Haki_7 wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Right now though the system is setup to FORCE smurfing, they need a simple system to split up the combat veterans and the noobs to make matches more fair.

@MincMincMinc The fact that you honestly believe this is possible means you must log in to play BGs at a very interesting hour. May I ask what time that is?

@Moonspawn , did xylena ever send the ultra rare scoreboards of unbalanced 3-sided matches that used to happen once in a while?

Uhh PCNA has more than enough people primetime. Regardless even with 20 players online it would still be worth it to MMR match up people to keep matches more fair and enjoyable. The tradeoff is que times, however you can mitigate que times by having your tolerance open over time and also be based on the logged in playerbase to widen a match's possible MMR. You can also design MMR so its highest values are clamped exponentially, which groups up the highest MMR for quicker matches. Again no excuse to avoid having a basic MMR system that practically every matchmaking type game has done for the past decade.

two sided and three sided can both exist fine, what matters more is how zos designs the gamemodes and maps. Things like poor spawn designs lead to spawncamping. The spawns shouldnt be so high that the losing team has to drop down into enemy damage while losing multiple GCDs. The spawns could have a one way wall or simply be at character jump height. Instead of kicking the losing team while they are down, zos should have designed the spawn zones to help the losing team when the winning team is overextending. Like how other games design towers that fire at enemies with ramping damage if they go into the enemy spawn.............But again what matters most is pairing similar MMR players to keep matches more fair so you are not running into situations where one team is stuck on a wall for 15 mins.

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

[*] For example, objective modes like payload/escort could create a more strategic and team-focused competitive environment.
[/list]

@thesarahandcompany I've spent a great deal of time thinking about a payload/escort game mode. Wouldn't it be a little too similar to 3-sided Chaosball? Considering, of course, a crazy timeline in which Zenimax spends the miniscule amount of resources needed to make it impossible for people to cheese the ball.

Chaosball incentivizes running away and surviving with the ball. Payload incentivizes coordinated team fights. That’s basically the opposite of “the same mode.”

@thesarahandcompany Isn't 3-sided Chaosball the gamemode where you continuously escort the payload (ball carrier) away from the other teams?

Chaosball in ESO is not payload escort.

Chaosball is possession gameplay: one (or more) player grabs the ball and the optimal strategy is to kite, disengage, and survive as long as possible.

Payload escort is territory control gameplay: the objective moves slowly and only advances when a team controls the space around it. You can’t run away to win — you have to win team fights to push the objective forward.

Chaosball rewards avoidance. Payload rewards coordinated fights and map control. They sound similar on paper, but the gameplay incentives are completely different.

chaos ball probably should be to hold the ball in a certain area to gain points. Or only gain points by walking it to points on the map.

@Radiate77 and @NxJoeyD I believe ZOS is well aware of how overtuned crit is in pvp and especially Battlegrounds, but I question the wisdom of expecting them to do anything about it while they're still selling Monomyth. Is the problem really deeper than just the mythic being juiced by the passives from assassination and animal companions?

Haki_7 wrote: »

@Moonspawn , did xylena ever send the ultra rare scoreboards of unbalanced 3-sided matches that used to happen once in a while?

No, they probably don't exist. This was the response:

xylena wrote: »

Wonder why Moonspawn hasn't shuffled players between Haki's teams to show how the BG could've been balanced with better MMR, like he was doing in the other threads...

@xylena Because it doesn't work in 2-sided, and you already know why. Don't you remember?

Deathmatch 1, predetermined defeat. Spawncamping and teammates giving up after dying once:
Domination, predetermined victory. I run around like a maniac trying to end the lopsided snoozefest while my teammates are encouraged to spawncamp newcomers. Another lesson on how to hate Battlegrounds and everything related to pvp. Well done.
Deathmatch 2 and 3, predetermined victories:
Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 146: Waiting 18 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)
Crazy King, predetermined victory:
Chaosball 1 and 2, predetermined victories. The usual soul gazing session with ball carriers:

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

[*] For example, objective modes like payload/escort could create a more strategic and team-focused competitive environment.
[/list]

@thesarahandcompany I've spent a great deal of time thinking about a payload/escort game mode. Wouldn't it be a little too similar to 3-sided Chaosball? Considering, of course, a crazy timeline in which Zenimax spends the miniscule amount of resources needed to make it impossible for people to cheese the ball.

Chaosball incentivizes running away and surviving with the ball. Payload incentivizes coordinated team fights. That’s basically the opposite of “the same mode.”

@thesarahandcompany Isn't 3-sided Chaosball the gamemode where you continuously escort the payload (ball carrier) away from the other teams?

Chaosball in ESO is not payload escort.

Chaosball is possession gameplay: one (or more) player grabs the ball and the optimal strategy is to kite, disengage, and survive as long as possible.

Payload escort is territory control gameplay: the objective moves slowly and only advances when a team controls the space around it. You can’t run away to win — you have to win team fights to push the objective forward.

Chaosball rewards avoidance. Payload rewards coordinated fights and map control. They sound similar on paper, but the gameplay incentives are completely different.

chaos ball probably should be to hold the ball in a certain area to gain points. Or only gain points by walking it to points on the map.

Capturing the thing --> Being required to walking said thing to a point.

Hmm. Almost sounds like payload escort. Like halfway.

TBH IMO the "hold object" type games don't fit well with mmo context because it is HEAVILY build dependent. In a very balanced match it can be fun, but at the same time one player can unbalance this if they simply bring a permablock build.

Something like payload or round based matches would help slightly with things like spawn camping.....granted again having the matches use a proper MMR non resetting system would also help

Moonspawn wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

[*] For example, objective modes like payload/escort could create a more strategic and team-focused competitive environment.
[/list]

@thesarahandcompany I've spent a great deal of time thinking about a payload/escort game mode. Wouldn't it be a little too similar to 3-sided Chaosball? Considering, of course, a crazy timeline in which Zenimax spends the miniscule amount of resources needed to make it impossible for people to cheese the ball.

Chaosball incentivizes running away and surviving with the ball. Payload incentivizes coordinated team fights. That’s basically the opposite of “the same mode.”

@thesarahandcompany Isn't 3-sided Chaosball the gamemode where you continuously escort the payload (ball carrier) away from the other teams?

That's how I always saw it.

Moonspawn wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

If the 3rd place team is bad, it doesn't matter if they try to kite, they still get run down for easy kills.

Three-sided Chaosball was supposed to teach players how to kite both opposing teams even while hindered by the ball's damage and debuff. It's a shame the easily solvable problems that plagued the game mode ruined at least 8 out of every 10 matches.

Gross understatement. More like 99.5 out of every 100 matches.

Moonspawn wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

No, they probably don't exist.

So then you... repost my image clearing proving that they do. Thanks, I guess.

I was referring to the ones you never sent. What we really need are the original files, with the original names.
EDIT: names of the files, not the players.

I think I know what's going on. @xylena don't worry, I got your back. If you send me the files I can do all the boring cropping and editing for you. I have become efficient at it.

Chaosball 1, impossible to lose. We almost did because no one wanted to carry the balls. Instead of being zerged down with his teammates, Green-6 went around targeting newcomers:
Chaosball 2, impossible to lose. Another riveting and well designed staring contest with ball carriers:
Crazy King, impossible to lose:
Deathmatch 1, impossible to win:
Deathmatch 2, impossible to lose. Spawncamping and people giving up (fourth flaw):
Relic, impossible to lose. Throwing the towel after losing one relic:
Domination, impossible to lose. We did because most of the team was busy spawncamping newcomers:
Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 147: Waiting 18 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU)

Moonspawn wrote: »

@Radiate77 and @NxJoeyD I believe ZOS is well aware of how overtuned crit is in pvp and especially Battlegrounds, but I question the wisdom of expecting them to do anything about it while they're still selling Monomyth. Is the problem really deeper than just the mythic being juiced by the passives from assassination and animal companions?

Haki_7 wrote: »

@Moonspawn , did xylena ever send the ultra rare scoreboards of unbalanced 3-sided matches that used to happen once in a while?

No, they probably don't exist. This was the response:

xylena wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

@xylena , when you have a moment, could you please let me know if you’ll be able to send those extremely rare 3-teams scoreboards we talked about? The ones with 100% chance winning/losing. I’d really appreciate the clarification so I know whether to keep waiting.

I posted dozens of them in one of the other similar BGs debate threads. Check your own post history for when we last discussed this a few months back. You insisted that the problem wasn't the format, but the poor matchmaking system, which I partially agree with.

I'll post the shutout again because it's my favorite. You have no idea who these players were so please don't waste time shuffling random KDA results between teams like you did last time.

@Moonspawn

I’m sure that ZoS is aware of the crit situation. It’s been brought up not only in the forums but also on the official ZoS Discord server and I’m sure they have plenty of back end metrics that support the situations we’re observing.

ZoS isn’t selling Monomyth, it’s simply a usable mythic. This would have no bearing on ZoS addressing PvP crit. .. players could still use Monomyth to a measurable benefit even if crit had a hard cap.

The problem is much deeper than Monomyth because Monomyth isn’t the sole driver of the crit problem. The problem is a combination of elements all working together in a ways in which they were never originally designed to.

The best solution, IMO, is to address the problem as the source. Rather than trying to chase down every passive, every trait, every buff, every piece if gear .. that’s too much; just hard cap the one in-game attribute where all paths of the problem intersect and call it a day.

It doesn’t fix all of BGs but it brings us way back closer to goodness than where we are now.

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Moonspawn wrote: »

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

[*] For example, objective modes like payload/escort could create a more strategic and team-focused competitive environment.
[/list]

@thesarahandcompany I've spent a great deal of time thinking about a payload/escort game mode. Wouldn't it be a little too similar to 3-sided Chaosball? Considering, of course, a crazy timeline in which Zenimax spends the miniscule amount of resources needed to make it impossible for people to cheese the ball.

Chaosball incentivizes running away and surviving with the ball. Payload incentivizes coordinated team fights. That’s basically the opposite of “the same mode.”

@thesarahandcompany Isn't 3-sided Chaosball the gamemode where you continuously escort the payload (ball carrier) away from the other teams?

Chaosball in ESO is not payload escort.

Chaosball is possession gameplay: one (or more) player grabs the ball and the optimal strategy is to kite, disengage, and survive as long as possible.

Payload escort is territory control gameplay: the objective moves slowly and only advances when a team controls the space around it. You can’t run away to win — you have to win team fights to push the objective forward.

Chaosball rewards avoidance. Payload rewards coordinated fights and map control. They sound similar on paper, but the gameplay incentives are completely different.

chaos ball probably should be to hold the ball in a certain area to gain points. Or only gain points by walking it to points on the map.

Capturing the thing --> Being required to walking said thing to a point.

Hmm. Almost sounds like payload escort. Like halfway.

TBH IMO the "hold object" type games don't fit well with mmo context because it is HEAVILY build dependent. In a very balanced match it can be fun, but at the same time one player can unbalance this if they simply bring a permablock build.

Something like payload or round based matches would help slightly with things like spawn camping.....granted again having the matches use a proper MMR non resetting system would also help

I think the remark about “hold-object modes not fitting the MMO context” is a bit hand-wavey, respectfully.

The issue isn’t block tanks existing. It’s that current modes don’t force teams to solve for those tanks. You can get what you want out of a BG right now by simply ignoring them: 1) run to another flag; 2) grab one of the other Chaosballs; 3) farm squishier players if you just wanna kill and don't care about objective.

There’s rarely a reason to break a defensive frontline.

Payload would create forced interaction and counterplay (ult economy, anti-tank tools, coordinated pushes). That actually expands viable playstyles instead of narrowing them.

Honestly, 1-Chaosball was the closest thing we had to a balanced version of this idea because the ball applied damage/defile to the holder. The problem wasn’t the concept — it was that players could still avoid fighting and run the entire match.

Payload removes that avoidance. You can’t progress unless you win space and win fights.

I don’t have an issue with “hold objective” games modes, but I do think they need tweaks, especially given the poor state of current combat.

For starters, I’m not sold on the aspect of an objective dealing damage to BOTH the holder and adjacent team members. I agree that an objective holder receive progressive damage but not the supporting team mates.

Second, objective running is still a problem. This is due, in part, to some mobility skills being disabled whilst others are left available. A player can’t Streak or Mist Form with an objective yet can pop Falcon’s Swiftness to not only get away but do so with a degree of immunity. Either we make it so that no mobility enhancing skills are available while carrying an objective or enable them all.

I don’t, personally, feel as though blocking tanks are an issue in hold-objective style BGs. I do think that excessively strong self healing is a contributing problem and I can see how to some people that might present as “tanky” but the mechanics between a tank verses persistent self heals require significantly different combat methods. Currently one has full counter play while the other doesn’t. We can solve for tanks, we can’t solve for a build that’s able to persistently crit heal with impunity.

There are other nuances that affect the strategy of hold-objective game modes such as one CB rewarding significantly more score than the other two, then, yes, players have to break a line because despite a team capturing and holding 2 objectives they could still lose. Or matches of CK where early match sees limited capture points, unlike Domination, which means it isn’t always realistic to run to another flag until a point in the match is reached where the score disparity has already sealed the match.

The game modes themselves aren’t awful; they definitely need some polishing and updating but the biggest issue are the current combat mechanics. You simply have too many players that do not have to observe a risk vs reward aspect to combat and that’s going to affect everything, every game mode.

Honestly, everything other than Ranked shouldn’t have MMR to begin with.

What I’d really like to see, would be an actual Ranking system similar to Tales of Tribute, where your bracket is based on your win rate.

I see a lot of people getting lost in what we used to know or how the game used to behave. There absolutely were a lot of legacy answers to BG gameplay but ever since subclassing a good number of those have had to be tossed out the window.

One thing we can’t all do is ask for the moon & the stars from the Devs in an effort to fix BGs, especially when we know they’re currently neck deep in a class refresh project.

The truth is that not just BGs, but ESO combat as a whole radically changed. It’s one thing for us to say Subclassing hurt PvP whist also giving us all greater build crafting, but unless one sits and thinks about HOW that combat has changed they’re going to miss key context.

Some have done this and it’s one reason why I agree with @MincMincMinc that having MMR not reset is a good idea. In the current state it’s much less about pairing “like skill” players than it is with pairing “like outcome” players in an effort to curb one sided matches. Regardless of whether a player is a vet that really understands the mechanics OR whether it’s a YT meta spammer who isn’t employing skill but leaning on the current state; it really doesn’t matter; the match outcomes are the same.

A part of any short term solution requires us to acknowledge that we’re currently in a state of PvP that doesn’t have full and proper counterplay. That has always been a thing BUT it didn’t used to be as significant as it is now and for some players who have also been around for a long that can be difficult to accept but I’m starting to see that more people are starting to understand this and because of that I do believe it’s valid to separate the field in this way, a non-resetting MMR based on outcome (whether you’re a healer or a DD).

Now that said, there are some valid concerns out here. Like I said before, BG matches where a team doesn’t coordinate or employ strategy will lose and they should. But, that’s not to say that there aren’t, currently, un-winnable matches that is solely down to mechanics. I do see scenarios in BGs, every day, similar to what @Haki_7 presents as examples. Not all of them but a good number of what I see finds the core of the problem in current mechanics. This is why I’ve been asking for a hard cap on crit frequency and scaling. Currently this is the largest combat mechanic with no counterplay.

When one has a BG match and a fair portion of the opposing team is running the crit meta and yours is not, it becomes a numbers issue and it’s a situation where you can’t divide by 0 .. None of us can re-write math no matter how much we like and when one side has half the team running 2.25x scaling at 80% frequency the numbers will never add up, no matter what you do.

Changing MMR to a non-resetting, cumulative, value and placing a hard cap on crit could be done very easily & quickly and would not interfere with the current project the Devs are doing, and would provide immediate benefit to BG gameplay.

The buggiest concerns I see right now on this thread are complaints of un-winnable matches and inconstant matchmaking, followed lastly by BG game type structure.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that when one wants to address a problem one needs to be careful about how many elements they try and change in fixing that problem. Because if someone makes a slew of changes and the outcome isn’t intended it becomes even more complicated to find your way out.

These two changes would cover the lions share of current complaints, not perfectly, but significantly. Isn’t that what we want?

Once we have a scenario where players have more reasonable matchmaking and have a combat mechanical environment that sees more counterplay restored, then, we can talk about what elements in BGs could be changed; because at that point we’re no longer mixing up problems.

There’s a very real difference in the WHY a BG match might be un-winnable versus a BG match that simply has a poorer design. It can be easy to mix one for the other but separating the two makes it easier to fix one aspect of the problem and then move on to the other.

Not all BGs are un-winnable, some are but just as many are winnable with proper play. Less experienced players will never develop the skill progression needed to understand that if they’re being thrown to the wolves, conversely we’ll never have a quality BG game mode so long as we enable wolves to end up with the sheep OR by enabling chihuahuas to put on wolf costumes and fake-it-till-they-make-it by spamming indiscriminately.

There’s good ideas here and valid concerns here. If we can get two easy to make changes implemented, then play with it, and see the feedback then we would be in a much better place to talk about how we deal with spawn camping (if it’s still a major problem) or how we deal with ball running (if it’s still a problem), or if two teams or three teams is better (if that’s still a concern).

@Moonspawn all those images are already in your own thread.

@Haki_7 thanks for updating your images, have you ever considered switching from Support to DD to be able to carry 2s? Some of those would become winnable if you were on DD.

Decimus alluded to this in an earlier post, 3s gave Support players a lot more agency with tactics, one good Support in 3s could carry the team or swing the match, but in 2s the Support player is highly dependent on teammates and can't so easily avoid focus.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

I keep seeing a suggestion that MMR not be reset, yet when you’re waiting around in queue for 30 minutes just for a match, people won’t.

Let’s be realistic.

People also don’t want to wait 30 minutes just to be trapped fighting the same people on repeat.

What happens when you change your build to something fun or different but less efficient and are trapped at a higher MMR? You just have a horrible experience all around?

Yeah… ZOS have it right.

I can’t say I’ve waited in a queue for a very long time for BGs on XB US, I have to assume the PC NA population is even larger.

TBH, I’d rather wait or not play a match versus playing a match that’s so broken I’d have rather not been in it in the first place.

As for build changes, is anyone really doing that? Why would someone change their current build to something significantly less competitive, in PvP specifically, rather than making a different character?

PvP isn’t PvE, sure you can experiment but you’re not playing against AI trash mobs with limited mechanics or resources, you’re playing against other people and if one chooses to reduce their effectiveness in the name of experimenting, then yes, it’s expected that they’re probably going to get easily defeated until their MMR smooths out, which is what should happen.

A non-resetting MMR wouldn’t necessarily make it so that only precisely “like” MMR players get matched and therefore lead to ridiculous queues. They only need to tier it out so they have enough tiers to separate beginner, intermediate, and higher tier outcomes. If they were to try and install too many MMR ranking tiers, then yes, I agree we’d be waiting a months worth of Sundays to try and get a match.

Real unwinnable games are rare. I would rather have one game out of four be impossible than wait the time it would have taken three games to then finally land a fourth.

You ask “is anyone really doing that?” yeah a lot of veterans take breaks from the game for a week or two and come back because they have a new build idea. Personally, I do it all of the time. Why play a game with thousands of sets and skill combinations if you intend to not swap between them? At that point wouldn’t you be better served playing a game with less but more reinforced options?

Near the end of 3-Team BGs on Xbox NA at the highest MMR, you would be lucky to find a game within a half hour, yet when making a new character, under-50 BGs were near an instant pop, and new characters could find games easily. We have an example of what MMR resetting less frequently looked like, and it was a really bad experience. These changes to Battlegrounds are a result of that.

Decimus wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

Chaosball 1, impossible to lose. We almost did because

Haki_7 wrote: »

Domination, impossible to lose. We did because

How do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you're writing stuff like this for over 30 pages? These hyperboles only serve to undermine whatever it is you're trying to say.


impossible
/ɪmˈpɒsɪbl/
adjective
not able to occur, exist, or be done.

He won't respond to you because you are not part of his echo chamber. Haki only responds to people he knows and already agree with him.

Most of the posts in this thread are pointless spam, especially the queue time ones where he queues between 3am and 7am and complains about a 20 minute queue.

Only he won't say the time he is queuing as it would go against his agenda.

I wish a mod would seriously look at this thread and lock it.

xylena wrote: »

@Haki_7 @Moonspawn please post boards of your personal BGs performance on a clear bad team, to establish whether your judgment of "unwinnable" is objective, or a skill issue, lest you be spamming lists without understanding of the content therein.

Being relentlessly assigned to the winning team is certainly an issue, but how can it be considered a skill?

Deathmatch 1, no risk of winning. The opportunities to deviate from the target order that existed in 3-sided just aren't there (first critical flaw). It never left the newcomers:
Deathmatch 2, no risk of losing:
Chaosball 1 and 2, no risk of losing. Soul gazing session with ball carriers:
Destruction of Battlegrounds Chapter 149: Waiting 17 minutes for a lopsided match (Solo 8v8 PC/EU):
Domination, no risk of losing. Lots of running around without drawing weapons:
Relic 1 & 2, no risk of losing:

Haki_7 wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Haki_7 wrote: »

But isn't what you're asking for already included in all of my posts?

No.

But it is. If you carefully examine the scoreboards, you'll realize I've been underlining the matches that were impossible to win.

What is your point though, that the mmr system is broken? We all know that already.

Again we should just be repeatedly screaming at zos to stop resetting MMR

@MincMincMinc but if they did that, would people even believe that the resets have truly stopped?

Bro you gotta stop spamming those random screenshots without making a substantial point. Yeah I would probably know that resets have stopped when every other week I get to play I am not stuck fighting cp200s who don't know how to light attack. Cant tell you how many times I see 50+ BG guild members in primetime que and it takes a good couple days to finally get qued up against them. Way back in three team days before they messed with the leaderboard I wouldnt have to spend a week each time I came back to the game to fight actual pvpers.

Again in order zos needs to target

1. Stop resetting MMR
2. Implement skill based MMR to make matches more fair, a KDA system would be fine to start. This takes out an exponential factor making team balance seem broken.
3. Then look into team balancing methods like evaluating which accounts play support or healer based on average previous match healing/assist values. Preventing one team from having players going 20/0 while the other team is all 0/20.
4. Then look into map/gamemode changes like lowering the spawn walls to prevent teams from getting spawn camped. Change spawns to be at ground level with a defensive turret mechanic (slaughterfish for the enemy team)
5. Then look into gametype changes like bringing back 2 team+3 team. Things like chaos ball seemed to work better in 3 team because it was harder to camp at your own spawn with the ball. Things like capture the flag works better on 2 team because a third party cant just run flags while the other teams fought.
6. Eventually a bracketed rank system like Bronze/Silver/Gold could lay the groundwork for achievements and replay-ability driving players to participate and learn to rank up.

The thing is you really shouldn't be making these changes out of order. You could waste all your time trying to make gamemode changes like how spawns work, but then if MMR gets fixed down the line players may hate that change because its nolonger needed or people simply play differently when matches are more fair.