26 replies to this topic

[Reza Malin]

This thread is brilliant. As far as i can see its basically this:

Everyone is happy except those 3 or 4 man tryhard premade lances. This is what happened.....

Once upon a time, there were some 3/4 man premades that used to roll around killing pug groups on comms, thinking that their poo could never stink. They liked to try really, really hard with meta and jump builds.

Then along came the new matchmaker. Suddenly, these tryhards had to face a whole team of people, who were good players by and large, also on comms, and not even a trial mech as far as the eye could see.

Oh no! Then suddenly the premade lances became sadface, when they realised they aren't actually as good as they thought they were. Turns out they just relied on fighting uncoordinated teams with their cheese builds. Who knew?

Welcome to the party!

Now the elitist douchebag 4 man premade lances have become the new replacement for what used to be solo pug players. If the cap fits, wear it!

Solo PUG players now are safe in their own queue, looks like its time for the small lance sized premades to weigh in and grow some skill other than jumpsniping and LRMing over the backs of solo pugs, and then trying to mop up at the end and stroke their ego with KDR circlejerks!

Love it, its so classic. You can see it a mile off on people commenting so far, like on some other threads. They reek of pure, eye-watering butthurt.

I actually bet that a few days ago, these people were freely dishing out the 'GG closes' to anyone that listened in the PUG queue, telling people to stop whining and group with others. Now the boot is on the other foot, and people of that ilk are requiring dump truck sized loads of 2 ply extra strong tissues in order to stay afloat. Pure genius.

The tears are delicious. Enjoy!



EDIT: There are an absolute crapton of voice comms hubs out there that anyone can use, ones like ComStar etc. If you are not one of the lowlife players i have described above and genuinely feel you suffer without comms (which you will), then just jump on one of those and group with people. Half the reason people whine about no comms, is they simply don't have the social courage to talk to strangers over a mic. That's a fact.

No comms, no bombs!

Edited by Fade Akira, 03 July 2014 - 08:05 PM.

[Kushko]

One thing i read about that kind of helps the ragtag group of 3 4mans against 1 12 man is that the 12 man is locked in to the 3/3/3/3 while each 4 man is locked in to 3+1 so in theory the matchmaker could pitch a 9 assault team vs a 3 assault team.

I kind of like this balancing factor and i hope this is really the case and stays this way to give the ragtag group a fighting chance.

[Asmudius Heng]

This can be true yes, my only issue is that the group queue forces people to not only work together, but take the meta to survive.

When dropping before i could take some casual people in a non optimised mech and i know that myself, or some teammakes could 'carry' them while they learned.

Now those people are dead weight that will almost be certain to make your team lose.

It is tough to tell people you cannot play in the group because you are too crap, those people BELONG in the solo queue but not allowing them to group takes a lot of fun out of it for them also.

The losers i guess from this change were the casual group players not getting togetehr to stomp but just to mess around with thier buddies online.

There is no perfect solution though - i would like to see 4 mans being able to 'opt-out' of the group queue but i know that has a huge amount of repercussions startving the group queue, and possibly allowing the meta farmers to go back and just smash on disorganised pugs.

On the other hand i know i would always choose group queue unless i was dropping with some newbies - maybe it would not have that much difference?

The other issue is that groups all load up on heavy and assault mechs and so there is hardly any lights or mediums to choose from, so the MM breaks the rules and throws together even numbers, but the weights are much much higher overall becasue every clanner and his totem animal are running a bloody timberwolf!

I would like to hear if an opt-out solution might help cater to the non serious group player.

That is not me by the way but i am friends with quite a few who will get frustrated with the hardcore meta people and were never a danger in the regular queue either.

[Macster16]

The wind does seem to have turned....and as a solo player I couldn't be happier. Last night I had to tear myself away from MWO I was having such a blast playing in games where I actually got to brawl in my Illya. It was glorious and it felt like Mechwarrior again and not hide-and-go-PPalpha. Before the patch, all I saw were countless DS's and Twolfs packing PPC/gauss combos and any of my brawl builds were virtually unplayable. It was becoming downright horrific.

Now I'm seeing good mixes, less ROFLstomps, less FLD builds, less meta, more variety. It actually feels like "Mechwarrior" now.

[DemonRaziel]

Fade Akira, on 03 July 2014 - 08:01 PM, said:

crap (except maybe for the addendum)

This is wrong on so many different levels I wonder where to begin.

Judging by your sig, you're running with a unit, so I'm going to assume you were, and are dropping in groups, including 12mans. Based on that I'm really surprised you could wish the big boy queue on all the casual groups out there, as a "just punishment" for the abuse some tryhard groups delivered in the PUG queue.

While it's a fact that tryhard 4man premades were the scourge of PUGs, there's nothing preventing a group like that from dropping in a "solo" queue nowadays. Granted, the true issues only arose when there was an uneven number number of such groups on both sides, as a single group usually lacked the ability to carry 2/3 of their team (Unless the MM shenanigans put them with/against a significantly less able (in terms of skill, or equipment) foes). This should no longer happen, or at least should not happen too often, so I'm inclined to believe the pure PUGs, i.e. the solo droppers, are somewhat safe.

Enter group queue. First of all, it should be said, that many tryhard groups were not really limited to 3-4 players and have just grouped up and proceed to "terrorize" the group queue with even more organized meta builds.

Secondly, it's the casual groups that really got the short end of the stick. 2mans, or 3mans of casual players, that never were the problem for PUGs, except for the made up PUG horror stories, telling terrible tales of "each and every group out there consist of bloodthirsty abusive meta humpers that are only looking for opportunities to ruin your day".

These casuals now find themselves pitted against odds that they have no means of defeating. True, they can go to Comstar, or NGNG and try grouping up with another group to get bigger, and get a competitive advantage over smaller groups. But even then they are no match for the larger, organized groups out there, they are now pitted against.

Be it pure 12mans, or even 8-10mans, it's a lot easier to carry the team when you can coordinate 2/3+ of your team on the fly, including pre-drop cooperation on builds, especially with regular practice.

Most of the people cheering over smaller groups getting devastated by the big boys with the new MM are, I'd assume, casual solo droppers, that blame all the groups for their negative experience with the old MM, and consider this a sort of payback. But since they have no actual experience with the competitive 12man environment, they have really no idea what they are talking about and the massive disparity between the casual 2-3-4-or even-5man groups versus full, or near full companies of competitive players in their competitive builds.

The sad thing is, that instead of working towards making the solo queue (as well as the new group queue these days) a more even environment, by introducing tools such as public pre-drop lobby and a freaking integraited VoIP, that is long overdue, PGI took steps to emphasize the individuality (and the lack of coordination) in the solo queue while throwing the small casual groups of in the water full of sharks.

Leveling the playing field by removing the groups with competitive advantage, instead of adding it to the rest of the players is a good move for cheats and hacks, not for key features of a team game, especially since you only do it for a subsection of your players and game modes.

[Hikyuu]

many many premade groups would rather play other premades, I can't speak for everyone. but i know I'm tired of watching pugs march into death and knowing that my 4 guys are going to be the only ones capable of remotely doing more than suicide charging the enemy.

That doesn't define all pugs, but for those of us in large clans that have the numbers we'll be happy to see a growth in competition between units.

[Hikyuu]

DemonRaziel, on 03 July 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

The sad thing is, that instead of working towards making the solo queue (as well as the new group queue these days) a more even environment, by introducing tools such as public pre-drop lobby and a freaking integraited VoIP, that is long overdue, PGI took steps to emphasize the individuality (and the lack of coordination) in the solo queue while throwing the small casual groups of in the water full of sharks.

PGI Tried that, it was terrible, C3 was more complex and unnecessary than people just using the completely free Teamspeak, or even skype. Intergrated comms is great for people who play Xbox and PS4, but with so many options available in PC it's just a left over feature from games that come from console that end up getting ported to PC (IE CoD, HALO, etc).

[DemonRaziel]

Hikyuu, on 03 July 2014 - 11:15 PM, said:

PGI Tried that, it was terrible, C3 was more complex and unnecessary than people just using the completely free Teamspeak, or even skype. Intergrated comms is great for people who play Xbox and PS4, but with so many options available in PC it's just a left over feature from games that come from console that end up getting ported to PC (IE CoD, HALO, etc).

I'm not sure about that. I mean, this is a game that has a whole queue (let's assume 50% of the playerbase? I don't know...) of 12 random players grouped together and asked to fight 12 more with only a bugged written chat and a rather lacking battlegrid that only lance/unit leaders can utilize to issue commands. The added bonus of not seeing the minimap in a "newbie-forced" 3rd person view also invalidates the battlegrid commands further.

There is no way for the players in this queue to use any 3rd party VoIP, since that would require them to group up beforehand and that would in turn drop them in a different queue. This, to a lesser extent, also applies to multiple groups dropped together in the group queue.

[SmokinDave73]

Quote

This thread is brilliant. As far as i can see its basically this:

Everyone is happy except those 3 or 4 man tryhard premade lances. This is what happened.....

Once upon a time, there were some 3/4 man premades that used to roll around killing pug groups on comms, thinking that their poo could never stink. They liked to try really, really hard with meta and jump builds.

Then along came the new matchmaker. Suddenly, these tryhards had to face a whole team of people, who were good players by and large, also on comms, and not even a trial mech as far as the eye could see.

Oh no! Then suddenly the premade lances became sadface, when they realised they aren't actually as good as they thought they were. Turns out they just relied on fighting uncoordinated teams with their cheese builds. Who knew?

Welcome to the party!

Now the elitist douchebag 4 man premade lances have become the new replacement for what used to be solo pug players. If the cap fits, wear it!

Solo PUG players now are safe in their own queue, looks like its time for the small lance sized premades to weigh in and grow some skill other than jumpsniping and LRMing over the backs of solo pugs, and then trying to mop up at the end and stroke their ego with KDR circlejerks!

Love it, its so classic. You can see it a mile off on people commenting so far, like on some other threads. They reek of pure, eye-watering butthurt.

I actually bet that a few days ago, these people were freely dishing out the 'GG closes' to anyone that listened in the PUG queue, telling people to stop whining and group with others. Now the boot is on the other foot, and people of that ilk are requiring dump truck sized loads of 2 ply extra strong tissues in order to stay afloat. Pure genius.

The tears are delicious. Enjoy!

That post is gold, hats off to you sir you made my day so funny.

Edited by SmokinDave73, 04 July 2014 - 01:10 AM.

[Tyman4]

Honestly people.
3 man all last night. Blazing Aces EU just had our bi-weekly practice (currently recruiting come visit us Blazing aces.net )

No particular problems and it went as expected, some games up some games down. Sometimes we were matched with large groups 6-9. sometimes it was with pugs. Honestly it makes no difference. When you have less mechs you need to support the group with more mechs, regardless if it is pugs or groups. AND AS ALWAYS communication is OP. While typing may not be the best way to communicate, it is better than nothing.

At least, tell the larger portion of you team, "hey we are 3man, we will follow Teamate X" also build type info will help "I'm missle boat, any spotters here?". You don't always need to follow, especially if you see an enemy that is flanking and your group needs to respond, BUT TELL PEOPLE about it. Honestly, I see 0 scouting information reported anymore. (this doesn't need to come from scout mechs anyone can do it). ecm spider behind us d4. 2 atlases canyon d3. Not hard people not hard, and you could save someone's life.

Tyman

[LordKnightFandragon]

I would be cool if we could get 8, 10 and 12 man drops.

That way, if a 10man premade wants to drop, they are not filled in against a 12man premade, with 2 pubbies filling in their last slots.

If a 5man drops, they can possibly be put in with 5 pubbies or another 5 man premade, against similar drop numbers.

8, so 4 mans can get into 12 person games with them and 8 pubbies, or just a 4man and 4 pubbies against similar numbers.

The 12 man premade should only see other 12 man premades....no 12man premades being put against anything less then another 12 man premade.

Make an option in the battle cue...Premade/Solo Drop/12man. Then, if your just a lone pubbie, wanting to solo drop against 12 other solo pubbies, you can...without the fear of a derpy ass 12 man ruining your parade.

From there is determines your group size and then goes on to give you a battle of similar numbers.

[Torgun]

Hikyuu, on 03 July 2014 - 11:15 PM, said:

PGI Tried that, it was terrible, C3 was more complex and unnecessary than people just using the completely free Teamspeak, or even skype. Intergrated comms is great for people who play Xbox and PS4, but with so many options available in PC it's just a left over feature from games that come from console that end up getting ported to PC (IE CoD, HALO, etc).

PGI never had integrated VOIP using C3, they basically just said "Hey we're working with C3, use it!". It was no more than an officially sponsored version of Teamspeak that was still a 3rd party application. And it's exactly integrated VOIP that would make a difference. And inb4 someone complains they dont want to listen to mouthbreathers, which would be a pointless argument if you could mute VOIP if you wanted to, like in every other game that was VOIP.

[Reza Malin]

Kushko, on 03 July 2014 - 08:40 PM, said:

One thing i read about that kind of helps the ragtag group of 3 4mans against 1 12 man is that the 12 man is locked in to the 3/3/3/3 while each 4 man is locked in to 3+1 so in theory the matchmaker could pitch a 9 assault team vs a 3 assault team.

I kind of like this balancing factor and i hope this is really the case and stays this way to give the ragtag group a fighting chance.

This is very true. Also, if you drop as a 10 man, the 2 man team you get as the filler can have any class of mech. For example we dropped as a 10 the other day and we ended up with 2 guys in assault mechs, so we had 5 as opposed to 3. So yes, if you thought about it, 2/3/4 man groups could roll as all assaults and heavies and if enough people did it could end up with very heavy teams to come up against 12 mans with.

[Edustaja]

I had a lot of fun last night in 6-12 man groups going against anything the group queue threw at us.

Games were tight and organizing the group easy.

We had very good experience with the guys we picked up to fight with us. 2-4 man teams integrated well with the main force even without much comms.

I think this is a definitive improvement to the game.

Group queue has more people in it as it's easier to manage. Solo players get to mostly fight other solo players.
Win win.

[Vassago Rain]

Asmudius Heng, on 03 July 2014 - 08:50 PM, said:

This can be true yes, my only issue is that the group queue forces people to not only work together, but take the meta to survive.

When dropping before i could take some casual people in a non optimised mech and i know that myself, or some teammakes could 'carry' them while they learned.

Now those people are dead weight that will almost be certain to make your team lose.

It is tough to tell people you cannot play in the group because you are too crap, those people BELONG in the solo queue but not allowing them to group takes a lot of fun out of it for them also.

The losers i guess from this change were the casual group players not getting togetehr to stomp but just to mess around with thier buddies online.

There is no perfect solution though - i would like to see 4 mans being able to 'opt-out' of the group queue but i know that has a huge amount of repercussions startving the group queue, and possibly allowing the meta farmers to go back and just smash on disorganised pugs.

On the other hand i know i would always choose group queue unless i was dropping with some newbies - maybe it would not have that much difference?

The other issue is that groups all load up on heavy and assault mechs and so there is hardly any lights or mediums to choose from, so the MM breaks the rules and throws together even numbers, but the weights are much much higher overall becasue every clanner and his totem animal are running a bloody timberwolf!

I would like to hear if an opt-out solution might help cater to the non serious group player.

That is not me by the way but i am friends with quite a few who will get frustrated with the hardcore meta people and were never a danger in the regular queue either.

Nonsense.

We played all champions in a 10 man, and even brought our collection of really bad heromechs for a couple rounds. Even in my TDK, I'm still far more effective than an underhiver in a madcat.

You only need to go meta on saturdays and sundays when the actually good players are dropping.

[Reza Malin]

DemonRaziel, on 03 July 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

This is wrong on so many different levels I wonder where to begin.

Judging by your sig, you're running with a unit, so I'm going to assume you were, and are dropping in groups, including 12mans. Based on that I'm really surprised you could wish the big boy queue on all the casual groups out there, as a "just punishment" for the abuse some tryhard groups delivered in the PUG queue.

While it's a fact that tryhard 4man premades were the scourge of PUGs, there's nothing preventing a group like that from dropping in a "solo" queue nowadays. Granted, the true issues only arose when there was an uneven number number of such groups on both sides, as a single group usually lacked the ability to carry 2/3 of their team (Unless the MM shenanigans put them with/against a significantly less able (in terms of skill, or equipment) foes). This should no longer happen, or at least should not happen too often, so I'm inclined to believe the pure PUGs, i.e. the solo droppers, are somewhat safe.

Enter group queue. First of all, it should be said, that many tryhard groups were not really limited to 3-4 players and have just grouped up and proceed to "terrorize" the group queue with even more organized meta builds.

Secondly, it's the casual groups that really got the short end of the stick. 2mans, or 3mans of casual players, that never were the problem for PUGs, except for the made up PUG horror stories, telling terrible tales of "each and every group out there consist of bloodthirsty abusive meta humpers that are only looking for opportunities to ruin your day".

These casuals now find themselves pitted against odds that they have no means of defeating. True, they can go to Comstar, or NGNG and try grouping up with another group to get bigger, and get a competitive advantage over smaller groups. But even then they are no match for the larger, organized groups out there, they are now pitted against.

Be it pure 12mans, or even 8-10mans, it's a lot easier to carry the team when you can coordinate 2/3+ of your team on the fly, including pre-drop cooperation on builds, especially with regular practice.

Most of the people cheering over smaller groups getting devastated by the big boys with the new MM are, I'd assume, casual solo droppers, that blame all the groups for their negative experience with the old MM, and consider this a sort of payback. But since they have no actual experience with the competitive 12man environment, they have really no idea what they are talking about and the massive disparity between the casual 2-3-4-or even-5man groups versus full, or near full companies of competitive players in their competitive builds.

The sad thing is, that instead of working towards making the solo queue (as well as the new group queue these days) a more even environment, by introducing tools such as public pre-drop lobby and a freaking integraited VoIP, that is long overdue, PGI took steps to emphasize the individuality (and the lack of coordination) in the solo queue while throwing the small casual groups of in the water full of sharks.

Leveling the playing field by removing the groups with competitive advantage, instead of adding it to the rest of the players is a good move for cheats and hacks, not for key features of a team game, especially since you only do it for a subsection of your players and game modes.

In all honesty mate, i do partly see what you are saying. I have no doubt there are casual 2/3/4 man groups that drop, who don't religiously use meta and all the other typical traits these urchins display. However think about this:

As time goes on, groups like yours, will adapt tactics to playing 12 mans. Soon things will start happening that small groups will take for granted and just become 2nd nature. Once this starts happening, the curve will balance out a lot more. Pilots that adapt should get better.

You can have a good game and still lose a match. You can lose a match and still improve your tactics and skills. Not all the 12 mans are good, and not all the small group makeups are unorganised. Instead of being super negative about it all, why not just take it on the chin and try and make it work? Our 12 man got beaten by some real good pilots that came in mixed groups. **** happens! Its still new for lots of people.

They cannot ever make a matchmaker that is perfect for everyone. Someone will always feel like their particular 7 man group or 3 man group or whatever is discriminated against. But you must see that this matchmaker makes it so much better for everyone in general, even the cheese 4 man lances.

The bottom line for i am happy about is the 4 man **** that used to thrive in PUG queues now wont wash at all against large groups, unless these said people drop as a 12 man and all use the same tactics of cheese. In which case, meh. Nothing you can do. If they win, they win. We played a team as a 12 man, and nearly every enemy mech had 2 smokes each and they were all meta or LRM. We lost. We then ran a few drops with a lot of LRM/narc in 'protest'. We won some then came up against a good Smoke Jaguar group that pounded us for using the cheese tactic.

My point is, its a more fluid playing field now. Its not reliant now on the old 'good pug, bad pug' lottery. You can counter things, and you can organise. Far better than you could ever come close to in the PUG queue.

You talk about playing casual. I played for 11 months as a solo PUG dropper. I eneded up on peoples voice chat just by meeting players in matches and being a half decent pilot. Thats without even trying. No offence but instead of griping about how you don't want to fight 12 mans in your 4 man, how hard is it seriously, to just grab some more people on your comms channel? I mean don't get me wrong, you could just play on as a 4 man, and i personally think after a few days of everyone getting used to the new MM you will be just fine. However if it really bothers you that much you could just grab more people.

Make a forum thread asking for casual players that want to drop in larger groups, give out your TS details, even just friend request/group invite players you got rolled with in a previous game. There are many excuses, and none of the counters to a lot of the things you described will push you outside the 'casual' bracket. This game is too casual as it is to even have a 'casual' bracket. It not like an MMO with raid timings, DKP and other bullshit.

All we are really talking about here, is getting 10 or 12 people on voice comms. Its really not a big deal.

[Bobzilla]

DemonRaziel, on 03 July 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

Enter group queue. First of all, it should be said, that many tryhard groups were not really limited to 3-4 players and have just grouped up and proceed to "terrorize" the group queue with even more organized meta builds.

Read this again, you are saying the tryhards terrorized pugs with sync drops and no balancing what so ever, but it's worse when they can join a large group and actually have to go through a matching process. You need to get out of your very narrow point of view because that is the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

DemonRaziel, on 03 July 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

Secondly, it's the casual groups that really got the short end of the stick. 2mans, or 3mans of casual players, that never were the problem for PUGs, except for the made up PUG horror stories, telling terrible tales of "each and every group out there consist of bloodthirsty abusive meta humpers that are only looking for opportunities to ruin your day".

It's funny how the "made up PUG horror stories", magically became a reality to group players. Totally weird, now the pugs should make up stories about CW and it will also magically appear.

DemonRaziel, on 03 July 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

Most of the people cheering over smaller groups getting devastated by the big boys with the new MM are, I'd assume, casual solo droppers, that blame all the groups for their negative experience with the old MM, and consider this a sort of payback. But since they have no actual experience with the competitive 12man environment, they have really no idea what they are talking about and the massive disparity between the casual 2-3-4-or even-5man groups versus full, or near full companies of competitive players in their competitive builds.

Again, your problem of fighting larger groups is valid, but the pugs complaint about fighting larger groups is invalid. Your logic for this is because you played against a larger group, but the pugs haven't. Unfortunatly you are wrong because (read what you wrote earily for proof) pugs have had this same experience for 2 years.

And it isn't so much people are cheering that groups are suffering, it's cheering that groups can now understand what pugs went through, and now that everyone is on the same page (wheather they realize it or not) the game can get better. Pugs just needed to wait until the dumb-dumbs like yourself realize that this problem has always been around (hence the 4 man restrictions in the first place) and the solution isn't limitation so much as the brillant points you brought up about comms and pre drop lobbies.

[DemonRaziel]

Fade Akira, on 04 July 2014 - 04:03 AM, said:

In all honesty mate, i do partly see what you are saying. I have no doubt there are casual 2/3/4 man groups that drop, who don't religiously use meta and all the other typical traits these urchins display. However think about this:

As time goes on, groups like yours, will adapt tactics to playing 12 mans. Soon things will start happening that small groups will take for granted and just become 2nd nature. Once this starts happening, the curve will balance out a lot more. Pilots that adapt should get better.

You can have a good game and still lose a match. You can lose a match and still improve your tactics and skills. Not all the 12 mans are good, and not all the small group makeups are unorganised. Instead of being super negative about it all, why not just take it on the chin and try and make it work? Our 12 man got beaten by some real good pilots that came in mixed groups. **** happens! Its still new for lots of people.

They cannot ever make a matchmaker that is perfect for everyone. Someone will always feel like their particular 7 man group or 3 man group or whatever is discriminated against. But you must see that this matchmaker makes it so much better for everyone in general, even the cheese 4 man lances.

The bottom line for i am happy about is the 4 man **** that used to thrive in PUG queues now wont wash at all against large groups, unless these said people drop as a 12 man and all use the same tactics of cheese. In which case, meh. Nothing you can do. If they win, they win. We played a team as a 12 man, and nearly every enemy mech had 2 smokes each and they were all meta or LRM. We lost. We then ran a few drops with a lot of LRM/narc in 'protest'. We won some then came up against a good Smoke Jaguar group that pounded us for using the cheese tactic.

My point is, its a more fluid playing field now. Its not reliant now on the old 'good pug, bad pug' lottery. You can counter things, and you can organise. Far better than you could ever come close to in the PUG queue.

You talk about playing casual. I played for 11 months as a solo PUG dropper. I eneded up on peoples voice chat just by meeting players in matches and being a half decent pilot. Thats without even trying. No offence but instead of griping about how you don't want to fight 12 mans in your 4 man, how hard is it seriously, to just grab some more people on your comms channel? I mean don't get me wrong, you could just play on as a 4 man, and i personally think after a few days of everyone getting used to the new MM you will be just fine. However if it really bothers you that much you could just grab more people.

Make a forum thread asking for casual players that want to drop in larger groups, give out your TS details, even just friend request/group invite players you got rolled with in a previous game. There are many excuses, and none of the counters to a lot of the things you described will push you outside the 'casual' bracket. This game is too casual as it is to even have a 'casual' bracket. It not like an MMO with raid timings, DKP and other bullshit.

All we are really talking about here, is getting 10 or 12 people on voice comms. Its really not a big deal.

I agree with most of what you're saying here. The tone of your OP seemed rather aggressive and I genuinely feel the casual groups, that clearly got the short end of the stick here, are being ridiculed left and right, because PUGs are still mad about the tryhards stomping them (Which, btw, I feel happened a lot less than many PUGs are willing to admit, but I digress). That's why I responded in kind.

Yes, 12mans are not unbeatable, there are instances where sheer numbers are not a guarantee for victory and, likewise, the casuals are maybe making up the boogeymen 10-12man premades defeating them just to have someone to blame for the losses. Nothing is different here.

And personally, I don't think the tryhard bullies, that did what they did in PUGs just to be {Richard Cameron} are any worse now. They form up bigger groups, keep embracing the meta and bully smaller groups, with a well deserved payback from a bigger/better groups out there every now and then. And if they stay in 4mans, they might even still drop into solo queue every now and then, enjoying their superiority just as they did before.

**** will be {Richard Cameron}, now matter what you do, collective guilt is not the way to handle it (i.e. laugh at grouped up casuals , that were roflstomped by the tryhards before, the same as solo PUGs were and now get to enjoy more variety of roflstomps).

And I also agree, that winning is not the only way of having fun. But, to me at least, balanced matches are the key to having fun. Did the new MM help ensure balance? I don't know, time will tell, I guess.

But as I meantioned in my earlier post, PGI should work on leveling the playing field - lobbies and integrated VoIP are the ways to allow smaller groups (casual or not) and even individuals to be able to group up and communicate more easily. Casual players, that are maybe going to drop a few games a day should not be asked to jump trough the hoops themselves, using 3rd party tools, visiting off game TS servers to find other random people to group up with, just to diminish the competitive advantage of groups they are pitted against.

Also, based on my previous experience of running 12mans, getting 12 people together for a reasonable amount of time tends to be a big deal more often than not. Thankfully, you don't need exactly 12 these days, which diminishes the problem a lot.

Still, casuals are, and will be, casuals and can't be expected to work hard to get out of the casual bracket, as that requires investment... Be it of time, money, skills, whatever.

Oh well, this rant went on long enough. Let's just conclude that it's hard to find a middle ground and please everyone. I agree.

[DemonRaziel]

Bobzilla, on 04 July 2014 - 04:43 AM, said:

Read this again, you are saying the tryhards terrorized pugs with sync drops and no balancing what so ever, but it's worse when they can join a large group and actually have to go through a matching process. You need to get out of your very narrow point of view because that is the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

I've read a few of your posts recently. I are indeed one of the main perpetrators of ridiculing the casual groups complaints, pointing out they suffer just as you (I'm assuming you are solely, or mostly PUGging) did.

Well the thing is, the casual groups suffered the same against the tryhard premades as individual PUGs did. While they might have the ability to communicate on the fly, they often lacked the determination and sheer firepower of the opposing force.

These groups moved from bad point to worse, or just as bad, or whatever. Can't think of a good idiom.

Bobzilla, on 04 July 2014 - 04:43 AM, said:

It's funny how the "made up PUG horror stories", magically became a reality to group players.

First of all, PUGs blamed the premades even when the lack of communication wasn't the reason they lost. Secondly, I'm fairly sure it still happens in PUGs and also in the group queue. Blaming a boogeyman for your loss sounds a lot better than admitting you did poorly yourself. Thirdly, the more players you have in a premade group, when talking a decent premade, that knows what it's doing, the much more able to carry the team you are. It's not linear, it's quadratic, so to speak. So small groups pitted against large, premade, meta groups do indeed have a lot harder time a PUG ever did with a premade against it (think PUGs vs synced premades to get the picture).

Bobzilla, on 04 July 2014 - 04:43 AM, said:

You need to get out of your very narrow point of view because that is the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

Bobzilla, on 04 July 2014 - 04:43 AM, said:

Pugs just needed to wait until the dumb-dumbs like yourself realize that this problem has always been around

You've called me dumb and narrowsighted, but the fact is that it's you who is spiteful and narrowsighted when it comes to this topic - instead of asking PGI to give you the tools needed to take away the advantage of the relatively small groups and make the whole game more based on tactics and cooperation, you, more or less, asked for the advantaged groups to be removed from your games. So what we have now is totally comm-less queue (with the exception of some 2-4s that might get added to this queue and might be using TS3 or some such) and a queue with uneven comms, where it's s till typing or no-go to coordinate with the other groups, unless you're big enough that you don't need to (i.e. 12man, or overly confident 10man...).

And at the same time you refuse to acknowledge that with that move, others have been put to your shoes - or you do acknowledge it, yet feel it's deserved, for you blame them for being a part of your problem in the first place.

"People should not have friends to play with, and if they do, they should have a lot of them" - that is the message some people give to the groups/pairs that want to play this game on a casual level, albeit not solo. Casuals are and, unless they are somehow chased away, will always be here. Their existence should be acknowledged and accepted, with all that entails.

[Triordinant]

Possible scenario: PGI determines that no matter what MM solution they come up with, one of 3 categories of players gets the short end of the stick. Category 1 is the solo PUGs (which includes the vast majority of new players), Category 2 are the small 2 to 4-man teams (which includes friends that play for fun and camaraderie as well as the tryhard teams that have been stomping PUGs for years), Category 3 are the big organized teams that can field 12-mans (and probably spend the most real world money on MWO). If they (or any other company) had to choose one category to get the short end of the stick, it would be Category 2.

Personally, I believe a win-win solution that makes everyone happy is best. I'm not sure if this was the choice they faced, but if it was, then they picked what they considered the least of 3 evils.