ZOS - battlegrounds is unbelievably bad now

CoronHR · December 21

just played my first chaos ball 8x8 - it's awful. absolutely awful. why are there 3 chaos balls? i will finish this golden pursuit, then never play bg again until you do something. do you not see how bad it is? @ZOS_GinaBruno

Getsugatenso · December 21

realmente

Chrisilis · December 21

Agreed. I find myself playing less and less. Went from 10-20 matches a day to 5.. sometimes less. I hope they get the message and fix this, soon. I keep reading that bg pvpers are a tiny fraction of the ESO community. Bout to get even smaller.

IncultaWolf · December 21

I think 8 v 8 chaosball with the transformations can be fun..more balls the better 🙂

Thumbless_Bot · December 21

Chrisilis wrote: »

Agreed. I find myself playing less and less. Went from 10-20 matches a day to 5.. sometimes less. I hope they get the message and fix this, soon. I keep reading that bg pvpers are a tiny fraction of the ESO community. Bout to get even smaller.

Same. I do my daily grind to get the battlemaster token then that's about it. Battlegrounds, the one thing keeping me interested in this game, are no longer keeping me interested in this game. This ship has sailed.

My unselfish hope at this point is no longer for bgs, but that they don't destroy other forms of pvp for those that enjoy ic and cyro. I have little hope for this.

moderatelyfatman · December 22

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Chrisilis wrote: »

Agreed. I find myself playing less and less. Went from 10-20 matches a day to 5.. sometimes less. I hope they get the message and fix this, soon. I keep reading that bg pvpers are a tiny fraction of the ESO community. Bout to get even smaller.

Same. I do my daily grind to get the battlemaster token then that's about it. Battlegrounds, the one thing keeping me interested in this game, are no longer keeping me interested in this game. This ship has sailed.

My unselfish hope at this point is no longer for bgs, but that they don't destroy other forms of pvp for those that enjoy ic and cyro. I have little hope for this.

Oh man, I think the ship has sailed on IC: outside of MYM it's mostly a PvE zone with gankers now.
As for Cyrodiil, unless they can fix performance and increase the pop-cap, it will die as well. Currently the map is just too large for the current population.

Parasaurolophus · December 22

I still tend to prefer the new battlegrounds, but the balance is terrible right now.

fizzylu · December 22

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Battlegrounds, the one thing keeping me interested in this game, are no longer keeping me interested in this game.

Same, I've been floating between New World and WoW the last few weeks instead. Only play ESO long enough to get my event tickets.

Chrisilis · December 22

IncultaWolf wrote: »

I think 8 v 8 chaosball with the transformations can be fun..more balls the better 🙂

I do kind of like the three balls chaosball, chaosball is the ONE game that wasn't completely destroyed by the new format. Transformations, not so much, I could do without those. No idea how to drive a WW or vamp its just get ball and die. I had the medal ball bearer x TWENTY-FIVE TIMES once.

Arunei · December 22

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Chrisilis wrote: »

Agreed. I find myself playing less and less. Went from 10-20 matches a day to 5.. sometimes less. I hope they get the message and fix this, soon. I keep reading that bg pvpers are a tiny fraction of the ESO community. Bout to get even smaller.

Same. I do my daily grind to get the battlemaster token then that's about it. Battlegrounds, the one thing keeping me interested in this game, are no longer keeping me interested in this game. This ship has sailed.

My unselfish hope at this point is no longer for bgs, but that they don't destroy other forms of pvp for those that enjoy ic and cyro. I have little hope for this.

Oh man, I think the ship has sailed on IC: outside of MYM it's mostly a PvE zone with gankers now.
As for Cyrodiil, unless they can fix performance and increase the pop-cap, it will die as well. Currently the map is just too large for the current population.

I have nothing much to add to this convo since I don't do BGs, I just wanted to say I'm glad I'm not the only one who still calls 'that Pelinal event' Midyear Mayhem lol.

StarOfElyon · December 22

I prefer 8v8 to 4v4. I only pick 4v4 accidentally. 4v4 should have never even been imagined. Anyone who has played battlegrounds for more than a minute would have foreseen the problems with 4v4. With 8v8: Yes it can be lopsided most of the time. Rarely are the teams evenly matched. But at least it's better than 4v4.

Weesacs · December 22

I came back to the game a few weeks ago after 3 years away and couldn't believe how bad BGs had become.

Yes, there are a few improvements like separating solo and premades which is 100% correct thing to do. However I played a 4x4 game recently where we got to the last round and there had been no kills due to both teams balling up and having just healers and tanks. I was the only one actually trying to get a kill in my team. I think I was the only person with less than 30 health as well lol

Needless to say I didn't rage quit but I gave the other team a kill as i was just soo peed off with not being able to do anything.

Complete waste of time.

Oh and what's with the werewolf and vampire balls??? Seriously, do away with them. If I wanted to be a werewolf or vampire I would be. Makes me not want to pick up the balls

IncultaWolf · December 23

Weesacs wrote: »

I came back to the game a few weeks ago after 3 years away and couldn't believe how bad BGs had become.

Yes, there are a few improvements like separating solo and premades which is 100% correct thing to do. However I played a 4x4 game recently where we got to the last round and there had been no kills due to both teams balling up and having just healers and tanks. I was the only one actually trying to get a kill in my team. I think I was the only person with less than 30 health as well lol

Needless to day I didn't rage quit but I gave the other team a kill as i was just soo peed off with not being able to do anything.

Complete waste of time.

Oh and what's with the werewolf and vampire balls??? Seriously, do away with them. If I wanted to be a werewolf or vampire I would be. Makes me not want to pick up the balls

I always want to grab the werewolf balls. 🐺 They also make you super strong 💪🏻 I've solo wiped the entire 8 man team with the damage sigil powerup and the behemoth ult once. Was an awesome experience! Only downside is the limited self heals.

In most of my chaosball matches people fight and die over the transformation balls more than anything. Even the vampire one can be strong since I've seen 30k+ leaps on players. 8 v 8 is supposed to be the fun casual queue, so they should be kept in. I use to ignore the chaosball and just play deathmatch in the old battlegrounds, but now I have a reason to pick them up

React · December 23

I have to say, after a few weeks playing them I've come to mostly the same conclusion.

The good- the maps are cool. It's great to finally have some new environments to fight in after all these years, and I think the designs of them all work pretty well.

The 8v8 can be fun depending on the mode, map, and team combination. If people are relatively uncoordinated and there are no 50k hp warden healers present, the fights can be hectic and engaging without being stacked in one spot with the entirety of both teams for the whole game.

The bad - deathmatch doesn't work with two teams. In 4v4 or 8v8. If the teams aren't very well balanced, it becomes a spawnkilling simulator every single time. It's not fun to be on either side of this.

The transformations in 8v8 are just not fun. First off, the WW behemoth makes me (and several friends/random teammates who I've asked) freeze and drop frames when it performs various animations. Mechanically they just are frustrating to deal with and are disruptive to the "immersion" of the match.

The games still have issues starting. It goes from frustrating to straight up not worth the time investment when you log on to pvp and sit in a queue for 15 minutes just to have your game not start after forcing you to wait in the lobby for another 5 minutes. Something has to change about how this queue functions, the current system does not work.

The power sigils are cool, but I wish they'd give a notification when they spawned just like they did when battlegrounds first came out. It'd be cool if they were more heavily contested to drive people away from stacking the entire game.

The 4v4 modes are just ruined by cross healing. It's so mind numbingly boring trying to kill people when there is a 50k hp warden spamming polar, multiple templars stacking rituals, or high hp supports spamming damage shields. Maybe that's more of an issue with cross healing as a whole, but the 4v4 format really exacerbates the problems.

I gotta be honest, overall I think the 3 team format was better and would have been drastically more fun if it stayed. The unfortunate thing is that these maps aren't designed for TvTvT just like the old ones weren't designed for TvT, so they can't just change it back. Feel like the entire update would have been better if the TvTvT system had been kept and the maps and modes had been designed around 3 team formats.

Conclusion - update seems to be a flop overall. They could have done something way better with the time they spent on this, and it's really disappointing they didn't consult the playerbase early on to see if this was something we even wanted.

Moonspawn · December 23

React wrote: »

I have to say, after a few weeks playing them I've come to mostly the same conclusion.

The good- the maps are cool. It's great to finally have some new environments to fight in after all these years, and I think the designs of them all work pretty well.

The 8v8 can be fun depending on the mode, map, and team combination. If people are relatively uncoordinated and there are no 50k hp warden healers present, the fights can be hectic and engaging without being stacked in one spot with the entirety of both teams for the whole game.

The bad - deathmatch doesn't work with two teams. In 4v4 or 8v8. If the teams aren't very well balanced, it becomes a spawnkilling simulator every single time. It's not fun to be on either side of this.

The transformations in 8v8 are just not fun. First off, the WW behemoth makes me (and several friends/random teammates who I've asked) freeze and drop frames when it performs various animations. Mechanically they just are frustrating to deal with and are disruptive to the "immersion" of the match.

The games still have issues starting. It goes from frustrating to straight up not worth the time investment when you log on to pvp and sit in a queue for 15 minutes just to have your game not start after forcing you to wait in the lobby for another 5 minutes. Something has to change about how this queue functions, the current system does not work.

The power sigils are cool, but I wish they'd give a notification when they spawned just like they did when battlegrounds first came out. It'd be cool if they were more heavily contested to drive people away from stacking the entire game.

The 4v4 modes are just ruined by cross healing. It's so mind numbingly boring trying to kill people when there is a 50k hp warden spamming polar, multiple templars stacking rituals, or high hp supports spamming damage shields. Maybe that's more of an issue with cross healing as a whole, but the 4v4 format really exacerbates the problems.

I gotta be honest, overall I think the 3 team format was better and would have been drastically more fun if it stayed. The unfortunate thing is that these maps aren't designed for TvTvT just like the old ones weren't designed for TvT, so they can't just change it back. Feel like the entire update would have been better if the TvTvT system had been kept and the maps and modes had been designed around 3 team formats.

Conclusion - update seems to be a flop overall. They could have done something way better with the time they spent on this, and it's really disappointing they didn't consult the playerbase early on to see if this was something we even wanted.

The new bgs can still serve as two-teams custom lobbies.

''Thankfully there is a way to utilize all of the work that has been done so far, without throwing anything away. Not the new BGs, and certainly not the old ones.'' :

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/670165/battlegrounds-cycle-of-self-destruction/p1

randconfig · December 23

I actually love it, and objectively its more fair to have 3 chaos balls than 1 chaos ball, as just one makes it far too easy to ball group and 500 to 0 the other team(s).

Also the transformations are fun and add to the game mode, I just wish we could reorder the skills of the transformation on the ability bar, and especially wish we could have time outside of a match to read what each one does.

Thumbless_Bot · December 23

React wrote: »

I have to say, after a few weeks playing them I've come to mostly the same conclusion.

The good- the maps are cool. It's great to finally have some new environments to fight in after all these years, and I think the designs of them all work pretty well.

The 8v8 can be fun depending on the mode, map, and team combination. If people are relatively uncoordinated and there are no 50k hp warden healers present, the fights can be hectic and engaging without being stacked in one spot with the entirety of both teams for the whole game.

The bad - deathmatch doesn't work with two teams. In 4v4 or 8v8. If the teams aren't very well balanced, it becomes a spawnkilling simulator every single time. It's not fun to be on either side of this.

The transformations in 8v8 are just not fun. First off, the WW behemoth makes me (and several friends/random teammates who I've asked) freeze and drop frames when it performs various animations. Mechanically they just are frustrating to deal with and are disruptive to the "immersion" of the match.

The games still have issues starting. It goes from frustrating to straight up not worth the time investment when you log on to pvp and sit in a queue for 15 minutes just to have your game not start after forcing you to wait in the lobby for another 5 minutes. Something has to change about how this queue functions, the current system does not work.

The power sigils are cool, but I wish they'd give a notification when they spawned just like they did when battlegrounds first came out. It'd be cool if they were more heavily contested to drive people away from stacking the entire game.

The 4v4 modes are just ruined by cross healing. It's so mind numbingly boring trying to kill people when there is a 50k hp warden spamming polar, multiple templars stacking rituals, or high hp supports spamming damage shields. Maybe that's more of an issue with cross healing as a whole, but the 4v4 format really exacerbates the problems.

I gotta be honest, overall I think the 3 team format was better and would have been drastically more fun if it stayed. The unfortunate thing is that these maps aren't designed for TvTvT just like the old ones weren't designed for TvT, so they can't just change it back. Feel like the entire update would have been better if the TvTvT system had been kept and the maps and modes had been designed around 3 team formats.

Conclusion - update seems to be a flop overall. They could have done something way better with the time they spent on this, and it's really disappointing they didn't consult the playerbase early on to see if this was something we even wanted.

Agree.

Would add two points.

1. I never cared about medal score but now that it impacts my wins and losses i do. Those healers you are talking about shouldn't be able to force a draw in dm and then win based on medal score. If you get medals for healing. You should get equivalent or or even higher medal score for doing damage.

2. Mmr does-not-work. Change it from whatever it is now to kda.

EDIT:

3. If zos ever does start making MMR based on KDA, they really need to recode the way kills are registered to make it random and not have certain skills compute for kills first. It amazes me how often a sorc standing 40 feet away steals my kills. If a player dies with three, four or five different attacks on them, it shouldn't default to one skill from one class as the first to register the kill. It should be random to ensure fairness.

GimpyPorcupine · December 23

And here I am thinking that BGs has actually been more fun lately. I seldom played them before, but on XB-NA they've been excellent, at least during New Life.

ArzyeL · December 23

I like 8v8. It resembles fun, chaotic Cyrodiil Keep fights to an extend. 4v4 on the other hand, is a no-no. No fun in that, i wish we get 4v4v4 back but still keep the 8v8.

huskandhunger · December 23

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Weesacs wrote: »

I came back to the game a few weeks ago after 3 years away and couldn't believe how bad BGs had become.

Yes, there are a few improvements like separating solo and premades which is 100% correct thing to do. However I played a 4x4 game recently where we got to the last round and there had been no kills due to both teams balling up and having just healers and tanks. I was the only one actually trying to get a kill in my team. I think I was the only person with less than 30 health as well lol

Needless to day I didn't rage quit but I gave the other team a kill as i was just soo peed off with not being able to do anything.

Complete waste of time.

Oh and what's with the werewolf and vampire balls??? Seriously, do away with them. If I wanted to be a werewolf or vampire I would be. Makes me not want to pick up the balls

I always want to grab the werewolf balls. 🐺 They also make you super strong 💪🏻 I've solo wiped the entire 8 man team with the damage sigil powerup and the behemoth ult once. Was an awesome experience! Only downside is the limited self heals.

In most of my chaosball matches people fight and die over the transformation balls more than anything. Even the vampire one can be strong since I've seen 30k+ leaps on players. 8 v 8 is supposed to be the fun casual queue, so they should be kept in. I use to ignore the chaosball and just play deathmatch in the old battlegrounds, but now I have a reason to pick them up

a thousand roars this, hear hear 👌🐺

StarOfElyon · December 23

React wrote: »

I have to say, after a few weeks playing them I've come to mostly the same conclusion.

The good- the maps are cool. It's great to finally have some new environments to fight in after all these years, and I think the designs of them all work pretty well.

The 8v8 can be fun depending on the mode, map, and team combination. If people are relatively uncoordinated and there are no 50k hp warden healers present, the fights can be hectic and engaging without being stacked in one spot with the entirety of both teams for the whole game.

The bad - deathmatch doesn't work with two teams. In 4v4 or 8v8. If the teams aren't very well balanced, it becomes a spawnkilling simulator every single time. It's not fun to be on either side of this.

The transformations in 8v8 are just not fun. First off, the WW behemoth makes me (and several friends/random teammates who I've asked) freeze and drop frames when it performs various animations. Mechanically they just are frustrating to deal with and are disruptive to the "immersion" of the match.

The games still have issues starting. It goes from frustrating to straight up not worth the time investment when you log on to pvp and sit in a queue for 15 minutes just to have your game not start after forcing you to wait in the lobby for another 5 minutes. Something has to change about how this queue functions, the current system does not work.

The power sigils are cool, but I wish they'd give a notification when they spawned just like they did when battlegrounds first came out. It'd be cool if they were more heavily contested to drive people away from stacking the entire game.

The 4v4 modes are just ruined by cross healing. It's so mind numbingly boring trying to kill people when there is a 50k hp warden spamming polar, multiple templars stacking rituals, or high hp supports spamming damage shields. Maybe that's more of an issue with cross healing as a whole, but the 4v4 format really exacerbates the problems.

I gotta be honest, overall I think the 3 team format was better and would have been drastically more fun if it stayed. The unfortunate thing is that these maps aren't designed for TvTvT just like the old ones weren't designed for TvT, so they can't just change it back. Feel like the entire update would have been better if the TvTvT system had been kept and the maps and modes had been designed around 3 team formats.

Conclusion - update seems to be a flop overall. They could have done something way better with the time they spent on this, and it's really disappointing they didn't consult the playerbase early on to see if this was something we even wanted.

The maps don't even appear to be designed with a contingency plan; like there's no way to add a third team to them.

Thumbless_Bot · 4:52PM

StarOfElyon wrote: »

React wrote: »

I have to say, after a few weeks playing them I've come to mostly the same conclusion.

The good- the maps are cool. It's great to finally have some new environments to fight in after all these years, and I think the designs of them all work pretty well.

The 8v8 can be fun depending on the mode, map, and team combination. If people are relatively uncoordinated and there are no 50k hp warden healers present, the fights can be hectic and engaging without being stacked in one spot with the entirety of both teams for the whole game.

The bad - deathmatch doesn't work with two teams. In 4v4 or 8v8. If the teams aren't very well balanced, it becomes a spawnkilling simulator every single time. It's not fun to be on either side of this.

The transformations in 8v8 are just not fun. First off, the WW behemoth makes me (and several friends/random teammates who I've asked) freeze and drop frames when it performs various animations. Mechanically they just are frustrating to deal with and are disruptive to the "immersion" of the match.

The games still have issues starting. It goes from frustrating to straight up not worth the time investment when you log on to pvp and sit in a queue for 15 minutes just to have your game not start after forcing you to wait in the lobby for another 5 minutes. Something has to change about how this queue functions, the current system does not work.

The power sigils are cool, but I wish they'd give a notification when they spawned just like they did when battlegrounds first came out. It'd be cool if they were more heavily contested to drive people away from stacking the entire game.

The 4v4 modes are just ruined by cross healing. It's so mind numbingly boring trying to kill people when there is a 50k hp warden spamming polar, multiple templars stacking rituals, or high hp supports spamming damage shields. Maybe that's more of an issue with cross healing as a whole, but the 4v4 format really exacerbates the problems.

I gotta be honest, overall I think the 3 team format was better and would have been drastically more fun if it stayed. The unfortunate thing is that these maps aren't designed for TvTvT just like the old ones weren't designed for TvT, so they can't just change it back. Feel like the entire update would have been better if the TvTvT system had been kept and the maps and modes had been designed around 3 team formats.

Conclusion - update seems to be a flop overall. They could have done something way better with the time they spent on this, and it's really disappointing they didn't consult the playerbase early on to see if this was something we even wanted.

The maps don't even appear to be designed with a contingency plan; like there's no way to add a third team to them.

yeah, all gas, no brakes towards a direction most passengers didn't even want to go. it's frustrating and, quite frankly really bizarre. not how it's done.

Decimus · 5:43PM

The main reason 4v4s are one-sided (i.e. you have 50% chance of getting in the team that gets farmed by one team rather than 33% chance of getting in the team that gets farmed by two teams) is because there is no team shuffling & for some reason the weaker team needs to get punished even more by having 3 lives just so in the end you can fight 1v4 until you die 3 times.

A much better format would be having 7 rounds and one life per round with teams shuffled inbetween.

No more team imbalance, no more people sitting in base refusing to jump down to die (understandable, but still kinda bad manners) after dying once.

Just make it happen ZOS.

8v8s on the other hand have been the most fun PvP I've had in this game in years.

A few tips for Chaosball: don't pick it up if you don't have a healer or are not built around it. You have no heals while in transformation and no access to any buffs (making Oakensoul a BiS mythic by far for anyone looking to pick up the Chaosball).

You've also got to know what makes the transformations strong and play around those: vampire one has extremely strong channeled heavy attacks & ultimate, the werewolf behemoth has an extremely strong AoE stomp & ultimate.

React wrote: »

Conclusion - update seems to be a flop overall. They could have done something way better with the time they spent on this, and it's really disappointing they didn't consult the playerbase early on to see if this was something we even wanted.

They did actually listen to what almost every BG main had been saying for years since the introduction of BGs, so I don't think it's fair to state that.

The three way format was fundamentally flawed and just lead to either running to empty objectives and ignoring PvP or simply just 3rd partying and ruining any good fight going on.

Obviously the new BGs are far from perfect, but grass for sure isn't greener on the other side. The right way forward for ZOS would be fixing the glaring issues rather than putting battlegrounds on maintenance mode again where only maybe 10-20 people still play them.

This is what happened with previous types of content they released... they introduce something that has potential, but refuse to fix the underlying huge issues with very simple solutions.

Take Infinite Archive for example... probably the most fun PvE content they've ever released, yet ruined by the absence of progression saving & by how overpowered Focused Efforts are. Very simple, easy to understand underlying problems... very simple solutions - yet nothing gets done and content slowly dies.

It's the same with battlegrounds - just introduce more rounds & team shuffling and 90% of complaints disappear.

Major_Mangle · 5:55PM

Decimus wrote: »

The main reason 4v4s are one-sided (i.e. you have 50% chance of getting in the team that gets farmed by one team rather than 33% chance of getting in the team that gets farmed by two teams) is because there is no team shuffling & for some reason the weaker team needs to get punished even more by having 3 lives just so in the end you can fight 1v4 until you die 3 times.

A much better format would be having 7 rounds and one life per round with teams shuffled inbetween.

No more team imbalance, no more people sitting in base refusing to jump down to die (understandable, but still kinda bad manners) after dying once.

Just make it happen ZOS.

8v8s on the other hand have been the most fun PvP I've had in this game in years.

A few tips for Chaosball: don't pick it up if you don't have a healer or are not built around it. You have no heals while in transformation and no access to any buffs (making Oakensoul a BiS mythic by far for anyone looking to pick up the Chaosball).

You've also got to know what makes the transformations strong and play around those: vampire one has extremely strong channeled heavy attacks & ultimate, the werewolf behemoth has an extremely strong AoE stomp & ultimate.

React wrote: »

Conclusion - update seems to be a flop overall. They could have done something way better with the time they spent on this, and it's really disappointing they didn't consult the playerbase early on to see if this was something we even wanted.

They did actually listen to what almost every BG main had been saying for years since the introduction of BGs, so I don't think it's fair to state that.

The three way format was fundamentally flawed and just lead to either running to empty objectives and ignoring PvP or simply just 3rd partying and ruining any good fight going on.

Obviously the new BGs are far from perfect, but grass for sure isn't greener on the other side. The right way forward for ZOS would be fixing the glaring issues rather than putting battlegrounds on maintenance mode again where only maybe 10-20 people still play them.

This is what happened with previous types of content they released... they introduce something that has potential, but refuse to fix the underlying huge issues with very simple solutions.

Take Infinite Archive for example... probably the most fun PvE content they've ever released, yet ruined by the absence of progression saving & by how overpowered Focused Efforts are. Very simple, easy to understand underlying problems... very simple solutions - yet nothing gets done and content slowly dies.

It's the same with battlegrounds - just introduce more rounds & team shuffling and 90% of complaints disappear.

Team shuffling doesn't solve the underlying issue though. The problem is the lack of a proper ranking system. The 20k HP PvE player who only queued for a BG to get their daily exp bonus shouldn't go up against a sweaty 40k HP acuity warden BG main who spend all their in game time doing BG's (just a random example but you get my point).

Just because each team has to take turn on having the "worse player" doesn't make it fair or fun, even less so for the "bad/worse player".

If all 8 are of similar skillevel there is no need to "shuffle". I can see shuffling being part of some weekly event, would be kinda fun, but zos still need to fix their rating system for BG's, at least for the ranked 4v4.

Decimus · 6:03PM

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

The main reason 4v4s are one-sided (i.e. you have 50% chance of getting in the team that gets farmed by one team rather than 33% chance of getting in the team that gets farmed by two teams) is because there is no team shuffling & for some reason the weaker team needs to get punished even more by having 3 lives just so in the end you can fight 1v4 until you die 3 times.

A much better format would be having 7 rounds and one life per round with teams shuffled inbetween.

No more team imbalance, no more people sitting in base refusing to jump down to die (understandable, but still kinda bad manners) after dying once.

Just make it happen ZOS.

8v8s on the other hand have been the most fun PvP I've had in this game in years.

A few tips for Chaosball: don't pick it up if you don't have a healer or are not built around it. You have no heals while in transformation and no access to any buffs (making Oakensoul a BiS mythic by far for anyone looking to pick up the Chaosball).

You've also got to know what makes the transformations strong and play around those: vampire one has extremely strong channeled heavy attacks & ultimate, the werewolf behemoth has an extremely strong AoE stomp & ultimate.

React wrote: »

Conclusion - update seems to be a flop overall. They could have done something way better with the time they spent on this, and it's really disappointing they didn't consult the playerbase early on to see if this was something we even wanted.

They did actually listen to what almost every BG main had been saying for years since the introduction of BGs, so I don't think it's fair to state that.

The three way format was fundamentally flawed and just lead to either running to empty objectives and ignoring PvP or simply just 3rd partying and ruining any good fight going on.

Obviously the new BGs are far from perfect, but grass for sure isn't greener on the other side. The right way forward for ZOS would be fixing the glaring issues rather than putting battlegrounds on maintenance mode again where only maybe 10-20 people still play them.

This is what happened with previous types of content they released... they introduce something that has potential, but refuse to fix the underlying huge issues with very simple solutions.

Take Infinite Archive for example... probably the most fun PvE content they've ever released, yet ruined by the absence of progression saving & by how overpowered Focused Efforts are. Very simple, easy to understand underlying problems... very simple solutions - yet nothing gets done and content slowly dies.

It's the same with battlegrounds - just introduce more rounds & team shuffling and 90% of complaints disappear.

Team shuffling doesn't solve the underlying issue though. The problem is the lack of a proper ranking system. The 20k HP PvE player who only queued for a BG to get their daily exp bonus shouldn't go up against a sweaty 40k HP acuity warden BG main who spend all their in game time doing BG's (just a random example but you get my point).

Just because each team has to take turn on having the "worse player" doesn't make it fair or fun, even less so for the "bad/worse player".

If all 8 are of similar skillevel there is no need to "shuffle". I can see shuffling being part of some weekly event, would be kinda fun, but zos still need to fix their rating system for BG's, at least for the ranked 4v4.

It would though - MMR in this game is basically based on win/lost BGs alone; if you shuffle teams and your break-even point is 4 wins to gain MMR, a good player will on average reach that more than a bad one if teams are shuffled between rounds and it's down to your personal skill to get there. It's not perfect, but miles better than what we have now.

Additionally, I don't think anyone wants to queue into a battleground just to know they're going to have two rounds of misery due to team comps - that 20k health player (that probably wouldn't be in high MMR if reaching 4 wins on average with shuffled teams was a requirement to gain MMR) can still have fun getting carried, clicking their buttons and doing things... rather than jumping down and instantly dying for multiple rounds.

Hope is a very important thing. If you can have hope in the next round being better after shuffle, that's a very powerful motivator to keep people playing the content and maybe winning more matches in the end.

Absent hope, you get toxicity, bad behaviour and people abandoning the content.

Oh, and forum posts.

React · 7:36PM

Decimus wrote: »

They did actually listen to what almost every BG main had been saying for years since the introduction of BGs, so I don't think it's fair to state that.

I'm talking about a battlegrounds update as a whole. The "BG mains" make up a small portion of an already small subset of eso players (pvp players). Reworking battlegrounds rather than reworking cyrodiil or designing a new mode/zone is not something the vast majority of pvp players would have been in favor of, had they given us a poll to choose from. Further, despite the heavily invested battlegrounds players wanting team v team formats, it seems a signifcant portion of the general BG population preferred the 3 team format as well - probably the majority of the BG population overall.

Don't get me wrong, I am happy that some PVP players are enjoying the new formats. But I'm not a fan for the aforementioned reasons, and I do think the resources spent on this update would have been much better spent elsewhere in regards to pvp.

Haki_7 · 7:58PM

@Decimus Even with the increased rewards, my queue times have increased fivefold since they removed the old BGs. I've been posting my torture sessions here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/670165/battlegrounds-cycle-of-self-destruction/p1 . This can be our diary of how BGs die.

Desiato · 8:20PM

ZOS seems to design PVP content in a bubble without an awareness of the greater PVP gaming community. I think this is because they are trying *SO HARD* to get PVE players into a game mode that is antithetical to their gaming interests.

If you've ever wondered why there are so many squishy players in BGs and Cyro, it's because they just don't care. They are going through the motions for rewards. Probably transmutes.

As small as we tend to think the PVP community is, I think it's far smaller than most realize in terms of people legitimately interested in good PVP.

So part of the way I think they've tried to make PVP appealing to their core audience of ultra-casual PVE players is with novel "wacky" game modes. They should scrap all of these and implement basic tried and trued CTF, Capture and Hold and other PVP game modes that are popular outside of ESO. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

And the maps look great, but they are poorly designed. They need to hire some experienced PVP map designers. This is crucial.

But then, even if the game had better implemented modes and maps, the gameplay sucks. The TTK is way too high. Resource regen is basically unlimited. If a decent player doesn't want to die, chances are they won't.

If the gameplay didn't suck, it still wouldn't be popular. Why? ESO PVP isn't accessible to gamers who only want to PVP. A competitive-minded ESO PVP player has to spend way more time in PVE than they want to. PVP gamers want to spend their time PVPing, not grinding ezmode PVE dungeons for sets and the dozens of other PVE hoops ESO forces them to jump through.

tl;dr:
- stop trying to reinvent the wheel and give us basic tried and true implementations of game modes
- hire experienced pvp map designers
- fix the gameplay
- make it accessible to actual pvp enthusiasts outside of eso

huskandhunger · 8:27PM

Haki_7 wrote: »

@Decimus Even with the increased rewards, my queue times have increased fivefold since they removed the old BGs. I've been posting my torture sessions here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/670165/battlegrounds-cycle-of-self-destruction/p1 . This can be our diary of how BGs die.

lob you Haki