Future of Battlegrounds

xylena · February 6

Haki_7 wrote: »

simple solutions

LOL no solution in game design is ever simple.

If you think you have good ideas for improving BGs, put them on the PTS forum where they are currently trying to test 3s BGs. Posting that same list of bad 2s over and over just breeds toxicity. Even a hardcore 3s enjoyer must admit the mode needs polish and bug fixes.

I don't otherwise feel compelled to defend 2s anymore since it's been years now and the devs never addressed serious issues like the MMR and spawn camping. Best of luck improving 3s.

Decimus · February 6

All I can say is that there's been a total of 0 3-way BG pops on the PTS despite big BG guilds trying to organize them there, and the feedback thread is buried on the second page.

If ZOS wants to incentivize people to play those battlegrounds on PTS they should organize some specific time for it, maybe get some developers to hop in (players love playing against devs).

Otherwise they'll be hard pressed to find enough players motivated to hop on to PTS in order to play 3-way BGs.

As for fixing the main BG mode:
1. Revamp solo queue 4v4 into a 3v3 or 4v4 shuffle mode where everyone plays with/against each other across multiple rounds.
2. Remove flag games from 4v4 (preferably 3v3).
3. Introduce a simple win/loss MMR system, gaining or losing points based on opponents' average MMR. System tries to match you against people of similar MMR/rank.
4. Make this MMR visible and rank people based on it - they can even use same ranks as in ToT to keep it Elder Scrolls themed.
5. Introduce seasonal rewards unlocked at each rank and for people at the top MMR of the highest rank, similar to ToT.
6. Add the same matchmaking system to 8v8, minus ranks and rewards. Keep the number invisible - this is the casual mode.
7. Kick people down from spawn after 15 seconds to prevent spawn camping and toxic afk'ing to prolong matches out of spite.
8. Add a prompt to pick up chaosball, reduce the number of chaosballs to one.
9. In CtR move relics further away from spawn location, or move spawn locations close to middle to prevent the infinite respawn loop of interrupters while providing people the chance to intercept a relic runner instead. Would require substantial map redesign.
10. Reduce the amount of flags in certain Domination maps or significantly increase the amount of time it takes to flip one.
11. Add more maps.

imPDA · February 6

Moonspawn wrote: »

The current matchmaking in Battlegrounds. What do you think it's based on? Medal score, damage done, time played, KDA, win rate? Something else?

Currently, it is just random, it seems

Every BG there are a lot of newbies or simply weak players. I have collected data about all matches I played, this is how damage done distribution looks like across all players I played with. My average is 1.6M iirc, it is 3 times more than average among of all other players (547k), and it is 96% percentile iirc. Analyzed it in the end of previous year, I don't remember fine details of it. Same for KDA, big difference with average player I played with. Probably, average medal score? Need to check this

Never played for score tbh, except some very lame BGs I wanted to finish as fast as possible. Do you have observations how current matchmaking works?

Haki_7 · February 6

xylena wrote: »

ZOS_GregoryV please close this thread (again), it will only get toxic (again).

Why ask to close this thread? Don't you want the problems plaguing Battlegrounds to be discussed and possibly resolved?

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 129: Waiting 16 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/C_H5wUPYeEk

Chaosball, inevitable victory. We almost lost because too many surrendered to the indescribable allure of spawncamping newcomers.

Relic, inevitable victory. They got their only point by stealing our relic through the wall, so we had no choice but to stay there watching the thing from all sides. It was exactly what I needed after spending 10 minutes on a pointless staring contest with chaosball holders: 15 minutes pointlessly staring at relic defenders. Very relaxing.

Domination 1, inevitable defeat. We couldn't even get to the flags, but at least it ended quickly.

Domination 2 & 3, inevitable victories.

Deathmatch, inevitable victory. Standard 8v8 DM. Can't wait to play this for 5 days straight.

Crazy King, inevitable victory.

Moonspawn · February 7

Haki_7 wrote: »

Got it. Here it is:
Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 1: Waiting 37 minutes for a lopsided match
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFhcqmz--Zc

@Major_Toughness Why would anyone believe any of these videos was recorded at 3 AM?

I doubt anyone actually believes that.

xylena · February 7

imPDA wrote: »

Never played for score tbh

Do you have observations how current matchmaking works?

One problem with BGs is you have players effectively playing completely different games. Not just stuff like DD vs healer, if half the lobby plays deathmatch and half the lobby plays objectives, you might as well ask whether Tom Brady or Michael Jordan is a better chess player.

Like the 10-0-0 wasn't necessarily the biggest threat, just the rat lucky enough that nobody good went after him while he was chasing down noobs between flags. The biggest threat was the 3-2-12 leading the group bombs, sending enemies scattering for the rats to pick off.

So you would need to do something similar to sabremetrics in sports where you sort things by position and strength of opponents, so that you are comparing apples to apples. I don't think this game even has the infrastructure for that. Players don't set dungeon roles for PvP.

For example as a deathmatcher, your stats would need to be evaluated only against other deathmatchers playing your same position of brawler, ganker, bomber, etc. Then you adjust rankings again based on who you were fighting, and how.

Does your 1.6M dmg come mostly against other hardcore deathmatchers, or is it getting inflated by stomping noobs? How much of your 1.6M dmg directly led to kills, and how much was "garbage damage" that got trivially healed off?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Evaluating player performance in this game is a nightmare. Best thing I can think to do is to go back to separate DM/OBJ queues, preferably with a minimum MMR requirement for entering the DM queue at all.

imPDA · February 7

Actually, damage done and KDA can be used to evaluate success for both objective matches and DMs, because if you are able to kill many enemies, you keep them away from flags or balls, or you can even lock them on spawn, so you team can easily control objectives. For DMs my point is obvious.

So, my point is, I heard many times, "It is not a deathmatch, why are you playing it like this?" and my answer is above - I just can kill players even before they reach a flag, so in many objective BGs, playing it like a deathmatch was the best thing I could do, and I let my entire team chase flags easily. And in the end of these BGs, I usually got 0 score, while having probably the biggest impact on a match

xylena · February 7

imPDA wrote: »

And in the end of these BGs, I usually got 0 score, while having probably the biggest impact on a match

The goal would be a system that scores and ranks you compared to other deathmatchers, not gives you 0 by comparing you to the objective runners. There would at least need a way for players to flag their role/position as a deathmatcher, support, objective runner, etc.

But it also matters who you are killing, 10-0 while taking down tryhards is a bigger impact than going 20-0 by killing the same 2 irrelevant noobs over and over.

Moonspawn · February 7

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:
In general how did it feel playing 3-Sided Battlegrounds?

What did you like about 3-Sided Battlegrounds?

What didn't meet your satisfaction while playing?

What game mode(s) did you participate in? (Please remember these rotate per day. This is listed above)

Did anything not function to your expectations?

Do you have any other general feedback?

@ZOS_Kevin

In general how did it feel playing 3-Sided Battlegrounds?
A million times more enjoyable than two-sided BGs.

[*]What did you like about 3-Sided Battlegrounds?
1- It's a lot easier for pvpers to fight one another.
2- The most extreme form of anti-gaming is significantly harder. If you'd like, I can PM you a video showcasing the hideous practice in action.
3- Spawncamping is harder and less useful than in the 2-sided format.
4- People don't give up so easily in 3-sided. The possibility of achieving second place is a powerful incentive to keep everyone fighting until the very end.

[*]What didn't meet your satisfaction while playing?
Two of the three easily solvable flaws that have always prevented 3-sided BGs from becoming popular are still there.

[*]What game mode(s) did you participate in? (Please remember these rotate per day. This is listed above)
I remember all the game modes and each of their respective problems quite vividly.

[*]Did anything not function to your expectations?
Everything was within expectations.

[*]Do you have any other general feedback?

Please bring back 3-sided BGs permanently and separate the DM queue from the objectives queue. It is the very first step towards making Battlegrounds truly popular.

Urvoth · February 8

Solo queue really needs to become solo + duo queue. Group queue is more or less completely dead 90% of the time, especially outside of fully organized groups, so it's virtually impossible to play with your friends in BGs now.

Haki_7 · February 8

xylena wrote: »

I don't otherwise feel compelled to defend 2s anymore since it's been years now and the devs never addressed serious issues like the MMR and spawn camping.

MMR? Let's go back to the miraculous, one in a million balanced 8v8 match I posted a few days ago.
How is it possible for anyone, pvper or not, to have fun in this situation? These things won't allow it, regardless of what's done to the MMR.

Cap the relic, unavoidable victory. Mercifully quick this time, thank god:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 130: Waiting 18 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/AR2sJZggY38

Domination, unavoidable victory. Sacrificed myself at the beginning to keep them from the damage sigil. Wasn't necessary. They were trapped in spawn for the remainder of the match:

Chaosball 1 & 2, unavoidable victories. Standing around looking at ball carriers, newcomers on both teams suffering relentlessly, etc... the usual.

Deathmatch 1, unavoidable loss:

Deathmatch 2 & 3, unavoidable victories:

xylena · February 8

Haki_7 wrote: »

MMR? Let's go back to

How are 3s going on the PTS?

Did yall fix the terrain exploits?

Moonspawn · February 8

imPDA wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

The current matchmaking in Battlegrounds. What do you think it's based on? Medal score, damage done, time played, KDA, win rate? Something else?

Currently, it is just random, it seems Every BG there are a lot of newbies or simply weak players. I have collected data about all matches I played, this is how damage done distribution looks like across all players I played with. My average is 1.6M iirc, it is 3 times more than average among of all other players (547k), and it is 96% percentile iirc. Analyzed it in the end of previous year, I don't remember fine details of it. Same for KDA, big difference with average player I played with. Probably, average medal score? Need to check this Never played for score tbh, except some very lame BGs I wanted to finish as fast as possible. Do you have observations how current matchmaking works?

There are some things we can infer about the matchmaking by looking at two specific outliers. Namely, Haki, who only plays as healer, and the streamer Sekaar, who only plays damage dealer. What we need to ask ourselves is this:

Why does the matchmaking considers their MMR so far above everyone else that it constantly skips them?

Decimus · February 8

Moonspawn wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

The current matchmaking in Battlegrounds. What do you think it's based on? Medal score, damage done, time played, KDA, win rate? Something else?

Currently, it is just random, it seems Every BG there are a lot of newbies or simply weak players. I have collected data about all matches I played, this is how damage done distribution looks like across all players I played with. My average is 1.6M iirc, it is 3 times more than average among of all other players (547k), and it is 96% percentile iirc. Analyzed it in the end of previous year, I don't remember fine details of it. Same for KDA, big difference with average player I played with. Probably, average medal score? Need to check this Never played for score tbh, except some very lame BGs I wanted to finish as fast as possible. Do you have observations how current matchmaking works?

There are some things we can infer about the matchmaking by looking at two specific outliers. Namely, Haki, who only plays as healer, and the streamer Sekaar, who only plays damage dealer. What we need to ask ourselves is this:

Why does the matchmaking considers their MMR so far above everyone else that it constantly skips them?

There is no MMR, atleast a win/loss based one that fluctuates.

If you play the same character over and over and over again, you will get long queues... this happened to me when playing my stamina dragonknight excessively, to the point where people on my friend list would get queue pops while I'd still be sitting in the queue. It happens to other people I talk to as well and their (and my) fix to the situation is to log on another character.

Moonspawn · February 9

Haki_7 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

Btw, speaking about transparency, @ZOS_Kevin could you tell us more about MMR in BGs? I saw development of this started and postponed, idk why, probably because of priorities. Will this feature ever be delivered? Does it exist in some form under the hood, so complete newbies would not play against veterans, or it is absent completely? Any plans to bring it live one sunny day in the future?

Hi @imPDA, wanted to follow up here. While the team would still like to address this in the future, currently with all of our other initiatives, we don't have bandwidth to properly address the MMR tech. You are correct, it was on the roadmap for a bit and then we had a priority shift to address other longstanding issues. We still want to address this, but it will be some time before we can get to it.

@ZOS_Kevin Here's one of the very few balanced matches I've played:
The blue arrows indicate the pvpers.

Impossible for newcomers to have fun, because the target order never leaves them.

Impossible for pvpers to have fun, because the target order almost never reaches other pvpers, and whoever dares deviate from that gets zerged down.

Doesn't matter if it's time played, win rate, damage done or KDA. The match would have turned out the same regardless of which metric was used for MMR. This is the complete opposite of everything Battlegrounds are supposed to be. The only way to change that is to solve these four critical flaws.

It's eerie how perfectly balanced that match was. Almost exactly like the example I provided all those months ago, when writing about the first critical flaw of 2-sided.

By the way, how many characters are you playing?

Haki_7 · February 9

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

Btw, speaking about transparency, @ZOS_Kevin could you tell us more about MMR in BGs? I saw development of this started and postponed, idk why, probably because of priorities. Will this feature ever be delivered? Does it exist in some form under the hood, so complete newbies would not play against veterans, or it is absent completely? Any plans to bring it live one sunny day in the future?

Hi @imPDA, wanted to follow up here. While the team would still like to address this in the future, currently with all of our other initiatives, we don't have bandwidth to properly address the MMR tech. You are correct, it was on the roadmap for a bit and then we had a priority shift to address other longstanding issues. We still want to address this, but it will be some time before we can get to it.

@ZOS_Kevin Here's one of the very few balanced matches I've played:
The blue arrows indicate the pvpers.

Impossible for newcomers to have fun, because the target order never leaves them.

Impossible for pvpers to have fun, because the target order almost never reaches other pvpers, and whoever dares deviate from that gets zerged down.

Doesn't matter if it's time played, win rate, damage done or KDA. The match would have turned out the same regardless of which metric was used for MMR. This is the complete opposite of everything Battlegrounds are supposed to be. The only way to change that is to solve these four critical flaws.

It's eerie how perfectly balanced that match was. Almost exactly like the example I provided all those months ago, when writing about the first critical flaw of 2-sided.

By the way, how many characters are you playing?

Four characters, 2 on each server. 10-20 minutes queues still happen regularly on every one of them. For all the easily solvable problems keeping the population of 3-sided extremely low, I could always play just one character and never get skipped by the matchmaking.

Crazy King 1, 100% guaranteed to win. We lost because spawncamping newcomers apparently takes precedence over anything else.

Crazy King 2, 100% guaranteed to win:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 131: Waiting 18 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/x0LaE6vW_hU

Relic, 100% guaranteed to win:

Domination, 100% guaranteed to win:

Chaosball, 100% guaranteed to win. Always amazes me how they went all out when designing this mode:

Deathmatch 1, 100% guaranteed to win. As per the rules of 8v8, Green-1 ditched his team to go target some newcomers.

Deathmatch 2, 100% guaranteed to lose:

sPark101 · February 9

I recently returned after a break and decided to play a few "new" two team battlegrounds and everything seemed fine untill I noticed that your respawn point was in range of the other team. You can't change sets, armor, skills and just get defeated over and over. Although I appreciate the humor in this it makes playing in battlegrounds pointless unless you're doing the "play in 0/5 battlegrounds" quest.

Moonspawn · February 9

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

Btw, speaking about transparency, @ZOS_Kevin could you tell us more about MMR in BGs? I saw development of this started and postponed, idk why, probably because of priorities. Will this feature ever be delivered? Does it exist in some form under the hood, so complete newbies would not play against veterans, or it is absent completely? Any plans to bring it live one sunny day in the future?

Hi @imPDA, wanted to follow up here. While the team would still like to address this in the future, currently with all of our other initiatives, we don't have bandwidth to properly address the MMR tech. You are correct, it was on the roadmap for a bit and then we had a priority shift to address other longstanding issues. We still want to address this, but it will be some time before we can get to it.

@ZOS_Kevin Here's one of the very few balanced matches I've played:
The blue arrows indicate the pvpers.

Impossible for newcomers to have fun, because the target order never leaves them.

Impossible for pvpers to have fun, because the target order almost never reaches other pvpers, and whoever dares deviate from that gets zerged down.

Doesn't matter if it's time played, win rate, damage done or KDA. The match would have turned out the same regardless of which metric was used for MMR. This is the complete opposite of everything Battlegrounds are supposed to be. The only way to change that is to solve these four critical flaws.

It's eerie how perfectly balanced that match was. Almost exactly like the example I provided all those months ago, when writing about the first critical flaw of 2-sided.

By the way, how many characters are you playing?

Four characters, 2 on each server. 10-20 minutes queues still happen regularly on every one of them. For all the easily solvable problems keeping the population of 3-sided extremely low, I could always play just one character and never get skipped by the matchmaking.

Meaning it's not random OR based on time played. @imPDA what is it that Haki and Sekaar have in common that sets them apart from everyone else?

imPDA · February 9

Moonspawn wrote: »

Meaning it's not random OR based on time played. @imPDA what is it that Haki and Sekaar have in common that sets them apart from everyone else?

I have not read all the previous messages, nor do I know these players well, but the simplest answer may be the time. I don’t know what time they play; it could just be that there aren’t enough people in the queue.

To test whether the matchmaking is random, you have to queue together at the same time several times. From an analytical point of view, it’s a fairly simple check: you just need to collect data - the more the better - from multiple people queueing simultaneously (ideally) or during the same time window (e.g., 18:00-21:00 UTC).

If it is not random and Haki tends to experience longer queues, it will be clearly visible in the data. It would also be useful to know what time they play (in UTC, for consistency). After 21:00 UTC, queues can slow down considerably because that’s the end of prime time. The EU server has a fairly narrow prime time window, while NA has a wider one. However, if Haki is from the EU, they may be playing on NA during NA daytime, which may not align with prime time.

This is only speculation, though. If you want clearer answers, you should collect and analyze the data, or ask ZOS directly. I wish ZOS would collect battleground data and make it publicly available, as other MMO RPGs do, or at least implement an API for accessing match data. However, I suspect this data either isn’t stored or is purged regularly - there wouldn’t be much reason to retain it since the game lacks MMR and in-game match history.

Moonspawn · February 9

xylena wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

simple solutions

LOL no solution in game design is ever simple.

Since this is buried in page 22, here are the three game-breaking problems of 3-sided Battlegrounds:

1- Forcing people who only wanted to play deathmatch into the objective modes. Recipe for disaster.
SOLUTION: Separate Deathmatch from the objectives queue.

2- It was far too easy for the third team to complete the objective uncontested.
SOLUTION: Minor adjustments to all the 3-sided objective modes, except Capture the Relic. That one needs a bit more work.

3- Rewards did not include endeavors, golden pursuits, tokens or obscene amounts of transmutation crystals.
SOLUTION: It's already there.

@xylena_lazarow , are you saying there are more problems?

Avran_Sylt · February 9

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

Btw, speaking about transparency, @ZOS_Kevin could you tell us more about MMR in BGs? I saw development of this started and postponed, idk why, probably because of priorities. Will this feature ever be delivered? Does it exist in some form under the hood, so complete newbies would not play against veterans, or it is absent completely? Any plans to bring it live one sunny day in the future?

Hi @imPDA, wanted to follow up here. While the team would still like to address this in the future, currently with all of our other initiatives, we don't have bandwidth to properly address the MMR tech. You are correct, it was on the roadmap for a bit and then we had a priority shift to address other longstanding issues. We still want to address this, but it will be some time before we can get to it.

@ZOS_Kevin Here's one of the very few balanced matches I've played:
The blue arrows indicate the pvpers.

Impossible for newcomers to have fun, because the target order never leaves them.

Impossible for pvpers to have fun, because the target order almost never reaches other pvpers, and whoever dares deviate from that gets zerged down.

Doesn't matter if it's time played, win rate, damage done or KDA. The match would have turned out the same regardless of which metric was used for MMR. This is the complete opposite of everything Battlegrounds are supposed to be. The only way to change that is to solve these four critical flaws.

It's eerie how perfectly balanced that match was. Almost exactly like the example I provided all those months ago, when writing about the first critical flaw of 2-sided.

By the way, how many characters are you playing?

Four characters, 2 on each server. 10-20 minutes queues still happen regularly on every one of them. For all the easily solvable problems keeping the population of 3-sided extremely low, I could always play just one character and never get skipped by the matchmaking.

Meaning it's not random OR based on time played. @imPDA what is it that Haki and Sekaar have in common that sets them apart from everyone else?

Haki at least plays a backline Twilight Matriarch Sorc Healer, the single-target burst heals juice up round score via healing medals on modes like Chaosball/Crazy King/Deathmatch while at the same time making them die very little (since no-one else targets those pets to interrupt those heals nor targets the backline...)

xylena · February 9

Moonspawn wrote: »

are you saying there are more problems?

yeah

Haki_7 · February 10

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

Btw, speaking about transparency, @ZOS_Kevin could you tell us more about MMR in BGs? I saw development of this started and postponed, idk why, probably because of priorities. Will this feature ever be delivered? Does it exist in some form under the hood, so complete newbies would not play against veterans, or it is absent completely? Any plans to bring it live one sunny day in the future?

Hi @imPDA, wanted to follow up here. While the team would still like to address this in the future, currently with all of our other initiatives, we don't have bandwidth to properly address the MMR tech. You are correct, it was on the roadmap for a bit and then we had a priority shift to address other longstanding issues. We still want to address this, but it will be some time before we can get to it.

@ZOS_Kevin Here's one of the very few balanced matches I've played:
The blue arrows indicate the pvpers.

Impossible for newcomers to have fun, because the target order never leaves them.

Impossible for pvpers to have fun, because the target order almost never reaches other pvpers, and whoever dares deviate from that gets zerged down.

Doesn't matter if it's time played, win rate, damage done or KDA. The match would have turned out the same regardless of which metric was used for MMR. This is the complete opposite of everything Battlegrounds are supposed to be. The only way to change that is to solve these four critical flaws.

It's eerie how perfectly balanced that match was. Almost exactly like the example I provided all those months ago, when writing about the first critical flaw of 2-sided.

By the way, how many characters are you playing?

Four characters, 2 on each server. 10-20 minutes queues still happen regularly on every one of them. For all the easily solvable problems keeping the population of 3-sided extremely low, I could always play just one character and never get skipped by the matchmaking.

Meaning it's not random OR based on time played. @imPDA what is it that Haki and Sekaar have in common that sets them apart from everyone else?

Also, I think that if the MMR was based on time played, then it would at least separate the people who are there for the pvp from the ones who are not. We know it doesn't do that.

Crazy King 1, 0% chance of winning. We almost did because they weren't too keen on doing the objective:

Crazy King 2 and 3, 0% chance of losing:

Domination, 0% chance of losing:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 132: Waiting 16 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)

https://youtu.be/On4-_br1EyM

Relic, 0% chance of losing:

Chaosball 1, 0% chance of losing:

Chaosball 2, 0% chance of losing. We did because no one wanted to do the objective:

imPDA · February 10

By time I mean time of day, not time spent playing. As I said, EU has narrow primetime window with fast queue, and outside of this window queue will be longer and longer. NA has wider primetime window. If it is not a prime time, you can end up like this: 20 players in a queue and new players barely participating, so 16 players loaded to BG, 4 players in q had to wait till the end of this BG and (roughly) the same 16 people join this q again.

I think old 3-way BGs had some ranking algorithm, because I used to play with the same players again and again in primetime, and now I can barely meet 2-4 the same players in two matches in a row tbh. Probably it tries to shuffle you to play with as many different players as possible, so if there are not enough players in a queue, you can end up waiting longer than player who plays 1 BG and leaves.

Once again, it is really hard to talk about it without data. You can install ImpressiveStats and collect data over time, then we can talk about what players you play with, what their average performance and what is your performance. I am not recording queue time btw, because I never thought about doing research on this matter, but I could implement custom addon to record q time if someone interested.

Moonspawn · February 10

imPDA wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

The current matchmaking in Battlegrounds. What do you think it's based on? Medal score, damage done, time played, KDA, win rate? Something else?

Currently, it is just random, it seems

The MMR being random would be the same as not existing at all. If that was the case, then no one would be skipped by the matchmaking. Not even our two outliers.

There was a theory that it's based on medal score, but that doesn't track either, because Sekaar has the same long queues while playing as a low scoring damage dealer.

Haki_7 · 10:14AM

xylena wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

MMR? Let's go back to

Did yall fix the terrain exploits?

I doubt they even know where they are. We'll have to wait for 3-sided to come back to take screenshots and make videos of all the problematic locations.

I must warn that the scoreboards today are not for the faint of heart.

Crazy King 1 & 2, no chance of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective:

Deathmatch 2, no chance of winning. Spawncamping from start to finish:

Domination 1, no chance of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective:

Domination 2, no chance of losing. Lots of spawncamping and running around without even drawing weapons:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 133: Waiting 16 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/ins3cHlptJ4

Deathmatch 1, no chance of losing:

Chaosball, no chance of losing. I'm beginning to think that not even solving all the critical flaws of 2-sided would be enough to save this mode:

Moonspawn · 1:03PM

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I will say that the objectives do work a lot better in 3-way fights than 2-way.
Granted, I'm not a huge PvPer, but I did enjoy BGs a while back before their decline. But I'm one of the casuals who find objective matches way more fun that straight deathmatch. And in each of the objectives, 3-way is more strategic than 2-way, while DM is the one that really doesn't have a major gameplay difference between them.

Looking at each mode specifically:
2-way Deathmatch: go kill the other team, while they try to kill you

3-way Deathmatch: you may be able to sit back and let the other two teams weaken each other, before sweeping in to clean up.

2-way Domination: mostly like a deathmatch, but on the flags. As more spawn, the fights spread out.

3-way Domination: more teams mean more fights going on on the flags, or more of a chance to capture undefended flags

2-way Crazy King: as above, but with more movement

3-way Crazy King: as above again, but now more chance to get undefended flags

2-way Chaosball: one team gets the ball and camps at base for the rest of the match while the rest of the team protects them

3-way Chaosball: more action since you have more people coming in to attack than you have defending, so camping isn't really possible

2-way Capture the Relic: completely broken. Either doesn't go at all, or one team gets one up and then they're practically a guaranteed win.

3-way Capture the Relic: actually requires playing the whole way through.

The objective modes were most hurt by the switch to 2-teams, and especially the Flag Games ones (CTR and Chaosball) have the strategy completely ruined by it... not to mention the fact that the swap to two-way also completely broke some achievements (Tactician can't be done since you don't have two enemy relics to get within 10 seconds).

I also think that the team/solo split is really hurting things. I get the "I don't want to play with premades!" complaint, but the population can't really support that. If they go down to one queue, then maybe they can actually use a proper MMR system to fix it, and that will be a lot better than hoping that the team people don't just all sit in Discord and queue solo together.

tldr: objective is way better with 3-team, but of course objective is not as popular of a mode as deathmatch.

It's not everyday I see someone who enjoyed the 3-sided objective modes as they were. @tomofhyrule what do you think of the following adjustments? The goal is to make it as hard as possible for the third team to complete the objective uncontested, and thus solve the second of the three critical flaws that ruined 3-sided.

Chaosball

PROBLEMS

Ball carrier could move around the map fast enough to be all but impossible to catch.
Players could take the ball to cheesy places where they couldn't be damaged.

SOLUTIONS

Reduce ball carrier speed by 30%
Fix cheesy places.

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Crazy King and Domination

PROBLEM

Two teams fight while the third flips all remaining flags uncontested.

SOLUTIONS

Reduce the amount of points each flag gives per tick. Domination from 8 to 4, Crazy King from 8 to 6.
Modify flags to require a minimum of two players to be fully captured. Solo players would still be able to hinder the opponents' progress by discoloring their flags, but to get any points they would need the help of at least one teammate. Running around without even drawing weapons would no longer be the ultimate winning strategy.

Even in the worst case scenario, it would be impossible to end any match in less than 10 minutes. Most would last 15.
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Capture the Relic

PROBLEMS

Standing around guarding a relic is boring.
Pointlessly parsing a tank who is guarding a relic is boring.
Having your relic stolen through the wall, or because the grabbing animation didn't play correctly is boring.

SOLUTION
The following solution was inspired by the most fun situation the mode was capable of producing. This one:

A player from each team would be randomly selected as the ''relic holder'', and the goal of the match would be to kill the other teams' holders while protecting your own. When this player died the relic would choose a new vessel and transfer to them after 30 seconds. This player would obviously need to be ejected from spawn after a period of time.
The game mode would function like an extremely high level Deathmatch from the olden days, but with training wheels. Imagine a 3-sided DM in which the softest target of every team is indicated by the relic. In the worst case scenario, the two stronger teams would be compelled to fight in the spawn of the softest team, but the relic's debuff would ensure this fight would never stalemate to the point of not being worth it. They would fight, relic holders would die, transfer to other players, and the new holders would die too. It would be impossible to spawncamp the softest team.