Battlegrounds: Cycle of Self-Destruction

Haki_7 · May 26

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Because its the closest I can get to [edited for potential rickroll]

Instead of complaining about 2s, why not post what you think is so good about 3s?

What's great about three-sided BGs is that they made it next to impossible for pvpers to avoid one another. The same cannot be said for two-sided, and there's no changing that. Not with player shuffling, not even with a matchmaking capable of magically transforming opposing teams into exact copies of each other. But there's no need to worry, everyone will be glad when the real BGs return to jumpstart the growth of the community.

xylena_lazarow · May 26

Haki_7 wrote: »

What's great about three-sided BGs is that they made it next to impossible for pvpers to avoid one another.

I very easily avoided PvPers in 3s, and posted plenty of deathless results to show.

Maybe I should just be flattered that you think I've done the impossible

Moonspawn · May 26

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

What's great about three-sided BGs is that they made it next to impossible for pvpers to avoid one another.

I very easily avoided PvPers in 3s, and posted plenty of deathless results to show.

Maybe I should just be flattered that you think I've done the impossible

You very easily ditched your teammates to target some newcomers, thus leaving your own team outnumbered. Doing that in 2-sided BGs gives your team the number's advantage. He's referring to the consensus described by Decimus. With the exception of yourself, people don't disagree with the consensus itself, just if it's good or bad.

xylena_lazarow · May 26

Moonspawn wrote: »

You very easily ditched your teammates to target some newcomers

What's your interpretation of this one?

Moonspawn · May 26

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

You very easily ditched your teammates to target some newcomers

What's your interpretation of this one?

That your teammate needed you, and you weren't there. There's no need to be ashamed, most PvPers did that anyway. No point competing for a chaosball that was being cheesed, or relic that was being stolen through the wall, or a flag in most land grab matches. #2 (Not allowing the third team to complete the objective uncontested) was simply too damn hard. If ZOS had toned it down as much as possible, and given us some new maps, ESO would probably be a Battlegrounds game by now.

katanagirl1 · May 26

Spawncampimg needs to be addressed in 2 team format. On at least one map for CTR, players can target those trying to take their relic from the spawn point.

DeadlySerious · May 26

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Spawncampimg needs to be addressed in 2 team format. On at least one map for CTR, players can target those trying to take their relic from the spawn point.

This is one of the many problems with the 2 team BG's. The maps are too small and, as you pointed out, allow for getting kills while spawn camping....which is something that should never have been designed into the game.

In all it feels like the whole 2 team and 8x8 teams was thought of and implemented on a shoestring without much actual thought going into the system. Instead of tweaking a great system of 3 teams a little they went with something totally different and has flopped; a prelude to what vengeance mode Cyrodiil will turn out to be most likely.

xylena_lazarow · May 26

Moonspawn wrote: »

That your teammate needed you, and you weren't there.

False. You were not there. My lone teammate struggled in combat but fought hard anyway and captured flags as asked. Splitting up to go after unguarded flags was our only chance to win a 2v8, and this strat is already pretty good in 3s, much better than it is in 2s. I had hoped as an enjoyer of the unique strats of 3s, you would've appreciated this more.

Moonspawn · May 26

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

That your teammate needed you, and you weren't there.

False. You were not there. My lone teammate struggled in combat but fought hard anyway and captured flags as asked. Splitting up to go after unguarded flags was our only chance to win a 2v8, and this strat is already pretty good in 3s, much better than it is in 2s. I had hoped as an enjoyer of the unique strats of 3s, you would've appreciated this more.

Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night. Now I need to find a way to forget how your actions in this match might have cost us a valuable member of the BG community. Thanks.

xylena_lazarow · May 26

Moonspawn wrote: »

Now I need to find a way to forget how your actions in this match might have cost us a valuable member of the BG community. Thanks.

Quite the opposite. That player saw me fighting hard against the odds, and was motivated to do the same, all the way to the end. That's a player who's coming back stronger next match and is on their way to being competitive.

Decimus · May 26

Haki_7 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Because its the closest I can get to [edited for potential rickroll]

Instead of complaining about 2s, why not post what you think is so good about 3s?

What's great about three-sided BGs is that they made it next to impossible for pvpers to avoid one another. The same cannot be said for two-sided, and there's no changing that. Not with player shuffling, not even with a matchmaking capable of magically transforming opposing teams into exact copies of each other. But there's no need to worry, everyone will be glad when the real BGs return to jumpstart the growth of the community.

Good thing I keep reading this thread for comedy, else I might miss gems like these... that is very rich coming from someone who does their best to avoid fighting other PvPers in team vs team, and yet winds up dying in middle of their team anyway. Repeatedly.

The irony (or projection?) just needed to be pointed out - anyway, carry on.

Moonspawn · May 27

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

That your teammate needed you, and you weren't there.

False. You were not there. My lone teammate struggled in combat but fought hard anyway and captured flags as asked. Splitting up to go after unguarded flags was our only chance to win a 2v8, and this strat is already pretty good in 3s, much better than it is in 2s. I had hoped as an enjoyer of the unique strats of 3s, you would've appreciated this more.

One of the adjustments that would greatly improve the land grab modes is to make it so that flags cannot be fully flipped by a single player. If someone wants to run around alone they could still help by turning them white. Should go a long way to toning down the difficulty of #2 (Not allowing the third team to complete the objective uncontested).

Moonspawn · May 27

Moonspawn wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

That your teammate needed you, and you weren't there.

False. You were not there. My lone teammate struggled in combat but fought hard anyway and captured flags as asked. Splitting up to go after unguarded flags was our only chance to win a 2v8, and this strat is already pretty good in 3s, much better than it is in 2s. I had hoped as an enjoyer of the unique strats of 3s, you would've appreciated this more.

One of the adjustments that would greatly improve the land grab modes is to make it so that flags cannot be fully flipped by a single player. If someone wants to run around alone they could still help by turning them white. Should go a long way to toning down the difficulty of #2 (Not allowing the third team to complete the objective uncontested).

Another adjustment would be reducing the points each flag gives per tick. Domination from 8 to 4. Crazy King from 8 to 6. They also shouldn't synchronize the way they did, because it created grotesque scoring distortions over time, but that is a subject for another thread.

katanagirl1 · May 27

DeadlySerious wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Spawncampimg needs to be addressed in 2 team format. On at least one map for CTR, players can target those trying to take their relic from the spawn point.

This is one of the many problems with the 2 team BG's. The maps are too small and, as you pointed out, allow for getting kills while spawn camping....which is something that should never have been designed into the game.

In all it feels like the whole 2 team and 8x8 teams was thought of and implemented on a shoestring without much actual thought going into the system. Instead of tweaking a great system of 3 teams a little they went with something totally different and has flopped; a prelude to what vengeance mode Cyrodiil will turn out to be most likely.

The map that comes up for CTR and Chaosball, the one that has some Argonian description and the upper level with the holes in it, is not too small, it just needs a Sanctuary on it to avoid people attacking from the elevated area of the spawn on CTR specifically (but really all of them duh). Why should you allow people to just stay there and attack? The other map that comes up for Crazy King, Domination, and possibly CTR, the Ayleid one, is much too large. It is hard to cover the distance when things change and I always run out of stamina. There’s another larger one, some High Isle map I think, doesn’t seem as large for some reason and I don’t know why. It is usually Chaosball, CTR, or Deathmatch. Maybe because I have not seen a flag type mode there.

My comments on the different formats would be that I enjoyed the Deathmatch for 3 team and didn’t like the objective modes. For 2 team, Deathmatch usually is a steamroll so I’ve come to appreciate the objective modes more. I get a lot of deaths though, even on a good magsorc build, because I constantly push the objectives rather than just 1v1 and am frequently outnumbered. I don’t think the goal of any match other than Deathmatch is to get high kills, though. If you don’t play the objectives and lose it’s pointless.

cuddles_with_wroble · May 27

Moonspawn wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

That your teammate needed you, and you weren't there.

False. You were not there. My lone teammate struggled in combat but fought hard anyway and captured flags as asked. Splitting up to go after unguarded flags was our only chance to win a 2v8, and this strat is already pretty good in 3s, much better than it is in 2s. I had hoped as an enjoyer of the unique strats of 3s, you would've appreciated this more.

One of the adjustments that would greatly improve the land grab modes is to make it so that flags cannot be fully flipped by a single player. If someone wants to run around alone they could still help by turning them white. Should go a long way to toning down the difficulty of #2 (Not allowing the third team to complete the objective uncontested).

Both of these game modes are flawed

Crazy king is just bad and should be removed imo

Domination should just be 3 flags and points should be based on kills with a multiplier for each zone your team has controlled, there should also be something that spawns once or twice a match that resets all zone control to neutral

xylena_lazarow · May 27

cuddles_with_wroble wrote: »

Crazy king is just bad and should be removed imo

Slander. Crazy King in 2s is a lot of fun to me, does a great job breaking up the ball group meta, while still providing enough chances for players to actually fight over the flags.

CTR could use some help since it has no variants, often devolves into ball group stalemates, and needs bug fixes for players being able to grab the relic through solid geometry in several of the maps.

Chaosball gets a bit slow and repetitive, could use a faster pace and more variants with more balls or something. The monster ball mode is too slow, weak, and clumsy. Players actively avoid picking them up because they don't want to be hard forced into ball grouping or being glued to a healer. The payoff isn't even as good as a normal minmax build.

cuddles_with_wroble · May 27

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

cuddles_with_wroble wrote: »

Crazy king is just bad and should be removed imo

Slander. Crazy King in 2s is a lot of fun to me, does a great job breaking up the ball group meta, while still providing enough chances for players to actually fight over the flags.

CTR could use some help since it has no variants, often devolves into ball group stalemates, and needs bug fixes for players being able to grab the relic through solid geometry in several of the maps.

Chaosball gets a bit slow and repetitive, could use a faster pace and more variants with more balls or something. The monster ball mode is too slow, weak, and clumsy. Players actively avoid picking them up because they don't want to be hard forced into ball grouping or being glued to a healer. The payoff isn't even as good as a normal minmax build.

If you are playing crazy king optimally than you should almost never fight or defend your flags, you win faster and get more points if all you do is run to white flags and if anyone comes after you than you just change flags. It’s a terrible game mode that prioritizes objectives instead of pvp.

Games modes should be designed for pvp with supplementary objs to break up and change the flow of the combat rather than how eso is where ignoring pvp is normally the better option if you wanna win

mrreow · May 27

Playing the objective should be always preferred. It's just that some modes have objectives that aren't resulting in or enriching pvp encounters. Take domination for example or chaos ball. You work with your team to defend the objective. It's great. chaos king - you just run around whole game shielding and healing yourself.

In my opinion team deathmatch should be rare and minor mode as bgs should be about random organic team play. That's where this game can get really fun from time to time

We suddenly stop being random players just wanting to fight and organically change to roles such as relic defender or attacker, chaos king healer/support etc because we want to win.

That's where the 1v1 meta comes undone and you can use some for example some otherwise niche AoE ultimates to deny area on objective. You figure out what part of your class kit (ah ***) is useful to the victory at which moment strategically

ESO could be really good pvp game if it wanted to be

Its kind of too late now with subclassing I guess but the game had its moments in these 10 years for sure

Haki_7 · May 27

Let's just go back to the real BGs and forget all about this nightmare:

xylena_lazarow · May 27

@Haki_7 referring to the current BGs as "fake" or a "nightmare" is not relevant to your goal of bringing back 3s, especially not when you see 2s as nonetheless good enough to continue playing anyway.

Haki_7 · May 27

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

@Haki_7 referring to the current BGs as "fake" or a "nightmare" is not relevant to your goal of bringing back 3s, especially not when you see 2s as nonetheless good enough to continue playing anyway.

I disagree. Real BGs need to have all of these features:

1) Having to worry about the possibility of being sandwiched (because of the third team).
2) Not allowing the third team to complete the objective uncontested.
3) Being forced to deal with killstealing (because of the third team).
4) Identifying an impossible victory and helping your teammates achieve second place.
5) Learning about positioning, target selection, teamwork and decision-making from the unique features of the 3-sided format.
6) Playing against opponents who apply what they've learned from all of the above.

xylena_lazarow · May 27

Haki_7 wrote: »

all of these features

You can do this without trashing 2s. You don't need to mention 2s at all. You undermine your own goal by complaining about 2s but also considering them adequate enough to play. It would be most effective to your goal of bringing back 3s to demonstrate your 6 points with screencaps or videos of 3s, showing that 3s can stand on their own merit.

Moonspawn · May 27

Haki_7 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

@Haki_7 referring to the current BGs as "fake" or a "nightmare" is not relevant to your goal of bringing back 3s, especially not when you see 2s as nonetheless good enough to continue playing anyway.

I disagree. Real BGs need to have all of these features:

1) Having to worry about the possibility of being sandwiched (because of the third team).
2) Not allowing the third team to complete the objective uncontested.
3) Being forced to deal with killstealing (because of the third team).
4) Identifying an impossible victory and helping your teammates achieve second place.
5) Learning about positioning, target selection, teamwork and decision-making from the unique features of the 3-sided format.
6) Playing against opponents who apply what they've learned from all of the above.

1-3 to make fights unpredictable and dynamic.
4 to incentivize all players to keep fighting until the very end.
5 to convert newcomers into BG regulars.
6 to keep everyone coming back for more. Forever.

Haki_7 · May 27

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

all of these features

You can do this without trashing 2s. You don't need to mention 2s at all. You undermine your own goal by complaining about 2s but also considering them adequate enough to play. It would be most effective to your goal of bringing back 3s to demonstrate your 6 points with screencaps or videos of 3s, showing that 3s can stand on their own merit.

Impossible because the real BGs are unavailable. They were taken from us.

Moonspawn · May 27

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

all of these features

You can do this without trashing 2s. You don't need to mention 2s at all. You undermine your own goal by complaining about 2s but also considering them adequate enough to play. It would be most effective to your goal of bringing back 3s to demonstrate your 6 points with screencaps or videos of 3s, showing that 3s can stand on their own merit.

I only see 3 possible outcomes to posting these scoreboards.

1- They will be utterly ignored, which is the most likely.
2- ZOS will try to make matches less lopsided.
3- ZOS will bring back 3-sided BGs.

All of these are either positive or neutral. Could you reveal the negative outcome you're spending so much time and energy trying to prevent?

Joy_Division · May 27

Moonspawn wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

What's great about three-sided BGs is that they made it next to impossible for pvpers to avoid one another.

I very easily avoided PvPers in 3s, and posted plenty of deathless results to show.

Maybe I should just be flattered that you think I've done the impossible

You very easily ditched your teammates to target some newcomers, thus leaving your own team outnumbered. Doing that in 2-sided BGs gives your team the number's advantage. He's referring to the consensus described by Decimus. With the exception of yourself, people don't disagree with the consensus itself, just if it's good or bad.

What is this consensus? I dont remember.

Challenges of 3-teams BGs:

1) Having to worry about the possibility of being sandwiched (because of the third team).
2) Not allowing the third team to secure the objective uncontested.
3) Being forced to deal with killstealing (because of the third team).
4) Identifying an impossible victory and helping your teammates achieve second place.
5) Learning about positioning, target selection, teamwork and decision-making from the unique challenges of the 3-sided format.
6) Playing against opponents who apply what they learn from all of the above.

I don't think people actually disliked all of these items. It was mostly the second one. I did too. Everyone did. It was often disproportionately difficult compared to all of the others. All ZOS had to do was tone it down as much as possible and we'd have been good to go. Maybe they'll do it when 3-sided returns and everyone makes their choice. The inevitable choice.

This keeps getting repeated as if it is a ringing endorsement of the old BGs. I don't see how it is.

I suppose the word "challenges" could be used. But the mere existence of a challenge is not necessarily a positive or desirable thing. It is a certainly a "challenge" to play against a fully comped ball group running around on Arrius Third Floor. But it is of the unnecessary and annoying type I'd prefer to do without. Not unlike the "challenge" of driving home in rush hour traffic.

But to be fair and evaluate the list individually, this is what I would say:

#1 "Having to worry about the possibility of being sandwiched" is a pretty big negative in my book. Having to worry about getting double teamed heavily favors conservative and cautious (read boring) gameplay. It's not an accident that competitive games strive to create "high risk - high reward" scenarios because they tend to be exhilarating to try and provide a genuine feeling of accomplishment upon being successful. Because the possibility of being sandwiched exists, the risk is too often too great and the reward is often too unattainable. So people play everything safe, formulaic, bland, by the book.
Because getting sandwich really sucks. The idiom about the "Sword of Damocles" describes a highly negative experience.
Not a positive.

#2 "Not allowing the third team to secure the objective uncontested" is very annoying. If we're in the middle of a good fight - you know, PvPing - we're supposed to just stop this so the third team doesn't win by AFKing on a flag. That may be the correct "strategy" if one really doesn't want to lose. But it hella sucks. It sucks so much, a lot of people don't do it. People don't care how much you scream in group chat. And I don;t blame them. Actively avoiding PvP while signing up to play PvP content is, to be charitable, counter-intuitive..

#3 "Being forced to deal with killstealing" is another squarely in the annoying category. Rewarding backline Mage's Fury spammers and 100% Jesus Beamers is about as terrible as a PvP mechanic can be.

#4 "Identifying an impossible victory and helping your teammates achieve second place" is, while not annoying, not very meaningful to me. Oh wow, I came in second place. Joy. We're the first losers as the saying goes. Besides, I don't really agree with the way that is worded. "Resigning yourself and quitting in the objective to win the match, instead work with the strongest team to dogpile the team that's going to finish last" is another way that can be viewed. That will clearly be a fun experience for team that finishes last, yes?

#5 "Learning about positioning, target selection, teamwork and decision-making from the unique challenges of the 3-sided format" isn't unique to a 3-sided format. It's a feature of every format. There is nothing distinctive about it.

#6 "Playing against opponents who apply what they learn from all of the above" also isn't anything different from any other format. Any game in any format will be played against opponents who will learn from the rules and metas of whatever it is that they are playing.

Moonspawn · May 27

Joy_Division wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

What's great about three-sided BGs is that they made it next to impossible for pvpers to avoid one another.

I very easily avoided PvPers in 3s, and posted plenty of deathless results to show.

Maybe I should just be flattered that you think I've done the impossible

You very easily ditched your teammates to target some newcomers, thus leaving your own team outnumbered. Doing that in 2-sided BGs gives your team the number's advantage. He's referring to the consensus described by Decimus. With the exception of yourself, people don't disagree with the consensus itself, just if it's good or bad.

What is this consensus? I dont remember.

Challenges of 3-teams BGs:

1) Having to worry about the possibility of being sandwiched (because of the third team).
2) Not allowing the third team to secure the objective uncontested.
3) Being forced to deal with killstealing (because of the third team).
4) Identifying an impossible victory and helping your teammates achieve second place.
5) Learning about positioning, target selection, teamwork and decision-making from the unique challenges of the 3-sided format.
6) Playing against opponents who apply what they learn from all of the above.

I don't think people actually disliked all of these items. It was mostly the second one. I did too. Everyone did. It was often disproportionately difficult compared to all of the others. All ZOS had to do was tone it down as much as possible and we'd have been good to go. Maybe they'll do it when 3-sided returns and everyone makes their choice. The inevitable choice.

This keeps getting repeated as if it is a ringing endorsement of the old BGs. I don't see how it is.

I suppose the word "challenges" could be used. But the mere existence of a challenge is not necessarily a positive or desirable thing. It is a certainly a "challenge" to play against a fully comped ball group running around on Arrius Third Floor. But it is of the unnecessary and annoying type I'd prefer to do without. Not unlike the "challenge" of driving home in rush hour traffic.

But to be fair and evaluate the list individually, this is what I would say:

#1 "Having to worry about the possibility of being sandwiched" is a pretty big negative in my book. Having to worry about getting double teamed heavily favors conservative and cautious (read boring) gameplay. It's not an accident that competitive games strive to create "high risk - high reward" scenarios because they tend to be exhilarating to try and provide a genuine feeling of accomplishment upon being successful. Because the possibility of being sandwiched exists, the risk is too often too great and the reward is often too unattainable. So people play everything safe, formulaic, bland, by the book.
Because getting sandwich really sucks. The idiom about the "Sword of Damocles" describes a highly negative experience.
Not a positive.

#2 "Not allowing the third team to secure the objective uncontested" is very annoying. If we're in the middle of a good fight - you know, PvPing - we're supposed to just stop this so the third team doesn't win by AFKing on a flag. That may be the correct "strategy" if one really doesn't want to lose. But it hella sucks. It sucks so much, a lot of people don't do it. People don't care how much you scream in group chat. And I don;t blame them. Actively avoiding PvP while signing up to play PvP content is, to be charitable, counter-intuitive..

#3 "Being forced to deal with killstealing" is another squarely in the annoying category. Rewarding backline Mage's Fury spammers and 100% Jesus Beamers is about as terrible as a PvP mechanic can be.

#4 "Identifying an impossible victory and helping your teammates achieve second place" is, while not annoying, not very meaningful to me. Oh wow, I came in second place. Joy. We're the first losers as the saying goes. Besides, I don't really agree with the way that is worded. "Resigning yourself and quitting in the objective to win the match, instead work with the strongest team to dogpile the team that's going to finish last" is another way that can be viewed. That will clearly be a fun experience for team that finishes last, yes?

#5 "Learning about positioning, target selection, teamwork and decision-making from the unique challenges of the 3-sided format" isn't unique to a 3-sided format. It's a feature of every format. There is nothing distinctive about it.

#6 "Playing against opponents who apply what they learn from all of the above" also isn't anything different from any other format. Any game in any format will be played against opponents who will learn from the rules and metas of whatever it is that they are playing.

There's no need for such acrobatic mental gymnastics. If you dislike the challenges of 3-sided then you can just queue for 2-sided, it's not going anywhere.

xylena_lazarow · May 27

Moonspawn wrote: »

All of these are either positive or neutral. Could you reveal the negative outcome you're spending so much time and energy trying to prevent?

4) ZOS abandons BGs altogether because neither 2s nor 3s were successful

@Haki_7 if you can't prove that 3s stand on their own merit, only compare them to 2s, then you have no case for bringing them back. Vague complaints that 3s were more "real" is not an argument, especially not when you continue to play 2s religiously, and have even stated that 2s are adequate in the absence of your preferred format.

Moonspawn · May 27

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

All of these are either positive or neutral. Could you reveal the negative outcome you're spending so much time and energy trying to prevent?

4) ZOS abandons BGs altogether because neither 2s nor 3s were successful

@Haki_7 if you can't prove that 3s stand on their own merit, only compare them to 2s, then you have no case for bringing them back. Vague complaints that 3s were more "real" is not an argument, especially not when you continue to play 2s religiously, and have even stated that 2s are adequate in the absence of your preferred format.

Abandoning enormous amounts of money and years of development because Haki posted some pictures on the forums. Makes sense.

The only downside to posting these scoreboards seems to be that it's hurting your feelings. Considering the possible benefits, can't you try to soldier through somehow?

xylena_lazarow · May 28

Moonspawn wrote: »

Abandoning enormous amounts of money and years of development

They did exactly this when they deleted 3s, remember? They'll do it again if it's what efficiency dictates.

Moonspawn wrote: »

The only downside to posting these scoreboards seems to be that it's hurting your feelings. Considering the possible benefits, can't you try to soldier through somehow?

I see no benefit because it proves nothing positive about 3s, only spreads negativity towards 2s, potentially driving players away from BGs altogether. I have decided to debate spurious claims and spread positivity towards 2s, with the explicit goal that I would like more players to come check out the 8v8 solo queue. Hard to get better than 504-496.