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Do Battegrounds really provide for "more fair" PVP?
Kyleran
Member LegendaryPosts: 43,975
I was reading in another thread that Battlegrounds in MMORPG's were popular because they provided more fair PVP than open world. But as I thought about it, I wondered if that was really the case.
What I've observed is that while in theory BG PVP should be more fair, the reality is far from the truth. Sometimes it's due to one side actually having more players than the other as most MMO's seem to permit BG matches to start with uneven sides or players drop out while queued or after starting
Another situation I've run into is due to the random nature of the queue systems one side may have no healers, hence putting that team at a serious disadvantage. Similar to this is when one particular class is currently considered overpowered, and one team has more players with those advantages and overwhealms the other.
Probably the biggest imbalance occurs when premade teams enter the fray vs pick up group teams, this almost always result in a slaughter fest by the more organized group.
In Rift there was a PVP 'level' system, and player who had reached the top tiers had a significant advantage over those who didn't, and of course, as with any gear grinder, those with the best gear frequently won.
So in the end, I don't think battleground combat turns out all that fair, and it even takes away the one weapon that the weaker opponents might have in open world PVP (a la DAOC, not WOW) to level the playing field, that being the zerg of course.
I can understand why the folks with advantages hate the zerg, but in order to keep the game fun it serves its purpose and gives players with fewer advantages a chance at winning. (and provides more of a challenge for those trying to overcome it)
So I'll finish with short poll, do you really think BG PVP is that much more fair than open world PVP, or do both systems suffer from imbalances of one sort or another.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Comments
No matter how flawed a Battleground system, to a certain chunk of players it will always be better and more 'fair' than getting whacked in the face from behind when you're trying to mine for fish.
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No Userbar here, sorry to disappoint.
No. They provide a "more boring" form of pvp.
BGs provide a fair fight for the person who only sees balance in the number of players. If you factor in gear, skill, AFKers or premades vs PUGs, you can hardly call them fair.
I don't think it is 'more fair' per se, but it allows players to PVP in a 'safe' environment.
Can't really 'gank' someone that's 'fishing/mining/fighting this monster omg i pulled too much!' in a BG.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I won't argue that point and wasn't suggesting that they don't elminate ganking. I was really just focused on the issue of whether the PVP itself was more fair than facing opponents in the open world. I really don't think they are, both present situations of "unfairness" and I think that players who constantly seek "fairness" in PVP will always be frustrated.
In fact, I don't think fairness is really the question, the issue is how to win no matter what the situation is. If you had played DAOC back in the day you'd know that the game mechanics made it possible for a single 8 man to defeat a zerg of 24 but of course, not necessarily a zerg of 48, so while most times the 8 man might prevail, it still went down on occasion when running into the 100 man zerg.
I think in current BG situations its quite possible for many players to rarely experience a win especially if running up against superior premades who likely almost never lose.
Not saying one is superior to the other, more of a preference thing actually, but I don't feel BG's are more fair just because they try to balance player numbers. Sure, that is a factor, but I don't think its the only or greatest factor.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Depends on the setup but a 8 vs 24 sounds more like a game balancing issue if the 24 loses.
Course if it is 8 Navy SEAL vs 24 Caveman then it is a different story.
You can't control the other person's gear/skill/whatever so at least getting the numbers to even up will be what a reasonable person will want, which a BG will provide.
League of Legends only matches pre-made with pre-made I think and solo with solo. I think that's a good comprimise, giving players choices but also making sure that choice doesn't too negatively affect the players.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
All problems with battlegrounds could be fixed by changing the match making system.
So if there is a problem, with battlegrounds you have the ability to fix the problem, which I think makes battlegrounds more fair than open world PvP. With open world PvP the imbalances are endemic to the design and can never be balanced without deviating from the open nature of PvP or introducing some contrivence into PvP.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
BGs are fairer
that still doesnt mean they are fair
and yup, they are more boring. I'll gladly take the unfair world PvP over the PvP-in-a-can
I voted definately more "fair". Open PvP is typically 50% about how many friends you have, 30% getting the jump on unexpected targets, 10% skill and 10% level/gear/etc (unless the level difference is HUGE). While the BG system is flawed in many ways it works to even the playing field on a few levels, of course all this does is move the numbers around so its now 10% how many friends you have, 10% getting the jump on someone (hard to do when its a pvp-only area), 50% gear and 30% skill (maybe 30% gear 30% skill and 20% rock, paper, scissors).
Whether moving the numbers from your number of friends to gear is fair? 6 of one half dozen of another, both sides have equal oppurtunity to either get gear or get friends or get better at your class... so... doesn't it still just come down to time spent?
But the obviousness of the fairness is shown by the now glaring issues of class balance. If BGs were NOT fair even fights, then something small like a 5% dmg buff/nerf would not cause so much grief in the community. In the days of open pvp no one bothered with this sort of micro-management because all you needed was 1 more friend and and class imbalance was easily overcome.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
nha on average the issue become wich faction has more player so they gear up faster and win more often!
if you got 90 of server on one faction and 10 % on the other and you can only play 2 days a week in bg or rated bg
the fact is the prob of having max geared player is higher on the 90% faction!
Agreed, I guess my perceptions are colored by DAOC and its 3 faction form of PVP which hasn't been effectively implemented since then.
I agree, two faction PVP seems to get very imbalanced and I experienced this in a big way in Aion most recently.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
they need a balancing system a la aion!and i got to say 3 faction is the best susrpisingly in a chaotic way it balance it self (3 faction excluding npc)
3 factions does typically seem more balanced, I wonder if its because if any one faction becomes overpowered the weaker two typically "gang up" on the more powerful putting them back in check.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
it doesnt. people keeps saying it does. that doesnt make it happen
Battlegrounds can resolve one particular type of imbalance. Namely, the imbalance of numbers.
It is possible for a battleground system to ensure that both "teams" have a very similar number of players. In open world PvP, the winner often comes down to who was able to bring more people. Realistic yes, but not very balanced.
However, there are still plenty of imabalances that battleground PvP does not resolve:
1. Class balance - A team with a better mix of classes often has the advantage even if the numbers are the same.
2. Level balance - A team with more high levels has an advantage.
3. Gear balance - A team with better geared players has an advantage.
Also, it's possible for a battleground PvP system to be implemented in a way that doesn't even resolve the imbalance of numbers. It all depends on how it is implemented in the end. And as I mentioned above, it only resolves one particular imbalance.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Both have imbalances. Open pvp is alot about ganking (moar like 99%). bg is instance and in theory you get a group. unfortunatelly you can get randoms vs premade and that usually means a wipe. also because there are brackets, there are always lowbies and maxers in the bracket - its usually a visible difference.
'Battlegrounds' are a more balanced way to engage in PvP if your goal is competition or an 'e-sports' kind of thing. If you win 50% of the time in instanced PvP with random player groups, then you're doing it right (or the system is working right).
World PvP suffers from all of the imbalances that instanced PvP suffers from. In fact, not once in 3+ years of playing mmorpg have I engaged in any sort of balanced or fair world PvP. The reason is that people generally don't get into fights they can't win. They run away or they hide. Which makes sense, since you're not looking for competition, you're looking for victory, generally any way possible, including zerging the opposition. If you win 50% of the time in world PvP, then you're doing it wrong. You're getting into fights you can't win.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
More fair than what?
They do keep down griefing, but most games that uses them are itembased and that means that the person with best gear will win anyways unless they are really incompetent (and in some games even then).
The idea of battlegrounds are more to provide FPS styled combat than to make PvP fair.
Balanced gear (like GW) is the thing that makes PvP more fair.
nha!in theory and practice the lower faction win more but, the fact there are only 10% of player on said faction means there will always be the issue that the 10% faction will be lower geared for lac of player!so in the end the 90% faction will have the upper hand just because of cheer number.but like i say if lower faction is in there the lower faction will have insanelly good ods of winning!why?say you pvpve in daily of rage of fireland you got 9 player against you and your solo,if you learned to play against those odds when you arrive in bg you will just crush the competition even if they are 2 vs 1 you !shouldnt be but that is what happen!check back when they balanced wintergrasp.the higher faction complained on 2 front lower faction always won (when they showed up)and the higher faction couldnt go in because of the lac of lower faction player.so in the end blizzard had to revert to their older system because they hadnt balanced faction.this balance has always been an issue for all game!
PVP isnt supposed to be fair, however, a well constructed game will make incentives to keep population balance out of the picture. That is the one aspect of the game an individual player can not control and the one thing that makes open world/battleground type pvp not fun. It would also be usefull to have more maps with strategic points and terrain and things smart players can use to overcome bad odds.
There are a whole host of things that can be done to keep the sides somewhat balanced overall and more things that have not even been thought of..mainly it takes a company that has a focus on making good pvp to come up with solutions to all of the balance issues that should be addressed....some issues though should simply be left in the players hands to be dealt with.
Something is always going to be considered fair vs unfair. Most every time someone loses, much of the mentality will wince with unfairness.
There has been so much crying and whining of unfairness by the vocal minority to the point where its' given rise to nanny-state gaming, where game-play welfare has become their development bench-mark. As a result, most mainstream mmorpgs have become unfun at end-game, overly glorified single-player, lobby-system rpgs, not massively multiplayer games that invoke the enthusiasm or entertainment of a community involved in a virtual world; but a lobby-system third-person shooter.
So pure balance is an illusion; always has been and always will be. Emphasis on Battlegrounds of 8v8 minimaps have emerged as the precipice of mmorpg game-play, of which why most that purchase a mmorpg box, end up leaving that same game 3-6 months out due to the sheer shallowness and lazy game-play mechanic that developers hang their hat on as nutrional mmorpg entertainment. In a more massively-multiplayer orgainic and open environment, players that are able to organize, coordinate, amass as a larger team are demagogued by the vocal minority about unfair advantage, of not having their entitlements for their lack of time, effort, coordination, ability, community, cooperativeness or know-how.
In short, my answer is that I dont care because this issue of mmorpg end-game (or even throughout game) amounting to the mind-numbing redundancy of Raiding the same map and mobs, or being in a lobbied shoe-box map for a third-person shooter match that has no relevance on the concept of massively-multiplayer, is actually more shallow and entertainment malnutritious than game-play that you would find in All Points Bulletin missions; running the same small group missions over and over again ad nauseum, but in this case with these mmorpgs, for $15/months.
the only good balancing i saw ,was in racing.basicly the winners were added weight so that it would = chance for everybody
silly i know but you know what!it made it insanelly fun because the winner had more of a challenge and the looser gained added chance of winning!it is the only system i saw that worked fairly well!
It is more fair because the developers can control the number of particpants. In open world, the number of players matters more than anything... the side with the most players has a huge advantage. The devs can also control respawn rates in a battleground and not have it affect questing.
It is also more fair because it diminishes class balance issues and synergies. In WOW, when you get down to 3v3 arena games, it is all about class synergies of your team, and to a lesser degree, getting lucky and fighting against a class that is weak against your class.
In battlegrounds, like 10 or 20 man.. There can be a size advantage for one team, but it is only going to be 1 or 2 people, and maybe only for a short time. There is also likely to be more different classes present.... so that one class that is the bane of your existence probably has to deal with a class that is the bane of his existence.
There is no such thing as "fair" in pvp. Besides faction system is flawed.
Anyway what's wrong with BG is that they are BORING. Same maps repeated over and over and always same ppl vs same ppl amount. Whole experience is repetable and boring like grinding instances or killing 10 boars for a quest.
"Fair "pretty much equals boring and predictable. I would gladly take unfair and spontaneous any day.
SWG pre-cu was the most enjoyment I have ever had PvPing. Yes there was always the FoTM build and it was buggy and at times exploited but it actually felt like it meant some thing to attack a player city or to be attacked.
Most times the attacked were out numbered because the attackers had planned the assault but it was still a blast.