was much better in my opinion.