946 replies to this topic

[nonnex]

OP, are you serious?

The challange was solo, so 20 or more House/Clanmembers are taking the challange and sit together in their TS, dropping solo and having fun meantime. Sometimes they met inside one Match and giggle when they hit a former teammate which is now on the other side. Maybe a part or all of them are clicking the Launch button in the same time, so what?

That doesnt mean that they all get into the same Match or Team.

It looks like to me that someone is searching for reasons for what ever... but not himself.

Edited by nonnex, 25 August 2014 - 03:52 AM.

[beerandasmoke]

I dont think it is as big a problem as what the op believes but it does happen. There were a couple of matches this weekend where i was pretty sure it was a sync (same tags, same camo) but overall it seems to be just too random to work well.

Roland and Mischief have a point though in people trying to defend sync dropping. You have a group que I suggest you use it. The only reason to sync is because you are so bad that you cant hack it in either que. Thats the bottom line whether you want to believe it or not.

I suggest instead of desperately trying to sync yourselves into a game so you have a chance of winning you work on your piloting and teamwork. Then you wont have to rely on the randomness of the matchmaker. Then you can have a fun experience instead of getting your face stomped in and blaming MM or the competitive scene.

[RussianWolf]

Kjudoon, on 24 August 2014 - 09:28 PM, said:

I've taken some time to consider this thread after taking a much needed think about it.

It finally hit me as to why this is so aggravating and I've been considering it since the epiphany.

This discussion is not about sync drops and advantage or cheating.

It's about intent and the questioning of intent along with all the false allegations, presumptions, and nasty little demagoguery that has been swirling around it. Let's clear the air here first. All of us prime movers in this conversation have behaved badly at some point. Admit it, come to terms with it, own it and now, let's get past it. We need to get past this and look at the real issue under all this:

What is the real intent of Sync Dropping?

Is the intent to drop together in the solo queue the same every time? No. Some people have sync dropped in an attempt to create an unfair advantage. Others do it just to have fun. Some have done it to just do something goofy and entertain themselves. There have even been groups who do it to troll people just to be jerks.

Three video examples of sync drops, one for fun and two to troll people are out on youtube. One is by B33f who posted the 20 Spider sync drop. This drop actually got 20 members from the sync drop into match... all in trial spiders. It's hillarious and pottymouthed. Were they trying to troll anyone? Nope... Just seeing if it could be done and what could happen. I know their intent because I've played with those guys when things like this have happened. A great bunch.

Then you have the infamous "Goons Love Paul" video out there where the goons torment and troll Paul Inoye for a match. This is an example of a sync drop with bad intentions. Oh I forgot to mention the "Jenner Football" video where a group of foul mouthed guys go out to deliberately troll games by using collision and is a big reason why this mechanic was removed from the game. Again, the intent was to wreck the experience for others.

These three examples show three different intents. The first, to have fun and try something different. The second, to harass and make for a bad experience with developers. The last to show a broken mechanic and troll people with it.

Now, let's compare this to how we in the Seraphim run a Sync Drop event we call The Seraphim Scramble. Until this admission, nobody reading this thread probably realized it was happening either.

We, the Seraphim hold an event twice a week (and all weekend long due to the tournament) that sync drops in the solo queue. We have between 25-40 participants at any one time. They often spread across 3-7 matches on both sides and we beat the carbon cleaner out of each other and actually are looking to get each other. Our colonel even puts a bounty on himself for our unit's activity points for incentive to play with their teammates and enjoy meeting one another and increase group activity. These are generally for members who are not in organized companies and do not practice multiple times a week in 12mans. Often many of our members from companies will drop in with them, but they get into the same convoluted mess the rest of us are in... and it is good natured fun.

When we drop, its very clear we are against our equals in skill because our elo is measured individually. The fun comes in the gamble on who in our group we might face on the other side and how well we work together. These are not our 'ringers' or top flight pilots. In fact most of them are rookies to the unit, or new to the game. Will they work together? Yes, but the way we play it, all pilots on that map are in the same teamspeak channel, so when you coordinate, the other side learns it too and will use it against us.

Now... do you see why I would get upset when I am accused of 'cheating' by sync dropping? I am not a goon. I am not some jerk looking to harm people and get an advantage over others. I'm trying to find a way to enjoy this game with friends in a casual environment.

If matches become so scare because the player base grows, then this event probably go away because it wouldn't be fun anymore. Of course, this can be a bad thing because then only the broken group queue would be left eliminating the need to even be in teamspeak unless you were a competitive 12man because there is no casual play there unless you like getting kicked in the face repeatedly or if you're on the other side, just curbstomping your enemy for no challenge day in and out.

So the next time you say Sync Dropping is 'cheating', unethical, immoral, only for bad players, ruining the spirit of the queue... consider the intent of why sync drop is going on. PGI has created the incentive by giving in to what a few of the players wanted and has caused much poorer gameplay in the process because it ignored people who didn't want to be forced to play that way.

I have half a dozen teams that regularly invite me to team with them. They are competitive sometimes but they all know that I play pretty much any mech I have that I want (I will let them tell me what weight class, but I bring what I want), half the time I'm running stock builds. I mean SHS, non optimized and non-elited stock builds. If there was a way I could "goof around" more, I don't see it. yet there I am in the group queue by request. Turning out decent number while doing it.

Sync dropping is not needed to do any of the things you listed with the exception of gaming the system for an advantage and being a Goon.

You want to have some fun in the group queue, invite me. 2man or 12man, we'll have some fun goofing around. Will we get stomped? sometimes, but it'll still be fun.

[Mystere]

beerandasmoke, on 25 August 2014 - 05:39 AM, said:

The only reason to sync is because you are so bad that you cant hack it in either que. Thats the bottom line whether you want to believe it or not.

I suggest instead of desperately trying to sync yourselves into a game so you have a chance of winning you work on your piloting and teamwork. Then you wont have to rely on the randomness of the matchmaker. Then you can have a fun experience instead of getting your face stomped in and blaming MM or the competitive scene.

Gee. Someone arrives late to the party and then starts slapping people around. How classy of you.

[beerandasmoke]

Mystere, on 25 August 2014 - 06:42 AM, said:

Gee. Someone arrives late to the party and then starts slapping people around. How classy of you.

Not slapping anyone around. Like Roland said there really is no way to sugercoat it. They cant hang in the soloque and they cant hang in the group que so they are trying to exploit to get an advantage in the soloque. Sorry but it is what it is.

As far as me being late to the party this is a forum and an open topic that i was interested in enough to read 18 pages of and comment on.

[Noesis]

[headbasher]

Im starting to get the feeling that people are coming in here reading the thread and starting to think the reason they are having a hard time is because of this sync dropping nonsense . It's not a problem . Your just as likely to drop against your teammates as drop with them!

[Tenacious B]

Solo queue has been so saturated during this challenge.. I highly doubt there were many successful synch drops, other than the ones that had over a full team's worth of players. I know some groups were going 20+ trying to basically grab their own lobby like a private match. For the smaller groups, if by some slim chance they all ended up in the same lobby.. they were split up anyway. I played over 80 games to get my 50, and came across this maybe twice.. NBD. I tried quite a few times to synch drop with <4 players, knowing we will probably be on opposing sides if it worked at all.. and I had better luck dropping with people on my friends list without even coordinating it, completely by chance.

[Almond Brown]

Budor, on 23 August 2014 - 12:53 PM, said:

If people that play together try to complete the challenge it is unavoidable that they end up in the same games and sometimes on the same team.

Apparently the mathematics of ODDS just escapes some people. Solo sync dropping, given a good population base at any given time is a total crap shoot and the ODDS are likely the same as any other time.

So if there are 100K players and I end up with 3 others that I know from my Team play, does that mean we sync dropped or did we just get lucky. Or better yet, does it make any f'ing difference how we came to be on the same Team when we ALL had to hit the GO button separately and will be sorted via the 3/3/3/3 rule regardless...

Paranoid... that has to be it.

[Kjudoon]

Quote

Sync dropping is not needed to do any of the things you listed

It is not needed. It is wanted. That is reason enough. It is not needed to build meta mechs, but people do it. It's not needed to make joke builds of 8 flamer battlemasters... but people do it.

NEED is not the issue. If you NEED anything in this game like a greenhouse game mode as some detractors have been demanding solo queue be.. you NEED to find a new game, since competitive, even casually so, gameplay is too difficult for you.

Fun is not based on need.

[C E Dwyer]

Muds standard excuse for his poor play still grumbles on.

first it was power play groups, now that they can't get in public matches without there being one on the other team, its now sync dropping.

really all this about

[RussianWolf]

Kjudoon, on 25 August 2014 - 12:28 PM, said:

It is not needed. It is wanted. That is reason enough. It is not needed to build meta mechs, but people do it. It's not needed to make joke builds of 8 flamer battlemasters... but people do it.

NEED is not the issue. If you NEED anything in this game like a greenhouse game mode as some detractors have been demanding solo queue be.. you NEED to find a new game, since competitive, even casually so, gameplay is too difficult for you.

Fun is not based on need.

So you said it right there.. you don't NEED to sync drop, you WANT to pug stomp.

Cathy, on 25 August 2014 - 12:32 PM, said:

Muds standard excuse for his poor play still grumbles on.

first it was power play groups, now that they can't get in public matches without there being one on the other team, its now sync dropping.

really all this about

The 4 mans aren't even in the solo queue any longer.

[Kjudoon]

beerandasmoke, on 25 August 2014 - 06:49 AM, said:

Not slapping anyone around. Like Roland said there really is no way to sugercoat it. They cant hang in the soloque and they cant hang in the group que so they are trying to exploit to get an advantage in the soloque. Sorry but it is what it is.

As far as me being late to the party this is a forum and an open topic that i was interested in enough to read 18 pages of and comment on.

Your opinion "isn't what it is". You didn't read enough to get the context and aren't invested enough in the conversation to know what's been said, so your input isn't really what you'd call informed, authoritative or helpful.

The assumption is being made time and time again that ALL Sync drops are being done to ruin solo player's good time by group players who can't hack it in the group queue... aka bad players abusing the system.

This assumption is a mendacious lie started by insecure players to make themselves feel better and falsely manufacture a moral highground out of whole cloth who know nothing on what a sync drop is and is about, why it happens, and what goes on during one. This need to live in such a manufactured intellectual fantasy is so strong I've had to chuck a few people onto the ignore pyre because their posts have become nonsensical and as solidly walled off to open discourse as preaching radical veganism at a meatpacker's convention.

I have spoken about the intent of a sync drop and the various kinds that have existed and do exist. I doubt very heavily that critics of sync drops have ever been in the group queue with more than a friend or two and have been either lucky enough to ride the coattails of a very good team or are so used to dying quickly that they don't know what it's like to work with a team.

Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong but this is the image they are projecting and I've seen little evidence to disprove it.

So you want to paint all sync drops as morally wrong, evil and cheating, fine. That's a delusion that has no basis in reality because I have done sync drops with multiple units and none... NONE of them are doing them for any of the reasons or intents you have accused them of. That is how I know the position is full of so much fertilizer it squeaks going into the turn.

You have obviously not.

So let's put the high horses back in the barn. You're done riding them for a while. Go walk in the other fellow's shoes and do some sync drops to see how much evil cheating goes on in them if you can find a unit who will allow you to drop with them. At least then you'd be speaking about what you know, rather than what you think you know.

[Kjudoon]

RussianWolf, on 25 August 2014 - 12:35 PM, said:

So you said it right there.. you don't NEED to sync drop, you WANT to pug stomp.


The 4 mans aren't even in the solo queue any longer.

Really? My win/loss ratio has stayed relatively the same in solo and group queue. You make an assumption with no knowledge or proof. I am both the victim of and perpetrator of stomps in both queues from time to time. Go do some sync drops and learn how it is not the 'easy' button. Even if you get on team with 3+ players, if the other 9 derp out on you.... you're going down hard. So please spare me the ignorant condescension and self righteous indignation.

Go play a few sync drops and see how you fair.

Oh, and I'd have stayed in the group queue a lot more if PGI didn't FORCE me into Derptown to play a contest to win items worth real money. Consider that. Mech Bays and Premium time cost real cash therefore I'm going for those rewards. I'm also going to do it in teamspeak, with my friends, chatting away and having a good time, whether they are on my side or against me.

As for 4mans, no they're stuck in stomp town because of the creation of the solo queue. Personally I think the solo queue was the right thing to do. What was the wrong thing to do was force all groups to play as if different sizes gave the same advantages. A 4/4/4 is not equal to a 12man. The elos are going to have radical variations in them that cause an unfair advantage because it's based on an averaged Elo score. The smaller the group, the harder it is to hide it. The bigger the group the more likely it will be to have it.

That said, PGI needs to bring BACK the 4man queue with the option for them to go into the Group queue, and solo players to opt into what we used to play. That way the little hot house orchids who are terrified of being up against a 2 man or 4 man can be safe in their solo queue. Those who prefer to play with friends but not be hard core EVERY SINGLE GAME, have a more casual, well balanced place to be in, and the companies can get their curbstomp on in the large group queue.

Again, PGI is to blame for creating this mess by eliminating a good thing, having too small of a player base thanks to broken promises, and listening to too many whiners.

Edited by Kjudoon, 25 August 2014 - 12:47 PM.

[Roland]

Kjudoon, on 25 August 2014 - 12:43 PM, said:

Really? My win/loss ratio has stayed relatively the same in solo and group queue. You make an assumption with no knowledge or proof. I am both the victim of and perpetrator of stomps in both queues from time to time. Go do some sync drops and learn how it is not the 'easy' button. Even if you get on team with 3+ players, if the other 9 derp out on you.... you're going down hard. So please spare me the ignorant condescension and self righteous indignation.

Go play a few sync drops and see how you fair.

Oh, and I'd have stayed in the group queue a lot more if PGI didn't FORCE me into Derptown to play a contest to win items worth real money. Consider that. Mech Bays and Premium time cost real cash therefore I'm going for those rewards.

So now you're saying that there's no difference between you sync dropping and you playing in the group queue.

So just play in the group queue. There's no reason to sync drop.

[Kjudoon]

Almond Brown, on 25 August 2014 - 11:06 AM, said:

Apparently the mathematics of ODDS just escapes some people. Solo sync dropping, given a good population base at any given time is a total crap shoot and the ODDS are likely the same as any other time.

So if there are 100K players and I end up with 3 others that I know from my Team play, does that mean we sync dropped or did we just get lucky. Or better yet, does it make any f'ing difference how we came to be on the same Team when we ALL had to hit the GO button separately and will be sorted via the 3/3/3/3 rule regardless...

Paranoid... that has to be it.

Paranoia, entitlement, low social skills... the list could go on.

[Roland]

Kjudoon, on 25 August 2014 - 12:48 PM, said:

Paranoia, entitlement, low social skills... the list could go on.

But it's obviously not paranoia, since you've stated that your unit actually successfully and intentionally sync drops in the solo queue with like 35-40 people at once.

[C E Dwyer]

Ryoken, on 24 August 2014 - 04:27 PM, said:

Quoted for golden truth!
And still the pugs are crying at the imaginary evil premade...

no only mudhut and a few other people unable to cope

[xeromynd]

[MischiefSC]

The "timid hot house orchids" are not the people playing solo in the solo queue. It's the ones too feeble to handle playing group in the group queue OR solo in the solo queue. It's the ones who want to group in the solo queue that are special snowflaking here. You split 2-4s into their own group and the competitive teams will just sync there and you'll cry and run to sync in the solo queue.

Again.

Blaming the evil premades who keep "ruining your fun" - by not being at a disadvantage to you.

That is fundamentally the issue here. The only way to "have fun" by your standard is to play with an advantage. No, no there absolutely is not a "need" to cater to that in mwo. In fact there is a need to suppress that sort of play because like any other exploiting it's bad for the game. Pleas of "bah, it's barely an advantage. I'm so bad I need it. You probably don't even know we're cheating. I have more fun this way. Playing in a group against other groups is too hard. It's a lot of work to exploit the mm to make it work so it's okay that it does give an advantage sometimes".....

These arguments, that whole mindset and attitude, that is exactly why sync dropping is worth the effort to police. It's terrible, the worst sort of selfish and toxic to the game.