Future of Battlegrounds

Major_Toughness · February 12

Moonspawn wrote: »

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.

Lucky for you, the video you posted which had the time on it, was removed by the mods. Much like all my previous comments on this thread in which I pointed it out. You accidentally closed the menu UI and you could see 3am on Zotans Minimap.

You could go through all your unlisted youtube videos and find it, but you won''t. Was one of the earlier "episodes".

EDIT: Pretty sure I replied to @Haki_7 but oh well.

EDIT 2: Oh it was in the other thread thats why, I had the details slightly wrong but I found one of the videos. 7am in the morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6r18QFNPTw

Haki_7 · February 13

xylena wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

are you saying there are more problems?

yeah

Such as?

Deathmatch, predetermined victory:

Relic, predetermined victory. They quickly gave up after our first point:

Chaosball, predetermined victory. We almost lost because opposing team had some newcomers begging to be spawncamped:

Crazy King, predetermined victory. Props to them for not giving up. It's a shame the outcome had already been decided.

Domination 1, predetermined defeat. Orange-6 promptly ditched us after a single encounter to go look for some newcomers to kill:

Domination 2 and 3, predetermined victory:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 135: Waiting 19 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/-pCM6X18jcc

Arboz · February 13

I was long time focused on BGs for PvP, but what kills it for me is the Ball Group principle.
After some first hesitations regarding the (seemingly) more complex gameplay in Cyrodiil I now enjoy that mode much more and only do BGs for the daily reward.
In Cyrodiil you can have much more 1v1, if you want, or group battles if you want that one.
But you most often have the coice, and thats what I appreciate.

mandricus · February 13

It is very hard to find a single metric that could sum up "how good your are at the game". There are anyway some indicators that may give a clue about how strong you are compared to the rest of the group and how much you follow the rules of the game.

First of all, we have to separate DD, Healers and Tanks

For self sufficient DD (most of the player base in battlegrounds)

For any given match, for any individual team:

- sort players by total damage done
- sort players by match score (medals)
- sort players by number of kills
- sort players by number of deaths (inverse)

If a player is #1 in all rows (by total damage done, match score AND number of kills and he has the lower number of deaths) he is clearly playing in a different league compared to his teammates and his opponents. Send him higher in the MMR bracket.

If a player has by far the lowest damage, the lowest score, the lower number of kills and the higher number of deaths he clearly is out of league in this match. Send him down the MMR bracket.

Leave the others untouched. If there is no clear imbalance, don't touch the MMR for any player. The goal is not to have the perfect indicator, the goal is to find the clear outliers and send them play in the appropriate MMR brackets.

For healers and tanks it's a bit more difficult. You could consider healing done, score, assists, deaths but it's not so easy because it also depends on the game mode. A strong tank could lead team to victory in Crazy King or Domination, but can be almost useless in death match. A strong healer can be pivotal to his team even in deathmarch, or completely useless if the rest of the team does not have enough damage to kill the opponents. Anyway total healing done, medal score and inverse number of deaths may be pretty good indicators.

General problem is however you have to evaluate the numbers in the context of the match, not in a vacuum. I've had match when i dealt less than 200k damage, simply because the opponents were so bad that they died almost immediately, not giving me enough time to do damage. On the other hand I've scored more than 1.5 millions total damage in some matches without killing any opponent, because they were so strong or they had healing so good that they were almost impossible to kill. I think evaluate the numbers in the context of the match is key to find who stand up from the crowd (for good or bad) and need to be sent to an upper or lower MMR bracket

MincMincMinc · February 13

mandricus wrote: »

It is very hard to find a single metric that could sum up "how good your are at the game". There are anyway some indicators that may give a clue about how strong you are compared to the rest of the group and how much you follow the rules of the game.

We talked about this like 15 pages ago with alot of the PCNA BG guild members, but just to rehash. The real only metric we can use in MMR is your KDA. Damage dealt or healing done is not a metric that matters as much as people like seeing their aoe dot spam build do 4m damage and think they are cool.

KDA covers your DPS and healers. Tanks are few and far between in pvp and there really isnt a good metric unless you look at damage taken vs their deaths. But that metric could also just mean they had a good healer. For this reason you are better off again just using assists to evaluate them.

The other main metric is win/loss which is fairly straightforward

Lastly there is the match score, but this needs to be reworked so its just objectives playing into it like 100pts for holding a flag.

Personally I think 60% or more of your MMR should be based on KDA because that actually separates players by skill. Someone going 50/0 each match should probably move up quicker regardless of win/loss. Win/loss WOULD matter more if players cared about winning. However because the MMR and rewards are so poorly designed nobody cares about actually winning the matches as much as they do enjoy fighting in combat. Rewards wise if you start handing out a gold mat a match or something simple you would certainly make people try to win more.

At the end of the day MMR doesnt matter if it resets each month. Zos thinking that resetting to give people a chance to be on some worthless leaderboard is just bad planning. People will never care about getting on a leaderboard if they rage quit each match because zos resetting MMR FORCES players like me to smurf every other week.

NxJoeyD · February 13

There is zero way, in the current game state, to establish any metric that actually indicates skill factor.

You can’t set metrics when core combat mechanics are broken. When I say core combat mechanics I’m talking about everything from ability animations, hit recognition, the manner in which inputs execute, set procs, resource pool priories, etc.

KDA can’t be used because kills aren’t necessary skill based anymore, they’re more mechanical now.

Total output can’t be used because crit can scale for both damage and healing which is back end calculation not skill based.

Match score can’t be used because scoring doesn’t correspond to skill. Score is awarded for a short list of actions only, irregardless of player contribution toward the objective.

I’m not saying you’ll smooth out all of latency, that’s not the issue. The problem is the Devs have created so many mechanical elements in a vacuum that when certain parings are introduced there’s little to no counterplay and therefore the skill factor is irrelevant.

I created a thread to talk about core combat because so many logics have incredible flaws.

In order to talk about skill we first need mechanics that are reliable (within reason) and have a semblance of play / counterplay. We don’t have that.

We can’t go near MMR or skill based teaming until we have a gameplay environment where identifiable skill checks are the larger determining factor in outcomes, not the over-reliance on imbalances or improperly working mechanics.

Haki_7 · February 14

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

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.

@imPDA yes I doubt we'll ever know what it is for sure, and all we can really do is speculate, but so far the evidence suggests MMR is:
-Not random.
-Not based on the amount of matches played.
-Not based on medal score.

What else could it be?

Domination 1, zero chance of losing. Spawncamping newcomers instead of doing the objective to make the lopsided snoozefest last for as long as possible.

Domination 2, zero chance of losing:

Crazy King 1, zero chance of losing:

Crazy King 2, zero chance of winning. We could barely reach the flags.

Relic, zero chance of losing:

Deathmatch 1, zero chance of losing. Five players abandoned the match:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 134: Waiting 16 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)
https://youtu.be/HxpE8t3IBbQ

Deathmatch 2, zero chance of losing.

Off the top of my head:
Damage/Healing done

KDA (including assistances)

Win Rate

But these are all good metrics.

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 136: Waiting 18 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/e75OktQlz9k

Crazy King, impossible to lose. Opponents couldn't reach the flags. Green-5 went around targeting newcomers instead of being zerged down alongside their teammates.

Chaosball 1, impossible to lose. Not doing the objective ensured the match lasted the full 15 minutes. Another thorough lesson on how to hate Battlegrounds and everything related to pvp. Goodbye population.

Chaosball 2 and 3, impossible to lose. They got one ball, we got two. They couldn't reach our base.

Deathmatch, impossible to lose.

Relic, impossible to lose.

Domination, impossible to win. Team with 2 healers somehow losing to team with no heals:

NxJoeyD · February 14

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

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.

@imPDA yes I doubt we'll ever know what it is for sure, and all we can really do is speculate, but so far the evidence suggests MMR is:
-Not random.
-Not based on the amount of matches played.
-Not based on medal score.

What else could it be?

Domination 1, zero chance of losing. Spawncamping newcomers instead of doing the objective to make the lopsided snoozefest last for as long as possible.

Domination 2, zero chance of losing:

Crazy King 1, zero chance of losing:

Crazy King 2, zero chance of winning. We could barely reach the flags.

Relic, zero chance of losing:

Deathmatch 1, zero chance of losing. Five players abandoned the match:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 134: Waiting 16 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)
https://youtu.be/HxpE8t3IBbQ

Deathmatch 2, zero chance of losing.

Off the top of my head:
Damage/Healing done

KDA (including assistances)

Win Rate

But these are all good metrics.

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 136: Waiting 18 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)
https://youtu.be/e75OktQlz9k

Crazy King, impossible to lose. Opponents couldn't reach the flags. Green-5 went around targeting newcomers instead of being zerged down alongside their teammates.

Chaosball 1, impossible to lose. Not doing the objective ensured the match lasted the full 15 minutes. Another thorough lesson on how to hate Battlegrounds and everything related to pvp. Goodbye population.

Chaosball 2 and 3, impossible to lose. They got one ball, we got two. They couldn't reach our base.

Deathmatch, impossible to lose.

Relic, impossible to lose.

Domination, impossible to win. Team with 2 healers somehow losing to team with no heals:

If we want to talk about the future of BGs I would suggest that we look at this from 2 angles:

1) What can be done in the here & now to improve BGs in the immediate term, while the Devs work on announced changes

2) Longer term changes that would see BGs deliver a better experience down the road.

Short term solutions are ones that don’t require major re-work, things that make use of the existing mechanical structures and only work to address the root causes of the most major concerns.

Examples of these would be:

Hard cap on self healing. No player of any role should be able to self heal to 90% - 95% health in a single burst, with Battle Spirit active. This creates a subset of spam players who don’t work with their teams or other roles such as healers, leaving them with little support. This is a rampant problem.

Hard cap Crit. .. we can still have crit based builds but they need a limit that cannot be exceeded. Max crit modifier is max crit, any excess is ignored not stacked above the cap.

Those 2, simple, modifications would improve BGs tremendously in the short term. They wouldn’t disenfranchise anyone but they’d kill the over reliant mechanics that are ruining BGs. They don’t require adding any assets or bloat to the game or any significant code writing, rather, just making better use of existing elements. We can live with everything else for now.

Longer term changes would be things like map re-works, seeking to de-clutter some of the maps or at least make the maps more supportive of combat. .. Obviously the Devs are re-working classes so I’m hesitant to suggest any changes to specific skills because that will be addressed later. Other longer term improvement examples would be smoothing out core combat mechanics and animations.

Another long term adjustment example would be a resource cost adjustment. .. This would really depend on how the Devs re-work the class skills and values so this would need to be a longer term item to wait and see how that pans out. .. the reason for this is that post-subclassing the Stamina resource pool has become heavily over-biased; seeing Stam not only provide the counter play resource needed for more combat tactics but also scaling a players output. Magicka & Health based builds don’t get a double benefit like that from their primary pool so depending on How classes look down the road this may or may not need to be looked at; especially when you consider that we still have poisons, enchantments, & set procs that ravage opponents resource pools.

We can wait for some of these changes but if the Devs want to see continued engagement with the game or subs to ESO+ they need to do something in the here & now to improve experience.

Once those things are addressed then we can discuss things like skill metrics and which ones are best suited to matchmaking because then we’d have some game consistency and skill scopes to work with.

Moonspawn · February 15

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

imPDA wrote: »

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.

@imPDA yes I doubt we'll ever know what it is for sure, and all we can really do is speculate, but so far the evidence suggests MMR is:
-Not random.
-Not based on the amount of matches played.
-Not based on medal score.

What else could it be?

Domination 1, zero chance of losing. Spawncamping newcomers instead of doing the objective to make the lopsided snoozefest last for as long as possible.

Domination 2, zero chance of losing:

Crazy King 1, zero chance of losing:

Crazy King 2, zero chance of winning. We could barely reach the flags.

Relic, zero chance of losing:

Deathmatch 1, zero chance of losing. Five players abandoned the match:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 134: Waiting 16 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/NA)
https://youtu.be/HxpE8t3IBbQ

Deathmatch 2, zero chance of losing.

Off the top of my head:
Damage/Healing done

KDA (including assistances)

Win Rate

But these are all good metrics.
Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 136: Waiting 18 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)
https://youtu.be/e75OktQlz9k

Crazy King, impossible to lose. Opponents couldn't reach the flags. Green-5 went around targeting newcomers instead of being zerged down alongside their teammates.

Chaosball 1, impossible to lose. Not doing the objective ensured the match lasted the full 15 minutes. Another thorough lesson on how to hate Battlegrounds and everything related to pvp. Goodbye population.

Chaosball 2 and 3, impossible to lose. They got one ball, we got two. They couldn't reach our base.

Deathmatch, impossible to lose.

Relic, impossible to lose.

Domination, impossible to win. Team with 2 healers somehow losing to team with no heals:

Indeed they are.

xylena wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

are you saying there are more problems?

yeah

@xylena_lazarow What other game-breaking problems? My rose-tinted glasses won' let me see any beyond these three:

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.

Radiate77 · February 15

I don’t have many problems with match balance, but when I do, it’s polarizing.

One suggestion that I’ve seen, that has worked in other games, is a set mode for Ranked instead of a random one, and role-based matchmaking.

Arenas in New World were incredibly popular, and followed an Elimination format, with smart matchmaking.

What do I mean by this?

Let’s say you were playing a Healer… every time you would matchmake into a game, there would be a Healer on the enemy team, but never more than one.

Here’s where it got interesting. Let’s say you were playing a DPS, there was the possibility to land in a lobby with only DPS players.

Lobbies could look like any of these four combinations…

DPS, DPS, DPS vs DPS, DPS, DPS
DPS, DPS, Tank vs DPS, DPS, Tank
DPS, DPS, Healer vs DPS, DPS, Healer
DPS, Tank, Healer vs DPS, Tank, Healer

New World understood that DPS was a much more common role, and designed their matchmaking to put people into lobbies with this in mind, while respecting the power of Supports in turning the tide of a match by limiting the number of them within groups.

You would never find yourself in a lobby with two tanks, or two healers, and you wouldn’t find yourself fighting a team with a different combination than yours.

Battlegrounds in ESO could benefit from something similar to this, and with New World dying, why not just take the idea? Who would be mad about that? Even with like 1,000 people left playing, you can still matchmake into Arenas and experience them, which speaks volumes about how great their system works.

NxJoeyD · February 15

Radiate77 wrote: »

I don’t have many problems with match balance, but when I do, it’s polarizing.

One suggestion that I’ve seen, that has worked in other games, is a set mode for Ranked instead of a random one, and role-based matchmaking.

Arenas in New World were incredibly popular, and followed an Elimination format, with smart matchmaking.

What do I mean by this?

Let’s say you were playing a Healer… every time you would matchmake into a game, there would be a Healer on the enemy team, but never more than one.

Here’s where it got interesting. Let’s say you were playing a DPS, there was the possibility to land in a lobby with only DPS players.

Lobbies could look like any of these four combinations…

DPS, DPS, DPS vs DPS, DPS, DPS
DPS, DPS, Tank vs DPS, DPS, Tank
DPS, DPS, Healer vs DPS, DPS, Healer
DPS, Tank, Healer vs DPS, Tank, Healer

New World understood that DPS was a much more common role, and designed their matchmaking to put people into lobbies with this in mind, while respecting the power of Supports in turning the tide of a match by limiting the number of them within groups.

You would never find yourself in a lobby with two tanks, or two healers, and you wouldn’t find yourself fighting a team with a different combination than yours.

Battlegrounds in ESO could benefit from something similar to this, and with New World dying, why not just take the idea? Who would be mad about that? Even with like 1,000 people left playing, you can still matchmake into Arenas and experience them, which speaks volumes about how great their system works.

I think that’s been suggested before, referencing players PvE role selections in BG matchmaking. I think that has plenty of merit.

One thing I wish they would do is get rid of some of the line of sight breaks. There are FAR too many in BG maps. They’re so unbelievably cluttered. Some line of sight breaks, sure, we need some .. but not this many.

BG combat half of the time are just people running around line of sight breaks endlessly. Most of us stopped wanting to play ring-around-the-rosie in kindergarten.

xylena · February 15

Haki_7 wrote: »

Such as?

bullying the 3rd place team 8v4

Moonspawn · February 16

xylena wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Such as?

bullying the 3rd place team 8v4

Great opportunity to practice the single most important skill one must have in 3-sided Deathmatch: How to move together away from the sandwich, thus rendering opponents vulnerable to ult dumps and to each other. This is also one of the factors that allowed pvpers to target one another without being zerged down. It's in the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Fl4DaDzFc

The exact same thing happening in 8v8? Well, time to practice ditching the team to go hunt some newcomers... again.

xylena · February 16

Moonspawn wrote: »

Great opportunity to practice the single most important skill one must have in 3-sided Deathmatch

The skill of being so godlike that I can 1v8 every other sweatlord in the game?

Yeah if I was that good I'm not playing some meme of a BGs format with random casuals who think 2nd place is winning, I'd be making real money dominating esports.

So no, you haven't solved the problem of bullying 3rd place 8v4, unless you're asking me to stop playing the game and roleplay some sort of KDA counter contest instead, which is what most of the (very tiny) remaining population seems to want to do. This is not the future.

Haki_7 · February 16

Moonspawn wrote: »

Indeed they are.

But if they're using these metrics, then the problem can't be the matchmaking.

Relic, no way of winning.

Domination 1 and 2, no way of losing. Lots of running around without even drawing weapons, spawncamping, and people giving up.

Chaosball 1, no way of losing. Took way longer than it should because no one wanted to grab the chaosballs.

Chaosball 2, no way of losing. Green-2 went around targeting newcomers.

Chaosball 3, no way of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective.

Crazy King, no way of losing. Same as above.

Moonspawn · February 17

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Indeed they are.

But if they're using these metrics, then the problem can't be the matchmaking.
Relic, no way of winning.

Domination 1 and 2, no way of losing. Lots of running around without even drawing weapons, spawncamping, and people giving up.

Chaosball 1, no way of losing. Took way longer than it should because no one wanted to grab the chaosballs.

Chaosball 2, no way of losing. Green-2 went around targeting newcomers.

Chaosball 3, no way of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective.

Crazy King, no way of losing. Same as above.

The resetting at the start of each month is certainly a problem, but comparing outliers does seem to indicate that the matchmaking isn't as horrible as people believe. On that note, does anyone know if the following article is legit?

Source:
www.pcgamesn.com/the-elder-scrolls-online/mmr-battlegrounds-interview

ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"
After huge battleground changes recently hit the Elder Scrolls Online recently, players have become obsessed with MMR and how it all works.
ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"

Updated: Nov 1, 2024
The Elder Scrolls Online
PvP has received a renewed focus in the Elder Scrolls Online thanks to the most recent update which completely overhauled the game's battlegrounds. Instead of the traditional version found previously in the Tamrielic game which consisted of three teams facing off against each other, things have become simplified and streamlined. Now, it's just your team versus another one, and as a result of this new playing field fans are looking at the MMO's matchmaking rating system and wondering what effects it has and how to navigate it.
We recently got the chance to speak to Elder Scrolls Online PvP designer Brian Wheeler about all the big changes hitting the MMORPG right now. One query that came up relates to the community's current obsession with MMR, especially looking at how one goes up or down in rank against other players, and where the current system came from.
"What's funny is it's nothing new. We've had that. We've had that MMR system in since update 20," Wheeler laughs. "When we launched battlegrounds with Morrowind, we had a pretty basic MMR that was based on your win and loss, and that's it. What we explored after that was looking at Elo and TrueSkill and various things like that, because what it's supposed to do is take into account your expected win rate or not, which is basically the MMR of your enemies."
"So let's say we're in a group and the system gets the MMR average of our group and then it goes, what's the group? What's the enemy's MMR, what's their ranking and their average?" he continues. "If theirs is higher than yours and you lose, then you don't take as big of a hit. But if you win, you get a bigger gain. The reverse goes for the other team. If they were fighting us and we're lower and we win, they're going to take a bigger hit because they lost to a crappier team."
"The only calculation change we had to make was whether it's looking at two other teams or just one other team in terms of are you going to win, or are you not going to win," he says. "The calculations have always been based on win/loss, and it's been very interesting seeing how much more people are getting interested in that because as a PvP and gamer nerd, I like looking at that stuff."
That said, there's a limit to how much the developer will share - as it might become open to abuse if the full MMR calculations ever became known. "We do have some help definitions that explain a little bit how it functions but as with many things in the game, we're not going to tell you the exact calculations," he lets us know. "That's the secret in the sauce that we have across the board for the entire game."
If you'd like to check out what's new in this latest update which completely changed how battlegrounds work in ESO, head over to the full patch notes to get the lowdown.
Or you can always take a look at our guides to the best fantasy games and the best single-player MMOs you can play on PC, as they're sure to help you find exactly what you've been looking for.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.

Decimus · February 17

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Indeed they are.

But if they're using these metrics, then the problem can't be the matchmaking.
Relic, no way of winning.

Domination 1 and 2, no way of losing. Lots of running around without even drawing weapons, spawncamping, and people giving up.

Chaosball 1, no way of losing. Took way longer than it should because no one wanted to grab the chaosballs.

Chaosball 2, no way of losing. Green-2 went around targeting newcomers.

Chaosball 3, no way of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective.

Crazy King, no way of losing. Same as above.

The resetting at the start of each month is certainly a problem, but comparing outliers does seem to indicate that the matchmaking isn't as horrible as people believe. On that note, does anyone know if the following article is legit?

Source:
www.pcgamesn.com/the-elder-scrolls-online/mmr-battlegrounds-interview

ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"
After huge battleground changes recently hit the Elder Scrolls Online recently, players have become obsessed with MMR and how it all works.
ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"

Updated: Nov 1, 2024
The Elder Scrolls Online
PvP has received a renewed focus in the Elder Scrolls Online thanks to the most recent update which completely overhauled the game's battlegrounds. Instead of the traditional version found previously in the Tamrielic game which consisted of three teams facing off against each other, things have become simplified and streamlined. Now, it's just your team versus another one, and as a result of this new playing field fans are looking at the MMO's matchmaking rating system and wondering what effects it has and how to navigate it.
We recently got the chance to speak to Elder Scrolls Online PvP designer Brian Wheeler about all the big changes hitting the MMORPG right now. One query that came up relates to the community's current obsession with MMR, especially looking at how one goes up or down in rank against other players, and where the current system came from.
"What's funny is it's nothing new. We've had that. We've had that MMR system in since update 20," Wheeler laughs. "When we launched battlegrounds with Morrowind, we had a pretty basic MMR that was based on your win and loss, and that's it. What we explored after that was looking at Elo and TrueSkill and various things like that, because what it's supposed to do is take into account your expected win rate or not, which is basically the MMR of your enemies."
"So let's say we're in a group and the system gets the MMR average of our group and then it goes, what's the group? What's the enemy's MMR, what's their ranking and their average?" he continues. "If theirs is higher than yours and you lose, then you don't take as big of a hit. But if you win, you get a bigger gain. The reverse goes for the other team. If they were fighting us and we're lower and we win, they're going to take a bigger hit because they lost to a crappier team."
"The only calculation change we had to make was whether it's looking at two other teams or just one other team in terms of are you going to win, or are you not going to win," he says. "The calculations have always been based on win/loss, and it's been very interesting seeing how much more people are getting interested in that because as a PvP and gamer nerd, I like looking at that stuff."
That said, there's a limit to how much the developer will share - as it might become open to abuse if the full MMR calculations ever became known. "We do have some help definitions that explain a little bit how it functions but as with many things in the game, we're not going to tell you the exact calculations," he lets us know. "That's the secret in the sauce that we have across the board for the entire game."
If you'd like to check out what's new in this latest update which completely changed how battlegrounds work in ESO, head over to the full patch notes to get the lowdown.
Or you can always take a look at our guides to the best fantasy games and the best single-player MMOs you can play on PC, as they're sure to help you find exactly what you've been looking for.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.

What they say=/how it works, this should be obvious to anyone who actually plays battlegrounds.

Play one character a lot=longer queues on that character, simple as that. Your WR, KDR etc does not matter in that equation.

A simple way to showcase this would be showing the MMR of each player in a BG and the amount of points gained/lost at the end; somehow I doubt the CP122 I had in my team yesterday is a "top MMR player" for example.

Please stop obfuscating actual big issues in this game by theorizing with limited understanding and spreading misinformation, thank you very much.

MincMincMinc · February 17

Decimus wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Indeed they are.

But if they're using these metrics, then the problem can't be the matchmaking.
Relic, no way of winning.

Domination 1 and 2, no way of losing. Lots of running around without even drawing weapons, spawncamping, and people giving up.

Chaosball 1, no way of losing. Took way longer than it should because no one wanted to grab the chaosballs.

Chaosball 2, no way of losing. Green-2 went around targeting newcomers.

Chaosball 3, no way of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective.

Crazy King, no way of losing. Same as above.

The resetting at the start of each month is certainly a problem, but comparing outliers does seem to indicate that the matchmaking isn't as horrible as people believe. On that note, does anyone know if the following article is legit?

Source:
www.pcgamesn.com/the-elder-scrolls-online/mmr-battlegrounds-interview

ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"
After huge battleground changes recently hit the Elder Scrolls Online recently, players have become obsessed with MMR and how it all works.
ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"

Updated: Nov 1, 2024
The Elder Scrolls Online
PvP has received a renewed focus in the Elder Scrolls Online thanks to the most recent update which completely overhauled the game's battlegrounds. Instead of the traditional version found previously in the Tamrielic game which consisted of three teams facing off against each other, things have become simplified and streamlined. Now, it's just your team versus another one, and as a result of this new playing field fans are looking at the MMO's matchmaking rating system and wondering what effects it has and how to navigate it.
We recently got the chance to speak to Elder Scrolls Online PvP designer Brian Wheeler about all the big changes hitting the MMORPG right now. One query that came up relates to the community's current obsession with MMR, especially looking at how one goes up or down in rank against other players, and where the current system came from.
"What's funny is it's nothing new. We've had that. We've had that MMR system in since update 20," Wheeler laughs. "When we launched battlegrounds with Morrowind, we had a pretty basic MMR that was based on your win and loss, and that's it. What we explored after that was looking at Elo and TrueSkill and various things like that, because what it's supposed to do is take into account your expected win rate or not, which is basically the MMR of your enemies."
"So let's say we're in a group and the system gets the MMR average of our group and then it goes, what's the group? What's the enemy's MMR, what's their ranking and their average?" he continues. "If theirs is higher than yours and you lose, then you don't take as big of a hit. But if you win, you get a bigger gain. The reverse goes for the other team. If they were fighting us and we're lower and we win, they're going to take a bigger hit because they lost to a crappier team."
"The only calculation change we had to make was whether it's looking at two other teams or just one other team in terms of are you going to win, or are you not going to win," he says. "The calculations have always been based on win/loss, and it's been very interesting seeing how much more people are getting interested in that because as a PvP and gamer nerd, I like looking at that stuff."
That said, there's a limit to how much the developer will share - as it might become open to abuse if the full MMR calculations ever became known. "We do have some help definitions that explain a little bit how it functions but as with many things in the game, we're not going to tell you the exact calculations," he lets us know. "That's the secret in the sauce that we have across the board for the entire game."
If you'd like to check out what's new in this latest update which completely changed how battlegrounds work in ESO, head over to the full patch notes to get the lowdown.
Or you can always take a look at our guides to the best fantasy games and the best single-player MMOs you can play on PC, as they're sure to help you find exactly what you've been looking for.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.

What they say=/how it works, this should be obvious to anyone who actually plays battlegrounds.

Play one character a lot=longer queues on that character, simple as that. Your WR, KDR etc does not matter in that equation.

A simple way to showcase this would be showing the MMR of each player in a BG and the amount of points gained/lost at the end; somehow I doubt the CP122 I had in my team yesterday is a "top MMR player" for example.

Please stop obfuscating actual big issues in this game by theorizing with limited understanding and spreading misinformation, thank you very much.

Wait what are you trying to say isn't true? We know that the mmr builds up and then resets all the time. Its basically no different than how cyrodil leaderboard works with campaigns resetting. Zos was in one of the bg threads or maybe this one telling us how the current system is aimed at giving everyone a chance to get on the leaderboard......basically they preferred everyone getting a chance to see their name in top 10 for an hour every reset before being brutally smurfed for the rest of the month.

@ruskiii can probably find it.

Again as far as we discussed earlier on in the thread one of the only real ways of separating out players is by simply using KDA with some combined win/loss modifier. Someone going 50/0/0 should probably move up regardless of win/loss. Someone who is maybe 5/5/20 with a win should probably move up. Someone with 0/27/5 should probably move down even with a win.

Regardless we have to somehow convince zos that nobody cares about seeing their name on a monthly resetting leaderboard VS actually having an enjoyable experience for all skill levels. Its crazy that we need to convince a gaming company how zos sponsored smurfing is bad for the game. If people didn't like seeing MMR or having a persistent ladder to climb, why do Esports exist? Why are moba games so popular? Again, its crazy that people in the gaming industry don't understand this.

Decimus · February 17

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Indeed they are.

But if they're using these metrics, then the problem can't be the matchmaking.
Relic, no way of winning.

Domination 1 and 2, no way of losing. Lots of running around without even drawing weapons, spawncamping, and people giving up.

Chaosball 1, no way of losing. Took way longer than it should because no one wanted to grab the chaosballs.

Chaosball 2, no way of losing. Green-2 went around targeting newcomers.

Chaosball 3, no way of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective.

Crazy King, no way of losing. Same as above.

The resetting at the start of each month is certainly a problem, but comparing outliers does seem to indicate that the matchmaking isn't as horrible as people believe. On that note, does anyone know if the following article is legit?

Source:
www.pcgamesn.com/the-elder-scrolls-online/mmr-battlegrounds-interview

ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"
After huge battleground changes recently hit the Elder Scrolls Online recently, players have become obsessed with MMR and how it all works.
ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"

Updated: Nov 1, 2024
The Elder Scrolls Online
PvP has received a renewed focus in the Elder Scrolls Online thanks to the most recent update which completely overhauled the game's battlegrounds. Instead of the traditional version found previously in the Tamrielic game which consisted of three teams facing off against each other, things have become simplified and streamlined. Now, it's just your team versus another one, and as a result of this new playing field fans are looking at the MMO's matchmaking rating system and wondering what effects it has and how to navigate it.
We recently got the chance to speak to Elder Scrolls Online PvP designer Brian Wheeler about all the big changes hitting the MMORPG right now. One query that came up relates to the community's current obsession with MMR, especially looking at how one goes up or down in rank against other players, and where the current system came from.
"What's funny is it's nothing new. We've had that. We've had that MMR system in since update 20," Wheeler laughs. "When we launched battlegrounds with Morrowind, we had a pretty basic MMR that was based on your win and loss, and that's it. What we explored after that was looking at Elo and TrueSkill and various things like that, because what it's supposed to do is take into account your expected win rate or not, which is basically the MMR of your enemies."
"So let's say we're in a group and the system gets the MMR average of our group and then it goes, what's the group? What's the enemy's MMR, what's their ranking and their average?" he continues. "If theirs is higher than yours and you lose, then you don't take as big of a hit. But if you win, you get a bigger gain. The reverse goes for the other team. If they were fighting us and we're lower and we win, they're going to take a bigger hit because they lost to a crappier team."
"The only calculation change we had to make was whether it's looking at two other teams or just one other team in terms of are you going to win, or are you not going to win," he says. "The calculations have always been based on win/loss, and it's been very interesting seeing how much more people are getting interested in that because as a PvP and gamer nerd, I like looking at that stuff."
That said, there's a limit to how much the developer will share - as it might become open to abuse if the full MMR calculations ever became known. "We do have some help definitions that explain a little bit how it functions but as with many things in the game, we're not going to tell you the exact calculations," he lets us know. "That's the secret in the sauce that we have across the board for the entire game."
If you'd like to check out what's new in this latest update which completely changed how battlegrounds work in ESO, head over to the full patch notes to get the lowdown.
Or you can always take a look at our guides to the best fantasy games and the best single-player MMOs you can play on PC, as they're sure to help you find exactly what you've been looking for.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.

What they say=/how it works, this should be obvious to anyone who actually plays battlegrounds.

Play one character a lot=longer queues on that character, simple as that. Your WR, KDR etc does not matter in that equation.

A simple way to showcase this would be showing the MMR of each player in a BG and the amount of points gained/lost at the end; somehow I doubt the CP122 I had in my team yesterday is a "top MMR player" for example.

Please stop obfuscating actual big issues in this game by theorizing with limited understanding and spreading misinformation, thank you very much.

Wait what are you trying to say isn't true? We know that the mmr builds up and then resets all the time. Its basically no different than how cyrodil leaderboard works with campaigns resetting. Zos was in one of the bg threads or maybe this one telling us how the current system is aimed at giving everyone a chance to get on the leaderboard......basically they preferred everyone getting a chance to see their name in top 10 for an hour every reset before being brutally smurfed for the rest of the month.

@ruskiii can probably find it.

Again as far as we discussed earlier on in the thread one of the only real ways of separating out players is by simply using KDA with some combined win/loss modifier. Someone going 50/0/0 should probably move up regardless of win/loss. Someone who is maybe 5/5/20 with a win should probably move up. Someone with 0/27/5 should probably move down even with a win.

Regardless we have to somehow convince zos that nobody cares about seeing their name on a monthly resetting leaderboard VS actually having an enjoyable experience for all skill levels. Its crazy that we need to convince a gaming company how zos sponsored smurfing is bad for the game. If people didn't like seeing MMR or having a persistent ladder to climb, why do Esports exist? Why are moba games so popular? Again, its crazy that people in the gaming industry don't understand this.

I'm saying the win/loss MMR system isn't working.

You can do 100 BGs over a couple of days on one character and the only thing that changes is the queue time, you'll still be put against the same opponents.

I.e. you'll see your friends in a lobby you didn't get a pop for, have to wait for it to end and then get in the next lobby with your friends... And a bunch of low CPs etc etc

The idea they have according to statements is fine (win/loss MMR system), although it should probably be account wide and resets should be every 3-4 months and/or "soft resets" or "decay" rather than full resets... It's just that none of this apart from the reset works at the moment.

MincMincMinc · February 17

Decimus wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Indeed they are.

But if they're using these metrics, then the problem can't be the matchmaking.
Relic, no way of winning.

Domination 1 and 2, no way of losing. Lots of running around without even drawing weapons, spawncamping, and people giving up.

Chaosball 1, no way of losing. Took way longer than it should because no one wanted to grab the chaosballs.

Chaosball 2, no way of losing. Green-2 went around targeting newcomers.

Chaosball 3, no way of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective.

Crazy King, no way of losing. Same as above.

The resetting at the start of each month is certainly a problem, but comparing outliers does seem to indicate that the matchmaking isn't as horrible as people believe. On that note, does anyone know if the following article is legit?

Source:
www.pcgamesn.com/the-elder-scrolls-online/mmr-battlegrounds-interview

ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"
After huge battleground changes recently hit the Elder Scrolls Online recently, players have become obsessed with MMR and how it all works.
ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"

Updated: Nov 1, 2024
The Elder Scrolls Online
PvP has received a renewed focus in the Elder Scrolls Online thanks to the most recent update which completely overhauled the game's battlegrounds. Instead of the traditional version found previously in the Tamrielic game which consisted of three teams facing off against each other, things have become simplified and streamlined. Now, it's just your team versus another one, and as a result of this new playing field fans are looking at the MMO's matchmaking rating system and wondering what effects it has and how to navigate it.
We recently got the chance to speak to Elder Scrolls Online PvP designer Brian Wheeler about all the big changes hitting the MMORPG right now. One query that came up relates to the community's current obsession with MMR, especially looking at how one goes up or down in rank against other players, and where the current system came from.
"What's funny is it's nothing new. We've had that. We've had that MMR system in since update 20," Wheeler laughs. "When we launched battlegrounds with Morrowind, we had a pretty basic MMR that was based on your win and loss, and that's it. What we explored after that was looking at Elo and TrueSkill and various things like that, because what it's supposed to do is take into account your expected win rate or not, which is basically the MMR of your enemies."
"So let's say we're in a group and the system gets the MMR average of our group and then it goes, what's the group? What's the enemy's MMR, what's their ranking and their average?" he continues. "If theirs is higher than yours and you lose, then you don't take as big of a hit. But if you win, you get a bigger gain. The reverse goes for the other team. If they were fighting us and we're lower and we win, they're going to take a bigger hit because they lost to a crappier team."
"The only calculation change we had to make was whether it's looking at two other teams or just one other team in terms of are you going to win, or are you not going to win," he says. "The calculations have always been based on win/loss, and it's been very interesting seeing how much more people are getting interested in that because as a PvP and gamer nerd, I like looking at that stuff."
That said, there's a limit to how much the developer will share - as it might become open to abuse if the full MMR calculations ever became known. "We do have some help definitions that explain a little bit how it functions but as with many things in the game, we're not going to tell you the exact calculations," he lets us know. "That's the secret in the sauce that we have across the board for the entire game."
If you'd like to check out what's new in this latest update which completely changed how battlegrounds work in ESO, head over to the full patch notes to get the lowdown.
Or you can always take a look at our guides to the best fantasy games and the best single-player MMOs you can play on PC, as they're sure to help you find exactly what you've been looking for.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.

What they say=/how it works, this should be obvious to anyone who actually plays battlegrounds.

Play one character a lot=longer queues on that character, simple as that. Your WR, KDR etc does not matter in that equation.

A simple way to showcase this would be showing the MMR of each player in a BG and the amount of points gained/lost at the end; somehow I doubt the CP122 I had in my team yesterday is a "top MMR player" for example.

Please stop obfuscating actual big issues in this game by theorizing with limited understanding and spreading misinformation, thank you very much.

Wait what are you trying to say isn't true? We know that the mmr builds up and then resets all the time. Its basically no different than how cyrodil leaderboard works with campaigns resetting. Zos was in one of the bg threads or maybe this one telling us how the current system is aimed at giving everyone a chance to get on the leaderboard......basically they preferred everyone getting a chance to see their name in top 10 for an hour every reset before being brutally smurfed for the rest of the month.

@ruskiii can probably find it.

Again as far as we discussed earlier on in the thread one of the only real ways of separating out players is by simply using KDA with some combined win/loss modifier. Someone going 50/0/0 should probably move up regardless of win/loss. Someone who is maybe 5/5/20 with a win should probably move up. Someone with 0/27/5 should probably move down even with a win.

Regardless we have to somehow convince zos that nobody cares about seeing their name on a monthly resetting leaderboard VS actually having an enjoyable experience for all skill levels. Its crazy that we need to convince a gaming company how zos sponsored smurfing is bad for the game. If people didn't like seeing MMR or having a persistent ladder to climb, why do Esports exist? Why are moba games so popular? Again, its crazy that people in the gaming industry don't understand this.

I'm saying the win/loss MMR system isn't working.

You can do 100 BGs over a couple of days on one character and the only thing that changes is the queue time, you'll still be put against the same opponents.

I.e. you'll see your friends in a lobby you didn't get a pop for, have to wait for it to end and then get in the next lobby with your friends... And a bunch of low CPs etc etc

The idea they have according to statements is fine (win/loss MMR system), although it should probably be account wide and resets should be every 3-4 months and/or "soft resets" or "decay" rather than full resets... It's just that none of this apart from the reset works at the moment.

Oh yeah it obviously doesn't work in its current state. The way they worded it, it sounds like the farther apart your mmr gets it would not separate you from those players. It would try to get close average matches, but if not possible it ends up mixing a higher mmr player back into the low mmr mix once their que priority builds up enough time. Then it just doesn't count the match towards mmr since it knows it put a smurf in there.

The resetting doesn't help either. I don't think resetting is necessary at all. Just design it such that players are removed from the shown leaderboard if they don't play for a month. Keeping their MMR upon return to avoid smurfing.

Yes it should certainly be account wide.

NxJoeyD · February 17

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Indeed they are.

But if they're using these metrics, then the problem can't be the matchmaking.
Relic, no way of winning.

Domination 1 and 2, no way of losing. Lots of running around without even drawing weapons, spawncamping, and people giving up.

Chaosball 1, no way of losing. Took way longer than it should because no one wanted to grab the chaosballs.

Chaosball 2, no way of losing. Green-2 went around targeting newcomers.

Chaosball 3, no way of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective.

Crazy King, no way of losing. Same as above.

The resetting at the start of each month is certainly a problem, but comparing outliers does seem to indicate that the matchmaking isn't as horrible as people believe. On that note, does anyone know if the following article is legit?

Source:
www.pcgamesn.com/the-elder-scrolls-online/mmr-battlegrounds-interview

ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"
After huge battleground changes recently hit the Elder Scrolls Online recently, players have become obsessed with MMR and how it all works.
ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"

Updated: Nov 1, 2024
The Elder Scrolls Online
PvP has received a renewed focus in the Elder Scrolls Online thanks to the most recent update which completely overhauled the game's battlegrounds. Instead of the traditional version found previously in the Tamrielic game which consisted of three teams facing off against each other, things have become simplified and streamlined. Now, it's just your team versus another one, and as a result of this new playing field fans are looking at the MMO's matchmaking rating system and wondering what effects it has and how to navigate it.
We recently got the chance to speak to Elder Scrolls Online PvP designer Brian Wheeler about all the big changes hitting the MMORPG right now. One query that came up relates to the community's current obsession with MMR, especially looking at how one goes up or down in rank against other players, and where the current system came from.
"What's funny is it's nothing new. We've had that. We've had that MMR system in since update 20," Wheeler laughs. "When we launched battlegrounds with Morrowind, we had a pretty basic MMR that was based on your win and loss, and that's it. What we explored after that was looking at Elo and TrueSkill and various things like that, because what it's supposed to do is take into account your expected win rate or not, which is basically the MMR of your enemies."
"So let's say we're in a group and the system gets the MMR average of our group and then it goes, what's the group? What's the enemy's MMR, what's their ranking and their average?" he continues. "If theirs is higher than yours and you lose, then you don't take as big of a hit. But if you win, you get a bigger gain. The reverse goes for the other team. If they were fighting us and we're lower and we win, they're going to take a bigger hit because they lost to a crappier team."
"The only calculation change we had to make was whether it's looking at two other teams or just one other team in terms of are you going to win, or are you not going to win," he says. "The calculations have always been based on win/loss, and it's been very interesting seeing how much more people are getting interested in that because as a PvP and gamer nerd, I like looking at that stuff."
That said, there's a limit to how much the developer will share - as it might become open to abuse if the full MMR calculations ever became known. "We do have some help definitions that explain a little bit how it functions but as with many things in the game, we're not going to tell you the exact calculations," he lets us know. "That's the secret in the sauce that we have across the board for the entire game."
If you'd like to check out what's new in this latest update which completely changed how battlegrounds work in ESO, head over to the full patch notes to get the lowdown.
Or you can always take a look at our guides to the best fantasy games and the best single-player MMOs you can play on PC, as they're sure to help you find exactly what you've been looking for.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.

What they say=/how it works, this should be obvious to anyone who actually plays battlegrounds.

Play one character a lot=longer queues on that character, simple as that. Your WR, KDR etc does not matter in that equation.

A simple way to showcase this would be showing the MMR of each player in a BG and the amount of points gained/lost at the end; somehow I doubt the CP122 I had in my team yesterday is a "top MMR player" for example.

Please stop obfuscating actual big issues in this game by theorizing with limited understanding and spreading misinformation, thank you very much.

Wait what are you trying to say isn't true? We know that the mmr builds up and then resets all the time. Its basically no different than how cyrodil leaderboard works with campaigns resetting. Zos was in one of the bg threads or maybe this one telling us how the current system is aimed at giving everyone a chance to get on the leaderboard......basically they preferred everyone getting a chance to see their name in top 10 for an hour every reset before being brutally smurfed for the rest of the month.

@ruskiii can probably find it.

Again as far as we discussed earlier on in the thread one of the only real ways of separating out players is by simply using KDA with some combined win/loss modifier. Someone going 50/0/0 should probably move up regardless of win/loss. Someone who is maybe 5/5/20 with a win should probably move up. Someone with 0/27/5 should probably move down even with a win.

Regardless we have to somehow convince zos that nobody cares about seeing their name on a monthly resetting leaderboard VS actually having an enjoyable experience for all skill levels. Its crazy that we need to convince a gaming company how zos sponsored smurfing is bad for the game. If people didn't like seeing MMR or having a persistent ladder to climb, why do Esports exist? Why are moba games so popular? Again, its crazy that people in the gaming industry don't understand this.

I'm saying the win/loss MMR system isn't working.

You can do 100 BGs over a couple of days on one character and the only thing that changes is the queue time, you'll still be put against the same opponents.

I.e. you'll see your friends in a lobby you didn't get a pop for, have to wait for it to end and then get in the next lobby with your friends... And a bunch of low CPs etc etc

The idea they have according to statements is fine (win/loss MMR system), although it should probably be account wide and resets should be every 3-4 months and/or "soft resets" or "decay" rather than full resets... It's just that none of this apart from the reset works at the moment.

Oh yeah it obviously doesn't work in its current state. The way they worded it, it sounds like the farther apart your mmr gets it would not separate you from those players. It would try to get close average matches, but if not possible it ends up mixing a higher mmr player back into the low mmr mix once their que priority builds up enough time. Then it just doesn't count the match towards mmr since it knows it put a smurf in there.

The resetting doesn't help either. I don't think resetting is necessary at all. Just design it such that players are removed from the shown leaderboard if they don't play for a month. Keeping their MMR upon return to avoid smurfing.

Yes it should certainly be account wide.

Agreed, it should be account wide and shouldn’t reset, only evolve on a regular basis.

I’m not the biggest fan of K/D/A because in the current state thats not reflective of skill base … but .. it can be reflective of mechanical base so although K/D/A might not group like “skilled” players it’s likely our best shot at grouping like “mechanical” players together which is, well, as good as we can ask for now.

The BGs scoring rubrics are beyond hot garbage so none of that data is really useful at all either.

Moonspawn · February 18

xylena wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Great opportunity to practice the single most important skill one must have in 3-sided Deathmatch

So no, you haven't solved the problem of bullying 3rd place 8v4

Do you have video evidence of that? A 3-sided match in which one of the teams was unable to kite the other two?

Haki_7 · February 18

Moonspawn wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Indeed they are.

But if they're using these metrics, then the problem can't be the matchmaking.
Relic, no way of winning.

Domination 1 and 2, no way of losing. Lots of running around without even drawing weapons, spawncamping, and people giving up.

Chaosball 1, no way of losing. Took way longer than it should because no one wanted to grab the chaosballs.

Chaosball 2, no way of losing. Green-2 went around targeting newcomers.

Chaosball 3, no way of losing. Opponents couldn't reach the objective.

Crazy King, no way of losing. Same as above.

The resetting at the start of each month is certainly a problem, but comparing outliers does seem to indicate that the matchmaking isn't as horrible as people believe. On that note, does anyone know if the following article is legit?

Source:
www.pcgamesn.com/the-elder-scrolls-online/mmr-battlegrounds-interview
ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"
After huge battleground changes recently hit the Elder Scrolls Online recently, players have become obsessed with MMR and how it all works.
ESO dev lifts lid on the MMO's MMR system saying "it's nothing new"

Updated: Nov 1, 2024
The Elder Scrolls Online
PvP has received a renewed focus in the Elder Scrolls Online thanks to the most recent update which completely overhauled the game's battlegrounds. Instead of the traditional version found previously in the Tamrielic game which consisted of three teams facing off against each other, things have become simplified and streamlined. Now, it's just your team versus another one, and as a result of this new playing field fans are looking at the MMO's matchmaking rating system and wondering what effects it has and how to navigate it.
We recently got the chance to speak to Elder Scrolls Online PvP designer Brian Wheeler about all the big changes hitting the MMORPG right now. One query that came up relates to the community's current obsession with MMR, especially looking at how one goes up or down in rank against other players, and where the current system came from.
"What's funny is it's nothing new. We've had that. We've had that MMR system in since update 20," Wheeler laughs. "When we launched battlegrounds with Morrowind, we had a pretty basic MMR that was based on your win and loss, and that's it. What we explored after that was looking at Elo and TrueSkill and various things like that, because what it's supposed to do is take into account your expected win rate or not, which is basically the MMR of your enemies."
"So let's say we're in a group and the system gets the MMR average of our group and then it goes, what's the group? What's the enemy's MMR, what's their ranking and their average?" he continues. "If theirs is higher than yours and you lose, then you don't take as big of a hit. But if you win, you get a bigger gain. The reverse goes for the other team. If they were fighting us and we're lower and we win, they're going to take a bigger hit because they lost to a crappier team."
"The only calculation change we had to make was whether it's looking at two other teams or just one other team in terms of are you going to win, or are you not going to win," he says. "The calculations have always been based on win/loss, and it's been very interesting seeing how much more people are getting interested in that because as a PvP and gamer nerd, I like looking at that stuff."
That said, there's a limit to how much the developer will share - as it might become open to abuse if the full MMR calculations ever became known. "We do have some help definitions that explain a little bit how it functions but as with many things in the game, we're not going to tell you the exact calculations," he lets us know. "That's the secret in the sauce that we have across the board for the entire game."
If you'd like to check out what's new in this latest update which completely changed how battlegrounds work in ESO, head over to the full patch notes to get the lowdown.
Or you can always take a look at our guides to the best fantasy games and the best single-player MMOs you can play on PC, as they're sure to help you find exactly what you've been looking for.
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It does look legit. I didn't know about this article. Regarding the matchmaking, is there any other information available?

Domination 1, no risk of losing. They couldn't even reach the flags:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 137: Waiting 15 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/O1yZyL2wz24

Deathmatch, no risk of losing. Standard 8v8 DM:

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

Chaosball 1, no risk of losing. Opponents were unable to reach the objective:

Crazy King 1, no risk of winning:

Chaosball 2, no risk of losing. Staring contest with ball carriers.

Crazy King 2, no risk of losing:

xylena · February 18

Moonspawn wrote: »

Do you have video evidence of that? A 3-sided match in which one of the teams was unable to kite the other two?

...what?

What would you even do with "evidence" theoretically shuffle players between teams like last time I tried to engage with you on this level? No thanks, Decimus is correct, you need to stop obfuscating serious issues based on limited understanding and/or misinformation.

imPDA · February 18

If this system works as described, it does 2 things:
1) it tries to make as many people of the same MMR as possible into one game
2) it tries to make teams as equal MMR-wise as possible

So, two results of Elo are:
1) if number of players is big, it can successfully pick 16 players of the same MMR A+-a (like, 1500+-100 for example). It is possible in big MOBA games.
2) if number of players is not that big, it can pick any players to make groups look equal. Balancer can pick 6 "1500 MMR" players, one "200 MMR" player and one "2800 MMR" player, so team will be balanced at 1500. Another team can have all "1500 MMR" players.

You usually see result 2, I suppose, because from my feeling, there are not many players in PvP. If so, it is hard to make two equal groups out of equal players, so it picks some overskilled players and team them with low MMR players, and another team can have the same situation, that is why you usually see 2-4 players with positive KD and some damage, big score, and all other players are constantly dead, 0 damage, 0 score.

It is very rough estimation, and it will not be true in many cases, but you can estimate, that average winrate of you team is near 50%. If your winrate is 80%, winrates of 6 other players are 45 55 45 55 45 55, then winrate of last player should be close to 20%

Once again, it is very rough estimation.

Moonspawn · February 18

xylena wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

Do you have video evidence of that? A 3-sided match in which one of the teams was unable to kite the other two?

...what?

What would you even do with "evidence" theoretically shuffle players between teams like last time I tried to engage with you on this level?

The thought never crossed my mind. Just trying to gather information about this ''4v8'' you speak of. I honestly can't even imagine an entire team earnestly trying to kite from two others and being unable to do so. Must be quite a sight. So no video?

NxJoeyD · February 18

Hard truth .. no amount of 3 team or 4 team or MMR is going to ever address the exploitation of bad mechanics … period.

Whether anyone like it or not BGs are in such a disparaging state that it doesn’t matter what creative ideas we cook up here it’s not going to make up for the lack of counterplay and mechanical oversights.

Listen, as long as you have players that are allowed to scale self healing to stratospheric levels or allowed to achieve critical frequencies of 80% and up then everything else is moot.

ESO has always had a form of meta but never any sort of “mechanical mashup” like what we see here and so long as we let that fact continue on then even if we were to all agree on whether 3 team 4 stacks are better or how MMR should calculate it still wouldn’t matter.

If your car has a broken radio while simultaneously has a hole in the tire, I don’t care what you do to your radio to fix it, you’re not going anywhere until you fix the tire first .. that’s where we are with BGs now.

xylena · February 18

Moonspawn wrote: »

I honestly can't even imagine an entire team earnestly trying to kite from two others and being unable to do so. Must be quite a sight. So no video?

Not gonna waste my time, nothing will convince you, nobody else needs or wants convincing on something they've already witnessed themselves. If the 3rd place team is bad, it doesn't matter if they try to kite, they still get run down for easy kills.

Major_Toughness · 12:44PM

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Hard truth .. no amount of 3 team or 4 team or MMR is going to ever address the exploitation of bad mechanics … period.

Whether anyone like it or not BGs are in such a disparaging state that it doesn’t matter what creative ideas we cook up here it’s not going to make up for the lack of counterplay and mechanical oversights.

Listen, as long as you have players that are allowed to scale self healing to stratospheric levels or allowed to achieve critical frequencies of 80% and up then everything else is moot.

ESO has always had a form of meta but never any sort of “mechanical mashup” like what we see here and so long as we let that fact continue on then even if we were to all agree on whether 3 team 4 stacks are better or how MMR should calculate it still wouldn’t matter.

If your car has a broken radio while simultaneously has a hole in the tire, I don’t care what you do to your radio to fix it, you’re not going anywhere until you fix the tire first .. that’s where we are with BGs now.

Except in this situation the BG system is the tire and the radio is game balance.

Haki_7 · 1:30PM

imPDA wrote: »

If this system works as described, it does 2 things:
1) it tries to make as many people of the same MMR as possible into one game
2) it tries to make teams as equal MMR-wise as possible

So, two results of Elo are:
1) if number of players is big, it can successfully pick 16 players of the same MMR A+-a (like, 1500+-100 for example). It is possible in big MOBA games.
2) if number of players is not that big, it can pick any players to make groups look equal. Balancer can pick 6 "1500 MMR" players, one "200 MMR" player and one "2800 MMR" player, so team will be balanced at 1500. Another team can have all "1500 MMR" players.

You usually see result 2, I suppose, because from my feeling, there are not many players in PvP. If so, it is hard to make two equal groups out of equal players, so it picks some overskilled players and team them with low MMR players, and another team can have the same situation, that is why you usually see 2-4 players with positive KD and some damage, big score, and all other players are constantly dead, 0 damage, 0 score.

It is very rough estimation, and it will not be true in many cases, but you can estimate, that average winrate of you team is near 50%. If your winrate is 80%, winrates of 6 other players are 45 55 45 55 45 55, then winrate of last player should be close to 20% Once again, it is very rough estimation.

This is the only explanation that lines up with everything we've seen so far about the matchmaking. Isn't it?

Chaosball, no way to lose. Opponents couldn't reach the objective:

Deathmatch 1, 2 and 3, no way to lose. Someone please save me from this hell:

Domination, no way to win. Five flags, 4 minutes match:

Relic, no way to lose:

Crazy King, no way to lose:

Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 138: Waiting 16 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

https://youtu.be/6hW3Va4VOEk