Battlegrounds: Cycle of Self-Destruction

Thumbless_Bot · January 16

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

There are two things that I find problematic with BG's, and there are easy solutions to these issues:

1. Support characters like tanks and healers are very useful in objectives-based BG's, but are far less useful in death matches. Tanks in particular are less useful in death matches, especially when your group composition is mostly tanks and healers. I recently had a BG match where we were basically Healer-Tank, DD, DD and we got matched with a group that was all tanks and healers. We got matched against a group that was mostly tanks and healers too, so it made for a miserable match. Basically only 10 ppl died all match (in total), and the match was just not very fun to play at all.

2. The second issue I have is toxic players using BG's as an opportunity to farm. When teams are mismatched or lopsided, teams don't just go get the easy win early. This team that I was against just grabbed our relic, camped our side, and constantly killed us as we could just not get organized well enough to put up any resistance - and our group composition was probably not the greatest either.

There are easy solutions to both these issues:

First, separate the que's for different kinds of matches so that you KNOW what you are going to get into beforehand, and so you are not stuck in a match with mostly tanks and healers vs. other tanks and healers. If there isn't enough players to do this, then I think that then becomes an issue where you are pushing content that does not have broad enough appeal to the playerbase to garner much interest, and perhaps it needs to go back to the drawing board.

Secondly, for all matches that aren't death matches (and really, I'm just aiming at capture the relic right now) when you pick up the relic, it should start a 30 second countdown where if you don't get it home, it should start to slowly do damage to you, and each tick of damage increases, so the longer you hold it, the more damage you take. This will serve as a disincentive for just holding onto the relic to farm.

Then get rid of the mechanic that forces you out of the spawn area. You should not be a forced participant in someone elses farming escapades. If they want to be toxic about playing the game, then you should also have the right to sit back, take the loss, and not participate.

Relic slowly removes your ability to heal. If you hold long enough, you will die.

Haki_7 · January 16

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

Decimus · January 17

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

New patches introduce new bugs, maybe consider making your own thread about it though since it has nothing to do with the premise of this one.

My guess? Something to do with how MMR works and what happens when you play only one character a lot and get a lot of medal score via crit heals - in any case, needs to be fixed.

Major_Mangle · January 17

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

The main explanation I´ve to why your queue is longer is due to the way you play and how the MMR system always have worked (even in the old format). Most people are on the clear that the higher your "mmr" is the longer you usually have to wait for a game. Another factor to why it might take longer time at the "higher mmr" is due to the amount of bg lobbies the game creates. I personally believe that the lower the mmr the more lobbies there are. This could explain why you at higher mmr often get a game shortly after another "high mmr game" ends (sometimes you´ve to re-queue in order to snipe those games). However this is only speculations and I´ve no evidence to support this claim.

But......

What is known is that high medal scores is a great way to quickly raise your character based MMR. This MMR increase is further inflated if you play a lot as a premade group for some reason (did a lot of tests myself a few years ago to somewhat confirm this theory). From what I can tell from this thread you play a sorc healer which can "cheese" those critical heal medals better than most other classes can, which would explain how you reach higher mmr quicker, even with monthly mmr resets which is now a thing afaik.
This phenomenon with super long queues on specific characters isn´t anything new and existed in the previous BG format as well. It was more obvious if you tried to play as a duo or 4 man in the old format (3 man was more or less a 99% guarantee to not get a game), where you could easily wait 40 min+ for a game, including re-queues.

But saying this issue didn´t exist with old bg´s is just a straight up lie.

OsUfi · January 17

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

But saying this issue didn´t exist with old bg´s is just a straight up lie.

As someone who plays one character at a time, for years at a time, I'm certain this happened on old BGs.

Again, I'm not even good at BGs, but thanks to playing it daily on 1 character over an extended period my mains always ended up with long queues to the point where I'd stop queuing as I ran out of time in evening gaming time to get into matches.

Haki_7 · January 17

Decimus wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

New patches introduce new bugs, maybe consider making your own thread about it though since it has nothing to do with the premise of this one.

My guess? Something to do with how MMR works and what happens when you play only one character a lot and get a lot of medal score via crit heals - in any case, needs to be fixed.

I did.( https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/671170/battlegrounds-enormous-queue-times) Sent some tickets too, but if I keep posting similar videos in sequence the forum moderators will simply delete them without understanding what they're doing, just as they did in this thread. My experiences strongly suggest that these queue times are directly proportionate to the medal score, but I'm not sure insisting on this theoretical relation is the best approach, considering that Zenimax has already stated otherwise:

wrote: »

Developer Comment: There has been some misconception that MMR is derived from Medals, which is not the case. MMR is purely based on your Win/Loss/Tie from Battlegrounds. This calculation also takes into account your opponent’s MMR to determine the amount of gain or loss your MMR takes at the end of a Battleground.

Haki_7 · January 17

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

The main explanation I´ve to why your queue is longer is due to the way you play and how the MMR system always have worked (even in the old format). Most people are on the clear that the higher your "mmr" is the longer you usually have to wait for a game. Another factor to why it might take longer time at the "higher mmr" is due to the amount of bg lobbies the game creates. I personally believe that the lower the mmr the more lobbies there are. This could explain why you at higher mmr often get a game shortly after another "high mmr game" ends (sometimes you´ve to re-queue in order to snipe those games). However this is only speculations and I´ve no evidence to support this claim.

But......

What is known is that high medal scores is a great way to quickly raise your character based MMR. This MMR increase is further inflated if you play a lot as a premade group for some reason (did a lot of tests myself a few years ago to somewhat confirm this theory). From what I can tell from this thread you play a sorc healer which can "cheese" those critical heal medals better than most other classes can, which would explain how you reach higher mmr quicker, even with monthly mmr resets which is now a thing afaik.
This phenomenon with super long queues on specific characters isn´t anything new and existed in the previous BG format as well. It was more obvious if you tried to play as a duo or 4 man in the old format (3 man was more or less a 99% guarantee to not get a game), where you could easily wait 40 min+ for a game, including re-queues.

But saying this issue didn´t exist with old bg´s is just a straight up lie.

OsUfi wrote: »

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

But saying this issue didn´t exist with old bg´s is just a straight up lie.

As someone who plays one character at a time, for years at a time, I'm certain this happened on old BGs.

Again, I'm not even good at BGs, but thanks to playing it daily on 1 character over an extended period my mains always ended up with long queues to the point where I'd stop queuing as I ran out of time in evening gaming time to get into matches.

We must be careful not to confuse the old Solo Queue with Group Queue. The issue I was referring to is this: Everyday having to wait more than 20 minutes for a match in the most populated queue option of all (current 8v8 solo, used to be 4v4v4 solo).

Thumbless_Bot · January 17

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

New patches introduce new bugs, maybe consider making your own thread about it though since it has nothing to do with the premise of this one.

My guess? Something to do with how MMR works and what happens when you play only one character a lot and get a lot of medal score via crit heals - in any case, needs to be fixed.

I did.( https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/671170/battlegrounds-enormous-queue-times) Sent some tickets too, but if I keep posting similar videos in sequence the forum moderators will simply delete them without understanding what they're doing, just as they did in this thread. My experiences strongly suggest that these queue times are directly proportionate to the medal score, but I'm not sure insisting on this theoretical relation is the best approach, considering that Zenimax has already stated otherwise:

wrote: »

Developer Comment: There has been some misconception that MMR is derived from Medals, which is not the case. MMR is purely based on your Win/Loss/Tie from Battlegrounds. This calculation also takes into account your opponent’s MMR to determine the amount of gain or loss your MMR takes at the end of a Battleground.

Hey @Haki_7

Can you please point to the source of this quote? I must have missed it but it clears a lot up for me... and I just want to see it in context.

Haki_7 · January 17

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

New patches introduce new bugs, maybe consider making your own thread about it though since it has nothing to do with the premise of this one.

My guess? Something to do with how MMR works and what happens when you play only one character a lot and get a lot of medal score via crit heals - in any case, needs to be fixed.

I did.( https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/671170/battlegrounds-enormous-queue-times) Sent some tickets too, but if I keep posting similar videos in sequence the forum moderators will simply delete them without understanding what they're doing, just as they did in this thread. My experiences strongly suggest that these queue times are directly proportionate to the medal score, but I'm not sure insisting on this theoretical relation is the best approach, considering that Zenimax has already stated otherwise:

wrote: »

Developer Comment: There has been some misconception that MMR is derived from Medals, which is not the case. MMR is purely based on your Win/Loss/Tie from Battlegrounds. This calculation also takes into account your opponent’s MMR to determine the amount of gain or loss your MMR takes at the end of a Battleground.

Hey @Haki_7

Can you please point to the source of this quote? I must have missed it but it clears a lot up for me... and I just want to see it in context.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/667797/pc-mac-patch-notes-v10-02-5-update-44

Moonspawn · January 18

@Decimus wrote:

Shuffling the teams is a proven and functional solution to this, meaning the casual players instead of getting farmed by sweats get to play with the sweats in the next round and so on.

Can anyone explain exactly how team shuffling would work on 8v8? How many rounds? And if the teams are changing, I assume the winners would be the players that win more rounds. I still don't see it.

Decimus · January 18

Moonspawn wrote: »

@Decimus wrote:

Shuffling the teams is a proven and functional solution to this, meaning the casual players instead of getting farmed by sweats get to play with the sweats in the next round and so on.

Can anyone explain exactly how team shuffling would work on 8v8? How many rounds? And if the teams are changing, I assume the winners would be the players that win more rounds. I still don't see it.

The way it works in other games is that players rotate teams & you have unique line up of players in each round - this means you get to play with and against everyone... and at the end score is distributed based on how many rounds were won.

This is easier to implement in 4v4 - we already have a lives system... but not a very fun one. What we should have is one life for much quicker rounds and then a team shuffle with 8 rounds total (since there's 8 players).

With 16 players in 8v8 it's a bit harder to implement, but even just cutting the match into three rounds with teams rotating based on medal score in between each for example would make a big difference when it comes to the enjoyment of the lobby you queued into - they can cut down the amount of required kills per round to 16 or so to adjust for multiple rounds.

Chrisilis · January 18

The Patch notes are up for PTS re: update 45.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/671932/pts-patch-notes-v10-3-0#latest

There's some good stuff in there, looking forward to the mini event - Crime Wave - that sounds like fun.

They're adding a Crazy King flag to the Mota-Ka battleground and not much else as far as Bg's go. I'm disappointed that no meaningful change will be implemented or concerns of ours addressed with update 45, or at least the changes we're advocating for aren't mentioned in the notes. No mention of balancing, MMR or the reintroduction of 4v4v4. I guess the wheels grind slowly, if they grind at all.

Moonspawn · January 18

Decimus wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

@Decimus wrote:

Shuffling the teams is a proven and functional solution to this, meaning the casual players instead of getting farmed by sweats get to play with the sweats in the next round and so on.

Can anyone explain exactly how team shuffling would work on 8v8? How many rounds? And if the teams are changing, I assume the winners would be the players that win more rounds. I still don't see it.

The way it works in other games is that players rotate teams & you have unique line up of players in each round - this means you get to play with and against everyone... and at the end score is distributed based on how many rounds were won.

This is easier to implement in 4v4 - we already have a lives system... but not a very fun one. What we should have is one life for much quicker rounds and then a team shuffle with 8 rounds total (since there's 8 players).

With 16 players in 8v8 it's a bit harder to implement, but even just cutting the match into three rounds with teams rotating based on medal score in between each for example would make a big difference when it comes to the enjoyment of the lobby you queued into - they can cut down the amount of required kills per round to 16 or so to adjust for multiple rounds.

Something as drastic as team shuffling might provide a semblance of balance, but to me it goes against everything BGs are supposed to be. I have always believed in trying to find a way to play alongside my teammates over the course of the match, no matter who they are, instead of simply replacing them at the first sign of trouble. But maybe that's just me. Perhaps THERE IS a way to make everyone happy, and all it would take is a slight alteration to the initial post.

1) 4v4v4 Random Objectives Queue (including DM), solos only
2) 4v4v4 Deathmatch Queue, solos only (maybe solos and duos)
3) 8v8 Deathmatch Queue, with Team Shuffling, solos only (maybe solos and duos)
Two-teams BGs will always be inherently lopsided, but with team shuffling there is a chance the fight wouldn't devolve into ''just going through the motions'' after the initial clashes. Could be enough. Time will tell.
4) Two-Teams Custom Lobbies (4v4, 8v8, 3v3, 2v2, XvX)

*DM sweatlords: Players who will never tolerate doing the objective no matter what. The term has absolutely nothing to do with skill level.
This way the DM sweatlords would have the option to choose between 4v4v4 DM and a somewhat balanced 8v8 DM. The Random Queue would be exclusively populated by players willing to earnestly compete for the objective, DM included. And Premades would have their Custom Lobbies.

huskandhunger · January 19

awoo

Moonspawn · January 20

I do wonder if there is a genuine demand for a separate 8v8 DM option though, since it's technically already included in the Custom Lobbies.

gariondavey · January 21

Moonspawn wrote: »

I do wonder if there is a genuine demand for a separate 8v8 DM option though, since it's technically already included in the Custom Lobbies.

Imo just
-8v8 solo queue objectives with no dm
-4v4v4 solo or duo queue deathmatch
-custom lobbies

Haki_7 · January 21

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 24: Waiting 30 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spboZz8y1ic

Haki_7 · January 24

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 25: Waiting 25 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ8iUr8Hxxs

Thumbless_Bot · January 24

Haki_7 wrote: »

Chapter 25: Waiting 25 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ8iUr8Hxxs

See if changing your role to tank works. I use that and don't wait S long for 8v8.

Veinblood1965 · January 24

Haki_7 wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 4: Waited 1 minute 7 seconds for a fun match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/g2QIOk0qcl8

Even if your queue times are tiny, mine remain enormously long and oppressive 🙃 . It's a serious problem in need of solving. One that didn't exist in 3-teams BGs.

Same, I'm waiting 10 to 15 minutes most days AND sometimes I get pulled into one that is already in progress with 10 to 12 minutes left to go and that team is so far behind it's a lost cause. SO wasting 20 to 25 minutes for nothing makes me feel like finding another game. I only started running BG's recently but they are the most horribly designed thing i have experienced in this game.

Chrisilis · January 25

Commenting to keep the dream alive.

That being said, what kind of business doesn't offer the greatest variety of products possible? Losing 3-team Bg's is like going to Baskin Robbins and finding out they don't sell chocolate anymore. You keep going there anyway because something is better than nothing but you really keep hoping they'll bring chocolate back. I haven't cancelled my ESO+ and I bought some crowns last sale because I WANT to continue to support this game, I WANT it to be successful and lucrative and I WANT to believe that in the end that loyalty goes both ways, ours to them and theirs to us. I want to believe that in the end the product I so willingly paid for over the years, 3 team Bg's, will be put back on the menu. If it isn't, then what am I paying for? I'm really not a fan of vanilla.

Haki_7 · January 26

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Chapter 25: Waiting 25 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ8iUr8Hxxs

See if changing your role to tank works. I use that and don't wait S long for 8v8.

No change

Haki_7 · January 26

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 26: Waiting 33 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnDT2j1IjY

Haki_7 · January 28

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 27: Waiting 23 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45bjO6G4LLE

Chrisilis · January 28

Haki_7 wrote: »

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 27: Waiting 23 minutes for a lopsided match

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45bjO6G4LLE

Yesterday, same. Waited 15 minutes for the first match, another 5 minutes in the spawn and the bg closed for not enough players. Waited an entire 30 minutes (5 more in spawn) just to get stomped in Relic, then another 10 minute wait just to end up on the exact same map as the last time for another Relic match. An hour and a half for two lopsided Relic matches. I gave up after that and went and did something else. Total bummer.

Decimus · January 29

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 5: Waiting 2 minutes 4 seconds for a fun match! (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/lFjGTg9UxKU?si=J-HqAsHiHjfeqltG

Aldoss · January 29

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 00: Waiting 6 months for BGs to be fixed

Wife and I have given up completely since ZOS announced that they won't be fixing their broken system in U45. They took our nightly fun and stomped on it by giving us a broken queuing system that wastes our time.

Sad.

Chrisilis · January 29

Aldoss wrote: »

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 00: Waiting 6 months for BGs to be fixed

Wife and I have given up completely since ZOS announced that they won't be fixing their broken system in U45. They took our nightly fun and stomped on it by giving us a broken queuing system that wastes our time.

Sad.

Was there an announcement? Can you link it please or reply with were to find it? Thanks

Thumbless_Bot · January 29

Aldoss wrote: »

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 00: Waiting 6 months for BGs to be fixed

Wife and I have given up completely since ZOS announced that they won't be fixing their broken system in U45. They took our nightly fun and stomped on it by giving us a broken queuing system that wastes our time.

Sad.

I, probably like most people. Now, do bgs solely for the battlemaster token and the furniture... because I need, NEED more wooden shields and mugs to fill my new haven of the five companions house.

I have a sneaking suspicion that any bounce in bg activity / participation is solely related to the hunt for the battlemaster tokens as well. because most of, like 98%, except for one or two vocal advocates on this forum, the sentiment I hear, in guild chat, in BG GROUP CHAT, on YouTube and on the forums is negative towards this new format...

Than again, most people don't go on forums and complain when they're happy... usually

Moonspawn · January 30

Decimus wrote: »

Fun Battlegrounds Chapter 1: Waited 2 minutes 50 seconds for a fun match and now I can self promote my youtube channel on the forums (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/U8YJyemwPbM?si=l4NcfzNp5lWjQyr2

Here's how this lopsided snoozefest could have been a balanced match:
Teams Fire Drakes (Red), Storm Lords (Blue) and Pit Daemons (Yellow)

The remaining slots could be filled with any combination of newcomers gunning for the daily. 4v4v4 Chaosball. All 12 players earnestly competing for the objective. No cheesing the ball, no spawncamping. The fight would concentrate on the ball carrier and be unpredictable, chaotic and actually fun for everyone involved.