Thoroughly Unbalanced BGs

Joy_Division · December 2024

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Solantris wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Your experience is just as important as mine. It's interesting and drastically different than mine. My initial thought was that I would love to see clips of your consistent, balanced two team gameplay. But really, it's perception and two people can see the same thing differently. Which, we obviously do.

The real answer is to.... drumroll.... let people play the way they want. You should be able to queue for two team and I should be able to queue for 3 team. And, if were going to bring up low population, I would rather get one or two good bgs in a two/three hour span than 8 or 10 terrible ones. Because... that's the way i want to play.

I never said the two team BGs are balanced. Most of the time they are not.

Im just saying that the old BGs were not either. And that a BG where all 3 teams were balanced was something i barely ever saw while doing probably on average 5-10 BGs per day for the last 2 years.

Having the option to queue for both would be fine, would be a lot better if they also fixed that issues that both modes still have.

I never said 3 teams were balanced. I said they were more balanced than 2 teams. Zos has made something complex and layered into so.ething flat and boring with even more lopsided matches.

They were not, in fact, more balanced. The impact of the imbalance was less, but it was just as imbalanced. Two people could steamroll just as hard as they can now, it's just that the perspective from the other side of the table has changed. It used to be split across two teams. Now, it's just the one team. So the one team feels the brunt. But things are not mechanically any different than they used to be, in terms of matchmaking.

So, by spreading things out across two teams you say there is the same imbalance as three... however, you prove my point with, "it used to be split across two teams".

Let us break this down. It will really help drive my point home

Let us use a real life example. Let us use a teeter totter or see-saw. There are two really sweaty heavy skilled players at one end. Along with two lightweight zerglings who just got a lucky pairing. At the other end are four players who, for whatever reason, are getting the floor mopped with their faces. To use the analogy, every time the round starts, the two sweaties are so heavy they rocket all four people on the other team out of Nirn's atmosphere. By adding four more people to that side, you get relatively more... drumroll... [feel free to enter the word here]. Now they may still get shot into the sky, but it is, by definition, more balanced, because as you say, and I am paraphrasing. The weight disparity is spread across more teams.

This holds even when you take into account that there are really three sides to the seesaw with three teams fighting each other. Lets imagine the seesaw looks like a Y or a Mercedes symbol. Or peace symbol. The two teams will still help balance out the sweaties, MORE THAN one. There might still be imbalance, But it is less, and therefore, by definition, three teams are more balanced.

It only works that way if the weaker teams team up against the stronger team though.

Which from personal experience happened far less often than the 2 stronger teams teaming up to bully the weakest team.
So yes 2/3rds of the players would have "fun" that way while the other 3rd has even less of a chance than in 2 team BGs.

Two strong teams and one weak team is still more balanced than one weak team and one strong team. Think of it this way, if there were 99 strong teams and 1 weak team it would be more balanced. 98 as well, but slightly less so. Also, it would be more balanced if there were 99 weak teams and one strong team. 98 as well. 97. 96 etc... down to 3 teams with either teo strong or weak teams... more teams means there will generally be more balance.

It might stink being the weakest team but that can't be helped.

All two team format does is exacerbate the already glaring imbalance in classes, skill and skills. But zos will never fix this, only make things more imbalanced because I really don't think they know how to create balance. Think of the long list of absurd changes they've made over the years.

So. Imho, the only way to create more balance is to add more teams.

What you are talking about is not "balance." It's randomness. Adding an extra team does not all of a sudden make a sucky team better. Instead it adds an unpredictability and randomness such that the sucky team's lack of competence isn't exposed as much. This may help soothe their egos and self-esteem, but invariably have them incorrectly conclude they are better than they really are.

The idea that adding 99 people/teams into a combat arena does not show how things are more balanced, but how much of a mockery competition becomes with more teams. Sure, the suckiest of those 99 players might actually score pretty well. That would have nothing to do with the player's (lack of) skill and thus nothing competitive about it. Scoring well would be entirely based on the randomness of not being attacked because there are 98 other targets.

If you want to argue that ZOS's combat is so poor and their interest in making a workable MMR is so nonexistent that it will be impossible ever to have a functional two team format that will have enough close matches to make battlegrounds fun, that's fine. I might agree with that. But no matter have much lipstick we put on a pig, it's still a pig.

Thumbless_Bot · December 2024

Joy_Division wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Solantris wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Your experience is just as important as mine. It's interesting and drastically different than mine. My initial thought was that I would love to see clips of your consistent, balanced two team gameplay. But really, it's perception and two people can see the same thing differently. Which, we obviously do.

The real answer is to.... drumroll.... let people play the way they want. You should be able to queue for two team and I should be able to queue for 3 team. And, if were going to bring up low population, I would rather get one or two good bgs in a two/three hour span than 8 or 10 terrible ones. Because... that's the way i want to play.

I never said the two team BGs are balanced. Most of the time they are not.

Im just saying that the old BGs were not either. And that a BG where all 3 teams were balanced was something i barely ever saw while doing probably on average 5-10 BGs per day for the last 2 years.

Having the option to queue for both would be fine, would be a lot better if they also fixed that issues that both modes still have.

I never said 3 teams were balanced. I said they were more balanced than 2 teams. Zos has made something complex and layered into so.ething flat and boring with even more lopsided matches.

They were not, in fact, more balanced. The impact of the imbalance was less, but it was just as imbalanced. Two people could steamroll just as hard as they can now, it's just that the perspective from the other side of the table has changed. It used to be split across two teams. Now, it's just the one team. So the one team feels the brunt. But things are not mechanically any different than they used to be, in terms of matchmaking.

So, by spreading things out across two teams you say there is the same imbalance as three... however, you prove my point with, "it used to be split across two teams".

Let us break this down. It will really help drive my point home

Let us use a real life example. Let us use a teeter totter or see-saw. There are two really sweaty heavy skilled players at one end. Along with two lightweight zerglings who just got a lucky pairing. At the other end are four players who, for whatever reason, are getting the floor mopped with their faces. To use the analogy, every time the round starts, the two sweaties are so heavy they rocket all four people on the other team out of Nirn's atmosphere. By adding four more people to that side, you get relatively more... drumroll... [feel free to enter the word here]. Now they may still get shot into the sky, but it is, by definition, more balanced, because as you say, and I am paraphrasing. The weight disparity is spread across more teams.

This holds even when you take into account that there are really three sides to the seesaw with three teams fighting each other. Lets imagine the seesaw looks like a Y or a Mercedes symbol. Or peace symbol. The two teams will still help balance out the sweaties, MORE THAN one. There might still be imbalance, But it is less, and therefore, by definition, three teams are more balanced.

It only works that way if the weaker teams team up against the stronger team though.

Which from personal experience happened far less often than the 2 stronger teams teaming up to bully the weakest team.
So yes 2/3rds of the players would have "fun" that way while the other 3rd has even less of a chance than in 2 team BGs.

Two strong teams and one weak team is still more balanced than one weak team and one strong team. Think of it this way, if there were 99 strong teams and 1 weak team it would be more balanced. 98 as well, but slightly less so. Also, it would be more balanced if there were 99 weak teams and one strong team. 98 as well. 97. 96 etc... down to 3 teams with either teo strong or weak teams... more teams means there will generally be more balance.

It might stink being the weakest team but that can't be helped.

All two team format does is exacerbate the already glaring imbalance in classes, skill and skills. But zos will never fix this, only make things more imbalanced because I really don't think they know how to create balance. Think of the long list of absurd changes they've made over the years.

So. Imho, the only way to create more balance is to add more teams.

What you are talking about is not "balance." It's randomness. Adding an extra team does not all of a sudden make a sucky team better. Instead it adds an unpredictability and randomness such that the sucky team's lack of competence isn't exposed as much. This may help soothe their egos and self-esteem, but invariably have them incorrectly conclude they are better than they really are.

The idea that adding 99 people/teams into a combat arena does not show how things are more balanced, but how much of a mockery competition becomes with more teams. Sure, the suckiest of those 99 players might actually score pretty well. That would have nothing to do with the player's (lack of) skill and thus nothing competitive about it. Scoring well would be entirely based on the randomness of not being attacked because there are 98 other targets.

If you want to argue that ZOS's combat is so poor and their interest in making a workable MMR is so nonexistent that it will be impossible ever to have a functional two team format that will have enough close matches to make battlegrounds fun, that's fine. I might agree with that. But no matter have much lipstick we put on a pig, it's still a pig.

It is balance. You may have a different idea of what balance means. To me it means the matches are more evenly... balanced... and flaws arent exposed as much. If you mean something else, that's fine. We just disagree on what balance means.

Take care.

DenverRalphy · December 2024

Chrisilis wrote: »

This whole MMR thing, was it such a hot button issue before the release of 4v4 and 8v8? I started BG' at a fairly low CP300 and was reeaaly out matched.. As you'd expect. But I loved them and stuck with it and got better and I was happy with Bg's the way they were and never even questioned why I was in matches with bad ass PvP gods who only had to look at me to take me out.

Was the mmr system working properly in classic bg's? Was the effect of a poorly designed matchmaking system mitigated by the more forgiving toward newbie 3 team system? If there are as few players as people say there are can it even be fixed?

I never questioned why I was matched up against better players in 4v4v4, I just assumed I had to put in the time like they had, put in the effort like they had. I never ever thought I should be going up against other 300cp players. Then again the old format offered a way for lower level players to compete against the PvP elite and still have fun via more tactical options and bigger maps to move around in.

I am new to forums, I never had anything to say until they took my favorite part of the game away and I rarely skimmed them before update 44 so I don't know if MMR was considered bad before this. I do know I myself never considered it before this at all, I didn't even know it was a thing. I always thought the whole point was to get to their level, not for the bar to be lowered to accommodate me.

CP doesn't exist in BG's no? CP level isn''t even a consideration.

Moonspawn · December 2024

This is not a FPS game. When your team wipes the other, be it with some difficulty or not, the defeated team is not going to suddenly rise from the spawn as a coherent unit and come back with new builds and new strategies to turn the game around. Unless there are premades involved, you'll just be going through the motions for the rest of the match. If you try really hard you might be able to bribe someone to eat food, or persuade another to stop parsing the tank, but that's about it. These small victories used to matter a lot more (4v4v4). Unfortunately, the changes you can realistically make now are personal in nature. You can change your own strategy. You can change your own build ( if you're lucky enough to not get stuck in combat). But in the end you are one player. Out of eight. Just as a newcomer's individual contribution is diluted because there are now 8 people instead of 4, yours is too. And to further seal the deal, there is no longer a third team to change things up anymore.
Two-teams BGs are great for premade vs premade. As they were originally designed for. But they just don't work in solo queue.

Chrisilis · December 2024

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Chrisilis wrote: »

This whole MMR thing, was it such a hot button issue before the release of 4v4 and 8v8? I started BG' at a fairly low CP300 and was reeaaly out matched.. As you'd expect. But I loved them and stuck with it and got better and I was happy with Bg's the way they were and never even questioned why I was in matches with bad ass PvP gods who only had to look at me to take me out.

Was the mmr system working properly in classic bg's? Was the effect of a poorly designed matchmaking system mitigated by the more forgiving toward newbie 3 team system? If there are as few players as people say there are can it even be fixed?

I never questioned why I was matched up against better players in 4v4v4, I just assumed I had to put in the time like they had, put in the effort like they had. I never ever thought I should be going up against other 300cp players. Then again the old format offered a way for lower level players to compete against the PvP elite and still have fun via more tactical options and bigger maps to move around in.

I am new to forums, I never had anything to say until they took my favorite part of the game away and I rarely skimmed them before update 44 so I don't know if MMR was considered bad before this. I do know I myself never considered it before this at all, I didn't even know it was a thing. I always thought the whole point was to get to their level, not for the bar to be lowered to accommodate me.

CP doesn't exist in BG's no? CP level isn''t even a consideration.

You are correct sir. I was using my level, in this case CP300, as a way to show how new I was to the game when I started playing battlegrounds. How long does it take to get to CP300? A few months? Less? Using my CP level was only to illustrate my noob status and wasn't intended to imply CP was active in bg's.

I'd like to chime in on the issue of balance. People seem to see "balance" as two equally matched teams in a bg. What does this imply? Equal skill levels, equal experience, equal damage potential, similar heals onboard, one or none healers per team? Everybody on both teams has played at least 100 games? Everybody on both teams has won at least 100 games? If two such team comps existed and went up against each other in a DM what do you think would happen? Complete standstill? Or would one team still dominate the other due to factors outside the systems control? We've all been in matches where our teams couldn't get their sht together and we've all been in matches where our team moved as a perfect unit like we'd played together for years.

I think the point people are trying to make in relation to two team bg's is that they will, almost by definition, be unbalanced. They have to be or every game would result in a tie, a draw, a standstill. When people talk about balance do they mean they dont want to lose as badly? They want to win by a slimmer margin? I dont think the current format can BE balanced. I dont know what would be worse, the current thrashing smackdowns or 15 minutes of trying to kill each other and failing cus we're just so "evenly matched".

I think 4v4v4 felt more balanced due to the random element that was the third team. The third team was the wild card factor and it forced players to split their attention two ways. Three ways if you count the objective I suppose. The result of this were games that FELT fairer because even when you were outmatched you weren't the sole focus of the beatdown.

Just thoughts.

Solantris · December 2024

Honestly i think if adding more teams added more balance you'd see more than 2 teams in.... literally any other game. lol.

cptscotty · December 2024

Pretty sure its a much bigger overall problem that would require a game overhaul to create a Tamriel 3.0

I would love to play a balanced mode where you get loaded into a BG with a premade character with a predefined set and loadout, going against others with the same situation for whatever role/class they chose. Something with a fun-experimental rotating build every week and running leaderboards for the roles. Gives people a fair and balanced situation...forces us to try something different...and gives the devs a chance to prove to us that all the other sets in the game that we may not have tried are actually viable and something for use to grind for when going into the other PvP modes.

As for the current state of PvP...its a bit out of control...and i dont see an easy way out of the circular problem that is happening right now without a major overhaul to many systems in the game as a whole, not just PvP.

Chrisilis · December 2024

Solantris wrote: »

Honestly i think if adding more teams added more balance you'd see more than 2 teams in.... literally any other game. lol.

Point

However... one might argue that a 3 team format is what set this game apart, made it unique, made it stand out in a sea of other games that are just carbon copies of each other. It reflected the tri-fold nature of the conflict in Tamriel, it echoed the spirit of the three competing factions. If I wanted to play in a two team format I could play... literally any other game

Thumbless_Bot · December 2024

Solantris wrote: »

Honestly i think if adding more teams added more balance you'd see more than 2 teams in.... literally any other game. lol.

Eso isn't other games... First of all.. Thats why i, for one, play eso and not other games.

However, in an ideal world there could be balance with two teams. Could be, but this is a rabbit hole I don't think will be good for anyone if we go down. All the changes zos has made have made bgs worse. All the suggestios to modify this or that is just chasing bad code with more bad code. We will end up with bgs that Frankenstein would admire but no one would play. I don't think anyone wants this. Think about the back and forth that we already see with balance changes zos makes and ask yourself if we really want more of this. What we need is for zos to bring back three teams and then build their roadmap around two things PLAYER ENGAGEMENT, incorporating this into their development, and doubling down on what sets ESO apart from those other games, not try8ng to run with the herd.

Tldr, Three teams makes matches more balanced because zos can't do it with two teams and we shouldnt trust them to. The proof is in the pudding here.

El_Borracho · December 2024

BGs are definitely a lot different than the former model. Haven't played enough yet to have a firm opinion as to whether they are an improvement, but in the few I have, if you are on the weaker team you have zero chance to compete. To the point in a deathmatch, I will just jump down to be killed to make it end faster. And it sure seems like you get thrown in against some pretty decent premades even on the solo queue. That may be because my MMR was reset, like others, because I stopped regularly playing BGs a while back.

Even in the 8v8, if you have 4 players who are a "premade" on one team, its going to be rough for the other side if its all randoms. 8v8 is a great idea at this point that has been horribly implemented.

Avran_Sylt · December 2024

sshogrin wrote: »

fizzylu wrote: »

Are we talking a single ability hitting for 30k in PvP with no CP???? Because that seems beyond off.

yes, single ability hitting for that much. I don't remember what it was. I got hit for over 30k once, 28k another time, both single ability.
I had damage shields up...just seemed way OP, especially considering how one sided things were.

Were they glowing red with the double damage (I assume) buff? (not that the recap shows that at all....)

fizzylu · December 2024

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Tldr, Three teams makes matches more balanced because zos can't do it with two teams and we shouldnt trust them to. The proof is in the pudding here.

And it's funny because please tell me, which two team PvP formatted MMOs don't have just as unbalanced matches or ones where one team is just openly dominating the other the majority of the time?

WoW: 2 team BGs where the one with the better gear (ilvl), and the most healers, steamrolls the other 9 times out of 10.
New World: 2 team arenas and an instanced war-like mode where the team with the better gear or the most tanky/bruiser builds just steamrolls the other 9 times out of 10.
Albion Online: 2 team arenas where the team lucky enough to get a tank/bruiser steamrolls the one that doesn't have one 9 times out of 10.
BDO: a few different options for 2 team PvP, and the better geared team.... well, they usually steamroll the other 9 times out of 10.

I could go on, but I don't think I should have to. And I will even give some slight exceptions. GW2 is kind of one, but they did gearing very differently than all these others (especially when it comes to PvP) and the lack of pure healers+tanks/bruisers helps with overall balance. Destiny 2 isn't that bad either, but they also have a power cap in PvP along with dynamically designed modes and the FPS based combat alone is enough to not really cause such issues as regularly.

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Solantris wrote: »

Honestly i think if adding more teams added more balance you'd see more than 2 teams in.... literally any other game. lol.

Eso isn't other games... First of all.. Thats why i, for one, play eso and not other games.

Just because other games, especially older ones, did something a certain way.... doesn't mean that it's the best way nor is it surprising that they wouldn't reformat their existing systems, ignoring lore that might have already been ingrained into the game, and could possibly cost them their regular players (which clearly Zenimax did not care to think about). And obviously non MMO PvP games like League and Overwatch are different since those are usually far better balanced since there's less player agency in how you play, build, and there's definitely not some form of power grind endgame (gear sets, ilvl, gear score, all of the many forms different MMOs have of it).
But seriously, in MMOs? I'm sorry, the two team format is almost ALWAYS extremely unbalanced and one-sided -- and one of the few things Zenimax did do right with this game was not follow in their footsteps, designing a PvP format that took the unbalances that naturally plague any MMO and were able to make them less of an issue that impacted the gameplay. But now they took 20 not even steps but leaps backwards just to do so.... so go figure, because I really cannot.

Thumbless_Bot · December 2024

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Solantris wrote: »

But seriously, in MMOs? I'm sorry, the two team format is almost ALWAYS extremely unbalanced and one-sided -- and one of the few things Zenimax did do right with this game was not follow in their footsteps, designing a PvP format that took the unbalances that naturally plague any MMO and were able to make them less of an issue that impacted the gameplay. But now they took 20 not even steps but leaps backwards just to do so.... so go figure, because I really cannot.

100% agree

ChaoticWings3 · December 2024

Personally I haven't had many issues myself. First game it was steam roll unfortunately, second game middle of game so I couldn't get a foothold, third game steam roll in opposite direction but mostly due to team not focusing and one PO ring user, forth game 8v8 very chaotic (team one because other team did not focus on objective), fifth game lost first round since team was unfocused but second and third round realized I was revealing and focusing on NBs and they followed suit. Fifth game teams are the ones are prefer to run with since that's when the pvp is at its best.

I do pvp on and off though so my opinion may not be much but just wanted to include my 2 cents.

Malprave · January 1

I’m really enjoying the new 8v8 BG’s. I’m having a ton of fun with them, and to me they are better than the old format. Sure, sometimes I wind up in a lopsided one but I just challenge myself to do the best I can with it.
I can’t speak to the 4v4 ones because I’m avoiding them. It just seems to me that they could suffer from worse balance issues so I’m relying on the greater number of players in the 8v8’s.

Solantris · January 5

Visibility on personal mistakes is lower in a 3 team format. That does not make it inherently more balanced. 40 kills is still 40 kills, even if it only feels like 20 deaths when its split with another team.

Bringing back 3 team modes doesn't actually fix the matchmaking problem, it just means the losing teams don't feel it as much. It's an illusion. Killing 40 baby seals is still killing 40 baby seals and bg mains will continue to do so regardless of format.

It is, however, true that 3 teams is inherently more friendly to newer and more objective-based players and I think that is worth supporting. I'm with the others in that I think 3 team modes and 2 team modes need to coexist. It needs to be acknowledged that there are different categories to pvp, and subcategories within those. Mushing it all together actively drives new players away from the content and puts these different ends of the community at odds with each other, and with Zos. There are objective players and deathmatch players, and there are competitive and casual scenes in both of those categories. as it stands, regardless of team size, everybody who gets in a bg is kinda annoyed with each other. They're playing completely different games and want completely different things.

It would be more fun for both me and the objective types if we just weren't in each other's games. I don't want to build 60k health spamming polar wind while holding block on a flag to proc a medal score, the rewards don't justify how boring that is. I want to throw hands. I don't want to do a mini analysis piece at the start of the bg to work out what camp the majority of my team is sitting in, in order to dictate how I play that game. I want to queue for what I want to queue for. And I'm sure it's very much the same for them. They think we're meatheads, and I don't blame them. We want different things.

On that, I have been a bg main for years. It is not sustainable to match me and my friends against fresh, 200cp pugs who are focusing on objectives and or just learning pvp. They have no chance, are not incentivized to continue pvping after the experience they have, and it's not fun, competitive or enjoyable killing them repeatedly. But when people have spent 40 minutes waiting for a queue, what are they supposed to do? End it in 3 minutes and go back to sitting in the queue? Casual queue actually needs to be casual. Competitive queue actually needs to be competitive.

All playstyles are valid. But there's currently no way to choose. I would like to bg without feeling like the way I like to play actively diminishes someone else's experience. And I certainly would like to play without seeing a game I waited 45 minutes in queue for ended in 4 minutes because some guy strapped up his Nikes and hit those flags at mach 10.

Ingel_Riday · January 5

cptscotty wrote: »

Pretty sure its a much bigger overall problem that would require a game overhaul to create a Tamriel 3.0

I would love to play a balanced mode where you get loaded into a BG with a premade character with a predefined set and loadout, going against others with the same situation for whatever role/class they chose. Something with a fun-experimental rotating build every week and running leaderboards for the roles. Gives people a fair and balanced situation...forces us to try something different...and gives the devs a chance to prove to us that all the other sets in the game that we may not have tried are actually viable and something for use to grind for when going into the other PvP modes.

As for the current state of PvP...its a bit out of control...and i dont see an easy way out of the circular problem that is happening right now without a major overhaul to many systems in the game as a whole, not just PvP.

Kind of in the same boat, with some caveats.

Truthfully, I'm not a fan of PVP in this game. It's not an "easy to learn, hard to master" system. It's an obtuse, befuddling, confusing mess of misery... made all the worse by the drop-off in player engagement.

I could spend hours researching guides online for what armors to use (out of 500+ potential sets) and what skills to slot (out of 100+ skills with as many morphs), but a signficant amount of said guides are so old that they're of no value due to armor nerfs, game update nerfs, and skill re-works. It's a veritable abyss of madness and minutiae, with fewer and fewer people bothering to post any theory-crafting whatsoever.

Even if you do find a guide or two that seem to have some validity, almost all of them involve grinding for hours upon hours upon hours upon hours to get specific armor sets. All the while knowing that the end result of your RNG drudgery will be fruitless misery when ZOS nerfs said suit into the ground for being too "meta."

As is, my only pvp spec character is a magicka nightblade using "baby's first" pvp sets (recommended by an Altcast guide that reads like it came out 4 years ago and probably did), and I'm complete rubbish against the religiously dedicated PVPers whose armor sets, ability selections, and rotations basically make them unkillable. But I'm good enough to slaughter poor innocent PVE peeps who are just trying to do dailies / grind out an endeavor or pursuit and stand ZERO chance against me. It's a grim, dull food chain.

It feels awful, and the lag spikes and severe performance issues don't help. My last pvp experience was sitting on a tower in the Arena district trying to do the lazy daily there for tokens (3 away from the 50 token costume). Button presses were registering TEN SECONDS AFTER A KEY PRESS, despite almost no one being around, and my frown was quite intense. Then I died instantly and a death-log popped up. A stamina archer had apparently hit me with five attacks in about three seconds, none of which I had noticed because of the lag. Glorious.

It's a bad game system. But... it's a bad system that is ten years old, and the few people still engaged with it generally like it AS IS. If ZOS gets the knowledge barrier to entry down by creating pvp character archetypes and making it more like EA's Battlefield, you'll have pvp riots on these forums. PVPers want the lag and performance issues fixed, but they don't want their "depth" taken away from them. It's like Star Wars Galaxies, where the awful "three health bars that also serve as energy bars for attacks" system got replaced by "a health bar, an energy bar, and a modicum of sanity." The people still around LOVED the three health bars that also served as energy bars. That's why they were still there.

Eh. Good times.

Edit addition: as for battlegrounds themselves, yeah... the barriers to entry are too high for me to realistically engage with them. I have no interest in joining a PVP guild and queuing with them at set times on fixed days every week to avoid pug suffering. That's too much time commitment and schedule-commitment for me. And the guides I looked up this week for battleground builds were almost all 5 months old and often recommended suits that were heavily nerfed in the last major update. As far as I'm concerned, 4x4x4 or 8x8 makes little difference. Either way, the mere thought of doing these is dreadfully unappealing in every feasible way.

I'd rather play Marvels Rivals. I rather like Luna and I don't have to worry about which of 500+ sets and which of 100+ skills to slot on her.

sshogrin · January 14

BG after BG they are so unbalanced. I was just in one that the other team had to be a group queue, they were WAY too organized for it to not be. If you queue solo, you both teams should be a solo queue, not a big organized group vs pugs.
I don't know how they try to do their match making, but it's obvious that the system they use isn't working at all.
Then I queue into another BG that's already going with a score of 400 to 0...and I'm in the zero team.
@ZOS_Kevin what's the deal? This isn't fun...your match making system is a complete joke and isn't working except to allow 1 team to totally slaughter the other.
Once again, solo que against a premade Group....same opposing team members. ZOS, you can't allow this crap...Group queue is for groups, solo queues are for people pugging in solo. C'mon @ZOS_Kevin, do something, this isn't fun, this is horrible. If I queue in as a group, I expect what ever, if I queue in as solo, I expect that...I sure don't expect to be put against an organized queued in premade group. Many others feel the same way and see the exact same thing as I do. If premade groups are going up against solo pug teams, then break up those premade groups!

Necrotech_Master · January 14

BGs are sometimes unbalanced for sure, but not every match is like that

the current 8v8 format is worlds more enjoyable than the 4v4v4 format

75% of the time doing 4v4v4 it felt like it was more 4v8 and you were always getting squashed

not every match in 8v8 or 4v4v4 was balanced, but it feels a lot better playing 8v8

sshogrin · January 14

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

BGs are sometimes unbalanced for sure, but not every match is like that

the current 8v8 format is worlds more enjoyable than the 4v4v4 format

75% of the time doing 4v4v4 it felt like it was more 4v8 and you were always getting squashed

not every match in 8v8 or 4v4v4 was balanced, but it feels a lot better playing 8v8

Pretty much every 8v8 I queue into is completely unbalanced, I have yet to queue into one that's a good fight. It's not "sometimes", it's 99% currently for me. Worse yet is the people that queue in and just stand there expecting to be carried and go AFK, or people that just simply don't try. Then you have the others that leave the team quick and leave you a person down.

Necrotech_Master · January 14

sshogrin wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

BGs are sometimes unbalanced for sure, but not every match is like that

the current 8v8 format is worlds more enjoyable than the 4v4v4 format

75% of the time doing 4v4v4 it felt like it was more 4v8 and you were always getting squashed

not every match in 8v8 or 4v4v4 was balanced, but it feels a lot better playing 8v8

Pretty much every 8v8 I queue into is completely unbalanced, I have yet to queue into one that's a good fight. It's not "sometimes", it's 99% currently for me. Worse yet is the people that queue in and just stand there expecting to be carried and go AFK, or people that just simply don't try. Then you have the others that leave the team quick and leave you a person down.

yeah ive seen a few of those, and i agree it sucks, but thats not the game mode thats the players which are a problem

theres been a few matches i been in over the past couple weeks that have been extremely close (actually in 1 case had a legitimate tie where both teams ended with the same score)

i usually been doing an avg of 3-6 matches a day for the past like 4 weeks (i just got my 30th battlemaster token yesterday) so ive seen a the entire spectrum of matches (the "your teams getting curbstomped", the "your team is curbstomping", and the "close matches that could end either way")

sshogrin · January 14

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

sshogrin wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

BGs are sometimes unbalanced for sure, but not every match is like that

the current 8v8 format is worlds more enjoyable than the 4v4v4 format

75% of the time doing 4v4v4 it felt like it was more 4v8 and you were always getting squashed

not every match in 8v8 or 4v4v4 was balanced, but it feels a lot better playing 8v8

Pretty much every 8v8 I queue into is completely unbalanced, I have yet to queue into one that's a good fight. It's not "sometimes", it's 99% currently for me. Worse yet is the people that queue in and just stand there expecting to be carried and go AFK, or people that just simply don't try. Then you have the others that leave the team quick and leave you a person down.

yeah ive seen a few of those, and i agree it sucks, but thats not the game mode thats the players which are a problem

theres been a few matches i been in over the past couple weeks that have been extremely close (actually in 1 case had a legitimate tie where both teams ended with the same score)

i usually been doing an avg of 3-6 matches a day for the past like 4 weeks (i just got my 30th battlemaster token yesterday) so ive seen a the entire spectrum of matches (the "your teams getting curbstomped", the "your team is curbstomping", and the "close matches that could end either way")

I've been doing a bunch of them daily myself over the last 3 weeks...I have yet to get into a close match. It's so thoroughly lopsided in every match I get in.
I can tell when the other team is a premade group, they work way too well together. I was in a Relic today, only 1 person defending the relic, the other 7 were fighting over by our relic, in nothing flat, all 7 of them were back at their relic and killed me. The map we were in had no possibility of them seeing me over there...that was the other team in voice, and considering that was the 3rd solo queue I did in a row going up against the same 8 people on the other team...you can't tell me they weren't a premade group. If you want to try and tell me that, you're only lying to yourself.

Necrotech_Master · January 14

sshogrin wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

sshogrin wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

BGs are sometimes unbalanced for sure, but not every match is like that

the current 8v8 format is worlds more enjoyable than the 4v4v4 format

75% of the time doing 4v4v4 it felt like it was more 4v8 and you were always getting squashed

not every match in 8v8 or 4v4v4 was balanced, but it feels a lot better playing 8v8

Pretty much every 8v8 I queue into is completely unbalanced, I have yet to queue into one that's a good fight. It's not "sometimes", it's 99% currently for me. Worse yet is the people that queue in and just stand there expecting to be carried and go AFK, or people that just simply don't try. Then you have the others that leave the team quick and leave you a person down.

yeah ive seen a few of those, and i agree it sucks, but thats not the game mode thats the players which are a problem

theres been a few matches i been in over the past couple weeks that have been extremely close (actually in 1 case had a legitimate tie where both teams ended with the same score)

i usually been doing an avg of 3-6 matches a day for the past like 4 weeks (i just got my 30th battlemaster token yesterday) so ive seen a the entire spectrum of matches (the "your teams getting curbstomped", the "your team is curbstomping", and the "close matches that could end either way")

I've been doing a bunch of them daily myself over the last 3 weeks...I have yet to get into a close match. It's so thoroughly lopsided in every match I get in.
I can tell when the other team is a premade group, they work way too well together. I was in a Relic today, only 1 person defending the relic, the other 7 were fighting over by our relic, in nothing flat, all 7 of them were back at their relic and killed me. The map we were in had no possibility of them seeing me over there...that was the other team in voice, and considering that was the 3rd solo queue I did in a row going up against the same 8 people on the other team...you can't tell me they weren't a premade group. If you want to try and tell me that, you're only lying to yourself.

solo queue is well solo, there are no premade groups lol, doesnt mean that people arent in coms already if they know each other or in the same guilds and just queueing for the BGs, but i find that unlikely

there definitely isnt that many people queueing for BGs, usually when im queueing for them, i tend to most of the time see the same like 6ish names show up several times, but not always on the same teams, and this will continue for several matches before i get a match with like 80% fresh names

the character im queueing in is not even optimized or built for pvp (its a trial healer setup sorc using spc/pillager/symphony of blades) and 80% of the time im usually in the top 3 of our team for score, or at least the only one providing significant amounts of healing lol

there are some days where i get 3 wins out of 4 matches, and other days where im lucky to get 1 win out of 6 matches, sometimes just have those bad days where its hard to get a good team

sshogrin · January 15

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

sshogrin wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

sshogrin wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

BGs are sometimes unbalanced for sure, but not every match is like that

the current 8v8 format is worlds more enjoyable than the 4v4v4 format

75% of the time doing 4v4v4 it felt like it was more 4v8 and you were always getting squashed

not every match in 8v8 or 4v4v4 was balanced, but it feels a lot better playing 8v8

Pretty much every 8v8 I queue into is completely unbalanced, I have yet to queue into one that's a good fight. It's not "sometimes", it's 99% currently for me. Worse yet is the people that queue in and just stand there expecting to be carried and go AFK, or people that just simply don't try. Then you have the others that leave the team quick and leave you a person down.

yeah ive seen a few of those, and i agree it sucks, but thats not the game mode thats the players which are a problem

theres been a few matches i been in over the past couple weeks that have been extremely close (actually in 1 case had a legitimate tie where both teams ended with the same score)

i usually been doing an avg of 3-6 matches a day for the past like 4 weeks (i just got my 30th battlemaster token yesterday) so ive seen a the entire spectrum of matches (the "your teams getting curbstomped", the "your team is curbstomping", and the "close matches that could end either way")

I've been doing a bunch of them daily myself over the last 3 weeks...I have yet to get into a close match. It's so thoroughly lopsided in every match I get in.
I can tell when the other team is a premade group, they work way too well together. I was in a Relic today, only 1 person defending the relic, the other 7 were fighting over by our relic, in nothing flat, all 7 of them were back at their relic and killed me. The map we were in had no possibility of them seeing me over there...that was the other team in voice, and considering that was the 3rd solo queue I did in a row going up against the same 8 people on the other team...you can't tell me they weren't a premade group. If you want to try and tell me that, you're only lying to yourself.

solo queue is well solo, there are no premade groups lol, doesnt mean that people arent in coms already if they know each other or in the same guilds and just queueing for the BGs, but i find that unlikely

there definitely isnt that many people queueing for BGs, usually when im queueing for them, i tend to most of the time see the same like 6ish names show up several times, but not always on the same teams, and this will continue for several matches before i get a match with like 80% fresh names

the character im queueing in is not even optimized or built for pvp (its a trial healer setup sorc using spc/pillager/symphony of blades) and 80% of the time im usually in the top 3 of our team for score, or at least the only one providing significant amounts of healing lol

there are some days where i get 3 wins out of 4 matches, and other days where im lucky to get 1 win out of 6 matches, sometimes just have those bad days where its hard to get a good team

3 BGs today against the same exact 8 players...that's not a coincidence. Especially when that team just dominates and wins 500-0. If I'm getting stuck into a crap group that often going up against the same exact 8 players, that's a premade team, you can lie to yourself all you want, but if BG solo queues were doing things correctly, then the same exact 8 players wouldn't get put on the same team 3 times in a row. If you think otherwise you're a fool.

SerafinaWaterstar · January 15

Hardly anyone I know does BGs unless there is a reason (endeavour/pursuit/token for bear).

I personally dislike them intensely - they are, and have generally always been, awful.

I did quite like the idea of the different objectives, such as capture the relic etc, but when other players don’t care & treat every damn match as a death match, it get tedious very fast.

I agree what has been said about matching, as it does seem to be way out of whack, and one side always seems to be disadvantaged. Always.

Urzigurumash · January 15

4v4s are excellent when the players are evenly matched. I'm an old BGs player and the only thing I miss is 1 ball Chaosball, but I recognize very few enjoyed that mode like I did.

I vote for strict and infrequently reset MMRs for 4v4, just like I think we had prior to 2019 or so.

Urzigurumash · January 15

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Hardly anyone I know does BGs unless there is a reason (endeavour/pursuit/token for bear).

I personally dislike them intensely - they are, and have generally always been, awful.

I did quite like the idea of the different objectives, such as capture the relic etc, but when other players don’t care & treat every damn match as a death match, it get tedious very fast.

I agree what has been said about matching, as it does seem to be way out of whack, and one side always seems to be disadvantaged. Always.

really helpful perspective. any thoughts on spelling or grammar changes for a language you dont speak?

Thumbless_Bot · January 15

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Hardly anyone I know does BGs unless there is a reason (endeavour/pursuit/token for bear).

I personally dislike them intensely - they are, and have generally always been, awful.

I did quite like the idea of the different objectives, such as capture the relic etc, but when other players don’t care & treat every damn match as a death match, it get tedious very fast.

I agree what has been said about matching, as it does seem to be way out of whack, and one side always seems to be disadvantaged. Always.

Every match is death match. It has to be and it should be. These are BATTLEgrounds, not steeplechase, not a mud run, not an obstacle course, battlegrounds. I see nothing wrong with this.

sshogrin · January 15

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Hardly anyone I know does BGs unless there is a reason (endeavour/pursuit/token for bear).

I personally dislike them intensely - they are, and have generally always been, awful.

I did quite like the idea of the different objectives, such as capture the relic etc, but when other players don’t care & treat every damn match as a death match, it get tedious very fast.

I agree what has been said about matching, as it does seem to be way out of whack, and one side always seems to be disadvantaged. Always.

Every match is death match. It has to be and it should be. These are BATTLEgrounds, not steeplechase, not a mud run, not an obstacle course, battlegrounds. I see nothing wrong with this.

If the BG is "Deathmatch" then fine, but if it's Capture the Relic, Chaos Ball, etc., then no...it shouldn't just turn into death match. Some of us would like to do the objective. If all you want is death match, then queue in specifically to death match, if it's not a death match weekend, then don't queue into BGs at all, go to Cyrodiil and get in combat.
Not every BG is "death match" as you are trying to assert. It doesn't "have to be and should be" when there is a different objective. I've wasted so much time trying to do the objective and get a win when the other 7 in my group are playing death match and not caring about winning. Leaving the group and getting the queue cool down isn't the answer either if the rest of my team can't understand what BG we're in. If you don't understand the objective in BGs, then maybe you shouldn't queue for BGs. There are more games in BGs that what you think. Don't waste my time if you're think that every BG is a death match, don't queue anymore until you understand what BGs are.

Jierdanit · January 15

sshogrin wrote:

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Hardly anyone I know does BGs unless there is a reason (endeavour/pursuit/token for bear).

I personally dislike them intensely - they are, and have generally always been, awful.

I did quite like the idea of the different objectives, such as capture the relic etc, but when other players don’t care & treat every damn match as a death match, it get tedious very fast.

I agree what has been said about matching, as it does seem to be way out of whack, and one side always seems to be disadvantaged. Always.

Every match is death match. It has to be and it should be. These are BATTLEgrounds, not steeplechase, not a mud run, not an obstacle course, battlegrounds. I see nothing wrong with this.

If the BG is "Deathmatch" then fine, but if it's Capture the Relic, Chaos Ball, etc., then no...it shouldn't just turn into death match. Some of us would like to do the objective. If all you want is death match, then queue in specifically to death match, if it's not a death match weekend, then don't queue into BGs at all, go to Cyrodiil and get in combat.
Not every BG is "death match" as you are trying to assert. It doesn't "have to be and should be" when there is a different objective. I've wasted so much time trying to do the objective and get a win when the other 7 in my group are playing death match and not caring about winning. Leaving the group and getting the queue cool down isn't the answer either if the rest of my team can't understand what BG we're in. If you don't understand the objective in BGs, then maybe you shouldn't queue for BGs. There are more games in BGs that what you think. Don't waste my time if you're think that every BG is a death match, don't queue anymore until you understand what BGs are.

If 7 people in your group want to play Deathmatch then maybe they are not the problem?