Why we need a fourth scoring category in Battlegrounds

I get the the KO, opponent times out no KO. I lose the round solely based on attacker health remaining. We need a fourth score category for getting the KO. There's no reason why someone should win a round without KOing the opponent.

Comments

Chatterofforums

Your opponent just ran out of time which is easy to do on these shortened timers. Looking at the photo your opponent clearly fought much cleaner and better than you and deserved the win.

Ercarret

Your opponent just ran out of time which is easy to do on these shortened timers. Looking at the photo your opponent clearly fought much cleaner and better than you and deserved the win.

It depends on how you view the ideal win conditions. If they are supposed to be "Do as well as you can within the time limit", then yeah, he did better. However, if KO'ing the opponent/actually winning the fight is the main goal, then OP accomplished that goal while their opponent objectively did not.

I don't know where I stand nowadays. I definitely landed squarely in the "KO is the main point" camp in the first BG beta, but after playing it for a while I can see how the other parameters are also important when scoring.

In the end, I think I like the current system. If you KO the opponent, you get a time bonus. If you don't, you get zero points in that category. However, if you've played well enough despite scoring nothing in that one category, you can still eke out a win. I think that's ultimately pretty fair.

World Eater

Your opponent just ran out of time which is easy to do on these shortened timers. Looking at the photo your opponent clearly fought much cleaner and better than you and deserved the win.

Gotta disagree with that.

One person won their fight and KOd the opponent; the other didn’t win their fight. IMHO, OP should get the win here.

Colinwhitworth69

It is odd to lose a match when you defeated the enemy and they did not defeat you, but as long as we all play by the same rules...not gonna worry about it.

Zeft5ara

Yea i think you should get the win tbh, it's stupid that you're being graded on this against an opponent that didn't win
I mean this is just a penalty for having suicides active nothing more
I get being graded on several factors but one 9f them should at the very least be getting a KO
So adding another category for the score is a good idea i think, getting a ko has to count for something

Malreck04

I don’t get this idea of where killing the opponent with 5% is this crazy amazing achievement in comparison to having a good fight but timing out for a little bit of health.

Maybe everyone is secretly a whale spending their way through the game but as a free to play I completely understand how significant it is to be able to preserve your health even if it takes more time, it is an actual skill.

Mackey

There is something not right, I see where some are coming from eith regards to ko with 1 % health remaining with the likes of herc etc but I've actually lost a round (on more than one occasion) where I havent ko'd them but done about 40% health off them and lost about 40% myself yet they get my defender down to 10% health but their attacker KO's ... what is your thoughts on this @BitterSteel

Surely that is not more skillful as they died and I did not 🤔

Malreck04

Your opponent just ran out of time which is easy to do on these shortened timers. Looking at the photo your opponent clearly fought much cleaner and better than you and deserved the win.
Gotta disagree with that.

One person won their fight and KOd the opponent; the other didn’t win their fight. IMHO, OP should get the win here.
In my view, if there’s 2 players, one (player A) who finishes with 100% health, but reduced the opponent to 1hp *just not able* to beat them, they fought way better than the other (Player who gets taken down to 1% health themselves as the attacker, with a scrappy fight and only just manages to KO the opponent.
Though Player B may have been taken down to 1% health, he’s clearly way cooler than Player A

I always forget that B ) will correct to
I have to remember to use 1) and 2) instead of A) and

No joke I thought player

was intentional because it certainly fits the usage.

Pupkac

Well following rules your opponent has won. He did clear fight without mistakes And He deserved win by a far from my view... I would say this Is not racing game... He was better at Fighting...

Qwerty12345

I'm tired of people taking Nick down to 1% and quitting out... 99% should not be just a few points different than 100%.

That said, if you KO your opponent while you are at 1%, and your opponent gets enemy to 1%, but doesn't lose any health... you probably don't deserve the win.

I'm all for a few extra bonus points for the KO (say 5000).

GroundedWisdom

BGs are more than just killing the Opponent.

Ridikulus47

Your opponent just ran out of time which is easy to do on these shortened timers. Looking at the photo your opponent clearly fought much cleaner and better than you and deserved the win.
Gotta disagree with that.

One person won their fight and KOd the opponent; the other didn’t win their fight. IMHO, OP should get the win here.
You’re welcome to your opinion, but battlegrounds isn’t “kill your opponent”, it’s “maximise your points”. And that’s not me saying that, that’s Kabam’s intention with the game mode that they’ve confirmed. I can find it for you if you’d like.

In my view, if there’s 2 players, one (player A) who finishes with 100% health, but reduced the opponent to 1hp *just not able* to beat them, they fought way better than the other (Player who gets taken down to 1% health themselves as the attacker, with a scrappy fight and only just manages to KO the opponent.

The difference in defender health is 1 HP so player B is 1HP better, but the difference in attacker health is 99%, so player A is 99% total health better.

Overall, I think it’s pretty clear that player A has done better. Because at the moment the goal isn’t to just defeat the opponent.

And we have the same system in AW at the moment. The goal isn’t just to take down the opponent’s boss, you need to maximise diversity, attack bonuses, exploration etc

At the moment it’s possible to lose a war if you Ko the opponent’s boss, but don’t explore or have enough diversity.

Arguing that you should win BG match just by beating the defender no matter your health or time is like arguing you should win your war by just beating the boss, no matter your diversity or exploration.

We are judged on the different factors, we play to the rules set, and different things can judge how well you have played your fight or your war.

While most of your logic is sound, I believe that the mechanics are more subjective. Your analogy to AW is mostly accurate except that the intent is absolutely to KO each defender and the boss. You do not get points for just taking off some health but keeping your attacker's health high. Yes, you get points in multiple categories. However, you get more points and stand a much higher chance of winning if you KO the boss in each battle group.

"Arguing that you should win BG match just by beating the defender no matter your health or time is like arguing you should win your war by just beating the boss, no matter your diversity or exploration."

It's axiomatically not, nor is that what I am stating. I am not arguing that getting the KO should be an automatic win. I believe there should be a points category for doing so just as in AW. Another post below mentioned that the time points is essentially a KO bonus. This is also incorrect. It is simply another metric to differentiate the nuance of the fight. Ex: each attacker gets the KO, each has 100% health remaining. This is where the time metric applies.

Another post mentioned that the opponent "clearly played better". Maybe, maybe not. Is "playing better" taking less block damage due to higher champion block proficiency or having better RNG with perfect block? In the end, this is a fighting game where in every game mode the intent is to KO the defender, boss, opponent etc. There is no other area of content where you can obtain the highest rewards without completing the objective of KOing the defender, boss, opponent etc.

Ridikulus47

BGs are more than just killing the Opponent.

I'll refer you to the title. I am not saying KO=win.

World Eater

Your opponent just ran out of time which is easy to do on these shortened timers. Looking at the photo your opponent clearly fought much cleaner and better than you and deserved the win.
Gotta disagree with that.

One person won their fight and KOd the opponent; the other didn’t win their fight. IMHO, OP should get the win here.
You’re welcome to your opinion, but battlegrounds isn’t “kill your opponent”, it’s “maximise your points”. And that’s not me saying that, that’s Kabam’s intention with the game mode that they’ve confirmed. I can find it for you if you’d like.

In my view, if there’s 2 players, one (player A) who finishes with 100% health, but reduced the opponent to 1hp *just not able* to beat them, they fought way better than the other (Player who gets taken down to 1% health themselves as the attacker, with a scrappy fight and only just manages to KO the opponent.

The difference in defender health is 1 HP so player B is 1HP better, but the difference in attacker health is 99%, so player A is 99% total health better.

Overall, I think it’s pretty clear that player A has done better. Because at the moment the goal isn’t to just defeat the opponent.

And we have the same system in AW at the moment. The goal isn’t just to take down the opponent’s boss, you need to maximise diversity, attack bonuses, exploration etc

At the moment it’s possible to lose a war if you Ko the opponent’s boss, but don’t explore or have enough diversity.

Arguing that you should win BG match just by beating the defender no matter your health or time is like arguing you should win your war by just beating the boss, no matter your diversity or exploration.

We are judged on the different factors, we play to the rules set, and different things can judge how well you have played your fight or your war.

Well it’s kill your opponent and maximize your points right ? Killing the opponent is the primary objective since that will reward more points in most cases. I def don’t like seeing someone who won their fight lose to someone who didn’t win their fight.

Ridikulus47

I'm tired of people taking Nick down to 1% and quitting out... 99% should not be just a few points different than 100%.

That said, if you KO your opponent while you are at 1%, and your opponent gets enemy to 1%, but doesn't lose any health... you probably don't deserve the win.

I'm all for a few extra bonus points for the KO (say 5000).

Thats essentially what I'm getting at. Not saying that getting the KO means you win. But as some others have made analogies to AW, a boss clear is a separate category that yields additional points.

Worknprogress

Your opponent just ran out of time which is easy to do on these shortened timers. Looking at the photo your opponent clearly fought much cleaner and better than you and deserved the win.
It depends on how you view the ideal win conditions. If they are supposed to be "Do as well as you can within the time limit", then yeah, he did better. However, if KO'ing the opponent/actually winning the fight is the main goal, then OP accomplished that goal while their opponent objectively did not.

I don't know where I stand nowadays. I definitely landed squarely in the "KO is the main point" camp in the first BG beta, but after playing it for a while I can see how the other parameters are also important when scoring.

In the end, I think I like the current system. If you KO the opponent, you get a time bonus. If you don't, you get zero points in that category. However, if you've played well enough despite scoring nothing in that one category, you can still eke out a win. I think that's ultimately pretty fair.

KOing isn't the main goal. Scoring higher is.

Worknprogress

Your opponent just ran out of time which is easy to do on these shortened timers. Looking at the photo your opponent clearly fought much cleaner and better than you and deserved the win.
Gotta disagree with that.

One person won their fight and KOd the opponent; the other didn’t win their fight. IMHO, OP should get the win here.
You’re welcome to your opinion, but battlegrounds isn’t “kill your opponent”, it’s “maximise your points”. And that’s not me saying that, that’s Kabam’s intention with the game mode that they’ve confirmed. I can find it for you if you’d like.

In my view, if there’s 2 players, one (player A) who finishes with 100% health, but reduced the opponent to 1hp *just not able* to beat them, they fought way better than the other (Player who gets taken down to 1% health themselves as the attacker, with a scrappy fight and only just manages to KO the opponent.

The difference in defender health is 1 HP so player B is 1HP better, but the difference in attacker health is 99%, so player A is 99% total health better.

Overall, I think it’s pretty clear that player A has done better. Because at the moment the goal isn’t to just defeat the opponent.

And we have the same system in AW at the moment. The goal isn’t just to take down the opponent’s boss, you need to maximise diversity, attack bonuses, exploration etc

At the moment it’s possible to lose a war if you Ko the opponent’s boss, but don’t explore or have enough diversity.

Arguing that you should win BG match just by beating the defender no matter your health or time is like arguing you should win your war by just beating the boss, no matter your diversity or exploration.

We are judged on the different factors, we play to the rules set, and different things can judge how well you have played your fight or your war.
While most of your logic is sound, I believe that the mechanics are more subjective. Your analogy to AW is mostly accurate except that the intent is absolutely to KO each defender and the boss. You do not get points for just taking off some health but keeping your attacker's health high. Yes, you get points in multiple categories. However, you get more points and stand a much higher chance of winning if you KO the boss in each battle group.

"Arguing that you should win BG match just by beating the defender no matter your health or time is like arguing you should win your war by just beating the boss, no matter your diversity or exploration."

It's axiomatically not, nor is that what I am stating. I am not arguing that getting the KO should be an automatic win. I believe there should be a points category for doing so just as in AW. Another post below mentioned that the time points is essentially a KO bonus. This is also incorrect. It is simply another metric to differentiate the nuance of the fight. Ex: each attacker gets the KO, each has 100% health remaining. This is where the time metric applies.

Another post mentioned that the opponent "clearly played better". Maybe, maybe not. Is "playing better" taking less block damage due to higher champion block proficiency or having better RNG with perfect block? In the end, this is a fighting game where in every game mode the intent is to KO the defender, boss, opponent etc. There is no other area of content where you can obtain the highest rewards without completing the objective of KOing the defender, boss, opponent etc.

The points for getting the KO while your opponent doesn't is already there. That's the points you get for fight time. If you don't finish the fight you get 0 fight time points

Ironman3000

Timing out in BGs should cut your health in half just like AW/AQ.

Worknprogress

The absolute last thing the game mode needs is yet another thing incentivizing just loading your deck with 15+ nukes and YOLOing every fight. The reduced timer and health pool already made this past beta the least interesting and strategic by far. Was honestly about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Mackey

The absolute last thing the game mode needs is yet another thing incentivizing just loading your deck with 15+ nukes and YOLOing every fight. The reduced timer and health pool already made this past beta the least interesting and strategic by far. Was honestly about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Exactly, if you make just beating the fight worth too much, say hello to unskilled fights being rewarded more than skilled fights. Who cares if you finish on low health % as long as you end the fight.

Call me a stickler, but I’d prefer to see skill rewarded. Stay on high health, get rewarded.

Guessing you have no thoughts on what I said above?

Mackeyy

@BitterSteel can you give me some thoughts on this

This has happened to me on more than one occasion now but I've finished my round and haven't KO their defender but similarly my attacker isn't KO either, if I remember correctly on one occasio i'd lost roughly 70% of my health and removed roughly 30% of their health BUT they died to my defender but got my defender down to roughly 5% health before doing so .... how is that remotely skillful? He died .. I never 🤔.

I can appreciate this may not happen all that often but it does in fact happen. Something definitely needs tweaking on the scoring side of things ... this can't be happening 🤷‍♂️

Mackeyy

Know this isn't related to scoring but this also can't be happening... I never lost connection etc yet I lose after winning the first round 🤨

DNA3000

Your opponent just ran out of time which is easy to do on these shortened timers. Looking at the photo your opponent clearly fought much cleaner and better than you and deserved the win.
Gotta disagree with that.

One person won their fight and KOd the opponent; the other didn’t win their fight. IMHO, OP should get the win here.
You’re welcome to your opinion, but battlegrounds isn’t “kill your opponent”, it’s “maximise your points”. And that’s not me saying that, that’s Kabam’s intention with the game mode that they’ve confirmed. I can find it for you if you’d like.

This is true, but in my opinion it is more of a truism than a practical opinion on scoring. If the point to battlegrounds is to maximize your points, and only to maximize your points, then by definition the scoring system is always perfect. Because if the intent is always to maximize points, and the point system always gives the victory to whomever has the most points, it is always "correct." But that can't be the end of the story.

The point system expresses an idea: a set of rules that determines who wins. If the system awarded a million points to whomever defeated the opponent, it would be impossible to ever win if you don't defeat the opponent and the other competitor did. That's a points system with a clearly easy to understand point to it. Kill the defender and you win, unless both sides do, then insert tie breaker here.

The current system expresses a victory condition, but I don't think it is an intuitive one. It says beat the defender, unless you're going to take too much time, in which case risk more health to kill faster, but not too much. There's just no way any normal human can correctly assess what the "point" to the fight is at any particular moment. And I doubt anyone is: they are just trying to kill as fast as possible while getting hit as little as possible, and the trade off between those to is being set basically arbitrarily, based on the player's gut instinct probably completely detached from the actual fight.

Some people think that's fine, and that's okay as that is a preference, but then if you're fine with that sort of abstract scoring system then it will be difficult to justify a preference between that arbitrary scoring system and any other abstract arbitrary scoring system except "I like that one better." All other things being equal, there's no way for a third party, like say a game developer, to choose between such preferences. In that situation, the preferences that get chosen will tend to be the developers'.

I don't think that's the best way to arrive at a scoring system that has the least amount of friction among the playerbase.

GinjabredMonsta

I still think times shouldn't be waited so heavily and that they should stop calling things tie breakers

TyEdge

I don’t get this idea of where killing the opponent with 5% is this crazy amazing achievement in comparison to having a good fight but timing out for a little bit of health.

Maybe everyone is secretly a whale spending their way through the game but as a free to play I completely understand how significant it is to be able to preserve your health even if it takes more time, it is an actual skill.
Agreed, if you want to take Hercules, or Nick fury or Hela into a fight and go crazy, lose all your health and beat the opponent fast, go for it. I don’t think that’s very skilful compared to encouraging you to keep as much of your health as possible. But that’s just my opinion.

ACKSHUALLY the way to use Nick fury is…

If you get off to a bad start, die on purpose and kill the opponent right as your health tops up for your second life.

Grub

Whoever doesn’t kill the opponent should lose by default if the other person does.

If neither kills the opponent, then health remaining should come into play. I don’t know if that’s doable, but that’s how it should be.

unknown

This content has been removed.

Mackey

@BitterSteel can you give me some thoughts on this

This has happened to me on more than one occasion now but I've finished my round and haven't KO their defender but similarly my attacker isn't KO either, if I remember correctly on one occasio i'd lost roughly 70% of my health and removed roughly 30% of their health BUT they died to my defender but got my defender down to roughly 5% health before doing so .... how is that remotely skillful? He died .. I never 🤔.

I can appreciate this may not happen all that often but it does in fact happen. Something definitely needs tweaking on the scoring side of things ... this can't be happening 🤷‍♂️
That is what the scoring system has decided is worth more.

Your post implies that having died means that it’s automatically less skilful than what you did. Therefore implying that if one person dies, they shouldn’t win if the other person times out.

But if we had a situation where we have player 1 and 2

Player 1 gets the enemy down to 1% health and gets KOd the last second.

Player 2 gets the opponent down to 99%, so only takes away 1% health, then they get hit, their attacker down to 1%, and they time out on 1% health.

With your implication that Player 1 died, so how can they possibly be more skilful than player 2, do you really think player 2 did better than player 1?

I don’t. I think that the scoring system would favour player 1, they took away almost all the health of the defender. Player 2 would barely get any points, no attack health, no defender health.

That’s the good thing about the scoring system, it removes or reduces these fringe cases that you get when you hard define winning rules. It puts it on a sliding scale, not a binary that pushes bad situations like this.

Everyone keeps on saying “this can’t happen” when one person struggles through a fight and only just manages to KO with low health, but still loses because their opponent plays better. Or saying “this can’t happen” when someone dies but still wins, even though you only took off 30% health, and have 30% remaining. But if you had a hierarchical scoring system like you suggest, it takes these cases of unfairness and greatly increases the chance of those happening.

I haven’t seen one case where I’ve actually thought that this system is widely unfair. There’s been one or two “well that could go either way”, but all of them so far have been a necessary evil. You can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But having the sort of system you suggest would mean a huge increase in the unfair cases.

I do see what you're saying however the aim of the mode is to finish the opponent as quickly as possible while trying to retain as much of your health as possible ... if you die it should be as good as you forfeiting/quitting out. You did poorly, you couldn't play well enough to stay alive so no points. I really don't get how it can go any other way. I agree if you both don't die or both ko opponent etc etc but if I die to their defender then I shouldn't get anything for that (I'd be perfectly fine in this scenario with not gaining any points) irrespective of the remaining health of the opponent.

I also do agree that you KO'ing the opponent and they don't KO you ... that shouldn't be an automatic win as it really doesn't speak to your skills but dying speak directly to your skills set with regard to staying alive.

Aleor

Well, in aw you would always prefer having lower health and getting all points in one fight over timing out with cool hp. At least for consistency they should score a kill higher then everything else imo. Or maybe at very least reduce opponents score by half when he doesn't get a kill, just like they reduce your hp in aq on timing out

Mackey

@BitterSteel can you give me some thoughts on this

This has happened to me on more than one occasion now but I've finished my round and haven't KO their defender but similarly my attacker isn't KO either, if I remember correctly on one occasio i'd lost roughly 70% of my health and removed roughly 30% of their health BUT they died to my defender but got my defender down to roughly 5% health before doing so .... how is that remotely skillful? He died .. I never 🤔.

I can appreciate this may not happen all that often but it does in fact happen. Something definitely needs tweaking on the scoring side of things ... this can't be happening 🤷‍♂️
That is what the scoring system has decided is worth more.

Your post implies that having died means that it’s automatically less skilful than what you did. Therefore implying that if one person dies, they shouldn’t win if the other person times out.

But if we had a situation where we have player 1 and 2

Player 1 gets the enemy down to 1% health and gets KOd the last second.

Player 2 gets the opponent down to 99%, so only takes away 1% health, then they get hit, their attacker down to 1%, and they time out on 1% health.

With your implication that Player 1 died, so how can they possibly be more skilful than player 2, do you really think player 2 did better than player 1?

I don’t. I think that the scoring system would favour player 1, they took away almost all the health of the defender. Player 2 would barely get any points, no attack health, no defender health.

That’s the good thing about the scoring system, it removes or reduces these fringe cases that you get when you hard define winning rules. It puts it on a sliding scale, not a binary that pushes bad situations like this.

Everyone keeps on saying “this can’t happen” when one person struggles through a fight and only just manages to KO with low health, but still loses because their opponent plays better. Or saying “this can’t happen” when someone dies but still wins, even though you only took off 30% health, and have 30% remaining. But if you had a hierarchical scoring system like you suggest, it takes these cases of unfairness and greatly increases the chance of those happening.

I haven’t seen one case where I’ve actually thought that this system is widely unfair. There’s been one or two “well that could go either way”, but all of them so far have been a necessary evil. You can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But having the sort of system you suggest would mean a huge increase in the unfair cases.
I do see what you're saying however the aim of the mode is to finish the opponent as quickly as possible while trying to retain as much of your health as possible ... if you die it should be as good as you forfeiting/quitting out. You did poorly, you couldn't play well enough to stay alive so no points. I really don't get how it can go any other way. I agree if you both don't die or both ko opponent etc etc but if I die to their defender then I shouldn't get anything for that (I'd be perfectly fine in this scenario with not gaining any points) irrespective of the remaining health of the opponent.

I also do agree that you KO'ing the opponent and they don't KO you ... that shouldn't be an automatic win as it really doesn't speak to your skills but dying speak directly to your skills set with regard to staying alive.
You didn’t answer my question I’m afraid.

Player 1 gets the enemy down to 1% health and gets KOd the last second.

Player 2 gets the opponent down to 99%, so only takes away 1% health, then they get hit, their attacker down to 1%, and they time out on 1% health.

Do you really think player 2 did better than player 1? Do you really think that player 1 deserves 0 points for getting the opponent down to 1% health?

Sorry I missed your question .... but yeah in my opinion player 1 should absolutely get 0 points. They died and therefore could not see the match through irrespective of the opponent health remaining... and to reiterate I would be fine with that if it happened to me.

As I said, dying to your opponent speaks directly to your survivability skillset which should be a very important factor in this mode. That's how I look at it anyway.