Battlegrounds is a major waste of time

I recently started paying Diablo 2 again as an adult. And after playing battlegrounds for 1/2 hour and feeling ****, I could not help comparing how I feel after playing these games.

Progress
MCOC: none at all despite playing for 1/2 hour. Actually I got further away from going to next tier than before I played. So I would have been better off not playing at all.
D2: I leveled up and got new and stronger abilities. I collected sought after, fun new gear. Plus I got closer to the end boss.

Mood
MCOC: very frustrated. Used my time to come on a bad mood.
D2: Great. My character got stronger. And great story telling. Feeling of accomplishment.

Money spend in total
MCOC/ 12-15.000 usd.
D2: 30 usd.

So why keep playing battlegrounds?
Well I have to, since the best rewards are found here. Plus new objectives are constantly tied to battlegrounds. And I am in a competitive alliance.
And hard to walk away from a game I have been playing for multiple hours each day since December 2014.
Not to mention all the money I have spend on it.

Is it not just a question of skills?
Yes, they do factor in, but I am no where a skilled D2 player, yet I find it much more fun.

Comments

SammyDe

what build in D2? It is one of the oldest and best games ever. I think PvP in D2 would be just as rough as there should be many huge accounts there too.

Just don’t play BG like the rest of us. Problem solved.

Rudolph_Raindeer

I have been playing paladin with holy fire and zeal in normal. Will respec to Hammerlin in nightmare.

VanillaCoke

You’re comparing a PvM game to a PvP game. If you had the same frustrations playing through the Act or EQ, maybe I can understand your point. But the fact that you want the same experience from PvM as PvP does not sound realistic

Morpheos

Agree 100% with @VanillaCoke 👆️

Rudolph_Raindeer

my problem is more related to kabam continuously focusing on battlegrounds. Changed the game (well, compared to the time before battlegrounds). It is no longer balanced. Eg you can drop doing aw, if your alliances is okay with it, and nothing really happens since rewards suck. But the same cannot be said with battlegrounds.

And related to the fact that games are supposed to be fun. Make you feel good. Progress. No feel like you wasted your time.

Jutyjessafg

I feel you. I’ve spent years in competitive games like CS, LoL, and Dota, and honestly, most people go through the exact same mental struggle. Just the other day, I went on a 4-game win streak in League, only for my brother to jump on while he was a bit buzzed. We lost 3 in a row and all my progress just evaporated. Sometimes it’s a bad team, sometimes you’re just off your game, but that’s the MOBA life. BGs is a different beast since it's PvP. If you’re stuck in a loop of losses, it’s either garbage luck or a bit of a skill gap. Plus, the Draft is huge — if the RNG screws you on the picks, you’re dead in the water no matter how good you play.Honestly, Kabam dug this hole themselves. Unless they make some massive, radical changes, I don’t see them getting out of it

Yaron_aviv

I wrote several posts about it.

The mode is absolute garbage. There are ways to fix it:

Better engagement rewards for gladiator will bring in new blood, lower thresholds for radiance milestones, or just shift competitive rewards to other modes and make BG optional.

the way it is right now is borderline unplayable for 95% of the dedicated player base.

superbin0001

this game mode needs to change. Much time to invest but less reward> Many players dont have such time to play.

JESUSCHRIST

Majority don't touch battlegrounds

Especially this season, the participation numbers are record low in history

Jerichoharris

It’s been said before, but it feels that the 2024/2025 class of champs really broke battlegrounds. The defender/counter relationship is so strong between many of these champs that it’s not just about having a counter it’s about having the best counter.

Bastian is a strong Zola counter, so are silk and Jack. However none of them compare to Karolina or Cull and you can find similar examples across most BG decks.

You can learn how to play better and how to make the most of what you draw but so often it just comes down to having the right champ appear at the right time.

Flavyjay

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2944186#Comment_2944186

There's this thing called RNG.. it's so good at screwing drafts 🥲 I have lost so many games cause my counters wouldn't show up

Jerichoharris

I also think banquet this year was a huge leveller for 1000’s of summoners sitting in and around the top 3-5%, and that’s contributed to the struggle. Almost everyone picked up a Nico, Jean Grey, Karolina, Zola, etc., etc., (assuming they didn’t have them before) with all the shards that were kicking around and then had access to huge amounts of rank 4 materials in the same event.

The end result is BG decks, 90% of which will contain the same 20 or so meta champs, all at rank 4, and then it’s just down to who draws what.

Now we’re moving into R5’s, and to a lesser extent new ascension, we might start to see a less even spread of champs and ranks and that might remove some of the blockages.

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2944203#Comment_2944203

Next season, we'll just see a bunch of nukes. Copy and paste of the same 30 champion decks over and over because of competent game design

Jerichoharris

Incompetent possibly. It’s worth an edit. You don’t want Kabam thinking they’ve done something right.

winterthur

Next Season maybe can do a Weird Science. 7-Star hits like 1-Star. 6-Star hits like 2-Star and so on.

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2944216#Comment_2944216

My phone did me so dirty with that what the hell

Rav514

Battlegrounds is trash,

They made a mode that determines the top 3 to 5% without a way to progress and then wondered why 95% of the playplayer base isn’t really that interested.

So then they added the victory circuit to give good rewards, thinking they can get more people interested, which it does, however, it also leaves the mass frustration because these people don’t care if they’re in the top 3% or 5% or 10% or 20%. They just want to progress their character.

IIt’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what most of the player base wants wwhen they login and play .

There should be no setback for losing in the victory circuit, and the nodes should be more vanilla because these people don’t want to compete.

This thing where I have to dodge a certain way to get a massive bonus to make me do extra damage so I can win is BS and most people don’t want to do it. They just want to show up run a fight or 2, collect their rewards and go home and you’re getting in the way of that which makes it frustrating.

The victory circuit nodes should be something like the defender has limber unless you have class advantage or maybe if you’re using a saga attack or depending on how thematic they wish to be.

Other variations are possible, but save this BS complicated stuff for the gladiator circuit and let those people that really wanna compete, compete! .

Let the sweats compete for nominal rewards, and titles because they’re really in to see who’s the best which is fine!!!

Or stop guilt, tripping everyone else to play your poorly designed mode just so you can bump up your attendance. The only people enjoying this bullies because they’re the only ones that enjoy beating up on somebody who who barely wants to be there in the first place!

And then everybody will have more fun

pseudosane

Personally, i've quit battlegrounds. It is a p2p mode now. I focus my attention on other modes. I do have 5 wins and thats it.

SirGamesBond

DDidn't Read the thread or comments.

I Agree with the header alone.

KillerM

i just play casually BG’s since they stopped making skill related meta’s. nowadays its just a draft dependent game mode. I can already tell after the draft if i win or lose because the last 4/5 meta’s are just so easy for everybody. For example you booth draft serpent and you get kushala and he’s gettin no kushala or nico you already know you win the round lol

CheeseMaster482

The argument that "BGs has the best rewards, I need those to progress" never made any sense.

If you are someone who already whales out on every sale, BGs radiance will get you barely one rank 4.

If you are a progressing player (1 or 2 rank 4s) who is looking to get more rank 4s, you simply could not compete past plat, let alone GC.

If you are a mid level account (15-20 rank 4s), the radiance you get will still not be enough for a full rank 4. You get better rewards from solo and alliance coliseum.

The only reason why I still play BGs is because Kabam keeps locking chase pieces behind it. If kabam wasn't scared to show BGs engagement statistics it would be so obvious that chase pieces artificially inflate the numbers. They falsely interpret these numbers and then come to the conclusion that the new season meta is actually very good and engaging, why else would so many people be playing BGs right now!!!!!

Chuck_Finley

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2944227#Comment_2944227

would love to ignore it, but they are going to force everyone into it again with the Stellar Blade piece….