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[Column] Elder Scrolls Online: Battlegrounds - Do We Need Them?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Battlegrounds are something that The Elder Scrolls Online community has been asking for since the game was first announced. During a recent interview Brian Wheeler (Lead PvP Designer) commented on Battlegrounds in ESO. Are battlegrounds a required feature for ESO or can it strive without them?
Read more of Ryan Getchell's Elder Scrolls Online: Battlegrounds - Do We Need Them?
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Comments
In certain games battlegrounds have their place, such as WoW since there weren't really any world objectives to fight over even back in vanilla on the PVP severs. The Tauren Mill Tug-O-War can only be fun for so long. However, in a game that already has a dedicated PVP zone such as ESO then adding BGs to it would hurt the game's PVP even more by spreading the PVP'er population even thinner which will be bad for such a big zone as Cyrodil, not to mention that half of the campaigns are grossly lopsided with certain factions. Splitting the PVP population between RvR and BG's is what hurt WAR a lot.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
I think once they fix the balancing issues with the game (such as Sorcerers being able to spam Bolt Escape to get out of ANY situation and the one handed sword/shield build where people can spam abilities by canceling animations with shield bash) , they really should introduce some kind of battleground.
Games are meant to be fun. Cyrodiil once you get past the epicness of massive scale combat, it ends up being the same over and over again with lots of down time in between. Most of the time you're sieging, shooting a stone trebuchet every 20 seconds. It's boring as hell.
With a battleground system people that love pvp can queue up for it and PVP in Cyrodiil while waiting in the meantime. The game would be more fun, that's the point of playing games right? right? RIGHT?
Normally I would say no, because BGs destroyed WoW's open world PvP.
But because they could probably reduce the number of campaigns, it's likely you'd always find one with decent population, which is all that matters.
However, population imbalance becomes a more glaring issue the fewer players involved, and I worry about how they will potentially address that.
The CURRENT PROBLEM is that characters under level 50 suck in PvP right now. If they aren't going to change this, then BGs just for people under level 50 would be appropriate. And/or have a couple campaigns level limited. One for those under 30, and one for those under 50. Give decent XP, and it would be a fun alternative to questing.
I think it's wrong to say that the ESO community has been asking for battlegrounds, some part of the player base has been but I know for sure some haven't and they also don't want them.
The last time Zenimax listened to the 'community' that made sweeping changes to the starting quest line and as a result completely broke the whole continuity of it; anyone who didn't see how it worked prior to that has a high chance of being confused by it. So I hope that don't listen to just a part of the community again.
WoW BGs = NO... no sporting events with a scoreboard. No capture the flag, and no damn Arena Leagues...
DAoC BGs = YES.. persistent zone where the War continues. No scoreboard, just a war.
DAoC just got so much right... such as just about EVERYTHING related to PvP...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
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"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
The size of Cyrodiil is half the problem with PvP in ESO; the scaling is another 25% of the problem; and the imbalances in class skills is the other 25%.
Suggesting that a level 10 player is scaled to 50 and can be competitive is really less than a half-truth. Even before veteran rank players began showing up, a scaled level 10 player was usually one-shot in any battle, killed at a range where the player never even saw the opponent, and then had to spend five minutes or longer running back to the battle from the resurrection area... that's not exactly an enjoyable activity in a MMORPG.
Add in imbalanced AoE effects, Vampire effects, sword-shield interrupts... add in the lack of contribution of heavy armor to survivability; add in the uselessness of healing... Cyrodiil is little more than run, run, run, run ... run, run, run -- DIE -- run, run, run, run ... run, run, run -- DIE -- rinse and repeat for any player that isn't at the highest veteran ranks, part of a large guild so they can be sheltered in the midst of a zerg, and set up with those particular skill sets that have been proven to be overpowered in PvP.
THAT is the problem with Cyrodiil and that is why people suggest battlegrounds.
Typical battlegrounds are small enough that a player isn't spending most of the battle running back from the resurrection point to the fight. Typical battlegrounds are against similarly leveled opponents (less chance of one-shot deaths). Typical battlegrounds wouldn't solve the skill imbalance problems, so that would have to be handled separately.
Yes, battlegrounds would detract from the grand scheme that is Cyrodiil, but -- to be frank -- the grand scheme that is Cyrodiil isn't working. It isn't DAoC by any stretch of the imagination; the siege system doesn't really work because of faction imbalance and the lack of tangible rewards for PvP... and because the distances are too far apart.
IMHO, they'd be better off turning Cyrodiil into an open world PvP area with faction and non-faction quests given out of the keeps (get rid of the sieges completely) such that quests generated player conflict, instead of the zergfest it is right now.
If they are implemented EXACTLY as they were in DAoC, with level ranges, limited rewards, and smaller areas with a clear focus, yes. I think they would make the perfect addition as an alternate leveling path (Just like they were for DAoC, actually).
Also, if there is a concern, make some aspect of the BG's feed Cyrodil. Maybe when the Imperial City (Darkness Falls for ESO! YAY!) is ready, they could make the BG's play a part of it. Each BG would be attached to your primary Cyrodil campaign, so you couldn't affect other campagins.
The only downside I could see is if the BG's are as good as they were in DAoC, some people may want an /exp toggle to stay in...
Instanced battlegrounds, ala WoW? HELL.. NO.
Also- This quote is utterly wrong:
The Elder Scrolls Online is a game designed around a world divided, a fight for control of the ruby throne. Adding in battlegrounds would deflate that war and would eventually force to decrease the size of Cyrodiil to accommodate for the lack of interest in Cyrodiil.
EoS is a mega server. We don't need 20 different Cyrodiil "campaigns". THAT is a huge problem IMHO. Instead let there be some lower level battlegrounds. Persistent ones. Let those battles actually influence the "main" Cyrodiil map as well. Let is all roll up into one big WAR.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I think more players (myself included) would want a Arena similar to the one found in Oblivion.
Could launch with its own PVE questline of you advancing through the ranks and maybe even a Gladiator skill tree.
Options of 1 vs 1 player duels and 4 vs 4 group fights in the arena for some non-Cyrodill action.
The new regions that they add could even be cross faction open world PVP for those enthusiasts as only a small portion of Tamriel is unlocked atm.
Yeah, watching one of the three sides dominate time and time again, Mythic begging people with pre-leveled characters to try to even out populations, and the funny looking /stuck based zerg combat, they got a ton right.
The 13 people still playing it agree!
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Battle grounds? No lol.
Maybe 1v1 arena or something when they get skills working right.
A thousand times, this!
Ryoshi1 as Rikimaru
I guarantee you that there were more people playing DAoC Saturday in primetime than there were on my Chrysamere campaign in ESO. DC had 16 players. AD had maybe 10. Pact had a handful. That's a game that just launched a month ago.
The only reason I stopped playing DAoC was the coding has fallen way behind the times. The netcode is ancient, and engine obviously could not handle the hundreds of players that came to big battles. But to claim that DAoC RvR was some sort of FAILURE is absurd and to try and mock it's population TWELVE - THIRTEEN YEARS after it launched is even worse.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Absolutely agreed.
Most people don't even know what the difference between the DAoC battlegrounds and WoW battlegrounds is. Such is the times we're in.
With Veteran Ranks, ESO should absolutely implement battlegrounds. It's obviously looking to mimic DAoC style RvR. Battlegrounds in vanilla DAoC were just as fun while you were leveling as was the frontiers of the end-game. One keep, vied over by all 3 realms, complete with siege. It was a blast, and served as a lite way to introduce the siege mechanics to the players. In DAoC's glory days, these battlegrounds were full of players from all 3 realms during normal playtime hours. It was the bait that hooked players and brought them into the glory that was DAoC RvR. ESO could use that.
As it stands, riding a slow as hell horse for 10 minutes only to get ganked by Veteran Rank players 200 yards from the keep you're trying to defend isn't fun. It's actually quite dumb.
"Offering many different paths for players to go down is a sure fire way to keep players engaged."
No it is not, this is a design fallacy. It usually works in PvE but goes appalling wrong when applied to PvP. If you have lots of things to do in PvE it keeps you engaged, if you have lots of things to do in PvP it splits you up.
This has happened time and time again but they do not learn. SWTOR was not launched long ago, they had a combat zone, PvP scenarios and PvP hutball. What happened? While the zone was all you could do PvP wise it went down well, by launch the other two types of PvP were up and running and no one used the combat zone anymore.
That's what could happen to TESO's keep capture combat zone if they are not careful. If they bring in anything that has more PvP awards then Cyrodiil will be abandoned.
if this is only for low level characters it could be a good thing, but I really doubt that would happen. So Cyrodiil would be abandoned up to veteran ranks for sure. Once 50+ with a Battlegorund to play and only playing battlegrounds for PvP up to that point why would they switch to Cyrodiil?
I think it's not a matter of if/then, but how. Playing in Cyrodiil as a level 24 isn't fun. It's just not. At best you're a siege-mule or spamming a ranged attacked on a poor sod who was unlucky enough to fall off the keep wall. You contribution is already minimal, and will only decrease as more players reach the Veteran Ranks.
I agree they should not offer battlegrounds as an alternative to end-game Cyrodiil PvP. They should offer it as an alternative to PvP before you reach level cap and end-game.
EDIT- Scot, on inclusion of your edit, I completely agree with you.