Back in 2017, The Elder Scrolls Online introduced a new PvP mode called Battlegrounds. Three teams of four would fight one another in a frantic, no-holds-barred arena match across signature modes like Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag.
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The Elder Scrolls Online Lead PvP Designer Wants To Iron Out Cyrodiil Lag
“I want to really go back there and see what we can streamline”.
The idea was to represent the Three Banners War of Cyrodiil in a microcosm, taking those larger than life sieges and shrinking them down to a more focused bout. But after seven years, ZeniMax Online has completely overhauled the mode, reducing the number of teams to just two with 4v4 and 8v8 queues.
“When you really break down an arena match, it’s just a small group of people beating the crap out of each other,” lead combat and PvP designer Brian Wheeler says. “That’s kind of where we started, but we know that there’s another crowd out there that plays PvP, that likes to be more relaxed. And some of the feedback we get from Battlegrounds, both internally and externally, is that it’s 15 minutes of adrenaline — go, go, go! We wanted to introduce a bit more of a relaxed method.”
I’m Bad At PvP, Will I Enjoy Battlegrounds?
I’m awful at PvP. I’m a quest-driven player who enjoys dungeons, so you’ll rarely see me holding a Chaosball. That being said, I spent weeks of my childhood grinding to be crowned Emperor in Cyrodiil (it never worked), played countless matches of Battlegrounds (losing most), and tried dueling strangers in Auridon (take a guess). I don’t seem to be getting better, and it’s hard to stay motivated, let alone relaxed. So, sitting down with Wheeler, I had to ask: what would you say to those of us who outright suck at PvP?
“Definitely hop into the 8v8 queue,” he says. “We have a solo queue and a group queue, and you can’t go in with a large group. You can only go in with you and three other people. But what 8v8 affords people is the opportunity to sit back and watch a bit. In Cyrodiil and the Imperial City, you can have those large fights where you run around and don’t have to be in the thick of it. And your actions, because there’s more people, aren’t as magnified.
“If you think about your time running around in a dungeon in PvE content and you’re doing hard mode and Vet, if you miss a heal, somebody dies. That same sort of pressure exists in our 4v4v4 matches. What we saw was that, when we start adding more people, that pressure starts to get reduced for your individual actions, so there’s not as much, ‘You have to be on the ball at all times!’, for 15 minutes straight.”
Another key feature that makes Battlegrounds more casual friendly is the power-ups, which you can find in 8v8. These give you bonus damage, make you run faster, bolster your defenses, and improve your Ultimate ability. So, even if your build isn’t great at taking out opponents, there’s a way to level the playing field.
“Initially, in the Morrowind chapter, we had the quad damage power up, we called it. And that was a little bit contentious,” Wheeler says. “Some of our competitive crew were like, ‘This ruins the sanctity of a straight up PvP match!’ We’ve found that adding those power-ups back into the 8v8 matches only lessens that burden of, ‘You have to be on point at all times.’
“A key example of this is my build right now. I’ve done all the builds out there — ganker, healer, tank, front line fighter, siege runner. What I’m doing right now is this selfish healer, and it’s an objective player. You go from objective to objective and you’re hard to kill. You can’t necessarily do a lot of damage, but in those matches with the power-ups, I can actually kill people again. So, it gives you that flexibility.”
New Battlegrounds, New Maps
For the first time since 2018, ESO has introduced a bunch of new Battlegrounds maps. But as they now feature two teams instead of three, an overhaul to how ZeniMax approaches designing maps for the mode was needed.
“We were locked into a certain format because it was three teams and you needed to have equal run times from three different locations to get to the center point or various objectives, which lends itself to a hexagon shape,” Wheeler explains. “We did break from that mold a little bit with Istirus and Eld Angavar, where they were kind of stacked. When we were looking at two sides, we put people into Foyada Quarry and shifted the spawns around.
“We saw that didn’t really play well. Because there was a lot of dead space on the side, people just go straight at each other. We think that’s great for a four-on-four arena match — you want to have a small compact area. But we couldn’t have four-on-four in Foyada Quarry or any of our current existing maps. So we were like, ‘Okay, we need to build smaller maps, and they need to be very straight up, you versus me.’ So those maps are very simple in their layout.”
The 4v4 Competitive Leaderboard
One of the other major shake-ups in the new update is the leaderboard. Previously, Battlegrounds matches had three leaderboards, one per team, which has now been streamlined into a single one. And lending to the higher-octane nature of 4v4, there’s a Competitive Leaderboard too, which does far more than show off how many kills you got.
“We have several different altered reward schemes that we’re implementing this update for PvP, which even stretches out to the Imperial City. But for the Battlegrounds themselves, doing the 4v4 competitive matches gets you access to the leaderboard, and that’s the only way to get on that leaderboard.
“Those leaderboards have specific rewards for them. There’s rewards you get at the end of each Battlegrounds match, whether you place first or second, and how well you did medal wise,” Wheeler says. “By participating in the 4v4, you get leaderboard access. By participating in the 8v8, you get access to the gear that you would earn at the end of the matches, same as 4v4, at a slightly lower rate.
“We’re trying to incentivise the competitive side for that crew that wants to run around and say, ‘Look, I am a PvPer. I can show off my gear, show off my look.’”
4v4v4 Could Always Return
When announcing the overhauled Battlegrounds, ZeniMax teased that 4v4v4 might return in limited time events, so the original version of the mode isn’t gone for good. But what about it returning as a permanent staple down the line?
“There’s always a future for anything,” Wheeler tells me. “We don’t have a crystal ball, and we want to see how feedback goes from players about the two sided [mode]. We also wanted to ensure that we gave two sided the best opportunity to give players a shot to play it for a whole patch cycle. We’ve already decided we’re definitely going to bring back three sided [Battlegrounds] as weekend events that we currently already have with pointing out, ‘It’s deathmatch weekend!’ or ‘It’s domination weekend.’
“Right now for this cycle, we converted those holidays to still use the two sided maps. So for Update 44 until Update 45 minimum, they will be two sided holidays. But post 45, we’re going to look at bringing back three sided [Battlegrounds] as holidays. We may bring them back as a permanent queue option. We’re open to those options looking forward, but it is nice that for now, two sided gets a spotlight.”
One of the most exciting things about The Elder Scrolls Online is its willingness to adapt. It’s not the kind of MMO to stagnate — if something isn’t working, radical changes are made. We’ve seen this since ESO’s inception, when ZeniMax made the bold move back in 2016 to open up the entire map to every player regardless of level or alliance with One Tamriel, a move that could have spelled the end of the game, or saved it from its infamous launch.
We’re talking about it ten years later, so you can see how it turned out. The Battlegrounds update is another in a long line of major shifts to breathe new life into the game, giving the PvP scene a kick up the rear. It’ll be interesting to see how it fares throughout the next patch cycle, but the move to accommodate casual players already feels like a great step forward.
The Elder Scrolls Online is an MMORPG enjoyed by millions of players, set in the continent of Tamriel. Initially launched in 2014, multiple expansions take you to Skyrim, Morrowind, and other iconic locations from the series. You can choose from one of ten races and five classes before taking on a multitude of quests, dungeons, and trials.