PTS Update 49 - Feedback Thread for 3-Sided Battlegrounds

xylena · February 9

Any chance of revisiting Deathmatch Only queue?

albertberku · February 9

Ok, i am going to recommend a single 4v4v4 objectives queue including both solos/duos and groups. And whatever deathmatch queues they want. Complete separation of deathmatch and objectives. For objectives solo against groups were never a problem to begin with due to the nature of the game modes, it was always brought up just because deathmatch was included in the objectives queue. And we never actually had a population problem in the objectives queue. I say give us the objectives queue without the deathmatch and let deathmatch people try whatever they want to save their unfun game mode without affecting objectives playerbase. If BG population wont skyrocket with that change i am going to walk naked from Vlastarus to Bruma.

You are not going to make people play deathmatch by making devs remove objectives modes, you just make them quit BGs. I still cant believe how deathmatch only lobby actually managed to make devs believe that the objectives queue was the problem. You removed objectives, 30 minutes queues now if you are lucky.

heimdall14_9 · February 10

https://youtu.be/RsnjQsbmgk0?si=YJvhujkJHjbY8Olo

to bad i wont be healing for this event of 4v4v4 bgs as im taking an break , and 4v4v4 was my favor bgs even when match maker made it 3v4v4 on me 85% of the times

i just read through the post here and i just got to laugh at all this DM is the favorable match up as , ive never heard any complaint other then how DM was killing every other game mode by all the players in every match up but DM and there you heard nothing but complaints about unfair match making as one team would dominate the other 2 ..

in above video 3v4v4 and the team with 3 won whys that ????

ceruulean · February 10

Honestly it makes the most sense to have a separate "competitive/ranked" queue and "uncompetitive/unranked" queue. The labeling would be much more clear for people. And do away with group vs. solo queue, because no other game separates queues like that. While I dont have any links to scientific studies, it probably adds extra matchmaking time, and being grouped does not necessarily mean your team is more skilled or coordinated than a bunch of appropriately ranked MMR solos.

Uncompetitive gamemodes like 8v8 and 4v4v4 can be mixed in this bracket, because they're more about big chaos, and accessible low-stakes fun.

The competitive bracket would be 4v4 deathmatch.

As for 4v4v4, they're ok when I wanna blow off some steam and enter a solo queue. But if you group with any high MMR player, you'll be waiting 40 minutes for a game. That part sucked and made BGs anti-social. Oh and if that Chaos Ball terrain glitch is still there where you can stand in a pocket and all your enemies who try to touch you die to environmental damage, that also sucked.

gariondavey · February 10

albertberku wrote: »

Ok, i am going to recommend a single 4v4v4 objectives queue including both solos/duos and groups. And whatever deathmatch queues they want. Complete separation of deathmatch and objectives. For objectives solo against groups were never a problem to begin with due to the nature of the game modes, it was always brought up just because deathmatch was included in the objectives queue. And we never actually had a population problem in the objectives queue. I say give us the objectives queue without the deathmatch and let deathmatch people try whatever they want to save their unfun game mode without affecting objectives playerbase. If BG population wont skyrocket with that change i am going to walk naked from Vlastarus to Bruma.

You are not going to make people play deathmatch by making devs remove objectives modes, you just make them quit BGs. I still cant believe how deathmatch only lobby actually managed to make devs believe that the objectives queue was the problem. You removed objectives, 30 minutes queues now if you are lucky.

The queues popped very fast during dm only time, what do you mean?
Also, I'm in a 500 man guild focused on deathmatch. If deathmatch were brought back it would not have 30 minute queues.

L_Nici · February 10

Why giving domination the most days? Could you maybe swap Deathmatch and Domination, afterall Deathmatch is the most popular mode.

albertberku · February 10

I would argue that current BGs look almost like a deathmatch only queue. Couple capture points in a minimal map where you never even lose line of sight to other player is not the objectives gameplay.

But in the end i am just saying deathmatch should be completely separate from the objectives, and objectives have to exist. We dont even need separate solo/group queues in the objectives. It is all problems of deathmatch and rankings. 4v4v4 objectives queue was doing just fine back at times, i am sure it will do even better without deathmatch being in it. Deathmatch and objectives are completely different two game modes and have different audiences with fundamentally different mindsets, they should be behaved like that.

I have nothing against deathmatch only queues and i dont care what kind of gameplay format people want there but just dont try to butcher objectives game modes with the hopes of bringing more players to the deathmatch. People will just quit BGs instead, as you can see.

xylena · February 10

Is there any valid argument for not separating Deathmatch and Objective?

The previous dev team said they recombined the queues because there weren't enough people joining the objective queue, which ended up killing both queues. Problems run much deeper than simply 2s vs 3s as we have seen both formats struggle.

We don't need to cater to the sort of DM tryhards that actually want to stomp on casual objective runners, this will never be anything but toxic.

Decimus · February 10

xylena wrote: »

Is there any valid argument for not separating Deathmatch and Objective?

The previous dev team said they recombined the queues because there weren't enough people joining the objective queue, which ended up killing both queues. Problems run much deeper than simply 2s vs 3s as we have seen both formats struggle.

We don't need to cater to the sort of DM tryhards that actually want to stomp on casual objective runners, this will never be anything but toxic.

You can play objectives and PvP at the same time though... I'd say some of the objective modes are significantly more fun for PvP in 8v8 than deathmatch, and it has nothing to do with "stomping on casual objective runners".

In 8v8 deathmatch tends to be the game mode suffering the most from poor matchmaking as most of the people will simply just stack together and sit outside other team's spawn. As a competent player you're kinda confined to the sideline, hoping that some people will peel off from the stack... which often doesn't happen at all.

In other game modes this doesn't tend to happen as much since there's multiple points of interest besides enemy spawn.

For actual PvP I'd say Crazy King is probably the most fun game mode on average in the team vs team BGs since you get a lot of manageable fights around the flags.

As for the question, you answer it yourself: not enough player base for multiple separate queues... would probably have to wait for cross-play or redesign the existing 4v4s to scratch that particular itch of gameplay and remove objectives from it - I don't know a single person who enjoys running to flags in small 4v4 maps.

xylena · February 10

Decimus wrote: »

You can play objectives and PvP at the same time though

Killing to win objectives is a different game from killing to compare KDA, like my earlier example of the 3-2-12 leading flag bombs vs the 10-0-0 rat killing the noobs that get scattered.

There's also the issue of teams dragging out lopsided objective 2s so they can continue killing as if it matters whether you go 30-0 or 35-0 against clueless noobs, I'd end up in arguments because I told teammates to just run the damn Relic and end the match already.

Decimus · February 10

xylena wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

You can play objectives and PvP at the same time though

Killing to win objectives is a different game from killing to compare KDA, like my earlier example of the 3-2-12 leading flag bombs vs the 10-0-0 rat killing the noobs that get scattered.

There's also the issue of teams dragging out lopsided objective 2s so they can continue killing as if it matters whether you go 30-0 or 35-0 against clueless noobs, I'd end up in arguments because I told teammates to just run the damn Relic and end the match already.

Ah yeah, that's just toxic behaviour in my honest opinion... sadly unavoidable in a PvP environment. I've been in many BGs where people farming at my team's base has cost them the BG W in the end (not that they care) because they'd ignore flags etc.

I think if there was a functioning win/loss based MMR system you'd see a lot less of this behaviour (would still exist though) at higher MMR and a lot more of it at lower MMR, where people would likely wind up fighting other players with similar mentality.

xylena · February 10

Decimus wrote: »

sadly unavoidable in a PvP environment

It's not unavoidable, the devs can implement systems to avoid such scenarios, such as a mercy rule or forfeit option when the score gap vs time remaining reaches a certain threshhold, or separating the KDA chasers from the objective runners with different queues.

Thumbless_Bot · February 10

xylena wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

sadly unavoidable in a PvP environment

It's not unavoidable, the devs can implement systems to avoid such scenarios, such as a mercy rule or forfeit option when the score gap vs time remaining reaches a certain threshhold, or separating the KDA chasers from the objective runners with different queues.

Ive recommended a Splatoon style launch into the battlefield. If you arent familiar woth it, its loke having a cannon shoot your player to almost any spot on the map that you choose. I see no issue woth this as long as you were immune from fall damage until you land.

Also spawn should be immune from damage.

Also soawn should take you and keep you out of combat so you can adjust your build as needed.

Also timer to auto launch should be reduced.

Moonspawn · February 11

@ZOS_Kevin It is by solving the game-breaking problems of the 3-sided objective modes that you'll be able to draw the people who only want to play Deathmatch:

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.

_______
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.
_______
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.

Techwolf_Lupindo · February 11

While there is lot of good feedback, I will chime in with one that ZOS refuses to do for some unknown reason.

When queuing for a random battleground, DEATHMATCH must be separated out.

My and every in game friend do not play battlegrounds due to every match gets deathmatchers ruining the match. The reason for that is there was no way to separate out deathmatchers, deathmatch was a always forced option when queing. When battlegrounds was 3 sided, one side could at least play the objective while the other two just play deathmatch. With the two sided matches, that is no longer possible.

When ZOS looks at stats, they only show what deathmatcher like due to everyone else stop playing battlegrounds and ZOS refuses to look at the non-battleground matches from folks that was driven off battleground.