Add MMR to Battlegrounds

DestroyerPewnack · July 2

Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.
Add MMR to Battlegrounds.

Radiate77 · July 2

Sure! As long as MMR doesn’t match based on team rating and instead goes off of player rating.

DestroyerPewnack · July 2

Radiate77 wrote: »

Sure! As long as MMR doesn’t match based on team rating and instead goes off of player rating.

Anything. Just please, make the ridiculous, one-sided matches end.

I don't know how much more of this non sense I can take.

Stamicka · July 2

Doesn’t matter without a big enough queue. A lot of MMR systems start narrow to match players as close to skill levels as possible. Then if no matching players are found it’ll expand and expand until it’s basically covering all people queued just to get them in a match.

DestroyerPewnack · July 2

Stamicka wrote: »

Doesn’t matter without a big enough queue. A lot of MMR systems start narrow to match players as close to skill levels as possible. Then if no matching players are found it’ll expand and expand until it’s basically covering all people queued just to get them in a match.

No problem. More people will queue when they are guaranteed a fair and challenging game. And that can't be achieved without MMR.

Stamicka · July 2

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Doesn’t matter without a big enough queue. A lot of MMR systems start narrow to match players as close to skill levels as possible. Then if no matching players are found it’ll expand and expand until it’s basically covering all people queued just to get them in a match.

No problem. More people will queue when they are guaranteed a fair and challenging game. And that can't be achieved without MMR.

If an MMR system is changed so that it doesn’t expand the skill bracket range when not enough players are present, it’ll just become a situation where almost no one gets a queue at all.

So no, you’ll just stop people from queuing all together because they never expect to get a match in the time that they have to play.

NxJoeyD · July 2

MMR is just a piece of it.

If we take a good hard look at match recaps and look at performance we see a lot of inconsistencies and IMO a lot of that has to do with core combat mechanics and how mis-aligned they are with the current state of the game.

When the Devs released subclassing what they should have done was taken a broad look at the environment that they were releasing it into and asked themselves: “what core mechanics need to be adjusted to better allow for subclassing?” … but they didn’t do that.

IMO here are the biggest flaws with BGs in the current game state:

MMR: or should I say the lack thereof. This should not be resetting and needs to be character specific and a perpetual value.

Mixing Solo & Group Queues: this is a major flaw. You cannot pit a coordinated group of players versus an uncoordinated group in any sort of competitive landscape. That’s oil & water all day long. And I’ve heard people say that they need to do this because of the population decline .. here’s the hard truth, make a solid game that people like and they’ll play it; it’s that simple. We’ve got games with multilayer environments that are nearly a decade and a half old and there’s no shortage of players. Fix your game mode and people will play. Forcing us to play a bad game mode, just for the sake of giving us a game mode will result in people not playing in the end.

Core combat: The logic behind core combat needs to change. When the Devs introduced subclassing they enabled combinations that were never originally intended or designed for the game. It’s not just a matter of class skill refreshes. Sure, that’s part of it but you also have to account for World / Weapon skills plus the base combat mechs themselves. For example:

“Evasion”: in the current state it would make much more sense to award the player with the appropriate pool resource for a dodge as opposed to just ignoring incoming damage for free. Why does this matter? Because it would require the avoidance of damage to undergo a skill check every time. Currently, Evasion allows for action with impunity, which is a concept Subclassing already over enables. By giving players the resource pool you’re essentially giving them the ability to dodge freely (cost wise) but it’s up to the player to execute the dodge. This also goes toward better pacing as players have to think more about avoidance than just run & spam.

“Crowd Control”: The game offers a slew of skills and sets that provide immunity to Soft CC but if we’re going to give everyone and their mother access to unblockable Hard CC then we need to revisit the duration of immunity. Before subclassing the amount of unblockable Hard CC was limited and therefore counterplay was viable. But when everyone is spamming Hard CC skills or slotting skills that don’t have reliable break free mechs (fear / charm), or that have unblockable mechs despite tooltips not reflecting that (looking at you DK Leap); then immunity needs to make Hard CC a more calculated and thought out action as opposed to a timed button press every 6 seconds. This would also address one of the issues with knock down / knock back effects whereby the animations are so long that even breaking free isn’t as responsive as it should be.

Melee / Cleave: a 7m melee range seems gracious to me given how much players now have access to in order to mitigate proximity. The concept of a “brawler” has been replaced with hybrid builds that aren’t limited in that way anymore and as such we should ask ourselves how heavy does melee / cleave need to be? It’s no wonder that the lions share of builds and the meta revolve around this. Now, this isn’t a call for a straight up nerf, per se, changing melee range from 7m to 5m, for example, isn’t quite a nerf as it’s a core mech change. A players attack would still deal the same damage just not from as far away. Given how effective cleave is at attackers not needing to be precise something like that would make sense to consider.

It’s pretty obvious to a lot of us that recent changes to the game have resulted in a less than spectacular server response when it comes to PvP so pacing certain combat mechanics could contribute to better performance.

Overall, we want coordinated groups to be able to play and play as a group and be rewarded for that, but, against other groups; not against PUGs. Similarly, we want to sort players of certain experience and/or outcome, together to avoid as much mis match as possible.

And even with those things being goals, we still need combat mechanics that better reflect the recent changes the devs have made to the game. Balancing players in PvP goes a long way in solving problems but so does core combat.

Estin · July 2

MMR exists already in BGs, both 4v4 and 8v8. It's just that the pool of players in BGs is too low for the MMR system to work effectively.

DestroyerPewnack · July 3

Estin wrote: »

MMR exists already in BGs, both 4v4 and 8v8. It's just that the pool of players in BGs is too low for the MMR system to work effectively.

MMR needs to be perpetual and per character. The MMR we have now keeps getting reset, which is pointless. It might as well not exist, and the result will be the same: one-sided, boring matches.

Again I'll repeat, the reason BGs population is so low is precisely the lack of proper MMR. The players who consistently get destroyed end up dropping out, and the players who consistently do the destroying get bored and go elsewhere to find challenging PvP.

The current system works for no one, and only serves to frustrate players.

DestroyerPewnack · July 3

Stamicka wrote: »

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Doesn’t matter without a big enough queue. A lot of MMR systems start narrow to match players as close to skill levels as possible. Then if no matching players are found it’ll expand and expand until it’s basically covering all people queued just to get them in a match.

No problem. More people will queue when they are guaranteed a fair and challenging game. And that can't be achieved without MMR.

If an MMR system is changed so that it doesn’t expand the skill bracket range when not enough players are present, it’ll just become a situation where almost no one gets a queue at all.

So no, you’ll just stop people from queuing all together because they never expect to get a match in the time that they have to play.

We're going in circles. You said there aren't enough players for MMR to work. I said the lack of functioning MMR is the reason there aren't enough players. Then you responded by repeating the same exact point. So I'm not sure what you expect me to say? Just repeat myself again?

tsaescishoeshiner · July 3

MMR would be nice, but would require changes to the queues available and enough players.

The best way to combat one-sided matches is to get better. It can seem daunted, but for me I feel like that's the only solution with the vast skill and build gap that the game allows for.

DestroyerPewnack · July 3

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

MMR would be nice, but would require changes to the queues available and enough players.

The best way to combat one-sided matches is to get better. It can seem daunted, but for me I feel like that's the only solution with the vast skill and build gap that the game allows for.

Getting better would solve the problem of losing one-sided matches, but it won't solve the problem of winning one-sided matches. I played 2 back-to-back BG's today where the enemy team couldn't hold on to a single flag for more than 5 seconds, and in one of the games, the entire enemy team gave up and went afk in their spawn. Who can blame them? They didn't sign up for this, and I didn't queue for BG's to stand around like an idiot, waiting for my score bar to fill up while I do nothing.

Stamicka · July 3

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Doesn’t matter without a big enough queue. A lot of MMR systems start narrow to match players as close to skill levels as possible. Then if no matching players are found it’ll expand and expand until it’s basically covering all people queued just to get them in a match.

No problem. More people will queue when they are guaranteed a fair and challenging game. And that can't be achieved without MMR.

If an MMR system is changed so that it doesn’t expand the skill bracket range when not enough players are present, it’ll just become a situation where almost no one gets a queue at all.

So no, you’ll just stop people from queuing all together because they never expect to get a match in the time that they have to play.

We're going in circles. You said there aren't enough players for MMR to work. I said the lack of functioning MMR is the reason there aren't enough players. Then you responded by repeating the same exact point. So I'm not sure what you expect me to say? Just repeat myself again?

I didn’t repeat the same point you just aren’t understanding.

MMR already exists in ESO BGs. It doesn’t matter because the pool of people who queue is too small. When this happens, most MMR methods prioritize making some match instead of none at all even if there’s a big skill level gap.

This is what you are currently seeing and it’s why you think that no MMR exists.

You claim that if more balanced matches are made, the BG population will grow. So this would require that the MMR method that ZOS uses is more strict. Instead of prioritizing getting some match going, it would have to only allow same skill level based matches. This means that this stricter MMR method will often find no viable groups and so no one would get a queue at all which would genuinely kill BGs.

With the method you want, 8 people of the exact same skill bracket would have to be in the queue at the same time to get a match.

With the current method, 8 players in general have to be in the queue to get a match. It tries to match them by skill first before it throws them all into the same game so that at least people can play.

The issue is much bigger than MMR. ESO PvP in general appeals to a very small and declining audience. PvP balance as a whole needs to be addressed.

DestroyerPewnack · July 3

Stamicka wrote: »

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Doesn’t matter without a big enough queue. A lot of MMR systems start narrow to match players as close to skill levels as possible. Then if no matching players are found it’ll expand and expand until it’s basically covering all people queued just to get them in a match.

No problem. More people will queue when they are guaranteed a fair and challenging game. And that can't be achieved without MMR.

If an MMR system is changed so that it doesn’t expand the skill bracket range when not enough players are present, it’ll just become a situation where almost no one gets a queue at all.

So no, you’ll just stop people from queuing all together because they never expect to get a match in the time that they have to play.

We're going in circles. You said there aren't enough players for MMR to work. I said the lack of functioning MMR is the reason there aren't enough players. Then you responded by repeating the same exact point. So I'm not sure what you expect me to say? Just repeat myself again?

I didn’t repeat the same point you just aren’t understanding.

MMR already exists in ESO BGs. It doesn’t matter because the pool of people who queue is too small. When this happens, most MMR methods prioritize making some match instead of none at all even if there’s a big skill level gap.

This is what you are currently seeing and it’s why you think that no MMR exists.

You claim that if more balanced matches are made, the BG population will grow. So this would require that the MMR method that ZOS uses is more strict. Instead of prioritizing getting some match going, it would have to only allow same skill level based matches. This means that this stricter MMR method will often find no viable groups and so no one would get a queue at all which would genuinely kill BGs.

With the method you want, 8 people of the exact same skill bracket would have to be in the queue at the same time to get a match.

With the current method, 8 players in general have to be in the queue to get a match. It tries to match them by skill first before it throws them all into the same game so that at least people can play.

The issue is much bigger than MMR. ESO PvP in general appeals to a very small and declining audience. PvP balance as a whole needs to be addressed.

Do you understand that the current MMR system frequently gets reset? This is the key to understanding what this thread is about. If the MMR keeps resetting, then it effectively doesn't exist. If you don't understand this, then this conversation is going to lead us nowhere.

I spoke earlier about 2 matches that I had where the enemy team got completely destroyed. This didn't happen because there weren't enough players in queue. It happened because the strong players got put in one team, and the weak players got put in the other. If you just swap 2 players around, the match would have been more balanced. But you can't do that without a functioning MMR, because the game would have no way of figuring out which player goes to which team.

You're making the problem sound more complicated than it is. The reality is much simpler. With perpetual MMR, the casual players who go into BG's with 18k HP and PvE armor will have low MMR, and suddenly find themselves playing against other players with 18k HP and PvE armor; and the hardcore, meta PvPers will have a high MMR, and suddenly find themselves playing against their peers. The casual players get an enjoyable experience where they're not getting destroyed in 2 seconds, and the hardcore players get a challenging experience where they're not standing around, doing nothing.

What about that do you have an issue with?

Stamicka · July 3

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

You're making the problem sound more complicated than it is. The reality is much simpler. With perpetual MMR, the casual players who go into BG's with 18k HP and PvE armor will have low MMR, and suddenly find themselves playing against other players with 18k HP and PvE armor; and the hardcore, meta PvPers will have a high MMR, and suddenly find themselves playing against their peers. The casual players get an enjoyable experience where they're not getting destroyed in 2 seconds, and the hardcore players get a challenging experience where they're not standing around, doing nothing.

What about that do you have an issue with?

I am aware MMR is reset.

You're making a very big assumption which is that there are 7 other players at every skill bracket to make a match. For those who are one step above the 18k health with PvE armor crowd, who do you put them against? Do you suggest that the game makes them wait in a queue until 7 other people at their skill bracket queue up? It's highly likely that those 7 other 'peers' never queue, that player never finds a match, and then they stop up wasting their time sitting in a queue. Why would they bother queuing in the future if the game is never successful making a match?

You are overestimating the amount of people participating in BGs at the same time. You're also massively overestimating the 'hardcore meta PvPer' crowd. There's not enough of them on at the same time to make full lobbies anymore. You can ask anyone who has sweat BGs at some point in the past. There was always a point where they would stop seeing matches.

A few years ago I was doing a lot of BGs on Xbox NA with some friends. This was back when BGs were 4v4v4. We knew exactly who we would get matched with every time, and if they weren't on, we would find no matches. That's how small of a pool we are talking. The amount of people who currently PvP in ESO at all is tiny. The amount of those PvPers who engage with BGs is even smaller.

NxJoeyD · July 3

So I’m seeing a bit of extremes on both sides here.

I play on both PC NA & XB NA and whilst I can say queuing for a BG on PC NA is a slog that’s absolutely NOT the case on XB NA; there’s more than enough of a population that queue times are consistently only a few minutes at the most; at any time during a month.

MMR does exist but it exists with a logic that some (myself included) find very flawed. I would rather have MMR NOT make a match rather than make a bad match. That just goes to quality over quantity.

Now, ZoS has already ported ESO over to “play anywhere” for the XB client. This means that while those players are still connecting to their own mega server, it is a precursor to cross play. This will absolutely expand the population in queues. And I’ve said this myself before, if a game Dev wants to increase their player base the solution is simple; make a good game. .. Don’t try to shoe horn your remaining players into poorer quality gameplay under the premise that you can’t keep a population; at that point they’re just admitting that they messed up by proxy.

As for MMR; it can be smoothed. The bracketing tiers that would be required to prevent one sided stomps is larger than people might think; especially if MMR focuses on result based metrics. … remember, not all players are experienced Vets, but, Subclassing did lower the skill floor in PvP so we do have players whom are more casual who are pulling veteran-esque BG results thanks to mechanics.

MMR doesn’t have to try and make a match to the degree of an FBI fingerprint to be effective; that would be unrealistic, but, MMR does need an adjustment given how significant the PvP game state has changed; especially since subclassing.

Weesacs · July 3

MMR should also never reset, and apply across alts as well. I don't care if you've been away from the game for months or playing an alt you've never played before, a good PvP player will always be a good PvP player, regardless of what they are playing, I see it all the time.

MyGTX · July 3

You guys don't seem to understand how BG queue and matchmaking actually work in this game. People keep demanding strict MMR-based matchmaking on the forums, which is honestly absurd. I’ve put millions of hours into Battlegrounds, and I can tell you with absolute certainty: MMR is not the issue here. The players and the lack of a proper punishment system are.

Right now, MMR does only one thing-it inflates your queue times. It takes 5-10 minutes to find a match solo, and anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes as a group. And for what? You get into a 4v4 Deathmatch, your team absolutely wipes the floor with the enemy in the first 10 seconds, and they all lose their first life. Instead of adjusting their strategy or just playing out the match, the enemy team decides to just sit on the spawn balcony. They drag a 3-to-5 minute game into a 30-minute hostage situation, forcing everyone to just stand there and waste time.

The core problem is that ZOS has zero functional penalties for this behavior. There is no punishment for going AFK on the spawn point, and leaving mid-game carries practically no consequences. A 20-minute 'deserter' penalty is an absolute joke. If the penalty stacked, locked you out of all game activities, or put you in a Low Priority queue like in Dota 2, it might actually change something.

Look at the bigger picture in ESO: you lose absolutely nothing when you fail, whether it's in PvP or PvE. Because there are zero stakes, people treat matches with zero responsibility. Even some prominent content creators and streamers constantly quit matches mid-game live on stream because they get frustrated, and no sanctions are ever applied to them. Viewers see this, realize there are no consequences, and simply copy that toxic behavior.

If people just want to log in and chill, that’s fine, it’s just a game. But then I don’t understand why those same casual players go to the forums and cry about MMR. MMR won't fix player mentality. Tightening MMR will only mean you'll spend 40 minutes in queue just to watch the enemy team sit on a balcony again

Orbital78 · July 3

I haven't joined a bg in months, it just is not fun when things have no balance. If enough people feel the same way then it is no surprise the queue times are longer.

NxJoeyD · July 3

MyGTX wrote: »

You guys don't seem to understand how BG queue and matchmaking actually work in this game. People keep demanding strict MMR-based matchmaking on the forums, which is honestly absurd. I’ve put millions of hours into Battlegrounds, and I can tell you with absolute certainty: MMR is not the issue here. The players and the lack of a proper punishment system are.

Right now, MMR does only one thing-it inflates your queue times. It takes 5-10 minutes to find a match solo, and anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes as a group. And for what? You get into a 4v4 Deathmatch, your team absolutely wipes the floor with the enemy in the first 10 seconds, and they all lose their first life. Instead of adjusting their strategy or just playing out the match, the enemy team decides to just sit on the spawn balcony. They drag a 3-to-5 minute game into a 30-minute hostage situation, forcing everyone to just stand there and waste time.

The core problem is that ZOS has zero functional penalties for this behavior. There is no punishment for going AFK on the spawn point, and leaving mid-game carries practically no consequences. A 20-minute 'deserter' penalty is an absolute joke. If the penalty stacked, locked you out of all game activities, or put you in a Low Priority queue like in Dota 2, it might actually change something.

Look at the bigger picture in ESO: you lose absolutely nothing when you fail, whether it's in PvP or PvE. Because there are zero stakes, people treat matches with zero responsibility. Even some prominent content creators and streamers constantly quit matches mid-game live on stream because they get frustrated, and no sanctions are ever applied to them. Viewers see this, realize there are no consequences, and simply copy that toxic behavior.

If people just want to log in and chill, that’s fine, it’s just a game. But then I don’t understand why those same casual players go to the forums and cry about MMR. MMR won't fix player mentality. Tightening MMR will only mean you'll spend 40 minutes in queue just to watch the enemy team sit on a balcony again

I don’t experience any queue times anywhere near that. On Solo I might wait 3 minutes on average. When I’m with my group it usually takes 5 to 6 minutes tops.

The only swing to that is when we group queue and one of us hasn’t participated in a while so our MMRs are farther apart and the game struggles to match, but, I’ve found that swapping the group leader who queues can often resolve this.

Again, MMR doesn’t have to be strict, but, if it were more results-centric with no reset what we’d end up with are players matched together whose match results more closely align.

Would that leave some players in a longer queue, possibly, yes. But the alternative that others are suggesting are that those very players just be “accepted” as sacrificial space fillers for other players, which isn’t good either.

There’s been talk about what ZoS might do regarding spawn camping. To some degree, I do agree, that MMR is not the end-all-say-all solution here; there’s other factors at work, namely, mechanics. So MMR alone won’t solve the problem but it will take a chunk out of it.

As for spawn camping or other “unsportsmanlike” conduct, it’s almost impossible to do that without opening the door for some exploit that one team can use. One suggestion another forum user suggested some time ago was turning the opponent spawn zone into an area that deals progressive damage (similar to the Chaosball), after an enemy player has been within that zone after a certain amount of time. .. now, on the surface that sounds fine until you realize the “home team” could take an objective like a Chaosball or Relic and camp out within that zone and let the environment protect them from the enemy. .. the nature of BG combat in the current game modes changes very quickly and not for the better.

IMO the best way to penalize spawn camping is to reduce the possibility; at least in terms of PUG stomps. If MMR and combat mechanics have better smoothing then you have better play vs counterplay; risk vs reward scenarios, which is what you want.

A coordinated team that’s working together properly against a team that isn’t will always see the coordinated team stomping their opponents and that should happen, that’s the nature of teamwork. It’s the other aspects that we’re trying to reduce.

MyGTX · July 3

just posting

decaffeinated · July 3

Ok hear me out...

What if we made Battlegrounds like Vengeance.

Skill based. No armor set exploits, no scribing cheese.

Unpopular with certain PvPers? Probably. But a much more fair system.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · July 4

decaffeinated wrote: »

Ok hear me out...

What if we made Battlegrounds like Vengeance.

Skill based. No armor set exploits, no scribing cheese.

Unpopular with certain PvPers? Probably. But a much more fair system.

Absolutely. More popular with the entire game population. Just not GH. My Guilds would play BG again, just like they are returning for Vengeance. More people overall would play BG if it were so. Ive been asking these kinds of questions to everyone I play with. More of them want it than don't. If you run enough BG, you will see it is the same tiny fraction of people in them. And its dwindling. That's why everyone is constantly up against the same players.

Thoriorz · July 5

MyGTX wrote: »

Right now, MMR does only one thing-it inflates your queue times. It takes 5-10 minutes to find a match solo, and anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes as a group. And for what? You get into a 4v4 Deathmatch, your team absolutely wipes the floor with the enemy in the first 10 seconds, and they all lose their first life. Instead of adjusting their strategy or just playing out the match, the enemy team decides to just sit on the spawn balcony. They drag a 3-to-5 minute game into a 30-minute hostage situation, forcing everyone to just stand there and waste time.

The core problem is that ZOS has zero functional penalties for this behavior. There is no punishment for going AFK on the spawn point, and leaving mid-game carries practically no consequences. A 20-minute 'deserter' penalty is an absolute joke. If the penalty stacked, locked you out of all game activities, or put you in a Low Priority queue like in Dota 2, it might actually change something.

Look at the bigger picture in ESO: you lose absolutely nothing when you fail, whether it's in PvP or PvE. Because there are zero stakes, people treat matches with zero responsibility. Even some prominent content creators and streamers constantly quit matches mid-game live on stream because they get frustrated, and no sanctions are ever applied to them. Viewers see this, realize there are no consequences, and simply copy that toxic behavior.

If people just want to log in and chill, that’s fine, it’s just a game. But then I don’t understand why those same casual players go to the forums and cry about MMR. MMR won't fix player mentality. Tightening MMR will only mean you'll spend 40 minutes in queue just to watch the enemy team sit on a balcony again

I’m “forced” to play PvP right now because of the Veterancy, and for someone like me—a terrible PvP player and more or less a solo player—BG is lesser pvp "evil". I tried 8v8, and that’s a total *** show, so I tried 4v4, and that works for me, more or less. I have some physical limitations with my hands, so I play a one-bar build with Oeakensoul, and since I’m not particularly skilled, I tried to make my PvP build as tanky as possible—I have just over 40k HP, around 41k resist, I apply the Breach debuff, I play the Matriarch pet to help the team a bit with healing, I have a Reg. Ward, and that’s all I can do.

I often see what you’re describing in deathmatch, and personally, I don’t get it. When I see that the enemies are just going to wipe us out in a few seconds and we don’t stand a chance, I quickly jump down, let myself get killed, and let’s move on to the next BG. I often see this on my team, but even when we’re fighting and have the upper hand, there are people on the enemy team who just stand there—either totally AFK or shooting from above. That’s nothing but a waste of time—not just for the winning team, but for the weaker team too. They know we’re not going to win, so why not end the fight as quickly as possible and move on to the next one or go play something else? I just don’t get it...

And as for MMR, I have a win rate of about 20–30%, so we mostly lose, but I can really see that my team is just made up of PvE players with 20k HP or 200 CP, etc. (which makes it easy to predict how the fight will go), while on the opposing team I see players with the “Emperor” title and the like—clearly with PvP experience and optimized builds. Where’s the fair team balance here? As a player, I don’t care how it works or what’s possible or not; I’m only interested in my own experience and how I see it. The current BG, even in Competitive Mode, is *** (though still significantly better than 8v8). I think the 4v4 group team mode is probably the most skilled one, but I’m talking about the experience of a solo player from my perspective(4v4 competetive mode). I’m not calling anyone a noob or anything like that—I’m a noob and a bad player myself. It’s just a game, but there should at least be some team mixing here, not just bad players vs. pros (which I really do see a lot).

Firstmep · July 5

Bgs are bleeding for multiple wounds at this point and the flawed MMR system is just one.

We have terrible map design that encourages excessive spawn camping even in objective game modes.
From the old maps Eld Angavar is a good example of good map design, players spawn above the map and can take multiple portals down so the enemy teams can't just camp one location. Frankly that map is big enough for 8v8 imo.

No separate deathmatch queue means that players who want do objectives and the most neckbearded DM only people get put together.

The terrible mmr system we have also contributes very heavily into all of the above as well.

Pepegrillos · July 5

It has an MMR, but since it's a casual game, the system has a priority on starting the game over having a super fair match (which due to population constraints might be impossible). To do so, it has to lower its MMR restrictions, because the population of people playing bgs is small, and smaller on each MMR bracket.

imPDA · July 5

There is no official statement if it really exists or not as far as I know, there was an attempt to bring MMR (I don't remember exact PTS), but this was disabled next PTS iteration. Currently, no real MMR exists in user UI, and we don't know for sure what actually used under the hood, so all comments "MMR exists" are just copium rn. Game API has some MMR leftover and I blantly remember devs talking about this is going to be returned but in the far future because they don't have resources to continue this work rn. You can try GetPlayerMMRByType, it returned 0 or nil if I remember correctly.

* GetPlayerMMRByType(*[LFGActivity|#LFGActivity]* _activity_)
** _Returns:_ *integer* _mmrRating_

h5. LFGActivity
* LFG_ACTIVITY_ADVENTURE_ZONE
* LFG_ACTIVITY_ARENA
* LFG_ACTIVITY_AVA
* LFG_ACTIVITY_BATTLE_GROUND_CHAMPION
* LFG_ACTIVITY_BATTLE_GROUND_LOW_LEVEL
* LFG_ACTIVITY_BATTLE_GROUND_NON_CHAMPION
* LFG_ACTIVITY_DUNGEON
* LFG_ACTIVITY_ENDLESS_DUNGEON
* LFG_ACTIVITY_EXPLORATION
* LFG_ACTIVITY_HOME_SHOW
* LFG_ACTIVITY_INVALID
* LFG_ACTIVITY_MASTER_DUNGEON
* LFG_ACTIVITY_TRIAL
* LFG_ACTIVITY_TRIBUTE_CASUAL
* LFG_ACTIVITY_TRIBUTE_COMPETITIVE

I assume you should use LFG_ACTIVITY_BATTLE_GROUND_NON_CHAMPION as LFGActivity, so try to type this while on BG

`/script d(tostring(GetPlayerMMRByType(LFG_ACTIVITY_BATTLE_GROUND_NON_CHAMPION)))`

d prints debug (system) messages in chat, tostring - obviously, converts values to string (just in case function returns nil).
You can try different LFGActivity.

So, officially, there is no MMR, but some matchmaking system might exist under the hood, but sometimes I can get a lot of good players with me, while I am also a decent player, and only bad players against me, and it is actually pretty frequent situation, so if any matchmaking system exist, it is most likely poor and rough estimation. I am actually interested in real MMR, but taking into consideration PvP part is not that popular, I would assume we will not see any progress in a further 2 years at least.

P.S. You can also verify what LFGActivity type to use,

* GetActivityTypeAndIndex(*integer* _activityId_)
** _Returns:_ *[LFGActivity|#LFGActivity]* _activity_, *luaindex* _index_

* GetCurrentLFGActivityId()
** _Returns:_ *integer* _activityId_

`/script d(GetCurrentLFGActivityId())` returns current lfg activity id and then you can use it in GetActivityTypeAndIndex:
`/script df('type: %d - index: %d', GetActivityTypeAndIndex(123456))` - replace 123456 with number you will get from GetCurrentLFGActivityId. And then

`/script d(tostring(GetPlayerMMRByType(123)))` - replace 123 with `type` value from previous step, it will be a number.

P.P.S. I worked on idea to make own MMR system, you can use Impressive Stats addon to capture match results. If I would be able to combine reports from different players, and if there were enough players using this addon, it would cover almost all BGs, and pretty reliable calculations could be carried out. I did a windows client to send result to server where it could be combined for different players, but I could not continue this project at that time and it is still only in a draft state. But I added some additional features to Impressive Stats - you can see results for all previous battlegrounds, results of all players participated, your average stats over selected characters, match types, etc. It also remembers players you played with or against and shows their average stats so you could have insight on their skill before match starts. It also calculates your average performance against average performance of other players, so you could know your potential. I might want to update description page on ESOUI, because it does not display some new features. My bad, I am lazy :P

Orbital78 · July 5

decaffeinated wrote: »

Ok hear me out...

What if we made Battlegrounds like Vengeance.

Skill based. No armor set exploits, no scribing cheese.

Unpopular with certain PvPers? Probably. But a much more fair system.

What a grand idea!

ceruulean · July 5

It seems theres a functioning ELO/MMR in Tales of Tribute:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/612195/zenimax-please-explain-how-exactly-tot-rankings-work

The poster's screenshot shows an actual number for their ToT rank. Very interesting...

imPDA · July 6

ceruulean wrote: »

It seems theres a functioning ELO/MMR in Tales of Tribute:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/612195/zenimax-please-explain-how-exactly-tot-rankings-work

The poster's screenshot shows an actual number for their ToT rank. Very interesting...

Yes, ToT has MMR, it is close to how elo works (player with higher MMR player gains less points for win and loses more for loss). But we do not know the exact formulae sadly, chess and other ranked games have them specified in the rules usually. https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info4032-ImpressiveStats.html can track ToT games too, see the first screenshot in description, but I barely play it and I was not able to extract exact formulae myself.

Solantris · July 6

I wrote this for another thread elsewhere but im dumping here cause relevant. Its based on being a game designer myself (not an mmo combat designer, but still)

I'll be frank, the BG MMR algorithm itself isnt the real problem with balancing teams. Its a symptom, not the cause. The real issue is that ESO lacks the systems and constraints that usually underpin how an mmr algorithm works.

To put it succinctly, our current BG ecosystem doesnt define a consistent definition of success. As a result, any single MMR algorithm will struggle to produce a reliable estimate of player skill, because a win means different things from game to game

Deathmatch primarily rewards combat dominance. Domination primarily rewards space control and speed. Crazy King primarily rewards rotations and timing. CTR and ball boy primarily reward movement, escorting and survival. In most of them, any kind of prolonged fight is directly detrimental to the objective, and each of them asks players to optimise for something completely different.

Somebody with a high win rate at domination probably does perform equally well in crazy king, but neither of those wins means mean anything in a deathmatch. Because in ESO, our objective modes do not fundamentally require combat for effectiveness. Mechanically, we can often bypass combat and still be really effective.

In games like MOBAs, macro decisions (map rotations, objectives, vision) are constrained by combat competency (micro decisions). If you lose every fight, you will generally lose map control. Avoiding fights will put you at an objective disadvantage, but so will fighting uneccesarily: they're designed in harmony, interdependent. But In ESO, our objective mechanics are much less dependent on combat performance, and the most efficient thing is often slapping on some running shoes and avoiding combat completely. Objective sucess does not follow or honestly even require combat sucess.

This means, from an algorithmic perspective, two players can have identical win rates while possessing incredibly different actual combat ability. The wins just aren't comparable.

This is especially the case with deathmatch. It meassures something substantially different from the other modes completely. But has the same impact on a winrate (im all for splitting off deathmatch completely, fwiw)

In most games win rate is often one of the most reliable indicators, because a win is comparable to other wins. But in ESO, it's just... not.

Regardless of implementation, an MMR algorithm fundamentally asks 'on average, which players consistently outperform others?' The problem we have is that our wins don't represent consistent or comparable performances. Sometimes it reflects combat dominance, sometimes objective play, sometimes rotation or escorting, sometimes building like a brick and holding block on an objective. It's... random

When the definition of success changes from match to match, a single rating just cant converge on a single measure of skill. And thats why the mmr system feels so chaotic and unbalanced. Mathematically, I imagine it actually is creating a balanced match on paper behind the scenes: it's just that the data it bases that decision on doesnt actually mean anything specific in our context.

Tldr: MMR systems estimate skill from outcomes. Outcomes need systemic consistency to be meaninful. Our bg wins represent different things, and thus, we have no consistency. So, regardless of the actual formula used, this means our mmr systems struggle to mathematically represent meaningful player brackets

To make it an anlogy, some players are throwing shot put. Some players are jumping hurdles. Some players are playing football, some are in a sprint, some a marathon. All of them are in the same matches. Probably on average the shot put guy wins the shotput games ... but he's assessed on his overall win rate.