Fixing BG [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

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Uinael_Guk

07-06-2010, 02:15 PM

I know there are some who think there are absolutely no issues with BG's, but each map certainly needs it's tweaks.Gears of KlakanonThis one doesn't really need a lot of work.. Dropping in the middle is a good idea, it creates a big battle for center in a tiny map with some sniping points. Don't listen to the people saying to go back to the old way of fighting in the hallways.Battlefield of GanakThis one can be fun but can be extremely boring depending on who picks up the flags. If two well geared wardens pick it up, forget it, this is a painful endurance match.Suggestions:1) Make the flag carry a penalty if held. I'm not sure damage over time is good, but definitely being debuffed both offensively and defensively would be a good start. I'd 'say something like:After 2 mins: Minor Attrition - Decrease all attributes and run speed by 20%After 5 mins: Attrition - Decrease all attributes and run speed by 50%After 10 mins: Major Attrition - Decrease all attributes and run speed by 75%2) **REMOVE COMBAT SPEED** I can't believe this issue hasn't been resolved yet. Do the devs actually think it's smart to allow a person to run full speed, get a flag and EVERY PERSON who attacks him gets automatically put to 0% while the runner remains at 60+?Smugglers DenThis map needs a lot of work. I'd be willing to bet if you polled people on their favorite maps, this would come up last most often. While it's hard to come up with solutions, I can definitely point out problems with it.1) Matches are too long - 20 mins is fine for the match length, the problem is a very large % of matches i've been involved in (as i'm sure others too), matches go on average well over 15 mins long, whether it's a close match or a blowout.In gears, if you have a dominant team, you can win in 5 or so mins. You hold on to the relic, get a lot of kills, etc. In ganak, matches can range from 3 mins to 20 mins depending on the teams. Unbalanced teams can end their misery quickly, get their token and move on.In den, however, even bad teams can still extend matches to 12-15 mins long, which makes it painful. Sure, there is more of a chance of a comeback with a longer match, but that leads me to #22) Comebacks are challenging - Comebacks are easy in both other matches. I've seen a Ganak match lost after leading 300+ to 50, just takes some flags being captured. I'm sure we've all been part of a gears match where one team is over 600 points and the other team grabs the relic and ends up winning. In Den, you can get down 300-400 early in the game pretty easily and then struggle to even make a game of it. I have no clue what can be done to help this issue, mostly because i'm not really sure what the objective of 'Den' is. Is it:A) Capture the towers - The object of this game would be to keep capping towers. If so, there should be a bonus point gain per tower you capture, which would give teams a chance if they're not holding center.B) Capture and HOLD the towers - If this is the objective, shouldn't the point gain for holding a tower increase the longer you hold it? If a solid point system can be laid out, this may not be a bad idea because teams would want to hold on to their towers but also take over towers that are giving the opposing team a lot of points. Could add to some strategy of this.3) Rewards are low - This has been pointed out in other threads, but 3 for win, 1 for a loss is too low for the match length, the randomness of victory, etc. It's almost better for one team to give up after 2-3 mins and try to make it a 10 min slaughter for 1 token than it is to try for 20 mins and lose by 100 for 1 token. 5 for a win, 2 for a loss may be the most ideal.4) Tough on pre-made groups- IMO, if a pre-made setup joins a Ganak and especially Den, they should remain like that setup. I do BG's with a decent group, but doing a Den is pointless because we're likely going to get split up, and by the time the raidleader puts the group back together (IF he does), the match is 1/4 over and one team likely has a decent lead. I'm sure it would take some coding because it appears it just throws people in first come first serve, and it would require situations of people in group 2 with 2 members and groups 3 and 4 full because they were pre-made, but it's something that should be done. People encourage joining Den and Ganak as pre-made to increase the odds of winning but that always gets thrown out the window when groups are scattered. A cheap solution could be a vote for raidleader but since the coding has the raidleader in group 1, that could cause problems too.5) Spawn points and camping - This one is another shocking one that seems to be pvp 101, you don't give a central location to spawn and have your enemy know it. I know it's not entirely the case in Den because the second you take over a tower, you can spawn at that tower. What about 2 extra spawn points:Spawn on Raid LeaderSpawn on Group LeaderOr would that make it too powerful? Raid leader likely would, but group leader I don't think would be as bad, it'll at least promote keeping groups together.6) Clueless UI - It would be nice to have some type of visual reference up below the score that shows:A) List of TowersB) What color is controlling themC) The point value per tick for that tower (especially useful if it was a varied amount)And if you click on one of the towers, it gives a solid waypoint to that tower. Especially helpful for the newer people to battlegrounds who have no clue what tower is where. I know the maps have it, but I don't see a problem with multiple indicators. Wow, ok long post. Hopefully a dev takes a look at it and gets some ideas. Feel free to comment on it, but stick with constructive comments please. I don't mind if my ideas are horrible, but please point out why. Thanks!

Brigh

07-07-2010, 05:07 AM

<cite>Luceus@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>I know there are some who think there are absolutely no issues with BG's, but each map certainly needs it's tweaks.Gears of KlakanonThis one doesn't really need a lot of work.. Dropping in the middle is a good idea, it creates a big battle for center in a tiny map with some sniping points. Don't listen to the people saying to go back to the old way of fighting in the hallways.Battlefield of GanakThis one can be fun but can be extremely boring depending on who picks up the flags. If two well geared wardens pick it up, forget it, this is a painful endurance match. Nature Walk shouldn't even be allowed, and remove the spots or make them even higher where people with the glide/jump abilities (behind the forts or up on the aqueduct revive spots) go up and hide the flag out of reach of people.Suggestions:1) Make the flag carry a penalty if held. I'm not sure damage over time is good, but definitely being debuffed both offensively and defensively would be a good start. I'd 'say something like:After 2 mins: Minor Attrition - Decrease all attributes and run speed by 20%After 5 mins: Attrition - Decrease all attributes and run speed by 50%After 10 mins: Major Attrition - Decrease all attributes and run speed by 75%2) **REMOVE COMBAT SPEED** I can't believe this issue hasn't been resolved yet. Do the devs actually think it's smart to allow a person to run full speed, get a flag and EVERY PERSON who attacks him gets automatically put to 0% while the runner remains at 60+? Once again, fae warden with Nature Walk, cloak, sow, boots, etc = just sit it out and curse SoE devs.Smugglers DenThis map needs a lot of work. I'd be willing to bet if you polled people on their favorite maps, this would come up last most often. While it's hard to come up with solutions, I can definitely point out problems with it.1) Matches are too long - 20 mins is fine for the match length, the problem is a very large % of matches i've been involved in (as i'm sure others too), matches go on average well over 15 mins long, whether it's a close match or a blowout.In gears, if you have a dominant team, you can win in 5 or so mins. You hold on to the relic, get a lot of kills, etc. In ganak, matches can range from 3 mins to 20 mins depending on the teams. Unbalanced teams can end their misery quickly, get their token and move on.In den, however, even bad teams can still extend matches to 12-15 mins long, which makes it painful. Sure, there is more of a chance of a comeback with a longer match, but that leads me to #2 I was recently in a SD that had only FIVE people on my side! What is up with allowing that?!2) Comebacks are challenging - Comebacks are easy in both other matches. I've seen a Ganak match lost after leading 300+ to 50, just takes some flags being captured. I'm sure we've all been part of a gears match where one team is over 600 points and the other team grabs the relic and ends up winning. In Den, you can get down 300-400 early in the game pretty easily and then struggle to even make a game of it. I have no clue what can be done to help this issue, mostly because i'm not really sure what the objective of 'Den' is. Is it:A) Capture the towers - The object of this game would be to keep capping towers. If so, there should be a bonus point gain per tower you capture, which would give teams a chance if they're not holding center.B) Capture and HOLD the towers - If this is the objective, shouldn't the point gain for holding a tower increase the longer you hold it? If a solid point system can be laid out, this may not be a bad idea because teams would want to hold on to their towers but also take over towers that are giving the opposing team a lot of points. Could add to some strategy of this.3) Rewards are low - This has been pointed out in other threads, but 3 for win, 1 for a loss is too low for the match length, the randomness of victory, etc. It's almost better for one team to give up after 2-3 mins and try to make it a 10 min slaughter for 1 token than it is to try for 20 mins and lose by 100 for 1 token. 5 for a win, 2 for a loss may be the most ideal.4) Tough on pre-made groups- IMO, if a pre-made setup joins a Ganak and especially Den, they should remain like that setup. I do BG's with a decent group, but doing a Den is pointless because we're likely going to get split up, and by the time the raidleader puts the group back together (IF he does), the match is 1/4 over and one team likely has a decent lead. I'm sure it would take some coding because it appears it just throws people in first come first serve, and it would require situations of people in group 2 with 2 members and groups 3 and 4 full because they were pre-made, but it's something that should be done. People encourage joining Den and Ganak as pre-made to increase the odds of winning but that always gets thrown out the window when groups are scattered. A cheap solution could be a vote for raidleader but since the coding has the raidleader in group 1, that could cause problems too.5) Spawn points and camping - This one is another shocking one that seems to be pvp 101, you don't give a central location to spawn and have your enemy know it. I know it's not entirely the case in Den because the second you take over a tower, you can spawn at that tower. What about 2 extra spawn points:Spawn on Raid LeaderSpawn on Group LeaderOr would that make it too powerful? Raid leader likely would, but group leader I don't think would be as bad, it'll at least promote keeping groups together. People camping Gears respawn spot can just eat my absence since that is what I do. I don't give a [Removed for Content] about truancy. I just camp out. I am not going to constantly be attacked while I am rebuffing. Why isn't there a one-way shield up?6) Clueless UI - It would be nice to have some type of visual reference up below the score that shows:A) List of TowersB) What color is controlling themC) The point value per tick for that tower (especially useful if it was a varied amount)And if you click on one of the towers, it gives a solid waypoint to that tower. Especially helpful for the newer people to battlegrounds who have no clue what tower is where. I know the maps have it, but I don't see a problem with multiple indicators. Wow, ok long post. Hopefully a dev takes a look at it and gets some ideas. Feel free to comment on it, but stick with constructive comments please. I don't mind if my ideas are horrible, but please point out why. Thanks!</blockquote>

MurFalad

07-07-2010, 08:34 AM

To comment on the OP's post, I'd agree that Dens offers few comeback opportunities, so maybe either end it early if a team gets too far ahead, or change it so that a comeback is possible, I actually much prefer long matches though.Tokens drop fast enough I think, and the gear is massively overpowered for non raiders (more on that later), Personally I think a lot of fundemental rules need to be improved, here's my list of ideas.1) Fix the focus mechanic where if you are hit its hard to complete casting a long ability, it seems to make no difference to players whether they are being hit by 4-5 others to their ability to get spells off, this especially makes healers unkillable. And it removes a layer of strategy, players should have to think where to stand and care about not getting into melee if they want to cast those long spells.2) Slow things down a little, make the haste rating worth less, as it is not everything happens so fast that people cannot counter moves with interrupts (again making healers nigh on invulnerable). It also increases the load on the servers, slowing things down would move the game more from spamming abilities to more strategic use of abilities at the right time to win.3) Remove toughness, remove all proc's that increase the users health. Players shouldn't need crutches like vastly better gear to beat their opponents in a PVP game, terrible mistakes like allowing yourself to be attacked from behind for a long period of time should result in death. While EQ2 isn't a purely skill based game there shouldn't be any gear available that would allow a player to become invulnerable to someone the same level, any time, period.4) Run speed, not sure on this one, there are counters in the game already to snare players. But at the same time I don't like the way that any class can get run speed via items as run speed is very class defining, making such available via items allows for the ultimate combo. So I'd suggest only allowing racial/class/AA run speed enhancements to work (Fae already have an awesome racial), this I think would make the default fastest runner class a bard, which sounds interesting as they have less survivability then a warden.I'd also like to see a taunt added that put the opponent into combat, but since I play a Guardian I've got a lot of self interest there, but it sounds like it would be an interesting ability at least.5) For BG gear I'd add in a low cost starter set of gear and require this (or the BG mastercrafted gear) to be part of the payment for the higher levels of gear. This encourages people to get this gear first thus decreasing the gear gap a little, and also giving some intermediate goals to work towards. Right now its binary, either you have the fully fabled character or not, and there is little reason to bother getting the low end BG gear as it costs a ton (set of 7 pieces costs ~105 plat on my server) and this investment is then wasted when upgrading.I'd then change BG PVP gear big time, aiming to make it equal to legendary dungeon based gear at the high end but with PVP only stats that scale it all the way up to raid level (and maybe a little above). 6) Blue adornments should be a pvp only effect, and I'd like to see as something totally different, something like increasing resistance/dps in one type of damage at the expense of making the character a little more vulnerable to another type. This gives players more depth in customising their class even further to give them the edge over another class (10-20%). That way the top end BG gear would probably have white, blue and yellow slots.The reason I'd change the gear is because currently I think BG's are hurting the game as they encourage people to solo them rather then join group content (I believe they were itemised with raiders in mind only), and the gear rewards in BG's are far better then anything a dungeon drops, meaning that people once geared up in BG's are done with dungeons. That's bad news for long term playability, and pretty awful for the social side of EQ2 (I've noticed in the last two weeks since UK BG's were linked to the US that our guild has done much less dungeon running together). I believe BG gear should be worth while in PVE, but really be tuned to be the best only for PVP, that way dedicated PVPers can match raiders, but not skip group/raid progression.

Shiirr

07-07-2010, 10:58 AM

Just a thought, but rather than a sliding debuff (removing Naturewalk negates an entire AA endline, and as a Swashy I'd hate to see anyone else get that same screwing, even temporarily), why not simply have it encumber a character? Just suggesting a different way to look at it, not saying I agree with it.

monte9

07-07-2010, 11:20 AM

Go to a point base system for rewards. This gets rid of most of the above issues.IE: for every 100 points you get 1 token on both the losing and winning side.This would cause everyone to fight to the end for every little point and keep the boredom out of the BG. Close games in the Den would still reward the losing side for come close. The holding of the flag forever wouldn’t happen. If you keep the flag and don’t try to turn it in, you don’t get points, you don’t get tokens. So a game were someone holds the flag forever, hides, or whatever ends in 150 to 100 score game… only 1 token for each…This force people to actually fight in the game, do the objectives, and rewards both side for the amount work put into it.